Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the breakup with Abby, Buck had promised himself not to revert back to Buck 1.0. He was done hooking up and thriving in the superficial. The feelings he had for her made him realize what he was missing out on.

It's funny how things can go full circle like that. Abby left him like Tommy left her. Abby made Buck feel naive for waiting for her and Tommy made Buck feel naive for believing that they could just be together. 

So Buck announces himself done with cougars and daddies. 

After weeks of baking and feeling lonely, Buck makes up his mind: Buck 1.0 is easier. Sure, that guy used to be alone, but he has family now, he has a community. His life has more depth and love than back then.

Going back to the drawing board isn’t really a conscious decision though. It's something a little dangerous that sparks Buck 1.0 (Buck 4.0?) back to life. They're doing another open house at the station and Buck is watching over the children climbing into the fire engine, when he feels an arm brush against his. 

It's an old trick of his own and it catches his attention. The mom's smile is soft, her advances not as bold as what he is used to, but he recognizes them nonetheless. 

They small-talk for a little bit, Buck making sure to nudge her back. She tells him it's easy to forget yourself and your needs when you're a single mom. He says that she deserves to let herself enjoy herself. She says when. He says now. She sends him a delighted smile and he squeezes her hand, before nodding towards the exit. 

And then they're in the broom closet, her legs spread and thong pushed to the side as he pushes his tongue against her wetness, two fingers curled inside her. He remembers how much he likes this as she moans into her hand at her release. He doesn't have a condom, so she returns the favor with her mouth too. She swallows. She gets dressed and leaves first. He plays some games on his phone and then follows.

—--

It randomly happens again, this time as he drives home. He stops at a drive-through and the server smiles flirtatiously when he pays. It's as if queer people can pick him out easier now that he has had a dick in his throat or maybe he has just started to notice it more.

The guy says the soda is on him, if Buck sits inside and that the place is pretty much empty. 

So Buck walks into the restaurant, not really knowing what he’s doing, and it's not long before the server finds him. They go to a table at the back of the restaurant and the server grins as he crawls underneath the table and starts sucking Buck off. Buck tries to play it cool, even when the guy's colleagues start to look for him. The guy doesn't want it reciprocated, just wanted an adrenaline high. And Buck feels. Distracted.

—-

No further opportunity shows, but Buck finds himself wanting the itch scratched again. He logs on Tinder and finds Tina.

Tina is fun and thoughtful and inquiring. Buck is fascinated.

She comes over, they drink some wine. They fuck. She says it was nice but that she wanted to do something less vanilla in the future. They each fill out a spread-sheet and exchange them to compare. Later, they text about it. It's a done deal.

Next time she comes with a gag and ropes. She ties him up. They fuck.

When she isn't there because of a business trip, Buck finds Sonny. Sonny is a blond self-described twink with tattoos all over his arms and a septum piercing. He lives in WeHo of course. He loves to be spoiled and Buck sees him as a little treat, a sweet piece of candy he can enjoy once in a while when he starts to feel a little too cold. 

William is very reserved. He's polite, but has no patience. He's all hair-pulling and spankings, destroys Buck's ass like Godzilla destroyed Tokyo. He leaves as soon as Buck has cum. Tina would have a fit if she knew, but he doesn't want to look at William's pissy face after they're done fucking anyways. He just wants to drift on his own, feel floaty and melancholic and probably cry a little bit.

Soon Buck finds himself pursuing that feeling of floaty melancholy; whether it be by Tina's experiments with him, William's complete disinterest in Buck as a person, Sonny’s need to be spoiled or the random people he picks out once in awhile that are just looking for a good fuck. It should be odd for this to be what he's addicted to. Feeling used is what broke him in the first place. 

—-

After a ton of conversations with Tina, Buck feels ready to go to a kink club. She puts him on display with a plug and a collar. She fucks him on the floor while everyone is watching. She calls him desperate and a slut and turns out he doesn't like that, the humiliation when people laugh as part of the scene, but he enjoys the way he floats, how everything turns numb when he has had his insides clawed out.

After, in the aftercare room, she asks whether he wants to go for another round with others with a blindfold on. She will make sure everyone uses condoms and he genuinely trusts her. It was on his spreadsheet, but they haven’t really talked a ton about it.

He smiles and says why not. She smiles back and says he's fun. He doesn't understand how he keeps being able to fool all of these people into thinking that he's confident and charming. But it works every time.

She gently brings him back to the main floor and he muffles his gasp into his arm as the first guest penetrates him. 

—-

Bobby knows something is up, Chimney and Hen as well, but he's got a handle on this. This life is an old glove he still fits. Everything stays the same. Except. This used to be fun. Why isn’t he having fun. 

—-

Eddie moves and Buck finds himself shattered in his absence. For so long, Eddie has been his anchor. He can’t stand to watch him go. That night Buck calls Tina and they do a spontaneous trip to the kink club. They stay there for hours until Buck feels too empty to cry.

—-

A week after Eddie moves, Buck signs himself up for regular STI-tests.

—-

Someone is knocking on Buck's door.

Beside him, Tina huffs awake and Buck twists in the sheets. There are two empty glasses of wine on the bedside table. The red stains match the faint rope marks around his arms.

The knocking turns insistent.

“I'll get it, you lie down,” Tina yawns. She throws on one of his shirts and some underwear, before moving down the stairs. 

He hears her open the door and a quiet, confused conversation. He frowns until he clocks the voice, and then sits up with a racing heartbeat. Immediately he feels sick.

“I'll get it myself,” Tommy says. 

“Get it?” Tina repeats, completely unimpressed. “Last time I checked you don't live here.”

Buck sits up and sighs, before he finds a T-shirt and some shorts. Tina had him shave his legs yesterday. Buck hasn't decided whether he likes it or not.

Slowly he walks down the stairs and there is Tommy. He’s wearing the grey t-shirt and tactical pants he only wears when he is going to town on a car. His features that had blurred over time abruptly refocus. Beauty shouldn’t be a punch in the face but somehow Tommy accomplishes it. 

Buck feels a lump in his throat. Tina watches him like a hawk, as always following Buck's lead.

“Uh,” he says. “It's okay, Tina. He's just dropping by.”

Tina tilts her head. Then she strokes a blond lock of hair behind her ear with her long, stiletto pink nails. The silence is tense. There’s no power negotiation in their relationship outside sex, but what makes her a good domme is how instinctively protective she is with many things. “Alright, I’ll get going.”

As Buck sighs with relief, she walks back upstairs to get dressed and he turns to make her usual coffee to go, ignoring Tommy's eyes on the back of his neck. He expects Tommy to say something, tell him why he’s there, but he doesn’t. And Buck doesn’t know what to say, so they’re just quiet. 

On the way out, Tina kisses his cheek as she takes the to-go cup and murmurs a thanks, before grabbing her bag and leaving.

At the kitchen counter, Buck rubs his face. He was looking forward to feeling numb and now instead he has an anxious belly ache.

“Sorry I intruded,” Tommy says hesitantly. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“No,” Buck says. “We’re just friends.”

“Some hefty marks your friend left,” Tommy says and nods towards Buck's wrist when Buck dares to look up at him.

Buck feels his face go red with embarrassment. “What are you doing here?”

Tommy shrugs a shoulder, expression unreadable. “I came to get my toolbox. I’m heading over to a friend to help him with his Mustang.” 

“You could have texted me beforehand,” Buck says.

“My bad,” Tommy says, looking a little awkward.

Buck sighs. “I honestly have no idea where you put it.”

He knows that if he had seen it, he would have made Eddie give it back to Tommy.

Buck takes the leftover water in the kettle and pours a cup to make some tea. It's made with ginger, cinnamon and lemon. 60 degrees. Tina always makes it the day after a scene and it feels weird without her tapping his back as he leisurely sips at it.

“She seems a little young for someone doing stuff like that,” Tommy continues.

Buck stares at the counter. His eyes are still red and puffy after the scene. He doesn’t want Tommy to see that. He doesn’t want Tommy to see him and how much of a mess he is.

But he has to face the music, so he turns around to look at him. Tommy is sitting on the kitchen island stool, the exact same one and exact same way he did that night. Buck had placed so many people in that exact spot to paint over that image in his mind. Now he needs to start all over.

“She knows what she wants,” he says and sips his tea. “And she communicates. The people I dated that were older couldn't do either.”

There is so much he wants to say, so many things he wants to know. And finally, Tommy is right there. But despite Buck fighting a tiger every night to not call him and talk to him, he suddenly doesn’t know what to even say.

So he puts the cup on the table and turns around to mount the stairs. He rummages through his closet and finds Tommy's toolbox in a blind angle in the bottom corner with his dress shoes. It's there, because Tommy had come to help him fix his sink and pipes in the bathroom a week before their breakup. Tommy had said he would just leave it for now in case the fix didn't stick. Considering how often Tommy uses the toolbox, it's actually a surprise that he hadn’t showed up before now to ask for it. 

Holding onto it with a tight grip, Buck walks back down the stairs. Tommy is standing up now, looking outside through the windows. 

“I'm glad to see you're already out there,” Tommy says and looks back at him. “It's good for you.”

At that, Buck shoves the toolbox into Tommy's chest. “Stop telling people stuff like that, Tommy.”

Tommy lifts his brows in surprise, but can't hide the flash of hurt that briefly moves over his face. After a second, where it looks like Tommy might say something else, he walks towards the door. His eyes flicker down to the red marks around Buck’s wrist.

“I hope you’ll take care of yourself, Buck,” he says.

Buck makes a face, because he has been furiously pondering about the name change in his head for weeks after it first occurred and this just sets him right off. “Calling me another name to friendzone yourself is trying way too hard, Tommy. I get the point.”

Tommy purses his lips. “Maybe it’s not you who isn’t getting the point,” he says quietly. He tilts his head and lifts a brow at Buck. “Consider that?”

The words are a knockout. A dumper can’t say that to a dumpee, that’s not fair. 

Tommy opens the door to the apartment and promptly jolts.

“Hey,” Tina’s voice says outside. 

“Keeping his virtue safe?” Tommy asks coolly. 

“Nah, he can take care of himself,” she replies. “You just got one of those faces. Damaged, you know?”

“You’re really rude,” Tommy says.

“Bye, Buck! Remember your tea!” Tina calls out and steps inside to close the door after them. 

As soon as Tommy is out of his sight, Buck's stomach is a pit of knives, making their way to the inside of his lungs and throat. He can feel his lip trembling, but he promised himself that he wouldn't cry about this anymore.

So he slowly sits down, sips his tea, before thinking fuck it. 

He calls William and luckily it's his day off too. Within an hour Buck is on his back, legs arranged around William’s shoulders and getting fucked so good he’s practically seeing stars.

“Love your legs,” William grunts and Buck thinks this is the closest he has ever gotten to giving Buck a compliment.

And then William does something. He locks Buck's wrists in one of his hands and with a closed fist above their heads and presses his forearm against Buck's throat.

Buck gasps with surprise. They haven't talked about this, but they don't really talk much, so Buck stays still, trying to figure out if he likes it. But it's not like when Tina chokes him. This is a direct pressure against his windpipe and it hurts.

Meanwhile William is lost, his eyes closed and his mouth open as he gasps.

Buck pinches him and William opens his eyes. With a sleazy smile, he lets up.

“Loved that,” he says, his thrusts not slowing down. “You became so tight when I choked you.”

Without warning, he does it again, this time harder and when his thrusts only intensifies, for a brief second it feels incredible, but then the feeling passes and Buck pinches him to get his attention.

“Wait,” William says, sweat rolling down his forehead, their skin slapping together. “I'm almost there.”

Okay , fuck that. With a strength Buck only displays at work, he rips his hands out of William's grasp and kicks him off. Sure, he could have just said no, but he shouldn't have to.

William coughs and wheezes for breath and as Buck makes to get off the bed, he finds himself being pulled back and his head swings into the corner of the bed frame.

“You dumb fuck,” Buck says, rips his hand loose and stands up. “Get out before I beat the crap out of you.”

William, who is just as tall as Buck and a lot broader, looks far from chastised. Instead he crosses his arms and his cock … twitches. “Did you just kick me?”

“You were choking me!” Buck exclaims. “We never talked about that being a thing we should try. Damn right I kicked you!”

“Brat,” William says. “I will put you in your place.”

“You're not putting me anywhere,” Buck says and grabs his phone. “Get out or I'll call the police.”

“What happened to beating me up?”

“You're not worth an assault charge,” Buck says. His nose is starting to bleed. “Go.”

“I'm not leaving until you apologize,” William growls and rounds the bed. “No one gets to hit me. You should’ve just said no.”

“William!” Buck says, stepping back.”Get out!”

“Not so cocky now, huh,” William says and grabs Buck's wrist.

Buck punches William in the nose and makes a run for it. William is stronger than him and sure, Buck picked up some stuff along the way, but he has no idea what William is capable of.

So he runs downstairs with his phone and locks himself into the bathroom.

“Coward!” William shouts and a minute later Buck hears him slam into the door, the wood groaning ominously. Buck almost dials 9-1-1 and then remembers Athena beat to shit or Maddie crying. Fuck that, he's not putting either of them through that. It would be his last resort.

So he calls Eddie.

“‘Sup?” Eddie says.

“Hey Eddie,” Buck whispers. “I need some advice.”

Eddie pauses. “Buck, who’s screaming in the background?”

“Uh, my hookup. He strangled me and I punched him. I'm hiding in the bathroom.”

A particularly loud splinter makes Buck cringe. Eddie is silent.

“And why exactly are you not calling the police?” he finally asks. 

“Eight out of ten same-sex domestic violence disputes between intimate partners are not taken seriously by the police force,” Buck hisses. “And I don't think they're going to show by the time he gets through. Eddie, he knows where I live.”

“But -”

“Eddie, things aren’t vanilla with him, no one will believe me,” Buck interrupts. “He will get away with it and be even more angry. Please just tell me what to do.”

Another loud splinter that will soon turn into a hole gets through the door.

“Fuck,” Buck says.

“Okay, is there anything you can use to defend yourself?” Eddie asks, sounding frantic.

“No,” Buck says, his voice turning choked before he shouts: “William, I’m on the phone with the police!”

The banging pauses. Then there’s a laugh and a particularly hard kick. “We’ll have plenty of time before they arrive!”

“Look, Buck, you can do this,” Eddie says. “Remember your training at the SEALS. Tommy helped you become less rusty too, right? Protect your core and face, bite and kick if that’s what you need to.”

“I'm sorry,” Buck says. “For calling you like this.”

“It's okay,” Eddie says. 

“I'm a mess,” Buck continues. “And I keep taking these dumb chances.”

“You're in a bad headspace,” Eddie says. “And that's okay. Why didn't you really call 911?”

“Because, what if Maddie picks up?” Buck asks. “She would have to listen to it happen.”

“Slut!” William shouts.

“Give it up!” Buck shouts. “Go home!”

“Don't you have that marble soap dispenser?” Eddie asks. 

“No, I put it in my basement,” Buck sighs. “Tommy gave it to me as a gift.”

There's a long silence. Buck can practically hear Eddie's thoughts racing as the door gets thinner and thinner.

“He's not calming down,” Buck acknowledges.

“But you'll be calm,” Eddie says, just as a fist flies through the door. “And that will make you smarter.”

And then Buck hears the sound of the door to the apartment slam open. William stops punching the bathroom door.

Buck freezes. “Someone is here,” he whispers.

Eddie sighs in relief. “That would be either Tommy or Athena.”

It’s quiet and normally Athena would be announcing herself at this point. So it has to be Tommy. The footsteps moving through the apartment are heavy and fast. 

“Who the fuck are you?” William asks, sounding uneasy, and then there’s the sound of a body slamming into the door Buck is hiding behind. 

Buck jumps, knowing for a fact that Athena isn't that strong.

William coughs. “Is that the best you got?”

After a few seconds, Buck hears him grunt and then cry out as he hits the door again. Just as Buck opens the door in frantic panic, William flies through it. 

Buck barely gets out of the way, his heart beating rapidly.

Tommy is standing in front of the door, heaving quietly, hands in fists with fingers splashed red. Buck looks down at William. His jaw looks weird and his nose is streaming blood down his mouth and chin.

“What happened?” Eddie whispers.

Buck doesn’t reply. He just… steps around William and closes the door to the bathroom. That has to be a problem for later.

“Tommy is here,” Buck explains and then quietly passes the phone. He doesn’t know what to say or even how to speak, so he just passes Tommy and goes upstairs to get dressed. Tommy is talking quietly to Eddie on the phone and Buck can’t make out what he’s saying.

Tommy has just hung up when Buck moves back down the stairs, now wearing clothes.

“Thanks,” he says a little nervously. “I owe you a beer.”

“ A beer? ” Tommy repeats, his blue eyes widening. The grim look on his face turns into outrage. “You owe me an explanation .”

“Uh,” Buck says and waves at the bathroom door. “What does it look like?”

Looking like he’s trying not to have an aneurysm, Tommy glares at him before rubbing his forehead. “How often do you take risks like that?”

“Risks?” Buck repeats, hands starting to shake as he puts a kettle to warm. He finds the ginger tea and drops a bag in a cup. “I always use condoms and it’s not the first time we fucked.”

“That’s it?” Tommy asks.

“You’re making it sound like this is my fault.”

“Of course it isn't, but there must have been red flags,” Tommy says, which, fuck, true but Tommy doesn’t have to know that.

“What, do you want me to make Athena do background screening for every person I fuck?” Buck says and snags the water as soon as it’s done boiling. “Do you want tea.”

“No thanks,” Tommy says and when Buck turns around again, he continues: “Buck, you need to be more careful.”

“That's none of your business,” Buck says, voice cracking. “I'm fucking my way out of this heartbreak.”

Tommy gapes at him.

“Sometimes you have to go back to basics,” Buck points out. “Now with a wider dating pool, of course.”

Tommy drops his face, his ears getting red. “Buck, do you know what could have happened if I wasn't in the neighbourhood to fix that Mustang? Couldn’t you at least have called the police?” 

“I'm using protection and I get tested regularly,” Buck says. “Being promiscuous does not make me reckless, you jerk.”

Now that's only a partial truth.

And Buck can tell that Tommy knows.

“I thought you wanted me to go find my last?” Buck asks, throwing out his arms. 

“Not like this.”

“Maybe ‘this’ is the only thing I'm cut out for,” Buck says and Tommy's shoulders stiffen around his ears.

Tommy finally looks up, clenching his eyes before he opens them and looks at Buck. “You asked me to move in,” he says. “I have a house.”

“I didn't mean it literally, obviously,” Buck says. “You have a mortgage.”

“Doesn't that imply to you that what you suggested perhaps was way too impulsive?”

“No?” Buck says. “I've already impulsively asked someone to move in with me before, so I actually have something to compare it to, I’ll have you know.”

There's a groan from the bathroom. 

“Look, I don't need to convince you what I did that night felt right to me,” Buck says.

His lower lip starts to tremble and he pretends to itch his nose to hide it.

Tommy's eyes are softening.

“This is what I do best anyway,” Buck says and clears his throat. “But…I'm lucky you were still in the neighbourhood and I’m grateful that you came to help. The Mustang is Tatiana's car, right? How’s the baby?” 

Tommy opens his mouth to reply, when he's interrupted by Athena's voice.

“LAPD!”

—-

Tommy offers to stay after Athena and one of her colleagues have led William out in handcuffs. Buck knows Tommy is offering because Buck still feels unsafe, but he still tells Tommy to go back to what he was doing at Tatiana’s house. He doesn’t need his pity. 

The following hour, Buck spends an hour baking, trying not to call Tommy and beg him to come back. Then he goes to shower, groom and get clean while he waits for Sonny to come over.

After Buck has sent Sonny home, he feels more peaceful. He likes taking care of him, likes their gentle sex and how cute Sonny becomes when Buck showers him with sweet nothings and fucks him until Sonny cries. It's nice to be gentle for once, especially after this afternoon.

He still has the itch though. At 10 PM he texts Tina even though she left the same morning, but she doesn’t reply. She probably has an early shift in the morning, so he contacts the kink club and asks if he can attend without his domme. They say yes. It’s risky to go as a single sub, sure, because you could easily get taken advantage of. But he needs to get Tommy’s face wiped from his memory, and needs to remove the music of his voice from his head. 

—-

Buck isn’t drunk. You can’t drink at the club, even if you’re just meeting up with a potential partner.

But he feels drunk, feels hazy as he looks for someone to take him. It doesn’t take long.

Buck doesn’t quite catch his name, but he looks different than Tommy, which is the only thing that counts. They fill out the spreadsheet in a hurry and submit a contract to the owner of the club.

They go down to the dungeon, where all the fun toys are. Buck said no to other people participating this time, but he doesn’t mind if people watch. The dom isn’t interested in fucking him anyways, at least not anally. They sit on a matte and Buck gets undressed, curls up in the guy’s lap. They make out for a while and it’s nice to feel completely unbothered with doing it in public, nice to feel surrounded by noise and voices and neon lights.

After having stroked Buck for a while, the dom leads him to a bench. It’s the fucking machine. Buck said he wanted to, but he didn’t think they would go there straight away.

And then he finds himself on his fours on a bench, getting rammed for dear life, lube squirting down his inner thighs as he’s fucked more and more sloppy. The dom is jerking off, sometimes slapping Buck’s mouth with his dick. Buck loses himself. The dom doesn't humiliate Buck, which is the most important thing, but does spank his ass until it's red. People are gathering around Buck, but the dom stops them from touching him, since it wasn't on their contract. And it's fine. Impact and time pull Buck underneath the water.

—-

Buck is dropping. It's ridiculous because he just got out of the aftercare room, the dom having lavished him with cuddles and soft kisses and grapes and water.

Buck had felt fine until the night air hit him outside the club and he felt like he was skinned alive.

Immediately he feels his eyes water, his chest clench, a choked sob in his throat. He feels desperate like only an upset child could be; longing for comfort, longing for protection. He should want Maddie, but somewhere along the line, Buck might have outgrown her. 

It's 1 AM in the morning. Bobby is probably sleeping, but he's off tomorrow. He has already texted Buck when he heard what happened from Athena, but Buck has been too occupied to send a proper reply.

Buck never had a parent he could rely on. Never had someone who would crawl through the darkness and hold his hand because he was scared of what was underneath his bed. He never experienced unconditional protectiveness and care. Not until he met Bobby.

“Hello?” Bobby says, already sounding worried through his grogginess.

“Uhm,” Buck says, sinking harshly to keep down his crying. “Can you… can you come get me?”

Bobby must have heard something odd in his voice, because he doesn't even question it. “Of course. Turn on your location and don't hang up, okay?”

“I-I have to,” Buck says, his voice cracking at the end. “I-I, I have to gather myself.”

“For who?” Bobby asks, a door already closing in the background. “For me?”

The flood gates break open and Buck utters a loud sob. 

“You're okay. Turn on your location, kiddo, I'll be there,” Bobby says soothingly. “Is your car there?” 

Buck can't even speak for a minute, just turns on his location. 

“I t-took an Uber,” he finally replies. 

“Alright. Find somewhere safe and I'll let you gather yourself,” Bobby says. He pauses. “Were you just inside the kink club at your location?”

“I didn't know it would get so extreme so quickly,” Buck cries. “I thought we could build it up and it was fine, I-I got lost in it, it's what I wanted, but I don't know anybody here, I'm all alone.”

“You're not alone, Buck,” Bobby says hoarsely. “We're all right here.”

—-

After Buck has hung up, he finds himself walking. The flood of tears left a thick brain fog and he wanders around in his own head, until he’s suddenly in front of Tommy’s house. He doesn’t know how he got there, or well, he must have known somehow.

But it’s safe and it’s private. Buck can just sit at the driveway where Tommy’s car shields his door-com from seeing him. So he sits and finds himself unbearingly cold. He picks up his phone, keeping an eye out for Bobby’s location. He’s only fifteen minutes away.

Exhaling deeply, he closes his eyes. He should feel ashamed about calling Bobby like this, but he knows that Bobby would have his head or worse, be hurt, if he found out that Buck didn’t call him when he needed to. 

And Buck doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t understand what home is anymore. It used to be with Maddie and then on Eddie’s couch. But Eddie isn’t there anymore, Maddie is pregnant and has her own life. 

God, Buck is such a fuck-up. 

“Evan?” Tommy asks behind him.

Buck jolts with surprise and then sniffs, looking away from him. “What happened to Buck?” 

Tommy looks at him. He’s wearing a Henley and his pajamas underneath. Buck doesn’t know how Tommy knew he was there. He should be well beyond the sightline of his windows and his cameras. 

Tommy sits down beside him. “Never grew on me, I guess.”

Buck nods. “Never grew on me either.” He takes a measured breath. “Bobby is on his way. I just need somewhere to lay low and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Right,” Tommy says. “Are you okay?”

Buck wipes his nose. “Not really,” he says. “I think I bit off more than I could chew tonight.”

Tommy purses his lips. “Did I do this?”

“No, God, Tommy,” Buck says and shakes his head. “This isn’t your fault. None of it. Okay? I’m a dumbass, I always have been. I didn’t show up here to give you a guilty conscience, I just needed somewhere private. I didn’t think you would see me.”

“I didn’t,” Tommy says. “But my neighbor did.”

“Fuck,” Buck says and looks around at the windows. “I bet it was Lilly, that fucking snitch.”

“Hey, don’t come for Lilly,” Tommy says and shoulder-checks him. “She was just worried.”

“Look, Tommy, you’re an amazing guy,” Buck says and stands up. “This isn’t your fault, you hear me? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Sit down,” Tommy says. “It’s fine. I’m glad you came here to feel safe.”

Buck nods and then sits back down again with a little grimace. Tommy sighs. 

“I thought you said you trusted that girl?” Tommy asks.

“Tina?” Buck asks. 

“The blonde.”

Buck shrugs. “I went alone. She would kill me if she knew.”

Tommy sighs. “I should have stayed today.”

“Tommy, no,” Buck says. “This isn’t your fault, okay? Don’t do this to yourself.”

Tommy stands up. “Why didn’t you just come to me instead of Bobby? I clearly live in the area of wherever you were.”

“Tommy, you dumped me,” Buck says, exhausted. “I can’t ask that from you anymore.”

“Why?” Tommy asks. “Who are making all these rules?”

“I am!” Buck exclaims. “I’m getting over you goddammit. I’m sorry I showed up at your house, okay, I know I’m not making this easy for either of us.”

“No, wait, Evan,” Tommy says. “Don’t apologize for coming, okay? I’m glad. You’re not intruding.”

There’s a ping on Buck’s phone and by the time he has opened the message, Bobby’s car is driving into the sidestreet.

He opens the door and jumps outside. He looks up and down Buck’s body with wide, frightened eyes and then pulls him into a hug. Buck chokes down a sob as he is embraced. He just wants to go home. 

Bobby steps back and scans his face.

“Have you taken anything?” he asks and starts patting Buck’s pockets without asking.

“I am, unfortunately, very sober,” Buck says with a wet laugh. 

Bobby looks up at Tommy. “Thank you, Tommy, for taking care of him.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Lilly,” Tommy says. “He was hiding behind my truck.”

“Thank Lilly for me then,” Bobby says and squeezes Tommy’s arm.

—-

“Hey,” Bobby says, when he has started the car. He’s searching Buck’s eyes and Buck looks away, afraid of what Bobby might find. “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Buck says, as if he would ever get Bobby to come get him at 1 AM in the night if he was. “I’m sorry for making you come this late.”

“It’s alright,” Bobby says and pulls out. “Athena has readied the guest room and you still have that spare set of clothes. Otherwise you can lend some of mine.”

“Great, thanks,” Buck says.

“Are you sure you’re not high?”

Buck shakes his head, closing his eyes. 

“Drunk?”

“No,” Buck says and adds grimly: “Who needs drugs and alcohol when you can just go full Buck?”

Bobby doesn’t reply, just leaves the curb. “Why didn’t you come talk to me?” Bobby says. “You usually reach out when you’re feeling self-destructive. I know you’ve been doing this for a while.”

Buck shrugs. “I didn’t… I didn’t know I was being self-destructive. But today, the thing with William happened and I didn’t want to cancel with Sonny. And then it was too late to call anybody, so I just… tried to handle it on my own. I know today I took it too far.”

“What is ‘it’?” Bobby says, scowling.

“I don’t know, helplessness?” Buck says. “Pessimism? Apathy? It feels like nothing matters.”

“Because of Tommy?” Bobby asks. 

“I know I’m not a teenager,” Buck says and sighs. “I know heartbreak shouldn’t do this much. I just… really thought he was the one, you know?”

“Trying to forget people through drastic measures isn't unheard of,” Bobby says. “But from now on you call me, okay?”

—-

Athena thinks he's drunk when he arrives, but after having put her hand on his cheek and met his eyes, she shakes her head. 

“You scared me,” she says and wraps her arms around his neck for a tight hug. “Next time something like today happens, you come here, okay? Don't go chasing waterfalls. You’re not alone.”

“I know. And thank you. Can I sleep on the couch?” Buck says. “I’ll feel claustrophobic in the guest room. I promise to be quiet.”

“Of course,” she says and pats his cheek.

—- 

An hour later, Buck is lying on the couch, wearing clean clothes and what feels like clean skin for the first time in months. He smells like Athena’s cocoa butter shower gel and Bobby’s sandalwood shampoo. The curtains are wide open at his request. He can see the head door from the couch. He’s not trapped. There’s an exit. Perhaps there has been one all along.

—-

Buck feels like a jacket, T-shirt and a pair of jeans with a coincidental body inside, when he steps out of the elevator in his apartment building. He usually takes the steps to his loft for at least halfway, but today he doesn’t want to do anything besides taking a shower, brush his teeth and for goodness sake, change the sheets. When he was fucking Sonny, he noticed there was still blood stains from his bloody nose.

Tommy is standing in front of his door. He looks tired and Buck realizes he hasn’t seen Tommy wear any other expression for a while. 

But it’s never been this bad. Tommy is usually lighthearted, or at least was always good at playing it off that way. He told Buck the story of his engagement with Abby deadpan and dry, but not really weighed down by it.

“You look tired,” Buck says and nudges past him to unlock the door. “I think I still have some of your cold brew lying around.”

Tommy doesn’t reply, just quietly follows him inside. He sits down at the counter with a sigh as Buck puts on the kettle. 

“Decaf,” Tommy sighs.

“Looking to nap later?” Buck asks, throwing in a teabag in his own cup. 

“I didn’t sleep very well last night,” Tommy says.

Buck prepares Tommy’s coffee and his own tea in silence. 

“Here,” Buck says and puts the cup on the counter. “Just a second.”

“Sure,” Tommy says and Buck walks up the stairs. Feeling all out of energy, he changes the sheets. It only takes five minutes and when he walks downstairs with the dirty sheets, Tommy is looking at him with a chin resting on his hand. 

He doesn’t comment though as Buck throws the used sheets in the laundry basket.

“How are you feeling?” Tommy asks.

“Tired, but better,” Buck says. “You look like you haven’t slept all night.”

“I haven’t,” Tommy says. “How am I supposed to?”

“I don’t know,” Buck says. “The same way you slept when you dumped me?”

“I didn’t sleep that night either,” Tommy says.

“Had second thoughts?”

“Of course,” Tommy replies and the easiness is like a knife in his gut. 

“I hope you felt as dumb as me,” Buck mutters. 

“Even more than when you made me dress up in a suit and attend a fake funeral,” Tommy says. 

“ Belated funeral. Careful, or Billy Boils will go for your face next.”

Tommy quirks a small smile. “What’s with the tea?”

“Good to prevent sub drops,” Buck says, trying to sound callous. 

Tommy’s eyebrows softly lifts. “I thought you weren’t that invested in the scene?”

Buck sips his tea. “Have to try everything once, right?” he says. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Yeah. I’m also good.”

They both stare at their cups.

“We’re not okay, are we?” Tommy says.

“No,” Buck says. “I’m so tired of trying to forget you.”

Tommy purses his lips. “And I’m so tired of trying not to miss you. Evan, please. I’ve been worried sick all night. Can I just hold you?”

“What, do I look that horrible?” Buck asks. 

Tommy pauses. 

“Wow,” Buck says.

“You look like what you’ve been through,” Tommy says. “Let me be the one to make you feel safe.”

“T-Tommy,” Buck sighs and shakes his head. “You can’t get comforted by someone who rejected you.”

“Even if I’m begging?” Tommy says. 

Buck feels his eyes get wet. “I’ve been trying so hard not to call you,” he says. “And after, I - I - You don’t have to take care of me. I’m not your problem anymore.”

“Then do it for me?” Tommy croaks. “I can’t… I can’t get that look on his face off my mind. I can’t e-erase how scared you looked, the blood on your lips - “

“Hey,” Buck says, vividly remembering how he hadn’t been able to leave Eddie out of his sight when he had gotten shot. He rounds the table and stands in front of Tommy, whose lower lip is trembling. “I’m okay. Nothing happened - you came and - “

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Tommy asks, voice shaking. “Athena would have had your back, he could have really hurt you - “

“I-I don’t know,” Buck says and puts his hand on Tommy’s cheek.

“When Eddie texted me, I - fuck, what if I hadn’t been in the neighbourhood? He was almost through the door, Evan, and you were talking with Eddie - “

“I know, I’m sorry,” Buck whispers as Tommy presses his teary eyes against Buck’s shoulder.

“Just b-because I ended it, doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Tommy says. “I'm not a monster.”

“I know,” Buck says.

—-

So they rest on the couch with Buck lying on Tommy's chest, even though it’s usually the other way around.

They don't speak. What's going on is fragile. Buck has so many things he wants to say. He's not feeling better lying here with Tommy at all. The tentative sutures of his heart are coming apart, Tommy’s body warmth a cruel reminder of what he has lost and how he will never get it back.

But if this is what Tommy needs to feel better, he will still gladly give it to him. He can do at least this. The previous day Tommy showed up and concussed a random, stupid prick Buck should've known better about fucking. And Tommy isn't a monster. He's always been so caring.

When Tommy's phone starts ringing, the moment shatters. With a sigh, Tommy digs his hand into his pocket and Buck peels himself off Tommy's skin.

“Hey Robert,” Tommy says on the phone. 

Buck sighs and stands up to get some coffee started. Tommy's friends are always calling him to all sorts of social outings. Thankfully, Tommy has never been the one to give into peer pressure or FOMO so it never affected their dating life, but Buck did occasionally feel a little bad that he was taking Tommy's time away from his friends.

“Yeah, it can probably fit in the truck,” Tommy replies. Robert is one of his old colleagues at the 217 and they still see each other regularly. “Aw, don't tell me you're throwing it away just because your wife felt like getting a new one. Couches are expensive. Right, thrift store it is.”

Tommy has always been so helpful and likable. Buck remembered a time where that made him feel happy; Tommy took to the 118’s new dynamic like a fish in water, giving Buck’s best friend a friendship based on solidarity and companionship. Buck had looked at how patient Tommy was with Jee-Yun, how trustworthy he was with Christopher and thought that Tommy would make a wonderful dad one day.

And now it's all gone and there's this cutting, vicious void in the future that Buck can't even attempt to fill out or forget. He's afraid it will always be there; a scar that makes it impossible for anyone else to stand where Tommy stood.

“Evan?” Tommy asks and Buck senses that it wasn't the first time he has said Buck's name.

Buck sniffs and wipes his eyes. “You should go,” he says, voice all muddy and gross. He can't turn around, can't bear to look at Tommy for one second more.

“Right,” Tommy says and clears his throat, sounding a little awkward, a drastic change from the comfortable tone he just had with Robert. “Thank you for this, Evan.”

Buck nods, too choked up to try and talk. 

There’s a pause and then Buck can hear Tommy put on his shoes and grab his jacket. The door closes softly behind him.

—-

“Oh, hey Buck!” the bartender exclaims with positive surprise. He has forgotten her name, but she seemed really nice the last time they chatted.

“Hey,” Buck says and smiles shyly. “I’m surprised you recognize me.”

“How could I not?” she laughs. “Hot baby bi in WeHo with Tommy Kinard himself as his price?”

Buck laughs nervously and averts her eyes. The club is pretty full, which surprised him with how vacant the bar is. He isn’t quite ready to throw himself onto the dancing floor yet and engage with others. He just wanted to nurse a soda and people-watch, get himself out there without going for the extreme. 

“So, where’s your man?” she asks, interrupting his thoughts.

Fuck, he hadn’t even considered that Tommy had introduced him to half of the staff last time he was here. Buck had just shown up because he was familiar with the place. 

“Uh, not really my man anymore,” he admits.

“Oh?” she says, stilling in a way that seems more intense than it ought to be. She was friendly with Tommy, who wasn’t really? But that reaction seemed more invested than just an acquaintance. “When?”

“A few months,” Buck replies. 

“Oh,” she says again. “Makes sense I haven’t seen him around. Uhm, I don’t mean to sound nosy, but why did you break up with him? You didn’t cheat on him, right?”

Buck frowns. “That is nosy.”

“Sorry, we’re all just a little protective of him,” she says and shrugs. “This was one of the first places he came to when he was out, you know? He has had one heck of a journey since then.”

Buck ignores his blood starting to simmer. “From what?”

“What?”

“You are protecting him from what?”

She narrows her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious,” Buck says and stands up with his soda. He feels angry, misunderstood and sad and that’s not what he was looking for. He didn’t want to talk or think about Tommy tonight. Now he wants to be deep-throated in the bathroom, possibly multiple times. But there’s a second bar on the other side of the club, and Buck will make sure not to chat with the bartender there if he recognizes Buck as well.

There should be some tables and Buck didn’t intend to get drunk anyway.

He crosses the dancefloor, but the tables are of course already taken, so he leans against the wall and watches people dance. It’s hypnotic really. People jumping, throwing their hands in the air, wafting fans, twerking. If straight clubs were performances, gay bars are theatres.

He’s abruptly interrupted from his train of thought when a guy who was trying to nudge past him gets shoved. Buck’s soda swirls in the bottle as he holds out his arm automatically.

“Oh, shit,” the guy says and turns to look at him. “Thanks, that was … oh my god, you’re hot.”

Buck smiles crookedly. The guy is a few inches shorter than him, has auburn hair styled artfully and a black button-down with black pants. “You’re not too bad yourself,” he says, though he already knows that the guy isn’t what he’s looking for tonight. He seems a little too nice. 

“I’m Dan,” the guy grins and then gets shoved again, which makes him lean against the wall like Buck is. “Guess I’m a wallflower for now. Drinking soda?”

They chat. It’s easy. Dan only lives a block away and he works as a pharmacist. He does Onlyfans on the side, says people go crazy for natural redheads, especially when the curtains match the drapes, haha. 

Buck is getting woozy though, a little hazy. The neon lights start feeling overwhelming as he tries to focus on what Dan is saying. He remembers he came here for a reason and tries to focus on the dancefloor again, but the pumping beat and the matching movement of the crowd is only making him more dizzy.

“Hey, let me get you another soda,” Dan says and from one second to the next, he’s gone, piercing through the crowd with none of the previous clumsiness. Buck rubs his face. He’s so tired; he must have been running on fumes from his shift. 

He should probably get out of here before he embarrasses himself. He looks up at the bar, wanting to say a proper goodbye to Dan before he leaves. To his surprise, Damian is talking with security, body language animated. 

Fuck that, Buck doesn’t have the energy. He starts to sluggishly move towards the bar, determined to get some water. At least he didn’t drive.

“Hey Buck,” the bartender says, a little wary as he shows up again. “Maybe you should slow down a little?”

Buck squints at her. “I’m here to get water.” 

“Good choice,” she says. She kneels underneath the bar and opens a fridge.

“Hey,” he says as she passes him the bottle. “I’m sorry I got a little short with you. You didn’t deserve that. Just been a rough week, you know?”

“It’s okay,” she says. “As rough as it’s been, you shouldn’t be drinking like this, though.” 

He laughs, black spots appearing on his vision as a consequence. “I’m not drunk,” he says. “I’m just tired.”

She smiles indulgently at him. “Sure, Buck.”

A particular powerful beat makes the neon lights completely blind him for a second and Buck finds himself swaying. “I don’t feel good,” he admits.

“How much did you have?” she asks, a little frown of concern on her forehead. “Do you need to throw up?”

Buck frowns again. “No,” he says. “I’ve only drank the soda you gave me.”

She stares at him, first sceptical and then she sweeps her eyes through the club. “You didn’t happen to speak with a redhead, have you?”

“Dan?” he asks. “Yeah, but he just disappeared all of a sudden.”

“Shit,” she says and then rounds the bar.

She takes his arm in her small hand and then pulls him into the bar with surprising strength.

“What are you doing?” Buck says, stumbling after her. “I feel really bad. I can’t consent right now.”

“Yeah, that’s the exact problem,” she says, sounding anxious. She pulls him through a back door of the bar and then through a small storage full of coolers.

A guy with fake eyelashes and a random feather behind his ear looks up from a book. “What’s this?” he asks.

“The redhead,” she says and pushes Buck down into a chair. “He called himself Dan this time.”

“Yeah, security just kicked him out,” the guy says.

“I don’t understand,” Buck says. “What’s with Dan?”

The bartender smiles tightly at him. “Let me guess, he accidentally bumped into you and then started talking your ears off?”

“I like people talking my ears off,” Buck says and then pauses. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“He put something in your drink, kiddo,” the man says.

“Mine?” Buck repeats slowly. “But I’m a guy.”

“Guys can get roofied too, Buck,” the bartender says kindly. 

“Shit,” Buck says. “I don’t like that.”

“Well, imagine being a woman,” she chuckles sadly.

“I should go home.”

“Let’s just stay here for a second,” the bartender says. “Okay, sweetcheeks?”

“Sweetcheeks,” Buck repeats. He likes being called sweetcheeks. He doesn’t really have sweetcheeks, like Hen or Maddie, but he likes looking at both of them, so it’s a compliment.

Time passes strangely after that. The bartender keeps making him drink water and Buck suddenly feels hot and sweaty. 

“Maybe he’s allergic,” the bartender says nervously. “Maybe we should call an ambulance?” 

Buck is woken up by a hard shake of his shoulder. His head is pounding and he’s freezing. 

“Hey Evan.”

“Fuck,” Buck groans. “Not you.”

“Yep, me,” Tommy says. “Come on, let’s drive you to the ER.”

“I just need to sleep.”

“You can sleep at the ER,” Tommy insists. 

Buck comes to when a car door slams closed. He’s in the passenger seat of Tommy’s truck and after a second, Tommy is in the car too, driving.

“Why didn’t they just call an ambulance?” Buck grouches.

“They weren’t sure you had insurance,” Tommy says. 

“Why didn’t you tell them when they called you then?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy says. “I guess I just wanted to be here.”

The next thing Buck remembers is him lying on a bed with a tube being shoved down his throat. He struggles once he realizes what’s happening, because this is not how he intended to be deep-throated tonight, but the nurse explains to him what’s going on - he suspects not for the first time - and there’s a big familiar hand squeezing his.

The activated charcoal is pumped into his stomach and the tube is slowly retracted from his throat.

“Fuck!” he croaks. 

Next time he wakes up, it’s morning. He’s lying on a hospital bed and Tommy is sitting with his phone. Buck clears his throat.

“Did you tell Bobby?” Buck asks hoarsely.

“No,” Tommy says and sighs as he puts his phone away. “But that shouldn’t be your first concern. What happened is really messed up.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Buck asks. “I was drinking soda. Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“No, no, baby, not that, never that,” Tommy hurries to say. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m just worried.”

“When can I leave?” Buck asks.

Half an hour later Buck has been checked by a doctor for the second time and he’s clear to leave. He doesn’t argue when Tommy gently leads him to his truck. 

Once they’re parked outside Buck’s building, he takes a deep breath.

“Thank you,” he says. 

“Do you want me to come up with you?” Tommy offers.

“Nah, I think that’s enough damsel in distress for now,” Buck says. 

—-

Buck is rudely awoken when he hears the door to his place close. He blearingly opens his eyes, wondering whether he had scheduled something, when he hears a familiar sound of footsteps make their way up the stairs. 

“What are you doing here?” Buck asks.

Eddie sits down on the edge of the bed. “What, can’t a guy just swing by?”

Buck huffs. “From El Paso?”

“The ticket was cheap,” Eddie says. “Tommy called me.”

“Doesn’t he have other things to do than tattle on me?” Buck snaps.

“Hey, watch your attitude,” Eddie says, completely unimpressed. “I’m not your enemy and you were roofied, Buck. That’s fucking serious. Of course Tommy called me, but don't think Bobby hasn't come to me too with his concerns about you.”

Buck glares at him, struggling to not start crying, because … he doesn’t even know why. “You're not my nanny,” he says. “You're my best friend. I can handle myself.”

“Then what are best friends for, if we can’t take care of each other?” Eddie says, soft in a way he rarely is. “Or do I have to remind you that you bathed me when I was recovering from the bullet wound?”

Buck shakes his head. “There was a valid reason for that.”

“What is a valid reason even?” Eddie asks. “Things between us have never been conditional. Why start now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me, Buck. What’s going on?”

Buck shrugs. “I don’t know,” he whimpers. “I feel like I’m not even here anymore.”

—-

Eddie stays at his place for a week, waving Buck off everytime he tries to ask about his responsibilities in El Paso. They share the bed and even though they basically already did that through quarantine, it makes Buck queasy.

“You’re being so freaking weird about this,” Eddie says, the first night where Buck is basically hanging off the edge. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

“No!” Buck squeaks. “No, I just. It’s just weird having someone here that I, you know.”

“Yikes,” Eddie says and jokes: “You’re a great guy and all, but I’m not interested in fucking you.”

Buck huffs a laugh.

Eddie pokes Buck’s back and says a little more firmly: “No more sleepovers with strangers, got it?”

So Buck stays home like a good boy. Whenever Buck is working, Eddie is hanging around at the station or going out to see some of his old friends from dispatch, but always makes sure to accompany Buck everywhere else. He talks with Christopher on the phone every night and Buck does too. He drags Buck to the gym and out to eat and out to bowl and out hiking. Buck follows through the motions like a zombie. The lights aren’t a glare wherever Eddie takes him and slowly Buck realizes that these are the places that he used to visit until he became a vampire that only crept out at night. 

Buck doesn’t hear from Tommy again and he is starting to actually feel better. He still thinks about Tommy all the time and still wonders what he’s doing. Where he’s going and who he is going with. Eddie is probably hanging out with him when Buck isn’t there. If he is, he’s not telling Buck and Buck doesn’t want to know.

But the week ends and Buck has to drive Eddie to the airport. He cries the entire time, a deep feeling of being bereft making his hands clench the wheel.

“You don’t only have me, you know?” Eddie assures him quietly when the airport is in sight. “You have the entire team, your sister.”

“It’s not the same,” Buck says and roughly wipes his eyes. “You’re my best friend. You can always cheer me up.”

“Because I’m not letting you isolate yourself,” Eddie scoffs. “The others are too polite to push. And believe me, they won’t be from now on.”

“But now you’re leaving me,” Buck says. 

“Only physically,” Eddie says. “But I will always be here for you.”

Eddie takes off and Buck cries the entire way home like a little boy without his mom, or more specifically, when Maddie left town with Doug. Buck never felt particularly affected when one of his parents went on a business trip or both of them decided to go on vacation while their children, who were still minors, were at home alone.

Fuck them anyways for leaving before Buck even had a chance to leave them. Fuck Maddie for leaving, fuck Tommy for leaving, fuck Eddie for leaving. He knows he’s an adult and he knows he has had plenty of years with some of these people and that most of them have never said goodbye for real. Either way, it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of good memories.

He parks at his place. It’s evening and he’s already thinking about calling Tina or Sonny or whoever the fuck is available even though he promised himself he wouldn’t fall back into bad habits. 

He gets to the door of the apartment building and finds fucking Tommy waiting for him. Buck’s face is still tear-streaked and he can’t do this right now.

“What now?” Buck asks wetly. 

Tommy clears his throat. “Just wanted to check up on you. Eddie told me he left today.”

Buck huffs a laugh. “You need to fucking leave me alone, Tommy,” he says. “You know I can’t move on until you stop showing up.”

Tommy nods. “Yeah. Eddie called me to warn me.”

“What?” Buck says, suddenly angry. “The two of you need to stop talking about me!”

Shrugging, Tommy smiles at the darkness bitterly. “Hard for him when I keep asking about you,” he says. “So he told me that as my friend, he wanted me to stop contacting you and back off. That if someone contacted me because of you, I had to call him or Bobby and mind my own business. He told me the next time he would have to warn me off, he would do it as your best friend and that it would be a lot more nasty.”

Buck stares at him. Of course Eddie would say that. At the end of the day, Eddie always had his best interests in mind. “Then why are you here?”

“I can’t stay away,” Tommy says. “I’m… I’m really trying to. I'm trying really hard.”

It’s quiet for a few moments. The Halloween lights are refusing to let the darkness swallow the two of them, even though Buck longs to hide. He longs for the darkness to swallow him whole, so he can run off in the night to a place he could let people tear him apart. 

“That night, when I asked whether you thought I had daddy issues, you said you hoped so,” Buck says shakingly, because he hasn’t been able to get that consistent thought out of his head. “Do you really think I don’t know what daddy issues are outside of calling you fucking daddy in bed? Fear of abandonment, dating older and emotionally unavailable men, being fucking needy, I’m pretty sure I tick some of those boxes. You should know better than to be here, you know I can’t move on - ”

“It was a joke, Evan,” Tommy says and clears his throat. “I didn’t mean to take it that far.”

“It wasn’t only a joke and you know it!” Buck shouts. “It was a precaution you made, something you sought . You want men who get more attached than you and you knew all along that I would fall into that trap too. I was just too dumb to realize until it was too late.”

Tommy shakes his head with an angry smile. “I just want to help you, Evan. That’s the only thing I want. Just because I broke up, doesn’t mean I magically stopped caring.”

Buck throws up his hands, shaking his head as he stares at the sky. “How is this helping?” he asks. “You keep showing up to watch me being a trainwreck? To tell me to take better care of myself? When I’m not baking to forget you, I’m working to forget you and when I’m not working to forget you, I’m fucking to forget you. So here’s your prize.”

His hands fall to his side, all the fight in him gone.

“You won,” he whispers. “You broke my heart, before I could break yours.”

Tommy stares at him. His eyes are big and scared and misty. He bites his lip, shoulders curling into themselves for a second, body swaying towards the parking lot like he’s going to storm off. And that’s alright. He can leave if he wants to. It’s nothing Buck hasn’t seen before.

But then Tommy jolts like someone slapped him and he suddenly straightens and snaps his gaze back to Buck with intensity.

“What if I regretted it?” he asks.

“What?” Buck says in confusion.

“What if I stayed in my car for an hour waiting for you to chase after me and say that I didn’t mean it, that I said it because I was scared?” Tommy’s voice is shaking, scared, but determined.

“ Tommy ,” Buck whispers. “You wanted me to come and beg you to want me? Can’t you hear how cruel that sounds?”

“I didn’t want you to beg me to want you! Wanting you is the easiest thing I've ever done,” Tommy finally snaps, and it’s amazing and shocking to have him finally lose his cool and  shout back. “I wanted you to fight for me! No one does when I’m scared, no one does when I run away from my own shadow!”

Buck finds himself unable to speak. This is the rawest he has ever seen Tommy be, all layers and blasé stripped away.

“I don’t have a father figure that chose to love me when I needed it,” Tommy continues bitterly, staring at the darkness around them. “I didn’t get a new family after I went no contact with my own. I don’t have a group chat that is constantly making noise, because people want to keep talking even though we’ve just spent 24 hours or 48 hours together on shift. I don’t have anything or anyone who would fight for me.”

“That’s not true,” Buck says, dumbfounded. “You’re the most popular guy I know. All of the LAFD knows you, adores you. Your friends are constantly inviting you to do stuff with them.”

“I have friends, sure,” Tommy says with a huff. “They will invite me to a wrestling match or trivia night or give me tickets to some fucking football game because they know I like them, but I don’t let any of them come close. That’s not what I do. I not only blend in, I become - I become fucking furniture. And I tell myself that’s enough, because at least I’m no longer wallpaper.”

“That’s not true,” Buck says. “You’re hilarious and sharp-witted and you’re caring and thoughtful, that’s why everyone always remembers you and wants to see you again! That’s why I remembered you. And wanted to see you again.”

At that, Tommy seems to calm down a little bit. He stares at Buck with teary eyes and then doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “I hate that you probably feel like you weren’t good enough for me and I know, I - I jumped the gun. I didn’t want to move in together, but that didn’t mean I should break up because I panicked. I messed up.”

“What are you saying right now?”

“I’m saying that I would let the world burn for you and that’s what made you such a dangerous thing.”

“Tommy - “

“When something like that exists, you have to make a decision,” Tommy trambles on. “You have to choose between yourself or that power.”

Buck … He understands. In a way. But this is outside his wavelength. That’s what made him and Eddie such a pair. Eddie made everything too complicated. Buck oversimplified. Eddie brooded, Buck acted without thinking. Catholic dormant guilt vs. sea monkeys. That’s one of the reasons he tended to be so impulsive. His actions were driven by his emotions. Reflections usually happened after.

He has spent his whole life searching for love and a place to belong. And he has crashed and burned so many times in his search. But he’s here in LA now where he has a home, working a job he loves, with a found family that he would be loyal to to the day he dies. He wouldn’t have gotten any of those if he hadn’t taken risks, if he hadn’t run headfirst into people’s walls. 

He doesn’t understand anything else, doesn’t understand the world in any other way. Getting burned and still not staying away from the fire was never an option for him and all of his scars show that

“That…” Buck says and swallows. “That sounds really lonely.”

Tommy looks up at him. “It is.”

Buck nods. “Okay.”

Tommy stares at him. “Okay?”

“That's all you had to say,” Buck says and holds out his arms.

Tommy stares incredulously at him, before taking a stumbling step towards him. He throws himself into Buck's arms and Buck squeezes his arms tightly around him.

As he brushes his hand through Tommy’s hair, Buck whispers: “I’ll fight for you. Please, come back into my life. I miss you all the time and I have to bury myself in other people and I don’t want that, I just want you. I love the way your face scrunches when you smile, I love the grey hairs at your temple. I love your ugly couch that I keep complaining about. I love that you constantly have to pee while we’re out. I love how you take care of me. I love how much I love taking care of you. So please, Tommy. Come back to me. Come back to me and love me back.”

“Just like that?” Tommy croaks.

“Just like that,” Buck tells him. 

Chapter Text

They make their way up the stairs. As soon as they’re inside the apartment, they go to brush their teeth like it’s any other night where Tommy is sleeping over. They make their way up to Buck’s bed and fall into it with exhausted sighs. There’s no make up sex. They fall asleep with a feet of distance between them. 

The next day over breakfast, they continue their conversation from the day before. Buck talks about Tina and the club and Sonny and William and all the others and how he used to cope with loneliness by extreme measures, but that had gradually calmed down when he moved out of his parents’ house, explored America, laid down roots in LA and made a family at the 118. He says it’s not Tommy’s fault, that this way of coping had started way before Tommy. He thought he had grown out of it.

Tommy apologizes anyway. He says he never thought that the breakup would cut this deep and if he had known, he wouldn’t have taken the coward’s way out. He had thought it would be easy for Buck to move on and that was how he perceived himself in general. Pleasant, but replaceable. He doesn’t remember anyone who had ever grieved for him. 

Buck reminds him Buck’s an adult and that he’s the only one to be held accountable for his actions. 

Tommy talks about how he had thought it would be easier for him to get over the breakup. While Buck’s feelings for Tommy had come in waves of feeling wildly in love, Tommy had experienced the relationship as being in a constant happy daydream. He had thought it would be easier for him to snap out of. But it hadn’t and instead he had spent time doing late night work-outs in his gym and losing his appetite. He had been taken off flying duty until he could sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. He was still working on that.

He also talks about how hard he has been working on just being himself, but felt like a fraud when people turned out to like him. How he thought that Buck would feel like any other relationship, fun and comfortable and yet not too deep, but how the feeling of doom had gradually crept in when he realized how good and happy they were together and when Buck wanted to take the next big step it had scared him. 

Buck talks about his parents, more about Maddie, about Abby. How all of that made it hard for him to say the L-word because it made him aware of how big of a clinger he is. He has tried unlearning that and not derailing every time someone leaves. 

He talks about how he felt like all of that had changed when he caught the sparkle in Tommy’s eyes when he looked at Buck sometimes. How Buck hadn’t constantly felt like he needed to impress Tommy or hold himself back to not become too much. That’s what he meant when he said that Tommy made him feel comfortable. Buck never felt wrong when they were together. The breakup hit him hard because he got a false sense of security that he doesn’t usually have.

Tommy admits what he’s afraid of; what would happen when everything wasn’t easy and wonderful? When they disagreed on a big step? If Tommy needed to set down boundaries? When the sense of security was gone, when they became unstable, would Buck just up and leave him?

Buck says that fights can happen and fights can threaten a relationship, true. To him the two of them were worth the risk. At that, Tommy’s knuckles turn white as he clenches his hands into fist. 

Buck puts a hand on top of them and doesn’t say anything. 

—-

The next couple of weeks they start over. Buck can’t just fall into the little pink bubble they had before and neither can Tommy. They have to start trusting each other again.

Besides, Buck needs to get his head straight. He has been spinning out of control and been reckless for too long. 

So he starts to talk with Dr. Copeland again, talks with Bobby every shift to make sure he's not slipping away and admits that it all started when he slept with one of the firehouse’s visitors. Bobby doesn't get mad to Buck’s surprise, only sad and a little disappointed which Buck can handle.

He misses Eddie and Christopher and now he knows that contributed to him circling the drain. He tries to call them more often and learns how to knit when he starts to feel like he isn't someone who's worth staying with when he’s home alone. 

Tommy and him watch movies on the couch and go for long walks on the beach. Buck makes him ice cream cake and they compete about who can eat the most slices. They both go on a diet; Tommy to gain weight again and Buck to re-establish healthy eating habits. They pick each other up from work and eat waffles on boat diners and Tommy teaches Buck to build boats out of driftwood and Buck polishes off his surfing and Tommy does as well. 

Oddly enough, they haven’t really been physical, yet Buck doesn’t experience the skin hunger he was worried about. Sometimes when they’re going on walks, they hold hands. When they’re sitting on the couch to watch TV or talk, one of them often has a leg draped over the other’s. Tommy doesn’t stay over and neither does Buck when they’re at Tommy’s house. They're not there yet. And that’s okay. It’s better to glue the pieces together slowly than gluing them together wrong.

—-

“Why did you do all those things?” Tommy asks one night.

They’re on the couch, having just cleaned the kitchen up from a heavy and savory dinner. A movie is on in the background, but they’ve turned down the volume and the bowl of popcorn is still full. Buck knew from the moment that Tommy walked into the apartment that he had something to say and he has been silently waiting Tommy out as they had told each other about their recent shifts at work. 

“What things?” Buck asks, squeezing Tommy’s foot that’s in his lap. 

“Those things,” Tommy says. “With the blonde.”

With a deep breath, Buck turns to lie down on his side so he can look at Tommy. Tommy lifts an arm and Buck rests his head on his bicep. “Which one of them?” he asks. 

Tommy licks his lips nervously. “I’m not sure. I assume one of them was rope play, but I didn't want to ask the extent of it.”

“That’s fair,” Buck replies. “I did other stuff as well. Mostly stuff I wanted, but wasn’t comfortable with.”

“Then why did you do it if it made you uncomfortable?”

“Because it made me uncomfortable. That’s why it became so extreme sometimes, but that had more to do with testing my endurance,” Buck says. “That was the point.”

Tommy taps the back of the couch with a finger. “I feel that isn’t a side of you I’ve seen before,” he says carefully. “Being mean to yourself. Self-deprecating, sure, and insecure at times. But not that self-destructive.”

Buck hums and rolls onto his side. “I’ve been surrounded by good people all the time we’ve known each other.”

Tommy smiles crookedly. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Buck says.

“Oh no.”

“Hear me out,” Buck laughs. “When do you see yourself opening up more to your friends?”

“When?” Tommy says and lifts an eyebrow. “That’s a little ambitious, don’t you think?”

“No,” Buck says. “I don’t want you to feel like furniture.”

“It beats being wallpaper,” Tommy sighs. 

Buck tilts his head. “So you’ve upgraded before.”

Tommy huffs and turns his head to stare at the wall. “It took me a few decades.”

Buck presses a kiss onto his chest. “I would say you have time,” he says. “But as someone who was trapped underneath a ladder truck, had a pulmonary embolism, was held hostage at gunpoint and struck by lightning… Let’s just say you might not. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

Tommy smiles crookedly. “Are you kidding me?” he asks. He gauges Buck’s face and sobers. “Were you the guy who was trapped underneath the ladder truck all those years ago?”

Buck huffs. “The one and only,” he confirms.

Tommy frowns, his eyes flickering all over Buck’s face. “I saw it on the news,” he says. Then goosebumps break out all over his arms. “I dreamed about your screams for weeks.”

“Yikes,” Buck says. “Sorry about that.”

Tommy rolls onto his side as well. He clenches his eyes closed and takes a deep breath. “Fuck. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to make you recall bad memories.”

“No, it's fine,” Buck says. “It’s not something I can forget. My leg won't let me.”

“Your leg?”

Buck rolls back onto his back as he can see Tommy better. “It still hurts when I use it too much. I haven't told Bobby though. I don't think I'm ever going to.”

“Why? He's your Captain.”

“He blames himself for it,” Buck says. “The bomber was targeting him.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And then he tried to freeze me out of LAFD and in a truly stupid heat of the moment tantrum I almost sued him for it.”

“Damn.”

“And I was winning too. Money that is. When I found out that was what I would archive, I dropped it. Bobby let me in again and was pretty weird about it too. Left me man behind and all that. I thought he was just punishing me. But. I talked with Hen at Thanksgiving last year and she told me that his attempt to keep me out of the work twice was some kind of misconstrued attempt at keeping me safe.” 

Tommy lifts a brow. “Did you believe her?”

“I wouldn't have back then. But I know Bobby better now. And myself. I felt like I was being abandoned and suing was my subconscious way of self-destructing.”

“By defending yourself?”

“By putting all my friendships at risk. The very friends that made me desperate to come back to the fire department in the first place.”

“Did you think he would have let you come back if you hadn't threatened to sue?”

“Yes. But by then it would have probably been too late.” Buck closes his eyes. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be there anyway. That would have been the better scenario.”

“So suing was the worst case scenario?”

“I don't know. When I'm feeling self-destructive, it feels like whatever I'm doing makes sense.” Buck raises his fingers and curls them. “You scrape out what hurts. It doesn't matter what you take out with you. It doesn’t matter if you take out everything. You make it hurt until it doesn't hurt anymore.”

Tommy's eyes are thoughtful as they meet his. “What will I get?” 

“Mm?”

“If I open up to my friends more,” Tommy inquires. 

“More meaningful friendships?” Buck replies, not quite knowing where this is going. “A community that makes you feel like you belong somewhere?”

Tommy lifts both brows. “A community that would kick me out of my job?”

Buck frowns. He feels like he just missed something important. “That was specifically me and Bobby though.”

“That kind of specificity is the way I see the world,” Tommy explains absentmindedly. “Everything feels dangerous to me.”

“Why?”

“When you come from a home that's not safe, what seems safe is dangerous,” Tommy says, looking a little absentminded.

Buck quietly slumps. “Your dad?”

“It's many years ago now.”

“These things stick to you. But I'm not angry at Bobby anymore.”

“You want me to stop being angry at my dad?”

“Are you angry at your dad?”

“No. I don't honestly think I ever was. How weak is that?”

“Do you sound like your dad right now?”

Tommy sits up to look at Buck. “How did your dad sound?”

“I don't know. He rarely spoke to me,” Buck replies. “I think that’s why I've always chased love. Circling right back to daddy issues and getting more attached than the other, am I right?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It didn’t really do you any favors either,” Buck points out. 

“Touché,” Tommy says. He meets Buck’s eyes and then slowly slides his eyes down Buck’s arms and down his body. “Are you uncomfortable being affectionate with me?”

“Never.”

“Except you are,” Tommy says.

Buck bites his lip. 

“Do you need anything different from me?” Tommy asks, his voice so low that Buck barely hears him. “Do you want me to try harder?”

“You don’t have to try. It’s you that I want.”

“Then what’s going on in your mind?”

“Some part of me expects that touch will hurt me.”

“And that I would hurt you.”

“My mind still hasn't caught on to the fact that you won't.”

—---

Buck calls Tina up for coffee.

They already had coffee once, after Buck started seeing Tommy again. He had explained the situation and she had been happy for him, though she had warned him to be careful this time around. Ending their relationship hadn’t been hard on either of them. She had multiple subs on the side, some who even paid her. Back then she had assured him he was still her favourite. He had told her she probably said that to all of them.

But today, it’s far from pleasant.

His knee is bouncing underneath the table as she coolly surveys him. She’s patiently drinking a matcha latte as she waits him out, her nail polish black with pink ribbons.

“Look, there’s - “ Buck stops speaking. He takes a deep breath. “I did something. I did something stupid.”

She takes off her sunglasses, face turning serious. “What’s up?”

“I betrayed your trust,” he says. “I wasn’t being completely honest with you sometimes. And I thought, that I - that it was better just not to say anything. That if you didn’t know, it wouldn’t hurt you.”

She pauses, shoulders stiffening.

“But now it’s starting to mess me up, the guilt of betraying you and - and having a hard time communicating or trusting Tommy because of it. And I think that - that if I can tell you what I did, if I respected those promises we made, then maybe it would help me too.”

She waits. He doesn’t know how to continue. “Go on,” she says when he keeps flailing.

“There were some situations where I should have said yellow, red or my safeword, but… I wanted to be hurt. I wanted to feel like shit, I wanted to drop and I wanted you to help me do that. And you told me so many times that you would take care of me and all I had to do was try and be honest with you before, during and after. And that you trusted me with that. And I took advantage of it.”

The corner of Tina’s lips tremble. “Which times?”

Buck shrugs. “Mostly at the kink club. When things got a little hardcore.”

Tina nods and looks away. “I should’ve waited. I should’ve stopped.”

“You did what I wanted you to do. You checked in with me plenty of times,” Buck says. “I took advantage of you and that trust.”

Tina shakes her head, lips thinning. Her eyes get glassy. “I don’t understand,” she says raspily. “You know I don’t like hurting people.”

“I know,” Buck says and takes her hand. “But believe me, Tina, I never thought of you as the thing that hurt me. It was the situations that did.”

“That I orchestrated!” she snaps. 

“Tina, I would have made my way to the scene eventually,” Buck says. “Believe me, I went there once without you and my dom threw me in deep water right away. If you hadn’t been the one to do this, I would have gotten a lot more hurt by people who were far more careless than you. I was lucky that I met you.”

She sniffs, trying to wipe her eyes without ruining her mascara. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for telling me and keeping your promise. Now I know what to look out for so no one else gets hurt.”

“Or no one else hurts you,” Buck says firmly. “I knew all along that this would hurt you, Tina. I owe you an apology. I'm sorry.”

Tina sniffs again. “Wow. I expected you to call me so I could smack both you and your man around.”

“Tommy? As if,” he says. “That guy's thighs wouldn't stand for a week.”

“They seem pretty beefy though.”

He smiles crookedly. “They are.”

She smirks at him and takes a sip of her matcha. “I mean, I think I see it now,” she says. “When you were with me, you were always so cheerful. But just looking at you talking about him, you’re so… relaxed.”

“Yeah, the cheerfulness has been my way of performing,” he says. “Me and my therapist have talked about it for a long time. It's a problem I've always had. So all of this… it really isn't your fault.”

—--

“How did it go?” Tommy says, already sat up on the couch when Buck walks into the living room of Tommy’s house.

“As expected,” Buck says and gives Tommy a second to remove his feet before he throws himself down on the couch. “She blamed herself for not noticing it.”

Tommy doesn't reply, just watches him for a second. “But she was happy you told her?”

“Yeah.”

Tommy smiles a little. “And how do you feel?”

“Honestly?” Buck says. “I feel like a weight just came off my shoulders. Like the acting is officially over, you know?”

“I'm happy to hear that,” Tommy says. He smiles and his eyes are warm and fond as they meet Buck’s. And Buck feels… seen. 

Buck clears his throat. There’s a sudden wakefulness in his gut, a warmth that breezes over his skin. Tommy pauses, sensing the shift. 

Buck looks away, suddenly shy.

—-

Something shifts that night. Buck wanders around almost a little skittish, downright getting sweaty palms when Tommy reaches past him to grab the salt shaker.

Tommy notices, of course, since Tommy notices everything, but he doesn’t say anything. They finish and eat their dinner and settle down for a movie. Perhaps Buck is sitting a little further away than usual - it’s not like he had returned to sitting on Tommy’s lap either way - but Tommy just settles down and watches the movie without comment.

It’s odd because while Tommy’s presence and the revival of true arousal is making Buck nervous, out of sorts of what to do, he still doesn’t like the thought of Tommy hugging him goodbye tonight. So Buck squirms on the couch, trying not to look as anxious as he feels.

He thinks he’s actually getting away with it, until Tommy sits up and opens his arms quietly. Buck stares at him for a second and then knees over to him, slumping down on top of Tommy’s chest. Tommy barely hesitates, just lies down and gets comfortable again.  

Buck clears his throat. Wow, Tommy’s skin is hot. Buck completely forgot that Tommy runs like a furnace just like Buck does and how that has led to much bickering during cuddle sessions, some jabbed elbows and kicks as one of them struggled to cool down and the other insisted that they were strong enough to survive a heat stroke.

Their legs had been tangled together, muscled calf against the other, toes curled against the sheets. Fuck, Buck remembers them lying on this couch and how Buck had tried to distract Tommy from the game by rolling down his shorts and sucking him into hardness. Tommy had huffed and puffed, but was unable to stop giggling as he dug his fingers into Buck’s hair as Buck had hollowed his cheeks with a victorious spark in his eyes.

Tommy always had a soft spot for Buck messing around. He used to say that Buck was like a cat that way - as soon as he knew that Tommy was not paying attention to him, his goal was always to get as much attention as possible. It had driven Tommy insane. They had talked about it on the floor of the garage. That day, as soon as Buck had seen Tommy wander into the garage to tinker while Buck himself was watching TV, he had followed him, grabbed the skateboard Tommy had been lying on underneath the car and with a quick warning ripped him out from underneath it. Tommy barely had the time to complain with Buck straddling him and kissing him as he had stroked Tommy hard and quick with his hand.

Buck takes a deep breath and subtly tries to move his half-chub away from Tommy’s leg. That, of course, immediately draws Tommy’s attention to him and Tommy inhales sharply, before relaxing again, acting like nothing happened.

But ironically, now Buck wants his attention though he doesn’t know how to go about it. He can’t just rip Tommy’s clothes off like he used to do; that would be rude and Buck is not winning him over by Tommy nagging him about loosening his shirts again. 

So he just bites his lip. Who says Tommy is even ready? He was building up trust too after all.

So Buck decides to play it safe. He leans up and softly turns Tommy’s face away from the TV and towards him. Tommy looks wary for some reason, so when Buck leans in to kiss him he makes sure to go extra slow. Tommy doesn’t resist per se, but he stays awfully still, until he just as slowly starts kissing back.

Buck sighs with relief and Tommy softly cups his biceps, but doesn’t wrap his arms around him like he usually does. And that’s fine. Sometimes moving in is careful and tentative.

—--

The next few weeks, Buck falls in love with kissing. His hesitancy with first having sex with Tommy back when they had met, had helped Buck appreciate the art of kissing so much and now he’s falling in love with it all over again.

Tommy kisses him softly. He kisses him passionately. He kisses him fondly and breathlessly and lovingly. And when he kisses him, the world stops moving and everything fades away. The only thing that matters are his arms and how Buck wants Tommy to hold him tighter, hold him for longer. 

He makes that realization one lazy Sunday morning, that he’s no longer anxious about being restrained as long as it’s in Tommy’s arms. They’ve both had their morning coffees and even eaten some Danishes. Their off-time overlaps by roughly 24 hours, Tommy halfway through his 48 hours of off-duty time. It’s odd that as soon as they slid into each other’s orbit, they became attached at the hip, even though everything was so raw, broken and silent in the beginning. 

But now the sun is warming Buck’s back. Buck has been draped on top of Tommy for a while and Tommy has been making the small jerky movement where he stops his hands from exploring.

But today Buck tugs at the hem of Tommy’s tank top and Tommy sits up and lifts his arms so Buck can shuck it off. Tommy doesn’t paw at Buck’s shirt like he usually would, so Buck takes it off himself.

When their skin touches, Buck feels fireworks going off in his mind. At the same time it feels like dipping into warm waters underneath a blue clear sky.

“I think I’m in love with you again,” he whispers because he needs to say it now. This entire time they’ve been working on saying what both of them left unsaid back then and especially the big things.

Tommy meets his eyes, lips plumb from all their kissing. “Say it again,” he whispers.

“I think I’m in love with you again,” Buck says and kisses him softly.

“Again,” Tommy whispers, this time more hoarse. His eyes are big and dazed as he says it and Buck realizes with a sudden clarity that he’s healing something inside Tommy right now. 

“I’m in love with you again,” Buck whispers and pulls Tommy into his arms.

Tommy quivers underneath him, his entire chest rattling as he breathes deeply. And the threat of going nuclear is no longer valid. There’s only bright light and the zenith of the sun.

Tommy wraps his arms around him, kisses him harder. “Please,” he whimpers. “Please.”

“Okay,” Buck says. He reaches out to open the drawer and pulls out the lube. He briefly gets off Tommy to let Tommy pull down his shorts and boxers and Buck gets his own shorts and boxers off. They both gasp sharply when their bodies meet and for a second that’s all that matters, Buck touching all the places that he used to do with gratefulness, mapping out his skin to make sure that everything is the same place he left them. Tommy still hasn’t gained all of his weight back and Buck can tell there’s no longer the soft give of pudge along his stomach and ribs.

But he’s just as new and beautiful as the first time they did this. Buck traces his lips down to Tommy’s chest, feeling spoiled, as he settles on a nipple. They’re even more sensitive than usual, Tommy gasping within seconds. Buck takes his time, making room in Tommy’s skin until Tommy’s hips jerk against Buck’s hip.

With that, Buck grabs the lube and wets his fingers.

“Hey,” Tommy says when he hears the click of the cap opening. “At your own pace.”

Buck smiles. “This is my own pace. And my own pace is that I want you right now. Can I have you?”

Tommy bites his lip as he nods and Buck moves down further. It’s funny because it’s not like Buck is out of practice giving blowjobs, but Tommy still feels like unknown land in his mouth. It reminds Buck of when he had finished moving into the loft; how his hands had glided along the walls and he had realized that this was his . Not a couch he was borrowing, a house full of his roommates or even his car. It was the first time he seriously put down roots.

Tommy groans over his head. Buck can’t help but moan with him as precum drips onto his tongue. His hand moves down and lets his fingers rub circles at Tommy’s rim. Tommy didn’t bottom often; it was his preference to top, but sometimes he found himself in desperate need of a railing and if there was something Buck felt comfortable doing back then, it was exactly that.

Tommy draws in a deep breath and then exhales, relaxing his body. Buck pushes in his finger and Tommy gives beautifully. Even though Tommy had been with men for longer - and been bottoming for longer - letting go to him was still more technical than intuitive. Breathing exercises were usually just as big of a part of prepping him as the fingering itself.

Buck realizes his mouth has gone still, so he increases the suction and Tommy sighs as Buck curls his finger. When Tommy’s fingers start carding through Buck’s head, Buck withdraws his finger and pushes in two. This was always the more difficult part of prepping him, the sting sometimes making Tommy tense up.

“You missed me?” Buck asks and licks a long stripe up Tommy’s cock. “Have you fingered yourself thinking about me?”

“Y-yeah,” Tommy says.

“What were you thinking about?” Buck asks, curling his fingers and Tommy jerks, one of his hands turning into a fist in Buck’s hair. Buck pulls back his fingers and then pushes back inside again. “Come on. Tell me?”

“Uh,” Tommy says and audibly licks his lips. “I thought about sitting on your lap. And…”

Buck thrusts harder and Tommy chokes on a whine.

“Yeah?” Buck asks, voice husky.

“Y-your hands on my ass and your face licking my…”

“Your what, Tommy? Your tits?”

Tommy moans. “Yeah.”

“You wanted me to move you, help you along?” Buck asks. “Or did you just want to grind on me, take your time?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Yes you do,” Buck says and starts to prod along Tommy’s inner wall, now that he has relaxed enough. “Did you want to just sit on my cock, be my little cock sleeve for hours?”

Buck pushes down on Tommy’s prostate as he asks and Tommy cries oyt loudly, precum dripping down his cock. 

“Yeah,” Tommy admits and at the next thrust, Buck pushes in three fingers. To his surprise, Tommy clenches down on him and Buck whispers “Breathe” as he takes Tommy back into his mouth, sucking him hard and slowly until Tommy has managed his breathing and starts pushing down on Buck’s fingers. 

“You’re amazing, you know that right?” Buck gasps as he slowly pulls back, keeping his fingers inside Tommy as he sits up. “You’re ready for it then?”

“Mmm,” Tommy says with a jerky nod and Buck pulls his fingers free carefully and reaches over to the drawer to find a condom. Tommy sits up to watch Buck get the condom on and lubing himself up, then sits back with his hands on the mattress as he parts and stretches out his legs.

“Come on,” Buck says. “Sit on it.”

Tommy gives the broken casing of the condom a glance before crawling over to Buck. He throws a leg over his lap as he straddles him, lines up himself and with a deep breath he starts to sinks down.

“That’s it,” Buck whispers, spreading Tommy’s cheeks so he can take Buck all the way to the hilt.

Tommy rolls his hips a couple of times so it’s easier for him to slide down and then stays still. He drapes his arms around Buck and pulls him into a kiss, wet and desperate for more contact. His hole is throbbing and tightening around Buck until his body finally relaxes.

When he has, Buck pulls Tommy’s head back and then bends his head to suck and lave at Tommy’s nipples. Tommy gasps, his entire body shaking as Buck pinches the nipple not in his mouth. The sensations almost make Tommy drop back and Buck curls his own legs, securing Tommy a little better in his lap, even though the leverage minimizes.

Opposite to Tommy’s fantasy, Tommy doesn’t sit still for long. He presses his feet against the mattress and starts to roll down his hip. Buck continues ravishing his chest and they settle into a silence that’s only interrupted by the slurpring of Buck’s mouth and Tommy’s gasping. 

The silence is almost a little too heavy and for a second Buck feels a weird echo inside of him. The skin against his suddenly feels foreign and Buck has to open his eyes to look up at Tommy to ground himself.

It’s still Tommy. No one else.

Something must have tipped Tommy off, because his head that has been tilted back suddenly tips forwards so he can look at Buck.

His drunkenness of arousal and sex lifts, getting replaced with an assessing look.

“Hey,” Tommy says and cups Buck’s cheek with a hand. “What’s wrong?”

Buck bites his lip. “Can you be louder?”

“Yes,” Tommy says and then pushes down onto Buck, more decisive. “Yes, Evan.”

Buck gasps and there’s a noticeable change in the air when Tommy takes control of the tempo, his gasping turning into small groans. Maybe Buck should feel bad that he’s changing the scene, not letting Tommy fulfill his fantasy, making him do something that doesn’t come naturally.

“I got you,” Tommy croaks and kisses Buck.

“I’m sorry,” Buck chokes.

“No, no, Evan you’re p-perfect,” Tommy says and shakes, biting his lip as he comes down hard. “I want you so bad.”

Buck finds his stomach clenching, his eyes warming. “Don’t let me go.”

“No, no, never,” Tommy says. “Daddy’s got you.”

Buck nods fervently and then pulls Tommy down harder on his next roll and Tommy moans, his hands coming down on Buck’s thighs. Buck unfolds his legs to give Tommy more space and Tommy whimpers, leaning back his body and pushes onto Buck, making a sound like Buck is spearing him.

“You’re so good for me,” Tommy gasps. “I won’t let you go.”

“But you did,” Buck says and he sounds angry. “You let them take me.”

Tommy shakes his head, sweat dripping down his forehead. “I would always have been yours,” he says, which somehow makes Buck feel better than probably anything else he would have said. Instead of feeding Buck with placations, he reminds of Buck of the power Buck always would have. And that takes away the pain of rejection.

“Say my name,” Buck gasps, grabbing Tommy’s hips and thrusting up into him hard. 

“Evan,” Tommy gasps. “Evan, Evan, Evan.”

“Yes,” Buck whispers. “More.”

“Evan,” Tommy says. “You would always have owned me.”

With a sudden shove, Buck pushes Tommy onto the bed, Tommy’s back hitting the mattress hard and Buck drapes his legs over his shoulders and pounds into him.

“Fuck!” Tommy yells. “Yes, yes, harder!”

Buck slams into him and Tommy clenches his eyes shut, fingernails scraping at Buck’s back. Buck holds down Tommy’s shoulders when Tommy’s back starts to arch, his sounds echoing in the bedroom, loud and desperate.

“You would let me do anything to you,” Buck states.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy says. “As long as it would be you.”

At that Buck sets a punishing pace and he realizes that this entire time, the pleasure in his cock had felt distant, even unnoticable. But now it’s rearing forwards and he suddenly feels so connected to his body. He didn’t even realize his body hadn’t felt like his until now.

“Evan!” Tommy says and Buck reaches down and grabs Tommy by the throat. Tommy doesn’t fight it, only turns into pudding in his arms.

Buck keeps him pinned down as he grabs Tommy’s cock tightly, probably too tight to be comfortable, but Buck wants to push, he wants to see if Tommy really meant it when Tommy said he could do anything to him.

But Tommy doesn’t move, just starts shaking violently as Buck jerks him off harshly and for a second Buck thinks that this isn’t going to happen, no matter how much they both want it, but after some raspy inhalations Tommy arches his back, his heels drums down on Buck’s back and then Tommy paints his entire abdomen with cum.

Buck stares with reverence even as his hips keep pistoning automatically and when Tommy’s cock starts to soften, Buck lets go of it as well as his hand around Tommy’s throat.

Tommy inhales sharply, his body still shaking and Buck pulls himself out, his hand stripping his own cock hard and fast. Tommy just stares up at him with dazed, adoring eyes, his neck already bruising and it’s when he spreads his legs further, Buck cums hard.

His cum spurts all over Tommy’s abdomen and soft cock and Tommy smiles softly until the last drop hits his skin. Buck is gasping like crazy as he stares down at Tommy, body shaking as it comes down from his high. 

“C-can,” Buck says, “can I take a picture?”

They haven’t discussed photos as well as the choking, but they have sent each other some nudes before, so Buck really hopes Tommy says yes.

Tommy nods. “Just not my face.”

“Okay,” Buck says and reaches over to the bedside table. He picks up his phone, opens the camera app and turns on the flash.

He sits up to truly capture the combination of Tommy’s bruising neck, the wet glistening of white on his stomach and his cock that’s still red. Buck intends to spend his nights jerking off to these pictures, so he even lifts up Tommy’s thighs at some point to capture his red and worn hole.

When Buck is satisfied, he throws his phone to the side. Tommy reaches down and mixes their cum together on his stomach, before dipping his fingers into his mouth. Buck groans, his cock twitching in anticipation for a second round.

“You’re so beautiful,” Buck whispers and bows down to softly kiss Tommy. Tommy lazily kisses back, his body soft and pliant underneath him. “Are you okay? Was this okay?”

“It was amazing,” Tommy drawls. “You’re amazing, Evan. I love you so much.”

Buck draws in a sharp breath. “You do?” 

“More than anything,” Tommy says and despite his floaty voice, his eyes are intense as they meet Buck’s. “I meant every word. I’m yours. I always will be.”

“You’re…”

“I promise. Remember this,” Tommy says. He reaches up and caresses Buck’s cheek. “I will always be yours.”