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.