After a Hundred Years of Solitude...
One Shot
Word Count - Almost 4k
Pedro Pascal x Reader (No use of Y/N; No name mentioned but Reader is 37YO woman & an Indian Desi)
Fluffy fluff first date sofff fluff
Tags - Mention of domestic violence in passing + Slight mentions reader having body image issues but beautiful-est baby Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal makes you feel beautiful.
Set in an alternate universe where Pedro Pascal relocates to Mumbai, India & opens up a cafe for actors, while working in theatre.
A/N - Literally just imagined an AU where someone sets me up with JPBBabyP. And then recently, when he mentioned this book as part of his all time faves, my heart melted. Given its everyone & their dog's favourite book, still, here's my love for this gorgeous man's impeccable taste.
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“I was just wondering… how do I resist you?"
That’s what he said to me. And he knew he had me, all my attention in that moment. I tried to pretend, tried to look like it didn’t matter, like that line hadn’t just taken the air out of my lungs. But we both knew. We knew he had me - Hook, line & sinker.
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After more than a year of being single & completely out of the dating circuit, it was exciting to have been suddenly confronted with a blind date. You were going to say no but his name was really Spanish sounding. Apparently he was a Chilean-American man, late 40s (kinda scary?), recently settled in Mumbai - what he called Soulful New York (kinda sweet?), opening up a cafe for actors while also working as an actor in the theatre scene here.
It was intriguing.
A young, new colleague was playing Emma. You resisted being cast as the old woman who was being set up with an even older (maybe sadder?) Man. But that’s just how it was.
You were already on the fringe of polite society, what with the divorce & the freelancing. You'd almost completely stopped trying to fit in. Thrown in the proverbial towel with all your tattoos. The latest had been one on the front of your neck - A part women try & preserve with serums & elixirs. The same part that two of the most important men in your life held once, with the intent of violence.
You didn't feel sorry for yourself. You'd gone through enough shit to finally learn to choose yourself. Not wait for someone else to choose you... the cost had been too great. And yet…
There was still a tiny whisper, to belong with another person. An ancient longing that didn’t call for your truth to be bartered.
Considering the weird times you were living through, you tried to accept your part as the weird older woman, at the beginning of the novel, immaterial to the real plot about the shiny, young inexperienced, arrogant Emma.
So you went along with it.
You timed your travel to reach a bit late. Armed with the exit strategy of leaving if you didn’t like the look of him. Unfortunately, your strategy was dead on arrival because as you walked into the semi-constructed cafe, he was already watching you.
Wide eyed. And when you glanced at the book in front of him - he understood you were his blind date. The book was supposed to be your guys' “red rose”. It was this particular one because you both had recommended the same book to Emma in the same week - that's how she had the bright idea of setting the two of you up.
A connection that went into the pro column when you debated this blind set up. Blind as it had been, you suddenly felt thankful for it.
You rummaged through the black hole that was your bag for your copy of the same book. But by the time you looked up, he was standing, pulling a chair out for you.
“I thought it was you... Hi... welcome to the soon-to-be Cafe Macondo...”
You were surprised, "Macondo"...
Serendipitously, it was the moment that you finally fished out your copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
He smiled & held his hand out, “Jose… but you can call me Pedro. I want to know how to pronounce your name... even Emma didn't know how to...”
He had already exceeded any exceptions you had in the looks department - he was gorgeous, in a way like he'd been ruffled around… Like life had tossed him from the frying pan to the fire & back again. And such were his genetic good looks that he only seemed mildly sautéed. His messy hair looked stylistically messy, like he’d come here on horseback. You managed to keep my internal commentary inside while he called for a water for you.
You told him how to pronounce your name, your official government name. You exchanged pleasantries, how far you both lived from here, where you were now at in your careers. He showed you the menu he'd been developing & recommended coffees. You chose your staple - an Americano.
"Ah, a purist!" He exclaimed.
You shook your head. "No not at all, I still have instant coffee when I'm home..." you confessed.
"Hmmmm..."
You laughed, which made him grin, "It's okay... you can judge me... I should change that..."
The coffees arrived. Sure enough, the americano was delicious & you told him so. The part you skipped was how you thought of him as delicious too.
And yet, he was looking at you like you'd said that out loud. Both of you were sipping your coffees; slowly, and really, just drinking each other in.
You loved how he was looking at you… & you loved looking at him, taking you in, visually. That sounds patriarchal at best & narcissistic at worse but you just felt so good, looking at yourself from his eyes - it sort of scared you. You weren't used to being looked at, let alone being almost... coveted... by such a gorgeous man.
You loved looking at him too, with that perfect messy hairdo and the cupid-bow lips. The sparkle in his eyes... he had that rogue pixie rascal-ish, boyish magic... the kind that makes girls forget about consequences.
Just the mere fact that the two of you were on a date, it was as though you both were collectively flirting with a certain romantic, sexual potential - You’d forgotten how heady this cocktail was.
When you were finally through with the small talk, about how you both knew Emma in your lives, there was a lull in the conversation.
Something you'd usually rush in to fill but this time, you just sat back, in silence, watching him. He struggled with it a bit, maybe you’d know later on, what was going on in his mind exactly but for now, it was nice... not taking the responsibility for every passing moment in the date.
You were wondering when it was that you’d gotten this ease, this relaxed demeanour when he asked -
“So… why is this your favourite book?”
“Mmm… usually a book is a doorway into one mind, one life… but this one, this is more like a portal than a book. It’s infinite doors into a whole generation… I love how he jumps from one character at this point in time to another, like 70 years ahead, sometimes…”
“I’m obsessed with this idea…” He leaned in further at that, looking so intently at you that you felt your cheeks flush. He chuckled slightly, his own blush colouring the conversation.
“No please… go ahead… I want to hear about your obsessions…”, the Spanish inflection on his tongue made the word obsession sound a lot less crazy & a lot more inviting.
“Hmmm so… I always think about patrilineage vs matrilineage - like, how the male line of a family is sort of straight, linear, one clear line but when you think about the female line, she’s spread across the page, all over… she dominates the whole… story, the human story — its sort of scary…”
He nodded, smiling, “It is scary. Men don’t like thinking about that… but we know, we know its the Woman who’s ultimately going to mean anything in this world and she’s going to gobble us up, no matter how strong we might pretend—”
Your eyes must have widened when he said gobble because he smiled apologetically & tried to explain, “No I mean like, the woman will just sort of… devour—” He gulped down his own sentence, which made you laugh. He tried to speak to correct himself but you interrupted.
“No, I get it. Women do devour. Or at least they can… metaphorically.”
“And literally... if you really think about it, its the man that disappears into the woman...” There was literal heat being generated now & both your smiles asked the other to stop. You had taken this topic as far as it could go. For now...
He asked if you wanted more coffee or water & when you said no, he called for some water for himself.
Could you possibly be making this gorgeous man nervous? Normally you’d be second-guessing-spiralling already but these days, you had begun to just believe what you was feeling. So, you just went along with it. You took his copy of the book, looked at the cover art & then asked -
“Have you read it in Spanish?”
He shook his head to say no, with some embarrassment,“I barely read it in English. I’m a really slow reader.”
You smiled to let him know that’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
“That’s part of why I was nervous to meet you…” he went on, “Emma said you read like crazy.”
“Well yeah… I only started reading-reading after college”—
He smiled. “Oh… of course, you know, new place, new person…”
You nodded but then he shook his head to say no. And then looked you square in the eyes, with a depth of conviction you thought you would never see in a man, “I know dating is supposed to be this game, like I get it, I like the game too but can I just be honest with you? Without sort of completely going off the rails… I— I don’t want to scare you”—
You nodded to say no, “I actually don’t like the game. You can just be honest.”
He took a breath, & you just looked at him, this perfect angelic-faced man with those chocolate brown eyes, that messy hair & then he said, “So look, I’m… I’m nervous because you’re clearly— like… & I wasn’t expecting you to be so…” He trailed off leaving a lot of questions in the air, disappointed with himself for not being able to express what he wanted to say.
“Well, you know, I’ve seen Indian women… around... don’t get me wrong they’re beautiful… but you seem more Latina than Indian or maybe even Native American…”
He wanted to take his words back, “Not that… I don’t know… clearly, I’m not good at this. Sorry, can we just fast forward & assume I said something flattering?” He composed himself with a smile, the boyish pixie smile, which he knew works like a charm.
You smiled. He was allowed a fumble.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, yes please.” His eyes thanked me from saving him from blabbering.
“What do you remember about your 18th birthday?”
This stumped him. As it had stumped you when I heard it as a sort of introductory query.
“Uh… wow… 18… that’s a looong time… but you, yeah you remember the 90s right?” I nodded. “Uh… it must have been a few years since we moved to USA & it wasn’t particularly exciting because I didn’t have that many friends but uhm my sisters, yeah they’d baked a cake for me, well then I had one sister & a brother… she’s a trans woman now…” He looked for signs of alarm or discomfort but was satisfied with the smile you had.
“I think I’d just sort of discovered drama & the arts… you know, the art programmes in public schools…” I nodded & he went on, “Yeah, uhhh I auditioned for Jean-Val-Jean in the school musical but I didn’t get it so my birthday wasn’t that great, it was with family, pretty low-key, just… you know…”
He chuckled. A non-performative sort of smile. You had to keep looking away for fear of falling too hard and too fast into those deep, kind, brown eyes.
You called for some strange flavoured iced coffee just to keep yourself distracted & he joined in. Both of you joked a bit about what hibiscus flavour actually tasted like and if it was just a ruse for the cafe to sell mildly flowery tasting coffee. But you two ended up ordering it & a coconut flavoured coffee! That adventurous order might have been a conversation buffer because you needed to stop thinking about how much you loved his laugh.
He asked me about your 18th birthday and you told him it was a big family thing - or at least that’s how you remember it now, it could just as well be your sister’s birthday. You complained, “My memory is really bad… its like a sieve. There’s really very little I truly remember.”
He smiled almost apologetically, “That could be a gift, you know, not remembering...”
You nodded. You didn’t know what he was talking about and yet, somehow did know exactly what he meant. The inflection of grief under his breath was too sharp not to miss. You smiled sweetly, letting him know you felt it.
Next thing you know, you couldn’t stop myself, “It’s nice to meet someone new who’s…” you didn’t want to say old, “you know, not 20 something…”
He made a mock appalled face - “Wait, you can tell I’m not 20?!”
You laughed out loud, “Yeah, you know the dentures really give it away…” He knocked on his not-really-fake teeth, shrugging in resignation & smiling with utter delight. You went on, “You should really get some work done.” I gestured fake-face-lifting.
He chuckled, “Yeah I should… who’s your guy?”
You replied, “Oh I just get a tattoo over any signs of ageing…”
He laughed out loud as you went on, “Yeah all of this…” you gestured to your whole face, “It’s just colour work…”
He couldn’t be more tickled, “Colour theory… it really works.”
You loved laughing with him. It didn’t seem like you were meeting him for the first time but you had promised yourself to stop thinking about eternal romance-lore like that.
Thankfully the adventurous coffees arrived. You tasted them, tentatively, but constantly glancing at the other, like both of you were also testing each other’s reactions.
When you exchanged the coffees, you were too acutely aware of putting your lips to the his straw. In a way it seemed like a line being crossed and both of you crossing it, eagerly, irreversibly. He caught you looking at him & you shied away from his knowing gaze. He was reassuring me it was okay to look. That he was also looking.
You sipped a bit more on your respective coffees before he asked if you wanted to make the order to-go and take a walk. I agreed.
You really really liked him. But you wasn’t ready to show it just yet. Or rather, spell it out explicitly, because your heart, your flushed pink cheeks, your body language were all probably screaming it out to him.
You had offered but he was talking to his staff & he turned around just when you looked away. He called out for you & got your name right, “Would you like something else? A quick bite?”
The wolves inside you both howled but that was not the kind of bite he was offering. You smiled (a bit too much?) & bit your lip to stop you from blushing as you shook your head to say no.
“Uhm… Pedro…?” you tried to say his name right too, with the soft ‘D’ sound. He looked at you expectantly, those wide eyes again & you had to search your brain a little before you said, “I really like... your cafe...”
That pause, it wasn't intentional but if he didn’t know how you’d been feeling about this date, about him… before, you had just made it crystal clear what you really liked. He simply smiled.
Both of you walked around the cafe, talking about the pretty gullies lined with trees, your pet name, his whole name which was longer than your own (very long) official name. You spoke about how countries with a lot of people in them, gave their little brown children long names & how that might be because then the little kids running around would be more identifiable. He stopped abruptly to ask -
“Do you like kids?” You nodded to say yes but he went on, “As in, would you like your own someday?”
“That’s a big question… um if I’m able to, naturally… I’d love to… But only if it happens on its own... I don’t know if I’d like to go through treatment to sort of “get” children.” You explained.
He nodded, perhaps trying to understand your vague stance. You asked him what he felt. The conflict was written all over his face before he answered - “I want to celebrate my heritage, my family, I would love to have a family - a traditional family with a wife & kids but then when I see everything going on in the world today, demons run amok… I don’t know if we should add to humanity at a point like this…”
As you two walked ahead you thought about it for a while - about whether you should let this man have a glimpse of your mind.
Because you had wrestled with this very conflict & found a rather brilliant answer. You suddenly worried if you left your phone back at the cafe. You both had walked quite a ways away from the cafe, so you felt awkward. You turned toward your bag, away from the side he was on to check whether you’d just dumped your phone in my bag-void while you quickly explained my sudden burst of movements.
But in that split second, you felt him lean in (& sort of downwards) toward you. You could feel his nose almost touching your hair & felt him inhale deeply. You found the phone but kept looking a moment longer, just to confirm that this wasn’t a delusion.
Even after having it confirmed, you couldn’t think about it a second more, for fear of bursting into flames. He reminded you about the conversation, about your response to this quandry.
Something secret & yet simple within you just opened your doors to him, without you realising when or why -
You replied, “Yes… there are demons. Which is why I won’t feel guilty giving birth to demon-slayers.”
He stopped walking. you looked back at him, staring at you, amazed. It was one of the highlights of your year - up until then at least. He was impressed - “I’ve never heard it put that way, you know?”
It took a few moments for his awe to fade but while he wrapped his head around how brilliant that thought was, you were waiting for your hands to touch. It didn’t happen. His hands were either in his pockets or messing up his already gorgeously messed up hair.
When the two of you stopped & sat by a huge stairway, you asked hm how he deals with the heat & he said it’s one of his favourite things about the city - that he was never a cold weather person. He blamed it on the Latin-American genes.
In a moment, once again, he sort of leaned in toward you. In your head, you was fact-checking what he had said (because aren’t chilean winters really harsh?).
He spoke in a sort of hushed way that made his voice sound even more hoarse & weather worn, “So I want to try saying what I wanted to say again… you know what I just honestly wanted to…?”
You nodded. You didn’t like feeling this much like a schoolgirl again.
He went on, “But I want you to promise me something… You won’t think of this as a line… because it’s not… it’s really not & I know you probably might think that this isn’t a big deal for me because of where I come from & just... how I am… I know I work it at times but that whole image… that’s really not who I am, you know?”
You just smiled looking at him, because you could see that, strangely. And you were loving discovering him as this shy, fumbling little boy, trying to express himself.
You just softly said, “Tell me…”
“When I saw you… I just instantly, you know, unconsciously, wondered… how do I resist you?!”
It seemed like an eternity, of both of you just breathing deeply, looking ahead, avoiding the other’s gaze. The heat gathering between you getting harder & harder to ignore.
He whispered, “Please say something.”
Suddenly you wished it was night and you both were not out in the open but indoors where you wouldn’t need to say anything at all. Where you both could let only your eyes talk, or only your bodies. But it was better this way, safer to be out in public, to be forced to be slow. I realised you still hadn’t said anything.
“Honestly?” you asked and he nodded desperately, as if that’s what he needed the most. You spoke -
“That’s a little hard for me to believe… but that’s because of my life and my experiences. Having said that… thank you, for the compliment. Uhm, also, can I ask”— he nodded again, in a way that you could see the little boy he was, that he still was.
“Why do you want to resist?” you asked.
He sighed, “Hmmm... because I’ve gotten used to resisting joy, resisting true beauty… resisting calm… that’s part of why I moved here but… its been surprisingly calming…”
You smiled. “You know earlier when I was saying its nice to meet someone new who’s old too…” He nodded, sincerely. “It’s great because we’re too old to pretend we know… or understand life…”
He nodded with a smile, like he knew exactly what you were talking about. He came close to you & whispered, “We’re too old to pretend to resist it… even when its rushing at us, million miles a minute…”
Your face was hot, flushed with the tension of having him be so close to me, breathing you in while I melted. You had to back away, for fear of leaning in further.
You laughed awkwardly, “I can’t believe this is a first date.”
“A blind date!” he said & you both chuckled at the sudden, fragile familiarity of what you were both feeling. He rested his head on your shoulder & breathed into my neck. And suddenly you only existed where he was touching you.
He drew back, saying, “I’m sorry, I know this is not okay to do… here… & I have, I have been doing well but you”—
You interrupted him- “I want to go slow. I… need to go slow. But I also don’t want to… be resisted… so just tell me if you don’t”—
He stood up, almost physically stopping you from finishing that thought, “No… Um, I… I feel like I used the word resist because… I’m scared.” He was sweating. You could hear the tremble in his voice.
“Can I…? Is this okay…?” He looked around to check if it wasn’t wrong to stand really close to me, with his knees touching yours.
You smiled & wrapped both your legs around one of his, pulling him closer. He lost his balance a bit & kept his hands on your shoulder for support.
“Relax… This is okay.” you told him, how you could talk is a mystery in itself.
He let his hands relax on your shoulders & you made a noise that was half grunt, half moan. You couldn’t help but show him how much you liked it. You don’t know if that's what made him blush but when you opened my eyes, his cheeks were flushed. “Couldn’t resist…” you teased.
His hands eased a bit more, moving from your shoulders to your neck & back again.
He smiled & said, “So… I don’t know what experiences make it hard to believe that you have this… this… effect on people, its definitely not just me, by the way… I do want to know why you think like that… later… as slowly as you want… but you…”
He lifted your face, your chin, making you meet his gaze, as he said, “You… couldn’t be more gorgeous. And as scary as it is for me to open my heart again…” There that tremble was again. You let your feet slowly caress his legs. That made him take a pause beforehe could continue… “As scary as it is, it would be - a-mazing - to get to know you, if you would let me.”
It was scary to be seen like he was seeing you now. It was also needed. You loved being seen, being perceived just as you always dreamt of, by him. Just as you saw him... trying to be part of the world again, just like you, after a hundred years of solitude.
You smiled. He brushed your hair back. Hair that you hadn’t even bother touching up with colour before my “big blind first date” & he, Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal, kissed your forehead.
But then again, so was he.
