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“Are you really sure though?” comes Carlos’s small voice out of the darkness.
TK sighs, rolls onto his side. Carlos is turned away from him, shoulders hunched as he stares at the wall.
“Carlos.” TK shifts closer, presses against his back. “I’m sure.”
Carlos doesn’t relax. TK wraps an arm around his chest. “Talk to me, baby.”
Carlos is silent for a long moment. Just as TK is about to ask again, he says — “I might never want kids, TK.”
“I know,” TK says.
“I mean, that might never change,” Carlos goes on. “Three years, five years, ten years from now. I still might not want kids. Or I just fully won’t.”
“I know, Carlos,” TK says.
Carlos falls silent. TK stays, presses a kiss to his shoulder as he thinks.
“Would you have asked me to marry you, if you knew?”
“Yes,” TK says. He doesn’t need to think about it. His certainty surprises him, but he holds onto it. “Yes, I would have.”
“Really?”
“Carlos —” TK begins, but Carlos shifts in his arms, turns to face him. TK is startled to see tears in his eyes.
“We’re talking about having kids, TK. That’s... that’s big. That’s not something you just give up. I don’t want to make you give that up. I can’t do that to you.”
“Baby —”
“Maybe this is a mistake.” Carlos is swept up in his thoughts, and he’s pulling TK along with him. “Maybe we shouldn’t get married. People who want different things shouldn’t get married. You should be with someone who can give you what you want.”
“I want you!”
“But you want kids more —”
“I never said that! I —” TK’s heart pounds in his chest. “Carlos... let me think for a minute, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I’m sorry, I —”
“No.” TK cuts him off. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I just… wanna say this right, okay? Give me a second.”
Carlos nods, and TK presses his face into Carlos’s shoulder as his own eyes begin to sting. He takes a deep breath, grounding himself in the rise and fall of Carlos’s chest beneath his hand.
Carlos is patient as he gets his thoughts in order. The slight stuttering in his breathing is the only indication that he’s still spiraling. “Breathe, baby,” he murmurs into his shoulder. Carlos just pulls him closer until he’s on his back and TK is lying half on top of him, chin propped on his chest.
“So I talked to Tommy a few days ago,” TK begins. “And… and she told me about how hard it was for her and Charles to have kids. How hard they fought for it.”
“I didn’t know,” Carlos whispers.
“Neither did I.” TK reaches up on instinct to stroke his fingers through Carlos’s hair.
“And I talked to my dad the other night,” he continues, “and he told me to… take what the universe gives me, he said.”
“My mom kind of said the same thing,” Carlos says. “She said to remember that… the most important thing is that you’re by my side.”
“Our parents are wise,” TK laughs. It gets a small smile out of Carlos. TK touches a reverent thumb to the corner of it. This is his. He still can hardly believe it sometimes.
“Carlos,” he says, and Carlos’s eyes grow serious again. “I really want to be a parent. I want kids. I want to raise a child. I’ve wanted that… pretty much my whole life.”
Carlos nods, and TK presses his hand to his cheek, reminding him that he’s not going anywhere.
“Wanting something… doesn’t mean I’m gonna get it,” he continues. “Tommy and Charles, they tried for years. And it finally worked out for them, but for so many people, it never does.”
“This is different though,” Carlos insists. “It’s not that I can’t have kids, it’s that I may never want to.”
“I know,” TK says. “What I’m saying is… even if you did want to, there are plenty of reasons it might not work out for us. I mean, we both work dangerous jobs with odd hours, and I’m an addict —
“And you’d make a fantastic parent.” Carlos wraps a steady arm around TK’s back. “Anyone who doesn’t see that would be an idiot.”
“Thank you,” TK says softly. “But what I’m trying to say… is that if you never want kids, if we could never have kids… I wouldn’t want you any less. I want you the most.”
“You heard what Nicole said,” Carlos whispers. “Love isn’t always enough.”
TK brushes a tear from Carlos’s cheek. “She’s right,” he says. “Love isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for my parents, and they loved each other… so fiercely. It’s not enough for so many people.”
“What if it’s not enough for us?” Carlos’s voice wavers.
“I think…” TK breathes in, searching for the right words. “I think we have more than love. I love you, Carlos, and on top of that… I choose you. I want to go through life with you. Whatever happens, whatever the universe gives us.”
“In good times and bad, in sickness and in health,” Carlos murmurs, and TK laughs.
“Exactly. That’s what marriage is about. Choosing each other.”
TK has wanted so many things he may never be able to have. He’s imagined hundreds of different lives for himself. And out of all of those lives, he knows, he’s certain, that he wouldn’t choose any of them over the one he has. Over this, here, with Carlos, the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms.
“You know…” Carlos’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “I… it’s not that I can’t imagine having kids.”
TK holds still, waiting for Carlos to go on. It takes time, he’s learned, to unravel Carlos like this. It takes patience, quiet, steadiness. Their bed and a moonlit night often helps. TK cherishes every piece of Carlos he’s gotten in moments like this.
“It’s that I can,” Carlos says. “Or… I couldn’t. Until you.”
TK waits as Carlos draws a breath, and another. His gaze drifts from TK’s face to some corner of their bedroom. TK doesn’t try to hold it. Carlos knows he’s there, and sometimes he needs this too.
“The first time I saw you hold Jonah,” he says. “I could imagine it. And… and that… it terrified me. It still terrifies me.”
"I never... I..." Carlos swallows, and TK presses a kiss to his chest. He's here. He'll always be here.
"Before you... You... You opened up so much, for me," he says. "I couldn't imagine... so much. And now I can. And it's a lot, I... I'm thinking about things... that I never dreamed I'd be thinking about. Like if I'm ready to be a father. If I even want to be. That... that was never a question I could ask before, you know?"
"I get it," TK whispers. "I understand. I do." Realizing you have a future is a terrifying thing.
"I choose you, though." He looks back at TK, with such open tenderness that his heart stutters. "I choose this. I choose us. Our wide open future. Always."
TK inches forward until their lips meet, and Carlos's hand comes up to cup his cheek, fingers stroking along the shell of his ear.
"I love you," Carlos whispers, and TK tucks his head into the crook of Carlos's neck. This is where he fits, his place, his life, his future. He's never been more certain of it, of anything.
TK belongs to Carlos, and Carlos is his.