#therpay

Author 1: I can make you feel overwhelmed with happiness and love; I have a magic story filled with thousand of possibilities and lots of caring characters.

Chapters: 1/1 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), Frank (9-1-1 TV) Additional Tags: Therapy, Frank gets Eddie talking and thinking, nothing too deep yet, but franks onto something, Eddie talks about Buck Series: Part 3 of No Longer Alone Summary:

Eddie gets asked a simple question in his session with Frank. It leads to a more complicated question.

“Who has Christopher when you’re here?”

Eddie blinks, it’s a simple question. Frank often starts small warms him up with an innocent question like this before they get onto the bigger issues. 

He can answer this kind of question easily.

“Buck.”

“He’s another firefighter isn’t he, a friend from work?” Frank writes something down, probably Buck's name. 

Eddie can feel the slight furrowing of his brow, that description doesn’t feel right, doesn’t do Buck justice, he’s more than that, before he can explore the thought Frank has another question.

“You don’t worry about leaving him with, um Buck?”

“No!” he sounds incredulous but obviously Frank doesn’t know Buck so he wouldn’t know how ridiculous that question really is. 

“Buck’s not just a friend, he’s ….” Well he doesn’t exactly have the words for what Buck is so he goes down a more practical route “He’s been helping out, a lot, staying over, cooking, he helps Chris with his homework.” He suddenly remembers the hearts and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth at the thought of Buck’s goofy heart, pink and grinning. He still has it on the table, hadn’t really wanted to throw it out yet. Frank’s waiting for more, in that quiet way he has. 

“Bucks always there for Chris. And me. He’s the one person I…. Chris adores him and Buck loves him right back. Would do anything for him.” 

“What else makes you feel safe with Buck.” 

“We’ve been together a long time now, he’s my partner and I trust him. More than anyone I guess. We kinda promised to always have each other’s backs and yeah there’ve been a couple of tough times.” he shrugs off the pain he’d felt when Buck had sued the department and Eddie hadn’t been able to see him. “But we fixed it. He apologised.” He still remembers the shock he’d felt when Buck had pushed his apology even after he’d been told he was forgiven. How he’d insisted they talk and that Eddie knew how genuine his regret was, he still thinks about that night a lot.

“He was sorry he’d hadn’t been there for Chris or me when we needed him and this time, he’s making sure he is.” The thought makes him smile softly to himself. 

Frank’s doing the silent therapist thing, he hates it but not as much as he hates that he feels the need to explain more about why Chris being with Buck is not something he would ever worry about.

“Actually Bucks in my Will. If anything happens to me, Chris will be looked after by him.”

“Buck? Not your sisters or his grandparents?”

“No. He’s what I want for Chris.” 

Frank writes that down too with a nod.

“You sound very sure about that.”

“I am.”

He decides to change the subject “Buck even got Chris into an equine therapy program recently. He found out about it and took me and Chris there. He um was also making a point for me too about why our jobs matter.”

“Was it a good point.”

His lips twist into a rueful smile, Buck had been extremely pleased with himself that day.

“Yeah it was. He uh made me see some things from a different perspective. It was a good day.” He smiles at the memory of him and Buck standing together watching Chris with the horse. It had been the best day he’d had in a long time. 

“Eddie..” something about his tone makes Eddie’s heart rate pick up, “you’ve been smiling a lot wekve been talking. First time I’ve seen you smile in here.”

“Well Chris is one of the things that make me happy.”

“I’m sure he is, but um we weren’t really talking about Chris.”

Eddie freezes, like a deer caught in headlights. He can’t look away from Frank’s calm and carefully neutral face. The dreadful man continues speaking quietly, 

I WAS IN THERAPY

AND MY THERAPIST SAID

‘LIST DOWN PLACES WHERE YOU FEEL SAFE OR COMFORTABLE OR EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED’

AND I IMMEDIATELY PUT DOWN CHAN’S ROOM

AND THEN

SHE ASKED ME TO READ IT OUT

AND OFC ME BEING THE DUMBASS I AM

SAID ‘CHAN’S ROOM’