#mostly lmao

🩴: (post-BT break-up, Karen and Tommy developing friendship)

Karen was already regretting this, and she hadn't even spoken yet. She grabbed her wine glass and cleared her throat. "I'm not saying you're wrong, Buck," she said, looking at him across the table. He wore the same hangdog look he'd been wearing--since the break-up, really, his hands in his lap and his shoulders slumped and the lines on his face wearing in. "I just..." She shrugged and lifted her glass, readying a sip as soon as she'd said her peace. "I get it."

"You... you get it?" Buck asked. He sounded confused, maybe a little hurt, and he shifted his big body in the chair. "What do you mean?"

"I'd kind of like to know that, too," Chimney said, though unlike Buck he kept his voice carefully neutral.

They'd talked about it a lot, and there were things Tommy had told her in confidence that she would never tell. This, though, his side of the story? She had no compunctions being honest about how she felt. "I just mean." She paused and then sighed. "If I had been in his place, I'm not sure I would have made a very different decision."

"Wait." Hen turned in her seat, leaning back to take a long, dismayed look at her wife. She tilted her head, and Karen wasn't sure exactly what emotion was registering there, but it had to be something close to disbelief. She shook her head, things clicking into place. "Tommy is your new pottery friend."

"Yep." Karen nodded. "Tommy is the new pottery friend."

~

🎶: (toxic Buddie hook-up, Buck still pining Tommy, inspo: SZA's "F2F")

“Eddie,” he says, and his voice is pitched into a whine.  “I’m fine.  Okay?  I’m great.”

“You’re not fine, Buck.  You’re anything but fine.”  Buck’s hands, settled at his waist, grab fistfuls of his shirt.  “Hey.”  He shrugs his shoulder.  “Hey.”  Buck finally looks up at him, his face wet and his eyes red-rimmed.  Eddie feels a knot high in his chest.  “No one expects you to be fine, okay?  You’re hurting.  You lost something–someone you cared about.  You’re allowed to grieve.”

"I don't want to... to grieve," Buck says, and Eddie feels like sirens are going off inside him. Buck sniffs. He tilts his head down and lifts to shoulder to wipe his snotty nose on the sleeve of his shirt. Eddie knows he'll regret that later. "I want to forget. Fuck. Eddie." He grits his teeth and looks up until their eyes meet. "I want to forget."

~

🔥: When Buck had first gotten together with Tommy - when he’d first seen him, with his no-nonsense haircut and his Carhartt jacket and years-old work boots, he had… made some assumptions. And sure, yeah, he knew that wasn’t fair, but he also really didn’t expect to be wrong.

He’d taken one look at Tommy and - after figuring out that his admiration was as much about wanting to sleep with him as it was befriending him - he’d drawn from a wealth of experiences from all over the country (the world even) and had concluded that Tommy was probably strong, solid, and really boring in bed.

Or not boring, that wasn’t fair. And he didn’t know Tommy’s experiences with his other partners obviously, but he’d met a lot of guys with that specific look before. He’d slept with a lot of their dissatisfied ex-girlfriends before. He figured that Tommy, as considerate as he was, knew how to take care of a partner, had all the basics down, but wouldn’t venture into any new territory. So Buck figured he’d let Tommy take the lead and guide him through his first gay sex experience, let Tommy feel good and strong and competent (which he was, and Jesus Christ was that hot) - and then Buck could put his many years and many partners worth of experience to good use and take the reins. He would lead them into uncharted territory as things got a little more adventurous.

Turns out, his assumptions were very, very wrong.

Because that was not what happened. Tommy was a considerate partner, yes, and he was also responsive, an active listener, curious, flexible, and willing and eager to try things out. He was way more experienced with a lot of things that Buck hadn’t expected, too, because oh wait—

Tommy was also an absolute freak.

~

🎀: (established BuddieTommy, focus on T/E, Eddie princess treatment, exploring lingerie)

The next gift Tommy doesn’t warn him about.  He and Buck are both at Eddie’s, about to leave for their own afternoon date.  Buck and Eddie are talking in the living room, when Tommy excuses himself to go out to his truck.  Eddie doesn’t think anything of it, and neither does Buck apparently–or at least he doesn’t give anything away.  Tommy comes back in without drawing any attention to himself, and goes to the back of the house.

Buck’s wrapped up in whatever he’s talking about–and Eddie’s trying to pay attention, he really is–when Tommy clears his throat.

“Time to go,” he says, cocking his head towards the door.  “You can finish talking about spinner sharks later, Evan.”

“Oh!  Yeah, sorry, Eddie, we have to go.”  He starts to dart off and then, almost stumbling over himself, comes back to press a big, messy kiss to the corner of Eddie’s mouth.  “Bye!  See you!”  And then he’s off.

Tommy chuckles warmly, hands in his pockets as he makes his way over to Eddie with a slow, quiet stride.  “He’s adorable, huh?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, giving Tommy a shrug and a quick grin.  “No idea what the hell he was talking about, though.

“Spinner sharks.”  Tommy tells him, indulgent and fond.  “They corkscrew out of the water through a school of fish when they feed.”  He laughs at the expression on Eddie’s face and then leans in close.  “Don’t worry about it, baby.”  He grabs Eddie’s chin and presses his mouth in a firm, spine-tingling kiss against Eddie’s cheek.  “We’ll see you later,” he says, breath a warm gust against Eddie’s skin.  “Be good while we’re gone, okay? And.”  Tommy straightens up and his eyes go dark.  There’s an expression on his face that Eddie can’t quite read.  “Have fun.”

“Uh yeah,” he says, nodding as Tommy shoots him dual finger guns and then wanders out after Buck.  “I will.  Bye!”

He listens as the truck starts up.  Before they pull out of his driveway, though, his phone vibrates in his pocket.  He pulls it out and to his surprise he sees a message from Tommy.  

T:Go check out what’s in the bedroom.  I left you something special, Princess.

~