under-discussed opportunity for off-screen development is the fact that they tell us buck called their parents to inform them of doug's passing because it raises so many more questions than it answers... when was the last time buck or maddie talked to them.... did they know she was living in LA.... that she left doug.... did she have to ask them at some point in her trip across country to not tell doug where she was if he came looking for her.... how much did buck have to explain and how hard did he work to keep as much of it as close to his chest as possible because maddie was still in the hospital and he didn't want to take her story out of her control.... do you think that the conversation crosses a line past tense and buck blames himself in the aftermath for why they don't show up to check on maddie and help her in her recovery.... does the case reach national news and if so how do the people who hid a son from the world for 30 years cope with the people in their community getting this window into a different major family trauma... literally the possibilities here are endless for buckley family weirdness and i am chewing on all of it....
"You make it sound like something out of a soap opera, Evan. Like your sister was in hiding from her husband."
"She was," Buck says. He doesn't have to lift a hand to cover his face against the grimace deepening the tension headache he's been suffering from for what feels like days, now. He's already on the floor, an elbow propped on a knee, and his face half buried in a palm so he doesn't have to look around at Maddie's apartment-- everything carrying the faint aura of having been searched over by cops. "She wasn't safe with Doug, that's what I said. That's why this happened."
"I just…" she makes a sound that sends him reeling back in time, makes him smaller, makes him young, "I wish you would just be more clear. You're being so vague-- Maddie is safe and Doug is dead, but what actually happened?"
"I already explained," he grits out, presses the heel of his hand more firmly into his left eye where a steady, sharp pain just won't quit. "Maddie filed for divorce so Doug was able to find her. He kidnapped her, Mom."
"I think what your mother means," Phillip speaks up, his voice steady through the phone, just with slightly more distance between him and the receiver, "is that we don't understand how it ended with Maddie okay and Doug dead. We're confused about what happened in between. How does something like that happen if he was-- Well, he took her somewhere I presume, but--"
"He took her somewhere secluded," Buck says, "specifically to kill her."
He's blunt, perhaps too much so, but he's been on the phone with his parents for longer than he's spent on the phone with his parents maybe ever, and he has this stabbing headache and he still hasn't gotten enough sleep, even though he had the place to himself last night.
Eddie had to pick Buck up from the hospital after he finally got Maddie settled, after she made it clear that dragging her away from Chimney would do more harm than good for both of them. Eddie had to pick Buck up because not only was his car not there, but also by that point his vision was tilting and his level of exhaustion would have made him a drunk driver in all but name.
Buck's insistence on coming back here to where his car is parked and he could pack some of Maddie's things up for her rather than taking the offer of Eddie's couch, however, means that he has to be here. In this place. Blood on the concrete just beyond the door.
"Evan," she says his name in the tone of an admonishment, an old familiar adage on the lips of Margaret Buckley.
"He did. That's what happened. I don't know what you want me to say."
"Don't-- You don't have to be angry," she sounds weepier, now, with a thickness to her voice. "My daughter was almost-- You could be kinder, how you explain it."
"Well, you didn't like when I was being vague," Buck mutters. He's not sure whether they hear him or not, a murmur of their own just barely audible on the other end of the line.
They've always been like that, to a certain extent. The tendency to lean on each other, to rely on each other, even when doing so meant neglecting being there for their children. Buck has never quite been able to wrap his head around it, given the fact that they can be good with kids when they want to be. They're teachers, so it must be something about their kids specifically.
"How did it get this bad?" Margaret pleads. "We knew he wasn't right for her, but to be that violent? To actually hurt her?"
"We couldn't have known," Phillip says, clearly for her benefit, once again, rather than Buck's.
Buck who was the one Maddie came to when she finally got out. Buck who chased her halfway across the state when it all went wrong. Buck who watched Chimney nearly bleed out beneath his hands one minute and held Maddie's own collapsing body in his arms the next.
They couldn't have known? They couldn't have seen it? This is the thing that really breaks him, on the floor of the kitchen so he doesn't have to look at the living room where he found her abandoned phone and wallet, where he realized what had happened, when he recognized that it was coming to pass, the very thing he knew-- the whole damn time-- was the greatest thing to fear.
"You could have," he tells his parents. "You should have. You should have known."
"You blame us?" Margaret, still crying, asks. "We didn't even know she was in California. With you. Our own children, not bothering to keep us in the loop--"
"You took yourself out of the loop!" Buck exclaims, something like bitter laughter coloring his breath. "You cut her off the second she got engaged! I mean, I know-- I-- I know that Doug was a master manipulator. Men like him always are, right? It's the reason I didn't get to talk to my sister for three years. But he didn't even--" another bark of laughter, "have to lift a finger with you two! You took yourselves out of the equation without any interference. He would've killed her. He almost did. She was-- she was bleeding so much--"
"Stop! Stop it," she cries. "Why must you make everything so much-- so much scarier? Why do you have to embellish like that? With the violence of it?"
"Did you think it wasn't violent?" Buck questions in disbelief. "He wouldn't be dead if she hadn't had to protect herself like that. He made it so that only one of them was going to walk away and all that matters is that it was her. How would you prefer I explain that?"
"Oh, oh, I just can't. I can't with you. Not right now. You take bad situations and you make them so big, Evan. You make everything so much bigger than I know how to carry and I just can't-- Phillip will you--"
The fumbling of the receiver, crackling with movement, and their voices are less hushed this time but he can't make out what they're saying all the same. She's walking away, which he should have expected, but his chest clenches with a searing guilt to match that in his head.
They'll never come, now, even if Maddie were to ask. He's ruined it for her, for all of them, because there's no chance that their mother is getting herself together quickly enough to be here and be a support system. That's just not how Margaret Buckley works. She breaks down easily and builds back up with so much effort, so much time.
Give me time, she always begged of him when he got on her nerves and drove her to crawl back into bed in the middle of the day. Give me space, Evan, please.
"I wasn't trying to make it…" he trails off, when he hears Phillip raise the phone to his ear, the noise shifting and changing now that he's no longer on speakerphone. "I just didn't want you guys to find out from-- the news, or something. I thought it would be better coming from me."
Phillip hums out a sound of understanding, or maybe just acknowledgment. The room is spinning again and Buck should go back to sleep. He really shouldn't drive himself to the hospital like he was planning, but maybe Eddie would be willing… if he asked…
"I thought it would be better," he repeats, "coming from me."
"Well, son," his father sighs, "I suppose I can appreciate that you believed that."
it's a one-shot, probably around 2-3k words. season 9a canon divergence because buck needs to be drunk for this and theo isn't around
the 118 are off-shift, at their local for a couple post-work drinks, when a guy approaches buck like he knows him and he does! he took buck's virginity when they were both 15 -- he's buck's first girlfriend but he's a man, which means tommy was not his first boyfriend!
excerpt:
The maybe-stranger shrugged and held his hand out for Buck to shake. “Evan Wright.”
Despite being three beers in, Buck was certain that wasn’t the name of the other Evans in the academy, and he couldn’t think of any other Evans he’d met.
He shook the other man’s hand anyway.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Evan Wright.”
Evan, the other one, laughed. “We’ve met.”
Buck wished the confirmation could jumpstart his memory. “God, this is awkward. When? Where?”
He really hoped the answer wasn’t Grindr. The rest of the one-eighteen would never let him live that one down.
Evan laughed again. “Hershey. I took your virginity.”
That had Buck scoffing. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.” It was also something he knew the team was filing away for future teasing, particularly Ravi and Eddie, especially since everyone seemed so interested in their conversation. “I’m also certain that I lost my virginity to a girl.”
“And sometimes girls grow up to become men who take the name of their first boyfriend.”
tagged by @corporatebanana. i'm attempting to keep this under control by only listing the things i'm actively working on, minus a couple of things that are secret for now. counterpoint to keeping it concise is that i'm including a little bit of waffle about each of them, at least one of which is a little bit nsfw so going under a cut after tagging:
@ambernotember, @exhaustedpirate, @nzchance, @frogsinflannel, @wee-fuckin-woo and anyone else who feels like playing
lead me to your door - saltommy second chance romance
i'm a bt girly at heart, but this is predicated on the idea that tommy needs different things. someone who knows him and so can call him on his bullshit. someone who knows himself. someone who knows what he wants and will be really clear about that. a couple of people have asked about the possibility of a poly outcome for this one, but it's not on the cards.
love is a laserquest - third part of this and this aka the voicemail fics
in which they will finally talk! having got all the regret and hurt out on the table and faced that actually, they hurt each other. truly, i think one good conversation could fix them, but good conversations are hard and this is my shortcut for them
adventures in the virtual cuck chair - bucktommy with bonus sal as an observer and also some salbuck
honestly. i'm a little obsessed with this. it starts as a fantasy about being watched, which they make happen initially via video calls, escalating to sal being in the room, and eventually cuckolding/cheating fantasy. but leashy, i hear you cry. these morons are so jealous they will chew through dry wall about it! and you're right, gentle reader. BUT. picture if you will, "he fucked you so good and i saw how much you loved it but you want me more you want me more you came home to me you'll always come home to me". that's right gang! i'm wrapping some porn around a character study and feeding it to you.
broken radios - tommy's dad fic
i have. mixed feelings about the theo plot. but. as of a couple of days ago, two versions of this exist in my head, one with the kiddo and one without. i can't decide which one i want to go with the most, so there's a chance i'll write both of them and decide which one i like best.
taste in men - aka i don't have a tag for this yet aka tommy tormented by his own desires aka cnc fic
iiiiit's another character study one. basically tommy really really really wants to hold buck down and fuck him while he begs tommy to stop. (because you're mine and you'll love me no matter how terrible i am.) he feels extremely not okay about this. buck on the other hand, thinks he has covid. (because you want me so much you'll do anything to have me.)
untitled sex demon!tommy fic
pure id fic. tommy feeds on sexual energy and idk, shame is his favourite seasoning, i guess. he's more than a little obsessed with buck. pretty much everything i've written so far is just tommy hovering in buck's horny, horny dreams, gradually reshaping them so buck's dreaming about the things tommy wants him to, in the ways tommy wants him to, getting off on the aspects tommy wants him to. *jazz hands*
discoholicmusic
stormborns
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
areudirty
annaxmalina
