Work Text:
With a groan, TK rolls onto his side, pulling his pillow over his head as he goes. It’s barely eleven—he thinks, he hasn’t bothered to check his phone in a while—but it feels like he’s been tossing and turning for twelve hours straight. He can’t get comfortable, and it’s driving him absolutely nuts.
Now, before you ask, it’s not because he’s not tired. Packing up and moving halfway across the country after a catastrophic overdose isn’t exactly a walk in the park, and that plus the general physical strain of firefighting in twenty-four hour shifts means he’s actually very tired. He’d go so far as to say that he hasn’t not been tired in what must be weeks now. The problem is that he can’t turn off his freaking thoughts. It’s like all the traffic that he used to hear on the street below his New York City apartment has decided to jam itself into his head.
It was easier with Carlos. A good round in bed and it was like everything quieted for a while, like the monotonous gray of TK’s life flickered a little, sparks of color leaking in. Or maybe not. Maybe that was just TK’s head playing tricks on him. It’s easy to confuse Carlos distracting him with Carlos fixing everything. Sleeping with Carlos was a nice distraction—really, a grade A distraction, highest caliber—but it didn’t fix shit and TK should have cut and run long before he did. Before Carlos caught feelings. You don’t have guys trying to make you dinner and ‘get to know you’ when you just have one night stands, now do you?
…Not that there’s anything wrong with catching feelings. Most people do, and nothing goes catastrophically wrong. It’s just TK’s luck that the last time he put his heart on the line someone stomped all over it.
Sighing, TK rolls further over, depositing himself on his front. It’s not the most comfortable position—his stomach isn’t feeling that great, if he’s being honest. His dad is always getting him to try weird new healthy recipes—it was probably something weird and new that he ate. Which is fine, he likes experimenting and trying new things, it’s just… there’s some bullshit to feeling like shit without even getting the high of an oxy first.
TK huffs, pulling his sheets tighter around his shoulders and burrowing in as far as he can go, trying with all his might to push the thought of an oxy out of his head.
It doesn’t work. It never does. He hates that he still thinks about it, still obsesses over the high. It’s been over a month since his relapse—hell, it had been years before that. And still, it never seems to stop. Never ends… never quiets… just a broken record repeating over and over and over and over—
—Aaand with that it’s time to try and sleep again!
Twisting around once more, TK settles on his back, covers up to his chin and his eyes firmly closed. He takes a slow, deep breath in… and a slow breath out… and another slow, deep breath in… breathing slowly… deeply… so that maybe… just maybe… he can relax just long enough to doze the fuck off.
It nearly works. He’s on the eighty-second breath, his mind starting to get a little hazy around the edges, when suddenly his stomach twinges, yanking him sideways. He opens his eyes, frowning. That didn’t feel good. Come to think of it, nothing really feels good. He’s starting to get kind of sweaty, to be honest—his blankets are too hot, his head is swimming, and he feels like he needs to crawl out of his skin.
“Breathe through it, big boy,” TK sighs to himself, pushing his sheets down and away, hoping that the cool air will soothe whatever the hell is wrong with him. When it doesn’t, he groans, scrubbing a hand down his clammy face. He does not feel well.
Some water might help. Or some of the essential oils his dad keeps in the bathroom cabinet, maybe. He sighs and pushes himself up on his hands.
This, clearly, is a mistake, because he stomach doesn’t twinge this time, it lurches, sour spit pooling in his mouth.
He claps a hand to his lips, swallowing heavily. Okay. Okay. So that was a bad idea. He just needs to stay still a moment, let this pass. If he keeps breathing slow and steady everything will be fine. Just in and out and in and—and—
The gag catches him by surprise, coming out of nowhere in the middle of the breathing exercise. He quickly claps his other hand on top of the first, glancing wildly around—most of his room is still in boxes, there isn’t anything nearby that resembles a usable vomit receptacle. Unless he wants to spend the rest of the night scrubbing stomach acid from the cracks in the hardwood floor, it looks like the bathroom is his best bet.
…Assuming he can make it to the bathroom.
He swallows. There are two baths in the house, one off his dad’s room and one downstairs. The master bath is closer, definitely, but that would involve sneaking past his dad’s bed in the vain hope that Owen won’t hear him puking his guts up and attempt to come to his rescue. Unfortunately, however, the downstairs bath—while more private—is, well, downstairs.
He contemplates the state of his stomach for a split second, frozen with indecision. Another gag makes up his mind for him—he needs a toilet and he needs it now. Here goes nothing.
God, please don’t let my dad wake up, he thinks, as he shakily stands, tripping over his sheets, and begins to walk toward his door, purposeful. He manages to avoid most of the boxes, wincing as a bead of sweat takes the opportunity to trail down his temple. He already feels shitty—his dad getting all freaked out is the last thing he needs right now.
The hallway is quiet; his dad’s door, on the far side, is slightly cracked. TK steps all the way out, one hand trailing against the wall as he swallows down a moan. It’s like another dimension out here—the decor is meticulous, everything in its place, a stark contrast to TK’s mess of a room. Moonlight casts beams of dim light across the floor behind him as he begins to pad down the hall, as quickly and as silently as he can. He takes a deep a breath outside his dad’s door before he gently pushes it open and—
“TK?”
FUCK. Why the hell is he already awake?! What kind of joke is the universe playing on TK now?!
A cruel one, clearly, as his stomach decides at exactly that moment that it’s had enough and revisits dinner.
All. Over. The floor.
And the worst part? The icing on the cake, the real cherry on top? Is the fact that TK can feel that this is only the beginning.
“Shit!” Owen says, as TK takes a flailing leap over the mess in a desperate attempt to avoid adding to it. He skids into the bathroom door frame, darting inside and past his ghost-pale reflection in the mirror so he can get to the toilet.
He makes it just in time.
…Mostly.
“TK, TK, hey,” Owen is saying when TK can finally pull his head out of the toilet bowl. The light in the bathroom is now on, and he’s standing at TK’s side, one hand outstretched between them and worry plastered all over his face. “What happened? Do I need to call dispatch? Talk to me, TK.”
TK spits, the bitter taste of vomit coating his tongue. “It’s fine, dad. Dinner just didn’t agree with me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Because I won’t be mad if it’s something else.”
“Dad.”
“I’m just saying!” Owen says, backing off a pace with his hands up. He watches TK for a moment longer before he kneels down beside him and says, “You know you can talk to me, right?”
Ugh. This is exactly why TK was trying not to wake his dad up. Owen is a mother hen by nature, the need to fix things built-in, and it’s only gotten worse since the overdose. TK sighs, rubbing his face. “I have nothing to talk about,” he says, and flushes the toilet. He then tries to get up so that he can clean the floor and get the hell out of dodge.
His dad stops him, warm hand resting on his shoulder. TK can’t help but lean into the touch a little. “I’ll clean up, you just take a second to breathe,” Owen says.
“I want to go back to bed,” TK says.
“You okay to leave the bathroom?” Owen asks skeptically.
“I’m fine, dad,” TK responds, his voice precariously close to a whine as he watches his dad pull away to get a pair of cleaning gloves out from under the sink. His stomach twinges again and he breathes through it, giving his dad his best puppy eyes.
Owen, in return, gives him a look. “You just upchucked all over my floor, kid. That doesn’t exactly instill confidence.”
“I’ll get a bowl to bring with me.”
Owen’s brow puckers in a frown. “What happened to your trash can?”
“Don’t have one,” TK says wearily. “And I didn’t plan to upchuck all over your floor, it just kind of… happened.”
Owen sighs. “I know for a fact that you packed a trash can in one of those boxes, TK. If you’d just let me help you unpack—”
TK groans, planting his forehead on the edge of the toilet bowl. They’ve had this conversation at least three times already, and it’s getting old. Because it’s not that he doesn’t want to settle in! He’s not resisting this on purpose. Even if it wasn’t his choice to come to Texas, he’s still here, and he might as well be here, you know?
Which is all well and fine, on an intellectual level. It’s the practical that’s tripping him up. He needs to do this himself, needs to put down his own roots, but between the urge to relapse (again) and screwing everything up with (another) guy, he’s barely keeping his head on straight. The emotional backlash of it all just won’t stop coming, and he’s trying to deal with it, he is, it’s just… it’s so much. It’s not his fault that unpacking has slipped down to the bottom of his to-do list.
This, apparently, is a little too much thinking for his tender stomach to handle, because as his thoughts start to pick up it lurches again, dramatically. He coughs and scrambles back to attention, leaning over just in time to heave up another wave, face contorting.
Ugh. He’s never going to get the taste of stomach acid out of his mouth.
He pulls back once he’s relatively sure he’s done, plucking at the toilet paper roll hanging beside the counter so he can scrub at his face. His dad is still standing there when he tosses it away, rubber gloves on and an organic spray cleaner in hand, looking down at TK with a frown on his lips.
TK snorts, running his hand down his sweaty face. “Dad, I love you, but hovering at my shoulder is not going to make me stop puking any faster.”
Owen starts. “Right! I’ll just take care of that mess, huh?” he says, pivoting abruptly on a heel. He casts one last glance over his shoulder at TK before he slips out of the bathroom.
TK takes the opportunity to slump against the side of the tub. Ugh. Tonight is really not his night, is it? He sighs. Then he raises his voice to ask, “Hey, why were you awake, anyway?”
Owen’s voice comes from around the corner, light and dismissive. “Oh, you know, couldn’t sleep. It happens. Maternal instincts kicked in, maybe.”
TK rolls his eyes. “Of course,” he mutters.
The house is quiet for a moment after that, the silence only broken by the sound of the spray bottle spritzing and paper towels rubbing. TK listens to his dad moving around, curled up with his knees to his chest and his cheek pressed to the rim of the jacuzzi tub. He feels almost like a little kid again, honestly. He remembers when he’d get sick back in New York, before the fire academy and before the drugs. Of course, it was usually his mom taking care of him, or Enzo—his dad was almost always on shift back then, taking care of other people instead of his son.
It’s been… different. In Texas. TK has been sharing shifts with his dad for a few years now, but he hasn’t physically lived with his dad since before his stint in rehab three years ago. It’s been an adjustment, to say the least. Not bad, exactly, just… he’d kind of hoped that he’d be okay by now. No drugs and a stable life with a man he loved—he thought that was where he was headed. All it took was one mistake, one rushed proposal and a bad rejection, to bring him stumbling to his knees. And now here he is, literally on his knees in front of the toilet, and—well. It is what it is, he guesses.
Just like the fact that he freaked out on Carlos. Can’t help the way the dice fall—can’t change how you’re wired.
“Okay,” Owen says just then, walking back into the room with a bottle of gatorade and a small trash bin tucked under his arm. He’s still wearing the gloves, and they squeak with that distinct sound of rubber as he gestures for TK to get up. “Everything is clean and sanitized, and I found something for you to puke in. Let’s get you back to bed, kid.”
“…Thanks,” TK says, and reaches up to take his dad’s hand. His head swims as he rises to his feet, his limbs feeling a little more noodly than he thinks a bit of bad food warrants. He squints when he’s upright, the world swimming a little.
“Easy there,” his dad says, as he leans heavily against the counter. He strips off one of his gloves, pressing the back of his hand to TK’s forehead.
TK huffs out another sigh. “What’s the verdict?” he asks.
“…You’re feeling kind of feverish,” Owen says critically. He leans around the door frame to check the time, humming. “…It’s three AM. Our shift starts at six. You’re not coming to work like this and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here alone, do you want me to call someone?”
“Like who?” TK asks, stealing a mouthful of his dad’s mouthwash before taking a deep breath and bracing himself to shuffle his way back to his bedroom.
“You’ve been hanging around with that Carlos kid, yeah?” Owen says, following as he starts to move with his hand on TK’s back.
“Sort of,” TK says, unwilling to open that particular can of worms just yet. “But he’s working tomorrow.”
His dad runs his hand up to TK’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Too bad.” Owen coughs, clearing his throat to then say, “…He’s pretty cute, you know.”
“Dad,” TK groans.
“Or not! I’m just saying—”
TK tunes out whatever it is exactly that he is saying, focused instead on taking steady, measured breaths. Everything is starting to get blurry, the nausea creeping up his chest like the tide and his head pounding. Interesting enough, his throat is the most annoying—it’s starting to feel like it was scraped raw with some coarse sandpaper. He swallows, wincing, as his unmade bed comes back into view.
“Alright, kid, here we are,” Owen says, guiding him gently toward it. TK flops (carefully) onto his side, curling up as his dad puts the trash can on the floor within easy reach. He shivers a little—maybe his dad is onto something with that fever thing.
His dad must see the motion because he sets down the gatorade on a box and begins untangling the sheets that TK left all over the floor during his mission to make it to the bathroom. He spends a long moment fussing over them, making sure everything is the right way around, before he places them over TK. TK allows him to draw them up to his chin.
For a moment the two of them stay just like that, TK curled up in bed and his dad leaning over him, rubbing a hand up and down his arm. Even in the dim light of the moon, TK can practically see the weight of his father’s worry settling on his shoulders. He wishes he could lighten the load, wishes he could be something less than a constant source of stress in his father’s life. He wishes he wasn’t the fucked up addict kid, wishes he could just—leave that all behind the same way they left New York behind. Purge it from his system the same way he purged dinner. Cut and run from it the same way he cut and ran from Carlos, from the inevitable heartbreak of opening himself back up to love.
He sighs. Then he burrows his face down into his pillow and says, “Go back to bed, dad.”
His dad nods, pausing just a moment longer to stroke his sweat-damp hair. “Okay,” he says. “But you better try to drink some of that gatorade. And you call me if you feel worse, got it?”
TK nods, curling up around his sick stomach. He waits until his dad is closing the door before he says, “Sorry about your floor.”
His dad snorts. “The floor probably had it coming.”
“Still. I’ll try not to do it again,” TK says. He then closes his eyes as if that might stop his father from recognizing those words as the same ones he’s said after every relapse, and save him from the look his dad is giving him.
It doesn’t work. “TK…” Owen says, his voice soft in the stillness of the Texan night.
TK winces, refusing to look up. “Dad, it’s fine. You don’t have to say it. I’m just… I’m trying to do better, I swear.”
“I know, kid,” Owen says. He sighs, world-weary in a way he rarely lets himself be. TK knows that things get to him sometimes, knows that there’s a lot going on under the surface when it comes to his dad, but his dad rarely shows it. It kills TK to know that he’s part of the reason his dad stresses. If TK could take it all back, all the drugs and the relapses and rehab and the overdoses, he would.
Unfortunately, that’s not how things work. There’s nothing to be done about it now. TK hears the door close most of the way, and his dad padding back down the hall to his own room, and rolls over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. He does that for a long time, his thoughts all in a jumble, before he rolls over onto his other side and, slowly, feels his achy body and his tired mind begin to drift.
He sinks, finally, blissfully, into sleep.