#sloth writes

[kinardsevan]

I want to write a thing but also I don’t have the attention span right now so…

something something Evan coming home from a long shift for the season 10 opener. he’s exhausted and hasn’t seen Theo in a few days, and he feels bad because he took the whole summer off so they could properly get acquainted, and he promised not to stay gone this long, and even though they’ve had calls, it’s not the same.

he gets home late and his heart is aching because Theo is already in bed asleep—in his bed of course, because the kid is still dealing with the death of his parents and who is Evan to tell his mini twin no?

he stops in the doorway to stare for a bit, promising he’ll make the most of the next few days. when he gathers up the energy to move, he walk into the dimly lit kitchen. theres an open beer waiting for him beside another, half-finished bottle. he takes a long sip from it and sighs, grateful to be home.

arms wrap around his waist and he gets a kiss to the back of his neck before one hand reaches up for the half-gone beer.

“sorry, I didn’t mean to be gone so long,” he murmurs. his body is almost dead weight against Tommy’s.

“it’s fine, Evan. we had a good time. and how better to convince the kid to like me than to have forced proximity,” he teases.

Evan blushes. “you could’ve called Maddie. or Carla. they would’ve tagged you out.”

he turns as he talks, Tommy watching him with those eyes.

“listen, I know I brought this all on you suddenly, and he’s not-..”

“he’s yours,” Tommy reminds him. “and I promised myself if I ever got you back, I wouldn’t let go. and while I hadn’t exactly imagined you having a tiny version of yourself hanging around, I’m not mad about it.”

Evan blushes. if there’s anyone who could possibly love Theo more than him, it’s probably Tommy. still, this is all so new and unplanned for.

“was it a good day then,” he asks.

Tommy nods, setting his beer on the counter behind Evan as his arms block the younger firefighter in. “he’s convinced you’ll let me take him up for a flight.”

“never,” Evan counters. “or at least not until he’s thirty. five.”

Tommy snorts. Theo clearly doesn’t have the same qualms about flying as his birth-slash-foster father.

“we’ll talk about it,” he whispers, leaning in for a kiss.

[kinardsevan]

three hands tied to set me free

There were many things that Tommy had written off his chance of ever getting by the time he turned 40.

Married was one of them. Abby had been the closest he’d ever come, and that had been such a farce that he had promised himself after he left her that he’d only get engaged one day if it felt real and was for the right reasons.

He’d had a mix in the decade after that; sometimes the right reasons brought themselves to the surface. Sometimes it felt real enough. Never did both happen at once.

Along with getting married was his hope for children. And like, given his upbringing and career, he hadn’t really ever put a lot of weight in a future with kids, if he was honest. He’d dated sparsely through his twenties, and by the time he met Abby, her window was vastly closing, and she was staring down the barrel of caring for a sick parent. Once or twice, she’d talked about freezing her eggs with Tommy, but the conversation never got very far. He had dreams of flying again, and she was always concerned that something would happen to him if he did. “Firefighting is already so dangerous,” she’d say. “Now you want to do it in a helicopter?”

Yet again, after Abby, the opportunity never presented itself. The longest longterm relationship he had after her was with Wilder, and for as sweet, sexy, and funny Wilder was…he told Tommy straight up that kids weren’t in his future.

Tommy agreed with him and said they weren’t in his, either. Right up until Wilder met his husband and they adopted twins.

After that, he felt rudderless. Relationships came and went, never pulling him in for very long. He tried to find a way to settle in—to find the catalyst that made a future seem likely—but inevitably, something else would happen and there wouldn’t end up being a catalyst, just a separation. Months turned into years, and for a time, he felt like he’d never find “it”; whatever that thing was that made people let their walls down.

Until Evan.

Evan had swept into Tommy’s life with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, what with his shin kicking and invites to weddings on quasi-redos of a first date. If there was one thing Tommy figured out in the hindsight of their short lived relationship, it was that Evan always figured out his follies on the back nine. He was a bit graceless, yes, but not because he wasn’t trying. If anything, he was usually trying too much. It took Tommy a long time to realize that Evan needed reassurance that he didn’t have to; that he could just be, even if he made mistakes, and they could course-correct. He didn’t have to over-sell himself.

Of course, he only reached this resounding conclusion after their breakup.

The two years without Evan hurt. Admittedly, they both needed to do some growing, and Tommy definitely needed to work through some of his bullshit—but that didn’t make the ache in his chest ever disappear. Through the months between the breakup and their ill-fated hook-up, and then Bobby’s death, he felt as though some part of him was constantly trying to claw through the dirt, trying to get back to Evan. He tried and tried and tried, always falling on his face. And then Bobby died, and they both needed to grieve. Worse than that, Tommy knew they needed to grieve separately. Evan needed to figure out his way forward from Bobby’s death without someone soothing that wound for him.

And so months passed.

He’d hear things through the LAFD grapevine, of course.

Buckley is still single, but seems to be doing better after losing his captain. Buckley had to find a new place to live. Buckley went on a date—no wait, he went on a few. Actually, it turns out he went out with a married couple who tried to talk him into being their third. (Tommy may have had to temper his anxiety from a full blown panic attack when he heard that one. Fortunately, Melton had quickly told Lucy that Evan had turned the couple down. Thank fuck.)

Buckley and Diaz got into the firefighter games in Nashville—Nash entered them last year. Buckley and Diaz split first place with Nashville. Buckley and Diaz— wait what? Buckley and Diaz were in a car accident. They’re both back home and ok, taking a few weeks to recuperate. (Tommy should’ve called then; should’ve dropped by with flowers, or chocolate, or a heating pad, or…)

Nash’s death anniversary is looming. Buckley is back to work; seems to be dealing ok.

Buckley is on paid leave for an undisclosed personal reason. No one knows for sure, but there are whispers about addiction to opioids. (Tommy really should’ve fucking called.)

Buckley is back on the job, seems to be settling back into himself for the first time in a very long time.

Buckley rescued a kid from some power lines—didn’t get electrocuted this time. When the parents showed up, he seemed to know them.

Buckley rescued a kid from a car accident. Seems like he knew the kid.

It might be the same kid from the power lines(?).

Evan Buckley has a kid.

——

Meeting Theo was a gift. The first time Tommy laid eyes on the toddler, he’d been done for. He had long since reached the point in therapy where he could admit out loud—at least to himself—that he was in love with Evan, and had been long before they went their separate ways. It was the fear of that love that had sent him running instead of trying to understand Evan’s over-correcting the night they broke up. Still, knowing that and acting on it were two different things.

And so it had restarted the way it had the first time—over coffee.

Evan talked about Theo a lot—actually he talked about Theo entirely—and Tommy listened. A full hour and a half in, when Evan realized he’d dominated the entire discussion—he finally asked how Tommy was doing. That led to deeper discussions, and the agreement to keep talking.

And so they talked. A lot. They talked on the phone over coffee, in the middle of shifts, after Theo went to sleep. When Evan had a spare moment, they talked in person. Tommy managed to sneak him out for a date or two somewhere in there.

And then somewhere around five months after they’d started talking again, Evan asked Tommy to define the relationship. The thing was—and Tommy knew it—he wasn’t asking Tommy to tell him how he felt. He was asking Tommy to say whether he saw them splitting again. He wanted to know if Tommy was in it for good this time.

“Because… because I think I could be, too,” Evan had said, when he’d asked. “I think I never stopped. But- but Theo- he has to come first. A-and if you can’t see it, then- then maybe-..”

And maybe Evan had been the graceless one in the beginning, but that night, it was Tommy’s turn. He finally spilled everything, all that he’d been holding in for so long, and told Evan.

He wanted that future. He wanted to meet Theo. He wanted to see if they truly could make it work for the long haul.

Except, Theo was so much more.

Everything that Tommy loved about Evan felt amplified and repackaged into a tiny, barely three foot tall little boy. If Evan loved Theo more than anything—and Tommy knew he did—he was pretty sure he was the only person who could rival Evan’s love for the little boy. Because Theo was all the best parts of Evan—and a few of his not-so-good parts—and then some.

Theo took time to warm to him, and Tommy learned to take that in stride. The kid had been through a lot. But he also thought it was cool that Tommy flew helicopters, and kept asking to go for a flight. He begged Evan for weeks before the firefighter finally gave in and let Tommy take them on an afternoon trip around LA. That had cinched Theo’s view of Tommy, and after that, they were a pair.

Suddenly, it was Evan’s son and boyfriend ganging up on him at every turn. From the pouty lips to the sarcastic comments—and how the hell did Theo pick up on that so fast?!—to the snuggle fests, Evan was done for. Time passed in a haze of domestic comfort and peace. All of a sudden, it had been a full year, and Theo’s adoption was coming up.

“I don’t expect you to sign up for anything you’re not ready for,” Evan had said in the weeks leading up. “This is a choice I made, and while I’m happy to have you, and that Theo has you, you’re not required to choose this part with us, if you’re not ready.”

Tommy knew what Evan was saying. He knew what was at stake, and all that Evan had done to get to this point. He knew the process.

He also knew that ultimately, he wanted that choice to be Theo’s. Tommy could be a part of his life, and be the guy Theo’s dad loved—maybe even the guy Theo’s dad would marry someday (soon). But Theo wasn’t required to see him the same way.

He wasn’t sure when it was, specifically. Somewhere in month eight or nine, Theo had had a bad stretch. He was having nightmares about the accident that killed Connor and Kameron, having meltdowns at daycare, and then he’d caught a virus that had kept him down for about a week. Somewhere in the middle of it all Evan stopped being Buck, and started being Dad. It made Tommy feel like his heart was exploding. When Evan realized that Theo wasn’t just saying it because he was sick, but that he meant it, Tommy wished he’d had a camera at that moment. He’d never seen Evan so in love.

And so it was, that in the weeks leading up to the finalization of Theo’s adoption, father and son treated each other as such. They had a few conversations with Theo—applicable for his age—about the future, and how he would feel about being Evan’s son officially. Somewhere in there, Theo asked if he would also be Tommy’s son.

That question made Tommy feel like he’d swallowed a bowling ball. He’d never assumed he’d get the option of even being asked.

In the end, Evan told Theo that that question would require some more talking, and that they’d made a decision at some point.

“Is it unreasonable to say maybe later,” Evan had thrown out in bed one night. “Not because I’m saying you have to or don’t have to—if you want, that is—I just… I don’t want either of you to feel pressure.”

“Sure,” Tommy had said at the time, mostly to appease him. It felt too complicated to get into right then.

—

And then it was the morning of, and they had no major plans. Tommy had just come off shift. They were sipping coffee while Theo played with his fruit loops, and Tommy couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Marry me.”

Evan looked at him like he sure Tommy had made an inside thought out loud. Like maybe he didn’t really mean it.

Except he did.

“Marry me,” he repeated, the smile on his face almost amused at himself for realizing how easy it was once he said it. “I don’t want one more day of this, or one more week or month. I want all of it.”

Evan had looks over at Theo—who was still enthralled with his cereal—and then back at Tommy.

“Both of us?”

“Both of you,” he’d confirmed.

Later, in the court house, Evan asked Theo how he would feel about Tommy sticking around with them in their house.

“Like he’d live with us? All the time?”

“That,” Evan confirmed. “And more.”

Theo had practically lept from the bench to Tommy’s lap at that. It was all the answer they needed.

And then Theo’s name was being called, and they stood. Tommy remained on the bench, ready for their imminent return.

They walked halfway across the corridor before Theo stopped. Evan looked down at him, and then over at Tommy when he realized that’s what Theo was waiting on.

“Are you coming, Papa?”

—

“When did you know,” Evan asked him, late that night. Tommy had managed to catch a nap after their post-adoption celebration, and then they’d spent the afternoon as a family. Celebration sex had come after Theo went down for the night.

Tommy stroked his fingers through Evan’s curls, musing with a smile. “Honestly?”

Evan nodded, glancing up at him.

“As soon as I met him,” he admitted. “I knew you loved him, and I knew I loved you. But almost instantly, I knew I loved him a little more.”

Evan smiled, heartened. “Wow. I mean…. For me, I knew it was selfish, but when I looked at him, I knew he was mine. And once I knew there wasn’t someone coming to step in after Connor and Kameron’s deaths, I couldn’t see letting anyone else have him. But you…?”

Tommy shifted his hand down, stroking Evan’s chin.

“I saw everything I love about you in him,” he explained. “I look at Theo, and I see the best pieces of you. I see the wonder, and determination, and all the love, and faith in the insurmountable. And as soon as I’d seen that, I knew I couldn’t live without it.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it,” Evan asks him, though he’s also musing. “Most dads become parents at birth.” Tommy knew he didn’t mean it in the legal sense, but from the emotional sense.

“And sometimes it’s when you meet them years later,” he replied. “But it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Evan nodded, laying his head back down on Tommy’s chest.

Months ago—long before Theo had come to him, when he’d been days into withdrawal, aching from vomiting and muscle spasms—he’d wondered what the whole point of having Tommy and then losing Tommy had been for. He couldn’t make sense of anything back then.

And then Theo had come back to him, and he started to understand. Maybe he couldn’t have Tommy for that part. Maybe he needed to do that part alone. Somewhere along the way, he started to think he was maybe supposed to do it all alone.

But here they were now, and he could see how it all fit. It had hurt, and it had been hard.

But he didn’t want to change a second of it.

[kinardsevan]

this love (came back to me)

cw: mentions of canon-compliant drug addiction and MCD, discussion of sobriety. wordcount: 2997

Finding in comfort in silence had never come easy for Evan. Something about it all always reminded him of life at home with his parents; people living in a house that sprawled wide enough that Margaret could put herself far enough away that she couldn’t hear him. It didn’t matter how much noise he made at what age, unless he was severely injured or deathly ill, little could be done to draw her attention in his direction. The fact that Phillip opted to cater to his wife’s whims only made the silence that much louder. 

It was hard to live through an entire childhood like that. Granted, Maddie was there for the first twelve years—and that helped—but mostly, it was like ambient static trying to pierce through a veil too thick to achieve much. Once he was of cognizant age—maybe four or five—it didn’t do much beyond provide him a modicum of comfort. Sometimes it did a little more than others, but he was never entirely unaware of the lack of care pointed in his direction. 

For so long, he’d been sure there would never be a way to settle into it. He chased down situations in his adolescence and adulthood that brought riffs of noise in some form or another. Football and cheerleaders in high school helped fill gaps in sharp, short bursts. Then there was the failed year of college, where he blew through his student aid trying to be the life of the party and everybody’s best friend. Those spaces were great for making him feel good temporarily, but ultimately, the silence always returned before long. 

And then there were the lost years he spent traveling across the country—and then the world—trying to fit in somewhere else. The problem with those situations was that inevitably, they were even more extreme versions of the blips that college and high school had given him. A dude ranch was fun to learn about and spend time on, but inevitably, the end of the day always came, and it turned out ranchers like their silence at the end of the night. Working construction brought some semblance of noise and camaraderie when he was on the job, but mostly he just ended up feeling even more lonely when he climbed into the jeep at the end of each shift and turned in to the studio apartment he was renting at the time. 

Peru was fun, and the girls were great, but ultimately it was almost the worst of them all. Beyond the tourists he served during the day, not everyone spoke English in the town he lived in, so the only way to fill the silence was to drink with those tourists. And granted, he’d been 24 and single, so he had the energy and tolerance of a young adult to hang, but it never filled the void. 

And then there was his time with the Navy SEALs. 

His deep dives had made him a great fit for recon, but the regimented living, down to the minute, along with the intense silence that was required so much of the time, made it the hardest option of all. Never mind the fact that he didn’t fit into their mold of a Yes Man robot; he couldn’t handle just how much time those guys spent in silence, even if it was for the sake of whatever mission they were on. Evan Buckley was many things—funny, likable, bubbly, engaging—but he definitely wasn’t cut out for a life of silence. 

Joining the FD had made a dent in all of that quiet. Landing at the 118 felt like someone had pierced a needle through the veil that he’d been shrouded in through his entire adult life. He was grateful for it, and slowly, over time, Bobby Nash and his team helped dig through that needle mark until there was a hole. At first, it was only big enough to press his ear up against, and he almost burned that bridge to the ground by acting out recklessly on the job, but ultimately, Bobby’s hand guided him. Like a puppy in obedience school, the sudden burst of noise in an otherwise painfully quiet life had set Evan off. He needed to be guided back down, able to understand that the noise could be embraced. 

He loved the noise after that. He didn’t particularly like when someone joined in—ever the puppy—but with a little guidance, he could be reminded that a new person didn’t necessarily mean bad. So he embraced people like Taylor, Eddie, Lucy. His heart found space for them, equally giving to each over time. Sometimes people left or transferred, but his enduring at the 118 ensured that it was never silent. 

Over time, he learned that there were different levels of noise, and he loved each of them for different reasons. On the job, the noise made him feel useful and like he was doing something that mattered. And then there was the time he spent with Chris and Eddie. Getting to be a part of Chris’ life wasn’t something he ever could’ve fathomed before he’d met Eddie, but getting to share in Chris’ childhood and the way he saw the world taught Evan more than most people could figure out in a lifetime. 

And then there was Jee-Yun, and eventually, Nash. Both brought a love into his life that he’d never expected. He spent his days walking through fire, but when Jee-Yun was born, for the first time he understood why someone would actively walk through fire without turnouts for another human being. 

The thing was, in all the noise and the comfort that it brought after so many years of quiet, he’d never expected to find anyone or thing that would make him appreciate the silence, let alone want it back. 

And then he’d walked into a hangar late one Tuesday night and shook Tommy Kinard’s hand. 

. . . 

That first handshake had been indescribable for him, for so long. Most people talk about a shock, or a spark, or something like all of that when they meet their person. For Evan, it was none of that. Instead, it was an intense hush that fell over him. People were still talking, sure, but the world had gone quiet for him, all except for Tommy. And while the pilot was still grinning at him mid-introduction, something had shifted for Evan. He hadn’t been sure what it was—wouldn’t figure it out for another two and a half weeks—but the world had turned on its proverbial axis. 

Once he’d figured it out though, understood what it was about Tommy that had shaken him at his core, he found that he liked it. Suddenly, instead of being in constant need of the the noise that his team and loved ones brought with their company, he longed for the quiet. It was like he was a tide and Tommy was a full moon, pulling him in closer with each arrival. 

This silence didn’t hurt, he’d told Dr. Copeland about four months into their relationship. While the noise of his life helped silence the anxious and lonely voices inside his head after so many years of solitude, when he’d arrived in LA, the quiet that Tommy brought along with him was even better than that. He didn’t just quiet the anxiety and the loneliness. He pulled Evan in like he was piecing him together via telekinesis. Piece by piece, he became whole under Tommy’s gaze. He understood himself better because he was safe to take in the thoughts that came in the silence Tommy brought him. He didn’t always think nice things about himself, but there was something about the way Tommy looked at him that quieted those voices. Maybe Evan Buckley didn’t always love Evan Buckley, but Evan Buckley definitely liked the way Tommy Kinard loved Evan Buckley. 

And then Tommy had left, and while some of the quiet remained, it no longer silenced those thoughts. He did his best to quiet them through other endeavors—baking, attempting to dip a toe back into dating—but never really worked out well. There had been that one, brief, blissful until it was painful one-night-stand, and that had brought silence for a few precious second again. But then, just like he had been already once before, Tommy was gone, taking the safety of his silence with him. 

. . . 

Bobby’s death had been like an off-key elementary school orchestra’s first practice, suddenly bursting into that silence, except none of the metaphorical kids were trained to play those instruments, and so mostly it just hurt and sent him reeling. It was like a someone had kicked Evan square in the chest. 

The funeral had been the worst. Tommy had been there, and along with him came his ability to quiet the noise in Evan’s head, but the problem was that at that point, the only noise Evan could hear were all the things Bobby had ever told him. His death had still been so fresh at that point that the firefighter desperately wanted to lock those pieces of his former captain away inside his chest and keep Bobby Nash there. He could keep Bobby alive that way, if he just kept those memories on a loop and didn’t let them go.

In the months afterward, he thought about how he should’ve called Tommy back, but he feared that silence for so long—feared that it would quiet the pieces of Bobby he was struggling to cling to as days turned into weeks, and then into months. 

There was a day he’d seen Tommy at a scene, some five months after the lab incident. They were working a three-alarm and Tommy was on ground crew. Chim had been pushing this whole thing at the firehouse that Bobby was always staunch about, and it felt like nails on a chalkboard. Chim hadn’t figured out his own rhythm quite yet, and Evan didn’t want to lose Bobby’s way because Chim was using it to model his own leadership. 

When he’d seen Tommy at that scene, it had been like their first meeting, if only for a few seconds. Across the scene some hundred or so yards away, Tommy was standing with his back to Evan, drinking water and shaking out his curls before he put his helmet back on. The world was quiet for mere seconds. But in those seconds, he also forgot the way Bobby’s voice sounded as he talked about proper storage for Halligans, and that realization had gutted him. 

He’d sobbed about it later, in the safety of his own bed. 

. . . 

If Bobby’s death was like a bad orchestra practice, the weeks after New Mexico were the equivalent of that orchestra putting on a concert. In the near-year since Bobby’s death, he’d found a way to cope somehow. Even though he was slowly and surely losing pieces of Bobby, he also retained others. From old videos recorded on phones and video cameras, to shared stories among the LAFD and beyond, to Evan’s own memories, they indeed found ways to keep Bobby alive. Evan found a way to settle into the noise and embrace silence again.

Zane and Jade had been a brief foray into what that could feel like again, although the silence they brought wasn’t nearly as good as Tommy’s. 

Then again, it turned out the best silence of all wash that which came from the use of opioids. Suddenly, he found himself chasing that silence down with the determination of a cheetah on the prowl with a prey in its sights. He longed for the quiet that the opioids prescribed to him with a vengeance, because they quieted everything. 

They quieted the loss of Bobby, and his soon-to-arrive death anniversary. They quieted the pain of the car accident, and the inability to be Derek, let alone to survive, not having the kind of parents who so loved their child that they tried to replace him. 

They quieted the thoughts in his head that he’d never been able to stop after lab, where he wondered if Tommy had ever seen a future for them. And if not, what had been the point? 

. . . 

He’s been sober four and a half months the first time he wakes up in bed with someone else again. 

Sun is streaming across his face. It had been hot the night before, and so Tommy had opened the window before they’d slipped back beneath the sheets and fallen asleep, naked and curled against each other. 

He’d been three weeks sober the first time he called Tommy. During his first few days after withdrawal that he’d been cognizant again, he had filled his schedule in every way possible. He went to meetings—so many meetings—just to keep himself on the straight and narrow. He talked a little bit, but he’d listened even more. He journaled a lot, and talked even more in therapy. He talked to Frank, and he talked to Dr. Copeland. He made a few friends at meetings and, even though it was early, he found a sponsor. The guy was a former SEAL of all things, and they bonded over that. He told Evan about how he could see the determination to cling to the need for sobriety because of the job, but that he had to have more than that to hold onto. 

They talked about the noise, and the silence. And eventually he asked Evan when he’d found a way to be most comfortable—outside of using opioids—in the balance of it all. 

“You never know what could happen. Maybe he has moved on. Maybe he hasn’t. But you have the tools to get through one side of that, and you know what lies on the other side of the other.” 

He did. He had people he could call, and people he could turn to. 

And he knew that Tommy had an enduring love for the people he cared about. He knew that unless the other man had decided to go scorched earth about Evan, that he’d likely answer his call. That they could probably meet for coffee, and that Tommy might even be open to being friends while Evan worked through his sobriety. 

It still took him a few weeks to actually pick up the phone. 

And just like his sponsor had promised, Tommy had picked up the phone. He listened, and they talked. He told Evan about his own struggles, and they found a common ground in one another. They weren’t afraid of each other anymore, and there was something to seeing one another tarnished. Neither was so shiny anymore. 

If anything, it ensured the love that Evan had been so afraid to admit a year and a half earlier that much easier to admit and embrace. 

And so they started slow—slower than they had the first time around. There were dates that ended in a kiss good night on each other’s porches. There were phone calls that extended into the wee hours, and I love you’s that were exchanged long before they hit second base for the first time again. It was four months before they finally gave in and had sex again for the first time, and another two weeks after that before Tommy finally spent the night. 

Tommy is staring down at him when Evan tilts his chin up. He’s got that look on his face—the one he only gives Evan—and it warms the younger man’s chest. It’s quiet. He wants to sleep more in the safety of this cocoon. He wants to do this all the time, but they aren’t there yet. 

“We haven’t even had an overnight yet,” Tommy had said the night before when Evan had tried to approach the subject. 

“Only because I don’t think I’ll tolerate your going home very well,” Evan had countered. 

The conversation after that had been complicated. Lots of grimaces and pushing back in his chair by Tommy while Evan threw a lot of information at him. It wasn’t very much unlike their first discussion about living together, except this time Evan wasn’t excited. This time, he was pragmatic, telling Tommy all the reasons that he was sure that it was the right move for them. 

“I’m not saying tomorrow,” he’d said at the end of his long-winded speech. “But sometime sooner than later. I know I said once to you ‘why be apart when we can be together’, and all I’m saying is, we found out why. We suck at it.” 

Tommy had laughed at that comment, but he’d admitted that Evan wasn’t wrong. They’d been miserable apart, and even when they went months without talking, neither was far from the other’s mind. They still fit into each other’s life like two sides of the same coin. 

“Let’s just see how things go for now,” Tommy had said hours later, when Evan was strewn across his chest, sated and limp in the post-sex afterglow. “Not call it a yes or no, slap a label on who or where. Just…give it time, sharing space.” 

“And then decide the rest later?” Evan had murmured, fighting off sleep to ensure they were on the same pace. 

“Yeah,” Tommy had said, nodding while he fussed with Evan’s curls. It was serving to make Evan even more tired. But for that moment, it had been enough. 

He didn’t know what the future held; neither of them did. But he knew that wherever Tommy was, was where he wanted to be. He wanted to fall asleep next to, and wake up beside, the pilot every day. If they didn’t want to put a permanent address on that yet, that was fine. Inevitably, it was always only about this. 

The silence, and the safety. The love shared between two people that ran deep enough that it could quell pain, no matter how deep it ran. Whatever it was, Evan could do it, as long as Tommy was beside him. 

[kinardsevan]

feel the way you want me

something something about a rooftop reunion during the firehouse dedication. enjoy.

Tommy watches Evan disappear into the stairwell as everyone is picking up their slices of cake. He glances down at the plate in his head, silently wishing not to have to sacrifice it—he’s only had one bite, damn it, and it’s the good Costco kind with the chocolate shell—but something tells him to go. He glances around for a safe space to leave the slice—there isn’t one—and lets out a small huff as he tosses the plate into the trash. Evan will pay for this. 

He crosses the firehouse and climbs the mezzanine, entirely unsurprised by the lack of attention that it catches from the others. Down the hall, past the supply closet, bathrooms, and extra offices, he finds the door to the stairs to the roof. He shoves through and heads up, taking them two at a time, easing the door to the outside open quietly. 

Evan is a sight—when is he not, but regardless. The sun is shining bright with minimal cloud coverage, and the breeze is warm as the younger man leans against the cement siding. 

“Don’t jump,” Tommy jokes as he fully steps out. 

Evan glances over his shoulder, back at the pilot, and the half-smile on the pilot’s face doesn’t seem to do much in terms of piercing whatever veil stands between Evan and him. The younger firefighter turns his head back toward the city, shaking his head slightly. 

Tommy takes a few steps forward, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Lot of people down there. ’Ts a nice turnout. For the dedication, I mean.” He continues walking forward, trying not to be entirely swept up by the sight of Evan in his dress blues. “I’m sure they’re all happy to see you.” 

Evan lets out something between a snort and a huff, shaking his head tightly as he stares out at the city. “Not a damn one of them cares if I’m here or not.” 

Tommy glances to the side at him as he comes to stand a few feet away next to the barrier on the roof. “I can’t honestly believe that.” 

“Well it’s a good thing that the truth doesn’t require your belief in it,” Evan mutters. 

Tommy narrows his gaze, his brow furrowing as he focuses his attention fully on the younger man. “I’m sorry, have I done something?” 

The way his voice lilts and the derisiveness are grating on Evan’s nerves. 

“No, Tommy,” he says, finally turning to look back at the pilot. “In order to do something, you would’ve had to have actually been around.” 

If he’s been confused up to this point, now he’s just pissed. “Hey. I didn’t tell you to go off and leave the damn state and move three-quarters of the way across the country-..” 

“You didn’t do anything!” Evan argues back. “Nobody did! I woke up after Bobby’s funeral and I-i-it was like- like everyone just checked the fuck out! I tried to show up for everyone, make sure everyone was doing okay, because that’s what he wanted a-and-…and nothing! Hen and Chim acted like it was too much for them to give more than basic answers, Eddie threw his fist in my face, and you-..” 

“Eddie what?” Tommy asks, his eyebrows raising in surprise. 

“And you, where were you?” Evan asks, anger rising in his voice. “Because one minute, you- you were there, through every night and day. A-after months of nothing! After you walked out on the future I asked you for, you were- you-… and then E-Eddie came home and you disappeared like a ghost in the night. What the hell, Tommy!” 

“I was trying to give you space to grieve,” he responds, trying to temper his own emotions and not feed Evan’s anger. “I didn’t want to-..” 

“Didn’t want to, what? Be around in case I suddenly realized in my grief that I wanted to be with Eddie and not move out of the house when he suddenly decided to move back to LA?” Evan yells, holding his hand out as though the space on the roof displays the invisible paraphernalia of his memories. “Because that didn’t happen. The only- there was nothing- and Bobby is just-..” 

Evan shakes his head, looking away. 

Tommy glances down, and there are people clearly starting to matriculate out of the firehouse into the parking lot, looking up. 

“So you up and move to Nashville because I didn’t pick up a phone,” Tommy asks him. 

Evan’s eyes crinkle with irritation. “Are you not fucking listening to me? I transferred. And when out-of-state became an option and my phone still hadn’t rang, I figured, what the hell. No one around here seems to give a damn, so why bother sticking around?” 

Tommy shakes his head, looking over at Evan as the younger man puts space between them again.

“What did you want me to say, Evan,” he asks. “Please, enlighten me. Because I’ll find the damn words. Don’t go? Because if I’d known that you were going to, and it would’ve kept you here, I would have. Pick me? I think I’ve already done that once already, and we saw how that resulted.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean,” Evan argues. 

“I don’t have to care about everyone I sleep with,” Tommy recites, his bitchy tone leaking all over the words as he uses air quotes to emphasize his point. “And yet, last I checked, I still showed up when you called. I stole a helicopter—again, by the way—and fought the military in the sky so that we could save someone you love, again. I didn’t ask for a thank you, or a commendation. I didn’t even ask for help in the penalties. I just thought maybe when you were doing a little better, you might call and ask for a cup of coffee.” 

“I wasn’t doing better!” Evan yells at him. Tommy’s expression freezes, and now the people outside down below are far more obvious than they were previously. The sound of heels can be heard click-clacking against the cement and the unmistakable sound of whispers while people chatter away, clearly about whatever part of this soap opera they’ve walked in on. 

“Hey, you guys?” 

They both whip their heads back toward the door, and Ravi looks almost frightened for interrupting them. 

“J- um- Peo-people can hear you,” he says nervously. He lifts a hand in surrender, muttering something akin to ‘just, um, never mind’, before closing the door again. Behind it, his voice is muffled, but the communication seems pretty clear along the lines of ‘no, I’m not going back out there, and neither are you’. 

Tommy walks toward Evan as the younger man looks around, waving a hand up in defeat. 

“I wasn’t doing better,” he repeats, softer this time. When his hand falls back against his thigh, Tommy’s fingers slide into it, and Evan looks up at him through his eyelashes. “Nobody needed any help, and I didn’t know what to do, and you were gone and you’d already done so much and I…” 

“Needed to be somewhere else,” Tommy offers, his own voice softer. 

Evan nods, swallowing against the knot in his throat. “Somewhere that I didn’t feel out of place. O-or at least if I did, it was on purpose. So when I failed to cancel my transfer and the offer came through, and I didn’t have anywhere to live-..”

“You left,” Tommy states. “Also, we’re gonna circle back to the whole ‘no place to live’ thing. But first… you have people who need you here.” 

“Like who,” Evan mutters, rolling his neck as he glances up at Tommy. The pilot tilts his head, fighting against the wave of nerves telling him that baring his soul is the worst possible thing he could do because what the fuck are you doing Kinard? The last time you were this honest, he told you he could fuck you without feeling anything. 

“Like me.” The words come out soft, hardly more than a whisper and with almost no intonation. Shaking. “I need you here. I’ve needed you here since the day you walked into my hangar and I started trying to think of a thousand and one ways to get you back there so I could figure out how to make you a part of my life.” 

Evan lets out a small laugh, and for a moment, Tommy thinks things are good, but when he looks up at the younger firefighter, Evan just looks even more defeated. 

“Then where was all of this a year ago?” Evan questions. “When I asked you to move in? When you were telling me I was going to decide you weren’t good enough for me one day? Where was my agency to make decisions for myself then?” 

Tommy opens his mouth and his shoulder lift with a heavy inhale. So they’re not out of the woods on this. Okay. 

“I don’t know, Evan,” he answers. “Maybe I was a little concerned that one day you were going to wake up and realize I’m not the image of perfection that you boxed me into. That you it was going to dawn on you one day that there are better people out there than I, and that you’re better off pursuing one of them.” 

“You really are full of yourself, you know that,” Evan counters. Tommy looks back at him, utterly baffled. 

“Come again?” 

“You are,” he continues. “You want to know the words I used to describe you the night I figured out how I felt about you? Cruel and dishonest. You think I’m incapable of seeing you with flaws, and capable of failure? I know you’re capable of those things, Tommy. You broke the heart of the very person who set me on my path to you, and you did that by lying.” 

Tommy’s expression sinks, his gaze falling away. Evan steps back toward him anyway. 

“I’m not blind to who you are. I know that you’re broken and bruised and people have left you bleeding, and that you’ve done terrible things to good people. I was aware of all of that, right alongside the moment that I realized that it didn’t matter because you’re human and because I loved you, and I wanted to build a future with you.” 

Tommy lifts his head then, meets Evan’s gaze at those words. His lips part, but the half a dozen questions of ‘why, when, how, where’ and so forth, don’t pass them. 

Evan laughs again. “You thought I had you up on a pedestal? I know you’re an idiot. You’re fucking maniac too, by the way. Flying into a hurricane on a whim? Taking on the army because your ex-boyfriend needs a favor? D-does that mean that you said yes to Hen and Chim because you secretly had a crush on my brother-in-law? Or on Bobby? Because truly, I would love to know who I should be taking notes from-..” 

Tommy’s lips crash on his then, shutting him up. Evan stumbles half a step backwards, but the pilot catches him, and his hold is firm as Evan moans into his mouth, loops an arm around his neck, holding onto the back of his head. It’s one of those ‘steal your breath, steal your man’ kisses, and if Tommy wasn’t holding him upright at that moment, Evan swears he’d be on the ground from how badly his knees are shaking. 

When their lips finally part, Tommy’s forehead is still pressed against Evan’s. 

“Why didn’t you say any of this back in November? Or January? O-or any day since?” 

Evan’s still regaining his breath, and it’s all the time Tommy needs to regain his composure, stand them both up straight. He turns and walks across the roof and halfway back before stopping and looking up at Evan, utterly confused. 

“Loved, Evan? And how far down into that future were past the wedding without cluing me into any of this, because I know how your brain works-..” 

This time, it’s Evan quieting him with his mouth. It’s slower, but with just as emotion behind it. Somehow, Tommy’s fist ends up wrapped around the lapel of Evan’s jacket, keeping him close when they part once more. 

“Love,” Evan rectifies. “Present tense. As for the plans, they were pretty fluid.” 

The smirk on his lips is absolutely infuriating, and yet, Tommy still wants to kiss it off his face. He finally realizes the death grip he has on Evan’s jacket, and he loosens his fist just slightly. 

“If I’d known…” Tommy’s eyes move in a scattered manner, searching the space for the words, and simultaneously for a place to land, until ultimately he’s looking back at Evan again, eyes flitting between his gaze and his lips. “You- … You think I could’ve stayed with you through everything with Bobby if I didn’t love you back?” 

Evan shrugs. “Maybe you just felt bad for me.” 

Tommy turns to face him fully, grabbing both of Evan’s hands in his. 

“Sweetheart, feeling bad doesn’t scratch the surface,” he states, feeling his throat tighten at the memory. “I s-saw…and I didn’t- I mean I couldn’t-… I left when Eddie came back because it’s I thought was right. If I’d known, I never would’ve let you leave.” 

Evan gulps. It’s like butterflies fighting cannonballs in his stomach as he stares back at Tommy. On one hand, they’ve just achieved more in one conversation than they have in almost a year. On the other hand, he lives in Nashville. His job and his life are now in Nashville. He no longer has a foothold in Los Angeles, outside of Maddie and his niblings, and he’s not about to ask her about crashing on her couch when she’s got a newborn.

“What now?” He asks softly. 

Tommy lifts a hand to his face, brushes his knuckles against Evan’s cheek. He shrugs. 

“Have dinner with me?” Tommy offers. “Figure it out one conversation at a time?” 

Evan leans into his touch, staring back at the pilot. He nods. Tommy smiles at him—that soft, fond, heartened expression that makes his emotions clear. Evan can’t help smiling back at him at that. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

Tommy nods then, reaching for his fingers once more. After a few moments more standing together, he pulls Evan toward the door. 

“By the way,” he adds. “You owe me cake.” 

[kinardsevan]

who am i (to know)?

had this drabble in my head for a hot second. enjoy. post-s8 shenanigans.

-

"I owe you an apology."

Tommy looks up from his coffee with wide eyes. Maddie is standing across the kitchen from him, her own fresh cup in her hands. She'd come out from getting baby Bobby down, having fallen asleep in the rocking chair in the nursery while he'd been left in the house with Jee-Yun when the girl had wrangled him into a very convoluted pretend play of princesses and dragons. Evan was outside with Howie, working on a landscaping project that Tommy was supposed to join him on before his attention had been taken over by Jee.

"You really don't," he tells her, glancing out into the other room. Jee had fallen asleep on him—literally—about ten minutes before Maddie had come out, and he'd been so heartened by the fact that he hadn't wanted to move her. Maddie had shifted her over once she came out and offered him coffee.

"I do, though, "she states, stirring a spoon inside her coffee cup to mix the flavored creamer in. Her indulgences with the drink aren't very different from Tommy's, always seeking the sweetness instead of the caffeine.

She takes a deep breath, sips rom her drink before setting it on the counter.

"I wasn't very nice to you during round one of your and Evan's relationship, much less during the…off season," she comments.

Tommy lets out the slightest chuckle, the corner of his mouth pulling up as he acquiesces a nod before taking a sip of his own coffee.

"I'll give you that one," he responds. "But he's your brother. And as I understand it, maybe even more than that, given the situation with your parents," he comments as he sets his own coffee on the counter and leans back against it, wrapping his fingers over the ledge.

Maddie nods. "I recognize that he's an adult, and that end of the day, we're siblings-.."

"But for all intents and purposes, he's still your baby in some contexts," Tommy finishes for her. Maddie nods at the statement.

He's never said much on the subject, but he's always seen the way that Maddie has looked at Evan when they were in group situations. He still remembers the way she had kept watch over him at her own wedding reception—both the impromptu one thrown at the hospital, and the one that Bobby and Athen had held for them weeks later when schedules finally lined up and they were able to do something small at their condo. Maddie had been cordial, at the very least, but she had always kept a watchful eye on him, always waiting for…something. She never commented on whatever it was that she was waiting to see take place, but it seemed obvious once the breakup took place—she was waiting on him to end things.

"The thing is, for as complex as Evan's trauma is, he doesn't know it the same way we do," Maddie states. Tommy inhales sharply, staring down into his coffee mug.

It's not that he's ever expected Evan to not tell other people about the things he's shared about his own life—he knows that keeping secrets isn't healthy, and it directly affected the downfall of their relationship in the first go around. It wasn't at all that Tommy didn't want Evan to know him, either, or that he didn't want to know Evan in deeper ways. But when they had finally taken the time to sit down and really talk about the dark stuff that they'd avoided during the first year, it was more than clear that the trauma they both held wasn't light or easy. He fully understood Evan's urge to cling with a life filled with abandonment, including an entire quarter of his life in which he didn't speak to a single member of his family—and none of them had bothered to reach out to him. Adding to that he fact that he was 29 before he knew about his dead brother, and the fact that his entire life existed because he'd been intended as a savior sibling—so much about the younger man had come into focus for Tommy. He had no problem assuming that the same could also be said for Evan in relation to him.

"I think he's got a bit of a better grasp on it now," Tommy answers, still staring down into his coffee cup. He can't actually be entirely sure that the younger man really does understand the urge to bolt, but in the face of Bobby's death, while he urged to cling and stay close, Tommy needed time alone to process. It wasn't even that he didn't appreciate the comfort of being with Evan—he very much so did—but in the same breadth, he had only ever known a life where processing loss came hand-in-hand with loneliness. He needed the silence to figure out his own thoughts. But it was also that need for separation—short as it may have been—that ultimately led to the fighting that brought them back together.

"I imagine he does," Maddie states softly. She stares at Tommy for a time, and when he looks back up at her, the expression on her face is one he's only ever seen in his direction as a young child. It's the way that his mom used to look at him before she died. A layer of emotions, usually some mixed level of both pride and annoyance, but always covered in love. It makes a wave of something unfamiliar rush through his chest.

Well, maybe not unfamiliar so much as so distantly memorable that it doesn't feel right at first.

"Anyway, my point was…" Maddie trails off after a moment, and Tommy glances over at her again. There's something familiar in their shared gaze, but whether her statement is too loaded to put into words, or she doesn't fully have a grasp on it, she's not sure. He lets out another soft breath of a chuckle and nods.

"You didn't think I was going to change my mind," he states, not questioning. "Come back."

"I wasn't entirely sure," she admits. "I just knew that I recognized something in you, and I didn't like it. It took me a while, when you came back around to really grasp what it was that I was ambivalent about, but when you showed up and helped with saving Howie, a-and stuck around for Evan…" She glances back down at her coffee, touching the cup anxiously while also trying to keep her emotions together. "Well, anyway, I've seen Evan's life be a revolving door, in the kind of way where people come and go. They don't really come back. And I knew he loved you, but I wasn't sure if you loved him. Before then, I mean."

"Figured I was just along for the good times with the hot sibling," Tommy comments, just a hint of his bitchy tone and a smile on his face. Maddie scoffs.

"He is not the hot sibling."

"He kind of is," Tommy answers with a slight tilt of his head, and then they're both laughing, and it feels good. It feels warm and safe, and he has just the slightest pang of anxiety about letting himself really sink into it. No matter how much Evan tells him that there isn't anyone else and he doesn't want someone else, the fear of letting himself believe in another future that he won't actually get is still terrifying.

"The important thing is that you believe that," Maddie states, still laughing a little. As she finishes talking, though, just a smile remains on her face, and Tommy knows she means it.

Tommy glances out toward the back patio as Evan and Howie work on moving a bag of mulch into large pots, and his expression softens.

"He still scares me, if I'm honest," he tells her. "I've put faith into relationships in the past that didn't work out, and that hurt. But falling in love with him, and then telling myself that I couldn't have him…" His eyes get that overly dry feeling as he feels the edge of them brim with moisture. He glances back over at Maddie briefly, and she has that look on her face again, and it makes his heart twist. His gaze falls to her hands wrapped around her coffee mug as he drags his teeth against themselves, bites the side of his cheek. "He feels like a home I haven't known since…and I couldn't let go of him the way I should have. S-so even though he tells me otherwise, I still wake up every day convinced just a little bit that he will actually destroy me."

Maddie sets her cup down and Tommy looks away, suddenly feeling as though he needs to pull himself together in the right way. He forces a breath out and pushes a smile across his face as she walks over to him, wraps her small hands around his bicep, leaning into his side a little. The height difference is a little ridiculous, but he finds he doesn't mind it.

"I think you've figured this out, but Evan loves big, and in grand gestures. He has a penchant for missteps and overcorrection, but he means only the best with all of it. And in the midst of all of that, I have never seen him love the way he loves you, even if it took him a while to piece all of that together."

Tommy glances down at Maddie, his gaze narrowed just slightly.

"You don't think he's going to change his mind one day?" He tries to make it sound like a joke, but the trembling in his voice gives him away, and Maddie squeezes his bicep.

"Believe me when I tell you, Evan doesn't see anyone else," Maddie tells him. "Also, if you tell him that I've told you this, I'll deny it because of how disgusted I was when he said it to begin with. But I have heard him make the statement that if it was humanly possible, he'd have your children." Maddie narrows her eyes at Tommy. "Truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised if he did a deep dive to see if it is possible."

Tommy blushes at her statement, lets out a laugh, and it makes Maddie laugh too. For a solid two minutes, they lean against each other and the counter, laughing until it hurts to keep doing so, at which point the patio doors open and Evan and Howie come walking in, pink and each covered in a sheen of sweat. The center of Evan's tank clings to his chest, and it makes Tommy feral just looking at him.

"Might have to do a google search of my own," he mutters toward Maddie. She slaps his arm and steps away as Evan and Howie both mutter some version of 'what?' Maddie walks over to her husband and wraps an arm around him, pulling him away as Evan approaches Tommy. The pilot watches his boyfriend as Evan drapes an arm over his shoulder, fingers grazing at his hairline as he smirks at him.

"You are so dirty right now," Tommy tells him. "And sweaty."

Evan nods. "We were going to shower. The master bedroom has its own. And besides, you like me all sweaty and worked up." He trails a finger down the center of Tommy's chest, slipping it in past the button the fastened button in the center of Tommy's chest. The pilot glances down at what he's doing, can't fight the smirk pulling on his face. Evan leans into him, tilts up toward his ear. "Shower with me."

"There are children here," Tommy murmurs back to him, glancing toward the hall. He hears the bedroom door shut down the hall, and Evan presses his heated, sweaty cheek into Tommy's. "And I didn't plan for this."

"I did," Evan whispers, turning his head more and biting down into the space below Tommy's ear as he leans closer to him. Tommy gulps. Evan's free hand slides down his torso before his fingers curl into the waist of the pilot's jeans. "I have clothes for you. Shower with me."

Tommy opens his mouth to respond, but Evan's fingers dip lower, and the pilot gasps as the tips of Evan's fingers brush against him.

"Quickie in the shower," he whispers, his throat tight with need. "Quiet like a mouse."

Evan grins against his neck, and he can feel it.

"Sure," he answers gruffly. When he pulls away, the grin is still plastered on his face as he tugs Tommy forward by the hand still in his jeans. "Bag's already in the bathroom."

Yeah. Tommy definitely needs to get on that Google search.

[kinardsevan]

houston, we got a problem

Tommy is mildly panicked when he walks into their home. He’s just come off his first day back at work after the shooting and is excited for him and Evan to have their first ninety-six off living in the same home. It wasn’t supposed to actually work out that way—he was supposed to have gone back to work earlier in the week—but his doctors had held him off for a little longer, and then with the process of Evan repacking all of his things and moving out of Eddie’s house, the time between of availability for them had dwindled away during his final recovery days. But now they have this, and he expects it to be great. As it is, it’s the first time they’ll really get to enjoy each other’s company fully since getting back together, since Tommy is considered officially healed. At least…

“Babe?” He calls out through the house as he slips his shoes off. “Did you hear me about the movie? I think we can still get those reservations, too.” 

The house is silent, but he knows Evan’s truck is in the driveway, and briefly he wonders if he younger man decided to take a nap after getting home from his shift. A smile drifts across Tommy’s face at the idea of crawling in next to Evan in their bed. They’ve certainly had their share of post-shift naps together, both at the loft and in this house—but this would be the first one in their bed, their home. The context of that is just as exciting as dinner and a movie. 

He walks through the house, little more noise than the sound of his socks on shag carpetting and the rustle of his jeans as they brush together, until he comes around the corner of the kitchen into the bedroom and his eyes fall on a familiar, small velvet box sitting on top of the dresser. His jaw drops open slightly as panic floods through him. He isn’t sure at all how to approach this topic, but as his gaze drifts over to Evan sitting on the end of the bed, the panic flooding the middle of his chest widens and deepens. The younger man does not look excited or even nervous, but instead upset. 

It takes everything inside Tommy to reel himself in—to remind himself that when he made the choice to break up with Evan a few months back, that choice hadn’t ended well—rather it had ended with Evan at his bedside in a hospital, telling him that there wasn’t another person out there who he wanted to be his last, and that he was head over heels in love with the pilot. Given the moves they’ve made forward in their relationship since, even though his own past trauma would like to suggest that maybe Evan has changed his mind, he knows that, logically, that’s very unlikely. 

“Baby?” 

Evan’s gaze doesn’t lift, and he doesn’t move, and after a moment, Tommy hears him sniffle, and his heart sinks. He picks up the box where it’s been left on the dresser and drops it back into the sock drawer before walking across the space between the door and the bed and kneeling down in front of his boyfriend. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Evan stammers. Tommy lifts a hand to his cheek, tilts the younger man’s face up more so he can see him clearly, and Evan looks so defeated that it twists a knife in his chest. 

“No, baby, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he answers, brushing his thumb back and forth on Evan’s cheekbone. “What’s going on?” 

Evan shakes his head, tears falling down his face, and it’s the first time that Tommy realizes the younger man has been crying. And as much as he’s trying to choose logic over emotions, he knows that whatever Evan is about to tell him has been weighing on him for more than just a few hours. 

“I-…” He inhales shakily, blinking and sending more tears down his face, over the back of Tommy’s hands as the pilot stares up at him wide-eyed, full of concern. “S-should be happy.” 

“You’re not?” Tommy says carefully, still forcing himself to toe the line. Evan turns his head, leaning into the pilot’s touch, and it’s mildly calming. He wouldn’t turn into him if he wanted to break up, right? 

“W-wanna be,” Evan answers, his voice shaking. “Feels- feels like I should- I should be. Everything has- …it’s good now. Everyone is- a-and we’re-..” 

Understanding sinks down over Tommy like the start of a midmorning drizzle, dripping into him one tiny drop at a time. He’s been here before, and he knows exactly what Evan means. 

“Okay, look at me,” he answers, his tone much firmer with the realization of what’s going on. Evan’s gaze lifts, but he doesn’t look any more settled or out of pain. 

“It’s been a tough fucking year for you,” he tells the younger man. “Lightning strike, changes in sexuality, Eddie left and came back, Maddie got kidnapped, we broke up, and I almost died. Even one or two of those events is a lot.” 

Evan sniffles and tries to look away, but Tommy turns his head back toward the pilot and forces his boyfriend to keep holding his gaze. 

“Y-you bought a ring, a-and I sho-should be ecstatic-..” 

Tommy scrunches his face in response, baffled at Evan’s determination to believe he should just suck it all up and give the expected response. 

“Did you hear anything I just said,” the pilot asks. 

“I’m needy and make everything about myself,” Evan tells him. “T-the break-up, Eddie leaving, w-when I called you while Maddie was- was gone. Fuck, Tommy, the- the shooting-..” 

“You were hurting,” his boyfriend reminds him, his tone almost angry. “Needing support doesn’t mean that you’re selfish. You deserve to have people there for you when you’re struggling.” 

Evan inhales and exhales wordlessly, more tears coming down his face. There’s a mountain of a statement not being made about how Tommy has been the only person to ever tell him that, to show up for him in the dark times and bring some light along with it, to love him through his ridiculousness. 

“They- they had more important things-..” 

“And that doesn’t mean that you don’t get to hurt too,” Tommy counters. “This is not the trauma olympics.” His gaze trails over Evan, taking in his demeanor. The way he seemed to curl in on himself, almost rejecting of what Tommy was telling him. And the thing was, for all the conversations they’d had about the places they’d lacked love and support in their lives, had struggled being on their own, he’d always held some degree of faith that the family his boyfriend had created around the 118 did something to show up and support him. 

And yet. 

“I’m exhausting,” Evan mutters, and it breaks something inside Tommy. 

“You are anything but that,” Tommy tells him, his tone bordering on argumentative. “You deserve love and support. You get that, right?” When Evan doesn’t look up at him, Tommy’s hand grips just a little bit tighter against his cheek, and he bobs his head forward to drive the point home. “Right?” 

“Sure,” Evan whispers. 

Tommy shakes his head, tilting Evan’s chin up toward him again. 

“Listen to me. You deserve all of those things,” he insists. “And if everything is too much right now, then we’ll figure it out. We’ll make some phone calls, you can take some time off work-..” 

“I’ve already been out since the shooting too much-..” 

“And that’s what paid time off is for,” Tommy counters. “I know you well enough to know that you haven’t used it all. And I know Bobby well enough that he’ll make you take the time to ensure you’re taking care of yourself more than just physically.” 

Evan opens his mouth to respond, his expression letting on that he’s about to try and counter Tommy, but the older man won’t be dismissed so easily. 

“Evan.” 

His boyfriend meets his gaze, his eyes brimming with more tears. “What?” 

“We’re going to figure it out,” Tommy says softly to him. “You can rest, and put yourself first. Let the people who love you put your first.” 

Evan sniffles again, the tears in his eyes coming down his face. It takes more than a few seconds, but eventually, he nods. Tommy stands and moves into the spot next to him, still keeping one hand on his face as Evan turns his head toward him. 

“What do you want to do,” he asks softly. “Not in the grand scheme, but right this second? What can I do for you?” 

Evan gulps, his gaze low. “I’m just so tired.” 

Tommy nods. “Okay. Do you want to lay down? Can I hold you? Would that help?” 

Evan nods, and then Tommy moves them up the bed. The younger man curls up tightly against him, but it’s not like how they normally are. Instead of Evan laying half on top of him, his body is rigid at Tommy’s side, like being tightly wound is all he can do to hold himself together. 

The pilot reaches over and combs a hand through Evan’s hair, brushing his thumb against Evan’s jaw when his hand settles. He feels the wetness against his t-shirt as they lie there. 

“‘m sorry,” Evan mutters softly, tucking his face into his hand against Tommy’s chest. 

“No, baby,” the pilot answers just as quietly. “Rest, Evan. Just let go. I’m right here.” 

There’s a period of roughly two or three minutes, where the only sounds in the room is their breathing, and the occasional sniffle. And then, like a wave cresting, it makes landfall and he feels the change against his chest as the tears come fast, the sniffles turn to sobs, and the walls come down. And for all the ways he’s had to let Evan in over the past few months, this might be the first time he’s really seen the younger man break. 

Selfishly, he wants to know who ever told his boyfriend that he was selfish or exhausting for being in pain. He wants to knock their lights out. But for now, he’ll settle for being the comfort. When Evan finally gives in to uncurling, letting the weight of all of his emotions settle over them and the urge that that brings to cling tighter to Tommy, the pilot holds him tighter, speaks softer affirmations to him. 

And then eventually, after a little while, the younger man seems to settle, if for no other reason than exhaustion. Tommy loosens his grip as Evan does, but he doesn’t let go. He feels the way Evan’s breathing deepens against him, and lays quietly next to him, making a mental checklist of what they’ll need to get done over the next few days. 

The younger man doesn’t doze long. After about twenty minutes, he rouses and lifts his head, looking up at Tommy. The pilot stares back at him quietly, observing him. He practically see the way Evan wants to apologize again brimming just beneath the surface, but he doesn’t say it. And then before long, the younger man is settling against him once more, his head on the pillow right beside Tommy’s. 

“You wanted to ask me to marry you,” Evan whispers. 

Tommy inhales a deep breath. He still wasn’t entirely prepared for that conversation today. 

“I still do,” the pilot answers, looking over at him. “But—and I’m not saying this in a bad way—I’d like to table that for when you’re feeling better. For when we’re both in a better headspace to dive into all that that means.” He’s quiet briefly, letting Evan consider his words. “Is that okay?” 

He sees the way Evan’s chin trembles and the way he tries to stuff down his feelings, sniffling instead of giving in to the tears. He nods and then tilts his head against Tommy’s shoulder, and the way he exhales feels a lot to Tommy like a sigh of relief, driving his entire point home that they’ll wait until he’s in a better place. 

“I’ve got you, Evan,” he whispers before pressing a kiss to the younger man’s forehead. “We’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.” 

[kinardsevan]

Eddie stops in his tracks as he steps into the café, utterly confused. Ten feet away, Tommy is standing at the register with a female. Except, that female has her arm wrapped tightly around his, and she’s so close to him that Eddie’s pretty sure he couldn’t fit a playing card between them. Hen has abandoned him for the bathroom while he’s been put on coffee duty for the firehouse. Still, the sight of his former friend with a woman is definitely throwing him. 

For a moment, he tells himself it’s not on him to try and figure out the situation there, but then he watches as the woman leans up to Tommy and he turns toward her. And they kiss. 

“What the hell?” 

Several heads turn in his direction—including Tommy and the woman—and he realizes that he said it louder than he intended to. 

“Well shit,” he mutters to himself. He crosses the space and gets in line, but the look on Tommy’s face is not helping him whatsoever. 

“Can I help you?” Tommy asks. 

Eddie eyes him up and down before looking over at the female and then back at Tommy. 

“I mean what the hell are you doing?” Eddie asks. 

Tommy scowls at him, clearly disgusted by his attitude. 

“Excuse me?” 

“What happened to ‘I’m gay’?” Eddie asks. 

The female turns toward Tommy with a shocked expression as he mutters under his breath. He lifts a finger to Eddie as he pulls his phone from his pocket. 

“What’re you doing,” the female asks Tommy. 

“Just a minute,” he tells her sweetly. A moment later, his phone is ringing in his hand, and it takes less than thirty seconds before the line clicks over.

“What’s up, Donny?” 

Rocker flips his phone around towards Eddie. “You know this asshat?” 

Eddie scowls at Rocker. 

“Eddie?” Tommy comments from the phone. He appears to be cooking. “Wait, where the heck are you guys?” 

“The cafè on fifth,” Rocker answers. “Numb nuts thought I was you.” 

“Really, Diaz,” Tommy comments. “You’ve heard me talk about Rocker. You’ve seen pictures in my house.” 

“He really is the idiot you make him out to be,” Rocker comments. 

“Donovan!” Tommy grumbles. “Will you shut up?” 

“You didn’t tell me Tommy was gay,” Molly comments. Tommy looks up from whatever he’s working on chopping and waves at the camera. 

“Hey, Moll. Yep. Kinsey 6.” 

“The fuck does that mean?” Eddie mutters under his breath. Rocker deadpans at him, clearly annoyed. 

“It means he’s gay, numb nuts.” 

“Rocker!” 

Eddie turns at the sound of Hen’s voice, glancing over at her as she crosses the floor back toward them. Not-Tommy smiles at her, and when she approaches, the two share a hug that throws Eddie even further. He knows that Hen and Tommy are friends, but he’s never seen them that friendly. 

“I haven’t seen you since Tommy left Harbor,” she comments. She and Molly exchange pleasantries as Eddie’s head continues to swim at all the new information. 

“Yeah, 50 David keeps me busy,” Rocker advises her as Molly grabs a bag of coffee beans from a shelf for their purchase. Eddie steps aside to put their coffee order in. 

“That’s right,” Hen muses. “Tommy mentioned you being in charge of your team these days.” She looks past him toward Eddie for a moment. “You good over there, Diaz?” 

He turns back toward her once the order is done, dialing on his phone. “Yeah, um…” 

Hen doesn’t seem to actually care that much, pulled away by Tommy saying something to her on Rocker’s phone. When Eddie’s own phone finally clicks over, Buck is on the screen. The phone is settled somewhere as Buck strips out of his turnouts, back down to his uniform from their last call. 

“What’s up, Eddie?” Buck asks. 

“Tommy has a twin?” He asks. 

Buck looks at Eddie like he’s grown a second head. “You knew that.” 

Eddie opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn’t actually have the words to make his point. He’d thought calling Buck would at least get someone on his side, but mostly he just feels out-of-pocket in this entire situation. 

Still, as he steps back over by Hen, she seems to realize that Eddie has him on the phone, and Rocker and Molly clock the phone as well. 

“Wait, so that’s the boyfriend,” Molly murmurs to Rocker. 

“Ex-boyfriend,” Tommy answers, sounding sad and just a little exasperated.

“And whose fault is that,” Evan comments out into the space between all of them. “Also, where is Tommy in all of this?” 

Eddie turns his phone towards Rocker’s until both men can see each other on their phones. 

“Wait. Tommy, why the fuck haven’t you fixed this yet,” Rocker asks, turning his own phone back toward himself. “I haven’t heard the end of of your plight in ages.” 

“Yeah,” Evan comments from Eddie’s phone. Eddie and Rocker both look toward the screen and Rocker reaches out, turning Eddie’s in his direction. “Why?” 

“Evan, shut up,” he comments. “You’re not doing yourself any favors.” 

“Don’t talk to him that way, Donavon Gregory,” Tommy comments from his end of the line. 

“Ay carumba,” Eddie mutters, rubbing his skull. 

Hen reaches out for both phones, turning them toward herself. “You’re both idiots, and if you don’t figure your shit out by dinner on Friday night, I’ll get this crew of police officers, firefighters, and paramedics that I know to lock you two into an elevator until you do.” 

“I can definitely help make that happen,” Rocker confirms to her. 

“Good god, please,” Eddie adds. “For the sake of us all.” 

“Hey!” Buck and Tommy both yell from the phones.

“Why don’t you hang up with us and call each other,” Rocker states. “If you know what’s good for yourselves, you won’t give me and Wilson time to plot this out.” 

“Damn straight, Rocker,” Hen replies, slapping his shoulder. 

“Orders up for Diaz and Rocker!” 

“That’s it,” Rocker comments. “You’re on notice.” He looks up at Hen as he ends the call on his phone. “Let’s get dinner soon. Without the children.” 

Hen chuckles, nodding. “For sure.” She taps her phone against his, sharing her contact card. “Give me and Karen a call. You guys can come meet the kids.” She looks back at Eddie, who is still rubbing his forehead. “Come on, Diaz. Time to get back to the firehouse.” 

Eddie just nods in response. 

[kinardsevan]

are you getting sick and tired of trying (loving you is like a hurricane)

content warnings: mention of prior domestic violence; canonical child neglect

Tommy stares across the island, heat flooded through him  as the edge of the counter digs into his palms roughly.

He should go. He knows he should. He knows standing here, continuing in this cycle is not going to achieve anything. But if there’s one thing he also knows more than anything else, it’s that the very same cycle is one he can’t seem to pull himself out of. 

It’s easy to say that the cycle itself is just Evan; to call a spade a spade and just know that if he walked out the door and stopped being so fucking weak, letting his knees take a shit every time Evan so much as looked in his direction, he might actually achieve some level of moving on. He’s been trying to since the night he walked out of Evan’s former loft, over a year and a half ago. Or at least, that’s what he’s told his therapist. 

The funny thing is, that fact right there should make the point to him that this is a cycle. He’d been out of therapy for years, and he’d only gone back after the initial break-up. First, because he wanted to figure out if there was a way to salvage things, and then because he’d quickly come to the understanding that if he actually wanted to salvage things between himself and Evan, he needed to figure out how to deal with himself first. And look, trauma therapy fucking sucks, but he’d been achieving something. He’d made strides before that night in the bar led to them fucking in Eddie Diaz’s bedroom—even if it was ever-so-temporarily Evan’s—but it had been nothing for those twelve hours to circle Tommy right back into the issue at hand that had driven him out of Evan’s loft months earlier to begin with—they could circle one another so easily with the wrong words, and although there always seemed to be some level of wanting to get to the crux of where the actual problem was, it was like standing on opposite sides of chasm. Except, the chasm wasn’t just empty; no. The chasm was full of all of their unshared childhood traumas, losses, struggles. Every relationship they still hadn’t gotten to talking about, every insecurity that wasn’t surface-level or solved by incidentally discovering it. Every time one of them moved in a protective measure toward someone that the other viewed as having caused the other a perceived wrong. 

Tommy hasn’t been a fan of Eddie Diaz for over a year, for example. And as far as Evan is concerned, if Tommy’s mom ever steps foot inside California proper again, the entire state will be scorched earth. 

“…’s like you aren’t even listening anyway,” Evan’s voice drones back in through his thoughts. “And why would you!? You only hear what you decide I’m saying before tucking tail and running!” 

Tommy growls deep in his chest, his teeth ground together. He’s so tired of the fighting, and of the cycle. 

He’s not entirely sure why he’s even here, if he’s honest with himself. They’re not in a relationship. They haven’t been in one since he walked out on Evan. Every misstep and fall-into-bed sleepover they’ve had since has never panned out anywhere; first because of his own fear, and then because of Bobby’s death, and then a million other excuses both he and Evan have managed to make since. And yet, this later iteration just won’t stop. 

It started with them hooking up after working a shared scene. Neither of them was perilously injured, but they’d both had a near-miss that had made tensions flare, and when everyone had been dismissed for the night, Tommy already knew where his night was going to end. 

And what a night it had been. The morning had been pretty damn good too, as they’d both been off and spent it letting their bodies get reacquainted. There wasn’t any talk about getting back together; it was all hot sex, messy kitchen shenanigans, and something that always was too fucking easy to slide back into. 

And if Tommy was honest with himself, he could admit that he and Evan have always slotted together that way, from their very first meeting. Something about the way they magnetized into one another’s lives was like jigsaw pieces with jagged edges that still somehow managed to slot together perfectly. But if that metaphor was supposed to be accurate, Tommy couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just keep themselves in the right formation. Instead, inevitably, they always managed to spin those pieces onto their jagged axises, digging into one another with determination to make the other bleed. 

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he states, his voice low and tight with gravel. His gaze is still locked on the counter. He can feel his fingertips aching from the pressure he’s putting on them underneath the counter. 

“Of course you don’t,” Evan throws back. Tommy doesn’t need to look up at the firefighter to know that he’s pissed. Evan wears his emotions on his sleeve, and even if his voice wasn’t giving away his emotional response, his face definitely would. “You never want to.” 

“Don’t push this, Evan,” Tommy states. He inhales deeply, pulling his hands away from the counter and squeezing his fingers into his fists, trying to warm some heat back into them. 

“Oh heaven forbid,” the younger man argues back. “God forbid Tommy Kinard feel anything intense in my direction.” 

That does it. The pilot’s eyes snap up in Evan’s direction, his rage barely contained beneath the surface as Evan stares across the kitchen at him with disbelief. 

“As though you could do anything with the truth that I spell out for you other than spit it back at me in the cruelest way possible,” the pilot answers. He pauses briefly, inhaling and exhaling deep breaths to try and stay calm. “Fuck, doing this with you is like… like, water in our lungs.” 

“So I make it feel like you can’t breathe,” Evan retorts, clearly offended by the statement. 

Tommy gestures in his direction. “Like this? Abso-fucking-lutely. You push, and push, and you fucking push, Evan.” 

“Because you don’t ever let me in!” Evan argues back. 

Tommy blinks at the statement, balking slightly at such an assertion. A haughty laugh slips out of him as his gaze moves around the room. 

“W-when? When I told you on day one that I was jealous of the dynamic you have at work? Or how about when Bobby almost died and I told you that I didn’t have someone in my life like you did with Bobby. Or, would you rather talk about when I told you that I had insecurities about your friendship with Eddie?” 

Evan’s mouth closes, and Tommy sees his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow, but the rage doesn’t simmer. 

Evan turns, walks to the end of the room and then turns back and walks back to the same spot he was just standing in before rubbing a hand up his forehead with irritation. Tommy doesn’t need Evan to tell him that he’s pissed off—his body language is making it more than clear. 

Eventually, Evan shakes his head, and when he looks back at Tommy, the anger isn’t as intense in his expression, but it’s also clear that he’s not satisfied. 

“I don’t know what to do here anymore,” he comments. 

“Thank fucking god,” Tommy breathes out. 

Evan laughs, still shaking his head. 

“I don’t get it, Tommy. I can’t keep doing this with you. I can’t-… I-I guess us meeting in a hurricane was apropos because that seems to be all that we can do; cyclone around each other without ever actually making it into the eye of the storm. I-… I tell you how I feel, and that I want a future with you, and instead you cut and run.” 

“I’m not having that fight again,” Tommy answers wearily. “You know why-..” 

“And yet it has solved nothing,” Evan iterates to him. “You’re never any closer to moving forward, to giving me more of a chance, to even attempting to let me see beneath whatever this façade it is that you insist on maintaining. So, what then? You can only tolerate me in small doses?” 

“How am I supposed to put a future together with someone who can’t meet me on the most basic level of vulnerability in equal measures,” Tommy responds honestly. The words aren’t hateful, or even intended to be hurtful, but the look on Evan’s face as he says them make it clear that they still landed like a Tommy set a landmine down in front of him. 

“I try to talk to you about a lack of a family, to open up the conversation, and you don’t engage,” he continues. “I give you pieces of my past, and I don’t know if it’s that you just don’t know how to engage with them, or if you actually just don’t care, but we continue to get nowhere.” 

“So it’s all on me,” Evan states. His voice is soft, and the way Tommy can hear the tightness in it makes something ache deep inside of him. It’s not the same as it was watching Evan fall apart when Bobby died and he couldn’t comfort him. No, this is a different kind of pain, because he’s he one causing it. 

Evan turns his head away, but Tommy isn’t stupid. Even if Evan has never been shy about letting the pilot see his emotions before, he’s never seen Evan get this vulnerable about the issues between the two of them. At least, not like this. 

“This is not what I’m trying to achieve,” Tommy says softly, though he doesn’t try to move toward Evan. 

Evan is quiet longer than he normally would be. When he finally does turn back in Tommy’s direction, his chin is tilted down, and so much of it feels like a gut punch for Tommy. He’s been trying to get vulnerability out of Evan for a long time now, but this vulnerable? This feels like kicking a puppy. 

When Evan’s gaze lifts, he doesn’t look at Tommy. Still, the pilot can see the shining in the younger man’s eyes, the threat of tears that haven’t fallen. 

“You’re right,” he whispers eventually. “I um…I-I spew my… my feelings, in the wrong directions most-most of the time. I get upset at work, o-or I shut down and spiral, and make everything about myself, and-..” 

“Hey, no,” Tommy states, cutting Evan off. He finally moves, walking around the corner but still leaving space between them. “You have never-..” 

“That’s my point,” Evan rasps, finally looking up at Tommy. “I’ve never done it with you because I didn’t…I didn’t want you to see me that way. To come away with the same conclusions everyone else always seems to.” 

Tommy tilts his head as Evan’s gaze drops to where he’s picking at his fingers. The younger man sniffs as Tommy reaches up and curls his fingers around Evan’s cheek. It draws Evan’s gaze back up to him, though he’s staring at the pilot like a scared animal, waiting to be punished. 

“What is it exactly that you think I’m going to think about you if you actually tell me more about what happens in here,” the pilot asks, tapping his index finger against Evan’s temple. 

Evan lets out a mirthless laugh, looking at his hands once more. He shrugs. 

“Always ‘too’ something. That’s for sure. Too needy, too loud, too stubborn. Too selfish. Too stupid.” 

Those last two words hit Tommy harder than the rest. Not because he hasn’t heard them himself before, but because he knows that hearing enough of the prior ones can inevitably lead to a person’s own conscience offering up those two words. 

“I have never—not for one second—thought you were too much in any form,” he answers. “In fact, I think I’ve postulated that people who think they have the right to call you needy or selfish should probably look in the mirror.” 

“‘m supposed to just get over it all,” Evan answers. “S-..” 

“No,” Tommy counters. “No. Just, no. There is not a timeline on grief and processing. And I know there’s a lot you’ve left out, but what you have let on about your past and Maddie’s… I can piece enough together to understand that it wasn’t a happy home.” Tommy pauses, gives them both a few seconds to breathe and process the moment. After a few seconds he reaches up and cups Evan’s face in both hands, turning the younger man toward him. 

“I’m not asking you to spell every little detail out to me. I definitely don’t want to see you hurting this much ever. But I do want you to feel like you can tell me things without assuming I’m going to tell you that feeling something intensely makes you too much. Okay?” 

Evan nods. 

“Think it’s just easier to give into pushing you to leave because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, then,” he answers. 

“Sure,” Tommy replies. “Except we keep ending up back here, and no closer to ending or starting things. We’re just locked horns.” 

Evan nods. When he lifts a hand to wipe the tears on his face, Tommy moves his own away. He waits briefly, not wanting Evan to feel rushed if he’s not done talking. Still, when Evan doesn’t keep talking, Tommy nods. 

“I’ve told you my father was like Gerrard,” he comments. Evan nods. 

“I haven’t told you that my father does not have a redemption streak in him like Gerrard seemed to try and have after we lost Bobby. I fight you on getting truly angry because he was all the time. And when he was angry, people got hurt,” he explains. Evan finds his hand down at their sides, and Tommy squeezes his fingers lightly when Evan takes it. “I know you don’t like my mom for leaving, but he would’ve tried to kill her if she hadn’t. I’m not sure he hadn’t actually tried before she did leave. And sure, there’s hair-splitting about how she could’ve tried to take me, but you know how connected my father was.” 

Evan nods. 

None of it is a perfect solution. Tommy knows they haven’t cleared the chasm; they’ve barely filled a cup of water from it. But at the same time, he feels closer to Evan, like if they can keep doing this, they might reach each other one day, the right way. 

Regardless, Evan moves in and curls his arms around Tommy’s shoulders, and for a few minutes they stand in the ambient light of Evan’s kitchen. The tension doesn’t feel as thick as it did, and it no longer feels like they’re taking on water. It also takes him back to words that have lived rent-free inside his head since he went back to therapy a year ago; how his therapist had told him that they had to be willing to change in equal measure in order to actually create something that lasts. 

And who knows. Maybe in twenty-four hours, they’ll be screaming at each other in the kitchen again, and none of this will have mattered. Maybe he’ll piss Evan off in five seconds. 

But for now, it feels like they might finally be on the same page, actually able to write the story together. And that’s enough for now.