When Maddie's morning cup of decaf is interrupted by a persistent knocking at the door, she just knows it's Buck. Buck, her beloved baby brother, her pearl of great price, the biggest pain in her ass, having what is, no doubt, another crisis about his love life. Is it Tommy? Is it Eddie? Is it Taylor Goddamn Kelly?
Who knows. Truly.
She slowly pushes away from the kitchen table, forever grateful that her toddler, who would not have slept through this incessant banging, is already at school. Her belly, now at just over eight months, tilts her forward, causing her to waddle like a penguin across her living room and towards the noise.
She grips the handle and starts talking before she even opens the door.
"I told you, Buck, you've just gotta tell him--"
But it isn't Buck.
"Eddie," Maddie says, slightly louder and more shocked than she intended. "It's like, 9:30 in the morning, is everything okay?"
Taking him in, he doesn't look okay. His hair is wild, like he's been running his fingers through it over (and over) and over again. His cheeks are tomato pink and he's almost vibrating.
"Maddie. Hi. Hello. Good morning."
"Good morning, Eddie," she placates, putting on her best toddler-about-to-have-a-tantrum voice. "Would you like some coffee? It's decaf."
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Decaf's good."
He grabs his hair (again), pushes it out of his face (it wasn't in his face), and barrels through the front door and toward the kitchen.
By the time Maddie makes it back there, Eddie's standing and staring blankly at the coffee pot.
"Can you let me just--I'll just sneak in here--"
"I kissed Buck."
Maddie flops down on one of the chairs at the island.
"Okay, you wanna run that by me one more time?"
Eddie flings himself around, luckily catching himself with his hands on the other side of the little table from Maddie.
"I kissed him! He was taking Chris to school, and I walked up to Chris and I grabbed his head, like I do all the time, and kissed him on the top of the head, like I do, all the time, but then I just..."
With the patience of every saint in the communion, she waits for Eddie to finish his sentence.
"I grabbed his head. And I kissed him."
"On the lips?"
"No. On the forehead. He's tall. I keep forgetting."
Maddie takes a loud breath. Not as deep as she'd like, but the oxygen is good. At least that's what Chimney says when he has to deal with buckandeddie at work.
"Okay. And how do you feel about that?"
Somehow, Eddie's cheeks go from tomato pink to pomegranate magenta.
"I don't know, I mean. I. I think Buck will be unbelievably cool about it," Eddie rambles, speed increasing while his oxygen is definitely decreasing. "Like he's cool about everything. Christ, what was I thinking just moving back into his house that I abandoned, oh God, Maddie, does he think I abandoned him? I never wanted to, I never meant to--"
"Woah, there, Eddie, slow down." She's pretty sure that her brother's about to feel some kind of way if Eddie spontaneously combusts in her kitchen.
Eddie's breathing heavy, chest and shoulders cascading up and down with the air he's shoving in and out. His eyes are wide and, if Maddie's not mistaken, there are tears growing in his lash line.
"Eddie?" Maddie questions gently, moving her hand over his, a symbol of support in the echoes of his mind. "I think we might need an answer to that question."
"Which question?"
"How do you feel about it? That you kissed Buck on the forehead?"
She watches as he schools his face into something loud, and then quiet, and then dark. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Doesn't open them before he speaks.
"Like I want to kiss him again."
He opens his eyes, big and brown and full of tears. They meet hers, and, by the way his face is swimming in her vision, hers might match.
"Oh, Eddie."
"I know, Maddie," he continues frantically, pushing his free hand in and out of a fist on the table. "I can't ask that of him. I moved back in with him and he's been so unbelievably--"
"Cool," she adds on a laugh. "So you said."
"Maddie," Eddie groans.
"Eddie, Buck has never been cool. Not a day in his life. Especially not about you."
He freezes in his shoes, fist halfway curled open like some sort of claw.
"What do you mean?"
"Eddie. Come on. He's crazy about you. I've known it from the beginning."
His face, wide and open, apparently needs a little more information than that.
"Look, I called his crush on you before he'd even moved out of Abby's house!"
If it's possible, Eddie's mouth is now open wider.
"Maddie... I can't... have this enormous crush on him. Be... in love with him. He's my roommate, and my best friend and I can't lose him. I won't. I refuse."
"Oh," she scoffs, "so you're just gonna swallow this down forever?"
In an instant, Eddie goes smaller than she's ever seen him before. His voice is small too.
"If I have to. He can never know."
"Uh, it's a little late for that," Chimney interrupts from the dining room.
Maddie and Eddie both snap their heads up towards the voice. But instead of Chimney they see, it's--
"Buck?"
Eddie's hand is still in Maddie's, but his voice is now directed to her little brother, standing wide-eyed behind Chimney, shoulders slouched like he used to do when he'd had a bad day at school. She pats his hand and pushes off the table, waddling over to her husband.
"Buck, why don't you and Eddie sit and have some coffee. There's decaf in the pot."
She watches as Buck moves through the room, brushing her across the shoulders as he passes, but eyes never once moving from Eddie.
As she and Chimney back up a little farther into the dining room, she hears her brother's voice.
"Did you mean it?"
"Did I mean what?"
"Well, all of it. Any of it. Did you mean what you told my sister? Did you mean to kiss me this morning before you left the house?"
"Eddie kissed Buck?!" Chimney whispershouts into Maddie's temple, as she brings a hand to his upper arm to slow him down. They're not eavesdropping, no of course not. Just. Enjoying the view from their dining room on a beautiful morning where they each have a few hours together. Of course.
"What if I do?" Eddie starts again.
"What if you do?" Buck questions back.
"Mean it."
"Then I'm gonna need you to kiss me again. And aim a little lower this time, would you?"
Maddie grabs Chimney by the arm and drags him all the way back to their bedroom, lest they bear witness to a secret that's definitely not theirs to tell.
buck/eddie, 118 as family. 12578 words. complete. rated g. día de los muertos. dead bobby nash.
It's late October when Eddie finally pulls the box from the linen closet.
Christopher usually starts this process with him, but he's spending the night with Pepa. He'll work with her to set hers up tonight, hearing new stories about Eddie's family from his tía.
Here, though? They've got a new roommate. And it's Buck's first Día de Los Muertos as a member of the Diaz household.
An hour or so later, Buck breezes through the door and catches Eddie with his hands full of wrinkled tablecloths.
"Are you going to be late for the ball, Cinderella?" Buck asks joyfully, kicking off his shoes and dropping his keys in the bowl on the side table. It's been a tough year for them, especially Buck, but they're finding joy where they can. Even on those mornings when Buck and Eddie wake up wrapped in each others arms but can't bear to talk about why, they still choose joy.
"Ha ha," Eddie retorts. "Go grab the iron, would you?" He plops the pile of table linens on the couch and brings one to the ironing board.
By the time he's got the wax-stained tablecloth laid out just right, Buck's in sync next to him, plugging in the iron. "So, tablecloths? Are we expecting someone for dinner?"
"Nope," Eddie calls back, wandering into the kitchen and back again, with a few pieces of newspaper in his hands. "I'm setting up the ofrenda and wondered if you'd like to help me."
"Like, for Día de Los Muertos?"
"The one and only."
fergalicious, probalicious (make the boys go loco)
7.5k | gen with buddie, madney | 118 family shenanigans, assumed relationship, outsider probie pov
She's in the middle of wiping down the ladder truck's bumper when Cap and Eddie come around from restocking the ambulance.
"Chim, any idea what I should get—"
"Nope," Cap barks out, followed by a long chuckle. "You don't get involved in my anniversary, I don't get involved in yours, that's the deal we made, Edmundo."
Eddie's eyes are big. Like, really big. Like, Josie's half afraid he's actually thirteen puppies in a trench coat.
"Oh, come on, does family mean nothing to you?"
Cap claps him on the shoulder with a big smile. "It means everything to me. Which is why I'm not saying anything at all."
Eddie huffs and walks away, but Cap rounds over the ladder truck and next to Josie.
"Take my advice, probie," he starts with a big smile. "Never, ever get involved in someone else's relationship. Especially if they ask."
"Got it, Cap," she responds with a giggle. "Why's he asking you about his anniversary stuff anyway?"
"Because of the two of us, I'm the only one who ever gets him anything he likes. You'd think, after how long we've been together, he'd have learned by now." Chimney claps her on the shoulder before turning on his heel and walks away. "The bumper looks great, by the way!"
It took a few minutes before the words sunk in, but Josie finally let it ring around in her ears.
The bumper looks great. Hell yeah it does.
…
…
…..
Wait. What?
buck & christopher. 1704 words. complete. rated g. christopher diaz has two dads, reunited at a disaster
Buck sneezes.
The entire team is huddled around Bobby on the grounds of the University of Southern California, trying to hear his incident rundown over firehoses, sirens, and cries for help— and Buck sneezes.
"Bless you," Athena replies.
"Two more and you're cut off," Chimney quips.
"Sorry, guys," Buck croaks, wiping his hoodied forearm against his nose. "Cap?"
Bobby shoots Buck a slightly concerned Dad Glare, but continues on anyway.
Buck shouldn't be here, necessarily. He knows this. He's been sick with a stupid cold for two days. No amount of socks and hoodies seem to help, but that doesn't stop him from trying. Chills, aches, and mucus coming out his nose and down his throat, making talking just slightly to the left of miserable.
But when a biohazard incident put his friends, his family, in danger? Of course he's here. There's nowhere else he'd rather be.
or; Buck attends an emergency while on a sick day, and it turns out to be a good idea
buck/eddie. 2790 words. complete. rated g. refrigerator mover!buck, new to los angeles!eddie. season 2, non-canon compliant
""Tía, why can't I find a place to live that comes with a refrigerator?"
Pepa sighs down the phone on the other line. "I don't know what to tell you, Eddito, it's just the way of Angelinos. It's alright," she comforts, knowing he doesn't have the spare money for an order of churros, much less a refrigerator. "We'll make sure we find one for you."
"Aren't they really hard to move?" Eddie's still packing the last of Christopher's things, throwing them in boxes as kindly as he can, but still making an absolute racket. "Something about the coolant having to stay upright?""
or: Eddie moves to Los Angeles and finds a house with no fridge. Buck delivers.
read on ao3
written for @buddienetwork event 3: home
