AleRudy Drabble: Swapping places AU part 2/???
I donāt think this counts as a Drabble anymore.. this is a whole fanfic.
This is just an excuse to write Older! Alejandro and Younger! Rudy. (As in theyāre both adults.)
Itās been maybe two days since Alejandro had swapped places.
The tension in the barracks is likely at a breaking point. It has been 48 hours of pure, exhausting adrenaline for Rodolfo.
Every time he looks at this 6'3" mountain of a man, his brain short-circuits. The face is Alejoās, but the eyes belong to a ghost who has seen too many graves. Too much blood and lost way too many friends.
Worse, the Colonel does not know how to sit still. He is a Tier 1 operator trapped in a recruitās schedule, and his instinct to control the battlefield is actively ruining RodolfoMs life.
ā¦Rodolfo has hit many lows in life. He has broken many rules.. but he was breaking new ones.. Ones that will get him killedā He was forging signatures to keep Alejandro alive and out of radar of higher ups.
The Colonel keeps trying to pull real tactical data, requisition advanced gear, or rewrite squad patrol routes to avoid cartel ambushes he remembers from the future.. Something he would not have clearance to do in this universe.
Rudy has had to forge signatures for Sergeant Silva, the base quartermaster, and the platoon captain just to cover up the fact that "Private Vargas" is snooping through secure files.
If an auditor walked in, Rodolfo isnāt just getting kicked outā He will be sent to prison. He canāt go to prison.. He wonāt survive prison.
This has led to multiple arguments, ones that seemed to be brushed off as if the older man didnāt take a moment to THINK how much the younger man was putting his life on the line for. Should he? This guy was.. Wasnāt his. Rodolfo could very well just.. point this guy out to his sergeant, call him a fraud and an intruderā an imposter but he hasnāt.
Because this Alejandro clearly swapped with his. And if he wanted to get things back to normal.. he had to protect the colonel in a way.
Even if he may go to jail because of it.
Rudy slams his pen down, looking up at the giant towering over him. "Alejoāor Colonel, or whatever the hell Iām supposed to call youāyou need to sit down and shut up! I just signed three fake deployment waivers! If they catch us, we are going to a federal penitentiary before we even get to a higher rank!"
If there was one thing Rodolfo has noticed.. it was the nickname.
One, this guy keeps calling him āRudyā. Last time he checked.. there was no Rudy in the squadron, nobody else called him Rudy.
That is exactly what slips up the Colonelās cover more than anything else. In this era of their lives, nobody has call signs yet. They are just recruits and young soldiers using their real names or their last names stamped on their standard-issue green fatigues.
To the rest of the platoon, he is Private Parra. To the drill instructors, he is Soldado Parra.
But the Colonelās brain is hardwired after a decade of fighting side-by-side in the field. To him, the man standing in front of him isn't a fresh-faced Privateāhe is Rudy, his unbreakable second-in-command, the heart of Los Vaqueros.
Alejandro keeps forgetting that walls have ears and he isnāt in a world where he was the colonel. He was supposed to be a 5ā8 roughed twenty year old Corporal.
And Rodolfo was losing his shit. It was already hard to hide the 6ā3 foot man that was his best fucking friend. Who was apparently thirty eightā It was even harder to cover up the fucking mistakes he keeps saying.
The first few slip ups were private. Rodolfo allowed it because nobody else was around. But Alejandro forgets very quickly that he cannot say certain things. Especially to their sergeant.
The first public slip up happened during a training, comms were on, tension was high everyone was focused.
The Sergeant is shouting out names for guard duty. "Parra! Youāre on the south gate!" Alejandro, standing at the back of the formation, automatically grunts, "Negative, Sergeant, Rudyās boots are blowing out, put me on the south gate instead."
The entire squad freezes. The Sergeant stops pacing, staring blankly at Alejandro. "Who the hell is Rudy, Vargas? And did I ask for your tactical input on my guard rotation?"
Rodolfo, standing three rows ahead, turns completely white. He has to quickly cough and step forward, saluting aggressively. "MAāAM! Vargas is referring to me, Maāam! Itās a... a childhood nickname from Las Almas! Heās just stupid, Maāam!"
ā¦Itās a miracle that Alejandro is even alive.
But it was another slip up that made Rodolfo realize that.. he was something more.
There was.. another name Alejandro keeps using. āMi amorā.. My love.
Words Rodolfo has only been called by his mother. By stupid dates that barely lasted more than two weeks. By stupid hookups in barracks when he wanted to feel something.
At first it.. scared him. It really did. He was embarrassed, after all, being gay in the military was.. dangerous. Being in an open relationship with another man was seen as dangerous.. weird. Unnatural. Rodolfo didnāt think it was, his older brother was gay, living in the americas with his own husband who came to visit every few years.
But never would he do it himself, not now anyway. Not when this is where he wants to be.
But Alejandro said it so effortlessly.
The way he always reached for his hand, or leaned his head onto the youngerās shoulder.. the need to be close or to touch.. felt strange but Rodolfo never pushed the man off. His Alejandro did similar things, they hugged, sometimes they cuddled but it never meant anything.
They were childhood friends. Theyāve shared a bed once or twice sure. Theyāve talked about the future and how they wanted to spend it together for eternity.. yeah. But that was normal wasnāt it, best friends wanting to spend their lives together?
The realization doesnāt hit Rodolfo during a loud argument or a high-stakes tactical drill. It hits him in the absolute, crushing silence of the barracks at three in the morning, under the dim beam of a stolen military flashlight.
Rodolfo is sitting on the floor, his back pressed against his locker, staring at the heavy, customized tactical vest he found hidden at the bottom of the Colonelās gear stash.. He probably shouldnāt butā¦
His fingers trace the worn nylon webbing. He is looking for answers, for any clue about who this 6'3" giant truly is. Maybe he was reading everything wrong.
Thatās when his thumb catches on a small, hidden zipper inside the interior mesh liningāa pocket meant for survival items, maps, or emergency blood-type cards.
There are no documents inside, just a heavy, matte-black poncho linear wrapping something small. Rodolfo unwraps it and two items fall into his palm.
The first is a standard-issue Mexican Army dog tag, but the edges are wrapped in black silencer rubber to keep them from clinking in the dark. Rudy holds it up to the flashlight. It doesn't say Alejandro Vargas.
Rodolfoās breath hitches. He looks down at his own chest, where his current, shiny, silver dog tags are resting. The one in his hand is scratched, dented, and stained with dried, dark iron. His future self's tag.
The Colonel has been carrying his identity against his chest this entire time. Then, he picks up the second item. Itās a heavy, scratched titanium band.
Itās looped through a piece of high-strength paracord, meant to be worn around the neck when a soldier is in the field and can't wear jewelry on their fingers.
Rodolfo stares at it, his brain spinning in circles.
A ring. He turns it over in his hand, and the flashlight catches a tiny, crude inscription scratched into the inside of the metal band.
Alejo & Rudy. Vaqueros para siempre.
And suddenly.. everything makes senseā¦
The way the colonelās voice softened around him only.
The rage whenever Valeria or someone stepped too close or talked down at Rodolfo.
The casual way those massive arms wrapped around him at night, when their bunk could barely fit two people, let alone a man twice his size.
āMi amorā being whispered whenever they were alone.
It felt like a stupid dream, some stupid sci-fi nightmare that somehow took his best friend and brought him back in time to.. to.. haunt him. He assumed everything the Colonel said or did was just another tease. They were close. Brothers, best friends since high school.. they did everything together and theyā
But holding that scratched titanium ring, Rodolfo realizes the terrifying, beautiful truth: in the twenty years he hasn't lived yet, they didn't just stay partners. They didn't just stay friends.
They got married. They became everything to each other.
ā¦A bed creaked, the metal frame groaning under the weight of something heavy. Rodolfo didnāt look up, couldnāt take his eyes off the silver ring in his hand, it was.. was warm. It was hisā well, not his exactly but.. to think it would be in the future.
"You shouldn't be looking through that, Rudy."
The deep, gravelly voice cuts through the dark like a knife. Rodolfo glanced up slowly.
The Colonel is standing over him. In the shadows of the barracks, his frame looks impossibly large, blocking out the faint moonlight from the windows. He is just wearing his green undershirt and uniform trousers, his bare shoulders mapping out scars that Rodolfo has never seen beforeāshrapnel marks, bullet entry wounds, a long blade-slash across his ribs.
He barely had scars like that, a few bruises and cuts from training but nothing that looked remotely.. gruesome.
The Colonel looks down at the ring in Rudy's hand. He doesn't look angry. He just looks profoundly, agonizingly exposed. The fierce, untouchable leader of Los Vaqueros looks like heās bleeding out right in front of him.
Rodolfo swallows hard, his voice coming out as a tiny, breathless whisper. He holds up the paracord, the titanium ring dangling between them.
"Ale..." Rodolfoās voice cracks, completely abandoning the title of Colonel for the first time since he found the gear. "What... what am I to you?"
There was a moment of silence between them, weighing the options of telling or keeping it down. Who knows what could happen.. if somehow this would ruin the flow of the future or if it wouldnāt matter. If both of them would lose their memory or destroy itā¦
Alejandro knew Rodolfo. He knew the man overthinks to the point of headaches, his younger self was the same with even more anxiety.
But the Colonel slowly sinks to the floor beside the younger man, his bones cracking, clearly he was too old for this kind of thing, he usually doesnāt have to crouch down. He doesnāt reach for the ring, he just pulls his knees to his chest and looks at Rodolfoā really looks. tracing the unmarred, youthful skin of an 18-year-old who hasn't seen the horrors of war yet.
"You are my second-in-command.. My Sergeant Major," Alejandro says softly, his deep voice thick with an emotion he has been suffocating for two days. "You are the finest soldier I have ever commanded. You are my home, Rodolfo."
Alejandro reaches out, his massive, scarred hand hovering in the air between them, hesitating, before he gently rests his knuckles against Rudy's cheek. Itās the exact same tender gesture from the fuel trucks, but this time, Rudy doesn't pull away. He doesn't flinch. "In five years, we form Los Vaqueros," Alejandro whispers, his thumb brushing over Rudy's cheekbone.
"In ten years, we stop caring what the generals think. And in twelve years... you made me buy that cheap piece of metal in a civilian market because you said if we were going to die in the mountains, you wanted the medics to know exactly who to send my body home to."
Rodolfo stares at the giant. He looks at the ring. The sheer weight of the futureāof a deep, fierce, unbreakable love that he hasn't even grown into yetāsettles squarely on his 18-year-old shoulders. He isn't just trying to save his best friend from a court-martial anymore. He is looking at his future husband.
Rudy takes a shaky breath, closes his palm around the titanium ring, and looks up into Alejandro's eyes.
"We're really going to get court-martialed if you keep looking at me like that in the daylight," Rudy whispers, a tiny, watery smile breaking through his panic.
Alejandro lets out a low, breathy laugh, leaning his forehead against Rudy's shoulder, his massive frame finally relaxing for the first time since he crossed the timeline. "Then you better keep forging those papers, mi amor."
