unpocoloco | Daybreak IC Inbox

[What’s “huh” about it!! He’d been the one to make the offer, so it shouldn’t be coming out of nowhere! Ugh.]

I wasn’t planning on telling Coco
is that a bad idea?

nah it’s cool

I was thinking the second weekend

...
The second weekend?
El Día del Amor y la Amistad?
:)

[He's on to you, kid.]

A rose.
A red one.
Don't worry about it being cliche.

I would give some warning.
Not too early but not too late.
She panics.

Your family will know you'll be travelling right?

[no!!!! why...

For once, forgetting (or "forgetting") his phone exists isn't the reason he takes so long to answer. He's just busy trying not to scream. Héctor wasn't supposed to figure it out, this is hell.]

got it, a little warning

I asked my mom
she's still not big on me flying around using someone else's money but she knows Coco's my best friend and we just had Tobias over for Christmas so it's fine

Good and good.
Message your mother a lot.
For both our peace of minds.

[Travel freaks him out too, wonder why.]

Another thing.
You should prepare to be upstaged.
Very upstaged.
I've waited over a decade for this.
Three more years even after I came back to earth.
I am not going easy on this.

Edited 2021-01-07 06:20 (UTC)

[Oh my god, Héctor, have a little mercy before he accidentally smothers himself. What does he say that isn't embarrassing as hell or rude?]

okay but do we have to talk about this

Yes.
You need to know what you're in for.
Would you want to have this all dropped on you as a surprise?
I think not.

Also, to be serious a moment, if Teto's coming along, I figured it might help things there too if you were aware.
He seems to have taken to you and I can't say I'm surprised.
You're not expected to do anything, but if I need to send him out for a time or talk to him privately, perhaps giving you early context might save some more unfortunate conversations.

[That's...fair. As mortifying as talking to her dad is right now, it's probably better than the humiliation or awkwardness he might've felt otherwise. Well, things are still basically guaranteed to be awkward, sounds like.]

fine

Luckily for you, I don't have much more to say than that.
I imagine I have a pretty good sense of what will be going through the kid's head.
He'll still be adjusting.
And he'll still be missing people.
I'm not going to miss out on my own chances after so long, but I'll be trying to avoid rubbing his loneliness back in his face.
I don't want it to seem like a conspiracy if I send him out with the cat to go explore the town.
I figure, given enough time, things will settle, but it's still really early for that.
You can stick around with Coco or go with him.
But either way, now you're aware.

yeah
or both of them
I mean, they're both my friends and I want to see the place you guys live, too

on a topic that isn't me, any skin yet, or will you be condemned to no besos?

Oh, of course,
but I mean, I would like Coco around
when I re-propose to her mother

Besides that, of course, I'll be letting you and Teto around the house.

I'm working on it.
I've got back the energy I lost during that whole thing.
But, before that, I managed to
more or less reset myself.
I was attempting to resurrect back at the school.
It worked after many months, only, I died within hours.
It was chance circumstances and the work of good friends that brought me back as undead.
Which means, I'm kind of restarting as brand new.
It took me a long time, my first go around.
But, I think I'm nearly there.

oh

[He says that before it fully clicks, but it does half a second later. Oh!!! There's an unexpected swell of happiness that only has a little bit to do with the lingering childish wish of his own father coming back for him and his mom. Héctor was going to re-propose! That's awesome... Any glum attitude he had about being "upstaged" is completely gone, because it's the ultimate gift for the family and he's not able to give it. Being around for it at all, even outside the house when it happens, makes him feel peripherally special.]

I don't really need to wish you luck, but good luck anyway

[The next part is decidedly more strange!]

is it safe to do that? even if your family's necromancy was that kind, isn't it hard to bring someone back?
and illegal or something?

I'll take that luck.
I need all I can get.

It wasn't safe.
Not at all.
You wouldn't believe the ways I screwed it up in all that time.
The fact it eventually worked was a miracle.
Especially since I had to start trying methods without Imelda.
It was highly frowned upon, I made all my friends upset, but,
I don't have the faintest clue if it was illegal and I frankly wouldn't have cared.
At the time, it seemed the only way to get home again.
And I was running out of time.
So, I was going to do it.

I can't imagine her saying no, man

[Yeah, he's never met her, but he's heard Héctor, Coco, and Teto talk about her, and he's heard the fire and gentle fondness in her voice. Even if she was furious Héctor was proposing, Cliff believes her answer would overwhelmingly be yes.

Somehow, it's easier to think these things when concerns other people. Probably not something he needs to examine, ever.]

yeah there's all that
but I'm talking about now
if you can even get it to work again, how do you know you aren't just going to die?
now that they remember and love you, what if it's better to stay undead?

I appreciate that thought.

[But he doesn't have nearly the same confidence.]

Ah, I see I've confused you.
Or perhaps myself.

I'm not attempting another resurrection.
The arsenic lingering in my body would only put me back under.
If I tried again it would be for more time and only if I could find the means to deal with the poison beforehand.
But that's far from my focus right now.
I'm staying undead.

But, for getting skin back, that's another thing.
My kind can somewhat appear as our old selves.
It takes more energy and we don't appear perfectly alive or healthy, but we can do it.
When I said I'm "reset" I mean that according to my power I am, in a sense, "newly" undead.
It takes a while for new ones to draw on that part of their power but obviously, I have some advantage in already knowing how.
All this to say, using my own power is perfectly safe and I'll have it remastered in no time. Ideally before you stop to visit.

[Arsenic... Yikes. He'd known about the whole murder thing, but what a way to do it. For as much as the guy fuzzy in Cliff's memories had pushed the blame on Héctor and Coco, he'd sure put in a lot of effort before reaching his "breaking points" to claim those as true crimes of passion. He'd hired people to kidnap and kill Coco, and where does someone even get arsenic? He's not really sure exactly what arsenic is, actually. Hm.]

got it
blight stuff is such a pain
too much to keep track of
anyway don't worry on the looking alive for my comfort, do it all to get the girl

Jaja
I owe everything to blight.
A little complication sometimes is worth the price.

You rest assured.
I'm doing this entirely for that reason.
I will have that beso.

yeah

[...Well. It's not like...Héctor wouldn't get it. It shouldn't fuck things up. And him being more comfortable with the wolf side of him would...make Coco happy. Right? Right. He types before his brain catches up with his fingers.]

same for me, I guess
I don't like being blighted but it's not like there's anything about it I hate or anything

cool
because unless it's going to be a pain, I want more skeleton tricks

Oh?
[It is a bit of a surprise... but not that much.]
I hope you are being careful in that school there.
Kids fling around radiance like no tomorrow.
[Which wouldn't hurt a were too much but hey, he doesn't know what kind of blight Cliff has.]
But it's nice, isn't it? Just knowing that even if it's hard sometimes, that one thing might have led to more opportunities.

I would never deny skeleton tricks.

Edited (shakes fist at formatting) 2021-01-08 21:59 (UTC)

don't worry about it

and it's not going to be a problem when I'm there, in case you were wondering
I wouldn't want to bother Coco and you guys with any of that

I had not presumed it would be.
I understand a need for caution
Even I have had fears in the past.
But we are the ones who live with our conditions.
I trust you know what you're doing.
But, for the record, I doubt it would be that much a bother to us.

Edited 2021-01-08 22:51 (UTC)

yeah
Coco and Teto know already
and the full moon's a ways off
I'll almost be a normal human then

[A were then. That does explain things.]

Almost.
Do you not think you're human now?
I think myself human.
I was born human.
I have lived human.
I may be undead now, but I don't know that that means I am not human.

man, I don't know
I want to
but I'm not like my mom and brother anymore
they don't get it, they're normal
even human and even without Carl there, I don't really fit in

Hmm.
You know, muchacho, that not fitting in is a very human condition.
There are always going to be things about us that others don't get.
Sometimes it will be those we love.
I think it's pretty understandable to be at odds with those we see as "normal" after we've been through the things that make us different.
I've had the same feeling, seeking out ghosts in graveyards over the living
As I've had seeking out the poor on the street because I couldn't relate to the wealth of the academy or in other places.
Does that truly make you less human?
Or is it more that you think you don't deserve to call yourself human?

[aaaaa talking about it is bad, actually!! Even if he wants the validation from Héctor, who's more familiar with these feelings that the others Cliff would trust enough to share this vulnerability with, he doesn't like the opening up and trusting at all. Or having to think about what Héctor's saying, where the answer depended on the day. It meant there was a wrong answer.]

I'm fine
it just sucks to be different sometimes
it's not really a big deal

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