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Buck doesn't know what to do with the silence on the other end of the line. He pulls the phone away from his ear and stares down at the screen .
Twenty-minutes of nothing but quiet.
Unease twists his gut, nausea flooding his mouth with saliva as he tries and fails to keep his heartbeat even.
He knows Tommy's had a bad shift. He'd know it even if Maddie hadn't sent him a text letting him know that dispatch received a nasty call because his boyfriend's texts became shorter and further apart. Eventually, they just stopped altogether. He wasn't worried then. Buck knows what it's like to have a bad call, to need space to get your head together, so he just assumed they'd talk about it tomorrow when Tommy swung by the loft on his way home. He wasn't expecting it when his phone vibrated just past three in the morning, but even that was okay. It wasn’t like Buck hadn’t had his share of shifts where he needed nothing but Tommy's voice to help him find some sort of equilibrium.
So he gets it.
But the dead silence? Yeah, that’s concerning.
Tommy is still on the other end of the line. Buck can hear the jagged edge of his breathing and the start-stop staccato of stifled tears. It's fucking devastating. It's been a long time since he's hurt this badly, this deeply for someone he cares about. If he could snap his fingers and transport himself to Harbor in an instant, he would.
He weighs his words and swallows a couple times before he speaks. "Tommy, if you, uh—if you want to sit here and not say anything, we can keep doing that. Or-or if you want me to talk, I can do that too. Or if you want me to come down there, I-I will. I just—I need to know if you're—" alright sounds shitty, but it's all he has. "I need to know if you're—"
"Did you know that I love you?"
Buck's mouth closes with a snap. His heart knocks so fiercely against his chest, he could swear someone just shot it up with adrenaline.
"I—"
"Never mind. What am I doing? I probably shouldn't have said that. Forget I said anything."
"No, no, Tommy. Wait a second, just. Hold on."
It's only been four months. Buck didn't even know Tommy was thinking in that direction. But... it makes sense. This thing between them is unlike anything he's ever felt before. He's had a hard time putting to words the warmth in his chest, the safety he feels when he's in Tommy's presence, mainly because he doesn't have anything else to compare it to. But he knows what he feels and, if he's being honest, he's felt it for far longer than he's comfortable examining at 3:30 in the morning.
Buck swings his legs out of bed and dresses quickly. "I'm coming over there."
"No. You don't have to."
"Too bad. I am." He grabs a jacket—Tommy's, he realizes only when he's gotten downstairs.
"Evan."
Buck stops. "I'm here."
"I don't... need you to come. I just need you to know that I love you."
"What happened?"
Silence stretches, but not the silence of being ignored. Tommy is processing, thinking.
"There was a car accident," he says slowly, picking his words like shrapnel out of a wound, trying to make it all burn less. "A single mom in a mom van, she—I don't know. I don't know if she fell asleep at the wheel or veered into another lane or—it doesn't really matter. She hit a semi head-on."
Jesus. Christ.
"There wasn't anything left." Tommy's voice is flat, vacant. "I mean that, truly. It was—nothing. Just... meat."
"Tommy."
"And it was—you know. There was luggage. You know? Probably a trip to grandma's or a family vacation or fucking whatever, I don't know. But there was luggage and there was this—this little cute, pink teddy bear, and I just—I just lost it."
Buck sits down hard on the floor. He presses his fingers to his eyes and breathes until he can trust his voice not to crack when he speaks.
"You did everything you could. Sometimes that means doing nothing at all, just making sure whoever's left behind has something of the other person to cling to."
"But a whole family, Evan."
"I know."
"It's not enough."
"It never is. That doesn't mean you didn't do everything you could."
Tommy makes a sharp noise in the back of his throat. Buck has grown so used to his little noises and sounds over the last month that he doesn't need to see his face to know what it means. He doesn't believe him. That's okay. Buck doesn't need him to. He'll believe it enough for the both of them.
"Anyway," Tommy says after a long moment. "I just really wanted to hear your voice."
"I'm right here."
"I know."
Buck rubs his palms on the thin fabric of his sweatpants—also Tommy's, he now realizes. God. He's everywhere, isn't he?—and picks at a small hole with his thumbnail.
"You know I-I love you too, right? You know that."
A beat passes. "I do now."
"Good. Because I...I do. And I'm just really ready for you to come home so I can hold you. Okay? So just—" he looks at the clock on the stove. "You have about four more hours until you can come home. I'll stay on the line until then."
Tommy snorts and something in Buck’s chest immediately loosens. "I don't think that's necessary."
"I would. I will."
He's serious. He would do fucking anything for this man—stay on the phone, climb a mountain, fight every demon in his past, figure out time travel so he could go back in time and protect him from everything and everyone that's ever tried to hurt him. He would do it all.
Tommy's voice is softer. "I know you would. But you should really get some sleep. And I'm going to try to get some sleep as well."
Buck doubts that, but he doesn't argue. If Tommy needs to be alone with himself and his thoughts, he's not going to stop him.
"Okay. I turned off Do Not Disturb, so if you call me, I'll hear it."
"Okay." Another pause, shorter this time. "I love you, Evan."
God.
Buck fights the chill the glides through his body. How long has he wanted someone to say that to him and actually mean it? He thought (hoped) he knew what love meant when he said it to Taylor all those years ago, but it's nothing compared to this.
"I love you too. Come home soon, okay?"
"You got it."
Tommy disconnects the call. He has to be the one to do it because Buck would stay on the phone all night, regardless of what he said, if he hadn't. He pries himself up from off the floor and slips out into the hallway. His apartment complex is quiet, everything is quiet as he makes his way down in the parking garage, into the jeep, and out onto the street.
Tommy's place is only about twenty minutes away. He lets himself in, punches in the alarm code, and makes his way to the bedroom.
Everything looks and smells like him and tension Buck didn't even know he was carrying glides from his shoulders. He kicks off his shoes and climbs onto Tommy's side of the bed. He sets an alarm for just past seven so he can wake up and make a light breakfast, draw a bath before Tommy gets home. It's not much, and nothing he does will ever erase the grief of the night but, he can help.
If nothing else. He can help.