TRIGGER WARNING: Implied/Referenced suicide, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, cutting, anxiety, traumatic situation.
Seriously, please do not read this if any of those things are going to be triggering for you. I in no way want to bring any harm to anyone else struggling with their mental health. The TLDR: Pepa and Julieta see the dark door, find his journal and some evidence of him self-harming, conclude Bruno killed himself (he did not actually). If that is going to trigger you, I am so sorry that you experienced anything in the realm of the warnings and I sincerely hope you know how truly great you are.
This fic is a companion to my other one-shot 'Why We Don't Talk About Bruno'. This time the door discovery is from Pepa's point of view.
I do not own Encanto or any of the characters. Enjoy!
It was a little past one in the morning. Pepa couldn't sleep. She found that becoming a habit nowadays.
Just like Br—
No. She cut off her own thought as it started. It's been a week since she last saw her hermano, who was locked away in his room while everyone else dealt with the fallout from Mirabel's ruined ceremony. Pepa had knocked a few times, to no answer. Julieta left food that disappeared, so he had to be in there, up those god forsaken stairs. Or hiding in one of his tunnels. Dolores couldn't hear him, but she also couldn't be expected to know what every single noise was. Pepa is sure he's fine.
He couldn't even face Mamá after she asked for a vision. Hiding away in his room like a coward, letting the rest of us deal with her. As if I don't want to do the same?
Pepa was on her way back from getting a glass of water when her world ended.
She came up the staircase by Bruno's door and immediately noticed a difference. She was squinting her way up the steps, unable to see as well as she normally could, like it wasn't as bright. Pepa had been ready to chalk it up to getting older, her eyes getting worse, but she just happened to glance up the second set of stairs to Bruno's tower.
His door.
Was.
Dark.
Pepa came back into her body when her knees slammed on the hard tiles beneath her. Her legs had given out. The glass of water was shattered on the ground. She felt like she was about to shatter with it. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only see what she shouldn't be seeing. Her hermanito's door.
She felt the bone numbing cold creeping over her. Her breath was coming in short and fast and the winds swirled around her much the same. She was starting to sprinkle. Pepa felt removed from her body, but knew she was rising back to stand. Could feel herself getting closer to the confident, steady, reassuring , glow of her hermana's door. Julieta will know what to do.
She rushed in, only to be met with an admonition before she even spoke. "Pepa, shh Mirabel is in here. I'll meet you in the hall in a minute." Pepa clutched at her braid and whispered back an urgent, "Hurry!"
Back in the hall alone, Pepa was trying to calm herself down. She was playing with her hair. Cycling through every single calming mantra she could think of. Thinking of Felix. Of her children. But none of it was working because she couldn't get her brain to stop thinking about Bruno.
Bruno.
Pepa hasn't had the most steady relationship with her brother in the past decade, but she loves him. She loves him. She needs him to be here. To be safe. To be okay.
I'm sorry for calling you a coward, I know you don't hate me, I know it was a joke about the weather, I'm sorry, I'll be better I promise, I'm sorry.
Julieta finally came out of her room, wrapping herself in her robe. She asked something, but Pepa couldn't hear it over the pounding of her own heart. She tried to answer, to explain, but the only thing that came out was a sob. The rain got stronger. "Pepa, you need to breathe. On my count, okay?" Julieta was giving her a look filled with such love and concern. Don't worry about me. I'm not the one who's hurt. Pepa gave her a slight nod anyway, "Okay, in one two three, out one two three four. In one two three, out one two three four. Pepa, is someone injured?" Yes. No. Maybe. Yes. Yes he is. Julieta I can't, I can't look, I can't handle it if he's gone, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
That was what she wanted to say, but the words kept just getting caught in her throat. The only thing coming out was sobs. She moved her body as best as she could in what she hoped was a way that Julieta would recognize to mean probably. Continuing to count her breathing, Julieta's eyes got hard, her healer mask going up. "Take me there." Pepa started moving the second she felt her breath was steady enough, bringing her hermana mayor to the foot of Bruno's tower. Looking at the door again, Pepa could feel herself sinking. Could feel it in her bones that she knew what happened to him. Julieta broke her from her thoughts by grabbing Pepa's hand. "Come on. We're going in there. You know he's always had secret rooms and tunnels. This isn't the first time he's gone awol for a week. There has to be some other explanation."
She doesn't need to explain what the other is. Pepa already knows. She's afraid of what they might find. The sisters began their way up the massive winding staircase, having to move at a snail's pace so as to not be tripped by the wind and rain that came down harder and harder the more their search turned up empty. Pepa couldn't help the feeling of dread building in her. The weight being placed on her chest that got heavier with every place Bruno wasn't. The women were fumbling to find the entrances to hideouts they had long since visited, unsure if they still even existed.
On one of the wider landings, out of sheer frustration, Pepa kicked a rock. It triggered the opening of the rock face, revealing a cave, not the tunnel system, that appeared to be Bruno's actual bedroom. Unlit lanterns decorated the wall's and rows upon rows of books sat along shelves. Two plush sitting chairs were in one corner of the room, a bed in the other. On the far wall, there was a desk with a lantern right above it and a book being partially held open by a pencil. Julieta made a beeline for the desk. Pepa took a deep breath, steeling her nerves for what she was about to go looking for.
When the triplets were sixteen years old, she had broken into Bruno's room to read his diary. She felt it was payback for the humiliating vision he had given her a week before, the one where her worst date ever was captured in green glass. She didn't feel like getting payback ever again after what she found. It was just pages upon pages of self-hatred and doubt. Documentation of all the awful things the townspeople had said to him, the things they had said to him, his own familia. And above all, the things he was doing , and wanted to do. To his body, to himself. At the time, they hadn't found any actual marks or scars on his body, but Pepa knows her brother. Knows that he's smart. That he probably kept Juli's food on hand, or put them somewhere that Mamá wouldn't check.
Pepa isn't sure about her sister, but she never outgrew the habit of checking Bruno's arms.
So she noticed, a year earlier, when he started wearing only long sleeves. She noticed when he would only eat food not made by Julieta. She noticed that he was slipping away, withdrawing further and further into himself.
And she let him. Because she was angry. Angry still about her wedding yes, but more freshly angry at him for her hija. For Dolores. The prophecy he gave devastated her little girl. But she naively thought it would stop, that he would pull himself out of it, like he had for the past forty years. Thought Mamá or Julieta would notice and help because they knew she couldn't. Wouldn't her brain supplied. You could've, you just didn't.
Pepa began along the perimeter of the room, looking for little boxes, fake books, anything that could be a potential hiding spot. She checked his bookshelves, his chairs, his nightstand, even in his pillow. She found what she had been searching for in a small, out of the way drawer that was on the bottom of the end table near the chairs. A small box. With shaking hands, Pepa reached out to grab the box. When she opened it, for the second time that night, Pepa was out of her body. The box was of razor blades. She called for her sister. "Julieta!" She only registered the pain to her knees later, only realized she had fallen when her head hit the ground in prayer. "Querido dios por favor perdóname, Julieta I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Pepa put her head down, continuing to softly pray and beg for forgiveness. Julieta was struggling through her wind. Pepa wished she could make it easier for her sister, but she couldn't do anything but think of her own failures at that moment. This is my fault. This is my fault, Bruno is gone, and it's my fault. I failed you. It was my job to protect you and I failed. "Pepa! Pepa, I'm the one who should be sorry, I never realized just how… just how bad your gifts were treated by the townspeople. By our own familia." Julieta had reached Pepa's spot on the floor. She reached out and Pepa clutched on to her hermana. She was sobbing. "Pepa, por favor, speak to me. What did you find? Why are you apologizing?" Julieta was sobbing now too. Pepa's tears only worsened at Julieta's questions and she simply pointed at the floor next to her. Sitting on the rug was the box. Pepa couldn't bear to see them anymore, shutting her eyes as Julieta looked. Pepa heard the blades clink together as the box crashed back to the rug. Julieta's grip on pepa tightened, holding onto her like if she didn't, Pepa might disappear. She couldn't blame Julieta, she was doing the same, enveloped in grief, soaking them both to the bone with her rain.
Casita did their best to try and contain Pepa's storm. The house could feel another crack forming in their foundation, and desperately wished they could convey to su sol and su sanador that su vidente was safe. That he was right on the other side of the wall, grieving along with his hermanas. Questioning if hiding was for the best. If he should just brave the storm and join their embrace. But he didn't. And Casita couldn't. And so, when his hermanas finally picked up the pieces of themselves that were left, a new rule was filtered through Casita's halls and eventually the entire Encanto.