Here's my gift fic for the Coco fan exchange! Happy Valentine's witty-fool on Tumblr. :D My prompt was "Any AU! I love AU's" although I also fulfilled a second prompt you asked for. :)
Beta'd by tundrainafrica (who is an AWESOME writer by the way!).
Miguel held his breath as he lifted his leg up, suspending it in the air for a worrying second before he pressed down, finding purchase and nestling among the cempasúchil petals.
Relieved, he stepped forward. The flowers held his weight. They glowed slightly beneath him, and Miguel felt a wave of bittersweet nostalgia, remembering a petal held out to him with a blessing and condition attached. He ignored the memory.
There was another recollection that he couldn't dismiss so easily: the sight of a jangling skeleton cartoonishly making a break for the flower bridge and falling in, frantically swimming his arms in the air before giving up and letting the petals bury him. Miguel had irrationally expected the same.
But with a grimace he brought his head out of the clouds when he realized that he was in the way of the crowd. Swarms of skeletons, some hand-in-hand with family members, a few alone, poured from the gates to the cemetery. Miguel let the tide carry him back to Santa Cecilia. The Rivera clan would be on their way home soon enough without Miguel trying to head them off at the bridge.
He kept his eyes groundward upon arriving back at the cemetery, studiously avoiding any glances toward the famous De la Cruz tomb. Miguel knew, he knew more than most people how important memories were, but there were so many he'd like to get rid of from the last Día de los Muertos. The darkness that spread over De la Cruz's features as he had said "seize your moment," for example. Or the sound of screams that had followed Héctor to the cenote….
Miguel shook his head, trying to clear it. There were enough bad memories here at home. He didn't need to waste the holiday ruminating on trauma caused by De la Cruz.
Instead, he focused on the skinny tail he saw bobbing and weaving among the headstones. Miguel let out an excited shout as he was nearly bowled over by a slobbering Dante. He laughed, rubbing his hands all over the street dog's skin. "Con calma, boy, don't knock me over, I've lost weight!"
Dante licked Miguel's face in response, to which Miguel made a sound of disgust and nudged Dante's over-enthusiastic tongue away. "I'm going back home, Dante. You wanna come?" Dante gave a yip of assent as the two of them crossed beneath the arch of the Santa Cecilia graveyard.
It was still early in the evening. The cemetery had been full of the dead as they began to spill across the flower bridge, but the streets were nearly empty. Empty of skeletons, that is. Miguel smiled, hands buried deep in his pockets and hood up, as he walked past squealing kids with painted faces and vendors hawking alebrijes and last-minute food offerings. The living were all bustling about, finishing their preparations for the night ahead.
He kicked up a few petals, watching them float downward to his scuffed old Rivera boots. As usual, Miguel's family had strewn the path with cempasúchiles, offering Miguel a path straight home. Benny and Manny, Miguel's twin primos, were probably in charge of making the path again this year-the new baby would be too young. Miguel could find his own way. It wasn't as though he didn't know the streets. But it was an important gesture for the deceased Riveras who may not have lived through construction and rerouting on the streets of Santa Cecilia over the last several decades.
Miguel cracked a smile as he spied the familiar mural advertising the "FAMILIA ZAPATEROS DESDE 1921" and, around the corner, a hanging RIVERA sign in the shape of a shoe. The door to the courtyard was propped open already. Dante wriggled his way in first, then Miguel nudged his way through it into the open yard. Bright papel picado fluttered in the cool evening breeze above the delicious food being set out for everyone to enjoy. Eagerly, Miguel sniffed the air.
"Hola, Abuelita," he said offhandedly as he passed his grandmother. Miguel shot her a sympathetic look. Abuelita was barking out orders to family members, arranging and rearranging and cooking and loading food on plates, but Miguel could see a tiredness in her eyes and posture that hadn't been present a year ago. "Thanks for working so hard," he added, but she couldn't hear him. She was already bustling her way into the kitchen.
Miguel watched her go, his eyes tracking the movement of other family members who crossed the courtyard without acknowledging him. Prima Rosa, Tío Berto, Miguel's Mamá, the little twins, his tías-all Miguel's living family members were here tonight.
No one else had shown up yet. He wasn't sure if he was looking forward to that reunion or not.
He grinned as he saw Dante rush to the food table, making no effort to follow. As he waited in the open air for a few minutes after the dog left, his grin faded. Miguel slowly made his way to the ofrenda room, unreasonably uncomfortable as he looked it over. The ofrenda was still decorated with the same old pictures and offerings, although with a couple new additions-Miguel's jaw dropped as he saw a platter near the ofrenda. It was near the ofrenda because there wasn't room for it on the ofrenda. "That must be twenty dozen tamales," Miguel muttered, astonished. Surely this wasn't all for the ofrenda? He walked to the table where the tamales were piled up like Acatitlan in miniature.
Miguel sniffed the air again hungrily. Then, with a furtive glance to the door, he took a tamal from the offering.
Obviously, he couldn't eat it with his hands. Or that's what he said to himself as he unwrapped it and began picking at it with his fingers. He irrationally half-expected his mamá to burst in and scold him for eating so messily (and from the ofrenda no less!), so he finished quickly, then dropped the husk and kicked it under the ofrenda. There! No harm, no foul.
But… the pile still towered so high, and the smell was so good, and Abuelita always did urge Miguel to eat more. That's how he justified it to himself as he started jamming as many tamales as he could fit into the pockets of his hoodie.
Plus, food was a good distraction from the actual ofrenda.
Miguel didn't take a hard look at the ofrenda until he was backing out of the room, but what he saw stopped him in his tracks. There, on the bottom tier of the ofrenda, was a little wooden guitar. Miguel reached for it, his hand brushing the fretboard, but of course it wasn't really playable. It was just a little model, a symbolic offering left for the dead.
An overwhelming feeling shook Miguel to the bones. He stood there, touching the little fake guitar, picking it up and examining it with trembling hands.
But footsteps behind him made him straighten up, shove the guitar back on the ofrenda, and guiltily stammer, "I was just looking!"
His mamá stood in the doorway, bouncing a niñita in her arms and speaking softly. "And here's the room where we set up the ofrenda," she was saying to the baby, unruffled by the outburst. Busy with her speech, she didn't acknowledge Miguel, who stepped out of the way and shrugged his head a little deeper into his hoodie. His mamá started listing off names of the deceased, pointing out their fotos, and ended with, "And here's the first Socorro, Mamá Coco. You're named after her!"
Miguel's embarrassment was overcome by wonder as he peered at the baby, who was smiling and chewing on her thumb. The baby Coco probably didn't understand anything that was being said, but the soothing cadence of her mother's voice was comfort enough for both her and Miguel.
Miguel turned his eyes to the picture of Mamá Coco on the ofrenda. He missed her so much, but he mentally scolded himself for feeling bad about it. He'd definitely see her tonight, after all.
He probably should have gone back to the courtyard and looked around for the dead Riveras, but he stayed in the ofrenda room a while longer, even after his mamá and his new hermana went back outside. It was quiet for long enough that the tamales again drew his attention. Of course, it was just his luck that when temptation got the better of him, and he was trying to shove another tamal in his mouth without dribbling its insides all over the floor, that he heard a familiar voice say "Miguel?"
He looked up, his mouth stuffed with food, and waved a few fingers at Mamá Imelda. He gulped, trying to swallow his quick meal. "¿H-hola?"
"Ay, Miguel," his skeletal great-great-grandmother said disapprovingly. "Who taught you how to eat?"
"Abuelita always said I was skin and bones," Miguel answered with a nervous smile.
Imelda rolled her eyes in response to the quip. "Are you coming to join the rest of us?"
Miguel was quiet a second, shamelessly dropping the corn husk and kicking it under the ofrenda beside the other one, much to Imelda's dissatisfaction. "Am I-" He looked away. "Is that okay?"
Imelda's stern expression melted. "Of course, mijo. You're part of our familia," she said, but Miguel picked up on the catch in her voice. She hadn't answered right away.
It seemed like things would always be awkward between them. Well, it was Miguel's own fault for taking so much after Héctor.
"I'll be out in a minute," he said, still not making eye contact. He stared at the ofrenda instead-one new picture in particular.
Imelda, to her credit, picked up on the emotion in his voice. She moved to his side, putting an arm around him. It was stiff, but she tried to pull him close tenderly. "The first year's always the hardest, Miguel."
"I know," Miguel tried to say. His voice came out rough and scratchy. He scrubbed at his face with a fist. "I know," he said again, and it was more audible this time. "Thanks."
The silence afterward dragged on. Imelda tensely withdrew her arm and stepped away. "We'll see you outside, Miguel. At the cemetery if nothing else." It wasn't a question. Miguel nodded his consent. It wasn't his idea of a happy Día de los Muertos to hide in the ofrenda room all night, but the thought of running into the whole family again made him queasy. He liked them, he loved them, but the guilt he carried made him avoid his dead family for the better part of a year. And he didn't see a reason to break that streak now, so he stayed in the room for a half hour or so, perched on the table next to the tamales and tapping out an interesting rhythm on the wall behind him.
"I just don't think it's appropriate, Elena!" That was his father's voice. Miguel perked up, leaning over to see out the door and spot the approaching figures of his papá and his abuelita.
"He was a runaway musician!" Abuelita said sharply in response. "What do you think we should have done?"
"Just because no one heard from him," Miguel's papá said through gritted teeth, "does not mean he abandoned this family. You don't know-"
"I know he's not coming back!" Abuelita said with finality. "I know he's dead to this family! I'm treating him better than he deserves, Enrique. Better than my own abuela would have treated him! This isn't up for debate!"
"It's just unreasonable," his papá insisted. The two of them crossed the threshold of the ofrenda room. Miguel watched from his seat on the table, not making a noise.
More softly than before, Abuelita said, "I know it sounds harsh." She reached out to touch one of the framed fotos. "But they don't come back, Enrique. My own mamá, she lived her whole life waiting for a musician to come home. I don't want to see you and Luisa spend years like that, hoping and waiting and wondering…" She brushed her finger down the picture frame before dropping her arm. "It's better this way. No music. No musicians. No false promises. ¿Entiendes?"
Miguel's papá said, "Sí," eventually and with great reluctance, in a tone that Miguel recognized as meaning "I understand and I'll obey but I don't agree"-which is how he himself would usually answer Abuelita's nonsense rules, too.
Miguel finally hopped off the table, coming between the two of them and putting his arm around his papá's waist. He didn't make contact-his hand hovered behind his father's back, almost but not quite touching. "It's okay, Papá," he said quietly. "She's right."
As expected, his father didn't answer. He didn't even look at Miguel when he spoke. Miguel tried not to care, but he was aching for his papá to scoop him up in his arms for the biggest hug. That wouldn't happen for a long, long time. He should count his blessings that he could see his papá on the holiday at all.
He grabbed for Abuelita's hand beside him and sighed, watched his cursed skeletal fingers fade through her living ones. "I know I said I didn't care if I was on your stupid ofrenda," he murmured. Abuelita didn't notice, somberly looking at his photo on the ofrenda in silence. "But I lied." Miguel's hood slipped down as he leaned his head against the space where his Abuelita's shoulder should be, though it felt like nothing but air against his skull. Miguel pinched his eyes shut tightly, though no tears gathered in their corners. "I lied."