Work Text:
Words.
Letters strung together to give them meaning. Creating sentences used to make statements, carry on conversations— powerful testimonies, moving speeches… heartfelt confessions.
Words… soft and gentle, to comfort broken souls.
Words… cold and careless, to break them in the first place.
Tommy is very familiar with the latter.
“You’re no son of mine.”
“Your father was just upset, he didn’t mean it.”
“It’s over Tommy, get your shit and get out.”
“Mr. Kinard… The test was positive. You’re pregnant…”
Tommy stared at the words on the paper the nurse handed him. Typed out neat and uniform. Permanent. Real.
Real…
That’s what he thought he had with Adam. Something real. Something he’d never known. Love. Honesty. Forever.
Adam didn’t want forever with him… not anymore. Maybe he never had to begin with. Still Tommy had hoped that maybe he’d want something with their child.
“If I didn’t want to be tied down to you, what makes you think I’d want to be tied down to some snotty nosed kid?!”
Words… Weapons. Sometimes they are the same thing.
*
“Murderer!”
People screamed it at him as he walked from his car to the building. He could still hear them screaming through the walls as he waited… Even when he was in a room and the screams were muffled enough to be inaudible, they still stung.
He wanted to scream back that they have no idea how long he sat with this decision. How long he scoured the corners of every other option. How long he cried over it… Until his body had no more tears to give and dehydration landed him in the ER.
“Have you considered joining the military?”
It was an option he’d been toying with since the recruiter had visited the high school campus his senior year. It was an easy out. An escape from the hell that was his life. But—
But you can’t be pregnant in basic training— he especially couldn’t be… and he couldn’t wait out a pregnancy.
He had nowhere to go.
No one to help.
No room in the single duffel bag of stuff that was his— when he ‘packed his shit’ and left Adam’s— for anyone else to tag along with him, no matter how bad he wanted to keep them…
So he did what he had to do, and he tried to forget.
And he’d never forget.
(Twenty Years Later)
Tommy waits alone at the table. Tucked away at the back of the restaurant, nearest the bathroom in case he gets sick. He’s sure he will. He leans heavily on the table and its legs are warped, so it wobbles under him. Tommy thinks it’s fitting.
His hands shake so hard he thinks he might need to sit on them. His heart feels like it is going to pound its way out of his chest. Burst right through his ribcage — very much Alien style — and take off screeching across the floor.
He checks the time— fifteen minutes to spare— then slides out of the seat, and with a hand held firmly over his mouth, rushes into the bathroom.
How did he get here… again.
How is he that unlucky?
Maybe he is cursed. Maybe his request to Billy had actually transferred the curse to him.
At least the thought makes him laugh around the blights of gagging.
He returns a few moments later to a (thankfully) still empty booth, a new glass of water, and a mint. Saints clearly worked at this place. With an extremely shaky hand he grabs the mint with one, and goes into his pocket with the other; checking (for the thousandth time) to make sure the test he’d taken two days ago is still there. It is.
Oh what power something so small can hold. The test probably weighs no more than a few ounces… and yet it holds the weight of two entire worlds. Two worlds it is currently flipping on their axis… even if only one knows about it at the moment.
It is the immense weight of this tiny little test that keeps him anchored to his seat— keeps him from running like he often does when things get scary, or get hard. Because Evan deserves to know. Because Evan is not Adam. Because this time might be different.
But Tommy is still Tommy, and Tommy has put himself in this unfortunate predicament once again. So whatever decision Evan makes when he arrives… whatever decision Tommy will have to make as a result… is on Tommy, and Tommy alone.
He brings his still trembling hands up to his face, using them to rest his chin on. He tries to steady his breathing. He tries not to start crying. Not yet at least. He’s sure he ultimately will anyway.
Then Evan walks in, and the chatter of the other customers turns to static.
His eyes find Tommy’s with far too much ease to be normal— they are like magnets, him and Evan… constantly pulled back to each other it seems— and he doesn’t hesitate to throw on that sunshiny bashful smile the moment they meet. Despite the grief Tommy knows Evan is shroud in, the heartache and the turmoil… he smiles at Tommy like he’s important. Like Tommy is still important to him.
It drops quickly, though Tommy can only imagine it's because he is far too nauseous to smile back. He imagines he looks like he’s been punched in the face rather than seen the sun personified— seen true love personified(at least for Tommy). Evan damn near runs across the restaurant to him.
“T- Tommy… what’s— what’s wrong. Are you—”
“P- Pregnant,” Tommy blurts out. Which is the complete opposite way of how he wanted to tell him. Even if he’s not exactly sure any other way he could have told him. They’re all just words anyway, right? Blunt or poetic. The information would be the same. The weight, the same.
“You— You’re… w- what?”
Tommy opens his mouth… but now there are no more words. There’s no way to explain. Six months and it never crossed his mind to mention he was a carrier. Nothing ever happened, so it’s not like it mattered much to mention after the break up. Or so he thought.
One more heated night shouldn’t have mattered either. Or so he thought.
Except it did. It mattered a lot.
“I- I’m so so s-sorry, Evan…” Tommy manages, as he shakily pulls the test from his pocket and slides it across the table to where Evan has yet to sit down.
He picks it up. He doesn’t say a word. Tommy feels like he is being strangled.
“You don’t have to— to do anything, or— I know this is terrible timing. You— you’re going through s- so much and—” Tommy stops to swallow down the bile quickly filling his mouth, and to try to catch his breath. Evan doesn’t say a word.
“I just— I couldn’t not tell you… in case you—” in case you wanted to be a part of their life— of our life. “B- But I understand if you don’t— if you— You have no obligation to, Evan.”
Not a word.
He hasn’t even looked up yet from the pregnancy test, gripped tightly in his hand. Just as tight as it had been gripped within Tommy’s own hand after he flipped it over and saw the most earth shattering word to ever exist… for the second time in his life.
Pregnant.
“Wow…” Evan finally says, and the ringing in Tommy’s ears is far too distracting to gauge his tone, but it doesn’t seem like something a person about to denounce any parental rights or responsibilities would say.
“We— We could co-parent,” Tommy quickly suggests. “We could— we could split the time, 50/50… I could move closer to your new place, or— We could make it work.”
Evan’s head snaps up and he is met now with tear filled eyes. “I don’t want that…” he says, looking taken aback Tommy would even suggest it.
Words… Weapons.
“I don’t want to make it work,” Evan continues, softer this time, despite how the words at face value slice like a knife. He looks at Tommy and the rays of his light illuminate his face, bringing back with them that smile.
Tommy’s mind blurs… back to taking the test.
Words flooding his mind, spilling out from his memories.
Options.
He could have gone down to the clinic. No one would ever have known. He has no more people now, than he did back then. Evan’s world could go on spinning without the weight of him— them… this baby— pulling him down.
He would eventually find solid ground to lead him out of his grief. He would find someone else to smile ‘that smile’ at; to be important to him. Tommy would fade into the background until his name was just a word used in a once upon a time story about Evan’s past.
But he couldn’t do it.
Not again.
So Evan had to know.
Now Evan’s giving him that smile.
He rounds the table, lowering himself so their eyes are level, and takes Tommy’s trembling hands. “I agreed to meet you today because I wanted to tell you what I should have told you… a- a year ago!” He laughs, and tears fall. Tommy’s fall too. “I love you. I’m in love with you. Still so in love with you.”
Those words… were not what Tommy expected.
Now his words are once again long gone. Evan clearly doesn’t mind; he shifts his weight so he can stay crouched in front of Tommy. He brings Tommy’s trembling hands to his lips and presses a kiss to each of them. “I don’t want to make it work because that would mean we weren’t together and— and I have no intention of leaving this restaurant, not together. And this—” he releases Tommy’s hands to grab the test with one… and place the other in Tommy's flat (for now) belly. “This doesn’t change that. If anything it solidifies it.”
Tommy stares at Evan, like he can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. They sound so lovely, and welcoming. They make every ounce of his maybe too extreme self preservation scream run. Everything Evan is saying could be a lie. It’s so simple to say words and then take them back… Tommy knows this firsthand. Words can wound… but they can also heal. So Tommy chooses to cling to them, this time; to believe them. “Okay,” he says, and smiles back.
“Yeah?” Tommy nods as he lays his hand over Evan’s. “Okay…” Evan repeats. “Okay, great.”