#mage!buck

After all that he moves out of the too-confining loft now that he's had a rude awakening about his relationship to the 118 as his only family/community. He rents a casita (cat Buck doesn't need a lot of inside space anyway) near some orchards and park land - in a Were neighborhood - the others at the 118 tell him in heavily skeptical judgment and he's like… yeah that's the point? You still lowkey treat me like a freak even though I mask to hell and back here at work… so I'm gonna go find people who don't see me as a freak to hang out with when I'm not working so I can stay sane. Because while Buck isn't technically a registered Were, as part of his magic disability status and evaluations done for the lawsuit and the precedents he was standing on for his equal employment rights, he'd been suddenly realizing there's a whole community among the Weres and other non-standard mage forms and people with disabilities that 1) he's been deliberately kept from by his shitty parents and 2) is where someone like him could maybe really belong. So he moves! His neighbors are a little reserved because he's not One Of Them exactly (he is he just doesn't know how to communicate that or believe it yet) but they're nice enough and he has faith he'll gain their trust eventually. Meanwhile he gets to explore the neighborhood as a cat and just… be himself there all the time. There's so much loose magic lingering around in this neighborhood! He soaks in it like a cat in a sunbeam, every magic puddle feels sooo good. Maybe even helps him heal from work injuries faster and helps prevents the chronic scarred-magic pain he gets. It really helps with his stress levels a ton and he's back to doing pretty well on the whole.

Tommy's not his immediate neighbor but he is in the neighborhood and he seems like an important member of the community so Buck gets curious and lurks around his yard. Tommy's always having people from the neighborhood over to his place helping them with stuff like fixing their cars and furniture and whatever in his garage and he's there a lot when Buck's around (similar shift schedules), and also he does his workouts in his yard like, half wolfed-out a lot, so there's just lots of magic puddles congregated at his place. Buck ends up spending a lot of time there just soaking it up watching this fascinating guy do so much for his little community (that Buck longs to be a part of but doesn't feel like he belongs yet, he still feels like an intruder - he's just I think a bit more shy and skittish as a person overall in this 'verse).

One day he stays until late evening and discovers Tommy is also very much in a "embracing his gay werewolfness" phase when it comes to his sex life. He doesn't mean to do it the first time he ends up watching Tommy get fucked bent over his workbench. He was just napping in the rafters and now it would be weirder to hop down and startle them so he just stays where he is. He tries not to watch at first but the magic rippling off them when they get a little feral and wolfed-out with it feels so good and he's a horny and lonely and curious guy and he doesn't mean anything bad by it! He goes home and tries to be chill and inevitably is too worked up and jerks off about it. This isn't quite clicking that he's bisexual yet consciously, it's all tangled up in how his magic feels and transformation stuff too. He goes on a deep dive into queer Were culture - turns out there's a lot of queers in Were culture who were like - you've made it doubly impossible for us to be assimilate to your "normal" culture, fuck you we're making noise and being different and you can't stop us demanding rights if we band together with all the freaks. There's unfortunately also weird homophobic Were-scare shit too like - guy wants to fuck you from behind? It's so he can bite you by surprise! (Somehow this only applies to dudes of course lmao) Girl wants to eat your pussy? It's so she can bite you by surprise! - But anyway Buck is fascinated by this all and still curious and he goes back another evening and Tommy's got another casual sex guest over and this happens again and again and there's really no justifying Buck watching as much as he does (although holy shit does the magic coming off sex in particular taste good to Buck's bones) but it does eventually click for him. He's gone down all the queer and Were identity rabbitholes on wikipedia, he's got the context to put a name for his feelings and he figures it out.

One day Tommy gets hurt at work, nothing too terrible but he's got an injury to heal for a while and so he's just gonna be doing a lot of lounging in the back yard alone sulking. He's always mostly ignored Buck in favor of the people he's got over (and Buck has been skittish and lurking not trying to get attention anyway so he's respected that) he just sometimes says hi to him or talks to him when nobody's around. This time when Buck comes around, though, he calls him closer and pats the sunbeam beside him on his lounger. Asks him to keep him company while he's feeling sorry for himself. Buck's crush is massive at this point and he cannot resist being invited to curl up next to Tommy and then eventually right on Tommy's chest as he pets him. "You're a little magic, aren't you, sweetheart," he murmurs as he scratches behind his ears and Buck's purring like a V8. It's funny because he genuinely is very inherently magical and his own aura is a little healing to Tommy's injuries like this, though neither of them quite realize that.

Now that this bubble's been breached Buck comes a lot closer to Tommy a lot, lets him pet him and have these lazy moments curled up together even once he's healed and back to working on cars and such. Tommy mostly calls him Sweetheart and sometimes other pet names. He'll sit on the old towel Tommy put there for him on his workbench while he works and Tommy talks to him and tells him all about his life and the community happenings and just whatever comes to mind. One day Tommy says hesitantly, "Sweetheart, are you ever going to come introduce yourself in person? Or have you been waiting for me to sniff out where you live in the neighborhood and come say hi as a wolf?" (Yeah he's known the entire time that was not a natural cat lmao those bright blue eyes that probably should've shifted to brown/green by adulthood for a very american shorthair kind of cat. The very human alertness to conversations happening. Plus the whole… magic aura vibe. And… the fact that there's this guy who moved into the casita on the Fallbrook family's land that nobody really seems to know except in passing and that's the only person in the neighborhood Tommy doesn't know personally lol)

Buck freaks out a little and runs home, because holy shit Tommy knows he's been creeping on him for months and months oh my god he's going to have to move if he doesn't die of embarrassment outright! But eventually he calms down and decides that at the very least he owes Tommy an apology and the chance to know who he is and tell him to his face if he wants him to leave him alone forever. So he gets dressed nice and grabs a jar of lemon curd he's made from all the lemon trees that his landlords encourage him to use on their property and gets all his bravery together and goes over to Tommy's place as a human being - walking down through the neighborhood in his human body is freaking WEIRD and people keep LOOKING at him oh god (he just looks nice and they're curious about their reclusive neighbor lol). And he finally shows up at Tommy's place all nervous and flushed but determined, and he knocks on the door and Tommy opens it and - fuck it's so weird to see Tommy look at him as a human and without recognizing him. His words aren't wording so he just sticks out the jar of lemon curd, which Tommy takes in confusion, but then before Buck can figure out how to make words happen, Tommy's looking back up at him like he does know him. He's drinking in the features of his face with such hungry eyes as he says, "Hey sweetheart." and Buck manages a, "Hey, Tommy. You said I should introduce myself, so uh. Hi. I'm Evan."

Anyway Tommy invites him in and makes him coffee and flatly refuses the necessity of any apologies Buck tries to offer. He only barely has to gently prod him into talking because dear god Evan has so much pent up to say to him, but Tommy's absolutely hanging on his every word and - sure, it's a little strange seeing such familiar mannerisms on a human face and body but he knows him, knows his scent, his magic, and it's so easy to just fall right back into what they've always done being comfortably intimate in each other's spaces. And he's beautiful. Tommy was not quite sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. Buck eventually realizes he's been talking for hours and freaks out a little and decides he needs to scamper off again but before he goes Tommy's like "Hey, just to be clear, you're still welcome here, anytime and in any form, okay? Don't be a stranger." And Buck's like… "Okay" but he goes home and he's really not sure he believes it.

He stays away a couple of days still kind of freaked out about it all and he has work and stuff, but finally he goes back in his cat form and Tommy's so relieved to see him and scoops him up to hug him and it's so much easier in this form for Evan to nuzzle him and burrow into his chest and cling to him and knead him. And Tommy tells him all about how happy he was to meet him and how he hopes he'll start feeling more comfortable in the community now that he knows he's got Tommy on his side - and also how good that lemon curd was and would he bring some more some time? It makes him feel brave enough to a few days later bring more lemon curd, and a marmalade too that he's made, and he stays and talks for hours again while Tommy works in the garage and it's so comfortable and good. From then on out, he comes by a lot and in whatever form he feels like - Buck's finally found a place he feels like he belongs in either form. Slowly he gets introduced to the rest of the community this way, and it's great. Tommy doesn't seem to mind that he's got a massive obvious slightly creepy voyeuristic crush on him (Tommy has been so distracted by his own crush it hasn't occurred to him that Evan might feel the same way).

The whole neighborhood absolutely has a betting pool on when they're getting together.

Buck's desperately jealous of Tommy's hookups and is pretty much always there watching in cat form - and he knows it's fucking weird and fucked up probably but he's also learning to let go of trying to fit in to norms and conventions when he's not hurting anyone and Tommy doesn't seem to mind - and Buck is the one who gets the late night cuddles out by the firepit after the strange werewolves leave so who's the real winner hm? Except one time Tommy has another hookup over and they're getting it on nice and rough and werewolfy in the garage on a pad he keeps out there basically for this purpose so no furniture gets broken and they can fuck halfway outside with the open garage door to let the night in without being entirely out where people could theoretically see them - and he looks over and finally consciously fucking notices that Evan's been sitting on his spot on the workbench the whole time watching him. He realizes that it's not the first time he's seen Evan around like this while he's been fucking, all the way back way before he'd come by as a human - he'd just never consciously put it together before. He doesn't stop now - they're way too deep in feral werewolf fucking - but he is so aware of Evan right there, and he looks over when he's close and he comes with Evan's eyes locked on his.

He politely parts ways with his hookup and then comes back to the garage still naked and wolfed-out and a little crazy with it as he stares at Evan, who stares back at him a little frozen because this is definitely different than the way Tommy had always just ignored his voyeurism before. And Tommy slurs his words around his teeth a little as he's all "Do you just like watching - or have you been waiting for another invitation? Because if you want one you've fucking got it. You've always had it. You will always have it." And Evan hops down off the bench and for the first time transforms in front of Tommy - he's naked too, always is when transforming, and the transformation isn't pretty, but he finally believes in his bones that Tommy doesn't care that he's a freak or that he's a pervert and that he just really truly wants him to stay and he crashes into his open arms in the moonlight. And they make out and then fuck on the floor with all that pent up mutual desire and their raw authentic selves and it's fantastic and in the afterglow they're just lying there like - so yeah anyway I've been absolutely crazy about you since about five minutes after I met you… wanna keep being crazy about each other for like forever? Yeah? Great.