guy on the subway with one ear pierced, little gold hoop. other guy on the subway very quickly and subtly googling "which one is the gay ear". it is not the gay ear. visible disappointment on his face as he puts his phone away.
The basic premise of this fic is that Guillermo and Nandor are married and having relationship struggles that have led them to separate. It's still very much a work in progress and very loosely an outlet for me to process the inner workings of my own previous long-term relationship
Guillermo lay in the middle of their bed, staring through bleary, overfilled eyes at the ceiling, where shadows danced as the curtains shifted in the breeze.
He hated how big the bed felt.
He’d stretched himself across the middle of it, arms and legs spread wide, full starfish, and there was still room on either side of him.
It had never felt big before.
Usually, Guillermo was lucky if he got the edge.
But more often than not, he ended up on the floor with a pillow and the throw blanket he kept at the foot of the bed, which he’d lied to Nandor was purely decorative.
Guillermo had gotten surprisingly good at making himself comfortable down there.
At least until Nandor woke up, noticed he was missing, and hauled him back into bed, wrapping himself around Guillermo like some six-foot-one octopus.
That is until inevitably the whole process would start over again.
Guillermo turned his head and stared at the empty space beside him, at Nandor’s perfectly fluffed pillow and the smooth, untouched sheets where he could have been if Guillermo hadn’t asked for space.
Which, in hindsight, felt considerably less reasonable now that he was literally and figuratively lying in the bed he’d made.
But what else was he supposed to do when, little by little, they’d stopped showing up, and loving one another the way they needed to be loved?
Guillermo couldn’t pinpoint when it happened.
How had they gone from madly-in-love high-school sweethearts who could never get enough of each other to married thirty-somethings who had grown so indifferent toward one another that they felt more like roommates than a couple?
There wasn’t a moment Guillermo could point to.
No anniversary they’d forgotten. No catastrophic fight. No morning where he’d woken up, looked at Nandor, and suddenly loved him any less.
That would have been easier, honestly.
Instead, it had happened quietly.
So quietly that Guillermo hadn’t even noticed until one day he realized he couldn’t remember the last time Nandor had asked him about his day and actually seemed to want to know the answer.
Or the last time Guillermo had asked Nandor and hadn’t done it while answering an email, folding laundry, or thinking about the twelve other things he still had to do.
And that was the part Guillermo couldn’t stop thinking about.
Because Nandor hadn’t stopped loving him.
Guillermo knew that.
He hadn’t stopped loving Nandor either.
So how the hell had they gotten so bad at it?
Guillermo’s cellphone rang on the nightstand where it was plugged into the charger.
The familiar notes of Nandor’s ringtone startled Aspen awake beside the bed, his nails skittering against the hardwood as he lifted his head, tail beginning to thump against the floor in that same slow, lazy rhythm it always did when Nandor called.
“Traitor,” Guillermo muttered.
Which was admittedly a little hypocritical, considering he’d be doing the exact same thing if he had a tail.
But, to be fair, he’d been with Nandor for ten years.
At this point, the reaction was practically pavlovian.
It was all instinct.
A trick of sense memory.
A betrayal of mind, body, and every ounce of good sense he had left.
Which, when it came to Nandor, apparently amounted to none.
Ugh, he was really going to answer his phone, huh?
Guillermo swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his phone.
He glanced down at the screen, his lips twitching despite himself at the familiar photo staring back at him.
Hook, line and sinker.
Pathetic.
He swiped a thumb to accept the call.
“Guillermo?”
He sat up straighter.
“Hey,” Guillermo greeted, as nonchalantly as he could, despite the anxiety already twisting his stomach into knots. “Is everything okay?”
A sigh came through the receiver, followed by the soft rustle of blankets.
“No,” Nandor said, his voice cracking. “I’m not okay.”
“I’m on my way over,” Guillermo replied, already moving, phone wedged between his shoulder and ear as he began unbuttoning his pajama top. “Dr. Robinson should be on shift at the hospital tonight. We can call the office in the morning and schedule an emergency appointment with The Guide—”
“Guillermo.”
“—and if she can’t get you in, I still have the number for the crisis team somewhere, I just have to—”
“Guillermo!” Nandor snapped.
Guillermo froze.
“Could you fucking stop playing the martyr caretaker for one fucking moment and listen to me like you’re my husband instead of my goddamn caseworker?”
Guillermo went slack, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his hands falling from the buttons of his shirt to hang uselessly at his sides as he struggled to swallow around the lump forming in his throat.
“I—” Guillermo tried, but the word caught. He swallowed. Tried again. “I— I was just trying to help.”
Nandor let out a bitter laugh. One Guillermo had become all too familiar with these past few months. Then he sighed. “I know.”
A tear escaped Guillermo’s overfilled eyes and rolled hot down his cheek.
“You’re always trying to help.”
“Excuse me?” Guillermo scoffed, angrily wiping at the tears now falling freely down his cheeks. “You called me!”
“Yes, because I wanted to talk to you!”
“Then fucking talk!”
“I’m trying to!” Nandor snapped. “But you are getting angry at me.”
Guillermo stared at the phone in disbelief.
The absolute fucking nerve of this guy.
“I’m getting angry at you? You just yelled at me for trying to help you!”
“Because you weren’t listening!”
“You said you weren’t okay!”
“I’m not!”
“Then what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“Nothing!”
Guillermo recoiled.
“Fine.”
“No, Guillermo—”
“No, you want nothing from me? Fine.”
“I miss you,” Nandor said, all the fight suddenly gone from his voice. “I miss you so much, and I—” He paused, letting out a shaky exhale, followed by a wet sniff. “I can’t imagine a future where you’re not in it.”
Fanfic is a great way to practice self-indulgence while writing. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just exists purely for your pleasure, be a little freak about it. Worry about quality and what other people think when it comes to works you intend to publish in a formal setting
frodo getting criticized for decades for not doing much / not being a hero compared to sam is fitting when you consider mental health and strength is often trivialized. frodo carried the most dangerous and insidious item in middle earth for YEARS. ancient beings (elves, gandalf, etc) were taunted and tempted by it. boromir was corrupted within weeks without even touching it. men and hobbits turned against their brethren for it. killed for it. and frodo, with a wound from a morgul knife, bore it’s weight when no one else could. had it been anyone else, middle earth would have fallen.
no, he couldn’t have done it without his samwise. but isn’t that a lesson in itself?
My doctor gave me the all-clear. The good news is my kidney infection, and kidney abcess is fully gone, but the bad news is, I have low b12, low iron, and drum roll... type 2 diabetes 😅
Not eating enough and drinking enough water has kicked me in the ass
