Surprisingly enough it didn't actually take that long for Bruno to make a reappearance. He knew when something was too important to put off and this was important. It might not have felt that way to him but, from the way Agustin had reacted, it was important to his family and he wasn't about to try and ask Agustin and Julieta to keep it a secret. Besides, he was absolutely certain that Agustin had already told everyone in advance. Bruno was actually comforted by that because then he wouldn't be just bringing up a massive confession out of the blue. He didn't even know how start that conversation. What's he supposed to say? Hey I have random visions that no one's noticed and have watched all of you die in half a million different ways, what's for dinner?
Well not all of them. Luisa, despite the dangers she put herself in, seemed to be immune. Bruno liked to joke to himself that her strength was enough to scare the Grim Reaper himself. He'd actually made a short series of comics involving a literal fight between his sobrina and a skeletal hooded figure. He could draw pretty well. It was just one of the things he had done to entertain himself for all those years. He'd been horrible at first and if a few random pieces of paper found their ways into the fireplace no one noticed. He felt embarrassed at the idea of anyone finding those or any of the numerous other such comics he'd drawn of everyone. He'd drawn out an epic battle for dominance between Pepa and Zeus. Naturally, his hermana had won. Why on earth wouldn't she? It was the only realistic ending in a fight between them.
He took a moment to settle on that. He'd just rationalized a fight between his sister and a fictional, literal, god.
"Oh they are right." He sighed as he shook his head. "I do need to get out."
He thought of the village and shuddered. After everything that had happened that day what would their reactions be? He hadn't dared to even so much as look up as Agustin and he made their way back to Casita. How many were looking? How many had seen? Had they looked angry? Maybe they had looked scared? He didn't know. He was too afraid to look.
"Coward." He bared his teeth as he berated himself.
He couldn't help being afraid though. After everything that had happened over his life why wouldn't he be afraid of stepping outside of his safe spaces? He might be magic but he couldn't erase that fear, that assurance that something was always about to go wrong. He'd changed a lot and not just from living in the walls for a decade. Over time his visions changed. It seemed like avoiding them only made the visions come in different ways. There were plenty of different ways that a prophecy forced its' way into his head.
Sometimes he'd dream them. They were always the most detailed but the hardest to remember. Sometimes he didn't even realize he'd had a prophetic dream until he'd catch something out of the corner of his eye. He quickly learned that the term déjà vu meant a great deal more to him than anyone else. It could be frustrating at times because he'd dream about something completely nonsensical. He'd walk past a shop in the market and a small stuffed animal would catch his eye and he'd realize he'd seen it before ergo he'd had a prophetic dream about this. He'd wrack his brain while his heart hammered to try and remember what else happened. Was it bad? It was always something bad. Then he'd suddenly remember that it stood out because in a few seconds a big, bearded, mountain of a man was going to rush over with a gleeful grin and buy it for his daughter.
Bruno wanted to smack his head against the wall when that happened because he'd work himself into a state and all for nothing.
But his family didn't need to know about the others. It would only make them worry. He was fine. He could deal with it by himself. He had been dealing with it by himself. He didn't need help like that. He was fine.
He was fine.
He jumped at the sound of a knock on his door and he looked up from his sandcastle.
"Bruno? You in there?" Felix's voice rang out.
"Y-" Bruno cleared his throat. "Yes! Is ah..is there something you want?"
"Gracias a dios." He heard Felix mutter. "Julieta's almost done with dinner and the table's all set. I'd get out here before Pepa gets too impatient." He said with a chuckle.
"Querido dios." Bruno whispered before scrambling towards the door. "I'll come back for you later." He said, pointing at the sandcastle.
"And she says no rats!"
"I'm keeping Frida." Bruno says as he opens the door. "She's blind so she doesn't get around too well. I always have her."
"You mean you have at least one rat on your person at all times?"
"Yes." Bruno said it like it was and obvious, normal, and perfectly understandable.
Felix just shrugged and Bruno slipped past him after shaking the sand from his hair. Before he shut the door Felix couldn't help but pause and, since the water fall of sand had disappeared, he found himself looking at a rather large sandcastle. It was already waist high and it didn't even look finished.
He just shrugged again and closed the door.
Sand sculpting helped Bruno calm down a bit but he was always worried someone was going to come by his room when he wanted to be alone. So, he had a tendency to hide instead. He was both proud and not proud about it. He was a good hider and sometimes it could be funny watching people run around looking for him. One of the best days of his life featured the family all putting their heads together to try and find him. They'd scrambled all over the house, checking in with each other and becoming more and more frustrated as the hours passed by.
He'd watched it all from the couch in the living room, having abandoned his book a long time ago.
He'd made it downstairs and meandered his way over to the dining room with Felix giving him a look that clearly said that he knew Bruno was procrastinating. The seer just rolled his eyes before straightening his path and quickening his steps.
"Ah Bruno!" His mamá waved as he entered. "We were just about to start. Sit down."
"No we weren't." Camilo muttered. "We were waiting on him." He gestured to his uncle as the man sat down.
"Camilo!" Pepa scolded.
"What? It's the truth. Why are you always the last one?"
"I live in a literal tower niño. Give me a break."
"Or maybe it's because you got a little too wrapped up in your sandcastle to notice the time." Felix said flippantly and earned a withering look from Bruno. "It was this high!" He held his hand up just a little over the top of the table.
"I didn't know you made sandcastles." Pepa said and Bruno grit his teeth.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Mirabel jumped in. "Please tell me you make more than castles! You do!" She gasped and he had no idea what he had possibly done in order for her to confirm that, yes, he did make far more than castles. He was particularly fond of the giant bee crawling across a honeycomb.
"Can we just eat please?" Bruno asked as he held up his hands to try and stop Mirabel's rambling and try and prevent Isabella from joining in. She liked to sculpt too but with plants instead.
It worked well enough after earning the enthusiastic support from Camilo. Bruno mostly pushed his food around the plate, nibbling and taking bites every so often. He needed to talk about this but he just couldn't figure out how to do it. How does someone start a conversation like this? He hadn't actually talked to anyone about his gift beyond the fact that he could give his prophecies. He'd never said anything else about it to anyone other than his rats. It had never gone beyond asking for a prophecy and that was it. Bruno wasn't really one to talk too much about himself and no one ever asked and it was then that Bruno realized something.
His family knew almost nothing about his gift.
Would they even want to?
It seemed like they did?
But, what if they really didn't?
He could feel his heart starting to beat faster in his chest and he saw Delores's questioning glance. As he made eye contact with his sobrina in a plea for her to not say anything Frida, sensing his distress, chose that moment to crawl out from beneath his ruana to nuzzle into his neck just beneath his ear. He gave a quiet laugh as her whiskers tickled him. Delores rose an eyebrow and gave a quiet hum at hearing her tío's heartbeat level out immediately. Until Antonio started complaining.
"How come he gets to bring animals to the table and I can't?"
Oh yeah….he wasn't supposed to have the rat.
"You spoil everything you know that?" He grumbled to the rat who just pressed a cold nose onto his cheek and squeaked which encouraged another rat to crawl out of his collar on the other shoulder.
"You said you only had one!" Felix yelled before turning his wide eyes to Pepa, who was glaring fiercely. "Mi amor," He started with a nervous chuckle. "He-he wouldn't-he demanded he keep the rat. It was supposed to be one! He said she's always with him."
"Then what's going on with the other?" Julieta laughed.
"How many rats Bruno?" Alma asked, forehead leaning against her palm.
"Fourteen." He said, shoulders sagging.
"Bruno!" The family scolded.
"Well ah, Frida's blind so I-I never go anywhere without her." He stumbled through an explanation.
"And the other?"
"Coqueta just had babies and the others won't leave them all alone." He answered sheepishly.
"You mean to tell me that somewhere underneath that stupid ruana are twelve baby rats!?" Camilo yelled.
"Y-yes." Bruno responded, still being nuzzled by the two rodents on his shoulders.
Felix was laughing so hard. At least it diffused the tension a bit. It worked to distract Bruno enough from his thoughts on how exactly to start talking about everything. Well, not everything just what happened in town. They didn't need to know anything else. He winced as Coqueta nipped his ear.
"Don't you think you're fat enough?" He grumbled as he nudged her away. He yelped when she bit his ear. "Ay dios vale! Entiendo que tengas hijos pero deja de morderme!" He growled, covering his ear and shoving a piece of food to her.
She scampered back down under his clothes which left Bruno glaring at his waist where she wiggled back into the small satchel he'd turned into a portable nest. There was silence for a moment before Agustin spoke.
"Does that happen often?"
"Their communication skills aren't the best in the world."
"Sounds like someone I know." Felix grinned and Bruno leveled him with a flat look.
"These are special circumstances okay?" Bruno defended. "Frida keeps falling off of things and since she's a good climber I don't necessarily like leaving her alone. She almost jumped onto the stove once! I think we could all agree that the less stress on Coqueta and her babies the better and to keep them away until the babies are old enough and Indigo and Marco tend to be bullies and she's such a pushover and-"
"Enough Bruno." Alma said, holding up her hand. "You can keep the rats just make sure they stay off the table."
"Of course, they aren't rude." He turned his face to his lap with a glare. "Excepto cuando me muerden!"
After that the dinner went rather smoothly even if Frida refused to get off his shoulder. It certainly didn't help that Felix, who he was sitting next to, kept sneaking her food.
"She's never going to get off my shoulder if you keep doing that." Bruno whispered.
"But she's so cute." He smiled at the opal rat. "Un pajarito."
"Don't call her that she jumps off of enough things already." Bruno ducked his head while Felix laughed quietly.
"Hey." Felix continued to whisper. "What happened in town hermano? Sure Agustin told us some things but, you know, what's the real story?"
The table fell silent and with it Bruno's stomach dropped. He could feel Felix wince next to him as the man thought he was being discreet.
"You can't whisper to save your life can you?" Bruno muttered.
"Lo siento." Felix chuckled.
"Bruno?" Alma urged him on.
His mamá had always managed to be so expressive with her eyes more than anything else. At times it felt like her expression never changed but you could see a deep level of intent and meaning in her eyes. He didn't remember the last time they looked that soft.
"Well." He took a deep breath. "I had a vision but….I'm pretty sure you all know about that." He said, looking over at Agustin who gave an encouraging smile.
"Oh let's just get to the point!" Camilo shouted. "Tío Bruno just saved someone's life! Have you done that before? How many times have you done that?! Have you done that to me?!"
"Camilo!" Pepe growled, a thundercloud forming above her head. "That's enough pequeño demonio!"
"Well….yeah actually." Bruno blurted out as he rubbed the back of his neck and made the careful decision to not look at anyone.
The silence that fell was a heavy one.
"Most of the time it's right before whatever's going to happen happens. I get a little time to get ahead of things. Sometimes I'll see it hours, even days, in advance. Most of the time it's just really stupid stuff. Like someone's going to trip or some kids are going to go swimming. But every now and again...I mean there are always accidents. It's...I can't remember when it started happening."
"There's been a lot of activity lately. More so than normal. Bruno." Pepa squinted at him.
"The hammer was pretty memorable." He mumbled so no one could hear him.
Except…..
"Hammer?" Dolores asked and Bruno winced. "Didn't Luisa almost hit tía Julieta a few months ago?"
Bruno pressed his face down into his palms. Frida dug around in his hair, her tiny paws almost seemed to be massaging his scalp with the way she was moving.
"Yes. It hit the board instead of me because…" Her gaze snapped to Bruno. "Pequeña ramita podrida. You started that argument on purpose!"
Bruno just ducked his head down further as Frida crawled into his hair and Coqueta wiggled out of his ruana to dig through his hair in much the same way as Frida had.
"Whoa, and you got her angry fast too." Felix added.
"You made Julieta lose her temper quickly?" Alma asked with a raised brow.
"I knew if I said "no one" you'd get really angry and you pick up things in your kitchen and hold them next to your head gesturing around with it when you start yelling." He said, voice muffled by his hands.
"He knows you so well." Agustin teased.
"Why didn't you just say something?"
"You know, that never actually occurred to me." Bruno said after a long pause as he lifted his head. "Well, I mean, it might have taken too long to explain or maybe gets taken the wrong way? I don't know." He plucked Frida from his hairline as her back legs tensed and began to pet her gently. "The argument didn't even last that long."
"Because I was knocked unconscious." Julieta rolled her eyes and Bruno shrugged.
"Wait...in the town you made it sound like it felt real. Like you lived the vision itself."
"Yeeeaaaah." Oh he knew where this was going.
"That means that you saw-" Felix cut himself off, remembering that look he had seen in Bruno's eyes before he had slipped away.
"Brunito." His mamá's voice was as soft as her eyes.
"Like I said!" He rushed to assure them. "Most of the time it's just really stupid stuff. Nothing that memorable or important. I mean," He chuckled. "there are a few I take advantage of."
"Visions you "take advantage of"? Oh this I have to know." Mirabel leaned forward. "Visions like what?"
"Well I could take advantage of more than I actually have. It's stuff-" His eyes flickered emerald for a few seconds and he snapped his head up, eyes wide. "Camilo! Take two steps backward!"
The whole table jolted and Camilo leaped backward. There was a tense moment before the pressure of the blockage in the rain gutter caused it to burst and dump water right on the boy's head soaking him clean through.
"Like that." Bruno wheezed as he laughed.
It wasn't long before the rest of the family were bent over the table in laughter, aside from Camilo who glared at his tío.
"Oh it's on." Camilo growled.
"Good luck." Bruno laughed.
