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TK has worried, every time he’s called to the scene where a police officer has been injured, that the injured officer is going to be Carlos. He’s tended to officers many times before: car accidents, shootings, chemical leaks, concussions, strokes, heart attacks, and even a detective who went into premature labor.
He certainly never expected for it to happen like this.
Carlos is sitting up on a long vinyl couch, surrounded on all sides by several off-duty police officers in various states of inebriation. In front of him, a low table is covered in mostly-empty glasses of alcohol. Carlos has a feather boa around his neck, his curls are a mess, and even from halfway across the room TK can see glitter in it. He’s holding a bloody bar towel to his nose.
"Carlos?" Nancy exclaims, and Carlos’s head shoots up. When he sees TK, his eyes widen and he nearly drops the rag.
"TK?" Carlos says, voice stuffy and uneven, and several heads swivel in TK’s direction.
"Oh my god." TK rushes to Carlos’s side, letting his backpack drop to the floor as he crouches beside him. "What happened?"
"Oh god, I’m so sorry," Carlos babbles, and from behind him TK can hear one of Carlos’s buddies whisper, "Oh shit, that's Reyes’s man?"
Carlos looks like he’s going to cry as TK gently pries one of Carlos’s fingers from the towel pressed up against his nose. "Let me see it, okay?"
"Okay. I’m sorry."
"Sorry for what?" TK asks, but Carlos doesn’t answer. Under the rag, his nose is a deep shade of purple, bruises already forming under his eyes, but it’s not bleeding anymore. "You get hit in the face?" he asks, and Carlos nods mutely.
"It was an accident," one of his buddies supplies helpfully before being hushed by one of the others.
"Uh, let’s clear this table out of the way," Tommy says, glancing at the guys who look the least intoxicated. "Guys, could you give me a hand, please?"
"Yes, ma’am." Davontae Johnson, Carlos’s best friend from the academy, jumps into action, offering TK a nod. "Hey, TK."
"Hey, D." TK checks Carlos's airways as a couple of the officers move the table. "I thought you said this was going to be ‘the chillest bachelor party ever’?"
Davontae grimaces. "Yeah, well—"
"I told them no strippers!" Carlos exclaims, and TK realizes that he’s drunker than he’d initially appeared. "I told them I didn’t—"
"Okay, okay," TK tells him as Tommy sits next to Carlos and starts pulling items from her bag.
"Hey, Carlos."
"Hey, Tommy," Carlos says miserably.
"Uh, sir?" Nancy says, ducking down to look at one of the cops, who seems to be the most intoxicated of the bunch. "Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?"
"Nancy, can you check him out, please?" Tommy says, eyeing the officer, who looks like he’s about to throw up on his own shoes.
Nancy makes a face and steps back as the man sways in his chair. "On it, Cap."
"Airways are clear of debris, Cap," TK tells Tommy.
"So what happened here?" Tommy asks, touching the area around his nose. When she palpates the maxillary bone, Carlos grabs TK's hand, hard. "You guys have a little too much fun?"
"My man got clocked right in the face," Davontae says, nodding at Carlos. "The guy got too close, and when he yanked open his coat, he hit Reyes in the nose."
"Wait, what guy?" TK asks, frowning, as Tommy shines a flashlight in Carlos’s eyes.
Davontae nods at a shirtless guy standing to the side, sipping a colorful drink and typing on his phone. Upon closer inspection, TK can see that he’s wearing a firefighter costume, or at least the bottom half of one. He also seems to be the source of most of the glitter.
TK turns back to Davontae, who has the decency to look apologetic.
"I told them you’re EMS now!" Carlos exclaims, and Tommy hushes him. On the other side of the room, Nancy asks a waitress if she has a bucket.
"Well, sorry, man!" one of the other officers interjects. "They didn’t have a paramedic on the stripper menu!"
"Okay," Tommy says, with enough authority in her voice that everyone shuts up and stands up a little bit straighter. She nods at TK, who removes the feather boa from Carlos's neck and stands behind him to manually stabilize his spine. "Carlos, can you wiggle your toes for me? Okay, that's good. Can you feel me touching your thumb?" She holds his hands in hers and lightly pulls on his fingers. "You're doing great. Any pain aside from your nose?"
"My neck hurts."
"Okay. Stay very still for me. We're going to get you in a c-collar and onto a backboard so we can–"
"Wait, what?" Carlos says. "Why? It's a broken nose, right? You can just pop it back into place, can't you, and–"
"Oh, no, baby," Tommy says, fitting the collar below Carlos's chin. "Blunt force trauma to the face can cause spinal injuries. We're going to get you to the hospital so they can rule it out, okay?"
"But…" Carlos looks up at her with big eyes. "I wiggled my toes." He pauses, eyes flickering between Tommy and Davontae, who is observing from behind her. "Wait, didn't I? I felt them wiggle. Am I–"
"Yes," Tommy tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "This is a precaution, Carlos."
"But…" Carlos's eyes get impossibly bigger. "The wedding is on Saturday."
"I know, and I'm sorry. Lift your arms a little bit? Good."
Tommy and TK get him secured onto the backboard, and when she goes to get the gurney, Carlos mumbles, "I’m so sorry."
TK, who had been checking Carlos’s airways again, leans forward so he can talk without being overheard by the guys behind him. "Babe, why do you keep apologizing? You didn’t do anything wrong."
"We’re getting married in two days," Carlos says, a tear spilling from his eyes and running down his temple. "And I have a broken nose!"
TK squeezes his hand. "I know, I’m sorry." He’s hoping it won’t put too much of a damper on the day of the wedding or the honeymoon, especially if Carlos is in pain.
"Oh my god," Carlos whispers, horrified. "What am I going to tell my mom?"
TK opens his mouth to reply but all that comes out is "uh."
"That I got punched by a stripper two days before our wedding?" Carlos’s voice has taken on an hysterical edge. "I can't tell her that, TK!"
"No, babe," TK tells him. "We won't. We'll tell her, uh…" He looks up at Davontae, who is hovering nearby, and Davontae's eyes widen. He shrugs.
"All the pictures will be ruined," Carlos says, and TK feels kind of dumb for not thinking about that.
"Oh no, don’t worry about that," Tommy says, pulling the gurney up to the couch. "We’re gonna get you the best concealer money can buy. A little color corrector…"
Carlos doesn’t look convinced. "I don’t think makeup can fix this."
"Oh, you’d be surprised." Tommy checks his airways, and Carlos closes his eyes against the lights overhead. "The day before my wedding, I went jet skiing with friends in Galveston. Nearly knocked myself out against the side of the boat. But you wouldn’t know it from my wedding pictures."
Carlos squeezes TK’s hand when Tommy touches his nose. "Really?"
"Yep. Now let's get you to the hospital so they can get you checked out and this guy can get you home."
"Okay."
"Well," Nancy said, sidling up to TK as they push the gurney through the bar. "That was fun."
"How's your patient?" Tommy asks her.
"Feeling much better after showing me the contents of his stomach," Nancy says cheerfully. "His wife just got here to take him home. Hey, bud, how's it going?" she asks Carlos.
"Great," he says, his voice nasally and monotone. TK rubs his shoulder gently.
They load Carlos into the back of the bus, and Nancy talks to Carlos as she preps an ice pack for his face.
"Hey, Cap," TK says thoughtfully, and she looks up. "I thought you hated Galveston."
"I do," says Tommy. "Judd can tell me all day long about silt from the Mississippi River, but the water just looks nasty."
TK hums in assent. "So the jet skiing thing…"
"The day before my wedding?" Tommy says, raising her eyebrows. "Oh hell no. I’d never do something that stupid."
TK nods, hiding a smile. "Ah."
"But don’t worry, we’re gonna hire him a makeup artist. I know a guy. He did wonders when my sorority sister showed up hungover to her vow renewal ceremony."
"Thanks, Cap."
"You're very welcome. Now, coming up with something to tell his mom? That one's on you." She smiles and hops into the back of the ambulance.
TK sighs.
–
"Oh, my boys!" Andrea says, enveloping TK in a hug. "You both look so handsome."
"Thanks, Mom," Carlos says, accepting a hug from his father as Andrea straightens the boutonnière on the lapel of TK's suit jacket. They're standing by a grove of trees just north of the house as the photographer sets up his tripod.
"They do clean up nice, don't they?" says Owen.
"That makeup artist did such a good job, mijo," Andrea says, moving from TK to Carlos. "You can't see the bruising at all."
"I think we owe Cap a fruit basket," TK remarks.
"I think we owe her more than that," Andrea says, brushing a piece of lint from Carlos's shirt. "I still cannot believe the rotten luck. To be assaulted by a fleeing kidnapper two days before your wedding!"
Carlos exchanges a worried glance with TK. "Yeah, but, you know, it happens…"
"Well, Carlos is a hero and we'd expect nothing less," TK says, winking when Carlos glares at him.
"That man better be glad he's locked away in jail right now." Andrea finishes her inspection of Carlos's clothes and moves to his face and hair. "I think we are ready for pictures, mijos. Just this little piece of hair that never wants to stay in place…" She frowns.
"What?" Carlos says, looking down at her.
"A piece of glitter," she says, picking it out of his hair. "How strange."