For the five facts AU: Bucktommy au where Tommy is a librarian and Buck is the guy that keeps coming in researching some crazy topics and Tommy is always the one having to help him find the right books.
This one is very fun. Also I know nothing about how libraries work; I just use them.
1. The first thing Tommy did when he returned home after his honorable discharge was to move into the small apartment above his grandfather’s house. No, the first thing he did was stand in departures fighting the urge to get right back on the plane and get the hell out of town. The fourth thing he did, after buying a new mattress for the apartment because the old one was too soft after years of sleeping in various barracks and bases, was go to the library.
It hadn’t changed in the years he’d been away: children’s section on the first floor, young adult tucked away in the far corner, fiction on the second level, microfiche and nonfiction in the basement, and Mr. Artie behind the main desk.
“My gracious, is that little Tommy Kinard?” Mr. Artie said, practically sprinting around the desk, arms held out in invitation. Tommy stepped into them. “Oof, not so little anymore. What as the army done to you?”
“Given me PTSD and a new appreciation for good water pressure,” he said.
“Oh, honey,” Mr. Artie said, and rubbed his back in the way Tommy always figured parents who loved the kids did. “I have missed you.”
Mr. Artie hadn’t changed either. He still wore colorful bow ties and listened intently to the small kids who were so excited to use their library cards to check out books and patiently helped older folk use the computer and sign up for email and navigate various government websites. And when he wasn’t doing that, Mr. Artie was handing him books to read like he was still that angry little kid who would have lived in the library full time if it meant he never had to go home again.
Just like then, Tommy hung around so often that Mr. Artie designated him a volunteer and showed him how to check out books for the patrons. He read and he shelved books and he helped a kid find books on dinosaurs and put in a request for the Bunnicula books for another and, once, pulled some queer books for a terrified fourteen year old and reserved them a small study room so they could read in peace and not have the books show up on their account.
“You’re good with them,” Mr. Artie said quietly.
Tommy shrugged and requested a few other books from the library system to be checked out under his account. The kid could read them when they came in. “Being fourteen is hard. No reason to make it harder.”
“Come to dinner tomorrow,” Mr. Artie said. “I know you’re not busy and Steven is grilling.”
2. Tommy forwent buying a bottle of wine because he knew fuckall about wine, but he picked up some flowers and a some pretentious beers from the one pretentious liqour store in town and went to dinner. Everyone knew Mr. Artie was gay, but they were polite enough not call attention to it, probably because the entire population under the age of twenty would riot if they tried to oust him from his position.
Mr. Artie was delighted by the flowers and Tommy nursed a beer and watched as Mr. Artie and Steven moved around each other with the familiarity of long years and pretended that he didn’t ache.
When dinner was eaten and Steven had chased them to the rocking chairs on the back porch so he could clean up, Mr. Artie said, “Have you thought about what you’ll do now that you’re home?”
His grandfather had also been asking that, but it stung less coming from Mr. Artie.
“I have my pilots license,” Tommy said. “There’s some outfits nearby that run tours. I might do that. It’s not bad money.”
“And you like flying,” Mr. Artie said, gently rocking. “You’re good with the kids at the library. You’re even good with the people you don’t like.”
“Now that’s not true,” Tommy said, matching his rocking speed to Mr. Artie’s.
“It is. You’re a kind man, Tommy, and I don’t want you wasting away here.” Mr. Artie reached across the space between them and gently took Tommy’s hand in his. “You more than earned that GI Bill. Consider putting it to use. There’s no rule saying you can’t keep your license and do something else.”
Tommy swallowed around the familiar pain. “Do you think school is for me?”
Mr. Artie squeezed his hand. “It’s for everyone, but I think you would make a wonderful librarian, if that’s where your passion leads you.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, and squeezed back.
3. Tommy took a couple classes at the community college and then took a couple more. His grades were decent and then more than decent when he really buckled down. Mr. Artie helped him apply to school, most of them in Los Angeles, all of them out of town, and wrote a recommendation letter so glowing it felt like it belongs to someone else.
When he received an acceptance letter, Mr. Artie whooped so loudly he disturbed every teenager in the manga section.
“There’s something else,” Tommy said, hands shaking so hard that Mr. Artie took hold to steady him. “I’m gay.” It was the first time he ever admitted it out loud.
“Welcome to the family, honey,” Mr. Artie said, and held him so tightly that Tommy felt it in his ribs.
4. Tommy got his bachelor’s and then his master’s and joined the greater Los Angles Public Library system as a reference librarian who had a reputation for being able to find information on any subject, no matter how obscure or embarrassing. Tommy lost count of how many times he directed a blushing queer kid toward The Joy of Gay Sex and then on to his favorite informative pamphlet on trans sex.
So it didn’t even make his top five strangest requests when a beautiful man with a birthmark stamped above his eye said, “Hey, what are the new frogs?”
“Is this for a school project?” Tommy asked, already pulling up JSTOR.
“Personal research,” the guy said.
A cute kid on crutches, practically hidden by the guy’s, holy shit, long legs, piped up. “My cousin says we discovered all the frogs and there are no new ones, and she’s wrong.”
“But you need citations to support your case,” Tommy said, and the kid nodded vigorously. He refined his search to find something more kid friendly. “Well, it turns out you’re in luck. New species were discovered this year. I’ll get you set up at a computer and you can read some articles. I’ll even show you how to format a bibliography. That should shut up your cousin.”
Tommy led the kid and his dad to a computer and showed him the same search he used and pointed to him where the printers were and ignored how the dad’s gaze kept tracking to him.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Tommy said.
“You’ll be our first call,” the dad said. “I-I mean, if we have more frog questions. Or other questions. Like about, um, space.”
“Space?” the kid said.
“Yeah, like what’s going on up there,” the dad continued with an agonized expression that meant he was actively wishing for death. “Um, thanks for your help.”
“Any time,” Tommy said.
By the time the kid finished with his research, a stack of printed articles stuffed in his backpack, Tommy handed the dad a list of books about the history of space exploration. “Just in case you were curious about what’s going on up there,” he said.
“I know you’re making funny of me,” the dad said, “but joke’s on you. I’m going to read every one of these.”
“That’s why I gave you the list,” Tommy said, and smiled as the kid groaned and dragged his dad to the exit.
5. “Do you got anything on the history of ceiling fans?”
Tommy looked up into the handsome face of the dad from last week.
“Moved on from frogs, huh?” he said, already defining the parameters of the search. “Did your son win the argument?”
The guy blinked. “My—you mean Chris? He’s not my son. He’s the son of my partner. Work partner,” he added quickly. “I’m a firefighter, and so is Eddie. That’s Chris’s dad. I’m Buck. Uh, Evan Buckley. Hi.”
“Hello, Evan Buckley,” Tommy said, and tapped the nameplate on his desk. “That’s me.”
Evan made a show of looking at the plate. “Thanks for the space recs, Tommy. I really liked the one about the cosmonauts.”
“Just don’t go reading that one article about the lost cosmonauts. The scholarship on it is appalling.”
Evan was suspiciously quiet.
“Evan.”
“So are you really not going to ask me why I want to know about the history of ceiling fans?” Evan said.
“That doesn’t even make the list of top twenty weird things I’ve been asked to find references for,” he said. “And I don’t research and tell.”
Evan pouted. “We had a call the other day where a ceiling fan beaned this guy hard on the head, and I got curious about them.”
Of course he did. Tommy printed the list he compiled. “A lot of this is going to be about design, but I think you’ll find some good sources in there.” He tapped the bottom of the list. “I also added some micro histories in case you got bored with the fans. The one on salt is good. So is the butter.”
Evan stared intently at the list. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Tommy leaned in and lowered his voice. “You seem like the type to like fun facts. These are very fun facts.” He leaned back. “Anything else I can help you with?”
Evan jumped and glanced behind him where a sleep deprived student looked to on the verge of tears. “Uh, no, this is great. Thank you.”
“It’s what I do,” Tommy said, and waved the student forward.
6. Evan became a regular after that, stopping at least once a week with a new topic he was interested in: tattoos, African currency swords, clown eggs, a biography on Archduke Ferdinand, bones.
“Bones,” Tommy repeated. “Are you talking about in an anthropological sense? Do you want to read up on hominid fossils? Or are you more interested in it from a medical science angle?”
“Surprise me,” Evan said, and smiled at his sigh. “Hey, what’s your favorite thing someone has asked you to look up?”
Tommy thought about it while he picked out the densest anthropological textbooks to give Evan. “One woman came in asking for more information on sky burials. I never heard of it before, so I liked that I got to learn about it alongside her.”
Evan perked up. “What’s a sky burial?”
“It’s a mainly Tibetan practice. In higher elevations, the ground is too hard to bury the bodies and there isn’t enough wood for cremations. So when a person dies, their bodies are broken down and fed to the vultures.” He chanced a glance at Evan who was listening intently, the same as he did with everything Tommy told him. “I know it sounds macabre, but it’s—”
Tommy turned his attention back to his search. “Yeah, me too.”
When he sent Evan off to find the textbooks and the few resources on sky burials, his coworker June rolled over and said, “It’d be less embarrassing if you just asked to suck his dick.”
“This is why they don’t let you around kids,” Tommy said, and shoved her away.
7. Evan, Tommy learned, liked documentaries and histories and saw maybe two movies a year, and made a noise when Tommy asked if he ever read fiction.
“Sometimes,” Evan said. “I have a hard time finding anything that keeps my attention.”
Tommy started him with some Alexander Dumas (The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Crisco) and then a few old adventure stories (The Scarlet Pimpernel), and then a couple of romances and some fantasy, some of which he liked (Discworld) and some of which he didn’t (Tolkien was a bust), and then some scifi since Evan liked learning about space.
“Try this,” Tommy said handing over a copy of A Matter of Oaths, which he’d set specifically aside. “It’s one of the early queer space operas.”
Evan mentioned some ex-girlfriends and Tommy had carefully let slip that he dated men, and Evan had sweetly proclaimed himself an ally. But this was different. This was the book Mr. Artie had given him one rainy, miserable day that had made little fourteen year old Tommy feel less alone.
Evan smoothed gentle fingers along the spine. “I’m excited to read it.”
6. “While this courtship is very sweet,” Mr. Artie said that evening during their regularly scheduled call, “have you considered asking him out?”
“He’s straight,” Tommy said, pawing through his fridge for something that was edible. “And it would be unprofessional.”
“Honey, you told him about sky burials and had him read A Matter of Oaths. The only thing left at this point is to ask him to dinner.”
“Ask him to marry you!” Steve called out.
“I should have become a grossly overpaid private pilot,” Tommy said.
“You would have been so miserable,” said Mr. Artie, “and you would never have met your Evan.”
Well, Mr. Artie wasn’t wrong.
7. Tommy was late coming back to lunch, which meant he was going to get an earful from June, who hated covering the reference desk. She saw him heading over and, with audible relief, said, “Thank god. Your regular needs some help.”
Evan reluctantly turned around with a small wave. “I thought you were off today.”
“The flu’s been taking everyone out. I’m covering.” He slipped behind the desk. “What are we looking up today? You were on that bee kick last week.”
Evan turned a beseeching look on June, but he would have better luck with some actual bees; she happily abandoned him for her beloved microfiche archive.
“Uh, queer history?” Evan fiddled with the cuffs of his baby pink cardigan. “My coworker, uh, friend Hen, she’s married to a woman and I thought I should look into it more. I mean, I know there’s Stonewall and the AIDs crisis and then gay marriage.”
“Those are the highlights,” he said dryly and instantly regretted it when Evan winced. He made an effort to soften his tone. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“There is!” Evan snapped his fingers. “And I figured maybe I should learn more since Pride is coming up.”
“In four months,” he said absently, trying to figure out what to even suggest. Evan liked histories, but did Tommy start him with Stonewall? Did he give Evan a history about queerness during the Harlem Renaissance? There were more contemporary sources, things Evan had been alive for—the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Obergefell—but that was an US centric approach, and so many countries had their own queer cultures.
“I didn’t think this would stump you,” Evan said with a brave little smile.
“You know I like to make sure I get it right,” Tommy said, and printed out the list. “Start with these photography collections. It’s just queer people living their lives. If you like that, we can move on to specifics.”
“Thank you,” Evan said quietly, and made it two steps before turning back. “Hey, you also have a copy of The Joy of Gay Sex, right? I just want to be thorough.”
Tommy laughed so hard he could barely point Evan in the direction of the stacks.
8. Between his shifts and Evan’s shifts and a baby version of the flu felling him, it was three weeks before he saw Evan again. They’d been short staffed and apparently every high school student in the city waited until the last minute to write their report on Of Mice and Men, and all he wanted was to go home and watch something devoid of any kind of educational value.
Evan, dressed in a nice button up shirt and nervously bouncing on his heels, was waiting outside.
His eyebrows bounced up. “Evan, what are you doing here?”
Evan shoved his hands into his pockets only to immediately take them out again. “I, uh, was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner. With me, if that wasn’t clear.” His hair was so carefully styled. “Also I watched this program on sky burials the other day and that’s genuinely what I want now.”
Tommy cracked up and reached for Evan’s hand. “Tell me about it at dinner.”
Evan laced this fingers together.
9. Tommy brought Evan home for Mr. Artie’s retirement party.
“Oh, honey, you did good,” Mr. Artie said, immediately pulling Evan into a hug. “Be honest with me, did the sky burials work?”
“That and the history of salt,” Evan said, any nervous shyness vanishing. “I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you.”
“You are the first boy Tommy has ever brought home.” And Mr. Artie hugged Evan so hard he must have felt in his ribs. “Welcome to the family, Evan. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Tommy said softly, and Evan smiled bright and joyous and free.
sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the plot, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the character bonding, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 to watch queer characters not die and actually have a very happy ending, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the healthy, mature, and supportive romantic and platonic relationships portrayed in the show, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the action sequences, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the music and party moments that alter your brain chemistry, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 for the fucking orgies and the beautifully done sex scenes, sometimes you rewatch Sense8 just for the fucking awesome cluster transition shots— every time they’re walking around and suddenly all other 7 of ‘em pop outta nowhere seamlessly or that fucking shot of Wolfgang walking down the alleyway and he’s visiting all his other selves and they turn up to follow behind him as they all line up into one and then in the restaurant with lila- the shot of them all rising behind him—
there so many fucking reasons to rewatch this show.
Hearing Nomi's blog post about Pride in Sense8 s1ep1 again brought up all kinds of feelings, and I think it's important to bring it back:
For a long time I was afraid to be who I am because I was taught by my parents there's something wrong with someone like me. Something offensive. Something you would avoid maybe even pity. Something that you would never love. My mom, she's a fan of Saint Thomas of Aquinas. She calls pride a sin. Saint Thomas saw pride as the queen of the seven deadlies. She saw it as the ultimate gateway sin that would turn you quickly into a sinaholic. But hating isn't a sin on that list. Neither is shame. I was afraid of this parade because I wanted so badly to be a part of it. So today I'm marching for that part of me that was much too afraid to march. And for all the people who can't march. The people living lives like I did. Today, I march to remember that I'm not just a me. I'm also a we. We march with pride. So go fuck yourself, Aquinas.
Copy pasted from this article to which I readded "fuck" cos thats the only damn source i could find with the whole thing
I was rereading some of my favorite BuckTommy fics this past weekend and I found myself getting unexpectedly emotional.
Not because of the stories themselves, although they always manage to destroy me in the best possible ways, but because I was struck all over again by the sheer love and care that this community has poured into bucktommy. Every fic feels like a gift. Every author saw something special in these characters and decided they were worth exploring, worth understanding, worth fighting for. The talent in this fandom genuinely amazes me. The way writers captured their chemistry, their potential, all the little moments and possibilities left between the lines leaves me in awe every time.
But then there's this sadness that creeps in alongside it. Because no matter how many incredible stories I read, there's always the knowledge that the actual show writers are never going to give Buck and Tommy the story they deserved. They'll never get the care, development, and payoff that so many fic writers have given them for free. They'll never get the chance to become what they could have been on our TV screens.
That's why this fandom means so much to me, because while the show has moved on, this community hasn't. People keep writing. Keep creating. Keep imagining a future where Buck and Tommy are allowed to matter. A future where their relationship is treated with the depth and respect it deserves. And honestly, most of those fan fics feel more real and more emotionally satisfying than anything the show could have given us.
I still love BuckTommy. I probably always will. I still believe they deserved better, but today, more than anything, I'm grateful. Grateful for every writer, grateful for every fic that gave them another chance. Grateful for a community that refused to let a story end just because the show decided it was over.
When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on"
When the Good Place said "Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.”
When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also 'Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“
i just love every single member of the cluster so much
will who takes on the responsibility of protecting everyone and keeping them safe and jumps in to say that that guy was wearing a kevlar vest and if you don’t get your hands off her i’ll show you what violence looks like
kala who believes as much in science as she does in her faith because everything happens for a reason and whether it was by a god or created out of science a miracle is a miracle
wolfgang who has literally had to fight his way through life and is incredibly intelligent he can crack a safe as well as he can crack skulls and does what he has to keep the people he cares about alive
sun who actually resents her father and brother but made a promise to her mother to protect them and who is she if she can’t keep her promises so she lets out all of her anger in underground boxing matches
capheus who is so hopeful about everything and the only one who didn’t question what was happening like hey korean lady i felt your spirit inside me riley can i have some of your english tea because i’m going to have a good day today i can feel it
nomi who spent so long feeling uncomfortable in her own skin and fighting for what she believed was right even though it was illegal because what are laws if they’re being used against the people they’re meant to protect
lito who struggles with the characters he plays in telenovelas and who he is in his real life and believed that he couldn’t have both but he really can because having courage doesn’t always mean shooting bad guys sometimes it’s being with the person that you love
riley who truly believed that she was cursed and couldn’t love anyone let alone herself but ended up finding seven other people who can take her places she’s never been and show her that she matters because she’s not just one person anymore she’s eight
every single person in the cluster is equally important and they all balance each other out in different ways and i honestly can’t believe a show has made me feel this way
”Bobby, watching from a distance, stepped forward, the movement catching Tommy’s attention. He growled sharpy, shifting his body to shield Buck.
Bobby’s ear twitched, surprised. Hell, even Buck was confused as to what Tommy was doing. Bobby tentatively stepped forward, but Tommy’s growl deepened.
Fearing a fight, Buck pushed his head under Tommy’s, eliciting a low rumble of approval. Bobby, content with whatever he saw, retreated. And Buck, exhausted from the night’s events, lay down. Tommy curled around him, grooming him with unusual care, as if worried Buck was more injured than he was. His leg throbbed, but it felt more like a strain than anything.”
Destiny Brought Me to You by @lostintheuniverseslies
Started to think how that would look like when mates are connected and all outside hurdle and own thoughts calm when you’re around your mate. Tried to draw somekind of ”bubble” around them. Also I really wanted Tommy to look like in real agony and little hesitant to calm down. He just wants one thing and it is Buck to be saved 😭 but the irritation feeling if he and the pack wouldn’t come sooner . . .
well this got wildly out of hand! we got angst, we got drunk buck, we got feelings, we got some fluff <3
“Evan,” Tommy hissed to the man in front of him. Evan spun around, surprise written on his face. “Quick, kiss me before they come over here.”
Evan, thankfully, was still the kind of guy that would help him out, and pulled him into a bone-melting kiss. Tommy sagged against him gratefully.
“Tommy, thought you said your boy had a shift today,” an amused voice said. They broke apart to face the interrupter, Evan slipping his hand into Tommy’s back pocket. Tommy would kiss him again, just for that.
“Yeah, cause I didn’t want you to interrogate him,” Tommy shot back. “I thought you were staying in tonight?” he directed that to Evan.
“Um, Ravi wanted to go out for a bit, and you know what he’s like with a few shots in him,” Evan laughed nervously. “Babysitting duty, really. I thought you were going to the bar near your place?”
“Health inspector shut it down,” the interloper said.
“Tommy, I keep telling you that place is disgusting,” Evan smacked his chest. “That carpet would go up in flames if you looked at it wrong. Who even has carpet in a bar these days?”
“Since Tommy’s not doing the introductions, Sal Deluca,” the other man said, holding his hand out to Evan.
“Buck,” Evan said, shaking his hand.
“And this is my wife, Gina,” Sal gestured to the woman beside him.
“Hi, Buck,” Evan said, smiling his most charming meet the parents smile for her.
“Buck, nice to meet you,” Gina said. “Tommy’s been hiding you.”
“I know,” Evan agreed, using the hand still in Tommy’s back pocket to pinch him. Tommy hoped his reaction wasn’t noticeable.
“Why don’t we grab a table, and you two can grab the drinks?” Gina suggested. “Buck, I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” She winked at Tommy.
“Sounds good,” Tommy agreed. He and Evan waited until Gina and Sal were out of earshot to talk.
“Tommy, what the actual fuck,” Evan hissed. “You never introduced me to your friends and now you didn’t tell them you broke up with me?”
“Sorry, I just—” Tommy shrugged helplessly. “Sal’s seen you on scenes before. I couldn’t not come over. I can tell them you had to take Ravi home, you can duck out, it’s fine.”
“Okay, that was clearly a lie,” Evan rolled his eyes. “And what, I’m going to leave and look like the worst boyfriend ever? Absolutely not. We’ll tell them Ravi’s friend picked him up.”
Tommy had gotten himself into this mess, and Evan was going to make sure it lasted all night. That only seemed fair, really.
“What are you drinking?”
Tommy had forgotten how handsy a couple of drinks could make Evan. He could tell from Gina’s expression how red his own face as as Evan draped himself nearly across Tommy to ask Sal a question about some story Hen had told him.
Good job, Gina mouthed, giving him a thumbs up. He returned it weakly and checked his watch surreptitiously. Another hour and he could get himself and Evan out of there without too many questions.
Forty minutes later and Tommy was calling it. Evan had tried to stand up and had nearly fallen back into Tommy’s lap.
“Okay, I better get this one home,” Tommy said, wrapping an arm around Evan’s waist. “See you two later.”
“Bye Buck!” Gina waved cheerfully. “Come to trivia with us next time!”
“See you around Buckley,” Sal said, waving to Tommy as he left.
“Hmm, too bad they like me,” Evan giggled as they waited outside for an uber. “Now you’re gonna have to tell them they broke up with you — you broke up with me,” he corrected himself. “I’d kill at trivia too. Ooooh wellll, guess your team will just have to lose.”
“How are you so cute and so irrititating when you’re drunk?” Tommy asked, voice fond.
“I’m just too much for everyone,” Evan said, sounding like he was parroting someone. He patted Tommy’s cheek awkwardly. “Bet you’re glad you got rid of me.”
Tommy’s heart broke for him. “Hey, here’s our ride.”
“You can take a different one, you don’t have to take me home,” Evan argued as Tommy got him in the car.
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Tommy folded himself into the backseat with Buck. There needed to be a way to order a car for people with long legs, he mused to himself as his knees knocked up against the passenger seat.
“Okay,” Tommy grunted, fishing Evan’s key out of his pocket and opening the loft door. “Let’s get you inside.”
“Oh goodie, I can go home to my empty fucking apartment,” Evan grumbled. At some point on the ride over, he’d gone from mostly happy drunk to bitchy sad drunk. “And you can leave me here, again. Woohoo.”
“Let’s just focus on the stairs first,” Tommy suggested.
“Maybe I’ll fall and break my leg,” Evan suggested morosely. “Getting hurt made Ali run away but maybe it would make you stay. You didn’t care about the boils.”
“Okay,” Tommy decided, bending down and scooping Evan up, “no broken legs for you. You’d hate being off the job that long.”
“Did it once before,” Evan said into his shoulder.
He focused on the steps and ignored what Evan was mumbling into his shoulder, not wanting to drop him or worse, fall. He deposited Evan gently on the bed, but before he could get his pajamas, Evan had curled up with his back to Tommy. Tommy sighed and got one of the extra blankets from the closet, knowing Evan would be cold if he didn’t wake up under the covers. Evan didn’t move, even as Tommy headed back down the stairs.
“Everyone leaves, you know,” Tommy heard Evan say. “Everyone leaves but me. I could have — I would have been your last. If you wanted me.” Tommy paused at the bottom of the stairs, but Evan didn’t say anything else. He sighed again, looking at Evan’s stupid couch.
Buck woke up with a hangover unlike anything he’d experienced since he’d joined the fire academy. It felt like someone had taken a Halligan to his head. His eyes were simultaneously on fire and glued shut. His mouth tasted like a dirty sock. Holy shit, his fingernails ached. He groaned and slapped the bed beside him looking for his phone. Cooking was out of the question, delivery was going to have to do.
Someone placed his phone in his hand.
“The fuck?” Buck said, poking out of his blanket and forcing his eyes open to see who the hell was in his apartment. Obviously they weren’t there to rob him, or they wouldn’t be handing him his phone but — oh. Oh, this was so much worse than being robbed. He pulled the blanket back over his head and hoped it was a hangover hallucination. Nothing else would explain Tommy being there, looking fresh as a fucking daisy, while Buck was a hungover slob who hadn’t even made it under the covers.
Tommy cleared his throat. “I have the heavy duty stuff if you want it.”
Buck stuck his hand back out of the blanket, unwilling to continue suffering. Tommy handed him two pills, and he pulled his hand back into the nest and swallowed them dry. He’d regret the aftertaste, but not as much as anything else going on right now.
“You should be taking that with food, think you can eat some toast?”
“You made me toast?” Buck asked incredulously. He pushed the blanket down again. Tommy handed him a plate, and Buck ate the toast laying down, not caring about crumbs and almost hoping this time he would actually choke to death on a piece of bread.
“Go back to sleep,” Tommy said when Buck was finished. “I’ll make real food when you wake up again.”
Well, at least he was a helpful hallucination. Buck did as he was told.
“Are you actually here?”
Tommy turned away from the coffee maker to see Evan at the top of the stairs, rubbing his eyes and looking confused. Tommy looked down at himself and back up at Evan. “Yes?”
“Huh. I thought you were a hallucination,” Evan said. “Is that coffee?”
“Yes.”
Evan took a step forward and his nose wrinkled adorably. “Uh, I’m going to change and then I’ll come down.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Tommy told him. He watched as Evan stumbled, then righted himself.
When Evan came downstairs — he’d stopped for a shower too, Tommy had heard the water — Tommy had bacon going on the stove, hash browns and sausages warming in Evan’s oven, and he was just cracking eggs into a frying pan.
“Scrambled?” Tommy checked, pretty sure Evan’s breakfast preference wouldn’t have changed that much.
“Yeah,” Evan said slowly. Tommy heard the scrape of the chair against the tile as Evan sat down at the kitchen island.
“I thought after breakfast we could talk,” Tommy said.
“Uh. Sure?”
Tommy made sure everything on the stovetop was okay for a moment, and made Evan another cup of coffee. Evan was watching him, his expression curious.
“Did you sleep on the couch?” Evan asked suddenly.
“Yep.” Tommy turned back to the stove so he wouldn’t have to look at Evan. “I didn’t want to leave you alone last night.”
“Yeah, choking to death in my sleep would be so much more embarrassing than my ex staying over and making me breakfast because I’m a pathetic drunk.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Tommy said.
“Which part?” Evan’s tone was dry, almost as dry as Tommy’s.
Tommy chose not to respond, watching the stove carefully and pulling out a couple of plates in preparation of dishing up.
Evan poked at the plate Tommy gave him, nibbling on the bacon and taking a few small bites of the scrambled eggs. “What did you do to the eggs? They taste different.”
“Oh, I added some of the bacon grease while they were cooking,” Tommy said. “It’s good for hangovers.”
“Huh.” Evan took another bite.
They didn’t talk again until they were done with breakfast — Evan had only finished about half of it, but Tommy still considered that a success, considering the state he’d been in the first time he’d woken up.
“So, talk,” Evan said, looking at Tommy.
“I don’t know how much you remember about last night,” Tommy started. Evan’s immediate blush told him it was quite a lot, if not all of it.
“Sorry about pinching you,” Evan said.
“It was deserved,” Tommy waved it away. “I put you in a bad situation.”
“I mean, it wasn’t that bad,” Evan said with a slight hint of a grin.
Tommy couldn’t help returning a smile before getting back to his original line of questioning. “You also said a lot of things I hadn’t heard before.”
Evan flushed and looked down at the table. “Well, it was only six months,” he said. “Didn’t want to dump all of that on you so soon.”
“Six months is a pretty long time,” Tommy said gently.
Evan scoffed. “Because I learned so much about you in return? Please. We didn’t spend much time talking, you know that.”
“I thought that was what you wanted.”
“Oh, of course Chim told you about Buck 1.0,” Evan’s voice had a tinge of anger to it. “That was a long time ago.”
“Buck 1.0?” Tommy looked at him in confusion. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Well if it wasn’t because of my sex addict self diagnosis, what was it?” Evan demanded. “What made you think I didn’t want anything real?”
“Because it was your first queer relationship?” Tommy said, eyebrow raised. “Most people are just trying to catch up on what they’ve been missing.”
“Well I’m not most people,” Evan snapped. “I wasn’t treating you like — like some kind of experiment!”
“Evan,” Tommy couldn’t stop the bitchy tone from slipping into his voice. “We never went out. We didn’t interact with your friends or family unless it was a work event. You didn’t meet my best friend.”
“Well sorry that I didn’t want everyone butting into our relationship,” Evan burst out. “Maybe it had nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. Maybe I’m just actually kind of a homebody. You could have asked, instead of breaking up with me. And it’s not like you ever asked me to meet Sal!”
“You wanted me to move in with you.”
“Yeah, because I love you!”
“You rent a loft with no walls! I own my house! That has walls! And a garage!”
“I didn’t care where we lived, I just wanted to live together!”
They looked at each other, cheeks red, realizing how much their voices were raised in the quiet of the loft.
“Wait, did you say love? Not loved?” Tommy asked.
Evan pushed his chair away from the island and stood up. “Sure, yeah, now you notice. Whatever, I’m going back to bed.”
He stomped up the stairs to the loft. Tommy sighed, standing up to clear the table and do the dishes.
Buck could hear Tommy tidying up downstairs as he lay in bed with his comforter and blanket on top of him. He pulled them both up over his head, muffling the sound. He wiped angrily at the tears that rolled down his cheeks, trying to get comfortable. The breakfast Tommy had made for him churned uncomfortably in his stomach.
Evan came back downstairs a few hours later. Tommy had found an old basketball game on tv and was watching it with the sound off, his blanket from the night before now neatly folded on the back of the couch.
Evan grabbed two waters from the kitchen, handing him one and taking a seat on the armchair. Tommy was transported back to the night he’d brought Evan home from the hospital after he’d dislocated his shoulder; the silence had been more comfortable then, the feelings more sure, but it was more similar than he’d expected.
“How come you’re still here?” Evan asked, voice small. He’d pulled his knees up so his feet were resting on the edge of the seat cushion, and he looked impossibly small.
Tommy turned the tv off. “Did you mean it, when you said you would have been my last if I’d wanted you?”
“What does it matter now?”
“Evan, it was never that I didn’t want you. I just didn’t think you’d want me for that long.”
“God, I wish people would stop making my decisions for me,” Evan sighed. “I do, shockingly, know what I want. And even if we did end up breaking up in the future, would it really be so bad? Wouldn’t that time together be worth it?”
“It would be,” Tommy said. “You’re right.”
“So what now?” Evan asked. “Hearts bared, talks had, what does it change?”
“Actually,” Tommy said, “there is one more thing I need to say to you. Evan Buckley, I love you too.”
“Wow, full name and everything,” Evan said. “And is this the part where you leave again?”
“Only if you want me to,” Tommy said. “But if you love me, and I love you — well, a wise man once said, why be apart when we can be together?”
“You can’t use my own words against me,” Evan complained, a smile belying his words.
“They’re good words,” Tommy said.
Evan uncurled himself from the chair, coming over to sit next to Tommy on the couch. “So we just… pick up where we left off?”
“I think we can do better than that this time,” Tommy said. “Talk more. Maybe go on a double date with one of our friends.”
“Hen’ll probably read you the riot act,” Evan warned him.
“I’d deserve it.” Tommy lifted his arm from the back of the couch so Evan could burrow under it. “Maybe I can take you out tomorrow, once you’ve recovered?”
“Maybe we could stay in, just this weekend?” Evan countered. “I don’t think I’m going to recover that quickly.”
“Wow, really?”
“My fingernails hurt,” Evan whined. Tommy picked up one of his hands and started massaging it, the motion pulling Evan closer as Tommy’s arms wrapped around him. “Oh, that’s better.”
“We can stay in this weekend,” Tommy said. “But I will need to go home for clothes at some point.”
“Or I could bring my clothes to your place,” Evan suggested. “We never really… spent a lot of time at your place.”
“Okay,” Tommy agreed easily, oddly charmed at the thought of Evan in his house, even a sleepy, hungover Evan.
Tease Tuesday or whatever. Can't stop thinking of my The Martian AU. I might end up writing it. I took a lot of ideas about Space!Bees from this article.
They were on day twelve of their journey to Mars when Evan explained the concept of Telling the Bees.
“You have to tell them all important events,” Evan said to Tommy as they floated in front of the hive, “Births, marriages, things like that. But deaths most importantly.”
The bee enclosure took up a large portion of the zero G lab, an oddly beautiful partitioned box of transparent acrylic panes latticed with honeycombs. It hummed with life, the steady drone of a hive of fifteen thousand strong getting along with their business. After one hundred and thirty days, all of them except for the queen had been born in space.
Evan had been so excited by that. NASA had taken a small population of bees into space forty years before the Ares III mission(“small” according to Evan meant about three and a half thousand). It was only for eight days, and the queen laid eggs but they never hatched for reasons no one could figure out.
“They didn’t bring enough bees,” Evan said, speaking in that excited way of his that Tommy had been completely charmed by from the beginning (Not just Tommy, Evan’s videos for social media were reportedly the most popular, with twice as many views as anyone else’s) “Less than four thousand bees? That’s nothing. Ten thousand is nothing! That’s like, a beginner’s colony. They need more, all of them work together and have an important job. Like the ship,” he gestured around him, “So many people contributed! It’s a chain, and every link is important. We couldn’t go to Mars at all if it weren’t for the workers at the factory creating the solar panels.”
Tommy would never admit how much of his free time he spent floating in the lab, watching the busy colony.
Watching Evan watch the colony. My ladies, Evan called them.
Tommy’s chest tightened. Evan had taken a second, smaller enclosure down to the Martian surface with a new queen and ten thousand bees. During the single week on the Martian surface they had started building a comb.
“They were born in space, Tommy,” Evan said, bouncing on his feet, “This is the first time they’ve felt gravity.”
There had been no time to euthanize the colony when they made their evacuation, a fact that Tommy knew upset Evan. They were just bees, the workers lived less than two months, but they were helpless and Evan had made the decision to bring them to a strange world hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Earth.
“You have to knock on the hive,” Evan told Tommy on day twelve, “And say ‘Your master—or mistress--is dead, but don’t you go. Your mistress—or master--will be a good mistress to you.’”
Tommy pressed his face against the hive, feeling the thrumming vibration as well as hearing it. He rapped his knuckles gently against the acrylic.
“Evan is dead,” Tommy told them. His voice was shaking. Tears don’t fall in zero gravity, they simply coalesce into a blob of water until they’re wiped away or evaporate. “There was, uh, a storm. We had to do an emergency evacuation.”
Tommy hadn’t seen it happen, he’d been in the MAV, prepping for the launch. The others were making their way, Evan at the rear, when the satellite dish of their communications array was torn loose and hit Evan dead on. He went flying, and Hen said she saw the antenna had gone through Evan’s chest like a spear.
Their EVA suits were linked together, so Tommy saw the alert when Evan’s suit depressurized, and then the one that said his life signs had stopped.
“Howie didn’t want to leave him,” Tommy told the bees, “He went into the storm to look for him. But. Uh. With the wind force, the MAV had started to tip. If it went over all of us would have died. He ordered me to launch,” Tommy swallowed, “It was the right call.” His voice was a whisper.
It was the right call, but Tommy will still never forgive Howie, anymore than he’ll ever forgive himself for following the order to launch the MAV into the atmosphere.
I binged Manifest in the last month. Okay so that last season was more like rage-watched. I’ve been stuck at home so I thought a short, completed show and then I move on to something else. Why am I still stuck on this show?!!!!
I spent most of the time wanting to punch Ben Stone in the face. Hell, the entire Ben Stone family irritated me mostly - Grace, Olive, even Cal (not small Cal). Almost the entire storyline for Angelina - what the actual f*ck was that? Adrian, Eagan…you get the picture.
I’m not even sure what to say about Jared. The actor is smoking hot so that helped but the character. Some high highs and the lowest lows.
On the other hand you have bi goddess Saanvi with her amazing hair and moving forward like five sciences and that’s after curing childhood cancer. Vance, who I’m convinced was a saint for dealing with Ben all the time. (Did he have stock in pain killers for all those headaches?) Drea - there aren’t enough words to express how much I love her.
Michaela and Zeke. Zeke and Michaela. The reason I didn’t quit the show. A new couple has found their way onto my top 10 fav ships I do believe.
Personally, I found the finale satisfying. It mostly makes sense to me (and I can hand wave the bits that stick a little). My brain has spent so much time in that cab at JFK - I’m very thankful there are fics to choose from, even if that number is much smaller than I’d like.
Anywho…my Manifest rant. Maybe the shows grip will loosen since I’ve spewed all of this.
So I have read several people complaining that they can’t be expected to know the “unwritten rules” of fandom. So here’s what I wish people knew:
Fanfiction is fiction.
Fictional people are not real.
Fictional people do not have rights.
Fictional people cannot be abused.
Reading or writing about something does not mean the desire to do or support it in the real world.
If I find art upsetting/triggering/disgusting/outraging/unpleasant/squicky/distressing/offensive, it is on me not to read it, not the creators and hosts to remove it.
Curate your own experience. The back buttons exist for a reason.
If you don’t trust yourself to do that, get someone you trust to do it for you.
Fandom is an adult space. Adults create and own and host fandom spaces. If minors want to participate, then the onus is on them and their parents/guardians/trusted adults to ensure they participate appropriately, not on strange adults to stop being adults.
You often don’t know the assault status or mental health status or neurotype or race or nationality or religion or gender or sexuality or age of a creator or consumer, and they do not have to disclose to you to justify their fantasy.
AO3 is not a safe space. It is not intended to be a safe space. Proceed accordingly.
Just because you don’t like something or find it offensive doesn’t mean it is a “problem” that “has to be dealt with”.
Most characters in anime are not white.
There is no onus on you to reblog or share anything.
Everyone makes mistakes in fandom and is less than their best self sometimes.
Persistent pseudonyms encourage long term relationships.
Ship wars are stupid.
Someone else enjoying things does not impact on your own enjoyment of other things.
Tagging and warning is a courtesy, not a requirement. Assume any fic might contain untagged content.
Rating is an imprecise art, not a science.
Don’t hassle IP creators.
Most people who are in fandom are hoping to make connections based on a shared passion.
Trying to profit from transformative fanworks puts us all at risk.
No one is obligated to share your head canon or fanon.
Being kind rarely fails to pay off.
It is okay to block and remove people who make your experience unpleasant. You don’t have to placate them. (Learn from my mistakes).
Britpicking is a good thing.
You don’t have to justify why you like a canon/pairing/trope/kink. Sometimes navel gazing is fun, but you don’t have an obligation to explain yourself, especially to strangers. I share the overwhelming desire to refute an unfair accusation, but the people accusing you are rarely doing so in good faith, so you’re batting a losing wicket.
I’m not your Mum. (Well, okay, a very few of you can call me Mum or Mom, but if you are one of them you already know who you are ❤️)
If you aren’t mature enough to take responsibility for your online experiences, you aren’t mature enough to be in fandom spaces.
lmao, so what are you planning to do when the season ends and you were wrong about everything?
So, I'm literally only answering this to address yet another symptom of the creeping rot that is infesting fandom in general (and THIS fandom in particular).
But y'all. If the season ends and I am wrong about everything I was speculating, then I am wrong.
Like?
"What are you planning to do"...nothing? I'm gonna watch the show I like? And probably continue to watch? Because I like it and it makes me happy?
My sibling in Christ, the world is on fucking fire. This is a fucking TV show. If anything related to the fucking TV show--be it the fandom, the clowning, the people I talk to, this blog, the fanfic I read--brings me any MODICUM of joy in this fucking HELLSCAPE we are living in, why the FUCK would I care whether I was wrong about something or not?
Fandom is supposed to be fun. If the only way you can have fun is to go and try to make other people feel bad about an aspect of their fandom activities, I genuinely hope you heal from whatever went wrong in your life to make you like that, and also fuck allllllllll the way off.
Jesus.
Just for this, fuck it, now I'm clowning even HARDER for Tommy to come back by the season finale. 'Cause I want to, you can't make me feel any type of way about it, and if I'm wrong literally NOTHING HAPPENS. Because it's a fucking TV show.
“Merow “- Briar @nationofcrumb - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
