i'm taking a nap

Tommy gets his license and he and Buck go on long car rides, just an excuse for both of them to get out of their respective homes.  They talk about Tommy's favorite places he's ever lived, about the places Buck wants to go when he leaves Hershey, all the dumb and impractical plans teenagers make when they're desperate to escape.  It's the best summer of their lives.

Then it's back to school and Tommy is a senior.  He gets a girlfriend who he takes to homecoming, and Buck is insane with jealousy, but Tommy is like she's just a girl who happens to be my friend, which is even worse because Beth is smart and funny and she can quote whole movies with Tommy so what does Tommy need him for?  But Buck hangs out with them and he (begrudgingly) likes Beth, who gets all of Tommy's shithead friends off his back about how he doesn't date.

(Tommy is driving them home one day when he says, shoulders up to his ears, "What if I don't like girls?"  And Buck is suddenly aware that he's just a shithead teenager who has laughed at gay jokes, has made gay jokes, but this is Tommy and he can't afford to fuck this up by saying a shithead teenager thing.  "That would be cool," he says, and Tommy's shoulders inch down.)

Tommy graduates.  He does a semester of community college, but things at home are Bad (he is now taller and bigger than his father, which should have made things better but oh god it's so much worse), and so he enlists in the army.  The last time Buck was this mad was when Maddie left for Boston and they fight about it (they made plans! If Tommy waits a year then they can enlist together!) but at the end Tommy leaves and Buck promises to write him a letter every day ("This isn't 1942, Evan," Tommy says, dry but so fond.  "We have technology.").  Buck is the one to see him off and they hug so tight and for so long and Buck says quietly, like he almost doesn't want Tommy to hear, "I'm going to miss you so much."  Tommy hopes that's true; no one's ever missed him before.

This is the epistolary section where it's just the emails they send back and forth.  Buck leaves Hershey sooner in this (Maddie moves back just as Tommy leaves--it's funny how the two most important people in his life don't meet), and he sends Maddie postcards and sends long rambling emails to Tommy.  He's more honest with Tommy about the hardships he's facing, and at some point Tommy is like I am sending you some money so you can buy food and also make rent so you don't sleep in the car it's not like I'm using it anyway.  Tommy emails back as often as he can--he's in basic and then he goes to pilot training and then, of course, he does a tour in Afghanistan.

("My boyfriend is also in the army," his fellow bartender Kelsey says.

"Oh, he's just my best friend," Buck says, and Kelsey is like sure Jan because Buck talks about Tommy like he's a war bride.)

Somewhere between Virginia Beach and Peru, Buck figures out he's bi.  He's out dancing at a gay friendly club and there's a guy with dark hair and a cleft chin who absolutely does not look like Tommy not even a little bit and Buck goes home with him and it's fun and very informative and he leaves before morning, alight with a new understanding of himself.  The problem is that he doesn't know how to tell Tommy.  Or, well, how to tell Tommy that doesn't get him in trouble as this is the waning days of Don't Ask Don't.  He can't just say he's also into dudes.  So instead Buck sends a very confusing email about how's open to all options now life is a buffet and he's loading up a plate and Tommy is like okay he's back in his stoned surfer phase.

And then, of course, the helicopter crashes/gets shot down, Tommy is injured, and is looking at a medical discharge and a long recovery.  (Buck is beneficiary of course because Tommy is going to take care of him even if all he can do is leave him a little bit of money.)  He's in the hospital in Germany when he gets to talk to Buck, who has so many questions about his injury and what medical care he needs and what kind of follow up care and also he's gone on reddit and he knows dealing with the VA can be a nightmare but he's been talking to a bunch of vets and he's putting together a cheat sheet to make it easier and does Tommy know when he'll be flying back?  It takes Tommy almost an hour to work up the courage to ask where Buck is and if maybe Tommy can stay with him, just for a bit, just until he figures out what he wants to do.

"I'm sharing a house with like six other dudes," Buck says, "but I've already starting looking for an apartment for us.  Don't worry, I know it's gotta be on the first floor or have an elevator.  I am not making you climb stairs."

"You're looking for an apartment in Peru?"

"Oh, I'm in LA now," Buck says.  "California was your favorite place you've lived, right?"

It was and it is, and when Tommy finally makes it through arrivals at LAX, Buck is there, grabbing and holding him so tightly before he seems to remember that Tommy had nearly died, then he was jerking back mumbling sorry-sorry-sorry.  "You're fine, you're fine, get back here," Tommy says and hugs him so tight and so long.

The last time Tommy saw him was when Buck was twenty-one and Buck had taken a detour to visit him when he was stationed at a base down south.  Tommy had gotten a weekend pass and they went out to celebrate Buck's birthday, two months late but hey what could you do, drinking and hanging off each other and laughing more that night than Tommy had in years, since he'd been in Hershey, and the next morning Tommy had hugged Buck goodbye and didn't want to let him go.

Buck is a few years older, still with a bit of babyface, but Tommy can see the man he'll grow into.

(Tommy looks so different than when they were shithead teenagers, sharp where he isn't haggard, holding himself so still and careful, but he still hugs with his whole body and he still holds Buck so tight and god Buck loves him, loves him, loves him.)

The apartment is the kind of place you get when you're young and broke: small, cramped, but clean enough and blessedly free of bugs.  When Buck said he would handle getting the apartment set up, he meant it; there were beds with sheets and comforters, bathmat in the bathroom and towels in the closet, dishes clearly picked up at some thrift store in the cupboard, a couch that probably spent most of its life in some frat house but at least it was comfortable and didn't smell.  All Tommy could contribute was rent money and a couple of paintings for the bare walls.

They figure out how to live together, but pressure starts to build.  Buck is doing temp office work and bartending for money and Tommy has savings he call fall back on as he figures out what he wants to do (Buck offering to hook him up with his temp service is not helpful), but Tommy is having trouble sleeping and feels he's mooching off Buck.  It doesn't help when he finds Buck's collection of pamphlets about vet support groups and PTSD and programs designed to help vets get jobs, all these little signs that Buck gives cares so much while Tommy is bringing nothing to this.

It builds and builds until it finally breaks one day and then he and Buck are screaming at each other over the frat couch about the pamphlets and Buck's extra shifts to make sure they have a cushion for rent and that this isn't any different than when Tommy would send him money every month or pass along leads for job because his army buddies knew a guy who was looking to hire a ranch hand so why is this different?

"I was trying to take care of you," Tommy shouts.

"And I'm trying to take care of you," Buck lobs right back.

Tommy throws up his hands.  "Why would you want to?"

"Because I love you, asshole!" Buck screams right into his face.

"Well, I love you!" Tommy screams back.

And then they stare silently at each other before hysterically laughing at the absurdity.  They end up collapsed together on the frat couch and Tommy says, "So I guess we're making this work."  And Buck is like yes obviously you idiot and takes Tommy's hand in his own.

(Three days later, while pretending to watch a movie, Tommy says, "So when you said you loved me did you mean like--" and he made a truly incomprehensible hand gesture meant to convey the distilled concept of no homo and also bros sitting five feet apart in a hot tub because they're not gay.

"Oh my god," Buck says and just clambers into his lap.  "Remember when I tried to do a kickflip and ate shit and bled all over you?  I've been in love with you since then."

"It was later for me," Tommy says.  "When I left and you said you were going to miss me.  No one ever missed me before."

"I missed you so much," Buck says.  "Can we please have sex now?"

Tommy laughs and kisses him and, well, it's very enlightening.

Later, after they cleaned up and eat something, Tommy says, "I miss flying.  I think I want to do that again, but to help people now instead of, you know."

"I have an idea."  Buck clambered over his lap to root through the side table drawer where all the pamphlets lived.  "Little help."

Tommy hauls him back, feeling a bit like the claw in a claw machine, and Buck emerges with a pamphlet clasped in a triumphant fist.

"So I've been thinking about joining the LAFD," Buck says shyly.  "There's an Air Ops division that does suppressant, high rise response, search and rescue.  They need pilots.  So, uh, what do you say?  Want to join the LAFD with me?"

Tommy takes the pamphlet and smooths it out.  There's a lot of smiling men and women on there and, yes, a helicopter or two.  He can fly and he can help people.  "Okay," he says.

Buck doesn't smile so much as beam.  "Okay?"

"Yeah," Tommy says, laughing.  "Let's do it."

A year later the 118's newest probie arrives wearing a bright smile and a wedding ring.