Chapter Text
“Diaz, clean yourself up and get your ass in my office in five.”
There’s a stillness like all the air has been sucked out of the room and Henn watches as everyone quickly disperses as though every eye in the firehouse had not just been heavy on Eddie.
She watches them go, eyes on the back of Eddie's head as he heads towards the showers.
Buck, who has been hovering at Eddie’s side since he quietly hopped out of the truck, is speaking in hushed tones when she finds them in the locker room. She knocks lightly on the doorframe, pulling both of their eyes to her.
“Come to watch me get my ass handed to me?”
“Just checking on you,” she shrugs, watching as Eddie dries his face off with a towel.
“Are you okay?” he asks. Beside him, Buck rocks back and forth on his heel. It’s instinctual the way Eddie passes him the towel so he has something else to focus on. At the very least, it stops Buck from wringing his hands together. He looks a little nervous but Hen doubts there’s even a hint of regret. Mostly he just looks annoyed.
“I heard the 133 has an opening,” she tries to joke, and while it earns her a huffed laugh from Eddie, she doesn’t need to look at Buck to know his face is screwed into an unpleasant scowl.
“Or maybe I’ll join Harbor and fly helicopters with Tommy all day,” Eddie smirks, bumping his shoulder lightly into Buck’s like he’s trying to ease some of the tension too. But Buck utters an abrupt “please don’t” far too fast to be kidding. She’s not sure if it’s jealousy or fear that swipes across Buck’s face but Hen is getting the feeling she needs reinforcements and Chimney’s not back with the ambulance yet. She can’t begin to imagine the scene that’ll greet him when he finally returns.
“We’ll figure it out. No matter what,” she says calmly, hoping it’s not obvious that she has no idea what to expect.
“Not sure why I’m the one getting the talk,” Eddie smirks, bumping his shoulder against Buck’s again like he’s, once again, signaling him to relax.
Under Bobby Nash, it would have been as insignificant of a call as they come. Life under Gerrard, unfortunately, is never simple. And while she and Chimney are all too familiar with Gerrard’s brand of bigotry, Buck and Eddie are new to the casual misogyny and racism that peppers every other command out of their Captain’s mouth.
But Eddie is right, Buck had been the vocal one; the one who blatantly disobeyed orders; the one who talked back. And as always, Eddie had his back. She supposes Gerrard’s as new to them as they are to him. He doesn’t know them well enough to know how that works…
She wants to say there is no rhyme or reason to their new Captain; that there never is when hatred is involved. But she can safely assume Eddie getting the disciplinary talk has something to do with the DIAZ across the back of his turnouts. If Gerrard was going to lay into one of his firefighters, putting money on Edmundo Diaz over blonde-haired, blue-eyed Evan Buckley would be the safest bet of all.
“What was I supposed to do?” Buck asks, his voice bordering on hysterical. “Sit back and let him speak for the house like that?”
He could have. Plenty of men have stood right where he’s standing now and let Gerrard run his mouth the way he had at the scene.
Plenty of men have let him spew all kinds of backhanded, thinly veiled insults and done nothing but sit back and be silent bystanders.
Plenty of men have gone as far as participating. Buck’s boyfriend included.
She hadn’t been surprised to find Buck’s face fixed between outrage and disgust, standing shoulder to shoulder with a stone-cold Eddie in a united front against Gerrard. That’s another part of their dynamic Gerrard has yet to grasp: Buck wears every emotion on this sleeve but Eddie will let it boil and bubble under the surface, anger simmering behind his dark eyes.
By the time they had pulled the final victim—a young single mother of two— to safety, their Captain was geared up for a blowout. While Buck had been the one to talk back against Gerrard’s loaded comments, in the end, it was Eddie’s flippant, “you have to give respect to get respect," that uncomfortably burrowed under their Captain’s thin skin.
“I should head in there,” Eddie says softly, clapping Buck on the shoulder, like he's bracing Buck for bad news. He turns, fixes his shoulders, and marches into the Captain’s office, his head held high.
Chimney shows up before she has to singlehandedly peel Buck away from putting his ear to the closed office door. They're able to usher him, unwillingly, upstairs where he throws himself on one of the couches as Chimney—for better or worse—talks through the possible outcomes of Eddie’s meeting.
“Best case scenario, he walks away with a slap on the wrist. Worst case scenario—”
“Chim,” she warns, reminding him to tread lightly. This is Eddie Diaz they’re talking about; a man who has been awarded not once, but twice for life-saving heroics. It all feels unfair even if it’s bullshit.
“I don’t think he’d get a suspension for a little talk-back,” Chimney shrugs. The weight of guilt is physically evident in Buck in a way that’s so rare it’s a little unsettling.
She knows he’s blaming himself. She also knows Eddie would tell him that was ridiculous. So she decides to do it for him. “This isn’t your fault, Buck.”
“Sure feels like,” his voice wavers.
“Eddie’s a grown man, you can’t be responsible for his choices; his actions.”
“He can’t get suspended, not with everything else…he can’t—”
The three of them freeze, the words dying in Buck’s throat, as they hear footsteps on the stairs.
“You good?” Eddie asks quietly, taking one look at Buck’s sullen expression as he gets to the top of the stairs.
“Are you?” Buck’s face and voice are equally incredulous as though he can’t believe Eddie didn’t formally announce the outcome of his talk with Gerrard the minute he stepped out of the office.
“Just a write-up, no disciplinary action.”
“Just a write-up?” Buck whisper-shouts. “Eddie, you didn’t do anything wrong, if anyone should be written up, it’s me.” He stands as though he might march straight into Gerrard’s office and demand a write-up of his own.
She really does adore this dramatically messy man.
“Well I’m sure Hen and Chim will let you go next,” Eddie smirks, patting Buck on the shoulder as he heads towards the kitchen, Buck on his heels. She adores both of these messy men.
“So everything’s fine?” Chimney asks as they follow Buck and Eddie towards the kitchen.
“He told me he was disappointed, that he ‘expected a military man to have more restraint’.”
She can’t help the way her eyes roll, which doesn’t seem to matter because Chimney lets out a very loud, “Ugh,” in disgust, making Eddie smile.
“Yeah, there was a lot of that,” he sighs. "A lot of him going on about how the army vets he’s worked with in the past knew how to ‘fall in line' and 'take a joke'."
She freezes, eyes darting quickly over to Buck to see if it’s registering. Hen wonders if Gerrard referred to his past army vets by name or if Eddie is piecing it together on his own. More importantly, is Buck?
Either way, Eddie's face is devoid of anger; soft and endeared when Buck whispers, “Eddie, I’m sorry—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” It’s sincere and reassuring in a way that tells Hen not only does he believe every word, but he also knows it’s exactly what Buck needs to hear. It draws a soft, relaxed smile out of Buck and instantly eases the tension in his shoulders.
She has a sneaking suspicion the ‘everything else’ Buck was referring to is related to Christopher’s sudden absence and makes a note to corner Chimney about it later because something is going on with Eddie to put Buck on such an edge.
But for now, she marvels at how with seven words, Eddie Diaz has somehow put all the air back in the room.