Buck paused in front of his locker and looked at it. They had been out of the station all night long, and while there was a man behind, Eddie in this case, that meant that someone was at least allowed to sleep. The place had been locked up tight, and no one had been allowed inside unless they rang the doorbell.

Chim had been the one to call in and get Eddie up to open the doors for them to arrive. Eddie had been behind because while he was cleared for work, he wanted to baby it a day before doing something that would hurt him more. Buck was still apologizing for what he had done, and while Eddie brushed it off, he allowed the first apology with grace. The others were getting to the point where Buck might have annoyed him.

"What's wrong?" Eddie asked as he came up behind Buck, bumping into him to pull Buck out of his head.

"My locker is open. I know I shut it yesterday when I last got into it."

"It was just me here, so it has to be one of the people we work with. Jones likes your lotion."

"Yeah," Buck said. He shook his head to throw himself off and opened his locker. He stopped at the dozen yellow roses inside of the there in a vase. A note was attached. He reached out to pick it up but stopped when he heard the locker room door open gain. Bck shut the locker, and he swallowed.

"Hey, come up upstairs and help me figure out stuff about Marisol," Eddie said.

"We should leave."

"Nah, let's wait until the other shift is out, and you can do what you need with those without a whole bunch of eyes on you."

"You know."

"I mean, I was the only one here, Evan," Eddie said.

"He told you."

"No, not really. He didn't mean to. Let's go up and tuck into that corner where there is no echo."

Buck followed Eddie, taking his phone with him. He was dressed to leave except for gathering the stuff he needed to take home, and he had no idea where the stuff was because the roses took up nearly the whole locker.

"Your stuff is in your Jeep already. I'm a good wingman." Eddie tugged Buck along with him up the stairs, and the rest of the shift, who were eating something before going home or chugging coffee, didn't even spare a glance at them. It was strange to see how it was all going a little wrong with everyone. Buck wanted to trust that Tommy hadn't told Eddie, but he had no clue what to feel. They hadn't talked beyond making the plans for the date that night. Buck had hoped that it was going to be a good date without any issues, but he knew how his first dates went.

Buck sat down in a chair and waited for Eddie to haul over the other chair. Eddie didn't sit down, though; he went over to get coffee. Buck wasn't sure what he was feeling at the moment.

"So," Buck said when Eddie finally sat down.

"I was surprising him at work before shift yesterday. He was on the phone talking to someone, so I just hung back. I thought he saw me, but he didn't. I wasn't paying attention to him, and he got close enough for me to hear about a date he was going on with Evan. The way he said the name was exactly how I had heard him say it when we were leaving for the Vegas fight. I was a little shocked, and I think it was still on my face when he turned around. He looked devastated. He didn't like that at all, but it wasn't like I was sinking up on him. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time. He told me that you would talk to me when it was time, but I took matters into my own hands when he wanted to just leave the flowers in your Jeep without me seeing what he was doing."

"He stopped by to leave flowers?" Buck asked.

"Yes, I didn't ask what was on the card, but Buck, I don't care. You know that. I don't care. This doesn't change a thing between us other than I wish I had had a chance to take you out and find out what your type of guy is—beyond Tommy. So no, I'm just jealous of Tommy taking up my time but not getting any time with him because we had it."

"Yeah. I was a little bit shocked. I didn't even realize it until he was talking to me. I wanted his attention, and I wanted it so much."

"Hence the pigtail pulling, only you didn't have a frame of reference."

"How are you so good at this?"

"Tommy and I talked for a while before I left. Look, my sprain is fine. I did well today. I'm good. It's not going to be hard to do anything job-related. This is going to be easy to use to get over. I'm a little upset that you didn't come to me right away when Tommy kissed you, but then again, I understand keeping things close while you figured yourself out. It's why I wanted you to know that I knew. I knew it was a freak accident, but I still don't want to dance around this."

"Let's get breakfast and take it back to my place."

"Yeah, my house is going to be empty with Chris at the science camp for the weekend. I'll stop and get the juice from the good store, and you can get breakfast something from that truck that's close to your place."

Buck nodded and looked at the locker room area even if he couldn't see it. Most of the shift was gone by now, and the new shift was setting up in the kitchen for some quiet before the crazy of the day started.

---

Buck picked up his phone and checked the time—three hours until the date. Eddie had finally left after trying to help Buck find clothes to wear, including those jeans that Buck needed oil to fit into, with how much his leg muscles had grown over the years since he bought them. This sounded good for a date, but it would make it hard to sit down at all.

A knock came at Buck's door, and he checked the time immediately, even though he had just done so. He wasn't unused to time passing if he was hyper focused on something, and it seemed like it was just minutes. It was still hours until the date.

Buck opened the door to find a courier there. He took the clipboard and signed it before pulling the letter off it. It wasn't a normal letter but a card-sized envelope with a letter inside.

"Thanks."

"Have a good evening."

Buck waited until the door was shut before he started to open the envelope, and he paused at the short words on the paper.

Come to the cafe downtown, where our flag flies all year round, and during June, all the flags fly.

Buck had no clue what that meant, but he figured it was meant to be a game. He looked at the flowers in the middle of his kitchen area and walked over to pick the card off there. Tommy had just said that he was looking forward to the date but had not put a time.

He decided it was time to get dressed for real and settled for something comfortable that would make him feel less like he was on display before heading out to see where this chase took him.

It took some research, but he found the cafe where the Pride flag flew year-round, and the other identities flew all of the month of June with a little Googling. That led him to a bookstore that was owed by a pair of lesbians who had a book for him as well as another note from Tommy leading him to a pet shop, where Buck nearly came out with a pair of cats that were adorable but he still at least got to play with them for a few minutes while the shop owner found the note from Tommy. It had been under a sleeping rabbit.

Then it was an ice cream shop owned by a good friend of Tommy's and a bag that kept ice cream frozen for long enough for their date to be done, with dry ice inside.

Buck was enjoying it even as the time between now and eight grew ever slower, and he had no idea how long it was going to take to get to where Tommy was.

The last card differed from the rest, and Buck hoped it was the last since there were nearly eight already. He wanted to be there already. Ten minutes into Googling to find the first place, his mind focused on his journey, and he stopped being nervous about the date itself.

Buck paused in front of the address that the last card took him to. It looked like a normal house, but he wasn't sure what he was doing there. Then the door opened, and Tommy came outside. It was Tommy's house.

He had his keys in his hand and a small bag over his shoulder, but he just walked over to Buck's Jeep and got inside.

"Hello, Evan. Did you have fun?"

"You had too much fun with that."

"Eh, Eddie gave me the idea for it. He told me you would freak out before the date and probably be a little off. He also gave me a rundown of the first dates that he knew about. I decided we are not going anywhere that serves bread with the start of the meal."

Buck laughed and reached up to touch the faint kind left from that disastrous date—not popcorn, either. Eddie already told me where he was going on his date with Marisol tonight, so I don't have to worry about running into them. I know a place that I think you might love. Do you have a standard GPS unit?"

"Nah, it's just my phone. Or your phone." Buck picked up the cord that would go into the display that gave him the feed for his system.

Tommy messed with his phone and then plugged it in. The route popped up when Tommy tapped the screen. "This isn't a normal setup."

"Nah, I didn't like what I saw, and it was all that was offered on this Jeep model. So, I found what I wanted and had the dealer install that for me. I've gotten a little paranoid about things. It doesn't have an external connection unless it's using my phone."

"Paranoid?"

"Eh, a little. Seen too much shit at work."

"Hmm, I agree there. Never having sex in the shower beyond maybe handjobs or blow jobs. I do not want firefighters I know to show up to save me from myself."

"Spare handcuffs in a drawer accessible from anywhere on the bed."

"No, clipped to the cuffs themselves. No chance of anything going wrong then."

Buck laughed, and he looked to see where they were going. The map didn't show him the end destination.

"Let me start by saying that we can go somewhere else, but where we are going is pretty much a safe date spot."

Buck knew what Tommy meant by safe and wondered how long Tommy had to worry about things like that.

"How long have you been out?"

"Not before I moved to Harbor. Under Gerrard, the 118 wasn't a welcoming place, and I was still trying to figure myself out with being out of the Army. Knowing that I could be out didn't mean that I accepted who I was and what I wanted. I wanted to be who I was, but that took a while, and at Harbor, there were others who were out in some fashion or another, whether it was sexual orientation or gender identity. We have a lot of badasses who are outside of what is considered normal, so it's harder to think that they are less for that when there is a woman over there who can toss me over her shoulder and run with me, and she's got a husband, and they have a guy they share between them that lives next door."

"Hen could if she had to, and I know it," Buck said. He inhaled and exhaled before setting the Jeep into drive and heading where they needed to go.

Tommy kept up a commentary on his trip to accept who he was, helping give Buck something to focus on. There was something calming about hearing Tommy's journey to who he was now.

"And you?" Tommy asked.

"I think that the way that I acted before, you know, this is my first date with a dude."

"And that doesn't mean anything. You could have known you were bisexual or even gay for a long time. Internalized homophobia is a thing."

"Yeah," Buck said. He turned where the GPS told him to and found that he was back near the bookstore. "I've checked out the ass of hot guys, but that's normal."

"It's really not, Evan." Tommy reached over and laid his hand over Buck's on the gearshift. "Yes, there are heterosexual people who can appreciate beauty in all of its forms, but nearly all of them would never check out the ass of a person who is not someone they are attracted to."

Buck pulled into a parking spot at the restaurant and looked around a little bit as he thought about Tommy's words. He had never thought that it wasn't normal. It had been him from a very young age, but he never did it when he was working with people.

"Did I blow your mind?"

"Just trying to reframe the last twenty years of my life, that's all."

"You don't have to do it all tonight. Anyway, this place is going to be full of allies and people like us. There is no worry about being harassed, but it's also going to mean that everyone will know what we are doing in there—that it's a date."

"I don't mind that."

"You say that, but sometimes it's harder in practice. Are you truly okay with having people looking at us and thinking about what we are going to do when we get home? Possibly seeing you out and about in the world in the capacity of your job and maybe asking how your boyfriend is doing?"

Buck hadn't thought that far ahead, but he could see it. There was so much going on that he wasn't sure what would come with the future, but he knew he wanted this new world. He wanted to be out there, but maybe dates in the area where they were accepted were the best idea. It did make him feel like he was doing something that was overt instead of passive when it came to his new changed world.

Yet, there was the allure of going somewhere where no one would bat an eye and think they were just two friends out for a meal before or even after something. He wanted to think that he was better than that, but this was all too damned new.

"Let's go inside," Buck said.

"I'll get your door," Tommy said.

"And if I wanted to get your door?" Buck asked.

"Then I would let you, but I think that you need to be wooed a little. I was to be that kind of person for you."

"Are you not normally that kind of person?"

"No, I am. I know that most things are a give-and-take, and I think you've mostly been giving before this. Let me do this."

Buck nodded and waited for Tommy to come around the Jeep to open his door. When he slipped out of the seat, he moved as fast as he could to get his hand on Tommy and hold him still. He kissed him, something less than the first kiss they had shared but almost better in its own way since it was in public. It was an overt description of what they were doing.

"Eddke's never going to let me live it down about being jealous," Buck said.

"Well, I can defend you from him, you need."

"My knight in shining turnout onesie."

Tommy laughed, and he caught Buck's hands and held him in place before kissing him again, a little more intense than the ones they had shared before but no less good. It made Buck's toes curl, and he wanted to see what was coming after this. The future was bright and wide.

The End