overdue for a revival (spent so long just gettin' by) | ao3 link
The latch on the mailbox squeaks, always has, and the hinge is rusty, but it opens just the same. Pony grabs the stack of papers inside and leafs through. Bills, junk, more bills, more junk. And underneath, in an envelope so pristinely white it nearly glows;
Mr. Curtis
731 North St. Louis Ave
Tulsa, Oklahoma
74106
Ponyboy damn near chokes on his own heart. Mr. Curtis has never been anyone but his father, and sometimes Darry when the state comes knockin’. But there's no mistaking who it's for; the crisp seal, a bright red circle next the return address, is a dead giveaway. The University of Oklahoma.
or; Ponyboy has his first panic attack.
Through his blurring vision, Buck gets a flash of brick siding—a house?—and then the sun glints off steel, blindingly bright. The hands release him. Buck’s back hits something hard and unyielding, punching the breath right out of him. Something digs uncomfortably into his shoulder. He wheezes, trying to catch his breath and fight his way to a sitting position at the same time, but his legs are still bent at the knee hanging half out of—is this a fucking box?
It’s unseasonably hot. Buck might love summer, love the heat, but really—this is a bit much. The day had dawned beautifully warm, but by afternoon it’s gotten worse. The truck is sweltering when he hauls himself in next to Eddie, and he can’t suppress a groan of frustration.
“It’s too hot,” Buck complains, slumping down into his seat. Even the leather is hot to the touch. Bobby gives him a sympathetic look over his shoulder from the front and reaches over to flick the air conditioning on.
“Sounds like a simple medical call,” Bobby says, as the radio chatters at him.
“No turnouts?” Buck asks hopefully. Bobby laughs and shakes his head.
“Why send us all out if it’s just medical?” Eddie asks, at the same time that Buck mutters, “Thank god.”
“Dispatch says the caller was a little unclear on the details,” Bobby explains, “There may or may not be a second patient—we’re not sure, so we’re just covering all the bases.”
“So we’re going in blind,” Eddie says. Beside him, Buck twists, trying to maneuver the strap of his radio over his head without undoing his seatbelt.
“Dispatch saw no need to send an officer our way, so I’m not worried,” Bobby assures him. He cuts a look to Buck, eyebrows raised. “Buck, what are you doing?”
“It’s hot,” Buck complains again. He finally succeeds in getting his radio off and drops it next to him, reaching for the buttons of his uniform shirt next. “I’d rather not wear two shirts if I don’t have to.”
Bobby sighs. “Fine.”
Buck pops the buttons and tugs at the sleeves, getting them down past his shoulders. He gets as far as his elbows and then resorts to wriggling, trying to get the sleeves off the rest of the way with the shirt trapped behind his back. He’s sure he looks ridiculous—at least Hen and Chimney are in the ambulance, so Chim isn’t here to razz him about it.
Eddie takes pity on him after a moment, reaching over to help get one sleeve over his wrist. The second is easier, with one hand free. His LAFD t-shirt is damp with sweat down his spine, but it’s better than multiple layers.
“Thanks,” Buck says, leaning back against the seat again to let the air conditioning work its magic.
There’s hardly time to enjoy the cool air from the vents before they roll up to the scene. Buck grimaces at the thought of stepping back into the heat, but he unclips his seatbelt and gets a hand on the door anyway.
“Put your radio back on,” Eddie reminds him, and hops out.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Characters: Evan "Buck" Buckley, Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Gift Giving, Teddy Bears, no seriously so many teddy bears
Summary:
“Your bear is named ‘Mr Bear’?” Buck questions, the first night he spends in Eddie’s bed. Eddie smiles, half embarrassed.
“It’s, uh…it’s Mr Beary Bear, actually.”
aka Christmas fluff and bears, with a sprinkling of buddie.
beneath the lonely lights - 1k
buck wants a hug. he gets one.
It’s a quiet night in Buck’s apartment, and the darkness presses in against the windows. He’s got one lamp on, casting a golden glow from behind the couch, and he’s just finished some movie he’d picked off of netflix that looked vaguely interesting. He’d only been half paying attention while he scrolled on his phone, but it worked for a while as background noise. Then the credits rolled, and the quiet pushed right back in.
Buck likes his apartment, really, but sometimes it feels a little too big. It’s spacious and gorgeous and he loves it in the light of day, when the world is awake and loud. He loves it when Eddie is here, or Maddie, and he has someone he can talk to.
Now, though, the silence is suffocating.
It’s not like—well, it’s not like he can’t handle being on his own. He’s had some practice, after all. He can fill the space with noise, music or the tv or a phone call, if he needs. He can deal. It’s just that on nights like these, when the well of distractions runs dry, it hits him like a wave.
Buck sits up. There’s no reason for him to be feeling like this, not tonight—he’d been with his team all day, and he knows they love him. He knows he’s not alone, and he’s okay when he’s with them and he can fill the void with chatter. It’s not just him against the world, anymore.
But when he shuts the tv off and the light from the lamp behind him casts his reflection on the blank screen, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his couch, he can’t stop the hot press of tears that gather at his lashes. His apartment is too big and too dark and too empty, and he’s all alone, and it’s all too much. Buck’s own loneliness sits like a weight in his chest, heavy and aching. God, he just wants a hug right now.
He sniffles once, and the wave crests and breaks. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and takes a trembling breath but the tears slip past anyway, and suddenly he’s crying for no good goddamn reason on his stupid couch in his stupid apartment all by himself. Buck scrubs at his face with his sleeves, but all that does is get his hoodie wet. He can’t get himself to stop. He feels pathetic. He wants a fucking hug.
The screen of his phone is blurred and warped by his tears so he swipes at them again, almost angrily, until he can see his texts. Maddie’s on shift, so he can’t ask her. Buck doesn’t think he could bring himself to admit this surge of whatever-the-hell he’s feeling to his sister, anyway. He’s too embarrassed. But Eddie, though—Eddie gives fantastic hugs, and Buck knows he’s home, because they’d gotten off a shift together only a few hours before.
Buck has the question typed and sent before he can overthink it. mind if i come over?
Door’s always open, Eddie answers not even a minute later. And then, Everything ok?
It’s not. It should be. Nothing’s even wrong, really. It’s just not right. How does he even begin to explain that?
Buck tries to take a breath deep enough to steady himself, only half succeeding. After a moment, he settles on; could just really use a hug.
Get over here then, Eddie texts back.
And Buck doesn’t have to be told twice, with the promise of some company. He sticks his phone in his pocket and heaves himself to his feet. Another swipe of his sleeve across his face ensures that he doesn’t look like a complete mess, but as he locks his door and heads for the parking lot, he still hopes he doesn’t end up running into a neighbour.
He gets enough of a handle on himself on the drive over that by the time he’s pulling into Eddie’s driveway, Buck just feels a little ridiculous. He’s still sniffling lightly, but his tears have dried. He feels shaky and scraped out and raw, still a little off-kilter and a lot embarrassed. But he’s here.
The door is unlocked, just like Eddie had promised, and Buck lets himself in. He moves quietly so as not to wake Christopher, who he expects is already asleep by now. It’s late. He might feel bad about that, if this were anyone but Eddie.
Eddie’s house, even in the quiet, doesn’t feel oppressive. It doesn’t feel cold, or lonely. It’s nothing like his apartment. It’s everything he needs right now.
Buck rounds the corner and there’s Eddie, just turning away from the sink to face him as he steps into the kitchen. The dishes look half done, but Eddie ignores them in favour of grabbing the dishtowel he’d draped over his shoulder and drying off his hands.
“Hey,” Buck says. He curls his fingers into the ends of his hoodie sleeves, and tries for a smile.
Eddie takes in his appearance—and what a sight he must make, right now—and tosses the towel to the side. It lands on the counter, missing the edge of the sink by a hair.
“Come ‘ere,” Eddie says, and he opens his arms like he’s inviting Buck in and it’s—it’s everything Buck needs right now, no matter how silly he felt a moment ago.
He practically dives at Eddie, wrapping his arms under Eddie’s and curling as close as he can get, hiding his face in Eddie’s shoulder. Buck takes a deep, steady breath, and lets it out slow.
Eddie wraps his arms around Buck’s shoulders and gives him a little squeeze. The strange, unexplained tension Buck had been carrying all night finally starts to ease. He melts into Eddie’s embrace, soaking in his best friend’s comfort.
“Thank you,” he says, words muffled against Eddie’s shirt.
“No need,” Eddie says. “You’ve got me, Buck. Any time.”
“I know,” Buck agrees, because he does. Eddie just hums in response, and they fall quiet. It isn’t so heavy here, wrapped up in Eddie. Here, the quiet is easier to face.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Characters: Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley, Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Bobby Nash
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Concussions, delayed symptoms, Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, Vomiting, Headaches & Migraines, Pre-Relationship, they have feelings but they don't kiss yet
Summary:
It’s quiet for a moment, quiet for two—Buck is halfway to dozing again when Eddie speaks up.
“You okay?” Eddie asks. Buck blinks his eyes back open and glances over to find Eddie dutifully watching the road, but with a tight grip on the wheel and a worried crease between his eyebrows. Buck has the sudden urge to smooth it away, somehow, but he holds back.
Eddie isn’t just asking about the headache or the exhaustion, and Buck knows that, but he’s not sure he wants to get into the rest of it right now. So he shrugs and says, “I’m fine. Hen and the doc both cleared me, remember?”
(aka: Buck is a little less fine than he realizes, in the aftermath of the factory fire.)
Buck is jealous of a dead boy. It’s ridiculous and unfair, but it’s like he’s twelve years old again, and the feeling coils tight and hot in his chest. His hands tremble where he grips the photograph, and he tries his best not to crease it, doesn’t want to ruin this precious thing that somehow meant more to his parents than the children they still had.
The thing is, Buck has spent his whole life feeling like he’s a step behind, living in the shadow of someone he could never name. He’d done everything he could think of to break down the barrier between him and his parents, but he never could. Never knew why. Now he’s got a name for that shadow, a face, but it doesn’t feel any better.
“Daniel,” he says. He hates that it comes out bitter, because the boy in this photo—his brother—doesn’t deserve it. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d simply had the audacity to live just long enough for his parents to pour their love into him, and then take it with him to the grave.
He looks happy, in the photo. Smiling at the camera from astride his bike, crooked teeth and all, like he’s having the time of his life. Maybe he was. Buck doesn’t think he’d ever find a picture of himself that looked like this—doesn’t think he’d ever smiled this wide with his parents behind the camera.
Love me anyway, he had begged, but what he didn’t know then was that they couldn’t, because his parents had buried their love when they buried this kid.
“I never knew,” Buck tries, grasping at straws for an explanation. “They—they didn’t tell me. They never talk about him.”
“I don’t think they knew how,” Maddie says. Daniel stares out at them from the photograph, grinning like he’s got his whole life ahead of him, and Buck doesn’t know how to feel. Doesn’t know how to grieve someone he never even had the chance to know.
“We had a brother,” Buck repeats, still trying to wrap his mind around it. “And I’ve been...trying to live up to him, for so long, and I never even knew.”
“You were so young,” Maddie says, and her voice shakes, “and you didn’t remember, and then they just—we just—”
“Why are you still defending them?” Buck asks, so quietly. He still can’t find it in himself to tear his eyes from the photo. “They hurt you too, Mads. You can’t pretend they didn’t.”
“They were grieving,” Maddie tries again, but it’s half-hearted. “Losing a child is awful. And with Daniel gone, they just...didn’t know what to do with all that empty space.”
And Buck can understand, really, he can. Loneliness and grief crowd into the empty spaces in your life and smother you, suffocate you. Sometimes it feels like there’s no escape. Except his parents' life wasn’t empty, not really—they just refused to really look at what was left behind.
“But they had us, Maddie!” Buck says, almost desperately, “And we’re still here!”
The photo creases where Buck’s thumb presses in a bit too tightly, and he drops it on the table in front of him like it’s on fire. He doesn’t want to look at it anymore.
He chances a look up at his sister, sees his own tears mirrored in her eyes. His voice breaks when he asks, “Why wasn’t that enough?”
It should have been enough. It never was. Buck is jealous of a dead boy because he got two loving parents and a wonderful sister, and Buck got I don’t know what you expected us to do, Evan, and a sister who was trying her best but didn’t quite know when to stop running.
It’s ridiculous. It’s unfair. Buck is twenty-nine years old and he still feels like he’s twelve, trapped in that empty space in that empty house between two people whose hearts were buried six feet under. He doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“It was enough for me,” Maddie says, and her tears threaten to spill over when she puts a hand on his knee, gentle as always. “You are enough for me.”
Buck takes a shuddering breath, but he can’t seem to find his voice. So he just nods, twists his fingers up with hers, and squeezes. She smiles softly and squeezes back.
Buck is going to die here. He feels it as sharply as the pain in his leg, all-encompassing and pulsing right down to his shattered bones. He’s going to die here alone in the street, his team so close and yet so far away—between him and them, through the smoke, he can see a kid with a bomb and he knows that they can’t get to him without risking themselves too.
It should be a comfort, really, that they’re staying out of harm's way. It isn’t. It just makes him feel helpless, adrift in this sea of agony, unable to save himself from the inevitable and—he’s going to die here.
The crunch of glass under the kid’s feet is too close, too loud. The broken windshield of the truck shifts and shatters further. Something pops and the truck rocks, sending another wave of inescapable fire up Buck’s leg.
Everything hurts. Everything hurts and he’s alone and he wants to go home. He doesn’t want to die.
“Help,” Buck sobs into the pavement beneath him, barely audible through the chaos. The truck rocks again and he digs his fingers into the concrete, trying to do...something. Drag himself away, maybe. He can’t think straight.
“I want the captain!” the kid screams, somewhere in front of him. Buck stopped tracking him as soon as his vision started to swim. More shouting follows, and he thinks—maybe—is that Chimney?
Pain rockets up his leg again, a lightning strike crackling to his very nerve endings, and Buck’s vision goes white as he rides it out. He might be screaming. He’s definitely dying.
He doesn’t know what’s happening; Chimney was there, wasn’t he? For the briefest moment, Buck wasn’t alone. Chimney was right there. But when he manages to lift his head again, the pavement stretches out in front of him covered in shattered glass and smoke and his team is nowhere to be seen. The flickering lights of the squad cars light up the street with blue, and the heat of the fire builds behind him, but he’s feeling it less and less. Blissful numbness starts to spread through him, taking with it the agony and panic, and the space between him and his team feels endless and impassable.
“Help,” Buck chokes out again, desperately, even though there’s no one around to hear. “I don’t—I don’t wanna die.”
It’s so hard to keep his eyes open. He tries, knows his team wouldn’t want him to let go; he tries, but there’s too much noise and the sound of struggle slips right past him, his mind too muddled to focus on anything for very long. He can’t help but feel a little hopeless. He wants his team. He doesn’t want to die alone. He wants to go home.
And then as if called on a prayer, there they are. There’s more shouting, and someone’s knees hit the pavement with a harsh sound right next to Buck’s ear. There’s hands on him, pressing at his pulse point and tapping at his face, but he can’t get his eyes to open. He wants—
“Eddie,” Buck manages to breathe out, when a hand slips into his. He’d know that hand anywhere, even through the haze of pain he finds himself trapped in. He tries to get his shaking fingers to cooperate and squeezes weakly; the hand in his squeezes back, firm and unshakeable.
“I’m here, Buck,” Eddie says, the rumble of his voice coming from somewhere above his head. “We’re all right here. You’re gonna be fine.”
He peels his eyes back open then, and it scares him how much effort the simple action takes. It’s worth it, though, because even as his vision blurs he can see Hen beside him. She tries to smile, just a ghost of a thing, when she notices that he’s watching her.
“Hey, Buckaroo,” she says, trying to sound gentle, but doesn’t slow in her hurried movements. “How we doing?”
“...Kinda numb,” he admits, and he thinks he might be slurring a bit.
“We’re gonna get you out of there,” Eddie assures him again, still holding steady. “Just hold on.”
Buck clings to that, clings to Eddie’s hand as he trembles through another spike of pain. It’s a little detached, like he’s in a bubble and everything else is just pressing in at the sides. He doesn’t want to know what it’ll feel like when the bubble pops. He hears something about lifting the truck, but he barely comprehends it.
“Don’t let go,” he pleads, hand tightening as much as it can in Eddie’s grip. “I can’t—I can’t do this—”
“Yes you can,” Eddie snaps. “You can. I’m not letting go.”
The unwavering confidence in Eddie’s voice and his solid grip on Buck’s hand are like a lifeline; he’s trapped, but he might not die here. There’s still hope, because his team has crossed the expanse between them to be with him, to get him out. He’s not alone.
The truck moves, and Buck’s bubble pops. The pain crashes back in like a wave and threatens to swallow Buck up and drown him in it, and he’s screaming, this time he knows he is, over and over and over as the weight drops back onto his leg.
He’s crying too, probably, or else that’s blood dripping down his cheek. It might be both. He can’t even hear what’s going on around him anymore past the ringing in his ears, but he feels it when they lift the truck again. It hurts so much, too much, and Buck doesn’t know if he’ll survive it but he can still feel Eddie’s hand in his and Hen’s presence beside him, and he knows they won’t let him go. They won’t let him die here.
Buck barely has the strength left to grit out a miserable sob when they lift the truck one more time, but then Eddie’s hand is tugging at his and Hen’s hands are on his arms and he’s sliding across the pavement. The jostling movement sends shockwaves of fire up his leg with each pull but he’s free, he’s out, he’s not trapped anymore and his team is there and they’re holding on to him. Holding him together.
“Four minutes to the hospital, Buck,” Hen says, from somewhere at his side. He’s too exhausted to turn his head to find her. “Just hang on.”
Four minutes. He thinks he can make it another four minutes. The sky is moving above him, then, and he distantly realizes he must be on a gurney. His hand twitches, but he stills when he feels another squeeze. Eddie’s still holding on, just like he promised.
“You didn’t let go,” Buck mutters, half to himself. Eddie meets his drifting gaze, and tries for a smile. It’s a little strained, but it’s there.
“Not a chance,” he says firmly.
Buck won’t die here. He knows that now because his team came for him, because Eddie didn’t let go—they gave him a lifeline and he clung to it through the agony. He’s alive, and he’s not alone.
