Beck Katz-The trouble of Carlos

*This story is under my folder titled “The trouble of Carlos”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. There’s one mild curse word in this story. Other than that…enjoy!*

There once was a thirteen year old boy named Beck Katz whose father owned an antique store. But for the first time that summer, he was letting Beck work at the register. It wasn’t that hard, he just had to count the money and put it in the machine. He really could do without the interactions, though. His parents said it was good for him to learn how to “communicate with people”, but really, it just felt like they were forcefully trying to pull strings of words from his mouth.

Yet it was on the third day of his job that Beck saw him. The boy with the choppy black hair and the dim green eyes. The boy who lost his family to a car accident on Halloween night when he was twelve years old, who had to live with his Grandparents ever since then.

Carlos Bardot was his name. He had the look of someone who had seen many horrors, someone who had grown used to all that was creepy, someone who had adapted to the monstrosities. Almost as if he were a vampire, haunted by the past, but at least having the flawless face of an angel.

Beck almost reached up to fumble with his nose ring, a nervous habit that he did, but he kept looking at the cash register, focusing on calculating how much it would take for Carlos to pay for the jewelry-making kit he put on the counter. He just had to ring it up for Carlos, but he couldn’t help but think that he had to say something caring, something that would show Carlos that he was a good person, anything other than how much the jewelry box cost and so he said:

“Sorry about your family.”

One couldn’t go wrong with that, right? He was genuinely sorry that Carlos’s family died, maybe if he said his condolences, that would bring them closer together. It was a right way to start a conversation, was it not?

“Everyone is sorry about what happened to my family, but it’s not like they’re going to magically come back to life with the word “sorry”.” Carlos snapped, his voice knife-tipped and jagged.

Beck immediately felt a flood of guilt rush inside of him. Why did he even say something like that? He shouldn’t have mentioned anything about Carlos’s family at all. He didn’t understand anything about Carlos’s situation, so he should have kept quiet about it. The only thing left to do at the moment was apologize and hope for the best.

“I-of course, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad by it, I was just…I’ll stop talking now.” Beck said. He tried to focus on counting up the price of the jewelry-making kit, but he couldn’t help but rethink the moment over and over in his mind, wishing that he didn’t mess up the chance he had to get to know the vampish, ghost-like boy, every aspect of him the pinnacle of Halloween dreams and screams.

“I put the money on the table, so you can uh…you can put it in the register now.” Carlos said in an albeit nervous tone.

Beck blinked, surprised that Carlos was even nervous to begin with, but even more so surprised that he put down the money so fast. Beck didn’t know if the money was enough, but he also didn’t want Carlos to pay for more than what he had, so Beck put the money in the cash register, not asking any further questions.

“I’ve never seen you around here or in school before, Beck.” Carlos remarked, all hostility having slipped away from his voice.

It instead sounded curious, even a little sweet, if Beck was hopeful enough. Beck felt his anxiety ease away and then he said:

“I actually go to the same school as you, but I guess you don’t remember. That’s fine. There’s a lot of people at school anyway. Too many faces to count. As for the other thing, my father thought I was finally old enough to work here over the summer.”

He looked up at Carlos right then and there, right into his swamp green eyes and then, he thought of what Carlos really said, about him being “around”. Did that mean that Carlos was a regular to the antique shop? Did that mean that they could potentially have a connection with one another?

There was only one way to find out.

“Did you say “around here”? Do you come here regularly?” Beck asked, hoping that he wasn’t bothering Carlos like he did before.

A hint of a smile flickered on Carlos’s face, making his face glow just like a ghost’s. Beck didn’t know if Carlos smiled a lot, but he certainly would love to see more of it, for it completed Carlos’s face.

“Yes, I do. I like it here, you’ve got a bunch of cool stuff…do you like working here?” Carlos asked, his tone still lightly inquisitive.

How would Beck be able to answer that? He liked working at the antique store, yes, but it was only his third day, not his whole life. Would he be able to accurately portray how he felt about working there?

“I mean, this is only my third day here, so I couldn’t tell you, but yeah…I like working here.” Beck said. That was specific enough. That was good enough.

“You’re going to be working here all summer?” Carlos asked, a spark of interest in his eyes.

Maybe Carlos was just asking a question, but it sure did feel nice to know that he cared when Beck would be working. They might have been able to get close to each other after all.

“Yes, I am. Why do you ask?” Beck asked, fighting the urge to grin stupidly, to not seem too happy.

“I was just hoping to see you around.” Carlos said, no hint of a smile, but full on glowing, his murky green eyes seeming brighter than before.

He then left with the jewelry box, leaving Beck with a pounding heart and another customer.

……………………………………………………………………………………

The months had passed by, Carlos and Beck met up with each other in the summer, watching an obscure 90’s Halloween show called “Gaunt Ghouls” either in Beck’s room or Carlos’ basement, getting closer and closer with their shared love of Halloween and old, abandoned things. Carlos sometimes made Beck bracelets, beautiful, gumball-bead bracelets that Beck cherished. Dad wanted Beck to focus on his job, Mom was glad that he found love.

Beck and Carlos were only friends, but Beck decided that he’d try to reveal more of his feelings one night on August 15th, when they were in Carlos’s basement, watching Gaunt Ghouls, Carlos’s head on his lap, Beck twirling strands of his hair.

“You know, you’re really…really cool.” Beck said, for cool seemed to be the only word that he could come up with at the moment.

Carlos didn’t say anything, just stared at the TV. Beck could feel more and more things he wanted to say to Carlos come up, so he just had to let it out:

“You’re such a fun and nice person to be around, I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want to be around you. When you talk to me about Gaunt Ghouls your whole face lights up like a Jack-O-Lantern! I don’t know if you realize it, but you look so glum most of the time that it just warms my heart to see you smile. Then, when you make me your bracelets they’re always the brightest and wackiest I’ve ever seen, but Carlos…that’s what makes you so wonderfully you. You’re not like any other person I’ve ever come across. You listen. You care. You’re different and that’s what is special about you.”

Carlos then sat up from Beck’s lap, his eyes wide with shock, but holding a flicker of happiness within them. Well, at least Beck hoped that the spark in Carlos’s eyes was happiness, he wasn’t quite sure. The best thing he could was speak just to get further confirmation.

“I’ve never dated anyone before. I’ve never kissed anyone before. I’ve never met anyone I’ve really clicked with before. It sounds corny to say it out loud, I know, but I click with you. You get me and I get you, it’s so strong that I don’t…I don’t want to just be your friend. Carlos, do you…do you want to kiss me? To be my boyfriend? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I’ll live with just being your friend, I-“

Beck didn’t get very far, for Carlos had kissed him, wrapping both arms around his body as if he were afraid that Beck would fade away and so, Beck found that just like when they first met, all of his worries withered away, the TV a comforting background noise, nothing but the two of them in what hopefully last forevermore.

Beck hadn’t messed up.

……………………………………………………………………………………

From that day on, Beck and Carlos were dating, even well off into the school year, with Carlos leaving Beck handmade jewelry and letters in his locker like:

“To the half of my heart, Beck Katz-

I miss all the summer nights when we would lie together on the couch and watch Gaunt Ghouls. With you, every day feels like Halloween. All of this schoolwork doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things, because what will this do to help us in the future? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The only purpose of this homework is to drain us of our happiness, our joy. Adults give it out to us so we can become as miserable as them. But we won’t be miserable! We’ll keep our spirits high up with fanciful frights, we’ll make every time we meet like Halloween night. I can’t wait to run my hands through your autumn-leaf hair, to lace my fingers with your long, spidery ones, to kiss your cinnamon lips. I can’t wait to spend more time with you. Promise me that we’ll never break up, that we’ll marry each other when we grow up, that we’ll give each other droplets of our blood to put in bottles and keep close to our hearts, because this is the best I’ve ever felt in a long time and there’s so many things about you that I love that I cannot put into words. Being in love is such an amazing feeling, wouldn’t you agree?

P.S: I think we should be vampires for Halloween. We’d look pretty sick (in a good way) as them.

-From the half of your heart, Carlos Bardot.”

The jewelry was nice enough, but for some reason, Beck always got worried whenever Carlos gave him letters, as though he were depending on Beck to marry him in the future and Beck just wasn’t sure how long it would last, if they would get to stay together. He wanted it to happen, but he didn’t want Carlos’s hopes to go up, so he’d tell Carlos not to worry about the future so much.

Carlos kept sending him the jewelry and letters, but then, the letters started to grow more unsettling, almost too surreal to be real, one of them reading as:

“To the half of my heart, Beck Katz-

I couldn’t have asked for a better boyfriend than you. You understand my dark and my doom. More than that, you accept it and see it for the haunting glow that it truly is. I sometimes wish that I could slice open your chest with a silver shining knife and take your bleeding red heart, then do the same thing to myself and sew the hearts together with string, so that our hearts may beat together forevermore. Of course, I probably wouldn’t live to sew our hearts together, because I would be dead, but maybe my ghost would. Do you believe in the afterlife, Beck? I think you do. Sometimes, I wish that we were both dead so that we would both be young forever, so that we’ll never be separated, and so we can see all the wonderful things that the afterlife have to offer. I bet it’s every bit as frightening and fantastical as the more ghost-centered episodes of “Gaunt Ghouls” say. I only write this because my Grandparents wouldn’t understand. Only you would.

I love you so, so much that sometimes it hurts to go on with the mundanity of life.

-From the half of your heart, Carlos Bardot.”

The letter was both sick and saddening, for it made Beck question if Carlos was truly okay. Beck wanted to help, but wasn’t sure if he knew where to begin. He also didn’t want to hear more about how they “deserved to be attached to one another”, because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

But since Beck did not know what to do, he said nothing of it to Carlos, so he kept sending Beck more of those kinds of letters, each with different words, but still meaning the same thing.

Beck had to remind himself that Carlos was being nice and that it would be wrong of him to hurt Carlos’ feelings, even if the letters had become strange.

Wasn’t love supposed to be strange? That was what Gaunt Ghouls said about their vampire couple, Lady Nisha and Lord Abbadon?

……………………………………………………………………………………

Carlos started to leave more than letters out for Beck. He also left dead animals for Beck, claiming that dead animals would be a symbol of how “deep” their love was, but Beck didn’t like the smell of rot in his locker. He felt bad about talking about it with Carlos, though, because Carlos was clearly excited about it, so he talked about it with his parents. They both told him to “do what he felt was right” but Beck wasn’t sure if he knew what was the “right” thing to do.

That was, until October 15th, when Carlos left behind a dead bird in his locker with a pale blue ribbon attached around its neck, a note with it saying that it “matched Beck’s eyes”. Beck hadn’t been able to get the image of its uncannily still body and wide, glassy eyes out of his mind and it was when he was walking back to his home with Carlos at the end of the day, Carlos’s hand holding onto his arm, that Beck knew what had to be done.

“I think we should take a break from each other.” Beck said, yanking his arm away from Carlos.

Maybe he yanked away too hard, because Carlos had stopped, a look of pure, electric-shock horror on his face, then uttered in a tone that sounded like a creaking house that would break at the slightest touch:

“You’re breaking up with me?”

Beck sighed, reaching over to scratch the back of his head, looking down at his feet. He was starting to regret ever saying anything at all, but he couldn’t back down. Carlos didn’t understand, so Beck would explain it to him until he did, then everything would be fine again!

“I’m not saying that we should “break up”, I’m just saying that we need to…take a break from each other. Just for a little bit. There’s so much schoolwork and things going on now and…and I think that you need to…I think you need to spend some time with yourself. You know, like find yourself.” Beck said, throwing his head back and letting the hand that was scratching his hair fall to his side. He couldn’t face Carlos, not when there was such unease between the two of them.

“What do you mean “find myself”? I thought you said that you liked me the way I am! I thought you said that what makes me different is what makes me special and now…now you want to break up? Didn’t you say before that our love was so strong that you didn’t just want to be my friend? Why are you changing your mind right now?”

Beck didn’t expect Carlos to get such a reaction. He knew that Carlos wouldn’t be happy, but with his voice cracking to almost tears, Beck felt his heart breaking to pieces inside of him, voices in his head screaming at him for making the “wrong choice”.

“I’m not changing my mind, Carlos. You’re not listening to me. I think you need time to find yourself, because while I do like you for being different, you can be a bit…much. Like, your letters were romantic at first, but then you started talking more in depth about us giving each our organs and blood. I tried not to think too much about it, but you wouldn’t stop calling me “the half of your heart” and giving me dead animals…it’s just creepy, Carlos. It creeps me out. I know you mean well by it, but I really think that if we spent some time apart and you spent time thinking things over, then we can get back together. I think that’s pretty fair, don’t you?” Beck said, finally looking up to meet Carlos’s face, his dim green eyes watery with tears.

“Creepy?! Creepy?! The letters and the animals are how much I love you! It’s how I express myself! I thought that we were both going to be weird together and now you want to break up?! And don’t come at me with your “taking a break” crap, you’re just telling me that we’re breaking up without saying that we’re breaking up! I was having a good time with you a few minutes ago and then, out of nowhere, you say that we’re “taking a break”. Taking a break my a-“

“Carlos. Calm down. It’s not the end of the world. I just think it’s better for the both of us that we take a break. That’s all. You want a tissue? I think I have some in my pocket.” Beck said. He fumbled for a tissue in his pocket, desperate to stop Carlos’s tears, for his words had managed to hurt Carlos more than he intended, so he had to fix it, give him a tissue, just-

“No.” Carlos seethed, his tone set in sorrowful anger.

“Are you sure? You-“

“Please go away.” Carlos said, his tears having dried from his face, glaring at Beck as though he wanted to burn Beck’s flesh.

He tried thinking of ways to fix it, ways to make Carlos feel better, but nothing came up in his mind, so he left Carlos alone, Beck’s heart feeling all too heavy in his chest.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Later that night, Beck turned on the TV in his room, hoping that episodes of Gaunt Ghouls would make him feel better.

It did for a little bit, but then he started to think about how he and Carlos used to watch it together, how it felt like Beck was the only person in the world with his slightly muffled TV in his dark room, then the tears slid from his eyes as he thought of how he made Carlos cry.

As the days went on, Beck tried his best to not worry about it, because his parents said that it was “okay” and that “break-ups are supposed to happen”, but every time he passed Carlos in the hallways, he couldn’t help but miss when he got odd things in his locker from Carlos, wondering why he had even thought that “taking a break” would be a good idea, until the day before Halloween came and Beck opened his locker to find:

“To Beck-

I’m sorry for the outburst I had on Wednesday. I’ve had some things to think about and I really want to apologize properly. I think we can be friends if you want. I think we could be more too if you want that, but don’t do it if it’s too much pressure. I just want to really say that I’m sorry. I’m going to wait outside the front of the school tomorrow if you want to talk. If not, then let me know.

-From Carlos”

Beck couldn’t believe his very eyes when he saw the letter! Carlos wanted to patch things up! Carlos wanted to talk to him! There was a chance of hope for the two of them and Beck couldn’t wait until that fateful holiday came along.

On October 31st, after the school day had ended, Beck met up with Carlos at the front of the school, him in an itching scarecrow costume, Carlos in an elegant vampire costume, as wonderfully woeful as the day they first spoke to one another in the summer.

“Hey, Carlos.” Beck said, at a loss of words on what to say next.

“Hi, Beck. I’m sorry about everything I said. You want to watch an episode of Gaunt Ghouls at my house?” Carlos beamed, his green, tearless eyes glittering with buoyancy.

“I’d love to.” Beck said, ready for all the awful tension to seep away so that they could spend time together properly, with pure happiness.

Carlos took Beck’s hand and off they went.

……………………………………………………………………………………

“I know I said we’d get to my house, but I found this really neat shed in the woods and I just had to show you!” Carlos said, finally letting go of Beck’s hand and shoving him into a shed.

Carlos had said that they were going to his house, but they went in a completely different direction than his house and then, they were in the woods, Carlos holding onto Beck’s hand so tightly that when Beck struggled to break free, Carlos would squeeze his hand, hard, so much so that Beck worried that his veins would bleed out of his hand if he continued to try running away, until they had stopped in front of a shed painted white with pink flowers, the inside dingy and colorless, full of dust-ridden garden tools and creaky floorboards.

“What is this place?” Beck asked, his heart racing with banshee-screech panic, hoping that Carlos had a good enough reason to take him there.

“When I was six and my sister Casey was ten, we got too far in the woods during a family hike and we found this place. We didn’t know why the shed was here, but Casey thought of it as a dollhouse, even with how intimidating it looks on the inside. Wasn’t that nice of her? To see it as a dollhouse despite how much disrepair it’s in? Don’t you think that way about me?” Carlos asked in a pleasant tone that had a bit of an aggressive bite to it.

He heard Carlos grab something heavy off the ground dragging on the floorboards. He wasn’t sure what it was or why Carlos grabbed it, but the feeling of dread crept up faster and faster in Beck, so he felt that he had to say something before things began to go awry.

“Carlos, I-“

Beck did not get to finish his sentence, for he felt something banging against his skull and the floor rushing to meet him up, one thought in the swimming darkness of his mind being:

Did Carlos do this?