1. Tommy finds the photo in his mom's sock drawer because sometimes she hides sleeves of Sixlets in there where his dad won't look for them. He sits against her dresser and studies it for a long time. His mom looked so different—young and happy, her hair swept into a big wave, wearing a big smile and an even bigger coat. She looked like an old movie star. He stares at the coat, trying to figure out what it's made of, but it's like it changes every time the light shifts. If he tilts the picture to one side, it looks almost like feathers, but if he tilts it another way, it looks like velvet. If he tilts it into the light, it almost ripples like water. He's never seen anything like it, and something inside him pulses the longer he stares at it.
2. He brings the photo out to his mom, who's lying in the backyard, staring at the sky. She does this sometimes, usually when his dad isn't home, because it makes him mad. Her shoulders tighten a little as he pads over the grass, but they relax when she turns her head and sees that it's him. She smiles the way she always does and his belly hurts to look at it the way it always does, and she holds an arm out, her wrist delicate and beautiful, inviting him down with her. He clambers down onto his knees, getting grass stains on his jeans that his dad will yell about later, and then tucks himself against her side. He places the photo on her chest. She takes it between her fingers and studies it for a long moment—she doesn't breathe the entire time—then lets it flutter to the grass, like it's too heavy for her to keep holding. He asks why she's never worn the coat before, because it's the prettiest thing he's ever seen. She exhales, long and low and unbearably sad, and says that she doesn't know where it is. She tells him that his father took it from her a long time ago and hid it. She's never been able to find it, no matter how hard she looks. Tommy doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing, and as his mother goes back to looking at the sky, he rests his head on her shoulder and vows silently that he's going to find it for her. Maybe then she'll smile for real, like she did in the photo.
3. When Tommy starts asking if he can go with his dad on the day-long fishing trips he takes on the weekends, if he can help his dad fix the old Cutlass in the driveway, if he can bring his dad another beer, if his dad needs a hand cleaning out the garage.... his dad doesn't seem to find it suspicious. He just says it's about time Tommy stopped being such a pussy and started acting like a man. For the better part of a year, Tommy is his dad's shadow. He follows him around and does everything he's asked and laughs at his dad's mean jokes and tries not to see how sad his mom gets when Tommy chooses to spend time with his dad instead of with her, but he can't help it, because his dad never lets her take the car anywhere by herself or go for walks with her friends without him, and sometimes he holds her too tightly and leaves bruises and never says sorry, and now Tommy is making her feel even lonelier. She'll understand when he surprises her with her beloved coat. Except no matter how much time he spends with his dad, who he hates more and more with every passing hour, he can't find it. He looks in the Cutlass, in the gear box on his dad's little motorboat, in every nook and cranny in the garage, in his dad's closet, in the basement.... it's nowhere to be found. Maybe his dad sold it—maybe that's how he was able to afford the boat—or maybe he burned it. Tommy suddenly understands why his mother had been so hopeless, because it's like it just got up and flew away, leaving his mother behind. But he refuses to give up. He just needs to go straight to the source.
4. Tommy plies his dad with at least four beers a day, because his dad gets talkative after four. When his dad hits that point, he doesn't get mad when Tommy asks about his mom. It takes another few months—almost a year to the day since he found the photo—before four isn't enough and his dad's hands shake if he doesn't have at least five, and he's handing his dad a sixth when he finally works up the nerve to ask how his dad met his mom. Practically puddled on his work bench, his dad rumbles a laugh and says that he saw her in the woods behind their house, bathing in the same creek where Tommy used to catch frogs and fireflies before his dad said only pansies did that, and thought she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. He mumbles a word that Tommy doesn't understand—a hag-something—and snorts another laugh, muttering, "'s right under her nose. She'll n'ver find it." Tommy stares at his dad, who can barely keep his eyes open and keeps bobbing his head like he can't hold it up, and then quietly asks where the coat is.
5. It's nighttime when he shakes his mom's arm to wake her up and presses a finger to his lips, beckoning her to get out of bed and come with him. It takes a few minutes for her to slip out from under his dad's heavy arm without waking him. He takes her hand in his and they sneak downstairs; they don't put their shoes on until they get to the bottom step of the basement stairs, and then they sneak out the door that leads to the backyard. He uses his dad's Rayovac to light their way. She doesn't ask where they're going. Maybe she's just as afraid of making a sound as he is, even though they're far enough away that they could throw a party and his dad wouldn't so much as stir. She lets him pull her through the tree line at the edge of the yard and into the woods; together, they climb over fallen trees and tromp through mud puddles and jump every time a raccoon shrieks. He doesn't know how long they walk in silence, hand in hand, but finally the beam of light hits the creek. He pulls her over to the big tree by the edge, where lightning had cracked a hollow in it long before Tommy was born, and then lets go of her hand so he can crawl inside. The dead wood scratches him and he accidentally gets a spider web in his mouth, but it's all worth it when he squirms back out with his arms full of soft, soft fabric that glows like the moon. She's holding the flashlight, so he gets to see the shock and relief and joy on her face when she sees what he's holding, and it's worth every single horrible second he's spent over the last year with his dad. It was all for this. He did it. Panting, he grins at her, wiggling in pleasure when she wraps him in her arms and holds him and cries.
The bits of sky they can see through the canopy is starting to pink up, and finally his mom lets him go so she can take the coat from his arms. It looks like a sky full of stars reflected in the surface of a lake when she slips into it, rippling like water, and she is lit up almost from within, beautiful and terrifying and unfamiliar.
"M-Mom?" He's never been afraid of her, and he isn't now, but when she cups his face in her hand, his heart pounds the way it does when their neighbor's rottweiler barks and growls through the fence when Tommy walks by, or when his dad yells.
Her hair falls out of the scrunchy and falls in waves around her face and down her back, and then floats up. Not just her hair. She's floating up. Away.
She smiles, like in the photo. His eyes fill with tears.
"If you ever choose to give it to someone, please be sure," his mother says, and her voice echoes through the trees and flows in the creek and rides the wind. "Otherwise, you can never come home to me."
He watches her rise up and up, until she slips through the fiery pink lines between the treetops, and disappears.
When his father wakes up and starts tearing apart the house, howling for his wife, Tommy's in bed, hiding under the covers and sobbing into a leather coat that's as soft as clouds and warm as his own blood.
6. Bonus!
By the time Buck walks the four blocks from where he parked to Maccheroni Republic, he's glad he decided to wear a jacket. It's unseasonably cold for November and the jacket had been a gift. It would be more insulting if he didn't wear it. At least that's what he keeps telling himself when the guilt threatens to sweep his legs out from under him.
He swallows the sour taste in his mouth and enters the restaurant where his date is waiting for him. Her name is Melody. According to her Hinge profile, she's a florist who recently moved to Santa Monica and is looking to make a connection. Buck doesn't know shit about flowers, but he knows about wanting to establish something special with someone. The dates he's been on lately have been one disappointment after another, but maybe Melody will break the losing streak. Maybe she'll have all the answers.
Thank god she looks just like her profile picture. He spots her right away: riotous curls, large eyes, and a dazzling smile... that disappears the moment he approaches the table.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Buck says. "I had to park on the other side of the world. Hopefully you haven't been w—uh, is everything—?"
Because Melody is staring balefully at his chest as she gathers her purse and phone.
"Whoa, hey, I-I didn't think I was that late," Buck appeals.
The glare that Melody levels on him would fell a lesser man, but Athena has trained him up well over the years. He's able to withstand it with only a small wince.
"You're a real piece of shit, you know that?" Melody snaps. She's practically shaking with rage. The people around them are starting to stare. "Going on a date wearing someone else's—god, you asshole."
Blinking, he glances down at himself. "Wait, do you—are you talking about the jacket? I'm not sure what the big deal is, or how you even clocked it, but, uh, my ex gave it to me. I can... take it off? I was gonna take it off."
At that, she pauses, squinting at him with an insulting amount of distrust, even for an internet stranger. "Your ex? Then why do you still have it?"
Buck ducks his head and stares at the zipper pull on his chest, shrugging. "H-He didn't want it back."
After the breakup, the jacket had taken up a permanent spot in his Jeep, then the truck, which had a setting he couldn't turn off that registered any added pressure to the backseat and reminded him to check anytime he turned off the car. It was supposed to keep frazzled parents from forgetting their kids in the car on hot days, but all it did was serve as a painful reminder that he still had a piece of Tommy.
He'd caught up with Tommy after Bobby's memorial service and haltingly offered to give it back. That kind of buttery, almost liquid leather? It had to have cost a fortune. It didn't seem right to keep it.
"It was a gift," Tommy had said softly.
"A-Are you sure?" It took every drop of willpower not to throw himself into Tommy's arms and beg him to hold him for a minute, because the jacket was nice but it didn't smell like Tommy anymore and it was a poor substitute for his hugs.
But Tommy had mustered up a smile that made Buck's stomach hurt to look at, and said, "I'm sure, Evan. It's yours."
Melody stares at him for a long moment, then blows out a breath and takes her seat again. She gestures for Buck to do the same, which he does, although he feels a little bit like he's about to be put through a deposition.
"Let me make something perfectly clear: this isn't a date. I'm not dating someone who has one of those," Melody says, gesturing to his jacket.
"Is it, like, Gucci or something?" Buck runs a nervous hand down the length of one soft, soft sleeve. "There isn't a tag. I think he cut it out."
She shakes her head, then sighs. "Okay, so, I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I recognize it because... my uncle married a woman who has one. Except hers looks like one of those robe coats from the '20s. You know: big sleeves, fur collar, dragged on the ground. She gave it to him."
Buck waits for her to continue, but that seems to be the end of her thought.
"Oh, uh, that... was, uh, nice of her?"
Melody rolls her eyes, then leans forward like she's thinking about reaching across the table and shoving whatever she's trying to say down his throat. "The coat's—special. I don't know how to explain it. My uncle says it's... it could give my uncle, like, an insane amount of power over her, but he's a pretty good guy so he doesn't ever use it. It's the ultimate gesture of trust. It's like my aunt gave her soul to him."
His eyes are as wide as the bread plates on the table. He can feel his brows kiss the edge of his hairline. His fingers are buried in the jacket's cuffs.
"I-I don't... what is it? You recognized it, like, right away."
She shrugs. "I've read some—I guess, myths? In the stories, they're made of feathers, sometimes silk. My aunt and uncle ended up having my cousin Katie, and she has one, too. Hers is wool, though. Pink houndstooth, with a skirt that kinda flares out. I think it's different every time? Like, it adapts to the owner and their circumstances, that sort of thing."
Buck looks down at the camel-colored leather and thinks of how easily Tommy took it off his own body and draped it over Buck's one chilly night. How Tommy smiled and murmured, "it suits you."
"So, the fact that he gave this to me—" He can't get the rest of the words out. They're blocked by a lump in his throat that feels like it's growing by the second. His eyes burn.
For the first time that night, Melody smiles. "He must've really loved you."
+
When Buck pulls into the driveway, he's shaking so hard he can barely get his hand around the shift lever to throw the truck into park. There are no lights on in the house.
Exhaling, he opens the door and spills out into the night, which feels even colder than it did earlier. The jacket isn't doing anything to block the chill. Or maybe he's just sweating and his body can't compensate.
He starts heading up the walkway toward the porch, then stops. Something in him pulses hard, and he turns his head in the direction of where the path splits to head to the backyard. There's no cogent reason to check there first, but his heart starts pounding like he's just ran a marathon.
Buck approaches the gate and peers over the top of the door. The yard is wide open and dark; the flood light is off and all he has to help him is starlight. But there, in the grass, is a swathe of even darker darkness. A silhouette.
Swallowing hard, he gently unlatches the door and walks through, shutting it behind him. His hand trembles on the metal lock.
It's the ultimate gesture of trust.
Closing his stinging eyes, Buck takes a moment to breathe. Another pulse, deep in his chest, spurs his feet into motion. He walks slowly over the grass to the shadow lying in the middle of the yard. It isn't until he's less than a foot away that he can actually make out more than a fuzzy outline.
Even in faint starlight, Tommy looks incredible. Almost otherworldly. He's staring up at the sky like he's trying to work out a puzzle, but after a moment, he turns his head and looks at Buck. He smiles the way he always does and Buck's belly cramps.
Wordlessly, Tommy lifts an arm, his wrist thick and strong, inviting him down.
Choking on a sob, Buck clambers down onto the grass and tucks himself against Tommy's side. Tommy's arm wraps around him, warmer than anything else in the whole world.
Buck settles his cheek on Tommy's shoulder and whispers, "Did you know what it meant? When you gave it to me?"
"Yes."
"Then why give it to me?"
"Because I was sure," Tommy murmurs. "I still am."
Dragging in another shaky breath, Buck closes his eyes. "I'm sure too."
The arm around him tightens and there's a brief, warm pressure against his hair. After a moment, he hears the grass shift under Tommy's head as he turns to gaze back up at the sky. Buck doesn't know what he's looking for, but he hopes he finds it, whatever it is. Maybe he's not looking for anything in particular.
Summary: Tommy plans on spending New Year's Eve on his own. Buck has other ideas.
Excerpt:
Tommy debated over the two dips in his hands for all of five seconds before adding them to the ever-growing collection in his cart. He was alone again for New Year’s Eve. Nobody could judge him for Oliver Putnam-ing his way through it.
Literally no one.
He added another dip to the pile.
“Now we need carbs,” he muttered to himself. Dip vehicles. Because eating them all with a spoon would just be sad. Sadder.
Tommy gripped his cart and headed for the chip aisle with a sigh. Nachos for sure. Something load-bearing. Ooh, and some ripple chips. And—
He stopped short at the start of the aisle, somehow never prepared for this, for running into each other even though Evan Buck had been moved into the same neighbourhood for a couple of months now. Long enough for this to keep happening.
Buck glanced up, a smile spreading across his face when he spotted Tommy, waving him over.
And for this to keep happening. Them. Being friends. Friendly.
Tommy overtakes all of his senses, and all he can think is that all of the upheaval they'd been through had been worth it. Worth it to be standing on this porch at the crack of dawn, kissing Tommy with an audience of two gnomes.
for @olivebegins 💖🏠
if you haven’t been reading her neighbors fic, you’re truly missing out.
Well, now you have to do it! (Affectionate, and pls no pressure) But Cashier Tommy and firefighter!Buck five facts au 🙂↕️🫶
thanks for the ask ☺️ I hope this is something…(trying something a little different)
2015: Tommy starts working at his family's store after his father passes away and his uncle takes ownership of it.
2021: The first time Tommy sees Mr. June—er, Evan Buckley—in person is, funnily enough, in June. It's been 2 years since he was featured in the calendar still hanging on the wall in Tommy's garage* (and in his bedside table) and he's bulked up some, but Tommy would know those long legs and cute birthmark anywhere.
They make small talk as Tommy rings up Evan's groceries and Tommy doesn't even realize there's another firefighter with him until the guy starts bagging the groceries himself. It's nice to finally put a voice to Evan's face and it's just as alluring as the rest of him.
When Tommy tells them to have a good day, Evan glances down at his name tag, smiles at him, and says, "you too, Tommy."
After that, Tommy starts seeing Evan nearly every week in the grocery store. He never does tire of hearing the way Evan says his name.
2022: Tommy's always in long sleeves when Buck sees him and that hasn't changed, but one day he has his plaid button-down rolled up to his elbows. Once Buck can manage to tear his gaze away from Tommy's forearms, he notices a tattoo of a bat on the inside of his right wrist.
Buck stays up until 2 A.M. researching bats (it's safer than the other b word rolling around his head). He learns a ton of cool facts that he plans to tell Tommy when he sees him next, but when Tommy smiles at him he can't remember a single one. His sleeves are rolled up again and Buck only just resists sweeping his thumb over the black ink on Tommy's wrist. "I like your tattoo."
Tommy grins. "Thanks, Evan." He freezes.
Buck smiles, even as his brow furrows. "You know my name?"
Tommy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them, he doesn't look directly at Buck. "My friend, Sal, he's a firefighter —he was in the same calendar as you."
"Oh! God, that was what…2019? What month was he—June?"
Tommy shakes his head. "I don't remember, but it wasn't June."
Huh. Buck flushes and ducks his head to hide his pleased smile. "I'll see you around, Tommy."
Another late night spent on his laptop.
Buck tries bisexual on for size and it feels right.
2023: Buck and Tommy run into each other—literally—at a badge and ladder.
Tommy's so thrown seeing Evan outside of the grocery store—somehow he never considered it a possibility Evan could be at the same bar. Tommy tells him, "I'm not stalking you or anything."
Evan quirks his lips. "I didn't think you were. I'm really glad to see you here, Tommy."
"You are?"
"Yeah." Evan leans on the bar. "I never felt right asking because you were at work, but…can I buy you a beer?"
Oh, you sweet silly man, Tommy thinks. He smiles. "I'd love that.
2025: It's their two-year anniversary. Later, they'll have dinner at their favorite hibachi place, go back to Buck's house and catch up on their shows, and make up for not being able to see each other for two weeks.
Right now, Buck's flirting with Tommy at the register as he rings up Buck's groceries—just like old times. Tommy's the store manager now, but they're understaffed today.
After Buck's done paying, Tommy winks at him and tells him to have a good day.
Buck smiles, swipes his thumb over the ink on Tommy's left wrist—a pair of antlers, and says, "You too, Tommy."
*When Sal asked Tommy, in December of 2019, why he'd never changed the calendar after June, Tommy looked at the picture of Evan—shirtless, turnout pants dangerously low on his hips, a firehose slung over his shoulder—then back at Sal and shrugged. "He's hot."
Sal takes a sip of his beer, nods, and claps Tommy on the shoulder. "I'll take your word for it."
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Do not send the 118,” Tommy snapped, dragging the Bell out of a tailspin through sheer stubbornness.
“We’re picking up speed,” Swann said.
There was a little he could do. The Bell fought him, but he got her nose up. If they were lucky they would lose a strut. If they were fucked the rotor would go. He was not going to let them get fucked.
“Brace yourself,” Tommy said, and Swann folded into crash position, face pressed to her knees and hands laced over the back of her neck.
The sky opened its fist and the Bell dropped fast and then faster. Tommy kept his eyes on the ground as it rose to meet them. I wonder if it will be friends with me, he thought inanely, and braced for the hit.
“There’s this place that sells uniforms and scrubs,” said Evan, who was not a shy man by nature, but there was an odd tentativeness to the words. “I pass it all the time. I could stop on my way home.”
Tommy was at the back of the hangar, standing under the burned out light. On the roof of the 118, Evan was waiting for him to flirt back.
“Fuck,” he said.
In which Tommy tries again and again and again.
For @beanarie, who won my Fandom Trumps Hate auction. I hope you like this fic as much as I loved writing it. And thank you for being so patient.
And thank you for everyone who liked and reblogged all the snippets I've been posting. It really kept me going. I love you all.
Oh I love this. Let's make this a magic university.
1. Buck's grad students both love and hate him in equal measure. If you ever wondered how a temporal spell would work on the local rock, then Dr. Buckley was your man. He'd have that array set up in about five minutes and remind you to make sure to record your findings. But he was terrible at giving notes on dissertations or turning grades in one time. Sometimes students would get papers back with comments written in someone else's hands, but, hey, it as always helpful so they let it slide.
2. Tommy was popular with the kind of grad student who was more interested in why a bit of magi work then in the how of it. Dr. Kinard was who you went to if you needed to dismantle an array or take apart an resurrection in order to clean and fine tune it before putting it back together. It was Dr. Kinard who had unlocked the precise mechanics of flight. He was a little weaker on the theoretical part of magic although he always provided resources when asked, but papers and tests were returned in a timely manner and grades were submitted well before the deadline.
3. Dr. Kinard and Dr. Buckley had authored dozens of papers between them, and most of those were just rebutting the other's work. Their grad students would pass the papers back and forth because a sure way to get Dr. Buckley to respond in a timely manner was to cite Dr. Kinard's work. Dr. Kinard, however, would without fail make the same note in the margins: next time consider citing an academic whose methodology does not include the phrase "what was the worst that could happen." The worst was that half of the theoretical magic building had reverted to its natural environmental state, and it was Kinard who had to go in and reverse the whole thing.
4. It was unofficial departmental policy that Drs. Kinard and Buckley were not allowed to be unchaperoned in their respective offices, and so their grad students were deployed as couriers. The consensus was that the two were academic rivals who had attempted to murder each other on more than one occassion.
5. The department held a barbecue at the end of every year, and for the first time it was not held at the department's head house due to an temporal implosion that had leveled the house. Dr. Buckley volunteered his house, and it was to the grad students great surprise to find the door opened by Dr. Kinard, who said, "We got married a few years back. He snuck the proposal in a rebuttal." Dr. Buckley handed out the beers and said, "I'd already published under Buckley, otherwise I would have taken his name. I still might. Can you imagine the conferences? Dr. Kinard rebuts Dr. Kinard debate the use of acceleration in transmutating carbon. It'd be funny."
When one of the grad students gets the courage to ask why the rule they're not allowed to be alone in their offices if they're married, PhD candidate Ravi Panikkar gets the haunted look of a WWI vet and says, "They keep fucking on the desks." There are no more questions.
post-s8 arson investigator au | bucktommy | E | chapter 1/5
After Bobby dies, Athena—seeking a change, and some sort of meaning in life—gets pulled onto the LAFD's Arson Investigation unit. It's been falling apart at the seams for years now. But she's given her pick of firefighters to fill it out, and she chooses the best of the best: Buck, of course, adrift and grieving; and Tommy, who's been grounded for insubordination and transferred to admin for a while.
Buck and Tommy dance around each other. Athena closes in on a serial arsonist. Things heat up from there.
chapter 1 of my arson investigator AU is up. read it on ao3 here!
tommy piloting a water rescue. his crew brings up two victims and he doesn't have a ton of attention to spare, but he can tell it isn't going great for at least one of them.
then over the grunting of the medic providing chest compressions, a familiar voice cries out, "goddammit." it's howie, and he sounds wrecked. "buck, breathe."
They are two hours out from end of shift, so Tommy's attention is mostly on what groceries he needs to pick up before he goes home and the rest of his focus is on fighting the wind that is picking up. Jacinto, the floater taking over from Pearson while the latter recovers from his broken left arm, is working the winch, and he's good enough that he gets their third – Doc, nicknamed for his initials – and the two victims into the back in record time.
"All secure?" Tommy asks over the comms.
"Get us outta here, T," Doc grunts.
Tommy steers them towards land. He is mentally weighing between climbing altitudes to chance less choppy winds and cutting across the gusts when he hears a familiar voice.
"... goddammit, Buck, breathe, you gotta breathe, Maddie will kill you and then me if you don't," Chimney says.
Tommy's an excellent pilot. He knows that only the other pilots really understand how fucking good he is, and he's fine with that. But he is the best at what he does, and that is the only reason why the entire team is still in the air.
Every cell in his body wants to turn around and check for himself the condition that Evan is in, but his mental discipline keeps him looking ahead and focused on his task.
His hand tightens on the cyclic and he picks up speed and height, climbing towards the clouds, and then he pushes ahead with only one goal in mind: get Evan Buckley to the hospital.
They land with barely a bump because Tommy is so focused on the job. Once they land, a team rushes out and hurries Chimney and Evan away. Tommy doesn't know if Chimney even registered who the pilot is.
After seeing the doors swing close behind the ER team, Tommy unbuckles from the seat, struggles out of the bird, doubles over and throws up on the H-pad, barely missing the ankles of his flight suit.
"Jesus H. Christ, Tommy, what's the matter with you?" Jacinto asks, scrambling out as well to pat Tommy between his shoulder blades.
When Doc joins them, Tommy waves a weak hand. "It's okay, I'll be okay."
I'll be okay. Evan will be okay. He has to be. He has to be.
At the end of my shift I will come here. I will come here and I will talk to him and I will beg him to take me back if I have to. As long as he's okay, I will do anything.
Tommy thinks he's murmuring under his breath. With the taste of bile still lingering in the back of his throat, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You sure you're up to flying?" Doc asks. His platinum blond hair is curling from the damp.
Tommy nods. "Let's get back. Don't let Melton know about this."
it just wouldn’t be proper if i left october without posting any werewolves 🌙🐺
i’m gonna count this as throwing my hat in the ring for @btmonsterfuckermonday finally now that i have all of this unscheduled free time (unemployment)
His mother blinked slowly. "I never should have answered the phone."
That didn't make sense, because their phone had been ringing off the hook all week and his mother was always the one to answer.
"I knew it was going to be bad," she said softly, slowly, almost like she was talking in her sleep. "I had the most horrible feeling in my gut when the phone rang. I've felt it before—I knew what it was. I should've just let the answering machine take it. I never should have picked up."
More than two decades later, when Buck's phone starts vibrating as he's ruining the lamination of another batch of would-be croissants, he understands what his mother meant that day.
Every atom in his body is straining toward the phone, but he can't unlock his hands from the death grip they have on the rolling pin in order to reach for it.
Incoming call: T. Kinard
Thank you to everyone who tagged me in writing games, sent me messages, cheered me on, and cursed me out while I was working on this. I couldn't have finished it without you!
READ ON AO3
Tagging folks who expressed some variation of "I can't wait to read this" on more than one occasion:
2087
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
vaporwave
gamechangershow
germansingergirl
