Chapter Text
The argument doesn’t burn out. It smolders.
It follows them home, settles into the walls, sinks into the narrow hallway and the quiet spaces between breaths. It’s there in the way the house feels too small, too tight, like the air itself is holding its breath.
Carlos shuts the door behind him and leans against it for half a second longer than necessary, eyes closed. Just long enough to remind himself where he is. Just long enough to ground himself.
He’s still in uniform- gear stripped off, but the weight of it clinging to his shoulders. Still in cop mode. Still carrying the gravity of his father’s actions, the echo of Judd’s voice, the looks on his friends’ faces, and TK’s fury all at once. The apartment is quiet in that late-evening way, city noise muffled, lights warm and low. No storm. No chaos outside.
Everything is happening in here.
TK is pacing.
Back and forth. Too fast. Too sharp. Like if he stops moving, something inside him will split clean open.
Carlos watches him from the door, chest tight. TK hadn’t been supposed to be off duty yet. But after the morning- after the firehouse, the arrest, everything- he understands that Captain Vega must have dismissed him early. He briefly wonders how long TK has been pacing. Minutes? An hour? Long enough for the anger to ferment?
His mind drifts, unwanted- back to the firehouse.
He’d gone in to deliver the news himself. He couldn’t let an officer recite protocols and charges like a script. Couldn’t let someone else reduce Owen’s life to bullet points and procedure. He needed TK to hear it from him. To lean on him. To be held together by him if everything else fell apart. To know, before anything else that he wasn’t alone in this. That he was loved.
It hadn’t gone the way he’d planned.
Words had missed their mark. Fear had sharpened them. TK had shoved him- barely, really, but enough that Carlos had stumbled back a step. It hadn’t mattered. Carlos hadn’t even registered it as anger. When Carlos had used his own strength to stop TK, holding him tight against his chest, he’d felt TK’s heartbeat racing beneath their caged hands. He’d murmured low into TK’s ear, hoping to calm him down, hoping to anchor him, hoping-
But TK had only grown more frantic. Pulling away. Wanting space. Wanting out.
Then Judd’s voice had cut through the chaos.
“Carlos. I think you need to go.”
And Carlos had known- deep, instinctive- that he was holding the rope too tight. That if he didn’t let go now, he might strangle the very thing he was trying to save- his love, his relationship. He had never wanted TK to break like this. Not on his watch. Not because of him.
So he’d let go.
Their friends had frozen in that awful moment where no one knows what to say. He understood them. God, he did. He understood Judd. He understood the impossible position they were all in.
But none of that mattered the way TK did.
He’d taken one last look at his friends- stunned, conflicted, heartbroken- and walked out before anyone could stop him. Walked out with hope lodged painfully in his throat. It made him more anxious than comforted, but it was still hope. Hope that TK would cool down. That they’d talk. That love would be enough. That things would sort out. He’d driven away from the firehouse with his chest tight and his hope fragile.
Marjan had called him mid-shift, voice cautious. “Are you okay?” He’d wanted to lie. To tell her everything was fine. That this wasn’t tearing him apart from the inside out. But Marjan was one of the few people who knew Carlos Reyes beyond the walls, beyond the mask. So instead, he’d just asked quietly, “How’s he?”
She’d sighed. Long. Heavy. “He’s… well. He’s doing the best he can, Carlos.”
Carlos had felt the control slipping then, too. But he’d held on to hope anyway. Waiting. Hoping. Telling himself that by the time he got home, things would be better. Quieter. That the worst had already passed.
Now, standing in their apartment, watching TK pace like a trapped animal, he realizes how wrong that hope was.
“You didn’t have to be the one to tell me,” TK says suddenly. His voice is sharp. Raw. A jagged edge slicing clean through the room. “You didn’t have to be the messenger.”
Carlos opens his eyes slowly and pushes off the door. He meets TK’s gaze, steady even as something inside him aches. “I’m your partner,” he says. “Of course I did.”
“You’re his son,” TK snaps, spinning to face him. “You really expect me to believe you’re neutral here?”
The words hit hard. Not loud. Not explosive. Just precise.
Carlos stiffens like he’s been struck. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” TK fires back, pacing faster now. “Because it feels like everyone’s lining up behind this narrative that my dad’s suddenly capable of torching half the city.”
“That’s not what anyone is saying.”
“Your father arrested him,” TK says, jabbing a finger toward Carlos like it is proof of something unforgivable.
“And my father also thinks he’s being framed,” Carlos snaps back, heat finally breaking through the control he’s been clinging to all day. “Both things can be true.”
TK laughs. It’s ugly. Broken. There’s no humor in it at all. “God. Listen to you.”
Carlos takes a step forward before he can stop himself. His hand lifts, then hesitates in midair, like he’s afraid of crossing some invisible line. “TK. I need you to breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” TK shoots back, stepping away.
“I didn’t say you-” “You might as well have.”
For a brief second, their eyes meet. Carlos sees it then- the fear, naked and feral beneath the anger.
Then TK turns away like being seen might undo him entirely. TK’s phone buzzes on the counter.
Once.
Twice.
He ignores it.
Carlos notices. His stomach tightens.
“That might be—” “I don’t care,” TK snaps. “Everyone wants something from me right now.”
“I don’t,” Carlos says softly, barely more than a breath. “I just want you.”
TK shakes his head. The motion is slow, almost imperceptible, but it hurts more than shouting ever could. That’s the problem. TK doesn’t say it out loud, but it hangs there between them anyway.
“You think you know everything, TK,” Carlos says suddenly, the words slipping out before he can stop them. His voice shakes despite his effort to keep it low. “But you can’t even see when you’re hurting me.”
TK whirls on him. Defensive. Desperate. “And what about you, Carlos?” he fires back. “You’re so wrapped up in being perfect- doing everything right- that you don’t even notice when you’re crushing me.”
That one lands.
Carlos’s shoulders slump like something vital has finally given way. Like he’s lost a battle he’s been fighting mostly with himself. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. There’s nothing he can say that won’t make it worse. The weight of their fathers’ actions hangs between them, heavy and suffocating, and for the first time all day, Carlos feels the control slip clean through his fingers. Hope lost finally.
“I can’t do this,” TK mutters.
Carlos’s heart stutters. “Do what?”
“Be the calm one,” TK says. “Be the reasonable one. Be okay when my father’s life is imploding.” Carlos swallows hard. When he speaks, it’s quiet. Almost a whisper.
“I’m not asking you to be okay. I’m asking you not to shut me out.”
TK ignores, crossing the room in quick, sharp strides. He grabs his phone. His keys. “Don’t wait for me.”
“TK please—!” Carlos pleads, the crack in his voice unmistakable now.
TK pauses at the door, hand on the knob. His heart is hammering so hard it makes his ribs ache. For half a second- just half- he almost turns back.
Then the fear wins.
“I need space Carlos.” His voice isn’t angry anymore. It’s defeated. And then he’s gone.
The door closes with a soft, final click that echoes far too loudly in the quiet apartment.
Carlos doesn’t move.
He just stands there, staring at the door, chest aching, his thoughts chaotic and eerily hollow all at once.
It feels like his strings have been cut. The tension that’s been holding him upright finally gives way, and he stumbles toward the couch more out of instinct than intention. He sinks down heavily, elbows on his knees, hands cupping his entire face.
Unable to think. Unable to act. He just sits there, staring at nothing, the quiet pressing in from all sides.
He feels defeated. Paralyzed.