#Eddie Diaz fighting off bad guys in only a towel

[ineedapuppyandsomevodka]

May I please request buddie promt where Buck's parents ambush him at work? the team want to know more about Buck and ask questions and the Buckley parents bad mouth him, Buck goes to the lockers or bunkers and Eddie goes after his boyfriend?

SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG!!

Buck’s parents are in town. 

That was a sentence that Buck didn’t think that he was going to ever say, anytime soon, but they are. They’re here for Maddie, mostly. She’s pregnant, so of course, they want to be in town for the birth of their grandchild. Maddie is hardly even 6 months pregnant, though, which means that they’ll probably be here for a couple of weeks, and then they’ll be back in a few months when the baby is born. 

He has dinner with them the first night that they’re in town. They’re a little overbearing, but he deals with it, mostly because he hasn’t seen them in years. Really, it’s probably been more like 5 years since he saw them in person. 

He stacked up his shifts, though, so that he wouldn’t have to see them that much. He knew that it would be better for their relationship if he only saw them a couple of times while they were here. Too much time would mean that Buck would be annoyed and probably say something that he didn’t mean. 

(Chances are, he probably would mean them. He knows that his words strike to kill sometimes, but he doesn’t want to completely ruin his relationship with his parents.)

Then, his parents show up at the station. 

No, they didn’t just show up. They ambushed him. They cornered him in a way that they knew would piss him off. Buck’s always been a hard worker, he puts his all into what he decides to do, and being a firefighter is no exception to this. 

“Evan,” his mother smiles as she comes up the stairs and into the loft of the station. “You’re father and I brought some food for you and your colleagues.” 

“Oh,” Buck says, looking over at Bobby who had been slaving over their dinner since they got back from their last call. “Um, thanks.”

“Of course,” she says with a smile. He knows it’s meant to be genuine, he does, but there is something about the look on her face that isn’t. He knows his mom too well. He knows that there is more intention behind them showing up at the station. 

His gut reaction is to just take the food and set it on the counter. If he moves them a little further into the kitchen, then they’ll see that Bobby is cooking. 

His dad immediately goes to shake Chimney’s hand, and Buck suddenly regrets not vetting any of his team that his parents might be in town. Chimney knew, of course, but everyone else was left in the dark. 

He sets down the food that his parents brought in and introduces his mother to Bobby, who wipes his hands on a towel and shakes her hand. He turns off the stove, insisting that the food he made can wait for the next shift.

“Buck has told us a lot about you,” his mom says with a smile, and Buck’s stomach turns. She was going to find some reason, any reason to make Bobby look like a bad guy. He just knew it. 

“Good things, I hope,” Bobby says with a smile. 

Buck leaves them to their conversation and shoots a glance at Eddie, who’s watching everything unfold from a distance. He doesn’t know what he wants to say or do, but he knows the second that he goes over to his boyfriend, his parents are going to want to follow. They’ll tear Eddie apart like vultures. 

Buck looks at Hen, who is busy talking with his father, and he decides to go over and make sure that everything over there is going just as it should. If his father makes any sort of mention about Hen, her name, her being a firefighter, or anything, Buck is ready to put up a fight. 

Conversations between his mother and Bobby and his father and Hen seem to be going okay, though. Nobody has their claws out, and it all seems to be fairly docile. That’s something that Buck can deal with. 

He sighs softly, then goes to set the table so that everyone can sit down and eat. They might as well eat everything while the food is hot. There’s no use for it to go to waste, especially because knowing his parents it was likely from a gourmet restaurant in the area. 

Buck smiles softly as Eddie comes to help him set the table. They don’t say anything, they just work together silently. When everything is set up the way that his Captain usually likes it, Bobby notices and calls everyone to the table... including his parents. His parents sit near him, and Eddie sits across. 

His father immediately takes interest in Eddie. 

“I don’t think I’ve met you yet,” he says with amusement. 

“No, we haven’t,” Eddie, ever the charmer says and holds out his hand. “Eddie Diaz.”

“Eddie... Is that short for Eduardo?” His father asks. 

Eddie shoots Buck an amused look and shakes his head. “No, actually, it’s short for Edmundo.”

“Interesting,” his father states, taking a bite of his food. “How long have you been a firefighter?”

“About two years, now,” he tells him, keeping things short and sweet. 

“Are you a citizen?” his father asks. 

“Dad,” Buck shoots him a look and his dad simply shrugs. 

“It’s just a question.” 

“Yeah, a wildly inappropriate question.”

“It’s not inappropriate, Evan, you’re being dramatic,” his mother chimes in, and Buck wants to roll his eyes. 

“Yes,” Eddie says, nudging Buck’s foot under the table. “I am a citizen. I moved here from Texas.”

“Texas, that’s a lovely state,” his mom adds. 

Conversation falls uncomfortably quiet and it’s all Buck can do not to wolf down all of his dinner. 

“Evan, you need to slow down. You’re going to choke.” his mom chides. 

“It’s a good thing I have three medics to save me, then,” he says, trying to turn the conversation light. 

“I don’t understand why you have to be so rude to your mother. We brought you dinner,” his dad says. 

“I’m not being rude,” Buck says with a shrug.

“You kind of are,” his dad says, taking a sip of his water. 

“Sorry,” he says, looking away. 

They soon get on to the topic of why everyone at the station wants to be a firefighter. His dad is the one who brings it up, and Buck knows that it’s a setup. His dad has never approved of him being a firefighter and has made that blatantly clear. It’s just going to take someone saying just the right thing for his parents to go off, and Buck is stiff thinking about it. 

He wonders if other members of the 118 feel this way when their parents come into town. He knows that Eddie doesn’t have the best relationship with his parents, but he also seems to enjoy having them visit from time to time. 

At the end of the day, Buck’s parents are still his parents. They still raised him. They still provided a nice life for him. They may not be the best parents in the world, but they aren’t bad people. Maybe he shouldn’t be so upset about them coming to see him at the station. Maybe they were just trying to be ni--. 

“What you all do is so dangerous,” his mother says with the shake of her head. “I never quite understood why our Evan would want to get into a profession like this.”

“With all due respect, Misses Buckley, Buck is one of the best firefighters I know,” Bobby says, looking across the table at them. 

“Well, yes, he has always strived to be the best at whatever he does. That doesn’t mean that he has to be the best firefighter, though,” his mom says, and Buck can feel his eyes roll back. 

It was going to be a long night. 

Could he call dispatch to have them send the 118 out on a call? Was that an option? He really needed that to be an option right now. 

“It takes a lot to do what we do, and your son--” 

“My son,” his mother interrupts. “He has been crushed by a firetruck, and almost died multiple times while working for you.”

“I--” Buck flounders. “Who--?”

“Maddie told us,” his dad raises an eyebrow. 

“I don’t understand why we had to find out from her that you got hurt on the job,” his mom adds in. 

So this is what this was about. They were here to talk him out of his job. To tell him that his job was too dangerous. 

“A job that you don’t even have to be doing,” his dad scoffs. 

“I love being a firefighter,” Buck swallows. 

“And I love being a financial advisor, but that doesn’t have me nearly getting killed every day, does it?” His father asks. “Come on, Evan, you know that your mother and I will pay for you to finish out your degree--” 

“I don’t want to finish my degree. I’m happy.” Buck says, letting out a heavy sigh. 

“I don’t see how you could possibly be happy working in a job where you’ve spent more time injured than you have on duty.”

“I have not,” Buck says, and by now he knows full well that he’s raising his voice. “I love this job. I love the friends I have because of this job. I love everything about it, and you need to stop trying to control my life.”

“Evan,” his mom says, putting a hand on his forearm. 

“No, mom, you guys need to listen. Coming into my workplace and trying to tell me how to live my life? That’s fucked up--”

“Watch your language,” his father snaps.

“That’s screwed up,” Buck says instead. 

“What’s screwed up is that we have to find out from your sister when anything important or big happens in your life.”

“Because you guys always pass judgment on what happens in my life! You’re never happy for me, you’re never proud of me, and god forbid that I ever tell you about any of the relationships in my life because you always rip people to shreds,” he says, and he knows that everyone at the table is staring at him. He can feel his cheeks turn red, and his eyes sting. God, he just knows he probably looks like an idiot right now. 

He sighs, shaking his head as he tries to let it go. “Nothing I ever did was good enough for you,” he says, quieter this time. He pushes himself up from where he’s sitting and excuses himself from the table. 

He goes down to the locker room, sitting down on one of the benches. He huffs quietly and drops his head in his hands, trying to gather himself enough to remember that he is at work and he can’t be feeling all of this when he needs to stay focused in order to save lives. 

He feels to hands land on his shoulder and Buck snaps his head up, ready to fight whoever it is. 

“It’s just me,” Eddie says, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Buck’s forehead. “It’s just me.”

Buck sighs in relief, immediately sagging under Eddie’s grip. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Buck.”

“I-I do, though,” he presses the heel of his hand to his eye, and Eddie sits down next to him. 

“Then don’t apologize to me,” he says softly. “But I don’t think you need to apologize to your parents either.”

“It wasn’t right of me to--”

“It wasn’t right of them to talk to you like that, especially not here, Buck,” He says and pulls him into a hug. “Give yourself a break sometimes, Querido. You’re enough for us.”

“I love you,” Buck says quietly, hugging him back. 

“I love you too, Buck.”