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It was 3am.
It was 3am and Evan Buckley had not slept a wink. He doesn’t think he will, or if he can.
Because Evan Buckley kissed a man a mere few hours ago. For the first time in his life.
And he wanted to do it again.
It had taken everything in him to keep himself from pulling Tommy back through his front door as he left for his shift. The moment Tommy’s lips met his he wanted to do nothing more than kiss him senseless for the rest of the night, preferably somewhere comfortable like the couch or his bed where he could hold him, run his hands up under his shirt, feel his toned muscles, slot a leg in between his thighs and feel the hard press of his cock against him…
Buck slammed a pillow over his face with a loud groan. What was he doing? Twenty-four hours ago he didn’t even know he liked guys and now he can’t get the thought of making out with one out of his head?
But that was the thing that was keeping Buck awake more so than the thoughts of Tommy’s lips and body pressed against his own body. He was thinking about a guy in a way he usually thought about a girl. He was thinking about a guy romantically, and it felt completely normal to be having those thoughts. He wasn’t panicking about having those thoughts.
He was panicking because how had he only just discovered this pivotal part of himself, and it wasn’t freaking him out?
“Surely I would’ve known this about myself,” he murmured into the dark expanse of his room. “I know people in the community, I’ve been to pride events… how did I not know?”
He rolled onto his side with a sigh, gazing at the railing that overlooked the exact spot he and Tommy had kissed in and despite his spiralling thoughts, Buck smiled. He raised a finger to his lips, lightly tracing them as he remembered the tender way in which Tommy had cupped his chin as he leaned in, the feeling of light stubble against his skin as Tommy kissed him and Buck kissed him back.
Buck tried to focus his mind on that moment and about their upcoming date and finally, at 3:46am, he drifted off to sleep.
~~~
When Maddie called the following morning and invited Buck around for dinner, a sleep-deprived Buck agreed immediately. Whenever an opportunity arose for him to spend time with his sister and his adorable little niece he would take it, no questions asked. He informed Maddie that he’d stop to get some wine after his shift, and it was only after they said their goodbyes and hung up that Buck realised he’d have to tell her about Tommy. And that sent him into another panic that immediately jolted him wide awake.
His umpteenth panic arrived as he entered work and instantly saw that Eddie wasn’t there, and the fact that he wasn’t there was entirely his fault. It also reminded him that he’d have to tell his friends, who were practically his family, that he wasn’t as straight as they all believed him to be. That Buck believed himself to be. Until Tommy kissed him, and his reaction hadn’t been to pull away and go “sorry, I’m straight and not into you like that.”
It was the fact that Tommy had sensed this detail about Buck before Buck did that really threw him the most, but he pushed that to the back of his mind as they were dispatched to a scene at a local community centre.
“Okay everyone, we’re a man down today so keep that in mind!” Bobby called out over the blare of the sirens as they drove the six blocks to the location. Buck cringed at the reminder and Chimney shot him a sympathetic glance. “It’ll only be for the remainder of this week, but just be aware and alert.”
“Yes cap!” the crew shouted back, though Buck’s lacked his usual enthusiasm. Bobby must’ve noticed, making eye contact with Buck in the rearview mirror with a curious frown. Buck hurriedly averted his gaze to outside the window, watching as the streets of LA became as blurry as his mind.
They arrived shortly after to a stream of onlookers crowding the street, gawking and taking photos of the blaze erupting from the back of the building. A large sign plastered by the entrance welcomed people to the monthly LGBTQ+ book club and Buck groaned internally.
Of course this was where their first call was.
“Karen and I kept talking about coming here,” Hen said, appearing beside Buck as they both stared at the giant flames before them.
Buck turned to her. “But it’s at 10am on a Thursday.”
Hen smirked. “Precisely why we no longer talk about coming here.”
Despite everything (including the fire he was about to willingly run into) Buck laughed. He patted Hen twice on the shoulder before running over to Bobby who was standing beside a frantic woman, trying to calm her down. He turned to face the team as they approached.
“According to Miranda here we have five civilians still trapped inside,” Bobby informed them all. “They were in the kitchen area when the fire started and the fire’s trapped them in there. Buck, I’m gonna need you, Chim and Ravi to be quick when you get inside. They’ve been in there for a while and are losing oxygen rapidly.”
Pulling down his helmet Buck nodded, finished listening to the rest of Bobby’s commands and then grabbed the hose. There was no time to focus on his identity and coming out crisis when there were bigger crises to attend to. Crises that he was used to, unlike the other one, and focusing on the familiarity of putting out a fire might, in some way, help him grapple with coming out to his sister and his friend later. Buck surrounded himself with danger for a living, that fact alone was scarier than telling his loved ones he was bi. Work would make his fear of coming out go away.
He hoped so. By God he hoped so.
Buck rushed in with his friends, being hit immediately with a blast of heat that he didn’t think he’d ever get accustomed to, no matter how long he worked as a firefighter for. Through the smoke he made out the main stage area and beside that, an open door that lead into a smaller room. It was in that room, filled with books, beanbags and plush carpet that the fire was in, and they set to work putting it out. Faintly, Buck heard the desperate cries for help coming from his right and he turned back to Ravi.
“Keep going, I’m gonna go help them!” he cried out, and all Ravi could do was nod and continue blasting the water at the flames that were slowly beginning to recede. This meant that Buck could see a bit more clearly the back of the room, and the firmly shut door that stood there.
“Hello?” he cried out, banging on the door. “Is anyone in there?”
There was a long pause, and Buck was beginning to think that maybe there was another door he’d missed in the smoke haze, before a voice weakly replied, “help us.”
“Stand back!” Buck yelled, before Chimney passed him the forcible entry tool. With a few quick thrusts of it against the wood, the door burst open, and like Miranda mentioned, five people lay sprawled out on the floor, all in various states of consciousness. The one Buck presumed was the one who called out looked up at him as they coughed. They looked no older than sixteen.
“I didn’t think anyone would help us. They always look the other way,” they coughed out as Buck lifted them up. He heard Chimney come in behind him and Ravi yelled that it was all clear. Buck encouraged the teenager not to speak, but their words rattled around his head as he rushed them outside to Hen, piercing and devastating and true.
~~~
To Buck’s surprise, his hoping from before worked.
By the end of his shift he felt significantly calmer. Thankfully everyone, including the teenager he saved from the community centre had made it out of there with no major injuries, only suffering from smoke inhalation. After that, it’d been a relatively quiet day, with only a couple of small unoccupied house fires and a minor car crash to attend to. By the time his shift came to an end, he was in a great mood, made even greater as he realised it’d soon be one day closer to his date with Tommy.
And it was upon that realisation that the previous panic came back in full force.
Buck tried to internally reason with himself. It was his sister for God’s sake. She was the sweetest, most supportive person he’d ever known, why on Earth was he terrified? He told himself it was just his brain catastrophising the situation as he arrived back home and began picking an outfit for the evening, messaging Tommy as he did so.
The intensity of both of their jobs meant that texts between them were few and far between. However as soon as Buck sent off his text to Tommy, informing him of dinner with his sister and what he hoped to tell her that night, he got a response, and the flurry of panicked butterflies in Buck’s stomach turned into a pleasant fluttering of them.
you got this, keen to hear all about it on Saturday ❤️
“You got this,” he said to himself, unable to stop the delirious grin that spread across his face as he eyed the little heart at the end of the sentence. He didn’t even care that it’d been less than a day since that man had kissed him, and less time than that since his bisexual panic. Buck could feel himself falling, as he had so many times with women he dated, and he was excited about it. Not freaked out, not questioning. Excited. And he let that excitement linger and settle into his skin as he grabbed his keys and made his way over to Maddie’s place.