#buck takes up the whole bed so eddie just takes his space on top of him
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big spoon? little spoon? no. evan buckley and eddie diaz sleep in the most chaotic way possible sprawled across the bed
#the blankets end up a tangled mess#buck takes up the whole bed so eddie just takes his space on top of him#limbs overlap sometimes chris is in bed with them#chris took a picture of it once its bucks lockscreen#buck#evan buckley#buddie#911#eddie diaz
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911 Fic Recs: Therapy Edition
[Buddie recs]
am i who you think about in bed? by rarakiplin (Rating: M, ~6,800 words)
After Eddie goes through an entire box of Frank’s tissues in a week and finally manages to read through those reddit stories without flinching, he tells Frank, “I think I want to have sex. Like with a man. Gay sex.”
Frank tilts his head, pressing the tip of his middle finger against the space between his eyebrows, and sighs. [...]
“Do I have to tell you that you don’t have to?” Frank asks, mild.
or, eddie sleeps with men that aren't buck until, well, you know.
Being Eddie by daisies_and_briars (Rating: T, ~79,800 words)
When Eddie starts seeing a new therapist, he’s presented with the opportunity to revisit several days from his past and right regrets that still bother him.
OR:
Eddie goes through the time travel therapy process of the 2009 Canadian TV show Being Erica
every single thing to come (has turned into ashes) by imdarlenescousin (Rating: M, ~66,600 words)
“Don’t you want to get back out there, though?” Buck asked. “I mean, you kept asking about my couch, but what about you?”
“I’ve had a couch this whole time,” Eddie countered.
“A metaphorical couch.”
“The hell is a metaphorical couch?” Chimney asked Hen and Ravi under his breath, earning only a shrug and raised eyebrows in response.
Or, Eddie starts dating, makes some friends, makes some realizations, and makes a serious offer.
Canon compliant through 6x14.
everything (nothing) has changed by zeppazariel (bizarrestars) (Rating: E, ~48,500 words)
After Eddie gets shot, Buck confesses his love. From there, things get a little out of hand.
--
Buck breathes for a moment, then sets his shoulders. "Eddie, there's something I have to tell you."
"Do you?" Eddie asks flatly, still alarmed and doing his best to hide it. "I would've never guessed."
Buck swallows. "Eddie, I love you."
"Are you softening the blow, or buttering me up? Because, I've got to tell you, I'm still very worried regardless," Eddie tells him.
finding our way (back home) by cnomad (Rating: M, ~91,200 words)\
When Eddie left the 118, he promised Buck that nothing would change. But six weeks later, things were strained between them as Eddie tried to adjust to his new role at dispatch while Buck decided to take a major step forward in his relationship. After a series of revelations forced Buck and Eddie to confront what they really wanted out of life, it was up to them to find their way back to each other.
Back home.
let the world have its way with you by fleetinghearts (Rating: E, ~54,400 words)
“It’s just that—I died,” Buck continues, voice unsteady enough that Eddie wonders if this is the first time he’s acknowledged that out loud. “I died, and there’s so much more. There’s so much more I want to do, things I don’t even know I want to do yet, and I almost had the chance to have and live them taken away. I don’t want to die and regret missing out on everything else, Eddie.”
“So let’s make a list,” Eddie says. “Let’s do them.”
or, a bucket list that’s really about buck needing to make a change and an eddie who’s ready to do anything to see him fall in love with life again. it takes some crossing off for eddie to realise—the thing at the top of the list in his own heart? it’s been right here all along.
run in the dark looking for some light by not1_2write (Rating: T, ~2,600 words)
It starts when he breaks up with Taylor. Or maybe it starts when Maddie leaves again, when Chim tells him over and over again that he's done with him. Maybe it even starts when Eddie was shot, when Buck's entire world crumbles in front of him for the thousandth time and he can't do anything except sit back and watch.
Buck can't take everyone leaving him again, can't take being alone anymore. So this time, he leaves first.
Or he tries to. Eddie doesn't let him. When Buck pulls away, Eddie follows him. And Buck finally lets himself break.
tell me about despair by hattalove (Rating: M, ~148,900 words)
eddie's not entirely sure he believes in getting help, at least not for himself. there's only so much healing to be had for a body torn apart by bullets, for a mind that's only half there, for a man who's been leaving pieces of himself behind all his life with nothing to take their place.
except, as it turns out, falling apart happens in increments, and healing does, too[...]
(or: the entity often affectionately referred to as the unrepression fic.)
Tick Tick Boom by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky (Rating: T, ~30,400 words)
“Did you know if you put a frog in water and slowly bring it to boiling, it won’t hop out?” Chris is chattering as Buck makes a quick dinner while Eddie argues with his gas company on the phone.
“Hmm?” Buck asks, unable to fully pull himself out of Bobby’s baked mac and cheese recipe. [...] “Frogs?”
“Yeah!” Chris states. “My teacher said that if you put a frog in a pot, you have to make sure it’s not immediately boiling. You put them in water and then slowly raise the temperature and they won’t realize what’s happening. Then once they realize, they have no place to go. They can’t jump out.”
--
S6 Spec: Buck decides he doesn’t need therapy, reverts to some bad habits, and explodes. Or, the Breakdown Fic.
Unless You Ask Me To by ElvenSorceress *WIP* (Rating: M, ~182,300 words)
It’s not the first time a man has ever looked at Eddie a certain way. It’s not the first time a man has ever hit on him or asked him out. It happens every so often. Not a lot. Once every six months or so? If he had to put a number to it?
But maybe it’s the first time Eddie’s considered saying yes.
--
Eddie dates a man for the first time, Buck is completely Fine(tm) and not at all having a breakdown, and the love of their lives was right in front of them all along.
When it comes to an end (I will want you to plea) by blink_blue (Rating: E, ~26,900 words)
After the lawsuit, Buck and Eddie are casually sleeping together. Eddie tells himself it doesn't mean anything more than that. An unexpected incident at work brings up something Buck thought he'd long buried behind him and makes Eddie re-evaluate his feelings for his best friend.
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One Line Any Fic
Pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the midpoint, pick a line, and share it! Then tag you’re it!
Thank you to @megslovesbooks for the tag 💗 sorry i’m doing this in the middle of the night yall lmao
baby, come make me alright (9-1-1)
“How are you feeling?”
“Great,” Buck says absently, rubbing Chris’s back. “Or – I mean, not great,” he amends, under the fire of Eddie’s glare. “But fine. Good, even, considering the circumstances!”
like calls to like (The Old Guard)
And when he does meet Yusuf on the field again, the mess of emotion that flares in his stomach is as startling as it is unwelcome. It’s tangled and snarled and wholly complicated, but there is one thing that rises to the top: he does not want to kill him again, even once, even if he knows he will get right up again.
steppin’ into fate (9-1-1)
“You’re very bouncy,” Eddie tells him, smiling. The energy really is electric: if Eddie was the type to jump like this, he probably would.
“Can’t help it!” Buck yells, and Eddie laughs, jostling Buck when he sways towards him, right in his space.
is this body even mine? (9-1-1)
It’s a disconcerting feeling, he thinks, as he sits in the driver’s seat of his truck, watching his hands tremble against the steering wheel. It’s disconcerting, watching his body rebel against his control.
build my kingdom in the dark (Roswell New Mexico)
They eat cross-legged on Michael’s shitty twin bed, the massive spread of takeout between them. It’s the easiest things have ever been between them, grinning at each other over Michael’s shitty plaid bedspread, the steady drumbeat of the rain pressing in around them, a cozy background track.
this is worth everything to me (9-1-1)
It’s a lot, and Buck has been wading through his feelings for Eddie for a while now, has tried to be good about drawing his own boundaries and not taking advantage of the best friendship he’s ever had. But Eddie’s voice, saying the words your husband… it’s kind of undoing him at the seams.
let the waves crash down (pull you under) (9-1-1)
And then he’s ducking with a yelp, barely avoiding the baseball bat aimed at his skull. Eddie is at the other end of it, eyes wild, hair sticking up in every direction, and that had been a hell of a swing.
and the sun shall rise again (Red White & Royal Blue)
Alex stirs sleepily under his fingertips. “Morning, sweetheart,” he grumbles into his pillow, and Henry’s heart soars with wonder, even now, after all these months.
crack my ribs and make me whole (9-1-1)
It just – it makes him feel a little bit raw. Because in his mind, the Evan that he was and the Buck that he is don’t really feel like the same person. And every time Eddie – the fucking love of his life, Eddie – every time he calls him Evan, he gets reminded that he is the same person. That Evan is still there, and he can’t escape him.
stitch my soul (9-1-1)
Eddie leans back into the touch. For a moment, he imagines turning into Buck’s warmth like a sunflower towards the sun, imagines tucking his face into the crook of Buck’s neck and melting into his arms. But – no. He can’t do this to himself again.
—
not sure who’s been tagged for this so far!! but i tag: @lostinabuddiehaze @hetrez @eusuntgratie @jacksadventuresinwriting if any of you guys want!! mwah mwah 💗
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SaL anon back again my friend with another serving if salt if your up for it. Since the show has dumped TayKay, but the presence of our other least favorite waster of screentime in S6 seems to be still undecided, I'd like to make a not-so-quick point about L which I feel like is less talked about in the wake of it being made clear how pointless she was. So one of the most accurate things I ever heard about good storytelling is that it requires strong, well-developed characters and a good test
of if this was true was to describe the character, but just their personality (not their physical description or job). So if we play this game with the 911 mains it's easy to see how well thought out these characters are, it only takes a few episodes to get their vibe. Buck is loyal, reckless, heartfelt and clingy. Bobby is an empathetic father figure. Hen is observant, grounded, determined. Eddie is stoic, soft, and sassy. We can go on and on. Hell we can even describe the reporter, a guest star, this way (career-oriented, inconsiderate, condescending). Double hell, we can even do Mitchell from 5x06 (ruthless, determined, guilt-ridden at least about his son).
So now the challenge, describe L. Anything? Maybe if we really stretch on her storyline from 5x14 and wanting to be the hero, egotistical? She's the personality equivalent of a cardboard box and I really don't get her defenders because we connect to characters through their personality, so what exactly are they connecting to? We've said over and over again how she adds nothing to the team but it not just in terms of storytelling, she adds nothing as a character to the dynamics (fun fact, you can play this game with M*ria too! The only thing I could come up with is girlboss). The sad thing we've seen this before, Ana was essentially the same, but no one was begging for the show to bring her back. Anyway that's my salt talk for today, enjoy!!
“She's the personality equivalent of a cardboard box” Bestie please! 🤣🤣🤣 She really did absolutely nothing outside of all the things that go cut in relation to her and Buck “poking” at each other while he had a whole ass girlfriend at home. I’m also baffled at these people defending her like, there’s nothing to defend? If you’re angry because of misogynistic writing for her character BECAUSE she had no purpose that’s fine, please direct your complaints to KR, and not to the people who are pissed that screentime got wasted on someone so useless and that we DIDN’T get to see things we should have from characters we loved in order to make space for her and on pointless drama with BT when that whole thing ended for the same reason it ended in 2x06.
I’m sure some people will go for “badass” but even that’s not true? She jumped into the bed of a moving truck. So? Buck and Eddie stood on top of a moving firetruck keeping pace with an airplane to cut down a guy trapped in his parachute. They pulled a live grenade from a man’s leg and pulled people out of a collapsing building. Buck fought through a tsunami on blood thinners to keep Christopher safe. He and Buck were taken hostage by escaped prisoners. Eddie saved a kid from a well and then swam himself through a tunnel network into a lake to get home to his family. Hen kept her hand inside a man’s chest to save his life. Hen walked into a racist, sexist firehouse and said “no you can’t intimidate me into leaving”. Her and Buck repelled down a cliff and pulled several children out of a bouncy house. Chim also fought back against a racist house and helped make it more welcoming for everyone. He delivered a baby in a house buried under a mudslide. Bobby overcame unspeakable tragedy to build a family at the 118 and a beautiful blended family with Athena. He fought like hell to save his stepdaughter and he commands a team brilliantly through incredibly dangerous situations. Athena put on turnouts and walked into a burning building to confront a gunman to save her husband, refused to leave a scared woman behind her her collapsing house, and went back to work after nearly being killed on the job. Maddie escaped her abusive ex and fought like hell to survive, and uses her skills every day to save lives over the phone. May kept a coworker she didn’t even like calm in the midst of a very traumatic and triggering experience and got her out. I could go on, and on, and on.
“I’m not special, not in that house” YEAH, YOU’RE NOT.
(Also, m*rai at least had the “loyal friend/listening ear/empathetic” thing going on until the season 1 finale when they decided to throw out any purpose her character ever had except as an obstacle to Malex, and then spent the rest of the time telling us she was the greatest friend of all time while showing us the opposite. L never brought anything to the table.)
#my sweet nonnie friends#sleeping at last anon#911#911 spoilers#anti lucy donato#anti maria deluca#to be safe#but for REAL#she didn't do anything and because she was there taking up time and space we missed out on other things#i think fans have a right to be pissed about that just like we have a right to be pissed about all the wasted time in 5a on tay kay#ANYWAY#manifesting her leaving forever over the hiatus
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31 or 32 for the kiss prompts 👀👀🥰🥰
31. kitchen counter make-outs is anyone surprised i chose this
ao3
"Hey," Buck laughs, as arms wind around his waist from behind and a head dips into the space between his neck and his shoulder, "I was gonna bring you breakfast in bed."
Eddie huffs something sleepy and unintelligble into the fabric of Buck's sleep shirt.
"Wanna try that again, bud?"
Another huff, this one of disgust. Eddie turns his head so his mouth is against Buck's neck. "Bud?"
"You know." With Eddie's arms around him it's kind of hard to navigate cracking the egg in his hand but he thinks he does an okay job of it, only a little white spilling down the side of the cup to the counter. "Buddy. Mate. Old pal."
Eddie's teeth find gentle purchase in the cord of muscle that never fails to make Buck shiver. He tilts his head a little for better access, half-heartedly whisking the eggs with a fork.
"We're literally married," Eddie says when he lets go, softening the sting of the bite with a kiss. He moves up Buck's neck to the hinge of his jaw.
Buck pours a little too much milk into the eggs; his hand slips as Eddie's teeth find the lobe of his ear. "Stop the presses," he manages, setting down the milk carton with enough force it splashes. He blindly reaches back, finds Eddie's head, curls his fingers into his hair and tugs. Eddie lets out a soft, broken sound, and dips his head against Buck's shoulder again, breathing hard.
"Honey?" Buck tries, rocking his hips back as slowly as he dares. "Sugarplum? Sweetheart, baby—"
Eddie's arms, already a vice around Buck's waist, tighten. Buck contemplates the fire hazard of trying to scramble the eggs like this but then Eddie's lips find his neck, again, and fuck the eggs.
Eddie pushes him flush against the counter when Buck turns to face him, and he's so hard already, so hard so easily, and that's—that's the thing, isn't it, Buck thinks distantly, as Eddie's mouth finds his and proceeds to try and slip himself under Buck's skin—it's always been easy, with Eddie.
"I can hear you thinking," Eddie murmurs against the dimple in Buck's cheek because he's—he's smiling, and it's broken the kiss. He tries to school his face into something more serious but there's something—infectious, about the way he feels, whisked and bubbling inside like the eggs now languishing on the counter. Eddie pulls back and Buck meets his eyes for the first time that morning and they're brown and perfect and liquid and looking at Buck the way they looked at him at the altar, at the firehouse when he was down on one knee to propose, in their bedroom every other day when he's down on his knees to—well, you know—in the passenger seat of Buck's Jeep, that very first time they kissed, his cheeks flushed and chest heaving but his eyes, his eyes.
Buck brings his hands to either side of Eddie's face, brushes around the creases at his temple with his thumbs. "I'm just thinking about you," he says, simply, because there aren't the words to say the rest of it, to say the whole of it, to take everything that's in Buck's head right now and lay it out in front of him because to do so would take three lifetimes, at least, and Buck already has plans for this one.
Eddie crooks an imperfect eyebrow, and Buck loves him. He says, "yeah, but you're also thinking about breakfast," and Buck loves him.
"I don't wanna waste the eggs," Buck admits.
Eddie scoots close, into the space between Buck's arms that's reserved just for him, and presses a kiss to Buck's collarbone over his shirt. It's kind of the sexiest thing in the world, and Buck gets to have it forever.
"I can go back to bed," he offers. "You can still bring it to me."
Buck kisses the top of his head. "Nah," he says, and the way Eddie smiles at him is worth ten thousand ruined breakfasts. "I kinda like having you around."
"Is that so?"
"Uh huh," Buck says, turning back to the eggs, Eddie plastering himself against his back like a human-shaped octopus. "Good thing I married you, then."
Eddie hums in reply. Buck drops his left hand to where Eddie's is clutching his waist. He brings it to his mouth and kisses the palm.
"Happy anniversary, babe."
#thank you for the prompt!!!#buddie#buddie fic#buddiefanfiction#911#911 on fox#evan buckley#eddie diaz#answered#tylerhunklin#oatflatwrites#fic prompts
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"I exist in two places, here and where you are."
On ao3 here...
When Buck is sleeping on Eddie’s couch while Eddie is in the hospital, he doesn’t really think of it as moving in. He doesn’t allow himself to assign any sort of permanence to it, doesn’t take more than a single change of clothes or so at a time.
This is Eddie’s house, I’m not really a guest, he recalls telling Maddie a year ago and it’s true. It’s Eddie’s house. Eddie’s house where Buck has a key and an open invitation. Eddie’s house where Buck feels more comfortable than his own loft sometimes because Eddie is there and Christopher is there and the whole space is lived in and full of love and Buck fits, even though he knows, he does know, that he isn’t actually their family.
But when Eddie is shot…
It’s right that he should stay, that he should be the one to be with Christopher, but the space itself feels empty. Wrong. Buck feels wrong in it, wrong every time he steps through the door knowing that he doesn’t know when Eddie will wake up, when Eddie will be back, wrong every time he considers going into Eddie’s room even though he thinks vaguely that eventually Eddie will want something to wear that isn’t a hospital gown, even though he could sleep in Eddie’s bed instead of the couch if he wanted to.
He doesn’t. Want to.
He prefers sleeping on the couch, just like he prefers going back to his apartment to shower and change his clothes. It’s easier to pretend that way that everything is normal. That Eddie is at the store or picking up takeout and any minute he’ll walk through the door and roll up his sleeves and smile.
Maybe it’s silly to pretend when Buck can still see Eddie fall whenever he closes his eyes. When he can feel the phantom splash of Eddie’s blood across his face. When he can taste it on his tongue.
But he has to try. He has to. Because something happened to Buck in that moment, standing on the street and watching Eddie collapse as if in slow motion as the world fell away and his ears filled with white noise. He went numb and silent, couldn’t feel his own body, moved on pure instinct through everything that came after. He didn’t come back to himself until they reached the hospital, and even then—
Buck feels like he lost part of himself when he watched Eddie being rolled through the emergency doors and he hasn’t gotten it back. There’s a hollow space in his chest crowding out his lungs so he can’t draw a full breath, squeezing his heart so his blood isn’t circulating properly. He’s a shade. Half-alive. And the other half left on a city street, in an ambulance bay, in a hospital room.
It should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me.
*
Eddie wakes up. Eddie comes home. Eddie heals.
Buck kisses Taylor. He goes back to his apartment. He moves forward. He’s happy.
He’s happy.
But the hollow space still exists. Any time Buck starts to think he’s finally moved past that time, starts to think he’s over it, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night with the taste of blood in his mouth and an empty ache inside of him. Inevitably, he stares at the ceiling and bites his tongue instead of calling Eddie in the middle of the night.
He knows Eddie is alive. He knows Eddie is fine. He knows. So he shouldn’t need reassurance at all hours. That’s ridiculous.
Eddie’s fine.
Buck’s fine.
He’s happy.
If he finds himself watching Eddie too often when they’re on shift, as if reminding himself that Eddie really is back, steady and solid and real, if he walks too close and brushes up next to him, if he panics a little when Eddie is out of sight for too long—
Well. That’s his business. He’ll get over it eventually.
Eddie’s fine.
Except—
The power goes out and Eddie goes stiff and quiet, like he’s trying to disappear into himself. The power goes out and Eddie nearly falls out of a helicopter before it falls several stories and crashes in a fiery heap. The power goes out and suddenly Buck’s looking around the hospital floor and Eddie isn’t anywhere to be seen.
And Buck can’t breathe. Can’t explain, feels crazy, but he knows that something is wrong.
He finds Eddie in an empty OR. Eddie is on the floor, his back against the wall, his head in his hands. The top buttons of his uniform shirt are open like Eddie is too warm or having trouble breathing, and as Buck watches, Eddie’s shoulders heave as he takes in air in gulping, shaky gasps.
“Eddie?”
Buck crouches down to Eddie’s level, alarm bells ringing in his head.
Eddie flinches and looks up. His eyes are liquid in the dark and his face is pale.
Buck holds up his hands, palms up like he’s trying not to spook a startled horse. He can’t be sure how aware Eddie is—he’s looking at Buck as if he’s looking right through him instead of actually seeing him, and that makes his throat get tight.
“Hey, Eddie, hey, it’s just me,” Buck says quietly. “It’s me. We’re on shift and the power is out, but everything’s fine, okay? We’re fine. You’re fine.”
You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine.
Except that it doesn’t seem like he is at all. And that’s terrifying. Because Eddie is the strong one of the two of them. Eddie is the one who has his life together, who almost never needs help, who doesn’t break. Eddie cracked jokes throughout his physical recovery, insisted on doing as much as he could on his own, made faces and complained about physical therapy and stubbornly refused to take his pain meds because he didn’t like the way they made him feel.
Eddie doesn’t break. But it seems like he’s breaking now, and that’s—
“Buck?” Eddie’s voice cracks on a whisper.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m right here.” Buck slowly reaches out, telegraphing his movements so Eddie can move away if he wants to, and takes Eddie’s hand. Eddie grips it so tightly it hurts, but Buck doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away.
Eddie swallows hard. He blinks slowly. A glint of awareness flickers in his eyes.
“Remind me where we are?” Buck asks, because even if he just said it, he’s not convinced Eddie heard him. Or that Eddie is fully...there.
Eddie blinks again, takes another long shuddering breath, stares at their hands where he’s still crushing Buck’s fingers in a death grip.
“We’re—there was a helicopter—” Yet another breath.
“The hospital,” Eddie says finally. “We’re in the hospital. There was—an attack on the city systems—the power keeps going out.”
“Right. Good, yeah, that’s exactly right.”
Eddie drags his free hand over his face as his shoulders slump.
“I—I’m okay,” he insists. “I’m—last time this only lasted a few minutes before I was back to normal. I can—I can handle this. Just give me a minute.”
Buck bites back a comment about how how far from okay any of this is and focuses on the more relevant part of that statement.
“Last time?”
Eddie looks away. His jaw tics. He sniffs.
“Eddie.” Buck squeezes his hand. “It’s me. You can tell me.”
Please. Tell me.
“It was nothing. I was out shopping. I was startled by an alarm and I...collapsed. But it was only for a few minutes.”
Buck can hear echoes of himself from two years prior. When he was telling himself his leg was sore because he pulled a muscle, so focused on getting back to work, getting back to where and who he felt he needed to be that he almost died from a blood clot. Not wanting to listen to Maddie or anyone else when they tried to tell him to slow down, to cut back, to give himself time.
To give himself space to not be okay.
He hadn’t listened. And that’s him.
Eddie hasn’t given himself space to not be okay for as long as Buck’s known him.
Fuck.
Buck’s stomach drops.
“That really doesn’t sound like nothing,” he says, trying to keep his voice gentle, nonjudgmental.
Eddie shakes his head and pulls his hand back as he pushes himself to his feet.
“It was,” he replies. “And I’m fine now—see? Just like I said. I just needed a minute.”
“Eddie—”
“I’m fine.” Eddie’s eyes meet his and Buck catches a flicker of fear.
That too is familiar. The insistence of being fine because even the thought of the alternative is terrifying.
Buck sits back on his heels and sighs.
“We’re talking about this later.”
“There’s nothing to—”
“We’re talking about this later or I’m not letting you leave this room and we can talk about it now—up to you,” Buck interrupts. Eddie opens his mouth, closes it.
“Okay. Later. But we should get back to the others.”
“Yeah.”
Buck watches as Eddie walks out of the room. He can almost feel it like a physical thing, the tether between them—blood on his tongue and the numbing chill of panic and the piece of himself that he thinks he must have forced into Eddie’s body in the back of a fire truck when he was begging any god who would listen to keep the other man alive—it tugs at him to follow.
And he goes, because what else can he do?
They have a shift to finish.
If he sticks by Eddie’s side like glue for the rest of the night, that’s his business.
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Solid Ground
Fandom: 911
Word Count: 3166
Summary:
"Hey Buckaroo," she says conversationally, as if any of this is a common occurrence. "I'm glad to see you awake, but please, whatever you do, don't move, okay?"
(Or, Hen is here to catch Buck when he falls. Literally.)
Read on ao3
Buck has woken up in a lot of weird places in his life. A lot of them, really. He's never been shy to get into someone else's bed (or whatever place they were willing to bring him to), and he's used to that familiar anxiety he gets when it takes him more than a few seconds to remember where he is. He wasn't a complete idiot, of course, and more often than not he didn't sleep over, but there have been a few incidents where alcohol consumption didn't help his decision-making skills.
All of that to say: Buck has woken up to a lot of weird stuff over the years.
Finding Hen lying down on him is definitely a new one.
He blinks blearily for a second, and it takes a concerning amount of effort for his eyes to open fully. He has an awful taste in his mouth, too, and the world feels like it's swimming around him, but he's pretty sure that– yep, this is definitely Hen. Lying down on him.
"Hen?" he tries to say, though it comes out more as the croak of a dying animal.
She's looking away from him, up to… Something, he guesses, though her hands are firm on his shoulders, stopping any attempts he might make to get up – or just move, really. Which he doesn't want to do anyway, thank you very much. The more he's aware of his body, the less he wants to be. He tries to follow her line of sight, but the sky is bright above them, and the sun feels like it's piercing its way straight to his skull, so he stops that endeavour with a pained groan.
So. Waking up outdoors. With Hen. On top of him? Definitely squishing him. And that's– Okay, well, he should deal with that. Probably.
"Hen, what's going on?" he asks, because that's probably what he should start with, except his voice is still this painful sounding mangled thing, and he's not sure any of it actually translates to understandable words. Eddie would get it because he's Eddie, and he understands even when Buck is talking sleepily with his head smushed against his couch, but Eddie's not here right now. It does make Hen look at him though, a worried frown taking over her expression.
"Hey Buckaroo," she says conversationally, as if any of this is a common occurrence. "I'm glad to see you awake, but please, whatever you do, don't move, okay?"
Of course, immediately, his entire body feels on the verge of twitching weirdly, but he's able to control the impulse. Mostly. He tries to flex his hands, and realises that his right one is stuck between his body and Hen's, while the other is further away on the side.
Ah. Yes. The tiny issue of there being absolutely no personal space between them. He doesn't really mind, alright, he trusts that Hen wouldn't squash him without a good reason, but he'd really like to finally be informed of said good reason.
"Where–" he coughs harshly, his throat dry, and Hen's hold on him becomes even more tense. "Where are we? What happened?"
(These sentences sound mostly human, and a tiny Buck in his head is cheering about that. It's not the time, though.)
"We are…" Hen stops. Reconsiders. The grimace on her lips is not promising. "In a precarious situation. I can't really do a good concussion check on you right now, but can you try to tell me what you remember?"
"We were on a call?" That's mostly a guess. He can't see Hen's expression well (she's a little too close to him, like, "I can feel her breath on my skin" kind of uncomfortably close) but he knows she's not impressed by that. Sadly, that's all he can tell her at the moment. "I mean. I hope so. Because I love you Hen, but I'm not fighting Karen for you."
"Scared?" Hen laughs.
"Terrified. She would eat me alive, and knows enough about science to make sure no one would know about it."
That makes Hen laugh again, and Buck grins. He's nailing this whole concussion check thing. His head is killing him though, and the way Hen is lying on him is starting to get a bit uncomfortable. If he could just stretch his leg–
He barely has the time to try that the ground – whatever they're lying on shifts sharply, making Hen fall more onto him, her shoulder slamming on his nose for his trouble. They end up a little less perpendicular than they started, and Buck's nose is now pulsating with pain.
"Let's. Let's not do that again," he groans.
"Fuck," Hen agrees wholeheartedly. "You okay?"
"Alive."
"Good enough." Buck snorts and he's pretty sure Hen is smiling, but he sees even less of her face in the new position they're in.
Her radio crackles to life then. "Hen, come in." That's Bobby, in his best "I'm having a terrible day" voice.
"We moved a little Cap but we're still fine," Hen reports. "Also, Buck's awake."
"Hi Bobby," Buck says.
"Hi Buck," Bobby answers, and now he sounds like he's smiling, which is infinitely better. "Try to keep still, alright? We'll be there in five."
Buck is still not sure where there is but that sounds great, so he says that. Hen relays what she knows of his concussion, and tells them to have a unit ready (he thinks it's overkill, but Hen seems too stressed to hear him out right now).
Now that he had a few minutes to get his bearings, Buck comes to a few realisations about where he is. First of all, they're… Down something. A cliff, precisely, up where, if he squints, he can see a lot of tiny firefighters moving around next to the edge. Second of all, he's not lying on the ground so to speak – the surface is too smooth for that. He tries to wrack his brain in search of useful information, but it's mostly blank. He remembers being at the station today. Remembers getting a call, though he can't say if it's this one or a previous instance of the bell ringing.
He remembers… a truck?
"Are we on a truck? On a truck down a cliff?" he asks, sounding wonderfully calm about it – something about worrying that if he says it too loudly, he'll make it happen if it hasn't already.
"I'm afraid so," Hen says. "That's really not how I saw my day going, you know, but at least you make for a comfy pillow."
"You hit my nose with your shoulder," Buck complains.
"Or maybe you hit my shoulder with your nose."
The tragedy is that Buck can't even stick out his tongue at her, because he'll only end up licking her uniform. Urgh. Also, he's certain he'd have a good answer to that if it wasn't for his headache. He resolves to find it later, so he can focus on being on a truck down a cliff at a risk of tipping over any minute.
"Why are we– What happened? Is the victim still–?"
"We evacuated the driver pretty easily, all things considered," Hen says, shifting minutely. She's laying down on him but he knows she's keeping some of her weight off him, and it must be hell on her arms. "But the truck rolled, your line snapped, and you fell so hard you got knocked unconscious. I came to get you but–"
Hen sighs, and the ominous groan emitted by the truck fills Buck in the rest of the story easily enough.
"Okay," he says, even though none of this is okay. "Okay." His right hand is getting numb from being stuck in one position for such a long time. Actually, most of his body is protesting against something right now. "To say that I thought you just really wanted to hug me."
"Sorry Buck but I think we've reached our hug quota for the month now," Hen laughs. "I kinda fell over you when I first reached you because of how unstable this all is, and any attempt I made to get up resulted in even more trouble."
To be honest, Buck really doesn't mind. They are worse people to wake up with than Hen – he would know, he woke up with some of them. He'd like it better if both of their lives weren't in danger, evidently, but he can stay still.
"Wait," he says after a few seconds, his brain going over what was said. "Are you still– Did your line snap too?" He wishes he could move to check, because he definitely knows they both still have their harness on (not a very comfortable thing to have pressed against your chest), but he can't figure out if she still has her line.
"No, I've still got mine."
"So you could leave, right? You wouldn't fall?"
The silence that follows somehow manages to convey how much Hen thinks Buck is an idiot without any sound or movement on her part. A jewel of linguistics he's not sure anyone could figure out.
"What part of If we move you fall to your death are you missing?" Her tone is so dry it could stop a flood.
"I. I'm just glad you won't? Fall to your death?" (The little Buck in his mind is ringing his Wrong Answer bell, but it's too late anyway, he already dug his grave.)
"I'm not letting you fall, Buck. And if you think, for even a second, that you dying and me surviving is one of the best case scenarios, I'll tell Bobby that you don't like his apricot cake."
"I just don't like apricots that much!"
"Do you think it'll matter to him?"
"No," Buck groans, because he can already imagine Bobby's sad face at the news. A smile tugs at his lips, even though his heart is beating a tad faster at Hen's declaration. He's still glad that of the two, he's the one who doesn't have a secure line, though he's not stupid enough to voice that thought a second time. But still: "Thank you Hen," he smiles.
"Always," she swears, fiercely enough that Buck believes her. "Bobby is coming to get us, but I'm not letting you fall anyway, no matter what."
Embarrassingly enough, Buck can feel his eyes water. He's suddenly glad for their awkward positions – the fact that he can pretend he's hiding his face in the crook of her shoulder, the weight in his throat going unnoticed. He would risk everything to save the members of his team, he knows that. It's harder to remember that they would do the same for him, and that it wouldn't feel like a burden, an obligation they have to carry. As if to confirm that, Hen says, voice soft:
"You may be an idiot but I love you Buck."
"Love you too," he chokes out, ruining all his chances to keep the tears he can't blink away a secret. Gracefully, Hen says nothing. She's a good person like that.
"Okay guys," Bobby says from the radio, and Buck squashes the impulsive desire to tell him he loves him too. He's a sappy man, alright. "Ravi and I are going to rappel down to you, while the others work on stabilising the truck as best as possible. Our priority is to get Buck secured to something. Do not move before we tell you to, alright?"
"Not going anywhere," Hen answers, making Buck laugh against her shoulder.
Things go faster after that. Before Buck has the time to blink, Bobby and Ravi are hovering above them, not daring to even breathe on the truck in fear of setting it off.
"The only thing we can access without making everything fall off is your left hand," Bobby tells Buck, as if he wasn't here for the entire inspection, "but it means that if you fall, your entire weight would be held by your arm, which is not ideal."
Mental images of himself dangling by his dislocated shoulder make a sick feeling rise in Buck's stomach. Yep, not ideal. Hen is of the mind that at least he'd survive, which is a fair point, but they decide to wait a little more, to see if other options crop up. He can't see the firefighters working on securing the truck, but since they haven't fallen down yet, he takes it as a sign that they're doing a good job. Or at least, not worsening the situation.
"How's your head?" Hen asks out of the blue.
"Meh." Now that he can see Bobby from the corner of his eyes, Buck can also plainly see that this isn't a sufficient answer. "It aches a little, and I'm dizzy, but it's nothing I haven't already experienced."
There. He's a good patient.
"What if Buck clips the line to his harness slowly? We could put it in his hand and he could move it gently towards himself," Ravi offers.
They resolve to try it out, since it isn't a half-bad idea. The cold metal of the clip is heavy in Buck's left hand, and moving his arm becomes the most nerve-wracking activity of his life. Inching closer towards his harness, he's convinced that every single movement is the one that's going to send him the rest of the way down.
He breathes in to flatten his stomach, his hand shimmying its way between himself and Hen, who seems to be holding her breath too. For a second, a minute, he thinks that this is it. He's going to make it, and twirl Ravi in the air for his good idea or something.
It all happens fast. There's a shout, and then the truck is tipping over to the right quickly. There's nowhere to hold on (it's a truck), and Buck doesn't even have the time to yell that the ground disappears and he's falling–
Until Hen closes her legs around him like a koala, punching the air out of his lungs with how much force she puts into it, her hands scrambling to get a better purchase on his shoulders.
"BUCK–" "BUCK!" "BUCK"
Sounds all come back at once, and Buck is nauseous with it, and with how his fingers are unable to grip onto Hen, and with the uncontrolled swinging they're doing right now, Hen's line sending them right onto the cliff only for the bounce to launch them in a new dizzying motion. His head feels about to explode, he feels sick, he can't see anything except for Hen's uniform and he's still slipping, she's barely holding onto him–
"Hang on Buck!" she orders through gritted teeth, looking ready to fight gravity itself to keep him with her.
Suddenly, a new weight appears at his back, sending them all in a new uncontrolled swing.
"I'm here," and Bobby's voice could make him cry right now," "hang on, just hang on."
His hands are frantic, searching for Buck's harness as quickly as possible, before– click. They rush back towards the cliff, and suddenly Ravi is there too to help them slow down, finally, after everything, stabilising them.
Buck has a secure line.
"Holy shit," he breathes out shakily. He's pretty sure he's trembling.
"Oh my god," Hen echoes, sounding exhausted too.
Bobby is still holding onto Buck tightly, but he's the first one to outright giggle at this, which is such a weird sound coming from Bobby that it sets them all off. Because holy shit.
"You can– you can let go, Hen," Buck says after a while, because her legs are still tightly wound around his torso.
She doesn't answer. She simply takes a very, very deep breath, releases it as slowly as she can, before carefully letting go. He doesn't fall. It still all feels surreal.
They get back to solid ground, eventually. Buck's heart is still pounding in his chest, and he feels a little too shaky for anything, but Bobby and Hen refuse to leave his side even for a second during the way back up. He's grateful beyond words. Especially when his feet finally touch the ground, and he sways in place dramatically, before his legs give up on him altogether. Hen and Bobby are here to catch him, once again.
"Wow," he says dumbly, letting himself be led away from the edge. He gives up on trying to find his footing, focusing on trying to find a normal heartbeat.
"You okay Buck?" someone asks, to which he answers the most unconvincing uh huh of history. It still feels like he's not on solid ground.
Unsurprisingly, he ends up in the back of an ambulance, a paramedic he doesn't know examining his head, and asking questions after questions that Buck has practically no left-over energy to answer.
This was a close call. Too close, really. If Hen had reacted just a second later– or worse, he thinks, dread slamming onto him unexpectedly. If Hen's line had snapped because of his weight, if he had taken her with him, he would never have forgiven himself–
"Hey," and that's Hen, appearing at the door as if she heard him spiralling and came to raise her eyebrows at him in that judging way she's an expert at. "Mind if I come with you?"
"No worries," the other paramedic answers. (Buck hasn't paid him much attention, but he thinks his name is Greg. Or Fred. Something like that.)
"How is he?"
"He is fine," Buck answers petulantly, right as Greg/Fred says: "He needs to be transported."
"Sorry man," he keeps going, shrugging off Buck's glare easily. "You've lost consciousness for a worrying amount of time, I really don't like your vitals right now, and you've got some bruising I'd definitely feel better about if you got checked out."
Because he is a mature adult, Buck resists the desire to pout. Barely. Hen pats his knee a little sympathically, a little condescendingly, so that tells him he's not doing a good job at that.
His hands are still trembling in his lap. It hasn't happened in a while.
It's hard not to think how easily everything could have gone wrong. But his hand sneaks its way towards Hen's, who takes it with a smile, and he breathes in the knowledge that they're both okay. They're both alive.
"Thank you for not letting me fall," he whispers.
"I told you I wouldn't," she says easily, truthfully. There's affection, and loyalty, and trust in that. Something about the way family only started to make sense after meeting the 118.
Buck has always been a sacrifice people were willing to make. It's hard to remember that his friends are willing to sacrifice a lot for him.
"Also, you've got some strong legs," he laughs, because they're in an ambulance with Greg/Fred and he can't really tell her he loves her again without feeling too embarrassed.
"Careful now, Karen can still take you," Hen jokes back.
She never stops holding his hand.
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Spoon me, you idiot
Post ep4x13 Buddie because my brain is just that episode on loop. Hands up if you're not ready for the season 4 finale, folks. Have some cuddling and love confessions in the meantime.
Buck helps Eddie over the threshold with one hand at Eddie’s elbow and the other pressed against his hip. Eddie’s fine, he’s fine, he’s alive, but he’s exhausted. Pain and shock weigh down his shoulders, make him unsteady on his feet.
Carla breathes in sharply at the sight of him. Then she’s stepping forward, folding Eddie into a soft embrace, pulling his head down cheek to cheek with hers. Buck drags his eyes away from his living, breathing, living friend to find Chris, who’s lying on the couch with his glasses askew, mouth open in sleep. Buck’s heart clenches like a fist. He’s going to remember Chris’s haunted, horrified expression for the rest of his life, the light dying in Chris’s eyes as Buck had to tell him… had to tell him that his dad wasn’t coming home that night.
Buck walks over to Chris and kneels down beside him. He’s pretty sure it’s the first time Chris has slept since he heard about it. The first time in more than 48 hours that the kid’s closed his eyes. Buck brushes the curls back from Chris’s forehead, trying to be gentle, not wanting to wake him.
Eddie gets down next to Buck, their knees pressing together. Buck feels the shudder that runs down Eddie’s spine, feels it echoed in his soul. Buck isn’t the religious type, but he feels like this is another miracle. Years after his first brush with death, Eddie coming home once again to his son.
With a hand on Chris’s shoulder, Eddie murmurs, “hey, my little Superman. Chris, I’m here.”
Chris’s eyes open slowly, reluctantly, until he sees his dad’s face and wakes up all at once.
“Dad!” Chris shouts, hands flying up to attach themselves to Eddie’s face. “Dad!”
Eddie’s smiling, huffing out laughter in pure, unadulterated joy at seeing his son’s delighted expression. Chris is grinning and whooping, falling forward to curl himself into his dad’s chest. Eddie lifts one arm to hold Chris close and buries his face in Chris’s hair.
Buck blinks back tears, feeling relief crash over him. He rubs his eyes and starts to get to his feet, wanting to give the Diaz boys some space, until he feels a tug on his shirt. Eddie’s hand twists in the fabric. He’s not even looking at Buck, head tucked against the curve of Chris’s skull. Buck sinks back down and tentatively puts his arms around the both of them, Chris’s knobbly spine and Eddie’s strong back, his cheek brushing Eddie’s forehead. Buck lets out a breath that trembles like an earthquake.
It feels like home. It feels impossible. It’s what he’s always wanted. It feels like something Buck isn’t allowed to have.
When they finally let go of each other, what could be a minute or a year later, Buck notices Carla standing at the end of the couch. She’s smiling fondly at all of them, and Buck realizes abruptly that this is the first time he’s seen her since the pandemic started. He gets up—although it’d be more fair to say he tears himself away—and moves toward her, and there’s always been something magic about Carla because she takes one look at him and she knows.
“I missed you,” Buck says, his nose smashed into her chin. She’s hugging him like she’s trying to pack Buck down tight and snug him into a little box where she can keep him safe. Or maybe that’s just Buck’s wishful thinking. He’s so goddamn tired.
“I missed you too, Buckaroo,” Carla says, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Buck swallows the lump in his throat her tenderness causes.
She pulls away and very gently pats his cheek, looking Buck in the eye. “He needs you, you hear?” She whispers, holding that eye contact like she’s bet money on a staring competition. “Take care of each other.”
Buck can only nod.
She lets go of him and Buck shakes himself into standing straight, even though he’d much rather crumple to the floor. But he needs to get Eddie and Chris to bed, he needs to figure out what’s still edible in the kitchen and take out the trash, he needs to call the pharmacy for Eddie’s meds and the station for Eddie’s med leave, he needs to—
“Alright boys, get some rest.” Buck blinks and Carla comes back into focus. She’s addressing all of them, voice firm. “I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow to help out.”
“Thank you, Carla,” Eddie says.
“No need for that.” She bends down to give Eddie a quick hug, and Buck hears her tell him, “just try not to get on the bad side of any more sniper-rifle-wielding nut jobs, alright?”
Eddie’s reply is somewhere between a laugh and a choked-back sob.
Buck walks Carla to the door. Before she leaves, she looks at him, sharp-eyed and commanding again. “You call me if you need anything. Anything. You look just as bad as he does.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks, Carla.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but this is what Buck has always been best at. He wades through the hurt and the pain and just keeps going. He gives her a tight smile, reminds himself that he wasn’t the one shot (no, just the one sprayed with Eddie’s blood, he can still feel it on his skin, still taste it on his lips), and closes the door behind her.
Getting Chris and Eddie to bed is easy. Buck lifts Chris up, carries him to Eddie’s room, and pulls the covers over both the Diaz boys. Eddie tries to catch Buck’s eye while Buck leaves the room, but if Buck stops moving then he’s not sure when or if he’ll start again. Buck pulls the bedroom door most of the way closed, leaving a tiny crack in case Eddie or Chris need him in the night.
In the kitchen, the clock on the stove informs him that it’s just past 9 pm. It’s jarringly early. It feels like time doesn’t really exist, that he’s been moving in a place defined by the hours since Eddie dropped, the hours since Eddie went into surgery, the hours since Eddie woke up.
Buck opens the fridge and looks into it without seeing anything, like when you’re reading only to realize that three pages have gone by without you remembering a single word. He closes the fridge door and opens it again, and oh, there’s the carton of milk and bottle of ketchup on the top shelf, the egg carton down to its last egg, a container of left-over fried rice from… was it yesterday? Buck folds back the top flap and sniffs it, decides it will be fine for one of the boys to eat when they get up.
He closes the fridge and investigates the pantry next. Two boxes of spaghetti, a can of beans, three cans of chicken noodle soup, an unopened bag of quinoa that is probably the result of Ana because Buck’s not sure Eddie has ever heard of quinoa—like he’s taking inventory of the truck. Thermal blankets, C-spine collar kit, 3L of sterile water, 3L sodium chloride, hug-a-bear. The 118 has a blue elephant courtesy of Athena. Buck could honestly really use it right now.
Buck runs a hand through his hair and pulls out his phone, planning to make a grocery list. He sees two missed calls from Bobby and eight from Maddie. One from Chim. Hen texted him at 4pm: How you holding up?
Buck very slowly puts the phone down.
He takes a step back and grips the edge of the kitchen counter. Breathe, Buck, he thinks. Just breathe.
His vision is spotty when he opens his eyes, like he’d shut them too tight. He doesn’t remember shutting them. It doesn’t matter. Buck finds a scrap of paper in the recycling bin and a pen from the junk drawer and writes a list. It’s late, so he’ll go to the grocery store in the morning, early, make sure breakfast is on the table for when Eddie and Chris get up. Oh fuck, does he have a shift tomorrow? What day is it?
Buck puts down the pen and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. He can’t do this. He can’t stand here and pretend like he can take care of Eddie because he can’t stop seeing Eddie die. It’s in the back of his head every moment, it’s what he sees every time he closes his eyes, it’s the memory rewritten by his cells as they multiply and decay, it’s in his fucking genome now or whatever they call it—
it’s in the air he breathes, the reminder that for a moment that lasted an eternity, Eddie’s heart had stopped beating.
It’s a loud silence. Deafening.
Buck thinks, take a breath before you pass out, idiot.
Buck thinks, get a glass of water and pull yourself together.
Buck thinks, your best friend just got shot, you don’t have time for this bullshit.
Buck peels his hands away from the counter slowly, carefully, like if he makes one wrong move he’ll come away with flayed palms. He pours himself a glass of water and makes himself drink the whole thing. He picks up the list he wrote and reads it over and over and over. He thinks: what do I know is true? I’m standing in Eddie’s kitchen. I’m alive. Eddie is alive. And: I should get carrots.
Buck hiccups. Carrots—fucking—
No. Get it together. DAMN IT, Buck!
Buck bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds and does not add carrots to the grocery list. Because apparently they cause emotional breakdowns, and Buck can’t afford one.
He puts himself to work. He ties the trash bag and then he wipes down the counters, and then he unties the trash bag to throw some paper towels in. He transfers the dishes from the sink to the dishwasher, quiet as he can, and locates a broom at the back of Eddie’s hall closet to sweep the floor.
When he’s emptying the dust pan into the trash (he’d tied and untied the bag again, but nobody’s counting, so what does it matter), Eddie says: “Are you OK?”
Buck jumps at least three feet in the air. He’s got the quads for it.
“Hey!” Buck whisper-shouts, turning to face Eddie. “What are you doing up?”
“Was wondering where you were.”
“Uh,” Buck looks around at the spotless kitchen and the broom in his hand. “Just, you know. Thought I’d be of service.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows at him. “Buck, the last thing I’m worried about is the state of my kitchen.”
“Right. That’s why I’m taking care of it. You know, so you don’t uh. You don’t have to.”
“OK.” Eddie squints at him like maybe a closer look will explain why Buck is sweeping his kitchen at 9:45pm three days after he got shot in the street in broad daylight. Buck sincerely hopes he doesn’t figure it out. He leans the broom against the counter and clips the dust pan to it in a rare display of tidiness. The pan slides down the broom handle until it hits the floor.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
Buck shrugs.
“Answer, please.”
God, what a dad.
(Not that Buck would know.)
“Uh… I think I got a few hours while you were in surgery.”
“That was two days ago, Buck,” Eddie says, frowning at him. “You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over.”
“Well, we’re inside.”
“Why are you being so stubborn? You need to sleep.”
“I’m just not really feeling it,” Buck says, folding his arms and resting his hip against the counter.
“Not giving you a choice,” Eddie says, looking extra grumpy because he can’t fold his arms. Unless you count the one in a sling as folded.
“I’m fine, Eddie. Don’t worry about me. You should be with Christopher.”
Eddie lifts his hand to his face and rubs his temples.
“Buck,” he says, “the only thing I need you to do right now is come to bed.”
“But I—“
“Come to bed, Buck.”
And it’s the repetition. It’s the look in Eddie’s eyes like a slow, early flame: the promise of a fire.
Buck’s throat is very, very dry.
“I… yeah. OK.”
Eddie gives him a small smile. Buck’s reeling. Because here’s the thing—they’ve shared a bed before. They’ve shared a too-small bunk at the station and a backseat and even a beanbag once (courtesy of a very poor decision on Buck’s part, but at least Chris likes it). But it’s always been “just bros.” It’s always been necessity. It’s been about efficiency and familiarity. Which maybe Buck is reading this all wrong and snuggling up with your best friend and his son after a near-death experience is totally no homo but… come to bed. Come to bed. Like it’s their bed. Like Buck belongs there.
Buck’s ears are ringing while he follows Eddie down the hallway to his bedroom. Their bedroom? He’s losing it.
The hallway light illuminates a strip of the room as they step inside. Buck can see Chris tucked in the sheets, curled into the rumpled spot where Eddie slid out to fetch Buck. This has to mean something, right? They’ve been dancing around and on the edge of something for so long, Buck doesn’t know how to interpret anything anymore. He loves Eddie, though. And probably the only way he’ll sleep right now is if Eddie’s in arm’s reach. So it doesn’t really matter what this is, because Buck will take any scrap of Eddie he can get, not just tonight, but always.
Eddie slips into the bed and scoots forward, leaving a space behind for Buck. Chris makes a heavy, sleepy sound and turns his head into his dad’s shoulder. Carefully, so, so carefully, Buck lowers himself onto the bed and fills the space Eddie made for him.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asks, exasperated.
Buck blinks at the ceiling. “What?”
“Idiot,” Eddie mutters. “Spoon me.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Buck, this bed is small enough as it is with one person. I know you’re hanging half off it right now.”
“You’re not even looking at me.”
“Call it intuition,” Eddie says, dry as the desert.
Buck gingerly turns on his side, his chest just a breath away from Eddie’s back. “I…” He swallows. “Where should I put my arm?”
“Buck, you must have done this before.”
“That’s your bad arm, Eds.”
Eddie shifts a little, his calf coming into contact with Buck’s shin. Buck breaks into a cold sweat.
“Shit, well… under the sling, then. Around my waist?”
Dry, dry, his throat is so dry.
Buck lifts his arm up and drapes it over Eddie’s waist. He shuffles in closer, pressing them together from head to toe. His nose is in Eddie’s hair, his dick is nestled in the curve of Eddie’s ass, his ankles are knocking into Eddie’s. Buck feels like he might reverberate out of his skin.
“You sure you wouldn’t rather have Ana here?” Buck whispers. His mouth is like, one inch from Eddie’s ear.
Eddie turns his head a little, so his ear actually brushes Buck’s lip. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Eddie says, “There’s no one in this world I want here more than you.”
Buck stutters on his next breath.
“I wish it’d been me,” he says, suddenly. Eddie has to know. Eddie probably already knows. Buck’s grateful, so goddamn grateful, that Eddie survived. And sure, part of it is that self-deprecating shit he’s been working through with this therapist: Eddie has more to live for, Eddie has a kid, Eddie is a better man than I’ll ever be. But mostly, it’s far simpler than that.
If Eddie had died, the sniper may as well have shot Buck too. Because Buck doesn’t know how to live without Eddie. He’d found that out ages ago, when he lost Eddie under fifty feet of mud and water.
Eddie’s next words are nearly a growl. “The only good thing to come out of all this,” he says, “is that you didn’t get hurt.”
“What are you—“
“After it happened, when I was… when I was lying there, I—I looked at you. I looked at you, Buck, and I was terrified. Not because I might die, but because if I did, who was going to protect you? Who was going to keep a sniper off your self-sacrificing, heroic ass, and make sure someone came home to Chris? Who was—“ Eddie cut himself off with a sigh. “I was worried about you.”
Buck feels like… like an unbroken, empty tundra. Like a fried electric socket. Like someone dropped him to the very bottom of a very deep well.
“Eddie, Eddie I—“
“Shh,” Eddie murmurs, as Buck shakes apart. As he bends his head to hide his tears in the nape of Eddie’s neck. As he bites his tongue to stay quiet and not wake Chris up. Eddie presses backward into Buck’s hold. “I know, I know.”
“I can’t lose you,” Buck grits out between several halting breaths.
“You won’t,” Eddie says.
“I almost did.”
“You had my back.” Buck’s throat makes an awful, wheezing sound as he fights a losing battle against crying. “You got me out of there. You saved me.”
“I love you,” Buck says, losing the fight against that too.
“Buck… I…” Eddie sounds like someone knocked the wind out of him.
“Sorry,” Buck hurries to say, chest icing over with panic. “Sorry I just—“
“I love you,” Eddie interrupts. “I do. I know it took me a long time to realize, but… I’ve been in love with you, Buck.”
“Oh my god,” Buck says. I mean, what else do you say to that? No wonder Eddie froze up. Buck is in shock. “Is this real?”
“I hope so,” Eddie says. “And if it isn’t, then I’ll just have to tell you when we wake up.”
Buck feels fit to burst with more emotions than he can name. Relief, joy, fear, disbelief, pin-prickly. It feels like another miracle.
“Deal,” Buck says. And places a kiss to the fatal, devastating spot behind Eddie’s ear.
Eddie is the first thing Buck sees when he wakes up. “Good morning” are the first words he hears.
And then:
“Just so you know, I love you.”
#buddie#long post#ray writes#i know nothing about gunshot wounds so sorry if this is wildly inaccurate
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Carve It Into Stone, 1574 words - Buck/Eddie + Chris, Sleepy Sickfic
(AO3 link)
Caught in the rhythm of routine, Eddie remembers a few moments too late that he’s meant to be entering quietly when he gets home from work.
Or: a self-indulgent Buck and Chris napping together fic because of this post.
Caught in the rhythm of routine, Eddie remembers a few moments too late that he’s meant to be entering quietly when he gets home from work. The deadlock has already been turned but, wincing, he slides his key back out gently and palms the doorknob deliberately to prevent the familiar squeaks from reverberating through the house.
Once inside, he guides his duffel bag to the floor, not letting the strap clatter down as he usually would, and takes care as he bends down to unlace his boots and toe them off before padding into the living room, following the low sounds of the television.
On Thursday, Abuela asked for help figuring out the new tax software she wanted to use this year — it was very user friendly but she was very much in her 80s — and instead of subjecting Christopher to an entire afternoon and evening of boredom, Eddie asked Buck to pick him up from school and hang out until he could join them. He hadn’t known at the time that Christopher was sent home with a note saying he’d been sniffly and should be kept home until he felt better: new protocols in the mid/post-COVID-19 world.
Buck immediately got him a rapid test for COVID-19 and it was ruled out, and it didn’t present like a flu, it was just a hell of a cold. Mild fever, runny nose, body aches — the works. And Buck, who had been exposed for hours at its peak transmission period, did not escape it. Which made it handy when Eddie needed a sitter on Friday and Buck naturally had to call in sick himself.
Buck was sending him text updates all throughout his shift but they stopped suddenly a couple hours ago, so Eddie is not at all surprised to find them both out for the count.
Still, he’s not prepared to take in the sight of Buck stretched on his back, somehow fitting his 6’2 frame between each arm rest, and Christopher tucked snugly along his side, more on top of him than in the wedge between Buck’s body and the back of the couch. One of Buck’s hands is curled up by his face, while his other arm is holding Christopher to him as if there was a risk of falling. Christopher’s arm is tucked into his chest, and his head is resting against Buck’s collarbone, nearly tucked right under his chin and Eddie…
Eddie pauses.
He pauses and grapples with this picture of strength and fragility juxtaposed and blended together. Buck, built for strength and power, tenderly cradling his young son. Both of them unstoppable forces of energy and unrestrained joy, both cast down together by germs they just have to weather.
Both of them here, recovering together, safe under Eddie’s roof, under Eddie’s watch now.
He feels suddenly like he’s walked blindly into a moment in the course of his life whose significance he can’t yet pinpoint and he thinks if he just stays here, quiet, still, he might be able to reach out and understand it.
Christopher’s glasses are on the table nestled between a tissue box and two empty glasses of water, indicating one of them knew they were headed towards an extended nap before they settled in and somehow that detail tugs at his heart fiercely. To imagine Buck watching Christopher get sleepier and sleepier, carding his fingers through his curls fondly, and gently lifting his glasses off to make him more comfortable. Was he already settled against Buck by then? Or were they sitting upright until Buck started to lose his own battle with fatigue and rearranged them like this? Indulging both their need for cuddles when they’re feeling low?
It doesn’t matter, but Eddie wishes fiercely that he knew.
They’re both breathing easily enough, like most of the congestion has lifted, though he can tell by the amount of crumpled up tissues that missed the trash can Buck must have brought into the living room that they had a hell of a day with it. Their cheeks are a little flushed with fever still, and Eddie wants to check but doesn’t dare touch them for fear of disturbing them.
Instead, he takes in their pale skin, their dark curls, and their unguarded faces in sleep and marvels for the hundredth time at how improbable it is that they could look so alike and how strangely happy he is about it. By now he’s used to the guilt that accompanies this thought, and as always, spares a thought to Shannon, but then he lets himself linger on it like he doesn’t usually have the luxury of doing.
Usually their similarities strike him at the worst times: when he turns around in line to catch them making faces and laughing at being caught, and Eddie has to pretend to be grumpy and turn back around to play into their game; when they’re ordering ice cream and Eddie asks for strawberry and they both turn to look at him with identical expression of disappointment because fruit isn’t a treat even if it’s fake fruit; when he has to take a call from Carla as they’re walking into the museum and catches up to Buck and Chris just in time to hear the ticket taker say “you and your dad have fun!” because she has eyes and anyone on Earth would have assumed the same. These are moments Eddie has to let lie and move on from quickly. Moments he only gets to revisit when he’s laying in bed at night, trying to conjure up the visuals exactly as they were to reproduce the tightening in his chest he keeps experiencing, but failing every time.
But now, here, he can linger.
No, he can do more than linger.
Moving slowly as if any sudden movement could break this tranquility, Eddie slips his phone out of his pocket and double-taps the power button to bring up the camera.
He takes a single, wide-view shot of the whole couch, and admires it for a moment.
Then he zooms in on their sleeping faces and takes two more.
Three new pictures to add to the overflowing folder of pictures that will never go on Instagram.
He quickly sends Carla the wide-view shot because he feels the need to share what he’s come home to and she’s the only safe option. The only one who won’t read more into it than Eddie’s comfortable addressing.
Though if Eddie’s being truthful, he knows she’s just the only one who’ll keep it to herself until he’s ready to hear it.
Carla sends back three red hearts, and Eddie can’t help but agree.
He slips his phone back into his pocket and makes room to sit on the coffee table.
Buck’s hand is right there, open, palm facing up, waiting.
Eddie reaches for his shoulder instead, though he slips up and instead of jostling him gently like he meant to, his hand curves around his shoulder and his thumb glides back and forth against his shirt until Buck is snuffling and blinking awake.
“Hey,” Eddie says, smiling when Buck remains half-asleep, his body as relaxed as it was in sleep.
“Hey,” he croaks, gently clearing his throat and casting a nervous eye to Christopher who makes nothing of the disturbance.
“How are you feeling?”
Buck seems to mentally assess himself. “Fine, just crazy tired. Our little man here was a trooper, but he conked out a couple hours ago. Aw, shi--oot,” he looks at the television, “I was supposed to pause it when he fell asleep. I don’t remember which episode we were on.”
Eddie smiles. “He probably won’t even remember the episodes you did watch. You can start over when you’re both back on your feet.”
“Mm,” Buck hums, his eyelids already growing heavier again. “‘K.”
Eddie watches sleep take over Buck, until those tired lids are pried apart suddenly with mild alarm.
“D’you want m’to put him to bed?” Buck slurs. “Be more comfortable?”
Eddie shakes his head with a fond smile. “He’s just fine where he is.”
Buck’s eyes grow vulnerable in a way he’s been trying to hide lately when he’s in full control of his faculties, and the corner of his lips tugs up into a shy smile.
“Go back to sleep,” Eddie says, his voice pitched low to be soothing.
Buck obeys and within a couple of minutes his face is slack and peaceful, his breathing evened out, but some stray impulse shifts his hand away from his face and off the couch entirely to hang in the space between them.
Can Eddie really be faulted then for taking it in his hands and holding on for just a second — feeling the slight heat from the fever seep into his skin, feeling the curl of mildly calloused fingers against his, feeling the weight of it between his palms and deciding that he likes it, a lot?
He guides Buck’s hand back to its original resting place and doesn’t give in when his fingers want to explore the ungelled curls resting against his forehead.
He lingers, again, just one more time, and lets the knowledge that Carla’s talk will likely be coming sooner rather than later wash over him.
And by the way he only barely makes it to the kitchen before thumbing open his gallery and reviewing the three pictures he took, he figures he may just be ready for it.
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Promise of Pancakes
Evan Buckley x Eddie Diaz
Warnings: just some team teasing
Category: fluff
Word Count: 1.4k
Author’s Note: this is a continuation of the blurb I wrote for drey during my shorts for 1.5K so here’s another buddie fic and drey, this ones for you babe :) <3 @suburban--gothic
----
A 24 hour shift and no sleep was a normal occurrence at station 118 but it sure as hell wasn’t not fun. It was around 3am and the last reruns of survivor had just finished, leaving Buck and Eddie with nothing to do.
“Maybe we should get some sleep ? Just before the next call ?” Eddie looks towards the blonde man who was mid yawn “yeah, that sounds good” and with that, they head towards the bunks.
They had a few extra guys from B shift with them so the bunks were a bit more full than normal, the two men looked around for two empty beds but there was only one.
Eddie takes a seat on the edge, Buck looking at him with brows furrowed, “uh- I’ll- I’ll sleep on the couch, it’s cool” he turns and heads towards the door when Eddie calls his name.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t let you sleep on the couch” Eddie looks at his friend as he makes himself comfortable in the bed. Buck’s brows furrow once again- he could feel the lines developing on his forehead, Eddie patted the space beside, his head tilted with a small smile on his face.
“C’mon, the couch isn't comfortable” he says, scooting over to make space for Buck- the beds weren’t small but they weren't exactly big. Buck nor Eddie weren’t the smallest guys either, they were both rather beefy to put it in a not so technical term.
Buck walked back towards his friend, looking at him for reassurance once more, “are you sure ?” he asks, Eddie nods before Buck sits beside him on the bed, their bodies pressed against each other.
It’s not like they hadn't slept beside each other before. They’ve done it so many times, intentional and unintentionally.
The first time was after they had taken Christoper to the zoo together, Chris was knocked out in bed and Eddie was in his bedroom. Buck had come in after checking on Chris, sitting on the bed and talking to Eddie while he changed. The men were just talking and fell asleep beside each other. It wasn't awkward, they woke up the next day and moved on like it was the most normal thing in the world because it was.
Ever since that day, the two of them often slept in the same bed when staying at each other’s place. They kept each other company, laughed and talked, they cuddled too but if you mentioned that- they’d both deny it.
“Are you comfortable?” Eddie says quietly, as the two men lay stiff as a board beside each other, it was uncomfortable because there was barely any space.
“Are you?” Buck turns towards his friend, now on his side and looking at him.
“Okay, uh- hold on” Eddie rolled on his side, facing away from Buck. “Better?” he whispers, settling into the mattress. Buck hums, now too tired to answer him as he pulls the blanket over the two of them.
Buck hadn't realized how tired he was until he got into the bed and although the bed was small, he would sleep much better there than he would have on the couch. Buck’s arm slung over Eddie’s waist, something so normal to them yet it would seem so intimate to a passing person.
Eddie’s hand finds Buck’s, hands now holding each other as Eddie’s thumb caressing the top of Buck’s hand softly. He could now hear Buck’s steady breathing, telling him that he was asleep. Eddie leant back slightly against Buck’s chest, Buck relaxed and settled into the bed, his arm tightening around his waist, the two men drifting peacefully into sleep.
---
A full night’s sleep was a rare occurrence at the station, especially during the summer- there were always idiots somewhere doing something stupid.
The flash of a light woke Buck. He woke up confused and unsure as to where or what time it was. The two of them still in the position they had fallen asleep in, Eddie’s back pressed to Buck’s chest.
Buck rolls onto his back with his eyes closed, Eddie moves too, trying to find the body he was just pressed against. His shoulder resting on top of Buck and Eddie again, shifts in his sleep. His head now on Buck’s chest, he settles again.
Another flash of light caused Buck to open his eyes. Hen, Chimney and Bobby all standing at the end of the bed watching them. Hen had her phone on her face, smiling at a sleepy Buck.
“What are you guys doing?” he whispers, they all looked like they had been awake for a while.
“We were making breakfast, Bobby said to let you two lovebirds sleep in.” Chim informs him, earning him a playful smack to the arm from Cap. “I never said love birds.”
“What time is it?” Buck goes to sit up but notices Eddie on his chest and how peaceful he looks- he lays back down.
“A little after 9,” Hen says, sitting on the bed across from them. Eddie stirs in his sleep, Buck’s hand instinctively comes up to his back, rubbing it softly. Bobby and Chimney exchange glances, Chim looking over his shoulder at Hen who just hums with a smile on her face. Buck may have just woken up but he knows those looks and that hum meant something.
“What ?” he looks at his team, Hen is the one who speaks up. “The two of you look like a couple”
“But we aren’t-” “are you sure about that ?” Buck starts but is cut off by Bobby. “Buck, the two of you spend every minute at work together and outside of work too, you're helping him raise Christoper- you’re no less of a couple than Athena and I or Hen and Karen, even Maddie and Chimney.”
Bobby’s words hit Buck, he glances down at the man who was still peacefully sleeping on top of him. Bobby was right- they spent every waking minute together and they were still together even if they weren't awake.
Friends don't do that- lovers do.
“Breakfast is gonna get cold, wake him up and meet us out there” the 3 of them step out, leaving Buck in bed with Eddie.
He couldn't help but watch Eddie for a few moments, the way his expression softened, how at peace he looked.
It was different from the Eddie everyone else saw- there was something raw to it, like there was a whole other side to Eddie that no one else knew and got to see except for Buck.
He wishes he could stay in bed forever but the alarm was bound to go off sooner or later and someone would come looking for them soon enough. Buck shook Eddie gently, “Eds, c’mon. We gotta get up.” he whispers, his fingers dragging up his back and to his hair. Eddie hums as Buck runs his fingers through his hair.
“Five more minutes” he mumbles, face still buried in his chest.
“Cap made pancakes” he says, Eddie now sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There were 2 things that could get Eddie Diaz out of bed, the first thing was his son and the second was the promise of pancakes. Buck smiles, sitting up too and legs now over the side of the bed.
“What kind of pancakes ?” Eddie asked him, stretching as he got up. Buck’s eyes were glued to the section of Eddie’s stomach that was showing due to the raised shirt.
“Buck?” he calls again, he hums with his eyes still on Eddie.
Eddie’s arms lower, his shirt falls back into place and Buck’s eyes meet Eddie’s. “What kind of pancakes?” “oh, um- I don't know. Why don't you go check?” he smiles at him, Eddie humming as he steps out.
Buck drops back onto the bed and his hand runs over his face.
What the hell did he get himself into?
---
taglist: @mrs-dr-reid @dralexreid @yelenabelous @ickletheficklepickle
#buddie#buddie fic#buddie fanfiction#buddie fanfic#911#911 fic#9-1-1#9-1-1 fic#eddie diaz#evan buckley#evan buck buckley#edmundo diaz#eddie x buck#buck x eddie
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been trying to tell you i want you the most (part two)
(2.6k, rated E, chapter 2/2; vampire!buck au)
part one, or read the whole thing on ao3
Buck avoids him for the entire rest of the day. He’s not obvious about it—doesn’t turn tail and run away from him like Chimney trying to hide a secret—but Eddie knows Buck, knows him better than he knows anyone, with the possible exception of his own son. So he knows what it looks like when Buck’s avoiding someone.
There’s also the fact that Eddie is accustomed to spending entire shifts practically glued to Buck’s side, and now he’s alone. Buck might only be on the other side of the room, but he could just as well be on a different planet. And Eddie knows he isn’t the only one who’s noticed.
No one says anything, but Eddie doesn’t miss the way Bobby, Hen, and Chimney keep looking back and forth between him and Buck like spectators at a tennis match. He also doesn’t miss the way their gazes linger at the base of his throat, where Buck’s earlier attention left a sizeable hickey.
At least no one had seen him in the locker room, scrambling to find a pair of uniform pants with the button still attached.
But Eddie doesn’t care about any of it—the looks, the raised eyebrows, the speculation he knows must be going on behind his back. All he cares about is the fact that Buck won’t even look at him. It gnaws at him, digs a hole in his chest that only grows deeper the longer this goes on.
And on it goes.
They get called out to a fairly sizeable structure fire in the early afternoon, and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief, because at least now Buck will have to look at him.
Except he doesn’t, not once. It would be impressive, if not for the fact that it’s putting them all in danger.
Their shift is over by the time they pull back into the station. Buck is off the truck before it comes to a stop, in and out of the locker room before most of them manage to climb out. He stalks through the station and out towards the parking lot, and Bobby sighs.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you two,” he tells Eddie. “But you need to sort it out before it gets somebody killed.”
“It’s—” Eddie starts, and then stops, because he doesn’t know if Buck has actually disclosed the whole vampire thing to Bobby. Also because he doesn’t really want to tell his captain a story that culminates in him basically coming in his pants in the fire station supply closet.
“I don’t need to know the details,” Bobby says. “Nor do I particularly want to. Just figure it out, will you?”
“I’m trying,” Eddie mutters. Bobby gives him an encouraging smile and heads off in the direction of his office.
He calls Carla on the drive over to Buck’s loft to ask if she can hang out with Christopher for a little while longer today.
“Is everything okay?” she asks immediately.
“Yeah, I just need to figure out why Buck won’t fucking look at me,” he says, perhaps a little more vehemently than originally intended.
There’s silence on the other end of the line, and then: “I’m gonna tell my husband I’m spending the night here.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“Good luck!” Carla says, and hangs up before Eddie can finish his protest.
He pulls up in front of Buck’s building, and this time he doesn’t need to sit in the parking lot debating it. He just walks right in, all the way into Buck’s apartment.
Buck is lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t react when Eddie storms in, doesn’t even turn his head to look. “What the fuck, Buckley?”
“I’m sorry,” Buck says hoarsely, and he sounds so despairing that Eddie stops in his tracks. Some of his anger melts away.
“What—are you okay?”
Buck says nothing.
“I’m gonna need more words,” Eddie says.
“No, I’m not okay,” Buck says tonelessly.
“Buck.”
“It’s okay, you can spare me the lecture and just go. I know. I’m sorry.”
Eddie had been angry when he walked in, but now he’s mostly just confused, and more than a little concerned. “What are you sorry for, exactly?”
“I said I wouldn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want to do, and then I…” Buck trails off, and it clicks.
Eddie doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream. This is why Buck has been avoiding him all day?
“Were we in the same supply closet?” he asks, incredulous. “Did you miss the part where I said please?” It’s not exactly his proudest moment, the begging, but he’d thought it was pretty obvious that he had been very into everything that had been happening.
“It’s the venom,” Buck mutters. “More of the same predator bullshit. It just makes you think you want things.”
This isn’t the way Eddie had planned on coming clean to Buck. Mostly on account of the fact that he hadn’t really planned on doing it at all. But Buck is about to spiral, and Eddie can only think of one way to pull him out of it.
He takes a deep breath. “Buck. I wanted you long before I ever even saw your fangs. It isn’t the venom talking.”
“Sounds like something someone under the thrall of vampire venom would say,” Buck says, but he’s beginning to sound more like himself, amused and a little teasing.
“It’s not—okay, is there some kind of venom field sobriety test?”
Buck stares at him. “I can almost guarantee you there is not, because no one in the history of the world has ever needed one before.”
“Okay, so, how long do the effects usually last?”
“Twelve hours, maybe?”
Eddie looks at his watch. “Okay then.” He pulls Buck’s feet off the couch and sits in the space left behind.
“What are you doing?” Buck asks, scrambling not to fall on the floor.
“Waiting it out.”
Eddie doesn’t know exactly when they left the supply closet, but he has a good enough idea. He watches the minutes tick by, looking up at Buck every now and then. Buck meets his gaze every time, and his stare is intense enough that Eddie’s well on his way to hard by the time his self-imposed deadline comes around.
“Time’s up,” he says, looking at Buck. “I still want you.”
Buck swallows. “Then have me.”
Eddie crawls over slowly, draping himself across Buck. “Are you sure?” he asks, face hovering inches above Buck’s. “Sure it’s not just the venom talking?”
“Shut up,” Buck growls, reaching for Eddie’s neck to pull him closer.
“Make me,” Eddie says, and he’s grinning as his lips crash against Buck’s.
It’s then that Eddie realises that as familiar as he’s become with Buck’s mouth over the past few weeks, this is the first time they’re actually kissing. Buck’s mouth has been all over him, but this is the first time he’s been able to get his mouth on Buck.
For the life of him, he can’t remember why they haven’t been doing this all along. Buck’s mouth slides against his like they were made to fit together, and Eddie is suddenly glad they’re already lying down. It would be embarrassing if the mere act of kissing brought him to his knees, like he suspects it might if his legs had to actually hold his weight right now.
Buck’s fangs slide out, and Eddie traces the shape of them with his tongue. Buck pulls back, just enough so he can see Eddie.
“I knew it,” Buck says, a hint of smugness in his voice. “You have a thing for the fangs.”
“I don’t—” Eddie splutters. “It’s not—”
But Buck drags the tips of his fangs down the column of Eddie’s throat, just shy of drawing actual blood, and Eddie’s dick twitches.
“That’s right,” Buck says. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a little fang kink.”
Eddie groans and hides his face against Buck’s shoulder. He’s pretty sure it’s approximately the same shade as a fire truck right now.
“I mean, you’ve come to the right place,” Buck says, trailing his fingertips up and down the back of Eddie’s neck. “If, you know, that was something you were into.” He punctuates the statement by nipping at Eddie’s throat, just enough that blood starts beading on his skin, and Eddie shudders.
“I’m gonna have to start wearing turtlenecks,” Eddie grumbles.
“We live in LA,” Buck points out. “You might as well just wear a big sign that says ‘ask me about the marks on my throat’.”
“Or you could stop marking up my throat.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Buck asks, and Eddie still hasn’t looked up, but he can hear the grin in Buck’s voice. “I do have a couple of ideas, though…”
Eddie lifts his head. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, and scrapes a fang along Eddie’s jaw. “But I just fed this morning, so you’ll have to wait to find out what they are.”
“Tease,” Eddie groans, breath catching as Buck licks at the spot his fangs had just been.
“It’s only teasing if I don’t do anything about it,” Buck counters. “And I fully intend to.” Then he moves, flipping both of them over faster than Eddie can blink. And maybe he should be used to the vampire strength by now, but it still kind of takes his breath away.
Buck cradles his face like it’s something precious to him, and Eddie is struck dumb by the contrast of the fond look on Buck’s face and the fangs at the corners of his mouth. He’s always been drawn to Buck, but he’s only just starting to understand the extent of it. There is no configuration of the universe that intended for them to end up here like this, predator and prey—and yet.
Eddie has always been defiant, but as he reaches up to chase Buck’s lips with his, he thinks this might be a new extreme.
Buck leans back as Eddie reaches up, a glint in his eye. “So much for not being a tease,” Eddie whines in protest.
“Give me a second,” Buck says. A moment later he’s on his feet, supporting Eddie’s weight with just one arm.
Yeah, Eddie is definitely not used to the vampire strength yet. He wraps his legs around Buck’s waist, more for the novelty of it than because he’s afraid Buck will drop him.
Buck heads for the stairs, and Eddie leans in to kiss his neck, the underside of his jaw, anywhere he can reach. They reach the top and Buck deposits him on the bed, crawling after him until he’s hovering over Eddie.
“It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying the high school style couch make out,” Buck says, kissing the corner of Eddie’s mouth, and his jaw, and nipping at his earlobe. “But I need room to work.”
Buck tears off his shirt, and Eddie is about to protest when Buck gently bites at a spot on his ribcage and starts sucking a mark into his skin, and Eddie no longer has the brain cells to spare for things like complaining about ripped clothing.
He’s convinced Buck’s mouth has magical properties, even beyond the obvious, because surely the combination of tongue and teeth shouldn’t be this potent. Eddie writhes under Buck’s touch, torn between never wanting him to stop and begging him to move on already, because Buck hasn’t even touched him anywhere below the ribs yet and he’s almost painfully hard.
“Buck,” he grits out, a groan and a plea. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, exactly, just knows that he needs more.
“We’re going to have to work on your patience,” Buck says, and bites at Eddie’s hip, just above the waistline of his boxers.
“Patience is overrated,” Eddie grumbles, trying to grab at whatever part of Buck is closest to him.
Buck takes both his wrists in one hand and pins them to the side. “Will you just stay still? I promise I’m gonna take care of you.”
“What if I want to take care of you?” Eddie counters, sounding more belligerent than he feels with Buck’s hands working his fly open and dragging his pants down.
“Later,” Buck says, throwing Eddie’s pants and boxers off somewhere to the side and pulling his own clothes off. “My turn first.”
Eddie is about to protest when Buck wraps his lips around his dick, and the only sound that leaves Eddie’s mouth is a moan.
If Eddie thought Buck’s mouth had magical properties before, it was nothing compared to this. His entire world narrows to this one point, to his dick in Buck’s mouth. To the swirl of Buck’s tongue and the gentle pressure of his mouth. To the occasional barely-there scrape of his teeth, just enough to remind Eddie about the sharp fangs that live in that mouth.
Just as suddenly as it began, it’s over, and Eddie whines at the loss of contact as Buck withdraws. Buck runs his hands over Eddie’s thighs and spreads them apart, and Eddie shudders at the rush of air—and then shudders again as Buck bites the inside of his thigh, enough to draw blood.
“Told you I have ideas,” Buck says, and Eddie can hear the smirk in his voice.
“You can’t—you can’t do that at the station,” Eddie gasps out.
“No, that’s just for me,” Buck agrees, and bites him again.
There’s a sound Eddie can’t identify, and then Buck’s fangs are replaced with something cold. Buck brings a hand between his legs, and Eddie realises it must be lube just as Buck starts carefully working a finger into him.
Buck takes his sweet time with it, moving his fingers so slowly Eddie isn’t sure he’s moving at all. Eddie whines impatiently and tries to buck his hips, and Buck just laughs and pins him down with his other hand.
“Buck,” Eddie pleads. Buck’s slow movements have all his nerve endings on high alert, desperate for the friction Buck isn’t providing. “Please, I—I need—”
“Shh, I know,” Buck says, hand still continuing at its maddeningly slow pace. “Soon.”
Soon could be hours later or it could be seconds, Eddie doesn’t know. All he knows is the way every cell in his body is focused on Buck’s hand, like he could somehow telepathically will it to give him what he needs. His cock is hard against his stomach, leaking and twitching every time Buck brushes against his prostate.
Finally, Buck withdraws his hand. He produces a pillow from somewhere and tucks it under Eddie’s hips, and then Eddie’s practically sobbing from relief as Buck pushes into him.
Buck keeps his thrusts steady and slow and Eddie writhes beneath him, mumbling incoherent praise and encouragement. He can feel himself teetering on the edge, and he tries to communicate this to Buck, practically begging for harder, faster, for anything to tip him out of this limbo of almost, almost, almost—
He tries to reach for his dick but Buck stops him, lifting his arms and pinning them over his head. It brings his face closer to Eddie’s, and he grins. “I keep telling you,” Buck says, “patience,” then he sinks his fangs into the pulse point on Eddie’s throat, and Eddie comes so hard he whites out for a second.
Above him, Buck is finally losing his composure, and Eddie watches him slowly come apart; moving faster, almost frantically, then stilling as his orgasm hits him.
Buck collapses onto him, breathing heavily and nestling his face in Eddie’s shoulder. “Patience was worth it, huh?”
Eddie hums in reply, trailing his fingers up Buck’s back. “I’ll show you patience,” he says, feeling the heavy weight of exhaustion begin to creep over him. “Next time.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, letting it curl into just enough of a growl to wipe the smirk off Buck’s face. “So you’d better be ready.”
#buddie fic#buddie#911 fic#eddie diaz#evan buckley#shush emma#emma writes#vampire!buck au#if you read part 1 the other day please note the rating has been upgraded from M to E lol
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take me back to the start
Title: take me back to the start
Author: @myemergence
Rating: E (for one smut scene, later in the fic)
Artist: @benjaminrussell
Artwork: MAGAZINE COVER and MUSIC VIDEO
Warnings/Triggers: mentions of alcoholism, mentions of OC character death, car accident
Notes: Thanks to @marcia-elena for the beta on this. I so appreciate all the work you put in! Written for @buddiebigbang. And the artwork is amazing! I love them so much, Holly!
Summary: Country music star, Eddie Diaz, is on a break before his US tour when he gets unexpected news: he has a son. He needs to come home to his hometown in West River, TX right away. He hasn’t set foot there since he left for Nashville nine years ago, leaving his old life behind. West River is the last place that Eddie wants to be—he needs to focus on his career, and his tour—not looking after a kid that he doesn’t even know yet.
Crossing paths with his high school sweetheart, Evan Buckley, who’s now a Deputy with the sheriff’s office just might change all of that, reminding Eddie of the person that he used to be… and the kind of person that he wants to be.
Read the whole thing here: AO3 LINK
*
The thing about being a musician and wrapping up a big tour is that it makes the time afterward to unwind and let loose even more rewarding. Taking the time to ground himself before hitting the road again has become essential for Eddie, an integral part of his process.
This time, there’s no unwinding. As soon as the last concert in the tour ended, he boarded a red-eye flight from Los Angeles into Houston. And he’s tired, a feeling that’s not exactly foreign to him, but he feels weary down to his bones. He’s headed back to West River, Texas, about fifteen minutes outside of Austin, where he was born and raised.
A place he hasn’t as much as set foot in for nine years.
Eddie blinks blearily as he pulls his rental car up to the drive-through at Dunkin for a much needed coffee. He’s within an hour of West River, but he’s going to need something to power through the last hour of his drive as the sun is beginning to rise over the expanse of otherwise deserted small-town Texas that surrounds him.
It’s so quiet out here that it’s almost unnerving.
“Good morning, sir. That’ll be $3.27.” The dark-haired girl at the drive-through window can’t be more than eighteen.
“Morning.” He holds out his phone so that she can scan his payment.
“Aren’t you…” She trails off slowly, eyeing him suspiciously.
Eddie adjusts the trucker hat that he’s wearing, despite the fact that the sun hasn’t become a hindrance yet. He’d put the hat on before he pulled up to the drive-through only a couple of minutes ago. He knows that he’d be nowhere without the support of his fans, but he’s exhausted. He just wants to get to his abuela’s so that he can fall into bed. He’s tempted to drag a hand over his face and beg for his coffee.
“Eddie Diaz.” He introduces himself with a winning smile. He’ll try to find time to rest later. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Rosie. I-I can’t believe I’m preparing Eddie Diaz’s coffee. Nobody is going to believe me,” Rosie practically squeals, her face flushed as she fumbles with scanning his phone. “Here, um,” she steps away from the drive-through window momentarily and comes back with a pastry bag along with his coffee. Simple like always: black, with 2 sugars. “For the road. Gone Now really helped me through a hard time, when I lost my grandpa—and you wrote it about yours.”
Eddie’s smile becomes more genuine as he takes the coffee and muffin from the girl. He’s sure he looks like a mess, with blood-shot eyes and bags under his eyes. “I think most people have forgotten about that song. That was on my debut album.” He’d written that song what feels like a lifetime ago.
Like he was a different person back then than he is now. He supposes that in some ways, he was.
“I was only thirteen when it came out,” Rosie says. “I hope you make more songs like that. Your new stuff is great, but… that’s definitely my favorite. Anyhow, I won’t keep you, I’m sure you’ve got somewhere to be.”
“I do,” Eddie confirms, reaching over into the top of his duffel bag that’s resting on the passenger seat. “It was really nice to meet you, Rosie.” He hands her one of the signed albums that he carries with him, a simple thank you that he likes to have for those truly special fans. “It’s not my debut album, but I do hope you’ll enjoy it.”
Eddie offers her a parting wave as he pulls away, and tosses the hat that was his poor attempt at disguise onto the passenger seat. He takes several sips from the steaming coffee, then sets it in the cupholder, wincing as the heat nips at his tongue, hoping that the caffeine will help keep him alert for the rest of the drive home.
Before he pulls onto the road, he scrolls through his phone, pulling up his debut album on Spotify and pressing play, a wistful smile crossing his face. He’s trying to put a little space between him and the reason that he’s coming home to West River; Rosie’s words remind him, at least for a moment, why he started making music in the first place. He hears the familiar opening chords and pulls out onto the quiet road.
There was a time when not a single day
Went by without us talking
And now I can barely remember your face
We’d spend hours weaving words
And guitar notes together
Just you and me in the music’s embrace
But you’re gone now, you’re gone
All those moments lie six-feet deep in the ground
You’re gone now, you’re gone
I keep missing you ‘cause you’re not around
He knows he can’t live in this world of make-believe for long. He can’t pretend that what matters is his connection to the music anymore—he stopped writing his own music long ago. But it’s nice to remember, even if those moments are fleeting.
*
Eddie pulls into the same gravel driveway that he used to skid his bike tires on as a kid. His abuela still lives in the same house she did back then, only a few doors down from his childhood home. His parents moved an hour north about five years ago. Eddie’s stomach flops a bit, and he tries not to dwell on how little he talks to them these days, or their lack of support over the years.
He drags himself out of the rental car and grabs his bag out of the passenger side, leaving the rest of his luggage in the trunk. Before he can even make his way up the short drive, his abuela steps out onto the porch.
Eddie yawns into the crook of his elbow, then makes his way up to her. “Hey, Abuela,” he murmurs, pecking her on the cheek.
“Eddie,” Abuela says. She welcomes him with a crushing embrace, and he smiles as he hugs her back. She pulls back just enough that he can see a fire in her eyes; he already knows what that means, so he remains silent until she spits it out. “You were supposed to call me back so I knew you were doing alright.”
“I told you I have you listed as my emergency contact. If anything happens to me you’ll be the first one they call,” Eddie teases with a laugh.
“Edmundo,” she scolds, swatting his arm, and he watches as her jaw tenses under his name.
“Okay,” Eddie acquiesces. “I’m sorry, alright? I’ll be more cautious next time and call you. But Houston to West River isn’t a long drive.”
“Shannon—”
“Can we talk about this later?” Eddie asks. “I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. I just need a couple of hours and then I promise we’ll talk, okay?”
“But, Eddie—” Despite the fact that he’ll probably be reamed for not turning his full attention to her, Eddie pushes the door open and steps inside. He stops in his tracks as his eyes catch sight of the figure who’s settled at the table, and his duffel bag drops to the floor. He feels abuela’s hand on his shoulder. “This is—”
The pretending is over.
“This is Christopher, your son.”
*
Eddie knew coming back home to West River wasn’t going to be a vacation in any sense of the word. He knew what would be waiting for him; baggage so heavy that it had the ability to destroy his entire career. The dream that he’d risked everything for, that he’d given up everything for.
This is Christopher, your son.
Abuela’s words echo in his ears.
Sure, there had been a few phone calls beforehand, warning Eddie of the kid’s existence after Shannon had shown up at Abuela’s with the boy. That hadn’t prepared him for this moment at all.
What the fuck is he going to do?
The temptation to drop by the hole-in-the-wall bar downtown to take the edge off is there. Instead, he tells Abuela he has to take care of some things and he disappears. He just needs to drive around for a little bit to clear his head. He needs to figure out what he’s going to do.
A kid will ruin everything.
How could Shannon keep this kid to herself for years, not mention a word of his existence, and then just drop him off and leave like he’s somehow now Eddie’s responsibility?
Eddie unrolls the window, letting the evening air hit his face as his foot presses down more firmly on the gas pedal.
Take care of it. You only have a few months until the tour.
Fuck all of this.
These backroads are so familiar, and there’s something comforting in driving down them late at night, when the rest of the town is quiet. It reminds him of those late nights when he and Buck would—
Eddie stops his thoughts short, the ache in his chest just as familiar as these roads. Buck.
What are the chances that in a town of a few thousand people he won’t run into Evan Buckley? That’s even if he still lives here. Eddie shakes the notion from his head, refusing to allow himself to get nostalgic about the past. A past that revolved around Buck.
Right now, he needs to focus on how he’s going to fix his life—before it becomes a public relations disaster.
Pressing down on the gas harder, Eddie gets lost in the feeling of the cool night air hitting his face, saving him from his downward spiral and memories of Buck.
Unfortunately, the moment is short lived. Red and blue lights flash in his rearview mirror amidst the otherwise stark darkness of the night. With a sigh, he pulls over to the shoulder of the road.
*
Buck climbs out of the cruiser and closes the door, walking up to the driver’s side of the out-of-state car. “Do you know why I stopped you tonight?” He quickly scans the inside of the vehicle, assessing if there are any passengers that he needs to be aware of before settling his sight on the driver.
Of all the people he could’ve had the unfortunate task of pulling over tonight, somehow it’s Eddie Diaz. He studies Eddie’s face, tipping his head to the side as his identity registers with Eddie.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Buck.”
It’s like he took the words right out of Buck’s mouth, because really, what are the fucking chances? After nine years Eddie somehow still has the ability to make Buck’s heart thunder in his chest merely by saying his name. His jaw tightens as he looks at the country music star in front of him.
“It’s Deputy Buckley,” Buck tells Eddie, his voice tight. “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“This has to be an actual nightmare,” Eddie mutters, though Buck’s sure at this point that he’s talking to himself.
“License and registration.”
“Evan—”
“I said, license and registration. Don’t make me ask again. I’m going to suggest that you actually listen this time if you don’t want to end up in jail for the night.”
Eddie’s mouth snaps shut at Buck’s words. “I’m gonna grab the registration from the glove compartment.” He opens the glove box and hands over the paperwork, along with his license.
“Yeah, didn’t think you’d want that news story,” Buck mutters as he takes the documents and inspects them. He obviously knows that it’s Eddie, and he already ran the plates and knows that it belongs to a rental in Houston. He hands the paperwork back to Eddie. “Watch your speed, because next time I’m not going to be this nice,” Buck warns.
“This is nice?” Eddie actually has the audacity to laugh at him. “Seems more like you’re Deputy Dick to me.”
Buck’s lips press together into a tight line. He’s used to not being well liked while on the job—but it feels harsher coming from Eddie. “You know, I could still take you in tonight, if that’s what you want.”
Eddie shrinks under the words, and what he says next sounds sincere. “You know that’s not what I want.”
The same words that Eddie had said to him all those years ago, at the end. Buck feels his chest fracture down the middle, a reprise of the heartbreak that Eddie left in his wake.
He forces himself to school his expression despite the way he’s feeling. “Have a good night, Eddie.”
He doesn’t wait for Eddie to respond, turning sharply on his heels and walking away from the man that’s had his heart all along.
*
“You know, I don’t really think that this qualifies as guys’ night,” Buck says as he looks across the card table at Chimney, taking a sip of the lemonade in front of him.
Chim raises his brow a little, glancing in the direction of the living room. “You’re my brother-in-law,” Chim says, “and I’m not sure how to say this delicately, so I’m just gonna say it. If there’s one Buckley I’m trying to make happy right now, it’s not you, Buck. I’m trying to get in her good graces after the bottle rocket incident.”
Josh snorts from where he’s sitting, bringing the beer up to his lips.
“I’m not going to be the one to tell my wife that she needs to leave so we can have a proper guys’ night,” Chim adds.
“You would never say something to Maddie, and not just about guys’ night,” Josh challenges, his brows shooting up.
“I’m sorry, was that a complaint I just heard? Because I’m pretty sure that the last time you hosted a card night your mom showed up,” Chim points out.
“And Buck’s place—”
“Has constant interruption. I know, I know.” Buck rolls his eyes dramatically. “Are you gonna deal us in, or what?”
“Mads, were you gonna join us?” Chim calls helpfully into the other room, and Buck glares at him.
Maddie lifts herself off of the couch and walks out to the dining room table where they’re all situated, grabbing the bowl of chips from the counter and pulling up an empty seat. “I don’t want to play, but I’d love to talk to you guys.”
They really need to start finding different circles of friends, at least for nights like tonight. It’s not as if Buck’s going to tell his pregnant sister to go away, so instead he smiles. “We’d love it if you talked to us, Mads.”
“Really?” She grins, and Chim looks at Buck gratefully. “So, I heard a rumor that Eddie’s back in town.”
“Pick a different subject.”
“He’s back in town and got pulled over by West River’s youngest and brightest the other night,” Chim says.
Just the mention of Eddie’s name is an unwanted reminder that he’s back in town, at least temporarily. The fact that this wasn’t a figment of Buck’s imagination sends his brain into overdrive. There’s been some speculation over the reason for his return, and Buck has done everything in his power to stay squarely on the outside of those conversations.
He’s made it clear to his family and friends since Eddie left town that there is one topic that he refuses to discuss: Eddie Diaz. A lot of the locals were around Eddie growing up, and having someone that’s famous from their small hometown is something to talk about—especially when there’s a new tour that’s announced, or when Eddie is working on a new album.
But his friends? They know that it’s a hard and fast rule, and bringing it up on guys’ night is a definite foul.
“Guys,” Buck manages as evenly as he can muster. “Talk about something else.”
A tense silence falls over the room, and for a minute Buck refuses to look up, knowing the pity that crosses their faces any time that someone brings up Eddie. He’s tried to hide his heartbreak behind indifference, but he’s not naive enough to believe that any of them buy it. Most of them had front-row seats as they watched Buck’s hopes and dreams shatter to the ground around him, leaving a hollow shell behind.
Finally he looks up.
“Can we make an exception this one time, Ev?”
“Maddie. I don’t talk about— about this, and you know that.”
Maddie’s hand covers his, her touch light, her tone equally calm and even. “You know, this has a name.”
“Why are you bringing him up now? You know I moved on from him a long time ago.”
It’s as if Chim and Josh aren’t sitting awkwardly at the table, trying to avoid the line of fire. Even if Maddie is officially a Han now, nobody wants to get obliterated during a battle of the wills between the siblings.
“This is guys’ night,” Buck reminds her. “The one night of the week that I can unwind and relax. Instead you’re here and dredging up a past that died years ago.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I was a kid. Just a stupid kid. There’s nothing else to say. We were together and then we weren’t. He has his life now, and I have mine.”
“Maybe that’s true, but you never did move on, not really. He’s in town for who knows how long, so maybe it’d be a good chance for the two of you to talk?”
“No, it wouldn’t. And, uh, thanks for ruining tonight,” Buck mutters as he stands up from the table. This is the kind of interference he’d expect from their out-of-town parents, always assuming they know what’s best, but not from Maddie.
“Buck,” Chim warns, and Buck sighs again, shaking his head in frustration. Chim’s always been protective of Maddie, something that Buck’s always appreciated, especially after all that she endured with Doug, but tonight feels like the exception.
“I’m gonna head home.”
“Buck, you really don’t have to go,” Josh says helplessly.
He attempts a smile for what Josh is trying to do—slapping a bandage on the evening, trying to piece everything back together. Buck shakes his head. “I think it’s for the best if I go.”
Buck says his goodbyes and hops into his Jeep, driving home. He knows that Maddie has the best of intentions, and that she cares about him with her whole heart, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
When he arrives home he notices there are only a few lights left on in the house, and that the porch light is on for him.
“You’re home awful early,” Carla says as soon as he makes his way inside, barely looking up from the little girl that’s propped against her side.
He shrugs a little, not wanting to get into all of the details of how the night quickly spiraled out of control in a way that was just too much for him to handle. “I couldn’t stand the time away from her.”
“Mhm,” Carla says in her knowing way, and Buck’s thankful that she doesn’t say more than that. She knows enough about his past with Eddie, but she’s always stayed out of that part of his life.
Buck toes off his shoes, crossing the room then and scooping Lucy up in his arms. “Hey baby,” he murmurs, placing a kiss on the crown of her head.
“She insisted I read her three stories out here and not in her bed because she was ‘not tired yet, Carla’.”
Buck chuckles at her words, feeling Lucy squirm in his arms before she settles again. She rests her head against his shoulder and he hoists her up higher so that she can curl into him. In a world where everything else is imperfect he’s able to come home and hold a little piece of perfection in his arms. Their lives have been far from easy, and there isn’t a day that Buck doesn’t wish he could be more for her.
He’s doing his best to make up for the huge piece missing from her life—the absence of her mother. Every day she helps him remember that there is more than heartbreak and loss, that sometimes there’s hope, too. He has to hold on to that.
“I’m gonna head out,” Carla says, kissing the back of Lucy’s head and giving Buck a sideways hug before leaving.
Buck walks down the hallway, glancing at Lucy’s bedroom door and then pivoting, walking across the hall to his own room and laying the sleeping girl down on the pillows, covering her with the sheet and comforter. He gets ready for bed and lies on top of the covers beside her. He knows he shouldn’t make a habit out of this and he won’t, but tonight he needs the physical proof.
He hasn’t lost everything, because he still has Lucy.
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Staring at the Sun ➤ Evan Buckley
Chapter Seven: Confessions from a Robot Heart
warnings: vague mentions of childhood trauma, sex, drinking, smoking
masterlist.
After the long day she had, all Marceline wanted was to rest. Having Eddie back in her life and working with her was a pleasant surprise. Since Ollie’s death, the two of them have exchanged weekly emails just to keep up with one another. But then those weekly emails and occasional Skype calls turned monthly and eventually, yearly. It wasn't because Marceline or Eddie didn’t want to keep in touch or anything, but their lives just got more complicated to the point where they sort of forgot to call back or reply to that message/text/email.
And now, with Eddie working with the 118, it meant that he would be around more often, and Marceline wanted to make sure that she was there for him. She didn’t know a lot about his situation with the mother of Christopher… Shannon, was it? Only that she wasn’t in the picture right now and it was just the two Diaz boys.
She made a mental note while she showered to introduce Eddie and Christopher to Nicolette and Gemma at some point. The four of them would get along swimmingly.
Marceline then changed into a pair of grey sweatpants and a white tank top after stepping out of the shower. Her hair, as long and thick as it was, would take ages to dry so she just left it in a bun as she wandered into the kitchen to make herself some tea.
She popped open a window as she waited for the kettle to boil. Then she quickly escaped to her room, opening her underwear drawer and taking a pack of cigarettes that was taped to the bottom. Marceline has been trying to quit smoking, and it’s been an on and off kind of thing. She’s able to put off the need to smoke daily and channel her cravings for nicotine into physical activity like kickboxing, martial arts, yoga, and yes, sex.
And Nicolette hated it when she smoked, mainly because of the horrible smell that would linger afterward and how bad it was for Marceline’s health. So she tried to smoke when she really really had to, outside the apartment or at least through the window if she didn’t want to step outside.
But Marceline gave herself a pass for today, it was stressful as fuck and she just needed some sort of release.
Nic was at work, yet another night shift and Gemma was at a sleepover with one of her school friends, so Marceline was left alone in the Pierce-Bishop home.
She lit one of the cigarettes with her blue lighter and moved towards the window, making sure that the cigarette was fully outside before leaning over. Marceline would then suck on one end, causing the smoke to fill her mouth before she would inhale some of it and then finally exhale, puffs of smoke escaping her lips. The anxiety that once engulfed her dwindled in these moments when she inhaled and exhaled, causing a sense of peace to wash over her.
She continued to do this a few times until her cig was short enough to throw away.
Drawings that Gemma made were scattered along the kitchen counter she was leaning against, some of them stuck on the blank areas on the fridge. Marceline smiled fondly at them, glad to see that the seven-year-old was improving on her skills, she thinks. She tilted her head to the side as she tried to decipher one of the drawings, made with pink and blue markers. The lines were thick and thin, shapes scattered the white pages and if Marceline was going, to be honest, she had absolutely no clue what this drawing was.
Whatever, if Gemma asked she’d just smile and nod and say how she liked the colors. (Like, usual.)
As she sipped her passionflower tea after crushing her bud into the ashtray she disguised as a plant holder and threw away the evidence. Then she wandered towards her bedroom, kicking away the clutter on the floor with her foot before plopping down onto her bed.
A small sigh escaped Marceline’s lips as she rubbed a hand over her face and leaned against the headboard. Her shift today was a mess the more she thought about it and she just wished that she could forget about it.
Buck, god, she hated how her mind always wandered to that man. He had such a tight grip around her heart and didn’t even know about it. And maybe his oblivious knowledge was a blessing in disguise because he wouldn’t know how much everything he said or acted to her would affect her.
“I’m just saying! You only act all… human-like with Nicolette or Gemma. When you’re here with us, you’re this robot.”
She could remember how easily those words escaped his lips and how quickly she felt those words stab into her heart. Marceline knew that she wasn’t the most… normal person on her team because she didn’t actively make the first move to touch someone or talk to them, and how her voice was usually void of emotion and how seriously she always looked… but to know that’s how people saw her, how Buck saw her just hurt.
Marceline has lived a life where there were always people who never approved of how she was, namely her parents but that’s a whole other story to get into for next time. In short, her mother wanted her to be the ideal proper young lady who kept her mouth shut when something rubbed her the wrong way. A proper lady who knew how to use all of the formal etiquettes of the dining room, who knew how to get a man and become a person Marceline had no intention of being.
So she learned to brush off those comments after leaving home and kept living her life the way she wanted to and not depend on other people’s opinions of her.
But there were times where some opinions mattered to her.
Her first impression of Evan Buckley wasn’t the most... positive of things. Marceline Pierce thought he was a cocky son of a bitch who was here as a firefighter for the thrill of the uniform. And yeah, those things were very true when it came to Buck’s personality but that was just surface-level shit. There was more to Buck than an overzealous, reckless young man who talked way too much about his sex life.
Deep down, Evan Buckley is severely insecure about himself and puts on the false facade of macho confidence to hide that. He has a heart of gold that he wears proudly on his sleeve. He would do anything he could to save as many people as he could on the job, even if it would put his own life in danger.
Marceline first realized she was in love with Buck when she actively sought out to be in his presence. She’d make sure that she was sitting nearby when he talked with Hen or Chimney about some sort of menial fact that he researched the hell out of. Even if it was kind of secondhand, she liked to be around Buck, feeling that his infectious smile and energy deep into her bones.
And usually, Marceline likes to be alone and in her own little space.
The second time was when she memorized how he took his coffee and made him a cup before he came into work. A splash of creamer and two teaspoons of sugar.
The third time was whenever she looked at him and felt her whole body fill head to toe with butterflies.
And since then, Marceline Pierce has been fucked with anything pertaining to Evan Buckley.
As Marceline let sleep envelop her in a warm hug, she could only think about how much of a robot she was to those around her and started to wonder if they shared Buck’s idea of her.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One moment Marceline was asleep—not dreaming because it’s been ages since she’s actually dreamt about anything—and the next she was awake with loud banging coming from the front door. She groaned and threw both of her hands up in the air, cursing whatever beings were above. Then she turned her head to look at the clock next to her bed, 8:45 a.m.
“What the hell?” She grumbled, mentally calculating how she only got like five hours of sleep. As much as she wanted to curl back into her slumber, the knocking didn’t stop and it was an incessant noise she loathed.
So she sluggishly got to her feet, a chill of cool air coming over her, causing a shiver to run down her back. The elastic that once held her hair together in a bun disappeared in her sleep, and she didn’t bother trying to look for it. Whoever had the nerve to wake her up after an exhausting shift would just have to deal with her long brown hair sticking all over the place.
As Marceline left her room, she wrapped her arms around herself, the cool morning air coming at full force from the open window she forgot to close. She mumbled profanities under her breath as she walked over and shut it before heading towards the door, not even bothering to check through the peephole when she flung it open.
“What?” she half-snarled and looked up to see the last person she wanted to see.
Evan Fucking Buckley stood there, face full of shock and his knuckles raised as if he was going to knock again. “Uh—“ He lowered his arm back down into his side as a sheepish grin fell on his lips.
“...You’re this robot…”
Marceline’s stare hardened, her lips pressing into a thin line to hide the surprise off of her face. “No.” she shook her head and was about to slam the door shut when something stopped it. She looked down, finding that Buck had wedged his foot in between the door and the frame.
“Wait, Marceline, please don’t.” he pleaded, his blue eyes shining as his hand slipped through to help hold the door open.
“I’m too tired for this shit, Buckley.” she exasperated, closing her eyes for a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose to push down to the well of emotions that fluttered in her chest.
“That’s okay,” Buck quickly said and gently pushed the door back open to little resistance from the other woman. “You can just listen,”
Marceline’s heterochromatic eyes flew across his chiseled face, seeing the desperation that was widespread over each line and patch of skin and bit into her inner cheek. “You have five minutes,”
Then she opened the door, turning around, and walked into the kitchen, grabbing the pack of cigarettes she left there from last night. Marceline didn’t even bother opening a window when she lit her cig, her hand tense and fingers stiff as she pressed it against her lips.
She watched as Buck slowly entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. He nervously looked around, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets as Marceline stared him down, leaning against the kitchen countertop as she blew her smoke downwards and nibbled on her cigarette, trying to suck out as much nicotine as possible to contain all of her stress.
“Four minutes and fifty-three seconds, Buckley.” she snapped at him, annoyed at how he was just standing there with his stupid hands in his stupid pockets while nibbling on his stupid lower lip.
“I’m sorry… okay?” he exhaled shakily before slowly looking at her. “What I said yesterday was me at full assholery.” she continued to stare at him, all emotion devoid from her face as she continued to smoke, her stiff fingers clenching around her cig. “I should never have said you, Marceline. I’m sorry for hurting your feelings.”
Marceline couldn’t help but let out a cynical laugh before crushing half her cigarette into the ashtray. “Surprised to find out that robots can have feelings?”
Buck winced. “Not my finest moment,”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said sharply before turning around to open the window because Nic would kill her if the smoke smell lingered on the furniture.
“Look,” he sighed and when she turned back around he was walking over, his hands splayed against the island counter. “I know I was a dick, okay? I said I was sorry but I feel like you’re angrier about this for no reason.”
Marceline snorted and rolled her green and brown eyes. “No reason? You don’t see the problem as to why I’m pissed ’cos you called me a goddamn robot?!” her voice was progressively getting louder with each word and her hands were clenched into fists by her side.
“Robots aren’t bad! They’re cool,” Buck lamely tried to defend himself as he felt himself shrink under Marceline’s sharpened gaze.
“You called me a machine. Something that doesn’t consider the feelings of other people. Something that lacks empathy and sympathy. Something that can go without imagination, consciousness, free will, complex emotions, meaning, and a fucking purpose.” Marceline didn’t know at what point she started to cry, but she felt some wetness gather on her cheeks and that there was an ugly sob lodged into her throat.
Buck instantly started to feel a thousand percent worse. “Marceline—“ he tried to step forward, feeling the need to comfort the woman in front of him.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her shaking hands and stepped back, pushing herself against the counter despite the edge digging into her back. “I-I’m… I’m not a… thing,” she whispered with a shake of her head as the hate-filled voice of her mother shot into her head. “I-I have my own thoughts, I empathize and sympathize… I have meaning and purpose… I have feelings.” She hung her head to look at her feet as she sniffled. “I have so many fucking feelings, Buck. So many it’s suffocating to have them.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I should never have—“
“—Just because I don’t exhibit any of those human attributes around you in the way society deems as normal doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”
Buck clamped his mouth shut and frowned, looking away from her. He fucked up, bad.
Still, silence and tension-filled the cold morning air, with both Marceline and Buck turning away from one another to compose their thoughts and themselves.
“And with Eddie— he was in the same boot camp as my childhood friend, who’s practically my brother Ollie. He told me himself that he died in that convoy that got Eddie his Silver Star, and he’s been checking up on me since then. I’ve known Eddie for a long time so that’s why I acted so… human-like when he arrived.” she explained, remembering that Buck had asked yesterday.
Yup, Buck thought to himself, I’m a colossal idiot.
“I have this… tendency to act like I don’t care about anything, I know that. I’d like to blame my parents for drilling that into my head, but we don’t nearly have enough time to unpack all of that,” she said softly with a short chuckle, earning Buck’s attention as he slowly brought his blue eyes to her green and brown ones. “I’ve learned to only care about a select amount of people. And I…” she sucked in a deep breath as the nagged part of her brain screamed, “You’re one of those people, Buck.”
Buck’s brows knit together in confusion. What?
“I’ve… cared about you for a long time, you might not see it but I do. I care about what you talk about… what you’re interested in… how you see me.” Marceline admitted, her heart slamming against her rib cage to the point she thought he could hear it.
He felt like he was missing something crucial that Marceline wasn’t saying. Not that he had any right to ask for the entire truth, but the words she selected… didn’t seem right.
“You—“ he frowned as he tilted his head to the side to get a better look at her and crossed his arms over his chest. “You care about me?”
Marceline inhaled sharply. Now or never, Pierce. “I… I guess care isn’t the… right word.” she pushed herself off of the counter and stared directly into Buck’s eyes, her entire body simultaneously feeling on as if she was inside an inferno and dunked in ice water. “I’m in love with you, Evan.”
Buck felt all the air in his lungs disappear “W… What?”
“Look, I’m not confessing my love for you for any kind of payment.” Marceline tore her eyes away from Buck’s so she could take a breather. “I just… I needed to tell you. You deserve that much.”
“I—“ he didn’t know how to respond to that. The only people who’ve ever told him that they love him were his parents and Maddie, and even then he didn’t really believe them. No romantic relationship he had ever lasted long enough for either of them to say the L-word. “Is that why you took those bullets for me?”
“Yes,” she replied without any hesitation. “And I would do it again for anyone I love that much,”
Buck’s eyes were as big as saucers at this point, feeling very overwhelmed with this new information. “You love—? I’m sorry, I need—“
Marceline shook her head. “It’s fine, I get it. I jumped this all on you, and- and oh shit, you’re still with Abby.” She stammered out and rubbed her hands against her face to suppress a groan. “Fuck, I’m sorry Buck I didn’t—”
“I should go,” Buck said as his feet brought him to the front door, his mind swirling with loud thoughts.
Love? Someone loves me? Do I love Abby? Yes, I do love Abby, of course, I do. But… Does Abby love me back?
“Yeah,” she nodded and cast him a desperate glance. “Wait, Buck?” His hand halted from turning the doorknob and remained silent. Marceline took that as her cue to go on, “I want you to know that I don’t expect anything else from you after this. We can continue being colleagues and nothing more. You deserve to know that someone loves you like really loves you.” Unlike Abby whose been gone for months...
“I…” he paused and pursed his lips into a thin line as he slowly turned around. “Mars, I need time… to-to you know, process all of this.”
“I know, Buck, I know,” she sighed softly. “But, if you want to talk, you know where I am,”
All Buck could do was nod, unable to trust what he could say before he left. Marceline watched him leave with a heavy heart and sobbed into her hands.
Nicolette and Gemma came home later that day to Marceline holed up in her room with half a bottle of rum by her bedside.
@skyslowalking @beelarson @rcvenscycle @whatdoesntkillyoumakesyoustrange for u besties <3
˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ AUTHOR’S NOTE: lol so that happened, huh
nicolette's story
#evan buckley#evan buck buckely#maddie buckley#chimney han#howard han#howie han#hen wilson#henrietta wilson#robert nash#bobby nash#eddie diaz#christopher diaz#shannon diaz#evan buckley x marceline pierce#evan buckley x original female character#evan buckley x original character#evan buckley story#evan buckley fanfiction#evan buckley fanfic#karen wilson#denny wilson#athena grant#may grant#michael grant#harry grant#abby clark
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Put My Name at the Top of Your List (Buck/Eddie)
Thanks to @buddiextarlos for the prompt!
Eddie's been in love with Buck so long, he honestly didn't realize there could be anyone in the world who didn't know they were a couple now.
In which it takes a little bit for Eddie to 1) understand why Buck would care about parent-teacher conferences and 2) understand that that art teacher was absolutely hitting on him right in front of Buck. Luckily Eddie knows exactly how to fix things.
(can also be read on Ao3)
Eddie and Buck were waiting in their usual spots in front of Eddie's truck when Christopher came out of school, watching him wave goodbye to his teacher before he spotted them and his whole face lit up.
"Dad! Buck!" Even though this was their routine every time they were both off shift, it always seemed to bring the three of them the same amount of joy it had the first time. Eddie scooped Christopher up in his arms, squeezing him tightly before Buck took him for a hug, the familarity of the manuever a source of comfort in and of itself.
"Mr. Diaz!" A voice called out from the doorway, and Eddie turned, as Buck balanced Christopher on his hip. A young woman came hurrying up to them, her long skirt flying behind her in the breeze. "Mr. Diaz, I'm Mary Beth Carter, Christopher's art teacher." She smiled at Christopher before turning her smile, and her attention, back to Eddie. "You are coming to the parent teacher conferences, aren't you?"
"I'm already signed up, Mrs. Carter," Eddie assured her, smiling back. Buck shifted Christopher slightly, bringing him closer, his eyes fixed on the conversation in front of him.
"Ms. Carter, or Mary Beth is fine," she responded with a laugh, and Buck abruptly turned and headed towards the truck, opening the back door and beginning to settle Christopher in.
"Thanks Ms. Carter, I will see you at conferences," Eddie said, nodding as he moved towards the driver's side door, sliding in and waiting for Buck to sit in the passenger seat. It took an extra minute or two, but Buck finally slid in himself, clicking his seatbelt and settling in quietly. Eddie glanced at him quickly, but honking from behind alerted Eddie that another parent desperately wanted his parking spot, and he pulled out and onto the road.
"Buck, you're coming to talk to my teachers too, right?" Christopher called out from the back.
"Sounds like it's just for your dad, buddy," Buck responded, twisting around to pat Christopher reassuringly on the knee when he heard the frustrated groan Christopher gave.
"But I want you there!" Christopher insisted.
"Christopher, Buck has a twenty four hour shift ending right before conferences, he's going to need his sleep," Eddie answered, frowning as he swore he heard matching sighs from his son and boyfriend. "Buck-"
"Sorry Superman, you know I would come if I could," Buck said softly, "I wasn't able to ask for time off since I didn't know about it." Eddie's frown grew deeper, wondering at the twinge in Buck's voice, something nagging in the back of Eddie's brain about Buck's word choice, but the light turned green and he had to focus on the road again.
That night, after Christopher was in bed, Buck headed downstairs, followed by Eddie. Eddie went to the fridge, turning around with two beers to find Buck perched in an armchair rather than in his usual spot on the couch, where they could share the space.
"Buck, what's going on?" Eddie asked, tone full of concern and confusion as he went to hand Buck a beer, which Buck grabbed and took a deep gulp of. Buck shook his head, taking another long drink. Eddie knelt in front of Buck, his hands resting on Buck's knees. "Buck, talk to me. Please."
"Are you ashamed of me?" The words came spilling out of Buck's mouth, like he had tried to hold them back but couldn't contain them anymore. "Of us?"
"What, Buck, no of course not!" Reaching up, Eddie cupped Buck's face in his hands, but Buck wouldn't meet his eyes. "Buck, sweetheart, where did this come from?"
"First you don't even tell me about the parent-teacher conference," Buck choked out, "and look, I know I'm not Christopher's dad, not really, but I thought-"
"Buck-" Eddie tried to cut in, to ease the pain on Buck's face, to tell him how wrong he was when he said he wasn't Christopher's dad, but Buck was already blinking back tears, words rushing out.
"And then I find out about the conference from the art teacher who is blatantly hitting on you right in front of me, and you don't even introduce me!" Buck's voice rose in volume, and he instinctively glanced towards the stairs to make sure he hadn't woken up Christopher. Sighing, Buck stood up abruptly, rubbing his hands over his eyes, the hurt in his voice slicing through Eddie like a knife. "I'm going back to my place tonight. Like you said, I need sleep before my shift."
Eddie stayed kneeling on the carpet, Buck's words careening through his mind, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. All Eddie knew in that moment was Buck sounded so sad, and Buck was leaving, and he couldn't let him go into a shift without him this way. So he stood up, walking quickly over to Buck and grabbing his hands.
"I don't want you to leave, but I need you to feel as good as you can for your shift, especially since I won't be there to watch your back," Eddie said softly, gently rubbing his thumbs up and down the palms of Buck's hands, before risking a glance at Buck's face. The sadness in his boyfriend's eyes wasn't something Eddie could just leave alone. He wrapped his arms around Buck, and Buck let himself be held, even leaning into Eddie's embrace. "We are absolutely talking about this after your shift, but for now, please, please be safe, and please know how much I love you."
"I love you too," Buck whispered into Eddie's ear, before turning and walking out the door, leaving Eddie alone in his living room staring after him.
***
Eddie barely slept that night. The bed felt too big, too cold, and all he could do was run Buck's words over and over through his head, and picture his boyfriend heading out on a call without him having his back. Eventually, Eddie gave up on sleep, and quietly went downstairs, settling at the counter with a cup of coffee, rerunning last night through his head again.
He honestly hadn't even noticed that teacher was flirting with him, he was with Buck, why would anyone think he was available, he-
Oh.
Oh.
As soon as it was a reasonable hour, Eddie rang Carla. "Eddie, is everything okay?" Carla asked quickly. "You said not to come until later because you had the day off until the parent-teacher conferences."
"Everything's fine," Eddie assured her, then sighed. "Actually, everything's not fine. I screwed up. Carla, when did you first know Buck and I were dating?"
"I thought you two were dating from the minute I met you, to be honest," Carla said with a laugh. "Living in each other's pockets, always touching, always together. When I found out you weren't, I was shocked. Figured it had to happen at some point, knew I was right when I walked in on the two of you making out in the kitchen."
"That's what I thought," Eddie said softly, rubbing his hand over his face. "Is there any chance you can come over early? I need to fix this."
***
Eddie made the necessary calls in the truck before pulling up to the station, jogging inside with a bag over his shoulder. He immediately spotted Buck, perched on a chair, staring off into space, a still-full coffee cup encircled in his hands. "Buck!" Eddie called out, taking the stairs two at a time until he was standing directly in front of Buck, whose forehead was scrunched up in confusion. Eddie couldn't help himself, reaching his fingers over to smooth the wrinkles out, elicting a soft sigh from Buck.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Eddie said, trailing his hand down Buck's face until he found Buck's waiting hand, intertwining their fingers, raising them to his lips for a soft kiss. "I'm such an idiot. I've been in love with you so long, it never even occurred to me that anyone else might not be able to see it."
"We saw it from day one!" Hen called out in passing, and both Buck and Eddie laughed, the movement bringing Buck's forehead gently against Eddie's.
"Exactly," Eddie said softly, raising his eyes to meet Buck's. "We were acting like a couple way before we made it official. We've been raising a son together for years. I didn't even realize that that might mean that somebody wouldn't know we were officially a couple now. That teacher, at pickup, she only sees us for maybe a minute every day, and we don't typically make out in front of Christopher's school."
"Just everywhere else," Buck smirked, and Eddie laughed in relief.
"Exactly," Eddie said, feeling himself finally able to smile again. "Buck, sweetheart, I'm so in love with you. I could never be ashamed of that. I'm amazed every day that I'm the lucky one who gets to be with you." Buck blushed, and Eddie grinned, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend's waist to pulll him in closer. "I'm so sorry if I ever made you feel any other way."
"You're the first one who's ever stayed, Eds," Buck whispered, tucking his face into the crook of Eddie's neck. "You're the one I always want to stay. I don't ever want you to leave. I love you too much to watch you walk away."
"Good thing I'm never going anywhere then," Eddie promised, kissing Buck's temple. "I love you too much to ever walk away. Okay?"
"Okay," Buck nodded, eyes twinkling, and Eddie leaned in for a kiss, soft and sweet and so relieved, before pulling back just enough to grab the bag he had been carrying and pass it to Buck.
"Now hurry up and get changed, we've got a parent-teacher conference to get to," Eddie said with a grin, chuckling as Buck just stared at him. "Get a move on Buck, you don't want to be late for your first of many, do you? And before you ask, I already cleared it with Bobby. Harrison owes me from when I covered those last hours of his shift. We have time for you to splash some water on your face, grab some coffee from that place you love by school, and-"
The rest of Eddie's words were captured by Buck's lips, as Buck pulled Eddie back tight against his body, kissing him until they had to break for air. Reaching up, Eddie gently wiped the tears hovering under Buck's eyes, wrapping him into a tight hug before nudging him with his hip. "Now go! Teachers take tardiness very seriously."
Buck burst out laughing, shaking his head as he hurried down the stairs, turning around to shoot Eddie another grin before jogging into the locker room.
***
Pushing open the door to the school, Eddie reached over and took Buck's hand, squeezing it as they walked towards the art room. "Don't you dare call her Mary Beth," Buck teased, and Eddie laughed, stopping at the main table in the entranceway. Grabbing two nametags, Eddie wrote quickly on both, before handing one to Buck. Eddie stuck his on his shirt, reading Eddie Diaz (Christopher's Dad), while Buck stared at his, reading Evan Buckley (Christopher's Dad).
"You ready?" Eddie asked, smiling softly, leaning in to kiss Buck's temple.
"After you make me cry before we even get started?" Buck grinned back, running a hand quickly over his eyes. "Hell yeah, I'm ready. Or heck yeah, I guess, since we are in school and all."
Laughing, Eddie watched Buck stick his nametag on, then grabbed his hand again. Eddie peered into the art room, quickly greeted by a beaming Ms. Carter. "Mr. Diaz, so good to see you, you're right on time!" she exclaimed, stopping short as her eyes fell on Buck.
"Hi Ms. Carter, this is Evan Buckley, I called the school this afternoon and had him added to the list," Eddie said with a smile, pointing to the timeslot that now read Eddie Diaz and Evan Buckley. "He's my partner and co-parent, and I'm sorry I never properly introduced you two before." Meeting Buck's eyes, Eddie winked. "I've been in love with him so long, I forget other people might not be lucky enough to already know him."
"I'm so sorry, he's such a sap," Buck grinned, extending his hand towards Ms. Carter. "It's nice to officially meet you."
Ms. Carter paused a second, then laughed good-naturedly, shaking Buck's hand with a smile. "It's nice to officially meet you too. This explains why every drawing Christopher makes has a Buck in it. I've got his portfolio right here. You two have a very talented son."
#buddie#buck/eddie#eddie diaz#evan buckley#christopher diaz has two dads#angst with a happy ending#emotional hurt/comfort#prompt fill#fanfic#fanfiction#writing#soft eddie diaz#9-1-1 show#9-1-1 fic#9-1-1 on fox#9-1-1#established relationship#buck and eddie are boyfriends#so in love
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Eddie falls asleep on the couch while chilling with buck at Eddie's place he wakes to buck gently shaking him to go to bed. Buck went ahead and cleaned while letting him rest and Eddie's like wow. They're not even together yet but that's real sweet buck didn't have to do that. Idk maybe he like sleepily mumbles God I could kiss you while going to his room still out of it as buck's like what and thinks he didn't mean it only he did and he's not ashamed to admit it buck's the best thing to happen
haven’t felt this way in a while [buck/eddie, G, 1.5k]
Buck waves a hand in front of Eddie’s face halfheartedly.
“Eds,” he whispers.
There’s no response.
Or, there could be a response.
Buck can’t quite tell if Eddie is snoring very quietly or ifhe’s developing some sort of cold.
Hopefully it’s the former.
Buck half turns on the sofa, careful to distribute hisweight slowly.
“I think he’s out cold, Superman.”
Christopher giggles, quick to muffle the sound in his hands.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Buck continues in atheatrical whisper.
He rubs his hands together and grins at his favorite childin the world.
“Whatever shall we do with ourselves?”
Christopher takes the question very seriously, his eyebrowsinching closer together as he thinks it over.
“We could each eat an extra cookie!”
It’s Buck’s turn to smother his laughter at the suggestion.
Leave it to Christopher to suggest extra snacks while hisfather is asleep.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Buck leans even closer towhisper. “If we clean up our dishes – I’ll split an extra cookie with you.”
“Okay,” Christopher agrees immediately, as if it’s anamazing offer.
Maybe to an amazing kid it is.
They make quick work of the dishes with Buck rinsing them inthe sink and Chris loading them into the washer. Then, they carefully split achocolate chip cookie.
Eddie sleeps through the entire ordeal.
“Okay, Little Man,” Buck says, bending over to get onChristopher’s level. “You go brush your teeth and pick out some pajamas. I’llbe in to help you in a minute, okay?”
Christopher nods.
“What about bed time?” he checks.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna let your dad sleep on the couchall night. Lazy Bones can at least come say goodnight to you.”
Christopher giggles again, quickly checking to make sure hehadn’t woken up Eddie.
As Buck puts soap in the dishwasher and starts it up he listensto the careful way Christopher’s crutches tap down the hallway.
He can’t help but smile to himself. His chest issuspiciously close to bursting with affection.
More than anything – he wants this every single night.
He wants to help Chris ‘sneak’ around when Eddie dozes off.He wants to tell Chris stories and clean up more than one set of dishes.
He wants in ways that he can’t fully verbalize. Not even tohimself.
To keep the thoughts at bay, Buck grabs the dishrag and runssome warm water over it.
He wipes down all the counters and rinses out the rag,putting more hot water on it before tip toeing into the living room.
The coffee table gets the same treatment as the counters andthen he heads back to the kitchen. He rinses the rag again, rings it out andsprays the residue from the day down the drain.
Next, he empties the trash and ties the bag tight. He setsit by the door to take on his way out.
The light in the bathroom is out already as he makes his waydown the hall so he peeks into Christopher’s room, unsurprised to see the boyalready sitting on his bed.
He’s picked out tonight’s book and it sends a bittersweetpang through Buck to see it.
He’ll stay for story time but it still aches a bit, to be avisitor.
Again, he shoves the thoughts aside.
He helps Christopher into his pajamas and puts him in bed.Christopher’s dirty clothes go in his hamper shaped like a shark and his crutchesget leaned carefully between his bed and his nightstand so he can reach them inthe morning.
“Alright, I’m gonna go get your dad,” Buck tells him.
He can’t help bending down to press a kiss to the top ofChristopher’s head.
“Okay, Bucky.”
The urge to wake Eddie with a kiss to the top of his headclaws its way up Buck’s chest until it settles at the base of his throat with apowerful grip.
If only he wasn’t too terrified to try and take that leap.
Sure, he and Eddie had both been single for some time nowbut that didn’t mean anything.
You couldn’t just say to someone ‘hey you should date myfriend, he’s gay/bi/pan/whatever’ not without being an asshole at least.
The point is – just because people could work in theory didn’tmean it would work.
Buck knows more than most people how much of a tangled messlife can become.
So instead, Buck walks around the couch and tosses himselfdown on it hard enough to bounce.
Eddie snorts himself awake, jerking upright and blinkingrapidly.
“Bu-what?”
“You fell asleep,” Buck informs him. “Christopher is alreadyin bed and waiting very patiently for story time.”
Eddie rubs at his right eye before looking to the coffee table.His eyebrows move up in obvious surprise.
“You cleaned up?”
“Of course. Chris and I did it together. The dishwasher isrunning and I’ll take the trash on my way out.”
“You didn’t have to do that, man.”
“Well, you were hardly going to do it while you slept,” Buckteases. “Come on, story time.”
He pushes off the couch, corralling his thoughts once again.
Buck plants himself in the chair that he can hardly fit into wait for Eddie. He shares another smile with Christopher as Eddie’sfootsteps pad down the hall.
“Who took my chair?” Eddie questions.
“You were too slow.”
Christopher giggles and Eddie rolls his eyes.
He crouches down next to the foot of the bed, picking up thebook Christopher had selected.
“Ready, mijo?”
“Mmhm,” Christopher murmurs before yawning.
Buck leans his elbow on the armrest of the chair that’scurrently cutting into his left hip. He cups his chin in his hand and sighs quietlyto himself.
As Eddie and Buck make their way out of Christopher’s room,it’s time to be quiet for another Diaz boy and Buck doesn’t mind in the least.
He doesn’t miss his huge empty loft. He doesn’t miss thefact that he can leave on whatever lights he wants, or play his music loudly,or leave dirty dishes wherever.
This is a home. Eddie and Chris are his home. Atleast, he wants them to be.
“Sorry for falling asleep on you,” Eddie says.
“Nah, you’re good.”
Buck wants to drag his feet. He wants to procrastinateputting on his shoes and gathering his keys.
“Why don’t you just crash here? We have the space.”
It’s enough to stall Buck for a second.
“No,” he decides out loud. “I should get going.”
Eddie doesn’t protest.
He obviously can’t hear Buck’s thoughts.
Ask me to stay – just one more time. Ask me like you meanit and I’ll stay. I’ll stay forever.
“Alright,” Eddie agrees. He sighs. “Thanks again forcleaning up. I could honestly kiss you.”
Buck snorts.
“Sounds like you need to get back to sleep.”
“I feel better than I did,” Eddie has to pause to yawn,which does a lot to dismantle his argument, “probably couldn’t make it throughanother movie though.”
“Well, you should get some rest. You must be pretty tired tothink about kissing me for doing some dishes.”
Buck should just leave it alone. But it’s like a scab – he can’thelp but pick at it.
“I don’t have to be tired to think about kissing you.”
What.
“Um…is this some housewife joke I’m missing?”
Eddie scratches at his jaw.
“I guess it could be? Like – you make my life better. Thehouse feels fuller, brighter when you’re here. I think you’re actually thesecond best thing to ever happen to me. Does that make you a housewife?”
Buck feels like Eddie’s just presented him with a thirtyfive page dissertation on the difference between miosis and mitosis. He can’tthink of a single word to say.
“Eddie…”
Yup. His name is a good start.
“I…what?” Buck finally manages.
“Sorry,” Eddie says after a stilted beat of silence. “Doesthat sound like I’m coming onto you? I’m definitely not coming onto you. Unless…youwant me to?”
Buck blinks at him dumbly.
Has he been asleep on the couch this whole time? Is this hisdream?
“Buck?”
Say something.
“Did I break you?” Eddie questions.
Dear God. Say something. Anything.
“You…like guys?” Buck asks.
Three whole words. And they make sense in context.Amazing.
Eddie lifts and drops a shoulder quickly.
“I like you.”
“Like… Like like me like me?”
He’s reasonably sure that still makes sense, but it also feelslike his brain is currently rolling down a hill.
But Eddie nods. His cheeks are stained pink.
Holy. Shit.
“How long?”
“Why?” Eddie questions, rubbing at the back of his neck andlooking away.
“Because I need to know how stupid we both are. For science.”
“Both of us?”
Eddie takes half a step forward then, his hand droppingaway.
His heart is firmly in his throat but Buck nods.
“Months. It’s been months,” Eddie admits in a rush.
Buck can’t stop himself – he takes two steps forward. There’sbarely anything left between them. Just a few inches of air that feels like it’sfull of static energy.
“We’re both idiots,” he announces happily.
Eddie takes Buck’s face in both hands and kisses himsoundly.
“Absolute idiots,” Buck breathes when they part.
“Shut up,” Eddie laughs.
He doesn’t give Buck a choice though. Instead, he kisses himagain.
#buddie#buck x eddie#prompt#justsmilestuffhappens#buddiefic#I removed my dialogue tabs so hopefully that helps mobile formatting#fluff#just...so much fluff#bye
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21 + buddie, please! 💛
Believing in you even when you couldn’t do it yourself
Eddie blinks his eyes open to darkness and a heaviness in his lungs. He gasps for breath and reaches around, but all he can feel is cold. He’s back underground.
“Diaz!” Someone’s voice comes crackling over his radio. “Diaz, sound off!”
He fumbles for his radio quickly, “It’s-It’s Diaz...I-I...” He can’t find the words to say what’s going on and his lungs are so tight.
“Eddie?” It’s Buck. He can feel himself relax slightly at the sound of his voice. “You need to breathe.”
“I can’t...the-the water.”
“There is no water, Eddie. We’re nowhere by any water. I need you to listen to me, we know where you are but it’s too dangerous for any of us to come get you so I’m going to guide you to me, okay?”
“Okay,” Eddie tries as hard as he can to take a deep breath.
“Look around you, do you see any way to get out of the space you’re in?” Buck asks. If Eddie weren’t so distracted, he could hear the worry and concern disguised by a clearly faux calm.
“Buck...I...” Eddie flounders for a moment. It’s so dark and he’s trapped and- “I don’t think I can...”
“Eddie.”
Eddie forces himself to take a deep breath and looks around, shifting slightly. “I-I can’t see the way out. It’s dark and-and cold.”
“There is a way out, Eddie,” Buck’s voice comes over the radio. “I can guide you out, but you need to calm down first, okay? You’re not underground. It’s not cold. Take your glove off and touch the wall, what do you feel?”
Eddie does as he says and shakily takes his glove off. He tentatively reaches out and touches the pad of his fingers to the walls surrounding him. To his surprise, what he touches isn’t cold mud or water, it’s rough stone.
“Stone,” Eddie replies after a moment. “Brick.
“That’s good, Eddie,” Buck assures him. “You’re inside a building. Okay, it’s going to be really dark, but I’m going to help you through. Now, I need you to crawl to the right, keeping your head down.”
Eddie tries to move and bumps his shoulder into a wall, suddenly remembering the small space underground, hitting his legs and head and shoulder on the mud as he tried to escape. “Buck, I can’t...I can’t.”
“You can,” Buck’s voice is more forceful now. “You have to, Eddie. I’m going to be right here the whole time, helping you. You can do this, Eddie.”
Eddie takes a shaky breath. “Okay. Where do I go?” Buck’s calm voice slowly guides him out of the building, talking him through each turn and movement, Eddie fighting back a panic attack with every breath. He fights back the memories of being trapped underground, a hundred feet below his friends, screaming for help.
The dust is so thick that Eddie can hardly see ten feet in front of him. Then all of a sudden he breaks through and he is hit by daylight. Gasping a breath of relief as he emerges from the building, Eddie takes off his helmet, letting it fall to the ground.
“Eddie!”
Suddenly, Buck is in front of him, gently brushing away the dust on his face, eyes scanning him carefully. Eddie doesn’t stop himself from falling into his partner’s arms. Normally they try to avoid PDA at work, but after the day he’s had, all Eddie wants is comfort. He feels like all of the energy has been wrung out of him.
Buck gently lowers the two of them to the ground, “Are you hurt?” Eddie shakes his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie can see people moving around, talking, and asking questions but Eddie just closes his eyes. He focuses on Buck’s arms tight around him and takes a deep breath.
At home later that night while they’re lying in bed, Eddie hums softly as Buck runs his fingers through his hair. “Thank you for helping me today,” Eddie says into Buck’s chest. “I don’t think I would have been able to get out if you hadn’t been there.”
“Don’t say that,” Buck chastizes as he tightens his arms around Eddie. “You are so strong, you would have done it. I just gave you a little push.”
Eddie waits a beat before admitting, “I don’t feel very strong.” He lifts his head off of Buck’s shoulder to look him in the eye, “Anyone else would have been able to make it out, no big deal.” He shakes his head. “I feel so weak.”
Buck sighs in understanding. “I know.” In the moment of silence, Eddie puts his head back down on Buck’s chest and Buck lightly runs his fingers up and down his arm. “I love you and I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I think you are incredibly strong and brave and anything but weak.”
“That means a lot,” Eddie assure him. “I just don’t know if I believe it yet.”
Buck smiles and presses a kiss to the top of his head, “That's okay.”
“I love you so much.” Eddie settles down against Buck’s chest.
He feels a kiss on his forehead, “I love you too.”
#my fic#buddie#buddie fic#evan buckley#Evan buckley/Eddie Diaz#eddie diaz#ptsd#911#911 fic#911 on fox
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