From London To Madrid (EngSpa Week 2k17)

London Rains

Cover by veroww on tumblr!! 

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It's raining again in London.

Antonio doesn't know why he's here; he loves the sun and warmth and smiling faces, but here it's cold and wet and everybody looks so somber. He knows he should have expected the rain, but he's dressed in a short sleeved shirt shaded a color that reminds him of the evergreen oaks back home. It's soaked a shade darker and plastered to his skin, not unlike his hair.

The rain comes down in a mighty torrent, all darkness and heaviness, soaking Antonio to the bone and rolling effortlessly off of tan skin.

He turns his face up to it, eyelashes fluttering against his upper cheeks, hands draped by his sides. People weave past him; it's surreal. He stands, unmoving, while all of this life goes on around him.

He can already hear Arthur's nagging voice in the back of his mind. Idiot, he'd say, you'll get sick if you stand in that rain! What in God's name were you thinking?

Antonio would reluctantly admit that he wasn't. At least he doesn't think he was.

Thinking, he supposes, just isn't something he should be doing. He's reckless; acts before he thinks. Arthur isn't so much like that. Antonio likes watching the way his expression pinches when he's thoughtful, lips turned down and the little tug between those godforsaken eyebrows.

Ah, Antonio's thoughts come to a stuttering stop. He's thinking about him again. God, he shouldn't be here. Arthur's expression flickers behind Antonio's eyelids every time he blinks; the blond looks baffled, lips parted and green eyes squinting dubiously. Antonio wishes he could take back what he said, that day.

He hasn't seen Arthur since.

He drops his gaze and shoves his hands in his pockets, grateful for once that he'd forgotten his phone again. He doesn't have a waterproof case yet; it would've been destroyed in this weather. Antonio brushes his sopping hair away from his eyes and ducks his head, falling into the pace of the people on the crosswalks. He knows where he's going by now, and his feet take him there without his mind thinking about it.

People under umbrellas give him odd looks, boots splashing in the puddles as they hurry across the street. Antonio goes ahead, picking up speed, walking, walking. Walking turns to power walking turns to jogging and suddenly he's sprinting. He flies down the sidewalk, half shoving past people with only a little bit of trouble.

I think I love you, Antonio had told him.

It wasn't often he got Arthur to laugh, but it never failed to take his breath away. After one such instance, the words had slipped out before Antonio could even consider them - another downside to never thinking before he acted, he supposes. Arthur's lucky.

You don't think, Arthur had replied, and refused to speak of the subject again.

Antonio has memories here, images that rush past him in the wind and rain, streaming through his soaked hair and wreathing over his ears and shoulders. He's lying to himself; he knows exactly why he finds himself here so often. Rain or no rain, this is Arthur's home.

He takes the apartment complex's steps two at a time, hurtling himself up the narrow concrete platforms, fingers slick on the metal railing and threatening to let him slip. He doesn't know if it's just dumb luck, but he's here and knocking before he dares second guess himself.

There's a moment, in between the time his knuckles leave the door for the last time and the time it opens, where the whole world seems to hold its breath.