upperstories:

Teacher!AU Bedtime and Sleep Headcanons!

• how many hours do they sleep for on average? what time to do they go to bed and when do they wake up?

-Héctor = Per @slusheeduck​, Héctor hardly sleeps at all during weekdays. On average, he usually goes to bed around any time from midnight to 2:00 AM (if at all), but is able to catch up on sleep over the weekends and holidays, sleeping in till noon or later. If it were up to Héctor, he’d love to get plenty more sleep, but papers don’t grade themselves and he can sleep plenty when he’s retired with all the money he and Ernesto make when they hit it big.

-Miguel = Although he really shouldn’t be, Héctor is pretty lenient when it comes to Miguel’s curfew, and will let the kid stay up with him when they have guitar practice or when Miguel isn’t quite ready to be alone in the spare bedroom just yet. He gets to sleep MUCH earlier than Héctor, thankfully, but he probably doesn’t get as much sleep as a boy his age probably should (though most of that might be blamed on anxiety and recent events rather than Héctor’s lack of parenting skills). He also always wakes up before Héctor, acting as his Tío’s alarm clock most of the time.

-Imelda = Imelda runs on coffee and spite, and always feels tired regardless of how much sleep she gets, which is usually 6 hours on average. Even on the weekends. But she’s always up and ready to move by 5 AM.

-Ernesto = Per @slusheeduck​ Ernesto SOMEHOW always manages to get a healthy 8 hours of sleep regardless of when he goes to sleep and wake up. He’s always up around the same time as Miguel though, so he can call first dibs on the shower while Miguel eats breakfast and Héctor snores into the early morning.

• how many blankets and pillows do they sleep with?

-Héctor = One thin sheet and a woolen throw are all he needs, and they usually get kicked off before the night is through. He prefers to be buried in pillows. He needs at least five or six.  

-Miguel = Though he won’t admit it, he has a favorite a fleecy blanket be brought from home and likes to tuck it around his shoulders. He also often brings it with him when huddling up on the couch. Other than that, the usually single sheet and comforter are enough for him, and he’s good with only a couple pillows. He’s not against having more pillows though, if you’re offering to share.  

-Imelda = A single sheet and an afghan. One pillow is enough. She’s very minimalist.

-Ernesto = He prefers simply sleeping under a thick duvet, no other sheets. The more pillowy the duvet, the better. Two or three pillows are good for him, plus a smaller pillow for Doña Lucinda to sleep on. A simple dog bed SHALL NOT do.

• do they snore?

-Héctor = Like a freight train. He uses nasal strips and they help somewhat, but with a nose like his he can only do so much.

-Miguel = Nope, but he’s very prone to talking in his sleep.

-Imelda = She’ll never admit to it, but she only snores when she’s deeply asleep.

-Ernesto = He does but he’s unaware of it, because he’s only ever shared a room with Héctor and his amigo snores enough for three Ernestos.

• have they ever experienced sleep paralysis?

-Héctor = He’s experienced it exactly three times throughout the course of his life. Once when he was 7, once when he was 18, and once when he was 21. They’re usually triggered by extremely high stress, and he always experiences the same hallucinations: a skeletal woman in a damp dress and a filthy white veil stands next to his bed and hums a song to him that Héctor can’t quite place outside of being in a minor key, followed by thin flakes of gold appearing on his bed and burying him alive. The first time it happened, he managed to choke out a sound that woke up Enrique in the next room, and the older primo managed to help him snap out of it. The second time, he forced himself to sit through it, to listen to the woman’s humming. The third time, he was able to hear it clearly, and wrote a song based off of it, to help him face his nightmare. He titled it La Llorona.

-Miguel = Not so far, but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen when he gets older. He’s asked Héctor about them though, and he knows for sure that he doesn’t want anything to do with them.

-Imelda = Once when she was 15, on the eve of her quinciñera. She prefers not to talk about it… but for some reason, they involved her shoes walking around on their own, and a large jaguar stalking her back and forth in her wallpaper.

-Ernesto = Several times in his youth and young adulthood. It was different every time, ranging in extremes, but always coming back to one big, central fear. Sometimes he would see himself aging in his nightstand mirror, slowly transforming into a horrific mass of skin and bones before collapsing into a forgotten pile of dust. Sometimes he would hear millions of whispers, cursing him for letting his life go to waste. Sometimes, he would hear a far off church bell ring, and see the shadow of Santa Muerte in his open doorway, beckoning him with glowing yellow flames for eyes. It all went back to a fear of death before accomplishing anything with his life, but they stopped once he moved away from Santa Cecilia and started his music career with Héctor.

• do they sleepwalk/sleeptalk?

-Héctor = He swears to Elena that he used to sleepwalk in his youth, but she knows better. He was just sneaking off for a midnight snack.

-Miguel = He sleeptalks practically every night. Most of the time it’s just nonsense gibberish (“i-don-wanna-see-the-frida-kahlo-cactus….”), but sometimes it will be because he’s dreaming of his parents, and talking and laughing with them as if they were still alive.

-Imelda = She does neither. She’s usually very still when sleeping.

-Ernesto = He only sleeptalks if he’s having a very good dream. Usually about signing autographs and posing for photos.

• could they sleep anywhere or do they have Very Specific Conditions?

-Héctor = He’s fallen asleep on the couch so many times while grading papers, it’s practically his second bed. His back and neck would appreciate if he fell asleep on an actual bed, but when exhaustion overtakes you, you can’t really afford to be picky. He doesn’t so much sleep as just… stops being conscious.

-Miguel = He prefers sleeping with someone else in the room. He knows it’s stupid and childish and only babies need to be read or sung to sleep, but he also has very bad separation anxiety. In La Hacienda Rivera, there was always someone roaming the hallways or working in the workshop, primos running around or Abualita Elena barking orders from across the courtyard. Always noise. Never silent. Even after his parents died, he could at least take comfort in his extended family being nearby to keep him calm and provide white noise to fall asleep to. But after moving in with Héctor, he doesn’t have the comfort of at least a dozen people he’s lived with for most of his life being nearby to help lull him back to sleep. This is why he likes staying up with Héctor on the couch, usually falling asleep next to him and needing to be carried to bed. He also prefers sleeping on his side.

-Imelda = She needs to be sleeping on her back, arms folded on top of her, with Pepita curled up nearby. Her beloved cat doesn’t need to be sleeping anywhere specific, but having Pepita nearby helps lower her blood pressure enough to relax. (She’s not aware of this, but she also sleeps much better when surrounded by people she trusts. This makes eventually sharing a bad with Héctor a definite improvement on her sleep cycle.)

-Ernesto = Door shut. Lights off. Sleep mask on. Earplugs in. Doña Lucinda curled up at the foot of his bed on her special pillow. Lilac sleeping salts on the bedside table. Simple, but effective.

• do they have any stuffed animals?

-Héctor = He used to have a stuffed fluffy animal that looked like a goat mixed with an armadillo, but he left it behind when he went away to university. Years later, Tía Elena found it while cleaning out Héctor’s room, washed it, and now she keeps it on the mantle, just in case he ever came home early and needed it again.

-Miguel = No way! Stuffed animals are only for really little kids. He has action figures and legos instead.

-Imelda = She has a small collection of jaguar and cat figurines that she keeps for good luck on her desk at home. One of them is a small black cat beanie baby.

-Ernesto = No. No! Of course not. Why would he have a stuffed Coati? He doesn’t keep it tucked safely under his bed in case of emergencies. Stop asking stupid questions!!!

• what do they dream about? do they even dream at all?

-Héctor = Most of his dreams consist of compressed combinations of memories from the past week and day dreams. Quite a few times he’s dreamed of finishing grading papers, and then woken up the next morning without finishing grading at all. His favorite dreams usually involve a certain Directora, of course. And due to Héctor’s active imagination, they’re usually very vivid, which can be both a good and bad thing.

-Miguel = Per @slusheeduck​ Miguel often dreams of being back in the Rivera home in Santa Cecilia, with both of his parents alive and caring for him. After settling in with Héctor and adjusting better with counseling, those dreams slowly start mingling with memories of living in Héctor’s flat, with the entire Rivera family and Imelda and Ernesto sitting at the dinner table together. Sometimes things are black and white like those films Héctor likes, and once or twice he’s dreamt of Héctor and Ernesto having guitar duels. Sometimes Imelda wears a luchadora mask.

-Imelda = She will never admit it, not even long after rekindling her relationship with Héctor, but most of her dreams revolve around how much she’s head-over-heals for the music teacher. Otherwise, her dreams are fairly gibberish and she doesn’t remember them.

-Ernesto = He honestly doesn’t remember most of his dreams, and after his chronic sleep paralysis in childhood, he kind of prefers to keep it that way.

• what’s the worst nightmare they’ve ever had?

-Héctor = Once, and only once, Héctor dreamt that he and Miguel had gone to perform in Capula’s town square, but got separated after some argument. Héctor couldn’t remember what it was about exactly, but he remembered Miguel throwing a piece of paper– a photo of them in calavera make up– at him and telling Héctor to “stay away”. He chased Miguel all the way to the roof of their flat complex, always just out of reach like you are in dreams, despite knowing full well he could out run the kid, only he watched in horror as Miguel fell off the side of the building to the ground below. It horrified Héctor so badly that he bolted out of bed and immediately went to check on Miguel, startling the poor boy awake. After helping Miguel go back to sleep, Héctor spent the rest of the night on the couch, trying to get the mental image of his godson’s tiny, broken body on the pavement out of his head.

-Miguel = Miguel only had really bad dreams when he was very small, back when Enrique and Luisa were alive. He was too young to remember them clearly, but they often had something to do with skeletons. They couple soon learn that his primo Abel showed Miguel the Nightmare Before Christmas, which although a very innocuous movie when your 12, can be kind of frightening for younger children.

-Imelda = Imelda once dreamt that she was a widow. She’d only ever told Ceci about the dream, and Ceci knows to never bring it up, as it could be a reflection of Imelda’s hesitation to attempt commitment in a relationship, for fear of eventually losing the person she loves someday.

-Ernesto = Most of his nightmares circled around his sleep paralysis visions. The ones involving Bells were the most horrific.

• what’s the best dream they’ve ever had?

-Héctor = He has literally both day dreamed and had full-length feature-film-style dreams of his and Imelda’s future wedding. And he’s gushed about both to Ernesto in exquisite detail. And this was all before the infamous Christmas Party even took place.

-Miguel = He usually has really cool dreams after watching super hero movies. His favorite one was when he joined the Avengers as El Riverito, and his super hero outfit involved a luchador mask and his favorite blanket being used for his cape.

-Imelda = The same as Héctor’s favorite dream. Though she’d probably claim it was a nightmare.

-Ernesto = The one downside to forgetting all of his dreams now was that he couldn’t remember any good dreams either. They probbaly had something to do with becoming a famous musician.

• do they have keep a dream diary?

-Héctor = He would if he knew that they existed. Please don’t tell him they exist.

-Miguel = Nope, sounds dumb.

-Imelda = She knows better than to dwell on dreams, so no.

-Ernesto = He doesn’t remember enough about his dreams to make big enough journal entries.

• what does their bedroom look like?

-Héctor = In spite of being far away from the Rivera Hacienda, his room definitely exerts a similar feel to the rooms in the main home in Santa Cecilia. yellow-painted Faux stucco on the walls, blue, yellow, and white striped bedding, and wood furniture, but with a decidedly Héctor-ish flair. The floor is a mess of dirty laundry and discarded papers from scrapped song-writing. He has a large side window, decorated with his favorite books, several small succulent plants and cacti (which are all miraculously alive, and a glass jar full of sand from Cancun). He also has a hammock set up next to the window, which he uses as a window seat, perfect for song writing, or a place to keep laundry.

-Miguel = Small and homey, covered in lots of Lucha Libre and Pixar film posters. It’s usually as messy as one would expect for an eight-year-old, floor typically covered in dirty socks, stray legos and comic books, but considering Miguel currently lives in Capula, Elena has been keeping it as clean as possible. Wither Héctor’s influence, it gets filled with books on music theory and blank sheet music journals as well as displays for his own instruments in the corner.

-Imelda = Clean and modern, modestly furnished, with a large walk-in closet, the walls all painted lilac with dark wood furniture, high ceilings and a large fan. She also has a large walk-out balcony with a lounging white wicker chair. Hard-wood floors, beautiful framed paintings of flowers everywhere. She also has small places for Pepita to lounge in every room, so that her companion is never too far away from her.

-Ernesto = The walls painted a deep, relaxing blue with matching decor and bedspread. Signed and framed band posters all over each wall, and a desk set up in the corner with a tri-pod, expensive vocal recording equipment, a camera, and a PC, all primed and ready for vlogging and taking social media by storm. After saving up enough money, he eventually gets a small puppy pampering station for Doña Lucinda to lounge the day away in. But until then, she’s content wth her special pillow.

• what do they do when they can’t get to sleep?

-Héctor = Slips on a pair of headphones and listens to rain sound effects until they lull him to sleep, or if he’s home alone, puts on old black and white films while setting up a huddle pillow pile on the couch. They make him feel safe, secure, and a touch nostalgic.

-Miguel = Reluctantly wakes up Héctor and asks to stay with him for the night. Enrique humming him to sleep always helped when he was younger, and Héctor is more than happy to oblige with providing music and hugs.  

-Imelda = Closes her eyes and breaths deeply while petting Pepita. If that doesn’t help, she brews tea. If all else fails, she imagines thin but strong arms holding her shoulders until she finally relaxes.

-Ernesto = He tries to count all of the good things he did during the day, make a list of all the things he’s going to do tomorrow, and if all else fails, hugging Doña Luncinda is always therapeutic.