Title: Safe Space
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Word Count: 2,006
Summary: Carlos is woken in the middle-of-the-night-that's-actually-early-morning by a very distressed firefighter who has avoided him for weeks. He just wishes he knew how to help.
Warnings/Spoilers: Storylines for 911 Lone Star from the first couple of episodes, but this is a future musings fic.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with 911 Lone Star, Fox, or anything else related to that particular universe.

He stirs slowly, at first confused by what's woken him from the comforting embrace of needed-sleep, and then he hears the thumping at his front door and it's loud and obnoxious and it's late.

He glances at the glowing numbers on the clock.

03:08.

Scratch that.

It's loud and obnoxious and it's early.

If it's Michelle again, a new lead that would almost certainly lead nowhere, he might just cuff her to a lamppost somewhere across the street and she can howl along with the neigbour's dog. These middle-of-the-night-that-are-actually-early-morning house visits with information that wasn't offering any new directions for a dead investigation were really starting to test his patience when he had to get sleep in-between shifts so that he didn't make the wrong decision in life-or-death situations.

The thumping isn't going away though so he sighs, rubs a hand over his face, and pads through the silent – well, almost silent – house to the door that threatens to fall off its hinges because-

He stares, eyebrows falling into a frown, as the door swings towards him.

"TK?" he exclaims in surprise, reaching forward instinctively even as TK stumbles half a step back, hands raised like he's a suspect revealing his empty hands. He pauses and assesses, flitting over the pale face that seems to glow in the almost-darkness, the raspy, choked breaths betraying his distress. They might've hooked up and work in the same district but he didn't think TK would show up to his house like this, like he'd just run across the country and didn't know how to absorb oxygen into his lungs. "TK? Hey. Hey. Look at me?"

TK's glittery eyes snap up to meet his, catching light from somewhere behind Carlos and swimming with more tears. "I- I didn't know where else to…to g-go."

Some of the confusion and the hurt he's carried with him for weeks dissolves, replaced by concern and worry at just how broken TK sounds. If the guy didn't know where else to go, Carlos could hardly turn him away.

"You're here now," he says gently, holding out his hands, palm up, in an attempt to look less threatening. He opens his body language the way they taught you at the academy when someone was upset and even though sweatpants might not have been much of a uniform, the training was ingrained all over his skin after this many years on the streets. "You want to come in?"

TK nods, then hesitates, shakes his head, hesitates again. A sob slips past his lips and scrunched fingers twist into the dark black fabric of the hoodie covering his head. He rocks from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again, looking increasingly unhinged and Carlos actually starts to think he should be calling Captain Strand instead. "I- I'm such a m-mess. I should- I should just-"

Carlos catches at some of the fabric near TK's elbow, hand circling TK's forearm and gently pulling his fingers free of the hood. "If you're planning on leaving when you only just got here and didn't know where else to go, then I hate to break it to you but you're not going anywhere like this." He's calm but firm, because TK driving here like this was enough of a problem. If he left? Where else was he meant to go?

TK sniffs, the trembling of his body more pronounced now that Carlos can feel it beneath his pal. The black hoodie against the black front step made TK little more than a floating head in the shadows cast by the streetlight across the road.

"Come on," he encourages, tugging at TK's arm to get him over the threshold of his house.

TK shuffles forward, head dipping like he's ashamed, and Carlos closes the door and leads him past bits of other furniture to his couch. He tries not to think about how it wasn't that long ago they'd been making out on that couch, and then TK had scurried out the door a couple of days later when Carlos had just tried to share some food with him. Since then, there's been an ocean of distance between them and Carlos hasn't known how to navigate it.

He presses TK's shoulders so he'll sit, then fumbles his hand against the lamp until he can see. He winces against the light that floods the room but once he adjusts, he can see the stain of tears on TK's cheeks and the redness around his eyes and the bitten bottom lip. He resigns himself to needing an extra strong cup of coffee in the morning and sits beside TK, unsure whether he's meant to offer his hand to hold or wrap an arm around his shoulders or just sit there silently. He opts for the latter when TK folds his arms around his stomach, surely tight enough to hurt but evidently determined to hold himself together, but once Carlos hears how he's audibly struggling to stop the sobs and steady his breathing, he places his hand on TK's back and rubs a slow circle.

"I'm here," he says, feeling stupid for stating the obvious, but honestly? He's lost and he's a little afraid because he feels so far out of his depth trying to help someone that had come to him when they hardly knew each other.

TK raises a sleeve-covered hand to wipe over his cheeks, breath choking around fresh wet sobs, and Carlos gives in to his instincts, lack of knowledge about TK be damned, and scoots closer so that he can wrap his other arm around TK until it's an incredibly awkward side-hug thing. He manages to guide TK's head onto his shoulder, fingers combing through his hair to the back of his neck, and he shifts a little so that his other hand can move up and down the curve of his spine. Up and down, up and down, up and down, slow and steady and regular, until some indeterminate amount of time later when TK starts to finally turn into him. Shaking fingers span across Carlos' bare chest, in search of something to hold onto other than his sleeves perhaps.

He noses at the top of TK's hair, offering whatever comfort or protection he can, and hopes he never has to see TK feeling this overwhelmed and unhinged again. His hand continues to move against TK's spine, feeling the vibrating of his muscles warring with the urge to sob and a need to calm down. Carlos doesn't offer platitudes or hollow words, simply sinking into the silence and letting TK take whatever support he can from the embrace.

His eyelids are pulling downwards by the time TK starts to settle, breath crackling in his throat when his nose is so badly blocked and his lungs are congested.

"You wanna talk about it?" he offers, because he's nothing if not polite. He expects TK to rebuff the suggestion, to draw away from him and compartmentalise whatever has upset him and run out the door again. He doesn't know TK well enough to ascertain if fleeing is his go-to coping method or he has others, but he gets the impression TK is hell-bent on closing himself off to the point of his own destruction so he supposes ended up here, in this sort of state, is something exceptional.

"M-My Dad," TK whispers, hands pawing at Carlos' skin like he needs the reassurance of warmth and life and touch even though there's nothing remotely sexual about it. "He- H-He has cancer and he- he's known for m-months and he didn't want to- to- to t-tell me."

Carlos closes his eyes and brushes a kiss to TK's hair, hand stilling for a moment against his back. There's no response he can make which will be appropriate and he fears mis-stepping and TK leaves again.

"That's really awful," he murmurs when it seems like he needs to say something.

TK's head gives a jerky sort of nod, inhaling a shuddering breath and struggling to exhale steadily. It's almost like he's on the verge of new sobs and Carlos really, really doesn't want that again. It hurt enough to listen to the first time.

"I- I just d-didn't know where t-to go," TK says, sniffling and somehow folding himself tighter into Carlos' arms like he knew how to ferret out the gaps and seep into them. "W-We're still new and I- I couldn't go h-home and I don't know where a-anyone else lives and I'm s-sorry I woke you b-because-"

"Hey." He settles his hand on TK's cheek, thumb moving over the wet skin beneath his eye. "It's alright, TK. You needed a safe space and you found one."

TK hiccups, nods a little, but he doesn't respond and Carlos isn't sure what's running through TK's mind.

"Do you think you're up to getting some sleep? You have a shift tomorrow too, right?"

"I- Y-Yeah, I have a shift but I- I don't know if I can get any s-sleep."

Carlos increases the pressure of his grip, just slightly, and then lets his hand slip to TK's chin to tilt up his head so he can meet the shattered gaze of a young man facing the mortality of a parent. "Then how about we just curl together on the bed and if you somehow manage to nod off for a few hours, then so much the better?"

TK still looks lost and afraid and doubtful and a million other things that Carlos isn't sure he can categorise, but at least he doesn't look like he's going to flee so…that seems positive.

"You- You don't mind?"

"That you stay?"

TK nods timidly.

"No." He tips TK's head up further and kisses his forehead. "You need the rest as much as I do."

TK hesitates, eyes flashing over Carlos' face like he's weighing up the pros and cons of exposing so much vulnerability, before he concedes another nod and Carlos uses the acceptance as an excuse to lead him from the couch to his room.

He crawls among his abandoned blankets, listens to the shift of fabric in the dark and the thump of his shoes, and a few moments later the blankets lift and the bare skin of TK's back presses into Carlo's chest. He can feel TK is still in his jeans but he doesn't question it, figures that if that's what makes TK feel comfortable right now then he wasn't going to push. He drapes his arm loosely around TK's waist, curling his body around the one in front of him.

"This okay?" he murmurs against TK's shoulder.

"Y-Yeah," TK agrees, laying stiff and still in Carlos' hold like he was going to bolt at any moment.

Carlos is pretty sure he's already dozing by the time some of the tension in TK's body starts to leech away, and he's certainly fully asleep long before TK dozes off. Carlos is just too tired to stay awake with him.

When he wakes in the morning to the chirp of his alarm and his bed is empty and the sheets are cool, he notes the scattered clothes are long gone. He sighs, flopping back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling while wondering if it had all been a very realistic dream.

When he finally gets up to retrieve a large mug of strong coffee, he notes the lamp in his living room is still on.

And when he meets TK's eyes when their paths cross on a call later in the shift, there's the briefest flash of gratitude when TK nods his head at Carlos and he guesses he didn't imagine it all happening.

His eyes flick towards Captain Strand, wondering how sick he was and how sick he was going to get, and he can't help thinking he might need to be prepared for more middle-of-the-night-that-were-actually-early-morning house visits from TK.

If it meant TK had a safe space to breakdown, he wasn't going to complain and turn the guy away.

~FIN~