Chapter Text
Just slip through the walls whenever you feel like nobody else will bring any form of comfort to you. These were words Camilo made sure to never forget. He hated having to sneak around to meet with someone that nobody was even sure weather he remained alive or not. But he was family and ever since Camilo found him stealing food from the kitchen. The teenage boy had snuck to go get seconds but had found his long lost tio Bruno grabbing arepas from a plate. And so the rest is history.
Camilo was feeling awfully down tonight. People were always asking them to shape shift into others. It’s like more than half of the time he wasn’t himself. They loved their don but he did want to be himself sometimes, obviously. Sighing deeply, he slammed his head against the fluffy pillows on his bed. They wanted to be themself. But who were they? He was Camilo Madrigal. But exactly who was Camilo Madrigal? A boy? A girl? Both? Neither? Some random person from la plaza? The helper snd nothing more? He had been so many people that by now they didn’t know which one was Camilo. The real Camilo.
“I’m just growing up. These feelings will all go away when I’m an adult.”
But they likely wouldn’t. They would never go away. What he was feeling was something completely normal but they weren’t able to understand this. Not now anyways.
Laying around in pain wasn’t doing anything to make Camilo feel better so he rose from his bed and went to go seek out his tio Bruno.
And he found him in his little living room built by scratch. He was hunched over, his back arched like a bridge. Rats crawling all along his back but he did not seem bothered by it. Rather it seemed he was letting the rats crawl around him to entertain them. It was quite funny for Camilo but also he felt awfully guilty and sad that playing with rats was what Bruno, his own family had to resort to now in order not to go mad. Fully mad that is.
Hesitantly he cleared his throat. “Tío?” he asked gently giving Bruno the jump-scare of his life. He let out possibly the most unholiest of muffled shrieks. ‘Oh no, please Dolores don’t wonder where these sounds are coming from,’ Camilo thought cringing at the site.
Finally, Bruno calmed down. “Hi,” he said simply with a still kind-of scared expression on his face. Camilo chuckled lightly at his uncle “hola. I was wondering if you could uh- give me some advice?” asked the young boy as he nervously rubbed his arm all while adverting his gaze. Bruno tilted his head not saying anything, only making Camilo even more nervous. He scratched his neck and he would have said something hadn’t Bruno interrupted him.
“Same thing?” he asked.
“Same thing.” Camilo replied somewhat shamefully as he stood there awkwardly.
Bruno thought for a moment while remaining still as the rats crawled all over body “I am rat.” he stated immediately catching Camilo off guard “w-“just listen. I am rat. I act as a rat to entertain the other rats. To become one with the rats. To fit in with the rats,” Bruno spat out these crazy words like the mad man he was all while maintaining a perfectly straight face. “You aren’t a rat…” Camilo responded laughing awkwardly. Bruno decided to test that theory “but how would you know that?” Okay. This guys was being crazy, that’s what Camilo thought “because you aren’t,” he responded firmly.
“You are not me. You cannot tell me what or who to be, Camilo. If I want to be a rat right now, I will be a rat right now because I am fully capable of understanding that I want to be a rat therefore I will be a rat. Only I know if I am a rat, not you. Not anyone else.”
Bruno’s mini-speech was so incredibly hard to follow along but at one point it really clicked for Camilo “nobody can force me to shift if I don’t want to. I have to stop looking for other people to give me the answer as to who I am. The answer isn’t with you, my ama, my pa, none of you… it’s my identity, I get to shape it.”
“…..”
“…..”
“…..”
“Yeah that.” Bruno responded nodding before plopping himself on the couch back to playing with the rats.
Camilo stood there almost at tears but he pushed them back. He was certainly going to actually apply this now. Test out different things like perhaps they would ask others to use other pronouns. Ask Abuela to perhaps not ask him to shift so much as he loves doing it but when it’s so constant they looses themself. Maybe they should entertain the children of El Encanto by using improv acting instead of shifting at times. Camilo was going to take a small break from their don and see how that would help out.
“Thanks,” he said “but one more thing,” they asked making Bruno turn his head. “It’s getting harder for me to hide the fact I know you every single time Toñito asks about you. My parents immediately shush him and say… questionable things. What do I do?” they asked.
“Oh that. Yeah-“ Bruno looked down for a moment before smiling sadly to his nephew:
“just play along…. adios Camilo.”