#ice storm
I’ve been woefully overwhelmed lately, but I’m starting to get on social media again. I even posted a new Youtube video last week! I hope to be posting on here more regularly by the beginning of next month!
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Ice formations at a mill, Gagen, Langlade County, Wisconsin, 1900 – 1920.
Photograph by Arthur J. Kingsbury
via:Langlade County Historical Society
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Mis fantasmas hoy por fin están en paz
Written for @badthingshappenbingo
Fandom: 9-1-1: Lone Star
Characters: TK Strand, Carlos Reyes
Prompt: Scar to Remember
Summary: “That’s the embankment where the ambulance slid off.” TK turned around and walked a few feet before he stopped and stared morosely at the water, no longer frozen but again free and easy flowing. “And that’s the pond."
Carlos’ eyes widened, first in recognition, then horror, and finally on something TK couldn’t name.
—
After too many sleepless nights, TK takes Carlos to the field where he fell in the ice. In between stories of the past spoken in soft whispers under the starry night and familiar touches that begin to mend the broken parts within themselves, next to the pond that almost swallowed their future, TK and Carlos begin to rebuild their present.
TK opened his eyes and shivered. He turned around seeking his personal heat source but was met with an empty bed and cold sheets. The bathroom light was turned off, so he knew Carlos was not there but the crack under their bedroom door was too illuminated for this time of night and he knew it was more than the light that filtered in from the streetlights of downtown Austin.
Since the fall in the pond and his bout with hypothermia TK found himself cold more often than not, his body and skin still adjusting to normal temperatures and to it no longer needing mechanical aid to keep him alive. Tonight however, the cold had nothing to do with his accident and everything to do with the man missing from the bed. Lying next to Carlos always felt to TK like being out in the sun and like in any cloudy day or night he instantly felt a chill settle in his bones whenever his warm body left him. It was a wonder TK managed to sleep at all during their time apart.
Groaning, he got out of bed and grabbed his blanket, wrapping it around his body like a burrito before he tiptoed outside. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness of the loft’s open space, the only light in the room coming from a single bulb turned on in the kitchen. Glasses on, curls untamed and falling every which way, Carlos stood in front of the stove, one hand softly stirring whatever was on the pot, the other swiping pages as he read.
The sight made TK sigh, because this wasn’t the first time this had happened in the two weeks since he had been released from the hospital. Last night he had been watching old ‘The Great British Bake Off’ episodes, two days ago it was his newest true crime novel and three days ago just absentmindedly staring at the few passing cars from the living room window. Before that there had been more tv, more books, more staring, and no sleep.
"Carlos?” TK whispered, not wanting to startle Carlos as he wrapped his arms around his back. “What are you doing?”
Carlos blinked sluggishly a few times but said nothing. He sank deeper into the embrace and exhaled slowly. “I’m making flan,” he said after a few beats, voice tentative and lost.
“At 3:30 in the morning?” TK wondered.
Carlos shrugged and continued to stir. His other hand having abandoned the book as it settled over TK’s.
“Hey, look at me,” TK prodded, waited a few, then disentangled his arms, holding onto Carlos’ one hand and tugging until he turned around. “Oh, baby, come here.” Seeing bloodshot eyes and a tired frown all but broke TK’s heart, knowing he was the reason his boyfriend looked like that, so he pulled him close and held him.
Carlos breathed him in and closed his eyes as he tried to focus on the smell of their detergent and TK’s body wash. But the remembered smell of antiseptic and decay was strong, and it begged for attention from the darkest corners of his mind.
“What’s wrong?” TK had a pretty good idea what was going on, but a lack of communication had almost wrecked this beautiful thing they had, so instead of just assuming he waited until Carlos spoke.
TK felt Carlos shake his head and thought that would be the end of it, but then he inhaled sharply and said, “Nothing is wrong. I just can’t sleep.” His voice cracked and TK thought he heard his heart follow suit. “I did this a lot during the last few months,” Carlos vaguely pointed to the stove and ingredients on the counter. “I guess it became a habit.”
“I’m so sor-.”
Carlos cut him off with a kiss, chaste and salty, but loving all the same. “We don’t have to keep apologizing, we already forgave each other,” he whispered against TK’s lips, resting their foreheads together.
“But I do, I still have 97 to go.” Seeing Carlos’ confused expression, TK chuckled sadly and explained, “one apology for each day that I broke your heart. For each night that you waited alone, hoping I would come home.”
“You’re here now, Ty. That’s the only thing that matters,” Carlos insisted, like he did every time they had this conversation.
They had talked about it in the hospital and when they came home, but for TK it wasn’t enough. He desperately wanted to believe it, but his guilt wasn’t as forgiving as Carlos and everything he did still felt like too little too late. He wished he could rewind the last few months and choose to talk instead of running on that fateful day, but he knew the universe didn’t work that way. So he inhaled and admitted in the exhale, “I wish I had never left.”
“Me too.” And for the first time TK felt like Carlos was truly being sincere, not forgiving for the sake of the future but honest for the sake of the present. “But it happened.”
“I can’t promise I will never freak out again, but I will always stay, or at least I will come back,” TK mumbled, wanting to seal the vow with a kiss but not feeling he had earned that one tonight.
“Why didn’t you?” Carlos wondered. It was a question he often asked himself in the quiet of the night, but this was the first time he allowed himself to speak the words out loud.
“I wanted to return, I really did, but I’d already fucked up and I thought you’d be better off without me. And I know that’s a shitty thing to say now, knowing how not better we both were, but-.” TK paused and pulled back, setting his hand on the nape of Carlos’ neck and staring intently into his soulful eyes. “Things break around me, Carlos. I make things break around me. My sobriety, my parents’ marriage, the cancer, my relationship with Alex, the 126. I didn’t want you to break too. And somehow in between trying to protect you I ended up being the thing that broke us.”
Carlos chuckled, but the sound was humorless and empty. “Not sure how much pull you think you have with the universe, babe, but I really can’t see how all those things are your fault.”
“But that doesn’t erase the fact I wasn’t here before, and I’m so sorry, Carlos. I know I can erase what I did but I can be better. I will be better.” TK moved his hand from Carlos’ neck to his cheek and wiped his tears away, smiling when Carlos reached forward to swipe at his own.
“The only thing that can break me is not trying, and we’re doing that now. We’re talking, and getting to know each other better than before. That’s all I ask for and you’re giving it to me now.” Carlos pressed a kiss to TK’s lips and whispered when they parted, “I’m good, Ty, We’re good. You don’t have to apologize anymore.”
TK made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat and reluctantly nodded. “Can we go to bed now?” He turned off the stove, and began to pull Carlos back to their room.
Carlos closed his eyes and shivered. He shook his head and opened his eyes, now a shade darker and clouded with something TK couldn’t see. “I don’t think I can, even if I tried.”
“Why?” TK cried, broken and desperate. Nothing he did felt like enough and he hated when Carlos’ mind went to a place he couldn’t follow. “I’m here now.”
“But you almost weren’t,” Carlos breathed out, and TK suddenly understood. The shadows in Carlos’ eyes weren’t the memories of their months apart, but the shadows that had come to take TK away. He was alive, but the demons lingered.
“Do you trust me?” TK asked but didn’t wait for an answer as he sprinted to their room, leaving Carlos alone in the kitchen. He came back a moment later with two hoodies and pairs of shoes.
Carlos nodded, grabbing what TK offered and getting dressed without even asking why. And not ten minutes later they were in the car and driving away from the loft.
“Where are we going?” Carlos broke when they had been in the car for 20 minutes, leaving the urban side of Austin and entering country roads and sparse homes.
“Almost there,” TK said vaguely, eyes on the road, one hand on the steering wheel and the other held in between Carlos’.
Ten minutes later they finally parked in what looked like the middle of nowhere. TK put on a beanie and stepped outside the car, knowing Carlos would follow. He waited for Carlos to meet him and intertwined their hands, walking a little before he pointed to a spot on their left. “That’s the embankment where the ambulance slid off.” TK turned around and walked a few feet before he stopped and stared morosely at the water, no longer frozen but again free and easy flowing. “And that’s the pond.”
Carlos’ eyes widened, first in recognition, then horror, and finally on something TK couldn’t name.
TK put a finger under Carlos’ chin and nudged until he turned to look at him. He opened the zipper of his hoodie and grabbed Carlos’ hand, setting it over the faint scar on his chest, tracing the pattern with his fingers. “When I got shot, you were there. You were outside, you know where, and how it happened. And I remember after the solar flares, when I started sleeping at the condo, you would have trouble falling asleep, until you began tracing the pattern of the scar and your breathing evened out.”
TK moved Carlos’ hand to his forehead and continued, “the next time, you were the one that realized we were missing. You worked like the detective you will be one day and you found us. You saw the kidnappers and where we were held. In the hospital you would spend hours just staring at the bandage while you thought I wasn’t watching. And at home you would again trace the scar with your fingers before you could sleep. And sometimes in the middle of the night too, when you woke up and thought I was still asleep.” TK felt Carlos’ thumb move from the faint scar on his hairline and reach down to tenderly wipe a tear from his eye. He gave Carlos a watery smile and grabbed his hand again, taking a few steps until they were only a few feet from the pond.
“But this time there’s no scar to remember. There’s no evidence or mark of what happened. Yes, I still get tired easily, and I’m cold often, but this has been my worst injury, the one that almost did it, and there’s nothing. Sometimes it’s like it never happened. But it did. And we know the memories are not going away. So maybe being here will help, just seeing it for yourself and putting an image to the nightmares.” TK kneeled down and carefully put his hand under the water.
“I had spent months trying not to think about you. Telling myself it was for the best. You dodged a bullet and that was a good thing. But in that moment, when the ice cracked and I fell all I could think about was you, Carlos. The water was frigid and I couldn’t breathe but it was nothing like the pain of losing you and I hate that it took me until that moment to realize I had doomed both of us.”
TK took a few deep breaths before he stood up, dried his hand on his pants and stuffed it in the pocket of his hoodie. When he raised his gaze to look at Carlos his eyes were full of unshed tears but they looked clearer somehow. “Thank you, this helps,” Carlos choked out, then nodded, recognizing there was more TK needed to say.
“Growing up, after the divorce, I used to bounce between houses. Sometimes it was my dad’s when my mom was deep in a case, then my mom’s when dad was having a bad week or too many long shifts. Many times it was a bunk in the firehouse, and sometimes even Enzo’s apartment when neither parent was free. Later I had an apartment; it wasn’t great, just the one I had enough money to rent. Moving here was never a choice, and neither was moving into my dad’s house. But choosing you was a choice. Letting myself love again was a choice. Moving into the condo was a choice.”
“Then I took that choice away when I bought the loft,” Carlos finished for him. “I should have realized, I’m so-.”
TK silenced Carlos with a kiss. He deepened it, pushing past his lips and letting his tongue explore and enjoy the taste that was all Carlos. But just as quickly, he pulled back. “If I can’t apologize, neither can you.”
“We make quite the pair.” Carlos grinned, and for the first time in a while, it reached his eyes.
“A perfect pair.” TK sat down, crossed-legged on the ground, and pulled Carlos down with him. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, babe. I just need you to understand why it took this place almost taking me away from you for me to realize that I had made a mistake. I never stopped loving you, I could never even if I tried. And I’m not apologizing for how I felt, but for the way I handled my feelings. For not talking to you like I’m doing now, for leaving, and not returning until after I got hurt.”
Carlos nodded and set his head on TK’s shoulder, smiling when TK giggled when his curls tickled his cheek. It was a familiar exchange and it almost made Carlos’ heart burst. “Then I’m not apologizing for buying the loft.”
“You shouldn’t, I love our loft,” TK interrupted, resting his head over Carlos’.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Carlos murmured, stuffing his hand inside TK’s hoodie’s pocket and lacing their fingers together. “I’m not apologizing for buying it, but the way I went about it. I should have explained what I wanted to do and stop if it’s not something you wanted. I don’t care where I live as long as it’s with you; that’s my choice. And I’m sorry I took yours away from you.”
“It’s not about the loft, like it’s not about this pond,” TK said, trying to sort through his thoughts and share them with Carlos at the same time. “I have never enjoyed the feeling of being out of control. It’s how addiction makes me feel, like the drugs are the ones on the wheel and I’m just along for the ride. And I know it was my choice in the beginning but sometimes, when you’re so deep in it, then it’s not a choice anymore. There’s not enough left of you to even make that decision.” TK shuddered as he remembered those days, when he was so far up, high in the sky, he couldn’t even tell which way was down.
TK took a moment to compose himself, burrowing deeper into Carlos’ side, before he continued. “It’s also how I felt with Alex, things felt so good that I didn’t see the signs. And I know you’re not Alex, I know it was a sweet gesture, and that you weren’t trying to undermine me or my issues, but it felt that way, and after my second time at rehab, I promised myself I would never stop being in control of my life again. That’s a good thing that came from addiction, I guess, the bad is that I’m always waiting for things to break when they’re too good, and I’m usually ready to bolt before that happens.”
“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Carlos said softly, squeezing TK’s hand. “I will try to never make you feel that way again. But if I inadvertently do, please tell me?” At TK’s nod, Carlos kept going. “Moving forward, we just have to talking, communicate like we’re doing now. Before I make any other big decisions that should be done as a team, and next time you feel the urge to run. Deal?”
“Deal.” TK raised his other hand to Carlos’ check, blindly wiping away the tears he knew were there just from his voice. Carlos turned his face and kissed TK’s palm. And just like that their bodies and gestures continued to sink and slot back into place. “Do you think you could sleep now?” TK asked tentatively, a finger now twisting one of Carlos’ curls over and over.
“Can you tell me more about that day?” Carlos asked, eyes squinted and far away as he tried to picture the now normal pond covered in ice. In his mind he saw it break and he imagined running his fingers over the cracks, just like he had done on TK’s old scars.
“Of course.” TK started when the call came in, and ended on words spoken in Hebrew. He couldn’t remember more so Carlos filled in the blanks. He began on an unexpected radio call from Nancy and finished on prayers to a God he hadn’t prayed to in ten years. The tales then came together and led them to this moment.
Tonight had been meant to help Carlos cope, but it ended up being what both men needed. Because words can save the man to whom they’re spoken but also the one speaking them in the first place. And somehow in between stories of the past spoken in soft whispers under the starry night and familiar touches that began to mend the broken parts within themselves, next to the pond that almost swallowed their future, TK and Carlos began to rebuild their present. They couldn’t see this scar, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And the first step to healing was recognizing that just like a broken heart, this one was invisible to the eye but still real and slowly fading.
“TK?” Carlos asked a while later, both boys now lying on the ground and staring up at the night sky.
“Yeah?” TK called back.
“Can you please stop getting hurt?” Carlos said sincerely.
TK laughed, knowing he brought it on himself by reminding Carlos of all the scars and close calls. Still, he nodded and squeezed his hand. “I will try,” he promised, knowing anything more would be a lie.
“Thank you.” Carlos brought TK’s hand to his lips and kissed it, then laced their fingers together again and set it over his stomach. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And when they whispered the words, their eyes were no longer on the stars, but on one another. Because not even the Milky Way held a candle to each other.
*Title comes from the song 'Creo En Ti’ by Reik and translates to something like “my demons are finally at peace today”. Thanks @pragmatic-optimist for recommending this song and telling me it reminds you of TK and Carlos. It’s now a permanent part of my Tarlos playlist.
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