I think Tommy would hide it for awhile. It's not unusual for him to wear long sleeves and multiple layers. He isn't trying to deceive Buck, although the guilt eats at him because that's exactly what he's doing, it's just--he tells himself it doesn't matter anyway. What would Buck want with a soulmate like him anyhow. And he means to keep his distance, but it doesn't work out that way, though I keep I would hold off on their first kiss much later than in canon.

Maybe Buck figures it out before Tommy tells him. He didn't think much of it at first when he would catch Tommy looking at the scars on his legs because they're visible for anyone to see. He doesn't question the way Tommy's gaze lingers on his chest during a sparring session because it's not the first time he's caught Tommy's eyes lingering on him in an appreciate manner. It's the little scars that give it away. Buck can't see it anymore, but he had a scar when he was younger along the knuckles on his right hand from when he fell out of a tree when he was 9. He and Tommy are getting coffee and when Buck slides Tommy's coffee across the outdoor table, Tommy's eyes linger on Buck's hand. The first time Tommy kisses him, Tommy's lips connect with the right corner of Buck's mouth and even though it isn't noticeable now, when Buck was 11 he crashed his bike into a tree and bit a hole right through his lip.

For some reason, Buck doesn't tell Tommy right away that he knows. There's a lot of insecurities from both parties and so many things that go unsaid, but it gets to a point where they are all but admitting it to each other. When they're lying naked in bed and Tommy's tracing the path of Buck's Lichtenberg scars telling him how beautiful he is. When Buck lets his lips linger on the inside of Tommy's left thigh right over the healed scar from a fishing lure Tommy got one summer on the lake when he was 13.

The way Buck brings it up is by asking Tommy when he's going to let him see his scars, though they both know he already has. They both know he's really saying when are you going to let me in?

Maybe Tommy deflects, smiles at Buck and says you first, sweetheart.

I don't know exactly where this would go or how and when they finally stop being so scared of the enormity of being each other's soulmate, but also realizing that doesn't mean they wouldn't have chosen each other anyway, that they have been choosing each other every day pretty much since they met.

Before they can do that though, maybe they break up. Maybe it's a mutual decision, maybe they want to prove to themselves and each other it's real and not just because the universe or whatever says so. Maybe it's less mutual, one leaves but the other doesn't ask them to stay. When they inevitably run into each other months later after no contact and they hook-up...right after they've helped each other out of their shirts, they both notice a golden jagged line right over the other's heart.

Tommy traces the new line on Buck's chest. "Oh."

Buck does the same. "That's new."

They barely make it to Tommy's bedroom, pressing each other against every wall, barely letting each other breathe.

After, Buck's tracing the line on Tommy's chest again. "Does it hurt?"

Tommy kisses Buck's forehead. "Not anymore."

When they’d first broken up, Buck assumed that Tommy had told his coworkers all about it, the way he'd done. He’d cut off all of Tommy’s friends the way he’d gone cold turkey with Tommy, and he had a feeling they didn't see him in such a kind light after that. So, when he got a text a few weeks later, it had startled him into a racing heartbeat to see George’s name on his phone.

His stomach dropped when Geoge explained he’d just been making sure that Buck knew his address for the annual holiday party. Dropped further when Buck realized he had to be the one to inform him that he probably wasn’t going to make it given the current state of things. Turned out Tommy hadn’t told any of them why Buck suddenly stopped going to Harbor, why he’d gone so quiet out of the blue. It sucked. He was still a little miffed at Tommy for making him do that.

Regardless, it helped to have ties to Harbor still for moments like this: dropping ill-advised gifts at his ex’s house.

He gathers up his things and starts the drive. It usually takes about thirty minutes to get to Tommy’s house, but it's late, so traffic is light tonight. And he winds up pulling onto Tommy’s street not twenty minutes later.

He slows when he gets into the neighborhood.

He’s always loved the street Tommy lives on. In another life, maybe Tommy would have been the one to ask Buck to move in.

God knows he would’ve said yes in a heartbeat.

There are Christmas lights up on most of the houses on the lane. It’s quiet, and the glow from the bulbs lining rooftops makes everything a little hazy. It’s pretty, and it’s somber in the way that December can be. There are no lights on Tommy’s house.

He pulls into the driveway and parks, not bothering to turn the car off, this will just be a second. Making his way to the front door, he eyes the doormat, slightly askew. He reaches down to fix it and sets the gift right on top.

Wait, is that a weird spot for it?

Maybe he’ll see it and get suspicious. Buck's mind drifts back to mysterious packages placed by front doors and decides... yeah. The mail might be better, if it’ll fit.

He jogs down to the mailbox, tries stuffing it in and nearly rips the paper in the process.

Front porch it is.

At least if Tommy thinks it’s weird George will have Buck’s back, be able to tell him to open it. Buck stands there looking down at it for a moment. It feels wrong. The gift belongs at his apartment, under his tree. Tommy should unwrap it there, after they’ve had dinner and wine and before they go upstairs to fuck.

Leaving it there instead feels like giving up, like he’s throwing away the last tie that he has to Tommy, because even though he’s still got a few T-shirts at his place, Tommy hasn’t asked for those back and he won’t. Is this the last time he’s going to be at his place? His last drive down the lit-up street?

Buck takes a physical step back, needing to put distance between himself and the house.

Before he does something stupid, he jumps back into his car, buckles, and starts the drive home.

He zones out the whole way, thinking of all the ‘lasts’ that he didn’t realize were lasts. When he gets home he’s finally too exhausted from thinking to do anything but fall to his bed and close his eyes.

-

The morning fades in sharply. There’s knocking at his door and he’s peeved until he checks his phone to see it’s 10 AM. He doesn’t usually sleep that late, but late-night drives and covert gifting missions lend themselves to oversleeping. He tumbles out of bed and trudges down the stairs, tossing on a sweatshirt as he goes.

He’s covering a yawn when he whips the door open, and it takes him a moment to process the man in front of him.

“Tommy?”

“What is this?” Tommy asks. He’s holding out the box Buck left him, unwrapped and opened. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all.

“What do you mean?” Buck plays dumb. “I don’t know.”

“I know you left it at my house, Buck, I have a Ring doorbell.”

Fuck.

-

the end!

It kept happening.

Buck had no idea what ‘it’ was, but he kept hearing Tommy’s voice in his head. Whether it was Buck’s own imagination or Tommy’s actual thoughts, he had no clue, but it quickly became a highlight of his day. 

She’s gonna bitch at me for breaking up with Evan again. I swear Nonna loves him more than she loves me.

His hands had been deep in a sink filled with dishes and hot soapy water when he’d heard that. It made him smile. Nonna was a fierce, protective ninety-two-year-old who loved her strong, gay, firefighter pilot grandson more than anything, but she’d been sweet on Buck the moment he offered to help her knead the pasta when her arthritis started to bother her.

Put it down. Do not buy the laundry detergent Evan uses because you miss him. Your sheets do not have to smell like him.. Then, moments later: You’re pathetic. At least the cashier won’t notice it’s not your regular soap.

Considering Buck already had a box of the detergent Tommy used stuffed at the back of the cupboard in his own laundry, Buck really couldn’t judge him for that one. 

It did remind him to take the wet clothes out of the washing machine and put them into the dryer. 

I think Evan liked this outfit. Fuck, I shouldn’t pick my clothes because my ex liked me in them. He also liked me out of clothes, and that isn’t an option.

Naked was one of Buck’s favourite outfits for Tommy.

If that had led to Buck jerking off in the shower, then that was between him and his hand.

Evan would love this documentary; I should call him. Wait. What the fuck? Do not call him. Put the phone down, Kinard.

Buck wanted nothing more than for Tommy to call him, even if it was to just discuss a documentary. Of course, he’d be more than happy to discuss their relationship and apologise for the things he’d said that morning, but he’d take the documentary as a start.

Evan would help me study for the captain’s exam. Would Howie encourage Evan to take the lieutenant’s exam? I wish Bobby had pushed him to do it. He’d make an excellent lieutenant. Captain’s exam. Focus.

That one made Buck pause. 

Tommy was taking the captain’s exam? He’d suit the job so well. 

But no one had ever said anything about Buck potentially becoming a lieutenant. No one had ever said anything about him being a good lieutenant, much less an excellent one.

That thought had Buck itching for his phone, but how was he supposed to explain it to Tommy if it turned out that he was taking the exam? He could hear his thoughts when he was thinking of Buck? Fucking crazy.

And if he was making it all up in his head? One: how fucking arrogant of him to think that Tommy was still thinking about him. How fucking arrogant of him to think that Tommy would think he would be an excellent lieutenant. Two: they’d been broken up for three times as long as they’d been together. It would be too creepy to call him after all that time.

“Hey!”

Chim snapped Buck out of it by reaching over him to shoved the frying pan off the burner. 

The stir fry was burnt.

“I really hope you don’t get lost in your head like that when you’re babysitting my kids.”

Yeah, he that lieutenant’s exam was never happening.

-

Not all thoughts were just words.

Tommy could be a visual thinker when he wanted to, apparently.

Buck had settled down in bed with the book he was halfway through when the image of him, naked, glistening with sweat, on his hands and knees as he was ploughed from behind by Tommy’s amazing cock, burst into his brain.

Fuck yeah, Tommy was remembering a night Buck had also stored away into the spank bank.

Buck gave up on the book, swapping it out for the lube, and shuffled down on the bed. He stripped off his shirt, kicked off his sweatpants and got his hand nice and slick before he wrapped his fingers around his half-hard cock.

That night had been a fun one closer to the end of their relationship, after they’d learnt all there was to learn about the other’s body and how to make them shudder through intense orgasms. They’d spent the whole day together, starting with a hike and finishing with ice cream cones at the beach before heading back to Tommy’s house, where Tommy cooked for Buck while Buck pictured how perfect it would be to live just like that for the rest of their lives. 

And, as many of their nights ended, they fucked. 

It had started off sweet enough, gentle kisses and soft touches, until Tommy urged Buck onto all fours. He ate him out, which had made Buck come like a fucking firehose, and bullied his cock into Buck’s hole before Buck had stopped coming, which was the mental image Buck found himself jerking off to. 

They’d recorded themselves a couple of times, so it wasn’t the first time Buck watched himself getting fucked from behind, his red, slick hole stretched wide around Tommy’s thick, long cock, but it was the first time he’d seen it with Tommy’s embelishments. 

He could hear Tommy’s thoughts, how sweet and tight and perfect Buck was, how gorgeous he was. Those were things Tommy said when they were together; they weren’t anything new.

But he thought other things. He thought about how Buck was everything Tommy had ever wanted, and how he didn’t want to let him go. Those broke Buck’s heart.

Tommy’s recollection of that night reached the moment Tommy sat back on his heels and pulled Buck into his lap to grind up into him. It had been a move that stole Buck’s breath away – it had felt like Tommy’s cock was overwhelmingly massive with every shift of his hips, yet the position was overwhelmingly intimate because Tommy held him so close. 

In that moment, when Buck was alone in his bed, it only made him ache more.

I love you.

Buck’s hand stopped. 

That…had not been something they’d said to each other. 

I should have told you that then.

The image of them changed from what had started as a fun fuck into what Buck would call making love. 

God, he wished Tommy had said something back then.

-

If Buck truly was hearing Tommy’s thoughts, he thought about the break up as often as Buck did, and his emotions about it changed each time. 

It was the right decision to break up with him. He deserves better.

Then: Moving in with him would have been a bad idea. We couldn’t have fit in the loft together.

Then: Does that mean I needed to break up with him? Could we have stayed together and continued to live separately?

And: He would have found someone better. I doubt he’s still hung up on me the way I’m stuck on him.

And: I should have told him to move in with me instead.

And then back to: He deserves better.

Buck hated that one.

He especially hated how often Tommy thought it.

But also: I shouldn’t have bought that ring.

-

There were times where Buck was truly terrified of quiet days. 

In his line of work, a quiet day was the best day. He fucking loved it when they went a whole day without seeing death or suffering. Sure, he lived off the adrenaline that came from scaling a building for a dramatic rescue, but he’d willingly take a fender-bender over a multi-vehicle pile-up any day of the week. 

But it always felt like the worst calls came on the quietest day.

They ordinarily came as a surprise – one minute you’re talking to a kid about his job prospects on a pier, the next the ocean’s coming to kill thousands, or the one and only call you get for the day is the last call for your captain. 

The bad ones aren’t generally predicted.

Generally, though, Buck couldn’t hear the victim’s thoughts in his head as the emergency happened.

Fuck, I never got to say goodbye to him.

There was a fear in Tommy’s voice that Buck had never heard before. It made him drop his coffee mug onto the kitchen bench in the loft. He’d been so bored that he’d needed the extra caffeine hit, but that fear sent chills down his spine, waking him the fuck up in an instant. 

I should have told him I love him.

“Buck?” 

This better not be going down in his catchment.

Someone grabbed him by his shoulder. “Buck?”

Goodbye, Evan.

The thoughts came through slower then: sometimes, just his name, sometimes images of their happier memories. He caught a flash of himself asleep, and saw how already completely enthralled he looked when Tommy gave him the tour of Harbour. There was a glimpse of a ring in a velvet box, then himself playing with Jee, all from Tommy’s point of view. 

The klaxons pierced through and Buck moved by what must have been muscle memory, his body responding on instinct.

He’d never be able to explain how he wound up in the back of the engine for that call. 

“Dispatch says a helicopter crash. It is one of our own,” Chimney barked back at them and Buck felt feint. “That doesn’t mean that it’s Tommy, though, okay? We work this like any other – fuck.”

Buck saw Chim squirm to get his phone out of his turnouts. He assumed it was Maddie calling. 

“Is it Tommy?”

Of course it was. Buck could still hear and see his thoughts. There were promises of trying again if he made it between begging a deity Tommy didn’t believe in that Buck wouldn’t be the one to drag his corpse out of the twisted metal.

The thoughts were welcomed, despite how distracting and heartbreaking they were. As long as Tommy was thinking, he was still alive.

Buck heard Hen repeat Buck’s question: “Is it Tommy?”

“Yes.”

Chim’s confirmation had all eyes landing on Buck. 

“Buck…”

“You wouldn’t accept standing back if it was Maddie,” Buck said as firmly as he could. “Hen was on scene when Denny was pinned by that car. I am not going to stay behind when Tommy needs help.”

“Fuck,” Chimney hissed again, then conceded. 

They discussed how they were going to save Tommy – the team agreed that there were no other options; Tommy was coming home safely – and were at the scene in no time. 

The rest was a blur and a nightmare combined.

The helicopter was destroyed. Lucy was unconscious but the rescue they’d pulled from a mountain was okay. Turner was dead in the cockpit beside Tommy. 

Tommy was…

Tommy was still thinking about Buck and the ring and how relieved he was because he could say goodbye to him. Buck stopped him the moment he opened his mouth to say something that stupid because they were going to get him out of there. Everything was going to be fine. The first time Tommy told him he loved him was not going to be while he was pinned by whichever piece of the helicopter that had crumpled in on him.

“This would be a lot easier if you weren’t so big,” Ravi had grumbled at one point at an attempt to lighten the mood. It lightened the mood about as much as it lightened the metal. 

And then, miraculously (not really, it was because they were damn good at their jobs), they managed to free Tommy and get him onto a stretcher. 

He passed out in the ambulance. 

-

Buck woke to a hand in his hair and a twinge in his back from falling asleep hunched over the side of Tommy’s hospital bed.

He shot upright when he remembered where he was and found Tommy’s bruised and stitched face smiling at him. 

“Hey.”

The image of Tommy’s face blurred as Buck’s eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

Tommy’s right hand – the one that wasn’t in a cast – gently wiped away the tears when they fell down Buck’s cheeks. 

“You’re okay?” Buck managed to sniffle as he cried with relief. 

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

-

It occurred to Buck three days after the crash that he hadn’t heard Tommy’s thoughts since he’d lost consciousness on the way to the hospital.

He did find a Reddit thread and a Substack dedicated to people in the Los Angeles area who would swear that they could hear their exes’ thoughts. After speaking with their exes, the community quickly learnt that the exes had all come in contact with some of the space junk that crashed to Earth following the geothermal storm that nearly killed Hen and Athena. 

They also realised that they stopped hearing their exes’ thoughts when their exes stopped being their exes. 

Buck only mentioned it after Tommy proposed six months later, who confessed that he did end up with some of that space junk in his backyard. Despite knowing that Tommy wouldn’t believe him, Buck explained what he thought had happened, and Tommy reacted the same way he had with Billy: he was incredibly sceptical, but he still showed up for the craziness.