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The sudden blaring of You’re All I Need To Get By from his phone makes him jump, almost spilling the coffee he’d just made. Tommy’s not usually a jumpy guy, but there’s only one person that ring tone belongs to and he hasn’t heard it in over a year.
He sets his coffee down but doesn’t answer it. Just watches his phone light up and listens as the song continues until it cuts off eventually.
It’s silent for a moment. Tommy holds his breath. This feels like a precipice he’s not sure he wants to even look over the edge of.
But when the song starts again, Marvin Gaye has barely uttered the first lyrics before he snatches up the phone to answer it. Even in his hand, though, he considers ignoring it, just go about his day without getting involved in whatever’s happening now. He moved past this already.
“Evan?”
“Yeah, hi,” Evan replies.
Evan doesn’t say anything after that and Tommy doesn’t either. He hasn’t heard from Evan since the funeral. He figured anything he had to say or could have said has passed the date of expiration. Doesn’t matter now.
“Uh, I, um, I need your help.”
Tommy will give him some credit. At least he sounds sheepish, calling Tommy once again to ask for his help.
Because that’s what Tommy does. He helps. He doesn’t mind it, honestly. He likes feeling needed, being helpful. That’s why he’s in his job anyway.
And there’s no one he’d rather be there for than Evan.
He rolls his eyes at himself. It didn’t take him long to get there.
But Tommy’s been learning boundaries. How to say no. It’s what his therapist suggested after the whole stealing-municipal-property-again situation happened. Tommy argues that one did actually require him to steal the municipal property considering the whole bioweapon on the loose thing. The first time, okay, maybe he was a little quick to say to flying into a hurricane. But who doesn’t want to fly into a hurricane at least once?
It’s more about who he says yes to, and why, his therapist loves to point out. No, he didn’t know Evan yet during the hurricane thing, but he did just admit to his therapist that he waned to fly into a hurricane, which no sane person would want to do. The second time, well, lives were at stake. And a sense of owing these people something rises to the surface. A need to be useful as a way to repay for whatever came before.
Even if he helped save the city from a bioweapon, those other feelings still existed.
So, he’s in an era of boundary setting.
Which is why he responds, “What’s up?” Instead of immediately shutting Evan down.
“The 118 is under review with an internal affairs committee. They need character witnesses. I was wondering if you’d be willing to be one?”
It’s not the knowledge that the 118 is in trouble again that makes Tommy stand from his seat on his kitchen bar and start pacing. They were bound to answer to internal affairs at some point, whether fair or not.
No, it’s the way Evan says the 118 like he’s not a part of it that tips him off. And against his therapist’s better judgement, he asks “Are you okay?”
Because Evan sounds tired. Weird. He wonders if the anniversary of Bobby’s death has anything to do with it. He should have reached out about that at least. But, boundaries.
Evan sighs. In the background, he hears a squeal and chatter of little kids. He must be at Maddie’s, even though it’s still early in the day.
“Not really.”
The honesty shocks him, if he’s being honest. They’re a year and some change removed from their last interaction and Evan’s walls are down quicker in a just a few exchanges of words.
That’s when the worry truly settles in. He’s always running off to help the 118. And he supposes he’ll do it again, although how good of a character witness could be? He’s on record for having stolen two helicopters. But Evan knows that.
“We should probably meet up, so you can tell me everything I need to know, what kinds of things I should say to the committee,” Tommy suggests.
“Can I come over?”
Tommy thinks of the kids he heard in the background, probably Jee and the new one, god he doesn’t even know the name, and how it would make more sense, probably, for him to go over to Maddie’s so he could talk with Evan and Chimney. But if Evan is asking to come over …?
Fuck boundaries. He needs a new therapist anyway.
“Yeah, you can come over.”
Evan gives a small thanks, says he’s on his way, and hangs up.
Tommy turns to his record and puts on the song again, and waits to discover wherever this next round takes them.