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Andrés felt a lurching, toppling, horrifying sense of falling, of the ground under his feet no longer being where gravity was attempting to draw him. With some kind of an instinct he understood, from the tales and the stories, that the man standing in front of him was his soulmate.
He didn't even consider what this could mean, shut his mind to the possibilities before any of them even came to mind. He only had one thought, bitter and vindictive:
He didn't want this. He had never wanted to depend on anyone.
(Not on a man, especially. If he had to depend on someone, it should have been a woman, weak–willed and his to control. He didn't want his soulmate to be his equal, with power to ruin.)
It all took place in a back alley, which was another detail he would not have decided on. His soulmate running into him behind some dingy bar, with sticky floors and the paint peeling off the walls. If he imagined them ever meeting – and he hadn't – it would not have been anything like this.
While Andrés was still recovering from his shell-shock, the other man's eyes passed over him like he wasn't even there, without even a note of recognition, never mind the horrified, delighted spark of understanding Andrés thought he had all the right to expect from him.
Andrés realised it very quickly: this man didn't know. He hadn't felt the disorienting lurch of the entire world settling into a new balance.
For a moment, Andrés was offended by that. How could his soulmate – one he didn't even want – act like he wasn't even there!
But then it struck him that this could be his opportunity – a get out of jail free card, if you will.
Perhaps their bond was one-sided.
Perhaps this didn't have to mean anything.
"I'm sorry," the man offered, conversational but ultimately meaningless. He didn't look sorry, which was the only thing that Andrés could appreciate about him.
But that didn't mean he was going to stick around.
"I'm leaving," Andrés said.
And he left.
And nothing else eventful happened that week.
It seemed that Andrés had successfully tricked fate, and he felt happy about it.
There weren't many lasting effects of that meeting, but Andrés could never quite shake the tug of that bond, like ringing in his ears. Sometimes he felt echoes of what might have been the feelings of that stranger, and at others he developed sour headaches that either were or weren't his own, but that he'd never suffered from before.
Andrés chose to consider this a debt of sorts. A price that he paid for his continued freedom; a compromise to settle his accounts with his fate.
Or perhaps just to fix a cosmic mistake, to undo a match that never should have been.
He kept himself busy and did not dwell on it.
Completely unrelated to the spooky encounter on a side street that had momentarily threatened the balance of his life, Andrés got married two weeks later.
His wife was pretty, and she was loud, and she loved to dance, and Andrés liked to look at her, and that was good enough. It was a very suitable distraction.
Their wedding was slightly unfortunate, as all weddings are, each in their own and particular way.
This one took the form of a man with black suit and a scowl, irritated mannerisms and blue eyes.
Two weeks after those same eyes had passed over Andrés like nothing at all.
"Who's that?" Andrés asked, hoping he'd get the opportunity to throw out that man. What kind of an inconsiderate brute attends the wedding of their soulmate, after being very obviously rejected by them?
"Hm? That? That's my primo, Martín. Do you want me to introduce you?"
Andrés couldn't quite keep the disgust from his voice. "No, I don't," he said coolly, already regretting that the man now had a name, and promising himself he would not make use of it.
A ridiculous paranoia – probably another punishment from the bond he had gotten fairly expert at ignoring – gripped him for the rest of that otherwise fair evening, and he could swear he felt primo Martín's eyes on him, searching and searching but never finding.
He got divorced, three weeks later.
And told himself that Martín had nothing to do with it.
When Tatiana told him that she had found the perfect man for their heist, bouncing on the balls of her feet, like something ethereal, Andrés should have known. He wasn't sure how he should have possibly anticipated this, because to have done so would have been infinitely paranoid – but he should not have let himself be caught off guard when he found Martín at the door of the monastery.
He looked different from how Andrés remembered, because he had never had the chance to study the man, who had suspicious eyes and a guarded posture.
"Nice place," Martín commented, "I'm–"
"Martín, I know." He realised he didn't have a last name, and was unlikely to be offered it now, but chose to believe that did not matter.
Martín only allowed the surprise on his face for a split–second, before the expression on his face became even more suspicious. "Yes. And you're Andrés, I take it."
"I am."
"Well," Martín said, not the least bit intimidated by his cold regard, "I heard you have a job for me. Lead the way."
"It's a jewellery heist," Andrés explained to him, "In the traditional style. That old–fashioned grace. My wife has told me you're handy with explosives, and–"
Martín started coughing, and cut him off mid–sentence. Rude.
"Stop that," Andrés told him, passing him a glass of water – careful not to touch him as he did – but only so that he'd stop being so annoying.
"Thanks," Martín muttered laconically, looking away from him.
"As I was saying–" He was interrupted again. "Stop that, I mean it." It reminded him of months spent in hospitals, and the pathetic wheezing of the elderly. "What are you, chronically coughing?"
"I am not–" Martín said, in between his coughing, "That. I'm just–" he nearly doubled over, before managing to wheeze out, "cold. There's a draft here."
"You don't seem cold," Andrés said, immediately suspicious, willing to assume only the worst of Martín, like maybe he might have a plot to steal something, and this was just a misdirection. Or maybe he was going to drop dead mid–heist, from an undisclosed heart condition. "Are you sure? Because my brother…"
He trailed off.
He already regretted bringing up Sergio. It felt like he was sharing something of himself, with this man who did not deserve anything from him.
He regretted it double when concern darkened Martín's eyes.
"Is he…" Martín started, sipping his water uncomfortably, like he might prefer he wasn't even present, any longer.
"He's fine, now," Andrés clarified.
"Oh, good," Martín said, and Andrés regretted triple when he saw how Martín's entire being brightened in that one word, visibly relieved.
Perhaps Martín was just happy to know that he, too, would be alright.
The planning for that first heist took four months.
For the first half, it was strictly professional. Martín would spend most of his days somewhere else, doing something else, and often appear at the monastery in the evenings to go through this, or to discuss that, and would stick to his intended business.
Andrés had long since admitted (to himself, only) that Tatiana had been correct: Martín really was the perfect man for this job. He was attentive to detail, always aware of the bigger picture, meticulous, and most importantly, he did not fear anything, would not let his mortality get in the way of a perfect crime.
Andrés could appreciate that in a man.
He got used to Martín's presence, until it started to feel normal, that Martín would be by his side, to offer an opinion, or chop an onion, or to give him an option. That he could always turn to him, and Martín would meet him halfway.
"This is suicide," Martín told him one night, by the time they were almost done, and were spending more time honing the finer points than was strictly necessary. He spoke with the pleased grin of a teenager suggesting a joyride.
"For anyone else it would be," Andrés agreed, "But I think we can pull it off, you and I." They were the same shade of reckless, men with nothing to lose and the perfect crime to gain.
"Yeah?" For a moment, passing, easy enough to ignore, Martín's eyes ran over his body, and he moved slightly closer, almost but not quite pressed into Andrés's side.
It would have been easy for Andrés to move away, to put that distance back between their bodies like nothing had happened, to deny the bond that was begging him to reach out and touch, and most of all, to deny the electricity that hummed in the air.
Andrés didn't deny a thing, even if he did not quite accept them, either.
"The only thing I'm concerned about," he said, picking up Martín's hand from the blueprints spread over their dinner table, and guiding it to the meticulously drawn courtyard, where they should expect the police to be within sixty seconds of the alarm. "What are you going to do about the police?"
Martín's gaze fell upon him again, with warmth, quite unlike anything Andrés had ever felt before. "I was hoping you'd ask," he said, with pleasure that was both evident and undeniable.
Their heist
went off
without a hitch.
Of course it did.
Between the two of them, what else did you expect?
Martín was still there, in his life, and they were now spending a January evening together in Padua.
(They'd come for the Frescoes and stayed for– each other, probably.)
Andrés couldn't remember what excuses had kept Martín from returning to Sicily, where he allegedly lived. Whether it had been Andrés insisting that they'd do another heist soon enough, or Martín claiming he had been in the neighbourhood, repeatedly.
"What do you think about soulmates?" Martín asked him, eyeing the river like it was a metaphor, or a choice, or a temptation.
Andrés frowned. He had gotten over the initial, instinctive hatred he had once felt, and now the entire concept of soulmates had mostly faded from his mind.
Mostly, because he still felt Martín's presence, and especially his absence, as a greyscale prism through which everything else filtered.
"I think it's romantic," he lied, having never thought such a thing, but especially not lately, after it had gone from a vague threat to a worrying reality. "But you know what's even more romantic? Choice. Choosing for yourself."
Martín gave a scoff at that, blowing out a puff of smoke from his cigarette.
(This would be his last cigarette, by the way – he just didn't know it yet. Andrés couldn't have him dying, not before his time, and not when that time came, either.)
"What do you think?" Andrés countered.
"I try not to," Martín said, and it was easy to tell he wasn't lying, with the way his whole posture sighed. "Have you met yours?"
"Choice," Andrés repeated, insistent.
Martin nodded, in what was either agreement or acknowledgement. On that evening, the reason didn't seem to matter all that much, even if it would haunt Andrés, some months later, when his sleep was always intermittent at best.
Perhaps Martín still believed. Perhaps he thought his soulmate was still out there, waiting to meet him. Eager for their lives to entangle.
Martín deserved that. Deserved to light up someone's entire life, to have that gravitational pull draw them together and keep them there.
Andrés was cruel enough not to set him straight.
Martín would keep on believing, or not believing, or waiting, or not thinking about it at all. And they would go on as they had, and it would be fine.
Martín reached for him, with the back of his hand, with his knuckles, the gentle but unthinking stroke one might give a curtain in passing.
Andrés stayed within his reach long enough to feel Martín's warmth on his shoulder – no layers were enough to contain him. Something within him hummed contently, and Andrés decided to blame the bond, and he didn't care if it wasn't the truth, because it was his truth, anyway.
There was anguish in Martín, for a split second. Maybe Andrés had seen it on his face, or maybe he had felt it through the bond, but he recognised it nonetheless, as if it were his own.
Then Martín stepped away, and left the room, allowing Andrés to keep pretending.
While Andrés remained glad that Martín hadn't been his soulmate after all, he was still awed at what a great companion he made.
Martín made time stand still when he spoke, like everything else could wait until he finished his sentence. He spoke unhurried but excited, never meandering in his stories, but allowing Andrés the time to enjoy them.
At times he lied languidly, and Andrés enjoyed the lies, too, because they were for him, even more than the stories. They veered into the sort of fantastical Martín couldn't have possibly attained, in his life prior to them meeting.
Martín told him lies because he mattered, and Andrés relished that.
"You seem happy," Sergio told him over the phone.
"Of course I am," Andrés responded, but didn't elaborate on how he had cheated fate – which had made him feel like a god – and had even managed to turn that cruel hand of destiny's into a companion, one he would have trusted with his life.
"Right. And where's Martín now?"
"Running errands," Andrés said, as nonchalantly as he could. Because while Martín always spent his Thursdays running his mystery errands, his Thursday evenings he always spent with Andrés.
They had plans, and the promise of those made him restless. They were going to dine – all nine courses, because apparently Martín hadn't yet experienced that. Andrés would pick them wines, and they would talk all evening long, unhurried. He was going to hear every opinion Martín held, on every single topic.
(Andrés had recently let María go, because of scheduling conflicts. She had suddenly started making demands of those Thursday evenings, and the choice had been foretold.)
It was a May morning, when Andrés should have finally realised that there was something wrong.
It was the pensive look on Martín's face, the way he wrapped a scarf around his neck, even though it wasn't cold anymore. The way his gaze raked rooms like they might have held answers.
Andrés should have asked him if everything was alright.
Martín would have lied to him, probably. He was great at lies, like only a showman could be.
But Andrés still should have asked.
They had one glorious summer, almost like the heat was able to stave off reality, for just long enough to let them have this.
It was effortless, and it was easy, and in hindsight Andrés could only really remember the warmth and the laughter and the thrill of crimes.
How young they had been, and the crashing of waves.
How Andrés had wrapped his arms around Martín, drawing him close. There wasn't anyone else around, so this didn't need to become anything at all.
He rested his head on Martín's shoulder, and Martín had the common sense not to question it. He simply surrendered himself to it, like this was another one of Andrés's whims and not a significant alteration of his whole being.
How Martín, after too many glasses of a fine red, had ended up in his bed. Fully clothed and on top of the covers, his breathing was heavy even when he slept.
Andrés was awake that entire night, drew Martín closer and closer, until he seemed like he might wake up, and blamed the yearning on the bond, lied to himself out of a cruelty that seemed necessary at the time.
(He wasn't Martín's soulmate, after all. It was harsh irony, and he probably deserved that.)
In the morning he entertained Martín's hangover, even if it seemed mostly performatory.
They didn't speak about it, even if a part of Andrés wished they would, because there was something there, something that he wanted.
Come autumn – and Martín fell ill again.
"Why are you getting worse? Are you not drinking enough water?"
"Don't mother me, I'm fine." Martín's eyes spoke a different tale, but then, he had always been great at insisting on lies until they looked like facts.
Or maybe Andrés was just great at buying whatever he sold, willing to believe things because he needed them to be true.
What a pair they made – a liar and a believer.
"You should move in. So I can make sure."
Martín laughed. "I'm not going to do that. Where would you even put your wife?"
Andrés threw her out, obviously.
While she was still angrily packing up her things, breaking things, and yelling, Andrés was already questioning whether the corridor could use a new rug, perhaps a long one, deep red, and envisioning how Martín would look within these walls when it became his home, when he stood by these large windows, painted by the sunset colours. How he would add a few coffee cups into their kitchen, and Andrés would unfailingly find him there in the mornings.
In his mind, Martín always looked healthy and vibrant, and ready to fight everything and everyone that stood in his way.
Martín moved in a week later.
Andrés paid his landlord so much money, all in cash, that the man clearly got scared, and allowed Martín to break his lease without asking questions.
(Martín wouldn't have anywhere to return to. Andrés didn't feel bad about it, and Martín was ill, and thus was having to pick his battles, and keeping his barren flat on the outskirts of the city just wasn't worth it.)
Andrés gave him a room in the monastery, the largest, the nicest, the sunniest, the least drafty. The one he hadn't given to any of the wives, because their presence in it had never felt right.
It didn't take long before he convinced Martín sleep in a different room, however: next to his own bedroom, so that he could hear him at all times.
What? Would you not do anything for your best friend?
Sleeplessness soon became second nature, for Andrés.
When Martín was constantly around, it was impossible not to notice how sick he was getting, how he was barely keeping upright, despite claiming otherwise.
Andrés was constantly hovering near him, because he wanted to be with Martín, with him, so harshly.
So much so that sometimes he found himself lost in thoughts of Martín's smile, his laughter, his warm hands.
So much that sometimes, when it was dark out and he was up listening to Martín's coughing–
completely unlike listening to him breathe on a summer's night, so far removed from drawing him close, fully unable to offer him any comfort
–getting up and wandering the vast corridors like a ghoul, bringing him the most useless medicines known to man, because nothing was helping – at those times when difficult thoughts were softer to entertain, in the dark – he thought that he could perhaps revisit the notion of being with Martín, after all.
Even if their bond was one-sided, he thought he had seen something in Martin's eyes: a contemplation with a slow tempo. Like he too saw possibilities, but was unwilling (unable) to voice them.
If Andrés had to spend the rest of his life with someone, he didn't even want to imagine that someone being anyone else. Not when Martín existed, not when he knew what life could be like.
Perhaps it hadn't been just hatred that he had felt, that first day, their first meeting. Perhaps his throat hadn't grown tight with pure revulsion, but rather fear, the panic of an animal in a trap, wildly thrashing about even if it only served to hurt itself.
Martín was his soulmate, even if he wasn't Martín's. He might feel the phantom ache of that mismatched bond for the rest of their lives, but he could still be with Martín. If they wanted that, they could make it so.
There could still be futures, for them. Ones that they could explore together.
But first, Martín had to get better.
Of course, Andrés's breakthroughs did not please the cruel universe, steadfast in her decision to steal from him something he had only just realised he held so dear.
Andrés had convinced one of the monks to drag an armchair to Martin's bedside, and spent long hours there, not knowing how to be anywhere else, like the sphere of his life had shrunk, without warning, to only this.
What can I do?
He took Martin's temperature, because Martín wouldn't do it himself, or would lie to him about the numbers, with the ease of truth.
Tell me how I can fix you.
It was often high for a few days, going away for a day or two, and coming back like something vindictive, and that was clearly taking a toll on Martin's body.
I'll do anything.
If he could have made a bargain with the Devil himself, he would not have even asked for the price.
One night, when Martin's fever was down but his breathing was still the stuff of Andrés's nightmares, Andrés gently climbed into his bed, supported Martín's head at an angle that seemed to make his suffering lessen at least a little.
He hadn't been feeling Martin's emotions, lately, almost like the bond was also growing weaker, only giving him headaches and the voiceless suffering of what could have been.
For the first time in his life, Andrés hated himself, because he felt powerless and weak. Because for all he loved Martín – like a brother, like a friend, like a lover, like a partner, like he had formerly loved only himself – he was watching his soulmate wither away, day in and day out, and all that love could do nothing.
"I'm happy we met," Martín said, the next morning. He said it like a confession, like the deepest, most profoundly sad thought he had ever had, and he said it quietly.
He wasn't supposed to be quiet.
Perhaps Andrés had never known him quite healthy, perhaps he had never met him without this looming shadow of suffering, but he still knew Martín wasn't supposed to be like this.
He was meant to be abrasive and loud and never let anyone catch up with him, always at least two steps ahead.
"Don't talk like that," Andrés said. "I don't like it."
Martín laughed, just one note of amusement that turned into another fit of coughs.
"Sorry," he said, and Andrés knew he truly wasn't, and never had been. "But I want you to know." He searched for Andrés's eyes, tried to meet them, to convince him, perhaps, but Andrés refused it.
"I don't want to know a single thing," he insisted, "Other than how you're going to get better. Obviously there's going to be something I can–"
"Andrés, I–"
"No. You're going to be better. Do not give me a fucking speech."
Martín gave a sad little hum. "Maybe we should do one last heist, instead?"
(He was barely able to get up from bed. He wasn't even fit to steal a silver spoon from their own kitchen.)
The defeated words, and their callous cadence, made Andrés feel like one of his limbs had just been ripped from his body, so he left the room and let the door bang on his way out, needing to be out of Martín's reach, away from his cruelty.
But it wasn't like he could go far, because he still needed to make sure Martín was alive and breathing.
That made him realise things could not go on like this.
"What are you doing?" Martín asked, but his voice was free from fear. He gazed at Andrés with the resigned, peaceful, altogether fatalistic despair of someone who already knew. He was still in bed, having only just woken up from another night during which neither of them had really slept.
He was running a fever again, but this could not wait for him to get better.
Because he might not get better.
Desperate times, Andrés thought, and held the gun to Martín's head.
"You're going to tell me what's wrong with you."
So I can do everything that's in my power for you.
"And if I don't? You're not going to shoot me." There was a flash, here, of Martín at the height of his power, like he had been when they first met, reckless and unafraid. It was an ill fit for his frail body.
And it was true – it would have been counterproductive for Andrés to kill him.
But he was still going to do whatever he could.
He clicked the safety off and aimed the gun at Martín's knee instead.
"If you're so insistent on dying, then I'll make sure you don't get to go quietly. I'll make it hurt." Andrés stared at his soulmate with the steely resolve of a choice he had made that previous night, fully willing to do whatever it took.
Martín sneered at him, like a wounded animal, unwilling to believe that it was all going to end like this. "You're a fucking bastard," he hissed.
Andrés could live with that. He would be okay with hurting Martín so cruelly that he would not speak to Andrés again for as long as he lived.
So long as he lived.
He kept the gun trained on his most desperately beloved.
"I'm going to count to three," he threatened, "One–"
"Andrés, be sensible. You don't want me bleeding all over the–"
"Two–"
Martín glowered at him, and Andrés was certain he would never cave – if he weren't so ill, and so tired of fighting it. "Fine. But I want you to know this – right now, I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone else."
"I don't care."
"It's a rejected soulmate bond," Martín said quietly, before Andrés had the chance to brace for the impact of his words, which sank in slowly, like his subconscious was fighting a losing battle against their desperate reality.
Andrés put the safety back on, even as the revolver almost slipped from his fingers. "What?" he asked, hoping against hope that he had misheard, misunderstood – that there wasn't such a cruel thing that could happen to them.
He hadn't even known that could happen. Of course he hadn't known, he would have never–
"I was…" Martín continued, not looking at Andrés, curling up into himself. "Rejected by my soulmate, apparently, so harshly that–"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Andrés put the gun away, then thought better of it and put it far away, given the current state of things.
An ugly sob wrenched out of Martín, and he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. "Isn't it obvious? Andrés–" His whole body shook with the weight of his grief, this terrible thing he had carried with him for as long as Andrés had known him. "My soulmate didn't want me."
Andrés tried to compartmentalise that out of his mind as he sat on the bed and gathered Martín's body – weak, frail, broken – into his arms.
Martín didn't even fight him.
"How long have you known?" Andrés asked him, gently stroking his hair, even though he really should have made Martín shut up. Should have smothered him with a pillow until he stopped wasting his breath on this and saved it for staying alive.
"Two years," Martín said, "But they only gave me–"
"You've lied to me for–"
"Let's not…" Martín said, almost pleading now, "...argue. I'm sorry."
He was sorry.
And he was dying.
And it was because of Andrés.
"You should be," Andrés said, wringing Martín's endlessly breakable fingers in his free hand. "And you should have told me. Who's your soulmate?"
He didn't know what he wanted to hear, but it had to be asked.
"I don't know," Martín muttered, his mouth turning to another ugly sneer. "The bastard didn't even–"
"We'll find him," Andrés cut in, his mind already racing, trying to comprehend how he could ever fix this, "You'll tell me everything, and I'll help you. It's going to be fine."
There was no response, and for a moment he really thought Martín was just being petty, rejecting Andrés's help like it was the last thing he wanted.
It took the roll of his head, the feverish heat of his forehead, before Andrés realised he wasn't.
"Martín," he said, freeing Martín's fingers and giving his unresponsive body a shake. "Martín–"
The truth hit him again, like the quiet rumble of an approaching avalanche.
Martín was dying– in his arms–
And it was his fault.
He had rejected Martín– his soulmate– he had done this–
"Martín," he said again, and shook Martín with a careless violence.
When that did nothing, he pressed his lips to Martín's, trying to bleed something, anything into the gesture that wasn't despair. If their bond to one another had decided to kill him, surely it could also–
"What am I," Martín croaked, momentarily almost lucid, trying and failing to meet his eye, "A Disney princess?"
He slumped against Andrés again.
"You're going to be okay," Andrés told him quietly, wrapping his arms around Martín even tighter, even though he wasn't sure he was in a position to be making such reckless promises.
But it had to be the truth.
In the midst of this cruelty, there would also be a way to fix things, because there had to be.
While Martín slept, Andrés reluctantly got one of the monks to watch over him, and went to survey Martín's room (the brightest, largest, best he could offer, it hadn't been anywhere close to what Andrés should have been able to give him). He hadn't been there for a while, mostly because he had no reason to be, because Martín never was, had always come to him, flitted by him, stayed with him, ricocheted around his orbit. Because Andrés had invited him to stay close.
It was by design, obviously. Martín didn't want him here, where the desk cabinets held medicines by the litre, prescription upon prescription. For soulmate rejection, some of them said. Others named different illnesses, incomplete diagnoses, ones Andrés had also entertained. Two thirds empty, and hadn't been touched for a while. Hadn't been renewed. Dated back months and years.
Martín had given up on these bottles. Had gotten so ill he no longer saw a reason to entertain them. Saw no reason to keep fighting this losing war all alone.
Andrés's throat felt tight, and he dropped one of the bottles, and it shattered, deep blue liquid dripping over the desk and onto the floor.
He distantly hoped that Martín might be upset with how the wood was going to stain for ever, and so he left the mess as it was.
There was a book, too. Just waiting there for Andrés to come connect the dots, inviting him to stop being so blind, so deaf, so stupid.
He opened it to the pages Martín had dog–eared.
This is a rare condition, the book proclaimed proudly, and most people will never have to hear about it.
They're the lucky ones, it continued, and Andrés hated it for being so pompous, so correct, so cruel to call any of this lucky.
The rejected is unlikely to feel the rejection when it happens. The pain will come later.
But the other party will always know. They will carry a phantom pain for the rest of their life.
It's a small price to pay for dooming another.
The rejection has to be instant and complete. The following conditions–
Who are you, it read underneath, in Martín's heavy-handed, tight script that bled through the page.
Martín had evidently veered away from the text and started using the book for his own needs, outlining dates and places he had been, entire countries.
More dates, spiralling into the present.
Descriptions of his condition, more severe than Andrés had ever been brought to understand.
More dates, each of them crossed out.
And underneath it all, in a slow and deliberate hand, so heavy it bled through several pages, like a mourning echo, Andrés's name.
Andrés ran his fingers over it, and thought bitterly of what a wonderful liar his soulmate was.
It was a long night, and Andrés didn't sleep a wink, so endlessly worried he was that something would happen to Martín if he so much as closed his eyes.
"I'm not dead," Martín observed, when he finally woke up in the morning, seeming a little less like his body was going to give up on him. He propped himself up a little better, and his eyes held hurt, accusing despair, which made it difficult to meet them.
Andrés did, anyway. Owed him that, and so much more.
"And you're still here," Martín continued, "And last night, you–"
"I'm your soulmate," Andrés said, awed, and it was like something had slid into place. A truth he had spent years running from had finally caught up with him, and he no longer feared it. "And you already knew that."
Martín dropped him back down to earth with a sneer. "You were my soulmate. You rejected me–"
"I didn't even know you."
"You didn't even know me and you left me to die. Was I that repulsive to you? Couldn't see yourself ever being happy with a man?"
Yes. No. Martín was striking those ugly truths with cruel precision, and Andrés didn't know what to say. He tried to grasp one of Martín's hands, only to have Martín recoil violently from his touch.
"How was I meant to know you would– how was I meant to know this could happen? I just wanted to–"
"You just wanted to be free," Martín filled in, and he didn't even sound angry, anymore. He sounded dejected, like he had connected all these dots long before Andrés was even made aware of their existence. Like he knew Andrés, as well as every single flaw he held close to his chest. "You thought you could escape, and I'd never even know. You were never going to tell me."
"But I didn't know you, I–"
"It would have been kinder to fucking die," Martín cut in, "Why couldn't you give me that? Why are you doing this to me?"
"I would do anything for you," Andrés admitted.
"Including leaving me to die a slow death," Martín hissed.
"I didn't know," Andrés repeated, like a broken record, because Martín had to know he would have never let it come to this, if it hadn't been so hopelessly out of his hands. "You didn't tell me. And I never made you stay." No matter how he might have wanted to.
"No," Martín agreed, "But leaving made… my condition," he spat out like the words were venom, "worse."
Andrés felt like he had been run over by a particularly cruel train. How many times had Martín wanted to leave? For how long had he stayed, just so he might prolong his life?
"Is that why you stayed?" he asked, forcing the words out, albeit slowly. If it was, Andrés would– he wouldn't– he should– he couldn't–
Martín glared at him. "Why do you want to know? Trying to kick a dying man? Or did you just want to gloat?"
"Martín, por favor. Tell me," Andrés all but pleaded, willing to sink into previously unimaginable depths, for Martín and Martín alone. "For our friendship. For our bond."
Martín didn't say anything for a long while, but Andrés could see the resolve in his eyes.
"Fine," he said finally, his voice still a challenge. "I love you. Is that what you want to hear? I love you, and I have loved you for so long. How could I not? Even after you spent years trying to kill me, all I ever wanted was to–"
Either his voice broke, or the hacking, ugly cough that followed was real. Andrés didn't know which option would hurt him less.
Andrés could never imagine, let alone hope to reproduce, this kind of devotion. The kind that would have him willing to die, quietly, at the hands of another, and accept it for what it was.
But he knew he had something to offer, and it was both far from enough, and everything he had.
"I want you to be mine," Andrés said, a quiet truth being wrenched out of him by the loss that had threatened him with its ugly claws. "You're right, I didn't want you back then, I didn't want this, but now–"
He needed Martín to believe this. Needed him to believe again that everything was within their power.
"Now you thought you lost me, and you're desperate?" Martín filled in, mean-spirited but defensive. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he could still be angry, accusing, hateful. Maybe it came to him easier than hoping.
"I am desperate," Andrés agreed, "Because you were suicidal. You wanted to die, rather than–"
"I didn't want to die," Martín countered, arguing semantics like they meant anything, weighed against his life, "I just… didn't see a way out."
"You could have told–"
"No. Absolutely not. You would have kept me alive, on whatever you could give me, and it would have been agony, and that wouldn't have been fair on either of us. I chose this, instead."
It hurt, because it was true. Andrés knew he would have done exactly that, would have chosen for Martín if that meant keeping him. Would have had no qualms torturing him, if that was what it took, would have monopolised his pain without a second thought.
But this ignored the most important–
Martín started coughing again, before Andrés got to say his piece, and he almost panicked, because they were this close–
"I'm–" Martín started, once he could speak again, but cut himself off and frowned, "No, you're worried. Andrés, what the fuck?" The sheer surprise seemed enough to pacify him, for a moment.
Oh, Martín had never been touched by the bond before, had only suffered by it. But if he could finally feel it now–
Andrés laughed, a little broken. "You can hardly blame me for that." But he felt other things too, things much harder to dress up like they were concepts to be conveyed. He focused on those, on memories of possibilities and doors he regretted having shut so soon.
He could feel as much as see Martín's confusion. His near-complete refusal to arrange these pieces into their rightful order. His unwillingness to accept anything good could ever come out of just so much suffering.
And these weren't the quiet echoes of Martín's feelings he had felt before – this was something tangible, almost like his own emotions, and just as important to him.
Andrés hadn't realised, before this very moment, just how much he had longed to be connected to Martín like this – or maybe he just hadn't been able to admit it to himself, hadn't allowed that dream to manifest, not when he didn't think it was his to have.
He had been willing to settle for so much less, so long as it was with Martín.
I love you, Andrés thought, focusing only on this, sharp as glass, so that Martín may feel it too, And I have for some time.
"Stop that," Martín said, burying his face in his hands, and Andrés could feel the nauseous wave of pain he felt, not unlike vertigo.
He did not stop, however.
"We've told each other enough lies," Andrés said quietly – I almost lost you – "but this is real. You can't fake… this."
He continued pouring himself at that bond, now that there was finally a connection that ran both ways, and that wasn't only there to hurt them.
He thought of summers, of wine, of Martín's smile, of his laughter his looks his sharp wits, of how skilled his fingers were in theft.
Thought of how he wanted to embrace him, to kiss him, in earnest this time, less so that Martín may live, but because Andrés's whole body and his entire soul craved him. He thought of how he had been lead to believe, for years, that he was the only one bound by this bond. Of how awful it was to learn the truth – and how perfect it could be.
Andrés thought of how he had stayed up and barely slept for weeks, for months, how he had worried, and how he had wanted them to stay together and happy, like they always–
"Stop," Martín pleaded him again, but quieter this time, like he knew already that he couldn't have that.
When Andrés didn't listen, Martín finally met him halfway.
"Pass me one of those… pineapple things."
"Pineapple rings," Andrés filled in, and handed him the whole plate, touching the back of Martín's hand with the tips of his fingers as he drew back.
Martín didn't show it, but Andrés felt a quiet delight from him as he piled pineapple rings on his plate.
(Andrés thought about those machines – the ones that sliced pineapples into rings. He thought Martín might like one, so Andrés would find one, and steal it for him.)
Andrés didn't need a bond – other than the one between brothers – to envision the emotions radiating off Sergio as he watched them. Ever since he had become an adult (too soon), Sergio had always regarded him with that same worried fondness.
He was probably waiting for Andrés to tell him the whole story, himself – but it was still too raw, and he didn't have the words to express it for anyone but Martín.
It had taken weeks to nurse him back to health, cruel and at times desperate weeks, but ones that were already fading from Andrés's memory, like burnt Polaroids, replaced by everything that came since.
In a way, Andrés had never known Martín, after all. It was so clear in hindsight that the man had always been haunted by something, weighed down by something so monstrous that it was hard to recognise him with all this carefree bounce, his heavy-handed affection, the emotions that now flowed freely from him, like a river that should never have been contained.
Andrés adored him so. This man that held the keys to his ruin and guarded them jealously, this man that was his only equal partner, and Andrés's entire world.
His soulmate.
His.
Martín kicked his leg under the table, lightly, like a question. Perhaps because he could feel all these emotions, and because he still at times found them difficult to quite believe.
Andrés kicked him back, a little harder than he'd intended. It was a can you blame me? and a shut up and a just checking you're still there, at the same time.
"You two are like children," Sergio said, fondly.
(Neither of them heard him, too lost in a world of their own.)