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hecalius13 · 11 months ago

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since the show is coming back tomorrow (!!!) and people seem to be a little bit confused about Tommy Kinard's canon character traits, as extrapolated from the source material, let's review, shall we?

Tommy put everything on the line, risked his job, not to mention entire life, by agreeing to fly Hen and Chimney and two more guys he's never even met before through a hurricane to maybe find (the wreckage of) a cruise ship that his old captain was on. He did because Chimney called him and asked for a favour (also seen in 2x14, Broken) and because he trusts Hen's instincts (evidenced in 2x09, Hen Begins)

Tommy lied through his teeth to his co-worker when he stepped in to save Hen's unsuccessful bullshitting and made fake mouth static at the fire chief pretending the connection is bad before disconnecting the call. If there was nothing wrong with the cruise ship, he would have been fired, or at the very least suspended.

okay, what do we know so far? Tommy is loyal to his friends even if they haven't talked in years, he is dependable and will come through in a crisis.

we also Tommy is a very skilled and competent pilot (given he's able to operate both the plane in 2x14 and helicopter in 7x03) and he flew said helicopter through a hurricane, landed it on the belly of a capsized ship, rescued the survivors, and flew everyone back to safety. and given the extremely dangerous conditions of the rogue rescue mission, I'd say he's also brave and/or a little bit reckless; when the situation calls for it, at least.

he's also super cool, an opinion shared by multiple characters (Buck, Christopher, and Chimney).

that being said, let's move on to 7x04

Tommy agreed to give Buck a tour of Harbor station, meaning he had to go to work on his day off, and then offered him flying lessons. So he's either super nice or he's interested in the cute guy (i think it's a little bit of both)

Tommy invited Eddie, a guy he barely knows, to a sold out big reunification bout, with ringside tickets that he got from the organiser, who he's apparently friends with, and flew them in a chopper! He's just a super nice dude.

Tommy offered to drive Eddie to the hospital, and talked about The Incident with him, because when he gets to Buck's loft, he says "he [Eddie] feels bad, in fact we both do" and honestly, he had no obligation to do any of that. He could have let Buck drive Eddie since he offered and wiped his hands clean of that mess. But he's a caring and considerate person, further evidenced by the fact that...

Tommy went to Buck's loft before he had to go to work, to talk to him in person and clear the air, saying he didn't want to do it on the phone or in a text. Tommy starts by apologising and stating very clearly that he never meant to come between Buck and Eddie and that neither of them meant to exclude Buck. He also easily reciprocated Buck's vulnerability. I think the loft scene alone does a great job at showing us that Tommy doesn't shy away from confrontation or a difficult conversation, is emotionally mature, values open and honest conversation, and owns up to his flaws and insecurities. (Yeah, I'm trying to be concise. There's meta upon meta about the goddamn loft scene)

He's also a little bit insane because why does hearing that the cute guy maimed his best friend make you want to kiss him. Tommy Kinard will see a red flag and pretend to be colourblind. (-> for tumblr purposes this is a joke)

anyway, moving on, Saturday rolls around...

Tommy noticed that Buck was a little tense, reassured him that no one's looking at them, and sympathised with him. He doesn't judge Buck, like, at all. I don't need to list all the ways Buck made an absolute fool of himself on their very first date. He also paid for the dinner.

Tommy cut the date short (abruptly, because this is a drama show) but before he left, he told Buck he's adorable, but not ready - and this is right after Buck forcefully shoved him back in the closet in front of their mutual friend, and especially after Tommy told him about his own difficult journey coming out of the closet.

Tommy showed up at the café, told Buck he has nothing to apologise for, and explained that he cut the date short because didn't want to pressure Buck.

Tommy asks Buck if he's absolutely sure, about Tommy being his date at his sister's wedding. Then says okay.

more character traits for Tommy Kinard: generous, non-judgmental, sympathetic, patient, and once again, a little bit insane.

night of Chimney's bachelor party/day of Maddie and Chimney's wedding:

Tommy shows up to the bachelor party even though he's on call for work, you know, as a firefighter pilot, and he could have spent this time sleeping or resting in case he gets called... and he does, to a wildfire! Before he goes he promises Buck that he'll try his damndest to make it to the wedding.

Tommy shows up as promised, after spending at least half a day fighting a wildfire? In his turnouts, covered in soot, but he shows up as promised.

I think this shows he is selfless first and foremost because he made time to show up to the (failed) bachelor party and he is honest and keeps his promises. Even if that means bringing a biohazard (himself) to a place full of vulnerable sick people (the hospital). Because, as previously established, he's a little bit insane.

these are the core Tommy episodes of season 7.

as for 7x09 and 7x10:

Tommy tenses up when confronted with his old captain Gerrard - who then subtly throws a slur at his face

Tommy is quick with the sass and will not indulge in his nosey friends' inquisitive questions

Tommy notices Buck's mood and checks in with him - he's caring and attentive

Tommy once again does not hesitate to admit to feeling jealous

Tommy doesn't really talk to his dad

Tommy likens his dad to captain Gerrard

Tommy admits that having Gerrard as his captain did not make him a better person (and okay, sidenote to talk about something that annoys me about this, because Tommy had different captains, including Bobby, while at the 118, and I think s7 canon seriously overestimated how long he worked under Gerrard, but let's say Gerrard was his first captain as a probie and influenced him to a certain extent)

some odd tidbits ~

Tommy has a sarcastic, deadpan sense of humour

Tommy is a goddamn flirt and unbelievably smooth

Tommy came out after he transferred from the 118 to the 217/Harbor Station

Tommy used to be a pilot in the army

Tommy flies for fun on his days off

Tommy plays basketball every other Thursday with Eddie and other first responders

Tommy knows muay thai

Tommy has a car lift and knows his way around an engine

Tommy likes watching half-naked pummel each other

Tommy likes karaoke trivia

Tommy likes craft beer, monster trucks, and the movie 'Love, Actually' (provided canon doesn't forget about this and/or retcons it for some reason)

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hecalius13 · 1 year ago

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Oh, dear, that's a simple mystery to solve.

The clothes aren't his, he is shopping in Tommy's closet.

He's wearing clothes that fit this season. What's going on?!

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hecalius13 · 1 year ago

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Schrödinger's boyfriend: he exists in a state of being present and absent from filming until the box is opened season 8 is shown

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hecalius13 · 1 year ago

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Okay, so I've been thinking a lot about some of the choices the writers made in season 7 re: Buck, Tommy, and Eddie, and about the conversations people in fandom are having about them. This is really long and tedious as hell, and I'm sorry for that, but I kind of needed to spill all my thoughts somewhere to organize them in my own brain.

Huge disclaimer: I am not Tim Minear's secret BFF, so I'm talking out my ass with the spec about writers' motivations and thought processes. Season 8 could air and prove me wrong on every single point.

As someone who started watching 911 in season 3, I latched on to the potential of Buck/Eddie as a ship right away. I was never somebody who necessarily expected or believed that it would become canon, but I loved the characters, and I loved the pairing. I was content to enjoy it as a well-fed fanon ship, but I’ll admit I did have moments where I thought they could have gone there: the shooting, Eddie’s breakdown, the lightning strike/couch theory era, etc. The season 6 finale poured cold water on the small hope of it ever going canon for me, and I think season 7 has put the nail in that coffin (which is fucking wild for me to say, considering one half of the pairing is now canonically bisexual).

Here’s the thing: I had a moment before 7x04 when the press was clearly hinting at a bisexual Buck arc and we suspected a Buck/Tommy kiss was going to happen where I thought, Oh, man, they could do it! They could have Buck come out and discover he has feelings for Eddie. My assumption was that if they did, Eddie would return or at least acknowledge his feelings for Buck an episode or two later, because the idea of two totally separate coming-out arcs has never made sense to me in the context of the business of television.

Although the fandom itself leans young and queer, 911’s general audience is heterosexual, middle-aged, and unfortunately has limits about how much queerness it believes is ‘realistic’ in a procedural genre television show (see: all the backlash on social media after 7x04 about how 911 is “woke” because they “turned Buck gay” despite the show always featuring queer characters; see also: all the het women whining on Facebook and Instagram about how Buck is now unattractive because he’s “gay” and thus unavailable to them, despite him being bi and not a real person, lol.) Like it or not, the show’s survival depends on this middle-of-the-road audience of casual viewers, not a few thousand passionate fans on the internet, and the network is always going to prioritize keeping its biggest demographic happy.

I think it’s clear that the writers had a hell of a time fighting for queer Buck, and we now know that they were flat-out unable to manage it on Fox. ABC was willing to take the risk, although I do find it very interesting that they greenlit two more queer male characters, Buck and Tommy (one main, one guest/recurring) after the show had already lost two queer male characters, Michael and David (one main, one guest/recurring.) It was a lateral move. Just food for thought.

In any case, getting two queer mains -- both Buck and Eddie -- would be much harder to pitch to a money-focused executive suit. Given Oliver Stark’s comments on a queer Buck storyline being considered in season 4, the (dubious) Twitter leaker’s supposed knowledge of queer Eddie being pitched in season 5, and Lou Ferrigno Jr.’s comment about Tommy being floated as a love interest for both Eddie and Buck at various points in the planning process, I think that paints a pretty solid picture of what might have happened: Fox shut down the possibility of making either Buck or Eddie queer, and ABC okayed it for one of them, not both. And the writers sat down, thought about both characters’ storylines and queer-coding, and decided that Buck made the most sense for the story they wanted to tell with Tommy.

Let’s consider the other option, though -- that ABC was convinced in season 7 to greenlight Buck and Eddie coming out, with the understanding that it would lead to a relationship. The fandom would be thrilled, of course. But how would you, as writers and producers, sell this to the very important general audience?

If the show was really going to go there with their two most popular “hot guy” male leads and they wanted to get the general audience’s buy-in that they would badly need, they would probably want to frame the arc from the beginning as a story about two friends who discover that they love each other. (As a queer person, I don’t love the tired old trope of “I thought I was straight but maybe this person is my exception and/or I don’t know what my sexuality is but I love you,” but I could definitely see them thinking that would be more palatable to an audience that had never considered Buck and Eddie to be anything more than platonic friends. In fact, they actually did kind of use this method with Buck/Tommy, in that Buck’s arc is focused on one person and he hasn’t yet explicitly called himself ‘bisexual’, but I’m somewhat optimistic that they’ll remedy this in season 8.) All that’s to say, if they wanted to make Buddie work for an audience that wasn’t already primed to scour the material for subtext, they would need to make Buck and Eddie’s realizations explicitly about each other. They would need the audience to accept the idea of them being romantically linked to each other early on even if they didn’t immediately have the two of them get together.

The show didn’t do that. They linked Buck’s bisexual arc to another character. And not just a new, throwaway character that could be easily discarded – a character who already fit into the 911 universe, a fellow firefighter who would be easy to integrate into future storylines, and a character with a distinct and established personality (love him or hate him, you can’t deny people feel strongly about his character).

So now Buck has come out, and he’s in a relationship with Tommy. This arc was thankfully received well – or at least wasn’t controversial enough to have an effect on the ratings, which is what ABC cares about – and for the general audience and new viewers, this facet of Buck’s journey is associated with Tommy. In real life, of course, it’s reductive (if not offensive) to say that somebody’s sexuality is about one person; if he were a real person, Buck would be bi whether or not he met Tommy and whether or not he ever dated a man. But because Buck is fictional, and this storyline was written specifically in the context of Buck discovering his feelings for a particular person, that person is now linked to Buck’s bisexuality in the minds of the general audience.

That choice alone gave me pause. If you wanted to convince a skeptical audience that Buck and Eddie were meant for each other, why would you introduce such a solid rival? Still, a love triangle could work. After 7x05, there was speculation in the fandom about setting up a jealousy arc, in which Eddie would realize his feelings after seeing Buck and Tommy together. Theoretically, this could be a way to ease the audience into the idea of Buddie, if you did it early enough in the story. But there are two big things the writers did in the ensuing episodes that pivoted the characters in the opposite direction:

The writers doubled down on Eddie being in-your-face heterosexual in a way that he wasn’t in his oddly chaste relationship with Ana. They used valuable screentime on postcoital scenes demonstrating that he’s happily down to pound town onscreen with Marisol; it's the nun thing that throws him off, not her being a woman. He very much seemed to enjoy having sex with her before that and is sexually frustrated when his religious guilt prevents him from continuing to have sex with her. More significantly, the arc with Kim at least implied, if not outright confirmed, that Eddie is still in love with Shannon – his feelings are strong enough to blow up his entire life for the chance to recapture even a pale imitation of what he believed they had together. The writers made an effort in season 6 to reframe Shannon as the great love of Eddie’s life, where it was sort of messier and less rose-tinted in previous seasons. The fact that they doubled-down on this in season 7 makes it extremely unlikely that the general audience would believe that Eddie could go from pining for his wife years after her death to secretly in love with Buck the whole time. Not only did seeing Buck with Tommy not trigger any latent feelings for his friend in Eddie, but he spent the entire second half of the season stewing in his unresolved feelings for Shannon instead.

The writers portrayed Buck as being fully “in” with his budding relationship with Tommy. He is explicitly attracted both sexually and romantically to Tommy. He doesn’t express any doubts or reservations about his choice after 7x05 and in fact is the one to pursue it as something serious. They didn’t have Buck choose time with Eddie over Tommy, even when the blow-up with Chris would have provided them with a perfect narrative reason to do so. They didn’t have Tommy express any jealousy about Eddie or even seem slightly concerned about his friendship with Buck, even though there were opportunities to do so. The writing went out of its way to frame Buck’s friendship and his relationship as two separate parts of his life that aren’t in conflict with each other. Eddie has been openly and enthusiastically supportive of Buck's new relationship. Eddie likes Tommy. Christopher likes Tommy. Tommy likes both Eddie and Christopher. Buck loves them all. There’s no drama there, and if this was supposed to lead into a love triangle ending in Buddie, I really believe they would have made that clear to the audience with blatant foreshadowing.

All that’s to say, this show isn’t subtle. If they were intending to convince the general audience to buy into the idea of Buddie, they would be working hard to muddy the waters surrounding the Buck/Tommy/Eddie of it all from the beginning; they would want the audience to have doubts about Tommy as soon as the relationship began and establish Eddie's jealousy right away. Why on earth would they take the trouble of getting their viewers (many of them new to the show after the network switch) attached to Tommy as a character and get them invested in Buck and Tommy as a couple in a happy little romcom if they were going to turn around and jettison it all and say Surprise! It was Buck/Eddie the whole time!? From a writing perspective, that’s a bad twist. If you want that reversal to work, you need to build it up beforehand and plant seeds of conflict from the start. And for that casual, general audience, there are no seeds; they aren’t scrutinizing every word and glance for proof that Buck and Eddie have feelings for each other. They’re not pulling from past episodes to draw parallels in the narrative. The vast majority of them probably don’t even have an inkling that Buck/Eddie is a thing that people ship. They’re not reading Tommy’s every action in bad faith and looking for hints that he’s actually terrible for Buck. They sit down to watch an episode, take it at face value, and then don't think about the show again until the next episode. For them, a Buddie twist would be unsatisfying if not outright unbelievable, because it would come out of absolutely nowhere.

911’s writers have been known to make baffling and offensive choices, but they are capable of creating a careful story, and I don’t think they would fumble this so badly when so much is at stake for the future of their creative choices. ABC took a risk with bi Buck, and if the writers and Tim have any sense at all, they wouldn’t want to invite backlash from the audience or from their bosses.

If they were going to go forward with queer Eddie and a love triangle in season 8, they could and should have set it up in season 7, given that they actually had their renewal in the bag early enough to plan ahead for once. To me, season 7 read as Eddie being finally and definitively cast into the role of platonic best friend, while Tommy was cast into the role of romantic partner. If Tim and Co. truly wanted to make Buddie canon this whole time and finally got permission to go ahead, I don’t believe they would have made any of the choices they made in season 7.

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hecalius13 · 1 year ago

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They go back to Miceli’s for their six month anniversary.

It’s stupid to celebrate something like that, Buck knows, but every day he’s spent with Tommy has felt like a gift. He wants to make up for that first date, when he threw their newly sprouting relationship away the moment he got spooked by someone else knowing about it. By someone knowing about him. He wants to show Tommy how far he’s come. He wants to show Tommy how committed he is.

Buck had made the reservation online two weeks ago. He’d called this morning, as soon as they opened, to see if he could reserve the same table they’d sat at last time.

“We don’t usually reserve specific tables,” the person on the other line had said.

But by the time Buck had finished explaining why, exactly, it was so important for them to sit at this table on this day at this time—sparing no agonizing detail about just how much of an idiot he’d made of himself, and how the first time Tommy kissed him it made Buck understand himself for the first time in his life, so please he really needs to do this for him—the person said they’d see what they could do; their words coming through the speaker with an audible smile.

Buck looks at himself in the mirror while he waits for Tommy to pick him up. He looks so different from the person who stared back at him all those months ago, in a moment just like this, waiting for Tommy to pick him up for their first date. His hair had been shorter, his sideburns longer, his clothes tighter.

He’d been nervous. He’d been so fucking nervous. He’d looked in the mirror and seen someone about to go on a date with a man. He’d seen someone who was struggling with the idea that he liked men, period, and apparently always had. He’d seen someone about to try something he didn’t think should feel as new as it did, and terrified of what it meant. Of how long he hadn’t known he’d wanted it. Of what it meant about himself if he wasn’t comfortable with wanting it. He’d looked in the mirror and seen someone who’d always been an outspoken ally, who was now terrified of someone else looking at him and seeing that he liked men.

But that was April. Now, it’s October. The winds have shifted and the air is cooler and Buck is bisexual. He knows who he is now. He’s not scared of what loving Tommy means anymore.

He takes a steadying breath and checks himself over one more time in the mirror. He’s cleanshaven almost to the top of his ear—just to the spot where Tommy rests his thumb and strokes back and forth when he cups Buck’s cheek while they kiss—and his curls are laying perfectly tonight. There’s a boyishness that’s come back to him with this haircut; a physical lightness that accompanies the joy that Tommy brings him. He looks happy. He looks good.

More than anything, he knows Tommy will think he looks good. Tommy likes his curls, likes him cleanshaven. He likes to pinch his smooth cheeks and pull his hair deliciously and tell him he loves him. Tommy thinks he’s adorable. Miceli’s is the first place he told him as much, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. It still makes Buck’s heart flutter every time Tommy says it.

It’s kind of embarrassing, Buck thinks, how much better he feels about himself now that he’s with Tommy. It’s like a weight has been lifted off his chest. Part of it is understanding that he’s bi, sure. That’d been an itch he’d been scratching at until he bled for years without figuring out it was there. He’d simply registered it as a baseline discomfort with how he fit into the world. The source of that, once illuminated, felt so obvious and undeniable. The discomfort melted away once he understood the full truth of himself. Once Tommy showed him.

But it’s more than that. It’s not that Tommy is a man: it’s that he’s Tommy. It’s the way Tommy makes Buck feel. His whole life, Buck has felt like he was hard to love. He was too much. He wasn’t enough. He was wrong. He was a failure.

A lot of that was his parents. A lot of it was not understanding why Maddie wouldn’t run away with him. A lot of it was not knowing who he was or what he wanted—and so not knowing how to ask to be loved correctly. It was clinging onto Abby past the relationship’s obvious expiration date. It was Ali leaving him mid-recovery because dating a firefighter was too much. It was trying to start something real with Taylor when they were so much better off as friends-with-occasional-benefits. It was being so certain that Natalia saw him for who he was, and realizing she only saw a three-minute-seventeen-second moment of him. No one wanted to keep him long-term, or if they did they wanted a specific version of him that he couldn’t be.

But Tommy came into his life. He saw Buck at some of his worst moments almost right away, and he still wanted to get to know Buck better. He saw Buck injure Eddie in a fit of jealous rage, and rather than leaving the two of them to deal with whatever that was among themselves, Tommy kissed him. Tommy asked him out. Tommy took him to Miceli’s and opened up about his past. He tried to calm Buck’s nerves. He said it wasn’t Buck’s fault if Buck wasn’t ready for what Tommy wanted from him. He gave Buck a second chance. He saw Buck in full clipboard glory and didn’t bat an eye. He showed up to a hospital wedding in dirty turnouts, exhausted, just because Buck asked him to. He apologized for being late.

He made sure Buck knew he wasn’t too much. He made sure Buck knew he was enough. He looked at every one of Buck’s flaws and faults and told Buck in no uncertain terms that he loved him—not loved him anyway, not loved him in spite of those things, just loved him. Like it was that easy.

And Buck has blossomed with Tommy’s love and attention. It feels dumb to say that about himself, but he has to admit it’s true. Buck feels calmer, more sure of himself than he ever has—not in that cocky 1.0 way, but in a steady, relaxed, stable way. Buck knows who he is now. He doesn’t have anything to prove anymore. He feels settled. At ease.

And so, so grateful for Tommy.

Tommy knocks on the door to the loft before letting himself in. It’s a habit that Buck can’t break him of. He insists it’s polite, so that Buck gets some warning before suddenly there’s someone else in his apartment. Buck thinks that’s sweet, has told him a thousand times that he doesn’t mind when Eddie just appears so why would this be different, but Tommy still does it. It’s gentlemanly. Buck hopes after tonight Tommy will understand just how much Buck wants Tommy to just be in his space.

Buck emerges from the downstairs bathroom just as Tommy is closing the front door.

“Hey,” Tommy says in that sing-song way of his. If Buck were to spell it out, it would have three Ys at least. And a few music notes—just for accuracy.

“Hey,” Buck says back, breathless. “You look… wow.”

Tommy is wearing the same shirt he wore on their first date. The black button-up is a favorite of Buck’s, and Tommy knows it. It makes him look big and broad and soft at the same time. It makes Buck want to snuggle into his chest. It makes Buck want to cancel their reservations.

Other than the shirt, Tommy looks different now than he looked six months ago, too. He’s stopped using quite so much product in his hair—inspired by Buck to also let his curls have a fighting chance—and he just looks… softer. He looks more like he did when Buck asked him to be his date to Maddie’s wedding, or when he came over for dinner after Bobby woke up from his coma. He’s not sharp angles and a harsh haircut. He looks relaxed in the same way that Buck feels. He looks confident in himself not as someone who can get the guy—not as someone impressive—but as someone who has the guy he wants, and who trusts that the guy is happy with him just the way he is.

Buck is happy. He’s very happy.

“You’re not looking too bad yourself,” Tommy says, fitting his hands on the tops of Buck’s hips and rubbing his thumbs back and forth. He smiles as he leans in close. “You got a hot date tonight or something?”

Even six months in, Buck still has such a huge crush on Tommy that he goes a little stupid sometimes. He blushes like this is the first time Tommy has played with him like this.

“Yeah,” Buck says. He wraps his arms around Tommy and squeezes once, just to feel him.“The hottest.” It’s not his best line but it works.

Tommy makes a noise of intrigue and scrunches his nose. “Anyone I know?”

“Probably not. He’s just some guy my brother-in-law knew back in the day.”

Tommy laughs and finally closes the distance between their lips. He kisses Buck soundly, sweetly; letting his love flow from his body into Buck’s. Or at least that’s how it feels.

“You ready to go?” Tommy asks when he pulls back, a sparkle in his eye.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The drive over is peaceful. There’s shockingly little traffic for a Friday night in a touristy part of town, and Tommy holds his hand over the center console the whole time. That’s not unusual: Tommy always does that. What’s unusual is getting a parking spot so quickly on a block so close to the Chinese Theater—it’s why they’d Ubered last time.

Buck won’t jinx it by saying it feels like a sign. So he doesn’t say it.

Miceli’s held their table. Buck won’t say that feels like a sign either.

They order the same veggie pizza and salad as last time, but instead of the same pitcher of light beer, they order wine. Unlike on their first date, Tommy isn’t afraid to come off as a beer snob anymore. Buck already knows he is.

“Can I be honest, Evan?” Tommy says when Buck suggests a full recreation of their first meal; beer pitchers and all. “The worst part of that date wasn’t you no-homoing me in front of Eddie. It was that beer.”

Their conversation over dinner is more normal than Buck expected for an anniversary. It’s nice, relaxing. It feels natural. Tommy tells him about the high rise rescue he did today—run of the mill stuff, really, he insists it’s not that cool—and Buck tells him about the history of winemaking in Sicily, and how the volcanic soil adds a different flavor to the grapes that grow in it, and Mt Etna smokes all the time but people still live near it, and millions of people also still live in the shadow of Mt Vesuvius, and how pizza was first created in Naples, and did you know that margherita pizza isn’t really called that because Queen Margherita liked it even though that’s what people say and that actually the story was made up like fifty years after she allegedly went to Naples and tried it, so it’s just a marketing ploy?

Tommy didn’t know that—any of that—but he looks so fond as Buck tells him that Buck finally works up the nerve to ask him the thing he brought Tommy here to ask.

“So,” Buck says, once they’ve had two slices each. “I wanted to talk to you about something, and I figured this would be the best place to do it.”

He wasn’t nervous before, but he’s nervous now. He thinks he knows what the answer will be, but he’s never done this for the right reasons before. He doesn’t want Tommy to think he’s moving too fast. They haven’t been dating long, but it’s been so transformative. Buck is sure he wants this.

Tommy looks at him with mild concern, so he must look as nervous as he feels. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes!” Buck says, eyes going wide. He reaches across the table to hold Tommy’s hand. “Yes, everything is- is great, sorry. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. These last six months have been amazing. You’ve been amazing. Sometimes I still can’t believe- like I wake up next to you in the morning and I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to- to- for you to want me in your space like that. So I’ve been thinking, um, well, I-I’ve been wondering. What- what do you think about- I mean, I know it’s too soon, maybe, but it feels right and I- I’ve never really done this right in the past, and this is a-actually the longest I’ve taken to do this with someone, so maybe that’s a good sign? You don’t think it’s too soon, do you? It’s just that my lease is up soon and I- I have to make a decision and I just thought, well, it might be nice to officially- but if you’re worried about the- the commute for me, since you’re pretty far from the 118, I- I thought about that, and it’s not like I don’t do that a few times a week now anyway. I think it’s worth it.”

Tommy just looks at Buck with a small, patient, excited smile. “What are you asking me, Evan?” Tommy looks like he already knows, but he won’t do the work for Buck. He’s gonna make him ask.

“Right, uh, I guess I didn’t… W-what would you say- um, I mean, would you want to- can I- because obviously it would be me who would- fuck, sorry, let me just…”

This isn’t even The Big Question and Buck can’t get it out. There’s too much going on in his head, too much backstory and too many possible arguments against it that he’s trying to head off because he wants this so badly.

“Do I make you nervous or is it this place?” Tommy laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, he’s not laughing at Buck. He seems charmed by the spluttering. Adorable. “I haven’t seen you like this in months. It’s okay, baby. Ask me.”

Buck takes a breath. “Let me start over-“

“Evan.”

The music is back in Tommy’s voice. The way he says Buck’s given name makes it sound like a term of endearment; how he holds out the final syllable and doesn’t let it go until he has to. Most people go down on that last N sound, like a frown. Tommy goes up, like it makes him smile just to have the sounds in his mouth.

He’s looking at Buck like Buck is something worth looking at. He’s holding Buck’s hand like Buck is something worth holding onto. And he’s smiling at Buck like Buck is something that brings him joy.

It makes Buck smile in return. It gives him confidence. Tommy makes him nervous, but he also settles all the noise that buzzes around in Buck’s head. He helps Buck see the clear path forward, just by being there. Just by being steady.

“Tommy,” Buck starts. He squeezes Tommy’s hand in his, on top of the table for everyone to see. “Do you want to move in together?”

“Of course I do, sweetheart.” Tommy smiles so wide his eyes crinkle and, god, those eye crinkles are just barely below his cleft on the list of things Buck loves about Tommy’s face.

“Yeah?” Buck is beaming.

“Honestly, you beat me to the punch. I was gonna ask you to move in over dessert,” Tommy says. He squeezes Buck’s hand. “I love you. I’ve never been happier than I am when I’m with you. Of course I want to live with you.”

Tommy was going to ask Buck to move in. Tommy wants Buck to live with him. Tommy wants Buck. Tommy wants to keep him.

Buck is standing up and bumping the table before he realizes what he’s doing. Their wine spills, the last of their pizza falls from its elevated rack onto the table next to them, and Buck couldn’t care less about any of it. He’s kissing Tommy right there, both hands on Tommy’s handsome face, in the same restaurant where he pretended they weren’t on a date, at the same table where he said some of the most embarrassing things he’s ever said, and he’s never in his life been more thrilled to return to a place he made a fool of himself in.

“People are looking at us, Evan,” Tommy says, pulling back as far as Buck will let him.

“I don’t care. I love you.” Buck kisses him again.

But he’s still a person with a sense of decency, so once the rush of Tommy wants me Tommy loves me Tommy wants to keep me close wears off, Buck pulls back from Tommy’s mouth and apologizes to the table next to them—the unintended casualties of their toppled dinner. Still worth it.

They clean up as much of the mess as they can. Neither of them stop smiling.

A piece of tiramisu comes to their table not long after, with the word Congratulations! and a picture of two rings drawn on the plate in chocolate sauce.

“Oh,” Tommy says. “They must have thought we got engaged.”

“Yeah,” Buck laughs. “I guess most people would only have that kind of reaction to something that big.”

“Then they don’t know you very well,” Tommy smiles.

You do, though, Buck thinks. You know me better than I know myself. You saw me for who I am—not who I thought I was—and you brought that to the surface so gently, so easily. You let me finally get to know myself. After searching so hard and so desperately by myself all these years, all you had to do was kiss me, and I knew myself. I’ve never looked in the mirror and truly seen myself there, but now I do. Because of you.

Filled to the brim with love and joy and excitement for the next chapter of his life, Buck smiles back.

“Well,” he says, gesturing at the tiramisu. “Mistaken free dessert?”

And Tommy, in his patented cool, confident way, says, “Premature free dessert,” and takes a bite.

Six months later, when Tommy asks if he wants to go to Miceli’s, Buck pretends not to know what Tommy is going to ask him. He just smiles and says yes.

{now on ao3}

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