boldly going forward because we can't find reverse @deesarrachi - Tumblr Blog

5 facts about an au where buck works on a ranch in canada and runs into rcmp tommy

Now this is cartoonish trap of loony toon proportions to trick me into writing more due south au, and baby call me Wil E. Coyote.

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1. Buck had been at the ranch for eight months when news came down they were cutting a number of the hands loose. That was going to be him. He was one of the newer hires, originally brought on for the season; his time was up.

“So,” Jake said, dropping on the end of Buck’s bed.

All the hands, or at least the unmarried junior hands, bunked together in the same house. It felt a little like being back in the dorms. Buck hated the classes but he liked how they all lived together. He liked it now.

“So what?” Mitch asked from the other bed.

“I got us a job lined up.” Jake pulled out his phone. “You got a passport, right, Buckley?”

“Yeah,” he said. His parents insisted he and Maddie both had current passports, and he snatched it up with his birth certificate and social security card when he ran away. “Why?”

“Because my cousin works at this resort in Peru, and he can hook us up with a couple of jobs at the bar.” Jake kicked his feet up next to Buck’s head and BUck shoved them off the mattress. Jake lobbed his phone over “It’s sun, sand, hot girls on spring break, and us pouring shots for those girls.”

“Jesus,” Mitch muttered.

“Have you ever bar tended?” Buck asked, squinting down at the website. A resort bar meant a lot of tourists and entitled assholes and probably shit tips. He should go back to working gay bars. They were great tippers.

“How hard can it be? I’ve seen that Tom Cruise movie.” Jake mimed tossing a cocktail shaker and then pouring out a line of shots.

“Jesus Christ,” Mitch said again, suddenly sitting up and swinging his legs over the bed. “As someone who has actually worked more than one job and was a bartender at a shitty dive, let me make a counter offer.”

Buck tossed the phone back to Jake. “What do you got?”

“I got some cousins that own a ranch in Canada. They’re always looking for some extra hands.”

Jake popped his head up. “Wait, your family owns a ranch? Why are you slumming it down here with us?”

“My cousins own a ranch up in Canada. Distant cousins.” Mitch frowned. “What are they when they’re the kids of your cousins’ cousins?”

“Second cousins once removed, I think,” Buck said absently. “Is this a long term gig or am I gonna have to look for a job like three months in?”

Mitch gave him a look. “Long term. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Dude,” Jake protested. “Peru comes with employee housing. Also hot girls.”

“I do like hot girls.” To Mitch, he said, “You got any?”

“Don’t be a gross asshole,” Mitch said. “You’re going to make rethink my offer.”

That made him feel small. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Peru,” Jake repeated. “Sand, sun, not having to repair fences for like thirteen hours.”

It was true that Buck hated having to check the fence line for damage, but he remembered what it felt like to be on his feet for eight hours dealing with bachelor and bachelorette parties or, worse, finance bros. Either choice got him out of the country and further from Pennsylvania.

He dug a quarter out of his pocket.

“Heads is Canada,” he said. “Tails is Peru.”

He flipped the coin.

2. Canada, or at least the little corner Buck found himself in, was beautiful with wide lakes and a wide open sky. Unlike in Montana, this was a pure working ranch and didn’t board tourists, and the lack of Brokeback Mountain themed pick up lines was a relief. It was such a relief that he didn’t even mind riding along the eastern fence line, taking a survey of what could be repaired and what needed to be replaced.

It was peaceful, just him and the horses, and Buck was mentally drafting the next postcard for Maddie when a man in a stetson nimbly vaulted over the fence and said, “I’m afraid I need to confiscate that horse.”

Buck blinked at him. “You want to confiscate the horse?”

The guy adjusted the stetson. He had blue eyes and a killer jaw line and cleft chin. “Constable Tommy Kinard of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I’m in pursuit of a suspect who has been illegally fishing, and I need to cover some ground.” He handed over his credentials for Buck to examine.

“Wait,” Buck said, dutifully studying over the credentials like he even knew fuck of all of what he was looking for, “shouldn’t you, you know, have a horse if you’re a mountie? Like don’t they assign you one?”

Kinard had a killer smile to go along with that killer jaw. “You’d be surprised at how many people ask that. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t have a spare saddle,” Buck said. Sugarpop, the newest addition to the herd, was only on a simple lead since Buck wasn’t expecting a super model mountie to stop by looking for a ride.

“I don’t need one,” Kinard said, and nimbly leapt onto Sugarpop, who did not try to buck him off as she did for every other rider. “I will return her once I—”

“Get your man?” Buck said.

Kinard smiled so wide his nose scrunched. “That’s the one. Thank you for the assistance…?”

“Oh, uh, Buck. Buckley. Evan Buckley. That’s my name.”

“Thank you kindly, Evan,” Kinard said with a tip of his stetson, and then he urged Sugarpop into a cantor and was gone.

“Oh fuck,” Buck said, realizing far too late that Kinard straight up stole a horse. “I am definitely getting fire.”

3. He did not get fired.

“Oh, that’s just Tommy,” Shelly said that night at dinner. “He got transferred here just a bit before you arrived. He’s always off chasing someone. He’ll take good care of our girl and get her back to us tomorrow.”

True to Shelly’s word, Sugarpop was back in her stall by mid-morning, freshly brushed and fed, apparently courtesy of Kinard.

“Does he do this a lot?” he asked Mitch as they got ready to ride into town for the weekly trip.

Mitch shrugged. “I’ve been just as long as you and I haven’t met him yet.”

That yet nettled him in a way Buck didn’t want to examine.

In town, they dropped off orders and picked up orders and then placed some orders, and their award for doing all that was a stop at the local bar. Inside, Mitch held up two fingers to Katie for their customary beers, and then went to join a darts game in progress.

“You want in on this?” Mitch asked, accepting the darts from Joseph, who worked the next ranch over.

At the end of the bar, head bent over some ratty paperback, was one Constable Tommy Kinard.

“I’ll get the next one,” Buck said, and slid onto the empty stool next to Kinard. “Hey, Constable. I don’t know if you remember me, but you stole my horse the other day.”

Kinard looked up over the rim of his, oh god, reading glasses. “I remember you, Evan Buckley. And I borrowed the horse and not only returned her but saved you a few chores. You can call me Tommy.”

“Do you make a habit of borrowing horses?” he asked, only for Tommy’s eyebrow to go up. “Sorry. Borrowing.”

“Only in the pursuit of justice,” Tommy said in a perfect deadpan. It was only the barest uptick at the corner of his mouth that gave him away.

Katie set his beer in front of him with perfect timing; it was too warm in the bar. “Right, the illegal fishing. Let me guess, he didn’t have a license.”

The reading glasses were neatly folded and slid into the front shirt jacket. “The license is irrelevant when he’s doing the fishing with dynamite.”

Buck choked on his beer, and it was only after a solid minute of coughing and Tommy slapping his back one that he managed to say, “He was throwing dynamite into the lake? I would have given you like ten horses if you need them.”

“Sugarpop was more than up to the task.” Tommy smiled; his nose scrunched. “But I’ll keep that in mind for the next crime in progress.”

“Do you get a lot of these kinds of crime?” he asked, curious. “Like ones using dynamite?”

“I’m not that lucky,” Tommy said bitterly, and then sighed at the face Buck was making. “Ignore that. No, we don’t get a lot of that kind of thing. It’s the occasional break in or kids stealing a truck to go joyriding.”

Buck took a cautious sip of his beer so Tommy would know that he could drink without killing himself. “Shelly mentioned you transferred here not that long ago. There’s gotta be a story there.

“Tell me yours first,” Tommy said, finger tucked between the pages of his book to keep his place. “How did an American end up at a ranch in Canada?”

“How do you know I’m American?”

“You’re extremely obvious accent. Sorry,” he said with with exaggerated flat and nasal vowels.

“Hey!” Buck protested. “What about you. Sore-y. Who says it like that?”

“Normal people.” Tommy grinned at him. “What’s your story, kid? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Buck gave him the cliff notes version. Kicked out of two different colleges, disappointed parents, his aimless travels, picking up what work he could, his post cards to his sister, the coin flip that ended up here in Canada, at this bar with Tommy, who had slotted a bookmark in place so he could listen intently. Tommy, who was taking him seriously.

“And you haven’t gotten anything from her at all?” Tommy asked when Buck wound down.

He swirled the dregs of his beer. “I move around a lot. And I’ve gone through a couple of phones by now. I think she ended up getting a new number, too.”

“But you still send her postcards,” Tommy said softly.

He shrugged. “I don’t want her to worry.”

“Hey.” Tommy nudged his ankle. “You’re a good brother.”

Buck ducked his head, flushing so hard that it almost hurt. “Oh, uh, thank you.” He chanced a glance up. Tommy was studying him, like Tommy was just as curious about him as he was about Tommy. “I showed you mine. Your turn.”

“This is going to sound obnoxiously dramatic,” Tommy said with a matching obnoxious sigh.

Sergeant Thomas Kinard Sr. was a decorated and respected member of the RMCP, at least until his corruption came to light. Kinard got away, and suddenly the mounties were desperate to keep it in house and under wraps, a task that was made exponentially more difficult by Sergeant Kinard’s only son.

“When I wouldn’t stop digging or shut up, they shipped me out here,” Tommy said in a breezy tone that Buck, a survivor of Philip and Margaret Buckley’s parenting, recognized only too well.

“How bad was it?”

“He ruined lives,” Tommy said. “And he’ll get away with it unless they find him.”

“And I thought I had it rough,” Buck said. He had a lot of practice of feeling out a person’s sharp edges and hearing what they didn’t say. “My parents only refused to see who I am.”

Tommy’s smile was sharp. “I had the opposite problem with mine.” He finished off his beer. “Okay, that’s enough with the childhood trauma. Let me buy you a drink and you can tell me the favorite place you’ve lived.”

Tommy bought him a drink and Buck told him about the couple of weeks he spent along Lake Michigan’s shore (“It sort of feels like the end of the world, but in a good way,” he said.) He bought Tommy a drink, and Tommy told him about being a helicopter pilot in Afghnaistan (“Coalition of the Willing,” Tommy explained when Buck asked how he ended up there, “and Canada was unfortunately willing). They moved to a table and ordered a basket of terrible fries, and Buck learned that Tommy had a dry streak of humor verging on mean, although Tommy never once made him feel left out of the joke, and that he liked to read queer romances and queer space operas, and that he had a furious moral center that was just as breathtaking as his smile. Buck would normally be embarrassed by how close he was leaning if Tommy wasn’t meeting him halfway.

He was so engrossed in Tommy’s story about learning to fly, that it came as a shock when Mitch said, “Hey, Buck, it’s late. We gotta get moving before Shelly sends out a search party.”

“But we just got here,” he said, weirdly annoyed at Mitch for making Tommy lean back.

Mitch gave him a very significant look. “It’s been, like, two hours.”

“No, it hasn’t.” He checked his watch, and this time the blush actually hurt. “Oh, I guess I’ve been, uh, taking up your time.”

“I’m happy you took it,” Tommy said.

“I gotta go,” Buck said, reluctantly pushing his chair back. “I have to check on the horses and I’m up on dinner rotation.”

Tommy didn’t look any happier about it.

“Jesus Christ,” Mitch muttered, and then loudly: “Hey, don’t you have a phone, Buck? And I’m sure Constable Kinard also has a phone. Maybe you two can exchange numbers and then, I don’t know, make plans to meet up later.”

“Oh, I forgot about that,” he said, fumbling for his phone.

Tommy was faster and held his phone out. “Put in your number.”

Buck did, trying and failing to bite back a smile at the simple contact name of Evan. He punched in his number and passed the phone back, their fingers brushing during the hand off. He never wanted to leave this table.

“Great,” Mitch said with false brightness. “Let’s go, Buck.”

“I’ll see you around,” he said to Tommy. He made it all of three step before turning back around. “Hey, you’re still looking for your dad, right?”

Tommy’s eyebrows rose. “What makes you say that?”

“You chased a guy like ten miles one foot, borrowed a horse, and chased him another five.” He leaned in close and dropped his voice. “I don’t think you’re the kind of guy to give up so easily. Let me know how I can help.”

For the first time in two hours, Buck had managed to strike Tommy speechless. He was so weirdly smug and even more weirdly proud about it, a feeling that lasted up until they got into the truck and Mitch said, “You know Shelly and Mary have been together for awhile now.”

“Yeah, they’re awesome,” Buck said, because they were. “Do you think they’ll ever get around to getting married?”

“Who knows with them.” Mitch cleared his throat. “My point is, you can tell me anything. No judgment.”

“Thanks, man,” Buck said, genuinely touched. He was good at making friends but not keeping them. Mitch was the longest one he’s had. “That means a lot.”

Mitch started at him with what felt like significance for a long moment before giving up and starting the engine. “Good talk, Buck.”

“Great talk,” Buck said.

They hadn’t even pulled out of the lot when the text came from through: What are you doing Saturday?

Buck grinned the entire way back to the ranch.

4. Dear Maddie, he wrote, mindful of how little space there was on a postcard. He was a goddamn pro and fitting everything in he wanted to say after all these years of sending them. The key was to draft an outline ahead of time. It really helped him to stay on target. He never crossed anything out now.

He consulted his bullet point list.

Got some exciting news. Tommy got a new assignment in California. That’s right—we’re heading to the US!

That maybe wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough to count. Tommy picked up a lead on Sergeant Kinard, and so he put in for leave and they were flying out tomorrow for Los Angeles. One of Tommy’s old friends was stationed at the Canadian Consulate, and Tommy thought this Sal might help out. Not likely, given how the RCMP brass had fucked Tommy over so far, but Buck could spare a little hope.

We’re heading to LA. I’m not sure how long we’ll be there, but I’ve been thinking about joining the fire academy. I’ve volunteered for line duty during the last couple of wildfires up here. I think I could be good at it.

He almost crossed the last sentence out. That made him sound like the dumb kid who crashed his motorcycle and not a happily married man.

I’ll send you the address once we get settled in. You should visit sometime.

The last bullet point list taunted him. This was it, the place where he casually slipped in that he had a husband. He’s had a husband for almost a whole year now. Turns out he was secretly bi the whole time and all it took to bring it out was a beautiful mountie stealing his horse.

Buck set the pen to the postcard. He got as far as we’re m— before giving up and scratching it out. I really want you to meet Tommy, he wrote instead, because he did. He wanted his sister to meet his husband and love him just as much as Buck did. Well, maybe not as much.

The shower turned off. Tommy’s apartment had come furnished, and while it was about the size of the postcard he was writing on, it had the advantage of not being shared with four other guys. It was where they had their first night together as boyfriends and then husbands. Buck was going to miss it.

He signed the postcard the same as he always did (I love you) and said, “Don’t let me forget to stick this in a mailbox tomorrow. I want it to leave Canada before we do.”

“No way that is happening, but I like the optimism,” Tommy said. “Bathroom is all yours. Where did you put my old army shirt?”

Neither of them owned a lot of things, and if it didn’t fit into their suitcases, it wasn’t coming with them. He touched his wedding band. He was bringing the most important thing with him.

“It’s on the bed.” Buck stood and stretched until his back popped. “Don’t touch the suitcases. I just got everything to—” His mouth dried up.

“To?” Tommy prompted innocently like he wasn’t standing there with a towel slung low on his hips. A bead of water dripped from his hair onto his shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter,” Buck said, and pounced.

“Down boy,” Tommy said as Buck caught that water drop with his tongue. “We got an early flight tomorrow, and these little puddle jumpers are a rough ride.”

Buck hooked two fingers on the towel knot. “I’ll show you a rought ride.”

“Are your lines actually getting worse?” Tommy said, laughing. Buck loved the way Tommy laughed with his whole body. This was why he held out hope of Maddie finding him one day: he wanted to show her how good he and Tommy were together. For maybe the first time in his life, Buck was happy.

“You know I had no game when you married me.” He nuzzled at the underside of Tommy’s jaw, right where he smelled fresh and clean.

Tommy smiled, and Buck touched his thumb to those beautiful lines. “Sweetheart, you’ve got so much game. You had me the moment you yelled at me for borrowing Sugarpop.”

Buck pressed a lush kiss to Tommy’s neck. “Then let me give you a ride, if I’ve had you since then.”

“Christ,” Tommy said, reverent. “Yeah, anything you want.”

Buck tugged the knot free. The towel fell. He dropped to his knees.

In the morning, the postcard went to his sister and Buck went to LA with his husband. There wasn’t a single bump the whole way there.

5. Constable Tommy Kinard-Buckley of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his husband Evan Kinard-Buckley first came to Los Angeles on the trail of Sergeant Thomas Kinard and, for reasons that didn’t need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached respectively as liaison officer with the Canadian Consulate and as a member of the Los Angels Fire Department.

“No, these reasons definitely need exploring at this juncture,” Maddie said. Her hair was wet and Tommy was standing at attention and refusing to meet her eyes in a way that made Buck desperately curious about what happened before he got home. “Wait. Kinard-Buckley?”

“I got issues with my last name, he’s got issues with last name, so we decided to hyphenate,” Buck said. “I wanted to combine it into a new name, but got shot down.”

“You wanted our married name to be Knuckle,” Tommy said with a pained grimace.

“Constable Knuckle,” Buck said. “I stand by it.”

“You got married?” Maddie said. “Like actually, legally married? To him?”

They hadn’t talked in years, and it’d been even longer since they saw each, but here they both were in Los Angeles, three thousand miles away from where they had miserable grown up, but this was what Maddie found unbelievable.

“Well, you know what they say about mounties,” Buck said, looking to his husband, who was was heaving a sigh in mock resignation of the punchline. “They always get their man.”

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