#*waves hands*

Seeing Buck break down after the lab incident has Tommy rethink everything. After the funeral he tentatively reaches out to Buck, they talk, they decide they want to start dating again, take it slow, take their time to really get to know each other this time around.

Roughly around the same time Sal and Gina separate. Sal needs somewhere to stay while he figures out what to do, and Tommy offers his spare room. Queue some tension with Buck. (“You didn’t want us to move in together, but he is ok?” “Evan, he’s my best friend.” “Like Eddie is mine and you were weird about me living at his place while he wasn’t even there.” “This isn’t the same.” “No, it isn’t. You ever had a crush on him?” “Evan.” “Don’t Evan me, answer the question.”)

Sal is trying to make himself rare whenever Buck is over, not accidentally third wheeling, but it’s tense, it’s weird.

And then the helicopter crashes.

Buck is on shift at the time, they’re in the midst of evacuating a multi storey building that’s rapidly going up in flames, so it takes a couple of hours for the information to come through as they’re finally finishing up at the scene. They drop him off at the hospital on the way back to the station and Buck is running high in adrenaline and exhaustion and unprocessed trauma as he’s pleading with an unimpressed nurse who is telling him she can’t give him any information, he isn’t next of kin, sorry. Alerted by the commotion, Sal appears (who is Tommy’s ICE and medical proxy because fuck Tommy’s dad, he doesn’t get to make decisions for Tommy) who has been at the hospital for hours, waiting for Tommy to get out of surgery. They wait together until Tommy is out of surgery and then go sit with him for as long as the nurses allow them, silent and tense while they watch the machines he’s hooked up to, scared the doctor who told them the surgery went well, that he’s stable enough while his body needs to heal might be wrong.

When the nurses finally force them to leave, Sal takes Buck home back to Tommy’s, thinking it best not to leave him alone for now and so they can both head back to the hospital as soon as they get new information or when visiting hours start the next day. Sal is woken up in the middle of the night by loud noises from the kitchen and finds Buck trying to bake cookies at 2:30am, despite his hands shaking so hard he’s got more ingredients all over the counter tops than in the mixing bowl. Buck tells him they’re for the nurses and the doctors, a thank you, and that he can’t sleep anyway. Sal tells him they probably won’t appreciate the tears mixed into them, and that’s when Buck fully breaks down for the first time since the lab incident, sobbing on the floor of Tommy’s kitchen, and it’s Sal who’s there, who sits with him and holds him through it and inwardly promises himself he’ll make sure Buck won’t have to attend another funeral, even if that means a deal with the devil himself.

And Sal is just there over the next weeks: when Tommy wakes up in the hospital, when the doctors tell him about his long way to recovery, about the surgeries in his near future to fix everything and get him back to full health; he’s there for Tommy and, to Buck’s surprise, he’s there for Buck too. He’s got Buck’s back, doesn’t tell him he’s making Tommy’s crash about himself when Buck struggles with his own emotions in regards to the whole situation. He’s offers companionship and silent support and distraction for both of them.

And then one night when Tommy is back in hospital in between having been at home to recover, to have surgery to remove some scar tissue that hindered the healing process, Buck and Sal fall asleep on the couch together. Having leaned against each other turns into half way cuddling with each other, and when Buck wakes up, in those moments where he’s not fully awake yet, he leans more heavily into the body he’s curled up with, smelling the familiar shower gel Tommy always uses, a strong arm around him, and he leans up for a kiss. It takes them about ten seconds to realise but the damage is done. They both feel horribly guilty about it, but it also felt so right, and Sal accepts that yeah, maybe he’d had a crush on Tommy too, back then, but he’d already been happily committed to Gina by the time Tommy came out to him.

If I headcanon General Iroh as early 20s in LOK book 1, how can he be a general without extreme nepotism? An explanation by request.

The short answer is: he got very lucky

The long answer is:

I adjust the starting age for the United Forces from 18 like it is in the U.S. down to 17. Iroh joins on his birthday. Since I headcanon he turns 24 just after the action in B1 that gives him about seven years.

His extensive training as a firebender, hard work, and natural inclinations for organization and strategy put him at the top of his officer's class, which lead to more responsibility early and harder assignments. Could some of this also be nepotism? Sure. But I also think that Iroh, with the burden of his name and the constant worry that he'll never live up to Zuko, works his absolute ass off.

The United Forces is considerably smaller than any of the U.S. armed forces, which means fewer levels to climb and less competition.

Adapting some of the headcanons of the ever helpful expert @the-hopefulpenguin in An Overview of the United Forces, I use the idea that the United Forces had some controversies and growing pains that led to the mass resignation of a lot of the top brass at a critical time. This massive vacuum of leadership cleared the path for talented younger officers.

Based on what we see in the show, I also think Iroh did some very brave things in a few sticky situations that resulted in fast-tracking his promotions. In the show for the little we see him he's usually out front, drawing fire from the crow's nest or jumping on planes or planning training exercises to thwart Unalaq or standing toe-to-toe with Kuvira, whatever he's commanded to do after. He's a do-what-it-takes kind of guy - a pattern of behavior that probably got him noticed. In the above fic, for example, there's an engagement referenced where Iroh pulls off a win after all the other ranking officers are out of action.

Iroh has an... interesting... relationship with authority. He's never outwardly insubordinate, but he sure seems to think highly of his own strategies and will bend the rules considerably unless given a direct order to the contrary. I think it's possible he might have been promoted at least once to get him out of someone's hair because it was easier than trying to document a flaw in his record.

     Turn, twist, catch the blade and deflect to the side, follow with a counterstrike.

     Pain.

     Shrug it off, keep going. One enemy down, another already in his place, sidestep the overhead strike, cut the throat, turn to face the two coming up from behind.

     Pain.

     Shrug it off, keep going. There was no course left but through so just keep-.

     Pain.

     A scoff as boots came into view, slick from the rain and stained with mud, “Did you really think you could keep that up for long?” It was almost amusing, to finally see him deigning to walk in the dirt and muck with the rest of them. His golems grabbed her arms and jerked her up so that she could see him properly. So that he could loom over her. For such a small man, he did so like his looming. Slender fingers that had never held a sword grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. He smiled at her and she thought about spitting blood in his face as he said, “Even someone with your healing magic can only fight for so long.”

     She breathed, slow and careful, and somewhere beneath her fury and exhaustion, she almost felt like laughing out loud. Healing magic.

     I wish that was what I had.

new level unlocked - behold, the commission sheet has reached it’s new form!

please feel free to slip into the DMs or even email me if interested

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ask for the wedding scene and ye shall receive. this is what was supposed to happen after jon says “i’m going to kiss you now”

Gerry stared at him for a moment, eyes wide and moonlike, like it was the first time he was seeing Jon properly. Like he was witnessing the sun crest over the horizon after months of darkness, like he was breaking the surface after almost drowning.

“Jon,” he said, his voice very loud in the hush of their bathroom, insulated from the rest of the world. “Marry me.”

Jon froze, his breath catching in his throat, the world pausing in its spin. “...what?”

“I didn’t want to ask while—while I was sick,” Gerry hastened to explain, every word pinging in Jon’s brain like pebbles being tossed into still water. “I didn’t want to tie you to me while there was chance I could—but now—Jon, I love you, I, I don’t think that I’ll ever stop—”

Jon laughed wetly, burying his hands into Gerry’s hair and dragging him into a kiss. “Yes, of course. I love you, too.”

“It’s mostly a formality at this point,” Gerry continued to babble, his eyes wild, as though unable to stop. “We’re basically married anyway, we live together—”

“We basically eloped,” Jon added, a breathy laugh escaping him at the thought. Jon had been kicked out of his house, Gerry had chosen him over his mother. Then he realized that his hands were now covered in dye, and cursed. “Shit, Gerry—”