#eddie's fighting eddie forcing himself to stay with ana

[sweet-sammy-kisses]

I'm the beat in your heart

For @fireburningonthedancefloor for the @911fanworksfestival

Title: I'm the beat in your heart Fandom: 9-1-1 Pairing: Eddie/Buck with minor Buck/Tommy Rating: Teen and Up Summary: Eddie and Buck are the two halves of the same soul. They are soulmates, and Tommy has come to care about them. Buck's heart is taken by Eddie and Eddie's heart sings for Buck's. Tommy and Christopher join forces to make the two see what they have been searching for they have with one another.

"You don't find love, son, you make it." Also available on AO3

“Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can't understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?” — Nancy Garden, Annie On My Mind

Tommy Kinard knows what soulmates look like. That kind of love that seems to only exist in fairy tales and romantic movies. He likes Eddie, he is a great friend. It is nice to have someone to talk to about their time in the army, who also likes MMA and Muay Thai and working on cars with them.

Then there is Evan. Evan is truly someone special. He wasn't kidding when he called him adorable. Being the one to help Evan see that that part of himself he had buried deep within himself was a gift he will always treasure.

But Evan isn't his soulmate, he isn't the one meant to be his forever ending. No, that spot is reserved for Eddie. They are twin souls. Evan is Eddie's North Star, always there to guide him to where he is meant to be. And Evan is Eddie's sun, the one lighting and guiding the way for him. He is just baffled at how the two could be so blind as to how they are the two halves of the same soul.

"Welcome to our world." Christopher patted Tommy on his shoulder. It was a Buckley-Diaz day at the zoo but since Tommy was off Christopher asked if he wanted to join them. Tommy didn't miss the way that Eddie's smile became plastic, it reminded him of the night at Chimney's bachelor party where somehow Eddie managed to pull off being completely petty while handing him a cup of orange juice. Seriously that was a thing Tommy didn't think could be done but when it came to Eddie's possessiveness over Evan it was outstanding the levels Eddie could reach. So when Eddie agreed Tommy could feel the force he used to agree to make his son and his best friend happy.

And sweet adorable Evan somehow completely missed it. He just beamed at Eddie before engulfing him in the kind of hug that just makes you want to melt. In Evan's arms, you know you are safe with him. It is like hugging the sun full of warmth and love.  Tommy couldn't understand how such loving and caring souls like Evan and Maddie could possibly have the cold unfeeling parents they did.

"Thanks." Tommy smiled at Christopher who looked truly upset for him. It was nice, Christopher is a great kid, sorry teen, who has the same air of possessiveness that his dad does when it comes to Evan. Eddie and Evan had run to pick up some takeout for all four of them while it was up to Tommy and Christopher to pick the movies to watch. Tommy didn't even bother to fight and just let Christopher go ahead and make the movie selection.

"I like you, Tommy. I really do out of everyone my dad and Buck have dated. You are the best." A frown appeared on Christopher's face, "I don't know if that is a good thing or bad thing since it appears like they both made some bad dating decisions. Ana and Marisol were okay but my dad dated them because they were the kind of women my grandparents would approve of and then stayed with them because he thought I loved them and he didn't want me to lose anyone else I cared about." A heavy sigh escaped Christopher, "Which is nice of him but I want my dad happy and no one makes him happy like Buck. But being with Buck will make you sad and like I said Tommy, I really like you it's just..." The teen trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

A small knowing smile made its way onto Tommy's face, "It's just that they are soulmates and meant to be. Buck told me about this call they had about this elderly couple who went together only minutes apart because they only wanted to go together and the words the one man said to him have stuck with him. You don't find love, son, you make it." Tommy met Christopher's eyes and he saw how they widened full of knowledge and understanding. "That is what your dad, Evan, and you have made a love that can never be broken. Eddie and Evan are soulmates and as much as I care about Evan I can't stand in the way of that. We just need to figure out a way to make those two realize what they have. Both of them have been searching for so long for something that is right in front of them, that they have spent six years creating."

Wrapping his arms around Tommy Christopher gave him a hug, "They are just ridiculous at this point. They could be married and have given me a sibling and a dog by this point."

"Hey guys."

During their talk, neither Christopher nor Tommy had noticed when Eddie and Buck had returned.

Buck was the one who had spoken as he looked between Christopher and his not-quite boyfriend, Eddie was at his side just staring at the two of them.

"Put the food down before you drop it and then we can talk," Christopher ordered, his stomach rumbling, he was a growing boy and he needed food.

Eddie quickly put his bag of food down and then collapsed into his chair as he looked at his son and friend, before daring to look at Buck who to his surprise had a delightful pink dust on his cheeks. This had him perking up and unable to keep his eyes off of Buck who seemed to sense Eddie's eyes on him and hurried to the kitchen to dish up the food. He completely ignored Christopher's gestures that he should follow Buck. "I think Tommy should talk to Buck first."

"Your dad has a point." Tommy climbed to his feet, picked up the second bag of food and followed Buck into the kitchen.

Shifting in his seat Christopher stared at his dad, "Alright, then we will talk. I know you love Buck. I know that you questioned yourself when you encouraged Buck to call Tommy up and date him because you wanted it to be you. Dad, I know my grandparents have always said that you needed to give me a mom but I don't need a mom, I have you and Buck. I know that Buck makes you happier than anyone has, even more than Mom and I am tired of watching you push what makes you happy aside because you are afraid."

"When did you get so wise?" Eddie asked as he climbed to his feet and took a seat next to his son.

Christopher grinned at him, "From Bisabuela."

Eddie's lips twitched up into a smile, "Yeah, she said the same thing about Buck. She calls him my North Star, the one always guiding me to where I should be. Always there to pull me out of the darkness. He has been the one to save me when I needed saving. I never want you to doubt that I didn't love your mom, I did very much. But near the end, we weren't happy, we were trying to force something that wasn't any longer there. I think we were better off as friends and co-parents to you. Because you are the most precious thing in my life. So I need to know that you would truly be okay with me dating Buck."

"Dad, I have been planning your and Buck's wedding for years! All my classmates think Buck is my other father. The only ones not seeing what has been there for the past six years are the two of you. So yes I am more than okay for you to marry my Buck."

Eddie felt his eyebrow shoot up, "I said dating nothing about marriage."

Christopher gave his dad a deadpan look, "Dad, I give you and Buck till the end of your talk, the end of the week if I am feeling generous before you are engaged."

+******+

"Evan." Tommy's voice was soft and Buck felt more tears filling his eyes, he couldn't face Tommy not yet, so he focused on getting the food sorted.

A strong hand wrapped around his wrist and slowly he found himself turned around to face Tommy. "I..." He didn't know what to say.

"It's okay Evan. I know that Eddie is your heart. You love him as easy as it is breathing." Tommy's eyes were soft.

"I do like you and the last thing I want to do is hurt you." Tommy helped him to accept and be proud of who he truly is. He is special to him, he just isn't Eddie.

"And I am not hurt Evan, I saw from the start how connected you and Eddie are, neither of you is whole without the other. I am lucky to have both of you in my life and to have played such a big role in helping you to embrace this new part of yourself." Tommy gently stroked Buck's cheek. "You are special to me Evan Buckley, and maybe in another lifetime we might have been something more but in this time and place you and Eddie are meant to be." Pressing a gentle kiss on Buck's cheek Tommy pulled back. "I am still your friend Evan, and I am still Eddie's, someone has to kick his ass in Maui Thai and MMA."

Buck let out a startled laugh at that. "He says he is the one kicking your ass."

Chuckling Tommy shook his head, "Well I guess next time we spar you will just have to be there to judge. Now I am taking some of this out there for me and Christopher to enjoy and sending Eddie in here." Grabbing two plates Tommy grabbed two containers and made his way out of the kitchen.  

Buck could feel his heart beating loudly in his ears.

"Buck."

"Eddie."

"I love you."

Both stared at one another adjusting to what they just heard and admitted.

Moving Eddie stepped further into his kitchen and it didn't escape his attention that they always seemed to have important conversations in one or the other's kitchens. He took Buck's hands in his and tugged the other man closer until they were pressed up against one another. Wrapping one arm around Buck's waist Eddie put his other hand up where he let his thumb trace across Buck's lower lip. "I love you, Evan Buckley. For so long I have had my parents, especially my mother's, voice in my head telling me not to drag Christopher down with me, that I need to find him a mother. All I wanted for so long was for them to love me. Then you came into my life, you helped me in ways no one could. You never saw me as a failure, all your offers of help came from a place of love and you will never know how much that means to me. I loved Shannon but in the end, she was right, we were trying to keep something alive that we both know was over years ago. Already my heart had begun to move on to you. I tried with Ana and Marisol because they were the kind of women my parents would love and I thought Christopher liked them. But they never made me happy, they never saw me. They weren't you." Slowly Eddie brushed his knuckles across Buck's cheek. "You are my North Star Evan, always guiding me out of the darkness. I love you, Buck. I only love two people with all my whole heart Christopher and you."

"You are my Sun." Buck's voice was soft. "Everyone thinks that Abby was my great love and while I did love her, she helped me to see that I could do a relationship but in the end, she left me. You and Christopher have never left me. You are my sun, filling me with warmth and love. I look at you and I see nothing but light. You are my light. Everyone has left me, even Maddie, and she came back but at the time I saw it as her choosing Doug over me. All my life I have just wanted someone to choose me and you did. I love you Eddie, and I love the little family we have created with Christopher."

When Tommy kissed him it freed him and let Buck admit that he liked it, he liked being kissed by guys as well as women. But it was nothing compared to being kissed by Eddie, it was like being kissed by the moon itself drawing him like the moon draws the stars to it. For the first time in his life, Buck felt like he was complete.

Kissing Buck was like kissing the sun, never before had he felt so warm. Some days he could still feel the chill of the well but this kiss chased away any lingering chill. Eddie wanted nothing more than to devour him, to lay Buck out on his bed and trace every inch of him, to learn all the sounds he makes and all the spots that make him beg for more. "I want nothing more than to take you to bed and take you apart," Eddie whispered against his lips.

Buck shuddered, "I want nothing more but we have your son and my ex-something out in the living room waiting for us. You will have to do with holding my hand until tomorrow when Christopher is out with his friends and Tommy has gone home." Buck honestly wasn't sure he could wait that long.

"If I am holding anything it is you in my lap," Eddie informed Buck. "I think we should get married."

Buck stared at Eddie, "We haven't gone on one date yet. I mean I know you are it for me but shouldn't we have one date first."

"You're it for me as well. And we have been dating for almost six years, like Christopher pointed out we should be married and give him a sibling." Eddie pointed out.

"Don't forget a dog." Buck pointed out.

"Well, we will work on a sibling first then possibly a pet. Our son has our wedding all planned so we can't disappoint him." Eddie's voice dropped into a husky growl, "Plus I can't wait to call you husband."

Buck shuddered. "Buck Diaz, I love the sound of it. So yes Eddie Diaz, I will marry you."

Growling Eddie kissed Buck again, thrilled that he could do that and that he would soon be his husband.

With a few more heated kisses and a promise from Buck that he would sit on Eddie's lap the two of them finally joined Tommy and Christopher where Christopher held out his hand and with a sigh, Tommy placed a twenty dollar bill in his hand.

"Thanks, Dad and Pop for making me twenty dollars richer." Christopher grinned at them, not noticing how Buck tear up when he called him pop.

"You're welcome." Eddie rolled his eyes at his son before taking a seat next to him and raised an eyebrow at Buck, "Well, come on and sit."

Buck felt his cheeks heating up. He took a seat on Eddie's lap, his whole body heating up as Eddie wrapped a free arm around his waist.

Tommy and Christopher both rolled their eyes at the sickening sight of the two men, neither Buck nor Eddie noticed they were too busy with one another.

+******+

Somehow Eddie managed to keep his hands mostly to himself, even though it was a challenge as he and Christopher talked Buck into staying over the night and instead of Buck sleeping on the couch he was sleeping in his bed with him, to see Christopher off with his friends.

The door was barely closed behind them before Eddie had Buck pinned to it and devouring the other man as if he was drowning and the only thing keeping him afloat was Buck. Growling he tugged at Buck's clothing wanting to be able to feel Buck's bare skin.

"Bed." Buck moaned, he was tugging at Eddie's shirt.

"Here is fine." Eddie nipped at Buck's jaw, he wasn't waiting to get to a bed to take Buck apart.

"Our first time shouldn't be against the door. But in our bed." Buck purred back.

Pulling back Eddie all but dragged Buck to his no their bed where he kicked the door shut, he lifted Buck over his shoulder and carried him to the bed. The sight of Buck laid out on their bed had something primal within Eddie unleashed and he knew that Buck wouldn't be leaving this room without his marks on him.

+******+

It turned out Christopher wasn't the only one who had the Buddie wedding planned out. Bobby had one as well, one that looked too much like Christopher's that had more than a few eyebrows raised.

"What can't my grandson and I have a hobby?" Bobby asked before he was tackled by Buck in a tight hug and Bobby happily returned.

May and Linda of all people made a pretty penny on all the bets that had been made over the years for the Buddie bets.

Refusing to have a long engagement because as nice as calling each other fiancé was they both wanted to be husbands, thanks to Bobby and Christopher's wedding planning and clipboard Buck, who Eddie found extremely hot and made sure Buck knew how much it turned him on, the wedding which was taking place in the backyard of the Grant-Nash was put together in a month.

Buck and Eddie chose to wear their poker night suits, which looking back should have been a big clue that they were dating, the biggest was the sexual tension that night in Eddie's kitchen when Buck asked him if he wanted to go for the title.

Jee was adorable as their flower girl, Christopher stood with pride as Eddie's best man, and Hen was Buck's best woman as Maddie walked her brother down the aisle. Bobby stood with complete pride as he ordained over their wedding.

Their first kiss as husband and husband was the start of the newest and greatest chapter of their lives.

And after a week off for their honeymoon Buck came in sporting a few bruises that were just a little bit too high for his shirt collar and a smug Eddie walking behind him.

Two years later Christopher got his wish for a sibling in an adorable little sister Diana, from Buck's ex-girlfriend Natalia who hadn't informed Buck she was pregnant until the day she gave birth to the little girl she didn't want and gave full custody over to Buck and Eddie.

A dog was a little harder of a sell but even Eddie was no match for the power of Buck, Christopher, and Diana's pleading eyes and pouts. Thus they ended up with an adorable pit bull who Eddie fell in love with and glared at anyone who stated that pit bulls were dangerous.

Wrapping his arms around Buck Eddie pressed a kiss against his husband's cheek, the ocean crashed about as they watched Christopher help Diana build a sandcastle. "Are you happy?" Eddie asked.

"Always and happier each day I have with you." Buck turned to press a kiss against Eddie's cheek.

"Sap."

"You're sap and you wouldn't change a thing about it."

"Never." Eddie agreed as the two of them went back to watching their children, the North Star tattoo on Eddie's wrist lining up perfectly with Buck's sun tattoo, their first-year anniversary gift.

[archerincombat]

eddie’s relationship with his body is the same as buck’s relationship with his body just different fonts send tweet

[idealuk]

It’s not just that Carla clearly got in to Eddie’s head and, subsequently, got him thinking about what *his* heart wants with her evasive advice on his relationship with Ana.

It’s not just that he soon thereafter gets shot in front of Buck, that near-death situations tend to simplify matters of the heart, or that Eddie reached for Buck with what little strength he could force himself to rally as he bled out on the street.

It’s not just that we could see that Eddie acknowledged that Buck’s entire world stopped in that moment.

It’s not just that Eddie, who regained consciousness after massive blood loss enough to observe how Buck, having obviously, in his mind, gone in to Fight Mode when the shock broke, to ask if Buck was hurt upon seeing blood (his own) on Buck fell back in to unconsciousness only after Buck (let’s not even start on how we all just recently realized that Eddie says his name as he’s coming to), himself, told him that he is (read: only physically) fine, or that the writing, acting/directing, and filming/editing each treated all of this like a ‘you-die=I-die moment’.

It’s not just that Buck had to utilize aspects of his SEAL training, some thing that he emotionally sealed (no pun intended) off because his body rejects the instinct to compartmentalize by turning emotions off (so, really, he’s not in Fight Mode, like Eddie thinks, he’s in Desperate-Hero Mode) to do such a rescue, and to perform it while crawling under a firetruck, the very kind of vehicle that he still feels safe enough to ride in nearly every day in defiance of having almost losing life and limb to when we, the audience, last saw him (partially) under one after a mere solitary deep, and steadying, breath of preparation by honing in on his intention to keep Eddie breathing, his heart beating/yearning, and his brain churning out thoughts that have a predilection of visibly awe-striking the slightly-younger blond-haired man.

(I debated putting the rest under a cut for a long time, because, to me - bias, I know - it is that important of a read, but it is that long)

It’s not just that, while I’m on the topic, Eddie chose to hold Buck’s hand instead of going in to Medic Mode when he did finally get to Buck pinned under that truck at the end of Season Two/Eddie’s Freshman Season instead of trying to help get the truck off of Buck’s leg.

It’s not just that the desperation in Buck’s voice as he was pleading with Eddie to stay with him was so straight out of fan fiction that we finally got him canonically calling Eddie “Eds” for the first time during which.

It’s not just that I definitely can’t be alone in being 100% sure of exactly how Buck would answer Mehta’s question of if he was okay before Mehta was even done asking it, or even that Buck waited to respond until after Mehta had walked away, because concrete confirmation of the extent of how distraught Eddie’s shooting made Buck we would soon see would be granted to only that man himself and his son.

It’s not just that Buck was still visibly shaking after having changed out of his clothes splattered in Eddie’s blood, and had done his best to clean it off of his skin, he automatically assumed that Taylor was there for the story of it [did some one, A.K.A. Kristen Reidel (episode writer), subtextually say “Trust issues does not bode well for the relationship”?], or that assumption made him instantly dismissive of her despite the newfound friendship they recently had been building towards after Taylor had been just some cut-throat woman who blatantly used Buck for sex a few years earlier, and, nevertheless, that it was a given to all that he would be the one to tell Christopher of how his only still-living parent might be fatally wounded.

It’s not just that Christopher thought that it was only logical to deduce that, because it was the same doctors who saved Buck who were trying to save his father, his father would be okay, that Buck finally broke like never before, despite every thing that he’s already previously been through, only when Bobby texted him that Eddie actually would be okay/survive, or that Eddie was the only one who Buck admitted the breakdown to other than its witness.

It’s not just that, in hindsight, it would have been completely out of character for each member of this three-person chosen family unit if Buck didn’t collapse in to vulnerability upon facing Christopher’s pure earnestness, for Christopher to not console Buck through said vulnerability, or that Eddie wouldn’t have been the only person who Buck would confess the breakdown to only for Eddie to assure Buck that it didn’t matter - that all that mattered was Buck being there for Christopher like he had been - and for Eddie to not at Buck with sadness and dismay upon hearing that Buck still underestimates the critical importance that he’s earned in Eddie and Christopher’s lives.

It’s also not just that this is TV, and that skepticism of the depth of Eddie and Ana’s relationship had already been placed in scripted dialogue spoken before this episode, combined with the Eddie waking up in front of Ana not being shown to the audience, Eddie waking up right as Buck and Taylor kissed appeared to be what stopped Buck from chasing Taylor when she ran away right after, that Buck actually, on instinct, ran to Eddie instead of chasing after Taylor (Ana’s call to Buck could be paralleled to how Eddie’s first words in the V.A. hospital were “I need to call my wife” if even a provincial shipper wanted to do so), this being what the audience was actually privy to, that Eddie waited until he saw Buck, not his current girlfriend, Ana, to call Christopher, that Buck verbalized how he decidedly chose to not chase after Taylor, that this is the episode in which Buck and Taylor finally get together (continually setting them up for failure much?), and the fact that even the camera angles chosen throughout their blocks of the episode focused their relationship over their respective current female love interests all actually theoretically mean some thing from a good-serialized-storytelling standpoint.

It’s not just that Megan so believably portrayed Taylor as simply friend-zoning Buck up until the finale instead of a careful woman guarding her heart.

It’s not just that Eddie’s protectiveness over Buck around Taylor has resoundingly come off as jealousy throughout multiple seasons within the fandom.

It’s not just the direct and heavy-handed parallels to Bobby and Athena’s relationship throughout the episode, all that implies, or the fact that Bathena actually paralleled Buddie more than the other way around (grocery-story argument, meet outside-of-A.A.-meeting argument, you’re welcome and kudos to @itisa-profoundbond-sarandom for beating me at getting a post addressing this parallel published first with this GIFSet as this meta post has been steadily growing in my Drafts for a long while). We’re all waiting for an other bet scene, Tim, we’re all waiting for an other bet scene.

It’s not just that Eddie getting shot would have been a prime set up to examine the position of Ana as the terrified-and-relieved lover if they wanted us to take said relationship seriously and they, instead, framed Buck in that position.

It’s not just that Gabrielle, per social media posts, had alluded to her not returning next season (even Eddie and Ana’s break up might’ve been off-screen🙄 Gabrielle has now, unfortunately, been listed in Season Five so on-screen break-up it is), that Eddie only has ever kissed Ana on screen the exact same way that he kissed his tía and abuela, and that it’s the only (1) actual kiss that we’ve seen Eddie and Ana exchange.

It’s not just that Carla could’ve gone with any wrong colour for Ana’s eyes to test Eddie with and, yet, she chose blue (did Carla know even back then exactly which eyes to juxtapose Ana’s to in order to elicit an admission of an whether-Pavlovian-by-self-imposed-compulsory-heterosexuality-or-otherwise attraction?). I used to think that I was clowning myself for trying to read in to that with this line of thinking. Now, with Carla also putting emphasis on ‘your’ in “your heart,” I’m not so sure.

It’s not just the “Yes, there’s a lot to be said for getting back on the horse, but there’s also some value in learning that you don’t like horses” coming right out of the horse’s mouth. Eddie’s reaction is surely worth the re-watch. I’m definitely ��� with you whom believe that Eddie’s been portrayed as merely a repressed gay more and more these days.

It’s not just that they had Ryan, playing Eddie, make that face as a response to Ana saying “I know that there hasn’t been any one else since he lost his mother” when viewers had already looked on as some one else has, in fact, consistently stepped in as an other parental figure to Christopher even while Shannon was still alive, and it’s not just ephemeral, because, again, Eddie had the legal paperwork drawn up that would dispute that erroneous notion that Ana posited in that moment by that time.

It’s not just that, to really put a point on that absolute dissidence, Eddie and Ana’s ‘meet-cute-turned-ugly-turned-cute-again’ episode ended with an adorable Buddiepher+Carla family moment that highlighted how Buck is better for both Christopher and Eddie by showing that he assisted in finding a way for Christopher to experience some thing that is typically reserved for only the able-bodied population in a safe, yet still thrilling, way while they shared heart!eyes for the nth time.

It’s not just all of the heart!eyes that, seemingly, have been glanced by either of them (both reciprocated and non-reciprocated/unseen by the other) so naturally since Eddie was first hired at the 118.

It’s not just that Buck canonically hated Eddie at first sight simply for being “a beautiful man” to then be only putty in the palm of one of Eddie’s precariously-skilled-with-a-grenade hands by the the end of Eddie’s first episode.

It’s not just that very first sight was scored with “Whatta’ Man” by Salt-N-Pepa Feat. En Vogue (I’m doubling down on my dare to Tim, or any fan fiction writer, to allow Buck to soberly sing “Don’t Let Go” directly to Eddie at karaoke when every one had previously thought that he was drunk) or that this first sight was framed from Buck’s POV.

It’s not just that so many of the show’s song selections point to Buck, Eddie, and Christopher being destined to become a family. From the one that I just cited, to “We Could Be Heroes” being strung over a montage in which Buck sees Christopher for the first time and we, the audience, observe as his facial expression journeys through ‘Aww! That’s so sweet!’ to ‘Oh, shit, I’m already in so deep!’ in literally under one second flat as he first sees Christopher in person and he watches Christopher hug his father (I’ll be the nth one to ask ‘Why did Buck have to drive Eddie to Christopher’s school?,’ especially seeing as Eddie would soon thereafter be hesitant about letting Shannon, Christopher’s mother, back in to his life to protect him, and considering the icy way in which Eddie was introduced to Buck), to “Come And Get Your Love” playing at Buck’s ‘Welcome Back’ party while Bobby, of BobbyKnows™ infamy, pushes Eddie to be the first one of the many there that night to give Buck a hug (and we all know what that hug looked like ����), to “This Is The Day” playing as we see Buck really stepping/running in to the role of arguably (truly not, though, because, again, Eddie literally will, at that climatic moment (+1), soon after have filed the necessary legally-binding paperwork to disprove that it’s arguable) Dad #2 to Christopher at the pier and that the scene that led in to this was Chim and Maddie wondering if they were the only other adults they knew whom weren’t parents only to then have it dawn on them that Buck is also not a parent at the same time being book-ended by the Season Finale with Abby saying that Buck had “stopped waiting for her a long time ago” as the show directly cuts to Buck proclaiming the role of ‘Concerned Parent’ when discussing Christopher going away to Summer camp when we know that Eddie had already changed his will to say that Buck would get custody of Christopher should any thing happen to him (little did Chim and Maddie know that events of that season would prove them hypothetically, or actually, wrong on both fronts and, again, it’s all about how you wisely do televised storytelling, people), to “Photograph” playing over Eddie bringing Christopher back to Buck’s whilst Buck feels like he’s failed them and that he can’t be trusted with their safety (that all three instinctively understand that each of their respective safeties is mutually dependent is for us to delve on in a separate revelatory meta post for an other day), to “Bloom” mellowing soothingly in the background of Carla’s invisible string story Eddie and Christoper and Buck responding to his therapist’s greeting with “Hey, uh, Dr. Copeland, I’m–I’m doing good, … uh, I’ve actually been–been thinking a lot about what you said in our last session, and … How I hide my true feelings from others. … I’m starting to think you might be right” (1. which the show has mysteriously not yet really address and 2. * for a note below), to “Where Do We Go?” setting the tone for Buck and Taylor’s “double date” with Albert and Veronica with the lyrics, “I wanna’ know there will be some one else for you,” being what is predominantly featured, to “Solsbury Hill” bringing together a montage which included Christopher interrupting, and getting in the middle of (I’m not the only one it bugs that she didn’t defer to Eddie before letting him join), a date night between Eddie and Ana at the end of an episode which had displayed Buck and Eddie casually bantering parenting styles, to, finally, “Skyscraper” (à la ‘the sky’s the limit’) being strung over the montage that closed out the show’s latest season finale, the episode in which Eddie, for him, at long last, all of the sudden to Buck and the audience, revealed the most important particular of his will to make Buck see that he’s not “expendable,” and the song sharing our audible attention with Captain Bobby Nash delivering the signature monologue, this one quoting the words of Carl Sagan, “Extinction is the rule - survival is the exception” and our sage Captain adding “When your life--when the world--feels like a never-ending emergency, some times, just making it through the day can be a struggle ... we collect scars, physical and psychological reminders of what we’ve been through, of who, and what, we’ve lost, but maybe those scars can do more than memorialize our past traumas, maybe they’re also a testament to the fact that we’re still here, we are exceptional, we are survivors ... and we move forward”. I don’t know about any one else, but, to me, seeing it typed out like this is really striking as some thing that wants to be taken a as a declarative statement, like the writers are trying to convey that they are aware that there’s a conventional nature to TV storytelling--to living, but the only way to survive is evolution, and that they’re writing the type of show that will evolve out of certain conventional norms (more of them because they already have done that with so many).

It’s not just that Eddie spun out during the time that he couldn’t talk to Buck when had known him for only about a year or that the only reason why Buck sued the department was to get back to Eddie and the rest of the team.

It’s not just that Eddie’s thing with Buck has always been eye contact and confident words of affirmation, but had to keep looking away during the will conversation, or the telling trebidatious breath before “but you’re wrong”. The breathiness from either of them in that scene could drive any one insane (*remember how breathily Buck talked about hiding his true feelings👀 ... or how about when he breathily asked Eddie about his date with Ana when he’d been watching Christopher?👀).

While I’m on the topic of on-screen sexual chemistry, it’s not just that these two could take a full-year course on personal space, and still fail (except during shootings and the highest of momentous discussions), or that we all know about the belt theory cited in Simply Irresistible, and Buck and Eddie can’t stop proving it (potentially) right when they’re around each other.

Staying on topic, ... fuck it, I’m just going to cut and paste some thing from an old meta below:

LOOK!!! LOOK AT IT! … That is definitely eyes on ass!, there is NO EXPLANATION for the expression that rolls down Chimney’s face other than that of a friend seeing some one doing some thing that they know would embarrass the person, but they, themselves, think that it’s cute, and don’t want them catching on that they saw the thing, and, in the middle, is a man who is certain that his ass is being checked out, and IS HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!!! THIS IS THE ENTIRE MERE 24 FRAMES* (1 SECOND!) FROM THIS CAMERA ANGLE (when they could have just stayed on Bobby’s/Peter’s full-body grin!)!!! WHY DID IT MAKE IT TO AIR IF NOT TO SERVE A NECESSARY PURPOSE?!!!!!!!!!!

It’s not just that what flipped the script from them being faux-gut-feeling enemies to trusted friends was saving one Charlie from an explosive device in one of his legs (again, Eddie did not have to make Buck think about their dicks together in that scene, but he did), that rescuing an other Charlie’s mother from her comeuppance of being an abusive parent via Münchhausen syndrome by proxy avalanched in to the revelation that Eddie has wanted Buck to see himself as a potential parent to Christopher for the passed year, nor is it that the Charlie in between who needed to be rescued due to steroid use (read: unnatural growth by force) needed rescuing in the same episode in which Taylor was first introduced as a love interest for Buck (👀 x 3 and, again, Eddie has acted jealous and protective/possessive over Buck every single time that she’s around).

It’s not just that Eddie had always been written as waving the mere concept of Abby off until he actually met the woman and then he gave her the Taylor-Kelly-but-serious treatment in reaction to how he handle Buck and the situation after he saw how she effected Buck.

It’s not just that Buck’s favourite guys with the last name Diaz, potentially his future family if all of this means any thing, were used as an anchor for him in an episode in which he faces his romantic past.

It’s not just that Peter portrayed Bobby as confounded, yet oddly expectant, by how Buck and Eddie were acting after seeing Abby, mixed with how contentiously their handling the rescue of her fiancé and random innocent bystander, Georgia, could have been received as very biting and darkly intense, but, for many of us, it was just downright hilarious. I felt like Bobby wanted to scream “We’re still here (in regards to the status of Buck and Eddie’s relationship)?!” and “Of course we’re still here!” at the same time. Little did he know that Eddie had already done the thing that would eventually make Buck stop acting the way that was exasperating Bobby at the time.

It’s not just that ��Buck invites Eddie” was listed off in a listing of couples/family members (really strictly couples save for one listing).

It’s not just that, again, copying and pasting from an earlier meta post of mine for reiteration sake, Buck never actually hit on Marjan, he was just genuinely awkwardly in awe of her being “Firefox” (that is how both Oliver and Natacha played their interactions), but a canonically gay male character, T.K., did think that Buck was hitting on him because they shared a similar (though less kinetic) dynamic to the one that Buck has with Eddie.

It’s not just that, again, continuing from above, … or the fact that, despite them trying to make it look like Eddie was hitting on her (whilst smiling as he talked about Buck), at the end of the day, he just wanted a new friend, and a follow back for his man, or that we’re getting an other crossover, and that there is no way that the 126 is going an other round with out commenting on their relationship, especially when we got this much during the last one.

It’s not just that truly in-sync couples tend to meld their idiosyncrasies, and Eddie has recently accumulated a collection of random marginally-known factoids, just like Buck.

It’s not just that I could rehash any of this and it all would probably ring even more true now than it did then. Any of my meta would.

It’s not just that, while I do wish that what I’m about to say is taken in genuine kindness given the words I’m about to use, @jackles-coded’s galaxy-brained meta posts are so minute-detail-oriented that they could come across as sheer madness if they weren’t 100% true.

It’s not just that, like @jackles-coded and others have pointed out, Christopher’s wardrobe and decor has been consistently prehistorically themed when ever Ana is near whilst being space/futuristically themed when Buck is around, or that the full Sagan quote is “Because it is clear from the fossil record that almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule - survival is the exception”. Who thinks that Kristen already knew that before writing that episode?☝️🏻

It’s not just that we have confirmation that this show cares so much about the details that they brought back Captain Gerrard for a mini ‘Josh Begins’ story arc and have done similar things with other rarely reoccurring characters (they even took the time to canonically explain the double hiring of Julian Works by having Mervin be Mateo’s cousin).

It’s not just that Taylor was back in an episode called “Breaking Point” or that Ana was brought back in an episode entitled “Jinx”.

It’s not just that there was no question as to who was on the phone calling Eddie after Christopher had snuck off or why they were calling

It’s not just that Buck has been alluded to as queer multiple times just by his sister alone, let alone multiple other characters who have also participated in this, and it’s never been corrected/denied (and, again, allow me to remind you that he outright flirted with Connor right in front of Connor’s boyfriend, Paul, while Connor had a tape worm coming out of his ass, and this was in Season One, before Maddie was around to tease him and before Eddie joined the team to make doe eyes at and help raise a kid with).

It’s not just that it was a gay man who taught Buck what love is in the episode in which he was searching for its meaning or that, following the man’s imminent death (which was shortly after his husband’s, going together, like they always wanted), we witnessed one of Eddie’s first comforting gestures towards Buck when we had been used to seeing Bobby in that role.👀👀👀

It’s not just that hearing the story of this queer couple is how Buck started to see that he no longer wanted casual sex (what Taylor had begun offering him in that episode👀👀).

It’s not just that, when Bobby tried to teach Buck about love in Season One, he had to tell him to step in to the “trap” with Abby and Patricia to have a real relationship with Abby, so he was primed to naturally do so when Eddie and Christopher came to L.A. (and he did just that👀), or that Carla Price played/plays the same role in both dynamics (proving my point).

It’s not just that I don’t even need to really bring up the tsunami, the grocery store, the kitchen, the well, the treasure hunt, or every thing about those scenes in particular detail, because they’re so self-explanatory as to where we’re likely headed.

... It is all of it!

( @kitkatpancakestack​ asked to be tagged in this a long time ago )

[spaceprincessem]

hello buddie fandom i have arrived with a fic 🥺

and i’m not good at winning fights anymore | ao3 link  {a 5+1 fic 24k}

There’s mud on his hands. There’s mud on his hands and he has to dig deeper, quicker, because Eddie is forty feet beneath him and surely he can’t breathe because the well is gone and Eddie is gone and Buck can’t follow him.

“Eddie,” his throat feels raw, the words wrong to his ears, “Eddie.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, holding onto him, “I'm right here, Buck, I’m right here.”

“I can’t—” Buck breaks off, his trembling, dirty hand in the air and Eddie must understand because he takes Buck's hand without question and pulls it to his chest, right over his heart.

{or five times Buck needs to feel Eddie's heartbeat and the one time Eddie needs to feel his}

-

1.

“I call cheating,” Buck says in mock exasperation as he turns on the couch, scowling at Christopher, which quickly falls away into a grin.

Christopher laughs, pushing his glasses up his nose before he regrips the controller, accepting the star he just got from a hidden dice block with glee. He laughs again, mimicking the air punch Yoshi does on the screen in front of them. “It’s okay, Buck,” Christopher says with a small shrug of his shoulders, “if I win we get to go out for ice cream.”

Buck raises an eyebrow, “When did we make that agreement?”

“Right now,” Christopher replies cheekily, giving Buck the infamous Buckley puppy dog eyes.

(Which, really, is his fault for teaching the kid how to turn it on at any moment's notice.)

“You realize that I have to convince both your dad and Ana, right?” Buck asks, caving after only twenty seconds.

Christopher pats his shoulder, “Good luck,” he says before he starts the next mini game.

Buck huffs a laugh, half concentrating on guiding Princess Peach through whatever maze challenge the game gave them. He can hear the quiet clink of plates being set on the table, the light, harmonic sound of Ana’s laughter trickling from the kitchen. Buck can picture it. Eddie saying something funny, a dry comment, his nose scrunching as he watches Ana throw her head back, dark curls spilling over her shoulder. Buck pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, forcing the image away. He easily volunteered to help Christopher finish his homework with the promise of video games afterwards if it meant he didn’t have to be in the middle of the Eddie and Ana Show.

Not that he’s bitter.

But, really, he kind of is. He needs to get over it. Ana is Eddie’s girlfriend. It doesn’t matter that Buck is the one who moved in without hesitation, taking care of Eddie and Christopher while his best friend recovers from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. It doesn’t matter that Buck is the one who’s cleaned and cooked the past few months, made sure Christopher gets to school on time (with, blessfully, Carla’s help), and takes Eddie to his physical therapy appointments. It doesn’t matter that he’s given up his perfectly comfortable bed to crash on the not so sleepable Diaz family couch. Eddie and Christopher aren’t his. Not in the way he wants, anyway. He has them, sort of. Kind of. By extension.

The backup plan, he reminds himself numbly.

But Ana has them too, and that is perfectly fine except it’s really not. Buck knows Eddie is almost fully functional and that he’ll be starting back at work soon. He knows he can probably return to his loft, but Eddie hasn’t asked him to leave yet so Buck stays. He’s starting to take the hint from Ana, though. She’s over more often, bringing dinner or taking up the spaces he’s still inhabiting. She doesn’t have to say anything, Buck can read it in her eyes, the slight tick in her jaw. You can go home now, I’ve got it from here. He still thinks she’s upset Christopher requested his pancakes one morning as she was just about to prepare french toast. Buck knows when to wave the white flag, giving her full reign over dinner, if only to let him stay just a little bit longer.

The thing is, he isn’t quite ready to let Eddie out of his sight yet. He’s still waking up in a cold sweat, Eddie’s unfocused and fluttering eyes reflecting the dark, stain of blood pooling beneath his head. It’s been months, months, and every time Buck closes his eyes it’s all he sees. Eddie falling to the ground. Eddie unmoving. Eddie in the line of fire. Eddie disappearing into the emergency room. Eddie dead. Eddie dead. Eddie dead. It’s like Buck somehow bought a ticket to a show that only has one reel, spinning on an endless cycle. The need to see Eddie, the feral pull in his chest — like a hot coil wrapping around his heart — is too strong and he gives in far too easily every time. He sneaks down the hall, pressing into the small crack of Eddie's bedroom door just to make sure the man is breathing.

You have PTSD, Evan, Dr. Copeland explained kindly, you watched your best friend get shot. It’s okay to feel the need to check on Eddie, but you can’t do it forever.

Buck is working on it. He is. Some days are just harder than others. Most days are harder than others, but if Buck is good at one thing, it’s grinning and bearing it. So, he stays, just a little bit longer.

He stays until Eddie doesn’t want him anymore.

read the rest on ao3

[extasiswings]

More finale-spec because I was inspired by the bts pics from the Staples Center...

Eddie doesn’t hear the gunshot.

He’s on the roof with the probie, the two of them trying to locate the person who called 911—the back of his neck prickles with suspicion the moment they step out into the open and he sees no one, but it’s not until he reaches for the radio on his shoulder strap—

The probie goes down first. And Eddie knows logically that he should run for cover, but logic is overrun by instinct, instinct that has him dropping to his knees next to the kid and fumbling to hold pressure with one hand against the stain spreading out from the entry wound. He yanks at the radio with his free hand and barks into it—

“This is Diaz—shots fired on the roof, assailant unknown. Davis is hit—”

Another shot whizzes past Eddie’s ear and lodges in the concrete behind him. Something bitter bursts on his tongue as his heart kicks into high gear.

The radio crackles. “Diaz, are you clear?”

“No,” Eddie replies. His hand is slick with red. “This is an active—shots are still being fired, I think—maybe northwest of our position.”

He swears when the next shot grazes his arm.

The probie grabs his wrist with his own slick hands. “Eddie—run.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Eddie promises, even as his stomach twists. “No one is dying today, okay? Not you and not me.”

There’s a raised wall a few feet behind them that should give them some cover if he can get them there—

“Do you think you can move?”

The probie winces but nods. “With help.”

Eddie scans the horizon, the air eerily quiet. Did the shots stop because the sniper is running or because he’s waiting for Eddie to give him a bigger target?

There’s nothing he can do but take the chance.

He gets an arm around the probie’s shoulders and helps them both stagger to their feet—

He catches the glint of the scope the instant before pain rips through his torso, stealing his breath.

Fuck.

Eddie’s free hand comes up to his abdomen—he wants to fall to his knees but he forces himself to keep moving, the two of them stumbling over to the wall. He collapses the minute they’re clear.

“Diaz—Eddie—shit,” the probie chokes out.

“I’m okay,” Eddie says as he presses hard at his own wound. It’s a lie—he can feel pain leeching away, being replaced with the icy numbness of shock—but he doesn’t need to distract someone who is already injured himself. “It’s not—not the first time.”

At least if he’s going to die this time, he won’t be half a world away.

The radio crackles again.

“Eddie? SWAT is on the ground prepared to take the next building over. There’s a rescue helicopter already in the air—it might be faster to pick Davis up that way.”

Eddie coughs as he hits the button to talk. “Thanks, Cap. Gonna need room for both of us though.”

Silence. Then— “We’re going to get you home, Eddie. Okay?”

He’s so cold.

“That sounds nice,” he murmurs as his eyes slip closed.

Eddie slides in and out of consciousness after that—he’s vaguely aware of the sound of helicopter blades, vaguely aware of shouting, of a hand squeezing his—

“Open your eyes for me, Eddie,” he hears, and he could swear it’s Buck. “Come on, please—open your eyes.”

His eyelids are so heavy but Eddie forces them open a crack. Buck’s in a harness and a SWAT vest, dangling from the rescue helicopter, his face pinched and pale in concern.

“Christopher,” Eddie manages.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Buck promises. “You’re going to be fine. And I’m not going to let him be alone.”

“I know—know you wouldn’t,” Eddie replies as his eyes try to slip closed again. “You’re so—good.”

With him is technically the end of the sentence, but Eddie’s tongue is clumsy and thick in his mouth. He’s freezing and exhausted and he doesn’t think he needs to say it anyway. What he did manage is equally as true.

You’re so good.

“Eddie? Eddie! Stay awake. Please just stay awake.”

Eddie hears Buck, but his mind is fixated on the moment before. There’s a sudden shock of clarity—back at the well, when he thought about Christopher, Buck was there in almost every memory that came to mind. Now—it’s the same. He thinks about living, about fighting for something, and it’s them, that unit. His family.

It’s not Ana.

And it never could have been. Because Buck is already there, in that space in Eddie’s life, that space in his—

—his heart.

Oh.

Eddie feels the stretcher move, but Buck’s hand doesn’t leave his. He can’t seem to convince his eyes to open again, but he tries to squeeze his fingers at least.

Buck squeezes back.

I love you, I love you, I love you—

It’s the last thought Eddie remembers before everything goes black.

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Thoughts on The Buddie Talk from 502

Other folks have looked at this conversation, but I wanted to get on my bullshit about it too. LOL.

So imho this whole conversation is about love and heart, specifically Eddie’s but with Buck’s heart added in. Line by line analysis and commentary. Let the BS begin. Here we go…

Buck: Hey are you sleeping, or just pretending?

Day and night/light and dark are strong themes throughout the episode. @benka79 did a meta on this theme. I think that by extension, awake vs asleep is meaningful in this scene. In matters of the heart, Eddie is trying to sleep or turn a blind eye, doing what he thinks is best for Chris rather than himself. This is exactly what Carla warned him against. But he knows. He knows that Carla is right but he’s ignoring her and trying to ignore Buck. He’s only pretending to be in the dark about his heart and his desires, at least to a degree.

Eddie: I was actually trying to until you interrupted.

Enter Buck, shaking shit up. Interrupting Eddie’s well-intentioned lie. Eddie knows there’s more than meets the eye and Buck is forcing him to open his eyes, wake up and see what’s really going on and reckon with himself and his true desires.

Buck: I’m exhausted. Uh, how are you feeling?

This line has been rattling around in my brain for what feels like a thousand years. Buck is NOT asleep, he’s not able to turn a blind eye. And being the only one willing to look directly at matters of the heart is wearing him out. Dude’s exhausted! He SEES that something is up with Eddie’s heart and he wants Eddie to tell him all about it.

Eddie: Hot. I’m sweating out of places I didn’t know I could.

During the blackout, AC isn’t working so everyone is sweating. Buck even has a thin layer of sweat in the scene. Sweating from the heat is normal and completely reasonable, but is that what’s being invoked here? We know that sweating is also a symptom of health issues (panic and heart problems not the least among them, and definitely symbolically relevant here). Eddie looks like he’s sweating for normal reasons but in the next line Buck questions that.

Buck: No uh like a cold sweat though, right? Uh, any chest pains?

Again, Buck is wide awake. He KNOWS something is wrong with Eddie’s heart/feelings and that Eddie is hiding it from him. He jumps to cold sweats, the kind that are most connected to health problems and are not about the actual temperature in the room. Then follows up with asking about chest pains. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Buck is paralleled with the cardiologist. She’s about Eddie’s literal heart but Eddie’s figurative heart is in Buck’s hands and Buck’s hands only. And my dude is assertively assessing the situation.

Eddie: You don’t give up, do you? I’m fine, Buck.

Good ol’ Eddie, perfecting his avoidance and denial game. But he knows Buck. He does NOT ever give up and he especially doesn’t give up on the people he loves. Eddie recognized this and thanked Buck for it in 303. Buck didn’t give up on Christopher during the tsunami, or on Eddie in Eddie Begins or in Survivors. But that was about Chris and Eddie’s life. This scene in 502 is new in a way. Buck is refusing to give up on Eddie’s heart, his feelings. Now Buck is fighting for Eddie’s quality of life, for his happiness.

Buck: People who are fine don’t go and see cardiologists. You need to tell me if something is wrong.

Buck was so worried about Eddie in 501. Of course Eddie denied that anything was wrong but Buck isn’t stupid. In 501 he asked about the situation clearly and openly because he cares about Eddie and wants to help in any way he can, and Eddie pushed him away. So here in 502 he implicitly invokes the Will. He’s like fine if you won’t tell me as your friend who gives a shit about you, then tell me for Chris’s sake because thanks to the will, I actually fucking need to know if you’re going to drop dead.

Eddie: Alright, it was a panic attack, not a heart attack. A panic attack.

Eddie’s frustrated confession was solid gold. It laid my edges and raised my credit score. He knows that Buck’s persistence is harmless and comes from a genuine place of respect and care. Still, that doesn’t make it any less annoying for a man who’s trying to sleep, pretending his own heart isn’t breaking under the weight of his sense of duty to his son.

Buck: Since when do you panic?

My God, he knows him so well.

Eddie: That’s what I said. I don’t panic. Except I did.

Eddie accepting that this was absolutely a panic attack was huge. Before he had been pushing against the reality of it, but here in Buck’s loving care he could be honest with himself and with Buck that it was indeed panic.

Buck: Ok, well, what triggered it? I mean you did just get shot and almost killed by a sniper. I guess that could be considered an anxiety inducing-

Buck’s in full “cardiologist” mode. He’s paying forward all those years of therapy! What he’s doing here isn’t a replacement for my dude getting some real therapy but here’s Buck with his clipboard efficiently helping Eddie figure his emotional shit out. It’s perfection. It’s also good that he acknowledged the shooting. I think it’s super important that when Buck mentions it, he looks down and away from Eddie.

Buck, my dude, you are not over being covered in the blood of the love of your life. You can still feel his weight in your hands, muscle memory from lifting him above the spray of gasoline and bullets. Eddie may still be asleep on that front but, Buck, you are wide awake and exhausted by the heavy love you’re carrying.

Eddie: That wasn’t it. Ok, if I’m being honest with myself, I think it was Ana.

Oh this is fun. So you are capable of being real, you just choose not to be. Good to know.

Buck: Uh, I thought things were great with her.

Stop. Lying. You saw Eddie get squirrely when talking about the Christening. You saw Eddie get awkward af when A*a and Christopher came to the firehouse. You’ve seen these issues with your own eyeballs. Great? Really? Yeah, this just makes me think muh boy is oblivious and/or he really was expecting Eddie to come clean about issues related to the shooting, not his love life. This reiterates my point that Buck himself is not nearly done with processing the shooting.

Eddie: She’s been a godsend through all this - staying with Christopher - but I think that’s what’s causing the panic. Somehow it become a ready-made family and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

This portion of the conversation has been analyzed to bits by many brilliant others. I don’t have anything to add. I’m like, look dude, you already have a family with Buck and Christopher. A*a’s effin’ up your happy healthy family flow. It’s ok, just turn her loose.

Buck: So what are you gonna do?

Buck’s wisdom grows every frickin’ day. He knows this isn’t sustainable for Eddie. He knows that the heart matters. He knows that feelings are real and help us navigate toward a happy life. Action is needed and he’s nudging Eddie in that direction.

Eddie: I think I’m just gonna stick it out. Ana’s been the first woman I’ve wanted to spend this much time with since Shannon.

Oh dear, Eddie’s overblown sense of duty to everyone but himself strikes again. He can…tolerate… A*a. How romantic!

Buck: Stick it out? That’s not the way you talk about someone you’re in love with.

Um, no. Buck calls shenanigans. He’s not A*a’s bestie but he doesn’t feel any desire whatsoever to have her condemned to a loveless relationship.

Eddie: My kid loves her!

Always putting Christopher first but not realizing that if he isn’t truly happy, Christopher will know because he’s perceptive af. Plus the two haven’t discussed A*a on screen so I’m not convinced Chris loves her as much as Eddie wants to believe.

Buck: Is that enough? Eddie I have been Ana. I know what it’s like to be in love with someone who is not all the way in. Deep down you know it and it hurts. It hurts worse than the truth, so if you don’t want to hurt Ana, you owe it to her to be honest.

Buck is doing A LOT of work here to help Eddie see that his plan of inaction is not good. He centers Eddie asking him if staying for Chris is enough. When that doesn’t work, he realizes that Eddie doesn’t care about his own heart enough to leave so he changes strategies and puts himself in A*a’s place to invoke some empathy for A*a from Eddie. It’s super…interesting that Eddie doesn’t care enough for A*a to come to this conclusion on his own!!

Eddie: You know it just feels like a lot man.

Why, my dude?? Explain. Could it be that A*a is serving a purpose beyond Chris? Could it be that staying with her helps you avoid, allows you to pretend and be oblivious to deeper truths within your battered but still beating heart? Does she obscure the Buck shaped hole in your ticker?

Buck: Well, go to sleep. You don’t need to decide right now. It’s not like we’re going home anytime soon.

Buck is disappointed, exhausted, and frustrated and it has my dude slinging shade like morning hash. He’s like fine turn a blind eye, ignore your heart it’s cool *all the sarcasm* Then we get the reference to home and the fact that the two of them are far from it at this point and we all know how important home is as a Buddie theme. I wrote a little about it here.

Bonus: Eddie closed his eyes after Buck walked away, the he OPENED them again. He fully saw what Buck was saying. He can’t avoid the truth of his heart for much longer.

Y’all this has GOT to be the season that one or both of these idiots realize their feelings. Excuse me while I end.

[potterbite]

falling slowly

five times people found out about eddie changing his will, seeing right through him, and the one time they both admitted what it meant. on ao3

Sometimes, Eddie’s confused when he’s called rude— or on one memorable occasion; a motherfucking shitface —because most of the time he only wants to make other people happy. Sure, that’s not always healthy either, but rude? No. So whenever it happens, it puzzles him a great deal, never quite understanding exactly what was done or said wrong.

On this occasion though, he has no problems seeing how he’s at fault. 

“Are you being an ass on purpose or is it for my benefit alone?” Ana spits, and he can’t really blame her for looking as if she wants to punch him in the face. 

The thing is, he’s been meaning to end things with her for ages— since before the shooting six weeks ago —but he can never find the right moment. Or, rather, timing is right but the words get stuck in his throat, fire burning through all of them until nothing but ashes and a fresh smile remains.  

The irritation he feels for himself bleeds through onto her, staining their conversations, all of them becoming stiff, sometimes as if two strangers talked. And he wants to get out of there, and he wants to stay with her forever just to bask in the easiness of it all, and he wants to kiss her to not have to say anything at all, and he wants her to end it so he doesn’t have to.

So when she took a stray potato from his plate and said, chewing, that maybe she should spend more time with Christopher in case Eddie ever had to work late, because that way she could help, and wouldn’t it be useful if the boy knew her better— well Eddie just lost his head completely. 

“Why? Carla or Buck can do that.” He heard the tone of his own voice, the acid not quite coming through, and he had wished it did. The coward in him had made him frown down at the empty plate to avoid meeting her eyes, instead looking at the remaining sauce for the two pieces of potato he’d saved for just that. Ana had taken them without asking. It wasn’t a big deal, and he didn’t mind sharing his food, and he was full anyway— but damn it, he had wanted those last potatoes for himself.

She laughed at his words, soft and easily. “Is Buck honestly the best option? He seems reckless.”

And at this, something had flashed before Eddie’s eyes, red and dangerous, and the words tasted like bile even before they left his lips. “Buck is Christopher’s legal guardian if something ever happens to me.”

This sentence acted as some kind of catalyst for their first— and only —fight, vicious words thrown back and forth in a battle neither seemed to win, but both wanted to end. 

So no, Eddie couldn’t blame Ana for calling him an ass. It’s also the very thing that casts him back into the correct plane of reality, a place where he prides himself in being a decent human being, someone his son can look up to. 

He forces himself to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Her mouth opens and closes a few times. “W-what?”

“I said I’m sorry. For what I said and for not telling you.”

“I’m sorry too.” Her shoulders sag, and just like that this is the end between them and he knows he’s a coward for letting it be. “And for what it’s worth, you really should tell him.”

Abruptly, as if they’ve mutually agreed upon it, they go to the hallway where he reaches for the jacket he hung there an hour earlier. “I never wanted it to end this way.” This is the truth. 

“Me neither.” He can’t tell if she means it or not. 

“And I have told him,” he continues as he opens the front door, feeling the breeze from the warm night on his face. He’s about to let go of the handle when Ana’s hand closes over his.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She closes the door before he has the time to think of something to say— but honestly there’s nothing more to add. 

***

Eddie doesn’t tell anyone about the break-up. Not immediately anyway. It’s not that he regrets it, or feels sad about it; he’s not even all that remorseful about the way it went down. 

But almost a week later, it comes up when he and Chimney are alone in the kitchen, the others dozing by the tv. 

“Hey, Maddie is feeling better so I thought that maybe you and Ana want to come over this weekend? You can bring Chris.“

“Ah.” He scratches himself by the ear to buy some time, which is probably what tips Chim off. 

“Wait, are you not - ?”

Eddie flicks his eyes around the loft, but no one is close enough to overhear them anyway. “Nah, we broke up last week.”

“I’m sorry man.” Chim puts a gentle hand on his left shoulder and gives him a smile. “Are you okay?”

Eddie nods, because he is. “Yeah. It hasn’t been all that good since before the shooting to tell you the truth, and then we had a major fight after I told her that Buck will be the legal guardian of Chris if anything should happen to me.”

Almost a full minute goes by where Chim just stares open-mouthed at him, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do or say so he stays still, afraid of the gleeful surprise on Chim’s face. 

Finally, Chim blinks a couple of times. “Can I be there when you tell Hen?”

“Why?” Eddie frowns deep, not at all what he expected Chim to say. 

“Trust me. She can say what I can’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

At this, Chim gets a sympathetic smile on his face. “Oh, I know you don’t.”

And he goes to join the others. 

***

To his credit, Chim doesn’t appear to tell Hen what he and Eddie discussed. Unfortunately for Eddie, this means that he doesn’t get a chance to understand what Chim meant. Well, technically, he could just tell Hen and find out for himself, but he did keep this quiet for more than a year— and it was never an active choice, he just didn’t feel as if someone else needed to know, not even Buck at first (which, looking back, might’ve been an oversight on his part)— so speaking up about it now, without being prompted, seems strange, the words falling flat on his tongue. 

However, not even three days after telling Chimney, the moment presents itself in the form of Buck. 

Eddie, Hen and Chim are eating, their shift about to start, when Buck practically throws his entire body towards an available chair, slamming his ankle into one of the table legs, followed by some loud cursing.

As Eddie practically hears the collective eye roll from Chim and Hen, he chuckles. “You know, some of those words are illegal.”

“Ha ha,” Buck groans in response. “Don’t worry, when I have to raise Chris by myself, I’ll make sure he knows them all. I take my guardianship very seriously.” 

There’s a thump, and Eddie looks at Hen; the fork is dangling in the breeze of her open mouth, the food that was obviously just on it lying in the middle of her almost empty plate. 

 “Say what now?” One of her eyebrows is dangerously high up on her forehead. 

Buck looks comically from her, to Eddie, to Chim, and back again. “Um, yeah,” is all he replies. 

Sadly, this means Hen turns to Eddie instead, and he really wishes it weren’t so but he can feel himself shrink under her gaze. “Are you telling me you made Buck the legal guardian of your kid if something happened to you?” 

“No, Buck told you that,” he jokes, but not a muscle in her face reacts. “Yes, that’s what’ll happen if I die.”

She looks thoughtful— scarily so —as her eyes flits between him and Buck; Eddie can almost feel Chim vibrating in the chair next to his own. 

“I should’ve caught on sooner,” she says eventually.

“What?” Eddie’s dry mouth asks even though he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Buck, apparently, is more interested in eating than this conversation and starts picking stuff from Eddie’s plate. Somehow, Eddie doesn’t care. 

Hen smirks, and points a finger between him and Buck, and Eddie can feel his eyes bulging, feel the strange beating of his heart in his own ears, the sweat starting on his palms, and Hen’s smirk turns into an actual smile. 

She doesn’t elaborate, and when Buck looks up from the platter less than a minute later he seems oblivious to the exchange that has happened. 

As the bell goes off and they head toward the truck, Eddie dries his hands on his thighs and drowns out what’s going on inside his head; he’s too scared of all those things he already knows to be true, almost spoken out loud in words he does not yet have. 

***

By the time they get back to the station, Eddie has already figured out he needs to tell Bobby about this; it’s only a matter of time until someone slips up and Eddie really wants to be the one to tell his captain this. Not that he thinks it’s a big deal, but he’d feel weird about it if Bobby heard it from the probie. 

He knocks twice on the doorframe to Bobby’s office. Both of them have taken a shower and had something to eat, enjoying the blissful quiet between calls. 

Bobby looks up at Eddie over the brim of paper he’s holding. “Eddie! What can I do for you?”

Eddie, not knowing what to do with his hands, puts them in the pocket of his pants and takes a few steps into the room, making sure the door is closed. “I - uh, I wanted to talk to you about my will,” he starts.

Bobby nods, opening a cabinet next to the desk to look through some folders. “Have you changed it again since last year?”

Eddie just gapes. “What?”

“I have the copy in here somewhere,” Bobby mutters to himself. “Aha! There it is.” He presents the paper to Eddie, who accepts it. Sure enough, there’s a copy of the will he wrote after the last accident. 

“I didn’t know you had this.”

“Your attorney sent it to me. He figured since you gave me the old one, you’d want me to have the new one as well.”

Eddie nods.

“What did you want to tell me about the will?” Bobby looks so concerned that Eddie can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes him.

“Nothing. I wanted you to know about Buck, that's all.”

“Ah.” Those soul gazing eyes locks onto Eddie and he squirms. “I already know.”

Lost for anything to say to this, Eddie sinks down to the closest chair and they sit together in silence until he no longer feels as if those carefully constructed walls he built to contain all he has inside for Buck is crumbling down around him. Soon he’ll be standing in the ruins of a former fortress and the only one left to tell is Buck. Eddie’s just not sure he has the courage. 

***

Chris was the first one Eddie told, before he even signed the papers or anything. It just didn’t sit right with him to take this decision away from the boy. For weeks and weeks Eddie thought about the best way to bring it up, trying to come up with replies for all plausible scenarios. 

It was a Wednesday when he finally took the plunge.

“Hey buddy, can I ask you something?”

Chris had nodded happily. “What Dad?” 

“If I didn’t come home one day, if something bad happened to me, how do you feel about Buck taking care of you?”

Chris didn’t even think about it. Instead, he frowned deeply. “If you’re not here, why wouldn’t I live with Buck? He always takes care of us.”

Eddie had almost laughed with relief, not having foreseen this easiness at all. He ruffled Chris' hair and said, “No, you’re right. I agree.”

They didn’t talk about it again. 

***

It’s been almost three weeks since his break-up with Ana, and he still hasn’t told Buck. By now, he’s probably the only one that hasn’t figured it out, but Eddie doesn’t mind. In fact, he steers clear of relationship talk when they hang out; he doesn’t want to hear about how fantastic Taylor is, or what new adventures they’ve been up to. 

Strangely, it’s Bobby of all people that tells Buck. Or maybe Bobby tells Eddie, he’s not really sure. 

They find Bobby cooking when they start a long shift, all of them gliding towards the whiff of glorious food. 

“What’s the occasion?” Buck asks as he steals a green bean. 

“Nothing really. Just a happy meal with family.” Bobby stirs the giant pot and adds some spices. “With all the break-ups happening around here, I’m almost worried it’s contagious so I figured we needed an easy dinner together.” 

Eddie stiffens, but curiously enough so does Buck, shoulders rigid and face neutral. Instead, it’s Chim that speaks next. “What do you mean? Who else has broken up?”

“Well, Pannikar and his boyfriend, Eddie and Ana, and now Buck and Taylor,” Bobby says, gesturing towards each of them in turn. Everyone nods, as if nothing he said is brand new information. 

“You and Ana broke up?” The words are almost as quiet as a whisper, meant for Eddie alone while the rest set the table. 

Eddie nods. “You broke up with Taylor?”

“Yeah. Or we both did, I’m not sure.” He gets a deep frown between his eyebrows and the tips of Eddie’s fingers itch to smooth it out. He doesn’t. “We’re still friends though.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck tilts his head a little bit to the right, gazing at Eddie as if he’s a riddle to solve. 

Eddie shrugs. Of course, he knows very well why he didn’t say something to Buck but he can’t tell his best friend that— or can he?

Acting on pure impulse, he takes hold of Buck’s hand and drags him away from the kitchen, down the stairs and into their bunk room. He closes the door behind them, leaning on it, and turns to look at the other man; Buck is standing just out of arm's reach. In Eddie’s stomach someone is dancing the conga in circles, begging him to get the hell out of there before he says too much and ruins it all. He ignores this, swallowing hard. 

“Here’s the thing. I’ve been waiting for the right words to come to me, to figure out how to tell you what is apparently very obvious to everyone else. I mean, if I just mention how I changed my will, they all get this look in their eyes, and I know they know. And I don’t understand how you still don’t when I feel as if it’s written on my face.”

Buck is silent, and Eddie can’t even be sure his ramble made any sense whatsoever. He rests the back of his head against the door, waiting for Buck to say something, anything. The urge to get out of there is overwhelming, but the sound of Buck’s breathing is as well— harsh and quick breaths, shallow and full of emotions Eddie can’t place.

“I broke up with Taylor because I think I’m more into you than her,” Buck blurts suddenly, his eyes widening as if he never meant to say any of it. 

An urge to laugh bubbles up inside him, but he presses it down. “Buck.” The other man’s eyes snap to his. “I made you the sole guardian of my kid if I die.”

Eddie can’t tell who moves first— maybe they drift at the same time, two planets on a collision course — but somehow they meet in the middle, lips crashing together until it feels as if they’re fused together as one. He nibbles gently at Buck’s bottom lip, a gesture that makes Buck practically purr in response; Eddie can feel the vibration of it underneath his fingers, lying in a soft grip around Buck’s throat. 

In retaliation— reward? —Buck shuffles them back until Eddie hits the wall with a soft thump, and the quiet groan that escapes him is out of his control honestly. He can’t believe he ever thought that what he had with Ana was enough, not when this has been here the whole time, just waiting beneath the surface for someone to make the first move. 

When the alarm goes off, they don’t separate immediately; instead they sigh apart, Buck letting his forehead fall until it meets Eddie’s. 

“We really should talk about this,” Buck says, and he’s so close that his breath sends shivers across Eddie’s body. 

“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, opening his eyes to meet Buck’s. “But there will be plenty of time for that later.”

(When they get to the truck, Hen smirks at the pair of them when they get in. Eddie pointedly ignores her, but when his gaze lands on Buck he has to bite the inside of his cheek so as not to smile wide enough to crack his head in two.)

(They get around to talking. Later.)

[somebodycall911onabc]

More post 4x13, Maddie-centric, a little Madney, a little Buddie. I just want her to be happy. Warning for a lot of emotions in this one, folks.

Maddie is elbow deep in soapy water when her phone starts ringing. She tells Hildy to answer (being a parent has definitely taught her the wonders of technology, unlike Eddie) while she shuts off the tap and reaches for the dish towel.

“Hello?” She asks, seeing Chimney’s name scrawled across the screen. It’s been two hours since he last called—not concerning, but a deviation from the usual.

“Maddie. Are you OK? How’s Jee?”

A bad call, maybe. He could’ve lost someone.

“We’re good,” Maddie says, stealing herself. She hates to lie to him, but she’s being honest in the way he means. They’re not hurting in any way he can fix.

He breathes out a whistling breath over the phone. “Good. Good. Thank God.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. No, I mean. I’m fine. But… Jesus…” He mutters something too low for her to hear. “It’s Eddie. He’s in the hospital — alive — but, but he got… he was shot, clean through the shoulder. Some psycho opened fire on the LAPD.”

Maddie’s heart drops to her stomach, where it stays for another hour until Chimney walks through their door. She’s holding Jee-Yun, who’s wailing like her little lungs are about to give out, but she and Chimney find each other like magnetic poles. She steps into his arms and wishes that the whole world could just drop away. Just her, and Chimney, and their daughter. That would be enough.

“It’s all over the news,” Maddie says. Jee-Yun seems to have been stunned into silence by the unexpected arrival of her dad.

“Athena says they’ve got some of the best people in the department on it,” Chimney says. “They’re gonna catch him.”

“They’d better.”

“Yeah well, otherwise, they’re going to have Amateur Detective Buck on their hands again.”

Jee-Yun starts hiccuping, picking up where she left off, and Chimney steps back to lift her out of Maddie’s arms. She lets go without a fight. She’s so tired of fighting.

“Don’t even joke about that. I’m sure he’s losing his mind—he hasn’t answered any of my calls or messages.”

Chimney attempts a smile. Or maybe all along he’d been going for that twisted grimace. “Bobby’s corralling him, don’t worry. Your brother isn’t going to do anything stupid.”

“Like drag Athena into an active investigation to chase down the man who stabbed you and kidnapped me?”

“Yeah,” Chimney says. “Exactly like that.”

Maddie turns her head to look out the window. She knows what he’s going to say in answer to her question, and she can’t bring herself to look at him when he does. “So what are you all going to do? What happens when someone targets the entire Las Angeles Fire Department?”

“Our jobs,” he says, and Maddie closes her eyes. “We have to, Maddie. We called in C-shift today, but we go back tomorrow.”

“OK,” Maddie hears herself say. What else can she do? How can she tell him that she’s afraid they’ve avoided tragedy one too many times, that she can see them all running to the end of a line, nothing but a long fall below them?

She feels like someone froze half of her in ice, then told the other half to run for her life. She feels fathoms deep in very dark water, but someone is screaming in her ear to swim up, up, up.

When Chimney pulls on the bullet-proof vest, Maddie doesn’t say anything. The human throat wasn’t made for the drawn-out scream inside her head.

Maddie doesn’t visit Eddie while he’s at the hospital. Between Jee-Yun and her own shifts at work, there isn’t time. She feels a little bad about that, but despite their small social circle, she and Eddie haven’t gotten that close over the years. Buck takes up all the air and space when he’s around, a wildfire that she and Eddie chase around and keep from burning up the furniture. But Maddie feels like she should have been there while Eddie was confined to a hospital bed, watching his friends risk the same fate as him when they pulled on their uniforms—she feels a sort of kinship with him. With that helplessness.

So she shows up at his door a week later with Jee-Yun and dinner.

Buck lets her in, which has ceased to be surprising as a general rule, but seems a little suspicious in these circumstances. She hasn’t heard anyone mention Ana’s name since the shooting.

“Jee-Jee!” Buck shouts, whisking Jee-Yun from Maddie’s arms.

“Oh, hi, how are you,” she mutters, watching Buck as he kisses Jee-Yun’s nose and grins. He looks like he needs a long shower and an even longer nap. But Jee-Yun giggles at him as he makes faces and smacks his lips. It’s sweet. It only hurts a little, seeing how good Buck is with her, when sometimes Maddie still thinks of him as that little kid she stitched up every time the world knocked him down. It only hurts a little that for Maddie, getting Jee-Yun to smile is like pulling out her own teeth with rusty pliers (i.e., really goddamn difficult).

“Hey, Maddie,” Eddie says, reaching the door. He nudges Buck aside to make room for Maddie to come in. “It’s good to see you.”

Maddie looks at his cast, at the way Eddie hunches in on himself and the blue-black bruises beneath his eyes from exhaustion and blunt-force head trauma, and feels so goddamn guilty. She should have come sooner. She should have tried harder.

“Hey,” she replies, wiggling the takeout bag, “I come with nourishment.”

“By all means,” Eddie says, sweeping his hand out to the hallway. Maddie leads the way to the kitchen, Eddie slumping behind her, Buck cooing at Jee-Yun and somehow managing not to walk into a wall.

“I figured something light and healthy would be best,” Maddie says, dropping the bag on the counter.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much doctor’s orders,” Eddie agrees. He peeks inside the canvas tote and pulls out a container, opening it up to reveal a big, green salad. “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

“It was no problem—“ Maddie starts, but she realizes Eddie is wrinkling his nose in disgust, not gratitude. “Oh, shut up and eat your veggies. There’s chicken in it,” she adds with a laugh.

“Where?” Eddie snorts, eyeing the salad like it might come to life and strangle him with leafy hands.

“Chris! Guess who’s here!” Buck, who hasn’t heard a word of their conversation, barrels into the living room where Chris is sitting on the floor with a host of action figures.

“Don’t—don’t let her put anything in her mouth!” Maddie calls after him.

Eddie chuckles and takes a seat at the table. “How’s it going with her? With Chimney?”

“Us?” Maddie keeps her eye on the living room situation while she sits down across from Eddie. “We’re fine. How are you? Buck seems to be living in your back pocket lately.”

“Yeah, he’s been…” Eddie trails off, and Maddie glances over to see him looking at the living room. She turns her eyes back to see Buck sitting cross-legged on the floor, cradling Jee-Yun while showing Chris her tiny fingers. The first time he held Jee-Yun, Buck had lost his mind over her fingernails. They’re so small, he’d said reverently. How could anything be so small?

“I wouldn’t be here without him,” Eddie finishes. “I think I’m going to ask him to move in.” The way he says it isn’t a joke, isn’t something light-hearted about being down an arm or how Buck is free labor. He sounds contemplative. Wondrous.

“Oh,” Maddie says. “But what about… I mean, won’t that be kind of weird for Ana?”

“Buck didn’t tell you?” Eddie asks, turning back to face her and fishing a fork out of the bag. “Ana broke up with me.”

“Oh, my god.”

“I know. But it wasn’t like what happened with Chimney. Ana had the guts to say it to my face.”

“Jesus, Eddie, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was the right call. I’m not upset, actually.” Eddie pokes around the container until he finds a piece of chicken, throwing Maddie a smile as he picks it up. “It was the easiest breakup I’ve ever had.”

“Well, that’s… good.” Maddie pulls the bag toward her and lifts out her own salad. She’d gotten Chris chicken fingers and fries, but Eddie doesn’t have to know that. Not until he finishes his grown-up, post-ballistic-surgery food. “Then should I ask what your intentions are towards my brother?”

Eddie chokes on his lettuce. She flashes him a smile while he struggles to swallow. “He is a strapping young man,” she adds. “Very… able-bodied.”

“You’re evil,” Eddie says, laughing.

“No, just observant,” she counters. “Every time I called Buck this week, he was either with you or Chris.”

“I keep telling you people that Buck’s suspension wasn’t my fault. I was unconscious when it happened.”

“All I’m saying is, my brother wouldn’t risk losing his job for just anyone.”

“You think so?” Eddie asks, smiling down at the table.

Maddie takes a delicate bite of spinach and pomegranate seed. “My brother spent a long time running, Eddie. I always thought he was just running away, but he was running toward something. The 118 is his family. But you and Chris are special. He would bleed himself dry if it meant keeping the two of you safe.”

Eddie’s fork is paused halfway to his mouth.

“Don’t take advantage of that,” Maddie says. “If you can’t say the same for him, you need to let him go. I’ve seen him hurt too many times, Eddie.” And she doesn’t mean just Abby—she means their parents. She watched Buck drag himself through hell for a love he shouldn’t have had to fight for. She means herself, too, because she knows that the years he spent thinking she’d chosen Doug over him had cut him deeper than she had any chance of healing. Even now that he knows the truth, there’s a scar.

“You’re a good sister.” Eddie lowers his fork and meets her eyes. “I wasn’t really expecting the shovel talk a week after getting shot, but I promise you that I feel the same.”

“Well, good,” she says. Then, “Oh god, I really did corner you while you’re—I apologize. That was thoughtless and rude of me.”

Eddie just laughs. “Please, Shannon was a wreck the whole first year. She actually forgot my birthday.”

“Oh, Chimney would never let that happen,” Maddie says, feeling a genuine, soft smile cross her face. This is the first time in a week she hasn’t felt the weight of the entire world on her shoulders. It’s an unexpected, but welcome, break. “He starts dropping hints at least three months in advance.”

“I wasn’t really around to remind her,” Eddie says. “That’s my biggest regret, really. Not being around more when Chris was little.”

Ah, there’s the familiar, soul-crushing weight of the world again. It was a nice minute, while it lasted. “It must have been hard to be away from him. I can’t even imagine…” Maddie swallows, but her food tastes sour, acrid. She can imagine. She has. She’s fantasized. About walking out the door. About not coming back.

“That’s the thing,” Eddie says, “it kind of... I mean, I missed him, and I missed Shannon. And now? I would rather get shot a thousand times than leave Chris. But at the time, it was easy. Ridiculously, insanely easy.”

Maddie watches as Eddie runs his hand through his hair, a twisted smile taking over his face. “What kind of fucking father chooses a war zone over his own wife and kid, you know? I kept telling myself it was for them, it was for us. But really I was just scared. I was terrified of it, of being a husband, a father. I didn’t know how to be those things.”

There’s something unfolding inside Maddie’s chest. An old hurt, an old fear, unraveling for her to finally grasp at its edges and see the bloody, wretched mess. “I don’t either,” she admits. She hasn’t said that to anyone. Not Buck, not Athena, not Josh. Certainly not her parents. Because that thing inside her, that little girl curled in on herself to hide away her broken heart—her parents had a lot to do with it. “I’m so scared. All the time. She’s tiny, and perfect, and I’m… I’m not good enough.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Eddie says.

“No,” Maddie says. “I’m going to ruin her, Eddie. I’m a horrible mother. I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t do this.”

“Whoah, whoah.” Eddie reaches his hand across the table to grip hers, tight. Maddie raises her other hand to her face to wipe her eyes. “You’re doing great, Maddie. You’re really good with her.”

“No, I’m not. Not really. I mean, Buck is more of a natural at this than I am.” He’s in the living room, letting Jee-Yun chew on the collar of his shirt, while Chris is talking and gesturing wildly with his hands. Buck looks happy. He looks rapt, focused. All in.

“I don’t think anyone’s naturally a good parent. I think it’s supposed to be hard. That’s how you know you’re doing it right.”

“I just don’t want to hurt her,” Maddie says, watching Buck, watching Jee-Yun, watching Chris. This beautiful tableau of a family that she wants so desperately to be part of.

“That’s normal. That fear is… hell, Maddie. That’s parenthood.”

“How do you deal with it? How do you walk around with that, knowing… knowing any moment, you might fail?”

Eddie tightens his hold on her hand, pulls on it slightly to bring her focus back around to him. “I’m going to tell you something I told Buck a long time ago,” he says. “You’re going to make mistakes. It’s not like there’s some test you can study for and get the perfect kid at the end. What matters is that you love them enough to keep trying.”

Maddie remembers Buck, what feels like a lifetime ago, staring down their parents. Love me anyway, he’d said. “It’s that simple?” She asks, feeling hollow. Feeling like she failed before she even crossed the starting line.

“Of course not,” Eddie says. “It’s hard work, loving someone. But you’re not in it alone, either. You’ve got all of us.”

He’s right. Maybe she can put a little bit of the load down, once in a while. Maybe she doesn’t have to be crushed by all that weight.

“I’m sorry,” she says, cracking a smile, “all we’re doing is talking about me.”

“Trust me, it’s a relief,” Eddie says, smiling back. “All anyone wants me to do is talk about how I’m feeling. I’m sick of talking about myself.”

“It’s nice to know you’re not the only one with problems?”

“Yeah. Exactly that.”

They share a raw, honest smile, and Maddie does feel a little bit lighter. “I’ll be sure to come back for more sage advice,” she says, pulling her hand away.

“Next time, bring pizza,” Eddie says. It makes Maddie laugh.

When she gets home, she puts Jee-Yun to bed and looks at her. Just takes in that fragile nose, the impossibly delicate eyelids, her perfect, untidy mouth. She thinks about how she’s been scared her whole life—of upsetting her parents, of hurting Buck, of losing Doug, of leaving Doug, of finding love.

But all those fears, they brought her here. So maybe this is just another journey, and maybe it’s OK to be scared.

When Chimney gets home the next morning, he crawls into bed with Maddie and Jee-Yun. Their daughter had started fussing at three in the morning, and now they were both exhausted. But Maddie holds on tight, holds Jee-Yun close, and when Chimney wraps his arms around them and drops a kiss into her hair, Maddie hears him say, "my two best girls. How did I get so lucky?"

And she thinks, this. This can be enough.

[buddiewho]

Begrudgingly, I re-watched the date scene. Now that I was actually paying close attention...it was an alarm sound from an iPhone. Therefore, this means Eddie did set an alarm to remind himself of the promise to be home in time to put Christopher to bed. Yet, my brain still keeps questioning the entire thing. Okay, Eddie's having a tough time with the fourth grade math. It's math, personally, I don't blame him. Anyhow, Ana makes her cute joke about 2+2 still equals 4. Then I thought, if it were that easy then why are we making the equation so damn hard? So damn hard that it led to Christopher being mad enough to run away to Buck. Super hard to the point Ana even mentions "taking a break" because Christopher is at this breaking point already so should we even move forward? "I don't want you going anywhere..." juxtaposed to Buck saying to your son, “I’m not going anywhere.” Which adds another piece to this equation because Christopher felt that he’d lose Buck to his Dad dating...? *cracks knuckles* If the equation is so simple. If it's 2+2=4 (and yeah I know they're 3), but if it's 2+2=4 then it's easy. The outcome should eventually look like Future Tense (4x03), but maybe with kisses between out and proud boyfriends co-parenting Christopher.  Really it's so easy to manipulate the 4x08 equation because it could've gone like this (if we weren't doing a slow burn, I suppose) and of course, I took many liberties as to imply one of them is already aware of the feelings they caught: 

"Hey Buck, I need you to come over. We're going to help Christopher with his math homework." There was groan on the other end of the line. "Why me? I can't do math," Buck announces without hesitation. He really doesn't want to do math, but it's Eddie and it's Chris so of course he was going to end up dragging himself over to the house.

"Come on. I don't get understand it. I need your help more than him. Besides, we might end up goggling shit, when Christopher isn't looking because I don't want him getting into that habit to do his homework. So get over here. We'll order pizza and maybe by the end of the homework session, we could play video games or something."

"Sounds enticing, but it's still math," Buck said as he was getting his shoes on. "Who am I kidding? I'll be there." Eddie laughed and hung up. __

"Buck!" Christopher said from the couch as he entered. "Hey, little man, I hear you need help with some math homework." "Did my Dad really call you?" "Yes, he did so apparently it's that bad. Don't know how I'm going to help. I was terrible at math." "Well, if it's the three of us, I think we'll do just fine," Christopher said so nonchalantly, but it tortured Buck's heart a little bit. It was a heart wrenching pang of sweet sweet happiness at the sheer acceptance from Christopher.

__

Pizza plates surrounded a notebook and worksheets. The three of them sat back on the couch; Buck and Eddie next to each other, Chris on the other side of Eddie. They were about fed up with this one problem. "I don't get it, Dad." "Yeah, me too," added Buck. "Yeah, me three," Eddie sighed. "We're nearly there, I think. If not I'm looking up the answers and that'll have to do."

"Wouldn't that be cheating?" Christopher asked. "Sort of," Eddie loosely explained. "Think of it as calling on an expert, a math expert, or a teacher," Buck explained some more. "But we don't use it every time. Just as the last resort." Christopher thought on it and then just changed the subject, "Can we take a break? Let's play a game before I have to go to bed."

"Yeah, sure. Let's take a break. I don't think it's due for a couple days anyway." Eddie agreed. Buck leaned close, their shoulders now touching. "So what happened to not looking up answers in front of him?"

"This math problem pissed me off," Eddie said through gritted teeth. Then he softened. "Thanks for the save with that explanation." "It's all good. So Christopher are we playing the usual?" "Yeah, the pirate against the wolf that's the fighting game we always play." "Maybe the two of you should try different characters?" "No," they both said in unison and Eddie just laughed. He started to clean up their mess as Buck jumped up to help Christopher get the game turned on. Eddie came back and Buck was surprised when he sat directly next to him instead of putting Christopher in the middle. Buck wasn't going to complain. Then something shitty happened. Something really shitty. Eddie touches their shoulders again and then whispers, "You know how I told you I ran into Christopher's old teacher Ana Flores. I should call her? It's just you mentioned teacher earlier and I thought..." Eddie's voice trailed off and Buck tried not to press the controller buttons harder than needed. When Buck didn't immediately respond, Eddie seemed to forget what he said because he went on to loudly say, "Buck, you really should change your character. You never win as the pirate."

Buck chuckled. "I like the pirate. I'd be a pirate if I could." "Of course you would." "And I'd be a wolf," Christopher interjects. "Nice choice," Eddie tells his son. "What about you Dad? What would you be?" "Probably a ninja or something," Buck offers. "Maybe," Eddie muses. "But I was thinking a simple, clean, and efficient boxer." "Practical," Buck rolls his eyes. "Where's the imagination?" "Okay, pirate, I'll be your first mate then." Buck smirks, wondering if there were any implications beyond that statement. "No, you'd be part of the crew, swabbing the deck of my ship," he jokes. "I see how it is," Eddie bit his lip. "All right. Expect a mutiny led by me then."

"I win!" Christopher announces, pulling them out of their imaginary world. "Of course, you do." Buck smiles. Eddie looks at the time, not believing that much of it had passed. "How about a story before bed?" Eddie asks Chris. "Not from Buck." "Oh, yeah, I don't blame you," Eddie gently elbows Chris. "It's because of the kid in the rotisserie isn't it?" "Yup," said Chris. "Hey! That was a cautionary tale." "Yeah, okay," Eddie gave him a playful glare. "All right, let's get to bed." They were at Christopher's door when Buck stopped Eddie. Christopher shuffled inside towards his bed. "I got a story for tonight," Buck stated. "And what's that?" "Hansel and Gretel." Eddie's fist clenched and he contemplated playfully punching Buck's arm, but he didn't. He just looked him square in the face and crossed his arms. Buck lost it at the sort of scolding Dad face, "I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll read something light and fluffy. Like Little Red Riding Hood. It has a wolf."

"Buck!" "All right, all right, I'm done." Buck held up his hands. Christopher had sat on the edge of his bed, half-listening to them. "So pajamas. Then a story and bed." Eddie rattled off. "I'm kind of tired so maybe no story tonight," Christopher yawned. "Thanks for coming over to help with my homework." Buck smiles from the doorway. "I'll leave you two then. Goodnight, Christopher." "Goodnight, Buck," Eddie and Christopher say in unison, making each other laugh. Buck smiles at them and skips to the living room where he left his jacket. He trots to the door and then looks down the hallway. Part of him wanted to stay, but he didn't want to overstep so he takes his leave. As he climbed into his jeep and started it, Buck suddenly couldn't get one thought out of his mind, what if Eddie called that teacher, Ana Flores? What if tomorrow or the next day, he calls her instead? __

It's just Ana offers to come over and help Christopher with his homework. And I kept thinking we're really making this math equation truly difficult because NO MATTER how INCAPABLE they are at math, there's someone already AT HOME that could help Eddie with his son's homework. So they had one good date and then the second date was, "Oh wait I could use her "apparent" math skills to help my son with his homework. Don't forget to set the alarm to be back in time for bed. Oh shit there's construction, I'm going to be late. Wonder if Buck got him to bed? Christopher is probably being stubborn since I'm late." Then of course by bringing her over before Christopher gets to see Tia or Abuela or even Carla seems strange. What's going on? Especially when everything seems fine without forcing Ana into the equation. Can you force equations? Manipulate maybe, more like a chemical/science equation [exactly how Eddie is doing it by forcing himself into this role]? I don't know. Equations do take work. Like the fact that Buck has stayed over BEFORE either to watch Christopher and tell stories and/or stayed long enough after a game night to see Christopher off to sleep and that night he decided to tell a cautionary tale- in which Eddie was apprehensive, but it's Buck telling it and Eddie's there too, Chris would feel safe- until that night Christopher couldn't get to sleep for the next hour.

Equations are long, complicated work and one has already been laid out between Buck and Eddie. 

The rest (as we've already agreed) is up to the universe.

[rydergrace]

Have I told today how much I love the K-Teacher universe? (And that's not just trying to butter you up because I have another request - this series makes me melt with softness and love)

What happens when there's an incident downtown and suddenly Eddie's on the news for being in danger, and Buck wants to be glued to his TV but he has a classroom of students who need him first?

here with you

Eddie’s hurt on the job. It’s not the first time and won’t be the last. Buck’s not as used to it as he thought he’d be. 

somehow your prompt got swallowed up in the middle and this thing because a whole other thing. I don’t even know what happened. 

It wasn’t that Buck wasn’t used to Eddie being still. He’d always had a calm about him. He didn’t have the same need to move, to shift, to be in near constant motion the way Buck did. When they first started sleeping together, Eddie’s stillness had unnerved Buck, and Buck’s constant movement, even in sleep, had driven Eddie crazy. 

But this was different. Eddie was unnaturally still as he slept in the hospital bed, and Buck had to remind himself that was all he was doing. He was just sleeping. Sleeping to heal. Sleeping off the pain medication they had given him. According to the doctors, he was okay. According to Chim and Hen, he’d been conscious and talking the entire ride to the hospital. He knew enough to know that was good. Yet, he still couldn’t turn off the fear that everyone had missed something. 

He knew he needed to check on Ana. See how she was doing. Knew the fear still running through his veins was the fear she was feeling too. Bosko had been right beside Eddie, like she always was. He knew when Eddie woke up, he’d demand to know how Bosko was doing. But Buck couldn’t bring himself to let go of Eddie’s hand. Couldn’t force himself to leave Eddie’s hospital room.

When his cell phone rang, he’d been expecting the call. He’d seen the news report about the fire. Knew Eddie’s house was there. He knew there were injuries. But he still hadn’t been ready to hear Bobby tell him Eddie was on the way to the hospital. Hadn’t been prepared to hear the worry Bobby hadn’t quite kept out of his voice. Buck was sure there would never be a day when his stomach didn’t drop to the floor when he found out Eddie had been hurt. 

He barely kept himself together after he saw a clip about the fire on the news - even when he reminded himself he didn’t know if it was Eddie. The story hadn’t been specific about who was injured, even if he knew in his gut it was Eddie. As hard as it was to keep himself together; he didn’t have a choice. Not when there was a room of five and six year olds counting on him. While he had never been one to believe he had to separate himself from his students and keep up a wall between Buck and Mr. Buckley, he knew this wasn’t a thing they needed to know.

His focus shifted back to Eddie’s face when his husband shifted. He caught the pain that flashed across Eddie’s bruised face before it smoothed out again. He would wake up when he woke up. There was no rushing it; no matter how much Buck wanted to. The doctor had been clear about that. Still, all Buck wanted was to see those familiar brown eyes. 

His head snapped up when he heard a soft tapping on the door. Bobby stood just inside the door, smiling tiredly at him. “How are you holding up, kid?” he asked, pulling the only other chair in the room beside Buck’s. 

Buck shrugged. It didn’t matter how he was doing. He hadn’t been the one hurt. “How’s Bosko?” he asked instead. 

Bobby let the deflection go, but Buck could read him well enough to see that he didn’t like it. “They just moved her to a room after surgery. She’s looking at a few weeks in a cast and some physio. She has some minor burns too. But the doctor said things are looking good. Ana’s sitting with her. She sent me to check on you.” 

Rubbing a tired hand over his face, Buck shook his head. Of course, she’d sent someone to check on him when he hadn’t managed to bring himself to check on her. “I’m fine, Bobby,” he murmured, forcing a smile. 

Bobby’s brows arched, silently challenging the truth of those words. Had it been almost anyone else, Buck would have ignored the obvious challenge. But he respected Bobby enough to be honest with him, even when he wanted to hide. 

“Not fine,” Buck admitted with a shrug, “I’m worried about him.” He glanced at Eddie’s bruised face again. Eddie had been hurt before. When they had been nothing more than friends, he’d been hurt more worse than this. And Buck had come home to find Eddie icing bruises or favoring an arm or a leg. He’d helped him through a concussion, too. But for reasons Buck couldn’t even explain to himself, this felt different. 

Silence fell between the two men. The only sound was the study, comforting beep of the heart monitor Eddie was attached to. “He’s going to be fine,” Bobby said after several moments of silence. 

Pulling his gaze away from Eddie’s face, he nodded. Logically, Buck knew that. Of course he did. But the fear was still there. 

“I’m going to head out. Let me know when he wakes up?” Bobby stood, clapping Buck on the shoulder before he slipped out of the room as quietly as he’d been when he came in. 

He turns his attention to his phone. Staring at Eddie would do nothing but drive him crazy. And there were people who would want to be kept updated. If he couldn’t bring himself to leave the room, at least he could make sure everyone knew what was going on. 

He’d just pressed send on a text to Ana when he heard the uptick in the heart monitor.

“Eddie?” he asked, eyes searching his husband’s face for any sign he was actually waking up. Buck had only been there for a couple of hours, but it still felt like an eternity. 

When Eddie’s eyes fluttered open, brown meeting blue, something settled in Buck.

“Hey,” he breathed, grip tightening on Eddie’s hand. “How’re you feeling?” 

Eyes closing again, Buck froze until he saw the way Eddie’s brows furrowed together. He was cataloging how he felt. Buck had seen him do it plenty of times before. 

“Everything hurts,” Eddie answered honestly, shifting toward Buck with a badly concealed wince. “What’s the damage?” 

As much as he didn’t want to, this Buck could do. This felt almost familiar. Running his thumb over Eddie’s knuckles, Buck recounted what he heard from the doctor not long ago. 

“Concussion that’s pretty worrisome only because of your history of concussions. A lot of bruising, some of it is pretty bad. And some burns and smoke inhalation. You’re looking at a couple days in the hospital at least.” He answered Eddie’s question before the man could ask it, knowing it was coming. 

“And Bosko?” Eddie asked, shifting again as he tried to get comfortable. 

“Bobby said she was gonna be fine. She’s been out of surgery for a while. Guess she’s looking at a few weeks in a cast and some physio. I haven’t gone to check on her yet,” he admitted, teeth tugging his lower lip into his mouth. He wouldn’t admit he felt like an awful friend for not checking on her. Even if Bosko wasn’t his friend, which at this point, she was. Ana had been his closest friend for far longer than he’d even known Eddie, and her partner was hurt. 

“Stop.” Eddie tugged Buck’s hand, forcing him closer. “Don’t do that.” Buck couldn’t even pretend he didn’t know what Eddie was talking about, so he hummed noncommittally.  

“Chris?” Buck appreciated the shift. “With Pepa and your abuela.” It had taken Buck promising to call with updates to convince abuela she didn’t need to come, that Eddie was fine. 

“The rest of the 118?” Eddie asked, eyes drooping but fighting to stay awake.

“Fine. They’re all fine. Bobby wanted me to call him when you woke up. Go back to sleep so I can.” Pulling his hand out of Eddie’s he gently lay it on the other man’s cheek, thumb moving over his cheek, careful of the cuts and bruises on his face. 

Eddie blinked slower and slower before finally his eyes stayed closed and his breathing evened out again. For a moment, Buck stayed, thumb moving along Eddie’s cheek before he pushed himself up. Pressing a quick kiss to his husband’s temple, he slipped out of the room. He owed abuela an update and he wanted to talk to Chris too. Then he’d call Bobby to let him know Eddie had been awake. And now that some of his fear had settled, he’d go up and see Bosko. 

[buddiewho]

This would be my villain origin story. No joke. If they start trying to add in this shit, as if they’d been the friends who did that before then I will lose it too. They never really did that and as someone pointed out during the elf scene of 2x10 it felt forced. Buck one time says “brother” and then suddenly Blair the elf is like, “you two have an adorable son.” Brothers? Not to that one Christmas elf and if she works there every year she’s probably like I hope they come back again. No, seriously girl, she says to another elf. There was this couple a year or so ago and their kid was so precious. The kid wanted to see Santa himself while his parents just sat at the fountain chatting and taking pictures. I remember them every Christmas because the three of them were just that freakin adorable.

Bare with...this post might get long my dear!

What I am trying to emphasize is...if we come back to some heteronormative bullshit then I’m going to have a tough time hanging on. What is the point? There is no point because all signs point to Buddie. Even if Eddie thinks “the universe does not scream.” All of it’s there in front of his face and something has to make it click. When that realization sinks in, Buck and Eddie can finally be their happiest selves.

Granted, Buck and Eddie could have that solid, close friendship for the ages. Even a little closer than that of Shawn and Gus from Psych who are actually very codependent friends...Buck and Eddie aren’t that way, having lives and finances of their own. Though, Buck and Eddie do seem to play the will they won’t they game and when the show absolutely and now wholeheartedly framed Buck around Christopher well...honestly, that is what makes you go hmm? I can’t get over Ana’s line “there’s been no one since his mother died.” I swear if it doesn’t haunt Eddie as he continues to date her, then idk what’s going on. If Eddie doesn’t go wait a minute. It’s just...Buck has already done this or that. Wait a minute! He...and Eddie is just losing his mind over it but of course he continues to wrongly tell Ana that everything is fine.

Also, as for Psych, there are many times that Shawn and Gus are mistaken as a couple. Shawn even played that twice as part of investigating cases. Neither of them were super uncomfortable about it and frankly these two best friends were so involved in each other’s dating lives to the point it was hard to tell the other they were dating someone (sort of like Buddie, except I feel like Buck and Eddie barely talk about it). In some ways, for Shawn it was a protective thing. Like no one is good enough for Gus. Gus deserves all the best and if he doesn’t get it, Shawn will dismantle that in a probably stupidly immature way. Anyway, Gus kinda “gives two shits” about Shawn because it’s a matter of who would want to put up with his friend’s crap. Sure, Shawn somehow charms mostly women (Shawn was bisexual to me; never explicitly canon), but none of the women seemed to want to stay. What I mean to say is Shawn and Gus are best friends and they love each other, but as the show went on to tell, they have their own separate love interests/wives. Yet they remain the most dynamic of crime fighting duos ever and they love each other as best friends can.

Buck and Eddie are best friends. They love each other on that platonic level, we venture to guess; however, Buck and Eddie might be in love with each other.

If at some point in the next season I have to hear Buck or Eddie call each other brothers or something, I might lose it

[extasiswings]

"Offer Me" for Buddie :D

Technically this prompt was about giving a gift, but you know how I like to get metaphorical. Also, I understand that it's TV and therefore that they can and will insist on introducing debilitating trauma and then pretending it doesn't exist until it becomes plot relevant again, but if these writers don't stop putting Eddie in hugely triggering situations for his PTSD and not addressing it at all they're gonna catch these hands. Post-4x11.

Eddie makes it through the end of the shift by sheer force of will. And then, when he gets home to a dark, empty house—Christopher wanted to spend some time with Isabel so he’s staying at her house for a few days—

He makes it as far as the kitchen before everything he’s been holding back slams into him at once and has him retching into the sink.

Fuck. Fuck.

It’s not that they never end up around guns on shifts. Sometimes things happen. Hell, Eddie can remember all too well holding a line while Buck talked down a woman hanging out on a freeway sign who had a gun. Things happen.

But that’s different from what happened earlier. They’re not cops. They’re firefighters. They’re medics. People aren’t usually shooting at them. Being pinned down in a shipping container by gunfire, surrounded by his team, trying to keep a patient alive—

Eddie spits into the sink again as he shudders, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead and the back of his neck. His hands grip the counter tight, the edge digging into the palms, giving him something solid to focus on.

"ETA six minutes."

"We don’t have six minutes."

"Diaz—"

Eddie forces himself to take deep breaths and lets his gaze flick over the kitchen, cataloguing everything that’s out in the open. He’s in his house in Los Angeles. He’s not in Afghanistan. He’s not fighting a war.

He’s not fighting for his life.

And it was fine. Earlier. No one was hurt. They got the girl to the hospital. The asshole who kidnapped her was arrested.

"Diaz—"

No one was shot.

He’s alive. He’s fine.

They got the girl to the hospital.

They got her to the hospital.

Eddie’s eyes burn as the panic slowly begins to recede. He releases the counter and drags a hand over his jaw, exhaling shakily. For a minute he just stands there—the echoes of gunshots slowly fade from his ears—but finally he flicks on the sink to rinse his mouth and splashes water on his face for good measure. He’s just shut it off again when his phone rings. The sound is abrupt and jarring in the silence of the house—he flinches at the suddenness and yanks it out of his pocket.

“Hello?” Eddie answers without looking at the id, wincing at how rough his voice sounds.

“Eddie.” Buck’s voice is a relieved sigh. “Hey.”

Eddie’s pulse is still too fast, albeit slower than it had been. He pads out of the kitchen and collapses on the living room couch, stretching out and closing his eyes.

“Did I hear Bobby right that you got arrested today?” He asks as exhaustion settles into his very bones. His hand rests on his chest, over his heart, so he can feel the steady thrum level out to normal—it beats a tattoo of alive, alive, alive against his skin.

“Okay, I wasn’t arrested, Athena just stuck me in an interrogation room for a couple hours to keep an eye on me. And I still helped solve the case!”

Eddie’s lips curve up despite himself. He hadn’t planned on talking to anyone tonight, had dodged Bobby’s concerned looks to avoid getting pulled into conversation before he left the station, clenching his hands so no one would see them shake. He hadn’t wanted to talk. But he hadn’t really been thinking clearly either about the reality of coming home to empty space. To silence. Left entirely alone with his own head.

“Yeah...that still sounds kind of like you were arrested to me. But you were probably having more fun than we were.”

Buck’s quiet for a moment before he clears his throat.

“Chim said you guys were shot at in the container yard.”

Eddie swallows hard. “Yeah. Yeah, for a couple minutes.”

“Are you okay?”

The way Eddie’s stomach twists at the question, at the softness in Buck’s voice, isn’t the same as the roiling nausea that gripped him before. It’s not entirely comfortable—but then it never is when he feels like this. Vulnerable. Exposed. Because he knows why Buck’s asking.

They lived together for months during the second wave of the pandemic. It was a stressful time, and god knows Eddie hadn’t always slept easily.

Buck hadn’t shied away. Not once. Hadn’t judged. Hadn’t demanded explanations—which is why Eddie gave him one anyway.

Buck just listened every time. Listened until Eddie couldn’t wrap his tongue around words anymore and then wrapped his arms around Eddie instead, listing off random facts about anxiety and skin pressure depressing the central nervous system, and maybe Eddie wouldn’t have let Buck hold him out of pity but if it was for science well—

So. He knows why Buck’s asking. What Buck’s thinking.

“Not really,” he admits after a long stretch of silence. “But I will be.”

Buck makes a quiet sound over the line.

"I should have been there—"

“No,” Eddie interrupts, because being trapped with everyone else had been bad enough, but the thought of being in that situation with Buck? Makes something in him recoil violently. “You’re allowed to take a day off, Buck. Don’t do that to yourself. Nobody got hurt and you being there wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Buck sighs, but accepts that.

"Christopher’s at Isabel’s, right?" He asks. "Do you want me to come over? Or—"

Buck seems to trip over his words for some reason Eddie can’t quite understand.

"—I guess you could call Ana—"

“No.” Another recoil. Buck is one thing. Buck is safe, Buck has seen all of his raw, dark, ugly places and Eddie has seen Buck’s. Ana—they’re nowhere close to being there. He would sooner go throw up again than let her in like that.

Eddie swallows again. Takes another deep breath. He hates asking for anything, but—

“Would you—would you just talk? You don’t have to come over, I’m pretty wiped anyway, but...you could talk for a little. I don’t really care what about.”

“Yeah,” Buck says quietly. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Eddie falls asleep on the couch with Buck’s voice in his ear. And he blessedly doesn’t dream.