#<- yes I already wrote the scenelets

[void-botanist]

I am experiencing a mild obsession with Thade because it is fun to watch him be annoying. Who wants scenelets

[beckytailweaver]

[FIC] I wrote a Coco thing! In the name of Destiny!

I guess for now this is the UnbornAU, but it could also be named Destiny.  Or maybe I should call it Unborn Destiny...

Anyway!!

This whole Coco AU is kind of based on This Post but it also incorporates a bunch of other loose bits that don’t fit anywhere else and looked cool. There’s not much actually written down, but it seems to be a pretty solid collection of concepts in my head that rolled together well, so...I’ll see where this goes. Suggestions and thoughts are welcome.

Thus, for your reading pleasure (I hope), a brief random Unborn Destiny scenelet apropos of nothing. (No pizzas were harmed in the making of this ficbit.)

Unborn Destiny clip (Setting: Land of the Living, Rivera house courtyard, early afternoon)

Miguel glanced from Héctor to the slice of pizza and back again, his smile fading.  Pensive, he held it out to his grandfather.  "You want some?"

"Ay, didn't we just go over this?"  Héctor reached over and swiped at the bitten slice, bony hand passing through the boy's with no other sensation than a touch of slightly-too-cool air and the faintest tingle.  "I'm a little insubstantial on this side of the bridge, mijo.  Besides, it has your spit on it," he complained good-naturedly.

"We're family, we have the same germs," Miguel groused back, some of his good humor returning.  "I just feel bad eating in front of you when you've got nothing."

"I'm not gonna starve to death, Chamaco."  Behind his joking grin, the skeleton had that softly fond look in his eyes that he got whenever his family went out of their way for him.  Like after a year it was still amazing and he didn't expect it all the time.

Miguel loved that look and mourned it at the same time.  "I know that, but Abuelita says it's not nice to eat in front of people without inviting them."

"Such a polite boy."  Chuckling, Héctor ruffled Miguel's hair—or pretended to, and maybe it only flicked in a slightly cool hint of breeze as he ducked away.  "Anyway, I couldn't eat it even if I could touch it.  Where would it go?"

Perplexed, Miguel watched a bony finger run up and down the empty ribcage like a clattery xylophone, softly musical.  "Wait, we ate at Mamá Imelda's house, I've seen you eat and drink before...!"

"Yes, yes, you saw it," Héctor agreed, making calming gestures.  "But that—" He pointed at the slice of pizza and its missing bite, still dangling in Miguel's hand. "—is real food, made of bread and cheese and sausage and...who knows what else they put in that thing.  Anyway.  What you see me eating—" A gesture at his own body again, the hollow slats of ribs and the slim tower of spine like a lone tree, as if to emphasize the lack of anything resembling organs.  "—is the same as everything else in the Land of the Dead: A memory."

"You're eating memories."  Miguel wrinkled his nose, pondering the concept.  "So...it's like when you take your offerings from the ofrenda or the cemetery...or when you took your guitar.  A...an echo. A reflection."

"Yes!  Well, kind of.  Mostly," Héctor nodded, still smiling.  "The dead don't need to eat—it's just a nice thing to do now and then.  So it's very sweet of you to offer, mijo, and you have my thanks, but it's really not necessary."

Nodding absently, Miguel stared down at the pizza slice.  "A memory..."

"So finish up before it gets cold, Chamaco!"

Head tilting, Miguel took hold of the crust of his slice with both hands. He focused on the pizza itself, on the smell and the taste, the texture of the cheese and the warmth of the bread.  Then he reached inside for that same inside-out-upside-down cold warmth that bloomed under his heart when he flipped through the borders of the world.

With both hands he pulled apart, and the world spun a little bit for an instant, but the pizza slice didn't tear.

There was a brief clatter of ethereal bone.  "Dios mío—!"

When Miguel looked up again, his skeletal grandfather had startled into one of those artistic pretzels that happened when the current range of motion in his strongly-remembered form tangled with his mind's perception of how his limbs should be able to move after decades of loose-jointed neglect.  His eyes were rather huge.

"Papá Héctor, are you okay?"

"Am I okay?  What you just did—are you okay?"  Disentangling his limbs with the ease of long habit, Héctor gestured expressively at the pizza in his grandson's hands.  "That—that—I don't think that's supposed to happen!"

In his left hand, Miguel still held his slice of pizza, untouched.  In his right...an identical slice, down to the missing bite, translucent and softly glowing a pale yellow.  The cool tingle in his fingers was stronger than ever, almost like his hand had gone to sleep.

"Well," Miguel grinned, holding up the ghostly slice, "it worked.  Here you go!"

Héctor gaped at him.  "You just—without even Día de Muertos—and no cempasúchil—and you just say 'Here you go' like it's—"

"You said it worked like memory, so that's what I tried!  Like the cemetery!"  Miguel pushed the ghost pizza at his grandfather again.  "And...you need to take this 'cause it's kind of starting to make my hand hurt—"

With a yelp, Héctor lurched forward and scooped the memory-food out of the boy's hand.  This time, Miguel could almost feel the brush of warm-cool finger bones, hard and not quite smooth.

Clutching the pizza gingerly as if it might be a grenade, Héctor watched him shake out his fingers. "Are you all right?  Let me see—are there bones?  Did you—?"

"It's fine, it's fine!"  Miguel waved him off; the tingling ache was fading already, leaving only cold fingers.  "I think it was just a bit much, being on this side and trying to hold something from yours."

"This was a lot more than just picking up a leftover piece of Pan de Muertos, Chamaco."  Héctor looked far more worried than impressed.  "You just...out of nothing.  There's supposed to be Día de Muertos and a lot of marigold petals for that to work."

"It wasn't nothing, it was memory," Miguel insisted, holding up his own cooling slice.  "But I'm glad it worked, because now I don't have to eat alone."

"Ayy, this kid...!"  The skeleton threw up his hands, almost tossing the ghost pizza.  "Doing hopscotch on the border between worlds, playing with ancient magic like a toy, and he's worried about me getting lunch..."

"Aren't you going to try it?"  Grinning, Miguel took another big bite of his own.

Héctor stared flatly at him.

"I'm just saying," Miguel went on after swallowing, unrepentant, "after all this effort, it would be a shame if you didn't even taste it."

Rolling his eyes with an affectionate I've-got-your-number,-kid snort, Héctor examined the ghostly pizza for a moment before taking a very careful bite.

"Well?"

The skeleton chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.  "...it's pretty good, actually."

Miguel's face split into a beaming smile.

"But it's still got your spit on it."

"We're family, we have the same germs!"

(end...for now)