At this rate I think anytime Athena travels anywhere they should just have emergency services on standby. Like forget worrying about storm clouds on the horizon. The moment you spot Athena in your general vicinity it’s time to high tail it out of there.
Can’t believe I jokingly predicted 911 in space as an insane option. Somewhere out there Tim was stalking my Tumblr and decided to make it an insane reality.
So do you think after Buck and Maddie’s conversation Buck’s been doing his standard internet rabbit hole googling “Am I in love?” quizzes? Because I’m fully picturing him doing every Cosmo quiz he finds and them all coming back with the result that he’s in love with Eddie. Maybe one quiz says it’s inconclusive and he’s like “Well that clearly means we are platonic” because he’s got his ostrich head fully in the sand.
Now that ABC has officially launched 9-1-1 Nashville and Lonestar’s actors are in need of work I’d like to pitch Nashville as 9-1-1 Legally Distinct. Tommy Vega? Never heard of her. Our paramedic captain is Terry Venic. Over there is KT and his husband Carl. That happy couple is Charity and Joseph Walker. Why’d you call him Paul? That’s clearly Peter Struckwater. Over there is his platonic soulmate Mary Marwanah.
hotshots xyz gets accused of homophobia because it doesn't have any canon queer characters on the show so they pull a rise of skywalker and start doing a bunch of press about an upcoming queer arc meanwhile the execs are cornering buck and eddie and going hey would you mind sharing a smooch in the back of this one scene so we can fulfill our diversity quota...
When Casey brings The Issue into the exec room, nobody bats a fucking eye. Which, sure, she hadn't expected much from the gaggle of old white cishet men being told their audience is a little bit pissed off about their lack of queer representation. She'd known that was going to be the case ever since she had suggested that the new firefighter they brought on in season 2, Santiago, be gay. The execs had simply blinked three times in perfect unison before saying "... but he had a wife."
So, Casey was on the front lines of this fight alone. Or not alone exactly. She had two writers from the team and Santiago's actor consulting on the PowerPoint presentation with her and ready to present by her side. But it was Casey who had been dismissed from the boardroom with a hand wave and a "have a camp man choke on some fruitcake or something".
Well. Fuck that.
Casey takes laps around set to destress, listening to a meditation podcast to stop the vein in her forehead from bursting. By the time it finishes, she's stumbled into another one of her headaches.
The shoot where Brad had insisted on three real life firefighters trying their hand at acting in what was supposed to be one of the most emotional scenes of the season. Instead, Casey has to watch one of them stumble through lines stiff as cardboard, the other inject some real telenovela hair flipping energy into pulling his mask down and the third give Goldblum in The Fly a run for his money.
Jesus.
She parks herself at the end of the craft table with the extensive donut collection and starts picking at an original glazed before giving in to the siren song of the triple chocolate monstrosity staring her down.
Maybe she should quit and become a reclusive hermit haunting the Hollywood sign. Maybe she should burn HQ to the fucking ground and ask Brad to attempt putting it out. Maybe she should politely tell each of the execs to try sucking the homophobia out of each other's dicks.
She stuffs the donut into her mouth in one go just as telenovela nurse approaches the table. Casey scrambles for a napkin and presses it over her mouth like it'll hide the way her cheeks are bulging like a chipmunk's, but, fuck, telenovela nurse is hot. And, look, she works in Hollywood, she's become desensitised to hot, not to mention the lesbian pin on her lanyard, and yet. Telenovela nurse has got something going on.
"You motherfucker," telenovela nurse throws over his shoulder as he makes a beeline for the donuts. There's real venom in his voice, but he offers Casey a kind smile on the flip of a dime, raising his eyebrow at the box of donuts by her hip. She nods and pushes them towards him with a smile she belatedly realises is hidden behind her napkin.
"Eddie, c'mon," cardboard nurse whines, practically draping himself over Eddie's back. "I didn't know they'd make me Nurse Number One."
"Oh, I'm sure," Eddie scoffs, stuffing half a doughnut into his mouth at once. Casey likes him. "Hm," he hums and turns to his friend. "Not as good as yours."
Cardboard nurse ducks his head and smiles, a pretty pink blush dusting his cheeks.
Interesting.
"Seriously, man, I bet it's just because of our names. Like-like alphabetical or something," he says. "You know, Buckley, Diaz. That's probably all."
"Sure," Eddie drawls. "Definitely aren't laying it on thick with all the accent compliments to Brad or anything."
"I just think it's cool!" Buckley insists. "You know I went down that sociolinguistics rabbit hole a few months ago. And, hey, did you know that accents might actually start developing before we're even born?"
"Wait, really?" Eddie asks.
"Yeah!" Buckley nods like a dog with a chew toy. "This study found that babies might even cry differently depending on their mother tongue. These German babies cried with a falling melody, but the French babies cried on a rising note. They think it's because the babies are trying to imitate their mothers to form a bond which is just adorable to think about."
"Chris pronounces scientific words the same way you do, you know?" Eddie says, squinting between the half of a glazed donut in his hand and the one in the box decorated with froot loops. He hands the glazed one over to Buckley who takes it like an instinct and then just kind of holds it in his limp hand. "What's that constellation you can't say right?"
"Auriga," Buckley mumbles. Casey narrows her eyes at the pink flooding his cheeks.
"Yeah, that's the one." Eddie grabs the froot loop donut. "I've corrected him a dozen times, but he still says it the way you taught him."
Buckley, all six foot two of beefy firefighter, melts.
Casey doesn't know where Brad found these two, but she might have to kiss him for it.
"Excuse me, man," Santiago's actor, Jones, says as he leans around Buckley for a sandwich. "Hey, Case." Casey's almost too invested in the way Buckley gets a little slack-jawed at the man's biceps to realise he's speaking to her.
"Hey." She rolls her eyes at herself and swallows her mouthful of donut, wiping at her mouth with the napkin. "Hey, how's it going?"
"Good. Got that scene with April later, if you wanted to watch," he teases, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Oh, fuck off." She scoffs.
"Yes, ma'am." He offers her a little salute, winks at Buckley and retreats to his chair.
Casey watches rapt as Buckley has to pick his jaw up off the floor and physically tear his eyes away from Jones.
"You should ask him out," Eddie says and, damn, maybe Casey underestimated his acting abilities. It sounds genuine enough, enthusiastic even, but she's been around actors long enough to hear the tightness in his voice, to see the suddenly tense line of his shoulders.
"W-what? Oh." Buckley blushes a deep red and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "No, I'm not... I'm not ready for anything yet."
"Still thinking about Tommy?"
"Tom-" Buckley frowns. "Oh, yeah, Tommy. Right. Um, no, not really."
"Yeah." Buck nods, the slightest twist to his face. "Good," he echoes hollowly.
"We're going again!" the director yells.
"Shit." Eddie shoves the rest of his donut in his mouth.
"Besides." Buck leans into Eddie's shoulder. "His mustache hasn't got anything on yours."
A plan begins to form in Casey's mind as she watches Buckley bound away like a gangly deer whilst his friend tries not to choke on his donut.
In the thirteen takes Brad drags everyone kicking and screaming through, Casey manages to scheme to completion. She's got the two writers in her pocket working on it and decides against sending an email to her bosses. Ask for forgiveness, not permission or whatever they say.
When Brad is finally happy, Casey drags Eddie and Buck aside before they can drift away to their fellow firefighters.
"Did we do something wrong?" Buck asks, shooting a look at Eddie.
"No, no, not at all." She slaps on her best, most winning smile. "I was just hoping you two could help me out with something."
"We can try," Eddie says, raising his eyebrows at Buck.
"Great!" She claps her hands together. "So, my bosses are a bunch of bigots, and the show is currently getting slated for having no queer characters which I'm doing my goddamn best to change, but." She rolls her eyes. "Anyway, they said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that we can shove a couple of rainbow flags in the background. Would you two be interested in being my flags?" She takes extra care to pronounce the L.
"Uh... w-what?" Buck blurts out.
"You two are gold. Your chemistry is crazy. Two of the interns are already giggling about the nurse one nurse two fanfic they're going to be reading when this episode comes out." Casey decides it'd probably be kinder to all of them to pretend she can't see the matching shade of fuchsia they've both turned. "So, this is the start of a gunman in a hospital storyline. Brad's going to save the day fresh off his coma obviously. But there's this scene where one of his firefighters gets shot on their way to visit him, and we need two nurses to tend to him in a hospital storage room."
"So, we'd just be... patching up a firefighter?" Eddie asks.
"Well, we'd give you a couple of lines. Then, one of you hears a scream and goes to help. Self-sacrificing trope and all. And you'd have a little reunion kiss at the end of the episode, if you guys would be comfortable with that. So, what do you say?"
"Oh, um, w-well, see, I'm... But Eddie isn't... So, he'd probably... And a sniper... W-well, that's not... We don't really want to—"
"We'll do it," Eddie says. Buck flinches like he's been shot.
"Um, we-we will?" Buck whispers. Eddie shrugs at him.
"Sure, why not? It'll be fun."
"But the sniper—"
"It's a TV show, Buck." Eddie rolls his eyes and nudges their shoulders together. "We'll be fine."
"So, you'll do it?" Casey asks. Eddie looks to Buck who looks to Casey like a cornered animal trying to figure out how to escape. He deflates. Casey just about manages not to jump in joy.
"We'll do it," Buck mumbles, red as a fire engine.
"Great." Casey nods over at Jones who does a little fist pump for her as he gets out of his chair. "We're actually moving straight onto that scene now. So, I'll introduce you to your patient whilst they set everything up."
"Hey," Jones says, sidling over. "I'm Tyler. I play Santiago. You guys gonna be patching me up?"
"Yeah." Eddie nods, offering his hand out. Tyler shakes it with the smile he uses on the cute intern whenever he wants one of his overly complicated coffee orders. "I'm Eddie Diaz, and this is my partner Evan Buckley."
Tyler shoots her a little look at partner. Casey bites her lip.
"B-Buck," Evan says as he takes Tyler's hand. "Call me Buck."
"Copy that, Buck," Tyler murmurs, eyes dragging over the both of them. Casey watches Eddie clench his jaw so tight she gets kind of worried he might grind his teeth to dust.
Luckily, that's when one of the interns appears with three thin scripts. He hands them over to Casey, and she gives one to each of them.
"You've probably got about," she checks her watch, "fifteen minutes to learn those. If you need a quiet corner to run them, Tyler can show you where to go."
"We could run them in my trailer if you wanted," he suggests. Casey has to stifle her laugh into her elbow. "The three of us," Tyler clarifies when Eddie stiffens like a rubber band stretched to its limit.
Twenty-five minutes later, Casey thinks she might be a genius as she watches Nurse One press his hands over the wound on Tyler's leg.
"He's loosing too much blood," Nurse One says, still a little cardboard-y in his delivery. "We need a tourniquet."
"Yeah, well, unless you can magic one out of thin air," Nurse Two shoots back.
The fans are going to adore them. She almost feels bad that they're only one-off characters.
"My belt," Santiago groans. "Use my belt."
Nurse One and Two stare at each other for a beat too long. Nurse One nods. Nurse Two gets to work on Santiago's belt, a little flush staining his cheeks. They work together to turn it into a tourniquet, and Casey actually recoils at Tyler's grunt of pain. Goddamn.
There's a scream from offscreen, and the three of them turn to listen to it. Nurse One looks at his partner.
"Don't you dare," he hisses. Nurse Two drags his eyes away from the door and offers a pleading look at the other man.
"Devon..."
"No, E-Ned." Devon shakes his head. "If you go out there, you're gonna get yourself killed."
"I can't just leave them-"
"You can't just leave me!" Devon snaps. The cardboard of his delivery has vanished, replaced instead by a desperation that spears right through Casey. She's struck fucking gold.
Ned recoils, but it's not in the script, so Casey thinks it might just be Eddie that recoils.
"I'll come back," he promises, something deeper than desperation to his words. "I swear, I'll come right back to you."
"Or you could just stay," Devon rasps.
"It sounded like a kid," Ned breathes brokenly. "The only reason you're not already out there is because you're holding his femoral artery closed."
"God." Devon ducks his head, makes himself smaller than should be possible, looks back up with an expression so devastatingly real that Casey thinks she might be ruining these two perfectly nice men's lives. "Don't you dare die out there, do you hear me?"
"I hear you," Ned breathes with the smallest of smiles. "I'll be right back, okay?"
"With no bullet holes in you."
"With no bullet holes in me. Scout's honour." Ned presses his forehead to Devon's for a beat, two, three.
Casey flicks through Tyler's script for the direction and wonders if she should hire the entire 118 as consultants. Medical consultant, fire consultant, intimacy consultant.
"I'm making rigatoni for dinner," Devon whispers. "Don't be late."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Ned rushes out of the door.
"Cut!"
"Jesus Christ," Casey whispers to herself.
"Okay," one of the interns says behind her. "I might have to write some fanfiction as well."
Casey rushes onto the set with a grin so wide her face aches.
"Guys, that was so good, holy shit," she tells them. Buck and Eddie flush that matching shade again. "One take wonders over here. The adlibs were amazing too."
"Oh." Eddie's ears turn pink too. "Yeah, sorry about that. I just... I watch a lot of telenovelas with my son to practice our Spanish."
"To practice their Spanish, he says," Buck teases.
"Shut up." Eddie elbows him in the ribs.
"Ready for the next part?" Casey asks. "They're shooting it a few rooms over right now, so I gotta hustle you over there, sorry."
"No, that's okay," Eddie tells her. "What was the next part again?"
"Oh, we're just gonna shove you in the back of the final scene," she tells them, waving a flippant hand as she leads them away. "Eddie, your character will be with one of our cop extras giving a statement. Then, Buck's going to come through the waiting room doors, and you'll reunite."
"R-reunite how exactly?" Buck asks, voice pitched oddly high.
"Well, honestly, I'm happy to let you guys lead with this one. Your instincts on that last scene were gold." Casey pushes through the double doors and gestures to the director. "But a kiss would be ideal. Just so we can't be accused of queerbaiting."
Buck opens his mouth on what is assumably an argument going off the wide owlish eyes trying to jump right out of his skull, but the AD begins shepherding them over to their marks, and Casey settles back against the wall. Tyler sneaks in and settles beside her.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he mutters.
"I'm fighting homophobia," she says proudly.
"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure Diaz is fighting 2000 years of Catholic homophobia right about now." Tyler raises his eyebrows at her. "Singlehandedly. For his best friend."
"Hm," she hums. "You should pick his brains on how to play Santiago."
"You're terrible."
"I'm resolving their sexual tension," she retorts. "I'm a hero."
The director calls for quiet before Tyler can refute that.
Casey doesn't pay much attention to the actual scene. The guy playing Travis calls her honey and sweetheart exclusively in that gross, sticky voice that makes her feel like she's been dipped in tar. So, instead, she watches Ned disassociate in a waiting room chair as a cop takes notes. She watches Devon get escorted into the room by another cop, watches them catch sight of each other at the exact same time, watches relief crash over them in an Emmy-winning display.
Ned shakes the shock blanket off his shoulders and stands just as Devon barrels into his chest. They grasp at each other like they're trying to crawl inside of each other, and then Ned grabs Devon's face, lifts it from his neck and kisses him square on the mouth.
"Cut! Camera issue!" the director calls.
Buck and Eddie do not stop kissing.
"Uh oh," Casey whispers.
"Do they not hear me?" the director asks his AD. He gestures at the megaphone on the props table, and Casey shoots a grimace at Tyler. "CUT!" he shouts through the megaphone.
Buck and Eddie startle apart, chests heaving, lips swollen enough that Casey can see that all the way from the back of the room, faces redder than the fire engine parked in the lot out back.
9-1-1 8x06 “Confessions” Promo - The lives and careers of emergency response providers who put their lives at risk to save others in the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations.
ABC can have this idea for free. Ravi POV episode because 1) Ravi deserves to be on the show more and I want to see some more of his background 2) I have an unhinged plot. Buddie goes canon near the end of the episode. There’s some big emergency and afterwards Ravi is sent to check on them. He walks in on Buck and Eddie kissing. Ravi doesn’t really react because as far as he’s aware they are married. Eddie and Buck however are acting extremely panicked because they are concerned he’s going to tell the whole team. I just really like the idea of this big moment for the fans being contrasted with Ravi being absolutely nonplussed about it. (Of course we get the Buddie view of the kiss in the following episode).
At this rate I think anytime Athena travels anywhere they should just have emergency services on standby. Like forget worrying about storm clouds on the horizon. The moment you spot Athena in your general vicinity it’s time to high tail it out of there.
