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mattzerella-sticks · 19 days

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dropping bi (ao3)

1.9 k, Buck/Tommy, Coming Out

Buck is easing into dating men, taking it one step at a time. Tommy's been a great partner through all of it. After a wonderful date in which Tommy spent the night at Buck's, Buck tumbles into the next step of his journey of self-discovery when his family makes an unexpected, unannounced, visit.

Buck eases awake beside a still sleeping Tommy. He stretches and hears his spine pop and crack into alignment as he turns over, so they’re face to face, nose to nose, for when Tommy’s eyes flutter and he begins to stir. Giddiness overwhelms Buck in that moment, his joy shooting forward like a sprout out the ground after a long, harsh winter, whose leaves unfurl while basking in the celebratory sunlight. He doesn’t fight this feeling, doesn’t force himself to temper it. Buck allows this seedling to grow and bend and blossom into a wide grin which nearly splits his face in half when he welcomes Tommy into consciousness.

“Morning.”

Tommy’s gooey stare echoes Buck’s expression. “Hey,” he says and slides his hand towards Buck, placing two fingers under Buck’s chin – his signal – to better guide Buck into a gentle kiss.

Buck sighs as their lips touch and he melts against Tommy.

His breath might stink, but he cannot make himself care with how Tommy gnaws on his lower lip. He’s sweaty, but Buck is grateful he is when Tommy slides his other hand beneath his damp shirt, tugging it higher, caressing his sides. He has to pee soon, but not so soon that having their legs slot together brings any discomfort.

Kissing Tommy is like magic. Worry and awkwardness, ‘what if’s and ‘maybe’s fade into the background since all of Buck’s focus is drawn in by the other man’s gravity the longer they stay within each other’s orbits. Buck never wants to leave him, this embrace, his bed…

But then Buck hears his front door open. The spell breaks, and so does their kiss.

Tommy presses his thumb against the cleft in Buck’s chin and asks him, “Were you expecting company?”

Buck shakes his head. “No, I –“

“Buck? Are you here?”

It’s Maddie, followed by Chimney calling for him, “Yo! Buck!” and Jee-Yun, squealing, clapping, asking after her “Uncle Buck! Uncle Buck!”

Buck leaps from his bed to lean over the railing, catching them as they enter the kitchen area. Maddie eases herself into one of the chairs by the table with Jee-Yun playing with a toy as she sits on her lap, meanwhile Chimney directs himself to the coffee maker and tosses a tumbler back and forth between his hands. Buck coughs, clears his throat, and tries to summon up his earlier smile.

The waning grimace he manages hurts to wear, but he persists.

“Hey,” his voice cracks. “Hey. Why – what are you all doing here?”

Maddie sighs. She brushes a few stray hairs away from her face as she explains, “Our stove stopped working last night.”

“Without warning,” Chimney adds, “With only twenty minutes left on our roast.” He presses a few buttons on Buck’s coffee maker. It growls and whirrs and almost bites him. “Mind you, we’ve only had this stove for less than a year, and it just breaks! Had to finish cooking dinner on the grill. It was awful!”

“Anyway,” Maddie cuts Chimney off, continuing, “we were on our way over to see about getting a new stove, maybe grabbing something to eat as well… and wanted to see if you’d join us?”

On any other day, he would. Today is inopportune.

“Oh, well –“ Buck fumbles through an excuse, fingers flexing along the loft railing during his speech. “I’m sorry that happened, and I really would like to go, it’s just – I’ve got a few things of my own I got planned today, and I’d hate to crash your day out together.”

“You wouldn’t be crashing,” Maddie says. “We’re inviting you.”

“I guess, but –“

“And it’s not like we can’t help you with your errands,” Chimney tells him. “We’ll make a whole day of it. I’m pretty much game for anything – anything that’s not leaving a flaming bag of doo-doo on Tommy’s front step, that is.”

Heat prickles at the base of his neck, where he knows Tommy’s eyes are, and leaks across his back like magma as Chimney and Maddie share a laugh. His skin must be splotchy and red and so obvious. “C’mon,” he protests weakly, “it’s not like that…”

“So you’ve gotten over this little thing you had about Eddie making new friends?” Maddie asks him.

“Well, I –“

“I’d like to think he has.”

Tommy stands beside Buck on the railing, a hand laid along his shoulder while the other curls over his blanching knuckles gripped, he realizes, way too tight to the railing.

Chimney and Maddie fall silent. Buck knows they’re shocked, and rapidly putting pieces together. It’s not a hard puzzle. Buck and Tommy each in their undershirts and boxers, sleep mussed, swollen lips, hardly an inch of space between them. The dots connect themselves.

“Tommy, can you –“

“Yeah,” he says, pressing his lips to Buck’s cheek, stealing half his breath from him while making their situation even that more simple to guess. “I could use a shower right now anyway.” He squeezes Buck’s hands as he peels off to gather last night’s clothes and head for the shower.

On the last step, he pauses and asks, “Towels are –“

“Are in a linen closet, in the bathroom. Next to the shower,” Chimney answers.

Tommy winks at him, “Thanks.”

No one says anything more until the bathroom door clicks shut, and Buck hurriedly descends from his bedroom.

Maddie says, “Buck was that –“ And Buck says, “I know.”

Chimney says, “You and he were –“ And Buck says, “We were.”

Maddie says, “So you and he are…” She trails off.

And Buck? Buck stops after reaching the table, hovering across from where Maddie sits. He looks at her, as she watches him like he was some glass figurine teetering on the edge, about to break. He looks at Chimney, who still hasn’t reigned his eyebrows back down from when Tommy’s unannounced appearance made them fly into his hairline. He looks at Jee-Yun, who doesn’t care at all what’s happening because she’s making her doll do a little dance on his table.

Buck focuses on her dance while he speaks. “Tommy and I are dating,” he says to the doll. He inhales. He exhales. His shoulders sag from the release. “We’ve been hanging out the past couple of weeks. Last night was our… third date.”

A wonderful third date that Tommy planned. He drove Buck all across town, paid for everything, pampering Buck in a manner he was unaccustomed to but absolutely loved. They ate hot wings and played a few rounds of pool. They saw the latest Guy Ritchie film and shared a tub of popcorn between them. They visited a roller disco, Tommy ensuring Buck never fell by keeping his hands at his waist, chin hooked over his shoulder, and syncing their gaits to the music and each other. Finally, after hanging up their skates for an hour at the bar, the two took a midnight stroll to sober up.

As the breezes became gusts which cut through the thin fabric of Buck’s paper-thin button up, Tommy silently wrapped his jacket over Buck’s shoulders and drew him into his arms, and they walked the rest of the way back to the car with Buck’s heart throbbing in his chest.

By the time they arrived at Buck’s apartment around two o’clock in the morning, there wasn’t any thought of letting Tommy drive home.

“So, last night… did you –“

“No,” Buck says. He collapses into a seat, takes the mug of coffee that had been placed in front of him – by Chimney, but when? – and focuses on its warmth, its weight in his hands. “I don’t think… we aren’t at that stage yet.”

Fooling around, fondling, making out like a couple of teenagers who only recently discovered how great it felt to reach beyond their waistbands were all they did. Buck didn’t mention that. Not with Jee-Yun in the room.

“And you,” Maddie starts, “Are you –“

“I’m not gay,” Buck bristles. He scowls into the coffee, “I mean – I like guys. I really like Tommy. But… I wasn’t faking it before. With girls. I like them, too.”

“Of course,” Maddie agrees. She curls her hand around his wrist and tugs, pulling him from the whirling abyss in his mug, that mirrored the path his thoughts were heading onto. He glances up at her and sees her guarded expression gone, replaced with a softness suffused with unbreakable love. He regresses to that kid he used to be in its presence, who was a bundle of limbs tethered together by anger and adrenaline, who’s sole respite from the too small world of Hershey, Pennsylvania was when his sister would comb her fingers through his curls and tell him it would be okay. Her phantom touch scratches his scalp while her thumbs rub into his pulse point. “What I wanted to ask,” she says, “is are you happy?”

And he feels bad for thinking she’d ask anything other than that. He doesn’t tell her this, though. He nods and says “Yes” and laughs when she laughs and smiles when she smiles. It’s different than what he showed Tommy, but not any less genuine.

“Good. I’m happy, then,” she tells him. “And so proud of you, Evan.”

“So am I,” Chimney says. He drops his full weight onto Buck’s shoulders, squeezing him into a hug. “Though I could strangle you for your taste in men.”

Buck pouts at him, “What’s wrong with Tommy?”

“Have you seen him?” Chimney squawks. “How am I supposed to give Tommy ‘the talk’, threaten him if he ever breaks your heart? Dude knows Muay Thai…”

“Chim…”

“And he flies helicopters!” he rambles on, “He could chop my head off with one of those blades before I can get close enough.”

“And have the entire 118 string me up by a truck ladder, extend it, and drive under an overpass? No thank you.”

Tommy emerges from the bathroom, fully clothed, running a towel over his slick wet hair. He struts towards the group, taking his place beside Buck. “I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head,” he says to Chimney. Then, he locks eyes with Buck. “Or yours, either.”

Tommy searches Buck’s face to ensure he’s okay, and Buck acknowledges he is with a nod as he offers the cooling mug of coffee to Tommy. He accepts it.

Buck stands. “I guess it’s my turn to shower,” he says, “if we want to make it to the store before it gets too crowded.”

“You don’t have to –“

“It’ll be fun,” Buck says. “Like a… weird double date, right?”

“I’m game,” Tommy tells them. “I actually just replaced my stove a month ago, we can stop by the shop where I got mine and schedule an installation. I’m friends with the mechanic so it won’t be that long of a wait time.”

Chimney claps him on the back. “You’re a lifesaver, man.”

“Aren’t we all.”

Buck laughs and shuffles away to the bathroom, throwing out a “Don’t embarrass me while I’m gone” over his shoulder that’s met with a “No promises” from both his sister and his friend and his – boyfriend, is it too soon? It doesn’t matter. He’s in too good of spirits to be brought down.

When alone in the steamy bathroom, Buck wipes at the mirror to see his reflection, places his fingers where Tommy had them and tilts his face this way and that, and notices how bright and cheery his face is. It’s a welcome sight. Buck likes it, likes who he is and how his family does, too.

Buck deserves this, and for once actually believes that he does.

@free-to-be-impaled tagging you per your request.

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