we have hope or we have nothing

2 - the picture frame

"I can't believe you nearly made us late for Bachelor Monday!" Harry hissed at May as they pulled into Buck's driveway.

"Not my fault," she sing-songed back at him. "Maybe if you were better at giving directions, we wouldn't have missed that turn."

"Not my fault you need directions when we come here every other week," Harry tossed back.

They bickered good-naturedly all the way up to the door, which opened as May raised her hand to knock.

"About time," Buck said sternly, then grinned as they both opened their mouths to argue. "I'm joking, I'm joking, let's go!"

It was a good episode, one that had all three of them shouting at the screen at various points. It was only afterwards, looking around as Harry ran to the bathroom before they left, that she noticed the photo in the hall.

It was a large one, framed, that hung in the middle of Buck's living room wall. The whole 118, back when Bobby was around, sitting at the firehouse; she and Harry were in the photo, younger and more carefree than they were now, but she couldn't remember for the life of her what the occasion was. Maybe there wasn't one; maybe they had just been together. She'd seen this photo many times, usually just pausing to look at it and say a quick 'hi' to Bobby—doing this to the picture of him Buck had in the kitchen felt too personal, too much like intruding—but this time, she stopped.

The glass was gone.

The frame itself was fine, but there were a few tiny scratches on the photo print, nothing too noticeable. She really only saw them because she was looking closely. And of course that moment, when she had her nose nearly touching the paper, was when Buck walked by, hands full of empty snack containers.

"Of course you'd notice that," he laughed. He was teasing, like he always did, but he looked a little embarrassed, too, a tinge of red on his cheeks. "I've been meaning to get the glass replaced. Came home late one night and bumped into it in the dark. I'm just glad the photo's alright."

She smiled, called him a klutz while she punched him gently on the arm. Harry came back down the hall and they said their goodbyes, heading out to the car.

It was a few minutes into the drive when she realized that Harry hadn't said anything since they left Buck's, and glanced over to see him looking thoughtfully out the window.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked.

"Oh, I was just thinking about what Buck said," Harry replied slowly. "About how the glass broke. It sounded really familiar, you know, so I was thinking, and I remembered where I heard him say that before. At the barbecue a couple weeks back."

"It was broken that far back?"

"No. And that's what I thought was weird. That time, he was talking about a table, the one in the hall. But it was the same story. Same words, even. Came home late, bumped into it in the dark. It's just...weird. Especially since that picture is in—"

"The middle of the wall," May finished, considering. Buck had his moments, but he wasn't particularly clumsy. It was weird. But ultimately, not really something they could do anything about.

3 - the seat cover

"Buck, what the hell is that?"

Buck glanced back at Ravi, who had been about to throw his bag in the back of Buck's car before noticing the truly atrocious fleece blanket that was spread out on the seat.

"Didn't you have a seat cover or something? A normal one, not one that looks like it came from a grandpa's cabin in the woods?"

Buck grimaced. "Yeah, uh, I did. It got...damaged?"

Ravi's eyes narrowed. "Why are you being weird about it?"

"Cause it's embarrassing, okay? I was driving back from that park I like to go to, to—to hike. And there was this dog on the side of the road, she looked hurt, so I pulled over to try and pick her up. I got her in the car, but she was really scared and wouldn't stay still. She bled all over it while I was taking her to the vet, so I just left it with them when I dropped her off."

"Why's that embarrassing? Did you keep the stray or something?"

"No." Buck made a face. "She, uh, had a family, she was fine. It's just a weird story, that's all. I guess not really embarrassing, just don't really feel the need to share, y'know?"

"Sure, Steve Irwin." Ravi clapped Buck on the shoulder as he climbed into the front seat. "Just promise me you're replacing that blanket ASAP. It's an eyesore."

"Yeah, okay," Buck laughed.

4 - the patio chair

"You know, Buck, this yard is something. I'm surprised you don't live out here."

"Sometimes I feel like I do," he joked. He nudged Hen toward the lounge chairs at the shaded end of the patio. "Go, sit, I'll grab our drinks. I got this new lime syrup the other day, I think it'll go really well with that rum—"

"Ow!"

As Hen sat down, leaning on the arm rest of the chair, it gave way, clattering to the ground and throwing her off balance. It didn't hurt, really, it was more just surprise, but her yell had Buck running to her side anyway.

"Buck, I'm sorry—"

"God, Hen, don't apologize, it's my fault." His face flushed. "I was moving things around the other day, you know, trying out a new layout back here, and I dropped one of my weights on it. I guess I didn't check it as well as I thought, I didn't realize it was that loose. Are you hurt?"

Hen raised her eyebrows, then poked gingerly at her arm. "No harm done. Nothing a double shot of that rum of yours won't fix."

Buck nodded eagerly, running back to pick up the cooler where he'd dropped it, and Hen watched him, considering.

"So did you decide against a new layout?" She asked carefully as he handed her a drink and plopped into the seat beside her.

"Hmm?"

"The patio." She gestured around at the furniture, the workout equipment. "It all looks exactly the same as it has for months now."

"Oh, yeah. I mean, why try to improve on perfection?" He shrugged, but Hen noticed that the flush was creeping higher up his neck and across his cheeks. The boy was lying.

"Mhmm," she replied, taking a sip of her drink. It really was good; maybe she'd leave him alone just for today, even if he was very clearly keeping something from her.

5 - the dresser drawer

"Alright, kiddos, let's hit the—"

"Daaaaaad—"

Chimney closed his eyes, counting to five in his head before he turned to look at his daughter, a red stain blooming across the front of her shirt.

He knew he should've waited to give her that juice box, but he'd been so intent on bribing her to leave Buck's house without a fight...

Buck, who was cradling Nash against his chest and very clearly trying not to laugh.

"That's okay, sweetie, we'll get you a new shirt when we get home," he wheedled, the ticking clock in his head telling him they had about twenty minutes before Nash hit meltdown territory in the middle of LA rush hour.

"No!" She shouted back. "It's wet, daddy, I need a new one—"

"Jee-Yun—"

She balled up her little fists and stamped her foot and took a deep breath, clearly about to let loose an unholy screech—

"Jee, hey, I have clean shirts in my room, okay? Daddy can just grab one and you can change right here and then you'll be all dry for the drive home," Buck offered soothingly.

She nodded, sniffling. "'Kay," she agreed.

Buck bounced Nash apologetically. "Chim, in my room, to the left of the closet. There's that little white dresser, top right is her shirts."

"Thank you, Buck, you're my hero," Chim called, already heading down the hall.

He didn't often have occasion to be in Buck's bedroom; he couldn't really think of the last time he'd been in here, maybe not since the tour Buck had given him and Maddie when he first moved in. It looked pretty much the same as Buck's bedroom in the loft always had, except when he turned to look for the dresser Buck had mentioned, Chimney's eyes caught on the big one that held Buck's clothes. One of the drawers had been fully pulled out, resting empty on top of the dresser, and he could see even from here that the rails had been bent out of place, nearly mangled on one side.

Frowning and moving on, he grabbed a shirt from the top of Jee's drawer, threw a quick prayer to whoever was listening that it was acceptable to his five-year-old who had way too many opinions about her clothing now, and headed back to the door. Jee was in the process of pulling her shirt off, Buck promising to wash it and have it ready for her next time, and luckily she took the new one without a fight.

"Thanks, man," Chimney told Buck. "And, hey, are you looking for a new dresser? Cause Maddie and I found this great store that I think you'd really like, and their stuff isn't going to fall apart like the one you have. I can send you their website if you want."

"Oh," Buck said, "uh, sure, send it along. Hey, I'm gonna go put Nash in his seat, okay?"

Chimney blinked. Weird reaction, but he wasn't going to argue. The car seat had it out for him most days, but Buck never seemed to have an issue. Jee's booster was much easier to deal with.

He didn't think about it again until a few weeks later, when he went to get a new onesie for Nash after dinner and noticed the dresser was put back together, good as new.

"Guess he didn't need that website after all," he mumbled to himself.

+1 - the shower curtain

Maddie loved her little brother, to a fault sometimes, but sometimes, she could wring his neck. Now, ten minutes after she pulled into his driveway and after the second time she got his voicemail when she tried to call, was one of those times.

Sighing to herself—he was the one who wanted to take her to this farmer's market he'd been raving about; why was she waiting for him—she hopped out of the car and marched up to the door, already fishing through her purse for her key.

As soon as she walked in, she could hear the shower running. That, at least, explained why he hadn't picked up the phone; he hated the shower in his en suite, and only ever used the one down the hall, far enough from his bedroom that he wouldn't have heard his phone ringing.

Maybe he overslept and just ran for the shower instead of letting me know? She thought as she walked down the hall.

She pushed the door open, meaning to let him know she was there and to hurry it up, only to be met with a broad, muscled back, dripping with water under the steady stream.

A back that absolutely didn't belong to her brother, whose tattooed leg she could clearly see wrapped around the other man's waist.

"Oh my god!" She screeched, clapping a hand over her eyes.

She heard an undignified yelp from mystery man as Buck exclaimed "Maddie!?", then a crash, then silence.

Carefully, she cracked her fingers enough to peek at the shower. The water was still running, but both men were now on the floor, tangled in the shower curtain that had ripped clean off the bar. Luckily, the bar was still attached, but as she watched, one of the remaining rings fell to the floor, narrowly missing—

"Tommy?"

"Hi, Maddie," he replied, waving sheepishly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Buck demanded.

"It's Saturday?" She said, disbelievingly. "The market? The one with the cheese guy you wanted to take me to? You said to come get you at eight so we could get there before, and I quote, the soccer moms take all the good veggies. I've been waiting for the last fifteen minutes while you—" she gestured at the shower

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah, oh," she mocked him. They had the decency to look embarrassed, at least, though the shower made them look a little more like kicked puppies sitting out in the rain.

Sighing, she backed out of the room. "Get decent, please, I need to check you for concussions before I go bleach my damn eyeballs."

Ten minutes later, true to her word, she was poking at Tommy's head while Buck—already cleared—made them coffee, apologizing profusely all the while.

"So, how long has this been going on again?" she asked when she was finally satisfied that he wasn't hurt. Tommy immediately looked, panicked, at Buck.

"Uh, I guess—what, four months now?" Buck said after thinking for a moment. She couldn't help but notice that Tommy relaxed ever so slightly at his answer, even as he nodded in agreement. "We—well, you don't want to know that part. Just know that we also talked about a lot of stuff."

"And in four months you never thought, hey, maybe my sister would want to know about this?" She asked in disbelief.

Buck snorted. "No, Maddie, I didn't. Or, well, I didn't have to think about it. I knew you'd want to know, sure, but we didn't want to tell anyone yet. I don't know if you've noticed, but everybody we know is always in everybody else's business, and Tommy deserved better than to be thrown to the wolves like that before we actually had a chance to figure our shit out again. It wasn't a secret, really, it was just...private."

"That's understandable," Maddie said slowly. She reached out to gently squeeze Tommy's shoulder, and he relaxed even further.

Buck walked her to the living room, leaving Tommy to take a minute to process before they all headed to the market together.

"I'm happy for you, Buck," she said softly, opening her arms for a hug. He returned it and she squeezed him extra tight. "And hey," she says, stepping back and giving him a grin, "when you eventually feel like letting the peanut gallery know, give me a heads up. We'll split the betting pool winnings."

in case anybody's curious how things got broken (because of course i figured this out):

the table was a repeat of the hookup except when they were going down the hall buck tried to stop and lean on it and it was not up to the task of keeping two firefighters upright

the picture was actually a result of them going at it against the other side of the wall (neither of them would've wanted to make eye contact with anyone in that photo while doing the deed)

the seat cover got come stains on it after they were racing through the woods on a hike and got so worked up by the competition that they got each other off in the back seat afterwards and nearly got caught by an elderly lady and her dog, the inspiration for the (fake) story

the chair was actually the most innocent of all of them, buck convinced tommy to try sitting in his lap but the chair creaked a bit too much for either of them to feel comfortable with it for too long. he genuinely didn't realize that it was actually broken until the thing with hen

But tensions are obviously going to be high at times because it's stressful having to put Tommy's house up for sale and packing up his things, whether to donate or sell or keep and move to Buck's. They, naturally, get into arguments about who is going to keep what and a lot of Buck's things are newer rather than sentimental and Tommy's are mostly the opposite and there are times where it feels like they are fighting about something else.

Buck has a clipboard and checklists and eventually they make it almost all the way through, room after room, relationship intact. The last room is the bedroom and it should be the easiest of all because Tommy isn't attached to any of the furniture and Buck's dresser and closet are big enough to share.

What trips them up is their sex toys, which really should be a non-issue. They hardly take up any room at all; they could both keep their respective trunks in their shared closet and it'd be no imposition at all. But Tommy's feeling more put out than he realized. Maybe he's still scared and it's manifesting in this silly, final attempt to dig his heels in even if he doesn't quite get why. Maybe that fear will never truly ever dissipate.

Because of this though, Tommy says that if they had to consolidate all the other rooms and belongings, they have to go through their sex toys too.

Buck looks at Tommy like he's grown two heads. "How are we supposed to figure out which ones to keep?"

Tommy gestures towards the clipboard in Buck's hand that he's imagined throwing in the trash at least half a dozen times. "I don't know, you figured it out for the rest of the rooms--"

Buck bites his lip so he doesn't say something he'll regret.

Tommy walks out Buck's bedroom--their bedroom--in a huff.

When Buck emerges two hours later, he presents Tommy with his solution--a spreadsheet he created listing all of their sex toys in one column and then a few more columns with the determining factors, such as cost, ease of use, pleasure of course (with 2 separate columns for both their names each, as giver and receiver if it applies), and probably some others I can't think of right now.

There isn't really a way for them not to biased at all, but to make the results the most reliable and fair, they determine that the answers in regards to level of pleasure, etc need to be new.

They have a kid-free 3-day weekend ahead of them and they go down their list, toy by toy, vigorously testing each one. [this sounds so clinical, but they really have a good time although by the end of it they definitely don't plan on having another sex marathon any time soon or maybe ever]

They think they're getting somewhere until they get to the dildos they cloned of their own dicks which Buck has counted as duplicates (because of type and also because he himself was feeling dickish] and the last Tommy wants is to get rid of Buck's because one of his greatest joys in life is sucking Buck's dick while being fucked with Buck's dildo, but the last last thing he wants is to concede. They stare at each other in a silent stand-off so long Tommy thinks they might have an actual duel with dildos.

Buck breaks first. He flops onto the bed. "This is so stupid."

"You think?"

Buck scowls. "You started it!"

Tommy gives him a look. "You started it, with your clipboard and the crockery."

"Is that what this is about?"

Tommy sits on the bed and sighs. "I don't know what this is about."

"I do."

Tommy raises his eyebrows.

"You're giving up a lot, Tommy. Your house. Your things. I don't want you to think I don't acknowledge that. I think I could have been more understanding though. I'm sorry."

Tommy shrugs. "I'm gaining a lot too." He takes Buck's hand. "I get to come home to you and to Theo. And our two cats."

Buck laughs. "We are not getting cats."

"It was worth a shot."

"Uh huh. Stop deflecting."

"I just want to come home to you. And your 200 thread count sheets."

Buck laughs and bumps their shoulders. "Shut up."

Tommy turns, grips Buck's chin, and kisses him. "So are we in agreement that we're keeping all the toys?

"Yes."

It's then that the doorbell rings.

Tommy frowns. "Are you expecting someone or something?"

"Uhh--"

Tommy gets up and goes to answer the door. The UPS driver is already pulling away. Tommy picks up the box from the porch--a box that is suspiciously discreet.

Buck walks out, smiling and blushing.

"Are you serious?"

"What? When I was looking up the costs of the toys, I found some things I thought we'd like."

"Some things? This box is big enough to hold a microwave."

Buck checks his watch and grins. "We've still 24 more hours to ourselves. Should I make another spreadsheet, baby?"

Tommy's only a little ashamed at how fast that question gets him hard.