Chapter Text
When Bruno woke from his impromptu - though well-deserved - nap with a snrk and a jolt, he was more than a little startled to see his madre, Mirabel, and Camilo staring down at him with what he would later decide were deceptively innocent expressions.
He was even more startled when they told him what they wanted.
“What?!” Bruno sputtered, looking between the smirk on Camilo’s face, the hopeful, pleading expression on Mirabel’s, and the slightly drawn brows of his mother. He was half-certain he was still dreaming and that it was verging into nightmare territory. “No, no no no – I – I must’ve – misheard you or something - you – you three volunteered me to do what?!”
“Well, see – normally Señora Pezmuerto directs los pesebres - ”
“So let her do it!”
“She broke her leg, tío. This morning.”
Bruno rubbed his hand across his face and settled back into the armchair he’d been napping in. Their hosts had graciously allowed the family to borrow and use the majority of their inns’ rooms while they continued to rebuild the Casita. They probably didn’t think it would take seven months, but here they were, several weeks until Christmas and hopefully a few less weeks until the Madrigals could move into their own home again.
“Oh. That’s – um. That’s…unfortunate.” Bruno’s fingers twitched as he attempted to avoid finding something wooden to knock on. “But you could still just – set her up nice and pretty in the church, eh? Prop her leg up on the pew, she can yell -” at Mamá’s narrowed gaze, Bruno amended his words – “ - direct from the pew and there you go! It’ll be fine.”
“We – already volunteered to direct los pesebres for her,” Mirabel explained apologetically. “While she recovers. And we rehearse at the school, not the church.”
Ah, yes. Now that the magic was gone, it did take longer than the customary two minutes to heal a broken limb. Even with a new doctor in town. Whose arrival delayed the rebuilding of Casita for a week - and whose children had probably delayed the finishing of Casita for even longer.
After the first day clearing rubble from Casita resulted in three broken fingers, two black eyes, and the incident with the bees in the palm tree, the residents of the Encanto quickly realized that the first thing they needed was a new doctor. Julieta had some mediocre medical experience, but her magical healing relied largely on love and not on knowledge. While she was still good at comforting and nursing without her gift, she was less than skilled at things like setting bones and stitching wounds.
In sending a few valiant souls to brave the world outside the mountains, the residents of the Encanto were hoping to find a nice friendly doctor, skilled and knowledgeable with a good bedside manner, either old enough to have a lot of experience or young enough to marry off to one of their daughters.
What they got was Doctor Arturo Bartolo.
Doctor Bartolo was a man in his late thirties who spoke only when spoken to and sat like a mountain in the corner of every room. He brought with him four children ranging in age from five to twelve. All four kids called him Papa Toro, which Bruno was fairly certain was supposed to be Papa Turo but lost something in the lilting language of childhood. But it fit, because the man looked like a bull. He had the widest torso Bruno had ever seen on a human being before, he was almost as tall as Luisa, and he had a wide, shiny forehead and a wide, flattened nose to match. His dark brown hair was parted directly down the center of his head and curled away from his forehead so that he even looked like he had little horns. He had exactly three expressions: Neutral (eyebrows set straight across his forehead), Pleased (eyebrows moved an inch to the north), and Displeased (eyebrows moved an inch to the south).
“Doctor Bartolo says it could take six to eight weeks until she walks again,” Camilo said.
Bruno harrumphed and burrowed more deeply into his ruana, tucking his chin in and glaring out at them. “How’d she even manage to break her leg?”
“She tripped over a stepladder someone left behind the half-built wall of the kitchen. When she came around with an armful of tiles, she failed to notice it and fell.” Mamá explained, looking slightly flustered.
Bruno froze and swallowed. He’d left the stepladder by the kitchen wall yesterday. “Uh - ”
“It was a wipe-out worthy of Tío Agustín,” Camilo said with a straight face. His expression stood up to the sharp look his Abuela gave him to make certain he wasn’t making light of their neighbor’s misfortune.
“It’ll weeks for her leg to heal properly,” Mamá sighed, and then sniffed. “And it will take three days for us to remake those tiles.”
Camilo coughed and it sounded suspiciously like “Bartolo.”
Mamá shook her head. “There are dozens of people working in Casita every day. It could have been anyone, Milito. It’s…unfair to blame the Bartolos.”
“Even if it’s…probably accurate,” Mirabel muttered under her breath.
Bruno cleared his throat and tugged on the collar of his shirt. A collar that was rapidly beginning to feel a smidge too tight.
The four Bartolo children were - to be polite - complete and utter terrors. The collective opinion of the Encanto was that the Bartolo children were quite possibly the worst kids in the history of the world, and that included Bruno as a petulant, brooding, future-seeing teenager. Bruno had earned at least half of his reputation and the rest had built up over years of superstition, spite, and chisme. The Bartolo kids had earned one hundred percent of theirs.
Each child was skinnier and meaner than the last - so that the oldest – Inesa - you might (wrongly) associate with a delicate Victorian era waif, and the youngest – Sara - you might confuse with a rabid coati. The two boys in the middle were very difficult to tell apart, and though they insisted they weren't twins, they looked exactly alike and were mean and surly enough that if you confused the two it earned you either a blistering cussing out or a good pinch to the arm, depending on their mood.
La Familia Bartolo had followed that first party of travelers back into the Encanto and brought with them an air of mystery and enough medical wherewithal to cure the bruises the kids inflicted on everyone in their path. The travelers said they’d found Dr. Bartolo in the next nearest town and he was willing enough to leave; though now that they’d been in the Encanto for several months Bruno personally wondered if it wasn’t more that the previous town packed them up and shipped them off to the next bunch of unsuspecting suckers.
Still, Bruno had been blamed for so many things he didn’t do in the past he would never let anyone else take the fall for something they hadn’t done.
Even little punks like the Bartolo kids.
Bruno exhaled slowly. Miercoles. “Uh – yeah. No. Ma – uh, your abuela’s right. It definitely – definitely could have been anyone. Uh - me, for example.”
Mamá gave him a small smile. “I know you’re used to taking the blame when things go wrong,” she said softly, gently brushing his curls from where they’d fallen in front of his face and tilting his face up to look at her, “but no more. It was an accident, all will be well, there is no need to point fingers at anyone.”
Bruno closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. “Ma. I’m saying it was me. I left the stepladder there.”
“…oh.” Mamá’s eyes widened.
“All the more reason for Tío to take her place directing los pesebres!” Camilo shrugged.
“Milo - ” hissed Mirabel, giving him a look that definitely projected not like this loud and clear.
Bruno stretched his neck side to side, finally accepting that his naptime was over. And if he agreed to help direct the church’s nativity play, it would be over for the next three weeks. Good-bye, sleep.
“I’ll – I’ll go apologize,” he mumbled. “But that doesn’t mean I’m directing the play! How’d you two get involved with this, anyway?”
“ Well - ” Mirabel and Camilo bickered and stumbled over each other’s words in an attempt to explain what exactly they’d done to earn the title of ‘Junior Directors of Los Pesebres’.
Bruno squinted at them, and as they talked circles around each other weaving one convoluted tale with another, he allowed his mind to wander back to the town’s newest residents.
At first, everyone assumed that all four kids were Arturo Bartolo’s children and that he was a widower. But he didn’t wear a ring and the children called him “Papa Turo”, not just “Papá” or “Pa”; the addition of his name lent credence to the next most likely chisme: that the children were orphans the good doctor had adopted in his travels. But as the children began to wreak havoc and spread their reign of terror throughout the Encanto, the gossip got increasingly more ridiculous – ranging from Dr. Bartolo having four different wives who all left him eventually because they couldn’t handle his kids, to him getting stuck with the changeling children that parents no longer wanted. Bruno’s personal favorite was that Dr. Bartolo lost a bet with the devil and the children were his punishment.
He’d never repeat it, though, for two very important reasons: First, he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of spiteful gossip; and second, he’d seen Sara put a particularly nasty rumor to rest with a screeching ‘don’t talk about Papa Toro like that!’ and a well placed bite to Señora Pezmuerto’s arm. She literally couldn’t shake the kid off. Sara Bartolo drew blood.
Still, good telenovela fodder.
The kids did seem to care for and respect Dr. Bartolo, but they certainly weren't afraid of him and any love they felt for him didn’t stop them from performing random acts of vandalism and violence on the unsuspecting public of the Encanto. Since their padre (adopted or otherwise, that still hadn’t been confirmed by the doctor himself) spent most of his workday in various homes around the Encanto making house calls, so did the children. They went wherever their Papa Toro wasn’t. Probably to avoid his Displeased Stare.
And the Encanto quickly found that those four children lied and stole and cursed like sailors and hit little kids and took the name of the Lord in vain more than any adult in the mountain village. Carlos – or Raúl – one of them anyway – bold as anything, had stuck his hand into the basket of tools sitting in the yard outside Casita and walked off with a hammer. Three grown men saw him do it. And later, when that hammer hadn’t been returned and he was gently confronted, Raúl (or Carlos) had point-blank lied with the straightest of faces: ‘No I didn’t. Prove it.”
He’d actually added a particularly rude epithet to the end of that sentence but it was a word even most adults in the Encanto used sparingly, if at all.
When Señora Guzmán said ‘maybe we’d better seal those mountains back up for another fifty years’ everyone had laughed nervously and two of the older women in town looked to their husbands expectantly, as though they could somehow puppy-dog-eye them into dynamiting a mountain for the sake of keeping their village free from such influences.
The worst was when they’d set fire to Señor Ruiz’ old shack in the back of his pasture. He used it to store all the liquor he didn’t want Señora Ruiz to find and the Bartolo kids had gone exploring (see: thieving whatever their hearts desired from window sills and open barns) and ended up experimenting with a pilfered lighter behind the old shed. (Bruno didn’t blame them for being curious. He wished he could have had a few minutes to look at it, too. It was a shiny, snazzy new thing brought back by the travelers who’d gone to find the doctor.)
Bruno thought it was a good thing they didn’t know what was in the shed to begin with, or they might’ve sampled some of Señor Ruiz’ liquor, and that could have been a whole lot worse than what actually went down.
In the end, the kids had lit a pile of dry grass on fire, the old shed was drier than kindling and went up in flames in seconds flat, and the alcohol in the shed…fueled the fire.
Everyone in the Encanto was called on to put it out, even Bruno, and as soon as it was apparent that the flames were under control, several of the townspeople set about cooking dinner for everyone who’d worked so hard to put it out.
Dr. Bartolo had been busy examining people for mild burns and smoke inhalation and the Bartolo kids had snuck off with two entire platterfuls of empanadas and a huge bowlful of polvorosas.
The head of the fire brigade, Señor López, had gathered up all the kids in the Encanto and given them all a lecture on fire safety and not playing with matches or lighters or fire of any kind, even amazing new inventions from over the mountains.
The Bartolos were all there listening, Inesa and Sara with twin scowls on their faces and the boys with their arms crossed. Dr. Bartolo was finished with his work by then and had a hand on the boys' shoulders. From the way the muscles in his ox arms bulged Bruno was pretty sure the doctor was holding them to the spot until the lecture was over. He was wearing his Displeased face.
Señor López ended the lecture with how the incident, while scary, was a good lesson on fire safety. Bruno was fairly certain the only lesson the Bartolo children had learned was that if they caused a big enough disaster they’d get a fully catered dinner and dessert to boot.
Dr. Bartolo spoke with them when the children acted up but he was never seen actually disciplining them. When Señora López, the schoolteacher, ranted to him after the Bartolo kids started school and started bullying her youngest charges, he stared at her with his calm, steady gaze until she'd burnt herself out and then told her 'I'll talk to them'. And that was it.
Whether he actually did or not was anyone's guess but their behavior didn’t improve. He was either a lousy disciplinarian or he didn't even try. Bruno wasn’t sure what the town saw as worse. Shortly after the fire incident Inesa had made Luisa cry and Sara had bitten Antonio, and the whole Bartolo family was lucky that Pepa couldn’t strike them with lightning anymore.
Bruno had a soft spot for all kids, and he was well aware there was probably a history there that made them act the way they did, but his assessment still stood: the kids of La Familia Bartolo were little punks.
But despite unleashing the spawn of Satan on the Encanto, Arturo Bartolo did his job and he did it well. He was knowledgeable and a hard worker and never complained. The Encanto’s first impression of him was that he was intimidating, a mountain of a man. But when he never raised his voice or his hand, not even to his havoc-wreaking children, that impression began to change. He was trustworthy and gentle. He bandaged wounds with a delicate touch and spoke softly and deferred to the midwives when assisting with labor and delivery. He stitched up Agustín more times than Bruno could count and listened to Julieta share what she knew about the townspeople’s medical history, and if Dr. Bartolo thought she was insane for curing them with arepas and buñuelos, he never let on. If he hadn’t been such a good doctor, the Encanto would have sent him packing weeks after he arrived.
As it was, the Bartolo family remained in the Encanto and the Encanto…made the best of it.
Bruno shook himself out of his vacant stare and back into the conversation when Camilo rolled his eyes and crossed his arms with a frown.
“…so to spare Mamí from the joy of service we volunteered, and we totally would have been able to handle it on our own, just the two of us, if - ” Camilo added, before Mirabel stepped on his foot and cut him off.
Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all. Maybe he should have been paying more attention.
“Please, tío?” Mirabel looked at him with her wide, eager eyes.
"This is a terrible idea," Bruno said. "I don't like people. And people - people don't like me."
"I like you," Mirabel said immediately.
"We're family. It doesn't count."
Mirabel's expression fell, just a little, and Camilo shot him a dirty look.
"What I mean," Bruno corrected, "is - is - is that of course you like me. I like you too. What's not to like? We're family. I like all of you - all of you, etcetera etcetera. But - but just because some people outside of the family actually talk to me like I'm a normal human being now – heh - it doesn't mean I'm suddenly the number one guy to direct los pesebres.”
“Don’t worry, mijo,” Mamá said affectionately, patting Bruno’s cheek. “I’m sure you and Mirabel and Camilo will do a wonderful job. They will do most of the work and you’ll be their adult supervision. You…need something else to do, now that we’re almost done fixing Casita. This will be good for you. Good for…” She bit her tongue, obviously cutting off the rest of what usually followed.
Good for the Encanto.
Because what was good for them was always also good for the community as a whole, obviously. They were inseparable. One accord, and all that.
Bruno sighed.
That wasn’t fair, exactly. Mamá had taken great strides these past months and had made some significant changes. She’d worked hard to separate the ‘good of the family’ from the ‘good of the Encanto’, and even further - to distinguish the ‘good of the individual’ from the ‘good of the family’. She was trying.
They’d all worked through so much, had dismantled and rebuilt their old way of doing things just as surely as they dismantled the ruins of Casita and rebuilt it from the ground up. Things weren’t perfect, not by a mile – but they were significantly better. Better enough to tease and snark without fear of making someone irreparably disappointed. Sometimes they made each other sad or angry, but they always loved each other.
They were learning that unconditional approval was not synonymous with unconditional love, and that approval was not something anyone could nor should give unconditionally. And, as it turned out, unconditional love was something they all already had.
“Besides,” Mamá continued, clearing her throat and failing to hide a mischievous smile that Bruno still wasn’t used to seeing. “Don’t you always say your real gift is acting?”
Bruno snorted. “Fine,” he ground out. “Fine, I’ll - help.”
“Oh gracias a Dios,” Camilo and Mirabel sighed in tandem, and Bruno suddenly understood how those shepherds in the field felt when the angel came to greet them, because he was sore afraid.
Why were Camilo and Mirabel so relieved?
What had he just gotten himself into?