Chapter Text
On Tuesdays, when Carlos is woken by the buzzing of his watch at 5 am for a twelve-hour shift, the only thing that consistently gets him going is spending his first few conscious moments watching TK asleep beside him.
Dawn is just breaking, a cool haze of light filtering through the curtains and giving Carlos enough light to get up without fumbling around, and the sleep-slackened face of TK at his side is a familiar comfort. It should be as perfect as one of these mornings can get.
Only, Carlos feels like absolute garbage.
It happens, not often to him, but the done thing is usually to push through the shift unless you can’t physically make it out of bed. Well, the done thing for Carlos. Crime isn’t waiting around for him to stop feeling queasy.
When I get up and dressed I’ll feel better, he tells himself, not needing it to be true, just after the motivation. So he swings his legs over the side of the bed--pauses to let a shuddering wave of nausea pass by--and passes a feather-light hand over TK’s forehead and through his sleep-mussed hair. He shifts a little without stirring.
Carlos needs a lazy late morning in bed with him, and he needs it as soon as possible. He never gets enough time to just hang around in bed with TK, he thinks.
But this is enough; more than enough. The man he loves at home, asleep, safe. What more does he need?
Carlos throws up in the shower. Then he manages to dress and eat a few mouthfuls of breakfast before he throws up again.
Great.
He stumbles to his desk at the station unable to stop thinking I feel like shit.
“You look like shit.”
Carlos squints upwards with his hazy eyes and finds Washington leaning on his desk, her brow knitted long-sufferingly.
“I’m fine,” he croaks. Well, that was convincing. “Tired,” he adds, trying to look lively. Like he isn’t ready to barf on her shoes. Like he’s not sweating up a storm. He shuffles a few papers. He can’t quite read any of them. “Just… long shift, you know.”
“You’ve been here thirty seconds. Are you sure you wanna be here, Carlos?”
“I’ll be good. I promise.”
“I’ll get you a coffee.”
Carlos’ stomach clenches.
“No,” he says thinly, “I’m alright.”
“Use a trash can at least,” she sighs. She lays a hand on his forearm for just a second--gentle, blessedly cool--and her expression softens as she turns away and leaves, presumably for her office. Carlos can’t really tell. Everything’s swimming.
He tries to work, he really does, but he can’t remember what cases he worked on yesterday, let alone what’s on the agenda for today. Before he knows it, time is slipping through his fingers and an hour has passed of him sitting stationary at his desk, doing nothing more than swallowing away nausea and bristling at the trailing of sweat down his temples.
TK bleeds into his fuddled thoughts: TK lifting Carlos’ pounding head into his lap and hunching over him, his mere closeness soothing the ache and the roiling in his gut.
And then, in the blink of an eye, he’s being called out with Mitchell. The mere act of standing sends bile up his throat. He clenches his jaw and ignores it, cringing as he swallows it all back and keeps on. His balance isn’t great and he feels like someone’s doused him in lighter fluid and lit a match, but he’ll be alright. He just needs to get into the car and then he can sit again.
“Car’s over here, Reyes,” Mitchell says dimly, somewhere. It’s hard for Carlos to make out where anything is right now. He lifts his head and her face swings into his vision, then swiftly out again. The motion is too much. Nausea is building in his belly, his chest–
He ducks behind a bush just in time to spit out another string of bile. Nothing else really comes up, but his body sure tries to expel it.
When it passes, he wipes his mouth blearily with the back of his hand, straightens up, checks there’s no barf on his jacket, and hops in the car. Or, more accurately, he slides in as gingerly as he can to avoid another bout of sickness that might get the interior of the car messy.
“Carlos, did you just blow chunks all over that bush?”
“No,” he mumbles, “Just got a little dizzy. I’m a bit… under the weather.”
“You sure are,” Mitchell says.
Carlos fists his hands covertly in the fabric of the passenger seat to hide the bout of shivering that’s overtaken him. “Just go.”
“Seatbelt, honey.”
He buckles up with a grunt.
This won’t end well. Logically, Carlos knows this. He’s not in the right frame of mind to respond to his radio, let alone make an arrest. But it’s just… what he does. To sit out on his job, his outlet, his purpose… he wouldn’t know what to do.
He can get through a shift. It’s just a bug.
It’s just his luck that the burglar alarm they’re called to check out isn’t an accidental trip but a real daytime home invasion with an intruder to catch. His instinct is to bolt after him, and he does, coasting on adrenaline, yelling after the drawn-up hood of the guy, the whole world on a tilt-a-whirl in front of him but nothing guiding him as much as the thud of the perp's shoes in front of his own police-issue smart sneakers. This is the way it should be, and he’s gaining on the guy–
Until his lack of balance catches up with him, he trips and crumples to the floor like paper, and his nose slams into the pavement.
And he gags again. Nothing but spit.
Hot blood begins to spill from his nose the moment he lifts his head heavily from the ground. It’s barely a priority for him, given that he’s still spitting out bile and he’s broken out into full-body shivers. Today is really not his day.
“You’re under arrest,” he hears dimly, and presumes Mitchell stepped in and caught the guy. That’s a relief. It’d be awkward to explain at the station. He makes a mental note to bake her something nice to make up for that.
It’s a miracle that Carlos even makes it back to the car, honestly, without keeling over. He gets an embarrassing amount of help from Mitchell. She plants him in the passenger seat and presses a disposable pack of Kleenex into his shaking hand.
Carlos dabs at his mouth and under his nose, mostly to make it appear that he’s functioning okay to Mitchell, because he couldn’t care less if there’s gunk on his face. He’s so hot. And yet he’s shivering like crazy.
Mitchell doesn’t say a word to him this time, just puts the car in gear, and Carlos is thankful.
Until she parks it and Carlos blinks out of the window to see an open garage door labelled CITY OF AUSTIN FIRE DEPARTMENT: EMS 126.
Carlos looks back at Mitchell, sat back in her seat with a suspicious set to her face.
“What are you doing?” he breathes.
“If you were fit for duty,” she says with a pointedness that somehow manages to be soft, “You’d have noticed ten blocks ago that we didn’t turn towards the station.”
From behind the EMS rig sat inside the building, a uniformed TK emerges, his eyes softening when he catches sight of the car. He hefts a bag of medical supplies higher onto his shoulder as he approaches them at a speedwalk, the now-midday sunlight drenching him in warmth. God, he’s a sight for sore eyes.
“I texted your boyfriend,” says Mitchell.
Carlos groans.
“Don’t get moody on me.”
The passenger-side door opens and the change in air temperature gives Carlos the sudden impression of being freezing cold and unbearably hot at the same time, which is worse than anything he’s been put through all this morning. It must show in his expression, although he tries to rein it in, because TK’s face drops.
“Babe,” he says, monotone.
Even Carlos can tell how unconvincing he’s being when he croakily protests, “I look worse than I am.”
Not-sick Carlos would have kissed TK in greeting, squeezed his hand, cracked a stupid joke. Sick Carlos can’t bring himself to move a muscle lest he barf on TK’s nice crisp uniform.
TK, in response, says nothing at all. As uncharacteristic as Carlos looking visibly ill might be, the methodical way in which TK unzips his medical bag, hands him a plastic bag presumably for vomit, and unearths a handheld thermometer, is more so.
“TK,” Carlos tries to soothe him. “I’m good.”
TK shakes his head minutely as he puts a surprisingly tender hand against the side of Carlos’ face, then sticks the thermometer in his ear.
“Stop–what is that?” Carlos says, trying to bat the thing away, but the movement is too much and his stomach clenches and he really doesn’t want TK to see him throw up but he starts to gag just as TK pushes the bag up towards his face.
“Get it out, baby,” murmurs TK, and as much as Carlos wants to resist the softness, the kindness, the way it feels like giving in, it feels amazing to let TK grace a hand up and down his back as he retches.
He’s met as he emerges from the rim of the bag with a single raised eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Carlos mutters.
“No sorry,” TK says. “You’re burning up. Let’s get you home, okay?”
“I should really finish my shift… first…”
Carlos can actually feel the wrath of Mitchell’s glare mingled with the sight of TK’s when he tries that.
“C’mere,” TK says, and he slips an arm around Carlos, unbuckles the seatbelt he’d forgotten about again, and helps him up and out of the car in one swift, professional motion. As much as it peeves Carlos to be helped along like an invalid, that was pretty smooth. And, yeah, Carlos isn’t so hot at walking in a straight line now.
Still, he tries to protest at least a little. “I can walk fine.”
“No, you can’t,” TK says gently.
Carlos should know better than to try and fool a paramedic. Still, he gets the feeling that he's going to keep on trying.
They hobble across the tarmac together, TK going at Carlos’ pace, which proves to be mortifyingly slow. Carlos prays nobody from the 126 will spot them from inside. It’s unlikely nobody saw them, but nobody accosts them at least. Carlos would prefer that as few people as possible saw him right now.
TK is unerringly gentle as he guides Carlos into his car and drives them both home. Every touch is unbearably soft.
The next thing Carlos knows--TK, who usually yaps about whatever dog or coffee shop or fire hazard he sees at the roadside, keeping unusually quiet--they’re parked at the convenience store by their apartment.
TK pumps the handbrake but keeps his hand on the stick shift. He looks over at Carlos as if assessing him.
Carlos reads his thoughts. “Go. I’m not going anywhere.” He huffs at his own poor excuse for a joke.
“Will you be okay for five minutes?” TK asks, leaning over in his seat and laying a cool hand over Carlos’ forehead. Carlos bites back an actual moan of relief.
“Yes, TK,” he says a little too sharply. “I’ll be fine.”
TK sighs and relinquishes the hand. He hops out of the car with enviable spryness and is gone, and Carlos misses him already.
He doesn’t snap at TK. That’s not him. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him.
But it doesn’t stop him from hitting back when TK gets back into the car with a paper bag stuffed with saltines, painkillers, Gatorade, and some kind of overpriced bottled water.
He lays the bag across Carlos’ lap and nods down pointedly at it as he turns the key in the car.
Carlos just frowns at the bottles. “Why did you buy water?”
TK pulls out into the street. “It’s mineral water,” he says absently. “It’s better.”
“How is it better?”
“Don’t question the water.”
The elevator ride to the loft is rough. Carlos adds to the contents of the puke bag and narrowly misses the floor; TK grips his elbow in one hand and the bag in the other.
Kneeling before Carlos, who somehow made it to the couch and is managing to sit up straight, and placing grounding hands on his knees, TK gazes up at him with an arrestingly concerned look in his eyes. “Still feeling vomit-y?” he asks, taking one of Carlos’ hands in his own and poking at the veins in the underside of his wrist.
To distract from the fact that yes, he’s feeling incredibly vomit-y, and the immense willpower it’s taking to refrain from flopping bonelessly and smearing his puke and sweat onto the couch, Carlos says, “That’s not a very professional word.”
TK’s expression doesn’t change but he delivers the lightest of slaps to Carlos’ wrist. “Thirsty?”
Carlos shrugs. He’s parched.
“Do you feel hot or cold?” he continues, tone a little more strained. He reaches for the paramedic’s bag, which Carlos suspects he’s not technically allowed to take off of the firehouse premises, and gets out the ear thermometer again.
“Can you warn me before you stick that in next time?” Carlos manages to gripe.
TK sits back on his haunches. He fixes Carlos with a look. Carlos begins to fear he’s figuring him out.
“Carlos,” he says quietly but firmly, hovering the thermometer near his ear then sticking it in anyway. Carlos cringes at it and TK’s hand comes up again, soothingly, to cup his face. “Hot or cold?” he repeats.
“Neither. Both.”
“Both?” That makes TK’s frown deepen. Bad.
“TK, you should finish your shift.”
“Right, like you should be finishing yours.”
TK comes up to sit by him. He starts rubbing lightly at Carlos’ arms, and only then does Carlos become aware of his continued shivering.
“You’re like a wet dog,” TK says with impossible fondness. “You’re running at 102.5. That’s a moderate fever, you big idiot. Let’s take the day off.”
This is a battle Carlos can’t win. And besides, as much as he hates to admit it, TK’s mere proximity makes him feel a little less awful.
TK leaves at a jog and returns in under a minute with the stuff from the convenience store along with a t-shirt and pair of sweats from Carlos’ dresser. As much as Carlos wants to scold TK for running around like a servant after him, he also wants to lift his shaking hands to the heavens in praise of his godsend of a boyfriend.
“Here we go,” TK’s murmuring as he shakes out the Marie Kondo-folded clothes then reaches for Carlos’ uniform and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Get you out of these stiff things, huh?”
Carlos is ashamed to say that he just lets it happen. Sits like a rock, staring dully at the focus in TK’s flickering gaze. Lets TK peel him out of his uniform button-up and undershirt, lift his arms and thread them through the t-shirt. Doesn’t get even a bit turned-on at the sound of him unbuckling his utility belt and unzipping his pants. Allows himself to be gently levered onto his back on the couch, propped up by a lovingly-placed cushion, and TK to tug off the pants and replace them with the gloriously soft sweats.
The cold part of Carlos sighs in relief. The hot part screams.
Then TK is lifting the T-shirt, rubbing his own hands together to warm them, and pressing down on Carlos’ bare stomach with his fingers.
Carlos squints down at him.
“Feeling for any lumps,” TK explains with a hint of a smirk. “Just want to rule out appendicitis or any nasty kidney stuff.”
“Are you sure this isn’t a ploy to feel my abs?” Carlos quips weakly.
It brings a real smile to TK’s face, which is more than worth it. He bends over Carlos to kiss his hip. “Wouldn’t you like that,” he grins an inch from the skin.
Carlos should be all over that, and he’s on the verge of laughing, but then TK’s palm hits a spot that makes the nausea kick up and he lunges up into a sitting position, grabbing for the trash can TK had grabbed and set by the couch earlier and christening it a barf bin.
The moment he’s done, there’s a cold, damp cloth being laid across his forehead.
“Oh, yikes.” TK winces, pushing at the cloth so Carlos lays back again. “Did you have any breakfast?”
“Toast,” grates Carlos, too exhausted to raise his front just yet, “But I think that came up a while back.”
TK hums in worried agreement. His lip warps a little as he bites it from the inside, a nervous habit Carlos has started to pick up on. His hand comes up as if of its own accord and tangles its way through Carlos’ hair. That’s heavenly.
Bearing witness to TK’s wide-eyed expression of sympathy, Carlos thinks he understands a little of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the so-called Carlos cow eyes.
It’s almost lovely. Almost. But it feels-–wrong. This isn’t how it goes. Carlos is never the guy swooning on the couch. He doesn’t know how to be that person. He doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want TK to fuss over him with a worried knot in his brow. When it’s his own worry, he can deal with it, control it, and he doesn’t have to watch as it manifests in his boyfriend’s expression.
The final straw comes when TK decides Carlos needs a drink. He takes one of the bottles of fancy water-–which Carlos doesn’t agree with in the first place–-and cracks the seal for Carlos even as he’s reaching for it. Yes, his hands are trembling a little, but he can manage. Then he’s approaching Carlos with the open bottle, and Carlos realises sluggishly that he’s trying to hold it for Carlos to drink from.
The outburst comes half from the uncomfortable strangeness of being cared for and half from the veiled fear that he’ll only throw up the water in front of TK and worry him more.
“I can drink myself,” he bites. Or, tries to bite. It sounds pathetic to his own ears.
“Let me,” TK says. “It’s easier.”
“No, TK.” Carlos wrestles his hand out from underneath the blanket TK’s wrapped him in.
“Just hold still–”
“Don’t,” Carlos insists.
TK backs away a little.
“Carlos,” he says, fixing him with a look brimming with exasperated love. “Honey. Can you let me help you?”
Some small, balled-up corner of Carlos' mind will not budge. “I’m a grown adult, TK. It’s a fever.”
“I think I should have the authority to call the shots here, being the paramedic, right?” TK hits back. Then, softer, leaning in to implore Carlos: “I just want to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Carlos grumbles, “Unlike some people.”
He regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth. His guilt only intensifies when TK’s eyes snap downwards and away, a muscle jumping to life in his jaw. Carlos thought he was nauseous before.
He swallows, wanting to say something to fix it but coming up empty. His muddled head isn’t helping.
Carlos hates this version of himself.
Slowly, TK caps the water and sets it down within Carlos’ reach.
Carlos reaches out waveringly for his hand but TK draws away, getting to his feet.
“I’m gonna crash out in the bedroom,” he says, still not looking at Carlos. “Text me if you need anything. Please.”
His absence is an ache.
Very quickly, Carlos comes to the realisation that even laid out on the couch with everything he needs close by, it’s not exactly a walk in the park taking care of himself. A pain has flared to life around his middle back, as piercing as if he’d just been shot. The moment he kicks the blanket away from him, a bone-deep coldness returns to him. Then when he wearily bundles himself up again the heat is torturous. He needs painkillers, but that would require taking them with water and not throwing either up.
After some hazy length of time he just-–gives up. Nothing he does helps, so he might as well just lay there and try not to cry.
Except when he’s leaning over the edge of the couch to retch weakly into the trash can.
The trash can starts to smell, which makes him more nauseous.
He misses TK’s cool hands like a lost limb. He messed up. But this is his chance to prove that he can just let this sickness blow over and he’ll be fine by himself. He’s done it a million times before, even stuck it out through a day at middle school with a 24-hour cold so violent he passed out having a covert coughing fit in the bathroom. When he woke up, he picked himself up and went back to Chemistry class and that was that. He wouldn't have wanted to bother his parents or anything.
He can fix things with TK when he’s clearer-headed. Take him on a fancy date or something.
So, drawing in a breath, Carlos raises himself up on trembling arms and gets to his feet. Picking up the trash can is dangerous on his weak legs and with the tossing and turning of his vision, but he manages it with no more than a groan.
The kitchen clock swims into view and he sees that it’s only been fifteen minutes since TK left him to his own devices. Seriously? It had felt like hours.
He counts passing into the kitchen area as a personal victory. He’s not totally certain he’s actually walking on the floor and not the ceiling right now, and he’s being stabbed in the back with the mysterious pain, but he’s almost made it to the sink. His nausea isn’t even that bad.
It’s the back pain that gets him. He leans over to set the bin in the sink and all of a sudden it’s as if someone is pressing a burning coal to the right-hand side of his back. Carlos cries out with the sudden and dizzying agony of it. Before he can regain his bearings, he’s on the floor, half-crumpled.
Footsteps arrive.
“Carlos? Babe, hey, what happened? What happened?” The cool hands are supporting him, turning him over to sit him down against the counter, thumbs on his sweaty temples.
TK’s face is an incoherent blur to Carlos, skewed by the fever and the fresh pain.
“Carlos,” TK says again, not so much a prompt as a worried exhale. Fingers press briefly against the pulse point on the underside of Carlos’ jaw.
Even as he shudders at the comfort the touch brings him, Carlos says, “You promised you wouldn’t help.”
Through the whirling of his vision, he notes a painful brightness in TK’s eyes.
“Why won’t you let me look after you?” TK bursts.
Carlos opens his mouth.
“And don’t,” TK says, suddenly sharp, “Say you don’t need looking after. You’re officially banned from saying that until this–-this thing you’ve got going on–-until it blows over.”
Carlos’ head falls back against the counter against his own will. It’s so heavy.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he croaks. “Be the one getting looked after. I don’t… I don’t like being like this.”
“None of us do,” TK says sympathetically, but he doesn’t get it.
“No, I really-–you’re the one who does this. That’s… that’s how it works. I like it. I like… looking after you. That’s the way it is.”
“What are you talking about?” TK whispers close to his face, capturing it between his palms.
Carlos lets himself slump, at last, and TK holds him up without missing a beat.
Tears spring to Carlos’ eyes.
“That’s not the way it is,” insists TK ever so gently. “That’s you being all macho and ridiculous. Everyone has bad days. We’re first responders, we get more than our fair share. You’re allowed that. And you’re absolutely allowed-–no, you’re obligated, you’re obligated to let me coddle you so I can feel alright about it. That’s what you do with me. That’s the way it is.”
When the first set of tears races down Carlos’ face he tries to scrub them away with a hand but TK beats him to it with soft swipes of his thumbs. It feels terrible and perfect.
“Sorry,” Carlos chokes.
Close to his face, TK says, “It’s not… it isn’t me making you feel that way? Like you can’t let yourself be vulnerable with me?”
“No.” New tears fly from Carlos’ face as he shakes his head a little too vehemently and jars his vision. “Not you. You–you’re great. You’re amazing.”
“Okay,” TK says quietly. He looks halfway to tears himself. “Let’s get up off the floor, okay? Let’s go back to that couch.”
Carlos is exhausted. He’s lost the ability to resist.
He shuts his eyes against the instinctual wrongness that floods him when he nods.
“Okay,” TK says again. He puts his arms around Carlos, not missing a beat as he supports his gross, sweaty back, and eases him up to his feet.
When Carlos makes it to a standing position, he locks TK in a hug with the last of his strength. TK’s fingers come up through the hair at the nape of Carlos’ neck. They’re still for a moment, TK murmuring, “Oh, baby, you’re really warm,” then falling silent. Carlos tries and mostly fails to stifle his sniffs.
He doesn’t race right off when he gets Carlos back to the sofa; this time, he takes the time to dab Carlos’ face all over with a clean washcloth, both to clean him up and cool him down. The heat of shame wants to rise up in Carlos, but he does his best to block it out and focus on nothing but TK’s touch.
He hands Carlos the water bottle, eyebrows carefully raised.
Carlos raises it to his mouth and manages to drink, but only just. His hands are shaking a lot now.
And then he starts to throw up again and TK has to dash back to the kitchen to grab the stupid bin. Every drop of the water comes right back up. Carlos’ throat is killing him. The pain in his back is worse than it’s ever been. He doesn’t recall ever being this ill, actually.
The only thing that makes him feel better is the loud, goofy smack of a kiss TK bestows to his forehead in consolidation.
TK bustles away with the trash can to wash it at last and Carlos swells unexpectedly with affection at the gesture. At his boyfriend going and cleaning out his vomit for him without a word, insisting on it, wanting to. He doesn’t understand it but he loves it.
Things start to slip from then on. Carlos stops wanting to participate in existence, honestly. That’s not the only thing, though: it’s his skin and his pulse and his head and his palms and his eyes and his muscles and his back, God, his back, like an inferno. Like being impaled.
As much as he grits his teeth, the pain is making him weak. His next exhale breaks into a shattered groan.
TK is there before he can blink. He palms at Carlos’ face, which is already drenched with sweat again. “You know what? I think we should go to a hospital. If you’re chucking up water, you’re gonna need fluids.”
Okay. Time to press pause.
Carlos hasn’t been… entirely truthful with himself. A lie of omission, but a damning one. One tiny detail that he’s starting to think TK should really be made aware of. He hadn’t brought it up initially, and he doesn’t even know why, honestly, but the more this whole thing stretched on the more reluctant he was to admit it belatedly.
Now, though, the fear of what’s going on with him-–the inferno and the ice, the violent shivering, the stabbing pain–-overrides any sense of shame.
TK’s packing a bag for the hospital, stuffing some of Carlos’ comfiest clothes in, his right hand straying every so often to lay across Carlos’ forehead as if it might burst into flames if he leaves it unattended.
For all Carlos can tell, it might.
“Uh…” he starts. “TK?”
TK looks up, and there is that devastating look of concern again. “Yeah?”
“I… Don’t get too mad, okay?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” TK says. “I’m not mad about what you said.”
The colour starts draining out of him and the loft, bleeding into a foggy greyscale.
“No, it’s…” Carlos swallows heavily. The grey light is beginning to fade, too rapidly, and he’s losing the feeling in his limbs. “I need to say it because I think I’m gonna pass out,” he manages to breathe.
That puts TK on high alert. Carlos picks out the vague shape of him straightening up and leaning closer to Carlos in a flinch of a movement. “What?”
“It’s not a bug,” Carlos mumbles. He’s falling. “I kind of… did a stupid thing...”
TK lunges for him, but he’s already tripping backwards into darkness. He wonders if he’ll return.
“Carlos! Carlos? Baby-–can you hear me? Oh, my God. Okay, okay, okay.”
TK has Carlos in a bundle in his arms now-–an unresponsive Carlos, totally limp and heavy-–and he lays him back against the couch as gently as possible, supporting his head before it can loll back. It’s like two versions of TK are battling it out inside of him: the TK who’s a confident and collected paramedic, a man of action, and the TK who loves Carlos more than he could ever imagine loving a man, who just wants to curl over him and bawl because something is very, very wrong.
Carlos was partially right, what he said on the kitchen floor. TK hardly ever sees him sick or upset or injured. It happens rarely enough anyway, and Carlos tends to hole himself up at work or in some room or another when it does. He doesn’t get angry-–he just doesn’t. The last-–and one of the only–-times TK’s seen him cry was when he woke up from his most recent coma. TK is aware of it, but he never brought it up. Everyone processes things differently.
And now TK feels sick. He needs to stop. He needs to stay focused and he needs to check Carlos’ airways and he needs to call 9-1-1.
“Can I talk to Grace?” he says the moment he hears an operator’s voice on the line. “Grace Ryder? I’m TK Strand, Austin 126.”
He doesn’t pay attention to the response. He’s checked Carlos’ heart rate; it’s fast, but there. He’s breathing, although it’s fast and shallow. Small mercies.
“TK, are you there?”
TK gasps out a breath. “Grace,” he says with his head in his hands.
“What is it?”
“It’s Carlos. He was sick today but it just kept getting worse, he was throwing up water, and I was about to drive him to a hospital but he passed out on me. He said–-something about it not being a stomach bug… He’s not waking up, Grace. He’s not–”
“TK. Take a breath.”
TK’s taken enough breaths. He needs to help, not breathe. But who is he to disobey Grace Ryder?
He breathes, in and out, just sitting back and looking at Carlos. He’s collapsed on his side, grey in the face. His clothes are damp all over with sweat.
It’s not a bug.
“Still there, TK?”
“Uh-huh,” TK says, jolting back into action. He has a final go at shaking Carlos awake, but can’t try too hard because he can’t bear to jostle him around.
What can cause fever? And how did Carlos know about it?
“Good. I know it’s hard, but try to stay calm. Tommy and Nancy are already en route, ETA six minutes. You’ve checked he’s stable for now?”
“Yeah, airways, pulse and breathing are good. His heart rate’s up, though. He tried to tell me something. He knew something about why he was going downhill.”
“You said he was throwing up?”
“Vomiting, his body temp was moderately elevated last time I checked, and he’s hot and cold and shivery. Well, was.” TK reaches for him, to just hold him, at a loss for what else to do.
“I presume you’ve run the gamut of home remedies?”
TK cups Carlos’ back, the part he noticed Carlos arching uncomfortably when he’d cried out in pain. “Cold compresses. I tried to get him to rest but he was being stubborn. Apart from that, there wasn’t really…”
He stops as he hears something rustle beneath his hand. It’s damp and unlike skin and incredibly hot.
He'd checked Carlos' abdomen but hadn't thought to look at his back.
“TK?” Grace ventures into the silence. “Did you find something?”
TK bolts up onto the couch and leans Carlos’s slack body towards him. Desperate now, he yanks up the hem of his T-shirt at the back and cranes his neck over Carlos’ shoulder to see a haphazardly-applied temporary dressing. It’s nothing more than a little sterile cloth and some medical tape, and a terrifyingly yellow-tinted fluid has leaked through the white.
“Dressing on his back,” he remembers belatedly to relay to Grace. “Looks like he applied it himself. And–oh, God.”
The sight when he peels off the gauze is worse. There’s a swollen red puncture in Carlos’ back which leaks a mixture of pus and blood the moment the dressing is removed.
“Infected wound,” TK says. It’s a wonder he gets out the words. “GSW.”
He darts round Carlos’ front and lifts his shirt there.
No mark.
“Grace… there’s no exit wound.”