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When Tommy gets his first injury since they’ve been together, Buck isn’t there at the hospital waiting to drive him home.
Instead, he’s at his loft, doing the fifth round of reps on his weights, trying not to check the time on his phone too often, not to count down the minutes until Tommy’s off-shift and can text him goodnight when he’s home safe, and definitely not trying to recall his post-lightning math powers to calculate the speed of morning traffic and how soon is too soon to show up at your boyfriend’s door with breakfast after a 24-hour shift.
Instead of driving his boyfriend, who is newly in possession of 12 stitches in his thigh, home from the urgency care unit at 10pm, helping him take off his clothes carefully so that he doesn’t aggravate the wound, and then maybe getting an uber to Harbor in the morning to drive his car over, Buck shows up that next morning with several tasting samples of freshly roasted coffee beans from the new café/roastery TikTok told him about and a bag of the sweet breakfast buns Tommy likes.
It’s their first argument.
(Although Tommy says it doesn’t count because the only reason for their raised voices was his loud coffee grinder.
Buck says it very much does because he doesn’t think “What the hell? Why didn’t you call me?” and
“God, Evan, no, I don’t think you’re a bad boyfriend who doesn’t care.” and
“If you say it was only twelve stitches and nothing to bother about one more time, I’m out of here and I’m taking my buns with me,”
could be said at any volume, and when added up, equal an argument, never mind if the last sentence broke the strange tension between them and made them both laugh.)
In the aftermath, they’re sitting - a little stiffly - on Tommy’s couch, taking turns sipping from six different cups (sipping in Buck’s case, anyway; he’s doing his best to avoid describing the unholy noises Tommy’s making in order to "aerate his palate") as Tommy determines if any of the coffee samplers Buck brought are worthy of being dialed in on his espresso machine. All the while, Buck’s trying not to stew in the delayed embarrassment at his own knee-jerk overreaction and hypocrisy. He’s famously tried to walk off much worse injuries in the past, and after the lightning strike, he’s extremely familiar with how it feels to want to be left in peace and quiet for a while.
“I promise I’m fine, Evan,” Tommy says suddenly, causing Buck to startle and spill a little of the Huehuetenango Medium Dark on his jeans. “It doesn’t even hurt that much.”
“Yeah, y-yeah, I know,” Buck nods as he reaches for the tissue box on the coffee table to soak up the run-off on the side of the cup. “I’m sorry about before. I just… reacted. I wasn’t being fair.”
He can see Tommy shake his head out of the corner of his eye.
“No, no. You’re fine. You’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think that-” He interrupts himself (which Buck is grateful for; he’s not sure if the sentence was supposed to end in “that you’d care” or “that it was a big deal”) and shrugs again. The look in his eyes when he looks at Buck next holds something quietly pleased. “I’ll do better to remember next time. It’s… nice. To know you care.”
“Yeah?”
There’s a part of Buck that wants to nonsensically demand that Tommy better not get injured ever again. It’s the part of him that roared to life when he arrived at Tommy’s house to an empty driveway and got an “be up to let you in in a sec. Took an uber home from the hospital so the car’s back at Harbor. ” in response to his “U home? Everything ok?”
“Yeah,” Tommy says and puts down a cup of Burundi AA Fully Washed to take a hold of Buck’s hand which has been unbeknownst to him tapping out an irregular rhythm against his knee.
“Well, I am very nice,” Buck says with a lift of an eyebrow and a bit of a smirk. He can feel it doesn’t sit on his face as securely as it usually does, and Tommy must notice since he doesn’t respond to the flirting. Instead he raises Buck’s hand to his mouth and presses his coffee-warm lips to his first knuckle.
“Can I see?” flies out of Buck before he can really think about it, but he doesn’t try to walk it back when he feels Tommy squeeze his hand and exhale a little laugh. It’s not quite the same impulse that has Buck double-checking Eddie’s harness on the regular, or trying to monitor Bobby’s well-being by the amount of garlic he puts in his red sauce and how strictly he insists on San Marzano tomatoes on the fire station shopping list.
“Sure,” Tommy says, and with the same quietly pleased look lets Buck help him stand up, and then tug on his sweats until they pool around his ankles.
A large part of Tommy’s thigh has been shaved bare. A small sound escapes Buck at the sight. The contrast to the soft down on the calf and the other leg makes the bare skin look oddly soft and vulnerable. There’s an orange stain leftover from the antiseptic and a line of dark blue sutures starting three inches above his knee curving inward towards the inner thigh.
No, it’s not quite the same impulse.
Buck’s never wanted to press feather-light kisses to the cuts on Bobby’s hands, or kneel in front of Eddie in harness and gaze up in tearful adoration like an overwhelmed heroine from Chim's bodice rippers, thankful for her lover's return from the battlefield.
He doesn’t kneel down now, instead he makes himself stay in an awkward crouch, strokes the firm downy muscle of Tommy’s other thigh and follows the line of dark thread with his eyes back and forth.
“I’ve got some Mederma left over from my last time, if you’re out,” he says finally before he loses the fight and leans down to press a kiss to Tommy’s knee, careful to avoid the tender skin, careful to angle his nose away. He can smell the stale air of a long shift in the helicopter on Tommy's skin, the long wait in the hospital, the wet wipes Tommy must have used instead of a shower last night. “This looks like it’s going to pull.”
He touches his lips an inch higher and just breathes. He’ll be there. Next time, he’ll be there. And now he's here. Then there’s fingers in his hair and on his shoulder, stroking, careful and a little frantic, urging him up.
“Evan,” Tommy says and Buck can’t quite make out the look in his eyes; the quiet pleasure has a new quality now. “Honey.”
Oh.
Buck can feel the heat start at the tip of his nose and high up on his ears and slowly spread larger, forcing him to duck his head and laugh at himself a little, at how Tommy can take him apart with one little word.
“I’ll give your phone number to my captain, if you want,” Tommy continues. “I know Donato’s got it, but she’s not normally on shift with me.”
Oh.
“He’s your emergency contact?” Buck replies, breathing normally.
“Hmm,” Tommy hums, and when Buck pulls, lets go of his hand.
Buck crouches down again; shifts around the twinge in his left knee. The air in the room feels hot around his face, but it’s got to be chilly against Tommy’s shaved thigh. Buck can see the goosebumps puckering the skin. He fishes the fallen waistband of Tommy’s sweats out of the pool of fabric at his feet and starts pulling it up over his legs, cautiously maneuvering around the wound.
“Maddie’s mine.”
“I thought so.” Tommy’s eyes are warm and a little shiny when Buck finally comes level with them again.
It’s too soon to think about getting paperwork like that involved in what they are. Buck feels Tommy brush his lips against the side of his head again, lingering at his birthmark; he catches a whiff of sour-sweet Mount Everest Supreme on his breath. But as he turns his head and meets him, Buck doubts it’ll take them very long to get there.