#like Buck baby he’s not it

[motherfracker]

I am at this moment a little disappointed with this finale. My main issue being that the wrapping of all the storylines was just so rushed, predictable, or underwhelming. And I get it, it was a shortened season, they had less time to write and film than they normally would. But it didn’t hit the way I would have hoped, or in the way press kept hyping it up.

Like it does set up some interesting things for season 8, and I’m still invested to see what happens with the 118. But season 7 came out the gate so strong with the cruise arc, and then week after week it fell flatter and flatter. And I think with the cruise they bit off more than they could chew in order to get it done that the rest of the season and ultimately the finale suffered.

And don’t get me wrong, there were some great moments in season 7, and Bobby’s episode is still one of my favourites. But yeah, just a little let down by this conclusion.

If I could get a rewrite fic for this season that would be great!

[pikapitou]

buddie emergency blood transfusion in the field and the daniel and connor+kameron of it all. buck would be soooo relieved if his blood could flow right into eddies body. it would be like. completeness. making up for everything his body ever failed to do by using it to save eddie. and eddie would lie there the whole time gritting his teeth thinking things like "your body isn't just pieces to give away". when buck finally notices he's gonna be like "are you... MAD at me right now??? you'd do the same fucking thing for me!" and eddie delirious from blood loss still has it in him to spit, "I'd do it for you. you'd die for fucking anyone" and then he'd pass out so buck gets to sit there and think about that all alone.

[alchemistc]

i present my latest offering of an au first meeting: the poker game.

Big Blind

Tommy's been on plenty of bad dates in his time, but this one might actually take the cake for worst first date he's ever had. They're just -- not right for one another, and it's clear they can both feel it, but for some reason Jeff just -- keeps talking. About his border collie rescue, and his sixth fourteener (this year), and the his upcoming promotion and the Cybertruck he's thinking about getting wrapped in matte black --

"Jeff," Tommy cuts in, when he starts in on Tesla stock talk. "I'm gonna pay the check and head out. It's been..." he gestures. Considers calling Stout right here at the dinner table to tell him no more blind dates with his stock broker brother-in-laws friends, no matter how gay they are.

He's gonna get shit from Stout's wife the next time she stops by with a casserole, but honestly a half-hour tirade on politeness from Heather Alexandra Stout sounds better than learning how much of an Elon Musk fanboy Jeff really is. Jeff looks like he might be offended by the implication that he wouldn't have paid, but Tommy's already waving down his server and gesturing to the bar by the time Jeff even thinks to reach for his wallet.

"You have a good night."

Andrea slides his check under his elbow with a raised brow and doesn't say a word when he hands her his card immediately, but he can tell she's judging him. Third date in a month he's barely contained his disdain for long enough to pay up, although this is the first he's outright ditched before the bill was even paid.

Gary slides a beer across the bar to him and refuses the cash Tommy tries to give him for it. "Do I look that pathetic, Gary?"

Man of few words, Gary just taps his nose and tips his chin to his date, who is doing a terrible job of trying to sneak out the door.

"You're too good for him, anyway," says Andrea, back already with his card. He tucks an extra twenty into her folder and downs the beer in silence while they watch through the window as Jeff seems to get into an argument with the Uber pulling up in front of the restaurant.

"Maybe it's me," Tommy says, and Gary hums in commiseration. Or maybe he just has gas. "Maybe I'm the problem."

It's been a string of bad dates, and before that a relationship that'd gone up in metaphorical but nearly literal flames. Tommy's spent a lot of introspective time wishing he could kill Gerrard with lasers so that he doesn't have to blame himself for staying in the closet so long that blind dates and Grindr meetups were his real introduction to the dating scene.

"Someday, Tommy, you'll meet someone who can't get enough of your morbid humor and your pessimism and your obsession with haunted cars."

"One car," Tommy argues, although that's beside the point. "I think maybe I should give the search for love a break, Gary."

Gary hums, again.

Tommy drinks the rest of his beer in companionable silence and pulls up his phone to order an Uber himself. Jeff is, thankfully, long gone, and Tommy's halfway through confirming his home address when he remembers the invite he'd received last week that he'd hesitated scheduling a date around. He shoots off a text instead, and updates the address before he slides from the bar stool.

Gary shoots him a look. "Headed home?"

Tommy shifts on his feet. Shoots a look behind the bar. "Nah. Gonna try to hit up a work thing. Pour me a shot of Tullamore for the road?"

Gary accepts the twenty this time and doesn't make a comment about the way Tommy downs a sipping whiskey, which Tommy appreciates.

He's halfway to his destination, enjoying the chat with his driver, when the text comes in from Lucy.

Had to bail, but you should go if the date went that badly. Williams will enjoy slowly ruining the remainder of your night.

Tommy taps his phone once, twice, three times before he makes up his mind not to be the asshole who changes his destination halfway through the ride. Worst comes to worst, he'll tap out early and Venmo Mehta the rest of his stake.

Better than moping at home with the pint of freezer-burned Ben and Jerry's.

-----

He's fairly rushed down the stairs once he's in, because apparently Williams is on some sort of time crunch, or something, and he's fairly certain the drinks are catching up to him as he takes in the table. Mehta and Wilson are regulars, and he's seen Rosen around, but there are two new guys settling in across the table and Tommy has to take a long, long moment to remind himself this is technically a professional setting before he can look too closely at either one of them.

Yeah. Shit, he'd definitely drank most of that second pitcher by himself, listening to Jeff talk.

"Kinard. We weren't expecting you." Rosen's eyes glimmer with amusement. He'd caught maybe six months of her probationary year, but every time she sees him she likes to remind him of the first time she'd seen him post-transfer, at a gay bar in WeHo, and introduced him to the first guy he'd dated seriously in his entire life. Tommy returns the favor by reminding her exactly how terribly that had ended for all parties. "Poker night dress code usually includes more buttons than date night," she jabs, finger circling the olives in her martini glass, and Tommy contemplates tossing one of Mehta's chips at her. Her grin goes wide.

With the momentary distraction, Tommy feels a little more prepared to face the two men now eyeing him curiously.

"Tommy," he says, leaning over the table, hand out to shake. Turtleneck raises a curious eyebrow when Mr. Red Velvet Smoking jacket practically leaps across his lap to shake back. "I'm over at 217."

"This is Eddie," Red Velvet introduces, and Tommy's gaze dances between them, curious. "I'm Evan. We're with the -- wait, 217 -- Chimney's Tommy?"

Tommy's brows dance up the same time as Eddie's do. He is still shaking hands with Evan. Or - holding is more accurate, he supposes, but for the sake of his sanity and the possible date Evan and Eddie are on, if he's reading the introduction or any of the vibes right (they're both stunning and Tommy is smarting from another shitty date, so who knows), Tommy keeps it to shake in his mind. "Well I don't think Howie can claim ownership of my person, but -."

"Sorry, no, I just meant..." Evan's gaze drops to their clasped hands, still now over the felt of the poker table. He gives one more firm pump and drops Tommy's hand. "We're both at the 118. Pretty sure you helped save this guy's ass once." He tips a thumb sideways to indicate the man he'd introduced as Eddie.

Tommy's eyes drift. He's had a few drinks, and up until about halfway through the date he'd been expecting a very different outcome for his night, so he's maybe not keeping a lid on things the way he normally would in a work setting. He's guessing the ass he's purported to have saved would look great, if it weren't firmly planted in his chair and out of view. The rest of the view ain't bad, either.

And.

Shit.

Williams is giving him a look, which means he's not being even a little subtle. "The gas main explosion," Tommy finally gathers from the cobwebs of his brain, and wouldn't it be his luck to transfer out of the 118 just in time for two annoyingly attractive men who may possibly be boning each other to take his place.

Evan grins. Beams, more like, and Tommy slides firmly into his own chair and tries not to be blinded by it. Or entranced by it. God he needs to get laid. Get this - whatever this is - out of his system.

Tommy's cool. Tommy's calm and collected and he hadn't even had that much to drink, actually, so why is he having such a hard time behaving like he's had forty years of experience dealing with attractive men?

Tommy sorts through the memories.

Eddie he can pinpoint fairly easily -- he'd shot off a message to Chim the moment they'd learned one of the 118 had been shot, and had been happy to break the news of his recovery to an anxious Harbor station in the tense days after it had all gone down. Evan, though - he doesn't have a clue who that could be. He's still got a few buddies from B Shift he talks to on occasion, but he doesn't remember any stories about an Evan from them, and Howie hasn't mentioned one, either.

Of course, it's not like either one of them does a great job of keeping in touch.

The mystery is solved a moment later when Williams tips her head at him. "Feels like we're being overrun by the 118 tonight," she says with a grin, but her gaze slides to Evan, rather than Tommy. "And we've got an honest-to-goodness legend tonight."

"You know I still can't believe you survived that, Buckley," Mehta says, and the puzzle piece slots itself into place. "Uh, although we're all glad that you did."

Buckley. Tommy shifts. Reassesses. Eyes the glance between Diaz and Buckley like he's gonna figure out their deal while he's already four and a half drinks deep into the night and hasn't already heard the larger than life tales of this duo from half-a-dozen gossipy paramedics. According to some, there's a secret torrid love affair going on behind the scenes of their codependent friendship. According to others, the ones he more or less trusts not to stretch the truth too far, they're friends -- closer than most, and maybe a little weird about each other, but friends all the same.

Buckley's a shark. Or, if Williams is to be believed, a bit of a cheat.

As the game goes on, and the conversation drifts from the morbid details of Buckley's three-minutes-seventeen-seconds of lifelessness, past the special skills near death experiences are rumored to cause, past the time out where they'd all admired the pictures of Buckley's Lichtenburg scars ("They faded pretty quickly," Evan says, with a soft little frown like he's a bit disappointed not to have any physical proof beyond a few shots of his naked brick shithouse of a chest.) Tommy can't help but admire the shift from bashful to smirking and smug as Evan keeps racking up monumentally improbable hands. He's a bit of a brat, actually, and Tommy can feel Rosen's eyes burning into the side of his head every time he ups the ante just to watch the flicker of triumph aimed in his direction every time Evan wins a hand Tommy raised.

Tommy's no slob with cards, on a normal day, but he's too busy trying not to read anything into the way Evan's eyes keep drifting to the v of the shirt he hadn't buttoned back up just to spite Rosen, or the way he keeps licking his fucking lips every time Tommy takes a sip of the whiskey at his elbow to really care as his chips dwindle to nothing. Tommy can't be entirely sure, but it seems like maybe Evan pouts, a little, when Tommy pushes back from the table to join the rest of the losers crowded around to watch Williams, Mehta and Buckley battle it out.

He's trying to think of a subtle way to ask Howie if Evan Buckley is just like that with all the men in his life when Eddie slides in beside him with a refill on his whiskey. Tommy grimaces. "I shouldn't."

"Thought you were trying to drink away a bad date?"

Tommy shoots Rosen a glare over Eddie's shoulder, but she's too busy chasing her straw with her tongue to notice.

"He was a Tesla fanboy," Tommy intones, and the braces himself for the reaction. He's used to it, now -- the constant cycle of coming out and waiting to see which new acquaintances bow out of getting to know each other any better. This is... earlier, than he usually drops it, but he hasn't been in the mood to lie about it in years, and Eddie had asked. He gets a raised brow and a grimace.

"Don't tell me you didn't know ahead of time," Eddie says, and Tommy loosens the grip on his glass.

"Hazards of blind dating."

Eddie's look is commiserating. He tips his beer bottle against Tommy's rocks glass. "Yeah, my tia keeps finding reasons for me to run into the eligible daughters and granddaughters of all her friends." Which Tommy supposes is answer to half of the question that's been plaguing him since he sat down.

Buckley gets cocky a few times, but it's clear the night is going his way even before Jeshan Mehta's pot gets swept up in Evan's arms. Williams holds out as long as she can.

"Beginner's luck!" Buckley crows, when Williams' last chip is added to his pile. Eddie's been supplying him with a steady flow of drinks for the past thirty minutes, and his smile is crooked as he tilts backwards in his chair for a fist bump. His eyes flick to Tommy's once he's received his congratulations from Eddie, and Tommy pretends he's not a little bit fascinated by the pull of his jacket over his arms, or the way his closed hand lingers near Tommy's even after Tommy has smacked his knuckles against his as well.

Evan Buckley is frustratingly adorable. Tommy's had too many drinks for any kind of decent decision making. He bows out while Evan and Eddie are collecting his winnings.

-----

Tommy's eyes flick to the readout on his phone. He doesn't recognize the number, but it's a local area code, so he picks up on the forth ring. "Go for Kinard."

"Uh - hey, hi. Hey Tommy." The voice is familiar, sweet and low. "It's Buck - Evan. Evan Buckley. I uh -- I got your number from Chim, I hope that's alright?"

Tommy's got a solid fifteen minutes before he has to leave for work, a raging headache that has thus far refused to accept electrolytes or Advil as tribute to his overindulgence the previous evening, and a full understanding that he's going to spend his shift listening to Donato swear up and down she's the better option for finding him a man, but the voice on the other end of his phone might at least give the headache a run for it's money.

"Evan. Hi."

"Hey. So -- you dipped before I could ask -- which is fine, obviously, I'm not -- uh..." He pauses. Tommy can practically picture the way he wets his lower lip while he searches for the right words. "Anyway I was wondering -- would you maybe wanna grab a beer, sometime?"

Tommy spends about fifteen seconds rearranging his entire schedule in his mind. Says, cool, calm, collected: "Sure. When are you free?"

Evan's voice goes distant for a second -- he's putting Tommy on speaker. "I, uh -- I didn't expect you to say yes so quickly. Actually I didn't expect you to answer -- who answers unknown numbers, anymore?"

"Who calls expecting to get sent to voicemail?"

The brat rises up immediately. "Uh, literally everyone. The missed call is just an excuse to text. It's basic phone etiquette, Tommy."

Tommy likes the way he says his name. Soft, sweet and slow, rolling over his tongue like molasses. This feels incredibly like flirting, but he can't get a fucking read on this kid. "Clearly I've missed out on an important cultural shift. I can hang up and we can do this the right way, if you want."

"No!" It's sharp -- louder, like he's raising the phone back towards his mouth. Tommy can't hide the grin leaking across his face. "Uh -- no, it's fine. Too late, anyway, I already know you don't know phone rules."

"Hopefully that doesn't change your opinion of me too much."

"I could be convinced to ignore it, with the right incentive."

"I'll buy first round," Tommy says, and wonders if he's got any other shirts he can play off as fitting better with three buttons undone. The flirting should be enough, but -- Tommy's still not sure drinks isn't just drinks.

"Wednesday night," Evan says, voice further away again. Tommy has a sudden, desperate urge to see what his Google calendar looks like. For all that he'd cut loose at the poker game, Tommy bets it's color coded by type of activity. "If that works. Or Saturday, any time, really. I'm uh -- I'm free then."

If Tommy bows out of trivia on classic car week Cynthia will have a whole ass bitch fit. And it makes him seem a little less eager, to boot. "Saturday. I've got a shift early Sunday, though, so maybe something in the afternoon?"

"Yeah -- yes, th-that works." The stammering isn't something Tommy can get a read off of. He'd done it just as much with Eddie as he'd done with everyone else. "There's a new brewery just off Pico and Prosser -- Chim said you were a fan of craft beer?"

Sounding more date like by the minute, but -- some guys toe the line. Could be Evan Buckley just wants to know more about flight operations, for all Tommy knows. "Text me the details. Look, Evan, I'd love to stay on this rule-breaking phone call and chat but I've got to head in for a shift. Just -- let me know the plan." He's got five minutes to brush his teeth and rue the moment he'd asked Gary for his first whiskey of the night. He's also rolling back his last few sentences and cringing at how abrupt he'd been. "And yeah -- good to know Chim hasn't forgotten the three facts I ever told him about me."

Evan laughs, just a soft little huff but Tommy already knows the grin behind that sound is all sorts of knee-meltingly sweet. "Cool. So. Yeah, I'll text you."

"I'll talk to you later, Evan."

"Yep. Talk to you -- talk to you soon."

Tommy waits a moment in silence. The call doesn't end. "Goodbye, Evan."

Evan huffs out another awkward laugh. "Yeah. Bye, Tommy."

The call disconnects just in time for Tommy to press his forehead into the cool tile beside his bathroom mirror. He might be monumentally screwed if this isn't a date. He hasn't been this fucking charmed by a man since -- well, it's been a while.

Tommy's phone buzzes in his hand. It's a pinned address from a number he doesn't have saved. Tommy swipes into the contact and updates it before the next text makes it through. Saturday 3PM?

Tommy brushes his teeth, downs the rest of his preworkout in the hopes that it'll ease some of the nastier parts of his stupid decision to keep drinking liquor past midnight, and stares at the text all the way out to his truck.

See you then, Tommy sends back, and he has to toss his phone into his passenger seat when he gets a series of incomprehensible emoji's almost immediately in response.

He holds up a hand to Donato the moment she catches his gaze, halfway across the parking lot. The brow goes up, the hand slots to her hip, and she rolls her tongue over her teeth, clearly ready for her speech about how Stout doesn't have a clue how to find Tommy a proper date. Tommy has other problems.

"You worked with Evan Buckley, for a while, didn't you?"

Her head tilt rights itself. The second brow dances up to meet the first. Whatever she'd meant to say disperses behind her eyelids as she seems to work through something in her mind. "Oh, this is compelling," she says, and practically skips forward to loop her arm in his.

[jdorian]

can't stop thinking about how that whole situation must've been bonkers from Tommy's pov

like, there is this dude so imprinted on you that he hangs out with you 3 days a week, while you both have differing schedules and do 24-hour shifts — oh and supposedly he also has a girlfriend.

and then his boy best friend asks you for a tour at your station and flirts with you, and then he shows up anywhere where he can get you and ends up bodyclocking his bestie like a preteen boy, which you'd think was to punish him, but you later find out that it was a subconscious attempt to get him out of the competition.

that's not mentioning the fact that the guy imprinted on you also introduced you to his son, who is incredibly fond of the other guy and won't shut up about him.

and then you worry that you came between these two friends, so you go see the one who is clearly more upset, to reassure him that's not what's happening, only to find out that he was actually crushing on you this whole time and he is also just realising this as he's telling it to you.

can you imagine the spin all that gave to Tommy's head??

[watchyourbuck]

Buck saying awkward ‘ally’ stuff during his first date with a man is the most recently-awoken-queer-coded thing ever and I’m gonna start screaming

[carnevol]

that smitten little smile is everything 💕

[epiphainie]

do yall sometimes think about how buck has a boyfriend who shows up for him after fighting a wildfire the entire day just bc buck asked him to

[fleabagdiaz]

ALSO CAN WE GET THIS GUY A BABY PLEASSEEE . this is one of my number one ☝️reasons that buddie needs to happen expeditiously rather than having seasons of explicitly canonical pining. bc buck needs a baby. his biological clock is tickinggg it’s going crazyyy his baby fever is insane!!! literally episode one he was holding a baby and muttering sweet gentle encouraging words to it. and this is when he was a shitty frat bro!!!! like the narrative wants him to have a baby so bad and yet. he is BARREN. there are two children in the world who are his but aren’t his. can you imagine the torment????? for a man who wants so badly to be a parent?????? let him have a baby!!!!!!!!!!

[stevethehairington]

u know what. buck has canonically called maddie mads and abby abs so i really think it is about damn time we get an eds up in this bitch.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

rewatching with the benefit of distance from the actual viewing - it really is so loud at how much tommy treats buck like a child - like literally every single interaction they have in 805 is like a parent talking to a child.

Combined with the shows decision to have Tommy call Buck 'Evan' all the time, feels like they're really trying to convey that this is the relationship equivalent of Buck's childhood and young adulthood - before he became Buck. When he was figuring out his place in the world and who he wanted to be. Its very much feeling like in combination its leading up to him getting to the same place in his bisexuality as when he started at the LAFD academy and changed his name to Buck - that he will make the choice from a bisexual perspective to become Buck and leave Evan behind once more.

[panevanbuckley]

you ever just remember how buck thought eddie got shot by a criminal and ran straight out to him, no protection, no nothing. like he really just ran out towards an armed criminal that he thought just shot eddie with nothing on him. eddie's safety really is just the one thought that resides in his head

[autisticbucktommy]

i love how neither tommy nor eddie blame buck for anything he does in episode 4 & 5 they’re like shhhh babygirl you’ve done nothing wrong in your life ever.

[thatsrightice]

[Gale Cleven] was set to leave for the States on the eighth of May. The men resolved that they had to give him something to take back with him, something from them. From the Squadron. They rustled around the shops of Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich and finally they got what they wanted. One night they lured him into coming up into Barracks 9. When he entered he found that most of the old crowd had assembled in the packed barracks. Larry Bowa, who knew him probably the best of anyone there, made his speech. They led him over to uncover the silver service they had pooled their pounds to buy. It was a beauty and on the bottom they had had engraved the words

"To Gale W. Cleven from the 350th Bomb Squadron."

They had something else for him, too. A chromatic watch. They almost didn't get the chance to give it to him. Cleven stood there, looking down at the silver service, trying not to let it come. But come it did anyway. He turned around and he was crying—not just tears in the eyes—but crying right out! He tried to grin.

"I'm just a baby," he said thickly and stumbled out of the barracks into the night. The men looked at each other helplessly. There's something terrible about a man's tears. Even tears of joy. They stood silently and felt helpless in the middle of the barracks and didn't know what to do next. Finally someone came to and they cautiously decided to give the Major his watch, too, and get it all over with. Then, they figured, he could have a good cry. So someone went out—I think it was his "little chum," Major Varian—and got hold of him and brought him back. They gave him the watch. He couldn't say anything. Just stood there with his watch in his hand, looking dumbly grateful. He turned and fled the barracks, going down the road in the drizzle alone, without a raincoat. He was gone for hours.

—Jack Sheridan in his book, They Never Had It So Good: The Personal, Unofficial Story of the 350th Bombardment Squadron (H), 100th Bombardment Group (H) USAAF, 1942-1945

[bibewilderedandbuck]

First time they say ‘boyfriend’ this or ‘my hot pilot’ that. What about the crew finding out tommy and buck fucked bc he thinks he cant donate blood?

Only the worker at the drive tells him that the only criteria for Not being able to donate in California is: close contact/lived with someone with hepatitis in the last three months, having tested positive for HIV, or undergone dental surgery in the last 72 hours.

Everyone looks at Buck expectantly and he nods holding out his arm. “Can’t believe i just told everyone that we had sex.” He doesn’t look the slighted bit ashamed.

Tommy slaps a hand on Buck’s shoulder and eyes the clearly visible hickeys that go from his ear to under his collar. “I think they already knew, babe.”

[postheist]

i just think the first time buck sees tommy carry both their kids at the same time, like one in each arm style, he immediately is thinking about having a third. personally

[lover-of-mine]

Buck and Buck Begins explaining the chain of events that led to the lawsuit.