assigned lesbian by tofu | baby animal agenda

Good morning!! ☀️ Thank you for the tags @carlos-in-glasses & @ladyknight1512 💕 Y’all are queued 💛 I have started working on a World Cup fic centered around Carlos & Gabriel, grief, remembering loved ones, and Carlos & Jonah. Sharing a very rough bit…

Carlos is deeply familiar with the sensation of chasing a memory. The practice of digging through those moments in your mind, ones that felt ordinary in the present, that become larger than life once they transition into a piece of the past. Preserving them. Perfecting them. Trying again and perfecting some more.

It’s more than memorializing. It’s a time-tested testament; reinforcing the bond between the living and the dead.

He grew up watching his parents do it. His mother, spending hours painstakingly working the dough of her pan de muerto with floured-fingers, the tackiness of the dough smoothing out beneath practiced hands. Each element symbolic in its own way: the crossbones, the heart at the center, even the ball of dough itself.

She could easily purchase the bread from the family’s favorite panadería — the one that did Carlos’s sisters’ quinceañeras and his and TK’s wedding cake — but she prefers to make them herself. Her own way of keeping the connection between life and death, cooking food to honor her beloved deceased ones, while nourishing the ones that are still here.

His father did it by building the ofrenda in the den, covering it with the hand-woven serape he bought on a trip to Moriela when he was a teen to watch his beloved Atlético Morelia play the Clásico Michoacano.

Carlos and Paul became quick friends after Paul, still new to Austin, asked Carlos to help him find an African grocery store so he could buy the correct cut of goat meat for his grandmother’s curry recipe. He made it with her as a child, standing on a stool in her Chicago kitchen, he still remembers the smell of her curl conditioner, the slice of the knife in her hand dicing onions so thin they were almost translucent. He’s been iterating the recipe for decades. Carlos has been a beneficiary over the years. Every time it’s good, just not quite the same as hers.

He’s done it himself. For a long time after his dad died, Carlos thought he needed to honor his father’s memory by ceaselessly investigating his murder. He didn’t stop until he solved it. Until his father’s murderer lay dead in the dry Presidio desert just north of the Mexico border.

He didn’t feel closer to his dad in that moment, though. With nothing left to investigate, no justice to chase after, all he felt was immense emptiness. His dad was gone. No amount of detective work or righteous anger was going to bring him back.

What did help, though, was cooking his chili verde.

Thanks for tagging me @carlos-in-glasses! This week, another snippet from Dallas Carlos, which I'm in the home stretch of (...I think).

He can’t hide in the ensuite all night. With the towel TK folded, Carlos mops up the stray drops of water around the basins and then leaves the bathroom, flicking the light off on his way out. It leaves the bedroom outlined in the dim light of the waning moon. TK’s already in bed, turned away towards the wall, his shoulders a tense line at the edge of the blankets that say he doesn’t want to be touched.

Carlos slides into the bed carefully. He can tell that TK isn’t asleep yet, but he still doesn’t want to disturb him. On his back, staring up at the ceiling, the empty stretch of sheets between them feel like a chasm.

“I love you,” he murmurs into the dark, because it deserves to be said, even when they’re fighting. Maybe especially then.

TK lets out a small, resigned sigh. “I know you do.” There’s a pause in which Carlos swears his heart stops, and then, so quiet he almost can’t hear it, “I love you too.”