okay so I wrote a fic based off this post that I made earlier today so... enjoy!
read here or on ao3
Thomas Kinard is eighteen years old and he just graduated basic training.
He's standing among nearly two hundred other graduates, all filled with some form of anxiety and excitement.
They're all standing at attention, although Tommy knows everyone's eyes are searching the audience.
They've all been given their orders.
They stand at attention until a family member or loved one comes and taps them out. Only then can they be at ease.
Tommy had called his dad a couple weeks ago. Left him a message on the landline about the date and time of his graduation. He hadn't expected a call back. The payphones at basic weren't great and you didn't have much spare time to be on them, but he knew his dad would get the message.
He wrote a letter to his grandparents, just in case. His aunt on his mom's side, and his older cousins too.
They'd been proud when he told them he was graduating early, joining the service, would be celebrating his eighteenth birthday in boot camp.
Even his dad has slapped him on the back and told him he was glad he was finally becoming a real man.
Tommy's eyes scanned the crowd, but it was hard to make anyone out.
He waited patiently through the ceremony. His heart skipped a beat or two when people began making their way toward the graduates.
He stood still, only his eyes darting around as the people beside him began to get tapped out. He listened to the cries of parents who had done nothing but miss their children for the past 10 weeks. Saw grown men cry at the site of their moms. Heard the laughter from boyfriends and girlfriends who surprised their partner by showing up. Watched little kids run to their sibling and wrap their arms around them in a hug.
He was certain that only a few minutes had passed, but it felt like hours.
As more and more seconds passed, his heart continued to pound, but for a different reason now.
Surely he wasn't the only one. As he glanced around, he didn't see anyone else waiting. No, he couldn't see everybody, but he was near the back in the center row so he could see most people, and they all had somebody with them.
A hand tapped his shoulder and his head jerked to the side, eyes wide. He felt a lump in the back of his throat when he saw his commanding officer standing beside him. He had the softest look on his face that Tommy had ever seen.
Pity.
“At ease, soldier.”
Tommy takes a breath, relaxes his posture. His CO moves in front of him, shakes his hand. “You've done well, Kinard. You should be proud.”
Tommy nods. Can't find his voice to speak.
He feels tears in his eyes, but he blinks them away.
He shouldn't have expected anyone to show up anyway.
He lowers his head as he walks off the field. A part of him wonders what it was all even for?
*****
Thomas Kinard is forty-eight years old and he just got promoted to captain.
It's not something he ever thought about until the past couple of years. He wouldn't get to fly much as captain. There's more paperwork, more politics, more people to answer to.
But there's also more stability. Especially with being the captain at Harbor. A regular schedule, forty-eight on and ninety-six off.
It was safer. There had been a scare a couple years back. Engine failure on his bird. He went plummeting toward the ground and, if not for a dense area of trees slowing his descent, the chopper would have exploded the second it hit the ground.
He survived, obviously, but his injuries were severe. He had a broken pelvis, fractured leg, thirty stitches down his arm, cranial bleeding, and ended up in a coma for nearly two weeks.
The recovery was long and so, so painful but he had Buck by his side every step of the way. Even the times he'd push Buck away, tell him to please just leave him alone, Buck stayed. He stayed and he learned all the physical therapy techniques and he loved Tommy through all of it.
Flying hadn't felt the same since. He was relieved when he had fully recovered. When he took his recertification classes and passed with flying colors.
But the freedom he had always felt with being in the sky changed into something completely different. There was anxiety. Relief when he was back on solid ground.
He stared out into the crowd, at the little girl sitting on Buck's lap.
Juniper. Six years old and looking more grown up every day. She was glancing all around the room, her eyes never staying in one place for very long. She kept pointing at things, leaning back to whisper into Buck's ear. He'd nod, smile, then whisper back. Tommy was sure they were swapping facts.
So much like her father, he thought.
He'd never forget the day he got home from the hospital. Juniper, only four then, staring at him as he was wheeled into the house. She was clutching onto Eddie's hand, her knuckles snow white. She hadn't gotten to see him in nearly a month, besides an occasional Facetime call.
Once he had gotten settled into the hospital bed that had been delivered to the house the day before, he called her over to him. She slowly climbed up onto the bed, Buck helping her settle beside Tommy without really touching him.
“You scared me, Papa,” she spoke quietly, eyes wet with unshed tears. “Please don't do it again.”
No, flying was never the same after that.
His eyes wander over the rest of the crowd.
A small smile breaks out over his face when he realizes he knows everyone in the first two rows.
Besides his husband and daughter, Maddie, Chimney, and Jee were there. Hen- or, Captain Wilson, now- and Karen. Eddie, Ravi, and Athena. Behind his family were all the firefighters from Harbor. They had been thrilled when they heard Tommy would be the new captain. He'd been taking cues from Bobby recently, starting special dinners with the crew and getting to know them better before he even became captain. He wanted his team to know he'd be there for them, that they could count on him. From the excitement they showed when it was officially announced that he'd be the new captain, he was fairly certain he'd done a good job so far.
The only person not in the audience today was Bobby. But, that was simply because Chief Nash was the one leading the ceremony.
Tommy takes another look around at the family in front of him. He waves at Juniper. She grins wide, showing off her missing front teeth, waves enthusiastically.
His eyes meet Evan's. Tommy gives him a wink. Buck smiles, winks back.
He straightens his posture as the ceremony begins.
He thinks, this... this is what it's all for.
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Think of the Tender Things
Written for the @steddieangstyaugust prompt “‘Keep breathing, please.’” | wc: 773 | rated: T | cw: hospital, premature baby | tags: adoption, new parent anxiety, hopeful ending | title from “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds
———
The NICU has its own window, far enough from the regular nursery to seem intentional. It makes sense to Eddie, theoretically speaking— keep the preemies and the sick babies away from the healthy ones so the comparison isn’t so startling. It just doesn’t work that well if they have to walk past the full-term nursery anyway.
They pause to observe the fat, happy newborns who will be going home in the next day or two. They’re all chubby cheeks and chunky limbs, round little tummies swaddled tightly with matching caps on their heads, just like the parenting books advertise.
Steve’s hand squeezes his, and Eddie knows he’s feeling the same thing: that’s how it should’ve been, and all of the guilt and fear and bitterness that goes along with that line of thinking.
They keep walking down the hall until they reach the door indicating the special care nursery. The glass there is smaller, since fewer babies fit in a room when they’re surrounded with incubators and ventilators and monitors galore.
The second bassinet from the right has a card with a stork that says “Baby Boy Munson” and wow, that’s going to take some time to get used to. Eddie gets closer, almost pressing his nose against the glass, to get a better look.
“He’s so small,” Steve says beside him. “I figured he would be, but…”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. It says right there on the little card: three pounds, thirteen ounces. Sixteen inches long. Not the smallest baby there but noticeably smaller than the ones they just walked past. “A lot of hair, too.”
“Yeah.”
They’re quiet after that. There’s not much they can comment on before they have to acknowledge the fact that they’ve just become adoptive parents a full two months ahead of schedule.
Their son (holy shit) seems even smaller with the tubes and wires obscuring him. Eddie identifies an oxygen cannula, a feeding tube, chest leads, an IV, and a blood pressure cuff, plus a few other lines he doesn’t know the purpose of. When you factor in a diaper that seems to dwarf half of his tiny body, there’s barely any skin visible. And from what Eddie understands, they’re lucky that more serious care isn’t necessary.
“Thirty-two weeks. That’s not… it could be worse,” Steve said after they got the call from the adoption agency that morning. The whole drive to the hospital, he rambled about lung maturity and the suck/swallow reflex and birth weight, going into one of Eddie’s ears and out the other as he tried to focus on the road.
Steve was the one who read all the books. Even the parts about premature births and what could go wrong throughout the pregnancy. “I’d just rather know and be prepared,” he explained. “Just to cover our bases.”
Eddie had skipped those chapters. It felt like bad luck, like tempting fate or something, as if avoiding it would prevent anything from happening. In retrospect, he wishes he had more of a clue about what’s going on, what their future will look like.
Any future seems far away when the present is so uncertain. Eddie watches his son squirm, with his too-long limbs and his too-big head, and he watches his chest rise and fall with each breath. His tiny lungs are working and he’s moving and none of his machines are beeping, and that has to be enough for now.
Just keep breathing, please, he thinks desperately. Keep growing and getting stronger and we’ll worry about the rest later.
When Steve breaks the silence, his voice is small. “Do you think we can hold him? Or, or touch him, at least?”
Eddie doesn’t want to. He knows it’s just his anxiety talking, but he’s terrified that he’ll pull some essential line or do something wrong. He was supposed to have another two months to prepare for this. How do people prepare for this?
“Ed, are you okay?” Steve’s voice startles him back into awareness.
“Yeah, just…” He pauses to think about how to say it without alarming Steve. He settles on, “I’m scared.”
Steve throws his arms around Eddie’s neck and pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m scared, too,” he confesses in a whisper. “I think we’re gonna keep being scared for the next eighteen years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”
Eddie tucks his nose just under Steve’s ear and breathes him in, sweet shampoo and hints of spicy cologne in the collar of his jacket. They stay like that for long moments before Eddie sighs and pulls away with a decisive nod. “Okay. Let’s go meet our son.”
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thinking thoughts™️ again about another fic that’s way too real, and pictured eddie giving steve that understanding smile, saying , “yeah, changing the world gets a little old, doesn’t it, when the cost is your sanity.”
and steve mirrors him with a slight nod, “and when you realise you just wanna live your own life, not change everyone else’s. i feel like people shouldn’t need to take this long to realise that.”
“it’s the system, steve-o.” eddie fishes a cigarette from the pack, offering one to steve, who shakes his head with a polite smile. “people living their lives. what a rebellious thing to ask.”
steve watches him for a second, and it’s like he’s piecing together some kind of picture around him. eddie lets him; somehow he trusts steve not to get it all wrong. “you going to rehab to stick it to the man, hm?”
eddie takes a long drag of his cigarette, his eyes far away as he lets the smoke fall from his lips. “no. ‘m going to rehab because it took me too long to realise that i just wanna live my life. and because i think… because i think i’m actually ready. sounds so dumb, doesn’t it?”
“nah.” and steve sounds like he means it. eddie gets the feeling that he does. steve strikes him as someone who’s too genuine for his own good. maybe that’s his own way to keep changing the world even without that job. “sounds like you actually know what you’re talking about. that’s a good quality, you know? to get better. wanting to get better. for no one but yourself.”
“now you’re the one who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.”
steve huffs and stuffs his hands into his pocket. “nah, man. i’m just the homeless guy who’s hot for your apartment and wants you out of the house asap so i can start my life. with your cat.”
eddie laughs as he snuffs out the cigarette beneath his boot. the keys dangle in his hand as he holds them out to steve, who looks at him, surprised.
“well, she’s yours, then.”
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