Sarah 💜 If you still want an AU idea, B/T have reconciled and Tommy meets the knitting club, which is how Buck discovers that while he was learning to bake Tommy went viral in a niche online crafting hobby community of your choice for his novice figuring out how to do it himself videos. (Is he good? Bad? Or just good-looking 🤭)
i don't remember any of the knitting club names so we're renaming the old people (well, one of them) okay? okay.
it took me a minute cause i had trouble deciding what he should do and then i ended up going a slightly different direction anyway 🤦♀️ sorry!!
buck's attendance at knitting club is sporadic at best. it's not his fault; he's there as often as he can be. but between his shifts, his recovery, and general 118 craziness, he only gets there about once a month. they're all very understanding but sometimes it leads to things like agreeing to help one of his old lady friends, louise, with patching a hole in their wall and then not having a spare moment to think for a month and a half because of short staffing and having it completely slip his mind.
he remembers as he's pulling up to the house (they host round-robin style and coincidentally, the woman hosting tonight is louise) and rushes in apologetically, offers to skip the knitting part and take a look at it.
oh don't you worry about it, i found a very helpful young man on youtube who had very good step-by-step instructions. i did it myself and there's more projects on his channel i want to look at. and she's so proud and he takes a look and she did do a very good job. he compliments her work and she pats him on the shoulder and they go back to knitting.
sometime between that meeting and the next, buck and tommy start talking again. he mentions at the next meeting that he's not sure where it's going but that he wants to get back together, and they all encourage him to go for it. especially after he shows them a couple pictures of the two of them when they were still together. cue all the old folks dramatically fanning themselves and the man saying that if buck doesn't do something about it, he will
they get back together between that meeting and the next and buck doesn't even have to say anything when he shows up; tommy dropped him off with a kiss and he's practically glowing when he goes in and they all notice. they all poke fun at him a little bit and lovingly press him for details and he gives them some (like how they took a drive to the coast to watch the sunset and talked until the middle of the night, hashing everything out before agreeing that they wanted to be together again) but definitely not others (like how he ended up spread out on the bench seat of tommy's truck at 2am, moaning so loudly he was glad they were in the middle of nowhere with nobody around to call the cops)
by the time they finally get around to knitting it's most of the way through the meeting time, and buck does actually have a problem he needs help with, so they get down to it. he's still going by the time tommy texts him to let him know he's on his way to pick him up, and the group is nosy, so they insist he stay and finish working through the steps and tommy can just come up and say hello (and face buck's group of adopted grandparents)
he knocks at the door and louise goes to let him in. they chat for a minute in the hallway and then the group just hears a delighted little shriek and she comes running back in. it's my youtube man!
it comes out that after the breakup, tommy started helping out one of his older neighbours with some renovations and updates around his house for something to do. the man said it was a pity that there weren't more resources aimed at older people who may have limitations in what they can do, which gave tommy the idea of doing the step-by-step videos with alterations and recommendations for tools that may work better for stability and reduced grip strength etc. he got a reputation really quickly for being very patient and helpful in replying to comments and sometimes even doing requests. he never showed his face in the videos but louise pulls up one of the videos on her phone, to tommy's embarrassment, and buck is treated to a closeup of what are obviously tommy's big gorgeous hands doing something to a pipe with a wrench that has him actively fighting down arousal while surrounded by a group of old people who have somehow become some of his closest friends
louise thanks him again and after they all chat for a while, buck all but drags him out the door (which gets him a couple knowing looks)
tommy keeps up the channel, obviously. he's a bit less secretive about it and even occasionally shows his face sometimes, but it's still mostly the same closeups and detail shots that he's known for. and a few years later there's a lot of celebrating (and some disappointment) in the comments when a wedding ring shows up on his hand.
