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After Tommy walks out of his apartment, and his life, leaving him confused and heartbroken in his kitchen, Buck is just miserable. In fact, he’s more broken up about this breakup than he was for any of his other partners.
At first, he tries to throw himself into his family, helping with Jee while Maddie deals with early pregnancy symptoms and doctor’s appointments, trying to be supportive of Eddie’s search for self-acceptance or enlightenment or whatever it is he’s doing to try to convince Chris to come home, his job, and his hobbies. He’s taken up baking with a fervor not seen in Los Angeles since the height of the early months of the pandemic, when millions of white-collar workers stuck at home with their remote jobs and under-utilized kitchens decided to become sourdough specialists on the side.
He also throws himself into the online dating scene again, and has a lot of sex, with men and women and a few nonbinary folks. Because fuck it, apparently he’s not experienced enough to know what he wants; he might as well see what else is out there.
He’s not happy though. He saw a future with Tommy and he can’t with any of these people.
He gets off the apps after he has a condom break and nearly has a panic attack in the middle of a 24 hour pharmacy. They get her some Plan B, and they both get STI testing done (all good there, thankfully), and he sweats it for a few weeks until he gets a text confirmation that he’s not about to become a father (again).
When he hears that Tommy has a new boyfriend through the LAFD’s gossip channels, he throws himself into his hobbies even harder. He’s really starting to get the hang of pastry dough.
Tommy and his new guy break up? Buck doesn’t care. It definitely doesn’t make him want to call him. (Liar.)
—
Three months and seventeen days after receiving a text that reads, “I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you hate me right now, but I’d like to hope that someday we might be friends again,” that he leaves on read, they run into each other on a scene.
It’s a pretty involved fire, not exactly much time to stop and chat in the heat of the moment, even if he wanted to. Later, as they’re wrapping up on scene, stowing their hoses, Tommy comes up to him, an expression on his soot-covered face like he wants to say something, but Buck doesn’t want to hear it right now.
“Firefighter Kinard,” he says with a curt nod and keeps walking. Tommy doesn’t try to follow him.
Buck goes out the night after his shift and hooks up with a stranger and then hates himself a little afterwards.
—
And then the 118 get the call to respond to the scene of a downed LAFD helicopter.
High winds caused a tree branch to fly into the tail rotor of the bird, sending it spiraling into an uncontrolled descent. The pilot was able to wrestle with the controls enough to prevent a total catastrophe, but it’s pretty bad.
Buck’s heart was already in his throat when he heard the call and it sinks when he sees with his own eyes who the pilot is.
They get Tommy out, but he’s badly injured, several broken bones and significant burns. Buck is distraught, but holds it together until they get him to the hospital.
He collapses outside the glass doors. Bobby has to pick him back up and reassure him that Tommy’s a fighter, he’s seen people survive far worse. (They’ve both seen people die from less.)
Bobby lets him clock out from his shift early. Buck sits in the waiting room until he’s out of surgery at least.
It’s touch and go for a bit, but Tommy survives. But it’s going to be a long recovery and it’s uncertain if Tommy will be able to return to full duty ever again, he learns when visits him in the hospital.
He’s not the only visitor. Tommy’s coworkers care, but they all have busy lives and families at home to take care of, so they keep their visits short.
He doesn’t have anyone to stay with him during his recovery, no family who can help (or would come if he asked).
Buck doesn’t know what masochistic impulse comes over him that makes him say it, but he offers to stay with Tommy, at his house, for a while. He still has to work, but if he’s there at least part of the time, Tommy won’t need a nurse to visit as often, and Tommy has a spare bedroom that he can sleep in. He doesn’t mind sharing with the piles of new flooring stacked in the corner.
Tommy tries to argue with him, but Buck knows he doesn’t have any better option. It’s Buck, or a few weeks in a long term care facility until he’s safe to be released to at-home nursing.
“I think we were in love, once. Let me do this for you, as a friend,” he says.
Tommy relents and Buck drives him home from the hospital a few days later when he’s discharged.
—
It’s hard. Tommy, like Buck, is a terrible patient, stubborn, impatient, always pushing himself too hard. Snappy and sarcastic when he’s in pain.
They have a shouted argument over how to correctly apply fresh gauze pads one night, and Buck finally leaves him to do it himself while he goes for a run.
Tommy’s been calling him Buck this whole time, but he apologizes when Buck gets back an hour later and calls him Evan.
Things get easier after that. Not the recovery, that still sucks, but Buck and Tommy are better together. They talk more. And share personal things about themselves that got glossed over in the glow of their relationship when everything was new and they spent more time flirting and having sex than having serious discussions.
Tommy’s recovery eventually progresses enough that he doesn’t really need Buck there anymore, he can always get an Uber or a Lyft if he needs to get to his doctor’s appointments or physical therapy, otherwise he’s mobile enough and has regained enough fine and gross motor control to fend for himself at home alone, but neither of them talk about Buck moving back out of Tommy’s guestroom.
It’s still unclear if he’ll be able to return to firefighting, but there’s more hope that he could return to flying at least, so if he has to work as a private pilot instead, that’s an option he’s working towards.
Things come to a head finally when Buck gets an email from his landlord. His lease is up for renewal soon. He hasn’t been back to the loft in weeks.
He doesn’t say anything to Tommy at first, he’s not sure how he feels. He really should go back to his apartment, right?
He brings it up over dinner. Announces that he’s going back to the loft.
“You don’t really need me anymore, Tommy,” he says.
Tommy doesn’t argue. (Buck wants him to. He wants him to beg him to stay.)
Buck packs up his belongings. A lot more of his stuff has migrated over to Tommy’s place than he thought. It’s all over the house.
“It’s okay, Evan, if you forget anything, you know where I live,” Tommy tells him.
Buck goes back to the loft. It feels sterile and empty, even though it’s actually a little musty inside at first, because it was shut up for so long.
He goes to work, feeling a little numb. It’s a long shift. He drives ten minutes the wrong way home afterwards because he’s gotten so used to living with Tommy.
—
He’s halfway through cooking himself a meal for one, when there’s a knock at the door.
“Hey, Evan,” Tommy says when he opens it.
“Tommy? What are you doing here? You’re not cleared to drive again yet.”
“I know. I took an Uber. Can I come in?” he asks.
“Sure, yeah. I was just making dinner.” Buck steps aside to let him in.
Tommy walks in slowly, like he’s nervous. Buck offers him a chair, and a beer, for old time’s sake.
“Still not allowed to drink with the meds, you know that. But I’ll take the chair.” He chuckles awkwardly and sits down at Buck’s table with a groan.
Buck leans against his kitchen island, arms crossed. He still doesn’t know why Tommy’s here.
There’s a long pause where neither of them speaks. Finally, “You were wrong,” Tommy says.
“I was what?” Buck bristles.
Tommy shakes his head. “Sorry, sorry. I’m doing a terrible job of this. I meant…you were wrong when you said I didn’t need you anymore.”
Buck drops his arms and just stares at him, silently.
“I never should have let you walk out that door without telling you that.”
“Tommy…” he tries to interject.
“I never should have let you go in the first place. And I know, I know that’s all my fault. I let my own insecurities and fears get in the way of listening to what you were telling me. That you wanted me too. That you meant it.”
Buck wipes his face because he’s tearing up now, but he’s got something to say too.
“You weren’t… entirely wrong,” he admits, slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I shouldn’t have asked you to move in then. It was too soon. We needed to get to know each other better before we were ready for that. But you really hurt me, breaking things off the way you did.”
Tommy nods, looking miserable. “I know.”
“I wasn’t a teenager with his first boyfriend, Tommy. Or–or a guy fresh out of the closet after years of hiding who he really is. And I’m not saying this to judge you for your past or even make comparisons. I’m lucky that I got to come out the way I did, with friends and family who immediately accepted me for who I am, I know that. I’m just a guy who figured out that he’s bisexual a little later in life. But I have had relationships before, a lot of them, actually. And I know myself and I know what I want.”
He takes a deep breath. “And I wanted you.”
Tommy’s eyes are wide and wet, looking up at him warily. “Could—do you still want me?”
Buck comes around the table to be closer to Tommy, who struggles a little to get up, but he manages it without Buck’s help and stands facing him, hope and fear shining in his eyes.
“Promise me that if you get scared again, we’ll talk about it, instead of deciding for the both of us what I’m ready for,” Buck says.
Tommy nods. “I promise. I don’t ever want to lose you again, Evan.”
Buck leans in to kiss him, but stops himself just before he closes the distance entirely, palms resting on Tommy’s heaving chest.
“I’m not moving in with you…yet. My lease ends in two months. I’m not going to renew it, but I don’t want to just jump in without a plan this time. So for the next two months, we’re just going to date. And then we’ll see where we are. If we’re not ready, I’ll find another place. One with better guest parking at least. Okay?”
“That’s fair,” Tommy agrees. His eyes haven’t left Buck’s mouth.
And then Buck kisses him like he means it.
—
The 118 helps them move Buck’s stuff to Tommy’s–their house when his lease ends. They don’t end up keeping his couch.