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Okay, so these people have magic. Real, honest-to-goodness magic. Félix thought the townsfolk might be exaggerating, the way you say someone has a ‘magic touch’ when they’re exceptionally good at something, but after witnessing a man hobbling along on crutches and then casting them aside and walking away under his own power after one bite of his pandebono, he’ll have to adjust his definition of impossible. Or throw the word out of his vocabulary entirely, depending.
He can roll with it. He can roll with anything, that’s what got him through life so far and he’s not about to change his philosophy overnight. But still, that’ll take more than a little bit of getting used to.
If there’s one good thing about having an easy smile and a story to tell for every occasion, it’s that it gets people talking, and boy, do they talk. Once it was clear that he was here to stay and there was no need to dance around the subject, fearful that he might one day leave and take the secret with him, they were all too eager to dish the details about the amazing Madrigals.
Granted, it was all a bit confusing, as it always is when you’re trying to piece together a story told in fragments by several people with very strong and often contrasting opinions, but Félix thinks he’s got the basics down pat.
They’re siblings, triplets if you want to be pedantic about it, who live up on the hill, can’t miss them, their house looks so different after all, with a mother who more or less runs the place and a father who, even from beyond the grave, is spoken of like some local legend.
One is the town healer, which is surprising when you consider that she’s close to Félix in age and he’s not remotely old enough to be a doctor, and a lot less surprising (or perhaps ten times more so) when it turns out that all she has to do is whip you up a meal and you’ll be right as rain.
And speaking of rain, the other sister apparently controls the weather. No wonder she’s the darling of every farmer he meets one day and a thorn in their side the next. He has yet to witness the worst of her apparent fury, but he sure didn’t need a helpful guide to point her out to him. It’s a little hard to miss the one with a literal cloud over her head, especially when she’s so... so... well, maybe he ought to get into her formidable mother’s good books before that line of thought goes any further.
And then there’s the third one, the matriarch’s only son. Getting the townsfolk to explain that one was like pulling teeth. They only ever talk about him in hushed tones, as if they might summon him, the way his abuelita, God rest her soul, used to tell him scary stories about weeping ghosts and strange monsters with their feet facing backwards.
He hardly ever shows his face in town these days, they say, and popular opinion has it that perhaps it’s better that way. Félix and his family have only just arrived, they wouldn’t want him shadowing their door with his misfortune.
It took him a while to work out what he even does, they were so hesitant to say it. Some call them visions, some call them prophecies, he’s not quite sure how the common parlance of this impossible place works, but the bottom line, once you’ve gotten a few tongues loose, is always the same: the less you speak to Bruno Madrigal, the better, because you never know when he will foretell your doom.
The polite version is that he sees the future, but the way the townspeople go on about him, it almost sounds like he speaks it into existence. Once you can get past the initial fear, the instinctual looks over the shoulder to check that he isn’t right behind them, they have infinite stories to tell, each a little bit different, but all made from the same stuff when it comes down to it.
“He said my proposal wouldn’t go well, and I caught her cheating on me!”
“He told me I’d have trouble with my chickens, and I lost three just this year!”
“He said there would be a fire on my farm, and my barn burned down!”
Disappointment, death and general disaster seem to follow him wherever he goes. It’s a stark contrast to his sisters, one adored for her delicious treats that cure all ills, one treated like a fickle spirit whose goodwill brings sunshine and whose wrath could mean a storm on your crops.
It strikes him as odd that this mysterious thing they call ‘the miracle’ would create two angels and a boogeyman, but then again, they have magic. He’s really in no position to judge what is or isn’t strange. Maybe that’s just how these things go. His abuelita’s stories always did have something lurking in the shadows. They wouldn’t be good stories without it.
Life goes on, even when you’ve left a home behind to make another, and Félix thinks maybe he can get used to this. Later, when he’s old and grey.
He makes fast friends with one Agustín Rojas, who, if anything, startles worse than him when something out of the ordinary happens. And usually falls into a conveniently placed pile of manure while he’s at it. Félix took one look at him and decided he could do with an extra brother. They couldn’t be more different if they tried, but they can find comfort in being newbies together, gaping at his thousand scrapes and bruises disappearing in the blink of an eye and laughing at themselves for spooking at sudden lightning like children half their age.
Félix rather thinks he’s playing up his clumsiness on purpose, but who can blame him? He’s completely smitten with the girl at the food stall, singing the praises of sweet Julieta and determined to be her Romeo. He’s not sure when exactly having an arepa set aside for her number one patient turns into talking, and talking turns to giggling, and giggling becomes abandoning her post five minutes early to go steal a kiss behind somebody’s barn, but he knows happy people when he sees them.
He would call them sappy, but that would make him a hypocrite, because it’s not like he’s doing much better.
In a bigger village than this, perhaps it would be harder to find an excuse to strike up a conversation with the fiery redhead who caught his eye, but here, the excuses are more than plentiful. It’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone, and there always seems to be some celebration, some flimsy pretext to take to the streets and dance the night away. In a secluded town where even magic becomes routine, you’ve got to make your own fun.
Perhaps being a newcomer is just the ticket that he needed into Pepa’s good graces: he’s exciting by default, something new to shake up the monotony of her days, and he dances a little closer each time, pulled in as if by gravity. When he shimmies close enough to smell the ozone in her hair, when he smiles at her and wins a rainbow in return, when they kiss and the air around them grows hot, he thinks perhaps it’s time to turn on the charm and meet her mother.
He knows of her, because you can’t live here and not be aware of Alma Madrigal’s fearsome reputation, but he hasn’t gone much further than a respectful tip of his hat when he passes her on the street.
Doña Alma represents the other, less pleasant side of being a newcomer to the Encanto: in a closed, tight-knit community such as this, where bonds of family and trust are already formed, being an outsider is... not a bad thing, necessarily, but it makes him stand out. Félix is known for fitting smoothly into any group of people he comes across, he’d happily make friends with a rock if only rocks could talk back, but here, he’s pretty sure he’ll be remembered as ‘the one who came over the mountains’ long after his bones are buried in the town cemetery.
(Which is... remarkably small, even for a village this size, because oh, right, they have magic. Funny how the evidence of it keeps cropping up in strange places.)
It takes less work than he’d anticipated to win the coveted prize of an invitation to dinner at Casita (is there such a thing as hearing the capital letter at the beginning of a word?); the stern matriarch struck him as someone who wouldn’t be worn down that easily. He thinks maybe her polite smile freezes a little on her face when Julieta catches wind of the plan and wheedles her mamá into making room at the table for Agustín as well, but he counts it as a resounding victory.
There’s just one thing he hadn’t reckoned with—the elusive third triplet, Bruno. Even his name is a bit of a taboo in the village; they mostly call him el brujo, with the handy excuse that it’s just one letter away.
It’s not that he forgot there was a third one, even though he could name plenty of people who’d much rather pretend their leader only had two daughters, it’s just that... okay, yeah, maybe he forgot, just for a minute.
But really, with how much he’s seen (or hasn’t seen) of him, he might as well have the gift of being invisible. He thinks he’s spotted him a few times, but he is little more than the flash of an oversized green ruana slinking around a corner before he can say hello. He never even got a proper look at his face.
The appointed day arrives, and Agustín is a mess, poor thing. He nearly strangled himself with his own tie, narrowly avoided getting covered in mud, and had to nibble on an emergency snack to get the swelling down when he somehow upset a beehive, all on the way from his own home to Casita, but he’s alive, if a bit scruffy.
Doña Alma looks them both up and down, her scrutinizing gaze lingering on the lopsided knot around his friend’s neck, but welcomes them all the same. The house – did he mention the house is alive? – actually waves a shutter at them in greeting.
There isn’t a speck of dust in the place; Félix isn’t sure if a magical house keeps itself clean or if the Madrigals have to scrub like everybody else, but it is sure putting its best foot forward, and the clicking of the tiles certainly doesn’t help the curious feeling of walking into the maw of a beast. Don’t screw this up, don’t screw this up, don’t screw this up.
The girls look stunning, but Félix can’t help but think they aren’t quite themselves. It is unusual to see Julieta without her trusty apron, and Pepa... he can see her chest going up and down, up and down, her breathing deep and her hair braided to perfection, lacking the flyaway quality of her static. There’s no cloud above her, and he hadn’t realized what an integral part of his mental image of her it really was until now. Strange, the things you get used to.
And then there’s Bruno. Now that he has no side alleys to duck into and no excuses to make, Félix can finally get a good look at him. With how much the villagers have been building him up as if he were El Coco, a dark thing to scare children into obedience, he frankly thought he’d be more impressive. He’s the shortest of them, hair just long enough to tie back, standing half a step behind his sisters and entirely buried in a ruana that gives him the curious impression that he’s little more than a head mounted on top of a shapeless lump. And he’s staring. And staring. And staring. Félix thinks there might be just a touch of hostility in there somewhere, but then again, he’s their brother. If he had two sisters and they brought their sweethearts home simultaneously...
The small talk is tense and stilted, an exchange of stiff hellos and empty pleasantries that do nothing but put everyone on edge. At least, with Pepa around, it’s in rather poor taste to talk about the weather. Small mercies.
In the end, it’s Agustín, of all people, who rescues the conversation from descending into meaningless drivel. Casita is built to impress, but he only has eyes for one thing.
“You have a piano?”
“Do you play?”
Doña Alma doesn’t even bother to hide her surprise. Félix bristles a little on his friend’s behalf, but it’s the pot calling the kettle black, because he’d been just as taken aback when he’d heard it. The shift in his confidence when he’s sitting at a piano is remarkable: it’s almost as though the man’s entire reserve of coordination were in his fingers, and there weren’t enough left for the rest of his body.
“Uh, a little...”
“A little? Don’t listen to him, mamá, he’s just being modest, he’s brilliant. You should play for us after dinner.” Julieta gives an airy little giggle that doesn’t sound like her at all. “Built-in entertainment!”
“Hmm. I always did think it was a pity that the girls’ piano lessons came to nothing. It will be good to finally see it get some use.”
That, for some reason, does cause a cloud to pop into existence over Pepa’s head, dark with anger and heavy with something he can’t quite read.
“We have guests, Pepa, what did we say about—”
“Hey. Everything okay up there?” says Félix hurriedly.
It’s a risky move, how he dares to interrupt the matriarch for the sake of a smile, how he slides into Pepa’s space and only later remembers that his best shirt might get rained on any second, how he playfully pulls up a corner of her mouth to turn her frown upside down, but hey, no risk, no reward.
The cloud dissolves as quickly as it had come, and he can feel her mother’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his neck.
“Yeah. Just... just thinking about what it would have been like if Juli and I had had more time to practice.”
“It’s never too late to start, eh? I’m sure Agustín will be glad to offer some tutoring.”
He says that last part very pointedly, causing Julieta to burst into nervous laughter. Agustín’s face could give a tomato a run for its money. Okay, maybe he’s playing a dangerous game here.
“Do you play at weddings?”
Félix startles. Forget whatever the townsfolk are saying, Bruno’s real gift is to make you forget he’s there and then give you a heart attack. Pepa crackles with surprised static at the implications.
“Oh. Oh. Seriously?” Her voice rises in pitch as she goes, her dress buffeted by a warm, summery sort of wind.
“I meant the Garcías, Pepi, don’t go getting too attached.”
The temperature drops, and he’s not sure the blame is entirely on Pepa’s shoulders.
“Bruno! That’s... that’s... that’s just... what does that even mean?”
The cloud is building up again, a dark, wet thing that grows faster the more her mamá disapproves of it. A single drop of rain hits his face and she shoves him out of range, not wanting them both to get soaked.
Bruno just shrugs and marches off in the general direction of the dining table.
“Right! Dinner! I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Julieta bustles off after him, but Félix can’t help but stay behind.
“Just... just go, I’m gonna rain all over you.”
“So? It’s just a bit of water, you’ll make enough sunshine to dry it out tomorrow. I’ll make sure of it. Personally.”
Doña Alma watches the exchange like something very intriguing, and Félix can’t shake off the feeling that he’s being tested. Which is fair enough, except for the part where he can’t tell whether he’s passing or failing.
The appetizers are delicious, he’s sure, but his thoughts are churning too much to taste them properly. They’re Julieta’s, he can tell by the way the soreness from a hard day’s work drains out of his limbs as he chews and swallows mechanically, but he’s in no fit state to appreciate them.
‘Don’t go getting too attached’ is exactly the sort of thing that a brother would say. He’s his sister’s... well, they haven’t said the word ‘boyfriend’, but they might as well have, and therefore, he’s on his watchlist. Félix can understand that.
But when said brother can see the future, when people talk about him like something that hides under children’s beds at night, there are only a few things it can mean: either he and Pepa are not going to work out, or... yeah, he really doesn’t want to think about the other possibilities.
One day at a time, Félix. One day at a time. All the more reason to have fun while it lasts, right? Right?
“So what brings you two to the Encanto?” asks Doña Alma with very pointed interest.
Agustín swallows, and his mouthful goes down the wrong pipe. Here we go—an interrogation is nothing less than they should have expected, and they’re not exactly off to the best start. She doesn’t even spare him a look of disapproval, she just watches Julieta fret over him with eyes that say ‘really?’.
“Sometimes you just need a change of scenery,” says Félix, scrambling to shift the attention away from his friend’s coughing and spluttering. “Not gonna lie, I’m going to miss the sea, but my family and I thought there might be better opportunities if we moved inland, and... we found a little more than just opportunities.”
“You’re from the coast? A strong swimmer, I imagine?”
“Not too shabby. I used to have a lot of friends who were fishermen, that’s where I got a healthy respect for a good thunderstorm. It’s actually beautiful, if you’re not fool enough to watch it from a boat.”
“Wise words,” she says, measuring her tone so very carefully. “And you? I got the impression that you’re not from nearby.”
“I, uh, I wasn’t really... I mean, Julieta can testify, I can be sort of a magnet for trouble... city life wasn’t treating me well, and I thought it would do me good to start afresh somewhere smaller, quieter. I don’t regret it for a minute.”
“Apart from the bees,” says Julieta teasingly.
“Apart from the bees. Terribly allergic, I’m afraid. But—but it’s quite a lovely community you’ve built here, and I truly do feel welcome. Unless you expect me to be a beekeeper.”
“On that note, what is it that you do for a living? You understand, everyone here must pull their own weight if we want the community to be self-sufficient.”
Félix had been dreading that question. Agustín may be clumsy, but he’s level-headed and responsible, someone who knows what he’s good at, a planner at heart with his future all plotted out, practically every mother’s dream if he weren’t a walking hazard.
Félix, on the other hand... well, he lives every day like a surprise. He has yet to find his true calling, he’s decent at most things without ever settling on excelling at one. If Doña Alma asks where he sees himself in five years, he might as well tell her to ask Bruno, because he hasn’t a single clue. (Except that he sort of hopes Pepa will still be around. That little comment had no timeframe attached, did it?)
“Oh, I’ve been assisting the tailor,” says Agustín, practically deflating in relief that this is something he can answer without looking like a fool. “Bookkeeping, mostly, my papá said I’ve always had a good head for numbers, but I can sew my own clothes as well. Sort of a matter of survival when you, uh, have a bit of a tendency to ruin them, but I managed to make a trade out of it.”
She gives a tiny nod that’s worth its weight in gold. “Good. He was one of the first settlers, you know, he’s not getting any younger.”
“He said the same thing himself. He’s beginning to need an extra set of eyes for finer work, and—”
“Oh, he’s going to need more than that soon enough.”
There’s a clink as Doña Alma sets down her fork with a little more force than necessary.
“Bruno, honestly, that’s hardly a topic to discuss at dinner.”
“I just meant his memory, mamá,” he says, the very picture of innocence. “Didn’t you say just last week that Señora Martínez was complaining that he kept messing up his orders?”
“Hmm. Well, at least he’s got someone to double-check, that’s something.”
Félix swallows. He’s starting to sense a pattern here. Is this a habit, that he will make a statement and the room will immediately turn to ice with no help whatsoever from Pepa?
“But enough about that, what about you?”
Here we go. He can only hope he can embellish it a little bit.
“Ah, I’m more of a jack of all trades.” He chooses not to remind her that that expression usually ends with ‘master of none’. “I’ve been getting to know everyone, helping wherever I can. Repairs, deliveries, you name it, I’m there. Simple things, but I’m really not afraid of hard labor.”
If this were anyone other than Alma Madrigal, he would jokingly flex his arms, but she’s clearly not in the mood for jokes. She probably never is.
“I’ve been lending a hand with construction, mostly. Lots of new houses being built, huh?”
“That’s good to hear. Newcomers always seem to come in waves, it’s nice to have an extra pair of hands when it’s so busy.”
“Anytime. Señor Cardenas can be a strict taskmaster, but I’ve been learning a lot about—”
“You’re working for Señor Cardenas? I’d watch my back if I were you.”
A chill runs down Félix’s spine. Is this what everyone’s been talking about? Just... vague, ominous warnings given between one bite of his dinner and the next? Is that how he talks all the time?
Pepa’s cloud flashes with unreleased lightning as she glares at her brother across the table.
“What’s the big idea, idiota? You’ve been doing that all night!” she hisses.
“What? He’s new, someone’s got to tell him. Julieta was grumbling all day yesterday about how he cares more about getting it done quickly than getting it done safely. You won’t be calling me an idiota when he’s at her stall bleeding because that big oaf was looking the other way.”
“Children, please, we have guests! Make no mistake, we will be talking about this.”
Well. Félix is really debating the merits of calling in sick tomorrow, if there is such a thing as calling in sick in a village where one bite of food can get you back on your feet.
Doña Alma’s stern warning seems to have worked as intended. They even make it to dessert without further incident, if a little subdued; Pepa is still glaring daggers, but she has successfully banished her cloud, and the conversation drifts to safer, inane topics that don’t involve chopping limbs off with Señor Cardenas’s saw or any other of the nightmare scenarios that Félix’s imagination is conjuring up.
That is, until something breaks down in the simple process of switching to a different fork, and within moments, Agustín is diving to the floor, coming back up with an alarming thunk fit to shake the table, and only making it to his chair in one piece because the house took pity and moved it into the trajectory of his buttocks. Great.
Julieta, who is coming back to the table carrying a spectacular tres leches cake, only gets to witness her beau massaging the back of his head and wishing very hard for the gift of disappearing. She rolls her eyes, but in a fond sort of way.
“I swear, I leave you alone for ten seconds...”
“It must be... convenient for you to be pursuing a healer, of all people,” says Doña Alma, sharp as glass underneath her veneer of politeness.
It stings. One puts down the cake a little harder than intended, the other is squeezing his dainty little dessert fork in a white-knuckled grip. For a moment, neither says anything, but it’s plain to see that she struck a nerve.
And then – what is this world coming to? – Agustín speaks up.
“With all due respect, ma’am, seeking your daughter out for her gift was how it started. It doesn’t have to be how it ends.”
There’s an undercurrent of anger there, an edge that everyone present finds hard to believe, Agustín himself first among them. For only the briefest instant, there is genuine surprise on her face, but it’s gone so quickly they might as well have imagined the whole thing.
And if Julieta’s cheeks are flushed and Pepa is pumping her fist under the table and desperately keeping a lid on the halo of sunshine that wants to peek out from behind her fiery curls, well, Félix knows when to keep his mouth shut.
“Cake, anyone?” says Julieta much too cheerfully.
“As long as you don’t let him cut it. Seriously, Juli, keep an eye on this one.”
“Whose side are you on?” She cuts the first slice with entirely unnecessary ferocity, narrowing her eyes at her brother.
“I don’t take sides. I’m just saying, it’s a nasty bump on the head today, but tomorrow...”
Agustín takes it surprisingly in stride.
“You mean the literal tomorrow, or, like, the generic kind?”
Bruno very clearly hadn’t been prepared for that line of questioning. He looks so much like a lost puppy that Félix nearly forgets he’s an actual prophet of doom who has everyone in town looking over their shoulder.
“Nevermind. Knowing me, it’s probably both. I’d say thanks for the tip, but I’m not sure it’s the right sentiment.”
His face is a work of art—eyes wide, jaw slack, mind churning a mile a minute. He looks... younger, somehow, and not at all like the person they’ve been describing.
But there is cake to stuff his face with, and a dignity to recover, and the moment is gone in a blink.
Pleasantly full and still making a valiant effort at casual conversation, they demolish the last of the cake and adjourn to the living room.
For a brief moment full of silent panic, it looks for all the world like Agustín has entirely forgotten where to start, the way you forget how to do something you’ve been doing all your life just because someone is watching.
Then he clears his throat, and he’s suddenly a different man.
“No sheet music? Ah, well, we’ll just have to do with the ones I know. Hope you don’t mind a little bit of improvisation here and there.”
He leans in to whisper something in Julieta’s ear that makes her laugh, not that measured little giggle that sounds like she’s practiced it, but a good, honest laugh.
“‘Party pants’? Oh, you’re so silly sometimes.”
He starts off with something lively, a fast-paced thing that’s half for show and half for fun, always shooting sideways glances at Doña Alma when he’s not paying too close attention to his fingers as if praying for this to be his redemption. If he doesn’t end tonight on a positive note, his corny jokes about star-crossed lovers might be more accurate than he ever anticipated.
Sparks fly – a little more literally than they would for most – when Félix realizes he and Pepa have both been tapping one foot to the beat, not dancing outright, but swaying a little in their seats and eyeing the middle of the spacious living room as if daring each other to stand up and always chickening out at the last minute.
He’s got to hand it to him, the man has a repertoire and he knows how to use it. Gradually, he would almost say sneakily if he didn’t know Agustín doesn’t have a sneaky bone in his body, his song selection has been shifting to a slower, more languid tempo that is less for twirling around the dance floor and more for swaying on the spot, ‘dancing’ only in name, bodies held closer together than is probably considered respectable.
But they never do, partly because their every move is being watched, partly because it would hardly be fair to Julieta, who is all but draped over the piano and slowly melting into a puddle. If he knows Pepa at all, she will tease her sister from here until the end of time.
It’s as close to perfect as this desperately awkward evening will ever get, which of course means that he jinxed it.
Somewhere in the middle of yet another encore, Bruno makes a muffled noise like he’s in pain, eyes roaming about as if looking for an escape. Agustín hits a strange, discordant note and stops cold, watching as he springs out of his seat clutching the sides of his head and makes his weaving, unsteady way towards the main staircase as if he were drunk. Which, considering that there was nothing more interesting at the table than a mild sparkling wine and he never even touched it, is really saying something.
“Miércoles.” Pepa has the worried kind of cloud, dark and shifting in shape with the mounting winds.
“What’s going on?” Félix seeks out her hand to provide what comfort he can, but she seems blind and deaf to his paltry attempt at reassurance.
“Later. This is... complicated.”
Bruno scampers, if you can call that scampering, but it isn’t long until they hear a stumble in his heavy footsteps, followed by a strangled cry, and they’re all in hot pursuit.
“He didn’t make it to his room,” says Julieta, not without worry, but sounding like this is a spectacle they’ve seen many times before.
And if they have... well, that gives him a whole new perspective on what really goes on every day in a magical house.
He’s crumpled on the upstairs landing, his sagging form framed by the bars on the ornate railing like a beast in a cage, looking down at them with—what in the world happened to his face?
Félix’s hand twitches in an aborted attempt at the sign of the cross. His eyes are glowing in the dwindling evening light, not the soft, wholesome gold of his magical door behind him, but a sickly, poisonous green that casts eerie shadows on his face.
He has no earthly clue what’s going on, but it’s enough to make his stomach drop to his feet.
And then, just like that, it’s over. Bruno blinks the light out of his eyes and seems to take stock of where he is and what he’s doing, looking like a frightened rabbit when he realizes he has an audience. He scrambles to his feet and backs away towards his door; the contrast between his real self and the severe, awe-inspiring image engraved behind him could not be greater.
He stares down at them, eyes so, so wide, and the only words out of his mouth are: “Oh, God, what have I done?”
And he disappears into his room with a resounding slam.
“My apologies,” says Doña Alma, not quite looking anyone in the eye for once. “Our Brunito, he can be a little... social occasions such as this don’t agree with him... I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Is... is that what it looks like when he...” Félix’s tongue doesn’t seem to be cooperating.
“It usually happens in a more controlled manner,” explains the matriarch. “The ones that slip out like this... he rarely lets them happen in public. I can assure you, this was the exception, not the rule. You won’t have to see it again.”
Has he just imagined the silent or else at the end of that sentence?
The evening winds down quickly after that: no amount of pleasant conversation can salvage it at this point. They say their goodbyes and are ushered to the door, bewildered and exhausted by what started as dinner and ended as a baptism of fire.
Agustín shoots one last look at Casita as they walk away.
“Hey... do you think we passed muster?”
“We didn’t get kicked out, which is something. As for the rest, we can only pray.”
Félix wakes up the next morning feeling like he hasn’t rested very much at all. It took him a long time to drift off, vague warnings swirling in his head, and he could have sworn those glowing green eyes featured in his dreams once or twice. Along with a couple of more pleasant dreams, ones with red hair that smells like lightning and petrichor, and fine linen drenched with rain that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, but those slip through his fingers the more he tries to remember.
Oh, well. Señor Cardenas will be after his blood if he tries to claim sickness in a world where Julieta Madrigal happens to exist, so off to work he goes.
He makes it five seconds before he is interrogated by the entire construction crew. Somehow, the fact that a mere mortal was invited to dinner with the Madrigals qualifies as news around here, and therefore, everybody knows.
“How did it go?”
“How did you do it, you lucky bastard?”
“Easy on the ‘lucky’. Did you see all of them?”
“Ay, you’re right. What did he say? Was it really bad? Dios te salve, boy, it’s always the nice ones who have it worst.”
“It was... confusing, mostly,” says Félix once he can get a word in edgewise.
“All right, all right, less chatting, more elbow grease! Not everyone’s got a magical house, it’s not going to build itself!”
The easy banter among the workers feels different today, and it takes him a while to realize why. He’s being babied. That, or treated like he’s carrying a highly contagious disease, depending.
They’re supposed to be installing the windows today, and they’ve barely let him near the glass, as if expecting it to shatter if he looks at it funny. For the most part, Félix has been unanimously elected as the guy standing inside and checking that the measurements are correct and the windows are level. Nice and safe and away from the worst of the glare of the sun, even, because he’s just had dinner with Bruno Madrigal and it would just be typical if he keeled over with heat stroke.
Finally, after a bit of whining, he manages to get himself promoted to cutting and carving the frames, just to feel like he’s actually doing something. He’s not exactly a master crafter, but he can do a decent job working with wood, especially if it’s not too fancy.
“So did she skin you alive?”
Félix startles, which is... less than ideal when you’re working with a chisel.
“Who?”
“Señora Madrigal. Forget el brujo, I’m surprised she didn’t kill you on the spot for sneaking around with her daughter.”
“She... doesn’t hate me, I think.”
“Attaboy! What’s your secret?”
“No secrets. I’m an open book. I just got lucky. That, and she’s probably telling herself we’re just holding hands.”
“If only she knew, eh?”
“Are you kidding? That woman knows everything. I survived on pure wishful thinking.”
That wins him a great burst of laughter.
“Seriously, though, did you get, y’know, up close and personal? Is she electric or something?”
The first thing he’s aware of is white-hot rage. The second is a stab of pain in the palm of his hand.
“Ow!”
There’s a distant shout of “Called it! Who’s the idiot who gave him anything sharper than a measuring tape?”
“It’s a splinter, cabrón, I’m not dead!” he calls back. Then, gritting his teeth against the throbbing feeling of the foreign thing embedded in his skin: “And she is not some freak that I’m playing with just to see what happens.”
Still, it’s bleeding rather profusely for such a minor injury. He may play it off like it’s nothing, but he’s grateful when a cloth that he hopes is clean makes its way into his hands.
You won’t be calling me an idiota when he’s at her stall bleeding because that big oaf was looking the other way.
Granted, Félix was imagining something decidedly less survivable than a splinter when he said that, but he can think of little else as he marches off to the square putting pressure on it the whole way, the words pulsing in the back of his mind in time with his wound.
The line is mercifully short at this time of day, and the scene that meets him when it’s his turn is... something else. He was expecting one triplet, not all three of them and a wayward boyfriend for good measure, having something that sounds like a hushed argument.
Well. The presence of said third triplet might explain the short line.
“I was happy, you idiot, now I’ll be lucky if he wants to see me again because someone decided to lay it on thick with the doom and gloom.” Pepa’s words are punctuated by a low rumble of thunder. “Thanks a lot.”
“Okay, so that tactic didn’t work, but you’re my sisters, what was I supposed to do, buddy up to them?”
“That would have been nice, actually! You’re lucky Agustín wasn’t stupid enough to run! Apologize, you absolute—oh, hi, Félix, let me look at that.”
“Well, that’s a change of pace,” Agustín deadpans. “Don’t think I’ve ever been on the other side of the table while you were the patient.”
“What happened to your hand, cariño?” He’s... oddly flattered that she’s making a worry cloud for his sake.
“Splinter. Wasn’t paying attention.” He almost says something unbearably cheesy along the lines of ‘I was defending your honor’, but that can wait, there are more pressing matters.
Bruno at least has the decency not to say ‘I told you so’. Or maybe he’s just tired of it, he can only imagine he says that a lot.
Julieta, for her part, makes a face. “Foreign object. That’s not going to be pretty. Eat all you want, but it’s not going to get itself out.”
Félix never paid attention to the fact that her stall does, in fact, have basic medical equipment tucked away in a corner next to the overflowing piles of food.
She’s very quick and professional about it, like a woman who’s seen worse, and it still hurts like blazes coming out. He hisses and reaches for the food with his free hand without particularly looking at what he’s shoving in his mouth.
“Gracias,” he says with his mouth full. He doesn’t care whether he’s lived here for one day or ten thousand, skin knitting itself back together will never not be amazing to look at.
“That’s more than most people say,” she sighs. “Next?”
“I’m here, remember? There won’t be a next for a while.” He says it like a fact of life, which is really rather sad if he stops to think about it.
“Perfect excuse, then, since we’re all here,” says Julieta in a very pointed manner that reminds him scarily of her mother.
And Bruno, looking remarkably like a dog that’s just been sternly called a bad boy, seems to brace himself for something very unpleasant. Which apparently includes rapping on the underside of his sister’s table with his knuckles for some unfathomable reason. He’s letting his hair fall around his face as it will today, which makes him look oddly diminished compared to the well-groomed, laconic young man from yesterday who only opened his mouth to warn of impending disaster. Or... whatever that was at the end.
“Right. I, uh, I owe you both an apology. I... may have been trying to scare you off a little bit, and that wasn’t okay. Juli and Pepa, they, ah, they made it very clear that you’re not just a pair of random strangers making moves on my hermanas, and, um... I’m glad you didn’t run. I’m sorry, I promise it won’t happen again. Much.”
“Bruno!” they say in exasperated chorus.
“What? That’s... that’s kind of a big promise to make, what with me being... me.” His voice gets smaller and smaller as he goes, reduced almost to a whisper by the end.
Honestly, who is this and what has he done with el brujo from last night? Are they even the same person at all?
“I mean, one of those did end up happening,” says Félix, waving his freshly healed hand.
“And one was very predictable, gift or no gift,” says Agustín sheepishly. “Once a klutz, always a klutz.”
“I almost hate to ask,” Pepa puts in, tense winds whipping her messy braid, “but what was it last night? You ran like you had the devil on your heels.”
“I, uh, that’s... complicated. I meant it, though, do you play at weddings?”
Agustín blinks owlishly at the apparent non-sequitur. “Uh, I’m afraid the Garcías have already made arrangements—”
“No, really. Do you play at weddings?” he repeats slowly, as if talking to a child, and a none too bright one at that.
“I... guess? I’ll order the sheet music for the wedding march if it’s so important to you—”
“Fantastic! Problem solved! I, uh, I’ll see you around. Yep. I’ll see you around a lot. Bye!”
And in true Bruno fashion, he slinks away and does a runner. By the time the implication hits him, he’s already long out of sight.
Please mean it, you strange, awkward, mildly infuriating man. You were spot on about the splinter, is it too much to ask for you to hit the bullseye on this one too?