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Baker's Dozen

Summary:

“Um, Evan…” Buck heard Tommy say.

Buck turned his head to see Tommy looking down at the cookies with an expression of faint horror and embarrassment. Buck followed his gaze down and… oh.

They were burnt… enough to be completely inedible.

“How-?” Buck asked. “They were only in there for like eight minutes?!”

Tommy and Buck's first meeting takes place at a baking competition.

Notes:

Coming in at over 16 pages long, here's an AU I've been working on and off for a couple months now.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It was the third season of the hit Cooking Network TV show Baker’s Dozen, the show that paired up professional level bakers with baking novices and disasters to compete in a series of weekly challenges, when Evan Buckley and Thomas Kinard first met each other. 

 

The funny thing was… neither of them had originally intended on entering the show in the first place. 

 

For Buck it had all started about five years ago.

He had wound up finding himself stuck underneath a firetruck, his leg pinned underneath, and faced a long and hard road to recovery. 

 

A long and hard road to recovery… that wasn’t all that successful. 

 

Maybe if he had taken Maddie’s advice from the beginning, followed the doctors’ original plan, didn’t insist on pressing through with the additional surgery, and didn't push himself further than he should have after each PT session, things would have turned out differently. 

 

But at the time, Buck had continued to push himself farther than he should have, thinking (naively) that it wouldn’t work against him. (though in hindsight, maybe the injury had been too severe from the start to return to duty.)

 

He had recovered enough to walk and do light workouts pretty quickly. But that only helped so far when it came to recertifying as a firefighter. 

 

Doing stuff like running around, climbing stairs and ladders quickly, carrying heavy weights, all exercises that put pressure on his leg, constantly wearing it out, and making it sore and in pain for days after each test. Coming up to December and getting no closer to recertifying, no closer to being a firefighter again. 

 

The idea for a new job came from someone outside of the 118 entirely. Christopher had signed his dad up for the school bake sale, and had forgotten to tell Eddie about it until the night before. And since Buck was still going through his depression baking phase, Eddie called him. 

 

“So, how about you put your excessive baking to good use?” Eddie asked over the phone. “Can we have some of those bread loaves?” 

 

Buck hummed as he turned to his fridge, counting how many he had sitting there and how many days each one had been there for. “How many do you need?” Buck asked. 

 

Two days later, Buck had to pick Christopher up from school when Eddie was on a shift and Carla had come down with the flu. 

 

“Were you the ‘Buck’ who had baked the blueberry loaf for the bake sale?” one of the moms of Chistopher’s classmates asked as they waited in front of the school doors. 

 

“You mean for the bake sale the other day?” Buck asked, his face coloring in slight embarrassment. Sure all of his friends knew he had been going through a baking phase, but for other people he didn’t know? “Yeah, I made that.” 

 

One thing led to another, getting asked to bake things for one time events like birthday parties, a couple weddings, among other things, and then Buck found himself opening up his own cafe bakery combo. 

 

The first couple months of operation were rough if he was honest, but once he figured the business side of things out, everything took off. 

 

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

 

And on the other side of Los Angeles, there was Tommy, who hadn’t even wanted to get on this silly TV competition show. He wouldn’t have thought to apply for it either, if it hadn’t been for his entire team insisting that he should - and not in the good way. 

 

It had all started three months beforehand, right around the start of December. Their shift had been scheduled to work on Christmas Day, and they each agreed to bring in a dish for a mid-shift Christmas meal. Usually Tommy brought in drinks or a bag of potato chips. But apparently a sign -up sheet had been passed around this year, and Tommy only found out about it after everyone else signed up for something, leaving Tommy with the only empty spot in the desert section. 

 

“How is there still an empty spot in the desert section?” Tommy asked out loud when the paper was passed to him. “I thought your kids loved baking Miller?” 

 

“They love baking for themselves Tommy,” Miller shrugged. “Not their dad’s co-workers.” 

 

“Don’t make it such a big deal Tommy,” Parker patted him on his shoulder. “Just do what you do every year and bring something from the store.” 

 

That was what Tommy had planned to do - to just buy whatever cookie platter was in the bakery section of the grocery store the next time he went shopping. Only for him to forget to pick it up. But that was alright, he still had a couple days to pick them up. 

 

And then it was the evening of Christmas Eve, and Tommy realized that he still didn’t have anything to bring and it was too late to go to the store. 

 

He would just have to bake something. 

 

Fine. It would be fine, he was sure he could find a recipe online that he could do with the ingredients in his pantry. It turned out that wasn’t the hard part. 

 

The actual baking part - that turned out to be pretty hard. 

 

“Are you sure these are cookies?” Melton asked the next morning as Tommy dropped the box of cookies he had baked on the station’s kitchen counter. “They look like you left them in the oven and forgot about them.” 

 

“I didn’t do that,” Tommy said defensively. Okay… he might have done that with the first batch, but for the second batch? He had no idea how they ended up the same burnt black rocks. 

 

“Well, they can’t be that bad,” Parker said as he picked one up and took a small bite out of it, being careful not to break a tooth. He almost immediately turned to the trash can on the side of the room and spit it out. “Nevermind, they are that bad.” 

 

“Great,” Miller sighed. “Now we don’t have any cookies on Christmas of all days.” 

 

Tommy had thought that after a couple weeks, the crew would have forgotten about the whole Christmas cookie debacle. But they hadn’t. 

 

If anything, everything and anything reminded them of it.

 

“Hey Tommy, were these the cookies you were trying to make?” Melton asked as he showed him the picture of the sugar cookies his girlfriend had baked yesterday. 

 

“Tommy, my kids made these cookies special for you when they heard about our Christmas shift.” 

 

“Hey, I found this cookie recipe last night. Says it's for beginners, maybe you should try this next time you attempt baking?” 

 

He had laughed almost every time they brought the memory up. Until they started becoming serious. 

 

“Tommy, my wife and I were watching a baking show last night,” Miller had started when he came in one morning. 

 

“And?” Tommy asked as he dropped his bag outside his locker. 

 

“And at the end they were asking for applications for next season’s competition.” 

 

Tommy had laughed upon hearing what Miller said. “And you think I’m good enough to get on TV? You’re hilarious.” 

 

“Oh no, that’s the thing,” Miller shook his head. “It’s for a show about people who can’t bake.” 

 

“What’s this about people who can’t bake?” Parker asked as he poked his head around a corner. 

 

“There’s a show on the Cooking Network teaching people who can’t bake how to bake, and they’re taking applications for next season. And come on, I think our Tommy here would be a great addition!” Miller explained, smiling. 

 

Tommy shook his head. “Ha ha, so funny. But no, absolutely not.” 

 

Tommy had thought that after a couple hours of joking about it, that would be the last he would hear about the show. Maybe Miller would bring it up again when they asked for applications next year, but that would be it. 

 

Until Miller came in a couple weeks later, saying the team had made an application for Tommy… 

 

And he had been accepted. 

 

It seemed like he had no choice. 

 

🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪

 

The first day of shooting was on a Tuesday in the middle of April. Buck showed up bright and early, excited for whatever he would be facing today. It brought memories of his first day as a firefighter, of his first day opening the cafe… 

 

Even though he knew he most likely wouldn’t be one of the most experienced bakers here, it felt as if only good things were going to happen today. 

 

When he got to the building that would house the competition, he was directed to speak to an aide on the side to figure out which station he would be assigned to - and who he would be partnered with. 

 

“Evan Buckley?” the aide looked up from their clipboard. “Yes, you’ll be over at station number two,” the young woman pointed at the counter across the studio, one station down from the start. “Let’s see… you’ll be paired with… a Thomas Kinard.” 

 

“Thomas Kinard?” Buck repeated the name to himself, committing it to memory. He didn’t know what kind of name that was, whether it spelt good fortune for him in this competition or not. But for some reason, he had the vague sort of feeling he had heard the name before. He shook his head out of his thoughts, there were a lot of names he had heard over the years, and it wasn’t like the name ‘Thomas’ was all that uncommon. He didn’t know about the name ‘Kinard’ though. 

 

Buck walked over to the station and looked around. It didn’t have all that much on it. An oven, a small microwave, sink and faucet, a sizable area of counter space, a small fridge, and a cart at the end holding five levels of baking racks for cooling. It was by no means the size of space he was used to working in, but all of the equipment they were provided was top of the line, he could see that. Some of it he would dare say was even better than the stuff he and Bobby had in their cafe. 

 

“So are you Evan Buckley?” Buck’s thoughts were interrupted as he heard someone say behind him as he was looking through the cookie cutter collection in one of the drawers under the countertop. 

 

“Huh?” Buck stood up and turned in the direction of the voice. There stood a man, about the same height and build, probably close to a decade older than him, and… not bad looking. “Oh, yeah, I’m Evan… Buckley… or Buck,” Buck stammered over his words, not exactly sure why it was such a big deal. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this flustered over introducing himself to someone. 

 

The man smiled, and it was a nice smile. One that Buck thought he wouldn’t mind seeing more often. And oh! He had a cleft. 

 

“I’m Tommy,” the man said as he held his hand out to give Buck a shake. 

 

🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪

 

Tommy, Buck quickly figured out, was really overrated. 

 

The first round of the competition should have been simple enough. Bake twenty cookies for the judges featuring an ingredient they had pulled out of a bowl. Tommy had drawn chocolate chips. 

 

Buck remembered Tommy reading the small piece of paper and laughing as he saw what was on it. He probably should have questioned the man then, but instead, Buck just got onto pulling out all the equipment and ingredients they would need. 

 

On a normal day running the cafe, Buck probably baked at least four dozen of their signature chocolate chip cookies, and they sold out of them constantly. He wasn’t going to use the same recipe he used for those, but Buck figured they couldn’t go wrong with a basic recipe. 

 

Although it seemed that even with basic chocolate chip cookies, Buck had overestimated the man who claimed ‘only knew the very very basics of baking.’ 

 

Thirty five minutes into their allotted hour of baking time, and after the cookies being in the oven for only eight minutes, Buck asked Tommy to pull the tray out of the oven as he was whipping up a glaze to run stripes over the cookies for decoration. 

 

“Um, Evan…” Buck heard Tommy say. 

 

Buck turned his head to see Tommy looking down at the cookies with an expression of faint horror and embarrassment. Buck followed his gaze down and… oh. 

 

They were burnt… enough to be completely inedible. 

 

“How-?” Buck asked. “They were only in there for like eight minutes?!” 

 

Tommy only looked wide-eyed and shrugged. “I- I don’t know?” he said. 

 

Buck looked at the oven, checking the temperature, the seals on the door, the mode it was set to, the temperature again.  Everything was as it should be, and he knew the right ingredients were used, he picked them off of the shelves himself, measured each ingredient out, watched as Tommy mixed them together. He even tasted some of the dough, and it tasted exactly as it was supposed to. 

 

Buck looked back at the oven. “Which rack did you put the tray on?” he asked. 

 

“The top one,” Tommy said. 

 

“The top one,” Buck repeated. “You mean the tray that’s a half inch from the top of the oven?” 

 

“Yeah, that one,” Tommy said. 

 

Buck despaired. “Dude, you’re supposed to put them on the middle rack, it totally messes with the airflow!” 

 

“Oh, really?” Tommy asked, looking at Buck at least, like he had never even considered doing that. 

 

Buck shook his head, they didn’t have time for this right now. Luckily for them, Tommy hadn’t used all of the dough for that first batch. Tommy had used a good amount, but they still had enough to make the twenty cookies that were required. 

 

It was a rush, and they certainly didn’t end up looking as nice as Buck would want to present that as, but they were completed. And barely, somehow just barely, they weren't kicked out the first day of the competition. (Only by coming in second to last). 

 

The next week went much like the first - only with brownies! And instead of setting the dish on the top rack of the oven, Tommy had messed up with the fudge icing Buck wanted to coat them in. But they weren’t in the bottom three at least. They weren’t at the top either, just solidly in the middle.

 

Buck didn’t want to be solidly in the middle though. 

 

And he just couldn’t make Tommy out. “Did you even want to be on this show?” he asked as they were headed off the set at the end of the day. 

 

They had just barely saved themselves from getting kicked off - for the second week in a row, and while Buck was feeling quite shaken up again, he hadn’t expected to win by any means, but he had hoped to get far enough along in this competition to get his name out there and help his cafe and bakery. 

 

But Tommy… he just acted so nonchalant and calm about it. 

 

“Honestly?” the man asked, chuckling. “Not really. It wasn’t even my idea to apply for this.” 

 

And boy did that make Buck feel good. 

 

“So then why are you here?” Buck asked. 

 

“Well… I messed up baking some cookies for my co-workers over Christmas, and one of them had a funny idea to make a video about how I should get on this show. They only told me about it after they sent the application in, and then three weeks later he got an email back saying I was selected. I decided to go through with it, just wanted to see where it took me. Honestly, I thought I would have gotten kicked off the first week,” Tommy said. 

 

And all of that only served to make Buck even more pissed at the man. 

 

Tommy had basically said he had only come on this show as a joke, something fun to do to fill his time and boredom. 

 

And it didn’t make Buck feel like he would be getting much more help the rest of the time they were on here. 

 

After their first disastrous week, Buck had joked to himself that his four year old niece might be a better helper than Tommy. Hearing the man speak now, Buck was all but certain Jee would be. 

 

“I see you’re not exactly happy with this answer,” the man said while having the gall to have an apologetic smile on his face. 

 

Buck let out a slow breath before he spoke and blew up on the man. “Of course I’m not happy,” he said. “I came on here with the hopes of winning. And I don’t exactly want the reason I don’t to be because my partner isn’t trying in the first place.” 

 

Tommy blinked as his eyes widened, taking a more serious expression on his face, like he was finally starting to understand the reality of this competition. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy said, and for once he sounded like he meant it. “Next week… I’ll be serious, less joking around.”

 

Buck looked at him for a second. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said as he walked away. 

 

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

 

A week later they were back for the third round of the competition, and upon seeing Tommy, the first thing Buck picked up was that Tommy was noticeably… different. 

 

He looked more focused and on game, like he actually wanted to do well this week. 

 

It was refreshing, and Buck hoped that it spelled good things for them this week. 

 

“Hey Evan,” Tommy greeted him when he noticed Buck walking up to their station. 

 

That was another thing about Tommy. He called him ‘Evan.’ He had been since the first day they worked together. 

 

Buck hadn’t picked up on it until they were halfway through the first round, when Tommy pulled out the tray of cookies from the oven to find out they had all turned into black hockey pucks after only being in there for eight minutes. 

 

He hadn’t said anything about it then, his mind too caught up in the competition. 

 

“Hey Tommy,” Buck said as he joined the man at their station. If there was one good thing about Tommy, he was always on time, not like Brian at station two who he had seen the producers growing annoyed at for his tardiness. “How’s it going?” 

 

“Good,” Tommy said as he looked over to the production team setting some stuff up in the across the way. “Megan came over a little bit ago, said she wanted to do our interview before they start filming today.”

 

“Really?” Buck said. “That’s great.”

 

This was the day they were getting interviewed for the TV show’s bits of introducing the personal lives of their contestants. 

 

“You know you never told me what you do outside of this show,” Buck said, wondering about the man. Despite how often he had been annoyed and irritated by Tommy the past two weeks, his mind had often found itself wondering back to the man when they weren’t at the studio. Something about Tommy was just killing Buck’s brain to learn more about the man, as much as it possibly could really. 

 

“What I do outside the show?” Tommy said. 

 

“Yeah, let’s start with… what do you do for work?” Buck asked. Tommy had to have some type of heavy duty job to have arms as large as he had.

 

“I work for the LAFD,” Tommy said. Well, that definitely explained the big arms. And had it been two years ago, Buck might have been jealous of the man. He had worked past his nostalgic thinking though. 

 

“You’re a firefighter?” Buck asked. 

 

“Well, firefighter pilot ,” he corrected. “I fly helicopters and work for air operations.” 

 

Right, Buck thought, air operations was a thing. If he thought back on it, he remembered Chimney having a friend that worked there. Maybe if Buck had been able to stay in longer, he might have had the chance to join them. He would never know however. 

 

Tommy looked over and studied his face. If he had to put a word to what he was seeing, it looked like… longing. 

 

Tommy didn’t exactly know how to describe it, but then again, he had barely known Buck for two weeks, there was still a lot he didn’t know about. 

 

“So what do you do out in the real world?” Tommy asked. 

 

“Oh me?” Buck asked, knocking himself out of the trance he had fallen into. “I run my own cafe and bakery.” 

 

“Really?” Tommy asked. 

 

“Yeah really,” Buck rolled his eyes as he pulled out another muffin tray. “Why do you think I’m trying so hard here? Do you know how much this would help my business?” 

 

“Why do I feel like your business isn’t exactly struggling?” Tommy asked. 

 

Buck felt his face heat up at that question. “It’s not,” he softly muttered. “But every little bit helps, you know?” 

 

Tommy gave Buck a soft, gentle smile, one that Buck was quickly starting to like… a lot. 

 

“I’m sure it’s not,” Tommy said. 

 

An hour later, interviews done, things set up, things were finally getting closer to their starting time - when things sort of fell apart. 

 

“Hey, so if they’ve already had us make cookies, cupcakes, and a pie, what else is there for us to make?” Tommy asked. 

 

Buck had to process what he said for a moment. “Are you saying… the only baking items you know of are cookies, cupcakes, and pie?” Buck asked. 

 

“Well, and cakes,” Tommy added. “But cupcakes are basically mini cakes, right? They're the same thing.”

 

“So again… you can only think of three baked items?” Buck said, starting to despair inside. Just as he thought that he and Tommy had a chance now that Tommy was becoming serious… he learned this fact. 

 

“Well, I know there’s more stuff out there… I just don’t know what it is,” Tommy said. 

 

Yeah, Buck was beginning to despair. 

 

“You mean you’ve never heard of scones, tarts, turnovers, truffles, anything else?” Buck asked. 

 

“No?” 

 

Right when he thought he was getting somewhere with Tommy, this conversation happened. 

 

And it was just the round to be given something complicated - freaking croquembouche. 

 

“What’s a croquembouche?” Tommy asked as Buck started pulling ingredients off the ingredient shelf. 

 

It was going to be a long round.

 

They had ended up surviving this round… just barely. One of the bottom two pairs, only not getting kicked out because the other team hadn’t put enough walnuts into their cream for the judges to taste. 

 

Before they were about to leave the studio, Buck held out his hand to Tommy. “Let me see your phone for a second,” he said. 

 

Tommy looked at Buck with a question in his eyes, but did as Buck asked. “What do you want my phone for?” he asked. 

 

“I’m putting in my number and giving you my bakery’s address,” Buck explained, and before Tommy asked why, he continued. “You should come by sometime before we film the next episode. I can try to fill in all the gaps you’re missing.”

 

“Isn’t this kind of against the rules?” Tommy asked, a playful smile forming on his face. 

 

Buck huffed. “I’ve seen the state the other rookies are at,” he said. “You’re well below them, even with this, it won’t give us an unfair advantage.”

 

“Does this mean we’re friends now, Evan?” Tommy asked. 

 

“Only if you show up,” he said.  

 

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

 

Tommy parked his truck right in front of the small bakery, looking at the place as he got out. Buck’s Coffee and Sweets. It looked nice, like he’d imagine a small town bake shop selling daily sweets to kids with the occasional order for a wedding cake to look like. 

 

“Tommy?” he heard a voice call out behind him. 

 

He turned around, and saw Maddie, his old friend Chimney’s wife… no fiance, they had only sent him their wedding invitation a month ago. 

 

“Maddie,” he greeted. It had been a couple months since he had seen either Chimney or Maddie. “Nice to see you again, what brings you here? Wedding cake shopping?” 

 

Maddie let out a light laugh. “Yeah, something like that you could say,” she began. “You ask your brother to do one thing for your wedding and he wants to go all out, you know?” 

 

“Your brother?” Tommy asked, Tommy remembered her mentioning a brother once or twice, but never any other details other than that.  

 

“Yeah,” Maddie nodded, then motioned to the bakery they were standing in front of. “He owns this place, opened it a couple years ago after getting injured firefighting."

 

Thoughts were suddenly bouncing all around Tommy’s head. Buck had said he ran a bakery, but he had said nothing about co-running a bakery. And getting injured while firefighting? He had definitely never said anything about that.

 

“Wait, you’re not the Tommy he’s been talking about, are you?” Maddie asked. 

 

“Um… by brother… are you talking about Evan?” Tommy asked.

 

Maddie nodded. “Yeah, he got onto some baking show last month, and after filming each episode has been complaining non stop about a guy named…” her eyes grew wide as she connected all of the dots. 

 

“Wait,” Tommy said. “Your brother owns a bakery… this bakery?” he asked as he pointed at the building to his right. 

 

Maddie nodded her head again. “Yeah, he opened it two years ago. It really took off in that time.”

 

“Huh,” was all Tommy could think of to say. “This really is a small world, isn’t it?”

 

Maddie nodded. “You can say that,” she said. 

 

They split ways then, Maddie left, needing to get to her next shift at dispatch, and Tommy went inside. 

 

Walking inside the bakery, it wasn’t all that large. You could see nearly the entire kitchen and work area behind the counter, no wall to hide it. 

 

“Oh, Tommy! You finally came!” Buck greeted him from where he was working at a large table in the kitchen, almost immediately as Tommy walked through the front door. 

 

“Yeah, sorry it took so long for me to come over here,” Tommy said. It had been three days since the last round of the competition, and the next round took place tomorrow. “And I think I met your sister out there?”

 

“You met Maddie?” Buck asked. “She’s great, isn’t she?” 

 

“Yeah,” Tommy said. He paused a second before asking. “Say, did you used to work with Chimney?” 

 

Buck's eyes widened and his hands stopped what they were doing with mixing a bowl of frosting. “You know Chimney too?” he asked. 

 

“Yeah, I used to work with him,” Tommy said. 

 

“Really?” Buck asked, shock filling his voice. He remembered thinking the world was small when Tommy first said he was a firefighter with the LAFD, but to think he worked with Chimney at one point as well… But didn’t Chimney say he had only ever worked at the 118? “Wait, were you at the 118?” Buck asked. 

 

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I take it that’s where you were too?” 

 

Buck made a noise in the back of his throat as his eyes widened even further. “Did- Did Maddie say something about that?” he asked. 

 

Tommy fidgeted with his hands, rubbing the back of his head with one. “She said that you had some sort of injury, that was about it,” he said. 

 

Buck's eyes shifted down from Tommy to the counter and bowl in front of him. “Yeah that’s… kind of what happened,” he said. 

 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Tommy said. “I didn’t come here to interrogate you about your life… just your baking.”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Buck said, shaking his head. “Long story short, I broke my leg on a call, it never exactly healed right and I couldn’t get signed off on coming back. Got kind of depressed and took to baking as a distraction. Started helping out at some bake sales and other events, everyone loved my stuff so about a year later I opened this place, and here I am…” Buck finished by gesturing around the small bakery/cafe. 

 

Tommy nodded. All of that made sense, he was sure there were still some details left out but, he wasn’t about to go asking more about it. They hadn’t even known each other for a month. Tommy just learned Buck had been a firefighter ten minutes ago. 

 

“Anyway, let's get started,” Buck said as he let Tommy in behind the counter. 

 

Buck moved to the display case and started removing various pastries from it and setting them on the table behind him. Tommy wouldn’t have been able to guess half of their names. A couple donut looking things, a couple more pie shaped things, some type of special cake, and a few other things. 

 

“Pick one and try it,” Buck started. “I’ll tell you what it is and what it’s made of.”

 

Tommy scanned over the items quickly, then pulled the one furthest to the left towards him. 

 

“That’s a Pastel de Nata,” Buck explained. “From Portugal, it’s an egg custard tart.” 

 

“An egg custard tart,” Tommy said as he studied it. “What did you call it? Pastel…?”

 

“Pastel de Nata,” Buck repeated, then nodded at him. “Go on, take a bite.” 

 

Tommy took a bite of it, his eyes widening as the custard went into his mouth. “This is good,” he said. 

 

Buck smiled, large and wide, lighting up his face. “I know right?” he asked. 

 

“And this one?” Tommy asked as he picked up another thing. 

 

“That’s an eclair,” Buck explained. “Sort of like a cream filled donut.”

 

“Hmm… I think I’ve had one of these before,” Tommy said as he took a bite. “But yours is better.”

 

Buck smiled, laughing. “Really?”

 

Tommy licked a glop of cream that was hanging off the eclair. “Really,” he nodded. 

 

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

 

Weeks five and six went by surprisingly well. They even placed first in the sixth week. 

 

And now they were in the semi-finals. 

 

Buck knew that Tommy had only expected to get to the second round, and while Buck had wanted to win from the beginning, he was surprised they had lasted this long as well. 

 

“This one is probably going to be a lot harder,” Buck said when he met up with Tommy. 

 

“Yeah?” Tommy said. “So do you have any guesses for what they’ll be having us do?” 

 

“What we’ll be doing? Well, they usually have people make a big fancy cake in the finals,” Buck said, thinking. “Semi-finals though? It could be anything.” 

 

It turned out that this season was a mix up from the previous two. Instead of saving the big cake for the finals, they were getting that for the semi finals. Buck didn’t think it was a big deal really, he made big and fancy cakes all the time. Take Maddie and Chimney’s wedding cake that he was in charge of next month for example. 

 

The theme they were given to make was dogs. Very open ended but somewhat specific at the same time - lovely. Tommy was the one to come up with the idea to carve the cake into the shape of a dog, and if Buck was saying something, the end result was surprisingly good considering where he and Tommy had started together last month.   

 

Ultimately, they hadn’t gotten into the finals, and this was the round they were eliminated. And while Buck had expected to be upset about it, he found that he surprisingly wasn’t. 

 

“Sorry we didn’t get to the next round,” Tommy had said. 

 

Buck shrugged. “Eh, it’s alright,” he said. 

 

“Really?” Tommy asked. “You said at the beginning of this that you wanted to win.”

 

“It’s alright, we got pretty far after all,” Buck said. “And the others, they’ve been doing this sort of thing for decades, one of them is a baking professor in New York. I haven’t even been doing this professionally for five years.” 

 

“Well,” Tommy fidgeted with his hands. “If you’re really that okay with it.”

 

“Say, what are you doing next Saturday?” Buck asked. 

 

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

 

It was two days before the premier of the season, and Buck texted Tommy. 

 

Evan: Hey, do you want to join us tomorrow to watch the premier?

 

Tommy: us? 

 

Evan: Yeah.

Evan: Everyone at the 118 wanted to make it a big event. 

 

Tommy thought about it for a second. He was pretty sure he remembered Miller and some others saying they wanted to get together to watch it - probably only so they had more ammunition to throw at Tommy - but did he want to join Evan and his old team instead? 

 

Tommy: Sure. Where are you meeting to watch it? 

 

Buck sent him Bobby’s address, and then Tommy had to go out on a call. When he looked at his phone again an hour later, he saw a couple more messages from Buck.

 

Evan: Also just to let you know, I haven’t told them we’re dating yet

Evan: Well other than my sister

Evan: We can use this as an opportunity to tell them. 

Notes:

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