[i can’t stop thinking about tommy’s favorite movie being Love, Actually.]

Tommy hasn’t really talked or seen his family in roughly twenty years. His firefighting career has never been enough, if they were ever keeping tabs, to make up for his dishonorable discharge. And honestly, it’s been fine with him. His family has always been the suffocating kind of conservative and earning their love stopped being a hill he would choose to die on for longer than they’ve been radio silent.

Someone is keeping tabs though, or maybe the news of his recent heroics have a broader reach than he thought, because a few months after getting a medal for the cruise liner disaster response, someone reaches out. Tommy is hesitant to engage because he’s pretty happy without them in his life, but maybe at first it was a cousin or uncle, but that’s followed by one of his sisters trying to get into contact, followed by his mom, followed by his dad. And they’re persistent. Maybe they do want to make amends. And maybe he doesn’t need his blood family but there’s that tiniest part of him left that still wants that connection.

This is how he gets suckered into the most miserable Christmas dinner of his life. It’s not actually Christmas, it’s a few days before when the whole clan can get together, and it’s just as claustrophobic and awful as ever, every word spoken saturated in judgment and triple meanings that Tommy long since has lost the muscle to withstand.

Evan had wanted to come with him, said a whole bunch of shit about how they were PARTNERS, and how it could not be nearly as bad as his own parents were, but Tommy’s extended family holiday dinners are like a Los Angeles Miserable People convention crowded between the dining room and kitchen tables, and Evan’s still licking some wounds after surviving Gerrard’s brief yet nightmarish tenure back at the 118, maybe next time. This first round Tommy needs to do solo. So, Evan drops him off around the corner in the afternoon with a promise to come pick him up later that night.

Evan checks in with him pretty frequently, sending him stupid videos and things he finds on the internet, but Tommy gets hit immediately by some pretty barbed comments about being a grown man on his phone who doesn’t give a shit about the olive branch he’s being offered, so he stops checking so much.

Finally, halfway through too many glasses of wine and an early evening roast that make his memories of MREs seem like a pleasant dream, his phone starts going off pretty insistently. It’s Evan.

The doorbell is about to ring and i need you to be the one to answer it.

Well, that’s worrisome. He’s pretty close to the hallway though, so he types back: ok.

The doorbell rings. He shoves away from the table, waving everyone else back down. “I’ll get it.”

Evan is at the door. He has his phone out with a little plug-in speaker, and oh God, a stack of cue cards—

Unbelievable. “What are you doing.”

Evan enthusiastically hits play on his phone and as tinny Christmas music starts to play, holds up the first card: TELL THEM IT’S CAROLERS

He shakes his head. “Evan, even if they believed me, they would probably love that and would come check it out.”

“Tommy, who’s at the door?” His uncle calls from the dining room.

Tommy rolls his eyes and shouts back, “Planned Parenthood asking for donations!”

“Tell ‘em were eating dinner and to get the fuck out of here!”

Tommy looks at Evan pointedly, eyebrows raised, hands in pockets as if to say: well?

Evan flips to the next few cue cards:

I NEVER SAW THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU MADE ME WATCH IT flip AND HONESTLY IT WASNT THAT GOOD flip BUT TO ME YOU ARE WORTH IT

“Evan,” Tommy says, softening.

AND I KNOW YOU THINK YOU ARE PROTECTING ME BY TELLING ME TO STAY HOME flip AND THOUGH WHATEVER IS GOING ON CAN’T BE AS BAD AS WATCHING LOVE, ACTUALLY flip OR HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS flip OR THE WEDDING PLANNER flip OR 50 FIRST DATES flip (I ACTUALLY LIKED FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL) flip I WANTED TO CHECK IN

Evan fumbles the cards to the hand holding his phone to pull something out of his back pocket, a piece of paper he gives Tommy, before flipping to the next card: I MADE THIS RANSOM NOTE IF YOU NEED TO BE KIDNAPPED flip AND WE CAN GET OUT OF HERE

It’s easily the stupidest grand gesture anyone’s ever directed at Tommy. He looks over the piece of paper, words threateningly put together cut out from Evan’s copies of Food & Wine and Men’s Health. He nods to himself, smiling, then looks up at Evan who is cheesing back.

“Yeah,” he says, feels for his phone and wallet in his pocket, before dropping the paper to the welcome mat and stepping outside, ready to escape back home to the only family he needs.

that’s how this scene happened, right