Archive of Our Own ^beta

His sister finds him on the floor of the loft. It's been days since he's really spoken to anyone, and truth be told, he doesn't have it in him to find the words to try and engage. Still, there's only so long in which he can get away with shutting down before he's eventually found, which is how he finds himself in the present moment with Maddie next to him, searching for answers. 

“I wanna be good enough,” he says between quiet sobs. “For the people I love. T-to stay.”

Maddie frowns at him, her expression almost complete devastation as she rests a hand on his knee. “Oh Evan, you are.”

He shakes his head, gulping as several more tears run down his face. “No Maddie, I’m not. You? Left. Eddie left. Bobby left. T-…Tommy left.”

“Evan-..”

He continues to shake his head his expression looking more distraught with each passing second.

“I can’t-… I mean I-I don’t- I don’t know what- what I do to-to-..”

“Evan,” she lilts, reaching for his hand and squeezing his fingers. “it’s not- you don’t do anything to cause-..”

“No,” he growls, looking back up at her, leaning forward from where he’s pressed against the island in his kitchen. “No. It has to be something. Be-because if-if it’s not something that- that I can fix, then…then-..”

Maddie sniffles squeezing his hands harder in her own.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” she tells him insistently. “Sometimes- sometimes people are just…they have to work things out themselves, and that doesn’t mean that you’re lacking somewhere or not good enough.”

Evan just keeps shaking his head, the sobs still coming silently as his chin drops into his chest.

“I don’t- I- I don’t-… I want- I wanted s-so much with him and he-…” His brow furrows, still half in disbelief at the reality of it all. “He told me no. Like-like, like the idea of it was outrageous. Like… like we couldn’t even try to be happy together because eventually, I was going to wake up and decide there was something better.” Evan clenches his jaw at the thought, at the sound of the words that had come out of Tommy’s mouth still bouncing around in his head. His gaze drifts back up until he’s looking at Maddie. “What the fuck was supposed to be better than the first time I’ve ever…”

She watches him sympathetically as she settles more on her haunches, stroking her thumbs over the back of his hands.

“Felt seen,” she says softly. Evan nods, his chin trembling against the urge to crumble completely.

Maddie settles down entirely in the spot beside him, leaning against the counter. “Did you really tell him you wanted a future together?”

Evan laughs derisively, glancing over at her as he drops his head back against the counter. “I asked him to move in with me. Might’ve-…” He pauses, his face flushing slightly. “Might’ve mentioned marriage in there.”

Maddie sits up straighter, her eyes widening.

“Evan-..”

“No, look,” he cuts her off, lifting a hand to stop her. “I didn’t- n-not the way you think- I just…”

“You leap when you’re excited,” Maddie finishes for him. Evan nods again, his chin dropping back as he stares down at the floor between his legs. “Sometimes without thinking.”

He snaps his head back up in her direction, but Maddie squeezes his arm gently.

“It’s not a bad thing; that’s not what I’m saying. And I don’t want to make excuses for him when you’re my brother, but Howie had to slow walk me into I love you, and moving in together, after everything with Doug. You and Tommy…you’ve been through good things together, but did you ever really face hardships together? A real fight?”

Evan runs his bottom lip between his teeth. Truth be told, he can’t pinpoint a time when he and Tommy really had major issues. Granted, there wasn’t much that they’d dove deeply into when it came to trauma, though it wasn’t intentional. They both understood the stresses of the job and that sometimes after a bad week, they just wanted to come home to the other and be comforted without having the spell out the worst of the worst, and that was before ever getting into the Gerrard of it all that had coated so much of the start of their relationship.

“No.”

“But you love him,” Maddie asks, treading carefully. She’s not judgemental about it.

“Apparently,” Evan mutters, as though he’s still digesting the information himself.

Maddie nods. “So does he know that?”

Evan looks up at her, his own expression mildly accusatory at her for asking such a question.

“I didn’t ask if you told him that. You told him that you wanted to move int together, have a future together. Did you actually express to him why you want those things?”

She gets her answer in the way he looks away from her, and she sighs softly. She lifts her free hand to the back of his head, stroking it.

“What do you want, Evan?”

He looks back over at her, confused again. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs, raising her eyebrows. “You know how you feel, but you said he doesn’t. So what do you want?”

“Maddie, i-it-…it’s too late-..”

“Says who?”

Evan folds his hands out, his mouth half-open and searching for the right responses, but it just makes Maddie double down.

“Nobody is married or dead,” she states, giving his arm another squeeze. “If what you really want is Tommy, then go after him. Decide if it’s worth it to fight for what you had, and what you can still have. I mean, unless it’s more worth it to you to keep sitting here feeling like this.”

Evan snorts in response, and she smiles. She scoots over on the floor and rests her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his bicep before lifting her pinky.

“Just promise me that you’ll do somehting in favor of yourself, okay?”

Evan sniffles and the nods, turning and kissing her forehead before linking his own pinky with hers.

“Deal.”

He almost chickens out. Maddie’s suggestion makes it seem easy to make the phone call, but when Evan actually has it in his hands, his fingers start shaking and panic floods through him over all the things that could go wrong.

In the end, Maddie takes his phone and sends the message herself before she leaves; just a quick ‘hey, can we talk’. And the thing is, Evan’s not entirely sure that’s what he would’ve decided on by himself, but her choice of word still serves the purpose, because two seconds after he closes the door, his phone chimes on the counter. He walks over to it and forces a deep breath down before flipping the phone over and checking the screen.

There’s a new text message. From Tommy.

He inhales another deep breath and then unlocks his phone, bringing their conversation back up.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask that for a while.

The answer makes the anxiety in his chest dissipate some, and his thumbs are hovering over the keyboard, trying to figure out how exactly to respond when the little chirp sounds from his phone along with a new message coming through too quickly for the bubbles to show.

You home?

Evan gulps and then taps out a quick response. When he’s finished, he sets his phone back on the counter and looks around.

There’s scattered flour on nearly every surface from his last round of baking. And yet, for the first time in weeks, he doesn’t feel like he needs to bury himself in baked goods.

An hour later, there’s a knock at his door, drawing him out from trying to scrub his counters clean. He drops the washcloth into the bucket of soap water he’s been using and wipes his hands on his jeans before walking over to the door and opening it.

Tommy.

His expression reminds Evan of the first time the other man stood at his door: hand on his chin, expression unsure. Except this time, he looks…sadder. Lonelier. More tired.

“Hi.”

Evan has to force down a deep breath at the sound of Tommy’s voice. It hasn’t been that long—not really—and yet he’s not lost on him that he’s forgotten, even just a little, what the pilot’s voice sounds like.

“H-hi,” he stammers, moving aside after a second. “Come- come on in.”

Tommy looks at him warily as Evan moves, clearly questioning if that’s the right answer. After a few moments, he seems to decide, steps inside the loft. Whether he intends it or not, his body language seems to compete with itself, both giving off the sense that he’s relaxed and anxious all at once.

Evan gestures toward the counter before pulling his hand back, his eyes tightening as a pang shoots through his chest, remembering the last time they’d sat in those seats all those weeks earlier.

“C-can I get you something to drink,” he asks, only to cringe even more at his statement. He feels like he’s stumbling through their greatest hits and only hurting himself in the process as Tommy continues to stand by the door, caught somewhere between hovering and lingering.

“No thanks,” he answers in the same soft tone.

Evan still takes the time to walk around the counter and open the fridge, taking out a bottle of water for himself. He cracks it open and takes a sip, if for no other reason than to have something occupying his hands and mouth.

When he looks back over at Tommy, the other man seems to be looking at him expectantly, and Evan realizes then that he probably is. After all, he was the one that finally broke their stalemate.

“Lo- I- um…” He glances down at the counter, lets out a half-laugh before shaking his head at himself. He tries to find a different way to speak, but the words don’t come any faster, and then eventually, he finds himself looking back up Tommy. The pilot doesn’t look any more soothed than Evan feels, and all of a sudden, everything he and Maddie were talking about makes sense.

“It shouldn’t be this hard.”

There’s the slightest pull at the corner of Tommy’s mouth—a rueful smile. Even at that, he still looks sad, his gaze nervous as he looks over at Evan and then away quickly, and it sends a flutter through Evan’s chest. Of what used to be. Of what still could.

He gulps again.

“I thought I knew what I was saying that night,” he states after a moment, shaking his head at himself as he gestures out toward Tommy. “I- I went into it with all of this planning in my mind, knowing what I wanted you to hear and- and…” He pauses, licks his lips as his arm drops to his side. The little bit of a smile that had started to come over his face falls as he finally manages to meet Tommy’s gaze. “And then I woke up on Thursday morning and you weren’t here anymore.”

Tommy inhales sharply, but he nods.

“A-and I-…I started doing all these things, you know, to deal. I threw myself into work, and being there for Maddie and Jee-Yun, and- and I developed this obsession with baking to- to…” The smile falls away again, the wistful feeling gone as soon as the words are. The space beneath his sternum feels like it’s being clawed apart, but he knows that he needs to get through this part of it. “To try and forget I’d lost you.”

He sees the way Tommy swallows at that statement, the way his gaze falls away, and he chews on the inside of his mouth.

Evan finally starts to move, walking back around the counter, but still leaving copious amounts of space between them.

“B-but after Eddie left, I realized that I was doing more to bury my head in the sand and not deal with it at all than I was actually moving forward, and I had to go back to the drawing board with that to figure out why,” he explains. He has to take a moment then, knowing that choosing to open up could just lead to him getting shut down on again.

Or…

His face twitches minutely against heavy emotions living just under the surface.

“I- I, I got asked if I ever really figured out why I went after you in the first place, last year. And truth be told, I never put much thought into it, until recently,” he explains. Tommy’s gaze is back on him then, equal parts curious and nervous, like a scared kitten ready to make a dash at a moment’s notice. “B-but there was this voice in my head, even back then…when Eddie asked me about watching Chris for him and you two went to that first trivia night, h-he made this comment to me.” Evan moves his hands, gesticulating as he takes a few steps more around the counter. “You know that feeling when you just click with someone.”

Tommy gives a nod, his gaze falling briefly to the floor.

“And I remembered feeling that,” he continues. His nose twitches against his eyebrows and he swallows. “From the first time I stopped you on that boat.” He lets the wave cresting over him pass, and in its wake a smile starts to form on his lips again. “I don’t think I ever knew what I was chasing after, intially. I just knew that something about it all felt right and I needed more of it.”

Tommy looks up at him, his expression mildly perplexed.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t ever shown up here,” he asks softly.

Evan lets out a little laugh at himself as he leans against the island. “Truthfully? Continued to find ways to worm my way into your schedule in likely increasingly more obnoxious and possibly more violent ways until someone just told us to kiss already.”

Tommy blows out a breath and Evan lets out another laugh, shaking his head at himself and the retrospective. It sinks a little as he continues to think on their prior moments.

“See- see, the thing is, no matter which way I spin it, we end up at the same point,” Evan tells him. “And I try to make it fit in a version where we don’t end up here, having this conversation, but honestly… you gave me the best first six months that anyone’s ever had. You let me figure things out at my own pace, and you didn’t push me into anything I wasn’t comfortable with.”

Tommy nods, wrinking his own nose at whatever it is that Evan’s said to affect him. It’s not lost on the younger man how much what he’s saying sounds like a goodbye speech.

“And that’s also where I think we went wrong.”

The older man’s gaze snaps up, and he raises an eyebrow.

“We never so much as argued about the cap on the toothpaste,” Evan tells him. “There was no… no sight behind the curtain. Not really. And somehow that got us to this place where you told me that I was still figuring myself out and I couldn’t possibly be your last because you were my first, and maybe that’s true in some cases, but I wasn’t exactly showing up to our first date with a u-Haul.”

Tommy snorts at the statement, and it’s the first time something that actually looks like a real smile is present on his face.

“I threw all these things at you,” Evan says, his voice getting tight the closer he treads to the reality of what this conversation is actually supposed to be about. “Moving in together, engagement, marriage. And I never fucking said why. Because in six months, I wasn’t just following you around to figure myself out, Tommy. I wasn’t- I wasn’t using you as an experiment until I could find the next best thing.”

He pushes away from the counter, unable to keep the spark of joy out of his expression as he continues, easily recalling that first conversation. “I told you I didn’t know what I was ready for back then, and that was true in more than one context. But it was also true when I told you that whatever I was ready for, I wanted with you. Because- because I could still so easily remember the way I felt, on that boat, and next to you in that helicopter, a-and how it felt…” He pauses briefly, having to take a breath as he takes several steps forward until he’s standing in front of Tommy again. “When you kissed me.”

The pilot looks up at him, his expression somber.

“Evan, we barely know each other,” he says, his tone soft, forlorn. “We-..”

“We never talked about the skeletons,” Evan states. Tommy nods.

Evan laughs sadly. His eyes trail over Tommy’s chest as the smile sinks off of his face once more.

“I-…I think you think you’ll tell me the bad things, and that will make me love you less,” he comments. “Because people that you love leave.” His eyes keep moving back and forth, caught in a hyper-fixation between a button and its matching slot on the black button-down Tommy is wearing, keeping him from actually having to meet the pilot’s gaze in that moment.

His mouth twitches, and he can feel the wetness at the corners of his eyes before he even speaks. Rip the bandaid. See if it’s worth it.

“I wasn’t planned for,” he states, entirely matter-of-fact. “Wasn’t even really wanted. My parents had me as a savior sibling to my brother.” He finally manages to look Tommy in the eyes as one of the tears drops from the corner of his eye. “Who, as it turns out, my DNA was too defective to save.”

There’s a knowing expression on Tommy’s face as he stares back at Evan, tilting his head just slightly. Before either of them realizes it, the older man’s hand is on Evan’s face, brushing away the tear, only to remain in the same spot.

“Maddie mostly raised me herself,” he adds. “W-when we- when I told you about Abby, and how I was before her? I used to chase after any form of validation I could get, and I usually did it with my body.”

Tommy keeps staring at him, his thumb moving back and forth as more tears come down Evan’s cheek.

“S-so the reason I know you think those things is because I think them, too. That if I let you see the dark parts of me, that it’ll make whatever version of me you’ve created in your head less worthy of your time.”

“Nothing you’ve just told me has changed anything about how I feel about you,” Tommy says to him, his voice still soft.

Evan nods, lifting his hand to where Tommy’s is on his face.

“I know,” he replies softly. “Because there’s nothing you could tell me that could make me stop loving you.”

Tommy opens his mouth, but Evan’s fingers are quickly on his lips.

“You got to give me this whole speech about how I would break your heart because I’d discover something else or something better. And maybe I can’t prove that I won’t find that,” he explains. “But what I know I won’t find again is the way this feels. Someone who sees me, and understands who I am better than I do. S-someone who shows up for me, no matter how ridiculous the request. Someone who ch…”

“Who chooses you,” Tommy rasps. Evan sniffles and nods.

“I don’t care if you look in the mirror and don’t see yourself as clearly as I do,” Evan states. “If- if you look at the trauma you carry around and think it makes you less worthy, because I don’t feel that way. I love all of you, both the guy who flies into a hurricane on a whim, and the one who has scars of a past he doesn’t give away to everyone else. I just… I hope maybe at some point maybe you want to share it with me.”

Tommy’s hand tightens just slightly on his cheek.

“You might not like what you see,” he answers. “I wasn’t good to people. I chose myself instead of speaking up for others. I promised my future to someone I knew I could never fully love. I…” He takes a pause of his own, an anxious breath. “I’ve been easy to walk out on or dismiss for trying to be this version of myself for as long as I can remember.”

“What is it that they say in therapy,” Evan replies, letting out a laugh even as tears brim his waterline. “Other people’s actions are not a reflection of you?”

Tommy nods, even as his own eyes shine with wetness.

“I’m broken, Evan,” he rasps. “I’m not shiny or perfect, or deser-..”

“Do not tell me you’re not deserving,” Evan stops him. “And as far as shiny or perfect? Thank God. Have you seen me? I’m covered in dents and tarnish.”

Tommy’s expression clearly lets on that he doesn’t fully agree with the statement, and in some ways, they’ve arrived at another stalemate. Except, in this case, it feels just a little bit like they’re capable of facing those issues head-on.

Evan lifts his free hand to Tommy’s neck, stroking gently against it.

“So. Are you going to let me love you freely,” he asks. “Because I’m not going out there and finding something else. It wouldn’t come close to measuring up.”

Tommy lets out a small laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously in love with you,” Evan counters.

Tommy wrinkles his eyes at him, clearly struggling with the statement, regardless of its truth. Evan tilts his head further, staring back at him.

“I didn’t ask you to come here so I could see this off as a nail in the coffin. If that’s what you want to be, I guess I’m going to have to figure out a way to deal with that, but-..”

“It’s not,” Tommy answers. He tilts his head forward, resting it against Evan’s. With less than three inches of space between them, Evan can hear the depth at which Tommy inhales, thinks through his response. He closes his eyes, and Evan sees the wetness settle into his eyelashes.

And then Tommy lets the breath out and leans back, staring at him clearly. There seems to be some resolution in his expression as he moves his hand off of Evan’s face and shifts it down to the younger man’s chest, smoothing his shirt.

He opens his mouth, and just for a second, maybe two, the words catch in his throat. His nose twitches, eyes narrowing for just a tick. HIs eyes are still on Evan’s chest.

“I don’t really talk to my father because I spent six years in foster care.”

He speaks softly, and it’s clear that he’s fighting getting caught up more in the emotions of the confession. His eyes skate back up to Evan’s slowly, wide and vulnerable. Naked. If there’s been a chasm of space between them during all of these weeks, the morsels of information they’ve shared over recent minutes have flooded it, creating a space capable of being traversed, of creating a middle point.

“He used to beat the shit out of me, and I-…” He pauses, shakes his head briefly as his expression softens, still looking Evan in the eyes. “I’ve never let anyone have that part of me.”

Evan nods, biting hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from outwardly reacting too much. He understands the gravity of what it’s taken for Tommy to tell him that, knowing what it took for him to share the realities of his own birth as a savior sibling.

After a minute, he tilts his head, a quirk of a smile on the edge of his mouth.

“Nothing you just said changes how I feel about you,” he repeats back to the pilot. Tommy nods, sniffles as his gaze shifts away, clearly wanting to disappear back into the safety of the way he’s kept himself guarded for so many years.

Evan reaches up for his face, tilts Tommy’s head down and kisses his forehead before pulling him into a tight hug. It takes Tommy longer to respond, but when his hands finally span the space between Evan’s shoulder blades, they press in fully, and then he’s holding on tighter than Evan thinks he’s ever felt a hug from the other man before.

“I love you,” Evan whispers to him. “In addition to. In spite of. Regardless.”

For a time they remain standing there. He doesn’t expect Tommy to say the words if he’s not ready. He understands that what they’ve laid down between each other feels like unpinned grenades, just waiting for them to go off. And at least he had Maddie through most of his life to see him through.

He can’t say the same about Tommy. Maybe, eventually, he’ll let on about a foster sibling, or an army buddy, or even an old coworker he still talks to. But that still doesn’t give him the same kind of fallback Evan has always had, and that hurts. A lot, actually.

And yet it changes nothing.

When they part, he looks back at Evan.

“Feels like if I let myself love you, everything I’ve ever known crumbles,” he murmurs.

“So maybe we build something better in its place,” Evan responds. “Maybe it defeats everything that’s ever existed before in its place. Maybe- maybe we get to be versions of ourselves where we feel worthy of…of whatever this can be.”

Tommy sniffles again, nods.

“Maybe,” he answers, the timbre of his voice having just enough waver in it to make clear that he has no control over it. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we try our fucking best to get as close to it as possible,” Evan answers. He gestures toward the door. “I already told you, I’m not interested in what’s out there.” He brings his hands in, presses the back of them against Tommy’s chest. “Because I’m already in here.”

Tommy’s face contorts, almost a scowl.

“I won’t-… if you leave me, it better be six feet in the ground or at the bottom of the ocean,” he rasps.

Someone else would probably be terrified; take his words as a threat. But Evan knows Tommy at his core. Trauma aside, he knows the man has no interest in actual violence. That he would never so much as lay a finger on the younger man.

“You’re allowed to die first,” Evan answers. “By about two minutes.”

Tommy laughs, but there are tears in the corners of his eyes again, and this time he doesn’t try to stop them from falling.

There’s something to be said, about the things they’re saying and what they mean. About how they form a future not yet discussed and throw things like marriage vows out the window. Because the statements they’re making aren’t just talking about a few decades together, but something so far beyond that.

When Tommy meets Evan’s gaze again, the younger man has a hand on his face, brushing tears away as they come freely.

“I love you, Evan. More than I ever wanted to love anyone.”

Evan nods, digesting that information for what it is. Knowing it’s true. Knowing that he can relate, even if just a little bit.

He leans forward and kisses Tommy, soft and chaste.

“I love you,” he answers back, and when his lips meet Tommy’s this time, they meet in the middle. His lips part to Tommy’s waiting tongue as arms grasp at his waist, pull his hips in close, like they can merge into one. They pull at one another until their limbs are tangled, the fabric of their shirts clung into fists around a future neither of them wants to let go of. One they’ve just determined they have no other choice than to create.

And somehow they’ll get there, whether in a cardboard box, or somewhere in the suburbs, in a three bedroom with a fence and a back yard, a dog and two point five kids.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter. Not when home stops being a place and becomes a voice. A body. A heartbeat.