Chapter Text
It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Carlos first heard the three little words that sent his heart soaring as the fell from TK’s lips, but it feels like a lot longer.
The room is exactly the same, right down to the sheets, and yet it feels like even the air has changed. As if it’s lighter, easier to inhale, and is more refreshing with each panted breath as they gasp it in. It seems to move more fluidly around them as they twist and mould to the shape of each other's bodies, growing taught with tension as the pleasure gradually builds between them. Until, they finally reach their peak and collapse against the pillows, sated, and drunk off of each other's lips. They take deep gulps of it as they come down from their high, waiting for their heartbeats to settle, and Carlos delights in the fresh feeling as it fills his lungs.
Then, Tk had mumbled the words while sleeping, and Carlos hadn't known what it would mean for them going forwards. Now though, as they’re once again entangled beneath the sheets like before, TK’s eyes are open and vibrant. They stare up at Carlos, sparkling with satisfaction and alight with undisguised joy in the soft yellow glow of the bedside lamp and Carlos sees his own future reflecting back at him. Their heated gazes stay locked and TK’s seems to burn brighter when Carlos, despite his near-speechless exhaustion, sends a raspy drawl gliding across the rumpled sheets.
“I love you, TK.”
It’s the only time so far that Carlos has said it first, he realises, and he spends a moment smiling softly to himself just because he can. He loves TK, and TK loves him, and absolutely nothing is holding him back from shouting those words to the world as often as he wants from this moment on. For now though, he’ll settle for intimate whispers in the privacy of their bed that have both their cheeks turning pink above contented smiles. And when TK leans up for a lingering kiss that makes them both breathless, Carlos tastes his reply before it falls from his lover's kiss-swollen mouth. The words are as sweet on his tongue as they are to his ears, a unique flavour that Carlos swears to cherish forever:
“I love you too, Carlos.”
They fall asleep together exactly like that; tiredness seeping down to their bones, bodies so closely intertwined that they become one shadow in the darkness, and surrounded by the love that radiates between them.