Chapter Text
TK’s leg won’t stop bouncing.
He wishes he wasn’t stuck in the waiting room. He wishes he could see Carlos. The operation has to be finished by now, but nobody’s come out yet to talk to him. The 126 only just finished their shift; Owen couldn’t ditch his crew to come hold TK’s hand at the hospital.
He probably would have, honestly. TK only just called him to make sure that didn’t happen. Because he’s a grown adult.
He just can’t get his leg to stop bouncing.
Carlos–-he can’t believe Carlos would do that. What got into his head? What made him so stupid? And why didn’t TK catch it before it reached bullet-wound-hiding levels?
Oh my God, Mitchell had replied when he texted her on Carlos’ phone looking for answers about how that bullet ended up in his boyfriend. It was an armed ATM robbery, a guy came up behind us and fired but we all presumed it just hit the wall because there was a scuffle afterwards and nobody gave it a second thought. He didn’t call it in, he didn’t say anything. He was really quiet after, actually. TK, I’m so sorry.
Not your fault at all.
If it was anyone’s fault, it was TK’s. Carlos had been suffering in silence, walking around with an infected wound, and he hadn’t felt able to tell TK about it until he literally passed out in his arms.
I can take care of myself. Unlike some people.
Was it because he was afraid of TK’s fragility? Is that why TK so rarely sees anything from Carlos but calm and collected and healthy? The thought that there have been more instances, not bullets but things subtle enough Carlos could hide them, that he hasn’t let TK see-–that twists like a knife between his ribs.
Because maybe Carlos is right, the way he is about pretty much everything. The way TK had trembled endlessly while Tommy loaded Carlos into the rig, the image of him disappearing behind the familiar doors sickeningly wrong, wasn’t exactly a picture of strength, was it?
TK’s leg. Will not. Stop. Bouncing.
God, it had felt like a hell that would never end. He’d been near-hysterical. Nancy wrapped him up in her arms, half-crushing him, then helped him into the rig the same way he’d helped Carlos out of his car earlier that day, like he was a patient himself. And he’d spent the whole time with his eyes glued to Carlos, irrationally afraid that if he looked away he would just disappear, thinking about all the times Carlos has been here and he’s been the one passed out and unaware of the heartbreak of being the one who stays awake, the one who has to watch the love of their life comatose in an ambulance, and his leg began to bounce and hasn’t stopped since.
“TK?”
TK sits up from where he’d braced his elbows against his thighs. Owen is approaching him, coming to be with him, barely a quarter of an hour after the end of the 126’s shift.
“Dad,” TK exhales. He makes a half-hearted attempt to stand but only thuds right back down onto the chair.
“Hey,” Owen says, crouching down to his level the way he did when TK was young enough to go to him with scraped knees. Then, again, “Hey.”
His hair is unkempt. That means he didn’t take the time to shower before coming here.
He holds his arms out to TK, a sad smile quirking one side of his mouth, and TK slumps into the hug. He shoves his face into Owen’s shirt, almost fiercely.
“Sepsis, you said? That’s dramatic.” Owen chuckles, and part of TK wants to bristle at the ease with which he can laugh right now, but the rest of him is just relieved one of them can make light of this whole terrifying thing.
TK doesn’t know how to say any of that, so he hums into Owen’s shoulder and leaves it at that. He’s too exhausted, too wrung-out, to show up right now.
Sensing that, Owen keeps an arm on his shoulder when he moves to sit in the next seat.
“Doctors say anything?” he asks.
TK shakes his head loosely.
Owen squeezes his shoulder. “He’s tough,” he says. “He’s stupidly tough. He’ll bounce back.”
TK doesn’t reply. He thinks if he opened his mouth all that would come out would be, in an endless loop, he didn’t tell me.
He hardly registers the doctor approaching until she starts to talk to them. He thought he’d be jumping to hear the news, but, in the moment, he’d rather cover his ears and have Owen break it to him if it’s not good.
“He’ll make a full recovery,” is all he hears. His breath deserts him in an audible rush. His fever is breaking and he’ll come to in about… the rest gets lost beneath the ringing in TK’s ears.
Then Owen is pulling at his arm and he gets up.
“We can go visit him,” Owen fills in for him, anticipating his lack of attention. As on-edge as TK feels, it warms him a little, the thought that his dad still knows just how to look out for him.
He needs Carlos. He needs to see his eyes.
The room is nice for a hospital; big window. He knows Carlos will like that. Raised on a ranch. He’s an outdoorsy guy, doesn’t like to stay in.
How long will he be off duty for? How long until TK can put his arms around him without hurting him?
He’s asleep, still damp with sweat and still pale, but–-at least he looks peaceful. Lying on his side, away from the wound.
The gunshot wound. Which TK is going to have to get used to.
The pillow is too thin, he thinks; his head looks uncomfortably angled. “Can you get him an extra pillow?” he asks a nurse who’s just leaving the room. “His shoulders are kind of big, he likes two.”
“We don’t keep spares,” she says, clipped. “Sorry.” And makes to walk out again.
“Not any?” TK pushes, walking a few steps in her direction. “He’s–he needs another one.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“So you’re just gonna tell me what’s best for him? I’m a paramedic, and I’m his boyfriend.”
“Sir-–” she starts, and TK honestly thinks he’s a few hairs away from flying at this poor woman.
Owen steps in. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s not the best day for him.”
“Sorry,” TK echoes right away, palming at his face.
He can’t bring himself to look at her, but something’s changed in her voice when she says, “I’ll see if I can do anything.”
Owen ushers him into one of the chairs at Carlos’ side. TK watches him breathe. His foot immediately starts to bounce. His gut screams at the wrongness of even this-–this slackness, this dead-to-the-world stillness which must be medically induced, because even in sleep Carlos is always alive and racing through a million dreams a minute and twitching and mumbling constantly like he’s on duty twenty-four seven, and TK knows this because he knows everything about Carlos. Or, he used to.
When he wakes up to the talking and the twitching, he sets a hand on Carlos, on his side or his cheek or his arm. More often than not, just that touch settles him for the moment. It’s magical.
Owen stays standing. “I’m gonna get a hold of his parents,” he says. TK hadn’t even thought of that.
The nurse comes in then and hands TK a pillow. “He’ll want you to,” is all she says, smiling a little.
“Thank you,” TK manages to say to her as she excuses herself again.
TK finds himself looking back at Owen, leant against the wall, who nods down at them both and says, “Go on.”
He shuts the door behind him. TK realises he hasn’t touched Carlos yet, has just been warily watching him.
So he lifts him up a little, slides the pillow underneath, sorts him out so he’s lying on them right.
“Hey, baby,” he whispers. It takes him back. Right back to groggily surfacing from a coma. Carlos was there for him, holding his hand-–always. Forgiving him, always.
TK takes his hand with both of his own. It’s threaded through with a saline line. He kisses the limp knuckles. Again, fervently.
He tries Carlos’ forehead, not letting go of his hand. Hot, but not alarmingly so. He’s getting better.
It knocks the breath out of TK.
“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, baby.”
He swears he sees Carlos’s eyelids flicker just a little.
“I can’t believe you,” TK says in a rush. “You–-you scared me so much. I’m gonna kick your ass when you’re better, okay? For frightening me like that. You stupid, stupid…” he lets his shaking fingers tangle in Carlos’ hair, and it’s all sweaty and TK doesn’t care. “Beautiful. Carlos.”
He lets a thumb stray to Carlos’ forehead, the slight frown that’s forming there.
Carlos regains consciousness to find a hand in his hair and another laced through his fingers. It’s lovely. Before he registers a single thought, he knows that these hands are the hands he wants.
Sound filters in next: talking. TK talking.
Walking around with a bullet in you, Carlos, what were you thinking? And I thought you were being crazy trying to make it through a shift with a stomach bug. What was the plan? Hope it all went away in the morning?
And the incessant, tense sound of the knees of his jeans rasping as he presumably bounces his foot up and down.
Carlos hasn’t thought to open his eyes yet, but his free hand reaches for that knee on autopilot and lays over it.
It stills.
TK must move closer because Carlos catches his cologne more strongly–-clementine. Instantly recognisable.
“Babe?”
“I…” Wow, Carlos feels wrecked. His tongue won’t cooperate and it comes out in a slur. “I’m sorry.”
It’s the first thing he wanted to say this whole time, with TK’s utter panic the last thing he remembers before he passed out.
“Shh,” TK says, and Carlos blinks his heavy eyes open and there he is. He’s been crying but right now he smiles. Right now, he bends over Carlos–-he’s sat close enough that his knees bump the hospital bed–-and curls the fingers of the hand still in his hair and kisses his forehead, butterfly-gentle.
“Shh,” he says again.
Carlos manages to find his face with his clumsy hand. He puts the pads of his thumbs against TK’s swollen under-eyes.
“They got it out,” TK says to him. “You’re gonna be fine. Hopefully no more fever and yakking up your own guts.”
Carlos snorts weakly at that.
TK sighs with a shaky kind of relief. Like seeing Carlos is awake is doing wonders for him.
“You can be mad at me,” Carlos mumbles. “I know that wasn’t my… finest moment.”
“I can’t be mad when you look all–-like this.”
“But you’re mad, aren’t you?”
Carlos almost wants him to be. He’s mad at himself.
Ever so softly, TK tells him, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m kind of mad. I thought that-–I was–-I’m a paramedic. And you had me applying cold compresses like a moron. You… you were asleep beside me all night and you had a bullet in you and I had no idea.”
“I know,” Carlos winces.
“You might not have been okay, you know? The fever could have spiked. You could’ve bled internally. The infection was so close to spreading to your kidneys, Carlos, and if it-–”
“TK,” Carlos whispers, halting him. His gut is twisting listening to TK rattle through words, and it has nothing to do with the bullet wound. Which-–yeah, he can definitely feel. The pain isn’t as splitting as it had been in the loft pre-bullet-removal and painkillers, but it’s not exactly fun.
“You don’t do stuff like this,” TK says, gazing down at him with a desperate kind of focus, like he’s trying to decode him. “What got us here? What went wrong? Because-–because I do get it. I get what it feels like to have this thing you think you can’t tell anyone." He gives Carlos a significant look. "But this isn’t that.”
Carlos swallows. He closes his eyes, screws them up. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t even know. I feel like an idiot. It just… built up. I felt the bullet hit me at the crime scene, and I just-–didn’t say anything, on autopilot. I knew I should, but I didn’t. And…” he pauses, humming, to let his sluggish thoughts catch up to him. TK waits on his every word. “The more time passed, the more stupid I felt wanting to bring it up. I didn’t… want to upset you. Which I know–-I know. Look where we are. I only made it worse.”
TK kisses him again, tearfully, over his temple. A kiss that says I don’t blame you. I’m always on your team.
“It was funny–-I stopped thinking about it as a gunshot wound, and it became the stomach bug. In my head. It made more sense. It was something I could power through. I couldn’t picture myself… where I am now. Do you understand?”
“Not totally,” TK says, “But I will, I think.”
“I could just… hear my dad in my head, saying I was soft. Which isn’t even fair on him, because he never meant it that way.”
TK pouts sympathetically. Then his lips purse. “So you decided to give your dad the metaphorical finger by… killing yourself with an injury?”
“I know how it sounds,” Carlos says, blowing out a breath. “I don’t know, TK.” Sensing TK’s lasting concern, he continues on: “But I know–-I know for sure it wasn’t to do with you. You… were so good. You did everything right. And I spent the whole day lying to you and snapping at you.”
“No, no, no,” TK says. “You were dealing with an insane injury. No judgement, babe.”
“I knew I’d be alright. I had you.”
TK laughs at that. Quiet but half-delirious. “I didn’t,” he protests. “Next time–-god forbid–-can you give me a heads up when you get shot, not a day after?”
“Mm-hmm,” Carlos says.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Carlos can’t help but smile when TK’s frown loosens at the answer.
“Thanks for saving me,” he murmurs.
TK sniffs. “Always will.”
He cups Carlos’ jaw, fingers losing the tremors Carlos had noticed when they come to rest there, and kisses him. Carlos probably tastes of puke, but TK doesn’t seem to care in the slightest, keeping his nose nudged into Carlos’ cheek until they’re both running out of air. Some mistreated corner of Carlos’ heart smooths out tremulously feeling the insistence of the kiss, the ardency. TK loves him. Still loves him, even after Carlos was a monumental idiot and caused him a lot of grief.
“Carlos,” comes Owen’s voice, “Nice to see you back. I called your parents, they’ll be here in an hour or less.”
He comes into view around TK’s shoulder, indicating his phone. He sets a hand on TK’s back. It puts Carlos at ease knowing he was with TK when he couldn’t be.
“Thank you, Captain Strand,” he croaks.
Owen covers his face with a hand. “For the love of God,” he says from behind it.
Carlos swallows, winces, then, after a lengthy pause to get past the weirdness of it, says, “Owen.”
TK chuckles guilelessly, seeking Carlos’ arm beneath the covers and rubbing teasingly at it.
Owen raises his eyebrows. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Carlos grins despite himself watching Owen’s amused smirk and TK laughing in front of him. Look at them. A crazy, oddball, shattered and taped-together family.
On Tuesday morning, Carlos’ watch stays on the nightstand.
He’s off-duty, which means a lot of lazing around aimlessly at home, but also a late morning every day, some of which get to involve sleeping in with TK.
This morning, he drowses awake to his favourite hand tracing the planes of his face. Blinking his eyes open, he makes out the form of TK, head pillowed by his elbow and half-lidded eyes fixed on Carlos.
It’s a sight that makes his heart flutter. He’s only been awake ten seconds. TK needs to stop doing these things to Carlos for the sake of his cardiovascular health.
He hums wordlessly with the bliss of the feather-light touch, and TK breaks into a grin. One side of his face is lit hazily by the rising sun through their curtains; they must have forgotten to draw the blinds. Carlos kind of just crawls into bed at the moment.
“You were moving around in your sleep again,” TK comments. His voice is gorgeously gravelly.
“Did I wake you up?”
TK shakes his head. His hair rasps on his arm. The sun is doing things to his eyes that set Carlos’ heart pounding like it did when he first took a second look at him. Carlos can make out a thousand shades of hazel and blue and green in them, all sunlit.
TK has been a godsend through all of this, attempting dinner then ordering takeout when Carlos was too weak to get up, then rushing home to entertain him when making dinner was all he could manage. He never once complained when he changed Carlos’ gross back dressing or helped him get into bed. He’s had no problem settling into the role Carlos had once assigned solely to himself.
And for Carlos, it hasn’t been as awful as he’d expected. Not when TK’s there. Taking leave from work has been frustrating, but TK’s stories from the 126 soothe the ache in the meantime. They even had a very toned-down 126 hang yesterday, watching martial arts movies because Matteo has a thing for them at the moment.
Carlos has been living on his own since he was 18, dealing with himself on his own. Having TK by his side is such a dream it makes him want to cry sometimes.
He leans forward and kisses TK. TK huffs, sounding pleasantly surprised.
Carlos only pulls back to trace TK’s lips with a thumb, hypnotised by the way they bounce back into place under his touch.
“Morning,” TK breathes against his thumb. He darts his lips out, kissing it.
Carlos must be doing something mortifying with his face, but the beauty of what he and TK have is that the craziness of each other only endears them more to each other. TK laughs a little watching his expression. “Being off work has its perks, huh?”
Carlos kisses the laughter right out of his mouth, wanting to own it. Kisses him quick and fervent now, twice, three times.
“Yeah-huh,” he says, breaking apart for a moment. TK’s lips glisten. Wow.
TK already sounds a little strung-out when he replies, “Well, make the most of it. You get me as a living, breathing body pillow.”
“Mm,” Carlos replies articulately, liking that idea. He hooks a leg over TK’s hip and shuffles close, letting his hand snake around the side of TK's neck. TK’s hand goes to Carlos’ ribs, fingers curling with just enough pressure to surpass ticklish and instead give him goosebumps.
God, TK. This is what Carlos is here for.
“Did I not anyway?” he adds in a murmur.
TK’s answering shrug shows in his facial expression, a playful pout that Carlos needs to kiss. He’s feeling ridiculously lovey today. While he has TK here, in his bed, beneath his hip, he has to get in all the making out he can, he reasons. And TK seems to agree with that idea, deepening the kiss with a hand in Carlos’ hair.
As soon as Carlos breaks away to breathe, he’s back again, pushing his tongue inside TK’s mouth, revelling in the soft noise of pleasure that escapes from TK’s throat. Needing TK closer still, he grips at his back.
“Babe,” TK tries to say. Carlos half-swallows it before he registers he’s said anything.
“What?” Carlos murmurs, forgoing TK’s mouth and leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses along the stubble on his jaw.
Even as TK’s hands flex in Carlos’ hair and on his sleep shirt and his mouth goes slack, he says, “I thought we weren't going to... engage in any strenuous activities until you get the all-clear from the doctors.”
“I know,” Carlos sighs over the skin of TK’s adam’s apple. He’d like to say that was an honest mistake, but subconsciously he knows it makes TK swoon. “I’m not doing anything.”
“This feels like a little bit of something,” TK points out with a snort.
Carlos kisses him dizzyingly.
Smug at the sight of TK’s blown pupils, he says, “Nope. Definitely nothing.”
TK scoffs and pulls Carlos back in for a kiss that’s adoring but decidedly more chaste. "Mm. Love you, you asshole.”
Carlos hums out a laugh.
“Seeing as I have the morning in…" TK says, "I want you to teach me to make that good soup.”
“Why the soup in particular?”
“Soup just… pathologically makes you feel better, you know?”
“Ah. You’re eager to accelerate my recovery, are you?”
“So you can get back to work!” TK hedges.
Carlos feels himself dissolving into a sappy smile.
“And so I can make something other than salad.”
That cracks Carlos up.
He spills over with this morning. It’s the kind of uneventful morning you never forget all the same. The way it turns your heart over to the side that’s warm and wants to fly.
He bundles TK into his arms, unabashedly using him like a teddy bear, and buries his face in TK’s freshly-washed, terribly unstyled hair. He stops and smells the clementines.