"I thought I lost you," Carlos whimpers into the column of TK's throat. TK can feel the way his whole body shakes, can hear the tremour of the metal plates of his armour rattling together like chattering teeth.
He pulls back for just a moment even if his whole body is telling him not to, not since this is the first time they've seen each other in days since a black narcotizing cloud shrouded over the small village they had called home for the past few years. He wants to wrap his arms around him once more, wants to take him and run until he can't smell the metallic sharpness of iron and taste ash at the back of his throat that is making it hard for him to swallow.
Instead he shakes his head softly and cradles Carlos' face in the palms of his hands. He wipes the crystalline tears from his lovers cheeks with his thumbs before they can meet the scorched earth and presses their foreheads together, finally settling the rippling tremours across Carlos' frame into something more still.
TK takes a deep breath, lets the smell of broken scorched earth all around him fade away until all he can smell is the faint woodsy smell of Carlos and the light, sweet smell of lilacs that seems to surround them the more he breathes in.
He lifts a hand, tendrils of smoke still wafting from the tips of his fingers as the residual gold of his magic pulse alongside his veins like tree roots. He rests it on Carlos' chest plate —scratched and dented, but whole— where he knows the faint smell of violets is coming from.
He reaches in, just under the neckline of the plate and plucks the bright purple flower from where Carlos had carefully tucked it after TK had gifted it to him under the blanket of stars and darkness. Not a farewell gift, but a promise, he had said when Carlos had tried to refuse.
"You didn't; you won't," TK murmurs as he lets Carlos take it from his hands. It seems to bloom under his touch as Carlos tucks it into its home behind TK's ear. TK turns and kisses the palm of his hand. The small smile that blooms across the ash marring Carlos' skin is as warm as fire poppy petals. "You made a promise to bring this back to me after all."
A little DnD and Tarlos inspired ficlet to the most lovely Desi @herefortarlos because it is her birthday and she is awesome! I hope you have an amazing day my dear friend 💜
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Title: Where the Love Light Gleams | Rating: General Audiences | Word Count: 8172
Tags: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Holiday Fluff
Summary: It's been six years since TK has been back to New York City, the place that raised him and made him crumble until all he had to offer of himself was dust. Somehow during that long stretch of time he didn't realize how much his former home could change in all the little ways until it felt unrecognizable.
Regardless, he knows that home isn't just made of buildings and sidewalks and lights that gleam like it’s Christmas all nights of the year. Sometimes he just needs a reminder from the love and light of his life to finally be able to hear what the city has always been telling him.
Welcome home.
Read on AO3
Hi Shannon! It is I, your Secret Santa 🎅 I hope it made it in time for midnight your time and it's not yet Christmas Eve! Your prompts were so fun and I tried to fit components of each of them into this fic, so I hope you enjoy!
Happy Holidays and stay warm 💜
🎅🎄🎄🎅🎄🎄🎅🎄🎄🎅
Thank you Desi @herefortarlos for being an awesome beta reader and for answering all of my questions about NYC and then some 💜
Thank you @literateowl @laelipoo and @lemonlyman-dotcom for cheering us on and @carlos-in-glasses for coming through with the cunty Christmas song suggestion 😆
And finally thank you @tarlos-santa for organizing this event again this year! I always have so much fun participating 💜
Oh, I cannot remember if I sent you any prompts from that list, dalawa! How about #16, "Call me as soon as you get home." Maybe husband's era and overworked Carlos but TK had a rough shift and wants to hear his husband's voice but Carlos can't get home soon enough, so phone call for now? 🥲
Hi Desi! Thank you for your prompt (and the other one that I'm working on 👀) 💜 Here is some overworked and sad Carlos and TK who swoops in to protect his spirit from crumbling.
Prompt 16: "Call me as soon as you get home."
Canon Compliant
CW: Mentions of human trafficking (doesn't go into full detail)
There is something buzzing in the distance. Something rattling against the wood of his bedside table that echoes and crescendos in his eardrums until his only choice is to pull himself out of sleep.
He should be used to this, TK thinks are he blindly reaches out and grabs in the general direction of the noise. Jonah has been pretty good at sleeping through the night after six months of settling into the fourth home he's come to know in his mere three years. There are still the occassional nightmares and a few instances of wetting the bed, but they're working through it.
However despite being a light sleeper himself, there is a toll that taking care of a young child for most of the day that takes a toll on his body and makes it harder for him to be roused from sleep from anyone other than his little brother or his husband. Somehow he finds that he goes to bed more exhausted than he did when he was still pulling 24 hour shifts as a firefighter then paramedic.
He wouldn't have it any other way though, TK thinks as he brushes away one of Jonah's blue hot wheel cars and the preschool application form he has yet to fill out on the table to finally grab his phone. He opens his eyes just enough to swipe to accept the call and flops back onto his pillow.
"Hullo," TK groans into where he hopes is the speaker box, not bothering to check the caller ID, the edge of his pillowcase half in his mouth. The silence he's met with startles him especially when it ends with the quiet hitch of someone's breath.
"Carlos?" TK's heart drops. He immediatly unburies himself from his blanket cocoon to sit up in the empty bed. He still hasn't checked his caller ID, but there is only one person who would call him this late at night.
"Yeah," Carlos breathes over the line, voice crackling on the receiver. "Yeah it's me."
"Are you okay?" TK demands, one foot halfway to the floor as he tries to yank the rest of his body free from his three blankets. "Is Sam okay? Do I need to go to Ashlyn's and watch the kids?"
"No, no, we're all fine," Carlos murmurs with a hollow chuckle. "Sam's outside the truck making his own call."
There's something in his nonchalant tone that makes TK pause in recognition. "Baby, what's wrong?"
Carlos huffs out a breath that crackles brokenly over the line. "Nothing's wrong, TK."
"Hey, none of that." Carlos only ever calls him TK when something is on his mind. "Tell me."
"You— I— just—" He sighs heavily.
"We found them today. And it wasn't how we had had hoped." Carlos voice starts out level and trails off and crumbles until its made of nothing but dust.
"Oh…"
Carlos had been gone for the past three days on an assignment at a location he couldn't disclose to even him like he usually would over their late night debriefs over dinner when Jonah was fast asleep. All he knows is that the assignment involved a human trafficking ring that had sent the Rangers on a wild goose chase over the span of four months and that he and Sam were leading the ambush after managing to crack the case.
"There was—" Carlos swallows and can hear rustling and a dull thunk like he has pulled off his rangers hat and thrown it into the backseat of his truck. He pauses, unsure of how much he can disclose.
"One of them was a little boy and he— he reminded me so much of Jonah. He looked just like him." Carlos gasps into the phone like he cant quite get the words out fast enough. "And I couldn't— I can't— I wanted—"
TK shushes him as he stares at the closed screen door to their bedroom, where Jonah is presumably fast asleep on the other side. "It's okay baby, I get it."
"I just needed to hear your voice." Carlos explains even though he doesn't need to and TK hums wishing he could do more.
"Well," TK tries wrack his brain for something he can say to that, curling up on his side and hand reaching out towards the cold side of the bed until the warm from his touch bleeds through. "The two of us had sweet potato mac and cheese for the third time in a row this week for lunch, but today I stopped by the firehouse while Jonah was off at swim class. Marjan's replacement is settling in nicely since she's gone on parental leave, but they're still so shy according to Paul. Did you know they're only 19?"
TK continues on like this, rambling his mundane day away as Carlos listens. The heaviness of his breath and his one note answers soften into something more stable and like he's just a bit more solid and a little less like he's crumbling to pieces.
After TK finshes a story about Buttercup's new owners who he saw just yesterday and peters off into a yawn, Carlos finally breaks his silence.
"Thank you," Carlos murmurs into the dark. TK smiles into Carlos' pillow, where he has wormed his way over the longer his stories drew out.
"For what?" He asks with a small knowing laugh. Carlos laughs along too and the sound settles dislodges something in TK's heavy heart.
"I should go, it looks like Sam is finishing up too," Carlos says after a pause, hesitant like he wants it to be a lie even though it is not.
"Is it okay if you— Before you go can I—" TK waits patiently as Carlos stutters, struggling to sift through the words scrambled in his brain to communicate. "Is it okay if I see him? I just need to see that he's okay."
"Always, sweetheart."
TK pulls himself away from the last dregs of sleep that are dragging his eyes closed, tip-toeing across the room as he slowly rolls the door open. He peeks over the bookshelf partition, past the lego gundam that was a gift from Iris and the star lamp that Carlos had bought Jonah as a welcome home present that is sleepily projecting stars across the entire loft.
TK hangs up the call, video calling Carlos in the next second. A sleeping Jonah, red cheeked and starfished out on his racecar bed, safe and sound under his yellow bee printed blanket fills his phone screen.
"Can you kiss him good night for me?" Carlos whispers after a moment, voice thick.
"Of course baby," TK murmurs, brushing away a few wayward strands of chestnut hair away from Jonah's forehead before pressing a kiss there. He tucks his blanket further over his brothers shoulder before he turns to go, tapping on Carlos' face so that it fills the screen after he rolls the door shut. His lips are drawn, the bags under his eyes prominent, but there is a softness to his eyes that TK recognizes as one only he is privy to.
"Can I have one too?" TK tries to go for a smirk, but he knows his words come out embarrassingly longing instead.
"Tomorrow as soon as I get back," Carlos promises with a laugh just as longing.
"Call me as soon you get home," TK murmurs as he crawls back into Carlos' side of the bed, wrapping himself tightly into a semblance of warmth he hopes Carlos feels too.
Carlos raises and eyebrow. "But I won't be back home for another day."
TK snorts and tries not to roll his eyes. "Call me when you're back safe."
"I will." He says, eyes softening as TK's eyelashes start to flutter. He pauses and TK has to fight a bit more to keep them open. "Love you."
"I love you too," TK sighs into the darkness as his screen goes black, pulling his phone close to his ear as he closes his eyes.
As he lets sleep pulls him under he lets the quiet wash over him, listening for the sounds of Jonah, safe and sound, sleeping on the other side of the door he forgot the close and Carlos' phone call to signify he is safe as well.
Alt text in photo /// Quote— Translated lyrics from Even if the World Ends Tomorrow by SEVENTEEN
Even if the World Ends Tomorrow
Moodboard Time ~ The rules: Either: choose one of your published fics (or a WIP if you'd prefer), create a moodboard for it and share it along with a snippet. Or: Create a moodboard for your fave episode of the show, fave character, or a fic someone else has written that you love, and share it with some sentences about why it's a fave! (And tag people!)
Been thinking about this fic lately because of the astroid plot among other things so here is a moodboard and little snippet from the fic.
CW for Blood
From a short distance away, TK picks up sounds of a commotion happening amongst the rustling of the trees in the wind and the clucks of the chickens in the coop next door.
"Do you hear that?" TK murmurs, turning his ear towards the commotion. "That sounds like—"
“Clear the way!” TK recognizes Judd’s urgent bellowing almost instantly. His voice is coloured with so much fear TK feels his blood instantly run cold. Nancy's eyes are blown wide in surprise as the yelling continues.
"Help! We need help out here!"
The two medics don’t even spare a glance at each other before they spring into action.
Nancy flings open the back door to let Judd in, while Tommy bursts through the door from the next room where she's been holed up doing the backroom inventory. TK tucks the carts that he and Nancy have been working on out of the way and quickly wipes down the examination table of debris.
Judd bursts through the threshold in the next instant with Paul in tow, their foreheads wrinkled in worry as they struggle to hold up a familiar man between them.
The man has blood that has somewhat dried staining the left side of face, which doesn't seem too bad even from a distance away. The real danger seems to be his left thigh. It's wrapped in what appears to be a jean jacket, its blue hue darkened to black and slowly dripping stark red blood down his leg, leaving a crimson trail in its wake.
When Judd catches his gaze, his eyes are so full of guilt that it leaves TK breathless. His heavy heart sinks even more with dread even though he knows who they are carrying between them. He probably knew the moment Judd called out for help.
“TK,” Judd starts as they shuffle further into the room.
The small whimpers of the man between them draw his attention at the same time and cut his chest open like broken glass. The familiar face he kissed goodbye this morning lolls to the side against Paul's steady shoulder. He has blades of dried grass poking through his messy hair. His face is sweat stained and half covered in mud. His left eye is glued shut with dried blood. The one deep brown eye he can open is red rimmed as it locks onto his, terrified and pleading.
“Carlos,” TK gasps, trying to reign in a scream.
Open tag for all of you! And tags and thanks under the cut 💜
Thank you @carlos-in-glasses for thinking of this and tagging me as well as
Thank you Harley 💜 I completely missed how you mentioned husband's here, but I hope fiancé's are okay—
Carlos is ripped awake is a flurry of movement. He springs up with a gasp; blanket flying, chest heaving, limbs flailing, eyes darting around the room and unable to settle or see anything past the pitch black all around him as the nightmare he can barely remember now that his eyes are open flashes in his periphery. The more he can't remember, the more his heart begins to race, a scream building up alongside the overwhelming feeling of dread lodge alongside the lump in his throat that is rendering him speechless.
Suddenly a bedside lamp turns on, bathing his dark existence with a warm glow like an oasis of something his body is deprive of. However even as it bathes him in light, he can't seem to feel it against his skin. Like the warmth is a mirage so far away he won't ever be able to touch it.
Then there's a palm on his cheek, gentle fingers and an even gentler voice who's cadence is warm like a candle.
"Baby," TK murmurs beside him, a question on the tip of his tongue he already knows the answer to.
TK's eyes shine with concern that only makes the scream still lodged in Carlos throat taste sour with shame.
Carlos tries to say 'I'm fine', tries to reassure his fiancé that 'it's okay, I'm sorry for worrying you.' But even that lie isn't smooth enough to cut past everything he needs to let out instead. So he says nothing.
Luckily, TK seems to understand.
He pulls Carlos' head to his chest, letting him wrap his arms around his waist as he leans back into the headrest. Let's Carlos squeeze him tightly, quivering hands fisting the back of his shirt so hard Carlos can feel the fabric crack between his knuckles. TK doesn't protest being wrapped up this tightly by his fiance even as he feels a sudden warm dampness on the collar of his t-shirt.
"Was it them again?" he asks quietly. Them. His nightmares were always about them lately. A mother with a warped sense of loyalty and a son who could care no less about it if it meant another heart would stop beating.
Carlos can only nod shakily as he pulls him closer, eyes wide and unblinking. He only dares to close them long enough blink the tears away if only to keep his vision clear so the darkness still fresh in his mind doesn't make a home behind his closed eyes and stay the rest of the night.
He's tired, Carlos weeps into TK's sturdy hold. All he's done for this past week is rest and yet he still feels the exhaustion so deep in his bones they have become one with the marrow.
"It's okay," TK murmurs, kissing the still freshly healed scar along his temple where his hair still hasn't fully grown back. He pulls away from his fiance and holds Carlos' face in his palms, thumbs along his wet cheeks as he chases his wandering gaze until he catches it and pulls Carlos back to the present.
He places a kiss on his lips, pulling the scream right out of his mouth until all Carlos can feel is the rawness of his throat as his heart slows down a bit more.
"Let's stay like this for now" TK murmurs after one more kiss to Carlos' temple. He lays back down against TK's sturdy frame and breathes out, trying to let himself be reassured by the steady palm running up and down his back.
"They will not get to you," TK says with conviction as Carlos eyes finally flutter closed. "I promise."
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Thank you everyone who has tagged me in this! I actually have a master list of all of my fics pinned to my Tumblr so I'm not sure if I want to make another one 😅 However in lieu of that, here are five fics that are significant to me in that I tried something new or I think were an interesting point in my writing journey this year or just ones that I really enjoyed writing and am proud of the result—
Thank You for the Music: Particles // This may have been the start of the overly descriptive style I ended up doing (and enjoyed writing so much it stuck) this year. Regardless, there are a lot of lines I'm proud of in this one. And also this song is really good 👍🏻
Sugarpie, Honeybun // Tbh this one was just really fun to write and I'm just really proud of the results lol
In Watercolour // My first foray into a ship other than TK/Carlos also my first WLW so it is special to me in that regard 💜 Hopefully I can write more of this ship in the future! I just need some ideas 🤔
Dance me to the End of Love/ / I went on a song fic journey in this year and somehow this fic feels like the culmination of all of that lol
Where the Love Light Gleams // I haven't attempted to write a fic solely about a place I've never been before (and especially a place as grand and rich as NYC), but regardless I think it turned out well!
Fics I hope to finish in 2025 🤞🏻—
Let's Play: Mafia aka Let's Play Part III aka the Catan crew attempt to play games other than Catan
Honour Thy Father aka the Gabriel and Carlos fic aka Gabriel didn't die during the events of 4x18 and Carlos doesn't know what to do with that fic
The TNT fic aka BTHB: Barely conscious. TNT get into a car wreck and Tommy looks back on how much her team has grown from when they first met to now.
Actors in a fantasy show!AU. Carlos and TK are lovers in a fantasy show (and in real life) on their last day of shooting for their shows series finale (🥴). Carlos slips a bit too far into method acting and is having a hard time coming back.
Eat Your Young song fic — a sort of fantasy/fairy tale!au with slight BDSM themes. One of my goals next year is to attempt and finish a smut/kink fic of some kind 🫣
Some plot bunnies I hope will find a home or at least take a bit more shape in 2025—
Nude model!TK and Art Student!Carlos AU
Open mic singer!TK and Bartender!Carlos AU aka Homesick Hearts
Studio Ghibli!AU where TK is an artist who moves in next door to Carlos who is a farmer
W.I.T.C.H song fic aka a little ficlet featuring all of the leading ladies of LS as witches
Anyways, thank you to @herefortarlos @lightningboltreader @lemonlyman-dotcom and @kiwichaeng for beta reading and helping me with my writing this year as well as everyone who has read my fics 💜
IDK who hasn't done this yet, but this is an open tag for you! Under the cut are some more thank yous as well 💜
Thank you for tagging me @everlastingday @henrygrass @alrightbuckaroo @lemonlyman-dotcom
ohhhhh 14 from the protective dialogue prompts if it sparks joy? 🥺
Hi Miki! Sorry this took a minute. It ended up being way more involved that I planned on it being lol
Apocalypse!AU (not the same as the End of the World!AU)
Prompt: "Stay behind me"
CW: Injury, Depressive thoughts
"Stay behind me."
Carlos voice is sharp, halfway between a growl and a shaky command. TK can't see his face past the gauze over both of his eyes, but he can feel his distress through the hand that painfully grabs his upper arm before roughly jerking him to the right.
"Wait—" TK stutters as he grabs at air and trips on something in the rough concrete. He manages not to fall forward, finding his footing after his toes catch on something that clangs metallically and almost twists his ankle. His other foot finds purchase on something wet that splashes and burns his nose with the smell of something sharp and metallic.
"Carlos—" TK calls out when the urgent crunch of Carlos' footsteps move further and further away. He tries to step forward, arms outstretched to find the back of Carlos'shirt in his fist. Tries to chase Carlos even when he can't see the indent of his footprints in the ground.
He only has himself to blame for being a deadweight, TK thinks. It was his fault for not looking where he was going when he and Carlos were in a dead run through an old warehouse filled with broken wooden pallets whose splinters stuck out from every angle like spooked creature. It was is fault for not seeing the needle sharp piece of wood in level with his eyes as he tried to catch a glimpse behind himself. The sliver then slicing a line clean across his eyelids that he managed to close just in time as he turned back around.
He hasn't known Carlos for long. Time is something that is no longer pressing, but he's known for at least one season change now if the dying weeds that have found a way to grow amidst the concrete destruction all around them in anything to go by. Long enough that they've broken down in little ways in front of each other at least once and have clocked each other's wandering, burning eyes when they inevitably have to change in front of one another, but not long enough that they've stopped trying to hide their tears from each other under the cover of night.
In a lot of ways TK feels like a burden to him. Having only just moved from New York City before the world crumbled into pieces, he relies on Carlos to navigate the winding turns of an apocalyptic Austin where he was born and raised, trying to keep the shape broad back in front of him as to not fall behind. He knows he's valuable in his own way, his EMT training has come in handy more often than not, even at the expense of his own injuries. But this careless injury he knows has made him an even heavier burden to carry for Carlos who is probably better at this point to leave him behind.
When TK finally staggers and feels the cool bumpiness of weathered concrete under his outstretched fingers, he holds onto it like his refuge. He turns and places his back against the wall and slides all the way down heavily, landing on something hard, but not sharp that clangs and rings when he throws it aside.
It's long been silent. The creaks of something metal and groans from whatever shifts in the wind from the roof is over his head the only sign that the world is still turning around him.
He doesn't know where Carlos has run off to in that laser focused way that TK has come to know. When he gets tunnel vision so narrow TK can barely keep up with him when he isn't practically blindfolded. He doesn't even know why Carlos had grabbed him in the first place only to let go.
Maybe this is for the better. Maybe now that Carlos has lost him he can relieve himself of the burden that is himself and he can survive without the worry of leaving someone with such a pathetic disposition behind.
"TK!"
Carlos voice cuts through and echoes around the room until all TK can see in his dark existence is red. There is a frantic, erratic rhythm of footsteps like Carlos is swerving around corners when he reaches dead ends in this labyrinth of a space. When Carlos calls his name again, closer and voice a sigh of relief TK has half a mind to apologize for something he's not entirely sure of before Carlos beats him to the punch.
There are callous hands on his face and his arms, checking him for injury and warming him up all the same.
Since when had he grown so cold?
"Oh my god, oh my god—" Carlos mutters like a mantra. His hands come to rest against TK's neck as he drops his forehead onto TK's bent knees. "TK, I'm so sorry."
TK pulls his arms from around his legs and reaches out until he finds Carlos shoulders. They're shaking.
"It's okay," he says, thumbs drawing circles into the dips of his collar bones as tries to believe it. "I'm sorry for falling behind."
"TK t-that's— that's not—" Carlos lets out a wet sniff, his chest rising and falling rapidly against TK's hand. He drags one hand down so that his palm covers Carlos' racing heart and rubs a soothing rhythm into it until Carlos' breathing matches it. "Never apologize for that. I'm the one who left you behind."
"You can," TK wants to say. "Don't tell me it wouldn't be easier for you."
Instead, before TK can voice this out loud, Carlos takes his hand from against his chest and squeezes, stealing the breath right out of him.
He pats TK gently on the cheek until he tilts his head up and he swears he can see that small smile of his, warm like the sun despite the gauze.
"Let's go," he says, pulling TK up and holding onto him until he gets proper footing. Not once does he let go of his hand. "This time, stay beside me."
"This time," TK says under his breath as Carlos pulls him close, their footsteps in a tandem rhythm in the gravel. He feels the moment they leave the structure they were in, gravel turning into soft dirt. His skin is suddenly warm as the gentle breeze blows quietly and wraps around him. As he feels Carlos warm body next to his and wrapped around his hand and listens to his steady, breaths beside him he hopes that despite his heavy existence, 'this time' will last longer than this moment.
ooooh 3, 7, 9, 15 and 17 if that isn't too many? these are so cool 👀
From this list of word prompts
This one really got away from me 😅 But here you go Harley—
Some would say Carlos is a man of very few words. His expressions he cannot hide and his silence usually speaking bounds more than his voice ever will. Regardless of his heart on his sleeve and the inability for his big brown eyes to lie, he has a tendency to tamp down how he really feels, honed from years of hiding pieces of himself in shame and bending over backwards to always say the right thing in the name of respect for his elders.
He's quiet in more ways than one. Quiet laughter muffled behind pursed lips and a palm clamped over his mouth. Quiet sobs in the dead of night, stifled by not daring to take a full breath in, desperately controling every intake of air until that felt like drowing in and of itself. But quiet is not always silence in that there is still a bit of sound to be heard and witnessed, a signal of life and a soul behind a body that is otherwise still.
So while there are a lot of thing about Carlos that are quiet, it is his anger thay is the one thing about him that is silent. His anger, that simmers and boils and builds and builds and builds from the pit of his stomach until it overflows, burning all the up his throat. His anger that engulfs him from the inside out like a forest fire when it grows out of control. Anger that morphs into fury, that is still silent all the way out his throat even when he can't do anything but bare down and scream.
There is a lot Carlos will tamp down even when he's at the verge of overflowing in the name of respect and loyalty and love. But none of that exists here in front of this headstone that he has happened to come across, still shining new in all its glory like its mocking him and inviting his silence that he had been forced into since this persons death. But he wont let it, not here. Not here, six months after he found his fathers murderer and theres still an empty pit in the bottom of his stomach at threatens to consume him whole in the fear of night, when his hes surrounded by his family and he his heart has never felt so full.
Fury like this doesn't deserve the silence it's been forced into.
"I trusted you," Carlos spits, trembling hands closing into fists like hes trying to hold on to even the tiniest semblance of control that feels as thin as a gossomer thread.
Alan Bridges embossed in black leaden script shining back up at him in the crisp spring morning is the only answer he gets.
"I grieved with you, I cried to you, my mother thanked you for investigating my fathers case ar his funeral," Carlos chokes, his hand goes up to his chest as he grips the Ranger star pinned atop his heart, fighting to get the words out from where they’ve been lodged in his throat for so long. "I confided in you, you took me under your wing, and for what? To cover your bare ass and use me as a shield in the name of fucking money?"
Carlos is trembling so hard his legs can no longer take his weight and he falls. Grass threads through his fingers and he grips it in his white knuckled fists, his knees slamming against the soft Earth that sends a shooting pain all the way up to the hole in the centre of his heart.
He looks towards the fresh flowers in the vase beside the grave, sunny yellow roses clashing with the bronze metal that engulfs it. There's a card along the bottom, still intact despite the rain last night, lopsided stick figures with lopsided grins, a sickly yellow halo atop one of their heads. A barely legibile "I mis you granpa" is scrawled in red crayon across the top.
Carlos stares into the red until it is all he can see.
"You will never know how much you took from me. And I know even after death, you will always keep taking even when my body is empty and I have nothing left to give." A future with his father in it, to talk to, to rebuild relationship that Carlos thought was only made of dust only to discover the box of all of the memories he pushed away underneath it. All he had to do was brush the dust away and open it. A future where he could ask his father for his advice; how to be a ranger, how to be a husband, how to be a father.
Carlos shakes his head, biting his lip so hard he can taste the iron on the tip of his tongue that mixes with the ire and the bitterness at the back of his throat. He glares into the vast expanse of the headstone hoping for something to given to him in return. Closure? Justice? Some kind of sign? Something to fill the void that has remained ever since his father's murder case has been closed.
"But even so, there is one thing that you can try to take from me, that I will never give." He feels righteous when he says it, even when he knows its not much. But it feels like something past the numbness as he chokes it out, hand clutching the cross against his chest that burns like a brand against his palm. "And that is my forgiveness."
Carlos may had grown up Catholic and had been told again and again that God forgives all sins and he should strive to be just like God. But Carlos isn't God, nothing about him is divine, perfect or worthy. There is nothing humble about him as he goes to stand on shaking legs.
His fists are still shaking in silent fury as it rages around him, but he feels lighter somehow that he's let some of it live outside his own heart. He looks down at the grave, all pity and loathing and grief that will always knaw him up inside, but still triumphant. He is still standing on this Earth after all and not six feet under with a weight heavier than dirt keeping him down.
"So for that, even after all of that, I hope you rot in hell," he spits like a final goodbye. He turns on his heel, away from this grave with the sickly green flowers and the remnants of a family will never truly know how much his man has taken from him. As he walks past the rows and rows of graves, past dying flowers and waterlogged pieces if paper, and headstones that no longer shines he makes a promise to the morning dew that shines like shooting stars in the dawn. He promises with all of his heart and the silent anger that courses through his veins that he will never let this man take anything from him ever again.
"Because God willing," Carlos says up to the empty blue Austin sky. "I will never forgive you."
