thank you to @birdboybuckley for letting me steal one of her lovely alternate meeting ideas to help get me out of my writing slump today! hope you enjoy đź’›
set in some nebulous time, maybe s3-4? put it wherever you want!
“Heeeeey! That’s my boyfriend!”
Tommy startled, staring at the smiling man on the bed in confusion before backing out of the room. He double checked the number on the door: 335, exactly what the nurse had told him five minutes ago when he started looking for Howie’s room, but that man definitely was not Howie, and definitely was not his boyfriend, considering he didn’t even have one.
He stepped back into the room, only to find the man still looking at him, although this time a pout was on his face instead of the wide smile.
“Why’d you run away from me?” He demanded. “That’s not very nice.”
“Yeah, man, that’s not very nice at all,” came Chimney’s voice, and this time, not distracted by the handsome stranger closer to the door, Tommy noticed him peeking around the IV stand between the beds.
“What’s not very nice is sassing the man who’s bringing you food that isn’t cold, grey mashed potatoes, Han,” he said mildly, dropping the bag full of snacks on one of the chairs between the beds before sitting down in the other one. He glanced at the man in the other bed, who was still staring at him, and Howie laughed.
“Oh, this is Evan Buckley, by the way, he started at the 118 a couple weeks after you left. I got a couple bumps and bruises, this guy took a beam to the brain. He’s a bit concussed, they’ve got him on the good drugs. Buck, this is—”
“Of course I know who it is! That’s my boyfriend.” The pout was back on Evan’s face in full force, and Tommy was just about ready to give him anything he wanted.
“He’s not your boyfriend, Buck.”
“Then why is his picture above my locker?” Evan pointed at Howie accusingly. “That would be a weird place to put his picture if he wasn’t my boyfriend.”
“That’s a 118 group photo from before he left to go to air support,” Howie said patiently, “it’s been there for five years. But sure, big guy. What’s your boyfriend’s name, then? Introduce me.”
Evan squinted, turning his attention to Tommy, then he snapped his fingers.
“Hot Stuff,” he announced. “That’s your name. I nearly forgot. But it suits you.”
Tommy laughed, surprised. “Well, thank you. But actually, my name’s Tommy.”
“Tommy! That suits you even better. Maybe it can be your last name. Tommy Hot Stuff.”
He reached out, making grabby hands at Tommy until he gave in and reached back, letting the other man play with his fingers. He didn’t talk much, just listened to Tommy and Chimney catching up, but he kept holding Tommy’s hand. Eventually, Tommy had to leave to get to Harbor for his shift, and Evan very dramatically kissed the back of his hand before he let him go, telling him to be safe.
Tommy was already far too enchanted by Evan; he knew odds were that when he was lucid, he’d laugh at the way he latched on to Tommy, if he even remembered it. But it had been nice to pretend, for a while, and Evan’s sunny smile was in the back of his mind for the rest of the day.
The next morning, Tommy woke to his phone vibrating on the nightstand.
Howard Han Hey, Tommy Hot Stuff, I gave Buck your number. He was really insistent, I didn’t think you’d mind.
He’d barely finished reading when his phone buzzed again in his hand, a new message hiding Howie’s.
Unknown Number so, i hear i have a boyfriend now, and i want to treat him right. wanna get dinner later? my treat :)
aaah this is for first cuddle (27). set immediately after s07e06 aka maddie and chimney’s wedding/the hospital kiss (can’t resist the link). about 1.8k.
—
Buck was trying not to look too much like a cartoon dog that had its tongue lolling out onto the hospital parking lot, but he was probably failing. Even as he leaned against the side of his Jeep, super super cool with his arms crossed over his chest while Tommy stripped out of his turnouts, he was—he wasn’t cool, not even a little.
“And you’re sure you don’t mind that the back of your Jeep is going to smell like a wildfire for a while?” Tommy’s in his LAFD t-shirt and pants, glaring down at himself with an annoyed huff. “Sorry that I look—”
“No, you—”
They’d stopped in a bathroom before they left the hospital to wash the dirt and ash off their faces, and they shared a quick kiss when they were clean again. Tommy looked beautiful when he showed up in the ER, beautiful as he tried to eat a piece of cake but was literally too tired to chew, beautiful when he scrubbed the grime off his face and ran his wet hands through his hair, beautiful in the parking lot with dust all over his t-shirt and slacks and sweat stains where his shirt was sticking, and these were all things that Buck wasn’t stupid enough to say to the guy he’d been on 0.5 dates with (-1 pizza date, 1 coffee date, 0.5 making out in the ER at his sister’s wedding before bailing).
“You look fine,” Buck says, like a moron who doesn’t want to learn how to suck dick at Tommy’s knees, and a moron who didn’t look up the website for Maddie and Chim’s original venue and didn’t linger on a wedding video called Bernardo and Jake’s Magical Journey.
Tommy arches an eyebrow at him. His hair’s still damp and starting to curl and Buck can lie all he wants, but he can’t hide the way he’s stopped breathing as he stares at Tommy, who’s staring right back.
“Just fine?” Tommy asks, finding the strength to smirk but not eat a piece of wedding cake. Priorities? Maybe.
“Get in the car,” Buck laughs, hoping his laugh sounds more normal than it did inside his head.
When they get back together, they are skin hungry.
Not necessarily for sex, because contrary to popular opinion, they are not dictated by dick. But they can’t stop touching each other - holding hands is easy, but sometimes it’s a hand to the other’s elbow, or them leaning together, big arms pressed from shoulder to elbow, or an ankle hooked around the back of the other’s foot. Walking, driving, eating a meal… It doesn’t really matter. Skin to skin contact as much as possible, as if they’re afraid that not touching means they wake up into a different universe where the other doesn’t exist.
And when they do have sex, they linger, in every possible place they can place their lips and tongue and fingers they linger. They mark out each freckle and scar, dig into ticklish spots, massage out sore knots, sink into heat and slick and oh my gods and it is reverence and desire and disbelief and hope, and they try to melt together, become one, tangled and inseparable.
Tommy cries the first time they are in bed after they get back together. Buck is inside him, face buried into his neck, teeth pressed to salty skin, tongue licking up sweat. Their fingers are locked together, palm to palm, and then Tommy whispers with a hiccup that he thinks their hearts beat in sync, and Buck smiles and tears up, and they let go of their hands and wrap their arms around each other. It’s hot and they are messes and they need to shower and they don’t care, they don’t care, they have this again, they have each other again, and they almost lost each other.
This is love. This is love. They are never letting go again.
I love you, they murmur into skin, over eyelids, against lips. I love you, I love you, I love you.
So, yes, obviously Buck had a new place all lined up before Eddie even left Texas, but he hadn’t thought about where that place actually was until Ravi said, “This is the guy who replaced the water heater for the studios. He’s good.”
Buck wiped his hands on his apron. “By studios you mean the weird performance art space filled with the students in the revolving polycule? Is it even zoned for that?”
“What do you know about zoning?” Ravi shot back, dangling the business card in front of Buck’s face. “What do you know about polycules? I thought Buck 4.0 was a serial monogamist.”
“I know things.” Buck snatched the card away. “This guy any good?”
Ravi rolled his eyes. “No, I’m deliberately recommending someone who’s going to overcharge you.”
“Hey,” Eddie said, and both Buck and Ravi startled, like they hadn’t heard him coming. “Are you having plumbing issues, Buck?”
In which Eddie learns you can’t go back to the way things wer
Tommy feels drunk, way more intoxicated than he should be after his second beer, and he’s immediately greedy for more. More of whatever this is, more of Evan. He hasn’t actually told Evan anything about the last few months, about how much he’s been struggling with their break-up, but there’ll be time for that later.
It’s not important right now. Not when he’s following Evan into an Uber, giddy with anticipation. Not when Evan kisses him in the backseat, hungrily, desperately, like he’s determined to show Tommy just how much he missed him.
Tommy caresses the sliver of bare skin between Evan’s pants and shirt and loses himself in the kisses that are both new and familiar. He’s Evan’s again; maybe he’s been Evan’s since the very first kiss and not even breaking up changed that.
more home reno fic. I’m up to 18k now and could technically be done if I wanted to post a really really rough draft, but give me another week or two of editing. there’s at least one more mini scene I want to add and a lotttt of detail backfilling I need to do. but! it’s finally a shape that I’m happy enough with, so that’s its own victory
no eddie or 118 bashing in the tags please. this fic is eddie/118 critical but it is also about people treating buck better and him getting his family back. no one in 911 is irredeemable
Tommy continues. “He’s more than capable of doing all of this on his own, but projects like these are always better with someone else. And if he wants that to be me, well… so do I.”
“You gave that up, though,” Eddie says. “Months ago. He has other people who have actually been there for him, you know. He has friends, he has family. You walked out of his life. We didn’t.”
Buck has poured all three glasses of water and refilled his Brita, but he stays in the kitchen. Is it eavesdropping if it’s your own house?
“You know, that’s what I thought too. I thought you’d all band together after Bobby’s death and keep him steady. You’re the 118, you know? You show up for each other.” There’s a bitter, jealous tone to Tommy’s voice that clenches Buck’s stomach. “That’s half the reason I didn’t reach out after the funeral. I thought you had him. But you didn’t. You let him think he was the problem for trying to check on you. The things you guys said to him, the things you didn’t say… it really hurt him.”
Eddie just scoffs.
“What?” Tommy asks. “You think it didn’t? You think you guys were supportive?”
“I didn’t say that. I know we weren’t, and trust me, I feel like a real asshole for some of the things I said to him.” Eddie’s voice drops to an angry hush. “It’s just, you know, it’s a little hypocritical coming from you. You’re not exactly a shining example of emotional stability. You haven’t exactly been careful with him either. You dumped my best friend because- because, what, you were in love with him and you thought he’d leave you? Man, even I’ve never self sabotaged that hard. Have you talked to anyone about that? Maybe learned some better coping mechanisms than stealing helicopters and rewiring houses whenever he asks?”
“Hey, I can’t go to therapy. I would get my pilot’s license taken away,” Tommy snipes back, matching Eddie’s tone. “You, on the other hand, should be encouraged. He watched the man who was like a father to him die right in front of him and you almost hit him because he didn’t ask you how getting a phone call about it felt? Really? You’re, like, ten times more fucked up than I thought you were, Diaz. And I watched you grow that little crisis mustache.”
waking up, falling asleep again, it’s all the same thing. 💖 1.2k, post s8, buck crashing at tommy’s between apartments but they’re not together. and if you want yet another time i wrote about them together as buck freaks out during a storm: you can read this, too.
—
Tommy bolts awake at the knock on his bedroom door because holy shit he lives alone who the fuck—
“Are you awake?” Evan calls softly.
Right. Evan is staying in his spare room. He rubs at his eyes and calls back, “Yeah, it’s open.”
Tommy’s eyes adjust to the light, or lack of light from the storm outside. “40% chance of rain my ass,” Tommy mutters. He yawns huge and smiles at Evan, who’s in sleep pants and a tank top, and holding himself awkwardly in the door to Tommy’s room. “I’m awake, promise. What’s up?”
Evan has his head tilted, smiling too mysteriously for this early in the morning and this late in their break-up. “I didn’t realize waking up with me was the only thing keeping you from waking up like that.”
Tommy knows his hair is flat on one side and probably several inches higher than it would be when he’s all human and pretty (and pretty human). His brain’s trying so, so hard to churn up some comebacks but it’s not happening.
“You must’ve been knocked out,” Tommy replies. “I didn’t get in until about four and it—” He checks out his watch on the nightstand. “It’s seven. It’s seven? Christ.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, I won’t mention this when your next landlord calls for a reference.”
Evan laughs softly, not a laugh but a sigh of Tommy that he really can’t be hearing.
The moment evaporates with a huge flash of light outside, a bolt of lightning from the storm, and a massive foundation-shaking clap of thunder overhead. Evan jumps and hits his back against the wall, his eyes wide and terrified as he stares at the window.
hello and thank you for waiting at the drive thru! this is (loosely) cuddling out of necessity (30) and maybe, just maybe, one day one of these will be not so sad. :) tommy needs a favor, 750ish words, post s8.
—
Ravi’s Uber had come first and Buck’s was still five minutes away, the ETA getting later as he watched his driver weave around the map. He put it away to stop himself from getting annoyed, in case his loose lips said something bitchy to the driver.
Buck had finally managed, on one of these nights out, to lose himself a little. The cocktails hit harder and his eyes had roved the bar with curiosity, even if they hadn’t lingered long. It had been a while since he’d felt that spark looking at people, the one that whispered hints about possibility. He hadn’t followed through, though, not wanting to ditch Ravi and not—
He was ready for looking, but not for wanting or taking. Not yet. But it was a start.
Except that now he could feel that buzz under his skin taking a turn from pleasant to morose: why didn’t he want to talk to anyone now that Ravi had left; why hadn’t he touched anyone since Tommy months ago; why had he been feeling so good tonight and now he wasn’t? Buck shook his head and took out his phone again to check on his driver when, suddenly, his phone was face down on the bar and someone had heavily taken a seat next to him.
“Hey,” Tommy whispered. “I need a favor.”
Buck blinked at him, then glanced at his phone. Or, at his hand on top of his phone, and Tommy’s hand on top of Buck’s. “Are you real?” Buck asked. “I had tequila. Tequila sunrises so they—they were good. A few of them.”
Bucktommy meet cute where Tommy is a former pilot turned flight data analyst.
Buck is sitting near Tommy at a coffee shop and Tommy realizes Buck is shamelessly staring at his computer screen so he removes his glasses and turns to Buck.
“Do you mind? I can’t work with you watching me.”
“I’m sorry I just…” Buck laughs at himself. “I really like spreadsheets.”
Tommy’s mind wanders back to all his failed first dates and people that never wanted to hear about his job because they didn’t find it interesting.
But here’s this younger man with pretty, bright eyes and a million questions.
“Do…you wanna see one of my graphs?”
Buck nods eagerly, pulling his chair closer to Tommy.
Tommy shows Buck one of his older Ground Speed data charts, explaining how he collects and analyzes the data and Buck is absorbing every word, listening intently, his eyes glistening in the blue light from his screen.
“This is so cool!” Buck praises.
“Thanks.” Tommy smiles, his eyes falling onto Buck’s empty cup. “Hey, can I buy you another coffee?”
