whump is fun because you see a character and are like “i love you so much that i want to see you sobbing and covered in blood. i need you dying in a hospital bed. i need you cold, wet, and miserable. i love you and want you to suffer unimaginable horrors. then you can have a kiss on the head as a treat”
Rewatched 4x18 this morning for fic reasons and I just think we always need to talk more about this moment!
Carlos’s anguished “and forget about it??” when Owen is telling him that he has to move past what happened to Gabriel is so heartbreaking because Carlos has always been so so desperate for the approval of father figures and he got it from Owen years before he ever felt like he had it from his own dad. Owen was the one who sort of showed Carlos it was possible to be a man and still be soft, both by literally telling him that it was in 2x08 but also by modeling it in how he led the 126 with so much compassion and how he navigated his relationship with his own son. Owen was someone Carlos could look to for like inspiration on how to be strong and gentle at the same time and in this moment to Carlos it feels like Owen is now being like “ok man up stop crying get over it” instead and it totally devastates him. It’s not what Owen is saying but you can see for a split second that it destroys Carlos to think it is. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this exact post before and I don’t care I wanna talk about it again
Autumn of '85, TK and Jonah Strand move into a house that they had inherited when their parents tragically passed away 6 months prior in the middle of a strange town under the name of Foxthorn. When strange things begin to happen in that home and that town, a mystery seems to unravel.
thanks @carlos-in-glasses @angstycarlos @carlossreaders @henrygrass @ladyknight1512 !! a little something from my spooktober fic :)
“It’s new,” TK says after a minute, and it takes Carlos a moment to put together what he’s talking about.
“Your appetite?” Carlos questions, and TK nods. He turns towards Carlos and gives him half a smile.
“Don’t want to eat you.”
A laugh bubbles out of Carlos unexpectedly. He thinks TK’s joking, but he’s never heard TK joke much. He might be telling the truth, too. At least partially. It begs the question of if TK ever did want to eat him at one point. “Well, I appreciate that,” he says with what he hopes is an even, non-stressed tone. He picks at a fraying spot in the knee of his jeans, thinking briefly that he’s going to have to ask Marjan to help him fix it while he avoids thinking about the question he wants to ask right now. “What do you think it means?”
Carlos holds his breath as TK shrugs. “Dangerous to hope.”
Yeah. Carlos can agree with that. But god does he anyway.
Happy Wednesday! My plan was to start posting this fic this week, but I'm gonna have to postpone it to next week instead 🧐 thank you for the tags @carlos-in-glasses, @angstycarlos, @ladyknight1512 💞
Carlos is melting into the warm embrace of slumber. His muscles go soft, his mind slips behind the curtain of reality, and then—thwack.
A tiny, sock-clad foot connects squarely with his jaw.
He grunts, jolted back into the dimness of the bedroom. In the faint light, he sees Jonah sprawled horizontally between him and TK. One small hand is smothering TK’s face, who seems undisturbed, snoring lightly into the tiny palm. They’re a matched set: Jonah’s little sighs harmonize with TK’s soft snoring, both mouths agape. The sight is so perfect it momentarily eclipses the throbbing in his chin.
He carefully peels the tiny limb from TK’s face and shifts to readjust their tiny bed-bandit. But as if sensing the threat to his dominion, Jonah lets out a sleepy grunt, rolls onto his back, and unleashes a powerful, judo-master double kick.
It connects directly with Carlos’s sternum, stealing the air from his lungs in a sharp oof. The momentum, combined with the fact he was already teetering on the precipice of the mattress, seals his fate.
There’s a single, weightless moment of pure disbelief. Is this how I go out? he wonders. Assassinated by my three-year-old?
He scrambles for the duvet, fingers clutching at nothing as the fabric slithers off his grasp.
Thump.
“Fu—” he chokes out, the rest of the curse dissolving into a pathetic groan.
Silence. He lies there, staring at the ceiling. It’s cold, it’s hard, but peaceful.
Then, a small voice from above. “Papa Carlos went boom.”
A shift in the mattress. The rustle of sheets. Then, the two most important faces in his world peek over the edge at him—a pair of matching bedheads, hair sticking out in all directions, both wearing the same half-confused, half-asleep expression.
TK’s brow furrows. “Why are you down there?”
“I’ve been bested by our three-year-old,” Carlos mumbles to the ceiling.
“I see.” TK blinks slowly, looking from the triumphant-looking Jonah back to the fallen Carlos. “So, you coming back up, or are you leaving us for the floor?”
For a long moment, Carlos considers the quiet of the floor. It’s tempting.