heyyyy 💚 19 from the sadness prompts for tarlos? (maybe hurt tk? 🥺)
holly!! <3 i hope this fic is satisfactory, i kinda just got swept up in it although i'm not particularly happy with it
the easy way out and the hardest part
20 prompts for every emotion - sadness #19 “Do me a favour, tell them I love them" [anger 19]
title: julien baker - claws in your back
word count: 1.7k
ao3
It was déjà vu, as simple as that. However, TK had been here before, but on the other side of it.
He’d watched his father get caught in too many collapsing buildings to count, it was his thing, apparently. Hell he’d pulled his father out of multiple, after minutes or hours of waiting with baited breath, thinking that he’d wasted his last opportunity to see his dad alive. He’d watched his team scramble for any signs as to how they could get Judd out again. Heard about the collapsed gym that nearly took Paul’s life.
So clearly the universe had decided that it was his turn, after all, you can never have too many near death experiences. At least if you’re TK Strand and you might as well be medically declared to be immortal.
He wasn’t scared when the roof caved in, separating himself from his team and the patient he was working on. After all, having a paramedic with fire training proved to be an incredible asset, allowing him to help people in precarious situations.
Until of course he became the one in a precarious situation.
It wasn’t too bad, he knew it could’ve been a lot worse, his leg was pinned and he felt like something had hit his chest in the fall, but otherwise he was fine. His team would get him out, he had no doubts about it, so he just had to wait.
After all, there wasn’t much he could do for himself, not having a working radio on him, because of course he didn’t.
Not only did he just have to lie there amongst rubble, but he couldn’t even radio his team to let them know that they didn’t need to worry, didn’t need to hurry. He was fine.
He’d seen the way Carlos had looked at him when he volunteered to go in, worry evident in his features. TK knew he couldn’t help it, having been there with him through so many near misses, so many brushes with death, it was enough for TK to never want to see Carlos go near danger ever again. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was with the tables reversed.
His kit had fallen with him, ending up only an arm’s reach away in his little pocket of carefully aligned rubble that afforded him the luxury of air and movement. The least he could do is job as he dug out a notepad and attached pen, alongside his easy access bag.
Methodically he worked his way through all of the vitals he could take. Jotting down numbers and timestamps for his pulse, oxygen levels, and any symptoms as he noticed them. He at least had some baseline vitals for Tommy to go off of.
He was content to just lie there and wait, taking his vitals to fill the time.
It was something to do, to stare at the small screen of his pulse oximeter clipped on his index finger, the only source of light in the space, the tiny bar that continually moved as it tracked his heartbeat.
Over the minutes that felt like hours, he watched the downward trend of his oxygen levels, the biggest number on the screen having dropped to 92.
A number that would immediately have Tommy hook him up to an oxygen tank.
He shouldn’t have run out of breathable air in his pocket that quickly, it didn’t make sense.
So he did the only thing he knew how, and started running his hands over his chest, looking for a wound, or anything to explain why he wasn’t breathing properly.
There’s nothing quite like the fear of being completely alone, all communication with your team cut off, and discovering that the reason you can’t seem to take a deep breath is not because you’re winded from the fall, but because there’s a piece of rebar in your chest.
TK Strand had almost died enough times to know when death was coming for him. When the tendrils of darkness wound around his body, threatening to drag him down, that he only had a matter of minutes.
After everything, all TK knew was that in his last moments he didn’t want to be alone.
He scanned through his contacts, trying to find the voice he wanted to hear the most right now. His shaking thumb hovered over his mother’s contact, knowing that it would ring and go to voicemail. It always did.
Seven rings.
“You’ve reached Gwyneth Morgan. I am unable to take your call right now, leave a message. If it is urgent, flick me a text or call my business number.”
TK basically had the string of digits memorised by now, after many sleepless nights of calling his mother’s number just to hear her speak, if he pretended, she was still alive, even if it was just for a moment before the realisation surged back and hit him again.
It was urgent, but he had texted her a million times since receiving that call.
Most begging her to tell him that this wasn’t real, that it had all been an elaborate ruse. His mother could never be so cruel but anything was better than reality.
And then it beeped.
“Hey mom, I just wanted to tell you that I miss you. I always do, there isn’t a moment where I don’t think of you.” TK sucked in a staggered breath. “I think I’m dying. And I know you’ll be mad, you put so much into keeping me alive, but I’m okay. I’m not scared. At least you won't have to bury your son, right?”
TK sighed, a few stray tears slipping out of his eyes as he hung up the call.
He didn’t know what else to say.
He wished his mother was there with him, even if she was just on the other end of the phone. He needed to be comforted in a way that only his mother could.
It was a decision he would live to regret, scrolling to the top of his contacts, just below his favourited ones: his father, his mother, carlos.
It rang for a shorter time than his mother’s number.
“TK, mijo?”
“Hey, Mrs Reyes.”
“Like I alway say, call me Andrea. What’s wrong? Was there an issue with the recipes?”
That was right, he texted Andrea this morning to talk about things to cook for Carlos’ birthday, going as far as to ask if she could send through some recipes for him to try out.
“No- no issue, I haven’t even gotten off of shift yet, haven’t been able to try them. Thank you so much though.”
“Then do tell, mijo, why do you sound like you’re about to cry?” She sounded so concerned, it left TK with a lump in his throat to know that he was calling her and making her worry in a situation like this.
“It’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing, sweetheart.”
“I just miss my mom.” TK choked on his own sobs, ones that crawled up his throat despite his best attempts to swallow them down.
“Oh, TK. It’s okay, you don’t have to cry. You said you’re still on shift, right? Do you want me to call Carlos, see if he can be with you for a bit?”
“No,” TK said in a single, shaky exhale. “He knows where I am.”
There was no doubt that Carlos was climbing the walls at this point, likely firing off a million questions at his father. TK could imagine the way his voice broke as he asked how Owen could let him do this.
After all, it was just one more in a long line of mistakes, but TK was fairly sure it would be his last.
“And where would that be?”
“In a collapsed building.”
The gasp on the other end of the line filled him with instantaneous regret. This call was a mistake, one more for the tally, but he shouldn’t have dragged Andrea into this. Not because of his childish urge to be held and comforted by his mother who no longer could do anything for him. She was dead, and soon he would be too.
He could feel the tightness around his chest, like a rubber band growing smaller and smaller, keeping him from inhaling deep enough to stave off the dark spots in his vision.
“Gabriel is on the phone with your father, can you keep talking to me, TK?”
“I can try.”
“Good, that’s good. The firefighters are going to get you out of there.”
“I know they are.” TK had never doubted that for even a second, he knew his team would level this entire building if it meant finding him safe and sound. “I don’t have that kind of time, Mrs Reyes.”
He knew that Andrea was just a master at hiding her panic. A skill her son had not inherited. “That’s nonsense, of course you do.”
“I’m sorry about this. You can hang up if you want, you don’t have to listen to me die.”
“I am not going to leave you all by yourself, you have nothing to apologise for.”
“Can you do me a favour?” TK asked between pained gasps, trying desperately to keep his grip on consciousness from slipping.
“Of course, anything.”
“Tell Carlos I love him.”
“He knows, and you can tell him yourself.”
“Please, Andrea,” TK was wrought with a fresh round of white-hot tears now, their presence threatening to choke him. “In case I can’t. I need him to know.”
As the pain picked up in intensity, the stabbing fire spread throughout his chest and stole his voice from him, the small pocket he was in was beginning to feel more and more like a tomb.
The darkness gave way to light, flashing red and blue ones at that. Somehow he had ended up outside, under the cover of stars, and not just the ones in his vision as pressure was applied to his chest.
Tracking his eyes down to the source, he found the rebar still there, but Tommy at his side, packing the wound with gauze that was eagerly shifting colour from a bright white to rich, deep red.
“You gave your boy a big fright,” Tommy said, flicking her gaze to TK’s otherside where Carlos stood, his hands wrapped around TK’s, clasped like a prayer as he pressed soft kisses to each knuckle, shimmering tears running tracks down his face.
“Hey, baby,” TK said, a little breathless.
Carlos just made a sound like he was choking.
“Breathe, it’s okay.”
He took a strangled and staggered breath. “You scared my mom.”
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