Archive of Our Own ^beta

“ Trust your instincts, Carlitos ,” his dad had told him, “ they are the only thing in life that won’t steer you wrong .” 

He had been 15 at the time and he and his dad had spent hours together, working side by side on the ranch, Gabriel dropping words of wisdom as they came to him and interspacing it all with anecdotes and thrilling stories from his job. It was normal, such a typical part of his life that he didn’t think about it until it had happened less and less shortly after he had turned 17, shortly after he had a certain conversation with his parents.

Logically he knew there were a number of reasons for this: he had graduated high school shortly after and was around the ranch less and less. His dad had gotten a promotion and was working longer hours. There were any number of reasons that all made perfect sense, but Carlos could never shake the feeling that maybe that one conversation had been one of them. It didn’t change the fact that those hours and those stories and chats had been so formative to Carlos. They were a large part of the reason he had become a cop, and they were a large part of what shaped his conscious and his decision-making process. 

And now, standing in an alley with his gun leveled at a man with a bomb strapped to his neck and a bag of stolen money in his hands, it came back to him again: trust your instincts. 

His instincts told him this man was telling the truth, that he was being forced and that his life was in danger. He believed him when he told him that he wanted nothing more than to get home to his son, to little Enrique. But he couldn’t just let him walk away with a bag full of several thousand dollars — not if he wanted to keep his job. 

Mitchell and the suspect were both watching him, both waiting for him to come to a decision, to break the tie. He knew what his partner wanted to do. He knew that she wanted to follow the book, but his instincts were screaming at him that it wasn’t right, that they would be condemning an innocent man to death and a child to a life without his father. 

Perhaps the man sensed his hesitation; maybe he somehow knew that Carlos was on the fence because when he spoke next it was directed to him, and it was a compromise: “If you can get this thing off of me,” he began, voice steady but eyes still pleading, “I will give you the money and go with you. I’ll tell you everything I know about the people who did this. Please, I—” he broke off and when he continued his voice had lost its steadiness. It was full of desperation, “I don’t want to die.” 

Carlos looked at Mitchell, but he was already lowering his gun. They communicated silently for a moment before his partner relented, lowering her own weapon, “Fine, but we are not touching it. We are calling for the bomb squad.” 

“There’s not enough time for that,” the man protested. “If I’m in one place for too long they’ll know something is wrong. And if they think something is wrong…” he trailed off, but Carlos could fill in the blanks pretty well. 

“Go ahead and radio for the bomb squad,” Carlos told Mitchell as he holstered his weapon, “but I’m going to take a look. I think he’s right and that means we don’t have that kind of time on our side.”

“Reyes—”

“We don’t have a lot of options here, Mitchell,” he reminded her tersely. “Either we run the risk of driving what is possibly an active explosive device into a police station or we let him go. I think this is the best shot we have, for everyone involved.” 

She bit her lip, but nodded, “Do what you can, but please try not to get yourself blown up Reyes. That’s an awful lot of paperwork.” 

“I’ll do my best,” he agreed as he stepped forward, gesturing for the man to turn so he could see the mechanism clasped around his neck. It looked fairly simple, at first glance, but there were some wires that were concerning, to say the least. 

“Anything you could tell me that might help?” he asked the man wryly, but he shook his head frantically. 

“No, they just held me down and put it on. I couldn’t stop them. I…” he broke off with a sob and Carlos could feel his heart clench. 

“Hey,” he told him evenly, “we’re going to do everything we can to get you out of this and home safe to Enrique, I promise. I just need you to stay calm and still. Can you do that?” 

He waited until the man started to nod before thinking better of it and instead giving him a small, quiet, “Yes.” 

“That’s good,” Carlos told him bracingly, “now just hang tight and I’m sure we’ll have this off in no time.” 

He felt around the band holding it to his neck. While the device itself looked complex, closer inspection showed him that it was secured to the terrified man by simple straps. He made quick work of them with his utility knife, and even though some were too close to wires for his comfort he is still able to cut enough of them that between him and his partner, they are able to ease it off the man. 

When it is finally off he nearly sags in relief, almost collapsing on the ground before them and only held aloof by Mitchell’s bracing hold. 

“Thank you,” he told him appreciatively, “thank you! I thought...thank you.” 

“Of course,” Carlos said evenly, studied the device now in his hands, “I’m just glad we were able to get it off without incident.” 

“Maybe they were lying to me,” the man admitted, “I was too scared to ask too many questions. Maybe it’s just a fake after all.” 

Carlos wanted to believe him, but while he was no expert in explosives the contraption in his hands did not look fake. His opinion was reinforced when the lights started blinking more rapidly, and the man paled. 

“The tracker,” he whispered. “They must have realized that I’m not coming, they must have triggered it. I’m so…” 

But Carlos didn’t wait to hear the rest of his apology. “Get down!” he instructed Mitchell, who pulled the man down with her even as his desperate eyes followed the device and his mouth still moved in soundless apologies. Carlos pulled his arm back and launched the device as far away from them as he could, further into the alley before them. Maybe he could throw it far enough, maybe it wouldn’t be a large explosion. Maybe whoever had made it wasn’t good with explosives, maybe it wouldn’t even…

But all of his conjecture was cut short by a resounding boom as the device exploded in the air. The force of the blast pushed him off his feet and the searing heat caught him on the way down. It was disorienting; loud and fast and hot. He could feel his body being pelted by debris, he could feel the sharp pain as it sliced through him on its way by. He hit the ground with a resounding crash that echoed in his head as it bounced off the ground as pain bloomed from everywhere all at once. His last view was of bits of destruction raining down like snow, gently drifting as it obeyed gravity. It could have been beautiful if it hadn’t been for the pain. 

He blinked again, feeling his eyes grow heavy. He wanted to look around, to check on his partner and the man who had formerly had a bomb stuck to his chest. He couldn’t summon the energy to move an inch. He supposed he could take the small comfort of having been right, he supposed as his eyes drifted closed. His instincts had been right, on all of this. 

His last fleeting thought before everything went black was that sometimes he wouldn’t mind if his instincts were wrong. 

The 126 paramedic crew pulled up to the scene in tense silence. The intel had been spotty but what they knew was enough to have TK gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles were white: there had been reports of an explosion, there had been police on the scene before the explosion, and those police could not be reached now. 

That was all they knew because it was all dispatch had been able to piece together. There was no saying what kind of explosion or what kind of destruction it had left behind. There was no knowing what had gone down or who the officers ever were. All TK knew was that his gut was filled with a dread that grew incrementally as he sped towards the scene. He knew that his team had picked up on his tension, that they understood how his fear was different from theirs. He couldn’t put into words how much he appreciated them letting him be. 

There was an eerie silence over the scene as they stepped out of the ambulance when they arrived. They weren’t far from the main street; it was as if a hush had fallen over the alley in reverence to the fallen. Because there were fallen — they could see that now as they drew closer. Three figures sprawled on the ground; unmoving and surrounded by destruction. They gathered their gear and rushed forward, Tommy alerting dispatch that they would require additional RA units to respond. 

It was another step and another heartbeat before TK realized just how well he knew one of the fallen figures and in that instant, he couldn’t breathe. His feet moved forward of their own accord and his mind frantically tried to process every detail of the horrible sight before him as he crashed to his knees besides Carlos’s still form. There was blood, but he couldn’t tell from where. Burns were likely too, given the singe marks and lingering heat. But TK’s chief concern was that Carlos wasn’t moving, that there had been no acknowledgment of his arrival. Even in sleep, Carlos seemed to know when TK was nearby but now, there was nothing. 

He reached out a shaking hand to his neck, holding his breath as he waited, as he prayed to feel the familiar thrum of a pulse under his hand. For a long moment, there was nothing and TK was sure he would shatter. But he shifted his hand because Carlos couldn’t die today and tried again. He waited, every ounce of his being focused on the hand on Carlos’s pulse point until a slow but steady rhythm began to beat under his fingers and TK finally allowed himself to breathe. 

“Pulse is weak but present,” he announced to Tommy who had kneeled beside him, his voice sounding strange even to his own ears. His captain nodded and reached into her bag, pulling out her gear as she appraised TK. 

“Are you good Strand?” she asked. “Usually I would tell you to stand down, but given the situation, we don’t really have a choice. I need all hands on deck.” 

TK took a deep breath and nodded, reaching into the case beside him to pull out what they would need. No, he was not good but he knew Tommy was right: there was no other option. Either he did this or risked losing Carlos for good, and he would always do anything in his power to stop that from happening. That was not an option he could live with. “I’ve got this Cap, what do you need me to do?” 

“Start the exam while I finish up his vitals. We need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

“What about the other two?” he asked even as he started following her instructions. “Don’t you need to…” 

But Tommy shook her head, “They’re both relatively fine, Nancy can handle them until more help arrives. Reyes here seems to have taken the brunt of the blast.” 

TK nodded without hesitation. It sounded like Carlos, after all: always trying to be everyone’s shield. 

He began his exam, starting with his head. It seemed like every moment revealed a new injury: blood on the back of his head, likely from a fall. Cuts and abrasions of various sizes littered across his body, fragments of what looked like a car taking up residence where they didn’t belong. Each new discovery struck TK like a physical blow, but he pushed on. 

The head injury was the most concerning, for a while. But as TK moved forward, as he examined more he learned that was not the case. There was a large piece of sharp metal sticking out of the left side of his abdomen and though TK had no way of knowing how long it was, it looked as if the majority of it was buried inside Carlos’s body, far far too close to vital organs for TK to breathe easily. He sucked in a breath and alerted Tommy, who grimaced when she saw it.  

“Pack it tightly,” she instructed him, handing him the gauze and tape necessary for the job, “make sure there is no room for it to move during transport. We want it held still until they are able to remove it at the hospital.” 

TK nodded and took the gauze, tightly winding it around the intrusive object so that it held firm. He watched with dread as the gauze steadily turned red as blood sluggishly leaked out from around it. There were so many ways an injury like this could go wrong, too many ways that it could turn fatal. The thought alone was almost enough to send TK reeling but he pushed it down. This wasn’t the time; Carlos needed him here. He needed him focused. He couldn’t risk falling apart when the very existence of the one person who just might mean more to him than anyone else in this world depended on it. 

TK and Tommy had finished examining Carlos and packing what wounds they could to prep him for transport when the requested additional units arrived. Tommy gave them a run down as TK and Nancy loaded Carlos onto the gurney and transferred him to the back of the ambulance. Not a word was said when TK climbed into the back instead of the driver’s seat, Nancy stepping around to take that spot instead without a word. 

As they drove he and Tommy continued working; monitoring and treating Carlos the best they could. In all that time and all the movement, Carlos had not stirred once and TK tried hard not to think about that, to dwell on what it might mean. He managed to hold it together, to stay professional and focused until they arrived at the hospital and unloaded the gurney, Tommy relaying the necessary info to the medical team that met them at the doors. 

He held it together until the moment Carlos’s still and bloody form disappeared through the doors of the trauma bay. Then, with nothing left to focus on, he finally let the tears come. 

He felt arms around him and felt himself being guided to a chair that he sank into gratefully, aware now that his entire body was trembling. Now that they were here and now that Carlos was in the care of the doctors, the situation was out of his control. Whatever happened now, he had no say in. He had done all he could and he had to hope that it was enough. Carlos’s injuries returned to him in flashes and TK knew with a sinking dread this was not going to be a short wait. It would be a while before any news came; good or bad. 

So he sat here in the waiting room, tears running down his face and his team at his side, waiting for the answer he knew would come eventually, hoping and praying that it would be one he could live with. That somehow, despite all the odds, Carlos would be okay. 

TK couldn’t lose him, it was as simple as that. 

After a while, there are no more tears left. 

It was a surprisingly short time before he cried himself dry, until he pulled himself together and settled into quiet fear. Tommy and Nancy settled in to wait with him, offering their quiet reassurances and comforting presence until their radios sounded. He found words enough to assure then that it would be fine, that he understood. That he would be fine on his own. They didn’t look like they believed him, but what other choice did they have? So, with a promise that he would keep them updated and that they and the rest of the crew would be by as soon as they could, they were gone and TK was alone. 

He sat in silence, alone in the waiting room, trying to keep his mind from spiraling. But no amount of bouncing his leg could keep him from picturing the scene, from thinking of what Carlos must have gone through, from imagining the worst. He twisted his hands in his lap, noticing a spot of blood that had slipped past the protection of his gloves on the inside of his wrist. He swallowed and turned his arm so he couldn’t see it. He didn’t need a physical reminder; the scene was still all too fresh in his head. 

Every single detail of it was seared into his mind and TK knew with a sinking dread that this was one of those times where being a paramedic put him at a disadvantage. He had seen more than his fair share of injuries and over time, you got a sense from the ones that people walked away from. The injuries he had treated Carlos for — the ones that had littered the body he loved so well — were not those. He knew that losing Carlos was a real possibility. 

He also knew that it wasn’t that simple. He knew that losing Carlos meant losing his world, and he couldn’t face that. 

Nearly an hour of silent, solitary waiting passed before he heard footsteps approaching his seat in the waiting room. His mind was still too fractured to process their proximity so when they halted and someone sank into the chair beside him, he hardly gave it a thought (he hardly had a thought left to give). The tears may be gone but the bone-deep fear was ever-present and all-consuming; his constant companion as he sat and waited, rubbing his still shaking hands on his legs.

And so he doesn’t process anything until the figure beside him started speaking: “You know, Carlitos didn’t always want to be a cop. He wanted to be an astronaut first, for the longest time.” 

The voice was shaky but startlingly familiar. It took TK a moment to place it but when he did the shock was visceral; running through his whole body as he looked up to see Gabriel Reyes sitting next to him, eyes staring off in the direction of the treatment rooms that currently held his son. 

“Maybe if I had encouraged that desire a bit more, we wouldn’t be here,” the man said quietly, sadly. “Maybe he would be a world away, but safe.” 

TK didn’t know what to say to that. Somewhere between the shock of his boyfriend’s father appearing and the fact that he was speaking to him as if he knew him TK had lost the ability to speak. He could simply stare. 

“I suppose that’s neither here nor there though,” Gabriel continued, “I suppose we are past what-ifs.” 

He turned then, taking his first look at TK. He looked him up and down, registering the blood staining his uniform and the anxiety and fear radiating from him with a grim expression. “You treated him,” he observed, voice growing quieter and softer. “First of all, thank you. No matter what happens, thank you.” 

His gaze held TK’s, his eyes (so much like Carlos’s it almost broke TK to look at them) sad and heavy with worry. TK swallowed down the tears that threatened to return and nodded. 

“I can’t imagine having to do that,” Gabriel continued in the same tone, “I can’t imagine having to keep your head about you when you see someone you care about hurt like that. That shows real strength, in my opinion. I’m not so sure I would be as strong.”

TK heard the words being said, but he simply stared in response. Someone you care about he had said. And the look in his eyes…

“You knew?” TK said, finally finding the words that had eluded him for so long, “About Carlos and I?” 

Gabriel nodded, “Since we ran into y’all at the market,” he confirmed. 

TK was left staring again, but for a different reason. Carlos’s parents had known . They had known for weeks now. They had known as Carlos tore himself apart, they had known as the secret almost ripped TK and Carlos apart. They had known and they hadn’t said anything . 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he finally managed.

“We wanted Carlitos to come to us on his own, in his own time,” Gabriel told him softly. “We didn’t want to push.” 

TK watched the older man look sadly back towards the doors separating them from Carlos and for the first time since it happened, he found an emotion besides fear rising up in him. 

“It has been eating him alive,” he told Gabriel, voice far stronger and far sharper than before. “It almost cost us our relationship. He is afraid of how you will react, he is so afraid that…” he trailed off, feeling that he was veering into territory he should never enter without Carlos’s consent or presence. He allowed himself a breath before he continued: “He was afraid to tell you and this whole time you’ve known ?” 

It’s not until his hot anger begins to fade from his mind that he can fully process the reaction from his boyfriend’s father. Gabriel’s eyes are wide in shock and horror, and TK came to his senses with a resounding crash. 

“I’m sorry,” he says more softly, calmly. “That was out of line. It’s not my place to—” 

“No, I think it is,” Gabriel disagreed, cutting off TK’s apology. “It’s your concern as much as his, after all.” 

“Still,” TK tied again, “I shouldn’t have said it like that.” 

“Perhaps not,” Gabriel agreed with a dry laugh that felt so foreign amongst the fear still so heavy in TK’s heart, “but it certainly got the point across.” 

They studied each other for a moment before Gabriel spoke again, “I know I haven’t been a perfect father,” he admitted, “but I do love my son.” 

“I don’t doubt that,” TK assured him. “Carlos loves you too, I know that for sure.” 

“And you?” Gabriel asked, fixing him with a piercing gaze. “Do you love my son?” 

“I do,” TK said firmly. “More than I have ever loved anyone.” 

“Does he love you?” 

“Yes,” TK said, without hesitation. “He has never let me doubt that, even when I’ve wanted to.” 

There was silence again as the two men regarded each other and after a long moment, Gabriel nodded, expression sad. 

“We’ve missed so much,” he said quietly. “We should have done better. We will do better,” he promised, voice stronger as he met TK’s eyes, “when he wakes up.” 

His voice was strong and his eyes certain, and TK nodded, taking comfort in the older man’s certainty that there would be a future, that they would get to see Carlos again. 

Gabriel smiled at him before continuing, “I’d like to get to know you, TK. You and my son and what you are together; if you’ll let me.” 

The expression on the older man’s face was sincere and despite everything, TK managed to find the smallest of smiles. 

“I’d like that,” he agreed. “I’d like that very much.” 

If Carlos had to describe everything that came after the pain in a word it would be confusion. 

There was pain and then darkness, that he knew for sure. But everything after was a haze. There were moments of awareness (he thinks) here the darkness lifted and he could hear voices. He couldn’t make out the words and the voices didn’t make sense. It sounded like TK and his father, but he didn’t know how that was possible. Awareness didn’t last for long though, so his final thought before he slipped back into the darkness was that his mind was playing tricks on him. 

When he woke up again, his head felt clearer. He was more sure that he was actually awake and alive, this time. There were still voices and he could almost make out the words. He could even place them with absolute certainty: they were TK and his father. But that still didn’t make any sense, even to his less hazy mind. 

He blinked his eyes open, having to repeat the process several times in order to adjust his eyes enough to see. There was a hand holding his own and he squeezed it, hearing a familiar intake of breath in response. 

“Carlos?” TK asked voice choked with emotion, “Can you hear me, babe?” 

“Ty,” he said in response, pulling his eyes open fully and tilting his head to drink in the sight of his beautiful boyfriend, grinning through tears. He tried to reach up a hand to wipe them away but his limbs felt heavy. 

“Try not to move too much,” TK said softly, “you’re still pretty hurt.” 

“What happened?” he asked, and TK looked across his bed before another familiar voice cut through the room. 

“What do you remember, Carlitos?” 

Carlos whipped his head around to the other side of the bed - or at least, whatever the slow and painful equivalent of whipping his head was - to see his dad sitting in the seat to his right. 

“Dad? What’re you...” he trailed off turning to TK again with a baffled expression but his dad pressed on. 

“Try to answer the question, mijo. What do you remember?” His dad’s voice was soft but the instruction was clear. Carlos looked into his dad’s eyes as he tried to pull the bits of memory together into a cohesive memory. 

“There was a man,” he said slowly, “he robbed a bank, but he didn’t want to.” He paused and his dad nodded and smiled at him, urging him to continue. “There was a bomb around his neck, he said two guys forced it onto him. He said they had a tracker on him so he couldn’t go with us because they would set it off. He said that if we could get it off of him he would come with us though and tell us everything he knew, so I did. I guess it didn’t like that much though, because the last thing I remember is it exploding, I think.” 

There was silence as he finished his account and Carlos pieced the rest together in his mind. Mitchell hadn’t wanted him to try, she wanted to wait for the bomb squad…

“Mitchell!” he exclaimed, looking frantically back to TK, “and the man. Are they…?” 

“Easy Carlos,” TK said calmly, squeezing his hand again and leaning closer, “don’t worry, they’re fine. A little banged up, but you got the worst of it. It looked like you were closest to the blast,” he added quietly, voice turning more serious. “You were certainly the worst off of the three of you.” 

Something in the way TK said it filled him with dread. “Did you…” he began, and TK nodded. “Ty,” he said softly, squeezing his hand this time as best he could, “I...I am so sorry. I wish you never had to see that, I can’t even imagine.” 

“Don’t you even start with me, Carlos Reyes,” TK told him firmly. “This was not your fault. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.” 

“Besides,” his dad added from the other side, “I think we should all count our blessings that it was you boy and his team. I have no doubt they are the best and that they would have moved heaven and earth to save you.” 

Carlos couldn’t agree more, as much as he would rather TK never have to experience that level of pain on his behalf ever. He was about to say as much when something else his dad said struck him. Your boy . He knew. He knew that TK was his boyfriend. He looked to his dad again, searching his face for any clue before finally asking the question. 

“You know?” His dad’s expression didn’t change and Carlos shifted his gaze to TK, who looked down. 

“I’m sorry Carlos, I know you wanted to tell them in your own time but…” 

“But your boy did nothing wrong, Carlitos,” his dad interrupted, shooting TK a firm look. “We already knew. I approached him. All he did was make me see how we had been hurting you by not acknowledging it and for that, I am so sorry son.” 

Carlos blinked at his dad, processing his words before turning to TK with a raised eyebrow, “Do I want to know what happened while I was unconscious?” 

TK grimaced and his dad laughed, “I will say you’ve found yourself a tough one. He has spine for sure, mijo.” 

“Yeah,” Carlos agreed, studying TK as he winced at his dad’s statement, “he’s pretty special.” 

TK relaxed at his words and gave him a warm smile, squeezing his hand gently. Distantly he could see his father watching them fondly and Carlos was struck by the surrealness of this moment. He had pictured this so many times: his boyfriend and his dad co-existing, him casually showing his affection for someone he loved in the presence of his family. He had ached for it for so long and a part of him had always been convinced that it would never be any more than a dream. 

Yet here they were. The proof was right before him in the hand holding his own, in the soft kisses pressed to his forehead by the man he loved, in the soft smile of his father as he watched from his chair on the other side of his bed. Never had he expected to find such happiness in the wake of such pain and fear, but he knew he would be eternally grateful for this ending to this disaster because it had brought about a wonderful beginning.