For the AU game, I think you may hate this but I think you could do justice to a Multiverse, however you want to interpret that 😋
Oh, the multiverse, a fun little idea that now has to be crammed into everything because if the MCU is doing something then everyone has to do the exact same thing, even if the MCU is doing it in the most boring way possible.
The multiverse is like any other kind of narrative trope or tool in telling stories, in that it is neutral and depends on the skill of the artist wielding it. I personally think the multiverse works best on a narrowly focused character level. When a character is literally confronted with themselves and the choices they've made, what does that reveal about them? Are they jealous of their alternate self? Do they regret not taking a certain road? Does seeing a version of themself that did take that road give them a kind of peace? Or does it enrage them? Do they even like themself? Is this alternate timeline/universe in trouble and the characters have to grapple with the morality of helping or using their resources to save themselves? Ultimately, what does this say about who the characters are?
The MCU approach to the multiverse is extremely boring to me. Oh look, here's the Fantastic Four and Professor X from another reality are we going to do anything with that? Nope, we're going to explode their heads. The MCU isn't doing anything interesting with the multiverse other than just bashing dolls together. And look, I write fanfic, I write au fanfic, I love playing dolls, but I'm not being given millions of dollars to make movies that have dominated the past twenty years of popular culture that ultimately do nothing and say nothing. (Someone give me millions of dollars and lfj's contact info and I will turn the time loop fic into a movie.)
I think Spiderverse strikes a good balance between these two. You have the fun gags and visuals of the various spider-people--I particularly like Noir Spider-Man and the looney tune hijinks of Spider-Ham--but they are there to support Miles's story. As they tell him when he loses his Uncle Aaron, they've all lost someone they love and they all understand and grieve with him. Spider-Man is defined by having great power and the great responsibility that goes along with it, but they now know that great responsibility is shared among them. (Across the Spiderverse's use of the multiverse is different than Into the Spiderverse's and while I like Across the Spiderverse and love its animation, on a story level I think Spiderverse is the better movie.)
Anyway, that's enough media criticism. Here's some weird bullshit.
(cw: for referenced past child abuse)
--
1. The Council of Tommys meet for the first time when they’re seventeen. They’ve always been there, flickers of shadow that move with or away from him: Tommy turned left, others went right; he opted for AP Physics instead of Biology and meant Shawn, another Tommy took Bio and met Beth; he skipped class to drive up to the lake with Shawn, the other Tommy lost his virginity to Beth; he learned to keep his mouth shut at home, another Tommy showed up to school with a broken arm. Tommy spent most of his life alone, but he was never lonely.
“I’m just saying,” says a Tommy with long hair and pierced ears, “there’s other options than enlisting.”
“Like what?” Tommy says. He was too slow last week; his finger is splinted Some days all he wants to do is scream himself to death. “Where else are we going to fucking go?”
“Not into the fucking army,” another Tommy spits, lip split and furious. “Do you know what they do to guys like us?”
There are infinite Tommys at the Council, a recursive fractal stretching without end, and they all shift and press knuckles to their mouths. They all feel it, the need to start screaming and never stop. In the words of Tracy Chapman, leave tonight or live and die this way.
“I got an aunt in Pennsylvania,” a Tommy at the far end of the rooms says. His hair is shorn close to his scalp and he holds himself so small and scared, a prey animal. “I’m going there.”
“That’s crazier than the army plan,” the angry Tommy says with an ugly laugh. “I’ve never met her. I don’t even know her name.”
“It’s Anne,” Tommy says, but it’s lost in the ensuing arguing.
Pennsylvania Tommy, as scared and small as he is, is still a Kinard, and he stands up and says, firm and unforgiving, “I saved up money, and I got a car, and I am not dying here.” He looks to Tommy. “Do what you gotta do to get out of here.”
And then that Tommy leaves the Council for his own life.
Into the desperate, terrified silence, Tommy says, “My birthday is in a couple of months. I’m going. You do what you want.”
Tommy goes back to his life, and enlists the day he turns eighteen. He leaves home and he, at least, never looks back.
2. They wait until they've been transferred to Germany and weaned off the good drugs before holding another Council. Once he's been cleared by the doctors for travel, he'll be back on a plane to the US where his discharge will be processed and he'll be back to being plain old Tommy Kinard, civilian.
"This is why I said not to enlist," the Tommy with pierced ears says. Instead of spending the last few years dodging every bullet but the last one, this Tommy had apparently been stretching out his ears with increasingly lager earrings and getting tattoos and experimenting with different hair colors. Tommy is as jealous as he is furious. "What are you going to do now?"
He looks at his fellow soldiers, the ones who made it. There are fewer attendees to this Council of Tommys—for every Tommy who had survived, there was one who didn’t—and there was no sign of Pennsylvania Tommy since he packed his car and took off. He wasn't dead. They knew what it felt like when one of them died, like when a tiny Tommy Kinard was knocking into the corner of the coffee table and never got up again. These had gone to Pennsylvania and never bothered to return.
"I know how to fly," Tommy says, shifting in vain along with the other Tommys in other hospital beds as they tried to find a position that didn't hurt. "I can get a job doing that."
"What, running tours?" says one Tommy, who had been dishonorably discharged under DADT because he'd been dumb enough not to turn away when Jax looked in their direction.
"There's medevac," Tommy says because he had spent the long hours stuck in a hospital bed thinking about this. "Search and Rescue. Some fire departments have an air ops division."
"Bet you wish you had more experience in conducting rescue ops," says the Tommy who eschewed the army in favor of the coast guard and hasn't stopped being smug about it since.
"I'm just saying we have options," Tommy says.
Three beds over, one of the quiet Tommys says, "Simpson invited me home. He's got an uncle and some cousins that own a ranch in Montana. He said we could stay with them while we get back on our feet."
There wasn't a Tommy Kinard who didn't have a bit of an asshole streak to him, and so it wasn't a surprise when several made the cymbal rimshot noise. Simpson had gotten it worse and his leg was amputated just below the knee.
"What are you going to do in Montana?" long haired Tommy asks, curious rather than judgmental. "Ride horses?"
Quiet Tommy shrugs, a small gesture. All of their fathers were angry men, but some were worse than others. "Why not? We learned how to fly, didn't we?"
"But Montana," says another one.
"A lotta sky there," Coast Guard Tommy says.
They all nod. There is a lot of sky out there.
"What about you?" a different version of himself asks him. "You want to go play cowboy?"
"I think," he says slowly, carefully stretching out his legs, teeth gritted against the pain, "I want to go to California."
They all nod again. There is a lot of sky in California, too.
They don't take a census—they never have; it's never needed—and the Council ends. Each of them go and live their singular life.
3. “I’m going to ask Abby to marry me,” a Tommy says when the Council meets again. There were less and less of them every time. Their shadows remained, those little flickers of choices not made, but they stopped showing up, too different for even the Council.
Tommy sucks air between his teeth. He met Abby through a holiday party for first responders, and he liked how hard won her smile was, how bright her laughter, the careful way she held herself, and, for just a moment, he thought maybe in the same way way he thought about the Tommys who went to Pride and wore nail polish and had been brave enough to kiss Jax, and he had slipped away before she could ask for his number.
This Tommy had stayed. This Tommy gave Abby his number. This Tommy desperately wants what he is supposed to want: a marriage to a beautiful woman, a house, kids maybe.
“It’s not going to work,” says a Tommy with bright green nails.
“Why not?” that Tommy asks. “Why can’t we be normal?”
“Because,” Tommy says, the only thing he’s said at all, “I’m a fag. You know that.”
They do know that, and they weep, some out of terror, some out of pride, and some just for the joy making it out and being alive.
4. There is no time for a Council. Evan calls; he needs a pilot. Every Tommy Kinard who exists, every shadow and recursive fractal spread out through every universe, answers. There is no world in which he doesn’t.
He picks up Evan and Moira BLake. He flies them away from SoCal Biomed. He evades the army. He does not crash. Bobby Nash dies.
When it’s over, those few who remain interrogate themselves at the Council. Was it a mistake to engage instead of withdrawing? Should they have tried to climb instead of hiding among the buildings? This wasn’t Afghanistan; the tricks that kept them alive are useless here. No, they would have been forced down sooner. Did they see Evan? Did they see how he looked at them?
None of it matters. Bobby dies and dies and dies. Evan screams his throat bloody. Tommy is alone with himself.
5. The final Council is held on a Thursday. It is only him and the Tommy with pierced ears and full tattoo sleeves. The ones who went to Pennsylvania and Montana and Peru, who kept their mouths shut in Eddie’s kitchen, who touched Evan’s elbow after the funeral, are long gone. Those Tommys don’t need each other anymore.
“You know why it’s just us,” says the other Tommy.
“I know,” Tommy says.
The other Tommy fiddles with the heavy silver ring on his index finger. “I never met him. I don’t even know if I can. Maybe I’m too different from you.”
Before, when the others were around, Tommy could feel the weight of a wedding ring on his finger. He always assumed it belonged to the Tommy who married Abby. But maybe he got it all wrong. He usually does.
“I’ve always wanted to get my ears pierced,” Tommy says. “And I wanted tattoos and to grow out my hair and paint my nails. I never did. I was too afraid.”
Tommy shakes his head. “Dad would have killed us. He nearly got me, but I was faster.”
There is a phantom scar on his arm and a phantom nick on his neck from a flung plate aimed at his head. They survived their father; they can survive this.
“I keep hoping,” this Tommy says, wistful. “It happened for you. You found Evan. Maybe it will happen for me.”
He feels that weight again. “Try Pennsylvania again. He might be a teacher. That’s what Evan thinks he might have done if Daniel lived.”
“Do you think so?” Tommy asks, overflowing with hope.
“Worth a shot.”
“And what about you?” The silver ring spins and spins and spins. “Are you going to try?”
“Worth a shot,” he says, again.
And that is how the last Council of Tommy Kinard ends, with hope.
6. Tommy is ten minutes early but Evan still beats him to the coffee shop. He’d claimed the good table, the one that did wobble and was in the shade.
“I, uh, got you coffee,” Evan says, wiping his hands nervously on his pants. He’s lost some weight, but he’s still so beautiful. “I know how you take it now.”
“I hope so.” He sits without being asked. There’s only him; he’s so nervous. “You’ve made it for me often enough.”
Evan ducks his head, cheeks pink and blushing. Of course the other Tommys stayed gone. Why come back when they could be with Evan?
“I’m really happy you called,” Evan says, glancing up through his lashes. “I kept meaning to, but it’s been so long. It feels like we maybe missed our window.”
There are no other Tommy Kinards. There is only him. What a responsibility. What a gift.
“I don’t think there is a window. We get to decide.” He holds out his hand. “Are you ready for something?”
Evan’s smile is brighter than the Afghan sun. “I am,” Evan says, and takes his hand.
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Heading into a 3 day weekend and both the next Din and Ana book and the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey are ready for pickup at the library. Unrestrained summer fun.
Heading into a 3 day weekend and both the next Din and Ana book and the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey are ready for pickup at the library. Unrestrained summer fun.
Heading into a 3 day weekend and both the next Din and Ana book and the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey are ready for pickup at the library. Unrestrained summer fun.
If you’re still doing HiAUtus prompts, what about a scenario where Buck already knew Tommy was Abby’s ex coming into s7?
oh boy. almost 2k here. for the ask meme that i'm working on i promise! formatting is all over the place. don't worry about it!
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1) i think they're all having "thank god we're alive" drinks some night after the cruise ship rescue, including tommy. chimney reaches a drink threshold that has him hit his hand on the table and ask, "tommy, are we ever talking about your secret engagement?"
hen: ohhhhh we have to talk about it, it's been long enough, we almost died in a helicopter, in a hurricane, we have to talk about her
tommy stares at them, then at buck and eddie, as he melts into a giant lake of sweat. "i don't… know what you mean…"
buck and eddie, rolling up to the el chisme buffet: oh gosh what is this about, someone should tell us everything right away
chimney: it was like the second thing i ever learned about you!!! and you didn't even tell me!!!! i had to hear it from this lady who shows up while i'm man behind. she comes looking for tommy, he left his phone at my place and he's been calling it all day, is he around?
tommy, to buck and eddie: i need one of you go to drive to harbor, find a chopper, turn it on, and let me walk into the blades. fly it here. now. it's not that hard. turn the key and pull up.
buck: can i?????????????
eddie and hen and tommy: NO
chimney: and i'm like, ooooohhhhhh yes ma'am, i'll GLADLY pass this on to TOMMY KINARD, who should i say it's from????? and then her diamond ring sparkles right in my eye—
hen, a memory suddenly dawning on her: uhhhh wait chim before the grand finale what if we get some more cheese fries, go up and order some and then come back and we'll do the big reveal
tommy: of my corpse, because i'm killing myself. i'll get the cheese fries, you guys get a body bag
chimney: everyone shut up!!!!!!!!!!!!! she says, i'm abby clark, tommy's fiancee. and then she disappeared into the mist and tommy refused to speak about it ever…….. until now
tommy: there's no until now, there's—
buck: ….abby? my ex-girlfriend, abby?
hen: no………………. uh…………… another abby………… it's a big los angeles metro area out there, there's tons of 911 dispatchers named abby clark out there…...........
tommy stares at buck, then asks: himbo?
2) hahahaha so funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tommy buries his face in his hands, EVERYONE goes up to order every appetizer on the menu, but buck stays behind so he can watch tommy have a nervous breakdown for several minutes. finally tommy sits up and stares at buck. "so."
buck pulls out his phone and slides it across the table. the folder is just labeled ABBY (2018) and, yep. that's a whole relationship with his ex-fiancee happening on some other guy's phone. "shit, you bulked up," is all tommy can say. "anyway, yeah. that's… my ex. and your ex."
"why'd you break it off?" buck asks.
"i'm gay."
"oh. did she know that?"
"if she does, i didn't tell her. why'd she break up with you? i mean, assuming—"
"uh, her mom died and she went to travel the world, then kinda ghosted me."
"oh. wow."
"yeah."
then they sit in silence for a while, peeling the labels off their beer bottles, until everyone comes back with many hot foods. "… did things somehow get weirder while we were away?" chimney asks. "you were supposed to talk about this, figure it out!"
eddie: you guys, this can't be the first time either of you-
tommy: i'm gay and i broke up with her because i never loved her. um. thanks for the fries and the drinks. nice meeting you or catching up with you. i gotta go. bye
he flees for his life, and buck watches him go. chimney and hen watch, too, then catch buck and eddie on The Life and Times of Tommy Kinard (as far as they know, which is clearly not at all)
3) tommy opens his door: it's eddie?
"so before everyone blew up your spot over the whole………. got engaged to someone and never really loved them, which, well, i don't know, people just do things sometimes for good reasons or not-so-good reasons, or good reasons with good people at the wrong time, or good people you thought you were just starting to—"
"are you eddie? sorry, i blacked out and died after i ran out, so. didn't quite catch your name."
"yeah i'm eddie. you wanna hang out? chim said you're into muay thai and i just started taking classes at a gym near my place."
"……….. yeah ok."
because they're really manfully beating the shit out of each other, they manage to…………. share? their thoughts? honestly? also eddie's kid is cool and they all like watching sports, so. is this……….. a friend?
3b) this evan or buck guy, though. the one who like. actually- yeah. maybe. maybe he is. to be. avoided. like just until tommy gets a handle on the humiliation he's managed to bury for 5+ years, then maybe he can say more than hey what's up to the dewy-eyed himbo whose dick abby rebounded with before her mom died and she escaped from LA. it's fine. he's not avoiding the guy. he's just making sure to never be in the same room as him for more than six seconds. nothing weird about that. tommy's busy! he's got a busy life! places to be! hobbies to hobby!
4) unfortunately, eddie is only kind of tommy's new friend; he's evan's best friend. tommy figures that's how evan got his address and why he's standing in his driveway while tommy's tinkering in the garage. why did he leave the door open? this is what he gets for trying to embrace a "welcoming" aura in the neighborhood- some asshole shows up and expects to be welcomed.
"hey, tommy. why are you being so fucking weird about having the same ex?"
"hey, evan," tommy calls from under a car. "well, i'm being fucking weird about it because i'm gay and for about five minutes i thought maybe i wasn't that gay, like i could marry a woman and also be gay, it's not like i needed to act gay or do gay things, i could just—whatever, man. why are you here?"
"because i want to be your friend and you don't like me? and you don't like me for reasons that have nothing to do with me? maybe i want to hang out with eddie and chris and you, because they think you're really cool. maybe it's stupid that you made up your mind to not like me over a woman who hasn't been in the same country as you for five years. do you save all the common sense for the helicopter?"
tommy sighs deeply and slides out from under the car. "that wasn't very nice of you, new friend."
evan looks down at him, upside down and really annoyed. "wasn't very nice of you to avoid me."
"… do you want a beer or something?"
"i would. thank you. and then tell me about this car."
"do you know anything about cars?"
"guess you gotta find out."
5) eddie and tommy get along sooooooooo well. they're like, weirdly similar, buck thinks, like the gay side and straight side of the same bitchy coin. and it's sooooooo not fair that it's so EASY for eddie and tommy to get along and so not for him and tommy.
no ok, like, buck and tommy DO get along. their conversation is so easy and buck loves leaning in close to listen to whatever tommy says, and the 118 invites tommy out to drag him back in with their tendrils, but tommy hangs out with eddie, too, and he starts inviting buck places, just the two of them. they do outdoorsy stuff that eddie has no interest in, tommy invites him out to movies because buck has never seen any but he wants to see them with tommy, they go to new restaurants all the time, sometimes they just hang out at the loft or at tommy's place (aggressively comparing tommy's porch to bulk's balcony). he and tommy don't have a list of things in common like he and eddie do, but they spend so much time together and talk and text all the time and buck just likes being near him and with him and prying him open like-
6) "hey hen, i took five quizzes about whether i'm bisexual and it says i am, but like, how can i know? like really know?"
"good question. is there a 6'2" firefighter-pilot whose mouth can help you answer that?"
"…………………………. what if he hates me, though. like we're friends now. what if he still hates me because of abby. …………. not that this is about tommy. it's about me. and not tommy. it could be about anyone."
"talk to him. kiss him if it goes well. talk to him some more if it doesn't. try kissing him again. you two have been coming to our group hangouts and treating them like dates for more than a month now, so both of you might need to knock your heads together a few times to figure it out."
"oh. okay. thanks hen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also i'm bisexual you can tell everyone if you want!!!!!!!!!!! is there a special place to get one of those flag pins and bumper stickers or can i get them anywhere?"
"please ask tommy. that's a good question for tommy."
"ok now you're making fun of me >:( "
"absolutely. have fun!!!!"
7) buck comes to tommy's house and they stand across the kitchen from each other, and buck tries to piece together everything: the abby thing, the friendship thing, the chemistry thing, the wanting-to-kiss-his-mouth-and-dig-his-fingers-into-his-hair-so-fucking-badly thing. and buck opens his mouth and……… nothing comes out. until finally:
"i think……… i have a crush on you? i think……… i really like you? and i can't remember the last time i…….. liked someone this much? i feel all bubbly and excited to see you, and i don't care what we do as long as we do it together. lately i think the only thing that could make it amazing, so much more amazing, is if we were kissing, too. oh my god, see what i mean, like, who says that when they're normal about someone, who calls it kissing, what i mean-" buck pauses. "yeah that's exactly what i mean. sorry."
"what are you sorry for?" tommy asks, having addressed none of his concerns.
"………. that it's me," buck says. "that i'm….. your friend, but…. but i was abby's himbo first. and you were abby's fiance first. and maybe we've been…. maybe we're friends now but maybe we'll always be abby's exes first. maybe we can't be anything else."
"but you just said we were friends," tommy replies. "so clearly we can be something else."
"tommy," buck whines. "can you- about the other stuff, could you just- just tell me whether it's possible. please."
"i think… the first thing you knew about me was the worst thing about me, and you still stomped over and demanded to be my friend. so i think…… if you saw that- if you saw me- and you still stuck around, and you're- you're here and you want to, uh, stick even more-?"
"i wanna stick around so bad," buck says, suddenly all the way across the kitchen, right in tommy's face, so close they can feel each other breathing. but buck holds back, stares at his lips, whispers, "tommy, please."
and suddenly that's easy, too: standing in the moment, together, the past carefully packed up and out of their way.
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Parked across the street from the exact same double of my car: same color, make, model, year, and the first 3 license plate digits. You know what that means!
This is based on a real conversation I had with some random kiddo while I was jogging in my neighborhood.
+
When Sal's girls were little—before they entered middle school and immediately turned into gremlins who are way too cool to hang out with Uncle Tommy because he doesn't know who Harper Zilmer is and therefore should hang by the neck until dead—Tommy used to take them to the park across the street from their kindergarten. It's the last remaining wooden park in the greater Los Angeles area and has some of the most comfortable benches a human ass has ever sat upon.
Lately he's been trying to fit more cardio into his routine, because Lucy made a comment about him working out so much that his turnouts were starting to look like a wetsuit, and he's taken to running through that particular neighborhood. After he cools down from a run, he gets to catch his breath on one of those comfy-ass benches.
On the second day of his 72-off, he does almost seven miles in under an hour—a personal best—and then rewards himself by heading over to the wooden park so he can drop onto a bench, close his eyes, and lose himself in The Cactus Album. He's halfway through Steppin' to the A.M. when his skin starts prickling. He's being watched.
He cracks one eye open to find a little boy in a Bluey shirt standing practically on top of Tommy's sneakers, staring with wide, oddly familiar blue eyes.
Tommy opens the other eye, then takes out one of his ear buds.
"Uh, can I help you?"
With a grin that pings as oddly familiar, the boy lifts his hand to proudly show off the massive splint that has consumed his thumb. "I broke it!"
Tommy blinks. "How'd you do that?"
The kid's grin widens until it's practically splitting his face in two. If he were vibrating any harder, Tommy's phone would surely be blaring an earthquake warning.
"I slammed it in a door! Like this: BAM!" To illustrate, the kid lifts his other hand, which is holding some kind of toy, and bashes his palm against it. Then he comically whines and shakes out his hand, hopping from foot to foot. His shoes light up.
"Okay," Tommy says peaceably. "Follow-up question: why'd you do that?"
With a shrug, the boy scratches his nose with the hand holding the toy. "I screamed really loud and-and-and there was blood."
"I bet." Judging by the size of the splint, there was probably a decent amount of wailing too. Arianna, Sal's youngest, once tripped over her own scooter and scraped her knee, and she screeched loud enough to wake the dead. The scrape hadn't even broken the skin. She's definitely got the makings of a theater kid. "Uh, where are your parents?"
"In Heaven with Cap." The boy says it absently, like it's nothing. Probably because all of his attention is on one of those small, white butterflies that seem to be everywhere. It wings by them and goes to inspect some nearby dandelions.
"That sucks. I'm sorry," Tommy murmurs, then scrunches his nose in confusion. "Wait, what's the cap?"
The kid holds up the toy in his hand suddenly. "This is a helicopter! It's mine."
He emphasizes every syllable, even where there shouldn't be any. Hel-i-cop-ter. Muh-ine.
"Your helicopter isn't just any helicopter," Tommy says, taking out his other ear bud and digging out their case from the flipbelt he got in last year's Harbor yankee swap, tucking them in. He sits up a little straighter, then gestures for the kid to hand it over, which the boy does. "That's a Kaman SH-2F Seasprite."
And a pretty accurately designed one, too. Tommy'd ask the kid where he got it, but the answer's probably Santa.
"Whazzat mean?" The kid leans forward, peering at his toy with wide, interested eyes. Seeing it anew.
"These guys were pretty fast." Tommy cuts the Seasprite through the air between them, then swoops it around the kid's head. The boy bursts into giggles and tries to track what is an admittedly insane flightpath. If Tommy were actually flying like this, ATC would think he was having a stroke. "If I remember correctly, they were used for SAR and ASW."
"Whazzat?"
Tommy stifles a laugh. "SAR is search and rescue, and ASW is uh, anti-submarine warfare. So, like, looking for lost people and.... yeah, there's no way to sugarcoat this: blowing up subs."
The kid bounces on his feet. His shoes look like a Berlin electronica festival. "What's a subs?"
"Submarine," Tommy corrects gently. He remembers being that age, learning the lingo, having his world expand a little bit more. Except he learned it all from his Uncle Terry, who fought in Vietnam, had ridiculous PTSD, and ate twelve packs of cigarettes a day. Tommy's hopefully a step or two above that. "It's like a—a submarine is a boat that moves underwater. See this?"
He tilts the helicopter and taps his thumb against one of the Mk 46's hanging off the side. The kid nods, shifting from foot to foot. Blue, red, yellow, purple, green.
"This is a torpedo. I don't think the Seasprites had missiles, but they definitely had these. Now, a torpedo is different from a missile because..."
About 45 minutes later, Tommy's in the middle of the world's worst child-friendly explanation of infrared thermography—pausing every so often so the kid can scream "DOWN SCOPE!" at a decibel only dogs can hear and run around while pretending he's looking through a periscope on a submarine—which he told Tommy wasn't a submarine, but actually some big turtle Pokemon that had guns attached to its back—when a familiar pair of eye-wateringly orange Nikes enters his field of vision.
He looks up and, yep, there it is: the phantasm that haunts his thoughts whenever he allows himself to be alone with them.
It's been a year since Bobby's funeral, and Tommy's spent that time hoping Evan pissed off another dead cowboy and had been turned into a hideous swamp creature, but the universe seems to have gone in the opposite direction. He's a thousand times more gorgeous than Tommy remembers him being.
"Uh, hey," Tommy says intelligently.
He's definitely making this unexpected reunion more awkward by staring, but sue him. You don't shame someone for admiring a Rembrandt.
Evan stares back, eyes wide. "W-Were you just teaching a four-year old about modern warfare?"
After doing a quick mental rewind of the last hour and then glancing at the kid in question—who does appear to be that young—Tommy grimaces. "Uh, that... seems to be the case, yeah."
If it were anyone else, they'd probably start screaming at him, maybe throw hands, before calling the cops, because for all intents and purposes, Tommy is a complete and utter stranger who could've been using that toy helicopter to lure this kid into a rickety old van.
But Evan just stares at him for a few moments, then ducks his head and laughs.
"Did it have to be, like, bombing enemy warships?" Evan puts his hands on his hips. "Couldn't you have talked to him about, I don't know, that movie with the dinosaurs on a cross-country trip?"
"You want me to traumatize this kid with The Land Before Time?" Tommy lifts a hand to clutch his invisible pearls. "It's 10:30 in the morning, Evan. Way too early for sad tree stars."
"Corrupting the youth in your off-time, huh?" Evan asks, smiling.
Tommy can't help but tease back, "Just like my father always said I would."
A look of mortified horror washes over Evan's face. "Oh god, Tommy, that's not what I—"
"I'm just messing with you, Evan," he says, although he's really not.
Good ol' Jim Kinard believes in precisely two things: 1) Knob Creek bourbon is mankind's greatest invention, and 2) gay people were created by Russia to destroy the fabric of Western society and usher in a new world order. He said the second thing usually while chin-deep in the first, which was often.
Evan still looks like he's wishing for the ground to open up and suck him into hell, which Tommy can't let stand, and he opens his mouth to redirect the conversation to something that doesn't make him want to rip his skin off, but the kid beats him to it.
"SERGEANT TOMMY! FIRE THE MISSILES! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"
Both he and Evan turn. Somehow in the last two minutes, the kid's managed to cover himself in grass clippings and is holding what looks like a years-old empty bottle of Pepto Bismol.
"Oh jeez, Theo," Evan says with a fond sigh. "Remember what we do with trash that we find on the ground?"
The kid—Theo, apparently—shakes his head wildly, but he does at least drop the Pepto. "No no no no no! Sergeant Tommy! Fire!"
Evan turns pleading eyes on Tommy, silently beseeching him for help.
Which Tommy can absolutely provide. "Kid, c'mon, I told you: you fire torpedoes from a submarine, not missiles. And you say "shoot" for torpedoes. Saying "fire" might make someone think there's an actual fire on board."
The pleading melts to reveal daggers, all aimed at Tommy's head.
"SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!" Theo howls, bouncing.
"Aye, aye." Tommy salutes, then swings his arm down in an excellent karate chop. "BOOM!"
Shrieking with laughter, Theo runs in the direction of the imaginary torpedo, and Evan watches him like a hawk.
"I'm gonna kill you for this," Evan says serenely.
Tommy follows Theo's path thanks only to his shoes. He's running so fast that he's basically leaving trails of light behind him, like one of the bikes in Akira. When he looks back at Evan, his heart starts pounding. "I was, uh, thinking about hitting up the sandwich shop around the corner. Their breakfast paninis are supposed to be incredible—perfect for a last meal. Maybe you and the kid might want to join me? My treat."
At that, Evan's head whips around and the hopeful lilt to his smile makes some hard thing inside Tommy crumble to sand.
"Y-Yeah?"
Tommy smiles. "Yeah. And maybe you can explain how you managed to hide the fact that you have a kid from me for six months."
"T-That's not—I didn't—it's a very long story," is what Evan settles on, shoulders dropping. His smile, however, doesn't disappear. "He's not my son, but I'm his—it's complicated."
"It always is," Tommy says, then gets to his feet. "Which is terrifying on a level I don't have words to describe, but my secret therapist says I could use some complicated in my life. We'd been kicking around ideas for exposure therapy; I'm pretty sure this qualifies, so."
The grin that splits Evan's lips is so bright that it could rival the California mid-morning sun. Tommy wants to reach out and press his thumb to it to see if it's just as warm. But not yet. Exposure therapy only works if you deliberately ramp it up over time, according to Dr. Chatterjee. And Tommy has to believe him, because otherwise he's paying this guy an exorbitant amount under the table to be lied to.
He'd happily drain his 401k dry if it meant Evan might keep looking at him like this.
"BUCK! BUCK! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!"
Spell broken, they turn in unison to see Theo about ten feet away, holding up what appears to be a baby doll with a pickle jar for a head. Inside, something dark and crimson sloshes around.
"This park has everything," Tommy marvels, before he and Evan take off after him at a run.
They end up getting tacos for lunch at Guisados because the pickle jar contains a human kidney and the cops don't let them go until well after Wichcraft stops selling breakfast for the day.
Which is fine, because he gets to eat a truly life-changing bistek roja while Evan tucks a sneaker against Tommy's and makes eyes at him across the table, and Theo makes a mess of his quesadilla trying to copy the way Tommy eats.
It's not quite how he expected to end today's run, because Guisados' seats aren't nearly as comfy as the park bench, but Tommy's been shelling out the big bucks all these months to learn how to roll with the punches. Seems like it's finally paying off.
fuck it, i'm curious. reblog and tag with the first fictional death to ever rewrite your brain chemistry and/or make you cry like a baby. mine was ares from the underland chronicles (who, for context, was a giant bat.) to this day i will weep if i think too hard about it. okay, go.
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Would love maybe a Bird Cage / La Cage aux Folles AU for Bucktommy
Friend, let me first begin with an apology. I could not figure out how to make a birdcage au work despite my best efforts. So this is more inspired by it then anything. I'd say it was more spirit than letter, but honestly it's more vibes than spirit. I still hope you like it.
--
1. “I once thought about opening a bar,” Evan said, dragging lazy fingers through Tommy's hair.
A rare storm front was moving through SoCal, and they spent the day laid up on the couch with aching limbs, Evan's leg and his hip. He was staring at a full replacement in the next ten years. It was a miracle he hadn't needed one when he caught a stray bullet in Afghanistan. The bone healed well, but he wasn't twenty anymore and a couple decades with the LAFD took an unavoidable toll on the body. It was getting to the point where he had to decide whether to take a desk job or retire and try something new.
“Thought about or actually did some planning?” Tommy asked, head in Evan's lap.
“Well, I was twenty-four,” Evan said. “It was mostly me and a bunch of my other meathead twenty-four friends talking about what kind of themed bar he would have and the music we would play and also how it would get us girls.”
“So an absolute nightmare of a place.” He squinted up at Evan. “You still made a spreadsheet didn't you?”
“I made three spreadsheets," Evan admitted. “One was just for music. It had all the hottest hits of 2013.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “This hypothetical bar that hypothetically belongs to both of us won’t cater to fuck boys from like twenty years ago. You can play whatever terrible music you want.”
Instead of grappling with the fact that 2013 was twenty years ago and crumbling into dust, Tommy said, “I should not be given that power. Do you know what music I would play?”
“Weird industrial metal interspersed with like monastic chanting," Evan said without missing a beat.
“I’ll have you know monastic chanting got real big in the early nineties.”
“I can't tell if you're lying or not.” Evan scratched his scalp. “The other problem besides your terrible taste in music—”
“Hey, you love my weird industrial metal playlists,” he said, smiling as Evan tugged at his hair in reprimand.
“—is there's a lot of standing involved. Might tax your hip.”
“Not if I get a bionic one. We have the technology now.” That earned him another eye roll, but a loving one. “I don't think a bar is for me.”
“We'll think of something else. “Or,” Evan added with that beautiful smile, “you can be a house husband.”
That was a tempting thought. He could spend his days tinkering and reorganizing their cupboards and refrigerator using that color coded system they kept tossing around or maybe get that irrigation system up and running for the backyard. Hell, he could even finish rebuilding Evan's old Jeep.
“I wouldn’t even last a week before I started climbing the walls,” he said, rolling his head along Evan's broad thigh. “You'll have to put me down like Old Yeller.”
Evan laughed at his dramatics. “So we'll find something else for you to do.”
2. “I think we missed the extremely obvious,” Tommy said, plating the croque monsieurs.
“If you mean we should open a restaurant, I agree.” Evan proudly showed off the bi flag he’d assembled out of various berries. “Just think of all the specials we can have for Pride.”
“Now why do I get the feeling most of those would be banana based?” he asked.
Evan waggled his eyebrows and playfully poked his tongue into his cheek. Not for the first time, Tommy was tempted to divorce him just so they could get married all over again.
“That can be the back up plan,” he said, arms held out so that Evan could slide in to steal a kiss before he stole one of the plates. Tommy followed him to the table, his hip twinging as he sat. Growing old was a motherfucker, but it also brought him this: breakfast with his husband in the home they made together. “I meant I could give helicopter tours.”
Evan paused midway through shoving half his croque monsieur into his mouth. Almost fifty and he still ate with all the grace of a feral coyote.
“Chew before you choke.” He pointed his fork at Evan. “Do not make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke. It doesn’t even make sense in this context.”
“I was going for an anilingus joke if you must know,” Evan said with a full mouth because he was disgusting. He swallowed. “You love to fly. I know this.”
“You should.” Tommy took a normal human man bite. He finally go the bechamel sauce right. “How many helicopters have I stolen for you at this point?”
“The first doesn’t count. That was for Hen.” Evan speared a couple of strawberries, leaving the flag lopsided. Tommy grabbed some blackberries to even it out. “You love to fly, but you don’t actually like people. It takes you forever to warm up to someone.”
“Well, that’s not true. I liked you right from the start.”
Evan ducked his head, cheeks pink and pleased. More than a decade together and it was still so easy to make him blush. “You liked me, but it took you a long time before you opened up with me. My fault too,” he added quickly. “Remember the break up?”
“Like I could forget.” He stole a strawberry from Evan’s plate. “But this is just flying people around for a couple of hours. And the whole point of the tour is for them to be looking at the view and not bothering the pilot.”
Evan took a smaller bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Babe, I love you, but think about the kind of people in LA that can afford a helicopter tour. You really want to stuck in the air for at least an hour?”
“All right that is a good point,” he conceded, grabbing a few blueberries before Evan could get to them. “But consider this: we move to Hawaii and I open my own helicopter business and you get to mentor a whole new station and save even more lives. And,” he added casually, “I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to grow a mustache.”
“Wait,” Evan said, torn between laughter and outrage, “are you trying to Magnum PI me?”
“Tom Selleck in those tiny shorts were a formative experience for me.” He rubbed their feet together. “You got the legs for those tiny shorts.”
“You horny monster.” Laughter won, and Evan was glowing with it. “If I promise to wear the shorts, can we stay in this expensive city where we already own real estate instead of moving to an even more expensive state where we don’t own real estate?”
Tommy heaved a giant sigh. “Those shorts better be really tiny.”
“The tiniest ones we can find.” Evan’s face softened. “If you really want to fly tours then I’ll get started on getting you whatever licenses you need.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” he said.
Evan flung a blueberry at him. “I’m worried that you’ll find it boring. It’s not flying suppressant to a wildfire.”
“It’s a lot safer.” He considered all the calls Evan had been sent on over the years. “Probably.”
“Less chance of being swallowed by a whale,” Evan said, sneaking socked toes up Tommy’s pants leg.
Tommy sat with that, and when they finished their croque monsieurs and all the fruit, he said, “Let’s file it alongside the bar idea.”
“I’ll start a list,” Evan said, and pulled out his phone.
3. "I don't see why you gotta retire at all," Sal said, halfway through the fruitiest cocktail that Marge was willing to make, which was quite fruity and the color of a tacky sunset. Sal only ordered cocktails when they were at a gay bar, probably as a form of cultural exchange. As the kids used to say, Sal was a little confused but he had the spirit. "I always said you could move up the ranks if you wanted to."
"And I don't want to," Tommy said. "I'm a pilot, Sal. I belong in the skies."
Sal heaved a beleaguered sigh. "Save the dumb quotes for Howie." He took a delicate sip. "They're always looking for more instructors at the academy if you don't want to be in the field anymore. I never got why you wanted to spend all your time up in a tin can."
"Evan and I talked about it." He took a moment to line up the words in his head. Age and parenthood had granted Sal patience. There would have been a time Sal would have hounded him for an immediate answer, but now Sal waited for him to be ready. "I've been doing this job a long time." He did some quick math. "Jesus, almost all of my adult life."
Sal laughed. "Yeah, we somehow went and got old."
They were having a nice conversation over drinks, so Tommy didn't go and ruin it by pointing out that he hadn't ever thought he'd make it past twenty-six. "I love this job," he said, not having to search for the words; he and Evan had excavated them months ago. "I wouldn't have done it so long if I hadn't."
"Wouldn't have put up with Gerrard if you didn't," Sal said, holding out his cocktail glass and then giving it a little waggle when Tommy didn't toast fast enough.
"But I'm not like Evan or Hen or even you." He considered his cocktail, which was only marginally less tacky than Sal's. Hen was on the short list for deputy chief and he'd give up his license if she didn't get it. Evan was a captain, and he loved helping people too much to go take a position that would take him out of the field. And Sal had his house and the union and his holy crusade to make LAFD live up to its PR slogans. "I love it, but I'm done. I'm ready to be done."
Sal blew out a long breath but didn't fight him on it. "You'll be missed."
Tommy snorted. "I'm retiring. I'm not dying." He kicked Sal in the ankle. Sal retaliated, and they jostled for a minute before Marge shut that down with a pointed clearing of her throat. "And I'm not retiring right now."
"But soon, right?" said Sal, who knew him too well.
"Within the next two years. Three if I can't figure out what I want to do next."
"You can always give helicopter tours." Sal made a face. "I take that back. The first annoying customer is getting dumped into the ocean. You can't give tours."
"Evan already made that argument when I suggested it. And I never really considered it."
Sal gave him a long, knowing look. "You wanted to do it because of Magnum PI, right? You love a man in tiny shorts."
"I really do," Tommy said, and pulled out his phone to text Evan.
"What about a bar?" Sal suggested. "You could open a gay badge and ladder."
"I don't want to open a bar," he said absently as he texted Evan Sal agrees with you about the helicopter tours.
Sal leaned forward. "Hey, Marge! You looking for a partner for this joint?"
Marge looked up from slicing limes. "Deluca, what makes you think I want to enter into an legal partnership with him? I won't even marry my partner and I've known her a hell of a lot longer than Kinard here. Like her a lot more, too."
Tommy sent an air kiss her way. Evan texted duh the only thing we agree on is you be there in about 30 love u!!!!! That was followed by a separate text containing nothing but a dozen heart emojis and a few eggplants thrown in for good measure because there was no emotional state Evan couldn't find an emoji for. God, Tommy loved him.
"Also," Tommy added, "and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I don't want to run a bar."
"You're such a bitch." Sal grabbed him by the back of neck and planted a smacking kiss to his forehead. "Whatever you end up doing, you know me and the girls support you."
"I know." He dug his knuckles into Sal's ribs. "Now go see them. Give Gina my regards."
Sal shook him lovingly by the back of the neck. "You and her are so weird. Hey, bring the kid around to dinner. We'll brainstorm some career options.'
"He's not a kid," Tommy said. Evan was quickly catching up to him in the gray hair department and the increasing way he was squinting at his phone suggested he needed a pair of readers. "But sure. We'll put something into the calendar."
"All right, nerd. Tell the kid I said hi." With one more shake, Sal left to go back to his family and Tommy waited for his to arrive.
4. “I was the same way,” Marge said, replacing his cocktail with a club soda. He’d never been that big of a drinker, but had cut back even further over the last few years. These semi-regular outings with Sal was the only time he indulged now. “That’s how I ended up with this place.”
Marge was a handsome butch who was constantly changing how she kept her hair—for the past few months her gray hair was spiked in a mohawk and before that it was slicked back like a 1950s greaser—and had been behind the bar as long as Tommy had been coming here.
“You didn’t want to be put down like Old Yeller?” he said.
She grinned. “Pretty much. I didn’t want to continue what I was doing but I also didn’t want to be a retiree. That’s how I ended up with this place. Mac, the guy who owned it before me, needed to get out of town and needed money, and so I cleaned out my savings and took out a loan and Susie only had a single breakdown. Worked out for all of us in the end.”
“Why a bar?” he asked, frowning at his drink. “Wait, hold that thought. Where’s my fruit, Marge? Come on, you know a fruit needs fruit.”
“You ever see The Birdcage?” she asked, unimpressed as she dumped a bunch of cherries and limes and berries into the club soda, threatening to send it spilling over the glass edge.
“It’s that kind of question that makes me think you don’t like me. Have I seen a The Birdcage? What kind of fag do you think I am?”
“The kind married to a man who has seen two and half movies in his life,” she shot back.
That was a fair point, not that he would ever admit it. “So the movie made you want to open a gay club?”
He couldn’t keep the doubtful lilt out of his voice. The bar had a monthly drag night and did a trivia night whenever he and Evan badgered her into holding one, but it wasn’t the kind of place that played whatever was the hot new song and it definitely wasn’t the kind of place you came to dance and get drunk and do recreational drugs. It was a bar where you came to drink with people like you. It was a place where you got to exist as you were.
“You remember the sock scene?” she said.
Tommy sucked air in through his teeth. Of course he remembered that scene. His parents rented the movie because they liked Robin Williams, but his dad demanded they turn it off when it because it was about a bunch of queers. He and his mom watched it later when he was at work, and little eleven year old Tommy Kinard had almost started crying as Albert came out in that suit. He changed everything about himself, how he dressed and how he walked and how he sat, and all he kept was the pink socks, which was enough to give him away. All he wanted was to try to help his partner and his partner’s snotty kid, and they hated him for it.
“I cried myself to sleep over that,” he said. “I didn’t even know why.”
“Yeah, me too.” Marge looked around her bar, the regulars at the bar, the couple in the corner, the group of young kids playing the worst game of darts he’d ever seen, all of them obvious in how they walked and talked and dressed. “That’s why I bought this place. No one can tell us what kind of socks we need to wear. This is for us.”
“Us,” he repeated, and thought of the first time he bought an capital-G Gay movie and the terror that the cashier would know about him. And then he thought about last week when he scooped up a couple of gay romance books and the cashier didn’t even blink. “We should have more places. Hey, you own the building, right? Do you use the second floor?”
“Mostly for storage. Susie thinks I should turn it into an event space, but I do not want events happening here.” She gave him a knowing look. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I need to talk to my husband first.”
“Speak of the devil,” she said, and went to get Evan his basic beer.
“Hey, handsome,” Evan said, draping himself along Tommy’s side rather than sitting.
Tommy slipped an around around Evan’s waist. “Hey yourself. Not going to sit?”
“If I sit I might never get up again. Thanks, Marge,” he said, grabbing the beer. “What were you talking about? You looked very serious.”
“Pink socks,” Tommy said, sneaking his fingers under Evan’s shirt. “What do you think about a gay bookstore? One that also sells gay movies?”
Evan’s brow furrowed with how seriously he took the question. “I think,” Evan finally said, brow unfurrowing as he smiled, “that I’m going to start a spreadsheet for the financials.”
And there, in front of Marge and the regulars, Tommy kissed his husband. He spared a thought for little eleven year old Tommy, crying himself to sleep over some pink socks. That kid was going to be okay, and one day he was even going to be happy.
5. “This is a great a movie,” Tommy said to the kid who couldn’t be much older than sixteen.
“It looked interesting,” the kid said, swiping pink hair out of their eyes.
The store was small and, tucked as it was above the bar, got warm during the day despite the best efforts of the a/c unit shoved in the window. But Tommy loved, this little place full of books and movies and art. It was somewhere a kid with pink hair didn’t have to be scared about being clocked because it was for them. It was for all of them, him and Evan and Marge and everyone still figuring it out.
“It’s one of my favorites,” he said, meeting his husband’s gaze in the store they owned together. “You’re going to love it.”
There is a lot of bullshit associated with being an adult but it is 8 bajillion degrees and I thought it would sure be nice to have a milkshake and then went and got one on my lunch break. So it's not all bad.
There is a lot of bullshit associated with being an adult but it is 8 bajillion degrees and I thought it would sure be nice to have a milkshake and then went and got one on my lunch break. So it's not all bad.
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