okay so planning the beginning of defect was a mistake bc now im in hell
he knocks softly on the glass, hoping carter will hear it. his breathing feels loud in the quiet.
please, please wake up.
at the second knock he sees movement, then carter's thin frame coming to the window, hair down in a white, frothy lace trimmed nightgown. they unlatch the window and wrench it up, reaching for him to pull into their arms.
joe and carter stand there clinging to each other. faces pressed into necks, inhaling the comforting scent of home.
"cat," joe sniffs, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, " i thought i'd lost you."
"you haven't." carter strokes joe's hair to his nape, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "i'm here, i'm here. i missed you so much."
On This Day in Baseball History December 5, 1990: Talk about a trade that helped solidify The Toronto Blue Jays and would lead to their eventual Back-to-Back World Series Championships of 1992 and 1993. The Toronto Blue Jays sent SS Tony "Cabeza" Fernandez and 1B Fred "The Crime Dog" McGriff to the San Diego Padres for OF Joe "Touch Them All" Carter and 2B Roberto "Robbie" Alomar would would be inducted to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. Talk about star power!!! #TorontoBlueJays #JoeCarter #RobertoAlomar #SanDiegoPadres #TonyFernandez #HotStove #MLBOffseason #BasebalHistory #HistoriaDelBeisbol #Baseball #Beisbol #BaseballSisco https://www.instagram.com/p/BrCMfoAAJ6r/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=154ordxv9wug4
Heyyy! How about 1-3 from the general ship questions?
1. Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?
i think carter probably initiated the relationship because joe's oblivious about people liking him lol.
joe was probably hesitant at first because they're friends and they're a team, but then once he realized he liked them back he was in it forever.
2. Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?
joecarter never really got to have a date-date because they were in such a bad situation. and when they get separated in defect/ph part 1 they've only been together romantically like a few months to maybe a year. (they don't really get to have real dates until they're reunited like 10 years later in Unstable Cliffs)
the closest thing they might've had to a date is a stakeout. which is depressing.
3. What was their first kiss like?
i picture their first kiss was on a stakeout and like joe was nervous and trying to put out kiss signals with his eyes lol. then carter realized what he was trying to do and asked him if he wanted a kiss and joe was like, "oh thank god." then they kissed while carter laughing through it.
i was looking through my docs and found this again. probably my favorite scene i’ve written for unstable cliffs so far.
@plaguecraft, @ravesthewriter.
Joe drifts into wakefulness slowly. He smiles as he presses his face into Carter’s pillow, the scent of their shampoo both heady and comforting. The space where Carter slept is warm, so they can’t have been up for long; Joe finds it strange that Carter always wakes up before him, despite complaining about it. Minutes tick by. Time flows slow and sweet as honey. He’s tempted to go back to sleep, but the want to see Carter wins out, and he hefts himself out of bed with a yawn and a stretch that makes his back pop. The faint sound of Carter brushing their teeth comes through the crack in the bathroom door. Joe opens the door further, pleased at the sight that greets him.
Carter’s hair is a mess. They’re wearing a loose fitting top with one thin strap falling off their shoulder that’s between blue and green — like the ocean, he thinks — and white shorts with pink hearts. There’s a patch of skin on their right cheek splotchy pink from pressing their face into the pillow. Foamy white toothpaste leaks out of Carter’s mouth into the sink while Carter stares at him in the mirror midbrush, wide eyed. Their cheeks redden. Brown eyes flick away from his to some middle distance and Joe realizes with a frown that Carter’s embarrassed for Joe to see them like this.
The night before comes back to him and the other nights before it. The way Carter had dressed up in that expensive lingerie to impress him, how they had focused so hard on his pleasure instead of their own, how their hands shook with nervous energy that he’s now realizing hadn’t all been from arousal. The way they always woke before Joe and how they always looked neat as a pin. he wonders about the men who came before him, who made carter feel like they couldn’t just exist around them without worrying about whether they found them fuckable. The thought fills him with a sadness that makes his heart hurt as much as it sickens him.
“Hey,” he says, soft. “Missed you.”
Carter leans down to sip from the tap, rinses their mouth, and spits. Wipes their mouth with a hand towel hanging by the sink. they don’t look at Joe. Joe’s stomach twists.
“I’m sorry.”
Carter looks at him then, brows pulled together in confusion.
“What for?” they turn to face Joe, corners of their lips turned down in a frown, and Joe reaches out for them slow, giving them time to pull away. Carter loops their arms around Joe’s neck as Joe rests his hands on Carter’s waist, gently rubbing his thumb back and forth over soft skin.
“For not listening to you better.” Carter blinks at him, a hesitant smile creeping over their face, head tilted like a bird listening to an unfamiliar song. They don’t understand what Joe’s trying to say to them. What he needs them to know.
“You don’t have to impress me. I like being with you. That’s enough for me.”
Carter searches his face for a moment.
“Okay,” whispers Carter.
“I’m gonna do right by you,” Joe whispers, pressing a chaste kiss against Carter’s cheek. “Whatever it takes.”
Carter nods, eyes shining. “Me too. I just. I don’t want to lose you, because I’m not good enough.”
02, 36, 39, and/or 48 for the trope writing prompts?
@plaguecraft there’s a plot in By Any Other Name where six decides to marry carter off to agony once he’s an adult, and i thought maybe i’d write about it in the canon verse a little bit. this is also what’s happening with joe and carter during the vampire fic, but a bit before they go on vacation.
warning(s): blood mention, gore mention, sexual harassment, forced marriage mention, implied abuse, implied child abuse, implied memory tampering/brainwashing/memory wiping, threats of violence, threats of murder, brief dissociation (?), and anxiety attack.
36. — a chat with satan
of all the people carter expects to see again, agony isn’t one of them. frankly, he’d hoped to only ever see him in his nightmares. but the universe doesn’t care who we do or don’t want to meet, and so carter stands there, fake smile pasted on with pen and notepad in hand, trying not to show how shit scared he is. the smell of copper that clings to agony ever present brings him back to teacups filled with blood and centerpieces made of human corpses.
“what can i get for you today?” asks carter. he holds pen to paper, barely able to see for his fear. agony appraises him with ruby red eyes. the caress of it makes carter’s skin crawl.
“how lovely you’ve grown up to be,” agony says. “to think i almost lost such a treasure to the fire.”
“what do you want from me?”
agony smiles.
“well your hand of course. don’t tell me you forgot your father betrothed you to me.” agony laughs then, a horrible sound. “but then they always were very good at rearranging your minds. so i suppose i can forgive you your slip.”
the friendly mask slips away then, revealing the hardhearted monster his father had given him away to out of pure hatred and spite. he pins carter with those horrible eyes, and carter fights the urge to run away so far he never has to see the coldness in his eyes again. the violence.
“but make no mistake lovely one. if you try to leave, you won’t like what happens to you.” he smiles. “or your equally lovely boyfriend.”
agony stands to leave, having made his threats clear. he walks out of the Stop, Drop, and Go, taking all of the air in the room with him.
carter stares at the space where agony used to be, too scared to even cry. he puts down his pen and notebook, walks and walks and walks until he finds himself at joe’s tiny, lonely, run down house on the edge of town, knocking without thinking about what time it is or if joe will be angry at him for waking him up at such an early hour.
joe opens the door, blinking at him with bleary eyes. the sight of him standing there sleep rumpled, hair messy from tossing and turning, wearing radioactive plaid, grandpa pajamas sends such a feeling of relief through carter he sucks in a breath, tears coming to his eyes.
“baby i’m sorry i woke you up, i just–” carter tries to hold back a sob. “i needed to see you.”
“hey hey hey, what’s the matter?” joe pulls him in, leading him to sit down on the sofa. it’s seen better days. there are holes here and there where the cloth has worn out from age, and stains where joe dropped food or drinks on it. the buttons stare back at him. he clings to joe’s hands.
“i saw agony.”
joe’s eyes widen in shock, then soften into a tired, aching sadness born from helplessness in the face of evil.
“baby…” he gathers carter close to him. the two of them manage to make it to the bedroom without breaking contact or running into anything, carter reluctantly separating from joe to strip down to his underwear and pull on one of joe’s old tshirts. they slip under the covers, reaching for each other, neither of them breathing a word.
they fall asleep tangled up in each other, fitted together like puzzle pieces filling up the empty spaces.
@djd3adstock in our “Carter” baseball Jersey and “Rellz” sweatshorts #bluejays #joecarter #centralpark (at Central Park, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd_eYBGOs-E/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
