#tevan fic

The last time he'd seen that name flash across his screen he'd been - well, he'd been a ball of nerves for all of five seconds before a winded voice had asked him to commit some light treason and Tommy had hopped to.

"Evan. Hey."

He remembers Evan had always thought he was so cool, and he sort of wishes Evan could see him now, with sweaty palms and a nervous hitch to his step as he twists around the wire fencing that will lead him to the truck he'd dropped thirty-five bucks to park, in this stupid downtown lot for this stupid date that hadn't distracted him for a minute at the stupid restaurant that only served tapas and hipster whiskey.

His voice is a little tremulous, a little off. "Hi Tommy."

Tommy doesn't waste time. He's done enough of that, and Evan sounds - Jesus he sounds awful. Sad, deep in his bones. Tired. A little out of it. "Everything okay?"

"I did have feelings for you. When I said that. I - It was such a shitty thing to say and I realized I never apologized for it even though I meant to and...and I did. I do, still, really."

It's the kind of opening Tommy couldn't have dreamt up in a million years. It's solid proof that Evan has worked it over in his mind at least half as many times as Tommy, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, how he'd ruined it so quickly when everything he'd been a sad sack about pretending he didn't want had been right there, ready for the taking. When he'd done that devastating bambi-eyed, through the lashes glance up, even though they were the same fucking height, and Tommy had stuck his foot in his mouth so badly he'd knocked out a couple teeth.

"Okay. I -."

Whatever he'd have come up with in that moment escapes his brain a second later when Evan continues.

"Which is why what I wanted to ask you may be, like, super awkward."

Tommy's a little grateful to find his truck is only two spaces from where he is at the moment. Has to bite back the sharp deprecating laugh when he realizes this is another fucking favor, not a goddamn reconciliation. He left a date for this.

A bad one.

But still.

"Okay." Clipped is a good term for the way the word comes out of his mouth. He's already wincing before he's even finished saying it, because if he can tell Evan's hurting from his voice alone, surely Evan can tell from his own tone that he's...annoyed. In pain. Wishing he could rip the memory of Evan Buckley from the spot it's nestled beneath his ribcage, where he can't shake it loose.

Evan's quiet for a long, long moment. They'd been great at getting immediately horny any time there was even a hint of strife. Not so easy to do when they haven't been together now for longer than they ever were. "I was wondering if I could borrow your truck on Tuesday."

And that's - that's a fairly reasonable request, as far as the 118 standard goes. Still makes him want to cry, a little.

"Can I ask why?"

"It's... Uh...?" The pause lasts long enough that Tommy has to check and make sure Evan's still on the line. His next words are quieter, but he can hear the tremble in them. Has to bite down the urge to make himself a shield against whatever it is that has him so emotional. Not his job, anymore. If it ever even had been.

The farther removed he is from all of this, the more he wonders if he really had imagined the connection between them. How the intimate moments felt charged with more than a desire to rip each other's clothes off, how the silly moments had felt like the prologue of a long and happy story.

"It's fine, Evan. I'll, uh - have to check my schedule but I think I can make it work."

He's free Tuesday. He and his truck both are. But maybe... Maybe this has run its course. Maybe Tommy will have to make more of an effort, his next bad first date.

"Eddie's moving back," Evan says, and there's a weird twist to his voice, a quirk around the name Tommy doesn't recognize. He'd always said "Eddie" with the kind of reverence Tommy couldn't fully grasp, a superhero and a confidante all rolled up in the lazy smirk and cow-brown eyes of a man Tommy had no hope of beating out on the Important To Evan Buckley scale. But if Tommy had to put a description to it, Evan kind of spits the name, now. "And until I can figure out a place to stay I need to get a few things in storage quickly. I just thought - it was stupid. Obviously it's short notice, and you shouldn't feel obligated to -."

"My spare room is empty," Tommy says. Tommy lies, more accurately. It's currently storing all the renovation shit he's been accumulating since the breakup turned him into an insane person pretending he knows a damn thing about fixing up a house.

This pause seems to hold a little more weight to it.

"...okay?" And there's - there's something there, in his voice, sun warm and yellow, bacon cooling on a paper towel and eggs still not plated while Evan swallowed and asked the one question Tommy had been hoping he wouldn't ask.

"I just meant - why spend the money on a storage unit, right?"

"Tommy."

"Let me check my schedule. I can get back to you. If Tuesday works, we can just - we can figure it out from there."

"Tommy."

And that's his "you're spiralling" voice. Tommy hadn't heard it often. Too busy trying to be as cool as his shiny new boyfriend thought he was. Too busy choking down the urge to sink a knife into his ribcage and carve out his heart to hand it over.

"I'll let you know by tomorrow morning," Tommy promises, and before he lets his words get away from him he ends the call.

Jesus fuck.

Hell.

What the fuck?

---

Tommy's so frayed with nerves he spends the entire drive slowly wearing a groove into the side of his cheek. By the time he makes it to the quiet street and sees Evan's Jeep parked on the curb, gate open and already stuffed full of boxes Tetris-style, he feels like he might just fucking explode.

It makes the terse, perfunctory head nod from Eddie on his way up the paved path just that much more confusing. That much more frustrating. He's got a set of keys swinging from his fingers, and doesn't even glance behind him as Evan pops the door open with a hip and stacks a box on top of two others already sitting in the porch.

There's clearly more going on here than Tommy is privy to.

"You aren't helping?" It's an innocent question. He doesn't even mean anything by it. Across the yard, Evan goes tense. Halfway down the drive, Eddie goes still, and swivels his gaze to Tommy.

"No one asked me to." By the stoop, Evan tips his gaze down, suddenly incredibly interested in whatever the label on the box he just set down says. He seems small. Not the man who'd guided him backwards up the lawn with so much tongue Tommy hadn't realized where he was until they were already inside. Not the man who'd confidently held a funeral for a long dead cowboy and roped Tommy into it without a care in the world that Tommy didn't believe in ghosts.

"Well, if anyone else was subletting you'd probably have had to give them more than a weeks notice to pack up their shit and leave, so I figured you'd be helping," Tommy says, because whatever the hell is going on with Eddie's face right now has him ready to raise locked wrists to chin height.

Eddie's tongue rolls along the inside of his cheek. "Buck says he's got it."

Knife, meet tension.

Tommy's always been more of a blunt instrument.

"Right."

"Didn't realize 'got it' meant calling in a favor with his ex, but hey, I haven't been around, in a while."

"Do we have a problem, Diaz?"

Eddie levers himself into the driver's seat of a vehicle that very distinctly isn't his truck. "Lot of that going around, at the moment."

That stone-faced look from the funeral is back on Evan's face.

Tommy's fist are clenched. He doesn't have a clue when that happened, or why it takes quite so much effort to shake his fingers loose.

Eddie clocks it. Stares for a long, long moment. Slams the door closed and backs out of the drive a little quicker than advisable, if the glare from the neighbor watering her hydrangeas is anything to go by.

He doesn't quite peel off down the street, but it seems like it takes him some effort to drive like a responsible adult.

Evan doesn't meet his gaze when he lopes across the lawn to meet him at the door.

He's gotta break the silence somehow. "So. Diaz seems pissed at me."

"It's not you."

"Uhuh."

"It's - I said something he -." Evan frowns. Twists a finger up into the slack of the tape along the top of one box. "Same old story. Buck makes it all about himself."

Tommy's missing something.

Tommy absolutely doesn't have the right to pry.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tommy asks, and watches the marble crumble.

---

It takes a day and a half to get everything out of Eddie's. Another half a day to stuff whatever they can into Tommy's bare spare room.

He'd bought a shed and stuffed the contents of his reno-supplies into it indiscriminately two nights earlier, at the ass end of three 24's from hell, and throws up an ironic thanks that Evan hadn't come by nearly often enough to be surprised by the new shed, or the dozen half-finished projects littering the house.

Tommy learns a lot of things that make him want to scream, over the course of the four-day span they squeeze that moving timeframe into.

It takes everything in him not to shoulder-check Eddie on the way out, once the final box is loaded into the bed of Tommy's truck.

He'd given them some privacy, before they left. Hopeful that Eddie would back down from this escalating argument of theirs, hopeful that he'd remember that his best fucking friend had sacrificed a hell of a lot, to allow him to move to El Paso. That he'd lost more since.

Evan hadn't spoken, the entire drive back to Tommy's.

He asks Evan out to coffee a moment before he offers to let him sleep on the couch until he finds something more permanent.

He should be less surprised than he is when they end up naked and sweaty and panting in his bed an hour later.

"We have to stop doing this."

Evan bites a nipple, and Tommy hisses.

"I'm serious, Evan. I can't do casual with you."

That gives him Evan's full attention. "What does that mean?"

"It means when I sleep with you I'm definitely having feelings for you."

He regrets the comment. Evan blows a raspberry into his sternum, and rolls onto his side to take in Tommy's expression. It's gotta be - well, it's gotta be a fucking mess. Just an absolute shit show of terror at having revealed too much. "I deserved that one."

Tommy smooths a hand over his shoulder. "You didn't, actually." After what he's been hearing about his friends and family, lately, Tommy's suddenly very aware of the words coming out of his mouth. "What I was trying to dance around is telling you I want to try again, and I don't want to fuck it up by falling into bed without actually...talking about it."

Evan snorts. Hitches his leg a little higher across Tommy's thigh. Yeah. Too late for that.

"I baked, to stop thinking about you. I baked cookies, and brownies, and three kinds of bread, and a Baked Alaska, and twelve different banana bread recipes, and - and it didn't change the fact that all I wanted to do was talk to you. See your face when you pull that stupidly bitchy look every time I don't know one of your references. Hold your hand and - and just be somewhere with you. Didn't matter where, I just...wanted. And I couldn't have it. So I baked."

"You made a Baked Alaska?"

"Tommy," Evan chides, but there are tears springing to the corner of Tommy's eyes and -

God he'd fucked this up so royally.

"Move in with me," Tommy says, the hysteria bubbling up in his throat, and he swallows it down, and down, and down again, because as the words settle under his skin, he realizes they feel right. What Evan had wanted, all those months ago, he'd wanted it too. He'd just been so fucking sure it would destroy him, in the end.

He's so goddamn tired of denying that what he really wants is for the rest of his life to be storied by memories of the man at his side, right here in this moment.

It's terrible timing. The worst idea. They're both rung out emotionally, grief and anger and insecurities bubbling just under the surface, ready to rise and make their lives miserable the moment they leave this bubble.

They haven't talked about any of it, not really.

"I'm serious. Why be apart, and all that?"

"Tommy."

The way his name curls out of Evan Buckley's mouth is like a favorite song. He never gets tired of hearing it.

Even when it's exasperated and confused. "I'm in love with you," Tommy murmurs, because his streak of insanity clearly hasn't passed. Evan's breath hitches. The worst part is that it's true. In a way he doesn't know how to quantify. He'd do a hell of a lot more than steal government property, for this man. He'd stay, for this man, at the risk of destroying his entire soul.

"Don't ask me because you feel sorry I'm technically homeless." It's an out. Teed up and ready for Tommy to swing. Tommy goes for the bunt.

"Pretty sure that was more of a demand than a question. You can say no."

Evan peeks through his lashes, chin tipped against Tommy's chest. "What if you change your mind?"

Well. That's a sore subject. Should have expected that.

Tommy slips a hand down his side. Gathers up his hand to slide their fingers together. "I won't. Believe me, at this point I've tried."

There's a quirk to Evans smile he hasn't seen in a long time. He's missed it. God, he's missed it.

This doesn't fix anything. Not a damn thing.

But Tommy doesn't want him to spend a single night going forward wondering whether or not he's worth all the trouble the rest of his family seems to have made him feel he is.

They'd been there, before. Right on the edge of something serious. Something permanent.

They can get it back.

"You're being serious," Evan comments, like he needs the confirmation just to make sure he's not hallucinating. Tommy hooks one of his legs, rolls until Evan is half under him.

"Baked Alaska serious," he intones, just to see Evan laugh.

hen: ohhhhh we have to talk about it, it's been long enough, we almost died in a helicopter, in a hurricane, we have to talk about her tommy stares at them, then at buck and eddie, as he melts into a giant lake of sweat. "i don't… know what you mean…" buck and eddie, rolling up to the el chisme buffet: oh gosh what is this about, someone should tell us everything right away chimney: it was like the second thing i ever learned about you!!! and you didn't even tell me!!!! i had to hear it from this lady who shows up while i'm man behind. she comes looking for tommy, he left his phone at my place and he's been calling it all day, is he around? tommy, to buck and eddie: i need one of you go to drive to harbor, find a chopper, turn it on, and let me walk into the blades. fly it here. now. it's not that hard. turn the key and pull up. buck: can i????????????? eddie and hen and tommy: NO chimney: and i'm like, ooooohhhhhh yes ma'am, i'll GLADLY pass this on to TOMMY KINARD, who should i say it's from????? and then her diamond ring sparkles right in my eye— hen, a memory suddenly dawning on her: uhhhh wait chim before the grand finale what if we get some more cheese fries, go up and order some and then come back and we'll do the big reveal tommy: of my corpse, because i'm killing myself. i'll get the cheese fries, you guys get a body bag chimney: everyone shut up!!!!!!!!!!!!! she says, i'm abby clark, tommy's fiancee. and then she disappeared into the mist and tommy refused to speak about it ever…….. until now tommy: there's no until now, there's— buck: ….abby? my ex-girlfriend, abby? hen: no………………. uh…………… another abby………… it's a big los angeles metro area out there, there's tons of 911 dispatchers named abby clark out there…........... tommy stares at buck, then asks: himbo?

2) hahahaha so funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tommy buries his face in his hands, EVERYONE goes up to order every appetizer on the menu, but buck stays behind so he can watch tommy have a nervous breakdown for several minutes. finally tommy sits up and stares at buck. "so." buck pulls out his phone and slides it across the table. the folder is just labeled ABBY (2018) and, yep. that's a whole relationship with his ex-fiancee happening on some other guy's phone. "shit, you bulked up," is all tommy can say. "anyway, yeah. that's… my ex. and your ex." "why'd you break it off?" buck asks. "i'm gay." "oh. did she know that?" "if she does, i didn't tell her. why'd she break up with you? i mean, assuming—" "uh, her mom died and she went to travel the world, then kinda ghosted me." "oh. wow." "yeah." then they sit in silence for a while, peeling the labels off their beer bottles, until everyone comes back with many hot foods. "… did things somehow get weirder while we were away?" chimney asks. "you were supposed to talk about this, figure it out!" eddie: you guys, this can't be the first time either of you- tommy: i'm gay and i broke up with her because i never loved her. um. thanks for the fries and the drinks. nice meeting you or catching up with you. i gotta go. bye he flees for his life, and buck watches him go. chimney and hen watch, too, then catch buck and eddie on The Life and Times of Tommy Kinard (as far as they know, which is clearly not at all)

3) tommy opens his door: it's eddie? "so before everyone blew up your spot over the whole………. got engaged to someone and never really loved them, which, well, i don't know, people just do things sometimes for good reasons or not-so-good reasons, or good reasons with good people at the wrong time, or good people you thought you were just starting to—" "are you eddie? sorry, i blacked out and died after i ran out, so. didn't quite catch your name." "yeah i'm eddie. you wanna hang out? chim said you're into muay thai and i just started taking classes at a gym near my place." "……….. yeah ok." because they're really manfully beating the shit out of each other, they manage to…………. share? their thoughts? honestly? also eddie's kid is cool and they all like watching sports, so. is this……….. a friend?

3b) this evan or buck guy, though. the one who like. actually- yeah. maybe. maybe he is. to be. avoided. like just until tommy gets a handle on the humiliation he's managed to bury for 5+ years, then maybe he can say more than hey what's up to the dewy-eyed himbo whose dick abby rebounded with before her mom died and she escaped from LA. it's fine. he's not avoiding the guy. he's just making sure to never be in the same room as him for more than six seconds. nothing weird about that. tommy's busy! he's got a busy life! places to be! hobbies to hobby!

4) unfortunately, eddie is only kind of tommy's new friend; he's evan's best friend. tommy figures that's how evan got his address and why he's standing in his driveway while tommy's tinkering in the garage. why did he leave the door open? this is what he gets for trying to embrace a "welcoming" aura in the neighborhood- some asshole shows up and expects to be welcomed. "hey, tommy. why are you being so fucking weird about having the same ex?" "hey, evan," tommy calls from under a car. "well, i'm being fucking weird about it because i'm gay and for about five minutes i thought maybe i wasn't that gay, like i could marry a woman and also be gay, it's not like i needed to act gay or do gay things, i could just—whatever, man. why are you here?" "because i want to be your friend and you don't like me? and you don't like me for reasons that have nothing to do with me? maybe i want to hang out with eddie and chris and you, because they think you're really cool. maybe it's stupid that you made up your mind to not like me over a woman who hasn't been in the same country as you for five years. do you save all the common sense for the helicopter?"

tommy sighs deeply and slides out from under the car. "that wasn't very nice of you, new friend." evan looks down at him, upside down and really annoyed. "wasn't very nice of you to avoid me." "… do you want a beer or something?" "i would. thank you. and then tell me about this car." "do you know anything about cars?" "guess you gotta find out."

5) eddie and tommy get along sooooooooo well. they're like, weirdly similar, buck thinks, like the gay side and straight side of the same bitchy coin. and it's sooooooo not fair that it's so EASY for eddie and tommy to get along and so not for him and tommy. no ok, like, buck and tommy DO get along. their conversation is so easy and buck loves leaning in close to listen to whatever tommy says, and the 118 invites tommy out to drag him back in with their tendrils, but tommy hangs out with eddie, too, and he starts inviting buck places, just the two of them. they do outdoorsy stuff that eddie has no interest in, tommy invites him out to movies because buck has never seen any but he wants to see them with tommy, they go to new restaurants all the time, sometimes they just hang out at the loft or at tommy's place (aggressively comparing tommy's porch to bulk's balcony). he and tommy don't have a list of things in common like he and eddie do, but they spend so much time together and talk and text all the time and buck just likes being near him and with him and prying him open like-

6) "hey hen, i took five quizzes about whether i'm bisexual and it says i am, but like, how can i know? like really know?" "good question. is there a 6'2" firefighter-pilot whose mouth can help you answer that?" "…………………………. what if he hates me, though. like we're friends now. what if he still hates me because of abby. …………. not that this is about tommy. it's about me. and not tommy. it could be about anyone." "talk to him. kiss him if it goes well. talk to him some more if it doesn't. try kissing him again. you two have been coming to our group hangouts and treating them like dates for more than a month now, so both of you might need to knock your heads together a few times to figure it out." "oh. okay. thanks hen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also i'm bisexual you can tell everyone if you want!!!!!!!!!!! is there a special place to get one of those flag pins and bumper stickers or can i get them anywhere?" "please ask tommy. that's a good question for tommy." "ok now you're making fun of me >:( " "absolutely. have fun!!!!"

7) buck comes to tommy's house and they stand across the kitchen from each other, and buck tries to piece together everything: the abby thing, the friendship thing, the chemistry thing, the wanting-to-kiss-his-mouth-and-dig-his-fingers-into-his-hair-so-fucking-badly thing. and buck opens his mouth and……… nothing comes out. until finally:

"i think……… i have a crush on you? i think……… i really like you? and i can't remember the last time i…….. liked someone this much? i feel all bubbly and excited to see you, and i don't care what we do as long as we do it together. lately i think the only thing that could make it amazing, so much more amazing, is if we were kissing, too. oh my god, see what i mean, like, who says that when they're normal about someone, who calls it kissing, what i mean-" buck pauses. "yeah that's exactly what i mean. sorry." "what are you sorry for?" tommy asks, having addressed none of his concerns. "………. that it's me," buck says. "that i'm….. your friend, but…. but i was abby's himbo first. and you were abby's fiance first. and maybe we've been…. maybe we're friends now but maybe we'll always be abby's exes first. maybe we can't be anything else." "but you just said we were friends," tommy replies. "so clearly we can be something else." "tommy," buck whines. "can you- about the other stuff, could you just- just tell me whether it's possible. please." "i think… the first thing you knew about me was the worst thing about me, and you still stomped over and demanded to be my friend. so i think…… if you saw that- if you saw me- and you still stuck around, and you're- you're here and you want to, uh, stick even more-?" "i wanna stick around so bad," buck says, suddenly all the way across the kitchen, right in tommy's face, so close they can feel each other breathing. but buck holds back, stares at his lips, whispers, "tommy, please."

Tagging folks who expressed some variation of "I can't wait to read this" on more than one occasion:

2] zia deluca says he can't join her circle. ("you're two feet taller than everybody, tommy. ruthanne will think you came to eat her.") but that was a step further than he was willing to go anyway. she teaches him. knit one, purl two. he makes scarves, hats, gloves, branching out of the manly colors when he meets abby. and yes, he does make her a sweater. the gift is part of his proposal. (she takes it with her to ireland.)

3] during his first moment of downtime at harbor, when he's allowed to put the manuals away and see what everyone else is doing, his new teammates are seated around the table. one is flipping through a graphic novel, several are playing blackjack, and one, a woman named alba, is knitting. tommy takes the seat across from her. "lattice cable stitch," he says, nodding, forcing himself not to fidget. "you picked a great yarn for it." she beams at him, and they talk until the alarm sounds.

4] tommy meets artie at a drag brunch. tommy is there for his second date with a hotel manager he only gets three more dates out of before they look at each other and say, "you know what, this was fun." artie is maudlin on bottomless mimosa, pulling his whole group down with stories about his dead husband. at one point, he reaches to the table next to him and grabs tommy's sleeve. "look at me, whippersnapper," he says. "you might think you can avoid the sweater curse by never making him a sweater, but it doesn't work." he bursts into tears.

remembering a baggy cream sweater with a green stripe across the chest that set off her red hair, tommy covers artie's hand with his own and says, "what kind of sweater would you have made for him?"

5] tommy never actually told evan about the knitting. not because he was ashamed; the whole point of doing this was to be unselfconscious about it. more it simply... never came up? besides the fact that he'd focused more on the muay thai and amateur mechanics to connect with diaz, tommy and evan's dating period was a whirlwind. sex, movies, literal pirates, a drug cartel, a runaway groom, and all in addition to their standard hair-raising rescues and bouts of smoke inhalation. then, after that, he was fairly convinced, with multiple incidents to serve as evidence, that evan didn't want to know anything more about tommy, and probably would prefer to forget everything he already knew. that's life, though, isn't it? eventually he returns to artie and his group of catty little spitfires, ready to tackle a fair isle sweater for himself, and no one else.

evan is on the far end of artie's couch.

evan is holding knitting needles wrong and blushing on the far end of artie's couch.

tommy swallows. "you turn up in the most curious places." he wants to correct the placement of his fingers.

evan gestures at the seniors, who are all smirking at each other. "um. they bought me."

The figure inside jolts awake. There's some fumbling and Buck takes a weary step back, but then the window rolls down and it's--

"Tommy?"

Tommy blinks up at him a little groggy, a little wide-eyed in that way that always reminded Buck of some sort of large, surprised bird. "I missed your auction," he says, voice a little hoarse.

"What are you doing here?"

"I--" Tommy looks around, straightens in his seat. "What time is it?"

Buck watches him check his watch. "A weird time for you to be sitting in my driveway," he says slowly. "What, uh. What brings you here?" He hesitates, can't help but add, "Is everything OK?"

"It's, yeah. Hold on." Tommy frowns, rolls the window back up and for a second Buck finds himself convinced Tommy is just going to drive off. He doesn't, it wouldn't make sense, but it's been a weird day. Instead, Tommy opens the door slowly, careful not to bump into Buck. He unfolds himself from the car and Buck has half a mind to tease him for the old man sounds he makes as he does so.

"Sorry," Tommy says, now standing at an awkward distance. It's a little too close because Buck didn't actually move back when the door opened, but it's not close enough to feel natural between them, either. Tommy leans against the car a little, trying to find some distance, probably. Should Buck step back? He doesn't want to make Tommy feel boxed in, but stepping back feels... offensive, somehow?

"Whose car is that?" Buck asks, hoping to distract them both from their weird not-quite-proximity.

"It could be mine," Tommy says drily.

"It's not, though."

Tommy grins. "Sharp as always, Buckley. It's Lucy's. She drove me."

Buck leans a little to look around him into the otherwise very empty vehicle. "And then... disappeared?"

"She got tired of waiting." The awkwardness is back in the lines of Tommy's body, in the way he shifts his hand on the car door and fiddles with the keys. "A friend picked her up. Apparently he lives close by." He says it with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows, an invitation for gossip that Buck has gotten to know well. Has seen a lot of in his new knitting circle. He doesn't take the bait.

"And you were waiting for...?"

Tommy exhales. "I heard you broke another record."

Buck hums in agreement. His skin itches with the desire to push, to ask more, but it's been a long night, and he's not really sure what to say.

"I'm sorry I missed it. Supposedly your backflip is a sight to behold."

"I believe they call it the Buckflip, actually," Buck says, aware he's got a bitchy little eyebrow thing going and unable to do anything about it but grin when Tommy's eyebrows raise in turn.

"A named move, huh? Must really be impressive."

Buck ducks his head, laughs, gives a little shake. "Not really. I'm old and okay with it. The Buckflip can stay in the past where it belongs." When he looks back up, Tommy's expression has softened. There's just the tiniest little dip between his eyebrows.

"Sounds... introspective?" Tommy guesses, voice a little gentler.

"Yeah," Buck sighs, straightens. "Been a lot of that going on, actually. I almost had a threesome."

The surprises bird face is back. "Oh."

"Yeah," Buck barrels forward, "And I just got back from a five way date, so," he takes a step towards his front door, suddenly unable to take the awkward what-are-we distance any longer, "I'm pretty exhausted."

"Oh," Tommy says again. "Right." He clears his throat. "I should--"

"They, uh, they taught me how to knit," Buck cuts him off. "My dates," he clarifies.

"...oh?" It's kind of impressive how Tommy managed to make every single one of those ohs convey an entirely different emotion. How the confusion is plain to read in his tone and his face, like the curveballs Buck has thrown at him have cracked him open. It's familiar. It makes Buck feel stupidly fond.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm getting pretty decent at it, I think." He jingles his house keys as casually as he can manage. "I could teach you, if you want to come in?"

He turns, feeling a little winded, to walk up the path to his front door.