i have says to word at you

Tommy heaved a sigh and caught Howie’s scent trudging back to him, the man looking just as tired and bored as Tommy.

“No signs of fire on that side,” Howie reported.

Tommy snorted. “Really?”

“Don’t start–”

“I didn’t–” the wind shifted and blew the scents of the pyjama-clad evacuees right at them, and Tommy practically lifted his human nose to sniff the air. “Howie?”

“Yeah, I smell it too,” Howie said too quietly for humans to hear.

Tommy scanned the crowd, looking for the source, and froze when his eyes landed on it. “Is that…”

Howie breathed in deep and his jaw tightened. “Yep.”

Sitting pretty in a crowd of people was another goddamn werewolf. He was huge and unnaturally still in the movement all around him, his long fur shimmering in the light breeze of the evening. The face and muzzle were black, with white spots on the left side of his head, trailing into white streaks through the black coat down his back.

Whatever magic that turned them into animals under a full moon gave werewolves enough of a glamour that human eyes just slid right on over their general impossible existence. That had to be the reason not a single human was worried about the freakishly large monster in their midst.

Although that wouldn’t account for… “Is that a collar?” Tommy choked out.

PANEL 1 Out

PANEL 2 (fear/desire) The Permanent Rain Press

PANEL 3 (vegas bathroom) Numero Netherlands

PANEL 4 (tears) Harper's Bazaar

PANEL 5 (ilya inverse) Teen Vogue Image: [x]

PANEL 6 (additions) (4 gifs) Numero Netherlands Entertainment Weekly

PANEL 7 (good job) Them

PANEL 8 (dichotomy) eTalk CTV CBC News Images: [x] [x] [x]

PANEL 9 (cottage home) Variety

PANEL 10 (heart eyes) Timid

PANEL 11 (evolution) Much Image: [x]

PANEL 12 (yuna) Variety

this has the immediate benefit of making his business look more exclusive, and he books up three months in advance and manages to pay molly the same amount of money that he was before.

it also means that he ends up with a lot of free lunches from the restaurants that he does deliveries for. in return, he offers the owners a free flight for birthdays and holidays.

his favourite by far to drive for though is the florist. amelia's kitty corner to the air field and her partner owen is a rather flamboyant man who takes one look at tommy and invites him out to the local bar. tommy gets inducted into the local queer scene with little fanfare and even less ribbing when it takes him a long time to actually do anything more than admit that he likes men.

after he's been flying for a few years, he's able to stop running deliveries for everyone on his off days. except for amelia. there's something about the way that people react when he drops off flowers that make it worth it to give up a day or two of his week. he figures he'll keep driving for her until she says she doesn't need him anymore (molly thinks that he's insane for still driving at all, but she's been calling him that since she showed up for the interview and found out that the tourist operation was him and a mechanic that he paid by the hour when he needed a tune up so it doesn't carry a lot of weight)

one day amelia calls him in a panic because she's just gotten a rush order for twenty deliveries and her normal driver is off writing an exam. tommy's spent eight hours doing loops of the city and he was planning on heading home, but he agrees to do the drop off.

it's not until he's pulling up that he realises the address is for a fire station. it's one that he's relatively familiar with; his old roommate sal used to work there but he hasn't thought about it much since sal moved in with his girlfriend. he's not sure why someone would order twenty flower arrangements to a fire station, but hey. it's not his money.

he muscles four of the arrangements into his arms and kicks the car door closed behind him, walking towards the open garage door. "hello? delivery for uh—"

half a dozen firefighters pop up on the balcony and the oldest one holds up a hand, asking tommy to wait. "chim, buck, maybe we can give the nice man a hand, hmm?"

"great, because i've got another sixteen in the car." tommy grins. "someone have a birthday or something?"

"hen, stevens, roger, and… matthews. looks like it's all hands on deck. welcome to the 118. i'm captain nash."

"tommy," tommy says, handing the first of the arrangements off to the two men scrambling down the stairs. well, the shortest one comes down the stairs and the other comes down the pole and tommy thinks very hard about his first ride in the vomit comet so he doesn't embarrass himself.

"cap, we should make buck get all of these!" the shorter man calls up, brandishing the card tommy had with them. "they're all for him."

"evan buckley?" tommy confirms, and the other firefighter nods, smiling sheepishly and rubbing the back of his neck. "ev- uh, yeah, that's me."

"chim, i think—" an alarm goes off and captain nash frowns. "buck, man behind. tommy, tell me you're not blocking the driveway, or you're about to need a new car."

"nope, in the parking lot." evan — tommy's going to have stop calling him the really cute one in his head, and it's been awhile since tommy had a date and that fact is coming back to bite him right now — pulls tommy to the wall as the fire truck and the ambulance speed out of the way.

"man, i hate being man behind," evan mutters, shifting one of the arrangements to shake tommy's hand. "you better bring them up this way." he leaves tommy with two of the plants and starts back up the stairs, and tommy keeps his eyes firmly focused on the step in front of him and not the way evan's back muscles shift every time he takes a step.

"so, evan buckley, why has the city of los angeles decided to grace you with nearly two dozen floral arrangements?" tommy asks, putting his down on the long table in the middle of the loft.

evan heaves a sigh. "some reporter saw me on a scene and asked me a few questions, and i guess i have some admirers now."

"i wouldn't think that was a bad thing?"

"they're all very grateful when the rescue happens. then the shine…" evan shrugs. "tends to wear off."

"well, until it does, you'll have enough flowers to keep this place looking cheerful."

tommy makes himself stick to asking generic questions while they bring the other arrangements in, fighting the urge to ask as many weird and invasive questions as he can. he's known evan buckley for five minutes and he wants to know everything about him. the tiny owen in his head starts laughing at him. this is bad. tommy's never had a crush like this, and he was in high school during the boy band era. "—what do you think?"

tommy tunes back into the conversation and realises he's lost the plot. "actually, i was thinking that uh. well, it's no flowers, but if you want to see the city from a different angle, i can make that happen," he says, handing evan one of his own business cards.

"kinardcopters? you know a helicopter pilot?"

tommy grins. "something like that. if you ever want to go up, i'll make sure it happens."

"i'll think about it." evan glances around the empty loft. "it's pretty hot out. you want a drink before you go? there are a lot of snacks."

"i—" there's the roar of a loud engine and tommy reflexively glances down to the floor as the engine comes back in. "i should get going, actually. this was my last run of the day." and his first, but no one at the firehouse needs to know that.

"okay." evan wilts for a moment and then perks up. "thanks for dropping all this off. i don't know what i'm going with it, but they're gorgeous."

the rest of the firefighters wave at tommy on the way out and he waits in the parking lot long enough to make sure that the driver has gotten out of the truck before leaving himself; he doesn't want to be a pancake.

he doesn't spend the next week checking his phone every ten minutes to see if evan has called and he missed it, because that would be extremely juvenile and tommy is in his mid-thirties and he is not in junior high and he does not have a crush. really, owen. no he doesn't. his friends are awful. he makes the mistake of mentioning the teasing to sal and the guy laughs him off the phone. this is why they don't hang out much.

the massive amounts of flowers seem to have been a one-off, but tommy gets a call at the end of the week to do a delivery at the firehouse. it's a different shift; no evan to be seen. tommy drops the flowers off and bolts, and tells amelia he'll be happy to keep going on those deliveries. (maybe he has a crush.) the next week there are three arrangements, and still no evan. the third time, the truck is out but evan's in the loft. this time it's an enormous aloe plant, and evan's already smiling sheepishly when tommy pulls in. "you think this is a firefighter pun?" tommy wonders as he heads up the stairs. "since aloe is used for burns?"

"i hadn't even considered that," evan says, beaming down at him. "we should probably leave this one here, then, just in case." he takes it out of tommy's hands and turns away to put it on a windowsill, and tommy shakes his hands out and tries to ignore the tingling. he lets himself accept evan's offer of a glass of water and gets treated to a history of flower arrangements, courtesy of wikipedia and about a dozen botany blogs.

evan's admirers have switched to potted plants. at least they have a chance of staying alive, tommy thinks to himself when he stops by every week. not every plant stays at the firehouse, but any of the ones that have a connection to fire (or are just orange, red, or yellow) stay. the windowsills are getting crowded. "you've got an awfully dedicated admirer," tommy says, handing the latest over to evan. "you two must be pretty serious."

"i don't even know who they're from," evan says, fishing the card out of the pot and handing it to tommy as he takes the tiny money tree and tries to find some free space on one of the sills.

tommy slides his thumb under the flap and tracks evan across the loft, pushing the card out of the envelope. "i mean, you probably want to know, just in case they're following y…" tommy blinks down at the paper in his hand. "uh. this is."

evan scratches the back of his neck. "i'm not reading this wrong, right? i've caught you staring at my ass like a dozen times."

"ten, max," tommy argues automatically before flushing. "i'm sorry. i didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"i'm not uncomfortable. if i was i wouldn't have been ordering plants for the last three months. the — the first few times were legit. but the aloe and everything after were uh—" evan shrugs. "i wanted to see you, but i didn't know how to uh. ask?"

"this is pretty good," tommy admits, tucking the card into his wallet. to tommy, can i take you out to dinner? evan buckley. it's one of the sweetest things he's ever gotten and he's going to tuck it away with the rest of the things that makes his heart skip a beat when he thinks about them. "when's a good day for dinner?"

"uh, oh! i'm off on saturday. well, i get off friday night, but i'll have been on for twenty four and i don't want to fall asleep on you, so saturday. saturday is good."

"i'd hate for you to fall asleep on me," tommy agrees, smiling helplessly. it gets wider when evan blushes at him. tommy pats his pockets and pulls out another business card, scribbling his personal cell phone number on the back, and the address of the airfield underneath it. "meet me here three hours before dinner, okay?"

"wait, you don't even know what time—"

"any time is good," tommy promises, taking a step back as the fire truck comes back in. "you can let me know what time the reservation is."

"how do you even know i have a reservation?"

"because you like planning, evan."

"what's going on?" chim asks, leading the rest of them up into the loft. "tommy, hey. you got another delivery?"

"last one, i think," tommy agrees, smiling over at evan. "talk to you soon."

"ooh, you finally asked him," tommy hears hen crow as he heads down the stairs, and evan's "hen, stop! he can probably hear you!" follows him out of the station.

tommy's got a text from evan by the time he's gotten back to his house, and they spend the rest of the week talking about any little thing that gets their attention. tommy manages not to spill the beans about him being the pilot before evan shows up on saturday, and the surprised and delighted look on his face is worth all the texts he had to back out of in the meantime.

"you're the pilot?"

"if you'd called to set up a flight a few months ago, you probably could have saved yourself a few hundred dollars worth of plants," tommy agrees, leaning back against the door of the helicopter.

"but then i wouldn't have gotten a chance to woo you with all my random facts," evan protests.

"sweetheart, you would have had even more time to woo me," tommy promises, watching the way the flush on evan's face deepens at the endearment. "i had a crush on you the minute we ran into each other."

"aren't you a bit old to have a crush?" evan teases, taking a few steps closer until he's firmly in tommy's personal space.