Chapter Text
A rational mind knows all seconds are the same, but TK’s never been sensible. Not when the time inches forward like molasses, and definitely not as he replays the fight over. He’s the one who stormed out instead of communicating like a proper adult. But when has he ever been an actual adult? Adults don’t storm out of the home they share with their husband. They also don’t use their spare key to skulk into their father’s home.
The blinds and curtains are drawn, but dawn creeps around the corners and fills the gaps. There’s enough light for him to stare at the ceiling, searching for anything to distract him. A crack in something other than him would be preferable. Too bad the ceiling appears perfect.
Next to him, his phone alternates from black to the photo of Carlos kissing him. Notifications dot the screen. All of them are from Carlos, whose messages fluctuate between apologizing and asking him if he’s okay.
TK can’t tear his eyes from the pixels that, when put together by the thousands or millions, make up a photo of a happier time. How long have they been out of step?
Loving Carlos is as easy as breathing, and he imagines them as moving to a song no one else could hear. But somehow, one of them got out of step, and neither has figured out how to fix them. The more he tries to pull Carlos back to him, the more Carlos slips through his fingers and further away. When he closes his eyes, he sees the hurt on his husband’s face. He’ll never forget the glass-like shine of his husband’s eyes. Another memory he’ll punish himself over until his brain takes pity by letting him forget.
Finally, he rolls over. Instead of brushing his thumb over the screen to read the messages, he holds the side button down. There was a time when he wondered how he ever functioned without a phone. Now, he wants to throw it out the window and curse technology and every decision, every moment, and every second that has led him here.
One of his previous therapists might say this is textbook abandonment issues. Embarrassingly, he’s inclined to agree. One setback, and he’s running away from his problems. At least the coping mechanisms are better.
How good can a coping mechanism be if it puts you right back in your father’s house?
With a groan, he grabs one of the extra pillows and pulls it over his face to block out the light. He doesn’t want to be in this bed. He wants to be underneath their cream quilt, resting his head on his husband’s chest after dinner and some vigorous sex.
The last thing he wanted was to be here with his tail between his legs.
At least his father is on a 24-hour shift, giving TK enough time to get himself together before he gets the third degree. Small mercies. As much as he’s been thinking of other universes, there’s no universe where Carlos won’t send a text to Owen asking him to check-in.
Everything would be more uncomplicated if Carlos were like all the others. If Carlos looked him in the eyes and told him there was something wrong with him, and that’s why their relationship drifts away like ice floes. But nothing in his life has ever been uncomplicated, much to his chagrin.
In couples’ counseling, Carlos called him more than supportive. Called him incredible. The exact words TK would use to describe Carlos throughout their relationship. But that voice, the one that lives in the back of his head, says if TK only tried harder. The thoughts are a steady, painful beat against his skull.
If TK only was better. Well, then, maybe Carlos wouldn’t be drifting. Maybe if TK was better, maybe if he hadn’t dragged him to couples’ therapy, maybe if he hadn’t volleyed immature insults at him like a teenager, maybe if…
“Stop, stop, stop,” TK hisses, screwing his eyes shut before he tries his best to nap.
He wakes up a few hours later when Owen knocks on the door, not even waiting for a response before pushing into the room.
“Can we pretend this isn’t what it is?”
“Afraid not,” Owen says, perching on the edge of his bed. “He didn’t tell me what was going on. Just that you might be upset.”
Inhaling, TK counts to ten in his head to let his thoughts coalesce into something understandable before he speaks. “I told Carlos I didn’t think he cared about our anniversary. Which I was right about. I’m not sure when he got home, but I went to bed around midnight.”
When he speaks the words into existence, a sour feeling settles in his stomach, and he wonders if he might throw up. Is he being selfish? Is he overreacting? It’s just an anniversary. Even if he feels like the entire world has gone wrong. In the grand scheme of a marriage, a first anniversary probably isn’t important. But he wouldn’t know.
“We argued. I left, came here, and then I turned off my phone.” He goes back to staring at the ceiling. “We’ve been going to couples’ counseling.”
There. His dirty secret is out in the air. No taking it back.
His father exhales, and TK wonders what kind of sage advice the man plans to bestow upon him. To his surprise, he only reaches an arm out to squeeze TK’s shoulder gently. “You two are going to figure it out. I believe in you both.” Then, he rises from the bed. “I’m going to go make an early dinner. You up for some?”
He’s out the door before TK can answer.
The world keeps turning. Sometimes, that’s the biggest insult.
They text.
After the initial bombardment of texts from Carlos, which TK pointedly doesn’t address when he sends Carlos a ‘good morning, be safe at work’ text, they fall into a rhythm of sending updates throughout the day. In three days, they’ve exchanged more texts than in the past month. He gets multiple Lou updates. But TK can tell when Carlos gets wrapped back up in his cases when the texts taper off, becoming fewer and further between.
He misses Carlos like he would miss a lost arm. He misses the way his lips feel against his skin. He misses knowing there is a future stretched out in front of them. One they’ll take on together. Knowing they might not even have a tomorrow makes his thoughts spiral. Both have accepted they’re both a bullet or crash or anything away from losing the other. Did either of them expect an end to start while sharing the same air?
He books an extra-long emergency therapy session to untangle the mess of his thoughts. All he comes away with is the realization he needs more.
One of the traits he loves most in Carlos is his determination. He’s spent enough nights with an arm slung over his husband’s middle as Carlos reads on his laptop well into the night and early morning to know he’s passionate. Now, the passion has turned into obsession, and TK knows enough about obsession to see when it is dangerous. At this point, he might be an expert.
Despite his attempts not to think about it, TK looks towards the bay doors more than he wants to admit. As if Carlos will walk through with a smile. TK hasn’t been home because he doesn’t want to sleep in an empty bed or see the files somehow decorating most of their rooms.
For the longest time, their home was a comfort. Was there a specific moment when it transitioned from solace to whatever it was now? When did TK begin hesitating before he opening the door, wondering if his husband was going to be home or if he was still at work, claiming the protein bar from the vending machine was a suitable dinner and leaving TK to spend another night in an empty bed and the voice telling him he wasn’t worth coming home for?
It’s the same hesitation he feels now as he stands outside the door to their therapist’s office. There’s a chance Carlos won’t show up. When TK told him they needed to go, he thought they were fine. None of this was permanent. Everything was temporary.
At least TK has nothing planned for the rest of the day. Early on, he learned not to schedule anything after therapy. Processing emotions was more exhausting than running a marathon in full gear.
He inhales, exhales, and then pushes the door open with his breath somewhere between his lips and lungs.
He’s not expecting to see Carlos rising from the couch in the waiting room. He’s also not expecting to see the red-rimmed eyes and circles under his eyes from sleepless nights.
“How long have you been waiting?” TK asks at the same time Carlos crosses the room, murmuring his name. With Carlos’s arms around him, TK’s knees buckle as a rush of rightness fills him. He buries his face in Carlos’s neck and lets the familiar smell of his cologne relax him. Let the scent, if only for a moment, take him back to when there was no distance between them. To the time when he was so happy, all of his memories of them were tinted with a euphoric haze.
If he searches the recesses of his memory, he’ll find proof these hugs have become further and further between. If he flips through his memories, the way Carlos does with his files, he knows he’ll be confronted with the knowledge hugs aren’t the only thing reaching a level of scarcity.
When he blinks, he finds his arms around Carlos, who murmurs apologies with every breath. Underneath him, his husband’s shirt is damp with the tears he wasn’t aware he was shedding until now.
“Fuck. Sorry,” TK says as he tries to step back from the hug, but Carlos keeps his arms around him.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Carlos says. He pulls his arms away, but Carlos cups his face with both hands before TK can escape the grip. With a thumb, he brushes the wetness underneath TK’s eyes.
“No, I do. I’m not being supportive enough. I ran away. You’re going through so much, and I’m being selfish and–”
A throat clears.
“Gentlemen?” Their therapist glances between them. Her face is impassive. “Maybe we should have this discussion in my office?”
TK doesn’t need to be told twice, ducking his head as he passes them to sit in his usual chair. They’ve had one appointment, and somehow, the chair is his.
Silence seeps into the spaces between them as they settle in their seats to hang thick and suffocating. He tugs at the collar of his shirt, wondering if anyone else feels like they can’t breathe. The chairs aren’t too far apart, but the distance seems wider. No longer an ice floe, but a crevasse.
None of this would have happened if you only kept your mouth shut. All of this was your idea. All of this is your fault.
Their therapist’s gentle, even voice cuts through the din of his thoughts. “It seems there’s been some developments. TK, would you like to start?”
No words come out, even when he opens his mouth. The air hangs somewhere in his diaphragm, and his suffocating theory becomes more possible with each passing second. When he lifts his fingers to his cheek, he realizes he’s still crying. Embarrassment
“It’s my fault,” Carlos says. “All of it.”
Instead of their previous session's neutral, vacant tone, TK hears the weight of sleepless nights in an empty bed, coloring his voice. When he looks over at his husband, Carlos’s gaze is locked firmly on the floor, and his fingers dig into the arm of the chair as if it did something personal to him. The corner of his perfect jaw twitches with tension.
“Why do you say that, Carlos?”
With the attention turned to his husband, TK exhales and continues to rub the pad of his thumb over the skin of his index finger. One day, TK realized he had developed the skill to feel the weight of Carlos’s gaze on his skin. A sixth sense he’s grateful for most of the time. At this moment, it feels overwhelming.
“Even after he told me he was worried about our anniversary, I still didn’t pay attention, and then I got caught up with work, and when I came home…” Carlos trails off. From where TK sits, he can see Carlos’s throat bob as he swallows the words. His normally straight-backed husband slumps forward and rests his arms on his legs as if he were sitting in a pew seeking forgiveness.
“I overreacted,” TK says. “Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to cut in, but I’m the one who ran out. I should have been more supportive, I should have—”
“You did nothing wrong.” Carlos still can’t tear his eyes away from the rug. “All you’re asking of me is to let you in, and I’m holding you at arm’s length. I know our anniversary and my father’s murder are close together, and I want justice, but…” He inhales, and TK wants to reach out but feels frozen in the chair. “But he’s gone, and you’re still here, even though I haven’t been a good husband to you.”
“I left.”
“You took yourself out of an upsetting situation for good reason.”
“Are you able to look at me? Or are you married to the rug?” TK snaps before he covers his hand with his eyes. “Fuck, sorry. That’s not good communication.”
“You’re hurt. Of course, you’re lashing out,” Carlos says, but he straightens and turns his entire body to face TK. It’s been so long since TK’s been on the receiving end of the full force of Carlos’s attention, and he feels like a flower seeing the sun for the first time in days. Or a lizard under a heat lamp. He’s basking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Relationships aren’t fifty-fifty,” TK says. “I should be more supportive of you, babe.”
“No, because I’m asking too much of you. I’m asking you to make yourself smaller, and you don’t deserve that. You’ve never deserved that.”
“Even when you’re with me, you’re not really with me. Your mind is always somewhere else.”
Carlos reaches out to take TK’s hand and threads their fingers together. “Nothing is more important to me than you. Nothing. You were right. I got obsessed, I lost sight of it, and I think I’m losing myself to grief. So I took the files back to the office.”
He tears his gaze away from Carlos and looks up at the ceiling, remembering they have an audience. In his peripheral vision, he can see she’s watching them with a neutral expression.
“TK,” she asks when she realizes he isn’t responding, or he needs some sort of verbal cue to make the wheels in his head turn. “What is your reaction to this?”
“Hurt. Good. Conflicted, I guess. Probably a better word. I don’t want him to hurt, but I don’t want to be demanding.” He looks at Carlos. “I worry about you, baby. I worry about you so much.”
“I worry about you, too.”
Their therapist leans forward in her seat. “Let’s start there.”
One session doesn’t solve everything. Nothing gets fixed overnight.
They keep up the weekly sessions. Every week, like clockwork, they both show up. Even with shift work, they keep those days free.
The files are gone, but fixations don’t disappear because someone recognizes them. Bad habits take time to break. Negative self-talk and thoughts don’t vanish with a snap of fingers.
Rules are set. No work comes home. Neither can stay at work longer than an hour after a shift ends. One date night every two weeks. If they’re on opposite shifts, they coordinate a time to talk on the phone. No vending machine lunches or dinners. Communication is open, and an obscene amount of I-statements are used.
They make mistakes. They make strides. Carlos admits he needs to see a grief counselor and makes an appointment.
“Babe? I’m home.” TK calls, the door shutting behind him. The noise of the door clicking behind him no longer causes his fight or flight to activate and his heartbeat to race. Their synchronized schedule says Carlos ended his shift earlier.
“Kitchen,” Carlos responds, and TK follows his voice into the kitchen. This time, it is his turn to encircle his husband in his arms and kiss his neck.
Lou is getting a bigger tank. The distance is closing. Their future is no longer a foreboding mass approaching them. Now it’s something to look towards. Together.