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English
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Published:
2025-06-15
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1/1
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nobody knows what it's like to be us

Summary:

It has been eight years, and he misses Alejandro still, like a missing limb. It hardly matters that he’s here, now, in front of Rudy. It might make it worse; his friend is here, but not really. Not in the way he could’ve been if Rudy had been fast enough, had found him before the Narcos did.

Or, Alejandro was Rudy's closest friend before the narcos got their hands on him. Now all they have is the years between them.

Notes:

this was inspired by some AMAZING art over on twitter, here's the link! also this is my first call of duty fic (despite being in the fandom for 2 years, somehow) so please do not kill me with hammers. i am just a little guy who loves alerudy dearly

title from "spring into summer" by lizzy mcalpine & translations are in the end notes :)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The Vaqueros base is well-guarded, especially at night. Despite this, Rudy knows better than to step outside for a smoke, but he does anyway. Valeria gets angry when he smokes inside, and he desperately needs to not be surrounded by people for a moment.  

Today was difficult. Los Vaqueros had raided one of the biggest cocaine suppliers in Las Almas, but their intel was partially wrong, and it had cost them a life. Losing people never gets easier, whether it’s one man or fifteen. Sometimes Valeria says he feels too much for this profession. He finds relief in it. If he stopped grieving, he’d be no better than the Narcos they hunt.  

He lights up and takes a drag, letting his head hang down. He loves this city, would die for it a hundred times over. That does not mean it doesn’t take its pound of flesh.  

Something rustles behind him, and he whirls- but he’s too late. Strong arms wrangle him into a loose sleeper hold, effectively immobilizing him.  

“Found you, Rudy,” purrs a far too familiar voice in his ear, and then there’s a damp, pungent smelling rag over his nose and mouth. Those arms hold him close as he sinks fitfully into unconsciousness.  

***  

Rudy wakes up to someone lightly tapping his cheeks, then giving his head a little shake.  

“Rudy,” croons Alejandro, “Despierta, mi amor. We can’t have you sleeping forever.”  

He blinks himself awake, bleary and disoriented. He is sore and tied to a chair, and the inside of his mouth tastes stale, but he is unharmed. And of course, there is Alejandro, uncomfortably close, grinning at him with all his teeth.  

He doesn’t look very different from the way he had before all of this, his hair still dark and slicked back, still wearing tactical gear. There are new scars, though, thick, pale, and almost ugly. One cuts through his left eyebrow and another, surely from a knife, slashes down his cheek. His smile is not the warm, open one he gave Rudy in the past, either. Now, it is sharper, carrying a kind of darkness that was never there before. Rudy almost wishes he looked completely different. Maybe then it would be easier to look at him and not see the Alejandro he had once known, the Alejandro that, in his heart of hearts, he knows he still loves.  

“Ahí estás,” Alejandro says, something like pride in his voice, and pats Rudy’s cheek again before straightening up. “You are a hard man to find, Rodolfo. I had my men all over the city looking for you.”  

“Maybe you should have taken that as a sign,” Rudy says, though not unkindly. Alejandro was hotheaded even before the Narcos got to him. After, he is unpredictable and much quicker to rage, though his wrath is hardly ever directed at Rudy. Still, Rudy keeps firmly on the side of caution. Their history has spared him much, but he has never forgotten what Alejandro is capable of.  

He grins. “A sign to try harder, no?”  

They both may have changed, but that smile hasn’t, the one Alejandro wears when he’s trying to make Rudy laugh. Something in his chest aches at the sight of it. It has been eight years, and he misses Alejandro still, like a missing limb. It hardly matters that he’s here, now, in front of Rudy. It might make it worse; his friend is here, but not really. Not in the way he could’ve been if Rudy had been fast enough, had found him before the Narcos did.  

He ducks his head so none of this shows on his face and asks, “Why am I here, Alejandro?”  

“Because,” Alejandro says, snagging a chair from the nearby dining table and pulling it over to sit in front of Rudy, “I think we should talk. Isn’t that what they say, that relationships are built on communication?”  

“You needed to tie me up to talk to me?”  

He shrugs. “Like I said, you are hard to find. I had to make sure you wouldn’t run off in the middle of the conversation.”  

Rudy takes a breath. His voice comes out steadily when he says, “Está bien. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”  

“You and your vaqueros have been busy,” Alejandro says, and sits back in the wooden chair as if this is a perfectly normal conversation. “I have had to persuade a lot of people to spare your life.” He almost looks proud of this.  

“Should I be thanking you for that?”  

“I would. Your little operation only goes on because it’s important to you, so it’s important to me.” He gives a fond sigh. “But this is what love is, no? Supporting each other even when the cost is high.”  

Rudy’s stomach turns. “What are you talking about?” Immediately he wishes he hadn’t asked. He wishes Alejandro wouldn’t answer.  

“You, Rudy,” he says, suddenly serious. “You walk around this city like you’re mourning something. What are you grieving? The man from today?”  

“How do you know about that?” Rudy demands.  

Alejandro waves his hand dismissively. “I keep an eye out. You want to know what I think? I think you’re mourning me. ¿Y por qué? Why, Rudy, when I am right here?”  

The look on his face makes it clear that he really believes this, that he doesn’t know anything about what the last four years have been like for Rudy. He clenches his teeth. Of course he mourns Alejandro. He has done nothing but mourn him since his betrayal. He wants the man that believed in their cause so strongly that he joined the army for it, but maybe more than that, selfishly, he wants his best friend back. He wants to not feel so alone, even in a crowd of his own men. And he wants to shout this at him, to throw his misery down at Alejandro’s feet and force him to look at it until he understands.  

But that has never been his way. So he stays quiet and seethes.  

Alejandro watches him for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is low and- Rudy would call it gentle, if he still thought Alejandro was capable of that. “It doesn’t have to be like this, mi vida.”  

“Don’t call me that,” Rudy bites out.    

“Why not? You like it.”  

Heat floods his cheeks and ears. It’s embarrassing- Rudy is thirty; he shouldn’t be blushing like a teenager. But everything goes so painfully wrong when Alejandro is involved anyway. Why should this be any different?  

“Cállate,” he snaps, but the effect is dulled significantly by the fact that he can’t look Alejandro in the eye when he says it. He sighs. “It does have to be this way, Alejo. You made your choice.”  

“And it was the right one. Las Almas is beyond saving, Rudy. You are fighting a losing battle.”  

“I will never stop fighting for it,” Rudy says firmly. “The Alejandro I knew never would have, either.”  

Alejandro leans forward, now very much in Rudy’s space, and tugs him forward by the chin until they are only inches apart. “I am him,” he says lowly. “I just accepted the truth. Give up the holy war, Rodolfo. You think I enjoy having to do this?” He gives Rudy’s head a shake. “To keep you tied up so you don’t run away? Staying away from you, letting you destroy yourself for a city that would never do the same for you? But I do. I do it for you, Rodolfo. Lo hago por ti porque te amo. And because I know that where you belong is right here, with me.” He moves his hand then, cards it gently through Rudy’s hair instead. “But maybe I’ve been too nice to you, hm? I let you forget. Pero no te preocupes.” His grip on Rudy’s hair is suddenly harsher, and he pulls on it to angle his head upwards so their eyes meet. Alejandro’s mouth pulls in a shark-like smile.  

“I will just have to remind you.”  

He pets through Rudy’s hair one more time the way someone might pet a dog, and then stands up. He goes to the door, opening it and barking orders to a guard standing watch outside. Rudy catches snippets of take him back, make sure he gets inside before Alejandro is both out of the room and out of sight. In his place, the guard comes in, unties him, and gruffly shoves him into the backseat of an unmarked van. He is unceremoniously deposited outside the vaqueros base ten minutes later. The van doesn’t leave until the doors close behind him.  

He barely sleeps that night. When he does, his dreams are strange and confusing ones of the future- and Alejandro is in all of them.  

Notes:

translations:
"despierta, mi amor" - wake up, my love
"ahí estás" - there you are
"está bien" - alright
"¿y por qué?" - and why?
"mi vida" - my life
"cállate" - shut up
"lo hago por ti porque te amo" - i do it for you, because i love you
"pero no te preocupes" - but don't worry

i suck so bad at endings im sorry. also for those who are wondering, yes, alejandro put rudy in the world's shittiest sleeper hold at the beginning only to knock him out with chloroform instead. this is because he wanted an excuse to hold him. the intricate rituals yadda yadda yadda

follow me on tumblr for derangement: @riddlersboyfriend