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“Ty, are you awake?” Carlos’s voice was soft in the darkness, but it was enough to rouse TK from sleep.
“Mmhmm, yeah,” TK mumbled, barely conscious.
“Oh shit, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d fallen asleep already.” TK could hear the guilt in Carlos’s voice, but he also knew his boyfriend well enough to hear … something else in his words.
TK rolled over so that he was facing Carlos and sleepily reached for him, draping his arm over Carlos’s waist. “It’s okay, love. What’s up?”
An indescribable emotion passed over Carlos’s face. “It’s … nothing. You should go back to sleep. Sorry for waking you up.”
“No can do,” TK said firmly, but lovingly. “I can tell something is wrong. Talk to me.”
Carlos sighed and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again and letting out a shaky breath. “I just — I can’t — I can’t stop worrying that what I can offer you isn’t enough.”
TK’s brow furrowed and his heartbeat picked up considerably. “Carlos, what do you mean? I’m in this for the long haul, I promise you.”
“I know you said that and you said that you love me —”
“Because I do love you,” TK interrupted.
“And I trust you, Tyler, I really do,” Carlos continued, smiling a little at TK’s assertion, even through his angst and insecurity. “I just can’t help but think that you deserve more.”
“Carlos,” TK said, tugging his boyfriend a little closer, “I have never been happier. Literally, never. I know people say that all the time, but I assure you that I mean it completely. I have never been with somebody who treats me as an equal and loves me and supports me like you do. You make me impossibly happy. I love you. My family loves you. My friends love you. What more could I possibly need?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos said, sounding uncharacteristically sarcastic and bitter, “maybe a boyfriend who can tell his family the truth about you?”
TK shifted, grabbing both of Carlos’s hands and kissing his knuckles before clasping their hands together between their bodies. “I just need you, exactly as you are,” he said softly. “I need you to be happy and to feel safe, and if not telling your family is what makes you happy and safe, then that’s what I need too. I’m not going to wake up some day and change my mind.”
“But it doesn’t make me happy, Ty,” Carlos said, his voice breaking. “It doesn’t make me happy that I don’t feel safe sharing the best damn thing in my life with my family. I want a future together. I want you to move in and I want to get married and adopt a dog and have a kid together. And I can’t do those things if my parents think you’re just a friend from work. And I’m just so, so scared that I’ll never be brave enough to tell them, and you’ll get sick of waiting around for our future to start.” Carlos took a shuddering breath as a few tears tracked down his cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” TK said soothingly, thumbing away Carlos’s tears. He wrapped his arms around Carlos and shifted to his back so that Carlos was splayed across his chest. “Don’t you know that our future started a long time ago?”
Carlos was outright crying now, his tears soaking into TK’s shirt as TK rubbed his back and made soothing sounds, dropping the occasional kiss to his hair.
TK let him cry it out, waiting for Carlos to calm a little before speaking again. “I’m so sorry this hurts so much, love. I wish I could take all the pain away — I would if I were able to, you have to know that. I want all those things, too, baby. So much. But if this right here is how our relationship is for the rest of my life, that’s more than enough for me. If I get to take you on dates and dance with you and be a menace in the kitchen while you make gourmet meals and kiss your perfect face and sleep wrapped up in you at night, I’ll be a happy, happy man.”
“You can’t possibly mean that,” Carlos said, sniffling. “At some point it won’t be enough.”
“You will always be enough, sweetheart. Being with you will always be enough.”
Carlos shook his head against TK’s chest. “I want to believe that’s true,” he said, his voice small.
“Then believe it.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“But it can be.” TK tightened his arms around Carlos. “Do you trust me, Carlos?”
“More than anything.”
“Then believe it. Or if you can’t yet, trust me to believe it enough for the both of us until you do.”
“Okay,” Carlos said eventually. “I can do that.” He was quiet for a moment, and TK stayed quiet too, allowing him time to process. “Promise me that if you ever feel like it’s not enough anymore, you’ll tell me so we can talk about it? You won’t just leave me?” His voice broke again on his last two words.
“I promise,” TK said seriously. “I would never leave you.”
“Thank you,” Carlos whispered. “I love you so much. I didn’t know it was possible to love somebody this much.”
“I know, honey, me too.” TK tipped Carlos’s face up so he could gently kiss his wet cheeks and then his soft mouth. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Carlos burrowed his face into TK’s neck. “I want to tell them,” he said, voice starting to sound sleepy. “I really do. I’m just scared.”
“I know, love,” TK said. “No matter what you decide to do or not do in the future, I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Not gonna leave?” Carlos’s voice was faint, the emotional intensity of their conversation suddenly catching up to him, and sleep began to claim him.
“I’m not gonna leave,” TK promised. “I love you too much to ever leave. Now go to sleep, sweetheart. We can talk more in the morning if you want to.”
“Mmkay,” Carlos muttered. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Carlos’s breathing soon evened out as he dropped off to sleep, and TK breathed a sigh of relief that at least for the night, his boyfriend could have a reprieve from the pain this situation was causing him.
He lay awake for a long time, desperately wishing he could absorb some of the fear and pain that Carlos was experiencing and marveling that he could call the strong, vulnerable, brave, beautiful man in his arms his own, before finally joining Carlos in sleep.