Title: The Boyfriend
Author: JE / immortalje
Pairing: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Summary: Spending the night at her son's place, leads to some unexpected revelations for Andrea when TK sneaks in after returning from fighting the wild fires.
Rating: FRT
Words: 2,809
Beta: None
Other Locations: Ao3 ~ Squidge World
AN: I'm kind of obsessed with alternate takes on TK meeting Carlos' parents - both set before and after being introduced as a coworker/friend at the farmer's market. This is one version I've come up with :)

The Boyfriend

Andrea startled awake on the terrible couch at her son’s condo where she’d taken up residence to care for her son. There had been more than a token amount of protest, but nothing would keep her from it. A sprained ankle was not to be joked with – least of all with the stairs at this place. However, Carlos had point blank refused to stay anywhere but at the condo.

Listening closely to the silence of the night, she tried to figure out what had woken her up. Had Carlos taken a fall trying to get to the bathroom? Was there some other kind of emergency? She noticed the shadows outside moving and realized that someone was unlocking the door. With keys. Had Carlos managed to sneak past her for an ill-advised midnight stroll?

It quickly became obvious that it wasn’t her son who opened the door. Even without the crutches, the dim light was enough for her to realize that. Whoever it was clearly had keys though and was seemingly familiar enough with the place to feel comfortable enough not to turn on the light.

A lot of thoughts and questions raced through her mind. Was her son living with someone? A boyfriend? Where had that person been these last couple of days? There hadn’t been any unexpected visitors and Carlos hadn’t seemed too worried when he’d given in about her staying. His greatest concern had been about the quality of sleep she’d get on the couch.

The man – and she was pretty sure it was a man even with the little light that came in through the windows – didn’t appear to notice her. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but he seemed downtrodden and tired. All he did was drop the keys – presumably into the designated bowl – and toe of some shoes before enabling the security system again and heading straight for the stairs.

She didn’t dare to move an inch until she heard a door open and close upstairs. Presumably the bedroom. The only other room upstairs was the bathroom and a closet that tried to masquerade as a bedroom that Carlos had set up as a home office.

When no other movement or noise could be heard, she reached out for her phone. She tapped the power button to illuminate the screen, noting that it was 12:37am.

Had this man been able to sneak past her the previous night? Twice? Or had he hidden in the bedroom until she was gone for a quick errand? Surely, he had better things to do than hide – like work. Unless he worked shifts. Which still made it hard to see about sneaking past her and hope to be on time. None of which really explained why her son hadn’t mentioned anything about someone else having access to this place to her though.

~***~

Andrea wasn’t sure when exactly she’d fallen asleep again, but when she opened her eyes, it was light outside. A quick check on her phone showed her that it was 6:57am. Only slightly earlier than her usual wake up time. It didn’t take her long to remember the visitor from the previous night and a quick check revealed that there was an additional pair of shoes in a pile next to Carlos’ tidy shoe rack. It looked like there was an additional set of keys in the bowl as well. Evidently, it wasn’t something she’d just imagined or dreamed up last night.

With a hesitant look upstairs, she decided to freshen up in the downstairs toilet before starting on breakfast.

They’d never been frequent guests at Carlos’ condo as he usually came over to their place instead. That didn’t mean that she was unfamiliar with her son’s place or his style. Since she’d insisted on sticking around as he got used to the crutches and actually resting and elevating the foot, she hadn’t paid too much attention to the place beyond helping Carlos though. As she gathered the ingredients for breakfast, she took the time to pay more attention, her curiosity overriding her dread about her son’s reaction to the invasion of privacy.

There were some water bottles that were fancier than their usual fare in the fridge. There wasn’t anything else out of the ordinary in there. The cupboards revealed some snacks she’d never seen Carlos eat, but little more. It wasn’t until she had everything she needed on the table and started preparing the ingredients that she wondered if she should prepare food for two or three or if Carlos’ friend even liked chilaquiles. Were there any allergies to pay attention to?

She was startled out of her thoughts by some noises from upstairs. She was surprised to note that she’d sat down on a bar stool at one point, just staring at the counter in front of her. By the sounds of it, Carlos was moving around upstairs, no doubt heading to the bathroom. That was the only kind of movement she could hear from upstairs for a while.

About fifteen minutes later that had felt like an eternity with her mind coming up with countless ways this could go and fretting about how she should handle this, Carlos cautiously made his way down the stairs. As soon as she saw his face, she knew that his caution was about more than just using crutches to navigate on the stairs.

It was becoming clearer and clearer since Carlos’s friend had arrived that there was a bigger gap between Carlos and her than she’d realized and that she must have done something to make her son hesitate to raise some topics with her. Communication was a two-way street and it was both their job to recognize and ensure that it remained healthy and free of detrimental assumptions.

With an uncomfortable feeling settling into the pit of her stomach, Andrea said, “I noticed someone coming in last night. He had a key, so I assume he was free to come. Does he live here? Is he a boyfriend?”

There were so many thoughts running through her mind, as she studied her son’s face as he clearly struggled with how to answer.

Eventually, he took a deep breath, steeling himself against something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about, and said, “He is my boyfriend. His name is TK.”

With a furrowed brow, she said, “Does he live here? Did you send him away? I mean, surely, he’s worried about you.”

“I didn’t actually tell him,” Carlos confessed, as he crossed the rest of the room, “He works as a firefighter and his crew had been sent to San Angelo.”

“To the wild fires?” Andrea said, slightly terrified even though her son’s boyfriend had clearly returned just hours ago under his own powers.

“Yes. I –,” Carlos started haltingly, “I didn’t know they’d been released to go home.”

Andrea was uncertain what else she could ask with her son so obviously hesitant to talk and an awkward silence settled between them.

When her stomach grumbled, she remembered that she’d been about to start making breakfast.

“Will he join us for breakfast? Is chilaquiles something he likes?”

“I haven’t made that for him yet,” Carlos said, pulling some of the vegetables she’d pulled out to himself, “However, there isn’t a lot he doesn’t eat. He likes to complain about the lack of good bagels in Austin. He’s very picky when it comes to that. He doesn’t handle heat too well.”

“Only you would pick someone who can’t handle heat in their food.”

She was pleased to note that Carlos blushed and didn’t bristle at that comment as he reached for the knives. She did mean it though. Carlos liked his heat. Just like all of them did.

“He – he identifies as Jewish,” Carlos said and Andrea halted in surprise.

Carlos huffed a bit before he added, “He classifies his diet as kosher style instead of kosher though. Not sure if it’s about it being easier at work that way or because he doesn’t care. He did argue with his mom about attending temple once. Apparently, he hasn’t been since before he moved to Austin.”

“What does it entail?”

“He doesn’t mix meat and dairy. Although, he’s okay with non-dairy products like soy or almond milk to be used with meat. There are rules around which meat and even fish he eats. I might have done a bit of research into that. The most relevant being no pork. He tries to eat more of a vegetarian diet. His mom proved to be the best source so far on what eating kosher entails.”

It was a stab to her heart to know that Carlos had at least met his boyfriend’s mother. More than that, was clearly well-acquainted enough to talk about food and diets. Andrea swallowed her hurt down. This wasn’t her son’s fault. Communication was a two-way street, she reminded herself. Not to mention, she didn’t know under which conditions Carlos had met her.

Concentrating on her own ingredients, she said, “So, how did you meet him?”

Carlos hummed and after a moment said, “We first met on a call. However, we didn’t really talk at that point. He’s part of the rebuilt 126.”

“Michelle Blake’s station?”

“Yeah. She’d invited me out with the others to celebrate their first shift since the call we met on had made the news. At least I don’t think she noticed my interaction with TK to invite me solely on that.”

“That’s been a while though.”

“We didn’t start dating right away. He’d just gone through a bad break up and needed time.”

Andrea looked up at that. There was something in his voice. However, by the time she could see his face, there was nothing to see beyond what he’d portrayed during their conversation so far.

“How long have you been dating then?”

“The solar flares. So, a couple of months now.”

Carlos took a deep breath and Andrea feared what he’d say next.

“He’d been shot on a call and – it gave him cause and time to think about a couple of things.”

“Shot?” Andrea said faintly. It was news she’d grown accustomed to fearing with a husband and son working law enforcement – even if she’d thankfully never gotten the news by anyone but directly from her husband that one time it had happened to him.

“It had been bad, but he managed to pull through well enough.”

“Did you meet his parents then?”

“TK works with his dad. So, I’d met him before that. His mom flew in as a result. I did meet them then. Officially that is. Especially as TK and his dad live together. I guess it was easier to find one place instead of two when they both moved here.”

“I see.”

Soon enough, breakfast was ready. Before she could ask if they should wait for TK, he came down the stairs. It was clear that he wasn’t overly awake yet. As he headed straight for her son, kissing his cheek with a muttered, “Morning Babe.”

Carlos in turn, appeared to have a cup of coffee ready to hand over with a greeting of his own.

She wasn’t sure if it was something about Carlos’ reaction, which seemed rather stiff to her, or that he was just more alert after taking his first sip, but he clearly startled when he spotted her.

“Oh, uh. Good morning,” Carlos’ boyfriend said, “I’m TK.”

Before she could say anything, Carlos seemed to remember his manners and said, “TK, this is my mami, Andrea Reyes. Mami, this is TK. My boyfriend.”

While Carlos still looked as awkward and uncertain as he had during most of their conversation so far, TK simply brightened at the introduction and held out his hand. Andrea decided to ignore it in favor of a quick, “We’re a hugging family,” and went for a hug when she saw no negative response to that declaration.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” TK said. The happiness tinged with just the tiniest bit of awkwardness in his response was a sharp contrast to her son.

“Breakfast is ready,” Carlos said, “How about we all sit down?”

She seemed to have done something right, as he didn’t appear as tense as he’d been earlier.

“Breakfast sounds good,” TK said, “I could probably eat a whole cow.”

“Well, we didn’t prepare a whole cow, but there’s plenty of other food,” Andrea said.

Together they carried the food along with some plates and cutlery to the dining table and sat down to eat.

“This is amazing, babe,” TK was quick to compliment once they started eating, “Being a good cook must clearly run in the family.”

“I could hardly let any of my children move out of the house without knowing how to feed themselves. I’d worry too much about them starving otherwise,” Andrea said.

TK laughed at that and said, “My mom and her partner would just tell me to come over for dinner or we’d go out to eat. My dad, too. We’re a big eating out or getting takeout kind of family.”

“Carlos said you moved to Austin about a year ago. How are you liking it so far?”

“In some ways it’s very much the same as before – people seemingly do stupid stuff everywhere that sees us being called – and in others it’s quite different. I kind of expected to hate it when my dad talked me into it. To my surprise, I’m quite loving it here,” TK said, the adoration clear in his eyes as he looked over at her son at the last bit.

She wasn’t sure if TK either ignored or didn’t notice how tense her son still was. Especially, with the way he kept reaching out to her son. That didn’t mean that she couldn’t see that he was clearly nervous about leaving her with a good impression. Something that he was certainly achieving as she could only watch in awe with how open TK was with his affection towards her son. From the endearments to the way he continuously searched out a physical connection. The longer it went on, the more she noticed her son relax into the interaction though.

“When did you arrive? I must have been dead to the world not to hear the bell,” TK said.

“I had actually spent the night to keep an eye on Carlitos. I slept on the couch.”

That information clearly startled TK. Eventually, with a huff, he said, “Guess I was far too tired last night to notice much of anything when I came here.”

Carlos hummed and said, “And Gwyn let you leave instead of wanting to keep an eye on you? I mean, you didn’t just come straight here, right?”

“She had two hours to check me over and talk. Then my dad startled awake and they started arguing.”

Carlos frowned and said, “What about now? You were just gone for over a week.”

“His concussion and what he did to get it. And the team coming to his rescue and what that involved. With team, primarily, me of course.”

“Do I want to know?”

Andrea watched in fascination as the two talked. It was obvious that TK was both very willing to share what happened, but also a bit apprehensive about giving too much detail.

“He crashed in a helicopter close to the fire line. We and a couple of people from an out of state crew took our engine to get close and find him and the paramedic of the other crew that was also on the helicopter.”

“And the pilot? What were they doing up in a helicopter anyway?”

TK winced and said, “They were trying to find a missing kid from a camp and the pilot died in the crash. Dad and the paramedic hid in an old mineshaft to avoid the approaching fire.”

Andrea wasn’t sure if she was delighted at how much of a trouble maker Carlos had found to liven him up a bit or utterly horrified at the risks being talked about so nonchalantly. Especially knowing that he’d already gotten shot under – to her – unknown circumstances.

Either way, he clearly was good for her son. She was sure that it wasn’t just her imagination that Carlos was relaxing more and more the longer the conversation went on. It was something that she wanted to witness more of and it might just be on to her to make sure that it happened. Waiting for her son to come to her had clearly been the wrong decision to stick with and she dreaded to find out what the true state of her relationship with her son was. Still, she was hopeful that things could be fixed and that she’d see a whole more of a happy and relaxed version of her son.