Just thinking about Tommy who barely started to work in Nashville
His suitcases aren’t even emptied in the cabin, he’s a floater for now, so he’s not even sure how much he’ll actually work and how much he might need a second job
But well he’ll see later, Don told him he was with them for the next two weeks at the very least so any work issue can wait until then
Maybe he’ll even move on from Nashville then, who knows
But anyway, he’s in the break room, having a hot chocolate because hot chocolate is good all year round thank you very much when he hears a voice coming from the TV area that shouldn’t be there
His heart skip more than one beats, and he hears a second voice he shouldn’t be able to hear there
He goes to the space and sees Howie on tv talking about Hen, and then Ravi, and then … oh fuck… Evan
He looks so good, and Tommy almost drop his mug at the sight of Evan’s smile and visible excitation about Hen going to space ?? What the actual fuck is going on in Los Angeles
“Hey, the 118, isn’t that one of your old station?” asks Don, getting everyone’s attention, “ I read your file last night and I think it was the one before the 217, right?”
“Uh … yeah… yeah… it was my old station, I actually know these guys”
“Really?! well damn, one of them is going to space with uh, an Athena Grant or something ?”
Tommy choke on his spit
“Athena is going to space as well??”
“You know her?” asks Ryan, looking between the tv and Tommy.
“Uh… yeah…”
“That guy was cute,” says Taylor
“The Evan guy?” says somebody whose name he doesn’t remember
“Yeah, do you know him Tommy ?”
He wants to run, he wants to run so fast it would create a tornado, he wants to go home, he wants to be anywhere. But he can’t, these past few weeks helped him, taught him things about himself and he can’t keep learning if he’s always running.
“He’s actually my ex” he says without stuttering, still, he leaves the room before he can see everyone’s reaction.
Slow Burn ; Post-Break Up ; Getting Back Together ; Tommy Kinard leaves Los Angeles ; Tommy Kinard in Nashville ; Slow Burn Polyamory ; endgame Evan "Buck" Buckley/Tommy Kinard/Ryan Hart
You can read the AO3 version here
“Usually our decision would have been sent to you by mail, but in this specific context we decided to do it with you first, an official letter will be sent to your home address which will just put what is being said today in writings,” says chief Simmons.
Tommy nods at his words. He knows what’s coming. He’s known since he received his summons to this hearing. The first hearing was two days ago, where he was questioned about why he stole a chopper from his station, why he disobeyed direct orders by the US military, by his captain. And why, it was the second time this had happened in a year.
The fact that he even had a hearing was the biggest surprise of it all. When he agreed to respond to Evan’s call for help, he was sure that he would be fired on the spot once back. The fact that the LAFD decided to go through a hearing process instead was not expected. But since Howie survived, or, well, interim Captain Han now, he supposes that it all could have been a lot worse.
Still, the LAFD would not give him a medal this time.
“I will preface our decision by saying that you are lucky, Firefighter Kinard, that the military decided not to engage in legal pursuit because of the sensitivity of the events that transpired. That being said, this body can not not punish you for the decisions that were made and the clear breach of trust between you and the organization that is the LAFD. It has been decided that you will be suspended effective immediately for the next six months without pay. At the end of this time, you will be cleared, or not, by a mandated psychologist and will go through recertification. You will be permitted to volunteer as a firefighter during your suspension but will be forbidden to be on the payroll, be it as a permanent or floater, in the state of California until six months and one day starting this instant. Do you have anything to add, firefighter Kinard?”
It’s worse, and at the same time better than he hoped. As his name is being called, Tommy rises to his feet at attention.
“I have nothing to add, Chief Simmons,” he says clearly, getting a nod back from the man, and his gavel resonates in the room as it hits its base.
Tommy leaves the room without another word, barely breathing until he’s out and closes the door behind him.
He’s not sure how he evaded being fired twice, or going to jail this time, but maybe somebody out there is looking out for him. When Bobby’s face flashes in his head, he winces and avoids the thought by walking toward the exit of the LAFD’s headquarter where his hearings were held. It takes him less than a minute to get outside into the parking lot.
He sees Evan on the side of the building with Athena, they’re talking quietly to each-other. They’re less than twenty feet away. He could join them and say hi. He could offer his condolences again; he knows they’d both be too polite to send him away immediately.
But he knows that neither of them needs him. Not anymore. He still doesn’t understand why Athena asked him to be a pallbearer for Bobby, but it was an honor he didn’t deserve, and he’s pretty sure they all knew it. Maybe it was a punishment for not being able to do more for the man. He will never know. Not when he turns away from them and quickly walks to his truck and jumps inside.
He doesn’t look at either of them when he leaves the parking lot and starts the quick trip back home. He’s pretty sure that they did not see him leave, but even if they did, it wouldn’t mean much. It wouldn’t break the four weeks of silence since the funeral, since he was able to speak to Evan last, offering condolences and running away afterward, skipping the wake altogether.
It takes him little time to reach his house, and even less to undress and toss his jacket on his couch, pulling hard at his shirt, feeling suddenly too constricted inside of it. Pushing at his pants to drop them in the middle of the room and finally, he breathes, just in his underwear, his clothes thrown half on his couch and half around his living room. He’ll have time to pick them up later. Six months of time, actually.
He has been living in Los Angeles since being discharged from the military so many years ago and then joining the fire academy not even a month back stateside. He hasn’t stopped working for more than three months since then, and each time because of injuries that were serious enough to keep him away and need reeducation; injuries that, even if they kept him away from work, still kept him busy.
What do you even do with six months of free time?
He spends the first week cleaning his house. Not that it needed a lot of work, he’s always kept it tidy, his dad would be proud of him for it. Not that it matters anymore, he hasn’t had a guest since he and Evan broke up seven months ago. On the way to his car to go grocery shopping, he grabs his phone on his living room table and checks it quickly. As usual, no new messages appear.
Not that he is expecting any, really.
He had a few messages from Lucy and Milton after his suspension, even from his captain, calling the decision bullshit and political. He thanked them for their anger in his name and gets a few updates here and there from Lucy mainly of what happens at the station, of what mess the latest probie is creating, but he doesn’t answer, and he hasn’t received new updates in over two days now.
It’s not the news he wants to read about. He knows Evan and Athena both got their own hearings, and he knows that neither of them got suspended. His snooping on their social media showed both of them in uniform and at work. He’s happy for them. They both had lost enough that day without having to risk their jobs as well. He only wishes that Evan had told him about it, even if just to gloat about him not being punished again. He doesn’t even care if they’re talking about his own suspension; just hearing from Evan would be nice.
But nice has not really been part of his life for a long time now.
He starts the second week of his six-month suspension by cleaning his roof and almost kills himself when he trips. He’s lying on his roof, panting, his heart pumping hard from the sudden burst of adrenaline when he lost his footing so close to the edge, and he wonders who would have even called 911 if something had happened. Who would realize that something even had happened to him? And once his body was cold on a table, who would even be asked to come for it?
He has twenty-three weeks left of suspension, and he’s already thinking about his death. Life is good.
His phone has been completely silent for five days when his third week starts. And his scruff is slowly but surely entering the first stage of a beard. He once spent seven weeks in a row in the desert, so he’s still far from the longest beard he ever had, but he’s been shaving pretty regularly since he started to work in Los Angeles, fire regulations and all. Not shaving is at once freeing but also a sign that his life has completely derailed. Each time he catches his reflection in his mirror, in a window, on his continuously black-screen phone, he’s reminded of all the choices that brought him here.
Unshaved, at home, alone.
He’s rubbing his beard absentmindedly, enjoying the fact that the hair went from coarse while growing to softer now, when he taps on his phone, unlocking it quickly to click on the same icon. The app opens on Evan’s page, showing that it didn’t even have time to recharge and reset to the home page since his last check. He hasn’t seen any new posts, not since the picture of an empty house appeared. Evan has moved again.
Without him, again.
He’s careful not to double-click on anything; he doesn’t need anyone else but himself to be aware of his stalking. Scrolling slowly on the page, looking at the same pictures again, and again.
He turns off his screen and sees his reflection before dropping the phone on his chest. He hasn’t worn a shirt in three days now, not since his last grocery trip. It’s June in Los Angeles anyway, so it’s not like his sudden lack of motivation about getting dressed means anything. Right?
People call New York the city that never sleeps, but Los Angeles is just as sleepless, if not more in Tommy’s opinion. The city doesn’t care about your situation, you may be at the lowest point of your life, but the lights will still be on, the people will still party, and you’ll still struggle to find any place quiet enough to actually feel alone. Being in such a big city though at least let you feel lonely pretty easily.
Millions of people milling around, hundreds of apps able to connect to them, Tommy has never felt as lonely as he does at 3pm in Costco. He walks in front of his usual snacks, the ones that were actually recommended by Eddie Diaz all these months ago when they hung out and sparred together. They were pretty good, but fuck Eddie Diaz now, and he hasn’t hit the gym in weeks anyway, he doesn’t need the extra snacks anymore.
He goes home with some chicken salad, some eggs and bacon. It will be enough to last him the whole week with his current appetite. He hasn’t weighed himself lately, but he knows he's lost mass. Not that he needs it anyway. He'd barely started his fourth week of suspension, and he’ll have time to get back into shape, anyway. Losing some pounds wouldn’t hurt him much. Probably.
He’s on his phone again. He’s glad that Instagram doesn’t act like LinkedIn, not that he uses it, but he heard about it, how it shows when you visit a profile. If it did, Evan would see his name way too many times and might actually send Athena after him. He’s scrolling down pictures he has seen so many times now. While they were dating, since they broke up. He could probably write down in which order they appear without looking at his phone now. His eyes also jump at the likes and comments, not that they have time to change when he looks at them so often. Most of the time he stops around the same point. Evan has hundreds of posts, and he can only look at the man’s face for so long without wanting to punch himself for letting him go. Also, for falling for him, and for having had the idiocy to try to ask for a second chance when he knew already that he didn’t deserve one.
But today his thumb just keeps going. As he reaches posts he has seen less often, even though he did see them all, he sees pictures of trips, of places. He remembers the few talks they had about their pasts, apparently not the parts of their pasts they should have focused on sadly, but he remembers Evan talking about his traveling, about leaving college to avoid his parents’ wrath and just leaving. Exploring. A 19-year-old pretty boy with a Jeep and a need to find himself. And to find himself far from a family that wouldn’t let him breathe.
Something Tommy can sympathize with. He left as well. Ran from his dad, from his hometown, even from the US altogether when he enrolled and was sent to deserts.
Leaving, it’s something he’s been good at for a while. His father, himself, the 118, Evan.
He let his feet drop from his couch’s armrest to the floor and sits there, his thumb still mindlessly scrolling down, seeing Evan with blond hair, which makes him smile, he’s pretty sure he had the same necklace back then as well, he sees him at a ranch, his thumb goes faster when he sees him in an uniform he recognize and doesn’t want to think about again. Tommy can only handle thinking about his army days for six minutes per day, and it’s already been four. He sees him wearing a safety helmet and a belt hanging low on his hips. Small job after small job, city after city.
He turns his screen off and stands. If not wearing clothes at home is good for anything, it’s that his laundry has been done for days, dry, and no clothes have been dirtied since. He grabs everything that gets close to his hands, underwear by the dozen, socks, shirts, pilling them in the suitcase he keeps under his bed.
Leaving. He’s always been good at it, and since he can’t use his talent as a pilot, maybe he should use one that wouldn’t get him suspended again.
It takes him a lot less time than he expected to fill two suitcases, to empty his bathroom of anything useful for a trip whose length he’s not sure of.
He drags the suitcases to his living room, where he left his phone, turning the screen on again to open his texts and tells his captain that he’s leaving Los Angeles for a while.
He has nineteen weeks left of suspension anyway, so it’s not like he would be expected to turn in the next day. And if he leaves California, he could maybe even find a temporary station somewhere. Not that he actually needs a job right now. Even with six months unpaid, he has enough of a safety net to provide for the double, still, it’s been weeks now since he’s been busy and his hands are itching for something to do that is not scrolling through his ex’s Instagram posts.
Even if once again he owes Evan for taking a decision that could, if not change his life, at the very least change his next four months and three weeks.
Emptying his fridge isn’t hard. He hasn’t eaten properly in a few weeks now, something that people would probably not even realize since one, he’s still a pretty big guy, and two, he’s avoided anyone and everyone. He eats half of it at his kitchen table, as usual avoiding the main table in the living room, the one that looks like date nights every time he glances at it. The second half is put in a cooler for the start of his trip.
Closing the door behind him after he put his two suitcases and cooler in his truck feels anticlimactic. The door is completely silent, thanks to years of careful maintenance. It just closes without a noise, without anyone noticing. Fitting, he guesses.
He locks it, and if he sees himself locking the memories that go with the city behind that door, it’s just between him and his brain.
Once in his car, he drops his keys in the glove compartment; he knows he won’t need them for weeks now.
He doesn’t remember the last time LA’s traffic was so fluid. Maybe it’s a sign that he’s making the right decision, at least he hopes so when he turns on the highway and starts his trip.
But now I have this image in my head where Buck and Ryan each have a hold of one of Tommy’s arms and they basically play tug of war with him while hissing at each other like feral cats. Meanwhile Tommy’s like “Now there, kittens, there’s enough of me for everyone!”
This made me cackle at my desk ! But this absolutely what would happen when Buck arrive in Nashville and realize that Tommy has an other pretty boy hanging around
And how close are they ????!!!!! What the hell Tommy???? We’ve only been apart for 7 months !!!
Buck would be livid and eying that ankle pretty hard
Buck who would grab Tommy to try to get him to a cafe so they can talk, Ryan grabbing him because they have to go to the station or back at the ranch
Buck hissing that their talk is important
Ryan growling about how Tommy is tired and need to rest / or need to go to work for their shift
Both just hissing and growling and poor Tommy looking at the two pretty boy and wondering what he did to end up there, and wondering if it was a good deed or a bad deed that made him become the prise for two pretty boys
