Amir's fist connected with Diego's jaw and there was a pop. People around them gasped. Diego stumbled backwards and held his face with a yowl. He tried to step away from Amir, who in turn was trying to throw more punches. Radames managed to grab hold of him and pull him away.

Diego swore, and looked up from behind his hand.

"Whoa."

"Let me go, Mes, I'll show him!"

"No!"

"Let go!"

To Radames's surprise, when Diego finally managed to regain his footing, he grinned.

Or tried to. The result was dampened by the fact that he doubled over from pain again.

Radames sat Amir back down and ran to help Diego up.

"I'm so sorry, I'll drive you to the hospital--"

Diego laughed, and groaned again. "Yeah, probably not a bad idea..." he looked at Amir, who was being given water by another patron, and was glaring at him. "Wow."

*

It had started out innocently enough, with Diego inviting Radames out for a drink. Since it had happened to be on the same night Radames had a not-date with Amir, and he decided, as neither of his two lovely suitors had mentioned the word ‘date’, to have a bit of fun and see them both at the same time. He’d thought it would be a nice chance to bond, and to properly mediate between them and break the tension. He already had a few ideas on how he wanted his love life to go, but he of course had to make sure they didn’t despise each other first.

Radames had checked with them both if they’d like to meet like this beforehand, and they had sounded nice enough about it, but now he really wondered if it had been as good as an idea as it had seemed at first. To his credit, Diego seemed perfectly nice and civil. It was Amir who kept ordering drink after drink, frown deepening with each one.

Radames did his best to keep up a lively conversation, turning from one to the other and pointing out their interests and hobbies. He’d pushed Amir to brag about his blogging, in answer to which Diego got a bowl of assorted nuts and proceeded to spend ten minutes play-arguing about superhero abilities. Things did seem to be going better and better with each minute until…

“So where did you rush off to last time?” Radames asked brightly. He hoped that his tone came across as more cheerful than he felt about that subject. Still, he had to at least pretend he was fine with it, otherwise he might just break a glass over Diego’s head and make Lyril’s dreams come true.

“Oh, well,” Diego at least had the mercy to look uncomfortable, “we had vacation, so I thought it would be a nice opportunity to take the boat and go somewhere new, take some photos.”

Amir was watching Radames as he said, “So you do photography as well?”

“I dabble in it. Let me show you…”

As he shuffled through his online profile, Amir kept looking at Radames with a frown.

Feeling like he might lose his composure, Radames went to get another juice for himself. When he came back, he found Diego in the middle of a colorful explanation about his adventures:

“I’ve been diving in underwater caves before, obviously,” he added. “Have to start small, you know-”

“Oh, I can only imagine,” Amir said.

Thinking back, Radames should have taken this as a warning sign.

“-but the Dos Ojos underwater cave system is pretty advanced, so I had to do some practice dives first. I saw both of the cenotes - they’re two eyes, you see?” Diego wasted no time in pulling up the photos. Radames, as a regular visitor to Diego's portfolio, had already seen them several times, but he made an effort to “oooh” and “aaaah” appropriately. Amir simply stared at them in silence, although Radames noticed that his lips twitched when Diego reached the photos of the bat cenote.

Then of course Diego demonstrated his talent of putting his foot in his mouth: “You’d have loved it, Mes. I wish you had come.”

Exceptional, really.

“You know why I didn’t,” Radames barely kept his voice controlled.

He hated how gentle Diego sounded when he said: “Lyril would have been fine without you for a bit.”

“For someone who studies business management, you don’t know a lot about managing a business, do you?”

“I missed you.”

Radames stirred his drink, heat rising to his face. “Really? Did you, really?”

“You know I did. It would’ve been lovely if--”

And that was when Amir punched him.

*

In the car, Radames was pouring out apologies and swears so much that he almost forgot to start the car. Diego was surprisingly calm, thoughtful even. They’d left Amir to a taxi.

"Have you known him long?"

Radames looked at him briefly before focusing on the road ahead. “Not too long, a few weeks, maybe a month, why?”

Diego tried to speak, and then groaned again. “Any proper dates?”

“Just one. He was really nice, I had no idea he was such an angry drunk! Jesus--”

“Mes.” Diego's eyes seemed to be shining. “I want-- to talk to him. Again. And you.”

“What about?”

Diego waved him off, and Radames understood he was in too much pain to speak.

“He’s been coming to the cafe pretty often, but I'm not sure he'll come back now if he has any shame left. I can ask my brother to get Raphael to bring him?”

Diego nodded.

Radames decided not to question further right now, but deep in his mind he wondered with shameful excitement, if Diego had guessed…

“Well, before any talking, we have to make sure you can still talk,” he tried to joke, and Diego snorted.

...What if it worked out?

Radames suppressed a sharp inhale and drove on.