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The first thing Buck sees when he checks his phone is a new groupchat, which someone who thought they were funny named Taking Care of Chimness.
Actually, you know what, Buck agrees that whoever did that is funny. It’s a solid name, at least an 8 out of 10.
He opens up the chain to find Hen reporting that she swung by the hospital this morning and Chim was still looking good. Bobby said he and Athena would drop in later. Buck thumbs-up reacts both texts. Eddie is in the group too but hasn’t surfaced yet; Buck’ll give him a bit before he makes sure he’s still in the land of the living.
Next Buck sees a text from his mom.
We hope you’re getting some good rest, Evan. Maybe we could meet your...
The preview ends there. Oh God. Buck immediately decides it’s still too early to open the full message. It’s 11:04 AM but that’s early, that counts.
Instead he texts his sister.
Hey, how you doing? You guys need anything?
Maddie doesn’t answer right away, which is fair, considering the day she had yesterday. Buck lowers his phone and glances up at his loft from where he’s leaning back against the kitchen island. There’s no signs of life from upstairs — not surprising after how hard Tommy crashed last night. When Buck woke up this morning, he was pretty sure Tommy hadn’t moved even the tiniest inch overnight; no tossing, no turning, just full-on unconscious.
It was a sight to open his eyes to, in the late-morning sun. Tommy’s face turned toward Buck, if half-hidden by a spare pillow dragged over his head; a closed eye visible, an eyebrow, the curve of his jaw. Tommy had been lying on his back with the blankets pooled around his waist and his bare chest rising and falling like a metronome. He looked — solid, steady, at ease. Soft. Kind of undignified, the way everyone looks when they sleep and also in a way that’s specifically, purely Tommy. His hair dried fluffy overnight.
Buck had looked at him for a while. The thick knobs of his knuckles, hand resting on his own ribs. The relaxed set of his mouth.
Eventually Buck had yawned and stretched under the covers, slow and languorous, and thought about curling into Tommy and touching; had been thinking about it all along. He didn’t do it, because Tommy obviously needed the sleep and because Buck badly needed to get up and go take a shower, but he knew he could’ve and he would have been met with warm welcome.
Buck smiles to himself now and turns around to rest his elbows on the counter and lean over his phone. He has a text from Hen, just Hen, outside of any group texts, asking if he’s alive. He’s pretty sure it’s an invitation to talk to her. He’s pretty sure he’s going to take her up on it. The relief of everyone knowing, the happiness, is still hard to look directly at. It's too big, too bright.
Josh Russo apparently texted him last night? Buck genuinely forgot they had each other’s numbers. He opens it, a little quizzical, and then he barks the first couple notes of a loud laugh and has to choke back the rest so he doesn’t immediately wake up Tommy.
Buck Buckley, how dare you come out and immediately bag that giant slice of beefcake??
congrats second-favorite Buckley 🌈
Buck presses the back of his hand to his grin, imagining he can still hear the echo of that noisy laugh. He guiltily glances over his shoulder when he thinks he hears a rustle from upstairs. Tommy doesn’t appear, though, so Buck turns back to his phone again. He knows without even opening the door that the state of his refrigerator is not good. Maybe he should order takeout — he and Tommy have eaten together a couple times and he hasn’t seemed picky, Buck could probably take a guess at something he’d like.
Buck’s buried deep in the menu of his favorite taco place internally debating the merits of al pastor for brunch when he belatedly notices the shuffle of footsteps. He glances over and finds a very big, very sleepy man stepping off the last stair. Tommy’s hair looks even fluffier now than it did when he was in bed; there are pillow marks up and down one side of his face. He’s yawning and his eyes are barely open and — it’s cute, which is a word Buck wouldn’t have necessarily applied to Tommy when they first met but absolutely fits right now.
The overall effect, granted, is still hot as hell. Tommy’s wearing nothing but a pair of Buck’s old shorts. There’s a lot to look at — miles of bare skin and hard muscle, a constellation of freckles dotted across the tops of his shoulders, an old scar on his ribs. He’s built like a tank. Buck still really wants to work out together and that’s the most PG of what he wants to do with him, looking at him now. Cute and half-asleep and hot. Tommy Kinard can do it all.
Buck stands upright and starts to turn toward him but Tommy is already there, sliding an arm around Buck, and he slumps with his cheek against the back of Buck’s shoulder. Buck laughs, surprised and hotly pleased at once. Tommy is resting some of his weight on him. Buck imagines he can almost feel the prickle of Tommy’s stubble through his thin T-shirt.
“Morning,” Buck says, and Tommy grunts something that might be a greeting and tightens his arm around Buck’s ribs. Just wiped out after a long night and day? Or not a morning person? Buck is going to find out.
“I was cruelly abandoned, I see,” Tommy says, not sounding especially bothered about it. His voice is rough with sleep and buzzes against Buck’s skin. He’s keeping his hips to himself but he’s warm and a little heavy against Buck’s side and back.
“I needed a shower,” Buck says, apologetic. He lets his mouth curve. “I figured a champagne rinse 30 hours ago probably didn’t count.”
“Mm,” Tommy agrees. “So many questions about that, by the way.”
“Really? ‘Cause I thought maybe we could, uh, bask in the glory of everything turning out fine.”
“Oh, I’m basking here,” says Tommy placidly, like the person-shaped python wrapped around Buck’s torso that he currently is. “I just still have questions.”
Buck’s pretty sure Tommy doesn’t actually have questions. Buck eventually scrolled up in their text thread yesterday, while he was hungover and texting Tommy updates from the search for Chimney, and saw what drunk-Buck sent. What happened after Tommy left for work was self-evident from the descent into autocorrect hell. No, Buck’s fairly confident Tommy is teasing him in that dry, arch tone he has, and Buck should probably be embarrassed or something but honestly he just really likes it.
Not the part where he’s fully aware he made an ass of himself, but the part where Tommy didn’t judge him for that and he likes Buck enough to still give him shit about it. It's funny; Tommy's funny. It makes Buck feel warm. Known.
“Are they … sexy questions?” Buck tries, and for a guy who’s laughing against Buck’s shoulder when Buck attempts to turn around and dislodge him enough to kiss him, Tommy manages to avoid him with impressive agility.
Buck complains, “Hey, what?” because not only did he just get rudely denied, he also no longer has a sleepy Tommy Kinard draped over his back.
Now (tragically) standing in his own space, Tommy looks unrepentant. “Yeah, I’m gonna need to use your toothpaste.”
Buck makes a rude noise. “I don’t care about your breath,” he says, but when he steps in to prove it, his mouth only catches Tommy’s cheek. He grunts in protest at being swerved again.
“I do,” says Tommy. He thumbs in the direction of the bathroom. “D’you mind?”
“Yeah, yeah, if you have to.” He waves him on. “Medicine cabinet.”
From the bemused look that Tommy tosses him, Buck knows his griping has been noted.
“I’ll be back. You’ll survive,” Tommy says, as he steps backward. The lines around his eyes are deepened with his smile. Buck could live for weeks off the satisfaction of causing that smile, like camels store water to fuel themselves. “I have faith in you.”
Buck is patient. He perches back on one of the stools at his kitchen island and he waits through the toilet flushing, the sink running, and the sound of the medicine cabinet opening and closing before he calls, “What do you think about tacos?”
Tommy opens the bathroom door. He’s brushing his teeth with his finger. Buck should probably invest in a spare toothbrush, he thinks absently, and then likes that thought so much that he immediately has to think about something else. Maybe camels. Last week Buck got sucked into reading about the time the 19th-century U.S. military tried to create a Bactrian camel corps. The ensuing Wikipedia spiral chewed up his night and eventually spat him out at 'Teddy Roosevelt and allies almost pass a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would have imported hippos into the Mississippi River as a source of bacon.' He texted Tommy about it, who had multiple questions, none of which were 'why are you talking to me about hippos?' and most of which left the door open for a lengthy discussion of the weirdest stuff Buck had just learned, because Tommy’s kind of great, and now Buck’s right back at Tommy again.
“Like, as a general rule? As a sandwich?” Tommy says.
“For lunch,” Buck clarifies, fully distracted now, mostly not by camels. “As a sandwich?”
Tommy spits into the sink. “Yeah, you know, ‘is a hot dog a sandwich,’ ‘is a taco a sandwich.’”
“Yes, and no,” Buck says. “Obviously.”
Tommy rinses his hands under the faucet. “So that’s—” He turns to face Buck through the open doorway, toweling his hands off. “Yes to hot dog, no to taco?”
Tommy and his cute squint is correct. “It’s tortillas, not bread,” says Buck. “Wait, do you think a taco is a sandwich?”
“Why, are you gonna reevaluate some things if I say yes?”
“Maybe,” Buck says, and Tommy crows a couple breaths of a laugh. He saunters across the dining area from the bathroom door, stepping around the table; he casually rolls his shoulders without breaking eye contact. It’s a shameless display, and why should he feel any shame? Tommy knows what he looks like and Buck hasn’t been subtle about what he thinks about it.
Tommy puts his hands on Buck’s knees and even before he leans in, Buck is already spreading his thighs to make room for him.
“Really?” Tommy asks, deeper, alight with amused mischief, and it takes Buck a long second to remember what they were even talking about.
“I, uh, I could be convinced,” Buck allows slowly, looking at Tommy’s mouth, and then he has to tilt his head so their noses don’t collide and Tommy’s smile is touching his.
“Hi,” Tommy murmurs, a little breathless, honestly kind of goofy, and it makes Buck grin against his mouth even as they’re sliding into the kiss. Buck winds his arms around Tommy’s neck. He tastes like Buck’s spearmint toothpaste; he smells like Buck’s soap and laundry detergent. Buck probably shouldn’t have shaved when he got up and showered because he can already tell Tommy’s stubble is gonna leave a mark, but that only makes the rasp of it against his mouth and chin even hotter.
Right from the start, Tommy has kissed Buck with singular focus. He’s here, with Buck, and he’s paying attention. Buck is paying attention too — to the hands holding his knees, to the way that Tommy leans into him, to how he reaches for Buck with his mouth and jaw in the natural push and pull of a long kiss, chasing him if Buck pulls back.
Buck slides to the edge of the stool, feeling how much wider he has to spread his legs around somebody than he’s used to, and closing his thighs around him anyway.
Tommy came in standing between Buck’s knees and it’s hardly a chaste kiss, but he gave it some space, too. Not leave-room-for-the-holy-spirit style (Eddie went to Catholic school for a couple years and he has hilarious stories about middle school dances), but not plastering himself against where Buck’s dick is rapidly getting with the program in his sweats.
Tommy’s been a perfect gentleman about this stuff — a flirty, insanely sexy gentleman, but still. He’s given Buck so much space to figure out what he wants. And Buck appreciates it. Frankly it’s been hot in ways that wouldn’t have necessarily occurred to him, all the ways that Tommy checks in, that he makes sure Buck is good. He cares. Buck feels cared for.
But what Buck wants is— He’ll be here until the heat-death of the universe if he tries to articulate everything he wants. But he wants Tommy’s attention and his good regard and he definitely, absolutely, desperately wants to have sex with him.
Buck puts his foot on the floor between Tommy’s feet. He lets one hand fall to the back of Tommy’s thigh, and he hauls Tommy all the way into him with that grip. Tommy grunts. He’s got at least a half-chub in Buck’s shorts, pushed against Buck’s thigh, and if that’s half-mast then he has just as big of a dick as he carries himself like he has, and that’s — Buck’s brain is gonna short circuit.
Buck lets the head-to-toe wave of heavy heat roll through him; opens his mouth and pushes in harder, and Tommy meets him with equal energy — Tommy always does, in everything, and it’s one of the things that Buck finds himself half-stunned by over again and again — and also with his tongue. One of Tommy’s hands slides from Buck’s knee up his thigh to wrap around his hip and Buck fully stands up off the kitchen stool and physically pulls Tommy against him as hard as he can.
Buck’s treated to a surprised, appreciative sound that’s muffled by his mouth; not quite a moan, but definitely the suggestion of one. Buck wants to hear so many of those noises. He wants to create an entire reference guide of them; he wants to ruthlessly take Tommy apart and find out what makes him tick. Buck‘s rapidly losing the plot here, or maybe this is the plot.
Tommy chases his lips again when Buck tips his chin down to get a second’s breather. It’s dizzying. They’re both gasping for breath right up against each other’s mouths, wet and hard in more ways than one. Tommy’s hand flexes on Buck’s hip, and it won’t take much movement at all for his palm to slide from Buck’s hip to Buck’s ass; his fingers are already halfway there purely thanks to how big his hands are.
Buck starts to laugh, wild and unspeakably turned on, and he feels Tommy’s mouth curve so close to his.
“Yeah?” Tommy says, still checking in, even now.
There aren’t words in the English language for how passionately Buck agrees. Yes; please; now; I was promised a morning in bed; it’s been weeks and I still can’t stop thinking about you.
What Buck actually says is, “I want to suck your dick so bad,” and Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up in a split second of stock-still silence so loaded with sheer tension that Buck’s ears ring with it.
Then they both move at once.
Buck really likes Tommy and he knows the feeling is mutual. He knows it because Tommy is blunt about it, and even if he wasn’t, Buck would’ve figured it out by the time Tommy showed up at the hospital last night after 18 hours on a wildfire without even bothering to change, because he told Buck he’d be there.
Because of how much they like each other, Buck doesn’t doubt they’re gonna do some slow, tender fucking. That’s absolutely in their near future. He looks forward to it greatly.
In the immediate future, this is more of an enthusiastic, mutually-agreed-upon mauling.
Afterward, they sit collapsed together in a vaguely person-shaped — two-people-shaped — pile against the side of Buck’s kitchen island. There was no question of making it upstairs. Buck is only vaguely aware of where his legs end and Tommy’s begin.
“Fucking hell,” mutters Tommy. Buck thinks he’s talking to himself as much as he’s talking to Buck. He sounds a little shellshocked, which is enormously flattering. Buck is already kind of obsessed with watching Tommy come unglued. It’ll be hot again, too, in, like… Buck thought he had a good sense of what his own refractory period is but now finds himself absently wondering just how fast he can get it up again.
Buck pats Tommy’s thigh. The borrowed shorts only made it off one of his legs.
“Wow. Okay,” says Tommy. Buck feels him shift his weight and distantly registers that he’s sagged against Tommy’s sweaty side, his cheek squashed against Tommy’s bicep. Tommy lifts his arm and Buck lets his pillow be reassigned — Tommy’s furry pec is just as good. Buck even likes the way he smells.
“Evan,” Tommy says. Buck thinks he can feel himself being studied; probably in that way Tommy looks at him sometimes that makes Buck feel like he’s being x-rayed.
Buck hums reassurance at him. “I’m good. I’m great.” He’s going to kiss Tommy again in a minute. His brain has gone staticky with the white-noise aftereffect of coming his brains out with someone he’s really into. This isn’t news at this point but Buck is very bisexual.
Tommy slings his arm around his shoulders. The weight is nice, if warm on the sweat-damp fabric of Buck’s T-shirt, because Buck’s shirt is still on, the hem shoved up to his chest; his sweats are still … mostly on. But forget himself, Buck wants to strip his shorts all the way off of Tommy. His mind is slowly creaking back online and he’s already starting to think about getting a real look at Tommy fully naked.
Buck’s apparently not the only one thinking about clothes, or lack thereof. “I’m feeling underdressed,” says Tommy.
“That’s funny, I was thinking the exact opposite,” Buck flirts, no word of a lie, and Tommy barks a laugh.
Buck grins and sits up, still well within the loop of Tommy’s arm, his knee crooked and leg resting on Tommy’s. Tommy looks as ridiculous as Buck undoubtedly does, too. They’re a mess on Buck’s kitchen floor, both separately and collectively. But Tommy’s watching him with steady eyes, reaches out to touch Buck’s satisfyingly-sore jaw, and Buck leans in and kisses him, much softer this time.
There’s a loud rumble into the quiet. It takes Buck a couple seconds, and the sheepish twist of Tommy’s mouth, to realize it was Tommy’s stomach.
“What was that about tacos?” Tommy asks, wryly self-deprecating and hopeful at the same time.
“Still not a sandwich,” says Buck, self-satisfied, and he reaches around on the countertop above their heads until his hand closes around his phone.
“You still want to know my thoughts on sex after the third date?” Tommy asks, later. There’s the quiver of barely-restrained amusement in his voice.
Buck blinks and looks up from arranging a Jee-Yun pick-up so Maddie can spend the early evening at the hospital. “What?”
Tommy has his phone plugged into the charger on Buck’s bedside table, and he turns the screen. Buck is faced with the specter of his own text messages on Tommy’s phone.
Evan
What’s do duh think about the thre due rule?
Wait how many days shave we been in
Buck groans and tips his face into Tommy’s bicep. Tommy laughs, his arm quaking with it, and he rests his free hand on Buck’s head and starts to slowly thumb at his scalp. That’s nice. “How did you even understand that?” Buck asks.
“Worked backward from ‘how many days shave we been in,’ ” he says, audibly grinning.
Drunk or sober, Buck genuinely has no idea how many dates they’ve been on. He’d half-jokingly insisted that the wedding was going to be their big second date, and Tommy found it funny and played along, but the two of them went on what were objectively more than a few casual dates over the last few weeks. Even if you don’t count those, and realistically Buck does, Buck has been texting Tommy nonstop and getting the same energy back. By any measure Buck can think of, they’re well over three dates in at this point, and three was a meaningless, arbitrary number to begin with.
Buck had this idea, at first, of taking things slow. Of making sure of his own feelings, then of making sure it was very obvious that this went well beyond a hookup for him. They have taken it (relatively) slow but the truth of all of those things became abundantly clear to Buck, and undoubtedly to Tommy too, within probably three days of ‘good morning’ texts and invitations to go hiking in the LA foothills.
As soon as Buck fully understood what he’d missed about himself — as fully as he understands it now, anyway; there are still things that occasionally dawn on him like a flower bud slowly unfurling with the sun, if the flower has the ability to sometimes feel like an idiot — he’d been sure about fucking men. He’d never questioned whether he’d be into it, anyway. That became crystal clear the second Tommy Kinard tipped his chin with two confident fingers. Buck liked sex, and he was going to like it regardless of who he was with.
Part of him had some questions about mechanics and if it was going to piss him off to be unsure about one of the few things in life that he’s usually very sure of, but with Tommy, Buck quickly realized he wasn’t going to give a shit about any of that once the two of them were touching each other. And he’d been right about that. So lying in bed with him now isn’t some shocking revelation; Buck knew, and he’s very sure about Tommy. But at the same time — it kind of is a revelation, like every little moment that has taken him off guard has been.
Buck can’t really compare what they did to what came before it. It’s about the person and the moment, not the parts or the size of someone’s hands. Things aren’t better or worse, just both different and similar. New, in this case, and exciting, but not only because of the newness. Because of Tommy.
“So I was drunk and horny, sue me,” Buck says, defiant and easy, flopping back onto his elbow in the pillows again. It’s the autocorrect part that’s embarrassing, not how transparently he’d wanted to fuck Tommy. “My boyf—” So much for refusing to be embarrassed. He ruthlessly strangles the too-soon word halfway out, but even halfway is too awkward, too late, holy shit.
But Tommy, as always, is already there. He does a piss-poor job of hiding the immediate flash of his smile. It leaks out around the edges of his generous mouth. “Your boyf?” he repeats, level, like butter wouldn't melt in his very talented mouth, like he has no idea what Buck meant when he obviously knows exactly what he meant.
Buck likes Tommy so much it still takes him by surprise sometimes. Even when Tommy’s being a dick. Maybe especially then, because there’s always so much warmth behind it; it always makes Buck feel so … liked.
“My boyfriend,” Buck says, pointedly sinking his teeth into the word and jabbing Tommy with an accusatory finger even as he grins, hard, and Tommy breaks and laughs, “left me to go to work, what was I supposed to do?”
“Proposition him,” says Tommy, and his eyes are so warm. “Your boyfriend. Obviously.”
Buck’s heart sank in the split second when he said it, Evan Buckley too soon, Evan Buckley too much, but that was all instinct. With time for Buck to actually think about it — Tommy was never going to respond any other way.
Tommy holds Buck’s face in his hand now and leans in for a long, slow kiss that Buck shoves up off his elbow into. Tommy smells like sex and tacos. Honestly not the worst combination. Buck might have a pavlovian response to tacos al pastor for a while.
Buck tucks his thumb into the hinge of Tommy’s jaw and gives as good as he gets; gets a deep exhale and a low-voiced, “Evan,” as a very satisfying reaction.
Tommy makes Buck feel kind of unhinged, cracked-open with the force of possibility. It might be a little hair-raising but Buck’s always been drawn to taking risks.
And it doesn’t feel half as dangerous when someone is right there with him.
Tommy’s phone chirps with the sound of an incoming text. He presses a few lingering kisses to the corner of Buck’s mouth and he snorts when he finally looks at his phone.
“What?”
Tommy’s text notification goes off two more times in quick succession. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says darkly, obviously amused by whatever someone’s saying, which Buck is pretty sure means he will talk about it. They’re good at talking. It’s easy with Tommy.
They’ve established that they’re good at other things, too, that they can make other things very good, but they can’t stay in bed all weekend. They’re both on A shift so they’ve still got two days left before going back to work, because LAFD runs on the Kelly shift schedule and the newlyweds made an objectively-correct choice for their wedding date, but that doesn’t mean the world outside this bed stopped existing.
Buck needs to go back to finalizing what time he’s bringing dinner to the hospital and picking up his niece. At some point he’ll meet up with his parents; probably without Maddie to give her a break. He’s got a lot of people to text back. Tommy has to pick up his car from Harbor and return his turnouts to wherever they came from — they say ARCHAMBAULT on the back, and Tommy doesn’t seem to know who the hell that is either — and he mentioned doing some meal prep, a gym session arranged with a friend. There’s a weekend of normality ahead.
But Buck’s gonna do all of it with the memory of tacos in bed to keep him warm, and with someone on the other end of the line answering every ‘did you know…?’ text and sending back complaints about traffic on the 405.
Maybe he’ll add a rainbow emoji in his Instagram bio.