Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Colorado River is beautiful, sparkling in the afternoon sun invitingly as Carlos, TK, and a very impatient Jonah move toward the riverbank. Fluffy lines of clouds paint over the blue of the sky, green treetops stretching up towards them, and the whole thing is stunning beyond belief. To Carlos, though, it doesn’t hold a candle to the sight of his husband and baby brother-in-law practically skipping along towards their destination. Carlos follows them close behind, laden with both a picnic blanket and a stocked cooler for their plans.

“TK! I see water!” Jonah tugs hard on TK’s hand, attempting to break free and, probably, to go cannonball into running water.

TK sends Carlos a look of fond exasperation over his shoulder.

“I see it too, bud,” he assures, tapping into his ex-firefighter strength to keep Jonah by his side. Keeping up with Jonah is a full-time arm workout, some days – not that Carlos will ever be caught complaining about any activity that puts TK’s gorgeous upper body to use.

“Are there fishies in the water?” Jonah asks it with a subsequent full-body wiggle, as if the thought is so exciting he can’t possibly keep still.

“There sure are,” Carlos tells him. He jogs ahead a few steps, wanting to get the blanket down like a red carpet, but also to block Jonah’s path to the river. Just in case.

“Lots and lots of fishies!” TK confirms, squatting down to tickle Jonah’s belly playfully. He’s in a particularly adorable era of loving tickles and pokes. Carlos knows it won’t last forever, so if he almost misses a tripping-hazard sized bump in the blanket because he’s distracted by Jonah’s giggling, he thinks it might be worth it.

He’s learning, if slowly, to let go of perfectionism and let in the beautiful, messy realities of their toddler. He wouldn’t trade the chaos TK and Jonah have taught him to embrace for anything.

The two greatest adventures of his life.

“You good, babe?” TK asks. This is another skill they’ve learned: mature conversation while Jonah-wrangling. The fact that TK’s question came while he was giving Jonah a little extra air time as he hopped on to the blanket—boosted by TK holding both his hands and lifting him for a spare, suspended second—makes Carlos bubble with burning hot fondness.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just thinking.” Carlos straightens the blanket one last time before rising, brushing off his jeans and taking a seat next to his husband. TK gives him a look that promises he will check in again later, but their attention is soon snatched up again by their little rascal.

Jonah had been seated between them on the blanket, though a more accurate description would be that he was flopped over on TK’s thigh. Not thirty seconds after Carlos sat down did Jonah leap up again, crawling to the edge of the blanket like he’d been lassoed and led forth.

Thankfully he stops at the fabric’s edge, looking with wide eyes at the water swirling past the riverbank. Carlos shifts forward, ready to catch if Jonah makes for the water, but the little boy stays put and watches the river sparkle in the sun.
“It’s so wow!” he says, pointing. “So shiny!”

TK lets out a little chuckle, even as he slides his hands over his knees in a dead giveaway of his anxiety. “Yeah it is! But, uh, Jonah? Do you remember why we’re here?”

Jonah crawls back around and tilts his little head at them. “‘Cause of the holiday?”

“Yep, that’s right. How about we talk for a second?”

Jonah pushes to his feet, stomping two big steps back across the blanket before he happily plops right down on Carlos’s lap. The weight of his torso against Carlos’s stomach makes him exhale an oof in surprise. It comes out sounding like a grunt, which sends Jonah into a fit of giggles and causes TK to smirk at him as Carlos brings his arms around Jonah to settle him better.

“TK’s gonna tell us about how the day is special,” Carlos tells the boy, brushing his bangs back from his eyes. Jonah’s hair is as soft as TK’s, and Carlos might be embarrassed about how much petting either of their hair calms him down if he didn’t love them so much it practically makes him dizzy. He can’t resist dropping a kiss on Jonah’s temple as he leans down to stage whisper in his ear. “So let’s get our listening ears ready, okay?”

Jonah giggles his assent and sits forward on Carlos’s legs, smiling eagerly up at his brother.

“Then snacks?” he asks, his tone deadly serious.

“Well of course we’re having snacks after,” TK assures him. “First, though, we’re gonna give a little bit of food to the fish.”

“Hope they’re hungry,” Carlos jokes, while Jonah gasps.

“We have fish food?” he asks, crossing his arms and leveling suspicious looks at both of his caretakers. “Miss Lyssa said fish hafta eat special.”

Jonah’s preschool teacher, Miss Alyssa, keeps a goldfish in her classroom. Jonah has brought home many portraits of the little guy, which means their fridge is currently decorated with orange blobs.

“Well, fish do need special food,” TK concedes. “But this is a tradition, which means it’s something that our family has done for a very long time. We’re gonna throw things in the river, but we’re making sure the fish won’t be hurt by it if they try to eat it.”

Jonah nods, visibly thinking hard. He’s adorable beyond belief. In a blink, he swivels his head back around toward Carlos.

“Your family too?”

“Uh,” says Carlos elegantly, caught off guard. “No, buddy, this tradition comes from your mommy. So TK’s teaching both of us.”

“Oh. Okay.” says Jonah. He turns back to TK but snuggles up against Carlos’s chest, his head pressed against the space between his belly and his sternum. It adds a sparkle to TK’s eye.

“So, J-bear,” he starts, reaching over to tuck a wayward chunk of Jonah’s hair behind his ear. “Today is the start of the Jewish new year. Remember that word? We talked about how Mom was Jewish, so we are too?”

Jonah nods vigorously, causing the fabric of Carlos’s shirt to lightly scratch his skin.

“That’s good, buddy! That’s why today’s a holiday for our family.”

“Mm hmm,” Carlos hums, backing his husband up. He meets TK’s eyes. “Is it time for the peas?”

Jonah wriggles himself around to face Carlos, getting the leverage by planting one hand right on Carlos’s bladder and one knee dangerously close to his crotch.

“Peas are gwoss!” he declares, a look of betrayal in his wide eyes.

“We’re not eating them, bud. Today,” TK amends hastily in response to Carlos’s raised eyebrow. “They’re going in the river! Traditionally, we would throw some bread, but the animals who live in the river aren’t supposed to eat bread. It can hurt their tummies. Peas are safer for them to eat, so we can use them.”

Jonah’s mouth opens wide as his hands clap together excitedly. “Are there duckies to feed?!”

Carlos smiles, fixing Jonah’s hair again. They need to trim it up soon since it keeps tangling like this. “If we’re lucky and some swim past, we can say hi to them.”

“I wanna! Duckies are my favorite,” Jonah declares.

“I thought horses were your favorite,” says Carlos, genuinely stumped. Jonah has been very taken with the decorative horse figurines in their loft, and TK figured out that telling him stories about them curbs the urge to touch them. This resulted in the development of a very involved horse sculpture mythology, kept safely in TK’s notes app. Their names are Gerald, Vanessa, and one more that Carlos always forgets but TK always remembers.

“Nuh uh, not anymore.” Jonah shakes his head firmly, the ends of his hair whacking him in the nose.

“What about bearded dragons?” TK asks. His voice stays steady but Carlos can see the little pout on his lips, wounded on Lou II’s behalf.

Jonah looks at TK with all the shrewdness their mother ever possessed. “We have bearded dwagon at home, papa-bro.”

Carlos bites his lip so that Jonah doesn’t hear him laughing, though he can probably feel the hiccuping air making Carlos’s ribs quiver from the inside.

TK has his eyes closed and his tongue between his teeth, sure signs that he’s in the same predicament. His smile is blinding.

“That’s right, bud. We sure do,” he manages, before he has to succumb to a little chuckle and swipe a hand down his face.

“You’re very wise, Jonah,” Carlos tells him. Jonah preens.

TK shakes his head as he reaches for the cooler, groaning when he can’t quite reach and has to move away from Carlos and Jonah to get to it.

“Are you wise too, Carlos?” Jonah asks.

“Hmm. Not as wise as TK.”

TK barks out a surprised laugh from where he’s rummaging around. “Hey, I’ll take it.” He blows a kiss their way, followed by muffled, maraca-like sounds as he fights to rip open the bag of peas.

“Me and TK got wiseness,” Jonah says sagely, or as sage as he can be through his bubbly laughter.

“That’s right.” Carlos drops his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “So that’s why we’re gonna be really good listeners for your brother, okay?”

“Okay!”

“So!” TK steps up to retake his seat, presenting them both with paper cups of frozen peas. He grins shyly. “Today these peas represent our sins from the past year.” He turns to Jonah, helping him wrap his little hands around the cup as he defines the new word for him. “Sins are like… mistakes you made that hurt yourself or somebody else. But our mom always said we can cast off things that aren’t sins into the river too.”

TK smiles to himself, his eyes flicking up to Carlos and then out to the river. “Mom took me to the Hudson a couple times, when she wasn’t working. We’d crush up some saltines and then throw the crumbs over the side of the observation deck. She said crushing the crackers was to remember the pain the sins caused, and I- I don’t think that’s part of the tradition. That was just mom. But she’d always tell me that after we remembered, even though that would hurt, we got to throw them away. That I could cast off the bad things I did, and the bad things that happened to me, and leave all of it behind in the last year.”

Jonah must be able to feel the moment’s importance for TK. Uncharacteristically solemn, he throws his arms around his brother and squeezes tight. TK leans down to press a lingering kiss to his head.

“Thank you for the hug, Jojo,” TK tells him. His voice is wet and strained with unreleased tears. “You’re very kind.”

“Don’t be sad, TK,” Jonah pleads, hugging him tighter. He lost his cup of peas in the hugging process, so Carlos quickly scoops the defrosting vegetables back inside and stacks Jonah’s cup inside his own.
“I’m not sad, buddy, don’t worry,” TK assures. “I’m just thinking and remembering. And sometimes that makes me feel a lot of feelings.”

Carlos slides an arm around TK’s waist, giving him a gentle squeeze as he shuffles to close the small distance between them. It takes some maneuvering, since TK’s sitting cross-legged, but Carlos manages to wriggle his thigh under TK’s knee so they can sit nearly hip to hip. He drops a kiss on TK’s shoulder with an over the top mwah that sends Jonah into a laughing fit.

“I’m really fine,” TK says, sounding both enamored and a little weary. “You two are so dramatic.”

Jonah suddenly claps his hands on either side of TK’s face, pulling his head down so his chin touches his chest.

“Gentle, Jonah,” Carlos reminds him, alarmed by the force of the movement. TK’s had a lot of head injuries, for one thing, and for another Jonah’s hands do not know their own power. Sometimes he makes fists and punches the torso supporting him even as he wails into a much-needed cuddle, and it hurts more in Carlos’s heart than in the ribs that Jonah hit. Other times Jonah’s jumping into their bed first thing in the morning and a wayward arm thrown up in delight nails TK square in the nose and kicks off a ten minute nosebleed.

“Sorry,” says Jonah. He squeezes TK’s cheeks to make his lips pucker. “I want kisses too!”

“Remember you can always ask for kisses, okay?”

TK tries his best to say ‘it’s true’ through the grip on his mouth, which of course comes out muffled. But in the next moment Jonah’s hands are sliding away and TK is hugging him tight so he can pepper kisses all over Jonah’s cheeks.
The resounding squeal of delight pierces through the sky and startles a bird across the river into flight. It doesn’t quite feel real, to be sitting here watching his beautiful boys on a backdrop of beautiful nature, Jonah’s feet kicking out as he laughs, the tiny sneakers Andrea bought for him catching the light because he hasn’t worn them enough to dim their color yet. The vibrations of TK’s laughter that Carlos can feel under his palm, a lovely shaking of his husband’s belly coming right back to Carlos through the point where they connect, like his body can’t wait to share the joy.

They’ve settled down now, a grinning Jonah reclined in his big brother’s arms and seeming to all the world gluted on his happiness. As he should be, Carlos thinks. When Jonah’s happy it feels like a case cracked, like moving TK’s things into his home to make it theirs. A job well done.

“Anyway,” says TK, fixing Jonah’s hair yet again. “We can start celebrating now. Oh, shoot, where did your-”

“I got it,” Carlos cuts in. He hands TK Jonah’s cup of peas, reveling in the way his shoulders drop in relief and a smile blooms on his lips.

“Thanks, baby,” TK says, leaning forward for a quick kiss.

It’s just a peck, but Carlos savors it like a man starved. TK has so much on his plate these days, Carlos feels like he can fly whenever he successfully lightens the load.

TK holds the cup out to Jonah. “Alright bub, do you want to go first? Carlos and I can help you with the throwing.”

“I can throw!” To demonstrate, Jonah takes a handful of peas and releases them once his arm is fully extended. Little green balls scatter on their blanket, one of which makes it off the edge and into the dirt.

Jonah giggles happily at the mess, squirming in TK’s lap and stomping his feet in place, which is thankfully the open space between TK’s crossed legs.

“That was a good effort, buddy,” TK praises through a wide, fond smile. His smile is a little different for Jonah, lacking the mischief TK shares with his friends and soft around the edges with a depth of love that should be impossible, but isn’t because TK’s heart is never-ending.

“How about we try again,” Carlos encourages, scooting forward so there’s less distance to cover with the throw. Jonah follows eagerly, holding out his hands for more peas.

“Remember to think of something to leave behind in last year,” TK instructs. “Part of the holiday is to reflect on what we did.”

Jonah’s face screws up with tension as TK carefully pours more peas into his hands.

“Hey, buddy, what’s wrong?” Carlos asks, wary. It makes TK look up sharply, his face falling at the sight of the sadness on Jonah’s.

“Um, can I…” Jonah starts. He doesn’t usually use filler words, except when he’s really anxious. One of the only times Carlos has heard them come out of his mouth is when he was telling Carlos and TK about a nightmare that sent him out of bed and running for them despite his fear of the dark.

In a small voice, Jonah looks up at them through his bangs and asks, “Can I throw Swizzer-land?”

Carlos feels like he’s just taken a roundhouse kick to the chest, and judging from the glossy sheen to TK’s eyes he feels it too.

“Of course you can,” TK says, rubbing Jonah’s back with his spare hand. “That’s a perfect choice, buddy. So when I put these in your hand, imagine aaaaaall the hurt and sadness and scary stuff from Switzerland is going away into them, and then when you throw it it’ll be like you’re letting all those memories go.”

Jonah nods sagely, watching with wide eyes as TK gives him a few more peas.

“Maybe the bigger the hurt, the more peas it gets?” TK muses, glancing up at Carlos, who shrugs. TK is clearly anxious, he always asks a lot of questions when he’s on the edge of a nervous spiral. Carlos wishes he could take it away, but he still feels like he’s been run over. Jonah’s such a sweet kid, it’s easy to forget sometimes that he’s been through traumas that will affect him for the rest of his life. Especially on his happy days.

“I’ll help you throw, buddy,” Carlos says, shifting up to a kneeling position so he’s at a better height to help a standing Jonah. His knees are getting too old for this, but the ground underneath their blanket is spongy and softens the blow.

“I can throw!” insists Jonah, eyes big and beseeching.

“That’s right, you can. I’m just gonna give you a little boost.”

Jonah gives his suspicious assent, but once Carlos cradles the boy’s tiny left fist in his right palm and starts to swing their arms with a whooshing sound effect, he cheers right up.

“Okay, open up your hand on ‘three’ and we’ll see how far they fly,” Carlos instructs. “One…” He guides them through a baby underhand backswing, just a warmup.

“Two…” Another swing, this one bigger, and bringing with it surprised pride that Jonah’s doing so well keeping his arm still, intent on learning how to throw. Maybe he’ll follow his brother’s footsteps and play baseball when he’s a bit older.

“And… three!” Jonah giggles delightedly, watching as the peas make a smooth, low arc three feet in front of them and hit the river in a symphony of plops and splashes.

“Great job, Jonah!” TK cheers. Jonah sticks his hands back to TK palm-out, ready for more.

“Again!”
Carlos helps him throw two more little handfuls, delighting in the giggles it unleashes. When Jonah turns to TK for his next handful, TK shows him his empty cup.

“You got them all, Jonah! Good job!”

“I did it!” Jonah cheers. He lifts his arms in the air and curls his youth-plump hands toward his head in an imitation bodybuilder pose. Carlos ruffles his hair as he meets TK’s eyes and arches an eyebrow.

“Someone’s been watching his big brother use the home free weights we ordered, hm?”

TK narrows his eyes and mouths fuck you, but a pink flush blooms across his cheeks and nose to let Carlos know he’s right.

TK clears his throat and turns back to Jonah. “Yeah, you’re building up some throwing muscles, buddy! Anyway, uh. How about Carlos and I have a turn?”

Jonah nods vigorously, but slowly, as if TK has asked the only truly dumb question in existence. “Turns is important, TK!”

TK smiles, proud. “They sure are, little man.”

“Can I- can I have more on my own though?” Jonah says ‘though’ like ‘dough’ and it would be the cutest thing Carlos has ever heard if Jonah and TK hadn’t performed a duet of the ABCs for him when he got home from work the other day.
“Well…” says TK, glancing up at Carlos.

This is the skill they’ve had to learn the fastest: quick decision-making with only a single glance to consider their options. This time it starts with the furrow between TK’s brows that Carlos is sure he mirrors — peas are a choking hazard. Carlos gives a minute shrug — he knows he doesn’t like them, he probably won’t eat them? TK scrunches up his mouth — we’re at high alert for things up his nose, though, remember the yellow Lego? Carlos will never forget the yellow Lego. He nods his head sharply — I’ll multitask and watch him. You focus on reflecting. A sweet smile and the softening of TK’s eyes — thank you.

“Yeah, you can do a couple by yourself,” TK tells him, pouring a few more peas into his cup. “You can try them one by one so they last longer.”

“M’kay,” Jonah says, intent on sticking his hand in the cup and pulling out a single pea with his thumb and forefinger.

TK had turned around to locate his own cup and to return the bag of frozen peas to the cooler, but he gasps when he watches Jonah do it again.

”Look at his pincer grasp!” TK half coos, half whispers to Carlos. “He’s so good at it.”

“I would hope so, babe, he’s three.”

TK smacks him on the arm lightly. “Shut up, it’s cute.”

“It is,” Carlos agrees. He drops his voice to a teasing whisper. “Just wait until he starts holding a pencil.”

“Stop it, that’s gonna kill me,” TK whines.

Carlos can’t help but reach out and settle a hand on TK’s waist. It’s possible that watching TK with Jonah – and realizing that Carlos himself is not poisonous to children, especially not if he’s careful and mindful – has got him thinking about babies. It doesn’t help that all the algorithms on every device in the loft are showing them baby stuff because of the parenting research they’ve done for Jonah: endless articles about childhood trauma, separation anxiety, and ideas for screen-free play in an apartment have spawned ads for onesies, diaper brands competing for the title of most absorbent, and tiny shoes that always make TK melt before he tries to cover it back up. Carlos hates that he thinks he has to do that, but he can’t blame him. He didn’t exactly spend the first year of their marriage instilling TK with confidence in Carlos’s ability as a husband.

A happy shriek from Jonah snaps them back into the moment. There’s little bubbles popping up where Jonah’s peas had landed in the river, probably meaning fish are breaking the surface when they bite into them. Jonah doesn’t know that, though, or he’d be much more excited. If he’s this pleased by bubbles Carlos isn’t sure he wants to see how hyper river fish could get him.

“Sins, right?” Carlos asks TK, shaking his cup just enough that the top layer of peas rolls around.

“Right. I’m, uh- I might take a minute.”

“Take your time, baby. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

TK smiles and puckers his lips for a kiss Carlos gladly gives him, then scoots to the corner of the blanket and turns his face to the sun, cup clasped in both hands. Sunset is on its way, but the sky isn’t yet painted with oranges and pinks. TK glows in golden sunlight, almost angelic with his eyelashes fanned against his cheeks and his lips a warm, inviting pop of color against the stubble he frequents these days, unmotivated to shave every day without a job that requires him to be clean-shaven. Carlos loves the way his stubble can burn just right in a kiss, and Jonah loves the textural novelty of it. Carlos has caught him rubbing TK’s cheek more times than he can count, and TK thinks it’s adorable so he’s sure he’ll see it again.
Carlos loves them. He looks at Jonah, currently playing with the paper cup itself by squeezing it and watching it crease, and then looks down at his half full cup of peas.

Sins. Carlos has been a sinner his whole life. He’s a gay Catholic, he’s a son that spent years avoiding his family, and he’s technically committed a lot of adultery – Iris’s consent, knowledge, and identical behavior notwithstanding.
He loves having sex with his husband. He spills his seed without intent for procreation at least once a week. He worships his husband’s body and hasn’t been to mass in years, hasn’t prayed regularly, hasn’t confessed since high school.

He also knows, deep down, that an eternity in hell is worth the privilege of getting to see TK’s bedhead and his sex face, both sights more divine to Carlos than any statue or stained glass window could ever be. The cross around his neck is a comfort, because the universe feels too big if he doesn’t have an idea of the force behind it, but it’s nothing like his mother’s rosary. He trusts his instincts more than God’s plan.

But look where that got him. To say it brought him to this picnic blanket with his family would be a lie, because Carlos and God both know that his instincts kept him up at night staring at his father’s autopsy report while his husband slept in a cold bed because Carlos couldn’t bear to rest without justice.

He justified it because he thought it was noble, even necessary. TK assured him it was, but Carlos doesn’t know if he believes him anymore. He knew he was letting down Gabriel and every other Reyes man before him every second he didn’t find answers, but it feels like a flimsy excuse for neglecting his husband now that they’re past it and Carlos can look back and identify every hurt TK hid, every wound he licked alone. Carlos knew every time he didn’t come home that he could never justify hurting TK, that he didn’t want to lose him and would if he continued down that road, yet he still clung to his grief until the sweat of his hands wore straight through it and he was clutching at fraying threads.

God watched the whole thing in silence. There was no help for his just cause nor condemnation for his failure in marriage. The whole thing was a failure, was wasted time of such a terrible proportion that when Carlos thinks back to his hesitation to adopt Jonah he wants to drop to his knees and kiss TK’s feet because he doesn’t deserve this family. He doesn’t deserve this happiness, not when he was so willing to throw it away for the dead.

He can imagine what TK would say if he could hear these thoughts. His eyes would shine like a mossy blanket wet with morning dew, and he’d smooth a thumb across Carlos’s cheek, catch his earlobe between two fingers and tug on it because TK is gentle and playful and sweet, to the very core of him, and next to that Carlos may as well be a corrosive metal. A corrupting force.

“Grief isn’t a sin, baby,” TK would say. His voice would be gentle, soft as fresh spring grass. A gift of absolution that Carlos has not done enough to earn.

But admitting that would break TK’s heart, and Carlos is not so obtuse that he’s blind to the fact that if TK thought any of this about himself, Carlos would do everything in his power to prove him wrong. He’s confident that TK knows his worth, though. He knows because he doesn’t understand the way damnation is always just a step behind Carlos, waiting for him when he stumbles.

Carlos doesn’t know how to shake off the devil’s hold, and he probably never will. It’s not something that he can outrun or shed off like Lou’s molts, not something TK can kiss better, not something he’s convinced a running river can cleanse at years’ end. He’s stained beneath the skin.

Still, he pours out as many peas as his hand can hold and squeezes until his fingertips are cold from them. He doesn’t deserve absolution from this guilt, but he doesn’t want it either. He wants to keep this regret as a reminder to do better, to be present with TK and Jonah and grateful for their presence in his life. He needs to hold on to it, because if he forgives himself he doesn’t know what will be left of their first year of marriage. Carlos ruined it, so he should bear the scars.

What he can do is commit to leaving it all in the past. He can never move beyond the ways he hurt TK and failed his father and nearly failed Jonah before he even had the chance to love him, but he can leave it behind with a promise never to do it again. He will be better. For his family and for himself.

He throws the peas so hard they hit the water with an immense plopping sound that sends Jonah into stitches. Carlos dumps the stragglers into his hand, tosses those too, and scoops the laughing little boy into his lap.

“Splash! Splash!” Jonah is cheering, his little teeth beaming in the sunlight.

Carlos pulls him close and kisses his hair, eyes trained on the river. He feels lighter, somehow. He sends up a quick prayer – he’s not sure he ever prayed correctly, anyway, and he and TK were married in front of the same God regardless of the testaments they were raised with – and thanks God for giving him TK and Jonah. He sends love for Gabriel into the sky and points a finger up after it as if focusing the beam.

“What do you think that cloud looks like, Jojo?” he asks.

“It looks like… a elephant dinosaur!”

“An elephant dinosaur? Wow. Are those the big scary kind?”

As Jonah launches into his story, Carlos looks toward TK. His husband is sitting where he was before, legs crossed, throwing peas one by one into the water. Carlos can only see half of his face, but he looks focused and pensive, his jaw a sharp line.

Carlos focuses back on Jonah, giving TK the time and space he needs.

Movement in his peripheral vision makes Carlos’s head snap around fast like his years of training have drilled into him. There’s no threat, though, just a fat, shiny beetle walking past. Swallowing his shudder of discomfort, he tries to pull Jonah’s attention from his musings on what desserts the elephant dinosaur would like best.

“Look, Jonah, it’s an insect friend.” That’s what TK calls them, anyway. Personally, Carlos would like it if they could stop finding their way into the loft.

Jonah squeals, pointing at it. “Beetle!”

“That’s right, buddy!” Carlos bounces him in his lap in a way he hopes is encouraging. “You learned about beetles from your bug book, right?”

TK ordered him a kids encyclopedia about insects after Jonah was far from grossed out by Lou’s live feedings. Carlos does not read that book to him.

“Beetles have four wings,” Jonah says proudly. Carlos gives him a high five because he’s very proud – his kid, three years old and already memorizing statistics.

“And how many legs?” Both Carlos and Jonah look up to see that TK has stood to cross the picnic blanket. He squats to meet their level, smiling brightly as he meets Jonah’s eyes.

“More legs than me?” Jonah guesses, frowning adorably in concentration.

“That’s true,” TK says. “We have two legs. And beetles have three, four, five…”

“SIX!”

“Yeah! Gimme five!” Jonah happily collects his high five from TK, grinning because he’s gotten two in the past five minutes and he knows that means he’s doing a good job.

TK puts a hand on Carlos’s shoulder and squeezes, a silent reassurance that he’s okay. Carlos tilts his head to kiss his knuckles, not minding at all when his lips collide with the skin-warmed metal of his wedding band instead.

“So,” TK says. “Who’s hungry?”

Jonah perks right up, somehow, even though his energy level was already high. “Is it snacktime?”

“Sure is. Come on, let's get back to the middle of the blanket.”

Carlos and TK stand, Carlos with Jonah on his hip. The boy wriggles, though, demanding to be put down. Carlos does, and Jonah starts running circles around the blanket and giggling wildly.

“Careful!” TK calls. “There’s mud, it could be slippery!”

“I’m careful!” Jonah insists. He then stumbles over his own feet.

“Whoa, easy,” Carlos says as he catches him and helps him get rebalanced. “You okay?”

Jonah only giggles. “I’m so fast, Carlos!”

And then he’s off again, speeding around the blanket’s perimeter. Carlos shakes his head, taking a knee next to TK to help him plate up their apples and honey.

“At least he’ll go down easy tonight with all this running?” Carlos offers.

TK grimaces, gesturing to their bear-shaped honey jar. “After this? He’s gonna need two bedtime stories and a lullaby, at least.”

“He deserves it, he’s been great today,” says Carlos. He straightens the apple slices on the plate. He cut it early this morning, so the fruit has begun to turn a light, harmless brown at the edges from its time in the fridge and then the cooler.

“You’ve been great today too.”

Carlos glances up in surprise. “Me?”

TK smiles shyly, reaching up to pat Carlos’s cheek. “Yeah, you. Thanks for doing this with me.”

Carlos would do anything for him. Not that he’s been great at showing it since their wedding.

“Always, baby,” he says, unable to hide how stunned he is. TK catches on, but as his lips open to ask, Jonah jumps back into their space – quite literally, his shoes barely clearing over the apple slices.

“Red apples!” he bellows. “The best ones!”

Carlos laughs. He loves learning all of Jonah’s strong opinions about food, although cycling through so many different flavors to see what he likes has led to some terrible tantrums at the dinner table, one of which involved green apple slices being thrown to the floor.

“So much better than those yucky green ones, right?” Carlos teases, making a face in the hopes it makes Jonah laugh.

TK gives Carlos a worried look. Carlos shouldn’t be blowing off his concerns right now, he knows that, but he also doesn’t want to bring TK down on a holiday by bringing up that time his husband barely spent time with him for a year.

Carlos briefly covers TK’s hand with his own as he takes the honey bottle from him.

“We should probably wait to pour the honey or it’ll attract bugs,” Carlos says. “Isn’t there a blessing first?”

TK’s frown eases, happiness blooming on his face despite his best effort to remain serious. “You remembered.”

“You told me last night.”

“Yeah, but you’re still sweet.”

It’s at this point that Jonah sticks his head into the space between their faces, pouting because he’s been left out of the conversation.

“I want apples!”

TK laughs, reaching out to tug Jonah into his lap. “Sit first, J-bear. There’s a blessing we have to say before we eat, because it’s a holiday, remember?”

“What’s a blessing?”

“It’s, uh… it’s how we say a special thank you,” TK says. “Just let me get it ready.”

He fiddles with his phone for a minute, hesitating when the webpage is pulled up. His tongue flicks out and over his lips, betraying his anxiety.

“I’ll do the Hebrew,” he says, flicking his eyes over to Carlos. “Babe, do you want to read the English?”

Carlos moves one hand to the small of TK’s back and leaves it there, hoping it can be a supportive weight. “I’d love to.”
TK’s body relaxes, his smile easier now. “Okay, we’re gonna alternate. Ready?”

Carlos nods as Jonah squirms in TK’s lap with the energy of anticipation. TK squints at his phone and begins to read.
“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei p’ri ha-eitz.”

He tilts the phone toward Carlos, who has to reach out to steady it. “We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the tree,” he reads.

TK gives him a thumbs up and a goofy grin as he takes the phone back. Carlos can feel himself smiling — he’s obsessed with this beautiful, entirely grown-up man picking up mannerisms from their three year old. It’s cute beyond all reason.

“Y’hi ratzon milfanecha, Adonai Eloheinu v’Elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu, shetchadesh aleinu shanah tovah um’tukah,” TK continues. His voice is a little deeper in Hebrew, stunning in its gravel and gravitas.

When the phone is tilted back his way, Carlos reads the conclusion: “May it be Your will, Eternal our God, that this be a good and sweet year for us.”

“Okay!” TK says with a little hand clap. “Now we eat our apples and honey.”

Carlos uncaps the honey bottle as TK puts his phone away.

“Do I like honey?” Jonah asks, blinking up at Carlos.

“I’m sure you will. It’s sweet,” Carlos assures.

“Just like you!” TK adds with a playful finger-point. Jonah giggles and touches his fingertip to TK’s.

Carlos has a dilemma, though. “Babe, do I drizzle or pour on the side?”

“On the side, we’re gonna dip them.”

Carlos nods and starts to squeeze out the honey. He forgets how slow this bottle pours — usually he’s just dipping a spoon in to get honey for tea or a glaze recipe or something, so he’s never needed this much before.

“Hey, Jojo,” he asks, trying to pass time while the honey bottle gurgles and oozes, clearly on its own schedule. “What’s a word that rhymes with ‘dip?’”

“Hmmm,” Jonah screws up his face in thought, all but tapping a finger on his chin. “Parrot!”

The honey bottle makes a squeaking sound that pretty accurately reflects Carlos’s surprise. TK puts a hand over his mouth and, if his shaking shoulders are any indication, is working very hard not to laugh out loud.

“That’s… that’s not quite it, buddy,” Carlos says diplomatically.

Jonah squeal-laughs delightedly, clearly very proud of himself. “It’s a funny word.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Carlos. “TK definitely thinks so.”

TK composes himself faster than Carlos has ever seen him achieve before. “Okay, babe, I think that’s enough honey. Let’s get some food in this little goofball before he figures out how to tease me too.”

“You love it?” Carlos meets his eyes as he puts the honey away, checking in.

“Of course I do. But we’ll see if you still do when I get you back.” With that, TK leans forward and artfully picks up an apple slice.

Jonah picks one up with both hands, holding on to it like it’s going to run away from him.

“You gotta leave some room for the honey, bub. Here, look.” TK drops his own slice to gently coax one of Jonah’s hands away from his slice and guide him through the dipping process. Jonah gasps in delight as he encounters a new texture in the resistance offered by the honey puddle.

“It’s like slime,” he says with an awestruck expression.

“Yummy slime, sure,” TK laughs. “Go on, try it before it drips!”

Jonah does, immediately diving back in for a double dip when he decides he likes the taste.

“Eat slowly, hermanito. We don’t want a tummy ache,” Carlos instructs, dipping his own apple.

As he’s chewing TK meets his eyes forlornly. “Maybe we should have gone with the drizzle,” he says, nodding towards Jonah poking the honey with a curious finger, licking it off, and plunging the finger in again.

Carlos shrugs. “If he gets sick we’re going down anyway,” he says, taking another bite. “So get some honey before it all becomes play-doh, babe.”

TK rolls his eyes but joins in on the honey mess regardless. “I can’t believe you’re being gross right now. The same man who can’t get a snack without disinfecting the counters.”

“Food safety is important!” Carlos protests. Meanwhile, Jonah messily chews on an absolutely soaked chunk of apple, a trail of spit and honey oozing out the corners of his mouth and smearing all around his lips.

TK grabs a napkin and sets about cleaning him up while giving Carlos a dubious look. “You were saying?”

“I like honey,” Jonah declares. His sticky hands rise in front of him like a sugary zombie, ready to attack and spread the mess.

“Do you want a wipe for your hands?” Carlos asks him.

“No!” Jonah shakes his head, so TK sits back and waits for him to finish before returning to wipe the rest of his mouth. “Wan’ more apples.”

“Okay, you can have a few more,” TK laughs. “Just try to eat your honey instead of wearing it, okay?”

Jonah giggles fiercely, a steady rumble of joy. “It’s sticky!”

“Yeah, you are gonna need a bath when we get home,” TK says, but he’s smiling. “Eat up, kiddo, we have to be packed and heading back to the car before the sun sets.”

Carlos can feel the smile on his face as he watches, but he can’t help it. As the sun dips down it bathes TK in rich golden light, and Carlos spares a thought about how he should have made TK wear sunscreen before his brain stops working entirely. TK’s so beautiful like this, in his element with Jonah, sun-kissed against a backdrop of lush greenery, that Carlos can’t think of anything else. He will spend the rest of his life wondering what he did to deserve everything TK gives him – his unconditional support, his love, his strength, his understanding and his humor and his trust – and he will spend even longer working to deserve it. The rest of his life, just like he promised on their wedding day.

When the apples have been eaten, Jonah flops down and rests his head on Carlos’s thigh. He points his sticky hands up to the sky where the moon peeks out, filmy but freshly visible against a velvety blue where the sun no longer touches. They really do have to pack up now, they lose their river access once the sun goes down, a safety measure that Carlos appreciates. But he allows himself one more moment to drink it all in: a snuggly little boy perfectly satisfied after making a mess with his food, a husband watching softly with smile lines around his eyes, leaning back on his hands in lip-bitten contentment, and Carlos – loved and so, so lucky.

He closes his eyes and feels God looking down on them. Thank you, Carlos says to him. Thank you, and I’m sorry, and I will do better. I will do right by your children.

~~~

As predicted, Jonah is more than a little bit hyper when they arrive home. The excitement of seeing the river, plus their early dinner and then his honey feast mean he’s all over the place and doesn’t feel ready for bedtime in the slightest.

His bath makes it worse. Somehow he got honey on the back of his knee, and it dried into a tacky mess that they’ll have to check his car seat for tomorrow. Carlos and TK are both tired, so they decide to tag team on the task of getting him bathed; Jonah, however, is used to one of them at a time, so to him it’s basically a party in the bath tub.

By the time they get him toweled off and into his pajamas with his teeth brushed, the clock is pushing 7:45. Jonah’s usual bedtime is 7:15, not that he’ll go to sleep until he’s had his bedtime story and his goodnight kisses. The one time Carlos has missed bedtime so far was because of a drug trafficking bust that got him home well after midnight, and TK had to sit with Jonah and stroke his hair until his little body demanded sleep. The boy knows his routine, and he likes it, so he refused to go to sleep without his goodnight from Carlos because to him, every piece of their bedtime is essential to guaranteeing his sweet dreams. Carlos remembers feeling the same way on the rare occasion his mother was out late and couldn’t tuck him in.

Jonah races out of the bathroom and runs to the living room, starting the climb up to the couch.

“Whoa, Jonah-bear,” Carlos says, chasing after him. “It’s bedtime, remember? Time to hug Sally Sloth and pick out a story.”

“But I’m not tired!” It’s punctuated by an insistent kick of his slippered foot that of course lands nowhere near the floor but hits the couch quite hard.

“Jonah, you know why bedtime’s important,” TK says. His voice is a gentle authority, but there’s a waver in it. It would be imperceptible to the untrained ear, but Carlos is attuned to all of TK’s habits like no one else.

“Not tired!” Jonah yells, jumping from the couch and running to one of his toy bins. TK moves to follow, but Carlos catches his wrist.

“Hey. You okay?”

TK gives him a helpless shrug. His shirt is soaked in the front from Jonah’s splashing in the tub, and he’s paler than normal in the apples of his cheeks. “I’m exhausted,” he admits. “But we need to get him to bed, and-”

“Baby. Hey. I’ve got him.”

The plasticky rattle of a toy hitting the floor sounds from Jonah’s nook. TK looks at Carlos beseechingly, his eyes wide and sad in that way he knows Carlos can never resist. Under normal circumstances, that is. Carlos can resist when TK’s eyes are duller than they should be and he’s dragging his feet when he walks. His husband is tired.

Carlos holds TK by the waist. “Go take a shower. I’ll wear him out and read to him, so you can say goodnight when you’re done and then rest.”

TK’s hand finds Carlos’s belly, feather-light. A smile attempts to spark to life, then dims just as quickly. “Lou still needs dinner.”

“That I can’t help you with anyway,” Carlos teases, squeezing his hip. “So you’ll say goodnight to Jonah, give Lou some food, and then rest. But I will take care of the sugar high.”

TK practically melts into his arms. He presses a kiss to Carlos’s neck. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, I love you too. Now go.” Carlos sends him off with a pat on the hip, and TK gratefully scampers back toward the bathroom. Carlos pretends not to hear the wet plop of his discarded shirt hitting the floor as he jogs across the apartment to Jonah, whose tongue pokes out in concentration as he lines up toys in front of him on the floor.

Carlos takes a deep breath and squats down beside him. “Hey, bud. What’s going on?”

“They going on an adventure!”

Carlos nods. “Yeah, I can see that. Don’t you think they should be well rested for their adventure, though? Starting at bedtime I think they’re bound to get sleepy.”

“They don’t have to be,” Jonah says, shaking his head in that over-the-top way of his until his body betrays him with a yawn. Carlos stifles his own as he smooths Jonah’s hair.

“Sometimes, me and TK don’t feel sleepy until we get into bed and feel how warm and soft our blankets are,” Carlos tells him. It’s only a partial lie, but Jonah doesn’t need to know that lots of grown-ups feel achingly tired every day. Carlos can keep him safe from that a while longer. “How ‘bout we try that, Jojo? Get you all snuggled up and cozy?”

Jonah pouts up at him, his small mouth turned sharply down at the corners. “I don’t wanna.”

Carlos sits fully down on the floor, wrapping an arm around him. “Why not, hermanito?”

The unhappiness on Jonah’s tiny face stings something awful. He looks up at Carlos with his big brown eyes, so trusting and big and glossy, and Carlos would do anything to keep this kid happy and safe.

“What if everything’s different tomorrow?” Jonah asks, sounding terrified by the very idea.

Carlos frowns and squeezes him tighter. “Why would everything be different tomorrow?”

“‘Cause the year is new!” Jonah’s eyes shine now. He always cries easier when he’s sleepy. “New means that everything is different!”

“Oh, Jonah. No, mijo, no.” Carlos scoops Jonah into his lap and hugs him close, cradling his head. He soothes for a few minutes, hushing Jonah and smoothing his hair and rubbing circles on his back. When his breathing has evened out, Carlos pulls back to look in Jonah’s eyes.

“The new year doesn’t mean everything has to change, Jojo. It’s like a new day starting, yeah? We know more than we did yesterday every morning, and we can always learn from thinking about the day before. Years are just like that, they just take longer, so they feel a lot more special.”

“I get to stay with you?” Jonah asks, his voice quieter than Carlos has ever heard it before.

“TK and I aren’t going anywhere,” Carlos promises. “We’re your family, and we love you so, so much.”

Jonah yawns, plopping his head down on Carlos’s shoulder. “Where’s TK?”

“TK’s in the shower, but he’s gonna be back to tuck you in.”

Of all the things Carlos expected Jonah to do in response, start giggling was not one of them. But Jonah’s good mood is infectious, and Carlos is more than happy to keep it going.

“What’s so funny, Jojo?” he teases, lightly tickling Jonah’s tummy. He squeals delightedly.

“TK’s stinky,” he says, like a royal proclamation, and then falls back into giggles.

Honestly, Carlos is a little miffed. He thinks his husband smells great. But sometimes raising a toddler means being a diplomat, so Carlos nods sagely.

“I think we were all a little stinky after sitting outside,” Carlos says. “But you’re all fresh and clean now, so let’s get you into bed to read, okay?”

Jonah nods and wraps his arms around Carlos’s neck, a silent demand to be carried. Denying Jonah cuddles at bedtime is a little like how Carlos imagines cutting off a limb to feel, so he adjusts his grip on the child and stands up. He kicks the toys to the side to be dealt with tomorrow and carries Jonah to his bed, giving him some bounces along the way.

He pulls Jonah’s covers back with one hand before an idea strikes him. He pauses, glancing down to meet his kid’s eyes.

“Hey, Jonah,” he says conspiratorially. “Wanna do a spinny?”

Jonah straightens immediately, smiling widely. He sticks his arms up straight in the air. “Spinny! Cawlos, spinny!”

“Just one,” Carlos warns, but he grins as he extends his arms all the way to lift Jonah above his head and spins around in a circle. Jonah half-giggles, half-cheers the whole way around until Carlos is setting him down in his bed and leaning over to kiss his forehead.

“Alright, goofball. You and Sally all settled for story time?”

Jonah gasps and reaches behind himself for his plush sloth that sits on his pillow when Jonah’s away – unless, of course, Jonah has requested her presence elsewhere. Sometimes she comes along in the car for moral support, and she comes into the pediatrician’s office because Jonah does not let go of her when he’s anxious or sick.

“Sally needs to hear all about our day,” Jonah says, planting Sally in his lap. She’s almost the same size as Jonah’s torso, so she looks right in his eyes.

“How about you tell her tomorrow? Right now I think she needs a big squeeze because she missed you so much.”

Jonah does, his arms crashing together around Sally until his face creases with all the effort he’s putting into hugging her. “She likes squeezes, ‘cause she’s so soft,” Jonah explains when he lets go.

Carlos smooths his hair fondly, nodding along. “Makes sense to me, bud. Now, which story are we reading tonight?”

“Type cows!” Jonah says immediately, which is not a surprise at all. His favorite book of the moment, Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type, was a steal for five dollars in a used bookstore that Carlos has loved for years. He and TK all but cleaned out their children’s section to stock a home library for Jonah.

“Oh, this book?” Carlos picks it up with a flourish and pretends to be unsure if it’s the right choice. They’re entering the third week of Jonah requesting this book for bedtime, so it’s been living on the nightstand and TK started this joke to make it more interesting for the adults involved.

Jonah loves it too, though, because he tucks Sally under one arm to reach out for his book, nodding his head at Carlos. “Yeah! This the book. Silly Cawlos,” he says, the last part in a tone that’s almost dismissive. All of his attention has gone to using both hands to pull open the cover, which is understandable given the book is bigger than his head.

“Right, silly Carlos,” Carlos echoes.

“Okay, okay, it’s weading time!” Jonah says once he’s flipped to the first page. It would be a command if he weren’t so excited about it. Carlos kneels down beside the bed and begins to read, doing his best with the voices. Usually TK does the farmer’s voice because he has this imitation country accent (one suspiciously similar to Judd’s, if you ask Carlos) that cracks Jonah up every time. Carlos gives his best shot at replicating it, pleased when Jonah enjoys the story like usual, stopping on an illustration of ducks to tell Carlos what a beak and wings and flippers and feathers look like.

They’re nearing the end of the story when TK joins them, perched on the edge of Jonah’s bed with his hair damp and his cheeks pink from the heat of the shower. He looks so adorable Carlos can barely stand it.

“Alright, sweet boy,” TK says as Carlos closes the book. “Let’s get you all snuggled up.”

Jonah yawns again, giving Carlos a great view of his tonsils, and obediently curls up with his head on the pillow while Carlos and TK make a show of tucking the blankets around him until it’s just Jonah’s face and the fuzzy gray fur on top of Sally’s head sticking out from the covers.

TK presses a kiss to Jonah’s forehead. “Sleep well, baby. We love you.”

“Night-night, TK,” Jonah says through fluttery eyelids.

Carlos leans down and kisses his hair, just behind where TK kissed. “We’ll see you in the morning,” he promises.

“Mmmmkay,” Jonah hums, his eyes closed now. He always talks a lot of talk before bed, but once his head is on the pillow he conks out fast. It’s cute, but Carlos really loves the idea of teasing Jonah about it once he’s older, reminding him that he was once their three-foot-tall little sleepyhead.

Well practiced at being quiet through this part of the night, TK flicks off Jonah’s lamp and the two husbands creep out of the room in the faint illumination from Jonah’s star-shaped nightlight. The tiny light about the stove has been left on so TK can see while he gets Lou’s food ready. On his way to the kitchen, he pauses. He glances back toward Carlos, his face gray and gaunt in the shadows, and catches Carlos’s wrist in his hand. The tip of his middle finger presses against Carlos’s pulse point.

“You’ve got to stop kneeling on this floor, Carlos,” TK tells him in a hurried whisper. “That rug’s not thick enough to help. I don’t want you to mess up your knees.”

Carlos frowns. “I’m okay, baby. I’m not in any pain.”

“It’s just not a good idea. We should be more careful.”

“TK-”

He lets go of Carlos and hurries to the kitchen. His silhouette gets lost in the shadows for a moment when he goes to the fridge, only to be illuminated again in its light for the short time it takes him to reach into the veggie drawer. From the crinkling sound, Carlos guesses Lou’s being treated to kale or radicchio, but TK usually gives him his insects in the evening too. Carlos shudders but finds his feet moving forward anyway.

He wraps his arms around TK’s waist and hooks his chin over his shoulder. “Hey.”

TK stops ripping radicchio leaves into smaller pieces, his head turning toward Carlos in confusion.

“Babe, you don’t want to be here for this. I’m making him mealworm salad.”

Carlos wrinkles his nose. He really doesn’t want to see that in his kitchen, but there’s something off in the way TK’s carrying himself, and the only thing Carlos hates more than mealworms is TK hurting.

“Go take a shower,” TK whispers, turning himself around in Carlos’s hold. The hand he puts on Carlos’s chest is cold from handling refrigerated greens. “I’ll be in bed when you’re done, okay?”

“You promise?” Carlos whisper-teases, waggling his eyebrows. He just wants to make TK smile.

And TK does, but there’s something hollow hiding behind it. Something lurking underneath the cold fingers that find Carlos’s cheek and playfully shove him backwards.

“Go, Carlos. The worms are about to come out.”

With that, TK turns back to the stove. Carlos is worried but does need a shower, so he has no choice but to walk away. He will do some more investigating afterwards, when the door to their room is shut and they can talk without fear of waking Jonah. When he can pull TK close and kiss his hair until he’s ready to share what’s bothering him.

The shower water is no Colorado River: it can’t wash away his worries any more than it can cleanse his sins.

Chapter Text

The bed is empty when Carlos steps out of the bathroom. The room is empty – Carlos moves around the room quietly but quickly, hurrying into fresh boxers and sweats, before padding into the main loft in search of his husband.

All the lights are off except the bedroom lamp and Jonah’s nightlight, but it’s not hard to find TK. He’s illuminated faintly by the window they keep open for Lou’s sake at night, since TK frets about him having limited visibility even though all his research has suggested it’s best for him to rest in darkness.

Carlos’s husband is leaning against Lou II’s tank, staring down at a shadowy lump camped out in the tank’s corner, under a branch. As his eyes adjust, Carlos can make out the faint shape of Lou’s spines and the lovely slope of TK’s nose. He pads closer, the concrete floor cold underfoot, and loops an arm around TK’s waist as he presses a kiss to his temple. TK’s grip on the tank relaxes as he sinks into Carlos’s embrace.

Trying to meet his eyes in the dark, Carlos ducks his head down a bit. TK looks at him but stays silent. They have to be quiet out here, or they risk waking Jonah, but it’s worrying all the same. Something is off in his expression, in the tightness of his eyebrows and the set of his jaw. Carlos inclines his head back toward their bedroom in question. TK’s hand finds his in answer, and they tiptoe out of the main space, TK’s fingers lingering against Lou’s glass for as long as they can.

TK goes straight to the nightstands once they’re back in the bedroom, futzing with the stuff they have piled on top. Carlos slides the door shut and then hurries over to him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing into his back.

“You okay?” he murmurs, punctuating it with a kiss to his nape.

TK sighs, leaning back into Carlos’s touch. “Yeah.”

Carlos tugs him closer, leaning up to hook his chin over TK’s shoulder and kiss the side of his face. “Yeah?” he pushes, gently. He knows how to encourage TK to open up, and sometimes the key is not letting him dodge the question. “So you were lizard-watching in the dark for no reason at all?”

TK chuckles, playing with Carlos’s fingers where they rest on his ribs. “It’s fine, baby. Nothing to worry about.”

“It seems like you are worried, though.” Carlos tries to get a read of TK’s facial expression, but he can’t quite get enough of a picture from where he stands with his nose pressed right behind TK’s ear.

TK sighs again, and this time it’s the sound of defeat. “Yeah, I just… what if I’m messing it up?”

Blinking in confusion, Carlos pulls back in an attempt to meet his husband’s eyes. “Messing what up?”

TK doesn’t answer, his head angled away from Carlos and his shoulders bunched up with tension. Carlos frowns.

“Baby,” he says, gently running his hands up and down TK’s bare arms. “What’s wrong?”

TK makes a sound that’s suspiciously similar to a sniffle before huffing the air out to suck in a clearer breath. “It’s nothing.”

Carlos turns TK around in his arms to face him, locking his hands together at the small of his back. He ducks his head down so that TK is forced to look at him. “This isn’t nothing, TK.”

“You don’t even know what it is yet,” TK scoffs, wrinkling his nose. “Maybe I’m just being stupid.”

Carlos shoots him an unimpressed look. “First of all, you’re not stupid. Second of all, when did we start using Jonah’s no-no words to describe ourselves?”

TK snorts and shakes his head, but at least he’s smiling a little. “I hate you,” he says.

“Uh huh,” replies Carlos, tugging TK closer with one hand while the other rubs a circle pattern into his hip through the thin fabric of his pajamas. “Lay down with me and we’ll talk about it?”

“Ugh. It’s barely nine.” He falls into Carlos’s shoulder as he says it, as if the idea of an early bedtime is beyond repulsive.

“We don’t have to go to sleep, babe,” Carlos says, fighting back a laugh. His amusement is poorly timed, but sometimes TK is just too cute and Carlos’s adoration has to go somewhere or it’ll make him burst. “Come on, though, seriously. I want a better cuddling angle.”

That earns him a little chuckle, which Carlos rides the high of even as he has to release TK to flop and wiggle his way into the center of their bed, opening his legs and arms when he gets there. He can tell he looks a little goofy with his still-damp curls and his sea foam green sweat pants, but TK smiles fondly and flops down on top of him. Hard.

“Ow,” Carlos grumbles. “You’re too buff to go around doing that.”

TK sits himself up to lean back comfortably against his Carlos-pillow, wearing a cheeky grin. “Lucky for you I don’t do that to other people. It’s all yours.”

Carlos smooths his hands over TK’s torso, tugging him closer so he lays flush against Carlos’s chest. He slides one hand under TK’s tank top to rest on his belly, feeling the heat of his bare skin, the softness. After a too-long silence, stretched out by the deep inhale Carlos took of TK’s hair, Carlos sighs into his ear. “It better be.”

They breathe together for a moment, TK hugging one of Carlos’s arms tight against his front.

“I just wish…” he starts. Carlos squeezes him a little tighter, allowing him to take his time. “I just wish mom were here to tell me if I’m doing it right. But then that’s such a stupid thought anyway, because if mom were here I wouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Carlos thumbs gently over TK’s hipbone. “I think it makes perfect sense, babe. Of course you want her to be here.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, teaching Jonah this stuff,” TK confesses. “I barely paid attention in Hebrew school, I didn’t practice for a decade, I just- what am I doing? I’m so scared I’m gonna do it wrong. Not like mom would have.”

TK takes in a shaky breath, so Carlos kisses his shoulder. “I don’t think there can really be a wrong way to pass down your faith,” he muses. “And you said that everything we did today was from your memory of doing it with Gwyn.”

“Yeah, but can I trust those memories?”

“What? Babe, what are you talking about?” When TK stays silent, Carlos squeezes his shoulders. “TK. Look at me?” he asks in his softest voice, low and rumbling in the way he knows TK melts for.

It’s like TK goes even more boneless, his head tilting all the way back until the crown meets Carlos’s bicep and he can just make out the gleam of his unhappy eyes.

Carlos bites back a laugh. How he loves this petulant man. “Not like that, babe, you’ll hurt your neck.”

“Ugh.” TK’s head rolls back the other way with as much attitude as he can muster. “You’re really making me move?”

“Is it a crime that I want to see my husband’s beautiful face?”

TK starts to turn himself around in Carlos’s lap: slowly, reluctantly, and adorably awkwardly. “It is when you’re interrogating me.”

Carlos frowns even as TK’s face comes into view. “I’m not interrogating. You never have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but I think you do want to. You like to talk things out.”

TK sighs heavily as he plops down cross-legged in between Carlos’s legs, one hand braced on each of his knees. “I hate when you do that.”

“You hate when I know you and want to support you?”

“Yes! It’s impossible to wallow around here.” Despite the grumble of his voice, TK starts fighting a smile as he makes his joke. Carlos catches his gaze and could cheer when the eye contact makes TK’s smile widen as he ducks away from it again, shoving Carlos backward. “Stop it with the big brown eyes!”

Carlos’s heart flutters, as it always does when TK compliments his eyes. He used to worry his eyes were too plain, too boring, but now they’re weapons to be used against his husband – lovingly, of course – when he wants to make TK feel better.
He tilts TK’s chin up, slowly so TK can stop it if he wants to. He doesn’t, staying pliant under Carlos’s guidance. He swallows so hard Carlos can feel it through his jaw, all but trembling as Carlos looks at him again.

“What’s going on?” Carlos whispers. “Let me help, baby.”

TK bites his lip. Closes his eyes. Shakes his head. Whispers, barely audible: “I don’t want to hurt Jonah.”

Confusion and an aching, jagged, nauseating hurt churn unpleasantly in Carlos’s belly. He gulps it down and opens his mouth to ask why TK would ever think that when his husband beats him to the punch.

“I was such a dick, Carlos,” he says. “I was horrible to my mom for so much of my life, so what if these fond memories I have now are only good for me? Maybe she remembers them differently because I was such a- such an evil little kid.”

“TK-”

“And it wasn’t her fault at all, it was just that I didn’t get it. I didn’t care about Hebrew school because I didn’t see the point, because my family couldn’t even stand to be in a room with each other for my sake, so what was even the point of anything?”

He wipes one eye with a violent swipe of one palm’s heel. The cool air of their bedroom against the warm spot his hand left behind on Carlos’s thigh chills him to the base of his spine – a cold breath against the knot of dread sitting tangled there.

“TK,” he tries again, reaching out for him and stopping short because TK holds up a hand between them and shakes his head, fast and sharp. For a moment, he looks just like Jonah.

“I don’t want Jonah to feel smothered. Or lied to, like we’re trying to say everything’s fine when it’s obviously not because, you know, mom’s dead and Enzo’s a fucking white collar criminal.” He looks at Carlos again, his eyes wide and panicked and pleading. “I didn’t expect passing everything down to be so important to me. But I don’t know how to do it without burying him.”

Carlos catches TK’s hands in one of his and tugs TK in by the back of his neck with the other. He squeezes TK’s nape, applying what he hopes is a soft, steady pressure as he coaxes TK into looking at him across the spare inches that separate their faces.

“You do exactly what you did today,” Carlos assures, both proud and surprised by the steadiness of his voice. “Start with the fun stuff, explain things in a way that makes sense to him while he’s growing. The rest of it will come later. We have time to figure it out, okay?”

“Okay,” TK parrots hollowly, like he didn’t even mean to respond. “I just… I don’t want to pressure him either, you know? I want him to have the tools he needs to make a spiritual choice when he’s older.”

“See, baby, you’re not pressuring him at all. I think that’s a good mindset to have for an interfaith kid. You can teach him about his roots while we model open-mindedness the best we can.”

Carlos didn’t think it was possible for TK to look more stressed, but he does. Something minuscule pinches in his face and Carlos can practically feel his heart rate ratcheting up. He bites his lip again, pink flesh turning white from the force of it.

“You’re okay with that?” he asks.

Carlos thumbs over his knuckles, trying to calm him down. “Yeah, I am. I think it’s a great approach to everything.”

There’s a moment where TK doesn’t breathe, and he might as well be turning purple for how desperate and puffy his face looks. But he’s not suffocating. He’s merely sitting on their bed with an expression like he’s just swallowed lemon juice concentrate, hanging tight to Carlos’s hand like he’ll fly away without them tethering him.

All of sudden, the moment breaks.

“I want to send him to Hebrew school,” TK blurts, the words nearly blurring together with how fast he spits them out. “I want him to have a Bar Mitzvah.”

“Okay,” Carlos says evenly. He squeezes TK’s hands. “I figured you would.”

TK’s lips part, and for a split second his expression matches that of the whole snapper Carlos has waiting for a special occasion in their freezer. “You what? How?”

Carlos blinks, confused. “I mean, he’s your brother, and you had one, and I know we’re doing things how Gwyn would have done them where we can. So it made sense to me. I didn’t really think about it that much.”

Something passes over TK’s face, something melancholy and surprised and relieved all in one. Carlos has seen TK cry too many times and, somehow, only seen him cry a handful of times relative to everything he’s been through. He cries when he’s really happy or when a sadness he’s been carrying for a while has built up inside him and has no choice but to spill over. And yet, Carlos knows this alien expression on his husband’s face is a sign that tears are coming, and that breaks his heart.

Carlos cradles TK’s cheeks in his hands, tapping the tips of their noses together. He goes cross-eyed in his effort to look at TK while offering comforting touch. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

TK sucks in a breath that crackles through the snot in his nostrils, but he smiles. “I’m good, Carlos.”

“You’re crying,” Carlos says, feeling helpless and a little pathetic to be pointing it out. TK loops his hands over Carlos’s wrists, grounding him.

“I’m happy, baby. I just want to make sure you’re really, absolutely sure you’re okay with that.”

Carlos’s stomach drops. “What? Of course I am. Did you… did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“Baby, no, no.” TK blinks and it makes three tears fall, one from his left eye and two from the other, chasing each other down the contours of his face. Carlos thumbs them away as he searches TK’s face for an explanation, feeling a bit like he’s falling himself.

“I don’t understand,” he admits in a whisper. “Can you walk me through it?”

TK nods, shifting so he’s sitting more comfortably between Carlos’s legs. He brings one hand up to cover the hand on his cheek and settles his other on Carlos’s knee, squeezing reassuringly. More tears fall, but when he speaks again his voice is stronger.

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m monopolizing Jonah,” he says, and Carlos’s mouth opens to argue but TK barrels on: “We’re raising him together, so he should get pieces of both of us. And mom was always more religious than I am, and I want to give him that, but… they’re not your traditions, Carlos!”

Still confused, but bolstered by TK’s steady voice, Carlos raises his eyebrows. “What, do you wanna throw him a quinceañera?”

That shocks TK into a laugh. It’s wet and crackly from emotion, but it wipes the sadness off his face. Carlos drops his hands down to catch TK’s in between their bodies.

“But seriously,” he says when TK catches his breath, “I don’t think I’m following, babe.”

“Honestly, I’m not either.” TK drops his forehead to rest on their clasped hands, sighing. “You know I can get in my head sometimes. Mostly, I think I’m afraid I’ll get so wrapped up in what mom would have wanted that I’ll forget to ask what you want.”

Carlos leans his head down over top of TK’s, kissing the top of his head and then resting his cheek on it. Times like this, he can never quite believe he’s married to a man as generous and thoughtful as TK Strand.

“I also want what your mom wanted, baby. That’s so important.”

TK raises his head, looking straight into Carlos’s eyes from an inch away. “Yeah, but you’re important too! I know you weren’t sure this is what you wanted, but now that we have it I want it to be the real thing, both of us raising him together.”

“I want that too, TK.” Carlos breaks one hand away to drape it over the nape of TK’s neck and tug their foreheads together. “I want this family with you. Please, don’t ever doubt that.”

“I know,” TK whispers. A hot tear shatters when it hits their clasped hands.

“Maybe we take it one holiday at a time, okay? Jonah’s gonna get a lot of my side on Christmas, that’s for sure.”

TK giggles, blinking a few more tears away. “He’s gonna love it. Almost as much as your mom will.”

Carlos just has to kiss him, a difficult endeavor while smiling but never impossible. “And there’s lots of secular-ish Easter stuff I can show him. You and your dad never did much for that one, right?”

“Yeah, dad usually worked holidays. A couple times he put together egg hunts for the 252 kids, but…” TK laughs, shaking his head. “Honestly, they were terrible. There’s only so many places to hide eggs that don’t risk kids getting near the rigs or the power tools.”

“Yeah, I don’t imagine that going well.” Carlos smiles at him and slides a hand over TK’s knee and up to his thigh, smoothing circles into his skin. TK’s always so cozy looking when he’s wearing his sleep shorts, so warm and peach fuzzy under Carlos’s hands – until he gets his cold toes in the backs of Carlos’s knees, of course.

The thought has him feeling ridiculously affectionate. He leans forward and pecks TK’s lips again, then his cheek, before pulling back to take him in. He’s beautiful always, but in their bed and bathed in soft orange lamplight he looks divine. Nearly as gorgeous as he was when the sunset colors hit him earlier, by the lake, face turned to the sky with a gleaming smile. Or maybe he’s even prettier than that, now. It’s a question Carlos could happily ponder for the rest of his life.

He watches as TK’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, a sure signal that he has more to say. Carlos waits for him, feeling steady in their silence until TK’s ready.

“Yom Kippur is coming up,” he says eventually, casually. Carlos squeezes his knee and nods.

“Do you want to teach Jonah about it?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know.” It’s TK’s teeth wetting his lip, now, scraping over soft flesh as he turns his options over in his mind. “It’s a hard one to explain to a three-year-old. I’m definitely not making him fast.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Carlos agrees. Then he pauses as a new question sparks to life. “Do you want to fast? Ranger Thompson owes me a favor, I can get the day off-”

“Baby, that’s so sweet. Thank you,” TK says, taking Carlos’s cheek in one of his hands. “But I don’t think I feel ready yet. I might next year. I can talk to Marj and Joe, see if they have tips for fasting and childcare at the same time.”

“That’s a great idea,” Carlos says. “And I’ll put in for a personal day if you decide you want to.”

TK smiles softly at him before his lips purse together in thought. “I just don’t know what to tell him this year. I know we have time, but he’s gonna keep me busy and I want to make sure I’m doing right by him. And doing right by God, I guess.”

Carlos definitely understands that. He grew up afraid of priests and nuns, constantly worried they would figure out he wasn’t straight and tell everybody, or that God would smite him when He finally realized. But going to church wasn’t the worst part – when he first found his eyes sticking to male actors and roaming the bodies of baseball players that his father always had on TV, he was petrified of damnation. It took years for that fear to fade enough for him to experiment and confirm, and even then he didn’t fully shake it until he met TK, because TK is too good inside to ever go to hell. If Carlos ends up there, it’ll be for something he’s done, not who he loves. That, he thinks he can live with.

“He’s a hard guy to impress, babe,” Carlos starts. TK deflates so fast that Carlos’s tongue stumbles over itself in his haste to put it right. “But you are a very impressive man! Okay? You’re a wonderful son, husband, and father. You love your neighbor better than anybody and worked to save their lives for a decade. You rescue animals, you’re nice to strangers in the grocery store, you get really upset about litter, and you-”

“Carlos,” TK laughs through the moisture in his eyes and voice. “Baby, you are so sweet, but I get the point.”

“Sorry.” Carlos blushes, but can’t seem to tear his eyes away from TK’s, nearly going cross-eyed again as TK moves forward to sit more fully in Carlos’s lap, his ankles crossing in the space between Carlos’s hips and the headboard.

“Don’t be sorry, babe.” TK leans forward to kiss him, one hand falling to rest on Carlos’s bare chest while the other twirls around his nape and scratches into his hairline. “You are the best husband I could ever ask for. But I’m not sure if God is ever gonna love me as much as you do.”

He couldn’t, Carlos thinks. Aloud, he says, “He will appreciate your effort. And like you said, you’re giving Jonah the tools he needs so he can decide when he’s old enough to understand things like sin and forgiveness and religious fasting.”

“Yeah,” TK sighs, curling closer against Carlos. “I’m totally freaking out, right? And I should calm down?”

“You’re doing great,” Carlos assures him, pulling him in for another kiss. One benefit of having to be quiet for Jonah all night is that this happens a lot: just sitting in bed talking to each other and making out, sometimes alternating, sometimes in reverse order. Carlos loves how intimate it feels in the midst of a toddler-enforced dry spell. This bed is seeing less action these days, but it’s not seeing any less love.

TK pulls back from the kiss, looking Carlos in the eye and quirking an eyebrow. “We’re doing great,” he corrects. Carlos swallows the instinct to argue, but TK seems to sense it anyway because his tone shifts into something playful. “Oh, is it my turn to tell you all the things I think God admires about you?”

Carlos groans and plops his head into TK’s shoulder. “I get it, it was corny and stupid.”

“Carlos, no, it was so cute. I’m not poking fun.” Carlos can practically feel the expression shifting on TK’s face as his chest begins to shake with laughter. He peels one eye open to look at him suspiciously.

“Why are you laughing if it was cute?”

“It was cute. I have a joke, that’s all.”

Carlos snorts, equal parts frightened and endeared. He sighs, putting on a show like his husband’s terrible jokes are a chore and not one of the greatest delights Carlos has ever known. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

TK grins, trying very hard not to laugh before he gets to the punchline. “It’s just that, you know, you used the word ‘impressive’ and then you didn’t even mention my impressive co-”

“TK!” Several things happen all at once as horror floods Carlos’s veins: he slams his hands over TK’s mouth, TK falls backward with the force of it, he brings Carlos down with him because his legs were connected behind Carlos’s back, and Carlos has to uncover TK’s mouth to catch himself so he doesn’t bruise TK’s ribs with his skull.

Howling, happy laughter bursts forth from TK’s uncovered mouth. It paints their room for a bright moment before TK muffles it with his own hand and looks toward the door with comically wide eyes, scared a sleepy Jonah will appear and demand to know what was so funny.

Carlos buries his face in TK’s belly, shaking with the effort of keeping his own laughter trapped inside.

“I think we’re safe,” TK whispers after a few minutes have passed, one hand still lazily stroking Carlos’s curls.

Carlos agrees with him. Jonah does not wake quietly, and the fact that they haven’t heard any big, squeaking yawns or calls of “TK, I need to potty!” is basically confirmation that Jonah’s still perfectly asleep. And in this moment, that is a gift.

“You’re ridiculous,” Carlos tells TK, climbing up his body to lay flush against his husband and start kissing at his neck.

TK tilts his head to give him better access. “Yeah? Gonna do something about it?”

“Just might,” Carlos practically growls, nipping just above TK’s collarbone.

TK’s legs tighten around Carlos’s hips, spurring him on. As he’s making his way back up, intending to nibble on his husband’s earlobe, TK tenses up and makes a hissing, high-pitched sound that Carlos has never heard him make before, not once in the five years they’ve been together.

“TK?”
“Ah- ah- calf-” TK whimpers. Carlos wriggles out from between his legs and scoops them up, stopping in distress when he realizes there’s two suspects.

“Which one?”

TK points to his left one and pushes out a sharp breath between his teeth like he’s yelling at it.

Carlos drops TK’s right leg and takes the left into both hands to massage it. “I’ve got it, baby, it’s okay.”

After a painfully long thirty seconds where Carlos experiences the dubious pleasure of feeling his husband’s calf jump and harden angrily, it finally settles. TK flops his head back on the mattress, wincing as Carlos smooths over muscle that was just in spasm.

“Ow,” he whines. “That was the worst cramp of my life.”

“I’m sorry, babe.” Carlos ducks his head down to kiss the offending limb, resuming his massage when he straightens.

TK sighs, relaxing into it for a few minutes. Carlos basks in it – he loves this, too, loves getting to take care of this incredible man and make him feel better after a long day. He can’t believe he was ever stupid enough to risk losing this, but he has been, so many times. He’s risked it with his omission, his avoidance, and most damning of all, his obsession.

He will do better. He has to.

“Babe?” TK asks, voice soft and sweet as it breaks through the quiet.

“Hm?”

“What did you think of today?”

Carlos looks up from TK’s leg, caught a little off guard. “Well, I…I’m honored that you shared it with me.”

TK pushes himself up to his elbows, looking at Carlos with an expression both gentle and searching. Asking for more.

“We’ve never done much to celebrate before,” Carlos explains. “You taught me how to make challah, what, two years ago?”

TK smiles as he remembers. “Round challah, yeah.”

Carlos smiles back, starting to massage TK’s other calf just because he can. “But other than that you haven’t talked about it much. I’m really happy you did. I always want to learn more about you, you know?”

TK sits up more fully, leaning to place a hand on Carlos’s forearm. “I do.”

“Good. It’s true.” TK lets him keep massaging for another minute before he gently interrupts with his own hands, scooping Carlos’s up and squeezing them.

Carlos searches his eyes, worried. “What?”

“Is there something else?” TK’s tone is measured and careful, but it doesn’t mask his concern. “You seem a little in your head, baby.”

“It’s not you, or Rosh Hashanah,” Carlos promises.

TK nods. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Yeah. I just-” He cuts himself off. He’s avoiding and omitting again, isn’t he? He doesn’t want to do that anymore. He’s going to be present and honest with the man who loves him and knows him like no one else. Their therapist has been getting on his case about it. So Carlos takes a deep breath and releases it; gathers the truth on his tongue and gasps in the air to spit it out. “The last time I thought about my sins like that I was sitting in a confessional booth.”

TK’s face falls, and Carlos hates being the one to put that expression there. “Baby, I didn’t know-”

“I want to tell you,” Carlos interjects. “And this is not your fault. I wanted to celebrate with you and Jonah. I wanted to be there.”

TK nods at him, his eyes wet and shining. Carlos lifts one hand and presses a long kiss to his middle knuckle, needing to feel the warmth of his skin.

“I was sixteen,” Carlos says. “I’d been sure I was gay for almost a year. But I had just… I think it was a couple nights before? I watched some gay porn. I cleared the web history after, obviously, but it was the first time I… really watched it. And got off to it. But as soon as I was done I felt so dirty. And I let it fester for a few days before I finally decided I needed to go and confess so I could stop worrying about it, otherwise I was going to start failing classes.”

TK knows this about him, how all-consuming his anxious spirals can get. He knows the story of when Carlos was seven years old and broke down crying in the bath when he admitted to his mother that he’d been buying two chocolate-chip cookies in the cafeteria lunchroom – swapping his soggy green beans for the additional treat. It didn’t cost more, but Andrea’s rule was that he could only get one dessert, and not telling her the truth built up inside him until he was so full of his own oily lies that he had to tell her or he’d choke on all that viscous omission.

He doesn’t know when that changed. When keeping the truth inside became so fundamental that sharing it felt like opening an artery.

“What did the priest say?” asks TK. His brows are drawn, so adorably concerned for a past Carlos that it makes the present one feel like he can fly.

“Nothing,” Carlos says. And despite it all, he smiles, a laugh crawling up his throat. “I got in there and I couldn’t say it. I made up some story about running a red light with my fresh driver’s license and bolted.”

TK grins back. “You? Breaking traffic laws?”

Carlos shrugs, sheepish. “Yeah, yeah. It’s also not a sin, but I guess I was convincing because he didn’t treat me any different at mass that week.”

“Still, that’s a lot of stress on a teenager. I’m sorry today brought that back up.”

“Religion is always going to have some baggage for me, baby,” Carlos says quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to share it with you.”

TK all but launches forward to wrap his arms around Carlos. There’s nearly enough force in the motion to knock Carlos back to laying down.

“I love you,” TK whispers. “Thank you for celebrating with me.”

“Of course, sweetheart. I love you too.”

TK pulls back, draping his hands on Carlos’s shoulders. With the thumb and forefinger of one hand, he plays with the chain on Carlos’s necklace.

“It’s funny,” he says. “I never thought I’d come back around to being religious. Not that I see myself going to temple every Friday night and Saturday morning, but like… believing in God again? That feels pretty miraculous, some days.”

“That’s a strong word,” Carlos points out. Not with any kind of intention or attitude, just an observation, a request for more.

TK understands this, of course, so he shrugs. “It’s like being in my thirties, you know? I never thought I’d get here.”

Carlos does know. TK was so excited for his thirtieth birthday because, as he whispered to Carlos in bed the night they booked catering for his party, he never quite believed he was going to make it there, even as his days of sobriety climbed up into months and multiple years. And then suddenly his birthday was close enough to plan for, and TK found himself happy in work and love, living in a dream apartment with his husband. Settled and steady, he’d said. Something the young man who wanted all his feelings to stop could never imagine.

“I know,” Carlos whispers. “But you did it, baby.”

TK smiles his beautiful, bashful smile, as if he doesn’t understand how amazing he is. Carlos has to lean forward and kiss the corner of his mouth. TK’s smile is beyond irresistible. It’s like seeing it makes a need to remind TK how loved he is bloom in Carlos’s chest – like showering him in affection can keep the great balloon of his joy from ever popping.

“I did,” TK laughs, turning to chase Carlos’s mouth. He captures it in an enthusiastic kiss that takes Carlos’s breath away, which is fine because this is a kiss that makes him feel like all he needs to survive is TK’s lips. He doesn’t even realize he’s started to tilt backwards until TK is on top of him, smoothing his hair into the pillows.

He pulls back just enough to beam at him, supported by forearms on either side of Carlos’s head. “I couldn’t have done it without my soulmate,” he says, casually, as if that isn’t the most romantic thing Carlos has ever heard.

“Not true, you could have. But come here and kiss me again.” Carlos snakes a hand around to the back of TK’s neck and coaxes him down to give him another thorough kiss.

When Carlos’s lips have started to tingle, TK pulls away with a parting peck and flops down beside Carlos. Carlos turns over to face him, threading one arm over TK’s waist.

TK turns his head and grins at him, his pillow squishing his hair into his face. He looks perfect – Carlos feels so fond that he aches. One of TK’s warm hands covers Carlos’s own.

“You know you’re my rock, right?” TK says, squeezing his hand. “And married people are always saying that, but I really mean it. You take such good care of us that I have the space to think about faith again.”

Carlos wriggles impossibly closer to nuzzle into TK’s cheek. He feels like he could explode in the best way, his chest puffy with the pride and love he feels even as his eyes grow hot and blurry with tears.

“You’re mine too,” he whispers, holding tight to TK’s hand. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

TK’s lips quirk up. “Well, you probably wouldn’t have thrown peas in a river today.”

Carlos laughs and pushes himself up to an elbow so he can see his husband better. He lets go of TK’s hand so he can play with his hair, fluffy from air drying after his shower. “No, probably not. But I’m so glad I did, baby.”

TK drags him in for another kiss with a hand on his waist, and Carlos is happy to oblige. This one is shorter and sweeter, and keeps falling apart because one of them starts smiling. Eventually they give up and Carlos decides to swing a leg over TK’s hips and tilt fully on top of him, laying down with his face in TK’s neck and his nose full of TK’s sleep-smell that clings to the sheets.

TK hums happily underneath him, running his hands up and down Carlos’s back. They stay there long enough for sleep to start tugging on Carlos’s eyelids, only to be interrupted by one of his favorite sounds in the world.

“Baby?”

“Mm?” Carlos pushes his lips forward to clumsily kiss TK’s neck, assuring him the grumble-hum was, in fact, an answer.

“Can you roll over and let me spoon you if you’re gonna go to sleep? I need to stretch my arms real quick.”

Groaning, Carlos slides off of his husband, but he doesn’t roll away from him, instead re-settling into a comfortable position on his side. There, he enjoys the view that is TK rolling his shoulders back, then crooking his gloriously bare arms behind his head one-by-one, opposite hand gently pulling the elbow to further the stretch. Mmm. Carlos loves TK’s arms.

“All that pea throwing get you sore?” Carlos teases.

TK gives him an unimpressed look. “More like all that carrying Jonah around when he got shy at his preschool tour this morning.”

Carlos remembers. The poor kid spent most of it with his face buried in TK’s shoulder, only peeking out when TK and Carlos encouraged him and assured him it was okay. Usually he’s a bubbly kid, so that was a little surprising. It’s nothing they can’t handle though – there are other preschools, and TK has already started teaching Jonah all his letters.

TK finishes stretching and flops back down next to Carlos, nose nearly touching Carlos’s. “I’m getting old,” he declares. “Carrying Jonah should not make my arms hurt.”

“Jonah’s getting old,” Carlos corrects. “You are getting distinguished and sexy.”

“Excuse me! Getting sexy?”

Carlos chuckles as he inches forward for a kiss. “Getting sexier. Every day. You’re experiencing impossible, exponential growth in sexy.”

TK indulges him by returning his kiss for a few moments before he breaks away to laugh.

“I’m sorry, that sounds like a disease,” he manages between giggles.

Carlos pouts, trying to tug TK’s face back. “I’m flirting with you!”

“And you always lose your game when you’re tired! We gotta work on your stamina,” he teases, patting Carlos’s pec before lifting up to turn off their bedside lamp.

“I won’t mind the practice,” Carlos teases back, latching back on to TK the second he’s horizontal.

TK smiles into the kiss. “After you get some beauty rest, cowboy.”

And unfortunately Carlos is too tired to argue, so he snuggles back into TK’s neck and closes his eyes. The exquisite feeling of TK’s hand rubbing his back coupled with the soothing music of his breath has nearly lulled Carlos under when a new thought strikes his sleep-addled brain.

“Babe,” he whispers urgently, lifting his head and looking at TK blearily. “Is it true that Jewish people and Catholics have the same guilt?”

TK barks a startled laugh, before his brows crease in confusion. “I- what? Where’d you hear that?”

“Uh…” Carlos squints, remembering. TK’s hand finds his sternum and rubs a steady pattern, grounding enough that it gives him just enough wakefulness to find the memory. “I think it was your mom, actually.”

TK stills momentarily before he recovers. “Oh,” he says, then trails off, waiting in an attentive silence as his hand resumes its up-and-down anchor.

“Yeah, it was,” Carlos says as it comes back to him. “It was only my third or fourth time meeting her. You had me over for dinner, but then you wouldn’t let me help with the dishes, so I was alone with her in the living room.”

TK laughs a little. “You’ve always been a terrible guest.”

Carlos rolls his eyes. “Anyway, she asked me a few questions about my background. She was definitely still interrogating me to see if I was good enough for you. And when I told her I was raised in the Church, she made a comment about us being the two faiths with the biggest guilt complexes. She said maybe that’s why the two of us save so many lives.”

“She was so thoughtful,” TK says. His smile is sad as he lays back down, pillowing his head on Carlos’s shoulder.

“You share that with her,” Carlos tells him. It’s true, even if TK might not believe it right now.

“Mm, I think you’re the thoughtful one.” TK pokes Carlos’s cheek, groaning when Carlos breaks into a yawn.

“Ugh, stop it,” TK says, fighting his own yawn. “We’re falling asleep before 10.”

“I think that’s just our life now, baby,” Carlos tells him. TK sits up briefly to reach for their duvet, pulling it back up with him and practically tucking Carlos in with a warm arm across his waist and a kiss on the cheek.

“You should go to bed then, sleepyhead.”

“M’kay.” Carlos rests his hand on TK’s head, wanting to play with his hair as he falls asleep. Not that it’s a long time away with TK’s weight against him, anchoring him, comforting him.

If Jonah tires them out this much on a holiday, Carlos doesn’t know how they’ll ever handle a second baby. He smiles to himself, though. He won’t bring it up to TK just yet, when they’re both tired and they’ve had an emotional day, but it’s a secret thrill that he’s thinking about it. He wants to experience everything with TK, and that’s always been true. Maybe as they find their footing with Jonah and Carlos gets further away from his mistakes, they’ll be ready for one more heart to take care of, and the future will be as sweet and golden as honey.

TK nudges Carlos, ever gently. “Shana tova, husband. Now turn over so I can hold you.”

“Mmph,” Carlos whines as he obliges. When TK’s warmth is pressed against his back, Carlos grabs around for one of his hands under the blankets. When he finds it, he pulls it to his lips and plants the sloppiest kiss he can on his husband’s strong knuckles.

“Carlos,” TK laughs, reaching down to wipe his hand off on Carlos’s pants.

Carlos smiles to himself and snatches TK’s hand back the second he can, pulling it to rest against his chest.

“Happy New Year, TK,” he murmurs, tumbling into sleep.