Chapter Text
Bruno was acting weirdly towards Mirabel.
She loved her tío, she really did. But his constant changing attitude towards her in the last few weeks made her seriously consider whether he was losing his mind.
She mostly tried to find the fault by herself but she couldn`t even pinpoint a major event that had made him change the way he behaved around her.
One week he decided that he wouldn‘t sit beside her during dinner anymore. Another week he would tell her about all the people he met during his visits to the village and would especially point out all the nice men of Encanto. And the week after that he would tell her that he was too busy to even talk to her.
Mirabel was starting to feel seriously hurt by the acts of Bruno. She always was his favourite since she brought him back into the family and suddenly, he decided that sometimes he wouldn’t even talk to her. She felt that she had the right to know what was wrong and how she could make it right again. If it was something she could help him with then would do everything in her power to make sure he’d feel comfortable talking with her again.
So, after four weeks Mirabel decided it was enough and that tío Bruno and she needed to have a serious talk.
It was late on a Saturday afternoon when she made her way up to Bruno’s tower. Although she felt in her right to bring this issue up, she still felt nervous about asking him about it.
Still, her knock was loud and clear.
However, no one answered.
Mirabel knocked again.
Still no answer.
She was confused.
He had to be there. She hadn’t seen him leave and he said anything about spending the day somewhere else.
In general, Bruno didn’t really leave the house. It had been a few years since Mirabel brought him back, but he just didn’t like being with a lot of people most of the time.
Before he started acting weird, he and Mirabel had spent a lot of time together. She probably enjoyed his telenovelas more than anyone else in the family. Even the ones about the aunt falling in love with her nephew. She would enjoy him telling about his passion for forbidden love telenovelas although that one hit too close home.
She turned the doorknob and immediately felt a little bit bad about invading Bruno’s privacy, but she just had to speak to him. She couldn’t take one more day with him avoiding her. It was eating her up inside.
His room had shrunk after he came back. He had once told her that he supposed it was about him being closer to the family again. As a younger man he had felt alienated by them which made his room bigger and bigger until it took numerous flights of stairs for him to even come down to his family again.
Nowadays it was smaller, the vision cave barely above his bedroom. There was still sand all over the place and every time Mirabel had spend time in Bruno’s room, she found sand in various places on her body. And she had seen Bruno start days by brushing sand out of his hair or from under his feet. It was bothersome and he had begged casita time and time again to tone it down, but the house had reacted with sulkiness because he knew it was actually something about him and his mental state that made all the sand appear in his room.
Mirabel slipped into the room. “Tío? Tío Bruno!”
No one answered. There was just the sound of falling sand.
A flew books were strewn across the floor and there were a few sheets of paper on Bruno’s desk. Despite her curiosity she didn’t look because she knew they were his notes for the next episode of one of telenovelas and she was way too excited for that so she wouldn’t spoil herself by looking at his ideas.
She sighed and decided to also take a look into the vision cave to see if he was having a vision right now and couldn’t hear her. It was clear that interrupting him would be awkward but she believed he might forgive her if he was actually there.
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw his bed and she resisted the urge to turn around and fall down into the soft cushions from which Mirabel knew they would smell like him.
Like comfort, safety and home.
But now was not the time to engage in her questionable desires towards her uncle.
A few of his rats ran across the room and they stopped to look at her. She just prayed that they wouldn’t tell Antonio anything because he would also know that she had no right to be here without Bruno.
Antonio knew way too many things that were going on around casita anyway. He didn’t have ears like Dolores, but they were always surprised what the animals around the house would tell him.
It only took a few stairs until Mirabel’s could peek over the edge of the cave. No one was there. Everything was still and calm. She sighed and was a bit disappointed but also relieved that she hadn’t face the conversation with Bruno right now.
She had already taking a few steps down again when she saw a familiar greenish glow from the farthest corner of the vision cave. The glow was pretty strong considered the amount of light Bruno’s glass visions normally gave.
Mirabel hesitated.
She really shouldn’t. It was not her place to go through Bruno’s visions.
But then again, the vision seemed to be buried beneath sand. And she obviously knew from experience that hiding a vision wouldn’t help anyone. And she had come here to help.
With careful steps she entered the cave. Her feet immediately were cover by sand and she knew she would be cleaning her feet for quite some time this evening before going to bed.
She had been here before of course.
Bruno had shown her everything after his room had changed. He had seemed almost proud that his room was now somewhat cosy and showed his personality. Most of things from inside the walls had been destroyed when casita collapsed but he had gotten similar things from the village and now it reminded her a lot of the space between the walls just bigger and friendlier.
Even his cave had appeared more friendly and inviting although he had told her he wouldn’t use it.
But now the cave made her feel small and guilty. She knew that casita had now power over each room and the house couldn’t know what she was up to in here, but it still felt like cave was trying to reject her by being as dark and threatening as possible.
Mirabel shook her head to clear her mind. It was her conscience playing tricks on her to get her to turn around.
She straightened herself and went to where the glow was the brightest.
Through the pile of sand, she could see various glass corners.
Mirabel knelt down. The sand was uncomfortably sticking to her knees.
She reached out her hands but stopped.
She really, really shouldn’t.
Then her hands jerked forwards and she scooped and wiped away all the sand.
There were so many of them.
Under each handful of sand was another vision.
More and more.
And all of them showed the same image.
Her movements became faster and faster because she couldn’t believe her eyes.
Mirabel hoped that just one of them would show something different.
But they all were the same.
There more than three dozen of green glowing visions.
And suddenly Mirabel had a very bad feeling why Bruno was acting so oddly around her.
All of the visions showed Mirabel straddling a shocked Bruno while they were kissing.
Mirabel fled.
But the image of herself kissing her uncle was burned into her mind.