I was tagged by @catdadeddie MWAH and I am DESPERATELY trying to finish the F&F AU so I can move on with my life. So have another snippet! My hope is to finish it by the end of the weekend.
Buck comes down the steps. “You’re so good at it. Lying. Even now, I want to believe you.”
“Believe me. Buck, I…” His voice wavers. He steadies it. “I was supposed to go after Maddie. I—I couldn’t, I—you—”
“You’re telling me that you were told to use my sister and that’s supposed to make me feel better? What, you realized I was the easy Buckley sibling?”
“Buck—”
“Who even are you?”
Tagging @princessfbi AHA! I GOT IN AHEAD OF YOU THIS TIME!
so in the interest of making our fandom a slightly kinder place, could you please say something nice about the last person you reblogged from? even if you don't know them, just the vibes you get from their blog. no pressure though!
I just reblogged from @catdadeddie. And I mean, wow, what can I even say? The things she does for this fandom! I honestly don't think anyone else does as much for fandom as she does, tbh. The amount of work it must take. I mean, we all look to her to share the goods! And she always comes through. :)
As far as personal contact goes, I don't think we've ever spoken? I'm sure she has no idea who I am, which is totally fair. Hahaha. From what I can tell she's a really great and fun person though. I love her takes and opinions, and I love the fact that she's drama-free. A joy to follow!
@catdadeddie asked: Buddie + Q. One missed call for the prompt list? 👀
Anonymous asked: For the minific, can you please write something for buddie and Q?
Anonymous asked: Buck and/or Eddie + Q for the microfic? 👀
Anonymous asked: for the prompts thing I would love to see something for Q? I think it was One missed call
so this was an incredibly popular choice lmao. i have no idea if you all were envisioning a specific plot when you sent me this but i hope it lives up to expectations!!! (or at least is a fun read askjdfh)
enjoy :')
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Buck, as a general rule, always answers his phone.
Hen and Chim like to make fun of him, saying that it’s a habit left over from Abby since they spent so much time on the phone before they ever met in person. The reality is the slightly more depressing lingering fear he used to have of missing a call from Maddie during all those years of radio silence back before he joined the academy.
Regardless, it usually means he’s a reliable friend to call in an emergency, no matter what time of night. It’s why Chim called him the first time Maddie worked an overnight after Jee-Yun was born, begging him to go to the store and get diapers when he ran out. It’s why Hen called him to pick up her and Karen when they’d had too much to drink on their date night to drive home. And it’s why Eddie had made him his and Christopher’s emergency contacts after only a few months of knowing each other.
Unless he’s quite literally standing in the middle of a blazing inferno, Buck answers his phone.
Which is what makes this situation so frustrating.
Heaving a laboured breath, he stretches his arm as far as it’ll go in an attempt to reach his phone where it’s buzzing on the ground a few feet out of his reach.
It’s too difficult from this angle to tell who’s calling but he’d bet every cent in his bank account that it’s Eddie. If only because they’ve hardly talked in the past three weeks since Eddie left the 118. If only because this is the first daring rescue Buck has attempted in that time and of course it’s gone wrong.
It’d been a calculated risk but one he never would’ve hesitated over when Eddie was on the other side of his line. The building foundations had been unstable after an initial ceiling collapse but he and Ravi had still managed to save the woman trapped inside. It’d been as they were leaving, headed back to the open window, that the ground had collapsed beneath him and sent him hurtling into the basement with a pile of rubble landing on top of him for good measure.
The fact his phone survived the fall at all is a miracle. Or some kind of karmic mockery, probably.
“Buckley, do you copy?” his radio blares at his shoulder, cutting through the noise of his phone.
He grits his teeth in frustration, abandoning his efforts to retrieve his phone, and dutifully answers the radio call. “Here, Cap,” he huffs. “My lower torso and left arm are pinned. I can’t get out on my own.”
“Alright, hang tight. We’re on our way.”
Buck lets go of his radio with a sigh, rolling his head to the side to stare at his phone. As if on command, it starts ringing again. It’s the third time since he’s been trapped here. And now he knows for sure it’s not Bobby or the rest of the team which means it’s either Eddie or Maddie. And Eddie or Maddie calling him three times in quick succession when they likely know he’s at work is definitely a cause for concern.
True to Bobby’s word though, the rest of the team find him and get him freed and onto a backboard in record time. Hen is talking about chest x-rays and Chimney is checking his O2 levels and everyone is ignoring his pleas to get his phone for him where it’s still on the ground.
It’s not until he’s in the back of the ambulance that Chimney finally even acknowledges what he’s saying and that’s only because he pulls his oxygen mask down.
“You need to keep this on, Buckaroo.”
“But my phone-“
“I think Ravi picked it up,” Chim says, forcing the oxygen mask back over his nose with a stern look. “It’s not even broken, I heard it ringing. Don’t worry.”
Buck attempts to glare at him, even through the pain in his ribs and the pounding at his temples – he’s not sure he’s successful. “Maddie-?” he manages and that, at least, gets Chimney’s attention.
He frowns, fishing out his own phone and typing something quickly. After a few seconds he turns the screen around to show Buck. “She’s at work but she’s gonna take her break and meet us at the hospital, see.”
Sure enough, there’s a text from Maddie in response to Chim’s “Buck got a little banged up on a call and is asking for you. We’re on our way to First Presbyterian now. He’s FINE!” confirming she’s on her way.
There’s nothing about her trying to reach him earlier.
Which means Eddie was definitely the one trying to call him.
What if it’s Christopher? Or another panic attack? Or some kind of freak accident?
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fucking-
“Hey, breathe, Buck!” Hen says suddenly, lurching forward to put a hand on his chest in an attempt to calm him down. He can hear the monitor beeping wildly in the background but Hen tries to count his breaths with him, forcing him to focus on her.
“Eddie,” he wheezes when he manages to get some air back in his lungs.
Hen and Chimney share a look before Chim sends him an uneasy smile. “We’ll call him.”
~
After too many scans and x-rays Buck finds himself alone in a hospital room.
He’s lucky – a few cracked ribs, some scrapes and bruises, and a familiar ache in his bad leg is the extent of the damage. The doctor has just left and everyone else is waiting out in the reception area and he still hasn’t gotten his phone back and-
“Buck?”
He snaps his head up, finding a frantic-looking Eddie rushing through the door of his room. Buck hasn’t seen him since last week after their awkward conversation in the doorway of the Diaz house when he’d dropped Chris home after the zoo. His hair isn’t gelled like normal so it’s a little wild where it falls across his forehead. Buck loves his hair like that.
Eddie hurries forward until he’s standing right by the side of the bed. He stops short of actually reaching out but his eyes scan Buck from the top of his head to where his torso disappears under the blanket. “Jesus Christ, Buck, are you okay? Chimney nearly scared me half to death on the phone. He said you fell through the floor-“
“Why did you call me?”
Eddie stops short, blinking in surprise. “What?”
“You- I dropped my phone when I fell and it was ringing.” Eddie’s expression is unreadable but intense enough that Buck drops his gaze and focuses on playing with the hem of the blanket. “It wasn’t anyone on the team and it wasn’t Maddie either so…”
He raises a head again. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Eddie’s throat bobs and he nods, just slightly, before looking away.
“So, what’s wrong? Is Chris okay?”
Eddie lets out what would be a laugh but sounds more like a stuttered out breath. “I, um. I was watching TV while I was folding laundry and there was this ad for a documentary about those Toynbee Tiles you were telling me about and I- I wanted to call you so we could watch it. And then I remembered we haven’t had a movie night since before Christmas and it’s my fault and Christopher keeps asking about you and I miss you and I just- I needed to talk to you.”
Buck watches him for a moment, mind working over. He wants to ask why Eddie didn’t just text or why he didn’t realise sooner Buck was probably on a call. Instead all he can manage to say is, “I told you about those tiles months ago.”
Eddie shrugs, taking a tentative seat on the edge of his bed, hip brushing against Buck’s knee over the blanket. “I remember everything you tell me.”
And that’s- too much. Too much when Buck is being pumped with pain relief and missing his partner and when Eddie is finally within reach after what feels like so, so long.
Steeling himself, he reaches for Eddie’s hand, circling his wrist at the last minute when he panics. “I tried to answer. I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“I know,” Eddie tells him, mouth tilting at the corners for just a beat before it pulls down again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you today.”
“Would’ve happened either way,” he shrugs.
Eddie shakes his head, twisting his wrist in Buck’s grip to fold their fingers together. “I should’ve been right beside you though. Even if it was just so I could fall too.”
Buck thinks of his phone sprawled just out of his reach, imagining the now accurate picture of Eddie’s name and Eddie’s picture plastered across the screen while it rang.
“You were,” he says, shooting Eddie a playful grin. “Technically, I mean. Y’know Hen and Chim are gonna start calling us weird if they realise we can sense when one another is in distress.”
Eddie rolls his eyes but he’s smiling, wide and familiar in that way Buck has missed so much. “That’s not why I called you.”
“I know but it’d be so much funnier if we told Chim that it was.”
Eddie barks out a laugh, squeezing Buck’s hand in his own. “When they let you out of here wanna come home with me? We can…talk, maybe?”
Buck nods, heart pounding with something that feels like hope. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Take me home.”
Buck watches carefully as Eddie’s fingers brush over the crayon marks on the wall, each line indicating the height of their children apart yearly. His expression is one of wonder, the same one he wore when Buck kissed him for the first time, and there’s a throbbing straight through his chest when he realizes Eddie won’t remember that, either.
“Bella’s excited to see you,” he pipes up, because Buck’s never been good with silences. Eddie glances back at him, then again to the pink, purple, and orange crayon markings, because Bella’s favorite color changes with her height.
“She’s tiny,” he says quietly, and Buck knows it’s just a deduction, with the way her marks are considerably lower on the wall than Christopher’s, but it still makes his eyes sting with something like hope.
“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “You’re her favorite.”
Eddie snorts. “I have a hard time believing that.”
“It’s fine,” Buck shrugs. “I took over as Chris’s favorite, anyway.”
Eddie freezes, and Buck’s suddenly worried he’s gone too far too quickly with the teasing. This isn’t – this isn’t his husband, not really, it’s a version of him he once knew, a version of him that has long since grown and changed alongside Buck. It’s a version of him Buck still loved, once, will always love, but it’s not the person he’s made a life with, and it’s not the person that can take such a casual joke about the love of his son.
“Sorry, I – I was just—”
“You’ve lived an entire life without me, Buck,” Eddie interrupts him, and it’s clear he’s talking through a fair amount of effort. “I’m still thirty-three. I’m still trying to figure myself out.” He looks back at Buck. “I’m not the person you fell in love with.”
Buck examines his expression for a moment. “That’s factually incorrect,” he points out. “I was in love with you long before you turned thirty-one, and I have loved you every day since.”
Eddie’s eyes are immediately filled with tears.
“And I’m here for you,” Buck insists, taking a cautious step forward. “The same way I would be at twenty-seven, the same way I would be at thirty, the same way I am now, at thirty-seven.” He smiles, though it feels a little shaky. “Besides. I’ve always wanted to date a younger man,” he teases, and Eddie barks out a surprised laugh. “We’ll call it even, yeah?”
Eddie nods.
“And we’ll take it one day at a time,” he promises, taking another step, then another. Eddie allows him to enter his space, with the same cautious air about him that he exuded that very first time. Buck leans forward and presses his forehead against Eddie’s, watches as his husband’s – his partner’s – eyes flutter closed at the contact. “Together.”
Eddie’s inhale is shaky, but his smile is genuine when he opens his eyes, full of light, full of hope, and replies, “Together.”
send me a pairing + an au/setting and i'll write a 3 sentence fic
I hope you're having an amazing night and I love you very much 🥰
SHE’S BACK BABY IT’S BEEN SO LONG
nova you are the love and light of my life and i hope you know that i would fight literally ANYONE WHO GIVES YOU SHIT EVER ABOUT ANYTHINT ily ily ily ily ily 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
