Hiiii 💕💕💕
For the wip game (the highlighted ones)
-❤️🪐
Hello!! For you since you’ve been interested in it for awhile and i promised you a scene ages ago and only just now finished it: big heart, I wanna let it bleed, aka buck joins the team younger fic! Here’s a complete drabble about them running into Phillip on a call…
They’re not in an enclosed space but, somehow, the kid’s laughter is still echoing around them. Bobby tries to bite down on his smile as he calls a vaguely warning “Buck,” though he’s not too worried about professionalism seeing as the surfer — who’s trunks are truly mystifyingly tangled on his board — is cracking up even harder. He’s sort of… hung up there, board stuck nose down in the sand, man dangling up on the back end of it. They seem too far up the beach for a wave to have done this, but what does Bobby know, he’s from a landlocked state.
“Sorry, Cap,” Buck wheezes. “Do we, uh… need the ladder?”
Bobby takes a measured inhale as he hears some kind of frantically smothered squeak sound coming from — is that Chimney? One of the paramedics, anyway — and shakes his head. “I think we can just lower the board down, if you’ll give me a hand. That sound alright to you, sir?”
The surfer gets through a few more wheezing chuckles before he can say “Yeah dude, lower away.”
They manage it pretty smoothly, with him and Buck on either side and Hen and Chim ready to catch the weight of the surfer. Hen starts off the next small round of laughter as she tries to de-tangle the swim trunks to move their vic, but everybody manages to calm down as they get to the actual medical examination.
As Hen and Chimney poke and prod, Buck chatters. “I learned to surf a few years ago, over in the Carolinas.”
“No shit?” The surfer grins. “Like Charleston? I gotta cousin over there.”
“Yeah, Folly Beach sometimes, but mostly went up to the Banks.”
“Sick.” The surfer gestures to where Hen’s wrapping some gauze around his bloodied elbow. “What’s your worst wipeout?”
Buck laughs again, a little delighted sound, always happy to be included. “Oh man- My first time out on the water, like the second wave I ever caught, just tossed me right off completely.” He tugs up his shirt before Bobby dawn shake his head not to, and twists around to show a jagged old scar on his lower back. “Landed on some rocks, needed fourteen stitches.”
The surfer whistles as Hen shakes her head. “I don’t think you’ll need any stitches for this one, but there’s enough debris in there I’m gonna recommend we take you to the hospital so they can get it all out.”
“Sure thing,” the guy says, looking more relaxed than Buck taking a nap on the couch after second helpings of mac and cheese. “Thanks man.”
“No problem,” Bobby says, definitely no trace of a chuckle in his voice no matter the delighted glances his team sends him.
The surfer tries to twist towards Buck once they get him on the gurney, winces, and then just turns his head. “You ever surf out here?”
“Have a few times, but I don't have a board or anything.”
“Man, you should come out and join us! We got a group most weekday mornings, I'm sure somebody could get you set up.”
Buck looks happy as a dog with a bone, glancing at Bobby with a mile wide grin. It's a familiar kind of look, though it takes until they're almost at the ambulance — Buck chatting away all the while — for him to place it, and it nearly makes him stumble when he does. Robert would give him that look when he made a new friend on the playground and got invited to hang out. Please, Dad, can I go? He's sure Buck didn't mean anything by it. Bobby doesn't have that authority in his life, nicknames and Springsteen concerts nothing that adds up to a tangible connection. And the kid- well, he's not a kid. 25 years old, can arrange his own playdates perfectly well. Still, Bobby feels a little off kilter as they load the ambulance.
“Rad, man, see you around.” The surfer is grinning at Buck, two happy little suns shining at each other. “Ask for Stevey,” he says, loosely pointing at himself. Steven Barney, he'd given as his name to dispatch.
Buck smiles, waves goodbye. “I'm-”
“Evan?”
Buck turns like a man in a haunted house, startled at an impossible sound with all the color draining out of him. The apparition takes the appearance of a white man a little older than Bobby, wearing neat, pale clothes and a sort of constipated, caught expression. They see that look on calls sometimes, with men who are going through an emergency with women who are not their wives and who are still trying to pretend they've done nothing at all untoward.
“D-” Buck blinks, a few times, hard. “Dad?”
Bobby can't help joining in Hen and Chin's shared oh shit look. There's not an overly familiar resemblance between the two — perhaps a shared stake in forehead real estate — but the man doesn't refute it. “I'll let you get back to work,” he says, glancing towards the sea, the ambulance, eyes landing briefly on Bobby before jumping away again, startled.
“Wait, wh-” Buck steps forward, hand wandering out in front of him before dropping back to his side. “What are you doing in LA? Did you have- a-a work trip?”
Buck's father clears his throat. “It's Brian’s birthday.”
“Oh,” Buck says, blinking again, rapidly this time, a fish thrown in new water. “He- he lives in California now?”
“No, no,” the man says dismissively, like he doesn't know why anyone on earth would choose to live in California. “He’s retiring early, wanted to make a weekend of it.”
“So-” Buck scrambles, visibly, and it makes Bobby aware of the small audience of first responders (and surfer), so he closes the ambulance door despite Hen and Chim’s wide eyes and shaking heads, and thumps the back so they pull away. Buck doesn’t seem to notice either way. “You’re- you’re here for a few days? We should- we could go get lunch? I-I have to work until tomorrow morning but-”
“It’s a busy weekend,” the man grumbles, doing a motion with his hands almost like he's patting himself down to make sure he has his wallet, the movements of someone making sure they're good to leave. “I won't have the time.”
Buck stands there, looking more wounded than any of the times he's been banged up on calls. “I- haven't seen you in- in like four years-”
“And who's fault is that?” His father laughs dismissively. “If you want to run off and throw your life away you can't complain about it later.”
“I-I didn't, I like what I- I have a job, I- I found…” Buck frowns, and Bobby worries for a moment he's going to cry out here in front of his father and colleagues and the beach goers of Santa Monica. He holds it together, though. “I like it here, and I like my job, and I'd like to tell you about it-”
“I won't have the time, Evan.” He doesn't even consider for a moment backing out of his obvious lie. “You can call next week if you want. Your mother will be glad to know you're in one piece.”
“Okay,” Buck says, shoulders sinking down and turning in. He goes from a 6’3” wall of muscle to a lost child right before Bobby’s eyes, hell of a magic trick. “Sorry,” Buck says, as Bobby does some math, works backwards a little. Fourteen stitches, definitely more recent than four years ago. He thinks about the laws of physics, or at least traffic, he’d break if he knew Robert was bleeding in an ocean somewhere in the world. “Sorry,” Buck says again — why, why should he be apologizing — and nods a few times. “I’ll- I’ll make sure to call.”
His father nods back. “We still work, so-”
“Yeah, after five, I know.”
“And your mother has book club on Tuesdays.”
“Okay.” Smaller, and smaller. Bobby remembers reading Alice in Wonderland to Brook, wonders how big Buck’s pool of tears is to shrink him so much. “I’ll just-” Buck clenches his fists, just for a moment, and then hides them in his pockets. “I’ll just try. If you’re busy you don’t have to pick up.”
Oh, God, give an inch and they’ll take a mile. Buck’s father looks visibly relieved at the offer of plausible deniability. “Alright.” He doesn’t move to hug his son, doesn’t even reach out for a handshake, staying a careful several feet away. “I’m sure you need to get back to your job,” he says, raising eyebrows in Bobby’s direction. It makes him bristle, he doesn’t want to be a forced coconspirator in judging Buck for something he hasn’t even done wrong. Buck wilts even further beside him. His father gives one final nod. “Goodbye, Evan.”
He’s already walking away by the time Buck says “Bye, Dad.”
And then they’re all just standing there. Hen and Chimney went off to the hospital, sure, but there’s still a handful of firefighters lingering around, either trying to make a lot of eye contact or no eye contact at all. Buck stares firmly at the ground. Bobby clears his throat.
“Alright, let's pack it up.” If they were operating under any other circumstance Bobby might compliment his crew for how quickly and quietly they get loaded into the trucks.
The ride back to the station is quiet, too, usual engine chit chat locked in everyone’s throats. Bobby’s pretty sure he sees Nichols subtly and somewhat frantically typing on his phone. Mostly, though, he watches Buck in the rearview. The kid is staring resolutely out the window, but Bobby would bet he’s not seeing a thing. His leg bounces on the seat, and Rodriguez doesn't even do the polite cut-it-out cough. Bobby wonders how many of Buck's stories he's overheard, if he's also now watching them tilt, shift, rearrange in his head. Dumb little boy stuff, skateboard-bike-motorcycle stunts, climbing up trees to fall out of them, all told with class clown energy, wasn't I stupid but wasn't it fun, wasn't it funny? Bobby got up to some shit when he was a kid, trailing after Charlie and taking any ill-advised dare the older kids tossed out to him, but he got hurt and he went home, his mom kissed his scrapes, even his dad would ruffle his hair and grab the first aid kit on his good days. Bobby looks at Buck looking out at nothing and tries to count the broken bones scattered between the big grins and his audience’s corresponding groans, tries to imagine Buck — all his silliness, all his sunshine — going home hurt to parents whose care comes with office hours.
When they pull into the station everyone flees the engine like there’d been a chemical spill, leaving Buck standing alone silhouetted against shiny scarlet paint. Bobby hesitates, one foot still up on the truck bed. He doesn’t want to overstep, but- he can’t stop thinking about how far away Buck’s father stood. The kid deserves someone to come closer. He only wished there was someone better than himself around to do it.
“Hey, kid-”
“I never knew what I did wrong.” Buck is frowning into middle distance, shoulders still tucked in around him. “I- I know I was stupid in- in high school, and college, but-” he looks right at Bobby, eyes wide, and he looks- oh, kid, come home. You’re hurting, come home, you’ll be taken care of, I got a first aid kid at least and I’ll learn to do better than that. “It was always like this- I-” Buck shrugs and here, finally, come the tears. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” Bobby says, and it's only two steps over to him, and he’s never even casually side hugged this kid before but Buck sinks right into his arms.
“You can’t know that-”
“I can.” Buck’s so tall. Bobby’s not sure the last time he hugged somebody taller than him. He wonders how tall his dad was, looming so large in memory but an unknown in actual imperial measurement. He wonders how tall Robert would’ve gotten. “You were a kid. You were their kid. There’s nothing you could have done that was so bad they shouldn’t have loved you anyway.”
Buck shudders against him, and his shoulder is getting wet, and the ambulance will be back soon and there’s firefighters milling about and, always, work to do.
But they can take a little time here. Bobby’ll bend it around, if he has to. The laws of traffic, the laws of physics. It startles him, scares him a little, but- he’d break them for Buck, too.
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"When the Boeing Gets Tough..."
Yes! I know! I can't believe they actually refer to Boeing by name. The show has to tread carefully. Airliners are designed to have multiple redundancies in case of a catastrophic system failure. Every single crucial flight system has a backup and a backup for the backup. It takes many different failures in a chain of events to bring down a modern airliner. The aviation world calls it the Swiss cheese model.
With the 8x03 title confirmed as Final Approach, it gives more weight to the S8 opening disaster being an emergency landing.
If the Airport 1975 theory is correct, as in a light aircraft crashing into a big airliner leaving the first officer dead and the captain blinded, leaving the unexperienced flight attendant/passenger attempting to land the aircraft with professional instructions, it would be pretty damaging to Boeing's reputation.
There is something called TCAS (Traffic collision avoidance system), required to be fitted to every airliner after the 80s. The air traffic controllers at major Californian airports also have a warning system at their disposal to separate potentially conflicting traffic. If the show just decides to ignore this crucial system for safety, I can't imagine Boeing being happy about it. It's been dealing with bad PR since the 2 MCAS crashes, then the door plug blowout and lately the Starliner stranding 2 astronauts in space for longer than expected.
People have been mocking Airport 1975 for being unrealistic, because the head-on collision with the light aircraft somehow only tore a small human size hole in the cockpit without damaging the rest of the 747 too much. I can think of something in the modern days that actually makes such a precise but catastrophic damage?
A drone, trying to get the best aerial shots for a hit TV show about firefighters.
TCAS scans the surrounding airspace for transponders, which every aircraft flying near the busy SoCal airspace has to be equipped with, but not drones.
It's a super wild guess, but I just think it would be interesting for Bobby's story, accidentally putting his wife in danger again through indirect action, but this time he gets to save her.
Also, as I mentioned before, this is an Airbus.
I don't know why they're referencing Boeing here, but I did see this blurry shot of a Boeing aircraft in the background here, in one of the bts photos:
So I don't know, does this emergency involve 2 different airplanes? Is the Airbus crashing into the Boeing? Is the Boeing trying to stop the Airbus or vice versa? I have zero ideas.
I can't wait to be wrong with all of you.
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Hey Kym, have you talked about how you think this season is going to pan out? Nothing too involved,just bare bones what you think these 18 episodes will deliver
Hey Nonnie
I both have and havent - in that I’ve just talked about it quite a lot in my last post about Tim’s interview, (so go check that out if you want more!) but I haven’t written a dedicated post about what I’m thinking for how season 8 is going to pan out.
I’m very much of the opinion we’re getting a s3 redux if you will. Season 7 was basically a speed run of s2 and all the s3 elements are being nicely set up - we’ve been given hints of how several storylines are going to parallel arcs from s3 - the bee-nado is sounding more and more like the tsunami - in that the bees are the same as the wave - they set off the destruction, but themselves aren’t the actual emergency - the wave created all the various issues we saw the firefam battle through in their various locations in the aftermath and the bees seem to be doing the same thing - causing the issues in e1 and will then more or less be gone and it’s the trail of destruction they’ve left behind that is the actual disaster.
Bobbys arc seems to be the comic relief arc (which he deserves tbh after s7!) with some serious notes in that parallels his s3 arc - s3 bobby was not in the firehouse at the start of s3 (suspended) and he planning his wedding to Athena and supporting the firefam from a distance - we seem to be getting a similar vibe going on here - with him not at the 118, and instead of a wedding he’s looking for a new home!
Athena’s arc is seemingly going to play on her Emmet storyline from Athena begins - which was in s3. I think the plane may well be carrying Dennis Jackson - the guy who killed emmet - so I’m expecting something copaganda heavy but hoping for the opposite (especially as we’ve got Ortiz in play this season and the idea of corruption in politics and how that trickles down into public service roles like policing etc would be so interesting to see!) where we explore how Athena’s choice to pursue and have DJ prosecuted has impacted everyone involved.
Buck and Eddie’s arcs seem to be paralleling s3 as well - we ended s7 with them closer than ever and Chris’s leaving has a similar vibe to Eddie leaving Chris with buck to it - in that buck and Eddie were the closest we’d ever seen them in that moment, and in the initial aftermath of the tsunami, only to then have them pulled apart - and separated before coming back into each others orbits andbring closer than ever - leading into Eddie begins and him changing his will.
S3 for buck was about figuring himself out a lot more - establishing the importance of family to him and about learning who he wants to be and who he doesn’t want to become. The Gerrard storyline seems to be setting up something similar as i think it’s going to parallel the lawsuit arc - and will be about Buck and Bobbys relationship. Tommy also plus into that arc as he is seemingly set up to be the thing that creates distance between buck and Eddie like the lawsuit and the fight club did (the idea that Tim and the writers honed in on the fighting aspect of his similarities with Eddie in s7 so they could use it as an allegory for the fight club is chefs kiss good) so I expect him to be around for a bit (I’m going to take a stab at e7 marking his departure but it could be e8) but he’ll be fine before mid season hiatus!
The entirety of Eddie’s arc seems to be set up for a Christopher return around Christmas (the title puns they could play on with that would be so fun!) on the back of an Eddie religion leading to gay Eddie arc for 8a and then 8b is primed for buddie canon (imo I think we’re looking at 8x11 or 12 for them confirmed and 8x11 would make me super happy as it would be 118 backwards and I love a ply on things like that!)
The Ortiz v Hen storyline has already mentioned the ambulance crash from malfunction which was s3 so I’m seeing plenty of parallels for hens arc with her s3 one but im expecting it to be more front and centre for more episodes than hens s3 arc was - which is as it should be - hens arcs have been more low-key since s5 so she’s due to be brought back to the fore!
Chim and Maddie are the main unknown for me - the Mara arc is clearly important but is very much tied into hens arc. We’ve had hints that Mara will be a springboard for them expanding their family and that in and of itself ties into the s3 arc which was all about madney tentatively exploring the idea of parenthood and it ended with Maddie pregnant - so I’m thinking we might see something similar for them this season. I would also like a dispatch centric episode this season - we had taking of dispatch in s3 and while I don’t know how it would look, we’re due a dispatch heavy episode (which are always great ones).
That’s my super bare bones theory on roughly how s8 is going to pan out - I don’t expect it to completely follow the s3 arc, but I do expect it to hit many of the key markers s3 has!
I hope this is what you were hoping for in your ask Nonnie - I love speculating on 911 it’s so much fun
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