#carlos loves him anyway

[rmd-writes]

and this is romance, let’s dance

5 + 1 things | 7,792 words | rated E

This is five times TK couldn't find the rhythm, and one time he does aka the TK can't dance fic that no one asked for.

--

So they dance, whirling around the kitchen island together, laughing and swaying and smiling into kisses. They separate and keep dancing, moving around each other; when Carlos shimmies his shoulders, TK tries to mimic the movement with the same goofy look on his face that he’d had years ago at the honky tonk. Carlos knows the adorable expression is one that TK wears on his face when he’s concentrating and trying to dance. He still can’t shimmy though, his shoulders going up and down instead of forward and back, and when he tries to imitate the way Carlos is moving his hips, Carlos can’t help but laugh.

Read on ao3

[king-magppi]

📁 The Interrogation... 🚓

Felt like redrawing this scene bc it still hasn't left me... I still feel so bad every time I have to turn this guy in.

[halebobgr]

Rise of P

[alexturntable]

*stretch*

[rickybaby]

Daniel apologised to Nico after the race for the lap one contact

[f1-stuff]

Montréal GP '24 // Teacher Carlos ✏️📓 (3/?)

"He needs to be more careful... He cannot do that. People are crazy."

[antimonyandthyme]

carcar the last of us au snippet

warnings: past character death, descriptions of the infected, descriptions of use of weapons and violence

What Carlos wants to say, in a way fashioned entirely after his father: That grave is about as deep as it needs to be. No one has the luxury to mourn. Stop fucking around and move on or die standing still.

What he actually says: “Do you need help?”

“No,” Oscar says, curt. “I should be the one to lay him to rest.”

“Okay,” Carlos says.

Maybe it’ll help Oscar, and Carlos shouldn’t begrudge him that. Help him avoid the scenario in which every infected thereafter shared facial characteristics with Charles. Max. A pretty mouth, a strong jaw. It’s his fault, after all. Carlos should have taken the time to bury all of that under the dirt. But all he could do was run.

There’s an almost relaxing rhythmic sound to the ground being hacked up, and a different kind of tanginess to the smell of fresh earth that lets him forget about blood for a moment.

He could be kind, sit at the foot of the grave and listen to Oscar talk about Logan. Why he thought coming back to where they grew up was a good idea. All these good ideas crumbling to dust, at every town they've witnessed that has eaten itself from the inside out.

Carlos closes his eyes. He doesn’t quite know what to do with another faceless loss, can’t add another number to his collection.

And anyway, Oscar's seen his fair share. He’s too good with the shovel for this to be his first.

Carlos clears his throat, when Oscar's finally done placing some leafy branch at the head of the grave. Flowers. On a grave. That’s some doe-eyed rose-tinted bullshit. There’s a strangled bird, caged somewhere to the left of Carlos’ chest. He doesn’t allow that bird any food or warmth or hope, for fear of softness. Can’t be soft if you want to survive.  

“We should move,” he says.

“We?” Oscar reels his head up. The loss carving its way down his cheeks haven’t fully dried, but he looks hopeful, almost like a lost dog. With how Carlos acts, he probably hadn't expected an offer like this. It should've been cut and dry. Getting you to your city, in exchange for a car battery.

“It’s a simple question,” Carlos says. “Are you coming?”

If he wasn’t already fucked all ways to Sunday, making his way along this forsaken earth with two rounds of ammunition and less than a quart tank of gas left, he’s definitely fucked now, adding a bleeding heart to their journey. But Carlos imagines Charles’ face if he were to leave a kid behind and—damn him for that. For being a ghost and still demanding good of him.

“Yes,” Oscar says.

Arguments and energy spent on arguments should be saved for the important things. Carlos throws what’s left of their shit into the back of the trunk, and wordlessly, gets into the driver’s seat.

--

“I’m just saying.” Oscar’s insistent. He’s spent the first half an hour of the journey staring vacantly out the window, but apparently, country music’s where he draws the line. “If for some reason this car caught on fire—”

“Don’t you even dare,” Carlos says. The thought of losing the Sienna makes him want to shrivel up and die. With luck, they managed to jack a vehicle with a working CD player. Tunes are a necessity in what is essentially a never-ending road trip. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“If it did,” Oscar says, “and I only had time to save one album—”

“Zach Bryan,” Carlos says.

“No,” Oscar says flatly.

“Dios mio. I should have left you back there.”

“You nearly did,” Oscar points out, but it doesn’t sound accusing. At Carlos’ furtive glance, he shrugs. “No hard feelings. I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah?” Carlos doesn’t like the sound of that, gets his back all up. Ten and two on the wheel, lest he reaches for Oscar’s shirt to shake him until his teeth rattle. “What am I doing?”

“Self-defense,” Oscar says.

“I really should have left you.”

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way.” Seemingly chastised, Oscar digs his teeth into his lower lip. Charles used to do that too, before he acquired the ability to unhinge his jaw and take larger bites. “You look out for your own, right?”

Carlos wonders if Oscar can see his trauma for what it is. The way Carlos has been tuned toward Oscar in the passenger seat, as if an infected would crash through the windscreen at any second. The way he’d swerve right, driver’s seat to the road, without a second thought, if it meant his neck would be exposed instead of Oscar’s.

He’s got nothing to offer but his own body.

“I’m doing such a great job of it.”

“Mate,” Oscar says warily. If he could hedgehog his way any further into the car’s upholstery, he would be so far back he’d be invisible by now. Zach croons in the staticky background, There ain’t no world in which I am good for you. Ain’t no world, now or ever. “I wasn’t saying you weren’t.”

“No, really,” Carlos says, a little hysterically, “I’m doing such a great job—”

--

There were things in the world that should not have applied to Charles. Spend upwards of two months to four years with him and you’d start to imagine that his fingernails never got dirty, or that his smile never got ugly, or that his face never got bloodied.

But he turned like everyone else.

His skin bleached itself until every single vein was visible, and his eyes lost all recognition. He could still speak, for the first bit. Said their names in what was almost a parody. Cahlos. Cahhhlos.

“We have to,” Max couldn’t finish his sentence, though he kept trying. “We have to—”

Charles lunged for them like a rabid animal. They cringed, but the tire chains wound around Charles hold fast, and he shrunk back. Before lunging again, and again. If Carlos were a better man, he’d put Charles out of his misery. Too bad he was a big fucking coward.

“Don’t,” Carlos hissed, absolutely feral, when Max squared his shoulders and took a step forward. “Don’t touch him.”

Max’s chest rose and fall in rapid succession. His eyes were glassy and hollow. Max, who Carlos had never seen shed a tear once, who they all joked would survive them all. He looked a gentle tap away from breaking. “This isn’t about our stupid feelings, it’s about what Charles would have wanted.”

“Fuck you,” Carlos said, to nobody in particular. To maybe himself. Charles was his responsibility when they went on the raid for food, and Charles was still his responsibility now. Till the end. He’d shown Carlos the bite on his calf, almost guiltily, and remained docile and quiet when Carlos wrapped him in chains, while Carlos breathed through what was most definitely a panic attack.

Easy, Carlos. You’ve got to care of Max now. Easy, come on, breathe Carlos. It doesn’t hurt much, not now anyway. Just. Do me a favour. Make it quick, alright?

Cahhhhlos.

“I’ll take care of it,” Carlos said, because all of this was his fault. In the chaos at the grocery store, he got separated from Charles for a harrowing two and half minutes. That was all it took. “Just. Just give me a moment. Just give me a second, alright?”

Charles snarled, snapping his teeth against the metal biting into his skin. This couldn’t be how Carlos remembered him.

“I’ll do it in the morning,”Carlos promised. I’ll do it after sunrise, so he gets to see it one last time.

In the morning, this is what he found:

Charles, chest cavity open, lying still like he was peacefully asleep.

And Max, bleeding out from a bite wound in his forearm, the gun used to lay Charles to rest tucked at his feet. His skin was paper white, but his eyes were still bright.

“I fucked up,” Max said. It was the way he said it. Completely accepting and calm. It made Carlos drop to his knees and hack out the nothing he had left in his stomach. Bile burned his throat raw. “I thought I could do it, so you wouldn’t have to. Sorry.”

Carlos trembled, pushed his forehead into the ground. The entire world was bearing down on him like a magnifying glass on an ant. He didn’t want to look up. If he didn’t look up, then this didn’t have to be real.

“Carlos,” Max said, more gently than Carlos had ever heard him. By some magnetic, supernatural force, it lifted Carlos’ head from the dirt. Max had enough in him to kick the gun over to Carlos, and life in him yet for the corner of his mouth to twitch up. “You can do it.”

Carlos shook his head mutely.

The expression on Max’s face morphed into something unfamiliar. Pleading. It would carry itself into Carlos’ nightmares and every single infected running after him after. “You can. Just don’t fuck it up this time.”

--

“I’m,” Oscar says. He sounds heartbroken for people he doesn’t even know. “I’m sorry about your friends.”

“You didn’t know,” Carlos says. He never should have said anything. Maybe it’s the kid, snapping, I should be the one to do it. Mirrors are a relic of the past, but Carlos looks at Oscar and sees the same jagged stubbornness lining all his edges. “I’m sorry about Logan.”

They pass the rest of the drive in silence.

[holeodemony]

Laughing crying choking on my tears why am I constantly haunted by the thoughts of all these tragic little gay men I just want then to be okay for once yet terrible things always happen why they just need to be in each others arms and in my arms I need to comfort them why because they're tragic little gay men and they're stuck in my head and consuming my every waking thought and I'm not okay because they're not okay.

[guardian-angle22]

TK talking about himself vs. Other people talking about TK

[agnes-come-back-challenge]

It's been a minute since I've made any art for this fandom, so I figured I should do something!

[grandcovenant]

carlo's inherent tragedy as a character means that if he hadn't died young he would've gone through something worse. the horrifying realization that he inherited his father's personality <3

[theghostofashton]

that moment in that scene in the loft where grace says she's angry about what happened and carlos's response is that he's frustrated too.... the way he not only reframes his own feelings about it, but hers too, which she then calls out, is so, so fascinating.

she's telling him she's angry and we know he's angry based on all of the rage punching, but he uses the word frustrated. and there's something about that, carlos denying himself naming the feeling, despite it being so clear he feels it. packaging it up into something more palatable, less "extreme" than angry. even when he starts to agree with grace, there are all these qualifiers "i guess i'm kind of pissed off about it", like he doesn't want to commit to being explicitly angry. everyone around him can tell that's how he feels from his behavior and body language but he can't say it, he's making the conscious decision not to allow himself to. later on in the scene, when grace asks if he knows what happened wasn't his fault, he says he keeps trying to tell himself that. and that has me thinking about the idea of "deserving" anger, him being angry at himself but also at the situation he was put in, not knowing where one ends and the other begins, and ultimately trying to pretend he doesn't feel it bc he doesn't think he deserves to.

[xbraveheartx]

I was reading the post under your screenshots of Romeo. I'm curious. What is your theory on Romeo's death? Before he became a puppet?

Hmmm... I gave this some thought, so bear with me on this! Hear me out:

If we look at his skin here, prior to the explosion that burnt him... you'll see he still has kinda... dark spots on him? And his dialogue during the fight is very flame oriented.

Not to mention his Ergo, the very reflection of his heart, is titled "Burnt-White King's Ergo" and while it feels sorta like a copout, I feel like just maybe Romeo was victim to a fire. Krat was kinda burnt to the ground in a lot of places, after all. Subject 826 says so himself! And I really don't think he just means the newly burnt Opera House.

There's also the fire in the main section of Rosa Isabelle Street. So what I'm saying is... maybe... Romeo, after Carlo's death, graduated and became a Stalker himself. Remember, Carlo gave Romeo his own graduation pendant, meaning... Romeo hadn't graduated yet! Is Romeo maybe a grade behind? Younger? Less experienced, and therefore, made to stay longer? Who knows... But in the end, maybe, perhaps, as his duty to the people, he was helping people in, specifically, Rosa Isabelle Street? And got overwhelmed by the puppets there and died in a fire/burning building? (Leaning towards burning building, because his face prior to explosion doesn't look charred... just kinda dusty. So maybe a building collapse?)

Also, I'm comfortable saying he died at Rosa Isabelle Street because it's there that we find the "Notes from an Experiment" document!

His body had to have been close enough to drag into the Opera House in secret to experiment on, y'know? So I'm thinking maybe it's definitely his resting place (twice over, oof). It'd also be really sad if he really didn't even realize he had died? Like the death had been instantaneous.

"When the boy opened his eyes..." As in, one moment he was okay, and the next?? He was... not where he thought he would suddenly wake up at. Kinda my take on that...

This was extremely long, I apologize for that!! But thank you for the question!!!! ♡ It's loving Romeo hours up in here, he died trying to do what's right, I'm standing by that!!! How he took it upon himself to use his new found power to fight against the disease and alchemists just says enough of his character to say he definitely died being a hero!!

[kohanatrustme]

A character, with dark wavy hair, considered beautiful by everyone, doesn't speak much, can be quite sassy when he decides to talk, which doesn't happen very often, has a chatty sidekick, is very good with a sword and tries to do the right thing even if it isn't right by everyone's standards.

I'm starting to think about mixing Lies of P with Vampire Hunter D.

[rodlaveraryna]

ok time for me to rant for a sec: i'm sorry if this offends anyone but i can't stand the jannik as aaron burr (hamilton musical mind you, not the real person) comparisons. don't get me wrong, wait for it has some great lyrics that fit with jannik nicely but as a whole the core of burr's character is like the antithesis of jannik. the reason jannik went from in and out up and coming top 10 player to world #1 grand slam champion is because of incremental improvements in his game that might not have looked like much match by match but are clear as day in retrospect. on the other hand, burr's inaction is a key negative trait of his and he only realizes that after he's fallen behind from his peers. and while you could perceive this "catching up later" as being jannik coded, jannik has been active since the beginning trying to catch up with and surpass his peers after a practically nonexistent junior career. burr is defined by being passive while jannik is anything but.

[muirneach]

also carlos rafa doubles is so funny. carlos u mean the guy who’s played like a total of eight doubles matches in his whole career?