trilliath

[trilliath]

I'd truly be the worst person to stick into a timeloop because I'd really just spend the first 5 years catching up on my book tbr, the next 7 on all the movies and shows that've Been On My List for ages, and then another decade on ao3. like sure nothing may stick but my memories will and i can just go into a supermarket to get snacks and wine each day, and i have art to indulge in. like thanks for the hints on how to get out but respectfully, I am busy

[trilliath]

i know that this is a big Marriage And Kids fandom but i think it would be cool if buck and tommy decided not to have kids

[trilliath]

fic: road to nowhere (8x18 spec)

buck and tommy trapped under some concrete and dreaming of other places. 1.2k.

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Tommy came to rescue them, Buck and Ravi, about an hour ago. That's about as long as Tommy and Buck have been trapped under a concrete slab that collapsed on Ravi's way out.

"Help is on the way," Ravi called through the gaps letting them breathe.

"Are they actually gonna be any help, though," Buck wonders, and realizes he said it out loud.

"I can't believe you'd doubt them over a little building collapse," Tommy says, wheezing more than Buck likes to hear. "That's your team, they've got your back."

Buck's smiling to himself and, for some reason, that catches Tommy's attention.

"Don't they?"

"Everyone deals with grief differently," Buck says.

There's a beat, then Tommy says, "Fuck them. Whatever they did. Or haven't done."

Buck shakes his head. "It's fine, I'm just." And he doesn't have a way to end that sentence. "Ignore me, okay? I'm—I'm being a snitch."

"A snitch? What are you, 12?" Buck smiles to himself again, and Tommy grumbles. "Never thought I'd see the day when I hated to see you smile."

Buck glances at him. "You hate it?"

Tommy's being too honest for how not-hurt he claims to be. "Those smiles don't reach your eyes." He didn't think Tommy would notice. "What are you thinking about? What are you gonna do when you get out of here?"

"We." Buck sends him the most threatening look he can manage.

Tommy acquiesces. "When we get out of here," he repeats.

"I'm thinking of going on a road trip, actually," Buck says. "Getting out of LA for a while. I've got the PTO for it and even if I don't—"

"You'd leave? The 118?"

"I need some space," Buck says slowly. "And Eddie got a job offer in El Paso, but he's thinking of not taking it and moving back, so I'd have to give up the house."

"Uh, no you wouldn't."

Buck makes a face. "Tommy, I'm not gonna let Chris be homeless."

"Do you think firefighter and former Army medic Eddie Diaz, a tax-paying adult with a child, is incapable of fucking apartment hunting?"

"Look, it just makes sense," Buck says.

"It doesn't, but keep talking." Tommy stifles a wince. "The rage will keep me from going into the light."

"It's all lining up, Tommy, honestly," Buck says. "They can take the place off my hands and I can do what I did when I dropped out of college: get in my Jeep and go see the country again."

"What do you mean again?"

Buck smiles at him; it looks like Tommy still hates it. "I got kicked out of college, then out of community college, then Maddie gave me some cash and her Jeep and I ran away from home. Well, I was like, 21, I don't think you can run away from home at that age."

"I don't think there's a statute of limitations on running away from home," Tommy says dryly. "As long as you have a home. Which you do."

Buck looks away, bites the inside of his lower lip. "I did. I don't know if it made it out of the lab, though. I think Bobby took it with him."

Buck whips his head around when Tommy doesn't respond. He's awake, though, but staring at Buck with his lips in a fine, frustrated line. "If losing Bobby means losing your home—losing them—then I don't think you really had it after all."

"Don't say that," Buck says softly. Tommy looks away. Agree to disagree.

"I haven't seen the Milky Way in like, 10 years," Buck says. "I should fix that."

"You think it's changed much?"

"I'm sure it has, even if we can't see the changes. Earth is moving, our solar system is moving, space is moving—"

"Is it?"

"Well, it's expanding, as far as we know," Buck says. "Maybe it doesn't look any different but—but I'm different. So."

Tommy's quiet, then says, "It's been 20 for me. Years. Since I've seen the Milky Way. I'm outdoorsy, but I don't get out to those really remote areas. Haven't for a while."

"It sounds like a good idea, right?"

"It does." Tommy clears his throat, shifts as much as he can under the rubble. "You're going alone, huh?"

"Yeah," Buck says, then pauses so he can look at Tommy. "I—I was planning on it."

Now Tommy smiles, a small thing that lights up the darkness in Buck. "No room for a co-pilot? Someone with awesome taste in music who can help out with the driving sometimes? If—" Tommy motions to the slab. "Provided I've still got a body and everything."

Buck feels sharp pinpricks behind his eyes, at the edges, emotion swelling in his throat. "I keep thinking: this isn't it. This—is this what I wanted? I'd have a home, but I could never leave again?"

"From a homeowner's perspective," Tommy says, always making him laugh. "It's not much of a home if it crumbles the moment you step outside. You can't be the only thing holding it together." He hesitates. "Bobby couldn't be the only thing holding it together."

"Yeah," Buck agrees. "And you?"

"What about me?"

"What are you running from?" Buck knows his smile is too mean, too slick. "If not me, I mean."

Tommy makes a little ha fucking ha face at him, nose crinkling because he can't help being amused. "I wouldn't be running. I'd be coming with you."

"Oh."

"If you wanted the company," Tommy repeats. "Gas money, too. Gas gets expensive."

"Why now?" Buck looks down at his hands. "What's changed? Besides I said something really shitty to you and—and I didn't get to apologize."

"I know you didn't mean it," Tommy says. "And I didn't mean to leave."

"So you want to test out your staying power by trapping yourself in a Jeep with me?"

"Yes, Evan, that's exactly it. You saw right through me."

"Around you," Buck says. "I've gotta shift a little to see past the slab that's gonna suffocate us."

"So it's all hypothetical anyway," Tommy replies.

Buck wonders if Ravi's eavesdropping or if maybe they've been left to die, buried alive. Maybe they're not worth the effort. That sucks; Buck would think Tommy was worth the effort, at least. He has a pilot's license and the people at Harbor probably like him a lot more than the 118 likes Buck right now. In any case: it's quiet and the glimmer of a road trip, taking a breath outside the city limits, feels like it's slipping away.

"Think we're running out of oxygen," Buck comments. "I'm kinda losing the will to live? Is that science? Less oxygen, more hopelessness?"

"Evan," Tommy sighs. "We're gonna get out of here, and then we're gonna get out of here."

Buck takes the hand Tommy reaches out. He's not sure either of them believe that, or each other, or that they'll go anywhere together or apart, or that things will get better but—but for now they can keep each other awake, thinking of other ways and places to be.

[trilliath]

I feel like pirating media that isn’t sold or offered anywhere legally anymore shouldn’t be called piracy. Girl thats archaeology

[trilliath]

A couple decades ago when one of my friends went to basic training, really the only social contact and entertainment she was allowed was physical letters - so I wrote a lot of letters back and forth with her, probably more than I've ever written anyone. She said they really helped just to give her some sort of lifeline to the rest of the world.

I imagine a lonely young Tommy might struggle to balance his new adult freedom with feeling completely isolated and untethered from his roots now in the military and writing letters home to his father even though his father was awful because he didn't have anyone else to write to, and of course feelings are complicated even when your parent is abusive.

His father had kept the letters with the photo maybe but not out of any particular affection but inertia and a sliver of pride; evidence that his successful son had once still made time for him. Maybe whatever medical emergency he's had he knocked the photo and letters over, maybe they're damaged or dirty now - and now he's ashamed of Tommy because he came out, and he's drunk and angry and so on, so he tells Buck to toss the letters out with the broken photo.

So Buck just... kindof takes them home. After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure, right?

Like he knows it's maybe a little creepy but if Tommy is done with him for good, then what harm does it really do? Especially if Tommy had never told Buck anything about his father other than the most vague "we don't talk" kind of thing. Maybe Buck had just kindof assumed it was entirely about him being gay since he'd been catching up on queer history in the aughts and DADT and things like that at the time and had never really thought about like... what if Tommy's dad was as emotionally abusive as his parents were.

And he reads the letters and sees this young Tommy he's utterly charmed by, and at the same time it's sad because he sees the bids for attention, asking if he's even getting the letters, the invitation to Tommy's graduation that his dad apparently hadn't bothered to accept given that in the final letter there's just a brisk, defeated, "Guess you couldn't make it. I'll be stationed overseas so I'll let you know if I make it back to California sometime".

Buck starts to realize he's been dazzled by the cool confident demeanor Tommy has crafted for himself as a grown man, and how fun and freeing their relationship had felt - and had absolutely no idea that Tommy's old scars about being unwanted and unworthy run as deeply as his own. It feels so familiar - and it fundamentally realigns Buck's perception of Tommy's emotional landscape.

So he sits down and puts himself in Tommy's shoes and re-evaluates why Tommy broke up with him and the ways Buck had missed opportunities to show him how much he was truly wanted. How he had gotten caught up in trying not to be clingy, "Too Much" or "Exhausting", trying not to overshare or pry etc. when instead he could have been showing Tommy that he wasn't just any interchangeable attractive guy who could spark him into recognizing his bisexuality, but someone who matters to Buck, in ways that are particular to him - the way Tommy's sense of humor hits like a sniper and leaves him giggling well after the moment sometimes when he catches something, the way Tommy listens to him ramble and still seems to hear the important parts instead of just glazing over, how Tommy rides the waves of his ADHD like a pro surfer instead of criticizing Buck for not functioning like a steady river, the way he shows up even for the small things, how he seems to just harmonize that bass-line of steadiness to Buck's high energy, how he understands the job and the things that matter to him, how interesting he is to Buck just on a fundamental level like how he sees the world or the things that interest him and so many things he spends hours writing them all down. And that he's a cool hot badass of a pilot too, yeah, it's still worth mentioning how much he appreciates all of it.

Inspired by the pilfered letters from basic, and thinking about how he stuck his foot in his mouth last time, he takes this list and decides a letter is the perfect way to say what he means without getting it all tangled up. So Buck writes Tommy a literal love letter on actual nice stationary to just be like - here are all the feelings I have about you that I didn't do a good enough job of showing you, and here are all the ways you made my life better by being around, and here are all these things I wish we'd had time to do and talk about... but even if it really is over for us, I felt like you deserved to know you mattered to me a lot.

And like, he's not even expecting a reply, he'd genuinely tried to put his own feelings aside to try and do something he thought might mean something to Tommy regardless of their relationship.

But Tommy writes him a letter back, tentatively talks a little about emotional things he usually struggles to say out loud, addresses some of the questions Buck had undemandingly offered his curiosity about. Says he really liked getting Buck's letter, and implies he really wouldn't mind getting another one.

And Buck absolutely throws himself into it, starts writing him letters like, every day almost when he can, tells him about things he wants to know about Tommy and things he wants Tommy to know about him, tells him about everything that's happening in his life, tells him about things he wants to share with him - dates he's imagined and also just like - normal things. Mundane things he wants to be with Tommy for.

Tommy replies, maybe not with as much frequency, but he clearly puts effort into what he writes. Bit by bit he opens up more, talks about his fears and his old hurts and then, even more fragile, his dreams.

They spend months getting to know each other on this deeper level, building up a foundation of something between them, putting in the effort. It's secrets and intimacies and hopes and everything. There's spicy stuff peppered in here and there, naturally, and before too long it just evolves into these pining romantic letters like they're an ocean apart instead of half a city.

And I don't know, they finally end up running into each other on the job unexpectedly, some intense huge warehouse fire that gets all hands on deck and it's like, insane feeling seeing each other in person after all of that. Like they physically can't take their eyes off each other after they come out of the emergency situation in one piece, but they also can't seem to find any words - mostly because it turns out they've really already said everything. Well, almost everything - at this point the only thing they haven't said is...

And Buck is standing there staring at him and he can't stop smiling and Tommy has this soft look on his face, his eyes all crinkled at the corners, and Buck just - says it.

Says, "Will you marry me?" as the first actual words he's said out loud to him in months.

And Tommy's mouth hangs open a moment and he struggles to find any words, hands on his hips as he resets, because the only thing that ends up coming out of his mouth is, "Yeah - okay. When?"

And Buck just laughs and says, "I don't know, right now? When do you get off shift?"

And Tommy says, "I don't care," and he doesn't steal a helicopter this time but he definitely does walk off his shift early with him and they immediately go and rent a helicopter to fly them to Las Vegas. They get married still in their gear covered in soot.

Best of all, even once they get home and get moved in together and are together all the time now, they don't stop writing each other letters.

I want a fic where the 118 respond to a medical call at a residential address, and right off the bat, the homeowner is kinda a dick and possibly a little bit drunk. While Hen and (now paramedic) Eddie are working on the jerk patient, Buck's glancing around, noticing how there's hardly any family pictures, except for one or two on a nearby shelf. He's just about to turn his attention elsewhere when one of the framed pictures catches his eye, and he picks it up for a closer look.

The old man huffs, his voice full of gravel. "That's Junior. Not sure why I even kept that photo. Maybe because that's the last time he was actually good for anything."

And Buck's jaw tenses as he fights back the retort brewing in his throat. Instead, he just sets the picture back down without a word, and slowly walks outside to let the paramedics do their job.

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure where I want this one to go, maybe Buck starts thinking about family; the one he has and the one he lost.

Maybe it prompts him to reach out to Tommy for the first time in awhile, knowing that sometimes, blood is not what matters.

[trilliath]

"Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart."

— Yann Martell, Life of Pi

[trilliath]

Maddie received no pushback for telling a caller to kill themselves, Brad saying that his captain hotshots or whatever is going to live so the guy can’t kill himself, “don’t jump” being thrown around at Buck when Gerrard was captain in the beginning and the captain at the end is Gerrard (I know he’s leaving), guy who struggled with suicidal ideation ends up having to sacrifice himself after finally deciding he wants to live, Athena is building her dream home just to lose her husband and sell it, Chimney on top of the roof before the Bobby funeral only for him to appear headed for a job he’s never really seemed like he’s wanted, Hen having a whole episode about being forgotten and it being okay to take up space deciding that she’s not going to be captain actually. guys. I think the recurring theme of the season is that it’s good to give up on your dreams and maybe dying is okay actually.

[trilliath]

i got halfway through making cookies and ran out of steam and so i just slapped the dough into a baking dish and while this might be okay for some cookie bar things i knew there was too much dough for that size of dish i knew it but it was too late the "fuck it" had already taken ahold of me so now it's baking and it's been fully 25 minutes already and it's puffed up to like two and a half inches tall and the dough in the middle is still raw

[trilliath]

Reblog and put in the tags: In terms of controversy, discourse, infighting, ship wars, etc., which of the fandom’s you’ve been was the most stressful? Which was the most peaceful?

[trilliath]

"I don't believe Tarot is real, but it does work"

Expand on that, king (genuinely curious)

I feel like…

okay, so it’s a lot like conceptual art, or like introspective meditation, at the risk of sounding pretentious

Like. It’s not so much about “the cards are a portal to a higher wisdom that knows more than me” thing- it’s more of a, “given the symbols drawn, could I interpret them posing a question or possibility or suggestion?” Followed by, “is this applicable to my current context? COULD it be?”

Like.

I don’t lay out á tarot hand and say “ah yes, the devil and the tower, I am about to be betrayed”

But I MAY lay out a hand and say, “okay, devil and the tower. Something treacherous and danger. Am I approaching a treacherous or risky situation in my life? What might be a tipping factor? Am I being deliberately reckless? Maybe I should spend some more time working on X project I’ e been thinking of before spending money on it” or “you know what, I HAVE been kind of uncomfortable with X thing, I should say something” or “yeah okay I KNOW Tom from work sucks to work with, I KNOW, yeah maybe I should consider ways of handling that”

Less of a magic oracle, more of a tool for doing literary analysis on real life. Like simplifying everything and laying it out flat so I can gain some distance to untangle my problems without in-your-head crap like projected feelings and social obligation getting in the way and muddying the waters.

So like. I don’t think tarot cards can legit tell the future, but I DO think that self-reflection, mindfulness, and consideration sometimes allow us to predict and calculate our own circumstances.

So, IMO- It’s not real. But it works

If that makes sense

[trilliath]

[trilliath]

[trilliath]

Obsessed with the " they secretly got married and nobody knows they were even together again" era thats happening on my dash righ now!

[trilliath]

we assume Buck has been a “player” his whole life because that was ‘buck 1.0’ but 2 things — we don't have a whole lot of information about his dating habits pre-s1, and he only became Buck at the fire academy, anyway. We know Abby was his first serious relationship, but is that surprising for a guy who travelled through half the country — with a quick pit stop abroad I guess — from the ages of 20 to ~ 25/26? I don’t think many teenagers or 18-20 year olds get into serious relationships (I’m talking about vaguely-liberal barely-religious white americans specifically) 

my point is. in one of the first scenes of the show, where Bobby is talking to the hot priest about his addiction issues, and he mentions how different people cope with the job, it cuts to Buck taking the engine on a joyride for an anonymous hook up aka the “I’m a sex addict (self diagnosed)” subplot of s1e1. 

who’s to say Buck’s sex addiction (self diagnosed) didn’t start soon after starting at the academy or starting as a probationary firefighter. Like maybe the guy who travelled the country looking for a purpose in the form of a job or a career finally found it and still felt… empty. Imagine if you think you’ve finally figured it out and you’re going to lead a meaningful life now (and you swing way too hard and turn your job into your entire identity) but there’s still that void that you can’t fill. 

i still maintain that the show went about it the wrong way — the message s1e1 sends is that ‘having casual sex is bad and you’re disrespecting yourself and women’ like whoa Bobby, put that catholicism aside for a second, okay? Buck was fucked up because he was stealing govt property for hookups and literally fucking WHILE ON THE CLOCK (which btw is one of the key factors to consider when diagnosing addiction, when it starts to interfere with aspects of your life such as education/work, and in this case…yep, that’s exactly what happened!) NOT because ‘casual sex bad!!!!’ (but it’s not unsurprising given the general misogyny the showrunner has displayed in later seasons)(and they corrected this in s2 btw that’s why Taylor Kelly says ‘I’m a grown woman I know what I want’ after Buck goes to apologise for his behaviour of *checks notes* having consensual sex in a public bathroom. sigh.)

anyway. thinking about Buck keeping women at arms’ length but wanting someone to stick around for more than a one night stand. thinking about how he felt so fucking empty but wasn’t able to connect with someone because as a child he’d been deprived of love, affection, warmth from his primary caretakers. maybe becoming a firefighter was the first time he felt seen because he grew up as a ghost in a house haunted by another one. 

[trilliath]

I just love seeing them realize just how crazy the other is <3

[trilliath]

evan buckley + ADHD

[trilliath]

the insane experience of missing a fictional character . like you can always go back and reread the book , replay the game , rewatch the show or movie , you can always go back & see them , but you can never experience them & their story for the first time again . its absurd to miss them because they'll always be there , but you'll miss when there were still new things for them to say .

for a small time they were real & growing and changing and you hung onto every new word, but now all they can do is repeat the same story forever&ever & they're not real anymore because you know everything they're going to do. & you miss them. its fucked man...