Chapter Text
Bruno had spent a long time in the walls. He had spent a long time sitting by himself with nothing to do but let his imagination run wild, creating stories and props and doing anything to keep his mind from going stale.
Of course he had gotten used to boredom. It had been…how many years? There were only so many things to do, to be, to see within those confines. The mind is limitless, his mother used to say. Bruno repeated that over and over, sometimes even out loud when his creativity was taking a dive. It used to be a mantra that kept him sane, brought about the new characters and personas he could put everything into.
But he was ten years into this routine. He felt like his descent to complete instability was very visible. Even his rats started to shy away from him when his tics and mannerisms became too erratic. He was constantly twitching, jumping, startling at any noise or movement. When he acted out some of his scenes, his characters became more manic, more temperamental, more impulsive. Bruno was slipping, putting so much into his roles to try and keep the fantasy alive for just a little longer.
To pretend he wasn’t a disgusting, estranged man living in the walls just a little longer.
It wasn’t working very well anymore. And when he got the uncharacteristic urge to slam his fists into the wall and scream at the dead of night, to wake everyone in a fit of hysteria, he had to do something. Bruno could never let anyone know he was still here, living off of scraps, stealing clothes and food from his own family. He was invading the privacy of everyone in the house by hiding away, and he hated it.
But he knew Dolores knew. Before he’d “left,” she would complain to him all the time about the sounds of Isabela brushing her hair on the other side of the house, Mirabel flipping through pages of a book, Camilo breathing. There was absolutely no way she didn’t know. At first, he was paranoid to hell about it, waiting for her to crack and spill to the whole family that her creep uncle was crawling around the walls like a roach.
He tried to be as quiet as possible, both for her sanity and his own. He would always skip over the creaky floorboards, mime the scenes that he acted out himself, use hand signals to direct the rats. Even on those rare days that the whole family was out of the house doing jobs down in the village or hosting events, he never dared to speak in more than whisper.
He especially never dared to do any of the more…private things. Ever since Dolores received her gift, Bruno had adamantly refused to indulge himself anywhere near the house, fearing she would have to hear whatever gasps or moans came out of his mouth, the slick sound of his hand pumping up and down. He used to go far out into the woods or up near the mountains before doing anything like that.
But now, all he could do was push those feelings down. There was nowhere to run away to without the chance of getting caught. After ten years in the walls, Bruno had pleasured himself three times–each time being CERTAIN that Dolores was at least into the village before letting his hand slide down to palm the bulge in his pants. He was so sensitive, so touch-starved that grinding into his own hand was often almost enough. But Bruno was so afraid of making his niece suffer through that.
Last week, he had woken up in his chair with come stained on his pants, mortified to his bones to know that he had been unrestrained in his sleep, terrified of the sounds he may have made.
Moreso terrified of the person he’d been dreaming about. Agustín was married. To his sister. He wanted to vomit as the memories flooded his brain. Agustín pushing him up against a wall, dropping to his knees, taking his cock into his–
Bruno cut off the thought, his dick already twitching in his sticky underwear. No, that was disgusting. He couldn’t dare think of his brother-in-law that way. He and Julieta were happily married with a beautiful child and years and years of happiness together in their future. They were an established unit in the Madrigal family, and Bruno had no right to dream about his sister’s husband shoving his dick up his—
No! Bruno cried in his mind. To him, this was further proof that he was a creep. A foul, nauseating pervert preying on the inhabitants of this house. He couldn’t do this again. He had to find something else to do besides mope and let his imagination run wild. He couldn’t allow himself to be the Bruno they talked about in the village. The Bruno they talked about in his own home…
It turns out that the Madrigals just bought a television (definitely not because of one Camilo begging to high heaven and annoying the shit out of everyone until it happened). Abuela was against it at first, claiming she wanted everyone to have genuine time together and not spend hours staring at a screen. But when they watched the first episode of Amantes del Desierto together in the living room, everyone cuddled up together and talking about characters and bonding, she started to rethink it.
It became a weekly thing, then a nightly thing. The Madrigals all sitting on couches and chairs surrounding the small television screen, watching in fascination as the people lived out their own fictional lives. The drama was entrancing, and the family got to watching more than a few different series.
Bruno was in love with the stories. He watched with the family through a small hole in the living room wall for months, laughing when they all laughed, crying when they all cried. It was a mockery of real love, real family, but Bruno clung to it. He felt more included than he had in over ten years. Sharing this experience with his sisters, nephews, nieces, his abuela, it felt real to him.
They were all watching one night, Camilo and Isabela discussing if the love interests were going to get together, when a scene–that clearly never should have been cleared to air on tv–passed the eyes of the Madrigals. The woman had her back turned to the camera, facing a bare-chested man sitting under the covers of a luxurious bed. She let her nightgown drop to her waist, and the man made a surprised face that turned lustful. The woman was on him at a moment’s notice, kissing him desperately. Bruno heard Camilo and Mirabel go “What? Ew!”
There were a couple gasps from Julieta and Abuela, they looked at each other but didn’t move, hoping the scene would just be over with and they could forget about it.
The scene flips to both characters naked, their privates just barely covered by the blankets around them, and they’re moving. They’re moving in a way that it’s clear what they’re doing, the woman bouncing on top of the man’s lap and moaning.
Abuela shrieks and jumps up faster than should be possible for her age. She rips the tv plug from the wall, and the silence afterwards sticks to the air.
“Children, go to bed right now,” she glared. There was no hesitation. Every single Madrigal kid got up and ran to their bedrooms, probably about to spend the next half hour talking to each other about what the hell they just saw.
The adults remained. They were all just glancing at each other, confronted with the mortifying idea of having the sex talk with their kids.
“We have to get rid of the television. I won’t let them see something so indecent until they’re in their 40s.” Alma was pissed. Bruno was terrified.
They’re going to get rid of the tv? They can’t. It’s the only thing keeping me sane, he thought. But at the same time, there was a slight tent in his pants. He gasped when he realized it, probably loud enough for the family closest to him to hear. He slapped his hand over his mouth, breathing harsh through his nose. He heard Agustín and Julieta talking.
“Why don’t we keep it for us to watch? We can have it in our room to make sure the kids don’t see anything inappropriate again,” Agustín says, a bit of hope on his tongue. Clearly he enjoyed the telenovelas more than he let on. He never missed an episode, but Bruno thought it was just because he liked being with the family. He felt himself twitch.
“Honey, is that really a good idea? You know they’ll end up watching it somehow if we don’t get it out of the house,” Julieta stated. Agustín looked at his wife with pitiful eyes, begging her to let him keep watching the many tv series. “Gah! Fine. Abuela, we will keep the tv in our room for right now. We won’t let the kids get their hands on it.”
Abuela looked doubtful but nodded her head with eyebrows furrowed and walked away.
Bruno felt like some sort of gross voyeur. He followed the tv up to Julieta and Agustín’s room. It was different watching the shows from a private room versus the family room. It was quieter, he sometimes heard the two talking and tried not to listen. He remembered his wet dream and felt even worse. He really was a pervert.
Time passed and there was yet to air another inappropriate sex scene in any of the shows. It made Bruno upset that that one episode had ruined his routine of pretending to be part of the family.
~
His sister was having marital problems. He sometimes heard them fighting and walked away to give them the privacy they thought they already had. He already knew so much more about the family than they wanted anyone to ever know. He couldn’t keep intruding on his sister and brother-in-law’s space like this. Bruno sighed and moved back to his normal space in the walls behind the dining room.
One night, he was watching his rats perform a scene on the rainy streets of a far away land when he heard a door slam. No one ever slammed the doors of the casita. The casita never let anyone slam the doors. Bruno got up to see what happened.
He saw his sister Julieta wiping tears from her face, stomping down the stairs and walking towards the front door. Dolores and Mirabel came down to see her, hands on her shoulders and hugging her. They walked out the door together, and Bruno heard Julieta sob something about Agustín before it closed behind them.
Bruno was afraid. His sister never cried, and she especially never left the house at this time of night. He stepped through the walls as quietly as he could to try and find his brother-in-law, see if he could figure out what had happened.
As he peeked through the gap in the wall, he saw Agustín sitting at the edge of the bed, head in his hands and breathing heavily. Was he crying too? Bruno stared, wide-eyed, while the man sat up straight and shook himself off. His face was streaked with tears, face red and eyes glossy behind his glasses. He took a deep breath, wiping his face off with his hands.
Bruno couldn’t stop watching. He knew he shouldn’t. Agustín was baring his emotions raw to the empty room around him. But his eyes were so beautiful in the lamplight, his gray-streaked hair seeming to glow as it caressed his face. Bruno wanted to run his hands through it, see if it felt as soft as it looked. Straddle him and hold his chin up to look at him as he leaned in and kissed him and–
Bruno smacked himself in the face, harder than he meant to, and lost his balance on the crooked floorboards. He fell with a loud thud against the wall and held his breath. The room on the other side fell silent, he could hear his heart beating frantically against his chest. He moved and stared through the hole, hoping his feet would hold him.
Agustín was glancing across his wall with fearful eyes. He blinked a couple times, huffed, and mumbled something about the casita having it out for him. Bruno let out a long breath as his body relaxed against the floor. He heard the man on the other side turn on the tv and just listened while he tried to calm down.
Bruno ran his hands over his scruffy face and through his long, dark curls, fingers getting tangled in the mess of unbrushed hair. He had no right to be thinking about his family like this–well, not technically his family. But he wanted so desperately to be loved, to even just be touched. He had been alone for so long. He laid his head on the ground with a small clunk as he wallowed in self loathing, letting the dust fall over him like the forgotten trash he was. How could he be longing for a man in love with his sister? He was fucked in the head.
Bruno let more angry thoughts flow through his mind when he noticed a change in the volume of the telenovela. Curious, he stood and looked to see why the sound was turned down so low. He took one glance at the tv and balked: once again, there was explicit content showing on the tv. Well, at least he turned down the volume so the kids can't hear, Bruno thought, still a bit confused as to why Agustín had left it at this channel instead of changing it. He turns back to the bed where Agustín had moved to lay down on.
Bruno can’t breathe. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
Agustín was hard and rubbing himself through his pants. He had his left hand fisted in the sheets beside him, eyes fixed on the lewd scene ahead.
Bruno couldn’t look away. He literally couldn’t look away this time. His breath came out stuttered as he watched his brother-in-law pull his pants down, leaving him in his shirt and boxers. There was a small wet patch on the cloth where the head of his cock stood straining. Agustín was lightly petting himself, biting his lip to keep down any noise.
In the walls, Bruno was dumbstruck. He hadn’t moved an inch since seeing this sight. His pants were getting tight as all the blood in his head drained to his dick. He couldn’t move. His mouth started to water.
Agustín used both hands to push down his underwear, letting his cock slap back up against his stomach. Bruno heard him whimper when he started to touch himself. He was feeling lightheaded.
He shouldn’t be watching. He should run away and never look at Agustín again. He should burn the vision from his mind and then run away from this damned house.
Bruno’s hand reached down toward his swollen dick. He pressed against himself with a cut-off groan and bit into his other hand to shut himself up.
Agustín was clearly invested in the shitty telenovela scene, but as he sighed, he let his head fall back onto the pillows and thrust his hips up into his grip. He had barely touched himself, but he was hard as a rock and very quickly losing himself to the feeling. He spit on his hand and went back to his cock, twisting his wrist on the upstroke with a low moan. His eyes closed and his eyebrows pinched together the longer he went on. His legs were splayed at his sides. He was practically writhing on the bed under his hand.
Bruno bit harder into his knuckles, trying hard not to make a sound any louder than his panting while he grinded his pelvis into his grip. Agustín was taking his time, going slow, and it was driving Bruno insane. He felt his teeth digging into his skin, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a moan from passing his lips after a hard stroke. He clamped his hand over his mouth, watching Agustín to make sure he didn’t hear.
But Agustín was gone. His hand was moving so fast on his cock, eyes rolling back and spine arched a bit off the bed. God he was so close. Bruno was too. The sight and sound and even the smell of sex was making him lose his rhythym, pumping himself into his tight hand wishing it belonged to someone else.
Wishing it belonged to Agustín.
Bruno imagined himself on the bed, leaning down towards Agustín’s cock as he looked up at him with lust-filled eyes. And Agustín would look down at him with desperation, panting and begging him to move and Bruno would do it. He would do anything. Agustín would take his big hands and thread them through Bruno’s hair and push his mouth down slowly onto his cock while they both moaned at the feeling.
“Fuck, fuck,” Agustín groaned, the profanity sending sparks down Bruno’s spine as he desperately watched. Their hands were moving in tandem and Bruno was moaning against his hand and stuttering, vision blurring around the edges. His precome was slicking his hand and making it feel so fucking good and he was so close.
Agustín clawed his other hand into his thigh while he arched up and came, mouth in an O shape as he moaned his release. His cock pulsed and white spurted in ropes over his stomach and hand but he didn’t stop and just kept coming and coming, finally settling back down into the bed and shaking from head to toe.
“Oh fuck,” Bruno gasped, running his hand tight over his cock and squeezing the head like he loved and it felt so goddamn good please please please!
He came hard against the wall, rutting his hips into his hand as his release painted the wood in front. He didn’t hear if he made a sound because the blood was rushing in his ears so loud but he felt the vibrations from his throat and it didn’t even matter because he was coming and he hadn’t done this in so long he was so sensitive and it felt so good.
The ringing in his ears slowed as Bruno panted his way back to clarity. Holy fuck. That felt so good.
And then he remembered where he was, who he was, and was yanked back into reality. He cut off his harsh breaths and peered through the space in the wall. Agustín was laying flat on his back staring at the ceiling, thighs shaking every few seconds. He had come almost up to his neck.
Agustín hadn’t heard him. He was safe.
He was so fucked.