Chapter Text
Carlos stares at the wall, trying to remember how to breathe.
Beside him, TK rubs gentle circles on his knee, waiting.
“I should’ve told you something,” he begins. “A long time ago.”
The knot in his stomach draws tight.
“I… I love you.”
“I know,” TK murmurs.
“I mean that. You have to… you have to know. This doesn’t affect that. This doesn’t mean anything. I love you so much.”
“I know, Carlos.”
“I want to marry you —” The words stop in his throat. He chokes them out. “More than anything in the world. I want to marry you.”
TK’s hand on his knee goes still. “But?”
“But.” He should look at him. He should look TK in the eyes when he says it.
He can’t. He doesn’t want to know what he’ll see there.
“But. There’s a problem. It’s not — it’s not a big problem. Or, well, it is, it’s just — we’d have to fix it before we get married and —“
“Carlos.” TK’s voice is quiet, but firm. “Tell me.”
“Okay. Okay. So… technically… only on paper! Not… not really —
“Carlos.”
“I’m already married.”
TK stiffens. Carlos braces himself. For yelling, for How could you and Why didn’t you tell me and —
TK stands without a word and walks away.
“Wait, please, it’s — it’s not like that!” Carlos calls after him. “She was my best friend —“
TK doesn't walk out the door, but turns to pace along the wall, hands balled into fists at his sides.
“She was my best friend.” The silence is too heavy, and Carlos desperately fills it. “We were young, we were nineteen. We thought — she needed health insurance and I — I didn’t think I’d ever — I figured we could make it work, and…”
He trails off, staring at the rigid line of TK’s shoulders.
“You’re pissed.”
"No," TK says immediately. "Maybe?" Carlos catches a glimpse of TK's face, the hurt in his eyes. He put that hurt there. He did this.
"Just a little confused, um..." TK mutters to himself. He closes his eyes for a moment, gathering himself. When he turns to face Carlos, his gaze is hard.
"So you’re married."
"In name only."
"To a woman."
"Back then it was the only way you could do it." The only way he'd have a shot at the kind of life he'd always wanted, the kind of life his parents wanted for him.
"Who is this person? I mean did she needed a green card or something?"
"No. We went to high school together. We were best friends, and we were both…" Carlos searches for the right word. "Lost? I guess?"
TK's face falls. Of course it doesn't make sense to him. It barely makes sense to Carlos now. Now that that feeling, that lost version of himself, has been buried for so long.
But it's been long enough. It's time to uncover that piece of himself, hold it up to the light.
"When I came out to my parents," Carlos tries, "... and the way that they never talked about it again, it… I felt like I disappointed them."
He'd said the word once. Gay. And they'd never said it back. Never talked about it, never acknowledged it again. And as months and then years went by, it started to feel as though every time he said it was another crack in the glass, another chip in their stone foundation, and one day the whole thing would shatter and they would be lost to him. The more he tried to claim that piece of himself, the more their silence seemed to say, We don't want it. It was an ultimatum. He could have his family, and the life they'd always envisioned for him. Or, he could be gay.
"So you married a woman?"
"I married my best friend." That part is important. Not just any woman, but his best friend. He married the only person in his life who truly knew him, who saw all of him and wanted all of him. The only person he could see himself building a life with. At least, the only person until TK came along.
TK looks away, processing. "And did she know you were gay?"
"She knew everything about me. We loved each other, TK." He barrels on as TK's eyes soften with hurt again. "And we tried to convince ourselves that we could make it work. We were wrong."
Very wrong, they'd eventually realized. So very, very wrong. They might have loved each other, and committed to each other, but neither of them could be what the other truly needed. It was a lesson he'd have to learn a few more times in a few different ways before it finally, really sank in — that his needs mattered. That the kind of companionship, the intimacy, that she could never give him — it wasn't just some irrational craving that he could ignore, but a need as fundamental as breathing. That he deserved to have that need fulfilled.
Not for the first time, Carlos aches to go back in time and find his young self and show him what was waiting for him in just a few years' time. Tell him that things will get better, show him this beautiful thing he has now, with TK.
That is, if he still has it at the end of this conversation.
"But you never got a divorce?"
"We meant to. But…" Carlos squirms. "Things happened."
"Well, you need to get a divorce, Carlos."
"I’m aware." TK doesn't need to look at him like that. Of course he knows. He knows he needs to. He's known for almost three years.
TK looks away, but Carlos catches the frustration on his face before he wipes it away.
"Okay." TK seems to put a pin in that line of questioning. "If — if she was your best friend then how come I’ve never met her? I mean is she — is she still in Texas?"
"Far as I know. Yeah."
TK sighs. They're closing in fast on the heart of it all, the tangle of guilt and fear and hopelessness that's kept Carlos trapped here for years. Stuck in a giant spiderweb of his own making. But now TK is here to cut through everything, and see him clearly at the center of it.
The only way forward is through.
"You remember Captain Blake?"
"Michelle?" TK's eyebrows shoot up. "Wait, Michelle Blake is your wife?"
"Michelle is my sister in law," Carlos says slowly. "I’m married to Iris."
Iris. God, he hasn't said that name out loud in... has it really been years? It sits too heavy on his tongue.
"Iris," TK repeats. "Michelle’s little sister, the one that went missing?"
"I told you. Things happened, TK. We all thought she was dead."
And they grieved. And they — well, most of them — tried to move on. He got closer to Michelle, kept her out of too much trouble, helped her keep the investigation going, long after he'd stopped believing she was ever coming back. Eventually, years later, they'd found that truck, and that was that. She was really gone. And aside from Michelle, aside from his parents, nobody needed to know, right? The past was past, and Carlos had grown into a new version of himself. Not the scared, hopeless kid he'd been all those years ago. A new man.
A man who'd laid eyes on a beautiful stranger in a bar and thought, I'm gonna marry that man one day.
"Then she came back —"
"With schizophrenia. She needed help."
TK frowns. "And staying married is… helping her?"
"My health insurance is helping her," he says, and understanding dawns on TK's face.
Carlos had insisted, and Michelle had relented. It was the easiest option. He could take care of her now, the way he'd failed to take care of her before. And it didn't have to be forever. Eventually, they'd get around to sorting things out in a more permanent way.
And then the universe decided to throw every conceivable disaster at him and TK. Their house burned down, TK's mother died, they were drugged in their own home. And every time, Carlos thought, not right now. Eventually stretched further and further into the future. A year became two, became three. And now, here they are.
TK searches his face for a long time. He draws a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and finally, finally comes to sit beside him again.
"Is she doing better now?"
"I don’t know," Carlos whispers. And that's the thing, isn't it? The whole reason why they're in this mess. His best friend in the world went missing and came back and it's been years now and he doesn't know. Because he locked everything to do with her in a box and buried it deep. His punishment from the universe for ignoring his past, for refusing to look at it — now it's here, threatening his future with TK.
But TK is still here, still looking at him, and when his hand lands again on Carlos's knee he could cry with relief. "What does Michelle say?"
Carlos shakes his head. "I meant to call them. Both of them. There’s no excuse." His eyes begin to burn. "I’m a terrible friend."
"Hey. Hey, hey." TK stands immediately, drops one knee onto the bed so he can press as close to Carlos as possible. "No you’re not. No you are not, okay?" His thumb catches the tears before they can trace their way down Carlos's cheeks. "You’re an incredible friend."
TK cradles his face in his hands. "Everything’s gonna be okay. We have so much time to figure it out. We have a year and a half."
Oh, right. There's a reason he came here, interrupted TK's workday to drop this bombshell.
Carlos winces. "We have… eight weeks."
"What? Eight weeks — what — what do you mean eight weeks?"
"The venue called. There was a cancellation."
Surprise flickers across TK's face.
"There’s an opening in eight weeks, if we want it," Carlos emphasizes. And for a moment, he thinks TK will say no, that this is all too much for him — but then TK's whole face lights up, and that last bit of doubt is banished from Carlos's mind.
"What? Baby that’s fantastic! Um — is —is eight weeks enough time to get a divorce?"
"Better be." Carlos laughs with TK, his voice thick with emotion. "The — the state of Texas requires you to be divorced a full month before you can get married again."
TK's smile dims a little. “A month. Okay. Okay, that’s even less time. But it’s not that hard, right?”
“I’ll find Iris —"
“Tomorrow," TK interrupts, firm. "You’ll call her tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow," he promises. "And…”
“And we will go from there. We'll get through this. Together.”
“Together,” Carlos repeats.
TK leans forward, rests their foreheads together. Carlos takes the chance to wrap his arms around TK, and something in his chest loosens as they hold each other. He closes his eyes and listens to TK’s breathing as his heart slowly calms down.
“You do know,” TK murmurs, “that we needed to have this conversation about a year ago? At least?”
“I’m so sorry,” Carlos whispers. “I’m sorry I never told you. I just… I don’t know, I —
“Hey.” Carlos looks up to see TK smiling softly at him. “I love you. Never doubt that.” The smile fades from TK’s face. “But we are not done with this conversation."
“No,” Carlos whispers. “I know.”
“Not by a long shot.” TK smooths a thumb across Carlos’s cheek. “I have to get back to work. We’ll talk tonight. When we get home.”
“We will,” Carlos promises.
They aren’t in the clear yet. Carlos knows it. He saw the emotions that crossed TK’s face before he put them aside, chose to focus on hearing the full story. But they’re here, holding each other. They have a solid foundation, the kind of relationship his past self could only dream of. They'll talk more tonight. He'll call Michelle tomorrow. He'll talk to Iris. TK has always made him brave.
Before he leaves the firehouse, they call the venue back and confirm their reservation, together.