#cannot believe the inciting incident of this show is “man trips on banana peel- dies”

[smytherines]

The headcanon that keeps me up at night is the idea that Owen Carvour was this very closed-off, isolated guy who just singlemindedly devoted himself to spycraft (almost as if it were his special interest) and was generally disinterested in any sort of relationship- romantic or otherwise- and suddenly agent Curt Mega strolls into his life and stubbornly insists on being part of it.

And Owen is just completely, utterly fascinated with this guy. Infatuated with him. How could he not be? Curt is perhaps the only person on Earth that can keep pace with Owen, that can best him (not that Owen would ever admit to it). He's so different from Owen, but they're also very much the same.

And over a number of years Curt wins his trust. First by being an excellent (if unconventional) partner, and then they start a physical relationship. And then Owen actually finds himself in love with this person, an attachment he never wanted but now can't live without (in a way he sort of resents Curt for sometimes).

He feels these things in an overwhelming but impossible to articulate way, to the degree that he willingly puts himself in a position to be outnumbered 21 to 1 to rescue Curt from a Russian weapons facility- because that's what you do when you love someone, right? You flip off god and walk backwards into hell for them.

So when Curt leaves Owen to die, part of him just fractures. This delicate, imperfect, but still very real trust he had in Curt is absolutely shattered. He's afraid and helpless and critically injured, and the last thing he can remember before waking up in unimaginable pain, his body and brain damaged in a way he will never fully recover from, is the look of horror on Curt's face as he ran away.

And the worst part is that there is no way for Owen to disengage from those feelings. He will never have any sort of distance from Curt and his betrayal ever again. His body hurts constantly, his mobility is impacted, he gets headaches and vertigo and panic attacks, and every single time he is forced to relive the moment that Curt left him. Forced to relive that terror.

Every time his leg gives out while he's forcing himself to walk without crutches, or the burn scars start to ache, or his vision goes blurry and his heart feels like its going to burst out of his chest, he feels that hurt. The only person he would've ever confided those feelings in is the reason those feelings exist to begin with. That person thinks Owen is dead. And Owen sometimes wishes he had died too.

And Owen hates Curt, but more than anything he hates himself for trusting Curt. For putting himself in a vulnerable position to save Curt, only to be destroyed by Curt's hubris- part of the very same thing that made Curt irresistible to him. That cocky confidence, the effortless charm, the completely intuitive, instinctive way his mind worked- a style that had never let him down before. Owen loved him, and he knows that if the situation were reversed he would've gone back for him. He would've laid down and died next to him. And it's blisteringly painful to him to realize that the same wasn't true for Curt.

And for Curt's part I don't think he was like "oh well, fuck it, time to book." I don't think he thought at all in that moment. He didn't decide to leave Owen so much as his body, his adrenaline, his instinct made the decision for him. It was fight or flight, and his body chose flight. Speaking from personal experience, when you have ADHD and you realize that you've screwed up and you're suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, your body can just kinda carry you away without thinking.

But the leaving being involuntary doesn't help Curt deal with his grief and shame and self-hatred, because he still has to live with the decisions he did consciously make that night- leaving the banana peel on the steps, deciding to blow up the facility instead of just sending the blueprints with the watch, setting the timer for three minutes instead of four.

For years, when he's not too drunk to think at all, he endlessly relives each point where things could have gone differently. He obsessively thinks about how his pride was a bit bruised by needing to be rescued, by being chewed out by a boss who seemed to prefer his partner to him, and wondering if maybe he was more over the top than usual out of spite or insecurity, to save face with Cynthia and Barb, to impress Owen (because he loved Owen and respected him and cared about what Owen thought of him).

He wonders if Owen was right about his drinking, and then he drinks to shut out the pain of that thought.

He has to live with the decision his adrenaline made, tortured by the idea that he should've somehow fought back against that flight impulse in the moment and gone back for Owen. Tortured by the idea that maybe, if his rational brain had been fully present, he might have still made the same decision- leaving Owen to save himself.

He saw Owen twitching on the ground, grasping onto the banana peel, bleeding out on the concrete. He was almost certainly about to die, but when Curt left Owen hadn't died yet. So maybe, maybe, maybe there was a chance and Curt missed it. And every time he thinks about the possibility he feels sick. And he drinks. And he has imaginary conversations with his dead partner before passing out curled up in the corner of his bed, clutching a pillow, his eyes red and burning from the tears.

This was supposed to just be a couple of short paragraphs, but that's what I get for thinking about curtwen I guess

#cannot believe the inciting incident of this show is “man trips on banana peel- dies” #spies are forever #tin can bros #curtwen #owen carvour #agent curt mega #saf #tcb #saf headcanons