Chapter Text
Every rise, every fall of his chest was a struggle. It would’ve been better if he took it easy, but when does Alejandro ever take anything easy?
Anger and agitation from the day, from the week, seeped out of every place sweat left him, and the burning of such a bottleneck of emotions escaped through every punch of a punching bag, the grip of his fists, the flex and burn of every muscle he put to work. Everyone loses their steam eventually, and the sun finally disappearing was his cue to give it a rest, alongside the aching in his arms and hands.
Alejandro had sat down only for a moment on one of the benches in the boxing gym he’s locked himself into for nearly two hours now, grabbing the bottom part of his shirt and wiping his forehead of sweat streams. The pits of this shirt were already a bit drenched, what’s more of it going to do? It’s practically a towel at this point. This tee, a Speed tee to be specific, has definitely seen similar days, and ones not as emotionally restless.
It’s been a difficult week for Alejandro so far. Waiting tables really isn’t his style, but the injury he accumulated a number of years ago was leaving him a bit out of luck for more laborious work, at least when he first started working at about 14 years old. Very young, but he really wanted to get ahead of things in becoming independent, no matter how nice the household he came into was. That household wasn’t his first in the United States, but it’s been the best one since having been under his parents’ roof when he was still single digit years old. The Rodriguez’s, one of the few other Mexican people in South Park, taking what he feels is pity on him for his overly perilous condition. With their kindness, he felt an immovable need to repay them, and part of that involved working with them and their son, David, at their restaurant.
Benefits? Free food, being around family a bit longer on days he worked as opposed to not working. Negatives? Work itself, the need to put on a good face to people who couldn’t give less of a shit about him, the passive aggressive language and gestures, the lack of care he felt in return, and of course, sudden episodes of pain that put him out of commission. At first, it was always an embarrassing sight, he could name a number of times that trays of food or drinks fell out of his grasp from the shooting nerve pain, and furthermore collapsing into it and the spilled items. David covers for him better now, but it’s no less humiliating to step away and tend to himself. He needed to be stronger, to stand on his own feet.
Boxing was the answer, or rather an answer he carved for himself. Exercise is something he was told could help with managing physical pain, but his routine of topical medicine and the occasional over-the-counter pills were still necessary. So was rest, but that advice he gave less of a shit about unless utterly necessary. Exercise to him could mean many things, but boxing was the sport of choice. Alejandro got into the sport for a number of reasons, some more stupid than others, but the concept of self defense being in his arsenal was an immediate sell. There’s always the more typical choice of wrestling or karate, but those both sounded kind of gay to his 14 year old self. Nowadays he didn’t care as much, though wrestling still looks gay as shit.
Now 17, and downing a bottle of chilled water from the gym in one slow, long drink, Alejandro was letting himself get that aforementioned rest. Pain in the muscles was normal, it means that they’re regrowing and getting stronger. At least that’s what his coach and doctors tell him. It’s a difficult line to walk when you’re in pain all the time in some way, and then have to decipher which is which. A nerve and a muscle are no different if they fuck up your day, and he’s not medically savvy enough to know or care which did it.
Alejandro gasped for some air as he lowered the empty bottle, crushing it flat with his two hands and sealing it up with the cap. A little technique he learnt from Mrs. Rodriguez to make more space in the trash.
It’s possible that he could stay here to take a shower, Alejandro did at least bring different boxers and a shirt in case the time called for it, but with how late it was getting, he should just go home and do that. Nothing like a warm bath as opposed to a standing shower.
His things were all able to fit into a duffel bag, which carried some other essentials, like a different pair of socks, pain medicine, another bottle of water, his boxing gloves that he tossed onto the unopened bag a few minutes ago, the change of shirt and boxers, his phone, keys, wallet, and the wrappers of eaten protein bars. There’s absolutely crumbs accumulating on the bottom and corners of the bag, but Alejandro is content with being a bit of a slob.
Just to check how sweaty he still was, Alejandro ran both of his hands through his head. His hairline was that of a widows peak, eerily similar to both David, and his birth mom from what he could remember of her. It was a very deep, deep brown, mistakably black if you didn’t see it under some more intense lights like the ones in the gym. His palms did accumulate some sweat, leaving a slightly wet sensation on them. However, it’s not as bad as what it was before. He can save a shower for when he gets home.
Alejandro slipped the bag’s handles up his right arm, keeping his keys in his right hand as well as he used his back to push against the entry doors. The cool air from the outside seeped in like rushing water, brushing against his head, arms, and legs. Wearing shorts in Colorado fall weather usually wasn’t a good idea, but it certainly helps with overcoming a good amount of sweat like this. He pulled himself away from the door once he had enough room to, and let it suck in whatever air it could before slowly shutting itself under its own weight. The lot was quiet, only three more cars present with some of the people in the gym itself. A strip mall across the street seemed to be getting darker, furthermore a sign that it was time to wrap up.
The air really was crisp, just the thing to cool Alejandro’s body down. The moon was reaching a sort of apex in its growth. Not a full moon yet, but close enough. Alejandro only knows that once it looks yellow-ish, it’s full. Oscar, his little adoptive brother, or David would probably correct him on that though. Only the occasional car passed the street that he now had to get onto in order to get home, which hopefully means minimal traffic. These rural pockets don’t tend to yield traffic anyway.
Alejandro tossed his bag into the shotgun, as if anyone would be in there right now. He did lean against the driver side door for a moment, looking through texts. One from Oscar, asking when he’d be back home, one from his close friend Josh, the notification unraveling into her usual probing questions and long tangents, and just various notifications on some other apps he didn’t feel much of a need to attend to. Answering either of the first two would keep him stuck in the lot for a while though, so he opted to ignore it until he was home. Oscar would be easier to answer, and he could take half an hour or so tonight and after his shower to hear Josh out.
Alejandro’s drive was indeed uneventful for a stretch of it. Blasting around inside the car was “Demise Automation” by the band Vein, keeping himself up and awake in the darkness along the road. His bright lights got to stay on for a bit as he drove, a reminder of the solitude on these roads at night. A gas station was coming up this way, and he did need to stop to refuel a bit. While his tank was 3/4 of the way empty, it’d probably save him the hassle in the future to just get gas right now. There’s maybe room to get some snacks, too.
There weren’t any other cars at these pumps, the station itself a bit on the older side but still containing the usual neon signs pointing towards any onlookers, an ice cooler, and a bathroom attached on the outside of the building. Alejandro stopped himself at the pump furthest out from the station, just so it would be a quick leave. He took his wallet out from his bag, and slipped it into the pockets of his shorts as he walked inside the station in as non-suspicious of a way as he could muster. There’s just something in the air that he didn’t like, and God knows that people out in these rural areas can pick him apart for any one reason.
The inside had just about everything he expected, the array of junk food, drinks, alcohol he couldn’t buy but wondered about occasionally, things to put in your car and possibly use, basic medicines and hygiene things, and even larger packets of soda. For good measure, he grabbed three Kit-Kats. David, Oscar, and himself seemed to all bond with this specific candy, recalling a few Halloweens they’ve spent together, as well as other similar occasional gestures like this. David kind of inspired him to be more generous like this, but he’d never tell him that.
Alejandro also grabbed a can of Dr. Pepper for good measure.
“And uh… 30 on Pump 1,” Alejandro asked in as collected of a tone as he could muster. “Please.”
His usually stern and accusatory glare had softened to something neutral, which to the people he knows is either even more unnerving or actually kind of nice. It’s the best you would get out of him, and he wanted to put his best face forward. Nothing about the clerk was giving him peace of mind, and neither was the Morgan Wallen playing over the speakers faintly. It was one of the first things he noticed, right before the features of the clerk. Red plaid shirt, beard, cap, White.
Paying with card, he didn’t have any change to stuff away. He stuffed his wallet down his pocket again and kept the plastic bag tight in his left hand. The glare from the clerk inside wasn’t easing off the back of his head, and he didn’t want to find out whether that was his imagination or the real deal. Funnily enough, it’s the same stupid weight against him that he gets when looking in the eyes of customers. Their eyes carried baggage of pompous, bullshit modesty that made his blood boil. It’s the same shit his first foster family had on, but they were at least expected and not reprimanded for the times they were crass and rude. In the comfort of that house, they could be as ignorant and stupid as they liked. He would know, he’s been on the receiving end of it, as well as Oscar, for a couple of years until there was pushback from they themselves to get the two of them out.
Damn, that house was a shithole. Underneath the stale wall paint, furniture and knick knacks that looked right out of a remodeling show, the bland but well organized pantry and kitchen was a whole lot of insensitivity and vitriol. Alejandro could attribute the latter to how much of a nuisance he was. Whether it was warranted or not didn’t matter, he eventually got to a point of liking it. Having some power in arguments was good, but it’s hard to sell as a ten year old in a sling and in pain.
He was such a needy kid, at least whilst coming over to America, but he could probably recall a number of times where he was just… super needy and annoying with his birth parents. That’s a blur, and not as vivid or intense as the time with the Whites.
Fuck, those people are the worst. All of them.
Bob was a useless piece of shit, becoming all the more dysfunctional and caught up in stupid conspiracy like the world and the town just hated their guts, and they needed to hate them all back and make a sob story about caring for him and Oscar. His precious daughter however, she was a good friend. She was a bitch under their roof too.
He didn’t feel as though he was being harsh, it’s very hard to tolerate little kids berating you for doing this and that and this, when being there wasn’t really his choice.
Alejandro was now working with the pump, letting a small latch keep the handle triggered to pump the gas he needed. The screen keeping note of the gallons and money glowed blue, as Alejandro now leaned against the trunk of his car. His body and head became more familiar with the cold, the sensations of sweat having been anywhere only remaining in his pits like a cold rag. He had his arms crossed, thus felt it a bit more.
The lights that illuminated the station were buzzing ever so slightly. No other lights were up or down the road, besides the street lights overhead which barely lit the area with its warm yellow. Alejandro could hear his chest rise and fall, the faint static of his body matching the static of the surrounding environment. His weight shifted between legs every so often, turning back around a couple of times as the gas pump was approaching completion.
A sudden stabbing began to shoot through his arm, stinging along the shoulder muscle and down to his wrists. Alejandro dropped the posture he held and shut his jaw with a hiss. Horrible time to be having this, but it’s never a convenient time for one of these. He attempted to take one step over towards the driver side of the car, but his leg didn’t cooperate either, the stinging pain meeting him down there to his knee as well. Alejandro clutched the back bumper of his car, turning his body in his quick descent to land on his behind. That’s much better than landing on his arm, but he did let himself faintly drop down to the ground as most of his left side was currently failing on him.
He shut his eyes for a moment, the feeling of the ground surmounted by the sensations of his body. Not his muscles, it’d probably be much easier if it was that.
Alejandro turned onto his better side as he writhed in pain, the hand on the painful arm laid out and shaking a bit as he grasped at his aching bicep. That didn’t do too much, but there wasn’t much he could do right now. He felt too in shock and full of stinging to pick himself up. He tried to keep himself quiet, but he did groan from down here about this. He was holding his breath, and suddenly exhaled to start panting a bit.
Fuck.
This isn’t really the first time he’s been on the ground like this, but again it never gets any easier or less ridiculous. Alejandro gritted his teeth, feeling a tear growing in his eye. Of course he was in a lot of pain right now, but there’s a lot of compounding crap coming up all of a sudden.
He had a similar flare up like this earlier this week. Come to think of it, he reconsidered coming to the gym at all this week from the amount of energy it drained out of him, as well as the emotional toll.
It was in school, during a lunch period.
Alejandro has some select people he sits with, rarely finding any motivation to move elsewhere or to kick them out. There was of course, Josh, one of his very close friends, who made it her mission to stick to him like there was hot glue between them. There’s Trent, a kid out of juvie twice, but who became a friend during High School from the magnitude of rough spots they shared. There’s Thad, a very outward “Metalhead”, kind of like the Goth Kids, except it’s just him, no clique. There’s a kid who calls himself Miller, but he’s really named Davin. He wears a ski mask sometimes, or a beanie and face mask. He’s ginger, so one can imagine why he has such peculiarities with dress. Finally, there’s Jessica. She’s actually David’s cousin, but she hangs around them all enough to where she’s cemented herself in this roster. A roster of people who are perceivably or actually delinquents.
It was pretty much just an ordinary day, nothing really eventful or intensive was going on. Jessica and Josh seemed to already be at their designated table. Alejandro recalled that David was a few tables away, but not because he was paying attention from the lunch line. Frankly, what was being served was a blur, it’s not very important for this recollection.
He could imagine the somewhat sterile and ventilated environment, but maybe that was just his legs touching the cold concrete he was laying down on at the moment.
Somewhere between getting his lunch selection finalized and beginning to bring himself to their table, which was a little bit of a walk, this same thing happened.
A sudden stabbing all over his left arm, and then coming down his left leg to immobilize him. There wasn’t much of a protective measure he could take here. He did shove his tray of food to his side as fast as he could to not drop it, but it didn’t quite make it all the way. Alejandro fell onto his side, only partially braced by his backpack as he leaned into falling on that. It still crushed his right arm a bit, and he could feel that some food had fallen, the tray’s edge smacking against the edge of his backpack.
With a crowd, which naturally there would be at lunch hour, Alejandro felt every eye beckoning onto him. He kept himself as quiet as he could, but again groaning and hissing escaped him. One of the first people to come to him was David, immediately followed by Josh and Jessica.
Alejandro recalled that it was Jessica who stood up to go confront someone who had felt taking out their phone to film was a good idea. She sure shouted their ear off. He admired that about her, she was a lot more willing to be loud like him, albeit she expressed more restraint on a daily basis. David was the one to fish some pain pills out from Alejandro’s backpack. It’s become a habit, David helped him a lot with these when they were younger, and the shame about it never died down. Josh seemed to be eating some of the food he dropped that landed on his backpack, but he recalled that her hand gently patted and soothed at his head.
None of this was helping him at the time.
The medicine? Absolutely, it at least helped him get to a more manageable position, enough to where David and Jessica would be enough to hoist him to his feet. Josh had returned after running off to get napkins, but Alejandro bowed his head in utter shame as they walked.
He recalled that David and Jessica were asking him those same old questions.
Are you okay?
Did you get hurt? Well- did you get worse hurt?
Is the pill helping? Should we do something else?
Do you want food?
Should I call mom?
Don’t feel bad about it, okay?
It’s a vicious mockery.
Fuck.
The same mockery was happening to him now, but at least with an empty theater.
Alejandro still tried to force himself up, letting go of his arm and taking his right hand to grab the back bumper of his car. He could at least hoist himself up, but turning or scooting was a no-go. He put his back against the car, pulling up his right leg to be bent and knee up to chest level. He sighed, pains causing a bit of roughness in that delivery.
Deep breaths, that sometimes helps.
But goddamnit, this week has been so shit. How useless is he that he can’t even commit to something as basic as a workout? As going to school? As working? He’s decently built, he’s not bodybuilder but he certainly isn’t as thin as Josh or pathetic and weak like David. He should be better about this, better at this.
Just, better.
The breathing shifted to huffs. It wasn’t cold enough for him to see his exhales as smoke emitting like a dragon. Alejandro closed his eyes, plotting where to go from here. He could probably push himself up to lean on the trunk, and at least he’d be upright. Though laying his chest onto the trunk looks weird. On his back, or in either position as a matter of fact, would mean all of his weight would need to go to his good arm and leg. He just needs to get inside, he can hassle about reaching for medicine later.
Alejandro opened his eyes, and a sight he did not anticipate nor could easily explain was there before him.
A jet black horse, blending into the empty landscape on the road, and a man, wearing quite the outfit but also in such a deep, dark black. A large hat on his head, which normally would obscure his face with the way it was tilted down, but a black bandana did the job instead. Alejandro looked up in utter confusion, looking down the road and the distance it racked up. No other cars. This horse came all the way from down there having not made a sound at all? Was he just that caught up in himself?
“You are in pain,” the man spoke. The voice sounded on the older side, masculine, and just a bit creaky. It certainly had some sort of haunting cadence.
“Yeah, no shit,” Alejandro scoffed, now beginning to enact his plan of hoisting himself up. It looked rough, he was clearly straining himself even more, falling back onto his behind after not even achieving a few inches. His breaths became more strained, becoming more of a mouth breather with it. The air felt colder now, as it trailed against his skin and down his throat.
“It must be bad. This looks… quite ridiculous.”
Alejandro gazed back up at the man with rekindling senses of hatred and animosity.
“Don’t need you to tell me. Nor your- fucking… what gives with the horse?”
“Oh, I never leave home without her,” the man replied, placing a hand on the horse’s neck as a soft, comforting gesture. “Do you need a hand?”
“No,” Alejandro immediately retorted, beginning again with his hopeless plot. “I don’t need it.”
“I would have assumed otherwise. You looked as good as dead on the floor,” the man replied, a faint but still ego-damaging chuckle leaving his lips. Alejandro clenched his jaw again as he began to rise on his one leg. He began to turn himself around on his heel, and now faced the back window and the trunk. In one quick motion, he stood upright for a second, but then flopped with his torso onto the trunk.
“Huh, what do you know,” the man replied, a sense of surprise in his voice. The surface of the trunk’s lid was very cold now. Colder than before.
“I fucking told you,” Alejandro heaved. He felt every rise and fall from his chest in this position, and had even less of a good look of the man mocking him. “The fuck are you doing at a gas station with a horse, huh?”
“It’s my way of getting around. Quite liberating, the empty road.”
“Sure.” Alejandro didn’t care much for the latter half of the man’s statement.
“Since you’re here, can you,” deep breath, “get me some meds from my shotgun? It’s in the… on the right side.” He turned his head in the direction of the door. The car had been unlocked, so it wouldn’t be an issue to get in and out. Though, should he be worried about some stranger entering his car? He hasn’t tried to rob him yet, but also his sense of judgement is a bit warped here. He just needs a pill. Doing his capsaicin here would be a hassle, and look stupid.
“Hmm. I could. But I reckon you need more than just that.”
“What?” Alejandro again scoffed, unamused by the ominous connotation. “Don’t fuck with me, dude. Just grab a pill bottle from the chair! It’s mostly white, if that helps.”
“A pill won’t fix that problem with your arm, will it?”
Alejandro’s eyes widened a little. Maybe it was just a lucky guess? Was it seriously that obvious? Goddamnit, he must look like an idiot right now.
“Don’t care, just grab a fucking—,”
“I think you do care. You carry a burden, one that’s lasted a long time, and will continue to last. Won’t it?”
The hooves of the horse made a few sounds, as if the man moved closer to Alejandro and his car.
Alejandro was reluctant to respond. The chill was getting to something like the cold of a freezer. He was familiar with the feeling, he’s sat inside the restaurant ones a number of times for fun, or just looking around for curiosity sake.
“That sort of pain is not easy. It sucks the life out of you, it leaves you wanting relief forever, and nothing comes. Nobody and nothing seems to help. Is that right?”
Alejandro sighed, shifting to breathing through his nose now. He did now turn his head to try and look in the general direction of the horse and man, but only got the horse’s head in his peripheral.
“What do you know? You look fine. And… fancy, or whatever. How much did that get-up cost you?”
“More than you could imagine,” the man replied. “And I can simply see it. I don’t know any man who’d find himself falling to his knees at the mercy of his own body willingly. It radiates off of you, that pain.”
Alejandro sighed.
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone can see something like that. Don’t you know? People are always so eager to find ways to help one another, they dig into every little imperfection you have.”
Alejandro said nothing, the words digging into his head a little. His pain wasn’t going away, so he was kind of stuck here listening to this guy talk his ear off.
“You become a sort of… charity, is that right? I see it all the time in the papers, once in a while.”
“I’m not helpless,” Alejandro spat back.
“Are you not? You seem to be right now. And your condition?”
The man sighed.
“Nobody can help you with that, I can hear it in your voice. You are very frustrated. I cannot blame you, this is quite the situation to be in. The question I have for you though, is whether you want out of it?”
Silence cut between the two of them. As Alejandro got his breathing under control, and tried to tug his train of thought out of the fog of his pain, he realized that he didn’t hear a peep from the horse this whole time. Aren’t they supposed to be more… rowdy? Or at least a louder breather than he was?
He let go of the thought, slowly beginning to move himself towards the right side of the car. His left leg only somewhat felt useable, but it was still quite the painful feeling to make his feet touch the ground and take any amount of his body weight.
The steps of the horse began again, the man seemingly keeping himself and his steed to Alejandro’s back.
“Who wouldn’t want that? A life of suffering suits no one. Men of ancient times worked their servants to the bone to find ways to avoid not just pain, but death itself. And yet, those men were twice your age. You have quite the life to get to, and yet you are held down by your own body like an ill old man.”
As a chuckle left the voice of the man, Alejandro groaned as a means of pain release and as a response in anger. He got to the rear light on the right side, and still the man kept himself out of view.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he panted, “I’m not- sick like that.”
“I’d beg to differ. I’m willing to bet my horse here that you have gone through many different medicines, and yet nothing works.”
“Don’t bet shit with me. I’m no gambler,” Alejandro retorted.
“It’s a figure of— forget it.” The man restrained himself, clear in his tone building up. “I have an offer for you, one I believe is… irresistible.”
The sound of the man’s feet coming down from the horse was like a faint pair of clicks. Alejandro didn’t recall what kind of shoes he had, but the few steps the man took clicked against the ground. Alejandro had made it at least to leaning against the back door on the right side, but the man was right behind him. Oddly enough, there was no reflection of him.
“In my hand is something of an antidote. You will never feel this pain again. You will be free of humiliation from your classmates, your friends, your brother. In return? I want you to look after my horse.”
A million questions suddenly rushed to Alejandro’s head, bottlenecked in his throat. How does he know he has a brother? Why does he have all of this information?
Before he could nail any more down, he saw a hand extend with a singular pill. It was round, just like every other he’s taken for the past few years now. However it didn’t have any brand name carved in, or a number, or that middle part divot that some of them get made with. It was a perfect circle, and a crimson red.
“Your… horse?”
Alejandro questioned, though lowering his hand down to his pocket. His chest kept him upright, as well as his legs. The hurting one he forced to work, which probably would fatigue him more than he was already becoming.
“I don’t work with animals.”
“Believe me, you will have a much longer time around to learn. Your whole life, and more, Alejandro Muñoz.”
The whisper of the man’s voice breathed into Alejandro’s ear, which sprung him up enough to suddenly jerk his right elbow back to hit the man in the neck. He didn’t process what exactly he hit, but it shooed away the hand and his body presumably. Alejandro shifted himself to the side and swung that passenger door open, throwing himself inside as fast as he could and pulling it shut. He collapsed into a lying position into the seats, squeezing his injured arm under his body weight. He groaned out loud, rolling on to his chest and reaching for his keys to lock the car with a push of a button.
Here, Alejandro shut his eyes, and began to pray.
“Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos,” he began to recite, his breath shaken and strained from the incident and the pain, “santificado sea tu Nombre, venga tu reino, hágase tu voluntad, así en la tierra como en el cielo…”
Alejandro found himself repeating prayer for a good while. Only a minute or so later, when the pain in his arm returned to being a major concern, he had to hoist himself up and reach forward to the front seats, grabbing a hold of his capsaicin cream. He also fished around in one of the back seat’s pockets for a packet of cotton rounds.
Before he took to doing that, he used his right hand to open up his phone and dial someone.
Alejandro looked out of the window now, and found nothing. No man, no horse.
Jessica was going to be busy tonight, for sure. Reluctantly, he rung David.
Alejandro now laid at home, feeling his body and his spirit sink into the bed as his fatigue was kicking his ass. His arm had subsided somewhat to his regular sensations of pain, but being this tired left him a bit more despairing.
He didn’t tell David, nor Oscar, nor the Rodriguez’s what he saw and said. Frankly, he was utterly embarrassed with how little seriousness he used in that confrontation. He should’ve known from the get go, but no.
He never did get a look at the man, but he could feel the chilling death in his whisper. Like a corpse brought out from the grave. There was a detail that came back to him though. The hand that showed what was claimed to be an “ultimate cure”? All bones. It was probably a dead man. Not just any, apparently. He knew way too much. His jargon meant something. It meant he could see or at the very least sense everything within himself. Every pain, every thought, every memory, every fact.
Why didn’t he accept the offer?
Alejandro asked himself that question on the ride back, but now with a body filled with less adrenaline, he knew why. No matter the realness of what he just experienced, nothing would fix this. There will always somehow be a continued sacrifice. Nothing will return to normal.
Though, he still wondered about whether it would have. The man was certainly not from this plane. He was of the Devil, Alejandro was sure of that. No matter if it did help or not, he would’ve regretted it. The Devil always has these tricky ways of collecting souls. Offers of mass grandeur, like riches or fame. In his case, something so simple that it even sounded appealing for just a moment. How awful of him, he needs to get this off his chest on Sunday.
This really was some encounter with the Devil. The dread of such began to set in once again, after Alejandro got his head out of drowning in his own spiritual laments. He knew his struggle, his ridicules, his brother.
He even knew his birth family name.