"Hello. My name is Martín Berrote," said Martín in Serbian. "It's nice to meet you."

His accent wasn't terrible, but his cadence was oddly even, as he didn't know where to dip or raise his tone to make the speech sound natural. At some of the harsher, affricate consonants- the syllables that pulled all the way back into one's throat- he would cock his head to the side, as if this aided in the challenge of making sounds that existed in neither Spanish nor Italian nor English, all of which he spoke reasonably well.

"Very good," Mirko replied, patting his hand reassuringly, and then he spoke again in a clearer, louder voice: "Where are you from, Martín?"

"What? Oh, Argentina," Martín said, and then he grinned a little sharply. "That is, Argentina. Now live Argentina. Umm…"

"Now I live in Argentina," Mirko corrected calmly. "I live with Mirko."

Martín repeated this, his tongue curling in ways Mirko's didn't, and at the last part he laughed.

"This is terrible," he said in Spanish. "I'm not going to have a clue what's going on."

"That is fine," Mirko replied. "I think she'll appreciate the effort."

Martín listened to this very carefully, lips tracing the lines of the words after Mirko had fallen silent to pick apart their meaning. When he understood it was obvious, a little light appeared in his eyes, and he smiled a smile that looked more bitter than sweet.

"Maybe," Martín said doubtfully. "But I don't think she'll appreciate me- the man who swept her only living grandson away to another continent, and a life of crime, and…"

He tipped his head back and stretched out his legs under the kitchen table, sock feet brushing Mirko's thighs. The look in his eyes was seductive on the surface, but there was something dark under it that Mirko recognized from the Philippines, from the bottom of a wine bottle, from the first time he had met Martín, in that Italian monastery.

"...and other such degeneracy."

Mirko shook his head, giving Martín's hand a little squeeze.

"No," he said. "I am criminal already. In prison, out of prison. I lived in Argentina with Nairobi, disappeared. This is not a surprise."

Martín watched him for a moment, frowning, gears turning back and forth inside his head, making some calculation Mirko couldn't see and, even if he could, probably wouldn't understand. Then he piped up again, in a deceptively soft voice:

"Mirko, what's the Serbian word for 'faggot'?"

"Martín-"

"-it's only natural someone will say it, I know I certainly look like one-"

"Martín, no-"

"-though I suppose I'll be able to tell just by the tone," Martín continued, and Mirko stopped trying to interrupt, sighing to himself. There was a poison in Martín, and it reared its head in times like this. "...no matter the language, you can always tell when someone hates you."

"Martín," Mirko said again, and this time something in his voice made Martín look back at him, eyes clearing with surprise. Such lovely eyes.

"Martín, I want to go," Mirko said simply. "I want her to meet you."

Martín curled around himself on the chair, drawing up his knees and crossing his arms upon them. There was a touch of pink high on his cheeks- perhaps the colour of embarrassment or anger, but hopefully not of shame.

"I know," Martín mumbled. There was quiet for a moment, and then his eyes flickered carefully across the table up to Mirko's face, and he added: "Let's keep practicing."

"Okay," Mirko replied with a small smile, and he pointed to the bowl of apples on the table between them. "What are these?"

"Fruit?" Martín tried.

"Yes. How many?"

"Uh...seven."

"Do you like apples?"

"'Apples', is it? Okay. Yes, Mirko. Apples is my favourite."

"Very good."

...and so the evening went on.