Work Text:
He’s restless.
Martín is restless.
And he’s half-sure he’ll be that way for a few hours more.
He’s been in the cab for all of five minutes, before his fingers fly into a syncopated rhythm – a frenetic drumbeat against the fabric of his jeans. He bounces his leg as he sits in the taxi, though he knows if he were standing he’d be bouncing on his heels. His feet tap a tempo – like a hopping bird on a tree branch – vibrations through the floor of the airport-bound car.
Martín is restless. He’s eager. He’s excited beyond words.
And there’s one reason for it:
He’s on his way home.
GPS Coordinates
44°24'28.5"N 69°28'16.7"W — Maine, USA
» 5,284.91 km from your destination
———
Outside his window, the east coast passes by.
The car glides down the highway – dimly lit by their headlights – past treelines and power lines and, occasionally, another car.
If Martín’s being honest, though, he’s not sure why he’s here.
Well, he knows why, of course – if on a technical level. He was deployed overseas for an emergency issue; a break in machinery that required a senior engineer. It was wonderful money for just a week’s worth of working – but now he debates if it was worth it at all.
‘Do you truly miss me that much, cariño?’ a Castillian lilt teases from the back of his mind.
Even the memory of the voice draws out Martín’s smile.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Andrés,’ he replies, just as teasing – but it’s warm in the way that means ‘yes – yes, I do’.
As the taxi rocks steadily down the evergreen highway, Martín lets his mind wander to thoughts of his husband.
It’s no wonder, really, that his thoughts drift to the artist. Is anyone surprised when the sea comes to shore? He sees him in the pine trees and the asphalt and the moonlight – in every damn lobster that this state is so known for.
(All through the week, he could barely pass a tank of them without slowing his steps, before realizing that no – Andrés was not, in fact, cooing at the crustaceans.)
Martín sees him in each pencil and each scrap of paper – ubiquitous, yet echoes of a Sunday afternoon.
They had been sitting, that day, in a café in Italy, and Martín had been writing equations on their receipt. Andrés had tsked and tutted because they had meant to relax here – but Martín had a deadline that same afternoon. Having enough of the Argentine’s working, Andrés had grabbed the pencil straight out of his fingers, before he tucked it securely behind the engineer’s ear. Martín had protested – indignant yet blushing – but his husband had silenced him with a mischievous kiss.
Now, every pencil calls the memory to mind. You can imagine how distracted he is in the stationery store.
It infuriates him, to some degree – how Andrés permeates his thoughts. The ease with which he’s nestled himself into every damn thought process – into every memory and mundanity and every crevice of his mind.
He’s made himself fundamental – that hijo de puta – and Martín would probably be more upset if he hadn’t essentially allowed it.
And welcomed it.
And encouraged it entirely.
Martín huffs in his longing – his breath fogging the window – and he counts down the minutes until he’s finally home.
GPS Coordinates
44°42'39.3"N 69°02'23.6"W — Maine, USA
» 5,219.6 km from your destination
———
It takes him an hour to get to the airport. It’s another couple hours before he finally boards the plane. He’s this close to wearing a hole in the floor tiles – courtesy of his foot tapping rather impatiently – when the hour of departure finally arrives.
Immediately, his eyes twinkle at the sight of the aircraft.
It’s a truth that Martín will admit freely and openly: he’s always thought airplanes were fucking incredible.
They’re engineering marvels – an astonishing feat of science – magic made metal, granting humans their wings. As a child he had loved them for their sheer size and majesty – for the roar of their engines and the spin of their turbines.
He loves them for that still – forever a source of wonder – but he has even greater reason to love these planes now.
Martín settles snugly into his seat by the window, before he pats his armrest with an appreciative hum.
‘You, corazón, are taking me home.’
And for that simple fact, Martín loves planes all the more.
As if in response to the Argentine’s call, the aircraft’s engines rumble to life.
He can feel the hum of it in the soles of his feet – the cabin floor vibrating at the raw strength of the motors. Martín doesn’t even bother to smother his smile; finally – finally – someone shares his excitement.
When the airplane’s taxi begins in earnest, his legs start to bounce in joyful anticipation. He’s always found it magical – these moments before flight – when the plane lumbers like the giant it so rightfully is. Martín is its eager, enthusiastic passenger – grinning from his perch upon the metal behemoth.
The plane stops. The path aligns.
A row of lamps in the darkness, and a clear runway just for them.
Distantly, Martín thinks of their fairy lights last Christmas – and he curses Andrés again for being damn fundamental.
For a heartbeat, there is quiet.
And suddenly the plane roars.
The aircraft doesn’t move from its place – not yet, but it will – by the heavens it will – but its engines scream in a song of rising volume and pitch – building pressure and power like an arrow before launch—
The engines sing louder—
The plane poises its wings—
It’s excited– it’s ready– it wants to enact its feat of physics—
A pin drops. A held breath.
And then glorious inertia.
Martín is pressed to his seat as the plane barrels forward– the airport rushing past the window in a blur of white lights —
The winds whip past the aircraft with a clamorous roar– but this plane pushes forward—
‘Por favor, querida mía, vamos—’
It can’t bear to be grounded—
‘Vamos, carajo, vos podes—’
What it wants is to fly—
Martín feels the same—
‘Take me home– take me home– Vamos, dios mío– ¡Vamos!’
And the airplane takes flight.
Martín’s stomach swoops– for a heartbeat, he’s weightless– and suddenly he’s flying straight towards the sky.
The plane circles and dances its wild waltz with the clouds, until he’s near-perpendicular to the sight of the sea. Martín feels his ears pop, but he doesn’t mind at all – grinning as the aircraft charts its trajectory.
Just a bit closer, now.
He’s on his way home.
Outside his window, street lights glitter like constellations.
GPS Coordinates
44°48'29.2"N 68°48'59.7"W — Maine, USA
» 5,208.2 km from your destination
———
From the trips of his youth and across decades hence, there is a choice that Martín perpetually makes. It’s a query that arises when he soars through the skies – integral to each flight; woven deep into its design.
It’s always the same question:
‘Water, coffee, or tea?’
Martín chooses the coffee, of course.
It’s been hours upon hours since they departed from Maine, and there’s nothing beyond his window but a vast cover of clouds. Just past the horizon, he sees the dawn breaking – a sunrise flight, small mercy – but even that makes him huff. The sound is warm with fond irritation.
‘It’s so fucking beautiful, but you’ve kind of ruined it, you know?’
In the back of his mind, Martín hears Andrés laugh.
Before meeting his husband, Martín was not one to rank sunlight. Because… well, it’s sunlight – what is there to rank?
But now he can’t help but purse his lips at this sunlight – this bright batch of photons that ranks second at best.
Now – he finds – there is sunlight he loves dearly.
Martín loves the sunlight that pierces their windows; the one that dances in the home he shares in Madrid. Martín loves the sunlight that dyes the hair of his husband – the one that filters through curtains until Andrés groans awake. Martín loves the sunlight that grants him the blessing– the gift and the privilege of seeing the artist asleep. In the wee hours of morning – when the sun’s barely risen – the engineer watches as his husband sleeps peacefully; half-moments he treasures with the whole of his heart.
Martín tries his best to shake the sentiments from mind – but at his first sip of coffee, he finds that ruined too.
Ruined? Made better? It’s honestly confusing.
Because now, he finds, there is a brew he loves more.
Martín thinks of a moka pot – worn and beloved – sitting on a stove in his home in Madrid. He can practically hear his husband’s petulant whining – coated with flattery as he begs Martín to brew.
‘But you do it so well, cariño, I wouldn’t make it the same—’
‘Oh, bullshit, Andrés–’ Martín always replies, but he finds himself fixing their morning drinks anyway.
And the simple truth of it all is that he loves making the coffee.
Because it’s not about the coffee, really – though his brew is quite good. What Martín adores and returns to is everything else that surrounds it.
Martín loves the warmth of the artist's arms in the morning; when he hugs his waist from behind as they both watch the stove. He loves the feel of Andrés hooking his chin on his shoulder – the absent-minded press of a kiss to his temple. He loves the yawns and the swaying and the warmth of their kitchen– loves the whistle of water and the scent of the brew—
He loves Andrés – more than anything – so much so he might burst—
And so he spreads it – because really, a heart can’t possibly hold so much.
Martín spreads it to the sunlight and the coffee and the pencils – to the lobsters and the asphalt and the pine trees by the road.
He loves Andrés – more than anything – and so he loves sunlight. And coffee and pencils and lobsters and pine.
He’s made himself fundamental – that hijo de puta – and how dare he, but also, Martín wouldn’t change it for the world.
‘Quite a conundrum you have there, cariño,’ his husband’s voice teases, ‘What antinomy - what paradox—'
‘You can actually be such an asshole.’
And while the engineer’s answer is exasperated beyond words, it’s warm in the way that means ‘I love you the most’.
GPS Coordinates
46°74'95.7"N 24°00'50.7"W — Atlantic Ocean
» 1787.40 km from your destination
———
Martín enjoys a good landing; perhaps more so than take-off.
He enjoys its precision – the sheer skill that it calls for. The synchronized symphony of each wing flap and wheel. It’s a marvel of physics – of that there’s no question—
Now, however, he truly couldn’t care less.
How could he, really, when he’s practically shaking? When the reunion he’s longed for is just within reach? The days and the hours have been whittled to minutes – and Martín is quite eager to reap the fruits of his patience.
When the landing wheels finally run their way down the airstrip, it’s almost as if Martín is racing his way home.
GPS Coordinates
40°22'06.1"N 3°46'50.5"W — Madrid, Spain
» 0.701 km from your destination
———
Andrés has never brought a sign to an airport.
Martín’s never seen him bear a placard or whiteboard; no sign with ‘MARTÍN’ in a text large as cats.
The engineer takes it as the compliment that it is.
Because Martín knows Andrés – and Andrés knows Martín – and he knows the engineer would never need a sign. Martín can pick out Andrés in a crowd of ten thousand – can name him by gait and by posture alone. What’s an arrivals gate of four dozen people?
It’s easy. It’s simple.
It does nothing to stop the tears when he finally spots his husband.
Martín is half-certain he drops his damn suitcase. He’s not sure– he doesn’t care– because all he knows is he’s running and running and la concha de tu madre, can’t he run any faster—
And then – all at once – Martín has come home.
He burrows into the warmth that he knows and he loves; savors the kiss to his temple – the fond laugh in his ear. Martín breathes in the scent of his husband’s cologne – the scent of coffee and sunlight and asphalt and pine.
And when Andrés squeezes him tightly – ‘til his heart beats against his – Martín smiles and he cries and he smiles as he cries.
Because Andrés knows Martín – and Martín knows Andrés – and he knows Andrés means ‘I missed you’ – ‘How are you?’ – ‘I’m so glad you’re home’.
And much like Martín, he means ‘I love you the most'.
» You have arrived at your destination.