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It’s amazing, really. The things you miss. The things that seem so obvious in hindsight, as soon as the right event brings all the pieces together.
Tommy isn’t stupid. He knows the score the week Evan calls him out of the blue for a tour of the airfield and inserts Eddie’s name into their conversation enough times that Tommy almost wonders if he’s angling for a threesome. He definitely knows it after the basketball game that ends with Eddie in urgent care, high on pain pills, and talking Tommy’s ear off about how Evan is such an amazing guy and I have to tell him I’m not mad and he’s everything, Tommy, give me my phone, he needs to know—
But. Despite what he thinks he knows, when Tommy goes over to Evan’s apartment to tell him that he has no intention of getting in the middle of whatever situationship…thing…Evan and Eddie have going on, Evan insists he’s been trying to get Tommy’s attention, and Tommy—well.
He’s only so strong. And Evan is both hot as hell and supremely adorable. So Tommy kisses him, and asks him out, and tells himself that maybe he’s just been reading the signs wrong. Maybe Evan and Eddie really are just…very…close friends.
He reminds himself of that when Evan panics on their first date and goes full straight bro when Eddie interrupts them. He reminds himself again when Evan invites him to be his date to a wedding.
He’s imagining things. They’re friends—or maybe Evan has a crush—but that’s fine. Evan asked Tommy out. So Eddie is…a nonissue.
Tommy tells himself that right up until he can’t anymore.
“Buck! Buck, stop!”
Eddie grabs Evan’s sleeve and Evan whirls around to face him.
“It’s our fault, Eddie!” Evan shouts back, raking his free hand through his hair. “Chim is supposed to be getting married right now, and instead he is trapped in a burning building as a hostage. And it’s our fault!”
“Maybe it is,” Eddie replies. “And I’m sorry—I am sorry for that—but I’m not going to let you run into that building after him—”
“I’m a firefighter—”
“Not like this you’re not!” Eddie’s free hand twists in the hem of Evan’s shirt, like he can physically hold him in place. “Not like this, without any gear, without anything that might—”
Tommy pushes off the wall, prepared to intervene or offer solutions—whatever might help—but he’s barely opened his mouth when Evan rips away and glares at Eddie.
“You’re not my mother, Eddie. And frankly, you don’t have any room to talk considering that the last time we were in a hostage situation and you wanted to be a big damn hero—”
Eddie throws up his hands. “That’s not the same thing at all—”
“I’m going, and I don’t need your permission. End of discussion.”
Evan turns towards the door, and Eddie’s jaw clenches, right before he says—
“Christopher.”
Evan freezes, and Tommy could swear the air temperature drops several degrees.
“You have no right,” Evan hisses without turning around. “You don’t get to throw that in my face any time I make a call you don’t like. You don’t get to—I didn’t ask you to put me in your will, Eddie, and you sure as hell didn’t ask me before you did it. And, speaking of—you’re his father, Eddie. I’m just the backup plan. So you’ll have to forgive me for being unwilling to let you use that as a leash when my brother-in-law—”
It’s Tommy’s turn to freeze as the meaning registers. Eddie put Evan in his will? For…Christopher? Like to take care of Christopher if something were to happen to Eddie?
That’s…
Suddenly so much makes sense that didn’t before—how close Christopher is to Evan, the way the boy talks about Evan with the same kind of hero worship and starry eyes with which he also talks about Eddie—
“A backup plan?” Eddie chokes out, a mix of confusion, hurt, and horror flashing over his face. “Buck, I—are you serious? Is that really what you think?”
Evan’s shoulders slump, the fight draining out of him as he turns back to Eddie. Tommy’s feet feel stuck to the floor, despite the fact that he would very much like to no longer be in this room bearing witness, especially since neither one of them seem to have noticed his presence. And he can’t seem to make his voice work to interrupt. He’s just…stuck.
Bearing witness. Watching the scene as something crystallizes in his mind, all the pieces he’s been carefully keeping apart flying together. And his stomach drops to the floor.
“What else am I supposed to think?” Evan replies, and the look on his face—raw, shattered vulnerability—makes Tommy’s chest ache. “I get him if you die, Eddie. If you die. I’m his father, if—it’s the definition of a backup. And that condition? Even just thinking about losing you is unbearable—”
“And you think it’s any different for me?” Eddie takes a step closer. His hands tremble as they curl into Buck’s shirt again. “When you were struck by lightning and your heart stopped under my hands, and then you were in a coma and they said you might not wake up, you think that was—what—fine for me? That I would have just gotten over it if you hadn’t come back? That Christopher would have? When I told you that you weren’t expendable—what the hell do you think I meant?”
Evan blinks, his throat working as he swallows.
Christ, he looks young. Younger than Tommy has ever seen him look.
And Eddie—Eddie sways forward like he might—
Oh.
They don’t kiss. Eddie stops himself and clears his throat before he finishes closing the gap. But Tommy knows what almost happened. He can see, so clearly now, that he’s stepped in the middle of something so much more than he ever could have imagined.
“You’ve never been a backup plan,” Eddie says, almost too quietly to catch. “And you’re not allowed to die again, because Christopher can only survive so much. I can only survive so much. So, we will figure out a way to save Chim. But I can’t let you walk out that door if it means—”
Tommy’s feet finally unstick, and he stumbles back to the exit that does not require him to pass the other two men. He’s pretty sure they don’t notice, trapped as they are in their own little world.
There’s a laugh trapped in his chest—ironic, more than funny. An I told you so from the piece of his subconscious that’s been trying to warn him from the start.
It would be easier, maybe, if he could be angry, but he can’t muster that. Evan hasn’t done anything wrong—Tommy doesn’t think Evan’s lied or hidden this, he was just…unaware. Or operating under faulty assumptions, if the scene Tommy just observed is anything to go by.
Tommy knows a little something about that. About lying to yourself because you’re afraid to hope for something you want so badly but think you can’t have. He can understand exactly how this happened. And honestly, he’s happy for them—assuming this leads them where it should.
He just wishes he’d been smart enough not to put himself in the crossfire.
Tommy lets out a heavy exhale and scrubs a hand over his face.
Well. There’s one thing he can do at least.
Get in his helicopter and save an old friend.
He has a debt to repay after all.
A few hours later, Tommy stumbles into a hospital with smoke inhalation and a handful of burns, a few steps behind where Howie is being wheeled in on a gurney. He grunts as a hard body runs into his, nearly knocking him off balance, but steadies when he realizes that it’s Evan.
“Are you okay?” Evan asks, his thumb smudging a line of soot under Tommy’s eye. “When they told me—god, I was worried about you, I can’t believe—”
Tommy cuts him off with a kiss—weak, perhaps, but if it’s the last day he gets to have this, then he might as well.
“I’m fine,” he assures. “Nothing a little oxygen won’t fix right up.”
“Well…” Evan lets out a breathless laugh and sends him a relieved smile. “You know, there are easier ways to score points with my sister. She already liked you.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was everything,” Evan insists. “I don’t know how to thank—”
Tommy shakes his head. “Did I ever tell you Howie saved my life once? Seemed only fitting that I return the favor on his wedding day. And—” He cuts himself off, but Evan’s brow furrows.
“And?”
The image of Eddie gripping Evan desperately, raw anguish on his face, flickers in Tommy’s mind.
Tommy sighs.
“And…I figured if anyone was going to risk their life, I was the one with the least to lose.”
Evan’s remaining smile drops. “What?”
Tommy considers his options for a moment, ultimately deciding that honesty instead of avoidance is unfortunately the best one.
“I saw you and Eddie arguing earlier,” he admits. “About…what to do. After that, it was an easy decision for me.”
The blood drains from Evan’s face and he opens his mouth, closes it, tries again—Tommy shakes his head before Evan can speak.
“It’s okay,” he says. And he’s only slightly surprised to realize that he really means it. Because what he saw in their faces…that was real. That was love. And who is he to stand in the way of that? He’s not arrogant enough to think he’d win if he even tried. And he has enough self-respect to not want to be the second choice.”
“It was never going to be me. Not if he was a possibility. Right?”
The look on Evan’s face tells him everything he needs to know.
Tommy nods once and squeezes Evan’s shoulder. “You deserve to be happy, Evan. Whether that’s with me or someone else. Just…don’t be a stranger, okay? We can be friends even if we aren’t dating.”
Evan blows out a shaky exhale. “I don’t have the best track record with that,” he replies, and the grin that flickers over Tommy’s mouth is genuine.
“Stick with me, kid,” Tommy teases. “We can fix that.”