#14 on your writing prompt for the "Coco" fandom?
#14. “Duct tape? Duct tape is not going to fix this!”
Sure thing! This prompt sounds like it was meant to inspire something funny, but this turned out to be something… not funny? Sorry ‘bout that, but it was fun to write. Thanks for the prompt!
“Duct tape? Duct tape is not going to fix this!”
Holding the roll of duct tape in his hand, Héctor crossed his arms and matched Ernesto’s glare with a glare of his own. With the way his murderer and one time friend was acting, you’d have thought Héctor had suggested he fix the splintered fibula with a wad of old chewing gum and saliva.
“Oh, and you’re an expert in this, hmm?” Héctor snapped, irritation growing at the disgust and insult on Ernesto’s face.
What right did this pendejo have to yell at Héctor, anyway? Héctor wasn’t the one who had come sneaking out of the shadows after his family had retired for the night to ask for help. It was Ernesto who had snuck up on Héctor outside the Rivera apartments, shoulders hunched, eyes wide and pleading as he asked as timidly as possible for some way to fix the fracture in his leg. Héctor, who had quickly gotten over his shock, only took a moment to nod begrudgingly before heading inside to retrieve the roll of duct tape.
It wasn’t the first time Ernesto had come to him for help. It had been over a decade since that fateful Día de Muertos, and though Héctor could never forgive Ernesto for all that he had done, he wasn’t completely heartless.
He’d never been able to turn down someone in need.
…even murderous, ungrateful jerks.
The family didn’t know that Héctor sometimes helped the musician that had caused them so much grief, and he wanted it to stay that way. Ernesto wasn’t allowed into the home, so Héctor walked with him to a nearby warehouse he knew of. There, he had taken the duct tape from his pocket, and watched anger and disbelief blossom on Ernesto’s face.
“I know enough to know that pinche duct tape is not going to fix this,” Ernesto snapped back, and gestured sharply at the thin crack circling his left fibula. It was small–barely enough to warrant the whining and wincing Ernesto kept doing–but Héctor knew small fractures didn’t stay small. They grew, and grew, until the bone split, and pain raced up and down both halves with even the smallest of movements.
“Nothing’s going to fix this,” Héctor said. He unraveled some tape and tore into it with his teeth, ignoring Ernesto’s frown. “In case you missed it, amigo, we’re dead. Our bones don’t heal if we’re being forgotten. A cast isn’t going to set that. This,” he held up the strip of silver tape, “Is the only thing we can do. It helped me all those times I broke something.”
Ernesto’s expression faltered. He glanced down, and for once Héctor saw something that might have been remorse on his old friend’s face. A memory flashed before him–a vision of a younger Ernesto, alive in Santa Cecilia, unable to meet a much younger Héctor’s eyes while he apologized for insulting the boy’s dead parents. Héctor, who had been in tears, and sniffled and nodded and hugged his older friend who hesitantly hugged him back. They’d both been orphans, and Héctor knew Ernesto hadn’t mean what he had said, because he’d felt the same pain of never knowing his family.
Of course now Héctor wasn’t going to hug Ernesto. Neither of them wanted that. Ernesto definitely didn’t deserve one. Instead, Héctor waited.
Ernesto’s shoulders slumped. He huffed, pulled his threadbare coat closer around him, and said, “Of course. Lo siento, Héctor.”
“Are you going to let me help you now?” Héctor said.
Still unable to meet his old friend’s eyes, Ernesto sat on a low stool and gingerly rested his foot on a nearby crate. Without another word, Héctor stuck the tape over the crack and began to wrap it quickly and easily, ignoring Ernesto’s heavy sigh, and wondering how much longer until Ernesto once again came to him for help as his memory faded painfully slowly in the Land of the Living.
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