Chapter Text
El Conejito
“Is it Bunny Day?”
It started a week ago. During a Catan Crew family dinner when Paul casually asked what everyone was doing for the Super Bowl, offhandedly mentioning that Bad Bunny was going to be the halftime performer. Despite not knowing what the Super Bowl was, or a halftime, or even what a performance actually meant, Jonah’s ears immediately perked up.
“Ba’ Bunny!” he exclaimed, raising a triumphant hand above his head, his enthusiasm coming with the unfortunate side effect of causing a pile of cheese-covered noodles to fling from the fork clinched in his fist and arc across the table like it had been shot from an orange, slimy catapult. They landed in front of Marjan with a wet splat.
“That’s right, baby,” TK responded fondly, shooting Marjan a cheeky look like he couldn’t decide if he was apologetic or amused. She just shrugged, already reaching for a napkin to wipe the noodles up. “Bad Bunny is your favorite, isn’t he? He’s gonna be on the big TV.”
“Today?” Jonah asked hopefully.
“Nah, little man,” Paul chimed in, leaning back in his hair and holding up two fingers. “You gotta wait two more weeks.”
Jonah’s whole body deflated, a tiny frown crossing his face like he’d been deeply wronged.
“That’s too many weeks.”
Every day since that night, it’s been Bad Bunny twenty-four seven. Each morning starts with the same question, always asked with the same hopeful certainty.
“Is today Bunny day?”
And then comes the follow-up. Always in the form of an endless, earnest stream of Bad Bunny-related questions:
“Will Ba’ Bunny be on everyone’s TV, or just ours?”
“Is he a big bunny or a small bunny?”
“But, is he good bunny too?”
“Can he see me through the TV?”
“Does Ba’ Bunny come every year?”
TK and Carlos have been doing their best to answer all of his questions with care. They love that he loves music the way that he does, without restraint. With his whole body and his whole heart. They love the way a song can cause him to light up, how he always dances when he hears music, no matter the time or the place. From the backseat of the car to the middle of the grocery store, where Carlos is constantly fighting to keep him in the shopping cart seat. Jonah always wants to jump up and dance like he’s in an early 2000s hip-hop video, the cart no longer a cart at all, transformed in his mind into a tricked-out classic car.
They want to do their best to nurture all that curiosity, all that joy.
And for Carlos, there's something especially poignant about his son being so in love with this particular artist. Someone who sings in Spanish and wears his Latino culture openly and proudly, who puts his people first and refuses to change his art or the way he presents himself, even in the face of some of the worst cruelty humanity has to offer. Carlos knows Jonah doesn’t understand all of that yet, if any of it. But one day he will.
They’re a week out now, and the excitement hasn’t died a bit. If anything, it’s intensified.
TK made a countdown calendar and stuck it to the fridge with rainbow magnets. Every morning during breakfast Jonah gets to put a sticker over the day, a bunny or a frog for the sapo concho mascot from Bad Bunny’s latest album. Carlos thinks this countdown is more exciting for Jonah than his Christmas advent calendar.
They’re planning a Super Bowl party. TK has spent days meticulously planning a menu of Puerto Rican dishes, texting Carlos all day with questions and photos. “Does this look right?” “Deep frying plantains is maybe a bit advanced for a four year old, right? I think it’s advanced for me…” “Babe? You’re in charge of the mayoketchup…”
Paul and Asha will bring the drinks. Paul’s been raving nonstop about a Puerto Rican distillery he discovered on a weekend trip to Hill Country. Dos Cañas distills authentic pitorro, Puerto Rico’s traditional moonshine rum. Paul bought a case of it, swearing that the mango-infused one is “the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth.”
Marjan’s bringing the decorations. Carlos has no doubt she’ll go all out, with Puerto Rican flags and palm leaf garland, heart-shaped sunglasses for everyone. She found a bag of Bad Bunny themed temporary tattoos on Etsy, and Carlos thinks he overheard something about a banner when she was on the phone with TK the other night. There will definitely be string lights. Almost certainly balloons.
Right now, Carlos is humming the chorus of Pitorro De Coco while he rubs lotion onto Jonah’s little feet. They settled into a nice little nightly post-bath ritual pretty quickly after Jonah came home with them. Every night Carlos wraps him in his little towel with the animal hood (tonight, a lion) and lets him pick out his pajamas (elephants on skateboards), then Carlos settles him on the bed to lotion him up while the warmth and routine make Jonah sleepier by the second.
The ritual steadies Carlos as much as it does Jonah. The small, familiar motions. The way Jonah’s body relaxes under his hands, unguarded in his trust. It's the way that Jonah looks at him like he's the sun, knowing he’s safe and loved and cherished; and that Carlos and TK are his protectors and providers, his people.
This little boy has been quietly untangling every one of Carlos’s lingering doubts and fears about fatherhood since the moment they picked him up from that cold boarding school in the Swiss Alps. Carlos remembers kneeling on the hard tiled floor, wrapping his arms around Jonah and TK, promising them both that they would always be safe with him. That they were going to be a family.
In little moments like this, lotion warm on his hands, that sleepy look of adoration in Jonah’s eyes, it feels like he's keeping every inch of that promise.
“Papa?” Jonah murmurs, his voice as soft as a sigh.
“Yeah, mijo?”
“Does Ba’ Bunny have a papa?”
Carlos pauses, thumb warm on Jonah’s heel. “I’m sure he does.”
“Dats good.” He wiggles his toes. Then, quieter: “Papa?”
“Hmm?”
“Does his papa kiss Bunny’s toes g’night?”
Carlos lets out a soft chuckle.
“Probably not anymore, mijo.”
Jonah’s brow furrows.
“Why not?”
“Well, Bad Bunny is a grown up. He probably doesn’t live with his papa anymore.”
Jonah’s quiet for a moment, considering this, before sighing with all the weariness a four year old can conjure.
“Dat’s sad.”
Carlos feels a momentary ping of sadness in his chest, a small, anticipatory ache. A glimpse of the nostalgia he knows is waiting for him in the future, for moments just like this.
One day he won’t have tiny toes to kiss anymore. He wants Jonah to grow up, to flourish. To be curious and fearless and take over the world in his own way. But there’s always gonna be a part of him that wants him to stay this sweet, joyful little boy forever.
“You know, osito, you’re right” Carlos finally says, pressing a kiss to Jonah’s still-wiggling big toe. Then he gives it a playful nibble, just enough to make Jonah shriek with laughter and kick his foot. “It really is.”