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firemedicdiaz · 3 years

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Tarnished but so Grand

Fandom: 9-1-1. Prompt: trauma recovery for @buddiebingo. Pairing: technically EddieAna, but with a Buddie feelings realization. Word Count: 3477. Genre: hurt/comfort. Rating: teen+. Warning(s): panic attacks. Summary: Eddie has another panic attack. This time, instead of calling 9-1-1, Christopher calls for another kind of help. Note: Thank you to the lovely @dearestdiaz for all of the encouragement, support, and suggestions along the way. Thank you to @fireladybuckley for the final beta. Title from ivy by Taylor Swift.

Read it on AO3.

Not again.

As his knees gave out and he hit the floor, Eddie swore he could still hear the echoes of the sirens passing by outside that had pitched him headlong into a panic attack. A distant crashing noise stirred just enough reasoning to tell him he’d brought the bowl he’d been holding down with him and the din was enough to bring Christopher rushing in from the adjacent room.

“Dad?”

Eddie’s head felt like it turned in slow motion as he honed in on the sound of his son’s voice, barely audible over the thunderous roar of his heartbeat in his ears. His vision was distorted by vivid flashbacks to his last panic attack; the commotion in the store around him, the bumpy ride to the hospital, the squeeze of the blood pressure cuff around his arm, the immodesty of it all as they worked him up for a heart attack. It hadn’t been, though. It had been a panic attack.

I don’t panic.

“Dad!”

Christopher shuffled over to where Eddie was lying on the floor, a hand clutching at his chest, the other grasping desperately at nothing, searching for something to hold onto, a way to ground himself. Christopher leaned in over Eddie, his expression concerned, and it didn’t take him long to realize what was happening. As Chris remembered Eddie’s last panic attack, he was spurred into action.

“I’m gonna call for help,” Christopher explained as he turned to leave in search of the phone.

Eddie’s heart clenched at the thought of another trip to the ER, another doctor telling him to seek out a therapist, to work through the feelings that were keeping him trapped in an endless loop. He tried to find his voice, to call out to Christopher, to tell his son not to bother, that he’d be fine, damn it, but he couldn’t get enough air to do anything more than whisper. All the muscles in his torso ached as he fought against the tension there in increasingly desperate attempts to take in some more air.

His mind went to the pamphlet. The ridiculous pamphlet Dr. Salazar had given him at the hospital and pressed him to consider. A brief wish that he hadn’t crumpled it up and thrown it in the garbage on his way out the doors that night sparked and then died out again as his insistence reared its head.

I don’t panic.

Eddie flattened his palm over his sternum, hoping that by unclenching his fist he could get the tight knot in his chest to loosen up, too. It didn’t help, though, and he felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as his fingers and toes started to prickle from a lack of oxygen. His vision greyed around the edges, spots dancing in his line of sight as his mind and physiology stood at odds.

He jumped at the sound of footsteps, turning his head to look at the new arrival in the kitchen.

Ana? What was she doing there?

Dinner.

Right. That was what he’d been in the middle of doing when the panic attack had hit.

I don’t panic.

Her hands were icy against his clammy skin and he unconsciously jerked away from her touch. She held up her hands in an attempt to calm him, show him she wasn’t going to hurt him, but instinct drove Eddie to dig his heels into the floor and push back, away from her touch. He didn’t need it, didn’t want it.

“Christopher, call 9-1-1,” she instructed.

Christopher hovered in the periphery of his vision, clutching the cordless phone. Eddie thought he could make out Chris shaking his head, but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t stop his eyes darting frantically around the room, unseeing, catching flashes of that day, the shooting, the ride to the hospital, the blood on Buck’s face.

“I’m already calling for help,” Christopher insisted, bringing the receiver back to his face, pushing his glasses up his nose as he focused on the voice on the other end of the line.

Help was coming.

The thought was barely reassuring as Eddie had no idea how long it would be until it arrived, but it was something. It didn’t do anything to loosen the vice around his chest, though, and his mind spiraled as the ache around his heart persisted. It might not have been a heart attack last time, but that didn’t mean anything. His heart was racing, a cold sweat beaded on his skin, he couldn’t breathe; if he was treating a patient with the same symptoms, he’d be rushing them into the hospital to be on the safe side.

“Buck wants to know how his breathing is.”

Even through his panic, Eddie could feel a small wave of frustration coming off Ana; he’d look into that later - look into all the ways she just didn’t quite fit into his vision of his and Christopher’s future, but at that moment all he could do was try to remind himself that he probably wasn’t actually dying, no matter how much it felt like he was.

“Really fast and shallow,” Ana replied worriedly, her hands hovering in the air, unsure of how best to help. “It’s okay, Edmundo, it’s alright. Try to take a deep breath.”

It would’ve been great advice if Eddie could remember how. He shut his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth as he fought to get control of his body, slow his heart rate, but he didn’t make much headway. Ana’s touch was back, then, one hand cupping his face and the other carding through his hair. He wanted it to be reassuring, he really did, but it just made the pit in his stomach open up wider. He shook his head, batting at her hands, desperate to stop himself from feeling like he was being pulled apart any more than he already did.

“He’s on his way,” Christopher said after relaying Ana’s words over the phone. “He said to keep him comfortable and keep trying to get him to breathe slower.”

Buck was coming.

The knot in Eddie’s chest eased just a fraction, just enough for him to drop his shoulders back and take in a slight bit more air than before. It took some time, some encouragement from Ana and Christopher, but eventually Eddie’s breathing began to steady. Ana had moved away some, giving Eddie space, and Christopher had disappeared briefly before returning with a throw pillow from the couch to put under Eddie’s head. He was nothing if not dutiful in a crisis.

The sound of the front door being thrown open and a set of much heavier footsteps than Ana’s caught their attention and all three of them looked toward the doorway in the kitchen as Buck rushed in, blue eyes blown wide with worry, chest heaving just a little from a mix of exertion and anxiety.

“Hey Eds,” Buck said in a strained but even tone, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips when he realized Eddie was in no immediate danger. “What’s happening?”

Ana moved aside as Buck moved to kneel next to Eddie in her place. She stood, smoothing her hands along the front of her dress to brush out the wrinkles that had formed as she’d knelt.

“He’s having another panic attack,” she explained quietly.

I don’t panic.

“I’m fine,” Eddie said hoarsely, his voice strained and gravelly from the hyperventilation.

He propped himself on his elbows, pushing to sit up, but a wave of dizziness sent him sprawling back onto the floor. The air left his lungs in a rush and he made a slightly strangled noise as his head hit the pillow again. Buck’s hands were there then, one arm under his shoulders, one hand taking his arm to help guide him into a seated position with his back against the fridge. Fingertips sought Eddie’s wrist, pressed firmly against his too-fast pulse. Eddie closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the cool metal of the refrigerator door.

“You’re tachy,” Buck murmured, his eyes searching Eddie’s face and body for any traces of hurt.

“How’d you get here so fast?” Eddie asked quietly.

“Taylor and I were having dinner out nearby,” Buck explained. “Still took a good fifteen minutes with the evening traffic, though.”

Fifteen minutes? Had he really been in that state for that long? It simultaneously felt like everything had happened in a flash and stretched on for an eternity.

“Sorry to have ruined your evening,” Eddie murmured sheepishly, keeping his gaze averted even as he opened his eyes and lifted his head.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Buck admonished gently, releasing Eddie’s wrist from his grip at last and touching a gentle hand to his elbow instead. “Think you’re okay to stand?”

Eddie’s breaths were still coming in short, staccato gasps and the pins and needles in his hands and feet burned like fire and ice alike, but he nodded anyway. He was becoming acutely aware of all the pairs of eyes watching him from different places in the room and he could feel the tide of anxiety rising again. He needed to get somewhere else to breathe a bit and calm down.

“Alright,” Buck agreed as he rose to his feet, holding out a hand for Eddie to take.

Eddie braced himself as he reached up to take Buck’s hand. He allowed Buck to pull him to his feet, giving the other man a quick, grateful look. As their eyes met and parted again, Eddie realized he’d seen none of the accusation or curiosity he’d been expecting in Buck’s eyes - just kindness and comfort. He felt the knot in his chest ease a little more and didn’t protest as Buck turned to lead him towards the bedroom.

“Chris, buddy, I want you to stay here with Ana, okay?” Buck said gently to the boy as they moved past him.

“I’m sure Christopher would rather be with his father,” Ana interjected.

“It’s okay,” Christopher agreed quietly, turning his gaze to Eddie. “You’re gonna be fine, dad. Just let Buck take care of you.”

Eddie smiled faintly and nodded, listing to the side a little on shaky legs. Buck didn’t let him get very far, pulling Eddie in close with an arm around his waist, keeping him supported. The two of them stood there for a moment as Christopher, reassured now that Buck was there, turned and shuffled out into the living room. Ana stayed, watching them as Buck began to lead Eddie down the hall toward the bedroom.

“We should get him to the hospital,” she insisted.

Buck spared her the briefest glance before shaking his head and returning his focus to Eddie. The bedroom was just a short walk away but with Eddie’s legs shaking from the exertion of moving through a panic attack, it took them a minute to get there. Buck kept him close and supported through the trip, sticking to Eddie’s side even as they reached the bed and he helped the other man settle against the headboard.

“How’re you doing?” Buck asked softly, watching Eddie’s expression as the other man’s eyes fluttered closed, his chest still rising and falling too quickly.

“Chest hurts,” Eddie managed in between breaths.

�� Buck hummed commiseratingly, inching closer. Eddie slowly opened his eyes as he felt Buck’s hands, warm and sure and steady, clasp one of his own and squeeze reassuringly.

“Let’s try and get your breathing under control, get ahead of the panic.”

Eddie met Buck’s gaze, his expression taking on a grim determination.

“I don’t panic.”

To his credit, Buck wasn’t cowed by Eddie’s insistence.

“And here I thought we’ve been friends long enough to be past all the posturing,” Buck said softly, his tone lacking any real teasing or venom. “No one’s above panic, Eds.”

Eddie’s cheek twitched as he chewed his lip, his jaw set like he wanted to argue. His breathing was too labored, too erratic for any lengthy rebuttal, though, and he knew he’d been caught out anyway. He closed his eyes again as Buck’s thumb stroked over the back of his hand.

“You’re safe, I’m right here, I’ve got you,” Buck reassured once he realized Eddie wasn’t going to fight him. “Just focus on me, on my voice, and try to slow down, okay?”

Buck’s voice was light, his tone deep and quiet, and it cut through some of Eddie’s anxiety. Buck’s grip on his hand slowly tightened a bit before loosening again. It became a rhythm, an ebb and flow, and Eddie allowed the touch to ground him a bit.

“Good, that’s good,” Buck coached. “Now I want you to try to match your breathing to my grip. Breathe in as I squeeze and out when I let go. Can you try to do that for me?”

Eddie hesitated. Needing to be talked through a breathing exercise was nothing if not confirmation that he had lost all grip on rhyme and reason, and he was having trouble accepting the fact that he was having a panic attack. Again. He hated the disconnect between his mind and body, the way the pain in his chest and the catch in his breathing felt like a betrayal, the way he had no control over what was happening to him. It wasn’t something he was used to and it felt alien and unwelcome.

Buck’s grip tightened again and Eddie clung to the tether of the other man’s touch. If anyone could understand what he was feeling, it was Buck. Buck, who’d been through enough trauma of his own to last three lifetimes. Buck, who’d had nightmares for months after the tsunami. Buck, who’d seen fit to check in on him for days after he’d nearly been buried alive. Buck, who’d known panic of his own, who’d owned it and overcome it and emerged on the other side of the worst of it stronger and more emotionally mature than before. Buck wouldn’t judge or minimize or question his struggle. Buck would help, just like he always did.

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed eventually.

Buck nodded and honed his focus, watching the rise and fall of Eddie’s chest as he slowly squeezed Eddie’s hand tighter and tighter to a four count, then released his grip again in equal measure. He continued, gradually slowing the count over the course of several minutes. Eventually, Eddie’s breathing began to catch on, slowing and deepening as he came back to himself.

The knot in Eddie’s chest began to untangle as he worked to match the cadence of Buck’s grasp. It was hard at first and he had trouble keeping up, but eventually the fierce aching behind his ribs began to dull and the tension in his neck and shoulders melted away, leaving more room in his lungs for air. He sagged back against the headboard as the panic fled, leaving him boneless and hollow and wrung out. Tears prickled behind his eyelids and he sniffed hard, determined to keep them from falling.

“There we go,” Buck murmured, his thumb stroking across Eddie’s knuckles for a moment before releasing the other man’s hand. “Feeling better?”

Eddie opened his eyes as Buck’s fingers found his wrist again. His pulse was still faster than usual, but it had slowed significantly and Buck seemed reassured by the fact. Eddie relaxed into Buck’s gentle ministrations, letting himself be comforted by the other man’s presence and attentiveness. He’d expected awkwardness in the wake of the attack, but all he found when he took a moment to assess the situation was reassurance and understanding. It did something funny to his heart and he vaguely wondered whether Buck had felt the skip in his pulse. If he had, he didn’t give any indication.

“I have half a mind to get you to take me down to the station for an ECG, but I think I’m okay,” Eddie said with a ghost of a teasing smile, exhaustion weighing heavily on his usual cheek.

“You know I’d do it if it made you feel better, right?” Buck asked quietly, his touch at Eddie’s wrist filling the silence that followed in a way that words could never.

“I know,” Eddie acknowledged gratefully.

Buck shrugged, his gaze falling away from Eddie’s as he smiled and a soft flush crept up in his cheeks. Eddie found it endearing, but he’d ruminate on the feeling of fondness later, when he wasn’t grappling with so many emotions all at once. In the meantime, he smoothed his clammy palms over his thighs to dry them and kept his focus on maintaining a steady rhythm of inhales and exhales.

“Have you considered therapy?” Buck asked a moment later, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over them.

Eddie shrugged.

“Didn’t think I needed it.”

Buck understood. He’d been resistant, too, at first, but he’d never regretted it since starting. He wouldn’t push, though. He knew that it wouldn’t be helpful if Eddie wasn’t ready.

“It’s worth a thought,” he said lightly instead, glossing over any impulse to insist, to assure Eddie that it would help, to promise the payoff would be worth getting through the mess of feelings, thoughts, and realizations along the way.

Eddie nodded. He knew Buck was right, that he’d have to give in and talk to someone eventually, preferably before he started breaking down on the job, but it wasn’t something he was ready for just yet. In that moment, faced with his best friend, Eddie was willing to give up just enough control to lean on Buck while he recovered from the panic attack. He might be willing to let go of a little more down the road, to open up to Buck about all of the things going on in his mind, about the shooting, about feeling vulnerable, about feeling like he’d come so close to dying again with the last panic attack just months after he’d nearly lost his life to a bullet.

About Ana, a voice in the back of his mind whispered.

A voice that he knew. A voice he was familiar with. A voice that had spoken up before in those quiet moments of solitude as he drifted off to sleep, as he drove to work with the radio turned down low enough to be nothing more than white noise, as he showered off the soot after a call. A voice that he hadn’t wanted to entertain for any length of time before because things were good. Things were fine. Christopher liked Ana, and if Christopher was happy, so was Eddie. The love would come eventually.

In that moment, though, as he looked at Buck, as Buck rested a hand absentmindedly on his knee, soothing him as the last vestiges of panic faded and left him wrecked in their wake, the voice was insistent. Things with Buck were warm. They were comfortable, intimate, familiar. They were as natural as breathing in a way that Eddie and Ana had never been, would likely never be, and it gave him pause even as he kept his expression neutral, impassive.

They sat quietly together for a while longer, until Eddie could finally breathe properly without focusing quite so much on the task, until Buck was satisfied that Eddie’s heart rate had returned to baseline and the chest pains had cleared up, until the shame of breaking down in front of Ana and Chris again wore off some. Eventually, not a moment before he could feel that Eddie was ready, Buck gave his knee a squeeze and stood, offering him a hand.

“Ready to go back out there?” Buck asked softly.

He wasn’t, really, but he nodded anyway.

“Yeah, I want to make sure Christopher is alright,” Eddie replied.

Buck smiled as Eddie took his hand, steadying the other man as he stood to join him. Buck’s arm wrapped around Eddie’s waist for just long enough to make sure that he was stable before pulling away again, leaving Eddie to stand on his own. Even without the contact, Eddie felt stronger, more ready to face Ana and Christopher again than he ever would have on his own.

If that spoke volumes on the state of Eddie’s relationship, his future, and what he desperately wanted for himself, well, he was going to have to push the feeling down to reexamine at another time. Maybe a time when he was feeling less raw, less vulnerable, less safe than he did with Buck at his side, clouding his objectivity. Maybe after he’d had a chance to reevaluate where things stood with Ana, to look into his heart and face the truth of what was there and what wasn’t. Maybe once he’d sat down with Christopher and asked him what he wanted, too, no holds barred.

Maybe with a little bit of honesty, things would finally start falling into place for him.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

#911 #911 fanfiction #buddie #Evan Buckley #Eddie Diaz #Ana Flores #Christopher Diaz #911 fanfic #911 on Fox #feelings realization #trauma recovery #hurt/comfort #whump #panic attacks #Eddie 'conceal don't feel' Diaz #post 5x01 #in coda #canon divergence

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garcia-flynn-deserved-better · 3 years

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Eddie Diaz: Uh-Oh👁👄👁❓, the man I am in love💘💟 with just told me he thinks things would be better if he had been shot🔫 instead😠😤? Unacceptable❗💢💥, I must show him how much he means to me😩👊🏽!!! What's that👂🏽👂🏽 ? Tell him I love him🤔🤨? What a silly idea🤭🤭!! No⛔, instead I will, huh, *check notes* tell him that he is the one1️⃣ I chose to take care of my son 👨‍👨‍👦 , who is the most important and precious person📢📢🥇 in my life, if anything happened to me💀✝😔and that I know❗👏🏽 no will ever fight👊🏽💪🏽 for Chris as hard as him🥰🤗😌.

#that's how that scene went right?#no?#eddie ''conceal don't feel'' diaz #eddie you're so loud #eddie diaz #edmundo diaz #evan buckley #buddie #911 fox #911onfox #911 on fox #my one true love: eddie diaz #*

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buckttommy · 2 years

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Eddie's use of the phrase "now you're going to turn on me" when talking to Bobby is so... upsetting. Not to make everything about Eddie's childhood (especially when we might not even see glimpses of his childhood), but... everything literally is about Eddie's childhood.

Eddie is an isolationist; when he is hurt or bruised or bleeding inside, he turns inward and licks his own wounds, puts himself back together again until he feels some version of "complete." We have seen this countless times over the series: when Shannon died and Buck was gone; all the times when Christopher was struggling and Eddie felt, in some way, like it was his fault; when Eddie got shot and immediately went back to work, etc. But no one is an isolationist by nature; human beings are pack creatures, biologically geared to seek human comfort and relationship with those around us, which means that Eddie's isolationism goes against his very nature.

We know that Eddie had a rough childhood -- if nothing else, if no tragic queer backstory exists -- we know that his father taught him to shove down and conceal his emotions, to swallow it when it hurts because feelings don't matter in the long run, and the only thing that matters is what is. But what if there's more to it than that...? It's just. I hear that wording and I don't just hear a "bad" childhood with people who were cold and misunderstanding, I hear a childhood that was like a warzone; a study in allyship and enemies rather than community and family.

"Now you're going to turn on me," he said, because life is never a matter of who loves you and who doesn't, but rather a matter of who will align with you when they (or you) need it the most, and who will stab you in the back the first chance they get, a study in mutual exchange and benefit rather than equal and unconditional love and support.

Imagine growing up in that. Imagine learning before you even know how to drive how to navigate your family rather than just existing within it. Imagine being a child and learning how to negotiate and calculate -- because that is the Eddie Diaz way, always thinking two steps ahead of everyone else -- the best way to emerge from a situation unscathed when protection from one's flesh and blood shouldn't even enter a child's mind. (I'm SICK just thinking about this, omg)

So when we look at 5x11 and Eddie tells Bobby, "I supported you and now you're trying to turn on me," in that phrase, I hear an inner child searching for an ally he knows won't come. I hear betrayal, because the one ally he thought he could trust has turned out to be just like all the rest of them, and let's look at that for a minute. Let's look at the the significance of this wording being used with Bobby -- Bobby who actively fills a paternal role in Eddie's life, Bobby whom Eddie clings to as a surrogate parent, and whom he literally clung to when his wife died instead of immediately calling home like any one of us would -- because it's almost like he's saying, "You were supposed to be the parent I could count on, and now look at you." His lashing out is a defense mechanism in multiple ways but especially in this: if no one else will defend me, I will defend myself.

In that phrase, I hear isolation, not as a personal choice but as a state of being he has been forced into time and time again because everyone else has actively taken positions against him. He is always the outlier, always the one forced outside of the pack, a violent impermanence that informs even his interactions with the 118 (as evidenced in the bar scene). But more than anything, I hear a person slowly unfurling and learning to trust only to immediately snap closed again as a means to protectprotectprotect when it even looks like his trust has been misplaced. There's an overwhelming depth of fear there, fear from both the child who had to learn to isolate in order to survive, and the adult, whose pattern of isolation has now become his downfall and his prison.

I know there are so many headcanons about Eddie's family: his sisters aren't that bad, his parents loved him, they just went about it the wrong way, etc... but no one comes out of the womb wanting to be alone. No one comes out of the womb wanting to self-soothe when they're hurt, or contain their pain when they need to scream it. Just the opposite, actually; babies and toddlers are very loud human beings. Infants vocalize their joy and displeasure in equal measure because they are experiencing the world for the first time and have never learned not to wail and howl and laugh when they need to. But nothing I have seen of the Diaz family, nothing I have inferred about them from textual conversation and nuance, speaks to the kind of tender, unconditional love that Eddie deserved. Deserves still.

It's possible I'm thinking too hard about this; I'm exhausted and my head hurts, but just... I can't stop thinking about this.

#tv: 911 #911: 05 x 11 #911 spoilers #jack.txt #the diaz family #I'm going to bed #I feel wrung out. Finally lol #goodnight guys #happy 5B day <333

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diazevans · 4 years

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he is your world (you just don't know it)

It’s not that she wants Eddie to hurt, not at all. Shannon loves him, respects him, and if it were in her hands, she would give him absolutely everything in the world that could make him happy.

Shannon Diaz gets to live and it changes everything.

It’s not that she wants Eddie to hurt, not at all. Shannon loves him, respects him, and if it were in her hands, she would give him absolutely everything in the world that could make him happy.

That doesn’t mean, however, that she doesn’t feel slightly disappointed that the reason Eddie is so upset, so angry, is not their ongoing divorce but the fact that, apparently, Buck has decided to sue everyone on sight to get his job back. Again, neither situation is good, but she still figured that their divorce would be a little higher on the list of crappy things that had happened to Eddie lately.

They had been watching Christopher play in front of the tv before she went home for the night, almost in comfortable silence, when her kid had turned and asked when Buck was coming over to play with him. It took everything in Shannon to not flinch and keep her eyes on the kid’s show in front of her, knowing very well that the question was in no way directed at her. There was a second of complete silence, before Eddie’s voice filled the room.

‘He is very busy right now, buddy.’ Normally, he always took the time to explain everything to Christopher in deep detail, but the answer was short and collected and it was impossible for her not to turn to look at him. His whole body was tense and his smile didn’t reach his eyes; his hands were closed in fists. Shannon could feel his barely concealed anger coming from him in waves and she felt a little angry too, not for the lawsuit, but for the big elephant in the room.

Her son had nightmares about the tsunami, and more times than not, he woke up screaming for Buck.

They both had realized it too late, when Buck had already put a wall between him and the world and while Shannon thought that it would do some good for their son to talk with the other man, to make sure that he was okay, Eddie had quickly shut down all her suggestions and, thanks to the thin ice that they were already on, she decided to not push it too much. They were better now, more used to each other and Christopher’s nightmares hadn’t disappeared so Shannon was ready to give it another shot.

She decides to talk to Eddie about it, calmly and with objective arguments now that they had put the little one to bed, but when she comes back to his living room, Eddie sits with a beer in his hand and his eyes are completely unfocused. After the first thought is gone, the jealous one of him being completely devastated for this and not their divorce, Shannon’s heart clenches uncomfortably inside her chest. She could go home, make like this is not her business or even approach the talk about Christopher’s nightmares, but she still loves Eddie. There is no turning a blind eye when the people she loves are hurting, not anymore.

She is taken back to a talk she had with Abuela, just after they got married. They were having lunch, just the two of them, when the older woman had taken her hand softly to get her attention to a more serious manner.

‘The Diaz men are too silent, too closed off.’ Her words were kind and Shannon smiled back because, how couldn’t she? ‘They don’t know about feelings. It’s our job to help them with all of that.’ The wives’ job, she meant. Shannon had taken that advice at heart, so much that it almost broke her, but now that she’s back to being herself, she could allow herself to be Eddie’s wife for a little bit. Just a moment.

There was a time when they were in love, together in every sense of the world, and that sort of thing leaves behind a series of rituals. That’s why it’s so incredibly easy to leave her bag and drop to her knees in front of him, in the space between his legs. Her hands reach for his legs, caressing them lightly and his eyes finally focus on her with recognition.

They had been in this position before, millions of times, sometimes innocent, some not so much.

‘You are brooding.’ Her voice is light, setting the tone of this and making him give her the tiniest of smiles. It’s still something, so she knows they are off to a good start. Shannon used to do this, to sit in front of him, to catch his demons and his worries one at a time with smiles and quick jokes. ‘Wanna talk?’

For a moment, she thinks he is going to say no, but his face constricts before his head falls forward, hiding his face from her. He looks up again, but brushes his hand angrily above his face. ‘I’m so fucking angry.’ It’s serious, considering Eddie is cursing. ‘I still can’t believe that he did this’. The fire lighting his eyes, in his usual calm expression, is unsettling and the only thing she can do is press her fingers against his thighs a little harder, grounding him.

‘People do insane things when they think they are losing themselves.’ This time, she speaks quietly, feeling her heart break at the admission, but it’s a familiar pain. There is not a day she regrets leaving them in the way she did, but now she is sure it was for the best. For all three of them. And she knows Buck has the same fear she had back them, to feel like you don’t have a place in this world. It’s consuming, leaving no room for anything else but groundbreaking confusion. Eddie must know what she is thinking because his eyes soften just a bit. ‘Even hurt the people they love.’

It’s just a coincidence that in her case and Buck’s, Eddie and Chris are right in the middle of the chaos.

‘Shannon, that’s not…’

She shakes her head before he even tries to finish that sentence. ‘Buck is scared. I’ve met him a handful of times, and even I know he wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose.’ Shannon likes Buck, mostly because it’s impossible not to and because she knows how much he loves her son. Sometimes jealousy appears when she sees how much of a unit the three of them are without her, but she knows how to handle that by now. She wouldn’t have a minute of peace if she got upset by every person that’s been there for her boys when she hasn’t.

‘And Chris is scared too.’ She knows it’s a low blow, that maybe she should have eased into the subject with him, but if she can’t shake Eddie’s anger then she’s at least going to give him some perspective. ‘He wakes up calling for Buck. We can’t keep going like this and the therapist said-’

‘I won’t call him. I can’t talk to him.’ If she were a stranger, she would have missed the slight tone of desperation in his tone and the fact that he didn’t mention the lawsuit at all.

‘I’ll call him.’ Before she can realize it, she’s using her mom tone, the one she used when she was trying to help Christopher with something particularly difficult. ‘I’ll call him and tell him. I won’t mention you.’ Her promise at the end is almost solemn, but the corner of her mouth lifts just a bit. ‘I can also leave the light on when I tuck you into bed.’

Eddie has the decency to roll her eyes but then, a laugh comes out of his lips and she’s unable to hold back a grin. Some of the tension leaves his shoulders and for a quick second, just a fleeting moment, Shannon can’t help but think how beautiful Eddie Diaz is when he’s not completely lost in himself.

Her eyes drop to his lips, because it seems natural to do it, and she can feel him following the gesture with his eyes. The air changes around them and she knows it would be easy to just lean closer, to fall into his arms, but it’s impossible to forget that this is not about her. This is about the lawsuit and the betrayal and, above all, about Buck.

Without another word, she stands and takes the bag from the floor, grateful that Eddie doesn’t try to stop her. Mostly because she doesn’t think it’s a good moment to explain to him that the reason he is so upset is because maybe, just maybe, her best friend’s betrayal is too similar to her own.

She’s almost at the door when she turns, knowing there is something else she has to say. For Eddie’s sake.

‘You have forgiven me for worse, Eddie.’

Shannon doesn’t stay to see the look of confusion in his face.

The next day, Christopher is at her house and when the nightmares come, she doesn’t think twice before calling Buck. He’s asleep and surprised to hear from her, but after a quick explanation, there is an urge in his voice when he asks her to put Christopher on the phone. The man brings her son back quickly and they stay on the phone until her son’s light snores fill the room.

‘Shannon?’ Buck’s whispers, like he expects there is no answer coming.

‘Yes, Buck?’

‘I…’ There is some hesitation and a bit of silence, until he speaks again. ‘I didn’t know about this. I…’

‘I know, Buck.’ She is tired too but she is so thankful for Buck in that moment. ‘He really misses you.’

‘I miss him too. So much.’

It’s a surprise for everyone but her when, a week later, Buck drops the lawsuit.

#buddie #buddie 911 #911 fox #evan buckley #eddie diaz #mywritting*

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