Stealing your header and suggesting: "It must be Thursday"
My header is a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quote, and so this too must be a thhgttg au.
Early on the Thursday morning that the Earth was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, Tommy's ex-boyfriend knocked on his door and said, "You still keep a go bag packed, right?"
Tommy was in his ratty old man bathrobe and his ratty old man boxers and his ratty old man slippers and was not prepared to see Evan Buckley on his doorstep with a hiking backpack slung over his shoulders and a huge tablet with the comforting words Don't Panic scrawled across the back clutched in one hand after seven months of silence. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
Evan made a frustrated noise and pushed past Tommy to grab the go bag out of the closet. "You still have those ready made protein shakes right? You're going to lose a lot of calories in the transfer."
Tommy belatedly went after Evan, who was shoving bottles and, inexplicably, canned peaches into his backup. "Are you having a stroke? Am I having a stroke? Evan, what's going on?"
Evan grabbed his hand and dragged him outside. "We have to go. I'm sorry there's no time for you to put on real pants."
And then Evan stuck out his thumb and they hitched a ride.
--
After Tommy vomited, had a nervous breakdown, downed one of the shakes, had a second breakdown, ate half a can of the peaches Evan packed, went through the five stages, spent twenty-eight minutes silently staring at the unbroken field of stars outside the spaceship's view port, invented another three stages of grief, and had a third breakdown, he said, "So when you said your family wasn't local you meant they live on..."
"Betelgeuse," Evan said, not making eye contact as he fiddled with his weird space ring.
"And when you said you worked for a travel publishing company and hitchhiked around the world, you actually meant this." He waved the copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Evan had handed him around the eighth stage of grief. The entry for Earth just read "mostly harmless."
"I was working for a travel publishing company. I was hitchhiking."
"Don't pretend you weren't omitting several key fucking details, Evan."
"Don't you pretend I could tell you I was an alien when you broke up with me when I said I wanted to move in together, Tommy!" Evan shot back, shifty eyed guilt replaced by righteous anger.
"You said I helped get gay marriage passed and then said we should get married!"
"No, I said that because of people like you we had the option of getting married if we wanted. And I gotta say," Evan added with the casual viciousness he was so good at, "I don't remember why I ever wanted to!"
The words hung in space in much the same way that Earth no longer did.
"Got it," he said dully, backing up as Evan's anger was visibly overtaken by horror. "Out of everyone on Earth, why'd you bother saving me?"
"Why do you think?" Evan said in a small voice.
Outside the view port, a chunk of what used to be the Earth drifted past. Everyone he knew was dead. His parents were dead, which on the whole wasn't a terrible loss. On the other hand, Sal and Gina and their girls were. He wasn't going to be able to take that vacation to New Orleans or London or Norway to see the fjords now. The little pizza joint where he and Evan had their second first date was gone. He was never going to eat pizza again.
When he came out of his fourth breakdown, his head was on Evan's lap and Evan was tenderly stroking his hair. "I'm sorry," he said.
"You didn't plan the hyperspace bypass and then hide the plans in another system that we don't even have the technology to reach," he said, resisting the urge to press his face into Evan's stomach. Tommy had missed him so much.
"Wasn't apologizing for that." Evan gently tugged on his hair in light reprimand.
"I know." He rolled carefully onto his back. Even under the harsh lights of an alien spacecraft, Evan was beautiful. "What now?"
"Well," Evan said with a brave little smile, "how do you feel about hitching a ride to Betelgeuse?"
(And then shenanigans occur where they maybe end up stealing a ship with an improbability drive and meet the Earth dolphins who are quite put out they didn't bring any fish and Tommy learns to fly, which is to say he forgets how to fall. Also they fall back in love and kiss the end)
So I had an idea for a writing prompt and I kept not doing it because I also wanted to make this. ^
The prompt is this: Tommy and Buck break up, Tommy leaves Buck's apartment... and vanishes. His truck is still there in the good parking space.
The rest is up to you: How long did it take for people to know he's gone? What happened to him? Why is is truck still there?
I'd love to see various answers to this! Just a fun 'what if' to play with, doesn't have to be a full fic writing prompt. If you want to do something as a new post instead of attached to this one, please @ me so I see it! Also I did my best with the details up there so if they're wrong, no they're not!
Tagged by my beloveds @thegingerparty, @rcmclachlan, @chimneyschewinggum. I finally have some more of the banshee fic to share.
They were not buried under a building. At most they were buried under most of a wall and part of the floor, which was not very reassuring for the bride, who was named Savita and wanted her husband even though just twelve hours ago she didn’t know if she wanted to be married at all. Tommy could relate; twelve hours ago he was trying to think of excuses to get out of going, and now here he was, waiting for rescue.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, his body braced over hers. “They’re going to get us out.”
All he could hear was the scrap of metal as debris was shifted off them. And then he was five or six years old maybe, and his father was launching a glass across the room at his mother’s head. He was twenty-two years old and there was blood in his mouth and hot sand under his cheek as his bird burned behind him. He was twenty-four and the probie was never walking out of that burning house. He was twenty-six and the probie was carrying him out of a methane filled mall even though he walked in willing with a scream in his ears. And at five (or six) and twenty-two and twenty-four and twenty-six, there was the black dog, watching him with open jaws.
The weight of the rubble shifted. His back tried to buckle.
“Over here!” Savita shouted, her hand on his face. “Hurry! Please!”
Ask meme: What would a fic with the title “safe in the spots that the light can’t reach” be? 💚
You know what let's make this a s4 au.
It's lockdown. The team has moved into the loft because Buck's single and lives alone and doesn't have a son or a pregnant girlfriend or a wife and kid who he could potentially expose to covid. It makes sense and he's happy to open up his place to his friends, but he wishes it wasn't such a foregone conclusion.
The big problem is that the loft isn't that big and it's been long enough since he's had roommates that Buck sort of hates people in his space. And also the sound of Chimney chewing. They're all doing their best to make it bearable--taking walks to give the others alone time, trading off cooking and cleaning duties, setting up a morning bathroom schedule, instigating a quiet hour where they all retreated to their separate corners with their tablets and phones and laptops and noise cancelling headphones--but there's only so much they can do before they want to claw their skin off.
The sleeping arrangements are the worst. The loft didn't have a spare room or a spare bed. Buck got an air mattress and spare sheets and pillows, and set it up downstairs. No one was going to kick him out of his own bed, so Hen, Chim, and Eddie set up a rotation about who gets the air mattress and who gets the other half of Buck's bed. It isn't the first time Buck has platonically shared a bed with friends--mostly during his nomad years when he couldn't be too picky about where he lived--and he's bunked down with his team before, albeit in different bunks, but it's been long enough since he has slept with anyone, platonic or otherwise, that he's finding it hard to drop off at night. It's not helped by, you know, the state of the world, and it's also not helped that just when he's adjusting to someone's sleeping habits, they switch out. Hen is pretty good partner--doesn't snore, keeps to her side, only steals the covers a little bit--but both Chim and Eddie build a pillow wall and Chim is a restless sleeper, tossing and turning, and Eddie is talks in his sleep, not actual words but with the cadence of having a conversation, which is even more baffling and annoying.
Buck develops insomnia, and he sneaks out onto the balcony at night, listening to the sirens because it doesn't stop, maybe will never stop, but at least he's got space to breathe.
On the fourth night, just as he's close to dozing off on the little padded bench that isn't nearly long enough for his legs, from his neighbor's balcony, someone says, "Trouble sleeping?"
After he recovered from his near heart attack, introductions are made. Tommy, like the 118, is quarantining with a couple coworkers and, like Buck, spends the nights out on the balcony for a little privacy. Tommy is also a firefighter, but they carefully don't talk about the job (at least not beyond the fact Tommy is a firefighter pilot, which is so cool) because the job is terrible right now. They talk about other things: the odd jobs Buck has had over the years, a few stories from Tommy's time in the army, Buck contemplating picking up knitting as his covid hobby, Tommy's shy admission that's he's taken up painting again, Tommy offering to teach him muay thai once restrictions are lifted, Buck offering to teach Tommy horseback riding. Buck is delighted by Tommy's dry humor and the way he invites Buck to be in on the joke rather than be the butt of it and the way he talks about flying, like it's the one thing he's meant to do. And somehow, impossibly, Tommy seems to be delighted by him.
(On the third night of them talking, Tommy hauls out a small electric lantern, and Buck spends the next hour staring at Tommy's expressive eyebrows and his cleft and the path his large hands carve through the air as he told a story about glide landing a Cessna.)
It's Eddie who notices first. "Who were you talking last night, Buck?"
"Oh, just a neighbor," Buck says and then refuses to say more no matter how many curious looks he gets, and then refuses to think about why he doesn't want to share Tommy.
Then the restrictions loosen and everyone started to go home, Hen first and then Eddie and then Tommy.
That night, Tommy passes his phone over the divide. "Put your number in, kid. I want to hear more about your Brokeback Mountain escapades."
"I was working," Buck says, putting in his number. Tommy named the contact Evan. "I wish there'd been escapades."
Tommy's eyebrows rise. Buck blushes.
They text after that an call and, when Tommy the old man can be convinced, facetime. Buck hasn't had this much fun just talking to someone since Abby. Huh.
(One night, while everyone else is asleep in the bunks, Buck tries to talk to Hen because she's the only one he knows who's great at long term relationships, both platonic and otherwise, and for no other reason.
Hen listens patiently right up until Buck says not at all dreamily, "His hands are so big," and then she nopes right on out of that conversation.)
And then the mudslide happens and who just happens to be flying the helicopter to take the 118 up to rescue the hikers. Tommy, with the world's biggest scrunchiest smile: "Fancy meeting you here."
Hen and Chim: It's Tommy??? Tommy was your weird late night neighbor? His hands are big????
And then obviously Buck and Tommy start spending time together in person and they kiss and fall in love the end.
for the fic title game: “and time just stops ticking”
Oh, you know I'm doing some weird magical bullshit with this one. Now usually I stick Tommy in the torment nexus (if not meant to go in the torment nexus why torment nexus shaped?), but let's give Buck a go around this time.
There is only so much weight Los Angeles can hold (only so many catastrophes and emergencies and death) and when another one occurs, time fractures and Buck fractures along with it.
He is living in Buck Actually and Buck Begins and Buck Bothered and Bewildered and Mother's Boy and he is pulling people (and bodies) out of the rubble. He's living it for the first time and then again ("I'm not supposed to be here," he tells Bonnie. "He's waiting for me."). He is sitting with Mitchell and Tommy is kissing him in the loft kitchen and he is trying to lift the tank off Saleh and he is writhing on the floor and begging it to stop please stop. And then it's always the same: he goes home, alone.
And then there's hands on him and he's being pulled up and out and he's back where he's supposed to be. "What happened?" Chimney asks as Hen shines a light in his eyes. "You went catatonic."
"I'm fine," Buck says, and he is. All of that already happened. He made it out. He's going home, alone.
It's dawn by the time they're relieved, and then it's even later when he leaves the 118 (arguing that he doesn't need to go to the hospital he's fine), and it's nearly noon when Tommy, exhaustion dogging his heels, walks out of Harbor to see Buck leaning against his truck.
"Do you want to come home with me?" Buck asks. "We can talk."
"I'd like that," Tommy said, and he holds out a hand for Buck to take, and they go home.
bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry
Another one for Inuit artists is Piqsiq! Two sisters who’ve been doing traditional throat singing since they were kids. They make some really gorgeous, eerie, atmospheric stuff. Highly recommend watching this video of them performing live a cappella using a looping machine, because they might be the coolest people on the planet actually
For anyone into North Asian and Central Asian folk music, there's this incredible Siberian folk-pop band called Otyken! The group is mostly women and they're from multiple indigenous groups in Siberia, with songs being sung in their range of different languages. They're so much fun and their music videos are amazing!
i'll go ahead and recommend The Halluci Nation (formerly known as A Tribe Called Red), an EDM group from First Nations Ontario that do really cool fusions of First Nations music with dubstep, moombahton, and hip hop.
I really really really appreciate people who share videos on posts like these, because almost without a doubt every time I love the music but I’ve never got the spoons to click on links and look through a bunch of music or worse google the artist I always end up too overwhelmed to start and I hate that
Haven't seen Belle Sisoski here yet so here we go: she's the current Artist of Year for BURO impact Awards. She's from Malaysia and knows how to play an insane amount of ethnic instruments and mixes them with her own voice. She does covers and her own songs, mixes ethnic instruments with Techno and shows the process. And she's also a live DJ at 19!
And one of her own:
Oh and of course there's also the HU and Bloodywood for people who like more rock and metal mixed in:
You do NOT want to know how hard it was to pick just one title for your made-up fic title meme, but here we go! "Paltry Burdens (and other breakable hopes)", please!
It's time to revisit my beloved OTP RexObi.
This takes place after the Obi-Wan Kenobi series (that I may or may not still need to watch). Rex, finishing up an intel gathering mission on some far flung Outer Rim moon, looks up one day to see Obi-Wan Kenobi waiting for him. Bail had sent him a message that Obi-Wan was looking for him and Rex had been amendable to being found. It's been years since they last saw each other, and Obi-Wan is changed, as is Rex (Obi-Wan isn't the only one who lost Anakin).
It's not a comfortable meeting--whatever they had together once may have burned with the Republic--but there is a kind of joy there, learning the other survived. Obi-Wan has to return to Tatooine to keep Luke safe, and Rex is the leader of a small cell of rebels, all of them from places ground down by the Empire, all of them on fire with fury. But they need to lay low for awhile, so Rex sends his group to rendezvous with another old clone (not Cody, they don't talk about Cody), and he goes with Obi-Wan to Tatooine and makes the familiar blank faced expression when confronted with being given an stupid order when he sees the cave Obi-Wan lives in. "It was practical at the time," Obi-Wan says." "You are a practical man," Rex replies, all the more scathing for how mild his tone.
It's a slow process of relearning each other and of trying to rebuild a life after the horror of your entire world being destroyed. Do they still love each other? Maybe they're too different, too changed for that old relationship, but maybe they're different enough for a new one. Obi-Wan can't leave Tatooine and Rex can't stay, but it isn't a new problem (it's an old problem), and maybe these new versions of themselves can make it work where their younger selves failed. Maybe this time there's a little space to be selfish and keep something beloved.
This is going to be of the ten thousand elopement fics I am definitely pinky promise going to write one day.
Buck and Tommy reconcile but keep it quiet mostly through the process of just not actively bringing it up since everyone on Buck's side are desperately trying to keep their heads above water and don't have energy or attention to spare for anything else. A month into their rekindled relationship, they think fuck it they love each other life is short why be apart when they can be together, and so they take a week off, figure out the logistics of who is moving in with who, and get married. Now they just have to tell everyone.
It's a 5+1 (or more like 4+1), with each section from a different pov--Maddie, Chim, Eddie, Hen--as Buck tries to tell them that he and Tommy are married now. And every time it goes badly, either dismissed as a joke (Chim, Eddie) or because everyone is busy and struggling to balance their work with their family/personal life (Chim, Maddie, Hen) or just disengaged from their relationship with Buck because, well, Buck isn't like a real adult, not like them (Eddie, Maddie), until Buck is like fine I give up.
And then the +1 is Buck just showing up to idk a family dinner with Tommy and is like yeah we're married I told you all this and then there's the fallout and the slowburn realization that for all the talk of them being a family, they've all been drifting apart and they don't really know each other anymore, but by then Buck and Tommy have gone home, and Tommy makes one of his dry jokes and Buck cracks up, so fucking happy, because his husband is funny. It's a little sad to realize you've outgrown some of the most important people in your life but that doesn't mean those relationships weren't loving and important and formative. And it's because that Buck was once loved by his family that he can go on and love Tommy, and they can keep growing together.
As he drives home from Evan's loft for what is apparently the last time, Tommy feels like he's driving from the backseat in a body that isn't his. There's a road in front of him but he doesn't know which one, or why he's taking a left at the stop sign or running through an intersection to beat a yellow light. Everything feels so far away. It's like he's on the moon. Maybe he drove off a bridge and just floated upwards. If he rolls the window down, maybe he'll suffocate.
You're in shock, a little voice whispers in the back of his mind.
He's been in shock before, but every time feels like the first time. He's read that some people get used to it, that it makes a home in their bodies, but he's never figured out how. His autonomic nervous system just kicks in and takes over. It's easy to let it.
That's probably why he doesn't register the hulking creature that darts into the road until it's practically splayed over his hood.
The impact knocks him out of the fugue state and, when he slams on the brake, into the steering wheel. Gasping, he looks up and finds himself staring into the familiar dead-eyed stare of something that should no longer exist. It bares its soil-caked teeth at him in a hissing growl, then pushes off the bumper and goes lumbering across the street into Plummer Park.
Every ounce of adrenaline Tommy possesses enters his bloodstream at once, which is also a familiar feeling. Undoing his seatbelt, he wrests control of his body away from his nervous system and chooses between fight or flight.
He kicks open the door and takes off after it.
Thankfully it's late enough that there's hardly anyone in the park, except for a group of screaming kids in the basketball court who try to get their phones up to film as he runs by. He picks up the pace.
His legs are screaming. They're on fire. He can practically feel the lactic acid building up in his muscles, which are splitting open in tiny tears with every step. It's been a long time since he's been forced to sprint like this. Running isn't part of his usual cardio regiment anymore. It was never fun when he wasn't with a group. His team. It's a weak-ass excuse.
In the back of his mind, he hears the memory of a voice cheering, "Go, go, Tommy!"
Sucking in air, he pushes himself impossibly harder.
After what feels like a decade and with the help of a man shouting in Russian and pointing in a specific direction, Tommy finally starts to catch up. By the time he sees it, he also sees Santa Monica Boulevard.
Somehow, he manages to find one last burst of energy and overtakes the thing before it can hit the south parking lot.
Of course, it's anticipating that, and just as he launches himself at its back, it turns on its heel and slams a stone fist right into his gut, sending him careening into the side of a car. It crumples under him and starts blaring its alarm, which is exactly the kind of soundtrack this nightmare was missing.
Grunting, he starts pushing himself to his feet and throws up an arm just in time to block another blow, then sweeps his leg out to knock it off balance. The move buys him enough time to stand, but not enough to put him on the offense. He twists to avoid a stone punch and jumps back, dodging an immediate second. He doesn't manage to avoid a third, catching it right in the eye. The bone cracks and he goes down hard.
Tommy breathes through the pain and rolls the bulk of his body to the side, onto his belly, then slams his palms into the pavement and heaves with all his might. He springs up, then jumps back to put a little distance between them.
Sliding into the old stance is like greeting a long-lost friend. He crouches down and twists his waist ever so slightly, while bringing his arms up, palms out, fingers curled into claws. Powerful, light, and quick. They used to give him such shit for it.
"Look at crouching tiger, hidden dragon over here."
"More like slouching panda, sitting duck."
As funny as the pose is, they never could argue with its results.
When it comes at him again, he's ready.
Tommy loses time when he fights. Always has. It comes so easily to him. The back and forth, the push and pull—he fucking loves it. Muay Thai is fun, but it's nothing compared to this: a no-holds barred, drag-out fight for survival. His blood is singing an aria so high it's got to be shattering windows somewhere.
He has no idea how long they've been trading blows when he finally sees an opening, striking out with one hand to slap down its attempt to hit him and using the other to punch straight through the mud and clay caking its chest. His fingers curl around a cold, solid, pulsing thing, then he jerks his hand out as hard as he can. The heart he's holding gives one last lurch before he crushes it to dust.
With a whimper, the creature collapses to the ground, crumbling into wet soil.
Panting, Tommy stands there for a moment to try and get his bearings, but his eyes start watering. He wishes it was from the pain of what is almost certainly a fractured socket, but everything's hitting him all at once.
He broke up with Evan tonight. Sitting in the loft and watching the future he'd envisioned for them crumble as Evan called him cruel for leading Abby on, it became very clear that Tommy would never be able to tell him the truth about his past. If Evan ever learned that Tommy almost ended the world, that there had been a real chance Evan would never have lived to see the fourth grade because of Tommy, "cruel" is the kindest thing Evan would call him.
Getting that stupid parking spot out front made him think that maybe the universe was trying to throw him a bone. It had been: it allowed him to make a fast getaway.
But to have run into a putty in Los Angeles on this unimaginably awful night is just hilariously shitty luck, even for him.
Tommy blinks a few times to clear the tears from his vision so he can look at the mound of wet dirt and rocks at his feet.
Sometimes it astonishes him that a group of kids managed to take these things down, considering how easy it was to create them. Earth is a terrestrial planet. There's rock and soil and stone and clay everywhere. There was an endless supply for what could've been an army of putties—if one fell, ten more could've risen up in its place. He doesn't know why they only ever fought four or five at a time. Rita never utilized them the way he would've.
Panic starts fluttering in his marrow, but he tries to ignore it. It was only one. He hasn't seen or heard anything about putty sightings until now. It could be a straggler that somehow escaped Angel Grove and managed to make its way down the coast over the course of thirty years. It could be a complete coincidence.
It could be.
He looks around the empty parking lot, searching for a cold, bright gaze and a blinding smile in the shadows. He strains to hear that awful cackle. He closes his eyes and waits to feel the press of talon-like nails into his wrist as a burning-hot hand wraps around it, pulling him into familiar darkness. But all he hears is the sound of traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Opening his eyes, Tommy sniffles a little, then presses the heel of his hand to the edge of his eye socket. He thinks about how gently Evan would touch him there. He flinches, and not just from the pain.
After a while, it's clear that Rita's not coming for him. Sucking in a shuddering breath, he turns around and limps back into the park. With any luck, his truck is still in the middle of the road where he left it.
+
For the uninitiated, putties are mass-produced, golem-like foot soldiers under the control of Rita.
For the fic title thing, what popped into my head was "apple far from tree"
My first thought was that this would be a fic about Tommy and his relationship to his parents, specifically his father.
But then my second, better thought was let's make this a Buckley reconciliation fic told from Margaret's pov. 911 did the typical thing of sweeping away the Buck Begins arc with the throwaway line that Buck and his parents are doing some family therapy sessions and therefore everything is fixed now. Now I don't actually want the show to explore this because you know (gestures at all of s9), but I am so interested in what reconciliation would look like for the Buckleys. Even taking the secret dead brother out of the equation, the Buckleys emotionally abandoned both their children, parentified their daughter, and their son has some pretty serious CPTSD. How do you come back from that? Can you come back from that?
So let's set this fic post the Madney episode. Margaret and Philip are back in Pennsylvania and Margret is struggling with Buck dating a man, not because she's being homo- or biphobic, but because she can't remember if Buck ever came out to her and Philip? There is a giant pit where Buck's childhood should be. There were so many times in those handful of sessions where Buck would bring up some incident from his childhood and Margaret didn't recall it. Was this another part of his life Buck shared that she just didn't care enough to pay attention to?
Margaret makes more of an effort to be involved in Buck's life, asking after his job and his friend and his boyfriend, and it's hard going. Buck is wary when he's not outright suspicious. They butt heads, they fall back into old patterns, but she and Philip work hard to see Buck as the man that he has become and not the the boy who they wanted him to be, and Buck in turn is working hard to accept his parents are just people who fucked up real bad but are trying to make amends now.
He breaks up with Tommy and won't tell them why--he won't even tell Maddie why--and he mails her cookies for her when she meets with the student teachers and he sends Philip a batch of brownies so rich that they can only eat one a day. "My father, your grandfather, also loved to bake," she tells them on one of their scheduled calls. "Your father and I are useless in the kitchen, but I have his old recipe book around here somewhere. I'll find if for you."
"I'd like that," Buck says, and then, hesitant, "What was grandpa like?"
And then Maddie is kidnapped, and it's Buck calling her from the hospital once she's been found. He sounds scared and sad and so tired as he reassures them that no they don't need to fly out, Maddie and the baby are fine, her husband is with her, Buck has everything covered, hey Maddie is having a boy!
(Margaret has always privately, and shamefully, thought of Maddie as being easier to deal with than Buck. Maddie doesn't fight with them the way Buck does, doesn't push back as hard as Buck when it comes to their childhood, doesn't demand anything of them. They have a scheduled weekly video call where she and Philip get to talk with Jee, and they go out once a year for either Jee's brithday or Christmas. It occurs to her that Maddie is easier because, unlike Buck, she expects nothing from them. Maddie loves them, but she does so from a polite distance, and Margaret has lost any chance at having a real relationship with her.)
Then Bobby Nash dies, and Buck asks if he can come stay with them. They talk about Daniel and love and the smothering grief and how to keep living anyway (they don't talk about how her and Philip are having marital problems, how most nights one of them sleeps in the spare room, how their shared grief over Daniel might be the only thing keeping them together) They talk about Bobby Nash and how alone Buck feels now. They talk about Tommy. The three Buckleys slowly learn to be their version of a family.
And then something something Buck and Tommy obviously get back together and s9 never happens the end.
I hope I'm not stepping on your toes, @corporatebanana, but your pointy teeth monster theo has bewitched me body and soul. and also activated my weird magical bullshit trap card. So I wrote a ficlet about it.
--
“I'm sorry to bother you,” Evan said with an earnestness that was going to be his downfall one day, “but I don't know who else to ask.”
“It's fine,” Tommy said, even though a year's worth of unanswered texts and ignored calls meant it wasn’t. But that was on Tommy, not Evan, who lost someone he had furiously and joyously loved. Tommy didn’t love like that. He spent the first half of his life unaware it was even possible to love the way Evan did. “What do you need?”
Evan picked at the cardboard sleeve on the coffee cup. Despite the fact it was hot and only going to get hotter, Evan had eschewed his usual over complicated frozen monstrosity in favor of just regular hot coffee. “I have a foster son,” Evan said only to them immediately laughed. “Holy shit, Tommy, you gotta control your eyebrows or I’m never getting through this.”
This turned out to be the last year and half of Evan's life, an insane recitation of insane events made impossibly even more insane by Evan's rehearsed tone, like this was a funny slice of life story he was sick of telling.
“And now Theo is living with you,” Tommy said, eyebrows wrestled back into submission.
“He, uh, doesn't have anywhere else to go,” Evan said, the picking turned into full on shredding. They were going to have to sweep up the mess before going so they wouldn't get banned; it was the only coffee shop that employed a barista who hated everyone but him particularly, which meant she made the best coffee in the entire city. “Kameron’s family kicked her out and Connor was an only child. His parents and aunt aren't able to take care of Theo.” And then, a little guilty: “He needs a lot of attention.”
The old hurt snapped into anger. “He just lost his parents. Of course he needs attention. Jesus Christ, Evan.”
Evan jerked back a little, blinking rapidly in the face of Tommy's misplaced anger. “Hey, I know that, I do.” Evan said it gently, as if in apology even though Tommy was being an asshole. “I just meant that Connor’s parents were older when they had him, and now they’re not able to care for Theo. That's all.”
“No, I’m sorry. That was my own bullshit. I didn't mean to put that on you.” He scrubbed a hand over his face so he didn't have to look at the complicated face Evan was making. “So what do you need me for? Pretty sure your sister or Diaz can give you better parenting advice than whatever I could come up with.”
“You'd be surprised,” Evan said dryly, and pushed his unlocked phone across the table.
The kid that stared up at him was cute, and now that he was looking for it, undeniably Evan's biological kid: same nose, same beaming smile, same—wait. He zoomed in on Theo's smile, trying not to feel exactly like what his father always claimed he was. “Is that...?”
“He gets it from his mom. That’s why her family kicked her out.” Evan’s brave little smile wobbled. “Theo is, uh, he’s like—”
“Like me.” He couldn’t look away from that pointy smile. “Yeah, I don’t think Diaz is gonna cut it for this one.”
The cardboard sleeve had been reduced to its base components. Tommy passed his sleeve before Evan could start in on his cuticles.
“I know we haven’t—that I haven’t—” Evan broke off, frustration pulling the corners of his mouth tight.
“Just say it,” Tommy said, gentle even as he felt the telltale warmth along his spine. Thank god he’d been smart enough to go with a high collar shirt and a hoodie; the only skin showing was his face and hands, which were normal. Safe.
“There aren’t many people like him. Even the social worker doesn’t have many resources.” Evan set the cardboard sleeve aside. “It’s already so hard to be a kid, but this is going to make it—”
“Even worse for him?” He kept his tone level, but Evan flinched as if he shouted.
Evan shook his head. “Kameron and Connor should be the ones helping him and loving him, but now he’s just got me, and I don’t know what I’m doing.” Evan’s jaw set with that earnest determination. Nothing in the world was as devastating as Evan’s sincerity. “He needs people in his corner, and you’re one of the best people I know.”
Tommy closed both sets of eyelids. There it was, just like how he knew it was coming. Evan wanted what he could do but never just wanted him. He couldn’t even be angry about it; it was his own fault for never bother to fucking learn.
“Tommy?” Evan touched the back if his hand.
His opened his eyes. Right now, hidden under the shirt and hoodie and his sturdy boots, he was all lit up, a warning to predators that, hurt or not, the smart move was not to fuck with him. He slid his hand away.
“Does he have any other traits outside of the teeth?” he asked.
Evan stared forlornly after his hand before giving himself a hard shake. “I thought maybe he had like super smell, but turned out it was only for cookies. So just the teeth right now.”
“He’ll probably develop a couple more as he gets older. Puberty is a real bitch. I had terrible growing pains and I was itchy all the time.” The worse part was the never ending deep burns as he grew new nerves and cells and—well, changing in the locker room got a lot more complicated after that.
Evan perked up a little. “Oh, is that when you got the—”
“Yup.” That came out too short and Eva deflated a little. It was hard to tell from just a picture, but he’d bet there were too many teeth for Theo’s small mouth. “You should get him something to chew on.”
“Like a dog toy?” Evan said in an extremely scathing tone.
“First of all, the kid is what, four? He’s going to want to bite anyway but he is definitely going to want to put those chompers to work. And I’m sure they’re bothering him. Chewing will help.” Theo was too young to be able to tell exactly what kind shit got mixed in with the usual genetic make up, but Tommy had a feeling. “Has he lost any teeth yet?”
Evan squinted suspiciously at him. “You mean his baby teeth? He’s like several years away before his adult teeth come in.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about baby teeth. There’s a good chance he’ll lose and regrow them throughout his life. You’re going to need a good dentist. I’ll ask around.”
“Regrow his teeth?” Evan said, ignoring the bit about the dentist, which was fine. Tommy had that part covered. “Like a shark?”
He smiled. “How does the kid handle bath time?”
Evan made the face of every aggrieved parent. “He loves it when he’s actually in the bath, but he hates getting in or out of it. Transitions are hard for him.”
“They’re hard for everyone.” One last look at the picture before he pushed the phone back across the table. “We’ll have to take him down to the beach and see how he does with the actual ocean.”
“You think he’s really like—but you don’t have the teeth,” Evan said. And then, “Wait, we?”
Tommy gave his best nonchalant shrug. “I know what it’s like growing up with an extra rung in your DNA. Like you said, the kid is gonna need people in his corner.”
Evan swallowed hard, clearly fighting his own Buckley DNA to keep from crying. “Thank you,” he said softly, and this time Tommy let Evan take his hand.
“Of course,” he said just as soft, even as his weird, monstrous DNA lit up in a futile effort to ward off danger.
