Eddie&tommy - Tumblr Posts
Tommy slumps further into the couch cushions, and the looks Eddie gives him is - dire, really. Tommy sort of wants to get shit faced and cry a little while cradling this throw pillow - the same one Evan had smacked him with a week ago while they crowded Eddie's too-small couch and Tommy had made fun of Evan for not knowing a single player on the Dodgers.
("You're actively rooting against them, why do you care if I know who they are?"
"Know thy enemy, Buckley," was Eddie's immediate response, and Evan had swung the pillow when he caught Tommy and Eddie fist bumping out of the corner of his eye.)
"Pretty sure it's actually cheating to come to me," Eddie intones, but he's already up and moving towards the cabinet where he keeps the good whiskey.
He settles into the recliner and gestures with the bottle, a very clear 'go on' in his expression.
Tommy thinks about maybe just - drowning himself in spirits and hiding under a rock for the rest of his life.
"I asked Evan to move in with me."
Eddie's brow kicks up. He purses his lip. Nods. His eyes do something that tells Tommy he is actively biting down on whatever it is he's thinking.
"And...you...fought. You fought about Buck ... moving in."
(Six months is such a short time, really. They've just leapt every other milestone like it's their damn job, and - Christ, they'd had keys to each other's places in weeks.)
Tommy narrows his eyes. "You know something."
"Yeah, and that's why this," he gestures vaguely in the direction of Tommy, fully pouting on his couch and commandeering too large a surface area for Eddie to actually join him there, "is cheating."
Tommy would love to point out that he just doesn't have a shit ton of friends willing to listen to him bitch about an argument he's trying to figure out without fucking imploding the whole goddamn thing. He'd love to point out that he and Eddie have already set these boundaries and Tommy is aware he's pushing it.
Tommy tilts his head against the back of the couch and stares at the ceiling. "Well if we can't talk about it, at least get me drunk."
Eddie hands him a shot glass and stands to go grab them both beers.
---
"So the thing is," Tommy says, slumped against Eddie's side and gesturing in front of himself. His hands are - they're a little blurry. Thank God he isn't on call. "The thing is."
He's got a hangnail that's been driving him nuts for weeks. He's already got a layout in his head for how to make Evan's wardrobe fit in his closet. Half of Evan's kitchen lives in Tommy's already, and he'd - he'd been sure they were in the same page.
"The thing?" Eddie asks, and - Christ, it's not like Eddie's having an easy time with any of the - anything. He's definitely overindulged right along with Tommy. Thank fuck they're not maudlin drunks, just what they need is two PTSD riddled idiots filled up with liquor and bemoaning their lives.
"What thing?"
"The thing, Tommy."
Right. The thing. "I love him," Tommy says, and Eddie's eyes go wide like he doesn't already know this. But Tommy - Tommy's said it in range of Eddie's hearing, right? He's - he's said it.
(The lone braincell shared between them whispers that Tommy has said it, once, to the curls atop Evan's sweaty head while Evan was still passed out on his chest. Fuck braincells.)
"Uhuh."
"What uhuh?"
You don't ask someone to move in with you when you still haven't worked up the courage to say I love you to someone's face, is the thing. And Evan's said it - happy and carefree and open even when Tommy just kissed him to distract him from Tommy not saying it back. He has to know, right? Tommy's said it in every other way he knows how.
"Listen, bro code broken, man, Buck's fucking terrified to mess this up with you and the whole 'you haven't said the words' has been, like, messing with his head for weeks, dude. And now outta the blue, hey move in with me? He's trying desperately not to assume you did something terrible and are using this to cover it up."
"He told you that?"
Eddie scoffs. He actually says 'pshhh', and rolls his head towards Tommy. "No." He enunciates too much. The 'o' is way too long in that word. It's a two letter word, how did he make it sound like seven syllables?
Tommy wants another shot, but Eddie had clearly not meant for that whiskey to be shared and it'd already been more than half gone when he pulled it out. There's...maybe half an ounce left. Fuck.
"Then how...?"
"I already broke bro code for you, dumbass. Can't you read between the lines?"
"Is this like the couch thing?"
The mindfuck of trying to decipher Eddie and Evan's little shared looks while Evan announced that Tommy's couch was his favorite couch had been -
He's getting off track.
He hasn't said the fucking words. He's in love with the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful, filthiest fucking man he's ever known and he hasn't said the words.
"Hamster wheel," Eddie says sagely, like that means a damn fucking thing, but Tommy's already fumbling for his phone. Texting that is out of the question, and he doesn't want to call while he's... more drunk than he'd care to admit.
Tommy shoves Eddie off his shoulder, and only gets a little spinny when he stands. He's a forty year old man, he can absolutely ask his boyfriend to pick him up from... his boyfriends best friends house and help him sober up so he can have a conversation.
"Water," Tommy says, and Eddie snorts.
"Toooo late."
Tommy feels about five years old when he shoves at Eddie's face before retreating to the kitchen.
---
"Tommy," Evan says, bent low over the couch, and Tommy blinks himself awake, regretting every drop of whiskey he'd drunk last night. He'd - there'd been water. An attempt at typing out a message. A slap fight in Eddie's kitchen when he decided to chow down on the last of the casserole Evan had left behind three days ago. More water.
This couch is way too fucking small for him. He's - he's still got one shoe on, and a blanket crumpled haphazardly over one leg. His head is pounding.
Evan looks - concerned. Maybe still a little annoyed. Fond.
"Ev," he manages, moving to sit up and regretting it when five million bees make a home right there against his frontal lobe. Smoke clears that out, right? He remembers Evan being super fucking proud that that had worked.
Evan holds up a glass of water that Tommy takes gratefully. He doesn't drink it nearly as slowly as he should.
When he's done, Evan stands, and - God his legs are long. Tommy loves those fucking legs - loves the hair that catches against his calluses on his way up towards the promised land, loves the strength behind them when he snaps his hips forward, loves the way they feel all wrapped around him when they're -
"We are not anywhere close to the sort of resolution necessary for that look," Evan says, and Tommy sighs. Because they haven't talked about it. Because they'd yelled and smacked their hands against counters and the explosion had sent them careening off in different directions and Tommy hasn't told him.
"Angry sex can be fun," Tommy wheedles, a little unnecessarily because he doesn't actually want - and on Eddie's couch to boot, which is absolutely not what he's angling for.
"I'm not mad at you," Evan says, and Tommy gives him an unimpressed look. "Okay, I'm mostly just - confused."
Fair enough. Tommy's been confusing. Tommy's been -
Tommy curls a hand around the meat of Evan's calf and tips his head against Evan's thigh. "Can we not do this in Eddie's living room?"
---
He doesn't want to admit that it took Eddie breaking all sorts of friendship rules for Tommy to even grasp the point of Evan freezing the fuck up when Tommy had mentioned his lease. He doesn't want to admit that he's fucking terrified, all the time, about the feelings in his chest that never quite settle, that bubble up at the strangest times because every-fucking-thing reminds him of Evan. He doesn't want to admit that he'd just leapt that hurdle in his mind even though Evan has been very clearly marking every other step with metaphorical (and sometimes literal) sticky notes.
Evan hands him his tea and immediately starts picking at the paper sleeve on his cup of coffee.
"I'm not afraid of losing you," Tommy starts, which is - the opposite of the point he's trying to make, and Evan's grimace tells him it's a bad place to start. "I mean that's not why I asked."
Evan is still grimacing. And that's - Christ, he hadn't even planned it, it was just - he'd been there, digging through Tommy's sock drawer, his shit tumbling out of his overnight bag at the end of the bed and his book on the history of perfume in the bedside table and his crock pot stewing something that smelled heavenly, thirty feet away, and he wanted that always, wanted that forever, wanted more than anything to enjoy all the little moments that came before he spent the money in savings hed been setting aside since successful date number five when he'd wondered if Evan had ever thought about getting married.
"You think I asked out of convenience, right? Your stuff's already there, might as well?"
"I'm not leaving things there on purpose."
"I want you to leave things there on purpose. I want all your things there, on purpose. Even when you move my milk to the fridge door and my sugar stash to the wrong pantry shelf and even when you replace my toothpaste because it doesn't have the right enamel protection."
His lip quirks. That had been a near argument too. Tommy was particular. Tommy didn't do great with change. Evan's changed damn near fucking everything, for Tommy, and he's never been more grateful for a single thing in his fucking life.
Tommy curls a finger around Evan's wrist, and his gaze darts up through his lashes. They're long, and distracting, and Tommy wouldn't mind shoving this disagreement to the side so he can brush his lips across the paper thin lids of his eyes, but -
"I missed some steps, getting there," Tommy admits, and Evan bites his lip like he's trying to hide a smile.
"My fault, a bit. I - I could see why you might have just assumed we were scaling 'em two at a time."
"Evan," he says, and breathes a sigh of relief when his free hand darts out to smooth the veins on the back of Tommy's hand.
"Next week is six months," he says, like Tommy doesn't fucking know that, and his thumb sweeps over Tommy's knuckles. "So, i -if you have anything you wanna say before then, you got a week before you can ask me again."
(Six months is the blink of an eye, actually, but Tommy hates every blink that doesn't include Evan in it.)
"You got plans?" Tommy asks, and Evan's face pinkens.
"If you're lucky I'll even tell you them."
"It's a date."