#EVERY show it feels like TK ‘codes’

[tellmegoodbye]

-> Music Monday

It's Monday, so you know what that means...more songs!!

I made this post the other day going over the details of how this tag works, as well as linking the playlists and docs! Don't worry if a song you wanted to submit is already there, because adding your own thoughts and interpretations is a completely valid way to contribute!

Today, I have four soundtrack songs, as well as one Tarlos song and one Jace song.

How Did You Love - Shinedown

This song is very important to me, being one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands. Lone Star and OG both have incredible music taste, what can I say? It's a very Owen coded song to me.

"What is the legacy that you're going to leave behind? It's a song that is a lot about reflection and understanding that it's better to give love than to spread hate." - Shinedown

In the video that I linked above the band explains that the meaning of this song is about accepting that one day, your time will be up, and that it's important to focus on what we leave behind when we're gone. That is Owen to me. He is someone who is learning to accept his mortality and put all of his efforts into being a good father, and a good captain. In 1x02, the episode this song is from, he is still coming to terms with his cancer and what that is going to mean for him going forward. He has to learn to accept the things he can't control, and focus on the things that matter most.

"No one gets out alive. Every day is do or die. The one thing you leave behind is how did you love? How did you love?"

Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Another god tier song from 1x02. This song reminds me a lot of Owen, Gwyn and TK. It's an anthem for the way they love him. The lyrics “don't forget son, there is someone up above” make me think of how Gwyn is watching over him even after she's gone.

Also, Shinedown did a cover of this song that blows the original out of the water. Just so you know.

Breathe - Fleurie

The lyrics “when will we finally breathe” are on my blog title for a reason. This song reminds me of Push, and One Day (the episode the song is from) which is my second favorite episode in the whole show!

There's a feeling I get when listening to this song that is similar to the way I feel when I watch these episodes, like something is building up until suddenly all of the emotion comes pouring out and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Amen - Amber Run

Such a good song for 3x08! It's the perfect song for TK and Gwyn and the lyrics definitely speak to his struggles with addiction, as well as the way he's feeling after she dies.

"Oh, is there a heaven? You'd know now you've been"

"Are those real stars that hang in the sky? Or are they man-made, a trick of the light?"

"Cause the devil is raging inside my mind And is there a moment when it all makes sense? When saying goodbye doesn't feel like the end?"

"Sometimes I'd rather be dead, at least then I'm with you, amen"

Now that I've gotten the soundtrack songs out of the way, I'm going to share my other two songs!

If It Keeps You Up At Night - The Swoons

I've seen the world on top of your shoulders You lift me up 'cause you know I'm smaller When this life's a concert I can't see When I'm black and blue you paint me brighter And raise me up just like a lighter Even through the darkest symphony

And if it keeps you up at night I'll stay up and learn the words to all the songs that you like So if your eyes are open wide I can sing you something sweeter than that devil in your mind And if it still keeps you up at night I won't hold it against you I'll just hold, hold you tight

This song is perfect for Tarlos. It's about them loving each other even through the hard times. The lyrics in the chorus specifically are what I think they are feeling when they watch each other struggle with grief, addiction, and everything else. The first scene it reminds me of is the dining table scene in 3x13, but it could apply to many other scenes too.

Are You Still Waiting For Me? - Vian Izak

Traveling this road alone Made my heart heavy like a stone But when I think of you, I feel hope Are you still waiting for me, love?

I fall so many times, oh no But standing up makes me strong I need you in my life, you're the one Are you still waiting for me, love?

This is the song that reminds me of early Jace. When Judd finally sees Grace again when Tommy is in labor and he's uncertain of whether or not she still wants to be with him. He's wondering if she's still waiting for him.

No pressure tagging: @strandnreyes @nancys-braids @carlos-in-glasses @goodways @lemonlyman-dotcom

@carlos-tk @literateowl @eclectic-sassycoweyes @herefortarlos @thisbuildinghasfeelings

@freneticfloetry @bonheur-cafe @captain-gillian @heartstringsduet @welcometololaland

[alrightbuckaroo]

ada!!! i was thinking about your post with poems you think the lone star characters would love, and for nice ask week i was wondering if you have any others you’d add to that list? or if there’s any you really love that you think capture certain characters/relationships on the show? always love to see your recs :’) <3 —maddie/reyesstrand

Maddie!! I love this question so much so thank you for asking it!! <3

I actually planned to make a part two, especially since it's National Poetry Month, but it got a bit away from me so I'm taking this opportunity to just ramble (godspeed to whoever reads this):

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver is one of the most Carlos-coded poems you'll ever have the pleasure of reading. Or maybe it's not, but after using it as basically a thesis for tender eyes that shine, I've decided that it was written for him. Especially:

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Hello?? That's Carlos Tomás Reyes in his purest form!

Oh TK, our hopeless romantic self deprecating boy. I think I'm going to give him Molly Brodak by Molly Brodak, one of my favorite poems that makes me want to burst into tears each and every time I read it. When I think of him, I specifically think of the ending, but I think the whole thing could ring true to him:

I am a good man.  The amount of fear  I am ok with   is insane.   I love many people   who don't love me.   I don't actually know   if that is true.  This is love.   It is a mass of ice  melting. I can't hold   it and I have nowhere   to put it down. 

Nancy is absolutely getting Aileen Wuornos Takes A Lover Home by Olivia Gatwood because it's one of my favorites and Nancy's one of my favorites, it only makes sense! I think the ending would really get to her in a way she didn't expect, and I don't blame her, because this is the ending:

In a phone call tapped by police, Aileen called Tyria her right arm, her left arm, her breath, how all Tyria could say back was Please tell them, please say it out loud. But Aileen didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to talk about love. So Tyria would hang up, unsuccessful, and the officer would tell her to Say it like this, tell her she’ll get off, tell her it won’t be so bad. But how, each time, for three days straight, the police listened to Aileen talk about love. About her right arm. Her left arm. Her breath. Her breath. Her breath.

Actually going to tag @sznofthesticks because I feel like you would love this poem as well, and you'll agree that Nancy would love it too.

This is cheating but this song is so poetic I'm going to call it a poem. Owen would listen to You Are Your Mother's Child by Conor Oberst and he would want to sob but then he'd get cry lines. I think the whole thing is so Owen-coded but this part especially:

Out on the diamond, and you're up to bat Chewing your Big League, adjusting your hat Taking a swing and hearing it crack Look at that apple fly Tears will dry if you give them time Life's a roller coaster, keep your arms inside Fear, that's a big emotion But you are your mother's child And she'll have you for a while But someday, you'll be grown Then you'll be on your own

You could tell me Judd wrote I Am Offering this Poem under the pseudonym Jimmy Santiago Baca and I'd believe you. I'd believe he wrote while looking at Grace when she wasn't even looking at him because it has Judd all over it like:

Keep it, treasure this as you would if you were lost, needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes when mature; and in the corner of your drawer, tucked away like a cabin or hogan in dense trees, come knocking, and I will answer, give you directions, and let you warm yourself by this fire, rest by this fire, and make you feel safe                         I love you,

That's Judd!

Tommy would adore Every Job Has A First Day by Rebecca Gayle Howell. There's a cozy feeling to it, but the final words hold such a heavy weight that I think Tommy would appreciate and carry with her:

I listened as he taught me to relax the hand just enough. They can smell, he said, the oils our pores release when we tense to catch. You have to believe it, he said. You don’t mean any harm.

Speaking of Rebecca's, Marjan is giving me You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton vibes in the best way. Maybe it's the romanticizing of something that has an inevitable ending but I feel like this would be Marjan's approach to a break-up, especially this part:

                                             The garden you plant and I plant                               is tunneled through by voles,                                                              the vowels                                                              we speak aren’t vows,                but there’s something                               holding me here, for now,

I feel like Paul, like me, would love the work of Cameron Awkward Rich, but specifically The Child Formerly Known As____ and even more specifically, the ending:

 & in the end, isn’t that what we all want?                         To not feel so split?                          To carry an image of ourselves                                                 inside ourselves & know exactly what we mean             when we say I—         .                      I—                               .                              I— ?

I think Mate would love getting the chance to read Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt because I think he would see so much of himself in it. Stumbling and tumbling trying to find himself somewhere and eventually finding the place where he belongs. I also feel like he loves the supernatural and the first part of this poem would feel like a gut punch:

Someone will probably love you for who you are.    If not, you’ll still find friends, friends who, given time, or given warning,    will probably gather around you, hold your hands, and wrap you in soft coats and blankets till the violence    inside your body ends.

Finally, my beloved Grace, is things i want to ask you by Helga Flores because I feel like the poem is just a list of things running through Grace's mind when she only knew Judd by voice, but that first one in particular:

i want to ask you what god feels like.

You've reached the end of my exhaustive essay that would probably keep going if I didn't reign myself in. I hope you liked these, they're some of my favorites <3

[yabagofmilfs]

i saw a long live pens fancam today on twitter and as i felt my little eyeballs welling up with tears i had a thought: i think maybe the only chronically online hockey content that would truly get to chronically OFFLINE sid are team edits. i think if they played a long live fancam at his 1000th game those tears in his eyes would have fallen. i just feel in my bones that where some guys might watch and think oh okay that’s nice, he would be profoundly moved he would just get it. only the wistful victory coded ones though. if you showed him one of the sad ones about the pens breaking the streak or the never ending passage of time he would kill you with a hammer

First of all thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to what’s been weighing on my heart. For the last several months I have seen countless fancams for hockeys I have never seen in my life set to you’re on your own kid and I have cried every single time. and then afterward I think about the universe where tanger and geno did not get resigned, where we would have had to see so fucking many of them about the core but specifically sid being on their own now and I am inconsolable about it for several minutes. So I need everyone to stop doing this to me.

Okay. So that said I do think the media teams should pivot to the fancam model. Less of the tiny mic interview asking players their favorite Taylor swift song (it will be 22 or love story), more Which Taylor Swift Song is this Hockey and what clips can I use to make this emotionally devastating to even Jimmy fucking Jagoff who only comes on twitter to own the libs and tell the pens they’re too soft and need to trade Geno for the some 4th line goon.

I also think they should make some as like, hype tracks before each game. They’re about to head out to face the flyers, and suddenly the tv in the locker room crackles to life and they hear draw the cat eyes sharp enough to kill a man and the bass drop. I don’t dress for women checking deangelo into the boards I don’t dress for men Sid mounting TK lately I’ve been dressing for revenge filthy backhand goal, Sid cheesing and wriggling under Geno’s wingspan. Sidney would be absolutely dripping cunt as he waddled down the tunnel. We’d never lose again.

Jen, call me.

[stapliy]

1, 4, and 15 for the ask meme?

1.) What is your favorite problematic theme/trope that appears in a lot of your ships?

generally i'm a huge fan of age gaps and sibcest, especially combined. every ship to ever exist becomes better if you hc them as siblings #truth

4.) First ever problematic ship? (you didn't have to know it was problematic then)

symbolcest lmfao. in my own defense i was a kid but still that's funny. even funnier now because i love symbolcest

15.) Silliest reason you've been told not to ship a ship.

i swear every n.ickloon anti on earth calls them "sibling-coded" it makes me feel actually insane like what the actual fuck are you talking about. tk acting motherly towards them does not make them "sibling-coded" that just shows that tk is a motherly character. also to all of the people saying that: every time you call n.ickloon "sibling-coded" i have another thought about them actually being siblings and fucking like dogs. check and mate

[ticklishraspberries]

do you have any hcs for James and Alyssa from teotfw? it can be tk related or non tks, it's whatever you want to choose :D

i've def done them before but i'm a) too lazy to look for the old posts and b) in the mood to write more so fuck yea (these got rlly long so i'm putting them under a cut lmfao, i just rewatched the show so i'm brimming w headcanons)

first of all, i've decided they are both autistic, i'm not accepting criticism on it, happy autism awareness/acceptance month

james has gotten a lot better with emotions, and he actually finds great joy in telling alyssa that he loves her, even if she isn't ready to say it back quite yet

when alyssa does say it back for the first time, i feel like one or both of them cried about it

as alyssa says in the finale, they both need a lot of psychological help to make their relationship work, and i like to think that they both get that and things start looking up for them<333

maybe i'm an optimist but they don't deserve any more hardship in their lives bruh, let them LIVE

"seventeen" from heathers: the musical is so them coded

james has this adorable, hiccupy, soft laugh that he didn't even realize he was capable of until he met alyssa

and when she tickles him, it gets louder but more high-pitched

alyssa's laugh is this loud mix of a shriek and a cackle

james literally melts at the sound every time

alyssa's ears are super ticklish (arguably canon) and james loves to press little kisses behind them or just whisper to her bc the feeling of his breath makes her giggle

her stomach, sides, and thighs are all bad spots as well

james is rlly hypersensitive with physical affection, he's just always jumpy and squirmy and flustered

he's very ticklish; he used to be rlly good at blocking out emotions as well as physical feelings, but now, especially with alyssa, he doesn't rlly try that anymore

under his arms, his ribs, and his knees are all super bad

they both don't mind being tickled, but they don't rlly get into tickle fights bc things like playful wrestling can become not so fun quite easily (trauma babey!!)

they get normal jobs and can afford a flat and get a cat and they're doing good

[sweetsunshinedarling]

Asking myself why I ship TK/Peter (Or TK/Peter/My Y/N) enough to write 100000+ fanfic plus start another (while also having a few others in the back of my mind) & it's a bit of a mix. Less well thought out reasoning and more word vomit below.

I disliked canon Y/N (not a major reason why, but I think it was the catalyst of me looking more in depth to other characters)

TK accidentally (or purposefully if the twist that they were the Y/N in the your girlfriend game is a thing) ticks a lot of boxes to be a Y/N while also being their own person. Maybe they some how freed themselves of the role. In a game in which is impossible to free yourself of much of anything. We so far have never even been given an option of helping Peter in anyway. He also very much cannot help himself, no matter what he does, hes stuck (doomed even) to play his role. (other that making food for him I'm pretty sure the game never give you the option of doing anything to help him let alone free him) Though no options of freeing him yet make sense as game not done.

As they mirror Peter so well & fall into the "People helper/pleaser" role the idea of them helping to free Peter too is *chiefs kiss* And Peter finally actually getting to do something because he wants to and not because he's programed to want that. AHHHHH!

I like a world in which Peter is free to fall in love and not have this be dictated to him by code in a video game. A few possible "happy" endings for him in my eyes included the idea that even out of the game/influence of the code he still falls in love with you/Y/N or that he was able to fall in love with another character and develop his own type. (Hell some where is an ending where hes free to just chill by himself and make youtube videos but that's for another day) Letting him have a polygamous relationship felt like the ultimate fuck you happy ending. He finally is free to pick and he gets the girl/boy/them because he picks them, but also fuck you he gets to naturally develop feelings for someone you never considered or programmed him to and they get to survive the hell you put them through despite it all (creator, basically his own version of Truman walking up the stairs at the end of the Truman show or any moment a character finally stops a time loop that's been driving them insane and saves the day in media with time loop as a thing)

I am on the ace spectrum and all my Y/N, Peter and TK seem to all be on this (or have been in Peters case) to some degree and I like the concept of writing characters who are ace without them being written as celibate/I don't know what sex is etc stereotypes.

My Y/N and TK like sex but for a lack of a better word, lack the motivation to start it up. Peter is the motivation.

Peter/TK works very well and there is basically zero content of it. The tragedy of what could have been if Peter/TK wasn't trapped in a loop/game, with his being and emotions dictated to him??? Enemies to friends to lovers trope, the fact that they work as mirrors to one another but also have a lot of the same motivations. Fates being very much entangled but in such a twisted way. As mirrors have personalities and actions that would support one another very well. TK goes out of their way to be helpful etc and is happy with any attention that you give them, while Peter would absolutely praise them and give them the attention they deserve but don't get and would finally have someone to help him. Really wish more people liked this as I am not the best writer/artist lol

Being sick of doom and gloom and wanting something that goes against the odds and is just EVERYTHING goes the most idyllic that it can actually. Everyone wins and every ones happy.

[paperstorm]

Not trying to start discourse about the whole ACAB thing and all that but I was thinking about Owen's brother's death and needed to talk with someone about that and you always seem open to discussion and not judgmental. I'm not the most coherent person but I'll try my best.

I actually am not sure if it's ever mentioned but was the brother's family aware he would stay in Texas until the end? I know he didn't tell them about the suicide obviously but that made me think that if they didn't know he'd stay then they would probably be suspicious about him dying right after they left (or soon after). And even if they're not, TK might suspect it and Owen might half say what he did, like saying he was there for him or whatever but TK would understand that meant he helped. So that brings me to Carlos.

We know he was raised catholic and suicide is a big no-no, you will end up in hell and all that (so is homosexuality but not my point here). He's also a cop and must believe in justice and the law (again, not here for the ACAB thing, I know how he behaved at the end of the season but that's a whole other thing and I truly believe he feels guilty about it all because of his morale code and how he was not thinking clearly at this point, etc.). But Owen and his brother planned this rationnaly and I was thinking Carlos would probably not be okay with it for all the reasons I said earlier as well as the fact that when they thought TK might have the illness, he said he would remind him everyday who he is and all that and I do believe he would have done everything he could to make TK's end of life the best he could and care for him like we know he needs to. But what if TK had asked him to help with his suicide like the Owen and his brother situation? And what do you think would be his reaction if he found out about Owen's brother?

Again, just here to discuss, I know the show probably won't go there but I kept thinking about this and needed to exchange views on that with someone. Hope that's okay.

I'm so sorry this ask got lost in my inbox for so long, I don't even know how long it's been in here but if you are still around in the fandom yes we can totally talk about this! It's such an interesting thought and tbh I really don't know. Obviously Carlos doesn't follow every doctrine of Catholicism. We have never seen him being overtly religious at all, other than wearing his cross necklace. He never talked about being bummed that he couldn't get married in the church he went to as a kid, so I wonder how connected to his faith he really is anymore. It feels like it's more of a cultural thing like it is with TK, rather than something he's really devoted to. So I don't know what his thoughts on assisted suicide would be, but I guess it would surprise me if he was really vehemently against it. The idea of him one day having to do that for TK is so god damn sad but in lots of cases it's the kinder option so I think he probably would, rather than watch TK suffer. I think characters like Grace and Tommy would have way more of a problem with it than Carlos would. But I don't know.

[rogue205]

911: Lone Star ranting.

So first, the whole “Tarlos” thing. I think Carlos dumped TK on the reasoning that he feels TK is not trying as hard as he is for their relationship and TK is being petty about it. I CAN see why Carlos would think and feel this way when watching the show actually. But this does show up in the awkward meeting during work where Carlos essentially can’t look TK in the eye and TK is all but sneering down his nose at him. I don’t know, that scene could also be played as it was TK that initiated the breakup as well but that would then mean he’s acting dickish for no reason unless the show honestly wants us to believe that Carlos did something crappy(like cheating on TK but to me, Carlos does NOT come across as that type of person). If the show goes there, it will simply portray Carlos as ooc in an effort to gain unneeded sympathy for TK when he does not need it. I honestly have more sympathy for Carlos right now.

Carlos is also a little surprised in the hospital that “TK wanted to see him” even though we all know Nancy was the one who called him instead. Also makes me think that TK broke up with Carlos. But again, could also be set as Carlos did the dumping and TK is being petty like we know he can be(and he has been). But we don’t know for sure and the show is clearly going to drag this out for at least half the season if not longer.

Personally, I also really hope the “TK whump” thing is NOT dragged out all the way to episode 6-7 but that’s me. The show needs to play their other hands to keep people interested. Me personally? I love whump. It’s a favorite trope of mine and I live for it in my shows. But I just don’t give a damn about a show nearly full of events that whump TK(physically at least). I mean sure, they whumped Judd twice, Grace once, had the whole cancer thing with Owen but the rest was all TK. Who cares. (At least 911 spreads the whump around as we’ve seen some with ALL of the main cast. Individually or together and that keeps many people happy. A lesson LS really needs.)

And there’s the setup for this one too. TK’s “not my first ice rescue” despite them having no proper equipment for him to do this one plus his history of “rescuing people” that we’ve seen on screen so far. Example, tried to rescue Marjan from sinking in the rice and instead, falls in with her while ignoring Judd’s orders. Because TK apparently knows best. Seriously, what did they THINK was going to happen. And yes, solid point in his favor that he actually managed to still save the victim even after the fact. If he’s with someone, it goes fine like the mine field because Owen was setting it up but if he’s alone, yep, 110% chance he’s headed to the hospital again.

And I really did wonder why they didn’t send Nancy or Tommy out instead because they would be lighter on the ice since there wasn’t proper equipment there anyway. We HAVE seen Tommy do stuff like this before. She climbed to the top of a power pole(or whatever that was) to give medical treatment to an injured man for gods sake. But nope, have to get TK injured and “near death” (again) so Carlos feels guilty for breaking up with him of course. 🙄 Prove me wrong, show runners, prove me wrong. They should seriously just leave him in the damn hospital now. It’ll make life so much easier for everyone else. I’m willing to bet that after they finally end this storyline, TK will be back there again at least once more before season’s end.

EDIT: well the show runners DIDNT prove me wrong really and the breakup WAS more TK’s fault than Carlos. So he was acting like a dick for no real reason other than his own raging issues. Nice.

[kanmom51]

lmfao to the anon who asked for me back, I appreciate that you thought I was well spoken and logical (its me! apparently I get to call myself logical anon!)

You asked what else is in my head and honestly I think I let most of it out (I actually ranted more vaguely in another blog's anon's a few hours ago). It's mostly just this: none of this exists in a vacuum. I can dig up a million examples of BTS members reading and recognizing social media pertaining to themselves and their relationships. They know what happens here, they know what we freak out about, and they know what we trend (JM and JK both coming home the day of hickeygate? about as subtle as a brick to the face, y'all aren't slick boys). They know about fanfic tropes and fandom jokes and exactly what the western sphere at large says about them (for better or worse, mostly worse).

Jikook don't give a fuck. If they didn't want people to think they were together, they would have stopped SO long ago. Every single moment that we get happens in context of all the others and in the context of absolutely everyone involved knowing what the world at large is saying. Other 'ships' in the group have pulled back, and I'm not just talking about TK.

Guess who hasn't stopped. Yeah.

For almost all of the Big KM things (the GCFs, Rosebowl, JK's hand tattoo, "I was with JK at 4am", the 2019 cross-continent birthday flight, etc etc etc) They're powerful enough on their own, taken individually, but if you pull them out of context (like a lot of fans do) they're not nearly as impactful as they are when you consider the fact that each of those things builds on the previous things they've done and said into this pretty irrefutable picture and timeline that spans YEARS.

There is just no way that they are unaware. You'd have to believe they were genuinely stupid to think that they don't know what goes on and what these moments imply. You'd have to think that perfectionist, detail-oriented, romantic JK has this massive blind spot where he's just accidentally making all this incredibly sweet queer coded art about his one Bro (and that he conveniently forgot that one Bro's initials when he went to go get a very permanent very visible tattoo). You'd have to think that emotionally intelligent, incredibly private JM just somehow loves to share details about his One Bro and One Bro Only? Nobody's ever told me how long Hobi's showers are, JM you're holding out on me.

Which leads to two outcomes, its 'fanservice' or its just genuine interactions between two people (who are in love, jikook gay, boyfriends, married with nine children, sorry i had to get that out of my system). We all know how weak the "they're doing it for the money!!!" fanservice argument is.

And honestly? If I'm going to be here and supporting them, and adoring the work the band makes as a whole? I'm not going to believe that they would belittle me and people like me and use us as some kind of godawful marketing tactic to help straight girls get their rocks off. I couldn't stan people like that. (I also genuinely don't think that Outspoken Queer Allies Bangtan would stand to be in a group that continued to use homoeroticism as a marketing tactic, especially not now that they're all more mature and obviously have more power over what they're doing, but what do I know? Min Yoongi I'm counting on you here.)

Maybe that's naive, but if you look at the fanservice that they actually DID do? I'm talking Banket Kick stages, variety show stuff, maybe even arguably the full BS&T choreo? They haven't done anything like that in years (or I have a selective memory, feel free to sound off in the comments people. For what I hope are obvious reasons, I don't count the MMA 2020 Black Swan stage.)

There's another conversation to have here about fanservice, "queerbaiting", homoeroticism, homoromanticism, skinship and how some people obviously have no idea what it looks like to have friends. But this ask is already SO long lol.

Back to my original point, if I'm wrong, I would much rather have spent my time in this fandom believing in love and that the boys are intelligent, purposeful people who act of their own agency. Maybe that's just me. That's another thing I come back to. If I'm wrong, and I can ALWAYS be wrong, at least my worst sin is seeing love where it wasn't, both with OT7 as an incredibly close group of friends, and KM as a couple.

I don't think I'm wrong. Occam's razor, right? The simplest explanation? You don't need to believe in any conspiracies to believe in KM.

Logical anon said it all.

I'm closing up shop now.

Bye bye, it was great while it lasted, lol.

But seriously now, anon is spot on. Thank you for coming back and sharing your thoughts with us. One more level headed voice out there.

[zandracourt]

Some thoughts about Episode 2x12 of 911 Lone Star and subject of physical abuse. I’ll put behind the cut for those who don’t want to read:

I work in the field of abuse of adults and one of the hardest realities of my job is that I have to hold the word “abuse” lightly because the spectrum of what is experienced as abuse by the parties involved is wide, for many factors, including enculturation, personal history, physiological make-up, emotional maturity/intelligence, and mental health. There are legal definitions of what constitutes abuse/assault in every jurisdiction and there is the basic understanding of power/control and the role that plays in the relationship. Even the word “healthy” when it comes to relationships is difficult to define because what I regard as “healthy” is not something someone else considers valuable enough to work on or worth separating from their partner over. It is surprisingly personal and while I have laws that I enforce, the reality is that even when an incident meets the legal criteria, if the victim says it wasn’t abusive to them, there is not much we can do other than to keep offering the victim that there is another way to love and be loved.

That said, I’ve seen a lot of posts of fans very upset about TK’s shoving Carlos when he was angry. And I am not here to say that interpretation is wrong. However, I do understand why the writers and actors would have created that scene and not consider it all that problematic. Again, not justifying, simply offering some thoughts from someone who works in this field. These are my own and I know other investigators in my own unit who would think differently, so it is just one perspective. Also, I am not a sworn officer. I enforce civil law, not criminal.

1) I don’t believe TK’s reaction is out of character. When he is emotionally compromised, he self-harms. He does that with substances and we have seen him seek out fights (the bar which leads to the police station scene and with Judd, both S1) when he is upset. I read his pushing Carlos as self harm over abuse because his actions betray that he is trying to get Carlos to *hit him*. Which Carlos, being a police officer who is trained to remain calm (they are supposed to be anyway), responded by restraining TK. TK’s response is then not to calm down but to get more upset and tell him to leave because TK is *not getting the emotional release that he wants* which is physical pain. He wants to feel physical pain to mask his emotional pain but Carlos won’t participate in that. So this isn’t abuse in the typical way we understand it. It is manipulation on TK’s part and unhealthy as hell, but is actually in keeping with what TK does when he’s hurting emotionally.

2) This scene is highly-feminine coded. There are hundreds of examples in tv/movies where a woman is upset and she beats her fists against a man’s chest (who is almost never who she is actually upset with/about) and the man endures it for a bit and then restrains her until she calms down. We see it all the time and while also problematic, generally we don’t object to it because we view the woman as not being able to cause the man any real harm or pain. Women get away with a LOT of domestic abuse because of this bias. So given that trope, it is very possible that the writers and actors viewed this scene through that same bias. That TK isn’t really hurting Carlos because he is bigger and more muscular than TK. Again, not great, but something to consider when evaluating the choices made by the creators of the art in question.

3) The Fight or Flight response is so deeply ingrained, it is very difficult to stop. When I enter someone’s home as part of my work, I am there to investigate an allegation of abuse. Even with the word INVESTIGATOR on my chest, and with everyone knowing why I am there, there are some perpetrators who are so reactionary in their fight/flight response that they try to threaten and intimidate me (fight). They are displaying abuse behaviors to the one person you would logically think they would want to hide those behaviors from. And many do. But for some, they literally cannot stop the response. Makes my job a little bit easier because now I am a witness to their abusive reactions and can document it. In this instance with TK and Carlos, I’m not necessarily saying that response was triggered in TK, but again, he has a much higher propensity for Fight than Flight in general so I can’t say it’s *not* a factor either.

4) Many have expressed wanting to see the apology between them that was not shown. In some ways, I can understand why the showrunners chose not to. That should not be a quick conversation. And in the context of a show like this, where there is no other way to do it, I think would ultimately be worse. If TK apologizes and Carlos accepts without much conversation, there is no reason for anyone to expect the behavior to change on TK’s part. This actually models abusive cycles. Any conversation where Carlos confronts TK about his behavior would take real time because they’d have to get at the reasons why TK had that reaction in the first place, and given that Carlos has already addressed this (in their convo at the police station after TK is arrested for brawling) and it hasn’t changed. Therefore, the scene would need to either put Carlos in a role of continuing to bring this up while addressing why he is putting up with the behavior from TK, or Carlos needs to do some self-reflection about why he’s still in this relationship. So to do it in a way that is actually “healthy” doesn’t take them where the writers wanted them to be later in the episode. So, in many ways, their apology scene is best served by a well-written fanfic than it would be by a 2 minute on-screen scene that would either serve to perpetuate an unhealthy cycle or push them further apart. This way, there is an ambiguous element where everyone can pretend that some long-ass conversation occurred and the two of them came to a healthy resolution.

5) DV scenes between men are *way* bloodier than any other scenes I encounter. In my experience, when men are abusive of men, it’s very brutal. And again, what equals abuse is sometimes hard to define and even harder to address. So a little shoving, while not great, is also not even in the stratosphere of how bad it often can be. Is it right to view abuse with that kind of relativism? Hard to say. But when you exist in this world, it is hard not to and I have to go by the people in front of me and what they are expressing about how they feel about what happened. If you, the viewer, watched this and reported it as abuse, I could go investigate. But if TK and Carlos say to me, “Nah, we didn’t feel that at all.” Then it doesn’t matter what you, the witness, feel about it, or even me. I can offer my educated and experienced view, but that doesn’t mean the two parties will accept it. That’s why I have learned to hold it loosely because adults have the right to self-determination and the right to make poor choices. And believe me, that is very hard to do, especially when I encounter a victim who is clearly so beat-down that they can’t imagine anything better for themselves. But if I tell that victim, “You must...” then I am simply becoming the next person controlling their choices. Instead, I offer “You could...” or “Here’s some options...”

To me personally, I read TK’s shoving Carlos as evidence of unhealthy self-harm behavior more than TK abusing Carlos, because the action wasn’t rooted in power and control and ended fairly benignly. Would it be awesome for them to still address it? Absolutely. But I also understand why they chose not to.

[maybe-theres-hope]

Tarlos ficlet - “You Like My Costume?”

For all y'all firefighter!Carlos babes :) 

@howtosingit @pragmaticoptimist34 and anyone else who likes this kind of thing <3

1.6k | ao3

TK is actually kind of bummed to be working on Halloween.

Sure, it’s not like he has to work Thanksgiving this year--he somehow finagled the day off and he has yet to tell Carlos that he will be making a surprise visit to the ranch for dinner and he absolutely can’t wait to see his fiancé’s face when he walks in--but he was kind of looking forward to doing the cutesy couple’s costume thing. He’s a sucker for that kind of thing, and he’s bummed, okay?

They’re out on a call that’s frankly more of a time waster than anything else since the fourteen year old in question wasn’t actually suffering from alcohol poisoning but rather he’d yarfed because his friends had dared him to drink a teaspoon of dish soap--honestly, kids these days--so things are looking pretty mellow so far for the evening. He half expected full-moon level type calls tonight but in all honesty he’s been kind of bored. Which really makes it doubly crappy to be working. There’s not even any excitement. 

“At least we’re off at 11, you’ll get to see the last of the trick-or-treaters,” Nancy says with a smirk. 

“Who trick-or-treats at 11 p.m.?” he asks. “By then it’ll just be the dumb teenagers TP-ing old people’s houses and that’s if anyone actually does that anymore.”

“What, you’re too old and married for those kinds of shenanigans?”

“Screw you, I’m not old, and I’m not married yet,” he quips back at her.

“Mmmhmm. Coulda fooled me.” She’s smiling her mischievous smile, the one she gets when she’s contemplating how to jump-scare him in the bunk room in the middle of the night because one time he yelped in such a high-pitch that she nearly peed herself laughing, and she’s been trying to recreate it ever since. 

“Hey, the thrill is not gone, I can promise you that.” Now it’s his turn to smirk back at her.

“Ugh ugh, okay, don’t wanna hear about it.” She waves her hands in front of her face like she’s shooing away fog. “And TK? I mean that. Whatever it is you’re going to be doing tonight, I never wanna hear about it, okay? Just...please. Keep it in the bedroom. Everyone’s going to be making enough assumptions as it is.”

He turns to look at her from the driver’s seat, puzzled. “What do you mean, tonight? What’s so special about tonight and why are people making assumptions? Carlos had to work until half an hour ago anyway, so we’re probably both going to just pass out when I get home. Also, what do you mean ‘assumptions’?”

She just smiles at him again. “Just drive, Strand.”

When he pulls the rig into the bay at ten minutes past eleven, TK just wants to shower and collapse. Boredom held out for only so long before giving into three separate calls where the patient coded on the backboard. He’s tired, he’s hungry, and he feels like he will never be clean of all the sweat. His fingers are aching and his shoulders are sore. He’s never been more ready to just slip into their sheets at home and pass into blissful oblivion. He can’t even make himself look up from the floor as he walks toward the locker room. 

“Hey TK! Why don’t you say hi to the new probie?” Mateo’s voice is nearly a giggle, and it actually causes TK to lift his head. With great effort. 

“Huh? We have a new probie? Whose first shift is on Halloween? Who did he piss off to manage that?” TK asks, following Mateo through the kitchen.

It’s Paul who answers from where he’s leaning against the archway leading back into the bay where the ladder truck is parked. “No one. You might be a little peeved that he took your old turnout gear, but I really, really doubt that.”

“What?” Now TK is just thoroughly confused. 

“Yeah,” Marjan says when he rounds the corner, “and it doesn’t fit him all that well, but I also highly doubt you’ll be upset about that either.” She’s practically glowing with mirth. 

“Okaaaay...what’s with everyone? Is this some kind of Halloween prank? Is someone going to jump out and scare me?”

“Trust me, it won’t scare you. Just...don’t scar the rest of us once you see it. Behave yourself until you get home,” is Nancy’s last line before she turns and practically runs up the stairs. 

TK darts his gaze around to the rest of them, brow furrowing. 

“Just go, man. We’ve been keeping this from you for like a week and we want to see the fruits of our labor,” Mateo says, shoving at TK’s shoulder so that he walks toward the ladder truck.

Still confused and slightly nervous, TK rounds the back of the truck and looks around to see what it is they’ve conjured up to prank him with. He scans the floor, wondering if someone in a scary mask will slide out from under the truck. He moves around to the other side while still in the team’s line of sight, looking back at them for some kind of indication that he’s on the right track. Marjan points subtly up and he follows with his gaze. 

His mouth goes instantly dry and his breath stops. He might gasp, but he can’t be sure.

“Hi babe. Happy Halloween,” Carlos croons in a low voice, though he’s blushing slightly which removes some of the effect. 

TK can only stare. His old turnout gear, indeed.

His fiancé his perched on top of the truck, casually leaned against the ladder and looking down on him. His hips, clad in baggy pants only held up by bright suspenders are slipped forward just so, inviting TK’s eyes to travel up the long line of his glorious body. The AFD t-shirt is straining at the seams, defining every muscle in his abs and pecs, the suspenders caressing against the hard planes of his chest, peeking out from the turnout coat hanging open. 

When Carlos notices where TK’s eyes have gone, he lifts himself out of his ridiculously sexy lean to stand and shrug out of the coat. How on earth anyone can make the removing of standard-issue PPE look so goddamned alluring, TK will never know. The movement causes Carlos’ shoulders to flex, and the cotton of the t-shirt nearly gives out. TK catches a peek of his own name in bright orange lettering across the back of the coat before it’s casually flipped over one massive shoulder, clinging to one finger. 

“I...holy shit,” is all he can say. He has been robbed of his entire vocabulary. He can hear his team snickering at him from the kitchen, but he pays them no mind. The view from here is much better. 

Carlos blushes a bit more, and tosses the coat down to TK, who catches it dazedly. Then, he watches as his absolutely gorgeous fiancé nimbly climbs down the footholds on the side of the truck like he’s done it a thousand times before, and between drooling and sucking in subtle breaths of air TK’s eyes are drawn directly to his ass. It’s a marvelous sight. 

Dropping down lightly onto the floor with a tiny bounce in his step, Carlos turns to face TK in all his glory. TK’s gaze once again runs the gambit from his shoulders down his torso, right down to his own spare pair of boots. 

Carlos saunters closer, knowing full well what he’s doing and loving every minute of it, the bastard. “So, babe,” he says in that same low voice, closer this time. “You like my costume?”

TK still can’t really form words. He might stutter a bit, but he’ll deny it later.

Carlos leans in close--presumably to deter their audience from hearing his next words, which are whispered directly into TK’s ear. 

“I chose to dress up as your secret fantasy,” he says, his lips caressing the shell of TK’s ear. He shivers, though from the words or the touch or the outfit or all of the above, TK can’t say. The next words he hears don’t help matters much.

“What do you say I rescue you from work? Take you home and give you some mouth-to-mouth?” 

TK can hear the desire behind the words, but he can also hear the tiniest giggle at the blatant dirty talk that Carlos actually doesn’t do that much of, and it makes his heart melt. This man is everything.

When he regains some coherency, TK decides to give back as much as he’s gotten. He runs his hands down Carlos’ torso, nearly dropping one suspender completely off his shoulder with his vigor in grabbing a handful of pectoral muscle. 

He leans back in and says into Carlos’ ear, “Well, have you still got your uniform in your car? It might be a bit big on me, but I think I’d look good in nothing but your utility belt. Should I handcuff you to the bed, firefighter Reyes?”

He leans back just enough to catch Carlos scrunching his eyes shut and biting his lip--desire written into every line of his face--and suddenly remembers their audience. This is not a free show, no matter how much help they provided Carlos in surprising TK with this. “Take me home, now.”

“You got it, babe.” With that, Carlos bends down, grabs TK by the waist, and lifts him like he weighs nothing. TK is thrown over his shoulder in a full fireman’s carry to the tune of his team, his friends, whistling and catcalling as he’s carried off to Carlos’ car. 

Yeah, this is a good Halloween. Maybe the best one yet. 

[alrightbuckaroo]

Thank you for saying what you said. Sometimes I wish the writers hadn't made Carlos a flawed character because of how some people have leapt on it to paint him as the bad guy in every situation, even ones from previous seasons. And that makes me sad because Carlos as a character makes me feel seen. But it's nice to not feel alone in seeing some of the discourse and feeling upset.

Of course! I don't know if this is in reference to this post or this one; but the sentiment remains the same: let Carlos mess up!

I can understand where you're coming from about wanting him not to be flawed; because character development like that can be polarizing and not always fair to the character.

It's why I hate it when a black or brown queen on RuPaul's Drag Race is given the "villain" edit because it just opens the doors for microagressions, coded remarks or blatant racism from the fandom.

I remember when the first couple of episodes of season four aired, and while I didn't necessarily love the marriage storyline, I did think it was weird to see some people just suddenly "turn" on Carlos.

Rafael had said something to the extent of like, "I hope you learn to love Carlos again" or "fall back in love with Carlos" and I was like...again? What happened? It's only been like three episodes lmao. I definitely think there are things Carlos has done that aren't perfect (when will we be free of cop era Carlos, I beg) but I think some people have gotten so used to seeing Carlos as the "perfect" solution to TK's problems and the moment he was shown not to be that, it kind of opened a floodgate.

All that said, I like that's he's shown to be flawed because that's what makes fictional characters that much more human!

Maybe it's because I'm BIPOC and most of my friends are too, but it's been really cool to see a queer man of color confront things like his internalized homophobia, his strained relationship with his father, and hell, just his emotions in general.

That said, when dealing with all of that, people aren't always going to make the "right" decisions or respond "correctly" but I think they deserve grace at the end of the day.

Obviously, it's a nothing more than a television show at the end of the day, and Carlos is just a character; but I really hope that the idea that men of color, especially queer men of color, aren't allowed to also mess up doesn't transfer to the real world, that's all I really care about at the end of the day.

Call out problematic behavior when you see it, but realize everyone's human, we're all going to mess up because we're human, but we still deserve grace to grow and change (to an extent) because we're human.

[asleepinawell]

hiii not sure if it’s okay to ask a poi question but here it goes - i recall seeing you expressing (at least some level of) discontent with what Harold has done on the show (to root, to shaw and all those hypocritical decisions throughout). would you like to share more about your thoughts on this character? tks

always okay to ask poi questions. since the fandom is pretty small these days i was going to put my answer under a read more line so people could ignore it more easily if it’s a subject that bothers them but apparently you can’t add read more lines in ask answers? thanks tumblr! so if this is a topic that annoys anyone, please, just skip it. also, while some of this is facts or based on facts a lot of stuff is obviously my opinion and therefore not canon and not the only opinion etc etc.

in general, i wasn’t crazy about the way harold treated any of the other characters (with the exception of john who he had a pretty great relationship with). for root, there was the refusal to call her root, which i found very gross and uncomfortable (like, in general you should respect what people ask to be called, but also it was linked to the traumatic death of her childhood friend and he absolutely knew that so fuck that shit). he even said something along the lines of 'john reese is what you prefer to be called' to john right in the first episode? he was okay with using reese's fake name, but not hers because he made her identity into a power game.

he also tended to be..hmm, patronizing is the wrong word (and lbr root was extremely patronizing to everyone) but more that he treated her like ‘rehabilitating’ her was his pet project or something. i mean one thing that always struck me was his ‘what happened to you’ line in bad code and then the subsequent decision to put her in a mental institution instead of, you know, jail, which is where every other perp they ran into tended to go. he saw her as broken and flawed and in need of his help which, to me, came off as hypocritical and belittling.

also, putting someone in a psychiatric institution where they get pumped full of drugs when they don’t need to be? really fucked up! even if you argue root needed therapy/was depressed whatever, that’s not what they were treating her for. they were treating her for ‘delusions’ and ‘hearing voices’ which were...real things. like, the machine was speaking to her. harold knew that. he let her get put on all sorts of medication and put in solitary confinement and oh yes also her doctor was a really fucked up dude, something harold could easily have dug up if he’d bothered. also the whole ‘killing off a woman to advance a man’s character development thing’ is, uh, a bad trope. to put it mildly. i could write a lot more about his shit with root but let’s move on.

in some ways, his attitude towards shaw bothers me most. he consistently treats her like she’s violent and unhinged because she has aspd and despite the large amount of evidence to the contrary. she is, in fact, the most cool and controlled member of the team (not counting carter) and the least likely to go off half-cocked. shaw does play into this, but mostly only with harold and only through her words, not her actions. she knows what he thinks of her. when she’s captured by samaritan, harold gives up on her very quickly in a way he would never have done for john (and probably not for root either at that point). shaw’s reaction to sim!harold in 6741 of ‘did you even look for me’ says a lot about what she thinks he thinks of her. his whole ‘binary moral compass’ line to her is also, uh, heavily projecting. shaw and carter had the strongest moral compasses of the group. by a long shot. 

moving on to the machine. so first and foremost, if you’re creating a sentient being, whether that’s having a kid or making a self-aware AI, you don’t create something with the intention of locking it up and ignoring it forever. (and he was creating her for the bush/cheney administration???? who TM pointed out was terrible if he somehow had managed to miss that. root called them something like the worst people imaginable and she wasn’t exaggerating). was it too dangerous to let TM be free from the get go? maybe! but then don’t fucking make an AI you think can destroy the world, buddy. there are a lot of reasons he made TM and none of them make this acceptable to me. once TM had clearly proven to be not a threat and trying to help he continued to ignore her and act like she was dangerous.

harold always needed very badly to feel like he had the moral high ground and not be the person who made a bad decision, which yes, is probably partly due to the trauma from what happened to nathan but that doesn’t make it okay when being paralyzed by being unable to make a decision got people killed. more than once! also, most of his morals got tossed out when they weren’t convenient. wouldn’t kill the senator to save the world because killing is bad! next episode he’s like if anything happens to grace kill all of them. cool story, still murder.

i wanna conclude this rant by talking about harold as a character vs harold as a person. meaning, harold as a fictional character who is used as a narrative device in a story as opposed to harold himself without the context of him being fictional. i don’t mind characters who say and do things i dislike. it’s very important to have characters you dislike as people imo. feels like an understatement. but lambet, for example, is a slimy asshole. the story is aware of this. he gets an ending a slimy asshole deserves. harold has a lot of flaws, and causes a lot of damage, gets his friends killed, and his stubborn refusal to budge on his arbitrary moral high ground lets samaritan take over and almost makes team machine lose. he gets a happy ending. with the woman he lied to (and caused a lot of pain and grief by lying to). root ends up dead, shaw gets tortured and fights her way back for root only to have her die which is kind of handwaved as ‘well she has tm with root’s voice good enough’, and john, after having rediscovered his will to live and have a life in the end of s4 goes right back to his whole dying for someone else thing. only harold gets the happy ending.

the show was actually pretty good at highlighting harold’s flaws and making them interesting, and then it kind of forgot that at the end in terms of story outcome. like, if harold had suffered enough to get a happy ending, then why didn’t anyone else get one? so my annoyance was with the narrative’s failure to satisfactorily conclude the characters’ arcs. (and for the record, i’m not one of the people who think he should have died. i don’t think it would have served a point. also death doesn’t equal redemption to me).

so, yeah, not a fan of him. don’t write him in my fics since my dislike would take time and focus away from writing about the people i do like. would probably be less bitter if they’d ended the show better. i was 300k words fic level of bitter. there was some post i saw going around recently about how if your found family show doesn’t end up with your found family together then you’ve kind of missed the whole point of found family and yeah, that.

[mattzerella-sticks]

Ticking Photobomb, T, 1.6k

Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley & TK Strand

TK loves Carlos, and wants their relationship to work out. Before they can recapture even a semblance of the bliss they shared, Carlos needs to fix his mistake and properly introduce TK to his family. Until then... Carlos deserves at least some punishment. He only hopes Buck will forgive him, for involving him in his and Carlos's first big fight as a couple.

Only it's not Buck's forgiveness he'll need.

ao3 link

based off of this post

           He’s wary. He and TK are supposed to be enjoying a delicious meal outside at a nearby park, sun high in the sky, bright but not too cruel, as they sit together on a thin, yellow blanket, and Carlos cannot enjoy any of this beautiful date because a tiny voice in the back of his mind warns him that TK’s silence is a cover for something more sinister. His boyfriend’s smile, aimed at his phone as it has been since they arrived, means trouble. The small, continuous giggles that eke free sound like alarms. Giggles offered with every bite, where he’d type a short message and then set his phone down; only to grab it halfway through its jingling ringtone – TK never usually keeps that on. Carlos remembered him complaining how he hates ringtones, prefers having his phone vibrate. Why is it on now? And why is he texting while they’re on a date? And why does his laughter make Carlos cringe?

           “Who are you texting?” he asks, finally, Carlos pushing the plastic container with his half-finished sandwich to the side.

           TK glances up from his phone. “No one.”

           “No one?”

           “Just a friend,” TK says, pinning Carlos with a strange expression that squeezes his heart. It makes the sweat pricking his temples relocate and journey down, rolling towards his chin. Carlos wipes at his face as TK adds, “seriously, you don’t have to worry.”

           It’s the way he said ‘you’ that does Carlos in. That has him dredging up what he already considered resolved since before they sat down. Discussed, at length, over the phone, with Carlos apologizing repeatedly. TK assured him they were good. “I thought we were good?”

           TK sighs, “We are good.” Then, he mumbles, “As good as any two friends can be.”

           Carlos’s frown deepens, mouth resembling a severe gash carved into his face. “I knew it!” Carlos cries, pointing at him. “You’re still mad at me.”

           “I never said I wasn’t!”

           “You said it was settled –“

           “Because it is,” TK insists, a heavy glare drawing all breath out of Carlos’s chest. The façade he wore for their date has been pulled away, and Carlos sees exactly how distressed TK remained after he introduced him to his parents as his ‘friend’. Even with Carlos promising that he would remedy the situation soon, gather his boyfriend and family together and explain the truth of his romantic life, TK clings tight to the pain Carlos caused by letting fear sway his choice, both at the farmer’s market and when he let TK walk out of his home, relationship dangling from a fraying cord. It frays ever closer to breaking. “It’s settled until you work up the nerve to have that dinner you were talking about.”

           Carlos splutters, “That’s not – you know, with the pandemic how hard it’s…”

           His excuses further irritate TK, who retreats into his phone. He texts someone else. Perhaps the same person he’s been texting this entire time. “Then it’s settled.”

           “If it’s so settled,” Carlos asks, “why even bother agreeing to our date today?” He gestures at their unfinished meals, probably cold and stale. If they weren’t, it’s not like Carlos feels like eating anymore.

           TK stops texting, smirking at Carlos. Usually, it riles Carlos up in that he wants to kiss it off of him. Right now, Carlos swallows the urge to shove his boyfriend onto his ass.  “A date?” TK asks, words languid and breezy, spaced out by palpable sarcasm. “Why would you think this was a date,” he continues, phone tapping against his chin, “we are just friends after all…”

           Anger and disappointment converge violently inside Carlos, fighting for release. Neither can, as his vibrating phone pulls his focus from TK. He opens the message on autopilot, confused since it’s from TK. Confusion then drops into the cesspool of his emotions, like Mentos in Coke, and Carlos explodes.

           “Why did you send me this?” he demands, showing TK a picture he sent to Carlos of himself. A picture they took, together, when visiting a lake one weekend long ago during the summer. A picture taken after they spent the entire afternoon swimming, bathing suits forgotten on the pier. A picture where TK’s chiseled physique was on display, skin dazzling as fading sunlight turned water droplets into diamonds, and TK’s sunglasses rested low on his nose as he smiled to the side where Carlos was. Was. As in not anymore. Only his arm, slung around his boyfriend’s shoulder, remained. Saved by being impossible to crop out. “Well?” Carlos asks again.

           TK sighs, “Oh, I must have sent that by mistake.”

           “You wanted to send me something else?”

           “No,” TK clarifies, “I sent that to you by mistake. It was supposed to go to Buck, see?��� TK shows Carlos his message thread, with the picture he sent Carlos, timestamped, showing he forwarded it to Buck first, then Carlos.

           “…Buck.”

           “Yeah, Buck,” TK continues, leaving his texts and diving into his photo album. He selects a group shot of the 126, plus a few extra members. He zooms closer on one face, Buck’s, enough that Carlos can distinguish the two birthmark spots above his eyebrows. “I’m sure I told you about him.”

           “You did,” Carlos nods. He tears his gaze from Buck’s smile, fuming. “The firefighter who flirted with you.”

           “I mean, he also helped me save my dad,” TK says, “but, yeah… he also flirted with me.” TK lowers his phone, chuckling, “We’ve just been chatting back and forth – as friends do – when I realized… y’know, I told him I wasn’t interested, because I had this really awesome boyfriend who I love, but since that’s not the case anymore, we’re only friends apparetly, I figured I might as well shoot my shot. Find out if he’s still interested. Maybe once quarantine is done, I can take some time off and… see what Los Angeles has to offer.” The eyebrow wiggle was completely unnecessary. TK communicated exactly what of Los Angeles he intends to see, regardless of how his eyebrows moved.

           He’s better than this. Carlos knows what TK is doing. What the picture, and its delivery, was supposed to accomplish. What it’s succeeding at. He can win this, simply by ignoring TK’s teasing.

           Except.

           “You are not going to Los Angeles.” Carlos scowls, “Not without me. And especially not if Buck is gonna be there.”

           TK scoffs, “What are you, my boyfriend?”

           “…Yes!”

           “Says who?” he asks, “Your parents?”

           They’re outside. In public, surrounded by people who keep their distance. Unfortunately, their voices carry wide enough they draw a sizeable crowd. Carlos doesn’t notice until TK storms off and leaves him with the blanket, the abandoned food, and their audience.

           Carlos blushes, hiding behind his hands. He wishes he never fumbled back then, in the farmer’s market. He also, briefly, wishes he and Buck switched places. At least then TK would be treating him to risqué pictures. At least Carlos would be having a good time, if he were Buck. He’d be receiving sexy photos from a certified dreamboat instead of suffering because of his own mistakes.

                                       ---------------------------

           Buck stumbles over his words, stuttering, rushing out his explanation to a stone-faced Eddie. “Seriously,” he says, “I don’t – I don’t know why TK sent me that picture of him! It’s not like I asked! One second we’re talking about movies and the next thing I know – shirtless TK!”

           “Yeah, I know,” Eddie huffs, arms folded across his chest, “I saw.”

           He shouldn’t have. If Buck hadn’t left his phone on the table to help Bobby in the kitchen. If he didn’t hear his phone beep with an arriving message, almost vibrating off the table from it. If Eddie, along with Hen and Chim, weren’t climbing the stairs at the moment, and if he ignored Buck’s plea to hand him his phone. To punch in the code – which he knew, of course Eddie knew – since Buck was wrist deep in a turkey’s hole.

           Buck washed his hands immediately, drying them on his pants as he chased Eddie the few feet towards the couch.

           “So,” Eddie continues, “you and TK…”

           He and TK? “We’re friends,” he says, repeating himself after Eddie’s disbelieving stare. “Okay, I mean – he did turn me down once, when we were leaving Texas. But he said he had a boyfriend –“

           “He turned you down?” Eddie asks, “You flirted with him?”

           “No!” Buck shrugs, running his hand over his forehead, frowning at the sweat that pooled there. “Well, I didn’t think I was. But he did? And – and he left before I could say anything, but I didn’t think it mattered since he, y’know, had a boyfriend!” He stomps his foot, irritation bubbling from the pit of his stomach and out his mouth. “Besides! Why does it matter if he sends me pictures?” Nice pictures. Distracting pictures that made Buck question exactly why TK misunderstanding his friendliness was a problem. “Why are you so angry?”

           “Because… because…” Eddie looks past Buck, at the peanut gallery assembled by the kitchen. Hen and Chimney watching with interest while Bobby pretends cooking a turkey involves his whole focus. None of the seem keen to jump in and help. “Because… you…” Suddenly, Eddie stands. Buck recoils, stepping backwards. “You know what,” Eddie says, digging into his pocket, “I’m telling Marjan to unfollow you on Instagram.”

           “What?”

           “And!” he yells, phone free and on, “I’m telling her to block you!”

           “What? No – Eddie, no! Don’t!” Buck follows his friend, pleading, “C’mon, she hasn’t even liked any of my photos yet… Eddie… Eddie!”

           Eddie ignores him, furiously typing the end of Buck’s most famous connection online. In his haste, Buck forgets his phone on the counter. Eddie takes precedence over his phone.

           Later, Buck will return to it. He will respond to TK’s picture, sending a tidal wave of texts at the Texan firefighter ranging between the immense trouble that picture landed him in and how TK can repay him by convincing Marjan to follow him again.

           But that’s later. Now Buck slams his fist against the firetruck, yelling for Eddie to unlock the door.

           Eddie doesn’t.

[marjansmarwani]

I’m gonna hold you forever

17. “The only person I need right now is you.”

996 words || ao3

I’ve decided the new rule for this is under 1k because I have been failing miserably at the under 500 rule. And yes, I have written two things related to the last episode and yes, I am posting another one. But it’s been basically written in my head for a few days and @moviegeek03 is an enabler so here it is. The code used on the radio are from FDNY because that’s what I could find on google but it works. Spoilers for 2x02. 

Send in a request if you’d like: I am working off this list and this list.

---------

“Is there somewhere I can take you?” Carlos asks Lily as they drive away, both of their eyes flicking back to the rearview mirror and the sinister glow of lava behind them. 

“Home, I guess,” she said with a sigh, finally pulling her eyes off of the glow of the lava. “I am going to drink an entire bottle of wine, take a long bath, and prepare myself to explain this to my insurance company tomorrow. How many times do you think I’ll get laughed off the phone when I say ‘lava ate my food truck’ before I get someone to take me seriously?” 

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure this will be all over the news by tomorrow.” 

“I guess, but I’m still not looking forward to it. Besides, lava and scorpions? What higher being did I piss off?”

Carlos chuckled as he rolled to a stop at a red light and was about to answer when dispatch came over the radio, “AFD, need 1 available unit to take over for Station 126 for a 10-45, code 1.” 

He froze, hands tightening on the steering wheel as he stared down at the radio, sure he heard it right but praying that he hadn’t. Lily noticed his tension as she glanced at him. 

“What does that mean?” she asked quietly.

“It means that there is a death on scene,” he said lowly, “and the only reason they would need to be relieved is if it was one of the crew. It’s protocol.”

“Oh,” Lily replied in the same tone, “that’s awful.” 

“My boyfriend is a firefighter with the 126.” 

The words were out before he could stop them. It was unprofessional, but he couldn’t help it. It’s all he can think of in this moment, it’s the only thought inside his head. The possibility that it could be TK was a fear large enough to swallow every bit of reason in his mind. He could see Lily shifting uncomfortably in the passenger seat though and he used that as his reminder. He was on the job, he still had someone in his care. He needed to get her home, he could deal with the rest later. 

“I’m sorry,” he told her, “I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s fine,” she assured him, interrupting his directionless apology, “really. I’m sorry, too. This day, it’s been a real shit show hasn’t it?” 

Despite everything, Carlos smiled, “Yeah, you could say that.” 

“But listen, if I can survive a food truck full of scorpions surrounded by lava, then anything is possible. Your boyfriend’s probably fine.” 

He looked at her and saw her expression was full of hope and sincerity. He was impressed she could manage to stay so positive, given everything, but he would be lying if he said it also didn’t give him a little bit of hope. 

“Thanks. Let’s get you home so you can get started on that bottle of wine, yeah?” 

“That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.” 

-------

It wasn’t TK. 

When Carlos had returned to the precinct after dropping Lily off the first thing he had done was track down his Captain and demand any updates she might have. When she had told him it was one of the paramedics he had almost been toppled by the sheer force of relief washing over him. The guilt had followed a moment later. 

Carlos had spent so many hours with the entire station, they were all his friends. He had been there just this morning; laughing and joking with the teams over tumor cake. He had been brought into the fold of their family and now one of them was gone and he felt relieved. He knew why, he knew it made sense. It didn’t make him feel any better. 

The nagging guilt stayed with him as he wrapped up his shift and headed home. The hot shower he took did nothing to help; this guilt wouldn’t be so easily washed away. As soon as he was done he headed back downstairs, taking a seat in the middle of the staircase. If he knew Owen Strand he wouldn’t keep the crew there tonight. He would want them to be with their loved ones, to seek comfort. In all honesty he wasn’t sure where TK would end up, but he hoped it was here. He needed to see him, he needed to hold him in his arms. He wanted to have him here and never let him go. 

He knew that wasn’t possible, but he’d settle for tonight. 

It wasn’t long before he heard the familiar sound of keys in the lock and the door slowly swung open to reveal TK, looking so different from his usual self. Their eyes met and Carlos held out a hand. TK headed towards him, slowly falling into Carlos’s embrace as he went. Carlos wrapped his arms around him gratefully, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He savored the feeling of him in his arms, the sight of him safe and whole. He wasn’t okay and Carlos knew that, but he was alive and that was a start. 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly into TK’s hair. 

“Me too,” TK replied, voice thick. 

Carlos clutched him even tighter. All he wanted was to have him here, where he knew he was safe. But he wasn’t sure that was what TK needed in this moment. “Are you sure you don’t want to be with your crew right now?” 

TK nodded, clutching Carlos’s arm tighter, “The only person I need right now is you. I think I need some distance right now, just for tonight.” 

Carlos nodded and pressed another kiss to his head, “I’ll always be here for you Ty, no matter what.”  

He meant it, too. The guilt was still there, nagging and relentless, but he could ignore it. He would ignore that and anything else for tonight. Because TK was safe and that was all he needed. 

[neworleansspecial]

Summary:  In need of money, Carlos applies for a job to be the bodyguard of TK Strand. He quickly realizes that he’s in way over his head.

Chapter: 6/10 | WC: 1.8k | AO3

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Following TK’s sudden defense of him, Carlos feels adrift in the world. With the way he was raised, and the time he’s spent in the army, he’s always viewed things in concrete splits of black and white- certain things, certain people, are either right or wrong and such a moral code should be immutable. Now, however, he’s forced to confront the true reality of his situation. He knows TK is a bad person; he’s under no illusions that TK is innocent in the life he leads, but he’s suddenly aware of every small nuance behind his actions. He has to wonder, if he was raised by someone like Owen Strand, if he would not be the same regardless of what he has always believed to be his implicit moral compass.

TK, for his part, has been remarkably subdued. While he’s still a brat who could give any tantrum throwing toddler a run for their money, he seems to have lost interest in trying to rile Carlos up like he had been before. There are no more one night stands Carlos must listen to, and even the other staff seem more at ease without his explosive temper. The only issue is that he seems to have decided that the two of them have more than a professional relationship now, possibly because Carlos is the first person to show him true care and loyalty besides his father, though that’s an entirely different can of worms to contend with.

It’s not that Carlos doesn’t like him. Against his better judgement, he’s incredibly attracted and attached to TK at this point. Every morning, he catalogues the healing of the bruises on TK’s throat, and tries to quell the urge to trace them with his lips in an apology for ever allowing them to bloom. He just knows better than to let himself get involved. Owen Strand already wants him dead, so it would be a terrible idea to get involved with him and risk provoking Strand more than he already has.

Late on a Friday night, the first one since Carlos started this job that TK hasn’t gone out partying or something of the like, they sit in the gardens sharing a bottle of liquor. TK prefers vodka above else, but this particular bottle is a nice tequila that Carlos thinks he stole from his father. He’s trying not to drink too much so he can keep his head clear, but he’s had a couple shots in contrast to TK’s half dozen. Then again, TK has a much higher tolerance, so their buzz is about on the same plane.

“Tell me about you,” TK says, looking over at him with a glint in his eye. “It’s been almost three months, and I still know next to nothing about you, Carlos.”

Carlos bites the inside of his cheek and looks out over the flowers, dimly lit by the string lights overhead. The garden really is beautiful, though he supposes that’s to be expected in a mansion with a staff like the Ritz. He doesn’t want TK to know anything about him; it gives him even more power over Carlos, and would continue to breed the intimacy that Carlos knows he can never have with TK, no matter how badly he wants to.

“There’s not much to tell.”

“There must be, if my Dad thought you were good enough to hire to look after his things.”

The phrase echoes in Carlos’ mind like it had when TK referred to him much the same way. As he spends more time here, things start to make a bit more sense. He feels bad for TK, in a way. He’s spent his whole life without ever being given real boundaries, passed from nanny to nanny and bodyguard to bodyguard, with the only constants in his life being the substances he uses to avoid his overly possessive father and the pain that overwhelms him when his eyes are clear. He doesn’t want to be part of this anymore, but leaving isn’t an option and he doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to walk away from TK now.

“I don’t know, really. I had a pretty normal life. I enlisted. I got out. I worked retail until I met you.”

“You had a fiancé,” TK replies. “Tell me about him.”

Carlos picks up the bottle of tequila and swallows two large shots worth, allowing the burn down his throat to try and brace himself for this conversation as best he can. It’s hard to talk about. The whole thing was just so devastating. Maybe his death had something to do with why Carlos was willing to throw his life away on this job.

“He was kind,” Carlos finally says. “We met on my last tour. Came home, got serious, got engaged. We were planning the wedding, you know? I loved him so much. My family did, too.”

His hands unconsciously drift to the dog tags around his neck. They remind him of some awful things, sure, but they’re the last connection he has to someone he loved more than anything in the world. Their cold surface against his warm palms helps his heart rate start to slow enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s going to pass out.

“I don’t know what happened. Police said-” He swallows here, trying to force back the tidal wave of emotion threatening to overcome him. “They said it was either a break-in or by his own hand, and they had no leads, so.”

For once, there is genuine remorse and sadness painted in TK’s eyes. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Carlos, I mean it.”

He shrugs rather than accept the vulnerability, and they return to their silence in the peaceful garden for what feels like an eternity. It’s TK who eventually breaks it by standing up and straightening out his shirt. Carlos rises too, unsure what to expect. TK gives no hint as to what they’re going to do.

Carlos follows him to the garage, where Nancy appears to be working on the engine of the Dodge. She raises her eyebrows at them both, stepping back and wiping her oil-stained hands on her apron. “What’ll it be?”

“Range Rover.”

“Damn.” She turns her back to get the keys, procuring the correct set and handing them off to TK. “Your boy here finally get his feet wet?”

“He can handle it,” TK replies easily.

It isn’t until TK hands him the keys and slips into the passenger seat of the nicest SUV Carlos has ever seen that he dares to ask what’s going on. TK doesn’t answer at first, merely playing with the radio stations until finding something acceptable. It isn’t until they reach the main road and TK orders him to turn left that he seems to care enough to explain.

“We’re gonna have a good night,” he says. “It’ll be fun, promise.”

“You and I have very different opinions of fun, sir.”

Carlos’ continued use of a respectful title makes TK snort. He supposes it does feel a bit formal after what they’ve been through together and the countless weeks at each other’s sides, but he’s not willing to do anything to give Strand a reason to put him six feet under. For the next twenty minutes, TK gives lazy directions that don’t seem to be leading anywhere.

When they’ve actually made a circle around four city blocks, Carlos takes a red light as an opportunity to turn to him and say, “Seriously, what are we looking for?”

“I’ll know when I see it. Make a right here.”

Carlos fights the urge to roll his eyes and does as he’s told. All in all, they spend nearly an hour just aimlessly wasting gas until TK suddenly orders him to pull over. He’s out of the car in a flash, leaving Carlos scrambling to park it and follow him. TK walks slowly, almost prowling like a predator, up to a middle aged man snubbing his cigarette in the alley.

“Sir,” Carlos says warningly.

TK, the little shit, just tosses a smile at him over his shoulder and reaches out for the man. “Hey, you busy tonight?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, pretty boy,” the man says, utterly indifferent to TK’s presence. Even Carlos knows that’s a mistake. “Why don’t you and your buddy run along?”

“I don’t think so.”

Like usual, it’s TK who starts the fight, taking a swing at the guy. He’s not weak, by any means, but he rarely picks on someone his own size, so to speak, so the moment it happens, Carlos has to step between them. He wraps an arm around the man’s throat and forces him to his knees, easily pinning him in place. Over his shoulder, Carlos looks up at TK.

He’s grinning.

Like the cat that got the damn cream.

“Carlos, your gun, please?”

Immediately, the poor man starts begging for his life. Carlos wants to let him go, but he gets the sense it’s far too late now. He fumbles for his gun a little before getting it out of the holster and handing it by the barrel to TK. He means to tell TK to wait, to think about this, but then TK slams the butt of the gun into the man’s head hard enough to knock him out.

“There’s duct tape in the car,” TK says, returning his gun to Carlos as he drops the limp body to the ground. “Fetch, will you?”

“TK-”

“I thought it was Sir,” TK interrupts, that self-satisfied smirk clinging to his lips. “And I did give you an order, Carlos. Go get the duct tape.”

“What the fuck are we doing?”

TK nudges the body with his shoe, seemingly placated by the lack of response. “Fuck does it look like? We’re taking him home.”

The fantasy Carlos has accidentally constructed of a misunderstood but benevolent TK shatters around him. TK may have taken to kindness in letting him live and seeming to actually give a shit about him, but he is still every bit the cruel sadist he was when Carlos first walked into this job. He silently retrieves the duct tape and follows TK’s instructions on binding the arms at the elbow and wrist behind the man’s back, legs above the knee and at the ankles, and across the mouth. He’ll be immobile and silent.

TK opens the trunk and nods for Carlos to put their victim in the trunk. His heart is beating out of his chest again. The moment his hands are free, he grabs onto his dog tags and looks around them, checking for witnesses. He supposes it doesn’t matter; Owen Strand won’t let his son get in any real trouble, but still, he knows what they’re doing is wrong and that if TK notices any onlookers, that will probably be their demise as well.

When they slip back into the front seat, TK acts like nothing has happened, picking up inane chatter about the best mixed drink he’s ever had. They drive home with a body in their trunk, leaving Carlos to try and justify this to himself. In need of money, Carlos applies for a job to be the bodyguard of TK Strand. He quickly realizes that he’s in way over his head.