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Rafael hadn’t known the men had moved into the grand villa his abuela’s small cabin resided by for quite some time. That was mainly because he only visited his abuela in the summers - the only justification for the expensive journey to Matanzas - and the villa had been empty for as long as Rafael could remember.
He felt a hot rush of fascination and guilt when he ran through the cast iron gates into the airy plaza on the second day of his stay in retrieval of the surfboard he had kept in the storage closet, only to be met with a scarred gringo and his genial lover. The gringo, predictably, only knew stilted spanish, so Rafael’s limited english and their combined thick accents had made for a horrifying introduction. The lover - thank god - had been fluent in spanish, and in the space of time it took for Rafael to slump in relief and for the man to tie his robe around his half naked self, Rafael was understood and ushered to the closet to commence his raid.
The surfboard was retrieved, and Rafael had left the villa with less than a goodbye that was awkwardly louder than his quick steps pounding against the polished marble tiles. Thorough embarrassment burned his insides and trailed up the back of his neck, where, no doubt, a fierce blush had spread. And for the first few weeks of his summer vacation, Rafael had avoided the dirt path carved through vegetation that led towards the villa, always running straight home from the beach or village, expertly avoiding any more incidents or stilted conversation with the foreign men.
All in all, Rafael’s summer wasn’t too bad, even if it began on the wrong foot.
Rafael had had his first kiss on the villa steps with Maria Marquez, who he had tried to charm with the lush greens of the overgrown garden and the good cooking his abuela indulged them with. That was two summers ago, and Rafael had long surrendered his war for Maria’s affection when he returned to Matanzas the next year only to be informed by his abuelo and his domino buddies, through savoring puffs of their cigars, that Maria had picked herself up a boyfriend in the school year.
(And - they tacked on - if he really fancied himself a Casanova, he could relieve tío Salvador of his leech of a daughter that still lived with them after college.
Rafael had grimaced at the thought, and tío had roared with laughter.)
He hadn’t been particularly heartbroken - in fact, he’d been glad to leave the summer before, as Maria had demanded a thorough romancing like she had seen in movies that Rafael simply had no interest in - or funding for.
(And he told tío Salvador just as much, and was slipped a handful of pesos for his grief.)
It had been two years since Rafael had even spared a thought for Maria, outside awkwardly avoiding her when he went to the market for groceries or flowers for his widowed abuela, but once he had accidentally spotted the men kissing tenderly as if they were to be parted forever on the same steps he had kissed Maria all those years ago, when a game of catch went too far and Rafael had to venture into the underbrush to retrieve their ball and became the unintentional voyeur.
(He had stated for longer than he meant to, so drawn in to the unadulterated passion of their kiss that heat licked through his gut and stayed burning steadily like a fire’s embers even when Jaime had called his name and sent him scuttling back empty handed. He had laid awake for a long while that night, weighing how he felt for the pretty girl who lived down the block back home in Cienfuegos, and how wound up simply witnessing their kiss had made him feel.
Rafael didn’t reach any answers that night, but he did reach a short euphoria twice, quietly, with the help of one of his socks, pulled over the edge with visions he could piece together of both. Which only led to more questions than anything else.)
Though, Rafael hadn’t truly understood the full gravity of being a true voyeur until the day his abuela insisted he deliver what she declared to be a long overdue housewarming gift to the happy couple she hadn’t known existed until she’d run into the charming foreign man and his shy American lover just days ago at the market (Rafael wished she had simply sent him that day instead, despite the dangerous chance of him seeing Maria again).
So, that was how Rafael was sent through the door with a wooden crate full of flowers weighed down at the bottom with Ropa Veija, Tostones, and leftover Arroz Con Polo that had Rafael’s stomach protesting at the abandonment of such good food at the doorstep of the foreign men who might spit and pout at the odd taste of it as so many tourists did.
Rafael really hadn’t wanted to go.
And Rafael arrived at the rich villa, the gates were locked tight. That should have been his first warning, in hindsight.
He briefly considered leaving the crate by the gate, but winced at the image of his abuela’s miserably disappointed face he knew she’d levy against him if he didn’t return with a full report of how the entire delivery went, and Rafael just didn’t have the strength to lie to her after his abuelo had died.
So, he made his way to the back of the grounds and squeezed through the rusted gap in between the cast iron fence - long widened with age and the amount of times interlopers squeezed through them, sliding the wooden crate underneath the bottom in a tight squeeze.
He crunched through the newly manicured lawn, wincing at the damage before steeling himself with images of tourists scrunching their noses and spitting perfectly fine food into scrunched napkins and asking for ‘plain Kay-Saah-Dill-Ah’s’.
Rafael trampled a flower bush and kicked over a lawn ornament for his own sake.
(Who the hell put up lawn ornaments as if there was a distinction between Villa land and Beach in Matanzas?
Ah, right, Foreigners; Rafael rolled his eyes.)
Property destruction executed on his way to the double doors of the villa entrance, Rafael felt satisfied as he laid down his heavy luggage to knock on the door.
Flinching slightly at the unexpectedly loud reverberations Rafael had never heard - having never actually knocked on the door - he rapped out a quick three hits, waiting.
Some muffled noise traveled the opposite direction from inside the villa, as loud and echoing as Rafael’s original knock had been; damned acoustics.
Rafael knocked again, even carefully hedging a, “Hello?”
Only the quiet corners of the house returned his call. The sound traveled as loud as it had the first time, and the answering crash that flew back had Rafael’s on his toes to try and glimpse through the peephole of the door, morbidly curious. He couldn’t really see anything - he couldn’t think of one time anyone actually successfully looked the opposite way in through a peephole - but he had gotten a response he wasn’t expecting.
From what had to have been the first floor of the Villa, the foreign man called out, somewhat strangled; ‘¡Estamos ocupados! Vuelve más tarde!’
Now, at the response from the man who wore perfectly clean and pressed linen suits, Rafael was more than intrigued.
Of course, this would have been his second warning, that he blindly ignored in the moment - all his fear and trepidation about the gringo and his meticulous lover momentarily forgotten for the shock of such an odd and almost rude dismissal.
No. He carried his abuela’s gifts, and Rafael would’ve been damned if he didn’t hand deliver them with a smile and turn his back to flee before he had to witness an act infuriating display against his culture and country.
And a small part of Rafael really was quite curious about the strange cracking in the foreign man’s voice, and the vicious crash it followed. Were they remodeling and simply too nervous to mention it for fear of offending the townspeople?
Nevertheless, Rafael knew the layout of the Villa like the back of his hand after spending years running through its halls for heated games of Hide and Seek, Explorer, or simply playing House. The first floor was big, but there were only so many rooms. The middle was almost an open atrium, a square cut through both floors and filled with fruit trees and marble and a smattering of statues that Rafael and his old friends had always leaned on to count to five hundred for Hide and Seek.
Besides that, the Villa was fairly simple - and even spartan in some aspects. Only three rooms on the first floor, two at the front, one at the back, and five rooms on the second.
Narrowing his eyes, Rafael considered.
The sound hadn’t been too loud, and drawing from his experience on how childish screams and laughter carried through the halls...
He made his way around to the back. The last room on the first floor of the Villa was the biggest in the entire house, and the brightest too - with wall to ceiling windows and marble flooring that faced North so that light always filtered through and blinded whichever poor soul thought playing in it would be fun.
Flooded with nostalgia and memories while he trekked through recently groomed hedges and grass, Rafael almost hadn’t noticed the sounds until he had rounded the corner to the back of the villa.
Harsh, clapping noises, almost like applause given with nervous and sweaty hands, was what met his ears first.
And then came the voices.
Groaning, mumbling, harsh words cut off by frustrated exclamations in a language Rafael only encountered in school and the occasional adventurous dip into porn.
Stock still, half turned around the corner to the back of the villa, Rafael stood frozen in shock. The afternoon sun reflected harshly off the impeccably clean windows, leaving no image to cement itself into his mind, but the sounds.
Christ, the sounds.
That was what would stay with Rafael for what seemed like eternity. They filled his ears with a deafening clarity that drowned out the crash of the wooden crate as it sipped from his fingers, and followed him as he ran back through the bushes and past the lawn ornaments, back to his abuela’s small cabin nestled by the beach where he would jerk himself into confusion.
After piecing together the Crime Scene, as it were, Will had realized almost immediately, with one glance, just exactly what happened.
The only problem being - Will and Hannibal weren’t having sex.
The sink had broken. And Hannibal was being an utter asshole (no real surprise there).
Will sighed to himself as he investigated under the sink and in the pipes for any clues, on his back, reaching high and bowing his spine so that his work shirt rode up just enough for a smiling scar to peak through. But Hannibal proved himself to have become a eunuch in the short time between their amorous lunch and the sink malfunction, and Will relinquished any hope for distracting kitchen sex when all Hannibal hovered over his waist for was to try and tuck his own head under the sink and backseat plumber his way out of Will’s good graces.
Surrendering himself to a dull afternoon with a micro managing cannibal, Will brought out the plunger, and set to work.
Not even five goddamn minutes in, and Hannibal was criticizing his technique, his decision, his force, poking and prodding at Will. He knew Hannibal was trying to get him to let go of the stick so that he could swoop in and do some obscure wrist flick he discovered while watching his daytime cooking shows (always swearing up and down that he would never consume such nonsensical drivel despite the telling internet receipts) and turn to Will with his ‘I’m so much better than you, beloved mongoose which I mercifully deign to provide for’, and Will would be forced to hit his unbearably smug face with his lips.
He hated Hannibal on days like those, shoving his hands away from the sink and huffing out irritated dismissals, insisting that he had it handled, and that Hannibal better make that one goddamn blue cobbler pie for his efforts.
Someone knocked at the door, and Will batted Hannibal away to go answer it, only to knock over the bowl holding the salad accompaniment to their interrupted lunch.
The lettuce and dressing went flying across the kitchen tile, but Will could hardly spare a moment to apologize, as he felt the pressure of the plunger increase in a telling motion that meant it caught on its target. Will gasped in relief, and continued.
Hannibal called out to the visitor as he wiped down the floor, neither of them in any sort of mood to entertain anyone.
The sound of the suction cup grew wetter, almost obscene, and Will felt the strain in his arms as he picked up the pace in relieved excitement. Hannibal disposed of their meal, and once again decided to be an utter nuisance, fluttering around Will and advising he change his posture for better effects.
“Darling, if you’d simply let me-“
Will snapped at him before he could even finish the thought, “Goddamnit, Hannibal! Not now, I’ve almost-“
“But you’d have far more success if you pushed less with your biceps and more from your shoulders,” he retorted, equally as harsh but more muted to the naked ear. Will could hear the quiet crack of irritation in it, though. Hannibal would have to apologize for being such a shit soon, or else Will would exact his revenge with the help of one of the local strays in the near future.
Panting, Will gritted out a reply, “I don’t give a shit, Hannibal, and I’m almost-“
The plunger gave a wet pop, and the sink finally drained.
And that was when the crash met their ears. The victorious moment evaporated, Will and Hannibal had immediately set to investigate, prowling close to the noise, tense and guarded.
It was two blissful years into their escape, and marriage. They wouldn’t tolerate a threat. As they reached the back door, Will held his plunger aloft threateningly, and Hannibal had palmed the scalpel he kept tapped under the sink, ready to strike.
Neither of them expected the crate, or the delicious food. The retreating back of the sweet neighbor boy calmed them both, and amused Will to no end when he realized what the situation and sounds must have come across as.
Of course, in the overtly hormonal yet obliviously emotional nature that came of being a 15 year old boy - naturally, he had assumed, what he considered to be, the worst.
Will nearly laughed himself sick over the Arroz Con Polo, and Hannibal rolled his eyes fondly at the sight, patting his back with soft but firm hands when he began to cough more than he chuckled.
“Come on, it was funny!”
“I suppose so, dear Will.”
Hannibal stared at him, considering, and Will eyed the peonies the neighbor boy had trampled through, before giving voice to the idle theory that grew every time the boy peeked his head over the villa fence on his trips to the beach.
“Do you think-?”
“Oh yes, he’s been quite smitten with you for a while now,” Hannibal intoned with twinkling eyes that seemed to say ‘I can’t quite blame him for it, either’.
Will hit his chest affectionately and huffed a chuckle, “You’re such a liar,” He managed, and cut Hannibal off more seriously when he opened his mouth to respond, “and an asshole.”
Hannibal shut his mouth, and considered, before hefting Will closer under the warm weight of his arm and conceded the point with his silence and the almost imperceptible tilt of his head.
Will married an asshole cannibal, but at least he was a fairly honest one.
Sins of omission, and all that bullshit, he told himself, as Hannibal filled a vase and lovingly arranged the flowers the sweet boy had half crushed.
FIN