i wish i dreamt in the shape of your mouth

There’s nothing you hate more than a customer who comes in at the last minute. You were at your retail job, clearing the last of the hangers out of the fitting room when you heard the front door open. You glance over at your coworker, giving her an annoyed look. You drop your voice low, with an empty store and the music turned off it won’t take much for your voice to travel. “Who comes into this place right before closing, who needs jeans at 9:51pm?” You groan.

“Let’s just hope they’ll be quick.” She returns to sweeping up the fitting room. About five minutes later the customer, a middle aged woman with a haircut that screams ‘I will call your manager over nothing’, walks into the fitting room holding a pile of jeans. You decide to grit your teeth and open up a room for her before wandering off to the back to find your manager. You put in the door code and head into the back, pounding on the office door where your manager is counting the registers already. If this woman tries to pay in cash you all are fucked. You hear your manager putting up the money and she opens the door just a crack. “We just had someone come in to try on like ten pairs of jeans, should I tell her that we close soon, or?”

Your manager sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. “I’ll handle it in a minute, just let her try it on for now and put someone at the front to make sure no one else comes in.” You nod in response and head back out to the floor, sending someone up to the front before you slip into one of the fitting rooms. You open your texts, a small blue dot next to your conversation with Danny. Sometimes you envied him being unemployed, right now is one of those times. You open up the conversation, smiling down at his message. He had finally watched the horror movie you’d suggested ages ago and was telling you how much he loved it. You type up a quick response as you hear the other fitting room door open, you slip your phone into your pocket and slip back out.

“Do you carry anything not…ugly?” She asks, motioning down to the pair of atrocious jeggings she’s tried on. You internally cringe at the printed on pockets and crease lines. 

You put on your best customer service voice and nod, “Yes ma’am. Do you know what you’re looking for?” 

She gives you a look that makes you want to quit on the spot, “If I knew what I was looking for do you think I’d be trying on so much shit?” 

You manage to stay calm, giving her a strained smile. “Well if there’s anything I can help you look for just let me know.” The woman shuts the door in your face and you sigh, slipping back into the fitting room you were just in. You pull your conversation with Danny back up and type out a text to him.

please tell me you’re free tonight, work is making me lose my mind 

You slip your phone back into your pocket and try to keep yourself busy. It’s ten minutes past close now and you’re getting more annoyed as every second passes. As you’re fixing the clearance section for the hundredth time your phone buzzes, a new text from Danny. 

i am

what time are you off? 

You smile and type back a response

i was supposed to be off at 10:30 but some karen came in and is trying off half the store

so when i know i’ll let you know

i need canes so bad tonight 

His response comes quickly. 

canes sounds so good 

do you want me to pick you up or?

You bite down on your lower lip, trying to decide. 

yeah

do you wanna stay over tonight?

a movie night and canes maybe?

Your phone buzzes again with his response.

sounds perfect

mom is driving me up the wall again

You send a thumbs up react and head back to the fitting room to see if that customer is gone yet. You sigh in relief when you see the door is open and then immediately want to bash your head into the wall when you see she left every single item she tried on in the room and on the floor. You can hear your coworker locking the doors and feel relieved that she’s at least gone now. You snap a quick picture of the mess and send it to Daniel.

i love my job.

He’s quick to reply, the message coming seconds after yours. 

canes will fix it

promise

You smile down at the message and quickly type out your response.

if it doesn’t i bought more edibles last week

You ignore his next messages to fix and put back the items she had left in the fitting room. You hold down the button on your walkie, “Are we still getting out of here at 10:30? I fixed all the stuff she left.” As soon as she replies you send Danny a quick text to let him know to be here at 10:30. You pray the next 15 minutes will go by quickly as you find things to busy yourself with until finally you can grab your things and leave. As you all walk up to the doors to leave you smile at the sight of his car in the parking lot, parked right next to yours. 

As soon as you’re out you’re quick to run to his car, knocking on the passenger window, scaring the shit out of him in the process. You throw your head back and laugh at the sight of him dropping his phone and screaming. He unlocks the door and bends down to scoop his phone up off the floor. You’re still laughing when you get in. “Holy shit, I forget how easily scared you are.” You drop your bag to the floor next to a crumpled Wendy’s bag and buckle up, leaning back comfortably in his seat. 

“You’re such a dick,” he mutters, still recovering from how you scared him. 

“You looooove me,” you tease, reaching over to ruffle his already messy hair.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you need to sleep at night,” he jokes, buckling up and turning the car back on. 

You sit in silence for a minute as he drives out of the parking lot. “Thank you for coming to hang out, work has been such a goddamn nightmare lately…I’ve missed you.” You say softly as you play with the rips in your jeans. 

He smiles, his cheeks turning pink, “I’ve missed you too…I started taking those classes at the community college last month. I’m not taking a lot but they’ve kept me a little busy.”

“I’m glad you’re doing them, I thought you were gonna lose it having to be stuck around your parents constantly,” you chuckle. As sweet as his parents are they can be a nightmare to be around at times, you think they’re why he’s so anxious but you’d never say that out loud.

“They’ve been driving me insane today, I keep telling them it’s so hard to get anywhere to call back but they think it’s bullshit. They haven’t had to apply for a job in like 30 years, they think you can still walk in and get an application,” he rants. 

“Oh my god…there’s no fucking way. Every time someone comes in to get an application we have to tell them to apply online, I feel like an asshole every time I have to tell them. Y’know you should come work with me, it sucks but it’s something at least. We’re hiring.” 

He smiles, “Maybe I will, then I can get paid to annoy you.”

You groan playfully, “Y’know what they actually just filled every position so-”

“Oh fuck off!” He laughs, pulling into the packed Canes drive through. 

“Do you know what you want, or?” 

You cut him off, “You have my order memorized by now.”

He holds his hands up defensively, “Hey! For all I know you could’ve picked tonight to branch out.” 

You roll your eyes, “When have I ever branched out with food a day in my life?”

“Fair point…” 

As you sit waiting for the line to move you glance over at Danny, you grab his wrist, examining the rip on his cardigan. “Dude, you need to throw this out, or like go get it fixed.” 

“If you think that little rip is bad just look at this.” He leans forward to show you an even worse rip towards the back of the dark blue cardigan.

“Jesus did something take a bite out of it? You know we sell one that looks a lot like that, I could always get you a new one.” You offer. 

“I like this one, it’s soft. Just let me wear it until it falls apart.”

You sigh, “I think it’s about halfway there, bud.” 

Silence falls over the car again, you scramble for something to fill it. You regret the first words out of your mouth. “So, how are things with Allie?” 

His face sours, he looks down at his lap trying to come up with an answer. “She’s got a new boyfriend…seems like he’s got his shit together, so y’know, that’s uh…good.”

“Shit, dude…” You place your hand on his shoulder, “She’s missing out. You don’t have it all together yet, and that’s fine, but you still have a lot to offer.”

He sighs, shaking his head. “You sound like my grandma,” he sounds amused.

“I still can’t believe she pulled a fucking heist to get her money back…what a legend.”

He laughs, scratching the back of his neck, “I don’t know how she pulled it off still, she’s incredible. God…I was so stressed that whole day.”

“Yeah, I know, you were practically blowing up my phone. But hey, I’d do the same if my grandma pulled something like that.”

He turns to you smiling, “Well if she ever does you have an expert to help you handle it,” he gestures to himself cockily.

“I’m sure you’ll be great at helping me freak out.”

He smacks your thigh playfully, “Hey, be nice if you want me to pay.”

“Right, right, can’t upset my sugar daddy…”

“Fuck off,” he cackles, rolling his eyes.

Once you get your food he starts heading back to your place, you feed him his fries while he drives, the radio playing softly in the background. “It’s a good thing we both got extra sauce, I don’t know why they don’t just sell bottles of this shit already,” you say as you dip another fry into the sauce for him. 

“If they did, I think we’d be enough to keep them in business,” he laughs.

Back at your place Danny makes himself comfortable on your plush couch, it was one your grandma had been nice enough to donate once you got your own apartment, a one bedroom just big enough for you and your cat. You retreat to your room to grab your edibles, a small baggie with candy that looks similar to Airhead Xtremes. You toss the bag into his lap as you plop down next to him, grabbing your Canes box off the coffee table. “Don’t take a lot, you know I’ve never been one to go for a low dose,” you caution. 

“Thanks for the warning, the last time I took some with you I woke up high.”

You laugh at the memory, “You were such a mess that night, I felt so bad.”

He pats your shoulder reassuringly, “It’s fine, I lived, didn’t I?”

“Unless I’m hallucinating you right now, then yeah, you did.” 

He takes his turn feeding you your fries as you scroll through your streaming services to find something to watch. You turn to him, “Are you gonna kill me if I put on Spree again?”

“I might,” he deadpans. 

You click on it anyway, starting the movie and taking a small bite off your edible, Danny doing the same. You lean your head on his shoulder, cuddling up to him like always. He glances down at you with a smile, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you in closer.

“I’ve missed this…I hate being busy.”

You smile up at him, “I wish I was rich, then I’d have all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. I’d spend all my days watching movies, annoying the shit out of you. Sounds like a better life to me.”

“Then you could be my sugar daddy.”

You roll your eyes, “I practically am your sugar daddy, I barely let you pay for anything.”

“You shouldn’t do that y’know,” he says softly. “I still live with my parents, I can afford to pay for your stuff. You’re like…an adult, you’ve got bills to pay.” 

“You’ll be in the same boat soon, Danny. Maybe I’ll need a roommate.”

“In a one bedroom?” He asks incredulously. 

“Yeah, you can sleep on the floor. I’m a generous host,” you joke. 

He cocks an eyebrow at you. “You let me sleep in your bed with you every time I stay over but I’ll have to sleep on the floor when I move in?”

“Fine, you can sleep at the end of my bed. Is that better?”

His brows furrow, “Like a dog?”

“Mhm, you can bark, right?”

His cheeks go pink and he stumbles over his words, unable to string together a comprehensible sentence. Eventually just nodding shyly.

You love to see him flustered. You reach out and pet his hair like a dog, “Good boy.” 

You bite your lip at how red he gets. You wonder if Allie ever messed with him like this.

They dated for a year and yet you feel like you barely know anything about what happened between them. You glance down at his lips. You kissed once, it was junior year. He’d come over after school, muttering a lie to his mom about needing to work on a project. Instead you had managed to get your hands on some bud, fluttering eyelashes and a twenty was all you needed to pay with. Your parents were working late, again, so it made it easy to get away with. He laughed at you, watching you pull up a tutorial on Youtube for how to roll a joint. Laughing even harder when you rolled quite possibly the worst joint in all of history. You smoked together, watching the Jackass series, laughing too hard at every bit. At some point you ended up in his lap, he pulled you into his chest, resting his head on your shoulder. You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling playfully at the blonde strands. Your eyes went wide when he whimpered. You pulled his head back, his eyes squeezing shut in pain and…something else. You watch how he bites down on his lower lip to keep quiet, you’ve always thought his teeth were cute, as weird as it sounds. “Danny?” You say his name softly.

He opens his eyes, “Mhm?” 

“Can I kiss you?” 

He blushes, “I-I’ve never…” He looks away, embarrassed. 

“It’s easy, can I show you?” You ask softly, trying to make sure he’s comfortable.

“Please…” It comes out more pathetic than he intends. 

You pulled him in, kissing him softly, helping him figure out his pace. You want to take it further, but before you can his phone goes off. His embarrassing ringtone blaring, making him jump back, startled. You pull away from him and slide off his lap so he can answer it.

After that you two never spoke of the incident again, but you thought about it constantly. He had a few girlfriends here and there over the years but never any as serious as Allie. You hated her at first, a weird misogynistic jealousy bubbling up. But you got over it, sort of. You were kind to her, you liked her, but the jealousy still lived in you quietly. It gnawed at you every time you saw them put their hands on one another but you kept it to yourself. You wanted Danny to be happy even if it made you feel sick.

Danny wants to lean in, he wants to kiss you, but he’s nervous. He couldn’t be casual, it wasn’t in his nature. He hadn’t been with anyone since Allie, much less kissed anyone. He felt pathetic, a normal guy his age would kiss you easily. They’d lean in, maybe push your hair behind your ear. But he couldn’t, his hands trembled at the mere thought of it. 

“You look nice tonight,” he says softly, still staring at your lips. He means it, he thinks it’s cute how your mascara has smudged slightly under your eye from a long day at work. 

“You’re sweet…so do you,” you giggle. You reach up and caress his face softly.

“Me? I-I’m a mess, I stayed in bed all day doing school work.”

“Let me compliment you. You’re pretty. I love your eyes and your hair, you even have cute teeth…if you ever get veneers I’ll stop talking to you.”

He laughs, cheeks permanently pink at this point. “It’s sweet you think I can afford veneers.” 

“Can I kiss you?” You blurt out as if you’re back in high school perched on his lap. 

His eyes go wide, he runs his tongue over his bottom lip and pulls you into his lap, your thighs falling onto either side of him. You kiss him softly at first, almost like your kiss from high school, this time less sloppy. Your hand finds his way into his hair, the other gripping the back of the couch. You pull at his hair and deepen the kiss, your hips instinctively roll against his, he whines against your lips. His sweet pathetic sounds are like music to your ears. His hands are on your waist, pulling you down on hip by your belt loops. You roll your hips again and that’s all it takes. He whines loudly, his head knocking against yours. He grips your hips tight, his eyes squeezing shut, hips bucking up as he comes. You caress his face as he comes down from it, you can feel his cheeks heating up. 

“Danny did you just…”

pedro pascal. yep. pedro pascal. what's there to say about him other than almost everyone in hollywood saying he's as nice as he seems? many know that pedro is chilean, and is the child of socialist immigrants to the U.S. who fled pinochet's rule. being latino is an important cornerstone of his identity — he talks about it often, unapologetically so.

in a variety interview with clayton davis, pedro says, "...the best way to continue representation is, exactly as you put it, just casting a person into a role that isn't limited to opening, not limiting a character to its racial identity, especially if its an IP we're familiar with or a book. people get so butthurt about this stuff but who cares?"

joel isn't explicitly latino, but honestly, i think it'd be worse to strip away pedro's identity from joel than conflating their identities*. in the game, joel does say "adiós" in the whitest way every (without an accent), but i forgive him and call him latino anyway. i'd argue, with pedro and gabriel both being latino and cast as brothers, he is latino in the show. i'd also argue that joel's death, as it is in-game, doesn't translate well onscreen with pedro as joel. not in implication.

to understand the implications of what we may see in the show, first, you have to understand what happened in chile. a us-backed coup occurred in chile to get rid of the elected marxist. said marxist was replaced by augusto pinochet. numbers are not exact since it was such a large scale population, but under his rule approximately three thousand people were killed or 'disappeared' (never seen again) and almost forty thousand became political prisoners. most of whom were tortured.

had pedro's family, balmecadas and socialists, not escaped, they very likely would've been added to that count. think about that.

that brings us to how, when abby kills joel, she doesn't just kill him. ellie walks in on joel having been brutally beaten for likely hours. we don't have an exact time, but abby goes from having subdued joel while wearing her coat to having taken it off, implying she was sweating for a prolonged period. (keep in mind. it was in a BLIZZARD).

abby is a white girl. not only that, she is a white girl who joined up with the WLF (washington liberation front) following the death of her father. the WLF is a militia group that fought against FEDRA in seattle. it's a compound of soldiers, heavily militarized, and one must think of how it compares to U.S. militarization.

the school of the americas is a school in georgia where people are trained to become mercenaries. whether they be killing or torturing techniques, they were learning how to commit war crimes, primarily against vulnerable brown populations in latin america. dictators installed in latin america sent trainees there — for a few examples, cadets were sent from chile, bolivia, peru, panama, and honduras. there's absolutely more countries that were involved, but the cadets that were sent back went on to enable dictatorships through rape, massacres, torture, and murder.

while the WLF is taught how to fight their turf wars against the scars, the school of the americas teaches their cadets how to perpetuate war crimes in the global south.

so let's say they keep joel's death scene the same in length and context. joel, latino and chilean in this case, is on the ground for hours, surrounded by white people, while he is being beaten to death and brutalized.

it's a disgusting reflection of all that has been done to people like us in the past, and with the connotations of war that coat tlou2 like viscous slime, it's a reflection that's impossible to look away from. do not let season two blind you from these implications, if they are realized onscreen.

more info:

*- it's not as if i hold any of this against pedro. that's the last thing i'm doing. he took a job, he fulfilled it. this is work for him. im just elated to see someone like me on tv, but beyond upset with the writing packed into this. this isn't a critique on abby (that'll come later from me), rather the writing behind her and her crew. it's got revolting undertones. don't put words in my mouth. tlou2's anti-palestinian messaging is another topic, one i'm less equipped to discuss. i encourage you to look into this and be mindful about it if you watch the season at all. when doing so, do so elsewhere.

further reading/material:

chile, the cia, and the cold war: podcast featuring a guest speaker who authored a book of the same title (tried linking but wouldn't work, can be found on apple podcasts for free) the farming of bones by edwidge danticat: i'm not linking this because if you're interested you should order it from a small bookstore in your community instead of supporting amazon or b&n, but this fictional angle of the aftermath of the parsley massacre in the dominican republic is a must-read the inferno by luz arce: linking because you can order directly from UW press! memoir that follows arce's story of being tortured and detained by the chilean intelligence service.