humanityinahandbag:

I know that in the original idea for Coco there was some talk about Héctor being a tour guide through the land of the dead. That he worked for low pay in basic customer service and hated his job. 

Well, I’d like to post an alternative. 

Instead of a tour guide for adults, he works with newly transitioned children, because for some reason, he would be the only guide able to calm the little ones down when they first appeared. 

The other tour guides had tried their luck- but all returned with crying, terrified little ones, with too many questions and far too many tears, hiding behind volumes of law and stacks of baggage claim papers from the scary skeletons that loomed above them. 

It was their lowest paid worker who crouched before a shaking eight year old boy and carefully reached out to pass a hand through black, unruly locks. “Ay, niño, it’s alright! Hey, hey, heyheyhey- it’s alright.” Bigger hands folding over little ones, pushing up a face, carefully reaching behind to the counter besides the stacks of papers stamped with the Bureau seal to pick out a few tissues. “Oye, it’s alright. Estas bien, chico.”

Héctor had always been a tall man, and so sliding down to the floor, back against the desk, his long legs disrupting the social workers moving to and fro and pointing glares in his direction, was no easy feat. Still, he pulled the child close enough to hum old, unfinished ballads and let the child experimentally toy with his skeletal fingers. He’d flex them. Watch the child’s eyes widen. Watch the child observe their own new hand do the same.

“See?” he’d always say with a gentle laugh, adjusting little cotton shirts and wiping runny noses. “Not so scary, am I!” 

Héctor always got a name (Tomás) and always got an age (tengo ocho años, señor) and always made them laugh at some absurd joke while the guide from before watched slack jawed and envious. 

“How about you and I go to explore la ciudad. I know a place that makes el pan dulce más maravilloso and then you and I will go find your family, ey?” The boy (or girl, whatever child it was, and there would be many, many children) clung tight to his hand and nodded fiercely and followed along, the eyes of the unsuccessful watching them retreat. 

It would be jealousy that would fuel the anger of his coworkers. “Héctor the Spector,” they’d call him behind his back. “Seen to the children, but never by his own family.” And another would make a sound rife with ire in agreement and say “he’ll never cross the bridge anyway. Might as well be of some use here.”

Héctor just clenched his fists and focused on his work. Because through the jeers and barbs, he still managed to find children’s families- to relocate and rehome without much trouble. 

No one ever knew why Héctor was so good with the children. 

No one ever cared to ask.