Chapter Text
Evan Buckley currently sat with a comfortable twenty four million followers on youtube, fifty six on instagram and one hundred and twenty five on tiktok - his brand of videos were not the kind Eddie thought he’d ever be interested in, let alone actively watching.
In fact Eddie kind of found the whole ‘influencer’ culture Chris and his friends were into kind of toxic, maybe he was just a different generation.
Evan on the other was different from the others Eddie had seen, he seemed like he was more of a human and less of a brand, he spoke about real world issues and charitable causes - whilst also commenting on things that kids like, Eddie didn’t really know what was so fascinating about him, maybe it was the way that he smiled after calling his fans his ‘buckaroos’ or the little lip bite he did when something he was watching was sad to stop himself crying, any adult watching would be able to see the tears that filled his blue eyes for that second before a cut.
“Fire at 4506 Cutter Street” Bobby says as the 118 speed down the road towards the location of the 911 call. “Caller said his roommate tried to kill a spider with blow torch and it ran towards the drapes causing the fire to spread.”
“What idiot sets fire to a spider?” Hen asks “Just put a glass over it.”
I’m guessing college bros who have no idea how the world works.” Eddie laughs.
It was in fact, not college bros but a group of thirty year old men, who stood outside on the street in various states of undress, one of them shouting ‘apartment 9’ as they ran inside.
It was a relatively calm fire, well as calm as a fire could be, thanks to the front door of the apartment being a fire door - there was only some minor smoke damage to the hallway, on the other hand the actual apartment hadn’t faired too well, most of it being burnt out.
“I guess we’ll all have to find somewhere else to go.” The guy who told them the apartment number said to Bobby.
“It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks for the place to be liveable again, structurally it’s not too bad.” Bobby smiles, “You’ll have to find new furniture though.”
“Yeah.” He chuckles, “Everyone is safe though, which is the most important thing.”
Eddie knew him, he was sure he did - from where he did not know.
***
"Dad!" Chris Shouts from his room: Buck’s apartment caught fire today!"
That's who it was. Evan Buckley, Chris' favourite influencer.
He and Christopher often watched him together, he had to say Evan actually looked a lot different in real life or maybe that had something to do with the fact he was stood on the street in April, shirtless while his apartment burnt in front of
him
“I know." Eddie shouts back" I was-“
"Did you meet him? Chris says, his head poking out from behind his doorway.
"You didn't take a picture with him?”
“I was trying to stop a fire" Eddie laughs “I didn't really have time to take selfies with him.”
"Daaad'" Christopher whines. "That's so uncool!”
“I'm your dad that's my job.” Eddie teases. “Have you done your homework?"
"No." Chris sighs. "It's hard.”
"Bring it in here and I'll help you.” Eddie smiles, “Unless it's math."
"Then can we watch a movie?” Chris asks.
“Always.” Eddie says taking a beer from the fridge. “What were you thinking?”
“Big Hero 6.” Christopher answers confidently.
“Good choice.” Eddie says, he wasn’t going to mention that they’d already watched it last week because Chris enjoyed it.
Chris’ homework was in fact math, which Eddie was no good at but at least pretended like he knew what he was talking about.
Eddie’s phone vibrated like crazy in his pocket as he walked into the kitchen, S’mores for Chris and himself baking away in the oven. Hen’s name flashing on his phone as he took it from his pocket.
“You are terrible at answering your phone Diaz.” Hen laughs as her face pops up on Eddie’s phone screen.
“I was with Christopher.” Eddie says, jokingly rollings his eyes, “What can I help you with?”
“Well, you can start by sending that boy from today a message.” She smirks, “Denny wants you to look at his instagram.”
“Okay?” Eddie says tabbing out of the FaceTime, wondering what an earth was happening.
He saw his own face as he opened up Evan’s story, with the hashtag ‘findhotfirefighterla’
“What is happening?” Eddie says, his cheeks flushed pink. “This is bizarre.”
“Mr influencer thinks your hot.” She laughs, “Message him.”
“I will, make sure Denny doesn’t tell Chris please” Eddie says.
“He probably already knows.” Hen states, “Or he will by the time he goes to school tomorrow.”
“I’ll talk to you later Hen.” Eddie smiles.
“Go get your man.” She teases as she ends the call.
Eddie pondered what to do for a moment, he could pretend he hadn’t seen the story and when Chris eventually saw it he could make a big joke out of it or he could contact him and see what the story was all about. He probably just wanted to thank Eddie, right?
‘Hi, my friends kid saw your story, I am hot firefighter LA’ was typed and sent before Eddie could even rationalise what sort of consequences would come from this and before he could unsend the message his phone vibrated again.
‘Hello hot firefighter LA, I apologise for how creepy that was!’
Eddie laughed to himself, he’d just send a quick message saying that he hoped they’d found somewhere to stay and then he go back into the living room to watch the movie with Chris.
‘I have, they let me go in and get some of my video gear before the building inspectors left!’
His phone vibrated again, he got annoyed when Chris’ phone went off all the time, now he was just as bad.
‘Thank you for today though, It was quite amazing to see how quickly you dealt with it!’
***
Eddie waited tentatively on a picnic bench outside La Goccia, how his conversation with Evan had led to them having coffee on a thursday lunch was beyond him.
Hen was certainly going to be annoyed with him when she found out about this coffee date, she’d been trying to set him up with guys ever since he'd come out a few months ago.
"Eddie, Hi." Evan’s voice sounds.as he approached the table, Sunglasses adorning his face, “How are you?”
“I’m good.” Eddie smiles as Evan sits across from him, "How are you holding
uр?”
“I’ve been better, I'm staying with an old college friend" Evan says "What do you have?”
Suddenly Eddie felt very embarrassed that
he'd already got a drink in front of him.
“Oh, It’s um, just a black coffee.” Eddie stutters. “I’ve never been here before so I figured it was a safe bet.”
“You can order online to here which is great!” Evan says putting his phone on the table, having done just that.
“I don’t think anyone would be bothered about me.” Eddie laughs, “Not like you.”
“People are kind of respectful, I only really get recognised because of the dumb vines I made when I was younger.” Evan smiles, “They’re all adults now too so.”
Eddie smiled, noticing little details on Evan’s face that you couldn’t tell from the videos.
“Tell me more about your son.” Evan says, shooting a quick thank you as the server put down his drink, an iced latte.
“His name is Christopher, He’s 11.” Eddie says, pulling his phone from his pocket, “He has Cerebral Palsy and he’s the best kid I could ever ask for.”
Evan mulled over the picture of Eddie and Chris that was in front of him.
“He looks sweet.” Evan smiles, “You guys seem really close.”
“Yeah, He’s been my little partner in crime since his mom passed.” Eddie says, before taking a sip of his coffee. He didn’t like talking about Shannon, he didn’t think he was really ever going to be.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Evan says, his hand reaching out to take a hold of Eddie’s, “You’re a good man.”
“Thank you, Evan.” Eddie smiles weakly, “Tell me about you.”
Evan smiles as he let go of Eddie’s hand.
“I moved here from Pennsylvania when I was 23.” He smiles, “I had dreams of being a big time actor.”
“What stopped you?” Eddie asks.
“I can’t act to save my life.” Evan laughs, before mirroring Eddie’s earlier movement and taking a quick sip of his own drink, the paper straw already getting kind of mushy.
“So, I started making dumb videos and posting them, then I started doing the stuff I do now when I realised I could use my platform for change.”
Eddie and Evan talked about everything and more for hours before Eddie had to leave to pick up Chris, they parted ways with a promise to meet again and an exchange of phone numbers.