#buck's easy friendship with Christopher gives me life

[actualalligator]

WIP Wednesday

This is a snippet from "If I Lead, Will You Follow?" This feels so slow going rn. I feel like this is all I wanted to write when I started it, but my inspiration has stalled. Maybe getting more out into the universe will help. It's a longer snippet, so I'm gonna put it under a cut. Thank you @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad for tagging me 🩵

Eddie walked back into the living room and sat on the couch with his beer. If Buck was good at complicated legos, then he could have at it. Eddie was more than happy to sit back and drink his beer. 

As if he could read his mind, Christopher looked up at him. “Buck's way better at this than you, Dad.” 

Buck choked back a laugh. Eddie threw a half-hearted glare his way. 

“That's not very nice, bud,” Buck said after a second. “I'm sure your dad is plenty good.” 

Christopher's eyebrows drew together, and he shook his head. 

“What's parenthood if you're not being bullied by your own kid?” Eddie asked, voice soft enough that Christopher probably didn't register it. It got a soft huff of laughter from Buck, though. Eddie liked that sound a lot. “Buck can be your lego buddy from now on.” 

“Good,” said Christopher. “I thought I'd never get the Mars Rover finished.” 

“We may not finish this tonight “ Buck replied, looking through the instructions. 

“You can come back tomorrow,” Christopher said, and the way he said it sounded like it was just a given. Of course, Buck would come back again the next night to build legos with him.  

Buck frowned down at the instructions. “Well, I have to work tomorrow, buddy, but maybe I can come over the next time I'm off.” 

Christopher squinted up at Buck. “When is that?” and his tone was close enough to a demand that it made Eddie sit up a little straighter. 

“Ay, mijo. We have to be kind to our friends or they won't want to come and play,” he said, and he never raised his voice with Christopher, not like his dad had done with him, but he was firm. 

Christopher paused for a second, maybe to consider what he would say next, but his tone was much softer when he finally did speak. “When can you come back and play legos with me again, Buck?” 

“I'm off on Monday,” Buck says. 

Christopher looked at Eddie. “Dad, can Buck come over on Monday?” 

“I work on Monday,” Eddie said softly. He didn't want to let his kid down. “You're going to go to Abuela’s before and after school, and I won't pick you up until after you're asleep.”  

“Oh.” Christopher's little slumped shoulders were exactly what Eddie didn't want. 

Buck glanced between them. He pulled out his phone. Seconds later, Eddie's phone buzzed in his pocket. 

Buck: I could watch him after school on Monday. 

Eddie looked at the text, then at Buck. He appreciated that the offer had come as a text. They were still new to each other. But Eddie was surprised to find that he wanted to say yes. He trusted Buck already. And it would be nice to get to come right home after a twelve-hour shift and for Christopher to fall asleep in his own bed. 

“Maybe Buck can hang out with you after school here until I get home,” Eddie said. “You will have to promise me that you'll listen to Buck and you'll go to bed when he says it's time.”

Christopher's face lit up. “Yes, please! I promise!”

Buck was smiling too. “You'll have to let me know what you want for dinner, bud,” he said.

Christopher leaned forward with a very serious expression on his face. “Can you make grilled cheese? Dad always burns them.”

“Captain Nash, your dad’s boss, taught me how to make the best grilled cheese in the whole world,” Buck replied. He poked through the lego pieces in the bin and handed one to Christopher. “Do you like tomato soup?”

Christopher nodded. “Dad can make that pretty okay. We eat it with quesadillas sometimes. Those are usually okay.”

“Tomato soup and quesadillas can both be cooked in the microwave just fine,” Eddie said. “But we have good dinners too, mijo. Right? Like when we had spaghetti last week. That was good.”

Chris giggled and nodded again. “We had chicken nuggets with cheese in our spaghetti! It was the best I've ever had!”

“Oh yeah?” Buck asked. He glanced back at Eddie for a second before picking up the next piece of their build. “Maybe I can join you next time because I've never had that. And I love spaghetti and chicken nuggets.”

“Yeah. I'll call you,” Christopher replied, taking the piece and sticking it on.

Buck chuckled. “You've got my number?”

“Dad does. He lets me call Grandma and Abuelo,” Christopher said with a wave of his hand.

“Perfect. As soon as you know your dad has spaghetti on the menu, call me right up,” Buck told him. He handed him one more piece and closed the instructions. “I have to go start the chicken. We will have to pick this up after dinner."

No pressure tagging and anybody else who wants to share! I wanna read your WIPs!

@lochnesswriter @friendly-chaos @malewifediaz

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼(the dynamics here are fascinating! Such an interesting take on how their lives could have gone so differently)

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰(this one omg!!! What does eddie know? What does the clock mean? How long until buck is fully aware? WHAT IS GOING ON?? Can’t wait to find out!)

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️(athena POV! I love it! Gerrard being dead! I love it! Having all the interrogations be interwoven to help build a picture of the whole night! I love it! It feels very oceans 911)

Also I gotta say that I LOVE when you include a mystery emoji/story on one of your responses to me! This happening twice now has me feeling genuinely so honored!

Ahhh happy to give you all the surprise emojis! Who knows, I MAY have another one soon...

33 for 🔼(thank you so much!!!):

---

With Shannon and Eddie getting along better after telling Chris about the baby, she’s seeing more of him. Not that Eddie has kept him from her at all since Christmas. He hasn’t. But with them communicating better, it’s just easier for her to spend more quality time with him. With her feeling better, too, she can watch him more. Eddie is slowly relying on Carla less and less, and Shannon more and more. She’s resumed going over to his place to stay with Chris when he’s working. Something she didn’t think she’d get again. At least not for a while. On top of that, Chris is happy again. Their work to prove his fears wrong has paid off; he seems secure in her being around and he’s excited about the baby. About being a big brother. He’s filled with curiosity about everything and asks her questions whenever he sees her. It warms her heart and soothes her anxieties. She can do this without hurting Christopher any more than she already has. 

The other recent development, of course, is Maddie. The friendship she hadn’t known she’d needed until Buck arranged it. Shannon and Maddie hit it off immediately. Despite being a bit older than her - there is quite an age difference between Maddie and Buck, apparently - Shannon and Maddie immediately found common ground in the life experience of starting over in this city. Both moving forward from a lot of guilt and baggage, some days more successfully than others. Beyond that, they just have a similar conversational style. Maddie is kind and smart, but funny. Not afraid to poke fun. Shannon feels at ease around her. They’ve been seeing each other weekly, and texting a lot, too. They have plans to go shopping next week, after Shannon and Eddie find out the sex of the baby. For the first time since high school, Shannon has a social life to look forward to. 

Maddie isn’t the only Buckley she’s finding herself on friendly terms with, either. Shannon and Buck have struck up quite a rapport pre-physio. Shannon finds herself arriving early on purpose, just to extend their conversations. There’s something about him. 

---

96 for ➰ (ALL GREAT QUESTIONS!):

---

He’s feeling a bit better. He doesn’t know why. It’s like the looming dread has evaporated. A cloud passing overhead. Honestly, the moment they walked away from that kayak rack, Buck felt a lot lighter. Which is weird. He had a bad feeling, and… And he… He avoided getting hurt. But how did he know to do that? Just like Eddie asked. Why did he have that feeling?

Because you remember it, something small in the back of his head is telling him. But that’s impossible, so he tries to shove it down. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie replies. He still seems off. Quiet. Like he adopted Buck’s bad mood when Buck shirked it. “We can always just go back to the hotel and take it easy?” 

“What?” Chris complains. “That’s boring!”

“Aw, Eddie come on,” Buck adds, reaching for the driver’s side door of the Jeep. “It’s our last day here. We wanted to go swimming.”

“There’s a pool at the hotel,” Eddie reminds him. “We can swim there.”

Buck feels like he’s had this conversation before. 

“I want to go to the beach,” Chris says.

“Yeah, me too.” Buck agrees. “Unless something is wrong?”

Eddie narrows his eyes at Buck. Like Buck has asked him something mildly offensive. Buck raises an eyebrow. He has no idea what’s wrong! 

“No, you’re right. Let’s go to the beach,” Eddie concedes. “Whatever makes the two of you happy.” 

➰➰➰

They swim and enjoy the beach. It’s almost a really nice afternoon. Buck has a lot of energy, and he and Chris spend a ton of time in the water and exploring the long, flat stretch of sand. They wander off towards the rocks, to look at tidal pools, crabs, and other little creatures. Eddie follows behind them, watching them like a hawk circling overhead. 

It’s strange. The whole afternoon, he doesn’t ever fully participate in what they're doing. He’s there, but not totally present. He has a distance to him, and yet he’s never not watching. And where, usually, he’d be keeping his eyes specifically on Chris, today he’s not. Today his eyes are glued on Buck. 

“Are you sure everything is okay?” Buck asks him several times over the course of the afternoon.

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. “Everything is perfectly fine.”

But it’s clearly a lie. 

Buck helps Chris up onto one of the rocks to look at a sea urchin.

“I really like that purple color,” Chris observes.

“Me too,” Buck replies. “Man, we’ve seen a lot of cool wildlife today, haven’t we?”

Even as he says it, he realizes none of it has felt very novel. Except maybe this exact moment. He doesn’t know if he’s seen what he’s looking at now, before. But the otters? The seals? The opalescent slug thingies? None of those felt like a first glimpse at a magical other world. It felt like a painting of something beautiful he stares at every day. 

Why does it feel like that?

“We have!” Chris agrees. He doesn’t seem to hold any of Buck’s lack of wonder. “This has been the coolest trip ever.”

Buck smiles at him. “I’m so glad, Chris. I’ve had a pretty good time, too.”

Chris steps away from Buck and crouches down to look at one of the pools. A wave crashes nearby, sending a small flood of water over their feet. 

“Careful,” Buck advises. 

“I’m okay!” Chris insists. 

“Don’t want you to fall in. Then you’d be the sea urchin.”

“Buck.” 

If no one else is going to chuckle at his joke, he will. 

In the distance, Buck hears two gulls squabbling. He turns to look, shifting his balance just as another wave crashes. The rush of water is more forceful than expected, despite his own advice to Christopher. Buck stumbles a little, unable to regain his footing. With a flipping feeling in his stomach, Buck falls backward. 

He only feels it for a second when his head cracks off the jagged ocean rocks.

---

57 for ☠️ (THANK YOU! That's sort of the vibe I am going for!):

---

“We’re just doing our due diligence, Mr. Han,” Ransone replies. “Making sure we have all the information necessary before ruling the death accidental.”

“Right,” Chim says. “But you only asked about Tommy. Not Hen.”

“We’ve already spoken with Mrs. Wilson.” 

Chim starts to sweat a little. “Uh, listen, okay… Come on. Tommy didn’t do this.”

Oh boy. Chim panicking is never a good thing. He’s not the coolest under pressure.

“I didn’t say he did,” Ransone replies. “You jumped to that conclusion, though.”

“I did? No! I mean. I didn’t.” 

“Why didn’t Tommy do this?” Ransone asks. 

“What?”

“If you’re very sure Mr. Kinnard couldn’t have killed Captain Gerrard, tell me why?” 

Chim blinks, like he hadn’t expected this question.

“Well, uh… First of all, he’s dating my brother-in-law, so… So I trust Buck’s taste in men, right?” Chim starts. “Second, he’s changed a lot.” 

“Changed?” Ransone lasers in on this choice in diction. 

Athena sighs. If Chim wants to protect his friend, he’s doing a bad job. 

“Yeah,” Chim nods. “He’s not the same guy he was when Gerrard was our captain the first time. When I met him.”

“What kind of guy was he then?” Ransone asks. 

“I… Wait. No, that’s not what I meant,” Chim stammers. 

“What did you mean?”

“I plead the fifth!” Chim exclaims. 

“That’s not how that works, Mr. Han,” Ransone sighs. 

Chim’s face is very red. “Listen, Tommy is a better man now, but I didn’t mean to imply he was, like, capable of murder when we worked under Gerrard together.”

“Then what was he like?” Ransone presses. 

“I don’t know,” Chim shrugs. “Colder? Meaner? More affected by others’ opinions?”

Ransone nods. “I see.”

“Buck wouldn’t date a killer! He knows Tommy well!” 

[matan4il]

Hello Alice. My birthday is coming up next Tuesday and I booked myself a holiday into California which is a massive deal for me. It made me think a lot about my uncle who travels around the world for his job quite often and how he was in Jerusulem literally in August. It is terrifying to think how much can change in the span of a few months. I don't know how you manage to cope with everything but I just wanted to drop in and say that even though I am this cyber stranger, I am very proud and in awe of you. I am also very grateful for the content you provide on here which educates so many. I hope your living situation is okay. I hope you're managing. And I hope that you're looking forward to s7 of Buddie come March. Another random thought that occurred to me on this long ass flight was how the coma dream showed Buck that he already has a kid in his life who he parents and how he came to terms with being a sperm donor instead of a father. (AT LEAST IMO DONT YELL AT ME PEOPLE!) Anywhooooo, I adore you and thank you for being here. 💛💛💛💛💛

Awwww, my darling Dom! *hugs* I can just imagine how exciting such a big trip is, and on such a wonderful occasion, too! I'm so glad for you, enjoy every single second of your journey, lovely!

Oh, wow! Your uncle was in my city just this August. That's when we were celebrating my sister's bday. Yeah, who could have imagined how much the world would change in just two months?

Oh hon! You're not a cyber stranger. You're so wonderful, brave and strong, compassionate and sweet, I enjoy talking to you, and I'm SO grateful for your friendship. I'm the one who's in awe of you! You didn't have to stand by me when I'm one of the people targeted by this de-humanization campaign, but you did, and to me, that makes you a hero. I'm proud of YOU. <3

So kind of you to be interested in my living situation. I have a temporary place, it's not great, but it's also not too far from my previous place, so at least I know my surroundings. And hopefully, this place isn't for long...

Oh, I hope s7 gives us canon Buddie, honestly. And Buck officially as Christopher's other dad. ^u^ Yes, I agree about the coma dream, it def was meaning in Buck seeing Chris there, and realizing more fully what that kid means to him, or Christopher wouldn't be there.

Love you so much, hon! I adore you, and thank you again for being here, even when that's not easy! xoxox

[buckleydiazmp4]

I'm not the original anon who asked about 911 but I am also curious about the Buddie situation? can you tell me abt them?

oh hi!

well here goes my attempt to explain.. them?? i guess?

(decided to put it under the cut bc it's long and i don't wanna disrupt anybody's dash)

i don't know where you stand in terms of supernatural/destiel, but since the last anon asked me abt buddie v destiel in terms of queerbait then i'll take that as a point of comparison

destiel was indeed the main queerbaiting method used by the cw to promote spn. they knew that most of the audience had been watching the show thanks to cas and dean's chemistry and wanted them to be together. however, for many reasons, mainly homophobia or probably chain of command etc etc, they were never gonna make them explicitly canon. so instead they kept.. "amping up"??? the chemistry and the romantic subtext between them enough to keep the audience engaged but keeping plausible deniability. obviously after the last season and the whole bury your gays where they killed off cas, ppl were angry. it was and still is a whole thing bc honestly the cw sucks.

tl:dr #1, destiel was queerbait and ppl who watched spn are now in fear of living through it again when watching other shows

anyways, onto buddie.

ppl who haven't watched 911 but see a lot of buddie content fear that the show is basically doing the same thing, adding little details and subtext between buck and eddie to engage queer viewers or buddie shippers in general and thus have a bigger audience.

what i don't know, but i think is pretty subjective, is if the previous anon would have 911 ruined for them if they started watching, shipping buddie, and then they never got together explicitly in the show.

911 is currently still running and imo there is definitely some amazing chemistry between buck and eddie, not to mention a romantic relationship between them would make total sense.

SPOILERS AHEAD! SKIP THIS PART IF YOU WANT

buck and eddie are pretty much the closest friendship in the show, veering strongly into romantic territory. buck has had a string of catastrophic relationships with women throughout the show, and it's always implied that they don't work because buck needs someone who really knows him, loves him and wants to commit to a serious relationship with him. (eg, a best friend or someone to form a family with).

this particular struggle of buck's is easy to parallel with his relationship with eddie, who has his own relationship problems (including a wife who he separated from, tried to get back together with, and then she died), since he hasn't had any stable love interests.

a crucial part in all of this is christopher, who is of course the person who eddie loves and cares for above all else. chris has had a big say on the way eddie's relationships turn out, because loving eddie means loving chris.

guess who loves chris with his whole heart and is pretty much a second parental figure to him? buck.

between that and the outrageous life-or-death (or psychological distress) situations they have lived through together, there's an unbreakable bond between them. they confide and rely on each other in nearly every aspect of their lives, both during good and bad times.

SPOILERS OVER!

i personally have fun and adore buck and eddie's relationship as it is currently, and yeah, i'd love for them to be canon as much as the next person. but i'd also be okay if they continued to give us the same buddie dynamic we have right now.

there are a lot of meaningful moments and scenes that basically reaffirm how truly close they are even outside the plot they show us on screen. i love that because it's like they're giving us little blank spaces to fill up with headcanons and fics and gifsets and that is so fun!!

but certain ppl are more adamant in their desire to see their relationship develop romantically on-screen. despite not being one of those people, i get why they want that and i sincerely hope they get it!!

but if it doesn't happen, i'll still happily watch the buck and eddie we've been given and cherish all of their interactions. that and of course as i said in the previous ask, i love 911 for a LOT more reasons than just buddie.

tl;dr #2, buddie isn't canon, whether or not it's queerbait depends on who's watching and how they're watching, but 911 is still worth it as a whole.

[capseycartwright]

tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease

Ease. The absence of difficulty or effort.

Buck wasn't sure if he'd ever experienced true ease, in his life - and maybe he should have realised, when he had to turn to Eddie to explain what it meant to feel at ease, but Buck was known for being sort of oblivious.

ao3 link

Ease. The absence of difficulty or effort. That’s how it was defined on the internet, at least – Buck knew because he had looked it up, after his conversation with Bobby. It’s not like it was the word itself he was unfamiliar with – no, it was the feeling that Buck didn’t recognise. Ease – it felt like it should be something so easy, and so familiar, and yet Buck wasn’t sure if he had ever experienced the feeling. He certainly never felt at ease in the Buckley household growing up, their suburban home haunted by ghosts that Buck had only recently learned of the existence of, and ease hadn’t come after that either, as happy as he was in Los Angeles.

Ease.

Buck felt absolutely plagued by the word.

He knew Bobby was right.

Buck was a lot of things, but he was aware of his own failings – or, really, he was aware of what he lacked, and he knew at barely 30 – because could you claim an age when you’d only worn the numbers as a badge for two and a half months, now? – he still had a lot left to learn, and he was fine with that. He supposed, really, it wasn’t even about being interim captain at all, if he was willing to dig deep into the depths of why he felt so completely and utterly rocked by Bobby’s decision to make Lucy interim captain over him. It was more that Buck’s job felt like the only good, consistent thing in his life, amongst the wreckage of his failed relationships, and if he wasn’t succeeding at his job – was he succeeding at anything?

It had definitely sent him spiralling. Buck could admit that.

Ease.

He didn’t know what that meant to him, honestly.

“You’ve been quiet tonight.”

Eddie’s words roused Buck from his stupor, Buck suddenly aware that he had been staring out the window, scrubbing the same clean plate over, and over, for the last ten minutes. It wasn’t behaviour Eddie was going to let him wave away, he knew, and so Buck shrugged.

“I’m just thinking.”

Eddie fixed him with a curious look. Eddie did that, a lot – fixed him with the kind of stare that made Buck feel as though his best friend could read his every thought. “Are you still upset that Bobby didn’t pick you to be interim captain?” the ask wasn’t accusatory, or condescending – it was a genuine question. Buck appreciated that about Eddie, he never made Buck feel silly for the fact he sometimes did tend to overreact to things.

(“You’re allowed to have big emotions,” Eddie grinned, ever the father, repeating a speech that Buck had heard him give Christopher before: encouraging his son to feel his big emotions and overwhelming feelings and talk about them, too. Eddie was a great dad.)

Buck sighed, setting the dish on the counter, using the dish towel he’d tossed aside earlier to dry off his hands. He’d ripped the rubber gloves Eddie kept in his house for Buck’s sake, and his hands felt grim, and dry, the dish soap sucking all the moisture out of his skin. He hated doing dishes – but Eddie had cooked, and Buck was nothing if not an egalitarian when it came to their friendship: if Eddie cooked, Buck cleaned.

“I’m not upset about that,” Buck said, shaking his head when Eddie raised an eyebrow in response. “No, really – I’m not. I was, I’m not pretending that I wasn’t upset, because I was, but it’s not – it’s not that,” he paused. He could tell Eddie this. Right? Of course he could, because Eddie was his best friend, and he told Eddie everything, and maybe a problem shared was a problem halved, and all that. “Bobby said something to me the other day, and it’s been playing on my mind.”

Eddie’s brow furrowed, the expression unfamiliar these days, given the way Eddie tended to be so much happier, these days. He – Eddie looked good, these days. He’d put a lot of work in, over the months, and he looked better – happier, healthier, his face filled out again, the thinness brought about by months of depression and anxiety replaced with bright eyes and flushed cheeks and a healthier, happier version of his best friend. Buck knew it wasn’t easy to put the work in the way that Eddie had done, and it made Buck all the prouder.

“What did he say?”

“In AA, there’s this idea that you take inventory of your life, admit your shortcomings – in the hopes that one day, you can look the world straight in the eye, and be alone at perfect peace, and ease,” Buck quipped. He’d thought about it so much, since he and Bobby had spoken, that the words felt like they were directly imprinted on his brain.

Eddie was quiet, for a second. “That makes sense, right?” he questioned, leaning against the kitchen counter. He was wearing a flannel shirt Buck didn’t recognise, the sleeves rolled to the elbow, Eddie’s sweatpants a few inches too long and dragging on the ground. It was a comfortable outfit, and that in itself wasn’t ground-breaking, but the fact Eddie was happy to wear it was. It was something Buck had realised, early on in his friendship with Eddie – he didn’t like to appear vulnerable to people, even through something as simple as wearing some slouchy clothes, and it meant a lot that he trusted Buck enough to be entirely comfortable.

Buck huffed out a breath. “I don’t know.”

read the rest on ao3

[jackluvsdaniel]

Because, Eddie

1,319 words | read on ao3

Ficlet inspired by this @incorrectbuddie post.

They’re lying in bed wrapped around each other, Eddie’s head resting on Buck’s chest. He shivered a little, growing chilled as the sweat cooled on their bodies, and Buck pulled him closer with a content sigh.  

They’ve only been officially dating for a few weeks, and this was Buck’s first time sleeping over in his bed.  Eddie had always loved cuddling, but he hadn’t realized just how much he missed having someone else in his bed. With Buck, he honestly just craves physical intimacy all the time. He doesn’t think he’s stopped touching Buck since he walked through the front door tonight. He wondered if Buck was indulging him, or if he enjoyed the physical contact as much as Eddie did.  

“Hey Buck, can I ask you something,” he said, turning his head to prop his chin on Buck’s chest.  

“Hmm...,” was the only response he got. Buck remained boneless under him, eyes closed and a sweet smile on his face.  

“Why do you love me?” And wow, he did not mean to say that. Heat rushed to his face and his heart started to pound.

Buck’s eyes flew open and locked with his, concern flitting across his face briefly as he searched Eddie’s face.  

“Eds, what...”  

“No, I just mean –”, he rolled away and dropped his head to the pillow with a huff.   

So, look, knew he had issues coming out of his marriage to Shannon. They fought most of the time whenever he was home on leave. She had plenty of complaints about the many ways he was letting her down, both as a husband and as a father.  When he finally came home for good, she took off and abandoned their son. Abandoned them both. He’d felt like a failure as a husband ever since. That belief was only reinforced during the brief time he and Chris had with her when she came back.  

In contrast, his relationship with Buck has always been easy. After that first shift, anyway. Even the problems they had during the lawsuit boiled down to Eddie being hurt and feeling like Buck abandoned him and Chris. Buck’s easy friendship and his instant connection with Chris had disarmed Eddie completely. Before he knew what was happening, Buck was a vital part of their lives. Falling in love with him was as easy as breathing. But if his fights with Shannon had taught him anything, it was that he didn’t excel at being a loving, supportive partner.  He knew it wasn't all on him, she had her faults too.  But he couldn’t allow his shortcomings to ruin things with Buck. If he knew what it was about him that already made Buck happy, maybe he could avoid making the same mistakes.  

“Hey, Eddie – I don’t know what’s happening in your head right now, but listen to me, okay?” He’d rolled to his side so they were touching all along their bodies again but he understood Eddie very well by now, so he tangled their fingers together and pulled their joined hands to his chest.  

“Eds, you’re the best man I know, and I adore the shit out of you. If you need reassurance from me, I’m happy to give it to you. I could create an entire PowerPoint with examples and photo evidence of all the reasons I love you.”  

Eddie chuckled, a little teary-eyed but trying to hide it. The thing is, he believed Buck. He knew Buck loved him and Christopher with his entire heart. He knew Buck would never leave them. He didn't know why he was feeling insecure about this tonight, but he blamed therapy for bringing out old feelings of inadequacy. Buck must read the emotions as they played over his face because he just started talking.  

“I love that you’re an amazing father. The best father I’ve ever met in my life. You help Chris be independent in every way possible because you know how important it is to him. Even if you sometimes wish he’d accept more help. You love him unconditionally, and you encourage him to try new things as often as possible. You spend actual quality time with him, you're never just phoning it in. You pay attention to his interests, even when they bore the hell out of you.”  

Eddie has lost the battle with his tears at this point, and a few slide slowly down his cheek. Buck didn't mention them, he just brushed them away tenderly and continued speaking.   

"When we met, you were so patient with me. I was insecure about my place in the firehouse and acting out. I knew I was being a brat, but you just took it, and kept working, being annoyingly competent. You never snapped back at me. It pissed me off at first, that patience and steadfastness, and I wasn’t sure I could trust it. But by the time we walked out of that ambulance, I knew. You were someone I could depend on, someone reliable. I haven’t had much of that in my life.”  

Buck’s eyes are full of tears too, now. His grip on Eddie’s hand is tight enough to hurt, but he says nothing.   

“I love that you’re such a supportive friend, Eddie. To me, yes, of course. Always. But you helped Chim when he was struggling with pursuing a relationship with Maddie. And when Maddie left, you were there for him again. You bonded with May and listened when she needed a friend to talk to. You and Linda still share tips and tricks and new recipes all the time, and you gossip like it’s going out of style. You’re stubborn and single-minded sometimes, and that doesn’t always lead to great decisions. But you own up to your mistakes and you work to make things right.”  

For a moment, Buck hesitated. Eddie thought maybe he was waiting for a response, but when he opened his mouth Buck just shook his head slightly as his tears broke free.   

“You absolutely hate therapy. You’d rather do just about anything else. But you go every week without fail because you want to get better, and you want to feel stronger. For Christopher, yes. But you’re learning to do it for yourself. You’re healing. It’s fucking beautiful to watch Eddie. The way you’re becoming comfortable with who you are and what you want...man, I am so fucking proud of you.”  

Well, now they’re both soggy messes and even though they’ve been touching this entire time, it feels like Buck is too far away. He used their joined hands and pulled Buck off balance, not letting go until he covered Eddie’s body with his own. Buck’s solid weight was a comfort, and Eddie relaxed into the mattress.  

“I love you, Evan,” he murmured. “You’re perfect for me, and for Chris. You know? You love with every fiber of your being, with no hesitation. I guess I don’t always feel like I’m returning that same energy. I don’t always feel like that man you described. But if that’s how you truly see me...maybe we’re just perfect for each other.”  

Buck dropped down to take his lips in a sweet kiss. He teased him with gentile nips and soft sweeps of his tongue until Eddie got impatient and deepened the kiss himself.  

“I love you, too. We are perfect for each other, Eddie. You and me, and Christopher too. The three of us, we’re nailing the whole family thing,” Buck said with a hastily covered yawn. He grabbed for the blankets and tucked them in as he settled next to Eddie.   

Eddie reached out a hand to lace their fingers together, not wanting to let go of Buck’s comfort completely even to sleep. He felt wrapped up in the warmth of Buck’s love. He knows his insecurities aren’t magically cured. With time, though, they’ll disappear entirely, and Buck will be with him for the journey.

[extasiswings]

15 + buddie

15. "Shouldn't you be with her?" On ao3 here.

When Eddie is eleven, his class gets a new student. Her name is Maria Esparza and her family is from Arizona. She has dark curls that look like they would be soft to touch and a smattering of freckles across her nose and she’s so smart—always reading and forever raising her hand in class, always with the right answers—but she never acts stuck up about it.

He thinks she’s beautiful and when he gets home from the first day of school he promptly announces that he’s in love. He doesn’t understand why his mother laughs or why Sophia rolls her eyes and calls him an idiot when he’s perfectly serious.

He’s in love, he insists, and goes on believing it for three whole weeks until he gets up the courage to give Maria a flower at recess and she looks at him like he has two heads. The rejection smarts for a couple of days, but then he’s fine. So, he figures...maybe it wasn’t love after all.

Eddie is fifteen when he finds his eyes slipping too frequently to Diego Reed in autoshop, lingering on the other boy’s long, dexterous fingers, his forearms, the sharp edge of his jaw. Eddie can’t explain it, he just knows those stolen glances make him squirm, make him flush, make him feel too warm and like his very skin is too tight.

Diego steals Eddie’s first kiss two weeks before winter break, pushes him up against the back wall of the shop where they’re hidden by a truck and licks into his mouth with a confidence that Eddie can’t imagine ever having when he himself can’t even figure out what to do with his hands. But it makes his knees weak and leaves him breathless and panting when Diego pulls away with a smirk and tells him not to say anything.

It’s not love—for one thing, Eddie knows he’s not supposed to love boys, and for another, the only time he suggests it might be anything at all, Diego gives him the same look Maria had once upon a time and walks away—but it’s nothing he’s ever felt before. The next year, Angelica Phelan asks him to go to the winter formal and he gets to second base in the science lab when they slip away from the chaperones. It’s different from kissing Diego. But it’s just as good, he enjoys it just as much, and part of him is…relieved.

He doesn’t think about that too much.

Eddie is eighteen when he’s not watching where he’s going and runs directly into his future on the sidewalk. Thankfully, the only casualty is Shannon’s coffee, and after she snaps at him for not paying attention and he offers to replace her drink—well. They close down the coffee shop, emerging, startled, from conversation only when interrupted by a mildly disgruntled employee trying to lock up. Eddie walks home in a daze, Shannon’s phone number burning a hole in his pocket, and he’s simultaneously elated and terrified because it’s never been so easy being with someone, he’s never felt so seen so quickly. He’s old enough to realize that love at first sight is bullshit, but he thinks he could fall very fast.

He’s right.

They take things slow because Eddie wants to do things right, doesn’t want to risk confusing love with the heady cocktail of teenage hormones and sex. So he knows by the time he does fall into bed with her, eight months in, that he’s in love. Really in love, thinking about the future in love, factoring her into the mix when he thinks about what the hell he’s going to do with his life in love.

And then Shannon gets pregnant. And it’s too soon, he loves her but it’s too soon, and he’s terrified all over again—

He loves her though. He loves her. And she’s pregnant so—they get married. He wants to do the right thing.

At their wedding the readings are selections from Song of Songs and Corinthians.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud....Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...

With all due respect to St. Paul, Eddie doesn’t think he knew what the hell he was talking about. Or at least, maybe he did, but he was being pretty damn aspirational and left out a few things.

Because after the wedding…after the wedding, Eddie learns a lot more about love.

Love is beautiful, yes. But love is also…trying to do the right thing and fucking up. Love is fighting and knowing exactly what to say to cut the deepest and not always holding back. Love is forgiving, but after a point finding it difficult to forget.

Or maybe that’s not love, maybe that’s just marriage. Maybe it’s a little of both. Because love endures—sure. Love endured with Shannon even when trust was nonexistent, when their marriage was fractured, shattered pieces strewn across the floor ready to draw blood if either of them tried to pick them up.

Love isn’t enough. That’s what Eddie knows. Or maybe it is, maybe love would have been enough to fix what was broken if it hadn’t been his. Shannon’s gone, so they’ll never be able to have that conversation. He’ll never know the answer.

Love endures. Eddie kind of wishes it didn’t. It would make a lot of things a lot easier.

But…it’s fine. He’s fine. Shannon dies and he locks that piece of himself away and has no plans to ever fall in love again.

Then again, God has a funny sense of humor and never seems to resist an opportunity to be an asshole, so of course…he does. Slowly. Quietly. The threads slipping through the cracks in his walls so carefully that he doesn’t even notice until they’re twined around his heart, unspooling through his blood, through his veins with every pulse. Eddie doesn’t notice.

And then he gets shot and it’s like being hit by lightning, an electric shock of clarity down his spine, rooting him in place as he meets Buck’s eyes.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

***

Eddie despises recovery.

He’s never been good at being still, at being useless, at being left alone with nothing but his own head. And maybe he’s not entirely alone—he has Christopher, after all, and Christopher is understandably a little clingy now that he’s home from the hospital—but Christopher sleeps and has play dates and spends time in his room and just in general isn’t in Eddie’s space every second of every day.

And then there’s Buck. Buck who offered to keep staying on the couch to take care of everything they needed when Eddie came home from the hospital. Buck who Eddie sent home to his own bed with promises to call if he needed help because having Buck so close after Eddie’s little realization was stirring him up, making everything a million times more difficult in his head. Buck’s still over frequently, but it’s less dangerous if he’s not staying overnight, if Eddie can’t wake up and be tempted to walk out to the living room and pull Buck into his bed. Not for anything sexual—he’s on too many medications and too immobilized for that even if it was remotely a good idea—but to be held. To feel wanted. To feel safe.

He knows Buck probably wouldn’t say no, wouldn’t think anything of it except that maybe he’s a little raw and fragile, which he is. Which is exactly why he can’t ask. So. Removing the temptation it is.

But. Being left alone with his own head is a terrible idea. He’s in pain because he lowered the doses of his pain meds so he would stop worrying about developing any dependency. He can’t sleep without waking up with screams trapped behind his teeth and the smell of blood and gunpowder in his nose. And he can’t stop thinking about Buck. About being in love with Buck. About wanting Buck. About whether he could ever have him or whether he’ll ever be okay enough to be in a relationship. About whether Buck could ever want him back or if he’ll ever feel safe enough to risk their friendship by even asking.

He broke up with Ana the second he was able to figure out how to do it without feeling like a complete dick. But he hasn’t told Buck that. He doesn’t know why.

And then there’s—

The key turns in the lock and Eddie starts, looking up from his place on the couch. Christopher is with his abuela for the night, and he didn’t expect—

“Hey,” Buck calls, stepping through the door. “I brought dinner.”

Eddie stares.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, before he can stop himself. “Shouldn’t you be with Taylor?”

—Taylor. Buck and Taylor. Which, Buck waited weeks to tell him about, hedging about why he wanted to know if it was okay to invite her to Eddie’s welcome home party. Which, Buck only did admit to when Eddie called one night at 2AM and Taylor answered Buck’s phone.

Eddie clears his throat, the question sounding a little too sharp and accusatory to his ears.

“I just meant,” he adds, softening, “I thought you said you had a date tonight.”

An odd look passes over Buck’s face.

“Isabel called me,” he replies. “She said you were by yourself, asked if I would check on you. We rescheduled, it’s fine.”

Eddie nods once and pulls the couch throw tighter around his shoulders with his good arm. A petty, possessive piece of him is pleased. That Buck’s there. That Buck would drop everything for him.

He’s always been wary of Taylor. Even way back when they first met and she was prowling around the station filming everyone and flirting with Buck. But now? Now he’s jealous, his stomach twisting at the very reminder that she has Buck the way Eddie wants him.

But at the same time…he hates that. Hates the jealousy, hates feeling possessive. Because what claim does he have over Buck’s affections? None. Especially not when he can’t even admit to loving him outside his head.

He hates it because he knows that more than anything, Buck deserves to be happy. And maybe Eddie could make him happy, but—

Even if Buck felt the same—and Eddie isn’t convinced of that, doesn’t have the arrogance to assume—what right does he have to say please, to say wait, to ask Buck to put his life on hold indefinitely while Eddie sorts through the tangled mess in his head in the hope that one day he’ll finally be ready? He can’t be that selfish. Especially not with Buck.

Buck deserves to be happy. Even if that’s with Taylor Kelly. Even if it means Eddie loses him.

He doesn’t get to be jealous.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Eddie replies quietly. “I’m fine.”

Buck sets the bag in his arms down on the coffee table.

“You don’t look fine,” he points out. “Actually, you look like shit. Isabel was right to call me.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie repeats. His heart pangs at the concern in Buck’s eyes. “Really, it’s okay—you should—you should—”

Go. Call Taylor back. Enjoy your date.

He wants to do the right thing. He really does. But the rest of the words refuse to leave his throat.

Buck shakes his head anyway. “I’m not going anywhere,” he insists. “So tell me what’s going on. How can I help?”

Eddie bites his lip. Drags his hand over his jaw before making a face. The messy, overgrown scruff is itchy and difficult to manage on his own, and the foreignness of it doesn’t help him feel grounded in his own body when he wakes up gasping in the middle of the night.

“It’s stupid,” he says.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Buck replies. “And I’m here, so you might as well just talk.”

I’m in love with you, Eddie thinks. And I can’t sleep. And I can’t shave. And everything hurts. And I just want to stop being afraid—

He swallows. He can’t say all of that. He can’t blow everything up that way.

So, he picks the easiest one.

“I can’t shave with my left hand and it’s driving me insane.”

Buck blinks. Then he laughs as the worry in his brow smooths out.

“That’s it?” He asks. “Well, that’s easy. I can do that. Come on.”

And that’s how Eddie winds up sitting on the bathroom counter with shaving cream all over his face while Buck wets a razor and steps between his legs.

His breath catches.

“You good?” Buck asks, his voice low. His eyes are soft and focused, and Eddie almost regrets everything because the proximity—god, the proximity. He’s been so cold since the shooting and Buck is so warm, heat spreading through Eddie’s body from every discrete point of contact. Buck tips his chin back and Eddie lets his eyes slip closed.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “I’m good.”

The razor drags along his skin. Neither of them say a word, the main sound in the room the drip of the faucet when Buck rinses the razor between passes. They’ve always been physical with each other, but this sort of thing is new. Intimate.

Eddie aches.

His eyes open a crack to watch. Buck’s lower lip is caught between his teeth, and having every ounce of that focus on him is…intoxicating.

I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Buck steps in closer, Eddie’s legs spread ever so slightly wider. A spark of heat flashes through him and he inhales sharply—Buck’s startled enough that his hand slips and the razor nicks Eddie’s jaw.

“Shit,” Buck swears. The razor clatters into the sink. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

Eddie opens his eyes the rest of the way. “It’s fine,” he assures. “What, you think I’ve never cut myself shaving before? It’s still better than I would have managed myself.”

“I’m—” Buck looks stricken, his fingers reaching out to gently cradle Eddie’s jaw only for him to snatch them back almost instantly, the tip of one faintly smeared with blood. His hand trembles.

“Buck,” Eddie says quietly. Buck’s eyes are fixed on the red smear and Eddie is sent back—

Watching his blood splash across Buck’s face and not realizing at first that it was his. Being half-delirious on the way to the hospital worrying that Buck had been hurt—

All this time, Buck’s been moving forward, pushing ahead, for Christopher, for him, for everyone, and Eddie knew he wasn’t entirely okay, knew he was fucked up from the moment in the hospital when he said I think it would have been better if I was the one who got shot, but since Eddie’s been home, Buck has seemed…better.

Maybe not. Maybe he’s been struggling to pretend as much as Eddie has.

Eddie twists around to grab the towel draped over the faucet and wets it enough to wash the rest of the shaving cream off his face, feels the sting of soap and water in the cut. And then he reaches out to grab Buck’s hand, wiping the blood off of his finger.

There’s something profane about blood staining skin. And something sacred in the act of washing it clean.

Eddie wonders if anyone helped Buck wash his blood off when he was in surgery. Taylor, maybe.

But no, that doesn’t feel right.

Buck probably did it himself. Alone.

“Hey.” Eddie squeezes Buck’s fingers. When Buck doesn’t look at him, he reaches out and curls his hand around the side of Buck’s neck, tips Buck’s chin up with his thumb to force him to meet his eyes. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m okay. No harm done.”

Buck breathes out shakily. His throat works, his face passes through a million stages—finally, his hands fall to the counter on either side of Eddie’s hips and his forehead drops to Eddie’s good shoulder. Eddie lets his hand slip around to the back of Buck’s neck, his fingers combing up through the short hairs there. He turns his head and he’s close enough to kiss the side of Buck’s, but he holds off. It feels like it would be too much. Too much when Buck doesn’t know how he really feels, what he really wants. But even just this—the closeness, the touch—is good. Needed. A balm to the itch under his skin.

When Buck turns his face into Eddie’s neck and inhales, Eddie thinks maybe Buck might need this just as badly.

“I’m okay,” he repeats, closing his eyes again as his fingers comb through Buck’s hair. “We’re okay. We’re okay.”

They stay like that for a long time. Buck’s phone rings out once, but neither of them moves to answer it. Eventually, Buck lifts his head and clears his throat roughly as he steps back.

Eddie’s hand falls away from Buck’s neck. He feels the absence keenly.

“You good?” He asks. Buck nods. His eyes are red.

“Yeah,” Buck replies. He pauses. Shakes his head. “No. But—can we just—can I just finish this for now? I want to finish this.”

Eddie watches him for a moment. Wets his lips. Then finally nods and passes over the shaving cream again.

“Sure,” he says. “I trust you.”

I love you.

Maybe…maybe eventually he’ll be braver. Maybe eventually, both of them will be free at the same time and he’ll be whole and healed, or at least something closer to it than he is now. Maybe eventually…love will be enough. Maybe.

For now, he has this.

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[fruitydiaz-archived]

97 — “It’s not that easy.” for @eddie-diass

from this prompt list

Eddie thinks this should be easy. He’s spent the last three years of his life not thinking about Buck romantically.

Not that he really succeeded in stopping the thoughts all together, but he did succeed in distracting himself from them, from diving into them and figuring out what they meant. That should be the easy part — finding a distraction. He’s always been good at that.

He wishes he didn’t have to, is the thing. He got out of the hospital and started healing his busted shoulder and realized that life was short and he could die at any second and broke up with Ana and turned around to find his best friend locking lips with Taylor Kelly. Literally, he showed up to work on his first day back to find Buck leaning against his car with Taylor pressed against him like this was an 80s romcom and they were a bunch of lovesick high schoolers.

It stung. It made him bitter and jealous and angry — like he was a lovesick high schooler.

“You’re mad that I didn’t tell you about Taylor,” Buck had said later, when he approached him in the locker room. Eddie rolled his eyes and kept his head in his locker, refusing to look at Buck.

“No, I knew there was something going on. She was at my damn welcome home party, Buck. You’re not subtle.” Buck grimaced.

“You had enough going on, Eds. It just didn’t seem that important to bring up.”

Eddie spun around and stared at him, a little dumbfounded.

“You didn’t think your new relationship with your girlfriend was that important?”

Buck froze. He stared blankly at Eddie before his gaze shifted away and his shoulders dropped a little. Eddie watched him run a hand through his hair, step into the locker room and slide onto one of the benches.

“Wrong choice of words, maybe,” Definitely. “I just didn’t want to bother you with it. You were my priority, you know? Helping you feel better. Still are.”

Eddie’s thought about that line an infinite number of times since it left Buck’s lips.

You were my priority, you know? Helping you feel better. Still are.

Eddie doesn’t know how to tell Buck that that’s weird. That the fact that Eddie, who had a girlfriend at the time, was Buck’s priority, when he also had a girlfriend at the time (and still does, as Eddie’s brain keeps helpfully reminding him), is fucking weird. And it’s probably not fair of him to even try since he just came to the realization himself that the way that they’ve been acting for the last three years is weird as fuck and not the way two best friends who want to stay best friends and only best friends act.

It just hurts that he came to the realization too late.

One day, when Eddie’s stewing up in the loft, trying hard not to be bitter over the fact that he and Buck were about to throw down in a battle of ping pong when Taylor stopped by and swooped him up and out to her car for a chat, and failing — Hen settles down next to him.

He glances at her and she shoots him a sympathetic smile, offering to share the bag of chips she’s snacking on. He shakes his head but thanks her anyway.

“Must be really bad,” Hen says, focusing on her bag of chips. “To turn down your favorite chips.”

“How do you know they’re my favorite?” Eddie raises an eyebrow. He checks the bag again and — she’s right. They are his favorite, from his childhood. He never eats them around the station because he likes to save them for special occasions, ones that make him feel like he’s young and naive again.

He has a bag stored at the back of his pantry at home right now. But he’s pretty sure Hen’s never seen him eat them.

“Buck put in a special request with Bobby to get them stocked up. He said they’re your favorite. Something about a childhood treat.”

Eddie doesn’t remember telling Buck that. He’s sure he must have, in passing at some point, probably during his recovery, but he didn’t know Buck had latched onto it like that.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he keeps his mouth shut. It’s been 10 minutes since Buck left with Taylor. Eddie’s getting antsy. He can’t help it when he glances in the direction of the garage again.

“You should tell him, you know.”

Eddie stares at her, raising his eyebrows again. He can play stupid.

“Hm?” Hen stares back at him.

“Buck. About how you feel.”

Eddie feels the blood drain from his face. He looks away from Hen quickly, dropping his eyes to his lap.

“Yeah? About what?”

“Oh, geez, Eddie, come on. Don’t make me spell it out for you.” He doesn’t say anything. Hen softens her voice. “Listen, I know the way that you’re feeling is scary, I know it’s probably new to you. But you and Buck have a relationship like no one I’ve ever seen — and I’m including all the married couples I know.”

Eddie shifts in his seat and keeps his eyes averted.

“Seeing him with Taylor is cutting you up inside, Eddie. Every time you see her I’m afraid to cross through your line of sight because I’m not trying to get caught in the crossfire of those little eye darts of yours.”

“So what?” Eddie cuts her off. He’s never liked people throwing his feelings back at him, not when they’re already uncomfortable enough to face on his own. He looks up at her and sets his jaw. “I appreciate your concern, Hen, okay? But I’m not going to tell Buck that I don’t like his girlfriend just because...just because…”

“Because you’re in love with him, Eddie.”

Eddie stills. He feels his brain shut off and the panic spike in his chest, feels the fight or flight response kicking in instantly. He struggles to breathe.

“I’m not…”

He is.

“Eddie. It’s okay. I’m not telling anyone. I’m just...telling you what I see.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Eddie lets her words settle over him, squares his shoulders and confronts the fact that this is reality. He can’t hide from his feelings.

“I can’t lose him, Hen,” Eddie says after a moment, his voice so quiet that she barely hears him.

“Watching him with Taylor isn’t losing him?” Hen counters. “Look, I get that you’re scared that you’ll tell him how you feel and then it’ll ruin your friendship forever — but it doesn’t have to.”

“It’ll change things.”

“Maybe not the way you think,” Hen shifts so she’s looking Eddie straight in the eye. “The way you look at him when you think he’s not looking? That’s the same way he’s looking at you when your back is turned. Trust me. I’ve been watching it for years.

“Eddie, you both went through something traumatic together. You got shot and Buck watched you bleed out. You both thought you were gonna lose each other. In a way, your relationship became stronger after that. But you also realized how important he is to you. And he realized the same thing. Why do you think he rushed into his relationship with Taylor?”

“Because he’s wanted her for years?” Hen gives him a look.

“Because she’s safer. If Buck loses her, it’ll hurt like hell but he’ll move on. If anything were to happen and he lost you...we both know what would happen.”

“So why would I tell him?”

“Because you both love each other. I like Taylor and I’m glad she and Buck are happy together. But they’re not gonna last, Eddie. That boy would die for you. No one is ever going to mean as much to him as you and Christopher do, we all know that.”

“...It’s not that easy,” Eddie says quietly. He looks over as Buck skips back into the garage, shining and grinning big, like he always does after he sees Taylor. Eddie’s heart settles in the pit of his stomach like a rock.

“Be right up there to kick your ass at ping pong, Diaz, don’t think I forgot!” Buck calls, before he takes off to the locker room. Eddie swallows.

“The things that are worth it are rarely easy,” Hen says to him, setting her hand down on one of his and squeezing gently. “He loves you too, Eddie. Trust me.”

And with that she’s gone and Eddie struggles to pull himself back together before Buck comes back up the stairs.

He’s not gonna tell Buck how he feels. He’ll probably have to, eventually, and it terrifies him to think that that might be soon, since apparently everyone around them can clearly see the thing that they keep dancing around.

But he can’t do it while Buck is dating Taylor. If Hen thinks they’re not going to last long, then he can wait until then.

Buck’s happy with her, and Eddie thinks he should be allowed to have someone that makes him feel happy.

Even if it’s not him.

[madamewriterofwrongs]

Soft Eddie thought: the first time he mentions Buck in passing as 'my husband' and then all of a sudden it hits him for the first time that, holy shit, he has a *husband*! And either tears up a little or can't stop smiling.

Hey Nonny, I hope you see this, I know it’s been awhile. 

Subconsciously Drawn Together

911/Buddie

Eddie would never call what he feels a crush – after all, he’s a grown adult who hasn’t had a crush on anyone since Jenny Rodriguez broke his heart in eighth grade by picking Eugene as her lab partner instead of him. (Coincidentally, they are both married to someone named Makayla and neither of them lived outside of Texas for more than a few months).

He always thought that would be him. Not, married to Jenny or Eugene (or either Makayla for that matter), but there was a part of him that knew he was destined to live a quiet life. Marriage, children, maybe a dog and a white picket fence if they wanted to be really cliched. And he was okay with that – he really was. For Eddie, there was no other life than the one laid out for him.

Going to war didn’t change that. A poor country boy joining the military to provide for his pregnant wife back home? Even pulp fiction novelists thought it was too obvious. But, again, he never minded living an uninteresting life. Not everyone was destined for adventure and drama. Most people were made to get through the day.

Even when the nightmares came and he struggled to keep his family together, it just seemed like the next chapter in his boring novelization of a life. Everyone had marital troubles after coming home, everyone had bad dreams and phantom pains. Everyone worried where the money would come from to support their family. Everyone snuck into their son’s room to watch him sleep because they were afraid to admit that they’d forgotten what he looked like while he was away. Everyone felt guilt and shame and fear and regret. It was a part of life.

And then his wife left and his parents offered to take Christopher and for one moment, the thought crossed his mind. Could he let his son go (be with people who could stay at home and give him the care he needed)? Could he forget about Shannon and move somewhere else? Could he start over (relive his 20s in the carefree manner he’d seen others struggling to find)? Could he run away again and make it stick this time?

By the end of the week, he and Christopher were packed into his truck and headed to Los Angeles.

It didn’t feel like running away when he was mumbling his way through the Frozen soundtrack or listening to his son talk about his old school’s pet turtle that he’ll miss (and wonder what kind of pets the kids in Los Angeles got to have). It didn’t feel like running away then. It felt like they were running towards something.

Running towards a new life, of sorts, as it turned out. Sure, he still dealt with his parents’ criticism, and Shannon came back into their lives and for a moment, it felt like she’d never left him. But in LA, he had a purpose, he had freedom. For the first time in a long time, Eddie looked forward to opening his door in the mornings; for the first time in a long time, he never knew exactly what to expect, and LA was full of surprises.

The biggest surprise of all was named Evan Buckley.

Buck was a lot of things: a friend, a skilled firefighter, endearingly enthusiastic, subtle as a brick, and the first person outside of his real family that he called ‘family’ and truly meant it. He loved the men and women he served with in Afghanistan, but the moment they departed at the airport, he lost that connection. Joining the 118 had been a way to get that back and it had worked out fantastically. He had sports fanatics to cheer with, parents of blended families to vent with, people who knew his past and loved him despite it all.

Eddie never told anyone (except his therapist who never commented on it, but made a face that said they’d circle back to it at a later date), but he felt as though he’d known Buck for years. Once the man opened up to him, the trust he felt was strong, and the way he took an instant affection to Christopher made it easy to let this man into his life.

Within less than a year of joining the LA Fire Department however, his world imploded.

Or exploded, actually. First Shannon died, then Buck was injured, then his son was nearly taken by a natural disaster and he didn’t even know it. He spent so much time after that trying to put the pieces back together. For all the things he’d assumed his life would be – a wife and kid and a white picket fence – the only thing he had left was a son now dealing with immense trauma for such a young child to handle. And he had Buck (who was so bright and eager to please that one might describe him as a puppy at times). Nothing of his life had turned out the way it was meant to.

Suddenly, a year had passed since Shannon’s death and his life was still an unrecognizable sort of decagon shape instead of the standard cookie cutter circle. But none of that mattered because he was staring into bright brown eyes and a luminescent smile that was telling him that he was doing a wonderful job of raising Christopher on his own.

Others had been trying to tell him that for years (never the ones whose opinion meant to world to him, but he was learning to let that go) but that beautiful face was so sincere that he forgot himself. He forgot that he was a widow with a grieving son. He forgot the fear and regret that went along with the phantom pains when the weather turned cold. He forgot that he had failed in his ambition to live an entirely ordinary life. For a moment he thought: ‘when she smiles at me, I feel happy’.

He wanted to feel that way again.

There were several reasons that things just wouldn’t work out with Ana. For one: she was Christopher’s teacher, and even if it wasn’t against the rules, it still felt wrong. Two: he’d seen the moment she thought differently about him after he yelled at her at school. She was too professional and kind to say anything but even if it was possible, she was definitely no longer interested. The third reason was that he was a firefighter who worked insane hours and when he wasn’t at work, he was home with his son. There wasn’t exactly a lot of time for dating. Fourth: she wasn’t Buck.

That thought had been the one that kept him up at night. It had come to him while he stood in the shower, recounting his day, wondering how long he had until it would be time to pick up Christopher from school. He wasn’t feeling overly ambitious so he figured spaghetti and meatballs would be perfect for supper. He wondered what it would be like to cook for someone who wasn’t ten years old. Someone he could cook beside without having to keep a constant eye. There were times (in the early days with Shannon) where the two of them would cook together, do laundry, clean, do all the domestic things side by side. She had been insistent that they both learn to care for the house that they shared and he was happy to stand beside her in all things.

Remember to throw Buck’s gym clothes in the laundry next time he comes over. He keeps forgetting to throw them in his basket.

A simple little thought, really. He’d thought it before. His friend would leave his gym bag by the door for work and forget to empty it out when he went to do laundry. It was unlikely that anyone other than Eddie noticed the state of Buck’s clothes, but he’d been paying closer attention to him lately. Like how after the train derailment, his smile seemed easier; his shoulders relaxed more often – especially when he was with the 118 or Christopher. Buck seemed happy now that he’d gotten his closure from Abby.

He deserves to be happy. He makes me feel happy.

Buck did make him feel happy. The way he interacted with Christopher, the way he entrusted his son to this man without a second thought. But even when Christopher wasn’t around, Eddie enjoyed Buck’s company. Going to baseball games (dragging him, more like), sitting together when the crew went out for drinks after work. With Buck, he felt…

Safe.

Which wasn’t surprising, really. Buck was a kind man. Sweet and thoughtful. He put other’s first – just like Eddie does, he could hear Frank’s voice in his mind – and cared deeply about the people in his life. Not to mention, he was physically a very strong figure. In some other life, he and Buck met on the wrestling circuit but never fought. Him: with his MMA, and Buck: with his Greco-Roman Wrestling. With those broad shoulders and firm arms, he wouldn’t mind being pulled into a stronghold once or twice.

He knew Buck was conventionally attractive from the day they met. There was no hiding the sharp blue eyes or curly blond hair and rounded jaw.

Nothing like Ana.

Another correct statement that still seemed ominous in context. Why was he comparing Buck to Ana – or Shannon, for that matter? It wasn’t fair to compare friends to lovers. Although, Buck did fit into several categories on both sides.

Buck was a loyal friend, caring and trustworthy. He made Eddie and Christopher feel safe and loved. He wanted to do Buck’s laundry. He thought he was attractive. Slowly, one side of the column began to build in size.

Perhaps Buck was a bigger part of Eddie’s life than he realized. He hadn’t thought seriously about dating anyone until Ana and that never felt right but Buck…

Buck always felt right. Like he belonged with them. Like he’d known them all his life.

Could it be that Eddie wanted something other than friendship? Had he been climbing the wrong ladder all this time only to find himself at the top with no way across? After all: Buck had never given any indication that he was romantically interested in Eddie.

Though, to be fair, Eddie had given no indication either.

But that was because he’d just figured it out. Surely Buck had some idea that best friends didn’t act the way they did. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t interested, in any way, with Eddie. Could he forget it and go back to the way things were? Now that his fingers seemed to tingle with the new realization, could he take it back? Could he put those feelings in a box until someone else came along?

Would there be anyone else?

What did he want to happen with Buck?

Kissing him, for starters, might be interesting. Those plump, pink lips exploring his entire body. Having someone in his bed every night would be nice – and not just anyone, but someone who understood his work and the stressors of the day. If anyone was going to stand by his side while he freaked out about Christopher going on his first date, it should be Buck. Next to Eddie, that man was the most protective when it came to that little boy. He’d only seen it once or twice but Eddie knew that Buck looked good in a suit. Would he look even better in a tux? Years from now, when he retired from the LAFD, it would be nice to feel the weight of a ring on his finger, knowing he had someone he loved waiting at home.

Oh.

Oh damn.

Eddie’s shower ran a little bit longer than expected that day.

That simple thought had sent him on a spiral two weeks ago and every night that he struggled to fall asleep, he found himself rolling to the empty side of the bed, wondering what it would be like to wake up next to his best friend.

The conclusion he inevitably came to: it would be wonderful.

If the worlds aligned, of course. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about his sudden, escalating realization (not even Frank). There was no way to know if Buck reciprocated his feelings in any way. Though he knew with uncanny certainty that he would be safe to confess his feelings without fear of losing his relationship entirely, it still seemed safer to gather more information before making any sort of move.

I’m safe with Buck no matter what.

So, no. Eddie would not describe what he felt for Buck as a simple ‘crush’.

It was everything.

------------------------------

The accident scene was a mess. It always was. They so rarely rolled up on an event that was neatly organized – not that it would make him any less stressed or worried for the safety of his patients. It was his job to worry, to be surrounded by chaos. Perhaps that was his new normal now, and his idea of an ordinary life had shifted to one that involved heavier boots.

There was still a sense of satisfaction and ease, knowing that he got to go home to his son every night, that he was helping people, and there were people in his life who loved and supported him. Unlike his old army mates (as strong as those relationships were), he also knew that if he woke up and decided to be a baker instead of a firefighter, the 118 would still treat him as one of their own.

Perhaps ‘baker’ wasn’t the best example, baking had never been one of his favourite activities. A florist, or a construction worker, maybe. Firefighting meant a lot to him but it wasn’t his calling – the way it was for his… for Buck. How would the man react if one day, Eddie told him that they would no longer be partners in work? There was no doubt in his mind that Buck would still be over on Thursday nights with pizza and video games. And perhaps if Eddie was working more regular hours, he could go over to Buck’s on occasion and make dinner for the three of them. That would be a nice surprise. Buck would smile that impossibly bright smile and open his arms to Christopher, swinging the boy around gently because he was overly cautious about roughhousing with him – something that only made Eddie’s heart beat faster. Then, Buck would make his way over to Eddie and kiss him with a sort of reverence; like he can’t quite believe that Eddie’s real. He could rest assured that the feeling was mutual.

What a ridiculously outdated fantasy. He’d clearly grown up watching too much ‘I Love Lucy’.

The firefighter shook his head as he hopped out of the truck, turning his thoughts towards the work at hand.

That was something he’d always been good at: focus and calm under pressure. It was what had made becoming a firefighter so appealing. Sure, being a combat medic meant he was more than qualified for field rescues, but all that stoic strength he possessed was better used at work rather than at home. At home, he could be Christopher’s dad. At work, he was Firefighter Diaz.

There was no room for fantasies in Firefighter Diaz’s mind.

The chaos of the accident mostly consisted of cries of pain from passengers trapped in their vehicles as they tried in vain to free themselves before the qualified company could arrive. It wasn’t uncommon to come across a major pile up in the middle of the day, when Angelenos weren’t kept at a complete standstill, and impatient drivers were a staple of life in the LAFD.

Eddie took his orders from Bobby, clearing a path of bystanders for the heavy equipment, and assisting those who were stuck somewhere between freeing themselves and receiving a particularly crude hemicorporectomy. For all the noise, it was a relatively calm affair. Sure, some were screaming and crying – and one woman definitely threw a fit when told to climb out the passenger-side window of her shattered vehicle. But those in need of help received the assistance they required, and the worst injury they encountered was a broken rib and neck bruise from a young man who remained conscious throughout his entire extraction.

It was messy, it was chaotic, it was loud, but it was all right. There were still a few people with minor concussions and bloody wounds that could hopefully be tended to at the scene (most of them unwilling to take the ambulance ride if it wasn’t strictly necessary). He was admittedly a little hyper-focused today, his mind fighting the urge to wander away from its regular duties. Eddie chided himself for feeling so lovesick at work. He’d gone all this time loving Buck, he could handle a few more hours. It was that hyper focus which would be his undoing.

“All right, I think you’re going to be just fine. Head on over to my husband over there and he’ll get you some gauze for your arm.”

An innocent enough sentence – one that didn’t register in his mind through the haze of moving from one patient to the next – but one that only fed into that dangerous fantasy of his.

“What did you call Buck?”

And one that Chimney had apparently heard loud and clear.

Eddie blinked, as he kept his eyes trained on the man before him (some poor bystander who’d bumped his head when he’d stumbled backwards to avoid the oncoming collisions), determined to remain professional in the face of his own idiocy.

Clicking his penlight on with a little too much enthusiasm, he shook the device over his patient’s face. “Can you look up, sir?” Eddie felt his coworker’s eyes trained on him but he kept his focus on his work. As he continued his examination, Chimney crept closer, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and amusement but still, the ex-soldier remained stoic as ever. Some part of Eddie knew that ignoring his friend now would only lead to a confrontation later but right now, he had work to do. And dividing his attention between his duty and his teasing friends was not how he wanted to spend his afternoon. So, he stayed focused. After a few moments, he saw Chimney shake his head and move away, letting Eddie take a much-needed breath of relief.

He was safe from his own stupid brain. For now.

Eddie knew it was coming when Chimney let him be during the rest of their scene cleanup. It was inevitable; but knowing and experiencing were two entirely separate matters.

“So.” Chimney wore what could only be described as a ‘shit-eating grin’ as he began his sentence, pulling all eyes in the back of the truck to him. “Is there something that Buck and Eddie would like to tell us?”

Buck, innocent as ever, turned to Eddie for guidance. “No…?” Eddie could only stare out the window, sorely tempted to remove his headphones if only to prolong the inevitable conversation. Was he blushing or was his face simply burning from the inside out?

“Are you sure?” The man was unrelenting, his voice growing higher with his escalating amusement. As if giving them a chance to confess would be easier than Chimney spilling the truth.

Not that there was any truth to confess. There was just one, very, very, idiotic man who got one simple crush and couldn’t keep it in his pants.

“Chim, what’s going on?”

There were two options Eddie faced in this moment where his head filled with warning sirens (not dissimilar to the ones that normally filled the truck). He could come clean and confess his sins to the team, facing the consequences with what meager amount of dignity he had left. Or, he could lie and pretend Chimney had misheard him, and they could all go about their day. That seemed the safer option. Of course, he hated lying to his team – to his friends – but what was the alternative?

“I called Buck my husband at the scene.”

Apparently, the alternative was exclaiming his idiocy in front of his teammates and denying the flash of a smile on his partner’s face. It was a simple upturn twitch of his lip, hardly noticeable, but the only opinion that mattered to Eddie as he gave his confession was from the man sitting across from him – and he was decidedly attuned to Buck’s ever-changing expressions. On a normal day, he enjoyed the way their knees bumped as the truck bounced through the streets of Los Angeles; it was just another reminder of how connected they were. Now, it made the space between them feel too close – yet still not close enough.

Buck’s face, upon hearing the news that Eddie had tied them together in the mind of some random stranger, flickered once before falling to something neutral and curious (almost amused). As if he was studying something.

“Oh, I don’t mind.” His partner shrugged and Eddie’s heart stopped. “Were they hitting on you?”

Again, Eddie appeared at a crossroads. “No.” And chose the more embarrassingly honest answer.

“Were they hitting on me?”

“No.” So many forks in his path but he continued to veer in one direction, as Buck furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Then why did you”

“I don’t know.” Eddie tried to sound casual as he grumblingly cut him off before he could continue his innocent interrogation. Through the headset, he could hear Chimney snort in disbelief but his eyes remained solely locked on his partner.

He knew why Chimney might scoff at his dismissal – those type of slipups didn’t ‘just happen’, after all – but it was as close to the truth as he could muster. He didn’t know why he’d said what he said. His mind was still frazzled from long hours contemplating what he wanted and what he felt.

Apparently, his subconscious had taken over and now he had his answer.

An answer which was decidedly too large to attempt to unpack while he was still on duty.

He wanted Buck to be his husband. He was ready to get married again – and to his best friend, no less. All wonderful information to process at another time.

The rest of the trip back to the station was filled with noise: the roar of the engine, the shout of the horn when someone inevitably cut them off, the clank of metal against metal. Eddie’s head was silent. He stared out the window at the passing world, feeling the eyes of his partner drilling into his cheek for a time, and then return to his phone. No one spoke, but the absence of voice was deafening. Teasing or pestering would have been better than the juxtaposing silence that told him everyone knew what he’d meant.

Buck had given him every out for his little mistake and, instead, Eddie had barreled straight into his own demise. There was no other explanation as to why he’d said what he said: he’d meant it. Or wanted to mean it, rather. Sure, his dirty little secret had been outed, but Buck had yet to make a comment one way or the other.

I don’t mind.

One friend helping out another: that was what it meant to Buck. And he loved that. But there was no mistaking now what Eddie felt in his heart.

He wanted it to mean something else.

Climbing out of the truck at the end of their journey was harder than usual. The silent stares wouldn’t stop because they were back at the station, it would only be worsened by the fact that there was nothing else to focus on. Eddie never prayed for a call – and he still wouldn’t now – but if there was any mercy in the world, he could avoid all of his friends and co-workers for the rest of their shift.

Simple enough.

“Hey.” Eddie cursed at the familiar voice following him towards the cubbies. Naturally, they were alone, naturally, there was no real excuse to leave – and apparently, he’d decided to suppress his ability to tell white lies for the sake of his pride today – naturally, his heart pounded behind his eyelids as Buck stopped jogging in front of him.

“I just want to say…” and here came the inevitable turndown Eddie dreaded and secretly hoped would never come. “It’s okay, I get it.” Buck’s smile was small but sincere. That man couldn’t be anything less than sincere.

It’s one of the reasons why I lo-

“It was just a slip of the tongue,” Eddie cut off his own thoughts before they betrayed him the way his subconscious had. He needed at least some of his faculties to survive the day. “Don’t worry about it.”

He stepped to the side, intending to escape his own personal hell – was it always this hot in the station? Did they always stand so close to one another? How had he never realized his feelings before now? – but Buck blocked his path.

“No, really, it’s fine.” Was Buck blushing now? “I kind of think of you as my work-husband, too.”

Another perfect opportunity for an out. He could flounder excuses about being tired and meaning it in a work-related setting the way Buck implied.

“Right.” His words sounded weak to his own ears. Who knew what they sounded like to Buck, as the man finally let him pass. Freedom secured, Eddie quickened his pace so as to escape the curious eyes of his fellow crewmates as quickly as possible.

Or at least, that was the plan, until Buck called out: “But you know, I’m free tonight if you wanted to talk about it.”

It felt as though the world stopped spinning – but the distant sound of clanking cutlery from the loft reminded him that it had not. His stomach dropped into his shoes, and his skin burst into flames from the buzzing in his ears. Eddie pivoted on his heel slowly to face his partner, uncertain he’d even heard the words he’d said. But there was Buck, blushing as brightly as he felt, but smiling a much more lopsided grin.

“Talk about what?” He cautiously asked.

Buck moved first, filling the minimal space Eddie had put between them with his broad chest and bright, eager eyes. He smelled of smoke and pine (despite interacting with neither today) and a thin sheen of sweat made him appear more disheveled than perhaps he was. Had he always been so intoxicating? What were they talking about?

“About being husbands… outside of work.”

“What?” Now Eddie was certain that he’d misheard his friend.

Buck simply smirked in response to his question, eyes moving slowly over Eddie’s face. He was always examining, questioning, confident. He had been doomed from the start.

“Christopher’s in bed at eight, right?”

“We’re pushing it to eight-thirty.” His mouth moved on autopilot, too stunned to comprehend the sudden shift in subject.

Again, Buck’s blue eyes circled his face slowly, absorbing all Eddie’s focus as he felt himself physically affected from the mere sight of his partner with his knowing grin and wandering eye. So entranced was he, that he didn’t notice how closely the other man had leaned into his space until he felt his hot breath against his skin. Eddie swallowed the lump in his throat.

He was absolutely doomed.

When Buck spoke, his tongue danced along his teeth, an enticing show of some unfulfilled fantasy that had never occurred to Eddie in the first place.

“Then I’ll be there at eight-thirty-one.”

Buck’s flirtatious demeanor melted into a giddy smile that snapped through the tension he’d pulled between them. “I was a little- a lot worried you didn’t feel the same.” He confessed, still filling Eddie’s space with his infectious energy. One word from him, and Eddie melted.

“You…were…” No more words filled his mind beyond a string of victorious swears and the sound of panicked cheering, but Buck seemed to understand him nonetheless. Buck had always understood him.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with using the truck to keep his legs underneath him, he would have turned to see Buck walk away, pumping his fist in excitement. As it was, several crewmembers looked on from the balcony, shaking their heads at the pair of idiots acting like lovesick teenagers over a single date.

Chimney shooed them all away before taking the opportunity to shout: “Buck, tell your husband that lunch is ready.” Which earned him more than a few chuckles from the firefighters upstairs, and two overexaggerated groans from the men below.

They were definitely not going to be living this down for a while.

For once, Eddie didn’t mind – and if the grin plastered on Buck’s face for the rest of the shift was any indication, neither did he.

[floralbuckleys]

Falling For You | Buddie

♡ Pairing: Buddie

♡ Genre: Fluff, First Kiss, Confession

♡ Word Count: 1k+

♡ Prompt Request: “I think I’m falling in love with you.” Buck x Eddie. P.S: Happy 300 followers!! 

♡ Warnings: Brief mention of the shooting/Eddie being injured

♡ Summary: Eddie overhears Buck’s confessions.

♡ Note: Thank you so much for the request, Emma (@lonely-writer​). I hope you like it. Not beta’d so excuse the mistakes that I am blind to

A muted yawn leaves Buck as he makes his way through the Diaz house in the early hours of the morning. He keeps his steps and movements quiet, as Christopher is sleeping soundly, and there’s still about an hour before Buck needs to wake him for school.

Eddie should be up soon, as he’s quite the early riser, but since Buck’s been staying over, he’s made sure to wake up before him, so he can cook breakfast and do some morning chores. Least the still recovering firefighter try to do them himself, despite Buck insisting he not.

Flipping on the kitchen light switch, he enters the cozy space and heads over to the instant coffee machine to click it on. 

It’s become part of his morning routine now, though Buck’s not the biggest java drinker in the world, Eddie had mentioned once that he finds the smell of coffee in the morning relaxing, and thus he makes sure Eddie gets that.

Once that is brewing, he heads over to the laundry room to switch the towels he’d stuck in the washer before bed into the dryer and take out Christopher’s clothes from it as well. He hadn’t realized how much more laundry you do with a kid in the house. Not that he minds as he finds the task relaxing and likes knowing he’s helping.

He grabs one of the baskets they keep in the closet, placing it atop the dryer as he begins taking Christopher’s clothes out, neatly folding and sorting each one into the basket. 

When it comes to his own clothing, he’s hardly ever this precise, more of the stick it in a drawer and pull it out and go type, but this is for Christopher, so he’s always careful to take his time.

One shirt he takes out of the dryer, causes a soft smile to spread across his face as he sees the dolphin splayed across it. He actually bought it for Christopher.

He’d gotten it awhile back when the three of them visited the aquarium together. They’d had a blast that day and on the way out Christopher had seen the shirt and instantly wanted it.

Eddie was going to buy it, but Buck insisted on it, just to see the smile on the shining boy's face.  Folding it gently, he places it gently and the back and continues with the rest.

As he works his thoughts drift back to his current predicament—though not willingly—because if given the choice, he’d ignore the troublesome feelings that have been festering inside him for weeks now. 

Or maybe much longer than that, though he’s not exactly sure when he fell for his best friend. Maybe someday he could sit down and figure it out, that is if ever got the courage to actually admit how he felt to Eddie. 

Not too likely, considering he can still barely admit it to himself.

It’s scary, acknowledging that you’ve been pining, longing for someone so close to you, especially when you’re around them every single day. Even worse when you’ve experienced the earth shattering fear of losing them. It causes an urgent gnawing at your heart, and an urge to confess those feelings, even if it could mean ruining the dear friendship you’ve grown.

Because you’ve finally had to face the reality that you might not always have the option.

He’s been unsure what to do with the weight of the emotions, knowing he didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, and instead choosing to actually research various ways to confess on his own. 

One website he’d come across last night before falling asleep claimed he should practice how he would like the conversation to go aloud. Something about it helping your confidence and making the actual talk go smoother.

He snorts at that.

As if him telling Eddie he was in love with him would go his way.

And yet, his cobalt eyes still flicker to the laundry room doorway, ears listening for sounds of any movement. As far as he could tell Eddie must still be sleeping, which meant there’s nobody around to hear him.

Biting his lip, he finishes folding the last of Christopher’s clothes and opens the washer to quickly move the towels over.

Once he’s all done he places both of his hands on the sleek metal dryer as the cycle begins and it starts rumbling on. 

Maybe, he could at least try.

His eyes close, and he inhales a sharp breath, and before he knows it his feelings are welling with him, and slipping past his lips as he imagines the way it would go. Him actually having the courage to tell Eddie his hidden truth.

“Eddie. Um, it’s Buck.”

Wait, why would I say that? I’d be standing in front of him.

Scratch that.

“Eddie, I have something I need to tell you.”

Eddie will of course give him that breathtaking smile, and his hazel eyes will look right through him as they always do.

Buck gulps as he imagines it, his shoulders tightening as he struggles with what to say next.

“Well, the truth is, I…” He trails off, biting down on his lower lip as he wills himself to just spit it out.

Eddie will be confused, and Buck will feel bad about hesitating so much. 

After all, why should he be so nervous in the first place? Even if Eddie doesn’t feel the same way--which Buck is sure he doesn’t--he wouldn’t be a jerk about it. He would let him off easy, be respectful about it. Buck trusted in that.

Exhaling softly, he let’s the words he’s never dared say, flow freely.

“I think I’m falling in love with you, Eddie. I have been for a long time, and I need you to know that, because…” Buck winces as the memory of Eddie, injured and bloodied laying on the ground flashes in his mind. “Because I would be a fool not to tell you that, and because I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Ever.”

Buck stands still for a moment, processing the feeling of finally voicing how he’s felt. It’s akin to stepping outside on a sunny day, and feeling the fresh air blowing against you.

But then, as quickly as that feeling comes, it’s gone, as Eddie-the real one--speaks up from behind him, “Evan.”

Buck’s eyes snap open as he whirls around in surprise, coming face to face with Eddie, whose eyebrows are knitted together, his lips in a tight line.

“Fuck. D-Did you hear me?” He blurts out, dread lacing every word as he internally panics.

A million questions cross Buck’s mind. How could he be so stupid? How could he forget to make sure nobody was coming? Eddie must have heard everything.

He’s not sure what Eddie see’s on his face, but before he knows it, the hazel eyed man steps closer to him and murmurs, “I did, but calm down, it’s okay.” He assures him.

“It’s okay? Okay? Do you even realize what you just heard? I-I you weren’t supposed too-”

Buck’s rambling is cut off by Eddie closing the distance between him as he brings his free, uninjured hand up and pulls Buck to him. 

It takes Buck a moment to process that they’re kissing, really and truly kissing. Eddie’s lips against his, sweet and chaste.

When he pulls away, Buck is still stunned, the amount of questions in his mind now multiplied, but Eddie speaks before he can.

“I didn’t expect to tell you this way, overhearing you say it to my laundry machines, but I don’t mind it. The truth is that… I’ve fallen in love with you too.”

The air seems to have left Buck’s lungs as he and Eddie lock gazes with Eddie, both their eyes smoldering with heavy emotion. They’re both leaning in for another kiss within the next second, and Buck doesn’t want it to end.

However, life has other ideas as Christopher’s gentle voice calls through the house, “Dad! Buck! Where are you?”

They pull away from each other immediately, both their faces burning, and smiling from ear to ear.

“We should talk about this after we take Chris to school, okay?” Eddie starts, the first one to break the silence.

Buck nods, liking the sound of that. “Yeah, that sounds good. You go check on him, I’ll get your coffee and start on breakfast.”

“What would I do without you?” Eddie laughs as he turns and walks off to get Christopher.

Buck freezes however, because despite hearing Eddie say that exact line several times, it now has a new meaning that leaves him breathless.

God, has he fallen for Eddie Diaz.

[buckleyydiaz]

what he deserves

Ship: Buck/Eddie

Summary: It had to be done - someone had to do it, to make sure Buck got the best in life, what he truly wanted. As the old adage says, “if you love someone, let them go.” Eddie could only hope it paid off in the end, because it really wasn’t feeling as though it would.

Words: 2.4k

Eddie didn’t want to be angry at Buck - it felt wrong, went against every fibre of his being, to feel so pissed off with Buck, of all people, his best friend, his partner, the most selfless man he knew, who would never do anything with the intent of hurting anyone else.

But anger was easy. Anger was familiar, being consumed by a burning rage was comfortable, easy, no matter how much he didn’t like it - no matter how much it scared Eddie, because it was too easy - and he couldn’t afford to fall back into old habits.

What Eddie was certain of, however, was that he would rather be pissed off at Buck, he would rather risk going back to what he swore to himself, to Buck, that he would never do again, than move beyond the anger. Because he didn’t know what would lie beyond it, but he was sure it would be a hell of a lot more frightening than all of the possibilities which anger provided him with.

He knew if he hadn’t stopped attending therapy as soon as it had stopped being mandated for him, that his therapist would have most likely told him that he had to move past anger, that he had to acknowledge what he really felt, but that was bullshit. Therapy had never really been Eddie’s thing, anyways.

So Eddie would sit and let his anger stew for a while, letting it simmer inside, burning him up from the insides - he deserved it anyway, he thought, as he tried desperately to make excuses to his own mind as to why it was right for him to do what he so clearly knew to be wrong.

He deserved to hurt himself by letting the anger build, he decided, because he simply managed to miss that something was so significantly wrong with Buck, that he wasn’t - wouldn’t be - happy in their relationship. Eddie had never wanted to do anything but protect and love Buck, but he had done nothing but fail at that, evidently.

It was all just made worse by the fact that Buck didn’t say anything, that he never had. He had never mentioned that he wanted more, that just Christopher and Eddie couldn’t be enough for him.

Instead, Eddie found out because he simply happened to walk past at just the right - or as it felt, wrong - time.

“I’ve always wanted a kid of my own.”

That was all it took. Eddie didn’t even know what on Earth Buck had been talking about with Chim for that to come up, but it had, and that was all that mattered.

Eddie would bend over backwards for Buck, he would do almost anything he could to make things as good as they could be for him, because he deserved it, but of course, the one thing that Buck wanted, was the one thing that Eddie was unable to provide.

A child. Of his own.

Eddie had always known that Buck loved children - he had made that clear from very early on in their friendship, and the way he was with Christopher was proof. Buck had proven that he would walk through hell and back for him, and Eddie knew that Buck was his son’s absolute favourite person in the world. He had always figured that would be enough for Buck, had always hoped it would be, because Eddie couldn’t give Buck a child of his own, nor was he sure if he was in a position in his life to have another child, if it were even a distant possibility.

As he thought about it, the anger began to dissipate, much to Eddie’s disappointment, because he knew what was coming.

Waves of sadness began to wash over him, and as they crashed and crashed, it felt like he was drowning. He preferred the violent, scorching pain of rage, to this dull, aching feeling that left him desperately gasping for breath, for a tiny bit of happiness, that was nowhere to be found.

Eddie hated to wallow in self-pity, but it was better to sit alone and sulk than to force anyone else to deal with his chaos, his broken heart.

Because he knew, no matter how much he wished he could, that he would do whatever it took to make Buck happy.

The strange selflessness was proof of Buck’s impact, proof of all of the ways he had changed Eddie for the better. And now Eddie had to do just one thing, one tiny thing, for the betterment of Buck’s life.

He had to let go, no matter how much it hurt, or how much he hated doing it. Buck would never do it for himself, not even if it was holding him back from happiness.

--

Eddie wasn’t sure which had been harder - breaking up with Buck, watching his crestfallen expression, which did nothing to make Eddie feel better about breaking his own heart on some Buck-esque self-sacrificial attempt at doing the right thing, or telling Christopher that Dad and Buck weren’t dating anymore, that Buck wouldn’t spend almost every night with them anymore. Both just made Eddie wish he could have stayed oblivious, that it then wouldn’t have been him that was the bad guy who had to do the breaking up - which, he had realised, would probably lead to him being alienated at work (they had all always liked Buck more than him, not that he could fault them for that, he felt the same way, but it meant that there would be hell to pay for hurting him, even though it was for Buck) - and who had to break the news to his son.

But it had to be done - someone had to do it, to make sure Buck got the best of life, what he truly wanted. As the old adage says, “if you love someone, let them go.” Eddie could only hope it paid off in the end, because it really wasn’t feeling as though it would.

--

When Eddie turned up to the 118 for his next shift, it was clear everyone knew what had happened. Buck had told Maddie, who had told Chim, and before long, the entire firehouse knew exactly what Eddie had done.

Eddie Diaz had been just the next in line to break Buck’s heart, just as Abby had before him, which he had sworn to never do. He was certain he was angrier at himself for doing so than anyone else, but he also knew it was for the best. It was for Buck. It had to be.

But all of the excuses he had for his actions within his head meant nothing to the others, who refused to so much as talk to him in passing, which only felt worse, because their shift was so quiet, and they were stuck there, just them.

While Hen, Chimney, Bobby and Buck sat up in the kitchen, each doing their own thing but sharing the space, Eddie had isolated himself to the gym - it was easier to be on his own of his own volition, and to pretend it wasn’t essentially going to be forced upon him.

Eddie tried to lose himself in what he was doing, tried to get each punch to the bag to take him further out of his mind, with little success, although it had rendered him unaware enough of his surroundings that he had not noticed Hen walking up behind him for far too long, not until she cleared her throat to get his attention.

He kept his back turned to her, not particularly keen to be chewed out for breaking up with Buck, for hurting him, when Buck was hardly the most hurt in the situation.

“Eddie, what happened?” She asked, as Eddie continued to try and tune her out. “You were both so happy.”

Eddie rolled his eyes at Hen’s words, because that’s what he had thought too, but he kept his focus firmly on the punching bag in front of him.

“Clearly not,” he muttered, not even sure that Hen would hear him, but she did, and reached out to touch his shoulder, causing him to turn around.

“Look, I can’t deal with you berating me for upsetting poor little Buck right now, okay, and I don’t think it’s really even your place to get involved.”

Eddie felt a little bad for snapping at her, but at the same time, he didn’t have the capacity to deal with the consequences of actions he hadn’t even wanted to take - not yet.

Hen, however, was clearly unbothered, used to dealing with people far ruder than Eddie, on what could be as often as a daily basis, in their job.

“Hey, I haven’t come here for Buck. I wanted to make sure you are okay, this can’t have been easy on you, and I hope you don’t think we are all against you.”

That made Eddie feel the slightest bit better, to have someone who wasn’t against him, when even he himself was conflicted on it, but it left him unsure as to what to say, because he wasn’t okay, but any attempt at a lie, Hen would almost immediately see right through him. He had to try anyway.

“I’m fine Hen, it's fine.”

As he predicted, Hen immediately gave him a look along the lines of are you fucking kidding me, not taking his bullshit for one moment.

“No its not, Eddie, and if you don’t want to talk about it with me, fine, but for the love of God, please talk to someone, okay?” After a moment where neither spoke, she began walking away, but briefly turned around - “You are as much our family as Buck is. It’s not that we don’t care about you, or blame you, it’s just much harder to tell when something is wrong than with Buck.”

Any other time he would have rolled his eyes at what she was saying, but to be honest, he appreciated the reassurance, because when they were all ignoring him, but were so concerned about Buck, it stung, just a bit, even if he deserved it.

“He wants a kid.”

Hen faced Eddie again, furrowing her eyebrows as she tried to work out what Eddie meant - Buck had always been so happy with Eddie and with Christopher.

“I heard him say it to Chimney. He wants a kid, one of his own.”

Eddie looked up from his hands, which he had been fiddling with as he spoke softly, to see Hen looking at him pityingly, but also to see Chim walking towards them, seemingly summoned by his name.

“Aw, Eddie, are you sure he meant that? Maybe it was out of context? Because you know that Buck loves Christopher like his own.”

“Well clearly that wasn’t enough for him!” He exclaimed, anger flooding through his veins as he tried to rein it back in - it wasn’t Hen’s fault that he hadn’t been enough for Buck, the same way he hadn’t been enough for Shannon. “So it’s done now. He can go off and find some woman and have a kid of his own. It’d be unfair of me to hold him back from that.”

Chim must have been close enough to hear what Eddie was saying, as a look of realisation, mixed with the same pity on Hen’s, painted his face.

“That’s not what he was saying, you know? Buck is so in love with you, and Christopher is his entire world. You are both everything that he has ever wanted.”

Eddie looked at Chim curiously, confused, because Chim had been a part of the initial conversation, and what he was saying seemed so far the opposite of what he had heard.

“Buck has always wanted a kid of his own, and he has one now, thanks to you - or he did.”

Eddie wondered if Hen and Chim could tell that the only thing he could think was oh shit. He had just ruined the best relationship he had ever been in over a misunderstanding.

“Go get him back, Eddie,” Hen said, smiling, and Eddie knew he had to do just that.

He made his way up the stairs to the kitchen area, trying to work out how on Earth he could grovel enough to make up for what he did. Eddie found Buck sat alone, Bobby having returned to his office.

“Buck, I- uh, I need to apologise,” Eddie began, looking at Buck, his eyes red and puffy, which just tugged on his heartstrings to see, knowing he was the cause.

Buck wouldn’t even look up at him.

“I, uh, heard you talking to Chim.”

Eddie watched as Buck looked up, horror all over his face.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep Eddie, I know Christopher is just your son and always will be, I just… love you both.”

Buck’s apology confused Eddie for a moment, because none of this was remotely his fault, Buck hadn’t said anything wrong - what part of the conversation was he even referring to? - but was he surprised by the show of Buck’s self-flagellating nature? Not particularly - Buck never had mastered being nice to himself.

“Overstep? You are my best friend, we are family! You could never! I thought you didn’t want us anymore.”

It was Buck’s turn to look confused, his head tilted to the side as he looked up towards Eddie.

“Why would you think that?”

“You said that you wanted a kid of your own, and I can’t give that to you!”

Buck’s eyes widened as Eddie spoke, eventually a slight smile appearing as he realised what had happened.

“And you didn’t listen past that? Eddie, you should know that you and Chris are all I need, or want.”

Begrudgingly, Eddie smiled slightly too.

“Yeah I should have, shouldn’t I?”

Buck stood up and made his way to where Eddie was standing, pulling him tight.

“I’m so glad I didn’t lose you,” Buck murmured, speaking softly into Eddie’s shoulder, his eyes welling up slightly with relief and joy.

“I love you, Buck.”

Eddie smiled as he said that, but before Buck was able to say it back, the bell began to ring out through the station, causing them to pull apart, rolling their eyes.

As they raced down the stairs to meet with the rest of the team, they were greeted with a grateful chorus of cheers from their friends.

They grinned, and Buck lent over to kiss Eddie on his cheek.

“Yeah, yeah, we know, you’re back together, but please, do not subject us to your ridiculous PDA. We do not need to see that.”

[sugarandspace]

The Whole Story (Buddie)

Summary: Eddie told him that he trusts Buck, that none of it was Buck’s fault. He told Buck that the way Christopher sees it, Buck saved him. And that’s enough for Eddie. 

But it’s not enough for Buck.

Eddie only knows Christopher’s side of the story and Buck can’t accept the trust and the forgiveness when he knows that Eddie doesn’t have the whole story. It would be so easy to just move forward, to never tell Eddie what really happened, to accept this forgiveness and move on.

Except it isn’t easy, and every day Buck doesn’t talk to Eddie about it feels like a day he’s lying to him.

Warnings: there’s talk about things that happened in the tsunami episodes!

Word count: 2,868

A/N: I swear I tried to just casually enjoy this show but then I got a fic idea and it wouldn’t leave me alone

AO3

Two weeks after the tsunami, things have mostly returned to normal. It’s slightly unnerving for Buck to see life go on as if nothing happened, when so much did happen and when he finds it difficult to move past that.

Things are good, he tells himself. His wounds have mostly healed by now, just pink scars left where he nearly bled out. His body doesn’t ache when he moves, not like it did when he was finally able to rest when he saw Christopher safe in Eddie's arms, like it did for days afterwards.

It’s not his body that’s the problem here.

It’s his mind, it’s how he can’t seem to get a moment of peace from the memories. He hasn’t dared to go near the beach, when just taking a shower nearly sends him to a panic attack. He doesn’t remember when was the last time when he slept and didn’t dream, when was the last time he didn’t scream himself awake. When he didn’t wake up screaming for Christopher.

And it’s his heart, how the guilt weighs heavy in his chest, even after the short conversation he had with Eddie when he dropped Christopher off at his place a couple days after the tsunami. Christopher has come over many times after that, and when Buck is with him there are moments when it’s a little easier to breathe, when he can see with his own eyes that Christopher is okay.

But always, without a doubt, his mind supplies him with “but not thanks to you” .

Eddie told him that he trusts Buck, that none of it was Buck’s fault. He told Buck that the way Christopher sees it, Buck saved him. And that’s enough for Eddie.

But it’s not enough for Buck.

Eddie only knows Christopher’s side of the story and Buck can’t accept the trust and the forgiveness when he knows that Eddie doesn’t have the whole story. It would be so easy to just move forward, to never tell Eddie what really happened, to accept this forgiveness and move on.

Except it isn’t easy, and every day Buck doesn’t talk to Eddie about it feels like a day he’s lying to him.

He tried, the first time, but it was clear that Eddie didn’t want to hear it. Buck knows that Eddie isn’t one to have heavy conversations, especially ones that have a high chance of turning emotional, and he knows that the way he’s avoiding the longer, more detailed story of the day of the tsunami is probably as much for himself as it is for Buck’s sake.

But Buck needs him to know, can’t go on pretending everything is fine.

That’s why he finds himself parked in front of Eddie’s house just after ten one morning when he knows that Eddie has a day off. He specifically waited for today, when he knew that Christopher would be at school and Eddie would be home alone. Now they would be able to have the conversation without needing to worry about shielding Christopher from it. The boy is doing surprisingly well all things considered and Buck doesn’t want to remind him of anything, doesn’t want to make him relive memories that Buck wishes he could learn to forget himself.

Just because Buck isn’t doing as well, doesn’t mean he can’t be glad that Christopher is. It makes him admire the boy’s optimism and strength even more.

Buck grips the steering wheel a little too tightly, his knuckles white as he looks at the house. He’s never before been afraid to walk in.

He takes a deep breath and lets go of the steering wheel, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car before he can change his mind and drive back to his flat.

He’s been putting this off for too long, and while Buck knows that there's a possibility that when he tells Eddie the whole story, he’s going to lose the friendship he has with him, he also knows that it’s going to happen sooner or later, and he’s not going to be able to handle another day of lying by omission.

It feels like his heart is in his throat when he knocks on the door and waits for Eddie to open it.

“Buck!”

Eddie looks surprised but happy to see him, but Buck can’t find the strength to fake a smile. It makes Eddie furrow his brows and step aside as he motions for Buck to come inside.

Buck does, and he dries his sweaty palms to his jeans.

“Come on,” Eddie says and leads him to the living room. “Sit down.”

Buck doesn’t say anything, but follows Eddie to the living room and sits down on the couch with him. The television is on, some kind of a sitcom playing there while Eddie was apparently folding laundry if the pile of clothing on the table is anything to go by.

Among the clothing, Buck spots a familiar yellow shirt and he turns his head away sharply, closing his eyes as flashes of that yellow in the dirty water come to the forefront of his mind, completely uninvited but strong.

“...Buck, Buck!”

Buck’s eyes snap open and he looks at Eddie who’s suddenly a lot closer than he was a moment ago. His hand is on Buck’s shoulder and he’s looking at Buck with concern clear on his face.

“What’s going on Buck?” He asks gently, and the tone almost brings tears to Buck’s eyes. He wonders if he’ll ever hear that tone again after he tells Eddie what he came here to tell.

“I need to talk to you,” Buck says and tries his best to hold eye contact.

Eddie gives him a slow nod, looking confused. Buck doesn’t blame him.

“About the tsunami,” Buck continues, and he can see a flash of something in Eddie’s eyes before he pulls his hand away from Buck like it burns.

Buck wonders if that’s a sign of how this conversation is going to go, but instead of panic now all he can feel is a deep sadness and resignation. He wouldn’t blame Eddie if he never wanted to see Buck outside of work again, knows it’s what he deserves.

“Buck,” Eddie starts, moving a little away from Buck as if the physical distance will also distance him from the conversation. “You don’t need to.”

“I do,” Buck says. “I do need to. I need you to hear the whole story. I need you to know all the facts. I can’t accept your forgiveness when you don’t know what I did.”

“I know you did all you could,” Eddie says, his words sure. Buck smiles sadly at how fast Eddie says it, how sure he is of the words he says.

“But I need you to know everything,” Buck says, and this time Eddie doesn’t argue. He looks apprehensive but stays quiet, showing Buck that he’s listening.

“I-,” Buck starts but his words fail him, and he doesn’t know where to start. Eddie doesn’t push him, and eventually, Buck decides to start from the beginning. After all, he’s here to give Eddie the whole story.

“We were at the pier when the tsunami came,” he starts.

Once he starts, he doesn’t stop. He lets the words pour out and doesn’t stop to think about them because he’s afraid of what will happen if he lets his mind focus on them for too long. He feels like he’s back at the pier, back in the water, and back at that fire truck. He can’t look at Eddie as he speaks, doesn’t want to see whatever expression is on his best friend’s face.

“Things seemed relatively good then,” Buck says as he tells about how they waited for rescue on top of the fire truck. “We were playing I Spy. That’s when the water started bringing bodies with it. So many dead people in the water and there was nothing we could do to help them.”

Buck looks at Eddie then, just quickly before he lowers his eyes back to his hands that he’s wringing together in his lap. Eddie looks horrified so Buck speaks quickly.

“I picked Christopher up and turned him so his back was to the bodies,” he says, because he doesn’t want Eddie to worry about Christopher seeing that. “We continued playing I Spy with things high up on the sky until the bodies were past us.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says then. Buck looks up at that, for the first time holding eye contact since he started talking. “For not letting him see that.”

And no, this isn’t what Buck is here to tell. He’s not here to tell Eddie about the parts he did right that Christopher doesn’t know about, he’s here to tell him about the parts he did wrong.

“The next surge brought more people,” Buck says, desperate to make Eddie see the truth. “And they were alive.”

He remembers it all as clear as if it happened an hour ago, has played it over and over again in his mind since it happened, thinking of different ways of how he could have done better, how he should have acted.

“I tried to help them climb into the truck with us,” Buck says, his eyes aimed somewhere over Eddie’s shoulder but looking somewhere far. He tries his best to distance himself from the moment, even if it means going back to that moment. If he focuses on Eddie’s reaction he’ll never get the words out of his mouth. “I turned my back on Christopher, and then I heard the sound of someone falling.”

Buck feels physically sick as he says the words, the guilt only intensifying as he hears Eddie gasp. He continues before Eddie has a chance to say anything.

“I tried to look for him,” he says, his voice coming out wobbly but he pushes forward past the tightness in his throat. “I couldn’t see him anywhere so I jumped in the water, hoping the stream would take me in the same direction it took him. I tried so hard to find him, Eddie, I really did.”

He lets the tears fall then, feeling hollow now that the story is out there, now that Eddie knows how he lost his son. While it is unclear how their friendship will be after this, there are no more secrets hanging between them, no more false sense of normalcy. Buck knows he has no right to cry, but he can’t help it. He leans his elbows to his knees and hides his face in his hands as the sobs wrack his body.

“Buck,” Eddie says, and Buck can feel a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t dare to look at him.

“Evan.”

He can’t read the tone, so Buck takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to calm down before he straightens his back and looks up at Eddie. This is not about him, and he’s going to face whatever Eddie is going to say to him head-on because he knows whatever it is, he deserves it.

“Thank you for telling me,” Eddie says. His face is solemn and his eyes glisten with tears Buck knows he won't let fall, but at least Buck can’t see anger there. The next words Eddie says take Buck’s breath away.

“But it doesn’t change anything.”

“What?” Buck says weakly, not sure if he can trust his own ears. “Didn’t you hear-”

“I heard how you saved him from the water and brought him on top of the fire truck where you’d be safe for the time being,” Eddie says. “I heard how you tried your best to keep him happy and to distract him, I heard how you didn’t let him see all the horrible things you had to see. I heard how you also did your job, helping other people to safety. As far as you thought, Christopher was safe. You couldn’t have known that he would fall over.”

“But I shouldn’t have turned my back on him,” Buck argues, his tone raising a little. “He was supposed to be my priority! Not some strangers in the water! Didn’t you just hear what I told you?”

“We help strangers every day at our job,” Eddie reminds him. “You wouldn’t be the person I know if you’d just let them drown when you knew you could help them. I can’t tell you what I would have done in your situation, because I wasn’t there. And I’m so fucking sorry you had to be there, the both of you. You did the best you could in that awful situation you were in. And yes, I did hear what you told me. I heard it loud and clear in every word you said, how much you care about my son and how hard you tried to find him. That was an awful day, and you did the best you could. There’s not a bone in my body that blames you for any of that, Evan.”

The words bring a new wave of tears to Buck’s eyes because Eddie is really forgiving him. And while it’s going to take a while for Buck to believe those words as much as Eddie seems to believe in them, it’s easier now when Buck knows that Eddie knows the whole story and still thinks Buck is worthy of forgiveness.

“There aren’t many people I trust with my son,” Eddie says. “But you are definitely one of them.”

Eddie pulls him to a hug after that, and Buck tries to breathe deep and stop crying. His emotions feel like a mess, in part because he hasn’t been sleeping well, and in part because this conversation has been a lot.

“I was so scared,” he says eventually when he has managed to calm down his tears. “I was scared for Christopher, not knowing if he was safe and if he was, how afraid he would be to be alone.”

Eddie holds him tighter at the admission and Buck knows his heart must hurt to imagine his son in that situation.

“Everything was fine,” Eddie reminds him, reminds them both. “He was safe and a kind lady kept him company. Christopher has only told me good things about her. Apparently she sang the same song to him his abuela sings to him sometimes. The only thing he was worried about was you.”

Buck’s breath shakes on the way out.

“I was terrified of seeing you,” Buck admits, because apparently his mind has decided to come clean of everything now that he started. “I couldn’t face you knowing that I had let you down.”

“Buck,” Eddie says immediately. “You didn’t let me down. You can’t predict natural disasters.”

“I know,” Buck says and finally pulls away from the hug. “But that’s how I felt.” Then, after a short break. “That’s how I still feel.”

Because even though Eddie knows now and still chooses to forgive him, things aren’t miraculously good. They are better, and there are no words Buck can use to describe how much it means that Eddie is willing to forgive him even after knowing the whole story, but it will take time until Buck can fully forgive himself, if he ever will.

“Well,” Eddie says, and smiles for the first time since opening the door to Buck earlier. “I guess I just have to keep reminding you then.”

Buck likes that thought, in no small part because it means that Eddie and Christopher aren’t going anywhere.

“You good?” Eddie asks then, his voice serious again. Come to think of it, this is probably the longest serious conversation they’ve ever had and despite knowing that Eddie is uncomfortable with them, Buck has to admit that he’s also pretty good at them.

“I will be,” Buck says with a small smile, and he really believes his words.

“Good,” Eddie says. “You’re stuck with us now, Buckley. We’re not letting you go.”

Buck files that away to be thought about later, when he’s not emotionally drained and when he has the time to take that sentence and study it and wonder if it means the same to Eddie as it means to Buck.

But the time for that is later.

“You need help?” Buck asks nodding towards the pile of laundry on the table.

“I’m not saying no to that,” Eddie laughs and throws Buck a shirt from the pile.

Christopher’s yellow shirt.

Buck is pretty sure it wasn’t intentional, judging by the way Eddie tenses as he sees Buck catch the shirt. It looks like Eddie is going to either apologise or lean over to take the shirt back, but Buck unfolds the shirt from the ball it was bunched into and lays it against his legs.

When he starts to fold, Buck breathes in deep and focuses on here and now.  

Eddie squeezes his shoulder briefly in silent support but doesn’t say anything, and Buck is grateful. There has been enough heavy talk to last them a lifetime, and now Buck is more than happy to just fold laundry with Eddie while a sitcom plays in the background.

Buck feels calm for the first time in weeks.

[capseycartwright]

how about 65?

65 - shushing your lover as they try to kiss you, telling them that tonight is all about them, not you

send me a prompt from this (or this!) list

Buck had never felt more secure than he did in his relationship with Eddie. That was a definitive fact – from the moment they had started dating, Buck had felt secure, and certain, and loved. Eddie loved in a quiet way – quiet, and steady. He was always there, right by Buck’s side, whether that was at work, or in the grocery store, or in the pick-up line for Christopher. Eddie held his hand, at every opportunity – never asking, just reaching for Buck – and he pressed careful kisses to Buck’s cheek, and he texted Buck good morning, every morning, they weren’t together, and good night, every night they weren’t together. He had never been loved so steadily and so easily by anyone, in his life, and it was the best relationship Buck had ever been in.

Eddie was attentive, was the point. Now they had progressed from friends, to more, and had those conversations the two of them had been too scared to have before, Eddie was attentive and in-tune with Buck, and his emotions, and always – always – willing to do whatever Buck needed.

In previous relationships, Buck had felt like he needed to pack away his needy feelings, the way he craved physical touch so constantly, but Eddie, he felt like it was welcome – he knew that Eddie didn’t mind, the way Buck would sit too close sometimes, their bodies pressed together shoulder to thigh. Eddie didn’t mind, the way Buck would tug on his hand and pull Eddie in for a hug that lasted a second or ten too long, needing to feel Eddie close. Eddie, who had realised from the beginning how sometimes, words weren’t enough – Buck needed actions, touches, the physicality of it all.

Which was something Eddie had wholeheartedly embraced, actually.

It wasn’t as though it had been easy – realising you were bisexual at any age was a weird experience, and Buck had gone through it all at twenty-one when he realised his feelings for his co-worker at the time were far from platonic – but Eddie had gone through it all in his thirties, with a kid and a marriage under his belt. Buck had been happy to give him time; and Eddie had taken it, in the beginning, but after a few months of being with Buck, of wine nights and friendship shaped therapy with Karen, and some actual therapy shaped therapy, Eddie had come into his own, as a person, and in their relationship.

That was the freeing part of accepting your own sexuality, he supposed.

The point was –

Sex with Eddie was the best Buck had ever had. He knew it sounded cheesy, and in some ways, it was terribly cheesy. Buck could give a cringey line about how sometimes it wasn’t about the sex, it was about the love of it all, the way he could feel the depth of Eddie’s love for him in every press, every touch, every lingering kiss – but even for him, a very sappy and in love person, that might be too much.

Glancing at Eddie, Buck sort of changed his mind – how could any words be enough when it was Eddie, who loved him? Eddie Diaz, who loved so openly, so attentively, as though Buck – and Christopher – were at the centre of his entire world and he never needed anyone else to be there. Eddie, who was undressing Buck in a way that felt so tender and loving that it sort of made Buck want to cry, actually.

As good as they were with words, these days, better communicators now after their friendship had been broken open by more shared trauma than either of them knew how to deal with – sometimes words were hard, and right then and there, words were hard.

Tugging on Eddie’s hair, Buck tried to kiss Eddie, brushing his lips briefly against Eddie’s own before his boyfriend shook his head, pulling back. The smile on Eddie’s face was soft, crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Tonight is all about you,” he hummed, pressing a gentle finger against Buck’s lips as Buck tried to interject, tried to tell Eddie that it could be about them, not just Buck. “Buck – baby,” he continued. “I know you need this, so let me take care of you, okay? Let – let tonight be about you.”

Buck was definitely going to cry. His beautiful boyfriend, with his beautiful face and beautiful words, was about to commit a world first and have Buck crying before they even got to the good part of sex, and it was going to be horribly embarrassing – and as embarrassing as the tears that pricked at the corners of Buck’s eyes felt, more than anything else, he just felt safe, and loved, and cared for. Of course Eddie had realised Buck was strung out, tension tight across his shoulders after a long day, in the midst of what was shaping up to be a long week. Of course Eddie had realised just what Buck needed, realised it before Buck himself had thought about what he needed.

Not trusting himself to speak, Buck nodded.

“Okay?” Eddie nudged, clearly wanting a proper answer.

Buck smiled wetly at Eddie – his wonderful boyfriend, the love of his goddamn life – and he nodded again. “Yeah, okay.”

Eddie kissed him, finally, the embrace soft, and sweet. “I love you so much, do you know that?”

Buck returned the smile. “Only as much as I love you.”

[tarlos-spain]

Flufftober Day 3 - Lazy sundays

Fandom: 9-1-1

Pairing: Eddie Diaz/Evan "Buck" Buckley

Characters: Eddie Diaz, Christofer Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley

After the storm

Chapter 3:

"When was the last time you had a Sunday off?" Eddie asked as he finished making breakfast coffee for himself and Buck. "I really don't remember, you get paid more for working on Sunday and until now I didn't have a reason for a good reason not to work on Sundays."

Eddie handed him the cup and brushed Buck's fingers with his own looking into his eyes. Christopher appeared just then; he didn't notice the gesture or perhaps preferred not to say anything.

"Good morning Buck, did you sleep here tonight?"

Buck looked at Eddie wondering what he should answer to that question. Christopher was a very smart boy, a boy who adored him almost as much as he loved his father; he'd probably be thrilled if they were together, but maybe it wasn't the time yet to tell him.

"Yeah, we finished work pretty late last night and I asked Buck if he wanted to stay over." Eddie said to his son. "I'm making breakfast, what do you feel like eating today?" "And are you staying all day today, could you stay over today too? It's Sunday, surely you don't have anything to do do do you dad?" "Well, that will have to be up to Buck to decide."

Father and son looked at Buck, it was up to him to make the decision, because they both, for different reasons, wanted him to stay with them.

"Ehm." He laughed nervously, in a way it was a lot of pressure. Eddie and he had just started something more than friendship and he didn't want to put his relationship with Christopher in the way for the time being. "Since you're telling me like this, sure, why don't I stay today?"

Christopher squealed with delight and Eddie winked a son at Buck to thank him for making things easy.

The boy went to his room when breakfast was over, to change his clothes. They watched him disappear smiling and suddenly Buck found Eddie's hand rubbing his back.

"Thanks." "For what?" "For everything. I don't think I've ever really thanked you for being a part of our life. Christopher was afraid when we came here and I started working at the barracks that I'd be left alone, friendless and that my whole life would revolve around him."- "Isn't that exactly what's going on?" Buck asked then burst out laughing and apologized.

Eddie murdered him with his eyes.

"But with you it's different, we've teamed up with him and Christopher has noticed. That's why he doesn't want you to leave. He knows you're important to me, the same way you're important to him." "It's not hard to love you..." Buck realized his subconscious had played a trick on him when he'd already said it out loud. "I meant, to love him." "Oh, right, I guess we're moving too fast you and me."

Eddie got up and started to gather up the breakfast things, but before he grabbed the second cup, Buck grabbed his hand.

"That's not true, I meant to say love you, both of you."

Buck moved a little closer to Eddie and reached for his lips, to give him a kiss.

They stood there for a moment, when Christopher reappeared, as much as they were both clear about things, as much as they were sure that sooner or later they would tell the boy that they were in a relationship, now that was something they would do slowly.

"What are the plans for today?" Buck asked once they had separated." "The plans for a good Sunday in this house is to do nothing productive, lay around on the couch and in the afternoon make a huge bowl of popcorn and watch a couple of movies before ordering pizza for dinner." "May I ask why you've never invited me to one of those wonderful Sundays?" "Now, you'll come to all of them." Eddie whispered in her ear and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

[readinginthereadyroom]

it’s rage (911 3x05) and the divorce lawsuit arc keeps eddie from reaching out to buck. 

but the thing is. eddie’s been isolating himself. not on purpose. but as a means of coping. with the almost-baby. the would-be divorce. shannon’s death. his family visiting. the ladder bombing. buck’s blood clots. the tsunami. christopher’s ptsd. and there’s no time for anything else. certainly not time for himself. 

and he’ll willingly take christopher to therapy. but won’t give that to himself. he’s not touchy-feely like that. or at least. he doesn’t think he’s allowed to be. 

eddie basically admits it in kids today (911 3x01). look, I know it sucks, but that's life, right? whenever stuff didn't work out for me, my dad always told me to brush it off, keep moving forward. It wasn't easy but he wasn't wrong. 

but instead of that he listens to his team. decides that hen’s I don't know if I should just give him a swift kick in the butt and get him back out there or hug him and tell him that it's all gonna be okay. is the better advice. so he shows up unannounced at buck’s loft. gives him a swift kick in the ass outta bed. hands him a hug in the shape of christopher. he never feels sorry for himself. and it seems to work. for a while. I learned one thing from that tsunami: it's that I don't quit. I fight. because even after the tsunami. after losing christopher during the second wave. eddie still trusts buck. because buck never stopped searching. never stopped trying to find christopher. and that means everything. thank you for not giving up.

but then there’s the fallout. christopher’s having nightmares. and he’s unwilling to talk about them to eddie. he obviously saw something terrible when he was separated from buck. something that he conflates with his mother’s death. something about a woman drowning. 

which is absolutey heartbreaking. especially since there’s nothing eddie can really do. just keep loving him. 

and bosko means well. she and eddie are building their own friendship since the tsunamis. and it’s been growing while she temps at the 118. she gives him invaluable advice when he talks about christopher. that no matter what, her mom shared her feelings with her. however we felt, we were in it together, no matter what.

but she’s also a literal buck stand-in. a temporary coworker and a temporary confidante. especially once the lawsuit is underway. well, there's no way I was gonna call my abuela or the 118, and I'm not allowed to talk to buck.

because buck is trying to get his job back. feeling hurt and betrayed and lashing out. and inadvertabtly hurting those he cares about most. because he told his lawyer about shannon’s death. how eddie never took any time off to grieve. never saw a counselor.

and eddie’s not okay with that. not after the revelation about christopher’s nightmares. the fresh wounds that would leave. because eddie’s a private guy. guarded about his emotions. he’s silly and soft with christopher in their own home. but he’ll cry alone on the beach. 

and maybe buck didn’t say all that to this stranger. this ambulance chaser. but it feels like he did. that buck aired all his dirty laundry. personal things. that buck didn’t have his back. 

but maybe bosko can. she might be a buck mirror in the tsunami eps but she’s also an eddie mirror. she’s not into touchy feely emotions either. and she likes to fight. so she takes him to fake fight club. let’s him work off some steam. 

only it fails spectacularly. because eddie’s not actually mad. he’s not angry. no, he’s hurting. and he doesn’t know how to show it. and maybe that's where our rage comes from. a feeling that our world, our lives are out of control.

and it all comes spilling out in the pet aisle of a grocery store. because buck’s there to apologize and eddie. eddie misses him. I can't even talk to you and you’re not around. 

even worse. christopher misses him. and buck didn’t even realize that.

and there’s a lifetime bad advice is still rattling around in eddie’s head. we all have our own problems, but you don't see us whining about it. no, somehow, we just manage to suck it up. why can't you? and then he says something truly awful. something he doesn’t actually mean.

you're exhausting.

which is to say. eddie’s exhausted. he’s obviously not sleeping, not with christopher waking up to nightmares. and everything feels like it’s out of control. eddie feels like he’s out of control. 

and just when he felt like he was getting some of that control back--buck becoming a fire marshal. a new friend. admitting he’s sad to chris. a week without nightmares--that lawyer takes it all away. makes him feel like he’s still not enough. awakens the old fears that he’ll drag christopher down with him. because he didn’t grieve properly. didn’t let himself feel. and that’s what sparked all of christopher’s problems. 

nevermind that none of it’s true. that it’s just eddie projecting. because he feels helpless. powerless. weak. alone.

and that’s why eddie goes to the private fights. why he continues going. despite the bruises and the beatings. and why he gives buck the cold shoulder in monsters (911 3x06) when he notices them. nothing you need to be concerned with.

because their team is broken. when you decided to sue the department, to make cap the bad guy, did you ever stop for a minute to think what that could do to us? and yeah, eddie’s obtensibly refering to the 118 team. but that little finger waggle gives him away. us as in you and me. us as in you and christopher. us as in the buckley-diaz team.

your actions, your choices, they impact the rest of us. that's what it means to be a part of a team. because eddie’s ready to finish their conversation from the grocery story. ready to listen. because buck’s proven he’s listened too. acknoweldged that he didn’t think about what could happen. that he didn’t mean for it to go so far. didn’t mean for anyone. let alone eddie and chris. to get hurt. 

only he was so mad. at bobby. at the 118. at the world. at himself. and he wanted to punch something. 

just like eddie. 

and maybe that’s what does it. because eddie’s forgiven buck before he can even finish asking. I forgive you. also what it means to be part of a team. because they were the same. they were both hurting. both retreating inward and lashing outwards. alone and suffering for it. 

so eddie puts their team back together. seals all that tough love with a hug. 

and it’s not quite over. they still have some healing to do--eddie’s still cage fighting and buck’s still repairing his relationship with bobby. but now they have each other’s backs. they can heal together. 

because they’re on the same team. again.