Work Text:
Carlos knows something is wrong when he gets the text from Owen, telling him that T.K. hasn’t shown up at work. They were both running late when they’d left Carlos’s house that night, so T.K. had turned down his offer of a lift, and Carlos had let him, not wanting to risk a write up.
He regrets it now, but there’s nothing he can do except call T.K., each time getting sent to voicemail, each time leaving a message for him to pick up the goddamn phone.
He tries to convince himself that everything is fine, that the reason neither Owen nor T.K. have texted back is because they’re on a call and haven’t had time. It doesn’t work, and by the time he’s called out himself, his nerves are wrecked.
The call is to a flipped Uber, pretty bad by the sounds of it. Carlos tries to push away the fear and panic that it could be T.K. because that’s insane, but they’re directed to a street that’s minutes away from the 126, and his hands won’t stop shaking. His partner sends him a look, then offers to drive instead, and he’s never been more grateful for her presence than he is now.
Carlos practically throws himself out of the car when they get there, running over to where the 126 are already gathered. T.K.’s not with them, he can tell that much, and -
Oh, God.
There’s a body lying on the asphalt, partially obscured by Michelle and her team, but Carlos recognises that Austin FD t-shirt. Just a few hours ago it had been crumpled on the floor of his living room as T.K. fucked him senseless.
Carlos is frozen, unable to move no matter how much his body screams at him to go to T.K. He knows their jobs are dangerous, knows they both put themselves at risk every single day, but it’s different to actually live it.
Different, even, from when T.K. had been shot, because Carlos hadn’t been there that time. He’s here now, and it’s all too real, all too much.
Owen is suddenly in front of him, saying words that don’t reach Carlos’s ears. He blinks at him uncertainly, knowing he should do something, say something, but he can’t. There aren’t any words, not now. Owen’s hand comes down on his shoulder and all Carlos can think is that this is all wrong. He should be the one doing the comforting, the one getting on with his job, instead of just standing here like an idiot.
Christ, none of them should even be here. T.K. shouldn’t be bleeding out on the asphalt, Owen shouldn’t have to watch his son die again, Carlos shouldn’t have to respond to his own boyfriend’s death -
The thought shocks him back into the present, the sudden rush of noise making Carlos wince.
“You back with me, son?” Owen says, his voice hollow.
Carlos nods, and tries to speak past the lump in his throat. “Yes, sir,” he manages. “What can I do to help?”
If he’s going to have to be here, then he ought to make himself useful, but Owen just shakes his head.
“You can be with him,” he says. “He’s been asking for you.”
Carlos feels sick, not liking the tone of Owen’s voice, nor the implications of what he’s saying. But he steels himself and heads over to T.K., each step like he’s walking through syrup. T.K. comes into full view as Carlos gets closer and, god, it’s so much worse that he realised. He’s lying in a pool of blood that’s far too big, his face pale as wax, and Carlos would mistake him for dead if not for the subtle rise and fall of his chest and the breath fogging up his oxygen mask. Michelle and her team are hard at work, but Carlos has run plenty of cases like this before. He knows how much blood is too much.
She sees him and beckons him over, shifting so that he can kneel next to T.K. That alone is confirmation enough of how bad the situation is, but Carlos forces down the grief rising in his throat and concentrates on his boyfriend. He spots another man - the driver, Carlos would guess - sitting in the ambulance, wrapped in a blanket; he can’t help but be bitter that this man is okay when T.K. is lying here halfway to death.
But he can’t think about it for long; T.K.’s eyes are cracked open, that beautiful green trained on Carlos’s face. He tries to smile. “Hey, corazón,” he says, stroking T.K.’s hair. At Michelle’s nod, he carefully lifts T.K.’s head from the ground and places it in his lap.
“‘Los,” T.K. gasps, muffled by the mask.
“It’s me, it’s me, I’m here,” Carlos shushes. He bends down and presses a kiss to T.K.’s forehead, winding one arm across his chest, hand resting just above his weakly beating heart. It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
Beside him, Michelle stands and walks over to Owen. Carlos can’t hear much, but he catches enough to know that they’ve done all they can. That T.K. is going to die here, on some random Austin road, in the middle of the night. He wants to scream at the world, at Michelle, at the goddamn driver, but he knows that’s unfair of him. It was a freak accident. It could have happened to anyone.
(Why, then, did it have to be T.K., he wonders, but he knows there’s no answer)
Owen and Michelle come over, Michelle gently removing the mask from T.K.’s face as Owen kneels and holds T.K.’s hand. She squeezes Carlos’s shoulder.
“Talk to him,” she says, then moves back, leaving them alone.
Carlos swallows nervously, glancing over at Owen, but he seems beyond words. So, Carlos takes a steadying breath and refocuses on T.K.’s face, ignoring the blood on his hands.
“Hey, T.K.” He sniffs, wiping away the tears that have begun to slip down his cheeks. “Remember the night we met? When we danced at that bar? I think I fell in love with you that night, which is completely crazy, but I guess you and crazy are the same thing, huh?”
He breathes out, laughing a little. “You’ve gotta stop doing this to me, Tyler. I thought we’d agreed last time to stop scaring each other.”
A shudder runs through T.K.’s body and he coughs, blood spilling from his lips. “S-Sorry,” he rasps, and Carlos is startled at the tears in his eyes. He looks up at Owen, wide-eyed, struggling for words.
Owen nods and shuts his eyes, composing himself. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”
T.K.’s heartbeat falters beneath Carlos’s fingers and his eyes begin to drift. Carlos is seized by a sudden panic, desperately clawing for just a few more moments with the love of his life.
“Mírame, amor,” he says, sharper than he intended. T.K. can’t go yet, he’s not ready, he’s not ready -
T.K.’s lips move, and Carlos has to bend down to hear him.
“Love...you.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs, forcing the words out. “I love you, too. So much.”
And there’s a moment, so brief that Carlos isn’t sure it’s not his imagination, when T.K. smiles, and his eyes look more alive than they have done in ages. Carlos wants to freeze that moment, to live in it forever, because he knows with a sudden, awful clarity, that it’s the last one he’s going to get.
Because, when it’s over, Carlos feels the life leave T.K.’s body. There’s no more heartbeat beneath his fingertips, no more air escaping his lips, no more light in his eyes. Carlos stares down into the face of the man he thought he would spend his life with, the bright green of his eyes, the sharp line of his jaw, his lips, still slightly swollen from just a few hours ago, though it feels more like a hundred years now.
And Carlos breaks.