takendreams

[takendreams]

Mr. “‘He’s not- we’re not’ - subtle is what you are not!“-Diaz in Close My Eyes and Stumble (Right Into Your Love) by @hmslusitania  

Eddie’s PTSD is just that little bit worse and when he moves to Los Angeles, instead of joining the LAFD, he joins dispatch.

Which is all good and fine, except for this one firefighter he keeps ending up talking to.

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Sorry, still thinking about this post and my tags on it, and if you think about it, Eddie has been acting like a sheepdog, guiding Buck into the most comfortable, close-enough-but-not-too-close spot in his life from pretty much the very beginning. They are established as partners early on, with them literally promising to have each other's backs, and then proving it when Buck starts helping with Chris in 2x04 and introduces Eddie to Carla. And pretty much starting then, you can see Eddie begin doing this dance. During the tsunami arc, Buck has started to pull away because of his injury, so Eddie drops Chris off with him. And afterward, Buck is blaming himself and prepared to pull away again, and Eddie knows this and shows up and hits him with a, "There's no one in this world I trust with my son more than you."

Then there's the infamous grocery store fight, the first time their partnership is really threatened, and Eddie lashes out and reminds Buck where his place is. ("Do you know how much Chris misses you?" and "I couldn't even call you to bail me out of jail.") Then Buck gets it, and we get the kitchen scene, but while we're all focused on the flirting (for good reason!) what's also happening is that Eddie is deflecting all the real questions. Buck pushes, "If you can't be honest with Frank, at least be honest with me," but Eddie just keeps cracking jokes, and they never really do get to the heart of the matter. Eddie's content that he has Buck back where he needs him; they don't have to actually talk about what happened or why in a real way.

But of course the most obvious time it happens is with the will. And the fact that Eddie puts Buck in his will a year before he tells him about it. He anchors Buck into his and Chris's life, but he only tells Buck when Buck has started to doubt his place during the shooting arc. It's actually an insane choice to put your best friend in your will without even having a conversation about it first, but Eddie can't face that conversation. Not until Buck is trying to place himself farther outside the "Buck Zone of Comfort" that Eddie has drawn in his mind, and then he has to just carefully nudge him riiiight back over the line. You're not expendable, not to me.

(Adding a cut, because this is getting long.)

The reason he's getting all snarly now is because leaving for Texas exposed this dance Eddie's been doing in a way that can't be ignored, because this is the first time Eddie himself has pushed Buck away, rather than some circumstance or NDE or Buck's own issues. If things were normal between them, Eddie could have involved Buck from the beginning, but he couldn't do that without deciding once and for all, is Buck just my friend, or is he more than that? Because if he's just a friend, then he can just help me move and be happy for me. But if he's more than that, then I don't think either of us can handle being apart, but I have no choice. But of course Eddie can't deal with thinking about any of that, so he just puts up a wall between himself and Buck by not talking to him about it at all until Buck finds out, and even then he keeps it minimal (ex: Buck tries to help him pick a house, but in the end Eddie picks one out and puts a down payment on it without consulting Buck at all).

I don't think either of them really gets what's behind it yet. Like, they know that it feels bad for Eddie to leave, but they don't fully understand why. Eddie won't let himself think about it, and Buck I think can't even conceive of the idea that Eddie might care about him that way, mostly because of his own trauma and lack of self-esteem. Eddie probably realizes they've reached a point where he can't position Buck back inside that Zone of Comfort, but I'm not sure if he knows that the only way to do it would be to put a label on what they are to each other, which he will NOT let himself do.

He does still try to do the push-and-pull thing again while he's in Texas with all the FaceTiming. He knows he's made Buck feel expendable again, so he tries to undo that by consulting him on all these big things he crucially did not consult him on before leaving: his job, Chris, his relationship with his parents. He feels more comfortable being emotionally close to Buck when there's all this physical distance between them.

But now, he's back, and Bobby's dead, and everything's more fragile than ever. Buck is closed off to him, so Eddie tries to remind him of his place again by bringing Chris back. But it only sort of works, because what now? They are living in the same house, but they both have this knowledge now of what it feels to be 800 miles apart, and what it feels to not share their grief with each other, and what it feels to not be a family, so they can't really just go back to how things were.

So Eddie does the exact wrong thing. He still plans to go back to El Paso. Even after it seemed like he came back--maybe even came back FOR BUCK--as soon as they're back to the fire station, he pulls out his phone and starts looking for flights. I don't know if we'll see this on screen, but I believe this is the moment that Buck gets it. Eddie has been trying to have it both ways, to keep Buck close but not too close. I doubt either of them really know what that means for how they feel about each other, but I do think Buck gets that he's going to be miserable unless he "lets Eddie go" in some capacity, which is why he starts looking for a new place to live.

I highly doubt Eddie is going to deal with this well, but for the first time, it's going to be basically impossible to fix this without acknowledging how he feels. Looking forward to finding out what it's going to take for him to do that!

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fun thought. Eddie definitely sells the El Paso house at a major profit and Ravi is like, "goooooollllllllly, what CAN'T he do?" and he approaches him with a Property Brothers-esque partnership where Ravi finds the property to buy and deals with the paperwork and Eddie does the actual fixing up. And it's supposed to be a side thing. A way to make extra money and keep busy on days they're not on shift. But they become insanely successful. Like ludicrously successful. Like approached by HGTV (Ravi wants to do it and for them to call the show "From Dire to Fire" by the way) successful because they're two really good-looking guys flipping houses. Meanwhile, Buck's at the firehouse, reading books called "Interior Designing for Dummies" and tilting the cover to face Ravi. He's at home reading articles published on the Sherwin Williams website out loud to Eddie. Just hoping one of them (eddieeddieeddieeddieeddie, he'd settle for ravi) will ask him to help.

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if we're being honest. bobby should've died on a somewhat ordinary call Like Real Firefighters do. without any obvious Mortal peril present. maybe in a fire. and then it would have Hit.

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sits bolt upright in bed. buck putting in for a transfer WAS originally going to happen in 8.17. because part of the synopsis for that episode was “buck contemplates where he’s supposed to be” and there was that whole conversation with gerrard that they cut. at the time i was thankful (and honestly i still am, i wouldn’t have wanted another part of 8.17 cut) but i’m 99% sure that’s when it was supposed to be introduced

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recession indicator : people having more hope in canon rpf ryliver than in canon buddie

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Ryan liking this comment.. guess we are not alone in well that was all mid and rushed. 🤷 Please Tim fuck off to whiteville so we can have our show back and character focus again. I can't with offsceen 911 anymore. ( Also this shouldn't have been said, rage and crash out here but do not send hate to actors or crew. Also if you haven't already do check out wannagoffortitle edits they are amazing. )

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storylines that could've been, but weren't, developed on screen

madney navigating the difficulties of a second pregnancy as a couple that has experienced a complex pregnancy in the past

eddie reconciling with his son

eddie realizing that he grew up in an unstable household and contending with the emotional repercussions of that realization

the legal and emotional journey leading up to mara's adoption

the emotional ramifications of eddie's separation from the 118 (aside from the buddie of it all)

storylines that were developed on screen

buckneddie's internal conflicts regarding eddie's move

the aftermath of bobby's unexpected death (unlike the others, this storyline had little to no set up. the others were set up in 8a or earlier)

instead of continuous character development we got a montage assuring us that the firefam went through significant emotional journeys offscreen.

kinda feeling like 8b was more about the emergencies than it was about the characters.

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which interview is this from because this has crazy implications about any development planned for 8B being derailed by the decision to kill Bobby

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Ngl I think it would be really funny if Buck just became homeless and tries searching for the ' perfect ' apartment but none of them feel warm and homey like his last place ... Eddie's place ... and then has a montage of crashing on everyones couches . Madney's couch . Henren's couch . Roommates with Ravi for a while until he gets sick of Buck baking all the time . He even goes to Athena who has her own new little place and she's just like . One night only . Then get out .... He goes to everyone elses couch except Eddie's . Because he doesn't want to mess with Eddie settling back in or some stupid excuse . He just would severely miss sleeping in that house and fears he would never be able to leave if he stayed there again

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Hot take: I miss the days when 9-1-1 had voiceovers for every episode. I feel like it forced the writers to really adhere to a theme ✨ which ended up making some damn good/poignant television.

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okay and maybe you are all going to look at me like i’m crazy. I think they were 1 billion% going to do buddie canon this season and were going to start following through on it in 812 but then for some reason tim decided to kill bobby. like bobby didn’t die for buddie canon. buddie canon died for dead bobby. which is worse.

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why did the cop cart have more personal development than any of the main characters this season

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they had the perfect setup to make eddie realise that he couldn’t be away from his family after seeing this emergency and showing that him jumping in to help made him realise where he belongs etc and they just.. made it seem like he was still eager to leave?

i know he stayed in the end and chimney’s speech was great but i just. wanted eddie to choose this for himself for once yknow?

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eddie's whole fucking arc being about "choosing joy" and he didn't even choose to come back to L.A. himself

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okay so aunt pepa couldn’t convince eddie to stay in LA but chim yells at him once and all of a sudden he’s not leaving

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they even baited us with the title. there were no seismic shifts in this episode, there wasn’t even an earthquake !