Work Text:
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Things seem to happen very slowly, like time itself is giving them a brief respite, warping and passing around them like a river around a stone and leaving them momentarily untouched. For that moment, just a moment, it’s utterly quiet, nothing between them other than their ragged exhalations. That moment hangs between them hushed and surreal and almost dreamlike as he folds TK into his arms the best he can while being careful not to put any actual weight onto him. He threads his fingers through TK’s greasy hair, clutches the hem of his flimsy, paper thin hospital gown, puts his lips to his cheek and jaw again and again, cautious, so cautious of the nasal cannula, and does as TK had commanded; breathes.
The strange floaty numbness of what might be shock slowly recedes and his senses seem to come back slowly one by one as though being filtered through a sieve. The room smells like antiseptic and stale sweat and ever so slightly like his mother’s perfume and Carlos breathes. He buries his face in TK’s warm neck and breathes. The skin there is tacky and Carlos’ lips are chapped and the frantic wailing of the machines has quieted back into steadier, more sedate beeps now and Carlos breathes. His whole body hurts from sitting for hours, days, contorting himself into uncomfortable hospital waiting room chairs and he breathes. He tries to speak but finds the words crack and break in his throat long before they make it to his lips, the remnants tumbling into TK’s ear as what he can only hope are comforting noises. And he just breathes.
He breathes and he breathes and he breathes until he feels the adrenaline start to fade, leaving in its wake only a sense of overwhelming relief that makes him feel shaky and heavy and slightly sick. His strength abandons him with such speed that he fears for an instant that his legs will give out. He moves to lean back, hand already reaching toward the chair he knows is still in the room somewhere, but TK’s fingers clutch at him, surprisingly strong, so strong that if those nurses could feel the strength of his grip they would never have counted him out, not for one second, and there's a stab of something like pride there and if Nancy were here she'd say told you so. He feels TK’s blunt nails through his shirt, no doubt carving tiny crescent moons into the meat of his shoulder, and the squeeze of the sleeve around his bicep is so tight it’s a wonder the seam doesn’t split.
“Stay,” TK whimpers, “stay, stay.” The words are pressed into his hair once, twice, three times, and Carlos feels something in his chest give; some last vestige of resistance, and it crumbles, collapses like so much wet sand with nothing more than that one word repeated and he doesn’t think he could tear himself away now, even if the building came down around him; which, considering the week he's had doesn't seem entirely out of the question.
He twists himself instead to sit half on the edge of the bed, careful of the wires and tubes still running from TK to the many machines monitoring him, not wanting to usher in another flurry of nurses and doctors. His back protests the change in position with a painful twinge but the thought of taking even one step away now is more than he thinks he can manage.
“Carlitos?”
At the sound of his mother’s voice, Carlos turns his head, all he can manage still held tightly in TK’s grip. She stands in the doorway, one hand pressed over her chest, rosary wrapped tightly around her fist. He can see the tears in her eyes from across the room.
“Mamá,” he says, and his voice cracks on the word. She must take that as the permission she needs, as she rushes to the other side of the bed, her hand reaching to touch TK's blanketed foot, then his knee, then his bare forearm.
“TK, mijo, you’re alright,” she says, and the deep well of emotion in her familiar voice brings Carlos up short. He feels his heart contract in his chest and he’s just so fucking glad she’s here, that nothing, not even a blizzard in Texas, would keep Andrea Reyes from him, from them.
TK’s head lolls and he clumsily tries to pat her hand with his, sedation and exhaustion making his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.
"Thank God," his mother says, and the rosary beads click together as her hand flutters again to her chest and then back to TK's wrist where it's still draped across Carlos' shoulder.
"Mrs. Reyes," TK croaks, and Carlos knows the look she gives him without even having to see it. "Andrea," he amends.
Carlos makes himself sit up, still half perched on the bed, and he allows himself the luxury of leaving both hands on TK, one in his hair and the other on his chest, fingers splayed over where he knows his heart steadily beats below.
"Oh, we have been so worried for you, TK, but it is just as I told Carlitos, you are a fighter and I just knew you would be alright," his mother says, and she hastily wipes at her eyes; smiles beatifically down at him.
TK smiles back at her, his own eyes a bit tentative but soft, and he opens his mouth to speak, but the words get cut off by a ragged sounding cough he tries in vain to stifle.
"Ay,” she tsks, “Pobrecito, let me get you some ice chips for your throat," she says. She pats his hand and bustles out of the room almost as quickly as she had entered. As they both watch she taps a passing orderly on the elbow and gestures through the glass doors at them before following the man out of sight around the corner.
TK looks at him and Carlos finds himself laughing at the expression on his face - TK channeling the essence of sleep-dazed deer-in-headlights.
“Prepare yourself to be mothered,” Carlos says and TK wheezes a quiet laugh.
“It’s sweet that she’s here, especially after…” he seems to hesitate; swallows hard. “After everything.”
“I didn’t tell her.”
TK’s eyes snap up, suddenly more alert. “You didn’t - ”
“I couldn’t - I didn’t want them to - ” He huffs a breath out between clenched teeth and sits back. “I didn’t want to tell them. At first because I… because I thought you would come back. We had argued before and you always came back, and so I just waited and… ”
“And I didn’t come back,” TK says, and he’s clenching the blanket, tucking and untucking the hem around his fingers like a nervous tic.
Carlos nods; jaw working. “And you didn’t come back. And by the time I realized that you weren’t going to come back I just… I couldn’t tell them. After everything they - I didn’t want them to… to be disappointed.” He sees the words hit TK, sees his expression shudder, his eyelashes flutter.
Carlos runs a hand over his face, rubs at his tired, dry eyes, and feels the weariness down to his bones. God, he doesn’t want to do this now. Not when he’s emotionally wrung out and wearing clothes he put on yesterday and all that’s in his stomach is three cups of terrible hospital coffee and a lingering knot of anxiety. Not when TK is still here in this place, barely a few hours from ‘they tell me his body is trying to shut down’ and ‘at this point it’s a matter of when, not if’. Not when they’re both still this raw.
“Listen, TK,” he says, “let’s table it for now, okay?”
“Carlos,” TK croaks, brows furrowing, “I - ”
“Hey, it’s okay. There’ll be time for that later. When you’re feeling better, okay?” He sees it cross TK’s mind to argue the point, sees it in the play of emotion across the drawn lines of his too-pale face, in the white-knuckle squeeze of his fingers in the blanket. But after a moment he seems to deflate a bit and his bottom lip purses just so in a gesture that Carlos knows means he’s feeling petulant, that he’s realized he’s not going to get his way.
“Okay,” he says finally, just barely audible above the beeps and soft whirrs of the machinery.
Carlos runs his hand through the hair at the crown of TK’s head, scratches gently at his scalp in tiny circles. There’s this lingering little frisson of joy, of wonder, at every touch that he’s allowed and that? That’s enough for now.
“Everything is going to be alright, TK. We’ll talk all you want, we will, just… not right now, okay?”
“Okay,” TK says, resigned.
Carlos hears his mother before he sees her.
“This way, in here,” she says, and when she comes around the corner it’s with a small army of people in her wake. Like a duck leading her fledglings she is followed by two nurses, one of which Carlos recognizes with a sick swoop of his stomach as one of the nurses from that morning who had lamented TK’s inevitable death. The second nurse is blonde and Carlos thinks she may have been in the room when TK woke up, but he can’t be sure. When he tries to pull the memory of what must only be a handful of minutes ago all he gets is a kind of numb static in his brain. An orderly, the same orderly his mother had flagged down, trails behind them, now pushing what looks like a large, rather plush looking chair on wheels.
Behind them is Paul, still draped in a hospital robe and wrapped in a large, expensive looking blanket, and with him Nancy, and Marjan, all looking fraught and tired but smiling.
His mother comes back to TK’s other side, a shallow plastic cup full of ice chips in her hand. “Here you go, mijo, for your throat,” she says, and passes the cup to TK, who takes it gingerly.
The blonde nurse trails his mother, a kind smile across her lips as she looks TK up and down. “Tyler, how are you feeling? You’ve certainly had a day. Are you up to some company? We have some people here who are pretty excited to see you.”
TK is nodding before she has even finished speaking, and as he takes in the three figures hovering in the doorway his hand begins to tremble. Carlos absently wraps his own hand around TK’s to steady the cup.
“Hey, guys,” TK rasps, and he beams at them as they file in.
Nancy reaches out and places a hand on one of TK’s feet, giving it a little shake. “Hey, bud,” she says, “Welcome back.” Carlos can see her eyelashes quiver as she does an admirable job of holding back tears.
The blonde nurse goes to the white board on the wall next to the bed and uncaps one of the markers. “We’ll keep it short for now, guys, we want to make sure he doesn’t get too much excitement, but I know how anxious you all have been to see him.” She writes her name across the top of the board next to Dr. Patel’s. ‘Ellie’ in a curling, cheerful script. She draws a tiny cartoon nose and whiskers below the two looped-together Ls to make it look like a rabbit.
“I’ll be looking after you tonight, Tyler,” she says, and moves again to the computer in the corner, scanning the badge clipped to her shirt pocket to unlock it and quickly typing something into her program there. “So if you need anything just go ahead and press that big red call button on your remote, okay?”
“It’s TK, ma’am,” TK says, slightly garbled around the ice chips now in his mouth. “I go by TK.” He accepts the hug Paul leans in to give him, straining forward ever so slightly to reach for him. He fumbles a bit with the cord of the pulse oximeter and Carlos lifts his arm at the elbow to readjust the slack.
“Well, TK, it’s great to finally meet you. Visiting hours are over at seven o’clock, so we’ll keep this short for now and we’ll let you sleep for a while, and then a bit later we’ll see if we can’t get you a little something to help fill your stomach, how does that sound?”
Carlos feels his own stomach sink like he’s swallowed a stone and his hand clenches involuntarily where it now rests above TK’s head on the pillow. He doesn’t want to leave. Even if it’s only to sit fifty feet down the hall in the common area, the thought of it makes his heart flutter anxiously beneath his breastbone.
He knows he’s being irrational, he knows the logical thing to do is to go home now that TK’s awake, shower and change and find something to eat that isn’t from a vending machine and something to drink that isn’t caffeinated and somewhere to sleep that isn’t semi-vertical. But he just… can’t. He can’t go back to that empty loft and cook alone in that kitchen, sleep alone in that bed. He just can’t do it.
But TK needs to rest and once he’s out he’ll probably sleep through the night and he won’t even know if Carlos is there or not and -
And none of that matters because there can be no logic when it comes to TK Strand. It’s been stripped from him. From the very first moment he’d laid eyes on him on that cold, rainy night he’d just known. Something in him, some vital part had taken one look at those pretty eyes and said point of no return and that had been that. And it still is. Months of a bed half empty and a closet half full have made no difference to his fool heart. It wants what it wants. And mierda, he doesn’t want to go home, not when for the first time in months he feels like he can breathe, he wants to -
“ - can’t fit a cot in here with all the equipment, but we pulled a geri chair for you. Ellie will be coming around to check on him every few hours tonight,and depending on how he’s doing they may need to take him for some additional tests. Otherwise Dr. Patel will be back during morning rounds with an update.”
It’s the other nurse this time, the brunette with the bun.
when and not if when and not if whenandnotif
It takes what little reserve of strength he has to focus on her face, the words coming out of her mouth now, right now, and not those terrible words from this morning, the words that had knocked the breath from his lungs.
The orderly has wheeled the larger chair into the room now, and the nurse places the stacked blanket and pillow she’s been carrying onto the seat. For him to sleep on, he realizes belatedly, and the relief he feels is palpable. The knot of tension in his gut begins to ease.
The nurse turns to leave and hesitates in the doorway for a long moment, hand lingering on the door handle.
“Sir?” she says, and she’s looking at him. Or, rather, she’s looking at the wall just past his head, unwilling or unable to look him in the eye. “Might I speak to you in the hallway for just a moment, please?”
A part of Carlos wants to say no. Wants to look her square in the face and tell her no, you can say what you want to say in front of him or not at all, you can tell everyone, all of them, exactly what you said. But he’s in no mood for any more drama today, and doesn’t think he could muster the energy for a fight even if he wanted to. She’ll say what she needs to say and after that he’ll be content to never see her again.
He slides off of the bed and exits the room, but goes no further, not willing to let TK out of his line of sight just yet. Nancy takes his place by the bedside while his mother holds an insistent spoonful of ice chips up for TK like he’s a particularly helpless child.
The nurse grips her stethoscope with both hands, readjusting it needlessly around her neck. She takes a buoying breath and finally meets his eyes.
“I just wanted to apologize to you for the incident this morning,” she rushes out, “It was entirely inappropriate and it should not have happened. That you had to hear any of that - well, I’m very sorry. I truly never meant to - to - ” She cuts herself off, her eyes flicking to somewhere over his left ear. He turns.
On the other side of the glass Nancy leans over TK and puts her arms around him as best she can. Her shoulders sag visibly, but it’s not the defeated slouch of the last few days, no, instead it’s a relieved release of pent up tension. She pulls back after a long moment and ruffles his hair much like a sister might to her favored little brother. TK’s nose scrunches indignantly and he bats at her hand weakly, but a grin is slowly cutting across his tired face. Nancy says something and everyone laughs, the sound muffled through the glass.
Softly, so soft he doesn’t know if she’s actually talking to him or not, the nurse says, “So often in this job we learn that it’s easier not to get our hopes up. Or get too invested. Because when we get attached and they don’t - don’t make it - it’s sometimes just easier to be…” She takes a shaky breath, her eyes noticeably damp despite the clear tension in her jaw, and seems to bolster herself again. Louder, more directly she says, “I’m so glad to see him recovering so well. I’m sorry, again. If there’s anything at all I can do to make either of you more comfortable, please let me know.”
There’s a sincerity there that goes a long way toward quelling the bitterness that still bubbles up when he looks at her. He nods, unable to summon anything more than that. She gives him a watery smile and retreats down the hall.
-
Owen is coming first thing in the morning. The cell networks seem to be slowly coming back online and though he makes the call brief, Owen passes along the good news and greets his son with a voice so full of relief and something that might be pride that Carlos feels the familiar prick and burn of oncoming tears.
Soon after it becomes clear that the adrenaline of company has started to wear off and TK starts to flag, politely waving off the ice chips his mother is still trying to spoon feed him as he settles back into the pillows.
Marjan passes her phone around and they all take turns fussing over slightly blurry pictures of the newest member of the 126 sent by a clearly ecstatic Judd, TK’s eyelids drooping more and more every passing second.
By the time Ellie returns a few minutes later to usher them all out TK is dozing peacefully, his head tipped into Carlos’ hip where he’s again perched on the bed, and Carlos is so exhausted he’s confident he could fall asleep as he is, half standing.
His mother pulls a chair close on TK’s other side and takes a book out of her purse.
“Mamá,” he says, “You should go home. I don’t want you driving in this after it gets dark.”
“Nonsense,” she says, and folds the book open on her lap. “You’re dead on your feet, why don’t you lie down and I’ll stay for a while longer and keep an eye on things?”
Even though she asks it like a question, Carlos is familiar enough with his own mother that he knows a command when he hears one. He finds that the larger chair reclines and while he’s a bit too large for it to be entirely comfortable, his body is so relieved to be semi-horizontal that he’s barely put his feet up before he feels the insistent pull of sleep. He props his elbow on the edge of the bed and rests his hand over TK’s wrist. He falls asleep to the feeling of his fingers warm on TK’s pulsepoint and the sound of his mother’s humming.
-
There’s something niggling just on the outskirts of his awareness. A low rumble, on and off, like his police radio cutting in and out. He tries, he does; somewhere in his mind he makes an effort to pay attention, make sense of it. The sounds resolve themselves into low, murmured voices speaking sotto voce.
“ - gorgeous place, the light -
- on the deed, and at first - ”
TK. There are fingers on the back of his wrist drawing tiny swathes.
“ - er told us anything about - ”
“ - and I just… panicked. I knew - I know - that he was only trying to make me happy, but in that moment I could suddenly see it all laid out in front of me, this life, and…”
“And it was not what you wanted?” His mother. He knows that tone. It is the tone that says be very careful what you say next.
“No! I mean, yes, it was exactly what I wanted, and that was the problem… everything was so perfect and I was so happy and it just hit me all at once."
TK’s hand leaves his wrist, and the spike of cool air in its wake spurs him. He tries to move. He tries to unstick his eyelids, lift his head, but the pull of unconsciousness is still too strong and his body feels too heavy.
He can hear TK breathing hard. When he speaks next his voice is muffled like he's speaking into his hands.
"It's like every time I feel like I'm in a good place, like I have control, that I'm happy, something… something comes along and - ”
“So you hurt yourself before you can be hurt, no?” His mother's voice is soft, coaxing, and he knows it so well it hurts. "Because when you are up it can, sometimes, feel like there is nowhere to go but down."
A ragged breath, drawn through clenched teeth. A sound that might be a sob. Wrong, Carlos thinks, it’s wrong, and he fights the fog of sleep harder, tries to focus. Carlos knows this, and he even understands it, this is how TK works. When things get scary he runs.
"I didn't mean to hurt him, but I know I did. And he has every right to be mad - to not want… I hurt him so bad." TK’s voice is choked and tight and Carlos hates it with everything in him.
"Yes, you did, and I'm not happy with you for that, but if you take all of the blame for something that was not solely your mistake you will never find your peace together. Maybe my son overstepped his place, and maybe you reacted poorly."
"...why are you being so nice to me? After - "
A creak of plastic as his mother leans in her chair. “As far as I’m concerned you are family now, TK, and family means that sometimes things are hard. Sometimes we are selfish, sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we say a harsh word we wish to take back, but to be family means that no matter what we never give up on each other. My Carlito will never give up on you, I saw that today. He proved that.”
"He did, I know. He came here for me, even after everything that happened, he still came. It's probably more than I'm worthy of."
That’s not right. It’s not. Does he really think that?
"Mijo, what kind of talk is that? Is that what you are so scared of?"
TK’s breath comes in fits and stutters. "Honestly, I think in the back of my mind it's that one day he’s going to wake up and realize I don’t deserve him.”
Carlos can’t move. He wants to. He wants to sit up and pull TK into his arms and talk nonsense into his ear until it all stops. But he can’t. He is not meant to hear this, and to do that now would break something between them, something vital, something not ever meant to be broken.
“‘Deserve’, ay, what is ‘deserve’?” his mother scoffs, and Carlos feels his stomach clench with the desire to do something, anything. “You are a good man, TK, you take care of your family, you are loyal to your friends, you take pride in your work, and you love my son as he loves you. So you are not perfect? Not one of us is. I have loved my Carlos since the moment I knew I carried him, but he is not perfect, as much as it hurts this mama's heart to say so."
TK laughs a shaky, watery laugh. "He seems pretty perfect to me. Though I guess he can be a bit of a control freak."
"Tsk, my son is a good boy, he always has been, but sometimes too much so. He never stood out, never talked back or made trouble, and I was always bragging to my friends about what a good son I have. But now I can see what he was really doing was hiding. Even now, he hides.”
Carlos holds himself so still it hurts, keeps his eyes firmly closed, tries desperately to keep his breathing shallow and even.
His mother sighs, and it’s the kind of sigh that betrays the depth of memories. "Years ago, on the ranch, we had a cat. We had many cats, for the mice, yes? But this one was special. Never a bother, always so good. She would follow me everywhere I went, sunup until sundown. Until one day she didn't. I searched for her and found that she had died under the front porch. The doctor was there for the horses and when I showed him, he found she had a lump on her throat; cancer, he thought. She must have been in so much pain but she never showed it to me. I never saw it.” He hears the unmistakable snick of the rosary that must be again in her hands. “I think my Carlitos is like that cat. He never shows how much weight he carries, how much pain he is in. But it is not good for him to keep it all inside, you see?"
Carlos clenches his jaw to hold back the tears he can feel burning behind his eyes. TK’s hand alights on Carlos’, feather light so as not to rouse him.
“Maybe… maybe if he had just talked to me before he - I mean I don’t know.” TK sniffs, and the bed shakes ever so slightly with him as he breathes, staccato. “If we had talked about it maybe I wouldn’t have - maybe everything would have been okay?” He huffs. “I mean I don’t know if this is even what he wants, maybe it isn’t? Maybe he only did any of it because he was trying to make me happy?”
Of course not. He’d wanted to make TK happy, of course he did, he’d wanted to see his face light up when he looked at the exposed brick, when he admired the way the natural light made the whole room glow, he wanted to be the one that made that happen for him. He wanted to give TK the home he deserved. Is it so wrong to want that?
He hears his mother shift again, lean in. “He does what he thinks is best for you, what he thinks will make you happy. It is what he thinks you want, but is it what either of you need? He will not always tell you, so you must learn how to ask. Tell him what is on your heart and encourage him to do the same. Ay, but you are still learning each other. Be patient with yourself, TK, and with him; these things will come in time."
It’s quiet for a time, and he can practically picture TK’s face, the little crinkle between his brows when he’s thinking hard, absorbing something. And then -
"Andrea, I - thank you. I don't know what to say. Thank you for being here for him, for us."
"No need for thanks, it is what a mother does. But I had better see you at Sunday dinner the moment you're feeling up to it, you understand?"
A soft chuckle he knows comes with a crows-feet smile. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good boy." Rustling, and then the gentle scrape of a chair’s feet on linoleum. “If I’m here much longer Gabriel will come and get me himself, but I’ll stay until you fall asleep. Take care of my boy, TK, and let him take care of you. Now, get some rest.”
After long minutes of nothing but the soft swish of the pages of his mother’s book, TK’s fingers slow in their petting and then go still, and through the fog of exhaustion he feels when they go slack entirely, growing heavy atop his wrist. Carlos thinks of coming clean, of opening his eyes and revealing himself, of taking his mother in his arms and murmuring his love into her neck, of holding TK until there is no longer any doubt between them, but something stops him. Maybe it’s that he wants this, wants for TK to bond with his parents, maybe it’s that he respects their privacy too much, or maybe it’s just that he’s far too tired to focus on anything more complicated than the inside of his eyelids. But something tells him to let them have this moment, untouched and undisturbed; secret.
He lets sleep take him again without protest.
-
In the morning things look brighter. The dawn brings clear blue skies, nurse Ellie, and Dr. Patel in turn. They greet TK with a smile and breeze through rounds while nurse Ellie pokes and prods him with the kind of contagious good humor that makes it easy to forgive her for the very early wake up call. Dr. Patel peruses TK’s charts and considers TK himself for a long moment before announcing with a smile that TK is “trending in the right direction.”
TK is to be taken for another round of tests and labs and he dismisses Carlos from his bedside with an insistent tap to the arm, his way of asking for a kiss, which Carlos grants without pause or question, and an order to ‘go home and get some real food and sleep, please’.
As he is wheeled away TK squeezes his hand once, hard, and lets their fingers brush and fall away. Carlos feels the loss keenly, but sweetly.
Ellie pats him on the arm gently. “We’ll take good care of him, don’t you worry.” She gives him a bright smile before trotting after TK’s bed, her ponytail swinging jauntily behind her.
Outside, the morning air is cool, no longer bitingly cold, and the breath he takes fills more than just his lungs.
The sun is rising.
-