Work Text:
TK’s first day back at work after medical leave is on a Thursday.
Carlos has the day off, so he gets up early to make TK breakfast and drive him to the 126. TK lingers in the car, his head tipped back against the headrest, eyeing the door through the windshield with a disappointed look on his expressive face. Carlos frowns, reaching over to squeeze TK’s shoulder in question.
“Are you alright? Does your head still hurt? They’d give you more time if you need it.”
“My head hasn’t hurt for days, you know that.” TK turns to look at him, smiling softly. “I just kinda got used to not having to work for a living. Hanging out with you all week.”
Carlos returns his smile and brushes his fingers through TK’s hair. In an attempt to make it up to him, that he’d been suspended and not believed and laughed at when it turned out he was right all along, his captain gave Carlos the week off to look after the boyfriend everyone at the station now knows he has. His first day back is tomorrow, and Carlos isn’t really looking forward to it, either. There are going to be at least a few people at the precinct who’ll send sideways glances in his direction, now. Carlos never lied about who he was, if he was directly asked, but he doesn’t need a full hand to count how many times he was directly asked, so he assumes most of his colleagues didn’t know – or, at the very least, that they suspected and gossiped behind his back but didn’t know for sure. And, he too has gotten used to spending days with TK. Nothing on their calendar but binge-watching an architectural reality show TK likes and cooking him dinner and holding each other at night when they were warm and satisfied and pressed close together.
“Me too,” he says.
“Maybe I could pretend it’s still bad and they’ll give me another week.”
“If they found out you were lying, they’d be pretty pissed,” Carlos points out. “Besides, I bet your friends miss you.”
TK raises an eyebrow.
“Our friends,” Carlos corrects. He sends TK another smile. “I bet our friends miss you.”
TK heaves a dramatic, put-upon sigh and rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’ll go earn a dumb paycheck.”
“Unfortunately I don’t make quite enough for you to be a kept man,” Carlos tells him, feeling warm inside as TK giggles. “Also? You are a kick-ass paramedic and Austin is safer with you out there in the field.”
“As opposed to, at home in sweatpants with you feeding me taquitos.”
“Exactly.”
TK laughs again – a nice, sparkly sound – and shakes his head. “You make good points.”
He leans over and Carlos meets him in the middle so their lips can press together. “Love you,” he whispers into the kiss.
“Love you, too.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
TK nods and pecks Carlos on the lips once more before he gets out of the car. Carlos watches him go, and smiles as TK turns back when he’s halfway to the door and sends Carlos a cute little wave. He has to look down at the steering wheel and take a moment to contain himself before he puts the car back into gear, so that he doesn’t drive away smiling like a lunatic. TK is adorable and sweet and fiery and so sexy that Carlos can’t think straight sometimes, and Carlos loves him so much he often doesn’t know where to put it all. It overflows and floods the room.
Carlos heads back home. It’s a cool morning, cool enough to see his breath as he sits in the backyard with a second cup of coffee and scrolls absently through his phone. The air feels crisp, though, and refreshing. He hates humidity.
He spends a few minutes tidying, although not much is out of place. There’s a constantly accumulating to-do list in his head but he doesn’t feel like cleaning out the vegetable crisper or vacuuming out the interior of his car just yet. Carlos goes for a run instead, and sits for a while in the park lost in thought, and then takes a long shower.
He notices TK’s absence a lot more than he would have on any other day off, after having spent a week in his company every minute of every day. TK’d needed to be observed closely for the first few, to make sure he didn’t develop any unexpected symptoms. And he hadn’t said it, maybe because Carlos hadn’t asked, but Carlos got the impression TK didn’t want to be at his own house. Everything is still a little bit too raw, Carlos figures, given the whirlwind few weeks in which he thought his parents were getting back together for good and then had to say goodbye to his mom and watch as all her possessions left their house almost as soon as it had arrived. Carlos has been happy since the week they met to provide a respite for TK when he needs a break from the more tumultuous parts of his life. It’s made him feel useful, in a way that he needs.
By late afternoon Carlos is out of odd jobs, and he has dinner as prepared as it can be until the moment he needs to start cooking it, and the nagging thoughts he’s been avoiding all week because his attention was on TK have grown to the point that he can’t drown them out anymore. He picks up his phone and finds the list of recent incoming and outgoing calls, thumb hovering over his mother’s name. Carlos stares at it for so long that his vision goes blurry around the edges of her name.
Proud of you, son, his father had said.
In the flashing lights of a crime scene, just outside the doors of the ambulance TK had just been loaded into, Carlos had believed him. His father wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t meant it; that’s not who he is. And in the moment, it healed something so deep inside of Carlos that it was all he could do to keep it together and not break down right there on the pavement. And TK had needed him. TK was on his way to the hospital with a bloody laceration on his forehead and a concussion. That was miles more important than anything Carlos might have been feeling. And then TK needed further help, and spent a week in his space, and Carlos loves to help. Any loose ends had been relegated far into the background.
But it was a Band-Aid, Carlos realizes now, as he can’t bring himself to call his mom. He’s been pushing this aside in favor of more important things for years. It was a Band-Aid on a very, very old wound, and it will only hold for so long.
He puts his phone back into his pocket. Instead of calling first he grabs his keys and his wallet and heads for the car. Bouts of bravery are rarer than he wishes they were, when it comes to his parents. If he’s caught himself in one, Carlos feels the need to act on it, because if he calls first and she puts him off until another day he’ll talk himself out of going at all. And if he arrives at his childhood home and they aren’t there, well, Carlos will cross that bridge when he comes to it.
The drive isn’t long, usually, but he left his townhouse at 4:30 and gets caught in rush hour traffic. It’s almost enough, once or twice, to make him turn around, but he doesn’t. He’s gone too far, it would take him just as long to get back home. With his hands gripping the steering wheel a lot tighter than he needs to, Carlos drives.
There are lights on. He can see the green lamp through the living room window that’s been on that same oak side table since before Carlos can remember. He sees his father through the window, too, sitting in his lounger chair with a newspaper. Gabriel looks up at the noise of Carlos pulling into the driveway, and then looks back at his paper when he recognizes Carlos’s car.
The front door is opened before Carlos has made his way up the steps.
“Carlitos!” His mother smiles at him. She reaches for him when he’s on the landing, hugging him tightly.
“Hi, Mamá.” It strikes Carlos that he hasn’t done this, yet, with her. She already knew who TK was – they weren’t fooled at all, Gabriel had said, by Carlos calling TK a friend from work. Carlos also knows Gabriel will have told her all about what happened last week. That Carlos was suspended and disobeyed direct orders so that he could go after someone he loves. She’ll know it all, but Carlos hasn’t talked about it with her. He feels like he should have called her a lot sooner. But then, he feels like she could just as easily have called him. And maybe that’s the entirety of the problem. Maybe they’ve all spent a decade waiting for each other to make the first move, and have stood in place so long that vines have grown over their feet and fixed them in place.
“How is your boyfriend?” Andrea asks. “Is he feeling better?”
Carlos inhales softly. He’s never heard that word spoken in this house before. She pulls out of the hug and looks up at him, dark eyes curious, and Carlos has to take another breath before he can answer. For a moment it feels like his brain has forgotten how to tell his mouth to form words.
“Yeah, he’s … he’s good. He’s back to work, today.”
“That’s good to hear!” She’s still smiling at him, and Carlos thinks he’d be less stunned if he’d been hit over the head.
He never, in all his life, thought he would hear the word boyfriend spoken in his mother’s comforting, familiar voice. He wanted it. He hoped for it, and longed for it, and dreamed about it. But in the dark recesses of his mind where he’s honest, he never thought it would come to be.
“Come in, come in.” Andrea steps back to let him enter the house, closing the door behind him and tugging at his coat before asking if he wants to hang it up. “Are you hungry? What can I make you?”
Carlos smiles at the wall before he turns around. He sees himself so clearly in her, sometimes. “No, I’m alright. TK’s off at six, I’m gonna make dinner.”
The words slip from his lips so casually, as if saying them isn’t a revolution.
He follows her into the living room. Gabriel looks up and smiles at him.
“Hi, Dad,” Carlos says.
“Good to see you,” Gabriel says. “Glad to hear Mr. Strand is doing better.”
Carlos nods, and feels a little bit numb to it all. They’re acting as if nothing has changed, as if a fundamental paradigm shift hasn’t occurred, and Carlos doesn’t know how to feel about it. Half of him wants to just carry on in this new world where the word boyfriend is used as easily as if it was never an issue in the first place. The other half of him harbors anger and hurt for his younger self, who needed desperately for this to be treated so normally when he was a teenager and has had to live for such a long time with the reality that it wasn’t.
“How’s your other friend? The, uh, tall one.” Gabriel holds one hand above his head to indicate a height greater than his own. “And his wife. I heard they were banged up pretty good.”
Carlos frowns. He hasn’t spoken to either of his parents since the night he and Owen rescued TK; he doesn’t know how his father would have heard about that. The man seems to just have his fingers in everything. Carlos thinks it’s a wonder he managed to hide TK from them for so long. “Judd? And Grace?”
“Who are Judd and Grace?” Andrea demands, instantly put out upon being left a few steps behind.
“Judd works with TK,” Carlos explains. “Grace is his wife, she’s a 9-1-1 dispatch operator. They were hit by a drunk driver, the night after TK and his crew were kidnapped.”
Andrea stares at him, her eyes suddenly as wide as dinner plates. “What horrible world do the two of you live in, where those things can happen in the same week and nobody bats an eye?”
“They’re okay,” Carlos assures. He turns to his father and reiterates, “They’ll be okay. I don’t know what you heard. It didn’t look good at first but they’ll be alright.”
He doesn’t elaborate. For Grace, it isn’t nearly that simple, but it isn’t what Carlos came here to talk about, as selfish as he fears that makes him.
“Well, thank God for that. Come sit,” Andrea urges. She rounds the couch and settles on it, and he sits next to her. She reaches out to pat his arm, still smiling at him, but there’s something a little forced in it. As if she’s worked out why he’s here and is bracing herself for the impact.
Carlos looks at his father, and the man is folding the newspaper and setting it on the end table. He uncrosses his legs and sits a little more forward in his chair. Carlos’s heart thuds so dramatically in his chest he would be shocked if they couldn’t hear it. His palms are sweating. He rubs them on his jeans, hosting one final debate in his scattered mind over whether he should say anything at all. Maybe he shouldn’t.
I expect a proper introduction next time, his dad had said. They want to meet TK, they want to be let into the parts of Carlos’s life that he’s been hiding from them for so long. Maybe Carlos can just invite them over for dinner on the weekend. Maybe it will be enough to just go forward.
“When can we meet him?” Andrea asks.
Carlos shifts his gaze back. Her eyes are wider than they should be. It’s a performance. It doesn’t mean she’s lying about wanting to meet him, Carlos believes that she does, but she’s putting on a bigger smile to get the point across. And it isn’t enough, Carlos realizes. Maybe it should be, but it’s been so many years, and it’s not.
“I have a boyfriend,” he says, heart still racing but forcing himself to speak anyway.
Andrea nods and keeps smiling.
“His name is TK. I know what that stands for, but most people don’t. He was raised in Manhattan, he was a firefighter there, and now he’s a paramedic here. I’ve known him for almost a year. We’ve been officially dating for about eight months.” The words tumble out of Carlos in a rush, like water that’s been trapped for years by an eroding floodgate that just finally gave way. “He’s really nice, and smart, and passionate about his job. I know you’re gonna like him.”
“Of course we will.”
“And I wanted to introduce you to him the week we met. Because I could tell right away that he was someone special and we were going to be something special,” Carlos barrels on. “But I couldn’t. Because I told you that I was gay when I was 17 years old and then we never talked about it again. Never, for ten years. I came down for breakfast the next morning and you both acted like nothing had happened.”
The end of his speech leaves thick silence in the room and ringing in Carlos’s ears. He inhales sharply, having forgotten to breathe as he was rambling. That happens, sometimes. When he’s caught up in his head, when he’s tense or anxious or thinking too hard, sometimes Carlos’s jaw clenches and every muscle in his body tightens and he realizes he’s holding his breath.
He hardly dares to look at either of his parents but he has to, because if he’s just broken everything even further than it already was, he’d like to know that sooner rather than later. Blinking quickly, Carlos chances a glance at his mother. She isn’t looking at him anymore, and she isn’t smiling anymore, either. Her lips are pursed and her gaze is hovering somewhere near the edge of the coffee table.
Carlos wants to take her hand. He wants instantly to apologize, to take it all back, to promise he’s just overtired and he didn’t mean it. The words get stuck in his throat, and he says nothing.
It’s his father who speaks first. Across the room, in a quiet and regretful sounding voice, Gabriel says, “We’re so sorry, Carlos.”
Carlos blinks a few more times in quick succession and forces himself to look, to make eye contact with his dad. The man looks more apologetic than Carlos thinks he’s ever seen. For most of Carlos’s life, his father has behaved as if apologizing was a sign of weakness. Carlos wonders how many of his own shortcomings were bred right here in this room. His struggle to be honest, his need for the world to see him stronger than he is, how easily he gets defensive when he feels backed into a corner by his own actions.
There’s movement next to him; Carlos turns his head to watch as his mother shifts closer on the sofa. Her eyes are shining but she doesn’t look as shell-shocked as she had a moment ago. She reaches for his hand, lifting it up to her mouth so she can kiss the back of it. Still holding it and rubbing his forearm with her other hand, she says, “We love you so much, mijo. Just as you are. I’m sorry we ever let you think that might not be true, even for one moment.”
“I …” Carlos shakes his head, and his exhale rocks his shoulders. Everything feels so close to the surface, like one wrong step and he won’t be able to hold himself together. “I never doubted that you love me. I just … I don’t understand why we never talked about it.”
“The reasons aren’t important. We should have been there for you.”
“They’re important to me,” Carlos responds. It might be the bravest thing he’s ever said, and that’s saying something, because he’s gotten plenty braver in the time he’s known TK. “I don’t need you to be sorry, I need to know why.”
“It was all so new, for us,” Andrea tells him. “Not something I ever thought about before you told us, not something anybody talks about. You know how things are.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“I think we … didn’t know what to say.”
Gabriel adds, “We didn’t want to say something that would embarrass you, or upset you by asking stupid questions. You were so upset, the night you told us. We didn’t want you to feel that way anymore. So we said nothing at all. And you never brought it up again, and then the more time passed the more it became impossible to raise the subject.”
Carlos nods, and squeezes back when Andrea squeezes his hand. He understands that feeling. He remembers days passing, and then weeks, and then months, and suddenly it felt like the moment had been missed. Like there was a brief window within which Carlos could have asked for further discussion and then that window was closed and locked and shuttered over.
“I didn’t know what to say, either. And I know I didn’t make it easy. I know I acted in ways that were … confusing.” He doesn’t like thinking about those years, if he can help it. He’d been so lost, so consumed with the kind of self-loathing that makes him understand what TK’s been through a lot more than TK knows.
“It was our fault,” Andrea says. There are tears on her face. “You’re our child, it was our job to make it okay and we didn’t.”
Carlos sniffs.
“I meant what I said before.” Gabriel’s hands fold in his lap and he smiles. “You made me proud the other day. Not just because you followed your instincts and did your job. Because you protected the person you love.”
“I always …” Carlos blinks tears out of his eyes and feels like a little boy as he admits, “I always wanted you to think I was good enough.”
“I do. I’m so sorry you thought I didn’t.”
“I thought maybe me being gay … that you thought I wouldn’t be a good cop because of it.”
For a moment, his father doesn’t speak. Carlos’s heart races and his skin crawls. He hates this, he hates being exposed like this with anyone, but especially his dad. Everything they’re discussing needs to be said, and has needed to be said for a long time, but that doesn’t make the conversation easier to have. Carlos isn’t sure the pit in his stomach will ever dissipate, now. It might just be a permanent fixture.
“I did think that, at first,” Gabriel admits. “You were always sensitive. I was trying to protect you.”
Carlos nods shortly as his insides twist around each other, but then Gabriel holds his hand up as he witnesses Carlos’s reaction. Carlos looks at him, into the warmth of his eyes, and he’s smiling sadly.
“But I was wrong. I shouldn’t have thought that, and I know that now. You care about people. You stand up for people weaker than you. You protect the ones you love. You saved the man you love, Carlos.”
Carlos swallows and nods again, this time with different emotions gripping around his windpipe.
“You knew he was in danger and you didn’t stop until you had him back in your arms. That is what a good man does. You made me so proud, son. And it’s my fault that I didn’t notice for so long what an impressive man you’ve become. Not yours.”
“We love you,” Andrea says again. “More than we could ever tell you.”
Carlos exhales slowly. He lifts his free hand to wipe at a few errant tears on his face. He’s managed to keep most of them inside, but he’s only so strong. “I know you do. I love you, too. I know it wasn’t easy for you, me not … turning out the way you thought. And I know the Church says …”
Gabriel makes an impatient noise and waves a hand in front of himself. “The Church is wrong about all kinds of things.”
“We didn’t avoid a house full of 10 kids by not using birth control,” Andrea adds.
Carlos stares at her, utterly caught off guard for a moment, and then he cracks up. The surface tension breaks as he laughs, scattering leftover embarrassment and discomfort and filling him with such instant, intense relief.
“Andrea,” Gabriel complains.
“What?” she protests, laughing alongside Carlos, and then more seriously adding, “We don’t talk, in this house. That’s what caused all this trouble in the first place. But that’s our fault, too. And we will fix it. I promise.”
This time, when Carlos exhales, it feels cleansing.
Audibly, Gabriel’s stomach growls, and that sends another chorus of laughter ringing throughout the room. “I believe that is my cue to fire up the grill,” Gabriel says, standing and crossing the room. He hesitates just for a moment as he does, and places his hand on Carlos’s shoulder so he can lean down and press a quick kiss to the top of Carlos’s head.
Carlos doesn’t watch him as he carries on toward the back porch, because he might burst into tears if he did.
Andrea moves in closer still. “Can I tempt you to stay?”
Carlos shakes his head. “That wasn’t an excuse, what I said earlier. I promised TK I’d cook him dinner after his shift.”
“You cook for him?” Andrea asks, with a knowing smile.
“All your recipes. With the spice toned down, a bit.”
Andrea chuckles. “He will get used to it.”
Carlos goes easily when she pulls on his hand, slouching against the cushions so that he can rest his head on her shoulder like he used to, so many years ago when none of his problems were ever large enough to be unfixable by a hug from his mom. She wraps her arms around him now and Carlos relaxes into her.
“I know we hurt you,” she says softly. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are.”
“I was so scared to tell you,” Carlos confesses. He should stop, he should accept their apology and allow them all to move on, but the hurt still lingers underneath the relief. He’d still felt so many awful things about himself, for such a long time, that it seems like they can’t be erased quite so easily. “And I was so scared of … all of it. Everything I was feeling. All these things I’d been taught were wrong. And I guess … you’re right, I needed you to make it okay. And when we never talked about it again, it felt like … it wasn’t.”
“You’re not wrong, about the Church. But you’re not right for the reasons you think. There is nothing wrong with you, and there never was. I confess, this wasn’t easy for me at first. But I thought about it, and read about it, and prayed about it, and I came to the conclusion that the Lord doesn’t make those sorts of mistakes.”
Carlos closes his eyes. He’s drifted so far away from that world. It meant so much to him as a child, and he doesn’t feel like he belongs in it anymore. He wonders how she would feel if she knew the only time he’s prayed in years was the night a man he’d been casually hooking up with was unconscious in the hospital.
“I was afraid of what people would say. That they would whisper behind our backs and it would make its way back to you. You were so young. I wanted you to be yourself, but I was afraid your life would be difficult if you weren’t like everybody else.”
“It has been, sometimes. Knowing people who love me for who I am has helped.”
“Add your father and I to that list. We can’t go back in time but it will be different from now on. I will prove it to you.” She kisses his forehead. “You are exactly who you’re supposed to be, my Carlitos.”
“I know.” Carlos nods and finds the courage to tip his head back and look her in the eye. There are still tears in hers. “I know that now. I really do. But it took me a long time to get here. You know a bit about that, but you don’t know everything. For years after I told you, I still kept hoping I could make it go away. Feeling like something was wrong with me and I needed to be fixed.”
“You are perfect,” she says, cupping his face and wiping at the wetness underneath his left eye. “You always have been. Better than all the other kids in the neighborhood.”
Carlos laughs quietly and rests his head back against her shoulder.
“Go on, tell me more about him. We have so much time to make up for.”
Carlos takes a deep, restorative breath. “He’s amazing. He’s sweet. Fearless. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel like … even when things are intense, like they were last week, that everything is gonna be okay as long as he’s there.”
“I can tell that you’re in love, you know. You don’t have to say it.”
“You can?”
“Love leaves its marks on people. And the way you smiled at him, when we saw you at the market? I’ve known you longer than anyone on the planet and I’ve never seen that smile before.”
“I guess that’s why you didn’t buy that he was my co-worker.”
“How many men do you know who go with their co-worker to a farmer’s market on a Sunday morning?” Andrea teases.
Carlos chuckles and shrugs. “None. You got me.”
“Are you being safe?”
He shifts uncomfortably and tries to avoid visibly cringing. “It’s just him, Ma. I’m committed to him.”
“Is he Catholic?”
Pressing his lips together and hesitating before answering, Carlos says, “Jewish.”
“Hm.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, I suppose not,” Andrea answers, with a casual shrug that seems truthful. “My grand-babies can be multicultural.”
“We can’t have kids,” Carlos reminds her. The words catch in his throat on their way out of his mouth. It’s the thing he’s worried they’re the most disappointed by. Their lives will be different than they envisioned, because Carlos didn’t turn out the way they wanted.
Andrea pauses for a moment. Gently she nudges him, asking him without words to sit back up straight. “What do you mean? Of course you can. Blood isn’t everything.”
Anxious butterflies burst to life in Carlos’s stomach. He forces himself to keep looking at her, checking for insincerity in her eyes, but he finds none. If she truly doesn’t care about that, another weight that’s been resting solidly on Carlos’s shoulders for ten long years can start to dissolve. It won’t immediately erase the damage of it having been there in the first place, but maybe it’s an important start.
“Don’t expect anything soon,” Carlos tells her, trying to cover for the way his voice wobbles. “I should probably start by asking him to move in with me.”
“You’re not getting married, are you?”
“No.”
Andrea raises an eyebrow. “But you want to live with him?”
Carlos huffs a small laugh. “Mamá, that’s how you do it, now. Nobody gets married without living together first.”
“Hm,” she repeats, a little more disapproving this time.
“Are you going to be okay with that?” Carlos has no intention of letting her opinion change his mind, but he’d like to know what he’s up against.
“It’s not the way I would have done it, I’ll say that,” Andrea admits. She rubs his forearm tenderly. “But you have to live your own life. Most importantly of all, I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”
Swallowing over a lump that rises in his throat, Carlos tells her, “I’ve never been happier. He makes me feel right. I’ve never had that. I didn’t …”
“Tell me.”
Carlos takes a breath. “I didn’t realize everything I was missing, until I wasn’t missing it anymore.”
Smiling sadly, Andrea says, “I’m so sorry we didn’t give that to you, mi amor. But I’m so thrilled that you have it now.”
Earnestly, Carlos replies, “Thank you.”
He stays for a while longer, sitting out back with his parents and chatting while his father grills pork chops. They don’t discuss any further the reason Carlos came here in the first place. It doesn’t feel like everything is magically fixed, Carlos thinks it might take him a long time to let go of everything that still lingers under the surface, but it feels like a vital first step has been taken. When he leaves, they both hug him at the door, and Andrea eagerly makes him promise to invite them over for dinner soon so she can meet TK.
Your boyfriend, she calls him again, and Carlos feels like he could float down the walk toward his car on a cloud made of that alone. He’d spent so many years convincing himself that he didn’t want any of this, so that it would hurt less when he never got it. Now that he has it, he’s not sure how to isolate any of the dozens of feelings that are bouncing around in his chest and it leaves him in a jumbled, confused state – but the loudest voice in the blur of noise is happy.
He drives home in silence, a few overwhelmed tears slipping down his cheeks that he doesn’t bother to wipe away because he’s smiling as he waits at red lights. Concentrating on the road in front of him feels like a feat of herculean magnitude but he manages somehow to get from point A to point B without crashing his Camaro. TK would be pissed if he did, he loves this car. He loves sitting next to Carlos as he drives, loves kicking his feet up on the dash, loves trying to distract him, loved that time they pulled over on the side of a deserted country road and had incredibly awkward sex in the backseat that involved a lot of bumped elbows and laughter.
Like there had been at his parents’ house, there are lights on when Carlos pulls into his own driveway. He hadn’t left any of the lamps lit; TK’s here. He beat Carlos home even though Carlos was trying to time it better. He let himself in. He’s in Carlos’s house, in his walls and in his space, maybe on the couch with his shoes off and his legs tucked under him, messing around on Instagram while he waits. The thought warms Carlos’s heart so much that he needs to take a minute to breathe and ground himself, before he shuts his car off and heads inside.
TK’s right where Carlos thought he would be. He’s curled into the corner of the couch, in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt that makes him look tiny even though he isn’t. His feet are bare. His phone is in his hand, but he looks up the moment Carlos enters and his face breaks into a smile. Eyes sparkling, inviting lips curved, cheeks cutting creases into the skin next to his eyes.
“Hi, baby,” he says, as he always does. It’s never sounded more beautiful than it does in this moment.
“Hey.”
TK frowns; instantly aware something is wrong. Carlos tries to shake his head and put that idea out of TK’s, because nothing is wrong. For the first time in years and years, something is right. Carlos slips his own shoes off and hangs his coat up as TK stands and walks over to him, and he doesn’t get a chance to ask before Carlos is grabbing him and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.
Laughing softly, TK wraps his arms around Carlos’s neck and slides fingers into his hair. Carlos tucks his face into TK’s neck and pushes his hands underneath TK’s shirt, greedily inhaling his scent and feeling his skin. Everything about him is so familiar by now, the way he smells, the way his body fits against Carlos’s, the glittery sound of his laugh. His clothes in Carlos’s closet, his face masks on Carlos’s bathroom counter, his very presence stitched into Carlos’s veins.
“Breathe,” TK whispers. “Baby, take a breath.”
Carlos shudders a little as he realizes he was doing it again; holding his breath in a moment where emotion grips so tight around his heart that he forgets how to feel anything else. He’s noticed, over the years, that he does that. He didn’t know TK had noticed. The thought makes him momentarily hysterical, and he laughs shakily and hugs TK even tighter, lifting him momentarily right off the ground.
“What the fuck happened to you today?” TK asks, laughing too, but sounding sweetly concerned.
Carlos shakes his head. He stands back up straight and kisses TK, a few heartfelt passes of their lips, before he looks into TK’s beautiful green eyes. “Can I tell you later?”
TK nods. “Okay.”
“Move in with me.”
The words don’t come entirely from nowhere – it’s not the first time Carlos has thought about it – but he hadn’t made any solid plans to ask, yet, and wasn’t planning on asking tonight. TK needs to go at his own pace sometimes, and Carlos respects that, and hasn’t wanted to push too hard or move too fast. But he can’t imagine the way it would have felt to come home tonight, after such an overwhelming evening, to an empty house. Pulling into his driveway and seeing lights on through the windows had dissolved the last of the tension Carlos hadn’t realized he’d still been carrying in his shoulders. Having TK’s arms to fall into meant everything, in a moment when Carlos couldn’t have predicted it would but in retrospect, he doesn’t know what he would have done if TK hadn’t been here. He might have just collapsed onto the floor and sobbed, and instead, he’s smiling.
“Really?” TK asks.
Carlos nods. “I hate it when you aren’t here. I loved having you here all week, I don’t want you to go.”
“Are you … sure you want that?”
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
TK’s lips press together. “Maybe I’m not so easy to live with. I’m grumpy in the mornings.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Carlos teases.
“My dad says I listen to music too loudly,” TK lists. “I’m a bad cook. Bathroom smells. I don’t know, Reyes, there’s lots of reasons.”
Carlos considers him. The lilt of TK’s voice suggests he isn’t being serious, but there’s a hint of insecurity behind his eyes, and Carlos remembers, suddenly, that TK’s last boyfriend didn’t want to live with him. That TK had asked, and been turned down. Carlos takes his hand and leads him toward the couch. He sits, guiding TK to sit across his thighs with one knee on either side of his hips, settling into his lap. Carlos wraps his arms around TK, grasping his left wrist in his right hand against the small of TK’s back.
“Okay. Let’s go through them, then. What was the first one?”
“Grumpy in the mornings.”
“I’ve experienced you in the mornings,” Carlos reminds him. “I’d say you’re more perpetually sleepy than grumpy. And either way, that doesn’t seem so hard to deal with. I’m pretty good at snuggling you into a better mood.”
TK smiles a little. “Yeah, you are.”
Carlos kisses his cheek. “I will get you some AirPods, for the music. Or I’ll listen to it with you. And you’re not a bad cook, you’re just impatient. But I love to cook, so that just means I get to feed you.”
“Doesn’t sound so horrible.”
“As for the bathroom smells … I mean, are we talking normal human bodily functions, or do you get up to some weird stuff in the bathroom that I don’t know about?” Carlos asks, raising an eyebrow.
TK cracks up. “Normal human stuff.”
“I think I can handle it.”
TK holds his face. His smile is so bright, so beautiful, and Carlos is overwhelmed again.
“Maybe I won’t be so easy to live with either.”
“Oh yeah?” TK grins even wider. “What’s your shit?”
“Neat freak. I’ll probably pick at you if you leave your socks on the floor or hair in the shower drain.”
“I will definitely do both of those things.”
“I’ve been told I hog the covers.”
TK snickers. “Yeah, by me. So I already know that one.”
“I’ve also been told I have terrible taste in Netflix shows.”
“Also by me.” TK shrugs. “It’s fine, we’ll fix it.”
Carlos rubs his thumb along TK’s hipbone and drops his gaze for a moment, letting it settle on the hollow of TK’s throat. TK waits patiently, scratching his fingernails along Carlos’s scalp and giving him space to work up the nerve to admit it.
“I get anxious sometimes,” Carlos says softly.
“I know. Maybe I can help with that, if I’m here all the time.”
Carlos looks up at him tentatively, and TK is still just smiling at him. Eyes shining, open and honest and seeing Carlos for who he is, no matter how hard Carlos tries sometimes to keep that from being the case.
“Yeah?”
TK nods. “If you’ll let me. God knows you’ve helped me with all my issues.”
“Okay.”
“So, that’s a yes? You’re sure about me moving in?”
“I’m sure. Are you sure?”
“Yep.” TK’s smile turns even more blinding, and he leans forward to kiss Carlos on the lips.