#shush emma

[clusterbuck]

i hope this doesn’t need to be said but just in case

you might have seen people talking about sudowrite and/or their tool storyengine recently

and just like… don’t. don’t do it. don’t try it out just to see what it’s about.

for two main reasons:

1) never feed anything proprietary into a large language model (LLM, eg ChatGPT, google bard, etc.).

this means don’t give it private company information when you’re at work, but also don’t give it your original writing. that’s your work.

because of the way these language models work, anything you feed into it is part of it now. and yeah, the FAQ says they “don’t claim ownership” over anything and yeah, they give you that reassuring bullshit about how unlikely it is that the exact same sentence will be reconstructed—

but that’s not the point.

do you have an unusual way of constructing sentences? a metaphor you like to use? a writing tic that sets you apart from the rest? anything that gives you a unique writing voice?

feed your writing into an LLM, and the model has your voice now. the model can generate text that sounds like it was written by you and someone else can claim it’s theirs because they gave the model a prompt.

don’t feed the model.

2) the other reason is that sudowrite scraped a bunch of omegaverse fic without consent to build their model and that’s a really shitty thing to do, because it means people weren’t given the chance to choose whether or not to feed the model.

don’t feed the model.

[clusterbuck]

everyone stop scrolling for a second and take a hand snail break i cannot express the amount of joy it brings

[clusterbuck]

this came to me in a dream

One week after Tommy kissed him, Buck walks into the firehouse to find Hen waiting for him. She smiles as he walks into the locker room, and turns a small brown paper bag over in her hands. 

“How are you?” she asks. “You know, since—” she gestures, and Buck’s not entirely sure which part of him it’s meant to cover.

He blinks, and it must have something of a deer-in-the-headlights quality to it, because Hen laughs.

“Not a pop quiz, Buck,” she says, gentle, something softening in her eyes. “Just checking in.” 

Buck drops the tension he hadn’t quite intended to gather in his shoulders and lets the shy beginnings of a smile spread across his face. “I’m good. I—we went out on Saturday, and it was—”

“Good?” Hen asks, and Buck laughs, heat flashing across his cheekbones.

He ducks his head, instinctively trying to hide it, then straightens his spine and grins so wide his flushed cheeks hurt. “It was really good,” he says. “And I’ve been reading a lot, you know, other people who came out, uh, later in life—”

“Yeah, you’re ancient,” Hen says.

Buck rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” Hen says. “And every journey is—”

“Different, yeah,” Buck says. “I’m starting to get that. Turns out there’s a lot of—” he swallows. “There’s a lot of us out there.” He only wavers a little on the word us. “Anyway, so I’ve been reading, and I guess I’ve been telling Maddie about it a lot because she said the other day that I came flying out of the closet, so—”

Hen snorts. “That tracks.” 

“It’s—I feel good, Hen. Good in a way I didn’t know I could.” 

“I’m glad,” Hen says, soft. She looks down at her hands, seems to remember the paper bag she’s holding. “I have something for you,” she says, offering it to him.

Buck opens the bag and pulls out a square piece of cardboard. Stuck to it is an enamel pin, barely two inches across, the colours of the bisexual flag bending into the arc of a rainbow.

“You don’t have to—I don’t know how you feel about, you know, telling people,” Hen says. “But I remember what it felt like to wear a pride flag for the first time. I wanted to—”

Buck looks up at her, blinking through the tears welling up in eyes.

“Thank you,” he says, barely above a whisper.

Hen smiles. “It’s not regulation uniform, but—”

But Buck pins it to his jacket before changing into his uniform, and for the rest of the shift the thought of it waiting in his locker glows warm in his chest. 

[clusterbuck]

just a boys’ game

7x04 coda (silly version) | based on my tags on this gifset by @whattarush

“Have you talked to your brother lately?” 

Maddie looks up from the tower of blocks she’s been building with Jee-Yun. Chimney’s leaning against the door way, gym bag slung over one shoulder and a hint of sweat still glistening on his skin.

She frowns. “Just the other day. Why?” 

“Did you know about the basketball?” 

“Oh, the part where he was jealous that Eddie and Tommy are spending time together doing something he doesn’t even like?” she asks.

Chimney points an accusatory finger at her. “So you did know! Why didn’t you warn me?” 

“Warn you about—” she looks at him again, at the gym bag bulging suspiciously. Much like it would if it contained, say, a basketball. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Chimney says, finally walking all the way into the living room. He sits on the other side of the pile of blocks and leans back on his hands. “He used me, Maddie. As a basketball beard.” 

“Pretty sure that’s not a real thing,” she says, and Chimney sighs, dramatic and long-suffering.

“Basketball beard,” he says. “Noun. When you tell someone you want to play basketball with them, but you actually just want to use them as a cover to be where someone else is.” 

“Is that how words work?” Maddie asks, grinning, and Chimney looks affronted.

“Words work however I want them to work,” he says. “Just ask Shakespeare, he made half that shit up.” 

Maddie hums, a laugh nearly breaking through it. “Shakespeare, got it.”

“Oh, you should have seen it,” Chimney says, and accepts a block that Jee-Yun hands him. “Here? No?” he asks, and Jee-Yun sighs, just as dramatic as he had a moment ago, and takes the block back.

“That bad?” Maddie winces.

“I haven’t seen him act this embarrassing since—” Chimney narrows his eyes. “Since Eddie joined the 118.” 

Maddie snorts. “Well, that tracks.” 

“What do you—” Chimney’s eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says slowly. “Oh, I see.” 

“Right? I’m not just imagining this?” Maddie asks. “You should have heard him going on about Eddie and Tommy the other day. Has this been under our noses the whole time?” 

“I mean, it hasn’t been that long,” Chimney says. 

Maddie frowns. “What do you mean?” 

Chimney frowns, too. “What do you mean?” 

“Did something change recently?” Maddie asks. 

Chimney’s brows draw further together. “Okay, back up. Start from the beginning. What are you thinking?”

“Okay, so, Buck and Eddie and Tommy all met for the first time a couple of weeks ago when you went after Bobby and Athena,” Maddie says, counting it on a finger. “Eddie and Tommy started spending time together.” Another finger.

“With you so far,” Chimney says. “Honestly, makes sense they’d get along. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”

Maddie holds up another finger. “The other day, Buck was sitting at our kitchen table talking my ear off about Tommy this and Tommy that and how even Christopher thinks Tommy is so cool.” 

“Still following,” Chimney confirms.

“Buck tricked you into going to a pickup basketball he’s been dodging for years, because Eddie would be there with Tommy.” 

“Yeah,” Chimney says. “Because he’s jealous.” 

“Exactly,” Maddie says. “Jealous of—”

“—Eddie,” Chimney fills in, just as Maddie finishes her sentence. 

“—Tommy.” 

Chimney blinks. “You think—”

“Well, I did,” Maddie says, “But actually—”

“No, no, I think you’re onto something,” Chimney says. “He and Eddie have always been weirdly attached at the hip.”

“But he has been talking about Tommy an awful lot,” Maddie says. “It’s suspicious. You know he went to tour the helicopters the other day?” 

“Bet on it?” Chimney asks.

Maddie grins. “You’re on.” 

[clusterbuck]

honestly people who criticise heartstopper for being ~sexless~ are so boring

like aside from the fact that they’re 15/16 and it’s completely fine to take a while to work up towards having sex at that age (or any age! or to never have it!)

look at the incredible diversity of experiences that’s being portrayed, including ones that are very rarely seen — a trans main character whose main arc isn’t about being trans. an aroace character. a boy with an eating disorder, usually a heavily female-coded thing in media.

all of this and so much more, portrayed incredibly compassionately and respectfully, and you’re gonna complain that the children on your screen aren’t fucking? BORING

[clusterbuck]

—mary oliver

[clusterbuck]

my heart is working overtime

7x04 coda

Tommy kissed him.

Tommy—

A sound escapes him, soft but bright, and it takes him a moment to realise it’s a laugh.

Tommy kissed him, and five minutes after Tommy left for his shift and let the door swing slowly shut, Buck is still standing in the same spot full of wondrous laughter about it, because—

Tommy kissed him.

Buck fights the urge to reach up and touch his mouth, then realises there’s no one here to judge him and lets his fingertips trace the outline of his lips, committing to memory the feeling of Tommy’s mouth pressed against his. The scrape of Tommy’s stubble against his skin, the pressure of his fingers on his jaw—

Only—he doesn’t have to strain to preserve the memory, because he gets to do it again. On Saturday, when Tommy takes him on a date.

The laugh bubbles out of him again, wild and free, and he doesn’t know what to do with limbs. He doesn’t know how to settle in his skin, to be the same person he was before Tommy knocked on his door. 

He doesn’t know if he is the same person he was before Tommy knocked on his door. If maybe being kissed like that changed something fundamental about him.

But then he remembers being thirteen years old, and the fierce burning in his chest when his best friend Johnny got his first girlfriend. He’d known, even then, that he wasn’t supposed to want Johnny to dump the girl and hang out with him instead, but Buck is starting to suspect he hadn’t know why he wanted that. 

He remembers it happening again in high school, and again and again, so—

Maybe he is the same person he’s always been, only now he has all the information. 

Buck’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to find a text from Tommy. Saturday. Don’t forget.

He stumbles over to the sofa and sits down, a grin creeping across his face all over again. Not a chance, he sends back, and sits there clutching his phone and staring into space, hoping that Tommy texts back. Terrified that Tommy will text back, because what if he doesn’t know what to say?

His grin fades. God, they’re going on a date. He’s going to have to know what to say. 

The thought rises slowly. Just the hint of an idea at first, like a whale brushing the surface before it breaches, and then it crashes down on him with all the force of a blue whale.

What if he doesn’t know what to do? 

What if he’s not good at it?

He’s only ever dated women before. He doesn’t know if he’d say he’s good at it—if it’s the kind of thing you can ever really be good at—but he knows how to do it, knows what’s expected on a first date with a woman.

What if dating a man is—different, somehow? What if there’s something he’s expected to know?

And buried under all of these questions, the real one he doesn’t want to look at head on: what if he has no game when it comes to men?

Because Tommy is—Tommy is cool, like he’d just spent all week complaining to Maddie about. Even if he hadn’t quite known how much he’d meant it until Tommy tilted his chin up and slipped the puzzle pieces into place.

Tommy flies helicopters to Vegas for one night, and to the middle of the ocean when his friends ask for it. Tommy plays basketball like he’s possessed by the spirit of James Naismith himself, and he kisses like he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

Whereas Buck tied himself in knots tight enough to nearly break Eddie’s leg because he couldn’t deal with how pretty Tommy looks with that fucking smile on his face, then word-vomited about just wanting to get to know him.

He’s not sure that counts as game.

He reaches for his phone again, then freezes halfway through his contacts when he realises he can’t call anyone to talk through this.

Maddie would kill him for telling her something like this over the phone. For—coming out, he supposes, trying the words on for size. That’s something he does now. As—

He hadn’t really stopped to consider it until now. 

Bisexual, he thinks, experimental, and it settles somewhere deep inside of him, like there’s been a space waiting for it all along.

“I’m bisexual,” he says to the empty apartment, and he’s proud of the way his voice doesn’t shake. The apartment doesn’t answer, of course, but it doesn’t matter. Buck knows.

And he’s going to tell Maddie. He wants to tell Maddie, and soon. But he doesn’t want to do it over the phone. 

He can’t call Hen, either, even though as soon as the thought occurs to him there’s nothing he wants to do more. He wants to call Hen and ask if she’d know, somehow, if she’d seen something in him he hadn’t yet known how to see. 

But if he does, Hen will call Chimney, and he’s back to Maddie again.

And Eddie—

On any other day, Eddie would be his first port of call. But he can’t, not when Eddie is, allegedly, high on painkillers.

Not before he’s apologised for his behaviour on the basketball court. 

Not before he’s explained himself—

Though something in him twists at the thought of going to Eddie and laying this all out for him. At the thought of telling Eddie that he’d kissed Tommy, and that he wants to do it again. 

Eddie’s his best friend. Surely he wouldn’t—

Buck isn’t even sure what he’s afraid of. That Eddie would have a problem with him dating a man? That Eddie would have a problem with him dating Tommy, as if he’s trying to steal him away?

Neither seems like a likely scenario when he thinks about it with his rational brain, but he tries to imagine telling Eddie about his date on Saturday and feels like his heart drops into his stomach all the same. 

He’ll tell Eddie after, when he knows how it went. Maybe that’s the thing he’s worried about—telling Eddie, and then having to admit come Monday morning that the kiss in Buck’s kitchen is as far as that particular road is going to go.

Which might just be the case, if he has no game with men. He doesn’t really know how he’s meant to fix that between Saturday and now.

Although… from the look on his face right before he’d leaned in, Buck gets the feeling Tommy just might want to help him figure it out. 

[clusterbuck]

—war of the foxes, richard siken

[clusterbuck]

ain't gonna do you no good at all

7x01 coda

Marisol leaves, and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief at the quiet that descends over the house.

Then, slowly, he frowns. 

He’s not an expert on relationships—he’d just told Buck as much—but he gets the feeling that relief might not be at the top of the list of things you feel when the person you’re seeing leaves. Not in a healthy relationship, anyway. 

It’s not like I never want to see her again, he tells himself, trying to rationalise it. It’s not a bad thing to enjoy time alone. 

But he remembers the other thing he’d just told Buck, and it’s another piece that doesn’t fit quite right. Another straw laid across the camel’s back, not yet enough to break it but enough to feel the strain.

I’m a nester, he’d said. And he’d meant it. When Pepa was on him about not being alone, when he let himself imagine it, that was always the part he imagined—the partnership, the domesticity, the cafecito on a Saturday morning. The parts that people think make married couples old and boring, those are the parts Eddie dreams about when he lets himself.

But with Marisol—

It’s not that he can’t see himself settling down with her. He could probably build a home with her.

But the thought feels wrong, like a t-shirt that shrunk in the wash. There’s a tightness at his throat he can’t quite get rid of. 

It would level out, he’s pretty sure. If you tug at a tight neckline often enough it will give way, and breathing comes easier again. 

Or he could just—take the shirt off and set it aside, tuck it away in the back of the closet among the other things that don’t fit right. He cound find a new shirt to wear, one that doesn’t need to be pulled at and loosened until one day it might fit right again.

And for a moment, the thought is tempting.

Until he remembers Christopher, and the way his voice had gone so small Eddie could barely hear it in the hallway when he’d said they leave. When he’d said we loved her, and she left.

Is he giving his son a complex? 

Shannon wasn’t his fault. It’s taken time and a lot of arguing back and forth with Frank, but Eddie’s starting to believe that much—Shannon leaving wasn’t his fault, and neither is the fact that she died. Ana, however, and now Marisol—

Is it his fault that he can’t seem to make himself feel the way he should?

Eddie sighs, slumps against the back of the couch, and pulls out his phone. Even if he can’t figure out this nesting thing, there’s one thing he can do.

you’re not planning on putting in for any idiotic kind of transfer any time soon, are you? he types and hits send.

The phone rings before he can even put it back in his pocket, Buck’s face filling the screen. 

“I seem to remember you being the one who left the 118,” Buck says as soon as he picks up.

“I came back,” Eddie says, though he knows it’s a little beside the point. “I was always going to come back. You’re the one who was going to leave for good.”

“I wasn’t—” Buck starts, sighing, and Eddie cuts him off.

“Buck, I know,” he says, soft, before Buck can really get into it. “That’s not why I’m calling.” 

“I called,” Buck points out. Eddie huffs.

“You know what I mean.”

“So why are you not-calling, then?” Buck asks.

Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly unsure how to phrase his question. How to make Buck understand without typing it all out first, making sure it all makes sense.

“You heard Chris,” he settles on, finally, the words coming out on a sigh. “He thinks everyone we love is going to leave us. I just—” he trails off.

The silence he leaves hangs between them for a long while. If Eddie couldn’t hear the faint sounds of traffic in the background, probably floating in through Buck’s open balcony door, he’d think the connection dropped.

When Buck finally speaks, his voice is soft. “Eddie,” he says, and there’s something careful about it, like working out how to fit his mouth around the word. Like he hasn’t said it thousands and thousands of times before.

“Eddie,” Buck says again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

[clusterbuck]

anyway if for some reason you’re not sure whether to support the writers strike and “people should be paid for the work they do” somehow isn’t enough to convince you, just go on ao3 and find the chatGPT-generated fics

because aside from compensation one of the other big things the WGA wants is AI regulation.

look at the AI-generated fics. is that what you want to see play out on your television? really? chatGPT (& other similar language models) has no creativity. it works based on predicting the most likely sequences. you want a slate of tv programming that follows the most predictable plot beats possible?

and that’s not to even mention the fact that chatGPT can’t create character voice. you can ask it to write a monologue in the style of yoda and it’ll give you what you want, but chatGPT could never have created yoda. tv generated by AI will never create anything new, because everything AI generates is based on the training data it’s been fed.

so. you know. don’t be a little bitch and support the strike if you want to be delighted and surprised by tv ever again

(and nobody give me any of that iT’s OnLy AmErIcA bullshit, you know as well as i do that if american tv starts being run by AI, the rest of the world will eventually follow)

[clusterbuck]

somethin' tells me you know why i lie

buck takes tommy to the madney wedding. eddie is absolutely, definitively not jealous. | 3k, T | ao3

At the end of Eddie’s row of seats, they stop. Buck waves at him, grinning, and Eddie smiles back, but Buck’s already turned his attention back to Tommy. He leans in, presses his lips to Tommy’s cheek, and slips into a smile Eddie feels like he shouldn’t be witnessing.

“I gotta go do man of honour things,” Buck says, just loud enough that Eddie hears it too. “I’ll see you after?” 

“Pretty sure I’ll be able to see you from here,” Tommy says, and Buck rolls his eyes.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

Tommy has his back to him, but Eddie’s pretty sure he must be grinning when he says, “I know. I’ll be here.” He’d be a fool not to.

Buck heads to the back of the hall, ready for the procession, and Tommy makes his way to the seat next to Eddie.

“He just handed me off to you, didn’t he?” Tommy asks, and Eddie snorts.

“Did kind of look that way.” 

“It’s not like I don’t know anyone else here,” Tommy says, but he doesn’t sound annoyed about it. Just—amused, and sort of fond. “I did used to work with Howie and Hen.”

“Who are both going to be at the front the whole time,” Eddie points out. Not in Buck’s defence. Just as an observation. “Seeing as Chimney is getting married and Hen is his best woman.” 

Tommy hums. “I guess you’re not wrong,” he says, then, “It’s sweet of him.” He laughs, still with that fond amusement, and all the blood in Eddie’s veins goes hot and ice cold all at once.

He’s laughed about Buck like that, more times than he can count. In the firehouse kitchen in eyes in the storms of busy shifts, in the Jeep as Buck drives and in the dim silence of his living room after Christopher is asleep, the television on more as background noise than anything else. He laughs about Buck like that, but now—

read on ao3

[clusterbuck]

eddie when marisol has to tell him it’s a date

[clusterbuck]

oh, is it true

7x05 coda

Marisol hovers for a moment, awkward, then takes a step back. “So… I’m going to go home,” she says. “If we’re starting from the beginning…”

“Right,” Eddie says. “A little early for a sleepover.” 

“I guess I’ll come back tomorrow and, uh—” she gestures at the boxes. “Probably shouldn’t just leave them all hanging around.” 

“I’m on shift tomorrow,” Eddie says.

Marisol holds up her key.

“Uh, right,” Eddie says again. “Then I guess… I’ll see you when I see you?” 

Something flits across Marisol’s face, but it’s gone before he can figure out what it is. “See you,” she says, and turns for the door. 

Eddie feels like he should say something, but he’s still trying to decide on what that would be by the time the door slips shut.

And he’s—he’s not relieved. He’s not. Or if he is, it’s just because this whole unresolved mess has been hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles.

Sword’s still there, some helpful part of him reminds him. You just stepped out of range for a moment.

Depends on what the sword is, he tries to argue, then sighs. He can’t keep track of the metaphor. Definitely not enough to debate himself about it. 

Buck would get it, he thinks. Buck would go off on some tangent to explain what the sword of Damocles actually was, and probably tell him he’d gotten it wrong. He’d have some much better analogy to wrap it all up in, and would probably make the entire situation make more sense.

For a moment his fingers hover near his pocket, itching to get out his phone and call Buck. To ask if he’s doing the right thing, or just kicking the can down the road a little. Since the sword is still—

Whatever the fuck the sword is, Marisol is still an ex-nun and Eddie’s not sure if he’s quite right enough with God for that. 

But he can’t call Buck, because he’d walked out of Buck’s loft half an hour ago with firm instructions to call Tommy, and he can’t interrupt that. He’s already crashed their date, which—

Oh, God. The date. No wonder Buck had been acting so strange. The urge to call comes over him again, stronger now, to apologise for walking in on something that must have been so nerve-wracking already, but—

He remembers the way Buck’s face split into a smile when he said I can’t stop thinking about him, and he sighs and crosses his arms. This isn’t about him and his problems. It’s about Buck, who looked happier than Eddie has seen him in—months, probably. Happier than he’d been with Natalia, for sure. He doesn’t know if he’s ever seen that particular look on Buck’s face, giddy at the mere thought of a person and full of joy and hope for the future. 

And suddenly, there’s a thousand things he wants to ask Buck.

How had he known? How had he been sure? How had he trusted that the little flutter in his gut meant something real?

How had he been brave enough to try?

But the questions will have to wait. Because at this very moment Buck is calling Tommy, his nerves smoothing out into that giddy little smile when Tommy agrees to see him again. Which he will, because Tommy isn’t an idiot.

Maybe they’ll stay on the phone for a while. Maybe Tommy will say something that makes Buck blush, hints of bright red appearing at the tips of his ears and the very tops of his cheekbones. Maybe Buck will flirt back, and his voice will waver a little but he’ll manage to bring it home, and Tommy will laugh low in his ear.

So—no, Eddie can’t interrupt that. No matter how many questions he may have. 

[clusterbuck]

the podcast i’m listening to just said “if no one else says it to you this month, let me be the one to say it: happy pride” and that really hit me so uh

if you have no one to say it to you, or if you’re in a situation where it’s not safe for you to say it to anyone else: happy pride 🏳️‍🌈❤️

reblog to pass it on

[clusterbuck]

thinking about valentine’s day being friends day in finland bc that’s the kind of fun fact buck would know and whip out like ☝️ actually! when maddie’s like oh so you spent valentine’s day with eddie huh 🧐

[clusterbuck]

like a ship on the ocean

7x03 coda

Buck watches Bobby and Athena run towards each other, and something catches in his throat. 

The moment belongs at the end of a movie, feels like it should be accompanied by sweeping orchestral music. In his mind’s eye, Buck sees it in dramatic slow motion.

But that isn’t what makes Buck pause with one hand still on the staircase rail.

It makes him wonder, is all. It’s one hell of a yardstick, and suddenly he isn’t sure if anything he’s ever had would measure up.

Bobby hadn’t gone into details on the chopper, not in front of the kid, but the little he’d said sounded intense. And it sounded like he and Athena had each other’s backs every step of the way.

And that’s really the part Buck gets stuck on, because—

He’s had his share of relationships, and they’d been good while they’d lasted. But even at their best, Buck doesn’t know if he’d have trusted them to save a handful of people trapped on a capsized cruise ship with him.

He’s drifted over to the railing by now, and he leans against it, staring out at the open ocean. Though it’s really only the open ocean if he looks a little to the left—otherwise his field of vision is full of other lifeboats, full of bedraggeled passengers holding onto each other, grief and relief both stark against the bright blue sky. 

Maybe he’s being unfair, he thinks. Bobby and Athena are both trained first responders with decades of experience under their belts. They were better equipped to handle the situation than just about anyone else.

Maybe it’s the kind of thing you can’t know about someone until it actually happens.

But maybe—

Someone materialises by his side, another pair of forearms braced against the railing, and Buck doesn’t have to turn his head to know who it is.

“What’s up?” Eddie asks. 

“You know how sometimes when you talk to people from, like, functional families, they’ll say their ideal relationship would be just like their parents’ marriage?” Buck asks, still searching the whitecaps.

“I—don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that.” 

“It’s a thing,” Buck insists, the slightest edge of a laugh in his voice. “I swear I’ve heard people say it before.”

“Okay, sure,” Eddie says. “I’m guessing we’re not talking about your parents?” 

“Is it weird if I’m pretty sure my ideal relationship is Bobby and Athena’s marriage?” Buck asks. He turns to look and finds Eddie blinking.

“Your ideal relationship features a honeymoon interrupted by pirates and a cat five hurricane?” Eddie asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Buck huffs. “No, that part I can live without. I just mean—how many people would you trust to get you out of something like this? That’s what I want in a partner.” 

“So, what, you gonna audition new girlfriends by bringing them on a cruise?” 

“Again, the cruise ship isn’t really the key part here,” Buck says, rolling his eyes. “And it’s not like every ship gets hijacked and blown up.”

“Slight flaw in the plan.”

“Yeah, it’s bulletproof otherwise,” Buck says, and Eddie snorts.

“So no cruises,” he says. “Then what?” 

“I mean, I don’t think it’s something you can really test for,” Buck says. “I guess there just has to be a vibe.” 

Eddie hums, staring out at the ocean. “Have you had that vibe?” he asks after a moment. “You know, before?” 

“I don’t know,” Buck says on a sigh. “Feels hard to evaluate after the fact, you know? Like—memories always look better after a little time, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I guess they do.” 

“What about—” Buck gestures at him. “Marisol? Would she get you off a sinking cruise ship?” 

“Too soon to tell, I think,” Eddie says.

Buck bites his tongue against the urge to point out it’s been months already, and every time the subject comes up Eddie keeps hedging like it’s only been a couple of dates. 

He hesitates, careful about choosing his words. “Or maybe the fact that you can’t tell is the vibe?” he asks, and Eddie sighs.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes fixed on the horizon. “Maybe.”