#ask commentary

"....anyway. Probably not a good idea to use things as sex toys that weren't designed for that. There are certain materials that aren't...."

The fix-it fic is what I like to call classic Dharma, in that I had an initial idea and assumed I could bang it out in a couple thousand words over two weeks, and then a month and 20k words later I was like, “I don’t know, guys, I think this might be a little bit longer that I originally anticipated.”

Originally this fic was a lot more streamline (opening scenes, gay bar, talk with Shore and York, Buck and Tommy running into each at the bar, Buck introspection, than final talk), but by the time I hit the scene with Karen I had to admit that this fic had grown beyond it’s simple roots.  One of the things that the show will never give us is Buck exploring his newfound queerness.  To be fair, the show isn’t interested in exploring queerness for any of its established queer characters.  Do Henren have any queer friends?  Michael got two on screen boyfriends but we never saw we never got a storyline about what it meant for him to come out later in life outside of his marriage falling apart.  So if the show isn’t going to do this then I guess I have to.

While I was writing this, I was worried that everyone would get frustrated by the lack of Tommy for the majority of this fic, but it was important for Buck to start to find his place in the queer community first.  As much as I hate the Glee speech (and I hate it so much) the point of it was that Buck was coming out in a completely different cultural context than Tommy did.  If we go by the actor ages, there’s a seven year difference between them, and that seven year difference is a lot.  Tommy would have served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which wasn’t repealed until 2010.

The early 2000s were so homophobic (that bit with debating gay marriage in government class actually did happen to me and it sucked a lot!), and Buck doesn’t really get how growing up in that era will fuck you up.  Up until now, he’s never had to deal with homophobia being aimed at him.  He has to reckon with his bisexuality—how his queerness recontextualizes his past, what it means for him now, and what it means for the future—so he can be a good partner to Tommy.

I also want to Buck to have queer friends!  911 is a very heteronormative show—everyone gets to be paired up with a kid—but I wanted Buck to realize that there are other ways to be in a relationship.  Aaron is aroace and Ellie is bi and dating, but that doesn’t change the fact they are together in a way that works for them.  I don’t know if Tommy and Buck get married in this verse, but I do know they are in a committed relationship and how and what that looks like is up to them.

Gaelithox - God of fire, stars, moon, sun and the dawn, rival of Meraxes.

“I usually dragged her out to my room in the Vale (usually associated with the moon gates), where we would both watch the stars until the air got too cold to breathe.”

“I blink against the blazing dawn, and place my hand on Gaelithox’s snout. It heats me down to the bone”

“Gaelithox,” I correct, handing off my plate to a servant. “Like the stars.”

and finally.

“byka vēzos - little sun, popular nickname for Naerys, precursor to Baelon’s little fire.”