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It took Buck longer than it should have to realize about his boyfriend, but he had noticed, a couple months into their relationship, that Tommy really seemed to like collecting wiener dog themed items.
The first time he noticed something, was actually before he and Tommy had started dating.
He saw it the day he went to tour Harbor Station.
He had run into Lucy in the parking lot, and she showed him the way to the kitchen where Tommy was.
A group of their crew had been crowded around the kitchen, most of them having just come back from a call, all clamoring to get some of the coffee out of the pot that had just finished brewing.
“Ah Buckley!” one of them called out to him when they noticed his presence. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, just looking for Tommy,” Buck said.
“I think he’s over in the training office,” one of the guys said as he pointed to a door across the hall. “Hey, if you’re going to talk to him, bring him this,” he said as he handed Buck a mug full of coffee. “We made enough for everyone. Do you want some too?”
“No thanks, I’m fine,” Buck said as he took the coffee and left the kitchen.
Buck held the coffee cup, one of the ceramic ones with a handle on the side as he walked slowly across the station to the door he had been pointed to. Opening the door, he saw Tommy sitting next to someone who appeared to be another pilot looking over a stack of papers.
“Oh, Evan,” Tommy greeted him when he saw Buck walk in. He glanced at the watch on his wrist as he said, “Lost track of time, sorry about that.”
As Tommy stood up and walked over to him, Buck held out the coffee mug. “One of the guys outside asked me to give this to you,” he said.
Tommy smiled as he took the mug from Buck’s hands, giving him a small smile as their hands brushed against each other from the motion. It sent a small flutter through Buck’s heart, one that he (hopefully) managed to cover up.
After Tommy took a sip of the coffee, he said, “So, follow me. I’ll show you the birds first.”
The tour ended up being great. Well, great until Eddie had unexpectedly showed up and cut it short.
Looking back on that day a couple months later, Buck had recalled an important detail. Tommy had been drinking out of a coffee mug covered in colorful wiener dogs.
It had been a small detail Buck had picked up on at the time. It wasn’t exactly weird, but it sure was interesting.
At the time though, Buck figured Tommy was just using one of the many mugs that circulated around the kitchen cabinets. They had dozens of them at the 118.
Now though, a couple months after dating Tommy, Buck realized that was Tommy’s mug. Tommy’s wiener dog covered mug.
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The first time Buck went to Tommy’s house, he met Bean, and fell in love with the little dog within thirty seconds.
After they finished the dinner, Tommy said he would clean up the dishes and kitchen while Buck went over to the living room to pick out a movie for them to watch. He also told Buck where he could find Bean’s stash of toys.
Buck was all too eager to forget about the movie and find the toys, and Bean trotted happily behind him as he went over to them.
“Let’s see… what do we have in here?” Buck mumbled to himself as he pulled the box off of the shelf. Most of the toys were small, which Buck thought was fair, Bean did have a small mouth and paws. He guessed the dog couldn’t exactly hold a lot of the bigger dog toys or get a bite to squeak them.
He pulled out two small tennis balls that had squeakers inside them. Giving them a little squeeze, he threw one across the room. It landed right at the foot of the couch.
Bean looked over where the ball landed and chased after it. It didn’t take him long to reach it, the ball landing right in the corner of the room. But once there, Bean picked it up, ran back across the room, past Buck, to the dog bed in the corner.
Oh, Buck thought. Bean apparently didn’t know how to play fetch. Well, he could teach him then.
“Hey, Bean,” Buck called lightly out to the dog and waved his hands. “Bring it back over here.” Bean cocked his head to the side then turned back to the ball. He nudged it with his nose, burying it in the crack of fabric between the bottom and side of the dog bed.
Buck hung his head as he watched the dog’s actions.
As Bean settled down, curling into a donut on the dog bed, turning his head to stare at Buck, Buck moved to sit on the couch, directly across the room from Buck.
Buck sat back on the couch, his elbow resting on a pillow directly to his left. Buck looked down at it, and how had he missed this before?
A small little throw pillow thing, in the shape of a weiner dog. Even had a green sweater on it like it had been out since Christmas.
“Huh,” Buck said, thinking. This was… interesting. Kind of cool actually, that Tommy had a wiener dog and a wiener dog looking pillow. Kind of cute, too.
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The second time Buck came to Tommy’s house, he began to think that he really should have originally considered the man had a dog. Because outside of the man’s house, there were a lot of signs that indicated that. Such as the pile of what he now recognized as dog toys on the outer corner of Tommy’s house, and the outdoor dog bed below the window.
And there, right in front of the front door, was a wiener dog shaped doormat. He blinked as he stepped up to it, stopping right before it.
How had he missed this the first time he came to Tommy’s house?
Buck reached up and rung the doorbell, and by the time Tommy had opened it and Bean came out to start running laps around his ankles, Buck was still staring down at it.
“Evan?” he heard Tommy gently say his name, and Buck looked up and into his eyes.
“You have a wiener dog doormat,” Buck said.
Tommy smiled. “Why, yes. I do,” he said as he took a step back. “Do you want to come inside?”
“Oh sure,” Buck said as he followed Tommy. Bean hopped through the doorway and went running ahead of both of them into the kitchen.
“Did you always have that doormat?” Buck asked.
“As long as I’ve lived here,” Tommy shrugged. “What’s all this about the doormat anyway?” he asked, furrowing an eyebrow.
“You… you have a lot of decorations around here,” Buck hummed. “I like it.”
“Well,” Tommy said as he stepped closer to Buck and wrapped his arms around him. “Compared to your place, I have a lot of decorations.”
“You have a point there,” Buck said. Anyone’s place compared to his would have a lot of decorations. In all the years he has lived at the loft, the only things he has are the sparse decorations Taylor left after she moved out and the random items he used every now and then.
He remembered when Taylor rolled her eyes the first time she saw the bike on his wall saying, “Just because it was designed to hang on a wall doesn’t make it a decoration, Buck.”
Buck smiled as he leant in to kiss Tommy. “Maybe you can help me decorate my place.”
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When Buck pulled them out of the kitchen cabinet, he had come to a daunting realization about his boyfriend. At first it seemed harmless. A coffee mug with wiener dog outlines printed on it. He thought that Tommy was just someone who liked to collect coffee mugs. (And Tommy did turn out to be that kind of person, looking at the thirty coffee mugs in his kitchen cabinets, no wonder he asked Buck to help rearrange his kitchen) Then Buck noticed the wiener dog throw pillows, and he also didn’t think much of them, just that they were a cute little decoration showing how much Tommy loved his dog, the same with the doormat outside his front door.
But now, as Buck was in the middle of helping Tommy rearrange his kitchen cabinets, because apparently he had enough stuff crammed into them he needed to do this every so often (Buck blamed the three cabinets worth of coffee mugs), Buck pulled out a pair of silicone ice molds.
A pair of wiener dog shaped silicone ice molds.
Tommy looked over at him as Buck was holding them up in the air, looking at them in complete confusion. “Oh, those can go in the keep pile,” Tommy said. “They can go with the baking stuff.”
Buck looked at the pile for a second, before he turned right back to looking at what was in his hands.
“What is this?” Buck asked.
“That?” Tommy asked looking back over at Buck and noticing his face full of confusion. “They’re ice mold thingies…”
Buck lifted an eyebrow in slight confusion. “Where do you even find ice molds like this?” he asked.
“Oh, my grandmother sent them to me a couple years ago,” Tommy said as he pulled a bowl out of the cabinet. “She always had a way of finding the most novelty items for people.”
“Your grandmother?” Buck asked. Tommy had never really mentioned any family members other than a comment here or there, never offered information like this.
“Yeah,” Tommy said as he started pouring cereal into the bowl. “She passed away a couple years ago. It was sad. She was a wonderful woman.”
Buck hummed, nodding, absorbing this little new piece of what he would call ‘Tommy Info.’ “I’m sure she was,” he said. “Have you ever used these before?”
“I used them once to make ice,” Tommy said. “I know people use them for other baking recipes and stuff, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
A thought struck Buck then. He needed to use these for something. “Can I borrow these?” he asked. “I want to try making something with them.”
“What are you going to make?” Tommy asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find something to make using them,” Buck said as he clutched the molds to his chest.
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It was one of the rare weekends that both Tommy and Buck had been scheduled off for the entire weekend. An entire weekend where they both had the same idea for plans in mind…
Sex. A lot of sex.
And the sex was great, absolutely great, Buck thought. He would give it no complaints.
Well there was one complaint… the cleanup.
Probably the most important part of cleanup after a weekend of very passionate sex, changing out the bedsheets.
“You go throw those in the washer,” Buck said as Tommy was gathering up the dirty sheets in his arms. “I’ll put new ones on the bed.”
Tommy nodded and motioned with his chin to the linen closet right outside of the bedroom. “There’s more bedsheets in there,” he said.
Buck nodded as he walked over to the closet door and opened it. First he came face to face with a wall of towels in a rainbow of colors. On the top shelf he spotted the bedsheets Tommy was talking about.
Most of them, well all but one, were basic solid color bedsheets, grays and blues. But the set the furthest on the end. Buck wasn’t seeing that right, was he?
He reached up and grabbed it, taking it down to look at it, and sure enough, it was exactly what Buck thought it was. A creamy white bedsheet set filled with tiny wiener dogs dotting across the fabric.
“Tommy,” Buck said as he turned to face the man who was walking back down the hallway towards Buck and the bedroom. As Tommy lifted an eyebrow, Buck held up the bedsheets. “What are these?” he asked.
Tommy hummed, a smile breaking out across his face as he took in what Buck was holding. “Oh, you found those?”
“Yeah, I found them,” Buck said as he continued to just stare at the bedsheets. “What are these?”
“Oh, those are the wiener dog bedsheets. Hilarious right? They’re also really soft too,” Tommy said. And well, Buck had to admit, as he held them in his hands, they were pretty soft. “Come on,” Tommy said, walking from the hall to the bedroom. “Let’s set those up on the bed.”
As they put the bedsheets on the bed, Bean ran into the bedroom from where he had been chilling out in the living room for the past couple hours. “Look, he looks just like the little dogs on the sheets,” Tommy said, laughing lightly as he picked Bean up to compare the dog to the dogs on the bedsheets.
“Yeah,” Buck said as he sat down on the now made bed. “You know, I really have to ask you something,” Buck started nervously.
Tommy looked at him with a very worried expression painted all over his face that only caused Buck’s stomach to clench up. How was he supposed to bring this up when Tommy looked at him like that.
“Sure,” Tommy said as he set Bean on the bed next to Buck, knowing the dog would only demand to be let up there if they were both in the bedroom. “What is it?”
“So,” Buck started and paused, not exactly knowing how to say this without making it seem like he found it weird or didn’t like it, because it was obvious that Tommy liked all of these wiener dog things, maybe even bought some for himself. “You really like collecting wiener dog things, huh?”
“Well…” Tommy started as his eyes drifted away from Buck’s face and down to the bedsheets. He ran one of his fingers back and forth on them, they were soft, very comfortable, very cozy. “It’s sort of… how do you put it…” he shrugged. Then an idea popped into his mind and he turned to look back up at Buck’s face. “You know how you collect those rubber ducks… on your Jeep?”
Buck blinked, not seeing where this was going. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Jeep owners put rubber ducks on other Jeeps that they like. So its like… when you come across other dachshunds, you’ll give their owner something?” Because while that seemed like an interesting idea, it didn’t seem at all practical. You could just keep a bag of random rubber ducks in your car. But no one just carries around items on their dog walks in the off chance that they would run into another dachshund. And anyway… who gives bedsheets to strangers? How would they even know what size bed you have?
“Well not really other dachshund owners,” Tommy shrugged. “Just… people in general. My grandmother gave me those ice molds, and the throw pillows. Lucy gave me the coffee mug for Secret Santa last year. I did buy the doormat myself though when I first moved in here… and the bedsheets.”
Buck nodded. “So you’re saying I have to get you something now,” Buck came to that conclusion.
“What? I never said that-”
“No,” Buck cut him off, shaking his head. “If Lucy of all people got you a wiener dog item, I need to as well.”
Bean let out a small bark after Buck finished that statement, as if to signal his agreement.
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Tommy’s birthday was in two weeks, and Buck had to find the man a present.
The only problem was, Buck had no idea what he should buy the man.
It wasn’t like Buck didn’t know anything about the man, they had been dating for eight months, Buck knew a lot about the man.
He liked working on cars, and random projects around the house. He liked training in Muay Thai, and played in pick-up basketball games every week. He liked going hiking. He had a small pet wiener dog. Tommy liked going on hikes with his wiener dog (and now with Buck too, of course).
Maybe that was the problem, Buck thought. The man had too many hobbies and interests. And Buck couldn’t pick just one to focus on.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he should get the man multiple presents, you know… spread the love around the man’s hobbies.
Buck thought that would make it easier to find Tommy some presents. It is not. Buck isn’t sure what kind of tools Tommy would need to work on cars. When it came to basketball, Tommy already had five basketballs in his garage, bought himself a new pair of shoes last month, and had an assortment of workout clothes, the same when it came to hiking shoes and hiking clothes. Buck would have to ask Eddie later about getting Tommy something Muay Thai related.
Buck supposed he could get something Tommy could use for Bean, a toy, some sweaters, but wouldn’t that be something to get for Bean’s birthday? That would be like getting a toy for Jee on Maddie’s birthday. This was Tommy’s birthday, he needed to get something that Tommy would use and actually wanted.
He racked his head. He had never had so much trouble thinking of a present for somebody before.
Maybe he could get advice from somebody. Yeah, he needed advice from somebody.
He went to Maddie.
Maddie quirked an eyebrow as he explained his predicament. “Are you buying him a present or are you buying yourself a present?” she asked.
Oh, maybe she had a point. She definitely had a point.
“So what would you suggest?” Buck asked.
Maddie narrowed her eyes at him. “He’s your boyfriend Buck, I can’t do all the work for you.”
And yeah, that was fair he guessed.
Well, Maddie hadn’t exactly given him any advice. And two days later, the thoughts were still bouncing around Buck’s head. That was when he found the perfect thing as he was walking through a boutique they were sent on a call to. It was by far not a store Buck would go into under any other circumstances, even if he did like to collect the odd novelty kitchen and cooking item, which this store was filled with.
It was as he and Eddie were standing on the side while Hen and Chimney were working on getting their patient set up for transport - a woman who had randomly gone into a seizure - that Buck began looking around, doing window shopping as some would call it.
And he spotted an entire shelf of wiener dog themed kitchen items. It was perfect, basically had Tommy and Bean’s names written all over it.
Eddie followed him as Buck walked over to the shelf. “What are you looking at?” Eddie asked.
“I’ve been looking for a birthday present for Tommy,” Buck said. “All this stuff would be perfect for him.”
Eddie screwed his face up. “Really?” he asked. “Are we talking about the same Tommy?”
“Tommy Kinard? My hot firefighter pilot boyfriend? Yeah, I’m talking about him. Unless you know another Tommy,” Buck said as he started looking at everything on the shelf. It all looked great. A dishcloth covered in wiener dogs, a wiener dog paper towel holder, wiener dog measuring cups…
And that was when he found it…
A wiener dog shaped cutting board.
It was perfect.
Tommy wasn’t as big into cooking as Buck was, but the man still enjoyed it. He had even taught Buck some recipes he hadn't considered before. Buck nodded to himself as he took a picture of it. This would be perfect. He was going to need to come back tomorrow for it.
A week later, as Buck slid the wrapped cutting board across his kitchen island towards Tommy, Tommy smiled as he picked it up. “Should I even guess what this is?” he asked.
Buck giggled. “You can try,” he said, though he didn’t think Tommy would get it just from the outline of the large and flat box the cutting board came in.
“I think I’ll just open it,” Tommy said as he started removing the wrapping paper Buck had painstakingly taken his time to wrap and tape earlier. When he saw what the present was, Tommy let out a laugh. “Where did you even find something like this?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s a long story.”