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applesap-fics · 1 year

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FABril Day 1 - Crush

G, 2103 words, The triplets crush on Félix.

The triplets sat on the Ortizes’ wall, facing the big construction site while they did — as Pepa called it — “boywatching”. A few guys their age and up had been asked to lend a helping hand with the construction of the new church. The town was growing exponentionally in both resources and population and the little chapel that had been hastily built when the Encanto first formed hadn’t sufficed for years.

Naturally, Bruno was looking at boys along with Pepa and Juli, because why wouldn’t he?

The triplets were fourteen and busy as anything with their miracles. They were old enough that Mamá didn’t always have to manage them together anymore. Julieta had been standing with the other merchants at the plaza to give away her little care packages, and Pepa and Bruno joined her on their breaks. Pepa never had much to do this time of the season except be sunny, and Bruno was glad to be away from Ma and her worried hovering for a little while.

(Though he appreciated that she still sat in on the visions. They had been getting weirder and worse and she worried about them, so that’s why it didn’t make Bruno feel too guilty for indulging in her affection a little bit longer. Still, a guy had to have his private moments away from his mami. Albeit with his sisters.)

“Ugh, he doesn’t even know I exist!” Julieta exploded, burying her face into her hands.

Félix had just walked past them, grinning and calling out a casual “hey, Bruno, ladies.” The air around them instantly heated up as Pepa stared with half-lidded eyes, cocking her head ponderously.

It was unanimous to anyone with eyes that Félix was a dreamboat, even if Pepa always feigned disinterest by complaining about how annoying he was. (In later years, this would only inflame her fixation on him.) He was two years older than them and way out of their league. He had stocky arms and a smile that could fight Pepa’s sunrays for attention, and as he carried a wheelbarrow packed with sandbags past them they could clearly see his muscles bulge from the effort.

It took Bruno a belayed second to wiggle his fingers back at him, and then he realized he could totally have hammed it up and pulled out one of his Don Juan-type characters to charm him--

No, too much. Too much, Bruno. That’ll never work.

“What are you talking about?” he said to Julieta, dopey smile still on his face as he watched Félix go.

“Of course he knows who you are!” Pepa added. “Duh, we’re the Madrigals.” She gestured over the three of them because it was obvious. They were the bearers of the miracle. And although Félix rarely got into accidents, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to Julieta’s magic.

Julieta stared abashedly in front of her. “I know that, but- ugh!” She threw her head down between her knees.

It was a bit surprising that she had such strong feelings for him. Bruno suspected she was just playing along, that she wasn’t really into Félix like he and Pepa were. That she just wanted to hang out with her siblings. He didn’t mind the dramatics, though.

Bruno kicked his feet. “Well, if he doesn’t know who you are it’ll leave more chance for us.”

“Oh, I’m not interested.” Pepa flicked her long frizzy hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to ask José out.”

“Which one?”

“Martinez.”

“Wow, that’s a familiar last name. I wonder who you’re trying to make jealous with that.”

She pouted. A little cloud floated over her head for a moment, but it cleared up when her expression did, suddenly struck by a fantasy. “I could have them fight over me.” She clutched her chest. “Oh, wouldn’t that be the talk of the town?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Bruno chimed in. “A battle of life and death between cousins. José wins your hand, which leaves Félix wounded and in the care of your handsome brother who’s always been more understanding of him and knows what he deserves and gives him twice the attention you would.”

Julieta piped up, “If anyone is going to nurse him back to health, it’s me!”

“Oh, right!” That was a good fantasy too. “Yes…Yes! And that’s the moment he truly notices you! I’m standing in the doorway — I see the two of you right as I’m about to confess my feelings to him, but I realize he’s not in love with me. He’s in love with you. So I nobly walk away and let you guys follow your hearts instead.”

But in reality there was no jealousy. There was no battle. There was no kneeling next to a sickbed as either Julieta or Bruno dabbed blood or sweat away from Félix’s forehead and, in this intimacy, dared to kiss his lips with surprise bravery.

A boy arrived in the Encanto like a mirage. The first people who spotted him and his parents had to squint to make sure they didn’t recognize them since everybody knew everybody in an isolated town like theirs, but when it was established that they really must be strangers, they were quickly taken in.

They were refugees like anyone else, but unfamiliar as the trio was, the town didn’t quite trust them yet. Agustín, for example, hadn’t been invited to help out on the cathedral with the other boys until it was well near finished, and when the triplets’ quince came around, Mamá did not allow him to dance with Julieta, who’d asked Bruno — who had become fast friends with Agustín — to invite him as her chaperone. Mamá didn’t like, or rather, didn’t trust, how comically clumsy he was, the exact reason Julieta had become so well acquainted with him (and as a result completely lost eyes for Félix).

Agustín was also tall, slender and friendly, and Bruno wondered why he again liked the same boy his sister liked. It wasn’t like he’d even lost Félix out of his periphery yet.

Wasn’t that greedy of him? That he’d like to maybe reach around their shoulders and hold hands with both boys too. Félix, Pepa, him in the middle, Julieta, Agustín.

“Eh, stupid. Fantasies,” he’d dismiss himself, never quite shaking off that happy ending.

Félix danced with Pepa on their quinceañera and that was it for them.

Bruno stood next to Mamá, clutching her black mourning shroud as green overtook his vision and his body went rigid with alarm. Seeing the slender arms of an older Pepa around Félix’s broad waist, moving him however she wanted because he yielded so easily for her; seeing Félix pull up a wide umbrella big enough to shield both of them from Pepa’s stormy cloud as she cried against his shoulder; seeing them kiss.

Mamá quickly and effortlessly disappeared him from the crowd of attendants before anyone could notice his impromptu vision. Sand stirred precariously around his feet, his eyes wide and frightening.

“Querido, sit down.” She placed him on the single chair at the food-bedecked table of the dining room, chairs placed elsewhere in Casita for the party. The music was dampened just enough to put the two of them in a little bubble. Mamá’s hand cupped his cheek. “Are you alright?”

The vision had gone. Bruno slumped, hands hanging between his knees, and he nodded.

“What was it? Your expression- ay, Bruno, why now?” She said this last part more to herself than him, knuckle to her lip as she thought of its significance, or importance thereof, with a deep frown.

“No, it was a good one, Mami,” he stopped her from worrying. He noticed he was still clutching her shroud like a lifeline and let go.

“Are you sure?” Her voice was sharp.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you about it yet, but you’ll like it. It’s not going to happen for a while.”

Relief washed over her in a full-body shudder. “Oh… Thank you, Brunito.”

“Go back to them, okay?” He waved at the party-goers. “I’m alright. Knock on wood.” He rapped his knuckles three times against the table.

“Gracias a dios, I will.” She knocked as well, then took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. “Eat something, alright, mijo? Then come back. We’ll talk about your vision tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

She adjusted her shroud and rejoined the party, hands jubilantly up in the air as she cheered for her daughters. Like the upsetting diversion had never happened.

When she was out of sight, Bruno slid off the table, pushing his wrists against his stinging eyes, keeping the tears at bay.

He wasn’t crying. He could never betray Pepa by being jealous of her. If he wanted Félix to come into the dining room, find him in a mess, and caress his tears away with soft sturdy words like he one day would for Pepa, that was just a separate feeling.

It wasn’t until Julieta descended from the courtyard — frantically looking around for her brother whom she knew wasn’t comfortable at big parties, especially when he had nothing to perform, a role to play, and who’d gotten more and more prone to strange meltdowns — that Bruno realized Casita had gently moved him to a more secluded space. Julieta found him tucked behind a flower pot between the corner and a cabinet, protected from stray guests spotting him. Casita moved the pot out of the way for Julieta, who squeezed herself in next to Bruno and asked what was the matter.

Her brows were furrowed and he could tell she was trying to temper her anger that she had to take a break from her own party to comfort him. But she still looked for him.

He laid his head on her shoulder.

“I’m always just going to have you,” he said softly, still kind of hoping it’d be Félix coming to get him. Or even his friend Agustín (who’d been invited, just not to act out the traditions).

“Obviously I’m missing something here or else you wouldn’t say something as mean as that,” Julieta said a tad offended, squeezing his shoulders. The annoyance she had so far kept in check came out sharp.

He slapped his face with his hands. “I always say it wrong…”

“Bruno, just calm down, okay? What happened?” She breathed in through her nose, calming herself. “Did you have a vision?”

She sounded like their mother, but unlike with Mamá he could actually share his feelings with his sister.

“Yeah,” he said. “Félix isn’t going to like me back.”

“Oh…”

He rubbed his eyes, then balled his fists around his knees. “I’m so stupid. Nobody in the Encanto is like me, I know that. I’m just weirdo freak Bruno. But I never even tried with him, you know? And now I’ve ruined it. I’m such a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, Bruno.” She bit her lip and frowned. “And you’re not a freak. You can try with other boys, maybe.”

Bruno thought of Agustín and the way Julieta sometimes looked at him, and decided he really couldn’t. “...I don’t want to make it awkward.”

“But you won’t know until you try-” The two triplets considered that for a second. “Sorry. You could know, of course.”

What was the point of trying if Bruno could toss his sand and burn incense like Mamá showed him and see for himself what he wasn’t brave enough to do? Julieta had a point, but he just wasn’t like that. He wanted to be certain first.

“No, don’t be. I’m just…being difficult again.”

She had no reply to that. “Bruno, can I be honest?”

“Yes. Always.”

“I don’t know how to help you with this.”

“That’s okay,” he said lightly. As if she could pull out clear-cut advice for every situation hidden in her pockets. That’d be the real miracle.

“And…And I really just wanna go back to the party.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“With you.”

The thing about having feelings at the age of fourteen is that, in most cases, those feelings will pass when they aren’t nurtured. On Julieta’s signal — a slight nod towards him and Pepa as they rejoined the dance court — Bruno was reminded of their plan and pulled out his firecrackers, disrupting the careful traditional dancing of their friends and their dance partners until everyone, guests and hosts, was roped into la hora loca craziness. He hugged Félix, he hopped in circles with Agustín. Bruno cried out and danced with his sisters and even goaded Mamá into a wild dance as he shook every bad feeling about the prophecy away.

Because all it should’ve been was exciting.

#bruno madrigal #felix madrigal #pepa madrigal #julieta madrigal #agustin madrigal #abuela alma madrigal #fabshipping #fabril #encanto #encanto fanfics

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