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Buck has this thing.
It’s a thing he does, a… a ritual, of sorts.
He started it back when Tommy’s helicopter crashed. It was almost exactly four months after they’d lost Bobby, when the grief was still fresh but not as overpowering anymore. They’d been working the night shift when the tones had gone off, and Hen had shot Buck this look, like what she’d really wanted to do was pull him to the side and tell him to stay back. But she hadn’t – maybe she’d realised it wouldn’t have worked, that there wasn’t time to explain why, or maybe she’d just thought that he didn’t deserve that, not after everything else – and Buck is still hit with this wave of gratefulness whenever he thinks about it.
She’d told him on the way to the scene what was happening. That they were there to rescue Tommy, after his helicopter crashed on the edge of a small lake in a park. Buck had been the first one out, and he’d run, water splashing up onto his turnouts. The burning wreck of Tommy’s helicopter lighting up the night sky. He’d screamed as he pulled Tommy out of the chopper, had sobbed as his hands pulled up the sleeve of his flight suit so his fingers could wrap around his wrist and feel a weak, threadbare pulse.
That’s where it started, Buck thinks.
It kept going, for the week Buck spent in a cramped hospital chair, pulled up as close to Tommy’s bed as he could possibly get without actually being on it. His hand had stayed there as he waited for Tommy to wake up, fingers wrapped round Tommy’s wrist, feeling the steady thump thump thump pulsing against his skin. The heart monitor hadn’t been enough.
They’d talked, after Tommy woke up. Buck had yelled – cried – at him that he had to stop leaving, because Buck couldn’t take losing any more people that he loved. And then he’d really cried, actually cried, full snot and tears and all, at the look of shock on Tommy’s face, because fuck, Tommy hadn’t known, and Buck had realised that’s what he should’ve said, both the night they broke up and the morning after they hooked up, and hell, he should’ve said it in the helicopter too.
‘I’ll say it every day from here on out, you absolute asshole.’
‘You don’t know me. Not really. You just know the person I tried to be.’
‘I do know you. And I want to know you even more. I already love you.’
They’d kissed, and they’d talked some more and then Tommy had fallen back asleep. They kept talking, being far more vulnerable in the days leading up to Tommy’s release from the hospital than they ever were during those first six months together.
‘I was born for spare parts for a brother I didn’t even know I had until I was thirty, and I failed at that, and my parents’ were so consumed by their grief that they ignored me for most of my life and let my sister parent me. I ran around all over the Americas for years, trying to figure out who I was and where I fit in. I do stupid, reckless things because I think the only way I’ll get attention and care and love is if I’m hurt, and I am so scared of being abandoned that I keep making impulsive decisions to try and get people to stay.’
‘My mother slit her wrists when I was seven and my father blamed me for not finding her and saving her in time. He tried to beat every soft part out of me and sent me to military school when he didn’t succeed, where they got rid of the last bits. I realised I was gay when I was fifteen, and I started running. I ran from my father and I ran from myself, I ran so far I ended up in the air, flying through a combat zone in a foreign country, and when I came back home I was so full of shame and hate for myself and instead of doing something about it, I ran and hid for another decade. I’m a coward who pretends to be confident. My first relationship with a man ended in a disaster and I figured that meant I wasn’t built for long-term. I leave before I can be left because I’m scared and terrified and can’t imagine a world where someone thinks I have enough to offer that they’d love me enough to stay.’
When Tommy’s released, Buck comes with him. He moves out of Maddie and Chimney’s office-turned-guest-bedroom and into Tommy’s house. This time, the honeymoon phase comes with all the heavy conversations they’d ignored the first time.
And Buck has this thing.
Whenever he grasps Tommy’s hand while they’re out and walking, his thumb will linger over Tommy’s pulse point before falling down, their fingers locking together.
Tonight, he wakes with terror choking his throat, eyes burning with the last image he has of Bobby glued to the back of them, the last words Bobby ever said to him ringing in his ears, the phantom heat of Tommy’s burning chopper licking his skin.
He turns on his side, towards Tommy. Tommy, who’s sleeping on his back, one arm laid over his own torso, the other resting on the mattress between them, palm up and open like it’d been waiting for Buck.
He reaches out and takes it, drawing himself closer so he can hug it to his chest. Buck’s heart is still racing, his breathing hitching, and neither one calms until he finds his finger wrapping around Tommy’s wrist, thumb pressed to his pulse and eyes locked on the steady rise and fall of Tommy’s chest.
You’re okay, he tells himself. You’re alright. He’s alive. Bobby’s gone, but Tommy’s right here. He’s right here.
He knows the moment Tommy wakes, sees it in the change in his breathing, feels it in the way his pulse quickens.
“Go back to sleep,” Buck whispers.
“Mm,” Tommy hums. His eyes open slowly, and he turns his head, facing Buck. “Bad night?”
Buck doesn’t answer. He just pulls Tommy’s hand up to his lips so he can kiss his knuckles.
Tommy blinks sleepily at him, his smile soft. “Held or hold?” he mumbles.
“Need to hold you.”
Again, Tommy hums. Buck lets go off his hand as Tommy turns on his side, back to Buck, and scoots backwards and a little down, pulling his pillow with him.
His naked back connects with Buck’s bare chest, and Buck sucks in a sharp, shaky breath, the way he always does on nights like these when he feels their bodies click together like jigsaw pieces. He tangles his legs together with Tommy’s, and wraps his arm around Tommy’s waist, his hand locking around his wrist again. He buries his nose against the nape of Tommy’s neck, breathing in the comforting, familiar scent of Tommy’s shampoo and body wash, the lingering remnants of cologne with the underlining, natural smell that’s just Tommy.
Most nights when Buck wakes like this, this is what he needs. He likes to go to sleep lying on Tommy’s chest, the steady thump of his heart lulling him to sleep. But when he wakes like this, plagued by the past or the fear of a future he doesn’t want to imagine, this is what he needs.
This illusion that he can protect Tommy, this all-encompassing knowledge that for now, at least, they’re both alive and together, this feeling of holding the most precious thing in his world safely in his arms.
“I love you,” Buck whispers against Tommy’s sleep-warm skin.
Tommy brings Buck’s hand up to his lips; Buck feels them press against the back of his hand, soft and a little chapped. “I know.”