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I.
Carlos decides to start carrying narcan with him about a year after he joins APD. He gets home from his run, and doesn’t even bother to shower before he throws himself onto his bed and starts to sob.
The man had been pale in the early morning sun and he looked wrong leaning up against the alleyway wall. Carlos couldn’t see his chest rising. Couldn’t find a pulse. But he had fumbled through calling dispatch anyway. He’d started compressions.
He’d done everything right, Michelle had said when she arrived on scene. Compressions didn’t reverse an overdose, narcan did. And the man was likely gone before Carlos had even found him.
Carlos feels like he failed anyway.
He asks Michelle and Iris about it days later. He knows some first responders carry narcan on their person, the paramedic captains have given them talks about narcan saving lives, and he knows the captain of the Northeast Division started carrying it a few years ago.
Until now, it had been an unnecessary expense. Narcan was expensive, and his schedule made it almost impossible for him to set up training so he could actually get a hold of it. But he thinks about how pale the man was. He thinks of the sunrise that he missed because Carlos didn’t run past him soon enough.
He signs up for a training, shells out a couple hundred dollars for just a few doses. There’s a vial in his first aid kit, his glove compartment. He goes as far as getting a fanny pack to keep it on him when runs.
A few months later, he’s driving his parents to Tía Lucy’s and he asks his mom to hand him his sunglasses. The vial of narcan rolls into her hand. She squints at it for a moment, before her years of healthcare training kick in and she realizes what it is.
“Mijo,” she says softly. “Is there something going on?”
Carlos glances at the vial in her hand and gives her a shy smile. He tells his parents about the man. About the research he’s done. About the rising rates of opioid deaths, how the pharmaceutical industry has let down addicts and chronic pain patients. How people with substance abuse problems deserve to be rescued too. He’s worked himself up into a full rant when his father reaches to put a hand on his shoulder from the backseat.
“Mijo,” he says gently. “Carlitos. It’s a good idea. Text us the details of the class you took, and we’ll look into getting some too.”
Carlos looks sideways at his mother and she nods.
“Proud of you,” she whispers in his ear once they get to their destination. She puts a gentle hand on his face and looks him in the eyes. “My sweet boy. Of course you carry narcan with you.”
He carries his mother’s approval with him. Through the looks he gets from his fellow officers when he snaps at them for making callous remarks about calls they’ve all been on. Through the stories Michelle tells him.
He tries to carry it through the look TK gives him the first time he goes rummaging through his first aid kit for a band aid. Carlos hears the soft click of the little vial hitting the plastic side of the kit and TK’s sharp intake of breath. Carlos feels TK’s heavy gaze on him first and Carlos thinks of his mom, and the man in the alley. He thinks of TK, beaten and broken in the station after the bar fight, and he thinks of the haunted look Captain Strand gets in his eyes when they all end up on an overdose call.
He squares his jaw and meets TK’s gaze.
He feels less sure of himself when he sees that the flinty look he expected from TK is not there. That the light behind TK’s eyes has gone out just so.
“It’s smart of you,” TK says softly. “It makes sense for you to have it.”
There is no further conversation. No explanation needed. Carlos, this time, does not queue up his talking points he usually has ready. TK, of all people, should know that addicts deserve to be saved. So Carlos just nods and helps him find the bandaid he’s looking for.
TK is quiet throughout their movie that they watch. He fiddles with the bandaid he needed on his thumb. He kisses Carlos’ cheek when he goes home, but the light still hasn’t clicked back on behind his eyes when he says goodbye. He’s thinking about something, but Carlos doesn't want to push, doesn’t want to open up a wound that might not need to be picked at.
It’s the first time since getting his narcan kits that Carlos feels he may have done something wrong.
II.
Judd notices TK’s distant face almost immediately after he starts aimlessly stabbing into his salad. He places a hand over TK’s and gently pulls the fork away from his hand.
“You’re a million miles away, brother. We don’t need any wayward fork injuries today.”
TK’s eyes flick up to him and Judd gives him his best no bullshit look.
“What’s got you all twisted up in that head of yours, TK?”
TK shrugs and stabs at a few more of the spinach leaves in his salad. Judd stares at him.
TK huffs out a sigh and crosses his arm on the table in front of him. He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. He reminds Judd, briefly, of Izzy and Evie and he resists the urge to roll his eyes at TK theatrics.
“Carlos added narcan to his first aid kit,” TK finally huffs out.
Judd realizes, abruptly, that this conversation has just become very personal, and he needs to tread lightly. He’s pretty sure Reyes has been carrying narcan for years now. Michelle had told them all that even some of the APD officers were carrying it when she’d done some of her awareness talks.
“And that makes you feel some kind of way?” Judd finally guesses.
TK pouts at him.
“Oh boy,” Judd says softly.
He pulls the chair next to TK out from under the sable and straddles it, leaning his elbows on the table. TK looks small right now, and he doesn’t want to tower over him while he tries to level with him.
“Did you talk to him about why he has it?”
TK’s nose flairs a little and he bites his lip.
“I know why he has it,” TK says, and the hurt bleeds into every syllable.
“Nah,” Judd says, both as gently and as firmly as he can, “you don’t though.”
TK tries to argue and Judd silences him with a look.
“Grace has some,” Judd admits.
TK’s brows furrow and he shakes his head a little. Judd almost laughs at how quickly the wind lets out of his sails.
“Why?” TK finally manages.
“Well,” Judd drawls. “She’s a living saint and has taken more than a few overdose calls, TK. My wife wants to be prepared in case of an emergency.”
“Oh,” TK says. He’s thinking too hard. Judd can practically see the steam coming out of his ears.
“But that’s not really why she got it in the first place though, is it?” Judd muses to himself.
TK is once again confused.
“After the factory explosion,” Judd explains, “I spent six weeks in the hospital. I had cracked ribs, I had a horrible concussion, I even broke my spine in a few places from hitting the ground so hard.”
TK’s eyebrows raise. Judd doesn’t talk about the factory fire much. It’s painful and the memories are laced with grief and guilt and frustration. Talking about it comes easier, sometimes, now that he’s been to numerous sessions of therapy, but it’s still hardest here, in the station they all once walked in together.
TK doesn’t speak, but his green eyes search Judd’s face. TK notices the hitch in his breathing, the sweat on his brow. He’s a good paramedic and a good friend.
“When I was discharged from the rehab unit, after pretty much learning how to walk again, I was still on a lot of meds. Probably enough to put down a horse. Gracie felt better if we had a little extra security at home.”
He pauses and then adds, “In case I accidentally took too much.”
TK meets his eyes and hears the emphasis Judd puts on ‘accidentally’.
“Oh. Judd I—“
“I think I was doing okay by then, and for the most part I could keep track of my own meds. But it helped her feel better. I was so angry, and I was in so much pain all the time. I missed my friends something awful. Grace has been on enough calls to know accidents happen when people are in vulnerable situations. To know people can get into the wrong meds for the wrong reasons.”
They stare at each other a long time and Judd decides to take the leap.
“Narcan should be talked about more as suicide prevention too, is all I’m sayin’. The way you and your daddy talk about what happened with you in New York? Seems like you might know a little about that too.”
TK freezes. He nods his head only once.
“Talk to Carlos, kid. He might have reasons that ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
Judd stands and pats TK on the shoulder. TK nods and does him the kindness to not look at him any differently after.
III.
Paul is in a foul mood by the time he gets clocked in and changed. The woman he’s been dating, Jessie, is sweet. They’ve gotten past the awkward gender reveal part, they’ve slept together a few times. She doesn’t put aioli on things. It’s good.
It should be good.
But she’s made a few comments that have been getting under his skin. And he wonders, not for the first time, if he needs to start thinking about breaking it off.
TK is in the bunk room when he storms in, and he pauses, looking up mid giggle from texting in his phone. He’s got the look. The lost in Carlos look. Paul’s not sure he can deal with TK and his perfect love for perfect Carlos right now. Even though he knows TK and Carlos are far from perfect. They are happy, though. Everyone can see it.
TK notices his scowl though, and pockets his phone.
“Did you have a bad bowling date again?”
Paul feels the surprise at how quickly TK got to the root of the problem bloom on his face.
“Not quite,” Paul admits. “But you’re pretty damn close.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Paul shrugs.
“Just trying to figure out how to have some difficult conversations with a new lady I’ve been seeing.”
TK grimaces.
“Like the one you had with Brisket Lady that didn’t go well?”
Paul shrugs again.
“No, she knows I’m trans. She just keeps bringing up the fact that I’m trans so I’m kinda wondering if she’s really as cool with it as she says she is.”
TK bites his bottom lip and puts his hands behind his back. He twists back and forth, usually a sign that he’s thinking, or trying to figure out what to say.
“The difficult conversations,” he finally says, still thoughtful.
Paul hums in acknowledgment.
“You gotta talk to her,” TK says, stopping his back and forth motion.
He takes a few steps toward Paul and plants himself firmly in front of him.
“Maybe she isn’t cool with it,” he says. “But she also just could be awkward and afraid of saying the wrong thing. Or she has a family member who is trans and wants to ask your advice but doesn’t want to overstep.”
“Or she’s ‘not as evolved’ as she thought she was,” Paul interjects.
TK shrugs with his hands still behind his back.
“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe, but you’re never gonna know until you talk to her.”
He’s right.
“Can I just wallow in this for a while though? I guess it’s bringing up some stuff.”
“It’s probably better if you do and try not to take your previous negative experiences into the conversation.”
Paul huffs out a laugh, “when did you get so wise, Strand?”
“Hey,” TK says, sticking out his pointy finger of emphasis. “I have always been wise.”
Paul gives him a skeptical look. TK laughs.
“A few months ago, I found a vial of narcan in Carlos’ first aid kit,” TK blurts out.
Paul feels his eyebrows raise, but he says nothing. He assumes where this conversation might be going. TK’s thoughts can sometimes be hard to track, but he’s been serious with Carlos for several months now. Paul’s certain TK’s advice comes from experience of his own.
He nods to encourage TK to go on.
“I was really hurt at first,” TK admits. “It felt like he didn’t trust me. Like he was planning for me to relapse. And I was embarrassed. I wanted him to think I had my shit together—“
“—which you don’t,” Paul interjects with a smile.
TK points his finger at him again and grins.
“It wasn’t about you,” Paul guesses.
TK shook his head.
“Carlos has had it for a long time. He found someone down and didn’t have it and they died. He’s wanted to be prepared ever since.”
“How’d that whole conversation go?”
“Oh, it sucked. I came at it really bitchy, and Carlos cried a little bit, and I cried a little bit. But he gave me this really earnest speech about how everyone should get a chance to be saved and it should be taught with CPR the way epi-pens are. How he trusts me but it’s just another way to be prepared to administer basic first aid. He doesn’t ever want to feel like he didn’t do all he could to save someone again.”
Paul smiles, slightly in awe of how well TK and Carlos fit together. He knows some first responders can get a little jaded about people with mental illness and substance abuse. It’s easy for some to brush off the clear problems they see and hope it doesn’t catch up to them. Of course Carlos Reyes would figure out a way to save them instead.
“Makes sense,” Paul says. “I started carrying it when I lived in Chicago. Used it a few times too. I used to bike to work and my route passed an encampment of unhoused folks. They knew me pretty well there by the time I moved here.”
TK grins.
“You’re not the first one in this house to tell me they have it too,” he says softly.
He looks sheepish. He looks shocked. Distantly, Paul wonders how many times they’ll have to tell him before TK feels he deserves to be saved too.
IV.
Owen comes home from a shift one afternoon to find Carlos sitting at their kitchen table. Since the fire, Carlos has spent most of his time at their house. He’s been chewing through his lip over a calculator for the last three days, trying to make sense of it all.
Today, he’s bent over a list of things the insurance won’t cover. His glasses look like they are about to slide off the edge of his nose.
Owen feels bad.
He sits across the table from Carlos and Carlos looks up at him.
“Can I help?” Owen asks cheerfully.
Carlos sighs and runs a hand over his face. He shakes his head slowly, scanning the list of items.
Owen can read a few squiggly words but his eyes catch on one in particular.
“Why do you need to replace some narcan?”
He feels angry all of a sudden. And surprised. Like he missed a step at the top of the stairs and then someone pushed him down.
“Did TK relapse?”
“What?” Carlos says sharply. He levels his gaze at Owen and shakes his head.
“No,” he says out loud. “TK’s doing okay. The last few weeks have been rough, but he’s okay.”
“Then why?” Owen can hear the accusation in his voice, but he can’t stop it.
“I need these for my kits, Owen. I’ve been carrying narcan for years.”
“You have?”
Carlos raises his eyebrows at Owen.
“It doesn’t feel like some sort of a jinx?” Owen asks through clenched teeth and a shake of his head.
Carlos stares at him. Owen is acutely aware this was the wrong thing to say.
“Do you think you’re more likely to have a heart attack because your son is a paramedic and knows advanced cardiac life support?”
Yeah, it was definitely the wrong thing to say. Owen presses his lips together and nods his head toward Carlos to acknowledge his point.
“I also just don’t care if it is,” Carlos says firmly. “TK is a complex human being with a substance use disorder. He could relapse. I’m not going to love him any less if he does. And I’d rather have a TK with some wounded pride than not have TK at all. I’m not willing to wait a few extra minutes for a unit with a narcan pack to get to us if he needs it.”
“I’ve never had one,” Owen admits. And he feels guilty. Like he missed a step again.
“I know,” Carlos says. He studies Owen carefully.
“Honestly,” he says finally. “I’m not sure how TK would have taken it if you had. He was less than thrilled when he found mine the first time.”
“Did you give him the same speech?”
Carlos nods and says, “a much more teary version of it, yeah.”
Owen nods.
“What made you start carrying it?”
Carlos is silent for a long time.
“I found a man who needed help, and help didn’t come in time. I don’t want to be in that situation again, no matter if it’s a stranger or the man I love.”
Owen reaches across the table and squeezes Carlos’ hand.
“Maybe I’ll have Tommy give us all a refresher at the firehouse. Maybe we can do a narcan drive, the same way we do safe gun storage events.”
The corner of Carlos’ mouth pulls up in a half smile.
Down the hall, they can hear the slow shuffle of TK rolling out of bed. Medical got off their shift several hours ago, so he assumes TK’s been napping since he got home.
TK is bleary eyed and his hair pokes in every which way. He makes his way over to Carlos and places one hand on his shoulder and the other starts playing with the short fuzz at the nape of Carlos’ neck.
“Hi baby,” he says, still groggy, into Carlos’s hair.
Carlos leans into the points of contact and turns his head so he can kiss the inside of TK’s wrist. It’s incredibly intimate for such a casual gesture and Owen feels like he should look away. He sees the look on his son’s face. He sees the look on what he’s sure to be his future son-in-law’s face.
Owen doesn’t have regrets about moving to Texas. He might have a few about leaving Gwyn behind and separating TK from his future little brother, but when he sees how much the the people they’ve surrounded themselves with love his son, how much they understand his son, he feels a warmth and safety he hasn’t felt in a long time.
He thinks of his son on a cold apartment floor in Red Hook, he thinks of waiting for backup while he wondered if he’d ever see TK open his eyes again. He allows himself to think he might never have to see that happen again, both because TK is doing better, and because he has a support system surrounding him that is determined to bring him back from the edge.
Owen pulls out his phone, and looks up ways to get narcan in Texas.
V.
Tommy watches TK sip gently at the foam on his oat milk latte and thinks, not for the first time, about how young he looks. He’s had perpetual frown lines at the corners of his mouth since they’d heard about Gwyn and the near miss with the plane. He’s got dark bags under his eyes. Carlos has been coming by the station at least once a day to lay eyes on him and make sure he’s still upright and eating enough food.
“What are you thinking about, pal?”
And TK surprises her.
“Why haven’t I gotten in trouble?”
Tommy rests her chin on her hands and tilts her head a little.
“For getting into the narcotics safe,” he clarifies.
Tommy looks around the little cafe they’ve been going to after their grief group and searches for an answer that won’t spook TK enough that he bolts. She likes this piece of TK he’s been sharing with her, even if it makes her unbearably sad to see her own grief mirrored back at her in this way.
“Well,” she says slowly. “I didn’t know for sure anything had happened. Nothing was missing.”
“Oh,” TK mumbles. “Right. Nothing was missing.”
She nods her head at him again.
“I was going to take all of it, I think, if my dad hadn’t stopped me.”
“Oh,” Tommy says. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“That doesn’t freak you out at all?”
“Does it freak you out?”
TK nods at her, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”
She lets the admission hang in silence for a moment while TK feels the weight of what he just said.
“What if he hadn’t stopped me?”
“Oh, honey, that’s easy,” Tommy sighs. “One of us would have instead. Juddy and Paul were right behind him.”
TK bites his lip. Tears shine in his eyes and he takes a deep breath
“I just keep thinking how stupid it was. How she pushed Jonah away. Getting hit by a bike shouldn’t kill someone, so I don’t understand why she wasn’t given time for anyone to save her. Why could nobody save her, when I’ve died three times and somebody was always around to save me? And every time I start thinking about that, it always ends up at how badly I want to use.”
Tommy flattens her hands out on the table and reaches very slowly for TK’s hand. He doesn’t pull away, so she gently places her hand over his.
“None of this makes sense,” she says gently. “I spent weeks after Charles died trying to make sense of it. I did some crazy things to try to make sure other people didn’t feel as helpless as I did. I tried to stay strong and not tell anyone how I was feeling. I bought a narcan kit to keep with me in case I came across someone who needed saving when I was off the clock.”
TK looks up at her sharply when she mentions narcan, and she gives him a gentle smile and a small nod of her head.
“I was still in my uniform when I found him, TK. I know what it feels like to wonder why God didn’t give us the time we needed to save someone we love.”
TK’s eyes fill with tears before he smiley blinks them away and works his jaw.
“Why does my brain keep insisting that the best way to handle it is to throw away everything she’s given me?”
“Because mental illness makes about as much sense as death and grief sometimes. Just because they couldn’t save your mama doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of being saved, TK. And if your grief does push you to relapse, which I know you’re worried about, you have a whole house of Austin Fire and Rescue and a very lovely boyfriend that will help build you back up.”
TK’s tears do spill over now and she reaches out to hold both his hands in hers.
“We’re here for you, TK. And we will keep being here for you, even if your grief keeps telling you the best way to cope is to fall back onto old habits. That’s not going to make you any less worthy of our love or any less worthy of being saved.”
TK looks up at her, eyes wet, his teeth trying to work their way through his bottom lip. She smiles at him, and she hopes it is enough for all the worries jumbled around in his head.
+++
TK has his hands on Carlos’ chest. He feels the give of his ribs and his sternum beneath his fingers, and he thinks, miserably, about the tiny vial in the glove box of the Camaro that should be here. Carlos’s face is pale, his lips just a shade too gray. Right now, his fiancé is dead. He’s not sure if Carlos is going to come back to them.
The rest of the world falls away. His focus pinpoints to the thirty compressions, the steady rhythm, the rise and fall of Carlos’ chest as he breathes for him. It could be seconds, it could be hours. He can’t be sure. Wild horses couldn’t drag him. He’ll spend the rest of his life here, in this rhythm and rhyme if it means Carlos will come back to him.
Distantly he hears Gabriel shouting again for the narcan. The thud of boots. A plastic auto injector is passed into his waiting palm and he wastes no time before he’s plunging the needle into his fiancé’s thigh.
For a moment, the world stills. Carlos does not breathe. TK does not either. He will breathe again when Carlos does.
How ironic, TK thinks hysterically, that Carlos planned a way to save everyone else, and yet all that preparation might not save him here. The tiny vial Carlos has kept for years is tucked far away in the glove box of a car that is just out of reach. That all the lectures Carlos has given his coworkers were not nearly as impactful as his death will be here today. He bets some of them will carry it now.
Briefly, TK feels a sick, nauseating anger. If every cop in Austin starts carrying narcan after this, it will never feel like enough if Carlos doesn’t open his eyes on the floor of this house of horrors. How every life saved after today will feel empty in a world without Carlos Reyes in it.
Carlos sucks in a sharp breath. His eyes fly open and he bucks away from TK’s touch, shouting in a blind panic. TK is reaching for him. Desperate to comfort, to touch, to have and to hold.
Carlos’ eyes find his. The second their eyes lock, some of the raw panic bleeds out of Carlos’ face. Something tightly coiled in TK’s chest unwinds just so.
Carlos rests his head against his fathers chest and grips onto TK’s arm like it’s the last life preserver on a ship that’s being pulled into the depths. He lets out a pained whine, and TK feels a pang of sympathy. No matter how healthy and strong Carlos is, having all your opioid receptors suddenly on high alert is something uniquely awful.
The three of them stay there, piled together as the other officers secure the suspects. TK is vaguely aware of saying words, murmuring sweet nothings to Carlos. Of Gabriel trying to swallow down his relieved sobs. Of Carlos’ panicking, hiccuping breaths.
TK buries his hand in Carlos’ disheveled curls and presses kisses into Carlos’ hands, his shoulder, his cheek. Two fingers rest firmly on the pulse point in Carlos’ wrist, afraid that if he lets go for even a second, he’ll lose Carlos again. He watches his chest rise and fall as they load him onto a stretcher. He keeps an eye on the tiny heart beat at the base of Carlos’s throat
As they load Carlos into the ambulance, TK sees Detective Grier hovering back near the squad cars. He resists the urge to scowl at her.
The way she talked about the missing women. About Iris. About Carlos. It doesn’t sit right with him. He thinks of Carlos and the narcan in their car, in their medicine cabinet, in Carlos’s jogging bag. How Carlos believes everyone should have a chance to be saved.
He’s not sure the detective agrees. Maybe if she had, he wouldn’t have had to breathe life back into his heart. Maybe they wouldn’t have ended up here.
He could spend his life in the what ifs of this moment. He’ll spend the rest of his life trying not to. He got to him in time. That’s what matters, he tells himself. But part of him will agonize over those brief seconds of consciousness Carlos had before he stopped breathing, and wonder and wonder and wonder what he could have done differently to spare him the panic of drowning in the dark.
TK knows what that’s like.
TK exchanges words with Gabriel and climbs up into the ambulance after Carlos. He can’t stop touching him, can’t stop brushing his fingers over the steady beat of his pulse. THe loss of contact feels like the terrifying moments between stopping compressions and waiting for Carlos to breathe.
He presses his forehead against the side of Carlos’ sweaty head and they breathe in sync, together and alive.
—
The bruise from the autoinjector is still on Carlos’ thigh a week later. It's faded and yellowing, not the angry blue, purple, and red it was at the beginning. TK feels his gaze catch on it when Carlos is changing, when he gets out of bed in the middle of the night when he thinks TK is asleep.
He can’t tear his focus away when he pulls himself out of bed to follow him and sit next to him on the couch somewhere around three in the morning.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks gently. His gaze is still locked on the fading bruise.
Carlos shrugs. All of it then, TK supposes.
“You,” Carlos finally says. “On the doorbell cam. How the most scared I was the entire time was when I thought she was going to hurt you too.”
TK swallows the unsteady breath that hitches up into his throat. He blinks away the hot tears that burn underneath his eyelids. He slides his arm into Carlos’ and tangles their fingers together. He buries himself into Carlos’s side.
“It’s yours,” Carlos had said. TK knows Carlos would have rather died alone in a terrifying house than let those monsters hurt TK. He’s not sure he deserves that kind of love.
Carlos watches the gears turn in TK’s head and kisses the top of his head.
“You do,” he says gently. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’d do the same thing again.”
TK pulls back and squints at him.
“You’ll call it in first next time though, right? To make sure someone is looking for you?”
Carlos nods and shrugs, and a tiny grin dances at the corner of his mouth.
“I did though,” he says as he lifts their joined hands to kiss TK’s knuckles. “I had you.”
“Always,” TK says back. “But make it a little easier for me next time and call it in, please.”
“I hope there won’t be a next time,” Carlos says, “but I’m not sure Detective Grier would have even believed me if I had called it in.”
TK feels the dark look cloud over his face. A look that has lingered in the corners of his mouth and the space between his eyebrows when he thinks of how this situation was handled by the people in charge of keeping people safe. In charge of keeping Iris, Donna, and the other women safe. In charge of keeping Carlos, his heart, safe.
Carlos reaches over with his free hand and smoothes the wrinkle between TK’s eyebrows. TK sighs and lets out the breath he’s been holding for the last week.
“There will be a next time, though.”
He knows this. He’s watched Carlos throw himself into cases, into doing right by the people of Austin. He’s watched his fiance evolve into an amazing, pushy bastard detective, even if he hasn’t taken the exam yet. While he’s hoping Carlos never comes in close proximity to a serial killer with a psycho mom and bodies in the closet, he knows the likelihood of this is slim. Carlos cares so much, and the combination of that and his job will likely put him in dangerous situations again in the future.
“Those women should have had people looking for them,” TK says.
Carlos nods.
“You were looking for them when nobody else was,” he continues.
Carlos nods again.
“Everyone deserves to have someone looking for them, TK.”
TK squeezes his fiance’s hand and tries to feel a little less like the love he has for this man might swallow him whole. An impossible task.
His eyes catch on the bruise on Carlos’ thigh again. It’s not the first time he’s noticed that that same bruise was once on his own thigh is a very similar place. This time though, Carlos’ words ring in his ears. Everyone deserves to have someone looking for them.
Something clicks into place deep in Tk’s chest. He thinks of all the people who have been looking out for him since he got to Texas. Of his dad, who found him sprawled out on a cold apartment floor the same way TK found Carlos. Of Carlos, who has been carrying narcan since the minute he realized not everyone has someone looking out for them.
It’s the little things here where he feels like he’s holding on for dear life. The feeling of that moment in between taking his hands off Carlos’ chest and putting his lips over his. The smallest moment that in the end could have made all the difference.
It’s the small moments that make him glad he’s alive to see them. The small moments that make him fall deeper in love so that the big moments feel so much bigger.
It’s the small moments that Donna won’t have. That Iris and Carlos could have lost. That Detective Grier didn’t care enough about to keep looking for. The man that’s sitting next to him sees the small moments in him, in Iris, in the man he lost so long ago in the alley way. The small moments that Carlos thinks deserve to be saved, to be treasured, to be noticed.
TK stands up and pulls Carlos to his feet with him. He leans in for a kiss.
“Come back to bed with me,” he says into the space between their lips.
Carlos does.