Work Text:
When Agustín knocks at the door of the Madrigal household, ready for his date with Julieta, he is greeted by Alma in the doorway. He’s carrying some flowers and Alma immediately looks at him, seeing the flowers, before speaking. She looks stressed, her hair unkempt, which was a strange sight to the young man.
“Agustín, what a pleasure. How are you?”
“I’m good, señora. How about you and the family?”
Agustín sees how Alma lets out a tired sigh.
“There’s a lot of work. Julieta is really sick, she can’t get out of bed and she doesn’t even have energy to cook herself some food to heal herself, so me, Pepa and Bruno have more chores to do while she recovers.”
Agustín immediately tenses up at the words.
“Poor Julieta, I had no idea,” he begins, clear sadness in his voice. He hated hearing that his girlfriend was feeling unwell. If she was feeling so unwell that she didn’t even have the energy to get out of bed to make something to heal herself with, he knew it must be bad. Thinking about Julieta being alone all by herself all day while her family didn’t have time to take care of her felt wrong and cruel and not something he wanted her to experience. “And I was just about to get her for our date.”
Alma lets out a sigh.
“I’m afraid your date will have to be moved to another time. I can hand the flowers over to her, if you want though?”
Agustín thinks for a moment, before he shakes his head.
“I would really want to give her the flowers, myself, if that’s okay. I don’t have anything else planned for today so I would gladly volunteer in keeping her company when everyone else is busy and make sure she gets something to eat. It’s the least I can do for her when she’s always doing so much for me.”
Alma looks at him like she doesn’t know what to expect, but there’s a happy kindness in her eyes, like it’s the answers she wants to hear.
“You’d be willing to stay with her all day?”
“Of course I would! I love her and would do anything for her, and if she’s feeling so badly that she can’t heal herself it would be unfair to leave her alone when everyone else is busy. I would keep her company and make sure she eats and gets enough water, if it’s okay with you, señora,” he quickly adds, remembering that Julieta would be staying in her room. A place Agustín had promptly been banned from, and even though he had snuck in there to spend the occasional romantic night with Julieta, Alma thankfully did not know about such an event. And when Julieta was ill, something of that nature was the last thing to cross Agustín’s mind. “I do not want to overstep, I know I’m usually not allowed in her room without supervision, and I respect you if you'd rather want me somewhere else. I will not break any rules you want me to follow.”
Alma seems to really think it over for a moment, weighing the pros and the cons of the situation, before she gives him a reluctant nod, probably thinking of her daughter.
“Alright, you are allowed to stay with her, but only because I trust you to behave and because I know you genuinely care about my daughter. I will give you one chance because you have been behaving for the past six months, and I expect you to continue to do so. I will be checking on you during the day though, and if I find out you have broken my trust, you will never be allowed near my daughter’s room ever again.”
He nods quickly.
“Yes señora, I promise. Thank you.”
He enters the house and walks up the stairs and takes a deep breath before he reaches for the doorknob of the glowing door. He can basically feel Alma’s eye staring at his back and judging his every move, yet he is too afraid to turn around to check. Calm down Agustín, you ARE allowed inside, she is aware of it. She won’t kill you.
He opens the door and slowly walks inside, closing it after himself.
Julieta’s room is quite large, near the beginning of the door it looks like a normal room with a couch and some chairs, and a desk to write on. There’s also a second door that leads into her private bathroom. Further inside, the room is divided in two. The first half was a large kitchen, almost twice the size of the Madrigal family one. Fruits and oven mitts hang from the ceiling, and the oven has an ever burning flame that never goes out. The other side was the actual bedroom part of Julieta’s room, with a large cozy bed, some shelves for all types of books (mostly recipe books and romance novels), as well as a huge wardrobe.
Julieta was of course lying in her bed, letting out a loud cough before she looked up in confusion. She looks tired and pale, with bags under her eyes, her hair was an unkept mess, not brushed.
“Agustín? What are you doing here? It’s in the middle of the day.”
“I’m here to take care of you, mi amor. Don’t worry, your mother has approved of me being alone with you.”
She raises her eyebrow.
“Really? Mamá let you in here? You’re not pulling my leg?”
“Nope. I am allowed in here, and I’m going to take care of you until you feel better. It would be unfair if you needed to be all alone with no one to take care of you when you’re always taking care of everyone else.”
“That’s so sweet of you, you really wouldn’t have needed to.”
“I might not need to, but I want to. Julieta, you deserve to be treated well and be taken care of when you’re sick, so of course I’ll do it. I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me and want you to feel the same.”
He sees a small smile spread across her face.
“If I wasn’t afraid of making you sick I would kiss you right now.”
Agustín laughs.
“Well, you can kiss me all you want when you feel better, I’m not going anywhere,” he says before he shows her the flowers. “These are for you, a bouquet of flowers almost as pretty as you. Do you want me to put them in a vase for you?”
She nods, and Agustín does just that. He fills a vase with water and puts the flowers onto her nightstand, and then quickly takes her empty water glass and refills it in the kitchen. She downs it in a few seconds and Agustín refills it once more. Afterwards he takes one of the many chairs in the room and puts it right beside Julieta’s bed so that he can sit down right next to her.
“How are you feeling, querida?”
Julieta groans as she scratches the back of her head. He sees some beads of sweat forming on her forehead and she’s slightly shaking.
“Just horrible. My head hurts and I’m all nauseous. Just thinking about getting out of bed makes me shiver. I’m sweating and freezing at the same time and I want to make it stop, but if I tried to make myself an arepa right now I would just throw up everywhere.”
Upon hearing her words, Agustín wished he had her gift. If he could heal people with magic food, Julieta would already be up and standing, and he would shower her in cuddles and kisses. He hated seeing her like this, and he just wanted her to feel happy and healthy. Julieta deserved the world, and he truly wanted to give it to her. He wanted to help her through it, but he was no magic healer. All he could do was to keep her company and cheer her up, while taking care of her the normal way.
“Do you want me to make you something? I’m not the best in the kitchen, but I do know how to make arepas without burning the house down.”
Julieta gives him a doubtful look before she shakes her head.
“No thanks, I can’t eat right now. I’ll tell you later.”
He nods, and the two of them have a short conversation before Julieta moves around in her bed, turning around to lie on her side. She looks tired, and Agustín decides to get one of her romance novels and reads out aloud to her. She falls asleep after half a chapter, and Agustín feels grateful that this means that Julieta will have a small break from feeling sluggish, especially if she has had trouble sleeping during the following night.
He stays by her side and continues to read her book, this time in silence. He carefully places his hand onto her forehead, she’s practically boiling. Alma pops in through Julieta’s door, only for Agustín to quickly shush her and points at the sleeping young woman. Alma immediately nods and exits the room once again.
Julieta sleeps for a little more than an hour, and wakes up complaining over how she’s feeling.
“I can barely breathe, I’m never taking my nose for granted again,” she says as she’s stretching her arms. “I just feel all disgusting and sweaty.”
He nods, truly understanding her. No one liked being sick, after all.
“Do you want me to run a bath for you?”
She thinks for a moment, and then nods.
“Yes please. I think I can manage walking over there.”
Agustín immediately gets to work. Before he does anything else, he once more refills Julieta’s water glass. Then he begins filling the bathtub with warm water and rummages through Julieta’s wardrobe to get her a new clean nightgown that she can change into after the bath. He carefully places it by the sink.
“Do you want anything to eat?” he asks her as he carefully helps her out of bed, and she nods back. She feels heavy as she leans against him, barely able to walk a straight line. He sees how all steps are painfully hard for her and how much she’s sweating. She’s practically groaning by the time they enter the bathroom, cursing at herself.
He reassures her that everything will be fine and kisses her warm forehead before he helps her out of her nightgown and into the warm waters. He silently prays that Alma won’t enter the room at this very moment. Even if there’s nothing sinister in this moment, he still would not have wanted his girlfriend’s mother seeing him help her into a bath.
Once Julieta is inside of the water, he sees how a relaxed smile spreads across her face, she seems to be enjoying herself. He kisses her forehead once more and tells her to shout if she needs anything before he leaves to give her some privacy and to start with some food.
Agustín gets the ingredients and begins to prepare the arepas con queso, and he curses at himself when the dough becomes crumbly, with the cornmeal not wanting to stick to it properly. He tries to fix it by adding more liquid and cheese, only for the dough to become a wet, still crumbly mess that barely sticks together and breaks apart right under his thumb as he’s trying to form it into the familiar ovals. He manages to get them into the pan, at least. A few unsymmetrical, broken up arepas that looked like they had been created by a five year old. They only turn out a little burnt, which is more than what he could have hoped for. He knew they wouldn’t taste nearly as good as Julieta’s divine cooking, but he hoped it would do.
What he is the most proud of however, is that he didn’t burn down his girlfriend’s kitchen or cause a fire. He also presses some juice for her and puts it on her bedside table along with the arepas.
With some time to spare, he decides to change her sheets as well, deciding that Julieta would probably appreciate coming back to a fresh clean bed after her bath. He only trips and falls over once during the entire procedure, but soon he is done and the old sheets are thrown into the laundry. Alma visits once again and compliments his caring nature after asking him what he’s doing. He’s pretty sure he finally truly put himself on the matriarch’s list of people she respected.
Afterwards, Agustín sits down by Julieta’s bed once again and picks up the book, reading another chapter before Julieta calls for him. He gets up immediately.
“How are you feeling?” he asks her as he stands by the door. She looks a little better, her soft skin having a pink undertone after spending time in the warm water, and her hair is soaked.
“A bit better, I think.”
He nods. Good .
Agustín carefully helps her out of the bath and helps her remove most of the water from her hair by squeezing while she dries herself off, He takes the towel from her to get the last of the water out, leaving her hair simply damp and not wet, and then hands her the nightgown.
“Thank you.”
He kisses her forehead, and once Julieta is dressed, Agustín helps her back to her bed and hands her the plate of arepas. She eats slowly as she sits up, probably trying to fight through the nausea with every bite as Agustín carefully ties her hair into a bun so that it won’t get everywhere in case she wants to sleep again. He hopes he didn’t accidentally make the food too dry.
Once she finished two thirds of the arepa, and half of the glass of juice she puts the plate back onto her table and thanks him. There are two other arepas still on the plate, completely untouched.
“My cooking wasn’t that bad, was it?”
She laughs as she carefully shakes her head.
“I loved it, it’s just very hard to eat right now. But I really appreciate it, everything you’re doing. You staying here with me, it means a lot.”
Agustín gives her a small smile as he carefully takes her delicate hand in his own and presses a single kiss onto her knuckles.
“I would do anything for you, mi amor. Let’s hope for a quick recovery.”