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sugdenlovesdingle · 11 months ago

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This is so so SO late but @chicgeekgirl89 here is your @tarlos-santa gift!

I absolutely loved all three of your prompts but in the end I went with: They lose power on Christmas Eve and Carlos freaks out about dinner but they make the most of it and still celebrate together.

And after several rewrites, mental breakdowns, existential crises, exasperation over the English language, and wondering if it's even real... this is the result and I hope you like it! Merry Christmas!!

---

Perfectly unperfect (AO3)

“What are your plans for the holidays, cap?” TK asked, making conversation as they headed back to the firehouse after a call on their last shift before Christmas.

“Oh, nothing much. I’m just going to enjoy the downtime with the girls. Staying in our pyjamas all day, eating junk food, and watching Christmas movies.”

“What about you and Carlos?” Nancy asked. “Let me guess, not leaving the bed unless absolutely necessary?” she teased.

TK snorted.

“I wish. Carlos has been planning the dinner for weeks. We’ve been all over the city to get ingredients and I thought he was going to cry when his schedule changed and he had to work Christmas Eve.”

“Are you hosting the family Christmas dinner then?”

“No, that’s the worst of it.” TK sighed. “Dad invited us over and so did his parents but we decided to stay home. So it’s just going to be the two of us. And he’s still bought enough food as if both our entire families are coming over.”

“Oh that sucks dude. Your husband cooking you a fancy holiday dinner? Damn that’s rough.” Nancy said sarcastically. “I’m glad nobody is going to do that for me this year. That would just suck.”

“Shut up.” TK rolled his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate him cooking us dinner, it’s that he’s stressing out over it when I would be happy with a frozen pizza and watching Home Alone in bed.”

“Have you tried telling him that?” Tommy asked. “Communication is the key to a long and happy marriage.”

“I have, but he just gives me the Carlos Cow Eyes and tells me he wants to make it special for us. And I can resist anything but that. Those soulful brown eyes will be the death of me.”

Tommy laughed.

“I remember those days well. Charles’ laugh made me melt when we first got married. And then when the girls were born, seeing him with them…” she sighed. “I was a goner.”

“Yeah, I’m still working on Carlos making friends with Lou. He’ll make him his salad and sometimes even feeds him crickets or meal worms but he still won’t touch him with more than just a finger.”

Nancy looked at him.

“How do you go from babies to lizards? Your mind is such a strange place sometimes.”

“Lou is our baby!” TK said as he turned the ambulance onto the street the firehouse was on. “What are your plans for the holidays anyway? Are you going to LA to meet up with Mateo and meet the family?”

“No, me and Marj are just going to hang out and spend it together. We’re getting Chinese food and I’m making her watch the Lord of the Rings movies because she’s never seen them.”

“Really? Do you have room for two more? We’ll bring snacks.” TK jokingly asked.

“No way dude, I need a break from seeing your face every day.”

“You see Marjan’s face every day too.”

“That’s different. I’m not stuck in an ambulance for hours with her every day. And she has a nicer face than you.” Nancy teased and jumped out of the ambulance after TK had parked it in its usual spot in the firehouse. “Oh look, if it isn’t mister soulful eyes. Hey Carlos.”

Carlos gave her a confused look but returned the greeting.

“Hey babe, Nancy doesn’t like my face.” TK mock pouted and kissed Carlos hello. “She says she needs a break from me.”

“Does she? Well then it’s her lucky day, because I’m here to take you home. And I do like your face. And the rest of you.”

“That’s good to hear. But my shift doesn’t end for another hour. And yours not until seven.”

“I pulled in a few favours. The guy who transferred here from New Jersey a few months ago agreed to cover for me if I introduce him to your dad sometime. He nearly fainted when I told him who my father in law is. Apparently Owen Strand is a legend over there.”

“Not just over there. He’s a legend over here too.” Owen walked up to them. “Did you know local news wants to interview me? They’re doing a local heroes feel good thing for the holidays. Exciting isn’t it?”

“Yeah, definitely. We should give you pictures to sign. You could hand them out to your fans on calls.” TK teased.

“Very funny. See if I mention my ungrateful gremlin of a son in my interview now. I’ll just mention my always friendly and nice son in law who is just the kind of person to stop by after his shift to wish everyone happy holidays.” Owen patted Carlos’ shoulder. “And happy holidays to you too, Carlos.”

They hung around the firehouse until the end of TK’s shift and then went home together after wishing everyone a happy Christmas. Only when they stepped outside the weather had changed for the worse. It had started raining and the wind had picked up.

“Good thing I picked up the last supplies for our Christmas dinner before I came here.” Carlos commented, looking at the dark clouds through the windshield of his car after they got in.

“Was there anything left in the store you hadn’t bought then?” TK said, only half joking. “We have enough food to last until Christmas next year.”

“I just… wanted us to have options. You didn’t want the turkey dinner…”

“So you just bought everything else?” TK asked and leaned over the gear stick to kiss Carlos’ cheek. “I love you but when I said I didn’t want the whole turkey dinner, I meant I didn’t want you spending the whole day in the kitchen cooking some 10 course meal. We could just get a burger or tacos on the way home.”

“We can’t get tacos at Christmas, TK.” Carlos insisted. “And I don’t want to drive halfway across the city in this weather anyway.”

By the time they made it home, the rain had gotten even worse and unfortunately Carlos’ usual parking space was taken, which meant they had to park further down the street and run to the front door.

They were both soaking wet in seconds and causing a mini flood when they walked into their loft a few minutes later.

TK dumped his keys in the bowl by the door and the bag he was carrying on the kitchen counter.

“This can wait.” He decided, and turned to Carlos. “You, me, shower, now.”

“You go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute. Just let me put this stuff away.” Carlos replied, opening the freezer and putting a tub of TK’s favourite ice cream in.

“Babe. I need to get out of these wet clothes… and I could use some help.” TK said, grabbing Carlos’ hand and dragging him to the bathroom. “Like I said… you, me, shower, now.”

In the end, Carlos didn’t need much convincing and TK decided that this was easily the best Christmas eve he’d ever had.

Especially since he spent the rest of the night making out on the sofa with his husband like a couple of teenagers, instead of watching some cheesy Christmas movie they’d put on as background noise.

When he woke up the next morning, he reached out for Carlos, hoping to convince him to sleep in or possibly even stay in bed the whole day, but found his side of the bed empty and cold.

He listened for clues on what Carlos was doing, and most importantly where, but didn’t hear much except the storm still raging outside their loft.

“Babe?” he called out, sitting up in bed. “Carlos?”

“I’m here.” Carlos appeared in the doorway carrying a tray filled with food and fresh juice. “I was making breakfast.” He put the tray on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss TK. “Good morning. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” TK replied and then did a double take. “Wait… you made me breakfast in bed? Who are you and what have you done to my husband?”

Carlos chuckled and got into bed.

“I wanted to do something nice for you. For us. We’ll just change the sheets when we’re done.”

“I could get used to this.” TK commented and bit into a chocolate covered strawberry. “Though we could’ve just gotten coffee and pastries from that place on fifth.”

“Not in this weather. The storm from last night has only gotten worse. My mom texted me earlier and told us not to drive out to the ranch because it’s too dangerous.”

“We weren’t going to…”

“I know. But now we’re officially excused. They have Ana and Diego and the kids staying with them anyway, they won’t miss us.”

After breakfast, TK managed to convince Carlos to stay in bed and watch a movie with him, even though he knew the other man was itching to get started on the Christmas lunch and dinner he’d planned.

The storm was still raging outside but snuggled up together under the covers in their bed, neither man really cared.

TK facetimed his mom and they watched Jonah tear open the presents they’d sent over.

“You two spoil him.” Gwyn said, sounding mildly exasperated but smiling. “Enzo and I agreed to keep it simple and then you two buy him everything from his list.”

“It’s for his birthday too.” TK argued. “And I just want him to know he has a cool big brother in Austin who will buy him cool presents.”

“He fought two soccer moms for that robot dog.” Carlos told Gwyn. “It got ugly.”

“It’s ok. There wasn’t any blood.” TK joked and they all laughed.

“Did you get our presents?” Gwyn asked.

“You mean the plane tickets in our names? As a not so subtle way of telling us to come visit?”

“I don’t do subtle. It just complicates things.” Gwyn argued. “And I haven’t seen you two since the wedding! It’s been way too long. I’ve almost forgotten what you look like.”

“You’re seeing us now.”

“I just see your face.”

“I’ve been told it’s a very nice face.”

“It is a nice face, I made that face. But I’d like to see the rest of you again too. And you too Carlos.”

“We’ll do our best to come visit as soon as we can in the new year.” Carlos promised and got out of bed. “I’ll leave you two to talk, I’ll get started on dinner.” He said and pulled one of TK’s hoodies over his head.

Only before he’d even made it out of the bedroom, there was a loud clash of thunder and the loft went dark.

“What the hell?”

Carlos tried the light switch next to the bedroom door but nothing happened.

“Is it just us?” TK asked, getting out of bed after quickly saying goodbye to his mom. “We didn’t have that many appliances running that we’d blow a fuse, did we?”

“I don’t know.” Carlos said, frustrated. “I’ll go check the fuse box downstairs. Do we still have that flashlight?”

“Kitchen drawer I think. Do we have any new fuses?”

“I don’t know. I thought I bought some when we moved in. When I moved in…”

“That was ages ago.”

“I know that, TK.” Carlos snapped but regretted it immediately. “It might not be the fuse anyway. I’ll just go have a look downstairs and we’ll take it from there.” He slipped on his work boots and grabbed his keys, and all but slammed into their neighbour when he opened the door.

“Oh, hi. Did your power just go out too?” she asked, looking past him into the loft. “I was talking to my sister in Ohio and suddenly everything went poof. I think it’s the storm.”

“Yeah, everything went black for us too.” Carlos told her and noticed more neighbours coming out of their apartments to see what was going on. “It looks like it’s the whole building.”

“Actually, it’s the whole city. Or parts of the city.” TK joined them in the doorway and showed Carlos his phone. “I still have that 911 scanner on my phone. There are calls coming in from all over the city. The storm knocked some power lines down and they can’t fix them until it’s over.”

“Fantastic.” Carlos felt a tension headache building behind his eyes.

“Do you boys have candles? I have plenty, you can have some. I like to light some for dinner this time of year. It gets dark so early.”

“Thanks, but we’re ok Mrs Evans.” TK said and quickly closed the door. “What do we do now?” He asked Carlos.

“I don’t know. We have all this food that’s going to go bad if we don’t eat it, but we can’t prepare it because our stove is electric. And the ice cream in the freezer is going to melt and I bought it especially for our Christmas dinner because it’s your favourite.”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” TK put his hands on Carlos’ shoulders to stop him from spiralling. “The food will keep for a while. It’s only been 10 minutes and if we keep the fridge closed, it’ll stay cool. And we’ll just eat the ice cream now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Why not? Our Christmas, our ice cream, our rules. Grab a spoon.”

They sat down at their dining table with the ice cream, even though neither of them really felt like it, and TK could tell Carlos was distracted.

“Babe, what are you thinking about?” he pushed.

“What are we going to do for food? We can’t even have leftovers because we can’t heat anything up.”

“We could go get tacos after all.”

“Are they even open on Christmas day?” Carlos asked and pulled out his phone to look it up, but put it back down again right away. “We need to preserve the batteries of our devices.” He explained.

TK wanted to argue that they probably wouldn’t last for the entire time the power was likely to be out, but then his phone started ringing in his hand.

“Dad, hi, not a good time right now.”

“Did you just lose power too? It looked like your area got hit too but the map I saw wasn’t too clear.”

“Yeah, everything is dark here.” TK sighed and looked at Carlos who had started pacing up and down the loft. “We’re kind of screwed because the stove is electric too.”

“Come to me.” Owen suggested. “Not me, me… but the firehouse. It has a generator so there is power and heat. And a working stove.”

“I don’t know dad, we wanted to just do our own thing this Christmas.”

“In an apartment without power? Don’t be ridiculous TK. Just pack up and come over here.”

After a few minutes back and forth and Carlos getting pulled into the conversation, they promised Owen they were on their way, and a little over an hour later, they walked into the firehouse.

“And there was me thinking I wouldn’t have to see this place for a week.” TK sighed.

They greeted his dad and the crew from B-shift and TK got Lou set up in Owen’s office while Carlos put the food away.

They joined the crew in the lounge area where everyone was gathered around the TV and keeping a close eye on the weather report. Carlos sat down in his usual spot next to TK but barely said a word to anyone.

When Tommy and the twins came in some time later, he got up to greet them and wish them a merry Christmas, but for Nancy, Marjan, Paul, and Asha, he barely managed more than a smile and a quick “Hey.”.

TK was starting to worry and enlisted Paul’s help to pull him out of his funk.

“Carlos my man.” Paul started, patting Carlos’ shoulder. “We need to feed these people. We don’t want Marjan getting hungry. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering those first few days of Ramadan last year.”

“I heard that!” Marjan yelled.

“Good! You were hangry and we all suffered!”

Carlos laughed a little and agreed to help Paul cook.

“Do we have enough to feed all of these people?”

“Yeah I think so. Asha and I brought our food and I saw the mountain of food that was already in the fridge when I put ours in there. We’re alright. Come on, let’s figure out what to make.”

Carlos joined Paul in the kitchen and soon there were multiple pots on the stove and the firehouse was starting to smell amazing.

TK was put on chopping duty, while the Vega twins helped Owen set up extra tables and chairs for everyone, and Nancy and Marjan attempted to fold the paper napkins they found in fancy shapes following a YouTube tutorial.

“Babe, come taste this.” Carlos held out a spoon for TK. “Good?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing. Is this what you were planning on making for us at home?”

“No, but with the stuff that was in the fridge here, and the stuff Paul and Asha brought we were able to experiment a little.”

“We should let you experiment more often.” TK said and stole another bite of the sauce. “This is really good.”

“Yeah? Not too spicy?”

“No, it’s perfect. Just like you.”

Carlos blushed and ducked his head but still let TK kiss his cheek and returned the “I love you” he murmured in his ear.

“If you two are going to be like this all night, we’re going back to Nance’s apartment.” Marjan announced and everyone laughed.

“Yeah, have some mercy on us single people.” Owen said, joining in on the teasing and stealing a quick taste of the food.

Dinner was somewhat chaotic and a little cramped since the firehouse kitchen wasn’t built to seat this many people at once, but everyone enjoyed their meal, and each other’s company.

Even though B-shift got called out and Owen had to join them on their call and leave their makeshift Christmas party.

“I vote we put on LOTR.” Nancy told the rest when they’d all settled down in the lounge after dinner. “Marj has never seen them and I said I’d educate her this Christmas.”

“We were planning on watching The Holiday.” Tommy said. “You can’t go wrong with a romcom at Christmas.”

“I haven’t seen The Holiday either.” Marjan admitted. “I’m not a big movie person ok? I get bored.” She defended herself when Nancy asked how she’d managed that and the Vega twins started shooting movie titles at her to check which ones she had seen.

“I guess it’s Jude Law first, and Orlando Bloom second then.” Asha settled the debate. “It’s not like any of us are going anywhere any time soon.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me.” Paul started. “If any of you guys snore, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“You’ve shared a bunk room with most of us for years!” Marjan reminded him. “You know we don’t snore. Judd does. And Mateo sometimes.”

“And my dad.” TK grinned. “It used to wake me up when I was little. I thought it was the train going past our apartment but it was just him.” He said and everyone laughed.

They spent the rest of the night watching movies, and TK let Evie feed Lou and walk him around the firehouse on the leash and harness he’d bought a while ago.

Carlos had gone quiet again, but TK figured he was just tired and let him be.

By the time Owen returned with the B-shift, everyone was starting to get tired and Tommy took charge in working out the sleeping arrangements.

The twins wanted to sleep in the bunk room with the crew but Tommy insisted they slept in her captain’s quarters with her, while Owen gave up his to TK and Carlos.

“I know it’s nothing like your bed at home but it’s better than separate bunks with the rest of them right beside you.”

“We’re fine to sleep in the bunk room.” Carlos assured him. “We don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s fine. I insist.” Owen said and with TK’s help got Carlos to give in and accept the bed.

It was a small double bed barely big enough for the two of them, but they made it work.

“I’m sorry.” Carlos sighed, trying to get comfortable in the small bed after TK had turned off the lights and gotten into bed with him.

“Sorry for what?”

“For ruining our first Christmas as a married couple.”

“What? What are you talking about? Unless you caused this storm and the power cut, you didn’t ruin anything.” TK insisted. “And even if you did cause it, I’ve had a great night. I have you, Lou, my dad, our friends… That’s all I need.”

“I just… I had all these plans. I wanted to cook you something nice and exchange gifts by our tree and just… make our own traditions.” Carlos explained, avoiding looking at TK. “Especially after I made you deal with all of the crazy Reyes family traditions last year.”

“I had a great time last year too.” TK promised. “Especially when your abuela started talking about what Christmas was like when you were little. I loved that little look into how you grew up.”

“She was just happy to have someone to talk to that hadn’t heard all of her stories about 500 times before.”

“Well it’s a good thing I was a willing audience then.” TK laughed a little. “She even went out of her way to speak English with me the whole night, and she was so excited when I told her I was learning Spanish.”

“Yeah she told me to hold onto you when we left because you were a good boy with a good heart.” Carlos told him, smiling at the memory. “The whole Reyes family loves you.”

TK smiled and wrapped his arms around Carlos a little tighter.

“That’s good, but I’m only really interested in one of them loving me. Though technically his name is Reyes-Strand now.”

Carlos sighed and rolled onto his back.

“That’s why I wanted this Christmas to be special. The start of our life together.”

“Technically our life together started a long time ago.”

“You know what I mean.” Carlos sighed again. “Everything is official now. We’re married, the name change has gone through… I wanted things to be special. Perfect. Not… whatever this disaster was.”

“Baby, look at me.” TK said and waited for Carlos to do so. “I don’t care about presents or the perfect dinner… All I want for Christmas is you.” He said and kissed him for emphasis.

“Did you just quote Mariah Carey at me?”

TK shrugged.

“She made a pretty good point with that song.”

#911 lone star #tarlos #tarlos fic #tarlossanta23 #carlos reyes #tarlossanta #tk strand #my writing #Why yes I am the absolute worst with deadlines #And yes I did write the ending first #and then couldn't figure out how to make the rest of it fit #which is probably obvious

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