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“Get ice-cream,” Eddie said. “It’ll be nice. Take your mind off things.”
Buck stares at the house from across the street, ice-cream long forgotten even as he distantly registers it slowly melting onto his hand.
“Eddie,” Buck says, refusing to move his eyes away even though he doesn’t think he can stomach the sight in front of him.
“What— Oh.” Eddie replies dumbly, eyes landing on what Buck is still staring at. “C’mon Buck, let’s go.”
“Eddie,” Buck repeats. He can’t—he can’t just leave. But it’s not like he can just go up to the door and knock either.
“It’s not a good idea, Buck.” Eddie says, but Buck makes no moves to leave.
It can’t… hurt.
Tommy bubbled him. There’s obviously a part of him—even if it is small—that wants to talk. Buck doesn’t… He doesn’t need them to get back together, but a conversation would be nice. Things ended so abruptly. He just… God, he can’t get him out of his head.
It’ll just be a conversation.
~*~
Eddie has many regrets in his life.
Re-enlisting in the army. Not being able to make things work out with Shannon. Traumatizing his son with the doppelganger of his dead mom. Shaving his beautiful gorgeous mustache.
This might be the worst one yet.
In his defense, ice-cream has never gone wrong for him. It’s easy, delicious, and gives something for Buck to do while they chat, as he knows that Buck isn’t one to just go on walks without having something for his hands to do.
It’d been a good idea!
Up until he realised they had taken the wrong turn and walked in the direction of Tommy’s house rather than the park they were originally going to walk around in.
So. Not ideal. But Buck’s been pretty good at not texting Tommy, even if he’s baked enough to keep multiple bakeries in business for a full year.
It sucked, it did, but they’d walk past and Eddie could make a quip on how the house above them had the worst choice in paint he’s ever seen and he could effectively distract Buck and they’d carry on as normal.
Except Buck’s response to his quip never came.
Eddie turns to check on Buck but realises that Buck is not by his side.
Oh.
Oh no.
Eddie turns around, dread curling in his gut as he does so, and finds Buck crossing the street and beelining it directly to Tommy’s front door.
Oh, fuck.
Eddie sees the ice-cream still dripping all over Buck’s hands and fuck, this is not how this should go down.
He needs to stop this.
Eddie, mourning the loss of his ice-cream, drops it in the nearby garbage and then sprints across the street and shouts, “Buck!”
Buck hesitates for just a moment, as he calls his name and it’s enough for Eddie to catch up to him.
“Eddie, please it’s just a conversation—” Buck begins, dancing away from Eddie.
“Buck, buddy please, now is not the time. C’mon, let’s just go.” Eddie chases after him, lunging forward and he ends up tugging onto Buck’s hand that holds his phone and in the process launches it out of his hand.
The two of them stare as it flies in an almost perfect arc through the window that has been left open on this hot humid day.
Oh, fuck no.
The two of them stare in silence for a moment, before Buck moves to continue his way to the front door, pulling out of Eddie’s grip.
Eddie frantically grabs onto him again. “Buck, are you crazy?! You can’t just go knock now. It’s going to make you look like a stalker.”
“And leaving my phone in his place, isn’t??” Buck questions, frustration bleeding off of him. And wow, this is not Eddie’s fault in the slightest. He feels frustration at Buck back, but he knows that’s not going to help either of them.
“Just—go stand across the street and wait for me. I’ll go get it. It’ll be less weird if it comes from me.” Eddie says, sounding a lot more convincing than he feels at the moment.
Buck stares at him, doing a pretty damn good impression of a sad lost puppy, but Eddie luckily has years of practice at dealing with Buck puppy dog eyes and it has no effect on him.
“Buck,” Eddie presses, staring sternly right back at him.
Buck’s eyes flicker back and forth from the house to Eddie, but eventually he gives in. “Can you at least tell me how he looks?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Go, Buck.”
Buck listens, albeit still looking like a kicked puppy, and he crosses back the road and stands where he was earlier. He seems to finally remember his ice-cream because he takes a few bites as he watches Eddie.
Once Eddie deems that Buck is actually going to listen to him, he turns back to face Tommy’s house.
Well, this is going to be the awkwardest conversation of his life.
Eddie gets to the door and after a few moments of debating the merits of is it really worth it?, he gets over himself and knocks on the door.
…
Nothing.
Eddie tries knocking again, slightly louder this time and there still is no answer.
All that stress for Tommy to not even be home.
Maybe he really should’ve let Buck knock—
He looks back to see Buck sadly eating his ice-cream. Yeah, no, that was not a good choice.
Okay, this is fine. This is perfect actually.
Eddie doesn’t have a key, but he does know that Tommy has a bad habit of leaving the garage door unlocked. He can sneak in through that way, quickly grab the phone, then get out.
Easy, peasy.
He looks one more time at Buck and mouths “Stay there”, and then makes his way around back.
He feels a little like a creep, stepping on Tommy’s perfectly mowed lawn even though he’s been here several times before, but he carries on anyway.
The quicker he can get Buck’s phone, the quicker they can put this whole fiasco behind them.
When Eddie gets to the garage door however, he finds that it is locked.
Of fucking course.
He steps back, foot tapping with impatience as he tries to figure out another way to get into Tommy’s house.
As he scans the back of his house, his eyes land on the cat door at the bottom of the back porch door.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he says under his breath. Buck owes him so many muffins.
Painfully—actually agonisingly is more accurate—he gets onto his knees and squeezes through the tiny hole, reminding himself that he’s a firefighter and that he’s had to do things way more difficult than this before.
Heaving from the effort of that , he stands up, wincing as his bones pop and creak. He gives himself a moment to recuperate and then goes to make his way to the front of the house.
However, before he can make it he hears movement from upstairs.
This is bad. This is so bad. This is bad on many levels. How is this his life? How did he get here? Why is this the penance that God has chosen for him?
He hears footsteps coming down the stairs and he panics, knowing he doesn’t have enough time to make it to either the front door or the back door without being caught.
In his panic, he sees a closet door and well—
He’s in it and closing the door on himself just as he hears Tommy’s final footsteps reach the bottom floor.
~*~
Tommy is in his kitchen grabbing water after he wakes up from a nap when he sees him.
He has to do a double take—eyes blinking slowly once, twice, as he makes sure he isn’t still sleeping.
Evan is just… standing there. Eating ice-cream. Rather pathetically. And staring at his house.
Tommy puts down the glass of water and squints. He rubs his eyes. He picks up his glass of water and takes a big swig.
Evan is still standing there after he completes all of these actions.
Tommy has no clue what to do with this information.
He can feel his brain recalibrating but it’s like there’s a glitch in his system and his brain is stuck on the buffering screen.
How long has he been standing out there??
Tommy—
Tommy’s concerned for him. A part of him desperately wants to rush out and ask him what’s wrong—wants to take him and hold him in his arms and apologise for all the words he said and tell him he takes it back and they can try again.
Tommy immediately takes those feelings and shoves them deep into a box.
He takes another chug of his water and grips the counter.
He—
Evan deserves better than him. Especially after their last interaction. He needs someone steady, a good supportive friend.
Tommy takes a long deep breath, slowly drags his eyes away from Evan and pulls out his phone to call Eddie.
~*~
The one thing that Buck remembers positively from this whole experience is that the ice-cream tasted really good. Even while being melted.
He focuses on it, doing his best to salvage the liquidy abomination, as he waits for Eddie to come back around.
He tries his best not to worry about what’s taking him so long.
It’s Eddie, he’s got this. He probably has a very good reason for going around the back of Tommy’s house.
Buck takes a bite of his cone. Man, he should come back to this place. Fresh waffle cones? Game changing. More ice-cream places should do that. Buck doesn’t think he can go back to sugar cones ever again.
Hmm… maybe he should try to make them at home.
He mentally makes a note to search up a recipe when he gets back to his loft.
~*~
Tommy’s eyes make his way back to Evan immediately after he dials Eddie and his heart aches watching him stand there, knowing he’s the reason for this, he’s the one who made Evan feel this way—
His thoughts get interrupted by the long ringing of a phone.
It’s the classic iPhone ringtone and for a moment Tommy thinks it must be coming from outside, but no, there’s a vibrating sound too.
He looks back down at his phone where it continues to ring and then back up.
There’s no way… right?
~*~
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
Eddie fumbles in the closet, desperately trying to dig his phone out of his pocket while trying to not make any noise around him.
Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck—
He finally grabs it, slamming down hard on the decline call button, but it’s too late.
If he makes it out of this alive, he is never going to turn his phone off silent ever again.
~*~
The ringing stops just as Tommy’s phone goes to voicemail, but it went on long enough that Tommy’s pretty certain he knows where it came from.
He slowly approaches the closet door, wishing he had some weapon to protect himself, even though he’s pretty sure what he’s going to find isn’t dangerous.
He opens the closet door and—
Eddie stares like a deer caught in headlights, awkwardly holding his phone that still shows the 1 Missed Call from Tommy notification front and center.
Tommy stares right back.
There’s silence for a few seconds before they do the only thing reasonable in this situation.
They both scream.
~*~
Later on after things have calmed down and explanations and apologies have been given on each side, tearful and heartfelt reconciliations made, and bonds broken and remade, there remains one question.
How the fuck did Eddie fit through the cat door?