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Stretching before his eyes are open, Carlos lets out a slow, deep breath and blinks up at the ceiling. The stretch feels good, dislodging just a hint of tightness from his lower back as he straightens his legs and points his toes before relaxing. The sheets are warm underneath him and he turns his head to squint at the sunlight filtering in through the open window. It’s been cooling off at night this week and the sounds of birds and a light breeze rustling through the trees is a nice soundtrack to wake to.
He turns his head the other way. TK’s next to him, still fast asleep. He’s on his back with one hand on his stomach, head turned toward Carlos but chin tucked down so Carlos can’t really see his face. He can see chestnut bedhead and the gentle, even way TK’s hand rises and falls as he breathes.
Carlos stretches once more and then rolls over onto his side. He props an elbow up on the pillow so he can rest his head in his hand and gaze down at his sleeping husband. TK’s always beautiful but Carlos loves him a lot in moments like this, when he’s safe and peaceful. Their life together these last few years has been a lot of wonderful things, more wonderful than horrible when all added up, but it’s rarely been peaceful. Carlos doesn’t know exactly when they’ll ever get around to this but he really, really wants to take TK to a cabin in the mountains with no one else around for miles so they can just exist together for a week or two, no obligations or painful pasts or complicated presents. Just the two of them and fresh air, and Carlos can hold him every night under the stars and feel fractures in his heart start to seal up, hopefully for good. Not yet, but maybe one day.
He reaches out, unable to be this close in proximity and keep from touching. His fingers find the softness of TK’s hair first, and then knuckles are trailed down TK’s warm cheek. Carlos is expecting TK to stir, but he doesn’t. His breathing remains steady, even when Carlos hooks a fingertip under his chin so he can tilt TK’s face up. It’s relaxed, any lines of worry smoothed, and Carlos feels a familiar pang in his chest.
He’s loved this man for so long. He’s yearned for him for even longer. He remembers so vividly what it felt like to set eyes upon him for the first time in the rain. Carlos had a job to do, there’d been an accident and the firefighters were rolling up and he had a scene to command and lives to save. So many more important things than gazing like a fool struck by cupid’s arrow at a man in a uniform. But TK took his breath away. TK made the whole world sparkle just like his eyes, the warmth in his smile made Carlos woozy, the low timbre of his voice turned Carlos’s spine to jelly.
“I loved you so fast,” Carlos barely whispers, because he doesn’t want TK to wake up just yet. “I didn’t know what it really meant, though. Back then. Now I do.”
TK inhales and his eyes flutter, but then he stills again. Something grittier than adoration stirs to life in Carlos’s gut; TK trusts him so implicitly, and nothing feels better than that. He bites gently at the inside of his cheek.
“Okay, you should wake up now,” he says, but no louder than before, actions betraying his own words, “because I gotta go to work soon and maybe I wanna kiss you a little before I do.”
TK snuffles, nose wrinkling adorably. Carlos puts his head back down on the pillow, shifting a little and tracing the planes of TK’s face with his eyes. His perfect nose, his cheekbones, the inviting pink of his lips. Carlos remembers thinking he looked like a movie star, a hundred or maybe a thousand times more handsome than anyone Carlos had ever seen in real life. He remembers thinking he didn’t stand a chance, that this gorgeous man with the cocky smirk and the sad eyes from Manhattan could have anyone he wanted in the entire state and it would be a miracle and a half if he ever looked twice in Carlos’s direction.
He’s more than a miracle and a half; that part, Carlos was more than right about.
He moves in a little closer. He touches again, this time rubbing his hand over TK’s chest. He wants to let it explore lower, to find out if TK’s body is interested underneath the blanket where Carlos can’t see him, but he doesn’t. Blood moves inside his own body, stirring in anticipation despite the fact that his hypothetical playmate is still dead to the world. Carlos lifts his head and twists to get a look at the clock behind him. He isn’t late quite yet. He settles back down, pushing his hand underneath the sheet to trail it down his own body. He palms himself over his boxers, cock already half-hard before he touches it and stiffening as he rubs with the heal of his hand.
One more minute, that’s how long he’ll give TK to come to on his own before Carlos will regretfully have to wake him up. Chewing on his lower lip just to occupy his mouth with something when it longs to be sucking on TK’s neck, Carlos pushes his hand into his boxers and wraps it around his cock, stroking slowly.
They had phone sex, once, early on. TK was in his bedroom at Owen’s, whispering filth into Carlos’s ear and stifling his own cries because his dad was awake in the very next room. The thought had made Carlos flush with embarrassment at first, and then turned him on so much he could scarcely believe the things that tumbled out of his own mouth and couldn’t speak for the longest time after he came so hard some of it landed on his face. He thinks about it as he touches himself, the way TK’s voice had been low and quiet as he went on about how much he wanted Carlos to come down his throat, to pin him down and not let him up, to fuck him until he couldn’t breathe. They hadn’t done that, yet, and the promise of it burned through Carlos like a wildfire.
“You should wake up, now,” he says again, a little louder this time.
“Mm,” TK answers, and doesn’t move, but it’s close enough.
Carlos gives himself another squeeze and lets himself go. He shifts in closer, lifting his leg to drape it over TK’s so he can press his clear desire against TK’s hip. He lets out a small moan, even that miniscule bit of pressure feeling like an angel’s chorus of relief. He nudges TK’s face with his nose, burrowing into him until he can lick at TK’s neck like he’d wanted to. The skin here is so warm, so soft, and it smells so familiar.
“M’sleeping,” TK mumbles.
“D’you want me to stop?” Carlos asks.
“Mmmm, no.”
Smiling, Carlos gently scrapes his teeth along TK’s stubbled jaw. Carlos loves him with a bit of scruff. It’s rough and leaves warm redness on Carlos’s mouth when they kiss, and he looks like such a man, and Carlos loves how much that turns him on. He wouldn’t always have felt so good about it, and he loves that now it feels like the best thing in the world.
He lets his hand travel down further this time, rubbing TK’s stomach over his soft t-shirt before going lower. Carlos smirks and feels warmth inside as he finds, as he’d hoped, TK very much hard in his own underwear.
“Were you dreaming?” he asks, to no response.
He attaches his lips just under TK’s jaw and sucks gently, hard enough for TK to feel it but not enough to leave a mark. He rubs TK’s cock with the heel of his palm like he’d done to his own, and pushes his crotch against TK’s hip. It sends sparks of pleasure through him, and they burst like fireworks when TK moans softly.
“I was thinking about that time we had phone sex like three weeks into hooking up,” Carlos tells him. He slips his hand under the waistband of TK’s shorts, finding hot, bare flesh to curl his fingers around. He fits so nicely in Carlos’s hand and Carlos strokes him slowly, his own skin prickling everywhere as desire pulses in his groin. “Some of the shit you said, I thought I was going to lose my mind and come in like 20 seconds. I’d never heard anybody talk like that, and your voice was driving me crazy. It was so hot.”
“Carlos.”
“Want me to stop?” Carlos asks again, knowing damn well what the answer is.
“Fuck you,” TK mutters. “What time is it?”
Carlos swipes at the wet head of TK’s cock with his thumb, pressing and smearing the moisture around. He tightens his grip around the top and twists his wrist back and forth. Then he drags his hand all the way to the base and back up, digging with his thumb into that spot just under the prominent head that makes TK’s head spin.
“Okay, I’m awake, holy fuck, I’m awake.” TK grabs for him; their foreheads bump just this side of painful as TK tries to drag Carlos’s body on top of his own. “Come here.”
Laughing giddily, Carlos pushes up to his knees and drapes himself over his husband. He gives him a quick kiss on the lips and takes just a second to drink in the stunning flush on TK’s cheeks and aroused blur in his eyes before dropping down, burying his face in TK’s neck and rolling his hips down hard.
“Ah,” TK hisses. His hands grip Carlos’s ass, holding onto him like Carlos is an angry bull he’s trying to ride. He pushes, breathing hot and heavy in Carlos’s ear and urging him on. “Come on, fuck, that feels so good.”
“Baby,” Carlos moans, pleasure cycling through him. TK’s body feels divine under his, warm and hard and soft all at once. It’s always just as familiar as it is brand new, comforting and thrilling. He lifts his hips only long enough to reach inelegantly between them and shove his boxers down. TK does the same and then they’re back together, skin-on-skin this time. The slide is heavenly, the way TK leaks when he’s especially turned on adding some slick to the friction.
“I remember that, that time we were on the phone,” TK grunts, one hand still squeezing Carlos’s ass as they thrust sloppily against each other and the other lovingly cupping the back of his head.
Carlos still has his face buried in TK’s neck and it’s getting harder to breathe in stuffy air, which only increases the way the room is spinning all around him.
“You were so shy at first, it was so fucking hot getting you all worked up until you were saying all kinds of shit, too. Felt like I was corrupting you.”
“I don’t even remember what I said. I just wanted you so bad,” Carlos tells him. That’s never been a secret. He was never, ever any good at hiding it.
“I wanted you, too, baby. Fuck,” TK swears again, hips pressing up against Carlos. “So bad I didn’t know what to do with myself.”
“Like this?” Carlos asks, hoping TK says yes because he doesn’t know if he can stop himself long enough to change positions. It all feels to wild a feral, a runaway train with no brakes.
“I’m not gonna last if you keep – yeah, just like this.” TK kisses his ear, one leg draping over the back of Carlos’s. “You’re so sexy when you get like this, how long were you perving on me while I was sleeping?”
“Looking,” Carlos returns with an intoxicated laugh. “Not perving, just – ah, fuck – gazing in matrimonial adoration.”
TK snickers. “Well that’s not nearly as fun.”
“You’re such a brat.”
“All yours, baby.”
“Damn straight,” Carlos growls, nipping at TK’s neck again. Pressure builds and builds behind his spine until Carlos can hardly stand it, needing to come so badly it might kill him. “I’m – TK.”
“Me too, come on.” TK hums again, low and enticing right in Carlos’s ear. “Get me all messy.”
“Fuck,” Carlos gasps, surprised at the force with which it hits him when he starts to lose it. TK grips him tighter, erratic spasms of his hips as the heat overtakes him and the miniscule space between their bodies is flooded with Carlos’s release.
“That’s it, holy shit the sounds you make sometimes,” TK whispers, still holding him tightly.
“You,” Carlos mumbles, incapable of any more eloquent thought as his body thrums and he mouths at TK’s neck.
“What about me?” TK asks, his voice warmer than a heated blanket.
Carlos ignores him. He kisses TK’s cheek and lifts his hips just enough to move them to one side so that he can reach down and wrap his hand around TK’s still-hard cock. It’s burning hot in his hand and wet with the mess Carlos made on him.
“Oh fuck, just like that, Carlos,” TK cries out.
Carlos bites his lip and strokes half a dozen times before TK’s gasping and shivering and softly moaning Carlos’s name. It’s always the sweetest benediction and Carlos will never, as long as he lives, get used to the way his name sounds from TK’s lips.
Sighing contentedly and melting back into the mattress, TK grins up at him with glassy eyes and even pinker cheeks than before. “That was fun.”
Laughing softly, Carlos wipes his hand on the bedsheet before bringing it up to TK’s face, holding it and looking lovingly between his eyes before lowering down to press a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. TK nudges forward so Carlos rolls onto his back so that TK can settle in his arms, head pillowed on Carlos’s chest and legs tangled up together.
“Why were you thinking about the time we had phone sex?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos answers honestly. “It just popped into my head.”
“That was fun, too.”
“It was,” he agrees. “Do you – ”
Their warm, peaceful bubble is abruptly shattered when Carlos’s work phone rings. He groans, feeling TK tense in his arms.
“Shit,” Carlos mutters, reaching over for the cursed object where it’s plugged in on his nightstand. It’s Ranger Campbell, and they’re getting along better than they were before but he’s still one of the last people Carlos wants to hear from right now.
“Come on,” TK urges, “you know you have to answer it.”
Carlos sighs. He swipes and does, bringing the phone up to his ear. He doesn’t want TK to go but TK’s already shifting over, his warmth and comforting scent gone before Carlos can stop it from happening.
“Yeah?” he says into the phone, trying and likely failing to keep from sounding annoyed.
“You gotta get down here, we got a lead on those smugglers,” Campbell says.
“Good morning,” Carlos replies pointedly. “What lead?”
“Do you want me to explain it over the phone? Just get here, we gotta move.”
Groaning, Carlos agrees and hangs up before Campbell can say anything else. He looks over. TK’s on his side, looking back at Carlos with a sad but understanding smile on his face.
“You have to go?”
“I’m sorry,” Carlos mumbles.
TK frowns and shakes his head. “It’s okay. I have to get ready for work soon, anyway.”
“I love you,” Carlos tells him, pushing up to an elbow and leaning over for a quick kiss that TK returns with the sentiment before he reluctantly gets out of bed and heads for the shower.
He glances back just before he leaves the room, and the sight of TK curling onto his side and dragging the sheet up over his shoulder tugs so hard at Carlos’s heartstrings that he wants to craft a lie about a traffic accident making him late just to crawl back in bed with the man he loves, if only for another 20 minutes before TK, too, has to get into the shower.
He can’t, but he wants to.
Campbell is seated half on his desk when Carlos walks into the room at a considerable clip, leafing through a stack of papers. He looks up and offers a casual smile. “Sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep.”
“It’s fine. What’s going on?”
“I hope you blamed it on me, to your husband. I blame stuff on you all the time to Ashlyn.”
That stops Carlos in his tracks for a moment. He isn’t surprised that Campbell knows he’s married – he does wear a ring on his finger – but they’ve never talked about it. Carlos doesn’t hide who he is but he doesn’t bring his personal life up at work, either. He’d happily talk about TK if anyone asked, but no one ever asks.
Campbell frowns, noticing the shift in Carlos’s demeanour. “Was that s'pposed to be a secret?”
“I – no,” Carlos says, shaking his head. “I just didn’t know if you knew.”
“I worked with your old man, remember?” Campbell tidies the pages into a neat stack and sets them down beside him on the desk. “We couldn’t get him to shut up about your wedding in the weeks leading up to it. He was so excited, it was kind of adorable.”
Carlos blinks. His mother has said the same thing, but it shocks Carlos to hear his dad was talking about it at work. “He was?”
“I’d never seen him like that before.” Clearing his throat, Campbell adds, “It’s how I like to remember him, actually. Most of the time he was so dedicated to the job, it seemed like he didn’t know how to have a conversation about damn near anything else. It was nice to see another side of him.”
His words settle over Carlos, heavy like a lead apron, and he blinks again and has to shake them off because he doesn’t have the time to metabolize them just now. Ignoring Campbell’s original question, Carlos repeats, “What’s going on with the case?”
Campbell takes the stack of papers up again, raising his eyebrows and gesturing for Carlos to follow him into the conference room.
As he pulls up to the 126 in his truck with a bubble-gum pink box of donuts on the passenger’s seat, Carlos remembers how nervous he’d been the first time he visited this place as TK’s boyfriend. He never made it all the way inside while they were only hooking up, at least not in an unofficial capacity. He’d idle outside in the Camaro and send a text to alert TK to his arrival, but he always wondered how inconspicuous that really was – there are windows everywhere, and the big bay door is wide open more often than not, and Carlos imagined TK’s coworkers inside beginning to recognize his car and put two-and-two together even if TK wasn’t telling them anything about the cop he was sleeping with.
The first time TK took his hand and brough him inside to introduce Carlos as his boyfriend, Carlos’s heart had been beating so fast he was sure they’d be able to hear it echoing off the concrete. He wasn’t entirely comfortable being fully out yet, then, despite having come out to his parents nearly a decade earlier. As he parks and carefully scoops up the box, he thinks about how radically different it feels, now. TK’s made everything different. He began rewriting Carlos’s whole story the moment they first saw each other.
“Hey, hey, hey!” he calls, stepping into the bustle. “Good morning, 126!”
Paul offers him a smile and a handshake and Tommy greets him warmly.
“Good morning, Tommy,” Carlos smiles at her. Spreading his arms out, he loudly asks, “Who wants donuts?”
“Hey, babe!” TK appears from around the front of a firetruck with a big smile, and Carlos feels his stomach turn over itself as he remembers their morning. “This is a nice surprise.”
TK looks more than happy to see him, he looks downright dazzled, and Carlos congratulates himself on the excellent decision he’d made a half hour ago. “Hey,” he answers, as he puts the pink box down, trying to keep it from being overtly flirty but probably not doing a very good job of that. TK’s happiest smiles always make him weak in the knees.
“So, what’s the occasion, Ranger Reyes?” Paul asks, as Nancy appears to select a donut.
“No occasion, was just in the neighborhood.” Carlos catches Tommy’s eye again and she grins at him. “So, we got coconut, we got bear claws, fritters, a cronut – ”
Paul and Marjan reach for the box at the same time, their hands bumping. Paul snatches the cronut before Marjan can, and she looks wide-eyed at him in betrayal.
“Dude, I was gonna take the cronut.”
“Gotta move quick if you want the prize around here,” Paul says with his mouth full.
“Quick?” Marjan returns angrily. “You haven’t even begun to see quick, but you will.”
Confused, Carlos looks back at TK. “So, I’ll bring two cronuts next time?”
“Ignore them, they’re in a dead heat to be my dad’s lieutenant.”
“Ah.”
“And now it’s spilling over into pastries.”
“I see.”
“Pastry?” Tommy asks, appearing at Carlos’s side.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” She grabs a donut and shoves it into her mouth, before making a sound like she forgot something and going back for a second, and then a third.
“Oh,” TK says, laughing in bemusement as Tommy unapologetically walks off with three donuts.
“Uh, so, when is Captain Strand announcing his lieutenant?” Carlos asks Mateo.
“Oh, any minute now. And these two are losing their minds.”
“We are not losing our minds!” Paul practically shouts, as if Mateo had grievously insulted him.
“Nope,” Marjan agrees in clipped tones. “It’s more like honing our minds.”
“Yeah, you have no idea what it’s like to attain a lieutenant’s mindset.”
“Funny thing to say to the only one that’s actually ever been a lieutenant,” Mateo points out with a hand on his hip. “At the 129. Remember?”
“That’s right,” TK agrees.
“Oh yeah. Wait, so why didn’t you put your name in for the job?” Paul asks.
“Because the job makes you crazy,” Mateo answers with a scoff. “Ergo, you two.”
Paul and Marjan look at each other, but then scowl and look away.
TK sighs. Carlos feels like he waded unintentionally into something he shouldn’t have.
“Cap.” Nancy says.
Carlos follows her gaze; Tommy is shoving the remainder of one donut into her mouth and fixing to start on the next before she’s even swallowed.
“You okay?” TK asks, sounding genuinely concerned.
Muffled around her mouthful, Tommy answers, “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be.” It isn’t convincing, even to Carlos, and he doesn’t know her very well.
“You seem …” Nancy begins, but then bails. “No reason.”
“Mhm,” Tommy answers, taking another massive bite.
“Hey, guys.”
They all look up, finding Judd’s son Wyatt wheeling towards them in his chair. Everyone greets him eagerly.
“What brings you down here?” TK asks.
“Uh, I’m looking for your dad, actually. Is he around?”
“Yeah, he should be in his office,” TK replies.
“Thanks.” Wyatt smiles and begins to roll away.
He’s barely out of earshot when Marjan suspiciously asks, “Now, what do you think that’s about?”
“I’m sure it’s none of our business,” Mateo tells her.
“Maybe I decide what is and isn’t my business,” Marjan answers back.
“Hey, leave him alone,” Nancy argues. “He’s the only one being reasonable around here this morning, and you two are being ridiculous.”
Marjan looks for a moment like she’s about to retort but then rolls her eyes and goes back to her work.
Tommy lets out a loud hum around another mouthful of dough and is eyeing the box like a stray cat hoping for table scraps.
“Never a dull moment around here,” Carlos comments after everyone but TK has returned to the tasks they were occupied by before he arrived.
“Never,” TK agrees.
“Did I come at a bad time? Feels like there’s a lot going on.”
“No, it’s all good.” TK looks up in the direction of Owen’s office windows with a frown on his forehead, but then he looks back at Carlos and smiles. Stepping a little closer, he softly says, “Hey.”
Carlos has to press his lips together to keep from grinning. Suddenly very aware that they are still surrounded by people, even though those people aren’t paying attention to them anymore, Carlos clears his throat and asks, “Can I steal you for a minute?”
Raising an eyebrow, TK asks, “You don’t have any more secrets to drop on me, do you?”
Chuckling, Carlos shakes his head. “No. You have all my secrets.”
“Sure. Come on.” He grabs a fritter and then takes Carlos’s hand, pulling him toward the stairs.
Together they make their way toward the room with the beds, and Carlos has a faint muscle memory of the last time they’d been alone together in that room, when he’d confessed about Iris. He’d been so utterly terrified that it would be a bridge too far, the thing that finally clued TK in to the fact that Carlos had never been good enough for him, but TK held his face and kissed him and smiled like a kid on Christmas morning when Carlos told him they could be husbands in as soon as two months if they wanted. Now they are, and Carlos presses his fingers together to feel the ring on his left hand just for the physical reminder of it.
As they enter the room, TK lets go of his hand so he can tear a piece off the donut. He pops it into his mouth and then holds it out, offering the rest to Carlos. Leaning forward, Carlos takes a bite from it right out of TK’s hand, and TK giggles. He rips what remains in half and Carlos steps closer to him, letting TK feed him another portion of it before TK finishes it off, and then kissing him with sugar on their lips.
TK takes a breath. His hands find Carlos’s chest, thumb rubbing over the fabric of his shirt. “Is everything okay?” he asks, looking up with sweet concern in his green eyes.
“Yeah,” Carlos assures, taking TK’s waist in his hands. “Yeah, babe, I don’t have anything important I wanted to talk about. I just … wanted you alone for a moment.”
TK’s lips curve into a smile.
“I was sitting at my desk,” Carlos continues, brushing his nose against TK’s and then resting their foreheads together. “Drowning in a mountain of deadly boring paperwork. Having trouble concentrating on it because I kept thinking about this morning.”
“Mm,” TK hums. “Oh, that.”
“Mhm.”
TK’s hands slide up over Carlos’s shoulders, arms hooking around the back of his neck. Carlos wishes they were truly alone, rather than in a communal bedroom without a door where they can still hear the din of activity from the floor below, but he’ll take whatever he can get.
“I’m sorry I had to rush off,” he says, and means it. He would have been sorry regardless, but the lead Campbell called him in for was a bust – a witness one of their CI’s insisted would have vital information was either an incredibly convincing actor or didn’t actually know anything – so in the end it was a complete waste of time and it stole a morning snuggle from them, brief as it would have been regardless.
“Is that why you’re here?”
Carlos nods. “Thought I’d take an early lunch, since things had to end so abruptly this morning.”
“We can’t exactly pick up where we left off here,” TK points out, an amused lilt to his low voice.
“No,” Carlos agrees. He squeezes TK’s waist in his hands, letting them travel lower to settle on his hips. “But. I don’t know. I just wanted to see you.”
“I always wanna see you,” TK tells him. His fingers gently stroke the back of Carlos’s head. “It’s okay, baby. Sometimes shit comes up. I cut our lunch date short the other day, remember?”
Carlos swallows. He wasn’t asking for TK to say any of that, but it soothes the anxious part of him that feels like he isn’t doing a very good job of being a husband, lately. TK’s so compassionate – too compassionate, perhaps, but if TK gives him too much grace while Carlos gives himself no grace at all, maybe together they can meet somewhere in the middle.
“Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course.”
Carlos kisses him, keeping his eyes closed so he can just breathe his husband in. “It’s one of my favorite things in the world, you know. Holding you after sex.”
“It’s not your fault, you got called in.”
“I know. I’m not saying it’s my fault. I’m just …” Carlos laughs quietly at himself and shrugs a shoulder. “Just saying. I love being close to you like that, I was sorry to have to skip it.”
“Don’t stay late tonight, okay?” Still stroking the nape of his neck, TK kisses his cheek and says, “We can watch a movie and you can hold me all night.”
Carlos nods. He wants that more than anything. “That sounds perfect.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll see you tonight.”
They both jump as a bell clangs, loud and inescapable.
“Shit,” TK sighs. “Okay, now I gotta go.”
Carlos nods. TK’s smile is unnecessarily apologetic and he presses a quick kiss to Carlos’s lips before taking off. Carlos rubs his hands over his face and lingers a minute longer in the empty room to stay out of the way of the responders dressing and climbing into their emergency vehicles before heading back to his truck.