#In this Casita... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

viridianvisions · 2 years

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Prompted by @neon-green-eyes ' First Kiss post, have an entirely indulgent description of how I'm convinced Bruno would be.

My headcannon is that he can be surprisingly romantic and bold when acting as some other character or form of himself - but the moment his true self is exposed, he can't seem to fathom the idea of being liked for who he really is. Reader is determined to convince him otherwise. 😳

(For context, the characters Bruno and reader play as are inspired by the Spanish version of "The Little Prince", an originally French novel that I have never read but probably should.)

Enjoy! 😉

~*~

I am stirred awake by the sound of a textured and familiar voice caressing my earlobe, a soft and peremptory pressure against my cheek interrupting what wayward worries were crowding my mind but a moment ago.

"Dèjame besarte, amorcito," he whispers in fruity tones against my ear, and a cascade of tremulous impulses dances along my spine from where his lips hover tentatively over my skin.

Let me kiss you.

"Príncipe..." I breathe, falling into his embrace as he pulls me against his quietly heaving chest. We stay here for a long while, the ebb and flow of our lungs expanding in sync, warm puffs of his sweet breath fanning across my nape as his arms gently tighten around my waist, securing me closer than I dare thought possible. If only I could bottle this feeling and sip on it forever, drinking in his still warmth and earthy scent that engulfs my senses in naive and heady bliss... Like petrichor after a storm, though the tumultuous thundering of my heart has yet to cease. And at this rate, as Bruno sways us gently to and fro, his chin resting in the curve of my neck, I suspect it never will.

After an interminable moment he tossles the still night air with a sigh and pulls back, his long fingers curling against the side of my face and tracing the underside of my jaw.

"Mi perfecto rosa," he croons, his languid gaze boring into me as endlessly deep pools of midnight green. "The stars are in your eyes, cariño."

My heartbeat hiccups, stumbling in blind euphoria as it trips over itself. I know that he doesn't realise just how little acting is required on my part to appear enamoured (the only real effort being that of trying not to collapse from the impossibility of it all), but he is steadily tearing away the tissue-thin layers of defensive distance I had put between myself and the mere idea of him in this way. His own performance has been beyond unexpected, bold, even daring to venture into sultriness - and, for but a measure in time, painfully convincing.

The scene is not yet over, and I resolve to play into my role with what little resourcefulness I have left. If I have but this single, fleeting chance to reveal my true feelings to the fictitious Madrigal Prince before me, never to be spoken of again, then I have already committed to plunging headfirst with baited breath.

"I'm beginning to think you've done this before," I tease, prodding the prolonged silence, and he chuckles. "I might start calling you Romeo instead."

"Maybe I have, Señorita Rosa," He says with a viscous wink that sends my pulse fluttering like a dandelion on the breeze. "Once, in my dreams."

An almost wistful smile darts across his lips, his gaze drifting into the distance behind me as if in recollection of something special. Then it is gone and the theatrical Prince has returned again.

"But Romeo just won't do, mi flor. I'm afraid it's been taken already, by someone a lot more effective with his words."

I feign distress and throw my head back, one hand draped over my forehead.

"Oh, how ever am I to choose a suitable name for mi Principito?" It is all I can do to suppress a giggle. "Let me see... Crespo?"

His playful disapproval is just as dramatic. "Do you see me only for my luscious locks, oh Señorita Rosa?"

"Hmm you're right, Senor Guapo."

"Guapo, ey? Am I not more than just my dashing good looks?"

I am drifting closer to him again, in stop-frame motion, as if being reeled in on a string.

"Of course- y-you are so much more," I say, the bass drum that is pounding against my sternum surely audible above the din of my irrational thoughts. "T-to me, you've always been..."

I can see his breath hitch, as if he finally realises that this is no longer an act. That it's never been an act for me, not from the moment I first came to know him. But just as quickly as it broke, the careful masquerade of his braver persona seals over the cracks once more.

"Ah, I see," he says with a mock-bow and a twirling of his wrist. "On account of my princely chivalry, you may call me-"

"Bruno."

My voice can be threaded through the eye of a needle, small and thin as I call his only true name. The real Prince Madrigal, who stole my heart and never returned it. "I would call you Bruno. My- my Prince."

There is a wildfire flaring up across my face, hot and untamable, and I know that there is no hiding this any longer. His ever-so-slightly confused smile shifts as he ponders my expression, his entire countenance computing the fact that I have wrenched away the curtain covers once and for all, revealing every sincere longing that I have had since the very beginning.

His eyes are drawing incrementally nearer again, those dream-laden wells that always seem to be reading me over and over, inside-out and back-to-front like a reel of worn typing paper. I need to be immersed in them, now more than ever before - unwavering portals to his soul speaking the words that have yet to be uttered aloud, or desires that long to be reflected in the vulnerable words of unhindered confession.

"Y-you'll always be my diente de leon," he finally says, a sudden and intense flush prickling along his cheekbones like a sprig of grass catching alight as he swallows nervously.

There he is.

The very first time he had nicknamed me, we were sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, sprawling out the script of the weekly stage show that we'd come to look forward to putting on for the kids of the Encanto. We had been growing in popularity amongst the little ones, and took it upon ourselves to come up with a grand new plot each week. Eventually "El Principito and Señorita Rosa" became something of a "fan favourite" pair. The Madrigals would routinely join in on the crowd too; in hindsight, it was difficult to miss the amused glances of the more astute and perceptive family members - usually Julieta, and often Dolores, who would give me a cosy smile and a little shrug of her shoulders as she scurried past.

I recall that day well, as we sat reciting our lines, just he and I in the inviting warmth of the lazy midday sun - I kept repeating the wrong words, and with that he had dubbed me the "forgetful dandelion".

"Y' know, like 'poof!' Gone on the wind." He had chortled a little too hard, and I had promptly whacked him over the head with my wad of papers, an encroaching fondness blooming in my chest that I dismissed as friendly admiration at the time.

It still confounds me how this fumbling, foot-shifting, stammering man before me can possibly be the same one that was, mere minutes ago, reciting sweet nothings as easily as if he were conversing about the weather, and holding me as if to never relinquish me to the cold space of reality surrounding us. But this is the Bruno I slipped and fell for, rolling down the mountainside with no intention of landing - and everyone but him seems to know it.

"I promised to stick around for a b-" he says, his voice catching as he realises how little space currently exists between us. He clears his throat. "For a bit. Well, more than a bit if- if you wanted me to, a-and it's been great - seriously, a-amazing - getting to be your friend..."

"Is this what friends do, Bruno?" I whisper, my face now dangerously close to his and he gulps, blinking furiously. And then he is leaning in closer, and closer still, until the last thing I see is the diamond facets of his emerald irises, absolutely incandescent in the light of the moon.

"K-kiss me Bruno..." I push out between erratic breaths, and he pauses for a microsecond - perhaps to give himself internal permission - before his eyelashes flutter shut and his mouth swoops in to cradle mine between the feathery pillow of his lips.

My hands find their way beneath the textile landscape of his ruana without conscious instruction; gliding along the cords in his arms, up and over his collarbones, palms splaying out across his shoulder blades as if they've always known how to traverse this foreign topography. His own run slowly down my sides and across the small of my back, his hum reverberating through the auditorium of my chest as his lips stroke mine carefully, almost unsure, but with an unbearable tenderness. I tilt against the pressure of his mouth with a small gasp, fingers sliding up the back of his neck and raking through mussed silvery curls, tugging gently.

We finally break apart for air, flushed and brightly burning with delight as we take in the sight of each other without the theatre masks - raw and giddy and uncertain and beautiful, oh so beautiful in its imperfection.

"Bruno..."

He laughs softly and rests his forehead against mine, the tip of his nose brushing my own and the corkscrew strands of his flyaway hair tickling my cheekbones as they fall across his furrowed brow.

"Wh-what's so funny?" I ask with a small smile, still in the space between absolute disbelief and dazed pleasure.

"Nothing, I - it's just that - you keep using my name. My - my real name." His fingers are tangling slowly with mine, palms fitting together as if magnetised.

"Hmm... Yes, Bruno..."

I cling to his shirt collar with my free hand and dab my lips to his, over and over, unable to keep away for more than a few seconds at a time.

"Say it again," he murmurs against my mouth, and my heart arrests.

"Bruno."

"Again..."

I can barely breathe now, the air rasping though my throat as an almost imperceptible squeak. This is all too much for me to handle.

"Bru-"

And before I can finish, I am halted by the overwhelming sensation of rising static prickling across the surface of my skin, like a bolt of electric ecstacy, as his supple, parted lips press into my neck like a branding iron. He follows a tediously long course down the curve of my forearm, across my clavicle and along the side of my jaw, lingering at each point for what seems like a burning eternity until I can take it no longer.

My hands are riding up into his hair again and he groans softly, our lips plastered together in fervour. He might just be a Romeo afterall.

How long we remain like this, I do not know. But what I do know is that this telenovela is getting an entirely different ending to what we both expected. The Prince and the Pauperess, walking hand-in-hand into the fading sunset as the stage curtain drops behind us, a new door opening with a wave of its hinges as we step with shy excitement into the new and unknown.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*