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When you first came to the casita earlier today, this is not where you imagined you’d be.
The visit starts out predictably enough; you come for a vision at the request of your parents -- though truth be told it’s getting harder to ask for visions when the person doing them is your boyfriend, and asking him to look into the future at your behest, after becoming romantically involved, feels… strange at best, and downright manipulative at worst. You never want to come across as taking advantage of Bruno’s gift, especially since it often causes him physical pain, but few of your family and friends have that same compunction, and now you’re semi-constantly fending off requests to be the middle-man messenger between your boyfriend the seer, and the villagers who are too afraid to approach him.
Sometimes you’re too tired to argue, or the vision is too important, and so, with no small amount of guilt, you ask. Today had been such a case.
Today, though, your regret bubbles over and spills out, because the vision is good , it’s so good, and Bruno is so happy about that, and something about seeing him grin like a giddy little kid, despite his undoubted headache, despite the ever-present trepidation evident in his body language, despite the fact that it could have so easily gone bad like it so often does…
You kiss him.
He’s not even finished with the vision, really, but the urge is too strong to ignore, the guilt too overpowering, so the kiss is like an apology, the most immediate way you can think of to show your appreciation for everything he does for you.
Or, it starts as that, at least.
Maybe the combination of your own tumultuous feelings and Bruno’s excitement is what causes it to quickly escalate -- you’re not sure. You’ve kissed before, have even lightly fooled around, but never with as much intent, as much concentration, and things spiral before either of you can get a handle on it, and then the two of you stumble into Bruno’s bedroom and any thought of withdrawing is unceremoniously thrown out the window.
And so, here you are, making out on Bruno’s bed like two overeager teenagers.
Something is… wrong, though.
You get that first sinking feeling when you realize that you’re much less dressed than Bruno, who has not removed a single article of clothing, while you’d lost your shirt at some point, and then a second sinking feeling when every time your hand roams south, he not-so-subtly intercepts it, occupies it with something else. He must want this, you think, because he hasn’t indicated otherwise, because he keeps kissing you like he’s trying to eat you, because he’s flushed and his pupils are so blown out that his eyes are almost black.
The final straw comes when you lead his hands to your naked breasts, and despite the whine that comes out of him he pulls back, like a turtle attempting to retreat into its shell.
“Hey.” You push away with a huff, fixing him with an appraising look. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can stop.”
He swallows, blinking those big wide eyes at you. “N-No, it’s not that,” he says.
“Is your head okay?” you ask, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. He flops back, eyes going soft.
“I’m fine,” he says, huffing out a laugh, though immediately after he says it, his eyebrow quirks and his grin twists into something like a grimace. “I just, uh…” He swallows again, loudly. “There’s something you should probably know.” His voice trails off as he speaks, like he’s leaking air.
Many, many possible topics flash through your mind, and all of them are unpleasant, given the air of doom he’s currently giving off. But, this is obviously important, so you steel yourself and nod. “Okay.”
He wraps his arms around himself, that unconscious self-comforting tic that takes over when he gets nervous. He doesn’t meet your eyes. “I’ve… never… done this before?”
You stare at him. Of all the things you were expecting him to say, this was very far down the list. “Oh,” you say stupidly. “Like… none of this?”
He shakes his head. "Not with another person, no."
It feels less like a revelation than, perhaps, it should. Thinking through it logically (as logically as your still-residually-aroused-and-then-concerned-and-now-confused brain can manage, at least), you wonder why you hadn’t pieced it together before. You had always sort of supposed the potential bragging rights novelty of ‘I fucked the town prophet’ would have attracted Bruno some prospective suitors, but then, he was always hard to approach, enigmatic and almost arrogant when he was younger (though you now know that to have been a theatrical facade to mask his social anxiety), and then he was gone for ten years, and when he came back he was even stranger than before. Tentative new friendliness and approachability born of desperation notwithstanding.
"You seem surprised," he says, and you realize you've let your silence drag on for longer than is comfortable.
"I… I guess I am, to be honest," you say, leaning back onto your knees because your wrists ache from leaning over him. "I would've thought you'd have gotten lots of offers."
He grins, amused and self-conscious. "Oh, no, I did." He pauses, scratching at his stubbly cheek. "I just…. They were… It always felt like they were after something they'd brewed up. They wanted this… Bruno the Mysterious And Powerful Fortune Teller they imagined me to be, I think," --here we waves his fingers for effect-- "and not, uh, the actual me. It just… I-It never felt right."
You watch him carefully, your heart twinging, and take his hands, squeezing them, bringing one up to your lips to kiss his knuckles. “Does it feel right now?”
His eyes go soft again as they meet yours, flashing green around the edges.“Yeah,” he says, hushed. "Yeah, I think so."
Warmed by his trust and at risk of drowning in your own feelings, you press another bracing kiss against his hand before slipping your fingertips under the neckline of his ruana.
“Can I take this off, then?” you ask, referring to it with a gentle tug. A moment of hesitation as Bruno gets his bearings, and then he nods, sitting up to assist you as you pull it off over his head. Sand that had been caught in the folds scatters onto the floor and Bruno winces, but you pay it no heed; wasting little time in taking advantage of this new position, and the newly exposed skin, you lean forward to press your face into the crook of his neck. He laughs, breathless and delighted, jolting as your lips tickle his skin. He smells nice, semi-constantly, like sand and rain and the incense that he burns during his prophecy rituals, and sometimes ozone too, like he’s been standing in the middle of one of Pepa’s thunderstorms; you breathe it in, kissing up the line of his pulse. His hands slide around your back, nails ghosting over your skin, exploratory rather than solicitous, setting your nerves alight.
“Feels nice,” he sighs.
You hum your agreement, your own hands finding purchase on his chest, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. He tenses, turning his head as if to look at you, except the angle prevents him from doing so.
“Easy,” you purr, making quick work of the buttons all the way down. “I have no outrageous expectations, querido. I just want to see you…” You shrug. “And touch you.”
He laughs again, more nervously than before.
“I feel like you might be--” You kiss him, and he continues undeterred, “--at a slightly unfair advantage here.”
“Hm? How so?”
He looks at you like he’s surprised you’re asking, like he’d expected his point to be obvious. “You’re much more attractive than I am.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” The semi-casual conversation is good, you find, keeping him occupied with something other than his nerves. It lets you coax him into shimmying off his shirt, which at least makes the two of you equally undressed now. He really is quite pleasant to look at, you think, especially now that he’s been eating more reliably and has gained a little weight, and his skin isn’t quite so ashen, the rings under his eyes a little less pronounced. He’s still the scrawniest person in the encanto, but he’s soft and willowy and charmingly scruffy, and you often feel inordinately boring next to him.
His hand on your cheek distracts you, as he turns your face to look at him. His expression is somewhere between lovesick and achingly sad.
“What?” you ask.
“Mm.” His thumb brushes over your cheekbone. “Just admiring the second-most attractive person in this relationship,” he says.
“You’re funny,” you say, fondness ruining your attempted deadpan delivery.
“You’re the one who said it-- oomph --” You push him onto his back, and his eyes flash green again, just a sliver around the wide expanse of his pupils. One of his hands lands on his opposite arm and he shrugs, his voice very thin when he finishes, “not--hah--not me.”
You take his hands and pin them next to his head on the bed, lacing your fingers between his, and then you kiss him, bracing yourself on your elbows so that you’re able to rest on top of him. The skin-to-skin contact feels lovely, and you can feel his heart beating against your chest, can feel the rumble of his groans in your ribs. You’re still propped up on your knees, though, with one lodged firmly between Bruno’s thighs, and whenever his hips rock against you it makes your stomach twist into knots.
You migrate from his mouth to his jaw, nibbling and sucking while trying your very best to be cognizant of the fact that he bruises easier than most, and that giving him an accidental hickey had, in the past, led to several long days of good-natured-but-nevertheless-relentlessly-embarrassing teasing from his family. It’s still tempting to mark him, some possessive little instinct you’re unable to shake, but you bury the impulse because right now is not the time. Maybe someday when he’s not walking the thin tightrope over his own jittery nerves. He presses into the bed, back arching, hips dragging up and down your thigh.
“Amor…” he sighs, breath hitching as you bite at his collarbone. You’re somewhat mournful of the fact that your hands are currently being crushed by his, because you’re itching to touch him. Instead, you continue on with your mouth, kissing down the center of his bony sternum and then across the narrow width of his chest, pausing to lap at one of his nipples. His hips buck, grip tightening around your hands so hard you’re sure your bones are going to crack. “Hah-- shit-- ”
Fevered, and without moving your mouth, you swing your leg out from between his and straddle his hips, grinding down hard against him in desperate search of friction to appease your growing arousal. Bruno cries out, swears again, bites down on your knuckles because your fingers are too tightly intertwined for him to bite down on his own.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” you say, lifting your head, still grinding against him.
Bruno laughs, a ragged, nervous sound, whiny around the edges. “Enjoy it wh-while you can,” he mutters, “because I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the death of me.”
“You see that in a vision?” you say, gently pulling your hands free of his and trying not to wince at the pain --maybe a bite of one of Julieta’s arepas will ease it later-- “Death by ravishing ?”
“Don’t need to,” he says, resting his hand over his heart in an apparent attempt to gauge its current speed. He’s flushed all the way down to his waistband, the gray among the coarse hair smattered along his chest and stomach standing out in stark contrast against his darkened skin. “I just know .”
You laugh this time, standing up from the bed to pull your trousers off, followed by your underwear, which you make a small show of launching carelessly somewhere into Bruno’s cluttered belongings. He blinks owlishly at you, pushing himself into a sitting position and scooting to the edge of the bed. Despite his relatively open body language he still manages to look small and hesitant, maybe because of the hunch of his shoulders.
“Mi amor…” he says, “you’re beautiful.”
Suddenly feeling bashful and very, very warm, you step towards him, attempting to be coy and titillating despite feeling like you could easily melt into a puddle of goop if he keeps looking at you like that.
As soon as you’re close enough Bruno pulls you over, a show of initiative that takes you by surprise. He slings his arms around your waist, nuzzles his face against your stomach, mumbling under his breath. You don’t catch any of it, but you can tell by the way he’s touching you, fingers skating over your skin, still in that exploratory, reverent way, and the way he mouths at the bones of your hips, at your naval, sighing into the aching space between your thighs -- he’s fucking starving .
Not just for sex --though that’s undoubtedly a significant factor-- but, also, for this. For intimacy, for touch, for affection. For someone to see him, to want him, and to not have any reservations about showing it. He’d spent so long in isolation, believing in his own unlikeability, stuck in the feedback loop of his own perceived mistakes, that his desperation for companionship can’t actually be contained anymore. It pours out of him and you can feel it like a palpable aether that he’s breathing into your skin.
Momentarily a little overwhelmed, you grab his shoulders to steady yourself, your chest tight. He hums, nuzzling you, his hair tickling your stomach.
“Hey,” you say, trying to keep your voice light and patting his shoulder. “C’mere for a second.”
Bruno hesitates, seeming somewhat disoriented when he stands up. You immediately pull him into a hug, so tight that his bones pop. He huffs and returns the embrace, just as tight; you’re both about the same height, which means both of you have your faces buried in the other’s neck. You inhale that familiar petrichor scent that always lingers on him, your body unyielding and protective.
“What’s wrong?” he asks at length, and you inwardly curse the fact that he’s, by nature, so incredibly perceptive.
“Mm. Nothing,” you say, attempting to distract him, to keep up the mood, by kissing his neck. He shivers, squeezing you.
“You are… not a very good liar, amorcito,” he says.
You sigh, pulling away enough that he raises his head to look at you, and when he does you cradle his face in your hands and kiss him, wishing you could do more, wishing that you could reach inside him to where that gnawing, miserable longing resides and warm it up between your palms.
“I’m here,” you whisper instead, and then again: “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here, and I love you .”
“I love you, too,” he whispers back, grinning so soft it makes your chest tight again.
“No, you don’t understand,” you say, pushing him back towards the bed, until he’s forced to sit down, and then further, until he’s crawled backwards and is sprawled beneath you, fingers digging into your sides. “ I love you. ” As if saying it more emphatically will communicate the depth of what you’re unable to put into words at the moment. “ Mi tesoro, mi alma, mi vida .”
You kiss down his neck and chest as you talk, listening to him breathe and whine and mumble back. His skin is heated, and you touch as much as you can, trailing your palms and lips and tongue over his chest, along his still too prominent ribs and his waist, over the gentle swell of his stomach, as much of him as you can reach, trying to imprint the tactile memory of yourself into his body so he’ll always be able to come back to it.
He writhes as you work, one hand on your head, just to touch, his nails grazing your scalp, and the sounds that he makes, every ground-out swear, every hitched breath, every gasp and moan, burrow straight into your core and heat you up like a furnace. You feel dazed with arousal and affection, drunk on it, so much so that you’re only tangentially aware that Bruno is babbling at you while you work his fly open and ungracefully divest him of the rest of his clothing.
He is obviously uncomfortable under your scrutiny, knees drawn up a little, the hand that had been on your head now hovering uselessly in the air, as if he’s debating on attempting to cover himself up. You do your best to pull your sensible brain back into working order, despite it attempting to float off in the fresh wave of anticipatory arousal that stripping your boyfriend has caused to wash over you. You realize very quickly why he’s so uncomfortable, and climb back onto the bed to huddle beside his hip. Despite being very obviously aroused in every other way, he is decidedly not hard .
“Nervous?” you say, letting your fingertips drag along the base of his cock so that he knows exactly what you’re referring to. He covers half his face with one hand, but the tension seems to leave his body a little bit, and his hips tilt in search of more.
“Ay,” he huffs, eyelids fluttering closed. “Between that, and the headache, a-and just… just, just, not being as young as I used to be--hah--” A twitch of interest there, as you continue to gently work him. “Sorry.”
You shake your head, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “Don’t apologize,” you say. “Are you okay? Do you want to stop?”
It’s his turn to shake his head, gripping the sides of your face as he kisses you. “God, please don’t--”
You nuzzle him as you readjust yourself into a better position, once again kneeling over him. “What do you usually do?” you ask. “Do you think of things? How do you touch yourself?”
He laughs, his voice breaking. “‘Do I think about things’?” he echoes. “You, uh, y-you’re asking me about what I… I fantasize about while I’m --ah, hah-- masturbating, aren’t you.” The flatness of his inflection makes you grin, thankful that your face is currently buried in the crook of his jaw so he can’t see it.
“Yeah,” you say.
His arms snake around you, fingers drumming into the divots between your ribs; it’s an amusingly casual tic given the circumstances.
“C’mon, Bruno,” you say, dropping your voice down to a whisper. “D’you ever think of me?”
The effect is immediate; Bruno sighs, hands sliding round to your front, squeezing your breasts. You bite back a whine. “All the time,” he whispers.
“Tell me,” you say, head spinning, selfish and intoxicated and hungry. “Tell me about the first time you thought of me while you touched yourself.”
“I-I, uh…” He swallows. “It was… a-after the first time you came to the Casita,” he says, laughing self-consciously because that had been mere months after you’d even officially met, and you know this admission makes him think he looks desperate. “Y-You were wearing that… that dress --ah-- white linen with green details.”
You remember it well, actually, because you’d chosen that dress specifically with him in mind, having noted his evident affinity for the color green. Afterwards you thought it had been an unfortunate miss, since he hadn’t seemed overly affected by it, but now knowing he had been affected, had touched himself because of it, sends pins and needles through your limbs.
He writhes a bit as he remembers, as you continue to touch him, letting his knees fall open. Your hand, the memories, and the conversation are all having the desired effect, and he’s rapidly becoming hard, his cock finally catching up with the rest of him.
“I wore that dress specifically for you, y’know,” you say, nibbling at his scruffy jawline. He makes a noise in the back of his throat like he’s been struck.
“You’re serious?” he says.
You nod, laughing, somewhat self-conscious.
He squeezes your breasts again, and you whine into his skin. “ Dios Mio -- it was… the cut of it… the neckline a-and the--the way the bodice fit you.”
He’s definitely hard now, enough that you can get your hand around him properly. His hips rock counterpoint to the rhythm of your fist, his hands sliding around you to lock together at your spine. He moans, long and low in his chest. You’re only barely keeping it together, lightheaded and soaking and so aroused it hurts.
“Keep going,” you whisper in his ear. “I wanna hear.”
He seems to be incapable of speech for a moment, gasping for air, before something in him breaks: “I-I kept thinking --ah-- I kept thinking about how easy it would be to pull the neckline down, just--just a little bit, and suck on your breasts, o-or…” He gulps. “I imagined pulling your--your skirt up, f-finding you naked underneath --hah-- And how easy it would be to push into you--h-how wet you’d be--oh, f-fuck, mi amor, please-- ”
You decide that you’ve probably tortured Bruno enough, besides the fact that you’re pretty sure you’re going to explode if you don’t find some sort of release soon. You reposition yourself over him and slide onto his cock; you’re so fucking wet that it’s effortless, and the feeling of him inside you, hot and hard, filling you up, stretching you, is incredible . You moan into his neck, and he lets out something like a relieved sob, hips bucking up to meet yours.
“Fuck,” you gasp, barely able to breathe in the crushing circle of his arms.
“I-I’m not--I don’t think I’m--”
“Same--”
You lay there for a moment, rutting against each other at an awkward angle given that you’re both unwilling to pull away from the embrace your upper bodies are currently locked into. It’s okay, though, because that moment is all you need right then, for the both of you to fully comprehend what’s just happened, where you are, what you’re doing. It all suddenly clicks , shifts into clarity like one of Bruno’s visions.
You feel out of your depth, somehow, with this sudden breadth of feeling, this sudden significance. That not only are you fucking a man with unprecedented mystical powers, a Madrigal --the only firstborn Madrigal son-- and not only are you his first, and not only are you deeply, ridiculously, stupidly in love with him -- you never want to be without him again. You never want him to be without you . You never want him to feel that longing again, never want him to spend another night alone, ruminating over his past mistakes, over his own loneliness. This, right here, right now, feels right in a way that you can’t put into words.
Bruno seems to come to, if not the same, a very similar conclusion, as you push up to meet his eyes and they flash green, and he looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time.
“Roll over,” you say, and he does. You shield your face and laugh when some stray sand is dislodged from his hair and scatters onto you, and pull him down to kiss him, long and slow. “Don’t hold back, mi amor. Fuck me.”
He shudders and nods, hips rocking into you, tentative at first and then with more surety, his head dropping to rest on your chest. You hold on, wrapping your legs around his waist, pulling him in deeper and harder, barely able to focus on anything besides his cock buried inside of you.
“I-I love you,” you gasp, voice bouncing as he fucks you.
“I--hah-- love you too,” he replies, lifting his head to kiss you. You reach between your legs to brush your fingers against your clit and you’re gone, climax hitting you before you’re able to get a word of warning out. You cry out, all your muscles fluttering as you shudder and writhe and arch up against him, as it crashes through you in waves, and then Bruno crushes you in his arms again.
“I--I’m going to--”
You can’t speak so you just nod feverishly, pulling him against you with your arms and legs, clinging to him desperately as he pushes in deep and comes with a groan, shaking all over. You squeeze him inside and out, work him through it, kissing his face and still riding out your last aftershocks.
It’s a long while before either of you come back down completely. Bruno had collapsed on top of you, and when he tried to move you held him in place, wanting to savor the last few moments before normalcy sets in again. He’s still resting there when you bury your face in his hair and say, “Marry me.”
He starts, ever so slightly, and then pushes up to look you in the eye. His expression is ambiguous aside from the furrow between his brows. “Did you just… propo--”
“Marry me,” you say again, hands on his face, brushing your thumbs over his cheeks. “Let’s get married.”
He laughs through his nose, leans into one of your palms. “Amor…”
“Too fast?” you say, heart dropping a little at the possibility -- because you’d felt it, you’d felt that something open up and swallow both of you, and you know he’d felt it too, like the two of you had become intrinsically connected somehow, and to step back from that, to step back from him, would be monumentally hard.
“No, I… No, it’s not that, I don't think.” He takes one of your hands in his own, squeezing it, and shrugs his shoulders a little. “I just, uh… Well, I never really foresaw myself getting married.”
You can’t mask the confusion that makes its home on your face.
He blinks, lifting his free hand in something like mollification. “Oh, no, uh, not like--” he sticks his tongue out, blows a raspberry, “--not like in a vision. Bad turn of phrase, sorry. I-I mean I just… never thought I’d… be here .” He shrugs again, a little solemnly. “Kinda made my peace being a lifelong bachelor.”
“Well, you should consider unmaking that peace, then, and marry me.”
He holds your joined hands in front of is face, like he’s trying to hide behind them; all you can see are his eyes, and in the low light, this close, you can see the little flecks of green magic in them, deep inside but bubbling like a kindling fire. “You know what being married to me would be like, right?” he asks. “You know how my family is, w-we’re not… normal, or simple--”
“I know.”
“And you know how it’ll be, being gift-less, you know it’s not easy sometimes--”
“I know.”
“And then, just, how the encanto will see you, the wife of Bad Luck Bruno, the guy who ruins futures and lived in the walls for ten years and talks to rats--”
“I like your rats.”
“ I do, too ,” he says emphatically, and then realizes he’s gotten sidetracked. He blinks, dropping his head to rest on your chest with a sigh. “I just… I don’t… I-I don’t want you to…”
“What? Be scared off?” you say, stroking your hand through his hair.
“ Yes ,” he says, raising his head again, and then after a moment he pushes himself up onto his knees, and you both jolt as you realize that he never actually properly pulled out of you until now. He continues undeterred. “I don’t want you to go into this unprepared, and then be scared off, and then--” His breath catches, self-consciousness getting the better of him for a moment before he shuts his eyes, clenching his fists. “... and then leave.”
You stare at him for a moment, and then sit up, mirroring his position.
“I-I know it’s a little ironic, coming from the guy who left for ten years,” he says. “N-Not that I’d ever do that again, especially not to you, or anyone in my family, or--”
“Hey,” you say. “I know what I’m getting into.” You take his hands, leaning forward to rest your forehead against his. His thumbs brush over your knuckles, and he doesn’t meet your eyes. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t. You don’t have to worry about me going anywhere, ever. I promise.” You kiss his nose. “And… if you need more time to believe that before you say yes, that’s okay with me.”
It’s hard to say it, because you want him to be ready now , you want him to say yes, you want him , but despite your overenthusiasm, you have no desire to pressure him. Your impatience is something you can deal with on your own. You’re telling the truth -- he doesn’t have to worry about you going anywhere, regardless of what title is used to describe your relationship. He knows, now, exactly how much you’re willing to commit, and maybe that’s all he needs to hear for the moment.
He finally looks up at you, and his eyes go soft and sad again, like he’s melting from the inside out. He kisses you, sweet and slow, one hand on your chin. “Thank you. I love you,” he says.
“I love you, too.” You kiss him one more time for good measure, and then sigh. “Now… shower? You’ve got sand in your hair, amorcito. I’ve got sand in my hair, among other places. And I’ve got to… uh, get back to my parents, at some point, about the vision.”
He grins, bashful and a little embarrassed as you both remember how this all started. “Probably a good plan,” he says. Together you get dressed enough to go down to the casita’s single bathroom, and when you leave Bruno’s room it’s with clasped hands.