"You're really gonna make me say it out loud, bebe?" Carlos's voice is warm but strained through the phone, the way it gets when he's trying to laugh off something that's been gnawing at him. "Three days. Three days without a single word. Not even a heart react on my dumb memes. You always heart-react."

You never knew he noticed. It breaks your heart to hear, of all times right now.

Outside your apartment window, a pigeon lands on the fire escape with all the grace of a drunkard stumbling home. You watch it through the gap in your black-out curtains, curled fetal beneath the blankets, phone pressed to your ear with a limp shaky hand. The sheets smell like sweat and unwashed hair. You haven't showered since Friday. It’s Sunday now, and you feel like a wrung out washcloth. You’re disgusted but you just can’t get your limbs to move. 

"I know, I- I-" Your voice cracks. It's the first thing you've said aloud in 48 hours. The glass of water on your nightstand has a film of dust on the surface. Your throat feels like it has glass lining it.

Carlos exhales sharply, and you can just imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose through the phone. "Look. I'm not mad. I'm just- fuck. Text me anything, okay? A thumbs up. A period. Just so I know you're not dead in a fuckin’ ditch somewhere." His tone softens. "Sweetie, please."

The line goes dead before you can muster a response. Your phone slips from your fingers, landing face down on your mattress with a dull thud. The pigeon outside cocks its head at you, one beady eye like it’s judging your silence through the glass. You pull your thick comforter over your head, but the weight of Carlos’s worry follows you into the dark. You’d hoped it wouldn’t.

___

You don’t hear the key turn in the lock. Don’t register the footsteps until the bedroom door creaks open. The mountain of blankets lift away from your face, and suddenly Carlos is there- kneeling beside the bed, his calloused hands hovering over you like he’s afraid to touch. His olive-green Henley is wrinkled, like he’s been sleeping in it. “Oh, my love,” he whispers, voice thick. His thumb brushes your cheekbone, coming away wet.

The shower water is too hot, but you don’t have the energy to adjust it. Carlos kneels outside the tub where you sit, letting the shower stream sluice over your body, rolling up his sleeves past his forearms. He works shampoo through your tangled curls with the same focused care he gives to folding his uniform. “You’re doing so well, bebe, look at you, better now, yeah?” he coos, filling the silence, when you lean into his touch. The praise burns worse than the water.

Dressed in Carlos’s borrowed sweats- they drown you- you sit cross-legged on the kitchen counter while he fries garlic in olive oil. The rhythmic tack-tack-tack of his knife against the cutting board steadies your breathing, gives you something to focus on. He tosses in diced sweet potatoes without glancing at the recipe scrawled on the takeout menu on the cabinet above your stovetop. “Almost done, querida,” he promises, nudging a forkful of steaming feijoada toward your lips. Your hands shake too badly to hold the utensil. Fucking hell.

Sweetheart.

The fork clatters against the plate when your fingers betray you again. Carlos catches it before it hits the floor, his reflexes sharp even in domestic moments. He doesn’t sigh. Doesn’t scold. Just presses his forehead briefly to yours- a silent I’ve got you- before scooping up another bite. “Open f’me,” he murmurs, and you do, the rich flavors bursting across your tongue like a revelation. You hadn’t realized how empty your stomach felt until now.

“There you go.” His thumb swipes a stray grain of rice from your bottom lip, lingering just a heartbeat too long. The kitchen smells like caramelized onions and the bergamot soap he uses, something clean and bright cutting through the fog that’s been clinging to you. You watch his throat work as he swallows, the stubble along his tan jaw catching the golden light from your candle warming lamp hidden in the corner of the living room. “Think you can manage half the bowl? Just half, meu coração. Then we’ll be done, okay?”

My heart.

You nod, though the idea of more food makes your stomach lurch. But Carlos beams like you’ve handed him the moon, and suddenly the nausea feels worth it. He feeds you methodically, alternating between bites of stew and sips of coconut water (his “gym” secret for pro-hydration), his fingers steady against your chin when you waver. Between mouthfuls, he tells you about Jill’s latest disastrous attempt at baking (“God, the smoke alarms- ”) and the stray kitten that’s been loitering around the UBCS HQ he’s been feeding. His voice is a lifeline, pulling you back into the world one mundane detail at a time.

Later, with the dishes soaking in the sink and your medication swallowed (Carlos counting the pills in your palm like a sacrament), he bundles you onto the couch beneath a mountain of blankets he dug out from your closet, clean one’s, he insisted. You curl into his side, your damp hair soaking through his shirt. His heartbeat thrums against your ear, a metronome keeping time with the rain that’s started tapping against the windows. “Look at you,” he murmurs into your crown, lips moving against your curls. “Being so brave. Even when you don’t feel like it.”

Carlos’s fingers trace idle patterns along your shoulder, the warmth of his palm seeping through the fabric of his sweatshirt. Outside, the rain picks up, turning from a tap to a drum against the glass. You focus on the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath you, counting breaths like they’re something precious. His heartbeat hasn’t faltered once, not even when your fingers twisted in his shirt like you were afraid he’d vanish if you let go.

“You still awake, sweetie?” His voice is rough with exhaustion but soft, so soft, like he’s handling something fragile. You nod against his collarbone, but the movement is sluggish, your eyelids heavy. His chuckle vibrates through you. “Sleepy?” You hum in response, too tired to form words. “Good. You deserve the rest.” His hand moves to your hair, carefully detangling a damp curl with his fingers.

The silence stretches, comfortable and thick, until you swallow hard and force the words out. “You don’t… mind?” It comes out smaller than you meant, cracked at the edges. “When I’m like this? How could you love me like this, Carlos? How?” You gesture vaguely at yourself, at the mess of you, the dark raccoon-esqe circles under your eyes, the way your glasses, dirty and smudged, sit crooked on your nose, the tremor in your hands that hasn’t quite faded.

You look like a textbook mess. 

Carlos goes very still. Then, with deliberate gentleness, he tilts your chin up until you’re forced to meet his eyes. There’s no pity there, just something fierce and unwavering, the same look he gets when he’s proving a point. “Listen to me,” he says, and the intensity in his voice pins you in place. “I love you. Every version of you. The one who laughs at my stupid jokes and the one who forgets to eat for two days. The one who texts me heart emojis at 3 AM and the one who can’t get out of bed.” His thumb brushes your cheekbone, catching a tear you didn’t realize had fallen. “I love you, especially like this. Because this is when you need me most.”

His words settle into your ribs like sunlight through stained glass, warm and fractured and impossibly bright. You press your face into his chest, inhaling the scent of his detergent and bergamot, letting it anchor you. Carlos’s arms tighten around you, his palm smoothing down your spine in slow, deliberate strokes. The blankets press you both into the couch, a pleasant heaviness that makes the world feel smaller, safer.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he murmurs into your hair, lips grazing the crown of your head. His fingers trace the ridge of your shoulder blade through the fabric, mapping the tension there. “Tell me.”

You shake your head slightly in disbelief, but he catches your chin again, tilting your face up. His dark eyes are liquid in the dim light, the gold flecks catching the glow from the streetlamp outside. The stubble along his jaw is rough against your fingertips when you finally reach up to touch him, as if to prove he’s real. “I don’t know how to…” You swallow, your voice fraying. “How to thank you for this. How to just… let you see me like this.”

Carlos’s expression does something complicated- softness and exasperation and something unbearably fond all at once. “Idiota,” he breathes, but it’s soaked in so much tenderness it doesn’t sting. “You don’t thank me for loving you. That’s like thanking the sky for being blue.” His thumb swipes under your eye, catching another stray tear. “Just let me be here.That’s all I want.”

____

You wake to the scent of coffee and the low hum of Carlos’s voice. For a disorienting moment, you think it’s morning, until you register the lavender-gray light of dusk through the curtains. The blankets are tucked securely around your shoulders, the weight of them pressing you into the couch like a grounding hand. Blinking blearily, you turn your head to find Carlos perched on the coffee table, phone pressed to his ear, his free hand braced on your knee like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

"Sim, I'll be there tomorrow," Carlos murmurs into the phone, his thumb rubbing absent circles against your kneecap through the blanket. His gaze flicks to you the moment he notices you stirring, his entire body pivoting toward you like a flower tracking the sun. "Não, she's- " He hesitates, his eyes scanning your face, and something shifts in his expression. "Tá tudo bem. I'll call you later."

The phone hits the coffee table with a soft clatter. His palm settles warm and solid against your cheek before you can fully blink the sleep from your eyes. "Hey," he breathes, the word expanding in the quiet between you, swollen with relief. His thumb traces the arch of your eyebrow, careful not to dislodge your glasses. "You were out for almost two hours. How do you feel?"

Your mouth tastes like cotton and stale coconut water, but the crushing weight behind your sternum has loosened slightly. You manage a small shrug, your fingers curling into the blanket. Carlos's mouth twitches, that barely-there smile he gets when you give him anything to work with.

"Hungry?" he asks, already shifting to stand. You catch his wrist before he can pull away, your grip weaker than you'd like. His pulse jumps under your fingertips.

Carlos freezes mid-motion, his wrist warm under your trembling fingers. For a heartbeat, he just stares at your hand curled around his, your knuckles pale against his tanned skin. Then he exhales through his nose- a quiet, shuddering thing- and sinks back onto the coffee table with deliberate slowness. The wood creaks under his weight. "Okay," he croons, turning his hand palm-up to lace his fingers through yours. "Okay, querida. M’ right here."

His thumb traces the delicate bones of your wrist, following the path of a vein you can see pulsing too close to the surface. Outside, the rain has eased into a steady patter against the fire escape, syncopated with the dripping faucet in the kitchen. The scent of coffee mingles with the bergamot clinging to Carlos's skin, something bright and alive cutting through the stale air. You focus on that- on the warmth of his palm pressed to yours- until your breathing steadies.

"You don't have to talk," he says when the silence stretches thin. His voice is rough at the edges, worn from pretending he wasn't terrified when he found you curled in bed like a discarded sweater. "But I need you to drink some more. Can you do that for me?" His dark eyes flick to the half-empty coconut water abandoned on the coffee table, its condensation rings overlapping like tree rings. "Just a few sips. Then I'll shut up about it."

You nod before you can think better of it, and something in Carlos's expression fractures, before he schools it into careful neutrality. He reaches for the bottle with his free hand, never letting go of yours, and twists the cap off with his teeth. The sound makes your stomach flip oddly.

Carlos presses the bottle into your hands, wrapping your fingers around it when they tremble. "Easy," he murmurs, guiding it to your lips. The first sip is shockingly cold, jolting through you like a live wire. You cough, liquid dripping down your chin- but Carlos is already there, swiping it away with the cuff of his sleeve. "There you go. Slowly." His fingers stay curled around yours as you drink, bearing the weight when your grip falters.

When you lower the bottle, your throat clicks audibly. Carlos's gaze darts to your Adam's apple like he can see the words lodged there. His thumb rubs circles into the back of your hand- a silent take your time. The refrigerator hums to life in the kitchen, the sound startlingly loud in the quiet. You watch a drop of water slide down the bottle's side, tracing a path through the condensation.

"You're shaking less," Carlos observes softly. His tone is deliberately light, but his grip tightens imperceptibly. "That's good. Real good." He leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, putting himself at eye level with you slumped on the couch. The position strains the seams of his Henley across his shoulders. "Think you can eat something more? Just a little."

You start to shake your head, but the motion makes the room tilt alarmingly. Carlos's hands fly up to cradle your face, his palms rough against your cheeks. "Merda- okay, okay. Just breathe." His thumbs stroke your temples, slow and steady. "In through your nose. That's it. Like when we trained for the range, remember?"

The memory surfaces: Carlos behind you at the shooting range, his chest pressed to your back, guiding your hands steady on the Glock. "Breathe," he'd murmured against your ear, the scent of gunpowder clinging to his shirt. "Just like that, bebe. You've got this." You exhale sharply now, the phantom weight of the firearm in your hands replaced by the damp bottle still clutched between your fingers.

Carlos watches you carefully, his gaze tracking the minute shifts in your expression like a sniper studying terrain. When your breathing evens out, he leans back slightly, though his hands remain cupped around yours, the bottle sandwiched between your palms. "Better?" he asks, and you nod, swallowing against the dryness in your throat. His smile is small but triumphant, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Good. Now- " He eases the bottle from your grip, setting it aside with a soft clink. "-let's try this."

Before you can protest, he's sliding off the coffee table and onto the couch beside you, his thigh pressing warm against yours through the blanket. His arm drapes over your shoulders, pulling you gently into his side. You go willingly, your head lolling against his collarbone. The position is familiar, reminding you of Saturday mornings with his sketchbook propped on your knees, late nights watching sitcoms with his fingers carding through your hair, but now it feels like a lifeline.

Carlos exhales slowly, his breath stirring your curls where they’re pressed against his neck. His fingers trace idle patterns along your arm through the blanket- up, down, up again- like he’s counting your breaths. The rain has softened to a murmur against the windows, the kind of sound that makes you want to burrow deeper into the warmth of him. You almost do, until your stomach gives a treacherous lurch.

“Shh,” he coos before you can apologize, his palm flattening against your sternum as if he can hold the nausea at bay by sheer will. “Easy, meu amor. Just breathe through it. It’ll pass. Let the food settle, yeah?” His other hand finds yours beneath the blanket, lacing your fingers together and squeezing gently. You focus on the calluses along his knuckles, the way his thumb rubs slow circles into your palm. The world narrows to this: the weight of his hand, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek.

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