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Will was beautiful. The longer Tommy watched him when he was off-duty, the more he realized that. And he realized that he was falling hella hard. His feelings for Jenny were terrifyingly feeble in comparison - and that was really scary. Until now, Tommy had considered Jenny to be the love of his life, someone he pined over for years. Now, all of a sudden - this beautiful, kind man who was currently rolling around on the floor of his apartment with his dogs was occupying his thoughts all the time. Not in an . . . obsessive way. But when something else wasn't occupying his thoughts, they would stray to wondering what Will was doing and when he'd get to see him again and. . . .
"Everything okay?" Will asked as he looked up while on the floor still, a dog on his chest and demanding to get very extensive body rubs and scratches.
"Yeah, I was just . . . thinking. I do that."
Will laughed. "Yeah, me too. Why don't you come down and play?"
"I don't think that one likes me too much," Tommy said, gesturing towards the smaller terrier.
"Don't be silly, Buster likes you." Will reached out to pet Buster's head.
Tommy hesitated, then he got down on the floor and reached out for the dog closest to him and scratched him behind the ears.
After spending about an hour or two with the dogs, Will asked Tommy if he wanted to get something to eat, and they got cheap takeout across town. The walk was good for them, and Will didn't keep any food in his fridge that wasn't intended to be fancy dog food. Will was a little obsessed and crazy, but Tommy didn't mind. He was no crazier than his brothers were.
Like, Will had a lot of things in common with Kevin, to a rather strange degree, but they were also very different. Both Will and Kevin were picky eaters, but Will trusted his intuition to a degree that made him seem magical when he'd accurately assume something to be true or false. Tommy honestly had no idea how he could be so certain about that stuff, but he was, and he was right a lot of the time, even if there wasn't the evidence to back it up. (Tommy knew that because a lot of the time, he was actually there when Will would discern how something happened because Jimmy or Kevin or someone else Tommy knew had done it. Will would figure those things out even off duty, it was like it just came naturally and it was amazing.) But he also didn't shove it in people's faces or make them feel stupid for not coming to the same conclusions as him. He was the most patient person when it came to Kevin and when Kevin would screw things up, and he'd help him out (when it was legal), and Tommy just couldn't believe that he had met someone so . . . .
Tommy came back to the bar after parting ways with Will once they were passing Will's apartment building, his head elsewhere as his body crossed the threshold of the bar. He sat down at the bar, but really wasn't listening or paying attention to the things around him. So when Jimmy snapped his fingers in front of his face, it was a genuine surprise.
"Hey! You in there?"
"Yeah."
Jimmy shook his head, sighing with agitation.
"I swear, you really haven't been yourself lately."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the spacing out and the stupid look you've been getting on your face. Like, I'm used to you lookin' like that when you're lookin' at Jenny, but now it's like all the damn time, and it's gettin' weird. You feelin' okay?"
Tommy frowned. "Yeah, I'm feeling fine."
"Well, good."
Jimmy continued to do his bar tending duties, but that wasn't the last of Jimmy's interrogation for the evening.
A couple hours later, Jimmy was harping on him again.
"Okay, what the hell?"
"Uh, what?" Tommy asked.
"You haven't said more than two words to Jenny tonight. Got a fever or something?"
Jimmy reached out to touch Tommy's forehead, and he pushed his hand away.
"No, I'm fine, I'm just not feeling that talkative tonight."
Jimmy gave him a troubled look, and all Tommy could do was raise his eyebrows a little higher, still not having any idea why he wasn't just believing him.
Over the next few days, Will would drop by the bar for a drink and to hang out with Tommy and Kevin. Will was terrible at billiards, but insisted on playing anywhere.
"You suck so bad at this," Kevin laughed, glad to have something he was better than Will at. Will laughed with him.
"Yeah, I do."
"Here, lemme show you," Tommy said, putting an arm around Will's shoulders and putting his other arm against Will's arm, helping him position the pole. "You use a bit of trigonometry to pick the best angle to hit it at annnnd" He let Will hit the ball, but he still managed to screw his turn up. Kevin and Will laughed more.
"Thanks, anyway," Will said, giving Tommy a smile. Tommy felt his face heat up.
"No problem."
Tommy was reluctant to let Will go, but Will didn't seem to notice. Kevin didn't seem to notice either.
But as Will left the bar, Tommy saw Jimmy duck out after him, and suddenly he had a bad feeling.
Tommy quickly ran out of the bar, Kevin asking what was wrong as he rushed passed, as did Jenny and Joey. When he found them again, Jimmy had just finished throwing a punch at Will and it connected on Will's cheek, just barely avoiding his eye, and Will fought back with an amount of force that reminded Tommy that Will was indeed a cop and could be capable of much more than kindness and gentleness and affection.
Will pushed Jimmy away from him as Tommy reached them, Tommy just barely managing to catch his brother and hold him back from lunging himself at Will in retaliation.
"Stay away from my brothers, you faggot!"
The word hit Tommy's stomach like an actual punch to his gut, and suddenly his brain treated him to flashbacks of warnings from priests that he best be careful and not get mixed up in "that pit of sin homosexuality leads to" and all the lessons he had been taught but had forgotten in the light of spending time with Will feeling so good. Men only lay with women, marriage is in God's plan, and a marriage is between a man and a woman and . . . .
Tommy returned to reality quickly, but he no longer felt good.
"Pardon?" Will asked, sounding more confused than anything else.
"Stay the fuck away!" Jimmy barked at him, Tommy still holding onto him. "I see what you're doing, I see it, and it's not gonna fucking work, you seduce and fuck up a real homo, okay!? Keep away from my brother!"
"Jimmy, shut the FUCK UP!" Tommy shouted, pulling Jimmy back towards the bar. A quick head-toss back to see where he was going showed that Kevin, Joey, and Jenny had come out to see what was going on. Great. Just great.
"What's going on?" Kevin asked, but none of them answered.
Will stood there on the sidewalk, the shadows of the building hiding his face in a rather intimidating way.
"Jimmy," Will said softly but firmly. "You do remember I'm a police officer and are aware that lashing out physically at someone while screaming the words 'you faggot' at them constitutes a hate crime. Right?"
"Fuck you!" Jimmy shouted, but a chill went up Tommy's spine.
"Jimmy, c'mon," Tommy said, pulling him back and back until he was able to get him back into the bar.
He wanted to make sure Will was all right. He wanted to talk to Will and see just how much damage Jimmy had done and fix his wounds.... But that just wasn't going to happen tonight.
Joey and Jenny came back into the bar with them, but Tommy noticed Kevin stayed outside. He was rather thankful for that, but he wasn't liking the mess this was causing.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Tommy shouted at Jimmy once they were back inside the bar, pushing him out of his grasp.
Jimmy got his footing again, then lifted a hand and jabbed his finger towards Tommy, pointing just over Tommy's shoulder at the door.
"He's trying to turn you gay! You're not gay! But he's already got you wrapped around his stupid little finger! How the flying fuck did you miss that?"
"Jimmy, you punched an off-duty cop and screamed derogatory words for gays at him! If he presses charges, you're as good as locked up! And how the hell do you know if he's gay or not?!"
"It's the disgusting way he looks at you! And he's got you doin' it back! It's not like you, and it's fucking gross!"
Tommy's stomach clenched and shriveled inside with each assertion that Tommy 'wasn't like that.' It was true that Tommy wasn't gay, but he still liked boys, and . . . .
"Are you even listening, do you have any idea how badly you've fucked up!?"
"Protecting you is never a fuck-up!"
Tommy was rendered speechless by that. He just . . . how could anyone think that Will was bad for him? Really?
Kevin came back inside and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Will's seriously considering pressing charges. Jimmy, you might be in jail tomorrow."
"Fuck that! Fuck him! And that faggoty ass of his!"
Jimmy then stormed down to the basement, and Tommy was left standing there, not knowing what to say or do.
And a horrible thought entered his head: was it the other way around? Was he damaging Will because of his affection for and attraction to him?
Tommy had to go throw up in the bathroom after he thought about it for too long.