#Tarlos Fanfiction One-shots

He Didn't Move

This storyline is inspired by @impossiblebye's tweet: 'TK used to sleep alone whenever Alex was out cheating or just not caring. Now he has a husband who won't dare move an inch while he peacefully sleeps beside him as he works.' with that GIF from Season 3, Episode 5—TK falling asleep on Carlos while he's working on the kidnapping case. 🥺

I decided to set it in their boyfriend era instead of married life, but I hope this fic still captures that sweet moment between them.

Also—huge congrats to Ronen on his new project! So proud of our TK! 💙

*****

TK woke to the sound of keys tapping and a muted scrape of a highlighter cap. He'd been asleep in their bedroom, warm in Carlos's side of the sheets, and the quiet was wrong in the way that says your person isn't where you left him. The loft was dark except for a pool of lamplight spilling across the couch and the long line of Carlos's shoulders. He was half sprawled against the armrest, glasses low on his nose, a laptop on his thighs and a notepad bristling with sticky notes balanced against one knee.

"Hey," TK whispered, voice sleep-soft. "You still at it?"

Carlos didn't look away from the screen. "Kidnapping case," he said, quiet and steady. "There's a six-minute gap in the CCTV coverage around the rec center. I think our guy knew the camera schedule."

TK padded closer, bare feet whispering against the floor. "You've been up all night?"

"Since midnight." Carlos's mouth curved, the closest thing to a smile he could muster without abandoning the thread of focus. "Go back to bed, babe. I'll be in when I can turn my brain off."

TK stopped at the end of the couch and took him in—the tense set of Carlos's jaw, the pen kept exactly parallel to the laptop edge, the half-drunk mug of coffee gone cold. He remembered the first time he'd seen this look on Carlos, the heat of purpose that made his eyes dark and steady. It had scared him once because intensity used to mean unpredictability in his old life, back when Alex's intensity pointed at everyone but TK. This was different. Carlos's intensity always pointed toward the problem, never at the person he loved.

"You should sleep," TK said, soft but stubborn.

"I can't," Carlos said, just as soft. "Not while she's out there."

TK exhaled, something tender catching behind his ribs. "What are you looking for?"

"A silver SUV that pops into frame for half a second," Carlos said. "Wrong turn signal. Same car shows up three blocks over, two minutes later, but there's a sticker in the back window that isn't on the first shot. I need to figure out if it's the same vehicle or if I'm chasing ghosts."

TK didn't answer with words. He slid his knee onto the cushion, then squeezed himself down into the narrow seam between Carlos and the backrest, fitting his body along the length of Carlos's torso until he was almost lying on top of him like in the photo TK teased him about. His cheek found the warm slope of Carlos's bicep. His hand curled there instinctively and stayed.

Carlos huffed a quiet laugh and lowered the screen brightness so it wouldn't hit TK's eyes. "You're trouble."

"Guilty," TK murmured. He breathed in the clean, familiar smell of him—soap and graphite and a whisper of citrus from his shampoo. For a second the old ache flickered—the years of sleeping on the edge of a bed that never felt shared, counting ceiling cracks while waiting for a door that didn't close till morning. He let the memory rise and then let it go, replaced by the present reality of a man who accommodated TK's weight like he'd been waiting for it.