Work Text:
Miguel woke up this morning, yet again feeling like utter garbage. For the last few days, he had been going through a depressive spell, overwhelmed by the weight of feeling worthless and empty. The days had moved to a crawl, and Miguel moved through them feeling more tired than he had ever felt in his life, which is why he found himself here, lying in bed at one in the afternoon, too tired to sleep or even get out of bed, desperately trying to fight off the thoughts that were telling him he was an awful human being and not worth anyone’s time.
“Miguel?”, Bruno asked, knocking on Miguel’s bedroom door as he opened it. Now that they’ve been a couple for eight months now, Bruno had felt comfortable enough to let himself into Miguel’s house without knocking, which is why Miguel wasn’t much surprised to see him. Also, did I mention he was depressed?
“...Oh, hey Bruno…”, he slowly got out. “Good to see you here…”
“Is everything alright? I haven’t really seen you the last couple of days”, Bruno asked, sitting himself down at the foot of the bed, near Miguel’s feet. “Are you feeling sick? Do you need me to get some arepas from Julieta? Cause I can go-”
“No, no, I’m fine, physically”, he explained.
“Oh”, Bruno said, gently taking Miguel’s hand. “Is it a…mental kind of thing?”
“Yeah…”, Miguel.
“ …do you want to talk about it?”
“...no, not really.”
A silence fell between the two, before Miguel slowly sat up, still holding onto Bruno’s hand.
“I’ve just been struggling the last couple of days, I don’t want to make you worry…I wouldn’t want to waste your time, hehe…”
“Oh, Miguel…”, Bruno sighed, his thumb making slow, gentle circles in Miguel’s palm.
“Listen”, he said, moving closer to Miguel. “Y’know I’m not the best with making people feel better, but you’re never a waste of my time, mi corazón . If I could I would take all of the stars out of the sky and make a necklace out of them for you. You’re worth every second!”
“Oh, Bruno…”, Miguel smiled, tearing up a little. “Thank you, that really does mean a lot.”
“I-it’s no big deal”, Bruno blushes. “Say, do you know what I do when I’m feeling down?”
“What’s that?”
“I have a nice cup of milk! Milk always manages to make me feel a little better.”
“Aw, that would be nice, but I don’t have any milk right now.”
“W-what?”, Bruno stuttered, clearly shocked at that revelation. “W-why?”
“I ran out a few days ago, and haven’t really had the energy to get some more.”
“Aw, man…”
“Wait…”, Bruno said, a thought forming in his mind. “I have an idea…”
“What’s that?”
I gotta go,” Bruno said, quickly getting up from the bed. “I forgot something, I’ll be back in a while!”
Bruno looked into Miguel’s eyes, still holding his hands.
“Promise me that you won’t do anything dumb while I’m gone, okay?”
Miguel leaned in and kissed Bruno on his nose.
“I promise.”
“G-good”, Bruno stuttered out, a blush spreading across his face. “Well, I’ll be off then!”
And with that, Bruno quickly left, leaving Miguel confused as to what the little rat man was up to.
Several hours later, Miguel was finally able to get himself out of bed, and now he was at the kitchen table, wrapped in a blanket and trying to read a book, however, all of the words just seemed to jumble together into a formless mass.
Out of frustration, Miguel closed the book with a plap , and looked at the clock. It had been several hours since Bruno left to get the thing he had “forgotten”, and Miguel was starting to get concerned. He hadn’t left because he didn’t want to deal with Miguel, had he?
Just as that thought entered his mind, the front door flew open, and in came a very dirty and disheveled Bruno Madrigal, holding what looked to be three glass bottles of milk.
“Bruno?”
“Hey, Miguel! Look what I got!”
“What happened? Why are you all dirty?”
“Oh, it’s a funny story! I went back to the Casita to get a bottle of milk, and luckily we had one last bottle of cow’s milk, but then I thought, ‘Hey, what if he’s allergic to cow’s milk?’, so I went to Farmer Notario- not the one who calls me demonio de rata , but the one whose actually nice to me- cause he has goats, and I asked him if I could milk one, and he let me! Although it was a little hard cause the goat wouldn’t let me milk her at first, and actually tried to kick me to the ground, and succeeded if you couldn’t already tell, but then I was able to eventually milk her-”
And Miguel listened to him in stunned disbelief. He had gone through all of that, just to make him feel better?
“-and that’s why I have a bottle of cow’s milk, a bottle of goat’s milk, and a bottle of donkey’s milk! Lemme tell you though, you do not want to go near Señora Barbero for a little while, she’s gonna be mad at me for a while-”
Miguel cut him off by pulling him into a tight hug, though, not too tight since Bruno was still holding the bottles.
“W-what’s wrong?”
“I think you were wrong”, Miguel said into Bruno’s curly hair.
“W-with what?”
“You always know how to make me feel better.”
“O-oh…”, Bruno sighed, leaning into the hug.
And as Miguel stood there, holding the man of his dreams, with three bottles of milk between them that he absolutely was going to share, he couldn’t be more grateful.