MURMULLO
'Another day of hard work,' smiled Mirabel as she finally was getting ready to settle down after yet another gruelling day of building their new casita. Keeping in mind the lateness of the hour, Mirabel made sure to be as quiet as a church mouse ('pun intended, Mirabel giggled), letting sleeping Madrigals lie—her family already occupying their own benches and creating a choir of snores that shook the very foundations of the old church.
Nighttime was her time to watch over Gabriel, and so she took her blanket and not-so-fluffy pillow to the room where the wounded soldier slept. The Madrigal sighed at the thought of her day being not quite over.
'Eh,' night duty wasn't so bad. Unlike in the morning where she still had to do her chores and help with the house, at night all Mirabel had to worry about was changing the wet rag on the caballero's forehead. Plus she got to have an entire room to herself away from the cacophony of snores that was her familia. 'So, yeah, plus and minuses.'
She knocked on the door to the room that used to be the padre's—not that she needed to, but Mirabel was a polite girl like that. When all she got was silence, she slowly turned the doorknob and eeked the door open a sliver.
"Hello~oooo, anyone conscious in he~eeeere?" Mirabel whispered in jest as she stuck her head in through the small opening. First making sure that the only occupant of the room was right where she'd last left him, she shrugged when she obviously would receive no reply. "Guess, not."
Taking up the spot she'd been sleeping in for the past three days, Mirabel crawled into bed—or couch rather—that sat opposite the caballero's.
"Oof, what a day, huh?" she said out loud. "Casita's still far, and I mean 'far', from being finished but, ah well, you know?" She paused to fluff her pillow to the fluffiest it could get before continuing to tell the unconscious Gabriel about her day, "Baby steps. Still though, all morning was nothing but up down, up down, u~uuup and do~ooown that dumb hill, getting stuff for the house. Ay, my feet are killing me!" she huffed. "How does Luisa do it?"
Again, she knew he wouldn't say anything back, but Mirabel pretended that he did.
"Excuse me, I need more exercise? Look who's not talking, Mr lie-in-bed-all-day." Going to his bedside to replace his wet rag, Mirabel sat near the edge so as not to disturb the caballero. "Anyway, what about you? How was your day?" she had asked while wringing out the small towel and dunking it into a bucket of cold water. "Oh, really? You don't, hrrr, sa~aaay," she groaned again with the effort of wringing out the excess moisture and flapping what's left for good measure. "Well, that's what you get for lying on your back all day."
With careful fingers and too much focus, to be honest, Mirabel then replaced the rehydrated rag back onto his forehead. There, job well done; time for bed, right?
Not quite.
Because, just like it was for the past three days, the young Madrigal could not keep her eyes from studying his admittedly cute (you know, if you liked that sort of thing—which, for clarification, she did not) face. She was still looking for that spark of recognition, that aha moment where she would go, oh, now I remember you! Sadly, however, it never came. "Please wake up," she whispered into the quiet room. "Wake up so we can talk."
Though she knew that it made no difference, Mirabel still held her breath expecting him to open his eyes; his amazing and ridiculously baby-blue eye~'Ay, ay, ay! Whoa! Okay, not going there. Nope!'
She stood up so quickly from that bed it might as well have been a lit stove. "You know what? I don't even care," she declared with her back towards him. "I'm over it. So what if I don't remember you, huh? So what if Abuela says we were best friends? That was, what? Ten years ago? I was five! I couldn't even remember what I did this morning much less ten ye—ugh."
Now, she had said all that and, if she were being honest with herself, she meant every word.
But...
There was this... something... something inside her that was telling her, no, begging her to remember. Because it was important...
...He was important.
'Ay, caramba! Enough! I did not just think that. No, no. I-...' she let out an exasperated sigh, "I need some sleep. That is all I need right now. I need sleep." Walking the three steps it took to get to the couch, Mirabel spread her blanket over the wood of her un-cushioned bed to distract herself. But not enough to keep her from looking over her shoulder. "What's there to lose right? You're probably just as clueless as I am anyway."
Shaking her head to banish her thoughts, she climbed into bed. Better to just sleep than to-
"Mira...bel..."
Knee halfway on the couch, the aforementioned Madrigal stopped; she could not believe what she just heard. With eyes wide, her head whipped back so fast her hair flew to the other side of her face.
Yes, yes. It did not escape Mirabel that she was staring again but, this time, she had a reason to. "What did you say?"
He did not say; he just continued to mumble and, not soon after, began to writhe. In pain? Mirabel wasn't sure but she rushed back towards the bed clearly concerned. She knelt at his side while her fingers wrung themselves out of habit.
"Hey, hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Clearly, he wasn't but it wasn't like Mirabel knew what to do in the situation so she still felt like she should ask.
His lips moved trying to say something but couldn't. "P- P-..."
"P. P? P- what? Pillow? Do you need more pillows? But you already have all the pillows!"
If it wasn't already obvious by her squeaky voice and the way she kept looking back at the door, Mirabel was right at the edge of panic. So close was she that she had half a mind of just running out the room and dragging her whole family in to help.
"P-... P..."
"Pa?"
"PAPA, LOOK OUT!" Without warning, the caballero threw his arms out, almost hitting Mirabel in the face. She still fell on her butt but was quick to get back up.
"Hey, watch it!"
The way he was thrashing about looked like he was desperately trying to fend someone off, and it was freaking her out! A yelp had Mirabel letting out her own squeak of distress that quickly became whimper when she saw his hands scrambling to his side trying to claw at his injury.
"Wha- No no! Don't do that, you estúpido! Stop!" Did she ever mention that night duty was the absolute worst? 'I wish I'd switched shifts with Isa when I had the chance! She would know what to do'
To the Madrigals infinite chagrin, the young capitan did not listen to her but, instead, did the complete opposite and kept on scratching his wound from over his clothes.
"I said quit it! You're going to bleed out again!" Once Mirabel got that words won't make him stop, she did the one thing she could think of that would. She flung herself at the caballero, straddling his chest as she tried to catch his flailing arms. "Okay, cut it out! Sto-ah! Owwwu~ugh! That was my eye, you little-! Gragh!"
They tussled for a bit, but after a few tries, finally, "Hah! Got you!" Mirabel exclaimed in victory as she pinned Gabriel's wrists to the bed. "Now what, ey, el chico loco?!"
Mirabel's triumphant grin fell as soon as she looked down and saw his face. Gabriel still had his eyes closed, but it was clear even in just the candlelight that he was crying silent tears while he grit his teeth against her grip.
Now Mirabel was sure that he was in pain.
Her hesitation let her fingers slack just enough for Gabriel to free his hands, and he immediately tried to throw her off by sitting up, but that only got her to slide down his stomach. Fearing for the well-being of her face, Mirabel did what she could to keep him from hitting her delicate self. What she thought was the most effective way of achieving that was to throw her arms around him in a desperate hug.
It worked... to a point.
Gabriel was no longer hitting her. Instead, he was now clawing at her back. Mirabel resisted the urge to scream well enough but could not hold in the whimpers she pressed against the side of his neck, "Ow, ow, ow, stop... Please stop... that hurts..."
But he didn't stop. Mirabel already had tears in her eyes, but it was like he was stuck in a nightmare and couldn't see that he was already hurting her. Mirabel refused to give up, however. She would make him stop. She would help him wake up.
She would remember him.
Without thinking, one hand began rubbing soothing circles over his back while the other went to his hair to massage the back of his head. Words she did not know wherefrom fell from her trembling lips in spite of the pain, "Shh shh. Hey, it's okay. I'm here... I'm right here."
Softly as her shaky voice would allow, she began to sing... "Dos oruguitas..."
"...Ay, oruguitas, no se aguanten más
Hay que crecer aparte y volver, hacia adelante seguirás
Vienen milagros, vienen crisálidas
Hay que partir y construir su propio futuro..."
And as soon as the first chorus faded into whisper, at last, she could feel his arms lose their strength, and she could breathe again. Mirabel let out a content sigh of relief and let her body lie on top of him for a minute if only to gather herself. She had kept her face inside the crook of his neck throughout the whole ordeal to protect herself, but now she gave her other cheek to simply lay on top of his shoulder in complete exhaustion. "Glad that's over," she said softly, eyes growing heavy.
Experiencing the stark contrast between her pain of not a few minutes ago to the warmth and comfort of being in his embrace, it was the easiest thing in the wold to just let go and... fall... asle~eee- NO!
Like a cold bucket of water being dumped on her, Mirabel woke with an intense clarity of where she was. And where she was was on top of a young man, on a bed, her legs trapping him on either side, and her butt sitting on- 'Okay, that's enough imagery, thanks!' Her point was, if her Abuela caught her in that moment, then there was no hearing the end of it! She had to scram pronto!
Quickly getting off of Gabriel, Mirabel was just about to beat a swift retreat to her nice and safe (admittedly not so comfy) couch when she felt a tug on her arm. To stay upright, she had to catch herself with her other arm on his bed. Safe to say, she got that hand off faster than Camilo could change faces. Mirabel looked down to see what had a hold on her and had to pause just to think on what to do when she found out.
It was him, Gabriel. He was holding her hand like a lifeline, and when she tried to tug it out of his grip, she could see him frown in nigh imperceptible desperation... terrified of letting go.
"Oh, you've go to be kidding me! Come on, man, I wanna go to sleep. You see, unlike some of us," she narrowed her eyes at him, "I have work to do tomorrow."
But it was no use. He had a hold on that thing like it was going out of style.
"Grrr! You're not even awake and, already, you are the most insufferable boy I have ever met! Even worse than Camilo and that's saying something."
Nada.
"Fine! You wanna hold my hand? Fine." Not even bothering to be considerate anymore, Mirabel climbed into his bed and made sure that every single one of the springs sprung. "But only until you're done being such a big baby."
Nothing left to do, her ire faded along with the silence, and Mirabel was forced to awkwardly lay there beside the caballero like a plank of wood. A plank of wood that was desperately wondering why oh why did she agree on taking the night shift? WHY?! And, more importantly, how was she going to sleep when there was boy sleeping right next to her? Was she supposed to be just okay with this?
Now that she'd thought about it, she's never been so close to a boy before, not one that wasn't family. Oh, and did she mention that they were on a bed? That's right, him, her, on a bed, no adult supervision, that's where she was right now. Oh, if only her Abuela could see her now.
"I'm not getting any sleep tonight, am I?"
Another day of hard work, and Dolores was ready to do her part. First order of business: check on the capitan and make sure he's O—
Opening the door to his room, she immediately stopped at what she saw.
-ka~aaay?
"...hm."