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TK always looked forward to date night with Carlos. He liked seeing Carlos dressed up and he lived for the way Carlos kept a hand on the small of his back as they walked together. He always loved the restaurants Carlos picked out as well, there hadn’t been one wrong choice.
The restaurant Carlos had picked out was nice, maybe a little too nice. TK didn’t trust himself in the restaurant, he felt like a bull in a china shop, afraid that one wrong move would send everything around him tumbling down. He spent the first five minutes inside the restaurant nervously looking around, noting where everything was, sticking close to Carlos and not the walls.
“Reyes,” the hostess called out.
Carlos snaked an arm around TK’s waist and they walked through the restaurant together, Carlos pressing little kisses to TK’s temple here and there, making TK blush. He pulled out TK’s chair for him, which made TK blush even more. He did it every time they went out together and it never failed to make TK blush, so Carlos made sure he did it.
“Can I get you two some wine to start with?”
“No thank you, we’ll just start with two glasses of water, thank you,” Carlos replied, flashing the host a smile.
“Of course, your server will be by shortly, enjoy.”
They made small talk here and there, commenting on the menu items and laughing at bad jokes together. They got their appetizer and everything was going well until Carlos excused himself to go to the restroom and barely made it five feet before collapsing on the ground.
TK was out of his seat in seconds, rushing over to Carlos and falling to his knees, hard enough to leave bruises, but he didn’t care. Carlos had collapsed and TK didn’t know why.
He was able to dial back his emotional response and start checking for a pulse, yelling to a nearby table to call 9-1-1. When he didn’t feel a pulse, his own heart started racing. He’s saved lives before, he’s done CPR on at least a dozen people and been completely fine, but it’s different now. Now it’s the love of his life whose heart has stopped beating and TK feels the pressure. He cannot fuck this up.
The table he’d yelled at had stood up and come over with the phone, the 9-1-1 operator on the phone. TK had them put the phone on speaker so he could talk to the operator and continue to do CPR.
“I’m at the Odd Duck restaurant on Lamar. I’ve got a 27-year-old, unresponsive, male. I’m doing CPR, can I please get an EMS response?” TK’s brain was moving too fast to keep up. He didn’t want to cry, he had to keep his composure. He had to save Carlos. He had to.
TK tuned everything around him out, focusing solely on trying to save Carlos’ life. He jumped when the paramedics arrived, telling him that he should take a break and that they were going to go ahead and try to restart Carlos’ heart. TK didn’t stop. The paramedics eventually had to drag TK away from Carlos’ body, kicking and sobbing, so they could take over.
It took two of the three paramedics to hold TK back while the third worked on Carlos alone. The third paramedic took her eyes off of Carlos for approximately three seconds before he started breathing again.
TK completely lost any semblance of composure he had. As soon as he saw Carlos take a breath, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He crawled over to Carlos and kissed his forehead.
“Who’s the danger magnet now, babe?”
∆
After two weeks in the hospital, Carlos was discharged and allowed to go home with strict orders for one more week of rest and then medically cleared if there were no complications. Carlos was perfectly healthy and had gone into cardiac arrest, needless to say, TK was an anxious mess about it.
He hovered over Carlos like a mother hen and Carlos was over it. He knew he did it to TK whenever TK got injured, but now Carlos was starting to understand how TK felt.
“Okay, I get it, I’ll stop hovering over you if you stop hovering over me,” Carlos whined, rolling his head around to make eye contact with his pacing boyfriend. He held out his arms, hoping TK would take his hands and he did.
“I’m sorry, babe, I’m just anxious, that’s all,” TK said, biting his lip and chewing on it, focusing his gaze down so he wouldn’t have to look at Carlos. “I mean, your heart stopped beating, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to save you, Carlos. I was terrified.”