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Rose and Shane (who are both closet cinephiles; Shane because he thinks it's embarrassing to have hobbies and Rose because being a cinephile as an actor just seems cringe to her) are working their way through one of those "100 movies to watch before you die" lists and finally get to Dirty Dancing.
"I can't believe you haven't seen this," Rose says, and Shane grumbles something about not really being a fan of the genre and well, their rule is that if they think the movie is stupid they can turn it off after an hour so Rose finds it on one of the 6000 streaming platforms Ilya pays for (the Fast and the Furious movies keep jumping around) and starts the stream fully expecting for Shane to exert his veto power in an hour.
And then he just doesn't. He sits there and watches the whole thing, mouth slightly open. Usually they talk at least a little bit about the plot or the cinematography (Shane has developed some opinions in that regard, mostly adopted from Rose whose opinions he takes as gospel by consequence of knowing next to nothing about the industry) but Shane is just. Rapt.
Then Ilya comes stalking into the living room towards the end of the movie and by pure coincidence he's wearing a black shirt and pants and Shane looks away from the TV for the first time in 90 minutes.
"Shane," he says, and puts two fingers on Shane's jaw, entirely chaste but extremely proprietary. "Have you seen my iPad?"
"Den," Shane says softly. "It's in the den."
Rose darts a look between Ilya, Patrick Swayze on the screen, and Shane's open-mouthed expression. Laughs for about four straight minutes.
From mythical (which is concerningly like 80 something k now). Thanks @actuallylemon @books2beach @ladyknight1512 @carlos-in-glasses @tgmsunmontue
Callie groans loudly as Nat makes a noise of protest. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“How imaginative,” Reuben adds, with an extremely judgemental eyebrow raise.
“I think true love might be dead, actually,” Mickey says, although he sounds genuinely upset about it.
“Nah,” Billy chimes in, patting Mickey on the shoulder in apparent consolation. “Just remember that whatever the fuck Bradshaw is doing, he’s probably doing it wrong.”
A noise of agreement goes up from the group at large as Bradley unwraps his arm around Jake’s shoulders and makes a ‘what the fuck?’ gesture with both hands. “Wow," he scoffs. "Thanks, everyone."
“Friends don’t let other friends give their boyfriend the ick,” Nat says, inadvertently throwing an atomic bomb into whatever fragile peace Jake and Bradley have been maintaining by simply not talking about it. “Do you want him to break up with you?”
It's Wednesday again! Thanks for the tags @onthewaytosomewhere, @books2beach, and @justabigoldnerd. My news is that I finally officially finished the full draft of High Ticket Attractions, which topped out at just over 40k. Three more chapters to go! Here's a sneak peek of chapter 5, "Shutdown", posting tomorrow!
“I’m coming with you,” Henry blurts, standing before he realises he’s done it.
Perhaps understandably, nearly everyone in the room looks at him like he’s lost his mind, except for Nora, who is too focused on Hunter’s computer to pay attention.
“Are you mad?” Philip asks, shattering the stunned silence that follows. “What on earth could you possibly offer? Sit down, Henry. You’ve no business getting involved in this.”
Henry doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing. Instead he lifts his chin and sets his jaw. Maybe he’s not trained like Verdoorn’s men. That doesn’t make him useless. “I can help.”
“He’s right on this one, lad,” Verdoorn puts in. “It’s not safe out there.”
“I don’t care,” Henry says stubbornly. “I can’t just sit here doing nothing. And if Alex—” His voice fails, but he meets the game warden’s steely gaze and swallows hard. “Please. Let me help.”
Verdoorn stares at him for a beat, and then another, evaluating. Henry knows he doesn’t look very hardy, still wearing the nicer linen clothes he’d donned for their low key outing that day, and probably slightly shell shocked from the recent turn of events. He clasps his hands tighter into fists at his side, hoping to hide the way they’re trembling. For a moment, he thinks Verdoorn will hold firm, but whatever he sees in Henry must measure up.
Digging into my old tag list and adding a few new folks because why not, if you've been creating in any way I want to hear about it!! 👇
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beyond luck and feels like fate || E || 7.4k (Chapter 2/6)
Alex feels like his life is falling apart. His girlfriend broke up with him because she thinks he’d rather be married to his job than to her. He fucking hates his job. Obviously, this is a clear fucking sign that he should get a tattoo. A big one.
What Alex doesn’t expect when he walks into the tattoo studio, is to be faced with his past and regrets he’s been living with for a decade.
Maybe it’s a sign – June would call it fate. Whatever it is, Alex hopes it might lead to a second chance.
OR
In the present, Alex knows that he's bi. Henry still causes him gay (bi) panic.
read now on ao3
Almost completely written and updating weekly!
Rae making a return to firstprince fic? More likely than you think!! If you've been around here for long enough, you might recognise snippets of this fic - it's the firstprince childhood friends to lovers tattoo shop AU that I have been talking about (and writing) for literal years.
I decided to finally finish it to celebrate both my 100th fic and the 5th anniversary of posting my very first RWRB fic!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 (extract under the cut)
“I just… I always feel like I’m not doing a good enough job. I couldn’t give Emily what she deserves. I’m not doing the pro bono work I wanted to do because I’m too busy with the other shit, but I’m also getting passed over for promotions. June thinks it’s because law is a white boys’ club and maybe she’s right. But nothing I’m doing is the right thing. Which fucking sucks. I just wanted something to remind myself that I can do better and that things will change. I have to believe that it’s not always going to be like this, y’know? I can be good enough if I try harder or whatever.”
“Alex.” Henry sounds devastated.
“Sorry to trauma dump on you, man.”
“I’d hardly call that trauma dumping. But Alex, you have to know,” Henry lifts the tattoo gun and the buzzing stops. When he speaks again, it feels as if he’s speaking directly into Alex’s ear. “You’ve always been good enough. You’re good.”
If you're still taking AU prompts, how about an AU where Bobby survives but can't stay Captain of the 118, and Tommy gets arrested for stealing the helicopter? (How would Buck deal with that much change and worrying about people he loves?)
This one gave me a lot of trouble and then I wrote nearly 6k for some reason. This might not be exactly what you were looking for but I hope it's close enough.
1. The lights were on when Maddie made it home from the hospital, which meant Buck was in there, probably cleaning and cooking and making himself useful. After the breakup, when Buck would commandeer their kitchen when he got sick of being in his own, Howie would joke about taking back their spare key.
“The key is a privilege and not a right,” he’d whispered one night, mindful of Buck asleep on the couch. “And he has lost his privileges.”
“He’s just having a hard time,” Maddie had said, although she privately had her own doubts about how important a six month long relationship could be.
“He can have a hard time on someone else’s couch,” Howie complained. She raised her eyebrows. “Wait, not like that.”
The front door opened. “Maddie,” Buck called, “are you okay?”
Her head dropped to the steering wheel. She was so tired.
She took a deep breath and opened the door. “I’m fine. Stay there.”
She winced as her feet hit the pavement; her ankles were swollen. Everything about the pregnancy seemed harder this time around. Maybe it was just being five years older, maybe it was already having one kid while gestating another, maybe it was listening to her husband die, maybe it was the entire fucking world.
Buck didn’t stay there, coming down the walk in his sock feet and wincing with every step. “I can grab Jee.” He peered into the back seat. “Uh, Maddie, I don’t want to alarm you, but where is your daughter?”
“The Lees took her.” She kept moving past him. Momentum was key. “They wanted to give Howie and I some time to visit. They’ll drop her off later.” They originally offered to keep Jee overnight, but with Howie in the hospital, Jee was scared and a night away from home would just result in a meltdown.
“Oh, th-that’s good she’s getting some grandparent time,” Buck said, visibly drooping before rallying. He followed her inside, shutting and locking the door and neatly putting away the shoes she kicked off. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “Thirsty. Vaguely nauseous.”
No sooner was the word out of her mouth than Buck was bustling around the kitchen. She had just gingerly lowered herself into her chair than Buck sat a cup of ginger ale in front of her. “Thank you,” she said, taking a careful sip. Her teeth were sensitive to the cold and at some point when everything had settled down, she needed to make a dentist appointment.
“No problem,” Buck said, and returned to bustling. Buck and their parents had been locked in trench warfare for all of Buck’s teenage years over him doing chores, and they’d probably have twin heart attacks at seeing Buck willingly and enthusiastically loading the dishwasher without a forty-five minute screaming match. “So I did a couple loads of laundry and did a quick wipe down of the bathroom and kitchen, and if you give me like five minutes I’ll grab the vacuum. There’s a bunch of casseroles from the meal train, but I went shopping. You got bread, milk, butter, and plenty of dino nuggets for Jee.”
The urge to put her head on the table was overwhelming. Buck was just trying to be helpful, she reminded herself as the waves of words threatened to drag her under. This was how he loved.
“Thank you,” she said again. “I’ve got an update.”
Buck went very still and very focused, like a pointer dog who spotted a duck. “Is Chim getting discharged?”
“They want to keep him for a few more days, but then he can home.”
Buck nodded, absently patting at his pocket for his phone. He’d been taking notes on everyone’s recovery: Howie, Hen, Bobby. His poor notes app must be on the verge of committing suicide. “I thought they were talking about sending him to a-a skilled nursing facility?”
“He’s doing better so they said he can come straight home.” His half of the antiviral had eradicated the virus, but the damage had already been done. Howie would live, but no one knew what recovery looked like. No one knew if he would return to duty. No one knew if he would need to be on oxygen for the rest of his life.
“Okay, that’s good.” Buck’s head was down as he typed a new note into his phone. “I’ve been thinking about that. Chim coming home, I mean.”
“The Lees are going to stay with us,” Maddie said, ripping that band-aid off. “They’ll be able to take Jee to preschool and Howie to all his appointments. They’ll be here to help when the baby comes.”
“Oh,” Buck said, looking like his heart was breaking. “Right. They’re great. The Lees, I mean.
A scream rose, and Maddie clenched her teeth against it. Her husband almost died, the doctors couldn’t tell her what his health outcome would be, her daughter almost lost both her parents within months of each other, and she still had to worry about hurting her brother’s feelings. And the worst part was that the only reason Howie was alive was because of her brother and her brother’s ex. It was so fucking unfair.
“Hey,” she said, forcing herself to be gentle as she caught Buck’s wrist and urged him to sit. “You need to take care of yourself, too. Are you taking the leave they offered?”
“What? Oh, yeah. I’m on it now.” Buck mustered up a brave smile. “You know I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
“I know,” she said, and buried the unkind thought of throwing him at the Wilsons for awhile. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, and squeezed her fingers.
She took her hand back and drank the ginger ale. Buck turned his phone over in his hands, the corners of his mouth tight and miserable.
“Have you talked to Tommy?” she asked at the risk of ending up with another dozen loafs in her freezer.
Buck’s head jerked up. “You want me to call him now?”
A flash of irritation that she ruthlessly smothered. “I never not wanted you to call him.” A half-lie at most. “Can you let him know I’m grateful for what he did to help us? I’d do it myself, but I don’t have his number.”
“Y-yeah, of course. I’ll do it now.” He gave his phone a sad waggle.
“Maybe not right now.” She levered herself up. “I’m going to sneak in a nap before the Lees get here.”
It took a moment, but then Buck was popping up. “I’ll let you do that. There’s so many options for dinner.” He waved his hand at the fridge. Just the thought of opening it and sorting through the casseroles made her want to lay down and die. Anne and John could handle that. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” she said, and shuffled towards the bedroom.
She waited until she head the door close and lock before she laid down and gave herself permission to rest, just for a little bit, until whatever came next arrived.
2. Hen was, depressingly enough, familiar enough with recovering from a severe injury to know that the irritation and frustration from being forced to rest were signs that her body was healing and that she was on the mend. But if she had to spend one more day in bed or on the couch, she was going to set something on fire just to have the excuse to get out of the house.
“At least wait until the kids are out of house before beginning your budding arson career,” Karen said without pity. “How do you feel about setting up camp in the backyard?”
Hen felt better about it than the couch, and so she settled on the lounge chair Denny had spent the last ten minutes making sure it got the perfect sun to shade ratio and drank the lemonade Karen brought her and listened to the kids mostly friendly bickering as they constructed cardboard cars from a kit that were supposedly powered by the Nintendo Switch remotes. It was a good day, and she had long ago learned not to take them for granted.
It was such a good day that she had nearly dozed off when the chime of Karen’s phone dragged her back to consciousness. Karen held it at arm’s length to read the text because she refused to admit she needed reading glasses. “How do you feel about having a visitor?”
“Depends on the visitor,” Hen said. Eddie was in Texas, and Chim and Bobby were still in the hospital. “Depends on if it’s Buck.”
Karen gave her a pointed and disappointed look. “Do you want to try that again, Henrietta?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hen said, two inches tall and annoyed about it. Karen was her wife, not her mother. “You know how he can be.”
The disappointed increased, but even Maddie had admitted that Buck could be exhausting. “I know he wants to help,” Maddie had confessed when she had stopped by with Jee for a playdate, “but I’m so tired.”
“He saved your life,” Karen said quietly, like Hen could ever forget. A small, shameful part of her said, We got lucky. How much worse would he be if Bobby had died?
“A short visit,” she said.
Twenty minutes later the doorbell rang. Karen went to let him in and then ten minutes after that—long enough for them to catch up and for Karen to give him the time limit—Buck was bounding into the backyard, waving at the kids and making the appropriate noises over their little cardboard cars. His hair was brushed and his shirt tucked in, and yet Buck looked like a man in the moment right before realizing his legs had been cut out from under him.
“I’m not staying long,” he said with a bright, false cheerfulness. “I’m just dropping off your portion of the meal train. You and Karen won’t have to cook for weeks. And this is for you.” With an exhausted flourish, he produced a tupperware container.
Hen swallowed her reflexive, unhelpful impulse—aren’t you over Tommy yet?—and warily cracked the lid. “Oh,” she said, pleasantly surprised at the blondies. “My favorite.”
“You know I can make actual brownies that taste good, right?” he said, dancing away from the swat she aimed his way. “There’s also a bunch of muffin tops for the kids and I made a batch of those peanut butter cookies with the chocolate stars in them for Karen.”
In those first six months post breakup, Buck baked indiscriminately—loaves and cookies, brownies and tarts, pies with intricate lattice work and delicate puffs of meringue, rolls with molten cheese centers and cakes with frosting so precise and exact it was like something out of a TikTok—and they didn’t have a choice on what he pushed on them until Chim declared an embargo that even Bobby had endorsed. But this wasn’t Buck baking to avoid his feelings. Buck had spent time and money making her family’s favorite pastries because Hen had almost died and he loved her. Maybe Karen had a point.
“Sit down,” she said, overwhelmed with fondness for the probie she watched grow up. “It’s been a minute since we talked.”
“Well, it’s not like I get invited to brunch,” Buck said, shockingly snide as he folded down into Karen’t abandoned chair. “Sorry,” he added to her raised eyebrows.
“Are you okay?” She went to lay a hand on his arm.
He shifted away. “I’m good. Hey, did you hear we’re getting an interim captain? Not Gerrard, thank god. I think they finally took the hint there.”
That explained the snideness. Buck loved the 118 too much to just let anyone into the captain’s chair, although he might not have a choice, given the long, slow recovery before Bobby.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Samuels. He used to captain the 93 back in the day,” Buck the infant said.
“I thought he retired.”
Buck shrugged. “Apparently not.”
“He’s a good captain, from what I hear. You’ll like him.” She broke a blondie in two and offered Buck half.
“I made those for you.” He waited until she took a bite before saying, “Are you going to take it when they offer it to you?”
The little shit timed it specifically so she couldn’t brush the question off. She had to sit with it as she chewed and swallowed and washed it all down with a sip of lemonade. He really wasn’t a probie anymore.
“If they offer it,” she said.
“Hen. Come on.”
She sighed and watched as Denny and Mara lined up their little cars for the race. This was the most time she spent with them in months. How much more of their lives would she miss if she was captain? How much more neglect could her marriage take before it collapsed, hollowed out? How much more could she bear?
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Bobby wants it for you. He’s been mentoring you.” Where she expected frustration or anger, there was only a quiet disappointment, like Buck has already worked out the answer before even asking the question.
“The last time I was acting captain,” she said with a forced calm, “I lost my daughter.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, even though he didn’t, he couldn’t.
What did Buck know about watching your child being taken away and knowing it was your fault because you let another mother’s son die? What the fuck did he know about her life?
“I’m getting tired,” she said, and perhaps for the first time in his life Buck took the hint.
“I gotta get going,” he said, standing with a wince, which meant he wasn’t stretching out his bad leg. “You’d be a good captain, Hen.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then, “Have you talked to Tommy?”
Buck startled. Yeah, turnabout was a bitch, wasn’t it?
“I texted him,” he said, not looking at her. “I haven’t heard back. Have, uh, have you talked to him?”
“I also texted and I also haven’t heard back,” she said. The disappointed droop of Buck’s shoulders made her stomach curdle with guilt. “He’s never been great about replying.”
“He was always good about getting back to me.” Buck shook himself and summoned up another terrible, cheerful smile. He waved to the kids and then slipped away.
In the yard, Denny let Mara win, and he smiled as she jumped and whooped. She loved her job but she loved her kids more.
“Everything okay?” Karen asked, slipping into the seat next to her.
“Yeah,” Hen said, snagging her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it, “everything is great.”
3. When he wasn’t sleeping, Bobby was working his way through the puzzle books Athena and the kids had dropped off. He missed doing the daily Connections—he couldn’t look at a screen without his brain trying to crawl out his nose—but he was becoming an expert at Sudoko. He only bothered with the very hard puzzles now.
The door opened. It wasn’t time for his medications or for the nurses routine check in, less frequent now that the doctors assured him his internal organs weren’t in danger of liquefying, Athena was out at lunch with the kids, Hen was home recovering, and Chimney had only just been discharged. That left only one person.
“Buck,” he said, filling in a seven with a great sense of accomplishment. “I just saw you yesterday. What brings you by?”
Buck sheepishly held up a couple of cooler bags. “More of the meal train. I thought Athena and the kids might like it. Well, mostly Harry.”
“His does eat like he’s got hollow legs.” Bobby set the puzzle book aside. Buck looked the same as he had for the past week: exhausted but forcing himself to be cheerful. “When is the last time you slept?”
“Where’s Athena?” Buck avoided the question by setting the bags out of the way and folding himself into the uncomfortable chair with a wince.
And Bobby was hit with a sense memory of the doing the same when it was Buck in the hospital, his back stiff and aching from being curled over for hours as he prayed the rosary. Even no he could still feel the bump of them over his knuckles.
“Bobby?” Buck said.
“Sorry, I was wool gathering.” He gave Buck a reassuring smile that didn’t reassure enough as he hoped. “Athena is out with the kids right now, but she’ll be back.” The only person more difficult than Buck to chase home to sleep was Athena. He despaired of both their backs. “How’s it going, kid?”
“It’s good,” Buck said, summoning a smile that doesn’t do much beyond twisting his mouth up. Brooke had been the same way, smiling when she felt the worst so she wouldn’t worry them. “Eddie got offered a paramedic job. He’s going to take it. Chris really likes being back in Texas.”
“That’s good for both of them,” Bobby said, watching Buck closely. “Chim is back home.”
“The Lees are helping out. Jee is getting excited about having a baby brother again.” Buck wouldn’t look at him. “I saw Hen the other day. She’s doing well. I told her about Samuels.”
Ah, there it was, the true reason for Buck’s visit, the very thing he had and Athena had talked to death. Well, no time like the present. Time to rip off the band-aid and break Buck’s heart.
“Chief Simpson asked me for some recommendations,” Bobby said, shifting with a wince. Immediately Buck was there to rearrange the pillows. “Samuels is only temporary, but he’s a good man and will take care of you all until the position can be filled permanently.”
“So you’re not coming back,” Buck said dully.
“Too much damage this time,” he said gently. “I might stay on in a more administrative role, but I can’t be in the field again. It won’t be safe, not for me or for team.”
“I don’t know if Hen still wants to be captain,” Buck said, gaze fixed on some far away point. “Not after what happened with Mara.” He paused. “I don’t want Gerrard coming back.”
“He’s not. I won’t let that happen.” Bobby hesitated. “Tommy worked with Gerrard for years.”
That got Buck looking at him, if only to frown in confusion. “Uh, yeah, I know.”
“I never asked if that caused problems between you two,” he said, choosing his words with delicate care. “You never said why you broke up.”
“It wasn’t that.” Buck frowned harder. “Or not just that. We didn’t really talk about important stuff. Or any stuff.”
Looked like he got it wrong; this kid was breaking Bobby’s heart. “You can change that. Give him a call.”
Buck’s mouth twisted into a miserable knot. “I have been calling him and texting him but he won’t—” he broke off with an even more miserable sniff. “He hasn’t even left me on read. I think I used up my last chance with this one, Bobby.”
When they wheeled him out of the lab, oxygen mask over his face and fluids and plasma on standby, Tommy had been at Buck’s side, feet planted deep and immovable. If Tommy wasn’t picking up the phone, it was because he physically wasn’t able to.
“You should go check on him,” Bobby said. “He loves you, kid.”
Buck couldn’t even manage a smile for that. “Not anymore, if he ever did.”
Bobby reached out and gripped Buck’s arm. “You’re going to be okay, Buck. We both are. Captain’s orders.”
“Copy that, Cap,” Buck said, and sat with him until Athena returned.
4. Buck didn’t know Sal well enough to guess who he expected at his door on a Tuesday afternoon, but it probably wasn’t him having a nervous breakdown.
“Have you talked to Tommy?” Buck demanded, feeling crazy around the eyes.
“Have I,” Sal said slowly, “spoken with Tommy?”
Buck dug his phone out of his pocket and waved it in Sal’s face. “He hasn’t picked up when I call or answered my texts. He hasn’t even left me on read. Something is wrong.”
“Or, and stay with me on this,” Sal said, unimpressed and obviously losing patience, “he finally smartened up and stopped letting you ruin his life.”
“But when has he ever done the smart thing?” Buck shot back, mouth firmed to keep from miserably wobbling. “And it’s just not me he’s ignoring. He hasn’t texted Chim or Bobby back. He hasn’t responded to Hen. Does that sound like Tommy to you?”
Sal stared him down for a long moment before digging out his phone and scrolling through it. “I talked to him two weeks ago. Fuck.”
“Fuck,” Buck echoed through a mouth gone sour with fear.
“Fuck!” a naked toddler exclaimed with delight right before ramming into Buck’s legs.
“She’s going through a naked phase,” Sal said, expertly scooping up the kid before she could worm past Buck and complete her jailbreak. “You better come in.”
The naked toddler was called Maria, and she wailed dramatically as Sal wrestled her into a shirt with a t-rex on it. “When did you see him last?” Sal asked, ignoring as his daughter went completely limp in a last ditch effort to avoid wearing pants.
“At the lab. He, uh, he texted me and called me after that, but then he just stopped.” The fear curdled into shame. “I, uh, didn’t notice at first. I’ve been busy looking after everyone else.” A terrible smile stretched across his face, and he turned away so he wouldn’t frighten Maria. “Turns out they didn’t need me. Joke’s on me, I guess.”
Sal sighed very quietly. “All right, gremlin, you don’t have to wear socks but the pants and shirt stay on and you have to color quietly while I talk with Buck here. Deal?”
Maria frowned as she seriously considered it, looking so much like a miniature Tommy that Buck had to lock his jaw against an animal scream. “Deal,” she finally said, holding out a tiny hand for Sal to shake.
“Gina is a lawyer,” Sal said, setting Maria up in the living room with a coloring book, an army of plastic dinosaurs, and a literal bucket of crayons. “She loves making deals.”
“Gotta do deal,” Maria agreed, and upended the crayon bucket over her head. “Rain!”
“That’s right, honey, make it rain.” Sal dropped a kiss on the top of her head and then led Buck to the kitchen.
On the fridge, tacked up with a magnet in the shape of a watermelon, was a picture of Maria and Tommy, her tiny face pressed against his, their mouths open in a fearsome growl, hands hooked into tiny claws. Buck collapsed onto a chair. There was one like that of him and Jee on Maddie’s fridge, the two of them pretending to be tigers when Jee was in her big cat phase. Tommy was so loved, even if it wasn’t by him
“Are they t-rexes?” Buck asked.
“She’s obsessed with dinosaurs. If I have to watch one ore documentary about them I am taking a sledgehammer to the fossils at the natural history museum.” Sal leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Tell me what happened at the lab. Leave nothing out.”
Buck did. Sal’s eyebrows were the bitchy twin to Tommy’s, and by the time he got to the end, they were nearly in his hairline.
“Let me get this straight,” Sal said, stare gone hard and unforgiving, “Tommy pulls a stunt that could have gotten him black bagged and sent to Guantanamo, and you didn’t think to reach out to him until your little friends were too busy to play with you anymore?”
Buck winced. “They didn’t need me. I thought Tommy might.”
“Jesus Christ.” Sal scrubbed a hand over his face. “He’s a person, Buckley. You know that, right? Tommy is a person and not a doll you can take down from the shelf whenever you’re lonely.”
The shame sat like a stone in his stomach. “That’s fair,” he said quietly.
“You’re right that’s goddamn fair,” Sal snapped. “Do you have any idea what he lets you get away with? You are so careless with him.”
Buck flinched. It’d been almost ten year since he joined the LAFD, and he thought he’d grown up since then. Joke was on him again. He was still the careless twenty-six year old who couldn’t be trusted with anything important. All he did was break things.
“I know,” Buck said, forcing himself to meet Sal’s gaze. “But that doesn’t mean something isn’t wrong. I, uh, I went to bring him some of the meal train. He wasn’t home. His truck was in the driveway.”
Tommy’s truck was his baby, in that he doted on it more than some people did with their actual babies. If he absolutely had to let it sit out on his driveway, he always threw the custom made tarp over it. When the Jeep was up on the lift, Buck had watch Tommy spend ten minutes fussing with the drape over the tarp, worried about the weather, like SoCal was in danger of getting a freak hailstorm. Buck had found the whole thing charming and endearing.
“Oh hell,” Sal said and dug out his phone.
The first call rang through to Tommy’s voicemail, as did the second and then the third. Sal texted something quickly. The phone chimed. Sal’s frown changed from furious to worried.
“He’s not picking up for Gina either,” Sal said. “And he’s ignoring our 911 texts.”
The shame stone crumbled back into fear. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” Buck said.
“Yeah, kid, I think he is.” Sal blew out a long breath. “I gotta make some calls. Go make sure my kid has her clothes on and isn’t making another run for it.”
Buck stood but paused at the kitchen door. “Do you really think I ruined his life?”
Sal didn’t glance up for his phone. “Tommy is fully capable of ruining his own life, but you certainly helped.”
In the living room, Maria glanced up and said, “Wanna color?”
“I’d love to,” Buck said, and took a careful seat next to her.
Over the next hour, Sal made his calls. There were many of them, his voice rising and falling, although he only got loud exactly once.
“You left them in there to fucking die,” Sal snapped to what Buck futilely hoped wasn’t Chief Simpson. “You think the last contract negotiations were bad, wait until we put this to a fucking vote.”
It was quiet after that, and when Sal finally left the kitchen, it was with a solemnity that nearly made Buck snap a crayon in half.
“Hey, gremlin,” Sal said with a gentleness that every parent but his own had. “Can you go play in your room? I gotta talk to Buck.”
“Is Tommy okay?” she asked, shoulders hunching around her ears as she picked up on her dad’s mood.
“Tommy will be,” Sal said. “I’ll come play dinosaur graveyard with you after this. Deal?”
She stuck our her tiny hand for a shake. “Deal.” And then with a wild cackle, she sprinted towards her room. “Deal not with clothes!” Her shirt was the first to go.
“That’s on me,” Sal said. “I didn’t include clothes.”
Buck began cleaning up on reflex: coloring books neatly stacked on the coffee table, crayons back in the bucket, army of dinosaurs back into their own plastic container. It was the same thing he did after Jee was done playing. It was one less thing for Maddie to have to clean. He could do the same for Sal.
“Is Tommy okay?” he asked, digging a stray ankylosaur from under the couch.
Sal waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, he’s fine. He’s just been arrested.”
Black bagged, Buck thought, Guantanamo. His chest went tight. His lungs couldn’t expand. He stopped breathing.
“None of that shit, Buckley.” A hand on the back of his neck forced him head between his knees. “Tommy is fine. And if my wife gets her way, which she always does, he’ll be out before end of business today. So stop hyperventilating. You’re not helping.”
The edges of his vision cleared. He sucked in a lungful of air and then another. Tommy was under arrest but he was going to be okay. Buck would make sure he was. “I’m good,” he croaked, and Sal gentled his grip to help him to sit up. “Why did they only arrest him?”
“Probably because the army doesn’t want it to get out that they left some of LAFD’s bravest to die of super Ebola. Tommy is the easier target, and he embarrassed them by needing three choppers to take him down.”
It took six months, but he gotten pretty good at reading Tommy, but Sal was an unknown. They had only met once and only for about an hour over drinks. Buck had liked Gina more than her husband, and he spent most of that hour talking about the struggle of rolling back old, outdated laws. He didn’t know what it meant when Sal looked at him like that.
“I don’t know what goes in your fucked up little codependent polycule,” Sal said slowly, unblinking, “but Tommy needs you for this. And he won’t ever admit it because his parents fucked up him up good, but he needs you for the rest of it, too. Are you going to be there for him?”
“Yes,” Buck said.
Sal was unimpressed. “There are no half measures here. If you’re in it then you have to be all in and not just there when the rest of your family is too busy for a play date. If you can’t do that then you walk away right now and you stay gone. Tommy doesn’t need more help in ruining his life.”
Everyone he loved had someone—Maddie and Chim, Hen and Karen, even Eddie had his son—and Buck had been scrapping by for years now., useful but not permanent. Careless. But he wasn’t twenty-six anymore; he was capable of care.
“I’m here, for however long he wants me,” Buck said firmly.
Sal nodded, once. “Be at the courthouse in forty-five minutes. You need to give testimony.”
Buck scrambled up. He was unshaven and his shirt was at least one day past needing to be washed. His work duffel was still in the Jeep. There was a clean shirt in there and spare deodorant and even some pomade. It wasn’t great, but it was all he got.
“Go get our boy,” Sal said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Buck went.
5. Tommy had been in worse places than spending a week in county lockup. There was those long weeks he spent in a medical tent in the middle of the Afghan desert, waiting to be med evaced to Germany, infection creeping into the staples holding his guts in. There were the long nights at the 118, all of them exhausted from a five alarm fire where an entire family had died, and Gerrard had called them all weeping pussies for the crime of having a single feeling about it. There had been the morning in Eddie’s kitchen where Evan had confirmed his greatest fear, that he was only good for a fuck and nothing more. So yeah, on the whole, it could have been worse. It could always be worse.
Tommy signed the forms and was given back his personal belongings: wallet, aviator sunglasses, shitty movie receipt because movie theaters no longer gave out tickets, his phone with approximately three hundred missed calls and unanswered texts. Evan’s name was at the top.
He shoved everything into his pockets and stepped out a free man to where Evan Buckley was waiting for him. His eyebrows jumped up.
“Hi,” Evan said, hand raised in an abortive waive. His hair was slicked back like it was when the first started dating, before Tommy had unashamedly begged Evan to free his curls, and he was sporting at least three days worth of stubble. His face was gaunt. He hadn’t been sleeping. He was beautiful. “Sal and Gina are here if you want to—oh!”
Tommy crossed in three strides and grabbed Evan, holding on tight. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” Evan said, long arms wrapped around him, hands fisted in the back of Tommy’s shirt. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He tucked his face into Evan’s neck. He shook. “Is everyone okay? Bobby isn’t—”
Evan made a low noise. “They’re fine. Are you okay? You were in jail!”
He laughed to hide the shakes. “County jail. Doesn’t count.” Evan made that noise again. Tommy cupped the back of his head. “I’m okay. I promise. You sprung me.”
“Okay,” Evan said, sniffling even as he drew back. His eyes were wet and red rimmed. “So full disclosure, Sal and Gina did the springing. I just gave some testimony.” He touched Tommy’s cheek, his jaw, his mouth. “They’re giving us a day and then we have to over for dinner.”
“Not until tomorrow, right? We have the rest of the day?” he asked hopefully. His old sergeant said that it was the hope that killed you, but Tommy hoped anyway.
“Yeah, the whole day,” Evan said on a happy sigh. “I’m going to be so careful with you. I’m not going to let us ruin it this time. I promise.”
Tommy kissed the corner of his mouth. “Well, in that case, honey, you should take me home.”
Evan smiled like the sun coming up and took him home.
Buck/Tommy, Buck/Others
Rated: E
Word Count: 2,627
Summary: This must be what a roasted turkey feels like on Thanksgiving.
If someone had told Buck two years ago that he'd be here—on his back and blindfolded, completely naked, and surrounded by men of all shapes and sizes—he'd've laughed himself into another coma.
But now, he's practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement. His belly's tight. His nipples are pebbled from the air conditioner. His dick is so hard he thinks he might pass out.
"All right," he gasps with a grin. "All right, let's go."
I think a lot about the different things Tamora Pierce’s various series have to say about the education system and how it treats kids. I think it shows a really interesting collection of ideas that I think reflect a lot about the time they were written and Tamora’s own evolving ideas.
Like, obviously we start with Alanna and SOTL, which is all about pure access. The question here is very simple: should girls get access to the education system? And the answer is equally simple: yes, obviously. This is a book about proving that these girls who have been denied access to the system can, in fact, succeed if given a chance. That girls are just as capable of doing well as boys are, and that they deserve the same opportunities as boys do. We are shown that with enough determination and support from the people close to her, Alanna can push through and beat these people at their own game.
Then we have circle of magic, where we are instead asking ourselves: what about kids who aren’t able to succeed inside that system? Not every kid is Alanna. Some kids are never going to be able to brute force their way through the system as she did. Not because they’re not as smart as her or as determined, but because they’re different. The system is never going to work for them, so the only way forward is to remove them from the system. And in doing that, these kids find success no one in the system ever dreamed possible for them.
Then we get to Kel and protector of the small, and we finally get to ask what in my mind are the real questions. Rather that a pure question of whether she has access to the system, Kel is also questioning the value of the system itself. How it treats the people inside it and those supporting it, like Lalasa. She is looking at the system and instead of accepting it at face value, she asks why it works the way it does, and if it hurts so many people and privileges bad behavior, is this the right way? And if it’s not, what does a better way look like, and what does it take to change it?
Idk, i just think our evolving understanding and ever changing relationship with progressive movements of the past is such a cool part about our society, and I love that you can see that here
Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.
Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
I can’t begin to describe how happy and flattered and a little teary I am that this just broke 100k.
I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only don’t regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation.
I never intended this to gain any traction at all (you’ll notice there’s no sources or anything–this was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.
It just….means a lot to me that it’s touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of “HOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOAT” that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the story–and God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people who’ve found this post.
And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. I’m just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.
If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.
I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.
A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge of…despair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic.
They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.
If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this: It matters that they tried.
Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled off–it matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.
You don’t have to fix the world. You’ll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. It’s hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.
It matters that they fought for those people. It matters that they cared, and it matters that they tried. It matters that they didn’t stop. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have read this far.
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mid rewatching ep 5 and i have no idea what's gonna happen with this in season 2, but ilya's "i wouldn't be able to go back to russia" has always felt so loaded to me. because it feels like it's not about his family at all, it's about the place he called home for eighteen years, the people, the places. that's why the premise of tlg feels so strange, everything else aside. i just feel like ilya would have more complicated feelings about coming out because it wouldn't allow him to go home again. not that he couldn't still want to come out and be ready for that, but more.... complicated feelings about what his home means to him vs. what it represents, and what it means to make a new home, and all of the messy stuff that comes with that. crossing my fingers jacob does something with all this and doesn't just let it fall away next season because it's so interesting to me
If you’re still doing these…I wish you would write a fic where...Buck and Tommy take a pottery class together 😊😊😊
i think you sent this like six months ago. surprise!
1. post-lightning strike buck is BORED he needs to DO SOMETHING he needs to GET OUT OF THE LOFT. the loft in which josh is sitting because maddie sent him over here. he's just like vibrating with the need to do something and it's not like he doesn't like josh but... josh is scrolling through instagram having posted up at buck's kitchen island and he says offhandedly "my friend jessica is teaching an intro to pottery class that starts tonight, i could get you in if you wanted," clearly not expecting buck to take him up on it because buck doesn't do anything alone anymore he's always doing things with the rest of the 118. but buck being so bored and unable to work lurches up and pounces on josh and looms over him and says something like "absoLUTEly!!!!! sign me up!!!" with audible exclamation points. josh looks up wide-eyed and then calls jessica, who DMs buck the deets.
2. buck gets there an hour early. he walks around the block. he finds a coffee shop and orders something with too much caffeine and feels wired and turns around too fast and runs into the--fuck, the most devastatingly handsome guy he's ever seen. jesus. guy looks like he could be modeling for the lafd calendar. and now he's wearing half of buck's iced lavender cream latte. great! just great. "oops," the guy says ruefully. his voice is higher and lighter than buck had expected. "good thing i wasn't in my nice shirt."
"that's crazy, i'm sure every shirt looks nice on you," buck hears himself say, which is really bizarre. the guy raises an eyebrow. "let me buy you another drink."
"that was your drink," the guy points out.
"oh," buck says.
the barista hands the guy his own drink, which remains mercifully unspilled. "i could buy you a new drink, if you want," the guy says.
"no, no, no, i'm fine, and actually i have to go i'm late," buck says, and he all but runs out of the coffee shop and back down the block to the studio.
3. so he's super early, which is fine. jessica is cool, a big tall butch with a mullet and a tank top with a skeleton giving the middle finger and a tattoo of a cat riding a motorcycle on her chest. she makes him finish his drink over near the cubbies and then she gets him set up at one of the wheels. the wheels are all set up in groups of two, facing each other, with a little shelf between them that people can put their buckets and their tools on. she takes pity on him, mistakes his flustered sweatiness for anxiety, and says "i'll pair you up with a returning student tonight, he knows what he's doing and he's really nice. well, he's actually really sarcastic and kind of mean, but he's nice enough underneath all that."
"great," buck says. "thanks." he takes the bag of clay she hands him and sits down.
"hey, jessica," that sweet voice from earlier says. "where do you want me?"
"over here with our newest victim," she says, and coffee shop guy, his shirt still damp and stained purple-brown, drops into the opposite stool.
4. it turns out throwing clay is really fucking hard.
"how was the rest of your drink?" the guy asks. his name is tommy. buck had introduced himself as evan, stammering through it, the guy's eyes boring a hole right through him.
"it was, uh, fine," buck says. he cones up and the clay flops over into his left hand and then flies into his wheel pan. again. "i don't know if lavender syrup is for me."
"smells good, though," tommy says, lifting the edge of his shirt and wiping a splash of clay-water off his own face. buck tears his eyes away from tommy's happy trail.
buck takes another ball of clay out of his bag and slaps it onto his bat. he hits the pedal and squishes it down and cones it up and his left hand which still gets a little numb sometimes since the lighting catches on the bat and the clay forms a dick shape and then flies into his wheel pan. "i think i need help," he sighs, admitting defeat.
tommy looks at him, and looks at his hands, and looks at him again, and then gets up. oh dear.
5. so it turns out having the hottest guy on earth crouch behind you and wrap his arms around you and guide your hands into position while you throw clay and he reeks of lavender and coffee and a little leathery cologne really doesn't help anything at all. buck doesn't manage to cone up or center his next ball. the only thing he manages to achieve is a boner. he pulls his foot off the pedal and the wheelhead grinds to a halt and tommy says "what's wrong?"
"i just, uh," buck says, squeezing his thighs together. "i don't think this is--um--working."
"oh," tommy says, his breath hot on buck's neck. he looks down over buck's shoulder and sees the tent in buck's cargo shorts. "okay!"
"listen, my place isn't too far away," buck says, hoping he's not reading the signals wrong.
"oh good, i thought we were going to have to fuck in jessica's creepy studio bathroom," tommy says. he takes buck home. luckily nobody's hanging out in the loft. buck throws the deadbolt, just in case, and they stumble up to the bed together, and buck learns a whole bunch of new things in rapid succession. it's good! it's really good.
+1. buck texts josh in the morning, thanking him for the idea. then tommy comes back up the stairs with coffee and some cookies he found in buck's cabinets and they sit on buck's bed and tommy's like so what's the deal with the calendar on your fridge and buck is like oh yeah i got struck by lightning last month and died for a few minutes and was in a coma and while i'm off work my sister wants me to be supervised nonstop because a few years ago while i was off work after getting crushed under a firetruck i escaped for a little while and then got hit by a tsunami so it's like a whole thing and tommy puts his coffee down on the bedside table and puts his cookie down beside it and takes buck's face in both hands and says "what the fuck." and then kisses him.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
ironically, I found this fic poking through the post-TLG tag looking for some feel-good fluff. this fic is not that! this is Ilya, finally getting his uncomplicated happy ending and finding that it isn't as happy and uncomplicated as he'd thought it would be. I really liked the various threads of tension the authors pull on here: external pressures from the league and the team (especially appreciated the exploration of how even the Centaurs' locker room might not be the unadulterated queer utopia of our dreams [just to note, none of our fav Cens are the problem]) and also problems from the way Shane and Ilya respond to those pressures and the way their flaws and issues with communication and self-acceptance continue to inform their actions and stress their relationship. Ilya's actions in particular felt so heartbreakingly true to his struggles in TLG.
it very much does have a happy and satisfying resolution but the angst is there and makes the ending all the sweeter. can't recommend enough.
is anyone else annoyed that "ai" encompasses both chatgpt and tools we train to do repetitive tedious work for us. and by the ripple effect of articles like "scientists develop ai to detect cancer early" that make people argue for the merit of chatgpt or become anti-medicine. and by the general state of the world and society
hi pals! I'm surfacing because @liminalmemories21 tagged me to post the last lines that I've written and I have something to share that a) I'm excited about and b) will (hopefully) be ready to start sharing before the end of the month so, watch this space 👀
“Are you judging me for getting a tattoo during a life crisis?”
“I’m not exactly in a position to judge anyone for getting a tattoo for any reason,” Henry says drily.
“I just… I always feel like I’m not doing a good enough job. I couldn’t give Emily what she deserves. I’m not doing the pro bono work I wanted to do, but I’m also getting passed over for promotions. June thinks it’s because law is a white boys club and maybe she’s right. But nothing I’m doing is the right thing. Which fucking sucks. I just wanted something to remind myself that I can do better and that things will change. I have to believe that it’s not always going to be like this, y’know? I can be good enough if I try harder or whatever.”
“Alex.” Henry sounds devastated.
“Sorry to trauma dump on you, man.”
“I’d hardly call that trauma dumping. But Alex, you have to know. You’ve always been good enough. You’re good.”
Not tagging anyone except my beloveds @welcometololaland and @three-drink-amy because it's been so long since I've been here that I don't even know who's here anymore, but consider this an open tag 💖
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i'll forever miss how the internet felt before you had to second-guess the authenticity of every single piece of media you came across. silly videos used to be just silly. fun was coincidental. wonder was just wonder. digital art had character and soul. AI has taken the taste out of everything and irreversibly poisoned the creative sphere and the people still pushing it forward are the doom of both joy and the quality of being.
The book does not hit nearly hard enough with how bad things are for Shane after they’re outed and I need season 2 to crank it up to 11 (like book Shane’s rock bottom is he’s upset enough that he ate a snickers bar)
And not just that, I want it to tear Ilya apart that for months he’s been getting mad and snapping at Shane for fearing this. I want him to see Shane have everything cruelly ripped away while knowing the biggest fight they ever had was Ilya being mad about how afraid Shane was of this and how much he wanted to avoid it, especially with how supportive Ilya’s coach and team are in comparison
Of course Ilya didn’t think it would be so bad, his whole team is behind him as well as his coach
But Shane has his team immediately turn against him, his coach acts furious and disgusted with him, and the immediate punishment is that Shane Hollander, who lives and breathes hockey, who sees his entire identity and worth as a person being his skill in hockey, is told he is indefinitely barred from playing
This man has been told from day one that he has to be perfect, that he cannot ever fuck up, that he cannot be anything less than what is demanded of him every second of the day. And as soon as he’s not what he should be he takes a fucking sledgehammer to the chest made of every fear he ever had made real
This needs to be the thing that finally shatters him and makes him actually cry and stop holding everything in. I don’t want Shane sighing over the phone to show he’s upset, I need this to be viscerally heart breaking and soul crushing for Shane
It is very important to me that Shane was bone deep terrified of this and he was right.
And I want Ilya to sit there helplessly with every comment of “I think it would be fine, I think you’re the one with the problem” playing in his head. I want to see hockey homophobia manifest physically into human form and rip Shane’s heart from his chest while Ilya has to stand there and watch it happen
This is not anti Ilya, I love him, but I want this moment to be for him what it was for Shane to realize all Ilya had sacrificed to move to Ottawa. I want them to both have a moment where they’re horrified by what they’ve asked of the other while acting like it was nothing
For it to hit home just how meaningful it is for Shane to choose Ilya, we need to see him have everything torn away and still declare Ilya is worth it
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