Oh my god.
This is totally self indulgent and totally for thewayudoitt . It's Carlos Pena/Alex Deleon because apparently she broke me and now I like this pairing.
They're constantly doing things that are strange, broken half towards sanity and the other towards the wild reclusive hermit lifestyle that their friends promote; pizza and video games until the source of light is blue screens through sore eyelids.
They'll spend an entire afternoon swapping stories about tour shenanigans, fans that slipped past security (and ones that didn't), Warped Tour sunburns and arena parking lots the blister under sweltering heat, and then spend hours not saying a word instead choosing to communicate through the gentle sound of skin on skin and the quiet, woosh, as Singer runs his fingers through Carlos' hair and tugs.
Singer writes Myspace-esque lyrics, city stars, your tanned skin, backseats of cars, that will never see his online blog yet alone an album, but somehow always manage to wedge themselves between the lines of Carlos' favorite book in time for Singer to be back at his apartment and Carlos alone in his, nothing but a stop leaving me mssgs u goobr, to let each other know they've been found.
Carlos buys Singer oversized sunglasses (and listens to him babble on about solar flares and sunspores and earth's distance from the sun) that cover his eyes and sometimes the hinges will catch in his beachsaltyhair and Carlos will have to pull over to extricate him from them (the faint wails of a dying cat come to mind).
Carlos doesn't know how Singer toppled into his life; he brought with him horrible humor and nerdy references to everything, but most of all a deep seated need to express himself at any cost, and a heart wide enough to hold a million and one persons, each remarkably special to Singer himself.
Carlos in turn, to Singer, is essentially the Bones to his Kirk (without the doctorate and with a lot more wrists pinned against drywall, deep bruising kisses when he really has to go, Carlos, jeeze.)
Singer drags him to West Hollywood to try on clothes, and finds a denim jacket at one of the holeinthewall places. He juts a hip and asks, voice deepening to fit the part, "How do I look, Papi?"
Carlos grins back, ducks low to tuck a finger inside his waistband. "You're lookin' mighty fine there, Ponyboy."
They're both laughing too hard to say goodbye to the shopkeeper, who was nice enough to not notice when Singer swiped a music note button from the discount rack.
On the ride home Singer rolls down the window and crosses his arms over the ledge (he'll have lines there from the lack of circulation, later), ridiculous sunglasses pushed back on top of his beanie as he updates his twitter, and Carlos raises an eyebrow but ignores it in favor of sticking his fingers under Singer's arms until he screeches and flails wildly.
Later when Singer isn't so demanding, laying sprawled over Carlos with his face pressed against his neck, Carlos will check his twitter to see "alexanderdeleon: papi/ponyboy should have been more centric" and he laughs until Alex startles awake and jabs him in the ribs.
Singer thinks of being a starstruck kid in Vegas, home of The Killers, home of Panic! At The Disco, so many other blips on the radar of the music scene; thinks of being pubertysad and not having ever been told that love didn't mean handing absolutely everything over, that self-preservation was key and not selfish.
He will get unbelievably sad for no reason and part of Carlos wants to be a coward, stay in the other room, go outside, something that isn't being in this space with Singer when he knows he can't do anything about it, but he knows when he walks in and Singer doesn't look up, just sits with a sad smile, (a I know, haha, me sad again right?) that he'll be pulling a Fall Out Boy discography all nighter.
Carlos says to him, "Remember the quote from The Jungle Book? "Well, if I am a man, a man I must become."?"
And Alex says cautiously, startled out of his thinking, "I don't remember that from the movie."
"Not the movie. The book. Everyone assumes Mowgli said it meaning it was something he had to do. I don't think that's what he meant."
Alex was quiet for a long time. Carlos almost thought he'd fallen asleep, and somewhere in the background the track switches over an Etta James warbles out Something told me it was over. Carlos rolls over to face Alex, ducks so that the covers come up higher.
"Hey." He says softly, waits until Alex finally looks up, and smiles softly. "No one's forcing you to grow up, baby."
Alex looks thrown, looks like he wants to cry, looks like he wants to just go to sleep for a very long while. Instead he says very quietly, "Thanks Bagheera."
"Bagheera was a girl in the book, Alex."
Alex snorts, hides under the covers until Carlos can only see the edge of his mischievous smile, knows Carlos wouldn't dare attack him when he's still shaken up, "Well, you have the ass for it, Shorty."
Carlos thinks of Donnie Darko,
thinks some people are just born with tragedy in their blood.
thinks I wouldn't have you any other way.