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It was a four-alarm fire.
He remembers that.
He remembers the heat. The creaking floor. The sound of the oxygen flowing through his mask. The weight of the turnouts. The numerous voices on the radio.
The screams. The cries for help. The chaos.
"Firefighter Wilson, do you copy?"
He remembers that.
The panic. The suffocating feeling at his throat. The pounding of his heart. The stumbling figure in the distance. The unmistakable spelling of her name.
"I got eyes on Wilson!" He shouted into the radio. "Sixth floor, Alpha side."
The heat. The creaking floor. The oxygen. The weight. The voices.
He remembers that.
"The exit is too involved," Hen's oxygen tank was damaged. Tommy's oxygen tank was half-full. "What's the extraction plan?"
No answer.
He remembers that.
No answer as he held his breath.
No answer as he let Hen take cleansing breaths with his mask.
He remembers that.
Silence. Waiting.
He clicked the radio button. "What's the-" There was nothing. No click, no static. A look at his radio and there was a massive crack through its side. Broken. "Fuck."
"T-Tommy?"
He remembers that.
The way her eyes fluttered open. The way they turned to panic once reality set in. The way she scrambled up to standing. The way she swayed on her feet. The way she shook in his hold.
He remembers that.
The floor creaking. The heat. The flames. The broken floor boards. The feeling of weightlessness. Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
He doesn't remember more.
Tommy woke up in a bright white room.
His head hurt. His side stung. His leg didn't move.
He had a concussion. A nasty gash on his side. A broken leg.
Hen was okay.
Karen, Denny and Mara never left her side. He could hear their voices, their laughter, their love from his room one door down. It helped.
Tommy was okay, too.
Chimney walked into his room an hour or so after he woke up. After the doctors told him his diagnosis, the extent of his injuries. His hands were ruining the sleeves of his sweater, his eyes were red and his voice hoarse.
He tells Tommy that they found them on the Alpha side after the floor collapsed. He tells Tommy that Hen was safe aside from some bruises from the fall and a fractured arm from the explosion, the same that wrecked her oxygen tank.
He tells Tommy that Hen was safe because Tommy saved her.
"Thank you," He said, voice wavering, his hands on his hips, clenched tight. "If you hadn't found her, if you hadn't-"
"But I did, Howie," He reassured, shuffling carefully higher on the bed. "She's safe."
Chimney nodded, takes his hand in a tight grip. "Thank you, Tommy." He repeated.
Karen walked into his room after Chimney left. Her arms wrapped around him almost instantly and he hid a wince as it pulled on the stitches on his side. She thanked him, teary-eyed. Her hands cupped his cheeks forcing him to accept her gratitude.
She knew he wanted to refuse it.
He wanted to say that he was just doing his job. That he would've never left Hen to die in that blazing inferno. That he would have done it over and over again. That he would have brought Hen to her family if it was the last thing he did.
It didn't matter. They wouldn't hear of it.
He accepted it.
He took a deep breath after she left.
The relative quiet of the hospital room washes over him, attempting to drown the cacophony of sounds still stuck in his head. The colder air trying to stave off the blistering heat stuck to his skin. Just a few minutes. A few minutes alone with his thoughts.
He remembers the day of the mall explosion.
He remembers waking up to Eli on the side of his bed, in a cold and quiet room. He remembers hoping for someone else to walk in, for someone else to care. Howie did. Howie wormed his way into his stone cold heart and forced a place inside. Made him better.
He remembers the empty, silent, cold room and he wants to laugh.
Twenty years later and he's had visitors. Plural.
There are flowers on every available surface. There are get-well cards with drawings of firefighters and planes and helicopters and one very realistic unicorn. There is a lemon loaf cake wrapped in cling film, a platter of chocolate muffins and chocolate chip, peanut butter and snickerdoodle cookies. There are balloons, plural, strings looped around his bedframe.
He wants to laugh. He wants to cry.
There's a distressed moan at his side.
His hand quickly finds the other man's hand, smiling fondly at the tight grip Evan employs even in his sleep. Tommy's thumb rubs over the back of Evan's hand and he watches as his body relaxes almost instantly, as he falls back to sleep, a contented sigh falling from his lips.
It warms something inside Tommy. It warms him more than the many blankets pilled atop him. It warms him to know he can soothe the younger man so easily.
Tommy woke up in a bright white room.
Before Karen, before Chimney, before the doctors, he had a visitor.
Although visitor might not have been the right word to describe him. Not with the way it looked like Evan was trying to not fall back asleep, slumped over the chair on the right side of the bed. He was wearing an LAFD uniform, his hair was damp and unruly.
He was beautiful.
But then again, Tommy was biased.
"Tommy!"
It was the first thing he heard when he woke up. It was something straight out of his dreams. He wondered if he had died, succumbed to the suffocating hell, fallen to his death.
But then Evan's hands cupped his cheeks, his eyes shining from tears and his smile.
"You're okay, you're okay." Evan repeated like a mantra and smiled.
His smile.
And his dreams were never that realistic. Evan's touch was always cold in his dreams. As if to remind him that it was a reality he would never be able to have. Evan's hands were warm in his skin, his calloused thumbs moving softly over the skin of his cheeks. He wasn't dreaming then.
"Evan…" He whispered, his voice barely audible from disuse, from smoke inhalation.
He wanted to ask for water. So he could tell Evan the things he thought he never could say. But asking for water meant leaving Evan's touch, Evan's gaze, Evan's attention.
And that was worse than any discomfort.
"I-I carried you out, Tommy," Evan whispered and Tommy's heart pounded in his chest. He ignored the fact that the machine was picking up on it, that Evan could hear it. "I thought I was going to find Hen, I thought-" He shook his head, clearly expelling any of those poisonous thoughts. "I didn't know you were there, Tommy," He continues and his hands grip him tighter, tears spilling down his cheeks. Tommy wants to wipe them away but he can only raise his arm enough to grab Evan's forearm. "I carried you out and I thought-I thought you were dead."
He wanted to yell at himself.
Wanted to shake himself for how stupid he had been, how cowardly.
Evan called him. A few weeks before.
Evan called him and told him about Harry joining the Fire Academy, about training him. Tommy had been happy, extended congratulatory words, but he was also very confused. And then Evan talked about how Harry almost gave up when it got hard. How instead of being rejected, Harry rescinded his candidacy. And Tommy understood.
They talked.
Evan called him early in the evening. They hung up around midnight.
They talked and decided to try to work on their friendship.
During slow times on shift, before their breakup, they used to talk to pass the time. Either by text or by voice call. Evan had an almost infinite knowledge about things. So many things.
Once, Evan managed to get through the entire history of the Inuit civilization before the klaxxons blared and they had to go back to work. He got a win and a vigorous night of sex after he won a trivia night by remembering one of Evan's infodumps. What a night.
It was almost like they got back to normal.
Evan would text. Tommy would text. They would send pictures - of their food, of their activities, funny selfies. They would call. Evan would talk about his shift, about the latest article he read, about Harry's progress in the academy, about his family, about the 118. Tommy would talk about his shift, about his progress in restoring the 1960 Chevrolet Corvette he inherited from his mother's uncle, about the newest rookie, about the 217.
They met up for coffee exactly once.
Their shifts didn't allign.
Tommy didn't tell him about the extra shifts he had volunteered for in the past few months. Didn't tell him how his free time felt suffocating sometimes, no matter how much he tried to distract himself with exercise, with Muay Thai, with restoring the old car.
Evan hadn't know that he was on shift during the four-alarm fire. Evan hadn't known that he was deep inside the building. Evan hadn't know that he had found Hen, had fallen through three floors, had done his best to save her.
Evan hadn't known because Tommy didn't tell him.
"Evan…" He whispered, tried to find the strength to say all the words he wanted to say. He gripped the other man's forearm tighter, scared. In the end, he only found two. "I'm sorry."
"You should be," Evan's eyes were hard, piercing, shiny. "I thought I had lost you a-and that, that was- it was a pain I haven't felt for a few months." He smiled wrily.
Images of a grief-stricken Evan in a dark corridor, carrying a Captain's helmet during a funeral filled his brain. Tommy felt like he deserved any pain, any horror that he could be inflicted.
"I-I'm sorry." Tommy repeated, not knowing what else to say, to add.
"I couldn't live with losing you without seeing you look at me again," His smile trembled, thumb caressing the corner of his eyes. "Without hearing your voice again," There was a caress to the dry swell of his bottom lip. "Without kissing you."
And Tommy wasn't going to reject it. Wasn't going to push Evan away. Not when Evan's lips were all he could think about for the past year. Not when he had yearned for a kiss, to hear his voice, to see him looking at him again. No, it was never a question.
Evan's thumb lifted his chin carefully and then his lips were pressed against his.
It was short, firm, a memory.
He remembers that.
A dim kitchen. A stuttering man. A shy request for attention. For Tommy's attention. A kiss.
"So that was okay?" Evan asked and Tommy had coughed up a storm when he laughed at his wiggling eyebrows and smirk.
He got his water then.
He didn't have to miss Evan's touch for long. Evan doesn't leave.
Not that Tommy would ask him to, the thought never crossed his mind. Not now that he had him back. Tommy urged Evan to sleep, his hand clenching on the younger man's, when he had taken far too long on his next blink.
He hadn't slept since Tommy arrived in the hospital, he said, almost two days ago.
Evan had explained that Maddie had forced him to go home, shower off the shift and sleep. He only left after she promised that she would stay by Tommy's side, that she would message him if anything happened. Visitors, plural - even if reluctant, forced.
He hadn't slept at home. He'd tried but it didn't feel right.
It felt right then, his hand on Tommy's, head cushioned on the mattress. Uncomfortable. Right, he said. Evan fell asleep short after the doctors walked into his room.
He was asleep during Chimney's visit, who pulled one of Tommy's many blankets to drape over his brother-in-law's back, much to Tommy's gratitude. He was asleep during Karen's visit, who smiled fondly exasperated at the younger man before kissing his forehead on her way out.
He was asleep while Tommy took a minute. A minute to take in all that happened in the last two hours. In the last two days. In the last year. Despite it all, he doesn't regret anything.
His phone vibrates on the nightstand and he rushes to grab it. Evan lets out a huff from where he's still laying down and Tommy forces his hand up in order to run his fingers through Evan's hair, scratching his scalp in that soft way the other man liked. He's rewarded by a content sigh as Evan relaxes further into sleep.
Beautiful.
Biased.
It takes another vibration from the phone in his hand to get Tommy to reluctantly take his eyes off Evan. It's only the knowledge that there are days old messages in his phone, people worried about him. People, friends, visitors.
He has been added to a group chat.
He has 10 messages from Lucy.
One about their next trivia night, three teasing him about not replying, five worried about his lack of reply, the last one is a meme. He smiles and replies back with a middle finger emoji and his diagnosis. She hearts the message and a "get well, loser". He grins.
He has 5 messages from Melton.
Three stressing out about his daughter's maths exam, one wishing him a fast recovery and a picture of his daughter drawing him a card. His eyes blur the words on the screen before he blinks. He hearts the message and thanks him.
He has messages from Eddie. From his Captain. From the Captain of the B-shift. From his neighbour. From Sal. From Gina. Pictures and get well messages threatening to suffocate him with the love he feels for them all. He wipes his tears with the back of his hand.
He has messages from Evan.
He looks at the other man again. At his content expression in sleep. The way his lips are parted open. At his soft snoring. When they slept together, Tommy would often watch him sleep.
Not in a creepy way.
Love does make you do creepy things sometimes, anyway.
He huffs out a laugh, wincing at how it pulls on his stitches, lands uncomfortably on his sore limbs. Takes a deep breath until it passes.
He opens his chat with Evan.
Reads through a couple of messages about the different types of sea urchins and his niece's latest obsession with chocolate muffins. He remembers opening the chat at the mention of the sweet treats, wanting to tell him that they are also his favourites. He remembers his thumb hovering over the "I" before his phone rang. His captain asking him to join B-shift on a call.
There's a confused "hello?" when Tommy didn't answer, a picture followed by more messages - a series of "are you okay?"s and "be safe"s, the last one time-stamped to a few minutes before the 118 was called to aid on the fire. He wonders if it's a picture of Evan's meal, or the book he chose that afternoon.
He clicks on the image, waits for it to load, the hospital's wi-fi notoriously crappy.
When it loads, a laugh is startled out of Tommy.
A loud, echoing sound that makes Evan jump out of his restful sleep and look around with wide, panicked eyes. He frowns when he realises that it was Tommy's laughter that startled him, when he watches as Tommy laughs and winces in pain.
"Tommy!"
He is panicked and that sobers Tommy up. He manages to calm down enough that he is only breathing out a laugh, painful but bearable, a wide grin on his face.
"Really, Evan?" He asks, amused, fond, as he passes the phone to the other man.
And he watches as Evan blushes as he looks at the image.
As he looks at the selfie Evan took, clearly under the blankets of the bunk room, an almost threatening but sleepy glare towards the phone, towards Tommy. Over the selfie, Evan wrote "hey you accidentally left me on read haha lol x".
Tommy laughs again, more controlled, still painful, as he thinks of it again.
"W-Well, you, you did!" Evan stutters his way through some sort of explanation, some excuse, but that's not what Tommy is looking for. No. "Tommy, y-you-"
"I love you." He grins up at the stunned man.
There is that inkling of fear, always has been. The same one that lead him to leave Evan in his loft, the same one that had him driving through Evan's house too often, leave his house after their night together.
But larger, all-encompassing, a familiar friend is the love, the yearning. The same one that had him follow Evan to his new house, the same one that had him agree to be friends, the same one that had him spill his feelings in a hospital room.
"Y-You, what?"
And the fear grows, of course it does. He's exposed, his soft belly ready to pierced by a knife. Left to bleed out, rejected. But, at least, Evan isn't running. No, that's Tommy's MO.
"I love you," He repeats. "I have for a while now, I've just been too scared to say it," He shrugs, wincing again at the pain and smiling at the way Evan reaches for his shoulder, his side. "I almost died, almost lost my chance with you forever, because I'm a coward," He admits, taking a deep breath. "I didn't want to be a coward anymore, not when I can spend my time loving you."
Slowly, Evan blinks away the surprise, the shock, his eyes watering and Tommy wants to apologise, to take back his words, to stop the tears from spilling. But Evan's lips stretch in a smile, a grin. Happy tears.
"I love you too," Evan whispers, cups Tommy's jaw, thumb running across the stubble that grew in the past few days. "I love you so much, Tommy."
And they grin at each other, the feeling of reciprocated love filling their chest, a matching sigh leaving their lips. A few seconds pass, an hour, a lifetime. He wants it, wants it all with Evan.
Evan's lips press against his. Tommy reciprocates the kiss, would be an idiot not to. They kiss, it's soft, firm, it says all that they will now have time to tell each other. Over and over.
They have time now. A lifetime.
They part with a sigh and Tommy loses himself in the bright blue of Evan's eyes, in the swell of his soft lips, in the faint blush in his cheeks, in Evan.
"I think," He whispers, reluctantly breaking the moment. "I think you should call the nurse."
Evan's eyes immediately widen, the lustful gaze dissipating. "What? What's wrong?" His hands cup Tommy's cheeks and that's worth any pain. They do have time now, though.
"I think I might have popped a stitch when I laughed." He groans, gesturing to his side.
His boyfriend - and how good it feels to call him that again - carefully moves the blankets and the hospital gown. He lets out a panicked hum at what Tommy assumes is the sight of blood on his wound's dressing.
"I-I'll go get a nurse," Evan quickly says, rushing around the bed to Tommy's fond amusement. "Don't move, don't go anywhere!" He says on his way out the door.
And Tommy looks at the room.
At the balloons, at the flowers, at the cards. At the messages on his phone. At the indentation of Evan's body on the chair by his bed. Thinks of the feeling of being cared for. Of the feeling of Karen's hug, Chimney's hand on his, Evan's soft hair in his fingers.
He sighs.
Ignores the sting of pain in his side, the ache in his body, the still dormant pain in his leg.
"Nowhere else I'd rather be."