Chapter Text
I'm in a foreign state
My thoughts, they slip away
My words are leaving me
They caught an aeroplane
Because I thought of you
Just for the thought of you
Oh, lights go down
In the moment we're lost and found
I just wanna be by your side
If these wings could fly
Birdy - “Wings”
This is how the story goes: Tommy kisses a beautiful boy with an irresistible smile. It’s a risk that pays off, at least until he gets his heart broken.
It’s been 35 hours. Tommy doesn’t know why he’s doing the math instead of getting out of bed, but it seems important.
It’s not the first time he ended a relationship; far from it. But he usually works up to it, slowly coming to accept that things aren’t going great before he decides to break it off. This feels a lot more like Tommy got dumped out of nowhere, even though he’s the one who did this.
Tommy knows how this story goes, the same way it always goes. The heartache would’ve been a hundred times worse when Evan inevitably dumped him, so breaking up now was the right choice. The smart choice. And yet Tommy doesn’t feel like he did the right thing at all.
He stares up at the ceiling and debates calling in sick. Partly because he still feels like a very large animal tore up his chest and ripped out his heart; partly because he’s really not in the mood to deal with people today.
But his phone is somewhere in the living room to stop himself from looking at the last messages Evan sent him over and over again. If Tommy needs to leave his bed to make the call, he might as well take a shower and go to work. A broken heart isn’t the end of the world, and he’ll feel better if he does something useful instead of wallowing in self-pity.
Slowly he pushes the covers aside and gets up, immediately feeling queasy again even though there’s nothing left in his stomach to throw up. The way to the bathroom feels endless, like he’s wading through deep water against a strong current. When he finally makes it there, he finds it hard to focus on the easy steps of peeing, washing his hands and brushing his teeth.
Tommy turns up the water temperature and stands under the hot spray. He can do this. It’s not the first time he got his heart broken, and it might not be the last time either. Unless Tommy stops trying for good. Maybe this is the one he won’t recover from. The one that finally makes him concede that he’s good for sex and casual dating but useless when it comes to serious relationships.
He doesn’t need to dwell on that or make any decisions about his dating life right now. It’s okay not to know what’s next. Tommy is going to get through this day without thinking about Evan Buckley every ten seconds, or worrying about never finding a person who’ll love him just as he is, or growing old alone, or —
Tommy can hear the sound of running water coming from very far away, like an echo in a deep, dark cave. Something isn’t right here, the sensation of the water on his neck and shoulders is barely there, muted —
He blinks the water out of his eyes and takes a slow measured breath before he turns down the temperature. Cold water hits him like a shock, and Tommy puts one palm flat against the wall, feeling the texture of the tiles under his hand. Dissociation is nothing new for him, but the sense of unreality and disconnection doesn't usually hit him this hard.
When he gets out of the shower and dries himself off, Tommy focuses on the sensation of the towel against his skin. There’s no way he’s getting into a helicopter like this, even if he craves the feeling of being in control and the freedom of flying. He’s going to take a sick day, watch some movies and allow himself to cry.
His hands open the bathroom cabinet on autopilot, even though Tommy doesn’t need a shave if he’s going to stay at home, and the first thing he sees is the spare toothbrush he put there for Evan.
Tommy stares at it for a long moment, and he honestly can’t remember if Evan ever used it or always brought his own when he stayed the night. That’s their whole relationship right there. Evan was never going to stay long enough to need some closet space or a toothbrush that didn’t disappear from sight when he wasn’t here.
He throws the toothbrush into the trash can and slams the cabinet shut. Then he gets dressed in sweatpants and a soft sweater before he finally gets his phone from the living room. Tommy will be fine, eventually. But today he’s going to call in sick.
~
He returns to work on his birthday. His captain throws him a concerned look, but he still congratulates Tommy and hands him a lemon muffin. It’s a sad and joyless affair, so it fits Tommy’s mood perfectly.
He’s mostly numb and detached, except for the moments when it hits him out of the blue that he’s no longer dating Evan. It’s like some part of his mind refuses to accept that it’s over until he suddenly remembers what happened. Tommy will never kiss Evan again, will never talk to him over dinner or fall asleep next to him again.
The idea hurts more than it should. Tommy knew this was casual from the get-go, he knew not to get too attached because Evan would move on sooner or later. He knew until he forgot, and that’s his own fault. It’s fine. It hurts, it’ll keep hurting, but Tommy isn’t dissociating or crying his eyes out anymore. That counts as progress right now.
A large part of his shift is taken up by an extremely tricky rescue operation, and Tommy is grateful the 118 isn’t involved. He’s not ready to run into Evan and pretend nothing is wrong. Not yet. But the rest of the day is mostly q-word, which means that Dylan and Lucy have enough downtime to notice that something is off about Tommy. Something more than recovering from a stomach bug or whatever their theory was for him calling in sick.
He’s doing his best to behave like always, talking to his coworkers between calls, throwing in a sarcastic comment when Melton makes a bad joke, but it’s tough to keep up the facade. Tommy would love to borrow the helicopter for an hour, just him and the open sky, no people, no chit-chat, no need to hide how raw he feels inside.
Instead he forces down a sandwich and nearly snaps at Jenna when she keeps asking questions about the new hose winder. She looks so startled that he apologizes and scurries off to deal with the inventory list.
Nobody likes doing inventory, not even on a slow day. Except Evan maybe. Tommy never asked him, but he wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Clipboard Buck’ found it soothing to work his way through the lists and shelves. But nobody at Harbor wants to deal with it, which means the storage room is currently the perfect place for Tommy to hide. Just him and his broken heart.
Of course Lucy comes after him two minutes later. So much for peace and quiet in the storage room; maybe he should’ve put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door.
“Okay, who pissed in your terribly healthy breakfast smoothie today?” Lucy demands.
Tommy stares at the inventory list and wonders if he can simply ignore her until she goes away. But she keeps standing next to him, and when he doesn’t answer, she sighs and holds out her hand for the clipboard. For a few minutes they work in tandem, Tommy counting supplies, Lucy taking notes. This is her way of showing support, not pushing for answers, not making small talk, but still letting him know she’s here for him.
“Evan and I broke up,” Tommy finally says, because he doesn’t see a reason not to tell her.
Lucy lets out another sigh. “I didn’t think he was that stupid.”
Maybe Tommy should take that as a sign of friendly commiseration and keep counting boxes of gauze. But Evan did nothing wrong, and for some reason that part still matters to Tommy.
“I broke up with him,” he clarifies.
“Oh, so you’re stupid,” Lucy throws back without missing a beat.
“Yeah,” Tommy confirms tiredly. He’s the idiot who dated a baby bisexual and forgot that it couldn’t possibly last. Seriously, what’s wrong with him? It’s not like him to get so careless or to ignore all warning signs until he runs straight into a wall.
Lucy doesn’t ask any questions and Tommy doesn’t offer any explanations. They make it through most of the inventory list before the next call comes in.
~
Five days after the break-up Tommy is sitting in his car and staring up at Evan’s loft. He’s no longer counting the hours since he ripped his own heart apart. When he drove here, he planned to find a parking spot, take the elevator upstairs and knock on Evan’s door, but now he can’t move. He can barely breathe.
What is he supposed to say? ‘It’s not you, it’s me. You’re amazing, but it’s never going to work.’ Tommy is a walking cliché.
The lights are on, so Evan is definitely at home. But Tommy already knows he won’t go up there and lay down his broken pieces at Evan’s feet, because it’s not going to fix anything. Tommy wasn’t prepared for the end of their relationship, and he wasn’t expecting it to hurt this badly, but he still meant what he said.
It would be so easy to love Evan and be happy together for a while, but it would only be temporary. Tommy always knew he was simply a stepping stone, a safe space for Evan to explore his attraction to men, and once the novelty and excitement faded away, Evan was going to realize that Tommy didn’t make a great long term partner.
Right from the beginning of their relationship Tommy knew better than to get in too deeply. Now the broken heart in his chest is making it glaringly obvious that he fell in love with Evan anyway.
Maybe he should go up there and beg for a second chance. Maybe Evan would take him back, and Tommy could hold on to him until the inevitable end. Except that would be fear instead of love, constantly dreading the day when everything they built would fall apart. They both deserve better than that.
Sitting here and staring at the lights behind Evan’s windows is pointless. Even worse, it’s creepy. Tommy doesn’t need to be here to think about the way Evan smiled at him before it all went down the drain. Before Tommy chose to protect himself instead of staying and waiting for the moment when Evan no longer wanted him.
Being in this parking spot means making another choice. He can go upstairs or say goodbye and move on. But Tommy already knows what he’s going to do, because there’s only one version where he comes out of this as a functioning human being.
He throws another look at Evan’s windows, starts the car and drives away.