#bone trade

Well okay before that he stands in front of a door in a passage and has to step forwards and through but still. He blinks and there are skeletons. Paperwork and chaos and it’s a whirl of events before he’s stepping of a train.

He’s met by distant relatives he’s never met. People who he can’t be bothered with. It only takes a few short days to run away, the fussing bothering him. He’s an adult, nineteen years old. He can take care of himself. He can live on his own.

He has a job before the end of the week. Working in a mailroom. He keeps this job until the summons arrives. One of the Department Workers meets him at the Post Center and he gives them the blandest look he can as they awkwardly explain that his brother has just arrived.

“That’s nice...” he eventually says, rolling his eyes in their sockets. “Tell Celio I’m not interested in seeing him right now”

“What, but he’s-”

“Mi Hermanito... I know!” he cuts them off, shaking one hand dismissing. “I don’t want to see him.” and he shuts the door in their face, not interested in anymore of the conversation. A few hours later he’s flipping through some lost letters from the Land of the Living trying to remember the correct stamp to use. Red, blue, green, which ones are to be prioritized for when-

There’s a knock at the door and he groans. His skull drops down and he turns slightly, just barely enough to glare in that direction. Before he pushes himself up. Almost dramatically he makes his way there, on the other side is a familiar face. A familiar skull, he pauses for a moment, hand digging into the wood of the doorpost before he slams it shut again.

Not even waiting.

There’s another knock, and he groans. Sinking down, the door between himself and his brother. Between him and his family, between him and-

He buries his skull into his hands, letting out a miserable shuddering groan. He’ll have to face him at some point, he’s more than aware of that, but for that moment. There’s a door that’s a barrier a gap between them. But deeper than that, there’s an ache in his ribcage a pain that he can’t name at just the simple fact that he’s here.

It’s not fair.

A deep breath, arms that fold over his knees and he raises his skull just slightly. He’s not going to open that door, he’s not going to face Celio.

So he pulls himself up, pushing himself from off the floor and striding across the room. He unlatches and pushes the window up. It’s the start of a familiar game.

How many jobs does he cycle through?

Deliveries, flower shop, salesman, butcher.

Too many. And the latest job is a mistake. An incidental thing. He doesn’t mean to end up doing it. But he’d been annoyed, pushed to the very limits of his ability to deal with things. A pesky skeleton that he’d seen around a few times.

A well-intentioned idiot, but still an idiot. Tobías Itzal. The yellowing skeleton had taken to following him around, and it was grating. He might have been nineteen physically but still, he was an adult and had been around for a fair amount of time by that point. So he had a few bad habits.

There was a group he was familiar with.

Accidents happen.

He makes a decision on a whim, and takes a back street, making sure that Tobías was still following up until he reached the dead end wall. Crumbling and dark it’s the perfect spot, the kind of dark corner alley where one expects to find trouble. He leans against the wall and looks at the man eyes narrowed and glaring through his fringe.

“Hey... so you’re kind of an idiot you know that?” he says, before he bangs one fist hard on a nearby trashcan. The resounding sound of bone on tin makes him grimace, but it catches the attention of those who he wants. And he nods his head to the men, strangers, before slipping away.

Later he realizes his mistake when he’s cornered by a blond gringo with slicked back hair and a malicious smile. “I think it’ll be in your interests to work with us...” he swallows, dry and empty, but hearing the threat.

He takes to the work almost too well.

He mostly plays lure. Finding people, targets and leading them away. Leading them into alleys and traps and...

He finds himself curling up in the night. His alebrije sleeping over his head and he just lies there.

“Can you feel this Celio?” he whispers, reaching with one hand. A maniac grin slips over his face, pulling at the side of his face. “Can you feel their suffering?”

The first time he actively participates, he’s had a rough day. The man is already screaming, demanding with much swearing that they let him go and he just.

There’s a harsh clang as the crowbar connects with the man’s skull, a hasher pressure in the back of his cranium. A Buzz of energy through his bones, and he hyper focuses.

“You have no right señor, no right to demand of us anything!” he gets their approval, and finds that he enjoys it far too much. That night he sits in the darkness and stares at his hands. How many of their family went into medicine, tearing limbs off is familiar. Shoving things down people’s throats, washing water over them, and humming it’s all familiar.

But not in this context.

Lure, break, rinse and repeat.

It’s a pattern, and he grows used to it.

Another job, another day.

He finds himself staring at people, taking stock of their bones and doing the maths in his head. Figuring it all out and mapping out his plan. Will they burn them? Break them, is that person crumbling enough to just yank them apart piece by piece. He takes home a skull at one point, tells it his doubts and fears.

It disappears.

Lure, break, rinse and repeat.

Green, blue, the alebrijes of this world are amazing, and after he can’t take a child, he runs. He runs away and hides. An alebrije preserve where he puts down his head and miserably wonders what his life has become. How did he reach this point?

There’s a bird singing somewhere and...

A voice.

He stands up, feet moving in that direction and he stares. Eyes wide and a pulse in his ribcage. The feeling distantly familiar as he watches a stranger sing and perform with their alebrije. Amazing.

“Can you feel this?” he mumbles as the other abruptly shudders, and he snaps himself back around. Curling his hands up, covering his stupid grin. “Can you feel this?” he repeats, mind spinning.

How, interesting a stranger.