#time curious time

[taylor-swift-isnt-straight]

X marks the spot where we fell apart 🤭😂🤪

Curious timing and angle 📐 and how I didn’t see this ANYWHERE else except for ESPN. Interesting huh 🤔

[strandnreyes]

chapters will be posted every sunday!

all the thanks to @iboatedhere, @reyesstrand, and @typicaltk for the love and encouragement and @beautifulhigh for the inspiration!

Carlos’ satchel is relentlessly sliding off of his shoulder when he sees him.

It’s only a glimpse, their eyes meeting for a second before the man is lost in the crowd again and Carlos must keep moving through the city square. He’s at the market with purpose today; there is no time to dwell on the stranger’s alluring features when he has no more coins in his pocket than he came here with.

The market isn’t ideal to sell his artwork, but after months without anyone hiring his talents and unsold paintings piling up, Carlos is becoming desperate.

The bag at his side is filled with canvases depicting people, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Mediterranean Sea, religious images that were instilled in him as a child. Anything and everything in the hopes that something catches someone’s interest.

chapter one on ao3

[somanysigns-13]

Time After (curious) Time 🧡

[aurorasmitty]

time, curious time || sam & rory

Aurora quickstepped down the inn stairs, heaving a sigh of relief when she hit the foyer. She didn’t know how she’d ever get herself out of the column she’d put herself in with the pirates. Stubbs hadn’t taken her seriously when she rebuffed his advances with the truth of only wanting to be with one man; she had to lie and tell him that Hook had called for her and she didn’t want to upset him before he took his hands from about her waist. She’d have to have a conversation with Sam, but she wasn’t even sure what she could say. They had been having such a nice time just being together, but it wasn’t as if they’d talked about being exclusive or anything. Whatever it was that they were, she didn’t want to botch anything up with relationship talk on their getaway. Aurora hugged her shawl tighter around herself, and slipped out the front door, hoping to get a bit of shopping done before Sam showed up. She was in need of some adventure clothes if they were going to go traipsing about the woods.

[strandnreyes]

The blood on his hands is the first thing TK notices about the man rushing off of the front porch towards him. 

TK is already reaching for the bag thrown over his shoulder before he’s stopped by a rattled voice. “It’s not mine,” the man rushes out. “It’s not— It’s my father who was hurt. He’s inside.”

“Show me,” TK says hastily, rushing after him as he turns on his heel back through the yard and into the modest farmhouse.

It’s not often that TK makes house calls far beyond the city limits, but when a man rapped his knuckles on the front door of TK’s home, he didn’t hesitate to follow. 

As TK hopped on his horse, he listened to Judd, as the man introduced, explain the accident that occurred just north of New York City on the Reyes’ farm. And even though the wind whipped past him as the horses galloped along the dirt roads, TK still felt like the trip took too long.

chapter 6 on ao3

[strandnreyes]

TK is looking through the lens of his camera when he first spots him.

The picture is nothing out of the ordinary, one among thousands and thousands that he’s taken since he stepped foot onto war torn soil a year ago. In fact he’s taken ones much more powerful than this one—mid battle, on planes as soldiers dropped from the sky, towns that were devastatingly flattened.

But this specific one makes him pause.

He’s grateful he’s in an environment where he can do so. Capturing war on film means TK can never truly let his guard down, but a temporary camp filled with three separate units on allied ground feels almost as safe as it gets.

TK doesn’t need to see the printed shot to know he could make a fortune on it—the classically handsome soldier sitting perched on the border of the camp.

A thing of beauty in the middle of such destruction.

chapter eight on ao3

[strandnreyes]

chapter 3 😭😭 it was so good but it broke my heart. please tell me what happens to them 🫠

for those asking what happens after chapter 3 (not a spoiler for anything after this chapter)

Sometimes I think about Carlos walking up the long dirt road to their home, aching and tired from months on a ship and not one good nights rest, but a rejuvenation in his step at the thought of being reunited with his love. TK wasn’t waiting for him at the docks; Carlos can’t wait to tease him about it. He ignores the itch in the back of his mind that tells him maybe his whispered plea for TK to take care of himself didn’t come to fruition, but then he shakes himself out of it. There are chores at home. Apples to be picked, eggs to collect. He cannot spend all day watching the waves bring ship after ship in. And he finds him out in the yard, a shapeless figure that becomes achingly clearer the faster he starts to walk. He watches the basket of apples fall from TK’s grasp the moment he detects movement on his property, and then he’s running. Carlos’ weary muscles still have enough strength in them for TK to cling to him as he sobs into his neck and Carlos doesn’t bother wiping his own tears, assuring TK that he’s really here and he’s never leaving again.

I imagine them growing old together, planting a few cherry trees and getting a couple of goats. They make milk and cheese and Carlos fixes the broken step on the porch to feel useful in his home again and TK holds him at night when the nightmares become too much and soon enough the memories of an endless sea of blue and harrowing battles begin to fade.

Sometimes I think about Carlos coming home, but having it be anything but simple. I think about him marooned in a foreign land, traveling by horseback or cart or foot. Walking on injuries, through dangerous environments. I think about him begging for a place to stay in the towns he wanders through, curling up at night with TK’s letter, battered and torn, clenched in his fist and a silent apology on his mind for losing the necklace at sea. He thinks TK won’t mind too much as long as he gets Carlos back. I think about how he gets a fever that lays him up for days in some inn that he doesn’t know the name of, not knowing how close or far he is from home but knowing he’ll do anything in his power to get back there. I think about him collapsing on his front porch from exhaustion and hallucinating that TK is there, taking care of him and pleading him not to die when he just got him back. I imagine him batting his eyes open one morning, the soft sunlight streaming through the windows as TK reads beside him in bed. The book falls to the floor when Carlos croaks out TK’s name and though he’s in desperate need of a glass of water, the first thing he feels against his lips is the press of TK’s own.

And sometimes I wonder just how dangerous Carlos’ life on that ship was. I wonder how many days TK rode his horse into town and sat by the docks, watching ships come in that didn’t hold his love and people who weren’t them reunite. And when the sun would sink, he would return home to the dog he got because the silence became too lonely and he would pretend he could still smell Carlos’ scent on the pillow. He would pour out the bottle of whiskey he bought because he promised Carlos he’d take care of himself. I wonder if there came a time when he didn’t dump the bottle. I wonder when he stopped going to the docks, or if it would be sadder if he never did. If he lived in a constant state of denial. I wonder if someone can truly die from a broken heart.