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#like eddie would tell karen he likes buck
woodchoc-magnum · 6 hours
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idk. i'm annoyed.
i realise i am a fandom old at this point
and i have seen some shit in this fandom; witnessed the discourse.
and i don't post meta or spec or much of that stuff; i usually put all my ideas into fics.
but guys seriously. seriously.
eddie's current arc is not about buck.
buck and eddie are not currently dating.
buck is eddie's best friend and vice versa.
eddie is not cheating on buck.
eddie is lying to buck by omission, yes, but that is not a friendship ending offence.
eddie is on the very cusp of cheating right now. he went on a date with another woman, yes. he has not kissed her or slept with her. we are at a tipping point. we do not know what is going to happen next.
he only went on a date with another woman because she reminded him of shannon, who he is not over, who he has spent seasons trying to replace.
the point of this show is that none of the characters are perfect - and especially not buck and eddie. they all make mistakes. they have all made mistakes and will continue to do so because in real life, people don't always make the right decisions 100% of the time.
this black-and-white, morally righteous way of thinking, like eddie is suddenly evil now because he's on the cusp of cheating; that it's going to end his friendship, that buck is going to be angry at him for lying - do you have friends in real life? like, i am genuinely asking.
because if my best friend suddenly started cheating on her husband, i wouldn't be mad at her - i would be worried. am i alone in this? like i would be genuinely concerned and trying to help figure out what's going on.
all the shit i'm seeing in the fandom today, all of the spec posts and commentary about the episode and what might potentially happen, just feels like, once again, an attempt to paint eddie as the villain in the story to prop up buck. let's make eddie so terrible that buck has to have custody of christopher, right?
clearly none of you understand how a will works. it's for after you're dead. not for when you're alive.
but the main issue is this - now that buck has tommy, the people who tolerated eddie can stop pretending to like him. there's another option for buck now, so you guys don't need eddie anymore. right? am i fucking right??
i love drama as much as the next person, but in what world would buck turn on eddie because of this? in what world would the 118 shun him? he is their friend! they love him! they care about him! they are a family!
my god, nobody shunned hen when she cheated on karen. nobody shuns bobby and he indirectly killed 140 people!
eddie is a good person who makes mistakes, just like every single other character on the show.
that is the fucking point.
and the way ryan was talking in the interviews - isolation could mean any number of things. we know eddie has a tendency to isolate himself when he's feeling stressed out - does anyone remember season 3? season 5? buck literally broke down his door!
i'm just fucking tired of this bullshit.
eddie's not a bad guy because of this. he has done shitty things, yes. they all have. that's the fucking point of the show, and if you can't understand that or appreciate adult story-telling, then fuck off and watch riverdale.
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Thoughts on Buck ever meeting Captain Gerard? Like… maybe they’re at the FD/cop bar and Gerard shows up while Hen and Karen, Chimey and Tommy and Eddie are all there and it’s so awkward and Tommy wants to lash out and Eddie looks like he’s gonna beat someone’s face in— but then Buck is there defending his fam? I donno why but i feel like I need this…Athena meeting Gerard would also be a THING I NEED.
oooh, I haven't thought of this one yet!
I can picture them all at the badge and ladder bar, and Gerard winds up at the bar ordering something and spots Tommy first so he moseys on over to the 118 crew/firefam. And Buck is sitting there next to Tommy. He notices how Tommy's usual suave confident nature falters in front of his old captain. Buck takes it all in for the first time, leaning into Tommy as he tries listening to old stories from Tommy's first captain.
It's clear Hen and Chimney are immediately uncomfortable with this smelly old man's presence at their table, but Bobby doesn't make him leave so Buck follows Bobby's lead at first and tries to be nice to Gerard. But then Gerard starts cracking offensive jokes. First at Buck's expense, because Buck's got a reputation a mile-wide from his 1.0 era and that's fine. Buck can handle jokes being made about him. He's a big boy. Tommy's hand grips his thigh under the table, grounding him.
(more under cut)
They're all still humoring him an hour after Gerard tells a couple of stories and lays off the jokes for a bit, but Buck has already decided he loathes this man who thinks he can get away with talking to his family like this. All the snide comments and borderline offensive one-liners. And then Gerard starts cracking jokes at Hen and Chim's expense and gets offended when Tommy doesn't play along. When Gerard starts turning his attention to Eddie he tries making a joke about Christopher when Eddie shows him a picture. Before anyone else can do anything Buck snaps. Maybe he feels brave enough for confrontation because he's had a couple beers so he's not able to control his emotional stressors like usual, or maybe he's just fully pissed off at this sorry excuse for a fire captain for thinking he's one of them.
How dare he think he can make fun of the 118 like this? They're heroes compared to scraggly old man ass. They're Buck's family. Bobby is a hundred times the captain you'll ever be Gerard! Tommy's grown into a person he can be proud of! Fuck off you asshole. He's a great boyfriend! kisses Tommy aggressively to make a point then rounds on Gerard again Chim is the best older brother ever. He's an amazing paramedic and he's going to be at the 118 longer than any of us! And how dare you insult Hen and Karen! Karen is a rocket scientist she's a million times smarter than you'll ever be asshole! Hen is my sister. She's the best paramedic in the state. how dare you talk about my sister like that! When he's done everyone looks at Buck kind of afraid but mostly just thankful he had the guts to say what everyone's been thinking.
Then Gerard gets scared off, and Buck's coming down from the high, still seething a little. Everyone thanks Buck for sticking up for them, but they inevitably decide to call it a night and taper off until it's just Buck and Tommy left. By then the exhaustion washes over Buck and he just buries his face into Tommy's chest. Tommy (who is a little turned on by Buck yelling at Gerard and being all protective over everyone, but now's not the time) wraps his arms around him telling him how brave he is, how strong he is, how much he loves him, and then he takes him home.
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aromanticbuck · 22 hours
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I'm right there with you. Cheating plot-lines are huge squicks for me. I almost stopped watching the show bc of Hen's cheating in s1, and again when Buck cheated. Part of the disappointment now is that it's a THIRD time they've had a cheating plotline- actually FOURTH since Michael had a secret relationship when he and Athena were still married, even if they hadn't been sleeping together for a while.
So I think part of it for me is "I know this is different, but I don't want to go through this AGAIN."
Either way, I save my own sanity by fast-forwarding through scenes that I don't want to see, and I'll infer/learn things from other people who have watched the show later.
I hate it here so much and, honestly, with how this show usually treats cheating storylines, I don't actually have that much faith that this will get the fallout it should.
With Michael, I understand the handwave - they were separated, for all intents and purposes, and that was discussed afterwards and Athena sees where he's coming from now. And them writing canonically queer characters into cheating arcs that end poorly would be messy, even if they don't necessarily learn anything from it.
Hen... did face consequences for her actions. We got to see the fallout of it with her and Karen, and how they handled it. But I feel like most of that was off screen, and then they forgot about it beyond season one.
Buck's "cheating" storyline was wild, in a way that... was barely cheating? He was on the receiving end of the kiss that only happened once, he kissed back in the moment because he was drunk. Lucy is not the bad guy in this situation either, because she had no idea he was in a relationship and was also drunk. Should Buck have told Taylor sooner? Yes. Was the entire storyline a mess for other reasons too? Also yes.
This... it feels different but the same. No, Eddie hasn't done anything physical with Kim that we know of, but this is the first time, other than Michael whose cheating didn't get much of a storyline beyond cementing the end of his relationship with Athena, that it has been a consistent choice made over and over again. Hen slept with Eva the night of the full moon and then that was over. Buck and Lucy was one drunken night that didn't go beyond a kiss or two. This? Eddie is going after Kim and her attention again and again.
He's showing up at her job. He's taking her out to dinner. He's telling her he's single. And it's really shitty. I just have to cross my fingers and pray this doesn't get brushed off like every other time.
(and I totally understand fast forwarding when you have that ability, definitely do whatever you have to do 💛)
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wannabemylover · 7 months
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911 won't let karen and eddie meet because they'd be too powerful
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Buddie confession scene but it’s just Buck telling Eddie how “Whatta Man” started playing in his head the day they met and Eddie was shirtless
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littlespoonevan · 1 year
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i swear every time they put eddie in a scene with a woman in a romantic context it just strengthens my belief that he's gay lol
askdjfhsd i actually don't know how to explain it!!!! but it's just so Rare to see him in any kind of romantic context with a woman that when it does happen it's like, hmm there's something fishy about this 👀👀
like with shannon i think it worked because they knew each other and we met them at a very fractious point in their relationship where there was clearly So Much history so you buy into it, y'know? and hell, even with ana in that first scene in fools it's more or less normal flirting (awkward though it may be)
but ever since then it's like....i almost feel like giggling when i watch him interact with women because it's just Different. like he wants to be their bff and trade recipes and commiserate about their nosy tias and he'll have a great time doing it but that's it lmao
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hmslusitania · 1 month
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Eddie stares at the screen. It’s not — the title is…
Well.
Fuck.
He’s read enough of the Reddit thread in question to know that he’s phrasing it right but he doesn’t—
It feels bad to post something that starts with “AITA my [32M] best friend [32M] just started dating someone new and for the first time since I’ve known him its a guy [39M]. Every time I think about them together it makes me want to puke and/or die and/or punch somebody. I’ve never thought I was homophobic before. One of my closest friends at work (and our workplace is like a family in the most literal aside from blood sense) is a lesbian and I have a regular wine night with her wife and we’ve never had an issue!”
But like. He doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t exactly ask Buck about it. And he’s not going to text Hen or Karen to ask them to delve into their deeper analyses of his psyche and whether or not they’ve secretly picked up “”””signs”””” that he’s homophobic. If they have? He doesn’t want to know. Because he’s not a homophobe! He isn’t! Really truly!!
At least he’s never been before when it was Hen and Karen and Michael and David and people he'd met on calls and even Josh (his issues with Josh had been 1,000% unrelated to Josh’s sexuality). But for whatever reason, Buck and Tommy dating — Buck and Tommy kissing — Buck and Tommy having sex and—
He loses the plot in favour of unidentifiable rage.
He makes the Reddit post.
He is primarily asked for additional context.
“Well. Uh. Let’s call him Stag. Has been my best friend since we defused a bomb together I don’t even know like five years ago? And he’s like the best friend I’ve ever had to the point where I’ve changed my will so that he’s the person who gets my son in the event of my untimely demise. And like! I like his boyfriend! I really do, it’s not that I’m worried that if something happens to me and Stag has to take custody of our son I’m worried about how [let’s call him Gatling] would do with our kid. He’s a cool guy and tbh we were friends first and he’d probably make a wicked stepdad to anyone’s kid, but also… okay it got late and I don’t think this is an accurate representation of the situation but! Anyway! Additional information of note being that I like both of them as people a whole bunch so the idea that I might be activating latent homophobic responses just because of either of them as people is nonsense haha.”
And he isn’t! Eddie isn’t worried about how Tommy would be as a stepdad. Really! It doesn’t even give him hives to think about dying anymore.
It takes until he wakes up in a cold sweat at three in the morning for him to realise that he doesn’t think of Buck as Chris’s stepdad. He thinks of him as Chris’s other dad, who is — who is dating someone a whole lot like Eddie — who is dating another man who isn’t Eddie — and…
And, well.
Well, fuck.
“Edit: false alarm I am not homophobic. But I AM in love with, uh, Stag even though he’s dating Gatling. How do I tell him?”
Because sometimes, asking relationship advice from complete strangers online is the only reasonable way to proceed. And Eddie can only hope, desperately, that they have the answers.
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bucksboobs · 6 days
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On their way to a fire, Buck opens his big mouth and says something very stupid. Not an unusual occurrence but this one is unique: “Hey, Hen? Can I ask you a gay people question?”
Hen side-eyes him. “Are you sure now’s the best time?” The engine shakes on its suspension.
Buck blusters forward. “So Tommy and I have been dating a month and a half now.” The mention of Tommy grabs both Chim and Eddie’s attention.
“Wait, really?” Chim asks, Hen’s not sure if he thought it was shorter or longer than that. His memory of time seems to be the worst hit by the encephalitis.
“2 months next Thursday.” Eddie says.
“Y-yeah… that’s right.” Buck raises his eyebrows at Eddie. The rest all stare, Hen included. Those two have always been locked at the hip but knowing each other’s anniversaries seems excessive. Buck seems to agree.
“How do you know that?” She asks.
“Their first date was the same day I asked Marisol to move in with me.”
“When did Marisol move in with you?” Hen and Chimney ask in unison. Last she heard about Marisol she had only just met Chris, moving in seemed a long way off for them. Since when was she living with him?
“She didn’t” Bobby answers, giving his sternest glare to the rear view mirror. Hen knows this means she’s in charge of keeping these fools in check so he can focus on driving.
“Yeah we decided against that. Anyway Buck you were talking about Tommy?” Hen stifles a laugh. There was a story there she was going to have to wring out of Bobby because Eddie’s deflection abilities are legendary.
“Yeah so- um- ho-how long before we can uh…”Hen cocks her head. What exactly is Buck after with Tommy right now, they’re not nearly to the point of I love yous and she doesn’t think Buck would be this nervous about dating advice. “I mean how long did you and Karen wait until you, uh” Oh.
“Had sex?” Hen asks bluntly.
“Whoa, you and Tommy haven’t had sex yet?” Chimney asks, astonished.
“Buck when’s the last time you waited this long with anyone?” Eddie asks with a cocked eyebrow.
“Never? Maybe high school?” That tracks.
“Or Abby.” Chim offers. Buck winces at that. She knows that woman did him dirty, looks like the scar still aches.
“Six minutes to ETA.” Comes from the drivers seat. “5 and a half…” Bobby takes a sharp turn that shakes the whole truck. “5 minutes.”
“So how do I ask him to fuck me.”
A chorus of “BUCK!” rings through the truck. Eddie looks petrified at the idea of his best friends having sex with each other, Chim looks exhausted with his brother-in-law of barely a month and look, Hen would give the world to see this kid happy but sometimes he’s just too stupid for his own good.
“Buck. I think you need to remember Tommy doesn’t have a lot of experience in this area either.”
“He doesn’t?”
“Did you forget he’s only been out as long as you’ve been at the 118?” Hen learned that about Tommy from Buck’s gushing the day after the wedding. She’d also talked to him in a fluorescent lit waiting room after the most gorgeous hospital ceremony she’s ever been a part of, so she’s aware that he’s not used to being with men that want more than just sex from him. “He might think you’re just as nervous as he is.”
“I didn’t know he got nervous.”
Chim huffs at that. “Next time you see him ask him to tell you a story about a rooster.” That makes Hen smile.
“He probably won’t believe you’re ready until you can talk to him about it.”
“I don’t— I-it usually just kind of happens. You get a look, there’s a nod, they look at your lips and lean in…”
“Yeah but that was women who knew what they wanted and what you wanted. Tommy won’t know unless you tell him what you’re ready for.”
“So to get him to fuck me I have to tell him to fuck me?”
“Jesus, Buck. Yes.” Hen laughs. They are, thankfully, finally pulling to site so she doesn’t have to enumerate exactly how he needs to ask. If she did she’d have to explain birds and bees that she is not the best person to explain.
“Come on, kids, let’s save some lives.” Bobby calls as he pulls the parking break.
The fire looks pretty bad, two story house, they’ll have to split up by floor. As they gear up Buck says, privately, off-mic. “Thanks Hen, you’re a good Gay Yoda”
“Do him or do not, there is no try.”
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clusterbuck · 8 days
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there was something going on
7x06 coda
Eddie’s never seen Chimney this happy.
His brain nearly killed him from the inside out, and still, Eddie’s never seen Chimney this happy.
The chaos of the impromptu wedding is slowly dying down, most of the guests drifting away with quiet well-wishes and goodbyes. The Buckleys have phone calls to make, Bobby and Athena have dinner plans with May. Tommy makes a valiant effort to stay awake, until Buck kisses him to a host of catcalls and sends him home to sleep off the fire. Everyone has somewhere to be, until it’s just Hen and Karen, Buck, and Eddie left crowded around the newlyweds.
A nurse pokes her head into the room like she has something to say about visiting hours, but she beats a hasty retreat when she’s met with five identical glares—
From everyone except Chimney, who’s gazing up at Maddie like he still can’t quite believe this woman is chasing nurses away on his behalf. That she’s married to him.
And Eddie kind of gets it, because if someone looked at him the way Maddie is looking at Chimney right now, he’s not sure he’d believe it either. 
He wonders if it was ever like that with Shannon, back in the very beginning. It’s been so long now that it all blurs together, their early days in high school and the long nights awake with a crying Christopher, grainy long-distance video calls from Afghanistan and the letter she left on his bedside table. He doesn’t remember what was real, and what’s been tainted by the memory of what came after. 
He doesn’t remember if she ever looked at him like that, or if he did. 
He’d overheard the Buckleys in the hallway, earlier, grumbling about how they didn’t understand the need to have the wedding right away. How it was such a waste of Maddie’s beautiful dress to drag it along hospital corridors, for no one except the few people who can fit in the hallway around the room to even see it. 
Eddie wonders if they understood when they saw their daughter’s face as the rings slid on.
Because no one who knows Maddie and Chimney could fail to understand if they saw them now, looking at each other like there’s no one else in the room. No one else on the entire planet but for the two of them, hand in hand, wedding rings and pulse ox leads and IVs all tangled together.
It was never about the wedding. It was never about the venue or the catering or even Maddie’s incredible dress. All of that is just set dressing. 
This is what it’s about: Maddie and Chimney, tucked side by side into Chimney’s narrow hospital bed, and a promise to stay with each other. To choose each other, day after day, every day from now on.
Eddie can understand why they didn’t want to wait. If he had someone he wanted to promise himself to like that—
The thought knocks at the edges of his mind and invites itself inside, and it takes him by surprise. If he had someone he wanted to promise himself to. As if he hadn’t just asked Marisol to move in.
And asked her to move right back out again, which—might be part of the problem. 
It’s only been a few months, he tries to tell himself. It’s normal not to know yet, surely. 
Only he’s losing track of the number of times he’s told himself this very thing. He’s losing count of how often he looks at the people around them and wonders, is that what it’s meant to be like? Bobby and Athena, Hen and Karen, Maddie and Chimney—hell, even Buck and Tommy, and he’s only known about that one for a handful of weeks. But he can’t stop thinking about the giddy way Buck grinned right before slipping out to meet Tommy in the lobby, about the soft shade of pink along the tips of his cheekbones.
Would he have felt that way, getting a text that Marisol was waiting in the lobby?
And Eddie knows not every marriage is some grand storybook romance. He knows that it’s enough, for some people, to find someone they like well enough and settle down into a life of partnership.
He knows he could do that. He could be that to someone—the dependable partner, the teammate, a unit to go through life with. He could probably do it with Marisol, if he thought she was interested. He’s assumed, up until now, that that’s how his life would go.
But he sits in Chimney’s hospital room and watches Hen lean into Karen, unconscious, the way a flower turns towards the sun, and he watches Karen’s hand find Hen’s without ever interrupting the story she’s in the middle of telling. He watches them both relax, infinitesimally, at the comfort of each other’s contact, and he realises—
That isn’t how he wants his life to go. 
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exhuastedpigeon · 6 months
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Season 7 should just fully ignore Eddie and Buck's respective love lives for the first 8-9 episodes. Let the show should focus on the other main characters and give them major story lines since 6b was very Buck centered (rightfully so the man died).
I want- no I need - to see Hen and Karen learning to balance being mothers to a newborn baby and a pre-teen and working. Let us see them figuring that out and supporting each other.
I also want to see Bobby and Athena back from their honeymoon and glowing and realizing that there's so much more to life than their jobs. It would be very fun to see them start talking about retirement with other people and seeing how the other characters react.
We need a Ravi story line too! Ravi begins??? We could use a Ravi begins. Let us see Ravi's backstory and his childhood in and out of hospitals. Let us see his family react to him becoming a firefighter.
Maddie and Chim are obviously planning their wedding, but I also want to see Maddie at the call center stepping up and maybe training to be the next Sue? Or even better, maybe Maddie thinks about getting back into nursing.
And Chim's story should be about how he's finally got the family and home he's always dreamed about and he doesn't know what comes next. Give us Hen and Chim bonding about feeling like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop when things are going too well in their personal lives.
Eddie should have a story line outside of his love life and outside of being a dad. He's been so defined by fatherhood, firefighting, and being a widower, he needs something in his life that's just for him. Maybe Eddie has a bit of a mini breakdown about Chris growing up and we see him spending time with each of the other characters trying to figure out who Eddie is. We hear a bit about him and Buck without Chris trying different hobbies together while Chris is at sleepovers and being a 12/13 year old.
Our main lens to Buck's personal life should be through him helping Maddie and Chim plan the wedding (clipboard Buck please and thank you!), through seeing him with the Diaz boys doing domestic stuff like making dinner and game nights, and hanging out with Eddie. We never SEE Buck and Eddie hanging out alone, but we hear them talking about it.
THEN in episode 9 or 10 we should see everyone getting their invites to Maddie and Chim's wedding and both Buck and Eddie RSVP 'plus one' except we haven't seen them with a girlfriend all season?? What the fuck is up with that??
Only for them to show up to the wedding together. And the audience thinks it's because Buck is Maddie's Man of Honour and Eddie is one of Chim's groomsmen. But then we get a shot of Eddie helping Buck with his tie or something and then after he pulls him into a kiss. And it's clearly not a first kiss, it's a gently peck like they've been doing it for months.
AND THEN after the wedding we get an episode that's the missing Buck and Eddie scenes from the season. We always heard about them but it wasn't ever shown. And it turns out all those little adventures were dates and they've been dating for months without telling anyone.
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redocity · 10 days
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Hey, if you’re looking for more buck requests I’d love something where he’s dating the reader and it’s going well but before they get chance to meet the team they get in an accident or their building catches fire or something and buck ends up rescuing her and hen and Eddie work on her etc and then after when they’re okay she’s just like when I said I wanted to meet the team this is not what I meant. Thank you so much if you decide to write this 💕
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WORKOUT — E.BUCKLEY
going to the gym when LA was due for a flash flood was not the best idea on your part, but at least you got to meet the people that buck called family
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WARNINGS: established relationship, flooding, corpse mention, minor character injury
evan buckley x gn!reader || fluff || 4.0k || requests open!!
a/n: is this the best thing i’ve ever written? no. but i hope it suffices nonetheless 🫶
₊ ⊹ masterlist!!
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Who knew joining a new boxing gym of all things would land you a boyfriend.
A tall, blond, handsome boyfriend who could probably bench press you like it was his warm up.
He could probably bench press your dad like it was a warm up.
You like to think it’s an act of divine intervention, an apology from the gods for making you move across the country by yourself with nothing but yourself to make things work.
The least you deserved was the absolute perfection that was Evan Buckley to make it a little less taxing.
Granted, the way you met was less than perfect, you managing to put your gloves on backwards, get them stuck on your hands and then have to ask for help getting them off whilst internally wanting to jump off a cliff from the embarrassment.
He was nice enough though, making lighthearted jokes about the situation as he helped you take off, and then put back on your gloves in the correct way.
To be honest you’re not sure you can remember most of that first conversation you had, definitely too focused on the muscles in his arms as the overhead lighting emphasised the definition of his biceps and shadowed the curves in his collarbone as they peeked out from underneath the tank top he was wearing.
That aspect of your dynamic never changed, and even as he started to approach you first so that you could pair up to spar with each other you still found yourself taking the time to admire his physique whenever the moment arose.
You found out within a few weeks that it was because he was a firefighter, and if you weren’t attracted to him before you definitely were when you had the fuel to imagine him being able to pick you up with one arm and sling you over his shoulder.
Apparently the feeling was mutual.
You learned a lot about Buck during your weekly gym visits. He was from Pennsylvania and travelled across the US before landing in LA, he had an older sister who used to frequent the gym with him, he worked in fire station number 118, and his team was like a surrogate family to him.
You learned a lot about them too.
You’d heard of the medical adventures of Hen and her scientist wife Karen.
He told you about how Chimney—a nickname he refused to elaborate on because it was ‘a scared secret’—had fallen in love with his sister Maddie and how happy he was for them.
He told you about how Eddie used to serve in the army and had an adorable kid named Christopher that Buck often spent his weekends with.
And he delighted in telling you all about Bobby. How he was a secondary father, how he’d been through the roughest of the rough and pulled himself back up and made Buck strive to have the same resilience, how he’d finally gotten his happy ending by falling in love with and getting married to a cop named Athena and how Buck was so happy that he was happy.
It was really endearing honestly, and it was one of the factors that contributed to how hard you fell for him.
He wasn’t just some ‘strong macho firefighter’, he was a human being, someone who loved with all his heart and put his everything into his job and doing right by the people that he loved and cared about.
He often made comments about bringing you to meet the team, mentioning the occasional barbecue that Bobby and Athena would host at their house and how the team would often bring their families and loved ones along.
It was the first time Buck ever called you his partner. In the middle of a boxing ring whilst you were punching at his hands and he was raving on about Bobby’s cooking.
And it was enough for you to miss the padding covering his palms and almost punch him right in the face.
“Woah-” You can thank his instincts for being the only reason he didn’t end up with a bruised nose, swerving his head at the last second and catching you as you stumbled forward into him.
“I am so sorry-” You remove yourself from his grasp hastily, holding the back of your gloved hand over your mouth to cover the astonishment of your own embarrassment from his view.
“It’s good, are you?” Buck dismisses your apology with a shake of his head an a soft smile that makes you want to squeeze him until he explodes because my god he is so adorable how did you land this man?
“Yeah- yeah I’m good, sorry-” You shake your wrists as a way of dispelling the nervous tension that’s racing through your muscles to settle in your joints.
“You’re sure?” He raises an eyebrow at you, expression a mix of suspicion and concern. “You know, you don’t have to come to anything if you’re not comfortable, I don’t want to rush into something if you’re not ready,”
He lowers his hands to his sides, undoing the velcro to slip the pads off his palms as a show that he wants to engage in the conversation without any distraction. “I have a habit of taking relationships too fast, and I don’t want to do that with you,”
“No that’s not— You’re not doing that, I’d love to meet the rest of your team,” You shake your head adamantly at Buck’s attempt at giving you an out, firmly planting your decision as wanting to take the proverbial ‘next step’ in your relationship in meeting the people he calls family. “I was just caught off guard is all, you’ve uh… you’ve never called me your partner before,”
“Oh— I uh—” Your acknowledgement of what he’d said seems to force him to acknowledge it himself, like it was a subconscious slip of the tongue rather than an informed decision. “Is that okay?”
You take a moment to think, eyes round and cheeks flushed as you nod your head. “Yeah,”
“Yeah?” He takes a step towards you, concern washing out of his expression to be replaced with contentment, confidence rising in his irises as he tilts his head to the side.
“Mhm,” You stifle a small embarrassed giggle as he invades your personal space, mirroring his head tilt with your own as your fluster extends from your cheeks to coat your neck in a dark shade of red.
“Good,” He rests his right hand against your shoulder, drawing small lines from the side of your neck down over the curve of your arm with his fingers. “I’ll have to call you that more often then,” He leans forward with every word until his lips are brushing yours as he speaks, emphasising the end of his sentence by pressing a kiss to your lips that you happily reciprocate.
“I’d like that,” Your face is embarrassingly red as you pull away, a lovesick expression on your face as you don’t even try to hide the way your composure falls apart.
You have half the mind to never go to the gym ever again.
How were you supposed to know that there were flash floods scheduled to hit LA this morning if they didn’t put it on the news until you were already inside the gym? At least you weren’t the only one suffering in your makeshift cage whilst rising water blocked you from leaving.
There was probably about a dozen of you actually, all up bright and early to get in a workout before the day started, and instead locked inside of the gym because the idiotic reporters didn’t warn you in advance that LA was due heavy rain and flash flooding.
Okay, technically it wasn’t their fault, the whole point of weather is that you only really know what’s happening as it happens, but surely they had the technology to be able to anticipate when something this extreme was going to occur.
Someone had already called 911, but you wouldn’t bank on them arriving anytime soon. Buck told you how rough days like this were for emergency responders, and considering that none of you were in an immediate emergency, you wouldn’t be surprised if your situation was put on the back burner until they had a team free.
That meant you basically just had to hunker down for a few hours and wait it out.
It shouldn’t have been to hard to past the time, you could technically just extend your workout for a while, but its barely an hour before the power goes out and half of the gym is rendered completely useless.
The group of you end up sitting on the floor in a circle and just talking to pass the time, although making small talk with people you don’t know can only last so long before you run out of things to talk about.
It was more boring than anything, although as the water began to seep through the seal of the glass doors, you knew that boredom wouldn’t last for very long.
“This is dispatch, we’ve got a gym flooding at 1123 Vine St #14, there’s 13 people trapped inside,” Josh’s voice crackles through the radio as the 118 lugs themselves back into the truck, soaked from the knees downwards.
“Copy that, 118 is en route,” Bobby presses the radio on his chest, tapping the side of the truck with his hand before climbing into the Captain’s seat.
“Copy 118,” The radio crackles then goes dead, and the truck pulls away from the gas station they were parked at with the ambulance hot on it’s tail.
“Vine St? Me and my girlfriend go to a gym Vine St, it’s great,” Buck talks before he’s even got the headset on, half of his sentence being drowned out as a result.
“Well it can’t be that great if it doesn’t have proper seal on the doors can it?” Eddie’s voice is entirely sarcastic, and Buck hits his arm with the back of his hand in retaliation.
“Hey we don’t know if this is my gym or not, so don’t disrespect the integrity of Wildcard boxing gym until we’re sure that’s where we’re going,” Buck scoffs dramatically, and it earns a laugh from the rest of the team.
“Oh no, how dare you besmirch Buck’s sacred place? That’s his second home you’re talking about,” Hen plays into the joke, and Buck responds emphatically by tapping his right hand against his left bicep.
“Exactly,”
“What was that about the ‘integrity’ of your gym Buck?” Eddie blinks up at the sparked out neon sign, jaws resting against his shoulder has he holds them in his right hand.
There was really no mistaking it as someplace else, and for a moment Buck’s focus turns to worry. It was your day off today, what if you’d gone to the gym to take up your time? What if you’d gotten injured in the process? Or god forbid something worse?
“Buck?” His silence is enough for Eddie to look over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “You good?”
“Yeah— Yeah I’m fine,” Buck shakes his head like he’s trying to physically shake the anxiety from his mind. “Let’s go,”
There’s a short shared glance between Eddie and Hen at Buck’s reply, but it ends with nothing more than a shrug as they forced the automatic doors open to enter the gym, adding another rush of water into the building in the process, one that they definitely could’ve done without considering it was almost at waist level already.
“LAFD!” Bobby wades through the water ahead of the group in the start of the search, calling out periodically in the hopes of a response from anyone from the group of people trapped somewhere inside.
Logic would dictate that they probably would’ve moved to the upper floor, but panic often overrides rationality in these sorts of circumstances, so the team couldn’t ever be too safe in searching the bottom floor.
“Alright, Buck, Chim, I want you to follow me in searching the rest of this floor, Eddie and Hen, go upstairs and find anyone you can,”
There’s an echo of “Copy that!”’s as the team split up to search the building, and as Buck makes his way through the familiar gym layout he can only hope that your months of being together with him has taught you how to best keep yourself safe in an emergency situation like this.
The sight of one of the gym regulars floating face down in the water does not reassure him of that fact.
He swears he almost gags at the sight, a mix of shock and disgust at the smell coming from the man as his corpse floats aimlessly, following the ripples in the water as Buck moves. Then he notices his hands. The back of his right hand specifically.
“Cap—” Buck’s voice is harsh and grainy through the radio, not at all helped by the fact the flood had probably disrupted some of the nearby cell towers making the transmission less clear than it already was. “I found— he had—” Buck’s radio periodically turns to static as he tries to relay his message, but it’s key message thankfully gets through undisrupted. “live electricity—”
“LAFD!” Eddie pushes the door open to the upper gym floor with Hen right on his tail, the two scanning the room for anyone immediately visible. “Is anyone there?”
”Here! We’re over here!” Your voice calls from around one of the corners, and you rush out towards the two firefighters with panic written all over your face, completely soaked from head to toe. “Are either of you a paramedic? A stack of weights fell whilst we were trying to create a barrier in case the water rose again and—” You talk whilst leading the two over the the group, and you don’t need to finish your sentence by the time you reach them.
One of the guys was sat against the wall, his left leg resting elevated on a collection of sodden towels and jackets, a nasty purple bruise spreading across the expanse of his foot and up his ankle and a slightly misshapen form to it as a whole.
It was pretty bad.
There’s a short shared glance between Eddie and Hen as they silently agree on the extent of his injury, and Hen kneels down towards him. “Alright, what’s your name sir?” She presses her fingers gingerly to the affected area and earns an immediate groan from the man.
“Antony—” He hisses his name through his teeth from the pain, and several of you collectively wince at the sight.
“Alright Antony, my name’s Hen, and this is Eddie, we’re gonna get you out of here and to a hosptial okay?” Hen gestures to Eddie behind her, and you take a second to furrow your eyebrows at the familiarity of the names. Then you catch the number of their uniform helmets. 118.
That meant Buck was here somewhere. He had to be.
“Please—” He lets out another pained groan as Hen instructs Eddie over to Antony’s other side to get him off the floor.
“How many of you are up here? Is anyone else injured?” Hen’s eyes scan the group for a quick head count, but someone beats her to it.
“There’s twelve of us,” Her voice is meek and almost unstable as she speaks, “There was thirteen but James… he…” She trails off like she knows she won’t be able to finish the sentence, and the intonation is enough for Hen to know what she’s implying.
“Alright…” Hen sighs softly as the groups demeanour dims slightly at the mention of James, and how everyone seems to huddle just that little bit closer together as if to comfort each other in their shared grief. “Can all of you swim?”
“We’ll be fine,” You answer her question with a small nod.
“Okay,” Hen returns your nod with her own before turning her gaze away from you and the group. “Eddie,”
“Got it,” He doesn’t even have to be asked before he’s tugging Antony’s weight over his shoulder to carry him, readying for the journey back down the stairs and hopefully safely out of the building.
The universe had other plans.
“Cap—” You can recognise Buck’s voice immediately, even with all of the radio distortion. “I found— he had— live electricity—”
It’s like a flip switches in Hen and Eddie’s brains at the new information.
“Electricity? That’s bad isn’t it? That’s gotta be bad are we gonna—”
“Nothing is going to happen to anyone.” Hen interrupts the girl’s anxious rambling with a raise of her hand. “Does this building have a rooftop?”
“Yeah uh, it’s— there’s a ladder over here,” One of the male members of the group, one of the employees, leads Hen towards the rooftop fire escape, pulling on the ladder until it collides with the floor. It’s locked though, only the owner has a key,”
“You locked the fire escape?” Eddie sounds more than a little exasperated at the news.
“I don’t know man I just work here—”
“Okay.” Hen interrupts once more, speaking into her radio. “Cap, we’ve got a rooftop exit, you need to get up here.”
“Copy— up now—” The radio continues to glitch on it’s transmission, but it sounds as though the message was properly received.
Getting the hatch open was not as easy, although with more than a little bit of teamwork and a twenty-five pound weight the group managed to force it from it’s hinges and climb everyone up onto the roof and out of any direct danger for the time being.
It was a momentary breath of relief, and the group seemed to agree as everyone practically collapsed in a heap now that the rush of adrenaline was wearing off. Although Eddie and Hen didn’t waste a minute as they set up Antony comfortably against one of the walls and began examining the rest of the group.
“Can you follow this light for me?” Hen holds up a penlight in front of your face, eyes following yours to judge your reactions and your pupillary response.
“I’m really okay, you should spend your time working on the people who really need you,” You follow her instructions even whilst trying to dissuade her gently, and she gives you a sharp shake of her head.
“Everyone’s important sweetheart, I’m just making sure you haven’t got any hidden injuries at even you don’t know about,” She clicks off her pen light once she’s satisfied, and then gives you a small pat on your shoulder before looking past you with an expression of relief on her face.
You follow her gaze yourself to be met with three other firefighters from the 118, presumably those from the first floor, and you don’t so much as have time to even register their faces in your mind before you’re being picked up into one of their arms and held in an almost bone-crushing hug.
“Thank god you’re okay—” You wouldn’t have even had to have heard his voice to know your proxy kidnapper was Buck, but hearing him is more than relieving for the small anxious part of your brain that was scared to death over his safety.
“I’m fine I’m fine—” Your words are echoed by a small laugh as your feet touch the floor again, and the two of you carefully peel yourselves from each other in your joined dampened state. “Are you okay?”
The two of you are caught up in your emotions enough that you essentially completely ignore the presence of the rest of Buck’s coworkers, oblivious to the looks they were giving you—and each other— in the process.
“I’m fine,” Buck nods as he pulls off his helmet, and you finally get a proper look at his face, dirty and soaked and so unbelievably kissable that you really can’t help yourself.
It’s what calls your attention back to the fact that there are indeed other people present, spurred by a short whistle from Chimney that leaves the two of you pulling away with flustered expressions.
“Uh—” Buck clears his throat into his elbow, using his free arm to pull you carefully against his side. “Guys, this is—”
“An absolute angel? It’s a pleasure to finally meet you properly,” Hen interrupts Buck’s introduction of you to reach out to you herself, her tone full of enthusiasm. “Buck does not stop taking about you,”
“Seriously, it’s 24/7,” Chimney adds on to Hen’s declaration with a determined gesture of his hand, and you don’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed by the attention.
You’d been looking forward to meeting the team that Buck called family, truly, but you were not expecting to meet them like this.
You were absolutely drenched in flood water, probably covered in dirt, and most definitely looked like you’d been dragged through somebodies hedge.
Buck looks more proud than anything, and gives your side a small squeeze as he introduces you to everyone. “Hen and Chim,” The pair give you enthusiastic smiles, “That’s Eddie over there,” Eddie sticks his hand up in a makeshift wave as he focuses on properly wrapping Antony’s ankle with what’s available. “And this is Bobby,”
“It’s really a pleasure,” Bobby holds his right hand out to you, and you shake it politely, lips pressed into an almost nervous smile.
“It’s great to meet you all, Buck has told me a lot about all of you,” You let out a small, almost pathetic laugh at the end of your sentence. “I’m sorry we’re meeting like this,”
Hen waves you off with her hand and a laugh of her own. “Trust me, weirder things have happened,”
“Oh 100%,” Chimney nods in conjunction with Hen’s statement. “Welcome to the family,”
You give another small laugh and a “thank you,” as you settle yourself against Buck’s side, and he presses a kiss to the top of your head a with a content smile.
This might not have been the way he wanted you to meet the team, but it was perfectly unusual in its own way. And it was silently agreed that you were a perfect fit.
“So, uh, how are we getting down from here?” You turn your head over your shoulder to look over the edge of the roof, and the still high floods that covered most of the fire engine parked on the road.
“Uh…”
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chronicowboy · 3 months
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"Hey, Buck, you busy tonight?"
It's just the two of them in the locker room. They'd stuck behind to shower off their shifts whilst Hen had rushed home to relieve Karen of baby duty and Chim had sped off for a cake tasting appointment Maddie has been worryingly strict about.
"Yeah, man." Buck tugs on his jacket, watching Eddie fasten his watch out of the corner of his eye. For a moment, he's back at the tailend of an endless shift, blackout over, watching Eddie piece together a breakup in real time. The image of it sends a thrill through him as confusing as it is satisfying. He bites down on it and tastes blood. "Movie night? Like the old days? Or does Young Mr Diaz have another social responsibility he's abandoning us for?"
Eddie huffs a laugh, but it's wistful. Buck gets it, tries to remember the last time they sat down to watch a movie all three of them. Or, well, just the three of them.
"Nah, not tonight." He grimaces a little like he's been thinking the same thing as Buck. "But, uh, I do."
"Ah, I see." Buck nods as he busies himself with his duffel, it's already packed, neat as can be, but he fusses anyway. He can't face Eddie's gentle expression of apology, a sudden fragility in the way he holds himself. "Babysitting duty then?"
Eddie grimaces agin, his face twisting and scrunching and crumpling into a complicated expression of something to the left of disgust. Buck wants to smooth out all the wrinkles in his face until only the smile lines remain, he wants to revel in Eddie's obvious discomfort for reasons he can't explain.
"I wouldn't really call it babysitting."
"Yeah, you're right. Kid'd probably kill me for calling him kid never mind baby." Buck aches a little as he says it, remembers when Chris was small enough to swing up into his arms and over his shoulders, when he'd giggle til he couldn't breathe rather than complain until his lungs gave out from sheer teen angst.
"No, I mean." Eddie sighs, packing his own duffel now, stuffing things in haphazard in a way that always makes Buck feel a little crazy. But then all Buck can think of is whether Eddie's hiding in his duffel for the same reason Buck had. "Hen didn't rush home to babysit, did she?"
If only his duffel bag was big and sentient and hungry enough to swallow him whole. As it is, he just kinds of stops functioning halfway through zipping it up.
"Whuh, um, what?"
"Fair warning though." Eddie swings his duffel over his shoulder. "He's in a crappy mood at the moment. He told you about the new supply teacher who gave him a C on that short story he was really proud of?"
"Bitch," Buck mumbles, still functioning just enough to hate the woman that made Chris feel anything less than proud of his tale of dragon-fighting knights and best friends who Buck thought might have been a little bit in love—he'd been too afraid to ask, too afraid Chris would shut down and start thinking things Buck had to think when he realised who he was as a teenager, too afraid of what Chris had grown up around. Eddie snorts.
"We'll have a movie night soon though," Eddie tells him, still seemingly oblivious to Buck's pretty spectacular implosion. He looks up from his watch, meets Buck's eyes and winks. "Promise." He's off then, leaving Buck staring off into the middle distance like he didn't just turn the world upside down with one sentence. "Oh, um." Eddie smiles down at his shoes a little, rosy cheeked as he pauses in his stride. He glances up at Buck, another moment of hesitation before he drops his hand to Buck's shoulder. "Don't tell him I tipped you off, but he's got a little surprise." Eddie's eyes, molten vats of chocolate Buck wants to sink into, drown in. He's had the thought before. He doesn't know what it means. (He does, he really does.) "He's pretty excited about it, so..."
Eddie squeezes his shoulder once, then he's gone, and Buck. Buck tries to breathe beyond the burning want in his chest.
He's not going home to babysit. He's just going home to his kid.
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matan4il · 1 year
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Buddie 613 meta
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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. ~~
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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). ~~
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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. ~~
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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. ~~
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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.
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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. ~~
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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). 
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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. ~~
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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. ~~
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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.
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~~ (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!
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diazsdimples · 25 days
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Tease Tidbit Tuesday
I'm getting to everyone's snippets tonight, I promise! I'm a few days behind cause lectures have just started up again 😬 tagged for Tuesday by @thewolvesof1998 and @elvensorceress thank you friends 🫶. Also I'm updating my taglist for the first time ever so please interact with this post if you want to be on it!
Figured I should probably get cracking on my 7x06 spec fic before the episode comes out so please enjoy a bit of Buck getting roasted by his best friend and boyfriend.
Eddie frowns, looking a little confused. “I thought you guys were all good?” “We are,” Buck replies, his eyes never leaving his parents as he watches them greet guests, both looking the brightest and bubbliest he’s seen them in years. From afar he’s sure they look like a regular, happy older couple enjoying their daughter’s wedding, but Buck can’t hide the way seeing them still makes his gut twist uncomfortably. Tommy snorts beside him, bringing him back to reality. “Except Evan decided it was a good idea not to mention me until today” Eddie does a little double take, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline. “Wait, you haven’t told them yet?” “I’m gonna go find Denny,” Christopher announces, bored of listening to the adults. “Is that okay, Dad?” “Yeah, of course bud. See you in a bit,” Eddie says, ruffling Christopher’s hair. The three of them watch as he shoots off, making his way towards Hen, Karen and Denny as fast as his legs can carry him. When he’s safely out of earshot, Eddie rounds on Buck again, fixing him with an incredulous look. “Seriously, Buck, in what world did you think springing this on them today was a good idea?” “That’s what I said!” Tommy says, flicking Buck a smirk as he squeezes his side. “Hey, you’re meant to be on my side!” Buck protests, elbowing Tommy in the ribs, but it’s all forgiven when Tommy brushes a light kiss against Buck’s temple.  “And I didn’t want to tell them in person, I thought doing it like this would be… easier,” Buck finishes lamely, aware of how delusional he’s sounding. “Uh huh, cause telling your parents big, life changing things has always been easy in person hasn’t it,” Eddie deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his eyebrow at Buck in a way that screams you’re an idiot and you know it. “Listen, I wasn’t exactly thinking -” “Clearly,” Tommy and Eddie say in unison, turning to one another with shit-eating grins as Buck gives them both a flat look, before continuing.  “- but, I didn’t want them to gripe at me and say they would have rather heard it face to face than from behind a phone.” “I think they probably would have had a go at you either way, honestly,” Eddie says with a sympathetic shrug, and he reaches over to squeeze Buck’s shoulder. Buck sighs and burrows closer into Tommy’s side, resting his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. Tommy runs his hand down Buck’s spine, rubbing at each spinous process as he encourages Buck to relax. Buck softens a little, biting back a whine as Tommy nuzzles his nose against Buck’s hairline.  “You’re probably right,” he admits with a sigh. He’d really wanted nothing more than to heal his relationship with his parents but turns out it takes more than a little lightning strike and some shitty therapy sessions to mend years of trauma.
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foundmywei · 6 months
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Buddie Fanfic Recs 1
Here are my favorite buddie fics! This post includes 40 of them, go to Part 2 for more~
10k words or under
the wood marked for your fire by hattalove
(10,264 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Chim. Weird question?” Chimney’s chair creaks. Buck cranes his head over the back of the couch and watches him straighten up, pop his back, close the folder. “You only ever ask me weird questions,” he says, and then crosses the loft to sit in one of the armchairs. He levels Buck with a look that’s way too knowing for the amount of words they’ve exchanged. “What’s up?” He takes a breath. “What does it feel like to be a dad?” in which buck is used to wanting things he's not allowed to have; it's just that he never thought being a father would be one of them.
but, baby, watching you blush by calvingseason
(10,100 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Eddie opens his mouth. Closes it. Finally, he settles on, “You told your parents you’re married? To a man?” Chimney and Hen both glance at him with twin looks that clearly mean he’s on his own with telling the rest of the story. Which—they had no problem teasing and joking about it three seconds ago, but now that Buck has to really get to the heart of the issue, they’re leaving it to him? Go fucking figure. “I told my parents,” Buck says, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with closed eyes, “that I’m married to you.” or, buck and eddie go to hershey for buck's high school reunion. the only problem? everyone thinks that they're married.
take my hand (take my everything) by cnomad
(10,307 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
When Buck has another near death experience, he decides the smartest thing to do is update his will. It's not a big deal, really—he just wants to take care of the people who matter most to him: Eddie and Chris. But to Eddie? To Eddie that's a pretty huge deal.
for all the perfect things i doubt by extasiswings
(5,199 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Evan Buckley is really good in bed. Sometimes he wishes he wasn’t.
it was you, love by hammersmiths
(6,673 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Eddie doesn’t realise the pattern until Karen says, “You’re collecting us like Pokémon.” “What, Wilsons?” Eddie says. He’s mostly distracted by Christopher on the couch, who is with Denny showing Miles, Hen and Karen’s newest foster, how to play Animal Crossing on his Switch. Miles is already developing the same starry-eyed look in his eyes Christopher himself gets around Buck. “You certainly don’t make it hard.” “Not Wilsons, dummy,” Karen says. “Lesbians.” Which is—not what Eddie was expecting her to say. “Uh. What?” or, Eddie befriends May and Linda at dispatch. Then realises some stuff.
you remind me of home (oh, baby, merry christmas) by catchingpapermoons
(7,247 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Buck, just come here,” Eddie says, and Buck feels his heart start to pound. “Do you need me to come get you?” “Oh.” He takes another deep breath. “You’re sure?” Eddie laughs. “Like Christopher won’t be over the moon that you’re here.” “For a month, Eddie.” “So?” -- or, Buck has to live with Eddie for a month, which would be fine if he wasn't in love with the guy.
one of the few things by thatnerdemryn
(7,222 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“I want someone who’s going to take care of him, love him just as I would without babying him or making him feel like he can’t do things, you know? I want someone who is going to fight for him, not against him, who would literally go through hell for him because he deserves it--” Eddie cut himself off, but Hen didn’t need him to continue. “You want it to be Buck.” Maybe she should’ve been more surprised or she should’ve asked the question instead of saying it so surely and causing the bit of panic that erupted in Eddie’s eyes, but it was obvious in everything Eddie was expressing. Or five times that Eddie tells someone else that Buck is Christopher's legal guardian plus one time he finally tells Buck.
someday soon i'll make you mine by lecornergirl
(2,710 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
"I didn't raise him to be this dramatic, you know," Eddie mutters as they listen to Christopher making his way down the hallway to make his entrance. "He gets this from you."  Eddie doesn't seem to think there's anything unusual about what he's just said, but something warm blooms in Buck's chest. He gets this from you. His artificial, arbitrary line in the sand between parent and not is blurring once again. 
you can start a family who will always show you love by fleetinghearts
(8,185 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Yeah, yeah, he’s—he’s my kid, he’s my kid,” Buck tells her, tripping over his words in the effort to get this whole process to hurry the fuck up so he can see Chris. There’s the sound of something hitting the floor from behind him, followed by what might be plastic bouncing off the shiny hospital tiles. The person at the desk looks up in surprise, over Buck’s shoulder, and he turns to look too. Eddie’s standing there, Styrofoam cup rolling at his feet, coffee splattered all down the bottom of his faded blue jeans. The plastic lid of the cup skitters over the tile before coming to a stop a few feet away. He looks like someone punched him in the gut, absolutely shellshocked, something Buck can’t quite read behind the startled expression on his face. or, buck's looking for something, and the diazes let him know he already has it
can't see anyone but you by allyasavedtheday
(4,967 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Besides,” he says, clearing his throat. “Once I’m on the date, there’s no beating me. I know how to treat a date right.” Buck tilts his head to the side, his cocky smirk re-emerging as he appraises Eddie. “Wanna put your money where your mouth is, cowboy?” “What?” “Let’s go on a date,” Buck says like it’s obvious. Eddie splutters through some attempt at a response but Buck carries on speaking before he can come up with something to say. “You show me your best date moves and I’ll show you my best date moves and whoever’s better doesn’t have to pay for dinner.” * Post 6x17, Buck and Eddie decide to go on a practice date. It goes exactly how you think it would.
something to hold onto by foxwatson
(5,185 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
There’s about a palm’s width of distance between Eddie’s knee and Buck’s thigh, where they’re both sitting on Eddie’s couch. It would barely take any movement at all for Eddie to just nudge his leg over a little further, press their knees together and let his rest there. or the one where frank tells eddie he should work on letting himself want things, and eddie starts by cuddling with buck
accidents happen ( but i will love you on purpose) by withmeornotatall
(4,425 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 171)
"Buck..." Eddie says lowly. "Did you already put a load of laundry in?" "I had nothing to do whilst Chris was doing his math homework," he explains himself, turning back to Eddie. "And my workout stuff smelt so bad, Eddie. I almost cried." "Buck, let me do the groceries then—" "No, Eddie, its fine." Buck shakes his head resolutely. "You know I love shopping, especially with Chris. And beside, you still have to do the light load and then fold it all up. Even split of chores, I promise." Buck wonders if Hen and Chim ever split their errands on their days off, before Karen and Maddie. (OR: buck kisses eddie, goes grocery shopping with christopher, then realises he's in love with eddie, in that order)
I-10 by sunryder
(6,997 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Instead of taking the 1-40 through Nashville back in 2012, Buck took the I-10 along the southern border. But once you were in West Texas, all roads led to El Paso. There was no getting out of the state without passing through it. Evan considered inevitability a pretty damn good analogy for Eddie Diaz. (Where Buck literally takes a different road and meets Eddie a few years early.)
baby, you were my picket fence by spaceprincessem
(6,179 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Buck is all in. He’s one-hundred percent, give em everything he’s got, will do anything Maddie asks— “You can’t tell anyone,” Maddie suddenly becomes so serious Buck feels like he has whiplash. He blinks a few times, brow furrowed, “Well, yeah I know that.” “No, Buck,” Maddie leans forward covering his hand with her own, “I mean it. No one else is allowed to know about this.” Buck opens his mouth, but Maddie reads him like the traitorous sister that she is and cuts him off by saying, “That includes Eddie.” “Maddie,” Buck whines, and he’s very well aware at how pathetic it sounds, “that’s not fair! It’s — he’s — it’s Eddie!” [or Maddie wants to propose to Chimney. She gets Buck involved. Buck can't tell anyone. He somehow proposes to Eddie instead.]
all i know since yesterday by sibylsleaves
(6,082 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Buck knows what he’s doing might be constituted as ‘a bit creepy,’ but he can’t really help it. He has a book in his lap, so it’s not like he’s just staring at Eddie, but—ok, so he hasn’t actually read a page in over twenty minutes, and in the meantime he has watched his best friend chop like six different kinds of vegetables to go in Bobby’s ragu. “How’s it going, Buck?” Hen asks, flinging herself into the adjacent arm chair. “Fine,” Buck says, barely looking at her. “But something’s up with Eddie.” or, Eddie flirts. Buck worries.
Break Glass in Case of Emergency by Beforeastorm
(2,894 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Eddie’s mind wandered to the red folder, tucked high up in the back of his closet. He recalled back to a conversation he had with Buck, almost a year ago at this point:
“It’s an insurance policy; a break glass in case of emergency. A trump card.” “One I really hope we’ll never have to use.” “But if we have to, we’ll be really glad we did this.” When hospital policy doesn't allow Chris, as an unrelated minor, to visit a comatose post-lightning strike Buck in the ICU, Eddie has a solution. Unfortunately, that involves sharing some pretty personal information in a waiting room filled with the 118.
like a heartbeat racing by elisela
(3,600 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Buck can do this. He can totally do this, it’s just a favor for Maddie, and what’s he good at if not helping out his sister? Sure, doing a cake tasting when you’re neither the bride nor the groom is a little … unorthodox … but it’s cake. He loves cake, he specifically ate fewer carbs all week so he could pig out to his heart’s content on cake, delicious, fluffy cake, and he can do this. “I can’t do this,” he blurts out the night before, pacing the apartment with Eddie on speakerphone. “Maddie said she told them I would be coming so at least I don’t have to pretend to be Chim, but how pathetic is it to show up to a cake tasting alone?”
you were the wilderness I crossed into by rowan_wood
(9,218 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Truth.” “How many times have you fallen in love?” The table was quiet, but Eddie didn’t take long to think it over. “Three times.” “With who?” Lucy asked. “Nope, not part of the question,” he smiled at Lucy, easy as anything. Buck tried to count quickly in his head, the math not adding up. “My turn, right?” Eddie asked the group. “Chim. Truth or dare.” or: the 118 has a 24 hour shift, and zero calls. The firefam spends it playing games, and everyone takes the opportunity to tell Buck just how much they love him.
11k - 40k words
The Family We Choose by maybeamystery
(20,468 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Hey, bud!” says the scowling man, suddenly all smiles. The smile changes his face into something beautiful; Kelly realizes that this kid has not one but two hot dads. As he’s swept into the arms of his other dad and they start off in the direction of the nearest ice cream shop, Kelly says to the curly-haired man, “You two have an adorable son.” [10 times Buck is mistaken for Christopher's dad and 2 times it's not a mistake. Contains major spoilers for 5x14]
a leaf falls on loneliness by iimpossible_things
(11,163 words | Not Rated | Chapters: 1/1)
Buck doesn’t think that if he were to say, “I’m in a bad place”, that anyone would turn him away. Really, he doesn’t. The 118 has too many good, kind people for that. But every time he wants to open his mouth, to say something, to reach out to Eddie or Bobby or Hen or Chim, he hears Eddie yelling, “you’re exhausting.” —you’re exhausting, you’re exhausting, you’re exhausting— So each day he does his job and he laughs and he jokes and he pretends he’s the care-free goofball he’s always been. And each day he packs away his bruises and his worries, takes them home to his empty loft with its quiet rooms, and licks his wounds in silence.
Buy Back the Secrets by allyasavedtheday
(18,808 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 3/3)
He casts his gaze to the right, to the voice he’d heard a minute ago and the hand still on his shoulder. And, well. Okay. So Buck may have just been unconscious for an indeterminable length of time but he doesn’t think he’s exaggerating when he says the guy leaning over his bedside is one of the most attractive people he’s seen in a long time. Especially when his face splits into a smile that rivals the brightness of the hospital lights that almost just fucking blinded Buck a second ago. “Welcome back, hotshot,” the guy says and it sounds fond – familiar – and Buck honestly has no idea who this guy is. His brown hair is dishevelled on top of his head and his eyes look tired but then Buck notices the LAFD t-shirt so- alright. Someone from the firehouse, maybe? But he’s pretty sure he’d remember a face like that. * After getting hurt on a call, Buck wakes up thinking it's 2018. AKA Buck can't remember who Eddie is but he's pretty sure everyone's lying when they say they're "just friends."
you're my whole house by hammersmiths
(11,958 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
Eddie shrugs. “Christopher mentioned to Daniel that Buck and I are partners. I mean, sure, it’s a little weird that she invited him over as well, but—” “Partners,” Hen interrupts, “like work partners?” Eddie and Buck glance at each other. “Uh, yeah?” Eddie says. “What other type of partner?” Hen stares at them for a moment, before she bursts out laughing. “You dumbasses. She thinks you’re together.”
the distance to the stars by cloudydaisies
(27,258 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Didn’t know you were seeing someone.” Buck just laughs. Like, honest to god giggles. Eddie is stuck fighting off doubly massive waves of butterflies and confusion, all while Buck just gazes down at him. “That’s cute,” he hears Buck mumble, just before climbing into the truck, calling Eddie after him. - or, everyone knows eddie is dating buck except for eddie, literally.
The Definition of Love and All Things Ineffable by ElvenSorceress
(29,351 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 3/3)
Maddie asks him, like she’s been waiting to ask him, “Does Christopher call you ‘Uncle Buck’?” It’s… it sounds so casual. Nonchalant. Maybe even reasonable? And like there’s something she’s trying to figure out, but why would Chris ever call Buck his uncle? He’s Jee-Yun’s uncle. “No,” Buck answers. “Why?” “He called me Aunt Maddie.” She tips her head curiously, brows knit together. “You’re far closer to him than I am. I thought if I’m his aunt, you’d have to be his uncle. Why wouldn’t you be Uncle Buck?” There are pieces of chicken mushed into Jee’s fingers and carrots sticking to the bib draped over her front and what might be peas caught in her hair. And Buck doesn’t really have an answer. It’s just. It’s wrong. He’s not Chris’ Uncle Buck. Maybe he should be? Maybe he’s supposed to be? Or maybe Chris doesn’t call him that directly because he’s always been BFF Buck or His Buck. He shrugs and uneasiness settles in his stomach. What more could he ever be to Chris but an uncle? ~~~ In which Buck processes his breakup, learns his place in his family, has a huge crisis of sexuality, and finds the truth about love beating in his own heart.
Didn't think you meant it by EtoileGarden
(33,519 words | Explicit | Chapters: 12/12)
“Y’know,” he said. Shrugged again. “That last call? I kind of thought I’d have that by now.” “What,” Eddie raised his eyebrows at him. “A roof collapsing on you?” Buck grunted, elbowed Eddie. Lightly, because he did appreciate the humour in Eddie’s voice. “No,” he said. “Just - married.”
drink the river dry by Rianne
(32,215 words | Explicit | Chapters: 1/1)
It wasn’t until they were discussing his discharge paperwork and painkiller schedules that it really sunk in for Eddie that Buck would be staying with him and Christopher. That he would be around 24/7 except for his shifts at work. That he’ll sleep on the couch, where he’s been sleeping for days now to look after Christopher. The worst part is that it’s necessary—Eddie isn’t going to be able to do a damn thing for himself for the next couple of weeks. He’s lucky if he can put a shirt on by himself a month from now. Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. Or: Eddie gets shot, breaks up with his girlfriend, and pines like there’s no tomorrow.
Despite it all, Because of it all by kitkatpancakestack
(23,747 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
He puts the truck in park in front of Eddie’s childhood home. Christopher shifts in the back, already unbuckling his seatbelt. Eddie is frozen with his jaw set, eyes hard and unblinking as they bore holes through the windshield. Buck was here once before, after that relief trip to Texas, but he is under no illusions that this time will be similar. For one, he doesn’t have the buffer of other firefighters to hide behind. This isn’t a visit that will last a couple hours, and so the sugary, superficial niceties will eventually crumble when it’s mid-way through the week and he’s still hanging around. There is also the shadow of everything that has happened since the wildfires skulking behind them, waiting to be found out. But, this is Eddie and Christopher, needing him to have it together, so he paints on a smile and squeezes Eddie's knee and slides out of the truck. * Eddie's dad gets sick. Buck goes with him and Christopher to El Paso.
you light the spark in my bonfire heart by woodchoc_magnum
(22,669 words | Mature | Chapters: 2/2)
A post-5b fic, in which Buck slowly realises that he's been in love with Eddie this whole time.
some day i'll fall into you by allyasavedtheday
(13,467 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
I got you. I got you. I got you.
“You said that,” he says, clearing his throat around the emotion clogging his windpipe. “In the firetruck. I heard you.”
Buck leans back enough that they’re looking at each other. The hand he’d had on the back of Eddie’s head moves to the side of his neck, his thumb pressing lightly against the hinge of Eddie’s jaw.
Eddie swallows around the lump in his throat and meets his gaze. “I believed you then.”
Buck sighs like the breath has been punched out of him and leans forward to press their foreheads together. “Believe me now,” he murmurs and Eddie’s not sure if it’s a plea or a request but he finds himself nodding anyway.
“Okay.”
*
A look at how Eddie deals with his recovery post-4x14.
I Know a Place We Can Go by maybeamystery
(15,580 words | Explicit | Chapters: 1/1)
“Well, that was heartwarming,” Chimney says loudly. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s go save some lives. In WeHo. Where Buck goes to gay bars because he is apparently a bisexual now.” “I’ve always been a bisexual,” Buck sniffs. “You just didn’t notice.” “There are gay bars outside of WeHo,” Hen adds. “Just saying.” [5 times Buck and Eddie get hit on in West Hollywood and 1 time they definitely do not]
Tick Tick Boom by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
(30,439 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)
“Did you know if you put a frog in water and slowly bring it to boiling, it won’t hop out?” Chris is chattering as Buck makes a quick dinner while Eddie argues with his gas company on the phone. He can hear the occasional swear word in Spanish as his voice raises. Eddie doesn’t like to raise his voice around Christopher – the very thought makes Buck want to kiss him full on the mouth – so he decided to take it to the living room while Chris sits with his homework in the kitchen and Buck cooks. “Hmm?” Buck asks, unable to fully pull himself out of Bobby’s baked mac and cheese recipe. It took him years, but he finally convinced the man to write it down. Bobby’s handwriting was juvenile at best on a good day, but this was nearly unreadable. Buck wonders if he did that on purpose. “Frogs?” “Yeah!” Chris states. “My teacher said that if you put a frog in a pot, you have to make sure it’s not immediately boiling. You put them in water and then slowly raise the temperature and they won’t realize what’s happening. Then once they realize, they have no place to go. They can’t jump out.” * S6 Spec: Buck decides he doesn’t need therapy, reverts to some bad habits, and explodes. Or, the Breakdown Fic.
40k+ words
To Build a Home We Deconstruct Our Rituals by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
(44,248 words | Explicit | Chapters: 11/11)
After the shooting, Eddie realizes he needs to put some things in place. Like who will get his assets if he dies. Who will speak for him if he ends up in a coma. What might happen if his family contests Buck's guardianship. Luckily, he's got a simple easy-peasy solution that won't result in insanity, catastrophe, or heartbreak:
Marry Buck.
the mortifying ordeal of being known by Polish_Amber
(60,866 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 7/7
The thing was, the 118 was full of gossips. Eddie had been at the station less than a week before Hen and Chim wrangled details about his “hot young thing” from him (“Buck is only 4 years younger than me, he is not a ‘hot young thing’!” Eddie complained.) And Bobby was open about his worries for his son’s lack of direction and the secrets he appears to be keeping (“I just wish I could help Evan find the thing that gives him purpose,” Bobby lamented.) It just made it all the more ridiculous (and horrifying) when Eddie realizes he’s been dating his Captain’s son this whole time (“Defiling his baby,” Chimney cackled, because he clearly wanted Eddie murdered.) -- Or, the AU where miscommunication abounds as Eddie seeks advice about his new relationship, Bobby despairs over his adopted son's career prospects and his refusal to talk about it, and Evan Buckley-Nash juggles training at the fire academy, building a family with his new boyfriend, and trying to work out how to tell his overprotective dad that he's already chosen the life he wants, actually. It takes a goddamn tsunami, of all things, to get the story straight.
Stuck on Fast Forward (Throw Away the Blueprint) by extasiswings
(42,884 words | Explicit | Chapters: 9/9)
“Sounds like the problem is you think casual sex with a stranger or finding someone new to date are your only options.” Eddie’s brow furrows. “Aren’t they?” “I mean, there’s always…someone you already know. Who you’re already comfortable with.” “Because my pool of male friends who are single and who would be interested in having sex with me has so many options?” “Well, I don’t know about many, but you only need one,” Buck points out. “And who would that be?” “Me, of course.” [Or: Frank gives Eddie therapy homework, Eddie misunderstands the assignment, and Buck is just a really supportive friend...right?]
Don't Take My Sunshine Away by SevenSoulmates
(113,785 words | Mature | Chapters: 21/21)
Eddie is in a coma, and Buck blames himself. He should've been there to protect Eddie. The least he can do now is to be there for Christopher, even if Buck doesn't know if he has it in him to be a parent without Eddie. Buck makes Eddie a deal: he'll fight for Christopher in the real world, while Eddie fights to wake up. Eddie's come a long way since those bleak days in El Paso, listening to his parents comments about how he's not fit to be a father. How Christopher doesn't deserve to be dragged down by the likes of Eddie and Shannon. Eddie thought after moving to LA, he and Chris had escaped that. When he wakes up and finds Buck neck-deep in a legal battle with his parents for custody of Christopher, Eddie must face his own mistakes, and find the confidence to stand up for himself against his absolute worst nightmare.
i think i belong to you (hope you feel the same) by Ran
(41,111 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 4/4)
Buck’s taking him to therapy, where he knows Eddie’s therapist’s name and Eddie’s entire history with him; Buck, who let himself into Eddie’s house with food from Eddie’s favorite coffee shop with coffee crafted perfectly for Eddie’s tastes; Buck, who apparently has a book on Eddie’s coffee table with so many dog-eared pages it’s like any interruption at Eddie’s house is worth putting it down. Buck, who touches him with a devotion as palpable as all the little pieces of himself scattered throughout Eddie's home. Eddie thinks he might have solved his own question, but he’s afraid to look at the answer too closely—because he’s fairly certain his best friend is in love with him, and Eddie can’t remember a single thing about him. Or, the one where Eddie wakes up from the shooting only to think he was hurt in a certain 7.1 earthquake years prior and learns to appreciate the life he's created for himself since then.
Overcome by Spicysauce
(53,697 words | Mature | Chapters: 10/10)
“I’m not leaving you, Buck.” Eddie says with a tired sigh, like he’s struggling with the weight of the world and Buck’s the one who put it there. “Just switching jobs, that’s all.” That’s all?, Buck wants to scream, because every relationship he has is tied to the job in some way, and first Maddie left, and then it was Chimney, and now it’s Eddie. But he doesn’t scream, because that would be a little bit too tragic, even for him, and nods instead. Bites his tongue. Pretends that he isn't falling apart where he's stood. *** Or, set post season 5A, where Buck is alone, and angry, and exhausted, but mostly terrified that everyone he loves is slowly slipping away from him.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Buck by sunryder
(50,287 words | Mature | Chapters: 13/13)
Red is dying and Buck is fucked up about it. Not just about losing a friend, but about ending up like Red: dying alone without the people who used to be his team. Buck doesn’t want to go out like that. It might take him a few panic attacks, a road trip, and a book recommendation, but Buck is going to tidy his life up.
let the world have its way with you by fleetinghearts
(54,477 words | Explicit | Chapters: 1/1)
“It’s just that—I died,” Buck continues, voice unsteady enough that Eddie wonders if this is the first time he’s acknowledged that out loud. “I died, and there’s so much more. There’s so much more I want to do, things I don’t even know I want to do yet, and I almost had the chance to have and live them taken away. I don’t want to die and regret missing out on everything else, Eddie.” “So let’s make a list,” Eddie says. “Let’s do them.” or, a bucket list that’s really about buck needing to make a change and an eddie who’s ready to do anything to see him fall in love with life again. it takes some crossing off for eddie to realise—the thing at the top of the list in his own heart? it’s been right here all along
you and me by woodchoc_magnum
(55,411 words | Mature | Chapters: 2/2)
An alternate ending to Season 6, where Buck realises that what he's been searching for has been right in front of him the whole time.
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911 7x05 CODA
"I guess it's a good thing you didn't insist on a plus one, Buckaroo." "Well... actually..."
Hen pauses the game the fourth time Buck's phone chimes.
"Are you going to answer that?" She asks, giving him a pointed look.
"No." Buck leans back against the couch's back with a huff. "It's Maddie again, asking what I think about the flower arrangements, or the centerpieces, or something."
"I thought you were banned from wedding planning."
"I am! Or- or I was, I guess, but now that she actually has to make the final choices she keeps asking me these things. And I would have an answer for her if she let me just arrange the clipboard I suggested."
"Oh, no, no, no. No clipboards for you."
Buck rolls his eyes. His phone chimes again and he stuffs it under a pillow.
"Just give her your opinion."
"See, I tried that, but then she goes and chooses the other one anyway."
"Then tell her the other one."
"And what if she does choose that one and then it's a mess? I think I'll pass. If I do anything that screws up this wedding Maddie and Chimney will never forgive me."
"I think you're being a little overdramatic, Buck. It's just a wedding."
"It's not! It's Maddie's wedding. It has to be perfect."
Hen seems to consider that for a moment, taking a sip of her tea.
"Yeah, I want it to be perfect too. For her and Chim. I mean, they deserve it. Even Karen's freaked out, she's been trying a million different dresses for the ceremony. I swear, she looks gorgeous in all of them, but she's never satisfied."
"Yeah, Eddie said something similar about Marisol. Apparently, she's nervous about meeting everyone else. I mean- again. Officially."
"A wedding date is a big deal. Makes everything very official."
"It- it does?" Buck blinks.
Hen smiles at him, in that way that's equal parts you're an idiot and you're unfortunately cute, sometimes.
"I guess it's a good thing you didn't insist on a plus one, Buckaroo."
"Well... actually..."
"Wait, you're bringing someone to the wedding?" Hen puts her cup down. "I didn't know you were dating anyone."
"It's, uh, kinda new."
"And you're bringing her to your sister's wedding?"
"I mean, it's not like it's someone new totally out of the blue, okay? I'm not bringing, like, some stranger I picked up on a dating app or anything."
"Who are we talking about?"
Hen's brow furrows with what could well be confusion or curiosity. And that's when Buck knows he can't talk his way out of the next part of this conversation. It's not a new idea. He's not that much of an idiot. He knew the rest of his teammates would have to learn about Tommy eventually, when they showed up to the wedding together, but having an actual conversation about it was not in his plans for a lazy Wednesday afternoon. Deep down, he wishes the alarm would magically go off right now and send them into some sort of emergency to get him out of it, but the silence in the fire house is deafening. So he has no choice.
"Well, I'm- I'm bringing Tommy as my plus one."
And then, just then, Hen's mouth twist with something like distaste or disappointment that makes Buck's entire stomach fall to his knees.
"Tommy?" She says, arching an eyebrow. "Buck, you do know that a plus one in a wedding is meant to be for partners, right? Not just to bring extra friends to the party."
"Wha- yeah, I know that."
"But you're still bringing Tommy."
Buck nods, then realizes that the fact isn't quite registering for her. So he takes a deep breath. Why is he nervous? It was different with Eddie. That was... well, he doesn't even know what he was so scared about when it came to that one. But this is Hen. If anyone will understand, if anyone will be supportive, it will be her. Still, he feels like his heart is about to jump out of his chest before he gathers the courage to say:
"I'm- I'm bringing Tommy... as my date. I- I mean, not a first date, of course. That- that would not be great. We've actually been going out for, well, a couple weeks. But, yeah, I really like him, so... I asked him, and he said yes. A- And Maddie wanted to meet him. And Eddie knows, but I don't know if Chim does, though Maddie has probably told him already. But I guess it would be weird if she didn't, right?"
"Wait, wait, wait-" Hen holds a hand up, finally, thankfully, putting an end to his rambling. "So. You are dating Tommy? Tommy Kinard?"
"Yes," he says and manages to sound a little more steady this time.
Hen's eyes stare into the distance. Buck can picture her entire image of him, of Tommy, of the two of them, rearranging in her head. He gives her a moment, and stays quiet, even though he feels he's going to burst into flames at any second. Finally, Hen turns to look at him again. Her eyes soften and she smiles in that very especial way that makes him feel seen and loved, the same that made him feel welcome in the 118 for the first time.
"Thank you for telling me, Buck. I know how scare it can be the first few times."
He ducks his head to hide the overwhelming emotion catching him by the throat.
"So... how long have you known?"
"That I- I maybe... well, probably... more thank likely like guys? I- I don't know. I guess always? But I also thought it was something normal, you know? That every guy felt that we. I never... until Tommy, I guess, I never really realized..."
Liar. A voice whispers inside him. Because he's been going a lot of thinking the past few days and realized there'd been times. Nights out with friends, dancing in the floor, or quiet evenings sharing beers, or afternoons at the beach, or late nights at the gym... there was his best friend in highschool, and the one guy he met in college who was maybe hitting on him and he was into it (before he dropped out and lost contact), there were moments in his travels that felt charged with possibility and the intrusive idea what if I just leaned in? and maybe other things he's not ready or willing to name, more recently, memories he daren't even touch on yet.
"I- I don't even really know what I am," he admits, squinting like the admission pains him. It does. "I just- I like Tommy. I liked kissing him."
"You've kissed?"
"Y-yeah, Hen, I did tell you we're going out."
"Right," she laughs. "Sorry, it's just... hard to wrap my head around the idea of the same womanizer kid I met a few years ago... but if this is you, even then, I suppose that kid was already... you."
"I don't know what that is, though. I mean, I like women, you know I like them. I just also..."
"Might be bisexual?"
"Bisexual? Uh, I guess. I- I don't know. I've never had to think about it before now."
"Hey, it's okay, Buck. You don't have to put a name to it yet. Whatever it is, you don't need to label it. Though... you might find it useful. I know how much you like to label stuff."
He chuckles at that, though a clipboard isn't going to save him now. Hen must feel his despair, because she reaches out to put a hand on top of his.
"Whatever it is, Buck, you don't need to know right now, okay? You just... let yourself feel it, and trust your instincts."
"My instincts kinda suck sometimes, though."
Hen laughs. "But your heart is always in the right place. I know it, Buckaroo. And this... this isn't something you can solve in a blink of an eye. It takes... exploration to know yourself, especially when you don't fit in the neat little box society expected for you."
"Right... I guess... I've been trying to find the answers, but I don't want to miss the journey while doing so."
"Buck, look at me," Hen says, softly, and waits for their eyes to meet. "I'm so proud of you."
Holding her gaze is hard when his eyes start to water.
"Thanks, Hen. I- I guess... I hadn't told you yet, because it felt very important. And I didn't- I'm not sure about anything yet, and I didn't want it to feel like I was lying to you, like I was pretending to be someone I'm not... or like I- I was taking up space that doesn't belong to me, you know?"
"Buck, if you think you might belong here, that you might be part of the community... then you absolutely have a place here, okay? Even if you don't know what to call it yet, even if you never do... and no one can tell you otherwise."
A new weight is lifted from Buck's shoulders. There's been a lot of that going around lately. Buck feels lighter than ever these days. Hen pulls him into a hug and he lets himself bask in her warmth, in the safety she provides. Someday, he thinks, maybe he'll be as steady and strong as her, so assured of who he is and what he can be. For now, he's just so thankful to have her.
"Now," he says, pretending not to catch the stray tear she cleans off her cheek as they pull back, "can we go back to me beating you in Mario Kart?"
"Oh, not a chance, Buckley. You are going down!" She chuckles, restarting the game before he can even grab his control.
"Hey, hey, hey, that's cheating!" He yells, pushing her with his shoulder as he tries to recover his first place.
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