freedom in the dark

After strikethrough he's annoyed enough that he follows Kerrie and his fandom friends to the new blogging site everyone's talking about. Tumblr is weird and he's a little old for a lot of the humor and he's not going to read this homestuck bullshit everyone's talking about but he finds his people and his url isn't taken so here he stays. Eventually Kerrie dips out, maybe after the porn ban, but most of his fandom friends stick around. He has a few viral posts from the early days that still go around every so often. He's a hardline app-hater; he stays logged in on mobile in the browser. He's old school. Sue him.

Buck is recovering from getting crushed by a ladder truck and scrolling reddit one day when he sees a post on r/all from a subreddit called--I guess this is, what, 2019? it's fucking r/tumblrinasinaction, of course. "Wow, that's funny," he says to himself, ignoring the 900+ reddit comments underneath it, and he types "tumblr dot com" into his browser. Setting up an account is easy enough. He checks in every so often over the next couple years. Then covid hits, and suddenly tumblr's his escape from the other dicks sleeping in his apartment.

Eventually he gets a post about some dumb firefighter show on his dashboard. Gifsets of two of the firefighters kissing. "Woah!" he says. He doesn't know why, but he's getting a little horny just looking at it. It's been a while since he had any action. It turns out he has a Photoshop license from something he did years ago, and it turns out gifmaking is kind of fun, and it turns out he really likes this firefighter show. Even though they broke up the two dudes, Chuck and Ronnie. He's so bummed out about the fictional breakup--and his own real breakup not too long ago--that he goes into the tags looking for... anything, he thinks. That's when he stumbles on fanfic.

youwantapilot is so, so good at writing, Buck thinks, tears in his eyes, after finishing his first 60k angst-with-a-happy-ending fix it fic. He decides to show his appreciation the only way he knows how: with a gifset.

youwantapilot is also really, really nice. They end up exchanging messages and then chatting nonstop for hours that night, and then hours the next morning, and then Buck has to go to work and they're still talking on and off between calls. He keeps clicking around youwantapilot's tumblr looking for any identifying information but there is none. He asks youwantapilot their name. youwantapilot won't tell him. Sorry, youwantapilot says. I'm just really private. at least tell me your pronouns Buck says desperately, because he wants to be respectful when he's thinking about this person nonstop day in and day out. youwantapilot does give him that. Phew!

Meanwhile, the cruise rescue happens. Boy meets boy. Boy gets jealous about boy. Boy makes a bad interference at a pickup basketball game while trying to impress boy. Other boy comes over to his apartment and shocks him senseless by kissing him. Wow... what happened? This is just like a fanfiction, Buck thinks, rubbing his still-tingling lips.

As his relationship with Tommy progresses he sort of stops talking to youwantapilot. He kind of just stops going on tumblr altogether for a few months! Real life is just so exciting right now.

Breakup. Devastation. Tommy leaves. Buck's left standing in his kitchen staring at the door for what feels like hours. He opens his phone and pulls up youwantapilot's AO3, and curls up in bed and cries while re-reading that one 60k fic that started it all, and then goes to youwantapilot's blog for the first time in months.

youwantapilot posted an hour ago: "got my heart absolutely annihilated by a guy i was falling in love with this evening. need some fic to take the edge off. any recs?" comment from bald-feuilly: "oh shit. the one from work?" comment from hotshotinthedark: "pilot told you a personal fact??" comment from bradtorrancesnosejob: "next thing you're going to tell me is that pilot's actually a pilot."

sorry to hear about your breakup, Buck shakily types into the dormant chat. i just went through a painful one myself. i was reading your fic to make myself feel better. would it help if you told me about him?

couldn't hurt, youwantapilot types back. he's a sweet guy. so friendly. incredibly hot. really smart, even if his friends and family don't think so. over-eager. impulsive. i told him i didn't think he was ready a while ago and he proved me wrong. but the other night... he stops typing for a while, then starts again. it was our anniversary and he was just distracted the whole time. there was a freaky coincidence with a shared ex. i don't know, i was letting him take the lead and i think i let him lead me right into traffic.

Buck's going to be sick. what a dick, he types. that's not true, pilot responds immediately. he just doesn't know. he was careless with your heart, Buck says. not careless, pilot says. clumsy. i could've done better, too.

"God, Tommy," Buck says to himself. He gets up from his bed, pulls his pants back on, and stumbles out into the LA night. He makes it to Tommy's house in what feels like record time and only when he jumps out of his Jeep onto the asphalt with his bare feet does he realize he forgot to put on shoes. He beats a refrain on Tommy's front door, and Tommy pulls it open, and almost shuts it in his face but Buck holds out his phone. "I was careless," Buck says, pressing his phone into Tommy's hand. His screen's open to their tumblr chat. He knows it's Tommy. It has to be. Tommy's laptop is open on the couch and that familiar blue screen is shining back at him. "I shouldn't have been. I went too fast, I didn't tell you what I was thinking, I'm acting just like Ronnie did in the breakup episode on Hotshots. And I know you know what I'm talking about."

Tommy looks at his phone, and then up at Buck, and then back down at his phone, and then back up at Buck. Then he sighs and pulls the door open wider. "Come in," he says. "I was just working on some Chuck/Ronnie angst fic."