Work Text:
The problem with waiting in hospitals is that you can’t react the way you really want to sometimes.
Carlos Reyes-Strand paced a stretch of sidewalk outside the emergency room entrance. Twenty steps one way, pivot, twenty steps back, pause, pivot, resume. The 126 had tried to get him to take a break but that wasn’t about to happen. He couldn’t.
Sitting in yet another waiting room waiting for yet another doctor to give news in a dramatic fashion as if they were on television was beyond stressful. Worse than their wedding day and the power unexpectedly getting shut off due to a car colliding with a transformer. Worse than hearing that Michelle had not only left Austin without saying a word, but taken Iris with her. Worse than the moment he was forced to pull his husband away from his father after Owen’s collapse at a scene three months prior - luckily only due to stress and exhaustion, but it was the wakeup call the entire 126 needed.
He couldn’t wait inside. He wanted to drive out into the countryside and scream, wanted to go to one of the rage rooms that TK’s friend Buck mentioned on Insta, wanted to just throw something.
He shouldn’t be worrying about becoming a widow after three weeks.
Hearing over the scanner that the 126’s ambulance had been involved in a car accident had given him pause, only for a second. That is, until he remembered that TK was working today, covering for someone who covered their honeymoon. He was on that ambulance.
Judd stopped him on his next pivot. “One of the nurses stopped by looking for us,” he said, Texas drawl made worse in grief. “TK’s out of surgery. Doc’s on his way.”
Carlos nodded. Took a deep breath, and another. “They say anything else?” he asked, trying to find the calm that TK always loved in him.
“Just that TK’s one stubborn son of a bitch,” Judd chuckled, the dark humor helping to ease the mood a bit.
Yes, his husband was stubborn. There was no doubt in his mind about that.
Carlos gave Judd a wry nod before following him back into the hospital, through the winding hallways, and into the surgical waiting room where they had been stuffed as soon as they arrived.
The doctor’s news was good, TK would be okay. Now if he’d just stop traumatizing his husband…