Archive of Our Own ^beta

Getting his hands on Tommy Kinard’s phone number thankfully doesn’t end up requiring much subterfuge on Buck’s part. 

He simply invites himself over to Eddie’s house, armed with a case of beer and a beguiling smile – which, admittedly, seems to have Eddie’s spider senses tingling, but the promise of a movie and a few drinks after Chris has gone to bed is enough for him to let Buck inside. Once settled on the couch, Buck simply has to bide his time until, eventually, Eddie drains his second bottle and sets it down on the coffee table and gets up to hit the head. 

He leaves his phone behind, and it’s easy enough for Buck to grab and unlock it; he knows Eddie’s passcode just as Eddie knows his, though in Eddie’s case, it doesn’t require much guessing – it’s Chris’ birthday and always has been, a constant choice through several phones and numerous years.

Buck navigates to Eddie’s contacts app – trying not to seethe at how frequently Tommy’s name appears in the call log – and if he feels a bit guilty about copying Tommy’s number, texting it to himself, and then deleting any evidence of the text being sent? 

Well. Needs must, and all that.

Buck calls Tommy two days later, completely on a whim, which is why he’s a bit taken aback when Tommy doesn’t appear very surprised to hear from him. 

Thought you might call, Tommy drawls when Buck introduces himself, an undertone of something in his voice, and happily agrees to meet when Buck awkwardly stumbles his way through a request for helicopter flying lessons. 

The guilt makes a reappearance as they pencil in a date for a tour of the airfield, but only just, because Eddie’s been spending more and more time hanging out with Tommy since the cruise ship rescue, and Buck, in turn, can’t seem to stop obsessing about it. 

It’s probably not healthy, the way he seems to have worked his way through the various stages of grief in the past few weeks, skipping neatly over acceptance on his second run around and ending right up back on anger, which is where he seems to be firmly stuck at the moment. 

The exasperation is what fuels him as he drives out to the airfield on the appointed date to scope out his competition under shamefully false pretenses, and that’s how it begins. 

The way it ends – with a surprisingly gentle kiss in the soft light of Buck’s kitchen – is a revelation. 

Tommy keeps calling him Evan, which takes some time to get used to. 

Buck introduced himself as Buck both first times they spoke – following Chimney and Eddie as they all scrambled towards the helicopter, hastily climbing into the back of it before Hen could arrive; and then again on the phone just the other day, the smooth, amused timbre of Tommy’s voice echoing the greeting – but apparently Tommy much prefers to call him Evan. 

It’s almost stupid how unnatural it feels to hear him say it. It’s Buck’s name, for fuck’s sake. It’s on his driver’s license and his passport and—

It’s the familiarity of the whole thing, he figures. He’s not going to go ahead and claim that Tommy hasn’t earned the right or that he’s taking some kind of liberty by using it, because, again, it’s literally Buck’s name, but it feels— 

Buck can’t quite put his finger on it. 

Anyway, he’s got other things to think about. Like, for starters, the fact that they kissed and, oh yeah, Tommy’s a dude. That’s what Buck should be hung up on, not the fact that Tommy for whatever reason has decided to barrel right through one of Buck’s invisible barriers and go straight for the jugular with Evan. 

His parents call him that. Maddie too, often. And Eddie, once. And now, apparently, Tommy does it as well. 

The point is that it shouldn’t catch Buck off guard. He shouldn’t let it. He shouldn’t. 

So he decides that he won’t, and eventually, the chafing feeling of hearing his actual given name goes away like it’s just another word, broken in and worn down smooth. 

And if there’s a slight misfit left – the same old familiar surprise, tinged with a lingering discomfort? 

Well, it’s easy enough to ignore. 

They keep a text conversation going in the days leading up to Saturday.

Tommy’s as taciturn in text as he is in person; in other words, it’s nothing like the group chats Buck’s got going on with the 118 or his private one with Eddie, but it’s still nice. Buck gets the sense that they’re feeling each other out, and he’s gotta say that there’s a lot to be said for taking things slow.

Tommy’s the one who asked if Buck was free, but it’s Buck who owes him the beer, so he stocks up on Friday on his way home from work and they spend Saturday evening hanging out on Buck’s balcony. Tommy doesn’t seem to have anything against following Buck’s lead in setting the pace, and Buck’s honestly not sure if he’s even prepared for anything but slow at this point, so they sit at a respectable distance apart, talking about Tommy’s job and Buck’s adventures in Peru.

Tommy kisses him goodbye before he leaves, by the front door and away from the prying eyes of Buck’s neighbors, and it’s as careful and as gentle as the first time. This is it, Buck thinks, this is the part of me that I was looking for, and he smiles into the kiss and keeps smiling once Tommy leaves – feels like he can’t stop, letting it carry over until Sunday morning when he wakes to another text message.

You free Friday?

Buck hides his grin against his pillow and answers in the affirmative. He watches the three dots dance at the bottom of the chat thread before Tommy’s reply comes through:

How about dinner and a movie?

Buck’s not nearly as ready as he thought he was. 

He realizes this as soon as they walk into the restaurant Tommy’s picked out. They’re not holding hands or even walking that close – Tommy’s certainly not touching any part of him – and yet Buck imagines that he can feel everyone’s eyes on him, like anyone who looks will be able to know.

There’s no shame in it. Logically, he knows this. He doesn’t feel the need to hide when out with Hen or Karen or Josh. He loves them, and he loves them living their truth, but he’s starting to realize that he’s not so sure about his own. 

He’s never been shy about much of anything, really. Vulnerable, sure. But never shy. He feels it now, however. Tommy’s up ahead, a swagger to his walk like he doesn’t care if anyone perceives him, and Buck just feels like some kind of fraud because he desperately doesn’t want anyone to look his way. 

It’s not about Tommy. It’s probably not even about Buck. It’s just that it’s not even been two weeks since Tommy kissed him and kind of upset everything Buck thought he knew about himself, and now they’re here, in public, on a date. Two dudes on a date, and Buck can’t seem to work the tension out of his shoulders.

Their table is pretty much right out in the open, much to Buck’s despair, and he’s quick to take the seat that allows him to have his back to the room at large. It’s not quite a way for him to hide, but it’s still a relief when Tommy doesn’t seem to notice Buck’s strategic positioning – or if he does, he doesn’t show it.

"This is, uh, cozy," Buck says as they get settled, and they talk a bit about how Tommy found the place as they wait for the menus to arrive. "Don’t know if I should be jealous or not," Buck adds once the waitress has dropped by, aiming for some levity. "I mean, sure, this place is nice, but you flew Eddie to Vegas."

The side of Tommy’s mouth twitches like he finds it funny but doesn’t want Buck to know. "I’ve known him longer than I have you," he replies, eyes on the menu. "Maybe next time."

His tone is dry and Buck’s not great at reading people at the best of times, so right now he doesn’t have the faintest clue if what Tommy just said was sarcasm or not. It would make him feel stupid to ask, so he doesn’t. 

"Uh, yeah," he says instead, and he must sound pretty awkward because Tommy seems to take pity on him and angles his menu towards Buck as he starts to point out the items that he thinks are worth trying.

It doesn’t take long for the food to arrive once they’ve ordered. It’s tasty, and the conversation flows pretty well for a first date, and no one seems to be paying them much attention whenever Buck hazards a glance over his shoulder. Still, he can’t seem to shake the tension – so much so that Tommy ends up calling him on it.

And that’s when Eddie walks in. 

He’s got Marisol with him, and the hot-coiled horror that Buck feels slithering down his spine makes the anxiety of before feel practically inconsequential. Buck had been word vomiting all over Tommy even before Eddie appeared, but now, caught between his date who’s a guy and his best friend who doesn’t know Buck’s with his date who’s a guy, it’s like the same survival mode that he relies on to keep him alive during calls kicks in, only it sadly appears to be better suited for physical tasks than mental ones; the words that are coming out of Buck’s mouth right now makes him scared to even turn around in fear of catching the expression that must be on Tommy’s face.

Eddie has apparently asked Marisol to move in – and when did that happen? Buck would definitely have remembered Eddie mentioning it being that serious – and Buck’s so out of it that he doesn’t even realize that he should be offering his congratulations until Tommy steps in and does just that. 

He manages to recover enough to pluck a random tidbit of Eddie-supplied Marisol lore from memory and asks about her apartment, which launches Eddie and Marisol into a practically saccharine argument about furniture as Buck tries to nod in all the right places and not give in to the urge to hyperventilate. 

"I guess you can never have enough closet space," Eddie eventually says, completely oblivious to what he’s actually walked in on, and Buck’s heart is stuck somewhere in his esophagus, frantically trying to beat its way straight out of his throat.

"Ain’t that the truth," Tommy placidly agrees. "Right, Evan?"

Buck helplessly turns to look at him, but Tommy seems deceivingly unperturbed as he takes a sip of his beer. And Buck should attempt a reply – he knows he should – but he’s also kind of busy having some kind of out-of-body experience. 

I don’t want to be here, he projects out into the universe as Eddie and Marisol thankfully proceed to move on to their own table, somehow still blissfully unaware of what’s going on, Please, I don’t— and whatever is out there seems to take pity on him because the next thing he knows, Tommy’s placing the check down on the table and getting up out of his seat.

Buck scrambles to follow and he doesn’t realize that he’s sweating through his shirt until they step outside and he feels the cool evening air brush against his temples. It helps bring him back into his body, but it also means he’s not detached enough anymore to be spared the full weight of the embarrassment of what just occurred inside. 

That’s okay, he tells himself, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide the way they’re trembling. It’s first-date jitters. I can still salvage this.  

"So, uh, sixteen screens, huh?"

"Eighteen," Tommy corrects without looking away from his phone, and Buck should maybe have read the mood a bit closer because as it turns out Tommy’s ordering himself a ride. 

He calls Buck adorable in the same breath that he declares him not ready, and then he leaves Buck standing on the sidewalk, alone. It makes Buck feel small, in the way Taylor sometimes used to make him feel with her keen eyes and even sharper tongue. He didn’t really like it then, and somehow it feels even worse now, because the thing is that Tommy isn’t wrong; Buck’s not ready, no matter how much he’d like to pretend he is. Tommy’s attractive and confident and interesting, and anyone would be lucky to be seen with him, and Buck can’t even seem to find it in himself to try. Fuck, he’s such an asshole. 

He hates this feeling of being caught one step behind, desperately trying to catch up. He hadn’t been completely ready when Tommy had kissed him the first time either, and thankfully Tommy hadn’t appeared to care, but who’s to say that he hasn’t mulled it over since then and decided that Buck is simply too much work? Because the kiss was then and this is now, and Buck had agreed to this date – had spent nearly a week looking forward to it, even – so why the fuck couldn’t he just suck it up and—

He feels his phone vibrate against his hand in his right pocket and hurries to fish it out, thinking that it might be Tommy texting to— to say that he’s changed his mind? To offer to come back and share his ride?

Buck’s not sure, but as it turns out it doesn’t matter; it’s not Tommy but Eddie, with a picture of the restaurant’s menu and a stupid joke about the unfortunate typo that Buck had also caught but for some reason hadn’t felt appropriate to point out to Tommy.

He finds himself smiling at the low-light picture of the Insalata Rossa and its marinated cumcumbers. And then the guilt sets in, heavy and cloying, because what the fuck is he doing? 

He lied to Eddie. Once that realization finally settles in, it’s suddenly all he can think about. Because he lied right to Eddie’s face. 

He’s sneaking around behind Eddie’s back, dating his— his friend – their mutual friend – and pretending nothing has changed even though Buck’s world has very recently been completely turned on its axis, and he hasn’t told Eddie any of it. Instead, he’s hid it and lied about it and he just keeps lying, doesn’t he? Turns out he’s as bad a friend as he is a date, go figure.

He swipes away the messages app without replying and opens Uber instead, and if it takes him three tries to order himself a ride, well, it’s a toss-up whether it’s because of the way his fingers for some reason won’t stop trembling, or the sudden stinging sensation in his eyes.

"I lied to Eddie."

Maddie frowns, as if Buck hasn’t led with stranger things before. At least this time he stopped by that coffee shop she likes to get her something before coming over.

"I thought you said it was an emergency," she reminds him, but gracefully opens the front door wider to allow Buck to slip inside. "So, you lied to Eddie?"

"Yeah," Buck confirms as he pulls the door closed behind him and trails after her into the kitchen. "And it’s, uh— It’s kinda tearing me up inside."

It’s no lie; he’d taken a quick shower and then crawled into bed to lick his wounds upon coming home last night, but even after coming to terms with the fact that he’d probably messed things up for good with Tommy, his thoughts kept straying to Eddie. 

They don’t keep secrets from each other – at least not the big, life-changing stuff – and here Buck is, not only withholding the truth but actively lying about it too. He keeps picturing Eddie’s face and how happy he’d been to see Buck in the restaurant, and how Buck had basically spit in his face in return by not coming clean right away. Some friend he is. 

"So, tell me," Maddie says.

Buck’s not sure he can put into words the sheer panic that had gripped him at the thought of— of being outed in front of Eddie and Marisol and about a hundred staff and patrons at Hollywood’s oldest Italian restaurant, by either himself – by the way of foot in mouth, probably – or his own date – by the way of impatience, maybe. So he’d lied to Eddie instead – a whopper of a lie – and maybe the outing would have been to be preferred because at least then he wouldn’t feel so fucking guilty about it right now – wouldn’t feel as if his chest’s too tight, like the regret of what happened is somehow physically manifesting itself and growing larger by the moment, taking away the space Buck needs to fucking breathe properly. 

"Chimney’s not here, right?" he asks, just to make sure, because for all that Buck runs to his sister to unburden himself more often than is probably normal for a thirty-year-old man, precautions sometimes have to be taken on account of said sister’s fiancé being chronically Incapable of keeping a secret.

Once Maddie’s assured him that Chimney is in fact out of the house, Buck launches into a clumsy explanation of the events that led up to him spouting utter falsehoods in Eddie’s face. 

Maddie, however, seems more stuck on his use of pronouns, even if that’s not the point.

"Um," Maddie says, "could be very much the point."

They go back and forth a bit until Maddie’s teased the whole truth out of him, and she’s kind as she goes about it; she knows Buck, and she knows what he can handle, and she’s never been shy about showing him how much she loves him, which means that he feels safe enough to open up to her that it becomes just another conversation instead of Buck baring this new part of himself to his closest family for the very first time. 

"I don’t think you’re a fraud," Maddie tells him, with all the gentleness and warmth he’s always associated with her. "I— I just think that maybe you’re not sure of your own feelings yet. And if there’s something that you need to tell Eddie, you will. Just in your own time."

Her belief in Buck has always felt larger than any difficulty he’s ever had to tackle, and now is no different. Buck takes a deep breath and then slowly exhales. 

"Yeah," he says. In his own time. He can work with that.

Had it been anyone else, Buck figured he probably would have told Eddie about being left behind on the sidewalk. 

Had it been Taylor, he would have told Eddie right away and watched his best friend’s feathers ruffle like that of an angry goose. In hindsight, it had been kind of funny how out of sorts Eddie used to get whenever Taylor Kelly was mentioned in his hearing. Yeah, had it been about Taylor, Buck would have listened to Eddie’s not-so-subtle hints at breaking it off, and he would have felt— seen, perhaps. Heard. Understood, at the very least, even if he hadn’t necessarily agreed with Eddie’s point of view. 

As it is, he doesn’t go into detail. He’s only got himself to blame, after all, so he keeps it simple; Buck made an idiot of himself, and Tommy dumped him because he figured Buck wasn’t ready.

Eddie hums. "What do you think?" he asks, and it’s the same kind of thing he’ll ask Christopher when the kid is debating some kind of moral dilemma – as moral as dilemmas can get when you’re thirteen, anyway.

"I kind of can’t stop thinking about him," Buck admits, because it’s true; now that the lie has been exposed and Buck has made things right with Eddie again, his mind seems to be able to finally muster up enough energy to focus squarely back on Tommy – or rather, the way Buck had acted that night, and the reason for why he’d done so. It’s stupid – he feels stupid – and he can’t help but offer Eddie a half-smile along with his answer.

And Eddie? Eddie does what Eddie does best; he hypes Buck up in one breath while calling him an idiot in the next, and Buck’s never had a friend like this before – a best friend, someone who, true to his name, continually surprises him in the very best of ways; someone who accepts every part of Buck, even the ugly ones, and still loves him all the same. 

"Don’t walk away from something before you even know what it is," Eddie tells him, and it’s pretty good advice, so Buck doesn’t bother pointing out that technically Tommy was the one who walked away. He turns it right back around on Eddie instead, who groans because he’s a hypocrite who hates using his own advice but can’t deny that Buck’s got a point too. 

Before Eddie leaves he grabs Buck and pulls him into a hug, having already promised that this will change nothing between them, and Buck can already tell that it’s true. Calling it a relief feels like a disservice to what he’s feeling – it’s like he can finally breathe again after spending the entire day holding his breath, and the contentment is so absolute that he thinks he might be in danger of bursting with it – this is all he’s ever wanted, after all; his family safe and sound and actually happy to have him around. 

When Eddie eventually does end up leaving – a bit reluctantly, it seems, obviously not too excited to speak to his girlfriend about his deeply seated nun-related trauma – he makes a point of telling Buck to call Tommy before slipping out of the loft. 

And right. That’s another conversation that Buck’s been both dreading and avoiding. The knot starts to reform just behind his heart, chafing as it pulls tighter, though not as large as before, if that’s any consolation. 

The door closes behind Eddie and, with nothing else left to do, Buck reaches for his phone.

He doesn’t know how Tommy takes his coffee.

The thought doesn’t occur to Buck until it’s already too late – until the invitation has been extended and Buck’s standing in front of a counter behind which there is a barista who expects him to actually know what he wants to order.

He finds himself giving her Eddie’s usual, words rolling off his tongue by rote. Plain coffee, with a splash of milk and a ridiculous amount of sweetener, because while you wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, Eddie’s got a sweet tooth that can rival even Jee’s. He takes his coffee almost syrupy sweet, and while Buck’s never bothered to ask him why, he suspects it’s some kind of holdover from all those years spent in the desert with nothing but plain black coffee to drink on cold nights.

And he figures that it makes sense, right? Tommy’s ex-army too. Logically, there’s a good chance that he and Eddie share coffee preferences alongside their love of watching half-naked men pummel each other unconscious.

Turns out he’s way off the mark, but at least Tommy showed up and continues to remain in what appears to be a good mood, despite the apparently disgusting coffee order. He stays, indulging Buck when Buck tries to apologize – even telling him he doesn’t have to, despite Buck’s insistence. 

"I didn’t cut things short because you behaved badly," Tommy reveals. "I did it because I didn’t want to pressure you."

And that sounds… reasonable. It would have been nice for Tommy to have explained it in that fashion before he ditched Buck on the sidewalk, but then again Buck can understand if Tommy might not have been feeling very charitable at the time.

So Buck brushes it off and completes his apology, which Tommy accepts with nothing more than a short Noted, and it feels nice to have it acknowledged even if it isn’t exactly an I forgive you. 

Had their roles been reversed, this is where Buck would have offered an apology of his own for leaving so abruptly and also for not communicating his intentions for doing so well enough, but Tommy doesn’t seem so inclined. And that’s fair; Maddie’s always telling Buck that he can be a bit too soft-hearted, offering apologies where none are necessary, mostly to his own detriment. If Tommy doesn’t feel like he has anything to apologize for, that’s fine. What happened was mostly on Buck anyway, so he soldiers on to the next part of the speech he spent most of the morning rehearsing to himself while making breakfast.

"I don’t know what I’m ready for," he admits. "But I am ready for something. And— And I think maybe that something could be with you."

Because here’s the thing – Buck has never been a quitter. He’s stubborn to a fault, which sometimes leads him to repeat the same old mistakes simply out of pure determination for them to finally work. His last few grand gestures – the hot air balloon, asking Taylor to move in, pinning his hopes on a damn death doula on the off chance that she would see him and not just the specter of his recent trauma – didn’t exactly pay off. Kind of blew up in his face, if he’s honest, but that’s never stopped him from trying again:

"Come with me to my sister’s wedding."

Tommy laughs like Buck just said something funny. "What?"

"I want you to be my date," Buck insists, "at my sister’s wedding." 

He’s got it all worked out; Tommy already knows half the people there, and Maddie wants to meet him. Plus, Buck needs someone to dance with. He dangles all of this, in addition to the promise of free food, in front of Tommy in the hope that he will accept.

Sure, he gets why Tommy’s hesitating; it might be too big a gesture too soon for most, but it’s up to Buck now to prove that he can commit to whatever it is they might eventually have. So what better way than to go all in? 

He’ll have to talk to his parents before the wedding, of course – can’t just spring this whole sexual epiphany on them at the ceremony – and that’s a bit scary, but he hopes they’ll be alright with it. And if they’re not, well, it won’t be the first time they’ve been unable to stand the sight of him – now, at least, it would be of his own making. And he’ll still have Maddie and Eddie and, hopefully, the rest of the 118, and—

"Okay," Tommy says. 

“Yeah?” Buck can’t help but grin. 

“Yeah,” Tommy confirms.  

And the knot in Buck’s chest loosens just a little. 

Chimney claims that he doesn’t want a bachelor party. Which, had it been true, would’ve been a damn shame because Buck knows he has the skills to throw a great one.

It’s his responsibility, after all; Maddie’s chosen not to have a maid of honor and Chim’s followed her lead and foregone his best man, which means that it’s up to Buck to step up as self-appointed best man-maid of honor, with all that it entails – including, but not limited to, planning the bachelor and bachelorette parties. 

Maddie’s already told him to not even think about throwing her one, and since Buck’s a good brother who would never think of going against his sister’s wishes – especially in the days leading up to her wedding! – there’s only Chimney left to try and strong-arm into the bachelor party he doesn’t want, wink wink. 

Buck already has a theme in mind: eighties karaoke. Two things everyone loves, mashed together into one. It’s perfect. 

"We should totally go as Crockett and Tubbs," Eddie declares, and Buck, delighted, absolutely jumps at the idea. 

He loves it when they’re in cahoots, and that definitely includes matching costumes. Besides, Crockett’s badass; they’d stumbled upon the entire catalog of Miami Vice on Netflix last Friday after spending thirty minutes doomscrolling movie trailers because Chris had been at a sleepover and they couldn’t agree on what to watch without him there to cast the deciding vote. They’d made it five episodes into the first season before nodding off on the couch, and Buck had found himself waking up at four in the morning to a sore neck and an even worse off back, but he thinks it’d been worth it just for the sight of Eddie, still sitting upright as he slept, chin resting on his chest and left hand still somehow buried in the bowl of popcorn resting on his lap.

Miami Vice aside, the eighties have always held a feeling of nostalgia for Buck. He might not have been alive for any of it, but that’s not to say that there hadn’t still been plenty of the eighties left to bleed over into the mid-nineties, which are years that Buck can kind of remember. They’re happy memories, mostly; vague feelings if nothing else, of back when Maggie was always around to give him cuddles, before he grew too old – before he outlasted Daniel and started reaching milestones his brother never got to experience, and suddenly became a living, breathing, constant reminder for his parents of what they’d lost, even if he hadn’t known as much at the time.

'80s karaoke! he texts Tommy as soon as they’re done with the scene and back in the truck, cruising down the highway on their way to the firehouse. Eddie and I call dibs on Crockett and Tubbs!

He watches the three dots wiggle, as if Tommy’s preparing a reply, but then they fade out of view. It’s nothing unusual. Tommy sometimes leaves Buck on read, especially during working hours; Buck does it too – it’s an occupational hazard caused by getting called out to scenes where the victims are the ones in need of his full attention, and not the text thread he’s got going with the guy he’s kind of dating. 

Buck pockets his phone and doesn’t check it again until forty minutes later when he’s finally got all his gear stowed away and is lounging on the upstairs couch, half-watching Eddie prepare a sandwich for himself. 

Tommy’s reply is rather succinct: I’ll be on standby.

So yeah, that’s the thing about Tommy; he’s sometimes not the most expressive, in real life or over text. Buck finds it attractive, in a way. It lends him an air of mystery – makes him seem confident. 

It also means that he’s hard to read. Buck’s so used to the silent communication he and Eddie have developed over the years – a shorthand that Chimney swears borders almost on telepathy at this point – that it sometimes catches Buck off guard how unreadable Tommy can come across. 

Then again, Buck hadn’t found Eddie very easy to decipher at first either, so it’s probably just a matter of time. 

Be on standby from the party, he suggests. You could wear a bomber jacket. Or your flight suit! Jumpsuits were popular back then, so you wouldn’t even have to change if you got called in!

He exits the messages app and opens the browser instead to google eighties’ jumpsuits in search of a good picture to show Tommy, and inevitably gets lost down a rabbit hole of the history of parachuting. By the time he comes back up for air, he’s forgotten all about the picture, and Tommy has left a thumbs-up reaction to his latest message. 

The party is off to a bad start.

Eddie’s late, for one. Tommy’s even more so. 

"What is this?" Buck reaches out to touch Tommy’s shoulder when he finally arrives, as if doing so will change the fact that he’s wearing the exact same Henley as he had the other day when they met up for lunch. "I— I told you, it’s eighties theme!"

"They had Henleys in the eighties," Tommy replies, slow and measured and somewhat patronizing, and Buck can practically hear the Evan tagged on at the end, the way his mother used to wield it for extra emphasis when she’d tell him off for being careless or downright stupid – the latter feels rather relevant right now, with Tommy looking at him like he thinks Buck’s somehow willfully ignoring the perfect logic of showing up to a themed party in your regular day-to-day clothes just because the particular style you favor is essentially timeless.

Awkward dates aside, this is the first time Buck’s found himself genuinely at a loss for words in Tommy’s company. Maybe he’d overstepped, throwing wardrobe suggestions at Tommy the way he had. He wracks his brain, trying to recall the conversation word-for-word, but he can’t pinpoint any particular moment where it might have happened. Not that that means much, seeing as he sometimes has a hard time matching his energy to that of other people – he gets too exuberant and, coupled with his inability to read the room and the others’ reluctance to politely tell him to knock it the fuck off, it’s been known to get him into trouble.

Tommy doesn’t seem to notice Buck’s brief mental spiral. "Who are you guys supposed to be?" he asks, giving Buck’s pastel suit a once-over. "Wedding Singer?"

Okay, Buck’s pretty fucking sure he’d told Tommy that, at least. Thankfully Eddie steps in before Buck can say something that’ll probably end up making a fool of him. Again.

"Wedding Singer’s nineties." Eddie hands Tommy a glass of orange juice, and he’s smiling, but it’s kind of sharper than what Buck’s used to seeing from him, a definite edge to it. 

"Crockett and Tubbs?" Buck adds before Tommy has time to notice, spreading his arms to direct the attention to his very Crockett-y outfit instead. "Miami Vice?"

"Ah," Tommy says, drawn out and exaggerated, the way you’d indulge a child at an impromptu show and tell. "Which one’s Crockett?"

"I am," Eddie confidently declares in the exact same breath as Buck, but luckily they’re saved from the ensuing argument by the arrival of Hen, Karen, and Ravi, along with a handful of other members of the 118.

Sadly, they turn out to be it. The guest of honor doesn’t show up, and he won’t answer Buck’s calls either, and maybe he’d actually been serious about not wanting a party. Hen sure seems to think so and nobody appears inclined to back Buck up, that’s for sure – not even Eddie – which makes Buck start to think that it’s probably true. Once again taken down by his own exuberance. Damn it.

The party is pretty much over before it even has a chance to begin. Buck can only watch everyone filter out – Tommy included, though at least he has a valid excuse – until there’s only Eddie left. 

You going to leave too? Buck doesn’t ask, reluctant to voice any kind of reminder that Eddie can go, should he want to. Buck won’t stop him. 

Eddie, however, simply pours himself another drink and settles back into his seat, like he knows exactly where Buck’s mind is at. He stays, like he always does. 

And then the party really begins.  

The text comes just as Maddie and Chimney share their first kiss as husband and wife. Buck’s at the edge of the crowd, head taller than most as he watches his sister pull back and gently cup Chimney’s face in her hands with an almost unbearably tender look in her eyes. It’s a private moment shared in the middle of a swarm of well-wishers, and Buck doesn’t feel too guilty for taking his eyes off the happy couple to sneak a peek down at his phone. 

Incoming.

It’s short and sweet, and Buck’s long since stopped expecting anything more from Tommy. He quietly slips away from the celebrations going on in Chimney’s room, a gleeful spring in his step as he heads down to the hospital foyer.

It’s strange how everything managed to work out in the end. Maddie might not have gotten the wedding she had originally planned for, but Buck knows she doesn’t care; she got Chimney, and that’s the only thing that ever mattered to her. The smile on her face as Bobby proclaimed them husband and wife had really said it all, and Buck feels like bursting with how much he loves her and how happy he is that she finally got her happy ending.

Everything’s just so good at the moment. Chimney’s safe, and he and Maddie are married, and Tommy’s actually managed to make it in time to attend the makeshift wedding reception, if not the improvised ceremony itself, and Buck feels downright giddy with it all. 

It makes him feel alive. Makes him feel like doing something impulsive and totally stupid, like grabbing Tommy by his turnout coat and yanking him close and kissing him in the foyer of the hospital without a care in the world for who might see it.

Tommy’s smirking when they come up for air again, like he’s pleased by Buck’s decision to practically maul him in front of the receptionists, and Buck— Well, Buck’s always responded well to positive reinforcement.

"C’mon," he says, grabbing Tommy by the hand and tugging him along as he takes a step back, in the direction of the stairs, because he wants to introduce Tommy to Maddie, finally. 

Wants to maybe linger until everyone but family has cleared out of the room and have him properly meet Buck’s parents too, and explain to them exactly who Tommy is to him – let them know what Buck has recently discovered about himself and decided to wholly embrace.

The nurses on Chimney’s floor shoot them strange looks as Buck drags Tommy back to the hospital room, but it’s to be expected – Tommy’s in full turnout gear, the familiar scent of smoke still lingering around him, and while Buck does drop his hand as they get closer, it’s not due to being nervous, because he’s not. Not really. He’s already come out to two of the most important people in his life and neither of them made him feel anything but completely loved and secure in his place in their lives. He’s expecting nothing less from the rest of his chosen family. 

His parents— Well. He’s never heard them say anything that would suggest that they’re bigoted. And they’ve been getting along just fine with Hen in the days leading up to the wedding. Still, he knows that it can sometimes be different when it’s your own child. He had a classmate back in Hershey who came out during their senior year, and no one had seen it coming when her dad and stepmom – atheist, left-leaning, and supposedly all about gay rights – kicked her out of the house three weeks before graduation. 

The only thing that might throw a wrench in Buck’s own parents’ acceptance of him is that he never ended up speaking to them about Tommy before the wedding. He’d spent the days following their arrival to L.A. chickening out and repeatedly putting it off, and then Tommy had been forced to bow out of the bachelor party due to what turned out to be a five-alarm fire that kept him away for longer than expected, and somehow the big talk just... never ended up happening. 

His mom and dad hate being blindsided, but Buck figures he’s still got time; there’s cake being served as he and Tommy slip back into Chimney’s room, and once that’s gone everyone except immediate family should start to filter out. He’ll speak to his parents then, he decides, and if they make a scene, well, it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone still in the room.

They weave their way through the tiny crowd, managing to attract more than a few looks despite Buck’s attempt at a low-key entrance; his parents in particular appear genuinely confused as to Tommy’s addition to the party, which makes Buck more determined than ever to attempt a smooth segue into his recent dating life instead of simply dropping the news – and Tommy himself – on them from out of nowhere. 

Right up ahead Buck can see the table holding the cake, and he turns to ask Tommy if he would like some – can’t imagine that he’d had much time to eat on the call he just came back from – only to discover him a few feet away, already engaged in conversation with a couple of guys from B-shift. They appear to be talking shop, Tommy gesturing to his coat as the others seem to hang on his every word, and Buck’s of half a mind to join them, but then he spots Eddie across the room, cheeks bulging as he digs into his slice, and the opportunity to rib his best friend about his sweet tooth unsurprisingly wins out. 

He’s just about to head over when Hen and Karen descend on him like a pair of lionesses, expertly flanking him on both sides. 

"Buckaroo," Hen murmurs, her eyes strangely gentle as she peers up at him, "hey, you got a little something…" 

She gestures to her face and Buck frowns, confused, as he touches his fingers to his chin, and is surprised to see that they come back all sooty. 

Shit. What the fuck. 

He feels a flash of panic so sharp it’s like being up on the ladder again and feeling the static in the air – the way it sparked along his skin and raised the hairs at the back of his neck – but then Karen’s tucking a couple of napkins into his hand, her lips a firm line of displeasure. Hen reaches up to wipe at his left cheek with her own napkin, and Buck feels himself propelled back into action like the snapping of a rubber band as he desperately starts to scrub at the right side of his face. 
 
Everyone knows, he realizes. Every single person in this room knows exactly what he and Tommy got up to not two minutes ago. That’s what all the looks were for. It’s obvious, looking back at it – it’s why Mrs. Lee had turned to whisper in her husband’s ear as Buck passed them by earlier, why Palmer from C-shift had started chuckling to himself , and—

"You know we love you, right?" Hen says, and Buck blinks back into the present. Yes. He does know that – he hasn’t doubted it since the lawsuit – but his nod still feels more like an involuntary muscle spasm than anything else.

He fumbles with the napkins, folding them over on themselves and running the clean side along his jawline in one final swipe. "Did I— Did I get it all?" 

"Almost, baby," Hen confirms. There’s a hint of a frown on her face, but she’s still being oddly gentle with him as she uses one of the clean corners of her own napkin to dab at a spot next to his nose that he must have missed. "There. All good."

"Thank you," he manages to tell both her and Karen as the latter gathers up the used napkins and places them on her empty paper plate, atop the cake crumbs.

Buck doesn’t feel much for cake anymore, he realizes. The back of his neck feels itchy, like it’s covered in thousands of scurrying ants, and he can imagine his mom watching from across the room as Hen and Karen fuss over him. Neither she nor his dad have made any attempt to approach, and Buck can’t decide whether that’s good or bad – when he hazards a glance, they’re both standing next to Chimney’s bed, whispering to each other. His dad looks confused and his mom looks indifferent, but Buck knows that she’s good at that – at putting on a brave face in public before bursting into tears as soon as she steps into the privacy of her own home.

He can imagine about a hundred different ways she’ll react when everyone else has left. It ranges from being actually happy for him – a pipe dream – to tearfully disappointed in his life and his choices and how he went about telling her and everything in between – the more likely scenario.

He’s distantly aware that he’s starting to spiral, but then Karen – who he hadn’t even realized had left – is back and shoving a plate holding what must be a larger than normal slice of cake into his hands and making sure he’s got a good grip on both the plate and the plastic fork perilously hanging half off the edge of it. 

"We’re so proud of you," she says, and Hen makes a sound of agreement. 

"It’s been a long time coming," she adds, and Buck’s not sure it actually has, but then again it apparently hasn’t been very straight of him to spend years checking out hot guy’s asses either, so what does he know?

"Thank you," he murmurs, relaxing marginally under their attentions before tensing up again as Hen gets that look in her eye – the crazed, excited one that either bodes for a really good time or the complete opposite.

"You’re coming with us to Pride this summer," she declares, and Karen gives a tiny gasp of delight at the idea. 

Buck’s been to Pride before as part of an LAFD outreach thing – which he volunteered for, seeing as how he’s always been an ally – but attending as an actual member of the gay community feels… a bit daunting.

"Can Eddie come too?" he finds himself asking, because Eddie’s good at being cool under pressure and Buck’s found that it kind of rubs off on him, too. 

Hen and Karen share a look as Buck fiddles with his fork, scooping up a tiny bit of frosting to check if he can stomach it.

"Yes," Hen slowly says, squinting up at him. "Eddie can come too."

Buck swallows. The frosting is coconut flavored, which explains why Eddie was going to town on it earlier – it’s one of his favorites. 

"Okay," he manages. "Yeah, sure. Let’s do, uh, Pride this year."

Hen grins and gives his arm a squeeze before her gaze flicks to something behind him, and Buck turns to find himself face-to-face with Tommy again. 

He’s holding a plate of his own that one of the B-shift guys must have plied him with; the cake on it is picked apart, like Tommy’s simply been working at it with his fork instead of actually eating any of it. 

"I’m gonna head out, Evan," he says, even though it can’t be more than ten minutes since they both arrived.

"Uh, yeah," Buck says. “Sure. I’ll— I’ll walk you out."

He awkwardly looks around for somewhere to place his plate, but Hen’s quick to take it from his hands. 

"I can take that too," she says, gesturing at Tommy’s as well, and Tommy shrugs but hands it to her.

Hen and Karen share another look at the state of his no longer cake-shaped slice, but Tommy doesn’t seem to care as he turns and looks at Buck to follow. Buck ends up walking him to the elevators instead of the stairs this time. Being first responders, they’re both already pretty well acquainted with the hospital and Tommy doesn’t actually need anyone to show him the way out, but it’s a convenient excuse to get some time for themselves, Buck figures. 

Sure enough; Tommy presses the call button and then turns towards him and leans in, obviously aiming for a quick kiss goodbye, and Buck’s turning his head away before he’s even realizing what’s happening.

"Sorry," Buck blurts out as Tommy pulls back again, his eyebrows raised, and Buck can’t stop an awkward huff of laughter from escaping him. "I don’t know why I did that."

"Sure, Evan," Tommy drawls, cool as ever as he tilts his head back to look at the numbers above the elevator doors as they count down. 

It’s strange how such an innocuous gesture can feel like the loudest of dismissals, and Buck’s stomach starts to sink because it’s like standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant all over again. The elevator dings as it reaches them, and he scrambles to grab Tommy by the wrist as the doors part. 

“Hey,” he says, giving Tommy’s arm a small tug, grip loose enough to allow him to break free at any time should he want to do so, yet still firm enough to show that Buck doesn’t want him leaving just yet, “before, why— why didn’t you say anything?” Why did you let me walk into the room looking like that? 

Tommy shrugs, appearing unconcerned as he meets Buck’s gaze head-on. “It worked out, didn’t it?”

And that’s— Well. Tommy’s not wrong, but that doesn’t stop Buck from still being able to feel the ants scurrying along the skin at the back of his neck. Or erase the fact that he hadn’t necessarily wanted it to go down the way it did.

He remembers the sharp spike of adrenaline as he realized what had happened and thinks he can still feel the aftereffects even now; he’s a bit jittery, like he should be back in Chimney’s room running damage control with his parents instead of out here with Tommy. Forget the sidewalk – it feels like when Eddie walked in on their first date and Tommy made that comment about closets and— and it’s ridiculous because it’s fine. 

Everything went well. No one said anything offensive, even though the looks his parents shot him as he trailed after Tommy out of the room had been— Not bad, just... evaluating. It was bound to happen no matter how they found out, probably. 

Yeah, Buck would have liked to have had a say in what just happened, but it’s fine. He’s the one who kissed Tommy down in the reception, after all. He’d initiated it then, and hadn’t cared who saw them, so this feeling— this sinking weight that almost reminds him of sitting across the dinner table from Bobby, being told that he’s a liability to his family – this pressure in his chest borne out of a loss of agency – is ridiculous. 

Buck takes a deep breath and does what he should have done back then – sucks it up, because it’s not just about him, after all – and gives Tommy’s wrist a gentle squeeze.

"Yeah," he says, and somehow manages to keep his voice level. "Yeah, I— I guess it did go well."

Tommy graces him with a smile then, finally. "See? Nothing to worry about."

This time, when he leans in, Buck doesn’t turn away. He lets Tommy touch his face, a mimicry of their very first kiss as Tommy’s thumb grazes Buck’s chin. The elevator – thankfully empty – dings as it reaches them, but Tommy doesn’t pull away – presses closer instead, insistent, and Buck follows his lead, because he’s always liked this part – to kiss and be kissed, love and affection summed up in one act – until Tommy finally pulls away with a low, pleased hum.

"I’ll text you," he tells Buck, briefly brushing his thumb along the side of Buck’s jaw before dropping his hand and reaching out to catch the elevator doors as it dings again in preparation for leaving their floor. 

"Uh, yeah," Buck says. 

He watches Tommy step into the elevator and manages to hold off on wiping at his face until after the doors have closed between them. His fingers come back sooty this time too, but he doesn’t think it’s as bad as before, thankfully. 

He still makes a detour to the restrooms to wash his hands and face and double-check his reflection in the mirror before going back to Chimney’s room.

Tommy’s in a bad mood. 

Buck, on the other hand, is brimming with excitement. He’s been looking forward to this moment ever since he found out it was happening, and now, mere hours away from receiving his first actual medal – and a Medal of Valor, at that! – he can’t quite seem to contain himself.

The brass have yet to arrive, but the members of the LAFD involved in the cruise ship rescue effort are milling around the apparatus bay floor of the firehouse alongside their families, and Buck’s spent the past fifteen minutes moving from group to group, greeting everyone and doling out hugs like they’re candy on Halloween.

He goes to hug Tommy too when he finally arrives, but quickly aborts the attempt when Tommy simply shakes his head and takes a step back, moving out of Buck’s reach. Buck’s not too bothered; he can understand why Tommy wouldn’t want them to appear overly familiar – while they’re not technically on duty, this is still LAFD property, and they’re in dress blues which means they’re acting in a kind of official capacity – but after what happened at the hospital, Buck’s pretty sure everyone already knows they’re seeing each other. He doesn’t really think a hug would hurt right now – especially not since Johnson from B-Shift nearly lifted a laughing Buck off his feet earlier as he tried to outdo him, squeezing so hard Buck thought his eyes might pop out of his head; had Buck and Tommy shared a hug, he doubts anyone would have looked twice.

Still, Buck backs off, and when Tommy brushes past him with little more than a distracted Later, he even manages to muster up a smile. It’s fine. Tommy’s allowed to not want Buck all up in his business, even if it’s usually not the physical closeness that he seems to have a problem with. 

Buck’s been trying not to look too hard at the bigger picture just to keep himself from getting all worked up, but yeah, he will admit that while the attraction is there, the communication is really not – at least not yet. It’s not quite a lack of it, Buck thinks, as much as the two of them running at different wavelengths. And that’s fine. It’s new. They’ll get better at it, even though it’s already been the cause of more than one hiccup – minor issues, really, like on the first date and at the bachelor party and the whole thing that happened at the hospital. 

They just need to figure out a way to mesh Tommy’s taciturn stoicism with Buck’s love of talking. Buck’s already started working on it – has managed to tone himself down a bit around Tommy already, but he worries that he might have slipped back into old habits again over the past few days. 

Butk’s a chronic talker, is the thing. He talks to fill the silence and to stave off boredom and to show excitement and when he simply wants someone to pay attention to him. He knows that a lot of people find it grating – feels like he’s spent most of his life being told to shut the fuck up – but at the same time, he never seems to have developed the ability to notice when it’s starting to get on people’s nerves unless it’s literally pointed out to him. 

He wishes Tommy would do it too – just tell him when he’s being too much instead of simply withdrawing and going radio silent – though, most of all, Buck wants Tommy to talk to him too. And he doesn’t just mean about the things that they get up to at work. Sure, Tommy’s got a pretty awesome job, and if Buck could fly a helicopter it would probably be another thing he would never be able to shut up about, but Buck wants to hear about the mundane things too, like the strange-looking dog Tommy saw on his morning run, or the funny bumper sticker on the car in front of him on his way to work, or how a delivery mishap meant that the store was all out of pasta so he couldn’t have the spaghetti bolognese that he’d spent all day looking forward to. 

Tommy will tell Buck all those things if asked but he won’t offer up anything voluntarily, and Buck doesn’t know if it’s because Tommy simply doesn’t find them interesting or if he thinks Buck’s more likely to stop talking if Tommy doesn’t encourage him. It’s not being ignored – Buck’s been down that road before, with his mom and several past girlfriends, and this isn’t it – but rather a feeling of not really being listened to; Buck will call Tommy just to talk, and Tommy will go along with it – will give Buck all the right reactions in all the right places – yet Buck sometimes gets the sinking feeling that if he were to stop talking at Tommy and instead try to engage him in the actual conversation, Tommy would either have to ask Buck to remind him what they were talking about, or somehow manage to find a convenient excuse to end the call.

And fine, Buck understands that relationships are all about give and take, and that they’re hard work – especially in the beginning when you’re feeling each other out and trying to figure out the dos and don’ts. He gets it. He’s been here before, more than once. Just take him and Eddie, for example; slightly contentious to begin with, but just look at them now. Buck can’t remember Eddie ever not stepping up when the quiet’s begun to grate and Buck’s needed something other than his own voice to help fill the silence. 

That’s what he wants with Tommy too – for someone to step into it with him, to meet him halfway and help distract him when things get too quiet or too loud or just plain too much – but so far it just feels like it’s been a delicate balancing act trying to engage Tommy while at the same time not scare him off by being too much. 

Buck tries not to let it worry him, but sometimes he can’t seem to help it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, he figures. They’re just starting out, after all, so it’s normal to wonder what the hell you’re doing, and if you’re screwing things up, and what you might need to change to move forward. 

So what if Buck seems to be doing most of the worrying? It’s understandable. Tommy’s solid and settled, seemingly perfectly secure in his place in the world, and Buck’s pretty much spent most of his life floundering in comparison. Even looking past the fact that Tommy’s the first guy he’s ever dated, Buck’s track record when it comes to relationships – platonic or romantic – is not the best. If anyone’s going to get a learning experience out of this, it’ll more likely than not be Buck, seeing as he can safely say that the most intimate, close relationships he’s had these past few years have been with Maddie, Bobby, and Eddie. And none of them really count, do they? Maddie’s his sister. He’s not about to claim that this makes her obligated to love him – just look at his parents – but yeah, she’s his sister, and Bobby’s pretty much the closest thing to a father figure he’s ever had, and Eddie’s— 

Eddie is Eddie. 

The point is that Buck worries. He gets all up in his head and reads too much into things and then he starts second-guessing himself; he’s doing it right now as he watches Tommy walk away, and finds himself wondering if maybe nothing’s wrong after all. This might just be Buck needlessly projecting all his hang-ups onto Tommy instead of simply accepting the fact that people are allowed to have a bad day for no obvious reason, even if the day in question is the day they’re being awarded a literal medal. 

It’s a drain of self-deprecation that he’s circled many times before, and the only thing that stops him from slipping down it again is Chimney’s sudden hiss of Gerrard, loud enough to be heard from several feet away. 

Oh, Buck thinks. So that might be why.

Gerrard is from way before Buck’s time at the 118. He doesn’t know exactly everything that went down back then, but the stories he’s heard from Hen and Chim – and from Tommy, to an extent – don’t paint a very flattering picture of the man, to say the least. Though if Buck’s being completely honest, some don’t paint that flattering a picture of Tommy either, even if both Hen and Chim seem to be getting along fine with him now – an effort made, perhaps, more for Buck’s sake than any actual desire on their part for Tommy’s friendship.

So yeah, Tommy’s cranky, and now Buck’s staring right at the possible reason why. Normally he’d go out of his way to try and fix things, but it’s not like he can kick Gerrard out, so he does the next best thing and gives Tommy the space he so clearly desires; takes a seat between Tommy and Eddie and twists around to let his excitement spill out all over Eddie instead.

Eddie takes it with more grace than Buck probably deserves, because it’s not like he hasn’t already spent all week letting Buck talk his ear off; he’s gotten to shoulder Tommy’s share of the excitement too seeing as how Tommy very obviously kept changing the subject whenever Buck tried to bring it up – probably because he knew that Gerrard was going to be in attendance.
  
That’s not to say that Eddie hadn’t also been a bit reluctant about the whole thing at first, but the fact that Buck knows him made him a far easier nut to crack than Tommy; it’s about the Silver Star, of course, which is still a rather bittersweet accolade even if Eddie seems to have mostly come to terms with the events that lead up to him receiving it. He’d been patient as he listened to Buck ramble on about the upcoming ceremony, all cool and collected until Buck finally managed to thaw him out and get a fire of excitement going – until he managed to get Eddie to admit that what they did was actually pretty awesome; commandeering a helicopter to fly out into the middle of the ocean in a tropical storm, completely blind, in what should probably have been a fruitless search but ended up a successful rescue operation. 

They’d both been careful to stay away from mentioning the other side of the coin – how Buck had faced down the raging sea for the first time since the tsunami nearly made him one with it, just as Eddie had braved what might have been his most dangerous helicopter ride since he was literally shot out of the sky – because that’s a topic for another day. The fact that they both came out unscathed on the other side this time makes their Medals of Valor well-earned, in Buck’s opinion, and that’s what they’re focusing on right now. He refuses to be anything but happy about the acknowledgement they’re receiving today, even if Tommy seems to disagree.

"Isn’t it crazy," Buck tells him later, daring to test the waters as he happily adds another piece of chicken to his plate, "that we thought we were gonna get fired, but instead we all got medals!"

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Tommy volleys back at him, and Buck tries to not let his grin falter. Still sore, then. 

"That’s my motto!" Ravi chimes in, apparently oblivious to Tommy’s bad mood – and starving, if the size of the pile of food on his plate is anything to go by – and Buck feels almost thankful for the distraction as he turns his attention to Ravi’s eating choices instead.

Truth is, Buck doesn’t talk much about Tommy around the firehouse. 

There’s the history that Tommy has with the 118, for one – better than it once was, thankfully, but still something to be wary of – but there’s also the fact that Buck’s still trying to figure things out. 

Because it’s been months now since their first date, and they seem to have come to something of a standstill. There are lunches and dinners and making out on the couch in front of the TV, but it’s like sticking to treading water instead of daring to actually dive deeper, and sometimes Buck wonders if Tommy will eventually grow bored of the glacial pace at which they’re moving. 

It’s Buck’s doing, of course; he’s done fast before, and it’s never seemed to end that well for him, which means that he’s determined not to let it jeopardize his first-ever queer relationship too. 

(Also, it might be the fact that sometimes, whenever Buck lets something personal slip – when he dares to metaphorically roll over and show Tommy his soft underbelly – it’s as if Tommy likes to try and get a quick jab in, just to see if Buck will let him get away with it. It’s making Buck perhaps more cautious than he needs to be.)

So yeah, when Bobby corners Buck in the locker room and proceeds to tell him things that Buck will hoard in his heart like something precious and bring back out to admire from time to time, it feels like as good a time as any to broach the subject.

"Listen, I— I know we haven’t really talked about him—"

"What’s there to talk about?" Bobby replies. "Tommy’s good people. He’s good for you."

It’s pretty much what Buck had been expecting; Bobby likes Tommy – was his captain for more than long enough to grow genuinely fond of him, to the point of being sad to see him transfer out – and it’s partly a relief, this easy acceptance that Buck still hasn’t gotten from his actual dad – his parents leaving Chimney’s hospital room with a tenuous excuse and a plaintive We just don’t understand when Buck finally made it back after seeing Tommy off – yet at the same time it makes him feel resigned.

Because it’s on the tip of his tongue: But what if I need to talk about it anyway? What if I just haven’t been able to find the words yet? What if he isn’t?

Bobby’s the closest thing to a dad Buck has nowadays – maybe more so now than ever since he and his parents seem to be back to taking some kind of break from each other – but he’s also Buck’s boss, and Tommy’s former boss, and even if he weren’t any of those things, how could Buck talk to Bobby now, when he’s proclaimed Tommy not only good, but good for Buck with enough confidence to almost even make Buck believe it?

How can he bring up how Tommy sometimes calls him kid, like only Bobby’s ever done before, except it doesn’t feel like Tommy’s using it as an endearment, but rather a reminder of the seven years that separate them. Even Abby, for all the heartache she caused him in the end, never made him feel like this – small; like a child; like someone who lacked something; someone who has yet to learn. 

And besides all of that, it’s a bit weird, isn’t it? It’s never occurred to Buck to call any of the women he’s dated kid or girl or anything intended to widen the gap between them – all he’s ever wanted is to close it, to make sure that he and his significant other are on the same side, on the same level, like equals – like partners who can have each other’s backs.

Kid is Tommy once again telling Buck that he’s not ready, only not in so many words. And Buck doesn’t want to hear it from Bobby too, should he try to turn this conversation around and ask for even more reassurance than Bobby’s already given him. It would be such a Buck thing to do, he thinks, to get all greedy about it. 

"How do you know that?" he asks instead, like voicing a compromise.

Bobby smiles. "Because we haven’t needed to talk about it."

Buck closes his eyes. 

Breathes in. 

Breathes out. 

Looks at the passenger seat.

The brownies that Kim had handed him are still there.

He desperately wishes they weren’t, more for Eddie’s sake than anyone else’s. Because what the fuck is going on? And how has Buck missed it?

He pulls his phone out and opens the messages app, finding himself momentarily hesitating over Eddie’s name at the top of the screen, before shaking his head and scrolling down to press Tommy’s instead.

I have to cancel. I’m sorry.

He’s supposed to be on his way to Tommy’s place by now. They were going to order in and watch a fight. Tommy’s trying to make Buck appreciate the intricacies of kickboxing, with mixed results so far. He still hasn’t flown Buck to Vegas. Maybe it’s easier to appreciate ringside? Buck can only guess. 

His phone doesn’t buzz with Tommy’s reply, only because Buck’s already staring right at it.

Why?

Direct as always. Buck hesitates.

Something came up. I can’t tonight.

The dots in the bubble dance for a moment before disappearing.

Then: Eddie?

God, is Buck that predictable?

Sorry, he types, neither confirming nor denying. Rain check? 

He tosses the phone onto the passenger seat next to the baked goods and starts the car, backing out of his parking space. 

Traffic is light at this hour, thankfully, and it doesn’t take him long to get to Eddie’s house. There’s only one vehicle in the driveway – Eddie’s ridiculously large truck – so Buck pulls his Jeep up alongside it and kills the engine, hoping that he’s right in his assumption that Marisol isn’t inside. Whatever conversation he and Eddie are about to have will be awkward enough without Eddie’s girlfriend being present.

He checks his phone before getting out of the car, but Tommy hasn’t texted him back – just left a thumbs-up reaction on Buck’s latest message. Were the circumstances different, Buck would’ve probably tied himself up in knots trying to figure out what it means – is Tommy mad? He’s not on shift, and not on standby, so there’s no way he’s been distracted by a call. Is he simply too busy to type out an actual reply? Doing what, in that case? 

Sometimes emojis can be the opposite of helpful, but Buck’s not about to text Tommy and ask him to clarify because the brownies are still sitting right there on his passenger seat, like a bad omen.

Buck grabs them and gets out, locking the car behind him, and heads for Eddie’s back door, just in case.

Buck offers to buy Tommy breakfast as a kind of peace offering.

"Eddie’s, uh, working through some things," is all the explanation he’s comfortable giving after ditching Tommy the night before. He knows it’s rather vague, but Eddie’s business is his own – and sometimes Buck’s, like in cases like this. 

Besides, Tommy can reach out to Eddie on his own – they’re still friends, Buck thinks, even if they’re not spending nearly as much time together now as before Buck started dating Tommy, and Eddie hasn’t really mentioned him much lately, now that Buck thinks about it. 

"Maybe you should take a step back," Tommy suggests. He helpfully moves his glass of orange juice to the side as the waitress places the plate with his order down in front of him. "Let him figure it out on his own."

That is Tommy’s preferred method, Buck’s noticed – whenever they hit a roadblock he likes to retreat and let Buck stew in his own juices, twisting himself into knots overthinking things before finally caving and reaching out to Tommy to smooth things over.

Buck isn’t like that. He needs to talk things through to make sense of them. Eddie is the same way, even if you wouldn’t think so just by looking at him. He likes having a soundboard too, and more often than not, Buck is the first in line to volunteer. If left to his own devices Eddie will spiral hard – and Buck doesn’t need him to go sniffing out any more fight clubs this time around. 

"No need worrying about things you can’t change," Tommy adds, and Buck shakes his head.

"No," he says, "but I can try."

Tommy shrugs his shoulders and thankfully changes the subject, and the conversation flows pretty well from there, right up until Buck’s phone rings just as they’re waiting for the waitress to come around with the check.

Buck doesn’t need to tell Tommy who’s calling because the image that appears on the screen – Eddie, pictured against the backdrop of the firehouse kitchen, bleary-eyed and with his hair in disarray as he glares at whoever took the photo over the rim of a bright pink coffee mug with #1 Mom! emblazoned on the side – is more than enough to clue him in.

"I should, uh—" Buck says, fumbling to answer and ignoring the way Tommy sighs and turns to look out the window. "Eddie?"

"Buck," Eddie says, and then he says it again, "Buck—", and he sounds, for lack of a better word, ruined.

Buck swallows, and imagines he can feel the phone cracking in protest as he tightens his grip on it. “What’s wrong?"

"I need—" Eddie begins, and then; "Buck, can you come over?"

Buck’s sliding out of the booth before Eddie’s even finished asking. "Twenty minutes," he promises, quickly calculating how fast he can get from the diner to Eddie’s house. "Give me twenty minutes, alright? Can you do that?"

Eddie gives a rough exhale along the line, and even that sounds pained. "Yeah."

"Okay," Buck says. "Okay." The waitress is nowhere to be seen and he starts digging into his pockets, trying to fish out some cash to cover the meal. His hands are shaking, and he’ll probably end up leaving a far greater tip than intended because he’s so frazzled he doesn’t think he can do the math right now, but it’s a hit he’ll gladly take if— 

"I’ll take it.” Tommy, though obviously displeased, pulls his own wallet out. "Go."

"Thank you," Buck breathes, and dips down to kiss him; when he pulls back Tommy, thankfully, appears mollified, but Buck doesn’t linger long enough to make sure. "Twenty minutes," he says into his phone, as a reminder, before he climbs into his car and ends the call.

He makes it to Eddie’s in fifteen.

It’s a mess.

Buck watches Eddie practically come undone in front of him, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

He should have noticed sooner, is the thing. He should have picked up on the fact that Eddie was struggling – that he was hiding things – without having to get clued in by a literal ghost of Christmas past. He should have looked away from Tommy for one damn second and— 

And Buck can’t go back and change what happened, however much he wants to, but—

"Okay. Okay, I’m here. What can I do?"

Nothing, as it turns out, though not for lack of wanting; before he and Eddie can even attempt to try, Eddie’s parents swoop in like vultures circling something they know to be dying.

And then Buck’s phone rings again.

Ramon and Helena won’t stop calling. 

Eddie’s long since set his phone to silent, but the vibrations of the incoming calls still cut through the quiet of the hospital room like a foghorn in the dark.

Eddie’s ignoring it, so Buck is too – knows Eddie would have turned the phone off completely were it not for Christopher. Buck doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Christopher probably won’t be calling in any case, so he closes his eyes instead and tries to focus on the cadence of Eddie’s voice as he reads from the small prayer book in his hands.

Buck wasn’t raised in a religious household; he finds no comfort in pleas or vows made to saints or holy mothers, but Eddie still does, on some level, and that’s more than enough for Buck to stay and listen, a silent support by his side, something he would have done even if it hadn’t been Bobby in that bed.

He’s reminded of the coma dream – of Bobby and his rosary beads, holding vigil at Buck’s bedside, just as Buck and Eddie are doing for Bobby now – but this, thankfully, doesn’t last long enough for anyone to suggest letting Bobby go gently into the night.

Because Bobby fights, like he always does – fights the machines that are keeping him alive, fights the nurses as they try to hold him down – claws his way back to consciousness and then, in a voice weaker and thinner than any Buck’s ever heard him use, he asks for Athena.

It’s a shock, but it’s a happy one. Buck has barely gotten started processing his initial feelings of hopelessness before Bobby’s awake and smiling at them from the hospital bed, looking right as rain. Had there been nothing else going on, Buck would have stayed. He would have parked himself in one of the chairs – in the hospital room or in the waiting area, he doesn’t care – and he wouldn’t have left until the nurses called security to escort him out, but—

Eddie’s phone won’t stop ringing.

So Buck gives Bobby one last, careful hug goodbye, and then he leaves, because Bobby has Athena and Hen and Chimney, and right now Eddie only has Buck.

It’s an easy, if no less painful choice.

Chris isn’t a little kid anymore. He has a voice; he has a say in things now. Eddie wants him to have a say; encourages it, even – is never more proud than when Chris’ burgeoning independence shines through, no matter how heartbreaking the reminder that he soon won’t need the safety net of his father’s outstretched hand anymore.

Do what you always do, Eddie had pleaded, talk to him, but how could Buck explain something he himself couldn’t understand?

I don’t need you to explain it to him, Eddie had insisted. I just— I need you to check in on him.

I’m worried.

Buck, he won’t come out.

The pleasant smell of freshly brewed coffee greets them by the time they finally make it back to the house. Ramon is sitting on the couch in the living room, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands carefully cradling a steaming coffee cup, and he has the air of someone who is waiting – for who, Buck doesn’t know. For Eddie, maybe? For Helena, who Buck can hear moving around the kitchen? Or perhaps for— 

"Buck," Eddie breathes, reaching out to gently touch his fingertips to Buck’s left wrist, and Buck turns his head and follows Eddie’s gaze towards Chris’ bedroom door which is cracked open no more than an inch or two, but open nonetheless. "Buck—"

And Buck can finally hear it now, the request that Eddie hasn’t quite seemed able to give voice to before; the echo of I need you to love him for me now that he won’t let me do it. 

It’s a horrific thing and nothing Buck’s ever wanted, though he suspects the same can’t be said for everyone in the room; he can feel the weight of Ramon’s attention as it settles on them, and even though he knows what the man must be thinking, he still can’t understand it – can’t comprehend how anyone can hear what Eddie isn’t saying right now and somehow still believe that he’ll pull Chris down with him, not when Buck knows that all Eddie’s ever wanted is to spend the rest of his life trying to raise Chris up.  

"I’ll try," Buck tells him, even though he knows he’s a poor substitute, and he does. 

They both do; attempt to get Chris to stay the night, at least – to stay for a little longer, and then leave in the morning – but Ramon and Helena have arranged for a hotel room large enough for three, and in the end, it’s Chris’ choice to make. 

And he chooses to go.

As soon as the door closes behind Chris, Eddie’s entire body lurches. He drops like his legs have been cut out from beneath him, folding in on himself as if he’s either fully prepared to hit the floor or wholly confident that Buck will catch him before it happens, and Buck does, if only just.

They go down together, landing in a heap of tangled legs and bruised knees, and Buck pulls Eddie closer – pulls him almost halfway into his lap and simply holds him as Eddie covers his face with his hands and makes a keening sound of pure despair into his palms, like it’s being pulled out of him by force. Even muffled it’s sharp and painful and real enough to pierce Buck straight through the heart. 

He wraps his arms tighter around Eddie, bundling him up as best he can, and then stays like that – a solid, silent shield of support between Eddie and the door Chris left through – as Eddie slumps forward and lets Buck take the entirety of his weight. He shakes apart in Buck’s embrace, and Buck finds himself hiding his face in Eddie’s shoulder as he blinks back tears of his own, both of their bodies trembling with the force of Eddie’s grief.

They stay like that long enough for Buck’s legs to turn numb and for Eddie’s cries to taper out into quiet, hitched breaths. Buck doesn’t know how long it’s been, but when he gives Eddie’s wrist a firm squeeze – you good? – Eddie’s next exhale is a shudder, followed by an almost imperceptible nod. He wordlessly taps his fingers against Buck’s arm – a thank you where Buck has never needed any, not when it’s Eddie – and then shifts against Buck’s hold, as if suddenly realizing it’s there. He straightens up, his shoulder bumping against Buck’s chest, and Buck remains silent as he watches Eddie slowly try to piece himself back together again. 

It’s a rudimentary patch job at best, because how could it be anything but? Still, Eddie’s good at compartmentalizing – knows how to push things aside to deal with later; it’s something he learned in war, Buck suspects. Your mind can’t be safely at home with your son and wife when your body’s walking beneath the scorching sun of a desert thousands of miles away. It’s a good way to get yourself and everyone around you killed.

Texas isn’t home anymore and L.A. isn’t a desert, but the principle remains the same. Buck doesn’t like it, but he lets Eddie put on a brave face – lets him build himself back up using string and chewing gum, just enough to keep himself going – and then, once Eddie indicates that he’s done, they quietly untangled themselves and carefully help each other up off the floor – both of them on the wrong side of thirty to be in anything but a bit of pain right now.

Buck stands, hands useless and empty as he watches Eddie slip away into the bathroom. He listens to the faucet turn on and the water run as Eddie washes his face, and wipes at the remnants of his own tears using the back of his hand. He feels hollow, like there’s a Chris-shaped hole in his chest, and he can only imagine how much worse Eddie must feel it – how much more powerless and adrift.

His phone dings as he gingerly lowers himself down onto Eddie’s couch, and it’s almost a surprise to be reminded of the outside world – as if, until now, he and Eddie and this house had been the only things to exist, a tiny bubble of grief cut off from every other living thing.  

He gets his phone out and discovers that it’s Tommy texting him, asking about the dinner they had planned before any of this day’s events started to unfold.

Heard Captain Nash is doing better. We still on for tonight? 

Buck’s not surprised Tommy’s heard of what happened – firefighters are notorious gossips, after all, and the firehouse grapevine moves fast. Though, while it’s true that Bobby is doing better, he’s still in the hospital, recovering from a cardiac event. Better is relative, in this case.

"Is it Bobby?" 

Buck looks up, startled enough to flinch, to find Eddie leaning against the door jamb of his bedroom, shoulders hunched and arms crossed in front of his chest, like he’s trying to give himself a hug. He sounds utterly defeated and he looks like it too, eyes rimmed red and face so pale that Buck can only ever remember having seen that particular shade of pallor twice before – in the small bathroom of a farmhouse, feeling the tremors shake Eddie’s body as Buck helped peel him out of his muddy turnouts, skin like ice to the touch; then, once again, in the back of an ambulance, blood trickling like water from between Buck’s fingers as the taste of the same slipped down the back of his throat, warm and bitter.  

"No," Buck replies. "No, it’s, uh, Tommy. We were supposed to have dinner." He turns the screen off and places his phone face down on the coffee table. "I’d forgotten all about it. I’ll— I’ll let him know that I need to cancel."

Eddie sighs. "You should go,” he says. 

"Eddie—"

"I’m serious. Go. No point in both of us being miserable." 

His voice almost breaks on the last word but he manages to cover it with a cough, and he’s trying so hard, Buck thinks, as if either of them will be able to recover from what just happen anytime soon.

When Buck shakes his head, Eddie runs a hand over his face and adds, "I’m going to try to get some sleep. You don’t have to stay."

Buck simply looks at him, and Eddie, for all that he appears exhausted, stubbornly meets Buck’s gaze head-on, far more steadily than Buck would have thought him capable of right now.

"Go," Eddie says. "Have dinner. When have you had time to eat today?" as if Eddie hasn’t been right there with him nearly all day, nothing but chocolate bars and Red Bulls from the hospital vending machine to fuel their vigil.

Buck should insist, he thinks. He should order them something to eat and force Eddie down onto the couch and not let him up until he finishes at least half a portion, but that’s what Eddie needs and not what he wants – and Buck can’t help but feel that right now, what Eddie wants should perhaps take precedence. 

It goes against everything in him, but he forces himself to fold.

"I’m coming back," Buck vows, because he will – with food and something to drink, and he’ll wake Eddie up and drag him out of bed to get him to eat if he has to – and can’t help but feel like maybe he’s making just another mistake in a long line of many others as he watches Eddie unsuccessfully attempt to muster up a smile.

"I know," Eddie says. "Use your key. No more ringing the doorbell."

He gives Buck a pointed look before turning and retreating into his bedroom, and Buck stays on the couch and listens to the sound of him moving around – the closing of a drawer, the groan of the mattress as Eddie climbs into bed – until there are no more sounds to pick out; Buck stays until it’s silent, at last, and then he quietly gets up and walks over to peer inside the room, where he finds Eddie exactly where he said he’d be – in bed, blankets pulled up nearly high enough to cover his head.

And Buck is struck by the impulse to climb in with him – to join him beneath the safety of the blankets, where it’s warm and dark and they can pretend that today never happened and that Chris is in his room, sneakily playing on his Switch even though Eddie told him to go straight to sleep because they’ve got an early day in the morning – and he has to back away before he can give in to the urge. 

He uses his key to lock the front door behind him when he leaves.

Tommy’s just getting out of his car when Buck pulls into the parking garage. He would have liked to have a moment or two to pull himself together, but this is fine too. He’ll make it work.

"You look tired," Tommy says as Buck exits his car and steps around the back of it to meet him. "You come straight from the hospital?"

"Uh, no," Buck says, and he doesn’t know why he hesitates before adding, "I went back to Eddie’s, after."

Tommy makes a contemplative sound but doesn’t push for more. He’s carrying a bottle of red wine, which he wordlessly shows to Buck as they make their way to the elevator, and the ride up to Buck’s floor is quiet, but not uncomfortably so. 

Once inside the apartment, Buck heads to the kitchen to ready the food. He had thought he’d have more time to prepare for tonight – didn’t manage to get his grocery shopping done, for one – but he has enough at home for a simple casserole even if it’s not the meal he’d intended to make, and so he brushes off Tommy’s offer to order something instead. Somewhere along the line cooking has become almost therapeutic to Buck, and he thinks it’s probably better this way – gives him something to do with his hands, if nothing else.

"Tell me about your day," he asks, and Tommy does, Buck interjecting now and then – asking questions that have Tommy going off on tangents, because that’s the key, he’s realized – and it makes the conversation draw out longer than it would have if Tommy had been left to his own storytelling devices.

By the time dinner is ready, Buck’s helped Tommy exhaust his own material, so Buck takes over, talking about Bobby and about Eddie; he goes as far as revealing that Chris has left to spend the summer with his grandparents in Texas and that Eddie’s missing him already, but doesn’t mention what led up to it – that’s for Eddie to divulge, should he want to. Tommy seems to accept the story at face value, as if it’s a regular occurrence – Chris spending his summers in Texas away from Eddie – and Buck can’t find it in himself to correct him.

They circle back to more pleasant things, like revisiting the topic of Bobby’s miraculous recovery. 

"I thought we might really lose him this time," Buck admits. It still feels like a possibility – like a bruise that’s still there, aching when you press on it. "He’s— Bobby’s been the father I never had."

Tommy, for whatever reason, seems almost concerned by the statement. "Your father’s alive,” he points out, like Buck needs the reminder. 

And Buck can’t help but laugh, because that’s the point, isn’t it? That Bobby, with no blood connecting him to Buck whatsoever – with no obligation to care for him – has still managed to show him more love and concern and affection than the man who raised him ever did.

"Exactly," Buck says as he reaches for the salad.

"I have to admit, I’m a little bit jealous," Tommy says. There’s something in his voice that makes Buck turn to look at him – a sense that they’re about to have a real moment – so he puts down the salad tongs and waits for Tommy to continue, curious about where he’s about to take them. 

"My dad and I don’t really talk," Tommy reveals, "and when I was at the 118, I had Gerrard. Which did not make me a better person." He shifts in his seat, like the conversation is making him physically uncomfortable. "Come to think of it, Captain Gerrard was like having the dad I already had."

This, Buck thinks, is what he’s been looking for – the deeper connection, the common ground, the way Tommy’s finally letting him in; a personal conversation about something deeper, even if it’s about fathers who never gave a damn.

After he left home for the first time, Buck had briefly passed through Oregon and spent three weeks holed up in Eugene. He’d hooked up with a college girl there, and talked her into sneaking him into her dorm so that he could have a better place to sleep than in the back of his car. She’d been an art major with a minor in psychology, and the latter seemed to have been something she considered more a hobby than anything she took too seriously; she liked diagnosing people for fun, and Buck had been no exception. According to her, he’d had mommy issues up the gazoo, but then again it had been Mother’s Day weekend – the first one Buck had spent away from home – and it’d just kind of struck him out of the blue that maybe the only thing worse than having a mother who sometimes couldn’t stand to look at you might possibly be having no mother at all. 

He’d spent the weekend in a drunken haze, and whatever he’d said before blacking out, it had apparently been more than enough for a diagnosis to be pinned on him. She’d probably been right, in a sense. You can’t spend your entire childhood with your mother either ignoring you or looking like she’ll burst into tears at the sight of you, and not come out the other side at least a little bit ruined by the experience. 

He supposes that maybe he should add daddy issues to the list as well; suspects that the only reason the girl – Tanya? Tracy? – didn’t pick up on that one too was because come June, Buck had already been gone. Because the truth is, Buck’s dad might never have wept over him – had taken him out for pizza and plied him with things to make him feel better about growing up in their haunted mausoleum of a house – but if there’s one thing Buck has come to know from watching Cap and Eddie, it’s what a real father should be like. And however painful it is to admit, it wasn’t only his mother who fell short of the mark when it came to raising her children. 

"So maybe we both have daddy issues," Buck says. 

He figures it would make sense, but to his surprise, Tommy is very quick to deny it.

"I don’t," he emphatically denies, despite what he just told Buck not one minute ago. 

It’s like having the door slammed shut right in his face just as Tommy had finally deigned to crack it open barely far enough to allow Buck to have a glimpse inside.

It’s not a good feeling. 

"But you think I do,” Buck says, because that much is obvious. Familiar, too; again, not the first time someone’s taken one look at Buck and imagined that they could pinpoint all his neuroses. 

"God, I hope so," Tommy mutters into his wine glass, and oh. It’s a sex joke.

Right.

Buck laughs again because what else can he do? It’s not where he figured the conversation was headed, but he must have read it wrong seeing as how Tommy’s obviously trying to bring them back on track. Buck hadn’t intended to bring the mood down, so that’s completely fair. He knows that Tommy must have been looking forward to a nice, relaxing dinner, so he can’t blame him. Besides, it’s not like Buck’s choice of words didn’t leave him wide open for some innuendo.

He can work with this, he figures, even if he’s used to having a partner who will always try to telegraph his quips so that Buck won’t be completely blindsided by them. It’s like this sometimes with Tommy – he leaves Buck feeling unbalanced, like he’s in danger of getting whiplash from trying to navigate their conversations. Buck will be excited and Tommy will bring him back down to normal levels; Buck will be speaking of trauma, and Tommy will make a daddy joke.

Tommy’s watching him over the rim of his wine glass now, and it occurs to Buck that maybe it’s less of a joke and something Tommy might actually want from him. Eventually, that is; they’re taking it slow, dating but not officially boyfriends quite yet. 

If Buck starts to think too hard about it, he knows he’ll start going down that familiar road again of worrying that they might be moving too slow for Tommy. He just— Buck wants to get it right, for once, and he believes that this might be his chance. So they haven’t fallen into bed yet, even though he knows Tommy wouldn’t be opposed. He’s told Buck he’s willing to wait, but they haven’t put a timeframe on it, and jokes like the one that was just made makes Buck wonder what exactly it is that Tommy’s expecting from him once they do – and if Tommy’s expecting it to happen sooner rather than later now.

It also makes Buck wonder if Tommy’s heard about Buck 1.0 – and, if he has, if this might actually be his way of testing the waters, like a way to hint that he knows what Buck is capable of and that he’s getting tired of waiting for Buck to come around. The thought of going to bed with a man is both exciting and terrifying, Buck finds; he’s good at sex, and he’s had a lot of it, but this wouldn’t be the same, would it? Difference in equipment aside, he would, for once, be the inexperienced one in this particular equation, and that’s something he hasn’t experienced since that first fumbling time with Sophie Butler in junior year. 

He can feel himself flushing and clears his throat as he looks down at his plate, desperately trying to come up with another subject matter until he finds one.

"I’m, uh, actually thinking about going to stay with Eddie at his house for a while," he says. "I think he could use the company."

It’s a bit of an understatement, if he’s honest, and he suspects anyone would be able to tell. He glances up, half expecting Tommy to call the two of them codependent – Chimney certainly would, if he were here – but Tommy doesn’t. He simply raises an eyebrow and takes another sip of his wine, which Buck thinks might be even worse.

"So yeah," Buck forges on, ignoring the looming feeling of digging his hole deeper. "I mean, we haven’t talked about it yet, but I’ll probably pack a bag and head over to his place once we get off our next shift."

Tommy places his wine glass back on the table. "That’s a pretty big decision to make without talking to Eddie first," he casually points out. "I mean, you’re inviting yourself over to stay for a few days."

And Buck thinks of a kitchen full of cabinets that he helped stock and arrange; of a bedroom wall he helped patch and paint; of the way the couch is practically molded after his own body due to all the nights he’s spent sleeping on it.

He makes a face, feeling a bit sheepish. "I mean, it’s Eddie."

Tommy raises an eyebrow as he reaches for the bottle and begins to refill his glass.

“I’m not really a guest at his house,” Buck explains. He laughs. “I’m pretty sure his couch and I are close to merging into one being at this point."

"Sounds painful." 

"It’s fine." Buck shrugs and spears a carrot with his fork, adding, "I’ve been thinking about offering Cap and Athena to stay here. Just until they sort things out with their insurance. That way they won’t have to pay for a hotel in the meantime."

"That’s generous of you," Tommy says, raising the bottle of wine and indicating to Buck’s half-empty glass, and Buck shakes his head.

"Insurance was a bitch when I was laid up with my leg," he explains. "I had to break into my savings at one point. If it’s anything like that for them, I’d like to help any way I can."

And Eddie too; Buck’s actually kind of proud of his plan. He’s a fixer by nature, but he knows that some things cannot be mended so easily. He can’t help Bobby and Athena get their insurance claim processed any quicker, and he can’t get Chris back to Eddie, where he belongs, before Chris decides he’s ready, but this way he can maybe make Eddie’s and Cap’s and Athena’s lives just a tiny bit easier in one fell swoop, even if it’s only by providing a safe place to stay or a shoulder to lean on.

Tommy is quiet for a moment. "Well," he eventually says. "It’s good to know where your priorities lie."

The words are innocuous enough that Buck is slightly taken aback by his tone – he sounds resigned, like Buck’s somehow disappointed him. 

“I mean, yeah," Buck says. "Of course.” Because they just talked about this. He just told Tommy that he thought of Cap as a dad. “Bobby and Athena, they’re family. And Eddie is—”

Buck hesitates as Tommy raises his eyebrows and takes another sip of his wine. Red isn’t Buck’s preference, but he can’t deny that it goes well with the casserole he managed to whip together. 

“I’m really curious to hear how you’re gonna finish that sentence,” Tommy murmurs into the glass.

Buck straightens in his seat. "Eddie," he says, "is my best friend."

Tommy chuckles. "And here I thought that was Christopher."

Usually, it would warm Buck from the inside out when he thinks about Chris speaking favorably about him to others. It still does, only now the feeling is tinged with a sense of loss, because who knows when Chris will be back again. Soon, Buck hopes; yesterday, preferably. Eddie messed up, but he also raised a kid with a heart of gold. Buck can’t but imagine that forgiveness must be closer than either of them dare to hope. 

"Maybe this will be a good thing," Tommy continues, obviously picking up on where Buck’s mind just went. "Eddie will get some time to himself, and Chris’ll get to spend the summer with his grandparents. I would’ve loved that as a kid."

It’s an unwelcome reminder of what Buck had told Chris only a few hours ago, the echoes of that fumbled conversation rising at the back of Buck’s mind.

"Maybe," he says, even if he very much doubts that the time apart will do either Chris or Eddie any favors. He thinks Tommy might agree if only he knew the details of what had actually transpired to chase Chris all the way to Texas. "I’m just gonna miss him, y’know." Buck finds himself smiling to himself as he ducks his head down. "We had almost the whole summer planned out already. Did you know there’s this new exhibit over at—"

"Evan." 

Buck stops talking. 

Looks down at his plate and waits. 

And when nothing more is forthcoming, he finally raises his head to find Tommy watching him. 

"Evan, he’s not your kid," Tommy carefully tells him, like he’s trying to break it to Buck gently. "You know that, right?"

And it’s funny, but all Buck can think of is that Eddie called him Evan too, in the moment when he gave Buck Chris.

"He would be," Buck says. 

Tommy frowns. "What—?"

"He would be mine. If something happened to—" God, he can’t even say it, can he? "If anything were to happen, Chris would be mine. I’m his guardian. Eddie put me in his will."

"Evan…"

"And even if nothing ever does, he’s still—" Mine. Family. Maybe the closest thing I’ll ever have to a child of my own. Buck gestures helplessly at nothing, trying to make Tommy understand. "He’s Chris, y’know."

He watches Tommy’s face go through a myriad of expressions, all too quick for Buck to catch, before settling on mildly bemused.

"He has living grandparents," Tommy says. "He’s staying with them right now."

"Yeah."

"And I assume," Tommy continues, as if he’s trying to work it out, "that they would want him, in the case of something happening to Eddie."

"That’s right," Buck agrees, and it’s like having the conversation about the will all over again, only this time Buck’s on the other side of it.

"But," Tommy concludes, and now he’s looking at Buck like it’s the first time he’s seeing him, "you wouldn’t let them take him, would you?"

Buck swallows against the lump in his throat. "No," he says, "I wouldn’t." 

Should the worst happen, Buck would fight for Chris because it’s what Eddie would have wanted. Even if Buck sometimes still wonders what the hell Eddie had been thinking, naming Buck as Chris’ guardian, Buck knows two things without a shred of doubt; one, that Eddie loves Chris above all else, and two, that Eddie, when in his right mind, will never not put Chris first. 

Eddie’s the best father Buck has ever known. The way he loves Chris with every single fiber of his being is amazing to behold, and everything Buck would have wished for, growing up, had he realized that that kind of devotion was something that could actually be attained. If Eddie has decided that Buck is to be the one to attempt to give Chris even a shred of that kind of love should Eddie no longer be around to do it, then Buck believes him. Believes in that choice. Believes it enough to try. And will fight tooth and nail to see it through to completion.

"I don’t want kids," Tommy says. "Never have."

“Uh, okay,” Buck replies, because is this what they’re doing right now? Having the kids conversation? They haven’t even put a label on what they are yet – the lunches and dinner dates and— 

"Even without the bad example," Tommy’s saying, "I wouldn’t want kids."

Buck considers this. "You don’t have to pass it down," is what he eventually settles on.

He doesn’t know if he’s trying to defend his own potential parenting skills or if he’s trying to reassure Tommy, but either way, Buck sincerely believes that it’s true; he’s always been determined not to make the same mistakes that his own father made and, so far, he thinks he’s proven that it’s possible to break the cycle. 

He’s seen Eddie do it too, and he thinks Tommy’s capable of it as well; Buck’s never actually seen him around kids, not even Chris, but he knows that Tommy has three half-brothers and a handful of nieces and nephews, and the way he had spoken of them in the conversation where they were first mentioned – the surprising fondness in his voice, so much like what Buck imagines he himself must sound like when talking about Chris – is enough to tell Buck that Tommy’s probably pretty good with them.

While Tommy might be wholly content with playing the fun uncle – dipping in, spoiling his niblings rotten, and then dipping right back out so that he can fly to Vegas or go rock climbing or whatever – Buck thinks that, should he change his mind and choose to settle down and actually start a family, the odds are in favor of it ending up a happy one.

Not that it’s likely to happen. Tommy’s always on the go, on the lookout for adventure, and that’s fun, up to a point, but Buck— 

Buck has always wanted more. Always. 

"I love kids," he says. "I want— I want kids. Eventually." He runs a hand over his face, laughing. "This is a weird conversation to be having right now."

"Is it?"

And god, Buck’s getting sick of all these counter-questions being thrown at him. It’s like being back in high school and facing down a teacher hellbent on getting some kind of debate going. Though maybe that’s the point; maybe this is Tommy’s way of nudging him into talking about it – into not so subtly letting Buck know that they’re not compatible in the long term – fun for now, but a way to hint that Tommy won’t ever love Buck enough to even consider starting a family with him— 

Buck covers his mouth with his hand and shakes his head. No. That line of thinking is ungenerous of him, and pretty unfair to Tommy. He shouldn’t go down that rabbit hole.

He clears his throat instead, indicating towards Tommy’s plate. "Do you want more, or—?"

"I’m good." Tommy sets his fork and knife to the side, moving his wine glass out of the way as Buck stands to grab both their plates and bring them over to the sink. "Maybe we should call it a night," he tells Buck. "You’ve had a long day."

That, thankfully, is something that they can both agree on. Buck says as much, and Tommy offers to help with the dishes, but Buck knows he’ll get them done faster on his own – and, to be honest, he’d like some time alone to think, too. So he walks Tommy to the door and gives him a kiss goodnight, and then he grabs his phone from the kitchen counter and looks up the phone number to the hospital.

Athena answers on the second ring. Both she and Bobby lost their phones in the fire, and Buck has no idea if they’ve had time to get replacements yet, but the woman manning the hospital mainboard had been nice enough to connect him to the landline next to Bobby’s bed. Buck had had a hunch that even if Bobby had been too tired to answer, Athena would also be there, and he’d been correct.

She says No as soon as she realizes why he’s calling.

"I want to," Buck insists as he starts dividing the leftovers up into smaller containers to bring back for Eddie to eat. "I’ll be staying with Eddie either way, so either you accept, or the place stays empty."

"Buck—"

"Athena, I’d really like someone here to keep an eye on it for me. You’d be doing me a favor."
  
"You don’t have to do this, baby."

"I know I don’t," Buck says. 

And the thing about Athena Grant-Nash is that she might just be the most impressive woman Buck has ever known – and he’s Maddie Han’s sister, so that says a lot. 

She’s honestly kind of terrifying – a genuine force of nature – and Buck would be lying if he said that she hadn’t scared the living shit out of him the first time he met her. But, in the past twenty-four hours, she’s also suffered a series of near-devastating events; almost losing her own life; nearly having Bobby lose his; her house – the home she raised her kids in, where the memories of their lives together were stored – reduced to nothing but ash. 

Buck’s loft is a place where he exists, but Athena and Bobby’s house had, just like Eddie’s, been a home. Buck can only imagine the pain of losing something like that.

Athena’s silent on the other end of the line, but that’s okay. Buck can wait her out, because being strong and independent means that she’s also smart enough to realize when it’s okay to take the helping hand that’s being stretched out to her. 

Eddie correctly clocks Buck’s intentions as soon as he spots the duffel bag sitting by Buck’s feet. Buck had somehow managed to stuff it into his locker when he’d arrived for the start of their shift some forty-nine hours ago, and though it had honestly been a bit of a struggle to get it out again, he’d eventually managed it, and now he’s dressed and ready to go, just waiting for Eddie to lace up his boots.

Eddie straightens out, eyeing first Buck and then the bag, and the corner of his mouth twitches like he has many things he’d like to say about all of it, but after a moment he seems to settle for a simple, "You coming?" 

He rises from the bench and bends down to pick up his own bag, shouldering it with a low grunt, and while Buck hadn’t necessarily expected him to put up a fight, he’d at least been prepared to have to ask Eddie about it. But yet again, Eddie simply sees, understands, and accepts. Anyone else would have found Buck’s actions presumptuous, but this is Eddie – they’re on the same page, always.

"Yeah," Buck says, relieved. “Right behind you.”

He follows Eddie out to the parking lot and easily falls into step with him, walking close enough that their duffels bump against each other with every odd step, and even though Eddie hasn’t said as much – hasn’t really said anything, apart from that initial question – Buck can tell that he’s grateful not to be alone. Buck knows that neither of them do very well on their own.

They make it home to Eddie’s in good time, and Buck’s in the middle of loading both of their laundry into the washing machine when his phone, still on silent, vibrates with an incoming text.

We need to talk.

Yeah, Buck thinks, somewhat resigned. We probably do.

I’m at Eddie’s, he types out in reply. Tommy gives it a thumbs up, which has Buck sort of wincing because he hasn’t even had time to run it by Eddie yet.

"Uh, hey," he calls, sticking his head out of the laundry room and hoping Eddie’s somewhere close enough to hear him. "Is it okay if Tommy stops by real quick?"

"It’s fine," Eddie responds from somewhere beyond the living room, and then Buck can hear a door closing – Eddie politely making himself scarce, it would seem. 

As much as Buck hates the thought of Eddie having to hide out in his bedroom just because Buck invited Tommy over, he finds himself almost grateful for it ten minutes later as he opens the door to let Tommy in. 

"That was quick," Buck says. "Were you in the area?"

Tommy shrugs. "Something like that," he mutters as he steps past Buck and into the house. 

He looks rather uncomfortable standing in the middle of Eddie’s living room. Awkward, even, and that’s not a word Buck ever thought he’d use for Tommy Kinard. Buck knows that this isn’t Tommy’s first time in Eddie’s house – the whole thing’s pretty funny in hindsight, considering how jealous Buck had been when Eddie had first started hanging out with Tommy; all the excursions and basketball games and bringing him around Chris – but Tommy looks out of place here, now.

Eddie’s house is warm and cozy and safe in a way Buck finds few places to be. It’s a home, the kind Buck’s spent all his life longing for, and Tommy looks like he doesn’t belong. Worse still – he looks like he knows it, too.

Buck thinks that it might be less awkward if they had Eddie here to act as a buffer, and he’s almost tempted to call him out of hiding, but that would be a ridiculous thing to do because Buck and Tommy have been alone together before – have spent hours upon hours of their time with no one but each other as company – so Eddie should be the last person Buck needs right now, realistically. 

Still, the feeling remains as he watches Tommy turn towards the couch, eyes keen as he takes in the pillows and blanket piled at one end of it.

"Huh," he says. "You really are sleeping on it."

Buck doesn’t even know what that means. He imagines taking Chris’ bed – though Eddie would probably fight him for it – or worse, the floor, and grimaces at the thought of what that would do to his poor back.

"Beats the alternative," he says, and Tommy, for whatever reason, shoots him an almost disbelieving look. "So, uh—" Buck trails off, wondering if Tommy’s going to tell him why it was so important to come over. If this was Buck’s place, he’d offer Tommy a beer or something. He’d been thinking about getting started on dinner after the laundry, so he figures he might as well offer; "You want something to eat?"

He heads into the kitchen without waiting for an answer and without bothering to check if Tommy follows – simply trusts that he will, seeing as how he was so intent on speaking to Buck that he got here within ten minutes of sending the initial text. Even if Tommy’s not hungry, he can talk while Buck gets everything ready. 

They – meaning Buck, Eddie, and Chris – had made plans for quesadillas this weekend, but that was before Chris left. Buck doesn’t know if Eddie’s going to be in the mood for anything that reminds him of Chris’ absence – especially plans that fell through – but he figures he can always freeze the quesadillas for later if Eddie would rather have something else.

He grabs a bag of tortilla bread out of one of the overhead cabinets and senses more than sees Tommy enter the kitchen behind him. There’s the low scraping sound of one of the chairs being pulled out as Tommy takes a seat at the kitchen table, and while Buck waits for him to speak up, he turns to grab a pair of scissors from one of the drawers, because he can never trust himself to not destroy the entire bag of bread if he attempts to open them using only his hands.

"You seem to know your way around," Tommy finally says, and Buck, for some reason, finds himself smiling despite it all. 

"Told you,” he reminds Tommy as he returns the scissors to their rightful place, “I’m not really a guest here."

“Yeah,” Tommy mutters, and then he falls quiet again except for the slow tapping of his fingertips against the top of the table. 

Buck opens the fridge to check if Eddie actually remembered to buy the queso de hebra that Buck had made sure to add to his grocery list earlier this week – and underline not once but twice – but sadly it seems he didn’t. 

“I guess we both saw this coming,” Tommy says, and Buck turns, confused. 

“What?” It occurs to him almost as soon as he’s said it that of course Tommy’s not talking about the cheese. 

“Evan,” Tommy intones, like Buck’s some kind of idiot or being obtuse on purpose, and it’s so bizarrely reminiscent of how his mother sometimes used to speak to him that it makes Buck’s hackles rise. 

“Tommy,” he parrots, an attempt at the same tone of voice, but it’s never come quite as naturally to him as it seems to do other people, and he doesn’t think he quite manages to hit the mark this time either. 

It’s frustrating, for whatever reason, and he closes the fridge and starts going through the cabinets, blindly retrieving items and placing them on the counter before realizing he doesn’t really have much of a game plan when it comes to dinner anymore. He can almost feel the weight of Tommy’s eyes burning into the back of his neck, and it’s all too easy to simply give in and turn around and lean against the cabinets as he finally faces him. 

"Okay,” Buck sighs. “What is it you saw coming?"

Tommy doesn’t answer at first. His attention is on the fridge, on the drawings pinned to the door by the gaudy, food-shaped novelty magnets that Buck, much to Chris’ delight, had snuck into the house behind Eddie’s back. 

Chris doesn’t color much anymore – too old now, Buck supposes – but the last works of art he made are still proudly on display, Eddie loathe to take them down; it’s a colorful collage of fire trucks and dinosaurs and various Marvel superheroes, the latter a hint at Chris’ final obsessive phase of childhood before the tween years made him too cool for fridge pictures, even if they do use donut-shaped magnets. There are self-portraits too, and depictions of Eddie and Buck as well – sometimes at a fire, but mostly standing next to Chris, cheering him on as he rides a T-Rex, or wears a cape and fights a supervillain. 

“You always seem to end up here, don’t you?” Tommy says. 

He doesn’t specify if by here he means at Eddie’s house, or by Eddie’s side, but it doesn’t matter; Buck resists the urge to roll his eyes, because this isn’t the first time someone’s taken a fantastical leap of logic as to the nature of his and Eddie’s relationship – though, kind of ironically, he thinks it might just be the first time it’s happened since Buck came out as anything other than strictly straight.

“He’s my best friend,” he slowly says, willing to be patient and walk Tommy through this if he has to, but Tommy doesn’t seem particularly moved. 

“And you’re my boyfriend.”

Buck purses his lips, gently surprised. Sure, he’s wondered at times during these past few months, but he hadn’t realized that Tommy considered them at the point of applying labels already. "Really?"

Tommy levels him a look. "You tell me."
 
Boyfriends. Buck mulls the word over for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I think—”

Buck thinks— 

Buck knows that this is not a phase. Tommy. Men.

He’d been worried it might be, at first – hopped up on adrenaline and jealousy and guilt, spiraling over both Tommy and Eddie – and then Tommy had kissed him, totally out of the blue, and it hadn’t so much been like a locked door opening as it had been a feeling of something previously missing finally slotting back into place. 

He’s well aware that some people actually do believe that he’s going through a phase. Bisexual stereotypes aside, Buck’s got a reputation of his own – it’s Buck 1.0 haunting him from yesteryear, still. He can only imagine what some of the more abrasive firefighters on B- or C-Shift must be saying about him. Probably something about already having fucked his way through all the available women in L.A., so now he’s resorted to giving the men a go, too.

Opinions like that are partly why Buck’s been so desperate to make this thing with Tommy work, he realizes – because it feels right, this part of him. It might be new, but he can’t give up on it. It would feel like the worst kind of betrayal if he did. Still, it’s been difficult to convince himself that if this— this relationship – his first actual relationship with a man – fails, it won’t be a reflection on Buck, as a person, or on anything else, really. That it’s just… life, in a sense. Something that happens to everyone, at some point.

Because he’s had relationships end before. This should be no different, except it’s with a man, and one Buck pursued, at that – hard, to the point of actually physically hurting his best friend in the process. A large part of him feels like it would be a disservice to both Eddie and himself if he gave up on this too easily. And to Tommy too, of course, since Buck basically begged him for a second chance after that catastrophic first date that Buck pretty much torpedoed all on his own, no help needed.

“I think," Buck says, carefully finding his words, "that we’ve been taking it slow, because I’m— I mean, I’ve never dated a guy before. It’s new. And I appreciate that— that you’ve been patient with me, and that you haven’t asked me to put a name to whatever this is.” Not until now, at least. 

And he’s not lying when he says he’s grateful. Buck knows he has a pattern – he goes into relationships too fast, and too strong – and that’s partly why he’s been trying to pace himself with Tommy. He’d figured the feelings of something being off – of being dismissed and maybe even feeling belittled at times – might have been a byproduct of this new and unfamiliar approach. He’d figured that it might actually be him at fault for the way they’re sometimes completely out of step with each other – Buck once again the common denominator in how pretty much every single one of his previous relationships seemed to end with him being summarily dismissed – there’s that word again – and left behind. It makes perfect sense if you see it as the pattern it appears to be. 

Buck is, for lack of a better metaphor, on a perpetual hamster wheel that he can’t seem to get off of. That’s just a fact. He’s gone round and round so many times now that he’s practically dizzy with it.

He thinks that if he were able to clear his head a little and take a step back and make time to properly dissect his past relationships, maybe he could finally pinpoint whatever thing it is about him that seems to both attract and repel people. So far, he’s been too afraid to stop and look too closely – always moving, always drawn into the next person’s orbit, determined that this is the one – the one who stays; the one who lasts; the one who sees past everything else, right down to the core of him, and, inexplicably, still manages to love him anyway.

He’s not sure if he ever believed that Tommy would actually be that person, but he’s been desperate enough to give it a go. Looking at his maybe-boyfriend now – sitting in Eddie’s kitchen, in Eddie’s preferred seat, and looking wholly displeased about the fact for whatever reason – Buck wonders if perhaps he hasn’t actually managed to move on from anything at all – if maybe he never will, his hangups remaining the same no matter what gender he sets his sights on.

It’s a rather hopeless thought. He kind of wants to ask Eddie what he thinks, but he’s a bit afraid of what the answer will be. If Buck asks him to, Eddie will always be completely truthful with him – but that also means that Buck runs the risk of backing him into a corner, to the point of Eddie feeling obligated to tell Buck that yes, he actually is the root cause of everything that’s gone wrong so far. 

Buck doesn’t think he’d survive that, somehow. 

"Is that what this is about?" he asks Tommy. "Us putting a label on things? Making it official?"

Tommy, however, is still looking at the fridge, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth, and it dawns on Buck that maybe, while they might be reading the same book, Tommy’s somehow skipped a few chapters ahead without Buck even noticing. 

“Wait,” he slowly says, “hold on. Is this— is this about last night? About what I told you about Chris?”

Tommy shrugs. “You just showed me where your priorities lie, Evan,” he says, all placid like it doesn’t bother him much either way – even though the continued rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the table hints at a brewing frustration. 

“But you knew that already,” Buck says, somewhat flabbergasted despite it all. “You— You brought Chris up when you came over, remember? Before you kissed me. You made a point of telling me that you wouldn’t be able to replace me in his life!”

“Well,” Tommy says, “maybe I just didn’t realize how serious you are about it until last night.”

"How serious I—" Buck echoes, but it’s like the words die on his tongue as the realization hits him. “You’re breaking up with me,” he chokes out, “because of Chris?” 

It’s— It’s fucking insane what Tommy’s implying. Not the part about breaking up – god knows Buck’s seen more than his share of relationships ending – but just the fact that anyone – that Tommy – would look at Chris and find him a reason to leave. 

Chris, who’s such a bright child, so stubborn and so fucking strong, full of joy and absolutely brimming with the will to live. Each moment Buck spends with him, he seems to find new reasons to love the kid, so to look at him and see him as anything other than an inspiration to stay, to fight – to keep swimming, no matter what – is genuinely incomprehensible to Buck. 

“Sure,” Tommy deadpans, as unperturbed as if they were discussing the chance of rain tonight, “over Chris.”

Oh, fuck you too, Buck thinks, allowing himself to feel the first flickers of anger creep up his spine. “Chris comes first," he informs Tommy, "always.” 

Tommy has the gall to raise an eyebrow at him. “Before everything,” he says, and it’s neither a statement nor a question, but Buck doesn’t fucking care right now. 

“Yes,” he confirms, and for once he’s wholly unconcerned with holding back the bite in his voice. “Before everything.” Even you. Right now, maybe especially you. 

It’s such a fucking stupid thing for Tommy to get all hung up about. Chances are that if something were to happen to Eddie on the job, Buck would die right alongside him – or, if not there and then, then right on his heels, probably while trying to claw his way to him. Because they’re partners – have been, from the very start – and because where Eddie goes, so does Buck; because he will, and has, far too many times to count, followed Eddie through literal fire. To follow him into death does not, for whatever reason, feel like an unreasonable thing to ask of Buck – feels almost like a comfort, Buck having already twice before lived through the hollow grief that comes with Eddie going where Buck can’t follow – and Buck could see it happen, he thinks, far too easily, had it not been for Chris. 

But he can’t tell Tommy any of that, can he? So he crosses his arms over his chest instead and lets the anger burn away the part of him that would prefer to keep the peace. Because Buck is a lot of things – needy and selfish and clingy; too much, yet somehow still never enough; a pushover; someone to be used and used up; prone to offering his heart far too freely, to whoever should want it as well as to those who don’t, all simply for the prospect of a kind touch and a smile – and none of it has ever helped him feel better or empowered him to advocate for himself, but for Chris— 

For Chris, Buck thinks he can do anything. For Chris, he will move mountains, if he has to. He’ll brave the surge of an entire ocean and walk a thousand miles in the aftermath, all the while bleeding himself dry. This? This is nothing.

He looks at Tommy and Tommy looks back, and the last time they were at this kind of an impasse there was a counter between them and Buck was apologizing – was stepping closer, was getting kissed, gently, like Tommy actually cared.

“We should call it,” is all Tommy says now, with one final, decisive tap of his fingers against the surface of the table.

He’s acting like he’s signaling for the check at the end of a meal instead of telling Buck that they’re over, and it makes Buck bristle, because there it is again – the lack of consideration, the frank dismissal without a thought as to what Buck might want. 

It’s quickly dispelled in favor of something else, however, because as he watches Tommy get to his feet, he feels a sudden sense of satisfaction start to bloom in his chest. It’s a heady feeling, being able to look Tommy straight in the eye right now and know without a doubt that whatever missteps Buck might have taken in these past few months, it hadn’t been enough to bring about this end. 

Because Tommy’s the one who ultimately decided to give up on them. He’s the one who took one look at the very best part of Buck – the part of him that loves Chris like he was his own – and decided that it didn’t make Buck worth fighting for. Had it been any other thing, Buck might have understood, but this part? This part of him is holy.

"I’ll see you around, maybe," he says, instead of I’m sorry or It’s been good, or any other cliché he might have uttered in the past just to make the other party feel better, because right now it would be a lie. 

"Maybe," Tommy agrees, like he knows it won’t happen. "I hope you find what you’re looking for, Evan."

"It’s Buck," Buck says. "And, uh, yeah. I do too." He doesn’t know exactly what that might be just yet, but he’ll figure it out eventually; right now, as Tommy has so clearly pointed out, Buck’s priorities lie elsewhere.

Tommy nods to himself but doesn’t go for a kiss goodbye, just like he doesn’t wait for Buck to walk him to the door; he slips out of Eddie’s kitchen as smoothly as he once stepped into Buck’s, and that’s it – three months of Buck’s life, over and done with, just like that.

It’s strange how the whos or hows or whys don’t matter, in the end; Tommy might have played a large part in helping Buck discover the whole of himself, but it suddenly dawns on him that he’s the one who gets to keep it. Even after Tommy walks out the door it’ll still be here, with Buck and in Buck, his alone to claim. 

For what might be the first time ever, he’s getting left with more than he had before, simply because he stayed true to himself. He didn’t give up. He stuck it out. And if it didn’t turn out the way he thought it would? 

Well. Sometimes, life just… happens. And Buck, for once, is all the richer for it. 

The house is silent enough for him to clearly be able to hear the front door opening and then closing behind Tommy as he leaves, and Buck exhales a trembling sigh and runs a hand over his face. He finds himself holding his breath until he can hear another door opening, slow and almost tentative, and finds himself suddenly smiling against the palm of his hand.

"Hey," Eddie says as he carefully pokes his head into the kitchen, out of hiding now that the coast is clear. "Did Tommy leave?"

Buck huffs a laugh and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand, suddenly feeling it hit him that it’s actually over. Not that it’s a bad feeling. Not at all. Just— Just different. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

"And you’re okay?" Eddie asks, concern lacing his voice and softening his features, and Buck loves him – honestly doesn’t know what he would do without him – and that is why he will never tell him the real reason why Tommy left. 

"Yeah, I think so," Buck says instead.

Eddie seems to take his admission as a cue to fully step inside the room, coming to stand next to the pulled-out kitchen chair, and he somehow manages to slip seamlessly into the space that Tommy left behind. Buck takes in the weary slope of his shoulders and the way his smile doesn’t quite seem to reach his eyes, and he thinks he can find himself mirrored there, in the feeling of leaving and having left. 

"You’ll be okay too," he tells Eddie. "You know that, right? Chris just needs— He needs time. He loves you, Eddie. So much."

Eddie’s jaw works as he looks away, hands braced on the back of the chair that Tommy left unoccupied, knuckles turning white just for a moment as he flexes his hand around the wooden frame. 

"I hope so," he says, and he doesn’t sound as despondent as Buck had feared he would; sounds like he’s started upon the road to maybe being willing to believe it – being willing to believe Buck. 

It’s a start, if nothing else. 

"I was thinking of making dinner," Buck tells him, and Eddie clears his throat. 

"Yeah? What are you making?" 

He turns to face Buck fully, appearing thankful for the diversion, and Buck twists around to peer down at the items he pulled out of the cabinets in his own fit of distraction – a browning banana, a bag of flour, and the opened pack of tortillas – and can’t make much rhyme or reason of it.

"I— I, uh, don’t know, actually,” he admits. 

Eddie snorts in what might just be an attempt to hide an actual laugh. "We could order something," he suggests as Buck frowns down at the banana.

"But I already opened the tortillas,” he laments. 

"Well in that case…" He can practically hear Eddie roll his eyes, and then he does hear Eddie pushing the chair back into its proper place by the table. 

A moment later he appears at Buck’s side, close enough to gently knock their shoulders together as he reaches out to grab the tortillas. 

"We’ll figure something out," he says, confidently enough that Buck can’t do anything but believe him. 

Had it been anyone else, they might have called it misplaced confidence. Not Buck, though, because this is what they do, isn’t it?

Together, they somehow always manage to figure it out, eventually.