A Year With Buck And Tommy 🥹✨

@bucktommyanniversary ✦ Alt: Bi Buck/Gay Tommy ↪ 7x04 | 8x06

celebration: housewarming party with the 118 at tommy's house proposal: a little silly one but they take it seriously

“I guess what I’m saying is,” Tommy says, even as he dutifully carries a bowl overloaded with tortilla chips and another bowl equally overloaded with seven layer dip, “I don’t understand why we’re having a house-warming party if I’ve lived here for ten years.” He sets his cargo down on the table, then leans one hand on it and turns to face his boyfriend.

“Right, but I haven’t,” Evan says, trailing into the living room with two huge platters of his own (a big bowl of potato chips, and a homemade French onion dip that Tommy had snuck a taste of and nearly went cross eyed, it was that good). He gently places them down, then nudges Tommy’s bowls around a quarter of an inch at a time until their placement is to his liking.

God, Tommy loves him a lot. 

He’s lucky Evan loves him a lot, too, because he steals a tortilla chip out of the bowl and takes a healthy scoop out of the seven layer dip, and the barely concealed scowl on Evan’s face suggests he’d be getting his hand slapped and his ass kicked out of the house until the guests arrive, if only he didn’t love Tommy so much.

“Oh, my God,” Tommy moans around his mouthful. “Baby, did you make guacamole from scratch?” Evan’s expression smooths out into something more smug, more pleased, and this time he only flinches slightly when Tommy goes back in for seconds. 

“Marry me,” Tommy jokingly garbles around another huge bite of chip and dip, not really thinking much of it until Evan’s breath hitches.

Tommy forcibly swallows before he is necessarily ready to, the tortilla chip scratching his throat all the way down, but before he can ask Evan…anything, the doorbell rings. 

That quiet little expression of want that Evan had been wearing disappears when he swears and bolts back into the kitchen. “Can you get that?” he shouts. “I need to grab the plates and utensils!”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, and has to clear his throat when his voice cracks over the words. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

When he opens the door, he’s got pretty much the entire A shift of the 118 crammed onto his porch. Right at the front is Jee-Yun, who breaks away from her mother’s hold just to slam into Tommy’s midsection. “Uncle Tommy!” she shouts, then holds her arms straight up at him. “Pick me up.”

Tommy makes a show of it, grunting and groaning, pretending that Jee weighs seven times more than she does. When he’s finally got her set on his hip, he pants and wipes the back of his hand over his brow, trying and failing not to smile at the sound of her bright little giggles. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” Chim drawls from the doorway, clapping Tommy on the shoulder as he steps inside. “You save a guy’s life and all he cares about is your kid.” He winks and elbows Tommy, not unkindly.

“Hey, Howie,” Tommy says, just as warmly. “Hi, Maddie,” he says as Evan’s sister steps over the threshold. He’s always a little nervous around Maddie, even though she’s never been anything but kind and supportive of her and Evan, but he can’t help it when he knows how much Evan values her opinion. 

She gives him a smile and a tilt of the head like she knows, before stepping into his other side and giving him a hug just as warm as her daughter’s. “Hi, Tommy,” she says, and reaches up to gently pat him on the cheek twice before stepping away. Once her mom leaves, Jee just wants to be put down, so Tommy obliges, and about ten seconds later hears her shout for her Uncle Buck. 

Hen and Karen are the next in, giving him a bottle of wine and a set of glasses to go with it. Neither of them are particularly affectionate as they walk in, bar Karen squeezing him lightly on the forearm, but he knows from experience that once they get into their cups, that will change. 

Ravi’s next with two six packs of craft beer that he presses into Tommy’s arms before beelining to the snack table. Tommy laughs under his breath and sets the beer on the ground when he realizes that Bobby and Athena are the last to wander inside, Bobby somehow carrying two casserole dishes and Athena holding one, along with a large bottle of champagne.

“Here, let me help,” he says, darting forward to relieve at least one of them of their burden, but he gets two sets of raised eyebrows for his efforts. 

“We’re guests,” Bobby says, unbothered, as he walks inside. “Let us help.”

Athena purses her lips at him, but as she follows her husband, she lightly bumps into Tommy on the way. “You’re family now, you know,” she reminds him, and her expression softens when Tommy fights down a nervous grimace. “We’re not that scary." She eyes him a little bit, smiling, and deigns to hand the enormous bottle of champagne over to Tommy. “Better get that on ice.”

Tommy nods and shuts the door behind them, but hangs back in the foyer while he watches the 118 gather together and greet each other with hugs and cheek kisses, and twists his hands around the dark glass of the champagne bottle. Evan - halfway into a conversation with his sister - suddenly breaks away and steps quickly towards Tommy. He bends down and picks up the beer that Ravi had shoved into Tommy’s hands, then leans in and kisses Tommy on the mouth, warm and soft and lingering. 

“Come on,” he whispers as he pulls away. “Everybody wants to see our house.”

Tommy will admit that he’s had his reservations ever since Evan moved in and brought up having a housewarming party, but as he steps into the living room and the family Evan’s cultivated for himself makes room to fold Tommy in, he finally understands why Evan wanted this.

He spends the next hour talking to Maddie and Karen about some godawful procedural show that they all watch as a guilty pleasure, and he’s in the middle of listening to Karen and Maddie debate about who Dr. Townsend should end up with - his RN Kathryn or Dr. Alcott - and trying to formulate a way to bring up how he thinks Townsend should end up with Dr. Kingston, the very male cardiologist, when a familiar pair of arms wind their way around Tommy’s waist.

“I can’t believe you guys watch that show,” Evan says as he hooks his chin over Tommy’s shoulder and scrunches his nose. The arms around him squeeze lightly before Evan says, “But he should end up with the heart surgeon guy.”

Maddie and Karen both make faces like it had never crossed their mind but it actually makes sense to them, and Tommy leans his head back so that his lips brush over Evan’s ear when he says, “God, I love you.”

Evan buries a smile into the meat of Tommy’s shoulder and starts to slightly sway them together, listening as Maddie and Karen excitedly discuss the possibilities of Dr. Townsend and Dr. Kingston.

“Don’t think I forgot what you said earlier,” Evan whispers, just loud enough for Tommy to hear, “when you were eating the seven layer dip.”

Tommy covers Evan’s hands with his own. “Wasn’t expecting you to,” he murmurs, and begins rubbing circles on the back of Evan’s hands. 

“You know we’re gonna have to talk about that later, right?”

Tommy hums, and just keeps swaying, “Later,” he whispers. “Right now, we’ve got family over, don’t we?”

Evan draws a breath, and the arms around Tommy tighten.

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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tommy kinard + being a good boyfriend

(Preliminary) Final Tally:

Trevor Project: $7,361.09 USD

Chosen Charities: $2,684.03 USD

Grand Total:

$10,045.12 USD

Lou returning to swat with all the children he got in the 911 divorce:

i love you tommy

Reblog if Lou Ferrigno Jr / Tommy Kinard got you in the divorce

when I say I love your mind (I wanna steal your heart)

huge thank you to @evansboyfriend and @beefcakekinard for alllll the help, you're the best <3

prompt: Halloween - couples costumes rated: G tags: fluff, established relationship word count: 1.8k

[also on ao3]

“So maybe vampires? Classic.” Buck suggests, hoping they’ll finally settle on something. But one look at Tommy’s face tells him it’s another no. 

“I don’t know. It’s kinda basic.” His boyfriend says, and, okay, Buck can see that. 

“Yeah, okay.” Buck hums, taking a second to come up with something else, as he and Tommy walk through the park, taking the long way to Tommy’s car. It’s a late evening, the moon illuminating their path, Tommy’s hand warm in his. They’re just finishing up date night, and at the end of their dinner the subject of Halloween was brought up – which is what they’ve been on for the last fifteen minutes. “So I guess ghosts or zombies or, I don’t know, clowns or pirates are also a no?”

“Uh, they might be a maybe?” Tommy shrugs, but clearly he’s not very into it. 

“What about superheroes? Ooh, you could be Superman. You kinda look like him anyway.” He says, bringing their clasped hands to kiss Tommy’s knuckles. “My own personal hero.” He whispers, and Tommy laughs. Buck’s sure if it wasn’t dark, he’d see a faint blush in his cheeks.

“And what would that make you, Wonder Woman?” There’s a skeptical but amused tone in his voice. 

“Maybe.” He shrugs and Tommy doesn’t even need to say anything for Buck to know he’s not a fan. “Okay, so Batman and Robin.”

“Hm, that’s one to think about.” Tommy responds. Buck takes that as a win, but they could do something more fun.

“Luke and Leia.” He says just because maybe Star Wars will be something to agree on – though, on the other hand, that might just spiral into another disagreement they’ve had before about those movies in general, so maybe better to leave it alone. Buck loves Tommy so much, but his Star Wars opinions are… not good. He can look past that, though. No one can be perfect.

“They’re siblings. We’re not doing a sibling couples’ costume, Evan.” He says decisively, shaking his head. Bossy, for someone who can’t decide on a costume. Buck rolls his eyes, kinda fond but kinda annoyed.

“So Leia and Han Solo. Oh, or Han and Luke? To put a bit of a spin on it?”

“Uh-” Tommy makes a face – to his credit, he does try to hide it – and Buck sighs in frustration. He doesn’t even want to hear the reason for the no. He pauses, trying to think of something else, the silence always pleasant between them. Whether they talk for hours, or are silent together, in Tommy’s company every second is the most comfortable and enjoyable. Buck just feels like he can be fully himself, and lean into his silliest side. 

“We could be Venom and Eddie Brock.” He says, mostly joking, the image that popped into his head so ridiculous he laughs.

“Hm. And how would that work, exactly? One of us in regular clothes and the other in costume as Venom?”

“Yeah. You as Eddie, and I dressed in all black, on your back.” He gives Tommy a shit-eating grin when he glances at him disbelievingly. “You know, like when Venom pops out of Eddie’s back?”

“And, what, I’d carry you on my back the whole night?” He laughs, but Buck just nods. “Sweetheart, I’m strong, but I’m not that strong. Best I could do is a few minutes.” He sounds almost apologetic, and Buck needs to kiss him about it, so he presses a quick kiss to his lips, stopping them briefly.

“I know, I’m kidding.” He whispers, resuming walking. “Would be cool, though.”

“It would.” Tommy admits. Silence falls over them again, as the gears in Buck’s brain keep turning, going through every movie he can remember ever seeing, or any fun and cool couples they could realistically dress up as.

“Beauty and the Beast? I could do a yellow suit. And you can be my Beast.” Buck leans closer to Tommy, his chin brushing Tommy’s shoulder as they walk, almost at the car now. He whispers, “You already are.”

“That’s a leap from Venom.” A laugh escapes Tommy. “I don’t know. It’d be cute, but I thought you wanted scary.”

“True. We could make it scary.” He says, but then another idea pops into his head. “Oh, how about the Addams family? You know, to keep the spooky vibe.” Buck bumps his shoulder into Tommy’s.

“Well, I do love the Addams family.” Tommy nods. “Who exactly, though?”

“The best couple ever, of course. Morticia and Gomez.” He says, and watches Tommy’s face for his reaction. “And you hate it.” He sighs, and rolls his eyes, starting to get a tiny bit annoyed. It’s like the fiftieth costume he suggested, Tommy has to like something.

“No, I love it, really, but, you know, if we’re doing a couple, maybe it could be a gay couple instead?” Tommy suggests, pulling Buck a little closer to him. Well, that was the idea at first, before Buck spiraled where he is now, because someone kept shutting down his ideas. At least now he gets why some of those were a no from Tommy, because Buck thinks some were really fun.

“Yeah, sure. If we could agree on any.” He shoots Tommy a pointed look.

“Okay, any other ideas?” Tommy asks, a hint of fond amusement on his face. It’s not funny, though, they need to figure it out quickly, Halloween is right around the corner.

“Salt and pepper shakers.” He throws out. “Or ketchup and mustard.”

“Are you serious?” Tommy raises his eyebrow, giving him his signature ‘Evan’ look, version exasperated. Buck just shrugs, trying to hide a smile, the thought of his boyfriend having specific smiles and looks reserved for him making his heart swell.

“I’m running out of ideas, Tommy. Oh!” He exclaims, a new random idea popping into his head. “Tom and Jerry! Get it?” He grins, looks at his boyfriend expectantly, and sees a tired but very fond and amused smile. “Tom-my.” He drags out the first syllable, just to get his point across.

“Yeah, baby, I get it. You’re adorable, but no.” He says, and then chuckles when Buck pouts. 

“How about the emotions from Inside Out?” He grumbles, the movie popping into his head randomly – probably because he and Tommy watched it with Jee on their latest babysitting duty. They did a whole Pixar marathon. “You can be boredom.”

“Oh, really?” Tommy gives him one of his looks, and, damn, Buck almost melts under his gaze, even when he’s annoyed with him. He loves him so fucking much. “You calling me boring?” He tugs at Buck’s hand, stopping them and bringing him closer, so they’re face to face, his hands settling on Buck’s hips, Buck’s landing on his huge arms, now covered by a jacket. There’s an amused smirk on Tommy’s face. “I thought I was cool?”

“Nah, you’re not. You hide it well, but I know now that you’re just a huge dork. And very, very boring.” Buck teases, trying and failing to say it with a straight face, a smile breaking through. “And I love you anyway.”

“I love you, too, Evan.” Tommy says, his smile forming into that fond, loving ‘Evan’ smile that Buck can never resist kissing off. So he does. He kisses Tommy once, twice, the kisses soft and chaste, both smiling into each other’s lips. He’s about to go in for a third, intending on deepening it, but Tommy pulls away, face a bit more serious. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Buck frowns, not wanting or needing any apologies, genuinely wondering if he missed anything.

“For being such a pain about this whole costume thing.” Tommy explains, and Buck wants to laugh. Yeah, okay, he was a little annoyed, but it’s just a little teasing, bickering, about Halloween costumes of all things. He can take the most ridiculous things seriously, but this? Nothing to get overly upset about. He’s about to say all that, but then Tommy continues, “I don’t know, maybe Halloween is just not my thing. I’ve never really been too into it.” He shrugs, a flicker of something wistful crossing his face, but it’s gone too quickly to decipher. “But it matters to you, and I love you, and I want you to be happy. So, I’m done being a party pooper, let’s do a costume. Next idea, no complaints, I promise. Whatever you want.” He says so sincerely, but there’s a hint of a ‘I hope I’m not gonna regret this’ in his eyes. Buck grins, a random, brand new idea showing up.

“Woody and Buzz? From Toy Story.” he clarifies, as if that wasn’t obvious – and clearly it was, from the look he gets. “What? You said gay couple.”

“I don’t think they were. And I thought you wanted scary- but fine, okay.” Tommy sighs, that fond look back on his face. “I said whatever you want. You wanna be the cowboy or the astronaut?”

“Hm.” Buck takes a second to think – and realizes that, actually, there’s an even better, easier idea. “Or we could just be cowboys.” He shrugs, and then he can feel his eyes go wide as the full picture pops into place. 

“Zombie cowboys.” He says, at the same time as Tommy, though Tommy’s sounds more like a question.

“You know me so well.” Buck beams, leaning in for another kiss. “Let’s be scary cowboy zombies. See, was that so hard?”

“You’re the one with a thousand ideas for a second. I didn’t even say no to everything at first, you just went through so many it was hard to keep up. I’m pretty sure you said cowboy back at the restaurant, too, and I didn’t even get a chance to say anything.” Tommy points out, pulling away from Buck, grabbing his hand again and starting to walk, his truck already visible in the distance.

“Not my fault my brain works like that.” Buck says mock-defensively. 

“I know, honey, I love your wonderful brain.” Tommy smiles, lets go of Buck’s hand to wrap his arm around his waist, presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “And I love you, my silly zombie cowboy.”

“Halloween is gonna be so much fun.” Buck is smiling widely, excited like a kid for his first Christmas – or, his first Halloween, more like. It’s seemingly no big deal, but also it’s his first Halloween with Tommy, and he’s excited – he’s excited for all the firsts with Tommy. He can’t wait to do everything and anything with him. “Are you gonna come by the station?”

“Of course, if I can. Gotta see how scary you’re gonna make it.”

“Wanna bet I can scare you?” He asks, just as they near the car.

“In the haunted house for children?” Tommy raises his eyebrows. “Sure, you can try. What are we betting on?”

“I have a few ideas.” Buck grins wickedly, crowding Tommy against the car.

“Oh, really? Well, I’m all ears.” Tommy grins, his arms wrapping around Buck’s neck, pulling him closer. Buck smiles into Tommy’s lips, kissing him, quick but lingering.

“Well, why don’t we go home and I can show you what I have in mind?”

[read on ao3]