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Carlos inhaled slowly, willing the headache pulsating behind his eyes to soften, the sharpness of the hospital lights doing little to ease his discomfort. It’d begun nearly two hours ago, just after the rest of the 126 had wandered home in anticipation of their next shift. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do the same, not yet.
On the wall, the clock ticked obnoxiously, the hands sliding further and further towards midnight. He’d told himself to go then, that by the time he was home and showered, there would just be enough time for a bit of sleep. The problem was…Carlos wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to make himself leave, to let go of the man he was keeping watch over.
Part of him felt insane – couldn’t make sense of the feelings clawing at his throat, stinging his eyes. Seeing TK being carried out on the stretcher, Michelle working furiously on his pale, still body – it’d been like a punch to his gut, had made his heart freeze in his chest and for a split second it was like his entire world tilted.
He hardly knew him and still Carlos found himself clinging to his lifeless hand like something precious is about to be stolen from him.
Forcing himself to take a breath, to push back the well of emotion that he had no right to, he glanced over at Captain Strand. The man was slumped over in one of the chairs by the window, harsh shadows in the angles of his face, a grimace twisting his lips even in sleep. Carlos would feel guilty for imposing if he hadn’t insisted so empathetically, willfully, that he stay – that TK would want him there.
It made him wonder what TK said about him, if Captain Strand had thought there was something beyond friendship, or if he just knew that Carlos was helpless for him. That was a strange thought, an unpleasant one, if he were honest.
Helplessness did not suit Carlos in the slightest, which made this so much worse.
With a sigh, he let his gaze drift back to the bed. Just like all the times before, there was a sharp pinch in his heart as he took in his stillness. It wasn’t fair, how TK could be stuck in this hospital bed and still look so damn good. The fluorescent lights never helped people look anything but sickly in this place but somehow, TK seemed peaceful in a way he’d only imagined could be achieved by the deepest of sleeps.
“Hey TK,” he rasped. “You know, you’re such an asshole sometimes.”
Carlos had been talking to him on and off when nobody else was around to hear him, afraid that something might slip he wasn’t ready for, they weren’t ready for. His head pounded a little more intensely, making him wince, “I need you to wake up soon, need you to help me figure this all out so we can – Christ,” he muttered. “I don’t know why I’m so hung up on you, why I’m here right now or if you even want me to be.” He has his doubts that Owen could really know the answer to that.
Carlos shifted his hand slightly, purposefully, until his thumb was resting just over TK’s pulse. Despite the machines he was hooked to, the reassurance they provided that he was alive and healing, this felt a thousand times more real to him. The gentle thrumming beneath his delicate skin, the warm of his touch, the promise of a future – a life. He ignored the unease that stirred in his gut with the thought, the intensity of his feelings for TK, who had a lot of other things to worry about besides him.
Taking a shuddering breath, Carlos lifted his hand and pressed a careful kiss to the back of it, letting his lips linger for a long moment before putting it down as gently as possible. Straightening his back, he rose from the hard chair and willed himself to leave, to let TK go and stop hoping for impossible things.
He was supposed to be the practical one.
Turning away from him was an acute kind of pain, one that tempted him to sit back down and hold his vigil for a while longer. The first step toward the door was like a string pulled taunt, unwilling to break until he took another, and Carlos clenched his jaw against the twisting feeling inside him.
Only when he had reached the doorway, did he glance back toward the hospital bed. TK’s chest rose and fell steadily, his face now cast in its own shadows and Carlos realized he missed him – his vibrancy, his inability to be still, his eyes and his smile and the way he sometimes looked at him if he thought nobody was looking.
Walking away was easier after that realization, his fingers swiftly wiping the stray tears from beneath his eyes. The very last thing he wanted, was for Owen or TK to see him like that, to have to explain why it was killing him when he didn’t know why himself.
Perhaps it was because this felt like a goodbye. Whether or not TK woke up from the coma, whether or not he lived or died, they weren’t anything when he went under – barely friends and certainly not in a relationship. There was no reason in the world for TK to wake up and want to see him, not when he’d be recovering and getting his life back.
No, Carlos needed to get his head on right and sitting by his hospital bed wasn’t helping him do that. Still, no matter how much conviction he pushed into the thought – the moment he stepped into his car and the silence surrounded him, he broke down. His muffled cries echoed into the empty space, filling it with a grief that was both terrifying and beautiful until, nearly twenty minutes later, he was able to calm the heaving sobs.
He couldn’t find it in himself to regret one god damn second.