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One day you're in the wetlands hunting after the elusive fairytale creatures that he describes to you after the sundown. You find it intimidating at first, and enchanting not long after.
As your palm moves through the water, it catches algae and seaweed, soft slimy leaves brushing through your fingers as you almost slip down the steep muddy bank into the darkness, his hand on your shoulder barely catching you from the inevitable meeting of your body with the calm and eerie water. You find it but a bit endearing — the way his fingers dug through your skin and his quiet raspy voice wraps around you, smothering your body in metaphorical molasses: "Careful, Pezz."
You bind a cut on your arm — and then his cuts, too, hands gliding down the torso in an unsure manner, warm skin burning the tips of your eternally cold fingers. He breathes out clouds of condensation into the cold air and says: "I'm not a kid, Pezz." As if you need a reminder about his age — and inadvertently yours, too.
You fall asleep in his arms in order to keep warm, and in your dream you're choked and pulled down under the surface by the vines of seaweed slithering up your neck and body, sinking deep and barely able to struggle. Last thing you register is his concerned face peeking over the edge of the mossy bank of the lake, fern surrounding it like an intricate picture frame.
One day you stop at a lodge way up in the mountains, hiking through the trails in a search of some myth or a legendary entity, and you're still not quite sure what it is or what it means for him to find it. He switches between speaking in English, and speaking in Spanish, and speaking in tongues, and not speaking at all. When it's silent, you take his hand and a warm thumb rubs the inside of your palm in perfectly even zen circles. You wonder if he has learnt this from his endless YouTube rabbit-hole deep-dives into various topics, or if it comes to him naturally, but it's strangely calming and grounding. He doesn't seem like a person that has a natural groundedness to him, but your impostor syndrome doesn't let you believe in knowing what he has in store. His voice is dark-green, like moss that shines through the blinding snow and frost on tree trunks around you: "Do you wanna go back, Pezz?"
You nod.
He makes you a warm bath, tucks you in on the sofa and marches around the shared space in his wide stride, his steps soft and almost silent but with an incomprehensible weight to them, the rhythm making you feel like you're being entranced.
It's always cold wherever you both go, and when your feet get wet and toes frozen, he always seems to feel it without further prompting from your side, taking you to the warmth of the place you're staying, or of his sleeping bag, or of his hands wandering your pliant body.
He makes you horchata out of the last rice he has — grinds it up by hand in his ever-present mortar, hums some song he's heard some day on the radio while the signal was still able to get through to wherever you were going.
He sutures the worse of your wounds, washes them out with handy never-ending bottle of chlorhexidine he seems to always have on him, and as you hiss and huff and wriggle in pain, there's always a soft kiss on some part of your body he can reach: "Relax, Pezz, it's almost over."
You cover your face with your hands, the droplets of ash, and soot, and cinder paint them grey and black, and you think of the comfort of your mutual home, cosy welcoming glow of the TV in the living room, and barren walls of his own — cold, abandoned and imprisoning. You wonder if he ever considered making it feel just a bit more lived-in, like, putting up a shelf with a potted plant on it or buying a picture frame to put one of his endless posters in. Something tells you that it's not what he's all about, but you tell this something to shut up, leaving the thought to fester on the back burner as you watch his fingers waging a war with a suture thread against your right arm.
You then are in the middle of the desert, white dust and rocks spanning thousands of miles around, all tumbleweed, and thorns, and lizards, and the loud hum of your bike cutting through the empty wasteland. His arms snake around your waist, his knees lightly grazing your hips at turns. He seems worried and anxious, and when you watch countless sunsets over a sandwich and a bottle of lukewarm coke his fingers graze your thighs making you shiver. He doesn't tell you why he demands to go so far into the desert, but he makes a good enough route for you to not question it. His eyes glisten maniacally in the pale-blue moonlight, his lips mouthing to you: "Tomorrow's the day, Pezz," and. You try to shake away the image of his lifeless body splayed across the desert floor, but your head starts aching the moment you do, and then there's a soft kiss on your forehead and a hot palm cupping your cheek.
He says he isn't going to die, and something inside your subconscious desperately wants to believe it, even if your whole rational mind screams otherwise.
Then you're in the highlands of Colorado, traversing narrow passes between rock formations approaching the mountains from all sides, and as he skips in front of you, climbing rocks with almost childish ease, he tells you all about his childhood adventures — imaginary storms of fictional castles nested in the rocks overhanging the road between his parents' weekend cottage and the village nearby, legendary fights with brave knights, elvish songs and peanut butter sandwiches in between acts. He lets out that guttural laugh that he so rarely allows to escape his vocal chords, and a smile cracks your face from one ear to another, it feels like, as you make a mental note about having seen him this happy.
He introduces you to his family, and as his Abuela teaches you their family heirloom tamale recipe that you've grown to love over the years of living with him under the same roof, he steals your short worried glances and winks to you across the room, satisfied smile touching the line of his lips. You try your best not to get distracted by it, or at least not to stupidly smile back, but your heart skips beats every time he acknowledges you in the midst of this family gathering. His sister pats you on a shoulder when you're playing board games one night, and calls you a cuñadito, but when you ask her what it means, she just waves it off, piling in on some joke that he makes about their family dog. His cheeks are bright red as he glares at her, and his hands stop accidentally brushing against the sensitive spots on your thighs. You google what cuñado means when the evening ends, and suddenly your head explodes with heat and itching ache, and the carefully made guestroom bed feels suffocatingly big. You get up to get some water from the kitchen and find him watching TV in the living room, sprawled across the sofa pillows, a comforter lazily thrown over his feet. It's impulsive, and you're embarrassingly aware of that, but you find yourself cuddled in his arms, your eyes fluttering closed, his warm even breath against the nape of your neck, Lost still going on the TV when you wake up — still in his arms — in the early hours of the morning.
You hike long hours through deadfall and brush, your clothes messy and your windbreaker torn by a myriad of prickly rosehip stems catching onto the thin fabric. He clambers onto a boulder, taking a higher ground, and smiles at you; joyous flickers dance in his dark eyes, wind messing with his hair. The air smells of chocolate and citrus trees, cedar needles and freshness of the breeze coming down from the mountain. He gives you a hand, and as you stand near him on the boulder overlooking the clearing in the trees and the rocky valley below you, your hand travels up his fingers and tangles your own with them. He clasps your palms together in a reassuring way, and it makes your knees weak. He turns to you, and then he asks, satisfied smile still on his lips: "How do you like that one, Pezz?"
You smile back, and just nod in silence, trying to paint a perfect picture of the moment in your memory. He doesn't look for anything for the first time in years, and it makes your heart warm and your ears even warmer.
You're in Iceland, visiting the most beautiful glaciers, hiking long hours hand in hand in the brightness of the quickly escaping nights of midnight sun. It feels weird at first, to be openly holding his hand, touching his shoulders in a bit of a different, unbothered and loving manner, him hugging you from behind on a bus ride when there aren't any seats available; then, not long after, it feels like it's the way it should be. This time it's your turn to search for something ineffable, and this time you're always in the lead, tugging on his hand when you become impatient, pulling him forward through the grassy bogs, and icy glaciertops, and rocky cave systems, and snowy tourist trails in the North. When his hands get cold you warm them up in yours, and when he struggles to walk in the knee-deep powder you readily clear the path even though your own stamina is barely there to help. It's nothing you both haven't experienced, but this time it feels a bit different, and as you watch the misty waterfalls and smoking volcanoes you kiss him softly on his lips, and he doesn't even pretend to mind.
On your last couple of nights in Reykjavík you lie on the floor of your hotel room's balcony, and listen to your favourite ambient music as purple hue in the sky slowly changes into green, and then red, and back to purple. You never thought that it looks as it does, so subtle and barely visible to the naked eye, and you would probably say the same thing about what you feel and think when it comes to him. He turns his head to see you, raises his arm, and his hand travels through your hair and behind your head as you scoot closer, shamelessly using his shoulder as a pillow. He lets out a chuckle, kisses you on the temple and says: "A point off the bucket list, huh, Pezz?"
You nod and smile.
Your hunt is over, and now it's turn for him to take the lead again. He doesn't tell you his plans, and he doesn't need to — just makes a good enough route for you not to question it, and you follow. The purple sky above Reykjavík surrounds you like the sound of his voice.