Alicia taps her fingers against her forearm, frowning down at the dogs as they frolic at her feet, all but ignoring her as they tug at their leashes, eager to go further with this walk, explore more, chase more squirrels. She closes her eyes and shakes her head, not finding the energy to go beyond a couple blocks. "C'mon," she mumbles, turning and waiting for the dogs to catch up as she heads back for the apartment.
They struggle for a moment before reluctantly joining her, drawn by the sharp grip she has on their leashes, panting against her legs as they walk alongside her back to the familiar street they've lived on since being adopted by Ricardo. She unlocks the door, barely paying attention as she automatically unclicks their leashes and lets them scurry away. "Of course," she mumbles. Nothing can ever stay. She's never felt this lonely and dejected before- at least in Florida, she had family, she had friends. Now that she's in Texas, she's isolated, and alone, and Ricardo's having the time of his life in Mexico City doing Alberto's bidding, and-
She sobs and hangs her head, shoulders shaking as she falls apart. "Dammit," she hisses, wiping futily at her eyes. When she'd decided to try to get clean, Ricardo had patiently helped her locate all of her hidden bottles, empty them and toss them into recycling. Watching the various liquids pour down the sink had felt a little like freedom then, but now it feels like yet another loss as she craves the blank numbness each sip would give her, help her to forget everything.
Suddenly her fingers twitch against her desk and she breathes raggedly, pushing away and walking through the hall connecting thier rooms together, absentmindedly pushing open the door to the room set aside as Ricardo's office when he was struggling to help Alberto figure out the logistics of the new federation. She chuckles maddeningly and props a step stool under the vent, ignoring how it wobbles as she climbs up it and removes the screws, reaching inside as soon as she can, fingers gripping the neck of the bottle and tugging it out. She reads the label and exhales softly, stroking it lovingly. "Hello, my old friend," she breathes out.
Once safely down, she walks into the living room and sits there with the bottle loosely held between her fingers. On her phone is an article talking about how difficult pregnancies are the older you get, and how alcohol can affect getting pregnant. She laughs at the memory and shrugs. "Not like that matters," she decides, already peeling the label off of the bottle. "How can I possibly get pregnant when my husband had to move to an entirely different country to get away from me?"
She's just twisted the lid off, about to dump a sizeable portion of the sweet, bitter liquid down her throat, then the doorbell echoes throughout the apartment. She closes her eyes and groans. Must be Heath or Maryse, she decides qrimly, getting up and making her way to the door after quietly easing the bottle into the drawer where no one looks, juuuuuust in case.
-x
Ricardo aches for Alicia, yearning to hear her voice, touch her face, star into her soft brown eyes, kiss her lips, cuddle close to her warmth. But his successes regarding the Alberto's new company is all slowly gaining, giving him more options, and more trust by the people suddenly him at work, where he lives now, things along those natures. As much as he misses her, he reminds himself he's doing this for her, for their future together. To keep himself busy and away from those self-destruction thoughts that had haunted him for so long he couldn't distinguish reality from what his mind had opted to believe.
He leans over a railing showing off the river below, and smiles. He's still doing the tourist thing whenever he has a few moments, and it's so peaceful and freeing to see Mexico like this. He takes a couple of pictures with his phone and sends them along to his boyfriend's cloud so he can look at them whenever. However, the pictures are doing nothing for him currently. He wants to see everything, experience it all, nothing able to stop him from properly learning how his home country of Mexico.
He just wishes Alicia could be by his side, experiencing all of his alongside her. "I miss you," he whispers, shaking his head and riding the waves of sadness as his body once more fixates on her loss by his side. "Maybe some day..." he whispers, thinking about bringing her to Mexico. "One can hope..."
Just hold on until then, he thinks as he finds his break time over with and needs to back inside. "I promise, Alicia, we will be back together soon. You'll see."