A/N: Prompt: In the wilderness.
1989.
Alfred had always known that Pablo was... well, maybe a bit of a drunk, not that Alfred would ever tell Pablo that to his face, and not that Alfred had ever been one to spread rumors. No, to hear Alfred tell it, Pablo Rodriguez had never been drunk a day in his young life. Alfred knew that he did that sometimes with people's flaws; turned a blind eye to them, carefully avoided his eyes whenever he'd see Pablo clutching that familiar tequila bottle, and kindly said nothing to those who did love to tell stories about his southern neighbors.
Besides, Alfred liked to think that his definition of "drunk" was different from most people's, after being so close to Mexico for as long as he had. "Drunk" to Alfred meant maybe laughing too much or talking too loudly, and maybe having to be carried home when the legs turned too wobbly and the eyes couldn't focus. "Drunk" to Alfred meant getting exceptionally violent and provoking men much larger than oneself into attacking, and then promptly losing the fight and having to be carried home anyway. "Drunk" to Alfred meant one's speech slurring together and bringing up fights that had happened, at times, hundreds of years ago, and winding up a sobbing mess at the end - again, having to be carried home.
Pablo was dead silent most of the time, and if not, his words were short, terse; his quiet nature would almost be cute if not for the spitfire temper underneath all that calm. Pablo almost never laughed, and rarely smiled, the polar opposite from his bubbly Empire nation. He was violent behind the walls of awkwardness he threw up in situations when it was just the two of them, and would often target larger men anyway, and always get his ass handed to him in return. Pablo had never cried in front of Alfred before, even when he'd seen the other very small and trembling violently as he hid behind his sister; and he hated to bring up the past.
So really, Pablo was never "drunk" - maybe tipsy, or just toeing the line, but never "drunk" by Alfred's standards.
And Alfred had never carried him home, not once.
Of course, perhaps Alfred only made up so many excuses to make Pablo seem less drunk because the harsh truth - that one of the only people he could remotely talk to anymore was a stick-thin, dirt-poor, shy-eyed, booze-guzzling kleptomaniac - it didn't exactly boost his self-esteem.
But Pablo was cool and all, even if his gardening thing was a little effeminate, and even if sometimes the silence got really boring for... well, Alfred hoped it was the both of them, though in reality, it was likely just him. He couldn't imagine Pablo being bothered by his own silences.
"I thought you weren't gonna bring anything but snacks," Alfred tried after a long moment of silence, the rented Jeep's steering wheel humming beneath his hands as it rolled along the bumpy road; he flicked his eyes from the road over to the half-empty bottle of tequila propped between Pablo's thighs.
"No, I just promised to bring food." Pablo's head tipped back against the headrest of the seat. "Can't you drive slower?"
Alfred looked down to the speedometer, which read that he was going about fifty miles an hour up the road. He slowed down until he was going forty instead, which was probably safer anyway. "Better?"
"Yes. Thank you."
The silence was really starting to get to him. Three hours into the drive, and Pablo had barely said a word other than "Thank you," "Slow down," "Pull over," or the generic yes/no response to a question. His fingers drummed against the steering wheel as he fidgeted in the driver's seat.
"Did you want to drive for a while-?"
"No, that's alright. Estoy bien."
Alfred nodded politely but was sure that his frustration with the situation was starting to get on his nerves. "Hey," he spoke up after another short bout of silence, and Pablo turned to look at him. "Grab the music from the glove box. The cassettes - yeah, there you go. Pick one and pop it in."
Pablo looked at him a bit distrustfully. Which was perfectly understandable, after all they'd been through together. But after a moment, Pablo was flipping through the small box of cassette tapes, the tender click, click, click of plastic against plastic being the only sound other than the rumbling engine and the crunch of rocks beneath the heavy tires. Alfred watched out of the corner of his eye as Pablo seemed to light up just a bit, barely noticeable, and removed one of the tapes to slide it into the flap near the radio speakers.
"Cool, what did you-?"
Alfred's question was quickly interrupted with the sudden swell of music crackling from the shoddy speakers, the tinny high pitch of "I want my MTV..." and the whine of a guitar quickly turning into more staccato, rhythmic notes backed up by drums that Alfred would have followed with his own hands if he weren't stunned silent by the choice.
He listened as Pablo sang just below the voice on the radio, his pitch perfect even when Alfred had never heard him sing before, a high tenor like the wind that blew past the rented Jeep as it sped down the dirt road. Listening to it made him think of the times he'd taken his own acoustic guitar down to the coffee shop and sang mediocre renditions of folk songs with some of his teenage human friends, and all the while with a pretty girl waiting to dance with him.
Pablo sang like he knew the song as familiarly as he knew the back of his own hand, which was beyond the realm of surprising for Alfred to hear, especially hearing the song in Pablo's thick accent, or when Mark Knopfler's voice would climb higher, and Pablo would follow by memory, his voice wavering on the pitches he couldn't quite reach, and slowly, Alfred felt a grin overtake him, and he sang too, sang over the volume of the radio until suddenly the lack of dialogue no longer bothered him.
The backpacks weren't heavy until they'd packed in the water bottles, at which point they still weren't heavy to Alfred, but he saw Pablo struggling a bit with the pack. Once he'd helped the younger with tightening the straps - they were still loose from where he and Matthew had taken this same trail, and so had to be adjusted from where they'd once hugged Matthew's much thicker shoulders - once he'd done that much, with Pablo's face dusted red in frustration, they were good to go, and set off on their hike, determined to reach the campsite that Alfred had remembered from decades ago.
The path was steep, but workable; their boots ground the pebbles of rocks beneath the heavy soles, legs tensing tight as a bowstring whenever another step was taken.
Alfred knew from memory that the river he remembered from his childhood really wasn't too far away, since he'd been camping in that same spot for years now. He and a small tribe had lived near it when he could barely walk, and upon finally reaching that blessed thing called puberty, the love and adoration for the bubbling stream and the shady canopy of evergreens never faded. He hoped that Pablo, with his love of plants and nature, would find it equally enjoyable. It would have been nice, and socially easier, to have something to bond over when the two found themselves alone in the pitch-darkness of the tent.
For now, the chirp of birds and soft wind-rustling of leaves were the music of the forest as well as the crunch crunch crunch of their footfalls, Alfred's being much heavier than Pablo's own, but Pablo still managing to take wider steps than himself.
"Why a hike?" Pablo spoke up, surprisingly - Alfred had been the one to initiate conversation every time so far. Who knew? Maybe he'd been underestimating the power of Dire Straits.
"I don't know," Alfred answered honestly. "I figured that it's something special from my childhood, and there's a lot of plants and whatever-"
Pablo looked at him, cut in: "And you know that I like 'plants and whatever'?"
Alright, maybe that sounded kind of bad. Alfred's face went hot for a moment and he shrugged a shoulder. "Well, yeah. I- I guess you could say it like that. Trying to find something in common between us."
Pablo's eyes flicked down a bit and he went quiet again for a long moment. Alfred started to worry that maybe he'd said something out of hand again, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was; but finally, after a while, Pablo spoke up once more.
"We've both rebelled against our Empires, we've both done things we're not exactly proud of, we're both male, we both have siblings, we've both been through our economic highs and lows, we've been through a few wars together, and all you can think to bond over is plants?"
Oh. Yeah, that did sound pretty stupid when he heard it out loud. He cleared his throat and made sure to get his footing on a particularly high rock, pushing himself up. "Better than bringing up Texas or something..."
This made Pablo go quiet again, but still he said softly, "You're really not good with social situations, are you?"
"You're starting to sound like England," Alfred told him as he reached to help Pablo up the high rock; Pablo's hand was warm in his own as he gripped around the thumb and hoisted himself up to the same level.
"So that explains why you've been hanging out with me."
Alfred's turn to go quiet now. The air was kind of thick between them suddenly, and his face was hot in a shameful blush, and for a long time, neither of them said anything. Only when they'd reached a small wooden post stuck in the mud did Pablo speak, his tone soft and almost sad.
"Lo siento," he murmured. "That was uncalled for. It won't happen again."
Alfred shrugged, making the backpack shift across his shoulders. "It's fine, man, don't worry about it." He stopped a moment to read the post, which had a number carved in it: 3 1/2. The trip felt longer, but he knew they had a long way to go. "I'm sure I sound like Spain sometimes too-"
"No," Pablo sharply interrupted. "No. You don't. Don't ever think that you do."
Again, Alfred found himself wondering exactly what had happened between the two to make Pablo so bitter. Maria seemed fine with her father, speaking adoringly of him, and Alfred recalled that Spain had supported Mexico during their Mexican-American war after Alfred had found himself in need of glasses. He'd always seen Antonio as a happy sort of guy, maybe a little bit of an airhead, but not a bad person.
He supposed every Empire had their bad moments; England had been a little heavy on the taxes but hadn't been a bad father even for that, at least not to Alfred, however many stories he'd heard from other colonies about mistreating the children. The smallpox blankets had been a little fucked up, but again, once that bout of sickness had faded, the feelings of warmth still remained between them.
So what had made Pablo so very angry with Spain? The question nagged at the back of his mind. He recalled when he'd had the smaller body curled up against his own in that Brazilian hotel after a wild party, having to keep the lights on because Pablo had been terrified of the dark. Or when Pablo had started choking out fear-strangled words like "rats" and "confession" and something about his elbows, but none of it had made any sort of sense at the time, however scary it was to see Pablo so shaken up over a lack of visible light.
He wouldn't ask, though; no, he had enough tact to avoid that subject unless Pablo wished to talk about it first.
"You've been drinking too much again," Alfred said instead.
Pablo merely rolled his eyes. "And now you sound like Maria."
"Better to sound like Maria than to let you ruin your liver - can nations ruin their liver?"
"It's fine, jefe, just drop it." He wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his forehead, shoving some of the curly hair from his eyes as he looked ahead. "How far away is this camp of yours anyway?"
The last stretch of path was always the hardest. Pablo's legs were wobbling before they'd even made it to the top, a good fifteen miles up with only a few snack breaks in between. Six hours, and the sun was setting in the far-off distance as, finally, Alfred began to pitch their tent near the stream he'd known as a boy.
A light rain began to fall, but nothing crazy, just the lightest patter of raindrops against the tops of their heads, bleeding harmlessly into their hair. Pablo was looking around the place and examining some of the flora that blossomed from the small shrubs along the bank, tracing over a few petals but avoiding the touch of other flowers, and Alfred figured he'd do the same.
"A little help?" he asked, and Pablo snapped out of his fawning over flora to help struggle with the fabric of the tent.
With Pablo's help, it didn't take more than a few minutes to put it up, and while the rain drizzled down to dampen the wood and mud they'd had set aside to build a fire, they decided instead to sit beneath their newly-built tent and break open the packages of Chex Mix (from Alfred) and then something with chocolate in it (from Pablo).
Pablo seemed to take well to the Chex Mix; Alfred knew he would. It was bland enough and internationally friendly enough not to piss anyone off too badly. Pablo ate the package like he was starving, which judging from his physical appearance, he could very well have been.
"You are a tiny little guy," Alfred joked, making Pablo halt in the crunch of cereal and pretzels. Wrong thing to say again? Maybe. Pablo paused and blinked at him, looked around for a moment as though Alfred could possibly be talking to anyone else.
"I'm not... that small," he insisted; Alfred wondered if Pablo was self-conscious about it. He knew about being self-conscious about your weight, but never would've thought that anyone as twig-thin as Pablo could be weird about it.
Alfred laughed a bit. "You're pretty small, man. I don't think I've been your height since... ah, jeez, probably since the Revolution-"
"Ay, now you're exaggerating," Pablo cut in with an embarrassed flush to his face. "You're tall, a'ight, but you're not that tall."
The sound of the Chex Mix bag continued as well as the quiet patter of raindrops against the softened ground. Alfred simply scoffed and thought that one day, he would be bigger than the Soviet Union - taller than Ivan, taller than Sweden or any other of those ancient nations that everyone gossiped about. So his hand at Imperialism hadn't been so great; so maybe Panama hadn't worked out too well, even if the canal had been fabulous; so maybe the Philippines hated him, and maybe trying to talk Cuba into closer relations hadn't worked out either, especially not after whatever had happened between Pablo and the other.
"I'm still taller than you," he added as a childish afterthought, "and taller than England-"
"Why do you bring up Inglaterra every time you're with me?"
It would have sounded bitchy if it weren't so honest. It wasn't like Pablo was his boyfriend or anything like that; just another teenager he sometimes used for relief. Nothing wrong with that. Pablo did the same to him, after all.
"He raised me," Alfred reasoned.
Pablo merely got quieter and mumbled, "I don't bring up Spain every three minutes."
Pablo knew. Hell, of course he knew - everyone knew how Alfred felt about Arthur. It was obvious when Arthur would have a rough day and fall asleep at a meeting, and Alfred would quietly tell everyone to let him sleep, would adjust Arthur's coat just barely so as not to wake him. Or when Arthur would start to shout at someone and get flushed deeper red as his volume climbed, but when anyone laid a verbal attack on the UK, Alfred would step in and make them back down. It was instinct by now; he didn't know how to live without Arthur anymore.
"Whatever," Alfred said, and took the Chex Mix away from Pablo. Only the crumbs were left.
Alfred had been out cold and deep in dreamless sleep until he felt the strange vibrations against his back.
Initially, something in his bleary mind connected to the rabbits he'd always cuddle with in this very spot, sheltered by thicker hide and surrounded on all sides by the small trembling balls of fur he'd called his friends. Bu then he opened his eyes in the pitch-black night, and above him was the tent he and Pablo had pitched together, yet the shivering against his back wouldn't stop.
"Pablo," he connected aloud, and sleepily rolled onto his back to see him better. "Pablo, what're..."
Then he realized when he saw the normally tired eyes squeezed tightly shut and Pablo's hands forming tight fists in the fabric of his sleeve.
The dark - Pablo was scared of the dark. So stupid, not bringing anything with them to light up the suffocating darkness. No; it was all on Alfred, as usual. He hadn't been thinking when he'd planned this trip.
"Oh, God, hold on..." Alfred quickly sat up a bit, reached for the aviator jacket that he carried with him everywhere, and wrapped them both in it as best he could, pulling Pablo closer with the fur collar tickling Pablo's jaw. The proximity didn't seem to ease the tremors in the younger's shoulders, nor help the shortness of his breath. "I'm sorry," he whispered, then tried to remember how to say it in Spanish. "Lo siento - Pablo, I'm sorry, it's my fault. I wasn't thinking..."
"No- No surprise there," Pablo half-laughed, then whimpered at a noise from outside and buried his face into Alfred's chest. "Idioto, idioto... idioto América... perdóname, just... hold still, estupido-"
Alfred nearly protested with the string of insults, but all Pablo did was press his face into Alfred's neck and continue to shake. Stunned for a few seconds with the sudden tenderness, Alfred remembered to respond, and his arms went around the thin frame to pull Pablo flush against his front; his hands smoothed back the curly mess of Pablo's dark hair, whispered assurances under his breath.
No candles, no nightlight, even the moonlight blotted out by the trees. Just the two of them curled up together, Pablo shivering against his chest with his warm breath fanning across Alfred's neck.
Alfred had always felt closer to Pablo than he had to the northern half of their nation. When they'd first met, Maria and Pablo had seemed so much younger than himself; Maria with her wild dark hair pulled into twin pigtails to keep it out of tangles, that bright smile on her face that only true children could pull off. Pablo had been even smaller and far more awkward, but when he'd laughed, it had been infectious, the gangly boy with the round glasses scrabbling to hide from him in the shelter of ancient houses or else up the Mexican strangler fig tree (later for Pablo to describe to him as being "Ficus citrifolia"), and the wide leaves had hidden him so well that Alfred had thought for a moment that he'd truly and simply vanished.
Of course, they'd had their happy days like that - playing tag, hiding from one another, Alfred being able to feel older than the siblings of the southern nation and thus extend his hand to be their older brother upon the proposition of annexation - but they'd had their awful days as well.
Alfred could remember when Maria had grown a bit, her beanpole body starting to show the barest hints of feminine curves, and her mood had darkened into something Alfred might've been able to fear if he'd given her the chance. But he hadn't, of course; no, he'd made sure to bound up to her with a grin, exclaiming "I won, I won" in his best sing-song voice, only to have Maria scream at him and break down into utter tears while her brother cowered behind her back.
He remembered Pablo more vividly. He remembered when Antonio had come to him seemingly in a panic, explaining in a ramble that Pablo was going to leave him and take Maria too, that they wouldn't be able to survive on their own, and that "this must be how Inglaterra felt when he lost you" and Alfred couldn't help but tell him where Pablo was hiding.
Of course, after that incident, Pablo hadn't spoken to him for nearly a hundred years, and the next time they met, Pablo had grown into someone far more independent than the little boy who had shown off his adobe houses and pulled at Maria's pigtails. This time, Pablo was without his glasses, throwing into perspective just how much he looked like his father; and he was starved-looking, skinny and sick, wobbly on his legs and no longer afraid of Alfred, but instead bitterly angry with him. Their friendship hadn't truly blossomed until at least World War One, or possibly even World War Two, so recently that it seemed ridiculous to him now.
Pablo had grown up a lot since then. Hell, they both had, when he thought about it. It was almost strange to think that Alfred was eighteen now, and Pablo only two years younger, and yet still that childish need for physical contact seemed so natural between them.
Another soft shivering sigh escaped Pablo's lips and fluttered over his skin, but he didn't mind it. It offered a good break from the painful silence that often swallowed them up, even if it was unnerving to see Pablo so afraid of something so invisible. He started to hum something tuneless until Pablo jerked a bit in his hold and looked up at him.
"A-are you tying to sing me to sleep?"
Alfred flushed darkly with a blush and sputtered for a moment in embarrassment. "N-no! Why would I do that?"
The quietness between them seemed to disappear. It would be a saving grace if Pablo wasn't still shaking like a leaf in autumn wind. "You're so... weird," Pablo told him, seeming to be better now that they'd been - well, Alfred supposed the only word for it was cuddling, though he hated to think of it that way. "Besides, your music's terrible-"
"You seemed to like 'Money for Nothing' back in the car-"
"Dire Straits are British, not American, and the only reason I know them is because they bleed into my country from yours," he explained. "Your music is terrible."
Alfred gave him a little pout, but was just happy that Pablo seemed to feel a little better now. "Not all of it. The folk songs are good." He heard Pablo scoff against him but say nothing, just possibly bury himself further into Alfred's warmth. He frowned, thought about it, and then began humming the first few bars of another song.
"What's that?" Pablo asked despite the bitching earlier.
"Red River Valley," Alfred replied. "Stephen Foster. He was pretty popular back in the late 1800s. It's good music, even if most of it is kind of sad."
Pablo didn't protest even when Alfred started petting his messy hair. In fact, he didn't even go rigid, simply kept his face pressed into Alfred's clothes. Smiling a bit, Alfred started to sing, "From this valley they say you are going; we will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile, for you take with you all of the sunshine that has brightened the pathway a while..."
No response yet, just the quiet breathing against him softening a bit. Finally Pablo hummed a soft note of his own and whispered out lyrics that Alfred had to strain to hear even from this proximity. "A la puerto del cielo vendan zapatos, para los angelitos que andan descalzos... Duermete, nino, duermete, nino, duermete, nino, arru, arru..."
Alfred felt his eyelids get a little heavy, but then he just smiled. "That's pretty."
"I guess," Pablo muttered against him, and fell quiet again.
The sound of water trickled to Alfred's left in a slow, relaxing flow while a few of the nocturnal birds rustled the canopy with soft trills. Pablo didn't jump or whimper anymore, though Alfred still felt the barest quake in his thin shoulders, the heartbeat racing beneath the skinny chest.
"Feeling better?" Alfred prodded, not in a hurry to break the nice embrace, but wanting to give Pablo the space he obviously needed.
In response, he received a silent nod of affirmation, though made no move to budge out of the warm hold Alfred's arms provided. Without giving himself time to think too much about the action, he bent his neck a bit and placed a chaste kiss to Pablo's forehead, no different than the ones Arthur would give when Alfred ran a fever as a child.
A goodnight kiss, in a way, which must have been why Pablo glanced up at him from under a sweep of dark lashes. (Alfred forgot sometimes how beautiful the siblings were, cinnamon-skinned and foreign while still being too close to home.) The air between them seemed to thicken again and Alfred swallowed when their eyes locked, just their eyes glinting in the darkness, Pablo's that nice green that matched the leaves of the garden he adored so much.
When no protest was given, Alfred leaned down to give him another, this time allowing it to linger a bit longer than necessary. That look in Pablo's eyes became clouded; their heartbeats seemed to slam against each other and their breathing became shallow, unsteady. Alfred remembered, again, the Brazilian hotel and how he'd tried to mend their friendship with bruising kisses and how he'd attempted to fuck Pablo senseless despite never having taken the initiative in bed before, how doing so had only given Alfred a headache and Pablo a fractured wrist.
This was different, though. The tenderness was right, they were both (mostly) sober, and Alfred felt more prepared this time to give Pablo the attention he deserved.
So when Pablo continued with his silent nature, Alfred simply placed another tender kiss to Pablo's lips instead. He didn't blame the younger for locking up a bit after their last chaotic time in bed together, but after a moment, Pablo relaxed and returned the kiss. Alfred swept his tongue along his lower lip to help open him a little, silently asking permission for something fuller, and though Pablo seemed suspicious of his intentions, he easily parted his lips and Alfred explored his mouth as easily as he had back during their very first kiss.
It was sweet, both literally and figuratively, after Pablo had consumed half of their trail mix and a good handful of M-&-Ms. Pablo helped to guide the kiss as it plunged deeper, as they trembled with the sudden onset of need and Alfred's fingers subtlely tightening in Pablo's hair to hold his lips close.
In addition to forgetting how utterly gorgeous the Mexico brother could be, Alfred also often forgot how easily they could get out of hand when they started up. Pablo was trembling in such a nice way, gently nudging Alfred's mouth wider as well and his breath was heavy - so was Alfred's - hands trailing lower down Alfred's sides and hooking into the hem of Alfred's shirt.
"Wh- what did I tell you about that," Alfred scolded breathily, but Pablo just smirked a bit against his lips.
"Then take the lead, vaquero."
"I can't believe you."
"Pablo, I said I'm sorry-"
"I cannot believe you sometimes."
Alfred tried to put on his best pout, but then felt a stab of pain in the middle of scratching at his back, and hissed through his teeth. "Godfuckshitdamn- Oh, oww... oww..."
"When you're through spitting out profanity, I brought lotion for it."
"How're your arms, man? You feeling okay?"
"I'm feeling fucking fine, Alfred, just... shut the hell up for a few minutes so I can apply this." Pablo's hands were still shaking a bit in the afternoon sun, but Alfred assumed that was from supporting himself last night, when his slender legs had straddled Alfred's hips as... well, as Pablo had again taken the initiative and yet was the one to ride Alfred until both of them were hoarse.
That tenderness certainly hadn't lasted very long, had it? Not with Pablo taking the reigns again, shoving him back into the dirt and making sure to thoroughly finish the job, rough and fast and not what Alfred had wanted at all. Not to mention that Alfred hadn't known at all that they'd pitched their tent right on top of a plant - which normally he wouldn't care, especially since it was only peeking out through the corner, leafy green and pretty.
Of course, that had changed when they finished up (with Pablo calling out his name, quietness seemingly forgotten, pulling at Alfred's hair and growling and being kind of... wild, kind of scary, and Alfred was never going to ask to top again, no sir) and suddenly Alfred had felt incredibly itchy, and when Pablo had told him to shut up and that he was trying to go to sleep, he'd finally given up and tried to move his sleeping back outside of the tent-
-only to trip over himself and land directly into a hill of fire ants.
So now they sat together in the morning light, the beauty of the camp ground ignored as Pablo smeared lotion about Alfred's back and neck. It itched like crazy, and Alfred's hands fidgeted in discomfort, quiet whines issuing from his throat. Pablo's own arms were blanketed in blisters and sores from being attacked by the horde - was that the right term? Horde? - of ants, but he didn't even seem to mind it much.
"I'm really sorry."
"It's fine. It's not your fault." Pablo's tone said otherwise, but Alfred wasn't about to push his luck. He hissed again as the cool lotion eased the burn of the rash, and bit his lip hard enough to leave teeth indentations in it. There was a pause before Pablo said sharply, "How did you just not know you were lying in poison oak? Have you forgotten the entirety of the 1800s?"
Alfred prickled at that, glared at nothing in particular. "It was dark-"
"I think of all people, I'd know that." Pablo sighed and rubbed a few circles into his back. "You should take off your shirt so I can get this properly."
Quiet again. Alfred flicked his eyes from rock to rock and cleared his throat. "I... I don't want to take it off-"
"Jefe," the younger interrupted. His voice softened and he leaned in, whispered right into Alfred's ear. "You look fine. Trust me."
Okay, so it sounded genuine enough. Alfred relaxed a bit and when Pablo finished up, he just pulled down the hem of Al's shirt and then Alfred felt a kiss to the back of his hair. He flushed pink at it, childish, but said nothing. He supposed that Pablo couldn't really be lying - he'd seen Pablo's own torso and the terrible scars littering the skin, so if anyone could tell him he was attractive, it would be him. Then again, Pablo was also his employee, so it could just be sucking up for better pay.
Still, he liked to think it was the first one.
The car was a good familiar warmth, even for being rented, after the mess up at the campgrounds. And the chaos didn't even end there. When doing their checklist to see if they'd had all their things together, it turned out that Pablo had drank all of their water the day before, and they'd had to try to filter out some of the water from the stream just to make sure they wouldn't collapse of dehydration on the way back down.
They'd seen some wildlife, which normally would've been cool, except that when they were cooing at one of the fat little birds that trilled at them from up a tree, a hawk had suddenly swooped down out of nowhere and snatched it up in its claws.
Alfred had tried to fill the silence on the hike back with nonsensical ramblings about rabbits, or the drinking laws in his own country, or time spent hanging out with Australia, or really any subject except Arthur, but Pablo hadn't responded with much more than a quick "yeah," or "I'm still listening," or something equally short and terse.
Not to mention that when they'd stopped for a break, sitting on one of the fallen trees and breaking a few apples out of their bags, they'd set down their backpacks near a shrub that they thought was safe; but when they'd come back, they found their bags torn up and their things littered about the dirt with large paw-prints embedded in the ground around it.
Their legs were pretty much jelly when they finally made it back to the car, threw their remaining tattered items haphazardly into the trunk, and collapsed into the front seats of the Jeep. Pablo slammed his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, face toward the ceiling.
"I'm never going anywhere with you again," he said. "Next time, I'm picking where we go. We can go horseback riding or something. Something safe. Without bears eating our things or fire ants or poison oak."
Alfred was definitely in full agreement of that. He turned the ignition and the engine roared to life, the cushioned rumble beneath them a good comfort after the rocky trail. The sunlight was starting to fade in the distance and now graced them a soft golden-red light that fit their exhaustion perfectly.
"Normally the trips aren't this awful."
With aching muscles and that rash still making his back itch like crazy, he reached for the cassette case in the glove box and grabbed one of the tapes to pop it into the little slot. There was a whirring noise as it loaded up, the sound of soft static before the beginning of the song began to play, choppy notes that immediately brightened the mood and garbled lyrics that were difficult for any English-speaker to understand.
But Pablo was mumbling them under his breath anyway: "...The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me..."
Alfred laughed a bit even though it hurt his ribs to do so after that hike, and turned to look at Pablo better, teasing, "I knew it was my music you-"
But Pablo's voice had drifted into silence again, and the slim body was slumped tiredly in the passenger seat; eyes closed peacefully, breathing deep, completely knocked out and just barely humming along to the song in his sleep.
Styx continued their incomprehensible warbling about being on the run, but he couldn't pay too much attention to them now. The sunlight fell in through the windshield and payed off of the darkness of Pablo's hair to turn it a warm chestnut brown, graceful and golden, and Alfred reached out to brush the curls out of the tired eyes.
They were friendlier now than they'd ever been, he realized sadly, a scary thought considering that Pablo had never been this drunk or this mean in their previous escapades together. But even for the meanness, the cruelty, the biting remarks... Pablo was still one of the closest friends he'd ever had.
Pablo had seen him at his worst as well as at his best, had been at the wrong end of Alfred's gun more than once as well as being the one to jam a gun between Alfred's eyes and threaten to fire. Pablo had cried on him once, and Alfred had cried on him too many times to properly count; Pablo had been kicked and had kicked Alfred in return; Pablo had been an enemy on multiple occasions, and yet now Alfred saw him as more than just a neighbor and employee, but something that was almost a friend.
A good friend, maybe. Hell, a best friend, now that the paranoia about the Soviet Union had settled down to just this dull throbbing headache and hypersensitive awareness of situations (yes, the paranoia had faded, but the hatred hadn't, not yet). There was nobody else he'd rather be suffering from skin conditions with, nobody else that suited this chaos better than South Mexico.
Alfred sighed, put the Jeep into drive, and began their drive back to a decent hotel. He thought he heard Pablo mutter "idiot" under his breath, and Tommy Shaw's voice faded into static.