Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What if you, kind of… clenched your pecs? Is that something you can do?”

“Is that something I can do,” TK echoes, offended. “Watch.” He does something magical that makes his chest stand out in grooves like the Grand Canyon, and Carlos will deny at gunpoint that there’s any related reason why his fingers go suddenly numb around his phone.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Not that Carlos isn’t incredibly appreciative of this. He just is starting to wish they’d done this closer to home. And not just because he kind of really wants to take TK by the waist right now and manhandle him against the wall, but also because they might be in danger of invoking Carlos’ own precinct on a claim of public indecency, what with how dangerously low TK’s pants are riding on his hips, exposing a tantalising strip of firetruck-red underwear.

TK squints appraisingly down at his own abs, as if there was anything he could possibly do to improve upon them. “Can I get a little more moisture?”

Paul, who is stood a few feet out of frame with an expression that is so over this he may as well have dozed off, extends the hand that holds a spray bottle and pumps it three times over TK’s chest without a single change to his expression. It’s honestly impressive.

“Thanks, man,” TK says, beaming in that way of his that’s effortlessly charming but also has this hint of little-kid mischief in it.

Paul raises a single eyebrow.

TK tries a pose where he leans back against the rainbow-painted mural wall they’d picked out for his firefighter calendar submission photos. He leaves his hips jutting outwards a little. “Does this work, babe?”

Carlos remembers his tongue is for making words and not biting viciously. “Yeah,” he manages, sounding just a little hysterical.

TK sees through him in an instant, and just tips his head back with a smug little laugh, not helping the situation at all when the marble column of his neck catches the summer sun.

Some shred of common sense in Carlos takes over and he snaps a photo.

“How many more of these do I have to sit through?” Paul chimes in. “You must have at least a hundred.”

Carlos checks his photo app in a bit of a daze and scrolls and scrolls and can’t find the bottom of his pictures of TK. How he’ll be able to make it through the shortlisting stage, he doesn’t know. Because, yeah, he’s easy. He’s always easy for TK; honestly, it’s somewhat of a point of pride.

And Paul knows this, because he says, “Forget the drinks tonight. Just go. We’ll do it this time next week. You two are too disgusting.”

TK chuckles. “Sorry, Paul. We'll repay you next week.”

Carlos just shoots him a smile of relief. Paul cracks half a grin in response, as if to say, you’re so far gone it’s gross, and I’m happy for you.

“And,” he says as he makes to head off, “I know it won’t be on for long, but put a damn shirt on, TK.”

Carlos grabs the shirt in question, the pink floral one, and takes the liberty of buttoning it up over TK’s still-damp chest before the moms who have been dawdling across the street can leer for any longer over their strollers. He feels TK’s amused exhale gust across his knuckles.

“I feel like you had a little too much fun there,” Carlos defends himself, only half-joking.

“Didn’t think your reaction would be to put more clothes on me.”

Carlos shrugs. “More clothes on the street. Less… less in the…” Oh, God. “Less in the sheets.”

TK chokes on his laugh. Carlos freezes there, hands on TK’s buttons, his brain buffering.

“Let’s take you home, baby,” TK laughs. “I think I broke you.”

“I think you did,” Carlos mumbles.

“I’ll look through the photos." TK slips his hand into Carlos’ as they start to walk, swinging them forwards into the heat of the sun. “But first…”

Carlos swallows. “But first?”

TK rubs at the back of Carlos’ hand with his thumb in gentle circles that are completely innocent by themselves, but Carlos thinks he knows what they imply. “But first,” he says, low enough only Carlos can hear and velvet-lined and just the way that makes Carlos stumble over his own feet. Dios Mio. All this over some suggestive prospective calendar photos.

---

---

As much as TK seems to think the whole hot firefighter calendar thing is ultimately outdated and kind of objectifying, his logic is: “Well, I don’t mind being objectified. For cancer research, you know.”

To which Carlos couldn’t find a suitable response in time, and TK had given his blank face a very dirty kiss that had effectively brought him out of his reverie, so… here they are.

Carlos is half-decent with his phone camera and, if he may say so himself, a very skilled photographer of TK in general. TK overcorrecting in his efforts to look cool and wearing five necklaces, TK rumpled and humming awake, TK making a face because the orange juice he’s been served has pulp in it, TK throwing his arms up in victory when he tops the virtual spin class leaderboard, the line of TK’s shuttered eyelashes when he leans in to kiss Carlos’ jaw on a whim.

And TK is very enthusiastic about--cancer research, which he has every right to be, because of Owen, and because of everyone else cancer has been a bastard to, but–the idea of him topless in random people’s houses?

It’s just… weird.

It’s not a problem, because TK’s body is not Carlos’ to police--ha, police--and he even asked Carlos for his blessing, which Carlos of course gave, because–cancer research.

But it’s just that--everyone already knows TK is hot. Right? Carlos knows. The people TK treats certainly know. TK is more than enough by himself, and throw in the uniform? Even latex gloves have never looked better.

So why, you know, have TK emblazoned all over a very public calendar, dripping halfway out of the already very sexy uniform, to remind people who won’t get to have TK in the way Carlos does?

Because they won’t. Ever. They won’t. Not if Carlos has a say.

(That was a bit harsh.)

(Not untrue.)

---

They cross paths on a call, which isn’t a rare occurrence, their stations being close together, and the moment he’s triaged all his casualties, none of which are in need of taking to hospital, TK waves his phone at Carlos from a distance, pointing at it gleefully.

Carlos can already guess what this means. They submitted TK’s application photos a few weeks ago, and there’s no other big news they’re currently waiting on.

Mitchell nudges him in the ribs, jostling his heavy hand from his utility belt, and snorts. “I think someone’s trying to catch your attention.”

Carlos nods after TK’s windmilling arm in an attempt to remain professional. God, he tries not to smile at the craziness of it, but his heart isn't made of stone.

Mitchell sighs. When Carlos sneaks a glance back at her, she looks half-judgemental, half-endeared. “Go on,” she says. “I can handle this.”

Carlos nudges her back, teasing her for getting soft, and she clicks her tongue in mock-disapproval.

TK is throwing his medical kit into the back of the EMT rig when Carlos gets to him across the street. There’s a downed tree blocking the small crossroads about a hundred or so feet from where the first responder vehicles are parked, causing a lot of dramatics from expensive car-owners caught underneath branches but nothing more urgent.

He whips round to Carlos, as if he sensed him coming. Carlos thinks he gets that too. Like a sixth sense: TK alert.

“Look,” he says, almost breathless, and unearths his phone without taking off his gloves. Yup. He definitely makes latex gloves look good.

Carlos peers at the email TK is now brandishing at him, trying to read the small print. But TK gets tired of waiting for him, evidently, because he bursts, “I got in!”

“Really?” Carlos says, almost forgetting to be pleased.

“Yuh-huh. I’m Mister January. I’m the first guy people will see when they flip through!”

“Mister January,” Carlos says faintly.

A divot appears between TK’s eyebrows, and that’s not something Carlos ever wants to encourage. “Are you--alright, Carlos?” he asks.

Carlos swallows his tongue. “So alright.” They’re not supposed to be affectionate on the job, but he brings up a hand to squeeze TK’s still-extended elbow all the same, because he knows his face isn’t doing a good enough job by itself in convincing TK of his support of this new development. “Knew you’d get in. They’d be blind to turn you down, Mr January.”

TK scrunches up his face, but Carlos knows that’s a face he makes when he’s pleased and doesn't quite know what to do about it. He might be kind of detached from reality right now, his brain crammed with the thought of shirtless TK over a million stroller moms and dads' kitchen sinks, but that little expression never fails to give Carlos a jolt of exhilaration at having pleased his boyfriend.

“Carlos,” TK says.

Carlos pauses. “What?” he says eventually, baffled.

“It’s a date,” TK says, looking incredibly pleased with himself.

The remark Carlos had been planning on dies in his mouth.

TK most definitely takes the opportunity to wiggle his ass when Tommy calls him away. Carlos is so dead.

---

“Ow,” TK says. “Ow.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re, like, razing my skin,” TK complains.

Carlos pulls back from the half-shaved skin of TK’s chest. He wouldn’t admit it, because TK wants to be smooth-chested for the shoot--the damn shoot, he’s started calling it in his head, slightly guiltily–but he grieved a little to see his chest hair go.

“Yes,” he says, trying to be patient. “That is what I’m doing. Would you like me to shave you without a razor?”

TK quirks his eyebrows sarcastically but allows him to come near with the razor again, relaxing.

“Hey,” he says.

Carlos suspects what this is. “Hey,” he says long-sufferingly.

“Did you know my phone calendar was upside down?”

Carlos raises his eyebrows.

TK can barely contain his glee. “I finally realised it was the wrong way round. That was an interesting turn of events.”

It’s so stupid that it passes through the realm of not funny and somehow becomes funny again. Carlos thumps his head down in TK’s lap, chuckling.

“That wasn’t even a good one,” TK says fondly, curling his fingers in the hair at the nape of Carlos’ neck.

“Exactly. It was terrible.”

“You laughed.”

“I did.” Carlos butts his head gently against TK’s thighs, then emerges into the world again, mindful of the razor still in his hand.

TK lets him finish on his chest, then says, as Carlos is moving downwards, “Is it weird?”

“Is what weird?”

“That I’m shaving my chest.”

How to approach this? Carlos shrugs. “Some people dig chest hair, some people don’t.”

“You do,” TK interrupts before Carlos can finish his point, sniggering a little.

Carlos opens his mouth, then shuts it again.

TK reaches an indulgent hand out and ruffles Carlos’ hair. Carlos thinks it’s getting long, but he reckons TK likes it, what with how often his hands migrate to it. Carlos isn’t the only one who likes a little hair, it seems.

“It’s for cancer,” Carlos rounds off.

“For cancer,” TK concurs with a huff down at his half-hairless torso.

For cancer, Carlos tells himself sternly.

---

Carlos tags along for the shoot. He comes to regret this almost instantly.

“That’s it, that’s hot!” exclaims the photoshoot coordinator, who is hovering back and forth between a row of monitors and TK’s ‘stage’, almost blinding to look at in his disco-ball-esque jumpsuit. “Get on the dog’s level, honey. Yeah--yes, let him lick your face! Adorable!”

And TK beams.

They made the decision to stick the firefighters outdoors--in a local park posing as a forest--and pair them with animals to pose with. In TK’s case, he sent a request to pose with Buttercup. Today, Carlos has been relegated to--essentially a coat stand, juggling TK’s civvies and moisturiser and hair mousse and Buttercup’s lead and poop bags and treats. The photography entourage didn’t give him a second glance when he arrived, bustling TK away in an instant to get into his turnout pants and suspenders, and here they are. A hundred techies and passers-by ogling his boyfriend’s naked, hairless torso.

And it’s not just his abs. This is what Carlos realises as he sweats in the summer sun and shifts from foot to foot under his mountain of stuff, feeling distinctly un-sexy himself.

TK is a flirt. He’s known this since the moment he asked him to dance after their first shared call, and Carlos likes it. He likes that TK is so friendly, and he likes being allowed to come up behind him and kiss him on the cheek in those situations, be a little overprotective, tell people without a word this one’s mine. He’s devastatingly handsome, and Carlos doesn’t blame anyone for falling under his spell a little. Even wondering what might be under those turnouts. It’s not like Carlos can claim superiority there.

It’s that smile. It’s that gorgeous smile that TK keeps flashing the camera, the over-loud coordinator, the joggers who stop and stare at the dangerous strip of skin just beneath his hips that his low-hanging pants expose. It’s this priceless thing that, selfishly, Carlos wishes TK would stop just throwing around without a care.

But he doesn’t know how he could possibly say any of this--how he could find the words, let alone express them without being completely controlling, without killing the smile where it lies--so he bundles TK’s sneakers closer to his chest as a poor replacement for the real thing, which is currently being bowled over into a patch of grass by Buttercup, pealing with laughter, all splayed boots and dimples and languid ribs and dog tongue.

“You are smoking, babe! Roll over a little, let me see that tattoo.”

Noticing that TK’s gaze has caught his, Carlos startles. TK pauses, studying Carlos, his smile fading a little.

Something must be wrong with Carlos’ expression. He schools it into a smile--it probably looks rigid, but it’s there--and winks at TK.

TK huffs out a laugh, his eyes closing in the sunlight. The instinct to tackle him and cover that smile from the eyes of the park nearly overwhelms Carlos.

---

Carlos nearly swallows his tongue.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have followed the AFD calendar boys tag. Maybe that was kind of self-destructive. But really? The shit people think they can say nowadays because they’re online is unreal.

“I’m ho-o-ome!”

Carlos flinches up from the couch. He’s not technically doing anything wrong, but it still feels--weird. He swipes away the Twitter tab and tosses his phone onto the couch cushions as he goes to greet TK.

“Hi,” he greets, wrapping TK in a hug. Knowing some random guy on the internet just called his boyfriend daddy.

TK captures his face and kisses him. Carlos does his best to reciprocate, but there’s a bitter taste in his mouth.

Pulling away a little early, he asks, “Alright shift?”

TK hums a yes, but he’s looking at Carlos, lingering a little longer than Carlos would like. He hopes he’s not being obvious.

“You look good today,” TK says, a grin tugging at his lips.

Carlos frowns down at himself. He’s in his oldest sweats and he needs a shave. “Do I?”

“Mm-hmm.” TK wraps his arms around Carlos’ neck, gaze gooey.

“You look… great,” Carlos says, because–actually, it’s true. TK must have showered and changed at the firehouse into these tight-at-the-hips light-wash jeans and a baby-pink shirt that’s just a little tight around his biceps and buttoned low enough to reveal his half-regrown chest hair. (Carlos thanks God that he didn’t decide to pick up shaving it.)

“Do I?” TK repeats, all coy.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I did spend a while picking these out,” says TK, tugging innocently at the waistband of Carlos’ sweats, “But I suppose if you asked nicely I could let you take them off.”

Carlos swallows. God, he does want to, but right now--

This is really not the moment. But Carlos can’t say that without revealing that he internet-stalks everyone who makes a comment about TK’s calendar spread.

He runs a hand through TK’s hair briefly, trying not to be too curt. “How about we appreciate each other over dinner first?”

TK’s hands edge away from Carlos’ waistband.

“Yeah. Of course.”

---

It’s not just the forward Twitter comments. It’s the way TK seems to sort of bask in the attention.

Carlos is called to arrest a combative drunk and disorderly who had been spray painting nonsense on her crotchety neighbour’s fence; Mitchell goes to calm the 911 caller while Carlos heads for the drunk man, who is being looked over by TK.

Tommy and Nancy are standing at a distance, claiming TK’s the only person he’d let treat him.

“I have that calendar on my bedroom wall,” he hears as he nears them both.

“Do you now?” TK says with a smile. He presses a stethoscope to the man’s chest, moving aside the collar of his shirt, and the man takes this as a cue to lean in, too close to be professional.

Carlos quickens his pace. But TK’s laughing.

“Guess who my favourite is?”

TK quirks a sly eyebrow. “Mister August is pretty hot, I’ve heard.”

The guy slurs out a laugh. “That dog yours?”

“My dad’s,” says TK, straightening the perp's rucked-up shirt with an odd amount of care. Something ticks wrongly in Carlos’ heart seeing that. “Buttercup. He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”

“Not the most beautiful thing in that photo.”

TK laughs again, all warm and flirty.

“Any injuries?” Carlos cuts in. His cuffs are held tight in his fisted hand.

TK shakes his head. “He’s just fine,” he says, patting the perp on the chest.

He chases TK’s face as he leans back to sling his stethoscope back around his neck.

“O-kay,” Carlos says curtly, using the motion of wresting the guy’s hands behind his back to yank him away from TK. “Sir, you’re under arrest.”

“Don’t be too rough, Carlos,” TK calls after them. Carlos can hear the wink he bookends the remark with.

As he loads the swaying perp into the backseat of his and Mitchell’s car, he says to him under his breath, “Mister January’s got a boyfriend, in case you wondered. And he's liable to arrest you if you try anything."

The man just smiles, his head lolling back against the seat. “Someone’s jealous,” he sing-songs.

And this isn’t the last time TK is fawned over or hit on. Carlos sees it happen with a few patients, but from what he hears in passing from Nancy, who seems to find the whole thing no more than faintly amusing, even the occasional firefighter or medic from another unit will sidle up to him under the pretence of needing professional assistance. Nobody does anything scandalous--or, not as far as Carlos knows, because TK doesn’t talk to him about any of this.

It becomes a thing that has to rest under Carlos’ skin. He doesn’t know how to broach it, and TK doesn’t, so Carlos doesn’t.

---

Carlos is on the couch, and once again, the doom-scrolling has taken hold.

It’s not like the AFD calendar is trending by any means, but it’s gaining steady support, which--which means they’re raising a really amazing amount of money, and which means a really amazing amount of people are buying TK’s hips to hang on their walls.

He’s drawn out of his rumination when a big mwah of a kiss lands on the crown of his head. Without thinking, he breaks into a smile.

“You look… drawn,” TK murmurs from behind him. Carlos has quickly swiped away from Twitter and onto his Instagram feed, where Harry Styles has posted about a photoshoot. Carlos isn’t particularly into him, but TK is, so.

“I’m fine,” Carlos murmurs.

“Are you drawn?”

“I’m fine,” Carlos repeats more decisively.

Then there’s a hand sneaking down his front, past his collarbone and lingering at his pecs. “Nah. Something’s up.” Lips whisper at the edge of Carlos’ ear. He can’t help shivering at the sensation.

He decides to tease TK a little and continues staring down at his phone, humming noncommittally.

TK’s hand continues its exploration over his shirt, his fingertip circling teasingly over a nipple. Carlos bites his lip.

“What’s up?” TK asks, voice low.

Carlos scrolls idly through his feed, not at all focused on the photos reeling past.

In a rush, TK is on the couch beside Carlos, slinging a leg across his lap. He slips a hand beneath the hem of Carlos’ t-shirt and starts to toy with the hem of it, occasionally brushing Carlos’ stomach with a stray knuckle, intoxicating. Carlos wants to keep the game up, but he’s also not slept with TK in quite a while because of one thing and another and he’s a little needy.

“Carlos.” TK’s wheedling outright now. “Give me attention.”

Carlos grips his phone tighter, waggling his eyebrows provocatively, but in the same moment TK plucks it out of his hands and straddles his hips, taking the opportunity to shift his weight a little in Carlos’ lap. Oh. That’s good.

Bracing his arms on the backrest of the couch either side of Carlos’ shoulders, TK leans in--and pauses.

“Hey,” Carlos says.

He watches TK’s face slip into a guarded kind of sadness from inches away.

Searching for an explanation for this unacceptable development, he says, “Babe?”

“Do you not want to have sex with me anymore?”

Carlos’ jaw loosens. He realises after a pause that he’s still sat staring uncomprehendingly at the morose knit in TK’s brow and that he’s not saying things, quick, he has to say things now, so he fish-mouths for a second while he tries to wrap his mind around the complete untruth that TK has just uttered.

Finally, he manages to say, “What?”

TK shrugs, looking as if he’s about to justify what he just said.

Carlos cuts in before he can. “I--I so want to have sex with you, TK. I don’t get how you could--”

And then it all starts to add up. The times he’s swerved TK’s advances because he couldn’t help but think of lusty strangers on the Internet. The prickly looks he’s started to shoot anyone who so much as compliments TK. He knows he’s being kind of crazy, but he can’t seem to stop it. And it must be making TK feel like crap.

“Oh,” Carlos says. “Oh, God.” He sets his hands on TK’s waist and squeezes. “I know we haven’t done anything in a while.”

“Yeah,” TK says tonelessly, looking at Carlos’ shoulder.

“It’s not because I don’t want you. It’s so far from--it’s, it’s just--God, it’s just the whole calendar thing has me wound up way more than it has any right to.”

That stops TK. His eyes flicker up to meet Carlos’ and he squints, lip curling. “The calendar?” he echoes.

Carlos lets out a sigh that comes out as more of a self-deprecating scoff. He lets his head tip forwards to rest against TK’s stomach. He knows, somehow, somewhere near his gut, that he can still have this. “You being all… flirty and--sexy. No, that’s not even the problem, not that in isolation, because you know I like that.”

He hears a snort above him.

“And it’s your body, and--it’s really a, a great body, so, like--yes, show it off, and that’s your decision, not mine, but just--it’s weird when people buy the calendar and think it means they own you too.”

“Are… are you jealous?”

“No,” Carlos mumbles into TK’s shirt.

“You’re jealous,” TK gasps. “You were.”

“I wasn’t,” Carlos grumbles.

“That drunk guy that you arrested. I thought you were being especially… arrest-y.”

Now it’s Carlos’ turn to snort. “I mean… I did feel a bit like… I love that you’re so friendly and approachable and that everyone loves you but then when they flirt back and they’ve also got a half-naked photo of you looking absolutely devastating on their bedroom wall--it gets weird, trying to do stuff with you. I keep thinking about the Twitter comments.”

“You read the Twitter comments?”

Carlos raises his head into the field of TK’s gaze shamefully. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” TK says, as if pieces are falling into place for him too, although there’s significantly more relief in his voice. “So you saw the thirsty one from that one guy?”

“Yeah,” Carlos squeaks.

“Um,” TK says suddenly.

“What?”

“I still--feel like…” TK sighs, licks his lips nervously. Then, with anxiously imploring eyes, he says, “I feel like you’ve been holding back ever since Sadie. And the whole… you know.”

Carlos feels his mouth form an o.

Before he can respond, TK says, “You know, I can still give consent. You won’t just break me. Just because it’s been difficult with my mental health--"

He’s started smoothing the neckline of Carlos’ T-shirt, back and forth; Carlos lays his hand over TK’s, calming the nervous motion.

“I know,” he says, injecting as much sincerity into the words as he can. “I know that. I just wanted to give you space if you needed. I didn’t want to push you to pretend like everything’s normal.”

“But sometimes, Carlos,” TK says, “That’s exactly what I need. To pretend everything’s normal. To just fool around with my boyfriend.” He cracks a small, wry smile, his head tilted sideways. “If I’m in the mood. Which I was.”

Carlos runs his hand along TK’s wrist to settle on his arm, wanting to hold him, to prove to him that he is so into TK, it makes him want to cross oceans and slay dragons to get home after every shift. “I’m sorry. I--"

“I thought maybe… you weren’t as attracted to me anymore.” TK’s voice is quiet, apologetic. He sits back a little in Carlos’ lap, as if he doesn’t know if he should move away. “Because of all this mess with my addiction. I mean, you saw me high, and then you saw me have a major breakdown over being high, and then the string of daily NA and AA meetings… I get that it’s--really not pretty.”

That makes something vicious curl in the pit of Carlos’ stomach.

“And so I wanted to… feel sexy again, I guess.” TK laughs hollowly. “I know that’s kind of stupid.”

He takes TK’s worrying face in his hands, gently. “TK,” he says, soft and fervent. “You’re not stupid, baby. You… TK. You--you are pretty. You being in recovery doesn’t change a thing. You are–quite literally the sexiest man I have laid eyes on. Oh my God.”

TK dissolves into snickers, hiding his blush in Carlos’ shoulder.

“No, I’m telling the truth,” Carlos insists, but he can’t help grinning even as he seeks out TK’s gaze again. “I’d find you attractive lying in a pool of your own vomit.”

Don’t tempt fate,” TK teases.

“I don’t care if I do. I’m deadly serious.”

A smile falters on TK’s face, then flickers to life with almost unbearable brightness. That smile, all for Carlos.

“So… I suppose--I promise to let you know if I’m feeling weird and jealous.”

“Yeah,” TK chuckles. “And I’ll let you know when I need a sexy pick-me-up.”

“Do. Don’t resort to a half-naked photoshoot for a globally available calendar first, please.”

“I did look good, though, right?”

“You looked so good I had trouble working the phone, TK. You looked perfect.”

TK hums amusedly and dotingly, and leans in, kissing Carlos with steady surety. Carlos lets it linger, pulling TK close with a hand on the round of his bicep.

When they break away, still so close they’re breathing the same air, TK says, “Hey, Carlos.”

“What?”

TK’s grinning wickedly now. “I think all this calendar stuff will blow over real soon.”

“Yeah?” Carlos replies, knowing exactly where TK is leading and indulging him because he’s a sap who thinks his boyfriend is the hottest thing to walk this earth.

“Yeah,” TK echoes. He waits out a dramatic pause, sinking his teeth into his lip, then: “Its days are numbered.”

“I love you,” Carlos breathes around the bulk of his beam.

TK lights up. Damn, Carlos has to tell him that more often. He needs to start doing it an obnoxious amount.

“Well, that was a very positive response,” TK starts saying, pretending not to notice as Carlos circles his thighs with eager hands. “How about this one: that new firefighter calendar looks like it promises some hot months ahead.”

Carlos noses into his space. “Did you make that up yourself?” he titters.

TK shrugs, pursing his lips together hard to contain his own laughter.

Carlos seizes his cheeks. “Come here,” he laughs, “Shut up about calendars.”

TK returns his kiss, sighing into it. “Mm,” he says. “You’ll have to make me.”

“I’m a cop, baby,” Carlos says, trying to parody a cliché action hero. “I’m authorised to manhandle you if you don’t behave.”

TK peals with laughter at that. “Looks like it’s in my best interest to resist arrest,” he says, tightening his legs around Carlos.

He leans back towards Carlos, one hand drifting up into his hair, the other diving under his shirt without preamble. Carlos huffs into the kiss, which is long and sweet and beginning to tilt into the realm of dirty.

After some period of making out and shameless grinding that Carlos doesn’t care to count, he professes inches from TK’s lips, “You know, nothing will change how into you I am.”

TK quirks his mouth. “Not if I’m old and put my hip out?”

“Geriatric and missing all your teeth. I’d still think you’re perfect.”

TK’s half-laughing, half-trying to hide his blush. “Carlos,” he smiles.

“I mean it.” Carlos kisses him, pulling TK’s lip back with him, making him moan. It works every time. “And,” he continues, fixing TK with eyes he knows are blown wide with desire, “I think it’s my duty now to show you just how much I mean it.”

“Oh, definitely,” TK agrees, adding a second hand beneath Carlos’ t-shirt, wandering up and down the planes of his abdomen but always pit-stopping at his pecs. “I have to add,” he says, all sultry, “That jealous Carlos is kind of a turn-on.”

Carlos stops. “That’s… inconvenient for me.”

“Don’t think too hard about it,” TK whispers in his ear, and all of a sudden, the thought disappears from his mind. “Just do me. And quickly, please, because I’m kind of gasping after you decided to be a prude all this time.”

“My boyfriend,” Carlos sighs. “Ever the romantic.”

“Shut up,” TK says, delighted. He kisses Carlos. “Shut up.” Kisses him again, reaching for his fly.

And the rest? The rest is not even calendar-appropriate, let’s just say that.

And riding may have been involved.

And that was before they went for round two.

---