Ok well i had the brief thought “what about an ER nurse Eddie au?” and then this popped fully formed into existence so fuck it Friday pt 2.. warnings for smoking and vague references to critically injured kids
“That doesn’t seem very healthy.”
Smoke curls up from the cigarette held loosely in Eddie’s hand. “It’s not, particularly.”
Buck’s hands are in his pockets as he strolls away from the glass doors out into the ambulance bay where Eddie is doing the mature, professional equivalent of playing hide and seek. He comes to a stop barely a foot or two away from where Eddie leans against grimy concrete. “Didn’t know you were a smoker.”
“I’m not,” Eddie sighs, “Particularly.” He looks over Buck’s face as he takes a drag, cataloging bruises and cuts. He hadn’t been the one to look him over before he was discharged, probably because he was out here avoiding having to do so. “Only when it’s- only after the bad shifts.” And only once a month, even if the bad shifts come again and again. He bought this pack in January, it’s stale as shit.
Buck’s eyes follow the smoke as it drifts skyward. “Rough one today?”
Eddie thinks he probably doesn’t have to explain to Buck that it’s sometimes better when a kid is dead on arrival so he doesn’t have to try his best to administer care he knows will be useless. He doesn’t have to explain a day where nothing goes right and he loses more people than he can save and he still has to walk away from someone’s parent or wife or sister, left behind forever in a waiting room on the worst day of their life, and go on to lose the next person too. Doesn’t have to explain why he’s out here, and not in there. “Mm. We’ve got this repeat customer, always hate to have him back.”
Buck’s eyes flick to his face before they settle somewhere around his elbow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. He seems like a nice guy. I worry about him. He’s here too often.”
Buck doesn’t look up. “What was he in for this time?”
“Minor concussion. Bruising. Lacerations.” Eddie sucks cancer into his lungs. “Heard a house fell on him.” Exhales it into the night.
Buck does look up this time, eyes a darker blue out here in the shadows. “Part of a house. Just a staircase and the- like, the balcony, really.”
“Maybe he should stay away from those.”
“From houses?” Buck asks, half his mouth twitching into a smile.
Eddie rests his head on the wall behind him. “Guess that’s not really practical.”
“No.” Buck is quiet for a moment, one hand slipping out of his pocket and running through his hair. Eddie wonders what he looks like, when he’s not here. He’s more styled, sometimes, when things aren’t very bad. He wonders if he’s usually all gelled up and neat. Eddie kind of likes the loose curls. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Making your day worse.” Buck looks genuinely apologetic, and Eddie shakes his head.
“The guy made it out okay this time.” Buck is just close enough that Eddie can kick at his boot with his sensible orthopedic sneaker. “You didn’t even need stitches.”
“That’s good.” Eddie’s left foot is pressed along the inside of Buck’s right, and Buck is staring down at them. “His favorite nurse was on break. I would have missed you if someone else had to do them.”
Eddie laughs, just a few bursts of soundless oxygen. “You gotta find new ways to see me before something happens that I can’t fix.”
Buck moves, taking the few steps necessary to lean against the wall beside him. Carefully, he takes the cigarette from Eddie’s hand, holds it between two of his own fingers, and takes a drag. Eddie watches it happen like he’s monitoring somebody’s pulse ox, and when Buck coughs he laughs again, louder this time. “Fuck,” Buck says, laughing too. “Thought that would be cooler than it was.”
“Smoking isn’t cool, firefighter Buckley,” Eddie says, taking the cigarette back and pulling from it again between smiling lips.
“Hm,” Buck says, grinning out into the night. Then he sighs, and rolls his head along the concrete to look at Eddie. “I think there’s nothing you can’t fix.”
They’re very close. “There’s lots I can’t fix.”
Buck shrugs like he disagrees. “I also think I’d like to find other ways to see you.”
Buck’s eyes are even more in shadow at this angle, and they’re the color of the lake back in El Paso that he and a bunch of kids went to after graduation, drunk off beer somebody’s cousin got for them, skinny dipping with breathless terrified delight under bright constellations. “Then ask me.”
Buck inhales as Eddie exhales. “What time’s your shift end?”
“5:30 AM. So, probably 6:15.”
Buck traces the two fingers he’d used to hold the cigarette down Eddie’s arm. “You wanna get breakfast with me?”
“Yes. I would.”
Buck smiles, and Eddie snubs out the cigarette on the wall between them. “I’ll meet you here?”
“Alright.” He takes a step forward, then a step to the right so he’s standing in front of Buck. “Two hours.”
“Uh huh.”
He should really get back inside. They’re understaffed, as always, and there are too many patients, as always, and not enough beds, as always. “See you then.” He doesn’t make any move to leave.
“See you then,” Buck almost whispers. He leans forward, and Eddie still doesn’t move, so he presses a tiny kiss to the corner of his mouth for just a moment. His lips are warm. Eddie hadn’t noticed it was cold outside.
Buck pulls back and leans against the wall again. Eddie smiles, puts a hand in his pocket, and walks back toward the doors.
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i think if it came down to it, lucy would choose both tim and their kids over being a uc. she even said she would step away at somepoint (ik that was in regards to smth similar to isabel, but i think it would apply to their family as well)
that's my thing, from what i gather of lucy just based off what very little background information we have on her character, i assume she grew up an only child. and from witnessing how her parents treat her and set all these expectations for her, it just seems to me like the only time they really paid attention to her growing up was for any big scholastic events, or whenever she had any other big assignment to turn in. ik that sounds incredibly stereotypically racist, and i hope no one sees me that way, it's truly not at all my intention. but i've never got past how lucy's mom slapped her in the face with "become a doctor!" after she tried to express how much she loves being a cop and how rewarding of a job it is. like... idk.... something about that particular line has never sat right with me.
it's just ironic that both her parents are psychiatrists and work in therapy, yet they both continue to emotionally neglect and ridicule her constantly. and it is for those reasons why i feel like she wouldn't think twice about turning her back on undercover work. because she wants to be more involved in her children's lives than her parents ever were in hers. chenford really are two sides of the same coin in a way... neither one of them seems to have had all that great of a childhood in the sense where lucy was probably ignored and emotionally neglected a lot, while tim was being physically/emotionally/mentally abused by his father. but both of them are going to break that cycle of bad parenting and will love and support their kids so much that it's actually gonna be embarrassing for them lol.
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