#went into a fugue state over the past 48 hours. wrote this. voila

[iinryer]

—feels so real, must be fake—

[buck/tommy || 5.2k || rated T || 7x05 spec-ish]

“Yeah, but I—I ruined our date,” Buck says weakly, huffs an audibly self-deprecating sound that he thinks he meant to be something like a laugh, “I, um, I didn’t know…,”

He trails off.

Tommy leans on an elbow against the island next to him, head tilted a bit towards his lifted shoulder to look at him. To give his full attention. Waiting, Buck realizes, giving space for Buck to say what he needs to say, to hear what he’s thinking.

But the only words he can find are, “I didn’t—I didn’t know…,”

Tommy seems to see him getting lost, and says, “Know what? Know that your opening day playing for the other team might be overwhelming? Or that it would get crashed by your coworker? Or even that you might feel some kind of way about that?” he smiles, easy as anything, and teases kindly, “I don’t see how you could’ve known any of that,”

Buck lets out an exhale in a rush, ducking his head, helpless to stop the beginnings of a bashful smile from peeking through, and makes himself peer back up, “Yeah, I—I guess so,”

“Well I know so,” Tommy says, eyebrows doing a very pointed lift, before breaking out into that light grin again, “You couldn’t have, and neither could I. That’s kind of how life works,”

—

spec-adjacent fic based on the date crashing of the 7x05 promo

[read it on ao3]