Sarah || she/her || 30 || Europe
these days I am a weewoo, cdrama and thai BL blog in equal meassures xD sometimes a bit of dnd and general writing stuff
newest obsessions: northsonic own my life <3
my writing || my edits
Or the one where Buck is presumed dead after a building collapse and Eddie has to live through the reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to anyone
read on ao3 (warnings for presumed major character death, grief/mourning and major character injury; edit: additional warnings for earthquake, being burried under a collapsed building, multiple minor character deaths)
The thing is – and Eddie should have known this, has been taught this cruel lesson over and over and over again – the thing is most of the time the worst day of your life will start like just any other day.
A million small moments, so familiar and mundane you almost don’t even notice them slipping by - until you would give anything to go back and get just one more.
(You can't.)
This one technically starts with a call to a small pile-up accident at 11.47 the day before, which drags on so they only fall into their bunks sometime around 2am. But since they catch over 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep afterwards, it kind of doesn’t count.
So instead the day starts with the bell blessedly only going off again at 6.14 and Eddie blearily opening his eyes to a cup of coffee on the pillow next to him, almost completely obscuring Buck’s wide smile right behind it. There is a pillow crease all the way down his cheek that is visible though and Eddie barely catches himself before reaching out to smooth his finger along the promise of warm skin right there.
Instead he wraps both hands around the coffee cup - just to be safe, he does actually know how to control himself most of the time - and takes a deep gulp in the hopes it will wake not just him but also his restraint. He is up and already halfway to the door, before he turns back to raise an eyebrow at Buck.
“Wait, how did you know there was gonna be a call before the bell even went and woke everyone?”
“I didn’t,” Buck snorts. “I’ve been awake for like 20 minutes and I figured that something like this was gonna happen before too long.” He shrugs, ducks his head and something in Eddie’s chest goes warm and weightless. “The coffee isn’t super fresh anymore, but better than no coffee, right?”
There’s that familiar, almost completely obscured lift at the end of his words. Eddie only hears it because he knows it so well. A familiar uncertainty in the question that begs to be told he did something right at the same time it desperately tries to hide the need for reassurance. It cracks open something in Eddie that leaks warm affection and heartbreak in equal measures into a chest that already feels too full.
“Literally life-saving, Buck,” he throws over his shoulder, the casualness lost somewhere around the single syllable of Buck’s name that most days now feels like an almost-kiss against Eddie’s lips. It’s hard to reign in love like this, when there isn’t really a good reason at all—when everyday he sails impossibly closer to just blurting it out in the middle of a conversation about milk or school drop-offs or Saturn’s rings. When he is some days daring to hope he doesn’t have to anymore. “C’mon, Firefighter Buckley, this fire’s not gonna douse itself.”
“You know, statistically it’s way more likely it’s a medical call,” Buck answers, his voice slipping into a familiar cadence of curiosity and fascination that evokes a million small memories of patented-Buckley-research-wisdom. The excited grin Eddie knows has spread over Buck’s whole entire face – ear to ear, pink-so-very-pink lips to crinkly eyes – is just as easy to hear. “Did you know that there are around 18 times as many medical calls as there are fire related calls? And almost double as many false alarms too and that—"
“More walking while talking, Buckaroo,” Chimney cuts in as he jogs past them just outside the bunk room, voice a little muffled around the toast hanging precariously out of the corner of his mouth. “Fire’s gonna need some firefighters and we’re obviously the best of the best, so hop to it.”
Buck of course immediately raises to the bait and picks up his pace to take off after Chimney and Eddie watches him throw up his hands in maybe-only-half-mock exasperation. “Not all our calls are fires, Chim. I literally just told Eddie that, do any of you ever—”
And then they are almost out of Eddie’s hearing range and he can’t make out any words against the familiar cadence of their bickering.
He gives himself one more second to gulp down the rest of his coffee – the fact that it came from Buck a gift in itself, maybe even more precious than the caffeine boost.
It’s been almost 4 months now since he rejoined the 118 again, but sometimes it still hits him how much he missed it.
Missed all of them. But especially Buck.
He tucks the cup safely underneath the stairs, where it won’t be a tripping hazard - and where three other empty cups already live, a testament to how very much too fucking early it is – and jogs the last few meters over to start pulling on his turnout gear, right as Buck and Chimney finish up. They are still ribbing each other - in that way that always reminds Eddie of his sisters - right until Chimney veers off towards the ambulance.
Eddie climbs into the rigg after Buck and for a moment it’s just the two of them, the cabin filled with the quiet before the storm.
"Hey, Buck," Eddie murmurs, leaning closer towards him, their shoulders bumping gently into each other. "Seriously, thank you for the coffee."
And there it is, that familiar little head duck and the smile, soft and a little wondering, half hidden against Buck's own shoulder. "You don't have to thank me for that, you know that."
"Okay, but maybe I want to," Eddie gently throws back and his hands are a little sweaty and he knows that Buck knows him well enough to read the way he bites his lip as a sign of nervousness and—god, Eddie has been waiting for an opportunity for days now, has been turning the words over and over inside his head, looking for flaws and cracks and stalling.
Hiding from the fact that he actually needs to say them out loud if he want to get an answer from Buck.
And it's not the perfect moment and it's not quite the words he's been meaning to say - too casual, too much you're my best friend and not enough I want you to be my boyfriend and none of the I think you might be the love of my life that has been on the tip of his tongue for days, weeks, months now - but maybe it can be a start. "There's this new Greek place across from Maddie’s therapist you've been talking about checking out, right? You wanna go there tonight, dinner on me, after we catch some sleep? Chris is going to a sleepover at Jacob's so it...it would be just us two."
Buck’s head snaps up at that, something in his voice must have given Eddie away and for a second he can feel his own heartbeat all the way in his fingertips. He carefully shoves them underneath the cuffs of his sleeves and holds Buck’s gaze.
It's fine, it’ll be fine. It’s Buck.
For one breath and then a second one the air inside the truck goes heavy with—something that Eddie can’t quite figure out. Then Buck blinks and then the corners of his mouth tip into a smile that makes Eddie shiver. Buck looks light and soft and warm in a way that makes Eddie want to lean in, let some of that happiness spill over into him.
“Yeah, Eddie, I—of course. I’d love to go.” The smiles curves into something a little more smirk. “Even though Chris is gonna be mad we went without him. You know how he gets about going out to eat, all fancy.”
Eddie grins.
It’s true. And he knows very well it won’t be like this much longer. Already there are days when he gets a glimpse into a not-too-far-off future of moody teenager and slamming doors and I am too cool for that, dad.
It takes a moment for the realization to fully hit.
He asked Buck out for a maybe-a-date—for a very-likely-a-date going by how Buck’s eyes linger on Eddie’s face, something vulnerable and wondering hiding in the way the corners of his eyes crinkle and the way his shoulder is a heavy weight leaning against Eddie’s and the way his fingers that had been fidgeting with his turnout zipper have gone still.
And Buck said yes.
Said yes as if there was nothing else he’d rather be doing on a Friday night. Maybe there isn’t. There certainly isn’t for Eddie.
Something fizzy and giddy bubbles up from somewhere inside his chest. “We’ll make it up to him. Not that you need much of an excuse to spoil him, but there you go. Spoil away.”
And Buck’s smile goes radiant at that.
“I’ve been meaning to take him to the library soon, you know, just to look around. Maybe find some really weird books or ones about sunken ships and the Bermuda triangle, he’s been talking about that a lot lately, I’m sure they have books on that. We could go on Sunday, if he’s too tired tomorrow after the sleepover, right?”
Eddie had thought his chest had gone fluttery at Buck saying yes to their maybe-hopefully-a-date date. But it’s nothing on the way he feels at the ease with which Buck remembers Christopher’s weird fascination of the week and plans his entire weekend around Eddie’s kid. It’s nothing new. But sometimes it still makes Eddie a little breathless how much Buck loves Chris, how easy it comes to him and how confident he is about it now.
“He’d love that,” Eddie answers and before he can say more – maybe spill that I think you might be the love of my life on the tip of his tongue after all – the front doors on the firetruck open, Bobby and Peterson climbing in, followed by Ravi and Lucy joining Buck and him in the back. They later two are snickering about something or other and Eddie watches Buck and Bobby fondly roll their eyes at them in a way that looks eerily similar.
no lie, the second half of this post really helped me put a different perspective on my life and greatly the decreased the anxiety i have about my life to come
if you work in a creative field...or if you do creative hobbies like writing or drawing...you need to make friends with people who don't do those things. you need to befriend normie Steve who has never written a story in his life. and this is because when you are in a creative job or hobby and spend all your time doing that thing, surrounded by very capable people, who you inevitably compare your own progress and skills to, you forget what the baseline human skill at that thing is. and it's usually zero. normie Steve has not written a story since the 3rd grade when his teacher made him do it. he's very good at other things that are not storytelling - but if you tell normie Steve that you wrote a full 300-page book from start to finish, he will think you're some kind of savant. he does not know ANYONE else who has done this. you need this perspective. because when you're constantly on Let's Write Stories dot Com then everyone on Let's Write Stories dot Com will inevitably be like "oh of course everyone on earth has written a book or several at this point!" and you canNOT let yourself think that. that is not even close to the average human experience. you are in a bubble. do not put yourself down. do not give up.
rose tinted glasses but one thing i miss abt fandom circa 2010-2015 was that we loved internalised homophobia. people seem generally less interested in internalised homophobia as an insidious force which manifests in behaviour that’s dark and cruel and frightening and selfish. in the 2020’s it’s more of like a nameable character flaw which does not touch anyone outside the character affected by it and functions in fictional more like a sanitised internal monologue and is easily solvable. which is not really how this sort of bigotry functions -it’s not a personal failing as such more a living organism which can manifest in interpersonal relationships in odd and confusing ways.
characters do kind of have to think and act in ways which are both motivated by and facilitate shame in order for that exploration to have any meat. and sometimes that means acting in ways that are understandably but not justifiably cruel to both themselves and others, even people they love.
shame is such an interesting and complex motivator but in order to feel shame you have to engage in thoughts and behaviours that are, well, shameful.
hey does anyone have that poem. about the author seeing two boys cuddling on a hotel lobby couch, where he refers to it as something like an island of safe anonymity or smth. its been 5000 years my college boyfriend had it written out and pinned to his wall
the thing is. theo is old enough to remember his parents. and he's already calling buck, buck. even if at some point he's old enough to understand that he can have two dads and decides to start calling buck dad as well that's always going to be his buck first. buck's name being synonymous to a parental moniker for both of his kids. christopher and theo and their buck.
and when buck feels like he's floundering in the early stages of getting guardianship over theo and he's telling eddie that he doesn't know how to be a dad and eddie tells him "you may not have everything figured out yet but you know how to be somebody's buck" and looks meaningfully at chris and theo immersed in a game together
