take it how you want it (take on my love) // carmuel one-shots

only fools rush in

A/N: so sorry for the wait! if you're on ao3, then you probably know that i've been working on a separate carmuel multichapter fic for the past month. it's finished now (at 60k+ words) but as of right now i don't think i'm going to post it here. of course i do encourage you to go over to ao3 and read it it as a shameless plug of my own work but fkdjjfjd

description: samuel finding a positive pregnancy test and then proceeding to be a loveable dumbass for around eight thousand words

rating: mature

//

They're not that couple that believes in silly notions like women are the ones who cook and men are the ones who take out the trash. Sure, before they got together Carla had never done either of those things in her entire life thanks to growing up with a maid, but Samuel thinks she's acclimated well to the whole fending-for-yourself thing.

At least, on a practical level. If what they went through at Las Encinas is anything to go by (and it definitely is), Carla is nothing but a survivor.

Anyway, the notion still stands that they don't think chores necessarily come with a required gender to perform. Samuel only finds himself taking the trash out right now because he's home from work early, Carla's still out with Rebe, Lu, Cayetana, and Nadia, and it needs to be done before either of them forget.

He walks around the house with a giant garbage bag, searching for spare trash if there just so happens to be any lying about (there isn't—Carla's a neat freak), and dumping the smaller bins in their office and bedroom into it. It's a standard-enough, if not everyone's favorite, habit. He's done this hundreds of times before. So when he gets to their bathroom, he reaches down for the little basket containing used Kleenex, makeup wipes, and other random toiletry-related stuff without giving it much of a second thought.

But then he sees something poking out of the top of the heap, and Samuel pauses. It's something skinny, white, and plastic; sort of looks like one of those disposable thermometers. A slight frown forms between his eyebrows. Carla hadn't mentioned anything about feeling sick.

He doesn't know what possesses him to reach down and pull out the thing. Natural curiosity? No, natural stupidity, maybe.

In the future, Carla will tell him it's definitely the latter. Samuel will have no choice but to agree, honestly, although right now he can't bring himself to do anything else but gape at the plastic stick pinched between his fingers.

It's decidedly, without a doubt, not a thermometer.

It's a pregnancy test.

A positive pregnancy test.

Samuel has watched television. He's taken the mandatory health classes in high school. He's had the awkward talk with his mom, for crying out loud, so that's what those two lines staring back at him mean, right? Positive. With child. Pregnant.

Carla's pregnant—with his kid. Obviously.

His thoughts continue in this choppy, nonsensical pattern as his feet drag him out of the bathroom and all the way to the living room of their own accord, because he's certainly not paying any attention to where he's going. It's a wonder he doesn't knock into any errant furniture, but as he plops down on the couch, he does blink. Again, not by will, but out of necessity—his body is simply overriding his brain, because it's altogether stopped working.

Carla's pregnant. Carla's pregnant. Carla's pregnant.

He sits there and stares at the stick. When did she take this? How did he not notice it sitting in the trash before? How long has it been; a week, a day?