Archive of Our Own

Hearing TK Strand say ‘I love you’ was like hearing a melody for the first time. It was like a roller coaster in his chest that surfed the peaks of the hard vowels and looped into three syllables right into his heart. It sang in his ears like a song that was complex in its simplicity and called for the fluttering of his heartbeat to soar.

Carlos didn’t think he’d ever hear that song.

But TK Strand, his boyfriend, had said it so sweetly with his eyes sure and his smile easy with conviction.

And he heard that 'I love you' in every glance, every inhalation, every soft kiss pressed against his skin. It woke him up in the morning and lulled him to sleep at night.

Carlos had known early on that he’d fallen hard for TK but he was still falling every day and it was exhilarating.

TK caught Carlos’s gaze from across the dance floor and winked at him with a smug smile before he spun into a turn with Paul. The bass of the music thundered across the club like a massive pulse for all the energy mingled in the restored warehouse. The beat was a mix of some kind of samba twisted together with rap music that was going too fast for anyone to catch the words but worked for the high paced swaying hypnotic movements of the crowd. The LED lights shifted colors in slow heavy blinks that made the glow sticks someone had passed around highlight the air in a steady drag. The bartender held up a quick hand to let Carlos know he’d seen him and Carlos leaned into the bar to wait his turn.

A hot, wide chest pressed against Carlos’s side as a heavy palm slid down the small of his back to settle just above the curved mound where his ass began. Carlos bit down the spark of irritation and turned to tell his uninvited admirer that he wasn't interested before it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.  

Carlos’s throat dried.

“Ethan?”

“Fancy seeing you here,” Ethan said with a curl of his lips that matched the drawl of his words.

Ethan looked the same as Carlos remembered him. Tall with a wide set of shoulders that could still lift Carlos and hold him against a wall easily. Long legs that went on for days. Thick straight early salt and pepper hair that stubbled onto into a five o'clock shadow.

The mean slant in his mouth.

The severe nose.

The dark eyes that smoldered a little too hot.

Carlos pulled away and Ethan’s lips quirked so that the hint of a dimple dipped into his cheek.

He’d used to love that dimple and then he’d hated it.

Carlos made the conscious effort to remind himself that he wasn’t a twenty-one year old kid anymore. He was a cop. He took down criminals for a living. Ethan was big but so was Carlos. Or, at least he was bigger than Ethan probably remembered.

He used to make Carlos feel so small. 

Ethan hadn’t seen Carlos in close to five years and a lot had changed since then. He stood to his full height but Ethan kept himself arched against the bar like a cat who couldn’t be bothered to get out of the sun.

“You look good, Carlos,” Ethan said with an appreciative rake of his gaze.

“Thank you.”

Carlos swallowed past the lump in his throat and forced his heart to slow down in his chest. Ethan was being obvious but polite and there was no reason for him to get worked up over something as simple as him copping a feel.

Even if it made his skin crawl.

Carlos peered over his shoulder in search of TK but his boyfriend was lost somewhere in the crowd that seemed to blur together as one.

Ethan tipped his head. “You want to dance?”

“No,” Carlos said too quickly and Ethan’s charming honey eyes turned steely.

Suddenly, the music of the club was too loud and the air too thin. The bartender was taking way too long and the intense need to get away was over taking his dying thirst. Carlos plastered on a smile, desperate to prove to Ethan and himself that he didn’t tremble at the sight of him anymore, and shook his head.

“No,” Carlos said again, slower. “Thank you though. I’ve got to get back to my boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend, huh?” Ethan quirked a brow and swiveled his gaze to look out at the crowd and the urgent need to keep TK out of his sight took over the panic that had burned at his nerves.

Carlos rolled his shoulders back and nodded.

“Yep,” he said, stronger and more in control. “It was good to see you, Ethan.”

And he turned on his heel and left.

Carlos’s kiss was frantic and hot against TK as his teeth nipped at the bottom of his lips. Sharp bolts of lightning buzzed through TK’s veins and sizzled all the way down into his toes as he opened but then he pushed up against Carlos and slipped his tongue in with a teasing flick.

They’d barely made it two steps into Carlos’s apartment before they were tangling together in the corner of the doorway and moving like a rocking ship lost at sea.

Carlos ran his hands up and down TK’s chest like he didn’t know where to keep them and the hesitant catches in his movement had been dragging behind him all night since he’d left the bar without a drink and frowning a little too heavily for TK’s liking.  

“Who was that?” Paul had asked over the music that Carlos seemed out of sync with because of course, Paul noticed.

Carlos moved to whatever beat and melody he could find and TK had learned that music was almost always the cure to whatever hurt or lost feelings Carlos would find himself in. To see him so unmoored, struggling to swim in the melodies, had been enough to clue TK in on the shift in Carlos’s mood.

Carlos merely grimaced before he slapped a smile back onto his face. “Ex-boyfriend.”

TK fell back into the present moment as Carlos gave a little thrust against his hip. TK huffed out a laugh that Carlos tried to swallow down and TK circled his hands around Carlos’s wrists. Insecurity had made the small little green monster throw a tantrum in his chest but with Carlos like he was now, responding so beautifully to his kiss, he couldn’t hear his jealousy at all. All he could hear was the sweet little gasp that fell from Carlos’s mouth as TK slid a thigh in between his legs and spun them so that Carlos was pressed against the wall with TK pinning his wrists beside his head. He licked for any more sounds he could get and shuddered when Carlos’s tongue curled around his. Guys always tried to fight for dominance when TK flipped the table on them and when they’d been fooling around after he’d first moved to Texas, Carlos had too. But now trust blanketed their lust, reminding them that they loved each other--- and holy shit, wasn’t that crazy?--- and so Carlos simply hung on for the ride.

TK dragged his lips away, laughing a little as Carlos tried to follow, before he peppered his jawline with small kitten kisses leaving a searing trail right down to the hollow of Carlos’s throat. Carlos let out a breathless moan and turned into TK’s hands so he could bare his neck, giving TK exclusive access to a wide expanse of uncharted territory that was all his. He nuzzled a patch of skin that would be hidden by a shirt collar and kissed it as a preemptive apology that he didn’t really mean before he bit down hard. Carlos jerked beneath him as TK rolled the skin between his teeth and drew out helpless little cries as Carlos rutted against TK’s thigh. It was filthy and wet and sweet as he licked the mark to sooth the burn but TK could read Carlos like a song book and as soon as he relaxed into the sensation, TK switched to another alternating beat of biting and kissing and licking and sucking until Carlos was nothing more than a trembling mess beneath him. TK lingered a little more, blowing a slow push of air against the mark, before he dragged his tongue along it and up the swell of Carlos’s throat to nibble at the hinge of his jaw.

Then he drew back to admire his handiwork. Carlos was a wreck with kiss swollen lips and a bruise purpling across his skin and eyes so blown wide with want that the coffee ground brown of his irises were almost black.

God, he was gorgeous.

TK was so head over heels in love that it wasn’t even funny. It’d taken a lot for him to put himself out there and say I love you first. He’d been hurt too many times that sometimes it felt like his heart was covered in scar tissue and never healing burns. But it was so different with Carlos. It was easy in all the ways he never experienced before and exhilarating in all the best possible ways too. It was like he was learning to read all over again and Carlos was an open book that wanted to be held close.

That’s why he’d been able to pick up the weird hitch in Carlos’s frequency. Something with his ex-boyfriend had thrown Carlos off tempo and TK held his hand out to get him back.

TK leaned forward and sealed his lips over Carlos’s with a searing but softer kiss, melting against him and relaxing his hold around his wrists. Carlos kept his hands where he’d left them and TK drifted to tangle his fingers into his hair. He soaked up every breath that had been left in Carlos’s lungs and then some more so that almost all of Carlos’s weight was held up by a string and TK was the one keeping the tension.

“I love you,” TK said when he broke apart to give Carlos a moment.

Carlos gasped, a small smile pulling on his lips, like he was dizzy with it. He probably was from the blood loss judging by the raging hard on TK could feel against his thigh. But there was something a little wet in his eyes, a little glimmer of disbelief and relief at the same time, that TK couldn’t quite decipher but knew that Carlos had needed to hear it in that moment. He hated the little bit of surprise that clouded Carlos’s expression, like he didn’t think TK had caught on and TK could kick himself for putting that doubt there. But Carlos needed him in that moment, not his self-deprecation, so he nuzzled against his cheek and kissed him again.

Carlos nodded.

“I love you too.”

For a moment, TK didn’t know what woke him. The darkness of Carlos’s room was still and perfect as he stared up at the ceiling fan that constantly spun because Carlos liked the noise. He was comfortable with a perfect placement on the pillow for his head and Carlos’s warmth pressed against his side. He wasn't too hot and he wasn't too cold. His arm hadn't fallen asleep and he had plenty of blanket to spare. 

He hadn’t even been snoring so really there was no reason for him to be awake. Especially not after the Olympic worthy activities Carlos and TK had tangled themselves in for hours after they got home.

But he was and it was weird. When you had twenty-four hour shifts where any minute the bell could ring, you learned to sleep as much as you could when you could. He was by no means a light sleeper but he was attuned to bounce into alertness at a moment’s notice when he was needed.

Carlos twitched again and buried his face further into TK’s chest. His arm that had been curled over TK’s hips was dragged and tucked close to Carlos’s body. It would’ve been sweet the way he was burrowing close like he was trying to melt himself into TK’s skin, if it weren’t for the small scared sounds that were slipping more and more from Carlos’s lips.

“’Los?” TK croaked, his voice still thick with sleep. Carlos twitched again with a whine and TK felt his knees nudge his thigh as Carlos curled his legs up to his chest like he was trying to make himself smaller.

“Hey?” TK tried again. “Carlos?”

A small cry travelled from somewhere deep in Carlos’s soul and made his back bow. TK sat up. He held his hands out, unsure of what to do and remembering once Judd telling them not to touch him if he was having a nightmare in the bunks. But Carlos looked so small and TK was slowly freaking out a little. Carlos was unflappable in even the worst situations they’d seen in their line of work but in that moment, it was like Carlos was unraveling before his very eyes.

“Carlos?” Carlos tucked his head into his arm. “Babe, wake up!”

TK’s resolve wavered and he reached out to touch him but before he could, Carlos jerked away with a gasp that sounded like a shot in the otherwise quiet night. Unseeing eyes fell on TK and Carlos reared back with an arm in front of him to ward off the demons of his nightmare away.

“It’s me!” TK held his hand out in case he needed to catch Carlos from falling off the bed. “It’s just me!”

“TK?”

He sounded so… TK wasn’t sure if unsure was the right word. Unsteady and off kilter. But he’d been like that all night and it had bled now into his sleep.

“Are you okay?” TK asked, his question loaded and heavy in between them because the answer was obviously no but he had to ask.

“TK?” Carlos said his name like a prayer and a plea and even in the dark TK can see that the grips of his nightmare were still clawing at him.

TK stopped, his heart dropping into his stomach at the confusion in his tone. He sounded so lost. So… hesitant.

“C’mere,” he murmured, pawing where he could see Carlos’s outline and pulling him close.

Carlos went willingly which was a good sign at least. He shoved a hand over his face as TK bundled him close. Carlos was tense again just like he’d been after running into his ex and TK was starting to connect some dots he wasn’t sure were any of his business.

But he didn’t push. Instead, he held Carlos through the worst of the adrenaline induced shaking, pressing kiss after kiss into his hairline.

“You’re okay,” TK said over and over again until Carlos started to relax. “You’re okay.”

Carlos sighed, melting into TK’s side, and threw his leg back over TK’s hip where it belonged.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos whispered into the night.

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

TK bit down on the corner of his lip to keep from asking and kept up the soothing petting long after Carlos’s breathing evened out with sleep again.

Nightmares weren’t uncommon. They saw some of the worst things imaginable on the job. TK had his own share of repeat offenders in the terrors that he held in his mind. But Carlos got to see the ugly side of their job more often than not.

It could be nothing.

It could be just a nightmare from the job.

It could have nothing to do with the slight anxious edge Carlos seemed to not have been able to shake since the club.

It could be nothing.

But TK had a feeling it was definitely something.

The embarrassment that Carlos had woken up with, flooded with memories of the feeling of Ethan’s hand on his back and TK having to wake him up from a nightmare, had lingered like a bad taste in his mouth.

He was being ridiculous. He was a cop. He was physically fit and in a secure relationship and there was no reason for the feelings of drowning to be creeping back up his spine again.

But they had. Big time. 

Seeing Ethan, feeling the possessive creeping of his hand, had released a deluge of feelings that Carlos had thought he’d locked away tight. He hadn’t thought much of his ex since the night that Michelle had brought over a bottle of tequila and some matches so they could burn every last trace of Ethan from his life. At the time it had felt invigorating and empowering because he never planned on seeing Ethan again.

Now, he just felt like the same sad, lonely twenty-one year old scared of his own shadow.

Carlos put on a smile for TK when his boyfriend pressed a soft kiss to his hairline in the morning before leaving to go to his shift but the moment he’d been alone in his apartment he was up and out of bed with an itch under his skin that he couldn’t quite shake.

Work helped distract him a little. Well, not distract. In his line of work, being distracted was the quickest way to get someone or yourself killed. But it helped him to focus on the day ahead.

Ethan was in the past, Carlos’s past, and just because they'd run into each other after five years didn’t mean that Carlos had to look back.

Putting on his uniform helped sooth the pins and needle that prickled under his skin. The weight of his belt helped ground him into the right headspace. The leather of his steering wheel in his cruiser let him anchor himself in his job.

It steadied him in the structure of his routine.

And it had been a day. Carlos and McCoy had been called to an armed robbery gone wrong when one of the robbers had panicked and ran straight through a glass door. His buddy had panicked when his partner had started bleeding on the sidewalk and the exasperated gas attendant had called 911. Then, they'd had to break up a parkour ring that had taken over a pavilion and were flipping over pedestrians and scaring motorists. Then, they'd been called out to break up a domestic dispute between two neighbors that had decided words weren't enough and had started chasing each other with hedge clippers. 

The worst and funniest had been when they'd been dispatched to a drunk and disorderly incident where some minor league hockey player had been camping outside his girlfriend's house and kept banging on the door. He'd been furious when Carlos had stepped in between him and the dented door but Carlos was a confident cop who had taken down worse criminals than some washed out athlete who showered in Jack Daniels. The assailant had taken a swing at Carlos that missed by about a foot and Carlos had easily ducked and taken him down. 

And that had just been before lunch time. McCoy and Carlos had agreed to stop at the precinct for lunch to file their reports in the air conditioning of the bullpen and to give their legs a stretch. 

"Delivery for you, Reyes," Sergeant Lahey said in greeting. "On your desk."

A delivery? Carlos frowned. He hadn't been expecting anything and he tried not to make a habit of sending his mail to his work. He unclipped his radio from his belt and navigated through the maze of desks and cops. It wasn't until he reached his desk that he saw what the sergeant had meant.

Carlos's eyes widened in surprise as a soft plume of warmth pooled into his cheeks because sitting on his desk was a small bouquet of flowers. White roses with their stems cut low bloomed out of a small deep brown clay vase with sprigs of lavender lining throughout the petals and green waxy leaves adding to the silhouette. The flowers were beautiful in their simplicity. But the surprise of it was even better.

The warmth curled around somewhere down at Carlos’s toes and crept all the way up to his ears in what he was sure was an impressive blush. The hickey TK had left on his collarbone tingled with a burn against his undershirt. He bit down the smile as he dragged his finger across the soft petal of a rose and ignored the teasing from his coworkers.

TK answered on the second ring.

“Hey you.”

Carlos could hear the smile in his voice and felt his own slip out a little more.

“Hey,” he said, still amazed by how the sound of TK’s voice sent butterflies loose in his chest.

McCoy let out a low whistle as he passed by Carlos’s desk and Carlos threw a wadded-up post it note at his head.

“So, what’s the occasion?” Carlos asked as he dragged another finger along a white petal.

The flowers were silky smooth and smelled like heaven in an otherwise stale bullpen that always lingered somewhere between sweaty musk and burnt coffee smells.

The sounds of the firehouse drifted away so TK must have stepped outside because his voice was clear and a little louder than it had been before.

“What do you mean?”

Carlos frowned. TK was a lot of things and one of them was coy. His boyfriend took great pleasure in batting his eyelashes and playing innocent and he teased indiscriminately. It was charming and it was cute--- and very hot in certain circumstances--- but it was always very obvious. Instead of the flirty nonchalance, TK sounded almost confused. Doubt railroaded into Carlos as that itch crept back into his skin and pulled it tight across his shoulders.

Flashes of the night before took over and the heat of embarrassment turned into something a little hotter towards the humiliation end because TK had seen him when he’d been skittish and struggling to steady his legs underneath him again. The fact that he had a nightmare---

Were these pity flowers?

Carlos stared at the flowers as the surprise turned into devastation.

“Carlos?” TK asked when Carlos had been a little too quiet. “Are you all right?”

Carlos swallowed down his disappointment and tried to force some cheer into his voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just surprised.” Even that sounded weak to his own ears.

“Surprised?” Now TK sounded even more confused.

“The flowers! I was just surprised about the flowers.”

Carlos could practically hear the gears grinding in TK’s head in the silence that followed.

“Um... Babe,” TK hummed out and sounding apologetic. “I didn’t send you flowers.”

And now Carlos was confused because who else would send him flowers at work if not his boyfriend and--- A small card was tucked under the bottom of the vase and he slid it out to read.

Loved seeing you again. We should meet up.

Xx Ethan

Something cold settled deep in the small of his back like a phantom of a hand that had been there before. He let go of the flowers like they’d burned him and sucked in a sharp breath as he read over the card again, praying that it was a dream.   

“Carlos?”

“Sorry,” Carlos said a little too quickly and a little too tight which he was sure TK picked up on.

Carlos stood from his desk and picked up the flowers before walking over and dumping them into the trash.

“There was a mistake.”

TK was too quiet for too long for it not to be a deliberate beat and Carlos wanted desperately to forget he’d ever seen the flowers; forget that he'd ever gone out that night.

“Carlos?” TK asked. “Is this about---”

Carlos’s throat tightened and he forced himself to get a grip. He was on duty. He couldn’t fall apart.

“I got to go. I’ll talk to you after shift.” Carlos grabbed his things and headed out of the bullpen.

He wasn’t very hungry anymore.

“Love you,” he said and then he hung up.

Carlos liked to cook. It was one of the few hobbies he picked up as a kid that didn’t make his dad sneer into a wince that reeked of judgement and disappointment just as heavy as the onions he would cut. It calmed him when he was feeling nervous or stressed, reminding him of an easier time where the sun was warm through the window in the kitchen and the only thing he had to worry about was the tapioca flour staying off his clothes.

The kitchen was his sanctuary. It was where he could put all he was feelings into the molding of his hands as he dipped his fingers into golden breadcrumbs or test the hot beef broth on his tongue before adding more red pepper flakes for heat to balance out the saltiness.

His love of cooking made his grocery shopping an art form. He couldn’t get too carried away in the vibrate colors of emerald green peppers and plumb luscious tomatoes even though he wanted to touch them all like a kid visiting a toy store for the first time. He had to limit himself to three fresh mangoes and two pomegranates because he just couldn’t eat them in time before they spoiled and he hated to watch fresh food whither to waste.

Of course, that had been when he’d been shopping for just himself and something he’d learned early on in their relationship was that TK could eat.

And so could his team mates, who Carlos was learning were steadily wrapping their fingers around his shirt tails and pulling him in every moment they hung out.

It was nice having friends again. Michelle had been his best friend and dragged him out of his shell whether he liked it or not but she had a life of her own and the roadblock of finding Iris had put a hard pause on her life, leaving Carlos to drift back into his own orbit again. But then TK had happened. TK hadn’t let him drift too far and invited him to almost anything.

Another thing he was learning was that telling TK no was proving to be very difficult.

TK was like a cool breeze that would drift through Austin in the early mornings during Autumn and Spring. His smile could make Carlos both breathless and infuse new air into Carlos’s too tight lungs.

And he loved him so there wasn’t much more that Carlos needed.

So, he agreed almost always and let TK pull him by the hand to join his friends. It wasn’t like he’d been expecting them to shun him completely. They worked together and joked together and solved the toughest problems in a short amount of time together. But there was a difference between being a coworker and being their friend’s boyfriend who was only tagging along because said boyfriend didn’t want him moping in his apartment.

Not that TK said that but Carlos was used to being a plus one where the deepest conversation you got was small pleasantries and half-baked attempts at trying to include him.

He was a perpetual wallflower dating the sun.

But TK’s friends had latched onto Carlos without a second of hesitation like he fit in effortlessly into the puzzle. They treated like he was a piece that had been found instead of a piece that was lost.

Carlos still kept to the fringes of the parties, still careful in case someone decided to rescind the invitation again, but the trepidation of feeling like he was imposing on their fun lessened each time.

And as it turned out, food was also the way to all of their hearts as well.

They’d given him the greatest gift anyone could have given him. Feeding four seemingly bottomless pits had wreaked havoc on his portion control and he’d been doubling his usual amount whenever he knew that the team were coming over. But then one day, after Carlos had laid out a wide spread of cheese and meats and fruit and anything he could scrounge together, Marjan had thrown off her sneaker with an exasperated sigh and threw in a fifty dollar bill from her wallet before turning to Paul, Mateo, and TK.

“All right leeches,” she had said with her shoe outstretched in her hand. “Fill the boot. Carlos can’t keep feeding us out of his own pocket.”

And before Carlos could even blink, they did. Without question and without complaint.

He didn’t mind feeding them honestly, but being able to go to the store with an additional two hundred dollars in his pocket was practically his dream come true.

He settled on three heavy lemons, each one firm and weighted with juice in his hand and put them into his cart before pulling up his list on his phone. He’d been in the zone, focused on crossing things off his list and wondering if he could get away with adding a few pieces of fish, when the ear piecing screeching clash of grocery carts smashing into each other ripped him out of his groove. The cart beneath his hands jerked to the side and rammed the other cart into the lime display that sent a few toppling to the floor.

“Oh shit!”

The familiar drawl had Carlos freezing mid hunch with his hand hanging in the air above a bruised lime. Ethan bent down with his focus stuck to the floor as he scooped up the limes and haphazardly stacked them back onto the pile.

“I’m sorry!” He chuckled. “I wasn’t--- Carlos?”

Ethan’s polite smile turned into a full out surprised grin that made his dimple dip into his cheek.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said in that same heated way he had at the club a few nights earlier.

Carlos’s hands started to sweat and he stepped behind his cart again for a little distance.

What were the odds? What were the actual odds that he would run into Ethan again after years of managing to avoid him?

Carlos didn’t believe in coincidences. He couldn’t believe in coincidences.

Fear was steadily climbing up into the back of his throat until it threatened to choke him but so was suspicion.

“Are you---” Carlos swallowed the accusation down at the glint of something hard in Ethan’s eye and rerouted to a more neutral line of questioning. “What are you doing here?”

“Erm,” Ethan said with his brows furrowed and his mouth puckered into a confused pout. “Grocery shopping?”

He said it like it was obvious and Carlos… took a moment to realize that it was. Austin was a big city and the chances of running into Ethan were slim to none. But Ethan just blinked and glanced down at his own cart. It was full of groceries and Carlos spied the soy milk brand that he remembered him liking so much.

He used to carry a small cup of it with him whenever they went to get coffee and there had been a time when Carlos had thought it was adorable and silly.

Something soured Ethan’s expression and he arched a brow high on his forehead. “Why? You think I’m following you or something?”

He crossed his arms over his massive chest as some of the hurt leaked into his words and Carlos suddenly felt like such an ass. He didn’t own the grocery store. Of course, Ethan would be shopping.

Carlos blew out a breath and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck and shook his head.

“No. I… Sorry.” 

Ethan shrugged. “Guy’s got to eat, Carlos.”

And the words sounded like he still stung from the implication. What was wrong with him?

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Five years and he was already apologizing to Ethan more times than he had all week.

Ethan watched him for a moment, unsure, but still seeing right through Carlos in a way that scorched his heart so that it worked overtime in his chest. Ethan still had that way of making Carlos’s skin feel like he was peeling it back layer by layer and rummaging around deep into his soul with thick fingers and a sturdy palm.

The itch returned and Carlos stiffened his back to keep from wilting under the scrutiny.

“Is this about the flowers?” Ethan asked finally and Carlos felt his stomach give out as he thought of the dying petals curling in the trashcan.

If Ethan knew Carlos had thrown them out would he get angry? Was that even a question?

He had always been able to tell when Carlos was lying even when Carlos’s expression gave nothing away.

“They surprised me,” Carlos said, twisting his hands tight around his shopping cart and ignoring the urge to turn on his heel and abandon ship all together.

His fight or flight instincts were creeping higher and higher into his brain and he hated that with Ethan the instinct to fly outweighed the instinct to fight every single time.

Ethan’s expression softened and he tilted his head in a way that still managed to make him look younger than he was. “And the card?”

Loved seeing you again. We should meet up.

Carlos swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“Would you want to go out sometime?”

No. The answer was stunningly quick and the conviction in his decision outweighed the anxiety that threatened to crawl all over his back and press him into submission. It could be nothing. Ethan could just want to meet up and reminisce with absolutely nothing romantic involved. But Ethan had a way of telling him to do something even when he’d asked it as a question. He wasn’t asking Carlos out. He was telling him that they were going out.

Carlos had thought it was confidence and swooned when Ethan had pulled that the first time. It had chafed pretty quickly.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ethan.”

Ethan’s expression turned steely with the rejection and he sniffed, defensive again.

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” he started but Carlos shook his head.

“I have to go.”

He didn’t want to get tangled up in an argument with Ethan and that’s exactly where they were heading because Ethan may have gotten exceptionally versed in learning how to read Carlos but Carlos had been fluent in the slight micro expressions that ticked in Ethan’s face and telegraphed his way of thinking. It'd been a self preservation thing. 

But Carlos had grown since Ethan last saw him and he wasn’t afraid to meet his eye. He wouldn’t go backwards. Only forwards.

He hated to abandon his cart but the idea of sharing the same oxygen as Ethan nearly made Carlos feel like he couldn't breathe. So, he left.

Something was off with Carlos.

TK had been almost positive that he’d ended up in the doghouse after the flower miscommunication but Carlos had been quick to assuage that worry with a reassurance that he wasn’t really a flower guy anyway and then had quickly directed their attention to some other activities that TK thoroughly enjoyed. Though, now that he’d been able to put some distance between his own worries and noticed yet another thing to add onto the list of things that fell under the ‘Something’s Off with Carlos’ category, he couldn’t help but wonder if the mind-blowing sex had been a little less spontaneous and a little more for the purpose of a distraction. And that possibility was a whole other mess of issues he didn’t even know how to begin to address without sounding like a complete hypocrite.

But Carlos… Carlos was great. Carlos was more than great. He was the best part of TK’s day. His smile could light up a room and his confidence on the job was beyond hot and his soft tenderness did things to TK that made him want to melt into a puddle of affection.

But lately, he’d been almost… Eager?

Frantic maybe.

He kissed TK like it was the first and last time, desperate to prove something and equally desperate to savor it as well. And when TK showed even the slightest sign of irritation or discomfort, Carlos went out of his way to almost overcorrect. TK had learned early on in their relationship that Carlos was something of a compulsive soother but suddenly it was like the compulsion had cranked up to an eleven and whatever pain or worry TK had been feeling, Carlos took it upon himself to do what he could to fix it.

Carlos had always been so steady in life that it seemed effortless but now it was like he was holding on for dear life by the tips of his fingers.

He was also pulling away. TK knew that Carlos sometimes had trouble meshing into the group. Carlos was the introvert to TK’s extrovert nature and sometimes he needed a minute. But after the first time he’d arrived home after a trip to the grocery store without any groceries, Carlos had been starting to bow out of plans with anyone who wasn’t TK.

It was like he was curling inward and TK couldn’t figure out how to get him to unclench.

“Hey Carlos,” Michelle said, her husky voice sounding like she’d just woken up after a long shift at the mental health clinic.

She probably had. Carlos bit back a wince and shoved his fingers into his brow to rub off the headache he’d woken up with.  He shouldn’t have called her. She was busy and it was way too early but he needed his friend. TK had a twenty four hour shift, thankfully, so he didn't have to witness the way Carlos had lurched awake with a whimper trapped in his throat and the mindless instinct that forced him to race from his bed to hide in his bathroom. The door had slammed behind him and burst the bubble of awareness back into his sleep idled brain in time for the embarrassment that he’d run into bathroom like he was still… Like he was still there. Still in that apartment.

Carlos had slid down the wall with a sigh, curling his legs to his chest, and letting the cool air from the vent on the floor chill his skin.

The nightmares were getting worse.

He hadn’t seen Ethan since that day in the grocery story but the feeling of being watched festered like an open wound on his brain and he just needed to hear Michelle’s voice almost more than he needed to breathe.

But she’d clearly been asleep and he’d woken her up. She’d already had to put him back together once; she didn’t deserve to have to do it again.

“Hey chica,” Carlos said, trying to sound normal.

It was a futile attempt, he knew, because Michelle knew him better than anyone but he had to try.

“What’s wrong?”

Carlos didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know where to begin.

“Are you hurt? Did something happen with TK?”

Great, now she sounded worried.

“I just… I had a nightmare.”

Carlos blew out a breath because saying it out loud made him sound pathetic and he was still hiding in his bathroom and he needed to get a grip! Michelle hummed, the rasp in her still sleep laden voice sounding like whiskey in his ear.

“What about?” She waited a long time for his answer and when she didn’t get one, she pressed some more. “Carlos?”

“I saw Ethan the other day.”

Michelle sucked in a sharp breath.

“Where?”

So, he told her. Told her about the way he’d touched Carlos those first moments at the bar like he still had a claim to him. Told her about the flowers and the note and the violation of his grocery store ritual. Told her about all the ways he was still creeping into Carlos’s thoughts even when he slept.

He told her about the nightmare where everything felt so real and the feeling of his hands on his skin echoed like a thunderclap across his nerve endings while the feeling of being chased was still sharp in his mind.

She listened to everything and when Carlos was done, she hummed again. At some point in his story, he’d uncurled his legs and slumped against the door to his shower as fatigue began to set in again.

“Does TK know?”

Carlos shook his head even though he knew she wouldn’t be able to see it.  “No. I---”

“Carlos.” It was as close to an admonishment as she was ever going to give him.

“Michelle,” he said back because he wasn’t like her.

It wasn’t easy for him to just air out all his issues for the world to see. It wasn’t easy for him to stand in a conviction that his problems mattered. People depended on him to be the steady one. People depended on him to hold them up. He shouldn’t be feeling this way after so long but he was and he couldn’t get control of his emotions anymore.

They’d been through that merry go round of a conversation multiple times.

“Don’t you think you should tell him?”

Carlos blew out a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. He grimaced at his stubble. He would need to shave soon.

“What’s there to tell?” He asked. “Ethan… He doesn’t get to be a part of my life anymore and I don’t… I don’t want… He took so much away from me the first time and things with TK are going really good and I---”

“You don’t want Ethan to taint that.”

A rush of gratitude flooded his system as Michelle finished his sentence for him because that was exactly it.

“Yeah.”

TK was in a good place. Their relationship was in an even better place. Carlos couldn’t just drop his baggage all at once when things were finally going right.

“But you’ve been having your nightmares again.” Michelle pointed out. “You don’t need me to tell you what that means, Carlos.”

“I know.”

And he did. He was bottling everything up and soon it would implode. But he could, at least, try to minimize who was caught in the fallout.

Michelle blew out a curse and he wished more than ever that she was there with him because all he wanted in that moment was a hug from her and maybe to lie back down a little. Michelle sounded like she was chewing on her words, tasting them and weighing them out on her tongue, and Carlos braced himself for the inevitable.

“What you went through doesn’t make you weak, Carlos,” she said, making Carlos a little breathless because she was right.

Rationally, he knew she was.

But he was still hiding in his own bathroom anyway.

It was a mirror image of the last time he’d been hiding in a bathroom with Ethan prowling like a panther and waiting outside while Carlos called Michelle to come get him.

She’d been there in less than fifteen minutes.

“I miss you, ‘Chelle,” Carlos said, sniffing through the thickness lodged in his throat.

“I miss you too,” Michelle said.

TK couldn’t help himself. His boyfriend was just too freaking adorable to help himself.

TK was pretty sure if he wasn’t already in love with him, he would’ve fallen hard in that moment where Carlos was three massive bites into his taco and smearing more sour cream across his face with each savoring bite.

Carlos caught him staring and the small smile pulling at his lips smeared some more sour cream across the side of his mouth.

“You’ve got something,” TK started to say before he shook his head and leaned forward to wipe the sour cream away with his thumb.

Carlos leaned into his touch, his features softening into a dopey sort of bashfulness that still managed to catch TK by surprise, before he turned his face and pressed a quick kiss to his fingers. TK swiped the last of the sour cream away and then deliberately lifted his thumb to his mouth and sucked it clean with a pop.

Carlos’s darkened gaze lingered on TK’s before he rolled his eyes.

It was nice to see this side of his boyfriend again. After two weeks of a skittish Carlos that retreated from almost everyone, he had finally started to fall back into his normal self. It was like somewhere along the way, Carlos had decided it was safe to come out again and TK certainly wasn’t going to complain.

He just wished Carlos would talk to him. But Carlos was the master of the hard swerve out of a conversation without making it into a thing and TK tried not to push. He knew that he himself would’ve hated it if Carlos kept hounding him. He’d lashed out once before himself even. But that didn’t change the fact that Carlos had clearly gone through something and he’d gone through something without TK at his side.

Was it too much to want to be there to support Carlos just as much as Carlos supported him with practically everything?

But TK wasn’t one to waste an opportunity and he planned on making up for lost time. Carlos had been in much lighter mood where he smiled more and opened up to their friends more and TK had all sorts of plans to reward him for his bravery.

Positive reinforcement and all that.

But first and foremost, food.

Their picnic table was laden with piles of street tacos and mountains of guac and chips that fell into what felt like an endless river of salsa that was a little too spicy for TK’s tongue but Carlos seemed to devour like it was water. Austin’s food truck scene was maybe one of TK’s favorite things about his new city. Don’t get him wrong. New York City had some of the most amazing, indescribable food, but there was something magical about the masterpieces that could be served from a small window in a truck that had a generator that ran too loud for anyone to hear themselves think. Armies of food trucks circled up in parking lots and abandoned plots of concrete, where the weeds grew too fast and too high, all across the city and there was just about one truck for anything you could possibly imagine.

He watched as Carlos dug into another fish taco and smeared even more sour cream on his face again and openly smiled like a doofus when his boyfriend’s eyes went skyward in pleasure.

It was such a contrast to some of his past relationships. Not all of them were bad. But the need to overcompensate always seemed to linger beneath the surface. Grand gestures. Constant tension of all kinds of things that were both good and bad. Massive sweeping declarations.

He’d bought Alex the shiniest ring he could find, one that would catch the light no matter the direction, and taken him to the nicest restaurant he could afford and it still wasn’t enough.

But with Carlos?

Carlos was happiest with good food from a cheap food truck in the middle of nowhere under a sea of string lights and Austin pollen. It was so effortless with him and TK couldn’t help but wonder if it was always supposed to be like this. Carlos didn’t set expectations on him that he couldn’t reach.

“You’re staring again,” Carlos said after he swallowed the last of his tacos.

TK hummed and then curled a hand around the back of Carlos’s neck before pulling him in for a sweet kiss that tasted like seasoned salt and chili pepper.

“Well, this is a surprise.”

The change was instantaneous.

Carlos’s expression shut down as he sat up straight and rubbed a fist against his mouth to wipe off any traces of food--- and TK’s kiss--- from his lips. It would’ve stung if it weren’t for the alarm bells ringing brightly in TK’s ear as he watched Carlos slip his gaze up to the man that had interrupted their date.

“Hi, Ethan,” Carlos said with almost no enthusiasm in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

Ethan propped his hip against the table which made it jerk beneath his weight. He was packed with muscles that were straining beneath a tight black t-shirt and even tighter dark washed jeans that accentuated the miles and miles of legs he possessed. He was older, maybe mid to late thirties, with salt and pepper hair that was styled in waves on his head and a jawline that could cut glass.

And it didn’t take psychic vision to see that he made Carlos incredibly uncomfortable.

TK straightened in his seat.

“Thought I would treat myself to some tacos. Though, I got to admit that I wouldn’t say no to some dessert.”

TK snorted at the lamest pick-up line he’d ever heard and met Ethan’s sharp glare with his own smirk. Ethan wasn’t the first guy who thought he could intimidate TK and he certainly wouldn’t be the last but Ethan was the first guy TK had ever seen make Carlos wilt.

Carlos stiffened beside TK.

“I already told you, Ethan,” Carlos said and that was news to TK. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

If TK was any less secure about their relationship then he would’ve been concerned at Carlos’s very obvious roundabout way of rejecting Ethan’s advances but Ethan either didn’t hear it or didn’t care.

“Hi,” TK said, taking Carlos’s hand and tangling their fingers together. “We haven’t met. I’m the boyfriend---”

Ethan completely ignored TK and pinned Carlos with a smoldering gaze that would’ve had anyone weak in the knees but all it seemed to do was make Carlos retreat.

“C’mon, baby,” Ethan said with a disarming smile. “Even you can’t argue with fate.”

Baby?

So, this must be the ex. And if TK had to guess, Ethan was also a contributor to those nightmares Carlos had been pretending TK didn’t know about.

“Fate?” Carlos asked with a skeptical brow quirked high on his forehead.

“How else would you explain us running into each other so many times after so long?”

TK could reckon a guess but he bit his tongue. He’d seen Carlos take down criminals twice his size and then some. He didn’t need TK fighting his battles for him. Ethan crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned in close enough for TK to smell the mint of his toothpaste and spice of his cologne.

“What do you say, Carlos? You want to get out of here with me?”

It was in that moment that everything changed and the humor of the situation slipped off TK like a bucket of water. Ethan lifted a hand, probably to brush back a curl that TK had convinced Carlos to let loose from his usual pomade while on their day off, but Carlos jerked back out of his reach.

Carlos flinched.

The horror of that realization playing out in real time in front of him was almost enough for TK to be sick because while he had had his suspicions, seeing it first-hand did nothing to ease the confirmation. But screw letting Carlos handle this creep. Screw TK staying out of it. Everything settled together into a cold iron chain of sense, linking together all of the pieces. The nightmares, the withdrawn behavior, the unsteadiness. TK had found the root of the problem and the root was sitting on their food and trying to touch his boyfriend.

TK batted his hand away without so much as a blink.

“Dude,” TK seethed. “Are you for real right now?”

Suddenly the charm was replaced by a monstrous fury as Ethan whirled his gaze around to land solely on TK.

“Why don’t you pipe down you second rate twink? Nobody was asking you.” Ethan spat in TK’s face and TK was up and out of his seat in a heartbeat.

But so was Carlos.

“That’s enough,” Carlos said, his voice firm as he stood between Ethan and TK. “My answer is no, Ethan.”

They’d gained an audience and Carlos was trying to deescalate the situation but TK hated that Carlos was having to stand in the middle of it all.

Ethan reeled back, clearly shocked with a hint of frustration seeping into his gaze, but appraising all the same. “No?”

“No,” Carlos repeated. “Now please go away.”

For a minute, TK was sure that Ethan was going to refuse. They were locked in a standstill and if they didn’t move soon, someone was going to call the cops but Ethan stepped back and raked a thick filthy drag of his eyes up and down Carlos’s body, before he turned and walked away.

Carlos watched him leave and then sagged as if all his strings had been cut at once.

“Are you okay?” TK asked even though he knew the answer.

Carlos eyed the remainder of their food sadly.

“Can we go home?” He asked, his voice quiet. “Please?”

So, TK scooped up their things and took Carlos home.

For having sat in silence the entire ride back to the condo, TK was pretty surprised to be shoved against the wall with Carlos’s tongue down his throat.

And what a kiss it was.

TK’s hands hovered somewhere in the air as Carlos put all that he had into kissing the daylights out of him before TK held Carlos by the back of his neck to return the favor. The kiss was hard and messy with more tongue and teeth as Carlos started to let out those soft sounds that drove TK crazy. One of the first times they hooked up, Carlos had said that TK was really good at that (that being the thing he did with his tongue in places that would make most people blush) but Carlos all but excelled at kissing. His lips were full and soft but firm with desire and plumped so beautiful after a few minutes of intense making out. He moved at a rhythm like kissing was a song that turned from a samba to a waltz in a matter of seconds and he had a way that made you feel like the only thing that mattered in that moment was you.

Carlos pulled away with a gasp and TK chased after him to nip on his top lip because he knew it drove him crazy but Carlos had other plans it seemed.

Carlos pressed kiss after kiss after kiss that sent bolts of electricity through all of TK’s nerve endings and left him gasping for air as Carlos dropped to his knees. He shoved TK’s shirt up to expose his navel before he dragged a searing tongue across the hard line of his muscles and kissed at the dip of his hip. Carlos’s curls were buttery soft in his hands and TK pulled just enough to elicit one of those soft gasps he was obsessed with.

Carlos’s fingers dipped into the waist band of his jeans and TK jumped in surprise because usually Carlos liked to tease just a little bit longer instead of the harsh frantic movements.

Suddenly, the haze of desire lagged and cleared from TK’s eyes.

The flinch.

“Carlos,” he said, turning his fist into a cup as he smoothed back Carlos’s curls.

Carlos looked up at him, his mouth dangerously close to TK’s groin and stubble on his cheek scratching at TK’s skin that threatened to distract him again.

But that’s what this was. A distraction.

Something must have shown on TK’s face because Carlos’s dopey smile fell and something close to that hesitated anticipation crept back in.

“We need to talk, babe.” TK dragged his knuckles down the hard line of Carlos’s jaw in hopes of soothing some of the rejected sting. “Something’s been going on with you and I think it has something to do with what happened tonight.”

Carlos withdrew and fell back on his heels for a moment before he stood up and walked into the living room without another word.

“He was my first serious boyfriend,” Carlos said with a shake of his head because boyfriend didn’t really fit. “We dated for almost a year.”

TK didn’t say anything and Carlos dragged his nail across the arm of his couch.

“We met at a bar.” Carlos rolled his eyes as a laugh slipped out. “God, I sound like such a cliché.”

What you went through doesn’t make you weak, Carlos.

He knew Michelle was right. He knew that if anyone would be supportive it would be TK. It wasn’t as if he thought TK couldn’t handle it--- he’d had his own share of toxic relationships--- or that TK would judge him or anything. Hell, Carlos had thought he was going to have to break up a fight between TK and Ethan back at the food truck. But Carlos didn’t want to have to go through all the gruesome details of how the anticipation was almost worse than the actual impact themselves. How he’d tiptoed around like he was afraid to make a sound. How he’d run and locked himself in the bathroom that last night when Ethan just wouldn’t stop and he’d called Michelle instead of the cops.

So, he kept to the vague side of the details and took comfort in the shallow strokes of the picture they created.

“He…” Carlos sighed and pointedly looked at a corner of the ceiling. “He hit me a couple of times.”

He felt rather than saw TK stiffen and he didn’t think he could handle watching TK spiral out just yet so he was quick to add, “It… Never unprompted. We would always be in a fight and it would just escalate.”

“That still doesn’t make it okay,” TK said, sliding his arm across the back of the couch so he could slot himself into Carlos’s space.

It was nice. Carlos didn’t know what he thought would happen but TK treating him just the same as he had done before was nice.

“I know,” Carlos insisted even though it tasted like vinegar on his tongue. “I just… I don’t think he ever meant to hurt me if that makes sense. He hurt me, don’t get me wrong, and the relationship was one of the most controlling, toxic relationships I’ve ever been in but… other than the last night… it was like he didn’t mean to do it and that…”

He waited for TK to interject, to tell him how fucked up that was, but he didn’t. He was giving Carlos the space to air everything out before clipping it onto the line to dry. He wasn’t labeling things for Carlos like everyone he’d ever had to tell this story to tried to do. Carlos’s heart swelled.

“That made it complicated.” He finished with a sigh and a hard rub of his hand across his eyes. “He was intense in all the worst ways possible but also the best.”

TK dragged a knuckle up and down the tense line on the back of Carlos’s neck. “What do you mean?”

“I…”

What did Carlos mean?

Had Ethan’s attention been something Carlos had so desperately needed at the time that he’d somehow managed to put it so far up on a pedestal that it was unrecognizable now? Had the infatuation that burned in Ethan’s gaze every time Carlos was near become a kind of drug that kept his heart going?

Ethan had cherished Carlos.

He’d mentioned to Michelle once that TK was a ten with an amazement in his voice that someone like him would even give Carlos the time of day. The logical part of Carlos knew he was good looking. You couldn’t not know when people go out of their way to tell you. But the emotional side of Carlos felt like on a scale from one to ten, he fell somewhere in the middle.

Looked at and then overlooked.

Intimidating and then forgotten.

Interesting and then boring.

The reason he hated being the one who was doing the chasing was rooted in the mere fact that he was never going to be someone worth being chased for and the desperate need to try and convince someone to stay was humiliating.

When TK had shut him down that day at the juice bar, all of Carlos’s hopes and dreams and feelings of being worthy of someone’s affections had taken a plummeting screeching dive into nonexistence. But he was used to it and he had some dignity left to keep himself from begging for TK to stay even if he didn’t want to (which, thankfully, he did.)

And it was because of Ethan that he was able to recognize that he was worthy of more than just scraps of affection. He had chased Ethan too and for once, someone was interested enough in Carlos to stop.

“He saw me,” Carlos finally said. “I… People look at me but they don’t ever see me. He did in his own way. He was the first person to see me for me. All the good, the bad, and the ugly in between.”

“Hey,” TK said with a tap to Carlos’s jaw.

Carlos didn’t even realize his head had started to droop. TK’s finger guided Carlos’s head back up and he pinned Carlos with those endless blue green eyes that he couldn’t get enough of.

“Even the worst parts of you, and trust me that’s a very very very short list,” TK said with a teasing smile. “Even those parts are beautiful.”

Carlos ducked his head and TK swooped his arm so he could tuck Carlos to his side. Carlos went willingly and TK pressed a kiss against the crown of his head.

“You’re kind and smart and so bad ass.”

Carlos chuckled against his chest and he didn’t think he would ever get used to this; the two of them perfectly tangled together in a mess of limbs.

“You’re caring and strong and confident and beautiful. So, so beautiful. In and out.”

Carlos didn’t say anything for a moment, rubbing his fingers over the throw pillow in TK’s lap, and working the emotion from his throat.

Ethan may have cherished Carlos but TK loved him.

The difference of that mattered. 

TK nudged him until he put his head down on the pillow in his lap and Carlos rolled so he could push his face into TK’s stomach.

Long, strong fingers brushed through his curls and held him for as long as he needed to feel safe.

“Thank you,” Carlos eventually said.

TK just hummed and kept up his petting until Carlos drifted into sleep with a quiet “I love you” to drown the seeds of nightmares away.  

It was a slow day at the firehouse and TK was hating every second of it. It wasn’t like he was hoping for a mass casualty event or something but there was only so many times he could roll and unroll the hoses before someone called him out on it. Paul had already picked up on TK’s mood but thankfully kept his observations to himself.

Everything had been going fine. TK had been expecting Carlos to retreat back into himself again after the disaster that was their dinner date but the exact opposite had happened. It was like a massive weight had slipped off Carlos’s back. The confidence was back in his shoulders and the nightmares weren’t nearly as dramatic as they had been. The skittish-ness that had taken up residency in his expression had settled down so that his smiles turned easier and softer. The furrow in his brow had all but disappeared as the teasing movements of his eyebrows bounced across his expressive face even over the littlest of things. TK knew that a part of that stemmed from their conversation and he knew that somehow, he’d done something that Carlos must have needed in the moment. What Carlos had been through, and then trusting TK enough to tell him about it, was a huge deal and TK didn’t want to minimize that but he also didn’t want to blow it out of proportion either.

But somewhere along the way, they had gotten almost complacent about the issue. It was like a live wire they’d settled on ignoring for as long as they could until it sparked for their attention.

And boy did it spark.

Ethan had sent Carlos a text that morning--- and who ever gave him Carlos’s number was going to get a stern talking to when TK found out--- and it was like all the weight Carlos had slipped off had come slamming down again.

I let you go once. I won’t make that same mistake again. I’m going to fight for us.

That was all TK had been able to read over Carlos’s shoulder before Carlos had blocked the number and deleted the text.

So, now they were back to square one again only with the added bonus of Carlos being frustrated with TK.

“I don’t understand why you won’t at least report him for harassment!” TK had argued when Carlos had shut his suggestion of pressing charges down with a swift and final decline.

“Because, TK,” Carlos had snapped or as close to snapping as Carlos could. “You don’t get to complain about your ex-boyfriends when you’re a gay cop in Texas.”

And anything productive from the conversation had dwindled away from there.

It wasn’t like TK was in any rush for Carlos to “fix” the situation or something. You don’t need to be “fixed” when you go through something like Carlos did. It was a process--- a grieving process, his therapist would call it--- and Carlos deserved to process at his own pace. But Ethan had made several attempts to insinuate himself back into Carlos’s life long before TK had even been fully aware of the situation. He hated the idea of Carlos walking around being constantly exposed to danger just because some bullshit stigma kept him from taking all the necessary precautions.

He’d held in the jab about how if TK was in Carlos’s position, Carlos would’ve filed the report himself, even though it was ripping at his throat to slip out. But the fact of the matter was, TK was not in Carlos’s position. TK had had his share of crappy boyfriends but none of them had hit him. None of them had been so bad that TK still feared hearing their footsteps.

He just hated that all he could do to help was to give Carlos his patience which, admittedly, was not something TK was known for.

“TK,” Judd called from across the truck bay. “Someone here to see you.”

TK glanced up from where he was rolling another hose and frowned. Judd shrugged at him and pointed over his shoulder before he stepped in to finish up for TK.

There, leaning on the bay door frame in the cool Austin breeze and looking like a model in his dark jeans and vintage leather bomber jacket, was Ethan.

TK scowled and shoved his wrist across his brow to wipe the sweat away.

“What are you doing here?”

He couldn’t see Ethan’s eyes from behind his dark sunglasses but a perfectly thick eyebrow quirked high on his forehead.

“Well, that’s one hell of a greeting, kid,” Ethan said with that low sultry Texas drawl of his.

“I don’t make a habit of greeting my boyfriend’s asshole exes.”

Ethan was smirking but a tightness pinched at the corners of his lips.

“I see Carlos still hasn’t let that go.”

TK clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw cracked.

“What do you want?” He bit out, curling his hands into fists at his sides.

He knew when he was being baited and Ethan was definitely trying to start something but TK was at work and Carlos had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want anyone to know about what had been going on.

That didn’t make the urge to hit Ethan across the mouth any easier but he would try for Carlos.

Ethan rubbed a hand along his stubbled jaw and savored the restraint TK was clearly struggling with.

“I’m just here as a courtesy, kid.”

And TK was definitely tired of hearing him call him kid. He was a year older than Carlos!

“A courtesy?” TK asked even though he wanted to be like Carlos and just ignore Ethan until he went away.

Ethan tilted his head. “I plan on winning Carlos back and when I do, you’re going to be left with a broken heart and a bruised ego.”

TK snorted and shook his head.

“God, you really are delusional.”

That made the pleasantries slip from Ethan’s expression. The soft lines of his mouth hardened and the sweet smoky sound of his voice sharpened with an edge of what TK was sure was a contributing factor to Carlos’s nightmares.

“Stay away from Carlos,” Ethan said. “Or I’ll make you.”

Ethan was trying to bully him by intimidating him and it wasn’t working. While Ethan may have the charm, the height, and muscle over TK, TK had dealt with men twice his size in Manhattan on any given day.

TK slipped further into Ethan’s space and squared up to his full height.

“Then I guess you’ll have to make me because the last thing I’m ever going to do is let you get your hands on my boyfriend ever again.”

Ethan swerved with an ugly smirk. “Oh, but didn’t he tell you? My hands on him were one of Carlos’s favorite things. Did he tell you how I made him my bitch every single time? Do you know how pretty he sounds when he begs?”

Hot, furious anger simmered beneath TK’s skin.

“Get out,” TK snarled because he wasn’t about to let this asshole degrade Carlos in front of him.

Ethan lowered his voice so that it was a deep sultry whisper in TK’s ear.

“It’s fairly easy to get him to that point. He’s desperate for it. You just have to give him a pinch of attention and---”

TK threw his work gloves down on the ground and launched himself at Ethan.

Judd’s arm circled around TK’s waist and yanked him back before TK’s right hook could land on Ethan’s jaw. Ethan let out a deep belly laugh as Paul took TK from Judd and held him back. TK’s vision whited out as the heat of his anger skyrocketed because right there, in front of him, laughing, was the monster of Carlos’s nightmares.

“Get off of me!”

“You really think you’ll help Carlos out by getting yourself arrested for assault?” Judd turned to Ethan and gave him a sharp point out the door. “Leave.”

Still laughing, Ethan held up his hands in surrender and left without further fanfare. Paul didn’t let TK go until Ethan got into his car and drove away.

The silence that followed the roaring of his heartrate in his ears was just as deafening and TK heaved air into his lungs like he’d run a mile.

“How much of that did you hear?”

Judd’s expression confirmed the worst of it and he shook his head.

“Enough to know that guy ain’t worth the spit in my mouth.”

“That the same jerk who bothered Carlos at the bar a few weeks back?” Paul asked when he let TK go.

TK bit down on his lip and nodded. He blew out a curse as the comedown from his spiked adrenaline made the sweat on his skin cool. Carlos was going to be pissed.

He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know.

“TK.” Owen’s expression was flat. “My office.”

His dad turned on his heel and disappeared up the stairs. TK gnawed on his lip with his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath before he followed. Owen waited for him at the door to his office which he closed after TK crossed the threshold.

“I’m sorry,” TK said automatically even though he didn’t really mean it. “He got under my skin and---”

Owen shook his head and dropped into his seat behind his desk.

“I’m more interested in why he was here in the first place.”

TK groaned, pushing the heel of his hand into his eye to rub off the growing headache, and sat down in the chair opposite him. He considered all the various pieces of the story that had been shattered on the fire house floor. He owed his dad an explanation for almost getting into a fight while in uniform with a civilian, he knew that, but he didn’t know what all he should share. It was Carlos’s story and Carlos’s wishes deserved to be respected. But Ethan had all but insinuated the worst in front of everyone. He had every intention of respecting Carlos’s privacy but Ethan kind of blew that out of the water by ambushing TK at work and TK had a sneaking suspicion that had been his goal all along. TK would have to call Carlos once he was dismissed because he wouldn’t put it past Ethan to somehow find a way to tell Carlos himself and that thought alone was enough to make TK’s skin crawl. He would put himself in between Ethan and Carlos in a heartbeat if necessary. But Carlos was on duty and if he wasn’t surrounded by cops at any given moment, he was safe in his squad car with McCoy.

“You’ve been off for days now. I haven’t seen you this restless since you found out my diagnosis.” Owen leveled TK was a patent captain stare that somehow made TK feel like he was nine year’s old again. “What’s been going on?”

TK cracked a little, glancing up at his dad. Concern and patience and worry seeped through the professional façade and suddenly, TK felt like he was drowning a little. Owen was offering him a hand to help him pull his head above water.

So, he told him everything he knew. He started at the beginning and how the end filled in pieces into all the holes TK had tripped over. He told him the distance and the nightmares and the awful flinch that TK still felt deep in his bones. He told him about Ethan getting in his face and Carlos stepping between them and what that must have felt like. He told him everything and then made his father promise that none of it would leave his office because in the end, TK still didn’t know what to do.

“Carlos has always been… this rock. He’s…” TK struggled to find a word that could encompass all that Carlos was; struggled to find a word that could describe the acute feeling tight in TK’s chest whenever Carlos was there to hold him up when the world went sideways.

“He’s also been so… steady.”

Owen didn’t say anything and his father simply listened to him with a nod of his head. TK sighed and dropped his elbows to rest on his knees.

“It’s just so weird to see him so shaken and I’m trying but I don’t want to make it worse somehow.”

And TK hated himself a little bit because the moment Carlos had fallen asleep on his lap after that horrible dinner where Carlos had flinched --- TK still felt nauseous thinking about that--- TK had started to overthink every movement. His brain had been in overdrive as he analyzed every gasp, every sneeze, every blink that he’d watch Carlos take.

“Are you planning on hitting your boyfriend?” Owen asked as if he could read TK’s thoughts.

TK startled back but his dad’s face was serious with his brows disappearing into his hairline.

“What? No, of course not!”

“Call him names?”

“No!”

“Throw things at him?” Owen ticked off with his fingers. “Tell him who he can and cannot talk to? Yell and scream at him for any little thing? Pressure him into doing things he isn’t comfortable with?”

“No!”

The mere idea of Carlos ever flinching the way he had when Ethan had lifted a finger made TK sick. To think that TK would ever be the cause of something like that was even worse.

“Jesus Dad! Who do you think I am?”

Owen leaned back in his chair and smiled and TK couldn’t help but feel like he’d walked right into whatever point he was trying to make.

“I think you’re my son,” Owen said. “You’re a good man, TK and Carlos knows that. You treat Carlos like a person. You talk to him like he’s a person. You need to trust that he will tell you when something is too much.”

TK exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and melted back into his chair. Trust Carlos? That was easy.

He smiled the first real smile he’d had since that awful night.

“I told him I loved him, you know?”

Owen whistled through his teeth and there was no one who could exude proud like his dad.

“Well then, there you go. Love him, TK. That’s all you can do.”

Carlos had been… well, he hadn’t been thrilled to hear that TK had almost gotten into a fight with Ethan at the station but he also didn’t get mad so that was a win if there ever was one.

TK placed the steaming mug of coffee on the nightstand and quietly slipped back into Carlos’s bed before he placed a soft kiss at the corner of Carlos’s brow.

Carlos hummed in his sleep and turned to follow the feeling of TK’s lips but he had other plans in mind. TK slid beneath the covers and nipped at the exposed skin of Carlos’s hip. Carlos shivered beneath the ghost of TK’s breath and TK coached him valiantly into the brave world of being awake with a series of long slow kisses all the way up from his navel to his soft, plumb lips.  

Carlos sighed beneath him and blinked a few times before he curled his arms around TK’s waist and pulled him close.

“Mhmm… morning,” Carlos mumbled and then gasped as TK worked a small hickey onto his collarbone.

Nothing too crazy but something just enough to remember him by. He rolled the skin a little and then kissed the ache away, waiting for Carlos to relax beneath him before he sucked on the mark.

Carlos snatched TK’s teasing fingers roughly but then gentled his touch so he could press a kiss to each and every knob on his hand. The softness was turning TK’s bones into liquid and if they didn’t stop soon, he was going to melt.

Then he’d be late for work.

TK slipped his hands free to cradle Carlos’s face and straddled his waist for a long, deep kiss that made them arch into each other with an ache so deep he would carry it with him for the rest of the day.

Carlos huffed in annoyance when TK pulled away but TK would not be deterred. He had a plan to woo his boyfriend and wooing was what he would be doing.  

“So, here’s what we’re going to do. After our shifts, we’re going to meet back here, take a shower, maybe some other stuff,” TK said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “And then we’re going to pick up Paul and go to Nelly’s because it’s Dolly Night.”

As predicted, Carlos’s deep cocoa brown eyes lit up. If there was one person who could pull Carlos out of his funk it was one Dolly Parton.   

Hesitation dimmed his enthusiasm and understandably so. Ethan had managed to paint himself into almost every safe place that Carlos cared about; his work, the grocery store, their date nights were tainted some way or another now. But TK wasn’t about to let Ethan ruin another thing for Carlos. Not if he had any say about it.

TK leaned forward and kissed all his promises into Carlos’s lips.  Carlos had said he didn’t need TK to fight his battles for him but this was a battle TK would stand for.

 When they broke apart, they were both breathless and the heated pool of desire was almost consuming. With a smirk, TK slipped off Carlos’s lap and out of his reach.

“Coffee’s on the nightstand. I’ll see you tonight!”

And then he left with a snicker at Carlos’s grumblings about dating a tease.

Carlos supposed it was inevitable but that didn’t stop the way his nerves felt like a bucket of ice had been poured on him the moment he opened the door to his condo and saw Ethan on his doorstep. Carlos had been half tempted to shut the door on his face and hide until he was gone but that meant he’d be late for work and frankly, he was tired of hiding.

Carlos closed the door behind him as he stepped past the threshold and fixed Ethan with a leveled look.

“What are you doing here?” He asked with his voice steady. “My boyfriend’s not here for you to bait.”

Ethan, for his part, looked chagrin as he dragged his boot along the edge of the steps leading down to the parking lot.

“About that---”

He could see the excuses telegraphing on Ethan’s face and he shook his head.

“Save it, Ethan.”

Carlos brushed past his ex-boyfriend and made his way down the steps to the front walk of his complex in record time but Ethan was hot on his heels.

“Carlos, wait,” Ethan pleaded. “Please… baby, just wait and let me---”

He felt Ethan’s fingers pluck at his shirt as he tried to grab ahold of him but Carlos just pulled away.

“I’m not your baby, Ethan,” Carlos said, for once feeling the justified anger itching at his skin. “I’m not anything to you. We’ve broken up. You---”

“I’m sorry!”

Carlos stopped because in all the time that he’d known Ethan, he’d never once heard him utter that word. It was a heavy word that Carlos had been all too familiar with as he desperately tried to sooth away the anger and frustration with whispered apologies that had turned into whimpered regrets out of fear but never Ethan. Sorry had always been implied and never said.

Ethan blew out a low puff of air and he stepped closer. Carlos locked his knees to keep from stepping back. Ethan’s hand curled around Carlos’s bicep, his fingers flexing around Carlos’s muscle as he tried to massage out the tension thrumming in Carlos’s veins.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Ethan shook his head. “I… I’m sorry for ever making you feel like you weren’t important to me. You were my everything, baby.”

And Carlos knew Ethan well enough to know that he believed that. Like he said, Ethan had cherished Carlos like he was made of the rarest of glass. He touched him like he was beautiful crystal and cradled him in his arms with reverence in his strength.

But glass could also shatter and Ethan had shattered Carlos in more ways than one.

“Please give us another chance. Please don’t give up on us!”

“There is no us.” Carlos shook his head. “This has to stop, Ethan. I’ve moved on. Leave me alone.”

Carlos pulled himself away and turned his back on the devastation written in Ethan’s expression. There’d been a time when he would’ve done anything to avoid that look because Ethan had used it to make Carlos feel lower than dirt. He made Carlos feel like the bad guy in the situation and it used to make Carlos itch to want to apologize.

Sorry had become the most used word in his repertoire in their relationship and he knew the word intimately. But he wasn’t going to feel sorry finding someone who loved him inside and out.

He didn’t do anything wrong and Ethan didn’t get to make him feel that way anymore. Carlos turned his back on that chapter of his life with a trembling shake of the page the first time. The second time was a lot easier.

At least, it should’ve been.

“Carlos!” Ethan barked in a way that used to make Carlos draw his shoulders up to his ears and flinch.

Carlos ignored him and hurried his way to his car. An iron grip latched onto his wrist and Carlos turned to push Ethan away when the sharp sting at his hip stole his breath away. The needle sticking out of his side copied itself into two and then three as his vision swam and the numbness crawled up his side like a morning freeze along the dew. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth and the alarm in his brain that was screaming was slowly sliding down to mute.

Carlos dragged his gaze up to Ethan.

“What did you---” But Carlos’s words slipped out of his mouth onto the hot pavement as his legs gave out from under him.

Ethan caught him before he could hit the ground and cradled Carlos’s head against the pitter patter of his heart that was the wrong melody to Carlos’s ear.

“That’s it, baby.” Ethan petted Carlos’s hair, his hand feeling like sandpaper across his skin as he dragged Carlos back. “That’s it. I knew you’d come back to me.”

Carlos felt Ethan pick him up and then everything dropped into a dark oblivion of unawareness.

By the time TK got to the station and dressed in his uniform, his morning cup of coffee was starting to wane and the sharpness of his focus started to blur. The fire house smelled like oil and smoke with a crispness of steam in the humidity that settled heavy on his skin and led his nose to the still warm coffee machine where his team were gathered with their own cups.

“Hey TK, what should I wear tonight?” Mateo asked as soon as TK stepped into the kitchen to help himself to an espresso.

“Uh…” TK shot Paul a searching look but he had his nose firmly in his book and Mateo’s eyes were too wide and too eager for him to keep up with so early in the morning.

Carlos would only just be getting out of bed before his shift and TK envied that extra hour the comforters got to have wrapped around his boyfriend.

“I don’t know? Where are you going?”

TK wouldn’t necessarily say he was an expert on fashion and the stereotype always kind of grated on his nerves but Mateo didn’t have a mean bone in his body so he assumed the question was innocuous.

“Oh,” Mateo’s eyes widened. “Didn’t Paul tell you?”

Now Paul’s nose was practically inside the book.

“No,” TK dragged out, now noticing that his whole team were looking at him over their coffees. “Paul did not.”

“We’re going with you to Dolly night!”

“We?”

Paul finally looked up and shrugged. "It's Dolly night."

“I already know what I’m wearing,” Marjan said with a proud lift of her chin. “Nothing but my best rhinestone hijab for Dolly.”

“Dolly loves her rhinestones,” Paul added with a nod.

“That she does!”

"Wait, I didn't know Dolly was actually going to be there!"

"She's not probie."

TK’s brain felt like it was running about a mile too slow as he looked from Paul to Mateo to Marjan to Judd who were all watching his reaction. TK shifted his weight from one foot to the other because while he loved his friends, he didn’t want to take away Carlos’s fun by inviting all of them. Carlos was still keeping firmly to the fringes; more comfortable orbiting parties than joining them.

But who was he to gatekeep Dolly?

TK leveled a stare at Judd who was doing a fine job seeming entirely unbothered in being included.

“You? You’re coming to Dolly night?”

“You swallow that disbelief, Strand,” Judd said with a point of his finger. “Dolly Parton is a goddamn national treasure. Gracie and I can’t wait.”

Judd’s expression was flat and serious but even he couldn’t hide the small smile from behind his coffee mug.

TK sighed. “Look guys, I’m going to be with Carlos most of the---”

“Well duh,” Marjan said like it was obvious. “Why do you think we’re going?”

Now TK was really confused.

“Carlos may be your boyfriend, TK, but he’s out friend too.” Paul added. “So, if that creep of an ex-boyfriend of his shows up---”

“He’s goin’ to have to get through us first.” Judd finished.

Owen’s hand slapped down on TK’s shoulder as he his dad stood beside him. “Besides, no one says no to Dolly.”

TK froze because it was one thing to go to a club with his friends, it was an entirely different thing to go to a club with his dad.

“Uh,” he grimaced. “You’re coming too?”

Owen smiled. “Yeah no. I just heard your little team huddle and wanted to join in. Let’s get to work people!”

Carlos grasped onto consciousness with the taste of dust and dirt in his mouth and an ache deep in his hip.

And cold.

The kind of damp cold that seeped in through your skin and clung on with all its might as you shivered through it. Carlos shuddered and his shaky exhale sent a plume of dust spiraling away from his face. His nose itched to sneeze and felt like the inside was caked with tiny shards of glass. He lifted a hand to brush it or… at least, he tried to.

Carlos frowned, still lost in a hazy confusion from sleep, and tried to move his hand free. The sharp burn of rope scratched across the small of his back and dragged his other wrist across his body until the strain pulled at his shoulder. He shifted again and the burn around his wrists turned searing as pins and needles tingled down his fingertips and up his elbows sending a signal to all his nerve endings to look alive and feel everything.

The damp cold.

The harsh bite of the rope tying his wrists together.

The pounding of his head.

The small pin point ache on his hip like he’d been jabbed and bruised and then left to fester.

The dirt floor on his bare skin.

Carlos stopped and sucked in a sharp breath.

He wasn’t… He wasn’t wearing any clothes. He wasn’t wearing any clothes!

It all came crashing back like a hammer against his memory that ticked up his heartrate and started a shrill ringing in his ears.

I knew you’d come back to me.

Ethan had grabbed him and then he woken up someplace that was dark and cold and he didn’t know and---

Carlos forced himself to calm down, willing the heavy pounding of his heart to relax. He wasn’t dead which, given the circumstances, was a good thing since most abusers don’t take their victims to a secondary location if they planned on killing them. Ethan wouldn’t kill him intentionally that much Carlos knew. But he still had been out for an undetermined amount of time. There was no natural light to speak of in whatever dark room he was in --- a basement, he was guessing, judging by the chill and the dirt floor--- but that was okay. Ethan had caught him on his way to work. McCoy would be around to check his place when he didn’t report for duty that morning so someone would know he was missing. And even then, TK---

Carlos swallowed back the fresh hot press against his eyes. TK would be worried. TK loved him and TK would be worried when he wouldn’t hear from Carlos.

He hated it but he took a small bout of reassurance from that too.

He forced himself to assess his situation with a clinical mindset.

Soon or later, someone would be looking for him and with the fairly reasonable assumption that Ethan didn’t plan on killing him, Carlos just had to bide his time and wait for a chance to arise.

Goosebumps pebbled on his skin as a draft blew along the floor and Carlos shivered again. The paper-thin cotton boxers that were definitely not his--- and he pointedly did not think about that fact because there was only so much he could handle--- did nothing to protect him from the chill. He curled his legs under him and---

Something yanked his right ankle to a stop. Metal clinked together like a thousand mirrors breaking in the silence and he flinched. When nothing happened as the silence settled over him again, Carlos gave another tentative tug of his foot. It jerked to a stop with something tight around his ankle.

Panic started to seep past his professional mask as he tried to pull his leg again. The resistance was unbreakable and excruciating as the pressure around his ankle clawed up to his hip and it took him far too long to realize the sharp keening sounds he was hearing over the sound of the chain clanking heavily against the floor were coming from himself and he pulled and pulled and pulled.

Somewhere, in the back of Carlos’s mind, he recognized that he was making too much noise but he couldn’t bring himself to fight down the surging panic that settled in his chest as he tried over and over again to pull his ankle free. The shackle was too tight around his skin and pressed down deep into a bruise that felt like it would never heal.

No matter how hard he pulled, the shackle held up, steady against the unsteady pattern of Carlos’s uneven inhalations and slipping exhalations. He couldn’t move! He couldn’t---

A high pitiful sob ripped at his soul and forced tears to his eyes because even after everything he’d done--- getting away, becoming a cop, finding love again--- Ethan had ensnared him again with the only options left looking like acceptance or chewing off his own leg.

He… he was trapped.

“Hey TK?”

TK pulled his helmet off his head and shoved a fist across his brow to wipe the sweat slipping down from his hairline. They all reeked of sweat and smoke and overbaked barbecue after a grill had overheated and set fire to someone’s back yard. Thankfully, the fire had stayed contained on the one property but even in the cooler months, Austin grass always seemed dry and one sharp breeze away from causing major property damage. That incident, of course, was only after they had to go put out a minivan that had given out on the freeway only to burst into flames when the driver had tried to push it towards the exit.

Which was also after they’d been called because an idiot had tried to prank his girlfriend by sneaking into her house only to get caught in the window as she attacked him with a griddle. And he thought New York was crazy.

He’d been half expecting to see Carlos with how often they’d been called out but so far, no luck.

“What’s up?”  

Paul tossed TK a fresh water bottle and pointed back towards the set of squad cars at the perimeter.

“McCoy’s here. Said he needs to talk to you.”

McCoy? TK glanced around for any sign of Carlos. It wasn’t often he didn’t immediately spot his boyfriend when he was within shouting distance. Carlos walked around with his own gravitational pull that TK was all too willing to get swept up in but when Carlos was on duty, he had a presence about him that was hard to miss. Maybe he was biased but there was something sexy about Carlos’s ability to face off with danger with stiff chin and assertiveness that wasn’t suffocating for everyone around them only to be able to turn on the soft, kindness at a moment’s notice.

But when TK made his way over to the squad cars, McCoy was alone.

“Hey McCoy,” TK said and shook McCoy’s outstretched hand. “Where’s Carlos?”

McCoy grimaced. “We were hoping you would know. He didn’t report for duty this morning and he isn’t answering his phone.”

The way TK’s heart plummeted all the way down to his boots must have shown on his face because McCoy held up a hand.

“It’s probably nothing but do you think could try and get in touch with him?”

TK nearly dropped his phone with how fast he pulled it from his pocket and pressed Carlos’s contact with a sweaty greasy thumb. Soot smeared across his screen as a picture of Carlos's picture smiled up at him but TK didn’t pay any attention to it as he lifted the phone to his ear.

It rang for what felt like forever.

“Hey, you’ve reached Carlos. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

TK shook his head and tried not to panic at the way McCoy’s face fell.

“What seems to be the problem here?” Owen’s voice was like a balm to the growing rush of worry that crashed over TK.

His dad’s hand felt grounding on his shoulder and TK tried Carlos’s phone again.

“Carlos didn’t report for duty this morning.”

“Hey, you’ve reached Carlos. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

TK squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. There was no reason to panic yet. Carlos hadn’t been sleeping well. He could’ve just slept after his alarm.

The barely concealed grimness in McCoy’s expression didn’t help in the slightest.

“Do you think you could come with us?”

Carlos didn’t know how long he was alone but the sound of a door opening from above made him flinch so hard the chain of his shackled foot rattled.

Ethan’s low deep chuckle speared a pit into Carlos’s stomach as the heat of humiliation bloomed into a blush onto his chest. At some point, he’d managed to pull himself up into a sitting position and had tried to work at getting the tight rope around his wrists to loosen but all he’d managed to do was chafe the skin and add to the growing dread as what felt like hours ticked by.

He knew the statistics. The longer the space from the point of abduction, the less likely it would be that he would be found.

Low light flooded the small room as Ethan turned on a camping lantern hanging from the side of a brick wall. Empty, cobweb ridden shelves lined the opposite side of the room with a few boxes pressed into a corner and in the ground was a thick iron bolt arched around the end of his chain tether.

“Look at you,” Ethan drawled, staring at Carlos with hunger in his eyes. “You’ve gained some muscle since I last saw you.”

The compliment flooded Carlos with a familiar preen that made his skin crawl. Ethan held his gaze as he stepped closer to him and it took everything in Carlos not to try and shuffle back. The power dynamic of being on the ground with Ethan hovering over him was suffocating but he had to try and appeal to Ethan’s sense.

“You need to let me go, Ethan,” Carlos said, forcing his words to sound slow and unassuming so that Ethan didn’t think he was telling him what to do.

Ethan never liked it when Carlos told him what to do.

“People are going to notice that---”

Ethan shushed him by grabbing his jaw and tilting his head upward. He pushed down and dragged the pad of his thumb across the path of Carlos’s lips in a slow mapping of the way his skin would rise from beneath the pressure. Then he bent down and tilted Carlos’s head all the way back before he smashed his lips against Carlos’s mouth. A rough hand pawed at his curls and Ethan’s tongue was jabbing against Carlos’s lips like a battering ram seeking entry. The fingers on his jaw turned bruising the longer he refused to let Ethan shove his tongue in and he clenched his teeth when his lips were squished apart.

Ethan pulled off him with a smack of his lips and he squeezed Carlos’s face harder as that pawing hand turned into a fist in his hair. The angle of his head was making it hard to breathe and the pressure on his face was turning towards the edge of excruciating.

“Open your mouth, Carlos.”

But Carlos clenched his teeth together again and when Ethan slammed his mouth down over Carlos, Carlos bit on his lip until he tasted blood.

Ethan ripped his face away with a cry. Carlos should’ve expected the backhand but the collision of Ethan’s knuckles against his face sent him crashing back onto the floor.

“What is the matter with you?” Ethan growled.

Carlos tried to crawl away but Ethan grabbed the chain around his ankle and yanked him back into his arms. Carlos yelped as his bare skin dragged against the ground but Ethan ignored him.

“Why do you make loving you so difficult, huh?” Ethan crouched down and the words stung as he willed the tears to stay in his lashes.

Ethan lifted Carlos again but this time by his throat.

For one terrifying moment, all the air was trapped in the thickness of his throat and it felt like Ethan was squeezing before the hand disappeared and traveled back up to his face as if to cradle his head. In the dim light, Carlos was forced to face the flashes of hurt and anger and longing in Ethan’s expression as his dark brooding eyes that smoldered so intensely took him in.

“You’ve changed, Carlos,” Ethan said a little sadly. “But how I feel for you hasn’t. Feel!”

The hands in his hair twisted into fists again and Carlos cried out at the sharp pain of his scalp as Ethan pushed his face against the thick bulge in his groin.

“That night I saw you in the club, looking all pretty as you leaned against the bar just begging for it,” Ethan said, his voice low as he rubbed against Carlos’s face. “It was like seeing you for the first time all over again.”

Carlos didn’t have much leverage with his hands twisted behind his back and his leg outstretched but the harsh cut of Ethan’s jeans on his skin was too much to handle. He was shaking apart at the seams and what small grasp of control he had was slipping away. He put all his strength he had into rearing back and Ethan dropped him in surprise. Carlos scrambled away again and kicked out with his free leg. He missed Ethan’s knee by barely grazing it with his toes and the chain around his ankle yanked taunt but Carlos didn’t care. He had to get away. He had to get far away.

Ethan grabbed the chain again and dragged Carlos back to him.

“What’s the deal with you?” Ethan asked before he ripped Carlos up from his curled form by his hair with a dark, mean chuckle. “You never did think I was good enough for you.”

And Carlos could see in his eyes that he believed that.

“No, Ethan,” Carlos said quietly with a shake of his head. “That wasn’t true.”

Carlos had spent almost their entire relationship wondering what Ethan saw in Carlos. The skinny, introverted control freak that wanted to be an openly gay cop in Texas to help people.

“Yes, it was!” Ethan shook Carlos so hard his teeth rattled but Carlos shook his head again.

“It wasn’t.”

And then for a moment, Ethan’s touch turned soft. Feather light and reverent in the way that he remembered. The touch that made him feel cherished and seen.

Had Ethan always been so rotten to the core or had Carlos leaving him done that?

Ethan had told Carlos once he ruined everything. Maybe he’d been right.

That isn’t true.

The voice that sounded so much like TK argued with him and if he wasn’t already crying, he started then. TK would be alone. He would be waiting for Carlos to come home and it was never going to happen.

In that moment, Carlos didn’t know if Ethan was a mind reader or if some of his mourning showed on his face but the soft touches turned harsh again and he shoved Carlos to the ground in disgust.

“It’s that twerp, isn’t it? The one that marked you up with all those pathetic hickies?” Ethan glowered down at Carlos. “You’re still hung up on him, huh?”

The heartbreak and fear curdled into something hot and angry and he latched onto that like it was his lifeline in a storm.

“Don’t talk about him,” Carlos said, his voice low and even as he glared up at Ethan. “Don’t.”

Ethan hit him again and Carlos tasted blood on his tongue but he didn’t care because Ethan didn’t get to talk about TK.

Ethan muttered something to himself and disappeared up the steps out of what Carlos was beginning to suspect was a storm cellar. He took the moment of reprieve to twist his wrists some more and hissed as the rope cut into his skin. His hands were wet and whether that was from blood or sweat, Carlos didn’t know but he pushed through the pain and tried to regulate his breathing again. It would be meaningless for him to get free just to hyperventilate and pass out.

The air felt cooler on Carlos’s too hot skin and he latched his teeth down onto his lip to keep back the sob that wanted to slip out of him. He had to keep his head.

Ethan wasn’t going to kill him on purpose but Carlos also didn’t want to find out what he had planned either. He couldn’t afford to wait for the calvary. Carlos didn’t know what happened to Ethan in the time they’d broken up but something had unhinged for him and there was no telling what he would do.

Ethan’s looming shadow crept into the basement first before he stomped down the steps with a roll of duct tape and the mean sneer on his face. Carlos shrunk back as far as he could.

“Come here!” Ethan grabbed the back of Carlos’s neck with harsh fingers and dragged him to the ground.

Carlos tried to jerk away, to fight, anything to get away but his hands scrambled uselessly behind him and Ethan yanked him so hard that his ankle popped as the chain went taunt on his leg. Ethan wrapped his arm around Carlos’s throat and wrestled him onto his stomach.

“Quit fighting me, ‘Los or you’ll make me mad again.”

Ethan sat in the middle of Carlos’s back and trapped his squirming down with his thighs. The sound of the duct tape ripping cracked in the air and before he could suck in a breath to scream, Ethan was winding the tape round and round his head over his mouth.

“There,” Ethan said with a sigh when he was done. “Can’t have you warning anybody now, can I?”

And Carlos didn’t know what that meant but he knew breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Carlos tried to buck Ethan off but he was like a cement weight pinning him down. His grunt was muffled behind the tape and his vision started to turn fuzzy around the edges.

Ethan ground down once into the small of Carlos’s back and Carlos froze.

“Remember this baby?” He asked, his voice full of the proud possessiveness he always got whenever he managed to make Carlos blush in public.

Ice filled his veins as Ethan’s hand cupped the back of Carlos’s neck and then pinned his face to the floor as another hand drifted down his spine in a lazy zig zag pattern.

“I could do anything I wanted. Anything at all.”

Carlos held his breath and remained perfectly still.

Ethan leaned down, tucked his face into the hollow of Carlos’s neck, and inhaled.

“I’ve missed you.” His breath was hot on Carlos’s skin.

Too hot.

Too much. Too hot. Not right. All wrong.

The hand slid to the waist band of the boxers and Carlos jumped so badly he actually managed to dislodge Ethan. Carlos took his freedom--- what little he had--- and tried to curl away. The chain stopped him short with a shattering imitation of window chimes as the links jolted with his movements.

Ethan laughed.

“Jesus, I forgot how skittish you were.” He patted Carlos’s ankle like it was supposed to make him feel better somehow but all it did was thread more anxiety into his already exposed nerves.

Carlos forced himself to breath.

Level headed. That’s what he needed to be to survive.

TK didn’t understand how literally hours after determining that Carlos was missing, the entire police department couldn’t find anything that would actually help them figure out where he was. They’d called Michelle, who was on her way home, to get Ethan’s last name and since then nothing. There was no sign of Ethan or Carlos anywhere. Not at Carlos’s condo. Not at Ethan’s apartment building or work.

Nothing.

It was like they vanished into thin air but they couldn’t have vanished because that meant Carlos vanished and he was with that asshole---

TK forced himself to take a beat. He was freaking out and the last thing Carlos need from him was to freak out. But it had been hours since Carlos was supposed to report for his shift and night had long since taken over the Austin sky. He’d missed the rest of his shift and the promise of Dolly Night had long since been forgotten as the worry gnawed inside TK’s chest. His friends had promised once they got off their last scene--- a gas leak at an apartment high rise--- that had dragged them into overtime, that they would stop by but until then TK was left to spin his wheels with almost no traction. He’d spent the remainder of the day at Carlos’s precinct, answering questions and cooperating so that the cops could access Carlos’s apartment and prized blue Camaro. Being the last person to have seen Carlos had led to a rather intense line of questioning but he must have done something right because the detectives that were looking into Carlos’s disappearance quickly turned their focus elsewhere.

McCoy had let TK sit at Carlos’s desk while he waited for someone to tell him what to do but that never came. The precinct was buzzing with activity as officers and detectives and higher ups scrambled together some kind of timeline that could help them pinpoint at least a starting point to look. The kinetic, fevered energy of the bullpen had zapped into TK’s chest and festered until his fingers were twitching and his knee wouldn’t stop bouncing. His patience of being stationary coiled tighter and tighter until finally he had to spring from Carlos’s chair and take a step outside.

The night air felt cool on his face and it felt easy to breathe for what seemed like the first time in hours.

And then he was reminded again that Carlos was missing and it all came crashing down around him. Worry dragged his limbs down under again and he paced up and down the front of the precinct just to give his mind something to do other than to churn over the imagines he kept coming up with.

Carlos was missing and Ethan had something to do with it. TK was sure of it. The obvious almost obsessive possessive streak had been painted across his face the moment he stepped up to their table that horrible night at the food truck. Why didn’t he stay longer? Why did he leave him alone? TK had had a suspicion that Ethan was creeping into the stalker ex-boyfriend department just from what Carlos had told him and he didn’t do anything.

Not anything useful.

No, all he had done was make plans to drag Carlos out for a night a fun.

Lot of good that did.    

“You can’t beat yourself up about this, TK,” his dad had said when he stopped by the station in between calls.

It was dizzying how TK’s world felt like it had screeched to a halt and everyone else kept spinning on.

“Carlos is smart and resourceful and one hell of a cop,” Owen had added. “If anyone could get through this, it’s him.”

And TK had to agree but at what cost?

Ethan already demonstrated an escalated irrational pattern of behavior by just taking him. Carlos had said that he didn’t think Ethan ever meant to hurt him but who was to say that Ethan wouldn’t crack and go too far?

TK saved people all the time but, in that moment, pacing the front of a police precinct with nothing but what ifs and self-doubt, what good was he to anyone if he couldn’t even protect his own boyfriend.

TK felt like his heart wanted to rip itself out of his chest and abandon him on the side walk. He should’ve pushed Carlos for more details. He should’ve insisted on Carlos filing harassment charges. He should’ve---

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he answered with a quick glance at the ominous UNKNOWN highlighted on the screen.

“Carlos?” His voice sounded breathless to his own ear and he bit down on the panic that surged up in his throat.

Ethan was unmistakable in his response.

“374 West DuPoint Circle. Be there in an hour. Come alone. You get five minutes to say goodbye before we’re gone.”

He hung up before TK could respond.

The first thing TK felt as awareness settled on his chest and made his lungs heave under the heaviness, was the pounding headache. Pain spiked at the back of his head and rippled across his skull to crash into his eyebrows like a stone being tossed in a lake.

The second thing was the tight pressure of duct tape around his wrists in front of him.

The feeling of the adhesive sticking to his numb skin made TK shudder and a groaned slipped out of his mouth as the pulsing pain in his head swelled.

The distinct jingle of chain links moving pierced through the last of his daze followed by a tangle of the worst sounds that would haunt TK’s dreams:

A whimper shushed by the deep rumbling sound of Ethan’s voice.

“No, baby, watch him. Just watch him.”

The memories came flooding back like a kaleidoscope of events. TK ordering a car and paying the driver to drop him off a block away from his destination. TK tossing his phone and praying that his friends would get the message. TK going to the address Ethan gave him and finding the place empty.

An eruption of pain and then nothing.

And now?

His vision cleared to the dim lighting of a camp lantern hanging on a wall. Bare wooden beams braced across the ceiling made the room feel smaller than it already was and a low draft chilled the air. TK rolled his head to the side and blinked. Every crash of his eyelashes meeting felt like a sharp cymbal behind his eyes that seared into the pain at the back of his head.

He saw the bruised, raw skin of an ankle shackled to a bolt in the floor first. The skin was red and angry, purpling along the edges, like Carlos had been tugging and tugging and tugging.

Or dragged.

He swallowed down the bile and the growing tornado of panic and anger. TK’s gaze followed the length of the outstretched leg. Carlos was naked except for a pair of dirty boxers with his hands tied behind his back and several rounds of duct tape pulled tight across his mouth. Dirt was smeared along silent tear tracks and a few bruises were swelling along his cheekbones.

TK could smell blood in the air tangled with the damp mildew smell of a basement.

One long, imposing arm was draped across Carlos’s chest, drawing lazy patterns on his skin and dancing his thumb too close to Carlos’s throat as Ethan held him tenderly in his lap.

Ethan smirked as he watched TK take in Carlos’s state, nuzzling his head into the hollow of Carlos’s neck.

“I do have to hand it to you, kid,” Ethan said with an appraising glance across TK’s body. “You sure are pretty when you sleep.”

Carlos’s eyes were dark with fear though, you wouldn’t know if you didn’t know what to look for. To anyone else, Carlos had the same carefully controlled expression that TK had seen him master on even the most gruesome of scenes. But TK was versed in the wide range of micro tells that even Carlos couldn’t hide. He was holding onto the detached first responder mask for dear life but his eyes… the slight dip of his eyebrows… Pure, unbridled fear was pointed directly at TK.

Ethan moved his other hand and the sharp heavy sound of metal had TK directing his attention to the gun aimed at him. TK clenched his jaw and pushed his bound hands into the ground before sitting up.

“Pretty but stupid,” Ethan said, his voice turning serious.   

TK didn’t know if Ethan was so full of himself that he didn’t notice or simply didn’t care that TK had all but thrown himself headfirst into his hands. It’d taken him all of two seconds while he’d been ordering his ride to recognize that he was walking into a trap. But everything that TK knew about Ethan screamed impulsive. He’d planned enough to learn Carlos’s schedule, making it convenient for him to ambush him time and time again, but that night at the food truck when he’d tried to get Carlos back, TK had recognized the hotheaded spontaneity in his words.

Carlos was Ethan’s weakness. His possessiveness and jealousy made him ill-tempered and rash and TK assumed that Carlos was probably fighting him. That’s why he got the phone call. Carlos wasn’t giving in as easily as Ethan thought and it had wounded his pride.

“I don’t think he ever meant to hurt me.” That had been what Carlos had said and the anger in Ethan’s voice on the phone made everything make sense.

In his own twisted, messed up way, Ethan loved Carlos and he didn’t want to hurt him.

But he didn’t have the same reservations about TK. TK was his competition and Ethan was going to do whatever it took to show Carlos that TK didn’t deserve him.

So, TK took the gamble that Ethan wouldn’t kill him on the spot and instead would lead him to wherever he was keeping Carlos and thankfully that gamble paid off. Now, all he had to do was stall for time and hope that he left enough breadcrumbs for people to follow.

“Keep calling me pretty and you’ll have to buy me dinner,” TK said, with a smirk on his face and a confidence that he never truly felt but had spent years perfecting.

TK matched Ethan’s sprawl with his own mimicked version and pressed his back against the empty shelves behind him. Carlos flashed a warning gaze at him as he twisted but then froze as Ethan’s free hand curled around his throat.

TK felt the spark of fear in Carlos’s eyes deep in his soul and bit down on his lip to keep from screaming at Ethan to get his hands off of him. Whether Ethan was too consumed by his jealousy or just simply didn’t see TK slip, he didn’t know.

Ethan jerked Carlos to the side, forcing him to bare his neck so that TK could see the small hickey he had left that morning.

Had it really been that morning since he’d woken Carlos up with coffee and a promise of loud Dolly Parton music?

“I should cut your smart mouth for doing this,” Ethan said, the low rumblings of his voice making Carlos feel like his insides were trapped in an earthquake.

He jolted at the threat but Ethan squeezed hard enough around his throat to make him choke. Ethan’s grip relaxed as he pulled Carlos back to his chest like a toy he didn’t want to let go. Carlos shuddered as a rough hand slithered down his bare chest and dragged a swirly path down from his clavicle all the way to the valley of his hip. Ethan put his gun on the nearby box and added another hand to curl into the inside of Carlos’s thigh like he couldn’t get enough of Carlos’s skin.

“All of this is mine, has been mine, and will always be mine.”

Carlos’s breath hitched somewhere high in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut to keep the threat of tears back.

Get control of yourself, Carlos.

“But he isn’t yours,” TK said and Carlos’s eyes flew open. “Not anymore. Hasn’t been for a while.”

TK sounded bored and Carlos was going to kill him if he didn’t stop trying to bait Ethan.

“You said it yourself. That’s my mark on his throat. Not yours,” TK said with a point of his bound hands. “I mean you can’t really blame Carlos. Not when he can turn in the older model for a younger, newer one.”

Stop antagonizing him!

Carlos wanted to scream. TK knew better than to provoke a hostile party and Carlos had the misfortune of knowing what Ethan was capable of. When Ethan had dragged TK’s limp body into the basement, he’d almost broke on the spot until he saw the steady rise and fall of TK's chest. The anxiety had festered in his lungs, making it hard to breathe through the panic, the longer TK remained unconscious until he’d groaned himself awake but now it was like TK was intentionally---

He was distracting Ethan.

And it was working.

“Hey,” TK said, lighting up. “Maybe that’s your problem. Old. A desperate, lonely, old bully.”

Ethan bristled behind Carlos and Carlos took the opportunity of space to rotate his wrists. The blood and the sweat on his skin burned all the way down to the tips of his fingers but the rope was starting to stretch more.

“Shut your mouth.” Ethan all but growled.

TK smirked. “Make me.”

But TK’s taunt had the opposite effect and Ethan’s hand snatched Carlos's jaw. Carlos stilled and let Ethan force his head back.

“This?” Ethan exasperated. “This little shit is who you would rather have than me.”

Every second of every minute of every day.

Carlos knew the answer to that without a heartbeat in between to think. Carlos looked down the slope of his nose and peered at TK. TK’s expression winced into alarm before he swallowed it.

“Look at me!” Ethan roared and Carlos shrank back as the cold grips of fear stiffened in his muscles.

Ethan’s fingers turned bruising as he held Carlos out at arm’s length. That devastation returned to shatter the confidence from Ethan’s face and he must have seen Carlos’s answer because the betrayal was heavy with grief.

Carlos loved TK.

He always would.

“You pathetic---” Ethan didn’t finish his sentence because he punched Carlos in the face so hard that Carlos saw stars.

His yelp was muffled by the tape but he knew his nose was bleeding. Ethan threw him to the ground away from him in disgust and Carlos braced for another hit when the sharp cut of a siren pierced through the thick walls of their prison.

A siren followed by another and then another until a whole symphony sounded.

Police sirens that charged through the air like a beacon in the dark and punched through the shackles of Ethan's control. 

Ethan whirled a furious snarl at TK.

“What did you do?”

TK glared at him, unapologetic, and shrugged. “Oops.”

Help. Help had arrived.

Ethan worked his jaw and he took TK in before he swiveled his gaze back to Carlos. 

“I’m going to kill him first,” Ethan said slowly, pointing at TK and glaring so murderously at Carlos that it pinned him to the floor. “And you get to watch. But first I’m going to unpretty that face of his.”

He pulled a knife from his pocket and crossed towards TK in a flash. TK startled back and kicked out but Ethan was on him like he’d barely felt a thing. TK lifted his hands to block the knife and cried out as the knife sliced through his skin. Sharp, hot adrenaline raced through Carlos's veins and he pulled and pulled and pulled on his wrist until finally the tension went slack and Carlos ripped his hand free from the rope. He lunged for the gun. His ankle pulled taunt with the chain but his fingers found the handle. The blood on his hand made the gun slip from his grip but he forced his fingers to curl around the handle, unlocked the safety, and aimed.

Ethan turned to him, stunned, before he charged at Carlos with his bloody knife raised and Carlos fired.

Carlos’s eyes burned as he watched Ethan drop to the floor like a stone in a dried up well.

He was dead.

Carlos made sure of it.

It was over.

It was over. 

It was...

And yet… Carlos felt like he was drowning all over again.

It took him way too long to realize that the short whimpering sounds were coming from him.

Carlos dropped the gun and clawed at the tape around his mouth but his fingers were too numb and the tape was too thick and he needed it off; he needed to breathe. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t---

“Let me.” TK was in front of him suddenly, his eyes wide but hands moving slowly in front of him as the last of the duct tape he must have pulled off with his teeth hung off his sleeve.

There was blood on his arm.

“Let me do it, Carlos.”

TK’s hands were so soft on his jaw and he squeezed his eyes shut as a muffled sob erupted between them that he couldn’t hold in.

“I know. I know. I’ve almost got it.” TK’s mantra of reassurances was the only anchor in a sea of panic Carlos was struggling to swim in and he clung desperately to it if only to keep himself sane.

It was over.

It was over.

As promised, TK gently pulled the last of the tape away and cool air kissed Carlos’s abused lips.

“TK---” Carlos croaked.

A door smashed above them and Carlos jumped so hard it knocked TK over but TK pulled himself back up and curled himself around Carlos, shielding him.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Carlos sucked in a breath that made his whole body quake all the way down to his toes. But TK’s embrace was strong and Carlos ducked his face to hide against him as TK called out for help because it was all too much too fast.

TK rocked him as he cried as the sound of police sirens and boots on hardwood soared through the air.

"You're okay. You're okay."

Paul was still furious about TK’s plan really only consisting of sending Paul his location through Find My Friend and assuming he would get the gist of what was going on.

“Find My Friend?” Paul had exclaimed. “Seriously? That was the best plan you could come up with while you took an Uber to meet up with the psycho ex?”

Paul lectured TK until his ears rang but nothing could compare to the look Owen Strand gave TK when he entered the Emergency Room. The doctor who had done his sutures for the knife wound on his arm had kept a mask of professionalism but TK could’ve sworn his hands were shaking when he left.

And TK was sorry, he really was. He didn’t mean to scare his team and his dad by running off.

But, TK would do it again in a heartbeat.

Carlos had curled up on his side on the gurney in the ambulance and had shut down on the way to the hospital. TK didn’t want to be separated from him when they were rushed into the Emergency Room but a whirlwind of people had forced them apart and by the time TK had been released, Michelle had arrived and disappeared with a few officers to take Carlos’s statement.

TK had a concussion and twelve stitches.

Carlos’s list of injuries was much more extensive. Dehydration, bruising up and down his body, and his wrists and ankle were rubbed so raw that the doctor was worried about nerve damage and infection (particularly his right hand which Carlos had chafed raw to get free before ripping it from his bindings to save TK). Not to mention he hadn’t said one word to TK since he’d been allowed into Carlos’s room. He wasn’t saying much to be honest, but that was to be expected.

After fluids and a round of antibiotics, the doctors finally agreed to let Carlos go home and Carlos and Michelle disappeared into his room and stayed there for hours.

TK didn’t know what to do.

Staying felt like he was intruding but leaving felt too close to abandonment. He showered off the smell of a damp basement and hospital, slept on the couch on and off, fielded questions and concerns from his friends, and tidied what he could of Carlos’s apartment… which was difficult because TK was beginning to wonder if his boyfriend had some kind of OCD. No one ever kept their apartment as clean as Carlos.

Michelle finally came downstairs right as TK’s freak out circled the idea of making a mess and then cleaning it up just so he had something to do.

“How is---”

Michelle cut TK off with a tight hug that took his breath away.

“Thank you,” Michelle said, her voice cracking.

It’d been so long since he’d seen her but it felt good to hug and be hugged.

“That was the stupidest, most idiotic thing you could have ever done.” She made sure to add with her husky voice like liquid smoke in his ear. “But thank you for saving him.”

TK shook his head as they pulled apart. “Carlos saved himself.”

Michelle fixed him with a look that made TK squirm a little.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Did he?

Or did he make things infinitely worse?

Insecurity thrummed under his skin. Carlos almost seemed… he seemed mad at TK and TK didn’t know what to do with that because Carlos didn’t get mad. Not at TK at least.

Michelle pinched her mouth to the side in a bittersweet pucker and she shook her head.

“That… bastard messed Carlos up pretty badly the first time.” She lifted her knuckle to wipe at a tear. “He made Carlos…"

Michelle broke off with a sigh as she rolled her thoughts in her head before speaking. 

"When Carlos came out to his parents it wasn’t great.”

TK had kind of guessed that by the way Carlos always seemed to side step any mention of them but he didn’t want to push.

“It could’ve been worse but it wasn’t great. His mom in particular made it kind of hard because she cried and told him he was going to grow old alone and it’s always been this thing that’s stuck with him.”

TK sucked in a breath and nodded.

“But Ethan, he…” This time when Michelle’s lips pursed it looked like the sound of his name was like snake venom on her tongue that she wanted to spit out. “That bastard made him feel that way too. He told him that without him, Carlos was going to be alone and… I can’t say I’m sad he’s dead.”

“Me neither,” TK admitted.

Michelle sniffed and shoved her wrist against her nose. “Anyway, you should get up there. I’m going to go and get him some groceries for the next few days.”

TK hesitated for a moment and Michelle took his hand.

“TK, Ethan made him feel all alone. But you don’t. Don't let him think Ethan was right.”

Which is how TK found himself hovering in the doorway of Carlos’s room like a ghost lost in the hall.

Carlos blinked up at him with wide owlish eyes that were swollen and puffy.

“Can I come in?” TK asked, feeling awkward and out of place.

Carlos stared up at him, his brow furrowed, and confusion marring his face. He must really be on the heavy duty medicine.

TK was just about to retreat when Carlos rolled his lips and asked, “Why did you do it?”

TK shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Do what?”

Carlos’s brow furrowed even lower.

“Antagonize him.”

TK was across the room and kneeling beside the bed before he could even blink. Carlos latched onto TK's hand--- the skin of his wrist a stark reminder of what he'd been through--- and pulled it close to his chest before he burrowed into the safety of the blankets.

“He was going to kill you, TK.” Carlos sounded miserable and TK’s heart broke at the guilt that laced his words. “He hated you and you baited him and---”

“I would do it all over again.” TK interrupted him. “For you, I would do it again.”

Carlos exhaled a shaky sigh as he shook his head and TK could feel his trembling through the bed.

Love him, TK. That’s all you can do.

“Okay,” TK said and heaved himself onto his feet.

God, he was tired. He didn’t even know what time it was anymore.

TK nudged Carlos over and slipped into bed before he pulled Carlos back against his chest and slid down so they could be face to face with the blankets partially hiding them from the world. It still amazed him just how shy and soft his sweet, confident, bad ass boyfriend could be.

Carlos’s mouth was still swollen and the bruises on his cheeks had started to sharpen into a hue of blues and purples. A stray tear slipped down the slope of his nose and TK caught it with his finger.

“He was going to kill you,” Carlos whispered as if he was afraid to say it out loud.

He was. TK had seen it in Ethan's eyes when he came at him with the knife.

TK leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Carlos’s.

“If it meant that he had his hands off you for one less second then I would do it again.”

And then with a tender hand to cradle his face, TK pressed a kiss to Carlos’s lips. It was soft and sweet and less than a second but it seemed to break whatever invisible barrier that still sat in between them. Carlos pushed himself into TK’s arms and held on for dear life.

“I’m so sorry, TK.” Carlos cried. “I put you in danger because---”

“I put myself there, Carlos.” TK shook his head and rubbed a hand up and down Carlos’s back until all the tension bled out of him. “Babe, you stand in between people and danger every day without a single thought for yourself. Why do you think I wouldn’t do the same for you?”

Carlos didn’t say anything to that and for a while they stayed tangled together in the silence.

Carlos had caught TK so many times in their relationship, it felt nice to catch him for a change; to be the steady one. Whatever Carlos needed; he could do it. TK was never going to let Carlos feel like he was alone.

Never.

“He’s gone.”

Carlos said it so quietly it could’ve been lost in the silence that blanketed them like a confessional to the skin of TK’s neck.

“Yeah, Carlos,” TK said. “He’s gone. You stopped him. He’s gone.”

TK was being suspicious.

It was in the sharpness of his smile and the softness in his eyes. TK bit his lip in the way that he did when he was being coy and he tangled his fingers with Carlos’s as he realized that Carlos had caught on to whatever he’d done.

“Just remember I love you and everything will be fine,” TK said.

He’d been saying that a lot lately and at first, it’d irritated him. TK had made it his mission to stand by Carlos’s side as he built himself back together brick by brick but his wonderful, charming, sometimes high maintenance boyfriend had a tendency to overcorrect. The first couple weeks of his recovery had Carlos skittish and jumpy and every little flinch had TK drifting around him like a lone comet trying to enter orbit.

The nightmares were… terrible and intense but he was working through things and soon he was able to drift back to sleep afterwards.

But after the bruises had healed and the nightmares had dulled, Carlos’s therapist had pushed for him to go out a little more and venture past his routine.

“Try and be adventurous,” she had said.

His first adventure had ended in a panic attack so bad, TK had to drive them home and Carlos hid in the bathroom for a few hours.

But he was getting better.

Little by little.

Brick by brick. 

The first time he was able to go to the grocery story alone had him in tears of joy in the produce section.

So, he was getting better and TK wasn’t taking every time Carlos startled personally.

But TK always seemed to say, “just remember I love you and everything will be fine” right before he dragged Carlos into a situation that he wasn’t super comfortable in, which was still a little bit of a long list but again, he was working on it.

“What did you do?”

TK shrugged. “Wasn’t me. I just picked the venue.”

The venue was Owen Strand’s house where they were supposed to be having lunch. With just Owen. 

Unless Owen suddenly bought five cars that spilled out onto the street from his driveway, Carlos was beginning to think it wouldn't just be with Owen.

“Now,” TK said to him as he turned and took Carlos’s other hand in his. “My room has been deemed off limits. If you get a little overwhelmed, you can just go hang out in there and everyone knows to leave you alone. Then if that doesn’t help, we’ll leave. No stakes.”

Deeming out the stakes had been another tool his therapist had given him when he’d confessed to feeling a little stuck on the sidelines whenever he attended anything close to a group setting. She'd pushed him to try and explore as to why that was and it'd taken him some time to admit that he didn't know what was expected from him whenever he was in there. TK warning him and then reminding him that no one would think it rude if he needed to leave eased some of the anxiety that thrummed under his skin.

TK stopped at the door and leaned up to kiss him in that soft sure way that made Carlos weak in the knees.

“You ready?”

Carlos took in a shaky breath and hesitated. Was he? It’d been strange how quickly TK’s team had gravitated towards Carlos when he’d been hiding away in his condo. Paul had stopped by frequently and Mateo delivered lunch on his days off. Marjan turned out to be a great person to talk to and Judd… Well, Carlos liked Judd but it’d taken a while for him to relax his guard around him. Judd's stature and deep Texas drawl were the only thing he had in common with Ethan but it was enough for Carlos to brace regardless. It was getting better though, and he always stopped by with a casserole dish of Grace’s cooking.

Carlos shook out the nerves and requested another kiss for luck which TK was happy to oblige. No stakes.

He could do this. He could---

Carlos heard the beat through the front door and stopped.

TK just watched him with a smile.

“Is that Dolly Parton?” Carlos asked.

TK shrugged.

“What can you say? She’s a goddamn national treasure.”