Thank you for the tag @carlos-in-glasses 💕 Sharing from the upcoming chapter 3 of Otherside of the Game 💛
The place smells like a typical bakery. Butter and cinnamon, stale coffee. And something citrusy that TK can’t quite name.
The walls are lined with framed photos from the bakery over the years.
The grand opening in 1934, the original owner holding a giant whisk to commemorate the first bake.
Martin Luther King Jr., cup of coffee in hand, holding a meeting with his advisors before his historic 1962 speech at UT.
A pigtailed 1970s Willie Nelson, eating a cookie with his face on it.
Nobody in here seems in a hurry to leave.
A woman in a faded oversized UT sweatshirt works on a laptop with a peeling KUTX sticker on its lid. Her big blonde curls are crowded into a claw clip at the top of her head.
Writing the next great American novel, TK thinks to himself. Or maybe one of those smutty romance books that Marjan couldn’t stop reading in the weeks she spent on bedrest before Yara was born. Every cover somehow more risque than the last. Men on horses. Ripped bodices. Abs more chiseled than Carlos’s.
Joe finally started hiding them behind the couch cushions when people came over. Which only worked until Paul accidentally sat on one and then spent ten minutes trying to figure out why a shirtless duke was poking him in the ass. “Didn’t even buy me dinner first,” he joked.
TK’s still smiling to himself when his eyes drift to the window table where two older men share a cinnamon roll big enough to fill an entire dinner plate. They’re soft, easy with each other in a way that TK immediately recognizes. Bumping feet under the table. One laughing when the other dribbles frosting into his greying beard, then reaching to gently wipe it away with the corner of his own napkin.
He feels a lump in his throat. Something deep in his chest twists. Can’t help thinking about Carlos. Maybe in a few decades they’ll be here. Splitting pastries at this very table. Wouldn’t he be lucky.
He has to drag his eyes away before he embarrasses himself by getting emotional over these strangers in a bakery.
Thank you for the tag @carlos-in-glasses! Chapter 3 of Otherside of the Game is fully drafted! Just needs to be edited... Luckily that is my favorite part :)
“Let me guess, you wanna buy Carlos flowers to make up for the fact that you and Marj went rogue and started your own amateur investigation into his case?” Paul holds a pink flower up to his nose and raises a challenging eyebrow at TK.
“No,” TK scoffs.
“Come on, TK,” Marjan prods. “You’re getting him guilt flowers.”
“They’re not guilt flowers.”
“Oh yeah? How many times have you gotten him flowers unprompted?”
He pauses. She’s got him there.
“They’re guilt flowers.”
He can’t remember either of them ever getting each other flowers. Their love languages have always skewed closer towards acts of service, like a back rub or a home cooked meal, or Carlos bringing home random knick knacks from Buc-ee's and TK filling the cabinet with fun new snacks from H-Mart.
“I’m actually not sure if Carlos even likes flowers.”
“Everyone likes flowers,” Marjan says encouragingly.
“We’ve always had houseplants. And the herb garden…” He scrunches his nose. “Wait, are flowers different from plants?”
“Yes,” Paul calls from across the aisle.
“Don’t listen to him,” Marjan says. “You’ve been married to Carlos for years, TK, I’m sure you can find something he’ll like.”
Marjan hovers behind as TK starts moving down the aisle, he has no idea what he’s doing but picking out flowers for Carlos can’t be that hard. He likes a minimalist aesthetic and clean lines, so TK grabs a handful of white lilies, a few creamy off-white tube-shaped flowers. Maybe he can find something dark for accent…
“No,” Marjan says, grabbing the flowers from his hands and going to put them back.
“What the hell, Marj?”
“These are funeral flowers, dummy.”
“There are special flowers for funerals?”
Paul’s sigh practically has an echo.
“Sorry! I’m gay, not Bobby Berk!”
“There’s a whole flower language,” Marjan says. She’s clearly trying to bite back a laugh. “Everybody knows that.”
“Well, I didn’t get the memo. And I’m pretty sure Carlos didn’t either.”
“Nope.” She says when he reaches for a bunch of cheerful yellow carnations. “Those mean rejection.”
“He would definitely get that memo,” Paul muses quietly.
Next he learns that orange lilies mean hatred. Petunias are a symbol of anger.
“Who is out there buying people hate flowers?” TK asks, bewildered.
Sharing Sentences from more than just an ordinary pain which is fully posted on ao3 now!! 💕
TK watches them both. His husband and his son. The easy smile on Carlos’s face. The way Carlos is always so entertained by Jonah. The way Jonah’s always so in awe of everything. Lots of things about fatherhood can be stressful. But so much of it is magical. Watching his husband transform into a teddy bear. Watching Jonah stare up into the sky, like the bats are dancing just for him.
It’s not long before Jonah starts naming the bats.
Chapter Two of more than just an ordinary pain is live on ao3! Fic is now fully posted! Here’s a preview 🥰
“That’s right, baby,” TK says. “Me and Auntie Marj and Uncle Paul came to the Bat Bridge waaay back when we first moved to Austin.”
“How long ago?” Jonah mumbles. “Before I was your baby?”
“Yep. Before you were born. Even before me and Papa were together.”
“Wow.” A beat. “Before Unc Paul was bald?”
TK snorts. “No. Not that long ago.”
“Tell me about it,” Jonah says in his sleepy little voice.
“Well,” TK says, leaning into Carlos’s side. Carlos curls his arm around TK’s shoulders and pulls him a bit closer. “When I first moved to Austin I was very sad.”
“Why?”
He takes a moment to think about it. It’s been so long since he thought about his time before Austin, about the pain and heartbreak. About how he didn’t think he’d ever move on from it.
“I felt really lonely,” he finally says. “I had my heart hurt pretty badly. And I didn’t think it would get better. I didn’t know I was gonna find my people here.”
Jonah rubs his cheek across the soft t-shirt fabric covering TK’s chest.
“But then you found Papa.”
“Yeah.” TK smiles. “I did.”
“And Auntie Marj n’ Unc Paul.”
“That’s right, baby. They helped me feel better.”
Carlos squeezes TK’s arm. A quiet reassurance.
“Daddy helped himself feel better too,” he says.
“Daddy’s really brave,” Jonah sighs.
“The bravest,” Carlos agrees, brushing a kiss to TK’s cheek.
Chapter One of more than just an ordinary pain is live on ao3 now!! Here's a bit from Chapter Two, coming this week!! 😎
TK and Carlos have been building up this moment for Jonah for weeks.
The Bat Bridge.
He’s been bombarding them with an endless list of questions.
At bedtime, heavy eyelids drooping while Carlos tucks his moose in next to him and TK brushes a final kiss to his forehead.
“If one bat sleeps too long does his papa wake him up?”
During his bath, splashing water all over the floor and Carlos’s gray t-shirt while acrobatically trying to practice his bat wings.
"But will the bats come to our house and watch us?"
On the toilet in the H-E-B in Tarrytown, when they’d been on their way home from tumbling class and Jonah screamed that he needed a potty immediately OR ELSE.
“Where do bats go poop?”
When they first brought up the idea of visiting the bats, they weren’t sure if he would think they were cool or scary. It honestly could have gone either way. But Jonah’s only really ever been scared of three things: the smoke detector that one time when TK tried to sear a steak in a cast-iron skillet, the creepy Rolie Polie Olie art that Carlos bought for his room in the loft, and being left anywhere without TK or Carlos for the first few months after they brought him home. He’s grown out of two of those fears now. One because the nightmare art was trashed. The other faded slowly as Jonah learned that TK and Carlos are always gonna come back.
🎂 Happy Birthday Anne @thisbuildinghasfeelings!!!!! 🎂
Cig @carlos-in-glasses and I have teamed up again this year to bring you another two fics on a theme. This year: Tarlos revisiting special places from their season one era with Jonah!!
Today I'm sharing Chapter One of more than just an ordinary pain, featuring TK, Marjan & Paul visiting the iconic Austin Bat Bridge in early Season One. Inspired 100% by Anne and I visiting the Bat Bridge and me almost pitching my phone off the boat when a bat grazed my head. (Yes there is video.) Chapter Two comes next week and features TK revisiting the bridge with Carlos & Jonah, followed by some found family feels with the Catan Crew. Cig's amazing fic will follow later this month! We hope you enjoy!!!
“Who’s Carlos?” Marjan asks, a teasing glint in her eye, voice pitched an octave higher than usual.
“He’s no one,” TK yelps, lunging for the phone so fast the table rattles, ice clinking in their glasses. He’s just a millisecond too late.
She snatches it away and holds it over her head, grinning.
“Oh yeah? Well why does No One want you to get tacos with him some time?”
The phone buzzes in her hand. All three of them freeze.
“Oh my god,” Marjan breathes, lowering the screen back to eye level. “No One just sent a selfie. And he’s really hot.”
Chapter One
“Maybe it’s good for you to have someone who just makes you feel good,” Marjan says, reaching across the table and giving his arm a supportive squeeze. “You’re young. He’s hot. You can figure everything else out later.”
“Yeah,” TK rolls his water glass between his palms. It’s sweating. Like it's as nervous as he is. “Later.”
It’s a funny thing. Later. Up until very recently, he’d been thinking maybe there wasn’t going to be much of a later for him. When he relapsed. When he moved down to Texas with his dad. He didn’t think he had much to live for. Nothing to look forward to. He felt so numb, so blind to the possibility of anything better that all he could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
One day at a time. Just like he’d learned in recovery.
But now? He looks at Paul and remembers the way he [redacted] when [redacted event happened]. Looks at Marjan and sees the sweetness reflected in her eyes. He looks down at the selfie from Carlos.
Asha’s gossiping with Carlos, undoubtedly giving him the rundown of the firehouse drama over at Station 129. HR was called after a firefighter resuscitated a victim who wasn’t actually unconscious.
“So then the guy goes, ‘I’m just a heavy napper!’” she’s saying, both hands spread wide in the air for emphasis.
Carlos looks like he’s not sure if he should laugh or scream, his face twisted into a horrified smile.
Marjan and Joe are here too. Joe’s helping Paul man the grill while Marjan attempts to teach Jonah how to play cornhole. He’s already got his shoes off, bright green blades of grass sticking to the bottoms of his feet.
Baby Yara’s been passed from person to person all afternoon. Right now she’s gazing up at TK, who’s cradling her in his lap in his perch at the picnic table. Watching it all.
Marjan’s standing with Jonah, only a few feet in front of the cornhole board that Paul bought on impulse a few weeks ago at Costco, not able to resist the charm of the LED-lit boards.
“Now we can play cornhole after dark,” he winked when he told the gang about it.
She guides Jonah’s little hand, helping him lob the yellow bag towards the hole in the board. It takes a few tries, but when he finally makes it he hops on his toes with glee.
Hello. I will be taking no further questions at this time
Marjan’s eyes go wide and she sucks in a sharp breath. Her smile stretches so big TK thinks he could count every single gleaming white tooth in her mouth.
“Who’s Carlos?” she asks, a teasing glint in her eye, her voice pitched an octave higher than usual.
“He’s no one,” TK yelps, lunging for the phone just a millisecond too late.
She snatches it away and holds it over her head, grinning.
“Oh yeah? Well why does No One want you to get tacos with him some time?”
The phone buzzes in her hand. All three of them freeze.
“Oh my god,” Marjan breathes, lowering the screen back to eye level. “No One just sent a selfie. And he’s really hot.”
She turns the phone around. Revealing Carlos. Curls loose and ungelled, teal henley stretching tight across his broad shoulders and firm chest. The corner of a soft taco caught between his teeth as he smiles at the camera. TK swears to god there’s an actual twinkle in his eye.
Paul immediately leans halfway across the table to get a better look.
“Wait–” His forehead furrows. Then his eyebrows shoot straight up to his nonexistent hairline. “Isn’t that that cop?”
“What cop?” Marjan asks, turning the phone back around and pinching the screen to zoom in.
“Guys,” TK pleads weakly.
Marjan gasps.
“OH MY GOD IT IS!!”
“Dreamy Officer Reyes!” Paul sings.
“Please don’t call him that.”
“You’re right,” Marjan says. “He’s more of an Officer Hot Stuff.”
Then she winks.
“Oh my god,” TK groans, dropping his face into his hands.
Enter Paul. Will he be successful at quelling TK & Marjan's investigation or will he get sucked into the chaos 🤭 First two chapters of Otherside of the Game are live on ao3 now!
“Oh boy,” Joe said when he opened the front door with a periwinkle muslin burping blanket slung over his shoulder and found a smiling Paul on the other side. “What are you doing here, brother?”
“I’m here to play interference to the Strand Marwani Cabal,” he said with a knowing smirk.
His presence was announced through squeal, that of one Jonah Strand Reyes the second he noticed his favorite uncle was standing in the doorway.
“What’s up little man?” Paul offered Jonah a high five in the entryway, scooping him up and slinging him over his shoulder like the world’s squirmiest, giggliest backpack on his way into the house while Jonah dissolved into helpless giggles against his back.
“Paul?” Marjan asked, surprised eyes looking up at him from the floor where she was wrestling a wriggling baby Yara into a tiny yellow onesie with the Austin City Limits logo on it. A gift from Uncle Paul. TK was holding Yara’s hands, placing little kisses to the tiny tips of her fingers, while Marjan clasped the buttons at the bottom.
“Yeah,” he said, depositing Jonah on the nearest accent chair. Jonah immediately sprang back up, attempting to climb Paul like a jungle gym. “Did you think Carlos wouldn’t call in backup?”
“Backup?” TK swallowed.
Paul already had his phone out, reading: “Please keep my husband and Marjan from doing anything–” he glanced down at Jonah, staring back at him with big eyes. “S-T-U-P-I-D.”
From Otherside of the Game. Chapter 1 is on ao3 now.
“Found her.”
“How’d you—”
“Oh please,” she says, scrolling. “I could find anyone online.” She tilts the phone toward him. “She’s pretty.”
She is pretty. Brown hair with big, spiraling curls. A bright, easy smile. In her profile picture she’s leaning against a railing down on the River Walk, one hand on her hip. TK and Marjan were just down there with Jonah a couple weeks ago. Just a few yards down from that patch of railing there’s a playground with Jonah’s favorite slide in the world. It’s shaped like a fish, and he screams with glee every time he shoots out the mouth.
“Her last post was on Sept 4th.”
“That’s the night she went missing.”
Marjan glances up at him. “I can’t believe Carlos told you all this.”
“Well…”
“TK.”
“He didn’t exactly tell me all this…” TK admits, picking at the edge of his napkin. “I may have… read his case file after he fell asleep last night.”
It’s not his fault that Carlos was out cold by 9 pm after TK fucked him into a vegetative state. And it’s not like he makes a habit of looking at Carlos’s case files. But this one time didn’t feel like it could hurt. Right?
Two weeks. And Sofia Alvarez is just as much a mystery as she was the day her case landed on Carlos’s desk.
He lets himself think about her for one last second before he pops the truck door. She’s more than a photo in a casefile, a name on a report, more than a life paused mid-sentence.
But the lights inside his house are on. And inside are the two people he loves most in the world. There’s probably music playing. Almost certainly the new Bad Bunny album. Jonah’s probably trying to goad TK into a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. He’s been begging them to play every night because “I gotta practice so I can beat Unc Paul!”
TK is cooking dinner, probably something Thai if the earlier text asking Carlos to pick up fish sauce on his way home is any indication.
Carlos doesn’t try to fight the smile that creeps its way across his face as he reaches into the back seat for the grocery bag, feels a bittersweet twinge in his chest at the realization that it’s the first time he’s smiled since he left this house this morning. After kissing each of Jonah’s tiny fingers goodbye. His smile grows at the memory. And the picture he already has in his mind of the way his sweet little face will light up when he sees the T-rex transformer race car tucked inside the bag.
Carlos spotted it on his way to check out and couldn’t resist.
Well.
It was near the check out.
Technically, it was in the far corner of the store, but Carlos knows that’s where they keep the good stuff, and he wasn’t about to walk into an H-E-B and leave without something special for his boy.
He’s already loosening his tie as he makes his way up the path, the weight of the day easing with every inch of fabric that slips free. The lanterns glow at his feet. The house gets closer. His heart gets warmer.
By the time he reaches the door he can feel it, Ranger Reyes is melting away. When he steps inside, he’ll be gone. Left at the coat rack along with his hat, his boots and his badge.
Because when he’s home, he’s just Carlos. Just Papa.
Carlos feels it happening in real time, his body relaxing and his chest settling with all the quiet little comforts of being home. For a second, it almost drowns out the rest of his day.
He toes off his boots, shuffling down the short hallway from the foyer on socked feet, where he’s met in the kitchen with two pairs of wide, expectant eyes.
One brown. One green.
He barely has time to set the grocery bag on the counter before Jonah launches himself off his stool, colliding into Carlos’s chest with full six-year-old force.
Carlos catches him easily, grunting a little at the impact.
If he thinks too hard about the way that Jonah just trusts that he’ll catch him, that he’ll be there for him — always — it’ll bring him to his knees.
“Hola, osito,” he says, dropping a kiss to Jonah’s forehead. “Did you have a good day?”
“Yeah,” Jonah declares, throwing his head back dramatically, one hand fisting in Carlos’s tie like it’s a load-bearing anchor. “I pooped.”
Carlos huffs a laugh. He’s pretty sure nothing this kid says could faze him anymore.
“Oh yeah?” He prods. “That was the highlight of your day?”
“He did it in the pool,” TK adds, not even looking up from the onions he’s chopping, voice as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.
Marjan drops her hands from TK’s shoulders. They pull apart and turn to look at him.
He’s a few feet away, arms crossed, expression flat in that scary worse-than-yelling way. The way he’s standing, with his feet planted wide and his shoulders squared, makes him look bigger somehow, broad enough to fill almost the entire doorway of the interrogation room.
“No?” TK repeats weakly.
“No,” Carlos says again. “You do not get to stand here and debrief like this was a successful mission. You guys could have gotten yourselves killed.” He rubs his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “Or worse.”
“Worse?” TK echos.
What could be worse than dead?
He’s not sure he wants to know.
Marjan opens her mouth.
“No,” Carlos says, pointing at her now. “You don’t get to talk either.”
She closes it.
TK almost feels bad for her.
Almost.
He tries again. “In our defense–”
“You do not have a defense,” Carlos cuts in. “You broke into a crime scene.”
“It wasn’t a crime scene,” TK says. Then, when Carlos makes a strangled noise, he adds, “Yet…”
Carlos just stares at him, so TK, a genius, keeps going. “…it was pre-crime scene?”
“TK.”
Digging a hole.
Digging it deeper.
“Okay, yes, it was a crime scene.”
“Thank you.”
Marjan lifts a hand slightly. “Technically, we discovered it, so–”
Carlos turns his stare on her.
She lowers her hand.
Carlos drags a hand down his face, pacing a little circle in the hallway like he’s trying to physically walk off the frustration.
“Do either of you have any idea how badly this could have gone?” he says. “You so easily could have gotten hurt. You could have contaminated evidence. You had no idea what you were walking into.”
TK shifts his weight and wraps his arms around himself. Suddenly very aware of the air conditioning rattling through the precinct’s ducts.
“We had a pretty good idea,” he says.
“TK,” Carlos groans.
“Okay, we had a vibe,” TK says. It comes out before he can stop it. So deep is his hole.
Sharing a bit from my Benito Bowl fic, WELTiTA, which is fully posted on ao3!!! I just want to say that I’m so incredibly proud of Bad Bunny, and what he’s done. The way he didn’t shy away from putting culture and joy and history on full display meant so much to so many people, for so many reasons, and I’m so happy that I was able to portray even a little bit of what that means through Jonah, Carlos and TK ❤️
Carlos nods slowly, taking a moment to sit with everything he’s feeling.
TK watches him carefully, waiting for him to find his words. Wanting to let him lead this conversation.
“I guess I feel hopeful,” Carlos says at last. “Seeing a Latino man take that stage and celebrate our culture so loudly. That he didn’t try to tone it down, or change his performance to make anyone else comfortable. That he was even given that platform in the first place…” He sighs, trying to find the right words. “I never thought I’d see it.”
“He was given that platform because he’s beloved across the world,” TK says, firm yet gentle. “Latinos have something to say and people are listening.”
“I hope so.”
“And now Jonah gets to see it,” TK says, voicing the thought that’s been running through Carlos's mind all day.
“I never want him to think that our culture is something he needs to hide,” Carlos says. “I know he’s not Tejano by blood, but Enzo is Peruvian, and he’s growing up in my family.”
“He’s your kid,” TK says easily. “Blood or not.”
Carlos swallows.
“I spent so much of my life hiding,” Carlos says. He grew up thinking he had to hide his sexuality, his ambitions. Parts of himself that just felt easier to tuck away. Trying hard not to make anyone else uncomfortable. “I never want him to feel like he has to hide anything. Especially not parts of himself.”
“So we won’t let him,” TK says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. And maybe it is. “He’ll know his culture through you. We’ll teach him about Peru and Mexico, about Tejano traditions and jíbaros and pavas. And we’ll show him that culture is something that gets to take up space. It gets to be celebrated.”
Carlos squeezes TK’s calf gently, the physical contact especially steadying tonight.
Hello!! It’s the happiest day of the year!!! Benito Bowl is upon us!!! Here’s a bit from Chapter 5 of WELTiTA, coming later today!!! ❤️💙
The room erupts in laughter, but for Carlos everything starts to fade. The cheers, the jokes, the commentary. Everything but the little boy on the rug in front of him. Dancing like this Super Bowl concert is just for him. Becoming one with the music blasting through the surround sound speakers.
Puerto Rico and Latin America on full, proud display, broadcasting across the airwaves from the biggest stage in the world. Unapologetically Latino, presented fully in Spanish, highlighting the joy of holding onto culture. At a time where people who look like the people on that stage – who look like Carlos and like Bad Bunny, the biggest superstar in the world – are being kidnapped from their homes and thrown into jails all across this country. For daring to come here. For daring to speak Spanish in public. For daring to be Latino and having the courage to wear it proudly.
Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa
Quieren al barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya
Aquí nadie quiso irse, quien se fue sueña con volver*
As Bad Bunny croons the achingly sad lyrics of Lo Que Le Pasó A Hawaii, Carlos can't help but feel grateful. Grateful that his son will grow up knowing that his culture is something to be proud of. Something to celebrate loudly. To be worn like a badge.
* they want to take my river and my beach, they want my neighborhood and for my grandma to leave, nobody wanted to leave here and the ones who did dream of coming back
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
dededos
annaxmalina