Sew.

"CAMBID." (Dolores POV)

"Camilo, you're too young to be drinking that and you know it."

"Pffffft, it's worth a shot."

Dolores huffed. Death cards on the table and Camilo was drinking aguardiente.

*

Dolores figured the reasons she had chosen Camilo, of all people to vent to, were pretty damn obvious.

First off, Camilo didn't get angry. Sure, he got sad, disgusted, or scared like any other person, but anger seemed to be completely erased. And to Dolores, that was valuable. She'd gotten into plenty of fights before that had ended in both verbal and physical assault, she wasn't ready to deal with that again, so to have someone who, at their worst, would just sob- That was valuable to Dolores, however cruel she felt thinking that.

Even better, unlike other members of the Madrigal household, Camilo was good at keeping panic to himself. The only times he could get out of hand was in front of a crowd, and even then, all that happened was an episode of glitching, so naturally, Dolores thought to herself, "perfect!". In short words, Camilo most likely wasn't going to break down any time soon in front of the adults...

But that didn't mean that when Dolores shared her knowledge, she wasn't still taking a huge risk.

*

The whole tangled up mess had started on a fairly normal night... In other words, yes, the family was fighting, and Dolores had retreated to Isabela's outdoor haven in an attempt to rid herself of the rather harsh words being flung. Doing this muffled the screams from inside just a little, enough so that she couldn't make out what they were saying exactly if she forced herself to concentrate on something else, but...

They were still there. The voices were still there, and they were so loud... She had contemplated running behind her door, where there would be no sound at all. That would be so peaceful... But Dolores refused her own selfish desires. There had been too many "incidents" where she could have completely prevented beforehand by simply knowing, but she hadn't. Those "incidents" stuck in her mind like bullets. She couldn't forget them, they were still there, they could still happen and-

But we aren't allowed to talk about them anymore. But we prevent them. We don't take chances anymore.

So... That was the main reason why.

*

Inside she had made a stand from the balcony. Had yelled against her better judgment. She stood up for Luisa, for Bruno, who quite literally, didn't have a voice to scream for himself. Stood up for what Camilo and Mirabel would soon become (Dolores refused to let them turn out like Isabela. Isa could deny her pain as much as she wanted, but Dolores didn't- couldn't- take her bait.)

And so... Yes. Dolores was pissed off. Rightly so. If she had made Luisa take off but one day in her life besides Sunday, (and even those were becoming rare) why should someone care? Abuela had been long gone, the rest of the adults were downstairs, completely clueless... Perfect. Dolores convinced both herself and Luisa that this was the best thing. She'd seen Bruno's vision, she had to do something, for heaven's sake! No one else would. If forcing Luisa to take a break would help, then so damn well be it.

In knowing Bruno's vision of Mirabel, of Casita breaking, she knew too much not to fight back against the toxic family standards. (She would learn, however, in later years that sometimes it's best to be submissive, fighting back, it's... just not worth it after all. Fit in with the crowd and at least you earn an ounce of respect for a while.)

And really, what had been Dolores' long-term plan? Whatever it was, it sure as hell didn't work; Abuela came back early, found that Dolores had done what she wanted to do with standards, had taken over as temporary leader of the household. At least for the grandchildren.