Work Text:
“You look good, buddy.”
Carlos ducks his head to hide a bashful smile. He’s been on leave since he was shot a few weeks ago. Since he discovered the new boss who’d taken Carlos under his wing and become his mentor, who’d spent decades working by his father’s side and gave the eulogy at his funeral, was also his father’s murderer. Since the day that man who’d groomed Carlos from the moment his dad was shot dead in his own doorway, pretending to support his personal investigation and manipulating a grieving son to suspect anyone but him, had raised the same gun he’d used to take his father’s life and tried to snuff Carlos’s own out as well.
The time off seems to have done him well. He’s looser than he’s ever been in all the years she’s known him, finally breaking free from the weight he’s been carrying for the past year, under the burden of being the one who must solve his father’s murder. It’s a familiar burden to her, not of solving a crime, but feeling the pressure to be the dutiful child, to carry forward the family legacy and all the expectations that come along with that. It’s a lot to wade through. She knows Carlos struggled with the burden for a long time before his father’s passing, that he felt hamstrung by the expectations, crushed under all that pressure.
But tonight he’s relaxed, and she hopes the closure he’s gotten from finally closing the case will bring along with it some peace and perspective on his relationship with his father. He looks soft and content in the warm light of the loft, wrapped in a slightly oversized gray sweater with sleeves that drape down past his hands. The beard he’s been growing makes him look younger, the warm smile he’d greeted her with when she got here hasn’t left his face, and the fond twinkle in his eye whenever he glances across the room at TK comes easily.
“Thanks, chica” he says, tilting his head so he can look up at her from under his lashes. A coy smile creeps across his face. “TK’s been taking good care of me.”
She nods and accepts the cup of tea he slides across the counter towards her. It’s in the green ceramic mug, the one with southwest cacti molded into the sides. It’s her favorite, and she smiles at the gesture. Carlos and TK always make sure that their home feels like hers as well, Carlos told her years ago that she spends enough time here, it’s only right that she feels comfortable. Along with a regularly replenished stock of her favorite tea in the cupboard – the spiced mint loose leaf she used to buy at her and her sister’s favorite boutique back in Miami where they bought their Eid abayas and their scarves and hijabs, she started ordering it online when she moved to Austin, and now TK does too – there’s always a supply of the lemon cookies she and TK discovered at the Asian market in East Austin a few years ago and can never get enough of, the fuzzy socks that TK always lets her borrow when they have movie marathons and Carlos has the AC turned up high, and, of course, her old pal Lou Two. She loves to let him sit on her shoulder while she feeds him cucumbers and celery, and to set him on the Roomba and let him ride around the living room.
She feels comfortable here, in this loft, in a way she rarely has in any home that’s not her own. It’s not the tea or the food or the fuzzy socks. It’s the way TK can get her to belly laugh so hard, the kind of laugh where the more you try to stop it, the harder you laugh until there’s tears running down your cheeks and snot coming out of your nose. The kind of laugh she hadn’t shared with anyone since she was a teenager, free and easy with her sister by her side. It’s the way Carlos is always so steady and calm, how he knows the way she and TK need each other, how he encourages their friendship in little ways, inviting her over and cooking them a delicious meal, kissing TK’s cheek once the food’s in the oven and telling them he’ll be back in a few hours. The way he’ll text her sometimes to check in when she’s had a rough day, because TK told him she was feeling down.
As a woman who wears a hijab, she carries with her a certain awareness when she goes out into the world. A lingering voice that reminds her that her very existence is considered a political act by some people in the Western world. As a result she lives a lot of her public life with a guard up, even just slightly. The places where she feels truly comfortable to let down her walls, to relax and be herself, are few and she cherishes them when she finds them. She’s not sure how much of this TK and Carlos have picked up on, but having a place like this where she’s surrounded by the comforts of home and people who love her unconditionally, who may not understand everything about her but are willing to listen anyway; it means more to her than she’d ever be able to tell them in words.
She loves the way they are together in this home, the way they love each other. There’s an ease to it, a steadiness and a warmth that makes these brick walls feel like a home. The love that fills this loft makes the place feel safe and welcoming. And when she’s here she always feels embraced by it, wrapped in the love of family. It’s like sinking into a warm tub or climbing into a bed made with freshly washed sheets.
Theirs is a love she’s been striving to find for herself, ever since she broke off her marriage arrangement and found herself alone, wondering if she’d ever find a partner. On nights when she laid awake thinking about the kind of person she wanted to be with, the love and comfort she wanted in a relationship, the respect she wanted to share with someone while challenging each other to grow, she usually found herself thinking about TK and Carlos.
She thinks she’s found that with Joe. If she hasn’t screwed it all up.
“You look good too,” Carlos says, turning his back to her so he can cross the kitchen and fetch his own tea. He pulls the tea bag out and drops it in the trashcan on his way to the fridge, where he pulls out a carton of oat milk. When he’s doctored his tea the way he likes it and returned to the counter where she’s settled on one of the stools, he stands across from her and nods in the direction of the living room. “How was today?”
Marjan and TK had the day off, TK’s first since he returned to work after a week of helping Carlos recover from his injuries, physical and otherwise. They spent the day with her parents who are in town for their first visit since Marjan moved to Austin five years ago. They would have visited earlier, but life and circumstances got in the way; pandemics and injuries and near-fatal illnesses have kept her parents in Miami. Now that they’re free to travel, their first trip was to Austin. They wanted to see the life their daughter has made for herself here, meet the family she’s built and, finally, meet her boyfriend.
“It was good,” she says, a genuine smile crossing her face at all the memories they made in this one short day. She pulls out her phone to show him pictures, scrolling through a gallery of her and her parents, TK and her mom in front of the I Love You So Much mural, Marjan and her dad with the Willie Nelson statue, TK holding a tiny green lizard on his finger, a cheesy smile on his face while Marjan’s dad scowls in the background.
“Oh god, do I need to check his pockets?” Carlos asks with a shudder.
“No, he was good,” she laughs, locking her phone and sliding it back in her pocket. “My dad wouldn’t have let him back in the car if he even tried.”
A laugh from the living room pulls their attention. TK and Marjan’s parents are sitting on the couch. TK’s sitting in between them so he can show them pictures of Jonah on his iPad. Her mom has been asking questions about Jonah all day, what is he like, what kinds of toys does he like to play with, what size does he wear. Marjan is sure that there will be a huge delivery of presents for Jonah at the loft by the time her parents touch back down in Miami.
TK must be showing them the kids furniture website he’s been browsing for a couple days now, because she can hear him gearing up for his rant about the lack of ambulance beds for toddlers.
“How are you feeling about all that?” Marjan asks, raising a knowing eyebrow when Carlos turns his eyes back to her.
“I’m sure TK’s filled you in,” he says with a shrug.
He has. She knows they argued about what to do about TK’s little brother, the three year old who faced a 15-year sentence in a cold boarding school in Switzerland, half a world away from the only family he had left, if TK and Carlos didn’t step in.
She got two phone calls that morning. The first from Carlos, from his car on his drive in to work, asking her to check in on TK because he didn’t like the way they’d left things in the wake of that argument. He said TK had shut down in a way that always worried him, that they’d been unable to finish their conversation but he knew TK was hurt. The call from TK came almost immediately after she hung up with Carlos, telling her he had a pie emergency – their code word for when they needed to meet to discuss a major life event – and asking her to meet him at Hattie’s, their favorite diner, to discuss it over slices of blackberry crumble and chocolate meringue.
And she heard even more about it on the almost eight hour drive to the hospital in Presidio when Carlos was shot. She gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, going ten to twenty over the speed limit on the highway the entire way while TK sat in the passenger seat, oscillating between worrying that he’d been a terrible husband because he’d argued with Carlos before he left, and worrying that he’d been a terrible brother to Jonah. In the end all he really needed was to see Carlos with his own eyes, to see he was okay, to hold him in his arms and to finally talk everything through.
Marjan had listened and encouraged TK throughout the entire ordeal, but she’d never had any doubt that he and Carlos would end up on the same page. Deep down, she thinks TK knew that all along too.
“Yeah but I wanna hear how you’re doing with all of this,” she says, reaching across the counter to poke at his forearm with an outstretched index finger until he laughs and swats her hand away.
“Honestly,” Carlos says with a small smile, his eyes giving away his quiet joy. “I’m kind of excited? It caught me off guard at first. I didn’t think we’d be talking about kids for at least a few more years. And I was so wrapped up in everything with my dad. But Jonah’s such a sweet kid. And I’m ready to put the last year behind me, to start making new memories with TK. To maybe pass on some of the good memories I have from my dad to another kid.”
She smiles, remembering going to baseball games with Carlos and his dad, she always enjoyed tagging along with TK and Paul. Summer evenings spent watching the local minor league team, The Austin Weirdos, was one of Gabriel and Carlos’s favorite pastimes when Carlos was a kid; a tradition that stopped when Carlos reached his teens and was rekindled a few years before he died. It’s one that Carlos and his friends have carried on since Gabriel’s passing, a small way of keeping his memory alive. Carlos and Paul drink cheap beer and bicker over the White Sox and Astros’ batting averages while TK and Marjan eat hot dogs and ogle the butts in baseball pants.
Marjan has no doubt that Carlos will pass the tradition on to Jonah, teaching him how to eat sunflower seeds and the best conditions for base stealing. He’ll buy Jonah a hat and a jersey, feed him all the cotton candy and Dippin’ Dots he can eat and at the end of the night he’ll let him ride on his shoulders all the way back to the car.
“You’re gonna be an amazing dad, Carlos. Or guardian. Or brother-in-law-ther…” she trails off with a laugh, waving a hand in front of her face. “I don’t know what he’s gonna call you guys.”
“I think we’ll let him decide.”
She hooks a thumb over her shoulder. “How come you’re not over there lobbying for the cop car bed?”
“Oh,” he shrugs, diverting his eyes. “I dunno, I'm deferring that stuff to TK. It’s his brother.”
“No. No way.”
She puts a hand down on the counter and he scrunches his brow. At his bewildered look she continues.
“You guys are doing this together, Carlos. He’s TK’s brother but he’s gonna be both of yours. You can’t just ‘defer to TK.’”
“I just–” he pauses and looks down at his feet, bracing his hands on the counter while he takes a moment to gather his thoughts before looking back up at her. “I think I just need him to know that I support him, you know? One hundred percent. When we first talked about it, I told him I didn’t have the bandwidth, that neither of us knew what we were doing when it came to raising a toddler. We’ve talked about it and we’ve both apologized for the things we said. But… I think I’m always gonna regret it.”
She nods in understanding, she definitely gets what it’s like, saying something in the heat of the moment and regretting it instantly. Spending weeks beating yourself up for words that came out wrong, slipping out past a tongue that’s been sharpened from sleep deprivation and stress. How sometimes forgetting is so much harder than forgiving.
But couples fight, and while words can do harm, she knows actions do a hell of a lot more to show one’s heart. Carlos has chosen TK over and over. He’s chosen to put aside his fears, the deep-seeded feelings of inadequacy he has about fatherhood, in order to give Jonah a chance at a childhood spent in a loving home. As someone who’s spent a lot of time in this home, she knows Jonah couldn’t have found a kinder or more inviting one.
“Carlos, this is a really big thing you two are deciding to do. It’s normal for couples to fight over things like this–”
“It wasn’t a fight.”
“Fine,” she rolls her eyes. “It’s normal to have a thing over things like this. But you worked it out, together, and you came out stronger. You’re a team, and he’s gonna need you to be his partner in this. Not just a yes man.”
“I know,” he sighs, glancing over her shoulder again to catch a glimpse of TK. “I’ll talk to him. I just want him to have everything he wants. He deserves it. So does Jonah.”
“So do you.”
“Thanks, Marj.” He blows on his tea before taking a tentative sip, waggling his eyebrows at her from behind his mug. “So. How was dinner with Joe last night?”
“Ugh.” She buries her face in her hands. “A complete disaster.”
“Oh no,” he says, his tone full of concern. He rounds the counter to take a seat on the stool next to her. “What happened?”
She peeks up at him from between her fingers. “I freaked out.”
“About what? I thought you said you were sure your parents were gonna love Joe.”
“I lied,” she groans. She knows the only one she was really lying to was herself. “I freaked out about everything. They started asking all these questions, where are you gonna live, who’s gonna stay home with the kids. And suddenly everything me and Joe had already talked about, none of it seemed good enough.”
“For them,” he asks with a kind smile. “Or for you?”
Sometimes she hates how similar they are. How well he understands her, despite coming from completely different cultures. He knows her true fears and motivations because they’re the same as his. She can’t bullshit him like she can with pretty much everyone else.
She grabs a lemon cookie from the package Carlos set out while he was preparing their tea and dips it in her mug for something to do with her hands.
“I just really hate disappointing them,” she says, voice low in the way it goes when she’s feeling vulnerable and disappointed in herself.
“I get that,” he says, sly smile crossing his face as he props an elbow on the counter so he can rest his jaw on his palm. “Do you know how I introduced TK to my parents?”
She sends him a skeptical look as the memory sparks in her mind.
“The time when you guys bumped into them and you introduced him as your work friend?” She teases. “Yes I remember it vividly. He was so upset, I think we killed like six pieces of pie that night.”
“He was big mad,” Carlos says wistfully.
“Oh yeah.”
“But then he came back,” he says, big brown eyes filling with awe. “And he was so sweet and understanding. So thanks for whatever you said.”
“It didn’t take much, he really loves you,” she shrugs. “Joe was mad last night too.”
“I know I broke TK’s heart a bit that night,” he says sadly, turning to catch a quick glimpse of TK over his shoulder. “I’d been thinking about it for a while, that I needed to figure out a way to at least tell them about him. I knew he was the one, that I was gonna be with him forever, if he would let me. I’d even been practicing it in my head, what I would say to them. Mom, Dad, I met someone. His name is TK and I’m in love with him. But when we ran into them, I dunno, I just panicked. I kept thinking about how disappointed they would be, how broken my heart would be if they looked at me with disgust or shame. So, I broke his heart instead. I hated myself for it.”
“Were you worried that they wouldn’t like him?”
“Oh no,” he smiles, eyes lighting up with a mixture of emotions that the memory has undoubtedly stirred up. “I knew they would love him.”
“But you thought they wouldn’t love you with him.”
“Yeah.”
“Because he’s not Catholic,” she jokes.
“Yeah,” he laughs, sobering as he runs a finger around the rim of his mug, voice softer when he continues. “You know, when I came out to my parents, they hugged me and they told me they loved me. They said everything you’re supposed to say when your kid comes out. They told me I was still their son, and that it didn’t change anything. But it did. I felt a change, you know?”
She nods.
“Oh, I know. I remember when I called my parents to tell them I broke up with Salim. I was so scared of what they would say. I knew they would be devastated, that it would cause a rift between the families. That people would talk. But… They told me that they loved me, that they understood and that they respected my decision.” She pauses and lets out a breath. “I still felt the shift.”
As a girl, Marjan never had to do anything to earn her parents' love. It was ever present. They were constantly bragging about her to anyone who would listen.
Our daughter, the striker. She scored two goals on Saturday.
Our daughter, the president of the Math and Engineering Club for Women of Color. She got a 4.0 gpa.
Our daughter, the firefighter. She graduated at the top of her class and broke tons of records on her physical abilities test scores.
Her parents have always told her she could do anything she wanted. They raised her to be strong, resilient and respectful. Steady in her faith, both in Allah and in herself. She’s always strived to be the best, not to just finish the race but to win it. And to break barriers while doing so.
She’s spent a lifetime making her parents proud. She's never been comfortable with the idea of disappointing them.
“I think I felt like I’d let them down,” she continues. “So I needed to work twice as hard to make them proud.”
“I felt the same way when I broke off my marriage to Iris,” Carlos replies. “I remember the look on my mom’s face, how stern my dad was when he reminded me that in our religion, marriage is an agreement we make forever.”
He looks down at his hands. When he starts to speak again there’s a roughness to his voice.
“They’d never talked to me about my sexuality after the night I came out. It made me feel like– like even though they said they still loved me, there was this part of me they didn’t like?” He sighs and his shoulders slump with it. “I think I felt like I’d failed to live up to all the expectations of being a Reyes man, and I thought if I married a woman it would make them proud. That I could just live with it because the alternative of disappointing them was too much. But I realized really fast that marriage wasn’t something I could just grin and bear my way through, Iris and I both knew it wasn’t right.” He shrugs. “In the end I just disappointed everyone.”
“But when you met TK, you knew? It felt right?”
“I did,” he smiles fondly, his eyes going soft as they move to find TK across the room. “I knew from the first night we met. He changed my whole world in an instant. I felt like I could breathe, you know? Like he just slotted right in and filled this hole that had been inside me my whole life.”
He raises a finger when she opens her mouth to respond. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asks innocently.
“Don’t make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke right now, Marwani.”
She can’t help the stupid giggle that escapes her mouth.
“You make it too easy, Reyes.”
He brings a hand up to rub his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “I swear to god, you and TK are the same person sometimes.”
“That’s why you love me,” she sings.
“Uh huh,” he waves a hand. “Anyway. My parents ended up surprising me when they finally met TK. They loved him immediately, that wasn’t the surprise, everyone loves him. But I could feel it, in the way my mom asked him to tell them how we met and in the grip of my dad’s hand when he shook mine at the end of the night. They didn’t just love him because of how sweet he is, they could see how happy he made me.”
“They just wanted you to be happy.”
“They did, and it was like this huge weight I’d been carrying around since I was 17 just–” he snaps a finger. “Disappeared. I wish we’d talked about it sooner.”
“Do you feel like you wasted a lot of time?” She asks. “Because I do. But when I try to talk to them, I don’t know, I just– I lose my edge.”
“Firefox, losing her edge?” He scoffs playfully.
She swats at his arm. “Shut up.”
He laughs and leans back on his stool to avoid her flailing hand. She waves it at him again, gesturing for him to answer her question.
“I do,” he finally says. “Feel like I wasted a lot of time, in a way… I feel like I lost a lot of it with my dad. My mom’s told me that they were waiting for me to bring it up.” A sad smile crosses his face. “They didn’t want to make me uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.”
“It’s so hard,” she says weakly. “Being bold with them, direct about what I want. Because what am I supposed to do if they reject me? They’re my parents.”
“I was scared too,” he agrees. “But I wish I had been bolder with them, and I think it’s always going to be one of my biggest regrets in life, not introducing him to them on my own terms. TK deserved that, but I think even more than that, I deserved it. Instead they figured it out on their own, and I never got the chance to stand in front of them and tell them, ‘this is who I am and this is who I love.’”
“I get that.”
“We’d been dating for a year before they met him. I didn’t start really building a relationship with my dad until after they met TK, until he saw me with a man and told me that he accepted me for all of what I was. Now that he’s gone, I think a lot about what my relationship with him could have been like, how much stronger it could have been, if I’d introduced him to TK even six months earlier. We were just starting to really open up to each other and figure each other out when he died.”
She swallows. Her own father has been battling an incurable cancer for the last few years. He’s on the mend, his treatments have been helping reduce the cancer in his body and he’s finally feeling well enough to travel, to see his daughter’s home and meet her friends. She knows how fleeting life is just as well as Carlos does, and she doesn’t want to waste any of that time either.
“I don’t wanna live with regrets,” she says, sitting up a little straighter on her stool. “Do you know what Joe said to me after we left dinner? He asked me if I was a mouse or a firefox.”
“Damn, that’s cold,” he winces, tapping a finger on the counter. “Well, which are you?”
“It’s different with them,” she sighs. “I respect them so much. They’ve given me everything, supported me when I’ve gone against the expectations for a woman in my culture. My job? Breaking off my marriage arrangement? I’ve put them through so much, I don’t think I could be happy in a life that they didn’t approve of.”
“What about Joe?” he asks, empathy softening his face. “I completely understand not wanting to disappoint your parents. Feeling the pressure of all those expectations. ‘Don’t be too soft, don’t be too proud. Don’t just compete, be the best.’ It would have killed me to feel like I failed them, to let them down. But I couldn’t have given TK up.”
“I don’t want to give him up, I love him,” she sighs. “I’ve never felt like this about anybody. He makes me feel so happy, like the world is a little brighter when I’m with him. He makes me laugh. He really sees me, you know?”
He nods. Of course he knows.
“Well,” he says, reaching out a hand to squeeze her shoulder. “I think you know what you need to do.”
She lets out an exaggerated groan. “What’s that?”
He leans in conspiratorially, scrunching his eyebrows as he whispers to her.
“Be a firefox.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs, pushing his face away and making him laugh too.
They’re interrupted by TK as he approaches from behind and wraps his arms around Carlos’s shoulders.
“What are my two favorite people talking about over here, hmm?”
“You,” they both say simultaneously.
“That’s what I like to hear,” TK says fondly, resting his chin on Carlos’s shoulder and smiling at Marjan with a familiar glint in his eye. She recognizes that look instantly, he’s pleased with himself. And a fondly annoying realization dawns on her - he brought her back here on purpose, he insisted on Marjan and her parents coming over for dinner because he wanted her to sit here and have this conversation with Carlos, the one person in the world who would truly understand her situation.
That little turd.
She sticks her tongue out at TK when Carlos’s attention is on his tea. She receives a cheeky grin in response before he turns his gaze back on Carlos.
“Baby, can we order dinner soon? I’m starving and Mr. Marwani keeps talking about this steak he had in South Beach a few weeks ago and I think I could eat a whole cow.”
“A whole cow?” Carlos chuckles. “Here, have a cookie.”
She watches them fondly, noticing the way the light reflects off of Carlos’s wedding ring as he dutifully feeds TK a cookie. The sweet smile on TK’s face and the way the corners of his eyes crease when he laughs at something Carlos says softly to him. The look of complete adoration on Carlos’s own face, the way his cheeks have gone a little pink as he pulls out his phone and begins searching for steak restaurants that deliver, saying that her dad won’t know real steak til he’s tried a Texas T-Bone. TK bites his lip and leans his chin on Carlos’s shoulder again so he can look at the screen as he scrolls, pointing a finger and telling Carlos to scroll back up when he sees something he likes.
It’s sweet and it’s domestic and it’s everything they both deserve. It’s everything she wants.
Tonight, she decides, she’s not just letting the love that surrounds her in this home comfort her, she’s going to let it embolden her too.
She knows what she wants and she knows what she needs to do to get it.
She needs to be a firefox.