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Buck is used to travelling. He likes it, most of the time. And he’s definitely looking forward to landing in Sydney - there may not be much time for sightseeing, but he’s determined to enjoy every moment he gets. It’s been years since he’s had a chance to go full-tourist, after all.
But even he can’t pretend to be enthused about spending fifteen hours seated next to a stranger in economy on a cramped Boeing 787, surviving on substandard aeroplane food and the same stale air that’s being breathed in by 245 other passengers.
At least he’s on an aisle seat, though. It affords him a little extra leg room. And he’s promised Maddie that he’ll be up and walking around every hour that he’s awake to prevent blood clots from forming, and he really does intend to stick to his word, so he’s glad he won’t be bothering any other passengers when he does so.
He smiles awkwardly at the guy he’ll be sitting next to, a slightly older looking, very buff, and not-at-all unattractive firefighter, double checking he has the number right before taking a seat. ‘Hey man,’ he says politely, putting his backpack on his lap and unzipping it so he can pull out his phone charger and headphone adapter.
‘Hey,’ the other guy says. He smiles warmly, the tip of his nose scrunching up a little, and there’s just…something about it. Something that he can’t quite place. He looks so genuine, like he’s actually happy to see Buck, a random firefighter in a sea of firefighters, instead of just being polite, and it’s a little bit contagious, and a little bit mesmerising.
Buck figures it wouldn’t hurt to get to know this guy. At the very least, they’ll be sitting next to each other for the next fifteen hours. If they’re lucky, they might even be out fighting wildfires together once they land in Sydney.
So he holds out a hand, his elbow awkwardly nudging the backpack he hasn’t zipped back up again.
The guy grabs it and shakes it firmly. ‘Tommy Kinard,’ he says. ‘I’m with the 217.’ He smiles again, and Buck catches a glimpse of some laughter lines around his eyes.
‘Uh - Evan,’ Buck replies. ‘I - I’m with the 118.’
Tommy raises an eyebrow. ‘No way,’ he says. ‘I was with the 118 until about six years ago.’
Six years ago? They must have just missed each other. Buck wonders whether the name is familiar, or whether he’s just imagining it.
‘Do you know Howie?’ Tommy continues. ‘We go way back. I helped him out on a call back in 2019.’
‘Doheny Park,’ Buck remembers, all at once. ‘You saved all our asses.’ He closes his backpack and puts it in the overhead compartment, then sits back down again, grabbing his phone. ‘Hey, we should take a picture to send to Chim.’
He leans in to Tommy, holding his phone out and up to get a good angle. He considers pulling a face but decides just to smile instead. You never know when something might wind up online nowadays. Next to him, Tommy does finger-guns at the camera, and from anyone else that would look woefully uncool, but somehow, Tommy pulls it off.
He’s already put his phone on aeroplane mode so he doesn’t forget, but he’s still connected to the wifi, so he quickly sends the picture to Chim, then follows it up with a text. Guess who I ran into on the flight?
Chim, like the rest of the 118, has opted to stay in LA rather than travel to Sydney, and as much as he misses the company, Buck is glad that someone’s there with Maddie, even if he knows that she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
‘So I take it no one else from the 118 is joining us?’ Tommy asks.
Buck shakes his head. ‘They’ve all got families to be with, kids to take care of, the usual.’ He shrugs it off. He gets why none of them were able to travel to Australia just days after Christmas, so it only stings, like, the tiniest bit.
‘Howie too, right?’ asks Tommy. ‘I heard he got engaged.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Buck replies, pulling up a picture of Maddie, Chim, and Jee on the phone. ‘This is Maddie - she’s my sister. And their kid, Jee-Yun.’
Tommy frowns a little, then blinks. ‘Maddie…’ he says slowly. ‘Wait - you’re Buck? Fire engine Buck?’
‘Fire engine Buck?’ Buck asks.
He’s a firefighter - fire engines are kind of his thing.
He sees Tommy realise this and laugh at himself. ‘Yeah, that was vague. I should have said ‘Fire engine thief Buck’. The guy who replaced me and got fired within months, right?’
He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Of course Chim would have told Tommy about that. ‘I-I’m not really like that anymore,’ he says. ‘That was Buck 1.0, and - and I’m on, like, Buck 4.0 now, so I’m a completely different person.’
‘Your programmer’s been busy,’ Tommy says, before laughing at his own joke. ‘You can relax, kid. I’ve made too many questionable decisions in my past to judge anyone else.’
Buck tilts his head. ‘Like what?’ he asks. Maybe he’s prying, but he wants to know more about this guy.
Tommy looks surprised. ‘Howie didn’t tell you?’ Buck shook his head, so Tommy continued. ‘When we worked under Captain Gerrard, the 118 was a pretty regressive place. And I was definitely a part of that.’ He grimaces. ‘I’m not proud of it.’
Buck’s heard about Gerrard. He’s pretty sure he’s either retired or dead, now, and it sounds like the world’s a better place for it. Chim and Hen certainly didn’t have any kind words to spare for him. But on the rare occasions that Tommy’s come up in conversation, there’s never been anything bad said about him. And obviously Chim’s still in touch with him, at least to some extent.
‘So maybe you’re Tommy 2.0,’ Buck says.
Tommy laughs. ‘I’m verging on forty, kid. I’m probably up to Tommy 7.0 by now.’
‘And is Gerrard the reason you left?’ Buck asks him.
Tommy shrugs. ‘Partly. He’d been gone for ages before I applied for transfer, but I still never felt like I could really be myself there.’ Buck finds that hard to imagine - working for the 118 was the first time he felt like he’d really found himself to begin with - but maybe Gerrard had cast a larger shadow than he’d realised. ‘But mostly it was because I wanted to get work as a pilot.’
Buck’s gaping. He realises he’s gaping but he can’t stop. ‘You’re a pilot?’ he asks. That’s really cool. Kind of annoyingly cool, to be honest, but Buck’s trying to work on his competitive streak. Not always succeeding, but trying nonetheless.
Tommy chuckles. ‘Firefighter pilot,’ he says. ‘I used to fly for the army.’ He starts to say something else, but he’s interrupted by the in-flight speakers as the plane begins slowly moving.
At the sound of the captain’s voice, Buck realises he’s forgotten to put his seatbelt yet, so he buckles it up while listening to the announcement. He doesn’t pay much attention - he’s heard it all before - and Tommy looks similarly disinterested.
He can’t help but laugh, though, when the flight attendant starts telling them how to apply their oxygen masks. He knows that it’s a legal requirement and all, and that most of the people on the plane are civilians, but still…
Tommy looks at him quizzically.
‘They’re telling a plane with a bunch of firefighters on it how to apply an oxygen mask,’ he explains.
Tommy smirks, shaking his head. ‘Think they’ll tell us where the emergency exits are, next?’ he whispers back, his face solemn. Buck breathes out a laugh. He’s well aware he’s not the only one who would have looked for the emergency exits as soon as he boarded the plane.
He tries to think of a funny response, and luckily, something occurs to him. ‘You think they’re asking the people in the emergency exit rows if they’re willing and able to assist in case of an emergency?’
Tommy’s deadpan veneer cracks at that, and he lets out a chuckle loud enough to get some curious looks from the people around them. Buck sinks back into his seat like a schoolboy who’s just been reprimanded.
Tommy nudges him and shows him his phone. There’s a message from Chim under it. Make sure he doesn’t go full Buck. ‘What does ‘full Buck’ mean?’.
Without thinking, Buck grabs Tommy’s phone, and sends Chim a choice emoji. Tommy raises an eyebrow, and Buck gives him back his phone sheepishly just as the flight attendant concludes the safety presentation.
‘I - uh - sometimes I get a bit - a bit lost in the moment,’ he tries to explain, inwardly cursing Chim for making him have to defend himself already. ‘You know, take risks and stuff. But it - it’s always for a good cause and I swear I’m really good at this job.’ He’s worried that Tommy won’t trust him, won’t want to fight alongside him - if they even end up working together, which is a big ‘if’ already - so he feels a need to reassure him.
‘I believe you,’ Tommy says, and when Buck frowns, trying to figure out why Tommy isn’t suspicious, he shrugs. ‘You haven’t died yet.’
Buck laughs shakily. ‘That’s true.’
His life has been close call after close call - fire engines and pulmonary embolisms and tsunamis, lightning strikes and bridge collapses and even bread, of all fucking things. But he’s still here.
The plane continues to edge forwards towards the runway and around them, people go back to their screens and their conversations while the flight attendants start to go from seat to seat, making sure that everyone is ready for take-off.
There’s a lull in their conversation as the plane starts to gather speed, and at first Buck thinks it’s only natural, that Tommy probably doesn’t want to have to make small-talk with a friend of Chim’s for the whole trip, and tries to tell himself that he isn’t at all disappointed by that. Then he notices that Tommy is gripping the arm-rests tightly, his posture honestly too perfect, as if he’s a marble statue of an ancient Greek hero - maybe Herakles, or Achilles.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
Tommy grunts. ‘I’ll be a lot more okay when my feet are on the ground in Sydney.’
Oh. ‘A pilot who’s afraid of flying?’ Buck blurts out.
He can practically imagine the death glare. Instead, though, Tommy just closes his eyes. ‘I’m not afraid. I just prefer it when I’m the one in the cockpit.’
Buck holds back a laugh. He can empathise with that, after all. If someone he loves was trapped in a burning building, he wouldn’t trust anyone but himself and the 118 to bring them out.
‘It’ll be over before you know it,’ he says, trying to be reassuring.
‘It’s a fifteen hour flight, Evan,’ Tommy says. His voice is flat, his eyes still closed tightly.
‘Yeah, but the most dangerous parts of flying are take-off and landing,’ he says. Tommy’s a pilot; he definitely already knows this. But Buck figures it couldn’t hurt for him to hear it again anyway.
‘And taxiing,’ Tommy adds, and Buck files that information away for later. He hadn’t known about that.
‘Okay, and taxiing,’ Buck says. ‘And so once we’re in the air it should…uh’ - Tommy opens his eyes and looks right at him as he’s talking, and Buck’s momentarily distracted. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because the blue of his irises is more piercing than he’d initially realised. Or because of the softness in them, a vulnerability that he’s willing to let Buck see. ‘It should be smooth sailing for ages,’ he finishes, his voice quieter than when he started.
The plane is going faster now, so fast that it feels like it can’t still be on the ground, even though Buck knows they definitely haven’t lifted off yet.
Buck’s never been afraid of flying before. He’s got quite an unhealthy lack of fear about most things, to be honest. But he’s starting to wonder if Tommy's fear is contagious. Because as the plane tilts backwards and they finally leave the ground, all he can feel is the way his heart is hammering in his chest; the way his stomach swoops with anxious anticipation; the restless energy thrumming through him.
He keeps his eyes on Tommy, trying to make his gaze reassuring, and hopes the other man can’t tell that he’s apparently a freshly-minted hypocrite with a newfound fear of aeroplanes.
‘Fifteen hours that I can spend dreading the landing,’ Tommy says.
‘And eating aeroplane food,’ Buck teases, trying to keep his breath steady. ‘Don’t forget the aeroplane food.’
‘Great, my last meal will be aeroplane food,’ Tommy says. But a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, and soon Buck is smiling too, and it seems to start some kind of positive feedback loop between them.
As the plane begins to turn, Buck looks out across Tommy and the firefighter seated next to him, a woman who has been asleep since before Buck arrived, and gets a glimpse of the outside world through the cabin window. He always loves watching the world turn into miniature, seeing his city from a different view. He briefly thinks of Taylor, who used to fly above LA and see the traffic mapped out in front of her, and wonders how she ever gave that up. Maybe it gets boring eventually, though.
‘Do you ever get sick of it?’ he asks Tommy.
Tommy shakes his head. ‘Used to it, but never sick of it,’ he replies. ‘How could you?’
Too soon, the view disappears and all Buck can see is clouds, the kind of fluffy, bright white clouds that look exactly like cotton candy without all of the food colouring, rolling out underneath them as far as he can see.
‘43 000 feet,’ Tommy says, looking back at Buck.
Buck knows that helicopters tend to travel a lot lower, but he doesn’t really know how 43 000 feet compares to other planes. ‘Is that high?’ he asks.
‘About as high as a commercial plane can get.’ Tommy shrugs nonchalantly, though, in contrast to his words. ‘I flew a Lockheed U-2, once. It flies at 70 000 feet.’ Buck lets out a low whistle. He can’t even comprehend the idea of flying almost twice as high as they are now - and he isn’t the one in the pilot’s seat.
He feels that little pull in him, the jealousy or competitiveness or something that makes him need to show off and impress. He swallows it down, if only because he can’t think of a way to work any of the cool things he’s done into the conversation. Yet. ‘I guess a chopper at 12 000 feet feels like nothing compared to that, right?’
‘You’d think,’ Tommy says. ‘But flying a helicopter is way more work. Once you get a plane in the air, you basically get to just cruise along. But in a helicopter, you’ve got to concentrate the whole time.’
‘So we really have nothing to worry about now, then,’ Buck says, nodding towards the window.
Tommy arcs an eyebrow, missing nothing. ‘We?’
‘I - I mean you,’ Buck says, trying to find his cool; and if his voice is pitched a little lower, no one seems to notice. ‘Take off’s over, right?’
‘Right.’ Tommy nods. ‘Yeah, I guess we can relax for fourteen hours or so.’ He taps on the screen in front of him and pulls the cheap airline earphones out of their plastic packaging, and Buck wonders, yet again, if their conversation is coming to a natural end. But then Tommy holds out an earbud. ‘Wanna watch something together?’
Buck has brought an adapter with him, one he can plug into the aeroplane screens so that he can use his own headphones instead of the ones provided. But he can’t share headphones with Tommy. So he resigns himself to the tinny, low-volume, and definitely not noise-cancelling earbud that Tommy’s offering. ‘What are we watching?’
Tommy shrugs. ‘What kind of movies are you into?’
Buck hesitates. ‘Action?’ he suggests.
‘Why does that sound like a question?’ Tommy asks.
‘I don’t really do movies,’ Buck says. ‘Like, I’ll watch them with Chris sometimes, and I’ll go see some blockbusters with Eddie when they come out, but I’m just not, like, a movie guy.’
‘Who are Chris and Eddie?’ Tommy asks, and Buck realises he’s forgotten to add context.
‘Eddie’s at the 118 too. You’d probably really like him - he was also in the army, actually.’ Tommy smiles, and Buck wants to say something stupid like ‘but I’m really cool too,’ - but then, saying something like that would definitely indicate that he isn’t cool, which isn’t even true. ‘Christopher’s his kid.’
Tommy laughs. ‘Okay, so Chris and I probably have different taste in movies, then,’ he says. ‘But I can work with action. Fight Club’s one of my favourites.’
‘I haven’t seen it,’ Buck admits.
Tommy’s eyes widen comically. ‘Too busy watching Despicable Me?’ he teases.
Buck has watched Despicable Me with Chris, actually. And he quite likes it. Even if the whole minion thing has become a bit much now.
‘You sound like Chim,’ Buck groans. ‘I haven’t seen Pulp Fiction or the Terminator either, before you ask.’
‘Okay, so I’ll pick the movie,’ Tommy says, his face deadpan save for that one eyebrow of his that’s been getting quite a workout today.
Buck laughs but doesn’t object. He doesn’t really care what they watch, anyway.
‘How do you feel about heists?’ Tommy asks him.
Buck shrugs. ‘Fine, as long as I’m not being accused of participating in one.’
‘Have you been accused of participating in one?’ Tommy asks.
‘Only once,’ Buck says. Then notices his opportunity to show Tommy what he’s made of. ‘This bank manager poisoned himself and Hen with scorpion venom to fake an emergency and they got locked in a - an impenetrable vault.’ So what if he’s getting a little carried away with the story? No one has to know. ‘But I used a sledgehammer to make a hole in the back wall, and then backed up the firetruck to open it up.’ He pauses and waits for Tommy to murmur appreciatively, and Tommy obliges. It probably isn’t necessary to mention that the vault doors opened seconds later anyway. ‘Hen was okay and everything - but next thing we know, we were being interrogated because the police found $300 000 planted on our fire truck.’
Tommy’s eyebrows both fly up this time. ‘Who was the culprit?’
‘You ever meet Marty Collins?’ Buck asks.
It’s quite satisfying to watch Tommy’s jaw drop open, his mouth agape. ‘Not Marty,’ he says, aghast.
‘Afraid so,’ Buck says.
Tommy takes a minute to recover. ‘He always seemed so…’ his voice trails off, apparently not sure what to make of it all. Then his gaze returns to the screen. ‘So…heist movies are a yes?’ he clarifies.
Buck shrugs. ‘Why not?’
‘Alright,’ Tommy says, settling down into his seat. ‘We’re doing Ocean’s 8.’
‘Not Fight Club?’ Buck teases.
‘We’re not watching Fight Club on a plane, Evan,’ Tommy chastises, and even though he’s joking, Buck can hear the passion in his voice, too.
‘So where will we watch it. then?’ Buck asks.
For some reason, Tommy misses a beat before answering. ‘I’m sure we’ll find a cinema screening it somewhere in LA.’
‘Perfect,’ Buck says, before settling back into his own chair, waiting for Tommy to start the movie.
They’re thirty minutes into the movie before Buck decides it’s a good time to get up and walk around. He knows he needs to because of the potential clotting, but he also can feel a slight strain on his leg, a reminder of its potential to cramp or begin to ache if he doesn’t care for it. He pulls out his earbud. ‘I’m just gonna walk around for a minute,’ he tells Tommy. ‘Don’t worry about pausing it.’
The indignation on Tommy’s face is comical. ‘You might miss something important,’ he says.
Buck’s enjoying the movie well enough, but he doesn’t want Tommy to have to wait around for him. ‘You can catch me up,’ he says.
He wanders down the aisle to get his blood circulating properly, and as much as it’s a relief to stretch his legs, he’s pretty bored by it all. Everyone around him is either sleeping, watching a movie, or reading a book; there isn’t really anything to see or any conversations to listen in to. He walks past the bathrooms and little kitchenette where the flight attendants must prepare their food, before looping back around and making his way back to his seat.
Tommy’s on his phone when Buck gets back, playing a game or something. He looks up and smiles, before handing the earbud back to him.
Buck looks at the screen, realising that the film is still frozen on Anne Hathaway’s face. ‘You paused it?’
‘I told you,’ Tommy said. ‘I didn’t want you to miss anything important.’
Another hour or so passes, and the movie comes to an end. After keeping his promise to Maddie and going for another walk, Buck leans back in his chair and grabs the complimentary pillow out from under his seat, where he’d stashed it earlier. He doesn’t bother with the blanket, though. He always runs hot.
‘Trying to catch some sleep?’ Tommy asks him.
‘Yeah.’ Buck adjusts his chair so it leans back as much as possible without being a nuisance to whoever’s behind him. ‘You?
Tommy shakes his head. ‘I can never sleep while flying. I might listen to a podcast or something and shut my eyes for a bit.’
‘Yeah, apparently I can sleep anywhere,’ Buck says. He figures it comes from his years of travelling - couch surfing in share-houses or staying in youth hostels if he’s lucky, sleeping in the back of his car if he’s not. Besides, the fire station beds might be comfier than economy seats they’re currently stuck with, but Buck’s pretty used to falling asleep at the drop of a hat, and waking up just as quickly.
‘Lucky you,’ Tommy grumbles. Buck flashes him a grin before shutting his eyes.
Sleep doesn’t come immediately, and when it arrives it’s fitful and largely shallow, but it does come. He even manages to dream a little, in bits and pieces that he can’t really remember. There’s warmth there, though, and comfort.
It’s the combination of the ‘seatbelts on’ chime and some light turbulence that eventually wakes him up for good. His brain comes back on line slowly, as he registers a murmured conversation behind him, and the dryness of his throat. His head is resting on someone’s shoulder - Eddie’s, maybe, or Hen’s -
But no, they didn’t come on the plane with him -
He startles awake with a jolt when he realises where he is, and who’s shoulder he’s using as a pillow.
‘Shit, sorry man,’ he says, blinking blearily while adjusting to the light.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tommy says.
Buck’s eyes fall on the small wet patch on Tommy’s sleeve and he groans quietly. Of course he’d had to drool in his sleep.
‘No, but I - I -’ he scrambles for the right words. He wants to apologise again but doesn’t know exactly what to say.
But Tommy just smiles. ‘Evan. If I had a problem with it, I would’ve just pushed you off.’ He nudges Buck’s shoulder in demonstration.
Buck tilts his head down and scratches at a spot near his eye. ‘Yeah, I - I guess you could have.’ He squints with confusion. ‘Wait - why didn’t you?’
Tommy shrugs. ‘You seemed comfortable.’
‘Yeah, I guess I was,’ Buck says, and he can’t quite hide the awkwardness he feels from slipping into his voice. ‘Did you get any sleep?’
‘I dozed on and off for a few hours,’ Tommy answers.
Buck checks the time on the screen in front of him. He’d slept for seven hours. ‘Wow - wait, how long until we land?’
The arrival time is below the current time on his screen, but he’s not awake enough to attempt maths, particularly not any maths involving time zones.
‘Still about five hours,’ Tommy tells him.
Out of fifteen hours, five doesn’t sound so bad. ‘Okay, so that’s enough time for, like, two more movies, then,’ Buck says.
‘Got any suggestions?’ Tommy asks.
Buck stands up, squatting awkwardly so he doesn’t hit his head on the shelves above the seats on his way out. ‘Nah, you’re better at picking,’ he says. ‘Let me stretch my legs and I’ll be right back.’
Tommy does do a good job of picking the movie, and another one after that, and somehow breakfast is being served before Buck can even comprehend that nearly four hours has passed.
The food is about as appetising as Eddie’s first attempt at frittata - in fact, the scrambled eggs seem to be nearly as watery and rubbery, although they are admittedly less burned than Eddie’s handiwork had been. The bacon is round instead of in rashers, and not nearly as crispy as Buck likes it. The toast, at least, seems relatively unobjectionable, if somewhat bland.
‘God, I hate aeroplane food,’ Buck complains to Tommy as he forces himself to take his first bite.
‘What’s the deal with aeroplane food?’ Tommy asks.
And…look. Buck can tell that Tommy’s quoting something. But he doesn’t have a clue of who the impression is of.
Tommy raises his eyebrows at Buck’s blank face. ‘C’mon. You don’t know Seinfeld?’
‘I told you, I’m not a movie guy.’
Tommy lowers his chin; his face is sceptical. ‘It’s not from a movie. It’s a bit from - well I don’t know what it’s from, actually, but I’m pretty sure it’s a tv show.’
Buck shrugs. ‘I’m not a tv guy, either.’
‘Are you a ‘grew up in a cult and only escaped yesterday’ guy?’ Tommy asks. ‘Because that quote is about as ubiquitous as you can get. Ask anyone on this plane.’ He looks around, finds a mother bouncing a toddler in her lap several rows away. ‘Even that literal baby knows Seinfeld’s aeroplane bit.’
Buck can’t help but laugh at Tommy’s feigned outrage. ‘Well, does he explain what the deal is with aeroplane food?’
‘Does he explain - that’s not the point,’ Tommy says.
‘But surely it is the point,’ Buck teases. ‘Do you know what the deal is with aeroplane food?’
‘You mean, other than the fact that it’s mass produced, low budget, designed to be as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible, and served in little plastic containers?’ Tommy asks.
‘Yes, other than that,’ Buck says, rolling his eyes. ‘Does your Springfeld guy not explain the science at all?’
He does actually know Seinfeld’s name. And he’s pretty sure he’s even heard of the aeroplane food bit, now that Tommy’s mentioned it. But who doesn’t enjoy a bit of shit-stirring?
Tommy refuses to take the bait, though. ‘Okay, so then, what is the deal with aeroplane food?’ he asks.
‘It’s the cabin pressurisation,’ Buck says. ‘And the low humidity. It messes with our sense of taste and sense of smell. Food tastes, like, 30% less salty at high altitudes.’
Tommy considers this. ‘So that’s why my protein bars always taste so shitty when I’m flying.’
‘It could just be the protein bars,’ Buck jokes.
Tommy laughs. ‘They really are awful,’ he agrees. ‘Not as bad as the powders, though.’
Buck shovels more food onto his fork. He’s trying to make quick work of it - it isn’t exactly a meal he wants to savour. ‘I can actually make a great protein shake. I’ll show you how one time.’ He waves his fork in the air as he talks.
‘Protein shakes and Fight Club?’ Tommy asks.
At first, he pictures them doing both together - watching Fight Club at some fancy cinema while sipping on protein shakes they’d brought from home. The image makes him chuckle. ‘I mean, probably not at the same time,’ he says.
‘You’re filling up my calendar, Buckley,’ Tommy jokes.
Buck kind of enjoys the sound of that, though. He likes the idea of having Tommy as a friend, of Tommy being willing to hang out with him some more.
Tommy looks down at the tray of food in front of him. Unlike Buck, he’s barely taken a bite of the stuff. He must be starving. ‘Pretty sure this meal would taste pretty shit at any altitude, too.’
‘Mm,’ Buck agrees, as he swallows some more egg down with a gulp of bottled water. ‘Bobby’s cooking is so much better.’
‘God, I seriously miss his chilli,’ Tommy says. ‘I could never get him to give me the secret ingredient.’
‘Guess you didn’t work with him for long enough,’ Buck says. ‘It took me until around year five to unlock it, I think.’ It’s probably less about the time they worked together and more about what they’d been through in that time, but he’s simplifying it for Tommy’s sake.
‘No way,’ Tommy says, grinning. ‘What is it?’
‘I just told you, it took me five years,’ Buck jokes. ‘You think I’m gonna hand a secret like that over after knowing you for less than fifteen hours?’
‘You’re right,’ Tommy sighs. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I haven’t even begun to earn your trust.’
‘For all I know, you’re a spy from a rival firehouse,’ Buck says. ‘Trying to use Bobby’s chilli recipe to poach his recruits.’ They’re getting silly now, but he’s having fun. More fun than he’d imagined he could on a red-eye flight without the rest of his team.
Around them, the flight attendants are beginning to walk down the aisles to collect everyone’s trash, and the pilot announces that they’re less than an hour out of Sydney; that they’ll be arriving twenty minutes early.
Fifteen hours nearly gone, and Buck still doesn’t want it to be over. Before he can forget, he makes a new contact in his phone and hands it to Tommy, asking him to put in his number. ‘So you don’t try to get out of Fight Club.’ Tommy obliges without complaint.
As they fold their trays up and pull their seats upright, the flight attendants checking they’re in position for landing, Tommy begins to grow stiff again, his eyes closed once more. Buck’s own nerves, which had faded to the background since take-off but never fully disappeared, also creep back to centre-stage.
He kind of wants to grip Tommy’s arm, to offer him some kind of comfort. But that would probably be weird, right?
Thoughts of what’s weird and what isn’t, though, quickly evaporate. Slowly, the scent of smoke fills the cabin. Around them, people begin opening their windows, looking out to see a first glimpse of Sydney - or, as foreshadowed by the smell, what’s visible of the city under the thick, brown-grey haze of smoke.
Buck is no stranger to fire. No stranger to wildfires, even. Nothing about this is particularly new, or scary, or different. The adrenaline pulses through him the way it always does, setting him on edge.
Smoke like that only means one thing. It’s time to get to work.
His eyes meet Tommy’s, and he can tell the other man is thinking the same thing.
But they’re still cooped up in this plane - it’ll be at least another day or so before they can actually get out to the front lines.
Tommy nods towards the window. ‘The visibility’s shit,’ he says. And he isn’t wrong. You don’t have to be a pilot to know that there’s going to be an extra degree of difficulty in the landing.
‘If anything goes wrong I’ll help you break into the cockpit,’ Buck promises.
‘I can’t fly a plane this size,’ Tommy says.
Buck laughs. ‘I’d be willing to gamble on you,’ he says.
Tommy’s eyes find his again. It’s harder to pull away this time. He could look out the window, at the apocalyptic hellscape they’ve voluntarily flown their way into, or at the screen in front of them, that shows the view - or lack thereof - from the cockpit as they start to turn towards the airport, and yet somehow Tommy’s eyes are more captivating than either of those options, and more nerve wracking, too.
It’s Tommy who looks away first, leaving Buck vaguely breathless, his head spinning. He thinks he might be getting lightheaded from the smoke, or the cabin pressure, or something. Or anxious about the landing, maybe.
‘You said flying a helicopter is way harder than a plane, right?’ Buck asks, trying to reassure Tommy, and possibly himself as well.
‘Yeah,’ Tommy says. His answer is short, but not rude. Just distracted; stressed.
‘And you’d have flown in worse conditions than this,’
Tommy nods in agreement. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘So there’s nothing to worry about, then. Something like this is a piece of cake compared to your average shift.’
‘That might be a bit of an overstatement,’ Tommy says, chuckling softly. ‘But yeah, I see your point.’
They’ve well and truly started their descent, now. Their screens say it’s around 6:45, so he imagines that the city is starting to wake up and come to life, even though they can’t see it. It’s that sleepy time of year between Christmas and New Year’s, so there probably aren’t any huge traffic jams or anything like that, but within a few hours the streets will probably be full of parents trying to think of ways to entertain their kids while on school holidays, and teenagers heading to the beaches with their friends.
He’s pretty sure that back in LA, his team is on shift at the moment. They might be out on the field, providing assistance at a car crash or putting out a fire. Or maybe they’re eating whatever Bobby’s cooked up for dinner, chatting about whatever’s new before settling down to play video games or catch a few hours’ shut-eye.
And he’s on a plane, still separate from it all, if only for another few minutes.
It would feel strange even without the smoke; without the heavy silence that’s fallen among the passengers.
The plane jolts as the wheels touch down on the tarmac, and Buck’s stomach lurches in harmony. It’s his least favourite part of any flight.
And then they’re on the ground.
The captain is speaking over the loudspeaker, the people around them are unbuckling their seatbelts, and Buck realises he’s getting closer every minute to a proper fucking meal.
He claps Tommy on the shoulder. ‘We made it.’
His hand stays put for a second, as Tommy catches his arm and smiles at him. For once, though, Tommy’s smile doesn’t seem to reach his eyes.
Buck understands the sentiment. Returns it. It’s so rare that he meets someone and just instantly clicks like this. He’s not sure if it's ever happened before. Even with Eddie, the man he considers to be his closest friend, things didn’t start out this easily. The only person he can really think of that he’s ever had such an instant connection with is Abby, maybe. But then, that was different…
Hesitantly, he pulls away, and steps out into the aisle so he can grab his carry-on. As he’s pulling at his own bag, he looks down at Tommy. ‘Want me to grab your bag?’ he asks.
Tommy’s eyes are on his hips, where his shirt is drifting up slightly, and then on his arms, and Buck grins, flexing slightly, more than happy to put his body on display. He wonders if Tommy is thinking about his gym routine - but then, that hardly makes sense, because Tommy is even more built than Buck is. If anything, he’s the one who should be asking Tommy for tips.
Maybe they could catch up at the gym sometime. Work out together.
‘I - uh - it’s the blue backpack,’ Tommy says.
Buck grabs it and hands it to Tommy.
Around them, other passengers have started to stand in a line, moving at the glacial pace that all lines on aeroplanes seem to move at. Buck’s inadvertently become a part of that line. Usually, that’s where he finds himself at the end of a flight, eager enough to get off that standing in line seems preferable to sitting and doing nothing. He could take a step or two forwards, and inch close to the exits.
But in a split second, he decides instead to duck back inside his row of seats, to sit down next to Tommy again.
Tommy eyes him, perplexed.
‘Figured I may as well wait until the crowds have died down,’ Buck says.
He doesn’t know why. But he’s just not ready for the flight to be over quite yet.
It can’t hurt to wait a few more minutes.