Work Text:
Joaquin Mondragon had a pretty decent life going for him. He had been a quarterback in high school, which came with a reasonable amount of popularity, and was elected as Prom King because of it. He never had awful grades and he graduated with a pretty decent GPA. Best of all, he had been able to follow his two best friends, Manolo and Maria, to the same college, which was quite frankly a miracle considering they had both graduated top of the class. They were now all sophomores at San Angel University and things were going pretty well. Maria was majoring in Women and Gender Studies, Manolo was well on his way to getting a Music diploma, and Joaquin himself was aiming for a degree in Criminal Justice. Things were going great.
He was in a dorm on campus, roommates with a guy named Victor, who was actually pretty cool. Maria and Manolo shared an apartment that was about a ten minutes walk from the dorms, so they hung out rather frequently. He even still had classes with them, Math 126 with Maria (thank the heavens she understood what was going on), and English 102 with Manolo, which was at least entertaining.
The campus itself was also pretty sweet, wide and open enough to have plenty of places to go, but not so big that it was a hassle getting to classes. Plus, the kids on campus knew how to throw some pretty sick parties. Joaquin only ever went when he hadn’t been invited over to movie night with Maria and Manolo (which wasn’t often), but he’d been to enough to know some alright people.
After all was said and done, he really only had one major problem, and it was simple really. He was in love with his best friends. Plural. As in the both of them, Maria Posada and Manolo Sanchez, the two people he'd known his whole life. Now that alone wouldn’t be so horrible, he was after all quite the charmer, and could easily swing one of them any day, he was sure of it. The real problem with it was that his two best friends happened to be dating. Each other.
They were an adorable couple, joined at the hip, and were practically made for each other. They had finally started dating somewhere in junior year of high school, and it was hilarious how many people had thought they already had been. He had to admit, they probably would’ve gotten together sooner if he hadn’t been their constant third wheel, but he tried not to think about it too much. It would be an absolute sin above sins to break them up, and everyone knew it. Joaquin would sooner die than do it himself, which wasn’t exactly an issue.
Even if he ever had gotten with one of them, he'd still also want the other. It was kind of an all or nothing deal, Maria wasn’t Maria without Manolo, and Manolo wasn’t Manolo without Maria. He'd known both of them for so long he just couldn't imagine one without the other. So he was stuck in poly crush limbo, with his eyes set on a pair who had already found each other. He was completely and utterly doomed.
His plan was to ignore it indefinitely. If he never mentioned it and did a good enough job at hiding it, they’d never have to know and then he could still be their third wheel. That was, after all, better than nothing, and he was sure he’d find someone else.
Eventually.
Probably.
He did know that they’d get suspicious and start to bug him if he never had any dates, especially with how popular he actually was with people, so every once in a while he’d have to bring someone else along to their movie nights. It was awful, and never turned out well. Most of the time Joaquin would get bored with them partway through the evening, or they’d end up arguing and his date would storm off, leaving him as the third member of a two-part equation once more.
That wasn’t always bad though, because sometimes when this happened Maria would offer him a spot closer to them, and the movie would end with the three of them practically cuddling together. On the other hand, it certainly wasn’t helping the “ignoring it” part of his plan, and quite often he’d go home angry at himself for letting it happen again.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” He said to no one while he slammed his palm into his forehead. They had been watching Pacific Rim for probably the 30th time (it was one of Maria’s favorites), when Joaquin’s date, a girl named Zoe, had insisted that Mako would’ve been cooler if she were a guy.
At this, the movie was immediately paused, the three other members of the room glared at her, and a fight erupted, for once not just between Joaquin and the girl. No more than ten minutes later was she being kicked out of Maria and Manolo’s apartment and Joaquin was apologizing for bringing over someone so stupid. They laughed and said it wasn’t his fault, Maria invited him over to the big couch, and the movie continued.
In hindsight, it really was all his fault and he easily could have refused to come sit with them. But that is not what he did.
An hour and a half later he was walking home, immensely regretful and reprimanding himself for being so dumb. He really had to stop that from happening, maybe stop hanging out with them so much. There really were too many people who assumed he was dating one of them anyways.
He made it back to his dorm room to find his roommate missing- no surprise there, and the room all to himself. He had two options here and he knew it the second he shut the door.
The obvious thing to do here would be to relish the time he had alone, free from a roommate and use it very wisely. The safer and more likely thing would be to crawl into bed, wrap himself with every blanket he had and fall asleep while trying his hardest NOT to think about how soft and warm that couch was, and how his bed was much less comfortable.
And so he did exactly that, he got undressed, turned off the light and crawled into his bunk, piling himself with blankets and grabbing the one stuffed animal he owned- a stuffed pig that Maria had given him for his last birthday. She and Manolo each had their own to match, and he wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.
He pulled one of his blankets over his head, squeezed his pig tight and slowly fell asleep, thinking more and more about Manolo and Maria as his conscious brain was less and less able to tell him not to.
--
Two days later, he awoke in the middle of a dream which consisted of everything he had been trying not to think about. The dream was already starting to fade, but as he laid in his tangle of blankets, still not wanting to get up, he could remember three things.
1) He had been in between Manolo and Maria on the couch in their apartment, both of them hugging him and taking turns with kisses.
2) A movie was playing in the background, and he was vaguely sure it was Pacific Rim, but no, that couldn’t have been it because unfortunately, Reighley wasn’t a girl and Mako wasn’t a lesbian.
3) If he had not been awoken at that precise moment, he was certain that their arms would have moved lower, and Joaquin would have woken up feeling even guiltier than he already did.
He grumbled and turned over, trying his hardest to ignore the waking world and stay asleep, before a pillow landed on top of him, making him grumble some more.
“And I thought I was the one who was out all night partying,” His roommate, Victor, clearly now back from god knows where, said while laughing. “You look worse than I did this morning, and I looked BAD, bro.”
He jumped and sat at the foot of Joaquin’s bed, making sure to move the mattress as much as possible as he did so. “So where did you go without telling me? I coulda sworn you said you had plans with your dude and lady dude.”
Joaquin groaned again and sat up, now accepting the fact that the world was forcing him to exist once more. “I didn’t go anywhere, and I haven’t seen them in like, two days. I haven't seen you in two days either, where have you been? And don’t call them that, that’s weird, you know their names.”
“Around, y’know? And, yeah but it’s a mouthful, especially when both their names start with ‘M’. So you were with them on Friday?”
“Right... Well, yeah. It was movie night.”
“Yeah? Didn’t you leave the dorms with that one chick, though? Whatsername, uh. Zenon. Zero. Zenyth?”
Joaquin laughed under his breath, “Zoe.”
“Yeah, that chick. What happened with her?”
“Well she was incredibly misinformed on the importance of Mako Mori, and for that she could not be trusted. We all kind of kicked her out.”
Victor nodded knowingly. "I getcha bromigo.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Gotcha.”
He stood up from the bed and walked back over to his own, grabbing a cereal cup and opening it along the way. Joaquin took this moment to look at his phone for the first time all morning. Or afternoon. It was 12:04, but seeing as he didn’t have a class today, it didn’t really matter. He had about five notifications from dumb games he’d been playing, something from facebook, and more than a few texts from Maria. He decided to get back to that later, and set his phone back down, deciding instead to get up and get dressed.
“So if you guys kicked Zoe out that means you where third wheeling again, huh?” Victor asked in between a mouthful of cereal.
Joaquin was never sure just how much he did or did not know in regards to that. He seemed to bring it up a lot, and chose just the worst moments to make threesome jokes about it. This could’ve just been harmless teasing, a joke on his roommate about how he needed to find more friends, or it was the exact opposite, and he was doing all in his power to make Joaquin lose it.
He pulled on the same pair of jeans he’d been wearing the previous night and laughed awkwardly, the way he did every time he was called a third wheel. “I mean. Yeah I guess so. But it was cool, same old same old, what do you do?” He added with a shrug.
Victor shrugged in return and went back to eating his cereal. It seemed like he wanted to add something else, but he never did.
Joaquin rolled his eyes, finished getting dressed, grabbed his things and walked out. He didn’t really have anywhere to be but he also really didn’t feel like hanging out with his roommate all day, so he decided to go get breakfast. Lunch? Food.
When he got downstairs he finally remembered the text he had received from Maria. He could probably ignore it a little while longer, but that also risked actually running into her. He began to pull out his phone when his stomach growled, and he decided it could wait until after he had food.
Thinking about it, Joaquin didn’t really want to go to the cafeteria seeing as it was directly in between the dorms and their apartment, thus greatly increasing his chances of running into one of them. Instead he ended up going to a nearby vending machine, getting some chips and a soda, and eating in a study room.
He finally pulled out his phone and saw that he had gotten three more game notifications, and another text, this one from Manolo. He decided to check that one first.
MANNY [12:36:25]
it sounds like maria is gonna hunt you down if you dont respond to her soon…
better safe than dead! :)
The smiley face was entirely unnecessary but Joaquin knew it would be there. Manolo almost always ended texts with emojis. It was kind of cute.
Heeding his advice though, Joaquin decided he should probably check Maria’s text. Especially if she was on the hunt for him. He braced himself and opened the message.
MARIA [22:48:33]
JOAQUIN! I feel really bad about kicking your date out and that entire drama that happened…. but I guess you kicked her out too, heheh. Text me back so we can decide on next week’s movie! I’m feeling something animated but Manny said action! What do you think?
Joaquin felt a little better knowing that it wasn’t anything too bad. He had been paranoid that she’d forbade him from coming after that disaster. He should’ve known better. He then noticed there were actually three other texts from her as well, surely all yelling at him for not responding.
MARIA [22:59:28]
Oh P.S.! Don’t bother with a date next week, you’re trying way too hard.
He internally groaned at this and dreaded what it meant. He knew he was over analyzing it, but he was “trying way too hard”? Clearly she meant trying too hard to find a date, right? Of course. It’s not like she could have possibly meant he was trying too hard to hide things….
Of course not.
He also considered that whether or not they were onto him, this meant an entire evening of playing odd man out. It also probably meant an entire evening of couch cuddles… but no, Joaquin told himself, he had to refuse that offer before he lost his mind.
He looked at the next two messages from Maria, both sent later than the other two, but still during the night.
MARIA [23:54:29]
?
The lone question mark. Truly a bad sign.
MARIA [24:03:47]
Are you going to respond? With the amount of times you check your phone on a regular basis I can’t imagine you haven’t seen my texts by now. You didn’t go to bed already did you?
He felt a little guilty about that one, having actually gone to bed early. He also felt like he should have responded two days ago, but it was too late now though, so all he could do was apologize and reply.
There were a couple more texts in between, mostly asking if he was okay, where he was, did he need help, etc. He decided to avoid those, and just answer the original question.
JOAQUIN [12:47:24]
sry i did go 2 bed early + ive been busy but im down for w/e movie u guys wanna watch!!!
He typed it out quickly and locked his phone, a completely inefficient method of ignoring the situation. Not a minute later had his phone vibrated, forcing him to pull it out to see another text from Maria.
MARIA [12:47:58]
TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW
Well that was bad. Maria typing in all capitals meant she was really, really mad and that Joaquin was in a whole lot of trouble for not responding.
He stood up from his seat, threw away his trash, started walking towards their apartment, and prepared himself for the inevitable lecture he was going to get. First she’d be worried about why it took him so long to reply. Why had he gone to sleep early last night, was he feeling ok? Then there’d be the questions about if he felt bad about his date, and then there’d be more questions about his romantic life, and then…
He was just past the cafeteria when he saw the short girl with too much hair stomping his way. She had clearly seen him already and was heading in his direction. His gut reaction was to turn around and walk away as quickly as possible, but it would only delay the inevitable, and she was pretty close already. She was fast for someone with such short legs.
“Ah, Maria,” He started awkwardly, as if she wasn’t about to verbally kick his ass. “I was just headed over to-”
“Don’t you give me that Joaquin, you didn’t respond to any of my texts for to whole days until five minutes ago, but you’re clearly out and about! And I know you better than that, you usually respond right away! Are you ignoring me? Is something wrong?” She looked angry, but also worried. Maybe even a little hurt. This wasn’t making him feel any better about the fact that he was in fact ignoring her, and that he needed an excuse as to why asap.
“No, no, I’m fine! I wasn’t ignoring you, I swear, I just forgot to charge my phone…” He knew this wasn’t going to work, but he had to buy a little more time. In any case she was getting closer to the truth and his fidgeting probably wasn’t helping his lie.
“Hmph. Yeah right, you haven’t forgotten to charge your phone once! Not to mention that it was still fully charged when you left, and I know because I saw it. Are you mad at us? Mad...at me?” She looked genuinely more hurt than angry now and Joaquin couldn’t stand it. “...Is it because we kicked your date out?”
“No, Maria, of course not! I’m not mad at you, I swear, please don’t-” Joaquin was getting more and more flustered, and he wasn’t sure he would figure out a lie before his mouth would tell the truth. At that moment out of the corner of his eye he saw Manolo, walking towards them both. He was waving at someone, because of course he knew everyone, but he would be there soon and then everything would go up in flames.
Maria saw him glancing over he shoulder and turned around to see her boyfriend heading their way. She mumbled under her breath, just loud enough for Joaquin to hear.“I thought I told him to stay put…” She put her hands on her hips and started shouting at him, “Manolo! Get over here!”
This small delay in the conversation gave Joaquin a moment to think. With Maria’s back turned he could easy sprint away, but Manolo would see him in an instant. Besides, that would only delay the inevitable, and then what would he do? Avoid them forever? He already knew he couldn’t do that. So what was his game plan here?
Manolo trotted up beside Maria, with a smile on his face like always. He looked up at Joaquin and said, “What’s going on?”
“Joaquin here was just about to explain why he’s been ignoring my texts, right?” Maria crossed her arms and looked up at him expectantly.
Joaquin’s only options were to stall, to lie, or to come clean. He wasn’t very sure he liked any of those options, but he had to do something. “Uh...” He started, “You know what? Why don’t we go somewhere a little less outside?” Maria and Manolo both slumped at the lack of an answer, but it also made the mood a bit less tense.
Manolo responded with, “Good idea,” and Maria just nodded, obviously impatient as to know the reason behind Joaquin’s anxious look.
They decided that they were closer to the apartment than they were to Joaquin’s dorm, so they turned around and headed that way. It was a very tense and silent walk, although Manolo was still smiling the whole time. Joaquin walked behind the two, trying to come up with a plan. Maria glanced back at him every few steps to make sure he hadn’t split.
He had approximately four minutes of walking and maybe one or two minutes inside the apartment before he would have to come clean. Maria would ask the question again, and maybe for a second or two he could continue the charade that he wasn’t ignoring her. But then what? It’s not like he had very many believable lies. Maria sees straight through him every single time, and that wasn’t likely to change. It was starting to look like he really was going to have to tell them.
Ok so, he tells them, and then what? They’d kick him out, stop being his friend! Joaquin shakes his head, no, no, they wouldn’t do that. They’d… Confess that they love him too and accept him into their gay little hearts and all would be well- Ha, as if. Alright, so those were both pretty extreme to be fair. ‘Realistically, come on, think realistically. They would…’
Unfortunately Joaquin never got the chance to finish that realistic thought because they had made it to the apartment. Maria gets her keys and unlocks the door, while Manolo glances at Joaquin and grins. Joaquin smiles back for a half second, but it’s that awkward smile someone usually saves for making eye contact with a stranger. The exchange brings back Joaquin's worries with full force, now there’s nowhere to run, no time to kill.
Maria and Manolo sit down on the couch, Joaquin following and sitting on his usual chair just to the side. For a second it seemed that they expected him to sit on the couch with them, but they don’t say anything else about it. They look at each other, and then back to Joaquin in perfect unison.
“Joaquin,” Maria starts.
‘Oh great.’ Joaquin thinks.
“We know there’s something going on. You’ve been acting funny for a few weeks now, and we think…”
‘Oh god, do they know already?’
“...that maybe we should talk about it and help you.”
‘They couldn’t possibly…’
“So please, just tell us what’s going on?”
A sigh of relief is immediately replaced with full-fledged panic. The worry that they might already know was nothing to the impending truth spilling out of his mouth. He thinks about how he may never see this living room again, and the thought saddens him. He decides to stall just a bit longer.
“Ok well, first of all I’m fine, second of all, maybe I was ignoring you, but it wasn’t anything serious!” Joaquin tries his best to look totally serious and not worried at all. According to Maria and Manolo’s unamused faces, he doesn’t think it’s working. “I was just busy with….breakfast…” By the time he finishes his sentence he knows it’s not worth it and sighs.
Maria rebounds, relentless and determined to know what’s going on, “Joaquin, for the love of god just tell us what’s going on!” She stands up and walks over to him, looming
At this point Joaquin can’t really process anything so he kind of just starts yelling. Well, he’s not really yelling, but he’s making a noise. A moderately-volumed “aaaaaaaaa” kind of noise. Maria looks startled and looks back at Manolo, but he too is startled and just kind of shrugs.
At some point during the yell, Joaquin lost all hope and decided, ‘fuck it, they’ll find out anyway, so here goes,’
“IACTUALLYHAVEBEENAVOIDINGYOUTODAYANDMAYBEACOUPLEOTHERTIMESBECAUSEIREALLYLIKEYOUBOTHANDIMSORRY-”
He quickly puts both hands over his mouth and looks at the ground, wide-eyed. He didn’t really think past that in his state of panic.Without his yelling the room is weirdly quiet now. Maria and Manolo haven’t said anything, and he’s not looking, but he’s pretty sure they haven’t moved either. He thinks they’re still processing it.
And then Manolo laughs.
“Did I hear that right?” He says, still laughing a little. “You like us? Is that why all of your dates lately have been completely awful?”
Joaquin looks up, totally taken aback. He was ready for extremes, but he’s not sure what to make out of this totally neutral response. Maria’s even giggling! What’s going on?
Maria sits down on the arm of his chair and says, “That explains a lot actually, but I don’t know why it’s reason to avoid us completely! That’s the opposite of what people with crushes usually do, isn’t it?”
“She’s right.” Manolo says, “So what gives?”
Joaquin stutters, unsure of where this is going, “I- I, um. w-well. Uh.” Where does he go from this? They’re not doing anything about it! “I...figured if you found out you. Wouldn’t want to...hang out anymore?” He stares at the both of them, waiting for something to snap, waiting for something, anything, to happen. It doesn’t.
Maria puts a hand on his back and says, “Oh, Joaquin, we wouldn’t ditch you because of that! Besides…” At this Manolo gets up from his seat on the couch and joins them on the chair. They’re now surrounding Joaquin and he thinks this might actually be worse than the build up to his confession.
“...We thought by now you would have realized.” Manolo finishes her sentence, but doesn’t care to explain beyond that apparently. They’re both smiling down at Joaquin as he nervously looks between the both of them.
He swallows. “Realized what?”
They both lean down, close in around him and whisper in his ears in unison: “We like you too.”
Joaquin jumps up from the chair at lightning speed, spinning around to look at them, still grinning, one on each armrest. They look like they didn’t just say something completely nonsensical, and yet, when Maria giggles, he knows they did in fact, truly say it.
“...What?” He says, point blank. At this point he’s just totally confused. “What does that mean? That’s….What?!”
Manolo stands up and puts an arm around Joaquin, which is admittedly more than a little ridiculous considering their height difference, but he does it, making Joaquin crouch just a bit for him. Maria gets up too and grabs his hand.
“Joaquin, it’s not like we would invite you to our movie nights for you to purposely feel left out and third wheeled.” She says.
“And it may be more than a little our fault that we kick out all of your dates.” Manolo says, looking almost proud. “Not to mention dragging you to the couch for cuddles.”
Maria laughs again, “We thought that maybe you had actually gotten a girlfriend or something-”
“-Or maybe that you were tired of us.” Manolo finishes.
Joaquin takes a moment to process what he’s hearing. They like him too? They...have? For a while? They’ve been kicking his dates out on purpose? So they could cuddle? What is going on?
“Are...Are you two serious?” He asks, dumbfounded. “You like me? Like, for real? But, what about you? Together? I mean...so…” He trails off, not really sure what he’s asking anymore.
They drag him over to the couch to sit down, which is helpful because he kind of feels like collapsing. They’re on either side of him and they each take a hand.
“Joaquin, we’ve known you as long as we’ve known each other. It may have taken us a little longer to figure out, but we wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“We figured that if we ever told you, you’d be put off and not want to talk to us. We never would have thought that you liked us back! Especially with how you acted, I wouldn’t have guessed!”
Well, that makes him feel a little better. He wasn’t super obvious at all. But they were apparently even better actors than he was, because he was taken aback. They really did like him. Did that mean…
“So then,” Joaquin started, “Does that. Ahem. Does this mean that….”
“We want you to join us, Joaquin.” Maria surmised. He looked at her and she leaned in and kissed him. It was a short peck on the lips, but wow. Joaquin could live with this. He looked at Manolo, still low-key concerned about the fact that his best friend’s girlfriend just kissed him, but then Manolo kissed him too. Well, now his other best friend’s boyfriend just kissed him and he just didn’t even know anymore.
He had kind of a starstruck* look on his face, amazed at what this day had become. Maria and Manolo giggled, pleased with themselves. After a minute he asked, “Does this make me your boyfriend?”
To which they both replied, “Yes.”
--
When he went back to his dorm later that day, he was ecstatic. Not only did he never have to worry about flirting with people he didn’t really like that much ever again, but next term he would be able to move in with them. As if he wouldn’t be spending most nights with them anyways.
He unlocked his dorm room door and flopped on his bed, content with the world for once. Victor walked out of the kitchen, a slice of pizza in his mouth and a soda in his hand. He set the soda down on his desk, took the pizza out of his mouth and looked at Joaquin.
“Huh,” He said, almost impressed. “You look like you finally got with dude and lady-dude. What’s up with that?”