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tawaifeddiediaz · 2 years

Text

dreams (made yours from mine)

spoilers for season 6 sneak peek, speculation fic; @bieddiediaz <3 thank you for looking this over. (buck is an unreliable narrator in this fic btw, this is not an anti-fic)

[AO3 Link]

Word Count: 2652 words

“He didn’t even consider it, okay?”

Eddie hums from where he’s stirring the onions, celery and carrots in the pot.

Buck hardly looks up from where his knife is going a million miles a minute, and still slower than the speed of his tongue. “Bobby didn’t even consider that I could be a potential option for interim captain, and that’s just…”

Buck doesn’t stop chopping the garlic into much finer pieces than they need, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Eddie stop stirring.

“Buck,” Eddie sighs. “You don’t know that he didn’t consider you.”

“Don’t I?” He looks up, tries to ignore the way pressure burns behind his eyes, and locks gazes with Eddie. “Don’t I know?”

He doesn’t know how to articulate this, how to put it in words to hear that the one person after Maddie who has held unparalleled faith that Buck could be something — something more than the fuck-up that Buck grew up thinking himself to be — doesn’t really have that much faith in him at all.

But Eddie’s looking at him softly, looking at him with that quiet consideration that makes Buck’s heart skip despite himself, and Buck’s reminded that even when no one had faith in him, Eddie did. Christopher did.

They still do.

As if on cue, Christopher pipes up from behind them, busy sketching out a new dinosaur at the kitchen table. “I think you’d make a great captain, Buck.”

The words should be comforting, and in so many ways, they are. Christopher’s faith and unparalleled trust in him means more than anyone else’s, but tonight, all Buck can think of is you’re a good friend and you’d make a great captain.

Both at the boundaries where he wasn’t either of those things.

Even when he’s nothing, Christopher thinks he’s something, and that thought gets Buck through his worst days.

Eddie smiles as if he knows what Buck’s thinking — and he probably does. He jumps to keep stirring, adding a splash of chicken stock to the pot as he talks. “Buck, Bobby did consider you for the position. There’s no way that he didn’t. But just because he chose Lucy doesn’t mean that you’re any less. She was good to take on the role at the time he needed someone to, that’s all.”

“And I’m not?” Buck argues, lifting the cutting board to slide the garlic into the pot. The steam burns the side of his hand a little, and Buck lets the pain ground him. “I’ve been with the 118 ever since I started five years ago. She’s only been around since…”

Buck hates saying it, but Eddie clearly has no qualms about it.

“Since I left,” Eddie completes, a wry smile on his face. “I know. But that doesn’t mean she’s any less qualified. She’s been a firefighter for twice as long as you have.”

Buck glares at him half-heartedly, ripping the basil from the plant in the kitchen corner harder than strictly necessary. Mentally, he apologizes to the plant that Eddie painstakingly learned how to keep alive, with Christopher's strict supervision. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side? As my best friend, not hers?”

Eddie laughs, a rich sound that soothes some of the edges of Buck’s anger. It sparks something in his stomach, the freeness of the sound that Eddie’s fought to win over the last year, and every time Buck sees it or hears the lightness of it, he thanks whoever’s out there that he still has his partner.

He remembers the state of Eddie’s room, the terror of not being able to find him in the mess, and he looks at his friend now, all smiles and relaxed shoulders and unclenched jaws. It’s a change that Buck wholeheartedly welcomes — but this new side of Eddie also fuels a new layer to the knot of love and affection that Buck’s beginning to uncover towards him.

“I am on your side,” Eddie says, looking pointedly at the mess Buck’s made of the basil plant. “But you’re not being fair to Bobby or Lucy like this. Or yourself, for that matter.”

The thing is, he knows. He knows he’s not being fair in doubting either of them, because Lucy’s ability as a firefighter surpasses his by far, and in Eddie’s absence, her strengths had balanced the weaknesses of the team. She would be an asset as the interim captain.

“Right, but why couldn’t I have done it?”

“Buck, you don’t even have a couch,” Chris chimes in, unapologetic with the snark in his voice.

He really is Eddie’s son.

Buck makes a face. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Not the couch, but the reason you don’t have one, at least,” Eddie clarifies, shooting his son a look from over his shoulder.

Taylor’s name always hangs unspoken in the Diaz home, along with thinly-veiled disapproval, but Buck really doesn’t know what she has to do with this.

Eddie catches his confusion and sighs, gesturing to a can of tomatoes. Buck absently picks them up and opens the metal lid for him as he listens. “Being the captain of the firehouse means that you have to have your 100% in the game. You always give your 100% to everything you do, but even then, you’ve been…distracted since you broke up with her. Like there’s some answer you’re trying to find in your universe, and you’ll do anything to find it, and it’s taking all of your energy.”

Buck freezes with his hand clenched tight around the can opener.

He hasn’t made any mention of the ways he’s been struggling to find himself to anyone — not even Eddie.

He should’ve known that Eddie would read him word for word.

True to it, Eddie says, “I don’t know why Bobby chose Lucy, because I can’t speak for him but if you want my guess on why he didn’t consider you or anyone else, that would be it.”

His tongue feels like it’s stuck to the roof of his mouth.

There are stacks of self-help books where his couch used to be, and he’s been searching through every page to find what’s wrong with him — why he feels the way he does, coiled up tight like a spring about to pop. But those are details that Buck has kept to himself, hasn’t mentioned even the slightest bit to anyone.

“Our team’s been through a lot over the past couple years, and as it is, you’ve taken on a lot over the last few months. Me, namely,” Eddie smiles, something self-deprecating and fragile in the gesture. “Bobby probably didn’t want to stress us out even more, because being the captain might look shiny, but everyone knows it’s anything but. Even if it’s just a temporary job.”

“It’s still something I want,” Buck voices quietly, startling himself with the conviction in his tone. He hasn’t thought about being a fire captain for long, but it feels right — a goal he didn’t know he could have until the possibility was shoved in front of him. “I just…I wish I’d been asked. Or at least given the choice.”

He feels like a broken record, unable to explain exactly why this is so important to him.

But sometimes, he forgets how much of his imprint is on the Diaz home, and how versed they are in reading his silences for full sentences.

“In second grade, they used to choose different jobs for everyone to do, like line leaders or class monitors. But my teacher always chose me to be the class secretary instead. Always, and I didn’t know why,” Christopher says. Buck turns his attention towards him, trying to ignore Eddie’s concerned gaze burning into the side of his head. “I asked her one day, because I wanted to be line leader, and I didn’t know why she never chose me. But she said that the other students weren’t as good at answering the phone nicely, and she wanted them to learn that from me. Eventually, she made me line leader after the other people learned to answer the phone. Maybe that’s why Bobby’s making you wait.”

It’s a juvenile comparison but it sinks in.

“And his teacher was really proud that he taught the rest of the class to be kind and clear over the phone,” Eddie tacks onto his son’s words as he holds a spoon of sauce out to Buck. “It’s about where your strengths lie right now, and that’s in the field. At my back, preferably. There’s a lot to learn from you, too, Buck.”

Buck bends and tastes it, the flavors exploding on his tongue even as he fights the glow in his chest at Eddie’s effortless compliment.

The sauce is perfect as it is, each ingredient layered on top of the other just by the way Eddie seasons at every step like he’s been cooking for years and not for a few months. Still, he grabs the black pepper grinder and cracks it once, the barest amount just to needle him.

Eddie does exactly what Buck had hoped, a small smile curling the edge of his mouth even as he rolls his eyes in exasperation. There’s a proud gleam to his eye as he stares down at the successful sauce, though, and the familiarity of that predicted movement makes Buck feel miles better.

“And,” Eddie adds, mirth making his tone lighter. “Remember the last time someone part of our family was interim captain? He knew too much about us.”

Buck laughs at the gentle tease in Eddie’s voice, turning to Chris. “Thanks, buddy. You’re right. I’m…best where I am right now.”

His words table the conversation for a while, and Buck lets himself sink into the familiar routine of making dinner with Eddie and Christopher instead of dwelling on the brief conversation with Bobby. Slowly, his mood lifts until all he can focus on is the relish on Eddie’s face when he mixes the spaghetti into the sauce, and the gusto with which Chris guzzles it down.

It comes out again after dinner, when Chris has disappeared into his room, mumbling something about zombie games with his friends.

Buck watches him go, and feels a thousand times luckier that he has that kid in his life.

“Why’d you have to raise such a smart kid?” he complains teasingly to Eddie, who only lifts his can of Coke in a faux toast.

“Nah, I didn’t do anything. That kid is the luckiest thing to ever happen to me,” Eddie says, casting a fond look after his son as he twirls the last of his pasta around his fork. Buck opens his mouth to argue, but Eddie shoots him a look that makes him snap it shut. “And he’s not wrong, you know. Bobby’s honeymoon is barely three weeks long — three weeks of someone else being the 118’s captain doesn’t say anything about your ability to lead people, or your ability as a firefighter, or even about what Bobby thinks of you.”

The thought prompts a reminder to Eddie’s expression when he’d mentioned reasons why Bobby hadn’t picked any of them.

“You know that I’m here because I want to be here, right? I didn’t ‘take you on’ or whatever else your asshole brain was telling you,” he says, gaze drifting down to the open collar of Eddie’s V-neck, where a flush is steadily rising. He’s transfixed by the way the red spreads from his collarbones up the lines of his strong throat, but only barely manages to tear his eyes away before Eddie catches him staring.

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie says quietly, his voice a bare whisper in the inches that separate them. Buck leans back in his chair, taking a glum bite out of his garlic bread. Eddie laughs at his expression, leaning forward to curl two careful fingers around his wrist. “Come on, Buck.”

“Go where?” he retorts, just to be a little shit. The frustration that had temporarily ebbed at the dinner-making routine rises back with a vengeance until all Buck can hear are his mind’s taunts about him not being good enough.

Eddie hums, studying his expression. “This isn’t about being captain, is it.”

He doesn’t even bother to phrase it as a question, and Buck whooshes out a breath, mock-glaring at his best friend. “Why do I even bother hiding things from you?”

“Beats me,” Eddie shrugs, leaning forward. Buck’s suddenly very, very aware of Eddie’s fingers still on his skin, of his garlic breath, and of Eddie hardly a foot away from his face. “Tell me.”

Buck sighs, staring at the contrast of Eddie’s long fingers on his skin instead of at his best friend’s face. “Bobby’s the first person to actually believe in me, you know? We had a rough start during my probationary year, sure, but he still…he’s an important person in my life. I look up to him in…in a lot of ways.”

He doesn’t even need to say that Bobby fills the role that his own father should have. It hangs in the air with Eddie’s patience and all the other unspoken things up there.

“Becoming a firefighter, finding this family — it’s given me a lot more than I could’ve ever hoped for when I signed up. And today, hearing Bobby look at me cluelessly like he didn’t know why I was asking about Lucy, like I wasn’t even a possibility for interim captain…”

He trails off, but Eddie’s fingers tighten around his wrist. “Bobby trusts you in ways he doesn’t even trust the rest of us. The same things you feel about him, he thinks about you, too — he just shows it differently. But as Captain, he has to be fair with whoever he chooses — and maybe that’s exactly why he picked Lucy.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Eddie usually is about these things, and he’s good about getting Buck to see perspective.

“It’s okay if it hurts right now,” Eddie says quietly, pulling away. “But just know that these three weeks don’t have anything on Bobby’s impression of you, or your ability to lead the firehouse.”

Buck smiles, even though he can feel the exhaustion weighing his expression down. “Thanks, Eds.”

“And...” Eddie starts, suddenly looking shyer than he has been all night. “I’ll be here when you finally find the answers to your questions.”

Eddie smiles back, and it’s the warmest Buck’s ever felt.

His gaze flits between Eddie’s eyes and his sauce-reddened mouth, and for a long, vulnerable moment, the tension stretches between them until it sparks. Buck finds himself swaying closer into Eddie’s orbit just by this pull, and by the way Eddie shifts to open his body language up until they can barely tell that they’re sitting on two separate chairs, it’s the same for him.

“Dad! I can’t pass this level!” Christopher’s frustrated shout comes through his bedroom door. The thread between them snaps, or maybe stretches, because Buck collapses back into his seat like he wasn’t about to do something as extraordinarily stupid as kissing his best friend.

Eddie stands up, leveraging a small smile Buck’s way before he rounds the table and pauses. Buck looks up at him curiously, picking absently at his silverware.

“When you become captain, it won’t be because you’re temporarily replacing someone else.”

Eddie raps on the dining table twice before he disappears down the hall, but Buck’s stuck frozen in his seat, watching him go.

Becoming a firehouse captain was a tatter of a dream, a half-formed tapestry, but Eddie turned around and made it his own, anyway. His unrelenting faith in Buck turns that thought tapestry into a masterpiece, something that feels right in his hands — like something he can feasibly achieve now.

With that thought and Eddie’s words swirling through his head, Buck sits straighter in his chair and smiles.

Maybe he’s already found his answers.

#zee writes #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buck x eddie #christopher diaz #911 fox #911 on fox #911 fic #911 spoilers #911 s6 spoilers #911fic #usernymika #userisha #userdahlias #laurenlook #userceecee

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