#Tommy Kinard’s Daddy Issues

[theredrenard]

(Long post ahead! Keep reading under the cut!)

‼️Warning for homophobia, toxic masculinity, mild alcohol abuse (mentioned like twice), and a single use of the F slur.

You’re 6 years old. You fall down the front steps and chip a tooth on the sidewalk below. Your mother holds you and dries your tears. Suck it up, your father says. Real men don’t cry.

You’re 8 years old. You fall off your bike and scrape your knee. You don’t cry, but it’s a near thing. Your mother patches you up while you sniffle pitifully. Tears make you weak, Thomas, your father says.

You’re 10 years old, and your mother has cancer. Your father is at work. You curl into your mother’s side in that uncomfortable hospital bed, and you cry and cry and cry.

You’re 12 years old at your mother’s funeral. You don’t cry. You can’t. She’s not here to hold you anymore, and your father would be so, so disappointed. She was always too soft on you, Tom, your father says as they lower her casket into the damp earth.

You’re 15 years old, and your father is a flurry of drunken rage because he found out you kissed another boy under the bleachers. You hide in your room, nursing a freshly-bruised black eye and fighting back tears. No son of mine is gonna be a fucking faggot, your father says.

You’re 17 years old when you forge your father’s signature, running away to join the army and never looking back. You don’t even want to be in the army, you just want to get away from him.

You’re 20 years old when you nearly get caught staring at another recruit. You shake it off and remind yourself that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is still in effect. They can never know. If they know, it’ll ruin your life.

You’re 22 years old when your chopper goes down in a whirl of flames. You fight tooth and nail to get free of the wreckage, dragging yourself hand over hand through the sand, bleeding profusely from a nasty gash in your side as bullets whiz by overhead. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You’re lucky you’re still breathing. You get honorably discharged and sent home. In the back of your mind, you hear your father. Weak, he says. You have no right to cry when half your crew is dead.

You’re 24 when you join the 118. You meet Captain Gerrard, and he reminds you eerily of your father. You can’t show any weakness. If you do, it’ll ruin your life.

You’re 26 years old when you meet Hen Wilson and she begs you to see her, to respect her and her place within the 118. You wish you could be like her. Out and proud, taking up space. You can’t. It’ll ruin your life.

You’re 29 years old when you decide you’re ready for the sky once more. The 118 is better under Captain Nash than it was before, but this place never felt like home. You’re not sure if anywhere really has.

You’re 35 years old working at Harbor Station when you get a call from an old friend. He needs your help, something about an air tanker and a block on fire? You owe him for saving your sorry ass, so you figure, why not? You’re not doing anything else with your life.

You’re 39 years old when you get another call from that same old friend. This time, he talks about a cruise ship and a hurricane. You had no idea this call would change your life.

You’re 39 years old when you meet Evan Buckley. Buck, the others call him, but not you. Never you. He’s Evan to you, and he’s everything. That thought scares you. This man, you worry, could completely upend your life. For better or worse, you don’t know yet.

You’re 39 years old when you kiss Evan Buckley and change his life. You realize you’re his first relationship with a man, and you pray that he realizes he can do better before you fall too far and things come crashing down.

You’re 39 years old when Evan gets that excited sparkle in his eyes, sitting across from you in his loft’s kitchen after six months of dating. Move in, he says. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a seed of panic blooms. You’ve heard this story before, and you remember how it ends. You’re his first, you can’t be his last.

You’re 39 years old when you walk away from the single greatest thing, greatest person, to have ever happened to you. You broke his heart and shattered your own in the process.

You go home. You ignore the texts from Hen, from Howie, from Eddie. You drink yourself sick, and you cry harder than you ever have before.

What’s a few tears matter now? You’ve already ruined your life.

[emiliagrant]

Buck and Tommy ♡ flirty, kinky and in love

[repressedqueen]

5x17 // 7x10

Denial Besties 🙌

[apdreadful]

Ya’ll… if you are genuinely weirded out by Tommy’s Daddy Issues comment..wtf are you even doing on Tumblr?

And..have you watched like ANY other season with Buck? Because he TOTALLY has Daddy Issues and a praise kink.

And Tommy recognizing that and inferring to Buck that he is on board and ok with both of those? Is PEAK hot boyfriend behavior.

[dgct2]

God, I hope so.

[bisexualbrainrots]

I'm imagining a storyline where, in a post make up world, a family member calls tommy to tell him his dad is dying and is asking to see him.

I imagine him telling buck and feeling conflicted, tommy wants buck to go with him and of course, he accepts. I can see buck looking for advice because he has done something similar for abby and taylor but this is different, and he wants to support tommy the best he can (I can see him going to hen and karen's since they went through something similar).

so, they go to see his father and it starts off better than they expected: tommy's dad isn't behaving like usual and is much more calm, which makes tommy think maybe dying is changing his perspective. but here's the catch: he hasn't met buck yet (only the family has), and when he does every ounce of hope tommy had is destroyed.

he can take being on the receiving end of the insults, the slurs and the poison in his father's words, he can take being called a worthless disappointment. but when his dad tries to go for his evan it becomes the last straw. he doesn't care that the man is bedridden or that he can barely breathe on his own, he just starts screaming at him, telling him every single thought he ever had about him.

he tells him that he's happy and proud of himself because he will never end up miserable like him, that he is and will be loved by the time he dies, unlike him. he holds buck's hand and practically gloats about him to his dad, and finishes by telling him he hopes nobody misses him when he's gone.

and so they leave, and tommy sobs and breaks down in buck's arms by the time they get to his truck. and buck is there for him, whispering comforting words and showering him with love, saying he couldn't be prouder of him.

and when tommy's dad dies they go to the cemetery after the funeral, when nobody's there anymore, holding each other as they stare at the tombstone. it's cathartic, to see that the man is gone, but tommy feels better about it now that he got to say his piece.

and he's glad he didn't have to do this alone.

[femmekarenwilson]

I've seen some people mad at Tommy for making a sex joke while Buck was being vulnerable and if Buck was talking openly about his complicated relationship with his father and Tommy went "so you're going to call me daddy? 😏" then yeah! I'd be mad too but that's not what happened?? BUCK is the one who changed the tone of the conversation by going "so maybe we *both* have Daddy Issues 😏🍷" and Tommy followed his lead like he's not some insensitive sex-crazed gay man; Buck flirted and he flirted back!

[tevanbuckley]

“ppl have a right to be upset about a show sexualising their traumas”

oh grow up. fr as someone who has enough family bs and childhood trauma to last several lifetimes, if you’re so unable to separate out your own shit that you feel genuinely hurt by a pretty tame daddy joke then that is frankly a you problem you need to deal with on your own time.

“this thing made me personally uncomfy because i, personally, have issues.” =/= “this thing is immoral and shouldn’t have been allowed.”

[fireladybuckley]

I can’t believe a boyfriend made a silly sex joke to lighten the mood after both partners had a moment of vulnerability. The audacity. The horror. The normalcy! Unbelievable. How dare a conversation about feelings turn to levity. How dare a couple have a light chat about trauma-related things over dinner that doesn’t turn into an incredibly deep heart to heart instead of a joke and moving on. Unbelievable. I’m never watching this show again! 👎🏻

[911-incorrect-quotes-dispatch]

Buck: So I guess we both have daddy issues, huh? Tommy, in a hurry: I don't have daddy issues. Buck: But you think I do? Tommy: I hope you do. Buck: Sorry to disappoint, but I had a great mother figure in Maddie and a great father figure in Bobby. I do have abandonment issues, though. Buck, smirking: But you denied having daddy issues way too quickly. Tommy, looking around: Because I don't. Buck, tilting his head: C'mon baby, out with it. Tommy, blushing: Fine, I do have daddy issues. Buck: Lucky for you, I can help you with that. Tommy, still blushing: Yeah? Buck: Yes. Let me just get my clipboard while you prepare for your punishment for lying to me.

[isnt-that-wizardd]

y'all acting so upset over a daddy kink being brought up in a CANON RELATIONSHIP with Buck looking PERFECTLY HAPPY ABOUT IT as if we didn't all see that look on Buck's face when Maddie asked him why he had a ring cutter

[thefirstflowers]

at this point you cannot convince me that bucktommy fans aren't experiencing mass hallucinations

like what do you mean ’tommy is buck's last love' 'tommy is buck's one, great love’ ???

where are you people even getting these things from? i know we make stuff up about buddie too, but at least we pull from source material

the only thing that makes tommy different from buck's past love interests is the fact that he's a man. and while, obviously, buck realizing he's bi and getting to be more fully himself is a good thing, it doesn’t change the fact that being with tommy means that he’s still stuck on that hamster wheel. you know, the one where he throws himself fully into a relationship and gives it his all, and the other person just doesn’t match that

i can’t comprehend the lack of media literacy you have to have not to see what the writers are doing when they have tommy leave buck on the side of the road after their first date or not bother to follow the theme for the batchelor party

and you like to justify his actions by saying he's older and more mature, but at what point do you becaome too old to put a little effort in to make your partner happy?

he certainly had no problem putting in the effort when it came to eddie..

[repressedqueen]

okay, our boy has impeccable taste in men....

[hardly-an-escape]

personally EYE don't headcanon Buck as ever having had a crush on Bobby. it doesn't bother me, I just don't read their dynamic that way.

BUT I do firmly believe that TOMMY had a huge thing for Bobby when he first took command of the 118. young closeted Tommy? fighting his silent battles and dealing with the fallout of years of Gerrard? stoic competent Bobby? clearly with some darkness to him, clearly warring with his own demons?

part of the reason Tommy transferred was because he wanted to fly again, sure, but part of it was also because he had the hots something bad for his captain. because he couldn't help but hope think that maybe Bobby's demons were similar to his own. and he was just never going to be fully comfortable at the 118 when he was imagining Bobby Nash naked every five minutes. you can't convince me otherwise.

[llama911refugee]

Another opinion from a gay man.

Some fans acting like the daddy issues line killed their grandma is insane but also the other side acting like it threw the first brick at stonewall and gave us gay rights is just as dumb.

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact that the buck tommy relationship wasn't given the screen time it deserved and what little we get, we scrutinized too much.

Daddy issues doesn't mean you have a daddy kink, but fandom won't admit that that's exactly what Buck is gonna be reduced to from now on. He never escapes the hypersexualization even in a new ship. Which is ironic since Tommy is the one who keeps mentioning how bad his dad was and how Gerard was just as bad and that he's jealous of Buck's relationship with Bobby. The one with the daddy issues is Tommy.

[perfectlysunny02]

Several Sentence Sunday

here’s an excerpt from my new work you can’t heal something you never raised

Buck gets a text from his father every third Sunday in the month of July. It never fails to come in around 1230. His parents don’t text, and if they do, it’s never to him. He’s not even sure how his father got his number. He never opens it. He knows how it starts though.

Dear Son. I hope- Buck hopes he chokes to death before he ever finds out what his father hopes. There’s an unspoken agreement that they don’t mention the texts. Buck doesn’t acknowledge that his father sent it, and Phillip doesn’t ask if Buck got it.

“Your dad texted,” Tommy tells him as he’s making lunch. “You want me to look?”

“I know,” he says, not pausing the chopping of vegetables. He’s trying to make chicken. He doesn’t have time. He won’t read it anyway. He never does. “Just leave it.”

He thinks about how the texts started, he thinks about crying so hard he thought he was going to throw up. He thinks about “Daddy, why won’t you love me?” He thinks about “Oh Evan, I do. I do love you.” He thinks about how he hasn’t heard his father utter those words since. He thinks he hates him.

tagging: @actuallyitsellie @tevankinkley @tiltingheartand @whatisreggieshortfor @mayorjack @theotherbuckley @diazsdimples @desert--moonchild @son-heir @sunset-bobby @sunnywiththestars @raethethey @between-two-fandoms @kinard-buckley @ciinnddinn @clandestine-j @cinderellarhea @evnnkinard @geniusjester @kinardsevan @kinardiaz @layyourarmourdown @limoreaulover @mintedwitcher @notnowtobey @obsessivebisexual4tevan @runicnotation @racerchix21 @twopercentboy @smaeemo @asraindarkness