Chapter Text
Buck was far drunker than he’d expected to be by the time they were leaving the bar. Hen and Karen walked ahead of him. Hen was giggling and Buck didn’t think he’d ever seen her like that before. Karen seemed very amused by it. He stumbled a little on his next step and was surprised when a hand grabbed his arm.
“Careful, Evan,” Tommy said.
Buck leaned into his touch and heard Tommy chuckle, but he also didn’t let Buck go. Also, he smelled really good and Buck might have lost a few minutes just trying to get a closer whiff.
“Are you smelling me?” Tommy asked with a laugh and oh, that sounded nice.
It had sounded nice all night to hear Tommy laugh and to watch the way that his nose scrunched up. He was funnier than Buck had expected, but in a dry way that made a lot of sense for Tommy. All night, Buck had felt like he was seeing a different side of Tommy and yet somehow none of it actually led to him figuring out what to get him for Christmas.
“Sorry,” Buck said. “Just…you smell really good.”
Tommy chuckled. “Thank you.”
When Buck took a glance around again, he realized that Hen, Karen, and Chim were gone.
“Where did everyone go?”
“Karen is driving Chim home. You and I are taking an Uber, remember?”
That did sound right. Karen hadn’t had more than the initial beer and that had been hours ago and since Chim lived close enough to them they had decided he would go with them. When discussing if it made sense for her to also drive Buck and Tommy home, they had both said they’d get an Uber. Somehow, that had turned into sharing one and Buck didn’t quite know how they had gotten there, but he didn’t mind.
A car beeped at them and then pulled over beside the curb.
Karen rolled down the window. “You okay to handle him, Tommy?”
“Yeah. We’ll be alright. Have a good night.”
“Good night,” Karen said.
“Good night,” Buck repeated and waved.
He heard Tommy chuckle.
“What?” Buck asked.
“Nothing. Our car should be here in a minute. We’ll go to yours first.”
Buck didn’t want that. The party was still going, would probably go for a few more hours and then when it was finally over the house would be one giant mess. It would be loud and some of them would be smoking weed stinking up the place and the last thing that Buck would be getting is sleep. Or peace. And come morning, he’d see the discarded bottles and cans and the spills and the remnants of a party and he just wouldn’t be able to relax even though it wasn’t even his mess.
He would clean it. Buck knew it. His roommates knew it. Everyone knew it. That was part of the problem because before this past shift began, Buck had gone on a bit of a deep clean. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the floors…he’d cleaned it all. Maybe he’d been hoping that he and Connor could go out and get a tree and maybe some decorations. Some lights for outside too. A nice wreath. That was not going to happen.
“Evan?” Tommy asked.
Buck loved the way that Tommy said his name. Most of the time he called him Buck just like everyone else, but when he was talking directly to him — rare that it happened — he usually used ‘Evan’ and Buck hadn’t known that he’d missed someone using his first name. He didn’t even think that was what it was as much as it was the caress that Tommy gave his name when he said it even though he didn’t like Buck.
“I don’t want to go home,” Buck informed him.
He didn’t know what Tommy would do about it. Nothing, probably. Buck’s problems were his own and Tommy didn’t even like him anyway. Except that…well, he was thinking that he might have been wrong about that.
“The party?” Tommy asked. “Isn’t it probably over by now? It’s after midnight.”
Their car pulled up. Buck barely paid attention as Tommy helped him into the backseat, climbing in next to him. Tommy buckled him in and Buck was distracted by Tommy’s hands. They were big and capable and one moment they were close enough to touch Buck and the next they were gone.
“Skip the first stop,” Tommy said to the driver.
-
Tommy had gotten himself a small Christmas tree. It was about four feet tall. He’d strung a strand of lights on it and they blinked from multi-colored to white. The star shone with white lights. Tommy had put it on a timer so it turned on at sundown and turned off a little after 2am. There was nothing else about his house that was festive and maybe it did look a little sad tucked in between houses lit up in Christmas lights. Tommy just didn’t see the point. That didn’t change that he kind of loved his little Christmas tree.
Seeing the light of his Christmas tree reflect on Evan as they entered the house made him pause for a moment. It was truly unfair how pretty Evan was.
“It’s so tiny,” Evan said when he spotted the tree. “Why doesn’t it have any ornaments?”
He’d sobered up some on the trip to Tommy’s house, but it didn’t change that Evan was still drunk. Tommy was a little tipsy as well, but he was aware enough to know that bringing Evan home with him was probably a bad idea.
It was just that Evan had looked downright sad at the idea of going home and Tommy just hadn’t had it in him to just leave Evan where he didn’t want to be even if it was where he lived. So, he was impulsive and figured Evan could sleep it off on the pull out.
Evan walked over to the tree, peering at it, before looking back at Tommy. He was adorable. Tommy had made himself not see it for so long, that it was hitting him even harder.
“I’m going to get you some sheets and a pillow. Make yourself at home, Evan. There’s water in the fridge.”
When he returned, Evan was still staring at the tree.
“You need ornaments,” he told Tommy very seriously.
“Maybe,” Tommy conceded.
He walked around Evan to the couch. Evan was smaller than him in bulk, but Tommy had fallen asleep on that couch enough times that he knew it wasn’t too uncomfortable except that both he and Evan were too tall to sleep on a couch. He plopped the folded blanket and sheets on the coffee table.
“You’re lucky I have a pull out,” Tommy informed him.
“I’m not tired,” Evan announced.
“No, but you are drunk,” Tommy said.
Evan wasn’t unsteady on his feet any longer, and he was all legs so he took a couple of strides to get to the couch and sit down on it before Tommy could take off the cushions to open it up.
“Why don’t you like me?” Evan asked, blue eyes wide and unblinking, his head tilted to the side.
“What makes you think I don’t like you?” Tommy asked and if the floor would open up underneath him and swallow him, it would have been a good moment for that to happen. “I like you just fine, Evan.”
Evan shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.”
“I do,” Tommy said. “Would I have brought you to my house tonight if I didn’t like you?”
Evan seemed to suddenly realize where he was and his cheeks went a little pink. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks.”
“It’s late and we’re both a little drunk still. I’m going to get you some water and then we’ll get the pull out ready for you.”
When he finally made it to his bedroom, Tommy felt ready to just flop down on his bed and pass out. He was very aware of Evan downstairs on the pull out tucked in with one of Tommy’s pillows under his head. Tommy had meant to lend him some pajamas, but instead Evan had discarded his button down and pants without much care before he crawled onto the pullout. It had been difficult to look away and then Evan had smiled at him once he was under the sheets and blanket.
“Good night, Evan,” Tommy had offered.
“I like it,” Evan said, then.
“Like what?”
“The way you say my name,” Evan said. “Night, Tommy.”
-
Buck couldn’t sleep. He’d woken up to a noise and ever since then, sleep had just not seemed to come. He was in Tommy’s house on Tommy’s pull out couch and he couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t fully dark in the living room, light coming in through the windows from the streetlamps and the neighboring houses’ Christmas lights. Buck didn’t even think it was that, as much as how he was sort of surrounded by Tommy’s things in Tommy’s house and how the pillow he’d been given smelled like Tommy. It was entirely too distracting.
He turned from one side to the other and tried every trick that normally got him to sleep, but he just couldn’t. The pull out wasn’t even uncomfortable. Whatever level of drunk he’d been earlier in the night, the little sleep he’d had had probably taken care of some of it. He didn’t even really have a headache but maybe that was to do with how Tommy had made him take some ibuprofen before he went to bed.
Buck didn’t know how much longer he lay there before he pushed off the blanket and sheets, before standing. Suddenly, he had an idea. He was in Tommy’s house and maybe he could look around and figure out if there was something he needed or was missing. Maybe what he might be interested in, even.
He turned the light on. The living room was spacious. It should have fit more than the tiny tree, but Buck still thought it was cute. Tommy had a couple of armchairs, a coffee table that had been moved out of the way of the bed, bookshelves, and a large TV.
Buck went to the bookshelves. Was Tommy a reader?
The books varied. The lowest shelf had what looked to be flight manuals and other books on planes and helicopters alike. The next one looked to be a mixture of more books and a lot of DVDs. The middle shelf had a few random things. A model helicopter next to a cookie jar in the shape of a penguin. Next to that a rainbow flag sticking out of a small vase. In the same vase was a paint brush, brush end pointed out. The shelf above that held more DVDs and the one above was empty.
It gave nothing for Buck to go off of. Except maybe he liked helicopters and planes? Could Buck find him a book he didn’t already own on that subject? That was an option for sure. He also seemed to own a lot of movies.
Buck grabbed his phone off the bedside table and took a picture of the entire bookshelf. This was at least something to go off of. He might need more.
Tommy had gone up the stairs to his bedroom, so Buck felt like he could probably get around the first floor without bothering him. So, he went to the kitchen.
It was really nice. Clean granite countertops, white cabinets, stainless steel appliances. Nothing about it gave him any personality. Buck opened the cabinets. Found a few plates, some cups, a few mugs, protein powder mixed in with snacks. In the fridge he found a carton of eggs, sparkling water, regular water, left over pizza, and three cupcakes.
“Still, you remain a mystery,” Buck said as he closed the door.
In the freezer there was ice cream. At least now he knew that Tommy liked dark chocolate ice cream. That probably meant that he liked chocolate in general and also just sweets going by the cupcakes. What if he just got him a bunch of chocolate?
The first floor had a bathroom and another room. It was supposed to be a dining room, probably, but when Buck turned on the light he gasped. Two easels sat with bare canvases. A couple of tables pressed against the furthest wall had art supplies. Against the other wall were completed paintings, a bunch of them leaning against each other. Just a quick glance was enough to amaze him. Had Tommy made those? Was he some kind of artist?
Buck crossed the room to the paintings, started going through them. Some of them were very abstract, the colors vivid and standing out against each other but just odd. Eyes in odd places with tunnels and wide open mouths with too sharp teeth. A few paintings of flowers with faces at their centers. A few helicopters. Fire engines. The backs of firefighters walking towards a blaze. Rainbows that looked like the single bright spots in a few paintings.
Mixed in were ones that made Buck blush. They were practically pornographic. Men with muscles bulging, their six packs expertly painted and then muscular legs, the groins almost always covered by something be it a hat or hands or in one case a leaf. Once the head of another man and Buck didn’t have to guess what it was depicting.
He’d done some landscapes as well. The ocean with the clouds shot with purples and pinks and a ship off in the distance. A dense forest with the moon hanging overhead. Then, there was a headshot of what seemed to be a self portrait. Tommy. Tommy except there was something missing to really capture him.
So, Tommy was an artist. Buck would have never thought it and yet it made sense. Everyone needed an outlet and apparently this was Tommy’s.
Buck looked at his supplies. Acrylic paint and loads of it. Brushes in little pen holders. Colored pencils and a pile of sketchbooks. He grabbed one and opened it to find quick sketches of what seemed to be anything and everything. A stray cat. The start of a person but no defining features. Half a face. Just eyes and eyes and eyes. The back half of it got interesting.
“Huh,” Buck said.
He could tell that the sketches had been done quickly and they were hardly explicit, there was just something about the implication that made them, if anything, sexier. It was all men. A single man or two men and Buck went back to the start when he finished them because wow, Tommy was talented.
Buck heard a noise. The creak of a floorboard.
He closed the sketchbook and placed it where he’d found it. He turned off the light and then had to turn back to grab his phone from where he’d left it. Something told him that Tommy wouldn’t be happy if he found Buck there.
“Evan?” Tommy’s voice asked and then there he was standing in the doorway.
In the dark, he seemed even bigger and he stepped in, turning the light on. Buck was sure he looked ridiculous standing in Tommy’s art room in only his underwear.
“What are you doing in here?” Tommy asked, stepping inside. He was in pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless.
The remains of a dark scar rested over his ribs, and Buck wanted to know how it had gotten there. His pecs were defined and his stomach was toned. Muscular. There was a smattering of hair on his chest and over his bellybutton heading down into his pants. Tommy looked sleepy, too. Hair mussed and his eyes squinting in the light.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Buck said and motioned around him. “You’re an artist.”
Tommy shrugged. “I dabble.”
“Dabble? No. You’re really good. Like this stuff should be displayed somewhere. I, uh, I looked through your sketches too. They were—” Buck’s face felt a little warm.
Tommy stepped closer. “What?” he asked.
“Interesting,” Buck said. “You really captured the human form.”
Tommy hummed. “Male bodies,” he said.
Tommy was closer, he could see a glint in his eyes, a question in them too. Buck knew when someone wanted him. He knew what it looked like to have someone desire him and that was what was in Tommy’s eyes. It was cautious though and Buck…well, Buck was impulsive. He was captivated. He hadn’t known that he could be into a dude. Into Tommy. Except…well, he couldn’t look away from Tommy as Tommy came closer.
“Evan,” he said.
Buck gasped. Oh, he really did like the way that Tommy said his name. Tommy closed the last few feet between them, but he faltered and it was Buck who surged forward, hands going to Tommy’s hips as he pressed their lips together. Something happened in that moment. It was his whole world taking a tumble and changing. A part of him opening a door and stepping through because this was who he was and it was what he wanted.
Tommy kissed him back. His hands cradled Buck’s face and he kissed him deeply, took his breath away and just made Buck lose all thought.
Tommy’s skin was soft and warm and Buck wanted to keep touching him, his hands travelled up his back, feeling his sinew and muscle and happy when it brought him even closer to Tommy as they just kept kissing and kissing and kissing.
When they pulled away, Buck refused to let him go.
He felt the way that Tommy’s thumbs moved over his skin.
“Was that…was that okay?”
“Better than,” Buck said.