#dadvans replies

The straight hockey bro podcasts are making me believe it happened

listening to straight men find out in real time you can be both a top AND a bottom and then excitedly coming up with elaborate scenarios where they could decide positions with a coin toss is like, sure babes, welcome to the joys of gay sex

from this New York Times piece on Taryn Tkachuk, which I think paints a nice picture of who the Tkachuk family is overall (super supportive of each other, close, ride-or-die):

Five months after they break up, Buck gets the courage to ask the guy from Air Ops supporting their hillside extraction if Tommy is the one flying the chopper. It doesn't hurt to be nice. The guy looks him up and down twice, eyes only, and says, "Buckley? No, man, he's been with the rehab unit for a month," before securing their guy and then he's going, going, gone.

Buck texts Lucy afterwards about it, curious. She doesn't respond.

"You hear Tommy's working rehab unit?" He asks Eddie when they're dressing down into their civvies later. "Did he get injured or something?"

"No clue, that guy stopped responding to my texts a few weeks after you two broke up," Eddie replies.

Buck's fingers slip buttoning up his own shirt. "What? Why didn't you tell me?"

Eddie shrugs. "You guys broke up. Tommy's cool and all, but I would get why he needs space. If he's been working rehab though, I wonder if something happened." Pauses, looks at Buck. "I'll text him for you."

He doesn't bring it up again. If Eddie texts, Buck never knows the response.

Buck drops it.

x

Two years after Tommy breaks up with him, Bobby pushes him out of the nest. Buck's spent the time leaning into Bobby's mentorship and when it becomes available, Bobby submits him as a candidate with full confidence for battalion chief up in Mendocino.

His career grows from there. He's not thrilled with working rural, but he learns to love his new team, and continues the traditions of his first house. He learns how to earn their respect.

There are a number of hook ups, men and women. It's a two hour drive to the bay, but that's not an impossible ask for him when he wants a little something more with no recognition.

His job is his love first.

x

"I saw your panel, uh," Buck says, starts, fumbles, "on Helitack. Sounds like you've really changed that program."

It's been almost a decade, but Buck could still recognize the slope of Tommy's broad shoulders, the tired, smile-driven drive of his cheek up to his eyes, the cliff-side cut of his chin, anywhere. Even with grays at Tommy's temples. It's a lifetime later, it feels like, but considering both of their ambition it would be a shock they wouldn't rub shoulders at the annual CFCA.

"Buck," Tommy says. He traces the rim of his shot glass with two fingers, and he doesn't look unhappy when he shifts up. He smiles, even. "Hey."

"Is uh, this seat taken?" Buck asks. Ten years erased. Tongue-tied and twisted guts all over again.

Tommy does pause for a second. But then he nods at the stool next to him at the hotel bar. "All yours, if you want it."

They catch up, a little. It's mostly Buck telling Tommy about working in rural NorCal, his team, and the strange, strange reality of operating in weed country.

"Who's that?" He asks, when Tommy's phone face-side up gets a text, then another. "Niece? Nephew?"

"Well," Tommy says, and he's quick with his phone but not quick enough for Buck not to notice the little girl posing with him on his lock screen photo, them jumping on a beach together-- his background looks like another picture with the girl, this time on a beach. "Daughter, actually."

A tumor borne of desire, of never being enough, gains weight in Buck's gut. After all this time, and yet. Tommy hadn't really seemed open to any kind of future with him, but this girl looks, she's old enough to be, probably right after--

"Cute," he says, softly. She looks ten years old. Her hair curls wispy and wild out of her braids and bangs, and Buck swallows back the bait instead of spitting it out. Maybe. "Takes after her dad."

oh thank you!!! here let me sing u more of my favorite song:

Ohhhh, it would be so delicious.

Buck expects Tommy to disappear from his life like everyone else who leaves, but he doesn’t expect the way Tommy just drops off the face of the earth. It sucks when Eddie tries to joke about it, how Buck isn’t allowed to date one of his friends again if this is how it ends and Chim says, “Yeah, why’d you have to scare away the cool one?” The attempt at levity sits too heavy between them.

Buck finds out from Lucy, inevitably, who thinks he deserves to know. Tommy went into pre-term labor last week and is at home on bedrest and this is just one stupid thing on a long list of stupid things he’s done since breaking up with Buck, and she’s worried about the next.

Buck shows up to Tommy’s house with soup, uses the spare key that Tommy hasn’t moved to a new hiding spot. “Who would have thought a guy willing to fly into a hurricane could be such a coward,” he says, furious. “Eddie and Chim miss you too, by the way. Now eat your soup.”

no apologies needed!

at the end of the day, so many of us found joy in their story, their chemistry, the way even up until the final second tommy admitted that what he wanted with buck was something that would inevitably break his heart.

they were good together. tommy fit into so many intimidating parts of buck's life with ease. tommy is (as far as we know) still good friends with buck's best friend! tommy loved him anyway, loved him warts and all, road shotgun to buck's worst fears and weirdest conspiracies.

at the end of the day, we have a few things:

we GOT them. we got to see them together, we got the soft looks, we got the kisses, the foundation of them that is real and canon in a way we could strike like a match against the edge of a box to light them up for real all over again. i don't think "being canon" gives any credence or superiority to a ship, and have shipped people or characters that have never interacted/existed together in a tangible way, simply because it's FUN. that's how i'll always have fun with ships and fandom, BUT! what a wonderful thing to celebrate that we DID have them, that we have this as a foundation for whatever comes next, that there is never a door permanently closed to them finding each other again when it was already real from the start

for a lot of us, this isn't how their story ends. it's insane that so much fic and content was produced for a canon ship like this. so often fandom is chasing down the what-ifs and never-hads. a lot of us invested in bucktommy because they had the compatibility, the fit, the chemistry, the potential. that's novel shit! that doesn't just evaporate because they broke up in canon. it certainly hurts. the kind of hype we were surfing will crash and sink back in the oncoming months, but i know talking to a lot of people tonight that we aren't done with this ship. we aren't ready to say goodbye.

i'm sad. i'm angry. i felt a real sense of queer euphoria whenever i saw them together, even for 30 seconds, teetering on the edge of this new couple joy learning each other into something new and weird and fun that always lingered as a promise on the edge of their interactions. i was so excited for who buck could become with tommy as his home base. shifting that has rocked me in a bad way.

i expect people to inevitably step away from this ship and this fandom, but i'll mention that non-canon ships like arthur/eames or mcshep or social network rpf or short-lived shows from 1996 (hi sentinel) have had long-lived fandoms and left long-lasting impressions in other fandoms that have lasted for over a decade of zero additional content. this is a playground that, just because they've parted ways for now, we don't have to stop playing in.

and i'll be honest: i have several WIPs i'm like, well trash that! after watching the most recent episode. but i also have a dozen new ideas. new ways they could fall in love now or again, new ways they could meet, new ways they could be for each other.