#and the fact that buck asked Eddie about the shooting and how he felt
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On Tommy Kinard
"It's not that I don't like Buck and Tommy, it's just happening so fast, he's underdeveloped!"
*clears throat*
Here is a recap of what we know about Tommy. And this is just off the top of my head, I didn't rewatch anything.
He was closeted at the 118 before and found the atmosphere repressive. He (probably) acted like a dick to fit in. When presented with the chance to make things better, he took it, and developed positive relationships with Hen, Chim and Bobby.
He was in the army and trained there as a pilot.
He knows Muay Thai and has a set up in his house.
He likes to work on cars and has a lift at his house (where TF does he live is my question - he has some nerve being agog at Buck's loft if he has a muay thai gym and a car lift)
He is down for violating departmental policy at the drop of a hat (has done so on at least two occasions) to help a friend and has no problems fucking with the fire chief.
He is a nerd. He likes pub trivia and has incorrect Star Wars opinions, and can keep up with Chim in the movie-quoting department.
His favorite movie is "Love, Actually" and he likes craft beer and monster trucks.
He came out when he transferred to Harbor and felt comfortable enough to stop lying about who he was.
He follows MMA and has friends in Vegas who like him well enough to hook him up to a frankly insane degree.
He'll risk his own life and engage in helicopter skulduggery to save people he doesn't know...I mean, apart from doing that for a living.
He'll take time out of his day to give a tour to the cute boy who called him up and offer to give that boy flying lessons (a significant time investment) which was probably maybe about more one on one time with said boy.
He yearns for the belonging and found family that the 118 became after his departure and probably befriended Eddie hoping to earn a plate at the cookout, aside from just clicking with him.
He likes Eddie and Chris a lot and they like him. Chimney also likes him.
He was attracted to Buck right away and was emotionally aware enough to pick up on Buck's jealous feelings over Eddie and his friendship, even if he was surprised that it was him Buck wanted to get to know.
He respects and values Buck and Eddie's friendship and wanted to make sure Buck knew that.
He's brave enough to shoot his shot by planting one on a dude.
He's a lil bitchy but also generous and ready to throw in with this insane guy who's inviting him to a family wedding after 0.5 dates.
He showed up to a bachelor party when he was on call because Buck asked him to, then showed up in turnouts after fighting a fire for like 12 hours yadda yadda we all know this part.
He has got it BAD for one Evan Buckley, who he only calls "Evan" which according to LFJR is a conscious decision by the writers, which fascinates me.
He was willing to take a chance with a man just discovering his sexuality BUT wasn't willing to put himself through that if the man in question wasn't ready for it. When Buck showed him that he was, he was all in.
He does NOT take his coffee like that.
Oh and
He's a beast.
This is VASTLY more information than we knew about ANY of Buck's previous girlfriends with the possible exception of Abby. Even Taylor did not get this much development over 20 episodes (things we knew about her: she was an ambitious and ethically flexible reporter, did not eat fudge, had a dad in jail, and sometimes jogged for exercise, she was capable of being nice and did love Buck, I believe). And as for it being fast? Sometimes it just be like that? A relationship doesn't have to have year(s) of buildup. Sometimes people do just meet, like each other, and start dating, in fact in the real world that's usually what happens. It's in TV Land that you have to have eighteen seasons of UST before pulling the trigger. Most of the time in reality people just vibe off each other and decide to go out and THEN they learn about each other.
And they've got a great start. You'd think they'd barely spoken by how a few naysayers are talking about it - the loft scene was like a solid five minutes of very open conversation, the Cringe Date seemed to have gone well and again, open and honest (if cringey) conversation before Cockblocker Eddie showed up, and the coffee meetup was again....open and honest conversation. They're not gonna show us long scenes of them exchanging firefighting stories and workout preferences (I mean, I'd watch that, but it's not what the show is about).
In conclusion, anyone saying he's poorly developed or the relationship is "out of nowhere" either is being willfully obtuse or has ridiculously unrealistic expectations for relationships and/or what constitutes character development.
As for whether they have chemistry, that's a matter of subjective opinion. Given that a TON of people watched that harbor tour scene (even when it was posted as a sneak peek) and started going "wait...what's going on here...are they flirting??" might be a clue. People were talking about Bi!Buck maybe happening with Tommy based solely off that clip of the harbor tour and what they were seeing between them. And imho that loft scene was crackling. But we all see things through the lenses of our biases, myself included.
Got that off my chest, whew.
#9-1-1#evan buckley#bucktommy#911#tevan#kinley#tommy kinard#9-1-1 meta#9-1-1 shipping#fandom discourse#firepilot#trying to use all the ship tags we have#buck x tommy
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umm. pause. guys. guys. gay tommy has been canon this entire time. what the fuck. like. oh my god. no. like. okay. okay. so. 2x9 (hen begins), sal [deluca] is talking about his girlfriend dragging him to see twilight. he makes a homophobic joke about tommy being team jacob and tommy's like "i don't even know what that means." chimney says "he's insinuating that you're gay" and tommy blows deluca a kiss. fine. whatever. but THEN you skip to 2x12 (chimney begins), and—i stg it's a blink and you miss it moment—tommy and gerrard (racist captain) are having this conversation in the background
tommy: what about that burger place?
gerrard: tommy i hate that place. hey wasn't your girlfriend supposed to come and cook us dinner?
tommy: uhh. next tuesday.
gerrard: promise?
tommy: uhh. uh. yes. yeah. i will promise.
and it's like. number one, this sounds like a conversation they've had before. something to the tune of "hey, how come you never bring your girlfriend around" which i can't help but think was intentional considering the members of the old 118 were entirely familiar with deluca's girlfriend gina. but number two, no straight man who has a girlfriend sounds that unsure that they have a fucking girlfriend. it was very much giving "ah yes. this human lady that i love that most definitely exists. absolutely. also i like breasts." and it's just like. ok. what the fuck. like. i don't know if this was the plan all along. i don't think it was. i still maintain buck/eddie were supposed to go canon after the shooting and the powers that be got in the way. but. but. the idea that this canon queer character has been hiding in plain sight (subtext) is just. wild to me. like. i've always headcanoned tommy as gay, mostly because every character he plays seems fruity as hell. but bro. i don't think it's a headcanon anymore. and i don't think it ever has been. what the fuck.
there's also the idea that. like. so i've been watching the begins episodes again trying to figure out what, exactly, tommy's crime against the members of the 118 has been. like. he worked in a -phobic/-cist environment. he was definitely complicit in making hen/chimney feel like outsiders in their workplace yes yes all these things are true. but as far as i can tell, tommy has rarely ever actively been anything except spineless. deluca makes a homophobic joke? tommy laughs. gerrard makes a bunch of sexist and racist comments? tommy looks, but doesn't say anything to encourage (or discourage him). hen gives her monologue? he looks chagrined.
and his complicity would be absolutely shitty and inexcusable if he was just a cishet white man. no questions asked. but if — if — you view his behavior through the lens of the fact that tommy is queer himself? that tommy is, and always has been, a member of a marginalized community who felt it was easier and safer to assimilate than it was to be openly queer and have a target on his back? his behavior becomes a whole hell of a lot more understandable. yes, it's still shitty, but. there's a purpose behind it. and this idea is supported by the fact that, when gerrard leaves (flashing forward to bobby begins again), even before bobby gets there (because we always credit bobby with making the 118 the family it is today), like. the atmosphere is completely different. tommy and hen? are friendly with each other. chimney and tommy? also friendly with each other. which we also know because in 2x14 broken, he calls him up for help. which lends credibility to the idea that the problems tommy had (or thought he had) with henchim were not about them as people but more about whatever manufactured conservative boys club bullshit gerrard fostered.
and it's just like. motherfucker. bitch. what the hell. like. first of all, leave it to 9-1-1 to tell a story like this in the most subtle way possible. like if that was indeed the intended implication, i'm throwing my tv off a bridge immediately. but also. second of all. what is wrong with this show. they're crazy. i want to eat it like a loaf of bread. just shovel it in my mouth because the idea that tommy has been queer all along, that he wasn't brought back just to be a stopgap on buck's queer journey to eddie, but that he's been haunting the edges of the narrative like a gay ghost is sooo like. ohhh. okay. [throws up]. like????? okay. anyway. i'm going to be thinking about this the rest of the day.
#tommy kinard#head in hands.....................HEAD IN HANDS#tv: 911#jack.txt#There's also something to be said about the idea of FOX main characterizing Buck/Oliver#around the same time they put a stop to Buddie#Something about like. Conventionally attractive (dark hair / light eyes) white men are not allowed to be loudly quee#and like. I KNEW there was something there#I knew it. And I love Michael and David and Karen and Hen don't get me wrong#those are my emotional support gays#but I was just like ''hm. kind of funny how every queer character connected to the mains is a person of color right?''#and I never vocalized this thought to ANYONE but I always kept it in the back of my mind#even the men michael would be seen with *before* David — always black#and there's nothing wrong with it it's fine#but the idea becomes a LOT more insidious when I consider FOX's politics—when i consider that both racism and homophobia are inherent to#their brand. and then it's just like ''ohh. you guys made the black people dirty queers because white is right. okay got it''#anyways. let me stop talking. lol
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Buddie 613 meta
We now know that the man who risked himself to get Buck out of the line of fire during the shooting arc is Jeshan, which means ‘clear’ (if you’re interested, you can find more name meanings for 911 characters here). So let me just giggle for a second about the fact that 911 had once again reunited Buddie with a character who can be referred to as Captain Clear Me(h)ta. Coincidence? IDK. But I have to admit, it kinda made me reflect back and feel nostalgic. When I first started watching the show, I had no intention of writing meta for 911, but after going ballistic when 309 aired, I knew I would HAVE to use the s3 hiatus to write down all my thoughts about everything Buddie related so far. That’s what I did, I wrote and shared my baby, my first round of Buddie meta. That’s where it was supposed to end, but then people asked and encouraged me to write meta for the eps in 3b as they would air, too. I figured I could try, and that’s how my Buddie weekly meta posts were born. At the time, there was no one else writing proper weekly meta (I don’t mean a summary/review of the ep, or meta posts that stand on their own, but proper analysis on Buck, Eddie and those who matter to them, organized and serialized for each ep as it aired). And now, I’ve been writing them for almost 3.5 seasons. And I feel like they’ve inspired others to do the same. TBH, I can’t actually remember seeing weekly meta posts in other fandoms (maybe they exist and I just haven’t come across them, IDK). So I got all emotional, thinking about how these posts may be love notes to Buddie and the show, but most of all they’re a love letter to the wonderful people who have been supportive and encouraging, who’ve been reblogging the posts, who’ve been commenting on them and telling me that what I do makes a difference for them. Thank you so much, these posts wouldn’t exist without you. You have a much bigger impact on the fandom than you might have realized! So if Captain Mehta is indeed a nod to the meta, it’s a loving, appreciative nod that belongs to all of you. ~~
When Chim shows up to escort Hen to work, he ends up sitting down for a talk with Denny instead, and I really enjoyed this scene, it was lovely, but it also once again emphasized the difference between the firefam kids’ relationship with their parents’ colleagues and the r/s Buck and Chris have. Chim talks to Hen’s son when he happens to come across the kid, but he only sits down for a proper conversation because Denny implies Hen and Karen are up to something intimate, and Chim shouldn’t interrupt them just yet. Consider how different that is to how Buck intentionally looks to spend time with and dedicated to Chris! And then Chim is impressed by how smart Denny is. It’s cute, but it also reveals just how little they interact that this comes as a surprise to Chim. It’s so different to the intimate familiarity of a parent, which is what we know Buck has with Chris (and that Chris has with Buck, which can even be seen in the kid’s teasing, for example regarding the snoring in 414). ~~
You might have seen that, when the promo came out, I momentarily lost my sanity and posted this. I just couldn’t get over the fact that they actually had Eddie correct the chief on the duration of Buck’s death. It was such a spouse thing to do. It was a declaration about the anguish that each single second represented, when Eddie couldn’t breathe because Buck wasn’t. It was a confession of sorts, on how Eddie felt as he desperately NEEDED his husband to live (I’m not even joking when I ascribe him this title, Eddie said with his whole chest, “THAT IS MY IDIOT HUSBAND THAT I HAD TO WATCH DIE FOR THREE MINUTES AND SEVENTEEN SECONDS AND I WILL NEVER FORGET ANY OF THOSE SECONDS, NOR LET ANYONE ELSE DO THAT”). It was a glimpse into how time must have moved differently for him as each second etched itself forever into Eddie’s mind. And yes, it’s a clear parallel to 413, when we witness time slowing down for Eddie. And I mentioned in my post that in both scenarios, Buck is just out of his reach, so close, but simply not close enough. In one case, this forced Eddie to believe he must now accept his own death. In the other, he couldn’t accept the possibility that Buck would die, so he just fought harder, and if he couldn’t save Buck with one course of action, he tried another, Eddie just had to keep going, 'coz the idea of those three minutes and seventeen seconds turning into an eternity? Unacceptable. ~~
But notice in my unhinged post from that day, I used the word ‘counting.’ Eddie counted the seconds, and this is revealed to us at a poker game where Buck is counting the cards. I already noticed that when we saw the promo, but this connection was reinforced in the ep itself when Chief Williams vocalized what Buck was doing. The thing about counting is that it’s reserved for what matters, what’s crucial. Buck is counting the cards in order to win, and he wants to win because it matters to Eddie. Buck wasn’t the one who initiated the search for a poker game where he could use his newfound skills, Eddie was the one to take that initiative. And he could bring Buck along without telling him where they’re going (I would normally scream for a whole separate paragraph just about Eddie telling Buck to dress nice and there being no need for any further explanation or prompting, but we were so well fed, I’ll have to scream about it into my fist for just one sentence) 'coz Eddie was so sure his husband would go along with whatever crazy scheme he’d come up with. And he was right, even though Buck didn’t think it would end well, he still went along with what his husband wanted. Please let me reiterate: Buck’s counting cards because Eddie is so important to him, and Eddie was counting the seconds because Buck’s his vital sign. ~~
Another thing to keep in mind about the poker game is that the only other time we’ve seen Buck playing poker was in 312. In that ep, Eddie was off to meet Christopher’s school teachers (leading to his eventual lackluster r/s with Ana), so having a free evening, Buck spends it with Maddie, Chim and Josh (and is told he unequivocally sucks at Poker). Jokes were made about setting Josh and Buck up, and it was implied whatever Buck’s sexuality was, that was not the reason why Maddie abstained from making the match. What I find interesting is seeing how far our boys have come! In that ep, they were operating separately, and it led them down the wrong paths.
In this ep, Buck and Eddie were inseparable both as a couple (even sharing the winnings from Buck’s new talent, because what don’t these two share? And I was particularly chewing glass when Chief Williams asks Buck how he wanted HIS winnings, but instead of answering her, he looks at his husband. THEY ARE SO FREAKING MARRIED), and as a family unit with Chris (which is maybe a good moment to point out that all of the romantic couples were paired off in 613, and so were Buddie! Now, one could argue that Buck and Eddie were paired off because, well... who else is left for them to hang out with? But 312 is a reminder that when the show wants to, it can push the main cast and minor characters into the same orbit, so it still didn’t HAVE to pair Buck and Eddie off here. It chose to. On top of that, by showing them with Chris as well, 911 reminded us they’re far more bonded than just two best bros hanging out together ‘coz none of their other friends are single). In short, during 312, Buck lost and Eddie was about to be lost on a detour in his romantic journey. In 613, they ARE a family, they work as one throughout the ep, not just in parts of it, and they’re both winning. ~~
Something that gets to me is that when I first shared the BTS pic of Buddie at the poker game, it was clear that Eddie was just bursting with self confidence. He looked like he would be the star of that game. But when we got the promo, we discovered that it was actually going to be Buck who would shine that night. So what makes me slightly froth at the mouth is that all of that sexy confidence we picked up on in the photo? It was real. We weren’t wrong. It just wasn’t confidence that Eddie had in himself, it’s confidence he has in Buck. All of his swagger? Is a reflection of how much he believes and enjoys seeing his husband be a star. I am gonna need 3-6 working weeks at least to recover from knowing this. ~~
Speaking of things that destroyed me forever, everything about the Buckley-Diaz family in this ep falls into that category. I mean, not only did we once again have incredibly domestic scenes, we had one that was very reminiscent of the lasagna one in 601 (Eddie with Chris at the table, Buck fussing around them only to join in once he brings along something to be consumed), reinforcing that this is THEIR NORM, we also had Eddie and Chris being so cute and supportive when it comes to Buck’s new ability (Chris calls him a superhero, Eddie goes along with it, and when Buck’s upset he didn’t get a better superpower, naming some he would have liked to have, Eddie comforts him by saying those other options sound horrible).
And then to top it all off, we had Buck and Chris cooking together. Bobby’s been explicitly acknowledged as basically being Buck’s dad by both of them, and we know Bobby’s been teaching Buck how to cook. Now we get Buck doing the same with Chris, clearly marking them as father and son, especially since this is done with just the two of them, this special time that’s allocated just to their bond together. Eddie is not needed as a middleman. I know that this isn’t news, but every single time the show reinforces this truth, that Buck is Christopher’s other dad, that their bond is that deep, I gain 10 years, so I have to mention it. ~~
For 613, I made my weekly gifset about Buck and answers, but I’d actually like to elaborate on what you see there. In 602, at the happiness center call, we see Buck looking to Lev in search for his own answers on what his happiness looks like. When he still can’t find any, he turns to Hen, because she always has them. Along this season, that’s been his theme. He’s trying to figure out what he wants in order to be happy, which is connected to the couch theme we’ve all been screaming about since 601 (and especially after he fell asleep on Eddie’s in 612). In 613, Buck suddenly finds that he’s the guy with the answers and he likes it. But has he really got them? Buck says these words to Eddie and Chris, and in addition to that, while he utters them, he’s literally captured in the same frame together with Eddie. But it’s also essential that we heard why Chris can’t just be given the answers. It’s in order to learn, Eddie tells him. That’s exactly what Buck has to do, he has to find his answers in order to learn from the search process. He’s not just there yet, but the framing of the whole scene coupled with the ongoing couch theme is very loud. ~~
What gets me maybe most of all in a whole ep of REALLY GOOD BUDDIE CONTENT, is the way the whole thing wraps up. The storyline on Buck’s new abilities doesn’t end with any commentary on those or on his recovery process. His last scene in this ep is the one with Chris. It follows directly the one with Hen and Karen, a scene which reminds us that we’re never surprised at either woman spending solo time with and caring about Denny, even though neither is biologically related to him, because they ARE BOTH his parents. In the same way, it’s only natural that we see Buck spending alone time with Chris, without Eddie around. It is so meaningful that the last shot of Buck in this ep is not about his story line at all, and neither his abilities, nor having died for several minutes is the point. Instead, the last, and therefore most significant shot of Buck in this very Buddie domestic ep, is him smiling at their son. I feel like that says everything about his trajectory.
~~ (my weekly meta posts) (my Buddie gifs) (all of my content)
~~ My tag list will follow in the reblog, please let me know if you wanna be added/removed here.
~~ Thank you so much for reading and for any reblog, like, comment or supportive tag! Also, HUGE thank you to @whosoldherout. On top of real life stuff, she makes her own amazing gifs AND helps make these posts so much better. She’s the one with the real superpowers!
#buddie#911meta#buddie meta#911 meta#9-1-1#evan buckley#eddie diaz#911 spoilers#evanbuckleyedit#eddiediazedit#christopher diaz#wm#911edit#buddie gifs#buddieedit#911onabc#911 on abc#911abc#911 abc
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the most important thing
(pre-buddie) (862 words) (7x06 spec) what are weddings for, if not completely ignoring the fact that you're in love with your best friend
It’s a glance, at first. And then a longer look, when he’s sure no one’s looking back. It’s the slope of Buck’s shoulders that catches Eddie’s eye.
There’s an ease there that he hasn’t seen before. An ease he’s never really felt himself, either. And a part of him wonders – is it really that simple? He tightens his grip on Marisol’s waist and spins her around, smiles at the high peal of laughter she lets loose into the cool evening air.
Eddie allows his eyes to drift, following the line of Buck’s shoulder down his arm and to his hand. He watches Buck’s thumb pull slowly across Tommy’s jaw, sees the way Tommy’s mouth ticks up into a small smile, like his lips are following the motion.
He drags his eyes away then, feeling like he’s intruding on something.
“Oh, I think I need a minute,” Marisol gasps as the song comes to an end.
“Me too,” Eddie says with a chuckle. “Can I grab you something?” He gestures vaguely towards the refreshments table.
“Some water,” she says, punctuating her request with a soft kiss pressed into the corner of his mouth, “would be wonderful.”
Eddie smiles and fights the ever-present urge to wipe the kiss away. “Water. You got it.”
Buck finds him trying to balance a cookie between two cups and takes it from him with a grin. “You can come back for it, you know?” he asks with a teasing sparkle in his eye.
“You’re just jealous your date’s not bringing you a cookie,” Eddie replies.
Buck’s grin grows even wider. “My date,” he says, “is braving the bar for me.” He tilts his head towards the throng of people crowding around the single bartender.
“Alright,” Eddie laughs, “Tommy wins. You’ve got a better date than Marisol does.”
“Eh, don’t sell yourself short.” Buck bumps his shoulder into Eddie’s, a familiar gesture that makes him feel warm, even on a chilly spring night. “He hasn’t asked me to move in with him yet.”
“Bet he hasn’t asked you to move out, either.” Eddie says wryly.
Buck’s eyebrows shoot up. “You—”
“Yeah,” Eddie interrupts. “But we didn’t—we’re just going to take things a little slower.”
“Slower,” Buck repeats. “Yeah, that’s – that’s probably not a bad thing.”
“I think it’s good,” Eddie says. “I think—I never give myself enough time, you know? Even with Shannon—we hardly knew each other when we first got together, and then—”
“I get it,” Buck says softly, and Eddie knows he does.
“I just need to get to her, really get to know her. I think… I need us to be friends before we can really be something else.”
Buck’s expression changes into one Eddie doesn’t know how to read and he swallows. “Yeah, that’s—friends. It’s a good idea. It’s—that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?” It’s not a rhetorical question, Eddie can tell. It sounds more like some kind of revelation.
Eddie glances over Buck’s shoulder and sees Tommy on his way back, a drink in each hand. He returns his gaze to Buck. “I think it is,” he says softly. He nods in Tommy’s direction, then turns to head back towards Marisol.
He doesn’t remember the cookie until he’s nearly back to her side.
“What were you to talking about?” Marisol asks after taking a long sip of water.
“Just—tonight. The wedding,” Eddie answers, and it almost feels true. He takes a sip of his drink and allows his eyes to wander again.
“I’m glad it all came together,” Marisol says. She takes his hand, and Eddie tries to ignore the way he immediately wants to pull it away.
“Me too,” Eddie replies. “It was touch and go for a minute, there.”
“It’s a good thing you had an extra suit,” Marisol says, playfulness in her voice. “And a brand new one, no less! Did you have a special occasion in mind?”
Eddie grimaces. “I’ve had it for a while, actually. Just, never got around to taking the tags off.”
“Well, I’m glad you finally did. You look wonderful in it.”
“Thanks,” Eddie says. The skin beneath his collar starts to crawl.
Across the dance floor, Eddie watches Buck laugh, then tuck his face into Tommy’s neck. A part of him is jealous, Eddie realizes. Of the easy way they touch, of the comfort that’s settled between them with just a few drinks to aid it on its way. It’s not a feeling he knows, not like that. He’d like to, though. He turns back to Marisol.
“What’s your favorite movie?” he asks.
She furrows her brow. “My favorite movie?”
“We said we were going to take it slower, right?”
Marisol nods. “We did.”
“Well,” Eddie asks, letting go of her hand so he can spread his apart, “what’s slower than a first date question?”
Marisol covers her mouth and laughs. “Fair enough,” she says. “Ask me again.”
Eddie puts his drink down and looks her in the eye. “Marisol,” he asks, “what’s your favorite movie?”
Inexplicably, he finds himself thinking that, if it were Buck sitting here across from him, he wouldn’t have to ask.
#far too much happened for me to process a coda#so please have some wedding spec instead#911#911 spoilers#911fic#911 fic#buddie#buddie fic#bucktommy#and technically eddie/marisol BUT IS IT REALLY#abbie writes#fic
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left half my heart in our living room
that episode did severe emotional damage to my psyche and then i turned on grow by sigrid and proceeded to make it worse :) i don’t know what this is i just needed to write some words because buck and eddie said So Many words in this ep and i felt all of them 💔
spoilers for 6x15
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I feel like she sees me.
The sentence sticks in Eddie’s head. Niggling at the base of his skull like an itch that won’t go away.
“You’re quiet,” Buck says when they’re on the way home from the cemetery and it’s around that moment that Eddie realises he hasn’t said anything since they got in the jeep. Too consumed by their conversation from before.
I feel like she sees me.
He looks over at Buck now, one hand on the steering wheel, one resting on his lap, and he looks…comfortable, on first glance. But then Eddie notes the tense set of his shoulders and the way he seems to be staring at the road a little too hard, like he’s purposefully trying not to look in Eddie’s direction.
For one bitter moment, Eddie wonders if Natalia would notice those things but he shakes the thought away. He shouldn’t put this on her. She only knows what Buck’s told her.
“Do you really believe that?” he asks finally, voice quiet and a little bit too tentative. “That she sees you better than-“ me “-than any of us?”
Buck’s mouth parts and it’s clear he hadn’t expected the question. Eddie watches him while he works himself up to an answer – the way he shifts in his seat, the way his eyes dart to the rearview mirror instead of Eddie himself, the careful intake of breath before he finally decides to speak.
“I mean, it’s different,” is what Buck settles on. “Her perception of death and how it affects you, it’s-“
“Because none of us have ever had any experience with death,” Eddie can’t help cutting in.
“Eddie,” Buck sighs and it sounds like please.
“Chimney’s heart stopped last year,” Eddie says. “And when I got-“
“She doesn’t look at me like I’m a ghost, alright?” Buck says, sharp and slicing through Eddie’s intended comment about his own brush with death.
The words make him stop short. He clenches and unclenches his fists in his lap as he digests them. "What d’you mean?”
Buck sighs again and it seems more upset than before. “Maddie, Bobby, you- you all look at me like…like you’re not even sure I’m really here. Like I’m gonna disappear at any minute. You think I don’t see it but I do.”
“Because you died, Buck,” Eddie exclaims, frustrated and weary and more vulnerable than he’d planned on letting himself be. “You died. And for three minutes and seventeen seconds I thought I was going to have to live in this world without you and I didn’t want to.”
That makes Buck clap his mouth shut and he doesn’t say anything else but Eddie can see the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. The car stops abruptly then and he takes stock of his surroundings for the first time since they got in the jeep. They’re outside his house now.
He takes a measured breath and unclips his seatbelt, shooting a wary look in Buck’s direction. His hands are still gripping the steering wheel and he’s staring straight out the windscreen but he cut off the engine, at least.
“Come inside,” Eddie requests softly, climbing out of the jeep and not waiting to see if Buck follows.
He lets himself into the house and hears the slam of Buck’s car door as he’s dropping his keys on the side table. He hesitates when he gets to the living room, unsure whether he should keep travelling to the kitchen or just drop down on the couch and bury his head in his hands.
Buck comes inside before he can decide, the click of the door soft as he closes it behind himself.
“You looked at me like that too,” Eddie says without turning around. It’s easier saying it without Buck looking at him, even though he can feel Buck’s stare like a brand on his back. “After the well. And- and the shooting. I remember.”
“I’m used to losing people,” Buck says after a beat. “The fact that I got to keep you felt like a trick somehow. Like if I looked away for too long you’d be gone again.”
Eddie huffs a humourless laugh, feeling tears sting behind his eyes. He finally turns, finding Buck standing in the entryway. He gives Eddie a helpless shrug when their eyes meet.
“And I’m not allowed to feel like that?”
“You are,” Buck insists, body shifting like he’s about to charge forward but in the end he only takes one step. “I just don’t know what to do with it.”
“Why not?” Eddie asks and they’re teetering dangerously close to a conversation they’ve never let themselves have before but he doesn’t know how to stop pushing either.
Buck answers anyway.
“Because if I think about how much you see me – how much I let you see without you even asking – I feel terrified. Because I’ve spent years trying to get you to let me all the way in but it’s really fucking scary to imagine me doing the same thing. To believe that you’d even want that.”
Eddie works his jaw, swallowing against the heaving ache in his chest. He gets it, is the thing. No matter how much they’ve taken care of each other, no matter how much they’ve acted as one another’s soft place to land, there’s still a voice in the back of his head that says, you’re being a burden. Stop it.
“I don’t care if you want to start dating again-“ Lie. That’s a lie. “-but don’t- don’t say-“
As if sensing he can’t actually get the words out, Buck immediately starts shaking his head. “I won’t,” he says. “I won’t. I’m sorry.”
Eddie nods, clears his throat, and glances between the couch and the dining room. He doesn’t know what to do now, doesn’t know how they go back to having a casual beer, but before he can come up with something to say to break the tension Buck is stepping forward, crowding into his space and folding him into a hug.
I don’t remember the last time we did this, Eddie thinks even as his muscle memory reacts. His arms come up around Buck, one hand gripping his shoulder while the other wraps around his waist. Buck’s face burrows into his shoulder and Eddie only hesitates for half a second before he presses his temple against the exposed line of Buck’s neck and breathes him in.
“I’m not gonna disappear,” Buck whispers and, ridiculously, it makes fresh tears spring behind Eddie’s eyelids.
“Me either,” he replies and Buck’s arms tighten around him in response.
And he thinks they’re at an impasse now, a sort of crossroads they can’t turn back from but aren’t able to move forward from yet either.
If this is where they have to stay for now, he thinks he might be okay with that.
#buddie#buck x eddie#911 fic#my fics#911 spoilers#6x15#everyone listen to grow by sigrid right now!!!!!#(and make gifsets please 😇)
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"Buck, come on," Eddie scoffs, making his way into the kitchen.
"She knew I died, Eddie," Buck shoots back, following after him like a little duckling.
"She probably recognised you from all the articles. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor has done a story on it." Eddie rolls his eyes.
He doesn't mean to be so... combative. Its just. Buck's been talking about Natalia since they met her thirteen hours into a twenty-four hour shift. He's been hearing this spiel for eleven hours, but he'd been able to hide behind Hen's amused looks and Chimney's teasing remarks, Bobby's fond head shakes and Ravi's poorly concealed judgemental looks. That was at the firehouse. But now Natalia has followed them into Eddie's home, into his kitchen, and he's just tired.
"She looked me in the eye and asked if I'd died recently," Buck huffs an incredulous little noise. "Explain that."
"She read about your death in the news," Eddie deadpans, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge before leaning back against it. "It was a lucky guess, Buck."
"How so?"
"We're firefighters," Eddie says slowly. "She could have asked anyone of us if we'd died or almost died recently and the answer would have been yes."
"That's not true." Buck frowns, folding his arms over his chest and propping his hip up on the kitchen island.
"Yes, it is." Eddie drags a hand down his face with a sigh. "Jonah could have killed Hen, and he did kill Chim. Twice, actually. And that was less than a year ago. Bobby and all the Wendell stuff was pretty dangerous, not to mention the dispatch fire also less than a year ago. And then I—"
Here, Eddie pulls up short, biting back the desperate words that have been clogging his throat ever since a lightning bolt fell from the heavens.
He's been avoiding Buck's eyes since Natalia laid a hand on his arm and asked about his brush with death, half at the reminder of one of the worst days of his life, half because he'd been terrified that Buck would be able to read everything Eddie has been trying to hide. Now, he avoids Buck's eyes because Buck doesn't need to read what Eddie isn't saying, its there for him to hear plain as day.
"You?" Buck shifts. "You haven't been almost killed since, well, the hostage situation was probably the last time and that was more than a year ago, so its not exactly recent."
Or, well, maybe Buck's more deaf than Eddie had imagined.
"I mean, I guess the whole blimp thing was pretty dangerous, but like—"
Eddie looks at him then, sees the confusion settling into the lines of Buck's face. He scoffs again, the sound slipping from his lips before he can stop it.
"Unless there's something I don't know about?" Buck raises an eyebrow at him, careful and probing and a little terrified, if Eddie isn't mistaken.
"Of course, there's not." Eddie shakes his head, wonders whether or not to take the out.
"Eddie."
"Buck." He takes a deep breath, hopes the bite to his voice will be exhaled with it. "Drop it."
"No, Eddie, apparently I don't know that you almost died," Buck says, something high and thready and horrified in his words.
"I didn't almost die," Eddie spits out, "I died, Buck."
"What?" Buck's whole body pulls taut with tension like an elastic band stretched to its limit, his eyes wide and full of fear.
"Well, besides the fact that I ran up a wet, electrified ladder without a line..." Eddie's voice breaks, and he clears his throat, turning towards the kitchen counter and pressing his hands to the cold marble until his fingertips turn white. "Three minutes and seventeen seconds."
"Eddie," Buck breathes.
"For three minutes and seventeen seconds, I felt what it was like to die whilst still walking around with working lungs and a beating heart. So, no, I didn't almost die," Eddie directs the words down at his numb hands, "I did die. With you." He downs the last of his water, tossing the bottle into the sink before turning to face Buck. "She made a lucky guess." Eddie makes his way to the door, stopping with a hand on the frame. "When her next guess isn't so lucky, there will be a couch waiting for you at home."
#sami rambles#i just really wanted to write jealous sceptic eddie all at once#btw i know death doulas aren't like psychic or whatever i just watched something about them the other day and they're weird so yeah#911 spoilers#911 show#911 fox#evan buckley#eddie diaz#buddie#buck x eddie#911 spec#911 fic#911 fanfic#911 spec fic#buddie fic#buddie fanfic#buck x eddie fic
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hold onto me
More 6x10/6B spec fic because I am going Through It.
Once upon a time, Christopher was afraid of storms. It was one of those things Eddie hadn’t known about his own kid, that he learned when Christopher climbed into bed with him in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm a few months after his discharge from the army and maybe a week after Shannon left them. He hadn’t been sleeping himself—the rolling thunder reminded him too much of gunfire—so he had been awake when Christopher curled in next to him and pulled the blankets over his head.
It’s too loud, Christopher had said when Eddie asked what was wrong, and Eddie certainly hadn’t been able to argue with that.
Chris grew out of it. His fear of storms. Nowadays, thunder and lightning are cool, and he’s learned to enjoy the little things, like sitting under a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and reading a good book while rain batters against the windows of the house. Or a rainbow peeking through the clouds after a long, dreary spat.
Eddie wonders if that’ll change tonight. As soon as he walks through the door and tells his son that a storm put Buck in the hospital.
That Buck might not wake up.
That Eddie couldn’t save him.
He doesn’t want to say the words. In fact, he’s been standing in front of his own front door for at least ten minutes, unable to make himself take the last step of fitting his key in the lock and going inside.
He can’t. Because the second he opens the door, that’s it, it’s real, there’s no going back. And of course, it’s already real—Eddie saw it happen, he watched from the ground, entirely helpless to do anything as Buck was blown off the ladder by a lightning strike that left behind the lingering scent of ozone. He watched Buck hang there for what felt like hours but could only have been minutes. He felt Buck’s lack of pulse, performed CPR himself because the thought of letting someone else take over was unfathomable.
He begged Buck to open his eyes. But Buck hadn’t.
So, yes. Eddie knows it’s real. Technically. But it’s also the nightmare scenario. It’s not supposed to actually happen.
Eddie’s not supposed to have to have this conversation again. He’s not supposed to have to figure out how to tell his son that Buck is—
He cuts off the thought. Buck’s not dead. He’s not. It’s not the same.
Except, logic unhelpfully offers, this is almost worse, isn’t it?
Death is final. Shannon died. Telling Christopher had been one of the hardest things Eddie had ever had to do, but at least it was final. This is the furthest thing from certainty.
Buck could never wake up. Buck could wake up and be fine. Or Buck could wake up completely changed. He could wake up not even knowing them. He could wake up, but need constant care for the rest of his life. It feels like there are infinite possibilities, but hope is a fickle mistress and Eddie has learned not to rely on it. Possibilities are both a gift and a curse.
A gift because they mean he might not actually have to break his son’s heart tonight. A curse because if that break just ends up delayed, it’ll hurt so much worse.
God, he can’t do this. Not again.
It’s no surprise that Eddie’s mind takes him back to the aftermath of the shooting. When Buck came to see him in the hospital and suggested that maybe it would have been better for Christopher if he had been the one to get shot instead of Eddie. Eddie hadn’t agreed with the sentiment then, and he certainly doesn’t agree with it now.
This is not better. There is nothing about this situation that is better.
But Eddie understands the sentiment more than ever now. Because he would trade places with Buck in an instant as long as it meant Buck and Christopher would be okay.
And they would be. Eventually. As long as they had each other, Eddie knows they could be okay without him.
He’s let Christopher down so many times, failed him in so many ways. Buck, though—Eddie doesn’t think Buck understands that he’s Christopher’s hero. Hell, he’s Eddie’s hero too. How many times has Buck saved them both?
Christopher knows what it’s like to lose Eddie. Just like he knew what it was like to lose Shannon. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose Buck. And maybe it was naive of Eddie to think that he would never have to, but as much as risk is an inherent part of their jobs, he really did think—
You act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.
Buck has always been Buck’s own worst enemy, the biggest risk to his safety. But Eddie had stopped that, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he made Buck see that he couldn’t be reckless with himself? Hadn’t he given Buck a reason to want to stay? To live? To be with—
Lightning. Really? Who the hell gets struck by lightning? What kind of freak accident is that?
Buck would know. With all the random facts he keeps locked up in his head, he probably knows exactly how likely it is for someone to be the victim of a lightning strike.
Knew.
Knows.
All at once, Eddie’s no longer exhausted and subdued—he’s angry. Angry in a way that he hasn’t felt in a long time, maybe ever.
“You son of a bitch,” he whispers, and it could be to God, the universe, maybe even a little to Buck himself. Because what is it going to take? How much loss can one person be expected to bear? How much grief?
He did the work. He went to therapy. He got all whole and healed and he was working on the rest, okay? Working on the last bits he needed to work on to be ready, to stop being so afraid.
He thought he had time. He was supposed to have more time.
Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, so if you love her, tell her.
A memory whispers in the back of Eddie’s mind, and a bitter laugh bubbles up in his throat, burning like acid. Yeah, okay, so maybe he’s a hypocrite, sue him. But whoever is running the show from the great beyond has a sick fucking sense of humor.
Eddie scrubs his hands over his face and presses his forehead against the door.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and his heart skips a beat—he nearly fumbles the phone pulling it out to check the message. Maybe Buck is—
But no. It’s just Chim letting him know that Maddie convinced the night nurse to let her stay with Buck, but regular visiting hours start in the morning.
Clearly, the universe isn’t interested in doing Eddie any favors.
Which brings him back to the reason he’s still standing in the hall.
How is he supposed to tell Christopher?
Well.
He just has to do it, doesn’t he? There isn’t another answer. There’s no magical solution.
Just the truth.
Taking a steadying breath, Eddie brings his keys up, turns the lock, and opens the door. Crosses the rubicon.
Carla steps out of the kitchen, a smile on her lips that drops off the instant she sees his face.
“What’s wrong?” She asks. “What happened?”
Eddie shakes his head. He can’t—he can only say it so many times.
“Is he asleep?”
“Yes.”
He closes his eyes. Somehow that’s even worse.
“I think I have to wake him up.”
“Eddie—” Carla’s face has taken on a greyish tinge, but her voice is steady when she adds— “I can stay. If there’s somewhere else you need to be.”
For the briefest moment, Eddie wonders what would happen if he went back to the hospital now. If he showed up at Buck’s room and cracked himself open, poured out the whole truth and begged Maddie—a woman he barely knows—to let him be the one to stay.
He could do it. Run away from this conversation that he doesn’t know how to have with Christopher and let Carla deliver the news and pick up the pieces. It would be one of the most selfish things he’d ever done, but he could. He could do it.
But no, no, he really couldn’t. This is his job and only his. Just like how when their positions had been reversed, it had been Buck’s job. It couldn’t be anyone else’s.
“I’m exactly where I need to be,” Eddie replies, sounding steadier than he feels. And with one more breath for strength, he steps into Christopher’s room.
It’s dark, quiet. Eddie doesn’t turn on the main light—instead, he waits until he gets to the bed and sits on the edge of it before flicking on a lamp.
Christopher doesn’t stir then, or when Eddie runs a gentle hand over his curls. His breathing is deep and even and he looks so much younger than he is in sleep, without his glasses.
Eddie’s eyes burn, a lump forming in his throat.
He can’t—
He has to.
“Christopher,” he rasps, shaking his shoulder lightly.
Chris wrinkles his nose and slowly blinks his eyes open, squinting in the dim light through the haze of sleep.
“Dad?”
“Hey, kid.” His voice cracks. And his son changes in an instant, his focus sharpening, every line of him going tense and too still.
“What happened to Buck?” Christopher asks, seeing right into the heart of it.
“There was an accident. He’s in the hospital.”
To his surprise, Chris laughs—a little shaky and tense, but still a laugh. “Well that’s just—he’s fine though, right? I mean, he’s been in the hospital before. He’s always fine.”
There’s a pause that stretches a little too long when Eddie can’t find the words to respond. And Christopher is the one to break it, his tone abruptly questioning, sharp, a little desperate.
“Right? Dad? He’s fine?”
And god, Eddie doesn’t think he has ever been in this kind of pain. He would give anything, anything to make it go away. For both of them.
“I don’t know,” Eddie admits, because he can’t lie, Christopher wouldn’t forgive him if he lied. “It might be a while before we know anything. I wish I could say more than that, I wish I could promise you that he’ll wake up tomorrow and be just like he always is, but I don’t know.”
And I don’t want to lie to you.
Christopher stares at the wall for a moment. His lip quivers before he pulls it between his teeth. But when he looks back to Eddie, his eyes are dry. Strong. Resolved.
“He will be. You’ll see. It’s Buck.”
And of the two of them, Eddie’s the one who feels like crying.
“Yeah. Yeah—it’s Buck.”
He just wishes he could convince himself that matters as much as Christopher believes it does.
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I...have some (a whole fucking lot) of thoughts (this will be messy an hopefully I'll be more coherent later)
Firstly...that was just an insane amount of buddie content, I actually think i might rewatch both episodes tomorrow just because I feel like i missed things and I Love Angst.
Let's start with the shooting itself, beyond the fact that it was so shocking to the audience (me)...how shocking it was to Buck. How the blood splattered all over him, how they looked at each other before Eddie fell. Eddie...reaching for Buck? (I'm not sure if 'm hallucinating this or that really happened).
And then, how Buck crawled under the rig in the gunfire to get to him, drag him with him, make sure that he wasn't going to be left behind. Getting him in the rig, telling him to hold on, just hold on, hold on for me, please. The way he's left behind as Eddie is taken into the ER, how someone asks him if he's okay and he just sort of whispers "no" to himself.
Buck having to tell Chris, the way he's shaking when Taylor finds him, how he breaks down in front of Chris, how he starts sobbing, how he breaks into pieces even when he's trying so hard to hold it together.
And the clear way he wants to die, how he wishes it was him, how he tempts fate climbing that crane because he wants to die. Sure, part of it's a guilt thing, and I think some of what he said to Bobby was true (the idea that he couldn't bear to have anyone else in the house hurt, so he did it himself), but I genuinely felt like part of it was a "If I couldn't save you, I'd rather die. If you go, I go. I can't live without you, and I'll just take myself off the board, because it would be better that way."
He says some of this to Eddie, how it would have been better if he had gotten shot, and I think that's a huge part of his whole character. He's just lucky that he's so likeable because otherwise no one would ever want him. He's useless, and Eddie? To Buck, Eddie is everything. His best friend, a great father, a great person, there aren't enough words to describe what Eddie means to him. Why would he live if Eddie couldn't. the world would be better off.
And you can see Eddie want to say something about it, but he's likely (understandably) too tired and they could be interrupted so he doesn't get his chance and just has to sit with this idea that Buck thinks everyone would be better off if he died.
Then...that last conversation in the hospital, of Eddie telling Buck that he'd be Chris' guardian if something happened to him. Not his parents, not Shannon's, not their other family...Buck. Because to Chris (and to Eddie), Buck is worth more than his weight in gold. They love him both so much, he is not replaceable. The way Eddie tells him that, the force of it, like he's trying to make Buck hear it, really really hear it.
"You're not replaceable, how could you ever be replaceable? Look where you sit in our lives, how you slot comfortably in a place you always should have been."
He can't say that, but it really feels like that's what he means. It feels like there's so much left hanging in the air, unsaid, a sort of "truth we both know" situation.
I'll have more to say, I need to rewatch them both, but that was the most intense hour I've experienced in a long time, it is insane how much I have come to love each and every character in this show.
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Buck & Eddie: Tsunami and Lightning Parallels
Several of Buck’s and Chris’ Tsunami experiences in 3x2 “Sink or Swim” and 3x3 “The Searchers” were paralleled with Bobby’s and Buck’s Lightning Strike experiences in 6x10 “In a Flash” and 6x11 “In Another Life”. In 6x11, Bobby was FINALLY CANONIZED as Buck’s dad even though the audience already knew it. The audience also knows Buck is Chris’ second dad and it appears that fact could be CANONIZED by the end of season 6. Therefore, the parallels between the things that happened to Buck and Chris during the Tsunami and Bobby and Buck during the Lightning Strike can’t be just a coincidence. Reminder, Buck looks like Bobby and Chris looks like Buck and even though they’re not biologically related, the fact that they all look alike is not a coincidence either. Since Bobby is Buck’s found dad and Buck is Chris’ second dad that means Bobby is Chris’ future granddad and Eddie’s future father-in-law.
GIFs 1 & 2 - In 3x2, after they arrived on the pier, Buck and Chris rode some of the rides, they took pictures together and they ate cotton candy. Then Buck helped Chris win the point and shoot carnival game. The things they did on the pier parallel with the way Bobby has been teaching Buck how to cook for six years. In 6x10, Buck was cooking chili but he felt like something was missing. Bobby helped Buck complete his chili recipe by sharing his secret ingredient.
GIFs 3 & 4 - Right before the Tsunami hit, Buck and Chris had a conversation about life and when Buck asked Chris what he wanted to be when he grew up, Chris said, “An astronaut or a pirate”. But then he changed his answer and said, “No wait... a firefighter” and Buck went on to tell him that he hoped he would find something that mattered because it was going to show him the rest of his life. In 6x10, while enroute to the scene of a fire at the McArthur Park Apartments, Bobby, Buck and Eddie all had a conversation about Buck’s life while they were inside of the firetruck. Buck’s parents were in L.A. and he told Bobby and Eddie that having dinner with them and the Hans made it seem like they were an actual family. Bobby gave Buck more advice when he said, “That’s good. Life is too short to take those relationships for granted”. Buck giving Chris advice about his life paralleled with Bobby giving Buck advice about his life.
GIFs 5 & 6 - After Buck emerged from the water while holding onto Chris, he said, “I got you. I got you. I got you.” and that paralleled with Bobby saying almost the same thing to Buck after he was struck by lightning. While Eddie was lowering Buck’s limb body to the ground, Bobby said, “Come here kid. I got you. I got you kid.” They were both saving their sons.
GIFs 7 & 8 - After Buck and Chris got separated in 3x3, Buck went to the VA Hospital to continue searching for him but he saw Eddie first, then he called Maddie. But Eddie saw him before Maddie made it to the VA and Buck had to tell him what happened. In 6x11, when Maddie and the Buckley parents arrived at the hospital, Bobby was the one to tell them what happened to Buck. Buck telling Eddie what happened to Chris parallels with Bobby having to tell Philip what happened to Buck.
GIFs 9 & 10 - In 3x2, Buck and Chris talked a lot while they were sitting on the 136′s firetruck waiting to be rescued. Their conversation mainly revolved around Buck wanting to know how Chris never gives up and that parallels with the conversation Bobby had with Buck while he was in a coma in 6x11. During his coma dream, Bobby told Buck that if he still cared about what people thought of him, he hadn’t learned a damn thing. He also told him that being Buck was enough and that statement also parallels with the lesson he learned from Chris in 3x2. Chris told Buck he thought about giving up once but when Buck asked him what he did, Chris replied, “I kept on swimming”.
GIFs 11 & 12 - After Eddie took Chris back to Buck in 3x3 and then he left them so he could go to work, Buck walked over and sat next to Chris. They had just gone through a traumatic experience together and it paralleled with Bobby sitting with Buck after he woke up from his coma.
Reminder, there aren’t any coincidences on 9-1-1, only patterns so it’s possible Buck could be CANONIZED as Chris’ second dad before the end of season 6.
Buck is Chris’ second dad and Bobby is Buck’s found dad. Once Eddie and Buck get married Bobby will be Buck’s found dad, Eddie’s found father-in-law and Chris’ found grandad.
#buddie#eddie diaz#evan buckley#christopher diaz#bobby nash#the buckley diaz family#buckley diaz family#911 fox#911 on fox#911onfox#911 speculation#911 meta#911 season 6#911 season 6 speculation#911#911 abc#911 on abc
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Re: the "Natalia and I, we broke up." + "all she wanted to talk about was death; it was kinda boring." That scene, and particularly reading the Tim M. interview where he talked about being "over all the death talk" and how those lines in the script might have been a little bit of him talking, actually have me concerned that they've abandoned what seems like was the lead up to an actual Buck Breakdown™ arc.
(Or possibly worse, they consider 6b to *be* the Buck Breakdown arc and work through of all his trauma, and now they consider it done.)
Oliver's interviews talking about Buck 'being a new man' 'just doing things that make him happy' 'finally getting off the hamster wheel" and overall being in a much better place suggest that he's in that like post-breakdown/healing journey already?
Idk, I felt like there was a lot in the second half of 6B with Buck's storyline that got a little fumbled/sloppy with the fear of cancellation and them trying to put a final bow on things, but there was also a lot that suggested we were heading towards a really meaty, Breakdown™ story in S7. Now it's sounding kind of like, because of how it was handled last season, Tim has lost interest and is ready to just kind of mark that story as case closed and skip ahead to "happy, new man" Buck.
I see what you mean, but seriously, it would be a bad storytelling decision to have this major trauma in Buck's life be completely ignored/handled off screen again, say he's Buck 4.0 and call it a day would be annoying as hell. They handled that pretty badly with the fear of cancellation and with Natalia not coming back, they didn't even have a satisfying ending for that. I wrote this and this this weekend, and I don't know if this is a reaction to that or if I'm just a person you felt like you could send these thoughts to, but Buck thinking death is boring just to be heavily triggered by death is a possibility. Because we know Bobby is in mortal danger, and his biggest trigger in the coma was the fact that Bobby was dead, and Buck finally being able to face that is something that could work. And Buck working on himself without a major breakdown, maybe because he felt like he was getting there and decided not to let it get that bad could also be a conclusion there. I want a full breakdown for Buck, I want him on the floor crying, but depending on how they make the whole "he's a new man" thing, I could get behind it. They just have to acknowledge it happened, because you can't have Eddie's whole arc about burying his feelings and having that blow up in his face, effectively establishing that just "moving past it" doesn't work, to have Buck be all fine by just moving past it.
All the talk is actually making me think about my initial speculation about Buck/buddie and my whole Buck drowning thing, because the whole thing hinged on Buck being fine and getting triggered. Because I wrote a really long thing about Buck getting triggered over something happening to Bobby, Maddie, or Chris, that leading to him getting all sorts of unstable before deciding to work on himself, and while I did speculate on a full breakdown, Buck recognizing the trigger and asking for help before things get explosive are a way to handle him without the "exhausting death talk" because we are not dealing with Buck's death, we are dealing with someone else, and with a Buck that wants to be alive and could get conflicted about how to handle the situation. Because Buck and Eddie mirror each other and Eddie's breakdown buildup started when he was introduced, the well and the shooting are one of the stops yeah, but everything about Eddie led him to fear-o-phobia. Buck's breakdown has been building since Buck begins, and he's been slowly self destructing since then, but the lightning is Buck's well (volunteering into the situation, night and rain aspect of it, saving himself), so if they keep mirroring the 2, Buck needs another trigger, because what actually triggers Eddie isn't the possibility of his death, is the death of someone else, because he's the last one standing, forever the one left behind. But where Eddie is the widower, Buck is the savior, so the most effective way to trigger him would be failing to save someone he loves, and with the focus on Bobby in his coma world, and the way Bobby is about to die, the possibility is right there. But let's say they don't go with that, a Buck breakdown wouldn't be explosive, and Buck focusing on being a better man, acting like he's getting better just to have something happens to shake that belief by the end of the season (buddie car crash in the season finale you heard it here first on October 16 2023 lol), is a way to move past the death talk for a while just to have it all came crashing down later on, the same way Eddie seemed fine until he wasn't (I mean in s4, s5 Eddie is hanging by a thread the whole time). But this is mostly what I've been telling myself over how they're talking about Buck, because I need that man to break so he can actually move on with his life.
#i feel like a lot of speculation about a Buck breakdown latched onto the cruise because Buck getting triggered at sea is literally#the easiest possible way to trigger him#I'm guilty of that too‚ but having Buck walk past that just to crash later#like they had Eddie walk past getting held at gunpoint after being shot#works yk?#does this make sense?#please tell me it this makes sense kpskspmsoskoss#but yeah im curious about where this is going#911#911 spoilers#911 speculation#i really need a tag for asks#anon 😌
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Don't Make Me Say It (What Would I Even Say?)
Summary: Frankly, Eddie knows that most of those things aren't exactly memories. Just specifics that his brain either latched onto or fabricated after the fact, desperate to understand and process and know. But either way they're in there, when he remembers.
Buck's eyes, wild above him. Wild with fear.
or...
Eddie lies about what he remembers from the shooting. He lies because, honestly, he doesn't know how he's supposed to say it.
Word Count: 965
Warnings: Brief discussions / descriptions of the shooting and subsequent trauma
Taglist (ask to be added or removed, or specify for fandom!): @thechaincd @aturnoftheearth @heartshapedcas @faithdeans @outdean @youhavenofaith @mrcowboydeanwinchester @xdeansangelx @diazmp3 @floorboarddestined2004 @macbethapologist @pinknatural @the-foungaytions-of-degay @queerstudiesnatural @destielgaysex @frogstiel
Okay, so when Eddie said he remembered the initial impact, remembered thinking “this is the last moment of my life,” remembered waking up… Well, okay, so he might have lied. And that’s not to say he didn’t remember those moments, and that they don’t carry weight when he thinks back on that day. It’s just that Eddie also remembers—
Eddie also remembers Buck.
A lot of— that day, the shooting, is a haze. Separate flashes of pain and fear. Blood. Confusion. It's fair to say that on the bad days, only his body really remembers the shooting and the panic jolting through him, but on the good days he doesn't think about it at all. On the good days, he'd probably be able to make a list of things he remembers from it.
Probably not scenes, not whole moments, aside for the very first impact. The hospital, too, has the solidity and depth of an entire scene in time. But mostly the list would just be details.
This is it.
Eddie doesn't remember having any specific urge, lying on the pavement, to reach out his hand, but he could describe the rasp of asphalt on the meat of his palm, his fingertips, as they scrabbled just barely forward.
He can recall, in a vague sort of way that makes him unsure if it's just from one of his reoccurring night terrors, staring blankly at the side of the fire engine and seeing the red paint suddenly get replaced with a splotch of silver, hole torn through it by a bullet. It was like a paintball, like watching a movie, watching something splatter from one solid colour to a pockmarked surface in one blink to the next.
This is it.
Eddie had been facing Buck when it happened. Fell at a weird angle. Didn't know where to look as he slumped to the ground. Felt like his whole body had been put in the spin cycle, setting on high. His brain thought in spirals and his body felt like he was still falling, still getting hit and tumbled over and over and over again.
There's other things, too. The sky framed by a sideways tilt of shiny red metal. The way sometimes Eddie's mind gets the timing wrong, and the calm chatter that had been going on continues after he gets shot. A minute-long delay, where he's on the ground and the world is calmly going on as usual. It's worse when the screams start before the gunshots.
This is it.
Frankly, Eddie knows that most of those things aren't exactly memories. Just specifics that his brain either latched onto or fabricated after the fact, desperate to understand and process and know. But either way they're in there, when he remembers.
Buck's eyes, wild above him. Wild with fear.
This is the last moment of my life.
And this part isn't just a single detail, but an entire moment, pulled long and syrupy from Eddie's mind. "That's it," he'd said. Just the impact, the hospital. The thought, 'this is the last moment of my life.'
But the truth was, Eddie had been looking at Buck when he'd thought it.
He'd been looking at Buck, and he had been scared, throat choking on air, on the way he couldn't get his tongue to work right, and Buck had been looking back at him. Eddie doesn't remember it all, whether he said anything, whether Buck did, but Eddie remembers looking at Buck. And when he looked at Buck, he thought "This is the last moment of my life," and he wasn't so scared anymore.
So... Yeah. That's it, Eddie tells Buck, and it's not quite a lie. He doesn't know how to even begin to understand the expression on Buck's face when he says it, so he doesn't try. There's some things from that day that neither of them will ever be able to say out loud. That's okay. That's— That's part of processing. Knowing what you can say without it bleeding you dry.
Eddie's been working on it, too, so he gets it. He doesn't think either of them has ever talked about the shooting before, not so casually, and he knows that it wasn't just his inability to talk about it that kept them from addressing it.
But here they are, and Buck died, okay, Buck was dead and now he's not, and Eddie gets it. The things you can say out loud and the things you don't even know how to think about.
And Buck sought Eddie out, crashed on Eddie's couch, asked Eddie about what he remembers. So Eddie tells him.
Eddie tells him that he's gonna feel a lot of different ways about it, and he thinks that's the right thing to say because it's true, and also because Buck needs to be told for once in his life that feeling things big and overwhelming, and even contradictory, is okay. You just gotta let yourself feel it. Because once you let yourself feel it, you can begin to really process it.
Looking at Buck now, sitting in his kitchen, eyes still round with sleep, Eddie lets himself feel it.
This is it. This is the last moment of my life.
Buck's wild blue eyes...
Eddie says, "Every day you open your eyes in the morning, you feel a little less surprised the world is still there," and doesn't say that he remembers Buck looking at him.
Just because he lets himself feel it, doesn't mean he knows how to say it. Doesn't know how to put those words into the open air.
But he looks at Buck, and he lets himself feel it. Lets himself try to process.
He keeps his eyes open and, wouldn't you know it, the world is still there.
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hi!! you said in tags on a recent post that they were foreshadowing something happening to eddie! could you pls tell me when you thought this, as i’m intrigued lol
Hello anon! 🥰
You're going to think I'm delulu by the end of this. If you don't already lol 😅
For starters, 9-1-1 loves playing the long game when it comes to foreshadowing. Eddie's shooting and the lead up to his breakdown started in his first episode.
I mean, we had "I've just done it while people are shooting at me is all" in 2x01 and "At least nobody's shooting at us" in the crossover. And! Eddie's insistence that the universe does not scream.
All the military related accidents and the entirety of the Shannon arc and 3x15 and... pretty much everything that happened to that poor man lead to his breakdown.
But the foreshadowing for what I thought was going to happen (which didn't 😕) started in 4x14 with none other than the legal guardian conversation.
I mentioned that I thought something was going to happen to Eddie and/or Chris. Like with the shooting, whatever that something is has been building for a few seasons.
Now, I love the legal guardian thing. There's so many layers to it, not to mention how they look at each other through the whole thing. It's a declaration of love. However! It's also a bad omen.
Eddie Diaz, Mr. Prove To Me Something Is Real And I'll Believe It, keeps jinxing himself. Even speaking the will into existence is a bad idea™. These writers don't normally bring something up and then forget about it. And I would say making your best friend the father of your child if you aren't there is a pretty big thing to just leave hanging!
Eddie didn't even plan on telling Buck about it until the shooting. He waited an entire year??? For something that important? In short, the writers included it for a purpose beyond an aborted love confession.
Anyhoo. That's sign one.
Season 5 we can put aside, because it was a whole other thing.
Season 6 was where the most foreshadowing came in. I think it all really started in 6x07. Even Eddie, by the like third(?) accident Felisha had, commented on the fact that he might be cursed. At the end of the episode, at the beach, he gets a call from Abuela. The framing of that shot (I really wish I could make gifs right now. Thankfully I found a set) shows Eddie in focus with Chris at the forefront. As Eddie asks "what does she say about my future?" in regards to Abuela's curandera, the focus shifts to Chris. To me, that meant something would happen to Eddie and have the guardian thing come up again.
Then, in 6x15, Eddie and Chris go to see Shannon (I thought that was really nice, btw, it was sweet). Then his mother is pestering him to come visit. He talks to her twice I believe (haven't rewatched that episode in a while, the cemetery scene haunts me 😅). Anyway, when he talks to her at the end of the episode, he says "we'll figure something out. Okay? We got time."
Refer to my earlier statement. Eddie keeps jinxing himself!
The entire episode, there was something ominous about it. The old lady, "we're all gonna die alone," Shannon, etc. It just felt... eerie, I suppose.
I expected the season 6 finale to satisfy the foreshadowing. I heard they rewrote the ending thanks to them not being sure if the show would be picked up by another network (THANK YOU ABC!) Anyway. Something tells me that the original plan was to severely hurt the fathers on the team. Chim, Bobby, and Eddie were all in serious danger.
The time jump at the end kinda sucked. To me, the finale felt a little... discombobulated. I think that maybe, even though 911 doesn't do this, they intended for season 6 to end on a cliffhanger. Any or all three of them could've still been in danger or clinging to life when the episode ended. It would've been more satisfying, honestly.
Anyway.
I just think they hinted a little too much at this. It could be that it just hasn't happened yet and there's still more foreshadowing to go. Maybe in season 7, Eddie could be missing and presumed dead or injured badly enough to have Buck step in for Chris (in a much more concrete parental role.)
#911#eddie diaz#s6#s7#ask response#anon ask#i kept finding little details to keep piling on but I resisted!
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About the discussion we've been having on my post about Eddie still having guilt over the tsunami, I think it makes a lot of sense with the way their characters are built, Buck might feel guilt over the fact that he couldn't control his reaction and alerted Eddie of Shannon, Eddie still carries the guilt of forcing Buck to get out of bed and accidentally sending Buck and Chris to the tsunami, Buck never got over anything in his life so he definitely still feels bad for losing Chris, and the fact that they never talked about the well actually infuriates me. The well was such a defining moment in their relationship and they never talked about it. Even without the way the team was treating Buck as a victim's spouse and the way Buck was completely irrational by trying to dig Eddie up, being down there made Eddie decide to give Buck his son. The fact that they never really talked about it is insane, because Eddie changed the very nature of their relationship after that, you can't just offer your kid to some guy you've known for a what? 2 years tops at the time? And never discuss the reason behind the decision (Eddie say i love you like a normal person I'M BEGGING YOU) and they keep going around the edges of the situation without ever looking at it in the eyes and I think they really need to sit down and just... Talk. About everything. Shannon's death, the tsunami, the lawsuit, the well and obviously the shooting and the lightning but also focusing on the feelings that come with watching someone you love going through trauma, not just supporting someone you love through their trauma. I think Buck would even benefit of talking about how he felt when Chris called him when Eddie took a baseball bat to everything he owns. They need to deal with the guilt and all other underlying feelings that exists there.
But since Buck doesn't believe his own worth and thinks he's not allowed his feelings, he thinks he just needs to shove it away (and he is shoving it away per Eddie's request because he focused on his hurt and what he got was everyone he loves mad at him and Eddie basically calling him selfish so he stopped asking in a way, and the grocery store fight is fueled by anger and I don't really think Eddie meant it, he just wasn't used to not have Buck prioritize him and lashed out, but Buck internalizes this stuff, like when Bobby says Buck calls him pops but we never see Buck calling him that because Bobby said they're not a family and Buck internalized the shit out of that) so he won't feel like he's making it about himself and Eddie overcorrects, so when he forced Buck to deal with something, the tsunami happened, he took a step back and Buck filed a lawsuit so dude probably thinks he needs to wait for Buck to come to him with it if he needs to, but Buck won't so they just... Don't do anything about it.
(bottle episode but it's just Buck and Eddie trapped in an elevator discussing their various shared traumas when)
YES THIS!!! EXACTLY THIS!!! I think you summed up pretty much everything I feel about Buck, Eddie, Buddie and guilt.
And you’re right about something else! The thing about them is that they don’t talk - ever - not about the important things, not about the things that matter, not about the things that could potentially unmake them!!! And they know!!!! Like, they must know, right????? That they tip toe around the big things.
So yeah they need to talk! Absolutely, big bottle episode with them trapped somewhere and just unleashing everything they need to say!
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hello alice! it’s miya here & yes it’s been a hot minute since i’ve been in your ask box! i recently just had 3 surgeries that were basically two in my nose & then i had to get my tonsils out again so i’ve essentially been recovering from that & not in the mood to talk mostly. I do however hope all has been well with you.
since the finale is right around the corner, I wanted to talk to you about buck’s growth this season. we know in the beginning that buck was upset about not getting picked as interim captain despite the fact that he was not clearly ready, the couch theory & how actually death experiences can reset all the progress you’ve made.
i’ve see a lot of folks saying buck has regressed back into old habits & i’d say that’s not true. Buck agreeing to be a donor in the beginning was something he did because he’s buck but the influence around him saying yes was mainly what connor said to him about him being such a good person & what not. now after he dies buck realized he can’t live based off of how others see him & make decisions solely off of that which is why things quickly ended with natalia. i thought it was funny how she said she needed a minute to think & not 10 seconds later she left 😭. Buck didn’t necessarily chase after her for the sake of getting her back but i think he wanted her so badly to understand & it’s like there is already someone in his life who understands & sees him for who he really is and that’s eddie. it’s hard to see someone who buck may feel like kinda has to accept him for all he is cause that’s his best friend as a potential partner but i think there is a possibility we might see that in the finale.
we know the entire 118 is in danger, now granted we have no idea what that means & since we logically only have 45 minutes to tell this story, there is a possibility of things not being completely wrapped up. i wanted to also point out that the only two people (technically 3 if you count chris) who know that buck does not have a couch is Bobby & Eddie. two important people in his life who buck would quite literally lay his life down for. Buck told eddie that “maybe he does not want to pick the wrong couch again” & then he later on told bobby that “im afraid im gonna keep on making the same mistakes” it’s clear buck wants to go about things differently but it’s a matter of how?
i think he was on his way there but then he died and suddenly life got confusing for him. sometimes i think people downplay the fact that buck’s heart stopped & how he genuinely felt like he got away with something when he woke up in the hospital. of course he is going to go around making the most of life. now the way he goes about it may not be the way we want it to happen but it does make sense for bucks character. he wants to treat every waking moment as a gift & that’s things are a sign cause he feels like he’ll never get that lucky again & that’s ultimately very sad.
i think we’ll definitely see buck in s more bigger leadership position next monday however the biggest difference is that his team will be a witness. his team doesn’t know how buck took charge when the tsunami happened or how he saved eddie’s life during the shooting & i’m still on the fence of if eddie knows that. i hope they see what he’s capable of but I hope buck see’s that he’s already had these skills in him it was just a matter of tapping into them.
the couch theory idk.. they have been making it a point to show buck, chris on the couch & then chris and eddie with a space open for one more as if we wouldn’t notice but idk we will see. maybe buck takes eddie home after everything & he falls asleep on the couch after putting chris to bed & everything kinds of falls into place
anyways sorry for my rambling. i have had all of this on my mind for a while lol but again I hope all is well with yous and that life has been treating you good. ❤️
Hi darling! OMG, 3 surgeries? That's so much, especially over such a short period of time. I hope you're doing better now? And thank you for the kind words and for caring. I'm not doing so hot at the moment, but hoping it'll get better. *HUGS*
TBH, I'm not sure what I think. I do expect the finale not to wrap everything up, because they have so many balls they've been juggling up in the air, the bridge collapse will take up a huge part of the ep, so I really don't know how much they can condense into this and address all of the threads that they opened this season. I do absolutely expect that there will be circles that they'll be closing, like Buck moving from feeling dejected over not being considered for the position of interim captain in 601, to acting as captain in the field when the 118 (with Bobby) goes down. And since 601 linked Buck figuring his own life out enough to be able to take this position by linking to the metaphor of the couch, I very much expect to see some return to that, although all may not be resolved in 618. Kind of like how 414 gave us the talk between Buddie to resolve Buck's immediate sense of guilt over seeing Eddie getting shot in front of his very eyes, but it didn't resolve the "make sure you follow your heart" thread that was opened in 413. Eddie still needed to go through it at the beginning of s5 in order to choose himself and be able to break up with Ana in 503. Similarly, Buck was just starting things out with Taylor in 414, and he needed all of s5 to break up with her, even though it was clear they were wrong for each other from the start, and especially as their first kiss was born from Buck's distress over Eddie getting shot in front of his own eyes.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me! I'm looking forward to screaming over 618 with you once it airs! Sending tons of love and good healing vibes to you, lovely. (as always, here's my ask tag) xoxox
#ask#mementosforthebrain#buddie#911meta#911 on abc#911 abc#buddie meta#911 meta#911abc#9-1-1#evan buckley#eddie diaz#911onabc#911#edmundo diaz#evan buck buckley#911 speculation#911 spoilers
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for the ask game: search, handle, and fall
omg thank you!!
search:
i somehow haven't used 'search' in either of my WIPs so far???
handle:
(from my 5+1 things fic)
Lucy is leveling a questioning look at all their whispering, and Ravi shakes his head at her, bless him. She seems willing to drop it for now, content to let Ravi fill her in later in private, which is good, because Buck can't handle-
Poor choice of words, back there, Eddie had said.
Buck tries to process the fact that he just had- a moment, or something, or whatever, because apparently he's still having those- about the shooting. In front of everyone. Great.
In front of Eddie.
He cradles his palm to his chest. If he turns it inward, he doesn't have to look at it.
(from my wedding fic)
They make it a handful of wobbly steps before they're both laughing, Buck losing his grip and Eddie hanging on for dear life as it becomes increasingly obvious that a bridal carry just isn't going to work. Buck is strong, but Eddie's a grown man, and physics is not on their side. He's about to abandon ship and carry his own damn self across their threshold, thank you very much, when Buck easily rearranges Eddie into a fireman's carry on instinct alone, and shit, yep, okay, he always forgets how much he fucking loves being manhandled.
"Welcome home, sweetheart," Buck murmurs sweetly as he steps through the front door.
"It's not like we moved, Buck. It's still the same old house," Eddie says, but he's smiling anyway, his voice soft. "There's dirty dishes in the sink and I'd bet you twenty bucks Chris left his wet towel on the bathroom floor again."
"Well yeah, duh," Buck says, setting him down so gently Eddie's head spins. "But I've never lived here with my husband before, have I?"
"Guess not," Eddie says, closing the front door and leaning back against it, hands in his pockets, heart in his throat. "First time for everything though, right?"
fall:
(from my 5+1 things fic)
"What if I want a cool scar, though?" Buck says. "I hear cool scars are a big hit with the ladies."
He feels stupid and clumsy for saying it as soon as it leaves his mouth. It feels like the wrong joke to have made, somehow. But Eddie snorts a soft laugh anyway, so. It's fine.
"I'm sure they are," he says, voice dry and warm. "Now hush and let me work."
Buck hushes, and lets him work.
It only takes a minute; Eddie works fast. But between the silence in the back of the rig, and Eddie's breath on his cheek, it feels much longer.
It also feels a little bit like the start of every rope rescue, he thinks. Those first few seconds of slack before the line snaps taut under his weight, when it's just him and his rabbit-fast heartbeat and a fervent, dizzy kind of please-catch-me-i'm-falling trust.
(from my wedding fic)
Because at the end of the day, what Buck wants is what Eddie wants is what Buck wants is what Eddie's always wanted but never known how to ask for, a dizzying feedback loop that they've never managed to close, a snake eating its own tail and saying fuck, thank you, i was starving. He's reminded suddenly of a song Buck likes to play in the car sometimes, something about being up on a rooftop, love is losing your balance.
Good thing Buck would never let him fall, because Eddie really, really likes feeling precarious.
"You're driving us home, to our house, sweetheart. Together. And you're driving my car, because I felt like watching you try and focus on driving stick while I get you all wound up," Buck says sweetly, his voice low, matter-of-fact, all heat.
"Keep it up and I'll wreck your clutch," Eddie jokes, but they both know he won't.
thank you anon!!! when i finally start actually posting my 911 fics it'll be OVER 4 these bitches... (it's me im bitches)
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freedom is mine (and i know how i feel)
2.7k, rated T, ao3 link
5x14 coda feat. eddie's journey from you're always dying to feeling alive
You’re always dying.
The nightmare dissipates but the words stay, echoing around his mind. Bobby brings him a cup of coffee and he tries to chase the thought away with caffeine, but it sticks.
And sticks.
Buck comes home from the school run, and he and Bobby make a valiant effort at pretending like Bobby isn’t at Eddie’s house specifically to watch out for him while Buck was away. Buck invites him to stay for brunch and Bobby says something about already having plans with May, and Eddie thinks maybe he should feel something about Buck extending the invitation like he lives here but all he can think is you’re always dying.
And it’s—it’s—Frank is always asking him to identify his emotions by name, but there are so many Eddie doesn’t know how to settle on one. He’s feeling too many things to feel much of anything at all.
It’s infuriating, he eventually decides. It’s really fucking infuriating to go through life every day when all he can think is you’re always dying. He wakes up in the morning and it’s there in his mind, prompt as any alarm clock. In the kitchen making breakfast, driving Christopher to school, playing cards with Buck who insists he’s just bored but Eddie knows is basically babysitting him—whatever he does, the same three words echo in his thoughts. You’re always dying.
It’s not even fucking true. So he was in the war, and the well collapsed, and he got shot, but that’s only three things. It’s not that many. He’s pretty sure most of his coworkers—former coworkers—have almost died three times. Buck definitely has, he knows that for a fact.
But reasoning doesn’t make the words go away, and that night when he sits up gasping after yet another nightmare they wash over him like a tidal wave.
There’s a certain kind of irony to that, he thinks. The tsunami is the one trauma he doesn’t have.
He tries to quiet his breathing so Buck, still stubbornly parked on the living room sofa instead of going home to his girlfriend, doesn’t wake up and come rushing in like some kind of white knight. Eddie doesn’t begrudge him, knows he’d do the same thing for Buck if the roles were reversed, but he’s just so goddamn tired of always being the one who needs rescuing.
He’s so goddamn tired of lying in the street bleeding out and waiting for Buck to reach him, to pull him to safety. It’s been almost a year since the shooting, a year that feels like a thousand lifetimes. He’d done therapy and physical therapy and ended a relationship that had gone on for—honestly, months too long—and all of it was supposed to make him feel normal again, but a year later he’s more of a mess than he’s ever been and every time he closes his eyes he’s right back in that hot puddle of blood, and every chance it gets his subconscious reminds him that he keeps dying.
He’s still barely breathing, still struggling to get air into his traitorous lungs when the thought hits him. The room around him is full of oxygen but he feels like he’s suffocating, like he’s dying, and he thinks—
You’re always dying.
Maybe it’s not about the trauma to his body, about the times it’s almost fallen apart. Maybe it’s not about getting shot or buried alive or falling out of the sky in a helicopter.
Maybe it’s about the fact that he can’t breathe and it feels normal. Maybe it’s about the weight that sits heavy on his chest and the numbness that’s always there at the edges of his mind, about the way he can’t remember the last smile he didn’t fake or the last laugh that didn’t ring hollow.
You’re always dying.
Maybe it’s about the fact that on some level he’s always felt half-dead, like not all of him came back from the war.
Maybe it’s about the fact that he’s not sure there’s ever been an all of him in the first place, because the feeling goes back as far as he can remember.
The next afternoon he marches into Frank’s office and practically flings himself down in his usual seat.
“Good afternoon, Eddie,” Frank says in his usual mild voice. “How are you doing today?”
“I'm tired,” Eddie says.
“Still not sleeping well?”
“Not really,” Eddie says. “But that’s not what I—I'm tired of feeling this way. I'm tired of feeling like dying.”
Frank’s eyebrows twitch, like maybe Eddie managed to surprise him, at least a little. Which—Eddie knows that getting him to talk can be like pulling teeth sometimes, so maybe just the fact that he brought it up himself is enough.
But then Frank frowns, and his next question catches Eddie off guard. “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”
And it’s not something that he’s been actively thinking about, but when he opens his mouth to say no what comes out instead is “Not like—I don’t want to kill myself, but sometimes I think it would be easier if I was dead.”
“What would?” Frank asks, and Eddie’s glad. He’s glad Frank doesn’t try to argue with him, to convince him otherwise, just keeps asking questions like he always does.
“I don’t know,” Eddie says, but they both know he’s just buying time. “Just—life in general, I think. If I was dead and Chris went to Buck and they didn’t have to keep worrying about me.”
“Do you think Christopher would have it easier without you?” Frank asks. “Even after losing his mother?”
“No,” Eddie says. “No, it’s not—it’s not all the time. It’s not even most of the time. Just—sometimes, when—Buck keeps going out of his way, and—”
He trails off, and Frank waits for him to gather his thoughts.
“I don’t want to die,” Eddie finally says. “I just—I don’t understand why I didn’t.”
“That sounds like two different things,” Frank says.
“Probably,” Eddie concedes. “But that’s not really what I was talking about. Or—it’s related, probably. But I feel like I'm dying, all the time, and I'm so fucking tired of it.”
“And what does it feel like?”
Like I'm dying, Eddie thinks, but he’s past the point of snarking at Frank just for the sake of it. “I don’t know,” he says. “I guess—empty. Distant. Like… like I'm just sort of—existing in the world, instead of living in it.”
“Okay,” Frank says, and writes something down. “I think we’ve found your homework assignment.”
“What’s that?”
“Find something that makes you feel alive,” Frank says, putting his pen down and looking directly at Eddie. “It doesn’t have to be big. Baby steps. But I want you to do something that makes you feel alive.”
Eddie spends the rest of the day thinking about it, and by the time Buck collapses on the sofa next to him that night he thinks he has an idea.
“When’s your next day off?” he asks.
“Monday,” Buck says. “Why?”
“We should go to the beach,” Eddie says. “You and me and Chris. We can keep him out of school, go during the day when it’s quiet.”
“Okay,” Buck says immediately. “Sounds like a plan. Any particular reason?”
Eddie considers telling him about Frank’s assignment, but he’s not sure he wants to get into the you’re always dying of it all with Buck, not right now. Not until he starts getting some kind of handle on it.
“We haven’t been in a while,” Eddie shrugs. “Just thought it would be fun.”
And maybe Buck can tell that there’s something else underneath the surface, but he doesn’t push the issue.
Buck drives to the beach, because Buck always drives. He’d actually been home the previous night—home as in the place he pays rent on, that is—to switch out clean clothes, and he’d driven up this morning full of restless energy Eddie can’t quite identify.
He’d walked into the house and tossed a suspiciously large duffel bag by the door, and when Eddie had raised a questioning eyebrow at it Buck had just inclined his head at the waiting jeep and mouthed later.
It’s not until they’re settled near the edge of the surf that Buck starts talking. Christopher is in the water, with instructions to stay within ten feet of the shoreline and four eyes trained on him at all times, and Buck and Eddie are stretched out on towels, propped up on their elbows, practically shoulder to shoulder.
“So I, uh,” Buck starts. “I think I broke up with Taylor.”
“You think?” Eddie says, even as something sparks within him that feels like—hope, maybe. It takes him a second to put a name to it, like he has to dust off the label before he can apply it, but it feels like the right one.
Hope. Isn’t that something.
“I did,” Buck amends. “I don’t know, I just—she wasn’t happy when I got home last night, and when I was leaving again this morning—” Buck tips his head back and sighs.
“Buck,” Eddie says. “You didn’t—not because of—”
Buck looks at him and laughs. “Not everything is about you, you know.”
Eddie splutters. “That’s not what I—”
Buck laughs again. “I know,” he says. “And it wasn’t—or, I guess it was, but not really. Does that make sense?”
“Not at all,” Eddie says, and Buck rolls his eyes.
“I told her you and Chris would always be my first priority, and she couldn’t deal with that,” Buck says. “But it wasn’t just that. It hadn’t been good for a while, I don’t think.”
“Didn’t you just ask her to move in?” Eddie asks, and Buck shoves at his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “But I don’t think I did it for the right reasons.”
“Buck,” Eddie says. “It’s not your fault. Or—not just your fault. There’s two people in every relationship.”
“There’s three in some,” Buck says, and Eddie laughs but he has a sudden flashback to a few weeks ago, sitting around his dinner table with Taylor Kelly awkwardly perched between him and Buck.
“Three people in a relationship entails two people in a relationship,” Eddie says. “I don’t know. Is that what entail means?”
“I have no idea,” Buck says. “But weren’t we talking about me?”
“Aren’t we always?” Eddie asks, and grins when Buck shoves at him again.
“No, but for real,” Eddie says. “Are you—do you want to, I don’t know, talk about it?”
“No need to sound so enthusiastic,” Buck says.
“I mean it, though,” Eddie says. “Anything you need, Buck. I know you’ve been treating me like a fragile baby bird—”
“Baby bird?” Buck interrupts. “Why is that the first thing you’d think of?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie says. “Birds have that whole hollow bones thing going on, they seem pretty fragile. But I mean it. If you need anything—”
“I could use a place to stay,” Buck says, eyes trained on the horizon. “I told Taylor she could have as long as she needs to get her stuff out and find a new place. I figure it’s the least I can do.”
Eddie can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him, and Buck shoots him a scandalised look.
“Sorry,” Eddie manages. “It’s just—you’ve been living on my couch for the last week, Buck. Did you think I'd kick you out now?”
“Well, no,” Buck says. “But I figured it’s still polite to ask.”
“As long as you need, Buck,” Eddie promises.
A little later Buck heads into the water with Christopher, and Eddie stays back to watch their stuff. The tide has crept up just enough that the boldest waves send droplets of ocean spray misting across his face, and the sun beats down on him, warming him all the way through. Eddie watches Buck and Christopher in the ocean, listens to their delighted laughter echoing across the water, and thinks maybe this is what it means to feel alive.
He tells Frank about it, and Frank says, “Okay, what’s next?”
Eddie stares at him, blank, until Frank laughs. “This isn’t one and done, Eddie,” he says. “Think of it as—faking it until you make it.”
So Eddie keeps at it. he finds things for them to do, the three of them as a—family, he thinks. That’s what they are. A family.
He keeps a list, at Frank’s suggestion, hastily scrawled bullet points password-protected in his notes app. He writes down everything, big and small—trips to the aquarium and the zoo, picnics in the park, the time Buck made a particularly excellent margarita and Spotify played his favourite song on shuffle. He writes down the dates, and over time the entries start coming more and more often.
Over time, he starts noticing a pattern.
It’s not a particularly difficult pattern to spot. Ninety percent of the entries on his list have to do with Buck somehow, and more and more lately they just say things like watched a movie with Buck after Chris went to bed.
It’s not a difficult pattern to spot at all.
But he keeps doing the bigger things, too, and eventually, Buck calls him on it. They’re at a lookout point on a nature trail, one eye on Christopher and the other on the view, when Buck finally brings it up.
“So,” he says. “Lots of excursions lately. Not that I'm complaining, but is there a reason you’ve been toting us all over the greater Los Angeles area these past few months?”
And Eddie doesn’t consider the consequences when he says, “Therapy homework.”
“How’s that?” Buck asks, and Eddie turns to look at him.
They’re sitting side by side on a picnic blanket. Buck is in cutoff sweats and a worn LAFD t-shirt, one that Eddie is pretty sure says DIAZ across the back, and when Eddie looks at him he feels—god, Frank would have a field day with all the emotions he’s identifying.
Eddie looks at Buck, and he feels sure. Steady. Warm, and known, and loved.
Eddie looks at Buck and he feels alive.
He swallows.
“Frank said I should try and find things that make me feel alive,” he tells Buck.
Buck looks at him head-on. “And?” he asks. “What makes you feel alive?”
“A lot of things, as it turns out,” Eddie says. “But—mostly you.”
Buck breaks into a grin, and when it tugs at his insides Eddie knows exactly what he’s feeling: that he’s in love with Buck, and if he doesn’t kiss him in the next five seconds he might actually drop dead. Bullets and helicopters and collapsing well shafts have tried and failed to do him in, but spending any longer not kissing Buck might just finish the job.
“Does that mean—” Buck murmurs, and Eddie feels like he’s watching in slow motion as Buck’s gaze drops to his mouth.
“Yeah,” Eddie whispers, and reaches over to cup Buck’s cheek. “Yeah, it does.”
The kiss is slow, soft and gentle for all of three heartbeats before Buck nudges Eddie’s mouth open and Eddie pulls him closer, and they collapse onto the picnic blanket in a pile of limbs. Eddie thinks he might have rolled onto a half-eaten sandwich, but all he cares about is Buck’s mouth on his and Buck’s hands cradling his head.
“Hey,” Buck says when he pulls back, grinning in a way that tells Eddie the next thing out of his mouth is going to be ridiculous. “You said you were supposed to be doing things that make you feel alive.”
“Yeah,” Eddie confirms.
He realises what’s about to come next just as Buck grins even wider, somehow, and says, “Well, you haven’t done me yet.”
Eddie tries to groan, but he’s laughing too much for it to be very effective. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Is this what it’s gonna be like?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, and leans in to kiss him again, slow, careful. “It’s always gonna be just like this.”
Eddie’s not going to complain.
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