#nice time loop au

[winter-parrot]

snippet sunday

been tagged in various writing tag games in the last week by uuuh @capitalnineteen @wee-fuckin-woo @apollabarnes @leashybebes @nzchance i think that's all of them mwah mwah love you all thank you for the tags!! np tagging y'all back along with @corporatebanana @sad-girl-hours23 @ambernotember @letsdosciencetoit @beanarie. and YOU dearest reader all my tags are open tags as always :)

i've been feeling a little stuck on my bang fic, so poking around at my other wips looking for something to keep me going. this is from the "nice" time loop au, building out some of the missing in-between pieces i skipped.

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Buck breathes out, long and slow. For all that the time loop never happened for him, that this version of himself never had that interaction, never said those works, something about Tommy’s story echoes in his bones. Maybe it’s some kind of transference from one time loop—one parallel universe?—to another. Or maybe it’s just the earnest despair on Tommy’s face. Either way, every cell in his body knows it to be true.

He made Tommy promise to come to him. And Tommy kept that promise.

Now it’s Buck’s turn to keep his implied half of the deal: help Tommy. Figure out this time loop. Get them both out, along with the rest of his team. “Alright. Okay. How much time do we have?”

Tommy’s either finally run out of his quota on disbelief, or finally decided to just trust Buck. He doesn’t protest, doesn’t argue, doesn’t even look surprised. He just answers the question tiredly. “Call comes in shortly after 2:15pm. I think the fire starts around 2, maybe 1:45.” Though Tommy’s eyes are closed, Buck can practically see the gears turning in his mind, running the timeline backwards. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the first thing that goes wrong, though. Something else happens first. Right after lunch, I think.”

Buck nods once, firmly, both for himself and for Tommy. Decision made, he turns towards the fridge.

“What are you doing?” Buck doesn’t need to turn around to hear the frown in Tommy’s voice. His fingers know the shape of that confused furrow between Tommy’s brow.

“My shift starts at noon, so we have”—Buck glances at the clock to check his math—”about six hours before then. And you look like you’re about to fall over on your feet. So I’m making breakfast. You’re going to sit down, eat something, and take a break.” He slams a pan on the stove with more force and flourish than necessary. “And then we’re gonna brainstorm the shit out of this time loop.”

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Ohhh! Can i get some ➿ please and thank you? I adore time loop stuff but just cannot seem to write it myself. So interested!! Ty!!

make sylvie write!

hi cora!! i also adore time loops and this is my first attempt actually writing it, so we'll see how it turns out. you get tommy doing a very poor job of explaining himself

➿ contagion time loop, nice version

“Bobby died,” Tommy says. Buck’s heart stops, and then kickstarts at a sprint when Tommy continues. “Dies. Will die. He— there’s a lab, and Chimney gets sick, and—” “I need you to slow down,” Buck says, fighting with every last scrap of his first responder training to stay calm. They can’t both lose their minds at once, that’ll get them nowhere fast. “I don’t understand. Is Bobby— is Bobby dead, or dying? O-or are you saying, he’s going to d-die somehow?” Tommy laughs, an awful shattered sound that Buck never wants to hear again. “Yes, yes, and yes. All of it. Not for you. I mean, not yet. But— I saw him die. Too many times. A-and you will, too.” “I don’t understand,” Buck repeats, hearing the edge of panic finally creep into his voice. “Tommy, please, you’re not making any sense. I, I need you to help me understand.”

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TWO timeloop fics??? gimme both please!!

➿☣️

make sylvie write!

time!! loop!!! aren't they grand?? and the contagion lab arc is so ripe for it too.

➿: contagion lab time loop, "nice" version. this bit is from a little bit later.

“What if we take the whole firehouse offline?,” Buck asks. “We could fake some kind of an emergency.” Tommy shakes his head slowly. “Tried that. A few times, actually. Called in a bomb threat, gave everyone food poisoning, caused a blackout in the whole area." He pauses, breathing deep like it hurts him to say the words. Or maybe it’s remembering all the loops that hurts. He looks tired and somehow ancient, like the time loops have aged him a decade or two in the span of one endless, repeating day. “Athena gets called in to help contain the scene, and ends up trapped inside with everyone else. Bobby gets himself involved when he finds out what’s happening to her. And then, well, the rest is inevitable.”

☣️ and now, the torment nexus time loop. this is nearly 200 words but i wanted to post it in one go

zero. Tommy watches, helpless and useless, as Evan bleeds on the other side of the glass. His nose. His ears. The corners of his mouth. His voice is wet and choked with his own blood as he fights to speak. “I-I tried. I really tried. A-and we did it, right? We saved everyone.” Tommy nods, because what else can he do? Even if Evan probably can’t see it through the visor, the fogging glass, the heavy-duty hazmat suits, it’s the only thing Tommy can do. The last goddamn thing Evan Buckely is asking for on this earth. Evan smiles with bloodied teeth “S-so it was worth it.” His eyes are so, so wide and so, so blue, even in the flickering light of this damnable lab at the edge of an apocalypse. Tommy meets those blue eyes and bears witness as Evan breathes, and bleeds. He watches until Evan stops breathing. Until those blue, blue eyes cloud over and go dull. Until his heart—the love of his life—his world stops existing. Until Evan Buckley is dead.

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➿➿➿

(Because nice version 🫶)

make sylvie write!

➿➿➿: contagion lab time loop, "nice" version

Tell me, next time. I’ll believe you, okay? I promise. You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll believe you, and we’ll figure this out together, and nobody’s going to die. But you have to tell me. Promise me, Tommy. Promise you’ll tell me right away. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. Just tell me. Evan wakes with the echoes of a dream he cannot quite remember. All that remains is the feeling that he was trying to hold onto something important even as it was slipping through his fingers—just like the fading vestiges of the dream, slipping away somewhere into the swirling fog of his subconscious even now. He wakes to the sound of… knocking? Yes, that thumping sound coming from the door is knocking, even if the sound is weirdly dull and muted. And unusually slow, like whoever’s on the other side keeps having to double check that they’re at the right door. Buck rolls over with a groan, scrabbling blindly for his phone. The numbers 5:27 gaze back at him with mocking, eye-searing cheer. Dammit. While Buck doesn’t regrest spending a too-long evening helping talk his no-longer-a-probie off a metaphorical ledge, he’s in no shape to be woken up like this. Especially when their shift doesn’t start until the afternoon today, so he was counting on getting to sleep off his late night. He almost, almost pulls the comforter over his head and goes back to sleep. But the niggling thought in the back of his head keeps asking, what if it’s important? Maybe it’s Maddie, or Chris, or Ravi back again. Maybe it’s a neighbour who needs help. With a louder groan of complaint, Buck gives up going back to sleep as a lost cause. He’s not going to be able to stop worrying about it, so he might as well get off his ass and find out what the hell his visitor wants. The knocking has stopped by the time he shuffles over to the door, and he half-expects to find nothing on the other side. He does not expect to find two-hundred-something pounds of Tommy leaned heavily against said door. Robbed of his support, Tommy collapses like a ragdoll; Buck manages to catch him, but nearly collapses himself under the sudden weight.

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➿ please

make sylvie write!

ty for the prompt jessica, this time i didn't take a whole month!! we are in very beginning part of this fic here. buck's trying his best to catch up and tommy is not being very helpful

➿ contagion time loop, nice version

Something has scared Tommy bad, and it’s scaring Buck too. “Tommy, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, okay? Just— just tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll figure it out.” “You don’t remember,” Tommy says, without looking at Buck. Buck isn’t even convinced that Tommy heard him at all; it’s more like Tommy’s just continuing on in his rambling, and happened to answer Buck in the process. “You can’t remember, it didn’t happen for you. I should— I should just let you stay that way. Right. This is better, it has to be.” “Stop deciding what’s good for me,” Buck says, more sharply than he means to. It’s not Tommy’s fault that he’s hitting on a sore spot. Well, it kind of is, since Tommy walking out on him twice is half the reason it is a sore spot in the first place. But everyone else contributed, too, and anyway it’s not fair to take it out on him when he’s clearly not thinking straight. Softly, more carefully, Buck adds, “I can decide for myself, okay? Please just tell me what this is about.”

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➿️➿️➿️

(... I'll stop here. For now. 🫣)

make sylvie write!

chemmy my beloved here is your time loop! they are making progress at last!!!

➿ contagion time loop, nice version

The contact works like he hoped. Whether it’s the intimacy of it, the warm touch of skin, or maybe just the unexpected approach of a hand cutting into Tommy’s sightlines, the confused reverie breaks. Everything about Tommy jerks to a hard, tense stop: his breathing, his rambling words, the fine tremors shaking his body, even his blinking. Then, like a long exhale, Tommy melts into Buck’s touch. His blinks rapidly, and then looks at Buck. Actually looks at him, with some clarity in his eyes for the first time. “Evan,” he breathes, a shattered kind of wonder in his voice. “You’re here. I’m— you came.” “You said that already,” Buck says, almost loopy with relief. A half-hysterical giggle leaves him on a sharp breath. “And I’ll point out that you came to me, actually. You scared me half to death, you know.” “I’m sorry,” Tommy says, lowering his eyes. He looks… small, suddenly. For all that Buck has fantasized about hearing those words from Tommy, in his pettiest or darkest moments, this version of it just leaves him sad and worried. Tommy should never look so small. “I’ll forgive you if you tell me what the hell is going on,” Buck says, pretending levity and confidence he doesn’t feel. “This is the first time you’ve made any sense this morning.” “You won’t believe me,” Tommy says, still small and miserable. He directs his words to Buck’s shoulder. “It sounds insane. I didn’t believe me, the first three or four times, and I was living it.” “Try me,” Buck presses, a little angry and a lot desperate. He doesn’t know how else to get Tommy to just talk to him. “You must’ve come here for a reason, right? S-so how about you tell me, and give me a chance to decide for myself if I believe you.” Tommy hesitates for a long, agonizing moment. Long enough that Buck almost gives it up for lost. His eyes are still trained on the floor when he says, in a voice heavy with resignation, “I’m in a time loop.”

[winter-parrot]

For the WIP Word Game

competition

no wips with competition! I had one "competing", but that's in the big bang wip, so instead you're getting a new snippet of the "nice" time loop that I just wrote!

“Yeah?” Buck says, confusion tipping his voice up into a question. Was he not supposed to believe Tommy? “I mean, it’s weird, sure. But I got struck by lightning and had a coma dream where I had to, like, love myself hard enough to wake up. A-and I got cursed by a dead cowboy. S-so why not a time loop? Also, I don’t know why you’d ever lie about this, anyway.”

WIP Word Guessing Game

[winter-parrot]

rolling around some baby plot bunnies for 911 because apparently that’s how deep I am now!!! current fave thought is a time loop 8x14/8x15 fic where Tommy keeps looping the day trying to save everyone and failing. He saves Bobby, then Chimney dies instead. He saves both of them, and somehow Buck ends up dying instead. He tries to stop the 118 going in at all, and then Athena’s the one who gets sick and dies. etc etc.

and obviously he tells no one about the loops because 1) he’s not part of the 118 family anymore, he doesn’t get to ask them for help and 2) he’s just gonna sound crazy anyway.

until somewhere around like Loop 27 he breaks down seeing Buck go back into the lab, not knowing if he’s going to end up dead again. He babbles something that probably makes no sense at all but Buck pieces together enough to convince Tommy to properly talk to him next loop, if the loop thing is real, because it’s too late for this loop and he can’t just sit around Not Helping.

So next loop Tommy actually does tell him what’s going on (what’s the harm, even if Buck does think he’s completely insane he’ll probably just loop again anyway) and then they all work together to fix it and nobody dies the end