Work Text:
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybealso troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
When Carlos thinks of his father, the first thing that comes to mind is his laugh.
It surprises him, but it’s there, the memory of it a physical thing. His laugh was a deep boom; shaking his shoulders and deepening the crinkles around his eyes, those same crinkles that came more into focus as life started to take shape—as Carlos sprouted, as his sisters moved away, as his mother had to start enforcing shared family meals, even if Carlos felt like he was barely keeping himself afloat as shame and secrecy started gnawing at him from the inside out; even if Gabriel moved up the ranks and found himself involved in bigger, stressful, more time-consuming cases. A home that for so long was made for five felt big with only three of them, a wedge starting to take shape as Carlos lingered in the background in school, as Carlos felt the weight of being the only son settle onto his shoulders.
His father’s laugh was something he often longed to hear as the house got quieter; as his sisters went to grad school and secured jobs and continued to move through life gracefully. They were often the cause of their father’s laughing fits; Gabriel’s eldest children, his beautiful and witty and strong-willed daughters, who could bring him near-tears with little skits or jokes or a point-blank statement that had him murmuring endearments and smiling wide. They brought a softness out of him that Carlos thinks Gabriel felt was permissible—was acceptable to brandish, was something he could wear with pride.
In some moments—some sporadic, bright moments—Carlos brought it out of him, too. Moments where Carlos, barely tall enough to reach his father’s hip, not yet old enough to accept the simple but impossible truth that nothing ever stays the same, would take the leap. Carlos would stomp around in Gabriel’s new work boots and instead of being scolded his father would grin and pull the hat off his own head and plop it atop Carlos’ curls. “There we go,” Gabriel would say, as the brim of the hat always immediately slipped over Carlos’ eyes, something that always made his father laugh brightly. “Now it’s a complete look, mijo.”
He didn’t know then that his father’s greatest fear was Carlos following in his footsteps; he didn’t know then that his father thought he was too soft for the job. All he knew was the way his father would scoop him up and kiss him on the temple and carry him to the kitchen, where Andrea grinned and tipped the hat back enough to see Carlos’ eyes; to feed him a spoonful of slowly simmering sauce and then gently usher him away to play before dinner while his sisters completed homework at the kitchen table.
It makes him feel…heavy, that this memory comes as a surprise. Ever since he watched his younger self in that grainy video, ever since it broke through to a part of himself he’d buried deep for so long, memories of his father have shifted from their strenuous relationship in adulthood to the easy days of Carlos being a kid; when he was allowed to cherish his father’s tenderness, when they were both comfortable in their roles. There were so many different versions of his father that occupied his memory—the hero of his childhood, the strict harbinger of the law, the shadow who avoided difficult conversations, like I’m gay and I applied for a position in APD and I married my best friend, is that enough, the father who agreed to be his best man—and now it doesn’t matter, because they’re all dead.
He has to remind himself every morning, and it always makes him feel like they lost so much time. It isn’t a new thought—since he came out, since he left home, since he spent the summer between graduation and the academy putting on muscle to accentuate his height and trying to fit into the image of manhood he thought his father would be proud of, since he decided he could deal with his parents’ inability to talk about his love life if it meant keeping up the act of normalcy, of keeping them in his life. Since he changed his mind about that when he met TK and knew he was the one. And through it all, he’s only struck with how unfair it is that things were just starting to get somewhere —maybe even somewhere good —before it was pulled out from under them.
The soft squawk of seagulls from outside the cracked-open window startles him back to the current moment, and a wave of guilt rolls through him.
He’s on his honeymoon. It’s their last full day before their flight tomorrow at mid-day, and TK is still snoring softly, arms curled around Carlos’ pillow while Carlos sits across the room, cross-legged, tucked into the corner of the sofa near the french doors that open out to their beachfront balcony. His coffee sits untouched on the side table and he rubs his thumb over the turquoise stone on his father’s ring as he stares, a little unfocused, at his husband.
Which—husband. Carlos never dared to dream of having one; of being one, for real, and so he’s a little obsessed with the way that word sits in his mouth, how the syllables taste. The way he can put that title to the man currently drooling on the bedspread, his nose scrunched up as he dreams. TK has been so wonderful, so beautiful, distracting him when he needs it and holding him close late at night even if he can never seem to talk about it, the words dissipating on his tongue, TK keeps him safe when the nightmares come, because the nightmares don’t seem to care that they’re on vacation. He fills up Carlos’ days with bright, brilliant laughter, and easy conversation, and kisses that taste like the sweetest fruit, and dumb jokes that make Carlos snort and hug him closer and be blinded by love; consumed by it, made complete by it.
Everything about TK makes him forget. But then it all comes back to him slowly, not unlike a spark to kindling, leaving Carlos swallowing down his grief like the fire it is—trying to consume it all by himself so he’s the only one who feels the burn.
He glances out the half-open window, and sees the white dots of birds drifting on the low tide, and he wonders how he’s supposed to leave it all. The salty air, the pleasant sun, the way TK walks without a line of tension in his shoulders. He knows they’ve transcended all different sorts of honeymoon phases since they gave their relationship a real go a few years ago; he knows that they’ll still be them once Owen picks them up from Austin-Bergstrom and they go home to the loft and work and responsibilities and Lou II. But he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go back to a life without his father. A life marked with such incredible loss, that haunts his mother and his sisters and everyone else in his family—including the new one he just inherited. A loss that makes him feel like he’s back where he was, a little kid wearing his dad’s boots. A loss that makes him taste ash in his mouth, a loss that makes him feel small and guilt-stricken and unworthy of TK’s grace, his strength, his love, because he’s right here and Carlos is stewing in his own thoughts on a couch made for two.
He’s here, making a small, sleepy sound, his eyes slowly blinking open as sunlight hits him square in the face, spinning gold into his hair. He stretches his limbs, curls his fingers in and out of the pillowcase. TK’s eyes land on Carlos, and he murmurs a quiet hey baby, and Carlos is drawn to him instantly; his attention immediately focused only on him. The ring clinks softly as he puts it down on the glass tabletop before he crosses the room in three large strides, dropping a knee onto the mattress. TK puts a hand on his waist, grinning up at him playfully around a yawn. “You watching over me or something?”
“Always,” Carlos says, his heart fluttering as he takes in TK looking at him with one eye still adorably squeezed shut. He drags his fingers through TK’s bedhead and feels something deep inside of him settle when his husband leans into the touch on instinct. “It’s hard not to, you know, since you’re so cute when you’re drooling.”
“Shut up,” TK grumbles, though he’s smiling too hard for it to have any bite. He’s been like this since they left Austin—smiling wide and without reason, nuzzling into Carlos’ side, lacing their fingers together and swinging their hands whether they’re just waiting for a table at a local restaurant or strolling along the beach. Carlos knows he’s basically been TK’s mirror, not willing to be discreet about the enormity of what he feels, and he wonders if strangers only have to give them a passing glance before they can just read it on their faces, in their body language, in their matching gold bands. It pleases him to realize that he wants them to know; wants everything he feels for his husband to be visible from the moon.
TK shuffles around, smiling at Carlos’ happy far-off look, before he pulls him more firmly down on top of him. He strokes over Carlos’ hipbone, just over a fading bruise from their first night, before something more serious passes over his face. Carlos’ stomach turns in anticipation.
"Everything okay?” TK asks, glancing over to the couch, the home of Carlos’ spirals, before meeting his husband’s eyes again. “You can talk to me, baby.”
Talking is probably Carlos’ least favourite thing to do, especially when it comes down to how he’s feeling; how he isn’t measuring up to what TK deserves on their honeymoon. He knows TK knows; he doesn’t question why, save for those first couple of days, Carlos has found it impossible to sleep in, content instead to sit and bask in the morning sunlight and watch TK sleep, watch his breaths, watch his tiny movements as he dreams. He doesn’t question why he puts so much distance between himself and TK just to think, even if all he craves is TK’s warmth, his touch, the feeling of him curled in his arms as he tries to get his mind to quiet down.
“Babe?”
“Yeah,” Carlos blinks, rapidly, and shakes his head just enough to produce a small, reassuring smile. “I’m just taking it all in,” he says, which isn’t a complete lie, not when he’s found himself staring in awe more than once at the sealife and the orange sky and the way it all glints off TK’s ring and his eyes and general happiness. “I can’t believe we leave tomorrow.”
“I know,” TK sighs, fingers dancing up Carlos’ side as he spares a glance toward the window. Carlos kisses his forehead for good measure, to quell any of his desire to push, finally, on their last day, why Carlos won’t open up to him. He doesn’t know how to tell him that he wants to let it all out—that he’s pretty sure he needs to—but doesn’t know how he’ll spool everything back inside himself once he cracks open. TK gives him a knowing look—the only kind that Carlos receives, these days, when they aren’t looks that could very well be full of shimmering, cartoon hearts—and softens, again, his tongue wetting his bottom lip. “We’ll just have to make the most of it today, then.”
His fingers keep dancing upward as he speaks, like he knows this is what Carlos needs, deep down. TK knows him, and he knows that if he won’t talk, they can at least communicate like this. He knows how Carlos will shiver and feel warm all at once when he brushes his thumb over his nipple, knows all his soft spots that make him feel seen. Carlos gets a thrill out of it just as much as he does over knowing that TK needs it, too. That he wants nothing more than to give in to their long-established give and take that brings their jagged edges together into one complete being; into something whole and practically glowing.
TK says his name quietly as he curls his index finger gently around the chain Carlos wears around his neck, cross warm and at home against his sternum, before he pulls ever so slightly. Carlos gets the idea, and ducks down to properly brace his arms over him and drop down to his elbows so every part of them can touch.
Except for where TK wants him most. His husband tilts his chin up and up and up, waiting and letting out a soft but disgruntled noise from the back of his throat.
"Baby,” TK grumbles, still a little sleepy but not enough to deter him from this, his bottom lip ghosting against the corner of Carlos’ mouth; his cheek scraping tantalizingly against Carlos’ stubble. His eyes are sparkling and they’re barely a breath apart and he only makes TK wait another half a second before Carlos can’t take it anymore; before he kisses him, more than a little addicted to the taste of TK, to the way the claws that belong to this past week release their hold on him just a little bit as he closes his eyes and feels TK’s lips moving against his.
As they kiss—as TK settles more firmly on his back and presses his knees to Carlos’ hips before clamping his legs around him completely—so many pleasant flashes of the last few days run through him; outweighing the nightmares and the breathlessness of grief.
He thinks of that first night, appreciating the sunset out on the private balcony, and how TK crowded him against the wall and dropped to his knees, golden-pink light washing over them as his husband took him apart with his skilled mouth. He thinks of the two of them spending the entire second morning out at the pool, lounging around all sun-kissed and warm, cooling off every once in a while in the clear blue water, and how Carlos was itching the whole time to get back to their room so he could peel TK out of his enticingly short and endearingly pink swim trunks; wanting nothing more than to spread him out on their wondrously huge bed and keep him there for hours. There’s still a pleasant ache that Carlos feels everywhere from just last night, when they’d cuddled on the couch, talking about nothing, until TK kissed him so reverently, putting everything that was too big to name into the way he held Carlos close to his chest and brought them both over the edge, mouth moving over Carlos’ neck and under his ear as they both fought back tears.
Carlos shivers when TK seems to remember, too—pressing his thumb to the bruise on the back of his neck, the one in the shape of TK’s mouth. When he teasingly moves his own hips, eliciting a breathy moan when TK’s pink lips part and eyes screw shut, hand drifting down from the back of Carlos’ neck to curl around his bicep, Carlos feels so big and so in love he could yell from the rooftops about it.
They sort of did, he guesses. In front of everyone, they vowed to take care of each other, to love each other, forever. Carlos kisses TK’s sternum, feeling the gentle thump of his beautiful heart under his lips, and he thinks I love you I love you I love you, more than you’ll ever know, as he works his way down.
They decide that making the most out of their last dull day means making it a slow one.
They come undone together in bed, and then again in the shower when TK grabs at him until Carlos presses his hands into the tiled wall above his head and kisses down his spine, and TK stays in his bouncy mood as they get dressed and hunt down breakfast someplace local. Carlos feels like his heart is in the clouds, walking around with his arm slung over TK’s shoulders as they move through shops and pick up little souvenirs and stop for sweet, deliciously cool iced coffees, ordering different items so they can share. TK bites on the end of his straw as he peruses a table with little ceramic figurines at one of the family-run shops they duck into, and Carlos barely bites back an endeared smile when TK tells him he’s on a mission to find the “funkiest little guys'' that they can take back to their friends. Pressing a kiss to his hair, Carlos leaves his husband and his determination and Carlos’ half-finished drink after TK demolished his own in seconds, carefully moving through tables as he runs his fingers over tapestries and handmade jewelry.
There’s one piece that makes him stop—an ornate set of earrings with tiny turquoise and opal stones—and think of his mom. His mom, who’s still dealing with life insurance and flooring companies and a bed that will be half-empty forever, who said she wouldn’t accept either of them trying to postpone their honeymoon and celebration because of what happened. He turns his father’s ring around and around where it’s a touch too loose on his pinky, and without second-guessing it he picks up the pair of earrings to bring home to her, to give her a slice of joy no matter how small.
He steps away and stops short for the second time in less than five minutes when he sees an array of cufflinks, all of them classic and simple and steeped in antiquated beauty. The kind of beauty that tells a story; the kind of beauty his father and mother layered into their home. Carlos feels a little bit like he’s breathing through a straw as he takes them in, because it’s exactly the sort of thing he’d bring home to his dad. Gabriel has— had —about thirty different pairs, from birthdays and Christmases and late-nights spent falling down internet rabbit holes, and he used them to complete outfits, to show care in his appearance both at work and with family.
Carlos was young when his sisters got married to their respective partners; old enough to attend and celebrate but young enough to complain about itchy suits and long hours. And yet he remembers how his dad contemplated heavily on the morning of each big day, trying to find which pair of cufflinks would best match his pocket-square. Carlos imagines it now: presenting both parents with tiny boxes wrapped in bows, sporting a tan and a wide smile and welcoming them over for dinner for the first time after they flew home, sharing stories of his and TK’s trip over green tea. He thinks of how this pair would be added to his father’s collection, sitting in wait for the best occasion, which would be something simple like family dinners because they’re worth the celebration.
But he won’t ever get that. Carlos swallows and suddenly everything on this table reminds him of his father: the rows of crosses, the chunky rings with simple stones, the earth tones and bronze statues and occasional pop of colour.
He takes the earrings and leaves the cufflinks, and finds TK at the front counter where his purchases are carefully being wrapped in parchment. He touches TK’s waist as he comes closer, his breath evening out and blurred vision becoming more focused as TK throws a bright smile his way, happy with his findings.
“Those are pretty,” TK tells him, curling his hand around Carlos’ bicep after the earrings have been rung-up. He smiles at the cashier and thanks her, turning to the cat lounging near the register and scratching behind its ears as they turn to leave.
“You think mom will like them?” Carlos asks, finding his voice once they’ve paid and slipped back out into the humid afternoon. He can’t help but to feel unsure, even if he knows deep down his mother would probably appreciate a t-shirt from the airport gift shop.
TK gives him a look. “Babe, she’ll love them. They’re beautiful, and they’re from you.”
“From us,” Carlos corrects, just so he can watch the way TK tries to bite back a smile at the implications; at the fact that forever, it’s the two of them, a unit, a force together against the world. Even when it comes to something as small as a souvenir.
“In that case, she’ll definitely love them,” TK says, positioning his sunglasses over his eyes after pulling them from where they’d been hooked to the collar of his shirt. Carlos kisses TK’s temple, just because he can, and TK playfully swats at his chest. “Speaking of your mom, dad texted me earlier and asked about her favourite lunch place. He wanted to check in with her, and I guess she’s going to come with him to pick us up tomorrow night, and I told him that was sweet of them—”
TK keeps talking, swinging their hands together. Carlos hates to admit that most of his words become white noise.
“—and it got me thinking maybe we could do like…weekly hangs with our parents? Maybe we can make more of an effort out of it—”
Because they only have so much time . Carlos reads between the lines, and his palms start to sweat. There’s his dad’s laugh, only it’s just a man down the road bellowing, clutching the shoulder of a vendor as they catch up and joke around, and Carlos’ jaw clenches. He should’ve bought the cufflinks. He should’ve thrown them into the ocean.
TK stops them in the shade, and squeezes his arm again. “Carlos, baby, are you—”
“I’m fine,” Carlos replies instantly, not even letting TK finish, pulling his husband closer to his side as he paints on a smile. “It’s a great idea.”
A million things pass over TK’s face, his eyes narrowing, bottom lip drawn between his teeth. Carlos moves in front of him and cups his face and strokes his thumbs over TK’s cheeks.
“‘m good, baby,” Carlos whispers, feeling like the worst person in the world for making his husband question it. He feels even worse for squishing his face a little, as he always does when he wants to pull a smile out, and suggesting they stop for ice cream at the hole in the wall they’d spotted a couple days ago, that can’t be too far from where they’re standing. “I think it was near here, right?”
TK nods, and looks like he wants to press, but he just takes Carlos’ hand when he offers it.
After stopping for ice cream, his throat going dry when he hands TK some of his and he slowly licks it from the tiny spoon, they decide to take the long way back to the hotel. They’ll hop in the pool and then have another shower before heading out for dinner, and Carlos feels a little overwhelmed: with love, with grief, with hitting a breaking point. He doesn’t want to, not here, and refuses to let TK see any of it. TK’s the bright spot, anyway, as he catches the attention of a stray dog and coos at him, as he tilts his face up toward the sun, as he does just about anything at all.
Most of all, Carlos feels it when he stares at TK’s ring.
It’s a reminder of something enduring beyond the greyness, as it shimmers and glints in the seemingly always golden sunlight, here; in the way TK spins the delicate band around and around as a subconscious habit that’s already formed so quickly into their marriage. He watches as TK pulls his phone from his back pocket and starts taking photos on their walk, aiming it at the horizon so he can post something to his stories. It’s been one of Carlos’ favourite pastimes these past few days—snuggled up at night with TK’s head on his chest, watching him scroll through his camera roll to see their honeymoon through his husband’s eyes. There’s lots of flowers, lots of dogs and other local animals, lots of attempts at artsy shots of their dinners, and of course, lots of Carlos; the two of them posed for a selfie in the gold mirror in the entryway to their suite, just their hands clasped together with their rings on display, sneaky shots of Carlos and nature, or Carlos studying menus, or Carlos getting wrapped up in the colour and life of the city around them, and, predictably, Carlos in varying states of undress—the types of photos that would result in TK holding his phone protectively against his chest and grin until it was kissed off his lips.
It shouldn’t surprise him when TK’s phone pans over to him, and Carlos realizes it’s a video as his husband’s thumbs move over the screen, likely zooming impossibly close to his face. Carlos rolls his eyes lovingly after giving TK exactly three seconds to record his profile in the slowly waning sun, his stomach flipping when TK winks at him before panning back toward the horizon, capturing the way the light dances across the waves.
He wants every possible experience with him. He wants to see the world with TK, wants to watch him record it all, wants to watch him desperately search for ice water after he tastes something off Carlos’ plate that’s past his spice tolerance, wants to dance in hotel rooms with him, wants to make love to him to different views of different sunsets. He softens even more when TK stares down happily at his phone, moving into the embrace of Carlos’ arms to show him the video he’s posted to his stories, a string of heart emojis and eyes emojis and palm tree emojis cutting across the screen.
“They’re going to be tired of seeing me all the time,” Carlos tells him, curling his arm tighter around TK’s waist, keeping him close, breathing him in. He drops a kiss to TK’s neck, a quiet apology for his mind drifting, earlier.
TK scoffs, and lets Carlos jostle him a bit as he turns in his arms. TK pokes at Carlos’ cheek, seemingly realizing they’re back to playing the everything’s fine! game as he drags the side of his finger over his coarse beard. “They’ll have to deal, because I just want to admire my gorgeous husband.”
“Funny coincidence,” Carlos says, cupping TK’s face. “That’s all I want to do, too.”
It makes him feel invincible, like no pain could ever seep into the cracks slowly opening in his heart, when TK laughs that honey-sweet giggle of his. When he kisses him, like it’s impossible not to.
After dinner at a small, intimate restaurant, where they filch off each other’s plates and share small plates of different desserts, they wind up in a smoky bar just off the beach, an atmosphere not unlike the honky-tonk they frequent back home with the team.
“I just wanna dance with you,” TK tells him, pulling him toward the propped open door, where music immediately greets them as they cross the threshold. Carlos beams, and takes in the way he’s bouncing on his heels already, and feels like he could burst with all that he feels.
There’s fliers for local bands taped to the walls and layers of conversation and the large room is already full of bustling bodies and dancing pairs, with only a handful of tables left vacant. There’s a good mix of locals and tourists, and they move carefully through the crowd of them all, Carlos pushing his sleeves to his elbows the moment they reach a table, warding off the heat. He gets a beer and TK scans the menu of mocktail specials, and Carlos gives himself a moment to breathe; to let the music of the seventies and eighties wash over him as TK glows under twinkling lights. It’s hard to talk, here, but TK watches the dancing and wordlessly reaches across the table to take Carlos’ hand, and he laces their fingers together, thumb swiping over TK’s ring to the rhythm of his heartbeat.
The house band is putting their spin on hits by ABBA and the Bee-Gees, the familiar riffs beckoning people toward the dance floor with a gravitational pull. TK beams and slurps down half his virgin mojito, already halfway out of his seat at their high top table as he shimmies a little to the beat. Carlos watches him, and he loves him, loves him more than anything, watching his husband in his mostly unbuttoned shirt and rolled up sleeves, as he grins and tries to keep up with the beat and crowds into Carlos’ space. Carlos meets him halfway and he hums into the kiss, plastering his hand to the back of TK’s neck, TK tasting like fresh mint and a hint of lime. Their noses brush and when their foreheads press together, Carlos feels the coolness of TK’s wedding ring against his skin, and he practically buzzes over it, the same way he did that night of their wedding.
“So?” TK asks, mouth still inches away from Carlos’ own. “Dance with me?”
Carlos can’t ever imagine telling him no.
He feels alive as he moves with TK, with his husband, their matching gold bands and lovesick smiles linking them intrinsically together on the dance floor. TK’s brighter than he’s ever been, singing along and curling one arm tight around Carlos’ neck. They bump into bodies around them but nothing matters except this, the two of them together under the lights. Carlos’ only focus is TK until the song shifts, and the familiar intro strikes him with a memory: him at thirteen, watching as Ana and her friends sing loudly and off-key in the basement covered with half-made pillow forts, dancing along with remote controls in their hands as makeshift microphones. Their father had been on shift, a long overnight that would unknowingly fade into three long days of him not coming home. Carlos already missed him, watching his sisters use the telephone in the kitchen before and after school to call him, watching his mother whisper a silent prayer for his safety. Carlos just wanted his dad.
A recurring theme, he’d come to realize, and it all hits him again.
Carlos blinks and he’s five, he’s eight, he’s twelve, slowly aging out of being able to run to his father in the middle of the night, slowly growing too big, too gangly, for the pyjamas printed with footballs and dinosaurs and trucks. Carlos blinks and he’s sixteen, scrubbing the dirt from his knuckles after helping his cousins at their family ranch, listening to their deep voices sharing stories and jokes he forced himself to laugh at; he’s seventeen and feeling too big and too small all at the same time, towering over his parents and bowing his shoulders as he brings their world crashing down around them. He’s too old for his father to hold him, to promise him the monsters will never get close enough to touch him, to be gently rocked as he cries after a nightmare. Part of him is angry that so much of his time was lingering in a shadow, a legacy that made him hollow and upset, and yet Carlos, at his core, just wants his dad.
He misses him. He misses him like he misses air when he pushes himself that half a mile too hard too fast and his lungs constrict. He feels like that little version of himself in that grainy video that’s been replaying in his mind, caught in time, left in free fall without his papa there to catch him. Carlos’ breath catches in his throat and he squeezes once, twice at TK’s waist, fingers dragging over the enticing warmth of his skin as he slips his hands out from under his shirt and murmurs something about needing some air. The music is loud, the voices singing along to the familiar chorus are loud, and yet the flash of concern across TK’s face is somehow louder. He lets him go, but TK’s eyes follow him as he slips out of the bar, as he inhales the salty fresh air, as he’s greeted with the calming silence of the tide crashing against the beach.
He glances at his watch and realizes they have ten hours until they’re on a plane. Ten hours until they’re meant to face it all with a renewed sense of composure, and yet the last thing in the world he can imagine is going home; is facing anything at all.
Carlos kicks off his shoes and rolls his pants up to his knees, the sand warm and comforting beneath his toes, eyes trained on the coming and going of the tide.
“You thinking of going in?”
Carlos turns at TK’s voice, inherently drawn to the lilt of it, and he curls his arms over his stomach as TK approaches. His shoes have been abandoned, too, the flaps of the bottom of his shirt blowing gently in the breeze as he undoes one more button, a slight sheen of sweat from dancing glistening on the bare skin he keeps exposed.
“I’d be down,” TK continues, slowly sidling up to him. “Might be refreshing, you know?”
Carlos shakes his head, and drags his hands down his face. Quietly, barely to be heard over the lapping water, he murmurs, “I’m sorry.”
The moonlight shimmers over the waves, and it’s something mesmerizing, something that almost takes the pain away, but he can’t let it. Carlos feels something in his gut twist when TK takes his hand; when, instead of gravitating toward Carlos’ wedding band as he has these past several days, he rubs his thumb over Gabriel’s ring, touching the stone with a gentle reverence that makes Carlos’ eyes burn more.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Carlos,” TK finally says, after nothing but the sea has accompanied their silence for several minutes. “Do you remember what I said? In my vows?”
Carlos furrows his brows as he turns, getting his full of TK’s profile; the way the moonlight makes his jaw sharper, the swoop of his eyelashes a little more pronounced. “Of course I do, TK.”
“I meant all of it,” TK tells him, slowly meeting Carlos’ gaze. His eyes are shiny and the gleam they had on the dance floor has faded into something softer, something sincere, a look saved for Carlos and Carlos alone. “I’m not going anywhere. We promised each other, right?”
“I—,” Carlos hesitates, his throat suddenly thick with tears. He clenches his jaw and feels the muscle jump under his skin, only for TK to stroke his thumb there, seconds later, moving on instinct to soothe. He ducks his head when tears collect and become pin-pricks in the corners of his eyes, always finding this part—the part where he breaks, right down the middle, and everything he’s been holding in for so long starts spooling out onto the ground—the hardest to grapple with.
"Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to hide from me, baby,” TK whispers, his voice as soft and lulling as the tide that washes over their bare feet. After a moment, where Carlos fights back his tears and TK holds him close, he speaks again: “Talk to me?”
It’s a long-practiced dance between them; one shuts down and one begs to be allowed in. TK’s so much stronger than he is, because he’s been doing this the whole trip—since their wedding day, since the memorial, since the night Carlos heard his mother screaming over the phone—and TK doesn’t waver; doesn’t push; doesn’t threaten to walk. Carlos wonders if he even deserves TK. If the smartest thing would’ve been for him to postpone the wedding indefinitely, to pack a bag, to ask for some space. How could he love someone like Carlos, who was going to take a life? How could he love someone like Carlos, who can’t even look at a pair of cufflinks without breaking down, and then refuse to talk about it? How could he—
“Carlos,” TK says, breaking through the noise. “I’m here. Breathe.”
He does what he’s told. His eyes squeeze shut and then open again, and TK is holding Carlos’ hand and has it pressed to his chest. He exhales shakily, again and again, and when TK looks at him imploringly, lovingly, something snaps into place.
“I don’t know how to do this, TK,” Carlos tells him, the simplest truth. Because he’s already exposing himself, his voice trembles as he adds: “I don’t know how you aren’t mad at me.”
TK looks bewildered, eyebrows furrowing. “Mad at you? Baby, what are you—”
“I love you, you know? So much,” Carlos says hurriedly, flexing his fingers against TK’s chest. “So much. And you don’t deserve someone who’s—who’s shutting down, and making a mess of everything. I don’t want you to have to deal with me when I’m—”
“—grieving?” TK cuts in, eyes glistening. “Angry? Sad? Baby, I’m not…I’m not dealing with you. I’m loving you. I love you. Why would you ever be undeserving of that?”
Suddenly, Carlos is back in the stoic, stone-like body he lived in after the fire; the breakdown that was silent and consisted of passive-aggression and isolation. He thinks of how he retreated inwards until TK told him they were going on a walk and they did so for what seemed like hours, no destination in mind, moving until their muscles burned, until he finally broke open and talked and couldn’t stop. The dam breaking loose. Suddenly, Carlos is shaking as he rides up the elevator, unsure of how to handle the missed texts from his mother and sisters and friends and even Owen, who was making sure he got home safe, even though he put Carlos in the Uber. He thinks of the last time he’d come home late, a box with a bearded dragon in it in his hands, wondering if he’d ruined it all. He thinks of dropping to one knee on instinct in the dim light of the loft, sure of one thing and one thing only, even if he didn’t have enough words in the world to explain it.
“Carlos,” TK says, watching him slowly unravel and loving him anyway. Carlos always loves it, the melodic sound of his name coming from TK’s mouth, and it brings him back down to this moment just enough. “You know that I know how grief can just…chew you up and spit you out. And I don’t—I’ll never know exactly how you feel. But you loved me. You stood by me, when it was my mom, when I was just…a wreck, right?”
Carlos nods, unable to speak.
TK strokes his thumb under Carlos’ eye. “So let me do the same, okay?”
Carlos does what he’s needed to for a week: he crumples.
With the waves crashing around their feet, Carlos falls into the open embrace of TK’s arms; feels put back together, even a little bit, when TK kisses his hair and rubs his hand in soothing circles between his shoulder blades. “You’ve got me now, Carlos. Forever,” TK murmurs, a teasing lilt in his voice. “Have fun trying to get rid of me.”
Carlos laughs wetly into TK’s shoulder, and feels more tears fall, soaking TK’s pretty linen shirt. He doesn’t seem to care. The weight of it all leads to them dropping unceremoniously to the ground, uncaring of the damp sand or occasional splash of the tide. TK just holds him close like he would at night when the nightmares flash, and kisses him wherever he can, and tucks his hand up and under Carlos’ sleeve so he can rub his thumb over the bare skin of his arm.
This, here, Carlos realizes, is his heart. A living and breathing person holding him close, murmuring promises that it’ll be okay, letting him cry. He pulls back just a little, eyes still closed as he pushes their foreheads together, wondering how many couples break down in front of the ocean on the last night of their honeymoon.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner,” Carlos says, everything spilling out now. “I’m sorry I ruined tonight.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” TK insists, and Carlos doesn’t fully believe him, but he’ll try to. “And it’s okay, baby. I hate that you were feeling it alone, but it’s okay. I’m just—I need you to know that I’m here. Whenever you need it. Even if it’s the middle of the night, the middle of a shift, it doesn’t matter, okay?”
Carlos nods, and after a beat remembers suddenly, “You wanted to dance.” For the second time in one day, he feels like the worst person in the world, because he opens his eyes and sees TK’s face wet with tears of his own. It’s hard for one of them to cry without the other following suit, both of them feeling too much; so much that it’s hard to contain it all.
TK doesn’t let him feel that way for long. TK shushes him, and touches his face with his left hand, a habit as natural as breathing for them. “We still have time. Besides, this is nice.”
It is nice. The lull of the waves. The greyish-purple sky, accented with the white light of the moon. The two of them tangled together, limbs over limbs and cheeks pressed together.
“Thank you,” Carlos whispers, and TK glances at him sideways—a silent for what?— and Carlos sees it again—sees the light that brims within his husband, the light TK didn’t know he himself contained. He decides here and now that when they get home he's going to make himself change his need to hide, to bury everything deep; he's going to talk to TK about anything, about everything, even if it hurts; even if it makes him feel small. He'll take it all one day at a time, one thing keeping him sure and afloat. He brushes his nose against TK's. “I love you.”
TK’s eyes crinkle. They always do when Carlos says it. TK’s hand drifts down to hover over his heart, and Carlos remembers his promise, to take care of and nurture his heart, like it’s his own, and he feels that vow coming to life already, just as he felt it when TK brought him back to life. Just as he felt when he strolled across the honky-tonk and asked a boy— the boy—to dance.
It’ll take a few moments, both of them easily losing track of time, but they do end up back in the bar, with damp pants and fresh tears drying on their faces, and Carlos will ask TK to dance to a song his mother used to love blasting in the car. He’ll ask him to dance, again and again, and TK will laugh and they’ll come to life on the floor. They’ll dance and they’ll kiss and they’ll collapse into bed at two in the morning, smelling of sea salt and lime and sweat, and neither of them will care.
For now, TK just knocks their foreheads together, and his eyes continue to crinkle, his cheeks straining from his smile. Carlos wants to live in this forever, and knows they’ll bring it back home with them: this enduring strength, this enduring love, this enduring promise of forever. It still makes his stomach flip, after all, when TK tells him, not for the first time and not for the last: “I love you too.”