Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waking up is like drifting up on a warm current of air, until his eyes open. The light of the hospital room is harsh but the man sitting by his bed is incredibly soft. Carlos seems to have drifted off in the chair beside the bed in the same outfit he was wearing the last time TK woke up. If TK could keep his eyes open and string together more than a handful of words at a time, he would force Carlos to go home, shower, and sleep. But even thinking makes his head hurt from the effort.

He does manage to convince his fingers to wiggle slightly, giving Carlos’s hand a light squeeze. Probably more like a graze. Carlos startles, even at the light touch, and TK watches his face shift from fear to a blank slate and then a soft smile.

“Hey babe,” Carlos says, shifting slowly. “Thought you might sleep a little longer. You were just out for the MRI an hour ago.”

Somehow he remembers his dad’s house and his mother and Carlos in a jumbled mess. He focuses on Carlos. “Not dreaming?”

“What, dreaming about me?” Carlos shudders a little, and TK wants to take his question back. “No, this is horrifyingly real, TK. I would appreciate it if we could start going at least an entire year before the next hospital stay.”

“Doghouse,” TK says, with a smirk. Attempted smirk. His lip moves, at least.

“You’re on—” Carlos's voice cracks and TK cannot figure out why. He should know. “Probation,” he says finally, swallowing heavily. “We’ll see how this period goes.”

“Yes, officer.” So his wink is more of a blink, or just him fluttering his eyes closed because they’re heavy.

Carlos laughs, real and warm and TK is pretty sure that he could live in that laugh. As cold as he is from this latest brush with death, the lack of Carlos the last three months had been even colder. TK pushes his eyelids back open and basks in the sunshine of Carlos’s smile.

He’s not sure how much time passes, with Carlos playing with his hair and talking to him. TK tries to keep on top of the threads of conversation, but there’s stories about Paul and his dad who he saw at some point last night, he thinks. Nancy and Marjan are bringing…food, what kind TK cannot remember. He’s also not sure he wants to eat. Unless it’s cookies. Those were really good fake cookies.

The door slides open and the whole temperature of the room changes. TK is suddenly outside again and Carlos is stiff as a board. He’s also standing up.

“No,” Carlos says, his voice rough.

TK follows his gaze to see two nurses in the room. The worst part of hospitals, as well as the beds and the food, is the constant interruptions. TK remembers Carlos saying it hasn’t been long since the last tests. It’s nice that Carlos wants to give him a break, but the more they do, the sooner TK gets to leave. He reaches for Carlos’s hand. Where did it go?

“Baby, is okay.”

Carlos doesn’t seem to hear him. TK watches as his jaw clenches in the way that makes the vein stick out. TK likes that vein when Carlos isn’t mad at him. “Get out,” Carlos growls.

“Carlos.” TK tries again. He reaches for Carlos’s hand again but misses.

“Sir—” One of the nurses says, “we said we were sorry about—”

Carlos clenches his fist and continues in the same dangerous voice that TK really likes. “I’m going to need your shift manager. Now.”

“Sir—”

TK reaches out again and manages to connect with the back of Carlos’s fist. It’s just a brush of fingers against the back of Carlos’s hand, but it’s something. Carlos unfurls his fist and takes TK’s hand, but he doesn’t look away from the nurses. TK’s head hurts but he knows he needs to press on.

“Babe,” TK tries again, working to put a whole sentence together, “they’re doing their job,”

The sooner Carlos lets them do whatever the hell they’re here to do, the sooner they get to be left alone. If he can just get Carlos to look at him, he’s pretty sure he can get Carlos to back down. The nurses will do whatever they have to do and go, like Carlos wants. Carlos doesn’t look at TK.

“I. Said,” Carlos repeats, every word a sentence. “Go.”

TK just wants whatever is happening to be over with. His head hurts and he’s tired and he has no idea why Carlos is mad.

“Hey Carlos, bud, everything okay?” a voice that sounds like Nancy asks. TK manages to focus beyond the nurses and hey, it’s Nancy and Marjan. Food.

Carlos is probably hungry. He never does well with stress when he’s hungry. Has anyone fed Carlos? Carlos probably hasn’t eaten. He wouldn’t think about it.

“No,” Carlos answers. His gaze only flicks to the door for a minute. Is it about food? No, no Nancy asked if Carlos was okay. He’s not okay. TK frowns, unsure what to do with this information.

Carlos is still talking though. TK pulls together the words shift and find but the rest of what he says doesn’t make sense. Then, Carlos finishes with, “We need to have a word.”

“Okay,” Nancy says, slipping out and leaving Marjan standing in the doorway with a bright pink something.

“Sir, we’re just—”

Carlos is unmoved by the nurse. “I told you to leave.”

“If Carlos is telling you to go, I would. We all appreciate it when people listen the first time.” Marjan is smiling, but TK knows that smile. That’s her dangerous smile. That’s her fuck somebody up on the derby track smile.

“We have to provide—”

Carlos scoffs and TK knows that sound. It’s harsh and unpleasant and speaks to fights. It’s not for him though. TK holds on that it’s not to him. Carlos is still glaring at the nurses in the doorway. “You have not shown the ability to provide anything close to adequate or respectful care. You’re lucky I’m the only one who heard you last time, but trust me, you will not be on his roster or in this room ever again.”

TK tries to process what this means. He knows the words, they are all words he knows. He’s just so tired and his head hurts. Carlos is upset though, and TK doesn’t want that.

This time he tugs harder. “Carlos,” TK says, sharp as he can in the fog that’s surrounding his brain. When Carlos finally looks down at him, TK tries his best to smile. He hopes it’s a real one. “Hey,” he says, softening his tone.

Carlos breathes out a sigh, and the hard edge of his jaw and the way his eyebrows draw together smooth out. “Hey,” Carlos whispers back, “Trust me.”

TK does. He wonders if Carlos means about this or about something that went wrong earlier. TK is watching Carlos, trying to figure it out, and hasn’t even noticed that things have shifted once again. It’s not until Carlos’s jaw clicks shut with a decisive sound.

“This man is being unreasonable,” one of the nurses said. TK cannot keep them straight. They’re not looking at Carlos.

TK follows their gaze to the doorway where Nancy is standing behind another nurse in brightly flowered scrubs.

Carlos is talking again, and TK pushes past the pain to focus. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take TK off of these nurses’ duty roster when they have shown nothing short of disrespect when treating him yesterday. Just because a patient is medically sedated doesn’t mean you can say or do whatever you want.”

“Sir, again, we apologized yest—”

“Perhaps,” Carlos starts in a tone that anyone should recognize as dangerous, “you’d like to repeat the conversation you were having when I walked in on you yesterday, for your supervisor and our friends. This is Nancy, who happens to be a paramedic and TK’s field partner, and she was the one who performed life saving treatment in the field. Marjan is also part of their firehouse.”

He’s so calm, though, it’s just the way he pitches his voice and the tremor just under it. It’s definitely mad and not the sexy voice, but it’s a thin line with Carlos. TK misses the sexy voice.

He’s not sure what happens as he’s thinking about the sexy voice, but he’s brought back to Carlos rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand. TK squeezes and is rewarded with a squeeze in return.

“Thank you,” Carlos says, and TK isn’t sure what he’s done to be thanked. Carlos also isn’t saying it to him, he realizes too late. It’s maybe to the woman in scrubs. The other nurses are gone?

Of course Carlos won.

“I would appreciate it if you would fill out an incident report for us,” the flowered scrub nurse says.

Carlos nods, but his thumb keeps strumming over the back of TK’s hand. “I’ll stop by when I have a moment. TK is my priority.”

How the hell had he gotten so lucky that after every grenade and awful word, Carlos still treats him like a priority?

TK isn’t sure where the nurse goes, but Nancy and Marjan have moved closer.

“Dude, I forget how scary you can be when you turn the full cop mode on,” Nancy says, waving her hand over Carlos’s general figure.

“It’s hot,” TK observes.

Nancy and Carlos laugh in unison and it feels good to make them laugh.

It is hot. The whole thing that happened was hot, even if it was confusing. Carlos did the thing with his jaw and his voice and he stood between TK and something he thought was bad. It’s always hot. TK can’t quite access the parts of his body that react when things are hot, yet. He supposes that’ll come back with time.

Marjan drops into the chair next to the one Carlos has been sitting in forever. The one he hasn’t sat back down in. “Yo, what the hell did those bitches say yesterday?”

Carlos shoots Marjan a look. His jaw is still clenched tight and he’s stiff when he shakes his head. It’s definitely a signal to leave it alone. Marjan glares right back at Carlos. Surprisingly, she doesn’t say anything. TK tries to figure out why. Marjan never backs down from a fight, not really. Something must have happened that he can’t track.

TK shoots a look at Nancy, but she’s also looking at Carlos with confusion. Maybe it’s confusion.

TK becomes aware that the shakes have come back and are traveling down his arm. They haven’t stopped since he woke up, and they come for him in waves. TK tries to hold his arm still. Moments pass before he realizes the tremors aren’t coming from him. His whole body would be shaking if they were. They’re coming from Carlos.

TK squeezes Carlos’s hand again. “Baby, you’re shaking.”

Carlos startles again and looks down at their joined hands. His face falls into a frown, but it doesn’t stop the tremors. He swallows hard, but sits down in the chair. Carlos reaches out his other hand, also shaky, and pets at TK’s hair. “I’m fine. I just…they shouldn’t have anyone on this floor like that.”

TK wants to ask what Carlos means by like that but the thought gets stuck in his throat as Carlos continues to stroke his hair. TK’s eyes flutter close and he thinks he can hear Marjan and Nancy in the background. It’s nice.

When he floats back up, Carlos is still perched next to the bed. TK smiles and it feels easier than most of the other times he’s managed to wake up. He rotates his head on the pillow, but Marjan and Nancy are gone. Instead there’s a new woman in blue scrubs. Redhead instead of the brunettes that were here before. She leaves the whiteboard in the corner and comes over to the other side of the bed. There’s a younger woman behind her.

“Hi TK,” she says, ponytail swinging behind her, “I’m Erica and I’ll be your main nurse this morning. Shauna will be supporting.”

Carlos begins to untangle himself from TK’s hand and TK holds on. “Stay,” he asks.

Carlos offers him a sigh and still detangles himself. TK cannot help the whine that slips from his lips. Carlos presses a kiss to his forehead and it’s not enough. “I’ll be right over here. They need room to work.”

TK misses the Carlos that made the other nurses go away. The blankets have made him warm and it’s cozy in a bed that should be awful and he doesn’t want to do anything. But the sooner the nurses do whatever they need to do, the sooner they’ll go away.

The nurse, Erica? Erica rubs his arm while checking the IV line. “We’ll try to make it quick and painless.” She leans in and whispers, “Got yourself a knight in shining armor in that one, I hear.”

TK rolls his head and spots Carlos against the window, his arms crossed. He’s not even sure what Carlos was defending him against, but man, it felt good. TK smiles. “Yeah.”

Chapter Text

Something grazes the back of his hand and Carlos shoots up instantly. For a horrible moment, he isn’t sure where or when he is beyond the hospital chair and TK could be anywhere between life and death. But when he settles and focuses, TK's green eyes are staring at him through heavy lids, and there’s just a nasal cannula instead of the vent. Carlos squeezes the hand in his as the last twenty-four hours come back.

“Hey babe,” Carlos says, shifting closer to the bed. “Thought you might sleep a little longer. You were just out for the MRI an hour ago.”

Since TK came back yesterday, and there’s no other way Carlos can explain it, there have been waves of people, coming in and occasionally taking TK out with them. There’s also been the drifting of friends in and out in the brief periods where TK is somewhat alert. Currently, it’s just them, and that’s more than enough.

TK looks off somewhere and shifts back to Carlos. “Not dreaming?”

“What, dreaming about me?” Carlos asks, offering a smile. Then the thought comes that in some other universe this was the dream and…Carlos shudders rather than invite that into reality. This reality is hard enough. “No, this is horrifyingly real, TK. I would appreciate it if we could start going at least an entire year between hospital stays.”

“Doghouse,” TK murmurs, his mouth lifting into a ghost of a smirk.

“You’re on—” Carlos stops himself from finishing the familiar phrase. His voice cracks like the words he was about to say. Thin ice is what brought them here and Carlos would prefer to never be on it again.

“Probation,” he says finally, swallowing heavily. “We’ll see how this period goes.”

TK flutters his eyes closed. “Yes, officer.”

Carlos feels the tears start to well up again but he laughs right over them, filled with joy. Having TK back is a miracle. Having the TK who flirts with him again, well, Carlos has been waiting on him longer than two days. Everyone has tried to coax him into going home, changing, showering, sleeping in a bed. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to go home to his mostly empty house. He’s been waiting for TK all this time and, now that he has him, Carlos isn’t going anywhere.

“So,” he says, continuing to talk even though TK’s eyes remain closed. TK seems to listen and drift in and out of these moments. “Paul might be getting released today. They’re checking on his core temperature. How the two guys from the cold cities ended up…I’ll never know. It’s probably y’alls bravado.” TK is Icarus, always flying a little close to the sun and singeing his wings. “He’ll be back by later.”

Carlos runs a hand over TK’s hair, just because he can. It seems to smooth out the furrow that was developing between his brows. “Marjan and Nancy insisted on breakfast. Honestly, I think my mom talked them into getting breakfast so she could pick up lunch. You’re still on a liquid diet though, TK. Sorry about that. They might move you off of clear liquids soon. I know how you feel about Jell-O. I’ve ordered them to pick up your tea, minus boba, minus the taro root. It won’t really be your usual order.”

Carlos keeps talking about something Nancy said about game night and wonders in his head if they’ll have the next one in the loft, and segues into the fight his parents had about his mom coming to sit by TK’s bedside through the snow after his dad had insisted she stay home. “You should have heard her, ‘If you think some snow was going to keep me from my boys when they needed me.’ She really loves you.”

There’s a disturbance behind him and Carlos glances toward the door. Two women in scrubs have come in and one is updating the board. The name Janine goes up and Carlos is suddenly dragged back to waiting in the doorway yesterday morning with these two women exiting. He’s out of his seat in a second.

“No,” he says, his throat dry as sandpaper. It could have been a whisper or a shout. All he knows is they cannot come in.

In the distance he thinks he hears TK murmur “baby” but the blood is rushing in his ears and the urge to yell and hit something is welling up. Instead, Carlos grinds his teeth and glares at the two women who have entered TK’s room.

“Get out.”

Not-Janine says, “Sir—we said we were sorry about—”

Carlos swallows his rage at these women suggesting that TK should have been left to die in the snow. These awful human beings who suggested that Tommy and Nancy had made things worse for Carlos by caring for TK. It won't help him, it won’t help TK, to fall entirely into what he wishes he could do. Instead he says stiffly, “I’m going to need your shift manager. Now.”

“Sir—”

Fingers brush against the back of his hand again and Carlos feels TK’s fingers against his fist. He takes TK’s hand in his, but he’s too focused on the threat in the room to look down.

TK tries to be reasonable, sensible even, offering up, “Babe, they’re doing their job.”

Just doing their job wasn’t enough. Going through the motions and passing judgment on patients and the people who ensured they made it to the hospital wasn’t acceptable. TK deserved better. “I. Said. Go.”

“Hey Carlos,” Nancy says, poking her head into the door with Marjan. Her eyes are wide and Carlos wonders if he’s what made her look that way. “Everything okay?”

“No,” Carlos bites out. Nothing is okay. He also doesn’t want Nancy around these women. If she had been beside him yesterday, Carlos doesn’t know what would have happened. “Nancy, could you go find the nurse shift manager, please. We need to have a word.”

“Okay,” Nancy says, shooting a look back to Marjan and then to TK and the nurses, but she still slides away, leaving Marjan holding a box of pastries and what will be a sad boba for TK.

“Sir, we’re just—” Not-Janine tried.

“I told you to leave,” Carlos repeats.

“If Carlos is telling you to go, I would,” Marjan tells the nurses, crossing into the room. She has on her scary smile, which Carlos is grateful for. “We all appreciate it when people listen the first time.”

Janine starts, “We have to provide—”

“You,” Carlos interrupts, and he can hear his voice shaking, “have not shown the ability to provide anything close to adequate or respectful care. You’re lucky I’m the only one who heard you last time, but trust me, you will not be on his roster or in this room ever again.”

There’s a soft tug on his arm, and TK’s voice has the same intensity as breathe did yesterday when he says, “Carlos.” He forces his gaze away from the two nurses and down at the man he loves. He even gets rewarded with a smile, and TK’s soft green eyes. TK’s voice turns breathy and he says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Carlos responds, feeling some of his anger dissipate. Carlos wishes he could explain himself more adequately, but he doesn’t want TK to know anyone equated him to a waste of space and time. “Trust me.”

Carlos needs to take care of this, for TK. He needs to have the people who suggested TK was just going to break his heart in the end, to not be here. They won’t listen, though, and they won’t leave.

“Hey,” Nancy says, sliding back into the room, “I found Nurse James.”

A tall thin woman with dark brown skin and flowered scrubs stands in the doorway. Her hair is done up in a severe bun and she does not look impressed to have been dragged in here. “How can I help?”

The nurse named Janine sighs and throws her hands in the air. “This man is being unreasonable.”

Somehow Marjan’s hand has found itself on his sleeve and Carlos does not step away from the bed toward this woman. He forces himself to look at Nurse James. He forces himself to sound as calm and as rational as possible. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take TK off of these nurses’ duty roster when they have shown nothing short of disrespect when treating him yesterday. Just because a patient is medically sedated doesn’t mean you can say or do whatever you want.”

He hears Nancy suck in a breath between her teeth and Marjan’s hand rubs over his sweatshirt. He’s not alone. Carlos has back up in this situation, even if they don’t know it. Even if they don’t understand, Nancy and Marjan will back him.

“Sir, again, we apologized yest—”

“Perhaps,” Carlos says, feeling like the string about to snap, “You’d like to repeat the conversation you were having when I walked in on you yesterday, for your supervisor and our friends. This is Nancy, who happens to be a paramedic and TK’s field partner, and she was the one who performed life saving treatment in the field. Marjan is also part of their firehouse and a good friend.”

He feels vindicated when the nurses share twin blank looks and their mouths open and close like fish gasping for air. Carlos continues glaring at them, hoping it will only continue their descent into inability to explain. Both nurses turn to look at Nurse James in tandem.

“I—”

“We—”

But nothing comes out beyond that. Carlos knows it’s because there’s nothing else to say beyond that. They have no justification for what they said and repeating it will only make everything worse.

“You can both go,” Nurse James says to the nurses and Carlos’ eyes follow them all the way out of the room. He lets out a sigh as they go, strumming his thumb over the tendons in TK’s hand. “I’ll make sure you’re assigned new nurses.”

TK’s hand squeezes his and Carlos returns it. They’re gone.

He looks at Nurse James and offers her a smile. “Thank you,” passes his lips like abenediction.

She nods, and he hopes she understands that he wasn’t trying to be difficult. “As unfortunate as all of this was, I would appreciate it if you would fill out an incident report for us.”

Carlos nods, unable to let go of TK. He continues to worry the soft skin on the back of his hand. He swallows and feels his jaw click twice. “I’ll stop by when I have a moment. TK is my priority.”

He hopes it conveys all of his intentions. TK’s care is his top priority and while TK is struggling to stay awake and string sentences together, Carlos isn’t about to let anyone giving less than their best anywhere near him.

Nurse James nods, and a soft smile curves over her face. “Understood.”

Carlos lets out a breath that’s more a sigh as she leaves the room. His heart is pounding inside his chest and he feels like he’s just come off a rough call. When he looks down at TK, his boyfriend is looking at him with a dazed and dreamy expression. It helps.

Nancy moves up to the foot of TK’s bed, shaking her head. She’s smirking at him though. “Dude, I forget how scary you can be when you turn the full cop mode on.”

“It’s hot,” TK murmurs from the bed.

Carlos can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him at that. Nancy joins him and Carlos sends another thanks to whomever was listening up there that TK woke up still himself. That the man Carlos is madly in love is still very present and willing to find any show of force attractive.

Marjan has a cruller in one hand as she drops into the extra chair. “Yo, what the hell did those bitches say, yesterday?”

And he’s back to a racing heartbeat and the wish to have those nurses fired. Carlos shoots Marjan a look and he knows he’s about to grind the enamel off the tops of his molars. She raises an eyebrow, pushing further. Carlos shakes his head and hopes the very slight tilt toward TK and Nancy across from them gets through to her. Marj’s eyes widen and she just nods back, message received.

Marj’s question will be a problem for another day.

Another squeeze comes on his hand, and Carlos turns his focus back to TK. Concern laces TK’s green eyes as he says, “Baby, you’re shaking.”

Carlos looks down and realizes that TK’s not the reason his hand is vibrating, but that it’s his own. The adrenaline crash isn’t an unfamiliar symptom to a stressful situation but he wasn’t expecting it right now. He sits and reaches out his other hand, unsurprisingly also shaking, and trails it over TK’s hair. How TK keeps managing to take care of him, when TK is barely conscious, Carlos will never know. That it seems to be a reflex fuels Nancy’s proclamation that TK hasn’t ever stopped loving him.

“I’m fine,” Carlos answers reflexively. He’s not fine, not really. Nothing will be fine until TK is back home where he belongs. But TK being awake, being here, and those nurses away from him, it’s enough. “I just…” He can’t explain what they said without hurting TK and Nancy, so he keeps it vague and says, “They shouldn’t have anyone on this floor like that.”

TK squints at him, but rather than ask any questions, his eyes fall closed again. Carlos hopes he’ll be able to rest a little bit. Carlos continues to stroke at TK and he feels his heartbeat begin to slow even further.

“They sound like real assholes,” Marj says behind him, a mouth full of cruller. “You think you’d have to be a decent human being to be a nurse.”

Nancy just snorts and Carlos catches her sitting on the bed out of the corner of his eye. “Uh, I know you ride the cool kid’s bus, but you don’t remember the million assholes we interviewed for the paramedic opening until we got TK? If you had to be like, a decent human being to do any of our jobs, there’d be a lot less of us.”

“Oh man,” Marjan laughs, “the guy that ran over your foot.”

“Or the girl who cold clocked that guy,” Nancy shoots back. “I thought Cap was going to kill her. Oh, and the guy who couldn’t handle a puncture wound.”

“Is that an asshole move, though?”

“Uh, when your job involves blood, dude, yeah kinda.”

Their banter slows, and then in tandem, Nancy and Marjan say, “Carlos?”

Carlos takes his hand from TK’s hair and runs it over his face. He had just been enjoying their conversation, but he already knows which of Nancy’s former partners he dislikes the most. “I didn’t particularly like the guy that made TK walk through a minefield.”

“Okay, TK didn’t walk through a minefield, he hopped,” Marjan shoots back. “And Cap was throwing a duffle bag to make sure they didn’t blow themselves up.”

“Also TK volunteered,” Nancy adds, unhelpfully.

Because that is who TK is. After he gets out of the hospital, he will go back and end up hopping through a minefield or sliding out onto thin ice another time because someone needs him. And Carlos loves that about him. He just wishes TK paid for it a little less often.

Marjan takes another bite of cruller. “If I had a dual license, I would have hopped through the minefield.”

Carlos says another thank you that TK has moved over to work with Nancy rather than still be riding under Captain Strand and jockeying with Marj for who can be the most ridiculous person on the call.

Marj and Nancy talk amongst themselves for a while, and Carlos knows he’s bad company, but it feels too soon to take his eyes off of TK. Carlos understands why TK tends to ask if he’s dreaming every time he wakes up, because a part of him is terrified that TK waking up, calling him baby, reaching out, is all a dream. He can’t look away, not yet.

Eventually, they both pat him on the shoulder and disappear from TK’s room. A new nurse wanders in, her bright orange ponytail bobbing behind her, and updating the board. TK’s eyes float open and Carlos grins at him. Every time he’s greeted with those bright green eyes. TK looks around and stops when he spots the nurse in the corner.

As if she senses he’s awake, she moves further into the room, a younger nurse with light brown skin following behind. “Hi TK, I’m Erica and I’ll be your main support this morning. Shauna will be helping me.”

On a quick gut check, Carlos likes Erica and Shauna. They’re smiling and warm and willing to look TK in the eyes. They’re also not directing their conversation to Carlos.

Satisfied, Carlos begins to slip his fingers out from in between TK’s and break his hold. However, TK holds fast with a strength that should be surprising for someone less than 24 hours out of a coma, but considering how TK held him in those first minutes he’s awake, Carlos isn’t surprised. “Stay.”

Saying no breaks Carlos’s heart, but he presses a kiss to TK’s forehead and then gives his hair one more stroke. “I’ll be right over here,” Carlos says, pointing at the window at the edge of the room. “They need room to work.”

He moves away from the bed and takes up his post by the window. He knows TK is doing better, but there’s still a part of him that worries TK might disappear after Carlos leaves. Erica, who seems to be lovely, leans down and whispers something in TK’s ear which draws out a slow smile. TK rolls on the pillow so he’s looking straight at Carlos and mouths something that looks like yeah.

Carlos quirks an eyebrow in question but gets no response other than TK’s gaze softening a little more. The love shining out of those soft green eyes is striking.

Carlos’s chest hurts with how much he loves this man, but he supposes that’s just the feeling of his heart knitting itself back together.