Take It Easy

By: Eurazba

Chapter 1: Bienvenidos

Disclaimer: I am pretty damn white, the most interaction I've had with Mexican culture is from my best friend I grew up with whose father was from Mexico and other friends and coworkers with Mexican heritage. If I get anything wrong, please tell me and I'll try to fix it.

He woke up with a start.

It was bright, brighter than day it seemed, a beautiful blaring orange stretched on below him while every other color in the rainbow and then some came from every other direction above him, blaringly intense as it changed and shimmered in his blurred vision. There was a cacophony noise from every which way that was almost overbearing, Héctor wondered how he managed to sleep through it at all.

But it was wrong, all very wrong, this wasn't dusty Mexico City like he remembered he was in. This wasn't even another nameless inn that he and Ernesto had stayed in for the night, he wasn't on a bed. He was most certainly on the ground, an odd, orange ground that was a mix of soft and hard. Was he lying on leaves?

Héctor pushed himself up into a sitting position, holding his head and trying to shake the fog from it so he could remember what happened last and where he was. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, thinking it weird at how hard his hands felt, stars he must be hung over.

He, he was with Ernesto, they had played in Mexico City for a few nights and it was their last night there before they headed off to the next city on the trains the next morning. They went to get something to eat and ended up singing in the bar for most of the night before returning to the inn they had stayed at. Héctor wanted to go home, to his family, his wife and daughter, he had thought about it for some time, at least a month. He and Ernesto had a toast, and then…

Then he collapsed and passed out while heading to the station.

"Maybe it was that Chorizo you ate?" Ernesto's words rang through his head.

He didn't remember anything after that, was he in a-

"Welcome to the Land of the Dead!" Someone said.

The voice jerked Héctor out of his confused daze and brought him to look up from where he had been staring at the ground in deep concentration. He squinted at the light all around him, the colors even brighter when he looked directly at them. What did the person say?

Héctor jerked back when his eyes focused and he saw a skeleton standing before him, crouched low as they held out a hand for him. His head swiveled around wildly, all around him were other skeletons, each dressed in a number of different clothes ranging from nightgowns to suits to worn out street clothes, many with similar panicked looks while those in uniform stood patiently before them. He realized the ground of was marigold petals, not leaves.

"W-what did you say?" He asked as he turned back to uniformed skeleton before him.

They smiled, patient and unperturbed by his reaction, as if they had done this many times before.

"I said: "Welcome to the Land of the Dead!"" They repeated for him, their voice reverberated with another uniformed skeleton not too far away, "You're dead amigo!"

Héctor felt his chest drop.

Dead?

He shot his hands out and saw bones instead of fleshy fingers, his eyes almost popped out of his head- or their socket, he put his bone hands over his face, somehow feeling the hard rock-like features of his skull. A woman next to him screamed, he felt like doing the same. Everything and everyone around him seemed to get louder, he heard the mumbling of words from what was hundreds of skeletons around him, a child cried for its parents, more uniformed skeletons welcomed and reassured the other newly dead like him, and old woman happily greeted them back as if she expected this.

Dead, he was dead, that can't be right.

"Wait, wait, wait, that can't be right," He almost shouted as he jumped up and landed hard on his feet, an uncomfortably unfamiliar ripple went through his bones, "I can't be dead!"

"Oh boy," He heard the unformed skeleton before him mumble as they leaned back from their crouched position to meet his height.

"I… I have to get back to my wife and daughter!" He began shouting, "I have to get back to them, I was just going home!"

"We've got another veteran here," They said to a few others in uniforms, they turned and began moving towards him.

"Veteran? No, I'm not a Veteran!" He gestured over his uniform, "Look, I'm a musician! I shouldn't be dead, I need to get back to my wife and daughter!" He yelled more, taking a step back and almost tripping over the new skeleton that suddenly appeared on the ground behind him.

"The young ones always have such trouble," Another uniformed skeleton said, holding their hands up in a surrender as they took a cautious step forward, like he was some kind of wild animal, "Señor, you're dead. There's nothing we or you can do about it, so if you just please come with up, we can get you registered and connected to your deceased family."

"My family is alive!" He quickly retorted without a second thought.

"It's okay amigo," Another said in a softer voice, "We know it's hard to hear bu-"

Héctor tripped and fell on his back, his bones briefly tumbled away from each other before they quickly snapped back together. Instead of getting back up though, he just laid there, letting his mind spin as the words sank in.

Dead, dead-dead-dead-dead-dead . He was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The uniformed skeleton who had originally greeted him walked into his line of sight and crouched down again.

"We know this is hard to hear amigo, that you're dead. We've all gone through it. And it's unfortunate that you're such a young fellow with a budding family," They said softly, their grey streaked hair fell over their face, they had lived a longer life than him, "But we'll take you to get registered, you can meet up with whatever dead family you have here, and you can see your living family at the next Dia de Muertos."

Héctor took a deep breath that just flew through his ribs more than anything. He didn't really have a choice in the matter. Did he?

He could do that? Couldn't he? Wait until Dia de los Muertos to see his family? It was only a few months until then. He nodded from his place on the ground and held his bony hand out so they could help him up.

The other uniformed skeletons went back to helping those around him as Héctor was told to cross the marigold bridge where others would show him where to go. He slowly walked across the bridge, watching how the petals would glow under each of his steps. Around him were a number of other skeletons, a few being flanked by unformed skeletons to guide them, they looked around at each other in amazement and then stared ahead at the incredible view of the city before them at the end of the bridge. The Land of the Dead was undeniably beautiful with its colors and lights flickering, towers that seemed to spiral upwards forever, filled with people- or skeletons- from all walks alike. He was really here, the Land of the Dead.

He approached an arched gateway that welcomed him and opened to a handful of trolleys, each with a different amount of fullness. One that was completely full was pulled along, Héctor watched it until he was guided to a partially full trolley cart by another unformed skeleton. He sat down next to a window and gazed out at the expanding scenery before him, only half listening to the trolley director as they announced that they would be leaving to the registration offices as soon as the cart was full.

People slowly filled the cart until it was as full as could be and lurched forward. An old woman sat next to him and they struck up a quiet conversation about the view, barely listening to the trolley director as they pointed out places of interest until the trolley slid into a station crawling with even more skeletons. The station was huge, bigger than any of the train stations he had ever seen in cities. With an incredible glass ceiling, stairs spiraling up to several floor levels and covered with beautiful, ornate decorations, and more booths and doors than he could count. The group was guided out of the trolley and through an arch labeled "Registration" that opened to a vast room filled with lines and lines of skeletons that all waited to enter more doors in the wall. A handful of free hanging desks sat to the left of the room as more uniformed skeletons spoke with those just registered and led them through a second arch on their side of the room and back to the open area of the station.

The group was slowly separated into the lines, one of them was special for children. There were only three people in front of Héctor in the line but they didn't move. He took the time waiting to look through the arch to the many skeletons just outside the registration area, where they came from. Trolleys passing by filled with skeletons, others being reunited with their families, more uniformed skeletons guided some around, and skeletons with carts filled to the brim with mail scurried past. There was a little post office on the other side of the open room with a constant stream of skeletons that entered and exited its perpetually open doors. This building seemed to deal with more than just registering the recently dead.

"You should see this place on Dia de Muertos," One uniformed skeleton said as they led more skeletons to line up behind Héctor.

The line slowly moved up, skeletons being let out of the rooms with handfuls of letters and led to the post office. The skeleton before him exited the room with their own stack of letters and Héctor was let in.

A thin, wispy, woman stood next to an office desk in the middle of the small room. Her bones weren't as white as the many new skeletons just outside the door, but she stood just as firm as them, as if she hadn't aged at all during her time dead, and she probably hadn't. Behind her, a large window that showed off the grandeur of the Land of the Dead, all other walls surrounding the room were covered in book shelves stuffed tightly with papers and folders, almost ready to burst. Crisp, white papers and stacks of blank letters covered her desk with a number of pens and a wax stamping set. Even more folders were piled around the floor making the room even smaller than it actually was. The room moved like a whisper, occasionally a file would fade mystically from a shelf, while another would poof into existence on top of a pile of folders. A little path was cleared so he could walk up to the empty chair and sit.

"Sit, sit, sit, please, we have a lot a paperwork to do in such short time," Her voice was welcoming and a warm smile graced her boney features as she gestured to the chair while grabbing a paper and a blank folder, "Can you read and write?"

"Ah, yes," He answered.

"Good, good, this will go much faster," She handed him the folder, paper, and a fountain pen, "Fill out your name and general information about yourself, then write down the family members that have already passed and may be waiting for you here as well as living family members that you would like to be reunited with when they die. And we can see if you're on anyone's lists. Can I get your name?"

"Uh, Héctor Rivera," He said, taking the pen in his hand and looking over the form.

She jumped up and wandered around the room, he had no idea how she could find anything in the mess of files but she looked through them with a precision and knowledge that he could only guessed came from years of work. Héctor wrote his name in the marked space up top, next to it was his death date, already printed on the paper in neatly typed words. He brushed his fingers over the date, not noticing how a picture of him as a skeleton slowly appeared in a large blank place on the paper like it was being sketched in. He stared at the date for a long time once he finally noticed the image. That was him, but he was a skeleton, this was really starting to sink in.

He wrote down information about himself, where he lived, his place of birth and date, basic descriptors, it felt all very official. Flipping over the form, he saw there was a large section to write down family, spaces for parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-grandparents, in-laws and just about anybody else you could think of. Every name space was flanked by two boxes, "alive or deceased". Below that was a smaller section dedicated to friends.

Héctor looked at the "parents" category but paused, he had gone astray from his own parents after leaving home to become a musician, he didn't even know if they were still alive. He skipped it, leaving the categories for most of the other family he had been born to also blank. An only child of only children left a small family, though he almost wrote Ernesto's name in the "siblings" category before catching himself. When he reached the "spouses" category he quickly scribbled Imelda's name down and checked the "alive" box next to it, but stopped, if she remarried, would he be able to find her?

"If-" He spoke up, but stopped when the lady he had been working with suddenly jerked her head up from a messy stack of files, she smiled and nodded at him to continue, "If my wife were to change her name, would I still be able to find her?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," She reassured, with a light wave of her hand, "No need to worry about technicalities like that, we know who someone is even with a small name change."

She gave him a wistful wink that made her seem older and wiser than previously thought before diving back down into the files. Héctor looked back down at the form and paused again at the "children" category, the thought of his dear, sweet Coco dying greatly saddened him, but he knew it was an eventuality that could not be avoided. He wrote down Coco's name and checked the "alive" box next to it. His pen hovered over the paper as he moved down to the "in-laws" category, Imelda had a similar rift between her parents after going against their wishes and marrying a musician, namely him. So they likely wouldn't be happy to see him at all, but Imelda's brothers were actually at their wedding and occasionally came to visit, they would be good to have on this list. He scribbled down their names.

There wasn't much else he could put in the family section, as for friends, he only had one that he felt was close enough that they see each other after passing. He wrote down Ernesto's name and checked the "alive" box next to it just as the woman crouched over her desk and into his view.

"All done?" She asked, her smile a little more undone than it had at the beginning of their exchange.

"Yes," he handed over the paper and she snatched it with a swirl, looking over what he wrote.

"All of your family and friends are alive?" She asked, not with pity in her voice, but worry.

"Yes."

She sighed, slumping on her desk, "No passed family that you can think of?"

"None, that I might be on good terms with," He answered sheepishly, almost ashamed at the answer.

"That's okay," She shook her head lightly, her voice was soft and he almost expected her to call him "m'ijo", but she didn't, "You didn't come up in anyone's files. It's unfortunate to arrive the Land of the Dead and not find any family, but, it happens. I can direct you to the Department of New Homes so they can help you get a place to stay in. When your family eventually pass and arrive to the Land of the Dead, we'll let you know and they can come live with you. We'll also let you know when friends pass."

He nodded and stood up when she began to lead him towards the door, placing the form in his folder and labeling it with his name before putting it on top of a wobbly stack of folders just like his almost at random, ready to be lost amongst the mountains of folders. Something told him that she would know where it was when she needed to.

The home Héctor was given was… his home.

The Department of New Homes was comparably small to the many offices he had passed, as many people when arriving to the Land of the Dead already had family to go to. There were only two other skeletons in the office who also needed new homes.

They had pulled up his file, somehow already having it on hand, and had taken him to what was supposed to be Santa Cecilia, the entire town, crammed into a little neighborhood that climbed up a few levels. He was taken to a little house towards the edge of the neighborhood, a couple of other houses with newer architecture flanked it's sides. They were incredibly plain looking compared to the nearby inhabited homes, they lacked lights, decorations, and little homely touches. He was given a key to the little home and a paper describing some shops and other things nearby.

Despite the house not looking familiar on the outside, Héctor found that the inside of the house he was given looked exactly like his home in Santa Cecilia

A wave of homesick nostalgia that made him feel nauseous flew over him as he inspected the place. It was just like the home he, Imelda, and Coco lived in together, the place he had been trying to get back to, just with less decorations and only the bare minimum of furniture. The water closet was converted to a laundry room. It lacked a bathtub and left only a sink with a pitcher, a mirror mounted on the wall, a wash bucket and cleaning supplies. A window with a clothes line leading to even more buildings behind his new home let light into the room.

In the mirror he took the time to look over himself closely. Bright, colorful marks covered his skull in a most fantastic way much like all the other skeletons around him. It was alarming to see himself as a skeleton, the lack of nose, ears and the dark sockets around his eyes, but, by Héctor's standards, he still looked good. He lifted his bangs to inspect the symmetrical marks on his forehead before pulling on his hair, it shifted slightly, like a wig, just sitting of his skull. Worriedly, he pushed his hair back in place, wondering how it didn't fly off his head when he fell, and looked at the little beard that stuck to his chin. Like the hair on his head, it was easy to detach, but he found that it also reattached to his skull without problem when he stuck it back on. He looked at his hand, the bones not being held together by anything but instead floating perfectly in place, he grabbed a finger on one hand a pulled it off without so much as a pop or pinch of pain. He bent the finger removed from his hand and gave an airy laugh when it moved to his command, putting it back on his hand with as much ease as putting his beard back on.

On the sink there was a little basket filled with items, a little canister of "Bone Polish", and some soaps for laundry, Héctor remembers them being mentioned as complimentary for his arrival to the Land of the Dead without family. Technically, he and the two others that had received homes from the Department of New Homes had nothing, no family to join and no items except what was on their person.

Out of curiosity, Héctor checked the pockets of his charro suit to see what he had on him. First loosening and removing the bow around his neck and tossing it to the nightstand, he found it hard to breath with it on and everything happening to him despite not needing to breath for being dead. In his pockets, a few coins, a little red handkerchief from Imelda, and a picture of himself used for flyers of his and Ernesto's shows.

That was it. That, the house, and the clothes on his back was all he had to himself. A lonely exhaustion covered him, he was tired, wanting to do nothing but sleep. Not even knowing if skeleton's needed sleep but peeling off his jacket none the less and crawling into the familiar bed. It felt too big, without Imelda in it beside him, and the room felt too quiet without Ernesto's snoring he had become all too accustomed to over the last few months.

With a heavy heart he sang the song he wrote for his Coco, his voiced warbled more than typical as he felt his chest grow heavier and heavier with each note, and a growing pressure behind his eyes. He wasn't going home; this false home was all he had now. He finally broke down, letting the sadness of his situation and the exhaustion of crying and singing slowly pull him to some kind of sleep.

A/N: Hey this is my other fic! It's a headcanon heavy take on what happened to Héctor over the years in the Land of the Dead (lotta angst) and will probably only update every 2 weeks as I have much less of it written out beforehand and I want to keep on schedule for my other Coco fic so it finishes in a couple of weeks.

Chapter titles were going to be lyrics from "Men of Erin" by the Elders which I really feel fits Héctor's story well. But I decided to keep it simple (The best Crowd We Ever Had is the best version, it has like 80 views on youtube and 20 of those are mine jdfkjakjaslldasj)

Please tell me what you think!