Greetings! This the main hub for the Encanto AU I wrote, which is /reader centric! However, I do hope to delve more in the AU itself here so it isn't purely x Bruno content.
Finally watched Encanto again on the plane after like, 3 years of no Bruno posting. I can see hints of why I got obsessed with him, but honestly I'm realizing it was more the fan base than the actual character himself that got me hooked. He's intensely comedic and played for laughs, and the animation style definitely makes his face a little wonky.
Nonetheless, I'm very sad that most fanart makes his nose smaller.
I just wanna say your fanfic is A++++ 👌👌👌 😍 GOSHHH i get heart eyes over bruno and y/n's interactions together and even though i still have yet to finish the all the available chapters, i read one every other night just to savor the series 💕💕💕 keep up the good work !! Cant wait to see more from you 🤩
so perhaps i kept this ask in my inbox for a long long while because it was so lovely, but here I'm sending it out now! Thank you for the kind words, and please know that if anyone else has sent in an ask that hasn't be answered, it isn't because I haven't seen it! I have, I'm just hoarding it like a dragon does with gold lmfao.
Between the Lines - Bruno Madrigal (Modern AU) Chapter 13
Summary: Bruno Madrigal is a popular telenovela writer, though he keeps his identity secret under the pen name Pedro Oscar. You just happen to be a big fan of his who’s doing their laundry while a telenovela plays in the background.
Mirabel and her abuela take the lead as you descend the stairs from the roof, leaving you plenty of time to silently wrangle your mixed emotions. They writhe and buzz beneath your skin, forming a nameless tangle of thorns in your chest while Bruno walks ahead of you, falling in step with his mother.
He looks so happy like this, chatting away at Mirabel and Señora Madrigal. Though his dips into the conversation are shy, he’s gaining back confidence with each shared joke and comfortable quip. Their words bounce uselessly around in your ears, unheard as your feet carry you just three strides behind.
It’s good that he’s happy. That his mother wants him back. It’s a good thing that you didn’t have to fight tooth and nail against this woman, that Mirabel and her family seem to have begun their healing. It isn’t any of your business, especially since Bruno seems willing to let bygones be bygones.
So why is there this nameless snake in your chest, constricting your heart and pumping venom into your throat?
“Mirabel!” the woman you remember as Julieta cries as Mirabel comes to the bottom of the stairs, rushing forward to envelop her daughter in a tight hug. “Oh Mira, we were so worried when we couldn’t find you. Are you alright?”
“Mom, I’m fine,” Mirabel laughs off the question on instinct, though she winces a second after and amends, “Well, I probably need to clean my hands.” Julieta lets out a long-suffering sigh, pulling away to cradle her daughter’s hands in her own, and you look away politely as she begins to fret over Mirabel’s health. A taller, seemingly distinguished man hurries over only seconds later, his glasses, but more importantly, his clumsy fumbling is a familiar pattern to your eyes. It’s an easy leap to assume this man is her papa, or at least someone like that.
“Ay Mirabel, we looked everywhere. There were so many mice and spiders,” he shudders violently, whole body cartoonishly rippling as if the man were a cat rather than a human with a spine. The reaction gets a sympathetic laugh out of Mirabel and an exasperated sigh from her mother.
“So how are we going to perform without a stage?” Someone’s voice cuts through the happy reunion, only to be shushed with exasperation by an older man. The young teen in a bright yellow sweatshirt seems to bristle at the response. “What, I can’t say that we don’t have a stage? What’s that? Not a stage!”
You only give the kid a haphazard glance before Mirabel just shakes her head and walks over to the shattered chandelier and stage. Though the majority of the chandelier is lost to shards of crystal, the lone candelabra that makes up the very tip of the chandelier has somehow managed to survive the fall. Mirabel pries candelabra free with a wince as the people around her gasp, before presenting it to her family with a surefire smile.
“We do what we’ve always done. We bring the show to the people.” She says it with such utter confidence, you almost find yourself believing her despite the clear evidence to the contrary. “The Madrigals used to be a traveling troupe. We’ll just perform somewhere else until we can get the theater up and running again. Right Abuela?” And then that confidence wavers, Mirabel looking back into the stairwell where the three of you remain just barely out of sight, her smile trembling at the edges as she holds this beloved family heirloom in bloodied hands. She’s so small, her fingers gripping this sculpture of brass and gold that’s almost as large as her head.
Bruno and his mother freeze in the shadows, each showing a different kind of hesitation while they watch Mirabel reunite with her family. Their family, you mentally correct yourself, eyeing both of these people who stare at their loved ones with such trepidation that it’s almost painful. Señora Madrigal clutches her hands close to her chest, a deep frown lining her lips, and she looks so much like a younger version of your Abuela that the pain in your chest swells and threatens to spill into your silence with a lump that you swallow down. Another memory strikes you like a punch to the sternum, raw and unyielding.
You’d been so furious with yourself when you broke Abuelo’s radio. You really hadn’t meant to break it, but your favorite band was going to be playing on the radio that day and you had been trying to tape a copy of their song for weeks. It was an antique, weathered thing with delicate dials and a finicky antenna, but Abuelo always seemed to know how to turn it just so, eternally patient and loving with the radio he had bought Abuela for their fifth anniversary. He was at the shop today though, and Abuela was too busy cooking dinner to sit by the radio and help you. The awaited hour crept closer and closer, and when you couldn’t get the dial to turn to the right station, you twisted and snapped it off in a panic.
The radio was too old to have any replacement parts lying around in local repair shops, and the places that could claim to fix it were far too expensive for Abuelo’s budget. It was just your luck that Abuelo chose to come up to check on the house.
His warm voice cut through the air like a knife, “Estoy en casa-” he said, only to stare you down with a horrified frown while you held the snapped-off dial in your hand. You still remember the way dread pooled in your stomach, hot tears clouding your vision as you ran to your room and shrunk under your covers. Abuelo didn’t even call after you. All you heard was the soft click of a shutting door, and footsteps down the stairs to the shop below. A spiral of guilt, embarrassment and regret dragged you further down into your hiding spot, the snapped knob of the radio dial clenched painfully tight in your hand.
Abuela found you not long after, a gentle knock on your door. “It is never easy to apologize nenúfarité,” she had said, pulling you out from your self-imposed punishment into a firm hug that was just as warm as your bed, “because you see the hurt in the other person’s face, and know that you are the one who caused it. It can be difficult to face that, but we must if we want the hurt to get better. You must see the wound before you can bandage it, hm?”
Grief, anger, and an alien sense of compassion wrestle with one another for control, leaving you frozen to the step as Abuela- no, Señora Madrigal steps into the light, expression wobbling with unshed tears. Bruno almost reaches for her as she moves forward, and that makes the anger flare violently, a reminder of his loneliness that you’ve seen over the year that you’ve known him-
“Of course, Mirabel,” she replies, a watery smile finally pulling at her lips as she walks over to her granddaughter, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Mi familia, I am sorry. I see, now, that I held on too tight. I was so afraid that I would lose you, that I hurt you all.” she says, hands clasped together in front of her chest.
“Mama,” Julieta murmurs, her expression creased with concern. But Señora Madrigal holds up a hand to halt her, and she takes Julieta’s hands into her own. She reaches for another woman, the stressed one in a yellow dress that had snuck by you before. Pepa, you think.
“No, mis hijitas. I was wrong. I can deny it no longer. There has been too much pressure on you from me to ensure our Encanto stays afloat. I worried for so long about our safety through the business that I forgot what it was all for.” She turns again to her granddaughter, her smile faint with guilt. “So you all could live happy and long lives, even without my Pedro. I lost Brunito to this. I almost lost Mirabel to this. I will lose no more of you.”
Bruno covers his mouth to stifle a gasp into a cough, and the rest of the gathered family squint into the dark stairwell. “Tío Bruno?” Mirabel halfway pleads in your direction, and you watch as the love of your life visibly struggles with whether or not to reveal himself to the people he stayed away from for an entire decade. “I know you’re there. Please, Tío.”
“Mi vida,” you murmur soft enough for him alone to hear, “go to them.” But your feet stay firmly planted in the carpet, the swirl of emotions weighing you too much to even consider going with him. It’s as if a physical line separates you between the safety of this shadowed staircase and the light of the hallway beyond. This isn’t your reunion. And you can barely even bear to be in the same room as that woman right now, let alone a whole extended family.
Bruno glances back at you, eyes wide with worry as he glances between his family and you. Then, as if sensing your hesitation, he holds out a hand to you, still silent. For a moment you consider not taking it, pulling away from this place altogether and somewhere safe, but then you look back up at his face, and your resistance crumples.
There are tears in his eyes, and you know with a sudden surety that he wants this more than anything. Most importantly, he wants you to be a part of it. And how could you ever say no to that?
Pulled by his hand, both of you step beyond the line and into the light of the corridor.
Bruno and Alma both agree neither of them have anything in common, and don’t look alike at all
They both laugh and joke about how maybe the midwife gave her the wrong son because neither of them see anything that resembles one another in their features or personality.
Also im sorry for the watermarks folks :(, you know i hate putting em but my previous memes has been reposted without credit too many times in too many social medias so yeah hjsnsakjmsak
