Today I’m thinking about how Jack trusted Robby with his letter to the veteran’s family in s1. Trusted him to read it, to care for it, and to share his story. How the viewers are given a glance at who Jack really is through Robby.
hello ed. if you're still taking au prompts, how about a bucktommy/saltommy/salbucktommy (im not picky) au where one of them is a lifeguard? dealers choice on whether the other(s) is ALSO a lifeguard, a regular civilian, or still a firefighter
Okay so this is......gonna be kind of twee, sorry. It's mostly SalTommy with some SBT crumbs thrown in at the end.
1. Tommy been lifeguarding since he was 16. He's good at it, he takes it seriously, he's had to save a few people over the last few years. He's a college freshman at UCLA on a scholarship and grants. He's in the aerospace program, because he hadn't wanted to join the military and go back into the closet, not after what he risked by coming out in senior year. He'd basically lived on his friend's couch and even his car, because he'd turned 18 and the state couldn't take care of him even if he was in high school. It had been a good basis for an admissions essay, at least. So he's in a dorm and he works as a lifeguard at UCLA, because he was able to get the job easily as someone needing financial aid and with his experience level.
2. Sal is a junior Labor Studies major at UCLA. He's tired of doing the same stuff at the Fitness Center on campus, so he takes a stab at one of the recreation pools. He sees a built water polo type lifeguarding, and she's scanning the pool intently. There's a handful of people there, because it's a warm day, but it's a Thursday. People usually have class, so he'd almost expected it to be empty. Sal jumps into the pool and starts doing laps. When he stops and hooks his elbows over the side, he looks over at the lifeguard stand and does a double take. Water polo chick has been replaced by a hot beefcake who looks more like a football player than a swimmer (Tommy at freshly 19 would be nearly the size Lou was at that age, so...big). He's also scanning the pool, but his eyes pause on Sal when he hauls himself out. Rubbing himself down with a towel, he approaches the stand. "It ever get busy around here on the weekends?" Sal asks casually. "We can't get distracted on shift," the lifeguard says flatly. "Mm, my bad," Sal says. "Hopefully I'll see you around when you can get...distracted." He's proud of himself for that one as he walks away. When he looks over his shoulder, the lifeguard is glancing at him and flushes when he gets caught.
3. They run into each other at B Plate a couple days later. Well, Sal sees Tommy building a monster salad and sidles up next to him. "Didn't recognize you with a shirt on," Tommy says, smiling to himself. "Didn't know you were looking," Sal lies, following Tommy to a line for tri-tip. "Just doing my job," Tommy says. They sit together by a window, and Sal flirts with Tommy relentlessly. Tommy flirts back, but he's a little dry and subdued about it. When Sal asks him what he's studying, he's surprised to find out he's a freshman. He asks him if he wants to go into Westwood to catch a movie. Tommy pokes at his salad for a moment and looks across the table, looking too shy for a guy his size. "You asking me out?" he asks. "Absolutely," Sal says, grinning.
4. Tommy hasn't been on a real date with a guy ever. He's fooled around, he sort of had a boyfriend but not really because they'd just made out a few times and hung out at each other's houses, but when they got caught by Tommy's dad, the guy had bolted and broke things off because he was afraid of his parents finding out. Tommy had doubled down and gotten kicked out for it, over a guy who wouldn't even want to be seen in public with him. Sal does. They walk down from campus and stand between the theaters in Westwood and look between them. "What do you want to see?" Sal asks. They'd both already watched all of the "cool" stuff that was out, because Tommy had always liked spending a day in a theater as a way to stay out of his house. He spends his free time at school doing the same thing. They end up seeing some romantic Christmas movie, and Tommy kind of loves it. He actually really loves it. And Sal holds his hand halfway through and doesn't let go, eating popcorn with his other hand. After, they walk and talk about it. Sal thought the guy with the signs was a dick for doing that to his buddy, Tommy didn't understand how the hell the secretary was supposed to be fat, because guess what movie came out December 2003? Love, Actually, babyyyyy. It's Tommy's favorite because it was their first date. (Revenge of the Sith is his favorite because it's the one they went and saw after they decided to move in together right before Sal graduates.)
5. Tommy lives in a dorm, Sal lives in a student apartment across the street. He has two roommates, but one is in chem labs all the time and never there and the other one is always with his girlfriend who lives in La Brea. So he asks Tommy if he wants to come up, and they end up giving each other mediocre but fun blowjobs. When Sal goes to the pool again, he catches Tommy's eye and smiles and winks, and Tommy flushes before continuing to scan. He flirts as much as he can get away with, and Tommy calls him a liability. Except a girl has a seizure in the water one day, and Tommy's in and getting her before Sal can blink. Tommy turns into a different person in a crisis, sure and steady and commanding. Sal is using his cell phone to call 911 and takes over CPR when Tommy switches out to give specific details to the operator. When the girl is on a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance to go to the ER across from campus, Sal squeezes Tommy's hand and watches the groggy, shaking girl until the doors close. They have life affirming/that was hot how you took charge/oh my god I love you sex that night.
6. They're talking about living together by the time Sal graduates. He opts to go to the fire academy because of the near drowning incident, realizing that helping people in that way means something to him. But he gets involved with the union, too, bringing his educational background into it. When he gets an apartment, Tommy moves with him. He ends up in graduate school and then gets hired at Polytechnic Applied Astrophysics Laboratory. He learns to fly, gets his pilot's license, and it helps at his job. He ends up on a team with Dr. Karen Wilson, and they talk about being with a firefighter. He and Sal go to their place for dinner, and Sal and Hen get to talking about their stations. Sal doesn't like his, he feels like they're just using him as a body. She encourages him to transfer but warns him about Gerrard if he's going to pick her station, because Sal and Tommy weren't there to start the reporting process so he's there a little longer. They hatch a scheme to use the union to leverage getting him the hell out of there. So Sal comes into the station, seemingly fitting in with the rest of Gerrard's sycophants, and he and Hen work together to get him terminated from the LAFD. It works, he's not just transferred.
7. Sometimes Tommy misses being a lifeguard. He misses helping people, misses knowing he's the one keeping people safe. He debates being a firefighter, because he can become a pilot for them. He talks to someone at Harbor and signs up. "You'll be the most overqualified firefighter anyone's ever seen," Sal says. "But I'm proud of you, baby." So Tommy is a probie at Harbor. And then a firefighter, and then he's a pilot. He's on ground crew when there's a call from a lifeguard on duty at a swim school. There's a kid that passed out in the pool. Tommy rolls in and gets hit with the familiar smell of chlorine. The lifeguard is firing off information as the paramedics work on the boy. He still looks worried as the boy is wheeled away, coughing weakly but clearly going to be fine. "You did everything right," Tommy reassures the lifeguard. "He'll be okay now." And the lifeguard gives him a weak smile. "I used to do this," Tommy says. "And you always think you should've noticed something before it happens. You usually can't predict it unless someone's really struggling before they go under. He's probably got an underlying condition his family doesn't know about." "Th-thanks," the lifeguard says. "I, uh, guess I should get a thicker skin. I'm about to start the academy." Tommy grins, his heart doing some complicated and inadvisable shit when the guy grins back. "Yeah? Well, good luck. If you ever need anything, I'm Tommy. I work out of the 217. My boyfriend Sal works at the 118. What's your name?" And the lifeguard flushes a little. "Evan," he replies.
8. Months later, Sal plops down on the couch and cuddles up to Tommy, who's also half dead after the shift he's had. "Got the new probie," Sal mumbles into his shoulder. "He's cute as fuck, gonna be a problem."
just saw a 'comments' tab on someones blog you know where the following and likes tabs would be if enabled and it was just showing all the replies theyve made on peoples posts. this is fascinating when did this feature come out
if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.
if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to
PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply
figured i'd get the word out bc i have not seen a single mention of this and i'm sure there are plenty of people who maybe comment on things they don't want on display for everyone to see on their blog lol. you can still look at your replies with it toggled off just no one else can, like locking the following and likes list
so for some reason this feature was actually announced on the tumblr engineering blog. interesting choice not to reblog it to the staff or tumblr blog, esp considering they asked for user input on how to implement it, but i suppose considering the response to the last update maybe the replies would be too overwhelming...
so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts
posts you comment on may show on your followers 'for you' page if you leave your replies publically available. they may, in the future, show in on your followers dashboard if your follower goes to their dash settings and enables this. apparently, if your likes are enabled, your followers can already see those on the dash if they've gone into preferences and selected to do so, which I was unaware of, and that seems to be disabled at default, but it's possible i disabled it previously and forgot about it ig
We're here, we're queer, we're really fucking tired so we're just gonna go straight to biting instead of feigning polite confusion if you're gonna be a bigot this time, just so you know.
'trans men haven't upheld their weight in the community at the same level that lesbians and trans women have' a lot of those lesbians were trans men and mascs but you're all not ready for that conversation
#a mixed Black transmasc woman very likely sparked the stonewall uprising (storme delarverie)#and yet somehow we never fucking hear about her! even when people talk abt the trans and Black origins of Stonewall!#& when it comes to feminist stuff as ive said before#transmascs often find inspiration in cis women in history who resisted misogyny#yet cis women REFUSE to ever find inspiration in transmascs who resisted misogyny and transphobia#have trans men failed to uphold their weight or can you not tolerate visible transmasculinity
actually adding my tags. ik op also talked about Stormé in the notes but like. i really do find it so frustrating how he has been completely neglected as a historical figure. to the point where there's a lot of people who will, when talking about the erasure of Black trans people from Stonewall history, will immediately jump to talking about Marsha P. Johnson (who, while a vital figure in US queer history who deserves the attention she has started to receive from the community, did not start the uprising and arrived to them later) and continue to credit her with "throwing the first shotglass." but they don't even know who Stormé is, despite again, it being at the very least equally if not more likely she was actually involved with sparking the uprising.
and its even more frustrating because part of the reason its likely isn't just Stormé's own recollection, but because there are other reports that the uprising was kicked off when the cops arrested, specifically, a person seen as female who was wearing male clothing and was being violently arrested for FTM crossdressing. FTM activists were trying to raise awareness about this in 1989. like people specifically saw (even if it wasn't Stormé) a butch dyke getting arrested explicitly for wearing too many men's clothes and not enough women's clothes.
and yet, no one ever. fucking talks about this. no one who specifically is trying to talk about the erasure of trans people from queer activism mentions this. and we should all be asking, ourselves and each other, why? a lot of people don't want to have this conversation because it asks a lot of us, but that's exactly why its so vital to have responsibly.
Stonewall is as much myth as it is historical event, especially at this point in time. and how we choose to narrate it matters, even though we (should) all know that we will never know the full exact story, nor do we need to because, again, much of its importance is serving as a grounded myth of the birth of organized queer resistance in the US. And the fact is, there is every reason for us to tell a version of this myth which highlights that the inciting moment for queer people being fucking done with the constant acts of violence, was a mixed Black transmasc woman, a drag king who identified as a transgender warrior in Leslie Feinberg's book of that name, being violently arrested for his transmasculine presentation.
and not only is that not the version we tell, there's often no trace of transmasculinity at all in how we remember Stonewall or any queer historical events. & op is so. so incredibly right in prompting people to critically examine that absence. because i do believe if Stormé was a femme lesbian, people would be a lot more invested in making sure people know about the lesbian woman who started Stonewall. almost like, on an unconscious collective level, we see transmasculine figures as undesirable when it comes to being community icons, martyrs, heroes, theorists, creatives, etc.
anyways, for those curious, here's Stormé's recollection of Stonewall, from this interview:
The conversation turned to the night in June of 1969 at the Stonewall Inn where she made history. Quite a few friends, writers and historians over the years have identified her as the tough cross-dressing butch lesbian who was clubbed by the NYPD, which evoked enough indignation and anger to spur the crowd to action. She was identified as the Stonewall Lesbian in Charles Kaiser’s book The Gay Metropolis, and her scuffle with the police has been mentioned a few times in passing by The New York Times in the past couple of decades. Then in the January 2008 issue of Curve Magazine she identified herself as the Stonewall Lesbian in a detailed interview with writer Patrick Hinds, an excerpt of which is below:
I asked her if she still remembered that night. She answered in the affirmative. After the cop hit her on the head, she socked him with her fist. “I hit him,” she said. “He was bleeding.” A natural protector, she has worked as a security guard at a few of the lesbian bars in the city. I spoke to her friend, Lisa Cannistraci, who has known her for around 25 years. Now one of the owners of lesbian bar Henrietta Hudson, Cannistraci said that DeLarverie worked as a security guard at the original Cubby Hole, located at 438 Hudson Street, starting in 1985. Cubby Hole eventually moved to the corner of West 4th and West 12th. Then Henrietta Hudson opened at the 438 Hudson Street location, and DeLarverie continued working there until 2005. “Until she was 85 years old?” I asked her. Cannistraci said yes.
also, just to drive home the point, the community ignoring Stormé was not a harmless act. he developed dementia later in life and did not receive the support that she fucking deserved from the community:
In March, Farrell, who lived next door to DeLarverie at the Hotel Chelsea, found DeLarverie disoriented and, uncharacteristically, asking for help. DeLarverie was shaking and dehydrated, and she was taken to and treated at the nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital. No next of kin has been located, and she no domestic partner. Friends say that she had a long term relationship with an aerialist and burlesque performer, but that was “a long time ago.”
With no one in her life legally able to make health care decisions, she was given a court appointed a guardian: the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (“JASA”). She remained at the hospital as doctors ascertained her ability to care for herself. When St. Vincent’s went bankrupt and closed abruptly, she was transferred to the nursing home. SAGE, an advocacy group for elderly members of the LGBT community, has also been offering assistance. Her friends say that communication with the aforementioned groups has been inadequate and a source of frustration, and they feel powerless to improve her situation. [...]
DeLarverie continued emceeing and singing after Stonewall — at gay events and at benefits. Her friend Williamson Henderson, President of the S.V.A., told me that she hosted an annual gay nightlife event, The Gay Bar People’s Ball, where all of the movers and shakers of NYC gay nightlife would congregate and receive awards. “It was an event that was well known and a big deal,” he said. In Sam Bassett’s film, DeLarverie said that she continued to sing at benefits for battered women and children, remarking “Somebody has to care. People say, ‘Why do you still do that?’ I said, ‘It’s very simple. If people didn’t care about me when I was growing up, with my mother being black, raised in the south.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t be here.'” What does the future hold for DeLarverie? Cannistraci told me that she is currently in the process of petitioning for legal guardianship of DeLarverie and hopes to move her into a brighter, more modern nursing home with a larger staff and activities for the residents — and one where a friend of DeLarverie’s already resides. “She was a protector of the community, and [her situation] is heartbreaking,” she said. [...]
DeLarverie’s situation is, unfortunately, not unique, and it highlights some of the issues faced by gay and lesbian seniors. It is unclear whether DeLarverie has no surviving family members or whether she has surviving family members but simply lost touch with them over the years. Many elders become isolated from their families, either because of family disapproval or because they moved away from their families to a big city with a large gay and lesbian population, thereby becoming out of sight and out of mind. If they do end up in a retirement home or nursing home, there is also the issue of whether other residents will have a problem with their sexual orientation. Furthermore, in many states, same-sex partners cannot be legally bound, and if there is no next of kin, one can end up being a ward of the state. If the Rosa Parks of the gay community can end up in a nursing home among strangers like other forgotten elderly men and women, it is certainly a wake up call.
idk not to get on a soapbox here on op's post, but i think Stormé is such a good example of how this "lack" of transmasc contributions to the community is actually a sign of anti-transmasculinity. i want you to think about how Stormé's race and trans*masculinity made the labor she did for the community, for decades, invisible.
#Stormé DeLarverie#this genuinely makes me want to chew glass every time i think about it#like frankly if you don't know about /any trans men contributing to queer rights/ you should Not be bragging about it#bc it just means you do NOT know your history#are you a queer trans person with access to transition? you Better put respect on Lou Sullivan's name#or hell do you have Actual Access to Medical Transition At All ???#Jamison Green WROTE the policy that formed the groundwork for medical transition AND anti-discrimination policies across the US#i mean hell Gavin Grimm's court case aiming to officially classify bathroom bills as discriminatory was only 5 years ago#and he was a fucking /teenager/ when that ball started rolling#if you think trans men and transmascs are not and have not ALWAYS been involved in community activism#you are simply uneducated and you should be ashamed of that
^^^ all of this + Gavin Grimm not only did that, but he didn't benefit basically at all. he graduated before the case was decided, and he only got $1 from it. Gavin was left traumatized and poor and has since struggled with housing. And I personally have never heard his name mentioned in discussions of vital modern trans activists in the US. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Fuck, I've barely heard his name ever, and I'm a queer from the DMV (region in the northeast USA) who has been pretty involved in my local queer community, so there's really no excuse.
You can still donate to his GoFundMe if you'd like. From this article:
As Donald Trump rolled back LGBTQ+ rights, including banning trans servicemembers from the military and authorizing homeless shelters to exclude trans people, Grimm won repeated court victories. But his school district appealed. One court of appeals judge compared Grimm to the historic American plaintiffs who challenged slavery, Japanese concentration camps, segregation and bans on interracial and gay marriage. A 2020 ruling offered a “resounding yes” in favor of the constitution and civil rights laws protecting trans students from discrimination.
Grimm graduated before the case was resolved and never got to return to his school’s boys’ bathrooms.
In 2021, the supreme court allowed Grimm’s victory to stand, and the school board was ordered to pay $1.3m in attorney’s fees.
Grimm, however, only got a symbolic $1.
To secure damages, Grimm would’ve had to give the opposition’s lawyers access to his medical records to scrutinize the cause and extent of his emotional distress, a process he couldn’t stomach after years of fighting. The idea he’d have to prove his anguish was unbelievable to his mom, who can’t shake the memories of her son becoming suicidal.
Grimm doesn’t regret moving on without damages. But he desperately could’ve used financial help – especially as the trauma of his childhood began to catch up with him. [...]
Grimm has complex post-traumatic stress disorder and has suffered from stress-induced seizures that have affected his cognition and left him hospitalized in 2021. “The PTSD at its core is about not being safe or understood, being rejected, and the adults in my life not acting responsibly,” he explains. “In high school, I was picked over and hyper-analyzed. I was tortured, harassed and bullied.” He recalls a period when the stress was so severe he’d dissociate as he walked down the hallway, not hearing his friends call his name.
Grimm also has autism and struggles with sensory processing, and the combined impacts of his disabilities have prevented him from holding down a job or completing school, he says. He’s relied on a GoFundMe and disability benefits, but has repeatedly struggled to make rent.
His mother supports him but also has a tight income, he says. “I don’t have options … unless some rich gay philanthropist tosses me a crispy million.” At times, he’s felt disposable to the broader movement; he says it’s hard not to think of notable gay rights plaintiffs who have not struggled to make ends meet after their victories.
“It makes me so angry that it’s so hard for him to find housing stability,” says Camille Gibson, his best friend who moved to England and video calls him on a nearly daily basis. “Some days, it’s almost like he’s short-circuiting because there’s just so much stress.” Still, the two find ways to have fun with each other from afar, often streaming anime. “When he’s not in a complete utter funk,” she says, “we are cackling at each other, because we’re both silly-billy stupid bitches.”
happy pride! credit transmasculine people or shut the fuck up
while we're here, might as well add on that not only was the Stonewall Uprising likely kicked off by a transmasculine person resisting state violence because of their masculine presentation, but the transmasculine people & other queer (perceived-)women of the nearby Women's House of Detention rioted in solidarity:
"The House of D [was] 500 feet from the Stonewall Inn," Ryan says. "On the first night of the riots, people incarcerated in the prison could actually see what was happening out their windows, and they started a riot all their own, setting fire to their belongings and throwing them down to the streets below while chanting 'Gay rights! Gay rights! Gay rights!'"
By the '50s and '60s, Ryan estimates, "around 75% of the people incarcerated in the House of D are queer in some way." In the 1960s, the prison began marking gay prisoners with a "D" for "degenerate," and placing them into solitary confinement because they were considered a "danger to other women."
Rocky: we built our spaceship by unifying every mind on the planet to create a super hive mind, pooling out collective knowledge and problem solving skills to come up with a plan.
Grace: we gave the scariest woman I've ever met two coffees every morning, an unlimited budget, and enough legal immunity to cuss out any world leaders she wanted to and boy did she want to.
When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*
I think people online treat driving too casually tbh, like there was a poll about people's bad habits while driving and they weren't bad habits or problematic or whatever, they were all things that literally kill people every single day. You are driving a massive vehicle that can very easily turn into a murder weapon with your carelessness, take this shit seriously.
Also people who speed up or suddenly stop or swerve a lot to freak out someone in the car for fun: it stops being funny when you get into a car accident because of it. Just so you know.
Captain Kinard AU (@911-hiautus prompt by @kinardnatural here)
In which Chimney decides not to become a captain for 118 and Hen is still very much against the idea and Buck doesn't feel ready, Eddie stayed in Texas and obviously they will need a new captain, and until then, Gerrard is still in charge and it's not great or pleasant because he may be acting civil, but he's still Gerrard.
They are finally assigned a new captain and Buck is all kinds of nervous, because what if this one is even worse than Gerrard? What if they hate him? What if they want to fire him for all his past stunts? What if they jinx the shifts with the q-word? What if they don't believe in the q-word jinx? The worries are endless and constant, but he had never once even consider one other factor.
That the new captain could be none other than his ex-boyfriend Tommy Kinard.
And it turns out that it is.
1. Buck’s worried about the new captain that’s supposed to be starting. Gerrard sucked, but at least they know what to expect from him, and could usually work around him. This new captain could be anyone — could be someone worse than Gerrard, someone trying to make a name for themselves, someone running out the clock until retirement. They need guidance, not someone useless. Chimney and Hen make them clean up before the new captain gets there — apparently they have a meeting with the chief first, and they’ll be at the station at nine am. They aren’t online until then, and Buck busies himself in the kitchen because he thinks the whole thing is stupid anyways. They’re never going to have someone who can replace Bobby. They hear a vehicle pulling up and Buck gets called downstairs.
2. Of all the possibilities Buck had considered, he’d never considered that it could be his ex-boyfriend walking through the doors to be their new captain. Tommy looks good, and he hates himself for thinking it. Shield all shined up, hat tucked under his arm — Buck wonders if Tommy’s worn his dress blues since the funeral. For the interview, probably. Why would Tommy even want this position? Tommy smiles easily, greets them warmly, even Buck, doesn’t falter when Buck doesn’t greet him back.
3. The worst part is, Tommy’s good at the job. It makes Buck remember that he was already with the LAFD when Chimney started. He’s been a firefighter longer than any of them. His unflappable manner when he pilots translates well to guiding them through any situation they encounter on the ground. Buck pretty much confines himself to the kitchen when they’re in the firehouse, and Tommy steers a wide berth unless it’s a meal time.
4. Chim and Hen have no trouble falling back into old habits with Tommy, and Eddie stonewalls him for a while but eventually they’re talking again too. Ravi spends time equally with Buck and the rest of the group. Buck spends a lot of time backing agin. He works his dough too hard more than once, especially once Eddie and Tommy are talking again. He asks Ravi to set him up with someone, which makes Ravi side eye him real hard. Ravi doesn’t, which is probably the best move for everyone. At home, Buck spends more time than he should in his backyard gym. He gets a new tattoo. Work is the same.
5. When Tommy’s been there for three months, he decides to have meetings with everyone. Buck sits awkwardly across from him in Bobby’s office. Tommy had Buck’s file in front of him. “Have you ever thought about going for Lieutenant?” Tommy asks.
“The 118 doesn’t have a Lieutenant position,” Buck points out.
“Other stations do. You have the qualifications for it. I think you’d be good at it.”
“I’m not leaving just because you’re here,” Buck says.
“That’s not at all what I’m saying,” Tommy says.
“I don’t even understand why you’re here,” Buck says, three months of frustration bubbling over. “Why would you apply for this position?”
“I didn’t,” Tommy says. “It was this or being fired.”
“What?”
“They weren’t going to let me back in the air. They told me this spot was open, take it or leave it.”
“And you took it?”
“Well,” Tommy shrugs. “I figured I’d be better a better option than Gerrard.”
“So why are you pushing me to go for Lieutenant?” Buck asks.
Tommy hesitates before he answers. “I found a note in your file from Bobby, he was going to recommend you go for it.”
“Bobby wanted me to leave the 118?” Buck’s mouth goes dry.
“Bobby thought you’d be a great captain one day,” Tommy corrected. “He wanted to make sure you could get there.”
“I—” Buck shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“You can think about it,” Tommy says. “There’s courses you can take if you want, maybe find out if it interests you.”
6. Three months after that, Buck applies for and gets a Lieutenant position at another station. He’s been with the 118 longer than he’s ever been anywhere else, except Hersey, and it feels so weird to leave. But it’s a little easier to walk into his new station every shift. He gets called Evan and Buck and Lieut equally. He still bakes, but not as much. They have a new probie start who likes cooking and joins Buck in the kitchen most shifts. He still sees the 118, and even Tommy with them, but he’s on a different shift now and he’s not always available. He babysits Nash and Jee, he gets back into cycling, he finds a farmer’s market he can get to most weeks.
7. It’s almost two years after Bobby died when Buck finds out that Tommy’s leaving the 118. They text now, so Buck sends him a text and asks what’s up. Tommy tells him he’s retiring — his back’s been acting up more and more, and he’s close to retirement anyways, may as well get out when he can.
Buck goes to his retirement party — it’s absolutely massive. The 118, the 122, the 217, and what feels like half of the remaining houses. Apparently Tommy really did know everyone.
8. Buck and Tommy start hanging out again — as friends. Just friends. That’s what Buck keeps telling himself. He’s glad he doesn’t have to see Ravi’s judgey looks when he accidentally slips and talks about hanging out with Tommy when he’s at work. They never talk about partners, their love lives, anything like that. For all he knows, Tommy’s dating someone. Buck doesn’t think he is, but he could be. It’s not like Buck’s offering up that information about himself, either. He’s been on some dates, but nothing’s ever lasted more than a month. It’s just… not what he’s looking for.
9. About a year after Tommy’s retirement, Buck’s captain retires and Buck gets the nod to take over the position. Buck’s surprised by how many people actually come to his swearing in ceremony — the 118 is there, floaters he’s worked with over the years, people who’ve moved on from his station. It’s a big crowd, but not big enough to hide Tommy at the back of the room, looking almost out of place in his regular suit compared to all the dress blues around him. It takes Buck a while to get to him, he can see him chatting with Hen and Karen and Eddie before he gets there.
“Captain Buckley,” Tommy congratulates him when they finally have a chance to talk.
“Still sounds weird,” Buck confesses.
“Sounds right,” Tommy says, eyes crinkling.
10. Buck keeps finding excuses to call Tommy about work. Checking how to fill out forms, asking him to look over his scheduling, that kind of thing. Tommy calls him out on it one night when he’s at Buck’s helping review call reports.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to keep bothering you,” Buck apologizes.
“I’m happy to help, I just,” Tommy shrugs, “don’t think you need it. You’re doing great.”
“Maybe it’s just an excuse to hang out with you,” Buck says, head down while he pretends to look at a report.
“You don’t need an excuse to hang out with me,” Tommy says.
“Mm. Kind of feels like I do,” Buck admits.
“We’re friends,” Tommy says, “that’s reason enough.”
Buck fiddles with his pen.
“Evan.” Tommy waits until he looks up. “What’s wrong?”
“Friends… isn’t what I want,” Buck says, face heating. “I miss you, Tommy. I have since you left my apartment.”
“But you’ve been — dating?”
“Nothing serious. Nothing real.” Buck shook his head. “We can take it slow, Tommy, we don’t need to rush into anything, but —”
Getting a lot of comments and tags on this that are like "they bullied me for just existing:/" SO EXIST!!!! GET OUT THERE AND LIVE AND KEEP LIVING!!!!!!! KEEP ON BEING YOU!!!!!!!!!
had an idea and wanted to put it in the format of the "five facts AU" game despite nobody prompting it :) and it is in fact 23 facts (plus some sub facts. honestly there is not a whole lot of consistency in the format). It started as a "what if Evan wrote postcards to Tommy before he even met him?" and this is what came of it. This is very Tommy-centric due to needing to lay out his backstory, as Buck's is the same as in canon and the actual bucktommy of it all is mostly in the back half, but I hope it's enjoyable anyway :) okay enough yapping, here's what i wrote instead of my wips (thanks, brain!) cw for mentions of death and unspecific disease
1. Maggie Kinard (only ever Margaret to her mother when she was in trouble and to her husband after the honeymoon phase of their marriage had ended) was a photographer; of people, of landscapes, of buildings, of nature.
1a. She received a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from USC (she minored in Photography) and had a dream of one day having her photos in National Geographic magazine.
1b. When she married Thomas Kinard, he made it clear that it would never be anything but that: a dream.
2. Tommy Kinard doesn't remember the years he lived in California when he was a child; all he has is a box of mementos, including photographs his mother took, her journals, and a half-completed baby book.
2a. The first time Tommy's family moved, he was 3. He had to move 8 more times by the time he graduated high school; he was no longer just an army brat, but a new recruit.
3. At age 7, they move to Colorado. Tommy's mom gets sick. She teaches him how to take photos and how to develop them; she doesn't want Tommy to ever forget her.
4. Tommy's 10 when he has to move, to start over, again. His mom never gets to see Maryland. His father sees right through him most of the time; it's worse when he doesn't. Tommy doesn't make many friends, but he takes lots of photographs. and he aches and aches and aches.
5. Georgia at age 11 and it's more of the same.
6. Virginia at age 12. Tommy learns how to surf. He'd much rather take photos of the ocean than be in it.
7. Florida at age 13. He meets a boy, Jackson, from Michigan who's on vacation with his family; they hold hands in the dark at the cineplex. Tommy never sees him again. He spends more time in his darkroom than he does in the sun.
8. Arizona at age 15. He joins the football team because that's what boys do. His father doesn't allow him to take yearbook as an elective, but he gets involved anyway. He has more friends than he ever has before. He tells himself to enjoy it while it lasts.
9. Oregon at age 17. Tommy's almost free…to—well, probably to live the life he's always known, but at least it will be lived far away from his father.
9a. Tommy takes a photography class in school and his final project, Wish You Were Here, is a series of postcards he creates from his favorite photographs he's taken from over the years; from Maryland to Oregon. He gets an A+ and his project is picked to be displayed (he's 1 of 20 students who are picked) in the halls for a "gallery night" where parents get to come look at their kid's projects. He goes, alone. When it's over, he sits in his truck in the school parking lot and cries.
9b. His project is featured at an actual gallery and somebody wants to buy the postcards, which are definitely not for sale. But he does compromise and agrees to have the photographs printed for a legit collection of postcards (without the notes he'd written to his mom on the back). The postcards eventually make their way to stores in the cities that are featured on them.
9c. Tommy makes enough money from the sales that he can buy a gravestone for his mom to be put next to her parents at a cemetery in Arcadia, just like she always wanted.
10. At age 18, Tommy enlists in the Army.
11. Evan leaves PA and ends up in Maryland. He buys a postcard and doesn't send it. He's still mad at Maddie.
11a. He can't sleep the first night he stays in a motel; the sheets too scratchy, the air conditioner too loud. He switches on the bedside lamp, which illuminates the postcard on the bedside table. He picks it up, looking at the picture of a rocket on the front, and wishes Maddie was there.
11b. The caption on the bottom says it was taken at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, photograph credited to Tommy Kinard. Evan first researches the space flight center and decides he'll go the next day. Then he spends over an hour researching the history of postcards. Finally, he searches for Tommy Kinard, curious to see more of his photography.
11c. Evan finds a bare bones website featuring Tommy's photography, a few links to magazines his photos have been featured in, as well as an article from an Oregon newspaper about Tommy's postcard project. A lump forms in his throat as he reads it. There's an email address to contact him about freelance work and an address for a PO box in Los Angeles.
11d. Evan's in awe of all the places Tommy had been by the age of 18, wonders if it was lonely to move around so much, wonders if Tommy finally settled in one place and if it feels like home. Evan's lived in one place his whole life, but that came with it's own type of loneliness, and here he was 100 miles from the only place he's ever known searching for home.
12. Evan spends hours at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. When he gets back to the motel, he grabs a pen and the postcard and crams as much of his experience as he can onto the blank space. He spends a few more days in Maryland, mails the postcard before he leaves, doesn't yet know where he'll be by the time it arrives in California.
13. Evan arrives in Virginia. He buys two postcards this time. He's not mad at Maddie anymore. He mails her postcard within days of his arrival. He falls in love with the ocean, learns to surf, falls in love with a women. He visits the boardwalk on the postcard—another one of Tommy's—and wonders about Tommy's time spent in Virginia, if he loved to surf too. He knows he'll never get a response, but he asks anyway.
14. Every new place, Evan buys and sends two postcards, knowing he'll never get anything back. He may not know anything that's going on in Maddie's or Tommy's life, but at least—if they received them—they'd know there was somebody out there in the world wishing they were there.
15. When Tommy checks his PO box, he wasn't actually expecting anything to be in there. He's lived in his own house in LA long enough to no longer really need it and he hardly ever does freelance work anymore, now that he's a firefighter. But there it is, a familiar postcard from an unfamiliar person. He doesn't know what to make of the gesture from this stranger named Evan, but he supposes it's sort of sweet. He doesn't let himself overthink it, he buys an LA postcard—featuring a photo he took of Griffith Observatory—and writes back. He thanks Evan for his postcard and wishes him well on his travels.
15a. A few weeks later, Tommy checks the box again. There are two postcards this time—one from Evan, now in Virginia, and Tommy's postcard returned, undeliverable.
16. Evan continues to send Tommy postcards, even from places Tommy's never been. Tommy continues to send Evan postcards back, even though they're all returned.
17. Tommy thinks he'd like to visit Peru someday.
18. One day, Tommy receives a postcard from an address in LA. He doesn't want to name the feeling in his chest. He reminds himself that Evan is a stranger, that Tommy doesn't know him no matter how many postcards he's received from him over the years. That truth does little to stop him from wanting to know Evan. He sends a postcard back, on it is a photo he took last year of the Pacific Wheel.
18a. A few weeks later, Tommy has no new postcard in his mailbox, but the one he sent hasn't been returned.
18b. Tommy sends another, this one has a photo he took of his favorite Italian Ice stand at Venice Beach. He writes the address to the boardwalk, along with a date and time (in two weeks). He also writes: wish you were here
19. Two weeks later, Tommy's at Venice Beach. He's early, only 10 minutes, but it feels like a lifetime as he waits—he paces, wrings his hands, sits on a bench only to stand right back up again. Somebody says his name like a question. He turns, nearly loses his breath when he sees the man approaching him—a bit wary, but there's a gleam in his eye that does dangerous things to his insides. "Evan?"
20. Evan nods and stops in front of Tommy. They're both smiling, but there's a few long moments of awkwardness—do they shake hands or hug or do neither of those things? Evan gestures towards the vendor's stand nearby. "So…Italian Ice?" Tommy sighs in relief and nods.
21. They eat their dessert as Evan tells Tommy about his time in LA so far, how he thinks he's going to stay, that it feels like it could be his home.
22. Tommy gives Evan all of the postcards he wrote to him.
23. Never again will they have to wish each other was there.
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