Chapter Text
There had been times over the last five years that TK had considered coming clean. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d had to come clean of something. Somehow this felt bigger and worse than the opioid addiction; certainly, it wasn’t something that rehab could cure. It was stupid, what he had done, but there was no way of fixing it now without catastrophic consequences. TK wasn’t sure what the exact punishment for forging your classification was, but he was sure it was no walk in the park, which is why TK planned on going the rest of his life with forged paperwork stating he was a sub.
When TK had been classified, it hadn’t come as a shock to him what the classification was, but at that point, he’d been hiding certain identifying traits for years. Admittedly, he hadn’t been himself since he was seventeen and had popped his first pill, but even before that he’d taken certain mesasures so no one would know. He couldn’t hide everything though, which is why, when the opportunity arose for him to get fake papers, he’d gone with sub as opposed to dom or caregiver. TK knew enough to know he couldn’t pass for anything other than a sub…or a little.
TK stumbled into his apartment, grumbling and groaning to himself. He had picked a restaurant that Alex had said he wanted to try and had worn a jacket and slacks instead of his usual hoodie and jeans. The plan was for this to be nice and for it to be that, TK had to look better and like he belonged in a four star restaurant with table cloths and classical music. It figured that Alex would tell him that he wouldn’t marry him because he was screwing his spin instructor before the obscure appetizer they would have picked out had even been ordered. After that, TK did what he did best: he ran. And then he bought pills from a junkie on the corner and held them in his fist inside his pocket, trying to talk himself out of taking them.
It was shortly before dawn when TK finally broke and downed half the pills. And when he woke up, there was his dad looming over him and around him, the rest of his usual crew. It only took half a second for him to realize what had happened. He had royally fucked up this time.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” TK complained, kicking his feet as he walked down the street beside his dad.
“Well that’s good because it’s not babysitting if it’s your parent doing the watching,” Owen said. “And anyway, your mom just wants to talk to you before the move.”
“You’ve already told her about it?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t,” Owen said.
“Well you only told me last night,” TK said. “It hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours.”
“I know, but they want me out there as soon as possible and I’d like to get you out of the city as soon as possible.”
“Dad, the city’s not the problem. You know that, right? I’m the problem.”
Owen stopped walking and put his hand on TK’s arm, pulling him to the side. TK couldn’t look him in the eye and instead focused on the dirty window of the building behind him.
“You are not a problem Tyler Kennedy,” Owen said firmly. “You have never been a problem and you never will be one. You are an addict who relapsed which yeah, that sucks, but it’s not going to happen again, is it?”
TK sucked in his lower lip and then brought his thumb to his mouth, chewing at the nail. “No, sir.”
Owen sighed and cupped the back of his head, squeezing his neck gently and then gently pushed him to start walking again. They were on a time crunch today, TK knew this because his dad wanted to be on the road by the end of the week and his mom was supposed to be catching a flight to China, but she’d pushed it off until the following day considering her only child had been hospitalized for an overdose the day before. She’d come to see him in the hospital, but he’d sent her away after awhile, too embarrassed to even look at her.
“Can you get upstairs without me?” Owen asked.
“Dad, I’m twenty-six, not six,” TK said, rolling his eyes.
“Let me rephrase. Are you going to go upstairs to your mom’s apartment if I don’t walk you all the way upstairs myself?”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Talk with the packers and movers,” Owen said. “Remind me, did you want to keep any of the furniture you have in your apartment other than the bed?”
“No, it’s okay,” TK said. “I mean, I only really have the bed and a couch that I think has gone through six generations of firefighters at the 252.”
“Alright, I’ll have all your stuff boxed up and shipped. You’ve already brought all the clothes you wanted for the trip to my place earlier, right?””
“Uh-huh,” TK said. He looked around the lobby and then back at Owen. “So do you want me to go up to mom’s or…?”
“Go,” Owen said, patting him gently on the shoulder. “I’ll be back to pick you up in a few hours.”
“Dad, again, I’m twenty-six. It’s not like you need to exchange custody of me anymore.”
“No, but I do have a vested interest in making sure that you stay alive and forgive me for not wanting you to roam around Manhattan anymore than necessary.”
TK shook his head, not wanting to argue anymore and turned and headed for the elevator, stepping in and pressing the all too familiar 27. Both of his parents still lived in the apartments they’d raised TK in, although his dad would be leaving his very soon. It was comforting, walking in the front door of his mom’s place and everything was exactly the same as it always was, even down to his mom curled up on the right side of the couch, her feet tucked under her as she spoke in rapid Mandarin on the phone.
She smiled when he came in and held one arm out for him to come give her a hug and he all but fell into her. He could tell from her tone that the conversation would be winding down soon. He didn’t speak Mandarin, but he had spent enough time around Gwyn while she worked to understand what different pitches of her tones meant. Gwyn shifted on the couch and TK slumped down on the couch, tucking himself into her easily, pleased that subs, like littles tended to be a little more clingy. If that wasn’t the case, then TK would definitely have been found out because he was a chronic cuddler.
“Hey babe,” Gwyn said, finally hanging up the phone. “How’re you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” TK admitted. “Really dumb, mostly.”
“Are you supposed to talk about my baby that way?”
“No, but it’s still true,” TK said. “I’m sorry I did it again. I don’t think I even realized what I was doing. I didn’t even feel like myself.”
Gwyn started to play with his hair gently. “I was going to send you back to rehab.”
“Dad told me.”
“He also promised me that you moving to Austin would be the better move. What do you think?”
TK shrugged and started to bite at his thumb nail again. Gwyn expertly grabbed his hand and pulled it away. She had never been a fan of any his self-destructive habits and biting his nails was one of them.
“If I hate it, I can always come back,” TK said, echoing what his dad had told him earlier.
“That’s right,” Gwyn said quietly, still brushing a hand through his hair. He leaned into the touch.
They talked for most of the afternoon about Alex and whether TK had been trying to kill himself when he’d taken half the bottle of pills. The truth was, he wasn’t sure what he’d been doing since the moment he walked out of the restaurant. Maybe he was trying to kill himself or maybe he was just trying to forget the trauma of the night, he couldn’t be sure.
“What’s this?” TK asked, pointing to a box that his mom brought out from his room.
“I packed a few things I thought you might want to take with you to Austin,” Gwyn said. “I know you left everything when you moved out, but everything has always been right here where you could get it whenever.”
TK stood up and walked over to the kitchen and peeked into the cardboard box. Mostly it was just a few books, a few tchotchkes that had lived in his room forever like the signed Yankee’s ball he’d gotten when he was six and the stack of playbills from Broadway shows he’d gone to over his years. The most important things, however, were right on top. Folded carefully into a perfect little square was his baby blanket, pale blue with satin edges and his name written in cursive with navy embroidery thread and sitting on top of that a stuffed dalmatian he’d toted around for years.
“Moe!” He said, eyes lighting up as he picked the toy up. “I didn’t know you still had him.”
“Did you think I’d get rid of an important member of our family?” Gwyn asked, rolling her eyes.
“Thanks,” TK said quietly. “I definitely wouldn’t want him or the blanket, or any of this stuff to sit in storage just collecting dust.”
Owen actually came up to the apartment when he came to pick up TK and it makes TK’s stomach feel a little squirmy because that hadn’t happened since he was twelve and his parents still wouldn’t let him walk around the city by himself. When he was thirteen, they’d started letting him take the subway to and from school and each other’s homes.TK waited on the couch while they talked in the kitchen in undertones and that felt like he was a kid again, too.
“Bye mom,” TK said, wrapping his arms tightly around her before they left. “You’ll come visit right? When you’re back from the business trip.”
“I will,” Gwyn promised, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “If you need me, call me.”
TK nodded and then turned, falling in line next to Owen as they headed out of the apartment. In the elevator, TK moved a couple of feet away from his dad, holding the cardboard box and hoping that they’d get a cap so he wouldn’t have to walk all the way across town carrying it. He had already done his arm work outs for the week.
When they got back to Owen’s, TK went and curled up in Owen’s bed. It had been a long day despite having not done much outside of talk with his mom and now all he wanted to do was get some sleep. After TK had moved out, Owen had turned the spare bedroom into his meditation space, complete with a yoga mat and not much else. TK had taken his bed with him to his apartment and so now, there was only the one bed in the apartment. A few years ago, he might have protested at sleeping in the same bed as his dad, but right now it made him feel safe and secure in a way that he hadn’t in quite a long time.
Austin is quiet. TK had been to other states before and upstate New York, which was completely different from any borough around the city, but Austin was both the furthest west and quietest he had ever been in. After tossing and turning for hours, he finally pulled himself out of bed and crept downstairs, curling up on the couch with the TV on. There was a TV in his room that he could have turned on, but there was something about laying in his bed this late at night unable to sleep that unsettled him. They’d been in Austin for three days now and he’d barely gotten more than an hour or two at a time.
“TK?”
“Oh, hey dad.”
“What’re you doing?” Owen asked, stepping off the stairs and padding barefoot over to the couch.
“I couldn’t sleep,” TK said. “It’s really quiet here.”
“That’s suburbia for you,” Owen said.
TK shifted, sitting up as Owen sat down next to him. He leaned into his dad as the man gently carded his fingers through his hair, squeezing the back of his neck the way he had done a billion times before.
“You really do need to get some decent rest,” Owen said. “You didn’t sleep well in the hotels either.”
“Does anybody ever sleep well in hotels?” TK asked.
“Your mother does,” Owen said. “But I do think that she’s probably an anomaly. Do you want to sleep in my bed?”
“I’m too old.”
“You slept in my bed for the week until we hit the road.”
“Yeah but that’s ‘cause it was either your bed or this couch which is really uncomfortable. Or the floor, which honestly might be better than this couch.”
“Well your choices tonight are my bed or yours,” Owen said. “And considering you’re not in your bed….”
TK sighed a little bit. He actually didn’t mind sleeping in his dad’s bed. In fact, he secretly loved it, but he couldn’t become reliant on sleeping in his dad’s bed. That was something that a sub wouldn’t do all the time and besides, it was only a matter of time before he wet the bed. It had been easier to hide his classification in New York when he didn’t live with either of his parents. Sure, he still slept at the fire station, but TK had a routine that involved peeing before getting in bed and setting an alarm for every hour and a half to wake him up in case a call didn’t do that.
“How can you sleep when it’s so freakishly quiet?” TK asked. “There’s no yelling, no sirens or cars honking. It’s just, like, air.”
“I spent fifteen years in suburbia before we moved to New York,” Owen said. “I guess I’ve just adapted.”
TK hummed in acknowledgment and nuzzled closer into the man, tucking his head under his chin. He had always been a tactile creature, wanting to be cuddled and held, not unusual with a sub. There was a lot he could get away with under the classification he had given himself, but sometimes, TK wished for more. His want for independence outweighed that though, so sure that if anyone found out he was an actual little that it would go out the window considering what his past looked like. All anyone would ever be able to see was poor, fragile, TK Strand, unable to cope on his own. He couldn’t bear to go through that again.