#useraninha

With a shaky breath, he stepped past the threshold and let his work bag slip from his shoulder, listening to it as it landed with a heavy thud beside him. With a nudge of his elbow, the door swung to close and clicked shut as pressed his back against it. Carlos let his head tip back and rested it against the smooth gloss-finished door as he slid down to the floor, eyes falling shut as he did so.

When he found himself at his final resting point with his knees drawn to his chest, he reached trembling hands up to press the heels of his palms to his eyes and dropped his head forward into them as if trying to block out the world. He curled his fingers into the tendrils of curls, tugging at them in an attempt to keep himself somewhat centred.

It was late, late enough that most people would be in bed asleep. But that was not the case tonight. In fact, he had been so lost in his head that it took him a few moments of sitting in his own silence that he began to register the quiet tones of the TV in the living room, signaling to him that TK was home and reminding him that he doesn’t live alone anymore.

From his crumpled position on the cold floor, Carlos heard the shifting of a body moving on the couch and a quiet, “Babe?” drifted over to him. Carlos tilted his head to the side and cracked open a watery eye to see what he assumed was once a relaxed boyfriend, was now sitting upright and alarmed on the edge of the couch, eyes soft and eyebrows creased in worry.

It hit him then that this is the first time that he’s had someone to come home to on one of these kinds of days; where all of the built-up, suppressed emotions that he has held back came flooding right to the surface when he was alone, behind closed doors where no one is privy to his unguarded state. Part of him doesn’t want to be seen like this; vulnerable and exposed of his most private emotions. He’s so used to being the solid one, the dependable one, the one that holds people steady when they are the ones that are falling apart. The other part of him is more selfish, wanting to be the one being comforted instead of being the comforter for once.

That feeling has him and the wall that he’d carefully constructed around himself to get him through to the end of his shift crumble then and there. The stinging tears that he’d been holding back all through his drive welled in his eyes, not yet spilling over.

TK didn’t seem to need any explanation, instead, he beckoned gently with his hand, a quiet invitation of offered comfort. And that was exactly what Carlos needed. Climbing to his feet, he moved towards TK who had repositioned himself against the armrest. He settled against his chest, lying nestled between TK's legs, and buried his face into the fabric of his shirt, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s torso and fisting his hands into the material.

TK seemed to read that he didn’t need to be asked what was wrong but instead stayed silent as he wrapped his arms around him, tucking his head into the corner of his neck, hand gripping comfortingly against the base of his head.

He didn’t want to talk about it and yet the words, “I couldn’t save her,” still left his lips unbidden with his voice cracking on the coat-tails of a hitched breath and muffled by the material of TK’s shirt as the scene once again played over in his mind.

With his face pressed against TK’s neck, Carlos doesn’t see is TK’s face morphing into understanding of what he was feeling in this moment. Empathetic tears welled in TK’s eyes as he tightened his hold as if bringing their bodies closer would somehow allow him to leech that pain from Carlos. As if he were trying to take away that shadow of heartbreak that comes with losing someone on the job.

A silent sob passed his lips unbidden; still, he tried to choke out, to explain what had happened. To give a reason as to why he was coming home such a wreck, “I was so close,” is all he was able to manage before his throat closed over from the tears, voice soundless when he tried to say more.

“Shh, you don’t have to tell me right now. Just let yourself feel what you’re feeling,” TK murmured into his hair, and pulled him ever closer, running his fingernails in firm but soothing patterns along his back.

And with that permission, he released all of the emotions that had been coiling and festering deep within his heart. Letting himself properly cry in a way that he never had in the company of another before, his tears steadily soaked into the collar of TK’s shirt. Heart-wrenching sobs wrecked his throat and chest as he let himself weep for the youth that had been lost; of the future that the young woman would never get to see. Of the family and friends that would mourn her. Of the unforgiving nature of the way, her life had been taken.

Something that Carlos had found recently is that time seemed to pass differently when you were in the arms of someone you love. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours for all they knew from where they were on the couch, and yet neither of them moved. No complaint from TK was heard for he knew exactly what his boyfriend was feeling for it was not so long ago that he had done exactly the same thing with Carlos on the stairs.

Eventually, the tears and the choked-off breaths began to ebb leaving Carlos to feel empty and exhausted. He breathed in deeply, soaking in TK’s warmth, and focused instead on the steady heartbeat of his boyfriend. He matched his breath to TK’s, finding the comfort that he had been craving since he had left the scene. This was the most vulnerable he has ever been in the company of someone he loved, and he didn’t feel like he needed to hold back. He felt safe.

Giving himself a bit more time to compose himself from that onslaught of emotions, Carlos took in a few more deep breaths of TK’s musk before he released TK’s shirt and pulled away.

He pressed his lips together as he sniffled up the last of his running nose, suppressing the urge to apologise for his breakdown knowing that TK would immediately tell him that he didn’t need to. And he knew that to be true, he said the same thing when TK curled up in his lap when they had lost Tim, still, it didn’t negate the vestiges of the awkwardness of full-fledged ugly crying in front of someone, regardless of how intimately they knew him.

TK for his part just watched him carefully, chewing absentmindedly on his lower lip like he always does when he worries. Carlos watched him silently, unsure of what to say as TK reached over to gently wipe away the streaks of tears that had trailed their way down to his chin and then dried his face with the sleeve of his cardigan.

“Better?” he asked quietly, bringing his hand to rest against Carlos’s cheek.

Carlos leaned into the touch and shut his eyes for a second and sucked in a deep steadying breath, “yeah,” he says and opened his eyes as he exhaled, “thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know, but I wanted to anyway.”

TK hummed knowingly at that and Carlos lost his gaze as it slid away to something past him before returning with a soft but assessing gaze, “Are you hungry? I managed to throw together a chicken noodle stir fry.”

“Is it even edible?” Carlos joked half-heartedly, grateful for the change of subject and thankful that TK chose to play along.

“Hey! I’ll have you know it’s one of the few things I can cook well,” he said with a light, playful shove.

“Well in that case I have to at least try some,” Carlos relented almost mockingly while feeling the tiniest of grumbles growing in his belly at the thought of food, reminding him that it was late, and he had eaten lunch earlier than usual.

TK disentangled himself from beneath him and moved towards the kitchen, but not before pressing a kiss to the top of his head and squeezed his hand as he stepped away. What he missed was the look of sadness that overcame TK’s face as he pulled a covered bowl from the fridge and a surreptitious wipe of tears from his cheeks as he set the microwave.

While TK reheated his dinner, Carlos found his thoughts drifting in the absence of his warmth, inevitably wandering back to earlier that day. He felt so lost in his mind, numbed by what happened yet entirely encompassed by that single moment that it seemed impossible for him to break away from it.

He was so detached, staring unseeingly that when TK returned with a warmed bowl that he jolted at the sound of TK’s voice bringing him back to the present with a quiet, “here,” as he passed over the steaming bowl over before returning to his place.

Despite their playful joking, he sobered at the thought of eating as he stared into the bowl, with his stomach sending him conflicting signals as he picked at the noodles, making him feel both nauseous while it also continued to rumble at him wanting the nourishment.

He only managed a few mouthfuls, finding that he was barely tasting the meal as he chewed mindlessly as he stared at the TV. TK, for his part, was flicking through the channels until he landed on an old school channel that was currently playing Hogan’s Heroes, not that he was paying much attention to it.

And then he blinked and the next thing he knew it was well past midnight and yet neither of them had made a move from the couch, slumped against each other, and bundled under a throw blanket watching back-to-back reruns of M*A*S*H.

Somehow they were both still awake,

His barely touched bowl had been moved to the sink but remained full and unwashed, instead, it became replaced by two bottles of water which each stood soldier-like within easy reach on the floor beside the couch, beading with condensation. They were sitting side by side but somehow he still managed to curl around TK enough to be able to hear the steady and soothing beat of his heart.

Maybe it was the fact that they had turned off all the lights and were only lit by the faded light produced by the 1972 medical drama, but Carlos could feel his tongue loosen in the honest hours of the night and started speaking quietly.

“It was a call to one of the college dorms. A bunch of the kids decided that it would be a good idea to try magic mushrooms for the first time. One of the girls was having a bad trip and disappeared.” He shivered at the thought of what came next.  

“She somehow managed to make it to the roof of one of the buildings nearby. Thankfully they had the foresight to have at least one of them was sober and called for help. By the time I got up there, she was dangerously close to the edge,” TK’s arm that was circled behind him tightened its grip, pulling him closer as he continued, “Mitchell stayed below to keep the other kids contained and EMS was just arriving on scene by the time I had her stepping away from the edge. And then a bird-”

His throat closed up as if it were trying to protect him from saying the next part, he swallowed hard around it, “-a bird of all things startled her and she… she stepped back and slipped. I couldn’t catch her in time.”

“Oh Carlos,” TK murmured, bringing his other arm to cocoon him in a comforting embrace.

“I almost had her TK, she was a couple of steps from my hand, and then she was gone and there was nothing I could do to stop it,” His throat felt raw as if he had been screaming for hours, “The look on her face won’t go away, it’s the first thing I see when I think about it, not to mention how she looked… how she looked on the ground from the roof. How do you move past something like that?”

The silence that followed was both deafening and comforting. He could feel TK thinking as he pressed his face into his hair. Eventually, after a pregnant pause, he spoke in a quiet and comforting tone.

“It’s not easy to move past something like that. And I know I wasn’t there for it, but I can only imagine that you did everything that you could have done in that situation and that’s what you have to focus on and take comfort in knowing and not with the what if’s.”

“Is that what you do?”

“When I can. And when I can’t, I talk to a therapist to remind me. It helps, you won’t ever forget, but it helps.” TK answered, then added regretfully, “It’s, unfortunately, one of the biggest cons of being a first responder.”

TK reached for the remote and turned off the TV before extricating himself from Carlos and the couch, before reaching down a hand, “It also helps to sleep next to someone instead of being alone.”

Carlos gave him an appreciative smile and accepted his hand, allowing him to pull him to his feet and lead him upstairs to the bedroom. 

The last text from her is an invite to a 126 hangout, of which Carlos kindly declined. He’d become good friends with everyone in the station but in the end, they were TK’s team. There was no doubt his ex would be there. If their run-in earlier proved anything to Carlos, it’s that they truly are not ready to be in the same room with each other. He could barely get through a sentence after seeing TK face to face for a few short seconds. Surely an entire evening would be agony.

Carlos is expecting a follow-up message from Nancy, not so subtly prodding him to suck it up. To be the one to make amends because “somebody has to do it”. Carlos is done chasing after people. It’s a promise he made to himself even before TK came blowing through his life so unexpectedly and it’s a promise he has every intention to keep–– now more than ever.

He has half the mind to tell her just that, his thumbs already hovering over the screen when he notices the bluntness of her back to back messages. It takes him a second for his eyes and mind to sync but when they do, Carlos wishes he could will away what he’s just seen.

Nance Get to the hospital ASAP TK’s just been admitted Hurry

There’s no conscious decision, no hesitation or concern over whether he should go or not. Relationship status be damned.

It’s by a miracle Carlos gets to the hospital so soon given the extreme weather conditions outside but from the moment he arrives, he wastes no time in rushing to the small gathering of familiar faces in this all too familiar building.

Nancy is the first to approach him, intercepting him right at the nurses’ station. There must be something to him, an edge to his body that makes her regard him with such control as if preparing to talk him down off a ledge.

“How serious is it, Nancy?” he asks her gravely, not wanting some sort of preamble as he looks at her directly.

He can see it in her eyes, the flicker of uncertainty in how to tell him the full extent of TK’s injuries. The look betrays the hesitancy before the words can even leave her mouth.

“Honestly, it’s not good.”

Carlos is sure it’s more than the cold of the storm raging through Austin that makes his insides freeze up. They’ve been down this road before; this marks the third time he’s found himself at the hospital for TK. But this runs far too parallel to the very first trip, the one where TK landed in a coma and Carlos had no idea where they stood in each other's lives.

The sense of deja vu is debilitating for a moment but Carlos can’t allow himself to give in to those fears just yet. He needs to see the damage with his own eyes, even as the words shock and hypothermia get lobbed at him. He takes the hit of Nancy’s recap, torn between feeling pride at TK for stepping up like that to save a kid and anger at him for being so reckless with his own safety.

The words she says are coherent enough but, perhaps out of self-preservation, he can’t fully accept them. Nancy’s got tears in her eyes and Carlos holds on to her, still grappling to make sense of it all.

Eventually this will catch up to him, the weight of all he’s keeping at bay. Of all he has been keeping locked away for weeks now.

Once that dam breaks, there will be no turning back, he knows.

~*~*~

Then

Meals at his parents house had become second nature since the fire that claimed their home. At first it’d merely been a matter of circumstance, Andrea fretting and insisting the boys have a good home-cooked meal. Even now that they’ve landed on their feet, it’s more or less tradition— much like Sunday dinners at his aunt— for Carlos and TK to dine at the Reyes family ranch every other Friday night.

It’s been nice this past year, falling into routines with TK, carving out ways for them to be together as often as their hectic lives allow them to. Trips to the farmers market, standing beside each other in the kitchen as they cooked or tackled dishes, nights spent lazing about in bed. Carlos has become addicted to it all.

Carlos sits with his father and TK in the living room as they wait for dinner, Andrea banishing him from the kitchen after his offers to help her. Gabriel keeps busy with an Astros game for company, leaving TK and Carlos to pass the time flitting through an old family album

TK rests his head on Carlos’ shoulder as he looks on.

“Of course you were the most adorable kid ever,” TK comments at a photo of Carlos at age five smiling widely at the camera.

“I really was, wasn’t I?” he muses, pressing a kiss to the top of TK’s head. “Thanks, babe.”

They comb through the album, Carlos telling stories from the different snap shots of his family’s history.

He smiles warmly at a photo of his parents on their wedding day, the sheer joy on their faces forever encapsulated.

Decades of love, cultivated like a field that has given rise to life in every sense. It’s this love that created him. It’s this love that he’s coveted all his life, just hopeful for the day he’d be able to find his person. He’s had a front row seat his whole life to what a happy, healthy union looks like and for as long as he can remember, Carlos has kept his heart open.

After years of searching and falling short, he’s felt that he’s finally gotten it right. The road with TK hadn’t always been easy but Carlos feels as if they’ve got feet planted firmly on the ground now.

“Dinner’s ready!” his mother calls out.

Carlos sets the album aside and holds on to TK’s hand as they head over into the dining room, only letting go once they’ve settled in at the table.

He and TK recount their days to his parents over his grandmother’s ropa vieja, TK still lamenting over the loss of the 126 but trying to keep his spirits up nonetheless, grateful that at the very least he still has Tommy and Nancy to offer some type of normalcy to the workday, some small comfort in the grand scheme of things.

A small dot sauce at the side of his mouth. He grins at TK, finding him impossibly endearing like this

“You’ve got a little…I’ve got it,” he says, grabbing his napkin.

Carlos wipes TK’s cheek and rolls his eyes affectionately. TK scrunches up his nose at him and Carlos fights the urge to kiss the teasing smirk off his lips.

Carlos takes a hold of TK’s hand, bringing it to his lips. TK meets his gaze, that shy half smile that Carlos can never get enough of painting his mouth. It’s always so easy to get wrapped up in it, these small moments that band together to mean absolutely everything.

Andrea sighs softly and Carlos looks away then, finding her looking between the pair of them.

“Just look at you two. Won’t be long until you’re a married couple yourself,” she says with such conviction as she adds more rice to her plate

Carlos smiles back at her; he can’t help but to agree. Just the thought alone makes something warm flare up inside him.

The feeling of joy fades quickly. Beside him, TK’s shoulder tenses out of the corner of his eye. It’s a gesture so minute it appears to go unnoticed by his mother and father who lapse into their own conversation without missing a bit but Carlos cannot unsee this. He’s far too attuned with TK now not to notice even the smallest of changes in his demeanor.

As if needing more proof, TK’s hand slips away and runs through his hair.  Carlos looks at TK in full, watches the way his knuckles whiten as he grips his fork now and avoids his gaze, the way his body leans just slightly to the left as if putting up space between them. It may as well be a wall with the way TK feels closed off to him now, hidden behind a veiled, unnamable thing.

Dinner passes far more quickly than Carlos is expecting. With his mind elsewhere, time just seems to move without his knowledge. He goes through the motions of saying his goodbye to his parents, making promises to keep in touch and see them soon.

From the moment they step foot outside, it feels as if all they’ve been keeping in now cloaks the air around them. Carlos hates the way it presses against his skin, how it seeps in like ink from a tattoo.

As they settle into the car, the silence becomes too much and Carlos refuses to have it be another passenger on their journey back home.

“You feel so far away right now.”

He doesn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation but maybe it is one.

“I’m just tired. Today’s finally catching up to me,” TK says, tipping his head back against the headrest of his seat.

The gesture feels more like the period at the end of a sentence but a conversation needs to be had tonight, for Carlos’ sanity if nothing else. If anything this is an ellipsis. A to be continued.

He doesn’t press the issue as he drives them home but his thoughts persist the whole ride over.

As they step into their apartment and he drops his keys on the small table beside the door, the words he’s been warring with begin to bubble up to the surface.

“Are you really tired or do you just not know what to say to me right now?” he asks as they enter the living room.

TK looks up from where he’s just seated himself on the couch, his brow raised. This is coming out far more confrontational than Carlos would like.

“I just…I thought you started acting differently the second my mom brought up marriage. I mean, I know we’re still in the early stages here. I’m not expecting us to run off and get married this weekend,” he jokes, hoping to lighten the mood.

However TK’s face remains contemplative and Carlos gets the sneaking suspicion that he won’t like what he has to say.

“But you do want to get married at some point though?”

Carlos’ head tips slightly as laughs a bit nervously.

“Well, of course. When the time is right. I’d want to have it all with you.”

TK licks his lips, his shoulders caving as he looks away. His eyes dart around and Carlos can’t tell if he’s staving off tears or searching for an answer on the other side of the room.

“TK?” he prompts.

At the sound of his name, TK seems to come back to himself but he’s got a far away look in his eyes still that doesn’t bode well in the slightest.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” TK asks.

“What? Knowing that I’d like to spend forever with you? No, it doesn’t. Why would it?”

TK shakes his head. “Not that part. I mean…binding yourself to another person like that.”

Carlos blinks twice. They don’t talk about TK’s ex but Carlos doesn’t see how he can avoid that particular elephant in the room.

“I don’t…I’m having a hard time understanding what you pictured would come next for us, if not this. You had marriage on your mind once before.”

TK scoffs tersely to himself.

“Yeah, and look where that got me in the end.”

Here with me, Carlos thinks. For as much as he hates the hardships TK faced, it’s what led him to Austin in the first place. But he keeps the thought to himself as TK continues.

“I found out that the guy I wanted to spend forever with was cheating me and wound up relapsing. My dad has been married and divorced. Twice. Not exactly ringing endorsements. Marriage…it’s the kiss of death,” he says, his chest rising and falling quickly.

TK stops himself then and steadies himself but Carlos feels anything but tethered right now. His mind and body are in two very different places at the moment.

“Why can’t we just enjoy this? What we have now? Can’t that be enough?” he continues, reaching for Carlos’ hand.

But Carlos can’t bring himself to look at him, let alone touch him now.

His hand balls into a fist at his side, his nails biting into his skin. Carlos focuses on the sharp sting in order to distract himself from the prickling in his eyes.

“Because I’m always going to want more for us,” he says softly. “And that will always be too much for you.”

The full scope of that comes to him in painstaking clarity.

He forces himself to look up at TK. What he finds are furrowed brows and familiar green eyes that are clouded and wet.

“I don’t want to lose us,” TK says. “I love you more than anything. You know that.”

“I do, which is why I don’t get why the thought of marriage is something you’ve apparently ruled out. I—I know you’ve been through hell and back with that guy. But I’m not Alex and we are not your parents. TK…,” Carlos stops short, swallowing hard on words he never thought he’d say to him.

TK comes closer, placing his hands on either side of Carlos’ face but Carlos can’t look him in the eyes.

“What is it? I love you, Carlos, please.”

A traitorous tear rolls down Carlos’ cheek. He can barely hear anything over the rushing in his ears, the thudding of his heart.

“I love you too. But this…,” he trails off.

TK lowers his hands at once and takes a small step back. They’re only inches apart but the distance between them runs far deeper than he could have ever imagined or even known was there.

“Are we breaking up?” TK asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

The question stops Carlos for a moment. These were words he himself had once spoken before on a different night months ago with TK at his doorstep. They’d been able to weather the fallout of Carlos working through letting his parents in on their relationship. They’ve made leaps and bounds to levels Carlos could only ever dream of at seventeen.

For all intents and purposes, it should have been smooth sailing onward to a long and happy future together. But if he’s been the only one between the two of them having this dream, what exactly would he be setting himself up for instead?

Some obstacles were just too big to get around, some matters that couldn’t be compromised. And this, the matter of a future he’s dreamed of since forever, requires a sacrifice too great.

~*~*~

Now

Time means nothing in hospitals, Carlos concludes. As he sits flanked by Nancy and Tommy, hand in hand, he’s unsure of just how long he’s been seated here.

Five minutes. A lifetime. It all blurs together with his thoughts as suffocating as they are now. They’ve been briefed by the hospital staff and still, the grave diagnosis feels disconnected.

Time marches on and Carlos’ mind plays back his moments with TK like a montage, from the grand milestones to the everyday little things that he’s held just as dear.

Owen is in with him now and Carlos both dreads and longs for the moment he’s able to see TK with his own eyes.

The time comes, Owen standing before him now with the most stricken expression etched into his face. Carlos feels sick to his stomach.

“If you’re ready, you should go in and see him,” Owen says, clearly picking up on the sudden panic that’s overtaken him.

He’s not strong enough to go alone and if these last few weeks apart from TK, keeping his feelings bottled in, have taught him anything, it’s that perhaps there’s merit in admitting when he can’t shoulder a heavy burden alone.

He turns to Nancy, finding her hand already outstretched towards him. He holds on, so overrun with gratitude he can’t even get the words out. She nods once, clearly understanding.

His legs are somehow sturdy enough to carry him forward. He supposes that’s the adrenaline at play. Nancy slows down midway through the corridor and Carlos’ heart pounds hard against his chest.

He falters outside of TK’s room, almost paralyzed by the sight before him. Through the window of the room, he can see TK lying perfectly still and the eeriness is enough to take the wind out of him for a moment. Once again his mind races back to those tentative months, a relationship undefined but feelings clear as day in the aftermath of TK being shot.

Here he is now again on the fringes of TK’s life but unlike that very first time, there’s genuine history between them. Not only that, but a mutual love he knows won’t ever fade— in spite of everything.

The room is too sterile, too cold, too lacking. In warmth, in joy, in TK’s presence though he’s physically right there. It all feels so wrong, like some warped reality where everything is the opposite of how it should be.

His eyes burn with unshed tears.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This can’t be happening. Not again.

“Are you going to be okay?” Nancy asks, her hand gently resting on his forearm.

Carlos blinks twice, forcing his eyes away from the framed view of his ex-boyfriend just beyond the glass.

“Doesn’t matter. I just need to know that he will be.”

Carlos swallows hard and looks back at TK, trying to understand how and why TK is repeatedly at risk of being taken from him.

He takes a step closer to the window and peers inside. When he said goodbye to TK that night, he hadn’t meant for it to be a final farewell.

Time was cruel, the way it always makes a person think there’s more of it than there truly is.

He thinks back on every failed attempt from his friends and parents to get him to speak to TK again. He’d remained firm in his convictions these last few weeks, certain this was all for the best–– a firm believer that if something wasn’t meant to be, it simply wasn’t.

If only TK would open his eyes now, show some sign that things will be alright, he’d latch on to it like a life raft in this raging, treacherous sea.

It’s a strange feeling to mourn something that never got a chance to exist in the first place but the future Carlos had once seen weighed so heavily on his heart. He hadn’t stopped to consider this possibility of an even greater loss, one there’d be no coming back from at all.

His jaw clenches as he rests his head against the pane, a silent prayer spoken in his mind as he braces himself to go in.