tagged by @soupfic @cathcer1984 with some fascinating words you should check out. thank you beloveds 🫶

Eddie Diaz: Yes.

The name itself wasn’t a surprise, Maddie enthusiastically told him she was inviting Eddie and Chris.

Seeing his best friend in person should have excited him. Instead, he landed somewhere between hollow and anxious, pasting on a smile for his big sister.

Last spring, after Chim gave his rousing firehouse speech, he really thought there was hope. Eddie stood taller, looking just as inspired as the rest of them. Like he couldn’t wait for an opportunity to whip out his phone and tell El Paso ‘thanks, but no thanks’. Turns out Eddie did call the captain–his captain. He explained the disastrous situation with the building collapse and was granted an additional forty-eight hours.

Within twenty-four, Eddie was on a plane out of LAX.

it's been tuesday for like four minutes but shhhh

i was tagged by @damnit-buck @bucklesdiaz @soupfic @circledwithaheart and @tweetsongs. ilu all omg have a little bit of werewolf!buck

Eddie's breath hitched. "Show me?" He was asking too much. He waited for Buck to say no, that it was too intimate, too revealing. But Buck just looked at him, Adam's apple bobbing as he stepped away from the counter, facing Eddie in full. His chin dipped, an acknowledgement or warning before it happened. It came first as a series of small pops, like a knuckle cracking again and again. Then Buck twitched, shuddered, his shoulders sloping. The pops became louder, cracks as joints snapped out of place — his neck jerking to the side, his arms contorted to impossible angles. Little huffs and grunts fell from Buck's lips, sounds of exertion Eddie'd heard during every shift, every workout, every nightmare. As the transformation went on these became lower, guttural, a single sustained whine. It occurred to Eddie that he hadn't asked if it hurt. Every instinct in him screamed to look away, to run, to get out get outgetoutNOW — but he didn't. He stood and forced himself to watch as Buck underwent this horror he had a thousand times unwitnessed.

and his works crackle into silence into silence for a moment, a habitual hitch of the breath, a preparation for the kind of pain that fills the room like a flood or a tsunami. but theo doesn't crumple, doesn't go quiet or pitying or sympathetic. theo is four years old and he asks "who's bobby?" straightforward and curious and not at all afraid.

buck looks at him and thinks: my captain. he thinks: my mentor. he thinks: the man who raised me. every word feels inadequate.

"he taught me how to make pancakes," he settles on, eventually. it is not enough. it is the only thing that seems to matter, right now.

theo peers at him with eyes that makes buck understand years of swats to the arm and hissed stop staring's, piercing and unsettlingly canny for a toddler. "bobby is you?" he asks, little head flopping to the side like a curious bobblehead.

it punches the air out of him, something too sharp to be joy but too tender to be agony. no, he almost snaps. what bobby did for him was-- special. sacred. what buck is doing is a band-aid over a child's broken heart.

but. but. he feels bobby's hand on his shoulder, a silent reminder. take a breath. take a beat. take count of what is around you: a kitchen. the smell of burnt sugar. a little boy who needs a home.

and buck is not the man who raised theo. not now, and perhaps not ever. but he can be one thing to this little boy: he can be the man who taught him how to make pancakes.

so: "a little," buck concedes, running flour-stained fingers through theo's unruly hair, a smudge of white over his dimpled cheek.

later, there will be more little smudges, in the shape of small fingers, running along the edge of a photograph of two men at a concert, faces bright. there will be a little voice announcing to a littler face that you have the same name as pancake bobby, two pairs of eyes that will turn to buck with grief, with joy. there will be more questions, and as many answers as buck can give, in honor of another man who tried to give buck his answers, and in honor of the man buck wants so desperately to become.

right now, though, buck scoops theo up, grinning at his shrieking giggles. he walks over to a pan, and dumps out a disk the color of char.

"you know what the first thing bobby taught me about making pancakes?" he whispers, conspiratorial, as theo leans in with star-bright eyes. "the first one never counts. wanna try for a second, spiderman?"

theo cheers. behind him, he can feel a hand on his shoulder, a kind smile, patience that lasted a lifetime. i miss you, buck wants to say. there is nobody to say it to.

Tagged by @damnit-buck mwah I started working on something new last week so have some car crash buck.

The slam of the door echos as Buck storms out of Bobby's house. He doesn't look back. Just gets in the Jeep and throws it into gear.

How could he? How could he? Racing through his head. He doesn't know where he's going. It doesn't matter. Anywhere but here.

Bobby was supposed to be someone he could trust. Sometime between being fired and recovering from having his leg crushed, it got harder to ignore that Bobby is more than his captain. All the days he showed up at the loft with another meal. All the PT appointments he drove Buck to. All the times he let Buck shout at him and took his pain like it was easy. 

Did it all mean nothing? Bobby could sideline Buck like he meant nothing?

Buck rolls to a stop at a red light. It's a quiet night. He lowers the windows, wanting to feel the wind. Thoughts of pushing the gas and seeing how fast he can go tempt him. He could drive anyway. Pick a direction and go. Why stay? Bobby certainly doesn't want him.

The traffic light changes.

He still has that lawyer's card somewhere. The lawyer could get Bobby to see reason. Prove that this is unfair. Get him back where he belongs.

Buck presses the gas. He doesn’t check the cross roads.

He blows past the speed limit and keeps going. The wind hits his face. It’s not enough to calm his heart. The tension in his jaw doesn’t lessen. The rage doesn’t dampen.

He doesn’t see the stop sign. He doesn’t see the truck speeding through the intersection. He doesn’t have any time to panic or prepare. The impact is sudden and fierce, right into the driver's side.

Losing consciousness would be too kind. He feels it all. The slam of the airbag hitting his chest. The twist of the metal frame wrapping around his leg. The crack of his radius and ulna. The spray of glass raining down on him. Everything spinning. 

Blood drips down his temple. Oozes from other cuts. It's a lot of blood.

Blood thinners Buck thinks. That’s bad, right? Whatever is wrong, that must make it worse.

Evan "Buck" Buckley + I got you.

& the one time someone had him

tagged by @lesbucks and @eddiesgayladder and probably others since the last time I shared but I think I finally have something that's not a spoiler! from my most recent chris nde story:

"So you're gay now," Helena starts, and Eddie freezes, too, one of Chris's old t-shirts caught in his hold. Her face is as inscrutable as her voice, and Eddie can't help but feel like he's walked into a trap, especially when his father leans against the doorway. For all his body can't move, his heart makes up the difference, pounding against his chest like it's trying to give him the Heimlich. "What? Why would you say that?" he scoffs. "Eddie, you put him in your will. It's not that hard to figure out." Ramon says. Eddie swallows, tries not to think about Buck's form, hot and steady underneath his own. "You haven't figured out anything. Buck's my friend, and–" "You think Christopher hasn't told us about his boyfriend?" Helena interrupts. Eddie's jaw tics. "Ex-boyfriend."

buddie, 4k, rating: m

chapter 1/10(?)

Buddie | M | 1/?

(cw: mentions of suicide/attempting)

Eddie finds joy. Letting himself have it is a bit more complicated.

(Or: Eddie always thought he didn't believe in signs, but the evidence is getting pretty tough to ignore.)

Chapter 1: I Feel Like I Died (I'll take you with me)

“Edmundo,” his father intones, voice deeper and rougher than Eddie remembers. “You need to come home now.” “What happened,” Eddie says — doesn’t ask, because whatever it is, he knows he’ll spend the rest of his life hating himself for. Whatever it is, it’s Chris, and Eddie wasn’t there for it. Everything else is schematics. “H-He…dios, Eddie.” Eddie’s only heard his father cry once before. “He tried to kill himself.”

read on ao3

'obviously kill buck-' 'oh yeah, obviously' (buck, lifting his head up from where he's sprawled in a recliner: hey.) '-fuck eddie, I've got eyes. marry chim for the sweet captain privileges.'

(eddie, from the other recliner, without lifting his head: nice.)

'hey cap,' harry hollers, 'fuck marry kill, ravi, eddie or buck?'

'I'm pretty sure this is a HR violation,' says chim from where he's doing admin at the dining table. 'but uhhh. buck, I'm sorry, you're my brother and I love you, but I can’t. I've gotta kill you-'

(What the fuck?? says buck)

'transfer ravi to another house and then fuck him, I guess. eddie, I'll marry you.'

(yeah ok says eddie around a big yawn)

chim says, 'hen, you're exempt, lesbian card in play.' (thank you lord says hen without looking up from the book she's reading.) 'harry, you're exempt because I need to be able to look your mom in the eyes'

(And because he's, what? twelve? mutters buck.

Im eighteen and three quarters, hisses harry.

Spoken like a true 12 year old)

'buckaroo, fuck marry kill, eddie, ravi or-'

'I'm killing ravi.'

'ah, ah, let me finish! eddie, ravi or your truly.'

'kill ravi. then uh. Uh.' buck clears his throat. (hen lowers her book.) 'I'm uh, I'll marry chim, he, you know, I already know he's a good husband. a-and jee and nash are already buckley hans, so that's. convenient.'

'and you'll fuck eddie,' hen concludes, placidly.

'as a friend.'

'you don't want to marry me?' eddie says, sounding a little hurt.

'I - it's not that I don't want to marry you, I just really don't wanna fuck chim or ravi.'

'so you do want to fuck eddie,' ravi says.

'you said you'd fuck eddie!'

'well duh. I mean, i'm straight but look at him.'

'I'm always looking at him!!!'

an awkward silence. harry, deeply confused, whispers 'what is happening?'