Work Text:
Alejandro can’t ever catch a break, not even when he gets his well-deserved paid vacation. That always means leaving someone in charge; Rodriguez. He is good; the most trustworthy after Rodolfo, in fact. It just always, ALWAYS something goes on when Alejandro dares take days off to rest and be with his family. It’s like his subordinates take the chance to mess something up or the narcos have a biological sensor that indicates to them when Alejandro dares relax.
But this time is different. Everyone got two weeks off after that massacre in Las Almas; Fuerzas Especiales reinforcements allowed them that, as they would take care of the remaining mess while the stationeries got their deserved rest for their fearless service.
That’s how he finds himself sitting under the stars on the balcony of the shed in his ranch alongside Rodolfo, cold beers in hand and cuddled against each other under a cozy tiger blanket. He doesn’t like the events that brought them there, but he’s thankful it somehow ended this way.
“Do you think… in another universe…” Rodolfo started speaking after downing the remaining of his Tecate beer, with his words dipped in a wishful melancholy.
“This never happened?” Alejandro speaks his mind first, striking Rudy in the face by spinning his head way too close.
“Baboso…” Rudy snorts out a small annoyed whisper against Ale's lips, and he suddenly feels like a teenager. It suddenly felt like Friday night watching Lucha Libre movies at his or Alejandro's home. Feeling things for the other and not knowing what they were, knowing he'll not be able to figure it out. Pinning each other without knowing it was.
A quick thoughtful peck was needed to shush his interruption. “I mean, since we all met.”
“Valeria; she always wanted that ...I don't think so bebe.” The rasp in her name was audible, taking a drink to ease the abrasion inside his throat. “We just never knew her ambition.”
“No wey- “ Rudy slips out from habit with the characteristic “hear me out.”
“Mhm?! I'm not your wey cabrón!? Im your love!” Even a pug’s barking is more threatening than whatever Alejandro said.
“Ay!— si ya andale, volado que andas.” He grabs the colonel by the chin and drags him away again just for him to rub his face against the calloused hand holding him
“I’m just saying, another universe where, she was just, like us…” Rodolfo was always too soft with words when talking about things that once resided in his heart. He feels like it might ache when it lived in the past.
“Mhm.” Alejandro just hums, having to take the question seriously, to think out of the box. “Like, ¿in another universe? ¿Could that be possible?”
“Course not– I mean, I don’t know? I’m not a quantum scientist or whatever.” The moon's shine lets it be seen the way Rodolfo rolls his eyes. “Just, I want to imagine a world where she wanted the same as us, perhaps that would never be her, perhaps that maliciousness is part of her core self. But we– I can imagine.”
“Perhaps, we could never know, faces we see, hearts we don’t.” Rodolfo finds a place to rest his head on his colonel’s shoulder. Gentle brushes on his side of the body make him feel sleepy—beers forgotten by their feet.
“Do you think, that day, if El Sin Nombre was someone else, and she was by our side instead, we could have ended the cartel that day?” A shuff leaves Alejandro.
“You should know, better than anyone that it’s not as simple as that.” His hand travels further down, gripping his hip and squeezing it. “Hierba mala nunca muere.”
“Right, it’s mental gymnastics to rethink that situation without her betrayal in the process.” Rodolfo now realizes that perhaps this wasn’t a good topic to conversate in such a peaceful night together. “I loved her, we can all say that, can’t help but yearn for there to be another reality where she was by our side.”
“I don’t judge you for that, hell of a soldier she was, harder hell it was to fight her. Truly a shame.” They stay quiet after those last words. They could easily spend eternity there discussing and imagining how everything could have been different if Valeria wasn’t herself.
Not much time passed when Rudy’s head slipped hard down from Alejandro very much fallen asleep. Alejandro caught his mug before his body could tip forward. “Ey, mi amor, ya estuvo, let’s get to bed, yeah?”
“Mhm.” Ale’s warm hand felt nice against his chin, he rested the weight of his head on his hand for a few more seconds before standing up to stretch his body with a big breath. “Yeah, it’s late already, we’ll catch a cold.”
Beers forgotten, they wrapped themselves in their blanket and walked into their room, laughing at how they struggled to walk in together with their steps hardened by the heavy blanket keeping them tightly to each other. Eventually, they both flopped on their backs into the bed, kicking their boots off to settle for the night.
“Well, I hope you dream something like what you told me, amor.” Alejandro puts his head to his chest, smelling the fading scent of the alcohol emanating from his skin.
“Well, I hope… I hope I dream of a better future for the present we live in. You said it, no use hoping for something that never happened.” Rodolfo whispers back, rolling Ale’s curled locks around his finger.
“Well, In that case, hope you dream of us getting married. “ A kiss is presented to his skin afterward.
“Cheeky, good night then.”
“Te amo Rudy.”
“Ay, yo más Ale.” It ends up in a squeezing hold none of them have plans of letting go