#i just wanted to write tommy and chimney having a heart-to-heart! sue me!

[pluto-rainstorm]

Little bucktommy / madney ficlet cause I remembered that I'm a fic writer!

After dinner at Maddie and Chim's house, Tommy and Chimney have a heart-to-heart

‐-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The hum of music filled the air, emitting a soft atmosphere in the Buckley-Han house. The low lighting of the lamps made the kitchen-dining area warm and homey.

Plates clacked against each other as the Buckley siblings worked together to clear everything off the table, their quiet conversation was carried all the way to the kitchen sink where they moved in years of practice motion.

Both Tommy and Chimney were left at the table, nursing their drinks in their hands and watching their respective Buckley's. Chim then whipped his head round to look at Tommy, a burning question he's had for weeks now was bubbling up and this was his opportunity to ask away.

"I'm sorry, I just gotta ask, so you've been gay this whole time?" Chimney burst and broke the silence that had previously settled over them.

"Um... yes?" Tommy raised his eyebrows and torn his eyes away from Buck to give Chimney a questioning look.

"What about that girlfriend you had when you were at the 118, the one Gerrard always wanted to come make us dinner?" It's been eating at him ever since he saw that smudged soot all over Buck's face at his and Maddie's wedding.

Tommy laughed, clearly amused by this conversation. He hadn't imagined for a conversation like this one for desert, they just finished dinner.

"I'm guessing you never caught on to the fact that whenever he asked me what day she was coming," he gave him a pointed look "the day would always change."

That's when it hit Chim, all the talk of Tommy having a girlfriend back then but never actually seeing her? Tommy saying single is better? Not understanding the Kristen Stewart hype? It all made sense!

"Oh my god... how did I not notice that we never actually met her!"

Tommy just laughed again, one thing he loved about telling the truth to old friends he knew wouldn't judge him was their reactions to the little details. It made him feel seen in a way.

"Yeah, I made her up," he scratched the back of his neck and scrunched his nose, "well, she was my ex, but we broke up years before and I just didn't tell anyone."

"Why?" Chim said, he just wanted to understand his old colleague turned long time friend.

He shrugged, "It was easier to hide that way, and no one seemed to care when she didn't show up, we were always too busy," he lifted his drink and emptied the last bit before continuing, "that speech that Hen gave really put things into perspective for me, so I put in that complaint about Gerrard, I wanted to do something for others for once instead of just protecting myself from him or anyone else from the boys club we had going on."

Tommy put the glass on the table and looked up to spy on Buck and Maddie animatedly speaking to one another as they leant against the kitchen island, "All of that was also the reason why I was such a douchbag."

Chimney huffed an airy laugh, his eyes followed to where Tommy was looking, "Ay, you weren't that bad." He said sincerely.

"I could've been nicer." He felt ashamed, the guilt form someone he used to be, he turned to smile tightly at Chim.

"You were though," Chim waved his hand around, his eyes met Tommy's, "I mean eventually, and you hung out with me and Hen a lot after too, you're our friend tommy."

They shared a smile.

Tommy had a lot of time to dwell over his past crappy actions for years, and after everything he managed to make a friend for life in Chim, which still baffled him. Chimney just had a heart of gold and he admired that.

"Ya'know, I've known I was gay since I was a kid, I always had that feeling and all I did was push it down and away, far from who I wanted to be," his eyes drift back over to Buck as he laughs at whatever silly thing his sister just said, "and then Hen did her speech and I thought, maybe I just need do accept it, it did take me a while though, I mean we're talking about unravelling years upon years of hiding within lies here, moving to Harbour was my fresh start where I didn't have to tell those lies anymore cause no one knew the past me."

He smiled, "It felt really good."

"I'm proud of you, man" Chimney clapped him on his shoulder, his smile contagious.

Maddie and Buck chose that moment to walk back to their seats, more drinks in their hands.

"What are you two talking about?" Buck questioned as he sat in his chair next to Tommy. He passed him a beer.

"Just reminiscing." Tommy reached out and rubbed a hand along Buck's arm.

The smiles didn't leave their faces.

"Aw, how sweet!" Maddie chimed and leant against her husband.

Life was pretty good for Tommy and Chimney, they had their Buckley's and that's what really mattered.

[chronicowboy]

but when i tried to love him i loved at the wrong time

this is a two for one spec inspired by this post and my long lost love trapped dads

any complaints about this fic can and should be directed to @evankinard who bullied me into writing this for her after i ruined her day with a single dm. love you bby <3

Eddie breaks apart a little the moment Buck disappears from view, lets himself feel the wound in his side as an excuse not to feel the big unwieldy thing unfolding in his chest like a colonising panic. He hadn't wanted to leave him, not after half an hour trapped in that smoky room clinging to each other to ground themselves in the reality they were trapped in, but Buck had made several stubborn and convincing arguments about Christopher before announcing he wouldn't move if Eddie didn't. Eddie had tried, had tried to get Buck out first, Buck who had just found happiness with—with Tommy, Buck who has always deserved to live. But Hen and Chim had come in with the clinical wisdom of paramedics and said a rebar through the abdomen was always going to take priority over a fractured leg.

Now, Eddie is rolled out of a collapsing building, leaving behind Buck—a bird with a broken wing, incapable of moving.

God, the noises Buck had made when he'd dragged himself over to Eddie's side. They'll be haunting him for years, for whatever lifetime he has left. Worse somehow than the first time with an entire engine on top of him. Except this time, Eddie couldn't hold his hand. Not now, but not before either because... Because that was someone else's job now. And like a laugh from the universe, Tommy appears just as Eddie reaches down to put the brakes on the gurney before Hen and Chim can get him into the ambulance.

"Kinard?" Bobby greets him with a grim-faced nod. "What are you doing here?"

"Heard you might need an assist from air support." He shrugs, but the breathlessness in the voice and the way his eyes keep jumping around the gathered 118 like he's only counting the one man not there reveals his nonchalance as the act it is. "Thought I'd swing by."

"Isn't that a conflict of interest?" Chimney asks.

"Fine, so I stole a helicopter again. Sue me for wanting to offer a hand." Tommy's face draws as soon as he stops speaking, and he glances back at the building waiting to swallow Eddie's heart whole. "How is he?"

"Holding in there," Eddie answers, voice tight enough to have Tommy really seeing him for the first time. "Think his bad leg is fractured."

"Shit," Tommy hisses, clenching his fists at his side.

"Yeah," Eddie breathes out. "Can't get himself out because of it. I wouldn't have left him, but—"

"He insisted," Tommy says, something entirely too knowing in his voice and his eyes. Eddie swallows thickly.

"And, well..." He gestures weakly to the rebar in his side, Buck's undershirt, now soaked through with Eddie's blood, wrapped around it as a makeshift bandage.

"Shit, Diaz." Tommy grimaces. "Shouldn't you be getting to the hospital?"

"He's refusing care until Buck is out too," Hen deadpans, pressing a new pad of gauze to his wound a little too firmly for it not to be intentional. Eddie just grits his teeth.

"Of course he is," Tommy murmurs. Eddie is too much of a coward to face up to whatever expression is on Tommy's face when he says it, so instead he focuses on the Incident Commander approaching Bobby.

"Site's been deemed too unstable," he announces. "No more personnel are to enter until we've found a way to stabilise it."

"My..." Bobby calms himself when his voice comes out in a growl. "My man is in there."

"And sending another man in there would be a suicide mission." The Incident Commander grimaces apologetically. "Sorry, Captain. That's an order."

Bobby turns his gaze back to the building, something so tightly drawn in him that it makes Eddie hurt all the worse. He knows without a shadow of a doubt what Bobby's thinking. He can't lose another son to a burning building.

And here, maybe this would be where Eddie runs back into the building and drags Buck out all on his own, maybe this would be where he finally gets to repay the favour for the gravel burn on his back, maybe this is where he'd get to redeem himself from the helplessness he'd felt just lowering Buck down to the ground. Except. There's a rebar in his side. Even with the adrenaline, even with the love... Eddie doesn't think he'd make it three steps before falling to his knees—a prayer in and of itself.

Instead, Eddie turns to look at Tommy. Tommy who is already looking at him, something determined and understanding and loving trapped behind the wildness of his eyes. A beat passes between them, silence saying more than they ever could.

"Bring him back to—" Me. But. Not to me.

Because that's not Eddie's place anymore. Eddie doesn't get to ask that of Buck's boyfriend. Eddie doesn't get to ask that at all. He's no longer the person that will be shaking Buck's pain pills into his hand and fetching him a bottle of water. He's no longer the person that will be wrapping Buck's cast in a bin bag for a shower and listening to him lament about the indignity of it. He's no longer the person that will be pulling Buck out of bed on his worst days to remind him that he's real and valued and loved. No, that's not his job anymore. But, fuck, Tommy's the only better man for the job.

"Bring him back to us," Eddie tells him then, and it feels like he's finally let go of the baton in the relay race, sure Tommy's got a hold of it now. And Tommy looks as wrongfooted by this as Eddie feels, but he nods anyway and grabs Eddie's discarded helmet from his lap, strapping it on.

"Kinard, no one goes in," Bobby warns him. "That's an order."

"You're not my captain anymore." Tommy only smiles and shrugs before sprinting towards the doors.

Bobby curses, but there's relief in it. Hen and Chim just watch him go with something hopeful on their faces. And Eddie. Eddie's eyes start to droop.

"Hey, hey, Eddie." Chim snaps his fingers in front of his face, jolting Eddie back into semi-consciousness.

"Eddie, we need to get you to a hospital," Hen says calmly, reaching for the brakes.

"Move me an inch and I rip this rebar out of my side," he says lowly.

"Jesus, anyone ever tell you you're a drama queen?" Chim huffs.

"Yeah." Eddie chokes on his next breath a little. "The man trapped in that building."

A solemn silence settles over them then. They redirect their attention to the doors Tommy had disappeared into, and Hen lays a grounding hand on his shoulder as they wait.

It's not long before Tommy comes stumbling out of the building, looking every bit the action hero Eddie has never gotten to be for Buck what with his soot-stained face and Buck himself slung over his shoulder, splinted leg bouncing against his sternum. Hen and Bobby spring into action immediately, racing to meet them. Chim just unlocks Eddie's gurney and loads him into the ambulance, raising him up just enough to catch a perfect view of Tommy lowering Buck onto his own stretcher with a kiss to his forehead. The ambulance doors close, Chim knocks twice, the sirens begin to whine, and they lurch into motion.

"Did you draw the drama queen straw?" Eddie asks to distract himself from the tenderness of Tommy's kiss.

"Higher ups are a little more serious about conflicts of interest now Buck is officially my brother-in-law," Chim mumbles as he works on getting Eddie's IV in. "But also I'm better acquainted with rebars than Hen, so..."

Eddie huffs a weak laugh as his eyes drift to the ceiling, the clean white of it stinging his eyes.

"Chim?"

"Yeah?"

"Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone, right?" he chokes out. He doesn't take his eyes off the ceiling, but the sudden silence in the ambulance is as deafening as the siren overhead.

"No," Chim says eventually. "No, it's not."

"But what happens if the person you love..." Here, his voice breaks. An almighty crack right through the middle. It sounds like the building behind them just came crumbling down in his throat. "What happens if someone told them first?" He turns to face Chim's wide eyes. "Should you still tell them?"

"I-I don't know..." Chim opens his mouth a few times, a fish out of water, before he makes a decision. He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. "But what I do know is." He clears his throat. "If you let a wound like that fester... It'll kill you, Eddie."

"Yeah." Eddie lets his eyes fall shut.

I can feel it already.