Work Text:
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All your worries can be put to sleep
My heart, it would beat, beat
No need to step back
Don’t be scared, I got you, you know that
I’m here when you’re sad
When all of your clouds turn black
– Safe With Me, Sam Smith
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TK doesn’t really talk to the Los Angeles crew all that much; he gets a call every now and then from Buck or Hen, and apparently Marjan tries to keep up with Eddie; for the most part, though, their contact is restricted to Facebook notifications and Instagram comment sections.
Every couple of months they’ll have the chance to video chat, sometimes even from the firehouse, so that everybody gets the chance to say hello; in the three years since the wildfires, a lot has happened on both ends of the line, and they always enjoy the catch-ups. TK looks back fondly on the call when Buck introduced them all to his boyfriend, Tommy; all he kept saying was that he’d called it, and how glad he was that Buck had found someone like that.
They don’t really plan their calls, in honesty; there’s usually a text five or ten minutes before asking if it’s a good time, but it’s not uncommon for the phone to ring while TK’s lounging on the bunks, or drinking coffee from one of Owen’s tiny fancy cups, and the 126 gather around to say hello.
He’s playing MarioKart with Mateo, Marjan watching on and whooping whenever one of them takes the lead; he doesn’t even notice his phone humming until Paul takes a glance at the screen. “TK, man, your phone’s ringing. It’s Buck”
Mateo groans when TK pauses the game, flopping back against the cushions, but everyone else gathers onto the couch, crowded into the miniscule frame of the screen; Marjan tugs Paul down into the left side of the frame, and Judd tucks in at the back, Owen wandering over from where he’s been doing incident reports at the kitchen counter. Nancy sits to TK’s right – she hasn’t met anyone from the 118 in person, but they’ve called enough that she knows them and wants to say hello.
TK ignores the tight squeeze, swiping his thumb across the answer button. “Hey, Buck, how are you doing, man? You at the station?”
The background is unfamiliar; but then again, TK’s never seen the 118 firehouse on the inside, and the crew is usually stationed in the kitchen when they call. The other thing that catches his eye, though, is the white tshirt spreading broad across Buck’s shoulders; because if he was working, he’d be wearing the blue collar, or at the very least a department tee.
So TK pulls himself out of the pile and moves across the room, standing with the phone turned away from the rest of the group. “Is everything okay up there?”
“Not really,” Buck’s tone is coarse with poor internet, but something harsher, too; and it makes TK’s blood run just a little cold, because he’s seen enough pain in his lifetime, in his work and in his personal life, to know the sound of it; to hear it in the lilting, weighty tone of Buck’s voice and the way his words seem so choked. “There was an accident. Have you seen the video of the firefighter from the high-rise collapse up here?”
“Uh,” TK’s eyes run over the crew, and they give a sort of collective shrug. It would be funny, if it weren’t for the furrow in every brow, the concern that apparently is creeping not only up his own spine, but all of theirs, too. “No, I hadn’t. Are they okay?”
Buck coughs out something like a laugh, but it’s brittle and dry. “No, no, he didn’t make it. It’s, uh. It was Eddie.”
TK feels himself freeze; he knows, in this situation, he should say something; but he isn’t sure what he could offer, what kind of tone or what words or what, even, he should feel. Because he only met Eddie once, but under those conditions? In that moment, when it was life or death for Owen and for Hen, Eddie stepped right up. He pulled in with the 126, no questions asked, and he did everything that was needed to get people out safe. To get them out alive.
Watching someone you love being rescued by the pure grit of somebody else is a different sort of experience; there’s a respect that TK has for anyone who’s had to bear the weight of the military and that of the fire service, but it was multiplied by billions because of the way Eddie threw himself into his work, the way every minute and every ounce of effort counted so much. Eddie is the sort of person who puts it all aside in that moment and goes full-fledge sprint, for as long as it takes to help someone, to save them, to keep them comfortable enough to move on; whatever the task, he was so entirely ready to fulfil it, and TK’s certain that was the difference between Owen surviving that day in the hill country.
Eddie’s the sort of person who’s urge to help others is so entirely strong, it becomes a gravitational pull in itself; it becomes the tugging need to do better, to be better, to pour every ounce that you have into whatever you do, for your own sake or that of everyone around you. He’s so brilliantly committed to helping everyone that it makes you feel that same dedication.
Or, TK corrects himself, he was. Eddie was that sort of person.
“Hey, Buck,” Owen leans up off the couch, circling the group and leaning his face into frame over TK’s shoulder. “We’re all really sorry for your loss. Is there anything we can do, for you or for Eddie’s kid?”
Buck lets out a tiny noise somewhere between a scoff and a whimper; “I don’t think anyone can do much for Christopher right now, to be honest. He’s old enough to understand but not old enough to deal with it, you know? But, uh. I mean, they haven’t used Eddie’s name in the press yet, but it happened yesterday morning and the video’s already everywhere, so I wanted to give a ring and make sure you guys didn’t just find out from the internet.”
“Thank you,” Paul says clearly from the couch, TK flipping the camera to show him on Buck’s screen. “For thinking of us. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you right now.”
“Well, I’ve got Tommy. Um, also, it would be brilliant if any of you could come up for the funeral, though? I dunno, we’re doing a full line of duty. I guess they can’t give a whole team time off, I shouldn’t have asked–”
“We’ll work it out.” Owen says, finality flooding his tone. Buck doesn’t need to worry about any of that, not right now; it’s something that can be handled later on, and thanks to his reputation amidst the tragedies of both his station in New York and the 126 here in Austin, Owen’s got the upper hand in terms of negotiating time for his team with the battalion chief.
“Uh, TK, could I talk to you for a sec,” Buck’s tone rings out tinny from the phone, and TK flips the camera back toward his own face, nodding with a creased brow; Buck’s voice is thick with severity. “Privately?”
“Yeah, of course.” TK nods a brief goodbye to the others, feeling the way his footsteps echo on the polished floors as he leaves the kitchen. The timber of the staircase seems to bend under his feet, but it’s all in his head; anger is burning under his skin, and he feels somewhat dizzy.
Maybe it’s because he has a comment from Eddie sitting under his latest Instagram post that he hasn’t gotten around to replying to, or that the video he sent on Snapchat is still on delivered, but there’s something about this all that makes TK feel cheated. Like he didn’t get the chance to really ever know Eddie, because of the time zones and the work and the fourteen-hundred miles between them; he feels cheated out of a friendship that barely had the chance to exist, and the taste of that is bitter in his throat.
The bunkroom is thankfully empty, and TK perches himself on the mattress furthest from the doorway; he clears his throat and grabs a bottle of water from the shelf at the end of the room, setting the phone up against the headboard and twisting open the cap. “Okay, I’m alone. How are you holding up?”
“I’m shit, man. But, um.” Buck waves away both the question and the answer, clearing his throat and looking out of the frame before his eyes fall back to the screen. “You lost your mom two years ago, right?”
TK’s taken aback by the question; it’s blunt, and it’s odd, and it takes a minute for him to link the dots. “Is this about Christopher?”
“Yeah, he, um. I’ve got custody, at Eddie’s request. It was in the will and stuff, I knew it was happening, so did Tommy, but…” His tone drifts into implication, and TK raises a brow at the camera, waiting for Buck to solidify what he’s thinking into fact. “Eddie apparently hadn’t told Christopher, or his family. We might have a custody battle on our hands, but I know that Eddie wanted his kid with me, and I know that Chris wants that, too. But, um, I was just wondering… because, I mean, Christopher’s mom died nearly six years ago now, and he was only a kid. What, like. What do I say?”
TK runs a hand across his jaw, blowing out a long sigh. “Look, Buck, I’m going to be honest here. Nothing you say can fix this, not really, ‘cause Eddie’s gone. And teenagers are more aware than you think, so Christopher understands. He knows that you can’t bring Eddie back. All you can do, now, is exactly what Eddie would do.”
“Which is?” Buck’s brow creases desperately.
“Keep your head up, look after the kid. Do your goddamned best.” Tyler shrugs, and the klaxons sound loudly throughout the firehouse. “Fuck, I’ve gotta go. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m off-shift. I’m so sorry, give everyone at the 118 my love.”
“‘Course,” Buck nods, and TK presses the red button at the bottom of the screen; it feels as though it burns under his fingertip, though, and the weight of everything sits deep in his chest, flaming and heavy like fire in his lungs even as he leaves the bunkroom.
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“Hey, baby,” TK calls out when he swings the front door open late in the evening; he ducked out to a meeting, after his shift; everything happening in LA is taking its toll, and he just needed that time to go through things and set his head right before he made any drastic mistakes.
The loft is dimly lit by the lamp in the corner of the living room, Carlos curled on the couch under a knit blanket with his glasses on reading a novel, curly hair falling into his eyes. “Hey, Tyler. Dinner’s ready whenever you are, I’ve just gotta take off the foil.”
TK lets out a grateful sigh, dropping his work bag by the door and wandering over to the couch, pressing a warm kiss to Carlos’ head and sinking into the hand that he brings to TK’s arm, his touch warm and gentle against the skin. “I might have a quick shower if that’s alright.”
“No problem,” Carlos waves his novel. “Good book, no rush.”
He cranks the hot water right up, and it feels as though it’s scalding him; but it doesn’t feel hot enough, somehow. It’s sort of hard to feel, through the blur around his head; even past the shower, TK can hear the rain slamming against the windows, loud enough that it surely must be sleet. Austin’s freezing, this time of year, and TK hates the cold February weather; the thaw of the spring is hardly enough to combat the last of the winter storms, and the chilly winds have done very little to soothe his upset today. The cold weather always has him on edge. TK thinks he must spend at least an hour in the shower, and it’s only as he steps out that he thanks the universe for electric hot water – which is oddly specific, he realises, but it doesn’t matter, ultimately.
Carlos is tugging foil off of two plates when TK emerges, wet hair mussed and clad in a black cardigan over a white t-shirt and black sweats, a pair of Carlos’ fuzzy socks on his feet. “What are we having?”
“Uh,” Carlos scrunches the foil into a ball, tossing it into the recycling. “Ordered from that place you used to get it with your mom. I just figured that you could use a pick-me-up, is all.”
No, dim sum and his husband will never fix this; the loss of a friend, even one he didn’t have the chance to know all that well, is insurmountable. But there’s a certain warmth, not just in the food itself, but in the familiarity of the meal; it’s comforting, too, to know that Carlos has his back on this one, that he’ll look after him through this moment, through this grief, through however long it takes for him to recover even remotely from this loss.
“Baby,” TK says, willing the words of gratitude to flow off his tongue; but he can’t seem to find enough, to describe this moment, to describe what it means to him. He’s lucky, though, in that his husband knows him so well; because Carlos just gives a tiny nod and a solemn, understanding look, and he rounds the counter to press a kiss to the corner of TK’s jaw, handing him a bowl of dim sum and noodles and murmuring a quiet love you in his ear. And somehow, with everything that’s happened and all the upset yet to come, it’s exactly what TK needed.