boldly going forward because we can't find reverse

3. He sees Tommy at the bar a few more times. He tries to spot him on the water, but he doesn't ever see him on a surfboard or with anyone else. He just walks up from the beach, sits down, orders something, and hands Evan pesos that are always a little damp, which he's used to from people getting their wallets wet. He speaks a little more confidently over time, like he's relearning. Evan almost asks him but doesn't want to be rude. He doesn't want to scare him off. But Tommy's a good listener, and he's nice to talk to. He's just visiting the area and says he's from somewhere off the coast, but Evan doesn't catch which coast. Maybe Catalina Island? Do people live there? Or one of the islands up in Washington or something, since he doesn't sound like he's from New England. But Evan always talks to him longer than he should, pays barely any attention to other patrons. As the sun sets, Evan realizes Tommy walked away and left a string of shells and teeth on the bar, worries that it might have fallen off the necklace, and jogs after him. He watches Tommy walk into the water and not come up, and he panics and sprints after him, ready to rescue him.

4. Tommy looks as bewildered as Evan feels when he wraps a hand around his wrist underwater. And Evan almost inhales a bunch of water when he sees a massive shape move behind Tommy, and they're suddenly surfacing fast. Tommy pulls him onto shore, and Evan coughs up water and blinks at Tommy. Because Tommy's legs are gone, and he's got a tailfin. When he looks in Tommy's eyes, he hears the song in his head. "Oh," Evan says, realizing. "I saw you. I heard you." Tommy nods. His fingers are clenching in the sand, and Evan realizes the gills on his ribs are straining. He yelps and helps pull Tommy back into the water. "Thank you," Tommy says, sighing as soon as he's chest deep in water. "How am I hearing that?" Evan asks, humming a bit of the song. Tommy huffs out a laugh and shrugs. "You wouldn't believe me," he says, and Evan gestures to the tailfin. "Okay, you might," Tommy concedes. "Uh, I've been cursed to swim the seven seas alone because I couldn't save my people. My only salvation would be my heart's mate, but I'm the last of my kind. I never thought I'd find you." And Evan finds out Tommy is nearly a hundred years old, that he can only be human for short periods but hasn't done it in a long time because humans are cruel. He also finds out the string of shells and teeth are the start of a courtship gift.

5. Here's the thing: Evan went from straight guy who didn't know merfolk existed to maybe not straight guy whose one true love is a merman whose earliest memory is encountering a WWI era submarine during the war. He needs a minute. But he's also curious and so excited, and he wants to know what breaking Tommy's curse means. Is he going to become a human? Is Evan going to become a merman? Will Tommy's lifespan shorten? Will Evan's get longer? Does Evan have to keep a bathtub with perfectly salinated water? Because a pool might be easier, honestly. Would that be cruel, like a too small aquarium? Tommy says he's not sure, he'll have to find the one who cursed him. It happened after a war, and the curse came from a being that lives deep in the ocean, deeper than any human has ever gone. It's actually deeper than the Mariana Trench, but it requires knowing how to use a cave system to enter it. He knows it, he'd used it once to plead for the end of the war that his father started, and he'd been held there until his father's head was mounted on the great tusk of a long dead creature. Evan tells him he doesn't have to, that he shouldn't risk it just to answer some questions. "Oh, it'll be fine. The only reason I'm still cursed is they can't undo it themselves, we've made our peace," Tommy reassures him. "I just don't usually go because of the memories. Also it takes a long time. But I don't have to. If you're not sure."

6. Before he leaves, he drapes a necklace around Evan's neck and kisses him, and Evan half expects that to be the end of the curse. That's how it works in fairytales, but that's not what this is. So he waits for Tommy. He waits for two weeks, and then Tommy comes back and sits at the bar. He tells Evan the one who cursed him amended the curse decades ago so that their forms would match their hearts. It's kind of useless information, and Tommy shrugs. But Evan drags him back to his place and tells him that, by the way, he's thought about it and definitely isn't straight, so can they maybe have sex a whole lot? And Tommy isn't used to doing this as a human, and Evan gets really curious about the other way and this is where my having seen too much Rule34 Link/Sidon content kicks in. Is Tommy a mershark? Dude idk but there's definitely two dicks.

7. It turns out the secret is just a true declaration of love. It takes about a month, and Evan whispers it in Tommy's ear when he thinks they'll be separated. He has to go back to the States, his visa is about to expire. He's got somewhere to go, but he doesn't want to leave Tommy. So he hugs him and tells him he loves him, is about to tell him they'll just have to meet up in Santa Monica or something, and Tommy gasps and tenses and drops to his knees. Except then Evan can't breathe. He can't breathe and he's blacking out and--he wakes up in calm. He wakes up to a song being hummed, and Tommy's scratching his claws through Evan's hair. So it turns out the answer is that they can be both. They can be merfolk, they can be human. Tommy will have to show him how to control it, how it all works. But they're wholly unique and made for each other, free to live their lives as they choose. Sometimes they go on "long vacations" together and just go to the ocean.

8. The first time Evan tries to change after the bombing nearly kills him. He can't do it again until he's caught in the tsunami, then he has to. He grabs Chris, he hoists him onto the truck, and he finds other people who need help. Maybe when the lightning strike happens, Tommy goes to the deepest part of the ocean and begs for his mate's life. And the entity curls a tentacle under his chin and reassures him that his spirit isn't moving through to the mysterious places...yet. But he needs his mate by his side to get back, so what is he doing wasting his time moping in the depths? When Tommy gets back, he's soaked to the bone still and sits next to Evan and holds his hand and hums their song.

buck is escorting roz out of the lab when bobby notices that the lab extinguishers are almost empty and he sends ravi out behind buck to get some from the rest of the floor.

buck and roz have just cleared the clean room when there's an enormous boom and they get thrown to the floor in the hallway. they're both shook up and off balance and it takes buck a few tries to get to his feet. he's keying the radio before he can get a look inside, trying to raise any of the team. no one answers.

buck takes a deep breath and hauls roz to her feet, keeping his back to the door. the civilians are the first priority, and — "oh my god," roz gasps, staggering back into the wall. buck turns around.

ravi is collapsed in what's left of the clean room, both doors slammed down in the explosion. everything beyond the clean room is up in flames, and buck can't see anyone else.

"go. keep walking straight, you'll be able to get out," buck says to roz on autopilot. he hopes it's true, that nothing else has come down in the explosion and that their way out isn't blocked. he waits until roz has cleared the hallway to key his radio open and leave the channel open, screaming his team's names.

maddie and josh bully their way onto the channel, and buck tells her through hoarse gasps that no one is responding to him.

he can hear josh get on the main channel and start calling for other houses, saying that the 118 is down. maddie does her best to get his attention, but buck is back on the ladder, getting struck by lightning, back on the bridge and watching everyone collapse, back in the helicopter over a roiling ocean and staring at the submerged remains of the domino. "i can't get the doors open, they're industrial medical grade and they stay locked down in an emergency, maddie, you have to find someone who can get them open."

"okay, okay, buck, you have to breathe."

"i have to get them out! ravi! ravi! answer me, probie!'

buck's glad that he's on a 118 only channel, because he screams himself hoarse trying to get someone to respond to him. if he was on an open channel, the rest of the lafd would think he was dying.

he thinks he is dying. did he ever wake up from the coma?

whatever the explosion did to the lab, disabled the sprinklers. there's no water coming in, buck can't see anyone using an extinguisher, and the fire is growing. their turnouts are rated to get them through anything less than the worst chemical fires, and — god, it's a lab. there are so many chemicals in there. if he doesn't get them out now, they won't — they can't —

"dad," buck gasps, pounding on the doors. he can't even hear himself. no one answers.

there's blood on the door. he stares at his hands. the skin on his knuckles is ripped and torn and he has no idea when that happened. was it the explosion?

"kid. kid." there's someone in front of him. it's the captain of the 122 — some guy that bobby knows from before buck started working with him. they've exchanged nods at scenes before. buck can't remember his name. "i need you to go outside. we've got this."

"no, no, i have to— i have to—" buck gasps, his throat wet. he chokes. is he bleeding?

"jonesy, get him out of here and come right back."

"no! no, i'm not leaving—" buck gets pulled bodily away from the doors and dragged down the hallway by jonesy. he swears and curses the whole way, but he can't make his body listen enough to fight his way back to the doors. he's buffeted along behind jonesy's body. there's a triage station outside the lab, and he sees roz and allen there. roz gasps and grabs at buck's hands, the blood draining out of her face. "what happened to your hands?"

okay. okay. that didn't happen in the explosion, then.

"i've got him. go, jonesy."

buck knows that voice. he blinks, looks over his shoulder. tommy's standing by the edge of roz's stretcher, his hands shoved in his pockets. buck watches as he pulls them out, balls them into fists, shoves them back into his pockets.

jonesy's left. buck's not sure when. he's sitting on his own stretcher now, one of the 122 medics carefully dabbing at his hands. he doesn't remember sitting down. roz and allen are sitting across from him, their arms wrapped around each other. "does this hurt?" the medic asks. buck shakes his head. he can't feel anything.

he's sobbing into tommy's shoulder and the medic has pulled back, waiting and glancing back towards the lab. tommy's holding him tightly, he thinks. he can't move. he can't feel it. "my dad," buck says, and he's not sure if he makes any noise. bobby and chim and hen are still in the lab. ravi is in the clean room. everything was on fire. he has no idea how long it's been.

athena appears in the triage station, karen and maddie behind her. buck swallows hard and shakes his head. athena's lips go thin and buck—

wakes up in the hospital. he collapsed. ravi's in the icu, in a coma. everyone else is… everyone else is.

buck hopes that he's still trapped in that fucking coma dream.

tommy's sitting beside his bed. they're not touching, but buck can see the way tommy is oh-so-carefully holding himself back from reaching out. "when did you join the 122?"

"melton heard josh's call on the radio. he sent me over."

buck hums and looks towards the wall. he wants to look at tommy. he doesn't want to look at anyone if it's not bobby.

"evan. i'm—"

"don't. don't say it." if tommy says it, it's real. realer than it was when athena came to the scene. even getting called evan again isn't — isn't worth it. he wishes he was still buck. when he was buck everyone was —

he's still crying when maddie comes into the room. "buck."

"maddie," buck gasps. she looks the way he feels.

"they want to keep you for a few days. concussion protocol, making sure there was nothing in the lab that we need to be worried about," maddie says, sitting on the edge of his bed. she's not looking at tommy, but it's not her ignoring him. she just doesn't have the bandwidth to pay attention to anything that isn't buck. he knows that look on her face; she's keeping herself together by the skin of her fingernails. he should have done more to help. "karen asked jee and i to come spend the night with them. we're going to…" she sighs. "i think we're going to stay there for a while. we'll see what happens in the next few days."

"if you need anything," buck starts, and she shakes her head. "just get out of here, okay?" she murmurs, squeezing his ankle. he can't feel it. "that's what you can do for me."

tommy follows her to the door when she leaves and says something to her. buck doesn't try to listen to whatever it is. he doesn't sleep, but he does close his eyes when tommy's back is turned. he can't do this. he can't be a person right now. he can't ask tommy for what he wants and he can't — can't think about why tommy is here.

he falls asleep at some point. may is in the chair beside tommy when he wakes up. she's awake, but tommy is folded up like a pretzel and totally out of it. "mom and harry are checking on ravi before they come up here," she says softly, leaning forward. "i'll go down at some point. we're not going to leave you alone."

"i…" buck swallows hard and trails off. he tries again. "may…"

"i'm glad you're okay, buck."

it's cry again or fall asleep, so buck falls asleep.

athena's staring at him when he wakes up. tommy looks between them and asks harry if he wants a snack, guiding him out of the room and down the hallway. "he sent me away," buck gasps. "i tried. i tried to get back in."

athena reaches out and holds his hands, and buck stares at the casts on both of them. that explains a few things. "i know. you broke both your hands trying to get back in," she says. her voice is flat the way voices only get when someone's trying not to cry. "when they let you out of here, you're coming home with us."

"i can—" the offer makes buck want to recoil, but that takes more energy than he has right now. "…manage."

"i'm sure you can. but bobby couldn't survive losing you, and i'm not waiting to see if you can survive losing him."

buck goes home with athena when they discharge him. tommy shows up every day (is it every day? buck's sleeping a lot.) and drives him back to the hospital so he can sit with ravi. buck's sure that he eats, because you have to eat, but he can't remember a single meal that he's had. maddie and karen call every morning, and maddie does end up staying with her because her doctor is suddenly calling her pregnancy high risk. it's no surprise why. it's ten days before ravi wakes up, and he frowns at buck when he's able to focus on him. "what happened?"

"there was an explosion."

ravi's parents take him home and buck calls him every night. they do a video call because buck isn't really up to talking but he's got to check that ravi is okay, has to make sure that ravi can tell that buck is okay too.

buck can't work with two broken hands but he needs the stuff he left in his locker. tommy drives him to the 118 and waits in the parking lot. buck takes one step outside his truck and has a panic attack. stevens runs out and hooks him up to some oxygen while tommy runs in and cleans out his locker. buck is still breathing hard when tommy comes back, and stevens asks him if he wants some valium. he's not sure if it's from the bus or not, and normally he wouldn't, but his head feels like cotton and it doesn't feel like he's standing on anything.

tommy tucks him into bed when he gets home and buck immediately drops his head into tommy's lap. he hasn't ever cried this much in his entire life. he wakes up to tommy leaning back against the headboard, running his fingers through buck's hair. may brings him water and coffee and a tylenol.

the captain from the 122 drops by to talk to tommy and seems utterly unshocked that buck is there in athena's house. that tommy is there in buck's bed. he drifts off while they talk and when he's back with it again, he and tommy are alone.

"sal said to call him if you want to come back to work," tommy murmurs, letting the offer linger in between them. buck thinks that's a good idea. he couldn't even go get his bag from his locker; he can't go back to work in bobby's house with no bobby there. he's not sure he's going back to work. "that's okay too," tommy says gently, and buck realizes he said that last one out loud. he closes his eyes and breathes against tommy until he falls asleep.

athena doesn't blink about tommy always being there either. buck's afraid to ask her why, doesn't want to know what she thinks about them. not that there's much of a them; buck sleeps and eats and talks to everyone who wants to know he's still alive. he's haunting her house and he's not even the one that—

buck doesn't go to the memorial ceremony. he and ravi play mario-kart instead. well, tommy plays mario-kart for him and buck bosses him around because it's still a week before the casts come off. athena and harry do, and harry comes home and asks buck what the fire academy was like. buck and ravi immediately say that he isn't allowed to join.

may switches majors and joins the nursing program. buck gets the casts off and starts physical therapy. ravi continues physical therapy. tommy goes back to work after a few weeks, but if he's not on shift he's at athena's. sometimes buck will come downstairs and tommy and athena will be talking over a cup of coffee. he never cares enough to try and eavesdrop, and they're skilled at changing the topic of conversation when he comes into the room.

"what are you doing here?" buck asks, a few months later. "i — no, i want you here, but what are you — why did you—"

"when the call went out, i thought that you…" tommy trails off. "when you collapsed, when you were in the hospital, before you woke up, athena sat me down and said that i had to choose. i was in, or i was out. because she wasn't going to let you get hurt again and if i wasn't sure, i had to go. she said she wouldn't hold either answer against me. that she'd lie if i left, that if you remembered and asked if i was there she'd tell you that it was someone else."

"and?"

"when i thought you were down," tommy says, and buck appreciates that he doesn't say dead. he doesn't react well to the word these days. "i realized that leaving you was the stupidest thing i'd ever done. i wasn't about to repeat my mistakes. the only way i'm leaving now is if you ask me to."