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alchemistc · 6 days

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i like your voice in person

Evan's staring at the bed like he's trying to navigate a minefield.

Six months ago that would have sent Tommy on another journey of self-deprecation, a reminder that he'd known Evan wasn't ready for this, known this was a possibility, but Evan, for all his own insecurities, knows what the hell he wants and if he'd felt even an ounce of pressure or remorse up to this point he'd have said something long before now.

Sometimes Evan likes to work it out himself, and sometimes he needs a little nudge, and Tommy watches the head tilt and the angle of his pursed lips for cues as he settles under the sheets.

"Something on your mind?" he prompts, and Evan blinks, like he hadn't realized he'd gotten lost in his thoughts.

"Uh...nothing, maybe."

"Sounds like something, probably."

Evan's smile tilts up at one corner, and he settles on the bed a little stiffly. "It's nothing major. Just. Something I've been thinking about?"

He can feel his brows jumping, can see the way Evan takes in the look with a fond expression. Evan steels himself for something -- they're still muddling through past experiences and learning how to be a bit more intentional in some of their conversations, because they both have a bad habit of reverting to flirting and deflection.

"You remember what we talked about last weekend?"

Tommy can genuinely remember about 93 percent of what he and Evan talk about at any given time, which is an astronomically high number and not at all an exaggeration. He'd be embarrassed about it if he didn't have clear evidence that Evan was as deep into this as he was.

They talk a lot, is the thing, about inconsequential shit just as much (definitely more) than the important stuff. They talk far more than Tommy can remember talking in any other relationship he's been in. But Tommy can pinpoint the exact one he means.

"You mean the roles thing."

Evan hadn't been a stranger to a little daddy talk in bed when they started to explore it, and he'd brought it up right at the start for a reason, but Tommy had taken a while to come around to the realization that Evan had sort of internalized the 'I don't have daddy issues' of it all in a way that Tommy hadn't actually meant it. There'd been little things, here and there; like Evan reaching a door before him and then bashfully waiting with it half open like he'd made a misstep; like twisting his mouth a little funny when he snatched the bill from the table before Tommy could get it. Little things.

Things that, in the abstract, yeah, Tommy liked to do for his partners, but in reality weren't actually that big a deal to him.

He'd needed to clear the air.

Evan nods. Curls a hand around his knee before he shifts his body so that he's facing Tommy. "So, I like taking care of people."

(A conversation, a month ago, Evan grimacing around "My therapist says I have to stop calling myself a people pleaser in a derogatory way.")

Tommy hums, something to remind Evan he's listening.

"And I guess I sort of built up this idea in my head that that was like, a hard stop with you."

("Everyone likes being taken care of sometimes, Evan.")

"And I'm not -- I'm not upset at you, or like, feeling guilty, I just -- I've been thinking about it, and I feel like I forgot to ask you how you wanted to be taken care of."

The thing with Evan is that no matter how often he'll deflect with a joke, when he wants to say something serious he's blunt as hell about it. There might be some hemming and hawing to get there but sometimes he says things that just make Tommy wonder if he'd ever actually learned how to say things before Evan.

"I don't really have a list, babe," he says, and then sort of hates himself for it. Deflect, distract, hey baby how about I blow you about all these big feelings inside my chest I can't articulate.

Evan, though, Evan squinches his eyes and runs a heavy hand through his hair. "I...sort of do?"

"Lay it on me."

Evan grins. "That's actually one of the things on my list."

Tommy blinks. Tries to figure out that trail of thought, but he's coming up with nothing. "Okay, can you expand on that?"

"Like --listen, you know I'm a huge fan of being the little spoon. I'd let someone put screws back in my leg just for continued little spoon privileges. But sometimes I miss being the big spoon, and in my head the idea sounded so stupid to bring up but now I'm wondering if, like, maybe I've just been denying you the joy of being the little spoon?"

Tommy thinks of Evan's hands spread big and warm across his belly, of knees tucked up behind his, warm breath on the back of his neck like when Evan stumbles up behind him in the mornings whining about coffee, and maybe he blue screens a bit because he's never actually dated someone so close to his own size, because there's always been an assumption at the outset that he wouldn't want that.

Alex had been a little too into the same dynamic he'd seen Evan stumbling through, and Colin had hated sleeping with someone's flesh touching his own. Beyond that he hadn't really dated anyone long enough to really form a preference.

Maybe Kara might have been willing, back when he'd been closeted enough to pretend it wasn't an effort to get it up when she had his dick in her mouth, but they'd been young enough that staying the night wasn't really a consideration.

"And like -- listen, I don't necessarily prescribe to gender roles as a thing in general, but a few weekends ago I spent like twenty minutes staring at a bouquet of flowers in Trader Joe's and convinced myself you wouldn't like the gesture so I didn't buy them but you have a few vases in your moms old china cabinet and the moment I remembered them I felt stupid for not buying the flowers."

There's something curling tenderly underneath Tommy's ribcage that he's not sure he's ever felt quite like this before. It's not new, exactly, but it seems to be thrumming particularly hard tonight.

Three months in, Tommy had gotten the man-flu from hell, temperatures so high he'd been grounded and sent packing to rest it off, and he'd texted Evan a jumbled mess of barely discernible things when they'd tucked him into the Uber.

Evan and Bobby had made chicken noodle soup at the station and Hen had sent Evan off with a laundry list of things he could do to help drop the fever, and Tommy had spent the duration sulking and glowering and dragging himself out of bed every time Evan had wanted to change the sheets, to keep Tommy as comfortable as he could, but when Evan had caught it four days later he hadn't hesitated to do all the same shit with gusto. Evan hadn't been particularly grateful either, because neither one of them liked being laid up when the world was out there waiting for them, but he'd at least had the grace to not be an asshole about it.

He had, though. Been grateful. A little awestruck, too, at the mere idea of someone so unafraid of just being there through all the moaning and groaning and hacking and coughing, keeping the tissues from piling up on the bedside table and switching out cold packs to the freezer so he always had one ready in case he wanted it. In the clarity of a full day without fever making his brain feel like cotton candy he'd stared down at a sleepily wheezing Evan and known he could absolutely lose his heart to this man.

"Also I don't want to toot my own horn here but I give excellent foot rubs, and I feel like there's about a million other things I've just been -- holding back from doing?"

"Because of the role thing, or because all your stupid exes told you you were needy?"

It's not a night to pull punches. Also Tommy wants to send thank you cards to every single one of them and attach them to boxes with a bark scorpion inside.

"Both," Evan says without a second of hesitation. His smile crinkles at the corners of his mouth, and Tommy is suddenly annoyed with the space between them. When he holds out his hand to tug Evan into him, Evan melts into it for the space of a moment before he pulls back. "I actually kind of desperately want to be the big spoon right now, if that's something you'd be into." Evan had definitely clocked the look on his face when he'd mentioned it, but he's keyed into the way Tommy checks in and reciprocated in kind since the start of this, so.

Tommy peels his glasses off, snags his bookmark to keep his spot in the monstrosity of the Wrangler maintenance manual he'd stopped being cagey about the fifth time Evan caught him flipping through it, and watches Evan settle comfortably into bed next to him. The problem is, Tommy actually isn't sure where to go from there, which is a ridiculous thought to have because Evan hadn't either and he'd figured it out just fine.

"How do you want me, Buckley?"

The roll of his eyes is so bitchy that Tommy has to remind himself that for all his people pleasing attributes, Evan Buckley is, at heart, a huge fucking brat. Evan tugs and twists and maneuvers his arms and Tommy sort of sinks into it, head tucked in the crook of his shoulder, draping his leg over one of Evan's when he shifts his knee pointedly, a massive, unruly breath escaping Tommy once they're all done shifting.

"You should absolutely try out the rest of your list," he murmurs into the space where Evan's shoulder meets his neck. "Although you don't need to woo me anymore, I'm actually fully wooed."

Lips against his crown, pressed tightly enough that he can feel the smile against his scalp, Evan chuckles. "You don't know how good my wooing is."

The fingers shifting up and down his arm feel somehow different, from this position, even though Evan has done it a hundred times before from the spot he likes to claim with his head right over Tommy's bleeding, three-sizes-too-big-for-him heart. It's ridiculous, and it shouldn't feel any different, but it does. He wants to be greedy with it, soak it in and then never let Evan do this again because he finally understands the appeal and he doesn't want to deprive Evan that.

"This is nicer than I expected."

Evan's soft laugh ruffles his hair, and Tommy wonders if he's dumb enough to ask Eddie how long he should wait before he can reasonably beg Evan to spend the rest of his life with him.

"Save the reviews for when I actually spoon you. It's gonna rock your world." His hand drifts up, fingers digging into the dimple of Tommy's skull.

The hum in his throat has a mind of it's own, going thin and reedy and --

Evan pauses, and Tommy can practically see the gears whirring in his mind, because this is new information.

To both of them, actually, but Tommy doesn't have time to process it because the fingers on the back of his skull spread and sink deeper, just enough pressure to be more than a glancing ruffle, and Tommy can't quite help the way he tilts his head back into it, or the way he hitches his leg to press his groin a little more firmly to the outside of Evan's thigh.

They're both too tired for it to really mean anything -- both off 48's and a fumbled round in the shower while they were already bone weary -- but Tommy wants the reminder for them both when they wake up in the morning.

He can feel his eyes drooping the longer Evan scrubs his fingers against him, and the thought pops into his head as he's drifting off. He doesn't want it to disappear into the fog, though, so he murmurs it into the soft, warm skin of Evan's neck. "I like camellia's. White ones."

Evan hums, and Tommy just knows that the moment he drops off, Evan will be reaching for his phone to google the language of flowers.

#bucktommy #buck x tommy #bucktommy fic #911 fic #tevan fic #as if shoehorning sportsball into a fic wasn't enough now i've gone and added the language of flowers back into the lexicon #white camellia means 'you're adorable'#but once buck actually finds what he's looking for he ends up ordering a ridiculous bouquet of red camellia baby's breath and red salvia

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