unpocoloco | Daybreak IC Inbox

She can't help it. She starts laughing before he gets too far, shushing his whining in between where she can. He turns to her, and she tries to keep him moving forward as best she can.

"Ay, cálmese, cálmese..." she shushes him, still laughing. "I'm not going to bury you. Or let you be buried." That would cause far too much trouble for her, having to dig him back up again.

"Besides, I thought Coco was your favorite." She lifts a brow at him--the same sort of look she might give Coco when catching her in a fib.

"Really?" He says, eyes still wide. That pout turns into a rather emotional smile. "Ah! Thank you!"

Still being at her side, he can quite easily preform a sort of side hug. He makes a pleased noise, but backs off again as her brow raises. He blinks.

"You're my favorite. But Coco is my very best most favorite of all favorites," He says with complete seriousness. He gives a nod at this very important distinction.

He is a poet.

She keeps that face for approximately another second before smiling and shaking her head. This is the man that she's laid her affections with. A true poet. A visionary.

She doesn't seem to mind the side hug--or perhaps she doesn't really take notice of it when they've already got an arm around each other. If she's leaning a little closer to him once he draws back a bit, that's probably just his imagination.

"Well, if you have a favorite of your favorites, then how many favorites do you have?"

He's fairly sure, if Coco had heard as much, she'd have agreed.

He's glad to see her smile. He's glad she's let him close. He's glad she's here.

Without a beat, he answers, "Two. Coco and you." No brainer. "Ask me another one?" He beams at her.

Her and Coco. That's sweet, and she feels a little more fondness for him in this moment than she might when she's more sober.

"When did this turn into twenty question?" she laughs. Probably about the time that she started prying into his drunken logic. But this is fine. He's smiling, and she can't help but smile back.

"You go next. It's your turn to ask me something."

He grins wider at her laughter, happy just to hear it. He looks at her like he's dazzled. Maybe he is.

He laughs in turn, stopping when she suggests he try. Guess they really are doing twenty questions.

"I- Oh man, I've got so many questions, 'melda. So many, many... I want to know..." He frowns, forcing himself to think and not just run his mouth. "Tell me stories? About you and Coco? ... actually, wait, that's not a question. Uh. Oh! Haha! What's Coco's favorites now? Or your favorites now? Unless they're the same but, ah..."

This was maybe a mistake. He's off like a rocket, and she's prepared to point out that stories are not questions. But he catches that mistake quick enough--only to possibly make a new one right after it.

"Favorite what?... Favorite people?" That's what he was talking about just a moment ago with her and Coco.

He blinks. He didn't actually think that part through. He kind of just wanted to know--

"Everything?" But no, that's not an easy thing to answer. "People. Yes. Your friends. Her friends! Oh, she must have so many by now. I hope she does. She's the best." She's the best and she deserves to have a lot of people who love her.

"Or... other things she likes. Things she likes to do. That's good too."

Her friends? She falters a little there, but he asks then about Coco's friends, and she can answer that much more easily.

"She has so many... She's such a bright, lively girl." On that, they can agree. Their daughter is the best, and she deserves so much love from so many people. She goes down the list of people that Coco is close to, names and ages and how they met, all the little details that Imelda is sure she's heard a million times from Coco herself. Many of which she's met herself, enough that she feels like she might know them as well as their own families.

"She still likes flowers. Comes home from school with them braided into her hair, and I have to spend the evening helping her pick them back out again." But she sounds fond of it, like all of the things that her and her daughter share.

"I've been teaching her magic when I can... though I think my brothers have been giving her ideas on the side. She keeps getting ahead of herself, trying to make up new spells before she's gotten all the basics down." She smiles to herself, holding back a laugh as she continues. "Last summer, she scorched her eyebrows off in one of her experiments. She was so worried they wouldn't grow back in before school started again."

Bright and lively. That alone takes his breath, makes it catch. He takes note of each name, recording the details to memory and hoping the drinks won't take them away.

She still likes flowers which means there's still at least one things he knows of her. Knew. His heart aches.

And then he's laughing in surprise, not holding back at all. "Mi cariña! Oh, mi preciosa," He laughs and croons in the same breath. "I've got to tell her about my plan with the fireworks, she'll like that one." His laughter eases out, becoming a sigh. "Mi niñita... I miss her so much."

She smiles as he croons, her expression going a touch softer as she glances over at him. There's a fondness in his voice and in his face and in his words... It radiates off of him, and she's not immune to the way that warms her heart a little.

So quietly, she adds in the silence after: "She misses you, too."

His breath wavers there and he blinks a little faster. His poor girl. His sweet girl.

And the he starts.

"Oh! OH! You have to cover your ears!" He reaches up, poorly doing the job for her. "I have to sing her song! Did you hear that?"

"What?" She looks a little startled when he tries to cover her ears, decidedly confused as she moves to push his hands away. Given how uncoordinated he is, it's not very difficult.

"Yes, I heard that. Whose song are you talking about?"

"Coco!" He says urgently. "I have to sing Coco's song!" Like she even knows what he's talking about there. His balance is weird now and he doesn't know where to put his hands once they're pushed down. He pouts up at her.

"Coco's secret song. It's just for us. I sing it every night I can for her. Nobody else." Someone has clearly forgotten about Ernesto. "I used to play on that gazebo." He points out in a vague direction that probably isn't the right one. "And in the Outlands. And out in Europe."

Coco's secret...song? That gets an even more confused look from her. "I've never heard anything about that."

Probably because... It's a secret. But it still surprises her that Coco would keep a secret from her... and for him. Either way, she has no idea where he's gesturing right now, but she makes sure to keep a firm hold on him.

"Well, anyway, can it wait? Or do you have to sing it right now?" She's not really sure she can cover her ears and also keep him standing at the same time.

He laughs, sheepish. "Ah, well, it's been a long time. She probably doesn't even remember."

Just sheepish and not at all like the thought breaks his heart. It's fine. It's a nice night and Imelda is here, by his side.

"Supposed to sing at the same time," He says. "But I can wait a bit." He's made her wait before. He's technically never stopped making her wait.

She probably doesn't even remember... Imelda isn't entirely sure about that. It's hard to forget a song that's made for you. She knows that she hasn't forgotten any of them.

"We'll be home before too long. You can sing it then. It's..." She tries very carefully to check her watch without jostling him too much. "...Still early in the evening in Santa Cecilia. You'll have time before the evening is over."

Imelda isn't four years old.

"Mmm, okay," He hums, swaying into her. Dios, he's tired. "Tired", that is. He feels oh so heavy. He wishes he could just let himself be bones. But no, he doesn't want to be buried and he doesn't want Imelda to be unhappy and he does want to sing. Just a little longer.

But now there's no more questions, just a quiet. He regrets that. He looks over at her, watching her face, mapping it.

"Mm, 'melda...?" He's slurring a little. "... Are you single?"

That seems to satisfy him, so she'll let the issue of his secret song rest. She's not sure how she feels about that regardless. Him and Coco sharing a secret like that...

As the silence falls between them, she seems to withdraw into her own thoughts. It's not until he says her name that she seems to shake off whatever had preoccupied her. And even then...

"What?" She doesn't understand the question at first. "No? Of course not." She hasn't been single for a very long time, after all. Even after everything that had happened, she saw no reason to divorce him. She had no intention of remarrying, and he had all but vanished. Filing any sort of legal paperwork would have just been a hassle.

He's taken her by surprise, but it doesn't take her too long to answer the question. It's only after she's answered that he remembers, in this drunken state, why he didn't ask such things before.

"Oh."

He makes a face, the kind that happens when he's trying not to look upset. Then he bobs his head.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine. It's just, you're still my favorite-- but that's okay. That's okay. How long have you- no, no, I won't ask. I'll be good."

It takes her a few seconds longer to realize what he was really asking with a reaction like that. She inhales, halfway to telling him that no--he's got the wrong idea. But the words catch in her throat. Does she really want to admit that they're still married? That any question like that, she immediately turns down?

It's the look on his face that wins out. He looks crushed, and she's not so heartless as to not point out his misunderstanding.

"Héctor... I'm still married. That hasn't changed."

He starts and blinks at her. "You- you are?! Really?!"

A pause follows, before he adds and points to himself. "To me...?" And then he quieter, "...Even though I'm dead?"

She gives him a look when he asks To me? as if to ask in return Who else? But that moment is short-lived because he raises a very good point.

There's a pause as she considers that, a frown slipping across her lips. But finally with no small amount of reluctance, she responds.

"Even... despite that, yes. We're still married. There's no reason that we wouldn't be."

He continues to stare, wonder upon his face and a slight smile attempting to form.

"Oh. I thought maybe, you know, since the rules say no... but we're married," He breathes. He looks all to pleased, even looking away. "I'm the luckiest man in the whole world."

He's not, but he doesn't remember otherwise right now.

She sighs at that, a touch exacerbated. The luckiest man in the world? If you were, then you would have made it home alive, she thinks, but only to herself. It's too sobering of a thought. He looks happy, but she just feels tired.

"You're the silliest man in the world," she mutters instead, shifting to pull his arm over her shoulder a little more firmly. "What would you have done if I said that we weren't? Or if I found someone else?"

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