I really like the “I don’t have to sleep with everyone I have feelings for and I don’t have feelings for everyone I sleep with”/”Got it” exchange because it’s so emotionally messy and interesting but also revealing about the characters.
I’ve seen the take in a couple of fics where Buck says that he didn’t mean that about Tommy, and hey we’re all playing with dolls and having fun, but I’m going to disagree. Buck’s comment was deliberately aimed at Tommy and was meant to hurt him. Buck was angry that Tommy seemingly spent their entire six month relationship thinking he was competing with Eddie for Buck’s affections, which also calls into doubt all the times that the three of them hung out (see the bad idea birthday party and Masks), and Tommy refusing to believe him when Buck says he has no romantic/sexual feelings for Eddie. As Buck explained to Maddie, he was angry that Tommy seemed happy that Eddie was gone when Buck himself was struggling with it, and so he lashed out “in the meanest way possible.”
That’s consistent with Buck’s character: he’s got a lot of big feelings and he tends to get defensive when he’s hurt. What I find interesting is that Tommy is the opposite of that. When he’s hurt, he shuts down. Buck’s blow landed just as he meant it to, and instead of snapping back or fighting, Tommy just locks it down, and says, “Got it.” His parting line of “Evan, thank you for last night. It was fun,” is passive aggressive, but it’s not blatantly hurtful in the way that Buck’s comment was.
Like I said, I find that really interesting because one of the bits of fanon floating around is that Tommy let slips these little sarcastic barbs when he’s cornered or hurt, but that’s not something we really see in the show. Don’t get me wrong, Tommy is a bitch (affectionate), but he’s not a bitch in response to being confronted. He’ll be bitch in stressful situations—see his entire dialogue in the hurricane scene—but he doesn’t do it on purpose to hurt someone. The closest we come to that is in the first Micelli’s scene with his “ain’t that the truth, Evan,” in response to a comment about closet space. It’s a petty dig, but when he’s actually cutting the date short, he’s direct and upfront but not mean. He even calls Buck adorable. That’s the opposite of a sarcastic bitch.
We see it again in the 8.06 breakup. His reasons for breaking up with Buck are bullshit, but bullshit rooted in insecurity, but he’s never deliberately mean or unloving. Or look at his reaction to Gerrard calling him a slur. He doesn’t lash out, he doesn’t let loose with a sarcastic barb; he withdraws into himself. Chim steps in because Tommy has shut down. He doesn’t even raise his voice in the morning after scene; it’s Buck who comes closest to shouting. This is a man who does not handle confrontation well.
Which is what makes him such a great foil for Buck. In that moment Buck is amped up. He is mad. He is ready for a drag down fight. He’s expecting one, and he is so thrown when Tommy just refuses to fight him. He immediately regrets his comment when he realizes that Tommy is taking it at, for lack of a better term, face value. The consequences for it are immediate, which I think Buck is genuinely surprised by because the other people in his life push back on him.
Compare this to Eddie and Buck’s fight after Buck purposely lets slip that Eddie is leaving the 118 to move back to El Paso. When Buck tries to protest that he didn’t do it on purpose, Eddie immediately calls Buck out on that lie. Buck is used to people pushing back on him when he goes too far, to being reigned back in. So I genuinely think he doesn’t know what to do when Tommy refuses to engage. He’s confused and asks what’s happening, despite it being pretty obvious, and while he pretty much immediate regrets what he said, it doesn’t occur to him to apologize or explain what he meant.
And I genuinely love their completely opposite approaches to conflict because they’re going to have to work at communication. Buck’s emotions tend to dictate his perceived reality (for the record, this is not a complaint; it’s a great character trait that the show tends to simplify and reduce to childishness) and Tommy just emotionally shuts down and runs at the slightest whiff of conflict, which means getting the two of them are going to have to make an effort to actually sit down and talk through their issues. And that opens up so many juicy narrative options—I love the trap them in a helicopter and/or collapsed building options—that I do not at all trust the show to actually explore. But, hey, that’s what fandom is for, and I believe in us to make it messy and painful and amazing.
This is going to be long as hell, but I really feel like some of you in this tag need some talking off the ledge, in regards to what will happen with Buck and Tommy in the long term.
For starters, I don’t think Tim Minear is going to stretch out the ‘will they, won’t they’ for much longer, and I will go so far as to say, I don’t believe he’s going to keep Buck a perpetual victim of the "hamster wheel" (I probably just lost some of you right here). This all coming from someone who is normally quite frustrated and pessimistic when it concerns the writing, character evolution, and general direction for 911 as a whole. I've been less than impressed with the show for a while now and often forget it's even a Thursday night option (especially with The Pitt right there...), let's just leave it at that.
And yet, I still think there are numerous signs, within and beyond the text, that suggest Minear and his cohort of writers may finally be doing something different here, at least, in regard to Buck’s development and, therefore, Tommy's by extension. If it turns out that I'm wrong, then I’m wrong. But I also don’t accept the notion that there isn’t, at the very least, some solid evidence pointing to something good up ahead for the pair.
If you’re still with me, click through...
He’s always gonna feel responsible for his team. Especially Buck.
OLIVER STARK as EVAN BUCKLEY & PETER KRAUSE as BOBBY NASH in 9-1-1 | 6.11 “In Another Life”
Tommy is so good as Buck's LI because he's just so:
Buck's already dated a dispatcher, a journalist, someone he saved, and now a fellow firefighter. Finding a better fit would be damn hard.
@bucktommyanniversary day 3: circled with a heart eyes ♡ around it?
In seriousness I love BuckTommy and will continue to love BuckTommy. There’s nothing the show can do at this point short of making Tommy a murderer that will keep them from being my OTP. If Tommy dies at this point, he will always be Buck’s Lost Love, his Shannon. The words “most transformative relationship” speak to that because Buck himself supplanted Abby with Tommy in his mind and that alone speaks volumes for the love he has for Tommy. The fact they love each other is undeniable for anyone paying attention and my sincere hope is that they end the season on a good note.
Ball culture is NOT the same thing as ballroom dancing classes, you fucking weirdos. House Ballroom (aka: Ball Culture or the Ballroom Scene)—which evolved from Drag Balls—is NOT “ballroom dancing.” I— hmm
Also, if a man dances, that doesn’t make him fucking gay. It’s not “gay” to dance.
The show ruining all of Buck's hard earned relationships so he can have platonic scenes with Eddie every episode that do nothing but give fodder for the "journalists" instead of expanding Eddie's circle of relationships so their friendship can finally have some semblance of balance is by far the biggest crime of the last two seasons. A lazy throwaway line that Hen knew Buck was possibly queer all along doesn't make up for a lack of screen time for them.
I’m dead serious when I say that Timmy sacrificed the firefam on the altar of platonic Bvddie. And it was not worth it. His stupid ass “scene in every episode” nonsense from last year has done irreparable damage and now they seem to have forgotten how to write that these people are all friends in an interlocking web of relationships.
And it’s the dumbest fucking thing because you can’t tell me that Hen and Buck’s friendship is unpopular, nor is Bobby and Buck’s familial relationship! You can’t tell me that no one would want to see Chim and Bobby friendship like back in the day. You can’t tell me that Bobby actively grooming Hen for leadership wouldn’t eat!
And god! Eddie! Please make more friends! So much of his bullshit would have been great to work through with Athena or Bobby or Chim!
But no.
Tommy was right to leave Buck standing in that kitchen the morning after their hook up. Tommy hesitantly opened up and basically admitted to being worried about Buck's feelings for Eddie. He didn't say it, but it was implied. Buck's first response was to say Eddie is straight which doesn't answer Tommy's unasked question because a guy being straight doesn't necessarily stop a gay/bi guy from having feelings for them.
Then when Buck doesn't like Tommy's response (which is understandable) Buck says, "I don't have to want to sleep with everyone I had feelings for." If I'm Tommy (an insecure guy/ex) I'm hearing Buck say that he did have feelings for Eddie. Buck doesn't clarify what those feelings were though. Then he makes it worse by telling the man he slept with the night before, the same man who just asked him for a second chance that "I don't have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with." Why would Tommy want to keep talking to Buck after that? Buck immediately realizes he messed up, but he doesn't apologize, and Tommy rightfully doesn't stick around. It seems like Tommy just got his heart broken.
I'm not saying Buck was wrong to be upset. Buck is entitled to his feelings but the way he handled that was not great. This wasn't a case of Buck telling Tommy "I don't have feelings for Eddie" and Tommy not believing him. This was Buck not realizing that saying Eddie is straight is not necessarily an answer to Tommy's concern. This is Buck implying that he did have feelings for Eddie while not clarifying what those feelings were, and then kinda implying that he might not have feelings for Tommy. It was just poor communication all around and in this case, I disagree with people trying to make Buck the innocent victim. They both needed to approach the conversation differently.
