I really like the “I don’t have to sleep with everyone I have feelings for and I don’t have feelings for everyone I sleep with”/”Got it” exchange because it’s so emotionally messy and interesting but also revealing about the characters.
I’ve seen the take in a couple of fics where Buck says that he didn’t mean that about Tommy, and hey we’re all playing with dolls and having fun, but I’m going to disagree. Buck’s comment was deliberately aimed at Tommy and was meant to hurt him. Buck was angry that Tommy seemingly spent their entire six month relationship thinking he was competing with Eddie for Buck’s affections, which also calls into doubt all the times that the three of them hung out (see the bad idea birthday party and Masks), and Tommy refusing to believe him when Buck says he has no romantic/sexual feelings for Eddie. As Buck explained to Maddie, he was angry that Tommy seemed happy that Eddie was gone when Buck himself was struggling with it, and so he lashed out “in the meanest way possible.”
That’s consistent with Buck’s character: he’s got a lot of big feelings and he tends to get defensive when he’s hurt. What I find interesting is that Tommy is the opposite of that. When he’s hurt, he shuts down. Buck’s blow landed just as he meant it to, and instead of snapping back or fighting, Tommy just locks it down, and says, “Got it.” His parting line of “Evan, thank you for last night. It was fun,” is passive aggressive, but it’s not blatantly hurtful in the way that Buck’s comment was.
Like I said, I find that really interesting because one of the bits of fanon floating around is that Tommy let slips these little sarcastic barbs when he’s cornered or hurt, but that’s not something we really see in the show. Don’t get me wrong, Tommy is a bitch (affectionate), but he’s not a bitch in response to being confronted. He’ll be bitch in stressful situations—see his entire dialogue in the hurricane scene—but he doesn’t do it on purpose to hurt someone. The closest we come to that is in the first Micelli’s scene with his “ain’t that the truth, Evan,” in response to a comment about closet space. It’s a petty dig, but when he’s actually cutting the date short, he’s direct and upfront but not mean. He even calls Buck adorable. That’s the opposite of a sarcastic bitch.
We see it again in the 8.06 breakup. His reasons for breaking up with Buck are bullshit, but bullshit rooted in insecurity, but he’s never deliberately mean or unloving. Or look at his reaction to Gerrard calling him a slur. He doesn’t lash out, he doesn’t let loose with a sarcastic barb; he withdraws into himself. Chim steps in because Tommy has shut down. He doesn’t even raise his voice in the morning after scene; it’s Buck who comes closest to shouting. This is a man who does not handle confrontation well.
Which is what makes him such a great foil for Buck. In that moment Buck is amped up. He is mad. He is ready for a drag down fight. He’s expecting one, and he is so thrown when Tommy just refuses to fight him. He immediately regrets his comment when he realizes that Tommy is taking it at, for lack of a better term, face value. The consequences for it are immediate, which I think Buck is genuinely surprised by because the other people in his life push back on him.
Compare this to Eddie and Buck’s fight after Buck purposely lets slip that Eddie is leaving the 118 to move back to El Paso. When Buck tries to protest that he didn’t do it on purpose, Eddie immediately calls Buck out on that lie. Buck is used to people pushing back on him when he goes too far, to being reigned back in. So I genuinely think he doesn’t know what to do when Tommy refuses to engage. He’s confused and asks what’s happening, despite it being pretty obvious, and while he pretty much immediate regrets what he said, it doesn’t occur to him to apologize or explain what he meant.
And I genuinely love their completely opposite approaches to conflict because they’re going to have to work at communication. Buck’s emotions tend to dictate his perceived reality (for the record, this is not a complaint; it’s a great character trait that the show tends to simplify and reduce to childishness) and Tommy just emotionally shuts down and runs at the slightest whiff of conflict, which means getting the two of them are going to have to make an effort to actually sit down and talk through their issues. And that opens up so many juicy narrative options—I love the trap them in a helicopter and/or collapsed building options—that I do not at all trust the show to actually explore. But, hey, that’s what fandom is for, and I believe in us to make it messy and painful and amazing.
