Back on to Carlos 😝 he clearly wanted more than just casual with Tk right from the very start butttt what do you think it was about Tk that made Carlos feel this way? Especially if we’re going for the headcon that Carlos was only interested in guys casually before Tk and avoided anything serious because he didn’t want to end up having to introduce a guy/boyfriend to his parents (maybe he has dated more seriously but the fact he didn’t want to introduce the boyfriend at the time to his parents kinda fucked that all up also?) but still also avoided introducing Tk to his parents even though him and Tk were meant to be in a serious relationship 😬 I don’t know how Carlos thought Tk would just let that go LOL
I mean, you've seen TK. He's a ten. Also, I think TK was different from anyone Carlos has ever really known. There's a fascination in this man who is proudly out in his firehouse, works with his dad who seems to be proud of him, a guy that Carlos has to chase a little-because you've seen Carlos, he's also a ten, and I don't think he's used to doing a ton of chasing. He's into TK from early on, with the call me, followed by the one am dinner. And then he gets this other side of TK, a grumpy, wet, feral cat dropped in his precinct and Carlos tries to tell himself that he doesn't like or want this man sitting in the chair pouting, but he does. He wants to know more than just TK's name and what he does. He doesn't want TK doing things that count as suicidal, and he Carlos cleans the blood off his face before he moves to ask him out. I think TK is the first person Carlos can't look away from and I think he doesn't know why. One of my favorite gifs/beats is Carlos and TK waiting to take Paul out. There's a moment while TK is talking and Carlos turns to look at TK and he looks at TK like he hung the moon. And it's so very clear that he cares deeply about this man. The show sets up some character beats in season one that are essential to this. TK cares about his father and his friends and his job, and I think Carlos, the kind of man whose stuck by Michelle through all of the Iris nonsense, who hides himself away for his parent's comfort, who stays up late on cases that bother him, would see that TK shares his core values, even if he approaches them differently. I think for Carlos this is huge.
But at this point I think they’re both terrified to name it as anything more. And then the shooting happens, while Carlos is in his squad car out front, and eventually he ends up at the hospital, with his uniform just barely disheveled by the top button being unbuttoned, and he FEELS things. STRONG FEELINGS. Feelings he didn’t expect to have because he’s NEVER felt this way.
And then, we get Carlos in a relationship, a serious one. Where he hangs out with his partner’s parents enough to comment on their relationship and where he has his partner’s friends/coworkers over to his house in the middle of a pandemic so they can all hang out, and he enmeshes himself in TK’s life, and yet he keeps part of himself separate. Because Carlos is very good at compartmentalizing his feelings and lying to himself, and hoping if he just AVOIDS it long enough it will go away. He’s been avoiding dealing with his parent’s feelings about his sexuality since he was 17. He avoids introducing TK to them because he’s terrified that they’ll make him feel the way Carlos feels, and that he’ll lose TK in the process. He’s...GOD, I love his little control freak self so much. He thinks if he carefully arranges things, he can have his life carefully controlled and it doesn’t work. But he wants it to work. Avoiding as a strategy to soothe anxiety isn’t about thinking it will actually work, it’s about putting it off until you have a solution that you think will work, because you know it’s not going away, but maybe tomorrow the answer will present itself. And you keep doing that until it blows up in your face. One day I will write a whole thing about my anxious, control-freak boys and how they blow up their whole lives by pretending things aren’t happening.
