Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“All I’m saying,” TK clarified, lifting one hand off of the wheel momentarily to offer a placating gesture, “is that not everyone from New York has white-knuckle opinions about bagels.”

“Your dad does,” Nancy replied. She had climbed into the rig that evening with a frown and a too-big Starbucks, something TK had learned meant she would be at least mildly combative all shift. He could hardly blame her; the amount of medical calls recently had been as relentless as they were exhausting.

“My dad has opinions about everything. He decided he didn’t want a cutting from my Wandering Jew because he thought the name was – and I quote – ’troublesome.’”

“In fairness,” Nancy said with a tilt of her head, “that name is skimming the surface of being problematic.”

“It’s just a plant,” TK laughed, exasperated. “And I think I get to decide if it’s problematic or not. He’s not Jewish; I am.”

Nancy pivoted toward him in her seat so that he could be on the receiving end of the full eyebrow raise. “Oh? You speak for the entire Jewish community now?”

“Yes, Nancy. I am the Yiddish Lorax,” TK deadpanned, earning a laugh. “I speak for the Jews.”

“If you want to share your plants, I’ll take some,” Tommy called from the back of the rig. From the sound of her voice, she was only just looking up from the paperwork associated with their last call. It was the interruption that Nancy needed to get back on her soap box, apparently, because after a quick sip from her too-big Starbucks, she got right back to her earlier point. 

“Salt bagels are gross.”

“Incorrect,” TK said in a flat, simple tone.

“So you do have opinions about bagels.”

“I have taste buds and a beating heart,” TK corrected with theatrical testiness. He indicated a lane change and slowed with traffic, the rig creaking a bit as its tonnage rolled to a near-stop. Ahead, the red light cast everything in a movie-like glow, punctuated by turn signals and tail lights. 

Nancy bounced her eyebrows and lifted her too-big Starbucks back to her lips, mumbling into her drink, “Heart won’t be beating for long with that much sodium.”

“Hey, don’t bring that evil into my rig,” Tommy chided from the back, having leaned forward to join in the conversation. “TK doesn’t need any help inviting medical problems into his life.”

“Wow,” he replied, dragging the word out as long as he could before Tommy reached forward and playfully smacked his shoulder. She opened her mouth to clarify what she meant, but was interrupted by a double beep and the looming tone of a new call over the radio.

“Medic 126, medic 126, be advised: ten-fifty-four. Possible narcotics overdose reported on 12th and Hawley at The Last Drop. Please respond.”

A collective sigh passed through the three of them. TK reached up with one hand and gripped his radio, leaning his head toward it so as to be heard. “Ten-four, dispatch. We’re on our way.”

After dispatch listed a few more specifics – whatever the police had been able to provide before they’d called in medical – Nancy deposited her too-big Starbucks in the cupholder with more attitude than necessary and leaned back in the passenger seat. “Well, that was a nice five-minute mental break.”

TK switched on the sirens just as the lights ahead turned green. He crept forward through the awkward shuffle of cars pulling to either side. “Is it just me, or are overdoses happening way more than usual this week,” he asked, cranking the wheel to the left and breaking free of the gridlock. “Which I know is really saying something.”

Nancy glanced over at him, looking thoroughly exhausted at the observation. “I guess something new could have hit the streets. Cut with who-knows-what.”

If she noticed TK’s grip tightening on the steering wheel, she graciously did not acknowledge it. 

It wasn’t that overdoses were triggering for him. They couldn’t be, not with how regularly he had to interact with them during his day job. Old people falling, drunk people brawling, and addicts circling the drain; that was the unceasing parade of calls they dealt with, day in and day out. And, bless them both, neither Nancy nor Tommy tiptoed around TK’s addiction or sobriety. It was rarely relevant, anyway.

If anything, his reaction was one of heightened empathy. The urgency he felt each time a narcotics overdose was called in by dispatch had yet to ebb. It could have been him; it had been him. And even on weeks where he had four tens, where every shift was a back-to-back nightmare of laced fentanyl and combative patients, he still felt that sense of responsibility to do whatever he could.

Carlos liked to remind him that it wasn’t a bad mentality to take out on calls, even if said calls could be deeply exhausting. 

They arrived on the scene to flashing lights and a small gathering of uniformed officers already administering aid. TK applied the emergency brake and unbuckled his seatbelt, joining Nancy and Tommy around back to grab their gear. Outside, the white noise of Austin nightlife was undercut by officers ordering people back, and onlookers trying to involve themselves by recounting what had happened from their own points of view.

“Nancy, you start with the narcan; TK, get vitals goings,” Tommy instructed, though after so many identical calls, their routine was so established as to make her leadership unnecessary.

This was their fourth OD of the night. 

“Male patient, mid-forties. Unresponsive when we arrived on the scene,” one of the officers said by way of introduction. The patient was sprawled on the sidewalk with his button-up shirt torn open, exposing his undershirt and midriff. A pair of turtle shell glasses lay forgotten on the sidewalk next to him.

“How many doses have you already administered,” TK asked, dropping his bag and taking a knee beside the man. He worked as he talked, setting up his kit and portable monitor, clipping the pulse oximeter to the patient’s cold finger.

“Two,” came the response from somewhere above him. Nancy clapped her fingers against the patient’s cheek a few times in rapid succession, checked under his eyelids, and reached for a dose of intranasal naloxone. 

“And he’s still out? Nance, I’m going to start an IV if this one doesn’t work.”

Nancy nodded and rolled her knuckles against the man’s sternum aggressively, watching closely for any sign that it was working. After a few moments without any change, TK got to work. Behind him, he could hear Tommy introduce herself and ask for more information on the patient, all noise that TK didn’t really process as he worked to find a vein. 

“Come on, buddy,” he said, raising the volume of his voice and leaning in as the intravenous naloxone took its turn. TK took over rubbing the patient’s sternum, applying an uncomfortable amount of pressure as he did so. “Sir, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes.”

“I’ve got a pulse coming back,” Nancy observed. 

“Sir,” TK tried again, leaning over the patient and right into his personal space. “Come on now, wake up.”

Abruptly, the man opened his eyes. He took a staggered breath, delirious as he began to shift and move around. He moaned, a shapeless sound of confusion and dawning irritation. 

“There he is,” Nancy sighed, somewhere between relief and fatigue. 

“You’re okay,” TK said, addressing the man in the same patient, authoritative tone. “It’s okay. We’re EMS, we’re here to help.”

“Who are– what’s going on,” the man managed, looking but not really seeing as he lifted his arms to try and get Nancy’s hands away from his face. 

“We’re EMS. You overdosed,” TK answered. “Do you know where you are?”

“I’m fine,” the man slurred, continuing to swat at Nancy’s hands as if they were mosquitos. TK took hold of his right arm and lowered it so the IV wouldn’t get dislodged.

“You’re not fine,” TK explained carefully. “You stopped breathing for a minute there. The narcan we gave you won’t last, okay? So we have to take you to the hospital.”

His news was met with resounding disapproval. The man kept writhing, his strength returning to him as the narcan fully reversed his high. With it, as usual, came frustration. TK understood it well, though he wished he didn’t. How much had this man spent on the drugs he had taken? How desperate had he been for that hit? And here comes EMS with their narcan, smashing into his escape with the force of a tsunami, dragging him kicking and screaming back to sobriety. 

“Cap, we’re gunna need a hand,” Nancy called, resigned to the patient’s resistance and annoyed in equal measure. The officers standing around moved forward, hands clad in blue medical gloves, reaching to restrain the patient. The man was yelling at them now, insisting he was fine, that he wasn’t going to go to the hospital. 

No amount of reason was going to permeate it. TK felt a numbness come over him, his emotional response on hold. There was rarely any use arguing with an addict. 

As they were coordinating with one another to lift the patient onto a gurney, the man’s hand broke free from Nancy’s grip. It shot forward, latched onto TK’s collar, and yanked him down with alarming strength. TK only barely managed to brace himself against the man’s chest to stop from being pulled right into him. 

“You don’t get it,” the man cried, crazed blue eyes locking with TK’s. “I can’t go to the hospital! I’m not allowed to!”

One of the officers reached forward. She needed to use both of her hands to pry his one fist off of TK’s collar. The man momentarily turned his anger toward her, a punch thwarted by Nancy’s re-established grip on his arm. The officers were barking clear instructions to the patient, who was yelling back. At the rate things were going, he was going to get himself arrested for assault.

“You need to go,” TK said, leaning right back into the man’s face to get his full attention. “Okay? Whatever you took had something nasty in it, and it’ll come back to bite you if you don’t get treatment. Narcan is only temporary; we can’t fix you all the way here. Okay?”

Arguing with patients was often a waste of time. In the state the man was in, he could not make an informed decision for himself, and if they sat around trying to explain protocol, he’d relapse right back into cardiac arrest before they even got him loaded into the rig. 

But TK couldn’t help it, sometimes. He knew the fear of waking up stone cold sober surrounded by strangers. He knew the moment of crushing reality when you realized what had happened, the realization that you had done it to yourself. There was nothing more human than the desperate connection you could make with someone in that moment. It only took one person to be a fixed point, a harbor in the storm. Sometimes, if the patient had the opportunity, it could de-escalate the whole scene. 

The man locked eyes with him again, the force of his thrashing halved. He stared, searching, breathing hard. His pupils were pinpricks, a sheen of sweat on his face. In his struggling, the IV had done some damage, and coppery blood ran in a smudged line around the side of his arm. 

Unexpectedly, the man asked, “You’ll go?”

TK felt himself nodding. “Yhep, I’m going with you. But you gotta let us take you there.”

“In the back with me,” the man clarified, as officers worked around him to get him onto the stretcher while he wasn’t resisting. TK glanced toward Tommy for confirmation before nodding again. 

“Yhep. Let’s go. Can you tell me your name?”

The officers hoisted the man up. As soon as he was situated on the stretcher, Nancy and TK started strapping him in. 

“Collin,” the man said, watching TK closely, like a child who was afraid of losing their parents at the mall. 

“Okay, Collin,” TK repeated. “Do you know what you took tonight?”

He hadn’t ridden in the back of the rig in a while. Tommy took his spot behind the wheel as they loaded up the back, Nancy climbing in first to guide the stretcher into place before locking it in. 

“Oxys,” the man murmured, watching as TK pulled the doors shut and slid onto the bench beside him. He checked his vitals on the screen before settling in to fix the IV. 

“Just oxys? Nothing else?”

The man shook his head, his focus never leaving TK’s face. If he hadn’t just OD’d on narcotics, TK would have been unnerved. As it was, he started through the standard list of questions: allergies, medications, heart or liver disease, age, anything and everything that could help the ER speed along intake. The man, only moments ago trying to punch an officer in the face, now laid there before him, docile and calm, answering everything without protest.

TK made a mental note to celebrate the little victory later. 

In the front of the rig, Tommy called it in. “Ambulance 126 for hospital one, for patient report.”

Irrationally, some part of TK wished he was behind the wheel. He enjoyed radio reports; on less-urgent calls, it reminded him of the resistance pilots in Star Wars, an affiliation that he blamed on his father and would never, ever admit to Nancy. In a thousand years. Ever.

“Copy 126, go ahead.”

“Ambulance 126 is currently en route to your facility,” Tommy continued, an eerie echo of how TK usually handled reports. “Non-emergent at this time with a forty-three year old male. Chief complaint today is going to be a suspected narcotics overdose. The patient was discovered by bystanders–”

Whatever Tommy said – and TK had been listening for the answer, in part to see if she would steal his whole spiel and in part to see if she improved on it – he didn’t hear it over the patient’s interruption.

“Strand,” the patient blurted, pointing his oximeter-clad finger at TK’s nameplate. “Like a DNA strand.”

TK allowed the man a professional chuckle. “Or a beach in Ireland,” he replied, hoping that being amiable would hide his exhaustion. 

“Your DNA must be perfect,” the patient – Collin – said, seemingly oblivious to the polite response he had received. “What’s TK stand for?” 

The complement and question, without any pause for a reaction in between, was enough to put a baffled smile on TK’s face. Narcotics patients were never boring. “Just TK,” he answered, amused but ever mindful of his own boundaries. He pointed from himself to his partner. “And this is Nancy.”

Collin barely nodded in acknowledgement, still staring. “You’re an angel.”

TK laughed again, genuine and bewildered. “Well,” he said, smiling warmly at the man strapped to the stretcher before him, “we do our best here at the AFD.”

-

TK liked to play a game whenever he and Carlos had conflicting shifts. He tried to think of it as a bonus round, a way to gamify the process of showering and brushing his teeth, even when he didn’t want to. Especially when he didn’t want to. 

The stages of the game were simple: get home by 5:45am, so that he could hear Carlos’s first alarm go off. That left him with exactly 20 minutes to shower and brush his teeth before the second alarm went off at 6:05am. (He was better at accomplishing this on the first two days of his four tens, before exhaustion had properly set in.) 

If he could be done in the bathroom by the second alarm, he moved on to the bonus round: set out Carlos’s travel mug, the air-tight container of steel cut oats, and vitamins. If he was really doing well, he would even write an inappropriate note and hide it in a random pocket of Carlos’s backpack. Carlos had yet to say anything about them, which either meant he was biding his time to get his own sexy revenge, or that he had a backpack full of very not-safe-for-work post-its that were going to surprise the hell out of him one day. 

In spite of it being the third day on shift, TK found himself with 2 minutes to spare before the third and final alarm went off on Carlos’s phone at 6:20am. He left the kitchen without turning the light off, since Carlos would be needing it shortly, and shuffled his way to the bedroom with the grace of a drunk sorority girl. He was so deeply tired, he wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t sleep at all.

Which is probably why he climbed directly on top of Carlos instead of sliding into bed beside him like he usually did. “Babe,” he groaned, letting his dead weight squeeze a startled groan out of his fiance.

“Oh my god, TK,” Carlos muttered, not yet properly awake. “Why.”

“Four tens suck,” he answered by way of explanation, resting the side of his face against Carlos’s like it were a pillow.

“You have no room to complain,” Carlos murmured, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “You get to go to sleep. I have to wake up.”

“So many calls last night,” TK yawned, his head lulling down onto his partner’s pillow as Carlos shifted beneath him. “Why can’t people stop dying, for like, a day?”

A broad, warm hand slid around his waist and settled on his lower back. Carlos idly stroked his thumb against TK’s soft sleep shirt. “The nerve of some people.”

“Some people’s kids,” TK agreed. From the bedside table, the third and final alarm started to chime from Carlos’s phone. A deep groan – a grunt, maybe? -- rumbled through Carlos’s chest. 

“I gotta get up, babe,” he sighed. TK moaned in protest and stayed where he was for a moment longer before reluctantly rolling off of Carlos’s warm body. 

The bed being pre-warmed and smelling like Carlos’s soap was a pale substitute for those more precious mornings when they could wake up together, but TK wasn’t going to complain. He greedily pulled Carlos’s pillow into his arms and held it against his chest as if it were a teddy bear. 

“Rough shift?” Carlos yawned, standing from the bed and stretching his arms up and over his head. 

TK was relaxing quickly into the warmth his partner had left behind, his energy for conversation flagging by the second. Desperate to get in every second of Carlos time he could, he forced himself to take a deep breath. “So many ODs, Carlos.”

Carlos, for his part, scrunched up his nose and sighed. He looked over his shoulder from where he stood by the open closet. “Any fatalities?”

Clearly, both of them were too tired for emotional labor. TK appreciated the objective question. 

“No, actually,” he said, half into the pillow. “Female patient nearly unstrapped herself on the ride to St David’s, though. That was lively.”

“Here’s to Tommy’s deescalation skills.” Carlos rolled out his neck and draped a few pieces of his uniform over one arm to bring with him into the bathroom. TK hummed in agreement and let silence settle back between them, watching with half-lidded eyes as Carlos shucked off his pajamas with one hand. In the early morning light, the lines of his body relaxed something deep inside of TK’s chest. 

“Oh, there was this one guy,” TK said abruptly, the memory resurfacing as Carlos walked toward the bathroom. “Woke up after a narcan IV. Weirdly sober the whole ride to the hospital, no crash or anything. He was so combative when he first came around, and then he totally changed when I said I would ride with him. Like, you know how toddlers can stop having a tantrum super abruptly? You never see that on a call like that.”

Carlos leaned his head around the doorframe to the bathroom. He was preparing his toothbrush. “I mean, if I were a patient, I’d calm down as soon as I saw you were my paramedic.”

“We’ve done that roleplay, and you did the opposite of calming down.”

Carlos laughed once, a bolt of sound, before disappearing back into the bathroom. His disembodied voice echoed slightly off the tile. “Sometimes I think you’re allergic to romantic sentiment.”

TK chuckled into his pillow. “Just mediocre attempts at it.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I’ll have you know, that patient said I was an angel.” TK snuggled down into the sheets, aware that Carlos would jump in the shower in a minute, and the lag in conversation would be the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Sleep was only minutes away.

The water turned on. Carlos wouldn’t have to wait for it to heat up – TK had only showered about twenty minutes before – but he still reappeared from the bathroom in nothing but his underwear. He braced his hands on the bed and leaned in to plant a kiss on TK’s temple.

“Angel might be pushing it,” he said into TK’s ear, “but I do love you."

“Love you too,” TK agreed. A thought settled over him then, perhaps brought on by thinking about what Carlos’s shift might hold. Or maybe it simply came back to him because Nancy had pointed it out that morning as they were sanitizing the rig, and he had felt weird about it then, too.

“He said he wasn’t ‘allowed’ at the hospital,” TK muttered. “Isn’t that weird?”

Carlos frowned down at him, but it was a brief expression, accompanied by a shrug. “People say weird shit when they’re under the influence,” he reasoned, before standing back up to his full height to return to the bathroom. 

It’s what TK had said to Nancy earlier that morning. And it was an entirely rational thing to say and to think.

But it didn’t really feel right.

Chapter Text

If TK didn’t already trust Paul implicitly, he’d be concerned about how carelessly the man wielded a knife. 

“So the dude climbs down the tree,” Paul was saying, carrying on with a story as he worked, “manages to dodge three distinct people, and then climbs right back up another tree on the other side of the park.”

TK uh-huh ’d absently. His eyes never left the cutting mat, like if he looked away for even a second, it would be Paul’s finger getting minced instead of the onion. 

It had been a slow afternoon at the 126: a car accident, a false alarm, and a medical call to help an old woman who had fallen in her garage. TK had been selfishly enjoying it, glad that his first day back on normal rotation hadn’t asked much of him. He wasn’t interested in breaking their tranquility with a finger in a bag of ice. 

“It really freaks you out watching me do this,” Paul observed casually, as if he wasn’t slamming a kitchen knife into a piece of produce at mach ten.

“It freaks everyone out,” TK replied, glad to voice his concerns without having to be the one to broach the subject. “You know what this chili doesn’t need? Human blood.”

Paul laughed. It sounded an awful lot like he was taking TK’s concern as a compliment. “Have you ever seen me slip up in the kitchen? Seriously. I’ve been cooking since I was a kid. It’s fine.”

“You’re right,” TK said. “I forgot that accidents only ever happen on purpose.”

The last of the onion fell prey to Paul’s efforts, and the knife stopped moving. He turned toward TK with his finger raised, a breath away from saying something witty enough to match his raised eyebrow.  Before he could speak, a new combatant joined the fray.

“If TK has to tell you you’re being too reckless, you might wanna take it easy,” Judd rumbled. He made his way into the kitchen like a sheriff entering a saloon, equally as ready to end a fight as he was to join in on one. As he crossed to the fridge and set about finding a drink, Paul stood his ground.

“Mincing is a skill,” he argued, “and it’s one I have perfected over many, many years. I don’t question your ability to use power tools, do I?”

“No, and you shouldn’t.” Judd turned around and leaned against the counter, somehow cracking his can of seltzer open with the same hand he was holding it with. “I don’t doubt your prowess with a knife, Strickland, but this,” he gestured toward TK, “is a canary in a coal mine if I’ve ever seen one.”

TK threw his hands up. “No, that’s fine: listen to me because I’m injury prone, not because I’m a paramedic. What do I know?”

Mateo appeared at that moment, unannounced and unconcerned with the way that TK jolted at his sudden arrival. “What about being injury prone? Are you hurt again?”

Judd and Paul immediately started laughing. TK held up both middle fingers with an elegant, sarcastic flourish. “ No . Paul is just going to lose a finger.”

“Aw, dude,” Mateo gasped, “don’t do that! Which finger?”

TK frowned. “Right reaction, wrong question,” he scolded. Paul turned back to his meal prep with a jaunty little tilt of his head, secure in his victory on the matter, while Judd pushed off of the counter to leave. Mateo considered both of them with deteriorating interest.

“Oh, well… I still see ten, so I guess everything’s fine,” Mateo reasoned. He shrugged at TK like he wasn’t sure of his own assessment. “But uh, there’s a guy here asking for you?”

“A guy,” Judd repeated, pausing on his way out of the kitchen with his drink halfway to his mouth.

“A guy,” TK mimicked. He reluctantly let the mincing argument go and turned his full attention toward Mateo. “What guy?”

“I think he was one of your patients,” the younger man said with a shrug. He was shifting his weight from one foot to the next, ever the poster child for undiagnosed ADHD. “Said he wanted to say thank you?”

The news shifted the mood in the kitchen so quickly, it nearly made their ears pop. TK stood upright, lifting his eyebrows and looking toward Judd and Paul as if the news were unprecedented. “Oh, wow! Is that… Proof? That I’m a great paramedic and you should listen to me?”

“No, no, no,” Judd said, waving his drink around like he was trying to clear the idea out of the air, “you don’t get to play that card.”

Paul pointed the offending kitchen knife at TK. “You’re really going to use a patient as a prop to win an argument,” he clarified, feigning incredulity as if the idea were as unethical as an idea could be.

TK clutched his pearls with one hand and covered his mouth with the other. “It’s almost as if I’m a reliable source of safety information,” he gasped, looking between them like he couldn’t believe this news. “And my credibility has nothing to do with my own medical history!”

Judd laughed, a single bark of sound that did more work than any witty comment could. “I officially don’t have the energy for this,” he said, turning once again to leave. “If you need me, don’t.”

“Go see your adoring public,” Paul agreed, waving TK away as if he were no more than a nuisance. 

Unwilling to drop the bit, TK rested the back of his hand against his forehead and fanned himself. As he turned in the direction of the bay, he made sure to look dramatically over his shoulder at his coworkers. “I just can’t believe it! Who would have thought that little ol’ me, a trained and certified paramedic, might be worth listening to when it comes to knife safety?”

He could hear Mateo’s voice retreating behind him as he left. “I don’t get it. What are you guys fighting about?”

“Ignore that man,” Paul advised sagely. Only once he was out of sight did TK drop the act, laughing and falling into his usual manner of walking, rather than the swishy southern bell he had been imitating. 

The bay was a reflection of the day’s low call volume: turnouts were hung neatly, boots were tucked underneath the long bench, locker doors were tidy and closed. The trucks were all hooked up, vents and hoses and charging ports running like IV lines down from the ceiling to the different rigs. The tiller was pulled halfway out of the bay onto the drive, sudsy and sparkling in the afternoon sun as a few volunteers washed it. Someone’s bluetooth speaker was playing Al Green’s “Tired of Being Alone”. It smelled like gasoline, cleaning agents, rafter dust, and Paul’s cooking.

It was perfect.

TK crossed the large sprawl of cement where the tiller usually sat, turning his gaze across the familiar space for anyone he didn’t recognize. Mateo hadn’t shared any specifics, which meant that TK had no way of narrowing down who he was looking to greet. Was this from a recent call, something in the last few weeks? Or someone they had helped months ago, who only now had been able to come in and say thank you?

He expected to find Nancy or Tommy already engaged with someone in civies. To his surprise, he caught sight of Nancy just as she was halfway up the stairs, a clipboard under her arm as she went. 

So… presumably she didn’t know about their visitor. Mateo had probably just gone to find the first paramedic he could.

“TK Strand?”

TK blinked, slowing and turning toward the sound of his name. 

A man was waiting just outside of the open bay doors. For as startlingly tall as he was, he stood with a slouch as though he were trying to appear smaller. It made him look sheepish, aware that he had stopped by unannounced and unsure if he could step inside of the bay without an explicit invitation. He wore a gray flannel button-up, the sleeves rolled to his mid-forearms. A pair of turtle shell glasses framed uncertain eyes. There was something about his messy graying hair and genuine smile that was immediately disarming.

“Hi,” the man said, giving a small wave. “I’m so sorry to just drop in, I don’t… really know the, uh, protocol here.”

TK waved the idea away and offered a polite smile up at the man. “Hey, no, don’t worry about it. How can I help you?”

This earned a small laugh from the man, who pushed his hands deeper into his jeans pockets. “Ah, you already did. I don’t know if you remember; about a week ago, I… Well, I took something I shouldn’t have taken. You saved my life.”

It clicked immediately. For some reason, the turtle shell glasses were the only extra bit of context TK needed to remember the man before him. “Right! Yes, you’re, uh… Collin, right?”

This earned him another laugh, that bashful grin growing all the warmer. “Yeah, yes. I’m… I don’t want to take up any of your time, really, I just wanted to say thank you. It’s so hard to believe that that happened to me, but I… I just really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” TK answered easily. “I’m glad you’re still with us, man. And I’m glad we were there, and could help. You’re feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Collin answered immediately. “Right as rain. Definitely a, uh, wake up call. You know?”

Something small tightened in TK’s chest. Addiction, he knew, was a crafty fucker. It had a strange immunity to near-misses, and could turn motivation and good intentions around in a heartbeat. He believed that they did good work, pulling people back from the brink so they could keep fighting, but he knew better than to trust the words of someone who had recently overdosed. 

The strain must have shown in his smile, a sorrowful tilt to his eyebrows he couldn’t quite catch, because Collin pulled his hands from his pockets and held them up in a placating gesture. “I mean it,” he said, sounding just a touch desperate despite the way he laughed. “I don’t usually do that sort of thing. And I know full well the impacts it can have on the brain. I actually teach biochemistry at UT.”

TK nodded politely, trying to smooth his expression back to something professional and kind. He hadn’t meant to make the man self-conscious. Or, perhaps more accurately, he hadn’t meant for his personal shit to come up. “No, sure,” he agreed, trying to channel Cooper’s patient wisdom. “I get it, actually. Substances like that don’t discriminate, you know? It’s sort of a great, shitty equalizer.” 

Collin relaxed a little. He stared at TK for a moment, his smile warming again without the panic in his eyes. “I’ve thought the same thing,” he said, as though he were admitting a secret. A beat of silence passed between them before he took a deep breath. “Anyway, I just wanted to… you know, stop by and say thank you in person. I really appreciate what you did for me.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” TK answered. “It’s what we’re here for.” He jerked a thumb into the bay behind him, in the vague direction of where he had last seen Nancy. “If you want, I can go grab my partner. She was there too, I’m sure she’d love to see you doing okay–”

But before he could even finish his offer, Collin was shaking his head, laughing again in a vaguely uncomfortable way. “No, no, I really don’t want to take up anymore of your time. Really. Please, let your team know I’m grateful, but I should be going. I just…”

He trailed off, that same warm smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. TK could easily picture him as an educator, in a dusty office with elbow patches on a moth-eaten woolen jacket. Still, there was a nervousness in the set of his shoulders. Abruptly, TK wondered if it was embarrassment. 

Or shame.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble,” TK reassured, “but whatever you’re comfortable with. They’ll understand.”

“I appreciate it,” Collin insisted with a nod. “I just… wanted to see you. To say thank you.”

TK felt the end of the interaction coming on fast. It wasn’t the first time someone had stopped by the profess gratitude. More often than not, it involved lots of hugging and some tears, and occasionally some gifted baked goods. But for whatever reason, Collin was trying to wrap this up quickly. It reinforced the sense that he was ashamed.

Before he could think about it, TK was speaking. “Do you have someone to talk to,” he asked, tilting his head to the side and looking up at Collin carefully. “There are a lot of resources out there. A lot of help.”

Momentarily, Collin looked like he was ready to bolt. TK was just thinking that he had overstepped when the man’s expression softened, his gaze locked with TK’s. “Someone to talk to,” he repeated, not quite a question, but not a dismissal, either. TK found himself nodding, his voice soft as he continued. 

“I… have some personal experience with this sort of thing,” he admitted. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, if it was unethical or unwise to reveal something so private. But all the titles and certificates and professional accolades wouldn’t change the fact that TK was an addict in recovery, staring up at another addict who had his toes over the edge of a great and terrible cliff. Collin didn’t look like a junky, wasn’t itching at track marks or sniffing through a decimated septum, but that was just it: addiction wasn’t always something you could see. And if no one thought to offer aid, then it would be solely up to Collin to find it for himself. 

And that kind of inner motivation was a rare thing. 

For his part, Collin’s body language softened, his shoulders relaxing a little as he processed this unexpected bit of information. TK reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, swiping it unlocked and opening his notes in one fluid gesture. “Here, this website is a great resource,” he said, glancing up through his lashes at Collin to make sure he was still interested. “It has listings for meetings, help lines, a live chat, and a roster of therapists, too.”

Stiffly, Collin fished his own phone out of his pocket and nodded mutely, making note of the URL as TK read it off to him from his saved notes. Once he had it, he stood there with his phone gripped in both hands, staring at TK as if the gesture were completely unprecedented. “Thank you,” he said, his voice quiet in such a way that it sounded like he’d said it on autopilot.

TK pocketed his phone and took a careful breath, offering the man another smile. “You seem like a really nice guy, Collin,” he said, “but to be honest, I don’t want to see you on another call. You know? Not everyone bounces back from an overdose. No high is worth losing your life for.”

Collin offered him a fleeting smile and a nod. “Thank you,” he said quietly, still staring down at TK like he was lost in thought. He fiddled absently with his phone, twisting it in his hands a moment longer before finally returning it to his pocket. Collin opened his mouth to say something else, and TK briefly wondered if maybe he had changed his mind about meeting Nancy and Tommy. Before anything could be said, however, the man’s eyes flickered up over TK’s shoulder, and he snapped back to attention.

“Thank you again,” he said, his voice no longer muted. He stood to his full height, suddenly, and squared his shoulders. It made him look immediately bigger and more intimidating. 

TK blinked in surprise and nodded mutely, confused by the sudden shift in Collin’s demeanor. In the same instant, he felt someone appear by his side. “All good?,” Judd asked, smiling amiably at the man before glancing down at TK.

“Yeah,” TK answered immediately, thrown by his coworker’s sudden appearance. “Collin, this is Judd Ryder, he’s with our fire crew.”

Judd stuck out his hand with the confidence of a Texas-bred good ol’ boy. Collin hesitated for the briefest moment before accepting it. “You’ve got a great medical crew at this station,” he said, by way of introducing himself. “I was just letting TK here know how grateful I am for what he did.”

“Yeah, we’re real proud of our paramedics. They do great work,” Judd answered. He released Collin’s hand and planted both of his own on his hips, rooting himself to the spot like an oak tree. “Sounds like TK’s got some new heroics for his resume?”

“Nancy and I helped Collin a few nights back,” TK explained needlessly, glancing between the both of them. He was missing something; the tone had shifted dramatically with Judd’s arrival, but since both of the men before him were toeing along socially polite norms, TK couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. 

“Ah,” Judd nodded, “that’ll do it. Well, I’m glad you’re alright, man.”

TK didn’t miss the way Judd was squaring his own shoulders. Was this a straight guy thing? TK had grown up surrounded by plenty of machismo in New York. This felt different.

“Grateful for it,” Collin agreed. He considered Judd for a moment more before turning his attention back to TK, that warm smile returning to his face. “Well, I really oughta be going. Again, thank you. I’ll, uh, look into that website you showed me. I appreciate it.”

Despite the unnamed tension, TK’s own smile warmed. “Of course. I’m glad you stopped by; it was great meeting you.”

Collin hesitated, his smile broadening, before he nodded and waved his goodbye. “Great to meet you too,” he said. As he paced away, he glanced over his shoulder and pointed in the general direction of the bluetooth speaker echoing Al Green through the bay. “Great song, by the way.”

TK smiled and nodded his agreement, waving one last time as Collin disappeared around the tiller. There was a pause, in which three seconds of peaceful silence passed between the two of them, before TK turned to Judd. “So where was the whole ‘TK does great work’ mentality when I was arguing with Paul, huh?”

He meant it to be playful, and said it as such, but Judd only replied with a half-nod. He was frowning in the direction that Collin had left in. “You know that guy before you answered a call for him?”

TK frowned.  “What? No… Why, because he’s an addict?”

He was surprised by the defensiveness in his own voice. Judd turned toward him, blinking with surprise of his own, and immediately waved the idea away. “What? God, no. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” Judd glanced back toward the tiller one last time before pivoting his body toward TK. “Is that what the call was for?”

“Narcotics OD,” TK confirmed, sliding his hands into his pockets and feeling a little embarrassed that he had misunderstood. 

“Damn. How much narcan does a fella that size need?”

“A lot,” TK sighed. “And he’s like, the same size as you.”

“Guess it’s good to know that I’d need a lot of narcan, then,” Judd shrugged. He tried to play it off casually, but there was still a crease between his eyebrows, still the lingering energy of a dog with its hackles raised. TK’s frown deepened. 

“Why did you think I knew him,” he asked. 

Judd shrugged, rolled out his jaw as he thought, and then looked at TK directly. “It looked like he was taking a picture of you, when he had his phone out. I dunno, it just seemed weird.”

TK glanced toward the front of the tiller again, the creeping onset of discomfort settling over his shoulders. “I gave him a website to find some help,” he said by way of explanation, but he didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears. “I wasn’t really… paying attention to his phone, though.”

“Ah, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Judd said easily, reading TK’s uneasiness and promptly backpedaling. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay, that’s all. Those conversations can be awkward when it’s just you. Nancy busy?”

“I don’t think she knew,” TK admitted. “I offered to go get her, but the guy turned me down. I think he was ashamed, to be honest.”

It sounded right, as soon as he said it, and TK relaxed. That was all it was, just embarrassment over having OD’d in the first place. The thought relaxed him immediately, and TK took a deep breath to chase away the tension that had formed between his shoulders. Judd nodded as well, accepting the assessment at face value. 

“Well, I hope he gets the help he needs,” he said, before reaching up and clapping one of his big work-hardened hands onto TK’s shoulder. “Let’s go see if Paul still has all ten fingers.”

“Ugh,” TK laughed, “talk about a bittersweet ‘I told you so.’”

Chapter Text

Once a month, just after payday, when characteristic restlessness gripped each of them and their time off would align like the stars of ancient prophecy, Marjan, Nancy, and TK would converge on Austin’s thrifting scene. 

Each meeting would begin as all thrift runs should, with automated doors sighing open to blast them with grandma-scented A/C. They would allow each other the courtesy of genuine browsing for about ten minutes, offering comments as to the validity of something’s design. Occasionally, a gentle gasp would either signal a genuine find, or the most hideous item ever conceived by man. Reactions to the ugly finds were always given greater emotional weight.

The true purpose of these sacred meetings never took long to appear. Insulated by the detritus of decades long gone, the rest of the world and all its problems felt further away.  If something got too personal or too awkward, all they had to do was hold up a sweater and say “Do you want to look like Big Bird’s gay cousin?” and the tension would evaporate. 

Which was precisely what Nancy was doing. 

“I don’t know,” she said, lifting up a crop top over the rack of clothes that separated them. “I think it matches your eyes.”

Marjan took a breath to respond but lost it when a laugh slipped out instead. “That’s the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“What? You’re telling me you don’t want a crop top with the word ‘zesty’ written on it in sequins?” Nancy clutched the shirt to her chest as though it were precious. 

From where he stood beside Marjan, TK tilted his head and looked between her and the shirt as if imagining her in it. “Pride outfit?”

“Don’t encourage her,” Marjan said hotly.

Nancy huffed and returned the shirt to the rack, feigning offense on its behalf. “There’s no accounting for taste,” she sighed, going so far as to tsk. Marjan’s perfectly manicured eyebrows lifted toward the ceiling.

“By all means, Nance, go ahead and buy it! Don’t deny yourself some zest on my account.”

“Oh, I already have three,” Nancy replied easily. 

TK smiled around the straw of his drink, watching the two women go back and forth like Olympic tennis. He knew better than to interject when they got a good volley going. He had already been shot once; he didn’t want to be caught in anyone’s crossfire again.

“Oh, but this,” Nancy gasped, hoisting what appeared to be a mass of rainbow yarn roughly resembling the shape of a sweater. “We need to talk about this.”

“That is what happens when you put a bunch of dad sweaters in a blender and forget about it,” Marjan said. 

“Who made that,” TK asked, “a bunch of drunk crows?”

“Colorblind drunk crows,” Marjan amended.

Nancy held it out at arm’s length. “Oh… Guys, I’m actually starting to like it.”

“Uh oh. Quick, TK, say something to distract her.” Marjan smacked blindly at his arm to impress upon him the dire urgency of the situation. 

“Dolly Parton dropped a new album,” TK said, so automatically that it surprised even him. It worked, though: Nancy looked up abruptly, her eyes widening with hope.

“Did she?”

“... No. No? Probably not, I don’t know.”

“Don’t joke about that,” Nancy scolded. But she had lowered the sweater from her line of sight. 

TK chewed cautiously on the straw of his drink, considering the ugly sweater, the lack of other shoppers nearby, and the window of opportunity before him. He took a deep breath. “Actually, I had something I wanted to run by you guys.”

“Is it this,” Marjan asked, pulling a neon orange blouse from the rack. “Because I want to talk about this.”

She looked up at him expectantly, but her smile halved when she realized the tone was shifting. Marjan returned the article of clothing to the rack and pivoted toward him, code-switching with the grace of a dancer. “What’s up?”

For her part, Nancy dropped the sweater across the clothing rack’s bar and leaned on it like a cushion, watching him expectantly. They had arrived at the drama portion of their outing.

“Okay,” TK sighed. He looked at Nancy with something like exasperation on his face. “We responded to an OD call a few weeks ago. A week later, the guy stops by the 126 to say thank you.”

“I have no memory of this,” Nancy said, and then her frown deepened, and after a moment of thought, she said, “Wait, the guy who didn’t want to see us?”

TK nodded. “Yeah, that guy. Super embarrassed about having OD’d.”

“Makes sense,” Marjan allowed, leaning her weight against the rack of clothes. Based on Nancy’s expression, she still felt a touch jilted about that situation. TK made a ‘ I don’t know what you want me to tell you’ face and continued.

“So I give him some resources, right? Maybe he can help himself a bit, I don’t know. Problem is, I gave him my resources.” TK sighed this last part like he was admitting to a mistake and expected to be chastised for it. 

Marjan looked at him blankly for a moment before an eyebrow arched upward. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not,” TK allowed. “Except, fast forward to this Tuesday, I get off work, and go to my meeting, and guess who’s there?”

“The… guy,” Marjan followed, though her frown clearly telegraphed that she didn’t understand why this was a problem. 

For her part, Nancy leaned back, nodding toward the ceiling in understanding. She gave the ugly yarn sweater one more considering look before putting it back among its hideous brethren. “Sort of toes the ethical line between work life and personal life,” she explained.

Marjan nodded slowly, watching the two of them closely. It was sometimes unfair, TK knew, that he and Nancy spent so much time together and confided almost everything in one another on those long shifts. It usually resulted in them having to bring Marjan up to speed on the things they took for granted with each other. 

“Okay,” Marjan allowed. “That makes sense, I guess. But couldn’t that be a good thing? I mean, you wanted to help him, right?”

“Should you even be sharing this with us,” Nancy interrupted, pointedly squinting at TK. He had the decency to look sheepish. 

“No,” TK sighed, “I know. It’s supposed to be anonymous, etcetera, etcetera. You’re both sworn to secrecy and I’m a terrible person.”

Both women nodded in agreement, presumably to both statements. TK rolled his eyes and glanced around to ensure no one was within earshot of them. Regardless, he lowered his voice. “I know I shouldn’t share that, and I won’t talk about the meeting, obviously. But… It was weird. He seemed really friendly, and then I introduced him to Cooper and he got all cagey and weird.”

Marjan winced her way through a shrug, like she knew what she was going to say wasn’t realistic. “You could find another meeting?”

TK groaned and rolled his head back, his shoulders dropping in the style of a pouting toddler. Marjan lifted her hands as though she had spooked a horse.

“Okay, okay, I know. But it’s clearly making you uncomfortable. And it’s not like you can tell this guy to go to a different meeting. Right?” She glanced sideways at Nancy; Nancy shook her head.

“But it also feels awkward and mean to avoid him,” TK said, taking his frustration out on the rack of clothes by pushing a few articles aside. The metal hangers screeched on the pole. He picked up a pink tie-dye shirt for Bass Pro Shops, but couldn’t think of a single witty thing to say about it and put it back. “It sucks. I wanted to help him, but… not all the way? That sounds so shitty.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Nancy said. “TK, we saved this guy’s life. And then you went even further to offer him some resources. It’s not your job to walk him through it. Imagine trying to do that for every OD call we’ve had.”

The expression that TK made said more than enough about how deeply he did not want to do that. “Yeah, okay. But I don’t want to give up my meeting. My sponsor is there. And it’s not like the ‘I was here first’ mentality is going to fly with an NA group.”

“Well,” Marjan said, finally pivoting back toward the rack of clothes as if the answer rested somewhere among the sequins and crushed velvet. “What does Carlos think?”

“Carlos is super protective and gets weird about other dudes bothering me, so Carlos doesn’t know,” TK said flatly. “And anyway, I don’t… I don’t really want to worry him or stress him out about it, when I don’t even know how I feel about it. It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

“No offense, TK,” Nancy said, “but if you’re bringing it up on one of our sacred thrifting quests, it’s a big deal.”

“You do that, by the way.” Marjan fired a raised eyebrow in his direction like artillery. “Bring something up, make it sound like the end of the world, and then tell us it’s no big deal.”

TK’s own eyebrows shot up, his head tilting in an overly-dramatic look of offense. “I’m sorry, I thought this was supposed to be a safe space. I’m feeling very attacked right now.”

He was answered with laughter, genuine but not unkind. Marjan patted his arm. “Okay, sorry. Listen, you want my advice? See if Cooper has room in his schedule to switch meetings with you. If you explain why, I’m sure he’ll understand, and you two can continue to have your little therapy bro sessions on a different day of the week.”

TK sighed. Nothing she said was unreasonable, and it occurred to him that he probably would have done exactly that after spending a little more time thinking it over. So why did his stomach still twist up at the memory of running into that patient at one of his meetings?

“And next time,” Marjan continued, wagging a finger like she were his mother, “when you’re moved to help someone out of the kindness of your heart, maybe direct them to a meeting on the other side of town.”

“And tell Carlos,” Nancy said quickly, as if she were slipping it in at the last possible moment. She gave him a pointed look over an orange fleece jacket and grinned when he looked back with his best ‘ mind your goddamn business’ face.

“Honestly,” Marjan agreed. “If he’s really that protective, he’ll find another meeting for you and you won’t have to do any actual leg work.”

TK sighed again. She wasn’t wrong.

-

There were a myriad of Thai places in Austin, Texas. There were six that met both of their admittedly high standards. Of those six, there were two that offered the perfect spicy scale, one that met their exacting expectations for the difference between three, four, or five fireballs. And of those two, only one provided free mango sticky rice because the owner thought Carlos was “a proper gentleman.” 

That meant there was one Thai place in all of Austin, Texas that was worth the twenty minute drive, the struggle to find street parking, the cost of said street parking, and the wait time. It was worth it to sit at the cramped round tables on wobbly chairs with the split vinyl seat covers. It was worth it to scratch dried curry sauce from the laminated menus so they could actually read them. It was worth it to do so when the owner was actually working, because it was worth it to miss the new episode of their show in exchange for free mango sticky rice.

Carlos liked the reliably perfect food. TK liked the ritual of it. They both rolled their eyes at the absurdity while stubbornly refusing to settle for anything less.

TK had been turning over his conversation with Marjan and Nancy for two days now. He had left that thrifting run with a bomber jacket, a pair of sunglasses shaped like daisies, and the resolve to tell Carlos. This particular evening marked the first time he’d be able to bring it up without a work shift getting in the way.

“It’s not like I don’t enjoy her stories,” Carlos was saying, “It’s just that they change every time. Was it a jet ski, tia? Or a speedboat? Last time she told it, it involved a roadside fruit salesman, and this time it’s a guy at a yard sale. And my mother gets upset when I try to keep the story straight, like I’m the bad guy.”

TK waits until he’s done chewing – no conversation is worth rushing the experience of yellow curry – before shrugging. “Okay, sure. But your aunt is… correct me if I’m wrong, but she’s, what, approximately eight hundred years old?”

“Do not give her that excuse,” Carlos warns, pointing directly at him. “She’s as sharp as a tack and she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

“Which is… what?” TK raises an eyebrow. “Conspiring to make you look bad in front of everyone else?”

He meant it as a joke. Carlos leaned in with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes, and TK realized immediately it had not been taken as such. “Actually, I think she’s been doing the same thing to my father for years. She’s never liked him, even my mother has said so. I think it’s a long con to undermine his professional integrity, and now she’s doing it to me.”

TK paused, offering the opportunity for Carlos to hear himself and retract the accusation. He did not. “... I’m going to veto corporate true crime documentaries for a while, I think. They’re starting to have a negative impact on you.”

It earned him a laugh, but it sounded more like disbelief than acquiescence. “You’ll see. Next family barbeque. She’ll do it again, and now you’ll be looking for it, and you’ll see.”

“Keep talking like that, and the next family barbeque might turn out to be a surprise intervention.”

This time the laugh was more genuine, and Carlos shook his head with a smile as he turned back toward his food. They ate in silence for a moment, TK tipping his wobbly chair back and forth the way one might worry at a loose tooth. The mention of interventions brought him back around to the problem with his meetings, and he took a deep breath. As if he needed bracing for the inevitable questioning he’d receive. 

“So,” he began, wishing he could load all of the information into that one word so that he didn’t have to draw it out. He looked up at Carlos, who looked up at him. His fiancé did not interrupt him. 

What a jerk.

“I think I need to move my meetings to a different day,” he tried, hoping the conversational tone would stop Carlos’s forehead from creasing with worry. He was answered with a neutral nod. Success. Emboldened, TK began to siphon different vegetables around on his spoon to make the perfect bite.

“So maybe we can swap out our Thursday hot pot night and do it on Tuesdays instead?”

Carlos nodded again, like this was totally reasonable. TK’s shoulders relaxed some. Why had he been worried about telling Carlos in the first place? Immediately, the situation seemed entirely unremarkable and commonplace. Why had it rattled him so much?

“That sounds fine,” Carlos said after swallowing his bite of food. “Why the switch?”

TK held onto the thought that it wasn’t a big deal the way someone might hook a fish and desperately try to pull it to the surface. He forced his jaw to relax. “Oh, it’s weird. A patient we had a while back showed up at one of the Tuesday meetings.”

He got another nod, though this one was slower. More consideration behind it. “Were they a difficult patient,” he asked after a moment, and there, on his forehead, was the earliest shadow of a crease.

“No. I mean… well, yeah, at first, actually, but– don’t look at me like that, it was fine. It’s just that…” TK stirred his curry while he reached for the words. “He stopped by the station to say thank you, and I gave him some info about meetings and therapists. You know, because I’m a selfless angel, always giving of myself to others.”

The corner of Carlos’s mouth quirked into a small grin, but he didn’t interrupt. TK sighed. “I didn’t think I’d see him again after that, so I didn’t expect him to show up on Tuesday, that’s all. But my meetings are really personal, you know? I don’t want work bleeding into it like that.”

The gentle crease of concern between Carlos’s eyebrows was gone. “I totally understand. I switched grocery stores once because I ran into someone in the produce aisle that I had arrested a week before.”

“Awkward.”

“And the broccoli was always a little too old,” Carlos admitted. “But yeah. I get why you don’t want those worlds to overlap.”

TK felt himself nodding, but the relief he’d been hoping for did not come. Because he hadn’t really shared what was bothering him, had he? He hadn’t wanted to sound paranoid around Marjan and Nancy, hadn’t wanted them to accuse him of being self-centered, because that’s what it really felt like at first glance. But he was still uneasy about the situation, and he wasn’t going to get past it by bottling it up. Hell, the very meetings he was about to give up had taught him that. 

And there was Carlos, contentedly and comfortably by his side, the reassuring weight of trust and safety. TK wasn’t withholding information to spare himself from Carlos’s protectiveness, he realized. He was doing it to spare himself from his own anxiety. Carlos, who scrutinized the evidence of his own aunt’s tall tales, was the exact person to share that paranoia with. If he said TK was being silly, then he could let it go. If Carlos agreed with him… well, then better to find out now. Rip the bandaid off, and all that.

TK heaved a sigh. “Honestly, can I be paranoid for a second?” 

Whatever Carlos heard in his tone, it made him look up from the last of his meal. The crease between his eyebrows began to reappear. TK swallowed, and then took a deep breath, and cast his attention out the window. “I think it’s weird. This is the guy who only agreed to go to the hospital if I rode in the back with him. Then he showed up at the 126 asking specifically for me, and didn’t want me to get Nancy or Tommy. And then he shows up at my meeting? Like, of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine?”

Carlos was quiet for a moment, searching his memory. “Is this the guy who called you an angel?”

“How would I remember that? How do you remember that?”

He was answered with a quirk of an eyebrow, a mysterious little expression that magicians used when they refused to reveal their secrets. “You want my real opinion, Ty?”

TK leaned forward without realizing it, pulling back when the errant thought of a curry-stained shirt crossed his mind. He waited expectantly. 

“I think,” Carlos began, his words deliberate and reassuring, “that this person is probably feeling vulnerable. And when people feel vulnerable, they lean into whatever feels safe and familiar. In this case, that’s you, because you’ve helped him out.”

The words settled in, and the relief finally started to appear, blooming into his stomach with slow surety. Carlos settled his hand on top of TK’s wrist and continued. 

“And that led this person to an NA meeting. Which is going to offer them a lot more kindness and safety. So really, you were the bridge to get him the help that he needed. And now you can know he’s accessed some help, and you can look after your own boundaries and needs at a different meeting.”

They watched each other for a moment, Carlos tilting his head in a you know I’m right sort of way, and TK couldn’t help but smile. “I love you,” he said, the words leaving him without any thought. 

“Of course, I’m great.” Carlos smiled. “And no, I don’t think you’re full of yourself for noticing all of the attention he was giving you.”

TK leaned back, vaguely scandalized. “Oh my god, I didn’t even say that, how do you know I feel that way?”

“Because I love you too,” Carlos answered, his smile growing wider and warmer. “And you constantly go back and forth about how open you are with your self esteem.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my self esteem,” TK replied hotly. With their meal finished, they set about rising and collecting their jackets. 

“Oh, believe me, I’m aware,” Carlos said, walking backwards toward the cash register. “You spent ten minutes this morning appreciating your ass in the mirror.”

“Because it’s the eighth wonder of the world,” TK agreed. He waited patiently by the door while Carlos made a production of trying to decline the free mango sticky rice (already bundled in to-go containers; this was far from their first thai rodeo.) Only once they were back outside in the early evening sunshine did Carlos elbow him in the ribs. 

“Is Cooper able to switch meetings with you,” he asked, tucking the receipt into the plastic bag that held their dessert. 

“Yeah, I texted him yesterday. Turns out he has a work thing on Thursdays he wants an excuse to get out of.”

A car rolled by playing loud, muffled hip hop. Something west coast, based on the tempo, but TK couldn’t pin down exactly what decade. He slipped his hand into Carlos’s as they strolled the few blocks to their own car. A dog barked; a Mexican bakery filled the block with sweet smells and trumpet-heavy dance music. TK had a solution to his problem, the reassurances of the man he loved, and mango sticky rice.

And it would have been perfect, too, if they didn’t round the corner to find a thousand glittering balls of broken glass along the back passenger side of their car. 

“Oh, what the hell,” Carlos moaned, releasing TK’s hand to jog the last few yards to his car. “Are you kidding me?”

The back window was gone; all that remained was the lower right-hand corner, where the once-clear glass had been fractured into an aquamarine spider web of cracks. Inside, sitting innocently on the seat, was Carlos’s work backpack, with its white North Face logo and the outer pocket where TK had stuffed his most recent naughty sticky note. Next to it, where TK’s own work backpack had been sitting, the seat was empty. 

“They only took mine?” he asked, incredulous and immediately, deeply offended. “What the fuck?”

Carlos had pulled the passenger side door open and was rooting around for any signs of other theft. “It looks like it’s the only thing they did take. Goddamnit, what an asshole. They must have gotten spooked.” He backed out of the car and turned toward TK, anger and concern making him square his jaw and flex unconsciously. “Was there anything valuable in your bag?”

TK, for his part, kicked at some of the broken glass balls on the sidewalk. “I mean… not really? It was mostly just clothes from work. One of my uniform shirts, but an older one… Ah man, my headphones were in there!”

It suddenly seemed stupid, how stressed he had been about having to change his NA meetings. Faced with the entirely worse reality of his stolen airpods, who cared about Tuesday nights versus Thursday nights?

As if reading his mind, Carlos groaned and rubbed his hands against his eyes. “Well, I guess this puts our hot pot rescheduling in context, doesn’t it?”

For a beat, they both stared in silence, first at the broken window and then at each other. Anger and disbelief simmered into frustrated resignation. They’d have to file a report; they’d have to schedule an appointment to have the window fixed. Did they have plastic to tape over it in the meantime? Some prick had done a quick smash and grab job, and now they had homework. 

They were pissed, and it was useless. TK heaved a groaning sigh and gestured lamely at the bag in Carlos’s tight grip. “Can we just eat the sticky rice now?”

Carlos was already digging it out of the bag.

Chapter Text

TK dropped into the driver’s seat with all the vitality of a corpse, a heavy sigh escaping his chest the second the door closed behind him. After such a long night of sirens and screaming, the sudden silence was disorienting.

Through the windshield of the rig, the bright lights over the ER’s drop off zone shone like false day, illuminating the silent conversation between Tommy and the receiving physician. TK watched them without really seeing, his eyes glazing with fatigue and unprocessed trauma. He distantly wondered what they were talking about. There were no patient details to pass along; the kid was dead. Dead during the ride to the hospital, dead at the scene when they got there. Dead when his hysterical girlfriend had to be hauled away. Probably, if the stiffness of his skin was anything to go by, dead before she even found him. 

Seventeen years old. TK wanted to rub the visual from his eyes, but he hadn’t scrubbed up properly yet, so he settled for curling his hands into fists over and over again. The silence engulfed him, pressed into his ears so hard that they rang. He counted his own heartbeats. Took a few deep breaths. Four OD calls. Breathe in. Thirty-two year old male, revived on scene, transported to hospital with strong vitals. Breathe out. Twenty-eight year old female, revived on scene, transported to hospital with strong vitals. In. Twenty-four year old female, revived en route to hospital, vitals stable.

Breathe out. Dead teenager. 

Shit.

Then the radio beeped, a dispatcher’s voice entoning “10-37’s en route, scene secure,” and on the passenger side, Nancy pulled her door open and climbed in. With her, the rest of Austin crashed into the cab, and TK forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Well that was a literal nightmare,” Nancy groaned, pulling the door closed behind her. She sounded as exhausted as TK felt, but with a perfect face of well-secured makeup, she didn’t have the same bruises under her eyes that he did. 

“What are they talking about,” TK asked, his gaze still lingering on Tommy’s back as she wrapped up her silent conversation with the hospital staff. He didn’t care, but he didn’t want to talk about the hysterical girlfriend or the stiffness of the patient’s skin. He didn’t know how he felt about any of it yet, at least not well enough to put it to words. 

Nancy was pulling on a new pair of medical gloves in anticipation of the next call. With the way their night had been going, it was probably a good idea. “To the surprise of no one,” she sighed, “there’s some new cut on the street. It’s why we’ve seen so many OD calls in the last few weeks, and they’re saying more are on the way. They don’t know where it’s coming from yet.”

“Great. Cool job we have,” TK muttered, with nowhere near enough energy for it to sound properly sarcastic. 

There was a silence, in which he realized Nancy was watching him. He rolled his head against the headrest to face her. For a moment, they just stared at each other, both too tired to find it awkward.

“You okay,” Nancy asked, tone soft but not patronizing. A genuine check-in, quiet and private before Tommy got back in the rig. Not a coworker, but a friend. 

TK shrugged both shoulders and pulled a face. “There are three hours left on this shift, and we only have enough narcan in the rig for one more OD call. I’ve never hoped for a car accident more in my life, Nance.”

“Implying that you’ve hoped for one before, just not as desperately.”

He managed a wry smile. “Yeah, well. I really didn’t want to take the AP Gov test in high school.”

Nancy’s face was momentarily blank, until she processed what he had said. “Wait, I’m sorry. Do you mean to tell me–”

The back of the rig opened, admitting Tommy inside with her own dramatic sigh. Nancy didn’t let it distract her. 

“--That our resident himbo took AP Government in high school?”

“I got a four,” he answered, tired but smug all the same. 

She reared back as if this were the most scandalous thing she had ever heard. “A four! Tommy!” 

“Glad you two are hanging in there,” Tommy answered, trying to meet the energy and falling short. When TK turned to look at her, she was steeped in familiar exhaustion.

“TK got a four on the AP Gov test!” Nancy gestured needlessly at him as if Tommy might not be sure who she was talking about. “Oh my god, were you actually good at school?”

He should be offended; he was too tired to care. He just shrugged again.

“I take it that’s a good score,” Tommy chuckled, settling onto the bench. She was collecting herself; her breaths were even and long, her posture improving by the minute. Tommy had always been good at keeping on her Captain Face during rough calls, but sometimes it slipped when she was alone in the back of the rig.

“It’s out of five,” TK answered.

“Well then, good job TK. On passing a test almost ten years ago.”

Nancy spluttered her way into laughter. “This explains the weird thing you have for Catan.”

“It’s not weird.”

“You’re a nerd. TK’s a big ol’ nerd.” She said this to Tommy, craning her neck over the back seat. 

“Tommy,” TK whined, affecting his best playground tattle, “Nancy is bullying me!”

“Children,” Tommy warned, “don’t make me come up there.”

Slowly, in minute measure, the tension in the rig began to dissolve. They were avoiding their feelings, probably setting the stage to outright bury them, but it was a welcome change from the adrenaline and numbness of the previous call. If they had to keep going, they couldn’t take it with them. The next call that came in would need their full attention, no matter what it was about.

TK sat upright, drawing a deep breath. Shake it off, Strand. Shift’s not over yet. He reached around for his seatbelt before starting the rig, the engine rumbling back to life. 

Nancy buckled herself in and looked at him sideways. “Does this mean I can rant to you about the electoral college?”

He nodded sagely. “This will always be a safe space for that.”

They pulled away from the drop-off and back into the dark of night. In the distance, a siren was growing louder, an approaching ambulance. Nancy reached for the radio and turned the dial up.

“--Echo response, code three. Patient non-responsive with a suspected narcotics overdose. Administering CPR en route, ETA two minutes–”

Fast as it had come, the humor in the cab vanished. Hard for joviality to keep its momentum on a night full of human tragedy. 

“Listen up,” Tommy called from the back seat. Captain Face was back on. “What we’re seeing out there is an extremely potent fentanyl analogue. From what they’ve been able to determine so far, it's cut with some sort of party drug. My guess is, that’s why narcan is having less effect than it should.”

TK set his jaw and kept his eyes firmly on the road. In the passing flash of street lights, he could almost see Hell’s Kitchen, that golden grid of city streets where he snuck into his first gay bar at seventeen. At least in New York, the party scene had always been an open race to the bottom, calluses forming over each high and demanded something stronger the following weekend. It was part of why he had lost sight of his own spiral so easily, being surrounded by a culture that handed you The Next Big Thing without you having to ask for it. 

Austin was supposed to be a far cry from all that.

“Have they seen it in other cities,” TK asked. He thought he might dread the answer, but he was feeling less and less of anything by the second. 

“They’re still putting a call out for reports to be pulled. Hopefully, whoever is making this strain isn’t looking to go national.” Somewhere in the back of the rig, TK could hear the patter of a keyboard start up as Tommy began to update their report for the last call. 

Nancy cracked her knuckles and glanced pensively back toward their captain. “If we know what it is now, is there a better way to treat it on scene than Naloxone?”

“They haven’t gotten the full toxicology report back just yet,” Tommy sighed, typing away in an impressive show of multitasking. “Hopefully we can get out ahead of the spread, and the worst we’ll be dealing with will be very high, very misbehaved patients.”

“Like the clown guy,” Nancy sighed as she dropped back into her seat. Then, quieter so only TK could hear, “I hated the clown guy.”

Tommy finished typing something and leaned forward so they could hear her more clearly. “What’s important is that we take care of ourselves between all these calls. I know it’s exhausting, and I know it’s all hands on deck right now. But you guys are crushing it out there. Nancy, the way you de-escalated things between that wife and that officer earlier tonight was inspired. And TK, your quick thinking to check that patient's throat with a telescoping mirror saved us from having to break out the LUCAS. Saved that poor woman’s rib cage from an awful lot of trauma.”

“She was high enough to eat an entire Walgreens receipt, it wasn’t much of a stretch to assume more was down her windpipe,” TK dismissed, but her praise brought a small smile to his face anyway. 

“My point is, I have the best paramedics in the state on my team,” Tommy insisted. “And we’re going to get through this wave together, and be stronger for it.”

Companionable silence followed this declaration, and something in TK began to unclench. It didn’t ease the stress of the last call, didn't silence the echo of that girl’s screaming, her hysterics over the realization that her boyfriend was dead on the living room floor. It didn’t have to, TK supposed. Family couldn’t make pain go away, but it could make it survivable. 

“I don’t know about you, TK,” Nancy said, “but that sounded an awful lot like Tommy wants to buy us Slurpees.”

He grinned. “It’s funny you say that, Nance. I heard the same thing.”

“Extortion,” Tommy said flatly, though they could both hear the smile in her voice. 

Quietly, and then with increasing volume, TK and Nancy began to chant: “Se-vvies! Se-vvies! Se-vvies!”

Tommy laughed. “Since when has Seven Eleven been the cool place to get snacks?”

Nancy threw her hands up, gesturing to the universe writ large. “Since the fifth day, when God made the cherry Slurpee. Forward, Tyler! To the Seventh Eleven!”

“It weirds me out when you call me Tyler,” TK muttered. Nancy didn’t miss a beat.

“It weirds me out that you took AP Gov. We’ve all been pushed out of our comfort zones tonight.”

In spite of everything, he found himself laughing. He couldn’t exactly argue with that, could he?

-

The precinct that Carlos worked at was bracketed by courtyards, which offered benches older than the Reagan administration and rhododendrons that needed some aggressive pruning. Their usual meeting spot for coffee drop-offs (if it had to be anywhere near the precinct in the first place) was tucked behind one such overgrown bush. At present, the cracked cement bench that sat underneath it was unusable, covered in sticky petals and abandoned wrappers from someone’s lunch break.

There was nothing romantic about the spot, but Carlos was justifiably unfond of his personal life mixing with his work. Especially after that time TK had been whistled at. They were still unclear if it was Good Ol’ Boy mockery or genuine flirting; either way, Carlos’s reaction would have been the same.

“A toast,” TK declared, hoisting his boba as soon as he had handed over Carlos’s drink, “to the cop who just walked by singing Abba’s Fernando to himself, only to realize I was standing here. I’ve never seen a man turn that red that fast.”

Carlos humored him, lifting his cup of coffee a few meager inches before taking a sip to hide his smile. “Really? Never?”

TK shrugged one shoulder, giving his fiance a coy grin. “You don’t blush easily.”

This earned a single laugh, more incredulous than anything else. “You aren’t around when I find your little love notes at work. Very unappreciated, by the way.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second.” TK’s grin turned a touch malicious. “Since you haven’t told me to stop writing them.”

“Pretty sure I explained exactly what I’m going to do in the note I left in your backpack.”

It took a moment before TK’s grin strained with confusion. “When did you do that?”

“Last week,” Carlos answered. If TK didn’t know any better, he’d think his fiance was almost offended. “In the front pouch of your…”

A stillness came over them as they both realized what had happened. TK’s eyes widened. “... In the front pouch of the backpack that got stolen?”

“... Oh my God.”

The laughter that followed came on slowly, growing with mortification as the full situation dawned on them both. TK found it much more amusing than Carlos. 

“It’s not funny! Oh my God, TK, I don’t want someone else reading that!”

TK had covered his mouth with his hand, eyes alight with shock and laughter. “How bad could it have been?”

If Carlos’s silence didn’t answer the question, the expression on his face did. TK stood corrected; the man could blush.

“Oh my God tell me,” TK urged, as if it were the most important thing in the world. “Tell me what you wrote.”

“No. Absolutely not. Do you know what this means?”

“I swear if you don’t tell me– here, whisper it in my ear.”

“ No. This means I don’t want to catch the perp anymore. She’ll know.”

The idea only made TK laugh harder, bending forward and cradling his boba with both hands. “So will the cop who does find it,” he pointed out between gasps for air.

Carlos covered his face with his free hand, pulling it downward as if he could wipe the heat from his cheeks. He turned around in a slow circle, processing and checking to ensure no coworkers were nearby. It gave TK enough of a pause for Carlos’s words to process.

“Wait, hold up. ‘She’?”

“I was gunna tell you,” Carlos groaned. He dropped his hand from his face and looked miserably across the courtyard beyond TK’s shoulder. “We got some security footage of the break-in. It’s too low-res to be helpful, but it was a woman. She was blonde, which was about all we could tell about her. But it’ll help with insurance, so that’s something.”

In the afterglow of such a genuine laugh, TK could scarcely find it in himself to be disappointed. Of the two of them, he hadn’t been the one gunning for justice; he’d only wished he’d kept his airpods in his pocket. 

“Hey, I’ll take the win. This week has been absolute ass, I’m so ready for time off.”

This brought Carlos back to the present, a look of concern winning out over the embarrassed resignation. “I thought the day shift was usually easier?”

“Usually, yeah. But with that new shit on the street, it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day it is; we’re getting calls left and right.” He took a sip of his boba without tasting it, and began chewing on the edge of the straw for lack of a better thing to do. He’d told Carlos about the teenaged patient they’d lost, about all the OD calls they’d been getting. He’d spent that night curled close in Carlos’s arms, safe from all the world, but Carlos couldn’t shield him from his own bullshit. TK had hardly slept.

He took a deep breath and pushed past it. “That was my question for this little coffee tryst, actually. I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about it? And if it might be winding down anytime soon?”

He tried for casual, and failed miserably. There was a desperate edge to his voice, barely there, a fraying borne of fatigue. It didn’t go unnoticed by Carlos, whose expression softened. “They have the street name for it,” he said, “and it sounds like it hasn’t spread very far beyond Austin yet. So it might stay local.”

TK nodded and forced himself to take a long, slow breath. “Do I even wanna know what it's called?”

“Cherry. Don’t ask me why.”

As if there were standardized naming conventions for lethal street drugs. 

Carlos settled his hand on his shoulder, big and warm and reassuring. TK leaned into it, and in the next instant, he was wrapped in his fiance’s arms. Coworker proximity be damned. 

“We’ll get through this,” Carlos said quietly beside his ear. “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

TK pressed his cheek against Carlos’s shoulder. His uniform was bulky. “Here’s to unused PTO, I guess.”

“You’re off again starting tomorrow, right?”

TK hummed his confirmation. He took one last deep breath of Carlos’s cologne before stepping back. Carlos’s free hand lingered on his upper arm, squeezing his tricep gently. “Let’s do something. Let me take you on a date.”

It earned a smile, if only a small one. “Target?”

“We don’t need anything at–” Carlos caught himself and sighed, laughing despite himself. “Okay, Target. And…”

The smile on TK’s face was growing more fond now, and he made a show of trying to stifle it. As if this wasn’t exactly what he needed from Carlos. “Hmm… hike? Turkey Creek Trail?”

This earned a broader smile. “Okay,” Carlos agreed easily. “Target, a hike, and…?”

“A hike, then Target,” TK corrected, “and then… that little restaurant in the back of the Supermercado near your parent’s house.”

The smile on Carlos’s face evolved to a laugh. “Okay. Deal. It’s a date, then.”

Despite his exhaustion – and the shift looming in his immediate future – TK found himself looking forward to something for the first time in weeks. “Aw, babe. You have a crush on me. How embarrassing for you.”

“Speaking of blushing,” Carlos said, raising an eyebrow and leaning in for a quick kiss. “You’re gunna be late to your shift.”

“Yeah, yeah,” TK sighed, making a show of rolling his eyes. They turned toward the front walk, their fleeting coffee break coming to an end. As they walked, Carlos glanced at him.

“Why do some people blush more than others, anyway?”

TK shrugged. “It’s psychological. But I think it also has to do with how close the capillaries are to the surface of the skin?”

Carlos seemed satisfied with the idea. “So you’re saying I’m thick skinned.”

“Try thick-headed.”

“Jokes on you,” Carlos muttered just before they parted ways. “You agreed to marry me.”

Across the street, a silver Subaru Outback pulled out of a parking spot along the street, and rolled away below the speed limit.

No one paid it any mind.

Chapter Text

Without B shift’s rig in its usual parking spot, the HVAC vents and charging cables hung straight down toward the ground, pointing accusatory fingers at the oil stain that was usually hidden from view. TK thought it looked like George Washington in profile. Or at least, what George Washington might have looked like if a boardwalk caricature artist had ever tried to capture his likeness. 

A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face, and he startled out of his daze. Paul was looking at him with open concern. “You didn’t hear a word of what I said, did you?”

“Uuh,” TK answered elegantly. “Something something late capitalism?”

Paul stared at him for a long moment. “That’s not actually a bad guess.”

“I got it right?”

“No. I was saying that all the movies in theaters right now are sequels or remakes.”

TK frowned. “... So I did guess correctly?”

“Sure,” Paul sighed. “You doing okay? You’ve been really… wiped out, recently.”

It was TK’s turn to stare at Paul, waiting for him to drop the “politely ignorant” schtick. It only took a few seconds. 

“I’m just saying,” Paul amended, “no one would be upset if you took some PTO.”

This earned what was arguably a laugh, even though it sounded more like a tire rapidly deflating. “How much PTO do you think I have saved up? It took me weeks to bounce back after that coma.”

“Yeah, but didn’t the sick leave cover that?”

“ERS is good,” TK allowed, “but not that good. Physical therapy takes forever.”

Somewhere else in the bay, a tool dropped to the ground, clattering loud and metallic against the cement. It was followed by Mateo’s disembodied voice repeating “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” 

“Honestly,” TK pressed on, “I’m just grateful that Admin moved some shifts around. I’ve never been so happy to be bored at the station before.”

Paul’s grin was almost conspiratorial. “Being bored is a good problem to have. It’s been nice to have you around, at any rate. We’ve barely seen you guys since that Cherry shit hit the street.”

TK tried smiling and only managed a wince. “Yeah. Sucks out there right now.”

“Hey,” Mateo’s voice interrupted from somewhere on the other side of the tiller truck, “has anyone seen the hex tool set?”

In response, the music that was playing from someone’s portable speaker increased in volume. This earned laughter from several directions, and a “Ha ha, very funny” from wherever Mateo was working on… whatever it was he was doing. (TK was certain he’d been told, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember.) 

“You’re off for the next few days, right?” Paul turned back to the folding table where he and TK were going through inventory for the ladder truck. Paul was examining nozzles and applying WD-40 where necessary; TK was going through each med pack and ensuring they were stocked. He’d been making room for extra Naloxone as he went. 

“Yeah, thankfully,” he answered with a sigh. “Gotta go brave the Apple store and get some new headphones.”

“You know there are other brands out there, right?” Paul levered a valve open and closed to check his work before moving on to the next one. “Apple is just a fashion brand. You can branch out.”

“That’s the most heterosexual thing you have ever said,” TK deadpanned. 

“Rude,” Paul shot back. “And disrespectful. And only a little true.”

Somewhere across the bay, a distant wailing pierced the usual cacophony of house chores and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

“Seriously, Chavez,” someone called, sounding like they were at the end of their rope. 

“It’s not me,” Mateo shouted back.

Both Paul and TK had gone still. They glanced at one another for confirmation, a question hanging between them. 

“Is that,” Paul started, already setting the valve down with a clunk. 

“An AED box,” TK finished. They were moving before he could properly set down his inventory clipboard, which clattered to the floor when only half of it ended up on the table. 

The 126 was in an old industrial part of town, a neighborhood occupied by woodworking shops and shipping houses that had been converted into 24-hour gyms and trendy breweries. The infrastructure for emergency services was a recent effort, one that they had spearheaded as the station had received the funding for it. On Tommy’s persuasive recommendation, an AED box had been installed only two buildings away, alarmed and available in the event that someone needed help that couldn’t wait for the 126 to get back from a call. 

And when the box was opened, the alarm was nearly concussive. 

TK grabbed up a medical bag as he went, scooping it off of the bench beside their rig. He slung the strap across his chest and moved at a run into the sunlight. He had the distant hope that it was only a teenager, whose curiosity had gotten the better of them. That whoever had opened the AED box would tuck tail and apologize and insist it was an accident the instant they saw a uniformed paramedic.

Ahead on the sidewalk, someone was lying prone on the ground. Another person was scrambling around them, looking at the AED pack like it was alien technology. 

“Oh thank god,” the woman gasped when TK and Paul reached her. “I wasn’t sure if anyone was there. Please, help my friend, he–he’s not breathing, I tried to get him all the way to you guys but he collapsed, and I don’t know what to do–”

TK dropped the duffel bag from his shoulder and took a knee beside the collapsed man, who was lying on his side. He grabbed the guy’s shoulder, and rolled him onto his back.

Paul said something. Asked for information, maybe, or told the woman to calm down and hand over the AED pack. TK didn’t hear it; for a few seconds, his ears just rang.

He knew this man.

“Harvey,” he asked incredulously, his posture snapping back a fraction of an inch in shock. He looked up at the woman with wide eyes, his mouth opening to ask… something, anything, he wasn’t sure. How was Harvey here?

Paul leaned forward. “You know this guy?”

TK stared at him. A beat passed, then another. Then he shook it off, and got to work. He could feel Paul’s gaze lingering on him, but there was no time. TK didn’t know what to feel, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. 

“He’s not breathing,” the woman repeated, harried and breathless like a southern belle. “Oh, god, is he gunna die? He’s been sober for months, he was fine! Oh, god…”

“Not breathing,” TK repeated, his own heart rate slowing as professional familiarity took hold. He pressed two fingers under the corner of Harvey’s jaw and stared into the middle distance for a few seconds, counting. “Heartbeat is all over the place and feels thready. Harvey,” he said loudly, pressing his closed fist against the man’s sternum and rubbing his knuckles up and down quickly. “Harvey!”

Nothing. TK set his jaw and grabbed his phone out of his back pocket, pried open one of Harvey’s eyes, and shined the phone’s flashlight back and forth over his face. The man’s pupils remained pin-pricks, unchanging with the light.

“Paul, grab the scissors out of the AED pack. We need to get his shirt open.”

Somewhere behind him and to his right, he heard Mateo’s voice coaxing the panicking woman to step back. TK dug out a pair of medical gloves and pulled them on while Paul opened the pack.

“What did he take,” he asked, snapping the second glove on and locking eyes with the woman.

“I don’t– I don’t know! Drugs! The–the opioid kind!”

Under different circumstances, TK might have been able to work with that. “The name,” he pressed. “Do you know what it was called?”

But the woman looked lost, her head shaking before TK could even finish asking for specifics. “No, I– I’m just a friend from church, I’ve only known him for a few weeks. We were just going to meet for lunch, I don’t know anything about this stuff!”

The scissors flashed in the corner of TK’s sight; Paul had finished cutting up the middle of Harvey’s shirt. He turned back to the patient – because that’s what Harvey was, what he had to be in order for TK to focus – and reached across to the AED pack, where a cheap plastic razor sat on top of a sheet of pictograph instructions. He made quick work of clearing Harvey’s chest hair over his right pectoral, and again on the left side of his chest. “You get the pads placed,” he instructed Paul. “Mateo, Nancy’s on break; go get her, tell her to start the rig.”

As soon as Mateo lit out back toward the bay doors, TK leaned forward. “Harvey,” he repeated, loud and clear, trying another sternal rub without any success while Paul peeled the pads open and stuck them where TK had cleared away the chest hair. TK checked again for a pulse.

“Did his heart stop,” the woman asked, her breathing hitching with fear. Her hands shook as she pushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. 

“No,” TK answered, “but he’s tachycardic.”

TK reached, and pressed the button on the AED pack. After a pause, an electronic voice loudly announced “Do not touch the patient. Analyzing heart rhythm. Please wait.”

A tense pause. How annoying would it be, some part of TK wondered, to have their usual crash pack talk to them like Siri every time they had to use it? 

Then, in that same robotic monotone, the AED concluded: “Shock advised. Preparing shock. Move away from the patient.”

“Clear,” TK said, mimicked by Paul a breath later as they both leaned away. Nothing dramatic happened. “Shock delivered,” Heart Attack Siri informed them. “It is now safe to touch the patient. Begin compressions.”

TK had already folded his fingers together and placed the heel of his palm against Harvey’s sternum. “Here comes Nancy,” Paul said, closer than TK realized he was. He could hear the gurney wheels, that damned one on the left that had started creaking two nights ago, that they hadn’t had time to look at yet.

“He needs Narcan. Paul,” TK said tightly between compressions. “In the right side pocket of the med kit.”

Paul shifted around TK as he worked, unzipping the pack and rifling through it. “Nasal spray?”

“We’ll start with that,” TK agreed. “Tilt his head back by the chin like you would for a rescue breath.”

“Keep up compressions, TK,” Tommy’s voice called. “Strickland, Chavez, we’re gunna need your help getting him into the rig. Nancy, grab that AED, we’ll use it on the way if we need to.”

“Just gave him a nasal dose of Naloxone, Cap,” TK called back, panting as he worked. “No change in the patient.”

“He was doing so well,” the woman said, to no one in particular. TK pumped down into Harvey’s chest with a steady rhythm, and wished he couldn’t hear her. Wished he didn’t know the patient under his gloved hands. Wished he had said a more proper goodbye before switching NA meetings. The last time TK had seen Harvey, the guy had been laughing and insisting that the shitty coffee at the meetings was actually not that bad.

Now he was dying on the sidewalk, and a robotic voice was dispassionately telling TK that it was going to assess his heart rhythm again in twenty seconds. 

And from the open bay doors of the 126, Cherry Bomb by The Runaways was echoing into the street. 

TK wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream.

-

The average person frequented airports with the same regularity that TK frequented hospital waiting rooms. At this point, it didn’t even bother him; he’d come to appreciate the easy access to issues of Vogue and Psychology Today. 

He was staring at a magazine now, a three-month old issue of Sunset with a beautiful hydrangea garden on the cover. Three tips for the perfect spring barbeque!

“I think he’ll be okay,” TK said quietly, aware that he was the only person on the phone in the whole waiting room. “But it was close, B.”

On the other end of the line, a woman sighed. Her voice had been shredded by a lifetime of cigarettes, but something about it was comforting. She had been in the program for fifteen years; she wasn’t easily shaken. “Thank God you were there, sweetpea. Has he woken up? Did you talk to him?”

TK flipped the magazine open and idly thumbed through the glossy pages. “Yeah. Lotta shame, I think. He asked me to call you first. I think he’s afraid to face you.”

“Aw, Harv. He probably should be; means he knows he fucked up. Bein’ his sponsor means I’m there for him either way. Did he explain what happened at all?”

“Not really,” TK sighed. “The woman he was with said they were meeting up for lunch, and that Harvey seemed really off when he arrived. So I guess he used before going.”

There was a hum on the other end of the line, followed by a pause. TK stared down at a photograph of a picnic table spread without really seeing it, and waited. 

“Listen, sweetpea. I’m gunna say something that’s not very seven-steps-y, and I need you to be cool with that.”

TK frowned. B was dedicated to the program, and held its principles pretty closely. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her ditch the rules before. “... Okay?”

“You switched meetings, so you probably don’t know. But we’ve had three different relapses since you left. Folx who were doing great, right up until they weren’t. And you know that meeting, sweetpea, you know it’s mostly program veterans. People who’ve been clean a long while.”

As she spoke, a frost began to coat TK’s stomach. Who had slipped? He’d been reluctant to switch meetings for a reason; that Tuesday night group was as dedicated and supportive as they came. 

“It’s part of the journey,” B acknowledged. “And I’m not looking to blame anyone, alright? But there’s a correlation. Just before you left, a new fella started comin’ to the Tuesdays. And the people who have relapsed, they’ve all gotten close to him leading up to their usin’.”

TK fell very still. When he spoke, it was barely more than a murmur. “A new guy?”

“Harv said they’d been hangin’ out recently. Told me that this guy, he knows you? Through your work, or somethin’?”

It took a long moment for TK to realize that she was waiting for him to confirm. He swallowed, and found that his mouth had gone dry. All he could think to say was, “Name starts with a C?”

“Yeah. Listen, again, I’m not tryin’ to point blame or start any shit. If anything, this guy needs more support, if he’s actin’ as a bad seed. But someone’s gunna die if this keeps up.”

The frost in his stomach was beginning to curdle into dread, or guilt, or some combination of the two. TK forced himself to take a deep breath. “I know who you’re talking about,” he admitted. “But I don’t know him. He was a patient a while back. I suggested he try a meeting. Oh, shit, B, is this my fault?”

“No,” came the reply, so aggressive that he immediately felt as if he were in trouble. “Sweetpea, you are not at fault for someone else’s behavior. You hear me? We’re all only responsible for our own actions. You did a good thing, tryin’ to get that man help.”

“But you think he’s encouraging others to use,” TK pressed. “Who else?”

There was a pause, and a sigh. “I can’t share that, baby. And we don’t know he’s doin’ that. It’s just a hunch.”

A hunch. A gut feeling. If Carlos weren’t in his life, TK might write that off, but he knew better. “But if he is,” he insisted, “how do we stop it?”

He could imagine B pinching the bridge of her nose, exhaustion heavy in her posture. “We can’t make anyone do anything, sweetpea. You know that.”

“But the whole point is that we look out for each other,” TK insisted, realizing only when the receptionist shot him a look that he’d raised his voice in desperation. He halved the volume and kept going. “How do we know it won’t happen again? How do we know this guy isn’t some sort of…”

TK trailed off, a chill crawling up his spine. B, unaware, tried to placate him. 

“Look, I didn’t mean to overturn the apple cart here. This Cherry stuff has us all on edge.”

He didn’t quite look away from the middle distance, but he did have enough wits to ask, “You know about Cherry?”

“Word gets around quick,” B admitted. “And it was in the news yesterday.”

TK leaned back in his chair, his shoulders slumping. “Oh,” was all he said.

“Listen, I’m gunna head over there. I’ll stay with Harv, and let you get back to your shift. Just stay safe out there, ya hear? We’re all real proud of you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” TK answered, but it didn’t sound like he meant it, even to his own ears. He was only half in the conversation now, the thought from a moment ago still ringing between his ears like that AED alarm.

“Hang in there, sweetpea. We’ll get through.”

TK managed to get through the belabored Texan goodbye that B always did, and hung up. He stared down at the issue of Sunset magazine in front of him and tried to organize his thoughts, to no avail. He was too tired, too jarred by the thought that had crossed his mind. 

How do we know this guy isn’t some sort of dealer?

-

“And… voila!” 

TK dutifully lowered his hands from his eyes. His fiance had led him slowly through their loft and deposited him, apparently, in the living room.

Fluffy blankets. The pillows from their bed. A mixing bowl, full of carefully arranged snacks and candies, just about everything on TK’s cheat food roster. The remote, displayed neatly on a pillow like a royal scepter. The TV idling on HBO’s movie selection. 

Carlos handed him three slips of paper, with elaborate script printed on each one. Back massage, read one. Get me ___ from the kitchen, read another. Blowie ;), read the third.

“We are spending the night on the couch,” Carlos announced. “Until we remember that we’re aging, and our lower backs aren’t built for slouching anymore. Or until we get frisky and head to the bedroom. Whichever comes first, though I honestly expect you to fall asleep on my shoulder before the first movie is even over.”

“Aw, babe,” TK exhaled, sliding his fingers into Carlos’s. “Thank you! The gift of being a lazy piece of shit!”

“Nothing but the best for my fiance,” Carlos said, his tone simple and matter-of-fact as he kissed TK on the cheek. “I also ordered Thai.”

“Oh my god. Do you want the ‘blowie’ card?”

“Definitely yes,” Carlos said immediately, looking entirely too proud of himself for TK’s liking. “But we should probably hold off on that until after the food gets here.”

TK’s grin sharpened with ill intent. “They can knock and leave it in the hall.”

“Nice try,” Carlos offered. “But we’ll forget about it, and the last thing either of us needs is food poisoning.”

“Hmm. Yeah. Definitely a mood killer.”

“Movie first,” Carlos concluded, clapping his hands together. “Anything in particular you’re in the mood for?”

Like he even had to ask. “Sure,” TK laughed, “only the best rom com trilogy of all time.”

“Don’t say the Con-”

“The Conjuring movies, yes. Don’t be a wuss.”

Carlos tried to exaggerate his pouting to make it appear less genuine, with little success. “Seriously? You know the demon nun freaks me out.”

“Don’t worry,” TK soothed, patting his shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll protect you from the scary nun.”

“Hah,” Carlos belted, “where were you when I was in Catholic school as a kid?”

Across the loft, a knock sounded at the door. TK stuck his tongue out at Carlos as he turned toward it. “Being jewish in New York,” he reminded his fiance as he crossed the room, leaning into the accent to emphasize his point.

Outside in the hallway, TK came face to face with a giant bouquet of red roses. He stopped short, caught off guard by the unexpected reveal, and stared blankly at the woman who leaned around the bouquet to make eye contact. “Delivery for Tyler Kennedy Strand?”

TK blinked at her for a moment before looking over his shoulder. He expected that smug grin to be planted firmly on Carlos’s face; what he found was a mirror of his own confusion. 

“Uh. Thank you,” TK said, not quite able to keep the laugh out of his voice. “Oh my god, it’s huge.”

The woman flashed a smile full of perfect teeth at him and laughed along, clearly amused by his surprise. “It’s the biggest bouquet we offer! Someone must really appreciate you.” She said this while she threw a wink Carlos’s way. TK realized belatedly that their dec’d out movie couch was on full view from the front door. 

“You two have a great night,” the woman insisted, waving her goodbye as she turned toward the elevators. TK would have waved back if the vase didn’t take two hands to hold. 

“You too,” he answered, still in a bit of a daze as he pushed the door closed with his foot. He looked over the roses to Carlos. “Babe,” he said, almost accusatory. 

But that look of confusion was still clear on Carlos’s face, edging into offense as TK crossed back from into the kitchen. “Not that you don’t deserve these, TK, but I wasn’t the one who sent them. There’s a card, though.”

Frowning, TK set the vase down on the island counter and reached for the crisp square of white nested among all the red petals. It was nondescript, the sort of stock handwriting that the florist used for every card they were asked to write. On the outer envelope, TK’s full name was spelled out. 

“You think the 126 pooled some money,” Carlos asked, “since you guys have been so swamped?”

TK shook his head and went about picking the sealed envelope open. “This is at least a two hundred dollar bouquet,” he said, doubt ringing in his tone. “They’d be spending that for all three of us, wouldn’t they?”

A piece of cream colored card stock slipped from the envelope. A succinct message was scrawled across it. 

You were incredible today, saving that man’s life. I love watching you work.
- C

TK stared at the card, reading it and re-reading it. The message didn’t change, but it didn’t start making sense, either. 

“-K?”

He looked up. Carlos was staring at him, his hackles slowly rising as he took in TK’s reaction to the card. “What’s wrong,” he asked, this time audible over the ringing in TK’s ears. He handed him the card. Carlos read it over, his frown deepening with confusion. He glanced back at TK; TK had nothing to offer him.

“What the hell is this,” Carlos asked quietly. Not angry; protective. TK probably looked as panicked as he felt, and Carlos had a Defender mode that kicked on without much prompting.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. TK tried to form words, but his mind was flying a mile a minute as pieces started to fall into place. The station visit; the Tuesday meeting; Harvey’s relapse. Collin, Collin, Collin. C.

TK lifted his gaze to meet Carlos’s. He was almost afraid to say it, as if speaking it would make it true. Because if it was true, he had no idea how to fix it.

“Carlos,” he tried, the words catching in his throat. His fiance’s hand came to rest on his arm, and TK took as deep a breath as he could. “I think something bad might be happening.”

Chapter Text

Carlos had glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling as a kid. 

He also had them on his ceiling when he was a teenager, because they took time to remove and the little tacky spots of residue they left behind were more annoying to look at than the stars themselves. And anyway, he didn’t enter into his minimalist phase until his junior year of high school.

He tried to justify it for a while, on the grounds that if he tilted his head just right, they could form actual constellations, which at least sounded intellectual. But it wasn’t really the sticky-tack residue, or having to haul up the three-step from the garage to remove them, or even the nostalgia of childhood that made him reluctant to take the stars down. Carlos wanted the stars to stay where they were because he had A System.

As a child, he used to believe that if he stared hard enough at one of the stars while thinking about a specific thing, that thought would stick there. As though through sheer willpower, he would be able to remember that thing in perfect detail the next time he looked at that star. The large stars were for future plans; the medium stars were for current problems; the little stars were for things he didn’t want to forget, unimportant tasks that he nonetheless needed to complete. Chores, or homework, or returning something he had borrowed from a friend at school.

And it worked. Sometimes, he would link stars together in a chain if a night of brainstorming got too complicated, one star for each phase or step. He would lie awake at night, thinking of every angle, and fall asleep in total reassurance that he would succeed in whatever task was at hand. It didn’t even matter if every phase of the plan ended up happening; the confidence that the Star System lent him more than made up for any unexpected twists. 

Eventually, Carlos realized this. Planning was great, but unflinching confidence in the face of life’s hurdles was better, even if it had to be faked. By junior year of high school, he had bought a planner and scrapped the stars. 

Now, lying in bed with TK asleep against his side, Carlos wished he had stars to pin his thoughts to. There was too much noise in his head to keep everything in order, and all the confidence in the world wouldn’t bring him the info he needed.

They had tried to walk through the narrative, the way Carlos would with a stranger who was reporting a crime. When did you first meet this person? Where have you encountered him since then? Can you describe what he looks like? Do you know any details about him? 

TK had done his best, understandably distressed every time the answer was “I don’t know.” Because why would he have held on to every little detail, when he had believed this Collin guy was just a stranger? Each encounter seemed sinister now, as they groped for meaning in hindsight. TK had recalled how Collin said he wasn’t allowed at the hospital, but he had no idea why. He remembered that the man didn’t want to see Nancy or Tommy when he came by the 126, but he had seemed skittish from the jump, and wasn’t that reasonable for someone struggling with addiction? 

It went on for a while that way: a memory of an interaction; the sense of dread that it might have been a red flag; walking it back because he was remembering it wrong, surely… right?

After a while, a new wave of panic had washed over TK’s face. “What about the car break-in,” he’d asked, sitting upright suddenly. “Only my stuff was taken. What if it was him?”

“The security footage from that day showed a blonde woman,” Carlos said, careful to keep his tone even and calm. “I saw it myself. Definitely not a six-foot-five man.”

TK had probably heard him, but he made no indication of it. He pressed on with “He knew about Harvey’s overdose. Right? Was he just… there, watching the 126? Does he just camp out outside and watch me?” Then a worse thought dawned on him. “Was he there because he knew Harvey was going to use again, somehow?”

The distress in his fiance’s voice, in the set of his shoulders, made it so much more difficult than it was when Carlos was at work. He wasn’t objective with TK, nor did he want to be. That didn’t change the fact that he had to be. “We don’t know anything about that,” he’d said slowly. “You said they’d been hanging out, right? Maybe Harvey just… told him, over the phone, about what had happened.”

TK’s eyes kept tracking around the living room, as if he could find more details that would help him connect the dots. “Okay,” he allowed, though he sounded reluctant to do so. “But… when? He didn’t even want to talk to his sponsor over the phone, but he’d talk to this Collin guy? I was just there this afternoon, Carlos, he couldn’t even look me in the eye. And if he didn’t tell Collin, then how did he know? Is it just a coincidence that Harvey went to get lunch right by the 126, and used in the middle of the day, out of nowhere? When I happened to be at the station, and not out on a call?”

Carlos considered his words for a moment. The last thing he wanted to do was gaslight the man he loved, or make him feel stupid for having a gut feeling about something. “It’s not… impossible that this isn’t just a terrible coincidence,” he tried. “Maybe he felt safer using because he knew you were nearby.”

“Harvey was sober for three years,” TK said, voice sharp with a kind of desperation that caught Carlos off guard. “He was fine the last time I saw him! Who goes out on a date with a beautiful woman and decides to slam fentanyl before they even get to their table?”

There was a pause between them, the briefest insurmountable gap, before Carlos realized where part of TK’s panic was coming from. If it could happen to Harvey, why couldn’t it happen to anyone else?

“I know this sounds shitty,” Carlos reasoned, keeping his voice soft while bracing for his partner to take offense, “but people do relapse, TK.”

TK had stared at him for a long moment, his eyes just a bit too wide for Carlos to be able to read his reaction. After what felt like an eternity, TK had sighed, and dropped bonelessly back into the couch. “I know,” he had said, so quietly that Carlos had almost missed it.

And he’d hated it. Hated that haunted look of understanding on TK’s face, the pre-mourning that comes hand in hand with watching someone spiral. Of knowing that day in and day out, TK had been chin-deep in OD calls, an epidemic with no end in sight. Carlos leaned forward, placed his palm reassuringly on TK’s thigh.

“Look,” He said, choosing his words very carefully, “for all we know, this Collin guy was just on his way to join them for lunch. And it’s possible that it’s all a big coincidence, and the roses are just a very misguided gesture of appreciation. Occam’s razor, right? Like it or not, your social circles started overlapping when this guy started attending your old meeting.”

But TK could read Carlos as well as Carlos could read him; he wasn’t fooling either of them. TK’s expression caught somewhere between desperate hope and anticipation of bad news.

“And your gut?”

Carlos set his jaw. “My gut,” he admitted, tension and protectiveness creeping into his voice, “wants to know how he got our address.”

Resignation and fear shuttered across TK’s face. He had leaned into Carlos then, his head settling on his shoulder. “I thought it was weird,” TK admitted in a whisper, “that he didn’t want to meet Nancy or Tommy. Why didn’t I pay more attention to that?”

Carlos cupped the back of TK’s neck and held him close. “Don’t do that,” he said softly. “Don’t start second guessing every choice you made. You wanted to help him, so you tried to help him. It isn’t anything more than that.”

Eventually, they had settled on the likely reality that Collin’s presence near the 126 that day had been coincidence, and that his crush on TK was nothing more than awkward and poorly expressed. TK had described his few interactions with Collin as eager and strange, at times almost standoffish when either Judd or Cooper had introduced themselves. It was possible he was just bad at social cues. 

By 2am, they’d gone to bed. TK had calmed down, either through reason or sheer exhaustion, and by the time they were brushing their teeth, he had started to feel silly for his panic. No amount of reassurance from Carlos had prevented the apologies.

In bed, TK had stayed close. Carlos rubbed absent-minded circles into his back as his fiance’s breathing gradually evened out.

“Just awkward,” TK had whispered into Carlos’s shoulder as he’d drifted off. He’d been playing with Carlos’s shirt, twisting the fabric between his fingers. Eventually, the fidgeting had relaxed to a loose grip, as if TK were unwilling to let him go. “Forgot other people might catch feelings.”

Carlos had taken a very careful breath. “What do you mean?”

His response was barely more than a whisper, as TK slipped toward sleep. “Haven’t liked anyone else since I met you,” he mumbled. “Didn’t occur to me that someone else would like me.”

Carlos had stared at the dark ceiling for a long time, TK’s words echoing around his head. By the time he had thought of a reply, TK was fast asleep, his breathing slow and soft against Carlos’s collarbone. 

“It occurred to me,” Carlos whispered anyway, pressing a kiss to TK’s forehead. 

He didn’t sleep that night.

-

When TK returned to work four days later, he had two things going for him.

The first was a renewed sense of calm about the whole Collin situation. TK had helped someone out, and had unintentionally led the guy to believe they had a relationship. Or even, the potential for a relationship. It was uncomfortable, and unreciprocated, but would probably become one of those stories they laughed about years down the road. Remember that time you saved someone’s life so hard they fell in love with you?

Occam’s razor, right? The simplest answer was usually the right one.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he was some damsel in distress. TK had gotten into more fist fights in his youth than Carlos ever had, and he worked out all the time. What's more, he was never really alone. The 126 was overflowing with people who had TK’s back.

(It was part of the reason TK hadn’t wanted to tell them. Carlos knew, which meant – inevitably – that Carlos’s father knew, because “it doesn’t hurt to have a Texas Ranger backing you up, babe.” But the rest of the 126… TK had done more than enough to make them worry about him over the years. He didn’t want to add to the list. Eventually, Carlos relented and agreed to keep it to themselves.)

Armed with his re-established sense of control, TK had returned to work to find he had a new schedule to memorize. 

As part of the city’s plan to mitigate the number of Cherry-related incidents, EMS rosters had been bolstered with dual-certified firefighters. Paramedics and EMTs would take the lead on calls, supported by extra sets of hands on nearly every shift.

The impact wasn’t quite what the city of Austin had probably envisioned. More helping hands only meant more calls could be answered on any given night, which didn’t exactly reduce their volume. But it did take the strain off of EMS crews, who had all been pulling longer and harder hours in the wake of Cherry hitting the streets. 

And while TK and Nancy had been split up to assist with different teams, it did put TK on the same schedule as Judd and Paul. And on a Wednesday afternoon, with the sun high and call volume low, the 126 had its usual chores to attend to.

“If I don’t go,” Judd declared as he selected a bottle of barbeque sauce from the top shelf, “then the only food we have in this House is packed with fiber and tastes like cardboard.”

“And if I don’t go,” Paul said from down the aisle, lifting a bottle of Sriracha to emphasize his point, “he’ll just buy meat, pancake mix, and rooster sauce.”

“And if anyone else goes,” TK concluded, “neither of you can replenish your personal snack stashes.”

“A man needs to have Pop Tarts when he wants ‘em,” Judd confirmed, somehow sounding both wise and defensive. “And it’s none of Chavez’s business where I keep ‘em.”

The cart they shared between the three of them was overly full. Sitting in the infant’s seat at the front, balanced on top of a concerning number of Oreo packages, a spiral notebook contained multiple lists of what they needed. Almost all of the items had been crossed out. 

TK hadn’t enjoyed a shift this much in a while.

“Thank you for your service,” an old woman’s wavering voice interrupted. She was pushing her cart at approximately ten feet an hour, her whole body shaking like a small dog. 

“We appreciate that, ma’am,” Judd said kindly, stepping to the side to let her pass. It took an eternity. 

“Such a handsome young man,” she warbled as she passed TK, who smiled at her warmly until she looked away. Then he stuck his tongue out at Judd and Paul. 

Judd rolled his eyes. Paul gave him the finger, though he hid it under his other hand like an umbrella. 

The best thing about grocery shopping on shift – in uniform, with the AFD emblem on their chests and PARAMEDIC across TK’s upper back – was that lines evaporated before them like a mirage. In Texas, if a couple of firefighters rolled up to a checkout lane with a cart full of food, people moved aside. 

They all did the polite nodding, the insisting that they were happy to wait, but the truth was that if a call came in and they were hanging out in a long line, they’d have to abandon the cart and run. All the “aw, shucks” and “are you sure?”s were only theater; if someone offered to move, they would take it. 

After the dizzying bill (feeding a team of calorie-burning health nuts wasn’t cheap) and a competitive game of “who can pack bags the best?” (Paul, hands down), they were back out in the Texas heat. Like always, TK took a moment to think the worst of the weather.

Parked toward the back of the parking lot where it would be out of the way, the 126’s engine glinted in the bright sun. Volunteers had cleaned it down just that morning, her reflective gold detailing shining like it were brand new. 

“I’ll tell ya this,” Judd was saying somewhere behind him as he forced the cart forward onto the hot asphalt, “baseball games without peanuts? Just an excuse to day drink.”

“Sure,” Paul allowed, making a show of popping a few almonds into his mouth from the bag he had fished out of the cart, “but that doesn’t make them the best nut. Peanut M&Ms? Yes. Peanut butter? Hell yes. Regular ol’ peanuts? It’s gonna be a hard no from me.”

“Almonds,” Judd interrupted, “are too expensive. You sayin’ they’re the best nut is like saying lobster is the best seafood. Might be true, but it smacks of privilege, don’t you think?”

TK looked back at them over his shoulder. “He’s got a point, Paul.”

“Oh, hold on, let me…” Paul patted at his pockets for a moment as if he were looking for something, and then sighed as if he’d just remembered something disappointing. “Ah, I forgot: I don’t carry a Privilege Card; I’m a trans black man. So I think I can say whatever I damn well please about almonds.”

Judd rolled his eyes. “That’s how you know he’s lost the argument,” he told TK.

They pulled up alongside the engine, the heavy shopping cart rattling to a stop. Paul pulled the door open behind the driver’s side and began the process of unloading the cart into the jumper seats in the back. “I didn’t realize your love for peanuts was such a deep and personal subject, Ryder,” he said. “But uh, no, I am not wrong. TK, tell the man.”

TK hefted two bags into his arms and held them against his hips like they were toddlers. “You’re both wrong. Cashews are the best nut.”

Two sets of hands threw themselves upward in a chorus of groans and boos as TK strutted around the front of the engine to the other side. He could hear the disembodied voices of his coworkers as they united against his third opinion, and a grin spread on his face. He’d learned, over the years, that when Paul and Judd disagreed on something, nothing brought them back together like a common enemy. 

TK propped one of the shopping bags on the step on the passenger side and was reaching for the handle when something caught his eye. Tucked into the crack between the front door and the frame, a wedge of paper stood out against the red paint job. 

He frowned. Still balancing one of the bags against his hip, TK leaned over and plucked the slip of paper out from where it was stuck. It was folded in half, a simple office-standard notecard. 

Your family is awfully protective of you, aren’t they?
Dinner is on me tonight.
- C

TK didn’t realize he’d let the shopping bag slump in his arm until a jar of pickles fell out and smashed on the pavement.

-

He didn’t explain himself on the way back. He didn’t need to; whatever anger and anxiety TK was telegraphing, Paul and Judd both took it seriously without needing to first know what it was about. He had a hard time appreciating it at the moment, though; Judd was willing to drive faster than usual, but he had outright refused to turn on the siren without explanation. 

All TK could think about on the drive to the 126 was Sadie in their apartment, Carlos’s old house burning around them, the station blowing up. If it was just his problem, that was one thing; if it threatened the 126, it was an entirely different matter. Dinner is on me.

He didn’t know what it meant. He expected disaster.

When they arrived, it turned out to be Thai food.

“UberEats guy just dropped it off,” Mateo said by way of greeting when TK had jumped from the truck before it even stopped moving. “Said it was for you?”

TK grabbed the container that Mateo was holding right out of his hand. “Did you eat any of it? Did anyone eat it?”

Mateo looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. Behind him, the driver’s side door slammed shut, and Judd appeared around the front of the engine. “Woah, alright, TK. You wanna tell us what the hell has got you so riled up?”

“Mateo,” TK pressed, ignoring Judd entirely in favor of examining the contents of the bag for any opened containers. There was easily enough food to feed the whole House. 

“No, man, it just got dropped off! What’s wrong?”

He didn’t know what to say. He had thought he’d made peace with this situation, had convinced himself it was just an innocent misunderstanding. But they’d thought Sadie was safe, too, hadn’t they? 

Something vanished from his grip. TK whirled toward Paul, who had plucked the folded notecard right out of his hand. The man read it over, and glanced up with blatant confusion. “Carlos got the station dinner? And we’re upset about this?”

“No,” TK replied, with enough force and immediacy that Paul blinked in surprise. 

He had to calm down. He forced himself to take a deep breath, but his fear was hardening into anger, because anger was easier to deal with. “It’s not Carlos. It’s a patient from weeks ago, now. The one that stopped by, that–”

He spun around to look at Judd, as if Judd could explain the situation for him, could corroborate why TK was reacting the way he was. “You were there,” he insisted. “Patient OD’d, came to say thanks, but only wanted to see me. Then he shows up at my meeting, my backpack got stolen, my friend OD’d, and then he sends flowers, and now–”

“Okay, okay,” Judd interrupted. He was holding one hand up like he was trying to sooth a spooked horse, and TK would have been offended if the gesture wasn’t so effective. “I remember the guy, yeah. He… stole your backpack?”

“I–” TK forced himself to take another breath. “No, I… Carlos said that wasn’t him. But this guy keeps showing up. After Harvey OD’d last week, he sent me flowers. Like he was there, watching. And then I find this note tucked into the door of the truck when we left the store, like he followed us there, and then this!”

TK gestured to the Thai food, collected in an UberEats bag on the bench beside the engine. He realized, in that moment, that it was the Thai place that he and Carlos always went to. 

TK went still as his heart rate spiked. The anger cracked; the fear grew. They’d eaten there the night their car had been broken into, hadn’t they?

“Okay,” Paul was saying, “definitely an overreach. Have you told him you’re engaged? And obviously not interested?”

“Oh, this is like… flirting Thai food,” Mateo concluded, looking down at the bag with far less enthusiasm. “That’s… pushy.”

Judd took a slow step forward. “Wait a minute. Is this the guy who I thought was takin’ a picture of you?”

TK turned sharply to look at up him, and whatever Judd saw on his face, it clearly made him regret saying anything at all. Those horse-soothing-hands went right back up. “Alright,” he said, without TK having to confirm anything. “Let’s, uh… Let’s get the food put away, okay? Chavez, you go ahead and chuck all that.”

Mateo frowned, glancing uncertainly at TK. “All of it? I mean, this is hundreds of dollars worth of–”

“All of it,” Judd confirmed, effectively ending Mateo’s hesitation. “And you.”

He pointed at TK, who stared back with a sort of hopeless panic on his face. “You’re gunna bring us all in on the ground floor of this one, alright?”

TK didn’t have it in himself to argue; he was far too aware of the open bay door behind him, where anyone could be watching. It sent his nerves crawling. 

“Yeah,” was all he said.

Chapter Text

When Carlos had a conflict with someone at work, it either got hashed out over a pint, or it ended up in HR, where the definition of “good faith effort” would stretch into simmering resentment and cold shoulders for the duration of employment. 

When the 126 had conflict, it felt like a family dinner. Strong opinions, pointing fingers, and the unshakable sense that no matter how frustrated they got, no one questioned that they were still Ride Or Die for each other. 

“I understand what you’re saying,” Marjan said, in a tone that suggested she absolutely didn’t understand what Judd was saying, “I just strongly disagree. Doing nothing is just going to show this creep that there are no consequences for this sort of behavior.”

“I’m not saying nothing should be done,” Judd defended. “I’m saying there are steps between doing nothing and beating a man into paste because he sent TK flowers.”

“We file a report,” Marjan said, bringing the side of her hand down against her palm like a karate chop, one for each item she listed. “We get a No Contact order. We get his picture up so everyone here knows to be vigilant.”

“All steps that are either already done, or are underway,” Carlos interrupted. His usual policy of “let Fire figure their own shit out” didn’t apply to this situation, but it still felt like an intrusion to interject himself into the argument.

Marjan gestured toward him as though he were the embodiment of reason. “Great. See? Great start. Now we go beat this guy up.”

It was said (at least partly) in jest, but Judd still rolled his head back and lifted his eyes to the ceiling, an unsubtle request for help from his higher power. 

“Wait, I’m still confused,” Mateo interrupted. “Judd called it harassment, and Marjan said it was stalking. And you’re arguing about it? Aren’t those the same thing?”

“Harassment is a misdemeanor, stalking is a felony,” Paul explained. “Neither of which help the situation if the guy hasn’t actually done anything illegal.”

He looked pointedly at Marjan, who flung her hands up, exasperated. “He’s clearly out of line,” she exclaimed. “Why are we even debating this?”

“Because sending flowers to someone isn’t against the law,” TK answered around the thumbnail he was chewing on. He was looking off into the middle distance, his face set in a frown. Carlos was surprised to hear him speak at all, with how distracted he looked. 

“But he’s clearly following you,” Marjan argued. She had softened her voice, at least compared to how she’d been speaking to Judd, but she looked just as exasperated with TK as she did with the others. “He knew about the patient who OD’d out front, and then clearly followed you guys on that grocery run. He sent you roses, he knows your address!”

Carlos took a measured breath and rolled out his jaw. “Paul is right,” he said, his teeth clenching as he spoke. “Nothing he’s done is illegal.”

“Smashing a car window and stealing a backpack is at least a little against the law,” Marjan shot back.

That one was only speculation, but it drove a deeper spike of dread into his gut than any of the other incidents. Beside him, TK winced, but it wasn’t enough to knock him out of that far-off stare.

Carlos took another measured breath. It was hard not to buy into Marjan’s frustration, harder still to project calm when his fiance was sitting beside him scowling into the void. “A nearby security camera showed a blonde woman smashing the car window,” he said. The night before, he had felt adamant that it wasn’t connected; now, Carlos felt annoyed that it didn’t fit. Because it had to somehow, right?

Paul frowned. “A blonde woman? Do you know anything else about her?”

Carlos clenched his teeth around a flash of frustration. No, he wanted to say. If I did, she’d be in custody already.

But being a dick wouldn’t be any more helpful than raising a pitchfork alongside Marjan, so all he said was, “Just that she smashed the window of my twenty-six thousand dollar Camero.”

TK drew a slow, deep breath and leaned back in his chair. Carlos glanced his way, momentarily worried that he’d shown too much anger, that he’d made TK’s anxiety worse. Instead, he found Nancy and TK exchanging subtle facial expressions. It was the first sign of real engagement TK had provided since he’d finished bringing everyone up to speed fifteen minutes ago. Whatever the two of them were communicating to each other, it seemed to make TK’s shoulders relax, if only a little. 

Hundreds of hours together on calls had apparently made for some very efficient commiserating. 

Unaware of their sidebar, the rest of the team was still talking in circles. “So he hasn’t done anything overtly illegal,” Marjan said, “so what? We sit around and wait for something to happen?”

“Well, you’re definitely not going to introduce yourself. Not when you’re fixin’ to break bones,” Judd answered. “We need to let the police do their thing. It sucks, but we can’t jump a guy just because he can’t read the room for shit.”

“Carlos,” Marjan pleaded, “seriously?”

He didn’t answer immediately, which was a response all on its own. Under Marjan’s sharp gaze, Carlos nearly relented, nearly agreed. He wouldn’t mind giving this guy a piece of his mind, if not a sharp punch to the jaw. But he could feel the weight of the badge on his chest, was aware that acting on emotions would only muck things up further. The last thing TK needed to deal with was an assault charge being levied against his partner. 

Marjan looked around the room like they’d all lost their minds. “Guys!” 

“This ain’t a movie,” Judd reasoned. “There’s a report on file, we all know about it now, and if he steps even one toe over the legal line, he’ll have the whole of the 126 bearin’ down on him. Not to mention Austin PD.”

He gestured at Carlos as he said this, who offered a tight nod. 

“So for now,” Judd concluded, emphasizing each word and holding up a hand to discourage Marjan from interrupting him, “we keep going about our lives. Because if we all start gettin’ paranoid, we’ll be giving him too much power.”

“That’s just it, though,” Nancy said, speaking for the first time in a while. She held her phone up to read something aloud. “The legal definition of stalking is when a person – and I quote – engages in a pattern of repeated behavior that is directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. This guy is clearly freaking us out, and we’re not even getting the creepy notes. I think we should–”

A tone pierced the air, drowning out whatever Nancy was going to suggest. All of them jolted upright save for Carlos, who hadn’t spent his professional formative years being woken up throughout the night by fire alarms. 

“Alright, to be continued. Saddle up,” Judd called over the noise, circling his finger in the air as if he were sending them off to rustle cattle. Like a well-oiled machine, those who were still on shift – Marjan, Mateo, and Nancy, specifically – bolted toward their gear.

“This conversation is not over,” Marjan called, jumping into her boots and hoisting the suspenders of her turnout bottoms over her shoulders. “I’m right, damnit!”

Doors opened and slammed along either side of the rig. The bay door rolled upward, letting in the warm afternoon air. As the engine roared to life and began to pull out into the street, TK’s chair scraped back. As soon as he was standing, the alarm tone cut off. 

He moved to step away from the table, and on impulse, Carlos reached for him. Their fingers threaded together, as natural as breathing, and TK stopped short. He avoided Carlos’s gaze as he rose to stand beside him, guiding TK into his arms. The other man sank into the embrace willingly, relaxing so abruptly that Carlos wondered if TK had been holding himself taut through the entire conversation.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Carlos spoke into his ear. He willed his voice to convey what he didn’t have words for, all the love and loyalty and fierce will to protect. He prayed that none of the fears shown through, the helplessness and frustration. “We’re going to get it taken care of.”

TK hugged him back, and said nothing. Carlos could feel his fingers curl into fists around the back of his uniform. 

When they stepped away from each other, TK offered him a small, unconvincing smile. 

“Carlos,” Paul interrupted. He was standing on the other side of the table, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

Carlos glanced between them, unsure of whether or not he wanted to step away from the man he loved. It must have shown on his face, in the set of his jaw and the way he leaned toward TK like a flower toward the sun, because TK’s smile grew more genuine. He placed his hand on Carlos’s shoulder and nudged him in Paul’s direction.

“I should make sure my kit is ready in case another call comes in,” TK said quietly. “Take your time.”

Carlos glanced at him again. The look of frustration, of numbness, of fear, it was gone from TK’s face. The pleasant smile was a relief to see, but something tickled in the back of Carlos’s mind. He frowned, opened his mouth to ask if TK was okay, and stopped himself. Of course he wasn’t okay. He was trying to be.

“I want a kiss before I head back to work,” Carlos said, placing his hand on TK’s waist long enough for his fiance to nod in agreement. Then he turned toward Paul. 

The kitchen of the 126 was an open concept, which made keeping an eye on TK easy while he and Paul stepped to the side. Carlos watched his fiance head toward the ambulance, scooping up a clipboard as he went. TK lingered along the bench, referencing an inventory list in comparison to what was sitting before him. After a pause, he glanced over his shoulder, made eye contact with Carlos, and smiled again.

“Listen, I don’t want to freak anyone out,” Paul said. Immediately, he had Carlos’s full attention.

“More so than we already are,” Carlos asked, wariness in his voice. 

“Yeah, I just…” Paul glanced toward TK, who was moving around to the far side of the ambulance, still checking his list. “You’re a guy who trusts his gut, right?”

Carlos frowned. He had seen Paul upset before, but the tension between his shoulders was new. Subtle, but foreign enough that it was rapidly setting Carlos on edge. He answered with a nod.

“The blonde woman,” Paul said. “Can you see her face in that security video?”

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that. Carlos blinked, frowned, and scoured his memory. “Barely,” he admitted. “The resolution is poor. Why do you ask?”

Paul glanced once again toward TK, but he had disappeared around the side of the ambulance. “Listen. When TK’s friend OD’d outside, he was meeting a woman for a date. She was there, while we were working on him. She was acting all hysterical, but something about it… It didn’t seem genuine. Almost like she was acting the way a person should behave, like it was some sort of stage play. At the time, I figured maybe she was also an addict, and didn’t want to get in trouble for carrying, or.. Hell, I don’t know, maybe she gave him the drugs he OD’d on.”

Carlos’s shoulders squared as he listened, his posture straightening. “Did you report this?”

“No,” Paul admitted. He pulled a face and looked away, clearly telegraphing regret. “I didn’t think it mattered. We’re not law enforcement, and she was trying to get him help. But now with everything going on, I’m seeing her behavior in a different light. Same with the fact that she was bottle blonde.”

“You think,” Carlos said slowly, processing Paul’s words, “that she was the same person who broke into our car?”

Paul pursed his lips, thought about it for a moment, and nodded. “I think there’s too much going on for that car theft to be an accident, especially when only TK’s bag went missing. And I think it’s awfully convenient that his friend was so close to us when he relapsed.”

Pins and needles prickled their way across the back of Carlos’s neck. Something clicked, two sections of the puzzle that suddenly fit together so well, and it sped his heartrate up. “If I pulled the footage again, do you think you could make a reasonable match?”

“That’d be a long shot,” Paul sighed, voicing the reality that Carlos didn’t want to entertain. “But it might be worth looking into.”

“And her name would be on the report,” Carlos realized as Paul spoke. “Did– do you guys take witness statements, or–”

“Again, not law enforcement,” Paul interrupted. He looked into the middle distance for a moment, before realization dawned on him. “But TK’s friend can tell us who she is.”

Carlos was nodding, following the same thread. It was a reach, he knew. Shit, it was a Hail Mary Pass. But at this point, Carlos was ready to pull any thread he could find if it meant putting an end to this. “We can retrace their steps before he relapsed,” he thought aloud. “See if any of the places they went to had security cameras. Maybe get a better picture.”

Carlos’s phone vibrated in his back pocket. He reached for it without thinking. 

“I have no idea where it would lead, if the guy harassing TK is a six-foot-something man, but… yeah, it could be something,” Paul agreed. 

Carlos glanced at his phone’s lock screen. Looked back at Paul to suggest their next move. Processed, belatedly, what the text said. Looked back at his phone.

Don’t be mad, but I’m going to talk to him. If I can fix it with a convo, I will. Love you

Carlos stared at the screen for a moment, not comprehending what he was reading. He looked up, toward the ambulance, where TK had stepped out of sight.

Paul frowned. “Carlos?”

He was moving before he could think, his feet carrying him around the table, the counter, into the bay. Passed the bench covered in medical gear, around the back of the ambulance. There was the clipboard, sitting neatly on a shelf along the wall. Beyond the open space, the spot where Carlos had parked his Camero was empty. His hand went to his pocket, palmed at the fabric, and found his keys were missing.

And so was TK.

-

Chalk water coffee, old carpeting, a Glade air freshener to mask the lingering stink of cigarettes. TK knew these smells like he knew his mother’s perfume. It didn’t matter if he was in Bushwick or Ridgewood or Yonkers or Austin; all meetings smelled the same.

The stairs leading up to the meeting room creaked under his feet, the way they did every Tuesday night when he and Cooper would head inside. The community board still had that flier for the missing dog, that someone had written FOUND! on in huge black bubble letters. The third light down the hallway still fluttered and buzzed, a fluorescent tube that no one seemed interested in screwing all the way in.

TK moved through it all in a blur, only peripheral awareness of the looks he was getting. Most of the faces he knew, but he was in uniform, with PARAMEDIC emblazoned across his upper back. An NA meeting wasn’t exactly where you would want to see EMS. 

None of it mattered. He didn’t stop to say hello to anyone, didn’t linger near the refreshments table, didn’t crane his neck to see if he could find B standing in her usual spot near the window. He walked into the room, swept a glare across the gathered attendees, and found who he was looking for.

How could he miss him? Collin was taller than everyone else in the room.

“Hey,” TK said, clipped and loud enough to get Collin’s attention. TK crossed the room in several strides, watching Collin turn, recognize him, and light up. He opened his mouth in greeting, a smile spreading wide, but TK didn’t give him the chance.

“You need to stop,” he said, jabbing a finger toward the much taller man. Collin’s face fell, and with it, TK was immediately aware of all the eyes on them. He lowered his voice and glanced over his shoulder, gaze sharp enough that curious onlookers turned away and shuffled back to their own conversations. 

TK forced himself to take a deep breath. Then another. “You need to stop,” he said again, this time in a more reasonable – but no less pointed – manner.

Collin was watching him, cradling a paper cup of water in both hands. “What do you mean?”

TK had to press his lips together to keep himself from snapping again. He made sure his tone was measured and even. “Stop sending me things. Stop leaving me notes. I don’t want roses, I don’t want Thai food, I don’t want little messages. They’re not appreciated; they’re freaking me out.”

For a moment, Collin didn’t say anything. He stared down at TK, his face nearly expressionless except for the gears turning behind his eyes. The pause lasted two seconds longer than TK knew what to do with.

“I’m not interested,” TK said, searching for the words as he went. “I’m in a perfectly happy relationship. I’m glad you’re here, and going to these meetings, and not dead in a morgue, okay? But our relationship?” He gestured between the two of them. “Ended when we got to the hospital that night. And I need you to respect that.”

Collin swallowed hard and looked down into his cup, as if the words he needed might be in there. He started nodding, slowly at first, and then with more resolve. “Okay,” was all he said.

“Okay? Because I need to know that you understand,” TK insisted. 

The man before him took a deep breath, and lifted his gaze to meet TK’s. “Okay,” he repeated. “I understand.”

TK watched him for a moment. He couldn’t read his face, and while his body language seemed contrite, TK’s own heartbeat was flying; adrenaline made it difficult to gauge someone else’s sincerity. 

“Okay,” he said, quiet and trying to feel satisfied. He nodded once, and then again with a bit more confidence. “Good.”

“TK.”

Behind him, back toward the entrance to the meeting room, Carlos’s voice cut across the post-meeting chatter like a boxing bell. TK took a deep breath, braced himself, and turned around.

Carlos was halfway across the room already. His jaw was squared, lips pinching the way that they did when he was pissed. His eyes were flickering between TK and Collin, assessing threats and danger and exactly how angry he should be. 

“Carlos,” TK acknowledged. He’d known back at the station that this interaction was coming. He’d known when the crew were all arguing around him, the moment he’d decided to do something. 

He had expected a bit more of that anger to be directed at him, though. Instead, Carlos came up beside him, sized Collin up, and lifted his chin. He rested his hand on TK’s lower  back, an overt indication of their partnership.

“We’re going,” he said, flat and inarguable, staring down Collin as if the man weren’t taller than him. Collin stared back, as impassive as stone. TK almost missed the way his hand tightened around the paper cup, enough to send some water spilling up and over the side.

TK didn’t protest. He hadn’t been sure what the confrontation with Collin would look like, but he hadn’t expected the man to fold so easily. He had no idea what else to say, or even how to end the conversation. So he only nodded, and turned to leave. Carlos made a point of staying between him and Collin as they left.

The walk to the Camero was silent. TK handed over the keys without a word, and Carlos took them without any visible anger in his movement. They both climbed inside, TK settling into his usual spot in the passenger seat.

For a long moment, entombed in the privacy and silence of the car, neither of them spoke. Carlos gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, breathing too evenly for TK to think he wasn’t counting them. TK waited patiently. More than once, Carlos opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and closed his mouth again.

Eventually, he found the words he was looking for. “I would have gone with you,” he said, quiet and even.

TK watched a few familiar faces leave the community center, chatting and lighting up cigarettes as they went. “I don’t think you’d let me go at all, if I had said something.”

His words seemed to release the flood gates. Carlos leaned back in his seat abruptly. “That was dangerous, TK. If he’s been stalking you, who knows what he might have done–”

“It’s Tuesday night,” TK interrupted. “There are like twenty people in that room, Carlos, it was hardly a dark alleyway.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Carlos shot right back. “Why would you take a risk like that, when you were freaking out last night about this guy getting too close to you?”

“Because I can’t sit around and do nothing!” TK turned in his seat to face Carlos. “Everyone at the station was freaking out, you’re freaking out! Talking about filing police reports and telling everyone to keep a lookout, like I’m some fragile thing that needs protecting!”

Carlos looked at him, expression complicated. He didn’t interrupt.

“I want this situation to stop,” TK said, stressing each word. “I want some control in how that happens. And you’re right, he hasn’t done anything illegal. And I hadn’t told him to stop.

He dropped back in his seat, feeling suddenly exhausted. Carlos dropped his gaze, his hands falling from the steering wheel.

TK took a deep breath, and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he admitted. “I knew doing it would scare you, and I know that’s shitty. I’m sorry,” he repeated, so earnestly that Carlos looked up and met his gaze. “But I can’t hide behind you, or the crew, or my dad, or anyone else. I don’t know how to explain it, I just… I needed to do it myself. I needed…”

“Control,” Carlos concluded. His voice had softened, quieted. He took a deep breath, and released whatever tension he was still holding in his shoulders.

“I promise, I will not do something like that again,” TK insisted. “If he didn’t get the message, and keeps sending me shit, I will defer to you and whatever legal action will make him stop.”

Carlos nodded, and reached over the center console to take TK’s hand. “You did scare the shit out of me,” he said, squeezing their fingers together. “But I know you can handle yourself. You’ve run into way more burning buildings than I have.”

This earned a small grin and an eyeroll. “Yeah, well, you’re a much better detective than I am. How did you figure out where I was and get here so fast?”

Carlos huffed. “It’s Tuesday,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “The only thing you have in common with that creep is this meeting. And…”

He pointed forward through the windshield. TK looked where he indicated, and groaned. Sitting a block away, with one elbow resting over the door frame and a pair of sunglasses on, Paul sat behind the wheel of the 126’s engine. He gave TK a sarcastic little salute. 

“Not the whole rig,” TK groaned. 

“The whole rig,” Carlos confirmed. “Which will create the perfect opportunity to bring your father up to speed on all of this.”

TK dropped his head back against the headrest and heaved a dramatic sigh. “Oh, that’ll be fun. Any chance we can procrastinate by getting ice cream first?”

“You do not deserve ice cream,” Carlos scolded. 

TK pouted. “But you do, for finding me so fast.”

“Manipulative.”

“What about paletas? There’s a food truck not far from here.”

“Manipulative.”

TK grinned, conniving and self-satisfied. “That’s a yes.”

-

All things being relative, it was a cool night in Austin. The gloaming brought with it soft light, insect song, and that unique smell that cities get after a long hot day, all cologne and food and cigarette smoke milling together with cooling concrete. A gathering of young families crowded several picnic benches in the courtyard, children laughing and enthusiastically telling their parents about their day. Someone called an order from the window of a food truck, and the guy who got up to collect tripped climbing out of the picnic table. A round of laughter erupted from his friend group.

The world was rolling along just fine, no matter what was happening in TK’s personal life.

“So,” Carlos prompted, taking his seat beside him on one of the open benches, “you wanna tell me where you learned to pick-pocket like that? Because I did not feel you lift my keys.”

TK smiled around his mango-tajine paleta and took his time answering. “This will surprise you,” he warned. “But I was once a delinquent youth.”

Carlos turned to look at him with comically wide eyes. “What? You?”

“Yes,” TK confirmed, playing along. “Believe it or not, that first date we had at the precinct was not my debut in a bullpen.”

“Calling that a ‘date’ is really stretching the definition, don’t you think?”

TK tilted his head to the side and blinked at him. “We were together, emotionally vulnerable, and you did that gentle little dab on my split lip with a tissue. Very intimate.”

“Gentle little dab,” Carlos repeated, as if the idea were absurd. “You got your ass kicked in a bar fight, and I was helping clean up the blood on your face while you were cuffed.”

“Yeah, it was very kinky,” TK agreed, delighting in the way that Carlos scowled at him. “A little forward of you, though.”

This earned a laugh, deeper than he’d heard from Carlos in a while. They sat in companionable silence, watching the plaza as if it were a nature documentary and enjoying their frozen treat. For a precious few minutes, TK forgot about Collin, forgot about Cherry, forgot about the fact that he still had to tell his father about any of this. It was just him, his fiance, and the ice cream shared between them.

Then Carlos’s radio crackled with a report. “Units C27, M56, be advised. Traffic violation on 12th and Alder. License plate Alpha Paul Victory, seven-two-five. 10-29v.”

Carlos heaved a sigh. “Never a dull moment, huh?”

“It has been one hell of a Tuesday,” TK agreed. “Do you want me to hold off on telling my dad, so you can be there?”

Another laugh. “That’s the most transparent attempt at buying yourself time I think I’ve ever seen. No, TK, you have to tell your dad.”

“Boo,” he groaned, rolling his head back as dramatically as possible. Carlos patted his thigh in a show of false sympathy. 

“Come on, then,” Carlos said, rallying them both as he stood. “Sounds like I gotta get back to patrol. And your shift is technically over, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, thank god,” TK sighed. “I think I’ve had enough adrenaline for one day.”

He stood, rolling out his shoulders and adjusting his uniform. Across the plaza and down a wide stone staircase, the Camero waited for them with all four windows intact. 

“I’m gunna give Micha a quick call,” Carlos said, glancing back at TK while he pulled out his phone. “Let her know I’m heading back. I’ll drop you at the 126?”

“Sounds good,” TK said, in a tone usually reserved for things that did not sound good. He dragged his feet, strolling along behind Carlos’s more intentional pace. The idea of having to bring his dad up to speed made his stomach twist. It was bad enough having to watch the 126 spiral into panic and anger about this mess. His father was going to be worse, a wild card who wouldn’t think twice about going to give Collin a piece of his mind. (Not to mention a punch or two.)

He had to come up with a way of explaining the situation that would also have some built-in damage control. Owen Strand’s personal definition of justice had, in the past, operated outside of both the Texas Rangers at the FBI. How was TK supposed to stop him from doing something stupid? 

Carlos started down the steps ahead of him, phone to his ear while he let his partner know he was on his way back. TK took a moment to appreciate his broad shoulders, how his uniform stretched across his back. In the last dregs of daylight, Carlos looked incredible.

It was the last confident thought TK had.

Just as he arrived at the top of the staircase, something rammed into his middle back. He grunted, the air escaping his lungs in a surprised rush. The stone steps rushed up to meet him before he could process what was happening.

One arm flew outward. The heel of his palm struck stone, his arm buckling under his weight. His shoulder followed, then his head, a sound-numbing smack that knocked his vision into chaos. He stopped seeing, stopped hearing. The world spun around him in a sickening blur, impact points on all sides as he rolled. There was a moment–several moments? Twenty?--of nothing. 

Then he opened his eyes. Someone was talking to him. (Shouting?) TK’s vision gradually refocused onto Carlos’s face. Distantly, he felt embarrassed. 

Oh, he thought. I think I fell.

Chapter Text

He was fine. He felt fine.

(He wasn’t fine. He didn’t feel fine.)

“Should we… be wearing masks,” TK asked, allowing Tommy to lift his chin so she could check his eyes with a penlight. The words felt thick in his mouth, his tongue not moving the way he wanted it to. He remembered this feeling from a long time ago, being so drunk that the party spun and tilted all around him. Back then, it had been carefree; now, there was an undercurrent of anxiety, but he couldn’t explain why. 

“What? No, sweetheart, we don’t have to wear masks anymore.”

“What about, uh… Um. Covid?”

Didn’t they still have to wear masks on the job? An errant wisp of panic curled in his stomach; did he even have one on him? 

“Covid protocols were rolled back quite a while ago,” Tommy answered patiently, her smile warm and familiar. “I’m more concerned about the fact that this is the third concussion check I’ve had to do on you since we met.”

He frowned up at her, but couldn’t seem to focus on Tommy’s face, like there was a sunspot in the middle of his vision. He looked around, trying to test his sight on different things. From where he was sitting on a low retaining wall, the whole lower plaza was laid out before him. His gaze drifted and caught on an officer he didn’t know, POLICE in bold white letters across the man’s upper back.

Then another thought occurred to him, completely out of left field. “Where do you live,” he asked, wincing as she peeled the gauze away from his forehead to examine whatever was going on underneath. “Why can’t I remember where you live?”

“Just be patient,” she answered gently. “It’ll come back to you soon. You had a pretty nasty fall.”

Her words slipped through his mind, hardly registering as he struggled to remember her home address. It was a house, right? Not a condo, or… apartment? “But I’ve been there. Your house,” he clarified, struggling not to slur his words. Why couldn’t he speak clearly? “I was just there…”

Tommy pressed the gauze back into place and reached for a new packet to replace it with. “You were,” she agreed. “It’ll take a little time for you to remember things clearly. Your brain got a pretty good jolt when you hit your head.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and for a moment he thought about arguing with her. But it was Tommy; if she was calm, he would be calm. So instead of letting his panic get the better of him, he sat quietly while she worked. She said something over her shoulder, something about stitches, a scan, an x-ray. None of which boded well for his remaining sick leave bank.

“Can I work like this,” he murmured, lifting his arm so that Tommy would know what he was talking about. Nancy had wrapped it with a temporary brace after she had decided that she didn’t like the color forming on his wrist. A pulse of pain came and went like a power surge, radiating into his hand and up to his elbow. He inhaled sharply through his teeth. 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Tommy insisted. “We’re going to take good care of you, okay? I want to take you to the hospital for some scans, and we’ll go from there.”

TK frowned. It took a few extra seconds for her words to process, and when they did, he leaned away from her abruptly. “Oh, Cap, I don’t wanna be in the hospital again. I’m okay.”

“Not the ICU,” Tommy chuckled. He had the distinct thought that he should be offended by her laughter. “The ER. It’ll ruin your evening plans, but you’ll be in your own bed tonight, okay? I don’t think you hit your head that hard.”

He reached for what to say, and eventually settled on his last defense. “My head doesn’t even really hurt.”

“That’s good,” Tommy replied. “How’s your neck?"

“Still fine.”

She granted him a sage nod. “Good. What happened before you fell?”

“Paletas,” TK answered easily. 

“And what’s the best type of bagel?”

“Salt bagels from that place in Tenafly.”

Nancy, several feet away and swiftly approaching, had the audacity to laugh. “I told you you had strong opinions about bagels.”

Tommy ignored her in favor of holding steady eye contact with TK. “And where’s Carlos?”

He pointed immediately across the plaza to where Carlos was standing, deep in conversation with a few people who had seen TK fall. Tommy had banished him to Witness Purgatory not long after she had arrived, gently but firmly informing him that he was, in fact, in the way. Carlos had begrudgingly listened for the same reason that TK was making an effort to stay calm: it was Tommy.

Nancy took a knee to his left. “And what did you score on the AP Gov test?”

“A four,” TK said flatly, finding it in himself to scowl at her. Her grin was disappointed and snide all at once. 

“Damn. Thought I’d catch you in a lie. Turns out, you’re fine,” Nancy sighed.

“Don’t jinx anything,” Tommy warned, standing to her full height. “Not until after we get a scan to confirm it. And an x-ray on that wrist.”

TK watched her rise to her feet, the conclusion of her assessment looming. In a moment, she would ask him if he could stand and walk on his own, and he’d bravely insist he could. Nancy would end up helping him to the rig anyway. They’d leave the plaza, and the staircase, and the lingering crowd behind.

For some reason, it made him nervous, that same shudder of anxiety that came from forgetting if the stove had been left on, or if the front door had been locked. He had just gone ass over teakettle in front of a plaza full of people. He could remember the ice cream, the confrontation with Collin, the argument at the 126 that afternoon. So why the hell couldn’t he remember the five minutes surrounding the fall?

And what was he missing?

He looked across the plaza to his right, at the section of stairs where he had fallen. He could see the details now, his rattled brain finally allowing his vision to focus. A forgotten (and now thoroughly melted) popsicle; a small spot of darkness on one of the bottom steps where he’d bled; a police officer he didn’t recognize talking to two middle-aged women.

He frowned, reaching desperately into the black of his memory to find what he needed. “... Why are there other cops here?”

As soon as he said it, he realized it was out of place. He was so used to flashing lights and uniforms, he hadn’t paid them any mind.

When he didn’t get an answer, TK looked back up at Tommy. She was watching him closely, her expression guarded. Nancy was watching Tommy too, but in a way that suggested deferment, not confusion. 

After a moment of thought, Tommy sighed, and lowered herself into a crouch in front of him. “It sounds like someone pushed you, TK.”

“... Pushed,” he repeated. His focus flickered around her facial features, looking for any indication that she meant something other than how it sounded. He found nothing; it sounded right. “I… Yeah. I think I was.”

A resounding sense of numbness washed over him. A quiet, almost inappropriate calm. 

Tommy’s hand settled warm and familiar over his uninjured forearm, where it was resting across his knees. “They’re taking some statements,” she explained. “Carlos mentioned…”

She glanced up at Nancy, who visibly swallowed and took a seat beside TK. “He thinks it’s related,” Nancy said carefully, “to the guy who's been harassing you.”

Yeah, TK thought. Makes sense.

He didn’t say anything. His ears were ringing, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the concussion or the emotional shutdown. A comforting weight slipped over his shoulders, and he realized belatedly that Nancy had draped her arm around him. He leaned into her, gently resting his head on her shoulder. 

Tommy watched the two of them for a moment without saying anything. Then she rolled out her jaw, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay. Someone is going to need to bring me up to speed, clearly. But in the meantime, I want to get you checked out. Okay? Besides, I think if Carlos goes any longer without confirming that you’re fine, he’s going to rupture something.”

TK didn’t have it in him to laugh, but he did offer her a smile. Tommy slid her hand from his forearm to his fingers, and gave them a squeeze. “One thing at a time,” she said.

He responded with a stiff nod, and began to disentangle himself from Nancy’s side hug. In the corner of his eye, Carlos began crossing back toward the trio of paramedics. 

“Is he alright,” he asked, stopping next to Tommy. His hands were curling in and out of fists at his sides, his eyes scanning the artificially-lit plaza. His breathing was far too controlled. 

“Concussion doesn’t look too bad,” Tommy answered. She was watching Carlos as closely as TK was, but her professionalism had slipped neatly into place. “I want them to take some scans to be sure.”

TK reached without thinking, hooking the fingers of his good hand around his fiancé's. Carlos tightened the hold on autopilot, but the muscles in his jaw were flexing, and his eyes kept moving back and forth around the gathered crowd. He looked as impenetrable as stone.

“Breathe,” TK said softly, giving his hand a squeeze. Carlos looked down at him abruptly, and TK offered him a smile, trying to make it as genuine as he could. “And unclench your jaw, before Nancy decides to give you a muscle relaxer.”

For a moment more, Carlos stared at him, all stoicism and control. Then, abruptly, his expression collapsed; whatever anxious spell he’d been locked in had broken. He took a staggering breath, and then another. Nodded mutely. Swallowed. Then, before TK’s eyes, Carlos schooled his face back into something that projected calm. 

“Let’s get you into the rig,” he said as he crouched down to TK’s level. Carlos slid his hand around the back of TK’s neck, broad and warm and protective. In a flagrant breach of their ‘No PDA On The Job’ rule, Carlos leaned in, and pressed a slow, lingering kiss to TK’s forehead. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, quiet enough that only TK could hear it. Then, louder, “I’m gunna go with you to the hospital, okay?”

TK watched him for a moment, a soft frown set on his face. He scoured his rattled mind for the perfect thing to say, some string of words that would obliterate the fear in Carlos’s eyes. He couldn’t think of anything.

“Okay,” was all he ended up saying. 

-

There was a mural painted on the waiting room wall across from where they were sitting. Saguaro cacti erupted from the poorly-rendered earth, both big and small to create the illusion of scale. The signature in the bottom-right corner indicated it had been painted in 1981, which meant in the last forty-odd years, no one had found the budget or inspiration to revamp the space.

Far down an adjacent hallway, a tone went off. Across the room, a man who appeared to be older than time sneezed without immediately turning to dust – an accomplishment for someone that withered. 

“Is this what it was like for you guys when I was in a coma,” TK asked quietly. “Because it’s boring as hell.”

His half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood did not stop Carlos’s knee from bouncing. His fiancé glared ahead at the cactus across from him, lost in his own head.

“After you woke up? Sure,” his father answered. He sat on TK’s right, idly flipping through an outdated issue of GQ.

“Well I’m sorry for complaining about being stuck in that hospital bed,” TK said. “Clearly it was more comfortable than these chairs.”

“At least the chairs are free,” Owen reasoned. TK looked sideways at him, unamused, and then glanced down at what he was reading. It was an article titled Embracing Gray: The Start of Your Silver Fox Era.  

Owen folded the corner of a page to mark his place and flipped the magazine shut before TK could start reading over his shoulder. “So,” he began, his conversational tone fooling no one. “The Strand legacy continues, then.”

They had had plenty of time to bring his father up to speed since the man came rushing into the waiting room, hurrying to join them in what turned out to be the world’s slowest process. TK had given the highlights, objective and without much inflection, until he’d been called back for the x-rays on his wrist. When he’d eventually returned, he’d found both his fiancé and his father scowling into the ether in stony silence.

TK had handed the magazine to his father and resumed his spot in between them. He was happy to give them both time to process, because he was still feeling very little of anything at all. So for a while, the three of them had sat quietly and stewed. 

“The Strand legacy,” TK repeated, his tone flat and unamused. “Of attracting the attention of horrible people?”

Owen nodded at the shitty cactus mural; there was no arguing with that observation. “I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the Strand bloodline is cursed.”

TK watched his father for a moment, not immediately sure what to say. If he’d been in a better headspace, he might have laughed. 

Instead, he just raised his eyebrows. “Oh. So we’re making excuses for generational trauma now?”

Owen pulled a face, but ignored the comment. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around this,” he said. “So, someone intentionally pushed you down a flight of stairs, only an hour after you told a clingy fanboy to leave you alone–”

“A woman,” Carlos corrected quietly, almost below his breath. He still hadn’t broken eye contact with the cactus mural. 

“A woman,” Owen amended. “Who might also have broken into your car and stolen your backpack. And may have also been there when your friend from the program OD’d.”

“Yeah, that one is news to me,” TK acknowledged. “I don’t remember her at all.”

“In your defense, you were a little preoccupied.” 

They lapsed back into silence for a moment. TK looked toward the door that separated the radiology lab from its waiting room, willing someone to walk out and tell him whether or not his wrist was broken. Carlos’s knee kept bouncing; the door remained shut. They’d been sitting in this moment, this mood, for too long. It was starting to make his skin crawl.

“Saguaro cacti don’t even grow in Texas,” TK said abruptly, gesturing at the mural. A blatant attempt at changing the subject, and one he instantly knew would not work.

His father, understandably, did not accept the subject change. “You're taking this surprisingly well,” he observed. “All things considered.”

TK avoided his father’s gaze. He didn’t know what to say to that. 

Owen rested his hand on his knee. “How are you feeling, son?”

TK took a deep breath, and shrugged. He regretted it immediately; his shoulders and neck were starting to ache, the inevitable result of his fall. “Honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about any of this.”

His dad considered him for a moment. “And how’s your head?”

“Fine. Better. I just wanna go home.”

Owen nodded. There was a pause, intentional room for TK to expand on how he was doing, which he ignored. He didn’t have anything else to say. 

Eventually, his father accepted that. “Well, as soon as they tell us something conclusive about your wrist, we’ll head home. The guest room should be good to go, and Mateo is out getting groceries now.”

“Our home, dad,” TK sighed. 

To his left, Carlos drew a deep, audible breath, and sat back in his chair. “Actually,” he said carefully, finally looking away from the mural, “we both think it’d be better if you and I stay with your dad for a few days.”

TK stared at his fiancé for a moment. Then his father. Then his fiancé. “... Because of the roses?”

The corners of Carlos’s eyes tightened. “Because we don’t know what’s going on,” he said, frustration echoing in his admission. “And until we do, there’s safety in numbers.”

“Safety in numbers,” TK repeated. Deep in the numbness that had overcome him, a small curl of fear emerged.

“Humor us,” Owen tried, patting TK’s knee. “We’re all just a little freaked out, okay? I want you two nearby for right now.”

“I’ll go over with Mateo later and pack some overnight bags,” Carlos concluded.

TK stared at him. The little curl of fear in his gut was smoothing back into an absence of emotion, but this time it felt deeper, somehow. “Fine,” he muttered. “Okay.”

“TK Strand,” a woman called. The three of them looked toward the door into the radiology lab, where a woman in wine-colored scrubs was standing with a clipboard. 

Finally.

-

The guest room in Captain Strand’s home was fashionably impersonal, like every other interior design choice the man made. Tasteful black-and-white photographs of central park lined the wall across from the bed, and a postmodern minimalist clock glided silently on the wall beside the door. Carlos wondered, not for the first time, if TK had grown up in a home this devoid of warmth or personality. 

Surely not. His mother had been nothing if not vibrant.

It had been two days. Nearly three, if you considered the turn of a new day to fall strictly at midnight. Carlos sat awake in bed, propped up by expensive pillows that kept sprouting little quills like barbs. Earlier that night, he had insisted that he hadn’t noticed, to ensure that TK kept the non-stabbing pillow. 

Beside him, his fiancé was asleep. Just over an hour ago, he had taken some melatonin and a few ibuprofen, and had asked Carlos for help lying down. The whiplash had caught up with him, and his neck and abdomen were both too sore to sit up or lie back on his own. A fresh bandage covered his right temple and half of his eyebrow, the barest ridgeline elevating the material where a row of seven stitches was hidden underneath. 

Carlos deliberately unclenched his jaw, and clicked send/receive for the hundredth time that night. 

His supervisor had been resolute in keeping the case out of his hands. Aside from the obvious conflict of interest, investigating wasn’t in the purview of his job, a fact that had been reiterated to him when he’d asked Detective Washington for a favor the day before. She had explained, in no uncertain terms, that the best thing for him to be doing was to stay by TK’s side and out of the way. Two hours after they’d spoken on the phone, he’d received a text: Watch your inbox.

And he had. First on his phone, while TK and Mateo tried to play a single-player game by sharing Mateo’s Switch joycons. TK couldn’t really use his left hand yet, with the new brace around his wrist. The result of them both trying to control the same character had led to some genuine laughter, but Carlos had been too distracted to properly enjoy it. 

Later, he’d monitored his inbox on his laptop. TK had been propped up beside him when they’d first turned in for the night, watching youtube videos and holding Carlos’s hand atop the covers between them. He hadn’t asked what Carlos was doing on his laptop; likely, he didn’t want to know. TK had been masterfully avoiding any substantial conversation about what had unfolded, and Carlos had been too protective of him to push for one yet.

Send/receive.

TK was being avoidant; Carlos was getting obsessive. Both of them were struggling to keep it to themselves. 

Send/receive.

Owen, Carlos was realizing, donned a mask of charisma and hospitality when he was uneasy. Cheese boards and Vitamin Waters and regular reminders to keep the bandage on TK’s forehead fresh. It was overbearing and transparent; more than once, Carlos had caught glimpses of the man watching his son, looking equally fond and anxious. He’d been on the brink of losing his only child too many times, and now it was impossible for him not to imagine the possibility. 

Send/receive.

The group chat was a nightmare. TK had muted it almost immediately, but that hadn’t stopped Carlos’s phone from buzzing every time the 126 conspired to violence or legal action or some clever combination of the two. 

Send/receive.

1 unread message.

Carlos leaned forward, his eyes snapping to the bolded email that had appeared in his inbox. The title was bland: 023613_BC_SCR Collin McIntire. Carlos’s pulse jumped. There was little to nothing in the body of the email, only that he was BCC’d by Detective Washington, who wrote “FOR OBJECTIVE REVIEW” in an unsubtle reminder to stay in his lane. Attached, Carlos found what he’d been desperately waiting for. 

Collin McIntire. Forty-three years old, six-foot-five, born in Fort Worth. PhD in biochemical engineering. Previously on track for tenure at the University of Texas. 

Previously. Carlos found articles attached, each one telling an increasingly vivid story. A rising name in the academic world, patents and reputation and credibility. One article, dated back to when he was working on his doctorate, praised him as one of the greatest emerging minds in the field. He wrote papers, dissertations, and peer-reviewed studies. He wrote a paper about engineering brain chemistry, about rewriting the narrative of PTSD. About “taking back control.”

And then the articles began to change, both in subject and in tone. There was an out-of-place OpEd in the Texas Tribune from several years back, about authority and privacy. Nested within, Carlos found the haunting sentence: “It is a man’s right to pursue the riches of life without the interference of lesser authorities, who strive only to pad their own pockets and egos at the expense of others’ happiness.”

Then there was an article about a scandal among UT faculty, which didn’t name McIntire, but accused ‘several entities’ of misconduct. Carlos scanned through wordy paragraphs about codes of ethics and the unclear line between grad students and academic faculty. 

And then, a filed police report. It was nestled among the other attachments like a landmine, waiting for Carlos to open it and confirm all of his growing fears. He prayed for a parking ticket, and braced for the worst.

Several students had levied claims of harassment against Collin McIntire. They’d cited a flagrant overreach of authority, inappropriate comments, and unwanted gifts. One student in particular had dropped out of the biochemistry college altogether after accusing McIntire of unwanted advances. 

There was nothing surprising about the way Carlos’s stomach began to boil with anger and anxiety.

He read every article, and then started reading them again. He was exhausted, but had never felt more awake. This was the guy. The guy who had shown up at the 126 to thank TK, and only TK. The guy who had started attending TK’s Tuesday meetings, who had sent roses to their home. Flagrant overreach; unwanted gifts; unwanted advances.  

“Baby,” TK whispered, “I can hear you thinking.”

Carlos startled, badly. He’d known TK was there, had found comfort in his steady breathing, but he hadn’t considered that his fiancé might wake up. He looked down, feeling a flash of guilt he didn't quite understand, and found TK watching him with glassy half-lidded eyes. 

“Sorry,” Carlos croaked, rubbing his eyes and looking toward the clock. 3:12am. “Did I wake you?”

“The bedside light did,” TK murmured. He closed his eyes and took a slow breath, sighing it out on the verge of sleep. “Why do you look like you’re watching a horror movie?”

“I, um…” Carlos glanced at his laptop, at the open article titled Upset at UT: Tenure-Track Professor Resigns Amid Misconduct Allegations. “It’s nothing. I mean, I’ll tell you in the morning. It can wait until then.”

TK watched for a silent, judgmental minute. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Then go to sleep.”

Carlos pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed. He had walked right into that one. “Just… doing some research,” he said, picking his way through the sentence like one might pick their way through a minefield. “About everything that’s been going on.”

TK watched him with heavy eyelids for a long moment, and said nothing. Then, under the blankets, he slid his right hand over and gave Carlos’s knee a gentle squeeze. “You need to get some sleep.”

It wasn’t agitated, or scolding. TK said it the same way Carlos’s mother might have, gentle and patient and unhurried. At the sound of it, the knot that had been forming between his shoulder blades began to loosen. 

“I don’t know that I can,” he admitted, glancing at the laptop. It had a magnetic pull on his attention, an irritability that couldn’t be addressed with inaction. 

“Try,” TK whispered, giving Carlos’s knee another squeeze.

Carlos took a slow, deliberate breath. He glanced one more time at the collection of attachments, at the articles that would help him unravel this nightmare before it evolved any further. Then he shut the laptop and deposited it on the floor beside the bed. 

“I love you,” TK muttered. “But your sleep hygiene is shit when you’re stressed.”

It startled a laugh out of Carlos, who had been sure that TK was about to fall back to sleep. Before turning out the light, he reached over and smoothed his hand over TK’s forehead, pushing back his fluffy bedhead. His fingers caught on the edge of the bandage, and lingered. 

“I love you too,” he whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to his fiance’s temple. “Sorry for waking you.”

TK hummed, a gentle note that was more of a sigh than a sound. His eyes had drifted closed again.

Carlos turned off the light and stared at the ceiling for another two hours.

Chapter Text

“Chamomile,” Nancy explained, handing TK the cardboard cup as she took a seat next to him. He accepted it without a word, his gaze lingering on the fountain bubbling across from the drop-off zone. 

Two weeks of desk duty, and his first call back in the field was that.

Nancy didn’t say anything for a while. The activity around them was so familiar as to be surreal, people with in-tact faces going about their lives as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Several hospital employees in various scrub colors were lingering around, smoking cigarettes and looking at their phones. A few were chatting in a group nearby. None of them had been involved with the call.

“... I mean, it was like those dog monsters from Stranger Things, ” Nancy observed, finally breaking the silence. “Right? With the starfish faces?”

“Ah, God,” TK groaned.

“But I’m not wrong, am I?” She picked at the tea tag that hung down the side of her own cup. “I mean, any pretense of a jaw was just… gone.”

TK winced. He had seen some gnarly things over the years, and liked to think he had an exceptionally strong stomach, but no amount of practical experience could render someone impassive during a call for a shotgun wound to the face. 

“It was the teeth,” he said. “They were just… everywhere.”

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell which were teeth and which were just pieces of bone.” Nancy blanched and forced herself to take a sip of her tea. 

“It would be one thing if he was dead,” TK continued. “I mean, schedule the funeral, make a playlist, keep the casket closed. But he was still alive.”

Nancy shuddered. “Poor bastard. Poor neighbor,” she corrected, catching herself. “No amount of casseroles is going to make up for that mistake.”

For a moment, the both of them sat in companionable misery and watched the fountain. Several yards away, sitting on a bench and chain smoking Marlboros, a man was giving loud financial advice to some poor schmuck over the phone.

“Texas,” TK sighed, shaking his head as if the name of the state was a curse. Nancy elbowed him. 

“What, you never saw a guy’s face get turned inside-out in New York?”

“I was a firefighter,” he reminded her. “Although, there was this one time a guy got hit by the L train. Had to keep him talking while we picked up the pieces of… you know, leg. He gave me a great recipe for challah french toast.”

Nancy’s lip curled. “Ew. TK? Ew.”

“What? There wasn’t any leg in the recipe.”

“I just don’t understand how you can think about food when you’re neck-deep in gore,” she explained, curling her lip in revulsion. “I get being desensitized, but most of the time you’re completely out of pocket.”

“Oh, come on,” TK said, rolling his eyes. Nancy cut him off with a wag of her finger.

“You did it the other day on that call where the guy took off three fingers in his lawn mower. You kept talking about sardines while you were bagging his fingers in ice.”

He looked at her with an incredulous tilt to his head. “I was talking about gefilte fish,” he explained, “and I don’t sit around judging the things your nana served on holidays.”

“That’s not what I’m judging and you know it.”

They both leveled an accusatory squint at one another. TK was taking a breath to defend himself when the guy who was loudly talking on his phone started to cough with the intensity of a backfiring car. Distracted, both paramedics – and several of the nearby nurses – looked his way. 

“Dude really needs to stop smoking,” Nancy muttered, low enough that only TK could hear her. 

“Let’s just pray it’s not viral,” TK agreed quietly.

“Seriously.” Nancy lightly batted the back of her hand against TK’s shoulder. “We just got you off desk duty. How are you doing, by the way?”

There was a delay between her asking and her decision to gesture at his wrist brace, just long enough for TK to know what she was really asking about. He held up his forearm anyway, gently rotating it for her viewing pleasure. 

“You mean the carpal fracture? Or the horror show we just escorted into emergency surgery?”

Nancy made a face. “Bluegh. No, actually. I’m specifically referring to the true crime documentary that your life is slowly becoming.”

TK gave her a flat unappreciative look. She met it with a flat unapologetic one.

He sighed. He could recognize a futile power struggle when he saw one. “I’m fine, I guess. There’s been no sign of the guy since the stair incident. According to the police, he stopped going to the Tuesday meeting, and he hasn’t left any creepy notes. So, I don’t know. Maybe he got the hint.”

Nancy nodded slowly, reached up, and poked his temple where the bruising had turned a brilliant sunset yellow. “And the crazy rando who did this to you?”

He swatted her hand away. “Still no idea who she is,” he sighed. “And apparently, no one can find Collin either. Or at least, he hasn’t been responsive when they’ve gone to his listed residence.”

Nancy cracked her knuckles like she wanted to punch something; TK honestly couldn’t tell if it was genuine or for show. “God,” she groaned, “what a creep. I’m sorry, dude. I wish there was a way to make all that shit just go away.”

TK bounced his eyebrows in agreement, suddenly feeling exhausted. Irrationally, he missed talking about the patient with the exploded face. 

And maybe she sensed it, because Nancy took the hint and leaned back, planting her hands behind her and locking her elbows. She forced the look of open concern off of her face and kicked her feet outward, crossing one ankle over the other. The picture of casual indifference.

“Well,” she reasoned, “at least you won’t run into him here. This is the hospital he’s ‘not allowed to go to’, if I remember correctly.”

TK huffed and returned his attention to the fountain. A companionable silence stretched between them, underscored by soft chatter and bubbling water and Loud Financial Advice guy. The automatic doors sighed open and closed a few times, releasing welcome bursts of cool air. Somewhere else in the hospital complex, an ambulance siren started up and gradually faded. 

A thought came to him almost out of nowhere, like a lightning strike. TK sat upright, a flush of adrenaline bringing things into sharp focus. He looked toward the entrance, and held himself very still for a beat before standing.

“Bud,” Nancy asked, frowning up at him. She was still leaning back on her hands with her legs stretched outward.

TK gestured in her direction without looking at her. “I’ll be right back.”

“TK,” Nancy called, her voice falling away as he crossed through the automatic doors and into the expansive lobby beyond. He crossed through the foyer in a daze, past the gift shop and the information desk. On the wall across from the entrance, his gaze snagged on the giant directory. TK stopped in front of it just long enough to find what he was looking for before he started down a semi-familiar hallway. 

He could hear Nancy following, calling his name as she rushed to catch up. Beneath him, the industrial carpet became clean linoleum, his rubber-soled work boots squeaking as he rushed along. He passed doorways and waiting areas and shiny silver elevator bays. People in scrubs and white lab coats with tablets under their arms rushed by at the same speed he was keeping.

“Dude, seriously, wait up,” Nancy pleaded, several yards behind him. “Tommy’s gunna wonder where we are!”

Around a corner, and there, adhered to the wall in clean metal letters: Hospital Security.

TK rounded into the doorway and came to an abrupt stop. Beyond the threshold, a staggeringly boring office greeted him. Gray cubicle walls separated the space into pockets of paperwork and monitors and family photos. A phone was ringing.

Situated nearest the door, a woman behind a small reception desk looked up from her work when TK surged into the room. She raised her eyebrows at him. “Can I help you?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. Behind him, Nancy finally caught up, very nearly running into him. It jolted him from his momentary stupor.

“I… Wanted to see if you have a list of people who are banned from the property,” he began, struggling to choose the right words. HEPA policies were flying through his head, privacy laws and confidentiality and matters of ethics. This wasn’t going to work, he realized distantly. He could feel his face warming by the second. 

“... Banned from the property,” the woman repeated slowly, frowning.

TK swallowed. He didn’t want to explain himself. Didn’t want to talk about the why, not even with his family, and certainly not to the woman before him. 

A hand settled on his shoulder and gently guided him to the side. “We’re following up on a repeat patient,” Nancy explained, easy and professional. “We believe the hospital may have a restraining order on file for him. Just need to clarify what care he can and cannot receive at this facility before we bring him back here.”

The woman nodded slowly, her mouth forming a small “oh” in understanding. “Sure,” she answered. “Okay. I’ll need identification from both of you, and the individual's name. I’ll see what I can share.”

Nancy reached for her badge and elbowed TK to do the same. He followed her example stiffly, immeasurably grateful for her friendship. She provided Collin’s name, explained that he had implied he was barred from the hospital’s services on a previous call. Stressed that she and TK were only doing their due diligence. Complimented the woman’s thriving desk plants, which flattered a laugh out of her. 

TK watched in mute relief. The creep of anxiety in his stomach meant he didn’t trust himself, let alone his ability to smooth-talk information out of hospital security. He didn’t want the information; he needed it. He didn’t want to know that Collin McIntire was actually banned from this or any hospital. And if he was, TK didn’t want to know why. He didn’t want the anxiety that might come from finding out. But he needed to know. 

“Colin McIntire,” the woman confirmed, nodding at her computer screen. “We don’t have a ban on him, necessarily.”

Nancy, who had leaned against the desk to see around the side of the woman’s monitor, frowned. “What does that mean?”

“The hospital itself doesn’t have a ban,” the woman clarified. “Looks like a staff member has a restraining order against him. It limits where he’s allowed to receive care on our campus. Probably better to bring him to St Andrews in the future.”

Nancy nodded her head slowly. “Right… Okay. Hey, thanks a lot. Sorry to interrupt your lunch break.”

The woman waved her off. “Oh, you’re not interrupting anything. They brought a guy into the ER while I was over there earlier, had half his face blown off. I don’t even want to think about food right now.”

TK and Nancy exchanged a look. He couldn’t quite mimic the level of conspiracy in her eyes. 

“Oh, you are so valid,” Nancy reassured the woman. “Anyone who could eat after something like that would be nuts.”

She caught TK’s eye as she said this, a cheeky grin on her face. It faded fast when he didn’t return it.

The woman said something polite and sociable, but TK didn’t hear it. He didn’t really hear the professional goodbyes, very nearly didn’t hear himself say thank you when he sensed it was due. As soon as he was able, he turned around and put the security office behind him.

The hallway outside was too bright. Suddenly, he couldn't stand the smell of the hospital around him. It smelled like gunshot wounds and head trauma and hypothermia.

“TK,” Nancy prompted carefully, her hand hovering just above his shoulder, not quite sure if she should touch him. 

He didn’t say anything. A staff member has a restraining order against him. Someone who Collin had clung onto before. Who had to take legal measures to get him out of their life. 

“Let’s go find Tommy,” Nancy decided. “I think we’ve had enough time to ‘decompress’.”

TK was entirely confident that he had done the opposite of that, but he wasn’t about to find the words to describe the tectonic plates shifting around in his chest, the anxiety and frustration and dread. So he just nodded and said, “Yeah. Okay.”

-

It was just brain chemistry. Proteins and enzymes, spurred on by an animal instinct to avoid danger or harm. It wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t need to consume his entire night.

TK forced himself to take a deep breath.

He was too aware of his own heartbeat. Too aware of the pins and needles in his fingers, of the queasiness in his stomach that he was just barely keeping at bay. He wanted to curl into a ball in bed, or run at a full sprint down the street, or bury himself ten feet under the earth. He wanted to stop feeling so goddamn wigged out.

So far, he’d kept his anxiety at arm’s length. For nearly two weeks, he hadn’t felt much of anything at all, aside from the ache in his arm and the stiffness in his muscles from the fall. He had perfected the art of changing the subject, or giving half answers, or at the very least, half truths. He had comforted Carlos in order to comfort himself, had gone along with his father’s overbearing attempts at cheering him up. It had been fine. He had been fine.

But over the last three days – no doubt in direct correlation with his return to field work – that fog had been clearing. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been relying on it, how desperately he had needed his emotions to be obscured. He didn’t want to give up his life, his job, his peace, because of fear.

And yet, there he stood, staring into the open refrigerator at 2AM and struggling to remind himself that it’s only brain chemistry, it’s only chemicals.

The objective paramedic side of his brain was correctly identifying an oncoming panic attack. The obstinate Strand side was adamantly refusing to accept it.

He was letting all the cold air out of the fridge.

Stiffly, TK forced himself to close the door. He held onto the handle for longer than necessary, staring at his obscured reflection in the chrome surface of the appliance. 

“You’re fine,” he whispered. “Don’t give him power.”

The notes had stopped appearing. The Tuesday meetings had been left alone. Harvey was okay, alive and attending again. TK would have the brace off of his wrist by the end of next month.

Someone pushed me down those stairs.

This wasn’t a big deal. It had been a passing discomfort, a fleeting attraction that hadn’t escalated beyond a few wooing gestures. He was being dramatic. Arrogant? Either way, he was overreacting. Even if he could still make out the bruising over his left eyebrow in the reflection. Even if there was a tender pink line running through it, left behind when the stitches had been removed. 

Because I told him to stop. Someone pushed me because I told him to leave me alone.

TK forced himself away from the fridge and crossed into the living room on autopilot. He grabbed up a pillow and dropped onto the couch in one fluid motion, landing on his side. He pulled his knees up, hugged the pillow against his chest. Pressed his face into it.

I could have broken my neck on those stairs.

McIntire had been harassing someone before TK. Someone who worked at the hospital, who had filed a restraining order. He could ask Carlos about it, could probably find out who the last person had been. Were they his age? Did they look at all like him? Was this some fucked up pattern that was only just starting up again? Had there been other people on McIntire’s radar before the two of them?

TK suddenly wanted to google stalking stats, and hugged the pillow tighter until the masochism passed. People had to move to new states to get rid of stalkers, didn’t they? Give up their lives and jobs and start fresh somewhere else, and even then, sometimes the person would find them, follow them, start the cycle right back up. He’d already moved away from everything he’d known once; he didn’t want to do it again, not when he had so much more to lose this time.

He tried not to think about crime statistics. Tried not to think about some city employee power washing his blood off of the plaza steps. 

“Fuck,” he whispered. His stomach twisted, adrenaline flooding it like gasoline. His chest tightened. He was breathing too quickly, too lightly. He hugged the pillow tighter.

Across the room, the sliding door to their bedroom rolled open. “Babe,” Carlos asked, his voice muddy with fatigue.

TK pressed his face into the pillow hard enough to make his nose hurt, hard enough that it was difficult to breathe. He curled into a tighter ball on the couch, and willed Carlos to go back to sleep.

A warm hand slid across his shoulder, steady and safe. “TK,” Carlos prompted, his voice gentle enough that TK almost couldn’t hear it over his own ragged breaths. 

After a moment of stubborn resistance, he pulled his face away from the pillow and gasped as if he were emerging from water. Carlos had knelt beside the couch, beautiful in the diffused light from the kitchen, his hair mussed and the collar of his sleep shirt tugged at an angle. He smoothed TK’s hair back with gentle fingers. 

“I think I’m having a panic attack,” TK admitted, the words tight and breathy. Carlos nodded and eased himself into a sitting position on the floor beside the couch. 

“‘It’s okay. Just breathe,” he said softly. “Focus on what’s immediately around you.”

TK shook his head against the pillow. He didn’t want advice, or platitudes, or a witness. But he couldn’t bring himself to say any of that to Carlos, so he bit down on the words and pressed his face back into the pillow.

For a while, Carlos didn’t say anything. He just sat there, rubbing small circles into TK’s upper back while he hid behind the pillow and struggled to regain a sense of control. 

Gradually, the hand on his back began to anchor him. He started counting his breaths, forced his legs to stretch out of the fetal position so he could breathe from his stomach. The queasy panic began to calm. In its wake, a vague tingling sensation washed through him, a boneless fatigue he couldn’t quite let himself relax into for fear of the anxiety coming back.

Eventually, he lifted his face from the pillow. Carlos was watching him closely.

“Better,” he asked, moving his hand to the side of TK’s face and stroking his thumb over his cheekbone. 

TK ignored the question, because yes wasn’t quite accurate, but neither was no. “At the hospital today,” he whispered, his voice catching on the dryness of his throat. “Nancy reminded me that McIntire had said he wasn’t allowed there. On that first call, where he OD’d.”

A soft frown, curious and concerned, fell over Carlos’s face like a cloud passing over the sun. When he didn’t say anything, TK forced himself to take a slow breath, and continued. 

“And I thought, I wonder if that’s true? So I went to the hospital security office.”

Carlos adjusted how he was sitting on the floor, scooting just a little bit closer. He looked more awake by the second. “St David’s?”

TK nodded, his hair shifting against the couch cushions. “They said that there’s an employee there, who has a restraining order against McIntire.”

Gears turned behind Carlos’s eyes. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, questions he decided against asking, before eventually he settled on a solemn nod. “He’s done this before,” he concluded. 

TK’s stomach twisted with a small burst of fresh anxiety. Carlos confirming it made it more real, somehow. His arms tightened around the pillow. “What if this never ends,” he whispered, barely able to verbalize the fear. 

Carlos shook his head and smoothed his thumb over TK’s cheekbone a second time. “That won’t happen,” he said, sounding for all the world like it was fact. “Because I’m going to figure this all out, and put an end to it.”

“You’re not allowed on the case,” TK pointed out, misery seeping into his voice. 

“Not at work,” Carlos answered patiently. “What I do with my own time is up to me.”

The bridge of TK’s nose stung with a swell of oncoming tears. He took a shaky breath. “I don’t want this to take over our lives.”

Carlos sighed, a deep and resigned sound. His steady calm was a lighthouse in a storm. “I don’t think we have a choice about that right now, baby,” he said softly. “But we do get to choose how we react to it. And I don’t think we’re the kind of people to sit back and put up with bullshit.”

TK sniffled and closed his eyes, letting a tear roll free across his temple and onto the couch. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Carlos.”

He felt Carlos lean in close, felt him press a careful kiss to his bruised temple. “You never have to apologize for feeling.”

“It’s more for not feeling.” TK forced himself to take a deep breath, and pushed himself into something resembling a seated position. Carlos rose from the floor and slid onto the couch beside him, lifting an arm so TK could curl into his side. He kept the pillow hugged close. “I know you’ve been spinning out since I fell, and I’ve been so… detached. I haven’t really been there for you.”

Carlos kissed the top of his head and stroked his upper arm. He was quiet for a moment, his heartbeat steady and reassuring against TK’s ear. When he eventually responded, he spoke softly, if not reluctantly. “To be honest, I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. Didn’t expect it at 2am, but…”

TK huffed an unexpected laugh through his stuffy nose. “Well, I tried not to wake you up.”

“The A/C is set to 67,” Carlos said. “Anything beneath 70, and you stick to me like a barnacle. Noticed pretty quickly that you weren’t there.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a sexy teddy bear,” TK replied, poking Carlos just a measure too hard between the ribs, earning a wince and a chuckle.

Carlos gave his shoulder a squeeze. A sobering moment of silence rolled by, exhaustion catching up with both of them. When Carlos spoke again, it was more measured, almost cautious. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about the restraining order earlier today,” he whispered. TK picked at Carlos’s cotton sleep shirt and tried to find the words he needed to explain.

“I think… It’s like there’s been this pressure, building up in my chest over the last couple of weeks,” he began. “Like I built a dam, to hold back all the anxiety this situation has been causing me. And everything that’s happened has added more and more fear behind the dam, way more than I know how to handle. So… Today, when the security office told us about the restraining order… it was like the water started flooding over the top. And telling you about it… I thought it would mean the dam bursting. But that happened anyway, I guess.”

They sat in silence for a while, far longer than TK would have anticipated. Carlos reached and slid his hand over TK’s wrist brace, finding the exposed fingers and tangling them into his own. Eventually, he spoke.

“We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together,” he said quietly. “We’re going to share struggles, share burdens. I know we won’t share everything, that some challenges will only be yours, and some will only be mine. But I will always want to help you, Tyler. I will always be here to help you, when you want it. I just want you to know that.”

TK looked out across the dark living room, listening to Carlos’s deep voice reverberate through his chest as he spoke. Each word unwound the tightness in his chest, chased the residual anxieties away. He lifted his head so he could look Carlos in the eye.

TK wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this kind of love before.

“I need your help now,” he whispered. An admittance that was so obvious as to be laughable, but he needed to say it out loud. Needed to be the one to ask for it.

Carlos tilted his head forward until their foreheads were touching. “You have it. Always.”

TK closed his eyes and let their closeness wash the rest of his fear away. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They stayed together for a long time, wrapped in silence and in each other, until Carlos inhaled abruptly to stop himself from falling asleep. TK laughed at him and rubbed the exhaustion from his own eyes. 

“Let’s go back to bed now,” Carlos suggested.

TK took his hand, and led the way.

Chapter Text

Harvey was chewing on the cap of a ballpoint pen when TK and Carlos found him at the 15th street Starbucks. Seeing as he was always chewing on pens during all the meetings TK had ever shared with him, it was oddly reassuring to see him do it in this context.

“Oh, hi,” the man blurted, struggling awkwardly to his feet, “hey, TK, hey. How are you, man?”

“I’m good,” TK laughed, shaking Harvey’s offered hand as he and Carlos took their seats. The table between them was small and scuffed and littered with crumbs, but they had their backs to the wall and eyes on both exits, so by any recent measure, it was a good place to sit. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, ah, you know, I’m good, better, I’m doing alright. Thanks, again, for helping– er, saving me, back there. Yeah. I mean, I obviously really appreciate it, so thanks, for real. Seriously.”

TK couldn’t see Carlos’s eyebrows raise so much as he could feel it. Harvey had always been a ball of unmedicated, unfiltered nerves. 

“Of course,” TK said with a nod. “I appreciate you meeting us here. Harvey, this is my fiance, Carlos. Carlos, Harvey.”

Another hand shake, though Harvey’s eyes flickered uneasily between the two of them. He lifted the pen toward his mouth to keep chewing, thought better of it, and in his abrupt attempt at putting it down, ended up slapping it onto the table with a solid click. “Hey, yeah, hi. Good to finally meet you, man. TK really loves you a lot, for sure. You’re a, uh, a cop, right? A police officer?”

Either by professionalism or sheer force of will, Carlos kept a polite expression on his face. “I am.”

Harvey nodded again. He was always in motion, bouncing his legs or fidgeting his hands. It seemed worse than TK remembered it, though. “Okay. Yeah. I mean, I just wanna know, then, if this is like… I’m not giving a statement or anything, right? I mean, I can. I want to. I just– I mean, is that why you wanted to meet? I know you said you wanted to talk about what happened, so I maybe assumed it was about the fact that I didn’t actually relapse, but the last officers I spoke to clearly didn’t believe me and I can’t even blame them, honestly, but like, I was hoping maybe that’s why you were here, why we, uh, were meeting, because then I could talk to you about it, TK, since we’re friends and you’re gunna marry a cop, and I thought that it’d go better if I did it this way, because I–”

Carlos raised his hands, a patient gesture that Harvey mercifully understood. He cut himself off, nodded, adjusted how he was sitting in his chair. Swallowed hard. Nervous, TK realized, and for all his hyperactivity in the few years TK had known him, he had never seen Harvey nervous.

“We did invite you here to talk about what happened, yeah,” TK confirmed, speaking with intentional slowness. “A minute ago, though, you said you… didn’t relapse?”

Harvey’s lips pressed together into a thin line. His eyes dropped to the pen in his hands, which he had begun flipping around with ninja-like precision. “Yeah, so the thing is– I mean, when I went to file a police report, they didn’t… I mean, okay.” He stopped, and forced himself to take a deep breath. After a moment, he looked up at TK like he was afraid of what he might see. 

“I know what I’m going to say sounds like junky shit. Okay? I know it sounds like I’m lying, and bargaining, and gaslighting, and trying to play the victim in all this. I know that. And even… by even saying that, it just makes me sound like an even more manipulative addict, I know that, I just… I–” he paused to press his open palm over his heart, “I did not use. I did not take drugs. Okay? I did OD, drugs for sure got into my system, I know that, and I know I sound crazy, and the cops didn’t believe me and my sister doesn’t believe me but I know that I didn’t take anything. I didn’t. Does that make sense?”

There was a pause, a silence that Harvey didn’t try to fill, which spoke volumes all on its own. TK took a careful breath. “It does,” he said quietly.

He felt Carlos’s hand settle into his on the crumby surface of the table. TK threaded their fingers together.

“Because of the Sadie thing,” Harvey prompted. He said it quietly, the way he’d probably learned to be sensitive around other people’s trauma after years of going to meetings. His knee started bouncing under the table again. “Okay, so, listen. I know it’s shitty to say this, but I thought… maybe that you might believe me, since something similar happened to you. And honestly, I remember talking about it in Group, and how…” He cut himself off to look pointedly from TK to Carlos and back again. Asking for permission to continue. TK nodded mutely, and Harvey cleared his throat. He kept his voice low.

“I remember you talking about how, even though your sobriety had been taken away, you found comfort in the fact that you didn’t choose to use. Right? I keep thinking about that, how you talked about how you didn’t make the choice, which is huge, honestly, and it’s made me feel a lot better when I think that the same is true for me, you know? And your cop is going to be a husband, and– no, your husband is going to be a– is a cop, sorry, geez– and so I just thought that maybe I could tell you what I remember and maybe I wouldn’t feel so goddamn crazy.”

He finished in a breathless flourish and looked between the two of them nervously, desperately, like a man who was hoping for a miracle. He chewed on his lip for a minute before sticking the teeth-marked pen back between his teeth, no longer worried about doing it in front of them.

It didn’t feel like the right moment to clarify that they weren’t married yet.

Carlos didn’t let the quiet linger for long. “Okay,” he agreed, nodding. “We’re all ears. It won’t be an official statement, but we’re here to listen.”

Harvey nodded, and bit the pen cap with his back molars before reluctantly returning to ninja-flipping it around his fingers. “Sure, yeah, okay. I get that. That’s fine.”

“What happened that day,” TK prompted, when Harvey took too long of a pause.

“Yeah, so uh. I had a date? I had a date. There was this girl. Pretty, smart, and at first I thought she didn’t like me at all, you know? But we got to talking, and she warmed up to me, and I thought, oh, cool, she isn’t turned off by, you know… the whole way that I am.” He said this with a self-deprecating smile, but there was a sadness in his eyes that made TK inwardly wince. 

Harvey cleared his throat and chose to focus on the pen in his hands as he continued. “I thought things were going pretty well, honestly. She asked me out for burgers, you know? In that warehouse part of town where you apparently work. Didn’t know that then, but, you know. Good luck there. And honestly, it’d been a while since I’d been on a date, so I was pretty nervous, and I was drinking a lot of Sprite. Bottomless refills at this place, right? Because I don’t, uh, drink. Like, I don’t smoke anymore, hence the pen, and I drink a lot of Sprite because I definitely don’t need the caffeine that Coke has.”

He paused to laugh, and TK smiled at him, though he couldn’t quite join in with a chuckle. Not with how nervous Harvey was. There was a waiver to his voice, small but obvious, like just talking about that day was causing him anxiety. 

“Anyway, I got up to use the bathroom. And when I came back, they’d refilled my drink again, and… I remember thinking that it tasted really sweet. Like, weird sweet. But I figured, they probably just had an issue with the soda fountain. You know how it mixes syrup and soda water and stuff? And I didn’t want to make a fuss over it, I didn’t want her to think I was weird, so I just drank it, and then… I remember feeling really hot? Like a hot flash. I used to get those when I drank, I’d have too much and wake up feeling overheated.”

Carlos’s hand tightened around TK’s. “What do you remember after that,” he asked. He was using his Cop Voice, steady and patient and too structured to give away much emotion. TK was grateful for it; the flush of sympathetic anxiety that had hit him was difficult enough without having to form follow-up questions.

“Uuh.” Harvey tapped the pen against the table in rapid succession and winced. “Not much of anything really. It got hard to breathe, and I remember leaving the restaurant, but then… honestly, the next thing I remember is being unloaded from the ambulance. And TK was there, obviously, which I thought was weird, because I didn’t know why I was there.”

Harvey rubbed at the back of his neck, and then dropped back in his chair. His knee kept bouncing. He fidgeted the pen around in his lap, and watched the two of them closely. 

“What was this woman’s name,” Carlos asked. He leaned forward slowly, as if any sudden movements would spook Harvey clear out of the Starbucks. 

“Amy,” Harvey answered. “And I haven’t heard from her since. I’ve tried calling, tried finding her on social media, but there’s nothing there. I mean, we mostly hung out in person, that’s how we met, so I don’t know how else to find her. The cops didn’t even believe that she was real.”

Carlos’s frown deepened. “How did you meet her?”

Harvey shrugged. “Through TK’s friend. Collin.”

It was like a sudden pressure change hit the Starbucks, momentarily throwing off TK’s sense of balance. His ears rang. “He’s not my friend,” he said. 

It took him a minute of staring at Harvey’s surprised face to realize how emphatically he had said it. 

“He’s…” Harvey frowned, his look of panicked confusion worsening. “Did you guys have a falling out? He said you were really close.”

TK leaned back in his own chair and pressed his hands against his face, as if he could hide from how disturbing the idea was. Beside him, he could hear Carlos readjust how he was sitting and take a slow, frustrated breath. 

“Would you be able to give a description of this woman,” Carlos asked. TK could hear the tension in his jaw as he spoke.

“Yeah, of course,” Harvey answered. He was looking at them now with near total confusion.

“Okay,” Carlos said, careful to keep his voice even. “I need to get any contact information on her you might have. Her number, her last name if you know it, anything. Do you have any pictures of her?”

“Uh, no, no pictures. Wait, does this mean you guys believe me?”

Carlos hesitated, unwilling to commit to anything, but TK didn’t care. He leaned forward onto his elbows, tucking his forearms together in a gesture just short of a self-hug. His wrist brace made it a little painful, but he held it. 

“Yeah, Harvey,” he said. “We believe you.”

-

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Marjan hit the roof when TK brought everyone up to speed that evening. The stratosphere, maybe. 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands to emphasize each word. “How is this piece of shit not rotting behind bars already?!”

An argument could also be made for the mesosphere. 

“Because there’s nothing tying Collin McIntire to Harvey’s story,” TK said. There was resignation in the robotic way that he paraphrased what Carlos had said earlier that day, which only seemed to upset Marjan further.

“But you believe Harvey, don’t you?”

TK tried for a patient tone when he responded, and landed somewhere shy of Professional Frustration. “Yes,” he answered. “Believe me, I don’t want to believe him, but this mystery woman keeps showing up, and Harvey had no reason to suddenly relapse, and–” he raised a hand at Marjan in an unsubtle ‘I’m not finished’ gesture, “--and, how the hell else did Collin know that Harvey was going to OD then and there, while I happened to be on shift, and not out on a call?”

 “So we call the police, again, and tell them to do their jobs,” Marjan stressed. “Or the FBI. Or the mafia for all I care! Have someone break this guy’s knees!”

“Okay,” Paul interrupted, gesturing downward as though he could lower the energy of the room. “I get this is upsetting. But you know what the police will say, right?”

Marjan laughed. It was not a joyful sound. “‘We’re sorry we ever doubted you,’” she mimicked. “‘Clearly, Fire is better at our jobs than we are! Please, let us deputize you so you can go after this guy!’”

Mateo looked around the group with an almost child-like hope. “Wait. Can they do that? Can we be deputized?”

“They’re going to ask where this woman is,” Paul said evenly, wisely ignoring Mateo’s distracting question. “And who she is, and how she has any affiliation with McIntire. None of which are questions we can answer.”

“It’s not our job to,” Marjan cut back. “It’s their job. That’s the whole point of them!”

“Well,” Mateo muttered, “that, and parking tickets.”

TK dropped into a chair across from Judd and pressed both hands against his face. He didn’t regret telling them; he knew, after McIntire had ordered food to the station, that it involved the crew whether TK wanted them involved or not. That didn’t mean he had the energy to go several rounds with Marjan over how the criminal justice system should work.

On the table between them, various bowls of street taco fixings were going ignored.  

“If this woman is connected to McIntire,” Paul sighed, “Every illegal thing that the police could pursue wasn’t done by him. Not directly, at any rate. The witnesses on the night TK got pushed reported a smaller person in a hoodie, probably a woman. The only person with a motive to push him wasn’t anywhere near that plaza.”

Marjan uncrossed her arms and crossed them again, her jaw squaring. “So they should find the woman, and then find the connection to McIntire. I’m not an idiot, I know this shit takes time, but we haven’t heard anything!”

“You’re not wrong, Marjan,” Judd said. He hadn’t spoken much since the impromptu team meeting had begun. “We’re all pissed off. But bein’ pissed ain’t gunna speed things up with the law, and we’ve got lives to live. We can’t let this creepy sonofabitch ruin ‘em.”

TK glanced up through his eyelashes at Judd, who was holding himself entirely too still for it to be unintentional. To the right of the table, Marjan turned her scowl away from the group and forced herself to take a deep breath, as sure a sign as any that she was running out of steam.

Judd took the opportunity. “If you can’t trust the law, then trust TK. If he’s ready to go out there and save lives, then the rest of us should be right there behind him.”

Marjan took another deep breath and leaned back against the counter. She closed her eyes for several seconds, her lips just barely moving in a silent prayer. “Of course I trust you, TK,” she said eventually. “And Carlos. And look, I get it, all of this is… anecdotal, or whatever. It just sucks that there’s a threat out there that we can point to and name, but we can’t do anything about it.”

TK stared at his hands and nodded. He could feel Judd watching him, and resisted the urge to look across the table. 

That was the moment that Nancy Gillian arrived for her shift, completely unaware of the conversation as she plucked her headphones out of her ears.

“Evening, boners,” she greeted, sauntering into the kitchen and swinging her backpack off of her shoulder and into an empty chair. “I would like you all to know that my GoFundMe for those concert tickets was fully funded this morning. You may shower me with congratulations and jealousy at your leisure.”

She turned a luminous smile around the room, which faded with each expression she clocked, before finally landing on TK with a fraction of its original confidence. “Uh oh,” she said. “What happened?”

TK pushed away from the table and leaned back in his chair, heaving a deep sigh as he went. “Nothing new, technically,” he admitted. “I’ll tell you in the rig.”

Nancy hesitated, her eyes darting from Judd’s careful composure to Marjan’s frustrated resignation. “... Right. Okay. Maybe feeling a little bad about that entrance.”

“You should feel bad about callin’ me a ‘boner’,” Judd replied, crossing his arms over his broad chest and looking up at Nancy like a disapproving school teacher. “Don’t lump me in with the rest of these children.”

Mateo was the first to jump to the group’s defense. “Says the guy who was humming the Bluey theme song earlier.”

“I got a baby at home,” Judd shot back, but not before Paul ooh’d his way through a scandalized grin. 

Mateo wasn’t having any of it. “Nah, Bluey is for like, toddlers and up, man. My little cousins watch it all the time. It’d go right over a baby’s head.”

“How is this where our conversation ended up,” Marjan asked, looking among the rest of them in exasperation. 

TK found it in himself to smile at her, and shrugged. “Honestly, I’ll take it,” he said. “Judd’s right; we can’t let that guy’s bullshit derail our lives.”

He pulled the seat beside him out and gestured for Marjan to join him, while the conversation continued over the table. 

“It’s not about understanding,” Judd said, “it’s shapes and colors and music, and it keeps her attention longer than anything else right now. God help us, if you ever have kids one day, Chavez, you’ll take the wins where you can get ‘em.”

“Sure. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you just like the show, right?”

Judd threw his hands up. “How do I even begin to answer that?”

Marjan rolled her eyes and took the offered seat beside TK, who finally started to dish himself some dinner. 

“By admitting that you like the show,” Nancy prompted. “It’s not actually that hard, Tex.”

“Bandit’s a great dad,” Mateo pushed, his smile curling with sinister intent. “Maybe he inspires you?”

“Ah, I hate y’all,” Judd groaned, waving them away like gnats. It didn’t obscure the fond smile on his face.

“We hate you too, Judd,” TK said in a warm, affectionate tone. 

-

“126 be advised, call elevated to Priority 2. Patient is reporting bullet wounds in both legs.”

Nancy let out a low whistle and returned her water bottle to the cup holder. “Seriously? What is this, a mob hit?”

From the back of the ambulance, Tommy leaned toward the port window to be heard. “Police are on the scene?”

“Should be there already, Cap,” TK answered, turning onto the residential street that dispatch had sent them to. As they rounded the corner, three separate squad cars came into view, their lights flooding the run-down houses with red and blue. 

TK stopped the rig in the middle of the street and put it in park, reaching for his radio as soon as he had a hand free. “Medical 126 arriving on scene, waiting for All Clear.”

Nancy unbuckled her seatbelt and relaxed back into her seat to wait for the go-ahead. She frowned at the ranch style home to their right, with one boarded-up window and no fewer than sixteen sun-faded flamingos in the overgrown yard. “Weren’t we just in this area for an OD call, like, two days ago?”

“One street over,” TK sighed. “The guy with all the face tattoos.”

Nancy winced. “Oh. Right.”

The guy with the face tattoos hadn’t made it.

“Area secured,” Dispatch intoned. “All-clear, 126.”

It set them in motion. Doors were thrown open; bags of gear were slung over shoulders. Nancy and TK pulled the gurney from the back as Tommy made her way toward the nearest officer on scene for more information.

“You know,” Nancy observed, pushing the gurney from the back while TK took the front, “some of these houses are actually kinda cute. They just need a bit of love.”

He offered her a wry grin. “I bet the real estate values are great, too.”

“Oh, are you kidding? Bullet holes are the new shiplap.”

He grinned as they approached the front steps of the house, his back momentarily turned toward it so he could lock the wheels into place. “You know, I’ve heard that. We must be watching the same HGTV shows.”

The porch, old and sagging even from a distance, groaned under his feet as TK mounted the steps and crossed to the front door. He pulled the screen door open without much fanfare, propping his elbow against it as he adjusted his medical bag. “EMS,” he called, loud enough for officer directly inside to hear. He kept the screen propped just long enough for Nancy to grab it behind him before he headed inside.

The smell hit him hard, ripe and chemical and nauseatingly familiar. TK winced, recoiling just enough that Nancy nearly walked into his back. She stopped short when she smelled it to.

“Aw, ew. Drug house,” she groaned.

An officer was lingering in the cramped entryway, looking into the living room. He turned when they entered, his expression stuck in a deep frown. TK had a fraction of a second to wonder why he was so pissed off before the man shuffled aside. 

“Right there,” he said, pointing a gloved hand into the room. TK nodded mutely and squeezed past him.

For the most part, the room was empty. A stained camp chair was set up beside an old Franklin stove, both of which were heaped in empty cans and pizza boxes. A thread-bear rug was laid out on the hardwood, some misplaced attempt at sprucing the room up. A few other officers were in the room, presumably lingering after they’d cleared the house and come up empty.

Up against one wall, a half-deflated air mattress held their patient. 

The man was moaning, slumped halfway against the wall with his legs splayed over the edge of the air mattress. Dark, tacky blood was shining around his knees, where a collection of old t-shirts had been stuffed to stem the bleeding.

TK crossed the space in three strides and knelt at the man’s feet, setting his heavy bag on the floor beside him. “Sir, we’re paramedics with Austin Fire,” he said by way of introduction. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The man moaned, low and deep. “Fucker shot me.”

That much was obvious. TK frowned down at the mess of fabric and blood around the guy’s knees and reached to peel back one of the t-shirts that had been pressed there. The guy moaned again, louder, just as TK realized how coagulated the blood was on the shirt.

He was opening his mouth to ask exactly when the man got shot, when a voice interrupted. 

“TK?”

He looked up, a surprised blink breaking his focus. Across the room, one of the officers who had been standing with his back to them when they’d entered had turned around.

It took a second for TK to process it. “Carlos?”

It wasn’t entirely unusual for them to show up on the same calls. Carlos and his partner patrolled a portion of the 126’s district, which meant they’d see each other from time to time among the flashing lights and radio chatter. But in recent months, with Cherry making a growing impact on the Austin metro area, Medical was being routed further afield to make up for gaps in coverage. TK hadn’t seen his fiance on a call in weeks.

“What are you–” Carlos asked, before stopping short when he realized it was a stupid question. He looked panicked. Why did he look panicked?

Nancy came up beside TK to pick up the slack that his surprise had made, but it didn’t stop TK from staring. His focus had shifted from Carlos to what he had been looking at, before he’d heard TK’s voice and turned around.

On the far side of the living room, lit up with a half-knocked-over floor lamp, a collage of images and newspaper articles had been pinned to the wall. Spray-painted across the whole collection was the word PIG in angry red letters. 

On autopilot, TK looked back at the patient to find Nancy leaning over him, already at work. Tommy had entered the living room as well, taking in the scene with more care than TK had. Her eyes tracked from the patient to her team to the wall across the room, and she slowed to an uncertain stop.

“Our patient has some strong feelings about law enforcement, I take it,” she observed as she came up along TK’s other side. 

He was staring at Carlos again. The hairs on the back of TK’s neck were beginning to rise. 

Nancy and Tommy were addressing the patient directly. TK stood and stepped back to make room, his eyes never once leaving his partner’s. 

Carlos started to look over his shoulder, stopped himself, and then crossed the room toward TK. He shook his head, but didn’t seem to know what to say. 

“Carlos,” TK said quietly. “What is that?”

“You don’t need to,” Carlos started, and then stopped himself, and tried again. “It’s not something that you should–”

TK stepped to the left, and Carlos lifted his arm automatically to block him. It was all the incentive TK needed to push past Carlos and cross the room.

“TK,” Carlos tried again, pivoting to intercept. The room was too cramped for him to manage it.

Up close, the photographs on the wall had a shared subject: Carlos Reyes. One was his professional photograph from when he graduated the academy; another was a newspaper article with his picture front and center, about how he had tracked down several escaped convicts who had abducted a paramedic crew; to the left of the collection, Carlos’s Facebook profile picture smiled back at TK, all white teeth and dimples and sunglasses nestled among his curls. In each one, his eyes had been X’d out with a ballpoint pen.

In the center of the wall, stuck in place with the blade of an old pocket knife, was a hot pink sticky note. Familiar handwriting was scratched in black ink across it, Carlos’s blocky letters staring back at TK from beneath the knife.

Thirsty little slut. Papi’s gunna punish you when you get home.

A hand on his shoulder gently guided his attention away from the wall. “TK,” Carlos said evenly. He stared back at his fiance without really seeing him, his heart pounding in his ears. 

“Listen to me,” Carlos was saying. “You need to breathe, okay?”

The room was tilting somehow, if only barely. TK looked back toward the patient in a daze to find both Tommy and Nancy watching him, their hands paused in the middle of their work. Carlos said his name again, and his voice sounded a hundred miles away.

It felt like his stomach was filling with gasoline. TK crossed the room in a blur, pushed past the officer in the entryway, rushed over the creaking porch and down the crumbling cement steps. He grabbed onto the bright yellow grip of the gurney with both hands, the blue gloves on his hands creaking from the tight hold. 

His heart beat in his ears like an advancing war drum. TK craned his neck, but all he could see were cops and emergency vehicles and flashing lights. Fear twisted to rage twisted back to fear, abject and nauseating. He wanted to punch Collin McIntire in the face so hard that he would feel his own knuckles crack. He wanted to curl up in Carlos’s arms and hide.

He felt a hand settle between his shoulder blades, and he whirled around. Carlos stood his ground beside him.

“He was here,” TK rasped. 

Carlos answered with a grim nod.

“He wanted you to see that.”

The muscles in Carlos’s jaw flexed as he rolled them out, anger and anxiety clear on his face. “Just breathe,” was all he said.

For the briefest instant, TK was irrationally, unbelievably angry at him. “He could be nearby,” he ground out, but just as fast as the anger had appeared, so did an urge to cry, and TK forced himself to take a ragged breath to stave it off. It only barely worked.

Because even though Carlos was right there, even though they were surrounded by armed law enforcement, it didn’t matter.

TK had never felt so unsafe.

Chapter Text

“Stop scratching it,” Carlos muttered under his breath.

TK, who had been rubbing small circles into the bruising on his temple to relieve its infuriating itch, switched from three fingers to just his middle one, and kept rubbing. Carlos huffed a faint laugh through his nose, but said nothing else.

They’d been sitting there for almost an hour. The bench looked like a prop from Dead Poets Society, polished walnut with curving details that no mass manufacturer would bother with these days. There was a small plaque on it, brass lettering that read Dedicated to the memory of Officer Something Something. TK hadn’t paid close attention to it when they’d first sat down.

All around them, the police precinct buzzed: the fluorescent lights buzzed, the phones buzzed, the overheated computer towers buzzed. Occasionally, radio chatter would interrupt the late-night cacophony. It was an uncomfortable soundtrack to the anxiety broiling in his stomach; it rolled in and out like a tide, sometimes calming to the point where TK felt like complaining about the wait, other times spiking to the point that he had to count his breaths and force himself to not jump up and pace.

Mostly, they just sat in silence.

Somewhere down the hall, a photocopier beeped. It must be weird, TK thought absently, working somewhere without tones going off at random. Weirder still that there wasn’t a bunk room to go take a nap in. God, he was tired.

In his back pocket, his phone began to vibrate. It took him a minute of awkward fumbling, made worse by his wrist brace, for him to fish it out. Dad, the screened informed him, followed by an emoji of a little man doing a face mask.

If he’d been alone on the bench, he may have ignored it. With Carlos watching him out of the corner of his eye, TK reluctantly answered.

“Hey,” he greeted, his voice cracking from stress and disuse. 

“Hey, son. Just got to your place. Anything specific you want me to grab?”

TK closed his eyes and scrunched up his nose, reaching fruitlessly into his memory for something that sounded reasonable. It was all so insignificant; what did he care what shirt he was wearing while there was some sociopath out there threatening his partner? “Um. There’s, uh… some pairs of hospital socks, with the little pads on the bottoms. The floor at your place is slippery as hell.”

“Translating that to mean ‘your house is very clean’,” his dad replied. “Consider it packed. Anything else?”

“I don’t know,” TK sighed. He glanced to his left, where Carlos was watching him with a neutral expression. “You want dad to grab anything specific?”

Carlos glanced down the hallway toward the bullpen, hardly more than a flick of his eyes, before he opened his palm to silently ask for the phone.

TK was more than happy to hand it over and go back to his quiet brooding.

“Hey, Owen,” Carlos greeted. He kept his voice down. “There’s actually something I need you to grab, in the bedroom closet. Two somethings.”

He looked down the hallway again before leaning back against the bench, the picture of careful composure. Carlos waited for a beat, presumably for TK’s father to make it over to the closet, before he continued. “There’s a small black case on the top shelf, tucked between the wall and the box of winter clothing. If you wouldn’t mind–... Yes… I keep the ammunition in the hall closet, in the firebox that has important documents in it.”

So much for brooding. TK pivoted toward him on the bench, his face morphing from blank confusion into an incredulous frown in the space of several seconds.

Carlos stoically ignored him. “That’s not the second thing, no,” he said, adjusting his grip around TK’s phone. “Although, maybe grab that firebox too.”

He had the decency to glance TK’s way when he said this. He was met with Gwyneth Morgan’s patented ‘we are going to have a strongly worded conversation about this later’ face. Carlos pressed his lips into a thin line and immediately looked away. 

“There’s a hard drive,” he said quietly, looking for a third time down the hallway. No one was nearby. “In the second drawer down in the closet, under some clothes. It has the case files on it.”

The sound that TK made wasn’t exactly a laugh, but it was close. He looked across the hallway at some framed portraits of various police chiefs, his eyebrows elevated in a ’can you believe the balls on this guy’ expression. None of the portraits reacted.

Which was probably for the best.

He wanted to be upset. About the gun that Carlos had been thinking about buying, or the “few articles” from Detective Washington that had somehow evolved into a hard drive with the entire case file on it. And for an instant, he was hit by a flash of incredulity and the deeply tempting desire to Make It A Whole Thing. But after the night they’d had – hell, after the last two months – nothing about the gun or the hard drive was surprising. 

If he was being honest with himself, neither were necessarily unwelcome, either.

“Thank you,” his fiance was saying. “Also, the strawberries in the fridge’ll go bad soon. If you have room to bring them.”

“Unbelievable,” TK muttered under his breath. The corner of Carlos’s mouth flicked into the briefest, most infuriating smile TK had ever seen, and he reached to snag his phone back. Carlos didn’t put up any resistance.

As soon as the phone was back to his ear, TK was speaking. “Do not get any ideas. Having sudden access to a gun and restricted police files is not a green light to do something stupid, dad.”

His father had the decency to sound surprised. “I– Honestly, TK, what am I going to do?”

“Something reckless and ill-advised,” TK answered immediately. “I didn’t come from a vacuum; I know what you’re thinking.”

He could practically see his father looking up toward the ceiling in exasperation. “I’m getting your things, and going right home. Which is what the two of you are going to do as soon as you leave the station. Okay?”

To the right of the bench, a door opened and a woman emerged. She was wearing a business-casual pantsuit and holding a World’s Okayest Mom mug.

Carlos was on his feet in a heartbeat. “Detective Washington,” he greeted stiffly.

TK’s cue to hang up.

“Okay, dad,” he sighed. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll text you when we leave the station.”

“Good. I want progress texts, young man. Every five minutes.”

“Oh my god, fine,” he replied flatly, before uttering a quick goodbye and ending the call. He was slower to his feet than Carlos had been; the tide of anxiety was rolling back in, more of a tsunami than a surge. After an hour of sitting in impatient silence, he was suddenly dreading the whole reason they were there.

The deputy chief’s office had slightly more personality than the rest of the precinct, by way of three office plants and a Garfield calendar on the wall. Framed diplomas and newspaper articles of cases past decorated the walls. Bookshelves were lined with identical binders, labeled with engaging titles like “Municipal Litigation Procedures” and “Victim’s Advocacy Unit 2006”. 

Behind a large oak desk, an older woman in uniform stood and gestured to two chairs in front of her. “Officer Reyes. Paramedic Strand,” she greeted. “Thank you for waiting. Please, have a seat.”

TK waited for Carlos to move before he followed. Detective Washington stepped toward the windows and leaned against a low cabinet like she’d been stationed there all night.

The woman behind the desk adjusted her glasses, and began. “Officer Reyes, you and I have met. My name is Deputy Chief Walters.” She looked between the two of them for a moment, her expression carefully neutral. “I’m sorry that we’re meeting under these circumstances, Mr Strand. Obviously, the situation that’s been unfolding is distressing.”

TK didn’t know what to say to that, so he remained silent. Carlos adjusted how he was seated and folded his hands in his lap. When TK glanced his way, he could see Carlos’s jaw flexing around some sort of restrained comment.

If Walters noticed, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Detective Washington has brought me up to speed on the Collin McIntire case, and I’ve read the statements you’ve provided. I want you to know that we’re taking this situation very seriously.”

“Very seriously,” Carlos repeated, in a tone that managed to sound civil while heavily implying it was bullshit. “Now that he’s threatened a police officer, you mean.” 

TK knew that look, knew the way his shoulders stiffened, from the few arguments they’d had over the course of their relationship. It was like watching a tornado begin to form.

Walters didn’t flinch. “The way that things have escalated has had us re-examine priorities, yes,” she answered. “We’re concerned for everyone’s safety, Officer Reyes."

“My fiance,” Carlos said, carefully emphasizing the word, “is a member of this city’s First Responder family. He’s been stalked and harassed for months. He’s been assaulted. So forgive my frustration if things are only considered ‘escalated’ now.”

“Reyes,” Detective Washington warned quietly, giving him A Look.

“It’s alright,” Walters said. “You’re right, officer. Stalking cases are difficult to build, and in this case, difficult to investigate. Even after Mr Strand was pushed down those stairs, finding leads has been slow. Which you know, given that you’ve been accessing the case files from the beginning.”

Carlos’s expression didn’t change. It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact, and he wasn’t about to deny it. Walters, at least, didn’t seem bothered. Both of them stared at one another, some sort of invisible chess game unfolding between them as they sized each other up. 

TK was too tired to wait it out. He turned toward Detective Washington. “You’re a Missing Persons Investigator, right?”

Washington reluctantly pulled her gaze away from the brewing storm on TK’s right-hand side. “That’s correct, yes.”

“Okay. So, no offense,” TK said slowly, “but why are you involved in this case in the first place? I’m not missing.”

Washington took a deep breath and adjusted how she was leaning on the filing cabinet. “You’re not, no,” she agreed. “So that’s a fair question. I’m here because in a way, McIntire is missing. By choice, I’m assuming. Either way, my department has the resources and experience to find people who are off the radar.”

Carlos finally looked away from Walters, who appeared unphased by his stare-down. “I asked for her help,” he added. “At least in the beginning.”

“Well, your instinct to do so was a good one,” Walters said. “Seeing as this case now involves an actual missing person. The information you reported to us this morning has helped make that abundantly clear.”

Washington reached behind her, and picked up a manila folder from the top of the filing cabinet. “Does the name Amelia Rogers mean anything to either of you?”

TK frowned, pausing to let the name sink in. When nothing came to mind, he glanced at Carlos, who had a far off look on his face like he was connecting things in his mind. Even so, he shook his head in a hesitant ‘no’. 

“Reyes, you brought Harvey Blankshire in earlier this afternoon to give a new statement regarding his relapse a few weeks ago. The officers who took his initial statement didn’t make note of the woman’s name who Mr Blankshire was on a date with that day.”

“Amy,” Carlos muttered. Washington nodded in confirmation, the corner of her mouth lifting in a small, satisfied smirk. 

“McIntire has a history,” she explained. “Mostly from his time teaching at UT. Several grad students filed a petition to have him removed from the faculty, due to inappropriate behavior. Favoritism, unwanted advances, unprofessional relationships. All instances where he used his power to try and influence a select few students. One of those students was Amelia Rogers.”

Washington flipped open the folder as she spoke and thumbed through its contents before selecting a piece of printer paper. She handed it to TK, who held it at an angle so that Carlos could see it too. It was a laserjet photo of two people: Collin McIntire, imposingly tall in a blazer and chinos, with his arm around a much smaller blonde woman who was grinning from ear to ear. She was holding some sort of framed award in her manicured hands.

Before either of them could speak, Washington handed them another photo. This one was of much poorer resolution, taken from a security camera. It appeared to be a video still, in which Carlos’s blue Camero was parked on the side of the road, flanked by a woman in mid-motion. Obscuring her face was a halo of blonde hair; in her hands was a familiar backpack.

A wave of dizziness hit TK, and he realized he hadn’t taken a breath in several seconds. He forced himself to inhale, and let Carlos take the photographs from his hand without any resistance. 

Detective Washington placed the rest of the file on the desk in front of TK, presumably for Carlos to look through when he was done staring at the photos in his hands. “Amelia Rogers was reported missing by her parents almost a year ago,” she said, “when she stopped returning their calls. At the time, everything about her case suggested that she had gone no-contact of her own free will.”

“And you think you found her,” TK concluded. To his own ears, his voice sounded quiet and far away. He looked across at Deputy Chief Walters without really seeing her.

“We do,” Washington confirmed. She took a deep breath, and sighed. “I think she’s the one who pushed you, Mr Strand.”

For a moment, no one said anything. The statement echoed through the room like a bell had been struck, and the ringing in TK’s ears didn’t help. Still, something snagged at his focus.

“But… why would she help him,” he asked, reaching for exactly what he was trying to ask. “If she signed a petition to get him fired?”

Washington glanced at TK like he’d said something unexpected, and that same fleeting look of approval crossed her face. “She didn’t. The students who filed it referenced an unprofessional relationship,” she explained.

“Between McIntire and Rogers,” Carlos concluded. 

“Allegedly,” Walters allowed. “Which brings us to the other piece of this investigation. Up until a few months ago, McIntire had been fixated on someone else.”

TK leaned back in his chair, suddenly enough for it to creak. “Someone who works at the hospital. St Davids.”

Walters frowned. “... Yes. Should I be concerned that you know that, Mr Strand?”

He was too shell-shocked by new information to feel properly unnerved by her stare. “I… When I first encountered McIntire, on a call,” he explained haltingly. “He said he wasn’t allowed at the hospital. I don’t know why, but it stuck with me. Last time I was there, on a call, I asked hospital security if he was banned. They said someone had a restraining order against him?”

He wasn’t sure why he phrased it like a question. Perhaps some small, childish part of him was hoping that either Walters or Washington would tell him he was wrong, or at least mistaken. That they’d have something to disprove the idea. 

The fact that both Walters and Washington nodded in understanding did nothing for his elevating heart rate. 

“The individual who works at St Davids was one of the then-grad students who reported McIntire,” Washington explained. “Apparently, McIntire losing his job at UT didn’t curb his fixation on this person. What we don’t know is why, after all this time, he started fixating on you instead.”

TK pressed his brace-free hand against his face, smoothing out his eyebrows before pinching the bridge of his nose. He made sure he was breathing, made sure he hadn’t locked his knees. Tried to take some deep, deliberate breaths, but it was proving easier said than done. 

On the one hand, having actual information was a massive relief. The ambiguity of their situation – the unknowns, the guessing, the anxiety of it all – had been one of the most exhausting parts of what was happening. It had been like trying to grab smoke, just to find a concrete explanation for all the incidents that had happened. 

On the other hand, Detective Washington tying it all together made it real, and impossibly big. And at the end of the day, it only explained a fraction of what was going on.

“So, hold on,” TK said, reaching up with his other hand so he could rub both his eyes. “Why did we find a murder mural full of Carlos’s pictures in some random drug house? Who the hell is the guy whose knees had been shot out?”

It was immediately clear from the way that both Washington and Walters adjusted their postures that they did not have the answers to those questions. Walters, for her part, leaned back in her chair and sighed. 

“We don’t know that yet,” she said. “But this… ‘murder mural’,” she quoted, gesturing at TK as she spoke, “is what has escalated this case beyond stalking. Coupled with the information we learned this morning from Mr Blankshire, we have to approach this whole situation very differently.”

Carlos, who had pulled the case file off of the desk and had been flipping through it, finally looked up. “There’s a report in here about Cherry.”

Walters nodded. The level of composure she was projecting would put any defense attorney on edge. “We suspect that’s what they were manufacturing in the house you both responded to tonight. Someone cleared out the kitchen pretty good, but not good enough. How it ties into the rest of this, though, we aren’t sure yet.”

TK’s phone buzzed. He stared down at the open file in Carlos’s hands, willing it to provide answers.

“As for now,” Walters was saying, “next steps include you both having a secure place to stay.”

Carlos was watching the deputy chief closely, although now, his expression was more open, more vulnerable. Not necessarily afraid, but clearly concerned. “We’re staying with TK’s father,” he said. “Fire Captain Strand.”

“Good.” Walters took a deep breath and nodded. “We’ll get the address from you, and make sure a squad car rolls by every so often. We’re considering the mural you found to be a direct threat to you, Officer Reyes.”

Carlos nodded, but didn’t say anything. He looked back down at the open file in his lap, but his gaze was as distant as it was troubled. 

TK’s phone buzzed again. Reluctantly, he pulled it from his back pocket and found a text from his father. It’s been five minutes, TK.

“And Mr Strand,” Walters said. TK looked up abruptly, almost startled by her direct acknowledgement. She caught him with direct eye contact the way a crosshair catches its target. To his surprise, he found something like empathy in her eyes. “I’m sorry this is happening to you,” she said. “To the both of you. We’re going to do everything we can to see an end to it.”

Despite her unflinching stoicism, TK had trouble finding comfort in her promise. 

-

The next morning, the hum of an unfamiliar A/C unit and the smell of challah bread French toast pulled TK from a restless sleep like a dragnet scraping the ocean floor. It took him a few seconds longer than it should have to recognize the guest room at his father’s house.

He remembered hearing Carlos get up earlier that morning, remembered a kiss pressing against his cheek and a reassuring promise that he’d leave some coffee in the pot for him. Somewhere downstairs, he could hear his father’s voice reverberating up through the house, but couldn’t discern the tone. A conversation, maybe with Carlos, maybe with Mateo. Maybe with both.

TK wished he could find some reassurance in their presence. His tenuous grip on control had been knocked loose the night before, and along with it, his sense of safety. He hadn’t seen McIntire since he had confronted him at that Tuesday meeting, but somehow, the man had made himself seem omnipresent.

He gathered some of the duvet in his arms and buried his face in it to muffle a groan. All night, he’d dreamed of gunshot wounds and abandoned houses and hands grabbing his ankles from underneath parked ambulances. He didn’t feel rested at all, and didn’t want to go back to sleep for fear of more nightmares.

If you were high, a small whisper suggested from the back of his mind, you could numb all of this out.

TK threw the covers off and forced himself out of bed, a surge of frustration chasing the thought away as fast as it had come. 

Out in the hallway, he could hear the conversation downstairs more clearly. Mateo was speaking, some fragmented thoughts about the Bronx and Brooklyn, to which his father informed him that they were, in fact, two separate boroughs. TK didn’t hear any more context before he closed the bathroom door behind him and sealed himself back into relative silence.

In the mirror over the sink, he met his own gaze. He looked terrible: his eyes were dark with shadows, his hair messy. The bruising on his temple was sunset yellow, and seemed to have grown larger in the final stages of healing. The pink scar where he’d had stitches removed stood out like it had been drawn in marker. He needed to shave, and shower, and floss, and then get at least twelve hours of actual sleep. He needed to not have a goddamn stalker.

The shirt he’d slept in – which his father must have grabbed the night before, when he’d gone to their apartment to pack – was from a deli in Manhattan that had been two blocks from his father’s station. The graphics were faded from years of wash cycles, and there was a small tear under the collar. Resting on top of it, the silver emblem of the 252 hung around his neck where it always did. 

TK touched it absently, and wondered what his uncles would have to say about all this. Probably, they’d have already rounded McIntire up and kicked him into paste.

They’d been really protective of him when he was a kid.

A knock on the bathroom door jolted him from the thought before he could go any further down the rabbit hole. He took a deep, uneven breath. “Yeah?”

“You okay,” Carlos asked, his voice muffled through the door. TK released the breath in a sigh, and moved to open it.

Carlos didn’t look much better than he did, but he had a coffee mug in one hand and smelled like aftershave. 

“I have never felt better than I do right now,” TK answered, making a point of lifting his chin so Carlos could appreciate the bags under his eyes. “I could climb K2.”

“You look it,” Carlos agreed, leaning in and placing a kiss against TK’s lips. “Before you go, I brought you coffee.”

TK accepted the mug, grateful for his father’s expensive taste as soon as it hit his tongue. They stood in the doorway to the bathroom in silence for a moment, their foreheads tipped together, before Carlos gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“I’m going to give you a heads up, because I love you,” he said gently. “French toast is a bribe.”

He couldn’t help it; TK laughed. “You’ll learn, with time, that my father only makes French toast when there’s bad news. Do you wanna tell me what it is?”

Carlos hesitated, and then cupped his hands around TK’s grip on the mug and lifted it to steal a sip. “He’s going to suggest that we go to New York, for a little while,” he said quietly.

TK frowned. He said nothing for a long moment, gradually allowing himself to entertain the idea. 

Carlos seemed to misread his silence as upset, because he leaned back and cleared his throat. “He read the case files,” he explained, “and honestly, I don’t know that he’s wrong. Getting some space from Austin would get us both out of that bastard’s reach, and it’d probably be good for our mental health, too. It’s not exactly how I envisioned leaving Texas for the first time, but your dad said there are plenty of people we can stay with, and museums to go to, and–”

“It’s a good idea,” TK interrupted. Carlos trailed off, studying his face for signs of hesitation, but TK was too tired to be anything but honest. “I think it’s a good idea,” he repeated. “We can see Jonah.”

This earned him a smile, tired but genuine. “Yeah,” Carlos agreed. “That’d be nice.”

“And, who knows,” TK shrugged, “maybe while we’re gone, this whole situation will resolve itself.”

The smile on Carlos’s face turned wry, but he didn’t shoot the idea down. “One can hope,” he agreed.

Outside, a squad car rolled by. Several car lengths behind it, so did a silver Subaru outback.

Chapter Text

“The Met,” Owen said, the same way that someone talked about water being wet or the sky being blue. “Obviously, the Met.”

TK teetered his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “Always liked MoMA more.”

“That’s your mother’s influence,” his father huffed. “The Met is the quintessential New York City art museum experience. There’s a Lagerfeld exhibit.”

“Yeah,” TK laughed, shaking his head in exasperation, “a temporary one. And, point of order, mom’s favorite was the Guggenheim. Which she can have, for all I care.”

“Well, now, hold on,” Owen said, holding up his hand as if he were gesturing for TK to pump the brakes, “the Guggenheim was special to us. We went on some pretty great dates there back in the day.”

“It’s a giant ADA ramp, dad,” TK said. “And I don’t think any of this is relevant, because Carlos is probably more of a Natural History Museum guy anyway.”

“The man who’s afraid of lizards? Really?”

They’d been going around in circles for over two hours now, set off like a controlled burn after Carlos had asked one simple question. Unassuming and innocent, TK’s Texas-born, Texas-raised fiance had wondered aloud if it would be difficult to get to Times Square. “Just seems like a box to check, if we’re going all the way there,” he had said.

When they’d bought plane tickets earlier that week, TK had been envisioning small brick-and-mortars and the locations of childhood memories. There was a vintage shop in SoHo, a city park on the Lower East Side, and the best Bodega sandwich on the Eastern Seaboard in Brooklyn. He’d been imagining convenient public transit, and watching Carlos’s reaction when he saw the city-center high school TK had attended. Maybe, if they happened to be in the area, they’d go to the top of the Rock for the view.

But never in a million years would it have occurred to him to go to Times Square.  

This was apparently a sentiment he shared with his father, who reacted as if Carlos had suggested they dunk their heads in the Hudson and drink. In his usual fashion, he dove into a long explanation of where “real” New Yorkers go, stalwartly ignoring TK’s reminder that he was from California. If Carlos hadn’t been on his way out the door, he’d probably still be trapped on the couch beside TK, listening to the rough draft of Owen Strand’s Official Guide to Manhattan.  

TK checked his phone. 12:28pm. Three Instagram notifications, one long-ignored Duolingo push, and a stack of messages from the 126 group chat that he hadn’t read yet. But nothing from Carlos in the last ten minutes.

Owen glanced up from the laptop on the coffee table just in time to catch TK looking at his phone. “He’s fine,” he said, in the ‘I just know these things’ manner that he often did. “He’s with Detective Washington.”

TK released a sigh that turned unintentionally into a groan. “I know, it’s not that. It’s the other person he’s with.”

His father nodded and considered him for a long moment, rolling his lips together while he thought. Eventually, he asked, “Do you regret not going with him?”

“No,” TK answered immediately, though he was sure the confused frown on his face gave him away. “At least, I don’t think so? The less I know about his last stalking victim, the more I’ll be able to enjoy New York. But there’s this… morbid curiosity, I guess.”

Owen sat back on the couch and took a deep breath, his eyes lingering on their gathered research spread across the coffee table. “Yeah, that makes sense. But whatever you would learn from going, Carlos is going to learn. And you won’t have to deal with the anxiety of actually being there.”

TK bounced his eyebrows and said nothing. He didn’t have the energy to unpack everything with his father, not when he didn’t understand his own feelings. Whatever they were, they could be summed up with “bad” and “uncomfortable”, two things that Owen would try and fail to fix if TK admitted to them. So instead, he pointed at the laptop and asked, “How much do you think a car rental would be?”

Bless him, Owen Strand could recognize and out when he saw one. “Depends on how long you want it for,” he pondered aloud. “What did you have in mind?”

“The Palisades, I think.”

“New Jersey? Tyler Kennedy Strand,” his father scolded. 

Through a laugh, TK reached for the laptop before his father could move it further from his reach. “He’s going to get tired of the city, dad.”

“That’s exactly why Central Park is there.”

“That’s not nature,” TK argued. “Here, I’m going to text him, and he’s going to love the idea, and you’re going to have to accept that New Jersey is going to ruin your perfect plan for our trip.”

-

What the cafeteria at St David’s Medical Center lacked in natural light, it more than made up for in grab-and-go yogurt options. Carlos had counted each brand and flavor four times to try and calm his nerves, to minimal effect.

In his back pocket, his phone chimed. He pulled it out immediately, grateful for the distraction, and felt some small twist of relief at the sight of TK’s name.

We should rent a car and get out of the city for a day, the text read. A split second after reading the first message, a second came in: Say yes so i can win an argument with my dad 

A smile curled one corner of his mouth. Then my answer is obviously yes, he wrote back, the little letters popping as he typed.

Carlos was of two minds about what he was about to do. On the one hand, the McIntire puzzle was infuriatingly incomplete, and if there was one thing Carlos Reyes hated, it was an unsolved mystery. On the other hand, interviewing McIntire’s previous victim would be the opposite of objective, knowing that whatever this man reported to them could happen to the love of his life.

So, he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt, but “bad” and “uncomfortable” did a pretty good job of summing it up.

“Reyes,” Washington called, shaking him from his fifth yogurt count. Carlos turned to find that she’d wandered toward the entrance of the cafeteria, her expression neutral and her posture sharp. She was turned toward a newcomer, who spotted her immediately and started heading her way.

Tamping down on the exposed wires in his stomach, Carlos crossed the linoleum floor to join them. He realized on the way that he didn’t know what he’d been expecting. A TK look-alike, someone who had the same perfect smile and gentle eyes? Was that even possible?

“Mr De Luca,” Washington greeted. “I’m Detective Washington. This is Officer Reyes.”

The man who stopped in front of them wasn’t another TK. He was shorter, thinner. He had an olive complexion and dark brown eyes, which were rendered all the darker by the wine-colored scrubs he was wearing. What he did have in common with TK was that he was undeniably pretty.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he replied, though nothing about his expression or tone of voice suggested he meant it. He accepted Washington’s hand shake and glanced around quickly, like he was self-conscious of his coworkers spotting him there. “Charlie,” he clarified, needlessly tapping his hospital staff badge. 

“Charlie,” Carlos repeated. His chest was tight with an anxiety he desperately wished would go away. “Thank you for meeting with us.”

The man didn’t seem especially interested in polite conversation. He responded only with a brief nod, before Washington took the hint and gestured toward a table on the far side of the room, away from other people. As soon as they settled, Washington pulled a small notepad from her bag and clicked her pen. 

“With respect for your time, Mister De Luca,” Washington began, “I’d like to dive right into some questions. You understand that we’re here to talk to you about Collin McIntire?”

Carlos might have imagined it, but for a second, he thought he saw De Luca’s lip curl in disgust. If it happened at all, it was gone in a flash; he was holding himself very still, and with as neutral an expression as possible. “I understand,” he said. “Is he dead?”

The question hit both officers like a bucket of ice water. Washington recovered the fastest. “... No. Why do you ask that?”

De Luca cast his gaze down and to the side, a complicated show of disappointment and nerves. “Because the last time I saw him, he said he was going to kill himself.”

“And when,” Carlos asked carefully, “did you last see him?”

De Luca’s careful composure wasn’t holding up well. He glanced at Carlos, studying him for an uncertain moment, before planting both of his hands on his knees under the table as if to brace himself. He took a deep, uneven breath, and let it out with deliberate slowness. “Two months ago. At my mother’s wake.”

Washington paused in her hasty note taking and glanced up at him with a frown. “Your mother’s wake,” she repeated.

And there it was again, that lip curl. Anger that was only just barely tamped down, but this time, De Luca wasn’t able to recover his neutral expression. “Yes,” he repeated, heat in his voice that wasn’t directed at either of them. “He barged in and gave me some ultimatum. Her coffin was right across the room, me entire extended family was there, and he–”

He cut himself off and forced himself to take another deep breath. He avoided eye contact with both Carlos and Washington, and instead stared at the table top. “He’s been harassing me for years,” he said in a slow, measured voice. “Gifts, and letters, and notes that he managed to sneak into places he shouldn’t be. And when I rejected the gifts, when I sent them back or smashed them or left them rotting on the curb, he just sent them to my friends and family instead. Then, a few months ago, he showed up offering to pay off all my student loans.”

Washington arched an eyebrow. Without saying a word, she managed to convey what Carlos was thinking: that one might not be so bad, actually.

But De Luca shook his head firmly. “He’s a narcissist, and a sociopath,” he said. “Nothing is a gift to him, just insurance that you’ll owe him later.”

Something soured in Carlos’s stomach. Rapid-fire thoughts of roses and Thai food and little cardstock notes flashed through his mind. “When he made you that offer, what did you tell him?”

De Luca looked up at him through his eyelashes for a split second before turning his glare back to the tabletop. “My mother was dying. I was planning a funeral, consoling my sister, trying to track down my piece-of-shit father. Collin’s offer was such a transparent power move, so controlling, that on top of everything…”

His shoulders had hunched up around his ears in tension. His jaw flexed, and in the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria, Carlos thought he could see his eyes start to water. “I was picking up some wine. For the relatives that were coming in to say goodbye to my mother. I turn around, and Collin is standing there, acting like he’s going to fix all of my problems with his offer, and I…” He lifted his eyes from the table, forced himself to look from Washington to Carlos as he spoke. “I smashed a bottle against him. Kept throwing them until he was out of my sight. I don’t even know what I said to him, I just kept yelling. And then he was gone, and I paid for all the wine I’d destroyed, and I left.”

Washington jotted down a few brief notes. “And the next time you saw him was at your mother’s wake,” she said quietly.

De Luca nodded. “Told me that he was going to kill himself. That I’d ‘made my point’, as if the restraining order and years of open rejection hadn’t done it. I told him he’d be doing me a favor. But I guess it was a bullshit threat.”

Carlos swallowed. “I don’t think it was,” he said. “He OD’d about two months back.”

Whatever reaction he might have expected from De Luca, it wasn’t what he got. The man’s eyes drifted away again, a calculating quality behind his eyes, as if the new piece of information was morbidly fascinating. “On what,” he asked.

Carlos hesitated. He wasn’t sure what they could share, hadn’t thought they’d be asked such a direct question. He glanced at Washington, but she ignored him in favor of studying De Luca’s strange reaction. 

Sensing their hesitation, De Luca leaned back in his chair and took a careful breath, visibly bracing himself for something. 

“Was it Cherry?”

-

TK pushed the refrigerator shut with his hip and cracked his can of Coke. “Did you switch cleaning supplies,” he asked, padding toward the living room. “Your house smells like markers.”

From where he was sitting on the couch, Owen pivoted to direct the full brunt of his ‘how dare you’ expression TK’s way. “I’ve used the same eco-friendly, lavender-scented cleaning agents since we moved here.”

TK perched on the arm of the sofa and glanced at the hand-written itinerary that his father had been working on. “Yeah, well, you might have fried your olfactories with all those essential oils. It smells like Sharpies in this house.”

“It does not smell like–” he paused and sniffed the air, frowned, and sniffed it again. “... Okay, maybe it does.”

“Scoot,” TK muttered, shifting onto the sofa while being mindful of his drink. 

“You know, I bet it was Mateo,” Owen speculated. “He must have brought something in that wasn’t on the approved list.”

TK looked up from their travel notes with a raised eyebrow. “Approved list? Tell me you don’t actually have that.”

His father sat upright, as if fixing his posture would help him better justify his actions. “I didn’t have to have it until he used half a bottle of Resolve to clean up some spilled wine, and the house stank like carcinogens for a week.”

TK rolled his eyes. “Seriously, dad?”

“Well apparently, I was right to make the list!” Owen made a show of putting his pen down and standing from the couch, his nose in the air like he might be able to follow the scent to the source. “Because it really does smell like a permanent marker in here.”

“Well, maybe that’s what you get for being controlling.”

But his father was hardly listening. He stepped away from the couch, a frown set on his face as he cast his gaze aimlessly about the room. “I’m not being controlling if it’s my house.”

“You are being controlling if he’s your roommate,” TK corrected pointedly. “Look, don’t make it a whole thing, alright? I’m sorry I brought it up. Can we get back to this Eater article about Thai places in Brooklyn?”

-

“What makes you think that McIntire OD’d on Cherry,” Washington asked. She had sat back in her chair slowly, as though moving too fast might chase the subject away. 

Over the years, Carlos had seen the expression on De Luca’s face many times. Usually, it was the look people got when they had a secret to share, but were concerned about the consequences of sharing it. It was a fragile moment, while they sat and thought it through, and it was especially easy to change the person’s mind by pushing them to answer. 

Even so, De Luca didn’t seem like he would have met with them in the first place if he didn’t have something to share. Before either of the officers could prompt him with another question, he lifted his right arm onto the table and turned it so that the inner crook of his arm was exposed.

A stemmed cherry was tattooed across his tanned skin. 

“My mother’s nickname for me,” Charlie De Luca explained. “And definitely something Collin started calling me while I was in grad school, at the start of all of this.”

“Your nickname,” Washington clarified, “is Cherry?”

De Luca’s correction came immediately. “Was,” he stressed. “Collin ruined it for me. And then a fentanyl analog with the same name, containing the same compound we were working on back then, shows up in Austin. So you understand why I don’t go by that anymore.”

Carlos shook his head and leaned forward over the table, gesturing for them to take a pause. “Compound,” he repeated. “What do you mean? What were you working on?”

De Luca shifted in his chair and glanced around the cafeteria. It wasn’t just that he wanted to leave; it was that he was forcing himself to stay that put Carlos on edge. “I went to graduate school for biochemical medicine,” he explained. “I was on a research team that was focused on PTSI treatments. Specifically, a new compound that was showing promising results in early tests, where it was healing brain pathways damaged by traumatic events. Collin McIntire was the leading faculty member on the project.”

Fragments of an article flashed through Carlos’s mind, one of the many that Detective Washington had sent him on the down-low. The article had been about brain chemistry, about rewriting the narrative of PTSD.

“He was brilliant,” De Luca admitted. “What we were working on, it could have revolutionized the way we treat traumatic mental health events. The early lab results were so positive, so encouraging. But Collin’s behavior got out of control. He was– I can’t prove it, but I just know he was testing the compound on himself. We were nowhere near human trials, hadn’t even started thinking about FDA approval, but he was so confident that it was perfect, that it was good to go.”

There was a bitterness in his voice, at a future that had been stolen. Carlos set his jaw and chose his words carefully. “What would taking this compound do to a person, exactly?”

De Luca shrugged. “Based on early lab rat results? Euphoria. Addictive, profound euphoria. It was designed to work in a manner similar to an SSRI, to inhibit enzyme development that would otherwise break down the serotonin that the body naturally produces. Except this compound, it prioritized oxytocin development, what some people call ‘the love hormone’. You have to understand, this was supposed to be a treatment plan that paired with therapy. The whole idea hinged on human interaction being key to the healing process. But we never got past the initial testing phase, so, honestly? I have no idea what it might do to a person. Especially someone without a real need for it.”

“But you believe McIntire was taking it,” Washington clarified. 

“It was his baby,” De Luca said. “It was going to secure his tenure, cement his career, get his name in textbooks. I think he was trying to prove that it was perfect, by using it on himself. Like… Like Thomas Midgley Junior. When he invented leaded gasoline, he washed his hands with it to try and prove it was safe.”

Under the table, Carlos’s knee started bouncing. If he held himself with any more tension, he thought he might pull a muscle group. “What happened to the project?”

De Luca spread his hands out like the gesture would summarize his present circumstances. “Like I told you. He’s a narcissist, and a sociopath. He ignored ethics, crossed everyone’s boundaries, and ignored anyone who told him ‘no.’ He made that research project so toxic that everyone working on it left, including me. Didn’t take long for the funding to be pulled, after that. All that research is sitting in storage somewhere on campus, going to waste because of him.”

Washington was writing shorthand notes at a speed that Carlos had never seen before. “And you’re saying that you’ve seen this, or a similar compound, in the street drug, Cherry?”

De Luca crossed his arms in front of his chest tightly. “Yes. An old school mate works for the DEA. She called me when she recognized the compound from that project, asking for a second opinion.” He leaned over the table, the volume of his voice halving. “Listen. The only people who know the makeup of that compound are those of us who worked on that research project. Only four of us are still in Texas: one works for the DEA, one is me, and the other dropped off the radar as soon as the project ended. That just leaves McIntire.”

Carlos frowned. “The person who dropped off the radar,” he pressed, “was her name Amelia Rogers?”

Across the table, De Luca’s crossed arms shifted into something resembling a self-hug. That look of disgust flashed back across her face. “Yes,” he confirmed. “McIntire’s little sycophant. She was the only one who defended him when we submitted our formal complaint. Tried to paint us as jealous and resentful.”

Carlos swallowed hard. He flickered his gaze around the table, from De Luca to Washington to the notes she was keeping, and then back to De Luca. “And you think Cherry contains the same compound that you were all developing back then?”

De Luca shook his head. “I don’t think,” he said. “I know.”

-

“Are you getting a headache,” Owen called from the kitchen. “Because I’m getting a headache.”

TK would be lying if he said his head wasn’t starting to hurt. “A little,” he admitted, looking up from his laptop. “We can just open some windows, dad.”

Owen had been going through the cabinets under the counters in search of an offending cleaning product. So far, he hadn’t found anything. “How is it in the whole house? If he left the cap off or something, it should just be in one room.”

His father stood as he spoke, and swayed. He braced his hip against the edge of the counter and touched a hand to his brow. “Woof. Stood up too fast.”

Something crept across the back of TK’s neck. “Could it be some sort of gas leak,” he asked, a small amount of alarm in his voice.

“I– I don’t know,” his father admitted. He didn’t look like he was recovering from the rush of blood to his head. “Let’s open some windows.”

TK glanced around the room toward the sliding glass door that led onto the porch. If anything was going to vent the house quickly, it was that. 

“I’ll get the back doo–”

The sentence slurred to a stop as TK pushed himself to his feet. He braced a hand against the back of the couch to catch his balance, a wave of dizziness overtaking him. “Woah,” he groaned, reaching his wrist-brace-clad hand toward the coffee table to further stabilize himself.

“TK,” his father called, “you okay?”

He managed to glance over his shoulder toward the kitchen. Owen was still leaning against the counter. TK tried to stand upright, and the floor tilted under his feet. “Shit,” he rasped, alarm and confusion surging through him. “What–”

Something clattered in the kitchen. He looked up too quickly, the sudden movement sending the floor rolling underneath him. Across the room, his father had taken a few steps and had lost his balance, his full weight now leaning on the counter like it was a lifeline. He was halfway to the floor.

“Dad,” TK called, pivoting to try and head his way. He made it two steps before a wave of static erupted across his vision, momentarily blinding him. When it cleared enough for him to see again, he was on his hands and knees between the couch and the coffee table. 

-

“If I’m understanding you correctly,” Washington said, her voice deliberate and clear, “you are accusing Collin McIntire of manufacturing Cherry?” She set her pen down and folded her hands together on top of her legal pad. “That’s a big accusation, Mr De Luca.”

He shrugged, almost looking exasperated. “Look, believe me or don’t,” he said. “It’s not like law enforcement took my stalking reports seriously. I agreed to meet with you because if he’s still alive, and he’s still out there using this unregulated, untested drug, then there’s no telling what he might do. I’m convinced it's why his behavior was so erratic in the weeks leading up to him telling me he was going to kill himself. And if he’s out there adulterating fentanyl with it? I never want to see that monster again as long as I live, but I can’t keep quiet if he’s killing people.”

-

TK stayed on his hands and knees, and counted his breaths. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t think clearly. The floor shifted around underneath him, rolling like a nauseating tide. His shoulder hit the side of the couch and he leaned against it heavily, but it did nothing to steady him. 

From the kitchen, another clatter of sound. His father grunted; something smashed to the floor. TK lifted his head and blinked through his disjointed vision, struggling to clear his focus long enough to see what was going on.

Owen was reaching for something on the counter, his arm flailing with desperation. He was sagging to the floor, barely able to hold himself up on the counter’s edge. In his wild reach, something else got knocked over, before he wrapped his fingers around one of the knives in the knife block and turned around to face the direction of the front door.

There was a figure standing in the doorway.

-

“Do you know where we can find him,” Carlos asked. The strain in his voice was unprofessional, showing his hand to both Washington, who understood, and De Luca, who did not. He didn’t care. 

De Luca looked at him like he had asked the question in mandarin, and shook his head. A stupid thing, maybe, to ask a stalking victim where to find their stalker, but Carlos wasn’t thinking about De Luca anymore. His singular concern had zeroed to TK’s safety.

“Mr De Luca,” Washington was saying, though Carlos was hardly listening to her anymore, “I understand this was a difficult thing for you to share with us. I’d still like to ask you to come to the station and provide an interview. I think this will require more hands on deck.”

Carlos pulled his phone from his back pocket, and checked it under the table. No new texts after Carlos had agreed to a car rental. He typed out something quick and to the point. How are you holding up?

-

A thousand miles away, TK’s phone pinged on the coffee table. 

The figure stepped into the kitchen, inhumanely big. A respirator mask obscured the lower half of his face. He moved without urgency, easily keeping the island counter between him and the knife that Owen was drunkenly brandishing at him.

“TK,” his father slurred, a sharp desperation in his voice. He tried to pull himself up using the counter, and only managed to stumble and slump a few feet toward the living room. 

Still struggling to see straight, TK gripped the arm of the couch with white knuckles and tried to push himself to his feet. His heart was pounding in his ears, sometimes in double, sometimes in triple. The whole room swayed.

“Stay away from him,” his father demanded. TK almost didn’t recognize his voice for how much fear was loaded into the words. Breathing hard from his attempt at standing, TK looked up to find the figure looming into the living room, directly toward him.

A kick of adrenaline brought TK stumbling to his feet. Instinct had him take two steps toward his father before his knee buckled and the room tilted again, the hardwood rushing up toward him before he even realized he was falling.

Something strong hooked under his arms before he could hit the floor, holding him aloft. His feet dragged underneath him. The room spun. Disoriented and terrified, TK lifted his gaze to find the man directly in front of him, smile lines creasing the corner of his eyes. 

“Hello, Tyler,” Collin McIntire said, his voice muffled by the respirator. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

He was fine. Carlos was fine. 

(He wasn’t fine.)

He was calm.

(That was categorically untrue.)

He was in traffic, is what he was. Bumper-to-bumper with a lunch rush that had no business existing, not in a city with justifiable walking distances to bistros and cafes. But it was hot out, and there hadn’t been a proper wind in two days, and no one wanted to get sweaty and uncomfortable for a sandwich. So everyone was on the road with him, slowing his progress home to an infuriating crawl, because Texans insisted on driving absolutely goddamn everywhere.

Carlos forced himself to take a deep breath, and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. He was starting to sound like TK. 

Did you know, he could hear him say, that the average New Yorker walks ten miles a day? I mention this because you just took the car to a grocery store that is a ten minute walk from our apartment.

And Carlos would roll his eyes and say It’s ninety-four degrees outside, and I went for ice cream. Do you want any, or not?

He pulled the Camaro forward approximately two inches before stopping again, nose-to-bumper with the car in front of him. He reached for his phone, holding it up just high enough for his face to unlock it. On the home screen, nothing.

Nothing. How could there be nothing? So far, the reasons he had thought up included: 

1. TK and Owen were so deep down the rabbit hole of the NYC tourism board’s website that neither of them had noticed TK’s phone ping.
2. TK had fallen asleep, and Owen hadn’t thought to text Carlos because they were obviously still fine at home and nothing was wrong, so why would he?
3. TK had started to reply, only to be distracted by something. (Did the three little dots only appear when someone was actively texting? Would Carlos be seeing them if there was a half-typed message still in the queue?)

Because he knew what it wasn’t . It wasn’t that TK’s phone had died; Carlos had made sure it was charged that morning, before he left. And it couldn’t be that TK was just ignoring him, because Carlos had asked a direct and reasonable question in his last text. And it certainly wasn’t because TK didn’t understand the necessity of regular communication. In fact, when Carlos had left earlier that day, TK was the one who had insisted he text often and “respond to all of my bullshit, please.”

Traffic started rolling again. Carlos watched as one car after another pulled through the intersection ahead of him, slowly counting down the obstacles in his way. Stay green. Stay green. Stay green you miserable, self-serving, hostile piece of–

Carlos reached the front of the line just as the light turned yellow. With too much enthusiasm, he pushed on the gas and punched it through the intersection before it could hit red. Anyone who witnessed it would be rolling their eyes at the douchebag in a sports car who couldn’t tolerate even the briefest inconvenience. But he was moving again, finally, so he didn’t care.

Escaping gridlock shook loose the last of his patience. Carlos picked his phone back up, navigated to TK’s contact, and called him on speakerphone.

Tone. Tone. Tone. Carlos’s grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles flashed white. Tone. Tone. Did he turn his ringer off? Was it under the couch cushions? How could both Strands be deaf to a ringtone at a time like this?

“Hey, this is TK. I’m either out on a call or I’m out on the couch, so leave a message. Byyyyeee.”

“Shit,” Carlos whispered. The tightness in his chest reached for his throat. He forced himself to breathe evenly, and kept an eye on the speedometer. He had no siren to turn on, no red and blues to light up. No radio on his shoulder to call in for another unit, a closer unit, to check on the house. He wasn’t on the case, so he hadn’t been in uniform at the hospital, hadn’t taken a squad car. He was Civilian Carlos, navigating Civilian Traffic, in his stupid useless siren-free Civilian Vehicle.

In most things, Carlos Reyes liked to be right. He usually prided himself on his ability to read a situation and trust his gut, liked to think that his instincts were always spot on. He tried another call, pushing the volume on his own phone as loud as it would go, and listened to TK’s ringtone go, and go, and go.

He had never wanted so desperately to be wrong. 

-

The grip-strengthener in Judd’s hand may as well have been putty for how powerfully he was clutching it. He considered himself a patient man these days, but twenty minutes of talking in circles over the phone with Admin was wearing his grace plenty thin.

“No, listen, I understand that community programming is part of the budget. What I’m saying is that it's not a good time for school children to be hangin’ around at our station. We’ve got a bit of a situation– No, ma’am, I don’t think we’re in any danger here, but the guy causin’ all this trouble has been skulkin’ about nearby, and–”

On the other end of the phone, the woman he was speaking to started back up again with an observation she had made not but four minutes prior, and Judd stifled a groan. He was developing a new appreciation for how Owen got into trouble with the higher-ups so often. They were about as disconnected as they could get without working in another industry altogether. 

Judd’s slow pacing delivered him back into the community room, which he had wandered out of several minutes ago when Marjan’s Conspiracy Huddle had gotten a little too loud. The four of them – Marjan, Paul, Mateo, and Nancy – were still bunched together at the end of the sofa. Over Paul’s shoulder, Judd spotted the website for a local attorney’s office open on the laptop between them.

Judd set his jaw and turned away from the couch, suddenly and entirely at the end of his patience with the conversation. “Look,” he said, cutting the woman off in a way that she absolutely noticed, “y’all can take this up with Captain Strand when he’s back. But right now, I’m Acting Captain, and I’m not having school groups in my bay when the neighborhood ain’t secure. If you’ve got a problem with that decision, you let Austin PD know.”

He ended the call and glared across the room at the wall for a moment. The world didn’t stop just because it suited them, he knew that. Buildings kept burning, cars kept crashing, and more and more lately, people kept ODing. It didn’t mean they had to grin through a school visit like nothing was wrong.

At his back, the Conspiracy Huddle was carrying on with their conversation. “I would argue that these are extenuating circumstances,” Paul was saying. When Judd turned toward the group, he found the man gesturing at the laptop as if Endicott Law Firm PLLC possessed all of the solutions to their problems. 

“An attorney is going to cost money and take time,” Marjan disagreed. “Besides, what’s the point of a huge platform if I don’t use it to help the people I love?”

Nancy was shaking her head. “Putting social media pressure on Admin might help with the ‘time off’ problem, but I don’t think shining a massive spotlight on this guy is going to de-escalate things.”

“No, it totally will,” Mateo said, “he’ll have nowhere to hide! Listen, I think both ideas are good. Marjan’s followers can dox the shit out of that creep, and Paul can work the Admin angle. No way the City won’t grant TK more leave once we explain what’s going on.”

Judd took a deep breath and pocketed his phone. “City ain’t too happy with us right now, Chavez.”

Mateo waved his observation away like it was nothing more than a bad smell. “A psycho stalker who threatens cops with a murder wall isn’t exactly ‘within TK’s control’,” he said, air-quoting around the fine print on the Austin Public Employees benefits website. “We might not be able to get him paid leave, but we can’t let him lose his job because of this guy. Hence, the lawyers.”

In spite of himself, Judd let out an incredulous laugh. “What, y’all’re fixin’ to sue the City of Austin?”

“It’s not like TK has a lot of PTO or sick leave,” Nancy sighed. “He used just about all of it after that snow storm. If we can’t help stop his stalker…”

She glanced toward Marjan, who lifted her chin toward Judd. “We can at least help him on our end,” she concluded. 

The corner of Judd’s mouth pulled taut with a grin, a surge of pride shoving his earlier frustration aside. “Funny you should say that,” he said. “Just the other night, Grace suggested that we–”

Judd was loudly and immediately cut off by a tone, marking an effective end to the conversation. It blared one long note and three brief ones, the LED bar on the ceiling lighting up a brilliant blue: medical call coming in.

“Station 126, Engine 126, Medic 126,” dispatch read out, the disembodied voice carrying through the whole bay. “Private residence, four-one-two-seven northwest Birchwood Street. 10-39.”

Mateo went uncharacteristically still, with his eyes turning sharply toward the loudspeaker. “Hey, isn’t that–” 

Judd shushed him with sharp urgency. 

“Suspected gas leak in the home. Occupant still on site, requesting medical extraction.”

They looked at one another for an instant, realization dawning across the group. It wasn’t until Paul slammed the laptop shut that the spell was broken, and they all bolted for the bay. 

“That’s my,” Mateo called, a fragment of a sentence that was muffled and lost as he ducked to pull his turnouts on. Over the loudspeaker, dispatch was repeating the call, eliminating any chance that they had misheard the address. 

It was Captain Strand’s.

Judd hauled his coat onto his shoulders and shoved both arms into the sleeves in one practiced motion. Marjan, fastest gear-up in the West, was already hauling the passenger side door of the rig open and climbing in as the bay door rolled upward. 

“Judd,” Tommy called, rounding a corner at a jog. Her commanding voice carried over the tone, the engines roaring to life, the shouting of their teammates as they scrambled with the last of their gear. Judd locked eyes with her for a moment, something intangible passing between them that stirred an equal amount of anxiety and determination in his gut. He set his jaw and grabbed his helmet.

“Gas monitors out the second we arrive,” he called to everyone as they moved toward their respective sides of the engine. “We don’t waste a minute that we don’t need to waste!”

Further down the row of emergency vehicles, the 126’s ambulance roared to life, its lights piercing blue and red. “Masks on,” Tommy called as well, climbing into the driver’s seat like a knight mounting her steed. Judd tried to feel reassured that she would be on this call, but there was a vacuum opening deep in his gut. Instinct and habit moved him through the motions like it was any other call, but breathing down his neck was an onsetting fear he hadn’t had since… Since he first came back, after the explosion.

No time. Judd shook it off and hauled the driver’s side door shut behind him. He flipped the siren and lights on, pulled forward out of the bay, and tried not to think too hard about what the hell this call might mean. 

“10-4, dispatch. 126 en route.”

-

It started when Carlos rounded the corner onto Birchwood street, and happened in fragments after that. 

Emergency vehicles blocked the road as far as three house lengths down, and for a nauseating two minutes, Carlos could plausibly believe that they were there for another home. Maybe someone had fallen from a ladder, or had a heart attack. Owen had elderly neighbors.

He moved from his Camaro to the sidewalk in the space of a breath, the slam of the car door echoing in his ears. His pace was steady, eyes tracking the uniforms he passed as he made his way toward the house. He felt more detached from his body with each step he took.

He heard Judd before he saw him, voice booming into his radio, standing at the front of the 126’s engine. Carlos started toward the familiar face on instinct; Judd would tell him which house they were here for. He’d tell Carlos whether it was a fall or a heart attack. 

It dawned on him slowly that Judd was facing Owen’s home. That two firefighters were coming down Owen’s driveway, escorting a paramedic team all in respiratory masks. Pushing a stretcher.

Carlos was halfway to them before Judd even realized he was there. He barely heard the man shouting after him.

A hundred miles away, his hands gripped the side of the stretcher. “TK,” he demanded, his lover’s name ripping from his chest in a desperation he’d never felt before. Someone tried to grab him, pull him back, and he violently shook them off, shoved them back, reached for the gurney again. 

But the face under the oxygen mask wasn’t TK’s. 

“Carlos,” Paul demanded, grabbing him firmly by the bicep, “give ‘em room.”

He rounded on him, eyes wild, reaching for someone who wasn’t there. He choked the words out of his tightening throat. “What happened?”

“Captain Strand,” Mateo said, coming up behind Paul and pulling the respirator down and out of his way. “Called in a gas leak.”

He said something else, something about Owen being unconscious when they got there. He looked panicked, winded, like a kid trying to be an adult, gesturing after the gurney. Carlos stared at him and barely heard a word of it.

He was shaken from his dizzying panic by Paul, who spread his arms and took a step forward. Unconsciously, Carlos rooted his heels to the spot. He would not be herded. “Where’s TK?”

“The house isn’t clear yet,” was all Paul said, trying again to motion for Carlos to step back, step down, step away. He would have done less damage to Carlos’s nerves if he’d just punched him.

Somewhere behind them, Judd called out again. Closer, closing in. Paul stayed between Carlos and the open front door. A barrier; they were going to stop him from going inside. 

And Paul hadn’t answered his question.

“Where is he,” Carlos repeated, his words sharpening, his posture shifting. 

The only thing on his mind was TK, and the violence he was willing to do to get to him.

He felt Judd behind him, and he moved. Carlos pivoted his weight, led with his shoulder, faked almost imperceptibly to the left before rounding Paul on the right, shoving the man aside and barreling toward the front door. He was through the threshold in the next breath.

A chemical odor engulfed him, his feet skidding on the entryway rug from the speed he’d entered with. Carlos shouted TK’s name, putting every fiber of his strength into it, but it was Judd and Paul who answered, calling after him. Carlos kept moving; he wouldn’t be pulled back out until he found his partner. 

The kitchen counters were a mess; there was a knife lying abandoned on the tile. Nothing else was out of place, though, not in the living room where their trip notes were still spread across the coffee table, not in the hallways where he passed by two more masked firefighters with gas monitors in their gloved hands. He shoved onward, hardly noticed Marjan’s voice calling out his name in surprise. 

He rounded onto the stairs and stumbled against the wall. He shoved off of it, started up again, and lost his balance a second time. The heels of his palms hit the steps, his vision swimming. 

“TK,” he bellowed, and once more his own name came from behind, from people who didn’t matter. He tried to push himself up the wall, tried to keep climbing. Abruptly, a broad set of arms enveloped his waist and pulled him back down. 

He swung his elbow without looking, and a bolt of pain exploded up his arm from where it connected with Judd’s helmet. It did next to nothing to free him from the firefighter’s hold, especially not when Paul caught up and grabbed onto Carlos’s other arm.

He shouted TK’s name again as the house warped and twisted all around him. He was hauled, kicking and flailing, back through the kitchen, back through the foyer, back through the threshold. Daylight nearly blinded him. The world kept spinning.

“Goddamnit, Carlos,” Judd panted, depositing him inelegantly on the lawn. “He’s not here! He’s not inside!”

Carlos thought to pick himself up, to make another run at the front door, but his body didn’t respond. The world spun around him, nauseating and numb. His head felt light. 

“What happened,” he managed. He looked up to find that Judd had taken a knee in front of him, his mask pulled down from his face. His expression was grim.

“Judd,” Carlos tried again, desperation and fear curling into his voice. An errant thought crossed his mind, that surely Owen could tell them, and he gestured back toward the emergency vehicles with a broad sweep of his arm. “Where’s TK? Owen, what did he say, what did–”

Judd cut him off. “He’s unconscious,” he said, his words landing like lead. “Carlos, you gotta breathe.”

“No,” he snapped, rounding back toward Judd with fury in his lungs. The whole world made a dangerous lean to the left. “No! Where is he?”

“We don’t know,” Judd answered, desperation and fury and fear echoing in the admission. Carlos stared at him, denial clawing up his throat, a breath pulling into his lungs to argue back, to insist TK was somewhere inside, they just had to look. Judd never gave him the chance; his next words came with the finality of an executioner’s ax.  

“He’s gone.”

-

The volume dial glided easily under his touch, softening Dusty Springfield’s crooning so that he could better hear what the dispatcher was saying. From where it was affixed to his dashboard, the police scanner crackled out a few codes he didn’t fully recognize. Assisting a motorist, he thought. Not relevant after all; he turned the music back up. 

“They must still be responding to your father’s call,” he said over his shoulder, into the backseat. “He’ll be alright. The sedative doesn’t have any long-term effects. I would never do that to you.”

He turned on his blinker and changed lanes. He knew he should focus on the road, on maintaining the speed limit, but a rush of excitement overtook him, and he stole a glance into the rearview mirror. 

Tyler was lying across the backseat, breathing gently. It was easy to imagine that he was merely sleeping, to pretend they were on a long road trip together. It was an immensely comforting thought.

“Wishin’, and hopin’, and thinkin’, and prayin’,” Dusty sang. “Plannin’, and dreamin’, each night of his charms. That won’t get you into his arms!”

Collin McIntire turned his eyes back to the road and took a slow, measured breath. That morning, every nerve ending had been alive with electricity and dread, an agitation he had barely tolerated. He’d had fears, doubts, an impatience that bordered on hysteria. All his planning, and to think, it could have been derailed if that Pig had been there. He had been ready for it, of course, equally horrified and thrilled at the opportunity to put a bullet in that man’s chest. 

But it had been fate, hadn’t it? The Pig wasn’t there, and an opportunity was. 

And now Tyler was safe with him. And Collin was calm.

Chapter Text

Out of the ether, TK had a single coherent thought: Oh. There’s my water bottle.

It was sitting on the bedside table next to a low-level lamp, with the Supreme sticker and the dents and everything. He had lost it, hadn’t he? Left it at work, or… somewhere. But there it was, coming in and out of focus next to the bed, so obviously he had found it again. Or maybe Carlos had. Carlos was good at that sort of thing. TK closed his eyes.

The next time he opened them, his right arm was numb from how he was lying on his side. He forced himself onto his back and found that his body was sluggish and slow to respond, aching in ways that fever would induce. He was too hot; his head hurt. He managed a thin moan, and sank back into nothingness.

A while after that, Carlos lifted TK’s head gently off the pillow, and he opened his eyes just wide enough to see his water bottle being held to his lips. He allowed for a few sips before his gaze drifted upward. He was having a hard time focusing his vision – the man above him looked entirely too tall, too broad in the shoulders. Carlos rested his head back down on the pillow, and TK’s eyes drifted shut again.

Some time later, there were footsteps overhead. TK stirred in his sleep. The guest room at his father’s house was upstairs, wasn’t it? Were people working on the roof?

He opened his eyes and watched the ceiling sway, slow and lazy like a drunk afternoon. Unhurried, TK rolled his head to the side, clocking his water bottle again. It had been in his backpack, he remembered now. He hadn’t lost it after all; the poor thing had been stolen right out of Carlos’s car. 

All at once, the dizzying calm collapsed around him, and TK drew in a sharp breath. He fought against his own weight to sit up, his limbs weak and stupid in their drugged scramble. The sudden movement sent the room tilting all around him, and he pressed his shoulder against the backboard of the bed for support. With wild eyes, TK cast about the room, instinctively kicking the blankets off and away. His head throbbed.

It wasn’t the guest room at his father’s house. There was no natural light, no pictures of Central Park, no goose down pillows. TK pressed harder against the headboard as if he could disappear into the wall, every unfamiliar detail ratcheting his adrenaline higher. He could feel each pounding heartbeat, too heavy and plodding to be normal, to be healthy. He gripped a fist into the front of his shirt and tried to catch his breath, tried to calm down. 

Where the fuck was he?

Four white walls. No windows. A closed door in the corner; an open doorway into a small, cramped pocket bathroom to his right. The queen-sized bed he was on was flanked with side tables, which offered only the one lamp and his water bottle. Across from the foot of the bed, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a credenza. On its surface was a bouquet of roses in a green vase and a neat stack of folded clothes.

Without thinking, TK grabbed up one of the pillows on the bed and clutched it to his chest. He drew his knees up close, some instinctual move to protect himself, and felt something tug at his left ankle. 

Where he had kicked the blankets aside, he could see a long black cable snake away from him and off the bed. He twisted, breath hitching, and found it secured to a strap around his ankle with an o-ring. 

“What the fuck,” he rasped, shoving the pillow aside in favor of digging his fingers under the strap. He pulled, twisted, scratched, anything to try and get it off, but nothing impacted it. He knew the material; it was the same thing they used to restrain aggressive patients in the rig. This one appeared to be clamped shut with a small padlock. 

Fear ratcheted TK’s heartbeat into something irregular and painful. When he made no progress with the strap around his ankle, he grabbed up the cable, but it was the same material as a cable bike lock, soft plastic wrapped around threaded metal, and he knew it was useless even as he pulled at it. 

He hardly heard the door opening over the erratic sound of his own breathing. 

“Tyler, you’ll hurt yourself.”

His gaze snapped up, near feral with fear, to find Collin McIntire standing just inside the doorway with his hands up in a placating gesture. The man opened his mouth to speak, but he never got the chance; TK reached for the water bottle on the bedside table and flung it with all his strength. Collin pivoted and took the water bottle right to the shoulder, but aside from it drenching half of his flannel shirt, he didn’t appear phased.

“Let’s– okay, let’s calm down,” Collin said, sounding for all the world like he was the voice of reason. Before he was done speaking, TK reached for the lamp and tugged, but it stayed stuck to the bedside table. He spared it a fraction of a second, his wild eyes flashing over his shoulder toward it just long enough to see that it was bolted down. Black spots floated into his peripheral vision.

From the doorway, Collin sighed. “I understand this is jarring,” he said patiently, “but you still have a lot of sedatives in your system. You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t calm down.”

“What the fuck,” TK rasped, “what the fuck did you do to me? Where am I?”

Collin, whose hands were still raised in a patronizing appeal for calm, shook his head. “You’re home,” he said. “And you’re safe.”

“Safe,” TK repeated incredulously, his vision swimming. His heart was beating so hard in his chest it was rocking him, threatening to tip over his precarious balance. His head was pounding. “From you?”

If Collin reacted poorly to the question, the growing black spots in TK’s vision prevented him from seeing it. He pressed harder against the backboard and brought his knees up to his chest, in the desperate thought that if he had to, he could kick the man to keep him away. 

“From everyone else,” Collin implored. “Look, I understand this is a lot. You need to rest. You’ve had prolonged exposure to halothane gas, and it will take time for it to wear off. Once you can stay calm, we’ll talk.”

Indignation spiked TK’s heart rate even further. “You abducted me,” he shouted, his voice cracking in desperation, “and drugged me, and you think I’m going to–” He froze, a cold dread gripping his stomach. “My dad,” he panted, “what did you do to my dad?!”

Collin’s face morphed into a mask of sympathy and reassurance. “Nothing,” he stressed. “He inhaled the same general anesthetic you did, and that was all. I would never do anything to your father, Tyler. Not when you’ve already lost your mother.”

It felt as though he’d been struck, cold fear ricocheting through him like electricity. The head rush that followed nearly blacked him out, but for the adrenaline telling him there was a predator nearby. He grabbed up the pillow beside him and flung it with all his might.

“Get out,” he shouted, tears biting at his flagging vision. “Get away from me!”

Collin said something else, something placating, but TK kept shouting for him to get away. After a few beats of growing desperation, the man lifted both of his hands in surrender, and backed out of the room. It wasn’t until the door was closed and TK was alone again that he stopped yelling, his words overtaken by hiccuping sobs. 

He collapsed onto his side at the head of the bed, his head pounding and his vision graying out, and pulled himself into the smallest ball he could. He pulled the remaining pillow against his chest and pressed his face into it like he could hide from the horror of his situation.

With the way he was hyperventilating, he didn’t stay conscious for long.

-

He didn’t know how much time passed before he woke up next, but a hell of a lot of it passed once he was awake. 

For a long time, TK sat huddled on the far corner of the bed, watching the door over the edge of the pillow, which he held against his chest like a shield. He stared at the handle, waiting for it to turn. He stared at the thin crack under the door, watching for shadows. He strained to hear, but there were no footsteps overhead, no muffled voices through the door. 

Eventually, the adrenaline began to ebb, a tide pulling back to reveal all of the aches and pains underneath. The longer he sat there, the harder they were to ignore. For a lack of anything concrete to focus on, TK tried to pick apart his symptoms.

He was too hot, but not feverish; he had trouble focusing his vision; his limbs shivered with fatigue. His body ached and his head pounded. Most frighteningly, his heart rate felt unusual, heavy and labored like he’d run a marathon. 

It was like a heat illness, he thought, but he hadn’t been outdoors all day, and every fifteen minutes the small vent in the ceiling would breathe cool air into the room. TK closed his eyes and pressed his face into the pillow, allowing himself a few minutes of relief from the way the room rocked. It was starting to make him nauseous. 

More time passed. Eventually, TK uncurled from his defensive position, his aching legs stretching out over the crisp white sheets. He glared at the cuff around his ankle, bitter tears rising as far as his lashes before he stubbornly blinked them away. 

Collin had said that his father was fine. That he hadn’t done anything else on top of drugging them. Was Owen feeling just as shitty? Had anyone found him yet? Surely Carlos would have gotten back to the house by now, and– 

Oh, god, Carlos. Something cramp in TK’s chest, and tears surged back into his eyes. 

It hurt to cry. It made his headache worse, it made his back and chest and abdomen ache. He tried to stop, tried to take a breath and pull himself together, but then he’d picture Carlos coming home to a crime scene, and the illusion of composure would shatter. 

He didn’t think about time for a while. Tried, eventually, to stop thinking about Carlos, or his father, or all the other unknowns of his present situation. Eventually, two things became abundantly clear. First, the only thing he could control about this situation was himself. And second, he was becoming desperately thirsty.

TK cast a sullen look to where his water bottle had ended up: on the floor and on its side, empty of its contents. With no small amount of resentment, he could admit to himself that while he didn’t regret throwing something at Collin, he did regret throwing that.  

He needed to drink something, and soon. If nothing else, it might help stem the revolving door of maladies he’d woken up to. 

Slowly and stiffly, TK rose from the bed. Some animal instinct told him to move slowly, as if his getting up would be the trigger that summoned Collin back into the room, but there were no sudden footsteps overhead, and the door remained firmly shut. Still, TK moved with care, approaching the door like it was boobytrapped. He leaned one hand against the wall for support, and stooped to pick up his water bottle.

He had never expected to see the damned thing again. Bafflingly, holding its familiar weight in his hand brought him comfort, and no small amount of resolve. Each dent in the charcoal surface was from training or a long call. The one at the top was from the hospital, when he’d been recovering from his coma. Carlos had knocked it off the table by TK’s bed when he’d leaned in for a kiss. The sound of it slamming onto the floor had brought two nurses into the room. Carlos had been so embarrassed.

TK forced himself to lift his head and look around the room. From this new angle, it looked deceptively comfortable and devoid of personality, like a staged home on a realty website. He rounded the foot of the bed, happy to put some distance between himself and the door, and stopped at the credenza. 

He refused to look at the roses out of sheer spite. Next to it, the stack of folded clothing was topped with one of his work shirts, navy blue with the AFD emblem over the left breast. He lifted it at the corner to find the shirt underneath was equally as familiar, a faded exercise tee from a Frank Ocean concert he’d never been to. 

So the contents of his stolen backpack were all here, minus the Airpods. Not like he had a phone to connect them to – what an oversight that would have been – but it was still ironic that the one thing he’d mourned had yet to be returned to him. 

In the corner of the room, where the walls came to a point with the ceiling, a small black camera crouched like a spider. It was facing the bed, a singular eye that made it immediately clear how Collin was keeping track of him. Shielding it from damage was a sheet of plexiglass, which spanned the corner at an angle from wall to wall to ceiling. The edges of it were smudged with spackling where it had been messily installed. 

TK stared at it for a long minute, and let the chill crawl up and down his spine. Was someone watching him at that very moment? Was there audio? Were there other cameras, less obvious than that one? He turned his gaze around the room, but one of the benefits of it being so sparse was that there were no obvious places to hide another camera. The roses, maybe, but they were temporary and easily rummaged through, and offered nearly the same angle as the one in the corner. The lamp, bolted in place, was so plain-looking that it was hard to imagine hiding even a small camera on it. 

Ultimately, he couldn’t do anything about the camera in the corner. Short of breaking through the plexiglass – which he couldn’t reach – he couldn’t damage the thing, and he was certain that if he somehow covered it, Collin would come barging in not long after. 

His eyes moved to the pocket bathroom on the other side of the room. There was no door in the frame, but the camera was angled toward the bed, and probably couldn’t see inside. There was a toilet tucked just around the corner, and a sink and mirror directly across from it. TK stepped inside cautiously, scanning the corners for another camera, but there was nothing obvious to find. More importantly, the tap worked, and he swallowed through a dry throat at the sound of rushing water. In the tiniest stroke of luck, his water bottle just barely fit under the faucet. 

TK turned and pressed his back against the small wall space between the toilet and the sink, and drank. He couldn’t see the camera from this angle, and was certain the camera couldn’t see him. Had Collin compensated for the blind spot, somehow? The bathroom was as empty and devoid of hiding places as the bedroom. It was possible it had one of those one-way mirrors, the kind people made viral videos about on Tiktok, but that was easily mitigated by covering it with a pillowcase. 

Unless he was missing something, the only way for Collin to interact with him was by coming through the door. And the only way for him to watch him was through the camera in the corner. Depending on how long TK was left alone in the room, he could do a full sweep to look for cameras. Then he’d be sure.

He could defend himself in the bathroom, but at the cost of cornering himself. He could break the vase – if it was even glass – and use a shard as a weapon, but Collin was easily a head taller than him, and quite a bit heavier. TK would have to be fast, and in the state he was in, he doubted he’d hold out for long. 

The water helped, but not enough. Collin had named the sedative he’d used on them, but TK had been so upset, he hadn’t registered it. What did he know about anesthetics? The most commonly used was nitrous oxide, but it wouldn’t have side effects like this. None of the main ones would, not necessarily, but TK had a compromised immune system, one of the lasting side effects of his brush with hypothermic death. He might have had an adverse reaction to whatever the gas was.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus, as though he could think his way out of his symptoms, out of the room, and out of this situation. Exhaustion was creeping back in, a tide returning to smother his progress, and he rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t want to sleep anymore, didn’t want to be vulnerable for even a moment. How long had he been down here? How long would Collin wait before he came back?

TK slid down the wall until he was huddled on the bathroom floor. Sullenly, he followed the black cable that snaked away from his ankle and vanished under the door. Unable to tamp down his curiosity, he reached down and picked it up, pulling it hand-over-hand to test its length. Eventually – longer than he would have expected – it pulled taut. What was outside of the room that allowed for so much lead?

He had no idea if he even wanted to know. TK ran his hands through his hair and took a few slow breaths, determined to stay calm. 

If the only thing within his sphere of control was himself, and there was no one to fight and no obvious means of escape, then his job should be to rest and regain his strength. He wasn’t ready to test the door, or call for Collin to reveal himself. He had no plan for what to do when the bastard did show up, and anything he might come up with would certainly require him to be in better shape than he was in. There was nothing else in the room for him to do, nothing to help him bide his time. He could drink water, and he could sleep, and he could think.

And only one of those things sounded even remotely appealing.

-

The sound of the door opening startled TK back to wakefulness, his body flinching upright where he had slumped against the wall. It took him a few seconds to orient himself, and another few to breathe through the cramping in his lower back and neck. By the time he had his wits about him, Collin McIntire had entered the room. 

He was holding a tray in both hands, and visibly relaxed when his eyes found TK sitting on the bathroom floor. “How are you feeling,” he asked, sounding for all the world like he was genuinely concerned.

TK glared at him and said nothing.

Collin sighed, and pushed the door to the room closed behind him. He set the tray down on the credenza beside the roses, and perched at the foot of the bed the way a consoling parent might visit their child while they were grounded. 

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he began, his voice deeper than TK remembered. “At least not right away. But some things are meant to happen. On the night we met, Tyler, I was–”

“Don’t call me that,” TK snapped, a flare of rage rising and falling alongside his thudding heart. Collin fell still and considered him for a moment. 

“Your name?”

“My name is TK.”

Collin opened his mouth to say something, decided against it, and instead sighed and shook his head. The corner of his mouth lifted in the briefest smile, an eyebrow raising, before he nodded. 

“The night we met,” he said, right back to the point like he hadn’t been interrupted, “I was in the darkest place I’d ever been. I’d had my heart ripped out, my future stolen from me. My overdose… it wasn’t an accident.”

He looked at TK, like the admission should mean something. TK glared back and tried not to let anything show on his face. 

“I should have died that night,” Collin admitted. “I intended to. Do you remember what it’s like? Drifting off into bliss, where nothing can hurt you anymore?”

TK couldn’t help but flinch. Some ugly combination of rage and humiliation and terror surged upward into his throat, and he clenched his teeth before it could escape. Collin took his reaction as an answer, and dropped his gaze to his hands. 

“I had surrendered to it,” he said. “Thought it would be the easiest way to go. But that void, it… it pulled back, and I opened my eyes, and there you were. Surrounded by this ethereal light. It wasn’t just waking up, it was being born again. It was… peace.”

“It was Narcan,” TK snarled. Collin offered him a gentle smile and shook his head. 

“It was fate,” he concluded. “You couldn’t begin to understand how everything built up to that moment. How it’s all built up to this. And I know you have a lot to process right now, and it’s confusing, and you’re scared. But please know, I’m doing this for us.”

Indignation abruptly outpaced his fear, and TK leaned his head forward. “There is no us,” he emphasized. “You were one of hundreds of overdoses at my day job. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be near you. This is a felony,” he spat, gesturing with one hand at the room, at the brace around his ankle. “What the fuck do you think is going to happen?”

Collin’s expression remained unchanged, though his posture stiffened. He took a deep breath and slowly rose to his feet, causing TK to press immediately back against the wall, his heart leaping. The man only reached for the tray and placed its contents on the foot of the bed. A paper plate with a sandwich, a sealed fruit cup, and what looked like a sealed packet of ibuprofen. He tucked the tray under his arm once it was empty.

“One step at a time,” Collin answered. “Your friends in the program taught me that.”

TK felt his head begin to shake. “Collin, you have to let me go.”

The man turned to leave. TK jolted forward, planting one hand against the wall behind him to climb to his feet, but his body ached and his head throbbed, and he only barely made it to one knee. “Let me go,” he pleaded, bracing one hand against the door frame before he could lose his balance.

Collin spared him a glance over his shoulder. “Get some rest, Tyler. It’ll all be okay.”

“Collin,” TK shouted after him, hating the desperate pitch to his voice, hated how it sounded like begging. 

It didn’t matter. Collin shut the door.

Chapter Text

Three months ago, they had been on a rooftop bar with the sun setting behind them and all of Austin stretching out to meet it. TK had lifted his phone and taken a selfie of the two of them together, but Carlos had been at an angle, a little off-center. Easily cropped out.

The detective from Major Crimes agreed that it was a good photo for social media and news outlets to use. TK, smiling and fully lit, had been facing the camera head-on. 

It was strange to see the picture on the evening news, TK smiling back at him over the anchor’s shoulder while words like “abduction” and “police requesting assistance” scrolled across the ticker. It was the face Carlos had woken up to that morning, the man who had called him ‘unhinged’ for not sweetening his tea. 

His leg bounced a little faster at the memory, and he readjusted the way that his fingers were twisted together. For lack of a throat to strangle, he had been wringing his own hands for the better part of thirty minutes.

Considered armed and dangerous, the subtitles read, as TK’s picture disappeared and Collin McIntire’s face replaced it. It was the photograph that Detective Washington had shared with them only a few days ago, with McIntire and Amelia Rogers standing side by side and smiling.

“You’re going to break your hand,” a voice came from the doorway. Marjan spoke quietly, mindful of Owen asleep in the hospital bed beside Carlos. “Trust me, it’s not fun.”

It took Carlos a minute to pull his focus away from the muted TV, and a minute more for the murderous look on his face to fall away. Marjan didn’t seem to mind that he was directing it at her, instead stepping into the dark room and sliding the glass door closed. She didn’t bother to turn on the light as she looked to see what he was watching.

If she thought it was masochism, she didn’t say anything. Carlos forced himself to straighten his posture, but his knee kept bouncing. “How is it,” he asked, for lack of anything else to say.

Marjan shrugged. Her expression was too complicated to pick apart. “Fine. It looks worse than it is.”

He glanced at her right hand. There was an inch of bandaging around it, and two of her fingers were splinted together. He didn’t say anything.

“You should see the other guy,” Marjan muttered, finally turning away from the TV. She made a point of picking up the remote to turn it off. 

It took willpower for Carlos to not immediately turn it back on, on the absurd basis that the news might reveal some update to him before Major Crimes did. “You mean the drywall in Owen’s home,” he clarified.

Marjan leaned on the small counter to the left of the door and attempted to cross her arms over her chest. With her bandaged hand, it looked awkward and uncomfortable. “Thought he might be awake, and I could apologize,” she admitted. “But I guess he’s out again.”

Carlos glanced at Owen, who hadn’t stirred in nearly an hour. “I think he’ll understand.”

He could feel her eyes on him, but he refused to look back at her. After a beat, when it was obvious he wasn’t going to say anything else, she sighed. “How’s he doing?”

Carlos leaned back in his chair and stretched out his leg to stop it from bouncing. “Fine. They said they won’t need to keep him overnight. That it was a common anesthetic, and he just inhaled a lot of it.”

Marjan took a slow, careful breath. “Which means TK did too.”

The footage from the security camera over Owen’s garage had shown Collin walk out to a silver Subaru Outback, with TK slumped over his shoulder, limp and unresisting. 

Carlos’s jaw clenched. He didn’t say anything.

They lapsed into silence. He could feel the anger coming off of Marjan like heat from a fire, and if she was even a fraction as sensitive to it as he was, he was sure he felt like the sun. 

For a while, ambient hospital sounds were the only means for tracking time. A woman’s voice over the PA system called for Doctor Reichler in Pediatrics. Somewhere outside of the room, muffled through the sliding glass door, someone had the nerve to laugh.

“This is bullshit,” Marjan said, finally breaking the silence. “We should be out there looking for him.”

Carlos, who had been scowling into the middle distance, felt his upper lip curl. “We’re vestigial, remember?”

Marjan made a sound like a growl and a scoff. “Fuck Detective Acron. I can’t believe he said that to you.”

“He’s right.” Carlos leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and went back to wringing his hands. “You’re injured, and McIntire made it pretty clear he means me harm. If I pushed things, it could put TK at risk.”

“TK is already at risk,” Marjan replied hotly. “We don’t even–”

She stopped herself abruptly and forced a deep breath into her lungs. She cast her glare down and away, seeming to consider her words with more care. “The people responsible for this case could have prevented it from happening in the first place if they’d acted sooner. And now we’re supposed to rely on the same people to backtrack and find him?”

Carlos glared at the linoleum between his feet. “We don’t know where to start looking anymore than they do,” he admitted through clenched teeth. “The APB on McIntire’s vehicle hasn’t turned up anything, he left TK’s phone behind, and the address listed under his name has been empty for weeks.”

When Marjan didn’t say anything, Carlos turned his attention toward her, anger tipping the scales of his control. “Amelia Rogers has been off the radar for over a year, so there’s no lead there. No one has seen McIntire at the university since he left, and he never got another job. He’s probably one of the biggest drug distributors in the city of Austin, so he has an endless supply of liquid cash, and tracking his bank statements hasn't turned up shit. Even with expedited warrants, every stone they’ve overturned has led to nothing, Marjan. So all I can do is share pictures for news outlets and ask Major Crimes nicely to please find the love of my life.”

He felt a tear slip over his lashes and track down his face, and he wiped at it bitterly. He was aware that his voice had risen, and hated the look of heartbreak and anger Marjan was mirroring back at him. He dropped his gaze, and his volume. He tried to keep his voice from shaking. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Silence returned, and Carlos pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. He clenched his jaw until his lower lip stopped trembling, tried to build his control back up with anger only to find he was too exhausted to manage it. 

“You’re gunna make me punch another wall,” Marjan said quietly. He waited a few beats before looking up at her, forcing the air out of his lungs in a deep exhale. 

She took it as permission to continue. “When Judd and Paul hauled you out of the house,” she said, “it hit me. All at once, like… like somehow, you shouting TK’s name touched an exposed wire in me, and I saw red. Next thing I knew, I’d put a hole in the wall like some ‘roided-up frat boy.”

Marjan pushed off of the counter and moved to Carlos’s side, her uninjured hand finding his shoulder with a squeeze. She lowered into a crouch beside his chair and forced him to look her in the eye. “I don’t know where to start, Carlos. But we need to pick a point, and go. Because if I have to pace around and wait for some gas station attendant to phone in a viable tip, I’m going to start breaking other people’s bones. Don’t tell me the same isn’t true for you.”

Owen shifted in the bed. Carlos didn’t register it, staring hard at Marjan for any sign of hesitation. He found none.

“The murder wall,” Owen croaked. They both twisted toward him abruptly, surprise rendering them briefly mute. How long had he been listening? “The call where you found it. There was a guy who’d been shot, right?”

He spoke softly, the shadows under his eyes weighing his eyelids down like anchors. In spite of the exhaustion, he held Carlos’s gaze with steady ferocity. 

“In both knees,” Carlos confirmed. It took a minute for the memory to come back in full, weighed down as it was with pictures of his own eyes X’d out, and a love note stuck to the wall with a knife. In the report, TK had said that the victim’s blood had been coagulated, like he’d been shot a while before they’d arrived. 

“Has anyone talked to him,” Owen asked, reaching for the remote that would elevate the bed into a sitting position.

In truth, Carlos had forgotten all about the gunshot victim. That night had been a nauseating churn of anger and fear, all bottled up in favor of supporting TK, who had rushed outside like he was going to fight Collin on sight. 

The bed reached the highest setting, and Owen set the remote down next to his lap. He took a moment to gather his energy. “Whether he was making drugs in a room decorated with your face, or someone had put them up after he was shot,” he said, thinking through it as he went, “that man knows something about the person who put them up.”

“How long ago was that?” Marjan stood and looked between both men, an idea forming on her face. “A week?”

“He might still be in medical lockup,” Carlos said slowly. 

“Would medical lockup be here,” Owen asked. 

Cautiously, Carlos rose from the chair, holding Owen’s gaze. A sense of focus was beginning to come over him, like tinder starting to smoke. “I think it would be,” he admitted carefully. “But he wouldn’t talk to the police. Didn’t say much of anything.”

Owen didn’t look phased. “The cops who interviewed him didn’t have the same motivation we do,” he said. “And I bet he’s never dealt with anyone like Marjan.”

“Not yet he hasn’t,” she agreed. Carlos glanced at her, but by the set of her jaw and the glint in her eye, she was already plotting on how to get through the access points into the restricted section of the hospital.

He turned his attention back to Owen. The man’s expression was complicated, a mask of familiar bravado that showed clear signs of cracking. He’d been there, when TK had been taken. He’d tried and failed to protect his son. Carlos couldn’t begin to imagine what the man was feeling.

“If you’re looking for a place to start,” Owen said, his voice low, “I’d start there.”

His composure cracked a little bit more, and the man set his jaw to keep his expression from folding any further. Owen looked impossibly old in that moment, every line on his face a tragedy he had endured. 

Marjan was already turning to leave. Carlos lingered, holding Owen’s gaze for longer than necessary. A promise hung between them, taking shape with each passing second. He didn’t know how to put it into words, how to look the man in the eye and convince him that he was going to fix everything. 

So he didn’t. Words hardly mattered, anyway. Carlos steeled himself, nodded, and followed Marjan out of the room.

-

The last time TK had been abducted (and what a sentence that was) he had been about as far from boredom as one’s adrenal glands would allow, even with a concussive head injury. He had even joked to Nancy about it once, that the only reason he’d been conscious at all was because there were three meth heads with two guns between them, and who could succumb to a head injury in those circumstances?

In hindsight, the joke felt a little tasteless.

Fuck, he was bored. 

He had swept the room for cameras or hidden mics, and had found none. He had tapped the walls for hollowed space where a window might have been patched over, and had only succeeded in locating some studs. He had made something of a nest for himself on the bathroom floor using the bedding and pillows, so that he could sleep out of view of the camera. He had finally tested the door and found it predictably locked. He had wasted over an hour trying and failing to get the cuff off of his ankle. He had hydrated, brought his temperature down, and figured out what the hell kind of anesthetic he’d been drugged with.

Halothane. He was pretty certain that Collin had said as much, the first time he’d come into the room. It was a fairly common sedative, and of the anesthetic gasses used in hospitals, it had the highest chance of causing malignant hyperthermia. 

See, Nancy? He had been paying attention in class that day. 

It explained his being too hot, his muscles and joints aching, the dizzying vision that was mercifully beginning to clear. It also explained the concerning heart rhythm he’d been feeling since he had woken up, which was also starting to ebb.

Was he a doctor? No. Could he diagnose himself anyway? Sure, why the hell not? Tommy did it all the time, even though they weren’t supposed to diagnose in the field. Fuck it.

It was ridiculous to be so bored under the present circumstances. After Collin’s last visit, though, he’d been left completely alone, with nothing to pass the time but his own anxieties. He thought about their plane tickets to JFK, two seats that would be given away to some standbys when he and Carlos failed to show up. He thought about how New York might be cursed, how every time he’d tried to go back, something would fly up like a stepped-on rake and smack him in the face. He thought about how, if that were true, he might never have a good cannoli again. 

Ultimately, his mind kept wandering back to Carlos. What was he doing right now? Was he remembering to drink water? He always got dehydrated when he was stressed out about something. Was he eating? Had anyone thought to remind him that, yes, even when you’re an anxious mess, you still have to shower once and a while?

A shower sounded great. He adjusted the pillow between his shoulder and his ear and wished he could brush his teeth, if nothing else. Did Collin expect him to wash himself in the sink? Were all his teeth going to rot out of his head? His stubble was already getting itchy. 

Maybe this was the excuse he’d been waiting for to grow a beard.

Overhead, footsteps. One heavy set, and one lighter one. TK had learned a few hours ago that if he pressed his ear to the wall behind him, he could hear the barest impression of voices reverberating down from above. Two people: Collin, obviously, and a softer voice. It had to be Amelia Rogers, right? If it was someone else, did that mean Collin had other henchmen? Whoever they were, did they know TK was below their feet? Was it worth the risk of danger to try and shout for help?

The footsteps moved again, crossing the span of the ceiling before quieting significantly. If he strained, he could just make them out. A guy Collin’s size would have a heavy gate. 

After a minute, the sound changed. Descending a staircase, TK thought, and then abruptly it got louder, and he realized someone was headed toward the door to the room he was locked in. Adrenaline surged, and TK sat upright from where he’d been slumped in his blanket nest. A pair of twin shadows fell across the crack under the door.

There was a beat of silence, ratcheted with tension, before a knock came. After a polite pause, the lock turned and the door opened. Collin’s huge stature filled the frame. This time, instead of a tray of food, he held a small cosmetic bag.

“Tyler,” he greeted, voice kind and patient. Collin stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, returning to the foot of the bed where he’d sat during his last visit. He didn’t seem surprised or bothered that TK had hunkered in the bathroom, away from the camera. 

TK kept his mouth firmly shut, and glared.

“Are you feeling any better,” Collin asked after a beat of silence. His question went unanswered, and he accepted it with a nod. Unhurried, he lifted his hand and reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, where he withdrew a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it out carefully and considered its contents. 

“You know, this doesn’t have to be a standoff every time,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s get to know each other a little.”

The urge to say something nasty came over him, and TK only barely managed to tamp it down. He didn’t care what Collin claimed; the man was perfectly capable of hurting him if he pushed too hard. So instead, he said nothing, and kept glaring.

Collin sighed, nodding like he understood. He returned his gaze to the piece of paper in his hands and considered it for a long moment.

“The Serenity Prayer,” he explained, gesturing toward TK with it. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, ever since I went to your meeting.”

Your meeting. TK made a small scoffing sound before he could stop himself. Collin ignored it.

“You don’t know this, but both my father and my uncle served in the Gulf War,” he said, jarringly conversational. “My father flew helicopters for medical evacuations. Day in and day out, he’d see pulpy stumps where legs used to be, arteries spraying everywhere. You must see all that too, in your job. For my father, it got to the point where, when he came back, he went vegetarian. Couldn’t stand the sight of meat.”

Collin turned the paper over in his hands as he spoke, a mindless gesture that seemed too controlled, almost calculated. Like he was working to appear casual.

“One day, his unit got a call for a medical evacuation in an active combat zone,” he continued. “An IED had gone off, blew some poor bastard up, and he was still alive. So they fly out, get the guy loaded up. The explosion ripped his stomach wall open. They had to hold his guts in, and he was screaming in agony. No way he was going to make it, but they had to try. Except, my father, he recognized the screaming man’s voice. Turned around, and it was his brother. In pieces, in the back of the helicopter. Died before they could make it to base, with his intestines falling out.”

Unhelpfully, a flash of last week’s gunshot victim crossed TK’s mind, and he winced. Collin, thankfully, was still considering the paper in his hands, and didn’t see his reaction.

“My father came back a different man. It made him cold, and distant, and the VA gave him pills and let him spiral. I watched him deteriorate for years, Tyler. He wasn’t like your father; he gave up. And then, about fifteen years ago, he drove his truck head-first into an oak tree. Not a drop of alcohol in his system, when they did the autopsy.”

TK stared at him. He had no idea what to do with the information, no idea how to feel about it. Overwhelmingly, he didn’t care. Not with a cuff around his ankle and a metal rope tethering him to who-knows-what.

Collin stared at the paper for a moment longer before looking up at him. His expression was set, firm with conviction and an intensity that sent a chill right down TK’s spine.

“The serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” Collin said, paraphrasing the prayer in his hands. “Do you know the problem with this prayer, Tyler?”

It was a rhetorical question, and under Collin’s hard gaze, TK got the impression that there was no right answer to give anyway. He set his jaw, and stayed quiet. 

“The problem is that it makes failure acceptable.” Collin folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “My father, he accepted the circumstances directly in front of him, and gave up. He didn’t try to move past it, didn’t fight back. He gave in to his misery, like it was the end of his journey, like there was no coming back from it. But where he and I differ is that I saw his tragedy as an opportunity. PTSD is a physical and chemical injury, something we can heal with the right treatments, the right research. My father accepted it as something he couldn’t change, but I kept fighting, and it resulted in major breakthroughs in biochemical engineering. My work is going to revolutionize medicine and psychology, because I didn’t accept something that others deemed ‘unchangeable’.”

Collin scooted closer to the edge of the bed, eager to impress his point. “That’s the first thing about you that I fell in love with, Tyler. You didn’t give up, either. All the family you lost as a child, when the towers fell. Your father’s narcissism, how he neglected you afterwards. And yes, you turned to drugs, but you pulled yourself out of the spiral. You didn’t accept your circumstances; you fought back. And not only that, but you’ve dedicated yourself to helping others. You’re fighting back against the root cause of the problem, just like I am.”

Collin looked at him in anticipation, clearly expecting a reaction. TK rolled out his jaw and forced himself to take a deep breath. He had no idea where to begin. Did he point out that Collin had made his father’s trauma and suicide about himself? Did he push back about the Serenity prayer, and how Collin had bastardized it for his own needs? Or the fact that he was pretending to know and understand TK, when he couldn’t be further from the truth? 

As the silence stretched in between them, he realized that there was no point in arguing existentialism or semantics with the man. At best, Collin would try to explain himself again, deaf to TK’s reaction. At worst, he would get angry, and was perfectly capable of taking that anger out on him. Between getting lectured at and getting hit, TK desperately wanted a third option.

So instead, he said, “I can’t help anyone if I’m locked in a basement.”

In the moment it had seemed like a safe thing to say, but Collin’s expression softened with a fondness TK hadn’t expected, and he immediately wished for anger instead. “You don’t need to help anyone right now, Tyler,” Collin reassured him. “You give too much of yourself away, to people who don’t appreciate it. For now, I’m going to help you.”

Anger flashed through his chest like lightning. “I don’t want your help,” TK snapped back, before he could think better of it. “You’ve built up this… this fiction, in your mind, about who I am, but you don’t know anything about me. You think I want your help? All you’ve done for the last two months is scare the shit out of me, and you honestly think I want anything to do with some sociopath who–”

Collin stood abruptly, and TK flinched back against the wall, a sharp inhale cutting off his words. Silence exploded between them. Collin didn’t have to say anything; his anger, abrupt and intense, was all the threat he needed to make. For a few beats, he stood and stared down at where TK was huddled. He held himself entirely too still, like a predator looking to pounce.

Then he forced his posture to relax, and took a deep breath. “We both need to be patient,” he said, as much a reminder to himself as a warning to TK. “It makes sense that you would be upset. I didn’t want to make it worse by coming down here.”

With deliberate slowness, Collin placed the cosmetic bag on the bed where he’d been sitting. “I thought you’d like to brush your teeth. There are some other toiletries in there, too. Maybe a bit of self care will help you feel better.”

The suggestion only made TK’s anger worse, but now it was twisted up with fear, and he held his tongue. He watched with dawning relief as Collin turned to leave the room. This time, when he opened the door, TK’s focus flickered to the space beyond, the briefest snapshot of what existed outside the room. He could see a table and some chairs, and beyond that, a staircase against an unfinished wall, leading up. 

Collin turned to look over his shoulder, and TK abruptly met his eye. The man almost appeared regretful. “Let’s try to stay civil next time, okay?”

He closed the door before TK could respond, leaving him in incredulous silence. It took several long minutes and innumerable deep breaths before TK could work through the worst of the anger.

Gradually, his focus turned to the cosmetics bag. Why did it suddenly feel like admitting defeat if he brushed his teeth? Was this some sort of ploy? A stubborn, petulant part of him wanted to throw the bag against the wall and ignore it in perpetuity, but he would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t want to use it. 

It took him a while before he was willing to leave the bathroom. He could feel the gaze of the camera on him like a laserbeam, his skin crawling under its watchful eye. He grabbed the bag off the foot of the bed, and at the last moment snatched one of his t-shirts from off the credenza before returning to the nest. 

Standing in the bathroom, TK took a few minutes to collect himself. How long had he been down here, he wondered? A day and a half, two days? The food that Collin had brought him earlier wasn’t enough, and now that he was standing, his stomach cramped. He’d been fending off his hunger with water, but he wouldn’t be able to do that for long. 

He really couldn’t afford to piss the man off, despite how desperately he wanted to.

TK looked up and found his reflection in the mirror. He found shadows under his eyes, a flush to his cheeks from the lingering effects of the halothane. His hair was a mess, and there was a noticeable shadow on his face now, the beginnings of a non-regulation beard. The yellow bruising on his forehead was still there, obvious and demoralizing in equal measure.

He took an uneven breath and glanced toward the door, uncertain about taking his shirt off. Even if it was only for a few seconds, the last thing he wanted was for Collin to come barging in when he was somehow even more vulnerable. Best to come up with a plan, then, so he could be as efficient as possible. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could put his back to the wall and go back to watching the door like a hawk.

The cosmetic bag unzipped to reveal what looked like a complimentary airline kit: a toothbrush, a travel-sized tube of toothpaste, a small deodorant stick. A small tube of shave cream confused him for a moment before he pushed it aside and found the final item in the bag: a single, plastic razor.

TK fell still. So far, everything about the room had been carefully considered to minimize his chances of causing trouble: the camera was shielded, the lamp was bolted down, the vase with the roses was soft silicon. He had nothing that he could use to his advantage besides his water bottle, which had already proven ineffective.

He lifted the razor into the light and turned it over carefully. Three blades, nothing impressive or expensive. A plastic bracket holding them together, easily snapped open if he leveraged it against the edge of the sink. 

His eyes dropped to the cuff around his ankle, a reinforced fabric strap. A tiny blade from a throw-away razor would be useless as a weapon, but against the cuff…

He found his own gaze in the mirror, and took a deep breath. As it turned out, Collin was right about two things: one, TK wasn’t the kind of person to go down without a fight. And two, he would feel better after a bit of self care. 

Just maybe not the kind that Collin meant.

Chapter Text

The corrections ward was located in an older wing of the hospital, dated enough to sacrifice for incarcerated patients but not so old that it was too expensive to retrofit. Halfway down the long hall that led into the ward, a metal detector and barred gate stood flanked by guards. At the start of the hall, a small nurse’s desk and three stiff chairs suggested some sort of waiting room. It was here that Marjan had begun her diligent work of wearing a rut into the floor, and Carlos had resigned himself to one of the shitty little chairs.

He flicked a text notification off of his screen as soon as it appeared. First it had been his mother, concerned and asking for updates; now it was his sisters sending back-to-back texts, making desperate suggestions that were well intentioned but ultimately unhelpful. He didn’t want to read any of them. There was a finite number of times that he could text back “I don’t know” before he snapped his phone into pieces, and he needed it for when Deputy Chief Walters finally got back to him.

He had to hope that she would get back to him.

The plan, which had formed between the two of them as he and Marjan had made their way through the hospital toward the corrections ward, was to get temporary clearance from the highest ranking officer they could. They had no other reason to be allowed into the restricted area. He wasn’t a detective, wasn’t on the case. He was desperate, is what he was. 

So they had to wait. He stared at his phone and wished his sister would stop blowing up the family group chat with highly illegal solutions. Marjan had been hard enough to convince that she needed to be patient; he didn’t have the energy to do that twice.

“Are you sure we can’t just explain to them what’s going on,” Marjan asked abruptly, gesturing with her bandaged hand toward the hallway with the metal detector. “They’re people, right? Human beings? They’d have to understand.”

“Their entire job is to stop people from going through that gate without permission,” Carlos said evenly. “They wouldn’t even be in the wrong to call hospital security on us for asking. We need to wait for clearance from Walters.”

Marjan’s lips pressed into a thin line, and she turned away before she could say anything. She had already shared her thoughts about Walters, and by extension the entire police department, letting things spiral into this nightmare. Angry as she was, she knew better than to vent to Carlos. 

Down the hallway, the elevator doors rolled open. Carlos’s phone had gone quiet, and he wondered if his mother had messaged his sister separately to tell her to calm down. A flash of guilt came over him, knowing that he was leaving them in the dark in order to protect himself. He just didn’t have the strength to tell his family that nothing had changed.

“Officer Reyes.”

His attention jolted upward, a lurch of hope coming over him. Had Walters sent someone to escort them through? He looked past Marjan toward the newcomer, searching for a uniform to prove his desperate theory, but instead he found a set of scrubs.

Charlie De Luca stared back at him. 

Marjan, who had no idea who he was, took a half-step toward him. “Is it Captain Strand,” she asked, fear cracking through her angry facade. “Is he okay?”

De Luca looked toward her like he had just realized she was there, his expression shuttering into something resembling professionalism. “He’s fine,” he said haltingly, coming to a stop a few feet away. “He told me you were down here.”

Carlos stood from his chair, unsure what to make of this sudden arrival. In the wake of what had happened, he had completely forgotten about the man. “Doctor De Luca,” he managed. What else was he supposed to say? Hey Marj, this is the other guy that McIntire stalked. If TK had never saved that bastard’s life, this guy would probably be on the news right now instead.

De Luca looked like he didn’t know what to say either. Maybe he had expected only to find Carlos, and Marjan’s presence had thrown him off. He hesitated for only a moment before his expression hardened and he lifted his chin.

“I have a restraining order against Collin McIntire,” he said evenly, his jaw flexing around the name with contained anger. He looked at Marjan just long enough for the gravity of what he said to dawn on her before his eyes flickered down and away. “I saw the news when I was on my break. And I had to…” He pressed his lips together, decided to keep going, and locked eyes with Carlos. “I went to speak to Owen Strand.”

Everything about him was coiled tight, but whether he was itching to run or itching to punch someone, Carlos had no idea. The man took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and pressed on. 

“Just under a week ago,” he said, keeping his voice low, “several canisters of anesthetic gas were reported missing from the ICU. The hospital chalked it up to an inventory error, to avoid bad press. But then,” he paused to gesture vaguely at Carlos and Marjan, “this happened.”

Marjan lifted a hand to slow the onslaught of news. “Hold up. You’re the previous stalking victim that TK found out about? And you’re saying that the gas McIntire used was stolen from here?”

The quality of the look he gave Marjan more than answered her questions. “I can’t prove it,” he admitted. “But it was halothane that was taken, and halothane was what Collin used. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Carlos stepped up along Marjan’s side and made several slow fists with his hands. The theft was a tempting distraction, but ultimately irrelevant to TK’s safety. “Why tell us? Why not go right to security with the theory?”

De Luca considered him for a moment, and suddenly Carlos could see the guilt in his eyes. “I didn’t realize,” he said quietly, “that when you and Detective Washington interviewed me yesterday… that it was your partner being targeted.”

Carlos flinched, and set his jaw fast enough that his teeth clicked. De Luca broke eye contact and scowled miserably into the middle distance between them. “It’s my fault,” he admitted. “I should have reported my theory about Cherry sooner. I was so sick of not being taken seriously by law enforcement that I… Gave up.” With visible effort, he lifted his eyes back to meet Carlos head on. “I’m sorry.”

There was a determination on his face that brought Carlos pause. Before he could react, De Luca reached into his scrub pocket and lifted two visitor’s badges up by their lanyards. 

“Your partner’s father,” he explained, “told me you need to talk to someone in lock-up. I just so happen to be on the code team.”

Surprise passed between the three of them before Marjan’s face lit up with a conspiratorial grin. “Well,” she said, neatly sidestepping all of the questions that De Luca’s arrival raised, “now we’re getting somewhere.”

-

De Luca had introduced Carlos and Marjan as city employees, and had implied that they were there as legal representation without outright saying so. Vaguary, it seemed, was easier to pull off when the guard at the metal detector blushed pink every time De Luca smiled at him. He had declined comment when Marjan had unsubtly asked what their relationship was.

Regardless, no one bothered them once they were in the ward. There were enough eyes – and security cameras – that no one could get away with anything even if they tried. 

From what Carlos could tell, there were no individual patient rooms. It was organized like an ER, with beds separated only by curtains, most of which were at least partially pulled back. In the corner of the room near the entrance, an office with wrap-around wire mesh windows allowed officers to observe and medical staff to work. 

It was surprisingly quiet. Of the patients that Carlos could see, most of them were asleep or reading. One man was speaking quietly to a doctor and gesturing at his leg. Most of them were old, or in such visibly poor health that it was hard to look at them without feeling an inexplicable kind of guilt.

The fifth bed bay held the man they were looking for. Scott Spickelmier, who both on record and on the street identified as Ounce, looked like something out of a sci-fi film. His legs were haloed in aluminum scaffolding, elevated on foam risers with visible screws in his knees. His hospital gown was mercifully covering him, but only by a bare margin, and he made no effort to improve his modesty when they came around the corner.

De Luca was unhurried as he lifted the clipboard on the end of the bed. “Mr Spickelmier,” he greeted. “I’m Dr De Luca. These two would like to have a word with you.”

Carlos stepped closer, eyeing the bolts that were holding the man’s knee joints together. Rows of fresh surgical scars lined in black stitches circled either leg. Spickelmier scowled at him and said nothing.

“You probably don’t remember me,” Carlos said slowly, keeping his voice down. “I responded to the call the night you got shot.”

Spickelmier scoffed. “You all look the same to me.”

Whether he was referring to police officers or Latino men, Carlos wasn’t sure, but the tone was hostile enough without specifics. He took a breath and ignored the bait.

“You sure about that? There were pictures of me all over the wall in the room you’d been shot in.”

Silence. Spickelmier pinched his lips tight, but there was a new quality to his glare. Realization, maybe. Or, ideally, nervousness.

“Now, assuming you decorated your drug den all on your own,” Carlos continued, “I have to assume that either we have history, or you have a little crush on me. And I don’t think we’ve ever crossed paths before.”

Spickelmier’s lip curled in distaste. “I ain’t a fuckin’ fairy.”

Carlos nodded, aware that he was being blatantly patronizing. He had plenty of anger to vent, and Spickelmier was two-and-oh for phobic bullshit. “Well Scott, you understand my confusion then. Because if you didn’t put up all those pictures of me, someone else did. You’ve stuck with your story that you don’t know who shot you, but if it was just some random dealer, I can’t imagine why they’d stop and make a little collage of me on their way out.”

In his periphery, Carlos could just make out De Luca leaning toward Marjan to show her something on the clipboard. Spickelmier didn’t notice; he continued to glare at him. “Plenty of people go through that house. How the hell am I supposed to know who you’ve pissed off? Could have been anyone.”

Carlos shook his head. “See, I don’t think so. I think it was Collin McIntire who left it there, just like I think he was the one who shot you. And all I want you to do is tell me what you know about him.”

Spickelmier was silent for a minute, his lip curled in a defiant snarl, before something dawned on him. An ugly smile twisted his face. “Oh, I see. You’re Papi.”

It caught Carlos off guard, and he flinched before he could help it. He took a slow, deep breath. Somehow, he had forgotten about the intimate note pinned to the wall amid the articles and defaced photographs. 

His reaction showed too much of his hand, and Spickelmier’s smile grew. “Way I heard it, you’re a walking stereotype, all controlling and angry and shit. I guess a cop is a cop, even if you are a faggot,” he said confidently, settling back in his hospital bed with resolve clear on his face. Cocky, maybe, because he knew as well as Carlos did that the guards were keeping a casual eye on them. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Anger heated Carlos’s chest, but Marjan spoke before he could do anything rash. She stepped forward, brazenly putting herself between the two men. “You apparently had something to say to your wife, though,” she noted.

Spickelmier looked her way abruptly. His smug grin faltered. 

“Are you two getting back together,” Marjan continued, tilting her head to the side curiously. “I mean, I don’t see a ring on your finger, or a tan line where it should be. But your visitor log while you were in the ICU clearly states that your wife stopped by.”

Carlos felt a tap on his bicep, and turned to find De Luca was offering him the clipboard. A few pages had been flipped over the top, revealing the earliest lines of the man’s admitted history. Just under a week ago, someone had signed in to visit him in the ICU. 

Visitor Name: A. Reynolds. 
Relation to Patient: Wife.

“Officer Reyes,” Marjan asked, “when you read the police report for Mr Spickelmier’s shooting, do you remember there being anything about a wife on his record?”

Carlos adjusted his posture and turned a level gaze toward Spickelmier. “I don’t recall a listed spouse, past or present.”

“Interesting,” Marjan hummed, nodding slowly. “And, Doctor De Luca, isn’t her visit on the same day that the ICU reported the theft of several canisters of halothane gas?”

“It was,” De Luca agreed. “In fact, they were reported missing from an inventory check not long after her visit time.”

“So we could assume,” Marjan concluded, shifting her weight from one hip to the other and leveling Spickelmier with a bone chilling look, “that there may be some correlation between this fake wife’s visit and the gas going missing. Mr Spickelmier, do you know what conspiracy charges add to a prison sentence?”

“That shit’s circumstantial,” Spickelmier spat. “I got a wife. I’m gunna have one real soon. And it ain’t your business.”

“You do have a wife, or you will have a wife,” Marjan asked, eyebrow arching like the safety of a gun being flicked off.

“A better question,” Carlos proposed, “would be if ‘A. Reynolds’ is a lazy cover for Amelia Rogers.”

Spickelmier paled, and Carlos knew he was right. He felt that anger rise up into his throat again, a volcano coming dangerously close to erupting. At his side, his hand twitched with the impulse to grab Spickelmier’s knee and squeeze until the bastard stopped lying. 

“Let me guess,” Carlos said, working to keep his teeth from clenching as he spoke. “You’re not staying quiet out of loyalty to McIntire, because you’re a homophobic piece of shit. And you’re not staying quiet out of some sense of pride or honor, because let’s be honest, you don’t have either of those qualities. So I’d venture that you fucked up, somehow. Maybe you didn’t meet a quota, or got robbed of the Cherry you had to sell. Or maybe you let that very coveted recipe fall into the wrong hands.”

Spickelmier held a steady glare, but his nostrils flared as Carlos got closer to the truth. As he spoke, the story stitched itself together in Carlos’s mind, logical step after logical step. “You’ve been a dealer for a long time now. You know full well McIntire could shoot you for something like that. But he had a plan, didn’t he? He needed something from the hospital. So he made you a deal: keep quiet, and he’ll let you off with two kneecappings and some jail time. All you had to do was create an opportunity for Amelia Rogers to steal that halothane gas.”

The man’s nostrils flared again. This time, he swallowed, a thick and uncomfortable gesture. 

“He must have told you that he knows people inside,” Carlos reasoned. “That if you snitched, you’d pay for it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spickelmier shot back, but his earlier hubris was gone. “And I don’t have to talk to you.”

“No,” Carlos agreed. “But you will. Because I don’t give a single shit what happens to you, Ounce, but I do care about McIntire. And unless you want a knife in your kidney as soon as you get to Coffield, your best bet is to tell me where he is.”

“You can’t threaten me,” the man snarled. He was fidgeting now, nerves making him shifty, and the pain it caused him to move his knees even slightly was clearly putting an added strain on him.

“He’s not threatening you,” Marjan corrected. “He’s just being realistic. You think once McIntire knows that you’ve talked to us, he’s going to assume you kept quiet? Now that we know about your ‘wife’ visiting you?”

Spickelmier looked between the two of them, paranoia slowly dawning on him. “Man, I don’t even know who the hell you people are,” he shot back.

“Then you have plausible deniability when you testify against McIntire,” Carlos said, “because a plea deal is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive until next Christmas. Now tell me where he is.”

“I don’t know where he lives, man, I only worked with the guy to–”

He cut himself off with a gagging sound, his hands flying out in some misplaced gesture of self defense. Carlos had only briefly bumped the side of the bed with his hip, just enough to jostle the patient. To anyone watching, it could easily have been an accident as he stepped past Marjan and into Spickelmier’s personal space.

“I’m not anywhere near the vicinity of fucking around,” Carlos said, low and quiet and only for Spickelmier to hear. “Tell me where to find him, or you’re on your own. I’ll make sure of that.”

To his credit, Spickelmier maintained eye contact with him, though he visibly wilted the longer he held Carlos’s murderous glare. 

“This is the only chance you’ve got,” Carlos said, quiet and steady. Not a threat; a promise. 

Spickelmier’s glare hardened, and his nostrils flared again. He looked tempted to spit in Carlos’s face, and for a moment, Carlos was certain he would. 

Then, at length, Spickelmier spoke. “I can only tell you what I know.”

Carlos stood upright, and took a deep breath. “Then it’d better be good.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, hey, TK,” TK said, greeting himself in a sing-songy voice. “How was your weekend?” 

He adjusted his grip on the tiny razor blade and moved his chin to the other side of his knee to see his work from a new angle. He reverted to his normal voice. “Oh, pretty wild. Got kidnapped by my stalker, who turned out to be a total sociopath.”

He was making slow progress, but progress nonetheless. The trouble wasn’t cutting through the strap around his ankle; it was not cutting his fingers, or the skin underneath the cuff. He’d made that mistake a few times already, and it was hard not to make the strap bloody as he worked.

He donned his best Mateo impression. “Aw jeez, dude, that’s rough! How do you know he was a sociopath?”

“Well,” he replied, dropping back to his own voice, “it wasn’t actually the whole kidnapping thing that confirmed it. It was that he kept playing the goddamn Beach Boys the whole time.”

Overhead, muffled through the ceiling, a harmony of voices crooned about how nice it would be if they were older. Whoever was upstairs had been playing through their discography for the last hour, and it was as infuriating as it was horrifying. 

TK finished his work, and sat back to examine it. A few bloody fingerprints, a few stinging nicks. But it was what he had set out to do: starting in the center of the cuff on the inside of his ankle, he had punched a hole through it and sawed downward to the bottom seam, then back up to the top. He’d left them both intact, the cuff holding itself around his ankle by two threads. 

Two rippable threads.

He’d been sawing for about an hour now, his hand cramping from the effort, and in that time, he had considered what his next steps might be. He didn’t know the layout of the area outside the room, let alone the house above. But he had glimpsed a clear line to the staircase, and had to assume whatever was upstairs was navigable. He just had to get past Collin, which meant he had to time things perfectly. He had to be patient. And until the opportunity presented itself, he had to keep the cuff around his ankle.

Surfin’ USA started playing through the ceiling, and he dropped his head back against the bathroom wall with a groan. After taking a moment to think the absolute worst of his kidnapper, he reached for the sacrificial Frank Ocean t-shirt and gently pressed it against his fingers to dab up the fresh beads of blood. 

This could end up being a very bad plan. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he came up short in just about every department that mattered. He was smaller, sicker, hungrier than Collin. He didn’t know what he’d find upstairs, assuming he made it that far. Would the door into the basement be locked? What would he find upstairs, a house in a normal neighborhood? Some remote doomsday bunker? Assuming he got away, how would he call for help? They could be miles from anything else. He could be walking barefoot through snake-filled, scorpion-infested Texas, oil rigs as far as the eye could see. Nothing to hide behind if Collin chased after him. No water, unless he left with his emotional support water bottle.

TK distracted himself from his anxiety by wedging the sleeve of the shirt underneath the cuff, to stop the small cuts beneath from bleeding. 

His options were to run, or stay and find out what Collin’s intentions were. So far the man had only attempted conversation, like he thought they might bond and find mutual ground. Like he could charm TK into overlooking the whole abduction thing. He hadn’t exercised violence, or even violated TK’s personal space, but he could. 

If Collin was playing the long game, and TK didn’t do anything while he had the opportunity to do so, he might never escape. He’d seen those documentaries about people being held captive in basements for twenty years. How they’d slowly learned to play their abductor’s game, how they’d lost the will to fight. The thought of it made his stomach churn with queasy fear. 

And somehow, imagining Carlos or his father or the 126 kicking the door down to rescue him only made him more anxious. It was the hope, he thought, and the chance that it might not happen that made it so terrible to linger on. 

Overhead, footsteps. TK lifted his eyes to the ceiling and tracked the sound as it crossed over the room, in what he now understood was the direction of the basement stairs. He gave his ankle one last glance – the bleeding had stopped, light as it had been to begin with – before he stuffed the shirt between the wall and the toilet. He could hear someone descending the stairs outside of the room, and braced himself.

It was less jarring to see Collin now, when he inevitably opened the door. Though he was big enough to fill the frame, the man kept his shoulders hunched like he was trying to appear smaller. He held himself the same way the first time he met, TK remembered abruptly. 

“Tyler,” he greeted. He had the audacity to look contrite. “Are you feeling any better?”

TK flexed his jaw and took a deliberate breath. “You can’t honestly expect me to be friendly.”

This response apparently fell within Collin’s parameters for acceptability, because he nodded and slid his hands into his pockets. “No,” he admitted, his eyes casting down and away. “But I’m hoping for civil.”

Ironically, TK couldn’t think of a single civil way to respond to that. Instead, he loosely wrapped his arms around his knees, leaned back against the bathroom wall, and said nothing. 

Collin considered the brace around TK’s wrist for a moment before he heaved a sigh. “I’ve brought a peace offering,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

TK eyed his empty hands skeptically. He was hungry, even if he didn’t feel like admitting that to Collin. With his thoughts unexpectedly turned to food, the smell from outside of the room finally dawned on him. Breakfast, he thought. Eggs and toast and something sweet.

Collin stepped to the side of the doorframe and gestured to the table outside of the room. From his vantage point on the floor, TK could just make out two steaming paper plates.

His stomach cramped. 

“You’re welcome to join me,” Collin offered diplomatically, before turning and walking away. He took up a chair on the far side of the table, his back to the staircase and TK in his line of sight, and began eating.

It was clearly calculated. Deny food, and then use it as a tool to show how kind you can be. TK resented the idea that Collin was trying to condition him, resented that to some extent, it was working. In spite of understanding the danger he was in, Collin didn’t send the same spike of anxiety into TK’s chest that he had the first two times he had come into the room. 

TK risked a glance at his fingers, the tips of which were pink with nicks from the razor blade. Collin didn’t have as much power as he thought he did. This could be an opportunity. 

He was stiff getting up. Two days of hiding in a cramped bathroom had taken a toll on his lower back and legs, which protested each step. The black cable attached to the cuff on his ankle dragged behind him, heavier than he’d expected. Momentarily, he was afraid the cuff would snap off, thwarting him before he could play the only card he had. 

Mercifully, it held fast, rubbing against his bare ankle and agitating the little cuts hidden underneath.  

After so many hours staring at the same walls, it was disorienting to step out of the room and into what lay beyond it. It wasn’t far from what he’d envisioned: a finished basement, window-free and sparsely decorated. Someone – Collin, presumably – had attempted to make it look nice while ensuring it was devoid of improvised weapons. 

TK risked a glance down at the cable. When he had tested its length some time ago, it had run long, pulling taut under the door only after TK had coiled up several yards of it. Now he followed it to the middle of the room, where a square of the floor had been recently re-cemented. In the center, the cable was secured to a huge o-ring, embedded into the cement so thoroughly that it was wasted effort even to think about removing it.

So it was Collin’s intention for TK to have free reign of the basement at some point. Apparently, he’d behaved well enough for a test run.

“I hope you’re okay with something simple,” Collin said, snapping TK out of his assessment of the room. The man was watching him, posture casual but eyes sharp. TK held his gaze for a tense moment, defiance demanding that he not back down. Whether or not Collin sensed this, he eventually smiled at TK and turned back to his food. 

Scrambled eggs, toast, a mix of fruits. A cup sat beside the plate with something green in it, like the smoothies his dad regularly made. TK’s stomach demanded his attention, and he reluctantly pulled the chair opposite Collin out from under the small table.

“I wasn’t sure about sausages or bacon,” Collin admitted as TK slowly eased into the chair. “Are you kosher?”

He hesitated. Even a question as benign as that felt like a trap. “No,” he said, watching as Collin continued to eat. In the absence of sudden movements, TK reached for the plastic fork that sat beside his own plate.

“I’ll remember that, then,” Collin said between bites. “For next time.”

A moment of silence passed. Collin took a sip of his own drink, watching TK over the rim of the cup, before he gestured toward TK’s eggs. “They’re not drugged, or anything. Unless you’re not a fan of garlic.”

TK frowned. “You’ll forgive me for not trusting you.”

Collin took a bite of his toast and nodded reasonably. “That’s fair,” he admitted. “But I have no reason to adulterate your food, do I?”

It was surprisingly honest. TK could feel the room behind his back, the cable bolting him to the floor. More than that, he felt his stomach cramping again, and sighed. What had he told himself earlier, about his job being to regain his strength and take care of himself? He sighed and tucked into the food.

He would resolutely stick to the narrative that it was only delicious because he was hungry.

“If you’d be more comfortable,” Collin said, “I can bring you down a cushion.”

TK glanced up at him through his lashes, but didn’t stop eating. Collin nodded toward the room, as if his offer needed explaining. As if TK’s lower back wasn’t killing him from sleeping on the floor in the bathroom. 

“I’m good,” he said flatly. 

Collin raised an eyebrow, but nodded again. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

More silence, as they ate. TK reached for the cup beside his plate, and found that it had a slight give to it. More silicon, the kind you’d take camping with you. He’d be lying if he said he was surprised.

Behind Collin’s back, the staircase that led up out of the basement was unfinished but not old. Recent construction, TK thought, the timber still bright and pine-scented. He couldn’t see up to the top, but it was safe to assume there was a door. Had Collin been confident enough to leave it unlocked for his little visit? For all the man knew, TK was still chained at the ankle. 

“How’s Amelia,” he asked abruptly. He wasn’t sure why, and he was even less sure what Collin’s reaction would be, but he found it satisfying that he’d clearly caught him off guard. 

Collin took his time finishing his mouthful of eggs before he answered, considering TK with a strange expression on his face. It almost looked like remorse.

“Or maybe she goes by Amy,” TK continued, filling the silence while Collin chewed.

“I’m sorry she did that to you,” he said slowly. He gestured to TK’s wrist brace with the piece of cantaloupe on his fork. “She had no right.”

It was TK’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh, no? You sent her after me for some other reason?”

Collin shook his head. “I didn’t ‘send her after you’. Amelia is… very protective. When you confronted me at that meeting, she had believed that you’d… Well, after the way my last relationship ended, she was afraid I would do something drastic. In no way did I suggest she go anywhere near you.”

“Cold comfort,” TK snarled. “Was she also defending you when she tried to kill Harvey?”

His question went unanswered, and TK felt his anger twist into something ugly. That Collin would have done such a thing and not admit to it now, when all of his cards were on the table, was infuriating. 

“No? No justification for attempted murder?” TK leaned forward a few inches. “Do you have a bullshit explanation for the horrible collage of my fiance in that drug house?”

A snarl flashed across Collin’s face, abrupt enough to shoot a bolt of ice down TK’s spine, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The man opened his mouth to say something, thought against it, and bit his teeth together in a visible effort to watch his own reaction. TK held his glare as steady as he could.

“I don’t mean this to be a reflection on you, Tyler,” Collin began slowly, “but–”

“My name is TK.”

A beat of silence, before the man chose to ignore him. “But you have to know that he’s a pig, don’t you?”

TK’s eyebrows shot up, genuine surprise taking the glare right off of his face. He’d expected Collin to talk more about Amelia, not talk shit about Carlos. “Excuse you?”

“The man you’ve been dating,” Collin explained, getting dangerously close to past-tense for TK’s liking, “is a controlling, emotionally abusive pig.”

There was a pause, in which TK stared at him blankly, before he started to laugh. It was breathy at first, incredulous, and became more genuine as the hypocrisy of Collin’s words began to blend with TK’s exhaustion.

Collin waited patiently for him to finish, stone-faced.

“That’s gotta be a fucking joke, right?” TK gripped the edge of the table with both hands, his knuckles white. “Like, the irony isn’t lost on you, is it?”

“I thought we were going to be civil,” Collin said, low and even.

“I thought we were remotely grounded in reality,” TK shot back. “If we’re just making shit up, though, by all means, continue.”

Collin took a deep breath and pushed his chair back from the table to stand. “I see you’re not ready to hear it.”

TK was so pissed off that he didn’t even flinch. “Oh, fuck off,” he growled. “Is that your game? Talk shit about my husband until I start to gaslight myself? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Collin rounded the table at a slow pace, his anger only barely contained behind a mask of resignation. “I think you need some more time to calm down,” he said, voice steely. TK leaned away from him, moved to get up out of the chair on his own, but Collin managed to grab him around the bicep. His hand was huge.

“Let go of me,” TK snarled, twisting his arm and grabbing at Collin’s hand like he could break his grip. With alarming ease, Collin lifted him up and over toward the bedroom door. 

Heart in his throat and anger at a boil in his stomach, TK dropped into dead weight and acted on instinct. As Collin pivoted to hoist him back up, he lined up his shot, and swung.

Center target, right in the nuts. Ten points.

Collin released him immediately, the air flattening from his lungs as he crumpled halfway to the ground. TK didn’t waste any time, scrambling to put distance between the two of them. For a moment, he reeled around looking for a weapon: squishy cups, paper plates, flimsy plastic cutlery. Useless. He dropped into a crouch and grabbed at the cuff around his ankle, his fingers digging into the opening he had made and pulling it apart with all his strength. There was a horrifying moment of resistance, and then abruptly, it gave.

Collin hadn’t caught his breath yet, a wheeze escaping him as he slumped against the table for support, one hand still cupping himself. TK stumbled toward the stairs and bolted upward, his legs cramping from lack of exercise. He had to use the railing to pull himself along.

At the top, he threw his weight against the closed door, grabbed the handle, and turned. He expected it to be locked, and gasped when it swung open immediately. Solid wood, heavy and sound-dampening. TK rushed through and pivoted to force it closed behind him, his hands flying around the door jam in search of a lock.

He found several.

Flicking a few closed, TK stumbled backward until his back hit the wall opposite the door. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding in his chest. Muffled through the door and down the stairs, he could hear Collin howl his name. 

He bolted to the left, down the back hallway he’d escaped into. His bare feet thudded hard on the floor as he went, desperate to put distance between himself and the basement. There had to be a window, a door, natural light somewhere, and he’d head toward it, and get outside, and get away.

Around one corner and then another, TK started to realize where he was: one of those mcmansions that they sometimes got called to, in subdivisions that sprawled like mold across west Texas. The ceilings were too high and the wood floors were actually vinyl, and every sound – his footsteps, his gasping breaths, each time he thudded into a wall when he took a corner too fast – would echo violently in all directions. There was no furniture, no rugs running the long hallways, no accents to make it feel like home. It was huge, and sprawling, and empty.

Until he reached the living room. 

TK skidded to a halt. The space, with its vaulted ceiling and twelve-foot windows, was occupied by long rows of folding tables, each one hosting a different collection of lab equipment, microscopes and scales, jars and containers of powders and liquids. It was immaculately clean and perfectly organized. Bright LED lighting had been rigged up overhead, casting a thousand faded shadows in every direction across the floor. Draped over the back of an office chair was a tyvek suit and a respirator, the same one he’d seen at his father’s house, worn by the man who had taken him.

He took it all in with numb clarity, his heart pounding in his ears. This is what had been over his head since he’d woken up in that bed. Not a remote farmhouse or a doomsday bunker: a drug lab.

The house where they had found the murder mural; Detective Washington had said they’d been making Cherry in there. That someone had cleared it out.

Behind him, back down the maze of hallways he had just emerged from, a loud bang echoed through the house: Collin, ramming into the door to the basement. It shocked TK from his stupor, and he took off between the rows of tables. These houses had big foyers just off the living rooms, right? Now with the windows in full view, it was clearly dark out; he could get outside and use it to his advantage. If they were in some sort of subdivision, he wouldn’t have to go far to get help. 

He raced into the hallway on the opposite side of the living room and rounded the corner. Across a large foyer, at the base of a grand staircase, a huge front door flanked by sidelights revealed itself. TK’s heart leapt at the sight, his gate picking up speed. Get out, get away, get help. 

Something caught his leg and swept it right out from underneath him.

TK hit the floor hard, his teeth smashing together on impact. He only barely managed to get his hands out in front of him on the way down, a shock of agony bolting through his fractured wrist. For a horrible moment, everything around him spun, and he couldn’t tell which way was up, back, or forward.

White hot pain started to radiate from his left shin, and he made a noise between a groan and a whine. In a confused scramble, he tried to push himself up with his uninjured arm, tried to get his knees underneath him. Between one breath and the next, something landed on his upper back, sharp and heavy, and flattened him right back to the floor. 

In the blackout seconds between pain and shock, a pair of hands latched onto his left ankle and began dragging him backwards over the vinyl floor. TK flailed uselessly for something to grab onto, something to leverage himself against, but there was nothing. He kicked to no avail: the grip on his ankle held fast.

TK rolled onto his side and tried again, but the leg that had been grabbed was splitting with pain at the shin. Twisting only made it worse.

“Let go,” he shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. He was pulled toward the base of the staircase, and only recognized the sound of metal against metal when it was too late. He watched from a hundred yards away as a handcuff closed around his ankle pinch-tight. The other cuff had been secured to one of the stair banisters.

TK kicked, and pulled, and reached to grab it, so horrified that he almost didn’t see the woman stumbling away from him. In the moonlight, Amelia Rogers reached up and wiped some blood from her lower lip. In her right hand, she held a crowbar. 

He pulled himself toward the staircase and grabbed the banister with both hands as though he had any chance of breaking it. A breathless mantra of no, no, no was rattling out of his mouth, tears blurring his vision as he struggled. 

Near feral with fear, TK turned toward Amelia Rogers as though she was his only hope. “Let me go,” he gasped. “Get it off, let me go! Please!”  

She watched him for a moment, her expression impossible to read, before her eyes darkened and her grip on the crowbar tightened. Without a word, she turned and headed back into the living room. 

“No,” TK shouted, reaching after her in a harried attempt at stopping her. “Don’t! Please!”

He looked wildly over his shoulder toward the front door. “Help,” he screamed, putting every bit of strength he had into it. “Someone help me! Help!”

The banister didn’t give, but he could feel the railing shaking against his efforts. These big houses were cheaply made; if he kept fighting, kept pulling, he could get out. He just needed – “Help!” – a few minutes, just a chance, please, God, let it break–

“Tyler,” a voice boomed from deeper in the house, clear and echoing, and TK knew that Rogers had let Collin out of the basement. His heart rate climbed even further, beating so hard he could feel it pulsing in his injured leg. 

His vision was blurring as he struggled, tears and adrenaline and heart rate conspiring against him. He screamed for help again, a sob erupting in the middle of the word. His focus narrowed to the banister, the cuff rattling against its base, the agony ripping across his shin. Just a little bit more, just another second, just–

Someone grabbed him from behind. TK locked his grip on the banister and held fast as a pair of arms wrapped around his torso, attempting to bodily pull him away from the railing. 

“I don’t want to do this, Tyler,” Collin said from above, towering over TK as he struggled. “But you’re making me.”

“Get off,” he gagged, trying unsuccessfully to buck Rogers off of him. With one hand, the woman ground her fingers into his side, painful and surprising, and on instinct he let go of the banister with one hand to try and stop her. Somehow, she leveraged her weight just enough to break his other grip, and the two of them collapsed back onto the foyer floor.

In his reeling vision, TK just barely clocked Collin lifting the crowbar over his head. 

“No no no no please–” He threw a hand out in some ill-fated attempt at protecting himself, twisting his body away toward the front door. The cuff around his ankle held fast. Impossibly, Collin hesitated, the crowbar suspended over him.

Then his expression hardened with anger, and he brought it down.

A scream erupted out of TK’s chest seconds after the iron bar smashed against the side of his left leg. He barely registered Rogers releasing him, leaving him to thrash in agony on the floor. His hands palmed uselessly at the air around his leg. The pain rocketed up into his hip, up the length of his spine and back. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make the muscles in his chest work. In between his keening, he heard Collin step backwards away from him, heard the crowbar drop to the foyer floor.

Curled on his side in the fetal position around his leg, TK gathered enough air into his lungs to scream again, this time dulled through clenched teeth. Around them, the house echoed with his cries, his own ragged gasps for air coming back at him from the walls. The pain didn’t lessen, didn’t dull. His broken leg remained cuffed to the banister.  

Above him, Collin was taking slow, deliberate breaths. He watched TK lie there, writhing and suffering, for too long. Finally, he pivoted toward Rogers. 

“Get the morphine.”

Chapter Text

TK’s world had narrowed to his left leg. Beyond that, everything was gray and out of focus. 

Collin wrapped his arms under TK’s from behind and bodily dragged him out of the foyer, undeterred by the sobs and breathy pleas for him to stop. There was no fight left in the paramedic that could be dedicated to anything other than trying to keep his leg still, trying to stop it from dragging or bumping or twisting. The front door of the house receded from his vision, vanished around a corner, and all TK could do was reach for his leg and beg for Collin to stop moving him.

Which the man did, once he’d dragged TK through a doorway just off of the kitchen. A walk-in pantry, ringed with shelves that were mostly bare save for a few neatly-labeled canisters and a grocery bag’s worth of dry goods. 

TK tried to pull his arm free when Collin grabbed it, but it was theater and they both knew it. The handcuffs from the staircase secured his right wrist to one of the beams holding up the shelves, rattling when he immediately tested it. Collin squeezed it tight around his wrist, the pain a distant second to everything else.

As soon as the man moved away from him, TK reached with his bad hand, fingers scraping uselessly at the cuff, leaving angry red marks on the skin around it. His ragged breaths filled the small space, adding to the ringing in his ears, the disorienting wail of agony and fear. 

He jolted when Collin took a knee beside him; he’d barely noticed his return. TK had nowhere to go, but still tried to lean away, to put distance between the two of them. “Get away from–”

Collin backhanded him across the face, and TK locked up. Before he could reorient himself, Collin grabbed him by the jaw and held him in place.

“Let me be abundantly clear,” he said, “about your situation.”

TK tried to jerk his chin free of the man’s hold until something caught his eye, and he froze. In Collin’s other hand, a medical syringe caught the light of the kitchen, more horrifying than any weapon.

“I am a reasonable man,” Collin said, giving TK’s jaw a painful squeeze. “I have given you every opportunity to be a good guest. But perhaps, Tyler, you need things spelled out for you: I am in control.”

He lifted the syringe up for TK to clearly see. It still had its cap on, but he whimpered anyway when Collin tilted it toward his face. 

“I can take away your pain,” the man continued. “I can take away your adrenaline, and your resistance. I can make you a complacent little doll, if I want to. I admire your sobriety, Tyler, I do, but if it becomes inconvenient, I can take it away from you.”

“Don’t,” TK rasped, hardly more than a whisper.

“Have I?” Collin’s grip tightened again and he leaned in, his face scant inches from TK’s. “Have I drugged your food, or forced anything on you? No. Because I want this to work. I want us to share meals, have civil conversation, and build our relationship. I want you to behave.”

TK barely managed to stifle a sob. He could feel his pulse pounding in his broken leg, could feel Collin’s hot breath on his cheek. At some point, he had pushed his bad hand against Collin’s chest, some instinctual attempt and keeping the man away, and underneath his fingertips he could feel Collin’s heart thudding away in its own right. 

“Maybe I underestimated your self-sacrificing nature,” Collin thought aloud. “Maybe you think you’re the only person I can hurt.”

TK went rigid under Collin’s grip. He had been desperately avoiding eye contact; now, he locked eyes with the man, a tear breaking free from his lashes as he searched for some sign of a bluff. He found none. 

“Nancy,” Collin suggested. “She’s your best friend, isn’t she? A beautiful young woman, and one who doesn’t have an updated security system in her home. I could send someone over to visit her. Or maybe Captain Vega’s children? You seem awfully fond of them.”

“No,” TK said immediately, more strength behind the word than he thought he had. “Don’t go anywhere near them–”

“I would love,” Collin snarled, “to put a bullet into the back of Carlos Reyes’s head.”

The handcuffs pulled taught audibly, in a moment so desperate and angry that TK forgot he was bound. He pushed against Collin’s chest hard enough that his wrist spiked with pain. 

“Then you understand what I’m saying, Tyler?” Collin adjusted his bruising grip on TK’s jaw and forced his head back against the shelf behind him, pinning him in place. “I can take away your sobriety. I can hurt the people you love, make sure you never see them again.”

“Stop,” TK sobbed. He felt something touch the side of his neck and he gasped, unable to escape it due to Collin’s hold on him. The plastic cap of the syringe trailed slowly down the length of his jugular. Collin’s eyes flickered downward, taking in the corner of TK’s jaw, the thudding pulse underneath.

“It might be in your best interest to start thinking of what I haven’t done,” he said, his voice low and even. “What I could do to you right now, if I wanted.”

Collin’s forehead pressed against TK’s temple, his huge presence looming over the young man. TK gritted his teeth against another whimper and squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment, Collin stayed like that, inhaling deeply. The capped syringe never strayed far from the side of TK’s neck. 

“Do you understand,” Collin asked quietly, his lips ghosting over the shell of TK’s ear. 

Shaking badly, TK squirmed with revulsion and managed to sob “Yes.”

The grip on his jaw tightened again. “What do you understand?”

Desperate for Collin to get away from him, TK didn’t hesitate before answering. “That you’re in control,” he rasped.

“And what will happen if you ever try anything like that again?”

TK kept his eyes closed tight. “You’ll hurt me.”

“No, Tyler,” Collin said in a low scolding tone, “I want you to tell me specifically what will happen. What did we just talk about?”

He was openly crying now. The pain in his leg was too much. “You’ll drug me,” he managed. “You’ll hurt my family.”

“What else?”

Panic was beginning to overwhelm him. TK curled away from Collin with what little room he had to move. “I don’t–”

“I can break your other leg,” Collin supplied. “I can starve you. I can fuck you. Do you need me to make it any clearer? Do you understand now?”

“Yes,” TK sobbed. “Please–”

“Good,” Collin interrupted, a finality in his tone. “Now: do you want me to take away your pain?”

“No.”

There was an agonizing pause, where Collin kept hold of his jaw and stayed entirely too close, a blatant show of dominance. The feeling of his breathing, hot and heavy against the side of TK’s neck, sent every inch of him crawling.

After an eternity, Collin leaned away and released him. He stood to his full height, his huge body casting a shadow across where TK was huddled. 

“Then behave,” he concluded. “I have to go clean up the mess you made downstairs.”

TK kept his eyes shut and his face turned away, listening to Collin’s heavy footfalls as the man turned and stepped out of the pantry. Surprisingly, he didn’t close the pantry door. Somewhere in the kitchen, his steps paused.

“Watch him,” Collin instructed. Too afraid of what he might be missing, TK forced himself to open his eyes. Amelia Rogers was sitting on the island counter, her icy gaze assessing TK as Collin spoke to her. “If he tries anything, dose him and come get me.”

He handed her the syringe. She took it from him without much consideration, her tongue worrying at her split lip. “You should just drug him now,” the woman said with audible bitterness. “I don’t want to babysit that little shit.”

Collin turned toward her abruptly. She didn’t flinch so much as tense, but even in the state TK was in, he spotted the shift in her body language. 

“Do what I ask,” Collin said. “You haven’t earned my forgiveness yet.”

He turned and walked away after that, leaving Amelia looking pale and frustrated. She watched Collin until he was out of sight before she turned a glare toward TK.

He didn’t care. He was shaking so badly he could hear the handcuff links rattling. His leg was thundering with pain, constant and impossible to ignore. He knew that just around the corner and down the hallway, the front door offered escape. He had been within feet of it.

Only now, the idea of getting beyond that threshold was terrifying.

-

The last place that Carlos wanted to be was a Starbucks. Not a single person there realized that the world was falling apart, that there was an urgency thrumming in every moment that passed them by. A woman was chatting with someone over Facetime, without headphones; a young couple were huddled together to judge someone’s Instagram pictures; a barista with blue hair and septum piercing was playing their music too loud.

They had passed the 48 hour mark.

Every other thought that passed through his mind was a statistic. The likelihood of finding him; the odds of him being unharmed; the chances of him being alive. Two days was more than enough time to put distance between TK and Austin. They could be in a different state, a different country. TK could be dumped in a desert somewhere.

Snapshots of gunshot victims he’d seen over the years flashed across his mind like a strobe and he pressed his hand to his face for a moment, like he could shield his eyes from the memories. He had to believe TK was alive. He had to.

“Officer Reyes.”

He turned abruptly, as did Marjan, who had been standing beside him scowling at the entrance for the better part of ten minutes. Detective Washington had texted Carlos not long after they’d left the incarcerated ward, after a near-useless interrogation of Spickelmeir. She had requested they meet up, and now she was fifteen minutes late.

The woman looked as professional and stern as always. He understood, in some abstract way, that it was her job to remain calm around hysterical family members. It was literally her day job. It didn’t make it any less frustrating that she appeared the same as she always did.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, nodding at Marjan before turning a raised eyebrow toward Carlos. He didn’t offer an explanation, and she was quick to move passed it. “I can’t stay long, and I shouldn’t be here in the first place, but you’re one of the good ones, Reyes. So consider this a professional courtesy.”

She reached into the bag she had over her shoulder and pulled out a familiar black hard drive. The last place he had seen it had been in the guest room of Owen Strand’s house, on the night he and TK had met with Deputy Chief Walters.

He accepted it quickly, as though she might change her mind. Marjan looked at it for hardly a moment before turning a skeptical frown toward Washington. 

“That’s it? You make us come down here when we should be out searching for TK, to give us… what, exactly?”

“It has the whole case file on it,” Carlos said, answering for the detective in front of them. “It was at Owen’s house.”

“There was no reason for them to think it was relevant,” Washington supplied. “So they didn’t take it into evidence.”

The way she said it made Carlos pause. Washington was good at being vague, but she didn’t often use distancing language. “Them?” he asked. “Isn’t your team leading the investigation now?”

Her face strained with something like frustration, and she chanced a look over her shoulder. “Not anymore. The DEA has made it clear that they’re taking a lead on this whole ordeal.”

That gave Carlos pause, creating enough of a window for Marjan to answer first. She looked back and forth between the two of them with elevated eyebrows. “That’s a much bigger agency,” she reasoned, though there was a hint of caution in her tone. “Which is good, right?”

Carlos was frowning at Washington, watching her expression closely. “They’d be focused on drugs,” he said slowly. “Not…”

“TK Strand’s abduction is the most urgent piece,” Washington concluded, “but the DEA’s main objective is to cut the head off of Cherry before it gets beyond Austin.”

He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t understand the full scope of exactly what he was being told, at least not in the moment. All Carlos was sure of was the ice forming in his stomach. They had passed the 48 hour mark. Was the DEA giving up on TK?

Or did they believe he was no longer alive?

“What the hell does that mean,” Marjan asked. “That they don’t care?”

“They care,” Washington said patiently, “but they’re reorganizing. I guess they’ve had a case against Collin McIntire brewing for a while now.”

“Who gives a shit?” Marjan looked at Carlos for backup. “I’m sorry, but who gives a shit about street drugs right now when TK is in danger?”

“The DEA,” Carlos answered, even and low. Abruptly, he had no patience for distractions, and they had no time for them, either. He squared his jaw and gripped the harddrive a little tighter. Washington looked at him steadily, like she understood exactly what his intentions were. 

And clearly, she did, because she had brought him the hard drive in the first place.

“Keep working it,” she said, “and we will too. But be careful: it's one thing if you barge your way into an investigation that I’m leading. I actually like you, Reyes. But the DEA won’t take too kindly to people mucking up their plans.”

Marjan made a face like she had a few choice things to say about the DEA, but she wisely kept them to herself. 

Washington didn’t waste any time with goodbyes, and neither did they. Happy to put the Starbucks behind them, Carlos and Marjan walked in brisk silence back to the Camaro. Only once they were inside did Marjan start to speak.

“If we have everything they have, we can find him,” she declared, like the words had been building up in her chest the entire walk to the car. She buckled up and opened her hand for the hard drive, which Carlos handed over without complaint.

“We have everything up until five days ago,” he corrected. “And we have what Spickelmeir told us.”

Marjan, who had been turning the hard drive over in her good hand like it were a loaded gun, scoffed. “Which was essentially nothing,” she said. “We knew McIntire is making Cherry, and we knew Amelia Rogers is helping him. He was basically a dead end, except to explain the stolen sedatives.”

Carlos pulled into traffic and carefully adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “Not necessarily,” he muttered. “He did make one comment that might mean something.”

She turned so the full power of her skepticism could hit him like a laser. “He said a lot of shit to incriminate himself, Carlos, but nothing that helps us. He clearly had no idea where TK was, or that he was even missing.”

“But I think he knows where McIntire might be,” he said. “Toward the end of the conversation, when he was getting increasingly agitated. Before De Luca called it, and we had to leave. He referred to McIntire as being ‘up there in his ivory castle, like he’s untouchable.’”

Marjan looked at him for a moment as they pulled through an intersection. “So he’s a bitter moron,” she ventured. “We knew that.”

Carlos shook his head. “I don’t think he was saying it metaphorically. I think he was referring to a second property that McIntire has. A home base he’s operating out of.”

There were a few moments of silence as Marjan processed the idea. She still looked skeptical, but he could feel the same desperation from her that had been propelling him for the last 48 hours. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And right now, they needed as many somethings as they could get. 

“So what do we do with that,” Marjan asked. 

He rolled out his jaw and took a deep breath. “We get help, and we get researching. This is the part where we do better detective work than the Austin PD and the DEA.”

In spite of herself – in spite of everything – Marjan laughed. “So that means we’re going to the House,” she concluded. 

Carlos changed lanes and made a point of maintaining the speed limit, despite every instinct telling him otherwise. “Do me a favor,” he said, “and call the 126.”

Her phone was already out.

-

TK had lost his sense of time before. It wasn’t the same as losing track of it, where he might get absorbed in a book or be fully engaged on a shift, and suddenly the sun had set and it was time to call it. To lose his sense of time was something that had happened during his coma, or after he’d been shot. It had happened following his fall down those plaza steps, when he’d hit his head. It had happened again when his father’s house had been filled with anesthetic gas, one moment lurching abruptly into the next without any sense that time had moved in between.

Somehow, it was happening now. Fully conscious, TK’s ability to focus on anything other than his leg was non-existent. He didn’t care that his broken wrist was aching, or that his cuffed wrist was bleeding, or that he could still feel the sickening ghost of Collin’s breath crawling down his neck. He didn’t care that Amelia was still perched on the island counter, oscillating between scowling at him and scowling at her phone. He almost didn’t care that Collin had been down in the basement for what seemed like an eternity now, except that there was an asterisk of fear attached to that one that he couldn’t quite ignore. 

Eventually, it occurred to him to work on his breathing. It was the only practical tool he had, without a splint or pain killers or ice or even something to elevate his leg with. In for five seconds (easier said than done), hold for five seconds (absolutely impossible with how he was still shaking), out for five seconds (he could manage it, but not without his breath audibly shaking, and then Amelia would turn her glare back his way and brandish the syringe of morphine at him.)

It didn’t help with the pain; he didn’t expect it to. But slowly, TK started to collect himself. The breaths became easier to manage, and the shaking gradually lessened. It was an adrenal crash, at least in part, his body no longer able to maintain such an elevated state. An hour ago, he would have been mortified. If his escape attempt had worked, he would have needed every ounce of adrenaline his body could produce.

Now, it hardly mattered. TK wasn’t running out into the night any time soon.

Eventually, he stopped waiting for Collin to come back. He had no idea how long he’d been gone. There wasn’t a mess downstairs, just a ripped cuff and a bloodied Frank Ocean shirt, so whatever he was doing was far and away more frightening than tidying up. Still, so long as he was away, TK could keep breathing. Could keep thinking.

He regarded his leg with something like mourning. An arm, he could deal with. A head injury, even, still offered a chance to stumble away into the night. But a broken leg took him out of the game completely.

With reluctance – and extreme care – TK curled the fingers of his casted arm around the leg of his sweatpants and carefully started to pull it upward. The elastic around the ankle, such a non-existent pressure up until that moment, dragged against his shin painfully as he pulled, and he fought to stifle his sharp intake of breath. 

A distant, objective part of his brain – the part that was expecting a compound fracture, a bulge under his skin, or worse, visible bone – was surprised that it didn’t look quite as bad as it felt. It was already swelling, a darkening blue bruise spanning from his shin around to the side of his calf. There was only a small split in the skin on his shinbone, where Amelia had tripped him with the crowbar, but aside from a smear of blood trailing after his pant leg, it didn’t appear to be actively bleeding anymore. 

Looking at it, most of the pain seemed to be radiating from the side of his leg. Shin fractures hurt, sure, but if the real break was his fibula… 

Well. Technically, a person could walk on a broken fibula. 

Before the thought could take proper shape in his mind, Collin’s muffled voice suddenly increased in volume as he exited the basement on the other side of the house. 

“-the product somewhere else,” he was saying, an aggravated gravel in his throat. “And for fuck’s sake, drive the speed limit. I’m on my way.”

TK flinched, his attention flying at once toward Amelia. She had sat upright on the counter, her phone vanished back into her pocket and her body language turned toward Collin’s approaching footsteps. 

“What now,” Amelia asked as he entered the kitchen. TK had shrunk back against the shelf as soon as Collin had appeared, wishing he could disappear into the carpentry behind him.

“I have another mess to clean up,” Collin gruffed. “Stay here.”

Her eyes shot toward TK for a fraction of a second. “What about–”

“I don’t have time to move him. If he tries anything, dope him up and call me.”

Amelia didn’t appear at all fond of this instruction, but she held her protests behind a pinched mouth. “What if he–”

“Step on his leg,” Collin interrupted evenly, “and give him that.” He pointed at the syringe in her hand, something entirely patronizing in the way that he looked at her. “But only if he tries something. Do you understand?”

Her face soured further, but she nodded. Collin stared at her for a long beat, daring additional protests, and to TK’s surprise, Amelia’s expression folded into something sorrowful.

“I understand,” she clarified. “I won’t let you down.”

Collin’s face was impossible to read. “I know you won’t,” he allowed.

And then he turned toward the pantry. Toward TK.

“Tyler,” he said, low and slow and dangerous enough to send ice up TK’s spine. His breath hitched in the back of his throat. “You’ll behave, won’t you?”

TK had thought he’d run out of adrenaline, but there it was, spiking once again alongside his heart rate. He nodded his head minutely. Collin took a step toward the pantry, his shoulders hunching with the threat of violence, and TK was quick to correct his answer. 

“I will,” he said quickly, horrified to realize that he meant it. The idea of either of them stepping on his leg sent his heart jackhammering. 

“Good. Because you know what will happen if you don’t.” He turned back toward Amelia, who was watching them both closely. “I’ll be back. And Amelia?”

She sat upright. Something hopeful came into her eyes, the eager attention of an acolyte to a cult leader. 

“I’m trusting you,” Collin said. Even TK could feel the weight of it, the importance of whatever the fuck it meant to Amelia. She puffed up like a bird and nodded resolutely. 

Collin turned one last look toward TK, a warning with the same finality as a cocking pistol, before he turned and left. TK could hear the man’s lumbering footfalls cross into the hallway, into the cavernous foyer. He could hear the front door unlock an open, a slap of a sound that made his heart lurch. And then it slammed shut, and more locks turned, and silence fell over the kitchen.

TK reluctantly turned his gaze back to Amelia to find her staring at him. Her eyes were so glacier blue that he could see their color from a distance, sharp and cold and loaded. In their silence, the hum of the refrigerator and the A/C grew louder, almost deafening. 

A pulse of pain through his leg stole his focus, and TK took a ragged breath. She must have mistaken it for the start of a sentence, some request or plea; with a cruel little smile, she lifted the syringe to her lips like one would a finger, and shushed him. 

Chapter Text

The common room was unrecognizable. 

A blanket of paper covered most available surfaces like fallen snow, half of it still warm from the overworked laserjet, which had a printing queue of about five pending items. At some point, Grace had appeared with Charlie on one hip and more packets of printer paper on the other, pilfered from dispatch’s offices. 

It was everything. Articles, bank statements, phone records, the notes that Washington had been keeping on the case. Known associates, the chemical components of Cherry, academic rosters of those involved with the development of the original compound at UT. The file for Charlie De Luca’s stalking case, which Paul had already highlighted to shit and flagged with sticky notes. 

What wasn’t printed for notation was open on laptops, and cursory google searches were open in tabs on everyone’s phones. It wasn’t just Spickelmeir’s potential clue; it was property searches and phoning in favors from friends and scouring social media for any assistance they could get. And with everything printed off, they were available to annotate and highlight and make pretty with red ink. Mateo had gone so far as to begin pinning things to the wall in clusters, in an uncanny mirror of the murder wall they had discovered in that first drug house.

Carlos preferred this one.

Marjan’s followers had doxxed Collin McIntire as far as they reasonably could, which had provided–surprisingly–a batch of information almost identical to Carlos’s case file. What’s more, Marjan’s request for assistance had sparked a viral reaction. Carlos didn’t have the capacity to think about what that might mean, that his fiance’s abduction was trending. He allowed himself to hope that it might keep pressure on the DEA to prioritize TK’s rescue, and left it at that.

“No,” Tommy was saying, offering the printout in her hand to Paul, “it’ll be fifteen years next month.”

Paul accepted the paper and turned it over to give it a read. Carlos had the vague idea that it was an obituary, but he had been busy turning through the list of McIntire’s coworkers from UT, and hadn’t listened too closely. 

“It could be relevant,” Paul thought aloud. “Do we have any way of knowing if he was close to his father? Or not close to him? Maybe the anniversary of his death is escalating things.”

Judd tossed a stapled packet onto the coffee table and reached for his energy drink. “You think this guy took TK because of daddy issues?”

Paul fanned his hands out in a what do you want me to say gesture. “His father was a veteran, who killed himself, and then McIntire ended up dedicating himself to a cure for PTSD. Which he then shanghai’d into a street drug for profit. Seems important to me.”

“De Luca might know,” Marjan suggested. She was oscillating between her phone and her laptop, both of which were on mute from all the incessant pinging her socials were producing. “He knows McIntire as a person better than any other contact we have. I can text him and ask.”

Carlos ran a hand over his face. “We shouldn’t bother him unless we need to,” he advised, speaking for the first time in a while. “He’s already stuck his neck out for us, and I don’t think it’ll take much to scare him off.”

“What about the mother,” Grace asked. For her part, she was occupying Charlie with a stuffed animal in one hand, and scanning a police report with another. “Did she die before or after his father?”

“She’s not actually dead,” Carlos sighed. He was sitting on the floor in front of one of the recliners, within easy reach of the pathetic snack pile they had dredged up. He picked up another 5-hour energy shot and cracked it open. “She lives in Florida and spends most of her time reviewing romance novels online. There are no properties in her name aside from the house she lives in, her phone records don’t show any calls to her son in the last three years, and according to Detective Washington, she wrote him out of her will seven years ago after he ‘became one of the gays’.”

He delivered this all with a flat affect, and in the pause that followed, he got the sense he was being watched. Carlos glanced up to find seven sets of eyes on him. He chucked the empty energy shot bottle in the vague direction of the recycling bin and missed by several feet. 

“I looked to see if McIntire had bought any property in her name,” he said, uninterested in explaining himself and overly eager to not be asked how he was doing. “There was nothing.”

Paul–bless him–wisely let the conversation move on. “I still think there’s something with the father,” he pressed. “Did you find anything in his name? An old cabin maybe, or the house he was living in before he died. Something McIntire might have inherited?”

“His mother sold the house when she moved to Florida,” Carlos allowed. “And there’s no activity under his father’s name, not since he died.”

“Wouldn’t be very smart to use his father’s name,” Tommy reasoned. “Too close of a connection.” 

“If we’re thinking of it, the DEA definitely already has,” Mateo groaned. He rubbed at his eyes for the fifth time in as many minutes, his laptop sliding perilously down his lap. “Paul, do you still have that old pair of blue light glasses I could borrow?”

Paul hardly glanced at him. “Upstairs in my locker,” he said, prompting Mateo to his feet with a show of relief. He picked his way carefully over the minefield of printer paper and was halfway to the door when it swung open on its own.

Standing in the threshold was a woman with a short ponytail and a wine stain birthmark on her cheek. Her office-appropriate attire was hidden under a waterproof navy jacket, with the emblem for the DEA embossed over the breast pocket. 

She had opened her mouth to speak before the door was all the way open, but at the state of the room before her, she faltered. Another agent lingered just outside the doorway, waiting for her to proceed. 

Carlos climbed to his feet on autopilot, his academy training drawing him upward like puppet strings. It had taken them less time to show up than he’d anticipated. 

“Officer Reyes,” the woman said stiffly, her eyes drawn to him as he stood. They had never met; she must have been going off of his photograph from the precinct. He confirmed her guess with a tight nod.

“I came here,” she said slowly, “to warn you not to get carried away. But I suppose that particular horse is already out of the barn.” She took a few steps into the common room, her eyes tracking the pages near her feet. “You’ve been accessing the case files remotely all day. Are you authorized to share all of this information?”

Carlos set his jaw. “None of it is restricted beyond the clearance Deputy Chief Walters granted me.”

“Deputy Chief Walters,” the woman echoed, “is not the lead on this case. Nor is Detective Washington.”

“I take it you are,” Carlos noted dryly. 

“Regina Consuelo,” she replied with equal frigidity. “I don’t suppose you were also given the green light to interrogate and harass one of our lead witnesses?”

Spickelmeir. Carlos held her accusatory gaze with curated neutrality. “We were chaperoned by a hospital staff member,” he explained, “who requested assistance in determining the whereabouts of several canisters of missing halothane gas.”

Agent Consuelo pressed her lips together in a moment of frustration. Under her breath, Carlos could just hear her mutter “Fuckin’ Charlie.”

The man who had been standing behind her stepped forward now. Taller and broader, he filled out his DEA jacket better than his partner did. “All of this information is part of a classified investigation,” he gruffed. “You could all be looking at charges for interfering with a federal investigation.”

Carlos lifted his chin and opened his mouth to respond, but it was Marjan’s voice that cut across the room. 

“All of this,” she said, gesturing to the mess of papers around the room, “is information that concerned citizens have been able to pull off of the internet. With the exception of phone records and bank statements, which Officer Reyes had access to before y’all took over. How is it going on your end, by the way? Any progress in finding our friend?”

Agent Consuelo didn’t seem at all intimidated. “We’re doing everything we can,” she allowed, “to find Mr Strand. And I appreciate your enthusiasm in helping out–”

“Helping out,” Marjan repeated incredulously. Consuelo spoke right over her.

“But we can’t afford to spook McIntire. He’s smart and he’s careful, and if he starts to think anyone is closing in, it will put your friend at even greater risk.”

Something white hot flared in Carlos’s chest, a noxious mix of hope and anger. When he spoke, it sounded as accusatory as it did desperate. “So you believe he’s still alive?”

Consuelo turned to look at him, and her expression softened, just enough that the desperation in Carlos’s chest began to win out. She was quiet for a moment, considering exactly how much she wanted to share. Ultimately, she settled on being human. 

“We do,” she said stiffly. “But spooking McIntire could mean he leaves the state, or the country. And if he gets desperate enough, he might do something drastic to make his escape easier.”

His desperation turned outward, and for a moment, Carlos wanted to demand more information. Wanted to know what their profile for McIntire looked like, what they knew that he didn’t. They thought TK was alive, even after the first 48 hours. Did they have something to back that up? Were they closer to finding him than they were letting on?

The strain must have shown on his face, because Consuelo dropped her shoulders and rolled out the tension in her jaw. “You might think we don’t care,” she said at length, “but we’re doing everything we can to find your friend. And as well intentioned as this is, if you overstep and McIntire finds out we’re getting close, you could do a hell of a lot more harm than good.”

For a brief moment, Carlos’s fear almost won out over his reason. He wanted to flex his anger at her like a solar flare, because she was real and there and telling him to stop. But she wasn’t wrong, not about spooking McIntire or putting TK at more risk or flirting with federal charges. And she didn’t have to come to the 126 to recommend they proceed with caution, either, but here she was. 

He had to believe she meant it, that they really were doing everything they could. Because the alternative was too horrifying to consider.

“You were on the research team,” Carlos said, speaking before he could think about it. “With McIntire, at UT.”

Her expression was almost impossible to read, except for how the corners of her eyes tightened. She didn’t say anything, which Carlos took as confirmation.

“De Luca mentioned you,” he said slowly. “That you reached out to him to verify what Cherry really was.”

“So you understand,” she said stiffly, “that this is personal for me, too.”

Anger climbed a little higher up Carlos’s throat. “Your fiance wasn’t abducted by a drug lord,” he snarled, mortified to find that saying it out loud made him want to cry. He just barely tamped it down.

Consuelo looked like she wanted to say something, but she closed her mouth around it before it could take shape. She took a steady breath, and instead said, “We’re doing everything we can to find him.”

A third person appeared in the doorway behind the two agents. “Then you should get moving,” Owen suggested, leaning against the doorframe and gesturing toward the open bay behind them.

The unnamed agent who had been lingering behind Consuelo turned toward him. “Captain Strand,” he acknowledged. “Your crew is tampering with an ongoing investigation. I’d advise that you–”

“Do me a favor,” Owen interrupted, “and spare me your advice. You're wasting my son’s time. No one wants him home and safe more than the people in this room.” He pivoted toward Consuelo, correctly identifying her as the lead agent. “This building might be city property, but the back rooms are our home, and you’re overstaying your welcome. If you’re so concerned about finding TK, then this is hardly the best use of your time.”

Unlike her coworker, who was scowling like a high school bully, Consuelo had a good poker face. She considered Owen for a moment before returning her steely gaze to Carlos. “I’ve read your file, Officer,” she said. “You have a good head on your shoulders. I trust you won’t do anything that could put your fiance at risk.”

She turned away before she could see the way that Carlos’s expression tightened. As she and her partner stepped around Owen, she slid a card out of her pocket and handed it to him. 

“We’ll give you updates as we’re able,” she said. “If any of this research yields anything, call us immediately.”

Owen said nothing, but accepted the card. He watched them cross into the bay and out of sight before he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. A long moment of silence followed, in which they all looked around at each other, waiting for someone to speak.

Waiting for Carlos to speak, he realized, when he finally looked away from the door and found that their eyes had all drifted toward him. He swallowed hard, unsure if the bad taste in his mouth was a result of his own nerves, or just the nasty aftertaste of the energy shot he had taken. 

“Where were we,” he finally said, when nothing profound or encouraging came to mind. Owen clapped a hand on his shoulder and eased into the recliner. 

“You feeling alright, Captain Strand,” Grace asked gently, unafraid of acknowledging that he was meant to be resting at home. 

“As good as I can be,” he said, offering her a tight smile and nothing else. “Who wants to bring me up to speed?”

From the sofa, Nancy spoke for the first time in a long time. When she had last checked in, she had been down a rabbit hole of family records, studiously keeping notes on whatever thread she was following. “I will,” she offered. “Or, I guess, I have a theory that I think is worth looking into. McIntire’s father wasn’t the only person in his family who fought in the Gulf War.”

She turned her laptop around. On the screen was a yellowed photograph of a young man in military uniform posing in front of an American flag. He had a strange, adjacent resemblance to the photos they had of McIntire. 

“His uncle was killed in combat,” she said. “I found his obituary attached to his father’s, by looking up their original hometown newspaper. His name was Stanley Harrow.”

Paul frowned. “Different last name?”

“Different father,” Nancy said. “His obit mentioned that he was the eldest brother, from a previous marriage.”

Carlos crossed the room in a few strides and lowered himself onto the arm of the sofa to give the picture a closer look. “Did a search of his name pull up anything?”

Nancy glanced up at him. The look of hesitation on her face set Carlos on edge. “Lots of Facebook dads with the same name, and a tractor dealership in Oklahoma,” she said carefully. “But I don’t have access to the same databases that you do.”

He was quiet for a long moment. If she had proposed this ten minutes ago, he might have thought up a way to defend a random background check in someone else’s investigation. Now that the DEA had dropped by to unsubtly threaten him with interference charges, there wasn’t much left to the imagination about what that risk entailed. 

“If I was going to buy property in secret,” Paul said slowly, “using a fake identity… An uncle who died in the 90s with a different last name than me might be a place to start.”

“He could get identifying information from the county,” Grace noted. “All he’d have to do was tell them it was for an ancestry project.”

“Or tell them he wanted to honor him for veteran’s day,” Judd added. “He could get his service number, old addresses, all sortsa shit.”

Carlos looked around the room until his eyes settled on Owen. The man was watching him closely, his usual friendly expression entirely absent. The shadows under his eyes said more than enough.

“You really believe Spickelmeir’s comment might be a lead,” Marjan asked. 

Up there in his ivory castle, Spickelmeir had said, the very mention of McIntire making him bitter and frustrated. Like he’s untouchable.

The drugs had to be coming from somewhere off grid, and wherever it was, if it was safe enough to manufacture Cherry, it was safe enough to lock TK away in. As one of McIntire’s distributors, Spickelmeir could have known about where the supply was coming from.

Risk be damned. Between jail time and knowing that TK was safe, there was no decision to be made.

“I do,” Carlos said. 

-

It was possible that Amelia Rogers was more of a nervous wreck than TK was. Which, given his present circumstances, was really saying something.

She had taken to pacing the kitchen, walking in slow circles around the island counter while she muttered intermittently under her breath. From what he could hear, she appeared to be having an argument with herself. He’d also picked up on the fact that whenever she said the word “bitch”, she was referring to him.

To the best of his ability, TK tried to ignore her. Her restless pacing was making his own anxiety worse, especially considering she was armed with an opiate that she’d been instructed to use if needed. The trouble was that aside from his leg and a few groceries on the shelves, there wasn’t much of anything for TK to focus on besides her.

He wished he had some ice. Could he ask for that? Amelia hadn’t acknowledged him much since Collin had left, and he wasn’t going to ask for ibuprofen and risk tempting her with the morphine. But if he could ice it, that might help with some of the swelling. His leg looked worse than before, the bruising further-spread and a darker shade of purple/black than he wanted to see. 

She wouldn’t give him morphine just because he asked for ice, would she? The worst she could do was tell him to shut up, and then he’d be in the same situation he was already in.

He waited until she looped around the island counter and was facing him again. “Is there any ice I can use?”

She snapped out of her inner monologue and froze on the spot, almost like she’d forgotten he was there. She straightened her posture. “No,” she said, abrupt and not as confident as she may have intended it to sound. “Be quiet.”

TK hesitated, took a deep breath, and tried again. “Please. I can see the ice maker on the fridge. Just to help with the swelling.”

Amelia’s face twisted into a scowl. “I said shut up.”

She pointed the capped syringe at him, and TK took the hint. Defeated, he watched her return to her pacing. She muttered a few choice words about his audacity as she went.

He dropped his gaze to his leg, winced at the sight of it, and instead moved to his cuffed arm. There was some dried blood where it had pinched his skin open, and claw marks of his own making from when he had first been cuffed. His fingers felt thick, with the barest sense of pins and needles as he curled them. Collin had squeezed the cuff tight to ensure TK couldn’t pull his hand out, and had nearly interrupted his circulation in the process.

Amelia paused mid-lap and took her phone out of her back pocket. She read something on the screen, huffed, and fired back a quick reply. Whatever appeared on her phone next made the corner of her mouth turn upward, her shoulders relaxing just the slightest bit.

“You love him,” TK said quietly.

Her eyes snapped toward him, and the soft expression on her face vanished. She pocketed her phone without looking away from him and turned the syringe around in her hand, an unsubtle threat.

“Is that why you’re helping him,” he asked, resting his cuffed arm back on the floor. “Why you pushed me down those stairs?”

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Amelia snarled. 

“How does this end, in your eyes?” TK made a vague gesture at himself, the pantry, the entire situation. “You want him to succeed because you love him. But if he succeeds, that means I become a part of his life, right? Not you.”

“You don’t know the first thing about him,” she snapped. “And this? You? You’re a distraction. A pair of pretty green eyes that needs fixing. Nothing more.”

“Then why did you stop me from leaving,” he asked. “If that’s all I am, why trip me? Why not let me run out the door?”

There was a desperate rush to his words, almost like pleading. She was still for a moment, different shades of anger flickering across her face, before she started in his direction. TK leaned back into the shelves, his focus snagging on the syringe. Had he pushed too hard?

“The last distraction,” she said slowly, coming to a stop in the pantry doorway, “humiliated him. Broke his heart. Hurt him so badly that he tried to end his own life. After everything he’s done for you, you ungrateful little shit, if you’d gotten away, he might’ve…”

Amelia wasn’t anywhere near as big as Collin. Hell, she was shorter than TK. But the way she held herself in that moment, how real the fear was in her eyes, made her fill the doorway just as effectively as the man in question. 

“I remember. I was there,” TK said carefully, keeping his voice quiet. “The night he OD’d.”

“You think I don’t know that,” she snapped, her hand tightening around the syringe. “You think I don’t relive the mistakes I made that night, over and over?”

TK opened his mouth to defend himself, and stopped short. Arguing with her about the reality of what was happening was only going to piss her off. What’s more, she was within easy kicking distance of his broken leg, and if she hadn’t realized that yet, he didn't want to give her the opportunity to figure it out.

So he took an uneven breath, flicked his attention from the syringe up to her face, and tried a different tactic. “So you’ll support him, no matter what?” 

“Of course I will,” she said, her words tight with emotion. “That’s what love is. You’re just something he wants to fuck. He’ll give you everything, he’ll go out of his way to make room for you in his life, and you’ll kick and scream the whole way, and break his heart. And when you’re gone, I’ll still be here, right by his side.”

Her sharp words sent a shudder of fear down TK’s spine, and he forced himself to breathe through it. He tried to remember his de-escalation training, a course they took at least once a year. Repeat back what the patient has said, to help them feel heard; ask clarifying questions, to keep them talking. “So you hate me,” he ventured, “because I could hurt him. Because I could break his heart?”

Amelia stepped into the small pantry. TK fought hard not to flinch, not to recoil away from her, but he pulled his good leg inward anyway, sat upright like he might have to defend himself. She lowered herself into a squat by his feet, the syringe tight in her grip.

“I don’t hate you, TK,” she said, startling him with the sound of his own name. “You’re just a detour. I hate the idea of you. I hate that he could be hurt so badly, and then move on to the next twink so easily, when I’ve given him everything. I hate that the road to his heart is so long. But you?”

She looked down at his broken leg, at the midnight bruising that he’d hoped to lessen with ice. “Well. You don’t see pictures of Charlie around the house anymore. You’ll fall out of his favor too, eventually.”

For the most fleeting instant, her face started to crumple, her eyes shining with tears that she blinked away as fast as they came. TK almost felt bad for her, for how openly heartsick she was, for the futile devotion she carried. He tried to hold onto it, if only for a moment.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he insisted. “With my partner… I’d do anything for him. I trust him with my life. If he asked me to do something, even if it was something extreme, I’d do it. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

Amelia’s expression shuttered, but not completely. There was a new quality in her eyes, the barest glint of understanding. 

Maybe his new approach was working. TK took a steadying breath and pushed forward, finding the narrative as he went. He used to lie all the time, first as a shitty teenager and then later as a shittier addict. He could do it now if it meant saving himself.

“I don’t want to hurt Collin,” he said carefully, letting his desperation lend itself to his play at sincerity. “And I don’t want him to hurt himself, either. But the way you feel about him, Amelia? That’s how I feel about Carlos. My whole heart is with someone else. I don’t want to get in between you two, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Do you understand?”

Amelia considered him for a long moment, her lips pressed together in a thin line. She dropped her eyes to his broken leg and slowly turned the morphine around in her hand. “It doesn’t matter what you want,” she said evenly, after a moment of thought. “Good intentions won’t stop you from hurting him.”

Sensing the end of the conversation, TK scrambled to keep it alive. “But that’s what I’m saying,” he insisted. “If what you feel toward Collin is anything like what I feel toward Carlos, then your love should be enough. And it clearly is. You’ve shown him that time and time again.”

As soon as he said it, TK knew he had pushed too hard. Amelia’s face twisted with indignant anger, and before he could even consider damage control, she reached out and clamped her hand around his broken leg. A gasp of pain erupted from deep in his chest, his hands flying forward on instinct to stop her. One pulled taut immediately, the handcuff chain rattling; the other scrabbled for purchase on her wrist, his fingers obstructed by the cast. The motion made his arm pulse in pain.

“Don’t pretend like you understand me,” Amelia snarled, pressing her fingers into the bruising. A staggered cry peeled out of TK’s throat. “I’m not your friend. You think you’re afraid of Collin because he punished you for running? I don’t want to ‘build a relationship’ with you like he does. Give me the opportunity, and I’ll make your life hell.”

TK was gasping in a breath to plead with her to stop when she released his leg and rose to her feet. She scowled down at him with a blend of open contempt and heartbreak, paused like she had something else to say, and then abruptly turned and stormed away.

It took TK a long while to catch his breath. The pain in his leg, which had become familiar in its horrible consistency, pounded with renewed vigor. He didn’t think that her grip had been hard enough to cause new damage, but he ghosted his shaking fingers over the bruising anyway, like he might be able to feel a difference. 

Gradually, the kitchen fell back to silence. Amelia took up a post on a barstool just outside of TK’s line of sight. He got the impression that she was hiding from him, a theory backed up by the faintest sniffle when he finally started listening to her again.

TK tried to think, tried to hash out the conversation they had just had. What had he learned? That for all the unwanted attention he’d received from Collin, Collin was receiving it from Amelia? For a man so self-righteous, he must have enjoyed it, even if he didn’t return her feelings. And for all her unhinged loyalty, for all the risks she had taken on Collin’s behalf, TK got the impression that she was unraveling. She had referenced making mistakes, and hadn’t Collin said something about her earning his forgiveness?

Amelia Rogers was overboard, desperately trying to climb into the lifeboat that Collin had set adrift for her. From her perspective, when she looked up from the waves, did she see TK in her place? It clearly made her angry–her finger indentations on his broken leg were more than enough evidence of that–but now, TK thought she might be more angry at Collin than anything else.

And that was something he could work with.

Chapter Text

A set of keys clattered across the countertop, jolting TK upright with a sharp gasp. His back cramped at the sudden movement. Disoriented, he squinted toward the half-open pantry door, toward a set of voices having some sort of exchange.

In his exhausted state, he hadn’t even noticed Collin’s return.

The man in question dropped a duffle bag onto the counter, just within view. Collin ignored the pantry entirely, like he didn’t have an injured man handcuffed inside.

“How about you,” he was asking, unzipping the bag and glancing across the counter. “How did it go here?”

Amelia’s disembodied voice sounded tired. “Fine. Nice and quiet.”

Collin hummed like this was good – but ultimately unsurprising – news. He rummaged around in the bag, shuffling its contents before eventually lifting something out of it that was nearly as long as the bag. From his limited vantage point, TK couldn’t make out what it was.

“Thank you, Amelia,” Collin said, setting the strange object down just out of view on the other side of the island.

“Of course,” she was quick to respond. Her voice was different when she spoke to Collin, smoother and more measured than the desperate pitch she’d addressed TK with earlier. “You know I’ll always help.”

“Not just about keeping watch,” Collin replied. “Last night could have gone very differently without you. I’m very grateful.”

It took a moment for the implication to settle in TK’s mind. When it did, he felt heat behind his eyes, a desperate frustration that he just barely managed to tamp down. From the sound of it, Amelia’s reaction was a perfect foil to his; he could practically hear the smile in her voice.

“I just want you to be happy,” she insisted.

From the shadows within the pantry, TK watched as Collin’s face softened into a warm smile. “I will be,” he insisted. His eyes dropped back to the bag. “I brought you a gift. As a thank-you.”

He presented a small box, which he cracked up and tilted forward for her to see. Based on the gasp that came from where Amelia was standing, it held something impressive. 

“Oh, Collin.” Her manicured hands appeared in TK’s line of sight and folded around the box gently. “It’s beautiful. Oh, I love it.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “You deserve it, after what you did for me last night.”

TK’s broken leg pulsed along with his spiking heart rate. He wiped a furious tear off of his cheek and closed his eyes tight enough to see colors. 

“Go get some rest,” Collin was saying, “you’ve done more than enough.”

“Are you sure? I can help get him downstairs, if you need it.”

TK opened his eyes in time to see Collin’s smile start to grow strained. “I need to speak to him alone,” he said. There was an uncomfortable pause, followed by footsteps receding out of the room. Then, silence. 

Collin selected something from inside the duffle bag, and then leaned to grab the larger item from behind the counter. He crossed to the pantry without a word, looming in the doorway and staring down at TK for an agonizingly long moment. 

Then the light clicked on, and TK was blinded. 

“Good morning, Tyler,” Collin said evenly. TK squinted up at him, blinking against the harsh LED light. As his eyes adjusted, he began to recognize the larger item from the duffle, which Collin held at his side: a leg brace. In his other hand, he held a red first aid kit.

Collin stepped into the small space, making TK flinch back against the shelves. Unbothered, the man set the brace and first aid kit down near the door and took a knee at TK’s feet. He was looking at the bruising on TK’s leg with a sympathetic frown, as if he wasn’t the one who had broken it.

“I’m sorry it came to this,” he said, sounding for all the world like he meant it. “But I needed you to understand.”

Fear tightened around TK’s heart like garrote wire. With the threats Collin had made the night before, there was no longer any doubt that the man could and would hurt him, in worse ways than TK had imagined. His throat was too tight to speak, and thank god for it, because TK didn’t trust himself to say anything around the man anymore.

Collin didn’t seem to expect a reply. He laid the brace down parallel to TK’s leg, working the numerous velcro straps open until the hard shell that supported the brace looked more like a trough, open down the front and cushioned inside. 

“Try to stay still,” Collin instructed, jarringly casual as he ghosted his hands around TK’s leg. 

“Wait,” the younger man interrupted, his voice no more than a small gasp. His hand shot forward like he could stop what was about to happen. The anticipation of pain was almost as bad as the pain itself, and the memory of Amelia’s harsh grip was fresh in his mind. 

Collin didn’t hesitate or look away from his task. “I’ll be gentle,” he reassured him, which did absolutely nothing to settle TK’s fear. Even so, the man was as cautious as he could reasonably be as he smoothed his hands around TK’s calf and ankle and carefully lifted his leg off of the floor. He moved like he was transporting a holy artifact, and TK got the skin-crawling impression Collin was taking his time not for the sake of being cautious, but rather to hold TK’s leg just that little bit longer.

TK rolled his head back against the shelf and sucked in a sharp breath, unable to stop himself from whimpering. He closed his eyes tight, helpless to stop his leg from being manhandled, and tried to focus on breathing. He felt the boot close around him, an uncomfortable pressure applied from all sides as Collin secured the velcro straps back into place.

“There,” the man eventually said. “That should help keep it stable.”

TK swallowed thickly and looked down at the brace. One more thing to hobble him, considering its weight and overall bulk. He couldn’t bring himself to be grateful for the stability. 

Before he could even adjust how his leg was lying on the floor, Collin moved to TK’s side, making the younger man flinch away from him. 

“Come on, now,” Collin said. “Surely you’re tired of sitting here.”

He reached for TK’s cuffed wrist, fiddled with the pinching metal for a moment, and then released him from his binds. Collin lifted his arm up into the light, so that the angry red line around his wrist was on full display between them. The man tsk’d.

“You split the skin,” he observed. Holding TK’s forearm in one hand, he reached for the first aid kit with the other and dragged it closer. He popped it open and rummaged around until he came up with antibiotic ointment and some gauze pads. 

And TK let him work. Let him gently wipe the dried blood away from his ripped skin; let him apply the ointment to the worst of his wrist; let him press gauze over it and secure it in place with some bandages. Under threat of violence, or opioids, or rape, TK simply sat there and let Collin McIntire patch him up like a child who had played too hard with a doll. The man was gentle and thorough, a far cry from the abuse he’d dished out the night before. Even so, being so close to him again was making TK shake, a tremor that he couldn’t hide or make smaller. If Collin noticed it, he chose to ignore it. 

“A good, long rest, and you’ll feel better,” Collin decided when he finally finished with TK’s wrist. “You’ll take some non-opioid pain pills and ambien, and elevate your leg.”

It wasn’t an offer or a suggestion. TK felt his stomach drop at the idea of sleeping pills, but his protests gridlocked in his throat. Collin loomed over him, reasonable until TK wasn’t. Calm until TK gave him a reason not to be. He had made it explicitly clear last night: do as you're told, or I will hurt you. 

Collin cupped TK’s hand in both of his and gave it a gentle squeeze. TK couldn’t suppress his shudder when Collin rubbed his thumb affectionately over the back of his hand. “You’ll stay in the bed this time, too.”

Fear twisted up TK’s throat like a storm surge. “Please don’t put me back in the basement,” he managed, small and miserable and desperate. 

Collin regarded him with something like pity. His hands tightened around TK’s, just enough to make the younger man regret speaking. 

“You damaged my trust last night, Tyler. You’ll be safest down there for now.”

TK felt heat behind his eyes again, and did nothing to stop the tears when they came. He reached for the last shreds of his courage to try again, to find some argument for why he shouldn’t go back down there. Before he could manage it, Collin lifted a hand to TK’s face, making him flinch violently backward. Unphased, Collin ran his thumb over TK’s cheek bone, wiping a stray tear away. TK closed his eyes tight like he was anticipating being struck, his heart beating rabbit fast. 

Collin took a slow, deep breath and lowered his hand. TK risked a look at him and found a complicated expression staring back: not quite angry, but not pleased, either. Before the moment could stretch, Collin shifted onto his feet and leaned forward.

TK barely had time to register what was happening before Collin’s arms looped under him, one behind his back and one below his knees. He gasped again, crying out in protest as Collin rose to his feet, scooping TK up like a newlywed. “Stop stop stop, please,” TK gagged, unable to keep quiet as the weight of the brace pulled heavily on his leg. In his effort to minimize the pain, he barely registered the kitchen, or the living room, or the hallways. Collin retraced the path that TK had fled down hours before, unmoved by TK’s squirming and pleading. 

Only once they reached the stairway into the basement did TK realize that twisting around would not do him any favors if it meant being dropped down a flight of stairs.

With nothing else to grab, TK clung to Collin’s shirt and closed his eyes tight, dreading that any second his leg could connect with the wall and send him into a spiral of agony. Through squinted eyes, he saw the familiar finished basement, the black line of the cable snaking across the floor. 

Then the bedroom closed around him, and a miserable sob shook his whole frame. 

Collin set him down on the bed with his back against the headboard. By the time TK had caught his breath and wiped his eyes, Collin had found the end of the black cable, and was approaching him again.

The fabric cuff that TK had cut through was gone, leaving only the o-ring behind. TK watched miserably as Collin took the handcuffs from his back pocket, closing one end through the o-ring. He grabbed up TK’s good ankle with far less care than he’d been exhibiting, and closed the other cuff around it snugly. 

TK was right back where he’d started. All he’d managed to do was make everything worse for himself.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Collin said, turning to stand over TK. “You’re going to take the pills I give you, and you’re going to sleep. And when you wake up, we’re going to have a nice meal together, and start over.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough for TK to realize he was expecting a reply. And because he couldn't seem to untangle all of his protests into a single coherent plea, what came out of his mouth was a small, meek “Okay.”

And he hated himself for it, but he feared the consequences of resisting more. 

Collin pivoted toward the bedside table, where TK finally noticed his water bottle and a paper cup. Under the glow of the bolted-down lamp, he could make out the shadows of a collection of pills inside. 

“You won’t make this difficult, will you?” Collin asked, handing TK the paper cup first, and then his water bottle. The younger man hesitated, taking them both with obvious reluctance. He risked a glance into the cup, but was too exhausted to tell any of the pills were. He thought he recognized the ambien.

“Five hundred milligrams of acetaminophen,” Collin explained when TK hesitated for too long. “Naproxen, and a hundred milligrams of gabapentin.”

TK took a shuddering breath. If the man was being honest, then TK should be relieved at the offering. But the monster looming over him made Cherry. Not just that he designed the analog in a lab, or that he sold it for cash. He manufactured the pills right above their heads, and TK had no reason to trust him about anything. 

Collin seemed to know that, almost like he could read TK’s mind. His jaw flexed, patience thinning. “Take your medicine, Tyler.”

Maybe the contents of the cup were exactly what Collin said they were, and TK’s pain would lessen and he’d fall asleep. Or maybe, TK was about to erase his sobriety entirely. He didn’t have time to find out, or the luxury to decline. Collin had had the opportunity to administer morphine the night before, and the only reason he hadn’t was because TK had asked him not to. If nothing else, he had to trust that Collin wanted to keep holding that threat over his head.

He closed his eyes, knocked the pills back into his mouth, and swallowed them down with a mouthful of water before he could lose his nerve. Or, more realistically, before Collin could lose his patience and force them on him.

TK took a few long swigs of water. In part to erase the feeling of pills scraping down his throat, and in part because taking that much medicine on an empty stomach wasn’t going to feel great. Mostly, he did it because in spite of everything, he was dehydrated again.

When he lowered the bottle, Collin’s fingers found the point of his chin, and TK flinched. The man tilted his head back anyway. “Open,” he instructed. Humiliation burned in TK’s stomach, but he did as he was told, letting Collin confirm for himself that he’d swallowed the pills.

After a moment, he seemed satisfied. “Good. Hand me that pillow.”

He gestured to TK’s other side. The bedding that he had squirreled into the small bathroom had been returned to the bed, not quite made but in the rough order it should have been in. Cautiously, he did as he was told, and Collin finally stepped away from him. 

“Keep your leg elevated,” he instructed, hooking his fingers around the heel of the leg brace and tugging toward the edge of the bed with just enough force that TK winced and scooted downward until he was on his back. Collin lifted his leg enough to place the folded pillow underneath it before he stepped back. 

“I hate seeing you hurt, Tyler,” he said, though it didn’t sound very sympathetic. “I wouldn’t have had to do this if you’d been more reasonable. Do you understand?”

TK’s vision went blurry. He stared up at the ceiling and blinked a few times in rapid succession, feeling tears trail across his temples. Somewhere deep in his chest, his anger began to rekindle itself, finally hotter than the fear. 

“Tyler,” Collin said again, an edge of warning to his voice. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” TK rasped, just barely able to suppress a snarl. 

There was a pause. He refused to look at Collin, who seemed to be considering something. After a moment, he said, “I’d like you to apologize.”

The anger flared closer to rage. He wanted to scream. He fisted his hands into the sheets and pressed his lips together before he could say something regrettable. He refused to look away from the ceiling.

And because he knew Collin wasn’t going to leave him alone until he got what he wanted, TK took a ragged breath, and forced the words out. “I’m sorry.”

There was a long silence. He could feel Collin’s eyes on him, the weight of his gaze making his skin crawl, and he wondered if the man was going to demand something more from TK. Nothing about his apology sounded anywhere close to genuine. Had that made him angry? Would TK have to say it again? Would he even be able to, considering how his anger was growing with each passing second?

Instead, Collin sighed. “I’m doing this for us,” he said quietly, and there, finally, he sounded like he meant it. TK kept himself as still as his shaking limbs would allow and kept his glare fixed above him. 

Eventually, Collin turned and left the room. TK listened to the door close, the lock turn. He listened to Collin’s footsteps fade away, the creak of the basement stairs signaling that he was properly alone again. In the soft glow of the bedside lamp, the silence began to press in from all sides.

TK pulled the pillow out from behind his head, pressed it to his face, and screamed. 

-

If he stood on his tiptoes and leaned just so, he could reach the branch with the brightest fruit. The ladder he was standing on was an old wooden thing, and years of harvests had loosened its joints enough that it tipped and leaned as TK extended his arm up and out. Just another two inches, and he’d be there… 

With exuberant relief, his fingers closed around the branch to pull it closer. He centered his weight back onto the ladder, making quick work of extracting the brilliant red cherries from their stems. His basket was nearly full.

Down below, the mower was running, leaving tidy rows of fresh-cut lawn as a measure of his husband’s progress. At the base of the ladder, the radio was just loud enough to compete with it, crackling out a love song. TK released the branch, letting it spring back into place, and began his search for the next collection of fruit. Idly, he wiped his hand on his apron as he looked.

Through the leaves, their neighborhood stretched down the street, a row of perfect lawns and red rose bushes and neat little pastel houses. A few driveways down, a sprinkler was running; not far beyond that, their neighbor Amelia was tending her garden. 

A police car rounded the corner two streets over, snagging his attention. The shiny new Ford Deluxe glinted in the sun, black and white and emblazoned with a big golden star on the door. The red of its single dome light complimented the roses on either side of the street.

“Honey,” Collin’s voice came from below. TK startled; he hadn’t noticed the lawn mower go silent. “Is everything alright?”

He turned to look down at his husband, and offered him a reassuring smile. “Of course,” he insisted. “Just enjoying the beautiful weather. Can I get you anything?”

Collin smiled and reached to adjust his horn-rimmed glasses. “No, I’m alright. Looking forward to that cherry pie later, though.”

Over the radio, The Mills Brothers began to croon, a deceptively cheerful tune about hurting the person you love the most. TK adjusted the way he was standing on the ladder, cautious of how it tilted under his weight. 

“It’ll be the best one yet,” he promised. With restraint, he kept his smile turned down toward his husband, even though every instinct was telling him to turn back toward the approaching police car. 

He didn’t want to seem distracted. Collin could be so jealous, sometimes.

His husband offered him a satisfied smile, and turned back to his task. He gave the mower’s pull-cord a rough yank, and TK winced at the violence of it as the engine started back up.

The police car was closer now, creeping slowly in their direction. He could make out a single occupant in the driver’s seat, but the glare of the sun kept his face obscured. 

TK tried to focus on his task. There were still some cherries within reach, after all, and he didn’t have quite enough for pie and jam. Back on his tiptoes, he risked another glance toward the police car as he reached for a cluster of red fruit. Would the officer notice? 

(Why did he need the officer to notice?)

Something jolted the ladder. TK gasped, flailing his arm out to try and correct his balance, but it was too late. He twisted, catching sight of where the lawnmower had clipped the leg of the ladder, and then he was falling. Cherries rained down around him as he went.

His leg took the brunt of the landing. TK collapsed sideways onto the soft lawn, a grunt of pain followed swiftly by a moan. He reached for his ankle, only to find Collin’s hands were already there.

“Oh, Tyler,” his husband gushed, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize how close I was to the ladder!” 

He helped TK to sit up, hands red with what must have been cherry juice. It stained TK wherever he touched him, almost like bruises.

“It’s… It’s alright,” TK managed, his voice tight with pain. His leg ached. “Just a sprain, surely.”

Collin cupped his face and tilted TK’s attention upward toward himself. “Are you sure? You didn’t hurt yourself worse than that?”

TK offered him a tight smile. “I’m… I’m sure, yes. I’m okay.”

This answer seemed to satisfy Collin, who leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips, his huge hands cradling TK’s face so that he couldn’t turn away from it.

“Let’s get you inside,” he insisted. Before TK could protest, the bigger man stood and scooped him into his arms as if he weighed nothing. “You shouldn’t have been on that old ladder in the first place.”

“I’m sorry,” TK managed, wrapping his arms around Collin’s neck to keep himself balanced. Over his shoulder, the police car slowed to an inching crawl in front of their house. The sun glared off of the driver’s side window, making TK squint. He lifted a hand, either to shield his eyes or hail the officer. He needed help, didn’t he? 

But Collin hadn’t noticed the police car at all. He carried TK up the front steps of their porch, pausing just long enough to open the door, and in that brief moment, the driver’s side window of the police car rolled down.

TK locked eyes with the officer, and then the front door closed. 

Carlos.

“Wait,” he muttered. His ears were ringing. “Stop.”

“I hate seeing you hurt, Tyler,” Collin was saying, like TK hadn’t spoken at all. “I’ll take care of you.”

He moved deeper into the house, away from the daylight. Inside, the halls were long and dark, shadows deepening with each step. It looked like his grandmother’s house, back in upstate New York. Or at least, some carbon copy of what it had been in the 1950s. 

“Carlos,” TK said, a little bit louder, a little bit more forceful. That was Carlos outside. Put me down.

The house was huge, and dark, and cavernous. The curtains were all drawn, casting an eerie green-tinted light across the space. TK squirmed in Collin’s arms as his husband turned into a bedroom, darker still than the rest of the house.

Not my husband not my husband not my husband–

“Here,” Collin declared, lowering TK onto the bed. “You should stay right here for a while.”

“No,” he replied, his eyes locked on the doorway. “That was Carlos.”

Collin gave him an impatient look. “Tyler, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Carlos was right–” TK moved to get off of the bed, swinging his legs over the side. “He was right there.”

Hands closed around his shoulders and stopped him from standing. “Stay in bed.”

He pushed back. Collin was a wall of muscle between him and the door, but Carlos had been right there. “Let me go,” he insisted, trying again to stand, to get out from under Collin’s hands. “Carlos is right–”

Collin’s grip on his shoulders tightened. “Tyler,” he warned, “behave.”

The room was getting darker around them. TK twisted, pushing at Collin’s arms to free himself. “Carlos,” he shouted, kicking out one leg to get the man away from him. “Carlos!”

The weight on his shoulders doubled, and he was shoved down onto the bed hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. He kicked out violently now, writhing to break free. Above him, Collin fell into shadow, looming larger and larger over TK to keep him from getting away. He grew extra arms, long spider-like limbs that snared TK’s sides, his arms, his legs, and no matter how hard he struggled, their grip only tightened. 

“Carlos!”

But the house was too big, too vacuous, and it swallowed up his shouts for help. He was crying, fighting, hurting and desperate and terrified, and all the while the amorphous mass of shadows hovering over him kept repeating “Behave! Behave! Behave!”

The room changed, the walls pulling away into the darkness until TK could see the police car in the vacuous blackness. Carlos was standing beside it with his hands cupped around his mouth in a silent shout, like he was trying to call back to TK. The paramedic thrashed harder, and in response, the shadow pushed down on him with greater strength. He sunk, the mattress cracking and caving in like the frozen lake, ice water surging up and swallowing him whole. He screamed, the sound erupting out of his mouth in a torrent of bubbles. 

“Medic 126, medic 126, be advised: ten-fifty-four. Possible narcotics overdose reported on 12th and Hawley at The Last Drop. Please respond.”

Above the surface of the water, he could just make out Carlos’s form, undefined through the waves that TK’s thrashing created. He was so close. He could get to him, he could, he just had to fight a little harder. TK stretched his arm as far as it would go, fingers flared out in a desperate reach toward the surface, past the shadows and the fear and the cherries that floated suspended in the water around him. 

And he could have sworn, for just a moment, that he saw Carlos reaching back.

TK jolted awake with a harsh gasp for breath, his lungs burning from lack of oxygen. The room tilted, medicated exhaustion threatening to tip him back into the dream. But there was no shadowy figure holding him down, no icey lake drowning him. The room was cold, dimly lit, and silent. 

And TK was alone.

Chapter Text

It had started out benign. #FindFireFoxsFriend was trending within two hours of Marjan posting about what was going on, and her followers had descended upon the task with all the vigor of the chronically online. It had been a surprisingly big help, to have so many people considering so many angles, churning through data mines and doxxing strategies faster than the 126 ever could on their own.

On the second day, the tag had spread further through the internet, beyond just the community of FireFox followers. Pictures pulled from TK’s Instagram were circulating, and while they were mostly shared with the weighted context of an active abduction, there was no stopping the memes. TK was young and attractive, and the photos showing up on everyone’s feeds were of him smiling, or laughing, or smooching Carlos’s cheek mid-selfie. Before the end of the second day, someone had found an NYFD calendar from a few years back, featuring a shirtless TK covered in puppies. After that, the hashtags had changed to #FindEMSDaddy and #ParaMyMedic.

Carlos pulled in a deep breath and lunged at the punching bag with renewed vigor.

Ultimately, the hashtag that won out over all the others was #StrandStalker. It was a catch-all of well-intentioned onlookers, true crime enthusiasts, armchair detectives, and thirsty creeps, all of whom were rallying around Carlos’s personal tragedy like it was prestige television. 

He had been advised by Detective Washington to not delete his socials, even if his own Instagram had always been private. According to her, the Austin police and the DEA were monitoring the hashtags for any viable tips. Or, more hauntingly, any indication that Collin McIntire might be among the hoards of people more interested in TK’s dimples than his safety. Like a serial killer who inserted themselves into the investigation, she had said. If he was as narcissistic as Charlie De Luca had claimed, then maybe Collin enjoyed the attention. 

Carlos took a few quick jabs with his right, followed by a left hook. The punching bag ceded a few inches before swinging back his way, undeterred. 

That morning, the first interview request had come through. Some Youtuber that heralded himself as an investigative journalist, wondering if Carlos had any statements about his fiance’s abduction. He had hung up without a word and blocked the number.

He got in close and threw a few uppercuts. Tried to imagine ribs cracking against his knuckles. Tried to channel his anger into it before it made him do something irrational. It had become unfamiliar to him, a physical discomfort that he couldn’t shake no matter how many deep breaths he took. Like a joint that had slipped out of place, impossible to ignore and triggered by every little distraction.

The APD had stepped in to help with the other media inquiries, just in time for the first news van to set up camp outside of Owen Strand’s home. It was only a matter of time, Washington figured, before news outlets would start lingering near the loft, too.

“I think it’s learned its lesson, Carlos.”

Judd leaned his shoulder against the doorway of the 126’s in-house gym. Carlos hunkered down and took a few sharp jabs at the bag before forcing himself to step back from it. Free of his assault, it rocked back and forth, the chain above creaking quietly. 

It took him a long moment to collect himself. When he finally turned to face Judd, the man had swallowed whatever question he was going to ask, and instead pushed off of the door frame with a deep breath. “Family meeting in fifteen,” he rumbled. “DEA’s gunna call.”

Carlos only answered with a nod. Judd hesitated, lingering just long enough to make it clear he was considering saying something after all. After a beat of silence, he sighed and turned to leave. Relief hit Carlos harder than it should have as he pivoted to follow.

He had decided the day before that he was grateful for the 126’s showers. Each stall was impersonal and spotless, one of the byproducts of having probies to do house work. There was one small shelf that hung down from the shower head, and a soap dispenser mounted on the wall. It was so unfamiliar that it became a strange liminal space, one without TK’s shampoo or body wash or loofah. No memories of laughing as they argued through the shower curtain in the morning. No lips ghosting across his neck as Carlos stood under the scalding water and stared at the tiled wall. 

They’d been staying at the 126, him and Owen. Taking shifts to snag a few hours of sleep here and there, staying busy with research and pacing and time in the gym when they had to wait for news. They were both avoiding the growing public attention that this nightmare had stirred up, as pictures of TK spread further across the internet and more people became interested in the story. 

Carlos grabbed a t-shirt from his bag at random and pulled it over his head. He was two steps from the door when he caught his reflection in the bunk room’s mirror and froze. The shirt was an old one, with faded graphics that advertised a deli in Manhattan. It was TK’s.

A fist closed around his heart and squeezed. Carlos squared his jaw and rounded back toward the bed, digging furiously in his backpack for a different shirt. He was quick to pull TK’s off, a swell of anger making him ball it up like he was about to chuck it across the room. 

He froze. Stared at the shirt for a long few seconds, and tried to control his breathing. He had no idea why it made him angry, that one of TK’s shirts had ended up among his things. Because if he wore it, the others might recognize it? That he might cause Owen pain if he saw it, however unintentionally?

Maybe it was because TK wasn’t there to wear it himself, and that was enough for Carlos to never want to see the shirt again.

He shook it out and lay it flat on the bed. With intentional care, he folded it into a neat square and moved to place it back in his bag. Somehow, it ended up pressed against his face.

It smelled like TK. Like his deodorant and soap, like the essential oils he insisted on adding to their dryer balls. There was the barest hint of the industrial cleaner they used on the rig after every shift. It smelled the way TK had a few mornings ago when Carlos had woken up with him pressed against his side. 

He lowered it from his face and ignored the tear stains. He made quick work of pulling on a different shirt, and headed downstairs. 

The meeting room wasn’t anything to write home about, no matter how hard Owen had worked to make the 126 state-of-the-art. A long table stretched down the center of the room, flanked by chairs that no one liked but no one hated enough to change out. The far side of the room was lined with shelves and cabinets, all stuffed with binders and boxes of excess PPE. On one wall, a huge map of Austin was sectioned off with different fire districts, little LED lights indicating the stations in each one. Two of them were lit up, evidence of active calls. There was a bulletin board on the far wall that was covered in patches from stations all around the country, including one the size of a dinner plate dedicated to 9/11. 

Carlos was the last one into the room. Owen clapped a hand around his shoulder in greeting, his expression set in the same grim frown he’d been wearing since he’d gotten out of the hospital. Everyone’s shoulders were hung with the same awful hope that Carlos felt, that maybe this call would yield something, but maybe it wouldn’t. It was the chance that nothing would change that made it so agonizing. 

The conference phone at the center of the long table rang. They all leaned toward it like bugs to a zapper, the tension in the room tightening that extra bit more. 

“Hey,” Judd answered. “You’ve got the 126.”

“Good afternoon,” a familiar voice replied. “This is Agent Consuelo with the DEA. I’m here with Agents Kerry and Mulvaney, as well as APD’s Detective Washington and Deputy Chief Walters. Thank you for taking the time.”

Taking the time. Like they were discussing the next fiscal quarter, or reviewing pivot tables. He knew full well that staying objective and professional was the job, but to be on the receiving end of it made him want to break someone’s jaw.

Carlos forced himself to adjust his posture and take a deep breath.

“We’re hoping you have some news,” Owen answered, speaking when no one else was sure what to say. The fire captain gripped the back of a chair and locked his elbows, somehow code-switching into Crisis Debrief Mode. “The only lead we were following didn’t get us far.”

On the other side of the table, Nancy pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. She had seemed so certain that there was something with McIntire’s uncle, but even with Carlos pulling police records, they’d come up with nothing. 

He tried not to think about it. That he’d wasted their time with a gut feeling, that a drug dealer named Ounce would have somehow been the key to finding TK. One more thing for Carlos to never forgive himself for.

“We do,” Consuelo answered. “We believe we know where McIntire’s Cherry operation is located.”

Every head in the room lifted. Carlos didn’t realize he had stepped forward until he was practically leaning over the conference phone. “Do you think TK is there?”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. Detective Washington answered. “We don’t have proof that he is,” she said, “but we’ve exhausted a number of alternatives that we were investigating. We believe this location would be a suitable place to keep someone off the grid.”

Another maybe. Another “we don’t know.” Unhelpfully, the frigid whisper of fear crept back into his chest, that they thought TK was dead but were not willing to say it yet. He pressed his knuckles into the surface of the table, hard enough that some of them cracked. “Are you going in?”

From the way that shoulders squared and jaws flexed, it was as if the 126 had heard a battle horn. If there was a group of people more willing to run headlong into dangerous situations, Carlos hadn’t met them. 

“Not yet,” Agent Consuelo said steadily, “We have a plan for how to minimize the risk to the hostage, if he’s present. Once that’s underway, we’ll move on the location.”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that,” Tommy asked. She was seated next to Nancy, across from Carlos at the meeting table. Her expression was a carefully composed mask of calm. 

Over the conference phone, they could just barely hear someone take a deep breath. “At this time, we believe that the fewer people who know the details, the better–”

Owen interrupted. “Yeah, it’s confidential, we get it. Listen, I know you have your protocol, and the last thing any of us want to do is tip McIntire off if we’re onto him. So whatever your plan is to get him away from TK, we’ll leave you to it. But raiding the place once he’s gone? We’re going to be there.”

“Mr Strand, you have understand the conflict of interest here isn’t the only–”

“No one on this call is a civilian,” Owen said, cutting off Agent Consuelo for a second time. “We all know the rules and we all know the risks. The DEA will need to have someone on standby for medical evac, and you’d better believe the entire first responder community in Austin has our backs on this. I have favors to call in all over the city; if there’s even a small chance that TK is being kept in this place, then the 126 will be there.”

There was a beat of silence. Carlos looked sideways at Owen. Normally, he would be worried that the man’s confrontational nature might burn necessary bridges. Given their present circumstances, however, Carlos was surprised he hadn’t gone further in expressing his anger.

“I would assume so,” Agent Consuelo sighed, breaking her veneer of professional indifference. “And I know how much you all want to help TK. But you need to understand: with the amount of media fixated on this, any involvement on your end could tip McIntire off. He could be watching the news right now, waiting for some sign that we’re onto him.”

Marjan pushed herself up from her chair. “You mean those vultures outside? They haven’t stopped anyone else at the 126 from going on calls, why would us leaving be any different?”

“Because your FireFox,” Consuelo answered flatly. “And like it or not, all of you are involved in the media storm that’s been threatening this case since it started. Captain Strand is the concerned father; Officer Reyes is the heroic fiance; Nancy Gillian is TK’s best friend. Do you understand the full scope of this story? CNN has a spot about it tonight. We just got a press inquiry from Good Morning America.”

A dumbfounded silence pressed into Carlos’s ears. Ever since that Youtuber had found his personal number and called him, Carlos had been avoiding the viral aspect of this nightmare like the plague. How had it gotten so much bigger?

“If any one of you steps outside,” Consuelo continued, “you’ll be swarmed by reporters wanting reaction footage, personal opinions, and case updates. We can’t do our jobs with that kind of attention, and neither can you. We want to find TK and get him out of there safely. If McIntire gets wind that we’re coming, it could turn deadly fast. Do you understand?”

There was a moment of tension, a failing argument scraping down the back of Carlos’s throat. He had expected pushback on the grounds of conflict of interest, not Good Morning America wanting an interview.

“You’re saying we’re a liability,” Owen said. He was angry, but there was a resignation in his voice that made him sound small, defeated. Carlos winced at the sound of it.

If Consuelo heard it, it only partially tempered her tone. “Look, we’ve gotten some great tips because of all the interest. But if we’re going to get McIntire away from TK, we need him to think he’s safe to move around. And if the media starts spinning a story about how we’re closing in, it could spook McIntire further off the grid, or worse. Right now, the best way for the 126 to help is for you to stay put.”

“To create the illusion that y’all haven’t made progress,” Judd concluded, piping up abruptly before anyone else could argue back. “Well, that ain’t exactly what we wanted to hear. But I think we can all agree that TK’s safety is what's important.”

He looked pointedly at Marjan as he said this. Carlos expected her to keep fighting, but to his surprise, her shoulders folded inward and she sank back to her chair. Her gaze moved to the middle distance. 

Deputy Chief Walters spoke next. “Officer Reyes. This all means you’ll be staying back with the 126. McIntire has made explicit threats toward you, and if he sees you involved, it could put TK at exceptional risk. Do you understand?”

It was an order he had been anticipating, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. How was he supposed to step away and let go of his illusion of control? To let someone else find TK, to let someone else comfort him and tell him it was over? A snarl flashed across his face, barely contained behind a lifetime of his father’s careful guidance. Don’t show your hand. Don’t take their bait. Stay calm. Stay collected. Be rational.

But there was nothing rational about this situation.

Tommy reached across the table and slipped her hand over the top of his, startling him from his spiral. Her steady gaze anchored him, gave him a way to claw back to reason. He rolled out his jaw and took a deep, ragged breath. 

“I understand,” he said, the words tight and sharp.

“If TK is present, we will do everything in our power to get him out of there safely,” Washington said. “But we also need to be prepared for the possibility that he isn’t there.”

Her pragmatism pulled Carlos the rest of the way back from his anger. He glanced toward Owen like he might have some idea how to handle that possibility, but the older man’s expression had shuttered. Carlos watched him for a tense moment before his gaze refocused on the huge map of Austin behind him.

A thought crossed his mind, and he went still.

“How did you find this location,” he asked, slowly standing upright. His eyes were locked on the map. “You said you’d ruled out others. Why this one?”

There was a pause on the line, and he realized he had interrupted whatever Washington had been saying. He could picture the other side of the phone call exchanging glances, trying to determine what to share. 

“We believe he acquired a property in his uncle’s name, off the books,” Consuelo said carefully. Across the table, Nancy’s head shot up, her eyes wide with dawning vindication. “But without proper paperwork or records, it’s difficult to say. The area is remote enough that it would work for both scenarios, though.”

Owen’s lip curled at the implication that his son was a ‘scenario,’ but Carlos spoke before he could change the subject. “Is it still in state?”

“Yes,” Walters said, intentionally not giving them the tools they’d need to jump the gun. “We don’t think McIntire’s operation is big enough yet that it can sustain itself without him, and he needs the money to keep this all up.”

It brought some modicum of relief, that TK might not be far. Carlos moved around the end of the table toward the wall of shelves and cabinets.

Behind him, Agent Consuelo was wrapping up the call. “We’ll be back in touch with next steps within the hour. In the meantime, we’re asking you all to stay put at the 126 and wait for more information from us. If we’re able to move on the location, we’ll let you know.”

Carlos pulled open the first cabinet, didn’t find what he was looking for, and moved to the next one. Tommy said something about being kept in the loop, and Owen agreed on their behalf that they would all remain where they were. The second cabinet also didn’t have what he was looking for.

He listened to the call end. As soon as it was over, Nancy slapped her open palms down against the tabletop.

“I fucking knew it,” she blurted. Her eyes were shining with the threat of tears. “I knew we were on to something with his uncle.”

“We couldn’t find anything because it was off the books,” Paul said. “There were no records to begin with.”

Carlos arrived at the final cabinet and pulled the doors open abruptly. There, standing upright and leaning against one another, was a collection of long cardboard tubes. He shuffled through them, bending to read the labels as he went. 

“So, what,” Mateo ventured, “the drug dealer was a good lead after all?”

Sunset Valley, one label read. West Lake hills. Manchaca. Carlos’s eyes landed on what he was searching for, and he yanked two tubes out of the collection.

“Spickelmeir knew about me,” he said, pivoting back to the table. He tossed one of the tubes across to Judd, who caught it with a surprised blink. “He had been around McIntire enough that he’d heard him rant about me. And McIntire trusted him with Cherry, too, which means Spickelmeir probably visited the place where McIntire was making it.”

“Which is probably how the DEA got an address for it,” Tommy concluded. “By interrogating Spickelmeir again.”

“‘Up there in his ivory castle’,” Carlos quoted, sliding paper from the tube and unrolling it across the table. “That’s what Spickelmeir said that made me think McIntire had another property that he was operating out of. If he meant it literally–and I have no reason to think he didn’t–then he may have been referring to something in the hills west of the city.”

Judd followed Carlos’s example and shook out the tube he’d been given. Hays and Travis County topographical maps covered the surface of the meeting table, lining up with each other with only a few quick nudges. “There are hills all round Austin, but not many that aren’t already developed. If your entire drug operation was centered in one place, you wouldn’t want it to be in a trafficked area. What’s discrete, remote, and unsuspecting?”

“Those hills are mostly subdivisions,” Owen said, dropping his finger on a warping ring that outlined a collection of hills. Pale gray ink indicated outlines of housing developments, clustered like islands among the lines of the map.

“Yeah, but further out it’s all rural,” Judd countered. He gestured to a spot further from Austin’s city center. “See here? Individual property parcels with acreage. He could have a house out there and not have any immediate neighbors to bother him.”

Tommy shook her head. “They’re all incorporated,” she said. “They might have well water, but the city runs utilities out there; they’d all have records with the county. And with the housing market the way it is, it’s hard to imagine someone selling one without making any paper trail.”

Carlos scoured the map. There were stretches without development, but that meant no roads, either. Even if McIntire had purchased a property on the down low, that didn’t mean it had been built without generating public records. Roads would have to exist to make it accessible. 

“Hold up.” Mateo leaned forward and squinted at the corner of the page. “These are last year’s district maps. What if something new has gone in?”

It set off a mad shuffle. Where were the current maps? Who was on hydrant duty who might have pulled them out last? It took five minutes of digging and texting other members of the station before Mateo burst back into the room with a tube held high in victory.

They unrolled it hastily on top of the other maps, pinning the corners down to keep it from curling back up. It took a minute for Carlos to re-orient himself. 

This new map was marked with spots of red, little sticky arrows that Judd explained were to indicate new hydrant locations. Just because they weren’t in their district, he said, doesn’t mean they didn’t keep copies at every station in case some emergency knocked out radio communication. 

Back up in the hills, where the previous map had been blank, one red arrow indicated something new. A loping grid of roads was there, free of any gray squares to indicate structures. Carlos dropped his index finger onto it. 

“Here,” he said. “Why is this on the current map, but not the old one?”

Owen leaned in and squinted at it for a moment. “Developers have to get all utility lines in before they can start building,” he said. “That includes roads, electoral lines, plumbing.”

“And hydrants,” Judd finished. “These developers, though, they tend to cheat a ‘lil. Build a model home for tours before they get the green light to build the rest of the development.”

Carlos slid his finger over to the one gray square on the grid, and froze. He had unintentionally covered the name of the development when he’d first placed his finger down on the map, and it flashed back at him like a strobe. 

Ivory Tower Estates, it read.

-

Everything was quiet and still, until it wasn’t.

A hand smoothed around the side of his face, gently rolling his head on the pillow. TK opened his eyes just wide enough for light to blur through his lashes. He knew, if he chose to, that he could sink back into medicated unconsciousness. Like hiding under the bed as a little kid, when he could hear his parents shouting through his bedroom door, he could choose to stay hidden for a little while longer. Maybe it’d be over when he finally chose to emerge.

But the hand cupping his cheek was big and unfamiliar, and a deeper instinct told TK that he was in too much danger to sleep. He frowned and tried to turn back into the pillow, but the touch became a grip, and a second hand closed around his shoulder and squeezed. 

“Wake up, Tyler.”

This time, he opened his eyes. Collin was leaning over him, their faces only two feet apart. 

TK jolted, sucking in a sharp breath. He tried to twist away, his hands flying up to rid himself of the man’s hold. Collin let go of his face, but didn’t back away. He snared TK’s wrists in his hands and stopped his struggling with a firm squeeze, earning a little sound of pain as TK’s freshly-bandage wrist tweaked under the pressure.

“Calm down,” Collin instructed. “Remember what we talked about?”

TK forced himself to take a few ragged breaths, his fingers fanning out the way one might hold their hands up when a gun was drawn on them. Collin waited for a long moment to ensure TK was going to stop struggling before he released him.

“I’ve made breakfast,” he said, standing to his full height and looming over the bed. “You’ll join me.”

This time, there was no option to stay in the room. TK pushed himself up onto his elbows as Collin rounded the foot of the bed and stepped out into the rest of the basement. Beyond the door frame, the small kitchen table was in full view. From this angle, TK could see the spread: eggs, fruit, yogurt, sausages. There was even a selection of bagels.

TK’s gut twisted with nausea, the grinding kind that came from taking meds on an empty stomach. How long had he been asleep? He hadn’t eaten since the last time Collin had invited him to that little table, and even then, it’d hadn’t been much. He’d been too focused on his impending escape.

He tried not to think about it. 

The leg brace had a hard shell under his foot that wrapped behind his heel and up the back of his leg for support. Maybe Collin thought a walking cast was sufficient; maybe he’d convinced himself that TK’s break wasn’t that bad. Either way, TK was clearly expected to make his way from the bed to the table, because Collin had already taken a seat. The man was watching him with a thin veneer of patience.

With as much care as he could manage, TK maneuvered himself to the corner of the bed closest to the door and slowly lowered his legs over the side. The shift in blood flow sent his leg into a new volley of throbbing pain, and he allowed himself a moment to breathe through it, his expression tight.

“Do you need a hand,” Collin asked. Each word was intentional, taunting. He knew he was making TK suffer, by having him get to the table on his own. This was more punishment for trying to run away. 

Something in TK’s chest hardened. “No.”

Anger helped propel him forward. TK reached for the corner of the credenza for support, and then the wall, and then the door frame. He managed to skip-limp his way to the same chair he’d sat in earlier. By the time he was seated, he was breathing heavily, his nausea all the worse for the physical activity. The smell of food wasn’t helping.

Collin kicked an extra chair out from under the table and pushed it toward TK. “Prop your leg up.”

TK couldn’t suppress the scowl on his face, but he did what he was told. Only then did Collin reach for his fork. Just like that, the pressing threat of violence evaporated, and the man in front of him looked for all the world like they had met up for a casual brunch.

“I was thinking, earlier, about your family,” Collin said, entirely too conversational. “You were never particularly close to your step father, were you?”

TK eyed the empty paper plate in front of him. He knew he should eat, but not until he caught his breath. His leg throbbed. 

“Enzo,” Collin clarified, sounding the two-syllable name out like it was foreign to his tongue. “Where has he been since you came to Texas?”

A few days ago, TK would have thrown the subject right back at Collin. What makes you think, he would have said, that I want to talk to you about that?

But now his combative confidence was gone, smashed under a crowbar and banished with Collin’s breath against the side of his neck. He couldn’t even muster the energy to be surprised that Collin knew who Enzo was. 

He seemed determined to make conversation. Around a mouthful of eggs, Collin pressed on. “My own father, he was never that invested in my life. It used to make me angry, and I did plenty of stupid things to rebel. And here you’ve had two father figures who weren’t invested enough.”

TK clenched his teeth to keep from saying anything. Collin glanced up from his plate and held TK’s gaze with a steady intensity, almost like a challenge. “Maybe that’s why you feel so compelled to make rash decisions.”

Even through his anger, TK tried to see the different angles of what Collin was doing. Was he trying to rationalize TK’s behavior, so that the blame for his injuries wouldn’t rest solely on Collin? Was he trying to make TK blame himself? Or was he trying to tempt TK into lashing out? 

Or maybe, he was trying to see if he had taught TK to stay quiet, and not lash out. Maybe he was trying to see if his conditioning and threats had worked.

Collin’s expression was stony and unreadable, and TK didn’t know how to reply. He was hurting too badly to play mind games. When he didn’t respond, Collin sighed and pointed at the food in the middle of the table. “Eat,” he instructed.

The last thing TK wanted was to get hit for not eating cantaloupe. Cautiously, he reached forward and placed a few things on his plate. 

Flashes of his nightmare came back to him while he ate. The 1950s house, and all the domesticity it implied. Collin was the breadwinner with the coiffed hair and horn rimmed glasses, and so long as TK stayed in line, he was the trembling housewife with the black eye. His grip tightened around his plastic fork. Was this it, then? Drugs to make him sleep, manipulative conversation over breakfast food, and bending to this psycho’s whims for fear of being punished?

TK glanced up from his food. He didn’t want to play Collin’s games, and he had no idea how to counter them with one of his own, but he had to reevaluate. Trying to run had backfired spectacularly. He needed another tactic.

A glint of something around Collin’s neck caught his eye, and TK stilled. In the recessed lighting from above, a silver chain disappeared under his shirt collar. He recognized the way the chain was woven from years of looking at it in the mirror.

TK’s hand went to the base of his throat, and he froze. He slid his fingers up around to the back of his neck, finding nothing but smooth skin. His breathing shifted, quickening with panic.

His necklace was gone. 

“It’s safe,” Collin said, without looking up from his food. TK’s eyes, wide with fear, snapped back to him. “I have it right here.”

From under his shirt, he fished out a familiar silver pendant in the shape of the 252’s house emblem. 

A wave of numbness washed over TK, leaving pins and needles in its wake. All of his anger was gone, replaced by cold fear. “Give that back.”

“You keep them close,” Collin observed, returning to his food as if a cosmic line hadn’t just been crossed. “In every photo I’ve seen of you, you’re wearing this. Every single one.”

“Give it back,” TK snapped, pulling his leg off of the chair. In spite of the pain, he shoved himself to his feet, both hands planted firmly on the table to support his weight. 

Collin set down his plastic cutlery and leaned back in his chair slowly. He sized TK up, a fortress of calm with a stolen heirloom around his neck, and thought about the demand for a long moment. 

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I was planning on giving this back to you once you’d earned back my trust. But I can tell it means a lot to you.”

TK’s eyes heated with tears born from fear and anger and exhaustion and helplessness. If he hadn’t been crippled with a broken leg, he might have lunged across the table. When the fuck had Collin taken it? Had he slipped it from around TK’s neck when he’d been asleep?

“So how about this,” Collin said. “I’ll give you back your necklace, and let you keep it. In exchange for a kiss.”

For a moment, TK didn’t react; he didn’t know how to . He thought, surely, that he’d heard the man wrong. 

Taking his silence for confusion, Collin reached behind his neck and unclasped the woven chain. He lowered the necklace pendant-first into his palm, closed his fist around it, and settled back in his chair. “I want you to come over here, and kiss me. Not a peck, and not on the cheek. I want you to mean it, Tyler. If you do that, I’ll give you back your necklace.”

Horror and indignation surged up TK’s throat. He had been given that pendant at his uncle’s funeral. Marty hadn’t had kids of his own; his windowed wife had insisted that TK should have it, since Marty was always hoisting TK onto his shoulders and sneaking him sour candies. He’d put it on that day, and had never taken it off. 

For a few rapid-fire seconds, he tried to find another way to get it back. He couldn’t wrestle it away from Collin. Even if he managed it, the victory would be short lived, and he had no delusions that Collin wouldn’t hurt him for trying. But he couldn’t let that monster hold onto it, either. Could he bargain for it? Could he offer something else? What did he have that Collin couldn’t already take from him if he wanted to?

“Or I can hold onto it,” Collin offered, his eyebrows lowering into something that looked dangerously like offense. “And return it to you when you’ve earned my trust back. Like I had planned.”

In a traitorous instant, TK thought about it. But he didn’t know what ‘earning back trust’ would entail, and the reality was that it could end up being a lot worse than just a kiss. And besides, wearing that necklace had always kept his family close. He couldn’t stomach the thought of going through this nightmare without even that small comfort.

“I want your word,” TK rasped. He swiped a bitter tear off of his cheek, desperately wishing he could hide his emotions better.

Collin’s eyebrows lifted, and a single laugh escaped his huge chest. Surprised, clearly, and amused.

TK forced the words out like they were painful. “Trust goes both ways.”

The smile on Collin’s face vanished. He considered this for a long moment, his expression hard and assessing, before he lifted his chin. “Fine. You have my word.”

“One kiss,” TK clarified. 

Collin’s expression turned revoltingly smug for an instant before he smoothed it into something resembling reasonable. “One kiss,” he agreed. 

Limping around the table took longer than it needed to. The corners of TK’s eyes were pinched tight with pain and dread as he went, using the table for support. Collin sat back in his chair and waited, like a man expecting a lap dance. If TK had had a weapon of any kind, he’d go right for the jugular. 

When he was within arm’s reach, Collin leaned forward and snagged TK’s hand off the table. It destabilized him, nearly sent him to the floor, but Collin caught him with his other hand against his waist, necklace and all. TK twisted, repelled by the touch, but had nowhere to go. With his good hand gripped tight in Collin’s, TK stood between the man’s knees and tried to brace himself. 

He didn’t want to do this.

If he thought hesitating would have made Collin angry, he was wrong. The man was looking up at him with half-lidded eyes, confident in his control of the situation and completely lost in whatever parallel fantasy he was telling himself. The hand against TK’s waist twitched, the silver chain of his necklace woven around Collin’s fingers.

Just one kiss. It didn’t mean anything; it was only a means to an end. That necklace meant more to him than just about any other material object he owned. Just one kiss. 

It was like trying to convince himself to press his face against a hot stovetop. He was too close to Collin as it was, well within his reach and standing right between his knees. This was too much. His chest was getting tight from fear, his breaths shallow and fast. He wanted to cry, or punch, or run, or scream. He didn’t want to kiss the man in front of him.

He hardly heard the muffled vibration of a text. Collin nearly didn’t either, lost as he was looking up at TK and waiting for a kiss, but it vibrated again, and it broke him out of his trance. 

“Hold that thought,” he said, husky and annoyed in equal measure. His grip on TK’s hand tightened, like he was afraid he might bolt while he was distracted. He dropped his other hand from TK’s waist and reached into his pocket for his phone.

TK’s heart was thundering in his ears. Lingering in this moment was going to give him a heart attack. He risked a glance at the phone. He could grab it, he thought distantly. Run into the bedroom and lock Collin out. He could probably dial out to 911 before Collin could break down the door, and then he could chuck it under the bed and try to buy dispatch time to locate the nearest cell tower. Could he move that fast with a broken leg? Would Collin kill him for trying?

Collin stood up abruptly, and TK stumbled back against the table with his heart in his throat. The man was staring at his phone with wide eyes, anger and shock warring on his face. His breathing was quickening. Whatever text he had gotten had shattered his control.

TK had the fleeting, hysterical thought that help was on the way. That the text somehow meant police were on their way. But Collin forced a deep breath into his lungs and smoothed his expression out like the shock had only been fleeting. Before TK could move out of his reach, Collin snarred his upper arm in a vice grip and dragged him painfully toward the bedroom. 

“Change of plans,” he said, yanking TK hard when he stumbled and nearly fell. “We’ll have to raincheck.”

Two steps into the bedroom, Collin pivoted and flung TK onto the bed. The paramedic landed with a pained cry, sprawled across the duvet. He was quick to scramble backwards in order to defend himself, but when he twisted around, Collin was staring at his phone again, still standing in the doorway. His eyes were alight with something sinister and gleeful. 

After a terrifying beat, Collin’s gaze snapped back to TK. The corner of his mouth twitched in what could have either been a smile or a sneer. He tossed the necklace at the space in front of TK’s chest, the silver chain pooling up against his shirt. 

“I’ll collect that kiss when I get back,” Collin promised. 

The bedroom door slammed behind him, leaving TK alone with his heart thundering in his chest. His hands were trembling as he picked up the necklace and clutched it tight, listening to Collin’s footsteps pound up the stairs. Another door slam, and a few distant clicks as locks were turned. Footsteps overhead, crossing the house. 

TK looked toward the bathroom wall. Collin’s last words to him didn’t make sense in the context of an impending rescue, but something had rattled him for him to react that way. For him to be so close to getting what he wanted from TK, only to put it on hold. 

Getting off the bed was painful, but TK moved as quickly as he could anyway. He made it into the pocket bathroom with just enough foresight to not crash into the wall. It was cold when he pressed his ear against it. He held his breath, and listened.

“-fter what he did to you?” Amelia. She was clearly upset if she was speaking loud enough for TK to actually hear her. 

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Collin’s voice rumbled. “This is an opportunity.”

“It’s also clearly a trap! You can’t be serious, Collin! After all the work we’ve done so you can have that fucking paramedic?!”

More footsteps, and a reply that TK couldn’t hear. Amelia spoke again. “And what am I supposed to do? Sit around this house and babysit your new bitch?”

He didn’t need his ear pressed to the wall for TK to hear Collin’s reply. He was shouting. “Do not speak about him like that,” Collin roared. ”You will do what I need you to do! All the risks I’ve taken for you, and you protest every little request! Do you want to be a liability, Amelia? Do you want me to fail?!”

Overhead, there was silence. TK strained to hear, afraid that they’d lowered their voices. He thought he heard Collin say something about an hour. He distinctly heard the phrases “six steps ahead of them” and “will not put all my hard work at risk just for–”, but Collin’s voice was quieter now, barely vibrating through the walls. 

Then more footsteps, and a door slamming. After a long silence, TK turned his back to the wall and slid down until he was seated on the floor with his legs splayed out in front of him. His heart was pounding. He felt numb.

Overhead, Amelia loosed an enraged scream, and then the house was quiet for a long time.

Chapter Text

He should have known she wouldn’t stay idle for long. Nothing about this situation, or Amelia Rogers’s part in it, was sustainable. 

TK had been alone for about an hour, sitting on the bed and thumbing the chain of his necklace through his fingers like a rosary, when he heard her footsteps cross the house overhead. Too light to be Collin’s, and too intentional to not be headed toward the basement. He tracked his eyes along the ceiling, following her path. With each step she took down the staircase, a growing sense of dread settled over his shoulders like a physical weight.

Amelia let the bedroom door swing open under its own power, slow and eerie as it drifted toward the wall. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying. Her arms hung at her sides, shoulders slouched with a kind of resignation that immediately put TK on high alert. In her right hand, she held a gun.

He fell very still. For a long moment, they stared at one another, and said nothing.

Oh, he thought. She’s going to kill me.

Her grip on the gun was loose, and her finger wasn’t on the trigger. With her other hand, she tossed something small and silver onto the bed within his reach, and gestured at him with the weapon. “Uncuff yourself and get up.”

When she didn’t make any sudden movements with the gun, TK looked down to find a ring with two silver keys on it, just the right size for handcuffs. 

Confusion made him hesitate, but he didn’t argue. Pocketing his necklace, he reached for the keys with trembling hands, and leaned forward to release his ankle from the cuffs. 

He had been so focused on Collin, on the manipulative six-foot-seven drug lord who had broken his leg, that he hadn’t considered what Amelia’s breaking point would be. Her scream from earlier, the desperate fury that had echoed through the house after he’d overheard her argument with Collin, should have been more of a warning. 

A bone-deep numbness washed over him. TK moved carefully to the edge of the bed and leveraged his weight until he was standing, never once breaking eye contact with Amelia. She gestured with the gun for him to come toward her, pointing it loosely at his legs as she backed out of the bedroom. TK limped along as instructed, using the wall to support his weight. His leg throbbed. 

“We’re going upstairs,” she informed him, her words clipped. TK hesitated in the doorway, eyes tracking across the room to determine how he was going to manage that. He could technically stand unsupported, but walking was a different thing entirely. Chair, table, chair, banister; he could pick his way across the room, leaning on each item as he went, if she gave him the time. But getting up the stairs? Was she insane?

“Move,” Amelia growled, waving the gun more pointedly at him. Oh, right. Of course she was. 

TK opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and clicked his teeth back together. He looked back at the obstacle course before him, winced when he tried to put weight on his broken leg, and took a deep breath.

It was slow going. In spite of the gun, Amelia didn’t rush him. She stayed several feet out of his reach, kept the gun pointed in the general direction of his legs, and watched him pick his way across the open basement. The last time he had made this journey, he’d been running. Collin had been doubled over in pain, and TK’s only handicap had been that he hadn’t stretched properly in two days.

It was almost laughable now, as he fought gravity and agony to make it across the room. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, TK was breathing hard and groaning in pain. He gripped the support beam at the base of the banister, sagging against it with his full weight. 

Amelia circled around behind him, never getting within his reach. He wondered momentarily if Collin was back, if he’d told Amelia to do this, but he disregarded the idea just as fast. Collin hadn’t brought her down to the basement at all, and had denied her help when she’d offered it, while TK was cuffed in the pantry. He didn’t want anyone interacting with TK besides himself. 

He looked up the length of the stairs, at the open basement door above. She hadn’t bothered to close it behind her, because she knew he couldn’t get away. The thought nearly made him cry.

Something hard and cold pressed into his upper back, and TK jolted with surprise. Hidden by the sound of his labored breathing, Amelia had come within range without him noticing. She prodded him with the gun to get moving, her gaze hard and unyielding. She looked almost as exhausted as TK felt.

He turned back toward the stairs, took a deep breath to brace himself, and started to climb.

What made sense? As he struggled up the steps, trusting that she wouldn’t shoot him in the back of the head, TK tried to think it through. She wanted him gone, but killing him would destroy whatever relationship she had with Collin. Unless Collin didn’t know TK was dead? He’d tried to run once. Maybe she would stage it so that he’d tried again. In that case, killing him in the basement, even if it was somehow bloodless, would leave her with a body to hide. TK was a head taller than Amelia. Was she making him walk to save herself the heavy lifting?

She could take him outside, kill him, and hide him somewhere. Stage an escape. Convince Collin that TK had fled, and buy herself some time to get rid of the body. Was she that desperate? Maybe she was blind to it, but Collin seemed to only tolerate her, rather than outright trust her. Would he fall for something like that?

Halfway up the steps, TK had to stop to catch his breath. Back toward the base of the stairs, Amelia groaned. “I didn’t say stop. Keep moving.”

Maybe she didn’t care what Collin thought anymore. Maybe she had finally snapped. TK only knew about the crimes she had committed on Collin’s behalf since she had broken into the Camaro, but how many others had there been? How much had she sacrificed for a man who treated her like a janitor? 

His eyes were watering when he reached the top of the stairs. Gasping for breath, TK gripped the door frame with white knuckles and pulled himself into the hallway. The house above the basement was quiet, just as vacuous and echoing as it had been the last time he’d sprinted through its halls. 

“Turn right,” Amelia instructed, only a few steps below him. TK looked back, caught sight of the gun trained on him, and obeyed. He followed the length of the wall, leaning against it as he limped along. He didn’t even consider making a break for it; he was too exhausted, in too much pain. All he’d do was guarantee himself a bullet. 

Moving much more slowly than his last escape attempt, TK could take in the house in more detail. It was undecorated, barren and move-in ready if you ignored the drug lab in the living room. Orange evening light was spilling in from outside, tinted by a strange rainbow sheen on the few windows he could see. One-way treatments, he thought. 

Behind him, Amelia snapped directions at him, guiding him through the house. They crossed the kitchen, passed the pantry he’d been tied up in. Down a hallway he hadn’t seen before, he limped by an open door to some kind of home office. Unlike the rest of the house, it was a mess of monitors and notebooks and binders. Maps were pinned to the walls wherever there wasn’t a shelf crowded with lab equipment. One map was of the city of Austin, another the greater Travis County area. In the two seconds he had to look inside, TK thought he saw his own face smiling back at him from the wall, a photograph taken with a zoom lens. His breath hitched, and he kept moving.

Further down the hallway were two downstairs bedrooms. Soft cello music echoed from one of them, jarringly soothing as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath. Amelia came up behind him and grabbed a handful of his t-shirt, the hard edge of the gun pressing into his mid-back. 

“I’m going to show you why you’re here,” she said, leaning close enough that he felt her body heat. She shoved him forward, toward the room opposite the cello music. TK went without any resistance.

Inside, it was completely ordinary. A king-sized bed, a writing desk, bookshelves lined with non-fiction titles. Everything was tidy, precise, controlled. A guest room, he thought, until Amelia shoved him toward the bed and he noticed the closet door was ajar. Clothing hung inside, a collection of extra-large flannels and button ups. 

Collin’s bedroom, then. So tightly coordinated and lacking in personality that TK thought it was a guest room. Go figure.

He collapsed onto the foot of the bed under Amelia’s direction, grateful for even the limited relief that it brought his aching leg. She turned away from him toward the writing desk, where the lower drawers were hanging open. TK clocked the keyhole in one of them, and the metal picks sticking out of it.

He didn’t know what was more concerning: that Collin kept the drawers locked and inaccessable to his confidant, or that she had broken into them behind his back.

Amelia reached in and pulled out a thick white binder, holding the gun in such a way that it helped her prop up its weight. She stormed back over to TK, who flinched away from her, and dropped the binder on the bed beside him. 

“Open it,” she instructed, pointing the gun first at the binder, and then at him. He didn’t need to be told twice. TK pulled the heavy book onto his lap, and unfolded the cover.

It was a scrapbook. The first page had a hospital bracelet with Collin’s name on it, unrolled and taped into a straight line. There was a small sheet from a hospital notepad, with tight neat writing detailing the night of his overdose, and his “rescue” by “an ethereal creature.” The third item secured to the page was a photograph of TK, smiling politely at something above the camera’s lens. Behind him was the vehicle bay at the 126.

TK’s stomach iced over. It took a moment to recognize the source of the photo, but he could hear Judd in the back of his mind, admitting that he’d thought Collin had been taking his picture. It was from months ago, when he had stopped by the 126 to say thank you. 

But only to TK.

Each page after that held a carefully curated selection of photographs, different versions of his own face looking back at him. One was of TK pushing a shopping cart, laughing with Judd, whose face had been covered with a piece of blue tape. Next to it was the grocery list they had used that day, a collection of different colored inks in the familiar handwriting of the 126 crew.

Another was a grainy shot of TK and Nancy sitting in the cab of the ambulance at night, talking to each other while they were waiting in line at the Starbucks drive thru. There was a note detailing TK’s coffee order, and how Collin thought it was too sugary, “but he seems to only order it after a violent call. Comfort food?” 

One page had a high-resolution photograph of TK, on his knees outside of the 126, bent over Harvey to perform chest compressions. The notes in the margins were all sorts of radio codes and medical terminology, written almost verbatim from the textbooks TK had studied when he was getting his paramedic certifications. 

He looked up at Amelia without really seeing her, like she might be able to explain what he was looking at. Whatever shellshocked look he gave her only made her frown deepen. 

“Keep going,” she instructed. This time, when she gestured at him with her firearm, it didn’t convey a threat so much as it did impatience. TK swallowed hard and forced his eyes back to the book.

The more pages he turned, the more intrusive the photographs became. One was taken through the living room window at his father’s house; one was taken from across the street, while TK and Carlos sat in their favorite Thai place; another was of TK and Carlos, standing under the overgrown rhododendrons outside of the police precinct. TK had one hand over his mouth, mid-laugh.

In all of the photographs that featured Carlos, he was furiously scratched out.

“Do you get it now,” Amelia asked. “How much he loves you?”

TK pulled his eyes away from the book and stared up at her, not processing her question. The disconnect between his own horror and her definition of ‘love’ was so wide a gap that he couldn’t make his mind connect the two. 

“All of this time, this attention to detail. He’s been worshiping you for months, and you hate him for it.” Her lip curled around the observation, her voice shaking with heartbroken anger. “Do you have any idea how much I would–”

She stopped herself and squared her jaw, turning away like she didn’t want him to see her cry. Numb, TK looked back to the book and turned through more pages, only processing bits and pieces as he went. He slowed when he came upon a picture of his father. 

Owen Strand, Collin had written. 51 years old. Impulsive, vain, led by emotion. Neglectful. Anger issues, trouble with authority. Potentially violent.

The page beside his father featured his mother. Gwyn Morgan, resplendent in a burgundy dress, was leaning in close to TK so they would both fit in the picture. Their cheeks were pressed together, beaming smiles and matching dimples as they laughed. TK stared at his mother, who smiled back at him from the photograph like nothing was wrong. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. 

“He’s the only person,” Amelia said, her voice pulling TK back to reality, “who has ever looked at me and seen potential. And every time I think I’ve earned his love, he turns around and fixates on some pretty face who treats him like garbage.”

He looked up from the safe haven of his mother’s eyes and watched Amelia turn and storm back to the open desk. She rummaged around for a moment, found what she was looking for, and flung a legal pad across the room at him. The pages fluttered loudly as he scrambled to catch it before it could hit his face. 

“He knows all about you. And now I do, too.” Amelia kicked the drawer closed to get it out of her way, and started pacing. “And you know what I see? A spoiled brat, who doesn’t have any idea how good he’s had it. You know what my parents did? My father preached out the back of the family car and turned the other cheek, but only when his best friend laid his hands on me. My mother made me bathe in ammonia when I told her, because I was unclean. But you? Your mother was a rich lawyer who could buy you whatever you wanted, and your father is some big American hero, and everyone gave you a pass because, oh, boo hoo, you knew some people who died when you were a kid. They gave you absolutely everything, and what did you become? A goddamn junkie.”

TK stared at her as she paced back and forth, his hands trembling as he gripped the crumpled legal pad. With the gun waving around, her rant registered in pieces, like fragments of broken glass. He forced himself to take even breaths and remain still.

“But no, you’re an angel,” Amelia declared, her words twisting with mockery, “because you got clean! Mommy stopped funding your pill habit, and suddenly you’re the picture of innocence and self-control!”

It took effort to not look down at the photograph of his mother. Anger flared and extinguished in his chest in the space of a breath. “Is that what Collin thinks?”

The question, asked in a more incredulous tone than TK intended, seemed to catch her off guard. Amelia stopped short and stared at him for a moment, bewildered, like his question had snapped her back to reality. “No,” she answered, her shoulders dropping. “No. In Collin’s eyes, you’re perfect.”

There was a pause, and then TK laughed. A few breathy notes, disbelief rather than amusement. He shook his head. “In what fucking world,” he asked, “does any of that mean perfection?”

Amelia lifted her chin and pointed the gun at the legal pad in TK’s grip. “You’re his perfect,” she snapped. “Read it.”

Suddenly, TK didn’t want to know. He was afraid to look down at what was in his hands. The scrapbook had been bad enough, but the way that Amelia had punctuated her assertion made the legal pad seem worse. 

The pages, wrinkled from a lifespan of being flipped and folded and pushed aside, were covered in Collin’s tight, tidy handwriting. TK didn’t know what to make of it at first, didn’t know where to start reading the densely-packed paragraphs, but Amelia didn’t make him figure it out on his own. 

“Perfect,” she spat, like the word was a curse, “because you lost so many family members during 9/11. Perfect because you OD’d, because you’re an addict who's trying to get better. Perfect because you’ve been shot, and kidnapped, and frozen into a coma. Perfect because your mother died tragically.”

As she spoke, the paragraphs began to organize themselves before his eyes. They were notes on his medical history, his personal life, his losses and tragedies and heartbreaks. Each example was tied back to his trauma, his mental health. There were notes on neural pathways, on brain chemistry, observations on little behavioral ticks he didn’t even realize he had. His entire life, gathered together under the mantle of PTSD.

Amelia had stepped closer. She stared down at him with open contempt. “You’re his little broken doll,” she concluded. “His perfect subject.”

Across the house, the front door opened and slammed shut. TK jolted badly; Amelia stiffened and lifted her chin. The sound of heavy footfalls thundered across the house toward them, each one twisting a vice tighter around TK’s heart. They weren’t supposed to be in here: Amelia had uncuffed him, forced him upstairs, broken into Collin’s things. He’d looked at them, things TK realized he was never meant to see. Dread began to churn through his stomach like gasoline. Fuck. Fuck. He didn’t want to get hurt again.

When Collin appeared in the doorway, his back was to them, facing the room with the cello music. It only took him a second to realize where they were, before he whirled around to find Amelia standing in the middle of his room, with TK seated on the bed. The binder was still open on TK’s lap; the legal pad was still clutched in his hands. 

And Amelia still had the gun clutched in hers.

There was a terrible silence. Collin looked from Amelia to TK to the open desk, his chest rising and falling quickly but his body otherwise still. His hair was a mess, the usual coif unraveled from carding his fingers through it too many times. One of his sleeves, usually symmetrical, had unrolled a few inches lower than the other one. His glasses were smudged enough that TK noticed even from across the room.

The idea that Collin McIntire had been shaken by something made TK all the more afraid.

“Was Charlie there,” Amelia asked, breaking the silence. It sounded rhetorical, if not entirely bitter. They stared at each other for a beat before Collin forced himself to take a deep breath and adjust his posture. 

“He was,” he admitted, “though I didn’t get close. I see you’ve been doing your own investigating.”

His eyes flashed toward TK, and a bolt of cold fear shot down his spine. 

Amelia didn’t seem phased. “We’re meant to be equal partners in this,” she said, lifting her chin again. “All these years, I’ve supported your research. I’ve defended it when no one else would, funded it until I was broke, fought for it with everything I’ve had. I thought we had an understanding, that the science was what mattered most. And now this?”

She gestured the gun at TK without looking away from Collin. With each word, she was finding her resolve, anger emboldening her further. Her voice still cracked with emotion around her next words. “You wanna fuck him? Fine. Have your little fantasy. But if he’s here for research, I need to know. Don’t cut me out of what really matters. Not after everything we’ve been through together.”

Collin was silent while the weight of her speech settled over him. His breathing slowed and his expression smoothed into something curated and neutral. Pleasant, almost. “You’re right,” he said at length. “It’s only that I know how you feel about me, Amelia. I wanted to protect your heart. But I shut you out, didn’t I?”

TK’s skin was crawling. If the last few days had accomplished anything, it was that every fiber of his being had been calibrated to Collin’s anger like a compass pointing north. As composed as the man sounded, all TK heard was the threat of violence.

Amelia, however, dropped her shoulders with dawning relief. “We’re partners,” she reiterated, reaching up to touch a necklace that hung around her throat. Beneath her manicured nails, it looked like a molecular structure, with small diamonds embedded in it. “I’m the only one who's stayed by your side, through everything.”

Collin’s jaw flexed, just enough for TK to notice. “You are,” he agreed. “And these last few days have been difficult for us both, I know. But I’m afraid our challenges aren’t over yet.”

Having heard what she wanted to hear in the interim, Amelia took a deep breath, and turned her anger toward something more practical. “What did Charlie do?”

The corner of Collin’s mouth twitched in the barest impression of a smile. “Nothing. He ordered coffee, and waited for me to show up. Just like the DEA agents in plainclothes around him.”

The air in the room shifted. TK inhaled quickly, an audible little gasp that earned an icy glance from Collin. 

“Regina,” Amelia guessed, her tone souring into venom. “That nosy bitch. How close do you think they are?”

“It doesn’t matter. We should prepare to relocate. A shame, considering all the work I’ve put into this place. But after your little tantrum,” Collin said, turning to TK, “I suppose you didn’t appreciate it anyway.”

The pit of fear in TK’s stomach plunged deeper. Help was getting close enough that Collin was ready to run. Statistics flashed across his mind’s eye like a camera shutter, none of them in his favor. He needed to stall, but had no means to do so. And even if he did, he had no idea how long he’d need to hold out. But the possibility of rescue made him dizzy with hope, something he’d been too afraid to let himself feel, and to have Collin snatch it away was an unbearable thought.

Over the quiet sound of TK’s rapid breathing, Collin and Amelia were talking. They shifted gears like it was an old habit, proposing and dismissing tasks that needed to be completed before they could leave. Pack this, burn those, scrub that down. They’d moved workshops before. Distantly, TK remembered the drug house full of Carlos’s defaced photographs, Deputy Chief Walters admitting that the people who had abandoned it had cleaned it well, but not well enough.

It hardly mattered to him if they left evidence of Cherry, though. Not if Collin escaped with TK.

“Start in the office,” Collin was saying. “I’ll finish up here.”

Amelia took a deep breath and nodded. She shot one last look at TK, assessing him like she was trying to figure out the new inconvenience to their moving process. Then she turned and started toward the door. 

Collin caught her hand in his as she passed him. She turned, tilting her head back to look up at him. Before she could speak, he cupped the side of her face, leaned down, and kissed her.

Amelia Rogers stiffened with shock, and then melted into the kiss like it was her first breath of air in years.

“We’ll leave within the hour,” Collin said, straightening back up and holding her hand close to his chest for a brief moment. She fluttered in front of him, dazed and glassy-eyed with joy, a half-smile forming on her face. “We can’t give them a chance to catch up.”

She wiped a tear off of her cheek and smiled up at him, nodding. It took visible effort for her to shake off her surprise and force herself to get moving again.

As soon as she was out of the room, Collin’s lip curled in distaste. He stared after her with narrowed eyes, his nostrils flaring. Then he turned toward TK.

“Tyler,” he said, his voice slow and threatening. “I’ve been meaning to have a word with you.”

It was a struggle to keep his breathing even. TK set the legal pad down on the bed beside him and curled his fingers around the edges of the binder, still open on his lap. Panicked and desperate, he searched for something to say that would appease Collin’s anger, and came up with nothing.

“I saw an old friend today,” the man said, taking a casual step toward the bed. “And it reminded me of the first conversation you and I had, once I brought you home. Do you remember? You had asked me ‘what the fuck I thought was going to happen.’”

He phrased the quote with slow, menacing punctuation, each word cracking like glass. TK’s shoulders tightened upward as Collin loomed closer, his shadow falling across the bed. His heart pounded in his ears. 

“I have an answer for you, now.” Collin stopped in front of him, a predatory glint in his eye as he glared down at TK. “You see, I’ve allowed every important thing to walk out of my life. My father was ill, and I let him drive away the night he died. My career, I let die on the vine, because I was too impatient with the imbeciles around me. My last love, I let slip away when he became blinded by grief and rage. But you, Tyler? You, I will not lose. I’m going to fix you. You’re going to be my life’s work.”

Collin moved before TK could react, his large hand closing around the younger man’s jaw and gripping it tight. With his other hand, he threaded his fingers into TK’s hair, and tugged his head backwards, exposing his throat. 

“And I’m going to collect that kiss,” he said, leaning down with a grin on his face. 

TK cried out the same instant Collin’s lips smashed into his. It was bruising, a demonstration of cruelty and control. With Collin’s grip on his chin and hair, he had nowhere to go. TK dug his fingernails into Collin’s forearm and kicked out with his good leg to no avail. The scrapbook on his lap clattered to the floor. 

Teeth closed around TK’s lower lip, and bit. He sobbed, a jagged sound that was as much pain as it was fear, and then Collin released him, shoved him backward onto the bed. The man stood back to his full height, breathing hard. There was blood on his teeth.

TK slapped a hand over his mouth and shoved away from Collin, struggling to find a defensible position on the bed. The monster before him only stood there, licking his lips and breathing hard, a slow process of regaining composure.

“There, now. You held up your end of our deal,” Collin said between heavy breaths. A cruel smile flashed across his face. “What was it that you said? Trust is a two way street?”

TK glared up at him through a swell of tears. His palm came away from his mouth bloody, staining the sheets as he fisted his hand into the bedding. The fear, the assault, the pain he’d been in for days all came surging up his throat in an ugly rage. 

“They’re going to find me, you fucking maniac,” he spat. Several tears broke free and tracked down his bruised face. “And I won’t stop fighting you until they do!”

The grin collapsed off of Collin’s face, his features twisting back into a snarl. He opened his mouth, hands balling into fists at his side, but before he could speak, Amelia’s voice cut across the room. 

“Collin,” she snapped, “we don’t have time! Deal with him later.”

The monster didn’t move, but he didn’t swing at TK, either. The feral quality to his glare faded, control reasserting itself with visible effort. After a moment, he squared his jaw and took a deep, seething breath. 

“I don’t think Tyler is going to be reasonable,” he said slowly, never breaking eye contact with TK. “Be a dear, Amelia, and get the handcuffs from downstairs. Hopefully, that will be enough. I’d hate to have to medicate him.”

TK flinched at the threat, but refused to wilt under Collin’s intense glare. The monster’s eyes narrowed. 

“I’m not going to let anyone or anything come between us,” Collin said, low enough that Amelia wouldn’t hear it even if she was still in earshot. He leaned forward, causing TK to flinch backward violently.

“Not even you.”

Chapter Text

Once upon a Tuesday meeting, TK had described his experience with addiction in horror movie terms. 

Early versions of the story had TK playing the role of the cocky high school student, messing with a ouija board and foolheartedly welcoming demons into the house. He was young and immortal, and it was fun to take risks and lose control. He didn’t understand that it would keep haunting him, even after he’d put the board away. Or worse, he believed that the consequences of such actions only happened to other people. 

In the worst throes of his addiction, he cast himself as the hot girl in the isolated cabin, unwilling to abandon her friends while she desperately tried calling for help. Opiates played the role of the monster lurking outside, scratching on windows and building tension until it was unbearable, until the back door would smash open and everyone would die screaming.

In recovery, with Carlos and the 126 and stability, TK had changed roles again. He became the old neighbor who warned vacationing college students of danger at the start of the film. If the monster came for him, it would find him sitting on the porch with a shotgun, all too familiar with how it operated. Thought you’d be back, the old man would say stoically. I’ve got a 12 gauge with your name on it, if you wanna try me.

Then the monster would amble on to find other prey, because it wasn’t used to people knowing how to defend themselves against it.

The monster would return from time to time; there was no avoiding that. But being in a good place meant being able to scare the monster right back off the property when it came lurking. It meant having control, and confidence, and support. 

When he’d shared that metaphor, it never would have occurred to him that the monster was a real physical thing. But then, TK would never have imagined Collin McInitre tearing into his life. 

He was bent awkwardly over Collin’s broad shoulder, the monster’s arm wrapped firmly around his thighs as he carried him through the house. With his wrists handcuffed in front of him, TK had no recourse but to grit his teeth and brace against Collin’s back.

“We’ll need to call Christopher and make sure he knows what’s happening,” the monster was saying, as though TK were any other item that needed to be transported. “He should know what to do.”

“Already done,” Amelia reassured him, “and the next supply has been postponed.” She was following close behind, looking anywhere but TK’s bloody lip. 

“Good.” Collin forced open a door just off of the kitchen and stepped down into a two-car garage. Like the rest of the house, it was empty of any personal touches or clutter. On one side sat an unassuming red sedan, and on the other, a silver Subaru outback with a tarp pulled halfway over it. 

TK’s recon was short-lived. Collin pulled the back door of the sedan open and leaned forward, his free arm coming up along TK’s spine to support him. In one practiced motion, a broad hand cupped the back of TK’s head and rolled him backward off of Collin’s shoulder and into the backseat. He gave a futile twist, born more from instinct than resistance, and then he was lying down. A seat belt buckle dug into his lower back. 

Collin gave him a brief look of warning before he stood upright again and turned to say something to Amelia. The trunk of the car opened; something was dropped inside, making the vehicle bounce. In his fleeting moment of personal space, TK tried to take stock of his surroundings. His heart was in his throat.

New car smell. Nissan logo in the center of the steering wheel. A small cardboard box of .9mm bullets sat innocently on the dash, the only indication that the car had been used previously. He glanced toward his feet; Collin was standing up, his head out of sight above the frame of the door. 

TK reached his cuffed hands upward over his head and felt around for the handle of the opposite door. He pulled, and his heart sank: the dull sound of a child lock kept the mechanism from catching and opening the door.

A firm hand gripped his ankle, and TK jolted in panic. Collin was leaning into the car again, a dangerous look shadowing his face. “Tyler,” he said, all but tsk’ing in disappointment.

TK pulled his arms back to his chest and let a whimper slip when Collin crawled into the backseat, hovering over him. He released TK’s ankle as he went, instead snatching his jaw in a tight grip. Old bruising ached under the pressure. For a moment, Collin only stared down at him, breathing evenly through tightly-clenched teeth. When he spoke, he kept his voice low, only for TK to hear.

“Let’s eliminate some anticipation,” he said, his breath hot on TK’s face. “Are you going to be quiet and stay still? Or would you rather I give you morphine right now, and save us both the trouble later on?”

“No,” TK gasped, trying and failing to turn his face away despite Collin’s grip. “No, I’ll be quiet. Please don’t.”

“Are you sure?” Collin’s grip remained unyielding. “I won’t tolerate a liar, Tyler.”

Anger flashed like a flint strike through the dark of TK’s fear, fleeting but impossible to ignore. “I’ll be quiet,” TK snapped. Before he could think better of it, he added, “Get off of me.”

Collin’s lip curled at the insult of TK’s resistance, and he lowered his head until his lips brushed TK’s stubbled cheek. “We’re playing a long game, you and I,” he snarled. “I have all the time in the world to punish disrespect.”

The door into the house slammed shut, and the motor over the garage door hummed to life. A set of keys jingled loudly. TK squeezed his eyes shut and managed to turn his face away from Collin when the man’s grip slackened with distraction. After a beat, he heard Collin take a deep breath. The exhale was hot in TK’s ear. 

“Behave.”

The weight vanished from on top of him. TK kept his eyes shut tight until something roughly jarred the heel of his walking cast, forcing his broken leg the last few inches into the car. He gagged on a cry of pain and lurched onto his elbows just as the door slammed shut. 

He was only alone in the car for a few seconds. Amelia climbed into the driver’s seat without acknowledging him. Through the windshield, the last dregs of daylight were rapidly draining away beyond the open garage door. 

Collin bent his huge frame into the passenger side of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. He was quick to adjust the rearview mirror so that TK could see his eyes reflected back at him, pinched tight with a dark look of warning.

“Use the access road,” Collin instructed. Amelia started the car without a word, and pulled forward out of the garage.

A third location. Fuck. Fuck. They’d never find him now, only traces of his captivity in the basement when the DEA raided the house. But this was it, the last feasible chance at seeing his family again, and seeing Carlos, and it was slipping away because TK was too injured and afraid to fucking do anything to stop it–

The car jolted up over a curb, and TK managed to force himself up onto his elbows to peer out the window. Through the fading light, there was… nothing. No houses, no neighborhood. He dragged himself up into a seated position, risking Collin’s wrath, and looked out the rearview window to try and orient himself. 

The house they were driving away from was the mansion he had envisioned, every inch the illusion of luxury that they always were. But where he’d imagined the cookie cutter shapes of other houses, he found only fields, dark and rolling and speckled with little hot pink flags. A road, brand new with white cement curbs, rolled left and right down the exposed hillside. He thought he saw an isolated fire hydrant in the dusk.

He risked a look out the front of the car. They were driving over the field, up toward a treeline, where a dirt access road created a breach in the woods. Behind them, the house was dropping away, shining from the inside where the lights were left on to create the illusion of occupancy. The garage door had closed behind them.

“Head west,” Collin instructed. He was keeping an eye on TK in the rearview while he made a point of pushing small brass bullets into a pistol clip. “We’ll lie low in Santa Rosa for a few days and decide which contingency to follow.”

TK’s mind raced. Did he know that town? How far away was it? Was it in Texas? His heart beat rabbit-fast, his breaths coming in small audible puffs of air. The back doors of the car wouldn't open from the inside, not with those child locks. If he tried to attack Amelia, Collin could easily grab him, nevermind the gun he was loading. And he had no illusions that he could attack Collin in his condition, either. 

“We’ll have to tell Beth,” Amelia was saying. “Otherwise she’ll come at us with that shotgun when we get to the trailer.”

“We have nine hours to get someone to knock on her door, then.” Collin turned his head and looked sideways at TK over his shoulder. “Tyler shouldn’t be a problem. Unless he wants morphine to pass the time.”

TK flexed his jaw around another spark of anger, but said nothing. Collin watched him for a moment longer before returning to his task of loading the gun. Trees swallowed the car whole as they hit the access road, obliterating the last of the daylight and throwing the car into darkness. In the headlights, the access road twisted out of sight, an unyielding forest stretching ahead of them. 

He tried to think of a plan, but TK’s focus was catching on the gun and the morphine like points of barbed wire. Nine hours. Would that put them outside of Texas? Fuck, he had no idea how big this goddamned state was. If they ended up on a public road, he could try to wave someone down. Would anyone notice him in the dark? And if they did, would it occur to them that he needed help?

Or he could wait until they hit the highway, and compromise Amelia’s driving. It might kill all three of them, but if the alternative was prolonged captivity in another basement, what choice was there? Collin assaulting him, drugging him, killing him: these were matters of when , not if. At least if he died in a car wreck on 84, his family could have closure. At least Carlos could lay him to rest.

The thought should have made him afraid, but it didn’t. As the car crept along the uneven forest road, a sense of clarity started to form in the back of TK’s head. His sense of control, ripped from him the afternoon he was abducted, started its slow process of reforming. He had glass to break in the event of an emergency, a final plan if he couldn’t think of anything in the meantime. He wasn’t without agency, even bound and beaten in the back of a strange car. All he had to do was get a feel for things and keep Collin’s needle out of his arm.

He wanted to hold Carlos again. He wanted to hug his family and sleep for a week in the safety of his partner’s arms. He wanted this nightmare to be over. But if his life was going to end, it would end with his teeth barred and his fists swinging. Gwyneth Morgan and Owen Strand hadn’t raised their son to be a victim.

The thought emboldened him. TK took a careful breath, and adjusted the way he was seated, his broken leg stretched across the back seat. He risked a glance at Amelia, her face outlined by the faint lights from the dashboard. She was looking sidelong at Collin, who in the rearview mirror appeared to be frowning down at his phone. 

TK looked through the back window one more time, at the barest glimpse of the house’s lights through the trees. He reached for his resolve, for the part of his genetic makeup that had allowed him to run into burning buildings for so many years. When he managed to steel his nerves, he spoke. 

“Was it what you were hoping for, Amelia?”

He got the impression that neither of his captors had expected him to speak, let alone say something so casual. Collin’s eyes cut to him in the rearview, sharp with warning. With effort, TK ignored him and kept his gaze trained on Amelia’s profile. He thought he saw her grip tighten on the wheel, but otherwise she kept her eyes forward. 

Her lack of prompting didn’t dissuade him. “Your kiss,” he clarified, just barely managing to keep his voice steady. “It’s what you wanted, right? What you had talked about.”

“I told you to be quiet,” Collin said, even and low. TK set his jaw and took a shaking breath. 

He tried not to look at the rearview mirror, aware of Collin’s eyes on him. As he spoke, TK carefully rolled his left wrist around in its handcuff, getting a feel for how much give it had. He  brushed his fingertips against the cuff that wrapped around the cast on his other arm. 

“I thought you wanted things to be civil,” he replied, careful to keep his voice measured. “That you wanted us to get to know each other.”

The cuff around his casted wrist hadn’t been tightened as much as it could’ve been. Perhaps, when Amelia had closed it around him, she’d thought it was a hard cast, rather than a soft one. It wasn’t much room, but maybe…

“And now I want you to be quiet,” Collin said, his eyes narrowing in the rearview. 

TK struggled to keep the wince off of his face as he slowly started to pull at the cast. Inside, his wrist spiked with pain as his hand gradually squeezed downward. “Why? Because you kissed me right afterwards?”

Even in the dim light of the dashboard, he could see Amelia’s shoulders tense. The sound of Collin drawing a slow, frustrated breath didn’t completely cow TK’s small sense of success. He pushed forward before he could lose his nerve.

“I’m just a test subject, right?” he asked. “So when Collin told me that nothing would come between us, he didn’t mean you.”

“Is that right,” Amelia said, her voice dangerously quiet.

“Just focus on the road.” There was an edge of violence in Collin’s words now, and his reminder from earlier flashed across TK’s mind. I have all the time in the world to punish disrespect.

TK was operating on a more urgent time frame. He could feel the house drawing further away from them. “You two have been partners for years, and what do you have to show for it, Amelia? Except a long string of errands to help him pursue other people, and he still kept all that research from you, didn’t he?”

Collin cocked the gun, and TK flinched so hard that his vision momentarily failed him. When he forced himself to open his eyes, the gun was resting on Collin’s knee, his finger hovering too close to the trigger. 

“Test me,” the monster said. There was no room for interpretation in his voice.

Fear gripped his throat and squeezed. TK forced himself to lift his chin and meet the reflection of the monster’s eyes. “At close range? Even if you avoid an artery, you’ll deafen all three of us and you’ll still have to stop for longer than you’re willing to if you want me to live.”

He was sure that there was no bluff to call, but Collin didn’t twist around in his seat and fire the gun into him. There was still the barest amount of air left before fear completely filled his lungs and drowned him, and TK was going to use it.

“You tried to kiss me last night, too,” he pressed, addressing Collin but speaking to Amelia, “and you stopped, because what? Your last obsession texted you? Amelia said you were over him.”

“He is over him,” Amelia snapped. “It was an opportunity.”

“For what? Reconciliation?” TK gripped his wrist brace tighter and kept pulling, the joint burning with pain as it slowly scraped downward. “You didn’t know the DEA was there when he left. He just wanted to see him.”

“Shut up,” Amelia demanded, slamming her open palm on the top of the steering wheel before strangling it in a white-knuckle grip. 

“You said he’d get over me like he got over Charlie, but he hasn’t, has he? If he wanted to give you that kind of attention, he would!”

TK was raising his voice to mask the pain, to expel his fear, to amp the tension in Amelia’s shoulders that much higher. His thumb abruptly popped free of the gusset, his metacarpals grinding against one another. He only barely managed to suppress a noise of agony.

Perhaps sensing the effectiveness of TK’s argument, Collin turned his attention toward Amelia, missing the obvious signs of struggle in the backseat. “Don’t take his bait,” he instructed, sounding more annoyed than concerned for her response. “Use your head, Amelia. This is an obvious ploy.”

“Is it?” She took a bend in the forest road too sharply, and TK nearly tumbled onto his back. “He’s not wrong, is he? You couldn’t get out of here fast enough when Charlie texted you. Tell me you don’t still love him, Collin. Tell me you don’t!”

The three silent heartbeats that passed more than answered her question. In the light from the dashboard, TK could see the gleam of tears on her lashes. Her anger from earlier that night was rising from its shallow grave. “He drove you to suicide,” she cried, “and you still carry a flame for him, don’t you?”

“No,” he shot back, though whether it was driven by anger or desperation, TK couldn’t tell. Collin had missed his moment to course correct, and he knew it. “I don’t–”

“And then you thought you could hide your little pet from me?” Amelia jerked her chin in TK’s direction, a few tears breaking free from her lashes. “You were going to do all that research on your own? Take all the credit?”

Collin couldn’t help himself. “It’s my research,” he snapped. “You’re my assistant–”

“I’m your partner,” Amelia shouted, like the word was something sacred. “And now we’re scorching earth and running away, again, because you just had to see Charlie one more time, didn’t you? Because you couldn’t let the fucking paramedic go to New York, you just had to move things up and snatch him before we were ready! And now the whole world is looking for him, and the DEA is circling, and all you can think about is Charlie Fucking De Luca!”

“Shut up,” Collin roared, his fist finding the dashboard with enough strength that TK thought the airbag would deploy. “You never shut up! You can’t be happy with the space I’ve carved out for you, you can’t be satisfied with the opportunities I’ve provided! You know about the research now, don’t you? We’re leaving together, aren’t we? For fuck’s sake, Amelia, now is hardly the time!”

“My name is Amy,” she shouted, and the car came to an abrupt halt. TK fell forward, his shoulder hitting the back of Collin’s seat and his weight dragging down into the footwell. He braced for impact without thinking, and the wave of agony it sent through his partially-extracted wrist was blinding. He felt something give a wet, dull pop.

When his senses returned, the crippling silence in the car settled over him. Instinct told him to stay still; he was hidden now, down behind Collin’s seat, temporarily forgotten. 

“I run distribution for you,” Amelia said, her shaking voice sending seismic waves through the silence. “I’ve struck deals with suppliers for you, I’ve taken risk after risk with my own name on the line to help you fund more research! And when the favors you asked me for started revolving around him,” she jerked her thumb toward the backseat to indicate where TK had been sitting, “I thought it was the only way to keep you from trying to leave me again! Even though it meant waiting even longer to get back to what was really important! I’ve bent over backwards to make you happy, and you don’t even care, do you? You just expect me to do it!”

TK pressed the side of his face against the seatback and rotated his forearm until his hand came free of the wrist brace. His fingers trembled, slow to respond as he tried to flex his hand back into useful shape. The wrist brace, now empty, was still cuffed to his other hand. 

“That’s not true,” Collin insisted. “I need you, Amelia.”

“You need my labor,” she snapped. “You need my willingness to throw myself on swords for you!”

“I ask you to take on those responsibilities because I trust you implicitly,” Collin shot back, exasperated. “Because I know you won’t let me down!”

Amelia choked on a sob. “Then why keep your research from me?! Throughout everything I’ve done to help you get your precious little lab rat , you didn’t once justify needing him because of our work! If you trust me so much, why can’t I be a part of that?”

“Are you going to demonize me for sparing you from my appetites?” Through the seat, TK could hear Collin shifting bodily toward her. “Are you really going to risk all our hard work, all of your hard work, by having a tantrum now?”

There was a long pause. TK could just barely see the back of Amelia’s head, how she went still before her shoulders jerked with another sob. As he lowered his eyes back to assess his crumpled hand, something plastic caught his eye near her waist, and TK froze.

Collin sighed, deep with resignation, making an effort to show how he was calming down. “I understand that you’re upset,” he said. “But we don’t have time for this now. How about you let me drive, and when we’re settled in Santa Rosa, we can have a deeper conversation about all of this? It sounds like it's long overdue.”

TK snaked his hand around the side of the center console, forcing his trembling fingers around the edge of the plastic plunger sticking out of Amelia’s pocket. She shifted in her seat, and he yanked his hands a few inches backward in the darkness, mortified that she had felt him. 

“I don’t want you to push me away,” Amelia pleaded, her anger crumbling to misery as she spoke. She hadn’t noticed. TK set his jaw, took as deep a breath as his racing heart would allow, and tried again.

The hypodermic needle slid out of her pocket, cap and all, without any resistance.

“I’m not,” Collin insisted, sounding just north of outright impatience. “I won’t. But we have to move.”

He punctuated this sense of urgency by opening the passenger side door. Amelia sniffled, wet and loud, and reluctantly unbuckled her own seatbelt and removed the keys from the ignition, none the wiser about the item TK had lifted from her pocket.

There was a terrible, precious moment where Collin climbed out of the car, followed by Amelia, in which TK was alone. He forced himself upright, finally climbing out of the footwell between the seats, his heart pounding and his shoulders shivering with adrenaline. He had a weapon, two free hands, and had bought himself some time. What to do with any of those windfalls, though, he had no idea. 

He was just managing to position himself on the seat when he looked out the windshield. Collin and Amelia passed each other in the headlights, the sharp LEDs rendering them in hard contrasts. Amelia had her head hung low, her face a coiled mess of tears. She passed Collin without a word, handing him the keys before reaching up to rub her shoulders in a gesture of self-comfort. 

When she had passed him, Collin turned, lifted his gun, and fired. 

Someone cried out. It took TK a minute too long to realize it had been him, an involuntary burst of sound that was drowned out by the gunshot. Collin stood in the headlights and stared down at where Amelia had fallen, his face pulled in a dispassionate frown. 

TK couldn’t move. He stared wide eyed as the monster as it considered the ground in front of the car where Amelia had fallen. Slowly, Collin’s eyes tracked toward the side of the road. TK could hear a sob, confused and in pain, as she dragged her body along. He couldn’t move. 

“There’s one more thing you can do for me,” the monster said, taking a slow step after her, watching her crawl. “Die quietly.”

She did not oblige. Amelia let out a keen, muffled by the forest and the trees, and it echoed, and echoed, and echoed, until TK realized it wasn’t her scream he was still hearing. The sound of distant sirens, barely recognizable from so far away, broke him out of his stupor. 

The driver’s side door was hanging open. 

The monster’s boots crunched on the hard-packed dirt as he paced slowly along after Amelia. He was letting her move off the road, into the brush, a desperate and terrified crawl for cover that she wouldn’t find. If he was bothered by the far-off sound of approaching law enforcement, he didn’t show it. He was savoring the moment, or meditating on it, or calculating a chess move on a board that only he could see. He let her struggle, let her suffer as she crawled. Dark streaks of blood followed her across the ground. 

She tried to say something, but what came out was a shapeless sound, thin and reedy. The monster fired two more rounds into her back, considered a third, and decided against it when he was satisfied that she was still. 

He wedged the gun into the back of his belt and stepped forward. She was a small thing, always had been, and it took no effort at all to drag her into the bushes and out of sight. By the sound of them, the sirens were still a great distance out. They had time to disappear before law enforcement could set up a parameter. 

Then he stood upright and turned back to the car. The driver’s side door was hanging open; Amelia had not closed it behind her, as he had closed his. The monster stilled, eyes widening, before he strode to the passenger side door and pulled it up with force.

TK Strand was not inside.

Chapter Text

In the hour and a half it took for their plan to fall into place, there was quiet. And in that quiet, Carlos found himself sitting alone in the bunk room of the 126.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” TK was saying, his voice tinny and small through the speakers on Carlos’s phone. “I’ve never made a single mistake, ever, in my life.”

Off-camera, Carlos’s recorded voice laughed. “So this would be your very first one? Because the instructions say to use piece six, not piece nine.”

From where he was sitting on the floor of their loft, TK looked up from the half-assembled cabinet and pointed an allen wrench at Carlos in as threatening a manner as one could. “Well why don’t you try to make sense of these hieroglyphs? You’re the one that insisted it’d be a fun date night to build this thing.”

The camera shifted, rounding the couch and lowering down next to the construction site. It zeroed in on the instructions. “You’re the one who wanted a new TV stand.”

“Oh, forgive me for wanting to bring a touch of warmth and whimsy to this mancave of a loft,” TK laughed. “Did natural wood grain not hug you enough as a child?”

Seated on the foot of the bed furthest from the door, Carlos felt the corner of his mouth lift in the barest impression of a smile. He watched the video pan back to TK, who looked too amused to be properly upset. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with a caduceus on it that read “You Fall, We Haul.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the old TV stand,” Video Carlos argued. 

TK looked past the lens with an exasperated lift of his eyebrows. “Except it was a short-notice replacement after the fire, and it doesn’t match anything else in here. Hence.”

He gestured down at the array of wood panels and cardboard clutter that covered their living room floor. Abruptly, the video stopped recording. Carlos could remember that night, how he’d accidentally ended the video and failed to capture the moment when TK picked up a board and realized that he had, in fact, used the wrong piece.

Carlos stared at the still-frame of their unassembled TV stand for hardly a second before he hit replay for the fifteenth time. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” TK’s voice repeated, restarting the memory. 

The door to the bunk room opened. Carlos refused to look up from his phone, from the video of his best friend kneeling over flat pack furniture, until the bed dipped beside him.

“He’s right, you know,” Owen said quietly. “With the color palette you have in the loft, wood tones would really warm the place up.”

Carlos took a deep breath and rolled out his jaw. It popped, having been held in tension for so long. “Have you heard from Billy?”

He saw Owen nod in the corner of his eye. “They should be ready in the next fifteen minutes. The news vans are already gathered out front.”

There was a pause, in which TK’s recorded voice joked about their home being a mancave. Carlos watched his fiance smile and roll his eyes one more time before he locked his phone and clenched it in both hands. 

Owen watched him silently before he reached an arm around Carlos’s shoulders and pulled him into a side hug. “He’s one of the strongest people I know,” he said. “We’ll find him.”

Carlos stared at the floor like the carpet piling might contain the right thing to say. When he found nothing, and the silence stretched, Owen gave his shoulder a reassuring rub before retracting his arm and twisting his fingers together between his own knees.

“Talking about the possibility of him not being there feels like we might manifest it, somehow.” Owen stared into the middle distance, a haunted expression making him look older than he was. “It almost feels like… Like giving up. I’ve been close to losing him before, more times than a parent should be. But I was always there with him. And this time, he’s… he’s not here.”

They lapsed into silence, however briefly, while Carlos processed the weight of Owen’s words. Then he sat upright and took a deep breath. “My gut tells me he’s there,” he said. He turned to his future father-in-law and managed to look him in the eye. “I’m going to bring him home.”

Owen looked at him for a long moment before nodding. “Good,” he said eventually. “I’ll buy you some time.”

Carlos felt his throat tighten with emotion. He nodded again, an insufficient response to the sacrifice Owen was going to make for them. 

They had to get out of the 126. To do that, they needed the media to move, to turn their eyes and cameras away from the back of the station. And the best chance of making that happen would be to give them the one thing that would boost their ratings the highest: a televised plea from a frightened, grief-stricken father. 

Owen Strand was going to stand out front of the 126 and put his anguish and fear on stage for the world to tweet about, so that Carlos, Judd, and Tommy could slip away unseen.

“Promise me something, Carlos,” Owen said, choosing his words carefully. He leveled the younger man with a hard gaze, a glint of desperation in his eyes that made Carlos feel momentarily small. “I can’t stand the thought of losing one son, nevermind two. No matter what happens: you come back safe.”

Carlos’s vision blurred with the ghost of tears, and he blinked them back as quickly as he could. Took another deep breath. Nodded once, then again with more conviction. Struggled to get his breathing back under control before he lost his composure completely.

The pressure of Owen’s trust could be measured in tonnage. 

-

Just after 7:20pm, with time to spare for the next news cycle, three bright red department vehicles breached the growing wall of media vans and eager reporters. They positioned themselves in front of the station’s closed bay doors, a barricade as well as a backdrop for the looming press conference. Several minutes later, under the rustle of camera shutters, Billy Tyson approached the podium.

Clean shaven and dressed in full uniform, Billy spoke about the department’s commitment to looking out for their own. His words carried the blunt elegance of a Man’s Man, reading a prepared statement that was, at Owen’s request, at least five minutes long. When he was done, he gestured to his right, and informed the gathered crowd that Owen Strand had a message of his own. 

As the 126’s somber captain was stepping up to the podium, Grace Ryder was pulling her white SUV to a stop behind the building. With the engine still running, she climbed down from the driver’s seat and kissed her husband. She took a moment to hug Tommy, and cupped Carlos’s face in her hands. 

“Whatever happens,” she’d said, “we are your family, and we are with you.”

It was the last moment of outward emotion that Carlos allowed himself. He nodded, and accepted her hug, and extracted himself before the urge to cry could steal any of his momentum. 

Judd took care to stay within the speed limit as he pulled into late-evening traffic. From the back seat, Tommy called Nancy to confirm that they had managed to get out without any unwanted attention. If Collin McIntire was watching the news, he would see Owen Strand ask for his son’s safe return, none the wiser that the 126 were headed his way.

It had to be the location. It had to be, because if they arrived and TK had never been there in the first place, Carlos wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself. 

The drive was quiet, if not overwhelmingly tense. Outside of the SUV, the cityscape of Austin gradually thinned to residential neighborhoods and stretches of undeveloped land. The road curved into foothills, and the city lights vanished behind a veil of trees. Daylight was fading fast, casting the world into navy blues. Overhead, a nearly-full moon gave definition to the forest outside the car.

“We’re gettin’ close,” Judd said, breaking the silence. He gave Carlos a glance, as if he needed additional prompting. With a deep breath, the officer unlocked his phone, selected the contact, and hit Call.

On the second ring, Agent Consuelo answered. “Officer Reyes–”

“We’re almost there,” he said, interrupting her before she could say anything to dissuade him. “Three of us left while Captain Strand spoke to the press. No one noticed us leave, and no one is following us. We’re not asking to participate, only to be there if you find him.”

There was a silence on the line, so long that Carlos thought his service had dropped. Then Agent Consuelo said, “You will not enter the house.”

“No ma’am.”

“You will remain by the command vehicle, chaperoned. If you do anything to compromise this, I will personally see you charged.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Stop calling me ma’am. How can you be sure you weren’t followed?”

“The rest of the crew kept watch from inside the 126. We’re in a white 2021 Ford Edge, Texas Classic plates. We’re about five minutes out.”

Over the line, the agent swore under her breath. “I’ll have someone meet you at the base of the hill. Stay with them. Don’t push me, Reyes.”

The call ended. He offered his companions a stiff nod, to confirm that they weren’t about to be arrested, and pocketed his phone. 

The newly-paved road up to the Ivory Tower Estates housed the first signs of a raid. A few vehicles were parked along either side of the entrance, dark except for the lights of scanners and mounted laptops inside. No caution tape had been drawn, no visible barricade of any kind set up to stop someone from fleeing. As Judd slowed to a stop just shy of the parked vehicles, two figures stepped into the radius of his headlights.

Carlos moved through the formalities (if they could be called that) with barely-restrained impatience. They were asked to show their IDs, and to submit to a search of their vehicle. All three of them were in uniform, which made it less awkward when Carlos confirmed that the gun at his hip was his service weapon, and that they had no other firearms with them.

“We ain’t here for cowboy shit,” Judd rumbled, when one of the agents looked at him like he had a holster hidden somewhere on his person. “We’re here for our boy.”

“And here at the base of this hill is where you’ll stay,” the agent agreed. 

That had been the plan, but hearing the man patronizingly remind them of it made Carlos’s jaw flex in anger. He turned his gaze up the dark tree-lined road and didn’t say anything.

TK could be close. He could be alive, and nearby, and minutes from being in Carlos’s arms again. Just as easily, he could be somewhere else entirely, or being driven away from here. 

Just as easily, he could be dead. 

It was a warm night. Insect song droned loud and clear all around them, as night settled over the hills west of Austin. Carlos chewed on the inside of his cheek and stared up the road, at the bend where it curved into the development. He had hundreds of questions, and nothing but time to mull them over. Had TK been up there this whole time? Was he up there now? Had they breached the house? The occasional call would roll over the radio, meager scraps of information. Breaching garage. Entering house. Downstairs cleared. B Team moving upstairs. 

Down at the base of the hill, everyone was quiet. No one spoke for fear of missing a call, which made it jarring when the radio crackled with another update. 

“Basement cleared. They were definitely keeping someone down here.”

Carlos took a step forward without thinking, his hands falling to his sides from where he had been gripping his tactical vest. He stared at the agent with the radio without really seeing him. He barely felt Tommy’s hand grip his shoulder.

“They were here very recently,” Agent Consuelo said quietly over the radio. “DeMarcus found vehicle tracks in the grass. They may have left via the access–”

Her report was interrupted by a loud pop, echoing through the trees from further up the hill. Carlos’s head snapped in that direction. 

“Shots fired north of the compound. All available units proceed with caution up the hill. That could be them. I repeat, all units up the hill. Call for backup.”  

All around them, the lingering agents and officers started to move. They were quiet and efficient, and for a helpless moment, Carlos watched them mobilize and considered pushing his way up the hill as well.

A broad hand closed around his shoulder in a clap. Carlos jolted around to find Judd looming beside him. “She said all units,” he pointed out. 

Carlos stared up at him. They’d been ordered to stay put; they’d already pushed Consuelo’s hospitality too far as it was. 

“We were told to stay with our chaperone,” Tommy said, stepping up to Carlos’s other side. “And he just lit out up the hill.”

He followed the direction of her pointed index finger to find their assigned agent had already booked it up toward the compound. 

Decision made. Between one beat and the next, all three of them lurched into a run, in pursuit of the agent who had so graciously been keeping an eye on them. As they caught up, Carlos could hear the radio still chattering on the agent’s hip.

Consuelo was talking about a perimeter, about road checks and barricades, in a shorthand that suggested they had several backup plans already sorted out. Carlos only heard snippets of the orders from the other agents who were running alongside him. His body moved as if on autopilot now, a thin veneer of professionalism trying and failing to smother his panic. 

Back toward the city, the sound of sirens lit up the night, heeding Consuelo’s call. They were too far out to be immediately helpful, but if McIntire was in the woods, he might think the sirens indicated the first wave of law enforcement. They might still have an element of surprise.

Two more pops, one after another, compelled him to pump his legs that much harder up the hill.

A basement that someone was being kept in. A recently-emptied house. Gunshots in the woods.

TK.

-

The forest was blanketed in dense foliage, as much an opportunity to hide as it was a chance to make too much noise. The wail of summer insects and the distant call of sirens would only obscure so much; broken branches, thrashing leaves, or a misstep into a root or rodent hole would be heard immediately.

TK pressed his hand over his mouth and blinked a few times to shake loose the tears that had been sitting on his lashes. Through the leaves, he could see a hulking form some yards away, the monster casting about quietly in the undergrowth. It was breathing heavily, a kind of rage that he could hear even over the crickets. The gun in the monster’s hand glinted dully in the moonlight. 

He was shaking terribly. Maybe fifteen yards away, Amelia Rogers lay dead on the dirt access road. The car’s engine had been shut off, lights going dark so as to not be seen from far away. TK hunkered lower in the bushes and watched the monster fall still. 

“Tyler,” Collin said, drawing out his name, low and gravelly with violence. Not a shout, not a yell: he knew TK was close enough to hear him. “Did I frighten you? Did you think I was going to shoot you too?”

The monster’s glasses glinted in the moonlight as he pivoted his head to try and hear where TK was. He was too close; at this distance, all TK could do was stay low and pray he went unnoticed. 

Collin turned to look in the opposite direction, and TK carefully gripped the soft cast in his trembling fingers. It was still wedged in the cuff, held tight in his broken hand so that the chain of the handcuffs wouldn’t make any noise. Ignoring the pulse of agony in his wrist, TK crushed the soft shell of the cast down until it was thinner than the cuff, and began to twist it toward freedom.

“Come out, Tyler,” the monster coaxed. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not if you do as you're told.”

The cast scraped audibly, making TK’s breath catch in his throat, but Collin didn’t turn toward him, didn’t hear it. The wrist brace came free. TK tried to quiet his rapid breathing. He gripped the swinging cuff in his free hand to keep it silent, and waited for an opportunity.

“I will never let you go,” Collin said, still keeping his voice low, almost a snarl. “If you waste any more of my time, I will go after your loved ones. Do you hear me, Tyler? I’ll start with the children in your life. I’ll have them slaughtered.”

The monster turned from where TK was hiding and moved a few loping paces away. TK drew his arm back, aimed, and chucked the wrist brace with as much strength as his shaking body would allow.

Somewhere else in the darkness, he heard it crash through some branches, farther still than the direction the monster was moving in. Collin froze, his head cocking to the side to listen, and then pursued the sound. 

TK waited for a few terrible moments before he started moving again.

He had exited out the driver’s side door, seizing the briefest opportunity to run, and had vanished into the trees on that side of the car. Only when he had stopped to hide did he realize the sirens were coming from the opposite direction. Back toward the car, back toward Amelia, he could hear them growing steadily louder. Which meant civilization was that way, which meant the house was that way. Just barely, if he angled himself just so, he could see the glint of the house’s lights far off through the trees. 

He’d run further from it. 

With Collin distracted, he started back toward the car. If he could get across the road and back into the woods without being heard, he stood a decent chance of getting within shouting range of help when the sirens eventually arrived. 

It was an agonizing and slow process. The walking cast granted him mobility at the cost of stealth, and having two free hands helped with balance, but he had worsened the fracture in his wrist to achieve it. He had to move slowly, each second running the risk of Collin turning and seeing him through the darkness. At worst, he braced himself for a bullet, and at best, for footsteps thrashing after him. If Collin gave chase, TK had no chance of escaping him again.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. He could just barely see Collin through the trees. The man spoke again, harder to hear now that TK was putting some distance between them. 

“You couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut,” the monster snarled. “So desperate to crawl back home and bend over for that pig. Amelia was fragile. You broke her, and look what I had to go and do, because of you.”

The undergrowth thinned around TK’s legs before opening up to the road. The front grill of the car was several yards to his left, shining in the pale moonlight. A body was lying not far from it, face down near the side of the road. Her arms were splayed on either side of her head, like she’d been reaching to pull herself into the treeline. 

TK stayed low, and looked again over his shoulder. He couldn’t see Collin in the blackness of the woods, but he could hear the monster’s movements. Maybe twenty, twenty-five yards away. 

He started across the road at an angle, an awkward and rushed limp that brought him closer to the car, and by extension, Amelia. Fear gripped him each time the walking cast scraped on the dirt. Glinting faintly through the trees ahead of him, he could still see what he thought was the house. 

The trees on the other side of the road had just barely enveloped him when he heard a thin noise just behind him.

TK froze. He waited, his breaths shallow and fast, to see if he could hear it again. He craned his neck to see over his shoulder, back toward where he’d last seen the monster, but nothing had emerged from the treeline.

Another noise, just barely recognizable as human. He turned, and stared down at what he had thought was a corpse. Amelia Rogers managed a weak, wet inhale.

Alive.

TK glanced in the direction of the house, and hesitated. Deeper in the woods, back the way he’d come, he could hear Collin raise his voice, shout his name once, enraged at his lack of progress in finding TK. He was no closer to the car then when TK had last checked. 

He turned, and took a careful knee beside Amelia, stretching the walking cast out and away from him. Her eyes were half-lidded, flicking sightlessly about. She was mouthing words, but no sound was coming out. Foamy blood was gathered at the corner of her mouth. A lung puncture, probably. Shot three times in the back, and she was still alive, if only barely.

TK ghosted shaking hands over the dark spots on her back. Three GSWs. Female patient, early thirties. He slid two fingers under the corner of her jaw, and out of habit, looked at the bandages around his wrist like they were a watch that he could use to judge her pulse. Beats per minute hardly mattered; they were thready and weak, fluttering little things. Dying, right under his fingertips. 

She tried to speak again, and managed a wet gurgle. Her fingers curled uselessly in the dirt. She was suffering. How she was still breathing, TK had no idea. His hand moved to the pocket of his sweatpants. Inside, his fingertips brushed the capped syringe. 

It was the only weapon he had to defend himself with. But if care was put into the dosage at all, then it was with his weight and height in mind, not Collin’s. It was entirely possible that it wouldn't be enough to fell the monster, just… slow him down, if it came to it. 

Amelia made another wet rasping sound, and TK felt something else in his pocket, alongside the syringe. He closed his trembling fingers around both objects and drew them out. In the moonlight, the chain glinted between his fingers as he lifted it up to see. The emblem for the 252 swung silently between him and what was left of Amelia Rogers. 

He’d been in the company of monsters for days, but TK Strand had been raised better than to leave a woman to suffer in her final moments. Any anger or malice he might have felt toward her was gone as she lay gasping in the dirt. She was a victim of Collin McIntire, too.

TK drew the chain around his neck and fitted the familiar clasp together in spite of his trembling fingers. The weight of the 252 was familiar on his shoulders, back where it belonged. He leaned forward and pushed Amelia’s sleeve out of his way.

“Easy,” he whispered, so softly that he hardly heard himself. “It’s gunna be okay. Shh.”

He gently pinched the meaty part of her tricep, uncapped the syringe, and slowly administered the morphine. Amelia rasped a little, her glazed eyes staring into the middle distance. She blinked slowly at nothing in particular.

TK re-capped the empty syringe and set it down beside her. If they found her body, maybe they’d know she’d spent her last few minutes without pain. Maybe her family would find some solace in that.

“Tyler,” the monster called, his voice carrying through the woods. TK flinched badly, inhaling sharply as he did so. Without time to linger, he scooted backward down the length of the car, putting it between him and the direction of Collin’s voice. At his back, the sirens were louder now, nearly upon the house. Momentarily, he thought it was strange that they would come with full sirens on. Didn’t they want the element of surprise?

He glanced over his shoulder, and noticed the trunk of the car. Amelia had loaded their bags into it before they left. Maybe there was something he could use, if it was unlocked.

Worth a shot. TK limped around to the boot of the car and hooked his fingers under the rim above the license plate. It took him a minute of feeling around before he heard the mechanism release. As he lifted the trunk, the loose handcuff hanging from his wrist clacked against the metal.

He was quick to grab it. It hadn’t been a loud sound, but with his heart in his throat, everything was ear-splitting. He couldn’t waste time worrying about it; in the darkness of the trunk, he found a few duffle bags, a coil of rope, duct tape, a hard pelican case that probably carried lab equipment. Partially obscured by one of Collin’s big flannel shirts, something long and black caught his eye.

It took some effort to lift the crowbar out of the back of the car. TK held it aloft with his good wrist and considered it for a second. It was the weapon Amelia had used to stop him running away, that Collin had used to break his leg. They’d brought it with them.

TK looked over the edge of the trunk in the direction he had last heard Collin. He was armed, at least, even if he wasn’t confident he could use it with a broken wrist. Something was better than nothing. 

The sense that he was out of time crept across the back of his neck, and he turned to hurry into the trees. He spared one last look at Amelia as he went. In the dark, he couldn’t tell if her stillness was because of the morphine, or because she was gone. 

It was painful going. The crowbar was heavy in his good hand, and while he managed to find some use for it in pushing branches out of his way, it was largely a hindrance to carry. Too afraid of continuing unarmed, however, TK was forced to go slowly to compensate for the awkward weight of the thing. His leg throbbed, a pain so consistent that he was able to tune it out, if only a little. The house lights glinted ahead of him through the trees. 

The sirens had stopped howling. Help was in front of him, somewhere through the darkness. He thought he could hear voices in the distance, just barely audible over the wail of insects, and the fear that it was a trick of the mind brought fresh tears to his eyes. Limping step after painful limping step, TK struggled forward, more than once using the crowbar as a sort of cane to keep himself upright. Did he risk shouting for help? If there were people out there, it would alert them to his location, but it would also reveal him to the monster, who was armed and unafraid to pull the trigger. Would Collin shoot him in the back for shouting for help? Would he shoot any officer that might respond?

Did TK dare let himself think that Carlos might be out there too?

He stumbled over a loose branch, and just barely managed to catch himself before he went face-first into the brush. A pained noise ripped out of his throat, the branch tugging awkwardly at the walking cast, straining his broken leg. He threw out his empty hand and found a tree for balance, but that made the noise all the more obvious for how it bent his broken wrist.

It wasn’t a shout, necessarily. Maybe it would go unnoticed, under all the crickets. Maybe it wasn’t as loud as it sounded. TK’s heart climbed up his throat, the panic in his stomach boiling over. He felt rather than heard himself start to hyperventilate. He’d been too loud. Collin would find him now, whether he’d meant to yell for help or not, and then–

Ahead of him, toward the house, something heavy lumbered through the woods, with a deliberate crashing gait. TK froze, dragging a labored gasp into his lungs before he managed to hold his breath. The monster had gotten around in front of him somehow, between him and the house. He had circled and cut him off. He’d be upon him in a matter of moments. TK’s breaths came in sharp gasps, impossible to make quiet.

Then there were two heavy footfalls crashing through the woods toward him. Then three, further away. A fourth, in the other direction. A line of people, twenty yards off, in the direction of the house. Advancing into the woods. A flashlight beam cut like a knife through the darkness some thirty yards to his right. Another slashed an arc through the trees to his left. And then, an impossible voice.

“TK! TK, can you hear me?!”

It came from somewhere to his left, in the darkness. A sinkhole opened up in TK’s chest, taking with it his fear and pain, his hesitation, his panic. Carlos. That was Carlos. That was Carlos–

A huge hand closed around the lower half of his face, muffling his shout of surprise. Just as fast, an arm wrapped around his throat, squeezing his windpipe closed and cutting off the rest of his scream. TK kicked out violently, his nails digging into the flesh of his assailant’s arm, thrashing against the hold. The arm squeezed tighter around his throat.

Hot breath hit his ear. “Found you,” the monster whispered.

Pinned against his chest, TK could feel himself being dragged backwards. The world reeled around him, a violent blur of shadows and skeletal branches. Collin all but picked him up, shuffling backward as he assessed the advance of law enforcement. The hand covering TK’s mouth vanished, but there was no air in his lungs to scream. An arm extended out beside his face, gun clenched tight in Collin’s hand. There was an eardrum-splitting bang, and then two more in rapid succession. Somewhere ahead of them in the trees, someone grunted in pain, and fell. 

Static drifted into TK’s vision, followed by black spots. His head throbbed; his heart rate started to forcibly slow down. Without air, he would black out. Somewhere far away, another gunshot rang out. He thought he heard shouting, but the ringing in his ears was so loud now, he wasn’t sure. His grip on Collin’s arm began to loosen, his fingers sliding down, only barely holding on. Another gunshot. The world was falling away, fading fast. He was suffocating. 

Between one blink and the next, something heavy slammed into them from the side, and TK and the monster went crashing down into the undergrowth. The arm vanished from around his neck. TK hit the ground hard and rolled, kicking uselessly in an attempt at getting away from Collin. For a second, his throat refused to work, and then all at once, he managed to suck in an audible breath. It sounded like a wheeze, and made him cough, and gasp, and wheeze again. 

Something struck his shoulder, hard and abrupt and gone again. Beside him, the monster was thrashing around in the undergrowth. TK managed to pull in a better breath, followed by another, and the world slowly stopped rolling around him. He coughed, gagged, and pulled another breath down. Slowly, his vision began to clear.

The monster was fighting someone. 

On shaking arms, TK pushed himself onto his elbows and managed to lift his head, nearly slumping to the side when the sudden motion made him dizzy. He saw a fist flash through the moonlight; an elbow flew outward, so close to TK’s face he could feel the breeze that it caused. There was a grunt of pain, a jolt in the twist of bodies, and then the monster rolled on top of whoever he was fighting and snared the man by the neck. 

“You,” he snarled, spittle flying. “You filthy fucking pig! You can’t have him! I won’t let you take him from me!”

The person choked. A hand flew up and clawed at the monster’s face, very nearly catching his eye. Collin only lifted his chin, his teeth barred in the moonlight. As his shadow moved out of the way, TK caught the barest flash of the person’s face.

Carlos.

With the world still spinning, TK dove, driving his own weight into Collin’s side as hard as he could. It barely jolted the man, let alone dislodged him, but TK kept shoving, digging his fingers into Collin’s sides like Amelia had done to him before. He gripped the loose handcuff like brass knuckles and swung, catching Collin upside the head. 

One of the monster’s hands released Carlos’s throat. It swung upward, his knuckles catching TK hard in the face as he shoved the smaller man off and away. TK hit the ground with a grunt, his mouth filling with the taste of blood from where his teeth had sunk into his lip. 

The next few moments unfolded in rapid snapshots, one heartbeat after another with no fanfare or hesitation in between. TK shoved himself upright, watching but hardly processing as Carlos got one good swing in, and very nearly broke himself free, before Collin pinned him down again by the throat. TK cast about in the woods, hearing the shouts of other officers nearby. Someone had been shot; an officer was down. They were holding back, because they couldn’t see where the shooter was firing from. They had lost control of the situation, and would not come to help fast enough.

TK scraped himself upward and lunged through the brush toward where he’d been standing when Collin had grabbed him. The bushes came up over his head as he fell to his knees, casting his hands about until dirt gave way to cold iron. He closed both hands around it, oblivious to the injury in his wrist, and hauled himself back to his feet. 

The world narrowed. Everything else fell away: the shouting, the insect song, the flashlights cutting through the trees to illuminate the monster. TK took three big paces forward, lifted the crowbar over his head, and swung.

TK brought the crowbar down onto Collin McIntire’s upper back with every last ounce of strength he had. The man jolted, collapsing forward on top of Carlos, before struggling back upward into a kneeling position. He turned toward TK, his cracked glasses flashing against the advancing onslaught of law enforcement maglights. There was blood on his teeth, his pupils unflinching pinpricks in the light. Below him, Carlos broke the monster’s grip on his throat and managed to draw in a ragged breath. 

Collin locked TK in his gaze, his eyes the sallow yellow of a predator. Rage had made him something inhuman, something other. The monster turned toward him, coiled tight with every intention of lunging forward, of doing harm. There was no escape for him now, no chance to regain control. But there was a chance to choke the life out of Tyler Kennedy Strand, to ensure that no one else would have him.

He made it all of two feet before TK swung the crowbar like a baseball bat, catching Collin McIntire upside the head with a dull, wet crack. The monster grunted, jerked awkwardly to the side, and fell to the ground face-first.

TK hefted the crowbar back up for another swing. He was shaking so badly that he had to rest it on his shoulder, no longer strong enough to keep it upright under his own power. His breaths came fast and tight, little puffs of air that only barely hid his whimper as he waited for the monster to move. Any instant, he would jerk upright and lunge. TK’s eyes were locked on the back of his head, on the dark wetness that was slowly flattening the monster’s hair. Any second, he’d get back up. 

“TK,” Carlos said, somewhere to TK’s right. “Baby?”

He drew in a shaking breath and flickered his eyes in that direction. Just for an instant; the monster would jump at him any second now. Carlos stepped closer to him slowly, his hands held aloft. 

“TK,” he said again. Soft, his voice was so soft. As if in a dream, TK watched Carlos reach for the crowbar, gently extracting it from TK’s shaking hands and setting it on the ground away from the monster. Slowly, carefully, Carlos slid his hands over TK’s shoulders.

The contact made TK flinch, violently, a sharp inhale tearing into his chest. 

“It’s okay,” Carlos said, his voice so impossibly soft. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Slowly, he turned TK away from where the monster lay, still unmoving. It took a moment of hollow silence before TK started to truly understand who he was looking at. In an impossibly small voice, he said, “Carlos?”

Smooth, warm hands cupped either side of his face. “I’m right here,” Carlos reassured him. “It’s over.”

TK hiccuped a few rapid breaths, which grew longer as his fear slowly shifted to realization. Then they grew longer still, small noises on each exhale turning into sobs. His wide-eyed panic crumpled with the onset of tears, disbelief making him shake his head just so. He fell forward, and Carlos’s arms closed around him, as warm and strong as they’d ever been. TK closed his fists into the back of Carlos’s uniform, clinging in desperation as his knees buckled underneath him. His strength left him over the space of several sobs, until they were huddled together on the ground. 

“I’ve got you,” Carlos reassured him, cupping the back of his head when TK pressed his face into his shoulder with a loud sob. “I’ve got you.”

For a lifetime, TK huddled against Carlos and cried, his shoulders heaving and shaking. Flashlights flooded the area, orders barking and tactical boots crushing foliage underfoot. Carlos didn’t flinch, didn’t move from his spot on the ground. He let TK cry, and held him close, and pressed kisses against the side of his head every so often. 

A hand alighted on TK’s upper back, in the space between Carlos’s arms. “Hey, sweetheart.”

TK turned his head just enough to peer up at her. She was haloed by floodlights, red and blue flickering in her hair as she knelt beside them. 

“Tommy,” TK rasped, his voice breaking halfway through her name. Her smile was radiant in the emergency lights. 

“We’re here, baby,” she reassured him, stroking his back. “Let’s get you out of these woods, okay?”

It took him a minute to understand what she’d said, and a minute more for him to shift gears. “I ca-” TK hiccuped, stuttered, and tried again. “I can’t walk.”

As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. His adrenaline was crashing, leaving him a trembling shell without the strength to pick himself back up. Nevermind the state of his leg. 

Tommy nodded slowly. “That’s okay,” she said. “We’re gunna carry you out on a backboard.”

Carlos pressed another kiss to the top of TK’s head, and he found himself nodding. Even with all the personnel stomping and shouting around them, he was still too close to the monster. Still convinced it might get back up and come after him. He wanted to get away from it.

Tommy nodded and gestured behind her. A team of unfamiliar faces was lingering in the forest nearby, waiting for her go-ahead. They were shouldering medical bags and had a bright red backboard in between them. 

As they closed in and set up the board, TK realized he would have to leave the safety of Carlos’s arms. He closed his eyes tight, turning his face back into his partner’s chest. Just for a second, he wanted to keep hiding. 

“I’m right here,” Carlos whispered into his hair, sensing TK’s reluctance. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It was the reassurance he needed. TK took a deep, shaking breath, and leaned away. He submitted to the other paramedics as they coaxed him onto his back on the board. His words were tight and stuttering, but he did his best to answer their questions as they strapped him in. Tommy took the lead on talking to him as much as she could, since she was familiar to him. All the while, TK held tight to Carlos’s hand, even when the paramedic team flanked the backboard and counted down to their lift. 

As they walked him out of the woods, TK momentarily lost sight of Carlos’s face. He clutched tight to his hand and looked up at the canopy above, which rustled in a warm night breeze. The moon shone through, a few days shy of being full. 

“Amelia,” he said abruptly. Looked up at Tommy with wide eyes. “She’s back on the road. He shot her. She was alive when I found her, I gave her– she might still be alive, I don’t–

The confusion didn’t quite clear from Tommy’s expression, but she looked over her shoulder and shouted at someone anyway, relaying the message. 

“He shot her,” TK echoed, his voice softer this time. “In the back.”

“They’ll send people that way,” Tommy told him. She reached with a free hand and rubbed his upper arm to reassure him. “They’ll find her.”

The trees vanished from overhead. Red and blue lights strobed across the leaves as he was carried downhill toward the house, still lit up like someone might be home. Dozens of emergency response vehicles were parked along the newly-paved roads of the housing development. They were walking him toward an ambulance, its backdoors open to a fluorescent interior. Just outside, a stretcher had been lowered to the ground, ready for him to be loaded. 

TK focused on how Carlos’s fingers were threaded through his own, and tried to take deep breaths. With the adrenaline crash, he was starting to feel more centered, however slightly. 

“Three, two, one,” Tommy counted down, when multiple sets of hands slid under TK from all angles to transfer him to the stretcher. As soon as there was room for it, Carlos came up beside him again. 

“My dad,” TK asked, “is he okay?”

Carlos smoothed his hand over TK’s hair, pushing it away from his forehead. “He’s fine,” Carlos said. “He’s at the 126. Judd just called him to let him know we’ve got you.”

A large presence appeared beside Tommy as if summoned. “There he is,” Judd sighed, his smile broad and relieved. “Hey, kiddo.”

He was holding his phone up, the screen crammed with other familiar faces. Paul and Nancy and Mateo and Marjan all started speaking at once, gushing their relief in an illegible jumble of sound. TK laughed, reaching up with his good hand to offer a lame wave. He was crying again. 

The facetime call shifted, and there was his father. “Aw, TK,” Owen blurted, laughing through his own tears. “Thank God. We’re going to meet you at the hospital, okay? We’ll be right there. Oh, I love you, TK.”

“I love you, dad,” TK answered, as the paramedics raised the stretcher and began to load him into the ambulance. 

For a few moments, everything was a blur of motion. The lights in the cab were nearly blinding, and even when Carlos climbed in after him, TK still reached for Tommy and Judd, who stayed behind. Not enough space, Carlos told him, but they’d be following close behind. It still felt frightening, to be reunited so briefly only to be separated from his family again. 

They had the stretcher sitting upright. TK accepted the pulse ox, the blanket over his shoulders, and the blood pressure wrap around his bicep. He named the exact pain aid he wanted, slower-acting but opioid free, and the paramedics agreed without him having to explain himself.

Carlos sat beside him in one of the jump seats and watched him carefully as the ambulance started down the hill. Relieved to see him, numb to the emotional fallout that would find them soon enough. No doubt full of questions, many that would likely be difficult for TK to answer. But there was a moment, while they were en route to the hospital, that the paramedic beside Carlos turned to find a brace for TK’s now visibly broken arm. A moment where TK could pretend it was just the two of them. 

Before his wrist was re-wrapped, before he was swept into the ER and surrounded by more strangers, before he was crushed in a wave of family and friends, there was just him, and Carlos. TK reached up with his good hand and cupped his face gently, prompting Carlos to lean in closer to make it easier on him. 

“I love you,” TK said, with such fierce sincerity that it made his chest ache. “With everything I have, Carlos Reyes, I love you. But if you ever tackle an armed sociopath in the woods again, so help me God, I will play Uptown Funk at your funeral. On repeat. Do you understand me?”

And Carlos laughed, and his eyes flooded with tears, and he nodded against TK’s hand. He leaned forward until their foreheads were pressed together. TK closed his eyes, savoring their closeness. 

“I understand,” Carlos said, only loud enough for TK to hear. “And I will always make that choice, if it means keeping you safe. So I think that’s a fair price to pay.”

“God,” TK groaned, laughing and crying in spite of himself. “Such a martyr. I’m fine.”

“Clearly.” Carlos said, laughed again. 

It was the most amazing sound TK had ever heard.

Chapter Text

St. David's.

Under the sterile lights of the ER, time started moving again. 

Hunger churned in Carlos’s stomach, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in hours. His phone sent the occasional push notification for apps that didn’t matter. His jaw and cheek were starting to ache where he’d been punched, and he absently wondered if he should have his throat looked at. 

A nurse was laughing quietly on the other side of the privacy curtain, and a man was talking about the hospital’s new cafeteria menu. It seemed impossible to Carlos that the man could be thinking about something so asinine, after the world had very nearly been torn to pieces. But to these strangers, it hadn’t been. Their night had been boring enough that they wanted to talk about what they’d be eating on their next break. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

His fear had not ebbed when they’d arrived at the hospital. It had pressed up against his ribs and made itself small in the presence of his relief, which had flooded him when he’d finally gotten his arms around TK. But his anxiety, like the low-lying strings that accompanied horror movies, would take time to dissipate. He’d been steeped in it for days, a constant and horrible companion. Finding TK hadn’t banished it, only re-shaped it. 

Here on the other side of the nightmare, with his partner safe in front of him, Carlos wondered if things would ever feel normal again. 

He was folded over the side of TK’s hospital bed, holding his hand and fidgeting gently with his patient bracelet. They hadn’t spoken much since Owen had stepped out to have a word with Major Crimes. TK had been left here, queued up behind a privacy curtain and waiting for the OR to be prepped. His wrist and leg both needed surgical attention, little metal pins that would fluoresce under every x-ray and airport scanner for the rest of his life. Carlos was thinking about this when he noticed the rusty dirt under TK’s nails. Recognition of what it was hit him like a slap.

“They didn’t give us a nail scrubber,” he said, sitting upright abruptly. “I’ll go ask for one.”

TK rolled his head toward him, frowning in confusion. 

“There’s… under your nails,” Carlos explained, “there’s some blood. We should clean it out before you go into surgery, right? Things have to be sterile.”

For all his heartbreaking sobs earlier that night, TK managed to look amused at Carlos’s expense. “If I needed to be totally sterile, they would’ve let me take a shower. Lord knows I need one.”

Carlos was shaking his head before TK had even finished speaking. “No, I can find one. You shouldn’t have to lie here with his blood under your nails. I’ll be right back, I’ll find something. I’ll be right back.”

He stood, his heavy chair scraping backward on the linoleum. He floundered for a moment, unsure what the most direct path to a nail scrubber would be. The nurse’s station, probably. The woman in the Tweety Bird scrubs had been friendly earlier, when he’d asked for a phone charger. Maybe she could help him.

He was wrapping his hand around the edge of the privacy curtain when TK said his name, more panicked than exasperated. Carlos froze on the spot, pivoting back to the bed to find the big green eyes he had spent days searching for.

They stared at one another, floundering for what to say. For all the medical trauma their relationship had weathered, none of it lent itself to this. None of this felt familiar, let alone manageable. TK hadn’t gotten hurt on the job, risking his life to protect or save anyone; this time, he was the victim. Full stop.

Carlos was realizing that neither of them knew what to do with that.

Eventually, TK found the words to voice his fear. “What if surgery is ready before you come back?”

The manic need to do something collapsed in Carlos’s chest like a bellows, pushing the air out of his lungs in one loud exhale. He set his jaw, released the privacy curtain, and crossed back to the bed. He pulled the chair close as he resumed his vigil, chewing on the inside of his lip. He looked at the dirt under TK’s nails with resignation. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, speaking directly to the bandaging around TK’s wrist. “I'm just not sure how to help right now.”

“You’re helping,” TK said, sliding his fingers over Carlos’s hand. They were cold, his fingertips crosshatched in little red cuts. “You’re here. That’s all I want right now.”

Carlos turned his hand over so he could lace their fingers together. TK returned the grip with a kind of eager panic, like Carlos would leave and not come back.

Carlos cupped his free hand around their laced fingers and hoped it would warm TK’s cool skin. “I’m gunna be right there with you when you wake up, okay?”

The corner of TK’s mouth twitched like he was going to say something witty, but just as quickly, the defensive impulse left him, and he only nodded. He’d needed to hear the reassurance too desperately to make light of it. 

Quiet blanketed them again, uncertain and temporary. TK studied the tiles on the ceiling, and Carlos studied TK. He looked exhausted, and cold, and miserable. He’d been missing for nearly five days, and it showed in the shadows under his eyes. Under his stubble, Carlos could see bruising. His lower lip was swollen, punctured with angry red teeth marks. Bitten, and not by TK.

Carlos didn’t realize how his grip had tightened around TK’s hand until the other man looked at him. He had to force himself to loosen his fingers.

There were so many questions that hung between them. Between one minute and the next, Carlos found himself oscillating between the need for answers and the horror of what they might be. He was floundering, with no idea how to behave so long as he remained in the blindspot of not knowing. 

He couldn’t support TK if he didn’t know what kind of support he needed. 

“Are you,” he started, and then stopped, pressing his lips together to ensure he didn’t speak out of turn. He took a deep breath. TK deserved Carlos’s strength, his reassurances and protection. Not for his partner to be a sniveling mess when he needed him most.

“I need to ask you something,” he said, starting again. He found TK’s gaze and made himself hold it. “And it might be difficult. I don’t want to hurt you in any way, but if… If the answer is yes, then there are some steps that we have to take. Sooner rather than later. And I don’t… What I mean is, I want you to know that it wouldn't change anything, TK. Not the way that I think about you, or feel about you, or… What I’m trying to say is–”

“He didn’t,” TK said softly. Carlos stopped talking so abruptly that his teeth clicked together. He stared at the man in front of him, helpless and terrified of what he was about to learn. 

The look that TK gave him was completely unguarded. “He didn’t,” he repeated, with more confidence once he realized Carlos needed to hear it. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. “I don’t need to do a rape kit. He didn’t.”

Carlos had frozen on the spot, thawing just enough to nod mutely. TK’s reassurance settled over him in stages, eventually giving way to relief. He hadn’t. Of all the heinous things that could have happened, TK had not been raped. Carlos’s vision blurred with hot tears, and he felt TK’s grip tighten around his own hand. 

“It’s okay,” TK said, so softly that it brought a sob up from Carlos’s chest. He jammed the heel of his palm against his eyes to clear the tears away, still gripping TK’s hand like a lifeline.

“You shouldn’t have to be the one comforting me,” he managed, miserable and grateful and relieved all at once. TK considered him for a moment, the barest ghost of a smile passing over his face. 

“I already know what happened, baby,” he said, running his thumb over Carlos’s swollen knuckles. “You’ve been in the dark this whole time, not knowing anything. You must have been so scared.”

His gentle voice brought a fresh surge of tears to Carlos’s eyes. He didn’t bother trying to wipe them away this time. “I am scared,” he admitted, so quietly that it was nearly hidden under a sob. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I don’t want to go through life without you.”

TK pressed his lips together in a futile attempt at holding back his own tears. He forced a smile onto his face. “Boy, do I have good news for you about the finality of marriage.”

And he laughed, then, at the look Carlos gave him. Unthinking, TK lifted his left hand to wipe the tears from his own eyes, only to stop short when he remembered it was splinted all to hell. He winced at the way the motion tweaked his IV, and Carlos reached for him with gentle hands, both to comfort and to smooth his tears away with the pads of his thumbs.

They tipped their foreheads together for a fleeting moment. It felt impossible to be close enough to each other, but they’d be damned if they weren’t going to try. TK took a slow, shaking breath, and whispered, “Promise me something, okay?”

Carlos closed his eyes so that the only thing in his world was TK. “Anything.”

“While I’m in surgery, promise me you’ll eat something.”

A laugh, small and watery. “Okay. I can do that.”

“And also,” TK said, “can you find me a toothbrush?”

Carlos released a steady exhale and smiled. He stood from his chair and leaned over the bed, smoothing TK’s hair back so that he could press a kiss to his forehead. “I can do that, too.”

“And please tell my dad to stop bullying the hospital staff.”

With far less enthusiasm, Carlos said, “Do you want me to change the course of any major rivers, while I’m at it?”

Owen had anchored himself at TK’s side from the moment the ambulance doors had opened, yielding his protective bravado only when his son asked him to. No one else mattered to Owen, not nurses or doctors or detectives or DEA agents. If they were crowding, he’d tell them; if they were taking too long, he’d tell them. He was filling the role that Gwyn once had, back when TK had been pistol whipped and had to spend the night in the hospital. Owen’s own reputation didn’t matter, not if sacrificing it meant getting his son what he needed to be okay.

Presently, he had stepped out to hold a sidebar with Agent Consuelo and Deputy Chief Walters. Carlos had kept himself firmly out of it, unwilling to bear witness to whatever threats and promises were being exchanged. It was probably how Owen was dealing with his own fear and adrenaline, by charging like a bull at the nearest authority figure.

Carlos was grateful for it. Somewhere on the other side of his surgery, TK would have to give his account of what had happened, with signed statements and strangers taking notes. It would be exhausting, and re-traumatizing, and Carlos had started to dread it as soon as Owen had stormed off to tell them all to wait. 

Footsteps approached the outside of the curtain, an unfamiliar gate with squeaking rubber soles. Carlos tensed; a threat, or media, or officers?

“TK Strand,” a voice interrupted, before the curtain pulled back to reveal a doctor in mint scrubs. She was wearing an N95 mask, and had a bright orange lanyard with her hospital badge hanging from the end. Her hair was hidden beneath a tie-dye scrub cap. “I’m Doctor Bhandari,” she began, when she was met with anxious eyes and tired nods. “I’ll be your surgeon this evening. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” TK answered, too exhausted to filter for politeness. Carlos thought he saw the doctor’s eyes crinkle with a smile.

Her accent sharpened words in an unfamiliar way, anchoring Carlos into the moment and finally pulling him from his own head. “We’ll be sure to get you something to eat when you’re awake again.” She eased onto a swiveling stool in one practiced motion and scooted toward a wall-mounted computer, hit a few keys, and returned her attention to them. “Do you have any questions before we get you moved into surgery?”

Carlos spoke without thinking. “You have it noted, no opioids, right? He’s sober.”

Her nod had a casual quality to it, born from routine. “I do see that written in your file, and Doctor Henderson, who you met earlier, also let me know. You have nothing to worry about; we won’t be using any opioids during the procedure. They’re typically associated with the recovery period; we can set you up with a pain management course that meets your needs.”

This being far from his first surgical rodeo, TK lent his focus to the doctor only long enough for her to finish before he turned his attention to the curtain. His fingers curled tighter around Carlos’s hand. “Do we have a minute to find my dad? Before the surgery?”

Doctor Bhandari quirked an eyebrow, the corners of her eyes crinkling with another smile. “We have a few minutes, yes. Is your father perhaps the man in the hallway who was recommending the DEA seek medical assistance for a cranial-rectal inversion?”

TK dropped his head back against his pillow. “Oh, god, Carlos, please go get him,” he groaned. He rolled his eyes with such practiced ease that for a split second, everything felt normal. Something deep in Carlos’s chest relaxed.

He pressed another kiss to the top of TK’s hair and stroked a thumb over his knuckles. “I’ll do what I can.”

-

There’s a strange kind of vulnerability to be found in a hospital bed. TK thought it felt similar to being a child and losing his mother at the grocery store, that sinking sense that you’re suddenly and unwillingly vulnerable.

Lying there, a person was responsible for very little. He needed to eat, and sleep, and be honest when he spoke to the doctors. Don’t mess with the IV. Ask for help before you try to go to the bathroom on your own and fall over. Try not to feel too sorry for yourself. It should have been an easy enough job to relax into, after everything that had happened. Finally, he could rest; finally, he was well protected and safe.

But he didn’t want to rest. He wanted the space and freedom to do shit on his own, and one thing hospitals didn’t offer was complete autonomy. There was structure, and rules, and a schedule for everything from meals to visitors to resident rounds. There was constant noise, and strangers checking on him, and the irrational sense that he had to keep smiling, and reassuring, and deflecting. If he didn’t want to be asked about the Monster, he had to submit to being asked about his body instead.

He didn’t want to talk about either.

In the few hours after his surgery, a nurse helped him clean himself up with a sponge bath, because they wouldn’t leave him alone in a shower just yet. He had offered her a shaky smile and asked too many follow-up questions about her cat in order to distract himself from physical contact that he didn’t want.

When the 126 was finally allowed in sometime later, he kept his smile on and focused on little distractions: the peanut butter M&Ms Paul had brought him; Mateo’s recap of the Lakers game he had missed; his father’s unwavering passion for essential oils. These were good things, he thought; hardly 24 hours prior, he’d been prepared to crash a car and end his life, totally resigned to the possibility that he would never get to go home. After that, all of these benign little moments were miracles. 

At least, he knew that intellectually. Emotionally, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a great big shoe hanging somewhere, ready to drop. 

“I know a guy,” Judd was saying, when TK pulled himself out of his own thoughts and forced his attention back to the conversation. “Lives a few county roads over from my uncle’s ranch. Got German shepherds, a whole pack of ‘em. He and his wife, they split their time between raisin’ em for work and trainin’ em for dog shows. I can talk to em, see if they have a date for their next litter.”

Owen gestured like he could wave the idea away. “Ah, come on. There are plenty of excellent rescue dogs right here in Austin who need a good home. You don’t need a pure-bred anything.”

“You’re the last person I would’ve expected to say that,” Paul observed. From his spot sitting next to the bed, he tilted the open bag of peanut M&Ms so that it was within TK’s reach. 

“I’m not saying German shepherds aren’t beautiful dogs,” Owen amended. “I’m just saying, a rescue feels a little more your speed, son.”

TK fished a small handful of candy out of the bag and looked at his father flatly. His voice was hoarse when he spoke, the rawness of the day before catching up with him. “I would like to remind the room that I’m not the person who brought up getting a dog.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing about getting a puppy,” Judd said, plowing right ahead. The quirk in the corner of his mouth told TK that he meant no harm, which only barely excused the fact that he was going to keep arguing his point. “They see you as their pack right from the jump. Better loyalty, and you can ensure they’re raised right. There's risks with bringin’ home a stray.”

Grace, who was perched on the arm of Judd’s chair, glanced down at him over the edge of her coffee cup. “The irony of you saying that, Judd…”

At TK’s side, the bag of M&Ms rustled. “You strike me as more of a golden retriever kinda guy,” Paul told him, speaking as he chewed. He offered the bag to TK again, but he was still working on his last handful, so he declined.

He mustered a smile for him anyway. “Pretty, friendly, and dumb?”

“You’re not dumb if you got a four on the AP Gov exam,” Paul muttered. 

He rolled his eyes. “Uch. Nancy.”

“A golden would work,” Grace said diplomatically. “Can’t have something high-energy lying around the house all day when you’re both on shift.”

As she spoke, the door to the hospital room opened, earning only a few spare glances from those gathered. 

“Again,” TK sighed, “there are no plans to get a dog. We are not getting a dog.”

“We are getting a dog,” Carlos corrected, elbowing his way past the door. Both his hands were occupied with to-go cups. “Ideally, a dog who is extremely protective and doesn’t trust anyone but us.”

Behind him, the door drifted closed steadily, but not before TK spotted the outline of a man’s arm just outside. There was an Austin Police badge on his shoulder. 

It wasn’t the first time TK had glimpsed the officer guarding his room.

“A rescue,” Owen confirmed. 

“German shepherd,” Judd countered, at the same time that Paul said “Golden retriever.”

TK ignored all of them in favor of accepting the cup of tea his fiance had brought him. Carlos yoinked the entire bag of M&Ms out of Paul’s unsuspecting hand and took the chair next to him without acknowledging the theft. 

“A retired police dog checks at least a few of those boxes,” Carlos said, settling in with his coffee and his pilfered chocolate. “Search and rescue dogs are well trained, and if it’s retired, it’d probably enjoy the chance to lie around all day when we’re both gone. Or you can bring it to the 126 for long shifts.”

TK offered him a distracted smile, not quite able to look away from the door. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask about it, and now, with five people in the room watching him, he was strangely embarrassed to do so. There was no good reason for an armed guard, and he wasn’t sure he could handle the explanation as to why he’d been assigned one. 

He loved each and every person in the room with him, and trusted them completely. The same went for the rest of the crew, who were either on shift or at home showering and getting their first good night’s sleep in days. But each and everyone one of them was hiding something from him. TK had spent too many recent hours perfecting hypervigilance not to notice. 

He just… wasn’t ready yet, to know what it was about. He wanted to stay in these little miracles for a while longer. He wanted to feel normal first. Just for a little while. 

“I’m sure we could get approval for that,” Judd was saying, looking pointedly at Owen. “Every station needs a dog.”

Owen frowned. “We have Buttercup.”

“Maybe Buttercup would like a friend,” Paul noted. He was watching Carlos from the corner of his eye, waiting for an opportunity to take the candy back. He would have already, if circumstances had been different. 

If Carlos’s eyes weren’t cast in shadow and still ringed red from crying earlier.

TK scratched at the fresh cast around his forearm. It enveloped his hand now, his fingers only mobile from the second knuckle down. He’d seen the x-ray; it’d looked like a Jackson Pollock rendered in hairline stress fractures. “Go big or go home,” he had said, to make the technician laugh. He had amended the joke a moment later: “Or, go big to go home, I guess.”

When he looked up from it, he caught Grace watching him. He couldn’t quite return her smile.

“Oh,” Owen blurted,”before I forget.” He stretched awkwardly to reach for a backpack that had ended up under the window. “I grabbed my kindle on the way out of the station. Thought you’d appreciate something to read. I remember how bored you got the last time you were in the hospital.”

His father rose from his chair just far enough to set the device on the narrow table suspended over the bed. TK managed a thank you, but even he heard the confusion in it. “Any chance you have my phone?”

And there it was again, a microsecond of dead air in the room, before his father waved a hand and sat back down. “No, it’s at the house. Didn’t think to grab it. Sorry, kiddo.”

For a moment, TK considered pressing the issue. Or asking for a laptop. Or, hell, asking for someone to turn the TV on. But his last attempts to ask for any of those things, however polite, had been sidestepped. Judd had joked that commercials and talking heads would annoy TK into an early grave. Carlos had promised he’d bring his laptop later, kind but deliberately vague with his timeline. When TK had asked about an iPad, Mateo had chosen that moment to enthusiastically offer the use of his Switch. TK had to gesture with his very-broken-and-casted hand to remind him that the ergonomics weren’t in his favor for that activity.

None of them wanted him on social media, or watching the news. None of them wanted to outright tell him that, either. The quiet, cold, scratching fear of what that meant was getting harder to ignore. Because there were two terrible reasons for that, and TK couldn’t stomach either of them. 

“The good news is, you won’t be here nearly as long as last time,” Grace said. She was watching TK closely, the tilt of her eyebrows betraying her concern. If anyone in the room could see right through his thin, wavering attempt at appearing Okay, it was her. “They said they only want to keep you as long as it takes to finish out the round of antibiotics in that IV.”

She nodded toward the inside of his left forearm, all taped up with a line running to the bag beside his bed. He followed her gaze and felt his partner watching him. As the others lapsed back into a conversation about dogs, TK looked up and took fleeting solace in Carlos’s eyes. 

Carlos hadn’t told him what was going on either. TK had to trust that there was a good reason for that, that Carlos was trying to protect him from something. That they all were. But if it was for one of the reasons TK suspected, delaying his finding out wouldn’t matter. 

What was worse: knowing that the Monster was still out there somewhere, able and willing to make good on his promises? 

Or finding out that TK had killed a man?

Chapter Text

#StrandStalker

Beauty And The Beast: Recovery of Abducted Paramedic Raises Questions About What Comes Next for Austin, and What Will Happen to the Man Who Took Him
Written by N. J. Autzen
Posted 2 hours ago

A lethal street drug, a disgraced professor turned obsessive stalker, and a Paramedic walk into a bar… 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. 

Depending on how you look at it, the events unfolding down in Austin TX have either reached their climactic end, or are just beginning. On the one hand, Tyler Kennedy Strand – the Austin FD Paramedic who was abducted from his father’s home last Thursday – has been found, and his abductors have been apprehended. As far as happy endings go, we couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome: of the 555 people abducted across 42 states in January of 2023, only about half of those cases have been closed at the time of writing this article, with 12% concluding in death. As any true crime aficionados will tell you, the chances of a successful recovery drop significantly after 48 hours – and Strand was missing for just under 120.

On the other hand, criminal trials can take years, and this one is especially complicated. Collin McIntire, the professor-turned-Breaking Bad-knockoff behind this whole ordeal, is facing a whole laundry list of charges and felonies by the DEA and FBI, including the manufacturing and distribution of Schedule 1 narcotics. He is reportedly in stable condition in the ICU after a raid that led to Strand’s rescue. McIntire wasn’t the only one injured; two officers sustained injuries in the raid, and McIntire’s partner in crime, Amelia Rogers, was in critical condition yesterday morning, with one report describing her prognosis as “bleak.”

For those of you who pair your morning coffee with crosswords rather than headlines, let me bring you in on the ground floor: the city of Austin has been struggling with a street drug known as Cherry, a fentanyl analog with an estimated mortality rate 55% higher than your run-of-the-mill street opioids. The compound that makes Cherry so appealing was developed at UT under McIntire’s stewardship, during a research project that aimed to tackle PTSD symptoms. Users of Cherry who have survived it have reported euphoria and a sense of immortality, which has made the highly addictive analog all the more dangerous for people already struggling with addiction. Since it first showed up in Austin just three months ago, it has taken an estimated 78 lives, though according to the DEA, the number could be much higher.

It’s too soon to know if Cherry is here to stay. In a statement released the morning after McIntire’s arrest, APD’s Deputy Chief Cassandra Walters explained why: “It’s unknown if McIntire shared the makeup of Cherry with anyone else. It could be in its final chapter, or we could be in this for the long haul. It’s too early to tell.”

As for Strand, there hasn’t been much of an update. Photos taken from the Paramedic’s Instagram sent the internet into a frenzy over the weekend, in no small part because Strand is… Well, let’s be honest: he’s gorgeous. News of his abduction first hit social media when FireFox (AKA Marjan Marwani, a member of the Austin Fire Department and Strand’s coworker) reached out to her massive online following to ask for help in finding him. Since Strand’s recovery, Marwani has not provided any context on her socials, except to express thanks for everyone’s prayers and help over the last few days. Captain Owen Strand (the father, the hairdo, the American hero) did release a short statement outside of St David’s Hospital the morning following the rescue, in which he asked for privacy. The AFD has released a similar statement since then.

In line with that request, Strand’s socials went private last night, as did many of his crewmates’ accounts. 

The fire might be out, but this story is still smoldering. With so many people chomping at the bit for more info, it's unclear exactly how things will settle, or what this means for the city of Austin. We’re left with more questions than answers. For now, we’ll be grateful that Strand was found and rescued. And also for that pic of him covered in puppies… like, are you kidding me?

-

An oft forgotten law of nature, as immutable as it is inarguable, is that hospitals are temporal dead zones. If they say the doctor will see you in one hour, they mean no less than three. If an early-morning test should be “back from the lab here shortly,” they will tell you your results sometime after sundown. If you are told that a nurse will be by to check on you soon, then something like Schrödinger’s Rounds will occur, wherein hospital staff may or may not stop by to see you within the calendar month.

TK had learned this a very long time ago, back in New York when he was sixteen and stupid. Lenox Hill had been fast-paced and bustling that night, but with a bruised kidney and nowhere to go, TK had had his first experience with the befucked passage of time inside of hospitals. The fall down the stairs in Central Park had not taught him a life lesson, but sitting around in pain for hours certainly had: don’t try to electric slide over the ice to impress a straight boy, or you’ll miss your next three birthdays in a hospital waiting room.

Carlos had had ample opportunities to learn the same lesson, but hadn’t. Perhaps it was his greater capacity for patience that made his fiance so optimistic, or maybe Carlos thought he could stand with enough stubborn dignity that the hospital’s weird spacetime would bend around him and warp to his will. Like if he just kept his jaw squared and his chin raised, someone would catch a vibe and hurry the fuck up.

“I have them right here,” Carlos was saying, politely lifting the white paper bag full of antibiotics for the RN to see. “Went down to the pharmacy and grabbed them earlier.”

Earlier, because they were waiting and had nothing else to do. TK leaned back in his hospital-provided wheelchair and suppressed a fond smile. In its own way, the hospital was extremely ordered and efficient. Carlos liked order and efficiency. It just wasn’t done in the way that Carlos would’ve done it, and it was amusing to watch him grate against that.

“Excellent,” the nurse replied, sounding almost impressed. “So that’s done! Let me just make a few notes right here…”

A torrent of keyboard strokes rattled away from the small computer kiosk just inside TK’s hospital room. The RN had perched on the swiveling stool and glided across the linoleum to the computer upon entering, but it wasn’t clear if his urgency was because they’d been waiting for so long, or just because he had other things to rush to next. 

TK gave Carlos’s calf a gentle nudge with the toe of his shoe and winked up at him when he turned to look. Carlos returned it with a restrained, unsubtle ‘if he gives me one more form I’m gunna break something’ smile.

The RN’s head popped up from his work. “And then all I’ll need is a few signatures, and you’re all set.”

TK couldn’t hide his smile this time. Carlos accepted a clipboard and a pen and gave the nurse a tight expression. “Great,” was all he said.

The man popped up off the stool and checked his watch. He was already moving toward the door when he said “I’ll give you both a few minutes. Be right back.”

Carlos’s eyes snapped up from the form he was looking at. “Wait, this should only take me a–”

But the nurse was gone, taking with him both the light at the end of their tunnel and an unsubtle application of deodorant spray. TK watched the door drift shut behind him, searching beyond the room for some sign of the police officer no one would tell him about. This time, there was no one out there for him to find. 

“Oh my god, we live here now,” Carlos said quietly, sinking onto the abandoned wheelie stool. He gave the clipboard a resentful look and let his shoulders sag. 

Beside him, on the floor under the window, was an overnight bag that TK’s father had put together for him. Leaning against the wall next to it were a new set of crutches, which TK was loath to be anywhere near, and a condensed collection of cards and get-well-soon gifts. Paul and Mateo had already been kind enough to remove the overabundance of floral arrangements that TK had received, from the AFD and the APD and beyond. 

As soon as they finished up, he’d be going home. Back to his own bed, his own sheets and pillows. Back to streaming services and internet access and fluffy blankets on the couch. Back to his diet being at the mercy of whatever was in the fridge. Back to normal. 

But it wouldn’t be normal. Not until TK addressed the fear that was breathing down the back of his neck.

“Carlos,” he said quietly, “I need you to tell me what it is that everyone has been hiding from me.”

The pen in his fiance’s hand stopped moving. Carlos, as a whole, stopped moving, at least for a few seconds. Then he lifted his head and looked at TK with the most enormous pair of Carlos Cow Eyes TK had ever seen, and took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he agreed, speaking just as softly as TK had. “I know.”

Carlos turned and set the clipboard on the edge of the kiosk before rolling the stool across the linoleum. He glided up beside the wheelchair and slid his hand into TK’s, his lips rolling together as he tried to find out where to start. Every second of silence that passed made TK’s heart beat faster, until his impatience surged up his throat in the form of a half-formed question.

“Did he,” he started, and then stopped. He’d thought it countless times since the possibility had occurred to him, but saying it out loud was another thing entirely. He forced himself to take a breath, felt the barest shiver settle over his shoulders, and made himself ask.

“Did he get away?”

Whatever Carlos had been expecting TK to ask, it wasn’t that. His startled expression gave way to something like panic, and he leaned closer with wide eyes. “No,” he answered immediately, “no, TK, they got him. He didn’t get away.”

The news didn’t bring relief like TK thought it would. He struggled to keep a straight face, as the shiver that had come over him started to feel an awful lot like shaking. The next question came out in a whisper. “Did I kill him?”

Again, Carlos shook his head. His face was twisting with something pained, like he hadn’t realized just how much TK didn’t know. “No. No, you didn’t kill him. He’s in the ICU. Do you remember? You hit him with the crowbar?”

TK shook his head, but he did remember. He remembered wanting to keep swinging until he saw brain. “He was hurting you,” he managed. Carlos nodded steadily and ran a hand up the back of TK’s forearm like he could smooth his shivering away. 

“He was,” he allowed. “And he was going to keep hurting you, too. But you stopped him. TK, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were worried about those things. I should have updated you, but I was worried that… I didn’t want to upset you, I guess.”

TK rolled out his shoulders, stiff and sore as they were, and rolled his lower lip inward so he could prod the teeth marks with his tongue. “But he’s alive.”

“He’s alive,” Carlos confirmed, “and he’s in custody. So is Rogers.”

TK nodded. A moment passed in silence before the words registered. “Rogers,” he repeated. His eyes widened; surely he’d misheard. “Amelia? She’s alive?”

Carlos squared his jaw. “Barely,” he allowed. “She hasn’t woken up. She might not.”

“Jesus,” TK exhaled. 

He didn’t know what to do with that. Some relief came, finally, as confirmation of the monster’s arrest settled over his shoulders. That he hadn’t taken a life, however heinous that life might be. And Amelia, all her manic energy and cruelty and jealousy, he hadn’t had the capacity even to think about her. She was a vial of morphine on a dirt road, dying in the moonlight. The possibility of her surviving hadn’t even occurred to him. 

TK stared at his left leg, casted and propped up on a rest that extended from under the wheelchair. “Then what is it that everyone is keeping from me?”

It was Carlos’s turn to look away, his focus sliding to the door and back. “Well,” he started, taking a deep breath as if he were bracing himself. “When you were missing, we… cast a really wide net, to try and find you. Everything we could think of, we tried.”

He pivoted slightly, angling his body toward the door like he was hoping someone would barge in and interrupt. Or help him explain, maybe. TK waited in silence.

When the door did not burst open to reveal a savior, Carlos set his jaw and intentionally turned his body back to face TK. Resignation tightened his facial features. “Social media was one of the things we used,” he explained. “Marjan’s followers helped out a lot. We didn’t know where to even start looking, and all those people… it was a huge help.”

“Okay,” TK allowed, uncertain and drawn-out.

Carlos made a face. “It went viral,” he said. “Your abduction.”

There was a pause, in which TK got the impression that he was supposed to react. He nodded slowly. “And you found me,” he concluded. 

“No, I mean–” Carlos frowned into the middle distance like he was trying to find the best explanation. “It went viral. Like… National news cycle viral.”

More silence, heavy and confused. TK stared at his partner the way a person did when they were waiting for the punchline of a very unfunny joke, but Carlos didn’t offer any retractions. 

“What does that mean,” TK asked, roughly four seconds after his confusion started to turn over to understanding. He was shaking his head. “National news, what do you mean?”

Carlos smoothed his expression and kept a firm grip on TK’s hand. “Right now, it means there are news vans outside the hospital,” he explained steadily, finally opting for a forward approach. “But it won’t change how the coming days are going to be: we’re going to go home, and rest, and just… be together, as a family. People will lose interest in a few days. It’ll calm down.”

But TK was shaking his head again. “You’re saying that what happened was, what, televised?”

After a slow, deep breath (probably meant to telegraph calm, which TK immediately resented) Carlos nodded. “Yeah. There are hashtags.”

“Hash–” TK pulled his hand free and pressed the heel of his palm into his eye, like he could rub the oncoming headache away. “Why?”

He was answered with a bone-deep sigh. “The short of it? Evil drug dealer kidnaps handsome paramedic, something something metaphor about the opioid crisis.”

“For fucks sake,” TK blurted on an exhale, pinching the bridge of his nose as he spoke. “That’s why no one gave me my phone, or turned on the TV?”

“It’s a lot,” Carlos admitted. “Honestly, the flowers that Paul and Mateo packed up were just a fraction of what was sent to you. We had the hospital distribute the rest to other patients.”

TK dropped his hand into his lap and turned to look at the crutches leaning against the wall. The reusable Whole Foods bag full of Get Well Soon cards suddenly seemed alien and untrustworthy. He hesitated for a moment before his curiosity got the better of him. “When you say national news…”

“Good Morning America.”

TK’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. So nothing too major, then.”

“No, basically public access television,” Carlos agreed without missing a beat. He gave TK an unconvincing smile and sighed again. “Listen, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner. It just hasn’t felt like the right moment, or… maybe we thought we were protecting you, I don’t know. But I told your dad, if you asked, I’d tell you. Whether he was here or not.”

Over the sound of blood rushing in his ears, TK found it hard to appreciate the honesty. He found it hard to feel much of anything beyond disbelief and discomfort: he wasn’t exactly equipped to comprehend Carlos’s story. “So the cop outside my room…?”

“To make sure no media bothered you. I don’t think anyone actually tried, though, thank God.”

TK nodded absently. “And the nurse who joked about swapping Instagrams?”

Carlos’s mouth pulled to the side, not quite able to hide his annoyance. “I would assume it’s related.”

“If I went viral, can’t she just follow me?”

“She might already. We made your account private as soon as we found you, but the DEA initially said we should leave it public.”

“Oh.” TK frowned, and then paled. “Oh. Was my face on TV?”

His fiance winced and nodded. “A lot of pictures were pulled off of your Instagram. People really like the puppy pic, from that old calendar you did.”

TK stared at him for a moment longer before his focus drifted into the middle distance. The shiver from a few moments ago had morphed into the need to fidget, and he started bouncing his uninjured leg. “Are they… I mean, the fact that I’m an addict, have–... Is that also…?”

“It’s come up,” Carlos admitted carefully. “But not unfavorably, I don’t think. You have some posts about your recovery journey on Instagram, so people found out. But from what I’ve seen, it’s all about you being clean. You are, and I quote, ‘a role model.’”

A single, pained laugh escaped him. “I’ve never been accused of that before."

He tried for a smile, but the weight of this new reality was beginning to settle over him. The worst week of his life was trending, and a past life full of bad choices had been swept up with it. He risked a glance up at Carlos, who was watching him closely. Waiting for TK to react, one way or another. The problem was that this news, however unnerving, was an abstraction. TK could spiral into the idea of it and panic, or let it pass him by like an intrusive thought. 

After the week he’d had, he opted for the latter. 

“You figure this’ll blow over in a few days,” he asked, reaching again for a hand to hold. “One person taking an unwanted interest in me was enough, I think.”

Carlos’s expression nearly folded, the barest flash of heartbreak behind his eyes, before he took control of himself. He gave TK’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “That’s what they’re saying, yeah. It’s a 24-hour news cycle, it won’t last.”

Eager to believe it, TK nodded and took a deliberate breath. “Cool,” he decided. “Good. Okay.”

“You alright?”

“Hm? Oh, I’m great. Nothin’ but net right now.”

“TK…”

A knock sounded on the door, and seconds later it was gliding open. The nurse from before was back, body spray and all. “Alrighty then! Thank you for your patience. I can take those forms now, if you’re done with them.”

Carlos drew a sharp inhale. The clipboard, and all of its unsigned forms, was still sitting on the kiosk. “About that.”

“Can we drop them at the nurse’s station when we’re done,” TK interrupted. “We got sidetracked.”

The RN agreed, already bouncing on the balls of his feet to move on to the next overdue task. With a few cordial goodbyes and a wish for a speedy recovery, he was gone again, nearly fast enough to leave a dotted outline in his wake. TK was quick to reset the mood: the nurse’s return, however brief, had derailed the momentum of the conversation it interrupted, and he wasn’t keen on getting back to it.

“I guess you get to carry the bags,” he said, nodding toward the duffle under the window.

Carlos considered him for a moment, face strained, before he sighed. “Story of our relationship.”

“Hey now–”

-

It wasn’t the fleet of news vans that TK had envisioned, but the quiet shutter of professional-grade cameras still caught him off guard when he leveraged himself from the wheelchair into the passenger seat of his father’s Tesla.

“Here,” his dad said, reaching under the seat between TK’s knees to pull the lever and slide the seat all the way back. “That okay?”

“It’s fine, dad,” he answered, letting his injured leg stretch outward. He was distracted, peering around the drop-off for signs of media presence. Ahead of the car, there were only a few hospital employees enjoying a smoke break, which meant whoever had the cameras was behind the car. TK couldn’t bring himself to check. He distracted himself with his father’s outfit. “You look awfully formal.”

Owen very intentionally did not look down at himself. He needlessly adjusted TK’s seatbelt as he spoke. “Well, since you know about the paparazzi now, that shouldn’t surprise you. No reason I shouldn’t look my best.”

TK gave him a flat, unamused look. “I’m not Princess Diana, dad. They’re probably just bloggers.”

“Their news van says NBC on it.”

Now TK did look, eyebrows elevated in surprise, but there was no van parked behind the car. Just a few people with cameras milling about near the corner, glancing unsubtly in their direction. Before his attention could linger too long, Carlos returned from the foyer where he’d brought the wheelchair. Everything about his body language suggested he was ready to put considerable distance between himself and the hospital. 

“Seriously, are you comfortable,” Owen asked, passing the two crutches in for TK to hold against his shoulder. “We can lean the seat back more.”

TK pressed his lips together and tried to telegraph patience. “I’m comfortable,” he promised. “Trust me. The only way I could be more comfortable is if I were home.”

His father flashed him an amused smile. “Duly noted,” he said, before stepping back to push the door closed. Before he could, a voice called out from the sliding doors of the foyer, startling all three of them. 

At a glance, the man waving them down could have been a nurse, or a doctor, or an orderly. He was wearing gray scrubs and waving to get their attention, and the instant he had it, he wilted and hesitated as if he had regretted it.

Owen turned toward him fully, planting himself between the advancing stranger and his son, but it was Carlos who stepped forward to meet him. “Doctor De Luca,” he greeted, taking only a few steps before the newcomer reached him. As soon as they were within polite distance of one another, a sense of uncertainty settled between them, plunging the hospital drop-off zone into awkward silence.

The man – Doctor De Luca – couldn’t be any older than TK. He looked exhausted, and handsome, and incredibly nervous. His eyes slid from Carlos to Owen to TK, and lingered. There was recognition there, but TK had no idea why; he had never seen this man before. 

The silence pressed in for a moment longer. De Luca opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and tried again. Eventually, he squared his shoulders and got the words out.

“I’m glad they found you,” he said, surprising TK by speaking directly to him. “I’m glad it’s over.”

It was so genuine that it gave TK pause, and only amplified his confusion. He was missing something obvious, something far bigger than his family not telling him about the media. But strangely, he got the sense that it wasn’t the moment to ask. After a pause, TK managed a slow nod. 

“I am too,” he said, watching De Luca closely. The doctor set his jaw, took a deep breath, and nodded. Though TK couldn’t explain why, the moment felt important, at least to the doctor. 

De Luca cleared his throat and finally looked away from TK. “I’m sorry to delay you,” he said. “I just had to… I don’t know.”

He flailed his hands a little bit, looking entirely uncomfortable and strangely relieved. There was a tattoo on the crook of his arm of two stemmed cherries.

Ironic, TK thought.

“It’s alright,” Carlos said, giving De Luca’s shoulder a reassuring grip. “Thank you for all your help.”

The doctor nodded stiffly, but before he could say anything else, the soft rustle of camera shutters sounded from across the way and he stiffened considerably. “I should go,” he said, already stepping backward toward the door. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”

Carlos had time only to nod before De Luca turned and disappeared inside. As the doors were hissing closed behind him, he looked over his shoulder and caught TK’s eye one last time, and then he was gone.

“An introduction might have been nice,” Owen said, as they climbed into the Tesla and pulled their respective doors shut. From the backseat, Carlos pulled his seatbelt across his chest and seemed to be weighing something important.

“I’ll tell you later,” he decided. TK watched him over his shoulder until his sore neck became too annoying and he was forced to turn around. 

“Later is fine,” he said, before his dad could push the matter. “I do have one request, though.”

“Name it,” Owen said, at the same time Carlos said “Of course.”

He offered them a tired smile. “I could crush some Thai food right about now.”

The strange tension of De Luca’s appearance dissolved, and his father smiled. “I think we can do that. But we’re getting it to go. You need to be resting, young man.”

“What happened to your rule about ‘no curries in the Tesla’?”

“Oh, we’re triple bagging the order, make no mistake.”

TK rolled his eyes and glanced up at the rearview. Behind the driver’s seat, Carlos was looking out the window, an unguarded frown on his face. His eyebrows were furrowed with worry. 

A small curl of anxiety twisted in TK’s stomach. He made to reach back, to grip Carlos’s knee in a show of comfort, but he only moved his arm an inch before he remembered it was cemented in a thick cast, too cumbersome and sore to use. 

The moment passed. TK lowered his eyes and tried to focus on Thai food.

Chapter Text

Alone, Together

“It’s not your fault the coffee here is terrible,” TK said, patting Carlos’s thigh in a gesture of reassurance. It didn’t get the smile he was trying for, but at least the man stopped bouncing his knee. 

“Maybe we should have had them come to us,” Carlos muttered. “This is taking too long.”

They weren’t technically in an interrogation room. There was no one-way mirror, no dingy brick wall for a grizzled detective to shove someone up against and demand answers. There were a few chairs that could legally be classified as “cushioned”, a large table, and some brochures in the corner about domestic violence. They could just as easily be there to interview for a mid-level corporate position as they were to provide further statements about what had happened. 

And the coffee was terrible.

“I needed to get out of the house,” TK reminded his partner, his hand still resting on Carlos’s thigh. “I was starting to personify the couch.”

Carlos huffed. “Yeah, well, Sofa Loren would have at least been more comfortable for you.”

A familiar flash of frustration came over him, and TK pressed his lips together before he could put words to it. Carlos meant well, and he wasn’t wrong; the chair that TK’s leg was currently propped up on was a far cry from the pillows and cushions back home.

But God, was TK tired of sitting around at home.

The door to the room, which had been left open a few inches, pushed wide to admit a heavy-set man in his fifties. He was carrying a small laptop under one arm and a steaming mug of (presumably) terrible coffee.

“Sorry about the wait, boys,” he began, hooking a foot around the leg of a chair to pull it out from under the table. “Had a call come in about another case of mine, and I’ve been tryin’ to track that guy down for weeks. I really do appreciate you both comin’ in.”

He set his things down and reached across the table, first to shake Carlos’s hand, and then TK’s. He was quick to swap out his left hand for his right so that TK’s cast didn’t have to get involved. Detective Alvarez took a seat with a gruff sigh and pushed the laptop open, comically small against his big hands. “Can I get you anything before we begin? ‘Nother cup of coffee? We got that new Keurig, so there are a couple flavors and everything. Not as fancy as I’ve heard y’all got over at the 126, but believe me, leagues better than the chalk they had for us last year.”

After a week of relative isolation at home, TK found himself smiling. He hadn’t realized how badly he needed to have a benign conversation with a stranger until just then. “Maybe Carlos can cut back on his Starbucks budget, if it's as good as you say.”

He felt the frown, rather than saw it. “I don’t do Starbucks,” Carlos defended. “I do local.”

“Still five bucks a cup,” TK countered. 

“There’s Dunkin’ Keurigs,” Alvarez supplied, as if Dunkin’ was a good alternative to Starbucks for a man who just said he shopped local. “Did you know that? Saw ‘em at Costco the other day.”

“It’s a lot of plastic, though,” TK pointed out, relishing the smalltalk. “Did you know they have reusable cups?”

Alvarez did not look like the kind of man who was concerned about his plastic waste, but he was polite enough to feign interest. “At Costco?”

Carlos, who had been resistant to the idea of leaving the loft in the first place, and probably didn’t appreciate his coffee preferences being brought into question, decided to cut the head off of the Smalltalk Snake. “You had a few clarifying questions for us?”

“A few,” Alvarez confirmed. Unbothered by the curt redirect, he set about typing a few things into whatever document he had open, slow and steady like a man who had stopped following technology sometime in the early aughts. “I’m sure you both know that in the aftermath of trauma, details can get a little fuzzy. Mr Strand, you gave a pretty cohesive statement in the hospital about everything that happened. I just want to go over some of the details again to make sure I have it all down right.”

TK tried not to feel too crestfallen about the smalltalk being over. He definitely tried to ignore the spike of anxiety in his gut. “Sure.”

Alvarez informed them both that his laptop was going to record the conversation. He stated the date, the case number their conversation was in reference to, and then had TK and Carlos both state their names for the record. His first questions were softballs: who took you, and from where? What do you first remember from when you woke up? Were there other people there besides McIntire?

TK, who had been having vague, spinning nightmares about it since the hospital, didn’t have any problem recounting the details as he had initially reported them.

“Do you remember how many days you had been there when you tried to escape,” Alvarez said, glancing up from the keyboard he had been steadily typing away on. 

The anxiety in his stomach took on a sort of gasoline-fumes queasiness, and he forced himself to take a breath. “I don’t know. It was dark out when I got upstairs. But I don’t… It could have been the end of the second day, or the end of the third. I don’t know.”

Alvarez nodded, his expression effortlessly neutral. TK figured he’d conducted far more harrowing interviews than this over his long career. “I won’t make you go through the escape in detail again,” the detective said, glancing up at TK, “but I do have a question about the morphine that McIntire threatened you with. That was after he broke your leg? Did he try to forcibly inject you with it?”

Carlos’s warm, calloused hand slid over TK’s fidgeting fingers, and gripped them like an anchor. TK gave them a squeeze and managed to shake his head. “No, he didn’t try to force it on me. He, um.”

Unintentionally, his voice collapsed into a whisper before he cut himself off. He stared at the tabletop and wished Carlos wasn’t there, suddenly. The memory of the Monster’s breath on the side of his face was so visceral that it was almost humiliating to think about it, as if Carlos could somehow see TK being assaulted. When he pulled another breath into his lungs, it was shaky. 

“He brought me into a pantry, off the kitchen,” he managed, forcing the words out like they were lodged in his throat. “Handcuffed me to the shelving unit in there. He… made a lot of threats, then. Including the morphine.”

“So he didn’t try to dose you, but threatened to,” Alvarez clarified. “What other threats did he make?”

Had TK shared this in the hospital? He remembered sitting there in bed, with his father and fiance flanking him, trying to be as heavily detailed as he could be. Like if he forgot something, then law enforcement wouldn’t understand just how important it was to lock the Monster away forever. Like they were looking for cracks that they could use to get out of prosecuting. 

He couldn’t remember sharing this part.

“He threatened to, um. Break my other leg,” he said, finding his sentences one word at a time. “He threatened to hurt the people in my life. The children that I know, Tommy Vega’s girls, he threatened them. And Nancy.” He swallowed and squeezed his partner’s hand again. “And Carlos.”

Alvarez let silence settle as he typed the details out in that slow, steady way of his. When he was done, he nodded, and said, “Threats of violence?”

“Yes.”

Another pause, to type a shorter note. “Did he make any other threats?”

TK nodded, and then rolled his eyes briefly to the ceiling for want of something new to look at. The idea of making eye contact just then was out of the question. “He threatened to rape me. Said he could drug me, and… make me into a doll, I think. Like he could do whatever he wanted then.”

In a testament to his professionalism, Alvarez offered only a neutral nod. TK refused to look at Carlos. 

“He threatened to starve me, too,” TK offered, since it was honestly the least frightening of the threats, especially in hindsight. “And then he left for a while.”

It was the end of the topic if any of them had ever heard one, and Alvarez didn’t push further. His next question was about the drug lab in the house, about what details TK might remember about the scale of the setup. TK leaned into the change of topic like it was an A/C vent in a heatwave, relieved and grateful and exhausted in equal measure. Carlos remained quiet throughout, a heavier silence than his usual contemplative nature. TK continued to avoid his eye. 

“My last question for you,” Alvarez eventually said, after several more questions about timing and logistics,  “is about the shooting that occurred in the woods, with Amelia Rogers.”

TK nodded, if only to show that he was still conscious and capable of moving his neck. He blinked a few times as the memory flashed across his eyelids, a sympathetic flinch just barely causing him to tighten his grip on Carlos’s hand. Carlos squeezed back.

“You’re the sole witness to the shooting,” Alvarez said, gentle but steady. “In your initial statement, you said that–” he lowered his eyes to read over something on the laptop, and then paraphrased, “--he shot her in the back as they passed one another, because they were trading seats. And then he watched her crawl away, and shot her two more times. Does that sound correct?”

This time, TK’s silence was unintentional. He shook himself out of the memory when Carlos shifted bodily in his seat. “Yeah,” he managed. 

“Did he do anything after that?”

TK shook his head. “Amelia had left her door open. I got out and ran.”

“You had gotten out of the handcuffs by this point?”

A small, bitter smile curled the corner of his mouth, and TK lifted his casted arm like one might heft a trophy. “Yhep. Pulled it out of the brace it was in.”

“You had also taken the morphine from Rogers prior to this happening, correct?”

“Mm-hm.”

“When did you decide to administer it to her?”

Finally, TK made eye contact with Alvarez. The question hadn’t sounded like an accusation, but he still tensed. “I thought she was dead,” he said carefully, “when I circled back to the car. But she wasn’t. She was… I thought she might’ve been shot through a lung, based on the foam around her mouth. Her breathing sounded labored, and she had an asymmetrical chest rise. I thought… I thought she was close to death. So I gave her the morphine.”

Alvarez frowned, a small and curious thing which did nothing to ease the tension that had pulled TK’s shoulders tight. “Why did you choose to help her? You could have kept the morphine to defend yourself with. And she was one of your abductors.”

It wasn’t exactly a leading question, but it was clear that Alvarez wanted more context for his report. TK considered the cast around his arm for a moment.

“Do you think she’ll live,” he asked. 

It caught Alvarez off guard, based on the slight raise of his eyebrows. “I really couldn’t say,” he replied neatly. “I’m not a doctor.”

TK gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m not either,” he said. “I knew that morphine alone wasn’t going to save her. And I knew that an intramuscular injection wouldn’t help her as immediately as it would have if I’d found a vein. But I thought she was going to die. And… all the people who’ve OD’d on Cherry, who’ve lost friends and family because of the drug she helped make? Maybe she’s cruel enough to let people suffer, but I’m not. I couldn’t just leave her in pain.”

When TK looked up, it wasn’t at Alvarez. For the first time since the interview had started, he let himself look at Carlos.

“Well,” Alvarez said at length, as TK’s answer settled over them, “the city of Austin is lucky to have you, Mr Strand. Those are all the clarifying questions I had for you today. Is there anything else you can think of that you want to add to your statement? Any questions you have for me?”

Carlos squeezed his hand again, and TK loosed a slow, unsteady exhale. “Yeah,” he said, slowly pulling himself out of Carlos’s eyes. They were safe, in a way that very little else in the world was safe. Anxiety had wiped his mind of any lingering questions, but the everpresent urge to be a smartass wouldn’t be cowed. He gave himself a few seconds to breathe, and then raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Any chance I can get my water bottle back from evidence?”

-

TK was floating through a meaningless dream about windmills and greyhound buses when the low gravel of Carlos’s voice woke him up.

“He’s asleep on the couch,” his fiance said, soft but not quiet enough to escape notice. Carlos was somewhere over by the front door; TK could hear it rolling closed, accompanied by the tread of someone’s shoes. 

“Sorry,” Owen said. “Should I sneak?”

TK pressed his face into his pillow and shrugged the blanket up over his ear. It had taken him a long while to find a comfortable way to lie on his right side, with a pillow between his knees and his right leg slightly extended onto the ottoman. He was reluctant to lose it, even for company’s sake. Even if that company was his dad. He started sliding back into sleep, less a decision and more an inevitability.

“It’s fine,” Carlos was saying. “He’s been sleeping a lot this last week. I think that– Oh, Owen, that’s way too much.”

There was a shuffle by the door, reusable shopping bags being put down. “Are you kidding? There’s nary a casserole to be found. I put zero work into it besides parking in the pick-up spot outside the store.”

“What do we owe you?”

TK cracked an eye open. The Apple TV was still on, though it had defaulted to one of its drone footage screensavers. Slow and clumsy, TK reached to rub his eyes with his casted hand, his fingers just barely mobile enough for the task.

“Nothing,” his father insisted. “It’s the absolute least I can do. Don’t give me that look; you will not win this battle of wills.”

Carlos sighed. “Thank you. Really.”

He should wake up, anyway, TK thought. On Andrea’s suggestion, he had been watching Masterpiece Theater, some quaint story set in the English countryside where the conflict never escalated beyond minor communication issues. There was nothing triggering about a veterinarian nurturing calves in the 1930s, and it was more effective than any dose of melatonin at putting him to sleep.

With his good arm, TK leveraged himself up into a sitting position and collapsed against the back of the couch. It was stiff work to swing his casted leg fully onto the ottoman, where it had been resting prior to his nap. He rubbed at his eyes again. “Hey, dad.”

When he lowered his arm, his father had rounded the couch to better look at him. “Hi, kiddo. How are you feeling?”

He offered him a smile that in no way reached his eyes. “I’m alright,” he lied. “Watching grandma TV.”

Owen’s smile was entirely too kind for someone who saw right through his bullshit. He moved the pillow that TK had had between his knees and sat down next to him. “Grandma TV as in Downton Abbey, or grandma TV as in QVC?”

“All Creatures Great and Small,” Carlos answered from the kitchen, his voice muffled by the open refrigerator door. 

“My God,” Owen laughed, “we are bored.”

“It’s that or house flipping shows, and they’re all terrible,” TK said in his own defense. Owen pursed his lips and hmm’d, not quite able to keep the grin off of his face. 

“There has to be a third option,” he reasoned.

Across the loft, the fridge door closed. “There is,” Carlos agreed. “Books.”

TK booed and dropped his head back, directing his frown toward the ceiling. He only lifted it when he felt his dad patting his arm cast consolingly. 

“You’ve never been very good at sitting still,” he said, not unkindly. “Hang in there.”

“Dad, I have to shower with a bag on my leg. And my arm. Do you know how gross it feels to not be able to wash two of my limbs?”

Owen’s expression tightened with sympathy. “It’s that or maceration.”

Carlos had migrated to the counter to unpack pantry groceries. “What’s maceration?”

In unison, the Strands answered, “Skin mold,” to which Carlos pulled a face and abruptly returned to his task. “Immediately regret asking,” he muttered.

Owen pulled one knee onto the couch and turned so that he was facing his son more directly. Before the man could even speak, TK felt himself tense, lips pressing together into a thin line.

“You were at the precinct today,” Owen said, as if TK needed reminding. “How did it go?”

TK kept his eyes on the TV, on the aerial drone footage of Iceland, and wished he could ignore the question. “It was fine. It’s never gunna be easy.”

“No,” his father agreed. “But with time, it won’t be as hard.”

In the interest of not being a dick, TK kept his mouth shut. The reassurances and platitudes and minimizing of his current state had grown frustrating in the last few days, even if he felt guilty for it in equal measure. 

“Have you been online,” Owen asked, unphased by TK’s sullen silence. He was answered with a small, humorless laugh.

“Tried to watch some Youtube yesterday. Algorithm suggested a video about my own abduction.”

His father’s expression grew complicated, a mix of concern, frustration, and caution. He settled for the same thing TK usually did, when emotions got too sticky to navigate: sass. “Well, there’s always grandma TV.”

He gave TK’s knee a reassuring pat, but the concern was still clear on his face, even as he rose from the couch and rounded into the kitchen to help Carlos with the rest of the groceries. TK listened to the two of them chat, and stared at the TV without really seeing it.

“You put your bagels in the same place you put your other bread,” his father asked, sounding like he had stalled in his task of putting things away.

“Bread with bread,” Carlos confirmed, after a confused pause.

“Yeah, but they’re everything bagels. The onion alone will leach flavor into the other things around it.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It absolutely is a thing. And anyway, this is a lot of bread, even for two people. Did you look at that keto book I got you?”

TK heard Carlos sigh. “Yes,” he said steadily, “but we need carbohydrates to live.”

Owen was saying something about moderation when TK pulled his attention away from the TV and turned their way. “Did you see Marjan today, dad?”

He was spared only a glance, which was awfully mindful of Owen considering how passionate he could get about carbs. “Hm? Yeah, she was in today. I had her doing inventory, since she can’t actually work with her hand right now.”

An unfortunate glimpse at his own future, TK thought. “Is she doing okay?”

This earned more of his father’s attention. Over Owen’s shoulder, TK didn’t miss the look of relief on Carlos’s face at the change of subject. 

“Well, she does seem a little off,” his dad admitted, “But everyone does right now, I think.”

“Yeah,” TK agreed absently. “It’s just that… when she was here the other day, she seemed… I don’t know. It felt like she was avoiding me.”

“Marjan was willing to burn Austin to the ground to find you,” his dad reassured him. “I doubt she was avoiding you.”

TK watched Owen for a moment before flicking his eyes back to Carlos. His partner had paused in his task of putting away canned goods, and a silent exchange passed between them. 

I noticed too, Carlos said with his eyebrows. TK frowned: Do you know why? Carlos gave a minute shake of his head, but there was a look of determination on his face too. We’ll figure it out.

All the while, Owen talked about carbs, and the TV kept panning over Iceland. TK reached for the small remote and navigated out of the idle screen and back to his cozy, unchallenging grandma show, simultaneously resigned to it and relieved to have it.

Another episode was better than spending time in his own head.

Chapter Text

Love’s Other Name

The first day back from the hospital, TK had slept like he’d fallen into a fresh coma. The bedding smelled like their soaps and laundry detergent, with the ghost of coffee from that one time Carlos spilled his morning mug and it sank out of the reach of cleaning supplies. It was such an intimately familiar scent that within several minutes of hitting the sheets, he was as good as dead to the world. It was the kind of sleep that happened after back-to-back all-nighters in college, or staying awake through a transatlantic redeye flight. It was a state of torpor, usually reserved for hummingbirds having a sugar crash. It was glorious.

Every sleep after that had been shit.

It was a rudimentary exchange, a sort of Turing machine for bad sleep hygiene: put one unit of trauma in, get three units of exhaustion out. And the universe had shoveled a lot of trauma into the machine, by TK’s estimate. Yet, for some reason, every time he sank onto Carlos’s shoulder on the couch or climbed back into bed, all he got was nightmares. 

And not even good nightmares. No bursting awake in a fit of drama, no easily-digestible metaphors for him to think about or unpack in therapy. They were all vague, and stressful, and indistinguishable from one another. They were static on an old TV set, with vague impressions of the Monster, and the basement, and tree branches that became crowbars that became arms around his neck. And just when the dreams would start to take shape, would start to verge into self-awareness, they would swerve back to nonsense like a spooked horse. 

It was as if his subconscious was trying to process what had happened, but every time he got near the memories, self preservation would step in and derail the attempt.

He wanted to believe that this lack of proper rest was why he was feeling so combative, three days after their trip to the precinct. It was easier to explain it away, if he was just tired. It was a more digestible excuse than what he suspected was really going on under the hood.

“-ucking kidding me,” he muttered, pressing his thumb entirely too hard into the remote as if physical force would do the trick. The TV did not respond; his show continued on, unpaused. “Fucking why?”

“It needs to charge,” Carlos pointed out. He hardly glanced up from his book, but there was a lift to his eyebrows that TK immediately read as judgemental.

“Didn’t we just charge it? What is this, some ‘programmed obsolescence’ bullshit?”

Carlos lifted his eyes more intentionally from what he was reading. “You’ve been using it a lot recently.”

“Yeah, because I have so much else to do.”

A frown. “I can go grab your book from the bedroom.”

“I’m perfectly capable of getting it myself, thank you,” TK cut back. “I just want to pause it for a minute, and this– stupid thing–”

“You’re gunna break it,” Carlos warned. 

“It’s already broken! Piece of shit.”

TK threw the remote, with more force than he perhaps intended, onto the ottoman. Immediately, it bounced off the cushion beside his leg and landed on the floor, out of charge and now out of reach. He groaned loudly and made a gesture with his good hand like he wanted to strangle something.

Carlos lowered his book and pivoted toward him on the couch, looking at TK like he was trying to determine the best way to enter a maze. At length, he found the playing card he’d been using as a bookmark and tucked it into the pages to mark his place. 

“Talk to me,” he said, as he picked up his phone and navigated to the Remote app. TK watched, annoyed and embarrassed, as Carlos paused the episode. 

“I’m tired of talking.”

“Okay,” Carlos allowed. “Add that to the list of things you’re tired of.”

“Don’t be a dick,” TK snapped, fully aware of his hypocrisy. “I don’t need comfort and reassurances right now, Carlos, I need the remote to work.”

Steadily, Carlos said, “I’m not trying to comfort you.”

“Then go back to your book.”

He received an odd smile and a little head tilt. “I can’t annoy you if I’m reading my book.”

“No, actually, you can. You keep humming every time you read something interesting. What’s interesting about the history of salt, Carlos?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Emphatically, I would not.”

“So you’re annoyed by my book choice?”

“I’m not annoyed.”

“No?”

“No!” TK threw his hands out, wincing at the sudden shift of weight on his broken arm. “I’m not annoyed, I’m angry!”

Carlos’s eyebrows rose. “Clearly.”

“No, not clearly,” TK shot back. “Don’t be reductive!”

“Don’t be a dick, don’t be reductive. What do you want me to be?”

“Angry!”

His shout hung there for a moment, like it had changed something fundamental about the air in the room. The glare collapsed off of TK’s face in stages, falling dangerously close to panic, before he forced his anger back to the front of his mind. It was as much armor as it was a weapon. 

“Everyone keeps trying to take care of me,” he said, sharp, like it was a bad thing. “I don’t want to be taken care of! I don’t want help getting into the shower, or my meals brought to me, or my dad to do my grocery shopping! I want to do shit for myself!”

When Carlos didn’t respond right away, TK kept going. A sluice gate had opened deep in his chest, every tiny resentment surging forward at once. “Everyone is afraid to show negative emotions around me, like I’m going to crumble as soon as someone stops exuding strength. I don’t need everyone to be strong for me! I feel like I’m the only person who’s pissed off about what happened!”

“That’s not true,” Carlos insisted. 

“I know it’s not,” TK shot back immediately. “Marjan broke her hand punching a goddamn wall about it! But everyone is being so gentle with me , and I don’t understand why I feel more isolated because of it!”

Heat stung at his eyes, and he clamped his mouth shut the instant his vision started to blur. How the conversation had escalated so quickly, he had no idea, even if he was the one who did it. He was breathing too hard. He wanted to scream into a pillow and fling it across the room and then cry into Carlos’s shoulder, but he didn’t do any of those things. He just sat there, angry and exposed and breathing too hard, and stared at his best friend. Afraid, he realized, of what Carlos might say. Or maybe more afraid of how he would handle whatever came out of his fiance’s mouth.

Carlos, for his part, did not jump to his own defense or shoot down what TK had said. He stared back, a complicated pain on his face, and offered only a small nod. TK watched his gaze become distant, and darker. He watched Carlos’s jaw square, watched him make a decision.

“I am angry,” he said, low and even, but not frustrated. Not offended. “But it’s not an anger that I’ve felt before. And I don’t know what to do with it.”

TK stared at him, but Carlos cast his eyes away. 

“I keep having dreams where I kill him,” he said, quietly, like it was a terrible secret. “I round the corner at a grocery store and he’s there. Or I’m jogging in the park and I see him on a bench. And this flip switches, and…” Carlos paused, biting off whatever he was going to say. He pressed his lips together and scowled down at his lap until he figured out how to abridge his confession. “It’s always so violent,” he decided. “And every time, I wake up before I manage to do it. I wake up crying and furious.”

He turned, pulling his knee onto the couch and leaning forward to close the distance between them. He didn’t reach for TK, didn’t touch him. TK found himself leaning closer too.

“And then I roll over, to make sure you’re there. Afraid that I woke you up. You’ve been pulling the blanket over your head, since you came home. Like you’re hiding from something, even in your sleep.”

TK’s vision blurred with fresh tears. He pressed the side of his face against the back of the couch and reached across the distance between them to thread his fingers into Carlos’s. 

“I don’t know how to be angry in front of you, right now,” Carlos admitted quietly. “I don’t feel it when I look at you. I just feel relief, and fear. But I am angry. I’m sorry that trying to hide it has hurt you.”

“You haven’t hurt me,” TK murmured. “I don’t… I don’t know how to do this. I don’t want to be a victim.”

They sat in silence, with only the white noise of the A/C as a buffer, before Carlos released a long breath.

“I’ve treated you like one,” he decided, a statement rather than a question. “I keep trying to do everything for you.”

It was too much fault for Carlos to take on, and TK felt immediately guilty for it. “You’re trying to help.”

“Trying to,” Carlos allowed. “Do you… do you remember, when you went to the Tuesday meeting to tell McIntire to leave you alone? Afterwards, you said you needed control. But you haven’t had that for a while, have you?”

TK didn’t reply; he didn’t have to. He lowered his eyes, as much a confirmation as anything else, and Carlos pulled his other leg onto the couch so he could sit sideways and face TK directly. He lay his free hand over where their fingers were joined.

“I’m not going to be good at it right away,” he said. “Stepping back, and leaving you alone. I know the crutches hurt, and it’s not easy for you to get around. I hate watching you struggle. But… I guess that’s my problem, not yours. Will you still ask me for help, when you need it?”

In spite of the tears, TK managed a smile, like a joke might take the sting out of the conversation. “Of course. I’m actually really loving not having to go down to the laundry room.”

Carlos tried to return the grin. “And you’ll tell me? If I’m being too much?”

“If you tell me when I’m being a crab.”

He received a solemn nod. “I promise to call you out when you’re being a crab.”

“... And it is helpful, when you remind me to take those antibiotics.”

Carlos gave him an actual smile then. “Yeah, you’re really bad at remembering to take pills.”

“You’d think otherwise, given my whole history of addiction, huh?”

And then they were laughing. Not the deepest laugh, or the longest, but genuine, and a huge relief to them both. The need to turtle into his shirt and disappear lessened, and TK pulled a shaky breath into his lungs. He squeezed one eye shut in an exaggerated wince. “There’s the other thing, too,” he said. “The media thing.”

Carlos made a face. “Yeah. That.”

“Dad said it’s calming down online. And the news cycle has moved on.”

After a moment of reluctance, Carlos managed, “Yeah, I guess. For now.”

TK tilted his head so that he could look pointedly at Carlos through his lashes. “I need to go to the 126. It’s my home, too.”

He wasn’t sure how he was expecting Carlos to react. More excuses as to why they shouldn’t leave the loft, maybe, or reasons to defer their visit. Carlos had been especially paranoid about people harassing them in public. But almost all of the noise had been online, and until the trial started some months in the future, there was nothing headline-worthy happening anymore. As long as TK didn’t fall down a manhole or get struck by lightning, the world was likely to leave him alone. 

“Okay,” Carlos said, instead of his usual dodging and subject changing. “Do you want to go today?”

TK perked up and glanced at the clock in the kitchen. “They’ll be having dinner in an hour. We could crash it.”

“Sounds great. You can tell them about your skin mold.”

A scandalized gasp ripped out of TK’s chest. “I do not have skin mold, Mr Reyes. Do not make me call your mother!”

Carlos laughed. “Really? You’d snitch, just like that?”

“Andrea,” TK called, as if she were in the other room, “Carlos is bullying me about matters of personal hygiene!”

He was drawing a breath to continue the bit when Carlos’s hand clumsily covered his mouth. TK devolved into laughter, trying and failing to shove his partner away while Carlos slow-motion tackled him into a hug, all the while shushing him and pleading with him to not rat him out. It ended, rather inelegantly, with TK on his back and Carlos lying on top of him.

“You’re one of the most annoying people I know,” Carlos said.

“One of, but not the most annoying. I still have work to do.”

He wrapped his arms around Carlos’s chest, warm and solid above him. Bracketed into the couch cushions, TK closed his eyes and tucked his face against the side of Carlos’s neck, basking in the safety of him. Carlos kissed the top of TK’s shoulder in return and let loose a long sigh, gradually relaxing more and more of his weight onto TK.

“Hey, okay,” TK grunted when he realized what Carlos was doing, “just because I wake you up like this when we have opposing shifts doesn’t mean you need to–”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Carlos reassured him, his voice muffled by the couch cushion. “I’ve been told this is a sign of true love.”

“What did I just say about being a dick?”

Still muffled, his partner replied, “You’re very warm.”

TK wheezed another laugh. “My exact phrasing was don’t.”

Carlos made a loud cartoonish snoring sound, which became abrupt laughter when TK reached down to dig his fingers into his flank. “Oh, fuck,” he managed, “I yield, I yield!”

His weight shifted and vanished as Carlos shoved himself up. Unwilling to accept complete defeat, however, he ducked down and blew a quick raspberry against the side of TK’s neck, earning a bolt of alarmed laughter. 

“Child! You’re a child,” TK shouted, swinging and missing when Carlos rolled deftly onto the ottoman and out of reach. 

He hauled himself to his feet, laughing and a little breathless. “No one will ever believe you,” Carlos said, making a point of adjusting his shirt back to a state of presentability. “Especially if you show up at the 126 in your pajamas. Go get dressed, we still have to deal with the tail end of rush hour if we want to get there in time.”

“Where’s my phone? I’m calling your mother immediately. Unbelievable, the son she raised.”

If Carlos took his threat seriously, he didn’t show it. He smoothed his curls back from his forehead and made a show of dusting his shoulders off. “I’m not going to offer to help you. It hasn’t even occurred to me to do so.”

He sauntered off toward the kitchen to do god-knows-what, and TK took a long, deep breath. He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, letting the last of his heightened emotions drain away, before he forced himself up. Even the sight of his crutches made his armpits ache, but he grabbed them up with enthusiasm and leveraged himself to his feet, excited at the prospect of going to the 126. 

“Don’t text them a heads up,” he asked, as he started toward the bedroom. He looked over his shoulder in time to spot Carlos’s look. “I don’t want Marjan to bolt.”

“Not manipulative at all,” Carlos observed. Still, the corner of his mouth flickered upward, and he returned his phone to his pocket. 

-

The 2019 Chevrolet Camaro SS was not designed with crutches and a knee-high leg cast in mind. This fact did not discourage their plan to go to the 126, but it did result in a scuff on the dashboard from an errant crutch.

“That’ll buff right off,” TK said, sounding like he didn’t believe it at all. He rubbed at it for a few seconds and then had the gall to look impressed when the mark lessened by half.

“It’s fine,” Carlos sighed, “I need to detail the interior again soon anyw– do not use your spit, TK.”

“See? Gone.”

Carlos readjusted his grip on the steering wheel and took a slow breath, playing up his frustration a bit more when it made TK laugh. They were only a few minutes from the 126, and with each city block they put behind them, his partner’s obvious excitement grew. If there was a spark of guilt in Carlos’s gut for having delayed this return, he wasn’t going to ruin the moment by acknowledging it.

TK drummed his good hand on his knee and glanced down at his phone again. He’d started checking it a few blocks back, and was now returning to it every thirty seconds like clockwork. 

“Everything okay,” Carlos asked, deliberately keeping his eyes on the road. TK had been wisely avoiding social media, but that didn’t mean something couldn’t find its way to him. Only that morning, Carlos had made the mistake of checking Twitter. In the space of two minutes, he’d read a post about how “drugs are expensive, Strand should be grateful”, one arguing that what happened was proof that all gay men were predators, and a third sympathizing with McIntire because TK was “basically asking for it, with a face like that. I’d hit it too.” 

Online anonymity could turn people into real shitheads.

But TK’s expression wasn’t stricken by hurt or fear. If anything, it looked a little devious. “Hm? Oh, yeah. I’m waiting to see when my phone connects to the station’s bluetooth.”

Carlos sighed through his relief and hoped that TK hadn’t noticed his worry. They pulled onto a familiar street, and he started looking for parking. “For what, walk-on music?”

“My grand return,” TK confirmed. “I’ve got it down to two songs. How tone deaf would it be to play ABBA?”

“What if we just walk in and say hi, instead of derailing the entire shift?”

This suggestion was answered with an elongated boo. “Honestly, it's like you don’t even know me. You can park in the service spot, by the way.”

He said it like an afterthought. Carlos couldn’t quite hide his grin. “The spot prohibited to everyone except for service vehicles?”

“No one is going to call the tow company on your car, Carlos.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a service vehicle.”

TK flashed a smile at him. “Oh, we’ve serviced each other plenty in this vehicle.”

“That’s cute. Bring that energy into the 126, everyone will love it.”

As it turned out, the service spot was the only empty spot within a reasonable hobbling distance of the open bay doors. Carlos pointedly ignored the ‘I told you so’ look TK gave him when he pulled in and shut off the engine. 

“Hold on, I’ll get out first and–” he started, before freezing with the driver’s side door only half open. He glanced at TK, who was watching him with manufactured innocence. Carlos shifted gears. “Are you good to get out?”

TK smiled. “I’m good. Thanks for asking, though.”

They held eye contact for a minute, and Carlos found himself grinning back. “Of course. I’m a very helpful guy.”

“Recent events do support that claim, yeah.”

Carlos climbed out of the car and tried very hard to not insert himself into the process of TK doing the same. Slowly, but without any fumbles or noises of pain, the paramedic got to his feet and leaned on his crutches to catch his breath. He pushed his door closed and looked so genuinely satisfied with himself that the tension between Carlos’s shoulder blades started to unwind.

“Did you settle on a song,” he asked, as TK started around the hood of the car toward him. He was answered with a conspiratorial grin. 

“I think so.” TK stopped long enough to pull his phone from his back pocket and confirm he was on the bay’s bluetooth speaker. “With my luck, I’ll think of something way better later and kick myself.”

Carlos managed a wry grin. “Hm. I’d say there’s always next time, but…”

“That has to be the last near-death experience,” TK groaned. “Christ, my guardian angel must be making time and a half.”

“Or maybe they should be fired,” Carlos muttered, but he wasn't sure if TK heard him since he’d already started into the station. He lingered behind, assessing the street for any signs of suspicious onlookers. No media vans, no phones up and recording, no lingering glances. 

Carlos took a steady breath, and followed TK inside.

They were halfway into the bay when music started echoing around them, bouncing off the cement floors and polished fire engines for extra emphasis. Rescue Me by Fontella Bass. Carlos was rolling his eyes and chuckling before he even saw the crew’s reaction.

“No tunes during dinner,” Judd hollered, unseen around the front of the ambulance. 

“Well I didn’t get an invite,” TK called back. Laughter brought a musical quality to his voice, which Carlos hadn’t heard in who knows how long. From the direction of the kitchen, a distinct “Oh shit” signaled Mateo’s reaction, followed by the scraping of multiple chairs being pushed away from the table.

“There’s our boy,” Paul hollered as soon as he rounded the ambulance. He was parroted by Mateo and Nancy, who both voiced their own joy and surprise. Carlos hung back, watching Judd and Tommy join in. How so many people could hug the same man at once was beyond him. 

As the kitchen came into view, Carlos spotted Marjan. She was lingering near the table, a strained smile on her face while she watched the reunion. For the briefest moment, her concern was unguarded, and her eyes flickered toward the stairs like she might make a retreat. Then she caught him looking at her, and any hesitation fell from her face. She spread her arms in welcome as the group returned with their recovered member. 

If TK was wary of her reaction, he didn’t show it. He greeted her just as warmly as he had everyone else, wrapping his good arm around her shoulders in a hug while balancing on one crutch. She leaned into it, returning the gesture just as sincerely, but was quick to pull away. 

“Here, I’ll grab you both a plate,” she said, turning to busy herself with her self-assigned task. Nancy kicked a chair out for TK, less of a kind gesture than a demand that he join her. While he took a seat, Carlos hesitated after Marjan before ultimately deciding to leave her alone.

The spread was impressive for a Thursday night. Carlos made a polite but insincere show of saying they didn’t want to impose before he settled into a seat next to Tommy, who patted his arm fondly. 

“I can’t believe y’all have the time for antipasto,” he said, eyeing the cured meats, cheeses, and sliced veggies in front of him. 

“It’s easy to slide back into the fridge if we get interrupted by a call,” Tommy reasoned.

“Which better not happen,” Nancy said, rapping her knuckles on the wooden tabletop. “Our boy just got back.”

TK plucked a cube of cheese off of the tray and gestured at Nancy with it. “More for me if you guys have to dip.”

Nancy tsk’d. “Dude, if you don’t knock on wood in the next five seconds I will eat your Shitty Day Toblerone.”

At the head of the table, Judd glanced up from where he’d been filling his plate with several types of meat. “I imagine TK has more than earned that for himself.”

“No, sorry,” Nancy said, “the rules are very clear. Literally, they’re written on the inside of a clipboard in the rig: D.O.A. calls, domestic violence, and child abuse are the only acceptable reasons to crack into Shitty Day Toblerone.”

“Then you don’t get it either,” Paul observed.

TK made a point of knocking on the tabletop. Paramedics, more than any other first responder, were an especially superstitious bunch when they were on shift.

“Thank you,” Nancy huffed. Carlos wondered if her relief was in part due to her not having to come up with a counterargument to Paul’s point. 

Very quickly, dinner felt normal. Conversation skimmed the surface of inquiring after TK’s wellbeing, but they’d all dropped by the loft at one time or another, so they were mostly up to speed. There were sports to talk about anyway, and a ballot measure no one was happy about, and an anecdote from Judd about the Rural Board’s decision to reduce funding for a station out by his father’s ranch. “Won’t even buy those boys a proper riding mower,” he said, like it was the greatest insult to the American experiment he had ever encountered.

More than once, Carlos found himself assessing TK’s body language, with their conversation from earlier that day ringing in his ears. TK was laughing and chatting right along with everyone else, either putting on a convincing front or outright basking in the normalcy. Was this what he was talking about, when he said he wanted people to stop being gentle around him? Or did finally returning to the 126 settle something in TK that couldn’t be settled at home?

“Alright, Strickland prepped, so the rest of you are on dish duty,” Judd declared, as the dinner was finally starting to wrap up. “Chavez, I better not see one crumb on that floor.”

“I’m not a probie anymore,” Mateo complained. “If anyone should be sweeping it’s Carlos, he doesn’t even work here!”

Amid a confusing swirl of oppositions and agreements from around the table, Carlos lifted his hands. “I’d be more than happy to sweep. My god.”

“Don’t let them bully you,” TK warned, though Carlos could have sworn his voice was among those agreeing just a moment before. 

“I insist,” he decided, final and inarguable. Paul clapped him on the shoulder and Tommy complimented his instinct for peacekeeping. The instant he stood up, Mateo had the broom ready for him.

“The good thing about Carlos being probie? He’ll never graduate out of it,” Paul quipped. 

Mateo looked entirely too excited by the idea. “Perma-probie! Wait, why isn’t that a thing? We could make a lot of money doing something like that, I bet.”

“Janitors,” Nancy reminded him, taking the wind from his sails with a single word.

Across the table, Marjan was gathering the remaining food to put away. Carlos, who had set about sweeping to get it over and done with, glanced up in time to see her lean into TK’s personal space while reaching for a plate. He watched as his fiance took the opportunity to say something to her, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Marjan stilled for a moment, took a visibly deep breath, and nodded before returning to her task. 

She took her sweet time packing leftovers into tupperware, even stepping fully out of Carlos’s way like his task was the most important thing happening in the kitchen. Stalling, he thought, though he kept his mouth shut. He glanced at TK with one raised eyebrow. All good?

The paramedic bounced his eyebrows. We’ll see.

Carlos returned to his task without a word, and kept an eye on Marjan until at last she had no other finger foods to put away. She washed her hands, wiped non-existent crumbs from the counter, and finally took a moment to neatly fold all three tea towels that had been shoved over the oven door handle. 

When she was properly out of tasks, Marjan took a deep breath and turned away from the counter. TK had already gotten to his feet, and was smiling at her patiently.

“Hey,” Mateo greeted, appearing at Carlos’s shoulder and startling him from his spying, “how long are you guys here for? We’re gunna vote on what show we wanna watch next. We just finished the Fast and the Furious movies.”

“My vote is already cast,” Paul clarified. “Gilmore Girls is the obvious choice.”

“I thought we were gunna watch The Wire,” Judd said, turning abruptly toward them from the fridge. 

As the conversation tipped rapidly toward an argument, Carlos watched Marjan and TK head toward the lounge area, beyond the foosball table. Marjan was wringing her hands and smiling too much, clearly afraid of the conversation that was about to happen.

“Well if you can’t decide,” Carlos said abruptly, struck by the thought that he needed to buy his fiance some time, “then I think we need to bring Captain Strand into this. Don’t we?”

He was met with an overwhelming cacophony of booing. Clearly, this was where TK had picked up the habit. “He’ll suggest some depressing documentary, or an art house film,” Judd groaned. “That lesson has been learned.”

“Or,” Carlos tried, “you could each present your case, and have him pick from a curated list.”

Paul, Mateo, and Nancy were quick to wave him off. While they went back to their argument, Carlos caught Judd’s eye, and jerked his head toward the TV area. Judd frowned, followed the gesture, and then understood. 

“Actually, no,” Judd interrupted the others, “Carlos has a point. Strand’s our captain; we should include him.”

A muted grumble of disagreement rippled through the kitchen, before Tommy stepped back in from the bay. She could clearly see TK and Marjan sitting close together across the common area. “I for one would like to see you all try to make your sales pitches to him.”

Judd nodded and pursed his lips. “Whichever one he picks, the person who suggested it doesn’t have to do dishes until we’ve finished the first season of whatever it is.”

That motivated everyone, if nothing else would. They were quick to head upstairs, talking over one another about how they weren’t allowed to change their suggestions when Mateo asked what show had the longest first season. Carlos nodded gratefully at Judd and Tommy. 

“Oh, you’re coming too,” Tommy said, clapping her hand onto Carlos’s shoulder.

Carlos blinked. “I don’t, uh… I mean, I don’t actually work here, so I don’t think–”

“Give ‘em space,” Judd agreed. “Besides, you can be a tie breaker when the power goes to Owen’s head.”

Glancing one more time over his shoulder, Carlos caught sight of TK holding his arm cast up beside Marjan’s bandaged hand. Whatever he said to her, her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“Yeah,” Carlos agreed absently. “Can’t wait.”

-

“Oh, they’re terrible. You would love them.” Marjan popped up from her perch on the coffee table and leaned until she could grab the DVD case for The Fate of the Furious. “I think this is the one the Rock shows up in? Maybe. I don’t know how Mateo can keep them all straight.”

TK nodded politely, but kept his eyes trained on Marjan rather than the box she was trying to distract him with. 

“The real miracle is how we actually got through them all,” she pressed on, intentionally avoiding his eye. “I don’t think call volume changed, but we still managed to finish all the main films.”

“Sounds like you guys needed a distraction,” TK noted, patient but pointed, an off ramp from Distraction Highway if Marjan was ready for it. 

“Well technically, Tommy kept making excuses to get up and do other things, but she’s a Captain, so maybe we can’t hold that against her.”

TK mm-hm’d, and wondered what a more direct approach might look like. He watched Marjan spin the DVD case between her hands as she chattered, and decided that blunt was best. He didn’t know how long they had before the rest of the crew came spilling back downstairs. 

“Which Fast and the Furious movie is the one where you decide to tell me what’s wrong?”

Hm. In immediate hindsight, maybe a little too blunt. TK managed to keep a steady expression on his face despite the inward wince.

Marjan took a breath as though she were going to talk over his interruption, but she stalled out before she could. Finally, she made eye contact with him. “Right,” she allowed. “Yeah.”

TK dropped his gaze to Marjan’s bandaged hand, and reached across with his own casted arm to tap at it gently. “How’s yours?”

She hesitated a moment before giving him an unconvincing half-grin. “Looks pretty gnarly, still,” she allowed. “But at least I can take the bandages off when I shower.”

“A luxury, believe me,” TK said. They lapsed into silence, sitting in the discomfort of what was unsaid, until he drew a breath to try again. “I know you need to process things however you need to process them. But… It seems like you’ve been avoiding me? I just wanna check in.”

Surprise passed over Marjan’s face before her expression crumpled. “No, I’m not–...” 

Her protest collapsed into a groan, and she reached with her good hand to tug nervously on the edge of her scarf. She cast her eyes away from him, toward the stack of DVD’s on the side table, or the TV, or the half-empty Gatorade bottle Paul left behind. Anything but TK. At length, she found her voice again.

“I’m really, really glad you’re safe,” she said, finally turning a desperate look toward him. “You know that, right?”

“Of course I do,” TK answered softly.

“And you know I would never do anything to hurt you, or anyone in our family, right?”

“Marj, I know that. Of course I know that.”

Marjan took a deep breath and turned her body toward him to face the conversation head on. “But I did,” she managed. “I made such a problem, for everyone, but especially you.”

His confusion must have shown clearly on his face, because Marjan’s expression tightened even further. She said, “Social media,” like it was obvious. “I didn’t mean for it to blow up the way it did, but that hardly matters, does it? And now people are being predictably terrible and creepy, and you’ve dealt with enough already, and it's my fault you have to deal with this now, too.”

TK watched her for a moment, giving her confession some space to breathe. Thought about how everyone had avoided bringing up social media while he was in the hospital, how badly they wanted to protect him from it. “I’m not… really dealing with it, though,” he said after a moment. “I’ve stayed off of social media.”

Maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because Marjan’s stricken expression turned a touch frustrated. “I’m glad to hear that, TK, but it’s not Schrodinger’s Reddit. People are still posting trash about what happened.”

He frowned. “And you’re reading it?”

Her frustration grew a few degrees closer to defensive. “I’ve been internet famous for a while now. I know how to navigate these things.”

“Sure,” TK allowed. “Okay. Then how often do you doom scroll through the tags for what happened?”

Marjan stared at him, hard, but didn’t answer. Which was an answer in its own right, as far as TK was concerned. 

“What good does it do to read them,” he asked. “It’s just people being small.”

“No, it’s not,” Marjan cut back. “There are people being–”

She clenched her teeth. TK waited a beat, but when she didn’t continue, he felt a spark of frustration of his own. It was tiny, and he was more worried for Marjan than anything else, but he had long surpassed his limit for people being delicate with him.

“You’re not going to set me off by being honest, Marj,” he said, falling just a little short of measured. “I’m perfectly aware of how shitty people can be.”

They stared at one another for a moment, two varieties of Stubborn squaring up for a battle of wills. The pause was just long enough for TK to wonder if he’d pushed too hard too soon, if he should back off and leave her alone. Before he could, Marjan looked down at her hands and released a long breath. 

“There are some people,” she started, slow and steady as she found the words, “who are acting… obsessive, about what happened. Saying creepy shit about you, and… I can’t stop thinking that if we ignore it, and do nothing, like the last time, that something terrible will happen again.” 

Her gaze moved from her own hands to TK’s leg cast, resting at an angle between them. She picked at the bandages around her knuckles and waited for him to react.

The silence didn’t do much to ease his confusion, but TK realized she wasn’t going to offer anything else. He took an audible breath. “So, by monitoring what people post online,” he said slowly, “you’re trying to… prevent something bad from happening again.”

She frowned, a pinched little thing that wasn’t frustrated so much as suddenly self-aware. “Well putting it that way makes it sound like Q-Anon crap.”

A small grin pulled at the corner of TK’s mouth. “But is that what you’re doing? Getting ahead of another…” He trailed off, either unwilling or unable to say the monster’s name, and instead gestured at his leg and said “This?”

“People should leave you alone,” Marjan said, too fiercely to not show her hand. “I posted about what happened because I was trying to help, and I thought I had a platform that would allow me to do that. To find you, before it was too late.”

“You did find me,” TK insisted, surprised and dismayed to see tears swell onto Marjan’s lashes. 

“The DEA found you,” she corrected immediately. “They didn’t need anything that the internet dug up; they were already closing in on McIntire. All I did was put their investigation at risk. I put you at even greater risk than you were already in. And for what? My own ego? Thinking that I could somehow succeed where the fucking FBI couldn’t?”

“You were trying to help.”

Marjan lifted her chin and glared up at the ceiling like she could blink the tears away better from that angle. She took a few deep breaths and wiped at her eyes with her good hand. “Yeah,” she agreed, her frustration giving way to something more dejected. “Some help I ended up being. Now the worst week of your life is national news, and for all anyone knows, my actions created a hundred new stalkers.”

TK flashed a strained, sarcastic smile. “Maybe we can hold a tournament, and have them all fight each other.”

“TK,” Marjan scolded immediately. But he had grown up navigating his mother’s attorney-level arguing, and his father’s stubborn inability to admit fault. He held her gaze steadily. 

“You’re giving yourself too much credit,” he said, talking right over her next protest and effectively silencing her. “You’re not responsible for the internet, Marjan, and you certainly don’t have any control over how people behave on it.”

“I know that,” she cut back, exasperated. 

“Then why are you acting like you do?” TK leaned forward, his uninjured hand finding Marjan’s. She squeezed his fingers back despite the furrow between her brow, which he took as a good sign. He softened his voice, and said, “Listen. What happened didn’t just happen to me. It happened to all of us. You, Carlos, my dad, everyone. I… I know the statistics. I know my chances of being found were slim. You had a resource that you thought could help, and you used it. Not because of some God complex, but because you’re the kind of person who will do whatever it takes to help the people you love.”

Marjan curled forward, shrinking under the weight of TK’s reassurances. A few tears slid off of her cheeks and made dark spots on her bandages. 

“You have to be kind to yourself,” TK pressed. “You’re blaming yourself for something that was out of your control, and then taking responsibility for something that hasn’t even happened yet.”

Marjan clenched her teeth in a moment of visible frustration before responding. “Was it out of my control, though? We all knew things were escalating, and we just kept trucking along like nothing was wrong. We should have done more to prevent what happened. I should have done more.”

TK opened his mouth to argue with her, about all the things they did try in order to put a stop to what was happening. About how sometimes, preventative measures aren’t enough. But there was a sharpness to Marjan’s anger that he recognized in himself, something that couldn’t be rationalized out of existence. It was an emotion that just had to be felt, for as long as it took to process what had happened. He couldn’t talk Marjan down from her cross when he was stuck on his own. If his anger was valid, so was hers, even if he didn’t want to see his friend in distress. 

So he changed gears. 

“So you’re angry,” he asked, adjusting his grip on her hand. 

“I’m pissed,” she confirmed.

“At yourself?”

“Yes. At myself, and… at everyone else. The police. The DEA… The crew.”

“For not doing more to prevent what happened?”

Marjan hesitated. “We knew you were in danger. Everyone wanted to hold off on doing something effective; the police, the crew, even– Even you.”

Something twinged in TK’s abdomen, a queasy anxiety that he chose to ignore. He managed a nod, but didn’t hide his wince, and Marjan looked momentarily panicked. 

“I’m not blaming you for– I mean, what happened isn’t your fault, or the crews, or– I know that,” she insisted, rushing to try and talk the expression off of his face. “I’m sorry if it sounded that way.”

TK shook his head. “No, it’s okay. I know. You’re right; no one on the crew wanted to jump the gun and make things worse. And I was gaslighting myself about what was happening, and how serious it was getting. At least up until, um, Carlos was threatened.”

His wording stumbled a little on the last sentence, rerouting to avoid any direct reference to the monster. As though even giving him a pronoun would make him real enough to materialize in the room. TK hoped Marjan didn’t notice, and pressed on. “I think that’s valid. What happened doesn’t make sense, because it's not a rational thing to do to a person. But we want it to make sense, because otherwise… if it was just random bad luck, it could happen again. So, you wonder what you could have done differently to prevent it, and you blame yourself. Is… is that fair?”

He forced himself to look at her only a half-second before she did the same. Rarely had he ever seen Marjan look so vulnerable. After a pause, she nodded, and managed to take a deep breath. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, though there was no particular heat behind her words. “I took deescalation training too.”

He couldn’t help but smile, even if it cracked the recently-healed cuts on his lower lip. “Is it working?”

Marjan rolled her eyes, but there was a small smile appearing on her face too. “Yes, TK. I feel very validated.”

“You should,” he agreed. He let silence hang for a moment and dropped his gaze to their entwined fingers. “I’m angry, too. And it’s not going to go away any time soon, for any of us. And honestly? I don’t think it should. I think we need to be angry for a while. But punishing yourself by reading tweets from the world’s thirstiest basement dwellers isn’t going to change anything. You know that.”

She considered him for a long moment. Eventually, she muttered, “I don’t know what else to do.”

TK managed a wry smile. “Well don’t look at me. Carlos’s mom got me watching Masterpiece Theater. It is not a good anger substitute.”

Marjan had the good grace to laugh, even if it was masking sadness. “I knew this job would land me in therapy eventually, but damn. The hell are we supposed to do, TK? 

From a distance, Mateo and Paul’s voices grew louder, joined seconds later by everyone else. They were emerging from his father’s office, on their way back downstairs with Carlos in tow. Their privacy was nearly at an end. 

Unbidden, the answer to Marjan’s question settled over him like a warm blanket. The serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.  

“One day at a time,” he answered honestly. “We do it together, and we keep each other honest about how we’re feeling. I think we might have to reinvent a few wheels, as a team. You know?”

She groaned. “Emotional processing. Gross.”

“The worst,” TK agreed. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll randomly text you pictures of cute animals throughout the day, and when you see one, you have to close all the apps on your phone and take a break.”

The crew hit the bottom of the stairs, and headed their way. Marjan released TK’s hand and made a quick swipe at her eyes, mindful of her mascara as she brushed away her tears. “What kind of cute animals are we talkin’ about, Strand?”

“Bumblebee butts sticking out of flowers.”

She laughed. “Your old standby. Okay, deal.”

Marjan stuck out her hand for a shake, realized that the only way they could shake hands is if one of them offered their injured hand for the job, and instead curled her fingers into a fist. TK knocked his knuckles against hers and smiled.

“I have seen the Fast and the Furious movies, by the way,” he said, dropping his voice like it was a secret. “Carlos is obsessed with them.”

“What?”

“You think he drives a Camaro for the gas mileage?” 

“So, because our voting system is broken,” Nancy announced as they came within hollering range, “we’ve decided on Deadwood. It was a sham election, Paul rigged the whole thing.”

“Just you wait, Gillian,” Paul called. “You’re gunna love it.”

“I thought you meant Deadpool,” Mateo whined. “That’s the only reason I voted for it! Old westerns put me to sleep!” He jostled at Paul when the other man rustled his hair. The crew complained as they walked, though whether they genuinely didn’t notice the energy in the room or willingly ignored it, TK couldn’t say. He caught Carlo’s eye as everyone approached. 

All good, Carlos’s eyebrows asked, the barest lift as he walked between Judd and Tommy. 

TK smiled and nodded back. All good.

Marjan took the interruption in stride, likely just as ready to stop being emotional as TK was. “I don’t think Deadwood has much in common with old westerns besides the genre,” she said. “My advice? Try counting all the F-bombs they drop. See if you can keep up with ‘em.”

This perked Mateo up a bit, if only because of his innate curiosity. Judd, who could always be relied on to propose a western when a vote was to be had, turned his satisfied grin into the fridge to fish out a beer. “I gotta hand it to ya, Strickland. Starting off with Gilmore Girls as a bait-and-switch was a pretty clever move.”

Carlos perched on the arm of the couch beside TK and smoothed his hand across his fiance’s upper back. “You think you have an episode or two in you? Or do you wanna head home?”

“I’m good,” TK said immediately. “I’m happy to spend some time away from Sofa Loren.”

Marjan raised an eyebrow. “... Don’t tell me you named your couch ‘Sofa Loren’?”

From among the returning crowd, Owen stepped forward and claimed the newest La-Z-Boy recliner before anyone else could. “That’s my boy. Although, I would have gone with something sportier. Couch Bryant, maybe.”

“No one gets that reference, dad,” TK pointed out.

Judd emerged from the kitchen, beer in hand. “Bear Bryant? Fifteen-time Conference champion, six-time National champion?”

Carlos gave TK’s shoulder a loving squeeze before turning a skeptical eyebrow toward Judd. “You just know that, off the dome?”

“I’m a man of culture,” Judd sniffed, lifting his chin. “Read a book.”

TK turned and looked pointedly at Marjan, exasperated. “One day at a time,” he reminded her grimly. 

The game of musical chairs that followed would have been annoying under any other circumstance. As it stood, TK was so relieved by the display of normalcy that he chose to savor it. His father had already staked his claim, and as Captain, he wouldn’t be moved; Paul insisted that his day-old gatorade had marked his territory two spots down; Mateo and Nancy insisted they needed the love seat so they could sit together. 

Ultimately, it was Judd’s sacrifice that saw TK and Carlos fitted together in the biggest, most broken-in recliner, just barely wide enough for them to curl into each other. Though it required wedging his good arm in between their bodies, TK managed to get comfortable against Carlos’s side, his head resting on his shoulder perfectly. Warm: that’s what Carlos was. Warm, and safe, and smelling of fresh-cut cedar. His broad arm wrapped around him, pressing down the length of TK’s spine, strong and reassuring.

Lights were dimmed. Nancy chucked a blanket across the way, where it landed in a heap on Carlos’s stomach. With minimal grace, they managed to spread it over themselves. Since TK was further down the recliner than Carlos, the blanket came up over the lower half of his face, the last nail in his proverbial coffin. He could just barely see the TV over its soft hem.

They were hardly ten minutes into the episode when the world started to grow fuzzy. It had been more socializing than TK had had in weeks, certainly the most physical activity he had had since the hospital. A white noise formed, made up of the TV, of the crew’s periodic comments on the show, of the distant noises in the bay. Radios chirped, and the HVAC systems hummed, and something deep in TK’s core relaxed. A tension he hadn’t known was there, until it started to ease. He let his eyes drift closed, and listened to the deep rumble of Carlos’s voice in his chest as he made his own observations about the episode. Something something period accuracy, something something Timothy Olyphant. TK barely registered it.

He was too busy falling into the deepest, most peaceful sleep he had had in weeks.

-

Three months. Long enough for Tommy’s kids to finish their summer vacation; long enough for the fiddle leaf fig in Owen’s office to die, and for him to replace it and then insist it was the same plant; long enough for TK to graduate to a walking cast, sans crutches. More importantly, sans shower bags. 

Three months. That’s how long it took for the State of Texas to bring felony charges against Collin McIntire and see his criminal trial through to the end. Public pressure had acted as a nitrous boost, blowing the case through all the usual bureaucracy that could drag a trial out for years. It was back at the front of everyone’s minds then, assuming The Washington Post was a good indicator of where the public’s minds were at. After all, how good could a true crime docuseries be without a conclusive ending?

Three months. On the afternoon that the jury stepped out to deliberate on their final verdict, TK Strand was having an existential crisis.

About spreadsheets.

“I was cool in high school,” he said to no one in particular. He was grinding his knuckles against his temple, ordering and re-ordering the same column of projected costs. The missing data – whatever the hell it was – refused to reveal itself. “I did cool shit, like skateboarding and smoking cigarettes and making out with people. How in God’s name did I end up doing this?”

“I can think of two velcro-y reasons,” Nancy murmured, nodding at the medical braces still obstructing TK’s life. It didn’t matter that he had reached a more accessible stage of healing; he wouldn’t be cleared for normal field work for some time yet.

So, requisition spreadsheets.

“I’m being punished for something out of my control. This is victim blaming.”

“It’s inventory work,” Nancy corrected. “Did you really skateboard in high school?”

TK’s frown deepened. He kept his eyes stubbornly glued to Excel. “No. I hung out with skater kids though, for a while. Thought it was my Def Jam Records era.”

Nancy, who was sitting at a desk across from him in the admin room, looked up from her own work. “Well, thank you for fighting for my right to party. You still need to get that done by five o’clock.”