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The eczema flare-ups are bad enough to deal with. Hell, he’d thought he found a fix. Now, he must deal with his favorite brand of moisturizer changing their ingredient list. Sometimes Evan Buckley wishes Freddie Costas had just killed him. Coping with this most recent flare-up and muscle pain might just be worse than death. He's lost his ability to work and, on some days, his mobility.
Maybe that caused him to go down this route—laying in his bed and flicking through Reddit posts for a solution. Post after post of people asking for any possible thing to alleviate their eczema.
“This is stupid,” Buck mumbles into the comforter. “No good advice ever comes from internet strangers.”
But despite his words, Buck continues to sift through posts. After what must be post number 57, he finds someone posting a link.
“This is definitely a virus…” and click!
An article opens about the correlation between flare-ups and food. Buck sits up, pressing his face closer to the screen to read more. He scrolls through as many articles on this topic as he can before finding a similar article on muscular inflammation.
“Oh!” Buck sets his phone down for a moment to process the new onslaught of information. “Oh…” Tossing the blanket off him, he stands up deciding to get dressed and test this new information.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
One trip to the grocery store and a hoard of recipes later, Buck sits down to test his homemade moisturizer.
“One week… just give it one week, who knows what could happen.” Buck unloads his ingredients, getting to work on making pasta dough. At this rate, dinner will be ready by the time Christopher comes home.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
Buck sets the bowl of spaghetti down on the table with a proud smile. If this doesn’t work for his conditions, at least he can make spaghetti from scratch. Christopher makes his way through the door, Carla not far behind him, plopping down in a chair.
“Christopher, how was school? Carla,” Buck opens his arms giving Carla a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“School is school Buck,” Christopher shrugs. “Boring and way too long. Can I go play Fortnite with my friends?” He moves to stand back up.
“Uh, not so fast bud,” Buck places his hands on Christopher’s shoulders. “I’ve actually got something I want you two to try.” Motions for Carla to sit down at the table.
Buck grabs two plates, piling some spaghetti on each one before setting the plates down.
“…you want us to try spaghetti? Buck, you know we’ve eaten spaghetti before, right?” Christopher looks at Buck like he’s lost it.
“Yeah, well, this spaghetti is special. I made it.” Buck smiles wide.
Carla and Chris share a look before Carla turns to Buck. “You usually do, Buck. What’s going on with you today?”
Buck waves his hands, trying to calm his excitement so he can explain better. “I made it from scratch. From the pasta dough to the sauce, to the bread for the garlic bread! It was all me!”
Christopher gives a skeptical look, but grabs his fork to take a bite, eyes lighting up immediately after. “Buck! This is the best spaghetti ever!” He quickly shovels more into his mouth.
“High praise from my favorite Diaz,” Buck smiles, unable to resist ruffling his hair. “And my favorite Price?”
“Nice try, lover boy, I’m the only Price you know.” Carla laughs but grabs her fork taking a small bite. “Ok, maybe this is the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted.”
Buck smiles wide. “Thanks, I spent practically all day on it.”
"At least you're doing something besides stinking up Dad's bed," Christopher comments between mouthfuls. "We need to get you out of the house more."
Buck pinches Christopher’s cheek, “Keep talking like that and it’ll be back to regular spaghetti for you.”
Christopher smiles cheekily, “But I’m your favorite Diaz.”
The sound of the front door opening and closing can be heard over Christopher's words. "Who's the favorite Diaz?" Eddie walks into the kitchen pressing a kiss to Buck's cheek.
“Me!” “Carla.” Christopher and Buck answer at the same time. Christopher looks up at Buck with a scowl. “Liar.”
Eddie and Carla laugh at the childish behavior before Eddie reaches for the bowl of spaghetti, grabbing a noodle. "Man, I'm starved." He slurps down the noodle, eyes lighting up in surprise. "Whoa! Did we order takeout today or something?"
Buck elbows Eddie’s side. “No. I made it… from scratch.” He blushes as Eddie looks at him.
“From scratch? Like noodles, sauce, garlic bread?” Eddie’s hands find Buck’s waist.
“Well, more like noodles, sauce, bread, and garlic butter, but yeah.” Buck smiles, feeling proud.
Eddie’s jaw drops slightly, “Bread? Buck, baby… mi vida,” Eddie cups Buck’s cheeks before Christopher clears his throat.
“Still here.” Christopher waves his empty plate. “And wanting seconds.” Buck grabs his empty plate.
“Alright, alright. You’re lucky you’re cute.” Christopher smiles up at Buck, tomato sauce all over his face.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
“So…” Eddie starts.
Buck raises an eyebrow, “so?”
“From scratch?”
“Yes? Eddie, I told you this already." Buck scrunches his face.
“I know.” Eddie smiles. “It’s just so…” Eddie rolls onto Buck. “Domestic.”
“Domestic?” Buck places his hands on Eddie’s waist, keeping him up. “and that’s a… good thing?”
"A really good thing," Eddie confirms, leaning down to kiss Buck's lips.
"Oh… maybe you should check that the door is locked," Buck whispers.
"Already took care of that while you were in the shower." Eddie chuckles before finally pouncing on Buck.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
Buck scrolls through his Instagram feed while waiting for his bread to finish baking. Post after post of families, pets, and worst of all, work. Something he can't get back to. He scrolls mindlessly, liking each post he sees. After Hen's post about her family, which he leaves a lovely comment under, an ad pops up.
"Who in their right mind thinks they're making money off of small videos?" He swipes by the TikTok ads, before pausing. The advice from Reddit helped, who's to say this thing doesn't work either?
But what would he even post about?
Just then the timer for his bread goes off, and a lightbulb turns on in his head.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
“Hi guys, so today I was craving something sweet. Due to my eczema and a previous crush injury that left me unable to continue working, I’ve been making food from scratch to lessen my symptoms and pain.” Buck speaks lowly into the microphone as he edits the video.
“I wanted to make these lemon and poppy seed muffins for summertime.”
Buck pauses, unable to keep in the additional information he knows, "Fun fact, lemons are not grown in the summer. Anyway, I wanted to make these before my son and husband come home." Buck had considered how to refer to Chris and Eddie beforehand, deciding on those terms to maximize the domestic vibe he wanted to achieve for his page.
"So first I preheated my oven to four hundred degrees Fahrenheit, then I worked on my batter. You want to combine the wet ingredients first, so add a fourth cup of lemon juice, roughly two to three lemons. I, personally, add three because I love getting that extra citrus flavor." Video Buck, squeezes fresh lemons into a large mixing bowl after wiping down the counter. He sweeps through the kitchen gracefully.
“Then you’re going to add in one cup of Greek yogurt, two large eggs, a half cup of melted butter, unsalted, a half cup of milk, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. I whisked that all together and then set the bowl to the side to mix my dry ingredients.”
The Buck on the screen carefully places the clear, glass bowl off-screen before grabbing another. "At this point, I measured out two and a fourth cups of AP flour. I'm very strict and precise with my measurements so I leveled out my cups and packed them tight. Once that was in the bowl I added two teaspoons of baking powder, also leveled out." On screen Buck, lifts the cup to his line of sight leveling it with the back of a knife.
"I added half a teaspoon of baking soda and sea salt, as well as two-thirds cup of sugar, and two tablespoons of lemon zest." Video Buck whisks the dry ingredients together.
"At this point I bring back in the wet ingredients, slowly adding in the dry and whisking it together little by little until it became this thick consistency. At this point, you can fold in about two tablespoons of poppy seeds. Be gentle with this step." On screen Buck's arms bulge slightly as he uses a rubber spatula to fold in the poppy seeds.
"I just oiled the pan and placed an even amount of batter in each muffin liner before popping it in the oven for 19 minutes. As that was baking, I worked on a lemon glaze. My son and I aren't fans of the sweetness, but my husband loves it with his muffins." On-screen, Buck pulls out another bowl.
"Luckily, this glaze is very quick and simple to make. I only used lemons and powdered sugar. A half cup of powdered sugar and added lemon juice until I got the desired consistency I wanted." Buck pulls the whisk out of the mixture, showing the viscosity of the glaze.
“Finally, the timer went off and I pulled my muffins out to cool, applying some glaze over my husband’s muffins. I couldn’t resist having a bite, and when I tell you it was the most delicious muffin I have had in a while.” On screen Buck bites the muffin, closing his eyes in bliss.
"At this point, my husband came home and I just had to get his reaction." A silent clip of Eddie biting into the muffin and smiling softly at Buck plays, cutting to his last bite where he gives Buck a soft kiss.
-“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”-
“So, Hen showed me something today at work," Eddie comments as they lay in bed, holding each other.
“Oh? Anything interesting?” Buck comments absentmindedly, too busy running his fingers up and down Eddie’s arm.
“Well, apparently I’m married.” Eddie chuckles. “And my husband makes TikToks about our family meals that I happen to star in. Not to mention, he’s got 2.2 million followers.”
Buck’s hand stops moving, a blush filling his cheeks. “Are you mad?”
“Mad? Baby, you’re working again. You’re happy. Buck just the other night you saw how I felt about you being all domestic. Do I need to show you again, mi esposo?” Eddie runs his fingers through Buck’s hair.
Buck preens under the attention, shivering at the nickname. “Maybe you should, my dear husband.”