I promise that it’s worth the risk
24.2k || ao3
Carlos has an accident at work and for a while, TK thinks everything is lost.
But then he wakes up, and everything is okay.
But then it isn’t, because Carlos doesn’t remember him. In fact, Carlos doesn’t remember anything of the past three years: the entirety of TK’s time in Austin. Which is a pretty sick joke on the universe’s behalf, in TK’s opinion. He doesn’t know how to deal with that fact that though he didn’t lose Carlos, he did lose him in just about every way that matters.
But if one thing will always be true it’s that TK Strand loves Carlos Reyes with his entire heart and nothing is going to stop him from being there for him, whatever may come.
Six months later, the amnesia fic is finally done!
There are so many people I need to thank for getting me through the writing of this and making sure I actually did finish writing this in so many different ways. I’m going to list a few but I know that the list is not limited to just them: @moviegeek03, @justaswampdemon, @pragmatic-optimist, @doublel27
Beta’d by the wonderful @terramous
If you’d like to listen to the playlist I made to go with this fic, you can find that here. Happy reading!
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In the days that followed he would marvel that all it took to upend his entire world was one phone call.
Because that’s all it had been: a single call from a kind but efficient nurse in a hospital across the city. TK had never been on the other end of the call from the hospital. He could say with absolute certainty that he hated it.
Well, at the moment, he didn’t really feel like he could say anything at all. He was frozen at the edge of the station kitchen as Nancy gently pried his phone from his hand and Marjan placed a warm hand on his shoulder as she studied him with worried eyes. He wanted to assure them he was fine, that they didn’t have to worry, but that would be a lie. He was so far from fine he couldn’t even remember the sound of the word. His world had just been tipped off its axis and now it felt like it was spinning in place, stuck at this moment and a single line repeating in his head like a broken record: Detective Reyes has been injured in the line of duty.
He doesn’t know how Carlos had done it so many times. How had he even been able to breathe after getting one of those calls, let alone function? It’s all TK can do to agree to his dad’s offer to drive him to the hospital and to sit silently in the passenger seat, anxious fingers twisting at the gold band on his necklace as the world flashes by outside the window.
He could feel his dad’s eyes on him and he knew without looking what he would see. The weight of his gaze felt familiar; it was the same one he had felt so often in the days right after his mom had died. He knew his dad meant well, but he couldn’t handle it. The thought of losing Carlos like he had his mom…it was too much. He couldn’t bear those connections right now.
“Please stop looking at me like that.”
His dad looked startled by the sound of his voice, but he recovered quickly, “Like what?”
“Like he’s already dead.”
[continue reading on ao3]
