#sobriety is hot

[blackpunkwrld]

Forgot to post but im a yr sober !!

[syoddeye]

*touches headset* i'm being told the source of the thunderous booms was the clap of a masked man's ass as he chased down another man with a mohawk

[imn0treallyh3r3]

3 years sober today ^_^

[schizononagesimus]

good morning it is 11am and i havent slept i did a bunch of ecstasy but all i could think abt was taking gideon nav to the club because i kinda did 😔 i had an amazing time but now i keep trying to sleep and my brain is just screaming about a scene im writing SO GUESS WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO SHUT UP MY BRAIN. STAY AWAKE SO I CAN GO TO SLEEP!! GRAAAAH

[gardenghoul22]

Sober-versary present to myself!

So I made it to three years sober this year back in April, and my new guitar candy just came in today!

New humbucker pickups for my guitar! I would have spent this on whiskey once upon a time.

Why Hot Rails? I like Ghost. Dew’s white strat uses them and they sound MEAN. I don’t have money for a new axe (plus I love my baby) so she’s gettin an upgrade!

[tennessoui]

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

(ask game here)

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

ooo i have a lot of shorter, older wips, but i think the one i still think about the most is salt your fields, win your wars!!! it's my space actors au, where obi-wan and anakin are cast as two jedi in a new oscar-bait movie that features anakin's character falling after entering an ill-fated romance with obi-wan's character....meanwhile obi-wan and anakin hate each other and also sleep together a lot for unhealthy reasons. tbh i think about this fic so much when i see gifsets of behind the scenes rots or even kenobi show bts......one day this fic will be More Than Two Chapters

[fingertipsmp3]

Last night’s dream was the first one I’ve had in a long time where I wanted to fall back asleep and stay in it/experience it again

[benihana-circumcision]

i feel like the worlds most repressed victorian man rn im getting the vapors purely from thinking abt the act of gently grabbing someone's waist

[wetchickenbreast]

hate that all the advice online for how to stop ruminating is shit like “distract yourself 😊🌸” bitch i tried that and now i have Addictions

[jazzslug]

ive replaced my stimulant addiction with chappell roan

[xiravynix]

I celebrate today with tea time, tonight.

[irndad]

i wish i knew you wanted me - s.r.

a/n: okay this ended up being so so long forgive me!!! i hope you like<3 summary: based loosely on 'bad habit'. spencer got asked out by reader 5 years ago, when he was recovering from his dilaudid addiction, and turned her down. now, he's in love with her, and pining for her. also, jealous!spencer. she fell first, he fell harder. wc: ~2k

She’s very pretty. It’s distracting. Right now, she’s staring intently at his hands, and he feels hot under her gaze. It’s been a while since he’s done this, the little rocket trick, but she’s visiting the office, and Garcia had mentioned he’s a magician. 

“That’s incredible!” She exclaims, a giggle in her laugh, and he feels the swoop of his stomach, the butterflies of it all, “You got them so high up!”

“It’s just physics,” he laughs, meeting her warm gaze. Her smile is one for the ages. 

She’s here dropping off a file. They’ve known eachother a really long time, actually. She was an expert witness for them, once, years ago. She spoke with ease, both on the stand and in person. Equal measure kind and measured, and Spencer had adored her on first glance. They’d met when he was just getting clean from Dilaudid, and Spencer’s been in love with her since not long after than first meeting. That’s pretty much the only thing about her he wishes he could take back. 

He still has a hard time thinking about it, the fact that he met her when he was barely himself. Still, she’d been kind, listened to him talk and let the others tell her that he was…going through something. It was on his two month sobriety date (which she’d had no way of knowing) that she’d asked him out. 

Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he replays the memory in his head. How she works just south of their office, and how they’d meet at the café nearest, and chat for an hour before calling a cab home. 

On the other side of the veil, he can picture that night, years ago now. How she’d looked with the snow kissing her nose, dotting the edges of her faux-fur hood. She’d stuck out her tongue to catch a snowflake, and he’d almost combusted and the adorability of it. 

“You look nice,” she’d said, although at the time he’s pretty sure he looked gaunt. He’d only recently started to gain the weight back- but still, her praise felt like stardust. 

“You look nicer,” he’d said back, gently bumping her shoulder as a fond gesture. Her little grin is well-worth how awkward they both look on the street.

“Listen,” she had said, stuffing her hands into her pockets, the size of the coat causing her hands to disapear from sight entirely, “I asked JJ and Morgan, and they said you’re not seeing anyone.”

“Oh, yeah. They love reminding me of that. Not everyone can be like Morgan and have dated half the western hemsiphere.”

He felt embarrassed, her watching him. It’s nice, but sometimes feels like staring into the sun. 

Her chuckle was nervous, not fully reaching her eyes. 

“You okay? 

“Yeah,” she swallowed again, before speaking, “I was wondering, um, if you might want to grab a drink with me?”

“Sure,” he’d replied back, amenably. He couldn’t tell why she looked so nervous, “I can’t really do hard liquor, though. Maybe we can invite the team.”

“No, Spence, I was wondering if you and I could go on a um, a date.”

And he’s frozen. Because this might be the second time he’d ever been asked out, and second, this might be his dream girl. She’s gorgeous and kind and she’s in front of him, asking him out. 

“I um,” his mouth was dry. He’d be a bad boyfriend. He was a recovering drug addict who already was bad at talking to people, and she lit up a room whenever she walked in. She finds him easy to be with, easy to care for and he’s bound to fuck it up. He couldn’t imagine giving that up because he was too greedy to take what he got. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He almost took it back with incredible speed, with that flash of disapointment on her lovely face, and the knowledge that it’s because she wanted him, before she quickly regained her speech.

“That’s totally alright! We’ll just be good friends, yeah?”

In the here and now, they are friends. Best of, really. And he made the right choice. He’d lashed out at Emily a month later in a withdrawl, and he knows that he’d have done the same to her, and now, she’s still in his life. 

The drawbacks of course, to being her friend, means she has dates. Boyfriends, as well, and he’s been a…friend, through it all. Good friend. She’s never suspeced him of anything more, of course, after he’d categorically rejected it. 

(Even though this rejection plays in his head all the fucking time, like a torturous groundhog day.)

She’s beautiful today, a blue blouse with a scarf lazily around her neck, and the way she’s leaning over his desk to see the  trick before she drops off her analysis. 

“Alright, Spence,” she says, her rose perfume wafting in the air prior to her hopping off the corner, “Did you need anything else? Today is my half-day, and Harry wanted to take me to Art Insititute.”

Harry, is the boy on rotation at the moment. Spencer has no impulse control and a super-computer expert best friend, so Spencer knows that Harry is 6’0 on his Driver’s License, and is a Financial Analyst. Spencer knows from her own mouth that this will be the third date, and that he’s a little boring but she’s attracted to the fact that he was direct and wanted to go out again. 

Low bar, but one Spencer couldn’t even clear. He doesn’t say any of that, though.

“That sounds fun,” he says, instead of saying that he’d love to walk her through the inscriptions on each art piece, love to kiss her in front of something thats’ beauty does not come close to her’s. “Are you thinking it might run long, or are we still doing the bookstore and TV at mine after?”

He’s been looking forward to this all week. He bought special marshmallows for her cocoa. He also htes to imagine her date running long. 

“Nah,” she smiles, “besides, he’s just some guy. You’re Spencer.”

Morgan doesn’t say anything when he looks down at his. paperwork, and scribbles instead of thinking, the best he can. 

________________________________

Don’t think about the fact she was on a date. Don’t think about how Harry might have got to kiss her. Just don’t bring it up. 

“How was the date?”

She shrugged, pulling at the spine of a hardcover novel. 

“It was fine. Like I said, he was kind of boring.”

“So why’d you go out with him again?”

“I dunno, Spence, I just… I want a boyfriend, you know? I want someone to want to be with me.”

She is so beautiful. She laughs with her whole chest, and she listens to his stories and chimes in with her own expertise. She has a voice that seems like it’s spun gold thread, and he’d give anything to kiss her. 

“I get that,” he says, instead of anything he’s thinking. She’s wearing brown lipstick, transfer proof. He’s in love with her. “There’s got to be guys lining up for a girl like you.”

“That’s a nice thought, Spence. Not the ones I’d like.”

___________________________

This thought haunts his evening, and when he parks and they start the walk-up to his apartment, a confession hammering at his throat, a physical urge. She’s giggling at some long physics joke he’d made, and he’s addicted to the soft bell of her laughter.

His apartment is small and lovely, and he enjoys having her in the small and dark of the night, the sun set over what he wishes were two lovers. 

“You are really pretty, you know,” he says, once she’s settled into his chest, a sick satisfaction of knowing Harry got a quick thank you text before she darted over to Spencer’s arms. 

“Thanks, Spencer. You’re a good friend.”

“Why do you always say that?”

“That you’re a good friend?”

“I’m not saying you’re pretty because I’m a good friend. I’m saying it because it’s true, and I enjoy saying true things.” 

“You don’t…I don’t know why you’re saying that, Spencer. We’re friends and I adore you and I’m here right now, but you don’t need to make it harder on me.”

She looks nervous, and a little disapointed. He wants her to know, that even if he’s missed his shot, she’s not going to be alone. He’s gonna spend the rest of his life hating whoever knew to take the best thing offered to him, but Spencer- he knows he is not going to be the last to love her. He grabs her hand without thinking, her doe eyes peering into his with some emotion he can’t pin down. 

“Hey, I’m not trying…to make anything hard for you. I don’t ever want to do that. I just… some day someone’s gonna see you and want to be with you and I’m going to watch it and know it was inevitable.” 

The words taste like barbed wire. 

Ask me again, he wants to beg, I’m ready now. I’ll do it right. 

Is that even true? Is it just that he wants her bad enough he’s willing to risk not doing it right?

“You’re so sweet,” she sobs, and oh, she’s crying. Just a little, but tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “You make it so hard to be your friend. And I know that’s my problem, that you’ve always been straight up with me. I asked you out and you said no, and I know that-“

“I know that I was too late, and freaked out about being with someone like you when I was still so fucked up.” they’re so close to eachother, he can smell her chapstick. His chest aches. “Sweetheart, that had nothing to do with you. It was all me. It’s a train I missed that I’m gonna spend the rest of my life wishing I’d caught.”

He feels uncomfortably bare, even in the oversized sweater that she’d gotten him last Christmas, and that he’d pretended had been from his lover all of that week. But it’s important that she knows.

“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”

Her voice is small, so quiet he barely hears it. She threads her nimble fingers into his slender ones, and his heart is hammering. 

“I-I was on Dilaudid, or just barely off, you know- you wouldn’t want to be with someone like me. You asked me out when you didn’t even know that.”

“I know you now. Years worth of knowing.”

“And you haven’t asked me since.” 

“Spencer,” her voice is warm, rich like silk and grainy old music, and he wants to drink this image in, her fingers stroking the side of his face like he’s holy. He wonders if he’s dreaming, with how good she feels to be so close to. 

Ask me again, he wants to beg. I’m ready, now. 

“Spencer Walter Reid,” she says, properly holding his hand, bringing her soft lips to his hand, kissing his knuckle. He feels anointed, blessed by a higher power. “Could I take you out on a date?”

“Yes,” he says, finally. Five years of waiting melts away as he kisses her, warmth and light seeping into existence, a dream brought to tangible life, to touch and reality, “Actually, wait,” he says, and finishes before her face can fall, “Would you be my girlfriend?”

It’s maybe playing his cards too much, but her wide, ear to ear splitting grin is everything he needs to see, everything he might need to see for the rest of his life. 

“Took you long enough, boy-genius.”

“All you had to do was ask again!”

If she has a complaint about that, it certainly couldn’t be heard by the many, many kisses that would follow. 

[glitchdollmemoria]

HaShem said to me, He said little freak of mine you are gonna have the most unbearable addictive tendencies and you will have multiple disabilities that demand your abstinence from even the least harmful substances, and you will sit in your apartment distressed out of your mind sipping ramune and wishing for cigarettes and booze

[bibleofficial]

i love pissing off my ex like ‘yea if u send hole i’ll send u something back x’ & the something back was me laughing

[matchamiko]

₊˚⊹ ᰔ Daydreams about Yuuji

₊˚⊹ ᰔ Warnings: Oral (m -> receiving): sloppy, messy oral; masturbation: dirty talk; AFAB reader (use of girl, girlfriend,); established new relationship; mentions of oral (f -> receiving).

Daydreaming about giving Yuuji his first blowjob. Being his cute, soft, bundle-of-fun girlfriend for a few months before asking him if he wants to fuck your mouth, a little crudely in your tone but quietly, a whisper from your quivering lips. Quivering only in anticipation and the mere thought of him spread out, spilling down your throat. You’re painting your nails on a book on the floor, polish bottles positioned carefully so they don’t tip. A glass of iced yuzu tea sits next to Yuuji’s on the side table, forgotten in your concentration and forgotten in your distraction.

Your nails are long dry now, a pretty pearl that glimmers in the light. They’re fisted on your folded thighs, clenching and cracking when Yuuji shifts uncomfortably under the heat of your gaze.

“You wanna - what?��� Golden thighs fog any semblance of sobriety you have left, craving the warm supple skin before you like a wolf to prey. He’s reclined on the foldaway couch he’d thrifted from the side of the road, gym shorts pulled tight over the very tops of his thighs and over his crotch. Staring down at you with sweat beading his hairline and his lower lip dropped open at your sultry admission,

“Please? Should I have said please first?” You shuffle towards him, not touching but so desperately obvious in your lust that Yuuji struggles on where to look, “please can I suck your cock? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”

You two hadn’t had sex yet, not that it hadn’t come close. Something had always interrupted, whether it was a noisy neighbour or an irritating friend or mentor, or even the cat that roams your apartment as if it was his own. Kissing him was a dream, touching him made you too hot for your own skin and only he had made you come so far, fingers deep and a little clumsy but deft and strong in their wringing of your orgasm(s) on steamy summer’s afternoons tangled up on the couch.

So asking him for favours wasn’t really out of the question. Yuuji adored it when you politely asked for a kiss, positively beams at you before swallowing your radiating embarrassment with his lips. He’s not beaming now, not in the same way.

He’s - sweating. Squirming as he nods with a dry throat, swallowing and grinding his mouth shut. You’re picture perfect between his thighs, pearly nails digging welts into his muscle and humming at the give of the blonde hairs there. He’s afraid of what might happen if he opens his mouth, some kind of animalistic whimper or a loud sob? He feels rather pathetic before you, but gloriously so, bent to your will and your pretty painted nails.

“Bet you taste so good Yuuji,” you simper, lips picking out the moles and freckles leading up to his groin, “might give me some kinda oral fixation,”

Yuuji moans then, out-loud and deep from his chest. You grin wolfishly, fingers deft as they slip over the sweat resistant material of his shorts and up under his t-shirt. It’s tight, a little musty from drying in the bathroom and it gives way for the trail over his belly,

“Hold this f’me Yuuji,” broad hands hover over the edge of his shirt and then over you, biting his lip and then biting the fabric, “Mhm, thank you for letting me do this, been wanting to taste your cock for ages,”

“Yea-sh,” his voice is crackled and muffled by his shirt, spittle damping it but you’re pulling down the band of his shorts and suddenly it’s a little too real, hands raising to pause you, “Baby wait - I -,”

Anything he was going to say dies in a guttural grunt as you envelope the top of his weepy cock in your mouth. Hands that were intended to push you away grab you closer, cradling your throat and squeezing your shoulder.

“Mmmm,” you hum, one hand squeezing the base and the other squeezing his thigh, eyes rolling into the back of your head with the salty, bitter taste of him. Little sucks and kisses have Yuuji barely containing his groans and choked whines, hips flexing beneath you. The shirt has fallen to just below his pecs, belly tightening and flexing with every kick of his cock against your soft palate, but you don’t mind because he’s still trying to keep it out of your sloppy, drooly way, fisting the fabric and giving you a peak of a soft brown nipple, hard and aching.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, please please please,” he babbles, the hand on your neck moving to the back of your head, shaking as he follows your bobbing movements. His dick is thick, long and warm in the cavern of your mouth, the mushroom tip pink and slimy with pre, and you swallow every drop a little over enthusiastically. Humming and moaning and whimpering, you’re practically dripping through your underwear, positive you’ve wet through to the carpet.

And when you breathe in through your nose and take him as far as you can, the tip of your nose just shy of his pubes; the two of you practically lose your minds. Yuuji trembles above you, hunched over and incoherent; and you shimmy your thighs together in a squeeze of relief, drool coating the base of his cock and tears skimming your lashes.

“Y-you’re so hot baby look at ya’,” he can see the way you’re wiggling your hips, craning over you with sleepy eyes and heavy pants, “why - why don’t you play with your pretty pussy? Seein’ as you’re practically milking me dry,” Yuuji’s words come out slurred and muffled, as if his mouth were socked with cotton. A large hand comes down on the back of your neck, sweetly holding you and a stark contrast to the way his cock jerks in the tunnel of your throat as you deftly skim your fingers into your shorts. 

The angle is all wrong and you can barely feel the hard bud of your clit but you can feel the pearly arousal that sloshes around your underwear, loud but not loud enough over the slurps and kisses over his cock. You make it work, squirming and widening your knees a little but it still isn’t really enough, not that it mattered because he’s enough, Yuuji is always enough to get you off whether he’s touching you or not. And the heavy head of his cock popping from the seal of your lips is just that right kind of salacious that has your mind fuzzy and dizzy with lust. 

“Ah - fuck!” Yuuji chokes on his spit, throwing himself back against the folded futon that serves as the padding of the couch, one arm slumped over his eyes as you focus your attention on the root of his cock, looking up at him through your lashes and fluttering them when your index finger catches on your clit. His breathing comes out in heaving huffs, chest expanding gloriously above you and abs flexing with every clench of his belly. It’s heaven to you, a vision you always knew would be one to keep locked away in the deepest caverns of your mind, something precious and treasured and so disgustingly debauched. You slow your ministrations for a moment, content with just watching the reactions your boyfriend has when you twist your hand, squeeze a little harder, suckle at the vein on the side of his dick. Yuuji seems to appreciate the little break, catching his breath and adjusting his hips, jutting his length into your cheek and it’s amusing that such a kind boy doesn’t even apologise for it. 

“D’you want me to make you cum? Or - do you wanna fuck my mouth?” a long, drawn out groan answers you and you return it with a long lick right up the thickening root of him, 

“I - get to choose?” Yuuji’s voice is hoarse, cracked and strained from his addictive noises, deep with lust and something a little darker, “Really?” 

At your nod, you delve back into the leaking warmth of him. Yuuji gives a strangled grunt and gives his hips a little experimental thrust, pulsing upwards into the deeper depths of your throat. He seems torn between letting you do as you pleased, and giving in to his most debauched fantasies. He’d been given oral before, blowies or whatever his friends called them but they were nothing like you, none of them paid attention to his every reaction and noise, none of them gave him any choice or option on what he wanted to do. So to have you licking him deep and soft and all things sweet, eyes open and questioning with little bias; he’s all a fluster. 

“You - you can do it, I want you to make me cum baby,” the words were supposed to be gentle, coaxing, all the things Yuuji wished he was to you but his jaw is set and his voice is more of a growl, especially when he spots your tongue lathing over the base, leaving a trail and a string of drool. He tips his head back, bottom lip tugged into his mouth and his thighs drop open further, 

“But make sure you don’t stop playing with that pretty pussy, want you to feel just as good as me,” a whimper answers him and Yuuji isn’t sure if he’ll actually last as long as he thought he would, as he conveyed through his words. And he definitely isn’t sure because you abandon his cock in favour of his balls for a moment, and he’s suddenly all tight in his belly. You’re still squeezing and jerking and flexing your fingers around him, but your wet little tongue is skimming over the soft skin of his sac and drawing them into your mouth with the most wanton moan he think he’s ever heard. You’re visibly more aroused than before, wrist working diligently in your underwear, stretched tight and a much darker colour than earlier, but Yuuji can’t focus on your pleasure right now, for once, for the first time in your relationship. All he can think about is himself and how good it feels to have his pretty girl absolutely worshipping his cock, and he doesn’t care that you’re getting sloppy in your clouded lust; you’re back to sucking him feverently and whining around the thick of him. 

“Gonna - baby you’re gonna make me c -,” His admission has you shuffling even closer, abandoning your poor, suffering cunt and slapping a gooey, sticky hand on his thigh to brace yourself. 

And it's the wet little smear you leave behind, webbing between your fingers and joining the pre dripping down his cock as you hold him with both hands that has him positively howling your name. Hips pulse into your face, forcing his cock deeper as it swells down your throat and shoots hot, wet and salty into your belly. A hand comes down to his hip, the other fisting the shirt over his chest and catching on his nipple with a startled yelp. You’re strong in your restraint, letting him thrash and writhe beneath you, keeping yourself rooted in his lap and swallowing everything you can, shivering at the taste and the feeling of his cock kicking and twitching with every pulse of his orgasm. 

“I gotta - you gotta get off baby,” you don’t realise that he’s come down, don’t realise that he’s still twitching but with overstimulation and softening against the limp muscle of your tongue, “I can’t, I can’t do another yet, m’sorry but -,” Yuuji, through the jelly-like jitter of his limbs, heaves you off the floor and into his lap with a grunt, “That was the best head anyone’s ever given me,”

You’re shy all of a sudden, as if you’re not still swallowing the remains of his spend and sporting the slickest arousal you’ve ever experienced. Yuuji kisses your nose with an appreciative smile, 

“Really? I just wanted to do it y’know? You make me wanna suck your cock all the time, s’just something about you,” you tuck your chin into your chest, almost giving in to the little kisses he pecks all over your face, stopping at your temple and deflating with a sigh at your admission, 

“You’re cute baby,” his cock twitches from where it’s nestled between his stomach and your cotton covered crotch, “But a meanie, I swear you’ll be the death of me, thought I was gonna black out at one point,” 

“Yeah, yeah,” your fingers twist into the fine hairs at the back of his neck, sagging into him and kissing him with a deflated breath. Yuuji licks into your mouth lazily, hands squeezing up the length of your waist and back down again, urging your hips into a soft grind. You’re still sat up on your knees, so all you can feel is the syrupy chafe of your underwear over your cunt and you huff, 

“S’okay pretty girl, I got you,” Yuuji smiles at your apparent distress, “You want me to return the favour huh? Let you fuck my mouth instead? That what you want?” his long, thick fingers trickle into your underwear, choking at the slick he finds there, slipping and sliding over the swell of your clit, “Fuck - you got so fuckin’ worked up, bet you won’t last long, not as long as me,”

“Just, I don’t know - Yuuji, please,” a little circle of your hips puts his fingers where you need them most, “Do something or I’m gonna cry,” he shushes you, kissing you again with a loud smack, 

“I got you baby, gonna make this pretty pussy feel better, I promise,” Yuuji physically flinches when he pulls his hand from between your thighs, covered nearly to the wrist with your arousal and he inhales deep, dark, nostrils flaring at your scent. His tongue drops between his fingers, slurping up to the knuckles and down to the callouses on his palms, eyes fluttering and reopening to stare at you, “You taste insane - fuck - ‘m gonna eat you so fucking good, you’re not gonna know what hit you,”

all rights reserved © matchamiko. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[alchemistc]

You never let me in, Buck sends, two of three sheets fully winded, and when he kicks his leg over the coffee table he nearly knocks over three empties.

They do this thing, right? Buck gets upset and before the tears can fall, because he's cried too many fucking times already, he makes himself angry. Picks at something that has come up every time he's done a post-mortem on the last six months.

And then he sends that shit to Tommy. Because - because who the fuck else is he supposed to talk to about it? The guy who'd sucked him off in the hallway of a nightclub two weeks ago? The woman who'd spent an hour quietly helping Buck understand that yeah, he was very much bi, and yeah, some people did not like that shit? Maddie, or Chim, or Hen or Eddie, who still might interact with him on the job? Bobby? Fuck, not Bobby.

Bobby who'd blinked at Buck and offered platitudes and apologized to Buck like it was somehow his fault Tommy was good people but he was the kind of good people who just walked out on something that could have been something.

I should have pushed more. I know I should have. I just thought since I was trying to share everything, you were too.

My mistake.

Three months and Buck isn't over it. He's far enough into the mourning process that he thinks this one is always gonna sting, and not for the reasons Tommy thinks.

That's not fair. I'm sorry.

The texts get delivered. Tommy reads them. Buck's had read receipts on since the first time Tommy went quiet on a call and Buck freaked out a little - but back then they were still working towards something. Back then, sometimes Tommy would pull out his phone and open the thread just to give Buck sign of life.

He was always doing that. Heading shit off at the pass.

Buck had just never realized he'd be able to do it to hurt him, just as well as take care of him.

Every four weeks like clockwork Buck gets a response. He has no fucking idea why it's four weeks, what the third Thursday of the month has to do with Tommy feeling gracious enough to give Buck some clarity. He'd never known enough about Tommy, is the thing he's coming around to. He'd done everything he could to bring Tommy in, make him a part, and Tommy had let him. Tommy had distracted him with quippy words and a clever tongue and with being so fucking willing to be integrated into Buck's life that Buck just - hadn't noticed.

No one will say it, but he Bucked It Up in the worst kind of way.

He's waited until Third Thursday to send these texts. He actually hasn't sent anything at all, until this moment, and he wonders if Tommy noticed. If he cared. Tommy picks and chooses from Buck's random thoughts, parses out details like he's reading from a manual and Buck is off topic two thirds of the time. Buck doesn't actually know why he's been answering, all this time. He wonders if, in the last four weeks of silence, he thought he was finally done with Buck.

He wonders if it had hurt.

Buck sets his phone down to stand, skating across to the kitchen in his socks for the pizza rolls in the oven.

His diet is shit. His body feels like crap. He's one more drunken nights sleep on the couch away from emptying the rack in his fridge down the drain and giving sobriety a try. The last person he'd slept with had hinted that they'd prefer not to use condoms and Buck had almost let them.

Buck has worth. He knows he does. It's just sometimes when he remembers that every person he's ever loved has either walked out on him or let him walk away when he needed them, he struggles to find that worth.

His life has meaning, and all that jazz.

Buck sort of wonders if Tommy hasn't finally blocked his number, as he tosses a too-hot pizza roll in his mouth and huffs on the lava cheese burning his tongue. After the last message Buck had sent, three weeks ago, he wouldn't exactly be surprised.

(This is basically just an unhinged grief journal with an unreliable second narrator. Do you know what it's like to realize you're still in love with someone who never let you know them?)

There's been no response to that. Fair. Buck hadn't even actually said the words. No, he'd jumped right into the sharing a life part, cart before the horse as always when emotions were high.

The pizza rolls get tipped onto a plate and are immediately swimming in the heavy pour of ranch he'd prepared after he set the oven to preheat.

It cools them off a lot quicker than popping a hole in each seam and waiting.

It's been eight years since Buck has really even thought about that little trick.

When he opens his phone there's no response. No receipt. Just stark words waiting to be acknowledged.

I gave you my family, Tommy. You didn't even introduce me to your team at Harbor.

It's startling to realize after the fact. He doubts Tommy had meant it that way, but he'd basically spent six months being love bombed only to have the rug ripped right out from under his feet.

And yet. Months later and he still wants to know. Know why. Know how he could have done it, with tears in his eyes, with full awareness that it was already gonna hurt. Know Tommy - anything he'd part with, really, that wasn't something every random acquaintance also knew.

Cool, he'd been jealous of what Buck and the 118 had. (Buck had tried to give him that. Or at least he thought he had.)

Great, he didn't talk to his dad and Gerrard was a shitty captain. (Buck had spent an hour once explaining the first time he and his dad had spoken about Daniel without screaming at each other. Tommy had listened to the rants about Gerrard and offered physical comfort and a 'sounds like him' and Buck had just been so relieved to have an ally amongst the 'life is just like this sometimes' crowd that he'd never examined that.)

He was a Kinsey six who'd been engaged to the first woman Buck had ever really loved and they'd never dug deeper than that.

And Buck had apparently interpreted some of the shit he'd said that night wrong, but he still doesn't think it's fucking fair that Tommy can't trust him to know his own fucking mind well enough to know he hates sleeping around and he'd found the sort of connection he was looking for. He'd found it. Even with the lack of reciprocation. Even with the quiet behind Tommy's eyes that he'd never let Buck in on. Even with the -

His phone buzzes on the coffee table.

Can we talk?

Buck kinda hates those words in that order now. They'd been the start of something twice, but they'd always been leading to an end, if Tommy had his way.

Once every four weeks, apparently, Buck sends back and takes a vicious bite.

His phone chimes with an incoming call.

Buck stares at the name he hasn't had the stomach to remove the little heart from. Lets it ring through to voicemail and then shoves three more pizza rolls into his mouth and doesn't care if they burn off his taste buds.

His phone rings again.

"What?"

"I'm outside your building. Didn't want to make any assumptions that I'd be welcome without asking first."

Buck can feel his ribs cracking under the lurch of angry laughter. "What the hell?"

"Well the parking around here is miserable again, so I figure that's a sign."

"Are you driving right now?"

"Hands off. I'm on Bluetooth. So. Should I circle the building a fifth time or call it now and go home?"

Buck gets stuck on fifth time.

There's no way he hadn't been driving since at least before Buck sent that first text.

Buck sighs. There's absolutely no reason to be hopeful about that. For all he knows, Tommy has just decided dousing any residual flames is just another thing he has to do in person.

"My Jeep's in the shop. I'll buzz you into the garage."

Tommy's silent for a long, long moment. The quip comes anyway. "I keep telling you that thing is a money pit."

"I'm not really feeling the flirty banter, right now, Tommy, so maybe just let me know when you're at the gate."

He does. He hangs up the phone twenty seconds later with a plain "See you soon."

Buck doesn't have time to change. Fix his hair. Hide the sheet pan with half a dozen pizza rolls still laying on it, because he'd cooked way too many again.

(He could absolutely do one of these things but if Tommy's gonna throw this at him, he's getting every little slovenly habit Bucks's picked up since he walked out that door.)

The knock comes while Buck's shoving the last two rolls on his plate into his mouth.

He's still chewing with his mouth open to blow out the steam when he swings the door open, and Buck feels the first inklings of pleasure ripple through him at the sight of Tommy.

He looks like shit.

"You look like shit."

Tommy's brow ticks up. He stares pointedly at the glob of not-cheese that's going to absolutely ruin this sweatshirt.

"That tends to happen when you spend an hour in an armchair two sizes too small picking at trauma you've been hiding from your therapist for six years."

Buck opens the door wider. Holy crap. Tommy might legitimately be more fucked up than Buck.

Tommy's smile is strained. "Can I come in?"

Buck holds his gaze. His eyes are a little red. He's got a red spot along the side of his neck, like he's been rubbing at it. Buck only recognizes it as a comforting motion because he's replayed him doing it half a million times right before he ended things.

"Depends. Is this the last time you respond to my mean, rude, asshole texts for an hour after therapy rubs you raw?" Third Thursday Therapy, is apparently what does it. Buck is - god. He just wants -

"God, I hope not," Tommy says, and Buck takes a step to the side to let Tommy in.