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I Have Never Known A Love Like This

Day Seven of Tarlos Week: Free Choice. TK and Carlos go on a hike (or Tarlos combined with the idea from my favourite episode of Schitt’s Creek)

** I would like to thank everyone who read my work, gave kudos, left comments or reblogged it. You are all amazing. I would also like to thank my friends who gave me wonderful support through the entire thing. I love you guys so much. Congratulations to everyone! We made it to the end! Now it’s time for me to go read all the amazing fics and reblog all the amazing gifsets **

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TK awoke to soft touches and the sound of light humming. He felt fingertips run along his cheek, his arm, and his back sending shivers through his skin. He tried his best to continue faking sleep but knew he had failed when he felt a smile break onto his face. His eyes fluttered open to find his favourite pair of brown ones staring down at him. He had decided long ago that he would never tire of waking up to them.

TK made a noise of content in the back of his throat. “Good morning.” He whispered, still half asleep and with a hoarse voice. The owner of the brown eyes smiled, running his hand through TK’s hair.

“Good morning, my love.” Carlos spoke softly, making TK’s heart flutter in his chest.

“What are you doing out of bed?” TK asked, noticing the fact that Carlos was sitting on the edge of the bed instead of laying in his usual spot next to him.

“I got up early and made breakfast.” Carlos said, a grin on his face. Of course he did. TK thought.

“Now, why would you do that?” TK asked teasingly.

Carlos raised an accusing eyebrow. “Now, TK Strand, don’t tell me you forgot about our anniversary.”

TK couldn’t help but to smile at the word. The mere thought of him forgetting one of the most important days of his entire life almost made him laugh. It had been three years since he and Carlos’ story officially began and still to this day, TK continues to fall in love with Carlos Reyes.

TK feigned offense. “I would never.” He said, biting his lip. “Happy anniversary, baby.”

Carlos’ smile widened and he leaned down, placing a soft kiss to TK’s lips. “Happy anniversary, Sweetheart. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” TK whispered. “What did you make?”

“Pancakes of course. They’re your favourites.”

They were and even though TK knew Carlos was well aware of that, the fact still sent a wave of warmth coursing through TK’s body.

“Are you excited for today?” TK asked, although he was well aware of the answer. Carlos had been talking about this day for nearly a week, he had been so excited and TK loved nothing more than seeing him so hyped up about something. It was one of the single greatest things he has ever seen.

“Showing my boyfriend my favourite hiking spot? Of course I am.”

TK had heard about the infamous hiking spot for years but the two of them haven’t ever been able to get up there without work or general life getting in the way. But today was the day and TK had to admit, he was pretty excited himself. Carlos had shown him some pictures he had taken from the previous times he had hiked up Mount Bonnell and TK had thought it had looked so beautiful.

TK sighed. “Hey, remind me to phone my dad and tell him. I forgot to and if we’re going to go radio silent for the day, he’s going to want to know.”

“Will do. Now, are you ready for breakfast?”

TK groaned, suddenly aware of how empty his stomach was. “Very much so.”

Carlos nodded and stood up from the bed, allowing TK to stand up beside him. Carlos put his hand out for TK to grab and they shared a glance before Carlos led him from the bedroom.

“TK, are you sure?”

He rolled his eyes at the tone of his dad’s voice. Always the worrier. “Yes, dad. I’m sure.”

“You haven’t been on a hike in your entire life, son.”

“I’m well aware, thanks.” TK deadpanned.

“Well, what if -”

“Dad, stop.” TK quickly cut him off. “Carlos does this all the time. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Okay.” Owen mumbled, although he didn’t sound convinced. “Well have fun. Please be safe.” “I will, dad.” TK groaned, suddenly feeling like a teenager again.

“And TK?”

“Yeah?”

There was hesitation for a moment before his dad spoke again. “Carlos is a good man.”

TK opened his mouth to answer but was met by the dial tone. He frowned, staring at the counter for a moment before he hung up the phone. What the hell had that been about?”

“What’s with the frown?” Carlos asked as he walked into the kitchen with two backpacks in hand, both packed to the brim with the supplies they would need for the day. “There will be no frowning on our anniversary.”

“My dad was just acting really weird.” TK whispered, his fingers curling together nervously.

“Oh yeah? Weird how?” Carlos asked, his stature tightening ever so slightly before he quickly managed to recover.

“I don’t know. Just weird.” TK said, shrugging. “He told out of the blue that you’re a good guy.”

Carlos smiled. “Well that’s not weird. Just the truth. W-what do you think that’s not true?”

TK stared at him as he stumbled around his words, raising an eyebrow. “Of course I do. But now you’re acting weird.”

Carlos scoffed, waving his hand. “Don’t be silly. I’m fine. Are you ready to go?”

“I -” TK started but shook his head, opting to not argue about how Carlos definitely did not seem fine. “Yeah I am, let’s go.”

Carlos nodded, passing TK’s backpack to him and leaning over to kiss his cheek and then he was moving towards the door before TK could even get another word in edgewise. He shook his head and turned to walk out of the door after Carlos.

“I’m so happy we decided to do this.”

It had been an hour and a half since they started the hike and while TK was having the time of his life on his very first hike, he couldn’t help but to notice that his boyfriend was not. Carlos had been acting off since they had left the house, almost completely spaced out and TK had tried three times to try and pry it out; but it was no use. So, now they walked in mostly silence and it was hard for TK who naturally loved to talk and more importantly loved to talk to Carlos.

“Carlos?” TK tried again to grab his boyfriend’s attention.

“Yeah?” Carlos asked, snapping from his thoughts to turn and look at TK.

“Okay, I thought you said no frowning on our anniversary.” TK started, walking up behind Carlos and wrapping his arms around his waist. “Seriously Carlos, what the heck is going on with you? You’ve been acting weird ever since I talked to my dad and I really don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”

Carlos gave him a quick smile. “Nope. I’m okay, I promise. I’m just used to doing this by myself. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise. You just don’t seem fine.”

“I am.” Carlos insisted.

“I don’t think -”

Carlos stopped dead, causing TK to stumble into his back and Carlos turned to look at him. “Ty please. I’m just -” His eyebrows furrowed together as if he was trying to make up an excuse and TK waited for it. It had better been good. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Right.” TK said, trying to understand the situation. He knew Carlos wasn’t like this. Something was wrong. But he would stop prying, Carlos would talk to him when he wanted to. “Let’s just continue.”

“TK wait - Ow, fuck!”

TK froze in his footsteps at the cry of pain that sounded from behind him. He quickly turned around, immediately seeing a fallen Carlos, holding onto his leg. TK noticed two things, one was the way that Carlos was holding onto his ankle and the second was that there was blood.

TK swallowed down his worry and approached him. “Carlos, what happened?”

“I tripped in a hole and twisted my ankle really badly.” Carlos explained, wincing as pain obviously shot through his injured limb. “Damn TK, it really hurts.”

“Okay, just take a few deep breaths.” TK whispered as he bent down next to him. “Can I take a look?”

When Carlos nodded, TK used gentle hands to analyze the damage. “Well, the good news is it’s not broken or sprained from what I can tell. But it is starting to swell a bit. Which one of the backpacks has the first aid kit in it?”

Carlos looked up at him, an innocent look in his brown eyes, a blush creeping up onto his cheeks. “I, um, I didn’t bring one?” He mumbled.

“Carlos!”

“I’m sorry, I forgot.” He tried.

“Do you come up here all the time without one?” TK asked.

“No, I always bring one. I just -” He sighed. “I guess I was just excited to be with you, I forgot.”

“Nu uh, Reyes. Do not try to be cutesy to try and get out of this.” TK said, shaking his head but the corner of his lip curled into a small smile.

Carlos shook his head, a smile of his own coming through. “Fine.”

TK turned to go into one of the backpacks and began digging around.

“What are you doing?” Carls asked, looking back at him pulling stuff out.

“I’m trying to find the lunch pack.” TK whispered, seemingly deep in thought and when he did, Carlos saw him take out the freezer pack from inside. He put it onto Carlos’ ankle who winced at the shock of cold. “Here, hold that there, please.”

Carlos did as he watched TK go back into the bag. “There’s got to be something in here that I can use as a wrapping to secure that.”

“There’s a blanket in there you could just rip a piece off of.” Carlos suggested. TK quickly looked at him, worry flooding through him. Carlos smiled. “Don’t worry, Ty. It’s just a cheap blanket from the store. It holds no meaning to me.”

TK slowly nodded. “Okay.”

He reached in again to pull out the blanket and began to rip off a piece, his muscles straining at the task. Once he managed to, he turned to begin wrapping it around the ice pack. Carlos winced again, grabbing onto TK’s shoulder. TK whispered a soft apology before he finished by tying off the ripped piece of fabric, securing the packet to Carlos’ throbbing ankle.

“Thank you.” Carlos whispered.

“No problem. But don’t think that I’m not going to totally give you a lecture about not bringing a first aid kit when we get home.”

“Wow, my very own firefighter lecture. Can’t wait.” Carlos joked before he reached out, squeezing TK’s bicep gently. “I’m sorry, TK.”

TK frowned, tilting his head. “For what?”

“I ruined this. I’m just -” He shook his head, clearly struggling to find the words. “I got lost in my thoughts and I shouldn’t have made you feel like I was ignoring you or that I wasn’t happy to be out here with you.”

“‘Hey Carlos, you didn’t ruin anything, I promise. I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk if you didn’t want to. That’s on me. I’m just glad to be here, spending my day with you. So listen, we still have half a hike to do so come on, let’s keep going.”

“TK, it’s fine really. We should go back.”

“Carlos, no. It’s not much further right? We can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

TK rolled his eyes and stood up, helping Carlos from where he was sitting and made sure he leaned all his weight onto TK. “I am, Carlos. I’ve got you. We’re going to finish this together.”

Carlos smiled, slowly nodding his head. “Okay, well then, let’s do it.”

An hour later, a very tired TK and Carlos stumbled their way onto the top of the summit. TK slowly lowered Carlos to the ground, bending over to catch his breath. He heard Carlos unzipping the backpack he had been carrying to grab their water bottles. TK nearly downed all of the liquid, feeling completely breathless. When he straightened his body again, he looked out at the horizon.

“Holy.” He whispered, his voice light and airy as he spoke. The sun had just begun setting, throwing the valley below them into a soft orange and purple glow. “It is so beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Carlos said from behind him. “It really is.”

TK smiled, turning to look at his boyfriend who was staring at him instead of the scenery. TK ducked his head at the statement before clearing his throat. “Okay, what needs to be done here?”

Carlos frowned. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s getting late, we should get back down before it gets dark out.”

TK threw him a look. “Carlos Reyes, if you think I hiked all the way up here and I am not going to get one of your amazing sandwiches, you are sadly mistaken.”

“Alright, well there’s the blanket. The one you ripped a piece off of. That could be laid down. Then the food, which is probably warm now considering you took the freezer pack out of it.”

“Hey! That’s your fault for not packing a first aid kit!” TK retorted.

Carlos smiled fondly, putting his hands up in surrender. “I take full responsibility.”

TK could feel his eyes on him as he did the first two steps before he turned back to look at him. “Now what?”

Carlos chewed on his lip. “Uh, well, in the front pocket of your backpack, you’ll find something that is super important to this picnic. I need you to take that out right now.”

“Okay.” TK said, bending down to unzip the pocket of the backpack. He reached in, his hand clutching onto whatever Carlos had been talking about. When he pulled it out, he saw that it was a little black velvet box. TK eyed it confusingly. “Carlos, what is -” His words froze, jammed in his throat when he turned and saw that Carlos had moved so he was bent down on one knee. A small sound escaped his lips as a realisation hit him.

Carlos cleared his throat. “Um, so this wasn’t exactly how I planned this day going. But here it goes. I have hiked up here almost every weekend for as a long as I can remember. I used this place as a refuge, whenever I had a bad day, it was here for me. Today is the first day that I have ever shown it to anyone. TK, when you came into my life, I learnt just how stubborn and hard-headed a man could be. But I also discovered just how incredibly passionate, selfless, funny and strong one could be. I thought it might as well be fitting to bring my favourite person here to my favourite place and ask him to spend the rest of his life with me. Because you are my refuge now, TK, you are my safe place and I love you so very much. So Tyler Kennedy Strand, will you marry me?”

TK was knocked into speechlessness. He felt dizzy, his vision swimmed with little black dots and his body had gone warm all over with a blush. He was very sure he might pass out and he opened and closed his mouth so much that he probably looked like a dying fish.

“Carlos.” He whispered, finally finding his voice. He let out a light sob. “Are you sure?”

Carlos’ smile widened. “Am I sure? TK, I want to be able to do everything with you. I want to be able to kiss you goodbye in the morning and come home to you. I want to be able to eat dinner with you and cuddle up at the end of the night. I want to be able to fall asleep next to you just so I can wake up so we can do it all over again. I want you, TK. Of course I’m sure. It’s probably one of the easiest decisions of my life.”

TK felt absentminded tears run down his cheeks as he slowly opened the ring box that he was holding in his hand. It was beautiful and everything he could have dreamed about. He looked back up at Carlos before he walked over, bending down in front of him. “I love you Carlos, did you know that?”

Tears fell from Carlos’ eyes as well as he nodded and TK reached up, wiping them away. “Is that a yes?”

TK broke into a wet laugh, shaking his head. “Of course it’s a yes, you dork!”

TK pushed himself forwards, crashing his lips into Carlos’ in a hard but quick kiss. When they broke apart, Carlos grabbed the box from TK’s hand and plucked the ring out of it, sliding it onto TK’s finger.

“I love it.” TK whispered, staring down at it.

“I’m glad.”

TK chuckled happily. “I can’t believe you planned all this. How did you -” TK stopped, coming to another realisation. “Wait, does my dad know?”

“Of course your dad knows. You don’t think I’m going to ask you to marry me without talking to your dad first?”

“So when he was acting weird on the phone this morning?” TK asked.

“Yeah, I think it was probably his way of telling you it’s okay.” Carlos said.

“It is.” TK whispered. “Everything is perfect, Carlos.”

Carlos smiled, pulling TK into a hug. “Is this why you were acting weird as well?” TK asked when they pulled back a few minutes later.

Carlos bowed his head, a blush coming over his cheeks. “I was nervous.”

“Awe, baby, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise. You were worried and I appreciate that. If it makes any sense at all, that made me even more sure that I wanted to do this.” Carlos said. “You really are someone I’d like to spend forever with, TK.”

More tears fell down TK’s cheeks and he shook his head. “I can’t even begin to describe how much you mean to me, Carlos. I’ve always wanted something like this and after - after everything happened. I thought I would never find it. But I did. I found it. I found you. I will always thank the universe for that.”

“Me too.” Carlos answered before putting his forehead to TK’s. “I love you.”

“I love you. Forever and always.”

“Forever and always, Sweetheart.”

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