It's Been A Long Day.

It's been a long day. 

He wishes he could say that - after all the brush fires caused by and fines imposed on idiots who decided to do an explosive gender reveal amidst tall, dry grass - people no longer indulged in such idiocy, but. If wishes were horses, and all that. 

His feet are dragging as he shuffles the short walk from the driveway to the front door. His bag feels ten times heavier than it does when he hoisted it over his shoulders two days ago, called in on what should have sixty hours off.

Sixty hours off, 48 of which he would have gotten to spend with Evan, if two assholes hadn't decided to make what effectively amounted to a bomb just for a cloud of blue or pink. He's maybe a lot pissed off about it, in several different ways.

He fumbles his keys when he goes to put them in the door, closing his eyes when he hears the rattle and clank of them hitting concrete. When he opens his eyes, he stares at them, despondent, and tries to use telekinesis to put them back in his hand. 

It doesn't work, because much to 10 year old Tommy and 43 year old Tommy's dismay, he's not actually an X-Men.

44, he reminds himself, wincing as his knees crack when he bends down to pick up the keys like a normal, stupid human. He's 44 today.

He straightens up, feeling every single one of those years as something in his back pops, but it's as he comes to be fully upright that he notices a familiar car parked a couple of houses down.

A wave of energy, weak though it may be, courses through him at the sight of Evan's Jeep. Tommy would have sworn that Evan was on shift right now, thanks to the carefully maintained Google calendar that they share.

The keys turn in the lock and Tommy steps over the threshold, and is immediately confronted with the smell of garlic, brown butter, and sage. Tommy's been living off of lukewarm water and rations the last two days, so his stomach lurches, straining towards the decadent aroma. He gently shuts the door behind him.

“Baby?” he calls, setting his keys on a hook by the door and dropping his bag to his left. “Evan, is that you?”

Sure enough, a head of curls and a bright smile appear in the doorway as Evan leans half his body into the frame. “Hey!” he says brightly, straightening up. “You, uh, you really made it!”

“I really made it,” Tommy agrees, a little bit more haggardly, but when Evan leans in for a kiss Tommy's all too glad to meet him. He hums into it.

They pull apart, Evan grinning up into his face, and Tommy can't resist the urge to kiss him again. This time when they pull apart, Tommy reaches out to grab Evan's hand, pulling it to his lips so he can lay a kiss across the knuckles. “Aren't you supposed to be working?” he asks, one eyebrow up. 

“I asked Ravi to cover my shift,” Evan says, eyes fixed on where their hands were still hovering close to Tommy's face “He owes me, like, five from when his brother got married.”

“My thanks to Ravi,” Tommy says, and draws Evan in for one more kiss.

“I'm still working on dinner,” Evan tells him, laughing when he pulls away and Tommy chases after him, grumbling. “You want me to get you a beer and you can just sit on the couch?”

God, Tommy loves this man so much. There's only one problem with that plan. “That sounds great,” he admits, but when Evan turns to go back into the kitchen to grab an IPA, Tommy catches him by the elbow. “I haven't seen you in four days, baby. Can't I sit in the kitchen?”

A shiftiness forms in Evan’s expression, ringed with a hint of nerves. “Uh, s-sure,” he says, then chews on his bottom lip, staring back at the kitchen doorway like he's lost in thought. Whatever's running through that big great beautiful brain of his must not take too much time, because it's only a handful of seconds later that he turns around with a considerably more confident expression. “Yeah, come on in.”

“Wow, thank you for inviting me into my own kitchen,” Tommy says, dry. “What an...honor…”

He kind of understands why Evan was hesitant to let him in the kitchen. 

There's flour dusted all over the countertops, his Nonna's gnocchi paddle is laying near a particularly prolific mound of discarded and mutilated pasta, and there are dishes piled in the sink.

But there's also handmade gnocchi sitting carefully portioned out between two of Tommy's wide brimmed bowls, doused in that brown butter, garlic, and sage he smelled as soon he walked in the door. There's a salad, carefully assembled and artfully arranged in a wooden bowl, his salad servers tucked inside. There's a six-pack of his favorite craft beer on the counter next to the fridge, three bottles missing and no doubt chilling inside.

But when he pivots on his heel and catches sight of what's on the table, his breath catches.

It's sitting on a wooden stand that has to have come from Evan's apartment, standing a little lopsided, its frosting a little lumpy. But as Tommy steps closer, he realizes that its sides are actually covered in shredded coconut, even if the cake is actually tilting more to one side than the other. 

“Is-is this-?” he starts, but he can quite get the words out, let only to loosely point at the dessert in question.

Evan, on the approach with the two bowls of gnocchi in his hands, glances from Tommy's face to the cake and back again. “Italian Cream Cake,” he enunciates carefully. “I-I got the recipe from a magazine,” he says, and sets the bowls down. His hands twist together. “It's just - when we had it at that restaurant a couple weeks back, you seemed to like it a lot since I only got, like, two bites-”

“You were still doing keto,” Tommy reminds him distantly, eyes fixed on the wonky writing in icing on the top. 

Evan laughs, breathless. “Well, I found the recipe, and I knew your birthday was coming up, so I…” He shrugs, like it's no big deal. Which, to be fair, it isn't to a lot of people. What's so special about a birthday cake when you're turning 44?

Tommy doesn't know how to tell him that no one's ever made a cake for him before. If his mom got one for him, it was always wholesale from a grocery store. That Tommy tried to make one for himself, but forgot the baking powder and it came out like a slab of rubber. That he's had boyfriends bring him extravagant slices from bourgeois bakeries, stunning to look at but borderline tasteless (much like those boyfriends).  Even when he'd been leaving the 118 and Hen had smashed his face into a sheet cake and he'd been able to taste the kindness and the care, it had been store bought.

Nobody's put this kind of effort in for him before, not for Tommy Kinard. 

Not until Evan Buckley, with his dimpled smile and sweet demeanor, the way he loved so loud and so much. No one has ever loved Tommy quite like this before, and it steals his breath.

He looks down at Evan's barely legible scrawl, made even worse by icing in a piping bag, and reads, “Happy 44th birthday, baby!” and abruptly wants to cry.

He kisses Evan instead; tries his best to pour all of this feeling into it. 

He must do a good job of it, because Evan looks gratifyingly dazed when he pulls back. 

They sit down to dinner, ankles hooked together, and catch each other up on their time spent apart. The gnocchi is a tiny bit tough, but not at all bad for a first try, and though the sauce is simple, Tommy kind of wants to tilt his bowl back and drink it.

When they get to the cake, Evan pulls out a few gold candles and sticks them on top, lighting them up and insisting Tommy makes a birthday wish. 

He blows them out, but doesn't make the wish. He's got everything he wants, right here.

The cake - for as odd as it had looked on the outside - is amazing. Nutty, spongey, and slathered in a cream cheese frosting. Tommy practically devours his first slice, and when he goes back for a second, Evan's smile gains a smug, pleased edge.

Once they've carefully packed the rest of the cake away inside the fridge, Tommy brackets Evan back up against it, kissing him wide and deep and a little desperate. Evan licks into his mouth, and it tastes like coconut and pecan, and a certainty settles into his stomach, gently cushioned on top of Evan's hard worked meal. 

He pulls back and looks at Evan's dewey blue eyes, that bright grin, and thinks: I'm going to marry this man.

And - almost as if Evan could somehow hear the thought as it rang through Tommy's brain - Evan's grin grows brighter. 

“Happy birthday, Tommy,” he whispers into the space between them, and Tommy has no choice but to lean in and kiss him again.

wouldn't it be sooo crazy if 911 had an established pilot character who could like, swoop in and help athena land the plane, and then maybe he could have a boyfriend who would run through the crowd to get to him and push him up against an engine with a kiss

wouldn't that be wild

Trademark: Top-tier Bucktommy writer + generally Cool + getting Buck pregnant

Thank you + thank you + thank you!

I just want you to know that I've spent the last four hours after a six hour shift working on grad school homework so now I'm gonna go comfort read every fic you've ever written.

ahhhh! first of all, that's a lot to do in a day and it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Second of all, you're so sweet! I hope they do bring you some comfort.

Third, I'm actually writing a fic right now so here's a little preview for you (spoiler alert, they're drunk):

“You know they've killed people for less than this,” Tommy said, gripping the woman's legs tightly.

“What? They have not.”

“Oh, yes they have! We get caught carrying this poor woman down the street and next thing you know, we're on death row being asked what our last words are.”

“Whoa!” Eddie exclaimed, his hand slipping from underneath the woman's arm. He adjusted her before continuing. “What would they be?”

“What would what be?”

“Your final words, Man. What would they be?”

“Jesus, Eddie, I don't know. Who thinks about that?”

“I know mine! Watch your step.”

Tommy looked back and took a step left to miss some trash on the ground. “So what are they then?”

“'La muerte es segura, pero su hora es incierta.' It's a Spanish proverb. At least, I think it is. My abuela used to say it.”

“What's it mean?”

“It means death is certain, but its hour is uncertain.”

Tommy stopped dead in his tracks, causing Eddie to nearly topple over the body.

“What the hell?” Eddie shrieked.

“Eddie, that's the stupidest last words I've ever heard.”

8x02 “When the Boeing Gets Tough…” Synopsis

Athena is tasked with safely delivering a prisoner to testify on a high-profile case. Meanwhile, a light plane is hit by a swarm of bees and sent careening into a passenger plane.

bucktommy inspired by the recent bts 🐝