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chicgeekgirl89 · 4 months

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Festive Friends- Read on AO3

Rating: T

Words: 8600

This one is for @strandnreyes as part of the @tarlos-santa 2023 exchange! I chose the prompt: AU - Carlos and TK unknowingly have each other for the office secret santa exchange. Up to you if they’re pining idiots, “enemies”, secretly dating, or anything else! Hope you enjoy and have the most festive of holidays!

“Good morning Mr. Reyes.”

Carlos looks up to find the office intern, Mateo, standing cheerily next to his desk, a stack of envelopes in his hand. “Good morning Mateo. And again, you can call me Carlos. Mr. Reyes really isn’t necessary.”

“Sorry Mr. Reyes, I’m just not really used to being like, a real adult yet I guess,” Mateo says sheepishly.

Carlos keeps a chuckle to himself and doesn’t admonish the kid again. “I understand. Whatever you feel comfortable with is fine.”

“Cool. Thanks Mr. Reyes. I brought your mail over for you.”

“Thank you,” Carlos says, accepting the stack from him.

“Can I get you anything? A coffee? Oh! I think Mr. Strand has some new kind of energizing smoothie or something in the break room. Although, it looked kinda gross to me,” Mateo says.

The thought of that smoothie sends a shiver down Carlos’ spine. He hasn’t known Owen Strand for very long, but his health nut tendencies have quickly become too much for Carlos’ taste. “No, that’s okay. I don’t need anything right now. Besides, your job here is to learn about the business, not fetch everyone’s coffee.”

“Right. Yes. Learning. I love learning all the things. Hey, are you coming to the office tree lighting on Friday afternoon? I heard they’re gonna have those little pigs in a blanket.”

Carlos’ eyes dart back to his screen and the half finished email staring at him. “Um, yeah. I’ll be there for a little bit.”

“Awesome!” Mateo seems genuinely thrilled and Carlos once again has to bite back an amused smile. The kid is ninety nine parts enthusiasm and one part overly helpful. “Well I’ll let you get back to it. Lots of…what exactly does HR do?”

“Emails,” Carlos says. “Lots of emails.”

“Right. Sounds fun. Good luck with that!”

Mateo sends him a parting wave and then disappears around the side of his cubicle.

Things have been absolutely crazy at PD and Sons since they merged with 126 Designs a few months ago. Owen Strand had been brought in to manage the merger and insisted on hiring a significant number of new staff. Onboarding the new hires like Mateo has been a ton of work, especially since Owen insisted on being extremely involved in the entire process. Carlos has been in non-stop meetings for weeks and today is the first day he hasn’t felt completely overwhelmed in forever.

He flips through the stack of mail, tossing a few random flyers in the recycling, and setting aside the important envelopes to open later. He wrinkles his forehead when he finds a folded up piece of red paper at the bottom of the stack. When he opens it his eyes immediately widen in horror.

What. The. Hell?

“Lexi.” He stands up and looks down into the cubicle next to him where his work wife is busy with some kind of design project. “Why did I just get a paper telling me who my Secret Santa is this year?”

“I signed you up because I knew you wouldn’t do it otherwise. It’s the season of giving and part of that means giving up your Grinchy ways and pretending like you’re interested in getting to know all the new people in the office,” Lexi says without looking up at him.

His jaw drops. “Okay, first of all, I’m not uninterested in getting to know them. I just haven’t had time to get to know them. And secondly, I hate Secret Santa. Nobody ever really knows what to get you, so you end up with all this random crap and candy that you don’t want and it all sits in a drawer for three or four years until finally you throw it out.”

She finally stops and turns to look at him. “Wow. Okay Uncle Scrooge. First of all,” she echoes him, “it’s not Secret Santa, it’s Festive Friends. Not everybody celebrates Christmas. Get your terminology right. And secondly, it’s not about getting good gifts, it’s about spreading joy for the holiday season. So take the Christmas tree out of your ass and start fa la la-ing with the rest of us.”

“Lexi,” he grinds out her name between his teeth and quickly glances around to make sure no one is in earshot. “I got T.K.”

Lexi is the only one in the office who knows what an incredible disaster meeting T.K. Strand has been for his life. A week after the PD Austin and 126 Designs merger the entire office had gone out for drinks. One thing led to another, which led to another, and ultimately ended up with T.K. very naked in Carlos’ bed.

They’d been incredibly hot and incredibly heavy for a couple weeks after that, sneaking around together, making out in the supply closet, booty calling each other in the dead of night, and Carlos had been so ridiculously happy. T.K. Strand had turned him into a horny freaking teenager.

And then he’d made the mistake of surprising T.K. with dinner. He’d thought it would be romantic. That it might move them from booty call status into something a little bit more permanent.

But T.K. had freaked out, stormed out, and shut Carlos out of his life. Thank god his cubicle is all the way around the corner on the other side of the building. They barely have to see each other except for the occasional awkward brush in the break room or men’s room.

Carlos’ heart has been more broken than he’d like to let on, not to mention his ego is bruised too. The whole thing has made getting to know the other people from 126 Designs like Marjan, Paul, Nancy, and Judd very awkward.. They’re T.K.’s friends. And he doesn’t want to piss T.K. off anymore than he already has.

Of course he has to interact with T.K.’s father, Owen Strand, he is the manager after all, but other than that he’s kept everyone else at an extremely polite and professional distance.

So finding T.K.’s name in his hands is like a punch in the gut.

“Good,” Lexi says, surprising him. “You’ve been pining for him for weeks anyway. Might as well do something about it.”

“Lexi, this guy hates my guts,” Carlos says. “He doesn’t want presents from me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. You’re Carlos Reyes. No one hates you.”

“Please switch with me.”

“No.”

“Lexi!”

“No! I got Paul. I already have ideas. I’m not switching. It’s only three gifts, you’ll be fine.”

“Three?! I thought Secret Santa was only one gift!”

“God, do you even read your email? It’s three gifts in the week leading up to the holiday break. This will be good for you. Now go away. I’m working.”

Carlos sinks back down into his chair, misery settling in his stomach. This is going to be absolute torture.

He takes another look at T.K.’s scrawl. His writing looks hurried in a way that suggests he’s so excited that he can’t be bothered to slow down and shape his letters more carefully. It has that same kind of frenetic, joyful energy that drew Carlos to him in the first place. Now the only energy he exudes toward Carlos is coldness.

Carlos catches himself tracing his fingers over the letters of T.K.’s name and balls them into a fist before forcing himself to read T.K.’s answers to the Festive Friends questionnaire. T.K. has written down that he likes sour candy, Harry Styles, boba, and interesting tea flavors. He doesn’t like black licorice, the Mets, or anything with alcohol.

Carlos frowns at that. He doesn’t remember T.K. mentioning anything about alcohol during their weeks together. But then again, they didn’t exactly spend much time talking. Their mouths had been occupied with other things.

It feels unfair to have this scrap of T.K., to get this little glimpse into his life. These are things he doesn’t want Carlos to know. He made that clear when he stormed out the door of Carlos’ condo and left nothing behind except Carlos’ fractured heart.

He takes a breath and squares his shoulders. It’s just a stupid office tradition. They’re colleagues. They’re going to have to become cordial at some point. Maybe this is how he can start to smooth things over. Besides, it’s not like he has to talk to the guy. That’s literally the point. To keep it secret.

This is going to be fine.

It is not fine. It’s not fine because Carlos is the type of person that agonizes over gifts. And in this case, there’s even more pressure because the gifts have to be perfectly impersonal so they don’t say, “Your dick was life changing and I don’t think I’m ever going to recover because now you hate me and I don’t really know why.” He’d much rather they say, “I’m fine and I don’t ever think about you and that thing you did with your tongue that one time.”

Ugh.

He arrives Monday morning the week before Christmas with a gift bag in hand, a Yankees baseball cap tucked inside. It’s a lame gift. Perfectly impersonal. And the rest of his gifts for the week aren’t much better. There’s a small part of him berating himself for not doing a better job. He could at least try. The guy broke up with him, he didn’t murder anyone.

But then he remembers how miserable he was in the days after T.K. had stormed out. Whatever. He didn’t sign up for this anyway. T.K. deserves his boring gifts.

The office is quiet as he makes his way to T.K.’s cubicle. Even just the sight of his desk makes Carlos’ heart ache a little. There’s a picture pinned to his bulletin board of T.K. with their other co-workers, Marjan, Paul, Judd, Mateo, Nancy, and Tommy all smiling and having fun, clearly out for a night on the town together. He’d known 126Designs was small and that was part of the reason for the acquisition; to bring on a tightly knit team to help their own, but seeing T.K. so happy with them all doesn’t really feel great.

He’s been so preoccupied by his own shopping that he completely forgot that he is also getting gifts until he steps into his cubicle and sees a bright green bag with little white Christmas trees all over it. He inspects it carefully, relieved to find there’s no glitter anywhere.

He hates glitter.

There’s a little card attached to the handle and when he opens it it reads “Hope you have a Write Christmas- FF.” It takes him a second to figure out that FF must mean Festive Friend.

He carefully extracts the tissue paper and looks into the bag. It’s office supplies. Pens, post-its, a new stapler, blue paperclips, and a ball of rubber bands.

The pun on the card makes sense, even if it is as terribly lame as the gifts inside. At least it’s practical. He can always use new pens.

“Hey!” Lexi pokes her head in. “Ooh what’d you get?”

He shows her the bag and she nods in approval. “Your Festive Friend knows you like office supplies. Nice.”

“If you’re expecting a thank you for going behind my back on this, you’re going to be waiting a long time,” Carlos tells her as he sits down and opens up his laptop.

“Pretty sure people with that attitude get coal in their stocking,” she tells him, flipping him off before heading to her own cubicle.

It’s midway through the morning and Carlos is about to make yet another phone call when Owen Strand steps into the middle of the bullpen. “All right, attention everyone!” he calls.

The ambient sound of typing and low chatter ceases. “Thank you,” he says. “I just wanted to remind everyone that we have our first team building activity this afternoon. So if you have anything scheduled this is your last chance to rearrange. Mandatory fun is in store for all!”

Carlos bites back a groan. He is really not into mandatory office fun. Especially when it means he’ll be in close proximity to T.K. But he’s also not one to flaunt the rules, so he’s going to have to suck it up and deal.

No one has been allowed in the conference room all morning and when one o’clock rolls around Owen waits at the door with a massive grin on his face. The man is clearly thrilled with whatever he’s cooked up to torture them today.

When Carlos walks through the door he sees why. The tables have been covered in red plastic tablecloths and every two feet or so sits a pile of materials like graham crackers, marshmallows, frosting, and candy. It’s immediately obvious how they will be team building today.

“All right everyone!” Owen says when they’re all assembled. “As you can probably guess our team building activity for today has taken a turn for the festive. And I’ve taken the liberty of assigning you all a partner to work with. Each team will be assembling a pre-determined part of our gingerbread village. Paul, you’re with Marjan.”

They immediately turn and high five, clearly thrilled.

“Nancy with Lexi, Judd with Tommy, Mateo with me,” Owen flashes him a smile and Mateo lets out a whoop.

Carlos’ stomach drops. That leaves him with—“T.K., you’ll be with Carlos.”

Fuck.

“Send one person to grab your pre-assigned building assignment! Remember this is not a competition. We’re all working together to build our village. Just like it takes a village to run a company.”

There’s a brief silence in which everyone internalizes what a dumb, schticky thing Owen has just said and then he claps his hands. “Okay, get to work!”

Everyone claims a spot around the tables. Carlos takes a paper slip from Owen and then looks around to find T.K., who is sitting across the room with his back to Carlos.

Carlos reluctantly walks over and sits in the empty seat next to him, all the while wondering if he can fake sick or claim a family emergency to get out of this. When he finally looks up at his partner he recoils in shock. T.K.’s lip is split and swollen, and there’s a dark ring of bruising underneath his right eye. “What happened to you?” Carlos asks, a surprised reflex releasing the words from his mouth before he can stop them.

The look T.K. sends him immediately reminds him that they’re not friends anymore. It’s full of vitriol and misery and…Carlos looks a little closer. Pain. There’s a rawness there that Carlos doesn’t remember seeing before.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just…that looks like it hurts.”

“Doesn’t feel great,” T.K. agrees, his voice stiff. “What are we supposed to be making?”

Carlos looks at the paper. “Police station.”

“Perfect. Way to read the room Dad. ACAB and all that,” T.K. grouses as he reaches for a pile of graham crackers and immediately begins squeezing icing all over.

“Um,” Carlos hems and T.K. stops.

“What?”

“Don’t you think maybe we should make a plan first?”

T.K. sighs and dramatically drops his piping bag onto the table. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

“No I—I didn’t mean—” Carlos struggles to find the right words. “It’s fine. Let’s just try and get something standing first. That’s the hardest part anyway.”

They spend a couple minutes in silence gluing graham crackers together with icing and using some marshmallows to prop them up until they have something that roughly resembles walls and a roof. “You’re kind of good at this,” T.K. says.

It’s the closest thing to niceties that they’ve shared in weeks.

“I have a lot of nieces and nephews. Not my first gingerbread house. Although it is my first police station,” Carlos admits.

“Cool,” T.K. says, then winces, his lip clearly hurting.

“You sure you don’t want to tell me what happened?” Carlos asks, feeling a little emboldened by T.K.’s compliment.

T.K. shoots him a glare. “You’re kind of annoying. You know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Carlos says, trying to let the jab roll off his back. “But I know you’re new around here and you’ve obviously gotten into some trouble. Sometimes it helps to talk things out.”

He gets silence in return. God what the hell is wrong with this guy? He’s literally just trying to help. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me. But you should probably tell someone before whoever gave you that shiner comes back to give you a matching set.”

T.K. goes quiet, fiddling with the icing bag in his hand. When he speaks his voice is soft.“I went to a bar last night.”

“Ah. A little drunk and disorderly,” Carlos says, aware that he’s being snarky and not caring in the least. “So you have an idea of how the inside of this police station should look then.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” T.K. says quickly and Carlos remembers his Festive Friends answers. He looks down. “I just went through a really bad break up. Like nuclear bad. And then I relapsed.” He looks around and lowers his voice. “I relapsed with substances.”

Oh.

Carlos sets down the graham cracker in his hands, his full attention now on T.K. as memory slices through him. “I tried to pour us champagne during dinner. I’m such an idiot I’m sorry—“

“It’s fine, ” T.K. cuts him off quickly, like if he gets interrupted now he won’t ever be able to find the strength to share this again. He fiddles with the peppermint wrapper in his hands. “Ever since I’ve gotten here it’s just…it’s grey. And I just feel numb all the time. So I went out to a bar looking for trouble. And I found it. Big time. I guess I just…I wanted to feel something.”

He’s pulled in on himself, his body looking vulnerable and wounded. Carlos gets it now. The overenthusiastic sex. His no-strings attached mentality. The complete meltdown during dinner. This is a man who has been hurt, and he’s struggling to find a way to heal. Carlos had unknowingly probed at the wound in his soul and T.K. had lashed out. It makes sense, even if it wasn’t fair.

T.K. looks miserable and despite their history all Carlos wants to do is make him feel better. “Judging by that lip, I’d say mission accomplished,” he says, trying to lighten the moment.

“You’re really busting my balls right now?” T.K. asks, an unreadable expression on his face.

“No,” Carlos says. “I’m busting your jingle bells.” He tries and fails to hold back a smile at his incredibly stupid joke.

T.K. blinks at him. “That’s terrible,” he says, but he is also struggling to keep his face neutral.

“And yet you’re smiling,” Carlos says. He feels lighter, like there’s been an ominous blizzard hanging over him in the weeks since they stopped seeing each other. Now it feels like the snow has finally started to fall and all the ugliness of the bare world in winter is being covered in a fresh layer of soft white powder. There’s a sense of hope to it.

“I’m laughing at how stupid it is,” T.K. says.

“Well laugh while you work,” Carlos says, reaching for a bar of Hershey’s chocolate to put on the roof. “I know your dad said it wasn’t a competition, but Marjan and Paul seem to be working on a second story. So I’m not sure they know that.”

Together they finish the roof, adding on lots of dripping icing as snow and icicles. Carlos carefully starts to add windows while T.K. works on the landscaping.

“Tommy I don’t know why you’re trying to make me do these little details when you know I’ve got fat fingers,” Judd is saying across the way as he and Tommy try to add a steeple to their church.

Marjan and Paul’s apartment building does indeed have two stories and they’ve somehow managed to chisel out actual windows in the graham crackers. Lexi and Nancy are creating a ski chalet that includes a chairlift, and Owen and Mateo’s fire station sports a fire pole made of pretzel rods.

“There,” T.K. says, plonking a creation down in front of where Carlos has crafted a front door out of Kit Kats.

Carlos raises an eyebrow. “What is that?”

“A snowman.”

Ah. Now Carlos sees it. There are two marshmallows stacked on top of each other and T.K. has shoved pretzel sticks in each side for arms. There is a lifesaver on each one and they’re connected by a thread of Twizzler. “What’s on its arms?” he asks.

“Handcuffs,” T.K. says.

“The snowman is getting arrested?”

“Or getting ready to do something kinky.”

“In front of a police station?”

“Some people get off on a little exhibitionism. Don’t judge Carlos,” T.K. says, a smirk on his face.

Damn it. They should have stayed mortal enemies. Now that they’re talking again, Carlos feels the urge to drag T.K. into the nearest cubicle and kiss the shit out of him. He didn’t need to go to a bar to find trouble. He could have shown up on Carlos’ doorstep and gotten into plenty.

Carlos’ attempt at a police cruiser has them both laughing; the oreo wheels keep falling off the rice krispie body (which T.K. snuck out and stole from the break room and has loudly been declared illegal by half the staff in the room) no matter how much icing he uses to try and stick them on.

“Stop eating our building materials,” Carlos admonishes a few minutes later when he goes for another red gum drop and finds they’re nearly gone.

“Why? They’re delicious. Tis the season for sugar,” T.K. says.

Carlos goes to give him a look and notices a dab of frosting on the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got some—“ He mimes brushing it away.

T.K. grabs a tissue and wipes, but misses completely. “No other side,” Carlos directs without success. “Here just, let me.”

He swipes the tissue from T.K.’s hand and dabs carefully, taking care not to pull on T.K.’s split lip. Their eyes meet and a heat passes between them, setting Carlos’ bones on fire. He clears his throat. “Got it.”

“Thanks,” T.K. says quietly.

They spend another half hour decorating before Owen makes them put all the buildings together into a little town while he snaps a picture for the company social media accounts. It’s actually pretty adorable once assembled and Carlos goes home that night strangely optimistic about what the rest of the week has in store.

Tuesday is business as usual and by the time Wednesday morning rolls around Carlos finds himself excitedly driving into work, his gift for T.K. in the passenger seat. He’s scrapped all his other gifts and spent the last two days looking for better items. Last night he visited a local tea shop and probably went a little overboard. They’d definitely upsold him on a few things and he’d let it happen because Monday’s gingerbread decorating had put a kernel of hope in his chest and…it can’t hurt to make sure T.K. likes his gifts, right?

He drops off T.K.’s gift bag and is only mildly disappointed when he walks into his own cubicle to find his desk is empty. It doesn’t matter; at least, that’s what he tells himself. Honestly, he’s not surprised. People are terrible at doing Secret Santa, it’s very likely that his person has forgotten him in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

He heads to his desk and gets right to work because they’re all heading out early to help with a toy drive at the local fire station; another of Owen’s brilliant ideas to encourage office camaraderie. It means he has a lot more to take care of than usual to try and make up for the lost time, and by mid-morning he’s in desperate need of a second coffee.

He’s about to get up and make one when his phone rings. It’s Ernie, their security guard from downstairs informing him that there’s a delivery waiting for him. Confused but intrigued Carlos heads for the elevator.

“Hey Ernie, all set for the holidays?” he asks when he reaches the desk on the ground floor.

“Just about. Got a couple more things to pick up today, but then I should be good to go,” Ernie tells him. He nods toward a bag and a coffee cup on the desk. “That’s for you.”

“Thanks.”

Carlos picks up the white paper sack and has to hold back a snort when he sees what’s written on the side. Hope the holidays don’t make you “cronuts”- FF. He peeks inside and inhales the scent of cronuts from Twiggy’s. Cronuts are a massive weakness of his, and a sip of the coffee tells him it’s made just to his specifications, a little bit of cream, no sugar. Whoever his Festive Friend is, they know him well. His suspicions are definitely leaning more and more toward Lexi.

He gets back in the elevator and when he steps off he nearly runs over T.K. “Whoa, sorry,” he says, holding up the coffee so it doesn’t spill all over T.K.’s chest.

“Lunch?” T.K. asks, nodding toward the bag.

“A snack from my ‘Festive Friend,’” he says. “Cronuts from the Twiggy’s.”

“That place is great. Enjoy,” T.K. says.

“Do you want one?” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. God he’s needy. “I um, I got two and I can’t eat both. They’re really only good fresh, it’s not like I can save one—“

“Sure.” T.K. thankfully interrupts his ramble and the affirmative response sends a jolt of electricity through him.

They step into the break room and T.K. boils some hot water for tea before settling down across from Carlos at one of the high top tables, a kitschy little vase of fake flowers between them.

Carlos pulls out the cronuts and puts each one on a paper plate. They’re decorated for the season as little Santa bellies, and hopefully they’re as delicious as he remembers. He slides one toward T.K. before picking up his own and taking a massive bite. He has to hold back a groan. They’re freaking amazing.

When he looks up he finds T.K. staring at him with an amused smirk on his face. “Sorry,” Carlos says, feeling his cheeks heat. “I um, these are my favorite.”

“So I can see,” T.K. says, the smirk widening a little. “The last time I saw that look we were both way more naked.”

Carlos feels his entire face go red at the reminder. He finishes chewing his bite, trying not to let memories of said naked time take over his brain. “So your dad,” he says. “He’s really into the holidays huh? We’ve never had so many festive office events.”

“Yeah my dad doesn’t really do anything by half measures,” T.K. says. “I think he might be overcompensating on the holiday cheer a little bit this year. The move down here was kind of a lot and I haven’t exactly been a bundle of joy lately, so he’s trying to fix it with cocoa and faux Christmas wreaths.”

Carlos takes another bite and thinks carefully about his next move. This new dynamic between them still feels tenuous, and he doesn’t want to fracture it. But at the same time, he can see the unfiltered hurt in T.K.’s eyes and he longs to help bear the weight of it. “You mentioned a breakup the other day,” he says quietly. “Is that part of why you came?”

T.K. blows out a breath and looks down at his cronut. “It’s the whole reason we came.”

Carlos watches as he wrestles internally and he’s just about to say that T.K. doesn’t have to tell him anything, when T.K. starts to speak again. “I had a boyfriend, in New York. Alex. We were together for like…I don’t know, a year I guess? He was the first boyfriend I’d had since getting sober and I wanted it to work so badly. Like this relationship was proof I finally had my shit together, you know?”

Carlos nods.

“I had this plan, I was going to propose to him. Had a ring, a restaurant, the whole thing. I was basically down on one knee and he—he told me he’d been cheating on me. With his spin instructor.”

Something hot and violent shoots through Carlos. “That motherfucker,” he says, before he can stop himself.

T.K. looks up in surprise and lets out a startled laugh.

“Sorry,” Carlos says. “That’s just…wow what an asshole.”

“Yeah he definitely was,” T.K. says, looking a little more relaxed now, as if Carlos’ angered sympathy has put him more at ease. “For a long time I think. I can look back on it now and see little moments. We only ever went where he wanted to go for dinner. He was always busy when I asked him to meet my friends. There was stuff I was overlooking because I was trying to prove to everyone else that I was stable.”

“I get that,” Carlos says.

T.K. shifts a little. “I went home after that, found a bottle of pills and…took them until I couldn’t feel anymore. My dad had to bust down the door to save my life.” He shrugs. “And that’s how we ended up here. He knew I needed to get away, so he took me as far as he could get.”

He looks up at Carlos. “I’m doing better now. Well, kind of.” He indicates his black eye. “But that’s why I freaked out on you that night. It wasn’t the champagne or anything you did. You were—you were so kind to me Carlos. I just wasn’t ready for it. And I’m really sorry that I walked out on you.”

The urge to reach over and touch him, to hold his hands and soothe away the hurt that’s painted into the lines of his forehead is overwhelming. But he’s not sure T.K. would be into that so he grips his own thighs instead. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. “That all sounds really difficult. I’m sorry I ambushed you. And I’m sorry I wasn’t more understanding when I realized you were uncomfortable. I think um, I think my ego took a little bit of a hit,” he says sheepishly.

“Oh you think Mr. ‘I Know It Doesn’t Look Like a Lot of Work’?” T.K. asks with a grin.

“Hey, that fish took me like three hours to make,” Carlos teases. “You missed out.”

T.K. sobers a little and fiddles with his cronut again. “I think I missed out on a lot.”

Carlos opens his mouth to offer a response, but Lexi pokes her head into the break room. “Carlos, your phone is ringing off the hook.”

“Coming,” he says, sliding off the stool and picking up his plate with the last couple bites of cronut on it. “Are you going to the toy drive this afternoon?”

“Boss dad said be there so yeah, I’m going,” T.K. says. “Thanks for the cronut.”

“You’re welcome,” Carlos says and then hustles back to his cubicle, where his phone is indeed ringing off the hook. He shoves the last bite of cronut into his mouth as he sits down, chewing furiously before he picks up. “This is Carlos.”

An HR crisis means Carlos is the last one to leave the office and arrive at the fire station’s toy drive. He looks for T.K. as soon as he gets there, but Lexi pulls him over to a table where they’re taking donations for one of the local food pantries.

“So,” Lexi says as they fill boxes with canned beans and stuffing mix and mac and cheese, “looks like someone’s back on Carlos Reyes’ nice list. Although with the way you were looking at him, seems more like you’d prefer he stay on the naughty list.”

“Lexi!” Carlos hisses, looking around. “There are kids here!”

“Oh they can’t hear me,” she scoffs, handing him a bag of flour. “They’re all at the make-an-ornament station.”

Carlos looks over and finds T.K. hunkered down by that very table, laughing and smiling as he helps a couple kids glue pompoms and sequins to colored paper. It’s adorable and Carlos’ heart melts a little at the sight.

“See? That look right there. You’ve got it bad. You want him to jingle your ba—“

“I’m going to remind you that I’m your HR rep and you probably shouldn’t finish that sentence,” he says quickly.

“Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “But you two did look pretty cozy in the break room earlier. The great branzino war is over I take it?”

“Yeah we had a good talk,” Carlos says.

She clears her throat. “You can say thank you anytime now you know.”

He furrows his brow. “For what?”

“For making you do Festive Friends and fixing your broken heart.”

“My heart was not broken,” he scoffs.

“You have been acting like you’re in the last ten minutes of a Hallmark movie for weeks. Time to finally realize you’re in love and kiss under the mistletoe,” Lexi tells him.

“Just because we’re friendly now doesn’t mean we’re going to kiss.”

“Okay. Sure. Believe whatever you want.”

There’s a massive influx then from a church group and thankfully the matter is dropped for the rest of the night.

On Friday Carlos stops at home to change his clothes before heading to a local bar for their holiday party and the big Festive Friends reveal. He puts on a pair of dark jeans and winces when he pulls on the ugly sweater that Owen insisted they all wear. As far as they go, his is pretty tame, albeit with a bit more sparkle and pizazz than he usually goes for. It says Feliz Navidad in tinseled letters with some primary colored pom poms decorating the rest for good measure. It had been part of a family white elephant a few years ago and has sat in the back of his closet since for good reason.

He gabs the box he wrapped up for T.K. on the way out the door. It’s nearly as brightly colored as his sweater. Generally he tries for a more sedate theme in wrapped gifts, but T.K. is so vivacious and colorful that he broke into the stash of wrapping paper he usually saves for his nieces and nephews.

He’s nervous as he drives and he can’t quite put his finger on why. Is it because he wants T.K. to like his gift? Because things between him and T.K. have shifted in a more positive direction and his stupid heart can’t quite stop believing that tonight might be like that first night at the honky tonk? Is it because he feels very stupid in this sweater and he really hopes everyone else obeyed Owen’s instructions from the email invite?

Probably all of it.

Ah well. At least if things don’t go well there will be liquor around to help drown his sorrows.

There’s immediate relief when he walks in through the doors of the bar and sees holiday themed knit-ware all over. “Hey Carlos, glad you came,” Owen says, greeting him at the door in a sweater with a massive reindeer head on the front.

“Mr. Strand,” Carlos says, giving him a nod.

“Carlos we’ve been over this. You can call me Owen,” Owen says, a tinge of good natured exasperation in his tone.

“Yes, right, sorry” Carlos says, embarrassed. Didn’t he just chide Mateo for the same thing last week? Somehow this seems different. And definitely a weird way to address the man who fathered his most recent hookup.

“Go ahead and grab a drink, there’s hors d’oeuvres, I highly recommended the stuffed mushrooms, and then when the time feels right make sure you deliver your gift to your Festive Friend,” Owen says brightly. Then he leans close. “I got Judd a new belt. Italian leather, handcrafted, this thing is a masterpiece. He is gonna love it!”

“I’m sure he will,” Carlos agrees.

“Oh! Nancy! Come on in!” Owen gives Carlos a pat on the shoulder and moves past him to greet her.

Carlos says hello to Judd and his wife Grace, his eyes searching the room and finally landing on T.K. who is standing at the bar chatting with Mateo. Carlos’ heart flutters at the sight of him even as he tries to figure out what the heck is knitted on the back of his sweater. It appears to be a long, yellow tail, but that can’t possibly be right, can it? He takes a breath and then abruptly loses courage and goes to find Lexi instead. “Nice earrings,” he says when he gets to her table.

“Thanks,” she says, pushing her hair back so he can see them better. “They’re from my ‘Festive Friend’ Marjan.”

“Great,” Carlos says as he grabs a chip from a bowl on the table. “Did you give Paul your gift?”

“Yes, he is thrilled with the crime novels I got him. He hasn’t read that author yet so hopefully he likes them.” She gives him a look. “Why do you still have T.K.’s?”

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Carlos says defensively.

“You mean you saw him and you’re too chicken to go over there because you’re having feelings and don’t know what to do with them,” she says bluntly. “Are you going to ask him out when you give it to him?”

“I—I don’t know,” Carlos says. “That seems pushy.”

“You two were practically making out in that break room.”

“We were literally sitting three feet apart,” Carlos says dryly.

“Fine. You were emotionally making out.”

He wrinkles his nose. “That’s not a thing.”

“I think you should ask him. It’s Christmas. The season of miracles. And wishes. And Santa shit. This is your chance!” she says enthusiastically.

“How much have you had to drink?” he asks.

She scoffs. “This isn’t drunkeness. It’s my Christmas wish that you grow a pair and ask T.K. out.”

“That is a terrible wish,” Carlos says.

“Well it is what it is. You wouldn’t want to break a girl’s heart at Christmas would you?”

He opens his mouth to respond but Paul calls Lexi’s name and beckons her toward him. “That’s my cue,” she says, hopping off her bar stool. “Gonna go kick Paul’s ass at darts. Good luck!”

And with that she’s gone, leaving Carlos alone with his feelings and his gift box. He stares at it for a moment and gives himself a stern pep talk. It’s a gift. Not a marriage proposal. If T.K. hates it, it’s whatever.

“Hey Carlos.”

He’s waited too long. He looks up to find T.K. standing on the other side of the table, a smile on his face. Carlos can now see the front of his sweater. Some kind of lizard smiles at him, clearly the front end of the tail he spotted before. Above it are the words “Merry Crickets.” It is truly the most hideous thing he’s ever laid eyes on, but somehow T.K. makes it look adorable.

“Hey,” he replies..

Excellent. Great. He’s crushing this.

“Nice sweater,” T.K. says, taking a sip of the drink in his hand.

“Thanks. This is some party. Your dad is quite the host.”

T.K. rolls his eyes, but there’s a fondness to it. “Just be grateful I talked him out of chartering a party bus. And roller skating.”

“Your dad thought our holiday party should be at a roller rink?”

“He was going with an 80’s holiday theme at first,” T.K. says. “It took a lot of bargaining to get him down to ugly sweater instead. I think he was an event planner in a former life.”

“He definitely has a flair for it,” Carlos agrees. He looks down at the present in front of him. He should have gotten a drink before doing this. “So um, actually, I’m your Festive Friend. Surprise. This is for you.”

He slides it across the table and T.K.’s eyes immediately light up. “Can I open it now?” he asks eagerly.

He looks like a kid on Christmas morning and it’s so endearing that Carlos can barely breathe. “Yeah, yes, it’s all yours.”

T.K. pulls off the bow and rips open the paper, lifting out the soft yellow sweatshirt inside. He doesn’t say anything for a moment and Carlos feels a flutter of nerves. “It’s—“

“The sweatshirt Harry Styles wore in New York last summer,” T.K. says. His tone is almost reverent, his thumbs moving back and forth to stroke the material. “Oh my god. I have Harry Styles’ sweatshirt.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not the exact one he wore,” Carlos says, feeling sheepish. “But I know you like him and hoodies so it seemed right.”

“It must have taken forever for you to find this,” T.K. says.

“Oh, no, it was…it was no big deal,” Carlos says, omitting the entire night he spent on instagram combing through Harry’s outfits of the last few years and trying to find them for sale.

“Thank you Carlos,” T.K. says, sincere gratitude in his voice. “This is amazing. All your gifts were amazing.”

“I mean, that hat was kind of lame,” Carlos says, still embarrassed that he bought something so generic.

“No it’s great! I’m going to wear it the next time I go to an Astros game,” T.K. says, a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

Carlos chuckles. “Yeah good luck with that.”

“Did you get your last gift yet?” T.K. asks casually.

Carlos shakes his head. “Not yet.”

“Any guesses who it might be?”

He has no idea. There’s no one in the office that knows him well enough to send him cronuts besides Lexi and he knows she had Paul. “No,” he says. “Usually I’m pretty good at figuring this kind of thing out, but everyone in the office is so new I haven’t really been able to get a read on anyone.”

“Marjan?”

“She had Lexi.”

“Paul?”

Carlos looks around until he finds him standing in a corner next to a Christmas tree, laughing at something Lexi just said. “I don’t think so. He’s from Chicago, I doubt he would know about Twiggy’s.”

“Judd?”

“Something tells me he wouldn’t know about cronuts either,” Carlos says with a laugh. “I feel like it has to be someone who knows me pretty well, but Lexi is the only one—“

His eyes land on T.K.’s face and he knows. He can see it in his eyes and he feels stupid he didn’t realize it before when T.K. used that false casual tone. “You?” he asks in surprise. “You’re my Festive Friend?”

T.K. reaches into his back pocket and pulls out an envelope. “Merry Christmas,” he says as he hands it to Carlos.

Still in a little bit of shock Carlos carefully lifts the flap on the envelope to reveal a printed out email inside. “A cooking class?” he asks, looking up to search T.K.’s eyes.

T.K. nods, a flicker of nerves flashing over his face. “It’s bruschetta, pasta, and a dessert. A husband and wife team run it out of their home. I thought, I mean you obviously know how to cook, but I thought it might be fun.”

“It sounds amazing,” Carlos says genuinely. He’s always wanted to try his hand at homemade pasta.

T.K. nods and takes a breath. “I um, I got you two tickets. You can take whoever you want, but I—“ He runs his hands nervously over his jeans. “I know I fucked things up between us, so I was hoping that maybe this could be kind of a do-over for us. If you want?”

“Yes,” Carlos says immediately. It’s embarrassingly fast and absolutely gives away how badly he wants them to try again, but he doesn’t care. “Yes I would love a do-over.”

“Yeah?” T.K. asks, his eyes full of hope.

“Yeah,” Carlos says. A smile plays on his lips and he’s about to thank T.K. for his other gifts when something occurs to him. “You little shit!” he says incredulously. “You bought me those cronuts and then sat there and ate one like you had no clue who’d given them to me!”

T.K. sends him a wicked smile. “I was counting on your holiday generosity,” he says.

“How did you even know about that bakery?” Carlos asks.

“You mentioned it,” T.K. says. “I don’t know, it was the second or third time we hooked up. I saw a flyer for them on your fridge and you told me how good they were.”

“You remember that?” Carlos asks in surprise. After their blowup he’d convinced himself that he was just a warm body for T.K. to be with, another notch in his bedpost who’d meant nothing to him.

T.K. looks at him, his face serious. “I remember all of it Carlos.”

The words make his heart swell and he hysterically wonders if this is how the Grinch felt when he heard the Who’s singing on Christmas. “I remember too,” he says. “It was incredible.”

“That first night, in the honky tonk. Best bathroom hookup of my life,” T.K. tells him.

“Only bathroom hookup of my life,” Carlos says.

“Yeah, I know,” T.K. says with a roll of his eyes.

“How could you know that?”

“Because you kept looking around like it was the most unsanitary thing you’d ever seen in your life,” T.K. tells him. “So I made it my mission to make you forget all about it. Pretty sure I succeeded.”

Carlos flushes as he thinks about T.K.’s mouth and his hands and the way they felt on his body. “You definitely did.” His gaze drops to T.K.’s lips. “God, I want to kiss you so badly right now.”

T.K. smirks, clearly please that he’s turned Carlos on in the middle of this bar. “What’s stopping you?”

“Um the fact that all of our co-workers are here. And also your dad,” Carlos says with a laugh.

As if on cue Owen’s voice rings out over the crowd. “All right everyone!” He claps his hands a couple times. “If I could have everyone’s attention please! Thank you all for coming to the 126 Designs holiday party. I have a little surprise up my sleeve. Tonight, we are going to be participating in some holiday karaoke!”

A bar employee rolls a karaoke machine in out of nowhere to cheers from the crowd. “Did you know?” Carlos asks.

“No,” T.K. says. “But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Get on over here!” Owen encourages them. “Judd! Let’s hear a little Deck the Halls buddy!”

“Come on.”

T.K. reaches for Carlos’ hand and pulls him toward a side door. “Wait, what about karaoke?” Carlos asks.

“Do you really want to stay here and listen to my dad attempt a version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town?”

Carlos considers this. “Actually…”

T.K. laughs and tugs him again. “Come on Reyes.”

They step outside into the night, the door closing behind them. It’s quiet and the air has a slight chill. Nothing that would even hint at a white Christmas, but enough that it feels like the holiday season instead of the dead of summer. A few stars have managed to permeate the light pollution and the moon shines brightly above them.

The side of the restaurant is lit by a single streetlamp, giving them just enough light to see each other, but also the illusion of privacy from anyone else who might be walking by. T.K. leans against the brick of the wall and tugs Carlos toward him, dropping his hand so he can grab his waist, his thumb pressing into the crease between Carlos’ thigh and his hip through his pants. “Well,” T.K. says, the cocky ass smirk on his face that shoots something hot through Carlos’ veins. “Go ahead. Kiss away.”

Carlos looks around in fake concern. “Mmm, I don’t know. Someone could still see us out here.”

“Don’t worry,” T.K. pulls a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket and dangles it over their heads. “I swiped this from inside. Now you have to kiss me. Christmas rules.”

“Oh is that right?” Carlos asks with smile, pressing in a little closer, and lifting a hand to run it through T.K.’s hair before sliding it down to cradle the back of his neck.

“Definitely,” T.K. says.

Carlos doesn’t waste another second before leaning in and fitting their lips together. The sparks inside him whirl and dance before bursting into full on flames. It feels like coming home.

T.K. opens up and invites him in, their bodies coming flush together, searching for as much contact as possible. Carlos fists one hand into T.K.’s hair, the other landing solidly on his lower back and urging him closer, while T.K.’s roam everywhere, traveling Carlos’ biceps, his chest, his back, his ass, and everything in between.

Carlos slots a thigh between T.K.’s legs, pressing into him and T.K.’s head falls back against the wall, eyes closing as he lets out something between a groan and a sigh. Carlos smiles and uses the change in position to press kisses into the sensitive spot just below his ear. “I missed you,” he says in between breaths.

“I missed you too. Am I going to have to report this to HR?” T.K. asks.

Carlos pauses and pulls back, sending T.K. a withering look. “Haha,” he says dryly. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m going to have my hands full with this one in the new year.”

“My ass is quite a handful,” T.K. says with a smirk. “But you can handle it. It’s just a little bit of paperwork. And someone got you really nice pens for the holidays.”

“Yeah someone did,” Carlos says, poking him in the side until he squirms. “Speaking of paperwork, you owe me a thank you note for your gifts.”

T.K. bites his lip. “Why don’t you take me back to your place and I’ll do a little better than a thank you note?”

Fuck. Carlos swallows hard. “What about the party? Won’t your dad be upset?”

“I’m spending Christmas day with him. He’ll live.” He slides a finger along the waistband of Carlos’ jeans. “We can go back in if you really want to though. I do a mean rendition of Jingle Bell Rock. We can stand in there with all of our co-workers and you can try not to think about how good I’d make you feel if the two of us were in bed together.”

Carlos strokes a thumb across T.K.’s cheek. “As much as I would like to hear you sing Jingle Bell Rock, I think I’d rather take you home.”

T.K. gestures toward the street. “Then lead on Festive Friend.”

It’s the merriest Christmas Carlos has had in a long time.

#Tarlos #Tarlos Secret Santa #tarlossanta #tarlossanta23 #Festive Friends #Office AU #Christmas #Secret Santa #Christmas Fluff

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lutavero · 4 months

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For Maddie @reyesstrand, I was your Tarlos Secret Santa this year! 🎄🎄🎅🎅 I was so elated when I got your name in the assignment email, it was so much fun to create for you! I debated on what kind of set to make for you exactly, but then this au just wouldn't leave me alone, for months by now!! And now, at last, I had an excuse to write it down. :'D

I found life (I found you)

Their first meeting is the furthest thing from the romantic ideals most people have in this city.

See, if your city is teeming with superheroes, you for sure wouldn’t be able to help yourself and imagine more and more cliché and romantic encounters. Getting rescued from a supervillain, flying through the air while held oh so close after said rescue mission, getting flirted with by the kind and selfless masked vigilante, maybe even getting a hand kiss in front of the reporters… you possibly imagined it all before even if you’d be ashamed to admit it to anyone.

No, the way TK meets Striker is the complete opposite of these dream scenarios.

♦♦

A Tarlos vigilante!AU,

[Read the rest on AO3.]

#911lsedit #911 lone star #911ls fanfic #tarlos #tarlosedit #tarlos fic #911ls #*edit #*gifs #*fics #tarlossanta #tarlossanta23 #I hope you'll enjoy this one maddie!!!#if you wonder why the gift notif email didn't arrive - idk 😭😭#go figure that the one time I want to post a new fic to ao3 it bugges out sksksks like this fic is not listed in my works???#but it is present in my stats page??? I can even edit it but it won't appear in the tag???#idk let's hope it gets fixed bc otherwise I don't know what I'll do - possibly reupload it??

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sugdenlovesdingle · 4 months

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This is so so SO late but @chicgeekgirl89 here is your @tarlos-santa gift!

I absolutely loved all three of your prompts but in the end I went with: They lose power on Christmas Eve and Carlos freaks out about dinner but they make the most of it and still celebrate together.

And after several rewrites, mental breakdowns, existential crises, exasperation over the English language, and wondering if it's even real... this is the result and I hope you like it! Merry Christmas!!

---

Perfectly unperfect (AO3)

“What are your plans for the holidays, cap?” TK asked, making conversation as they headed back to the firehouse after a call on their last shift before Christmas.

“Oh, nothing much. I’m just going to enjoy the downtime with the girls. Staying in our pyjamas all day, eating junk food, and watching Christmas movies.”

“What about you and Carlos?” Nancy asked. “Let me guess, not leaving the bed unless absolutely necessary?” she teased.

TK snorted.

“I wish. Carlos has been planning the dinner for weeks. We’ve been all over the city to get ingredients and I thought he was going to cry when his schedule changed and he had to work Christmas Eve.”

“Are you hosting the family Christmas dinner then?”

“No, that’s the worst of it.” TK sighed. “Dad invited us over and so did his parents but we decided to stay home. So it’s just going to be the two of us. And he’s still bought enough food as if both our entire families are coming over.”

“Oh that sucks dude. Your husband cooking you a fancy holiday dinner? Damn that’s rough.” Nancy said sarcastically. “I’m glad nobody is going to do that for me this year. That would just suck.”

“Shut up.” TK rolled his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate him cooking us dinner, it’s that he’s stressing out over it when I would be happy with a frozen pizza and watching Home Alone in bed.”

“Have you tried telling him that?” Tommy asked. “Communication is the key to a long and happy marriage.”

“I have, but he just gives me the Carlos Cow Eyes and tells me he wants to make it special for us. And I can resist anything but that. Those soulful brown eyes will be the death of me.”

Tommy laughed.

“I remember those days well. Charles’ laugh made me melt when we first got married. And then when the girls were born, seeing him with them…” she sighed. “I was a goner.”

“Yeah, I’m still working on Carlos making friends with Lou. He’ll make him his salad and sometimes even feeds him crickets or meal worms but he still won’t touch him with more than just a finger.”

Nancy looked at him.

“How do you go from babies to lizards? Your mind is such a strange place sometimes.”

“Lou is our baby!” TK said as he turned the ambulance onto the street the firehouse was on. “What are your plans for the holidays anyway? Are you going to LA to meet up with Mateo and meet the family?”

“No, me and Marj are just going to hang out and spend it together. We’re getting Chinese food and I’m making her watch the Lord of the Rings movies because she’s never seen them.”

“Really? Do you have room for two more? We’ll bring snacks.” TK jokingly asked.

“No way dude, I need a break from seeing your face every day.”

“You see Marjan’s face every day too.”

“That’s different. I’m not stuck in an ambulance for hours with her every day. And she has a nicer face than you.” Nancy teased and jumped out of the ambulance after TK had parked it in its usual spot in the firehouse. “Oh look, if it isn’t mister soulful eyes. Hey Carlos.”

Carlos gave her a confused look but returned the greeting.

“Hey babe, Nancy doesn’t like my face.” TK mock pouted and kissed Carlos hello. “She says she needs a break from me.”

“Does she? Well then it’s her lucky day, because I’m here to take you home. And I do like your face. And the rest of you.”

“That’s good to hear. But my shift doesn’t end for another hour. And yours not until seven.”

“I pulled in a few favours. The guy who transferred here from New Jersey a few months ago agreed to cover for me if I introduce him to your dad sometime. He nearly fainted when I told him who my father in law is. Apparently Owen Strand is a legend over there.”

“Not just over there. He’s a legend over here too.” Owen walked up to them. “Did you know local news wants to interview me? They’re doing a local heroes feel good thing for the holidays. Exciting isn’t it?”

“Yeah, definitely. We should give you pictures to sign. You could hand them out to your fans on calls.” TK teased.

“Very funny. See if I mention my ungrateful gremlin of a son in my interview now. I’ll just mention my always friendly and nice son in law who is just the kind of person to stop by after his shift to wish everyone happy holidays.” Owen patted Carlos’ shoulder. “And happy holidays to you too, Carlos.”

They hung around the firehouse until the end of TK’s shift and then went home together after wishing everyone a happy Christmas. Only when they stepped outside the weather had changed for the worse. It had started raining and the wind had picked up.

“Good thing I picked up the last supplies for our Christmas dinner before I came here.” Carlos commented, looking at the dark clouds through the windshield of his car after they got in.

“Was there anything left in the store you hadn’t bought then?” TK said, only half joking. “We have enough food to last until Christmas next year.”

“I just… wanted us to have options. You didn’t want the turkey dinner…”

“So you just bought everything else?” TK asked and leaned over the gear stick to kiss Carlos’ cheek. “I love you but when I said I didn’t want the whole turkey dinner, I meant I didn’t want you spending the whole day in the kitchen cooking some 10 course meal. We could just get a burger or tacos on the way home.”

“We can’t get tacos at Christmas, TK.” Carlos insisted. “And I don’t want to drive halfway across the city in this weather anyway.”

By the time they made it home, the rain had gotten even worse and unfortunately Carlos’ usual parking space was taken, which meant they had to park further down the street and run to the front door.

They were both soaking wet in seconds and causing a mini flood when they walked into their loft a few minutes later.

TK dumped his keys in the bowl by the door and the bag he was carrying on the kitchen counter.

“This can wait.” He decided, and turned to Carlos. “You, me, shower, now.”

“You go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute. Just let me put this stuff away.” Carlos replied, opening the freezer and putting a tub of TK’s favourite ice cream in.

“Babe. I need to get out of these wet clothes… and I could use some help.” TK said, grabbing Carlos’ hand and dragging him to the bathroom. “Like I said… you, me, shower, now.”

In the end, Carlos didn’t need much convincing and TK decided that this was easily the best Christmas eve he’d ever had.

Especially since he spent the rest of the night making out on the sofa with his husband like a couple of teenagers, instead of watching some cheesy Christmas movie they’d put on as background noise.

When he woke up the next morning, he reached out for Carlos, hoping to convince him to sleep in or possibly even stay in bed the whole day, but found his side of the bed empty and cold.

He listened for clues on what Carlos was doing, and most importantly where, but didn’t hear much except the storm still raging outside their loft.

“Babe?” he called out, sitting up in bed. “Carlos?”

“I’m here.” Carlos appeared in the doorway carrying a tray filled with food and fresh juice. “I was making breakfast.” He put the tray on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss TK. “Good morning. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” TK replied and then did a double take. “Wait… you made me breakfast in bed? Who are you and what have you done to my husband?”

Carlos chuckled and got into bed.

“I wanted to do something nice for you. For us. We’ll just change the sheets when we’re done.”

“I could get used to this.” TK commented and bit into a chocolate covered strawberry. “Though we could’ve just gotten coffee and pastries from that place on fifth.”

“Not in this weather. The storm from last night has only gotten worse. My mom texted me earlier and told us not to drive out to the ranch because it’s too dangerous.”

“We weren’t going to…”

“I know. But now we’re officially excused. They have Ana and Diego and the kids staying with them anyway, they won’t miss us.”

After breakfast, TK managed to convince Carlos to stay in bed and watch a movie with him, even though he knew the other man was itching to get started on the Christmas lunch and dinner he’d planned.

The storm was still raging outside but snuggled up together under the covers in their bed, neither man really cared.

TK facetimed his mom and they watched Jonah tear open the presents they’d sent over.

“You two spoil him.” Gwyn said, sounding mildly exasperated but smiling. “Enzo and I agreed to keep it simple and then you two buy him everything from his list.”

“It’s for his birthday too.” TK argued. “And I just want him to know he has a cool big brother in Austin who will buy him cool presents.”

“He fought two soccer moms for that robot dog.” Carlos told Gwyn. “It got ugly.”

“It’s ok. There wasn’t any blood.” TK joked and they all laughed.

“Did you get our presents?” Gwyn asked.

“You mean the plane tickets in our names? As a not so subtle way of telling us to come visit?”

“I don’t do subtle. It just complicates things.” Gwyn argued. “And I haven’t seen you two since the wedding! It’s been way too long. I’ve almost forgotten what you look like.”

“You’re seeing us now.”

“I just see your face.”

“I’ve been told it’s a very nice face.”

“It is a nice face, I made that face. But I’d like to see the rest of you again too. And you too Carlos.”

“We’ll do our best to come visit as soon as we can in the new year.” Carlos promised and got out of bed. “I’ll leave you two to talk, I’ll get started on dinner.” He said and pulled one of TK’s hoodies over his head.

Only before he’d even made it out of the bedroom, there was a loud clash of thunder and the loft went dark.

“What the hell?”

Carlos tried the light switch next to the bedroom door but nothing happened.

“Is it just us?” TK asked, getting out of bed after quickly saying goodbye to his mom. “We didn’t have that many appliances running that we’d blow a fuse, did we?”

“I don’t know.” Carlos said, frustrated. “I’ll go check the fuse box downstairs. Do we still have that flashlight?”

“Kitchen drawer I think. Do we have any new fuses?”

“I don’t know. I thought I bought some when we moved in. When I moved in…”

“That was ages ago.”

“I know that, TK.” Carlos snapped but regretted it immediately. “It might not be the fuse anyway. I’ll just go have a look downstairs and we’ll take it from there.” He slipped on his work boots and grabbed his keys, and all but slammed into their neighbour when he opened the door.

“Oh, hi. Did your power just go out too?” she asked, looking past him into the loft. “I was talking to my sister in Ohio and suddenly everything went poof. I think it’s the storm.”

“Yeah, everything went black for us too.” Carlos told her and noticed more neighbours coming out of their apartments to see what was going on. “It looks like it’s the whole building.”

“Actually, it’s the whole city. Or parts of the city.” TK joined them in the doorway and showed Carlos his phone. “I still have that 911 scanner on my phone. There are calls coming in from all over the city. The storm knocked some power lines down and they can’t fix them until it’s over.”

“Fantastic.” Carlos felt a tension headache building behind his eyes.

“Do you boys have candles? I have plenty, you can have some. I like to light some for dinner this time of year. It gets dark so early.”

“Thanks, but we’re ok Mrs Evans.” TK said and quickly closed the door. “What do we do now?” He asked Carlos.

“I don’t know. We have all this food that’s going to go bad if we don’t eat it, but we can’t prepare it because our stove is electric. And the ice cream in the freezer is going to melt and I bought it especially for our Christmas dinner because it’s your favourite.”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” TK put his hands on Carlos’ shoulders to stop him from spiralling. “The food will keep for a while. It’s only been 10 minutes and if we keep the fridge closed, it’ll stay cool. And we’ll just eat the ice cream now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Why not? Our Christmas, our ice cream, our rules. Grab a spoon.”

They sat down at their dining table with the ice cream, even though neither of them really felt like it, and TK could tell Carlos was distracted.

“Babe, what are you thinking about?” he pushed.

“What are we going to do for food? We can’t even have leftovers because we can’t heat anything up.”

“We could go get tacos after all.”

“Are they even open on Christmas day?” Carlos asked and pulled out his phone to look it up, but put it back down again right away. “We need to preserve the batteries of our devices.” He explained.

TK wanted to argue that they probably wouldn’t last for the entire time the power was likely to be out, but then his phone started ringing in his hand.

“Dad, hi, not a good time right now.”

“Did you just lose power too? It looked like your area got hit too but the map I saw wasn’t too clear.”

“Yeah, everything is dark here.” TK sighed and looked at Carlos who had started pacing up and down the loft. “We’re kind of screwed because the stove is electric too.”

“Come to me.” Owen suggested. “Not me, me… but the firehouse. It has a generator so there is power and heat. And a working stove.”

“I don’t know dad, we wanted to just do our own thing this Christmas.”

“In an apartment without power? Don’t be ridiculous TK. Just pack up and come over here.”

After a few minutes back and forth and Carlos getting pulled into the conversation, they promised Owen they were on their way, and a little over an hour later, they walked into the firehouse.

“And there was me thinking I wouldn’t have to see this place for a week.” TK sighed.

They greeted his dad and the crew from B-shift and TK got Lou set up in Owen’s office while Carlos put the food away.

They joined the crew in the lounge area where everyone was gathered around the TV and keeping a close eye on the weather report. Carlos sat down in his usual spot next to TK but barely said a word to anyone.

When Tommy and the twins came in some time later, he got up to greet them and wish them a merry Christmas, but for Nancy, Marjan, Paul, and Asha, he barely managed more than a smile and a quick “Hey.”.

TK was starting to worry and enlisted Paul’s help to pull him out of his funk.

“Carlos my man.” Paul started, patting Carlos’ shoulder. “We need to feed these people. We don’t want Marjan getting hungry. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering those first few days of Ramadan last year.”

“I heard that!” Marjan yelled.

“Good! You were hangry and we all suffered!”

Carlos laughed a little and agreed to help Paul cook.

“Do we have enough to feed all of these people?”

“Yeah I think so. Asha and I brought our food and I saw the mountain of food that was already in the fridge when I put ours in there. We’re alright. Come on, let’s figure out what to make.”

Carlos joined Paul in the kitchen and soon there were multiple pots on the stove and the firehouse was starting to smell amazing.

TK was put on chopping duty, while the Vega twins helped Owen set up extra tables and chairs for everyone, and Nancy and Marjan attempted to fold the paper napkins they found in fancy shapes following a YouTube tutorial.

“Babe, come taste this.” Carlos held out a spoon for TK. “Good?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing. Is this what you were planning on making for us at home?”

“No, but with the stuff that was in the fridge here, and the stuff Paul and Asha brought we were able to experiment a little.”

“We should let you experiment more often.” TK said and stole another bite of the sauce. “This is really good.”

“Yeah? Not too spicy?”

“No, it’s perfect. Just like you.”

Carlos blushed and ducked his head but still let TK kiss his cheek and returned the “I love you” he murmured in his ear.

“If you two are going to be like this all night, we’re going back to Nance’s apartment.” Marjan announced and everyone laughed.

“Yeah, have some mercy on us single people.” Owen said, joining in on the teasing and stealing a quick taste of the food.

Dinner was somewhat chaotic and a little cramped since the firehouse kitchen wasn’t built to seat this many people at once, but everyone enjoyed their meal, and each other’s company.

Even though B-shift got called out and Owen had to join them on their call and leave their makeshift Christmas party.

“I vote we put on LOTR.” Nancy told the rest when they’d all settled down in the lounge after dinner. “Marj has never seen them and I said I’d educate her this Christmas.”

“We were planning on watching The Holiday.” Tommy said. “You can’t go wrong with a romcom at Christmas.”

“I haven’t seen The Holiday either.” Marjan admitted. “I’m not a big movie person ok? I get bored.” She defended herself when Nancy asked how she’d managed that and the Vega twins started shooting movie titles at her to check which ones she had seen.

“I guess it’s Jude Law first, and Orlando Bloom second then.” Asha settled the debate. “It’s not like any of us are going anywhere any time soon.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me.” Paul started. “If any of you guys snore, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“You’ve shared a bunk room with most of us for years!” Marjan reminded him. “You know we don’t snore. Judd does. And Mateo sometimes.”

“And my dad.” TK grinned. “It used to wake me up when I was little. I thought it was the train going past our apartment but it was just him.” He said and everyone laughed.

They spent the rest of the night watching movies, and TK let Evie feed Lou and walk him around the firehouse on the leash and harness he’d bought a while ago.

Carlos had gone quiet again, but TK figured he was just tired and let him be.

By the time Owen returned with the B-shift, everyone was starting to get tired and Tommy took charge in working out the sleeping arrangements.

The twins wanted to sleep in the bunk room with the crew but Tommy insisted they slept in her captain’s quarters with her, while Owen gave up his to TK and Carlos.

“I know it’s nothing like your bed at home but it’s better than separate bunks with the rest of them right beside you.”

“We’re fine to sleep in the bunk room.” Carlos assured him. “We don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s fine. I insist.” Owen said and with TK’s help got Carlos to give in and accept the bed.

It was a small double bed barely big enough for the two of them, but they made it work.

“I’m sorry.” Carlos sighed, trying to get comfortable in the small bed after TK had turned off the lights and gotten into bed with him.

“Sorry for what?”

“For ruining our first Christmas as a married couple.”

“What? What are you talking about? Unless you caused this storm and the power cut, you didn’t ruin anything.” TK insisted. “And even if you did cause it, I’ve had a great night. I have you, Lou, my dad, our friends… That’s all I need.”

“I just… I had all these plans. I wanted to cook you something nice and exchange gifts by our tree and just… make our own traditions.” Carlos explained, avoiding looking at TK. “Especially after I made you deal with all of the crazy Reyes family traditions last year.”

“I had a great time last year too.” TK promised. “Especially when your abuela started talking about what Christmas was like when you were little. I loved that little look into how you grew up.”

“She was just happy to have someone to talk to that hadn’t heard all of her stories about 500 times before.”

“Well it’s a good thing I was a willing audience then.” TK laughed a little. “She even went out of her way to speak English with me the whole night, and she was so excited when I told her I was learning Spanish.”

“Yeah she told me to hold onto you when we left because you were a good boy with a good heart.” Carlos told him, smiling at the memory. “The whole Reyes family loves you.”

TK smiled and wrapped his arms around Carlos a little tighter.

“That’s good, but I’m only really interested in one of them loving me. Though technically his name is Reyes-Strand now.”

Carlos sighed and rolled onto his back.

“That’s why I wanted this Christmas to be special. The start of our life together.”

“Technically our life together started a long time ago.”

“You know what I mean.” Carlos sighed again. “Everything is official now. We’re married, the name change has gone through… I wanted things to be special. Perfect. Not… whatever this disaster was.”

“Baby, look at me.” TK said and waited for Carlos to do so. “I don’t care about presents or the perfect dinner… All I want for Christmas is you.” He said and kissed him for emphasis.

“Did you just quote Mariah Carey at me?”

TK shrugged.

“She made a pretty good point with that song.”

#911 lone star #tarlos #tarlos fic #tarlossanta23 #carlos reyes #tarlossanta #tk strand #my writing #Why yes I am the absolute worst with deadlines #And yes I did write the ending first #and then couldn't figure out how to make the rest of it fit #which is probably obvious

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sapphire11 · 1 year

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Who He Is

This fic is a gift for @gothruthestars2 through the @tarlos-santa gift exchange. Many apologies for not getting this out on time and needing the extension. I hope that you enjoy!! ❤️💚❤️💚❤️

Summary: TK isn't reckless he just loves deeply and will do anything to help people. It's frustrating when no one understands that. Well no one besides the only one who matters that is.

TK has a bad day. Whump ensues. Carlos understands that TK is who he is and he'd never change it. Judd with his big brother vibes.

Read on AO3 Here or below

TK POV

At the last second TK grabs hold of the edge of the door and slowly brings it closed with a click. It’s not nearly as satisfying as it would have been had he let it slam shut, but he really doesn’t want to get called back into his Captain’s office for insubordination. Besides, it’s not really Captain Vega that he is angry with, it is his dad, thinking that he always knows what’s best for TK. It doesn’t help that things have been tense with all the wedding planning and his dad wanting to ‘help’ with every little detail.

As he makes his way towards the locker room, TK takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’s to blame for stepping into an active fire rescue without clearance. He can’t regret his actions though, not when he knows he saved the little girl’s life. Not when he knows no one else was close enough to get to her in time. Risk analysis be damned.

Paul shuffles hurriedly past him in the hallway just outside the locker room and it makes TK look up and take note of the unusually empty room save for Judd.

“You good?” Judd asks with a nod of his head at TK as he walks in.

“Peachy” TK grumbles back nearly tripping over a pair of shoes left in front of Paul’s locker next to his. It’s weird Paul’s not usually one for leaving stuff laying around and it just adds to the feeling that this is a planned ambush. He’s really not in the mood for another lecture right now so he attempts to just ignore the situation.

“You know you were a dumbass right?” Judd says instead.

“The Caps have already given me the sixth degree, I really don’t need it from you too.” TK snaps back.

Judd stands up fully finishing buttoning up a new uniform shirt. “Well maybe if you hear it enough, it’ll sink into that thick skull of yours and you’ll start watching your own back.”

TK smirks “Why would I need to do that when I have you around?” he quips back. Getting a full eye roll and a slight smack on the back of his head from his surrogate big brother as Judd walks past him, “I’d rather not have to call that fiance of yours and make him take another trip to the hospital before you get a chance to tie the knot.”

After watching Judd walk out of the locker room TK turns to face his locker letting his head fall forward, forehead falling against it will a bang. The mention of a hospital trip feels like a low blow considering it’s been almost a year now since his last one. TK isn’t trying to be careless, in fact all the wedding planning, and thinking of the future has had him acting more careful than he’s ever been in his entire life. He finally has something bigger to live for, a dream for himself and for his future with Carlos that he doesn’t want to lose.

With a groan he leans back and begins undoing the buttons on his uniform shirt. His fingers are still a bit shaky coming down from the adrenaline high of the rescue and trying to defend his actions to his Captain. He’s gotten his undershirt off when the blare of the alarms sounds through the station. Pausing to listen to the announcement he swears when medical is announced and hastily throws another shirt on running for the bay.

“You good?” Nancy asks from where she’s quickly finishing a restock from the last call. It’s all he can do to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the question when Captain Vega arrives. “I’ll drive. Nancy, finish organizing on the way.”

“Cap, I’m good to drive.” TK starts, snapping his mouth shut at the look of disapproval she shoots his way. Nancy gives him a small apologetic smile as she closes the back door and he quickly jogs around to climb in the passenger side.

Thankfully the ride to the scene is quiet. He was half expecting another lecture on proper safety protocols, but Captain Vega seems to have gotten it all out of her system. He’s thankful for the time to focus, because the scene they arrive at is chaotic. Several cars have collided in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in the city.

Quickly jumping out of the ambulance, he meets Nancy and Captain Vega in the back, gathering supplies.

“Nancy, you take left, triage and tag until another unit arrives. TK you’re with Judd, to do the same.”

He groans, “Cap, I don’t need a babysitter to do my job.”

Captain Vega turns to him and the look on her face is as serious as he’s seen it in a long time, “Strand, I don’t have time for this. Work with Judd.”

With a nod he gathers the last of his supplies, slings his backpack over his shoulders and jogs off to where he can see Judd hovering around a car on the outskirts of the accident scene. He has almost reached him when the screech of tires has him turning towards the sound, seeing a car speeding past stopped traffic, careening right towards where Judd is crouched by the driver’s door.

TK doesn’t think, there isn’t time, he just reacts. Sprinting the last two steps to push Judd past the front of the car. Pain hits quick as lightning and then everything goes quiet.

—---

Carlos POV

Accident scenes are some of his least favorite scenes to work and as he pulls up on this one he knows it’s not going to be easy. Seeing people hurt is never easy, but something about the holiday season makes human vulnerability worse. His eyes sweep over the emergency vehicles assembled and he takes note of the 126 ambulance and fire trucks parked on the opposite corner. He hasn’t heard from TK all shift so he knows the 126 has been busy. He’s distracted from his hope to catch a glimpse of his fiance by the beep of his radio and the dispatcher message coming through.

360-H-22 Reports of a car speeding down main towards 4th. What’s your eta?

Carlos notes that the dispatching is referencing the accident scene and notes that the car would be coming down the street opposite where his cruiser is parked.

360-H-22 two minutes out. Over.

Cursing at the response Carlos decides to try and head off the situation hopefully with help from Captain Strand, but before he can even take two steps in that direction, said speeding car comes flying past stopped traffic and into the intersection. Some miracle allows the car to miss a group of spectators gathered on the sidewalk, but the luck stops there as the car slams into the front of a vehicle on the outskirts of the intersection.

From his vantage point Carlos can’t really see details of where the cars collided, but then he hears Judd’s voice shout and the name called simultaneously freezes the blood in his veins and has him sprinting around crushed cars in a need to see what is happening for himself.

It takes less than a minute to round the front of the accident, feet pounding on pavement, heart pounding in his ears. The sight of TK pinned between two cars clearly unconscious pulls his breath right out of him, but before he can move closer to the scene a large hand catches his shoulder. Eyes still focus on where Paul & Captain Vega are working around TK, Carlos tries to shrug off the hold.

“You gotta let them work.” Judd’s voice, heavy with emotion filters through the static in his head and as Carlos glances up to see the devastation on his face the world seems to reset. The noises of the accident scene filter back in as the scream of sirens pierces through. An additional ambulance as well as police have arrived on scene.

An anguished cry of pain that is an all too familiar sound reaches Carlos’ ears, “let me go,” he growls at Judd when the grip on his elbow only tightens at the sound.

“You’ll just get in the way.” Judd reasons back, way too sensible for the situation.

Carlos leverages a hand on Judd’s chest to shove himself out of the grip, but he only manages two steps before the other man is back in front of him, blocking his view of the scene now. “Judd, move!”

To his irritation Judd just holds up his hands placatingly as a team of paramedics rushes past them. The stand-off lasts forever, and it is no time at all before a gurney carrying a very still TK is being pushed back past them. Carlos runs after them, listening to the semi-familiar chatter of medical terms being thrown around, but as they reach the back of the ambulance a gentle hand presses against his chest before he can follow TK into the back.

“I’m sorry Carlos, we need the room.” The paramedic, Helen, Carlos’ brain supplies from numerous work calls tell him gently before closing the door in his face. A heavy hand falls on his shoulder as he stares after the ambulance, the flash of blue and red lights leaving spots in his vision long after they’re out of sight.

“Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.” Judd’s voice, quieter than before, tells him.

The squawk of Carlos’ radio on his shoulder suddenly reminds him that he’s on duty and still has a job to do. “I have to clear the scene.”

“Mitchell’s got it.” Judd answers as he pulls Carlos gently towards the waiting fire Captain SUV. Captain Strand is waiting for them and Judd pushes Carlos into the passenger seat before exchanging a few words with Captain Strand that he doesn’t hear.

Most of the trip to the hospital passes in tense silence, until the words seem to burst out of Owen like a bullet. “He’s been so reckless lately. I just told him this morning to be more careful.”

The accusation makes Carlos angry, “Are you saying this was his fault? That a car careening into an accident scene was somehow TK being reckless?”

“No of course not,” Owen back pedals with a glance to Carlos, “but he could have shouted at Judd to move instead of putting his own body on the line. He just doesn’t think. You have to agree with me that he needs to think.”

Carlos thanks the universe that they are pulling into the hospital parking lot then, because any response he’d have to that would be rude and he doesn’t have the energy for that fight right now. Instead he just doesn’t respond at all and makes his way inside the ED waiting room to find out about his fiance.

Owen seems to take the hint as they settle next to each other in waiting room chairs without any more conversation passing between them. Time passes in a vacuum as Carlos scrolls absentmindedly through his phone. His mom has sent him another list of wedding related questions that he doesn’t have the energy to answer. The quiet is interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the 126 just as a nurse steps out calling for the family of TK Strand.

“Here.” Carlos answers, stepping towards the nurse while feeling several others step up around him. “How is TK?”

She glances around at the crowd, “We’re all family.” Carlos answers the unasked question.

“Okay, you can follow me back to see the doctor. He’d like to talk with you while we get TK settled in his room and then two visitors at a time will be allowed to see him.”

—-

Carlos tries to pay attention to the doctor’s words he really does, but he trusts that Nancy or Captain Vega will be able to answer questions about things he misses when his brain can’t handle the more gruesome details. He does catch that it’s going to be a painfully long recovery. He also catches the look of guilt that is plastered on Judd’s face from where he stands leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

Before he realizes what’s happening he finds himself seated at TK’s hospital bedside. A large cast encompasses his entire left leg and bandages cover the majority of his left arm. Thankfully, there was no spinal damage and minimal internal injuries. The concussion is actually the most worrisome with TK’s prior history so they just have to wait and see.

All that waiting gives Carlos plenty of time to worry. It also gives him plenty of time to watch and he watches Judd shuffle into the room to quietly stare at TK from just inside the doorway. When Judd turns to leave without so much as a word Carlos decides to figure out what’s wrong and he follows.

He catches him just outside the door with a hand on Judd’s arm. “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for helping back at the scene.” He says quietly watching as Judd avoids eye contact and shuffles on his feet.

“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he mumbles.

Tipping his head to the side in thought, “Why? You tried to help keep me calm, so that they could help TK. I appreciate it.”

Judd just shakes his head sharply, “If it weren’t for me TK wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place.”

Carlos shakes his head, wondering what is up with people and their misplaced judgements of fault on anyone except the stupid, speeding driver. However, before he can say anything in reply he follows Judd’s gaze into TK’s room to see his fiance’s eyes blinking open and the furrow of pain across TK’s brow has him hurrying back into the room.

TK POV

Pain is the first thing that he is aware of when he wakes up again. Thankfully it is less consuming than the last time and after a few deliberate deep breaths he is able to open his eyes and take in the scene in front of him. Just outside the open door to his hospital room Judd and Carlos seem to be locked in an intense conversation. TK can’t hear the words from where he is lying, but he watches as Carlos gestures into the room and attempts to pull Judd through the door with a hand on his elbow. The older man doesn’t move from his spot though and when Carlos looks up and sees that TK is awake his grip on Judd is released and TK watches as Judd turns and walks away without a second glance.

“Hey TK.” Carlos' soft voice catches his attention, slowly turning his head as his cheek meets Carlos' palm.

“What -” his voice cracks and he tries to clear his throat which just causes him to cough painfully until Carlos brings a straw up to his lips. After a few careful sips he is able to calm down and tries again. “What is up with Judd?”

Carlos sighs, lips pursing in the way that TK knows indicates he’s thinking over his answer, not sure what to say.

“Just tell me, please.”

And TK knows that’s Carlos’ weakness. He can’t argue with the pleading in TK’s voice. Especially not when he’s lying injured in a hospital bed. “I think Judd thinks this was his fault.”

TK tries to sit up at his words, groaning in pain as Carlos catches his shoulders and eases him back down, but his voice is strong and clear when he exclaims, “that’s bullshit and you know it. Get him in here.”

“Whoa slow down, you just woke up.”

“Carlos.” he tries to give him his best pleading eyes, but stern expression. “Get Judd.”

Thankfully Carlos just nods and makes his way back towards the door. It takes longer than TK expected and he thinks he drifts off again for a bit, but the scrape of a chair across the floor wakes him from his doze. When he opens his eyes to find Judd staring guilty at his casted leg, TK uses all of his energy to smack him upside the head. Well at least he tries, with his reach he only manages to brush his shoulder, but Judd startles all the same, eyes turning quickly in his direction.

“Stop thinking stupid thoughts. This wasn’t your fault.” TK rasps, still trying to clear the cobwebs of his extended sleep and his bruised brain.

“I was standing there. I should have seen the car.” Judd argues softly back.

TK shakes his head, “Your back was turned. You couldn’t have seen it. Plus I don’t regret anything. Your little girl needs her daddy.”

Those words cause the sheen to grow more prominent in Judd’s eyes and he looks away, clearly trying to get his emotions under control. When he looks back his eyes are red and no less wet, but his face is stern. “People need you too, TK.”

He ducks his head, not having the energy to fight the wetness that gathers in his eyes. “Yeah I get that, but Judd. I know what it’s like to lose a parent suddenly, unexpectedly. I wasn’t going to let Charlie know what that’s like too.”

With that all three occupants of the room have to wipe their eyes. Carlos reaches out with gentle, trembling fingers to do it for TK, since his one good hand has been captured in a tight grip by Judd. “Thank you.” Judd manages and TK can only nod back before looking over to Carlos. The understanding in his fiance’s eyes means the world.

Carlos knows that TK will do everything he can to not end up hurt, but he also knows that TK loves hard and will do anything for those that he loves. He’s a protector and he always will be.

#tarlossanta #tarlossanta22 #tarlos gift exchange #tarlos #tk whump #tk strand #carlos reyes #judd ryder

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rangergurlgleek1211 · 1 year

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TK and Carlos || Perfect

youtube

Merry Christmas Lais @xtltokio 🎄🎄🎄

I was your @tarlos-santa this year and i really hope you enjoy this edit of our favourite couple.

I also have a fic in the works but due to commitments wasn't able to get it finished so I hope you enjoy this for now. Hopefully will finish the tarlos fic by the end of the year.

#tarlossanta22 #tarlossanta #tarlos #fan video #tk strand #carlos reyes #ronen rubinstein #rafael silva #9 1 1 lone star #911 ls #xtltokio #rangergurlgleek1211 #video editing #Youtube

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ashleyrguillory · 2 years

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My secret Santa gift for @morganaspendragonss for the @tarlos-santa exchange Some dancing beneath aurora borealis~ 💚❤️✨

#tarlos #tarlossanta #tarlossanta21 #911 lone star #tarlos fanart

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meloingly · 2 years

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Subtly Un-Subtle

Heyo @detective-giggles, I'm your @tarlos-santa Secret Giftee!!!

Your prompts were a whole load of fun to work with, and I gotta say, they definitely brought back my love and motivation for writing, so I thank you for that!

Anyway, I went with relationship reveal from your prompts, and it IS a 5+1. I hope you enjoy it, and happy holidays!

As always, a giant shout-out to the one, the only, the wonderful, @lire-casander, for being the bestest beta I could have ever worked with, and for helping me out with this fic. I couldn't have done it without you ❤

Gwyn didn't know who the shirtless man TK was cuddling was. Paul, Marjan and Mateo seem to agree that they're definitely more than friends. Judd and Grace didn't expect to see people they know in this restaurant. Tommy and Nancy try to give them as much privacy as they can in the back of an open ambulance. Evie and Izzy need to find the truth.

Five times Carlos and TK get caught living their life in a relationship, and the one time they decide they're done hiding.

AO3, G, 7956 words

Characters: Carlos Reyes, TK Strand, Gwyn Morgan, Owen Strand, Paul Strickland, Marjan Marwani, Mateo Chavez, Judd Ryder, Grace Ryder, Tommy Vega, Nancy Gillian, Evie Vega, Isabella Vega, Mentioned Charles Vega.

Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Fluff, Secret Relationship, Relationship Reveal, Established Relationship, Minor Injuries

---

Maternal Mission

A fourteen-hour flight was a pain in the ass, Gwyn knows it, and yet, she still thought it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Her only son being hurt — getting shot and entering a four-day coma — while she was fourteen hours away was definitely the worse thing to ever happen. She knows it’s been a month since he was discharged, and that he’s been home and resting and healing ever since. But her heart won’t slow down, and her brain won’t shut up, until she sees him with her own two eyes.

As she walks through the airport, standing in lines and moving from one queue to another queue at the pace of a snail, she can’t help but mutter a few choice words in anger. TK getting hurt while she was away wasn’t enough. No. It had to happen while a global pandemic was starting and travel restrictions were being put up. It’s by a mere miracle that she was able to leave and find herself a seat on a flight returning back to the States. And after that, she’s had to quarantine in a hotel before being allowed out into the public. And so, she finds herself coming to Austin much later than she would have liked.

It’s sad, and it hurts her entire soul, and she’d like to blame it on everyone and everything around her. Her brain somehow goes to Owen, and she hopes she could make this his fault, but she can still recognise that that’s a stretch, even by the standards of their rocky relationship.

The man in front of her moves, and Gwyn focuses her attention on the woman behind the counter, supplying all the required paperwork, hoping that this goes as smoothly as possible; she just wants to get to TK’s side, to hold him in her arms, make sure that he is indeed safe and sound, and alive.

When she’s finally done with that, she heads to baggage claim, thanking the universe that her bag appears moments after she stops in front of the belt, and then she’s out of the door, getting into the first empty taxi she sees, rattling off the address from her phone.

The drive is no longer than thirty minutes, yet it feels like centuries. She usually stays alert, eyes on the roads they’re travelling down, but she’s got better things on her mind right now.

She must have dozed off, for one moment she's staring out at the vast expanse of land surrounding the airport and in the blink of an eye she's suddenly rolling through big, beautiful houses all lined up in perfect rows.

“Excuse me, ma’am, we’re here,” a voice calls, and Gwyn feels her brain reconnect with reality, thrusting her consciousness back to the back of the cab she’s currently seated on.

“Oh, oh, okay,” she stutters her way out of the taxi, rounding the vehicle to take her luggage bag out of the trunk and then paying the man. It’s only when he moves that she turns around and comes into view of the house.

The suburban two storey home is as classy as Owen himself can be — it’s very much classy and pristine. It reminds her of the late years of their marriage when their lives looked nice from the outside. She can only hope that the inside isn’t nearly as much of a mess.

Dragging up her bag, she crosses the expanse of the white-picket front lawn before she bends at the door to retrieve the extra key Owen said he’d leave out for her under the mat.

There’s a string of thoughts that remind her TK might be asleep, so she makes sure to make as little noise as possible, fighting the urge to call out to him the way she really wants to. Instead, she pushes the door just open enough to get her and the bags through, then she closes it just as slowly.

Owen had given her a basic tour of the house, so she knows that Tk will either be in the living room to her left, in the kitchen to her right or the bedroom a little further after the kitchen.

A quick scan of the living room reveals vacant couches, so she immediately crosses to the other side of the house. When she finds the kitchen and dining room bare as well, she makes her way towards TK’s bedroom. It takes everything in her to stop in front of the closed door and softly knock, but when there isn’t an answer, she opens the door anyway.

Gwyn fully expected to see a completely sick and bed-ridden TK, wraps and bandages covering more skin than showing, or a full moving and healed TK singing and dancing around in the room. What she finds instead was a seemingly normal-looking and sleeping TK, hair spiked in every direction from rolling around on the bed no doubt, a blanket low on his hips, and the edge of a bandage visible in the high of his collarbone. That’s all expected though.

The man whose chest is currently being used as TK’s pillow isn’t.

There’s a full man, dark hair curled into the picture of a perfect mess on top of his head, one hand intertwined with TK’s hand on his chest while the other arm wraps around TK’s shoulders. TK’s head seems to find a comfortable pillow on the man’s chest — if the small and satisfied smile on her son’s face is anything to go by. He doesn’t look like a casual visitor either; with no shoes in sight and soft sweatpants, a jacket thrown over the back of a chair in the corner of the room, he looks like he’s been here for a while.

The scene would be cute, if she wasn’t endlessly confused. She doesn’t remember seeing him, even though she’s met the entirety of the team numerous times whenever she's Facetimed TK and someone from the crew is over to help out. This man is definitely not Marjan or Michelle, and he’s not Judd, Paul or Mateo. There’s one more person that she’s only ever heard of, never actually saw, a friend of TK’s — Carlos.

“Oh,” she finds herself whispering. Owen mentioned a Carlos once, and it elicited a deep blush and a mumbled “no, dad, it’s not like that” from TK.

Is it Carlos?

There’s no way this is the just friends that cuddle and hold aren’t platonic, she doesn’t think.

This is more like the, at least, friends with benefits stage she's seen TK have with other boys before. She's never seen him so at ease with any of them, and she's walked in on TK with his boyfriend several times throughout the years.

With a final glance, she decides that the sight of an asleep TK is enough to calm her heart for a bit. And the sight of a happy and comfortable TK with this mystery man is more than enough to soothe the pain she feels for him.

Troublesome Trio

Paul had the entirety of his focus on the game, he really did. It’s not his fault that TK is being suspiciously tense around a person that he claims to be very close friends with.

He’s aware that TK has been in a bad mood from the moment that door was opened, probably carried over from his house. But he still keeps his eyes on him, watches as Mateo asks if he got the cheeseballs, and TK goes on a rant about how ”my friend goes through a lot of trouble to make us healthy snacks and provides us with a safe place for us to gather, so we can at least have some human interaction in this uncertain age, and I’m going to spoil that with cheeseballs,” only to gingerly admit that he forgot mere seconds later. He watches as TK makes his way straight to the kitchen, opening the fridge and moving things around like he knows where things go and where they are. He watches as TK leans in close to Carlos only to appear as if he suddenly remembered where he is and tense away.

Interesting.

Mateo, who was half bent over the dining table thus far, turns around and makes deliberate eye contact with Paul, almost as if to say did you see this?

Paul sees it. He thought he was the only one that saw it, but he’s starting to think otherwise, especially when Marjan proclaims her win and then, as she’s dancing, throws a smirk at an oblivious TK and Carlos, still in the kitchen, still talking amongst themselves, in their own world.

The three of them take a moment to stare at the pair, and then at each other. Paul is almost entirely positive now that they’ve all noticed the two before, just never said anything. Yet, as Mateo makes his way towards the living room and sits with wide eyes full of gossip, Paul knows that they’re now discussing it.

“You guys see that, right?” Mateo whispers the moment his butt touches the surface of the armchair, elbows on his thighs as he leans closer to where Paul and Marjan sit.

“Oh, I see it alright,” Marjan whispers back, looking over at the pair and then back at Paul. “What about you, Mr. Know-It-All?”

“I ain’t blind, you know,” he snarks, rolling his eyes at them. He’s glad the conversation was started by someone else, because he wouldn’t have allowed himself to speak on it. If TK and Carlos didn’t say anything to him, it has to be for a reason, and he’d rather cut his own tongue before he breaches their privacy.

Marjan and Mateo stare at him, agape at his outburst. He sighs. "It's one thing that we've noticed, and it's another that there's something there, or, you know, that they want to make it known."

"So you admit you think they're more than friends," Marjan says with a sense of finality.

"I'm not admitting to anything," Paul insists, reaching out for the remote to keep his hands busy. He's never liked talking about people who aren't there to defend themselves, and he's not one to gossip. If TK and Carlos have something going on, it's their decision to tell everyone or to keep it to themselves.

"Well, for what it's worth, I think they're a cute couple," Mateo intersects, grabbing a snack from the bowl in front of him and grimacing when he sees it's definitely not a cheeseball. "Let's hope that next time TK isn't so blinded by love that he doesn't forget about the good stuff."

"I think he was a bit mad," Paul points out, but Mateo isn't listening to him anymore.

"Hey, guys," TK makes his presence known by flipping down on the couch between them. "What are we talking about? We ready to watch a movie?"

As he's speaking, Carlos brings another bowl to the table and sits on the floor, in between TK's leg, eliciting a knowing glance between the three of them.

"Sure thing," Marjan says. "It's Mateo's turn to pick."

And while Mateo takes his sweet time choosing between Thor and Superman, Marjan and Paul share another glance, more intimate, silently agreeing to not say anything if TK and Carlos aren't open about their relationship.

Even if it means turning a blind eye to the way they think they're subtly holding hands, right in front of them all.

Curious Couple

There’s a jump in Judd’s step that’s been following him around the entire day. From the moment he got a call from Grace’s favourite restaurant informing him that a reservation was cancelled and he was pushed up from the waiting list, he’d been on cloud nine. There was no denying that they were in need of a break — between Grace’s physical therapy and the pregnancy and his own unforgiving job lately, they’ve been stretched thin and have been craving a moment to breathe.

What better breath than a fancy, upscale restaurant that will be followed by beer on their deck?

So he keeps his head steady, does the job well and safe, and then races home. By the time he’s walking into the house, Grace is out of the shower. By the time he’s done with his own shower, Grace is almost ready. And fifteen minutes later, they’re both walking hand-in-hand out of the door and towards the car.

The car ride is like every other car ride with Grace, Judd thinks. They’ve got their hands intertwined, they’re talking and joking and having a good time, so much so that he doesn’t even realise they’re at the destination until the GPS alerts him to the last turn into the restaurant parking lot.

It’s a quick thing to get from the car to their table, and then they’re sitting across from each other between dozens of other couples.

Judd is so engrossed in Grace and the happiness that he’s experiencing, the food and conversation keeping a wide grin stapled on his face, that the time passes and before he knows it, it’s an hour later and they’re waiting on dessert. He takes the lull in conversation to look around the restaurant, the dim lights and chandeliers giving the place a perfect date sensation. As he lets his eyes roam though, he notices a familiar mop of brown hair a few tables to his left. But once he sees him — once he sees the salmon shirt that fits him like a glove and the watch on his wrist that seems to be heavy and expensive, even if he can’t pick up the actual brand — Judd seems to be entranced by the mere sight of him here, let alone why he might be here. So much so that he finds himself pulled out of his brain by a snap of fingers in front of his face.

READ THE REST ON AO3

#tarlossanta #tarlossanta21 #tarlos #tarlos fic #911 lone star fic #Carlos Reyes #TK Strand #Gwyn Morgan #Owen Strand #Paul Strickland #Marjan Marwani #Mateo Chavez #Judd Ryder #Grace Ryder #Tommy Vega #Nancy Gillian #Evie Vega #Isabella Vega #mentioned charles vega

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