we have hope or we have nothing

it’s been 9 years since i wrote this. i was experiencing 24/7 anxiety so badly that i needed serious medication. these days in the back of my car is an “emergency party box.” when people admit they no longer really celebrate their birthday; i tell them to put the sash on and queue up kesha, we’re going bowling or something. these days i can’t spin around without finding something i am enamored with. these days i list 3 things i’m grateful for before i fall asleep. you’re probably one of them, just by virtue of you existing.

at the time i wrote this, i was suffering through a severe panic attack literally every night. i tortured my brother with constant 2 AM calls just to hear someone else breathing, because i couldn’t be alone in the silence.

i rarely wish i was still 23 even though ironically i had more hope back then. what i can tell you is this: i love the same way, but bigger now. i’ve worn the velvet cape to several business meetings. i spent thursday in a crop top without caring what my stomach looked like.

i told her i like her; i often dress as a witch. i still got glass in my foot this morning. i’ve kissed maybe a thousand people since then and met a million more than that; passing like the shadow of a hammerhead in trains and planes and buses.

i saw you, beloved, there, maybe, on platform in south station. you didn’t speak, but you said: i struggle to give the nothing meaning. the nothing fills up everything. it is just loud and yellowed panicked silence. i can’t stop shaking.

on the roof, birds curl together against the chilled spring wind. the sky outside of the craft store was an iridescent pink. the nothing already had meaning; you are giving it meaning by witnessing.

xo cam

@apollabarnes hello 👋

sorryyyyyyyyy all I'm picturing is an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au !! which would probably kill me but other than that

a fic where buck wakes up on july 14 2026 but it's a universe where the bucktommy breakup never happened. and at first it's just like "man haha this fucking SUCKS we're so happy together and living together and while I was snooping around I found a ring engraved with an inside joke I don't even recognize because it's been 2 years, and when I ask tommy what happened that night that we broke up it's so nothing that he doesn't even remember it happened, while I replay every moment of it on nights I can't sleep" and then. wait. where's theo? oh, butterfly effect, connor and kameron are still alive.

d... does that mean...?

yeah, bobby's still alive. and buck just has to live in this world that is in theory perfect for him but he's this alien that doesn't belong, and then as soon as he gets his footing, he wakes up back in the real world. and he has theo back, and at this point they're starting to be a little family, so he has to, what, be happy his old friend died so he has this again? he has to be okay with bobby being gone? he has to live with the fact that he doesn't have the love of his life supporting him?

Just a pass-by visit to Daddy Buck at the station after picking up Theo from school☺️

A quick snack and an eternal memory that Tommy will now cherish forever🥹

hi!

thanks

alien love call:

somehow (maybe tommy came in contact with some infected space junk following the space disaster, insert your preferred absurd 911-esque plotline here), buck starts hearing tommy's thoughts.

and then he realises that the thoughts he's hearing are only tommy's thoughts about him.

and they've been broken up for a long time, so it's unexpected for many, many reasons.

Buck and Tommy are at the 118 at the same time during Buck's probie year and Buck immediately latches onto him.

So when Tommy gets injured and has to be off work for a couple weeks, Buck is very mopey at work since he can't see or talk to Tommy (and Tommy hasn't wanted visitors which Buck knows logically means Tommy doesn't want to see anyone, but he takes it personally anyway)

Chim texts Tommy one day and begs him to call Buck to put Buck but especially the 118 out of their collective misery.

So Tommy calls Buck that same night knowing he's off work and hoping maybe Buck will have a better shift that next day if they talk (and he does sincerely miss having Buck in his space and hanging off of him like an extra limb)