Work Text:
On a hot day like this one, there were only two things that could distract Lucila from the heat: an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola and a front-row seat through the kitchen window at Emiliano, the guy hired to clean her family's pool. Actually, like most sodas (excluding Coke of course), her vision of Emiliano didn't quench her thirst at all. As she watched his six-pack abs through his conveniently unbuttoned shirt, her thirst only deepened.
Lucila was sitting in front of a fan, but Emiliano didn't have the luxury of a breeze to cool him off. Instead, he had take off his hat and wipe the sweat from his masculine, hardworking brow every few minutes. It was hard being hot and hot--that is to say, sexy and overheated--but it was part of Emiliano's job as the pool guy. What other choice did he have? The flaming sun heated his skin and the passions in others around him.
Speaking of flaming, Lucila wasn't the only one watching their hired help sweat through his shirt. Miguel, Lucila's brother, was holding his head in his hands, just as his sister did, but from his bedroom upstairs. Like Lucila, he also had a fantastic view of the pool guy work. And like his sister, he was drinking in the sight of Emiliano like he would a glacier-chilled bottle of refreshing Coca-Cola.
Coke! Of course! The idea struck both Lucila and Miguel at the same time: Emiliano--poor, sweaty, thirsty Emiliano--needed something revitalizing and crisp to the taste. Something with bubbles that danced on your tongue and made you think of Christmas, somehow.
Lucila leaped from her chair as she heard her brother prancing down the stairs. He was fast, but she was faster, right? She wrested open the refrigerator door and grabbed the first bottle of Coke she saw (like any loving household, there were many bottles available). But just a heartbeat after, Miguel's fingers wrapped around the neck of the same bottle. His grip was on that bottle was firm and familiar, like he was practicing for his prize of getting to Emiliano first.
But Lucila glared at her brother. Like hell he would get there first! She yanked the frigid and restoring bottle out of her brother's hand and dashed away. Miguel had no time to think. He acted on instinct, grabbing another bottle of Coke and gave chase, leaving the fridge open behind him. Wasteful.
Hearing her brother rapidly approach, Lucila steeled herself. Just as Miguel was about to pass her, given his longer prancer's legs, she threw her body weight against him. A dull thud from Miguel's shoulder hitting the wall was her reward, but she over-calculated and soon found herself off-balance. Ensuring her bottle of Coke was still level, she sacrificed the rest of her coordination and landed ungracefully on the floor.
Even on the floor, however, she wasn't out of the race. She reached out and tried to grab at her brother's leg. She only succeeded at connecting her nail to his ankle, scratching at his skin.
"Hey, watch it!" exclaimed Miguel, not watching his own self. Miguel was thrown off-balance, too, and dove onto a rug in the living room, prioritizing the safety of his Coke over the bones in his wrist.
"You watch it!" Lucila pushed herself up off the floor, gave herself a short running start, and then leaped over her brother, sprawled out on the floor. But a simple tumble didn't knock Lucila out of the race earlier, and it wasn't going to stop Miguel, either. Both siblings weren't going to so easily give up on a chance to get to Emiliano.
So as Lucila's front foot landed on the rug in front of Miguel, he took hold of the rug and tugged it towards him. With her foot suddenly out from under her, Lucila's face met the floor again. Luckily her bottle of cool, icy Coke was still in tact.
"You're such a jerk!" cried Lucila, scrambling up off the floor.
Miguel huffed and got onto his feet as well. "I called dibs on him first!"
"You did not!" Lucila had the lead at the moment, and she didn't spare a single glance backward. She knew her brother was close behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of glass, and then suddenly a vase of flowers exploded on the wall by her shoulder, having been thrown over her shoulder.
"What the fuck?! That wasn't in the script, asshole!"
"I'm getting to him first!" shouted Miguel.
But if Miguel was going to play dirty, Lucila could, too. She took a picture frame off the wall and wailed it behind her. The wooden corner struck Miguel in the shoulder and he hissed at the pain.
"That wasn't in the script either!"
Lucila reached a door in the living room that she normally never opened. Instead of moving forward through the house, the door revealed a cement-floored filming studio, where the Coke commercial was being filmed. She ran off the set and stumbled over huge cords that connected to the cameras watching her and her brother.
"Where the hell are you going?" Miguel asked, daring to follow her out of the house and into the studio. He nearly ran into a production assistant before he dodged her at the last second. Other PAs hurried out of their way, and the actor playing their mother, Juana, yelled at the director to yell cut.
The director, however, was enjoying a frosty, bubbly Coca-Cola. The sweet perfection in his mouth reminded him of road trips in the summer, lunches with his friends, and Christmas, for some reason. He closed his eyes and savored the refreshing beverage, ignoring the shouting happening all around him. Without his direction, the commercial continued as it had been.
Lucila jumped behind the craft services table and Miguel, trying to grab at her, nearly knocked over a bowl of fruit. A bucket of chilled Coca-Colas in ice sat in the middle of the table--the centerpiece, really--which reminded both Lucila and Miguel, in case they might have forgotten, the whole reason for their chase. To give their pool guy, Emiliano, a refreshing drink on a hot day.
"I saw him first! I got the Coke first!" exclaimed Lucila in between shallow breaths.
Her brother wasn't in much better shape. "Nuh-uh! You just got to the refrigerator first!"
Miguel feinted a leap to the left, and instead hurled himself to the right, catching Lucila as she was about to dive out of his way. But right when Miguel was about to grab at the sleeve of his sister's shirt, the sleeve vanished. Miguel caught nothing but air.
"Whoa, what?"
Lucila sailed past Miguel behind a few cameras. The giant machines tried to pivot to capture their chase, but they weren't ready for the siblings to run around behind the set. Safe from Miguel's grubby hands, Lucila turned to show a mischievous grin. "I decided to change shirts mid-shoot. The continuity guy owed me a favor and looked the other way," she explained, licking her lips, her eyes darting to a guy with a clipboard by the director. His eyes went wide, his cheeks red, and he slowly backed away as other crew members turned to look at him.
Miguel felt a rush of anger that he didn't think of that first, and continued to chase down Lucila, his bottle of Coke still in hand. The two made their way back onto the set and found themselves in the middle of the living room. The only thing between them and the patio door was their couch. Neither wanted to waste even a second, so they both jumped over it, landing squarely on their asses on the cushions. They turned to each other, checking to see who might have had even a minuscule lead. But when Miguel looked at his sister, the young woman had been replaced with an elderly woman in Lucila's clothes. It was as if Lucila aged fifty years in a single leap.
"Ow! What? Huh?" Lucila stared in disbelief at her own body.
"You may know the continuity guy," Miguel proclaimed, smugly, "but I know the casting director. And we agreed your part needed a new actor."
Lucila narrowed her eyes at her brother. She wanted to hop off the couch with youthful vigor, but the thought of doing so elicited many mental thoughts of pain.
"You picked the wrong actor, buddy."
Miguel, similarly, wanted to vault himself off the couch and into Emiliano's arms. But despite his brain telling him to go, his body stayed still in his seat. Lucila, though she was much more feeble than she was just a minute earlier, began to lift herself up and slowly step towards the patio door.
"Wait, come back!" Miguel yelled, flopped on the couch. "Why can't I get up?" He was just lounging around.
"I know the author, dingus," said Lucila, looking at me. I gave her a nod.
"WHAT." Miguel simply sat, waiting gamely for his elderly sister to continue making progress. His face grew red in frustration. Had he been able to get up, he would easily dash around Lucila. But now that I've dabbled once in this story, what's the point of restraint?
Miguel and I exchanged a look, and I knew what he wanted--I'm writing his character after all. I removed all the adverbs from Lucila's narration, as Miguel silently requested to me.
"Great, now I sound like Hemingway." Lucila rolled her eyes, but continued to saunter towards the patio door. There wasn't much space remaining.
"Serves you right!" said Miguel proudly. He luxuriated arrogantly in his adverbs.
But Lucila had another trick, too. "I'm taking away the letter D from you. Good luck giving Emiliano your dick. Now all you can give him is ick!" She turned to her brother and stuck out her tongue.
"That is so unfair!" Miguel began to pull away from the couch, since my attention was on finding past tense verbs without, well, you know. That one letter.
"Enjoy the view from the couch," said Lucila, halfway to the door, dawdling undoubtedly, but only to draw up Miguel's disdain.
Upon checking the clock on my laptop, I realized that I needed to speed things along. Both Miguel and Lucila were instantly in their original bodies, and unencumbered by their pranks on each other. Now free, they both bolted towards the pool. Lucila was a step in front of her brother.
Miguel managed to squeeze through the threshold of the patio door at the same time as Lucila and they both stumbled onto the deck at the same time. There, they both immediately knew they had lost. Emiliano, in his rock-hard abs and sun-kissed skin, was already imbibing on a crisp, delicious Coca-Cola, straight from a cold bottle.
Juana, their mother, was watching Emiliano knock back the sweet and bubbly beverage, when the emergence of her children caught her attention. To their dumbstruck looks, she just shrugged. She managed to get there first while Miguel and Lucila were messing around.
The siblings looked to each other in disbelief.
But they quickly returned their gaze to Emiliano, still finishing up his ice-cold bottle of refreshing Coke. At least they could still admire him anyway.
And nothing could stop them from imagining what they would do to Emiliano and what they wanted Emiliano to do to them. And those imaginings I am now gifting to you, reader. Enjoy, preferably with a delicious, frosty, bubbly, refreshing Coke.