He hasn’t come out yet, but he’s working up to it (chokes on the words every time, daydreams every scenario from sobbing in Hen’s arms to casually dropping a date’s pronoun.) And he just broke up with Abby, what should have been the first step in a better, freer, happier life (but the memory of her devastated eyes, the way she coldly told him he was no longer welcome in her home, no longer welcome to see Patricia—it keeps him up at night.)

So. A transitional period.

He no longer has to do breathing exercises in his car just to walk into work anymore, but he still feels like a jigsaw piece from another puzzle. He tries to joke with Hen and Chim, but is a third wheel to their friendship, to the way they can have entire conversations with just their eyes. Can feel the awkward silences when he says something a little too mean or reveals something about himself that surprises them, or drops the mask and shows when his feelings get hurt. He wants desperately to be part of Nash’s 118, this family (and Bobby is as distant and twitchy as any father Tommy has ever known), but also wants to run away from all of it.

He’s stuck between the man he wants to be and the man he’s afraid to become. And something, someone, in him is desperate to come out. Somehow, these are the people he is closest to in the world, and something in him howls at them not knowing the single most honest truth about who he is.

2. The new probie shows up, with his glorious smile, legs longer than a giraffe’s—and practically reeking of desperation and lack of love. And Tommy isn’t instantly attracted to him any more than he’s attracted to any man with enough muscle to make it through the academy and with those cock-sucking lips. Evan’s a beautiful man, but Tommy has lived long enough to know how to look at beauty without feeling anything at all.

Tommy also doesn’t hate Evan, whose clumsy foot-in-mouth tendencies are offset by a charming earnestness, one that belongs to a much younger man. Sure, the new probie doesn’t understand the weight of the job, is arrogant and cocky, an attention whore down to the bone—but which man in his 20s, which new firefighter isn’t (except for Hen, but then who’s like her?)

Tommy, even, had once thought being a firefighter in LA would open up doors to beautiful, swooning men. And then Gerrard had choked the desire for anyone’s attention out of him.

Bobby expects Tommy to personally mentor Evan, as the longest serving firefighter on shift.

And because Evan has been chosen by Captain Nash to replace Sal. To be Tommy’s partner.

3. Damningly, Tommy really likes Evan. He is sweet, peacocking and glib—and that will be beaten out of him by the job and their captain eventually—Tommy has no desire to crush it himself. Evan reminds Tommy of Howie, what he had wanted from firefighting glory and girls before Gerrard had broken those pieces of him and Eli had nurtured them into something better (Tommy considers himself neither a killer nor a gardener.)

More so, as Evan grows up a little bit after every single call, Tommy recognizes in him another unloved child—that same desperate desire to prove his worth, to inspire staying loyalty, to become a better person. And how can Tommy not fall in love with that part of him?

Tommy catches Evan taking out a firetruck and goes absolutely not. If you want to fuck girls who want to fuck firemen, make them come here during downtime or while shifts are changing or while you’re man behind. Don't get caught, and don’t make a habit of it.

If Tommy can’t fuck who he wants in a firetruck, why should he begrudge Evan his fun while it lasts?

And that light is snuffed out soon enough; after Evan goes up on that roller coaster and comes back down alone, it’s Tommy who takes him to get blackout drunk on tequila. Who drives him to his own home, a quiet, solitary bachelor pad with a couch comfortable enough for men their size. Who ignores the way Evan is a handsy drunk who chose to feel up Tommy’s biceps instead of going home with some girl. It’s Tommy who tells him you’ll never forget the first one, but the hits will keep coming, so buck up, kid.

When Evan quietly tells Tommy he had sex with his therapist and that didn’t really help with the whole Devon thing, Tommy feels how wrong that is deep inside, but isn’t in a place to articulate or even really understand these dynamics of power and sexual assault. Instead, he jostles Evan into a side hug, ignores the way his body reacts to Evan’s pressed up against him; lets Evan cling and tuck his face in his neck without forcing him back into a bro hug.

Says at least she signed off on you to come back, huh, and when that doesn’t work, tells Evan about the therapist he’s started going to. The one he thought would fix all the broken shards inside him faster, but at least the nightmares have been occurring less. Tells him she’s an old biddy desperately in love with her wife, and he can ask if she has any slots open.

4. The second Tommy thinks maybe it’s all going to be alright, that Evan was the missing piece that’ll make him feel like he belongs here, belongs in this family even as just the awkward gay uncle you only see on the holidays, everything goes wrong.

Chim gets rebar through the head—Tommy freaks out over one of his only friends maybe dying, flashes back to everyone he’s already seen die (army fellows, comrades and fuck buddies alike), other probies (why he was already so done before Chim showed up and wore him down), people who would have lived if Nash had been leading them instead of Gerrard.

He’s so grateful when Chim wakes up, when they’re all so relieved (as a team.) The words “I’m gay” remain as stuck in his throat as rebar was in his best friend's skull or is he ready to admit yet that that title might now be Evan's, Evan who pouts adorably every time Chim and Tommy start cracking references at each other, Evan who Tommy started inviting for his own movie nights, who always falls asleep on his couch halfway through and stays the night and makes him breakfast, the only thing Bobby has taught him.)

The plane crashes. Bobby relapses. Tommy drives Evan over to his house. Admires Bobby for asking for help. Excuses himself into the hallway as Hen and Evan clean up Bobby’s place to hide his shaking hands, the memories of his own father falling off the wagon again and again and again. The way violence always followed (the way Bobby slammed Evan up agains the wall.)

5. Abby sends texts out to all of her contacts to find her missing mom. Tommy and Evan run into each other right outside her house. (Tommy always glazes over whenever Evan waxes poetic about his older girlfriend to the crew, lets the others handle romantic advice, not like he’d know what to say.

Tells himself he’s jealous of this kid’s relationship, the likes of which Tommy’s never had the chance to pursue, jealous of how openly he can talk about it. That’s what justifies the venomous roiling in his gut when he sees the lovestruck look in Evan’s eyes. The reason why he always goes out after those shifts, finds a club, drags some man into an alley. Only checks his surroundings one, two, three times.)

Evan finally puts the puzzle pieces together. The hammer drops. He’s immediately furious and worse, sadly confused, as to how Tommy could have broken up with Abby, left her in the state he found her.

They don’t have time for this, Patricia could be out there in danger right now, getting further and further away from their scope—

And so Tommy ends up yelling, the way he never wanted to, at a person he never wanted to. Yells to Evan that he had to do it or he would have killed himself, because I’m gay, I’m gay, alright, kid, and she deserved better than that, than me—right as Abby opens the door to receive them.

6. Seeing Buck with Abby makes Tommy feel sick. Is he so bad-natured a man that he can’t even see a woman he has no interest in moving on without feeling ill will? With a man who forgave him all of it instantly, with awkward reassurance about his allyship, fist pump and all?

Tommy sticks by Chim and Hen for Chim’s welcome back party.

7. When Tommy sees Buck laying in a hospital bed after nearly dying from fucking bread of all things, Bobby catches him having a panic attack in some random hospital supply room—

He has to leave he has to leave he has to leave he has to leave—

Bobby coaches him through breathing exercises. It’s the first time Tommy doesn’t feel a lick of fear around him.

Talks to Bobby after, as they see medical choppers outside the window in Buck’s room.

About how he used to fly.

8. Tommy meets someone. Can’t even tell the 118, come out to everyone in the easiest way possible, because of course now they're all having shit luck in their love lives. Hen’s cheating comes out. Buck’s having trouble with Abby, Chim’s having trouble with Tatiana, Bobby’s having trouble finding dates at all.

They go out to have drinks to decompress. Bobby drops that Harbor might have an opening soon, that he’ll recommend Tommy—as long as he can recertify, it’s his. Tommy can’t even articulate his sheer gratitude before Evan’s face falls, devastated, a too-loud "y-you’re leaving?" leaving his lips.

Evan stands up on those long, long legs with no further plan, flushes with embarrassment, leaves the table mumbling some excuse about getting another round.

Tommy sits through Hen and Chim congratulating him before following, even though those few minutes make his skin itch. But he’s used to waiting a few minutes to allay suspicion, even when every ounce of him wants to sprint after Evan always wants to beg the men he's with to just stay a while longer.

Evan's already gone.

9. Tommy transfers to Harbor. Evan doesn’t meet his eyes at his going away party. The cake smeared all over his face tastes like ash. Neither of them talk to each other. Neither of them understand why they feel so bad.

When his boyfriend breaks up with him, he texts Hen and Chim about it in their old group chat. It's the first text in a while.

10. Buck thinks about calling Tommy constantly, misses him desperately in a way he's only just beginning to understand, but he doesn’t gather the courage—until Maddie gets kidnapped by Doug. Tommy picks up on the second ring and hears Evan begging for a bird’s eye view, choking on the screams he’s barely keeping inside.

+11. After everything is resolved, Tommy’s at the hospital with the rest of the 118. Chim’s the only one in Maddie's room for the moment. Tommy watches Bobby and Hen and Evan and some new, handsome young dad Evan’s new partner all huddle around each other, share relieved smiles.

Tommy tosses his cold hospital coffee in the trash and decides he’ll send a card and some cupcakes in the mail, maybe shoot Howie a follow-up text.

Seconds before he exits the glass doors, a hand grabs his wrist.

/end.

These always get away from me lol, but I really hope you liked it!!!! It involved a lot of trawling the s1 wikipedia page, and ended up way more Tommy-centric than I intended, but I’m pretty happy with it.