Chapter Text
It was the morning after Thanksgiving when Tommy got off of shift and drove home. This year, he had opted to volunteer for the Thanksgiving shift at Harbor. After everything that happened three weeks ago, he didn’t want anyone inviting him to their Thanksgiving dinners out of pity or ‘not wanting him to be alone for the holidays.’ And he knew that if it wasn’t someone at the 118 that invited him, there would be at least three people at his own station who would.
So when, three days after the breakup, he came into his shift to find Marco from the B-shift freaking out because he just realized he would be scheduled to work Thanksgiving that year and he had promised his wife the year before that he would get the day off, Tommy told the man that he would be willing to change shifts - no strings attached.
“Are you sure, man?” Marco had asked for the third time.
“Yes, alright, It’s fine,” Tommy said. “Unless you’re saying that you actually want to work?”
“No! No!” Marco shook his head. “Of course not!”
Later that day, Lucy cornered him getting down from one of the helicopters. “Did you only offer to take Thanksgiving so you wouldn’t be alone?” she asked.
Tommy grunted as he got down to the ground. “No,” he said. If anything, it was the opposite. He offered to take it so he could be alone, and not have anyone pestering him about it. It was the perfect excuse really, no one would be pestering him about him needing to be around people and not secluding himself after his breakup if he was taking someone’s shift at the firehouse and out saving lives… right?
Anyway, now the shift was over, and even though they had gotten surprisingly very few calls, his Captain had insisted he could take the next four days off and get back on the regular A-shift schedule afterwards. So now he was driving home, thinking about what he could do for the next four days.
Maybe he should get a dog, he thought to himself. That was something he had thought often about over the years, but he had always talked himself out of it with the knowledge that the 24 hour shifts he worked would never allow for it, even if he occasionally brought his dog into work. Maybe if things had actually worked out with buck they could work something out about dog ownership between them, but that was a lost cause now. It had been almost a month and he hadn’t even said two words to the man.
In the first week after the breakup, he had found himself almost texting Buck more times than he could count. It had quickly become a habit over the six months they were together. The only times they weren’t together was when one of them was working. And even on those days, if they weren’t out on a call or doing some other task around their stations, they were almost always texting each other.
But Tommy held firm and resisted sending a message each time he so desperately wanted to. Whether it was to ask for Buck’s opinion on something, or send him some meme he knew Buck would find funny, or even to just make sure the man was doing alright. Tommy knew that, in the end, Buck would be okay. He had a large support system within the 118 to make sure he would be alright.
As the spotify playlist he had been listening to switched to some song he had never heard before, and certainly wasn’t his style, Tommy turned down his street and drove up to his house. At first glance, nothing looked out of place. The trash can was still in the same location it always was on a non collection day, the two lawn ornaments the previous owners had left him in the same state of still needing a quick hosedown, and the branches on his neighbor's tree really needed to be cut if he wanted to be able to open his windows again come next summer.
Then, on a second look, he saw something in front of his front door. Well more than a little something…
“What the-?” Tommy spoke to himself as he drove his truck up his driveway and placed it in park. That was… there was a dog lying there… a big yellow golden retriever. “What the hell?” he asked himself as he parked his truck and got out.
He slowly walked up to his door, not wanting to spook the animal, and the dog lifted its head up, watching him. Tommy noticed that, even though his tail was wagging furiously, the dog was still lying down, blocking Tommy’s way to the door.
Tommy looked down at the ground and laughed to himself, figures that he would be sent a dog when he had been moping to himself on his drive home.
Tommy sighed as he walked up and crouched in front of the dog, slowly holding his hand out for the dog to sniff.
Tommy had thought the dog might be apprehensive and slowly take the time to sniff Tommy before getting comfortable. Instead, the dog nearly jumped onto his chest, borrowing into Tommy and knocking him to the group, lapping at his face.
“Okay, okay,” Tommy tried to breathe around the dog’s tongue slobbering around his face. Eventually he was able to get out from under the dog and wiped some of the dirt off of his shirts and pants that had gotten there in their small tussle.
Then Tommy took a quick glance up and down his street, not seeing anyone. It wasn’t that common, but it happened occasionally, one of his neighbors’ dogs getting out and wandering into people’s yards. But usually the owners would be out looking for them and calling their names. Tommy didn’t see anyone though.
Now that Tommy thought about it though, he never remembered seeing a golden retriever like this one before. There were a handful of people on his street who had dogs, and Tommy thought he knew and could recognize most of them. Maybe someone had come to visit for Thanksgiving, bringing their dog with them? Maybe this dog had somehow gotten out without anyone realizing it in the chaos that post holiday celebrations brought?
Tommy sighed. All he really wanted to do was take the extra pie Johnson had given him this morning and eat his heart out on his couch. It seemed he would have to find the owner of this dog first.
“Let’s go find your owner,” Tommy said as he walked to the sidewalk. The dog let out a small humming moan as he followed after Tommy.
Tommy walked up to his nextdoor neighbor, an elderly couple who always had their kids and grandkids visiting them during the holidays, probably the most likely candidates for a new dog to the neighborhood, and rang the doorbell.
It opened to two kids who had to be only a couple years older than Jee, and most likely way too young to be opening the door to strangers. “Jake, who is it?” he heard an adult’s voice ask from somewhere deeper in the house.
The boy turned around and ran back into the house, yelling “I don’t know,” as he left his sister standing in front of Tommy.
“Oh, what did I tell you about answering the door to strangers,” a woman said as she walked up to the door. “Molly, go play with your brother,” she said to the girl.
“But he has a puppy!” the girl said, pointing at the dog who stood behind Tommy.
“Yeah,” Tommy spoke up. “I live next door and saw him sitting outside my front door when I got home this morning. Just wanted to see if he was your’s or anything.”
The woman hummed as she took a quick glance at the dog. “Sorry,” she said as she held her daughter’s shoulder, stopping her from running at the dog. “We don’t have a dog.”
Everyone else on his street had similar responses. “We’ve never seen that dog before.” “Sorry, he isn’t ours.” “He’s not ours, but try that guy at the end of the street, his dogs are always getting out.”
Tommy knew who they were talking about there. But he had also run into those dogs enough times to know he had two brown and black boxers, not a golden retriever.
Tommy let out a long sigh as he looked at the dog rolling around in his front yard. He couldn’t just go inside his house and leave the dog out here, could he? No, there was one more thing he could try. He took his phone out of his pocket, pulling up his camera and taking a picture of the dog. The dog must have heard the soft *snap* for his head perked up and turned to look directly at Tommy. Tommy turned to his front door then. “How about I go find you a snack inside?” he asked.
Ten minutes later, Tommy had given the dog some leftover pieces of turkey and they were both sitting on Tommy’s couch. Tommy, having found some movies to watch on TV, the dog curled up and laying against Tommy’s side.
If there was one thing, the dog was remarkably friendly.
Tommy flicked through his phone, finding the Facebook app and scrolling through until he found his neighborhood facebook group. He had never posted anything in it before, and only really joined it at the insistence of one of the neighbors when he first moved in. When he quickly realized it was mostly people just selling random things they wanted to get rid of, he largely ignored it. He uploaded the picture of the dog he had taken earlier and typed a message “Does this dog belong to anyone? Found him outside of my house this morning and stopped by a couple houses on the block, no one recognized him.” After that, he pressed post, and sat back and just waited for any responses to come in.
Two hours later, he had eaten half of the pie, finished some Hallmark movie he couldn't remember the name of despite just watching it, and had the dog half in his lap when he picked up his phone again. He saw the post he made earlier had two responses, neither claiming ownership of the dog.
One read, “Never seen that boy either. But he’s a cutie! Hope you find his owner ♥️” That wasn’t really helpful.
The other was just a string of heart and smiley emojis, which also didn’t help him.
Tommy dropped his head onto the cushion behind him as he ran his hand through the dog’s fur. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked himself.
🐕 🐕 🐕 🐕 🐕
It was around 5 p.m. that Tommy's stomach grumbled. He sighed, his body was telling him he was hungry. He supposed he hadn’t eaten any real food all day.
He supposed 5 p.m. wasn’t too early for dinner. It wasn’t like he had any plans tonight anyway. Tommy gave the dog’s neck a scratch before he slowly moved his legs out from under the animal so that he could stand up. Tommy hadn’t meant to wake the dog up, he really hadn’t minded him sleeping on his couch, but the dog jumped right to the ground and followed after Tommy anyway.
First things first, Tommy had to use the bathroom, and he supposed the dog did too.
Making a quick trip in and out of the room, the dog followed him, but stayed outside the door as Tommy closed it, Tommy then walked to the back door that led to his backyard and opened it up. He looked back at the dog who had followed him over, the dog looked up at him confused. “Go on,” Tommy waved his hand at the dog. “Go and do… you know, go and pee and whatever.”
The dog only looked at Tommy and cocked his head to the side, as if he was confused at what Tommy was saying.
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those dogs that need an audience,” he muttered to himself.
Tommy sighed and walked out of the door, the dog following behind him. He stopped walking in the middle of his backyard. The dog continued to stare at him confused. That only caused Tommy to wrack his brain even further. Now he was the one that was confused.
Even if the dog didn’t need to use the bathroom, don’t dogs like to run around or sniff the place out when they get somewhere new? This dog? He was doing none of that.
It was as if the dog had been to his house before. Weird.
After the dog had apparently gotten the idea that he had to go outside, both Tommy and the dog walked back inside, Tommy heading to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and looked at what he had inside of it.
Nothing that could really make up a meal. A tub of cottage cheese, vanilla yogurt, milk, butter, eggs, some strawberries that looked as if they were about to expire, some leftover takeout from last weekend that Tommy was pretty sure might not be that healthy to eat anymore, and another pie.
Also, nothing for the dog.
The last thing Tommy wanted to do right now was go back out, especially if it meant leaving this dog in his house.
Then again, Tommy supposed dogs could eat eggs, right?
He took the eggs out, along with some frozen vegetables he had in the freezer, then grabbed the bag of dried rice that had been in the pantry for probably too long, but he didn’t want to look up how long the rice took to expire.
He got to work making a quick pan of fried rice, pulling out another pan to cook some scrambled eggs for the dog. As he started, he heard his phone that he left across the kitchen start ringing. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to call him tonight, but he supposed due to the holiday, it wasn’t abnormal. It could also be someone looking for the dog.
He reached over to grab the phone and looked at the screen. It was Chimney.
Chimney was calling him. While not that odd or unusual, they hadn’t spoken to one another since the day before he had broken up with Buck. Before the breakup, they had spoken with each other a lot more, even before he and Buck had gotten together. Tommy supposed their friendship was just another casualty of the breakup. But maybe it wasn’t?
“Hey Howie,” Tommy said as he picked up the phone. “What’s up?”
“Hey Tommy,” Chimney’s voice said. “ I hope I’m not calling at a bad time .”
The dog standing next to Tommy perked up as he heard the voice coming from the phone, letting out a small whine as he turned his head to look up at Tommy. Tommy thought this was just another example of the dog looking weirdly human.
“No,” Tommy said. “I’m not really doing anything right now, just tell me you don’t need a flight anywhere.”
“No, nothing like that,” Chimney said.
“Okay, then what’s up?”
“You haven’t by any chance… seen or heard from Buck, have you?” Chimney asked.
“No?” Tommy said, slightly confused. Why after all this time, was Chimney asking about Buck? Nothing bad happened to him. God, Tommy didn’t know what he would do.
The dog then pawed at Tommy’s leg, trying to get his attention.
‘Stop that,’ Tommy mouthed at the dog, before speaking to Chimney again. “Why? Did something happen to him?”
“That’s…” Chimney sighed, sounding very weary. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
The dog pawed at Tommy’s leg again, and Tommy reached down, giving his head a quick scratch. “Just five minutes, please,” he whispered. “What do you mean by that, Howie?” Tommy asked.
Chimney let out a long sigh as if he had to explain the story multiple times already. “We got off shift yesterday morning,” Chimney started. “He had told me and Maddie that he would be coming over to our place for Thanksgiving dinner what with Eddie going to Texas and Bobby filling in for the B-shift Captain. But he never showed up. Maddie went over by his place this morning, but he wasn’t there, so-”
“You thought he might be with me?” Tommy asked.
“I mean, it’s a possibility…”
Tommy’s mind ran in circles as he processed what Chimney said. Buck was missing, he just skipped Thanksgiving dinner with his sister and family, and no one knew where he was? That wasn’t like Buck at all. Since when did Buck just up and disappear?
“I- I haven’t heard from him,” Tommy said. He hadn’t heard from Buck since… since he walked out on him.
* ruff* the dog then barked, loudly.
“Is that a dog?” Chimney asked.
“Yeah, it’s… it’s a long story,” Tommy said. “Anyway, did you call Eddie? Maybe he knows something?”
He heard Chimney sigh into the phone receiver. “Yeah, he has no clue where Buck could be either. His Jeep was still parked in his parking spot at his building, and nothing looked out of place in his loft.”
The dog barked again and jumped up on his hind legs. “I told you, five minutes,” Tommy hissed at the dog. “I assume you called Bobby and Athena already?” Tommy asked Chimney.
“They were our first call.”