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Since he and Carlos had started dating TK had realized a few things about his boyfriend. First of all, Carlos was bilingual but mostly spoke English. Almost no one outside of his family spoke Spanish so it was much easier. But TK had noticed a few situations where Carlos put his fluency to use, when he was frustrated and around his family.
*****
Carlos was not an easily frustrated person. He was normally calm and level headed, much more so than TK, and handled stressful situations with a gentle authority that Tk wished he could replicate.
However, over the course of their relationship, TK had figured out a few signs that Carlos was giving in to his frustration.
It started with him cracking his knuckles. It was an innocent enough gesture, something most people did multiple times a day, but when Carlos was frustrated it was constant. He would move his thumb up and down the knuckles of his hands until they physically could not pop anymore.
After a few months of dating, TK picked up on it as a stress tick and when it started to happen he would intervene, grabbing Carlos’ hands and making him take a pause.
The second sign was putting things down more forcefully than normal. TK constantly slammed things on to tables and bumped into walls, partially from his clumsiness and partially from the rushed way he did everything. But Carlos was slow and methodical, gently setting his cup on a coaster or opening and shutting doors quietly. Except for when he was frustrated. TK could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Carlos well and truly mad in their few years of dating and one of those times Carlos had slammed a coffee cup down so hard that it had broken all the way up one side.
The final stages of Carlos getting frustrated included murmured words and swears, most of the time in Spanish. TK had to assume because he didn’t speak the language but the words and phrases sounded a lot like swearing to him.
Usually, when Carlos made it to the cursing stages, TK took a step back and let him cool off before trying to do anything about it. He wasn’t afraid of Carlos when he was mad or upset, he just knew it was easier for Carlos to calm down in his own space.
*****
TK loved Carlos’ family, it was impossible not to. His sisters were angels, though Carlos disagreed, his mother was the sweetest woman TK had ever met, and his father, though he was a man of few words, treated TK like another son.
There was only one issue TK had, when they went to visit Carlos’ family, he couldn’t understand half of what they were saying.
It wasn’t their fault, and TK wasn’t necessarily annoyed by it, it was just slightly inconvenient.
Carlos’ parents were both native Spanish speakers, so they had raised their five children in a bilingual household. Carlos and his sisters had grown up speaking both Spanish and English at home so of course, they were fluent.
Usually, Carlos would translate for him and when his family realized what was going on, they would speak English for his benefit. TK felt bad about it and on his last visit with them, he had decided to try to learn Spanish.
*****
Learning Spanish was much harder than TK thought. Verb tenses were not his strong suit and the little green owl from hell thought it was funny to teach him very obscure phrases instead of things he would normally use in a conversation. Not to mention the million notifications he got over the course of his day.
The asshole of an owl was the reason Carlos found out about his extracurriculars. Little bastard.
Carlos had invited him over to make dinner and have a relaxing night in. Except TK’s phone wouldn’t stop going off.
“You’re popular tonight,” Carlos chuckled after the ninth notification in five minutes.
“It’s nothing,” TK said, glancing down at his phone and putting it face down on the counter. “Just random apps.”
“I told you to stop turning on notifications for every app. No wonder your phone is always dead.”
“Speaking of which, can I borrow your charger?” TK asked sweetly.
“Sure babe,” Carlos picked up TK’s phone and moved it to the other counter, plugging it into the wall.
TK didn’t think much of it until Carlos laughed.
“Duolingo huh?”
“You uh, you weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Were you trying to learn Spanish?”
“Yeah, I was. I always feel bad when I’m around your family and they have to speak English for me. I wanted to be able to have conversations with them.”
“That’s really sweet TK.”
“Yeah, you think that. Except I’m failing miserably.”
“What do you mean?”
“Spanish is hard,” TK whined. “I don’t understand the verbs and this stupid app wants me to learn stuff that I doubt I’ll ever say.”
“Yeah, these apps like to do that. What didn’t you ask me to teach you?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” Carlos wrapped his arms around TK’s shoulders. “But if you really want to learn, let me teach you from now on.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Now I can delete that stupid fucking owl off of my phone.”