#make sylvie write

Buck's getting a new bodyguard today, and he has every intention of disliking him. Or her. Or them. He's not going to be sexist or homophobic or whatever about it. He's a modern, equal-opportunity hater. And really quite experienced at it, if he says so himself. And who can blame him, honestly? Bobby was the first bodyguard who has ever actually cared about Evan Buckley. The first person, period, since Maddie married Doug and his parents stopped speaking to her, or letting her speak to him. Everyone else only ever seemed to care about using him to somehow impressing Senator Phillip Buckley from Pennsylvania. Or avoiding a new embarassing tabloid story, in his mother and her people's case. Bobby's the entire reason Buck feels like a person at all, some days, instead of an insubstantial ghost that only becomes visible when he's the problematic wild child. And now Dad wants to replace him with some ex-Army vet. Buck's met the type before. Quite a lot of them, in fact. The thing about bodyguards is that they sound so nice, in theory. Someone who's literal job description is to be with you at all times and never abandon you, who's contractually obligated to care about your life. Except, it turns out, caring about his life and caring about him can be two completely separate things. Especially when his father's the one holding their contracts and signing their paychecks. It was almost funny if he didn’t think about it too hard, the way their faces folded into the exact same pinched look his dad likes to give him, like they took lessons from him in their spare time. That look was how he could always tell whose side the bodyguard was on. Before Bobby, he used to make a game out of how quickly he could push them into quitting. He’s a little rusty, after two whole blissful years with Bobby, but Buck gleefully plans to dust off those tricks again for the new guy. His previous record was six weeks, and he's rather determined--childishly so, his father would say--to beating it this time. He's pretty sure he can cut it down by half, if he really puts his heart into it. And then the bodyguard walks through the door of Dad’s stuffy office, and every scrap of his resolve dissolves like wet paper.

“Bobby died,” Tommy says. Buck’s heart stops, and then kickstarts at a sprint when Tommy continues. “Dies. Will die. He— there’s a lab, and Chimney gets sick, and—” “I need you to slow down,” Buck says, fighting with every last scrap of his first responder training to stay calm. They can’t both lose their minds at once, that’ll get them nowhere fast. “I don’t understand. Is Bobby— is Bobby dead, or dying? O-or are you saying, he’s going to d-die somehow?” Tommy laughs, an awful shattered sound that Buck never wants to hear again. “Yes, yes, and yes. All of it. Not for you. I mean, not yet. But— I saw him die. Too many times. A-and you will, too.” “I don’t understand,” Buck repeats, hearing the edge of panic finally creep into his voice. “Tommy, please, you’re not making any sense. I, I need you to help me understand.”

Turns out Tommy wasn't just flirting when he offered Muay Thai lessons. And a focused teacher, despite the way his eyes linger appreciatively over Buck. Buck is hopelessly outclassed, both in Muay Thai and in distraction. After a few rounds, Tommy catches Buck by the head and shoves Buck's face into his sweaty chest. "This is a clinch." Buck barely hears Tommy over the rush of his blood. Tommy pulls him closer, voice low in Buck's ear. "Are you listening, baby?" Buck whines without meaning to. With a gloved hand, Tommy lifts Buck's head up to press a demanding kiss.

Sal finally asks, “At the risk of asking a stupid question, are you sure it’s his? Buckley’s, I mean. I know you said so last night, but it’s not like you had time to do a paternity test. Or even think straight, from what I saw.” Tommy snorts a derisive laugh so hard, the lingering crumbs of his breakfast almost end up his nose. “I haven’t fucked anyone else in about a year. So either the baby’s his, or it’s the second coming of Jesus.” Sal smacks his shoulder in retaliation for the terrible joke. There’s less force behind it than there usually would be, though. “You gonna tell him?” “Absolutely not.” The words are out of Tommy’s mouth before he’s even properly processed the question. They’re true, though. Tommy would crash his own helicopter into the ground before he ever told Evan that he was pregnant with their child. His thoughts stall out over that sentence again. He wonders, distantly, if he’ll ever get used to the thought. Their child. His and Evan’s. “—even know?” Sal asks. “Huh?” Tommy says, dumbly. He didn’t even hear half of what Sal said, too busy trying and failing to reconcile the reality of a world in which Tommy Kinard is pregnant with Evan Buckley’s child. Every other word in that sentence is an impossibility. An impossibility that is somehow, impossibly, true. Sal eyes him with a heavy, judgmental gaze, but he’s generous enough not to call Tommy out on it. That, or Tommy already looks fragile and pathetic enough that even Sal feels bad poking him where it hurts. “Does Buckley even know? That you’re an omega?” Tommy doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. The whole-body flinch at that word—omega—and the clench of his jaw that follows have already given him away. “Thought so.” Sal sighs, long and heavy. “You’re a fucking idiot, but unfortunately you do happen to be my fucking idiot. So. What’s the plan?” “You think I got a plan?” Tommy says. It’s supposed to sound sardonic, but he can’t quite muster up his customary dry, dark humour properly. He sounds more like a lost child. “I got no fucking clue what I’m doing.”

zero. Tommy watches, helpless and useless, as Evan bleeds on the other side of the glass. His nose. His ears. The corners of his mouth. His voice is wet and choked with his own blood as he fights to speak. “I-I tried. I really tried. A-and we did it, right? We saved everyone.” Tommy nods, because what else can he do? Even if Evan probably can’t see it through the visor, the fogging glass, the heavy-duty hazmat suits, it’s the only thing Tommy can do. The last goddamn thing Evan Buckely is asking for on this earth. Evan smiles with bloodied teeth “S-so it was worth it.” His eyes are so, so wide and so, so blue, even in the flickering light of this damnable lab at the edge of an apocalypse. Tommy meets those blue eyes and bears witness as Evan breathes, and bleeds. He watches until Evan stops breathing. Until those blue, blue eyes cloud over and go dull. Until his heart—the love of his life—his world stops existing. Until Evan Buckley is dead.

Tell me, next time. I’ll believe you, okay? I promise. You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll believe you, and we’ll figure this out together, and nobody’s going to die. But you have to tell me. Promise me, Tommy. Promise you’ll tell me right away. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. Just tell me. Evan wakes with the echoes of a dream he cannot quite remember. All that remains is the feeling that he was trying to hold onto something important even as it was slipping through his fingers—just like the fading vestiges of the dream, slipping away somewhere into the swirling fog of his subconscious even now. He wakes to the sound of… knocking? Yes, that thumping sound coming from the door is knocking, even if the sound is weirdly dull and muted. And unusually slow, like whoever’s on the other side keeps having to double check that they’re at the right door. Buck rolls over with a groan, scrabbling blindly for his phone. The numbers 5:27 gaze back at him with mocking, eye-searing cheer. Dammit. While Buck doesn’t regrest spending a too-long evening helping talk his no-longer-a-probie off a metaphorical ledge, he’s in no shape to be woken up like this. Especially when their shift doesn’t start until the afternoon today, so he was counting on getting to sleep off his late night. He almost, almost pulls the comforter over his head and goes back to sleep. But the niggling thought in the back of his head keeps asking, what if it’s important? Maybe it’s Maddie, or Chris, or Ravi back again. Maybe it’s a neighbour who needs help. With a louder groan of complaint, Buck gives up going back to sleep as a lost cause. He’s not going to be able to stop worrying about it, so he might as well get off his ass and find out what the hell his visitor wants. The knocking has stopped by the time he shuffles over to the door, and he half-expects to find nothing on the other side. He does not expect to find two-hundred-something pounds of Tommy leaned heavily against said door. Robbed of his support, Tommy collapses like a ragdoll; Buck manages to catch him, but nearly collapses himself under the sudden weight.

"What do you mean, you don't like coffee?" Buck cries. "Might be all the crap from the Army." Voice pitched extra-deep, Tommy says, "Real men only drink black coffee." Buck cradles the blackberry lattes to his chest with a pout. They were a summer special from his favourite cafe; he'd hoped this might be Tommy's taste. In vain, clearly. "Can't believe you let me spend weeks guessing a nonexistent coffee order." "I like Earl Grey," Tommy offers. "With milk and honey both." Buck grumbles, but makes a mental note. A London Fog, then. Next time, he'll get Tommy's order right.

And then Dad had up and decided to replace him. No reason, no explanation, just a meeting added to the calendar Mom and Dad used religiously, and Buck never looked at. They usually didn’t care, either. Most of the meetings and events were the boring, official kinds that Buck hated, and that they didn’t want him present in. On the rare occasion that he actually did need to attend, some admin or his bodyguard would push and prod him along. Or drag him along, on one memorable occasion two bodyguards before Bobby. This time, though Dad apparently really wanted to cover his bases. Buck actually got a two-line text message on top of the ignored calendar event: Monday, 10am, my office. New bodyguard. Of course, Dad didn’t even have the courtesy of using full sentences. Too busy with people far more important than Buck, or something like that. It wasn’t a new development, but that didn’t stop something in his chest from shrivelling up every time he looked at that text message. Bobby was frustratingly tight-lipped about the whole situation, too. He was too professional to say anything bad about the man who was paying his salary—or had been, until recently—but despite popular opinion, Buck wasn’t completely stupid or blind. He knew how to read between the lines, well enough to know that the change in assignment hadn’t been Bobby’s idea. There must’ve been some kind of NDA or gag order about it, official or otherwise, because no matter how much of a brat Buck was about it, or how earnestly and seriously he begged, Bobby wouldn’t tell him much at all. Despite a concerted campaign of wheedling in the week leading up to this meeting, Buck had managed to exactly two things about his new bodyguard, and not a single thing more. He didn’t even have a name, or a gender. All he knew was this: they were some ex-Army vet, and they were “good people.” That latter was pretty high praises, coming from Bobby. Too bad Buck didn’t believe it. He’d met the ex-Army type before, was the thing. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Not one of them had been “good people,” in his experience.