It must be Thursday

Evan giggled, cheeks pinking beautifully. “Your bar—”

“Oh, so it’s my hypothetical bar now?”

Evan rolled his eyes. “This hypothetical bar that hypothetically belongs to both of us won’t cater to fuck boys from like twenty years ago. You can play whatever terrible music you want.”

Instead of grappling with the fact that 2013 was twenty years ago and crumbling into dust, Tommy said, “I should not be given that power. Do you know what music I would play?”

“Weird industrial metal interspersed with like monastic chanting," Evan said without missing a beat.

“I’ll have you know monastic chanting got real big in the early nineties.”

“I can't tell if you're lying or not.” Evan scratched his scalp. “The other problem besides your terrible taste in music—”

“Hey, you love my weird industrial metal playlists,” he said, smiling as Evan tugged at his hair in reprimand.

“—is there's a lot of standing involved. Might tax your hip.”

“Not if I get a bionic one. We have the technology now.” That earned him another eye roll, but a loving one. “I don't think a bar is for me.”

“We'll think of something else. “Or,” Evan added with that beautiful smile, “you can be a house husband.”

That was a tempting thought. He could spend his days tinkering and reorganizing their cupboards and refrigerator using that color coded system they kept tossing around or maybe get that irrigation system up and running for the backyard. Hell, he could even finish rebuilding Evan's old Jeep.

“I wouldn’t even last a week before I started climbing the walls,” he said, rolling his head along Evan's broad thigh. “You'll have to put me down like Old Yeller.”

Evan laughed at his dramatics. “So we'll find something else for you to do.”

2. “I think we missed the extremely obvious,” Tommy said, plating the croque monsieurs.

“If you mean we should open a restaurant, I agree.” Evan proudly showed off the bi flag he’d assembled out of various berries. “Just think of all the specials we can have for Pride.”

“Now why do I get the feeling most of those would be banana based?” he asked.

Evan waggled his eyebrows and playfully poked his tongue into his cheek. Not for the first time, Tommy was tempted to divorce him just so they could get married all over again.

“That can be the back up plan,” he said, arms held out so that Evan could slide in to steal a kiss before he stole one of the plates. Tommy followed him to the table, his hip twinging as he sat. Growing old was a motherfucker, but it also brought him this: breakfast with his husband in the home they made together. “I meant I could give helicopter tours.”

Evan paused midway through shoving half his croque monsieur into his mouth. Almost fifty and he still ate with all the grace of a feral coyote.

“Chew before you choke.” He pointed his fork at Evan. “Do not make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke. It doesn’t even make sense in this context.”

“I was going for an anilingus joke if you must know,” Evan said with a full mouth because he was disgusting. He swallowed. “You love to fly. I know this.”

“You should.” Tommy took a normal human man bite. He finally go the bechamel sauce right. “How many helicopters have I stolen for you at this point?”

“The first doesn’t count. That was for Hen.” Evan speared a couple of strawberries, leaving the flag lopsided. Tommy grabbed some blackberries to even it out. “You love to fly, but you don’t actually like people. It takes you forever to warm up to someone.”

“Well, that’s not true. I liked you right from the start.”

Evan ducked his head, cheeks pink and pleased. More than a decade together and it was still so easy to make him blush. “You liked me, but it took you a long time before you opened up with me. My fault too,” he added quickly. “Remember the break up?”

“Like I could forget.” He stole a strawberry from Evan’s plate. “But this is just flying people around for a couple of hours. And the whole point of the tour is for them to be looking at the view and not bothering the pilot.”

Evan took a smaller bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Babe, I love you, but think about the kind of people in LA that can afford a helicopter tour. You really want to stuck in the air for at least an hour?”

“All right that is a good point,” he conceded, grabbing a few blueberries before Evan could get to them. “But consider this: we move to Hawaii and I open my own helicopter business and you get to mentor a whole new station and save even more lives. And,” he added casually, “I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to grow a mustache.”

“Wait,” Evan said, torn between laughter and outrage, “are you trying to Magnum PI me?”

“Tom Selleck in those tiny shorts were a formative experience for me.” He rubbed their feet together. “You got the legs for those tiny shorts.”

“You horny monster.” Laughter won, and Evan was glowing with it. “If I promise to wear the shorts, can we stay in this expensive city where we already own real estate instead of moving to an even more expensive state where we don’t own real estate?”

Tommy heaved a giant sigh. “Those shorts better be really tiny.”

“The tiniest ones we can find.” Evan’s face softened. “If you really want to fly tours then I’ll get started on getting you whatever licenses you need.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” he said.

Evan flung a blueberry at him. “I’m worried that you’ll find it boring. It’s not flying suppressant to a wildfire.”

“It’s a lot safer.” He considered all the calls Evan had been sent on over the years. “Probably.”

“Less chance of being swallowed by a whale,” Evan said, sneaking socked toes up Tommy’s pants leg.

Tommy sat with that, and when they finished their croque monsieurs and all the fruit, he said, “Let’s file it alongside the bar idea.”

“I’ll start a list,” Evan said, and pulled out his phone.

3. "I don't see why you gotta retire at all," Sal said, halfway through the fruitiest cocktail that Marge was willing to make, which was quite fruity and the color of a tacky sunset. Sal only ordered cocktails when they were at a gay bar, probably as a form of cultural exchange. As the kids used to say, Sal was a little confused but he had the spirit. "I always said you could move up the ranks if you wanted to."

"And I don't want to," Tommy said. "I'm a pilot, Sal. I belong in the skies."

Sal heaved a beleaguered sigh. "Save the dumb quotes for Howie." He took a delicate sip. "They're always looking for more instructors at the academy if you don't want to be in the field anymore. I never got why you wanted to spend all your time up in a tin can."

"Evan and I talked about it." He took a moment to line up the words in his head. Age and parenthood had granted Sal patience. There would have been a time Sal would have hounded him for an immediate answer, but now Sal waited for him to be ready. "I've been doing this job a long time." He did some quick math. "Jesus, almost all of my adult life."

Sal laughed. "Yeah, we somehow went and got old."

They were having a nice conversation over drinks, so Tommy didn't go and ruin it by pointing out that he hadn't ever thought he'd make it past twenty-six. "I love this job," he said, not having to search for the words; he and Evan had excavated them months ago. "I wouldn't have done it so long if I hadn't."

"Wouldn't have put up with Gerrard if you didn't," Sal said, holding out his cocktail glass and then giving it a little waggle when Tommy didn't toast fast enough.

"But I'm not like Evan or Hen or even you." He considered his cocktail, which was only marginally less tacky than Sal's. Hen was on the short list for deputy chief and he'd give up his license if she didn't get it. Evan was a captain, and he loved helping people too much to go take a position that would take him out of the field. And Sal had his house and the union and his holy crusade to make LAFD live up to its PR slogans. "I love it, but I'm done. I'm ready to be done."

Sal blew out a long breath but didn't fight him on it. "You'll be missed."

Tommy snorted. "I'm retiring. I'm not dying." He kicked Sal in the ankle. Sal retaliated, and they jostled for a minute before Marge shut that down with a pointed clearing of her throat. "And I'm not retiring right now."

"But soon, right?" said Sal, who knew him too well.

"Within the next two years. Three if I can't figure out what I want to do next."

"You can always give helicopter tours." Sal made a face. "I take that back. The first annoying customer is getting dumped into the ocean. You can't give tours."

"Evan already made that argument when I suggested it. And I never really considered it."

Sal gave him a long, knowing look. "You wanted to do it because of Magnum PI, right? You love a man in tiny shorts."

"I really do," Tommy said, and pulled out his phone to text Evan.

"What about a bar?" Sal suggested. "You could open a gay badge and ladder."

"I don't want to open a bar," he said absently as he texted Evan Sal agrees with you about the helicopter tours.

Sal leaned forward. "Hey, Marge! You looking for a partner for this joint?"

Marge looked up from slicing limes. "Deluca, what makes you think I want to enter into an legal partnership with him? I won't even marry my partner and I've known her a hell of a lot longer than Kinard here. Like her a lot more, too."

Tommy sent an air kiss her way. Evan texted duh the only thing we agree on is you be there in about 30 love u!!!!! That was followed by a separate text containing nothing but a dozen heart emojis and a few eggplants thrown in for good measure because there was no emotional state Evan couldn't find an emoji for. God, Tommy loved him.

"Also," Tommy added, "and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I don't want to run a bar."

"You're such a bitch." Sal grabbed him by the back of neck and planted a smacking kiss to his forehead. "Whatever you end up doing, you know me and the girls support you."

"I know." He dug his knuckles into Sal's ribs. "Now go see them. Give Gina my regards."

Sal shook him lovingly by the back of the neck. "You and her are so weird. Hey, bring the kid around to dinner. We'll brainstorm some career options.'

"He's not a kid," Tommy said. Evan was quickly catching up to him in the gray hair department and the increasing way he was squinting at his phone suggested he needed a pair of readers. "But sure. We'll put something into the calendar."

"All right, nerd. Tell the kid I said hi." With one more shake, Sal left to go back to his family and Tommy waited for his to arrive.

4. “I was the same way,” Marge said, replacing his cocktail with a club soda. He’d never been that big of a drinker, but had cut back even further over the last few years. These semi-regular outings with Sal was the only time he indulged now. “That’s how I ended up with this place.”

Marge was a handsome butch who was constantly changing how she kept her hair—for the past few months her gray hair was spiked in a mohawk and before that it was slicked back like a 1950s greaser—and had been behind the bar as long as Tommy had been coming here.

“You didn’t want to be put down like Old Yeller?” he said.

She grinned. “Pretty much. I didn’t want to continue what I was doing but I also didn’t want to be a retiree. That’s how I ended up with this place. Mac, the guy who owned it before me, needed to get out of town and needed money, and so I cleaned out my savings and took out a loan and Susie only had a single breakdown. Worked out for all of us in the end.”

“Why a bar?” he asked, frowning at his drink. “Wait, hold that thought. Where’s my fruit, Marge? Come on, you know a fruit needs fruit.”

“You ever see The Birdcage?” she asked, unimpressed as she dumped a bunch of cherries and limes and berries into the club soda, threatening to send it spilling over the glass edge.

“It’s that kind of question that makes me think you don’t like me. Have I seen a The Birdcage? What kind of fag do you think I am?”

“The kind married to a man who has seen two and half movies in his life,” she shot back.

That was a fair point, not that he would ever admit it. “So the movie made you want to open a gay club?”

He couldn’t keep the doubtful lilt out of his voice. The bar had a monthly drag night and did a trivia night whenever he and Evan badgered her into holding one, but it wasn’t the kind of place that played whatever was the hot new song and it definitely wasn’t the kind of place you came to dance and get drunk and do recreational drugs. It was a bar where you came to drink with people like you. It was a place where you got to exist as you were.

“You remember the sock scene?” she said.

Tommy sucked air in through his teeth. Of course he remembered that scene. His parents rented the movie because they liked Robin Williams, but his dad demanded they turn it off when it because it was about a bunch of queers. He and his mom watched it later when he was at work, and little eleven year old Tommy Kinard had almost started crying as Albert came out in that suit. He changed everything about himself, how he dressed and how he walked and how he sat, and all he kept was the pink socks, which was enough to give him away. All he wanted was to try to help his partner and his partner’s snotty kid, and they hated him for it.

“I cried myself to sleep over that,” he said. “I didn’t even know why.”

“Yeah, me too.” Marge looked around her bar, the regulars at the bar, the couple in the corner, the group of young kids playing the worst game of darts he’d ever seen, all of them obvious in how they walked and talked and dressed. “That’s why I bought this place. No one can tell us what kind of socks we need to wear. This is for us.”

“Us,” he repeated, and thought of the first time he bought an capital-G Gay movie and the terror that the cashier would know about him. And then he thought about last week when he scooped up a couple of gay romance books and the cashier didn’t even blink. “We should have more places. Hey, you own the building, right? Do you use the second floor?”

“Mostly for storage. Susie thinks I should turn it into an event space, but I do not want events happening here.” She gave him a knowing look. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I need to talk to my husband first.”

“Speak of the devil,” she said, and went to get Evan his basic beer.

“Hey, handsome,” Evan said, draping himself along Tommy’s side rather than sitting.

Tommy slipped an around around Evan’s waist. “Hey yourself. Not going to sit?”

“If I sit I might never get up again. Thanks, Marge,” he said, grabbing the beer. “What were you talking about? You looked very serious.”

“Pink socks,” Tommy said, sneaking his fingers under Evan’s shirt. “What do you think about a gay bookstore? One that also sells gay movies?”

Evan’s brow furrowed with how seriously he took the question. “I think,” Evan finally said, brow unfurrowing as he smiled, “that I’m going to start a spreadsheet for the financials.”

And there, in front of Marge and the regulars, Tommy kissed his husband. He spared a thought for little eleven year old Tommy, crying himself to sleep over some pink socks. That kid was going to be okay, and one day he was even going to be happy.

5. “This is a great a movie,” Tommy said to the kid who couldn’t be much older than sixteen.

“It looked interesting,” the kid said, swiping pink hair out of their eyes.

The store was small and, tucked as it was above the bar, got warm during the day despite the best efforts of the a/c unit shoved in the window. But Tommy loved, this little place full of books and movies and art. It was somewhere a kid with pink hair didn’t have to be scared about being clocked because it was for them. It was for all of them, him and Evan and Marge and everyone still figuring it out.

3. “Have you considered,” Chimney said, head tipped back and eyes closed as the engine crept through afternoon traffic, “that there is perhaps another weirdo in this vast city we call home who also has an aversion to buying a car made this century?”

“His truck is from 1998,” Buck said, turning his phone around in his hands. The only reason no one had tried to take it from him was because Eddie, a victim of the call involving college students and a comically unwise amount of jello shots, was sitting next to him in a shirt covered in vomit. The smell was keeping everyone at bay.

Chim cracked open an eye. “That's nearly thirty years ago.”

“And not the takeaway,” Hen added.

“He hates new trucks,” Buck said, which was probably also not the takeaway, judging by the side eye Hen shot him. “He thinks they're vanity projects for men insecure in their masculinity.”

“He liked mine. He even did a tune up on it.” Eddie pinched his shirt between finger and thumb and held it away from his body. Two different students had vomited on him in under a minute. “How do we not have a spare shirt in the kit?”

“He didn't like your truck," Buck said, absently. “He almost didn't take you to Vegas when you pulled up in it.”

“I should have taken you instead," Tommy had said as he finished checking the Jeep’s fluids. He closed the hood and gave it an affectionate pat. “You keep her in good shape.”

Buck had no choice but to shove Tommy against the hood and climb him like a tree.

“Well, now I'm glad none of us hang out with him anymore,” Eddie said.

“We're here,” Bobby said loudly before Buck could do more than furrow his brow. “Eddie, go shower and get changed. Everyone else, let's make sure we're ready for another call and then go grab something to eat.”

Buck ran through the equipment checklist with Ravi, who headed upstairs to get lunch. Before he could follow, Bobby waved him over to the front of the bay and said, "How are you doing, kid?"

Buck briefly considered playing dumb and giving a run down on the check he just performed, but he was a long way out from being twenty-six and Bobby wouldn't have let him get away with it back then, either.

“Is this about the truck?" Buck said, fumbling his phone back out of the pocket. “Because I took a picture yesterday, and you can see most of the license plate.”

It had been late afternoon and Buck was on his way back from possibly the most depressing hang he and Eddie ever had: Eddie missing his son and Buck missing his boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Then in the late afternoon light, there was the truck,driving slowly past his building. Buck had taken a quick picture and then took off down the sidewalk, trying to wave Tommy down. Tommy must have seen him because he sped up and ran a yellow light and was gone.

Buck had the text thread open all night, but Tommy never bubbled. Maybe he’d gotten it wrong.

“You're having a hard time with this breakup,” Bobby said after a long, thoughtful look. “You weren't like this over Taylor.”

“It was pretty clear by the end that Taylor and I wanted different things. It was different with Tommy.” He sniffed, miserable. “I saw something there. I thought we were making it together.”

“Oh, kid,” Bobby said like Buck was breaking his heart. “Come here.”

It’d been some time since he had a Bobby hug, but it was as warm and loving as always. Maybe he didn’t get to have someone, not like how Bobby had Athena and how Maddie had Chim, how he thought he had Tommy, but he still got this: Bobby, who loved him better than a father could.

“If he’s driving by your place,” Bobby said, “maybe he saw something there, too.”

“Do you think I should call him?” he asked, hopeful.

“Come to dinner,” Bobby said, which was its own answer. “I’m making a braised short rib. The kids will be there. Bring a dessert. With the way Harry puts it away, bring several desserts. We’ll have an old fashioned family dinner.”

“I’ve been experimenting with a fruit tart,” Buck said, surreptitiously swiping at his eyes. “And a chocolate ganache.”

Bobby lovingly shook him by the back of the neck. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Always am,” Buck said, and slipped away to stow his phone in the locker. He was sick of looking at it.

4. His favorite thing about the loft, the main reason he let Ali talk him into taking it besides that it would be a nice place to have sex in, was the balcony. He never lived in a place with a real balcony before. That shoebox apartment in Poughkeepise had a little eve he could climb out on and then the slightly larger shoebox in Virginia Beach had a fire escape he snuck onto with a cold beer at night when the heat downgraded from murderous to merely oppressive.

But this was a whole balcony he outfitted with a table and chairs with deep cushions and even an ottoman he picked up at an estate sale. There was something so adult about spending a morning out on the balcony having a leisurely breakfast of his latest attempt at croissants and the cold brew he made himself, looking out over LA.

Tommy had liked the balcony and the view even if he hated the rest of the loft. He’d been very polite about it, admiring the clean modern lines. “You’re making me feel like a pack rat,” he’d joked. “Maybe I should give minimalism a shot.”

“I like your place,” Buck had protested. Tommy’s house was so perfectly him, filled with books and DVDs and old VHS tapes and weird little figurines lining the shelves. “I used to move around a lot when I was a younger. I got in the habit of not keeping a lot of stuff.” He’d studied the loft with new eyes. It was less clean and modern and more bare. “Where did you get those little wood figures? Maybe I should start a collection.”

“I’ll send you the link,” Tommy had said, but of course he hadn’t. They’d broken up and now the only personal touch was the containers of flours and the brownies cooling on a rack.

Buck finished off his cold brew and moved to the railing, arms propped on it. Down below, as if just waiting for him to notice, was Tommy’s Superman blue truck. Looked like he got the spot out front again.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed over to the text thread. The bubble appeared. The bubble disappeared. The bubble appeared.

What the hell. You only lived once.

You can come up, Buck texted, making sure to use proper punctuation because Tommy was a nerd that way.

The bubble disappeared. Tommy pulled out of spot and took off.

Well, at least he knew now.

5. Eddie dropped him off in front of the building, and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me? We can have an adult sleepover.”

Buck raised his eyebrows.

“Platonic!” Eddie yelped. “Adult platonic sleepover.”

“That’s worse. You sound like a—” The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat. Maddie had nearly been killed by that joke.

“Buck,” Eddie said.

“We’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours,” he said, dredging up a smile. “I’m gonna go get some sleep. You should also do that. You still have to finish packing.”

Eddie sighed, the exhaustion and Buck winning. “All right, but call me if—hell, I don’t know. Just call if you need to.”

“Sure thing,” said Buck, who was absolutely not going to do that. He shut the door and knocked twice against the window, giving the all clear, and Eddie pulled back onto the road.

Parked across the street was a Superman blue truck from 1998.

Buck broke into a run. A giant vanity truck laid on the horn because Tommy was right and every owner was an asshole. He waved a hand in apology, skidded between two terribly parked SUVs and rapped frantically on the passenger side window.

Tommy’s shoulders jerked up around his ears. The keys were in the ignition. Tommy’s grip tightened and then fell away, and he leaned over to open the door.

“You won’t text me but you’ll park outside my apartment?” Buck demanded, clambering inside. The seat was pulled up, and he had to shove it all the way back so his legs would fit.

“Hello, Evan,” Tommy said with an achingly brave little smile. “This seemed the less depressing option.”

“How?”

Tommy sighed. “It made sense in my head.” And then his gaze sharpened, and Buck was uncomfortably aware of his two day old scruff and greasy hair and the old hoodie that was desperately in need of a wash after the long day. Tommy’s voice gentled. “Hey, are you okay?”

Buck opened his mouth, the words ready to pour out in an unstoppable tragic deluge of this fucking awful day, and he knew exactly what would happen: Tommy would listen, eyebrows rising first with incredulity and then with horror, and he would walk Buck up to his apartment and make sure he got some food in him and, if Buck was extra pathetic, would sit with him until he nodded off because Tommy took care of him but never let Buck return the favor. No, that was a lie. Buck never bothered to see past the cool pilot veneer to the sweet man underneath who wanted to be taken care of. It was time for a change.

“It was a scary day,” he said, “but everything is okay now. How are you?”

There was that smile again, only sadder now. “I’m good, Evan.”

It might have worked before, but Buck was paying attention now. Tommy was tired and lonely and a little scared.

“I don’t think you are,” Buck said, being so, so careful. “Do you want to come up and tell me about it?”

Tommy’s hand was on the key. Buck waited. Please, god, please.

Tommy pulled it from the ignition and said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

They got out of the truck and went inside, together.

+1. Parking on Tommy’s street was a nightmare. Between the student house on the corner and the Thompsons’ endless dinner parties, there was never an open spot he could squeeze the Jeep into. He begun his fourth circuit when Tommy called.

“You circle the block one more time and Helen from next door is going to call the cops,” Tommy said, amused.

“Tell her it’s the Thompsons’ fault,” Buck said. “What’s the normal number of dinner parties to have a week? It can’t be five. That’s way too many.”

“I think it’s called having friends.”

“We have friends, but we don’t invite them over every night.” He paused in front of the fire hydrant. “I’m a firefighter. I’ve got special dispensation to park in front of a hydrant, right?”

“Or,” Tommy said slowly, “you can park in my driveway like a normal, not insane person.”

Buck’s throat went die and his palms began to sweat. Please don’t let him fuck this up.

“I didn’t want to trap you if you needed to get out.” He winced. “Or, uh, assume.”

“Honey,” Tommy said, slow and sweet and only mild condescending. “Park in the driveway.”

“Okay,” Buck said. “See you soon.”

He pulled in and to the side, just in case Tommy needed to make a quick escape from his own house. Tommy was waiting on the front porch, bare foot and handsome and his eyebrows raised in a bitchy little arc. Buck loved him so much.

“Don’t start,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Which of us spent months driving past where the other lived instead of just texting like a normal, not insane person?”

“And which of us almost brought back Covid flour shortages instead of texting?” Tommy shot back.

“Me,” Buck said happily.

“And me.” Tommy slid a hand along the back of his neck and reeled him into a kiss. “Come on. Dinner is almost ready.”

Buck opened said big fat mouth but Sal beat him to the punch. "I planned this little social visit all on my lonesome."

Chim was too tired to even begin to detangle the Raso-Deluca-Kinard-Buckley codependency web to figure out if Buck had gone crying to his union daddy about whatever had his panties in a bunch now. With Buck, it could be anything.

"If this is union business then get in line." He held out for an entire ten seconds before giving in and snatching up the cup. "I already got the deputy chief after my head about the late evaluations. You know how long it takes to write up an entire station's evals when half your shift is spent putting out literal fires?"

"I'm familiar," Sal said dryly.

Chim downed half the coffee, which was a mistake; his pulse rabbited. "What the hell is in this?"

"Four shots of espresso, a fuck ton of syrup, and I think she poured in a packet of instant coffee."

He stared in horror at the cup. "Why?"

"She fears neither god nor death." Sal stood and slid his phone into his shirt pocket. Chim would bet good money if those cell phone belt clips were still around, Sal would be a proud owner. He was such a dad. "Let's take this to your office."

His vagus nerve went wild and his pulse kicked up another notch that had nothing to do with the espresso. "You've already made yourself comfortable. We can do it here."

Sal made a point of looking around the open concept loft at where all of Chim's firefighters were doing a great job at pretending not to listen in on their conversation. He was particularly impressed by Eddie's intense pantomime of searching the fridge for the quart of milk two inches from his face.

"This is a conversation better suited to an office that has a door, Captain Han," Sal said.

Ravi, who was heading towards the coffee machine, turned on his heel and beelined straight for the stairs. Coward.

Chim forced a smile. "If you would follow me, Steward Deluca."

"I know the way, asshole," Sal said, and didn't even wait for Chim to take the lead.

"Now who's the asshole?" he muttered and hurried to catch up with Sal. He was surrounded by assholes with long legs. This was why Hen was his favorite.

They made it all the way to the office before Sal paused, hand on the doorknob. Like the bay doors, Bobby had liked to keep his office open. "It sends the wrong message if it's closed," Bobby had said once. "We're here to help. People need to know they're welcome."

Before Sal could get off a quip or, even worse, be understanding, Chim pushed past and inside. At some point between the lab and all of them returning to work, someone had packed up all of Bobby's personal effects and cleaned the place out. The pictures and the #2 Dad mug that May and Harry had gotten Bobby as a gag gift on Father's Day went to Athena. The little figurine of an old fire wagon was in the Buckley-Kinard household. He'd caught a glimpse of it when they went over for dinner, which was a whole ordeal as they had to pack up the kids and both Jee and Nash hated being in their car seats. He had been irritated when he saw it, not because he wanted the figurine—that would have been one more thing for the kids to break—but because it hadn't even been a choice. Of course it went to Buck, just like Bobby's recipe cards, written by various Nash generations, had gone to Buck. Just like Bobby's final orders had gone to Buck.

The only attempt Chim had made at personalizing the office was to put up the obligatory framed photos of the wife and kids. He hadn't seen the point of anything else given how little time he was in there since the LAFD was all in on going paperless, which meant his laptop's new home was on the kitchen table. The air was stale. A tin layer of dust covered everything. Sal sneezed.

"So," Chim said, absolutely not hesitating as he took a seat behind the desk and laced his fingers over his stomach, "why are you here, Sal?"

Sal sat across him, mimicking his posture with his own hands folded over his stomach. "I'm just curious about why Firefighter Buckley has not taken the full family leave he's entitled to as a new parent."

The effort it took not to roll his eyes hurt. "Christ, I can't believe he went whining to you about this. Actually, you know what? I can believe he went whining to you. Isn't this a conflict of interest?"

"Buckley is only married to my best friend," Sal said, deeply unimpressed. "It's not like he's my brother-in-law and I'm his direct supervisor. Now that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen."

Chim took a deep, calming breath. "Buck took a couple of weeks when Theo moved in. I can't force him to take every minute available to him." That was polite and professional and more of an explanation than Sal was owed, and yet something about Sal's face, the set of his mouth or the fact he apparently stole Tommy's bitchy eyebrows, goaded him into adding, "It's just a foster placement. It's not like he's got a new baby. Besides, Buck is the donor, not the dad."

Sal went very still and very quiet and very dangerous. "Then I guess you think Hen shouldn't have taken her family leave when she and Karen took in Mara."

Through the horrific churning of his stomach, Chim said, "That's different. Hen and Karen were adopting Mara. And Hen didn't take the full leave either. Hell, I only took a couple of weeks when my son was born. Buck isn't being singled out."

"Yeah, let's talk about PTO." Sal deliberately unlaced his fingers. If this were a nature program, this would be the point where Buck would explain to Jee and Nash what a threat display was. "I've been doing some digging. Unofficially, of course."

"Of course," Chim agreed, annoyed.

"The 118 has a lot of unused PTO sitting on the books, which I find concerning."

"Oh, do you?" The annoyance was reaching the flashover point. "Tell me more about how to do my job."

Sal's expression didn't change; he used to be easier to rile. "It's not a good sign when your people aren't using the time they're due and that they've earned. Now I don't know if it's because they're all workaholics, in which case you got yourself a culture problem, Captain Han, or because they don't think they're allowed to take it. And if they don't think they're allowed then that's where I come in."

The flashover ignited. "You know, Sal," Chim said with forced geniality, "it's a shame that you never made captain. I remember you keeping us going through all those shitty captains after Gerrard. You were good at it."

"I sense a 'but' coming," Sal said, clearly amused, which only made the Chim's anger burn hotter by sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

"But you are not a captain and you are definitely not the captain of the 118." He jabbed a finger into the desk. "You do not get to come into my house and lecture me about my job and tell me how to look after my people. And if Firefighter Buckley has an issue with the way I'm running this place then he can put on his big boy pants and come talk to me instead of running to the nearest dad shaped figure to fight his battles for him. We all miss Bobby but some of us have to be the actual grown up in the room!"

Now Sal's expression changed, but instead of the self-righteous fury he remembered Sal being so good at it, Sal just seemed sad. "Howie, do you even want to be captain?"

That shocked him out of his fury. "What kind of question is that?"

"An overdue one, I'm guessing." Sal looked around the office, taking in the blank walls and the few framed photos and, more irritatingly, the ill fitting way Chim sat behind the desk. "I was surprised when I heard Hen declined the captaincy. I had her marked down for climbing the ranks ever since that night she found the car we all missed. You remember that?"

He snorted. Did he remember the night he and Hen became partners? Like he could forget how Hen metaphorically kicked their asses into being brave enough to dump Gerrard.

"I faintly recall it," he said at his most snide.

That got Sal to smile. "That's when I knew that someday I'd be calling her chief." The smile dropped away. "But then I hear she turned Simpson down. She didn't want it anymore."

"Bobby was mentoring her. She stepped up as interim captain when he was away. She was the one making the hard decisions. That's how she got on Ortiz's shit list." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "She doesn't want it like this."

"Nobody wants it like this." Sal heaved an old man sigh. "Do you know why I became a union steward?"

"Well, Sal, if I had to guess, I'm going with the fact you got an anti-authority streak a mile wide and love to fight with the brass."

"Well, you're not wrong," Sal said, a flash of wry humor. "But I was here for Gerrard. I saw what he did to Tommy. It was worse for you and Hen, I know," Sal added before Chim could rightfully protest. "He ground us down and turned us into the worse version of ourselves."

"Us?"

"Me." Sal leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. "I hate who I was under Gerrard. I hate how I treated you. I hate that my own best friend didn't feel safe to come out to me for years. I hate that it took me so long to do the right thing. I won't let another firefighter go through what we did. I will not let the brass protect more Gerrards."

"Is this your superhero origin story?" Chim said, knowing he'd crossed the line from good natured shit talking to mean bastard, but he couldn't stop. "It doesn't have the same flair as Spider-Man's origin, but, hey, at least you get the power without the responsibility."

Sal leaned back and donned a wide smile. "I'm going to do you a favor, Howie, since you're an old friend and we were in the trenches together."

"Lucky me," he said dryly. "That favor better be getting Buck to cool it on the snickerdoodle front. If I have to so much as see another cookie I'm transferring him to Alaska. I don't care how much Theo likes him."

"I'll do you one better. I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Bobby back when Firefighter Diaz almost killed a guy." Sal's smile became that of a great white shark. "I shut down the 138. I made sure there was an investigation into the culture the captain fostered and the harassment he encouraged. Every single firefighter who participated in the systematic sexual harassment was fired and denied all benefits. I oversaw the transfer of those affected firefighters to good houses with good captains. I dug and documented and uncovered every terrible, horrific thing they did, and I burned it all down and put heads on pikes and I salted the fucking earth. There will never be another Gerrard. I will not allow it, not even if it's the 118 and not even if it's your head."

"You self-righteous asshole," Chim said quietly, so furious he couldn't take a full breath. "You think you scare me? I've been dealing with people like you my entire life. I survived Gerrard. So if you want my head, Deluca, you're gonna have to fight for it."

"Howie," Sal said, not gentle because the only people Sal were gentle with was his daughter and Tommy, but kind, "do you want to be captain?"

Chim threw up his hands because the only other option was throwing a punch. "What fucking difference does it make? Hen doesn't want it. Eddie and Buck aren't anywhere near being ready to take command."

"You're not the only senior firefighter here," Sal said.

"But I am the only who fucking cares."

That was, Chim realized too late to do any good, a horrifying thing to say about the 118. It was the same thing Gerrard said every shift, the little phrase that allowed him to turn people into things: Gerrard was the only who cared about the job.

"I didn't mean that," Chim said into the asphyxiating silence.

"How did you mean it?" Sal said with what certainly sounded like genuine curiosity.

He forced himself to take a breath and then another. He brought his shoulders down a notch. "If I didn't take the badge," he said slowly, carefully feeling his way through the sentence, "then we would be stuck with whoever Simpson assigned here. We wouldn't get another Gerrard. I know you won't let that happen." He wasn't even annoyed with the way Sal tipped his head in faux modesty. "But we had a lot of captains between Gerrard and Bobby. You remember what they were like, right? They weren't bad captains but they—”

"Didn't give a shit," Sal said. "I remember."

The exhaustion ate away the last of the anger. "I don't want to get some guy who doesn't care about this place or about family dinner or about us." God, he was so tired. "We're Bobby's legacy and that matters."

Sal nodded thoughtfully and said, "I gotta ask one more time. Howie, do you want to be captain?"

"You're killing me, Smalls," Chim groaned. "Why do you keep asking that? Are you actually gunning for my job?"

"I'm asking because what it sounds like to me is that you took this job because no one else would and you were afraid the station would get saddled with a--"

"Mook?" he suggested.

Sal flashed a smile. "Yeah, with another fucking mook." The smile faded. "But you didn’t want this job, not like how Hen did and how Buckley does. And I think you resent the hell out of everyone for not stepping up and forcing you to do it, and I think that’s eating away at you.”

"I don't," he protested. "I'm not saying I would have chosen this if it weren't for everything, but I don't resent them for it. I'm doing this for them and for Bobby. We're a family."

Sal looked at him like Chim was an unstable building and Sal was trying to figure out the safest way to evacuate everyone inside. And then, with devastating precision, he asked, "And when was the last time you had family dinner?"

"Last shift," he said automatically, and then: "Wait, we had that call and Buck didn't get a chance to cook when we got back. So the shift before that. Or on Sunday. One of those days."

“You don’t seem sure about that.”

Chim opened his mouth to tell Sal to stop harassing him in his own station, but Sal had the audacity to be right: he wasn’t sure the last time they all sat down to dinner together. Buck had taken over cooking duties, but dinner was served buffet style with everything laid out so the rest of them could come and eat when they wanted to. It wasn’t like they were all retreating to their separate corners—people tended to cluster around the tv, on the couch, at the table, or leaning against counters because they were all raised in a barn—but they weren’t eating together, not like they before. Chim closed his mouth.

“Yeah,” Sal said, almost sympathetic. “This is your house now and you’re not handling it well.”

“So,” Chim said cheerfully, “this is the part where I tell you to get the hell out of my house.”

“This is what I’ve observed in the time I’ve been here,” Sal said, terrifyingly serious. “You have accused Firefighter Buckley of going behind your back by bringing me in, stated that he is not entitled to his full family leave per California law because he is only fostering Theo and implied that Firefighter Buckley is a child. You admitted to setting the precedence for not using PTO that the people under your command are entitled to and are resentful that Firefighter Buckley any family leave at all. You then proceeded to make several unprofessional and disparaging remarks about a firefighter under your command to another member of the LAFD. Is this you handling it well, Captain Han?”

“Let me tell you what I’ve observed,” Chim shot back, forcing his hands to lay flat against the desk. “Everything you just said exclusively pertains to how I’m treating Buck, which isn’t helping your case that he doesn’t immediately go running to you when another kid is being mean to him on the playground. My actual four year old daughter doesn’t complain as much.”

“That is a hell of a thing to say about your brother-in-law,” Sal said, “and an actionable offense as his captain.”

“Jesus Christ.” He dragged his hands down his face. “I know he’s your brother-husband, but this is still Buck we’re talking about. I’ve known him longer than you. Hell, I’m the reason you two even met.”

“You thought he was being unfairly treated and brought in an union rep to help him,” Sal said, tone heavy with meaning.

“Worst mistake of my life. Now I’m stuck dealing with both of you until one of us dies.” That was, Chim once again realized too late, too mean and too honest. “Bad joke.”

“That wasn’t a joke,” Sal said.

He gritted his teeth, and said, “I admit that was out of line. My son wouldn’t go down last night. I’m operating on about an hour of sleep.”

“The thing is, Howie, I don’t fucking care.” And there was the Sal that he knew and barely tolerated. “And those people out there, your people, don’t care either. You’re the captain. You don’t get to be tired or cranky or a goddamn asshole just because you missed some sleep. You don’t get to take out your frustration and resentment on Buckley because he’s your brother-in-law and you think that makes him a safe target. As you so aptly put it, Captain Han, you have to be the grown up in the room but all I’m seeing is a child throwing a tantrum. And my actual child knows how to behave better.”

“Tell me how you really feel, Sal,” he said, too exhausted to work up more anger. A tension headache throbbed behind his right eye. All he wanted was five goddamn minutes of quiet where someone wasn’t crying or grieving or expecting him to fix the unfixable. All he wanted was to be left alone so he could remember how to be a person again. “I’m serious. Dig deep. Lay it on me.”

“No one wakes up and makes the decision to be a hateful asshole, not even Gerrard.” Sal sounded as tired as Chim felt. “We give ourself little permissions every day. Your kid kept you up last night so that gives you permission to disparage Buckley in front of his coworkers. You didn’t take your full family leave so no one else should either. You care more about this job than anyone else, which means you can treat them however you want.”

Chim winced. “I get it, okay? I’m being a real asshole.”

“You don’t actually get it,” Sal said, and Chim had never seen him look so sad, not when Tommy was in the hospital and not even when he got himself fired. “I told you I’m here as a courtesy since we’re old friends. What’s happening here, all these little permissions and excuses you give yourself, this is how you get a Vincent Gerrard.”

“And you won’t let that happen again,” Chim said through a mouth gone sick and sour with shame.

“I never liked Nash, but I liked what he did for his place and what he did for you. I don’t want to have to salt the 118’s earth, but I will if I have to.” Sal stood. He wasn’t the biggest guy Chim knew—that honor went to his brothers-in-law—but had a talent for for filling the room, and right now there was no space left for him. “You saved Tommy’s life, and I am forever grateful for that, but I won’t protect you if you keep going down this road. The next time I com here, it will be in an official capacity.”

“Good talk, Sal,” Chim said, unable to summon up even the thinnest sarcasm. “My favorite part was the explicit threat at the end.”

Sal flashed that shark smile. “Don’t be dramatic. You’ll know when I’m threatening you.” The smile softened into something approaching genuine affection. “If you going to do this, Howie, you gotta do it right. And you don’t have to do it at all if you don’t want to. You can step down.”

“That will be all, Firefighter Deluca,” Chim said.

“Good to see you, Captain Han.” Sal nodded at him and then finally got the hell out of Chim’s house.

Chim got a full four minutes of quiet before the bell went off and then another minute before Hen shouted, “We gotta go, Cap!”