#jazzyjess

[userilyarozanov]

If I see something that you don’t like, you’re gonna be all “Bruno makes bad things happen. Oh, he’s creepy and his vision killed my goldfish.”

ENCANTO (2021)

[daily118]

I mean, what little kid doesn’t want to be a firefighter? Especially a hot firefighter.

[lovebuck]

9-1-1: Lone Star | Paul Strickland in 2x14

[rafael-silva]

#appreciation post for carlos reyes wearing a suit

[marjansmarwani]

I need you so much closer

7.8k || ao3

Carlos Reyes was loved.

Yes, by TK, but not only by him.

— — —

Or, a 4x04 coda in which we get to hear from everyone else and fill in some missing scenes.

This was not supposed to be this long, but it’s done! All the love to @moviegeek03 and @justaswampdemon as always for helping from start to finish (and making sure it actually got finished). 

-------

Gabriel Reyes thought he knew fear. 

He had been a Texas Ranger for most of his life. He had been in law enforcement even longer than that. He had seen the worst of the worst; had stared down hardened criminals that would end his life just as soon as blink. 

He thought the peak of fear had been finding out that his son’s home had burned down while he was inside. The knowledge of exactly how close he had come to losing his only child had nearly been enough to topple him, and the fact that he had been at least partially responsible didn’t help. There was the day-to-day fear of his son’s job (because of course he had followed him into the same line of work), the occasional instances of bad things happening, and feeling that rush of fear. But this? Looking down at his son’s still body as his fiancé worked to keep his heart beating? Seeing his son lying there and knowing that the only thing keeping the blood flowing through his veins was the force of a distraught TK desperately pumping it through his heart? This was the deepest and most primal fear he had ever felt. 

Somewhere deep inside he had known that this was a possibility. From the moment TK had showed up at their door with that fear in his eyes the thought had been whispering in the back of his mind. But being here and seeing it, knowing that they had been not even fifty feet from Carlos that morning; that his son had been hurt and in trouble and he had been so close but had done nothing, made it all so much more real. 

He didn’t even need to ask TK for his professional opinion of the situation, he knew how bad it was. He also knew that if they had been just a few minutes sooner Carlos could have been fine.  Just as much as he knew if they had been just a few seconds later any hope they did have (tenuous as it may be) would have expired, right along with his son. It was a cruel trick on the part of the universe; to bring them here so close to saving him but just maybe a little bit too far. 

[continue reading on ao3]

[raypakorn]

I didn’t see stars in your eyes. I didn’t see oceans or worlds, or anything at all. I just saw two brown eyes looking back at me. It was the weirdest thing, but I felt at home. Which is fine, I don’t want to stare into one ocean or star forever, I want to feel at home forever. - KJS (x & x) requested by @carlosreyess

[mensource]

BRENDAN FRASER as RICK O’CONNELL The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers

[terramous]

my mind won't go to sleep, my soul is yours to keep

title: palaye royale - nightmares word count: 1.3k thank you to @marjansmarwani for helping me out with the ending <3 AO3

One step. 

Two steps. 

Three steps and he’s falling to his knees, reaching out desperately to grab a hold of TK’s hand. It’s too pale, too far away, it glimmers in the low light, almost transparent, like Carlos is reaching for a ghost. His fingertips brush the empty air and he grabs a hold of nothing.

It’s a shrill beep that sends him reeling back into consciousness.

The loft is dead silent, the only noise aside from Carlos’ heavy breaths is the soft snoring coming from right next to him. TK is there, he’s safe and alive, it was just a dream. 

But it never truly feels like that. Carlos has had many nightmares in his life, but they seemed to be coming through more often than not in the past few months. He could rarely remember his dreams but the nightmares clung to him even in the daylight hours, unshakable and inescapable. 

A constant, ever since TK’s most recent stint in the hospital. Something about those days spent in limbo at his bedside had melted and moulded his brain in such a way that left him with nightmares almost every night. At the time, he had barely slept, too wound up with anxiety to relax, and the night was filled with tossing and turning until Carlos eventually gave up and plodded to the kitchen for one of many cups of coffee that sustained him through the early hours of the morning until he was able to go back to the hospital. 

He’d opened up to TK a few times about the nightmares, but never told him that they were so constant, so continually framed around losing the man he loved more than words could ever describe. TK was empathetic of course, understanding the nightmares, the fear that lingered even after the sun had risen. He had dealt with his own, so many near death experiences coming back to bite him even though the wounds were long since healed.

It felt wrong to burden his fiancé with the nightmares, the images of him dying again and again, always just a little too far to reach, no matter how fast Carlos ran he never got to him in time. After all, it wasn’t his fault that Carlos was plagued with the sight of his whole world on the brink of death. 

Sometimes he thinks his life would be easier if they had never met, but with that comes the reflection on how dull and monotonous his days had been before the whirlwind that was TK had come crashing through, bruised knuckles and split lip, glowing green eyes that Carlos could never shake off whenever his mind wandered. Despite the chaos and the horror that Carlos had grown intimately familiar with over the past few years, there was nothing in the world that was better than loving TK Strand. 

So that is where he finds himself. Sitting up in their shared bed, blanket caught around his feet, TK sleeping peacefully next to him. He’d always been the better sleeper, too used to 24 and 48 hour shifts, the necessity of being able to sleep anywhere had given him the skill of falling asleep easily and yet he woke at the slightest shift. If Carlos were to try and vacate the bed TK would startle awake and ask him where he was going. Which had been weird the first few nights they spent together. Eventually it just became routine, that if Carlos woke and needed to refill the glass of water beside his bed then TK’s glossy green eyes would trail him as he left and returned, and TK would welcome him back into bed with a groggily cast arm across his waist. 

There was no doubt that if he reached over and touched TK that his fiancé would stir and soothe him, talk him through the strained and panicked breaths. TK was never anything other than completely understanding when it came to Carlos’ nightmares, if only he could have the strength to reach out for his lover’s soft touch every time. He couldn’t wake TK every night, couldn’t force him to apologise for something he had no control over. 

He didn’t need to reach out, didn’t need to ask for TK as a simple choked sob forced its path from his throat and snapped cleanly through the silence. Hot tears broke forth and tumbled down his face but that was only momentary, TK’s warm thumbs chasing them and wiping them away as he cooed. 

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” TK asked, his voice thick with sleep. He wiped away the tears as they continued to fall with a gentle fervour, pulling Carlos closer with every touch. 

The warmth of skin on his helped to quell his anxiety but the relief of the contact just made him cry harder. TK was fine, he was awake and talking and touching him and his hands weren’t cold or pale like they were in the scope of his unconsciousness. 

Between ragged gasps, somehow Carlos managed to form a word, “nightmare.”

TK made a keening noise in his throat and opted to cup Carlos’ cheeks in his hands, giving Carlos the contact he needed if he were ever to ground himself. He felt like a kite in a hurricane. 

“What was it about?” TK asked, even though they both knew the answer. 

Carlos struggled with that part. It had obviously been about TK, about him dying, like most of his nightmares were but it was so abstract, the race against the clock, TK being just a little too far to reach, the failure. He failed TK again and again and again. Every night there was a new way to lose TK. To ice, to fire, to blood and ash. A tiled bathroom or smouldering building. Sometimes he woke when the gun fired. He had managed to lose TK in a million and one ways, all while TK slept next to him. 

He was fine, he was alive, he was touching and reassuring Carlos but still all Carlos could think of was the way he looked like a ghost in his dream. Like he was dead already and Carlos had been the last to know. 

“You.” A sob. “You were dead.”

“I’m not,” TK said, taking Carlos’ hand and pressing it to his chest, over his heart so that Carlos could feel the pitter patter of it beating. “I promise I’m not.” 

“It–” even with TK’s soft and comforting touches and words Carlos was having trouble catching his breath. “It was so real.”

“I know, but I’m always going to be here. I’m not going away.”

There was always going to be a ‘what if?’, especially in their line of work. TK had already been hurt on the job so many times, what if his luck ran out? What if tonight was their last night together? What if the unspeakable happened the second this moment was over? 

At some point the nightmares would stop being horrors of sleep and they would seep out into his waking moments. 

But TK would never lie to him, not like that. Regardless of whatever happened, if TK said he wasn’t going to leave, then he would stay through the world cracking in half. They’d already been through so much, so many things trying to tear them apart, but at the end of it all, they were here sharing the bed, his palm over TK’s heart. 

“Wanna give sleep another go?” TK asked softly, running his free hand through Carlos’ hair, scratching his scalp lightly.

Carlos smiled at him through his tears and nodded, allowing himself to be coaxed back to his pillow. TK was a great help but he knew that the horrors of his dreams were always lurking around the corner. Maybe he’d never be free from them, but at least he wasn’t alone and if TK had his way, he’d never go through anything alone again.