schrijverr

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. 5

Chapter 5 out 23

Buck and Eddie are visiting El Paso with Chris, while pretending their marriage is still just convenience for Helena and Ramon, which causes tensions to arise between them. Otherwise known as the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad El Paso trip.

In this chapter, Eddie tries to be okay with Chris being so far away and enjoy the time he has alone with Buck. Meanwhile, Chimney tries to make a big decision about his relationship with Maddie as they rest of the 118 sticks their nose in his business.

On ao3.

Ships: Buddie, Madney

Warnings: internalized misogyny, homophobia mention, guilt, non-explicit sexual content

~~~

Chapter 5: Date Night Planning

The day Eddie still can’t shake the whole thing, texting Chris about how he is feeling and what he is doing today, continuously checking Chris’s response. He doesn’t seem bothered by the nightmare anymore, says he got a good few hours after and is excited to hang out with Abuela today where he’ll see some of his cousins.

It’s not as bad a day for Eddie as it was yesterday, but he is still a little quiet when they go through their morning routine and get to work. Throughout the day, Buck is unobtrusively touchy, which Eddie appreciates.

He also appreciates being at work, because working is something he needs all his wits for. So whenever they are on a call, he can get out of his own head. But it still hangs over him, so during the down time he keeps to himself.

Right now, he is curled up on the couch, checking his messages from Chris again, while listening to Buck putter in the kitchen behind him. Chris sent a few pictures earlier and Eddie is looking at them, studying his face to see if he is really okay, if the smile is real.

Eddie is snapped out of it when Chimney falls on the couch next to him, hair still wet, since he and Hen had to shower after the nail gun call they just came from. Eddie raises a brow: “Everything okay?”

“Is it too early to say I love you to Maddie?” Chimney asks without any other preamble.

“What?” Eddie chokes.

“I made these reservations at this fancy restaurant tomorrow night after shift to tell her, but I haven’t invited her yet. I want to, ‘cause of what that guy in the ambulance said, but what if it’s too soon and I scare her off?” Chimney explains, adding: “Hen is in the shower so I’m asking you.”

“Why not Buck? He’s her brother, he knows her,” Eddie counters.

“Yeah, but telling Buck is basically telling Maddie and I want to be the one that tells her, so you can’t until after the date.”

“Buck kept a secret from you for two years, you hypocrite,” Eddie rolls his eyes.

“That’s different,” Chimney argues, even though it really isn’t. Buck hid a family and marriage for two years, he can manage hiding a planned confession for a day. Chimney seems to realize that too. So he makes a little frustrated noise: “Just don’t tell him. He’ll get excited. But when he asks, say that it’s because he can’t lie.”

“Sure,” Eddie rolls his eyes. Buck would get excited. With that sorted, he moves onto more important things, because he is tía Pepa’s nephew at his core. “Still, why are you doubting yourself? Are you doubting if you love her?”

“No! I love her,” Chimney quickly says. Then he mumbles: “Just scared that it’s too early, even though with the guy and he thought it was too late and he might never, so I should, but-” He cuts himself off and groans. “I don’t know!”

“Tell her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Eddie nods, never having been more sure of anything before. He remembers walking through that tsunami, thinking Buck might not make it and Eddie would never get the chance to tell him how much he loved him. How terrified he was that Buck might die without knowing how much he meant to Eddie.

Back then, he didn’t even think Buck could ever love him back, thought that he would tell him to be rejected and have to leave this life they had behind. And still it was the most important thing to him, because Buck deserved to know he was loved.

“What is Eddie looking intense about?” Hen asks, coming up too in a clean uniform.

“Me telling Maddie I love her,” Chimney answers.

“Ahhh,” Hen nods like that makes sense. It probably does. She is smart like that. “Are you scrabbling back now? You were going to tell her, do you need me to kick your ass like you kicked mine about Karen? Because I’ll do it.”

“No, no, I’ll ask her, I’ll ask her,” Chimney quickly assures her, getting his phone out under her scrutinizing gaze.

“Good,” Hen nods, looking self satisfied.

Then she waits around as Chimney takes forever to draft his message and she crosses her arms and gives him a look when he hesitates. Eddie backs her up saying: “You’re going to regret it if you don’t tell her, I promise.”

“Why does it sound like you’re threatening me?” Chimney says looking concerned.

“Chimney!” Hen says, pulling his attention back to the screen.

“Sorry.” He finally sends the message to Maddie, holding his breath. Then he grins: “She said yes to going!”

“Who said yes to what?” Buck asks, leaning over the couch.

“Uh, Maddie. I asked her on a date,” Chimney answers.

“And you doubted she would go?” Buck quirks his brow.

“No,” Chimney scowls. “It’s just kind of spur of the moment and a nice place.” Then he explains: “I kind of made the reservations before asking.”

Buck’s face clears and he smiles: “That’s nice, though. Where are you guys going?”

“None of your business, Bucko,” Chimney sticks his tongue out.

“Well, then I’ll just ask Maddie,” Buck sticks his tongue back out at Chimney, pulling out his phone and texting his sister. As he starts to walk away back to the table, he calls out: “Dinner is ready.”

They all scramble out of their seats to the table. With Bobby gone on that camping trip with Micheal and Harry, they’ve all had to take turns… well, except for Eddie, Buck usually takes his cooking turn and Eddie does his turn doing dishes. He has been trying to learn how to cook, but he isn’t yet at the point where he would subject hungry firefighters on shift to his cooking.

As they all sit around the table, Buck still half texting Maddie, before Chimney tells him to stop, getting back up from Hen on the no phones rule that Bobby instated. Buck pouts for a little while, before launching into a series of fun facts about mushrooms that Eddie is pretty sure he also told during their nighttime tea, but listens to attentively anyway.

It feels… good. Normal.

Eddie is smiling through dinner and joking and realizes he hasn’t been worrying about Chris since Chimney sat down next to him on that couch. For a moment, he just stops and tries to identify how he feels about that.

Him and Frank have been working on identifying emotions, since he is bad at it and has always tried to turn all emotions into anger or guilt. Frank has a theory about it, but he won’t share it with Eddie, wanting him to figure it out on his own, which is as frustrating as it sounds. Though Eddie is already on a good path with it being about his upbringing according to Frank.

However, that is not the point right now, the point is that he isn’t worrying about Chris and he feels okay about it. The world didn’t end. His phone didn’t immediately ring with the news he fucked it all up.

Maybe a part of him had been fearing that. Like last time when he wasn’t with Chris all the time for just a few days and when he saw him again it was in the middle of a tsunami. He hasn’t even made up for that and now he is letting Chris out of sight again and it feels wrong, even though he knows it’s the best choice, the healthiest choice.

Still, the anxiety about Chris outing him to his parents is only making it worse. Making him feel like everything will go wrong the second he stops worrying.

But he stopped worrying and the world didn’t end. Chris is still okay.

Chris is fine. He is hanging out with Abuela today and stuffing himself with all the foods that they usually don’t have time to make here, because they are labors of love, as well as playing with his cousins. He had a nightmare and him and Buck were there to pick up the phone. Eddie was there for him. Chris knows he was there for him.

Eddie can sit here and laugh with his friends and it doesn’t make him a horrible parent. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Chris. It’s okay.

Of course it’s not exactly the same, since Chris isn’t a small drive away, but it is kind of the same as him being at a sleep over. Chris is at a fun sleep over and Eddie is at work. It’s normal. It’s good. It’s okay not to be devastated every day, but to have fun here.

Besides, he is going to see him soon. They have off from work tomorrow evening then they’re packing the day after and then they’re flying out the day after that. If Eddie gets too worked up, Buck has no issue flying earlier, but he doesn’t think he’ll need it.

God, Buck is the absolute best, Eddie thinks. He’s been so kind to Eddie, even when Eddie is being totally weird and emotional about it.

No, he reminds himself, he shouldn’t call himself emotional. It’s negative self talk, emotions are good and healthy or whatever. Ugh, it’s so annoying to have Frank in his head… better, but still annoying. It was easier when he could stuff this all away. He sighs, but easier is not better.

So, he sucks it up and feels his emotions and lets himself sit with the fact that he was worried, but he let his friends get him out of his head and it was fine. He is fine. Chris is fine. And they will see each other in a few days and it’s not all going to collapse.

The realization calms him and he blinks back into the conversation, smiling at something Hen said. He doesn’t know how Buck knows, but the second Eddie does, Buck smiles: “Hey, back with us again?” the words both a gentle tease about his current state, seeing as he checked out of the conversation, and a subtle inquiry about where he is at mentally after the last few days, especially yesterday.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Eddie replies, embarrassment creeping up his neck at the call out, even when he thinks Buck is sweet for it.

“Yeah, you did. You were off in that noggin of yours,” Buck grins, ruffing his hair because he knows Eddie gets disgruntled when he does it.

In turn, Eddie swats his hands away and goes to poke Buck in the side as payback, while Buck lets out a little shriek and tries to move away. He is unsuccessful though, because he is locked into the table by Eddie’s leg that he has hooked around Buck’s. He likes playing footsie, sue him.

Before it can escalate further, Hen stops them. “Come on, boys, stop flirting.”

Both stop instantly, while Buck sheepishly going: “Sorry,” while Eddie flushes: “We weren’t flirting!”

“Yeah, yeah, you guys weren’t flirting and I’m seven foot tall,” Chimney rolls his eyes. “Do you lovebirds have anything planned for tomorrow evening? I mean, a night off and no kid in the house.” He wiggles his brows. “Or did you guys have your sex marathon yesterday?”

“Chim!” Eddie exclaims, feeling scandalized at the openness of the question and flooded with guilt, because they haven’t.

They didn’t do anything really with Chris out of the house, because instead Eddie had to go and be stupid over nothing. The fact that he only just got out of his head and told himself emotions were okay, goes out of the window under this.

Buck spend all of yesterday being extra nice to Eddie and Eddie couldn’t even think to plan a date or something on their evening off together? Fuck! He is trying to be a good boyfriend, but he didn’t even ask Buck if he wanted to do something. Shit, are there expectations? Does Buck think this is their moment to go all the way? Eddie isn’t ready for that.

Slightly panicked he looks over to where Buck is, trying to gauge where he is at. Unlike Eddie, Buck looks at lot more relaxed. He leans back in his chair and says: “We haven’t really discussed it yet. We had to get Chris on a plane, so that kind of took over planning and then we had a couch day, because that rules. No R-rated movies with an eight year old, you know. Or does Albert count?”

“Oh fuck off, Albert doesn’t count, he’s a big boy,” Chimney rolls his eyes.

“But you did make plans away from him for the night,” Buck pushes the change of topic further. “Maddie texted where you’re taking her out on a date. Nice place. What are you gonna say to her? Any grandiose plans?”

“Hey, I know what you’re doing,” Chimney says, pointing at him. “You are spying for her. She has you on her payroll. You sneaky double crosser.”

“No, I’m not,” Buck lies badly.

“You totally are,” Chimney exclaims.

“Okay, so maybe I am a little, but it’s a really nice restaurant,” Buck defends himself. “What are you going to do at such a nice restaurant?”

“None of your business, Buckley,” Chimney sticks out his tongue once more.

“Watch it, you might be a Buckley too one day,” Buck shoots back, before he gasps. “You’re not proposing right?”

Hen chokes on her drink and even Eddie has to do a double take. That is quite a leap to make, especially with how new Chimney and Maddie’s relationship is. And Chimney clearly agrees, because he splutters: “Wh- What? No! Of course not!”

“Are you not serious about her?” Buck questions, now squinting at Chimney.

“Of course I’m serious about her. Very serious. Just not at proposal level yet. Don’t you think that is too soon? Shouldn’t you be giving me a shovel talk then or something?” Chimney replies.

Buck hums, then more to himself, as if he is crossing something of a mental list, he says: “Okay, so it’s not a proposal.”

“What did I say about spying on me!” Chimney wails.

“Okay, okay, enough, both of you,” Hen interrupts again. “Me and Karen are taking Denny to the cinema. Nia is with the sitter. We’re trying to do one on one time with both the kids. We’re taking Nia to a playground while Denny is at a friend’s house in the weekend.”

“That’s nice. What movie are you guys seeing?” Eddie says grateful for the change in topic. He thinks Buck’s protectiveness over Maddie is cute, but he’d like the talks about date nights and proposals to stop now.

With Buck’s response to Chimney’s original question, Eddie knows Buck doesn’t blame him for not coming up with a plan. Even though he really should have, so the reminder of that makes it so the guilt continues to churn in his stomach. Maybe he can suggest going on a date too after shift?

As for the talks of proposals, it’s not that it makes him uncomfortable or anything. He wants to get married to Buck for real at some point, but he first wants to do dating right. He rushed a proposal to Shannon due to the pregnancy and his first proposal to Buck was a joke. He’s never really dated anyone before, not unless you want to count one offs because showing up to a school dance alone is lame.

So, yeah, Eddie wants to date Buck right now, then maybe enjoy being a fiance too, but Buck can get excited about things and Eddie would say yes in a heartbeat if asked. Therefore, both Chimney and Buck need to stop talking about proposing.

Thankfully, Hen is more than willing to talk about the outing she has planned with Karen and Denny instead, which pulls the others in, until the previous conversation is forgotten.

They actually manage to get quite some sleep in. There are a few minor medical calls, but nothing too extreme or exhausting, after which Eddie always checks his phone, but he doesn’t do it with dread like he did before, so progress. Despite his embarrassment when Buck pointed it out, he feels more at ease, so he has fun.

They convince Hen to make waffles for breakfast and it turns into a competition between the four of them to see who can catch the fruit toppings in their mouth the best. It’s hilarious and something Bobby would have never let fly, so it’s their only opportunity.

Eddie isn’t even surprised when Chimney wins. Though when Buck starts to act pouty about coming in second, he pats him on the back saying: “It was a close call, I promise.”

The pout just deepens and Buck crosses this arms: “I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I mean, yeah, kind of. Is it working?” Eddie replies, because he can be a bit of a bitch and Buck is pouting because Chimney is better at catching food in his mouth, it’s not as if he is loosing at the Olympics or anything.

“Eddie!” Buck whines, draping himself over him. “You’re supposed to be on my side and making me feel better.”

“I was trying,” Eddie protests.

“But you didn’t mean it,” Buck pouts again, this time clearly trying to act cute.

Luckily for Buck that works on Eddie, so he melts a little and smiles sappily at him. “I’m sorry, mi amor. How about I take you out for dinner to make up for it after shift?” An idea suddenly coming to him when he says it.

Instantly, Buck perks up: “Oehh, yes, where are we going?”

“It’s just an idea and you can say no, but I was thinking maybe that diner we went to after my first ever shift here? For nostalgia’s sake?” Eddie suggests tentatively.

“I love that!” Buck says excitedly, giving Eddie a quick peck on the lips despite the fact that they still have a few hours of their shift left. Eddie grins at him happily.

“Hey, we said no making out on shift! I’m going to tell Bobby when he gets back,” Chimney interrupts the moment.

“Tattletale, and it was a small kiss, not making out,” Buck protests Chimney’s accusation. “Besides, it’s unfair. I have to restrain myself while being surrounded by Eddie all the time. It like- like… like emotionally edging myself!”

“Iew, don’t call it that,” Chimney makes a face.

“I can call it whatever I want,” Buck sticks his tongue out at Chimney this time. God the two of them really are children, Eddie thinks fondly. He’s reminded of his cousins a bit when he watches them.

Despite his fond exasperation with their childishness, he does fully jump in to back up Buck, because having Buck’s back is sadly his duty. “Yeah, Chimney, language is what you make of it. If you say something and you can understand it, it’s valid. Maybe wonder why you understood it.”

“You’re no longer allowed to hang out with Karen,” Chimney tells him.

“I actually got that from May,” Eddie sniffs back.

“Does anyone know if she decided on a college yet?” Buck interjects, distracted from the conversation by this thought it caused to pop into his head.

“I don’t know. I’ll text ‘Thena,” Hen says, pulling out her phone.

After that, the conversation goes into colleges and how wild it is that May is becoming an adult and how children growing up are a confrontation with time. Eddie and Buck get it a little bit, but they haven’t even hit thirty yet – though they’re getting closer – so it’s a different experience.

However, Eddie’s mind gets stuck on Buck’s words… yes, the emotionally edging ones. Of course he had Buck’s back, but the other shoe hanging over his head makes worry gnaw at him. He has let it go a little bit, but not entirely.

When they’ve just stripped out of their gear again after coming back from a call, he tugs on Buck’s sleeve so that the two of them stay behind. Worried Buck asks: “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie assures him, before hesitating. “Uhm, just what you said earlier about the emotional edging.”

“Sorry, too crude? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Buck apologizes immediately, knowing Eddie is a bit more prudish around those things.

“No, it’s fine. Kind of funny,” Eddie smiles. Then he drops it again. “But when we go to El Paso you have to… emotionally edge for a week. You okay with that?”

Understanding dawns on Buck’s face and he gives Eddie a gentle smile, cupping his cheek and looking intently in his eyes. “It’s gonna suck to not be as affectionate as I want to, but-” he emphasizes barreling on before Eddie can interrupt “-for your comfort it is no hardship, baby. I can keep my hands to myself for a bit. Promise.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, unable to hide the relief, even if he tries with a: “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Buck promises, thumb caressing Eddie’s cheek as he does. Then he grins: “I’ll just have to make sure to hug and kiss you as much as I can before we go.”

“Well, I’m not opposed to that,” Eddie replies, unable to help the swooping butterflies in his stomach, god, Buck is too fucking handsome for his own good.

Indeed Buck makes good on that promise, pressing in close in the booth at the diner, sitting next to Eddie instead of across from him as he had done now over a year ago. He steals Eddie’s fries with a grin and has his arm around him the whole night, leaning in salaciously as they share the milkshake like he had insisted and Eddie is too proud to admit he’s really into.

When they get home, Eddie’s cheeks hurt from smiling and they giggle like school boys as they go to make out on the couch, more graphically than they would dare in a common area when Chris is in the house.

It does lead to more, but not all the way, as Buck puts it: “A little dry humping never hurt anybody. We can go at whatever pace we want.” Which is basically the same thing tía Pepa told him – though she probably didn’t mean this – when he went to her for advice, so it must be true.

All in all, it’s a good night.

~~

A/N:

I swear this chapter was supposed to have plot development and not 118 shenanigans, but I think I lost the plot halfway through… They were supposed to be on their way to El Paso in like chapter 3…

Also can you tell I am not the biggest fan of writing dates lmao, I keep skipping them oops xp

Btw I’m a little sick, so sorry if I don’t respond to comments for a bit, I already dragged myself out of bed to post this chapter <3

Furthermore, I am here again to tell you that if you picked the long fic as your goodnight story – which is valid and absolutely your right – that this is a good point to stop and actually get some sleep, because as much as we would all like to ignore it sometimes, your health is more important than a fanfic that will still be here in the morning. So, go to sleep!

[schrijverr]

Ahw that's so fun! I'm glad you keep finding cool little things in my writing! :D

And fair you didn't catch it, bc i write it in one go, I have a much better memory of things I did (and I keep a list to remember to add stuff)

I have just recently reread all of the AUAUs and I'm waiting for the next part of the I Do verse to be completed before I binge the whole canon all over again (bc it's truly amazing and I love it in its entirety) but I'm here bc I'm curious about 21 for the ask game

Thank you so much!!! I am so glad you like my fics <3 And the fact that you're re-reading things makes my day!!!

21. What is something that no one has caught about one of your fics?

Overall, I don't think there is anything big that people don't catch, but I like putting in a lot of little details that are symbolic in the overarching story that people have not commented on.

Like, for example, Tubs the cat in IDMTIDBIDID is symbolic for the stable future Buck and Eddie are confident in. Since when Tubs was first introduced, Eddie doesn't want to agree to taking him in, since he believes that his relationship with Buck is going to be over and they don't have a stable home together to take Tubs in. When they are together and do have that, Tubs being there symbolizes the fact that Eddie believes they do. Like yeah, cat cute and funny call back, but also emotionally important and representing a character growth.

Of course I do have a few throw away lines that are there for the sake of humor or because I need a little hook, but on the whole I am very intentional about the details I put into my work and call back to and I don't think a lot of people have picked up on that. (Or if they did, they didn't comment on it). Some people did notice all my little details in The Son I Never Got to Be, though, that was cool :D

[schrijverr]

I have just recently reread all of the AUAUs and I'm waiting for the next part of the I Do verse to be completed before I binge the whole canon all over again (bc it's truly amazing and I love it in its entirety) but I'm here bc I'm curious about 21 for the ask game

Thank you so much!!! I am so glad you like my fics <3 And the fact that you're re-reading things makes my day!!!

21. What is something that no one has caught about one of your fics?

Overall, I don't think there is anything big that people don't catch, but I like putting in a lot of little details that are symbolic in the overarching story that people have not commented on.

Like, for example, Tubs the cat in IDMTIDBIDID is symbolic for the stable future Buck and Eddie are confident in. Since when Tubs was first introduced, Eddie doesn't want to agree to taking him in, since he believes that his relationship with Buck is going to be over and they don't have a stable home together to take Tubs in. When they are together and do have that, Tubs being there symbolizes the fact that Eddie believes they do. Like yeah, cat cute and funny call back, but also emotionally important and representing a character growth.

Of course I do have a few throw away lines that are there for the sake of humor or because I need a little hook, but on the whole I am very intentional about the details I put into my work and call back to and I don't think a lot of people have picked up on that. (Or if they did, they didn't comment on it). Some people did notice all my little details in The Son I Never Got to Be, though, that was cool :D

[schrijverr]

I immediately must ask 4 for the ask game!

Oeh thank you so much for the ask!

4. Do you save your 'cut scenes' from your fics? (Want to share one?)

I usually don't since I tend to only write little scenes ahead of where I am in writing, because I kind of make it up as I go so to speak. And I weave those in or rework them to fit, also with editing I rarely cut stuff, mostly just make things flow better.

However, I did find this one blurb for IDMTSIDBIDID that I didn't manage to work in:

That latter thought creates a pit in his stomach as he remembers who is coming that weekend. He hates that Helena and Ramon can make him feel like that. That he ran across the country to get away from his own parents, yet found others just like them that are connected to something he holds so dear that he can’t escape them like he did his own.

[schrijverr]

Fanfic Author Asks!

(I love these things so much, I thought I would do my own lol)

How many WIPS do you currently have?

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Bonus: Readers, tell your fave authors something you liked about their fics/works!

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. 4

Chapter 4 out 23

Buck and Eddie are visiting El Paso with Chris, while pretending their marriage is still just convenience for Helena and Ramon, which causes tensions to arise between them. Otherwise known as the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad El Paso trip.

In this chapter, Buck and Eddie try to get used to the quiet house and lack of Christopher. Eddie takes it hard, unable to shake the feeling he’s doing something wrong as a parent by letting Chris go, even if logically he knows it’s for the best.

On ao3.

Ships: Buddie

Warnings: internalized homophobia, homophobia, internalized misogyny, ableism, emotionally abusive parenting, nightmare, guilt, non-explicit sexual content

~~~

Chapter 4: Empty Nest Blues

The first 36 hours of Chris being gone go by pretty well. Of course all 36 of those hours are spent with the 118 shooting the shit, which means they are sheltered from the emptiness of their house. However, coming home after their shift to no Carla and no Chris sleeping down the hall is weird.

It’s also the middle of the night, which in Eddie’s opinion adds to the lonely gloomy atmosphere that hangs in their house.

Usually if Chris isn’t home for the evening, they’d be kissing and groping each other. They haven’t gone all the way yet, Eddie isn’t quite ready for that and Buck respects that. They’re taking it slow for now.

Buck even said he likes that it isn’t just about sex, like so many of his previous relationships had been. Eddie likes that he has something more stable with Buck… and that Buck likes their relationship even when it doesn’t look like anything he’s had before. They’re both building something together that they have never had before. Eddie’s previous marriage sure didn’t look like this one.

Still, this night they’re not all plastered to each other. Eddie tries to lie to himself that it is because they worked a long shift, but after they catch themselves checking Chris’s empty room, he can’t deny it’s because the empty house feels different than it would be if Chris was staying over at a friend’s.

It’s not like they should worry. Chris has texted them updates about the fun stuff he has done, appearing to have a great time, as well as giving them goodnight texts, before he went to bed. He hasn’t called yet either, which is a good sign. But Eddie is pretty sure worry is baked in his DNA, Buck’s too, so they worry regardless.

Neither of them think his mom or papi will actually do something to Chris. They might be horrible sometimes, but they love Chris, even if their ideas of what is good for him very much aren’t. The doctors would agree with Eddie there.

A week should be fine, though. Eddie wants that for Chris, wants him to have grandparents, a family to grow up around. He himself had that growing up and he had always found solace in family outside of the house and Buck, who hadn’t had it, had always missed it. So, they’re trying to keep the family they have for Chris. It just happens to be mostly Eddie’s family.

So they know Chris is having a good time and they know this is what they want for him. It’s all good, all perfectly fine. They miss him more than he misses them. And that’s fine. That’s good.

However, knowing that it’s good, doesn’t change the hushed atmosphere that hangs around them as they get ready for bed.

After a long shifts like this one, both are too exhausted to stay up late, so they both snuggle up close to each other to go to bed. Having Buck there behind him brings him so much comfort. It almost feels illegal to have it.

Eddie is trying to accept it, but it’s difficult some times. But it’s easier like this. When Buck needs the comfort too, when he asks for it and Eddie just has to provide it for him.

It’s not okay for Eddie to ask for things. To want things. When Buck reaches out, it’s him wanting something and Eddie never wants to deny Buck if he can help it. That’s different. Eddie isn’t allowed to ask for things, but Buck is. And if Eddie gets something out of it too, that is just lucky.

Him and Frank are working on that mindset, because apparently it is something he needs to work on… okay, so maybe he can see it, but it also sucks. He has already had to work on so much. He’s so tired of working on himself sometimes.

But he isn’t doing it for himself. He is doing it for Buck and for Chris, who both deserve to have a better version of him as their husband and father. A version of him that won’t hurt them like he did, a version that won’t run.

So, he is working on it, even if it isn’t always easy and tonight he lets himself be enveloped in Buck’s warmth and takes comfort from it with only a little guilt. A step for him.

Not being woken up Chris the next morning is weird, especially with Buck still in bed. Most mornings Eddie wakes up because Chris comes in or because Buck slips out the bed to let him sleep for a little longer while he gets Chris ready.

It leaves Eddie a little disorientated when he wakes up cocooned in warmth with no child tugging at him. Not even Tubs has climbed onto their bed like he does to Chris in the mornings.

He grumbles groggily, blinking open his eyes as he tries to figure out what’s going on. From behind him comes an amused huff, then a fond: “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Hmm, morning,” Eddie replies, accidentally slapping himself in the face as he tries to rub the sleep from his eyes. “Wha’time’s’t?”

“Nearly noon. I was going to make breakfast – well, lunch technically – but you were too cute, so I had to cuddle you,” Buck informs him.

The words make Eddie blush, though he can’t deny the smile it brings to his face. He is now aware enough to realize Buck is the one cocooning him in the warmth that he’d observed when he first woke up. He also realizes Buck has his phone in his hand, meaning he probably has been awake for a while already, while Eddie slept.

Without his permission, guilt floods through him. Buck was already awake and he could have needed Eddie. This morning is probably weird for him too with Chris not being there to keep him company while Eddie lazed about. Hell, Eddie couldn’t even do the decent thing and wake up at a reasonable time. “I’m sorry.”

Buck furrows his brow in confusion. “What are you sorry for?”

“Sleeping in so long,” Eddie says, embarrassment heating up his ears. Now that he has admitted it, it feels like a silly thing to say. Dammit, he is usually better at not being so emotional and weird. This morning is getting to him.

“No need to be sorry about that, baby,” Buck promises as he kisses the top of his head, squeezing him around the middle with those strong arms in a way that always makes heat flash through him. “Just means you got the sleep you needed.”

“I guess,” Eddie shrugs, burying his face in his pillow for a moment, willing the heat away. Then he clears his throat, changing the subject: “How did you sleep? Good morning so far?”

“Oh it was great,” Buck grins, tugging at Eddie until he is turned around, resting on Buck’s chest as he so often does – sue him, it’s comfortable and his boyfriend has a nice chest – and smirks at him: “I had a very handsome fellow to cuddle up to, you see.”

Any progress Eddie has made in getting rid of the blush is undone, though Buck knows him well, because he can ignore it in favor of laughing: “Handsome fellow?”

“What? Are you saying you’re not a handsome fellow?” Buck asks, theatrically playing up his disbelief and offense at that.

“Shut up,” Eddie blushes more, big smile on his face.

“Nope,” Buck replies, popping the p as he does, before going to pepper his face in kisses. “I can,” kiss, kiss, “tell,” kiss, kiss, “you all about,” kiss, kiss, “how handsome,” kiss, kiss, “you are,” kiss, kiss, “and you,” kiss, kiss, “can’t stop me,” kiss.

“Is that so?” Eddie tries to challenge that, though it’s probably undermined by the way he is squirming under the attention.

“Jup,” Buck says, smoothly rolling them over as he does so he is leaning over Eddie instead. He gives him a devilish grin that leaves Eddie breathless. “Sorry, baby, but you’re handsome. Nothing you can do about that.”

His early method of deflection having been shut down, Eddie tries: “Says you.”

“Says I indeed,” Buck just agrees happily, kissing him before he can respond, then trailing those kisses down his neck in a manner that makes Eddie shiver in a good way.

With determination, Eddie manages to keep his voice somewhat level and add a tone of faux-indigence as he gasps: “Are you trying to start something, Mr. Buckley?”

Buck pulls away and wiggles his brows. “Depends, is it working?”

“Sadly, yes,” Eddie tells him with fond despair after he’s had to grapple for a moment with the reality that he is, in fact, madly in love with this dork.

“I’ll take it,” Buck laughs, before going back to what he was doing.

He ends up sucking Eddie’s dick, before Eddie jerks him off, which he can do now without feeling weird about it after. Another win for Eddie.

When they roll out of bed, it’s nearing one o’clock and they’re hungry. They make some sandwiches side by side and eat them at the kitchen counter.

Between bites Buck tells him all about mushrooms, because he somehow ended up on the topic this morning. Eddie is pretty sure they’re going to have an at home mushroom growing kit to do with Chris when they get back. Chris is going to love it, Eddie thinks, both fond at the thought and reminded of how much he misses him.

Chris is having a good time, they got an update today about how he is going to a car show with his abuelo. He likes cars well enough, though he doesn’t have a particular interest in them. However, much like Buck, Chris can get curious and enthusiastic about anything, so he seemed positive enough. Eddie is happy to hear it.

It’s now day three of Chris being in El Paso, a few more days and they’re with him again. Eddie can’t wait to see him. Though, he is also nervous, so fucking nervous.

If Chris were to announce their newly updated relationship status, he likely would have done so already by now. So, Eddie was right and the newness of it has worn off for Chris. It makes him happy to know they have all settled into this new normal. Like he truly is glad.

However, he can’t deny that it also kind of sucks. It’s not that he wants Chris to out him to his parents – even if he thinks it might be easier on some days – he would prefer his parents not to know. To not have to hear all the things he can imagine them telling him about his lifestyle in real life. He knows they would be wrong, but he also knows it would hurt like hell and it might push him to do something drastic that he doesn’t want to. He just isn’t ready for that kind of confrontation yet.

Eddie has come a long way, but hearing his parents’ disappointment, their disgust and their anger at Eddie turning out like they didn’t want him to? That might be too much. And he is scared of what he will do. So, yeah, he doesn’t want them to know.

And they don’t know! Which is great. But if Chris had just said, then he could be here, at a distance, surrounded by supportive people, able to hang up the phone, distance himself. He could plan in a session with Frank or ask Abuela to get Chris home and delay that confrontation until he is ready.

Now that Chris hasn’t said, it hangs over him like this cloud, like this other shoe that can drop at any moment. He hates that feeling.

In an attempt to get rid of the feeling, he takes a step closer to Buck, who reaches out to him on autopilot as predicted. He is typing up a grocery list with his one hand, but brings the other around Eddie’s waist.

Eddie leans into him, leeching comfort until he is ready to face today.

This is their day off, before they have another shift tomorrow. There are groceries to be done and he should probably do the laundry so they have all their clothes to pack for their trip. Hm, maybe he should clean the house. It is nice to come back to a clean house.

Mentally making a list of all the wants to do, Eddie slowly drifts away from Buck to putter around the house.

He gathers all their laundry and starts up a first load, before moving on to doing the dishes, at which point Buck puts his phone down to help him. After the dishes they get dressed and get groceries together.

Buck is the cook, so he knows best what he wants, but Eddie is more on top of the bulk household items like toilet paper. So, they both have things they want to get as they go through the aisles. It’s always better to shop with Buck than alone, however Eddie’s head isn’t all in it.

Eddie doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him this time. It’s not as if it’s the first time he hasn’t seen Chris in a while. He served in the military for years, missing much more than a few trips to car show and whatever else his parents will do with Chris.

But he can’t help but feel bad. Feel guilty.

Now guilt isn’t an uncommon feeling for Eddie. It’s what he and Frank are working on in his sessions, unpacking shame and not feeling as much guilt. However, it is still a work in progress. It’s mostly been about his relationship with Buck. He didn’t expect to feel guilty about this part and it’s taking him by surprise.

He mulls it over as he leans against the cart, staring at a wall of cereal while not really taking in a singular box. Vaguely he sees Buck move, but he doesn’t really get snapped out of it until Buck has put their usual brand in the cart and asks: “Hey, baby, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie says absently, trying to blink the world back into focus.

“You sure?” Buck checks, starting to look a little worried.

“I’m fine,” Eddie says, staring down at the floor, shoulders hunching. Then softly he adds: “Just feels weird for Chris to not be here,” because communicating feelings is important or some shit.

Immediately Buck’s face softens and he says: “Yeah, me too.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks, feeling strangely hopeful about it. It’s not as if he thinks Buck won’t miss Chris, of course he will. Still, he can’t help but feel a little like this is hitting him a lot harder than Buck.

“Uh-huh, I don’t think I’ve not seen Chris so long since Shannon was still around. Even when I stayed with Maddie after Doug I still saw him more,” Buck says. “It’s not great, even if I know he’s having fun, but it’s healthy, right? To let him go.”

Eddie hadn’t even realized that. Buck truly has never been away from Chris since stepping up. The one parent that never ran… unlike Eddie. Eddie ran. He hasn’t even made up for running again and now he has to let Chris go. Maybe that’s why it’s hitting him so hard.

But Buck is right. It is the healthy thing to do. They don’t want Chris to be dependent on them, they want him be able to build a life outside them. A small step like this is a part of that. So he swallows and clears his throat: “Yeah. Yeah, it’s healthy.”

The two of them spend a few seconds looking like idiots as they stand in the middle of the grocery store nodding at each other and making soft agreeing noises.

In the end Buck puts them out of their misery, saying: “Alright, enough. What do you say about knocking out these groceries and then going home and cuddling? We can miss Chris together.”

“Sounds good. Beer and popcorn?” Eddie agrees.

“Oeh, you thinking movies?”

“Yeah?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Buck says enthusiastically, adding it to his list because he is a dork, who likes striking things off his list.

Eddie feels a bit like a loser that he is missing Chris so much that he needs Buck’s emotional support and cheering up about it. However, he doesn’t judge Buck for missing Chris and needing Eddie. It’s just a thought rooted in judgment that comes from shame.

Frank told him to try and let go of those thoughts in the moments they come to him and instead find better thoughts. Eddie is pretty sure Frank would approve of him letting Buck take care of him back without beating himself up about it. So, he tries to embrace it as he goes to argue Buck out of a horrible popcorn flavor, because why the fuck does popcorn need so many flavors?

They end up huddled on the couch with the blinds drawn in the middle of the day, stuffing popcorn in their mouths and watching movies they usually can’t watch because Chris is too young for them. Eddie can pull himself out of his head for most of it, content to rest against Buck and just vaguely stare about him when he can’t.

When evening comes, Buck cooks telling Eddie to take a nap. On another day, Eddie would protest more, but now he merely nods and mumbles something before curling up on the couch. It’s nice to be the one, who is taken care of, even if it sits weirdly in his chest.

“Hey, baby, wake up,” Buck nudges him awake an indeterminate amount of time later. “I made pizza, can’t claim full credit for the dough or sauce, but it’s not freezer pizza or take out pizza, so I’m still calling it semi-homemade. I thought maybe we could eat on the couch?”

“Tha’s a good idea,” Eddie half slurs, waking up more as he sits crisscross on the couch.

Buck puts the pizza before him and Eddie looks at it. Half is covered in salami and on the other half is an assortment of veggies, however on that side the olives are kept to the side not covering the whole thing, because Eddie doesn’t like the taste and insists it runs out onto his side when it is put on the edge. The consideration for him nearly makes him cry.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Buck asks sitting next to him and pulling him close.

Eddie makes a helpless sound, then pathetically says: “You put the olives all the way on the side, even if you like olives everywhere.”

“Of course. I put extra, I can move them after I’ve cut a piece. It’s no hardship,” Buck promises. Then he jostles Eddie slightly, holding him close, as he adds: “Besides, you seemed like you were having a hard day. You need a bit of extra love on hard days.”

“Thank you,” Eddie mumbles, because he doesn’t know what else to say, pulling Buck in for a kiss and against his lips he says: “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Buck replies, pressing another kiss to his forehead, before grabbing them both a slice and putting on a dumb movie.

As he munches on his slice of pizza, Eddie feels incredibly cherished. He has been having a hard day today and he did need some extra love. Buck means it wholeheartedly, but he said it so casually and factually that Eddie doesn’t even feel bad about having a bad day.

The two of them continue to lounge on the couch and eat their pizza, then lounge some more, this time with less crumbs and more cuddles. Until they decide to have an early night, since they have a 24 hour tomorrow.

When they lie in bed, Buck’s warmth plastered against his back, Eddie feels okay. Settled. More in his body than he had been earlier. Unable to keep it in, he whispers into the night: “I love you, Buck.”

“Hm, love you too,” Buck’s reply is a sleepy grumble directly into Eddie’s ear, but it is clear how pleased he is with himself. It gives Eddie a fond smile as he falls asleep.

Naturally that feeling can’t last and a few hours later Eddie is pulled out of sleep by his phone ringing loudly.

He is still disoriented, but good at snapping into focus at a moment’s notice, pushed even more when he sees the caller ID. So, he is sitting on the edge of the bed, phone to his side as Buck leans over his shoulder, gentle saying: “Hey, mijo. What’s happening? Are you okay? I’m here now. We both are.”

“Daddy,” Chris cries. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Eddie assures him. “I promise I’m okay.”

“I had a dream we were looking for papi and then you were gone,” Chris tells him, voice watery, before it becomes a whisper: “I tried to find you, but I couldn’t.”

Chris’s words punch Eddie in the throat and he muffles a cry in his hand, leaning into Buck’s side as he takes a moment, before he says: “That sucks, buddy. But it was just a dream, a bad dream, but nothing real. I will always be within reach, you can always find me. I pinky promised, remember?”

He hates that after everything he’s been through, Eddie disappearing is something Chris has nightmares about. Logically he knows that no one can control what they have nightmares about, despite getting shot down and seeing Buck bombed and finding his son in a tsunami, he still has stress dreams about high school. Like he knows. But it still hurts.

“I remember,” Chris sniffled. A beat. “I’m glad you picked up.”

“I’m glad you called,” Eddie says gently. “Are you by yourself or are grandma and abuelo there? Do you have people with you?”

“Grandma is here and abuelo is getting me tea,” Chris says.

“I’m glad. Want to say hi to papi and tell us about what you did? Decompress?” Eddie asks.

“Yes, please.”

“Wait, I’ll put you on speaker.” Eddie pulls the phone away and presses the right buttons. Buck has left him to deal with the brunt, much like Eddie would leave Buck to soothe Chris after a nightmare about the tsunami. However, for the calming down part, they both like to be there and present.

“Hi, Superman,” Buck says, going for soft yet upbeat. “Feeling a bit better?”

“Hello, papi,” Chris greets, sounding a lot better than he did earlier. “I’m doing good now. Grandma is going to make pancakes tomorrow, because I had a bad dream.”

“That’s great, buddy. Pancakes are the best, aren’t they,” Buck smiles, leading the distraction. “I saw you and your abuelo went to a car show, how was that?”

The two of them listen as Chris enthusiastically tells them about the cars. It’s something Ramon knows a lot about and Chris is curious about anything, so Eddie can imagine how with Chris’s questions and his papi’s love for cars it was a great mix, even if Chris isn’t a converted car person yet.

Some days Chris’s recovery from his nightmares are worse than others and it seems like this one wasn’t that bad. However, both are glad he called anyway. Eddie especially. The fact that it was his phone that rang, that Chris reached out to him first, despite that dream and he could be here to pick up, means the world to him.

They listen until Ramon returns and Chris has finished his tea. Eddie isn’t sure what his parents are thinking, since they are mostly quiet throughout the whole thing. He’s sure they must have opinions, but he is glad that Chris still comes first.

However, when the tea is gone, his mom says: “Why don’t you say goodbye to your dad and we’ll try to sleep again. Sleep is important for a boy like you.”

Him and Buck share a look at the singular dad and the usage of ‘a boy like you’, but Chris comes first is true for them too and this is not the moment to start that argument. So they just focus on telling Chris they love him and wish him a goodnight, promising to be there soon.

Then the line goes dead and they just sit next to each other on the edge of their bed looking at the still lit up phone screen. After a moment Buck goes: “He sounded good. Like overall. He sounded like he was having fun.”

“Yeah… he did,” Eddie says absentmindedly.

“Lets drink some tea,” Buck suggests.

“You taking ideas from my mom now?” Eddie quirks a brow at him, snapped back into the moment by the suggestion.

“Hey, I’m not arguing with a good idea, even from a questionable source,” Buck shrugs, giving him a soft grin.

“That is how we ended up with those crystals,” Eddie tells him fondly.

“The lady at the store was very convincing,” Buck pouts defensively. “Now come on, killjoy, I’ll make mint tea.”

Eddie just laughs at him, feeling a bit better already, the heaviness of Chris’s call lighter under Buck’s teasing banter. He knows Buck is doing it on purpose, like the olives, and Eddie loves him so much for it, even if he can’t verbalize it.

So, he just sips his tea and smiles at Buck when he babbles about this and that, before crawling back into his arms to go to sleep. Despite, his bad day and rocky night, Eddie manages a few good hours in Buck’s arms.

~~

A/N:

I swear there will be plot at some point, but I just keep writing character contextualization instead… but I suppose that is also important in a story xp, hope you guys are enjoying it!

[schrijverr]

Confession: this post is in regard to me rewatching the start of season 4 to plan out a part 3 of the I Do verse, because I have no self control. I literally lasted 7 days after posting the first chapter of part 2, before the brainworms got to me and I caved to writing it.

Right now I've just gotten to chapter 5 and I'm still at the start of of s4e03. My plan is to have it span the Buck Begins arc, but who knows with me lmao, clearly I cannot help myself xp

I am not promising I'm finishing it, because that will stress me out, but I do want to, because I really love this universe so much and it is so fun and the way I have evil plans for this is delighting me <3

I am so incredibly unnormal about the I Do Verse <3

[schrijverr]

Collapsing Under the Pressure

Inspired by the fact that Jamie passes out in Mom City. It is something he has always done when he feels too overwhelmed or stressed, a thing his dad always hated, so he never really shared with anyone except mummy. This sometimes comes back to bite him when it happens in front of those that actually care about him, like Keeley or the lads.

On ao3.

Ships: canon Jeeley parts

Warnings: referenced child abuse

~~~

Jamie passes out when he’s too stressed. It’s not a trait he likes about himself and it doesn’t always happen – though his therapist said that has to do with his brain throwing up a defense around his dad so it doesn’t happen around him or when he’s feeling generally unsafe – however it does happen.

When he were a lad, his anxiety hadn’t been too bad and he and mummy hadn’t really noticed it happening at first, cause it was pretty normal for him to pass out when she was gone. They just thought he slept well, but it’s actually because he doesn’t like being alone. Figuring that out had been pretty embarrassing for eight year old Jamie.

And Jamie dislikes his passing out tendency even more when mummy stops working night shifts, so he doesn’t have to be alone, even when he can clearly see that stresses her out. She denies it, but Jamie can stay up at night now, because he’s no longer passing out, so he sees her hunched over those paper things that tell you to pay for adult stuff.

It’s his passing out that indirectly brings his dad back into his life.

Of course, it’s mostly his footie skills and whispers about how he might get scouted that first bring his dad back on them, but it’s the lessened funds due to mummy not being able to work the night shift that gives him a foot in the door once again. Either way, it’s Jamie’s fault.

He feels like it’s even more his fault, because he is so excited for his dad to come back that he doesn’t realize how big of a mistake it is, until it is already too late.

There are a few months where Jamie passes out around his dad a lot. His dad makes sure that doesn’t happen anymore. In fact, Jamie thinks he’s just grown out of the habit until Amsterdam. Passing out on the way there doesn’t do him many favors with his father, but Jamie is too distracted by everything after that the experience barely registers in his brain.

After that, it is still a thing, but not a common thing, which might be because Jamie feels like he is barely there. If you don’t feel anything, it is hard to be anxious or stressed.

It gets worse… or better, considering how you look at it, when he gets to Richmond and suddenly he is four hours away from his father and surrounded by people who are seemingly nice all the time for no good reason. Of course, it’s in part because Jamie is great at footie and he deserves to have his arse kissed, but it’s also dead weird.

Keeley is one of those people, who is nice to him all the time, even if she does get annoyed with him sometimes.

Jamie thinks she’s mad fit and proper mint. He sometimes can’t believe she’s going out with him. When he put her poster on his wall at sixteen, he thought her unattainable, but now she’s ugly snorting on his couch at his killer reality telly commentary.

But because Keeley is just the best, Jamie gets comfortable around her. And since they shag a lot, she is also around a lot. Which means that about four months into dating, he passes out in front of her for the first time.

There is just a lot going on. Not only is he trying to carry this whole shitty team, since that’s what coach Catrick wants, but now coach Catrick is fired and gone and instead some rodeo clown from America has been hired, who doesn’t know jack shit about footie, so Jamie will have to carry more to keep the team from relegation under that incoming incompetent leadership, and now his father is also breaking the silence that has developed between them because of his loan.

So, yeah, Jamie hasn’t been having a great day, trying to ignore the messages from his dad, which are painting a pretty clear picture how he’s feeling about his development, as he tries to pretend he isn’t stressed out during dinner with Keeley.

She’s ordered food from that nice place they both like, both of them taking their cheat day together. A ritual they’ve started that is proper nice, like a fun indulgence. She even popped open a nice bottle of wine, something Jamie doesn’t give a shit about, but she likes.

Jamie desperately tries to relax with her, but his head keeps being twisted and he knows he’s not managing, since he can’t stop his leg from bouncing.

Disaster strikes when he checks his phone on autopilot and sees that his dad is now actively calling him once more. The fifth time in a row. He’ll be fucking pissed if Jamie doesn’t pick up. His heart just drops in his chest and he excuses himself for a moment to pick up with shaky hands.

Keeley’s living room is in the same space as her dining table and kitchen, because she has one of those modern open plan houses, so there isn’t a lot of privacy. However, if he walks far enough, she shouldn’t be able to make out what his dad is ranting about this time.

As Jamie predicted, it’s nothing nice. Not about Rebecca Welton, the new owner, nor her most recent hire. But there is also nothing nice for Jamie either, who is an embarrassment to his name for being stuck at this terrible third rate club and how he’d better keep dominating, winning whatever match on his own, to keep himself from humiliating himself further and fucking over any chance of Man City even considering taking him back.

The more he listens to his father talk, the more erratic his breathing is becoming and the more faint he’s feeling. He can’t feel his legs, nor do his eyes seem to be working. If they had, Keeley might have been more than a blob at the table, probably looking worried, because she is observant and caring like that.

Jamie wants to say something, either to make his dad stop or tell Keeley he’s fine, but all he manages to do is nod dumbly along to what his dad is saying, as if the man can see him.

After what feels like forever, his dad gets distracted by his mates or whatever is going down at the pub he’s drowning himself in this time. Either way, Jamie is grateful for the way dad just cuts himself off by hanging up, because he’d already been arching towards the ground, attempting to aim for the couch.

He comes to seconds later with a concerned Keeley hovering over him, her own phone ready in hand to dial 999 in case he hadn’t woken up.

At the sight of her, Jamie feels so fucking relieved and guilty, but also incredibly embarrassed, because what self respecting bloke just passes out like some sort of pussy, because his dad was being a bit mean to them and their job is less than 100% easy.

“Oh my god, Jamie, are you alright!” Keeley asks worriedly.

“I’m fine,” he bats her hand away, even though he likes how her hand had lain over his forehead. He is about to lie that he just hadn’t eaten, but they had been in the middle of dinner so that is out.

“What happened? Do we need to go to the hospital?” Keeley is panicking, which means that unless Jamie gives her something here, his evening plans of getting lucky are out the window.

Facing the unfortunate reality that he is going to have to humiliate himself, he sits up and looks to the side as to not have to lock eyes with Keeley and mumbles: “’s nothin’, babe, just happens sometimes. It’s fine.”

“It just happens?” Keeley shrieks. “Jamie, you fucking passed out on me!”

“I know,” Jamie replies mulishly. “Like I said, it happens sometimes.”

“You got like low blood pressure or something?” Keeley asks, her frown still in place.

“Nah, just, I dunno,” Jamie answers, because he actually doesn’t know. It’s not as if they could have afforded to go to a doctor when he were a lad, he and mummy figured out the cause themselves and none of the doctors he’d gone to as a professional footballer had ever noticed anything else weird about him that would cause it.

“You don’t know why you pass out?” Keeley says like it is a big deal.

Still wanting to get their evening back on track, Jamie huffs and rolls his eyes: “Well, I don’t not know, just never went to a doctor about it, but all the club ones say I’m brill.”

“Explain,” Keeley demands, her arms crossed and her face telling him that if she is not satisfied with his answer, they will spend the night at an A&E instead of with her sitting on his face, which would be a shame.

Pulling a face like he’s a man destined for the gallows, Jamie answers: “Me and mummy figured it out when I was a sexy little baby, I- Sometimes when I get stressed, I just go out for a mo’. Like those people who don’t like needles or blood and shit. Like I said, ‘s nothing, just mad embarrassing.”

“Ahw, babe,” Keeley coos as if he’s some sad puppy or some shit. Jamie pulls a face at her, but she ignores it to ask: “Is everything alright? What was that call about then?”

“Stupid shit, don’t worry about it,” he deflects. Confessing about his humiliating passing out habit was already bad enough, the last thing he wants is to have to talk about his dad. Yuck.

Keeley raises a brow at him and for a moment, he fears she is going to push it, which would suck because Keeley has those ‘you can tell me anything’-eyes that always work on Jamie. Thankfully, though, she merely nods, still eyeing him suspiciously. “If you’re sure, babe.”

“I’m sure,” Jamie says, perhaps a tad too eagerly.

“But if want to talk, I’m here, yeah,” Keeley offers.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks, babe,” Jamie answers, because it’s dead nice that Keeley cares, even though it’s also weird. He never really had a girlfriend like that before. It’s wicked.

It’s a little embarrassing when Keeley feels the need to help him up and hovers while they go back to the dining table, but she also smiles at him about it, so he forgives her. He would have felt like shit if she hadn’t cared about him passing out, so it’s a win in the end.

After that debacle, Jamie gets the evening back on track and gets his wish of it ending with Keeley sitting on his face. He is content to put the whole thing behind him and Keeley lets him for the most part.

For the first week after, she keeps hovering like he is going to pass out at any moment, even takes to driving him around like she’s scared he’ll faint behind the wheel. However, when weeks pass without him going down again, she eases up a bit.

Jamie doesn’t pass out again while dating Keeley, however, he passes out twice more while at Richmond… or once, if you want to be specific about it.

The first time, is after that incompetent Lasso wanker takes him off the field after he scored. It’s fucking ridiculous and he’s already worked up, feeling faint as he walks off the pitch, which is made even worse by the way he knows his dad is going to rip him a new arsehole about it when he hears about it.

Since it’s just his fucking luck, this is the one match of Richmond that he dad is actually watching and Jamie gets called when he’s in the car. He pulls the fuck over and picks up to just get it over with. He ends up being lucky no rando snaps him passed out in his car and the worst he gets for it is an extra bucket of shit from his dad when he figures out what’s wrong.

He still feels shaky the next day, but he stubbornly refuses to let this be the thing to take him down. He is going to show up for practice, even if he’s fucking pissed at Lasso, because he has a contract and he’s going to do it, but he’s not going to play, show Lasso what his precious team is without him.

It almost backfires, because Lasso yelling at him like that makes him panic slightly and having Dani be right there to replace him, doesn’t help either. However, Jamie manages to keep himself upright about it. He is sadly at a point where that is a victory for him.

The second time, is after he hangs up with Higgins, the other man having just informed him that Jamie’s time with AFC Richmond is over. This technically means that Jamie isn’t a part of Richmond anymore when he passes out, but he decides to count it, since he is still London.

Jamie hits his head on the floor too at that call. Normally, he kind of knows when stressful news is coming his way and he’ll faint, so he can at least move to a soft surface, but that call had taken him completely by surprise.

Showing back up in Manchester after he has gotten the kick from too-fucking-nice-Lasso of all people with a goose egg on his head makes him feel pretty pathetic. Jamie fucking hates feeling pathetic, so he turns the feeling into resentment for Lasso and Richmond as a whole, letting it burn him up inside and fuel him instead.

A part of him thinks he should be passing out a lot in the next part of his life. With the stress of his dad constantly hovering, breathing down his neck, before he blows his life up just to get away from him and all. However, Jamie feels barely connected to himself, moving as through a haze while at Man City, then on Lust Conquers All. Too numb to faint.

Getting back on the team isn’t much better, but Jamie is too wired at first, then too frustrated to get too stressed out. He is fucking trying, innit? Least they can do is let him try, that PS5 idea was totally fucking killer.

It’s not until Keeley steers him onto Dr. Sharon’s couch that it happens again.

Dr. Sharon is mint most of the time, helping him with the lads and all, but she’s also the worst. She makes him talk about the stuff he don’t wanna talk about and even though he usually feels better afterwards, it’s just dead uncomfortable.

Jamie spends a lot of time around Dr. Sharon passed out. It gets to the point where she starts keeping juice boxes around for him, because she is worried about his blood sugar or whatever. It is pretty fucking embarrassing, but also kind of nice of her. Plus, Jamie likes the apple-pear juice she has. He never had that before. Never really had juice boxes before, period.

Outside of his sessions with Dr. Sharon, though, Jamie is pretty proud of the way he doesn’t pass out anymore. Despite feeling safe enough to do that, because he is learning boundaries and prioritizing himself sometimes and removing stressors from his life. He’s fucking killing this whole therapy thing, it’s mint.

Naturally, since his dad is a dick, who always does what a dick would do, he comes in and ruins that perfect streak of his.

When he’s in the room with Jamie, he is way too wired, heart beating a mile a minute, so his blood isn’t able to drop or whatever Dr. Sharon said. Then he’s too worked up from crying.

However, after Roy has bundled him into his car, away from everyone else, the whole situation hits him. He starts wondering how the fuck he is ever going to face any of his teammates ever again after they had to witness that sad display.

He’s pretty sure Roy just thinks he falls asleep on the drive, the exhaustion of it all hitting him and Jamie is more than content to let Roy think that. Roy is already treating him like he’s a fragile little lad, the last thing he needs is Roy discovering this and thinking him even more soft.

Jamie passes out once more that night when his dad calls him, probably to ask why the fuck Jamie isn’t home for him to beat up and to eviscerate him for punching him like that. Jamie doesn’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that he passes out, before he can decide whether picking up or hanging up would be a better course of action.

But, he does know that it’s a good thing that it happens while he’s sitting with Keeley on the couch while Roy is gruffly making tea in the kitchen – he is very obviously trying not to be angry, even though he is totally angry – because Keeley already knows about it, so he doesn’t scare the shit out of anyone.

She does, however, give him those sympathetic sad eyes that makes Jamie’s skin crawl and her and Roy proceed to lobby for him to block his dad, which Jamie will never do, ‘cause like that’s his dad and you don’t do that to your dad. That’s just dead rude. In the end they compromise on Jamie muting him instead.

Muting his dad doesn’t solve much, but it does bring some peace and because of that peace Jamie has space to cobble his life back together.

Under this peace away from his dad contacting him, life gets less stressful for Jamie, which means the passing out goes down to basically zero for a while. Dr. Sharon refers him to another therapist, encouraging him to keep up with his therapy. He does pass out there once, but he’s actually handling the big emotions pretty well now.

He’s very proud of that fact and takes mummy and Simon to a fancy dinner about it during the break, because he is a mummy’s boy at heart and she always knows how to make him feel like her special lad about his accomplishments no matter how small or silly.

In fact, Jamie doesn’t pass out again until well into the new season when the Man City match is suddenly looming over him and the thought of his peace from his dad being broken once more makes his breathing come harder.

Jamie is pretty sure he passes out a little bit against Roy’s shoulder, but only a little bit and it probably wasn’t obvious, since despite being retired, Roy is still fucking buff and he easily takes Jamie’s whole weight during that encounter.

It’s not until Keeley spells it all out for him in his Manchester hotel room, while he’s already going through it, that he does fully pass out, hearing a squeaky “Sorry!” from Keeley as he goes down. At least he was next to the bed.

Keeley is very apologetic about her failed attempt to get him out of his funk and gets him a water, which is dead sweet of her. He likes how she cares about him, likes that he’s come far enough to appreciate it instead of wanting to bat it away, because it’s fucking mint.

Him being so stressed out he’s passing out, makes him realize he needs to go to a place where he feels insulated enough from the stress that he can work through his big feelings and feel better. Fuck, Dr. Sharon would be so proud of him for that thought.

Anyway, Jamie goes to see his mummy.

Having Roy and Keeley in his childhood home is weird as fuck, but also kind of nice. Like they’re a part of Jamie’s life outside of the Dogtrack, integrated into his family and all that. He’s sure Simon is embarrassing him in front of them, but even that is nice, because it’s done lovingly and Jamie is only just getting used to that.

Furthermore, being able to cuddle with mummy is the best medicine there is. Her being with him is the very first thing he can remember stopping the fainting and he can use the sound of her voice and the way her heart beats steadily under his ear as he cuddles up to her.

When they leave, he feels regulated enough that he is ready to face Man City the next day and fucking stomp them into the ground with his greatness on the pitch. Which they do, beautifully so, he might add, with himself right at the center of it.

Jamie feels on top of the fucking world.

The news that Ted is leaving and his fight with Roy rattle him, but neither is enough to bring him down from where he has climbed.

As much as Jamie loves Ted and appreciates all that he has done with them, they never connected the way he thought they might when he came back. Ted has always been a little weird around Jamie, especially after Wembley and it has mostly been Roy coaching him.

On the other hand, the fighting with Roy doesn’t rattle him, because they are so close now. Sure, him and Roy have fought plenty before when Jamie was being a little shit and Roy was still with him on the pitch and that had always send adrenaline rushing through him, and he’s been dodging punches from his dad for god knows how long.

However, that is not what this fight with Roy is like. He knows that even if Roy is actually mad or upset, he won’t genuinely hurt Jamie, months of him carefully making sure Jamie is okay and in peak health speak to that. It feels more like a schoolyard scuffle between friends. Nothing to pass out over.

So, yeah, all in all, Jamie is pretty fucking stable when they go into their first season without Ted as head coach, Roy having taken up the position in his stead. It’s fucking mint, Jamie feels grand. They are going to kick ass in the Premier and Champions League, because they’re an ace team with ace coaches.

It’s not until the press buzz starts to truly pick up around them that starts to change. With Jamie as the star player and central cog in their new total football tactic, there is a lot of eyes on him. If you were to believe the press, Jamie is the one that is going to break or make this season for Richmond and he is feeling the pressure.

He tries to shake it off, telling himself they win and lose as a team. Jamie isn’t solely responsible for how they do, that is prick Jamie thinking and he is over that now …It only partially works.

The whole thing gets to him a day before their first match, which they are predicted to win. And that should be a good thing! However, they are predicted to win only just and only if Jamie is out there on the field performing at peak he had been last season, some of the pundits speculate he won’t be up for it, that it was a fluke.

Jamie doesn’t even know why he’s watching, he should be working out with the rest of the lads, but he’d heard them say his name and that dreadful curious part of him had to listen, despite knowing better.

Some of the others have gathered around him to listen in too. When one of the pundits makes a shitty comment, Colin claps him on the back and says: “He doesn’t know shit, boyo. You’re fucking aces and we’re gonna smash them.”

“Yeah, conductor boy here is gonna do great,” Goodman says, taking Jamie’s shoulders and shaking him good naturedly.

All the others chime in with their own proclamations about how the pundits don’t know anything and Jamie is going to do great. On another day, this would have been highly appreciated and Jamie would be preening like a peacock, but not today.

Today Jamie passes the fuck out.

It’s not planned – it never is – and he realizes a moment too late that he should have maybe mentioned his habit to someone other than just Keeley as he goes down, only hearing multiple panicked yells from the lads around him as he fucking swoons.

When he comes too again, everyone is bent over him. He doesn’t have a headache, which means someone caught him. That’s nice of whoever that was.

Less great is that Dani is crying on Isaac’s shoulder, Moe is trying to fight Jan off so he can perform CPR for some reason, while Colin is bunching up a jacket and attempting to shove it under Jamie’s head, and Sam is worriedly but lightly patting his cheek.

“I’m okay,” he interrupts, before anyone can freak out further and do something stupid, because he trusts exactly none of them.

Unfortunately, his voice gets drowned out by the worried squabbling and instead everyone is interrupted by Roy loudly yelling: “Oi, what the fuck are you pricks doing?”

“Jamie Tartt is dying!” Dani sobs soundly, as multiple other lads start clamoring to tell Roy what just went down.

“What,” he hears Roy growl, before lads start to get pushed to the side.

“I’m fine!” he yells, hoping to be heard, making eye contact with Sam, who still has his hand on Jamie’s face, lightly patting, as if he’s been stuck on autopilot.

“Oh, he’s awake,” Sam exclaims, only just noticing it. Fuck, they’re all idiots, Jamie thinks to himself, though he can’t help but be fond and pretty touched by all the concern for his well being.

The noise level increases at that announcement and Jamie gets jostled even more, because everyone wants to get a look at him. It’s one of his more confusing post-fainting experiences to date and his head is spinning.

By the time his vision swims back into focus, Roy is right across from him, his caterpillar eyebrows in their worried mode and he asks: “What the fuck happened? Did you not fucking eat, you muppet?”

“I’m fine,” Jamie insists once more now that someone is actually listening. “I just pass out sometimes when I get like anxious or overwhelmed and shit. It’s nothing, I’m good now, yeah.”

“You just fucking pass out sometimes?” Roy repeats, sounding as if he thinks Jamie is the stupidest man alive, which granted is how he often feels about Jamie. “And you didn’t think to fucking mention this?”

“Well, it don’t happen often, now does it,” Jamie sulks, because he knows Roy is right, but he’s not just going to admit that now is he.

“And you’re fine now?” Roy checks, still slightly distrustful.

“Yeah, I’m aces.”

“Oh, amigo, I’m so relieved,” Dani cries, throwing his arms around Jamie and pulling him into a tight hug. “I was scared you had died.”

“I’m alive, muchacho, I’m okay,” Jamie assures him, patting his arm and leaning into the hug.

“You need anything?” Roy asks gruffly, his shoulders are more relaxed but he is still observing Jamie closely, like Jamie will go down again.

Jamie tries to look as genuine as he can, cause he never meant to scare the bajeezus out of everyone with this little stunt, especially not Roy. He got that old man heart, don’t he. “Uh, Dr. Sharon always gave me a juice box after, but I dunno if that actually did owt.”

Before Roy can even give the order, Dani is already up, eagerly volunteering himself to go get Jamie a juice box. Jamie wants to protest that he’s fine, but Dani looks so relieved to be doing something that he can’t bring himself to do it. It’s also kind of nice that everyone there wants to look out for him.

“You good to play tomorrow, bruv?” Isaac asks, serious frown on his face as he studies Jamie closely while standing over him, arms crossed.

“Mint, mate. Swear down,” Jamie immediately says. “This is just normal for me, been passing out since I were a sexy little baby.”

“Because you’re anxious and overwhelmed?” Sam asks, his eyes doing that big upset thing he does sometimes when Jamie says something he finds sad.

Sometimes when Sam does that, Jamie realizes that it might be a little bit sad what he just said, but sometimes he thinks Sam is being dramatic. This time, he half gets it. Still, he defends: “It weren’t owt bad, just me being sad mummy had to work night shift, since it were just us. She switched to working days when we figured it out.”

Sam doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Jamie figures that since it’s seemingly unrelated to his dad, he drops it. They always get sketchy around his dad and working through his childhood in therapy is starting to make him understand why, but it’s still weird sometimes. So he doesn’t comment more.

“You’re still going to let the medics check you over, before I’m letting you play tomorrow,” Roy grouches, because he’s a grumpy old twat.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jamie rolls his eyes, not really thinking it’s worth to protest it, because he’s not going to win this argument with Roy and it’s not like the medics won’t clear him. Jamie has passed out closer to a match and been just fine.

“Are we going to ask what made Jamie anxious enough to pass out?” Will pipes up in the lull of conversation that follows, the nosy bastard. He’s been hanging around in the background like he always does. Jamie doesn’t think there is a singular private conversation in the club that Will is not privy to.

That causes everyone to look back over to Jamie like those creepy horror movie dolls, making Jamie squirm from his seated place on the floor.

“Boyo?” Colin prompts, concerned now.

“Uh, ‘s embarrassing and a bit prick-ish,” Jamie admits, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and feeling more embarrassed about why he passed out, than the fact he passed out in the first place.

At that everyone’s hands come up to give him a middle finger, basically giving him permission to just talk and not worry about how he is going to come across. Jamie likes the signal, likes knowing that they’re not going to be mad when he tries to express what his brain is thinking without having to figure out all the right words.

“Why are we giving the signal to Jamie Tartt?” Dani asks, arriving back with a juice box, not even out of breath, despite probably having run to god knows where to get it.

“Jamie is going to tell him why he got anxious enough to pass out,” Jan tells him.

“Ahhh,” Dani nods, walking over the front and sitting down next to Jamie. He gives him his juice box, then smiles: “I am listening, my friend.”

“Thanks, mate,” Jamie grins, unable to help himself when it’s Dani. He takes a sip of his juice box, which does make him feel better, before he says: “Everyone’s acting like I’m gonna win the match by myself tomorrow and ‘s just fucking with me head, cause like, what if I play like shit? What if I can’t do it? What if I peaked last season, you know?”

“Well that’s fucking stupid,” Roy answers first after a moment.

“Huh?”

“Fuck, I forget that you’re a fucking muppet,” Roy groans, rubbing his face, which doesn’t clarify much. Roy takes a deep breath, then looks at Jamie: “You’ve already gotten better from last season during the off season, because you don’t fucking know what a break means and you’re going to murder those arseholes tomorrow and you’re not going to do that by your-fucking-self, but with the rest of these fucking numbskulls here.”

It takes a moment, before they realize that it’s one of those aggressive for no reason compliment pep talks that Roy gives and they all cheer.

Jamie blushes a little, but grins widely too. Hearing Roy say that makes him feel a lot better about tomorrow, because Roy doesn’t lie to Jamie when he’s playing like shit, so he knows he means it when he gives Jamie a compliment.

Sitting in the middle of the rowdy crowd of lads as they hype the whole team up, while Jamie just sips his juice box and enjoys the boisterous atmosphere around him. He realizes, he wasn’t even that embarrassed about telling the lads he passed out when he got anxious. He can’t believe how far he’s come from the small boy passing out because he was left alone in the small apartment he shared with mummy.

~~

A/N:

I love that Jamie just fucking passes out and Keeley is so fucking casual about it and then it’s just never mentioned ever. Like what?

Btw, the psychology and medical side of all this is completely made up, I googled a bit, but not a lot, so don’t take it too seriously, it is fanfic

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. 3

Chapter 3 out 23

Buck and Eddie are visiting El Paso with Chris, while pretending their marriage is still just convenience for Helena and Ramon, which causes tensions to arise between them. Otherwise known as the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad El Paso trip.

In this chapter, they continue to spoil Chris, before he has to go. Then, after a final night, they drive to the airport where Eddie and Buck have to say goodbye to Chris for the week. Afterwards, they have a shift, which is mostly for emotional support.

On ao3.

Ships: Buddie

Warnings: internalized homophobia, implied ableism, emotionally abusive parenting, guilt

~~~

Chapter 3: The First Goodbye

Contrary to his teasing, Eddie does in fact, love Planner Evan or Clipboard Buck or whatever you want to call him. So, he watches with what he can internally acknowledge are heart eyes as Buck teaches Chris how to pack correctly for a trip, lists included.

After last night, he feels even worse about letting Chris go to El Paso, but he knows letting him go is the right thing to do.

Unlike Eddie, Chris has a good relationship with his grandparents and with Shannon having fallen away and Buck mostly not in touch with his family, Chris can use all the family Eddie can provide and his parents are a prominent part of that.

And on top of that, they don’t want Chris to form an unhealthy attachment to them. Since the tsunami, he’s had nightmares and been clingy. It’s only recently that he stopped crawling into bed with them after he’s had one. Progress.

This trip will be good for him, both to strengthen familial relations and become more confident in his independence. Not that either of that makes Eddie feel any better about it.

Last night certainly hasn’t helped either. Despite his progress, Chris is worried about leaving them for a week and Eddie is worried too. And guilty. So goddamn guilty. Because he knows that Chris wouldn’t have been half as worried if Eddie hadn’t pulled that disappearing stunt before the tsunami hit.

He made Chris distrust that he could count on Eddie and even though he’s the one that caused it himself, it still aches. Eddie wishes it was a scraped knee that he could clean, put a band aid on. Kiss better. But this does not have an easy fix. He just has to keep showing up time and time again and hope that some day that distrust fades.

“Enough underwear?” Buck calls out.

“Check!” Chris replies, having counted.

Eddie watches the two of them pack, Tubs in his lap purring as Eddie mindlessly pets the cat. The domestic scene somewhat pulling him away from the darker thoughts haunting him.

Buck moves on to the next thing on their list: “Enough socks?”

Again, Chris dutifully check his socks, before calling out: “Check,” as Buck crosses it off their list.

Unable to help himself, Eddie smiles at the two of them, pulling out his phone to film it, before sending it in the 118 plus adjacent family groups chat. He gets caught up in replying to everyone’s reactions, which pulls him further out of his head.

By the time Chris has packed everything that isn’t last minute, Eddie has managed to shake the spiral for the time being. He comes in to scoop Chris up, throwing him over his shoulder as he says: “No, more packing. Time for games.”

Chris giggles and shrieks as Eddie gently, but with enough roughhousing to be fun throws him on the couch. He leans over the back to look at Chris, asking: “What do you wanna do, buddy? Your pick for today.”

He knows that his parents are going to spoil the shit out of Chris, but he is going to have to miss him for a whole week. Sue him for wanting to have an amazing day with Chris before he has to say bye.

“Can we play video games?” Chris asks eagerly. He has limited screen time still, but both Buck and Eddie love gaming and they’re passing that shit on. His mom can have whatever opinion she has about it.

“Course,” Eddie smiles. “Mario Kart?”

“Yes, please,” Chris nods.

From the hallway, Buck calls out: “I call dips on Yoshi.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie calls back as if they don’t always have the same characters. Chris has practically claimed Toad, while Eddie always plays Bowser. A part of him would like to try and play Princess Peach one time, but he hasn’t yet. It feels silly to want anyway.

He doesn’t select her this time either, picking Bowser as he always does and putting together his car as Chris does the same. Buck slides down on the couch next to them, sandwiching Chris between the two of them and picking the same car he always does after scrolling through every single option, like maybe this time he’ll change something, even though he never does.

They play video games for the rest of the day and Chris has definitely caught on they’re spoiling him before his trip, because he talks them into ordering pizza and watching a movie they usually wouldn’t allow him to watch yet.

Then, once they’ve all gorged themselves on food and stayed up a little too late, Chris turns his pleading eyes on them, asking: “Can we hold a sleep over in your bed?”

Eddie instantly folds. He wants to show up for Chris and this isn’t a hardship at all. Still, he manages to stop himself from saying yes immediately, instead looking over to Buck. It’s going to be with both of them in their bed. So it’s a joint decision.

Fortunately, Buck is as easily manipulated by their son as Eddie is and after a brief glance the two are agreeing.

Soon, the three of them have brushed their teeth and are getting comfortable in bed. Chris being there means they don’t go through their usual ritual, except for Eddie asking Buck if his leg is okay. Buck looks a little apologetic as he shakes his head.

“Alright, scoot over, Superman,” Eddie says, grabbing the massage oil and climbing onto the bed.

Buck is leaning against the headboard, Chris curled up under his arm. The two of them do PT together still and it’s not the first time Chris has witnessed Buck or Eddie get help like that. They do the same for Chris when his muscles get achy.

Still, Eddie knows Buck doesn’t like the attention, so as he drags Buck’s leg across his lap and pours oil over his hands, he casually asks Chris: “So, what is your book about? Karen gave it to you, right?”

Chris nods, launching in to an explanation while Eddie tries his best to combat a pain that will probably never fully go away. However, it’s all he can do for Buck and he does it with love. He still has nightmares sometimes of seeing him trapped under that truck, how helpless Eddie had felt. Being able to do this little thing for Buck means a lot to him.

When Chris is through his explanation of the plot and what his favorite characters are doing, finally giving Eddie context to whatever he read last night, Buck’s face is a lot less pinched and all the massage oil has been absorbed into his skin.

Eddie rolls down his pajama pants for him and pats the leg with a smile. Buck smiles back, pecking him on the lips with a: “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Eddie assures him, putting the massage oil away.

With that all taken care off, he climbs under the covers with Buck and Chris, the two of them having to wiggle down from their seated position. A stray foot catches Eddie in the side, but he doesn’t even mind, because he’s so content.

Chris being there means that him and Buck don’t cuddle up like they usually would. Instead Eddie lays on his stomach, while Buck encloses Chris between them like a parenthesis. Chris lies on his back between them with his head mostly on Buck’s pillow, since it’s not being gripped like Eddie’s. When they are settled, Eddie throws an arm across both of them, further boxing Chris in.

For a moment, Eddie thinks Chris will roll his eyes at them, but he only snuggles in closer. It’s the same move Buck pulls every night and a warm feeling bursts in his chest at the sight.

“Comfy?” Buck asks, peering out one eye amusedly at Chris, probably not even recognizing the similarities.

“Very,” Chris informs them happily. “Night, daddy. Night, papi.”

“Goodnight, Chris. Eddie.”

“Night. Love you two,” Eddie murmurs, grinning as he gets two ‘love you’s back.

Then a silence descents over them as they try to sleep. Even though it’s a sleep over, they have to make sure Chris catches his flight tomorrow and after his packing lesson today, Chris knows the importance of a good night’s sleep.

Eddie wonders if they should have let him sleep with them tonight, since he can recognize that it is in part to ward of nightmares so that he will get that night of rest. However, he dismisses the thought.

Chris needs the two of them right now, needs that sleep. Besides, tomorrow he’s leaving and they won’t get to see him for a whole week. Today is for indulging in family time, he can miss Chris after this, when he won’t be right there to comfort him, hold him.

With that thought, Eddie is the first one out. He’s been sleeping better in general since him and Buck started dating, suppose Frank had a point and carrying that feeling around of needing to perform, act right, caused a lot of tension. That’s now gone.

When the alarm beeps, he does groan though, and buries his head under his pillow.

The two morning people he has been forced to put up with, on the other hand, click off the alarm for him, which is nice. Less nice is the fact that Chris immediately starts prodding him saying: “Daddy, we don’t have time to sleep in. We have to get to the airport.”

Blearily, Eddie blinks his eyes open, lifting the pillow of his head cautiously. He gives Buck a half hearted glare as he says: “You caused this.”

Buck has the audacity to laugh at him, but is forgiven when he kisses Eddie’s head and promises: “I’ll make you coffee.” Then to Chris he goes: “Let’s get dressed and make breakfast. Mr. Grumpy needs a moment to wake up.”

By the time, Eddie has dragged himself out of bed and into some clothes that look half presentable, there is indeed coffee waiting for him in the kitchen. The one added sugar he now takes in it making the whole experience even better.

Chris is eating his breakfast while sitting on the floor, because Tubs is lying in a streak of sunlight and Chris wants to say goodbye. They should scold him for eating on the floor, but at least spills are easily cleaned up and they’re going to miss him soon. So, much like Buck, Eddie doesn’t say anything.

Instead the three of them eat on the floor next to Tubs, a mini picnic as Buck calls it when he serves them floor eggs. It’s fun.

Less fun is when they have to pack the last of Chris’s stuff and get in the car to drive him to the airport… where they’re going to have to say goodbye.

Eddie keeps watching Chris in the rear view mirror, his fingers tangled with Buck’s, their hands resting on his thigh. Chris is excited about the trip. Eddie is glad Chris is excited. It’s good that he wants to go and isn’t clinging. Eddie just wants to cling himself, but he has to be a responsible adult about it.

Almost as if reading his mind Buck squeezes his hand, causing Eddie to look over at him. When he does, Buck gives him a quick reassuring smile. They’re in this together. Eddie smiles back.

At the airport it’s mostly stressful as they figure out where they need to check Chris in and fuss over the last details. Which is mostly making sure nothing of Chris’s is still on their person and reminding Chris how important his ID is and that he shouldn’t lose it.

The air hostess that is going to accompany Chris on his flight and check him in is very nice. However, she has the misfortune of being the one to take Chris from them – even if they signed up for it – so Eddie has to dislike her mildly regardlessly.

They keep thinking of new reminders to give Chris, of things to pass along as if they can’t call or text anyone there, keep telling him how much they love him and going to miss him. Telling him to be safe, to have fun, to-

“Sirs, we do have to catch the flight. Please, finish up your goodbyes soon,” the air hostess interrupts them.

“Ah, sorry, ma’am,” Buck says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck when he does.

When he does that, his arms bulge nicely. Eddie catches himself looking and quickly looks away, before remembering he is allowed to do that and looking again. Then he remembers he was having a conversation. He goes to smile apologetically at the air hostess too, then catches her looking at Buck’s biceps as well.

Rude. That’s his boyfriend! His husband too, but they agreed on boyfriends even if they’re still legally married, but that is not the point. The point is, she is giving Buck eyes when he is here with Eddie saying goodbye to their son.

Oh my god, he’s jealous. That is new. Well, not the jealousy, but the fact that he is feeling it over Buck and he is allowing himself to feel possessive.

It’s not the point, right now, since they’re busy hugging Chris the best they can and leave a few kisses on his cheek before he has to go. However, after they’ve said their goodbyes, he stands close to Buck, sliding his arm around him while the smile he gives her when they thank her for taking care of Chris is a little sharp.

The air hostess looks a little embarrassed and apologetic, so message received. Not wanting to be too petty or bitchy, Eddie softens his expression towards her, before waving at Chris.

By unspoken agreement, him and Buck stand there until Chris has fully disappeared into the distance, keeping up their waving until he is gone from sight. Buck takes his hand and Eddie holds it tight. He tells himself it’s to comfort Buck, but he knows it’s for him too.

They should probably move, Eddie thinks, when Buck breaks the silence, his eyes and voice teary as he says: “What if he gets homesick?”

Eddie immediately gives Buck’s upper arm a light smack, exclaiming: “Don’t say that! Aren’t you supposed to be making me feel better about this whole thing?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just worry,” Buck pouts, which means that Eddie instantly forgives him.

Firmly, as if that will make them both believe it, Eddie says: “Well, Chris is going to be fine. He’s going to have a safe trip and a good stay. And we’ll see him in a week.”

“God, a whole week,” Buck sighs.

“Buck!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Chris will be fine. Now let’s move before I start thinking about it again,” Buck says, grabbing Eddie’s hand and pulling him out of the airport. He keeps calling out silly encouragements as they run, not letting them slow down even when people look at them weirdly.

Despite the embarrassment, Eddie is out of breath with laugher by the time they reach the car, the two of them needing to take a break to giggle, before they find the coordination to get in. On the way to the firehouse, they blast sad music and yell along to get the rest of the energy out.

Bobby offered to take them off the roster for today, but they declined, knowing that if they had to go home to a Chris-less house from the airport, they wouldn’t recover. They need to be around family right now, need the distraction of work.

So, they pull up and give each other the last kiss for the next 36 hours, before getting out of the car and going into the station. Still, holding hands, bags over their shoulders as the feeling of home washes over them. They need this, Eddie thinks.

Of course everyone knows about it, so when they enter, they’re all waiting for them. Hen opens her arms going: “Ahw, are you two okay?”

Buck lets her hug him, though he doesn’t let go of Eddie’s hand as he does. “I’m better now that I see you,” he tells her.

“Charmer,” Hen rolls her eyes, letting go and giving Buck a small hip check as she does. Then she moves to hug Eddie. Softly saying: “Sleep overs are the worst, aren’t they?”

“They really are,” Eddie agrees, the reality of it all hitting him again. He hugs her tighter, letting go of Buck’s hand, vaguely hearing him talk to Bobby and Chimney, while he hugs Hen. A year ago, he wouldn’t have done this, but he can’t really feel proud of that, because he is so ashamed of himself when he admits: “I hate that he’s gone. Even if he is going to have fun.”

“I get it,” Hen assures him, rubbing his back. “When me and Karen left on our honeymoon Denny stayed with Karen’s parents. They spoil him to death, but we still missed him way too much. It’s natural.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says, managing to pull himself away and give her a smile.

“Of course,” she smiles back. Then a bit louder she says: “Now go get your asses in gear. Shift is almost starting.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Buck calls out, making Hen smirk as she gives Eddie a wink. He shakes his head at her with a grin, feeling a little bit better as he follows Buck to the locker room.

He gets a clap on the back from Bobby and Chimney, but by unspoken agreement, none of them mention Chris’s absence again. Instead pulling out games as a distraction until the alarm goes and they can focus on that instead.

Though all that distracting goes out the window the second Chris calls them. He doesn’t have his own phone yet, because Eddie absolutely refused to give him one, but neither would feel comfortable with him being unreachable either. So they have a shared house cell phone that anyone can use, but that can also be given to Chris to take with him when he goes to sleep overs or to his grandparents as is currently the case.

So when Eddie’s phone starts to ring with a familiar number, he instantly drops his controller, calling out: “It’s Chris!” before picking up. “Hey, mijo, good trip?”

“Hi, daddy, it was so cool. I got to board the plan first and they had the next How to Train Your Dragon movie on the plane! And I got to pick a snack from the cart,” Chris tells him, while Eddie puts the phone on speaker and angles it in such a way so that Buck, who has fully abandoned his job as sous chef, can be a part of the conversation too.

“That’s great, buddy. Hi, by the way,” Buck greets. “Did you find grandma and abuelo okay? Are you with them now?”

“I did, Miss Linda waited with me until I found them. Me and grandma are sitting on a bench while abuelo finds the car to pick us up, so we don’t have to walk all the way,” Chris tells them.

Eddie can vaguely remember the air hostess’s name tag saying Linda, but he is mostly glad by the rest of the sentence. Finding comfort in the fact that Chris has made the journey safely and is now in the hands of family once more. Though him and Buck share a look at what was likely his mom’s insistence that Chris can’t do something, which has always been a point of friction between them.

However, they’re not going to bring that up now and not to Chris either. So Eddie just says: “That’s good to hear. Can you put grandma on for me?”

“Uh-huh,” Chris probably nods, before there is some noise and the phone gets handed over.

As it happens, Eddie feels his own heart rate go up. If Chris found it newsworthy to share, then he might have already told his mom about him and Buck. Which means right now is the point she starts yelling. Or disapproving at least. Buck must sense his nerves, because he presses a little closer as he listens in.

“Eddie, what is it?” his mom greets. No hello, no how are you, no nothing. But at least also nothing about how he is living in sin and bringing shame on the family, which is honestly a win. He can deal with her normal nonsense.

“Hi, mom, also nice to hear from you too,” Eddie greets back a little annoyed. “Thank you for picking Chris up. You two manage to get everything sorted?”

“We’re not imbeciles, Eddie. Of course we can look after Chris on our own for a week. No need to be so fussy,” she tells him, which makes him flush with embarrassment as it was probably intended.

He mumbles: “I was just making sure. I wanted to check if you needed anything.”

“We don’t,” mom says a little too succinctly to be kind.

Eddie takes a deep breath and Buck gives him an assuring look, before quirking a brow, silently asking if he should speak up. Eddie loves him for that, loves that he wants to be there, but he can’t let him. Not when his mom is sounding like that. He doesn’t want her to think anything is up. Doesn’t want her to question why he is letting Buck fight his battles for him.

So, he shakes his head minutely, before shortly saying: “Alright. That is good. I’m glad it went well and I hope you have a good week with him. Can you put Chris on so that we can say bye?”

Clearly no longer talking to them, mom says: “Oh, look there is abuelo. Let’s get up, Christopher,” before she hangs up without another word to them.

Almost disbelieving Eddie stares at the now hung up call in his hand. Next to him Buck puffs up indignantly saying: “Did she just…”

“Uh, yeah, she did,” Eddie says, flabbergasted.

“Did your mom just hang up on you two before you can say goodbye to Chris?” Chimney asks, blinking a few times, since the whole 118 is nosy so they’ve been listening in as well. Eddie can’t blame him, even he is surprised by that move and he is not new to his mom’s bullshit.

“Jup,” Buck sighs, trying not to be annoyed, but clearly annoyed.

Hen grimaces sympathetically: “She sounds lovely.”

Feeling a little defensive, even though he knows they’re right, Eddie frowns: “Hey, come on. She had to pick Chris up from the airport after he flew alone. That is stressful.”

“Yeah, we’ll call him again in a moment,” Buck agrees, thankfully not sharing his actual opinion, which Eddie knows he has. Especially after their not coming out talk.

Luckily, before anyone can say anything, the phone rings once more. “Chris? Everything okay?”

“Grandma hung up by accident, isn’t that silly? We’re in the car now, but you didn’t say bye yet,” Chris’s voice comes through the phone.

Eddie’s face softens, as does Buck’s, then Buck says: “That is very silly of her, Superman. Thank you for calling us again to say bye.”

“Yeah,” Eddie pipes up too. “You have a good week with you grandparents, okay? Text us about what you’re up to and don’t be afraid to call. And say hi to Abuela.”

“I will,” Chris promises.

“Love you, buddy, bye,” Eddie says.

“Yes, love you,” Buck also says. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, love you too,” Chris replies cheerily, before he hangs up.

Even if he defended her, Eddie knows she didn’t hang up by accident. Still, he doesn’t really care, he feels a lot better after getting to say goodbye to Chris properly. And going off how Buck’s shoulders are a lot less tense, so does he.

Thankfully, everyone has gotten the message to back off about his mom, because Chimney redirects by saying: “You know, I think I am finally used to seeing you two parent together. Like, it no longer sits weirdly in my brain when you two do that.”

Buck laughs slightly confused. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re very welcome,” Chimney winks with a grin.

Eddie chuckles. With how long they lied to everyone about it, it’s admirable how well they’ve all taken it in stride after the few hiccups they had with HR about it. But he’s glad them raising Chris together is starting to feel natural to everyone, because he’s planning to do it for the rest of their lives

…They just first have to miss him this week. Fuck, it’s already feeling like a long week, though, and it has only been a few hours.

Please let the alarm go, he thinks, contemplating evoking the quiet curse, but he doesn’t believe it will work and it will make Buck pouty. And he’s on the clock, so he won’t be able to kiss him about it anyway. Better not to.

~~

A/N:

You know how sometimes you get served random content that you don’t know why you are given that content, but you’re weirdly fascinated even if it has nothing to do with you? Anyway, I feel like my odd decent into parenting advice videos has finally found its use here lmao, because I did not come up with that house phone stuff

[schrijverr]

Okay, what if there is a 9-1-1 Leverage cross over with the 118 as the Leverage crew, who would we cast as who? I'd say:

Bobby Nash -> Nate Ford

Hen Wilson -> Sophie Devereaux

Chimney Han -> Alec Hardison

Buck -> Parker

Eddie Diaz -> Eliot Spencer

I know it won't work if you insist on being shippy about it and configuring big ships in either fandom to the other, but I feel like this might fit best?

Like clearly Bobby and Nate have a lot of overlap in backstory and are the leaders, so I feel pretty confident in that one.

And I thought Hen as Sophie, because she is very much a second leader and the person others turn to with their troubles, plus she has the potential to be a grifter, like remember her confidencing herself into an OR and catching a thief lmao. Like she could.

Then I thought Chimney as Hardison, because he is kind of the heart of the operation and gets played as comic relief, even if he has a lot of emotional depth. I think he might be a bit too repressed to be Hardison though, but most are lmao, but due to that Buck was my alternate here (also because the baby of the crew vibes that grow into their own even if they don't grow into being a leader that Buck and Hardison both have).

Buck as Parker stems from the young wild card that blossoms under mentorship of Nate/Bobby, you know, need a gentler hand and care to get them on the rails of becoming a normal person after a reckless childhood. I do think that Buck is a bit too self aware and people pleaser-y for the full Parker experience, but it's broad translation. But name vibes match xp

And then Eddie as Eliot was mostly due to background similarities and their in depth relationship with violence, even if their relationship to violence is pretty different. However, they have that rough exterior, gentle soul thing going for them and are both country boys.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure this is exactly what I feel, but upon first thought it is. But I'd love to hear what other people think! :D

[schrijverr]

Changed my tumblr vibe :D

old right vs new left:

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. 2

Chapter 2 out 23

Buck and Eddie are visiting El Paso with Chris, while pretending their marriage is still just convenience for Helena and Ramon, which causes tensions to arise between them. Otherwise known as the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad El Paso trip.

In this chapter, Eddie, Buck and Chris enjoy their time as a family, before Chris is flying off to see his grandparents and they have to miss him for a whole week. A nightmare from Chris disrupts that peace somewhat, but the assurance that results is very much necessary.

On ao3.

Ships: Buddie

Warnings: referenced internalized homophobia, homophobia mention, referenced emotionally abusive parenting, nightmare, guilt

~~~

Chapter 2: Nighttime Anxieties

After their evening conversation, neither of them mention the topic again. They have a plan and Eddie does not want to talk about it more. He used up all his talk about it points by bringing it up.

Buck doesn’t mind. He is just glad that Eddie felt comfortable bringing it up and making sure Buck knew it wasn’t about him. And that he has a warning about it all before the moment is there. Though he half could have guessed Eddie wasn’t keen to come out to his parents.

Now Buck doesn’t want to be a stereotype and hate his in-laws. However, it’s not as if they have made it easy to like them. They needle and judge and get under their skin, not to mention the bigotry. So, Buck had already guessed that with their history, their upcoming trip wasn’t going to be a coming out trip.

He had already prepared himself for neither of them saying anything about their newfound change in their relationship. Eddie bringing it up was more a confirmation of that. Hell, Buck never came out to them either.

It’s not like he cares what Ramon or Helena would have thought or said about him, if they had known all these years. However, he does know that they would have said a lot – well, a lot more – and that wasn’t worth the hassle, especially since he’d been in that delicate balancing act of not wanting to push Eddie too much, in fear the gay would take his family from him.

Now, though, that is no longer a concern. Eddie loves him, his family is permanent. Nothing Ramon or Helena can say will change that. If Eddie does feel comfortable, Buck is right there with him, but he doesn’t care either way.

The point is, he doesn’t see the need to bring it up and talk about it more when they already made a plan. So, life continues as the day Chris is flying out draws closer.

Since it’s summer break, they can hang out with him on their days off even when they’re on week days, which is great. He’ll be going in two days now and they have the day off. Buck is driving them all to the zoo, excited about the trip.

Eddie is in the passenger seat, bopping along to the music Buck has put on, he always used to complain about it, but recently he’s been letting himself enjoy it more visibly. The sight, however brief the glances Buck can spare him in traffic are, makes him smile and he squeezes Eddie’s thigh where his hand has been resting.

In the backseat, Chris is excitedly telling them all about the animals he wants to see. Despite their therapeutic trip to Santa Monica Pier, they’re avoiding the aquatic animals this time, but Chris (and Buck if he’s honest) are really excited about the Sumerian tiger.

Soon they’re spilling out of the car and Chris hurries forward, crutches clattering. “Come on, that line is the shortest.”

“Wait up, mijo. We still have to get the bag,” Eddie calls out, hurrying after Chris, so they don’t lose him, while Buck gets the backpack with all their stuff from the car and makes sure their parking placard is visible.

Once he’s done all that, he looks around to find Chris and Eddie nearing the line Chris had picked out for them. With a little jog he catches up to them and Eddie smiles when he slides up next to him. “Hi,” Buck says with a goofy smile of his own.

“Hi,” Eddie greets back, matching look on his face. He looks around for a moment, before a determined expression comes on his face. Buck watches him curiously, before his heart melts when Eddie reaches out and grabs his hand to hold.

His cheeks are a little pink, but he smiles at Buck. Eddie is fine with Buck initiating contact between them when around people that are not family, like the 118, but he psyches himself out when he wants to do something around others. It has become more common for him to initiate, but it’s not usual.

Unable to be normal about it, Buck pulls him closer and wraps his arms around him, kissing the side of his head as he sways them.

“Buck,” Eddie sighs, though Buck can feel how he’s smiling. “You can’t keep making a big deal about it every time.”

“Buzzkill,” Buck says, stepping back until they’re just holding hands again, before sticking out his tongue.

“Mature,” Eddie replies, fighting a smile.

Buck blows a raspberry, then directs himself to Chris: “You have the route, Superman? Where are we going to be around feeding time?”

Chris pulls the map they drew on out of his pocket. He has the great honor of being their guide today and takes that responsibility very seriously. He studies their mapped out route and says: “We’re going to be at the elephants. Those are the best.”

“Hell yeah they are,” Buck agrees. “Did you know that elephants eat about 150 kilo of food every single day? That’s about 330 pounds.”

“Really?” Chris asks and Buck nods, launching into a discussion about elephants with Chris while Eddie listens, as the line moves closer to the entrance.

For the rest of the day, Buck and Chris drag Eddie all over the park, though they mostly forget he’s there, too caught up in the animals. Eddie, for his part, takes pictures and listens to their hyped sharing of facts, a big grin on his face as he does.

At the end of the day, Chris is dozing in the back of the car, crashing from a sugar high, because the sweet tooth he shares with Eddie convinced Buck that buying one of those giant cotton candies for everyone was a good idea. He doesn’t regret it entirely though, he has this adorable photo of Chris and Eddie sitting on a bench, matching excited expressions on their faces as they eat their pink clouds.

Chris insists he’s not tired when they get home, which is a blatant lie, but they still have to eat dinner so they let him get away with it. Chris likes watching Buck cook and has recently been upgraded to master stirrer, so he actually does wake a little while mixing the vegetables for the salad together.

“This is great, mijo,” Eddie tells Chris as he eats the salad.

Buck doesn’t point out that he did 90% of the cooking and just adds: “Yeah, buddy, these vegetables are incredibly well mixed.”

“Thank you,” Chris smiles, before hopefully asking: “Does that mean you’re going to teach me how to cut them?”

“Uh, maybe after your El Paso break, okay, Superman?” Buck says.

“Please, papi,” Chris begs, putting on his best puppy dog eyes.

Helpless, Buck looks over to Eddie, who rolls his eyes at Buck’s inability to say no, before nodding that he can go ahead. Grateful, Buck sends him a grin, before he says: “Sure. After you come back, we’ll start. But we’re starting with the small knives, okay? No cleavers for you yet, young man.”

Chris cheers at that, happily digging into his food.

They watch a movie together, put Chris to bed, then catch up on sports while half lazily making out together, before they turn in. As they cuddle, Buck tells Eddie all about a few crazy freak accidents that reading about the Sylacauga meteor lead him to.

It’s nice. Domestic. Fuck, Buck is really going to miss the shit out of Chris when he’s gone, even if it’s only for a week. Though, it might also be nice to have the house to themselves for a while. They haven’t really had that with Chris not being in school since they got together. There’s a lot they haven’t gotten to do yet.

“Buck, I’m too sleepy for you to jerk me off right now,” Eddie’s voice interrupts his thoughts, the grumble half muffled in the pillow.

Unconsciously, Buck had started to grope Eddie when thinking about the possibilities. “Sorry,” he whispers back.

“No, you’re not,” Eddie huffs, but it’s fond.

“Okay, so maybe not entirely,” Buck agrees, because while he doesn’t want to make Eddie uncomfortable or take away from his sleep, this has been established as okay and Buck truly shouldn’t be blamed too much. “Not my fault you’re sexy,” he complains.

Eddie lets out an embarrassed chuckle. “You’re a menace.”

“You love that I’m a menace.”

“Go to sleep, Buck,” Eddie says, going for stern but failing. Indeed after Buck waits a second, Eddie cracks, saying: “Okay, fine, I love you being a menace, but also go to sleep.”

“Alright, alright,” Buck grins, kissing Eddie’s neck and shoulder, before snuggling in further, hands this time in more appropriate zones. “Love you, baby. Goodnight.”

“Night. Love you too.”

The two of them actually get a few peaceful hours in. However, somewhere in the middle of the night, they are awoken by a loud scream, echoing through the house. “Papi!”

With firefighter reflexes, Buck and Eddie roll out of the bed, still half asleep as they run to the hallway to Chris’s room. Sadly, the whole ordeal is not unfamiliar to any of them. In fact, since the tsunami hit, it has become routine.

When Buck comes stumbling into the room. Chris is already awake. He’s crying softly, petting Tubs as he attempts to calm down through hitching breaths.

“Oh, Chris,” Buck shushes gently, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling Chris into a big and tight hug. He rocks them side to side, only leaving enough space for Tubs to continue to rub his face against Chris’s side for extra comfort. “It’s okay, Superman, I’m here. Papi’s here.”

Chris clutches to him and sobs harder. Buck cradles his head and sends a look over to Eddie as he holds Chris, silently communicating with him. After a moment, Eddie is running to the kitchen to get Chris a glass of water, knowing Chris can use it after he’s cried out.

While Eddie does that, Buck does his best to try and calm Chris down, whispering more reassurances and trying to get Chris to breathe slower. He’s pretty successful at it, which he rather wouldn’t have been since it’s due to practice.

He wasn’t this smooth the first time it happened, actually him and Eddie had both been pretty freaked out. Chris too honestly. The nightmares are why they put him in therapy. Surviving a tsunami isn’t an easy feat, Buck should know. He should probably also be in therapy, but he tries not to think about it too much.

By the time Eddie comes back with a glass of water and sits down on the other side, joining in on the hug, they’ve moved down from sobbing to silent tears.

They just hold Chris, letting him cry. They know they can’t take the nightmares away, they can only be there for him through it. Even if that reality is incredibly frustrating to both of them. They would love nothing more than to take this pain away from Chris, but they can’t.

In moments like these, Buck just feels so fucking helpless and guilty. Logically, he can understand that Eddie and Maddie and Bobby and basically everyone around him is right and it’s not his fault a tsunami happened to hit when he took Chris to the pier. However, if everyone could reason themselves out of irrational feelings, they would be living in a very different world. So, the guilt remains.

“I- I was in the- the w- water and I- I could- couldn’t see you,” Chris hiccups, clutching Buck, little nails digging in his arms. With a small quivering voice, he adds: “It was r- really sc- scary.”

That small stab of guilt turns into something bigger and more painful. Buck holds him closer and squeezes eyes shut, trying not to cry. He takes a calming breath, but his voice still sounds a little fucked when he replies: “That sounds very scary, buddy. I’m sorry. I’m here now. I got you. I’ll always got you.”

He feels Chris nod, then say: “I know, papi,” which makes Buck’s heart constrict with how little he deserves that trust.

Eddie’s hand comes up to his back, rubbing it comfortingly, while still holding Chris with the other. He is too sweet sometimes, Buck thinks. He opens his eyes again, trying to give Eddie a reassuring smile and knows he fails when Eddie gives him those big inquisitive and sympathetic eyes.

“We’re here for you, mijo,” Eddie says, knowing Buck is near his limit. “Here, drink a bit of water.” He offers Chris the glass, keeping it steady for him while he drinks.

Once the water is gone, Chris has calmed down entirely, just sagging into both of them and petting Tubs in a manner that’s equally soothing to Chris as it is to Tubs. None of them move away, sharing the comforting silence for a moment.

Then Chris speaks again, his voice is timid and clearly a little worried. “What if I get a nightmare at grandma’s and abuelo’s and you aren’t there?”

Buck and Eddie share a subtle look over Chris’s head, silently communicating. Of course, they had considered that happening, which meant they have planned for it. Looking at him now, Buck can tell Eddie still remembers that blood boiling call to Helena vividly.

However, them having informed Helena and Ramon about this so that Chris wouldn’t be alone with two out of their depth adults in the middle of a crisis, isn’t the same as the emotional comfort Chris craves right now.

“Grandma and abuelo will be there,” he says anyway, because even if it’s not what Chris wants to hear right now, it’s important that he knows it. That he knows there will be people he can count on. “They’ll be there and you can go to them when you need.”

Next to him, Eddie is nodding, before he adds: “Plus, me and papi will be there before you know it and before that, we’re only a call away. Yeah?”

Chris finally looks up at both of them, eyes big and red rimmed, but also glad. “I can call?” he asks hopefully. “You won’t be busy?”

Buck can see how those words pain Eddie, even if he hides it well. So, he gives Eddie’s leg an unobtrusive and comforting pat, also giving him an encouraging small smile when Eddie glances at him due to the action. The small smile back is the best he can hope for.

Eddie swallows and clears his throat, making sure to look Chris in the eyes as he empathetically presses home: “You can always call me or papi. Both of us. Always. Anytime you need.”

Those were the right words to say, they can feel how a bit of tension leaves Chris’s body. He obviously had been worrying about it before now and he didn’t tell them. Buck doesn’t know how he feels about it, other than upset. But this is not the moment to be upset about that, so he stuffs it down.

And it is definitely not the moment when the expression on Chris’s face gets replaced by that little Diaz frown he and Eddie tend to do. Chris worries more: “But what if you are fighting a big fire and you can’t pick up? What if you’re working?”

It’s a valid question. Buck hates it, but it’s fair. Chris has always been understanding of their work, but recent events have made him a little more touchy around it.

Looking at Eddie, Buck knows that he is not going to be the one to answer this question. So instead Buck says: “Hey, Christopher, look at me?”

Chris does, blinking a few times as he does. He is an adorable kid and Buck loves him so much. God, how fucking lucky he is to get to be Chris’s dad.

“Hi, Superman,” he smiles, putting on his gentles voice.

“Hi.” Chris’s voice is still soft, but more curious than upset.

“I know it sucks and I wish that we could pick up all the time, every time. And in a perfect world, we would. Because we love you and we want to be here for you. And every moment we can, we’re going to be right there on the other side of that phone, okay?” Buck starts, leveling with Chris in a serious voice, because Chris needs to be taken seriously right now, not coddled.

Chris nods.

“Good,” Buck smiles. Before continuing: “But it’s not a perfect world, so you’re right. We might not be able to pick up, but I promise to you – pinky promise it – that we will call you back the second we can. How does that sound?”

They hold their breath and Chris considers it. If it wasn’t for the gravity of the situation, Buck could focus on how cute Chris’s concentrated face looks. When Chris nods and holds out his pinky, they both exhale again.

Both Buck and Eddie solemnly pinky promise to pick up when they can and call back immediately if they are forced to miss the call.

Once they’ve both done that, Buck asks: “Do you think your grandparents being there will be enough if you can’t reach us, or do you want us to ask tía Pepa or tía Maddie if either one of them can be there in case we can’t?”

“Grandma and abuelo will be okay,” Chris says. For him, Helena and Ramon have been nothing but perfect and Buck is glad he can lean on them, even if they’re the most frustrating people alive sometimes.

“That’s good, mijo,” Eddie says. “You feel like going back to sleep again?”

“Read me a story?” Chris pleads.

“Of course,” Eddie immediately gives in.

They all rearrange on the bed so it’s more comfortable and Eddie picks up the book that is on the bedside table. Chris is reading it on his own, so Eddie only has a vague idea of what is going on, but he reads anyway. He’s grateful he gets to do this for Chris.

When Chris is asleep again, Eddie puts the book back and both place a kiss on his curls, before they retreat out of the room. It’s silent when they make their way back into their own bed. The two lay there, staring at the ceiling, saying nothing while being awake.

After a few minutes of silence, Buck suddenly says: “Are you okay?”

“No. You?”

“No,” Buck answers honestly. “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Eddie confesses in that same curt manner from before. Then a beat later, he asks: “You?”

Buck huffs out a humorless snort and shakes his head. “No.” He isn’t really up for midnight therapy and talking about it, will turn into therapy. “Can I just hold you?”

“Of course,” Eddie says, turning to Buck instantly, the two of them migrating out of their prone position next to each other.

With this new position, Buck can bury his nose in Eddie’s hair, smelling the comforting familiar scent of shampoo. He will always be grateful to have his rock by his side. That Eddie is there with him and they have each other to get through this.

They fall asleep like that, holding each other instead of spooning. Both need the comfort, the warmth of the other, the reassuring hold that tells them tomorrow will be better. That they can slowly work on Chris’s trauma and they didn’t fuck up.

It’s hard to believe it sometimes, but holding the other makes it easier to do so.

Naturally, it becomes even easier the next morning, when after an uneasy night of sleep, they are awoken by a cheery Chris barging into their room. The memory of the nightmare seems to have faded for him in the morning light and he wastes no time clambering on the bed and demanding breakfast for him and Tubs.

On most mornings, Buck would get up with him to make breakfast while Eddie snoozes. However, neither of them says a thing when they take a second longer than normal to snuggle with Chris on their bed, before the three of them get out of bed together.

Today is the last day before Chris will go to El Paso, before the nerve wracking Helena and Ramon saga will begin, if Buck allows himself to dramatize it in the comforts of his own mind.

They’re all going to miss each other like crazy, so today is for clinging a little tighter than they otherwise would. And for packing, Buck adds, they definitely also need to pack. The thought prompts him to blurt out: “Did you make a list of what you want to take with you yet?”

“Uh, no,” Chris says sheepishly.

“We’ll make one after breakfast. I’ll help you pack,” Buck promises.

Eddie leans over and loudly and playfully whispers: “Run. Run while you still can. You have awoken the monster.”

Chris giggles, while Buck turns away from the stove to point his spatula at Eddie, threatening: “Don’t even try it, Mister. You like me and my lists. They’re useful.”

“Of course, mi amor. I’m sorry,” Eddie grins back mischievously. “How could I have ever dared to insult our master organizer.”

“I am aware you are mocking me, but I will take that as a compliment,” Buck sniffs haughtily, playing it up for the amusement of Chris.

Chris, who laughs: “You are very silly, papi”

“Et tu? How dare you,” Buck gasps, the comment launching another round of bickering.

The morning light cannot undo all the hurts there are, but it can shine a different light on them. Right now, the morning sun streaming into the kitchen, bathes it in warmth, the sound of a happy family filling the air and making everything seem a lot less big than it had appeared in the darkness of the night.

They’re going to be okay, Buck thinks, looking over to where Eddie is making Chris giggle with his cream cheese mustache, which causes Chris to give himself carrot fangs. The three of them are a strong unit. They can survive a tsunami and they can survive a trip to El Paso.

~~

A/N:

This whole start was getting a bit too sweet for my taste. As much as I love their happy domestic life, I have had enough. We all know you’re not here for happy fluff, you are here to be saddened, so I had to put that nightmare and guilt complex in there early, give you all a little taste >:3

Also I do not think I properly conveyed in all my replies how much it means to me to see so many familiar faces back for this sequel, like truly that is so delightful and I am so grateful that you people are coming back to read my brain baby <3

[schrijverr]

I am so incredibly unnormal about the I Do Verse <3

[schrijverr]

Self-Promote Saturday

Old fics can still be fun, so to keep the fandom ecosystem alive, I’m promoting one of my own today. This week’s self-promote Saturday fic is: Making It to Siblinghood (2.9k)

When May is butting heads with her mom about talking to Laila, she needs to get away from it all during family dinner. Buck seeks her out, opening up about his own suicide attempts and giving her a listening ear.

I'm a little late for it and this isn't my first 9-1-1 fic, but I recently noticed that I have been writing for this fandom for a year now, which is wild since it's already almost one of my most written about fandom's.

Anyway, I love the Grant-Nash-Buckley family very dearly and the idea that Buck is siblings to May and Harry is very important to me, so I wrote this to have Buck in that more older sibling role. I also find Buck's headspace and potential past with suicide fascinating to explore and I wanted him to have that connection point with May about it. And for them to be able to talk about it.

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. 1

Chapter 1 out 23

After everything Buck and Eddie have gone through together, the marriage that was once just convenience is now real. They’re boyfriend-husbands, trying to figure out what their life looks like now that they’re dating and learning to be an actual couple.

However, trouble arises with the promised trip back home to El Paso for the summer. Eddie is not ready to come out to his parents and Buck supports him in that. Still, El Paso is not the place where either of them have been their best and tensions arise between them when having to exist in the influence sphere of the Diaz parents. Everything that has happened between them catches up as personal histories, insecurities and unresolved issues float back up to the surface.

AKA: The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad El Paso trip.

On ao3.

Ships: Buddie

Warnings: referenced homophobia, referenced emotionally abusive parenting, anxiety

~~~

Chapter 1: A Solid Family Shape

Buck opens the door as quietly as he can, Eddie leaning against the wall outside as he does. It’s already late and they’ve just come from shift, but Chris is probably in bed already. If he hears them come in, he’ll wake up and want to say hello and they’re trying not to instill the habit of getting out of bed again once he’s in. Plus, he needs his sleep with the nightmares he’s been having recently.

So, they practically sneak into their own home, greeting Carla, who is watching a show with the volume low.

He is pretty sure she is laughing at them, when she whispers back: “Hi, fellas, good shift?”

“Yeah,” Buck whispers back. “It was quiet and Eddie didn’t jinx us for once. How was Chris?”

“Jinxes aren’t real,” Eddie mutters, but gets lovingly ignored.

“Chris was good. We did his PT and built some Legos,” Carla answers. “I made him dinner and there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

“You’re the best,” Buck tells her, giving her a final hug, before waving her out the door, while Eddie also says goodbye and goes to throw their clothes in the laundry while Buck locks up.

When Buck is done, he makes his way down the hallway, stopping at Chris’s door and opening it further. A part of him knows this isn’t the smartest thing if they want to make sure Chris gets as much sleep as he can.

However, Chris isn’t the only one affected by the tsunami. Buck can still very vividly remember realizing that he’d lost Chris, the moment he thought it might have been forever. And he knows assuring himself that Chris is right there and okay will help him sleep better.

So, he risks waking Chris by widening the crack they leave for Tubs until he can peer in, letting out a relieved breath when he sees Chris snuggled up in his pillow, snoring slightly, while Tubs is at the foot of his bed purring.

He just stands there watching him, until he feels a presence come up behind him. Eddie wraps his arms around his waist, his chin hooking over Buck’s shoulder as he peers into the room too.

Buck’s hand automatically comes up to squeeze Eddie’s arms over his stomach, unable to help the small fluttering in his chest at the action. Eddie has come very far from beating people up to get away from the gay. He still isn’t one for initiating contact outside of the privacy of their own home, but in it, he’s been doing it more and more, and it warms Buck’s heart every time.

“Chris is okay,” Eddie murmurs softly, breath hot over Buck’s neck. “He’s safe. You kept him safe.”

“I know,” Buck replies softly. “I just worry anyway. Don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.”

“No, probably not,” Eddie agrees. He’s quiet for a beat, then squeezes Buck’s middle lightly, before asking: “Do you at least think you’re ready to go to bed for the night?”

Buck gives Chris one last look, imprinting him in his mind before he says: “Yeah. Yeah, I can probably go to bed.”

“Good,” Eddie says, letting go of Buck and stepping back with a final hand on Buck’s shoulder, before he retreats down the hall.

After quietly closing the door until there was a small crack left, Buck follows after him to the bathroom where the two of them brush their teeth side by side. It’s a routine they’ve had for years, even before they got together, but it’s more intimate now.

Eddie will bump his hip against Buck’s and their eyes meet continuously in the mirror. Whenever it happens, a big smile will appear on Eddie’s face as a bit of foam leaking from his mouth in a way that should be gross, but endears Buck regardless.

Tooth brushing is always a quiet moment due to the nature of the task. Some days Buck is excited about something and will continue to try and talk through it, but today he’s content to brush his teeth alongside Eddie.

With their teeth brushed they make their way to their bedroom. Their! Buck still sometimes can’t believe this is his life now. That Eddie loves him too. That they’re together. But they are. Life has never been this good before.

As is practically routine, Buck crawls into bed first, getting comfortable on his side while Eddie plugs in his phone and sets an alarm, always asking: “How’s your leg?”

“My leg is fine,” Buck promises, with the slow shift they had, it’s not like he exerted it and he’s been very lucky in his recovery, though it can hurt like a motherfucker sometimes. However, not today. So, he just holds the blanket up as an invitation.

Without hesitation, Eddie crawls in next him… well, more like on top of him. Even though Buck sometimes pretends to grumble about it, he finds it incredibly adorable how Eddie seems to love using him as a mattress, wiggling until he’s comfortable, practically draped over Buck.

“Comfy?” Buck can’t help but ask, the tease also a worn routine, despite how short a period they’ve been sleeping in a bed together like this.

“Very,” Eddie smiles at him, before snuggling in and asking: “What you reading about?”

Buck grabs his phone, opening the wiki tab he’d left open as his other hand comes up to card a hand through Eddie’s hair. He continues to scratch at Eddie’s scalp as he says: “The great molasses flood of 1919 in Boston. A large vat of it burst and flooded the streets.”

“Tell me about it?” Eddie asks and Buck knows he means it. Eddie genuinely seems to like listening to his inane ramblings about whatever has caught his interest.

Not one to disappoint, Buck tells Eddie about what he’s read, pausing a little here and there to read more, before relaying it to Eddie too. He gets a bit distracted by ‘the area today’ part and also informs Eddie about the rules of bocco, a sport he’d vaguely heard about, but never really knew what it was.

As he lies there, snuggling with Eddie and telling him about stuff he’s reading on Wikipedia, he is so very grateful to the LAFD for allowing them to work the same shift again. As much as Buck didn’t mind B shift, nothing beats A shift, not to mention being on the same schedule as Eddie again instead of opposite ones.

It’s not too late yet, so he is content to draw this out. Because he missed Eddie.

He is very aware that they work together and therefore he has been in Eddie’s presence the whole day, but he remains of the opinion that it’s not the same. They promised Bobby they could keep it professional and Buck is determined to prove it, so no sharing bunks at work, which means no snuggling either. So really he’s making up for lost snuggle time that he has been deprived off.

Most of the time when they do this, Eddie is half asleep, but he hums at the right places and even comments a little here and there. Besides, Eddie is cute, so he gets a pass for dozing. He can be so wound up sometimes, so it’s nice to see him relax.

However, when Buck looks down to check on him, planning to give him a little kiss on the forehead – something he still does – he finds Eddie awake and alert. “Bocco interesting? I should have guessed, you and your sports.”

“Sports are fun,” Eddie protests, but there is a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Eddie, I love you, but sports are literally the most boring thing ever,” Buck tells him with faux seriousness.

“Says the man reading a wiki article about a sport,” Eddie retorts, raising his brow at Buck in a bitchy expression that Buck is not so secretly in love with.

“Touche,” Buck grins.

Then Eddie’s smile dims a little and his eyes become a little unfocused as he looks into the room. “But no, bocco isn’t my new passion. I was just thinking, I guess.”

That gets Buck’s attention and he makes a little noise in his throat, jostling Eddie slightly so he looks back at him. His eyes are a little concerned, but he tries to go for a welcoming and curious tone as he asks: “Wanna tell me what you’re thinking about?”

“Maybe,” Eddie shrugs, looking away again.

When Eddie gets like this, Buck has learned to give him a moment, before he starts prodding. Most of the time when Eddie gets to a point where he lets Buck know he might want to share something, he has already decided he wants to, but doesn’t know how to. It’s only sometimes that Eddie needs Buck to prod him until he shares.

Indeed, after a moment or two, Eddie takes a breath and softly says: “I’m thinking about my parents. About what to tell them about us, I mean.”

“Yeah?” Buck asks, trying not to let what he’s thinking be heard in his voice even though he always has a negative gut reaction whenever Eddie’s parents are mentioned.

Almost inaudible, Eddie confesses: “I don’t want to tell them yet.”

“Oh…” That is not so bad, Buck thinks. He knows Helena and Ramon well enough to figure out they won’t take too kindly to Eddie coming out to them and confirming that Buck will now be a part of their lives for the rest of time. Not only are they homophobic, they also dislike Buck greatly for his role in Eddie and Chris’s life. His only saving grace in their eyes, is that he is temporary, even though he can’t fantom them still believing it after over four years of Buck being there.

He also knows that the reason Eddie struggled so much with his feelings for Buck, is because of everything they have told him while he was growing up. Buck can understand how inviting their judgment for his life choices isn’t high on Eddie’s list of priorities.

“Are… are you mad?” Eddie asks softly after Buck doesn’t say anything more than ‘oh,’ too caught up in his own thoughts to say more.

Buck can feel how Eddie starts to shrink in on himself, slightly moving away from their embrace as he does so. Instantly, he tugs Eddie back to him, hugging him tightly as he says: “No. No, of course I’m not mad, baby. I promise.”

Tension leaves Eddie’s frame and he melts back into the embrace. “That’s good,” he says. Then more curious, he adds: “Want to tell me what you’re thinking then?”

“It wasn’t much. Just that I get not wanting to tell your parents anything,” Buck tells him honestly.

“You do?” Eddie sounds surprised.

“Eddie, your parents kind of suck,” Buck says, not really thinking about how that would sound until the words are out. At which point he tacks on: “Uh, no offense.”

For a moment, Buck fears he has irrevocably fucked this whole thing up. Then, much to his relief, Eddie snorts: “Suppose that’s true.”

“Sorry,” Buck says anyway.

“It’s okay,” Eddie assures him. He still isn’t meeting Buck’s eyes, having instead curled up on his side, head on Buck’s chest and leg thrown over Buck’s calves, looking down to where he’s playing with the strings of Buck’s sweats. “I know it’s true. I know you probably put up with a lot more than me when I was away. That they dislike you more… You’re allowed to dislike them. I don’t blame you.”

Buck hesitates, unsure what to say to that. He doesn’t want to blurt out something stupid like he just did, but it’s not as if Eddie is lying. Helena and Ramon Diaz hate Buck.

After a second he says: “Yeah, okay, maybe that’s true, but how they feel about me and I feel about them has nothing to do with how you might feel about them.”

“That’s not true,” Eddie frowns, sounding offended. He is now finally looking at Buck again, voluntarily, he might add. “You’re great and I love you, if they are dicks to you, of course that has something to do with me.”

At the words, Buck can’t help the bright smile that appears on his face. Eddie’s protectiveness over him, especially in regard to his parents, is very touching. It makes Buck feel all warm inside, to hear Eddie care for him and his feelings and prioritize him.

He cards his hand through Eddie’s hair, cupping his cheek and giving him a kiss. “That’s very sweet of you, baby.”

When he pulls back Eddie has a happy little flush on his cheeks that makes Buck want to scream into his pillow or bite Eddie, but he settles on kissing Eddie again. Once on the lips, then just peppering them all over his face until Eddie is giggling – though Eddie would deny it was giggling if pressed.

It’s not until after his cute aggression attack has passed that Buck can circle back to the more serious topic from before. Clearing his throat, before saying: “You want to talk more about not telling your parents about us? Like with Chris’s visit to them coming up, how do you want to handle that?”

“Well…” Eddie says immediately. He has clearly thought about it despite his slight hesitation now, before he goes on: “I don’t want to teach Chris to lie or to be ashamed of us. I never want something like that for him.”

Buck’s heart constricts a little at Eddie’s voice when he says that, the underlying hurt Eddie has been facing for years and is only just starting to unpack. Even before coming to terms with himself, Eddie has always wanted Chris to have a better childhood, but that was about things he had already faced before, this is new territory.

He hugs Eddie closer to show he’s here, not interrupting Eddie, but making sure Eddie knows he’s not alone. That Buck has his back.

Eddie gives him a quick smile, before he continues: “So, I kind of just hope that they don’t really ask about us and Chris doesn’t want to share.”

“You think that will work?” Buck asks, not unkindly, but more worried. That seems like a shaky plan.

“I mean, maybe. The newness of us kissing now has pretty much worn off at this point, so I don’t know why he’d feel the need to announce it,” Eddie says. “Besides, I don’t think mom is jumping with excitement to ask him how the two of us are doing. She already has a vision of how we are and that is that we’re terrible, no need to confirm it with Chris.”

Honestly, Eddie does have a point there, Buck thinks. Still their whole plan cannot hinge on an unsuspecting eight year old’s discretion. So, he cautiously asks: “And… what if Chris does say something? What are we going to do then?”

Eddie considers it for a moment, then says: “Well, I assume that if he’s going to say, it’ll be in that first week, when we’re still here. Then they’re probably calling me to yell at me about it, so we’ll know and can just not go…?”

“Are you sure?” Buck says. “I’ll back your play, if this is what you wanna do, but are you sure you want to skip out on them if they find out? That s a pretty bold move.”

He doesn’t really know how he feels about it, though he wasn’t lying when he told Eddie he’ll back him up whatever he decides. It’s Eddie’s family and Eddie’s choice.

After everything went down with the bombing Buck was caught in, they placated Helena by telling her she can have her grandson for a long visit in the summer.

The tsunami delayed and shortened that a bit, but that trip is now almost there. With the last few weeks of summer break coming up, Chris will fly over to El Paso and stay there for a week on his own, then Eddie and Buck will join him for a second week.

Buck can understand not wanting either of them to find out, like he said before, they kind of suck. So, if Eddie wants to let them believe it’s still convenience that is fine by him. However, he’s not sure Chris won’t say anything and to then cancel their trip, feels like a big decision.

Of course, it’s not like Buck can judge. He pretty much cut his parents off at nineteen – though maybe they more cut him off now that he thinks about it? – and they haven’t spoken since. He’ll be right there if Eddie wants to do the same.

But he doesn’t think Eddie wants to do the same. Despite it all, Eddie can’t seem to stop wanting to have his parents in his life and, more importantly, Chris’s life.

Buck’s parents have never been a part of Chris’s life, so he doesn’t miss them. But it’s different with Helena and Ramon. Chris loves his grandparents and has a close bond with them due to all they babysitting they used to do. If Eddie cuts them off, what will that mean for Chris? It would break his heart and Buck knows Eddie isn’t capable of breaking Chris’s heart.

“Ugh, I hate that you’re right,” Eddie groans, rolling off Buck so he can stare at the ceiling. “I just really don’t want to have that conversation with them.” Then he quickly rolls over completely, sitting on his knees next to Buck so he can look at him as he placates: “It’s not that I’m ashamed of you or something, I promise. I love you and it’s not that I want to hide us or anything like that, but they-”

“Hey, hey,” Buck cuts him off gently, sitting up so he can put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and calm him down before he works himself up with the guilt. “I know that. I already said I’m okay if you don’t want to tell your parents. I have your back. Deep breath.”

Eddie takes a deep breath, smiling sheepishly, before he says: “Uh, sorry?”

“No sorry,” Buck tells him, squeezing his shoulder. Therapy has been really good for Eddie, Buck is very proud of him, but it’s not as if a few months of therapy will fix years of issues and the whole fighting ring incident has left Eddie a little overly apologetic sometimes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie rolls his eyes, though he’s giving Buck a small grin too.

“So, back to your parents,” Buck leads the topic back to what they were discussing, not wanting to push Eddie more.

“Ugh,” Eddie groans again, pulling a face. He moves to a crisscross position and explains: “I know they aren’t going to take it well and it’s going to suck, so I don’t want to. I know I can’t not go, but I also don’t want to ask Chris not to say.”

“Do you think Chris won’t?” Buck asks. “I mean, truly and genuinely. Do you think that if we don’t say anything, he isn’t going to mention it?”

Eddie snaps his mouth back shut, since he had already started to formulate a response when Buck asked that of him. He thinks about it for a moment, the says: “Yeah, I truly think he won’t.” He sounds confident when he says that, then a little less confident when he adds: “What do you think?”

“I think he might not, but I don’t think our plan can depend on him not saying anything,” Buck tells him honestly. “We got to have a plan for what we’ll do if he does say. And that can’t be not going, because you just agreed that it’s not an option.”

Again Eddie makes a disgusted face at the fact he has to talk about this more than he already has and come up with an actual plan that is not just running away from it. Buck sympathizes, truly, he does. But they’re going to have to do this if either of them wants any sleep until this whole thing is behind them again.

After a moment of Eddie thinking while Buck waits patiently, Eddie tentatively suggests: “We can go and see how shitty they are and try to talk to them?”

“You think that will work?” Buck asks, not because he wants to be mean, but because he has to be sure.

“…No,” Eddie says a beat later, sighing deeply, before he amends: “We can see how shitty they are and try to talk to them and stay with Abuela if they’re too bad and let Chris decide if he wants to stay the rest of the week or we all go home early?”

“And you’d be okay with that?” Buck checks again.

Eddie looks more confident when he nods this time. “Yeah. I don’t want to just not go and let them have Chris and have to rely on them putting him on a plane in time for the start of school.” Eddie groans and rubs his face. “Fuck! Why can’t this just be easy?”

“Hey, come here,” Buck opens his arms to Eddie invitingly, waiting until Eddie wraps himself around him, snuggling into his chest. Then he goes on: “I really appreciate you bringing this up. It’s not easy and I’m proud of you, baby.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says, his embarrassed voice muffled in Buck’s shirt.

“We’re gonna be just fine.”

“We’re gonna be fine,” Eddie repeats. “And I’ll say something if they’re too big of dicks and we can leave if they find out.”

“Exactly. And, hey, maybe Chris doesn’t say anything at all and we did all this worrying and planning for nothing. We just do as we’ve always done with them and it’s all fine,” Buck tells him optimistically.

“Maybe,” Eddie agrees. Not like he doesn’t have any faith in Chris not spilling – even though they won’t tell him he’s not supposed to – but because he has been reminded of how it can go wrong and what he will have to do then.

Buck lets him have a moment to process, just holding Eddie as he does. Then he asks: “Do you want to go to bed now or listen to me tell you more about this person who got hit by a meteor in 1954 and lived?”

“Someone lived through that?” Eddie replies.

“Uh-huh,” Buck nods excitedly. “It’s the Sylacauga meteor. It was mentioned in one of the podcasts I listen to.”

Eddie smiles fondly at that, but in the end decides: “That sounds interesting, mi amor, but I think I wanna go to sleep.”

“Probably the smarter choice,” Buck agrees, untangling himself from Eddie so he can plug his phone into the charger, trying not to think of that one Sherlock post when he misses two times.

When he turns back, Eddie has turned off his lamp and is curled up on his side away from Buck. It might look cold to someone else, but for Buck it is the biggest invitation there is.

The first night he tried spooning Eddie, he thought the other would get mad. That the internalized misogyny and homophobia around it hadn’t worn off yet and his ego would be bruised. However, Eddie has surprised him by accepting it, even melting into it.

Throughout their relationship – and honestly also their marriage before that – Buck has noticed that Eddie likes being taken care of, likes to be swept of his feet a little and be on the receiving end of Buck’s more gentleman-y moments. Buck hasn’t shared that observation yet, scared Eddie will stop letting him do it when Buck thinks it’s adorable.

So he doesn’t comment, just smiles brightly to himself, turning on the lamp on his own bedside, before shuffling behind Eddie. He gets into a comfortable position, then snuggles in as close as he can while being limited to staying outside Eddie’s skin.

“Goodnight, Eddie,” he softly says, dropping a final kiss on Eddie’s shoulder, before relaxing his neck muscles and sinking into the pillow.

“Night, Buck,” Eddie murmurs back, the two of them falling asleep.

~~

A/N:

We’re so back, babyyyy! They’re so cute here <3 I can’t wait to ruin it all >:3

PSA: I’m saying this now, this fic is going to be messy and both Buck and Eddie are going to do things they aren’t proud of, because they’re only human and no one is perfect at handling emotions and y’all have a right to be frustrated with them, but please, I write these dumbasses because I love them, so don’t go hacking them down in my comments, thank you <3

[schrijverr]

*knocks on your ask box* ma'am, please, where is the Chris finds Eddie's HS diary fic? I've been dying to read it. I'm standing at the door of your ask box with pathetic wet dog puppy eyes looking for a treat vibes.

or is it already posted and I somehow missed it?

I also wanted to let you know how batshit crazy excited I am for the IDMTSIDBID sequel!!! so looking forward to your beautiful, genius, evil at times brain and what it comes up with!!!

thousand hugs and kisses xx💗💗

Shfhjajajjsjsjs I'm glad you looked forward to it, it's been up for a while! It's called 'The Son I Never Got to Be' and if you sort on my ao3 under 9-1-1 is the first fic on the second page currently, but I'll also link it for you:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62397880

I was posting a lot at the time and it was too long to cross post on tumblr, so it looked different. It must have slipped through in the chaos, but it exists! And got out of hand, so it's a long one. I hope you'll enjoy it <333

And I'm so happy to hear you look forward to the sequel, very excited to post it :D I will inflict so much evil on these men, it's unreal xp. I promise there is going to be fluff also lmao

[schrijverr]

I Didn’t Mean to Be Something I’m Not Supposed To, but I Am. I Am. Masterpost

On ao3.

Masterpost of the entire I Do Verse

On tumblr:

Chapter 1: A Solid Family Shape

Chapter 2: Nighttime Anxieties

Chapter 3: The First Goodbye

Chapter 4: Empty Nest Blues

Chapter 5: Date Night Planning

Chapter 6: I Love You

Chapter 7: A Lose-Lose Situation

Chapter 8: The Second Goodbye

Chapter 9: A Safety Check

Chapter 10: Careless Words Haunting You

Chapter 11: Eddie’s Sinful Life

Chapter 12: Uncomfortable Meetings

Chapter 13: Caught in Between

Chapter 14: An Attempt at Teamwork

Chapter 15: Fragile Peace Cracking

Chapter 16: It’s Fine

Chapter 17: Not Good Enough

Chapter 18: A Groundbreaking Shift

Chapter 19: He Cares, He Does

Chapter 20: Left out in the Cold

Chapter 21: A Moment of Respite

Chapter 22: The Hard Talk

Chapter 23: Family Taking on New Shapes