Work Text:
Sometimes, your heartbeat is like the residual water trapped in a leaky faucet. The water, like your heartbeat, is always there. But when you hear it, you can’t unhear it.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It’s a kind of ringing that you can’t shake.
Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Or like a staccato you can’t control.
Thump. Thump.
The continual bass that’s going to do what it wants until you stop it.
The water is always there and your heart is always beating.
They both have the potential of being a ticking time bomb.
The interesting thing, however, is the viewpoint both receive. A faucet that leaks is a broken sink. But the heart is an entire portfolio. A heart that pounds isn’t always viewed as a bad thing. Adrenaline; love; illness; excitement.
Fear too.
Pure, unbridled terror.
But as much as this comparison is presented as being a layered cornucopia of avenues to take, there’s still some simplicity to remember. In a way, they’re both a reminder.
A reminder that you’re still alive.
And a reminder that you need to call a plumber.
Drip. Thump. Drip. Thump.
But maybe the metaphor has gotten away from him. It’s to be expected, though. He’s dying after all.
Carlos woke to a thundering in his skull and every primal instinct ingrained in his nervous system screaming at him to move. The slowness of his mind was shocked into overdrive with the resistance of the tape around him, concaving his arms to his chest and pinning his wrists together. Suffocating him. Constricting him like a snake that wound around his mouth and pulled at his skin until it felt all wrong and his head continued to beat at the speed of a hammer with a temper. His heart pounded against his chest and everything was telling him to run. Run away. Get away. Get far, far away. It was too late. Run. Run. Run.
He’d been running. But then he stabbed his heel into the dirt in his panic like a wild colt not used to his legs and all he can do is prop himself up against an old rusted water heater that he’d never seen before as it groaned against his weight.
His head screamed at the fight against gravity. No, that was him. No, it wasn’t. Was it? He couldn’t tell because he couldn’t breathe and his arms were bound like someone couldn’t figure out how to manipulate his limbs to their liking and everything hurt.
It was breathtaking how much he hurt. He’d been hurting all day. He’d been bracing for it. But this was something else. This was… wrong.
He’d been running.
“It’s about time you woke up.”
The hand that snatched his sweaty curls yanked him back and dragged him across the floor. He kicked out his legs as his head screamed at the mistreatment. No, that had been him. The burning in his throat told him that had been him. But he’d been out of breath earlier. The coiled layers of tape were forcing him to swallow his scream so that it burned against his vocal chords while the ground made everything ache.
“I saved you for last.”
He was being dragged and every grain of dirt felt like it was ripping into his skin and his head. God, his head!
But he’d been running.
He’d been running.
Everything hurt.
His head was thundering.
Then he was falling.
TK huffed out a long sigh when he saw that his texts still were left unanswered.
“Uh oh,” Judd said with a laugh, his face red from the heat. “I know that expression. What did you do?”
TK glared at Judd and took the other end of the hose for him.
“Something stupid apparently.”
Even in the shade of the truck bay, the heat of the sun was stifling. TK was used to New York summers where the air was thick with humidity and the streets smelled like urine and cement. But Austin summers were proving to be just as brutal.
“Apologize,” Judd said as they loaded the truck with the hose.
“You don’t even know what happened!”
“Don’t got to know. But I’ve been in the dog house enough with Grace to know that you still got to apologize.”
TK hid his scowl behind his arm as he pushed the sweat off his forehead. How Carlos was running in this heat was beyond him.
“It’s just…” TK started and then stopped because he didn’t want to invalidate Carlos’s feelings even if he didn't get them. “It’s Carlos’s birthday and I didn’t realize it’d be such a big deal but… I don’t know.”
Marjan snorted as she strolled by with the jaws in her arms like they weighed nothing.
“What did you do? Forget about it?”
“Worse. I acknowledged it.”
Marjan shot Judd a raised brow before stowing the jaws back into the proper compartment.
“Right!” TK exclaimed at their shared confusion. “I guess he’s not into birthdays. Said his wasn’t something he felt like celebrating. He got all weird and I pushed but he thought I was making fun of him, I guess, and yeah.”
Where Judd was all rough handshakes and grit, Marjan was smooth edges and sympathy.
“You couldn’t have known,” she tried but TK didn’t feel any better.
He may not get it but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel like an ass. Carlos had been weird when TK had surprised him with birthday pancakes that he’d doordashed from Carlos’s favorite diner. Then he’d been angry when TK prodded. But none of that concealed the hurt his boyfriend had been trying to hide. A kind of hurt he didn’t notice until later that Carlos had been bruising for a couple days now only to wake up with it at the sound of TK’s awful singing.
“But isn’t that the problem? We’ve been dating almost three months. I think it’s something I should’ve known. It’s something I should’ve asked at least. I’m just so used to having to explain my story that I come off a little---”
“Self-centered.” Judd finished for him.
TK shot him a glare. “Ow. Okay. Yeah.”
Judd shrugged and tossed him his water bottle from the work bench.
“I forget sometimes to ask someone to explain theirs.” TK finished with a sigh, pulling his phone and checking to see if there were any messages.
Nothing.
“And now he’s not talking to me.”
The truck bay door opened with a chorus of turning gears, sending waves of heat inside.
“He’ll be fine,” Judd said decisively. “He’ll have plenty of birthdays for you to celebrate and then you can remind him when he’s old and cranky what an ass he was about you wanting to do something nice.”
“Oh no,” Marjan waved her finger. “Haven’t you heard? TK is the one robbing the cradle. Carlos is a year younger than him.”
Unbothered, Judd shrugged. “What difference does it make? They both look like they're twelve.”
The police precinct was settled in an easy hum of control chaos. Phones were ringing and people were murmuring and the constant movement was as steady as a heartbeat.
It’s funny. He couldn’t remember ever noticing his heartbeat until it stopped. Stopped and started like an engine that was reaching the end of its life. Ever since that day, though, when the phone call came from the hospital who didn’t know that they had put a lock on their communication; he was aware.
It was all their fault. These ants in uniforms, butting into everyone else’s business and instilling a panic at just the sight of them. It was their fault.
Well, it was his fault. That’s why he’d been saved for last.
His fault--- amongst others who he’d taken care of--- that she was dead.
The air conditioning chilled the sweat along his skin as he stepped in through the lobby to finish what he’d started. A young thing, too soft and too pretty to ever be allowed in a man’s job, looked up at him as he approached the desk.
“Can I help you?” She asked like the glorified receptionist that she was.
He slapped his wallet onto the desk and then pulled his weapon with his holster before placing that down as well.
“I’m here to turn myself in,” he said and watched as the chaos seemed to freeze.
“For what crime?”
He shrugged, aware of his heartbeat slowing into the calm steady rhythm in his chest, even as the cops watched him in trepidation.
“Murder.”
“Hey, you’ve reached Carlos. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!”
Michelle rolled her eyes as the voicemail went through. She didn’t expect him to answer but she understood. Today was a hard day for her friend.
“Hey, it’s me,” she said, cradling her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she finished updating the last of her reports from their morning. Austin summers brought out the best and worst in people as the heat coated the city like a sandstorm in the desert.
“I just wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday. I finish my shift around six so I was thinking we could hit up the Honky Tonky for a drink.” It would probably be the only celebration she was going to get from him but the familiarity of the bar would make it easier than trying to convince Carlos out to dinner or something. “And I don’t care what you say because I got a gift for you and when I see you later to give it to you I expect a smile and a thank you. Don’t hide away too much. Happy Birthday, Carlos.”
Michelle’s smile lingered for a few moments after she hung up before it slipped into some more neutral; something a little more troubled. Carlos, more than anyone she knew, deserved to be celebrated. He was kind and compassionate and brighter than the Texas sun when you could pull him from his shell. But he was also strong. So much stronger than he should have to be.
She’d known Carlos since he was eighteen when her sister dragged him over one day after school to work on a Physics project together. She’d watched as he itched his way through community college until he could apply for the academy. She’d witnessed how he started to wear his police uniform rather than the uniform wearing him.
She’d been there for all his highs but that meant she’d been there for all his lows too.
So, she hated that his birthday was just a repetitive time loop of a low that he never could seem to pull himself out of. Every year it felt more and more like she was reaching under the bed and waiting for him to take her hand to help him out from whatever shroud he’d hidden himself under. Every year she hoped she didn’t have to--- this year especially now that Carlos and TK had gotten their act together--- but it seemed like this year would be the same.
He’d come out someday--- some birthday--- just not this year it would appear.
Burning didn’t even being to describe the underlining scorching along his skin. A burning that started in his lungs, trapped in his throat, and pressed against every pore in his body to get out.
He’d been running but then he fell.
Everything hurt.
The pulsating beat against his head pushed the sting behind his eyes and he couldn’t move or he would fall more but no that wasn’t right.
No, wait.
Wait!
Everything hurt. Everything.
He’d been running.
Michelle was… intimidating. In any other circumstance, TK would be floored by how mesmerizingly impressive Michelle was. She was a Texan woman through and through. The kind of woman who could spit nails while whispering words that sounded like honey in your ear. She commanded a scene that even top rated captains in New York City couldn’t even compare to and she knew it.
But Michelle was also Carlos’s best friend. She was there when Carlos needed to decompress about something he didn’t want to bother TK with. She was there on the nights when TK was in the middle of a twenty four hour and Carlos was home by himself. She was there. Constantly. She was more of a sister than anything else and TK may have been an only child but he knew the sibling codes.
She was also his coworker and for the most part, they’d done well in an unspoken agreement that despite having Carlos at the center of their individual worlds, they would remain coworkers.
He was essentially crossing the proverbial line in the sand as he stepped into her office.
Michelle glanced up from her paperwork and smiled.
“Hey TK,” she said with that whispery voice of hers.
“Hey!” TK breathed out and then of all things waved at her like an idiot.
He rolled his eyes at his own awkwardness and dropped into the seat across from her desk. Michelle’s brows arched high onto her forehead and disappeared beneath the fringe of her bangs.
“So, Carlos’s birthday,” TK rushed to start.
“Ah.”
And TK didn’t know what that meant but it was starting to drive him a little crazy how something everyone insisted wasn’t a big deal was apparently a big deal.
“Am I missing something here? I don’t,” TK added when he could see the beginnings of a shut down on her expression. “I don’t mean to put you in a weird place or anything but I just… I didn’t realize it was a thing, you know? And now he’s not answering my texts and I’m just worried that… No, I know that I’m missing something.”
“TK,” Michelle rolled his name with a shift of her shoulders
Nails and honey. He watched as she sifted through the baggage that only a friend knew how, navigating though details that she knew and TK didn’t because somethings just took time to tell your boyfriend, before deciding what was and was not acceptable to share.
“TK,” she repeated with another small smile on her face like a consolation prize. “I like you and I know Carlos does too which is why you should really talk to him about this.”
“I tried but he won’t open up to me!” It’d been unnerving watching Carlos retreat back into himself more and more the last couple of days.
TK knew Carlos had been hurting but he thought a birthday would help! Not add onto the pile of agony he tried to desperately to hide. Carlos, his beautiful, bright boyfriend who practically woke up with a smile. But Carlos was also the type of guy who smiled with his pain too. Like when TK had suggested they take a break at the juice bar and admitted to his face that he didn’t know what he felt for him.
“I’m worried, Michelle,” TK admitted. “I’m worried that I did something.”
“No!” Michelle insisted as she leaned across her desk and clasped a hand over his fidgeting fingers. “No, TK. This definitely wasn’t you. Birthdays… are hard for Carlos.”
“Why?”
Michelle bit her lip and shook her head.
“He’s going to have to tell you that story himself. Sorry.”
TK sighed, frustrated that he was still nowhere but he understood. Michelle was being a good friend and TK was being a… mediocre boyfriend from his own estimation.
“But,” Michelle added. “I will say that one of the things I like about you is that you seem to make Carlos genuinely happy. Most of his relationships have never really been about him. I mean even our own is pretty have handed towards my needs and… he isn’t used to people wanting to care for him without strings attached. I think it’s nice that you want to celebrate him and Lord knows he deserves it but maybe don’t push him.”
And he had, hadn’t he? He’d pushed that morning when Carlos withdrew at the mention of his birthday. The expression of hurt that had flashed over Carlos’s face when TK didn’t let the subject drop. It’d pushed Carlos out the door in the guise of a morning run and TK had just stood there like an idiot, confused and a little annoyed. Their whole relationship and even the prologue before, Carlos had been incredible about giving TK his space. The moment Carlos had asked for his own, though, TK had just steamrolled onto all the hurt, bruised feelings he didn’t understand.
Michelle waited it out for him to process what she said and smiled when he nodded.
Her phone rang with a clattering sharpness that frayed at his already raw nerves.
“Thanks,” TK said with a smile of his own. “I’ll let you get that.”
Michelle waved at him with an amused expression on her face that he was pretty sure he was being made fun of before she answered her cell.
“This is Michelle.”
He’d only made it about two steps across the space from her office to his dad’s office when he heard the guttural deepening of worry in her tone.
“What? What do you mean he didn’t come for roll call?”
“All units be advised: please be on the lookout for missing off duty police officer, Carlos Reyes. Repeat all units be on the lookout for missing off duty police officer, Carlos Reyes. Missing person is twenty-six-year-old latino male; black hair; brown eyes; height: six foot one inches. He was last seen leaving his home in a pair of grey running shorts and blue tennis shoes. Be advised that he’s believed to be injured.”
“Mr. Donovan,” the woman repeated.
The woman because that’s all she was even if they threw her in fancy clothes and gave her a badge.
“I need you to tell me where Officer Reyes is,” she said but he didn’t care.
It was over. It was finally over.
“I told you,” he said, wishing a little that he could’ve at least been given a real officer to deal with. “He’s gone.”
“Mr. Donovan,” she stressed. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors---”
“Don’t need favors.”
Jefferson Donovan was a practical man. He was a realist at heart because life was set in stones of black and white and a man was expected to pick one path or the other. He knew he wasn’t always the easiest to be around. He’d made mistakes. He knew what was right and what was wrong. It’s why he turned himself in when he was finished. When he’d sent that punk ass kid back to the hell he belonged in, Jefferson turned himself in to answer for the crimes done out of necessity. He was man enough to face his price for vengeance unlike those on his list who whimpered and cried their way through him scratching their names off one by one.
He did what a man was supposed to do. He worked; he kept a roof over their heads; he kept them clothed and fed. Mae never went to bed hungry. He’d given her everything a wife needed.
And she still ran. All because these people butting into their business and putting all those ideas in his wife head.
They killed her for it.
So, he killed them in return.
“If he isn’t already burning in Hell,” he said, leaning back as far as the cuffs attached to a ring on the table would let him to ease some of the tension out of the small of his back.
He was getting old.
“Then he’ll be there before you ever find him.”
He’d been running.
Even the morning air wasn’t enough of a reprieve from the heat as Carlos’s feet pounded against the hard sidewalk in time with the crescendo of his heart.
He’d been preparing from the hurt for a couple of days now. It was the only way he knew how to get through the day. Running helped. Barely. But it was enough to keep his tears back and he had to accept that was the best he was going to get after the disaster of that morning.
He shouldn’t be so upset. He should be over the worst of the painful throbbing sting by now.
But the panic that had soared into his throat and hung onto his vocal chords as TK said the two words he hated the most.
TK didn’t understand and Carlos should explain but he didn’t want to. He wanted to keep his head down and push through the day like it was something to forget about.
So, he’d gone running.
His heart pounded against his chest as the heat of the sun turned blistering. His nose burned with the overwhelming sense of scorch and ash suffocating him.
But that had to be the tape.
Because he’d been running and then he’d been falling.
“They’re going to find him, TK,” Judd said reassuringly into his headset as the truck took another turn.
TK couldn’t bring himself to respond. He was too worried that if he opened his mouth he was going to throw up. Carlos had been missing for hours even with the emergency protocols in place for all available units in the city. You couldn’t turn two streets without seeing a cop cruiser or truck patrolling up and down with city workers sticking their heads out of their windows and examining every corner and crevice. Hundreds of people were looking for him and yet no one had seen any sign of Carlos.
The realization that he was the last person to see his boyfriend in over eight hours was a sucker punch that TK couldn’t even withstand.
TK jerked his head into a short nod and then turned to stare out his window.
Every empty lot only worsened the load of helplessness sitting on his chest. The worst-case scenario… TK’s brain couldn’t even go through with that thought without flinching back onto the memories of Carlos leaving the apartment; literally running away from TK and whatever problem they’d stumbled into when he’d brought up his birthday.
“You got them into his phone, son,” Owen had said after the cops left with Carlos’s password. “That gives them something to go off of.”
They’d been in a holding pattern for a few hours now, circling their district with a weaving pattern through the streets. The news hadn’t broken out about Carlos being missing but civilians were starting to notice that something was up. Kids had set up shop in their yards with kiddie pools and toys, waiting until the trucks passed by before they started to jump and wave. Paul was driving and would honk the horn as they passed but the shrill cheer from the kids was like glass against TK’s ears.
They’d have to stop to refuel soon and the idea of going back to the house without even a lead where Carlos was, was almost as unbearable as the heat.
“Main to all available units: police requesting squad or truck assistance at a residence on the corner of Worchester and Ewan.”
Everyone perked up as Owen grabbed his radio from the dash.
“Main, this is truck 126. We’re about four minutes out. Heading over to the residence now to assist. Do you have any further information of what we’re heading into?”
TK held his breath as he waited for main’s response. It could be anything. They were called all the time to assist police with breaching residences for all kinds of reasons. But if it could be Carlos; the crumb of hope twisted a knot in TK’s chest.
“Negative, 126.”
Everyone in the truck deflated. TK clenched his jaw and forced himself to keep looking as they turned in the direction of their call.
He’d been running. Fall running. He’d been running and then he’d been falling but there was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to run and there was nowhere to fall. He’d reached the bottom of the hell scape with ash on his back and mud on his shins and there was nowhere for him to go.
He was so hot but the chill that had set in didn’t seem right. Goosebumps prickled along his skin.
He couldn’t move but he’d been running and his heart was still beating like a brass drum in his ears like he was still running but he wasn’t anymore. He was Prometheus tied to the earth and waiting under the hot, unforgiving sun for an eagle to come peck out his liver. It was a liver, right?
But he hadn’t stolen the fire and given it away. It felt like the fire was still trapped against his chest.
He shouldn’t be sitting. He shouldn’t be still. Why was he still? Why was he stuck?
Where… Where was he? He’d been running. Running running running.
Running away from his problems because the bruise never healed and TK had unintentionally pressed into it. Running away. He thought he’d matured out of that. But he was still running.
The pavement had felt wobbly beneath his feet as his calves screamed at him to ease up. The summer heat was unforgiving even to someone who was just trying to sweat out his problems and his watch pinged at him that he’d surpassed his past mileage. He couldn’t even hear his music in his headphones. A wave of euphoric ambivalence had settled over him in the rhythmic pattern of pushing one foot in front of the other. He was outracing the sun and if he ran fast enough then the day would be over and he could move on.
He should apologize. TK didn’t know. It wasn’t fair that Carlos reacted the way he did when his boyfriend was just trying to be nice.
How do you begin to explain the very thing keeping a tight grip on your vocal chords?
“Help!” The one word that flicked a switch in Carlos’s brain knocked him out of his mental reprieve as a man waved his arms at him. “Please help! My wife, she---”
He couldn’t even get the words out and Carlos pulled his headphones out of his ears as he veered into the yard.
“Have you called 9-1-1?” Carlos asked as he followed the man around the house.
“Please come help!”
“What’s the---"
Then he’d been slammed into darkness.
He must have fallen sometime after that. Falling, falling, falling. But not before he’d been running and then dragging and then screaming.
It was so dark and he was so cold.
“What a coincidence,” Owen said as he hoped out of the truck the same time that Michelle was getting out of the ambulance.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Michelle said, her chin up and brow arched. “Thought we could lend a hand if you needed medical assist.”
Owen hummed before tilted his head in silent support and slipped his helmet on as he followed his crew inside. Squad cars were screaming as they pulled into the area; uniformed and plain clothed officers piling into the area.
“What’s the situation?” He asked as a detective met him at the door.
“This property was recently purchased by the suspect of our missing police officer,” she said, walking and talking with a controlled sense of urgency. “Officer Reyes’ exercise app has him passing by this residence at some point during his run. Problem is that the suspect took his phone and watch with him so he could’ve attacked him before or after at this point.”
Owen shot a quick glance at his son and frowned at the paleness that had set into his color. He should have TK wait at the truck. The possibility that they could find Carlos’s body was getting stronger with each minute he was missing.
He didn’t think TK would survive the fallout if that was the case.
But they didn’t have time and it would be pointless anyways.
The detective led Owen and his team down a flight of stairs where four officers were standing around a steel door in the ground.
“Judd, TK,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Let’s get this open.”
Judd and TK nodded as they passed, tight lipped but determined as they wedged the halligan into the seam of the trap door, leaving the rest of them to sit and pray that they weren’t about to find Carlos’s body beneath it. TK held the halligan steady for Judd.
“Strike!”
Ding.
“Strike!”
Ding.
“Strike!”
Ding-thunk.
The claw slipped into the opening with a jerk and TK used all his weight as leverage to pry the door open. Mateo stepped up beside TK and pulled before several of the officers pushed their hands into the frame and pulled as well. The door fell open with a slam and filled the basement with a musky heat that settled in the back of their throats.
“Carlos!” TK called. He started to stick his head in but an officer pulled him out and behind him as they waited.
The detective pulled out her weapon and flicked on her flashlight as she waited.
“Officer Reyes?”
Silence. It was deafening against the thready anticipation.
“Austin PD!”
Nothing.
It was ridiculous in its offensiveness. Everyone had braced themselves, hoping that they’d come to the end of this terrible journey, and all they were given was silence.
“Clear,” the detective sighed. “There’s nothing done here.”
Maybe this is what they meant. The thing that they’d never been brave enough to say to his face. The thing he’d so willfully pretended he didn’t know they were thinking. Maybe this was what everyone had said would happen.
He was so cold. Falling had frozen him to the ground. The last of the searing heat was dying with him.
But there were so many things he thought he would be able to do.
Things that he should be able to do. He should. He demanded to be able to do.
But he was just so cold. Everything hurt. When had he stopped running?
TK bit back his frustration as it threatened to overwhelm his entire being after he exited the house. It’d been abandoned for a while and the dust covering everything should’ve been a dead give away that finding Carlos there was a long shot but still. He couldn’t help but feel like they’d been a fingertip away. No matter how far he reached out though, Carlos wouldn’t be able to reach back because he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t---
No.
He needed to keep it together. It was the only thing stopping his dad from sidelining him and he needed to be there when they found Carlos.
Carlos would be.
“What’s your guy doing?” One of the officers asked, stepping beside TK on the porch.
TK looked up and watched as Paul stood in the middle of the dried-out yard and scanned the dusty skeletons of grass.
“Paul?”
But Paul ignored him in favor of dragging his boot along the ground. Paul lifted a hand to his forehead and shielded his eyes as he glanced up at the sun before dropping his gaze back onto the ground.
TK knew better than to question Paul’s methods but he bit down on the hope rising in his chest all the same.
“What are you doing, man?” TK asked as he walked up beside his friend.
“The cops said that Carlos’s attacker said he sent him to Hell, right?” Paul mused more to himself than TK as he continued to analyze the ground more in-depth. His knees popped as he dropped down into a squat.
TK swallowed the bile that burned at the back of his throat at the reminder.
“Paul---”
“There!”
TK startled back at Paul’s sudden burst of motion but followed him as he sprinted across the yard before skidding to a stop. Pebbles scattered across the ground and shattered over top something metallic like a messy imitation of rain.
“Holy sh---” TK heard the cop shout but TK didn’t listen over the roaring in his ears as his heart pounded against his ribcage.
Together, Paul and TK brushed away the dirt over a roof of corrugated iron sheets. The sheets were scalding after sitting under the sun all day but Paul and TK didn’t care as they carefully dragged the sheeting away.
Carlos’s body was twisted in the shallow abandoned barbacoa pit, his eyes closed and his face bloody.
TK couldn’t breathe.
“We found him!” Paul shouted as TK dropped down into the pit, careful to avoid stepping on Carlos’s too still body.
“Carlos… Carlos?” TK cradled Carlos’s face in his hands, his gloves doing nothing to shield him from the heat radiating off of Carlos’s skin. “Baby? Wake up! Wake up, Carlos!”
“Get him out of there!”
Judd and Paul both dropped over the side. Their strong hands were like anchors beneath Carlos’s arms as they hoisted him up. TK grabbed Carlos’s hips and helped because he wanted Carlos out of the practical oven he’d been in for hours but… Carlos was just limp in their arms. He didn’t move. He didn’t twitch. TK couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.
No sooner had they dragged Carlos out and onto the dry bristled soil did Michelle push herself to his side. Her movements were sharp and solid as she slid a finger under the tape stubbornly sticking to Carlos’s skin and cut the strip around his mouth away. Suddenly, they were surrounded but all TK could do was watch at the unmoving limpness of Carlos’s face.
“Temp is 104.6!”
There was blood caked to the side of Carlos’s face in a streaming mix of ruby and brown that fed from an ugly gash along his temple by his hairline. He was so pale. God, he was so pale! His skin was ghostly white and blisteringly dry that TK was afraid that if they touched him too hard, Carlos would fracture into a million pieces of dust.
“He’s not sweating anymore!”
“I can see that,” Michelle said calmly despite her severe expression.
Scissors were thrust into TK’s vision without breaking her stride as she listened to Carlos’s lungs.
“Get this goddamn tape off of him,” she instructed.
TK tried to focus on the shallow rising and falling of Carlos’s chest as he cut away the grimy duct tape coiled around Carlos’s wrists and arms pinning them to his chest. Sweat had humidified some of the adhesive but there were so many layers his attacker must have used a whole roll!
No sooner had TK freed Carlos of the last of the tape did a stretcher and backboard arrive. He moved on autopilot as they rolled Carlos onto the board and lifted him onto the gurney before Michelle and her team were racing towards the ambulance and driving away without him.
Carlos woke to a fog of lost sirens and pinprick pinches on his skin. Something cold crunched under his arms, pressed against his chest, and snaked down his veins to his groin. He groaned out a whimper that shifted the cold into something more intense.
“Carlos? Open your eyes for me, Carlos.” Something was shining in his eyes and he couldn’t swat it away because his hands felt like they were stuck in a thick molasses of pure fatigue. The kind of tired that only came when you couldn’t keep your eyes open long enough to even recognize that you were awake; like waking for a heartbeat during a thunderstorm before being pulled back under.
“Open your eyes for me, Carlos.”
“…’elle?” His lips felt liked they moved but his body felt detached from everything else.
Something cold dripped onto his neck and he cowered away.
“Too cold. I-I don’t… It’s too cold.”
“Carlos,” Michelle’s face appeared in the fog. “We have to get your body temperature down. I need you tell me what else hurts.”
“Everything.” He thought he said. “Why does it hurt so much?”
But Michelle frowned and she shook her head. “Carlos, I don’t understand Portuguese. Can you try telling me what hurts in Spanish?”
He’d been speaking in Portuguese?
Where-Where was he? Why did he feel like he was drifting and still all at once? Everything was so much brighter than it had been. He was so cold. What happened? What happened? What was going on?
It took him too long to realize that the sharp shrill sound that was ringing in his ears was coming from him and he was stuck panicking on the edge, afraid to fall again.
“Don’t let me fall! Please! Please don’t let me fall. Michelle---”
He cut off with a cry as something sharp and excruciating stabbed his leg and twisted until his calf muscle locked into an agonizing chain of immoveable barbed wire. Michelle’s hand found his, her fingers feeling like the only thing that was real.
“It’s a cramp. I know, I know it hurts. But you’re still speaking in Portuguese, Carlos.”
Carlos clamped his teeth onto his lip until he tasted blood because he couldn’t move his legs anymore and the crippling pain was moving up his spine and he didn’t know what she was talking about not understanding him and the colors were slurring together and---
“He’s seizing!”
Nothing.
No falling. No running. Just nothing.
Nothing.
He couldn’t go in there.
TK felt like the soles of his boots were rooted to the spot on the hospital linoleum. The fluorescents were too bright in the hallway and the flares of a stress migraine were flashing across his vision. He shouldn’t go in there.
It… he shouldn’t go in there.
He could see Michelle, Carlos’s hand tight in hers as she rubbed her fingers up and down the skin of his forearm with his knuckles pressed against her lips.
“TK?” The sound of his dad’s voice was almost too loud for the vacuum of intense instability of the hallway and TK jumped.
Owen frowned and dropped a steady hand that ground TK’s feet back down.
“TK, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you in there?”
“I-I can’t go in there. I shouldn’t be in there. I can’t do it.” TK’s resolve was crumbling down to his ankles and he felt like he was in a tight space made of glass. One wrong twist and his elbow would shatter everything priceless.
Owen’s frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t be in there, Dad.” And something hitched tight in TK’s chest and no matter how much he swallowed, it wouldn’t go back down.
Hot tears fought against the back of his eyes and he shoved a fist against them with a shake of his head.
“It’s my fault, Dad.” The confession felt like hot embers on his tongue. “It’s my fault this happened. I pushed him. He wouldn’t have been on that run if I’d--- This is my fault.”
“TK,” Owen said, his name an exhale on his lips. “That lunatic had a list of people he went after and by some miracle, Carlos was at the bottom of it. If not on his run, then when he was at the station or home alone. He was hunting him. He tricked him by asking Carlos for help and then he knocked him unconscious. It had nothing to do with you.”
TK shook his head again, using his wrist to wipe away a stream of snot that was forming under his nose.
He was the reason Carlos went on that run. It’d been a heavy truth that had settled in his chest the moment he found out Carlos had been missing. And he may not have directly caused it but he certainly helped.
That was the worst feeling in the world. Not a single pill would be able to squash that guilt. It was the kind of wrongness that cut a hole inside of you and festered away and even if Carlos didn’t see it now, he would.
TK shouldn’t go in there. He didn’t have any right to go in there.
Owen sighed, dropping his gaze down to the floor as he chewed on whatever it is he thought he could say to change his mind, before he locked eyes with TK and put his other hand on his shoulder.
“TK,” Owen said with a leveled tone. “I’m going to tell you something that every father eventually has to say at some point. You need to man up.”
TK rolled his eyes and tried to pull away but Owen held firm.
“No, listen to me. Now, I never want you to hide how you're feeling and I certainly never want you to hide them from me. What you’re feeling now is entirely valid. Today has been a rough day. But there’s someone in there who needs you. Badly. And sometimes you have to put a cap on what you’re going through and offer your hands to someone else when they need to be held.”
He pointed to Carlos’s room, where his boyfriend was sleeping behind a curtain with his hand in Michelle’s protective grip.
“Carlos needs you, TK.”
Flashes of Carlos lifeless in that pit splashed across TK’s subconscious.
He must have been so scared.
It’d been the first thought to pop into his mind when they’d watched the ambulance disappear down the street.
Carlos, his fearless, loving, smiles into his kisses, boyfriend must have been terrified and there hadn’t been a single thing TK could’ve done.
But he could do something now.
“Now,” Owen said with a friendly push. “I love you. Get your ass in there.”
TK stumbled into the room with a soft dragging of his toes. Michelle had moved onto rubbing a knuckle with her thumb over and over again and smiled up at him.
“Hey,” she said, sounding wrecked.
She hadn’t left Carlos since they let visitors back. Her bun had fallen down at some point, spilling long inky strands down the back of her uniform.
The words died in TK’s throat and he dropped into the seat opposite her as he took in Carlos on the bed.
Carlos once told him that when he saw TK in a hospital bed he had all these feelings. Strong feelings, he had said. TK finally understood what he meant. It was like a wave that took him out at his knees. Sorrow, grief, anger, love. They were a tangled whirlwind inside TK’s head that braced against him all at once as his heart pounded against his chest. The hospital had finally taken the cooling blankets off Carlos but the wet wash cloth still settled on his neck with icepacks under his arms.
Careful of his many IVs, TK took Carlos’s other hand. Sharp bruising around his wrists and arms mimicked the crude trappings TK had cut off him hours before and he brushed his thumb over the purpling skin to soak away some of the pain.
“He’s got a concussion, four stitches, several abrasions from being dragged they think, and the worst case of heatstroke the ER doctor has ever seen,” Michelle said with a clinical edge to her soft tone.
“And we almost missed him,” TK said, feeling the sharp twist in his stomach again at the fear that any other team would’ve left not bothering to check for hidden pits somewhere.
The only reason they found Carlos at all was because of Paul. Not TK. Not the cops. Paul.
It should’ve been a win but it felt like a failure.
“But we didn’t,” Michelle added. She leaned forward and lifted a thumb to sooth Carlos’s furrowed brow. “We found him.”
Carlos croaked out a whine. TK tensed and curled his other hand around Carlos’s bicep.
“Hey chico,” Michelle whispered as a pair of brown eyes opened.
Carlos’s expression pinched into awareness and then settled into slits as he blinked awake.
“Michelle?”
Michelle nodded and brushed a hand through some tangled curls. Carlos hummed as he leaned into the feeling and it was so much better seeing him barely awake than it had been seeing him lifeless on the ground. TK squeezed his hand. Carlos’s head shifted against the pillow so he could look to his other side and when he spotted TK, he smiled.
“Hey,” Carlos murmured.
“Hi.” TK sighed, boneless with relief.
He pushed his legs under him until he could stand and then leaned down to press a gentle kiss against Carlos’s brow.
Carlos’s eyes drooped as his blinking turned slower and slower with each inhalation.
“Get some rest,” Tk whispered as he pressed another kiss into Carlos’s hairline. “We’ll be right here.”
It didn’t take much more to convince Carlos as he drifted back into a soft sleep. TK settled back into his chair, taking Carlos’s hand in his again, and prepared for a long night. Now that he’d made it into the room, he wasn’t going anywhere. Michelle kept her perch on the side of Carlos’s bed for a while, brushing delicate fingers through a tangle of curls.
“TK,” she said, her eyes fixed on Carlos’s lax face. “Don’t break his heart.”
TK shook his head. “I won’t.”
Michelle’s blue eyes cut over to him and pinned him on the spot.
“But you already have. Twice.”
He didn’t need her to explain which times she meant. He remembered the stunning open devastation in Carlos’s face before he tried to build his wall back up as a balm for TK’s rejections.
TK never wanted to see that expression on Carlos’s face again. He would make sure of it.
Recovery was a long, hard process. Carlos’s fever spiked which meant he had to go back under the cooling blanket and there’d been a real possibility that the doctors were going to have to put him in an ice bath. Carlos would switch to pleading in Spanish or Portuguese mid-sentence but the sentiment was obvious.
“I wanna go home.” Carlos would croak out, delirious glazed over eyes begging TK or Michelle when he didn’t understand why they let the nurses put more ice packs against his skin.
“I know, Carlos. I know. We’ll get you there. But you’re too dehydrated and the doctors have to get your fever down.” TK would whisper back as he combed through Carlos’s hair.
Carlos’s body was absorbing bag after bag through his IV and after a grueling night and early morning, his fever finally went down and stayed there.
The hospital, though, wouldn’t let Carlos leave until he could walk the length of his bed to the bathroom and back without being assisted. Carlos, as he often did most unpleasant things, did so through sheer stubborn will alone. But then his potassium levels bottomed out and he was back on another IV while TK held him through the worst of the cramps that locked his legs and let whimpering stuttering exhales slip past his lips while Michelle and a nurse tried to massage the Charley horses out with their thumbs.
It wasn’t until three days later that the doctors felt like Carlos was stable enough to recover at home in his own bed. That was the same day that the detective came for Carlos’s statement and explained what happened.
Jefferson Donovan had beaten his wife down so far into submission that it turned into resentment. One particularly bad night, after the neighbors called the cops, Carlos and another officer had responded to the domestic. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on but Carlos asked anyway. Unlike all the other times, when the responding officer had offered a hand to escort Mae Donovan out of her personal hell hole and she’d shrug their help off with a simple ‘I’m fine’, Mae took Carlos’s help and Jefferson was arrested for domestic battery. Mae left her husband, found herself a women’s shelter which set her up with support groups and resources such as a divorce lawyer and landlord for a new apartment.
However, Mae was killed in a hit and run with a drunk driver and Jefferson, consumed by his misplaced grief snapped.
Both the lawyer and the landlord were found murdered as well as a friend at the women’s shelter Mae had made.
Jefferson held Carlos and those other victims responsible for the death of his wife. In his eyes, Mae never would’ve been in that car that night if Carlos hadn’t asked her the simple question: Are you all right, ma’am?
It seemed so meaningless that it took everything in Michelle not to scream into her rage. Carlos took in the information with the familiar stiff jaw that he often did when he was dealt hard news. But the moment they were together, he curled into himself and slept the rest of the time it took to get him discharged.
He’d barely spoken in days.
The soft tweedled melodies of Dolly Parton weren’t even enough to rouse Carlos from whatever dark place in his head that he disappeared to when he curled up in the back seat. Michelle cast a worried glance at TK and watched as his thumb tapped against the steering wheel with an anxious series of fidgeting. Despite the fidgeting though, TK was holding it together surprisingly well. Being a caretaker suited him. Carlos took care of himself in most cases and Michelle was so used to swooping in when he needed a boost but TK had slid into the role as easily as he pulled on a turnout coat. She almost couldn’t remember what it was like to be the only set of hands that caught Carlos when he fell without TK there on the other side. But most importantly, Carlos seemed to draw as much comfort from TK as he could whenever TK gave it.
The guilt was still there. She could see it in his eyes when Carlos was asleep or twisted up in discomfort because his body still had trouble regulating his inner thermostat. But TK was also still there as well.
There wasn’t a heartbeat of Carlos's that Michelle didn’t know but TK seemed to be learning the same pattern just as fluently.
When they arrived at Carlos’s place, they were met with a series of complications. Michelle hurried to gather Carlos’s things out of the car so she could meet both of them but when TK had opened the door, Carlos had frowned at something behind them.
TK followed his gaze and landed on the first problem they faced.
Carlos was exhausted, his body was burnt out still, and he would be stuck in that fatigue for a while. Medically, it made sense. Carlos had overtaxed every vein, every organ, every muscle and his body refused to give him the energy to do a lot other than rest. But emotionally, watching Carlos stare at the stairs leading up to his place and realize he wouldn’t be able to make it up them was a lot to process.
“I can carry you,” TK said and laughed at the skeptical expression Carlos shot at him. “What? I am a firefighter. I’ve carried heavier people than you!”
“Rude,” Carlos mumbled with a small familiar smile on his face when TK leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his hairline.
“I’ll get the door,” Michelle said as she went ahead of them.
“Hop on my back.” TK turned and crouched down so that Carlos could wrap around him.
Tentative arms wrapped around his neck as the heat of Carlos’s chest pressed against TK’s back. TK waited until he felt Carlos’s thighs wrap around his hips before he slid his hands under his knees and stood up. Carlos was heavy, even after a few days of doing nothing but lying around, he was still all muscle but TK didn’t pay the discomfort any attention.
“You good?”
Instead of answering, Carlos sighed into TK’s collarbone and hid his face in the crook of TK’s neck. TK hurried up the stairs and through the door for a couple of reasons. One: Carlos couldn’t handle being out in the sun for too long without overheating again and two: Even though he didn’t say anything, TK knew his boyfriend was embarrassed by how hard simple tasks had become. He didn’t want to humiliate Carlos any more than he had to by helping him.
But maybe he should’ve waited a little bit because when he walked into the living room, he was smacked in the face with a reminder of how everything started.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASSHOLE
He’d put the big gold letters up out of spite after Carlos had left on his run that morning. He’d completely forgotten about it with everything else going on.
Michelle had a brow arched high on her forehead as she looked at him and TK felt Carlos shift on his back when they stopped moving. But before TK could move him away, Carlos propped his chin on TK’s shoulder and snorted out a laugh.
“Sorry,” TK shrugged. “Bed or couch?”
“Bed.”
TK nodded and headed towards Carlos’s room.
“Carlos, I’m going to go run and get your prescriptions filled. Will you guys be okay for a bit?” At their mutual nods, she pointed to the fridge as she grabbed her purse. “There’s cold water and Gatorade bottles in there. You’ll need to drink one of those before you go to sleep.”
“Thanks, Michelle.”
Michelle left with only a wave.
TK hurried down the hall as his back muscles started to burn with Carlos’s weight. He gently eased down so that Carlos could land on the bed and hovered while Carlos situated himself on top of the comforter.
“Let me go grab you that throw blanket from the couch,” TK said with a frantic twitching of his fingers.
But before he could leave, Carlos’s hand clasped onto TK’s wrist and with a few tugging movements from his exhausted boyfriend, TK was being bullied onto the bed as well.
Carlos rolled his way on top of TK with his face pressed against TK’s shoulder and his arms wound around his waist. A too cold nose nuzzled the space below TK’s jaw and for the first time in a couple days, TK actually felt Carlos relax instead of falling into a weary limpness. TK circled his arms around Carlos and held him close so he could drag his fingers through Carlos’s curls.
They stayed silent for a while, hidden together in the dark of Carlos’s room and content to allow their heartbeats to bounce off one another in a call and response pitter patter.
“I didn’t think I would get to do this again,” Carlos finally said, his voice as soft as the stillness in the room.
TK held Carlos tighter to him. He’d been expecting this. Carlos had been stripped raw and left out to dry. He was tired--- constantly tired--- and his ability to smooth over the wrinkles in his life simply took too much energy to spare. But it still felt like the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and your fear of falling on your face sends your blood pressure soaring.
If Carlos could hear the uptick of TK’s heartbeat then he didn’t say anything.
“Were you scared?”
He felt more than he saw Carlos’s shrug.
“At first but then I was just… confused.” Carlos went quiet for a second, taking a moment to nuzzle into TK’s skin.
TK could feel the hot puff of breath from Carlos’s lips. Felt the small flutter of eyelashes; the small dampness from a tear he couldn’t see.
“I thought I was in Hell,” Carlos confessed.
TK shivered when he realized the nuzzling was Carlos hiding and he rocked until he was taking more of Carlos’s weight in his arms. Religion wasn’t something TK often thought about. His parents had raised him with ideals rather than organized spiritualities. Ideals like if you have the ability to help then you have the responsibility to do so.
Carlos, he knew, had a more traditional upbringing. TK knew Carlos was still open and had faith that perhaps there was something more--- someone more--- up there pulling the strings of destiny like a weaver creating a canvas. He knew that on scenes that were particularly grisly, where someone didn’t make it and there was more blood on the ground than in bodies, Carlos would say a small prayer for them.
But he didn’t know that was something Carlos feared too.
“Why would you think someone as wonderful as you would ever go there?” TK asked.
“It’s not that.” Carlos shook his head. “I--- I think it was the day.”
TK frowned and waited for Carlos to continue.
Carlos huffed out an aborted sigh, his hand coming up so he could fist the material of TK’s shirt.
“I came out on my birthday,” Carlos said. “Not necessarily by choice but my boyfriend at the time wanted to surprise me and my parents saw so…”
The blasé tone was one TK had heard before. The flat indifference to the cruelty they faced when they exposed a part of themselves to people they trusted. TK had been lucky. His mom on some level always knew and his dad stumbled his way through a safe sex talk like he’d been up all-night googling.
TK forced himself to exhale.
“Shit.”
He knew that Carlos and his parents weren't close but he didn’t realize it went as far as that.
“I was standing on my Vovô’s porch at two o’clock in the morning with my backpack and suitcase that night.”
TK felt the warm, monster claws of guilt crawl up the back of his throat again.
“And I pushed you that morning.”
Carlos pressed a small, timid kiss against TK’s throat.
“You didn’t know.”
“But I should have.”
When Carlos shook his head again, TK ducked down until he could pull Carlos out from against him. Carlos’s fist tightened around the fabric of TK’s shirt but TK needed Carlos to hear this. Really hear what he was about to say. TK cradled Carlos’s face in his hands and almost lost the ability to breathe at how different it was from when they’d first found him as Carlos leaned into the touch.
“No, there’s two people in this relationship and I have to remember that. I’m so used to having to overcompensate that I get wrapped up in my own head. I should’ve asked. I should’ve respected when you said no and I’m sorry. Okay?” TK leaned down and kissed Carlos’s nose. “I’m sorry.”
Carlos leaned up for a full kiss, one that he smiled into when TK met him half way.
“Thank you,” Carlos simply said.
It said a lot by how even keeping his head up was tiring him out so TK let Carlos settle back against him. He continued his petting that had Carlos purring beneath his fingers while he waited for Carlos to get comfortable again. There was something else he needed to say but it was going to be a lot harder for Carlos to hear. From his own experience, TK knew that hard conversations were easier to have when he felt safe. Why Carlos thought TK’s arms were where he felt the safest was beyond him but he could be there for his boyfriend easily.
“You know that’s not going to happen to you, right?” TK eventually hedged into topic. “You’re too sweet to go to Hell.”
Carlos stiffened in his arms and TK curled further around him.
“I know that,” Carlos said. “I’m not trying to make it into a thing or anything.”
“But it is? A thing, I mean.”
Carlos didn’t answer. His fingers plucked at the hem of TK’s shirt until TK’s hand curled around his knuckles.
“That’s why you avoid your birthday?” TK guessed. “Did your parents tell you that you were?”
TK had heard the horror stories. Even in New York, there were ignorant people who decided that their love was conditional when it came to their children. Nothing flew Owen Strand off the handle more than being called to a scene where the parents were the reason they were having to save their child. To hear that Carlos’s parents had kicked him out in the middle of the night… It made him furious at two people he never met. It made him sad that they missed out on how brave and wonderful their son was.
It made TK understand where that bruised hurt Carlos had been holding close to his chest the days leading up to his birthday came from.
Wordlessly, Carlos nodded.
TK frowned, trying not to judge but not quite getting it yet.
“I don’t understand. I thought you were in contact with your mom.”
TK had heard Carlos on the phone speaking to her. The recognition that those phone calls always seemed to end shortly after TK arrived was dizzying in its clarity.
“I am.”
“Why?”
TK’s parents were a mess but they were a mess who loved him. He couldn’t imagine being as close to them though, if that loved turned to scorn.
Carlos shrugged again.
“But they hurt you,” TK said.
Carlos sighed, a long deep sigh that sounded ancient for someone who had only just passed their mid-twenties a few days ago.
“I would rather that then to not have my mom in my life,” Carlos said with a shake of his head. “My dad won’t… he doesn’t say much but my mom tries, at least. And if it’s between love with strings attached and never getting to hear her voice again… I’m going to pick that.”
Carlos shivered against him, the AC finally taking its toll on his healing body, and TK flipped the other end of the blanket over Carlos’s legs. He lifted his hand to cradle the back of Carlos’s skull, playing with the dark curls and scratching a little at his scalp.
“I know you don’t understand,” Carlos started but TK shook his head.
“I don’t have to. I may not understand but I get it. It’s your mom.”
And sometimes complicated was as simple as navigating the reason behind your heartbeat. Carlos deserved better. He deserved to be loved unconditionally and one day TK was going to get the guts to tell him that. He deserved to be adored and celebrated on his birthday. Because a world without Carlos in it was a hell in itself and TK wasn’t about to be in it without him.