I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

6 - De la Cruzcito [Coco! Héctor Rivera x Reader]

(Here's a warning. . . Profanity is used in this one-shot. But it's all done in Spanish!)

Part I - Familia: The Garrido and Rivera Rivalry (Part 1)

There was a pop. Some sort of disjointed noise like a bubble being released in a bathtub. The popping noise was followed by a thin, warbling little squeal. It could have been the cries of some small rodent as it was so irritatingly high-pitched that it seemed to drone on forever. Of course, it didn't really go on forever, but to those who were waiting at the bus stop who had the misfortune of listening to it, it certainly felt like an eternity. 

Those sounds - while nauseating and annoying in equal measure - were made by the tram that had just parked in front of the bus stop. It was as unimpressive-looking as a half-chewed wad of gum stuck to the bottom of a sneaker. The ungodly squeaking was coming from the automatic sliding doors as they gyrated and unhinged, and the popping was from the glass panels that were coming loose from their panes. The white trim on every window was scratched badly, but there remained enough of the original coat that it looked something like tastefully splattered bird droppings. The surfaces were painted Coquelicot, which was basically a snooty word for orange on steroids. This was all done to make it bright, appealing and easy to spot.  It was definitely easy to spot, but it had the appeal of a puddle of vomit. 

The automatic doors of the tram opened at a nail-biting rate, which practically means that those waiting to board it were reduced to chewing on their nails out of boredom, but when the conductor appeared from out of the doorway, palm outstretched for tickets, the tourists could forget all about that. After all, it was Mexico; Santa Cecilia, to be precise. 

It couldn't be more obvious if the words "I AM A TOURIST" were written on their foreheads. Or that was it felt like to the conductor of the tour. The woman had been conducting these tours ever since she finished high school, around four years ago, and had gotten so good at recognising the country of each of the tourists that she could list them in her head. 

There were Americans hogging up the bench space, looking bored enough that watching paint dry would be a highlight of their Mexican experience. Their skin hadn't been well-adapted to the endless flourish of the relentless sun and most of them looked like the burnt fries left in the grease trap for too long. An auburn-haired woman and her husband were the first to break apart from their countrymen: she had been strangling a bottle of SPF 50 and a thick, phlegm-like ooze of cream was covering her hands. She had been about to apply it to her husband's shoulders, but in her eagerness to get first dibs on a seat, managed to smear it all over the conductor's hands. Which was just thrilling. Note the sarcasm. There were two more American families, but only one more couple. Quite the odd pair who seemed to be taking vacation to another level. The man was wearing a tacky Hawaiian shirt; blue shorts that rippled like the sides of a tent; a Yankee baseball cap that hid his cul-de-sac of thinning hair; and a pair of binoculars around his neck. His wife was wearing a prison-stripe t-shirt, a teal handbag, a pair of hot pink pants and pink-framed glasses that were slightly crooked on her nose. 

The next batch of tourists wasn't so garish. It was an Asian family headed by a tiny,  exuberant woman whose coat, skirt and shoes emitted the word "immaculate". She had her arm wrapped around the shoulders of a young boy, more skittish, with violent green-dyed streaks in his dark hair. Mother and son. The father was lurking nearby, rattling the vending machine and demanding the twenty that he'd fed it. His two daughters, twins by the identical looks of embarrassment, buried their faces in their I-phones and compiled a list of what they'd rather be doing. There were a few more stragglers, some Mexicans who were repeat offenders and a few people from other countries, all of which were quick to hurtle themselves into the tram and throw their weight around to grab the best seats. Many of them had to crunch their shoulders and skew their hips as they entered the narrow door. The stack of tickets became thicker and thicker, promising paper cuts to the hands that held them.