#evie vega
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.
OR
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
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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.
