#Carlos is in a very dark headspace of not feeling like he can trust himself anymore after accidentally causing that guys' death

[paperstorm]

Thanks for the tags @honeybee-taskforce and @whatsintheboxmh!

I have too many wips right now I keep bouncing back and forth and not giving any of them the actual focus they deserve but here's some sexual dysfunction from the 3x11 missing moment.

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Carlos blinks up at the ceiling. His eyes sting.

“Babe?” TK asks, voice suddenly tentative as he picks up on the shift in energy that hangs in the room like a storm cloud over them.

“Gotta pee,” Carlos says, pushing the damp sheet away and getting up. He feels somehow more naked than usual as he walks around the edge of the bed and feels TK’s eyes on him, shutting himself in the bathroom and avoiding his own reflection in the mirror.

It wasn’t a lie, he’s surprised he lasted this long already, and he keeps his eyes closed and tries to breathe as he solves that problem. He rinses his hands with a near-painful churning in his gut, and wonders how long he can hide in the bathroom until TK figures out he’s doing more than using the toilet. Carlos splashes water onto his face and rubs wet hands over his hair, trying in vain to tame some of the wilder curls that sprung out at odd angles while he slept.

When he’s procrastinated as much as he can, he slides the door slowly open, and shouldn’t be as surprised as he is to see TK waiting patiently just on the other side of it. He’s halfway dressed – in boxers and a t-shirt – and Carlos tries not to let his anxious imagination derive more meaning from TK covering himself than TK intended. He tries, but it doesn’t work.

“Hey,” TK says softly, with a small, empathetic smile, like he already knows. He knows Carlos’s disgrace, can scan him like an X-ray machine.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos mumbles, unable to look TK in the eye as he burns in shame. “Are you okay?”

“What?” TK asks, head tilting in confusion that takes Carlos by surprise. He’d assumed he was made of cellophane and that TK could see right through him. “What are you sorry for?”

Carlos just shakes his head. TK steps in closer to him, backing him up against the sink. He grips TK’s hips in his hands but feels like even that comfort, he shouldn’t be allowed. He hasn’t earned it, and he’s stolen enough from TK already this morning. He’s supposed to protect this man, love him and take care of him, and instead …

“Carlos,” TK insists.

Sniffing and wishing he could draw his limbs into a hard outer shell like a turtle so he could hide from the world, Carlos admits, “I feel like … I used you.”

TK doesn’t respond for a moment. Carlos keeps his eyes laser focused on a spot on TK’s sternum where his delicate smattering of chest hair is soft and wispy. Eventually, TK asks, “Used what? What are you talking about?”

Carlos closes his eyes.

“Hey.”

“You’re gonna be sore later, and it’s my fault.” And it didn’t help, either. That part, Carlos is too ashamed of to even say aloud. He tore into TK hoping somewhere in the back of his mind that it might release some of the lingering tension and anger and heartache that’s swirling inside of him, but it’s all still there. In the end it was nothing but selfishness, and it didn’t make him feel any better.

“No,” TK says, his tone suddenly sharp. “No, you’re not allowed to think that. Take it back.”

“TK.”

“I mean it!” he snaps, jostling Carlos with his grip on Carlos’s cheeks. “I know you’re upset, I’m so sorry you’re upset, but I won’t let you do that. You didn’t hurt me, you didn’t do anything I didn’t want, you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want. We both know that. I trust you, you’re not allowed to decide that I shouldn’t. I won’t let you do that to us.”

Carlos just mumbles his name again, wanting so badly to believe him but not sure he deserves this absolution.

“Take it back,” TK demands again, fierce and adamant. “I’m fine. More than fine, I feel great. We both like it rough sometimes, I know you know that.”

“It’s not the same,” Carlos mutters.

“The same as what?” TK questions, and when Carlos doesn’t answer, he says, “The only thing that’s wrong with me right now is that the man I love is hurting.”

His forehead bumps into Carlos’s when Carlos can’t bring himself to look at him. His thumbs stroke slowly along Carlos’s cheeks, and Carlos wants to melt into his soothing embrace exactly as much as he wants to push TK away from him and reject the comfort and forgiveness he’s so graciously offering.

Tagging @theghostofashton @birdclowns @reyesstrand @strandnreyes @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut

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