i blame you for making me think about tommy and carol bc i've never really given them much thought before. they were clearly written to be these obnoxious high school stereotypes and not much more than that, so i love how you're looking through that and making them more dimensional. what do you think they'll grow up to be like? are they gonna leave hawkins after high school, will they stay there forever, will one of them leave while the other stays? will they grow apart after high school, or will they always keep that toxic codependency going? please gimme all your thoughts <3
ANNA! "i blame you for making me think of tommy and carol" are my FAVORITE words to hear sflkjgfdlkg that's like music to my ears. the more people i can get thinking deeper about tommy and carol the better fdkjgfl.
they fully were written to be those obnoxious high school bully stereotypes, but boy oh boy, there is SO much nuance in how the portrayals of these characters actually came across onscreen.
when i think of tommy and carol and their futures, i honestly can see things going a couple different ways - which mostly stems from the fact that there are a lot of little headcanon details about them i like to change up in my head that then directly impacts which route their futures would take (the biggest fluctuating details being their sexualities; how their future plays out will be fundamentally different to me if it's just tommy that's gay, if it's carol that's the lesbian, if they're both some flavor of fruity, or if neither of them are.)
if i sat here and went through each slightly different future i imagine for them we'd be here forever fkdljgfd sooooo for now i will just tell you about my personal favorite.
first, a little backstory because i think it's important to know where they came from to know why they are the way they are because that ultimately drives where they end up:
i personally like to think that tommy hagan comes from a big family - a big family of all girls, too. he's one of five, the middle child, with two older sisters and two younger sisters. i also like to think that his mom is a single mother - and when it comes to his dad, my hc isn't super nailed down for him. i do think he was there when tommy was younger, but his father left, maybe around when tommy was nine? ten? but either, his dad was cheating on his mom and ended up leaving her (and their kids) to be with this other woman (maybe because SHE got pregnant?) OR tommy's dad hit his mom, and that went on for long enough until she finally stood up and kicked him out. out of those two options though, i like to lean towards the first one, beeeeecaaaause it makes tommy's motivations and behaviors THAT much jucier sdlkfds. BECAUSE combine tommy's middle-child-syndrome with this early abandonment and of COURSE he's got issues. OF COURSE he has to find every way to get attention because he doesn't get enough of it at home and OF COURSE he gets upset and lashes out when people he's close to leave him because he's got abandonment issues (so when steve, his friend, his best friend, suddenly drops him and carol, of course tommy gets upset). also, random tidbit that didn't really fit in anywhere else dkfls but i think i mentioned it in my response on that initial post that started all this but i DO think tommy is an angry guy. BUT i do not think that manifests in the same way as it would for a lot of other guys. he's NOT outwardly angry all the time, he's NOT always looking to pick a fight, he's NOT a physically violent guy. i think his anger stems from very specific circumstances - i.e. circumstances where his control is slipping - and while he doesn't resort to physical violence (aside from maybe a shove here or there, because that's the most we ever see onscreen in a moment when he is genuinely upset and angry), he lashes out. verbally. he says MEAN shit - and because he's friends with carol, his tongue has sharpened over the years (and also, growing up with all sisters means he's well accustomed to the ways of female warfare lol - aka the vicious mind games and cruelty of the tongue that is more common than physical violence). SO that means he knows how to go for the jugular with just his words, and that, sometimes, can be even worse than a punch to the nose.
carol, on the other hand, i like to think also comes from a single mother household, but unlike tommy, she is an only child. i like to think that she and her mom moved to hawkins when she was... maybe 12 or 13, so middle school age. she wasn't super popular at her old school, is the thing. i don't think she was necessarily super bullied or anything, but she didn't really have a lot of friends and she probably didn't get a lot of attention either. so when she comes to hawkins, she sees it as a chance to reinvent herself. she doesn't let herself fall into that new girl trap, and she's outspoken from the get go - perhaps a little to her own detriment, because while she does make friends, they ALSO scares a lot of people off because of how cold she seems (which is ENTIRELY a self-preservation thing for her). and then somehow, someway she catches the attention of steve harrington. steve harrington, who, at this point, is already well on his way to being the golden boy King Steve that we see in high school. and she clings to that, because that's her ticket to the top. i think maybe she gets a little crush on steve at first - except it isn't actually a crush. she just likes what he can offer her - the popularity, the attention, the feeling of being needed, and she misreads that as having a crush on him. (and if you subscribe to the carol is a lesbian hc, which i sometimes do! this "crush" would be FULLY because that's what's expected of her; all the other girls like steve, all the other girls think he's hot and awesome and perfect, so that must mean she should to, right? - but that's a different future route that i'm not taking here so. putting this back on the shelf for now lol).
ANYWAYS. yeah so carol gets folded into steve and tommy's mix. she befriends them, she gets close with them, they become a trio. inseparable.
tommy and steve have been friends since grade school. maybe they were sat next to each other because their last names both start with H, maybe even as a small child steve already has lots of friends because he's nice and he shares his toys and he's got kids coming up to him all the time asking him if he wants to play and he always says yes. but then one day it's steve that's toddling up to tommy and asking him if he wants to play. steve chooses tommy. and the rest is history. and as they grow up, steve starts growing into his looks and he gets good at sports and joins all the teams and he excels, so he's got people fawning over him and flocking towards him for any sliver of attention he's willing to give them. but at the end of the day it's tommy that gets steve's full attention. it's tommy that steve tells everything to, it's tommy that knows steve best, it's tommy who steve trusts, it's tommy who is steve's best friend. and tommy REVELS in that. it's that attention he's been craving his whole life. this, naturally, leads to tommy feeling possessive over steve. and he doesn't realize that this possessiveness is a little more deeply rooted than just wanting to keep steve's friendship until steve starts to look at girls.
the first time tommy sees steve with a pretty girl on his arm, he gets this sick, curdled, twisting feeling in his gut. at first he thinks it's because he's jealous of steve. jealous that he has a date and tommy doesn't. but when steve comes back and tells tommy that it didn't work out, tommy gets this relief that floods through tommy. he doesn't really understand it at first, and definitely doesn't examine it too closely either, just sort of shoves it down deep and doesn't worry about it. but then steve finds another girl, and this time things DO go well, and, naturally, as steve's best friend, tommy becomes the person that steve tells everything to. he tells tommy all about the dates, all about the kisses he shares with these girls, all about when things go a little further... tommy listens, because of course he does, but the whole time he's thinking all these horrible thoughts about the girl and that ugly feeling is back knotting up his insides. and omg when steve tells tommy about losing his virginity - OH BOY. he goes into detail, because that's what teenage boys do, and tommy listens but he's sitting there with this whole STORM of emotions swirling through his head - the twisted need to know more, the urge to scream at steve to shut up, disgust because he doesn't want to think about steve with someone else, turned on because its steve talking about having sex, deep shame because hes forced to face the fact that he's wishing it was him with steve instead of that girl. this, perhaps, is even the first time tommy is like. FULLY faced with the true nature of his feelings, the ones he's been shoving away and ignoring this whole time.
i think tommy struggles with it. being gay (which he refuses to consider himself) is obviously not accepted in that time period. and he knows he'd get absolutely pummeled if anyone caught wind that he'd even thought about another boy like that. whiiiich is where carol comes in.
i think at this point tommy is probably already with carol - when steve started showing his interest in girls, tommy didn't want to get left in the dust, so he tried to find himself a girlfriend too, and it just so happened that carol was right there and it was so easy because carol was just so easy (WOMP). i like to think that maybe they started as a hookup. tommy wanted to lose his virginity, and carol was right there, and well, there were rumors about her, and all tommy had to do was ask, and she said yes, and then it sort of snowballs from there because (even though their first time was probably fumbling and not actually the greatest overall, tommy still liked it, and if he liked sex with a girl there's no way he's gay, right?) then he asks her out and she says yes again, and they start this relationship that maybe didn't really stem from any true feelings at first, but like they sort of caught the feelings along the way, like they learned to love each other along the way.
and the thing is - i do genuinely think that tommy and carol loved each other. i do. i don't think that their relationship wasn't real, even if tommy is actually gay. i think they had a lot of fun together, and i think that the feelings were there. they just weren't enough. because despite things going pretty well with carol, tommy was still thinking about steve. he was still actively having those feelings even while with carol. (which - maybe he was just projecting those feelings onto carol.) regardless, though, there is a love that exists between tommy and carol - i just think that over time it morphs into something different than what they both initially thought it was.
NOW. when it comes to their future (WHICH HELLO THIS IS WHAT YOUR ASK WAS ABOUT AND IM ONLY JUST NOW GETTING TO IT SKFJDS S O R R Y AND THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME THROUGH ALL OF ^^^ THAT PREAMBLE SKDJFL)
since we are talking about my favorite potential future for them, it looks a little something like this:
they stay together. all through high school. when steve leaves them, things get a little rocky between tommy and carol, because steve was the glue that held them together, ultimately. but they both sort of realize that they're all each other has left, now that steve's gone, so they temper things. they marry out of high school - or that's when tommy proposes anyways, because tommy's barely three quarters of the way through his first year of community college when there's a pregnancy scare (which - honestly, everyone's surprised that didn't happen earlier) but yeah, carol's late, and when she pees on the stick it's positive. when she tells tommy, tommy proposes - because that's the right thing to do. he's not going to ditch her, he's not going to make her do that on her own. carol says yes, because what other option does she have here? but when they actually go to the doctor about it, they find out that the test was a false positive; carol is not pregnant. they stay engaged though, carol still wore her ring, and tommy stayed with carol, and neither one of them said anything about it. they followed through with it three years later after tommy graduated with a business degree and a cushy job at carol's dad's company.
at this point, they've known each other for almost a decade, and they've been together for most of it. so they know each other pretty well. which means - carol knows about tommy's... interests. she's fully aware. has been since high school, actually. she clocked tommy's crush on steve reeeeal quick, and actually confronted him about it once - which forced tommy into a corner and when he'd tried to deny it she's just scoffed and told him to quit fucking hiding from it. and he did. he'd admitted it to her, which was still difficult for him, but he'd gotten a bit better about admitting it to himself over the years. and in response to it, carol told him she didn't care.
which was really the best god damn way it could've gone. she told tommy that she didn't care that he gets off to guys, that she didn't care that he thinks about them, that he wants them. in fact, she told tommy that she didn't even care if he wanted to fuck around with them on the side. so long as he came back to her in the end, she didn't care.
and so, most nights tommy will slip off his wedding ring, he'll make the drive to whatever innocuous city is far enough away that he wont run into anyone he knows, and he'll seek out the company of other men. and when he's had his fill for the night, when he's satisfied that itch, he'll drive back to hawkins, and he'll try to be quiet as he enters the house and changes into his pajamas, and then he'll slide into bed next to carol and he'll go to sleep.
it's... it sounds like a pretty miserable existence, the two of them trapped in this seemingly unhappy marriage. but it's actually not. not really. it works for them. like i said before, they do love each other. it's just not that same sort of love that was there when they were kids, when they first started out. it's changed, it's morphed, it's turned into something more familial, rather than romantic.
maybe one day they will finally move out of hawkins. maybe that will be the beginning of the end. maybe once they're out from underneath the thumb of the town they grew up in, out from underneath the pressure of playing the expected role for all the people they knew there, they can start to live their own lives. maybe they'll finally get a divorce. maybe tommy will finally outwardly acknowledge his sexuality. maybe carol will finally find something she's good at and thrive with it. maybe maybe maybe.
FIN. skfjgdlkf. omg if you've made it this far THANK YOU for sticking with me and reading through all my rambling headcanons. i really mean it when i say i think about tommy and carol and their lives ALL THE TIME dkfsdlf. and like i said at the beginning, this is just ONE of the many pathways i've thought of for them sklfjsdf.
anyways, THANK YOU for asking and for indulging me in my love for tommy and carol!!! this was truly so much fun to write up and i loved getting to do that.
[also i GOTTA throw a little shameless self promo here, if you liked what you read here, this headcanon DOES feature heavily in my tommy-running-into-steddie-at-their-high-school-reunion fic, which you can find here. i ALSO have another stommy fic, which you can find here, which details my headcanon for steve's first kiss (which as i'm sure you've guessed, is with tommy).]
