#911 speculations

[snowflake194]

waiting rooms

Buck & Harry; 1.6k words; 9×18 spec fic (cd) by snowflake194

Harry doesn't look at him. Keeps his gaze fixed on the rows of candy bars and chips as he, instead of answering, asks, “you were there, right?”

It throws Buck off his carefully crafted script, leaving him blinking at him, waiting for Harry to give a little more than just—

“At the lab,” he clarifies wetly. “When, um— when Bobby died.”

[snowflake194]

And when Buck is covered in Eddie’s blood in that elevator and Eddie has gone limp in his arms and the wound isn’t bleeding so much anymore because it’s already all over the floor and soaked into Buck’s hands and dried against his skin and his clothes and then Eddie’s eyes flutter open just enough and he looks at Buck like he’s trying to memorize him and somehow still manages to whisper “you look like hell” and Buck breaks completely and wipes the tears off Eddie’s cheeks with shaking hands and doesn’t bother wiping his own when he chokes out “you should see the other guy” WHAT THEN????

[snowflake194]

you know the real reason eddie is going to fall in love with theo is that he’ll finally have someone on his side when they order pizza and it becomes a 2v2 vote on whether to put pineapple on it

[snowflake194]

Actually I’m not done talking about Buck wanting to be the one to go up that ladder and get the kid because he's been benched for so long and he has to prove that he still Got It, to everyone else but mostly to himself, and he gets up there and the kid refuses to go without the balloon so Buck goes higher to get it and then the wind shifts and he loses his balance for just a millisecond and gets a little too close to the power pole and he can feel it, that weird hum of the current in the air, and suddenly there's rain on his face and he's right back there waiting for mother nature to get him again but this time there's a kid who needs him and he's crying now because the balloon slips loose in the wind and Buck has to get him, he has to get him down, he can't freeze now or the lightning will take them both

[sprints-is-fast]

It's just funny to me that when you google 'balloon boy' *this* is the first thing that comes up 👀

[snowflake194]

The idea of Theo being a dog is just as intriguing to me as him being a kid.

Buck getting diagnosed with ptsd after the electrical call on top of everything else and Eddie being the only one who can really get it in that very specific way, and it's partly because he also has been there for Buck's worst moments-- but always on the other side of them.

In both cases Eddie's been the one to pull Buck out and get him back, except, much like the desert where it all began, where Eddie nearly lost his whole squad only to lose them anyway years later, he couldn't save him.

So they offer Buck a service dog and his name is Theo and he's the patron saint of soldiers and everyone thinks it's a good idea, something for Buck to take care of that would take care of him in return.

And no one has to know that maybe, for Buck, it's more that--

If Buck has this dog there with him all the time, something constant that pulls him out and gets him to safety before he starts to spiral, maybe it's almost like having Eddie there. And if he can't have Eddie there, not in the way that he truly wants, maybe this dog is the next best thing.

[snowflake194]

Something about the way it's usually Eddie who gets too involved when it comes to kids...

He's the one we see pulling them out of danger, carrying them, getting in too deep for his own good, certainly more than the rest of the team. Especially in the big ones. The well, Charlie, Abigail, just to name a few. Even the kid in the most recent episode. It always comes back to him. Because of course it does. He's a dad. It pulls at all the right heartstrings. It works.

So it's just interesting that it's Buck we see go up that ladder to get the kid in the promo for the next episode. I honestly can't even remember the last time we saw Buck in that role. That's Eddie's role. And going up a ladder like that in a way that so clearly calls back to 6.10 when Eddie climbed that ladder to get to Buck? That's Eddie's role!! Why is he taking Eddie's role? Like what other parts of Eddie's life is Buck going to have to step into?

I don't know what they're setting up there and if I believe all the specs going around but something about it feels off in a way I can't shake and it could certainly be a nice foreshadowing if something were to happen to Eddie....

[snowflake194]

thinking about buck potentially freezing or just hesitating more than usual on one of his first risky calls back and not being the guy who wants to do a rope rescue and he keeps playing it off as the new buck like isn't it a good thing that he's more careful and not stupid and reckless anymore but deep down he's scared of getting injured again because he might have done the work and he doesn't need the pills anymore and he might be okay now, really he is, but. he's just. he's scared.