espressotonicc - Tumblr blog

espressotonicc · 9 hours ago

Text

"Drowning"

Tommy gets a call in the middle of the night and finds Chimney at a dive bar, wrapped up in his grief and they chat. [Secondary BuckTommy/Madney, spoilers for 8x15]. Read below or here on ao3.

[wc: 3960]

The call comes at 2:16 a.m., its quiet vibration pulling Tommy from the soft cocoon of a dreamless sleep. His eyes blink open into the still-dark, the blurred edge of night flickering at the corners of his consciousness as the sharp white glare of his phone flares against the bedroom walls.

He squints. Reaches.

Untangling from Evan’s warm embrace, Tommy curls away and slips from beneath the sheets, hand ghosting over the nightstand until it wraps around the device. He grips it between his fingertips, sliding to answer as he sneaks out and hinges the bedroom door shut behind him.

“Hello?” He murmurs, the rumble of his voice echoing in the narrow hallway as he pads barefoot into the kitchen’s muted blue.

“Hey Tommy. It’s Atticus.”

Tommy glances at the screen, the name of the bar one he knows well – too well – confusion still coloring his thoughts as he shifts further into consciousness. His mind reaches, sticky with sleep as he works to solve the mystery – to determine what exactly the bartender of his favorite dive could be asking for at this hour.

“What’s going on?” He asks, stifling a yawn. The quiet hum of patrons drones in the background. Glasses clink and Tommy flinches at the memories it dredges up. Highballs full of bottom-shelf whiskey. Marlboro smoke braided into flannel. Ghosts of nights with his father that didn’t quite move on.

“You know a guy Chimney something-or-other?” Atticus sounds empathetic, his voice tinged with worry despite his subdued irritation.

Tommy’s heart jumps. “Yeah,” he says, more alert now. “Is he there? Is he okay?”

A breathy chuckle tumbles through the speaker followed by a resigned sigh. “Yeah, he’s…can you come scoop him up? He’s not gonna make it home on his own. Mentioned a helicopter ride but I think a car’ll do.”

Tommy drags a hand down his face, his knuckles brushing against the two-day-old stubble along his jaw. “Yeah. Give me fifteen.”

“Appreciate it, man. If I were you, I’d bring a bag. Or a bucket. Or both.”

Tommy huffs through his nose, running his fingers through sleep-tousled curls as he turns back down the hallway. “Got it.”

The quiet whine of the door creaks against the silence, Evan’s steady breathing and soft snores hovering in the air as Tommy grabs a pair of sweats and a hoodie from a chair near the dresser. In the bathroom, he takes a quick pull from the mouthwash bottle and swishes as silently as he can.

If he’s lucky, he’ll be back before Evan wakes up. Get Howie home, tuck him into the guest room, and let the worst of it bleed out before sunrise. Let Maddie have the morning without the burden of a broken promise from her husband.

Memories crack like shattered window panes – of Howie’s red-rimmed eyes and slanted walk, sneaking away between conversations at 118 gatherings, Maddie’s frustrations about being left for hours on her own despite the recent trauma of labor and a newborn eating into her ability to sleep creep into the edge of Tommy’s mind.

The fog of worry grows, toxic and gray as it gathers strength along his spine, skittering down into his chest.

It’s instinct. Maybe it’s the military in him, maybe his years on the ground as a firefighter, his years in the sky as a pilot. Maybe it’s the echo of Senior, the way his father grew with time into something so wounded and cold he’d never recover.

Tommy makes it to the bar in a record eight minutes, his pulse quickening with each passing block. He’s known Howie for nearly two decades – been through pain and turmoil with the man he’s spent years trying to repay for saving his life.

When Kevin died, Howie lost the spark of electric energy he’d carried with him as a probie that first day at the 118. His smile dimmed, laugh never quite back full-throated. Not the same man that was chock full of eager excitement, itching to face the thrill of a fire with a team at his back.

The memories leave a growing knot in Tommy’s gut, the black band across his shield as he stood behind Howie all those years ago fading into an achingly familiar echo so recently. Two men that shaped Howie, that had been such a huge part of the man he grew into – lost in tragedy.

And Howie’s hurting.

Tommy pulls up to the curb, heart rattling in his ribs, and steps into the stale perfume of liquor, sweat, and the faintest thread of despair woven into the wood grain of the tacky floorboards.

Howie’s easy to spot. Head-over-teakettle drunk, shouting at a man three stools down about his ability to drain the world of beauty and life through the curse of his existence alone. The words splinter Tommy’s heart with a quiet crack.

He slips onto the stool beside him, nodding once at Atticus, who slides a glass of water across the bar without a word. Tommy nudges it toward Howie, who’s still glaring at Edgar like he just set fire to a Monet.

“Tommy? Hey, Tommy’s here – listen – listen here, Edgar,” Howie says, spinning toward him with glassy eyes and arms too loose for balance. He nearly topples, finger stabbing vaguely in Edgar’s direction – but lands somewhere closer to the bathroom door behind him. “’s my fault Tommy got sucked into this – this curse of the 118, an-and now he’s – he can’t escape it. Getting his heart broken by my brother…is he even my brother anymore, Tommy?” He hiccups and frowns. Tommy’s heart cracks a little more.

Tommy breathes out slowly through his nose. “’Course, man. You think you can get rid of Evan that easily?” he murmurs, gently pressing the water glass into Howie’s hands.

Tears bloom, uninvited, in Howie’s eyes. He leans in, clutching Tommy’s shoulder in desperation – and wobbles enough that Tommy’s hand darts out, steadying him with a palm flat against his back.

“Sorry,” Howie mumbles.

“For what?” Tommy squints at him, shifting the water closer still, tilting his head at Howie to take a drink. He obliges, throwing back half the glass in one swig.

“Making you steal a helicopter,” Howie says. “Twice.”

Tommy laughs, soft and rough. “You think that wasn’t fun for me?”

A grin traces across Howie’s face, but it dies before it reaches his eyes. The hollow stare that’s been held behind it for months seeps into the other memories ebbing in Tommy’s mind. They’re painting a picture that unfolds like a confession, quiet clues and shifting perception revealing the bigger work, the pain that’s held there.

Not just a bad night. The beginning of a deeper unraveling.

He tosses some bills onto the bar and slips a hand under Howie’s arm, pulling him gently upright. “Come on,” he says, guiding him through the thinning crowd toward the door.

“Thanks, Atty,” Tommy says with a tired nod, earning a raised hand from behind the bar.

Outside as they meet the brisk night air, Howie crumbles completely. Tears fall freely, the world seemingly jolting him loose from his angry energy inside, the storm quieter but no less dangerous in the swell of his grief.

Tommy wraps an arm around his friend’s shoulders and holds him for a beat longer than necessary.

“Let’s get something to eat,” he says softly. “We can talk.”

Howie nods, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his jacket, sloppily hopping into the cab as Tommy pulls the seatbelt into his hands. Howie clicks it into place as Tommy rounds the truck. He starts the engine. Points the truck toward the diner he knows is the only place left open that still feels like it can hold grief without flinching.

----

The sharp shriek of his phone yanks Buck from a chaotic dream, the edges of reality cutting harshly into the floating world he fell from. He jolts out of bed, forearm colliding with the nightstand as he pulls his phone free of the charger, accepting the call without checking to the name.

“Hello?” He whispers into the phone, mindful of Tommy, who he assumes is still sleeping behind him.

“Buck?” Maddie’s worried voice pulls him freely from the claws of sleep and into the waking world. Buck quickly realizes the bed is empty, the sheets cold against the early morning air. He glances at the clock and blinks blearily before making out the time – 3:06 a.m.

“Maddie, what’s going on? Are the kids okay? Are you okay?”

“Buck –” Maddie cuts him off and he clamps his jaw shut, listening to her trembling breath on the other end of the line. “Do you know where Howie is?”

Narrowing his vision, Buck tries to recall the last time he saw his brother-in-law, worry pressing against his ribs as he realizes he hasn’t spoken to him since they left the 118. Six hours before. “I haven’t seen him since our shift ended, why?”

“He said he’d be back – I…” Maddie lets out an exasperated sigh, her voice shaking. “Buck, I can’t do this – Jee isn’t sleeping, she’s been crying all night, I think she might be coming down with something. And Ash – he’s colicky and he’s been crying –”

The words tumble out of Maddie with frustration and sadness, worry filling in the edges of her tone while she clearly tries to keep herself pieced together.

“Hey, hey, deep breath.” Buck listens as she takes a quaky breath, reassuring her with soft support in his voice. “I’ll come over, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

Maddie hums in agreement, thanking him before hanging up and Buck turns on the lamp, bathing the bedroom in its buttery yellow glow.

In the absence if his boyfriend, worry flares in Buck’s gut, prickling memories beneath his skin - the sharp sting of Tommy leaving him – at the loft, in the kitchen three months later. Latent fears of being left behind siting heavy and raw in Buck’s chest like they always do.

He dismisses the thought, chalking Tommy's empty side of the bed to his likely presence in the living room, the victim of insomnia or nightmares hurling him free from sleep before Buck was jolted awake.

Tugging on jeans and a sweatshirt, Buck grabs his things and slips into his shoes as he leaves the bedroom, mindful of his footsteps if Tommy’s fallen asleep on the couch.

When he makes it to the living room, though, Tommy isn’t there, the house quiet and still in the early morning haze of dim lavender sifting from the night sky through the windows. Before he has a chance to dwell, Buck thinks of Maddie and the kids and rushes out, locking the door behind him.

----

Betty’s been a server at Jack’s since before Tommy could legally order anything stronger than a Coke, and yet she’s watched him walk in with the kind of weight on his shoulders that only comes from dragging out flames and friends alike. The early days at the 118 hung off him like soaked turnout gear – heavy, suffocating, impossible to peel off.

She’d cut a piece of cake for him, serve it with a mug of too-strong coffee, and rap her knuckles gently against the countertop. Quiet kindness in a world still smoldering. Back then, it was more love than he knew how to name.

He’d eat his cake in quiet solitude, smoke on his skin and pain in his eyes – feeling more connected to a forty-something box-blonde waitress that smelled like honeysuckle and vanilla than anyone else in his life.

He's been coming to Jack’s on hard days ever since that first slice.

“Hey, Betty.” He says, smiling warmly at her as he eases Howie into the booth and slides in across from him. “Waters all around. Coffee, too.”

“Red velvet today, Tommy. Saved you a piece.” She winks at him and grabs two steaming mugs of coffee already on the linoleum counter awaiting her gentle hands.

“You always do.”

“I always do.” Betty places the coffee on the table and reaches for glasses and a pitcher, the quiet gurgle of water tipping into each one as she tosses down straws and a wrapped napkin full of silverware. “Be right back.”

Tommy smiles in gratitude and takes a sip of toxic sludge, the taste just this side of edible, and leans against the booth.

Howie has his face in his hands, fingers wound in his hair, tugging like he’s trying to pull the grief out by the roots. Tommy doesn’t stop him. He knows that feeling. Has sat with it, hunched over in the quiet of firehouse locker rooms and hospital hallways, in the breath before a mayday call and the silence after the worst kind of knock at the door.

Tommy’s a quiet guy. Some call it scary, others call it intimidating. Evan calls it smoldering. When he’s being quippy, full of sweetness Tommy feels undeserving of receiving.

But Tommy is good at quiet. Grew up in it. Lived in it. Let it build caves inside him where echoes live longer than words.

So he sits. Waits.

“What’s the point of all this?” Howie finally asks, voice soft behind his hands.

Tommy frowns, his heart now so fully broken with Howie in this moment he fears the gaps are too fragile to repair. “Of what?”

Howie looks up at him with an ache in his eyes that mirror rivers – of sadness, dark, deep and despairing. Tommy’s seen it in the mirror too many times to count.

“I’ve escaped death so many…I’ve gotten away with being here. I-I didn’t deserve to make it past rebar through my skull, Tommy.” The words are heavy despite the quiet bop of the jukebox, lit in orange and red, Johnny Cash’s deep voice crooning in the near-empty restaurant.

“But you did – whether you think you deserve it or not.” Tommy says, the edge unintentional but sharp. He resists the spark of resentment he holds against his father, refusing to paint Howie with the same brush. “You saved my life – hell, you saved Evan’s life. Hen’s. Maddie’s. You think that’s not worth being around for?”

Howie doesn’t look at him, his head shaking slowly under the flickering neon glow of the “Open” sign in the front window.

“I’ve been a shit husband. A worse dad.”

“No,” Tommy says, too fast, too loud, then gentler, leaning in close, his hand wrapping around Howie’s wrist. “No – that’s not true.”

“What do you know?” Howie tugs himself free of Tommy’s grasp and slumps against the vinyl. Reds and whites hug him like the familiar cherry of the fire engine, the colors so much a part of him that they wrap his shadow in a small haze of warmth.

“I’ve seen you with them, man, come on. You think Evan doesn’t talk about how happy he is for Maddie? How glad he is that you found each other?”

Howie still seems to resist the idea, even as Betty swings by with refills, asking if they need anything else.

If Tommy can’t convince Howie of the love his family feels for him, he can at least reassure him he’s nothing like the shitty man Tommy grew under, and he steels himself before offering it to the shrine of Howie’s pain.

“When I was nine, my mom was diagnosed with cancer.”

Howie glances up, pain etched into every wrinkle on his face. Tommy takes a sip of coffee. It burns his tongue with a fierce bite and he hisses, pushing through the shock of pain.

“Stage four lung cancer – she was a smoker. Pack a day for years, more when she was stressed.” Tommy rolls his eyes and pushes back the knot of emotion in his throat, shoving it down into his chest with his next breath. “She was gone three months later.”

“Jesus, Tommy.” Howie exhales, his voice finally finding something more than the flat snap it was laced with up to now.

“Yeah,” Tommy takes a sip of water to curb the sting of the burn, the annoying tenderness a reminder of the words he’s sharing, the memories that accompany them. “My dad fell apart. Drank his grief until it turned into rage. Runs in the family, I guess.”

The words seem to spark a glint of recognition and fear in Howie’s eyes, and Tommy hopes to God they’re getting through.

“He wasn’t sober – really ever – after my tenth birthday party.” Tommy shakes his head and blinks back a surprising tear, “Smacked the shit outta me in front of a couple of friends. There wasn't a birthday that didn’t taste like blood after that. At least not until I ran away at 17.”

Silence settles between them again, heavy but less hollow. Howie exhales, his breath catching. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you,” Tommy shrugs. “Didn’t seem like something anyone needed to hear.”

Howie sits up straighter, like Tommy’s story grants him permission to carry his own pain differently. He wipes his face, even as tears keep falling.

The confession in an old diner booth at 3:30 in the morning does something to Tommy. Breaks a piece of jagged pain from the depths of his past and wraps it in quiet comfort, the eyes of adulthood kinder to his younger self in the face of something so horrible.

Tommy leans against his elbows and moves the red velvet to the side, pushing the care he has for Howie into his next confession. “I know you’re hurting,” Tommy says, quiet but firm. “But you’ve got to fight to stay. For them. For you.”

Howie nods, just once. Tommy pushes forward, years of time at Howie’s side in the field as familiar as traffic on the 405. “You’re here. Now. With a beautiful family that loves you and cares about you. Bobby wouldn’t want this. He’d want you to lean on the people that have leaned on you. We’re here for you, but you have to do something because this…”

Tommy holds back a swell of emotion in his chest for Howie’s kids, praying they don’t face the agony of an absent father, lost to booze and depression for decades. He wouldn’t wish it on an enemy, let alone someone he calls a friend.

“This is going to kill you if you let it.”

Howie’s jaw tightens, tears still trailing down his cheeks, the pain in Tommy’s voice pulling him into sobriety quicker than a cold shower and hot coffee.

Tommy wraps his hand around Howie’s wrist again and squeezes, their gazes finding one another and holding something greater than words between them before Tommy falls back into the booth.

“Eat your cake,” Tommy tells him, soft but certain. “And drink that water.”

They sit in silence after that, letting the coffee go cold and the night thin into something quieter. By the time they leave, the sky is blushing, the first traces of sunrise pulling color back into the world.

As Tommy pulls out of the parking lot, he glances at his phone and spots three missed calls and five texts from Evan asking about his whereabouts. Asking about Howie.

The last one mentions he’s heading to the Han’s and Tommy changes gears, aiming there with Howie in the passenger seat, teeth worrying his bottom lip over leaving Evan again without so much as a note.

By the time they make it through the front door, the sun is higher and the air is tinged with dry heat, radiant oranges bleeding through the front window, beauty against the sorrow hanging roughly in the living room.

Tommy glances at Evan and mouths a quiet apology as Howie nearly trips over the end table, betraying his recent whereabouts before even a word falls from his lips. Evan’s holding Asher, rocking him gently as Maddie returns from putting Jee in bed for what might be the tenth time that night if the grim look on her face is any indication.

When Maddie sees Howie, a glimmer of relief and anger ripple through her eyes in equal measure, and Tommy suddenly feels like he’s intruding. He retreats into the living room corner, sticking near the door as he waits for an indication of where he should be – whether he even belongs.

Maddie, much like his very own Buckley, surprises Tommy and moves into Howie’s space, wrapping her arms around him as she murmurs fears and worries into the curve of his jaw, right beneath his ear.

Evan quietly places Ash into the small crib in the living room, softly removing his cradling hands from the back of his neck. He lets out a soft exhale and settles deeper into sleep. Evan nods towards the door and starts to move toward Tommy, the pair shifting to leave before Howie stops them.

“Thanks, Tommy,” he offers, his voice finally steady, his eyes finally glinting with the quiet shine of Howie again. “I mean it.”

It feels like a new beginning, like a quiet promise held in shared pain.

“Any time,” Tommy replies as they leave, quiet murmurs between the Han's settling in their wake.

They climb into Tommy’s truck, the cab still warm from the sun’s lingering heat, and Tommy reaches across the console, his hand offered palm-up, steady and quiet.

Evan glances over, and in that flash of eye contact, Tommy sees it. That look. The same one Evan wore months ago, in the aftershock of heartbreak. When Tommy had walked away to save himself, and ended up slicing them both in the process.

He hates it.

Hates that he put it there again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his thumb tracing gentle circles on Evan’s knuckles. The hour hangs around them like a held breath, the hush of morning still not broken by birdsong or traffic. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that.”

Evan exhales, slow and shallow. “Yeah.” The word is quiet, clipped at the edges. “Stop doing that.”

“I thought I’d be back before you woke up.” It’s hardly an excuse, but it’s all Tommy can offer, hoping it settles the fear. He knows it doesn’t. Not really.

Evan doesn’t look at him when he answers. “Wake me up instead,” he says. “Next time.”

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” Tommy clears his throat, turns the key in the ignition. The truck growls beneath them, a low, weary sound. “But yeah – I will.”

Evan squeezes Tommy's forearm, shifting in his seat, his body curving toward the window as his head leans back against the rest. His voice, when it comes, is soft and stripped of defenses. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Tommy’s heart, already fractured by the weight of Howie’s undoing, breaks further under the simplicity of Evan’s confession. It settles between them – no drama, no fanfare, just quiet devastation.

“I think you’re doing more than you know, Ev.”

Evan shakes his head. “It’s not enough. O-Or it doesn’t feel like enough.”

“Then I’ll help.”

Because there is no fixing it. Not right now. The pain of Bobby’s death still hangs around them – like clinging soot, like the stale mark of hospital corridors and last words, left behind when his mom died before Tommy made it to middle school. It’s the same color as the tears Maddie holds in her eyes, as the weight Howie wears in his shoulders, their second bloom into parenthood marred by tragedy yet again.

Los Angeles wakes around them, wrapped in golds and pinks. The city will shine. It always does.

But the 118?

The 118 is still in shadow.

And Tommy isn’t sure when - if - the light will reach them again.

But he’ll be there, in whatever way he can – hands steady and heart open, for as long as they’ll let him.

leave me kudos if you like

#💔#otp: red string of fate

122 notes · View notes