Chapter Text
Buck was excited to go on the honeymoon, of course. But he hadn’t expected that he and Tommy would learn so much about each other, and get so much closer. Something about travel was very humbling and vulnerable. Buck felt every day that he couldn’t love this man more, and yet every night he went to bed loving Tommy more than when he woke up. Buck wanted to roll around in bed with Tommy, fuck him, get fucked, cook for him, care for him, be cared for, nurse him in old age, talk to him forever. He felt like nobody else in the world mattered right now except the two of them.
It was with these thoughts massaging Buck’s busy brain that he and Tommy decided to go out on their last night in Berlin. Sure, it would make driving exhausting the next day, but if they spent the night in Nuremberg instead of Verona, Buck wasn’t going to complain.
They spent the day walking around Prenzlaurberg, chowing down at Brekkie, stopping for schwarma sandwiches at lunch, and having a nice couple take their picture in front of the cinema’s famous LIEBE sculpture. They stayed there long after the pictures were done, Tommy holding the small of Buck’s back so they could kiss like VJ Day. They looked at what the cinema was showing, and it had plenty of American blockbusters that were subtitled, but they opted for an afternoon nap before clubbing. At least, Tommy planned on a nap, but as soon as they got back to the apartment, Buck tore his clothes off and hit the floor with his knees hard enough to make the dishes in the kitchenette shake. Buck was so in love; he couldn’t possibly contain himself after such a perfect day.
After showering and some actual sleep, Buck and Tommy put on their mesh shirts and some dark wash jeans. Tommy’s jeans were black and a bit skinny, which earned him some pinches and teasing for Buck.
‘These are s-so 2019, babe,’ he cackled.
‘Should I change?’ Tommy was already a little nervous to go clubbing.
‘D-don’t you dare. I wanna look at your ass all night.’ Buck grabbed Tommy’s ass to emphasise his point, and kissed him with a smile. ‘Oh god I still want you so bad.’
‘We’re going out! You’d never forgive yourself for skipping Kreuzberg.’
Buck shrugged. That was fair enough, though he felt like this trip was changing his priorities a little.
Buck’s jeans were a deep blue, wide with a slight flare. He’d picked them up at Alexanderplatz yesterday after seeing the style on a few guys in their 20’s. Okay, he was deep into his 30’s now, but he could still rock it. Tommy caught him looking in the mirror and nodded appreciatively.
‘Told you you could model.’
Buck blushed just like he had on the Paris Metro and answered Tommy with a deep kiss.
‘We should really go. I hear the lines are long,’ Tommy said, his tongue still in Buck’s mouth.
‘Mm-hmm,’ Buck agreed, caressing Tommy’s muscles and cute paunch through the mesh of his shirt. ‘We should definitely, definitely go…’
***
Some time later, they stepped off the platform at Kottbusser Tor and took the short walk to Roses in the centre of Kreuzberg. The music was offbeat and the atmosphere was electric. People of all genders gathered around, talked, laughed, and danced. It was the perfect choice and Möbel was just around the corner if they changed their mind.
Tommy ordered them each a cocktail, and Buck’s eyes felt like they were literally emanating hearts.
‘What?’ Tommy asked with a smirk.
‘I love it when you Deutsch sprechen,’ Buck answered with a little sigh. Tommy chuckled that perfect, true laugh Buck loved so much, and gave Buck a peck.
‘You’re cute, you know that?’
‘My husband is cuter,’ Buck ran his tongue along his lip as he teased Tommy.
‘Maybe you don’t need this after all!’ Tommy held the cocktail away from Buck. They had decided to only have one each so they would remember the night perfectly.
‘Oh! Wh-who’s the brat now, Mr. Kinard-Buckley?’ Buck sassed right back. Laughing at their own brand of humour, the Kinard-Buckleys found a tall table to sip their drinks and do some people watching. After they had finished, Evan raised his eyebrows at Tommy and nodded to the dance floor. Tommy was helpless against his husband, and went easily behind him. Evan looked so good from the back as well, his muscled shoulders causing the mesh shirt to reflect the pink and purple lights in intricate patterns as his ropy arms intertwined with Tommy’s. He wished he had the words to tell Evan how much this last week meant to him, but the music was loud so Tommy pulled his husband close and danced dirty, grinding against Evan’s back.
Evan lifted his arm and clutched the back of Tommy’s neck in approval, his wide jeans giving him a full range of movement. Tommy hoped Evan would never let go, and they’d stay dancing in this club forever. Evan’s body was just slightly smaller than his own, the perfect height to press up against. Tommy leaned his head against Evan’s, wanting his smell, his body, as much of Evan as he could claim.
Evan turned around in his arms and pressed himself impossibly closer to Tommy. The floor was getting crowded as the night went on, the feeling of bodies jumbling against theirs made the Kinard-Buckleys’ world seem even tighter and more intimate. The friction of the mesh heated Tommy’s chest almost uncomfortably, but if Evan was getting half the view he was, he didn’t want to ruin that for him.
The bass thumped loudly and Evan stuck his hands in Tommy’s back pockets. The look in his blue eyes was desperate; Tommy knew that look because it usually came right before Evan did something brash, like sucking him off next to a door. Tommy felt a deep, warm yearning in his gut. He leaned forward to the shell of Evan’s ear.
‘Bathroom?’ he asked.
‘Fuck yes, please, Tommy,’ Evan panted.
Tommy grabbed his husband’s hand and made haste toward the washrooms.
***
The U-Bahn dropped them at Eberswalder Straße around three in the morning. The Kinard-Buckleys elected to hop the tram back to their studio, both of them fully exhausted and feeling their age in their own ways. They arrived back to a finished wash and dry cycle, which Buck folded and packed while Tommy showered and sacked out. Buck needed a little time to decompress, so he made himself some lichen tea, showered, packed his dirty club clothes, and brought his tea out to the balcony. The moon was nearly full and setting, bathing the courtyard in a beautiful, silvery light. Buck went through their day today, and made a mental checklist for the morning. He didn’t need a clipboard, he just liked a clipboard, he thought humorously.
Buck had fallen asleep in one of the metal deck chairs when Tommy came out to check on him.
‘Hey baby,’ Buck said sleepily. ‘Had to pee or did I wake you?’
‘Had to pee,’ Tommy answered. ‘And your side was empty. Had to find you.’ His voice was gruff and tired.
‘You like that moon?’ Buck pointed up to the perfectly hung disc.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Tommy whispered into Buck’s curls, kissing them softly.
‘I’ll lasso it for you. I’d do anything for you.’
‘Hmm,’ Tommy agreed. ‘Will you come back to bed?’
‘Of course, Thomas.’ Buck rose with a half-sleeping smile, laying a kiss on Tommy’s bare clavicle.
They were asleep before their heads hit the pillows.
***
Buck and Tommy had so thoroughly destroyed their sleep schedules, they did make it to Verona around midnight the next day. They had opted for a room at a pensione, which had a balcony overlooking the old city. They bathed in the fancy claw-footed tub, as there was no shower, just a shower-head. Dried off and wrapped in the provided robes, they sat on the balcony, somehow managing to share one chaise lounge with Buck slightly on top of Tommy’s leg, though both their butts stuck off a little.
‘That moon?’ Tommy asked. The moon was so close to being full now, it could trick your eye.
‘Y-yeah, baby. That moon.’
‘Like Jimmy Stewart promised Mary?’
Buck smiled, bright and sudden. ‘You know the film?’
‘Pff-‘ Tommy huffed. ‘I’m surprised you know the film.’
‘Maddie used to play it for me, y’know, when holidays got… busy,’ Buck managed a sad smile. Tommy already knew what his childhood was like. Buck didn’t want to taint this moment with sad memories. Maybe on the drive to Rome, he would talk about it more. Everything between them was shared now.
‘Mmm,’ Tommy said noncommittally.
‘I always had a crush on George Bailey,’ Buck continued. ‘I cry every time he accuses his uncle of stealing. He’s a good man. Not a perfect man, but truly good.’ Buck sighed and sank back further against Tommy.
‘You’re a good man, Evan.’
‘Hmm.’ Now it was Buck’s turn to be noncommittal.
‘Evan, look at me.’ Buck craned his neck around and saw his beloved’s open, honest face. ‘I’d lasso the moon for you too.’ Buck smiled and stuck his face into Tommy’s clean head of hair. He smelled like pensione shampoo, brackish water, and Buck’s home forever.
‘Thomas?’
‘Yes, Evan?’
‘Take me to bed?’
In one motion, Tommy scooped Evan up and stepped inside. He laid Evan out on the large mattress, caressing his curls, struck silver in the moonlight from the open balcony doors. Tommy let his robe slide to the ground, and helped Evan remove his without getting up.
‘Y-you are my home, Thomas Kinard-Buckley,’ Evan said quietly. He was naked and vulnerable, trusting Tommy completely. A flush crept up Evan’s torso, but he didn’t shy away from it. Tommy saw the decision on his face to lean into it, to let himself feel everything ‘Come to bed?’ Evan asked sweetly. Tommy was loathe to deny him anything, and began to kiss every inch of his love’s body as Evan gasped.
***
The pensione had a two-night minimum, so they spent the next day in Venice. There was a tourist fee now, and Buck prattled on about how the fee should probably be even higher, and how it was free if you lived in the Veneto, and how other Italians should have to pay less than international tourists, and was starting in on the history of glass in the city when their vaporetto pulled up.
‘Boat bus!’ Evan exclaimed.
‘Boat bus,’ Tommy agreed, his heart overflowing with love, ready to fall into his husband’s dimples.
***
The Kinard-Buckleys packed up everything before dinner so they could have a leisurely passeggiata around Verona and up to the city wall. ‘Ecco la!’ Buck called a bit ahead on the Veronese steps, ‘Melograni!’ he skipped back down next to Tommy. ‘They’re everywhere, just hanging over the steps.’
‘Mmm, did you grab one?’
‘Not yet. Do you think anyone will mind?’
‘I doubt they’ll notice, honestly.’ Tommy reached above his head nonchalantly, keeping his eyes on Buck. Buck’s heart fluttered as Tommy found a pomegranate that was already loose, causally twisted it, and put it in his jacket pocket.
‘That’s my man,’ Buck said admiringly.
Tommy stifled a laugh so as not to wake any of the neighbours.
At the top of the stairs, there was a little walk along the wall, which opened up into a tiny piazza with a few benches, all filled with couples at this time of the evening. Tommy took Buck’s hand and led him to the wall to look out over the city sparkling below.
Buck gasped. ‘Oh wow. This beats Los Angeles by a country mile.’
‘Yeah,’ Tommy agreed, pulling out the pomegranate and breaking it in half. He hopped up with one leg over the wall, gesturing of Buck to join him. Luckily, neither of them were afraid of heights, as the drop down was vertical and long. Buck shuffled his knees to touch Tommy’s and let him feed him pomegranate seeds.
‘Are you going to trap me for every seed, like Persephone?’ Buck asked.
Tommy laughed at Buck’s strange, erratic knowledge base. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you.’
Buck answered by bringing Tommy’s hand to his mouth and taking a bite out of the sweet and bitter fruit. When he pulled back, his face was covered in wine-dark stains. Tommy edged himself closer, wrapping his legs over Buck’s and around his back. He kissed the sweet juice from his husband’s face slowly, intimately.
Buck grabbed the fabric of Tommy’s shirt and gasped, ‘Pensione. Now.’ He jumped off the wall, pulling Tommy toward him, and kissed the fruit on his husband’s tongue.
They clambered back down the steps, stopping now and again to make out under a pomegranate tree.
***
The next morning, the Kinard-Buckleys were about to hop in their tiny rental car and drive to Rome, but Tommy was fixated on the sheets.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Buck assured him.
‘Evan, it looks like we murdered someone. The signora will call the carabiniere.’
Buck assessed the melograno stains from last night’s escapades. It did look very bad, but that wasn’t going to get them in the car any faster.
‘It’s the wrong colour and she’ll be able to bleach it out,’ Buck shrugged simply. ‘C’mon, love, we can’t be late for your bubbe.’
This at least was true, and Tommy left the keys on the desk on the pensione reluctantly.
***
Buck and Tommy arrived in Rome at quarter to five, so they took their time driving around the Centro, arriving at Giuliana’s house at half past five. Tommy’s bubbe lived in a third floor walk up in the south of Monteverde. Giuliana was walking distance to a Sephardic and an Italian Synagogue, and she liked it that way. When Tommy pulled into the small lot behind her building, Giuliana was already watching for them from the balcony. Buck was instantly nervous.
‘Maybe we should have come early?’
‘No, no,’ Tommy assured him. ‘She wouldn’t have been ready.’ Smiling brightly at his husband, they disentangled themselves from the car.
‘Benvenuti, bambini! Io scenderà!’ [Welcome, sweet babies! I’m coming down.]
The Kinard-Buckleys waited patiently for Giuliana to come down the stairs.
‘Ciao! Ciao bellissimi! Mi bambini, sei troppo magri!’ [Ciao handsome boys! My darling babies, you’re much too thin.] She hugged them both much more tightly than Buck expected from a woman of her size. She had bent shoulders from a lifetime of work, and thick knuckles on arthritic hands, but she hugged like she was twice the size of the firefighters, cracking Buck’s back pleasantly.
‘Buon pomeriggio, amore mio. Grazie per averci ospitato, Bubbe,’ [Good afternoon, my love. Thanks for having us, Bubbe.] Tommy gushed over her, picking her up and twirling her around.
‘Ciao Signora Giuliana! Grazie mille…’ [Ciao Miz Giuliana! Thank you so very much…] Buck started, but Giuliana bopped the side of his head.
‘Signora? Basta! Sei cresciuto in una stalla? Mio chiamo Bubbe, bambo mio.’ [Mrs? Cut that out! You raised in a barn or something? My name is Bubbe, my boy.] She kissed Buck on both cheeks and led the newlyweds up the stairs, turning around to call, ‘Andiamo, andiamo!’ [Get moving!]
Buck beamed at Tommy, who smiled back and picked up their bags. Watching Tommy and Bubbe go up the stairs in front of him, the way they laughed and chatted lightheartedly, pinched one another, and touched the mezuzah on her doorframe almost unconsciously set a fire ablaze in Buck’s heart. He couldn’t believe that he had married into this. Unconventional, perhaps, but a loving family. He paused to look down at the car and feel grateful for a moment before following them inside the apartment.
Giuliana’s apartment had spotless white tile floors, stretching from the entryway to each room in the house. There was a small kitchen behind the living room, which also opened up onto her balcony. Clothes were strung on a line that reached over to the next building, making the place feel inviting and homey. The balcony was very large, and the guest room was very small. It contained two small beds pushed together to create something Buck and Tommy could share, and was next to the common washroom. The washroom was bigger than the guest room by a fair amount, with a toilet behind a pocket door and a large, luxurious shower. Buck snuck a peek into Giuliana’s room, which had a large, high bed blanketed by a handmade quilt, and beautiful lace crochet decorations. He saw a thin book with Hebrew writing on her dresser, along with some old photos that must have been Tommy’s grandfather.
‘Hey, Evan!’ Tommy called from the kitchen. ‘Bubbe says only you are allowed to touch the oven. Come help with dinner, I’m grabbing some vino rosso della Roma.’
Buck was worried he was so full of love it was going to burst him at the seams, so he took a deep breath before calling back, ‘Arrivando, amore!’ [Coming, love!]
***
This might be Tommy’s favourite part of the trip. He sat in the living/dining room, watching Evan help his bubbe make dinner. Evan’s Italian had improved a lot over the past couple years, but he still made cute mistakes like a kid. His confidence and bubbliness more than made up for it, and Bubbe was thrilled Evan had gone to so much effort. She snuck Tommy some approving glances when Evan was stirring a pot or cleaning a colander.
In no time at all, plates of linguine with marinara were popped on the table, along with fresh rolls, some courgettes, and artichokes.
‘Bubbe! Io non posso mangiare tutto!’ [Bubbe, there’s no way I can eat all that!]
‘Basta, ragazzo sciocco! Mangia, mangia o morirai!’ [You stop that right now, ridiculous boy! Eat, eat up or you’ll die!] she clicked her tongue at him.
‘What she said,’ Evan teased with his tongue sticking out. Tommy reached out to pinch him, but his husband was too quick.
‘Vedi questo,’ [See that?] Bubbe said to Evan, who put on a face of mock disappointment and shook his head.
‘Io so, Bubbe. Que cosa posso fare?’ [I know, Bubbe, but what can I do (about him)?] When Bubbe turned around, he made a face at Tommy.
***
Dinner was delicious and heavy, sending Bubbe straight to a shower and bed. Tommy and Buck took their time showering, holding each other, and climbing into each other’s sweats as comfy pyjamas.
‘It’s lovely outside,’ Tommy whispered. ‘Come to the balcony with me?’
Buck smiled and nodded, taking his husband’s hand.
They leaned against the railing, looking at the street below. Everything felt soft at the edges from the drive and the wine.
‘I never want to go home,’ Buck said pensively.
‘Mmm,’ Tommy agreed.
Buck turned toward his husband and lay his arms comfortably on his chest, hands not quite touching Tommy’s shoulders. ‘Can we take this feeling back with us?’
‘What do you mean?’ Tommy asked.
Buck struggled a bit. ‘I-it’s hard to describe,’ he leaned in and kissed Tommy so softly, so lovingly, Tommy’s feet felt like they were floating. ‘I feel so close to you. Closer every day. Like my heart can touch yours. I dunno, maybe that seems silly.’
Tommy put two fingers under Buck’s chin. Buck felt an electric jolt run pleasantly through his whole body. ‘That’s not silly at all, Evan.’
‘Then I want to make an extra vow to you.’
Tommy smiled, waiting silently.
‘Thomas, I vow to grow in love with you every day. To be open and vulnerable. To love you more each time the sun goes down, in this life and the next.’
Tommy began to weep, and he pulled Buck toward him in a tender embrace.
‘Too much?’ Buck asked, a little nervous.
‘Not at all.’ Tommy pulled back to look Buck in the eye. ‘Not at all. I promise you that with all my heart.’
Buck and Tommy leant their foreheads together, Tommy crying silent rivers at Evan’s untainted, unconditional love. Buck’s eyes pricked with unimaginable peace and gratitude for this man he loved.
The moon above them was finally full.