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thinking about how without tommy, bobby would die during that house fire while they were trying to get to the nursery (the flashback in 8x16), eddie would die in that house fire (in 2x17), bobby and athena would die on the cruise ship, chimney would die because they wouldn't be able to get him the cure. he's literally the reason why half of them are alive.

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pro censorship people are always like “actually I’m living proof that books can be really harmful to kids! when I was a child I read a book that upset me and of course I couldn’t talk to my parents about it because they would throw rocks at me whenever I confessed to reading anything but the Bible, so as you can see, that book was the source of my trauma and warped ideas about right and wrong”

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You were the one who told me not to concede any part of Mandalore to the New Republic.

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I think season 9 of 911 should start with the usual 118 gang getting to the Firehouse a little bit early and everyone's just sort of chatting and riffing, and someone looks at their watch and says, "anyone know where buck is? He's usually here by now."

cut to: Buck hopping around with his pants unzipped, trying to get a boot on his foot, a piece of toast dangling from his mouth as he rushes around a house we haven't seen before. He gets one boot on, reaches for the other, and that's when Tommy steps into frame, just as haphazardly dresses, and swaps the boot in Buck's hands for another (the correct) one. Buck smiles at him, tilting his face up for a kiss, and Tommy starts to lean down until he rears back. "We really have to go to work." Buck grumbles an agreement before finishing getting dressed. They walk to the door together, shoulders bumping briefly in the doorframe, after throwing their respective bags in their respective cars, they share a kiss that looks like it might lead them right back into the bedroom. Tommy tears himself away, and says, "that was the last time."

Buck, smiling dopily, "okay."

Tommy, pointing at him, "I mean it!"

Buck: "I'm sure you do."

Tommy, after a two second pause, leans in for a softer kiss and says, "same time tomorrow?"

Buck grins, tongue between his teeth. "Absolutely."

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Did you know that JRR Tolkien wrote an unpublished epilogue to Lord of the Rings? It's achingly, beautifully wistful in the way that only Lord of the Rings is. I revisited it recently because I'm guesting on my friends' LOTR podcast, and THAT reminded me that I drew a comic of the epilogue back in 2021 (all text is entirely canon). Anyway I thought folks on this website might enjoy it!

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i actually think its incredibly funny that people can just log on to the internet and get in a fight with a guy in another country. what a privileged time we live in. you used to have to go to war to do that

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For the cuddling prompts - Buck/Tommy #20 - post-proposal, please. Thanks in advance!

I hope you like disgustingly soft fluff because that's all this is.

--

The irony of it was, Tommy thought hysterically as he and Evan stared at each over the truck bed, that wasn’t even in the top five most insane things to come out of Evan’s mouth.  The I’m the himbo had been objectively worse, and yet here he was, doing his best impression of Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, keeping absolutely still in the hope the t-rex wouldn’t eat him.

Evan cleared his throat and said, “Hey, what if we just pretend I didn’t say that and we go to the movie?  You get the tickets and I’ll get the popcorn and the M&Ms to add to the popcorn.”

“I don’t think I can do that, sweetheart,” he said, apologetic.

Evan’s bottom lip trembled.  “Oh.  Um, okay, I guess we’re doing this here.”

Evan was clearly panicking, and what Tommy should do was round the truck and take Evan into his arms and promise that he wasn’t leaving, not this time, not ever.  But instead Tommy opened his mouth and what fell out was, “You think about marrying me?”

They’d been talking about places they always wanted to go and things they wanted to see.  He mentioned wanting to see the aurora borealis, and Evan had nodded thoughtfully and said, “I saw it a little bit when I was in Niagara Falls, but if we want the full experience we should go to Iceland.  Really make a whole thing out of it.  Take our time.  Maybe after we’re married.”  And then they had frozen on their respective sides, praying the t-rex would look past them.

It would be easy to brush it aside.  All Evan had to do was waggle his eyebrows and say he thought about the wedding night, and then Tommy would get them across the finish line with a joke about carrying Evan over the threshold.  The whole would be so neatly dealt with that they would have plenty of time for Evan’s ritual agonizing over junior mints or twizzlers at the concession stand.

But beautiful and brave Evan lifted his chin in challenge and said, “Yes, I think about marrying you.”

Tommy exhaled on a long, quiet sigh.  “That’s good because I think about marrying you.”

“Wait,” Evan said, brow furrowed, “really?  But you broke up with me last time I, um, brought it up.”

Not for the first time Tommy wished he could reach back in time and punch himself in the face.  All he had to do to avoid blowing up his life was stay and use his words, but in the grand tradition of the Kinard family, he turned tail and tried to outrun any emotion that wasn’t jaw clenched stoicism.

But fuck his family line and fuck stoicism.  All that had gotten him was a small, lonely life in a small, lonely world.  If Evan could be brave even after getting his heart broken then so could Tommy.

“When you talked about getting married before,” he said, taking great care in choosing his words, “it didn’t have anything to do with us.  You talked about it like you were trying to get a good grade in being queer.  Maybe you did want to get married, but you didn’t want to be married to me.”

Evan opened his mouth in automatic protest only to catch himself.  “You’re not wrong,” he reluctantly said after gnawing thoughtfully on his bottom lip.  “But you’re not right either.”

Tommy inched closer.  “What am I not right about?”

“It was about you,” Evan said, gripping the edge of the truck bed so tightly his knuckles went white.  “Yeah, maybe I got caught up in the idea of it, but no one else has ever really made me think about marriage.  Not even Taylor, and we lived together.”

Carefully, afraid the thin ice was going to crack under his feet, he said, “Not even Abby?”

“Just you,” Evan said.  “Do you believe me?”

They were close enough now to touch.  Like that first night in the loft, they had been slowly gravitating together, two celestial bodies in the same orbit.  He had never been able to stay away from Evan, not even when he ran and certainly not now that they twined their lives together.

“Yes,” he said, taking Evan’s hand in his own.  And then: “I’m saying yes.”

Evan’s eyes went wide and bright.  His mouth dropped open.  Slack jawed, Tommy thought even as he tenderly nudged it closed again.

“Tommy,” Evan croaked, and then had to pause to presumably work up some moisture.  “I wasn’t asking.  I’m not asking.”

“And yet I’m still saying yes,” he said.

“You—we—Tommy.”  Evan flailed out with his free hand and knocked knuckles right into his nipple.  “We are not getting engaged in a parking lot.”

Tommy caught that hand and brought both to his mouth so he could press his mouth to Evan’s palms, right first and then left.  “Why not?  It’s a good as place as any.”

“I don’t have a ring.”  Evan’s lower lip jutted out in a ridiculous pout.

“I don’t need a ring.”  He was so smiling so wide that he had to be giving Evan’s Joker grin a run for its money.  “We can go ring shopping together.  That way we don’t have to guess what the other will like.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t be guessing.  I know what you like.”

“You do,” Tommy agreed just to tease out a smile.

Evan jiggled their joined hands.  “At least let me do this properly.  Get down on one knee, actually say the words.”

Tommy glanced down at the asphalt.  “Maybe hold off on that until we’re somewhere that isn’t covered in stale popcorn and filth.”

“I’m trying to be romantic.”  A whine joined the pout.  “Why won’t you let me romance you?”

He tugged and Evan, ever obliging, stepped forward, head already angled a kiss.  Tommy didn’t let it deepen, keeping it sweet and light even as Evan gave a frustrated whine, tongue swiping at his mouth.

Tommy cradled Evan’s jaw and said, “What part of this isn’t romantic?”

“Every part,” Evan said, but he was smiling now.  “This isn’t how I pictured it going.”

“You want to marry me, sweetheart.  Can’t get more romantic than that.”  Tommy fitted his thumb into Evan’s dimple.  “How did you picture it?”

Evan wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled them flush together.  “Ideally one of us would be hanging out of a helicopter.”

He pressed his laughter into Evan’s neck.  “Let me guess, that would be you, right?  You’re on top of a burning high rise and I’m flying low enough for you to make a jump for it.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Evan said happily, lips pressed to his temple.  “Also in this scenario, I’m carrying like eight babies so you have to marry me.”

“God, I love you,” he said, and this time he let Evan make the kiss as filthy as his heart desired.  Thank god Athena wasn’t around or they would have ended up being booked for public indecency.

They gently eased out of the kiss, and Tommy pressed their foreheads together.  “Hey.”

“Hey,” Evan said, dramatic eyelashes fanned across his cheeks.  “So we’re officially engaged.  What do you want to do?”

“We did come here for a reason.”

Evan leaned back.  “We just got engaged and you want to see a movie?”

“I know for a fact you don’t other plans.”  He brushed his thumb over that pouting mouth.  “It’s Some Like Hot, a seminal part of queer cinema.  And I promise you’ll like it.  And,” he added, pressing a kiss under Evan’s ear, “we can sit in the back row and make out.”

There was that smile, the one that Tommy would crack open his ribs just for a chance to see.  “I guess that is the best offer I’ve gotten so far.”  He jumped when Tommy pinched his side.

“I’ll get the tickets and you get the popcorn,” Tommy said, and began the disentangling process.  He made it all of two steps before Evan was pulling him back in, those long arms wrapped around his neck and one long leg sliding between his.

“We’re going to get married,” Evan whispered shyly, eyes wide and bright.  “Holy shit, you’re going to marry me.”

“I’m going to marry you,” Tommy said, and then suddenly Evan was lifting him off his feet.  He yelped, clutching at Evan’s shoulders even as surprise turned to laughter.

“We need a picture.”  Evan set him back down and frantically searched for his phone.  “Did I leave it in the truck?”

Tommy plucked it from Evan’s back pocket and unlocked it.  “Come here,” he said, pulling Evan in for what was guaranteed to be an off center and poorly lit selfie Evan was sure to bitch about later.  “First pic as an engaged couple.”

Evan laughed, forehead pressed to Tommy’s temple, and said, “No, no, let me take it.  You’re terrible at it.”

“Terribly handsome, you mean,” Tommy said, clicking away as Evan made a face, nose scrunched up and pouting, like that was going to mask the joy bursting from him like a solar  flare.

“We’re going to miss the movie if you keep doing that,” Evan said, finally managing to grab the phone.  “I was promised a make out in the back row.”

“Anything for my fiancé,” Tommy said, and then, hand in hand and laughing, they went inside to get the tickets and the popcorn.

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Canon Queer of the Day:

Hen Wilson

Henrietta Wilson (aka Hen) is a main character from 9-1-1! She is canonically lesbian and has a wife named Karen Wilson, as well as an ex-girlfriend named Eva Mathis and an ex-crush named Martina Sanchez.

Submitted by Anonymous

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Canon Queer of the Day:

Tommy Kinard

Thomas “Tommy” Kinard is a character from 9-1-1! He is canonically gay and has an ex-boyfriend named Evan Buckley, as well as an ex-fiancée named Abigail Clark.

Submitted by Anonymous

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📷 • anirudh.pisharody • 7.25.25

Anirudh’s Book Club :) coming soon 📚🤓 📸: @.jeiboi_

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—nothingbutloveforyou

bucktommy hiatus event week 8: free choice

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to me tommy's top pathetic moment is both answering that phone call from his ex-boyfriend who he fairly recently had a VERY messy hookup with. and then immediately flying over and risking his career. if you have any thoughts on what the hell was happening inside his head when this happened i would love to hear them

Abby loved Little Women. We’re talking, Tommy had to watch the Winona Ryder movie three years in a row because it didn’t feel like Christmas to Abby if she didn’t watch it. That was their deal, back when Tommy and Abby were Tommy-and-Abby: she got to make them watch Little Women once every December, and Tommy got to follow it up with Love Actually, because fuck it, one made her cry and the other made him cry. (For him it was Emma Thompson listening to Joni Mitchell. Jesus.) The part Abby always cried at was Laurie explaining to Amy that he'd always wanted to be part of the March family, like it didn't matter if he got there by marrying Jo or marrying Amy or marrying Beth. Tommy didn't get it. Well, Tommy didn't get a lot of shit, back then.

Tommy thinks he gets it now.

He left the 118 before he—became himself? Yeah. Before he became himself, or felt comfortable being himself, or whatever. He'd done so many performances of Tommy Kinard over the years—Army pilot Tommy Kinard, Sal's partner Tommy Kinard, Abby's fiancé Tommy Kinard, doesn't-make-a-thing-of-it Tommy Kinard—and by the time he got to Harbor, he was just fucking tired. It wasn't because he trusted them more, or felt particularly bonded to them, he was just—too tired.

And while he was gone, the 118, like. Something happened there. He didn't get it. I mean, how could he? He was somewhere else. Doing other stuff. But he heard the stories—the pipe bombs, the tsunamis, the cave-ins, the shootings, the giraffe on Hollywood Boulevard, yeah, all of that, but also the barbecues, the weddings, the commendations, the badge-and-ladder bars where you couldn't hear one name without the rest of them. Nash-Wilson-Han-Buckley-Diaz. Like a fucking incantation. Like a family, a thing Tommy’s still somehow never figured out how to have. 

By the time Evan tugged him back into the warm 118 orbit, Tommy was self-aware enough to know he wanted it. A captain like Nash? A partner who had his back as effortlessly and seamlessly as Evan and Eddie had each other’s? A team who loved you that much, who had family dinners and a shared group text and who were all comfortably, cozily incestuous? Who waited for you in the hospital even though waiting was the only thing left to do? Yeah, and, you know. Self-awareness was kind of a bitch, because Tommy also knew he was never going to get to keep it. Hen and Howie knew the kind of person he used to be, when he was actually part of the 118. And sure, it was a long time ago, and they’d all gotten past it, but they weren’t ever going to be the kind of friends Hen and Howie and Evan were. Tommy had to prove he was trustworthy all over again every time they asked, because they knew he owed them, and they knew there was a version of Tommy who was gonna let them down anyway. All true. 

So for those six months, Tommy got to pretend to be a March sister. He went with Evan to the family dinners, arm wrapped around Evan’s waist like it belonged there, drank beers with Howie and Eddie, answered Nash’s questions about how Donato was doing, laughed at Hen’s jokes, bought little presents for the 118 kids that were only sort of bribes to make them like him. 

“Hey,” Evan said once, when they were lazing around in bed between rounds, Evan tucked up against his side, making idle little patterns in Tommy’s chest hair. “I wanted to ask you about something.” 

“Shoot,” Tommy said, and made it sound easy, and not like ice was pooling in his gut at all. In his experience, that wasn’t the kind of question that led to a good conversation. But Evan was still loose and relaxed next to him, and Tommy wasn’t going to be the one who ruined the mood. 

“So,” Evan said, “You kind of come to the rescue a lot, huh?” 

Tommy blinked. “What?” 

“I mean, first of all, you stole a helicopter to fly us into a hurricane,” Evan said, smiling. “A-and obviously, like, we all were disobeying orders, but—I mean, you weren’t even part of the team.” 

“Hah,” Tommy said, stomach still cold. “Guess I wasn’t.” 

“And before that, you saved our asses a few years ago,” Evan said, still drawing circles over Tommy’s chest, playing his thumb idly over a nipple. Tommy could barely feel it. “That time you dumped water on that cul-de-sac fire, when there were all those gas explosions during the dispatch outage. Eddie was, uh. I mean, without you, Eddie might not have made it.” “Uh huh,” Tommy said. He’d dumped 700 gallons of water on a residential home, knowing there were people inside it, because Howie asked him to. 700 gallons can collapse a roof. 700 gallons is more than enough to kill a person. Let alone a little kid. His captain showed him the picture later, the little kid who’d been inside. 

“But you must have gotten in trouble,” Evan continued, frowning. “I mean, I know the hurricane was sort of a—a freebie for all of us, because it turned out so well, but you didn’t know that at the time. And before, like, nobody ordered you to do that, it was just—you saving the day.” 

“Yeah,” Tommy said. He’d gotten chewed out, his captain threatened to fire him, and then the brass intervened, because nobody died, and arguably Tommy’s actions did save a firefighter and a little kid, and someone in the union suggested that the dispatch outages meant the chain of command had been a little murky, and yeah, Tommy got to keep his job. Also his pilot’s license. Yay. 

Evan tilted his chin into Tommy’s chest, looked up at him with big, adoring eyes. He did that sometimes, looked at Tommy like he thought Tommy was—not just wonderful, but amazing. A brand-new invention. The guy who invented gay sex. “You weren’t afraid of getting in trouble?” 

“Look,” Tommy said, trying to figure out what to give Evan that would make him drop the subject. “Howie saved my life.” 

“Yeah, the thing—when he was a probie, right?” 

“Yeah,” Tommy said, like that was the whole story, instead of months of treating the new guy like shit only to wake up in the hospital and learn that the new guy was the only reason he was still breathing. “The thing when he was a probie. So. When he asks me for help, I listen.” 

“That simple, huh?” 

“That simple,” Tommy lied, and decided to distract Evan in more of a hands-on way. 

Time passed. Evan figures it out, eventually—that Tommy’s the guy you let in for a minute, not the guy you ask to stay. Here for a good time, not a long time. He’s not sure Evan really ever figured out the rest of it, though. 

So when Evan calls him up, a couple weeks out from a hookup so disastrous Tommy found himself flinching anytime someone so much as mentioned the word Texas, and says, in a frantic babbling monologue, that he needs Tommy’s help, and Chimney could die, and he knows it’s not fair to ask because it’s literally domestic terrorism probably, but please, Tommy, it’s Chimney—

Tommy thinks about the game he used to play with his cousins as a kid, where they’d take turns throwing a pocket knife into the dirt by their feet, trying to make it stick in the ground without stabbing anybody’s toes. Low-budget kid-friendly Russian Roulette. Tommy’d killed at that game. His cousin Dominic used to say oh my god, man, you’re crazy, this kid is crazy, look at this, and Tommy would drop the knife again, queasy with nerves, somehow kind of hoping he’d win and hoping he’d lose at the same time. What would even happen if he lost? A trip to the hospital. Everybody yelling at him. Worst case, he’d lose a toe. Maybe everybody would be sad for him, too. The weird thing was, the only place Tommy’d ever seen anyone talk about that game before was in this low-budget sequel to Little Women—Little Men, about this no-good kid that gets adopted into the March family and immediately ruins the good thing they’ve got going. Abby saw it pop up on Netflix, insisted she remembered it from when it came out and it was great, and then it was a generically bad nineties movie. Abby hid her face in his shoulder when the kids played the knife game. He doesn’t actually think they finished it. 

“Fuck,” he says to Evan, getting up and trying to walk casually over to his bird without tipping his captain off. “Okay.” 

“You’ll do it?” Evan asks, fragile with worry. 

“Yeah,” Tommy says, scrubbing a hand over his face. The adrenaline’s already starting to kick in his chest. “Yeah, I will.” 

“Thank you,” Evan says, with this big explosion of breath, like he really thought Tommy would say no. “Thank you, thank you, Tommy, thank you.” 

Tommy gets close, again. There’s the big sick thrill of blowing up his life, flying so close to disaster you could reach out and skim the surface with your fingertips, and then spinning back up to the safety of the sky. There’s a little glow of March-family warmth. Evan smiles at him like he invented helicopters. Evan and Athena treat him like part of the team, close ranks against the military like they’re not even questioning Tommy’s place on their side. Chimney wakes up, and they all cheer over the radio. 

It’s almost a good day. Another thing about Little Women: there’s a bait-and-switch with the love story. Laurie and Jo are the ones you root for, but when Jo says they’re not going to work out, Laurie believes her. He goes after Amy instead, desperate to be let back inside the March family, and manages to miss the letter Jo sends him asking if he wants to try again. The next time they meet, he’s married to her sister, and you know it’s the wrong thing, even if Jo does have a German professor waiting in the wings. Tommy always hated that part, even though Abby loved it. “It’s a grown-up love story,” she insisted, gesturing with her wine glass as they sat together on the couch. “It’s not about puppy love, it’s about—sometimes you love somebody but the timing is wrong. Or you love them but not the way they want you to love them.” Tommy looked at her, big glasses and bright tangerine hair, her legs slung over his lap. “Sure,” he said. “But don’t you want them to be happy?”

“They’re happy!” she said. “Jo loves the professor!” 

“Uh huh,” he said. “No way is Amy and Laurie’s marriage lasting.” 

“Ouch,” she said, laughing at him. “Why not?” 

“He’s in love with her sister!” 

“I don’t think they had divorce back then.” 

“Guess they all had to live together in misery,” he said lightly, and she rolled her eyes. 

“He got to be part of the family,” she said. “That’s the thing he really wanted.” 

Tommy pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “For a while, anyway,” he said, just to give her shit. She laughed at him, and put the wine glass down, and Tommy drifted away somewhere inside his head as she shifted to climb all the way into his lap. It’s pathetic, is the thing. To always be pressing your hands up against the windows of somebody else’s happiness, somebody else’s home. Especially when you know, deep down in your gut, that you don’t belong there. Tommy knows that.  He still can't help wanting to get inside.

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bros being hoes

de-anoning from the kink meme over on dreamwidth, e, 850 words ish

"And then," Buck says, hefting the last bag of groceries out of the Jeep, "This guy tried to take the last jar of pickles like - dude, I already have my hand on it, kindly back the fuck off."

"Uh-huh," Tommy says.

"Honestly, people are fucking animals out here at the moment," Buck says, switching all three bags to one hand so he can lock up the Jeep. "I thought this nice little old lady in a Nissan was gonna ram me because I took five seconds to check my mirror before I backed out of the space."

"You want me to take a bag?" Tommy asks.

Buck shrugs, then flexes. "I got it, baby."

"Uh-huh," Tommy says again, and something about the almost-squeak of it this time makes Buck look over.

Tommy, who'd come out of the garage to greet him barefoot, in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt Buck knows for a fact has at least two holes in it, just because he'd heard Buck pull up to the sidewalk, has his arms folded around himself and an uncharacteristic blush splashed across his cheekbones.

"What's up with you?" Buck asks, heading towards the house. Tommy trails after him, follows him into the kitchen, starts helping him to unpack the groceries. And he does it all while sneaking little glances at Buck from the corner of his eyes, and without saying a word.

"Seriously," Buck insists. "Why're you so squirrely?"

"I'm not squirrely," Tommy lies. "I'm just - you, uh. You look like the fratboy-fuckboy of my nightmares."

Buck looks down at himself - board shorts, one of Tommy's slutty tanktops which is admittedly even a little sluttier on Buck, a pair of slides, and his baseball cap that he'd slid around backwards on the drive home to get more air on his face from the window he'd cranked open wide. He's nowhere near his fuckboy heyday anymore, has filled out way too much to actually be mistaken for a college kid, but...

"Okay," he laughs. "Fair. Do I get a good grade in grocery shopping, professor?"

Tommy's still not saying anything and Buck looks at him more closely.

"Wait a second," he says, a grin spreading over his face. "Are you into this?"

"I mean - not the professor thing."

"No? Shame," Buck says. "So, what, then? You want a bro-job?"

Tommy rubs a hand over his face, looking just the right mix of embarrassed and turned on.

"Look, the early aughts were a weird time," he says. "My porn options were limited and some things are formative even if you don't want them to be."

Buck lips his lips, thinks back to joking and shoving and almost-fighting with his classmates that were, retrospectively, kinda charged. He shoves the last few groceries away, totally losing sight of his usual system, pretending he's not doing it in the kitchen of a house he pays the mortgage on, pretending he's back in the shitty frat house he lived in when he first washed up in LA.

"Come on, bro," he says. "I'll blow you if you want. It's not gay if our dicks don't touch."

That's what gets Tommy to crack, laughing helplessly.

"Evan."

"C'mon, man. It's not a big deal," Buck, letting himself shift into a cockier posture, a smugger smile, familiar from years back. He can see the second Tommy realizes he's serious, grabs him by the front of his t-shirt and tugs him through to the living room.

He shoves Tommy down onto the couch and thanks god that he married a ridiculous old man who still TiVos shit, because it makes it easier to put a game on in the background. He's not even a hundred percent sure what sport it is, but it's more for the ambience - locker room vibes - than anything else. If Tommy can concentrate on the game, Buck's gonna be pissed.

He gets on his knees between Tommy's legs, looks up at him with his eyes purposely big and wide, his mouth purposely wet and open.

"It doesn't have to mean anything," he says, his voice low, palms rasping up and down the inside of Tommy's thighs, feeling the muscle under his sweats.

"Yeah," Tommy says. "Okay, why not. Blow me while I watch the game."

"There you go," Buck says, and Tommy lifts his hips, helps Buck shove his sweats down far enough to free his cock. "Damn, dude, you're hung," he says, like it's a surprise and then, like ninety four percent sure it's not going too far, "The girls must go nuts for you, huh?"

Tommy just laughs, a little hysterical, his hands a little white-knuckled on the couch cushions. "Why don't you find out?"

"Yeah," Buck says, his mouth watering a little. "Hey, tell me if the score changes, okay? I got money on this one."

"Sure," Tommy says, turns the sound up a little on the TV, pretty much broadcasting that he expects one or both of them to get loud. Buck can't wait.

"You can fuck my face if you want," he says. "Just don't knock my cap off, yeah? It's my favorite."

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bucktommy career change

In the end, Buck only gets five years as a captain. He likes to think he made Bobby proud up there for those five years, but his leg finally gets to him at the age of forty-six; and it's his job or a knee replacement without the guarantee of walking again in a few years time.

When he hears the doctor's run down, Buck expects to feel despair pulling him under--and maybe it reaches out for him for just a minute--but then Tommy texts him a picture of Graham and Honey side by side on the soccer field Graham was playing at today, fur and cleats alike caked with mud, and Buck knows that its not a hard decision.

He goes home and he tells Tommy, they look at their finances, and they both agree that Buck will go on light duty long enough to help find his replacement and then he'll step into the great unknown of Evan Buckley, not a firefighter.

"You're sure?" Tommy asks him when they're curled up in bed, and Buck knows he's asking because of every time in the past that Buck's career had been at risk of being taken away. The last time was when Buck thought he was getting fired but was being asked to Captain the 99 instead.

"Yeah," Buck tells him softly, no hesitation in his voice, "of course. Firefighting is amazing, and it's always going to be such a huge part of who I am."

"But--" Tommy cuts in, and Buck sighs softly.

"But I don't want to choose maybe a few more years of running into burning buildings over running around with my kids, and I know that if I stay on long enough, even only for light duty, there's going to be too many exceptions to standing by and watching things happen."

Tommy hums, tone tilting up at the end and Buck knows he's been caught, profound speech be damned. He groans but admits it.

"I want to start fostering again. Graham is settled, and there are kids out there that need homes."

"I know, baby," Tommy whispers, straining his neck to lay a kiss across Buck's birthmark, "You have so many amazing qualities. Subtlety is not one of them."

Buck scoffs at that but it quickly dissolves into a fit of laughter.

"Yeah," he admits, rolling over to look at the moonlight seeping onto their ceiling from a crack in the curtains, "the printed out news article highlighting California's overtaxed foster system probably gave me away, huh?"

"Sweetheart, I knew the minute you saw Janice Doyle's horde of children and couldn't get that longing look off your face quick enough."

Buck hums, thinking that the moment Tommy is talking about must have been months ago, when Janice invited Graham over for Ollie's birthday party.

They're quiet for a while, and Buck thinks that Tommy may have drifted off before his husband's voice cuts through the dark.

"What do you want to do next?"

Buck doesn't respond right away; lets the question hang and revel in its enormity.

"I don't know," Buck says finally, "but I know that whatever it is, I've got my guys right here with me to help me figure it out."

[that-one-dudette]