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Eddie didn’t believe in that stuff.
He really didn’t.
Everytime someone on the crew would go crazy due to someone upsetting ‘the EMS gods’ Eddie would express his opinions of disbelief openly.
He fought Chimney when he said that denying the existence of jinxes would bring severe consequences.
He pointed out how shocked he was that Hen believed in the weird magic when she started explaining what would happen after Ravi said ‘the word that must never be said.’
He turned to Athena to laugh at Bobby when he learned that Bobby thought that a singular word caused higher frequency in calls.
He laughed at Buck for going deep within the rabbit hole of websites about curses to learn how to break this curse.
A curse that was caused by one word.
———
“No Madre, I want to talk to Christopher,” Eddie said, keeping a respectful tone as he was talking to his mother, while still being firm. It had been 5 months and the more time passed by, the more pushed out of his son’s life Eddie felt.
He knew that it was a lot to ask to talk to Chris because Chris had shown no interest in wanting to talk to him but his mother was not supposed to be the one making reconnecting more difficult.
Eddie would like to let it be known that he was thankful that his parents stepped in to take care of Chris but he could recognise that nothing was being fixed and he wouldn’t let their relationship worsen.
No matter the distance Christopher was still his kid and Eddie loved him. Nothing could change that fact.
So even though Eddie had been trying to let Chris have space, to give him what he wanted, Eddie also knew it was time for Eddie to get just one thing he wanted.
“He is in his room right now,” Helena replied, it was obvious that this was her way of saying she was not going to help.
Anger was an emotion that Eddie knew better than the average person, but, since his fight-club days he has learned to manage it…better. Even so, he still felt the rush of the emotion coarse through his bones rush through him, towards his knuckles and then escape through the tips of his fingers as he loosened and opened his fists and flexed his fingers out.
“Okay but can you get him to call me later?”
“No- well, he may be busy with friends, we have a pool and-,” Helena explained, or tried to. Eddie didn’t quite understand what his mother was trying to communicate, he was given many excuses, all of them not quite related.
As his mother continued on he grew annoyed, he wouldn’t let his parents win and take away another thing that brought Eddie joy.
Suddenly the sound that reached Eddie from his side of the line became harder to hear and his mother’s cheap ‘apologies’ that came with her ‘excuses’ blended in with the chatter and ambient sounds he heard from everyone at the 118.
“Wait, Madre, give me a moment you're too quiet.”
If Eddie had a problem hearing his mother before, that problem would be completely resolved as the background noise from his station cut out into silence.
Pure, unadulterated silence.
“Wait Madre, I’ll have to call you back.”
“Okay goodbye,” Helena hung up the call without a second thought.
Eddie looked up from his phone and grew confused as in his view he found Hen, Chimney and Buck all standing in a semi-circle around Eddie with concerned looks on their faces. He didn’t really understand what he had done to initiate this gathering until he felt the presence of Ravi sneak up behind him.
“What have you done?” exclaimed Chimney in an accusatory tone.
“What?” Eddie found himself dumbfounded because he had no idea what Chim was talking about.
Ravi chimed in,“you said the Q word.”
Hearing Ravi’s words Eddie found himself laughing.
“Ohh- dios- C’mon guys, it’s been 4 years, you seriously don't still believe in that stuff,” Eddie replied, chuckling with each syllable, seemingly because of the disbelief he held about how his friends haven’t moved on from their Jinx-phobias.
However, Eddie wasn’t laughing at them per say. He felt embarrassed with the group crowding around him and the big deal that his friends were making about his phrasing was not soothing his conscience. Which was the last thing he needed while Chris was still in Texas and he was still in LA.
“You can’t deny it anymore Eds, we were a laughing stock when Ravi used ‘the word’, when our fire truck crashed and we became the emergency. We were treated like damsels in distress…” Buck said in a persuasive word vomit that failed to prove his point. He stopped speaking with a sudden halt as Hen turned to look at him with an unimpressed look caused by his use of damsels in distress. “We looked helpless,” Buck corrected himself quickly, “and other houses saw it.”
Guilt.
There it was again, flooding through Eddie as he regretted another decision.
Eddie resolved that things would be much easier and better if Eddie didn’t make any more decisions.
Just look where it got him, a Christopher shaped hole in his heart that only multiplied in size in each groan, grunt and ‘uh huh’ he was given from FaceTime when Eddie tried to communicate with him, and a team that was angered by the choices he made when using his vocabulary.
Quiet once again ruled the house.
A tense mood radiated from everyone that Eddie saw as he turned to look around the loft.
The bell rang and everyone in the station ran out to respond to the call.
As she ran Hen turned to face Eddie, yelling that he upset the EMS gods and she reminded him that their shift would be, yet again, record-breakingly-long.
———
The ride in the fire truck was silent, everyone looked deflated in their seats as they sat disconnected, in their own worlds.
Eddie felt the tension he had caused and felt a wave of guilt wash over him.
Beside him was Buck, channeling his growing anxiety into bouncing his leg up and down, brushing against the side of Eddie’s leg.
Eddie squeezed Buck’s lower thigh in support, careful not to hold his leg too tight because although Buck wouldn’t admit it, Eddie knew he still felt some drawbacks from the truck explosion.
Buck lay his hand where Eddie’s was placed and their hold of each other lingered for a moment before Buck shifted positions and actively forced himself to calm his leg down.
Eddie’s glance turned to Bobby who was sitting in confusion at the nervous tension in the truck. It was clear that he wasn’t in the loop about Eddie’s use of the Q word.
“What is going on guys?” Bobby asked in the fatherly manner he always spoke in, sounding as if he was working to reconcile siblings.
“Why don’t you ask Eddie?” Chim responded to Bobby with his salty attitude, which despite the intention of Chimney, still allowed him to sound somewhat comedic.
“Eddie?”
“I said qu- the Q word,” Eddie replied, his guilt clawing its way through his usual neutral and nonchalant speech.
The disapproving look shot by Bobby was enough to send chills through his spine. He had seen it before many times, especially from father figures, including 5 months ago.
As much as he wished time would blur the memory, it hadn’t.
He still remembered the unimpressed expression plastered on his real birth father’s face as he collected Christopher and took him to Texas.
Eddie couldn’t care less about his father’s opinion of him but he still managed to be left unsettled by the haunting frown.
“Why would you say ‘that’ word?” Bobby questioned.
“I was talking to my mother! She wouldn’t let me talk to Christopher and I couldn’t hear her talking and-,” Eddie said to explain, with the desperation from his situation invading his manner. Making his calm tone sound defeated.
“See! The gods take it out of context, it’s impossible to appease them,” Buck exclaimed, interrupting Eddie.
“Shh! Don’t make them more angry,” Chimney said looking up towards the sky to acknowledge the EMS overlords.
They arrived at their call; a man who used an extreme pressure water jet to water his garden and got himself stuck on his shed roof in the process after destroying the fencing between him and his neighbours.
Needless to say it was a mad call however in comparison to the calls from the last time ‘quiet’ was said, the call was honestly tame.
———
When they returned to the station the entire 118 were exhausted, soaking wet and aching from each limb.
Everyone except Eddie.
Eddie managed to find himself unaffected by the call.
Envy was present as Eddie danced around while others lay with never-before-seen levels of exhaustion.
———
To everyone’s surprise there was not another call for another 40 minutes. It got to the point where people were too stressed to walk properly, tip toeing lightly so as not to jinx themselves further.
Eddie was unable to tell how he felt about the longer break, he wanted to think it was a good thing but the unrelenting tension in the air as his friends felt on edge by the stress of a stupid curse, did not leave Eddie feeling as though there were any benefits to the extra down-time.
He watched and sighed as he saw Buck look around the room before turning the page of his book.
The sound of the bell ringing was a relief to everyone, especially Eddie.
He didn’t believe in curses, but his friends did and a part of him wanted to get where they were coming from, but he sat in the truck with his coworkers all trying to avoid angering gods that controlled the emergencies. And it was then when Eddie, despite his efforts to understand his friends, couldn't bring himself to listen to any reasoning they had as to how it was all connected to EMS overlords.
“We are 2 hours into our 24 hour shift and this is only the second call. We are fine, no upset gods,” Eddie said, finally breaking the silence.
The rest of the 118 looked around at each other, debating the truth of Eddie’s statement.
“He’s right,” Ravi said although he sounded unsure, “we haven’t gotten many calls, maybe the gods didn’t hear Eddie say qui-”
“Maybe, or maybe they are leaving us alone, with let down guards to surprise us with some big, disastrous emergency!” Interrupted Chimney deliberately before Ravi could finish saying ‘the word.’
The thought that Chim had brought to the table had never crossed Eddie’s mind but he didn’t let it bother him, because he didn’t believe in any of what Chimney was saying.
The call that they responded to was actually very normal: a low casualty car crash.
Eddie felt relieved as he walked onto the scene, he regretted the feeling as he stood beside Buck waiting for Hen and Chim to finish checking the victims. They hadn’t been given any orders as the crash really only resulted in smashed lights and dents in the cars of the people involved. Eddie reassured himself that his relief was justified as it meant there was less damage.
Less damage to the victims and to the reputation of Eddie, he who said what must never be said.
The call went smoothly.
The last time, when Ravi said ‘quiet’, they had responded to mass amounts of calls that made no sense, and Eddie let himself believe that there was something behind it, even if only for a second.
But a quarter of the way through this supposedly cursed shift and nothing had happened to make Eddie feel remotely tired.
He noticed that it wasn’t the case for his coworkers but he didn’t question why they were extra tired. To him it was obvious.
They had needlessly been working themselves ragged, trying to keep a peace with some nonexistent fire gods. They did extra work to tiptoe around them and be respectful when they weren’t there.
Even if Eddie wasn’t physically tired he did find himself with lower energy as he stared at his phone longing for his mother to respond to his messages about Chris.
His favourite pastime activity was scrolling through her facebook account, seeing the photos of Chris smiling, participating in various recent interests that Eddie had no idea Chris liked until he saw the posts.
The constant misery that he was being exposed to did not help Eddie stay more energised than his friends.
The smell of Bobby’s freshly made pasta filled the air, and attracted the 118 members like moths to a flame, mindlessly walking towards the hot dish.
Eddie finally put his phone down and then got up to sit down at the table.
He sat down in his usual seat next to Buck and watched as the others arrived.
Despite the peace that was trying to let itself be known, everyone (except Eddie) still kept on edge while digging into the meal.
Dinner was odd as the mood was offset by the lingering presence of the word that hadn’t been said for hours.
It was kind of annoying Eddie as he was forced to sit within the deep silence and reflect on everything he’d been using conversation to avoid.
When he finished he left the table immediately and dashed to the couch so he could take his mind off of the circling thoughts in his head. He sat back down on the light gray couch and picked up his phone from within the cushions where he had tossed it just earlier that evening.
Turning it on he saw a new missed message.
From Chris, it read:
I know we haven’t talked in a while and you’re probably on shift right now, I still need time before I can forgive you but I want you to know that I miss you.
Today, 6:47 PM
Wait…Ew that sounded so cheesy
Today, 6:50 PM
Reading the message Eddie’s heart throbbed, Chris had messaged him.
His eyes blurred as tears welled up in them. He laughed a short but true deep laugh as he saw Chris’s message below the heartfelt text.
He readjusted himself to respond just as the bell rang and he was forced to rush back out.
He was admittedly annoyed that he missed the message when it was first sent and that he had to leave it on read, but he couldn’t be too bothered as he felt grateful that he got a message.
The ride in the fire engine felt like it couldn’t have taken longer.
Eddie couldn’t sit still as he drafted what he would send when he got back over and over in his head.
Buck noticed the fidgety Eddie and whispered to him, to ask him if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” Eddie replied, but it was a lie. Eddie wasn’t fine. Eddie was much, much better than fine.
“You sure?” Buck questioned, clearly concerned by his friend’s sudden hyperactivity.
“Chris messaged me,” Eddie answered.
Eddie looked at Buck when he moved his head away, creating a small distance between the two men.
He noticed a small tear fall from Buck’s eyes. Buck placed his hand in Eddie’s and they held each other in support.
It made sense that Buck felt this way.
Buck is practically as much a father to Christopher as Eddie is.
Buck was the one Chris called when Eddie had panic attacks.
Buck was the one who told Chris that Eddie had been shot.
Buck was the one who Eddie put in his will as Christopher’s guardian.
Buck was the one Eddie trusted with his son the most.
Buck was the one by Eddie’s side as Chris left for Texas.
Buck loved Christopher and Chris loved Buck back.
They were a family.
So when Chris left, Buck felt just as much hurt as Eddie did. And since then Buck and Eddie hadn’t been the same.
The moment between Buck and Eddie ended as they arrived at the call they were responding to but it was clear that the subject would be revisited.
———
When they arrived back at the station, Eddie barely waited for the truck to park before making a beeline back to where he had left his phone.
Chimney and Hen watched, commenting on the dedication Eddie had to get back to a couch so quickly.
“What’s so important that you can’t even wait a minute to get back to your phone?” Hen questioned as Eddie rushed past her.
While she spoke she witnessed Buck run to follow after Eddie.
She decided that that was enough of an answer and turned away from them.
Ravi looked at Hen confused, “You don’t want an answer?” He asked.
Chimney laughed, “Do you? It’s just something to do with Buck and Eddie, is that not enough information?” he replied.
“Fair. Very true,” Ravi decided and he too turned away to engage in something else.
———
Eddie grabbed his phone and held it with a grip so tight that his case imprinted on his fingers.
Despite all of his planning, Eddie was stumped. He had no idea what to reply back to his son.
His eyes were glued to his phone so when Buck sat down next to him he didn’t notice him until Buck leaned in to see Eddie’s phone.
“He messaged. He really did message you,” Buck said, staring at the message to confirm it was real.
“Si,” Eddie replied, letting his voice break slightly, “What should I respond?”
“Tell him that you love him too and that you miss him as well and-,” Buck said, letting his many ideas rush out of him, too fast for Eddie to keep track of.
“I’ll support him and give him as much time as he needs,” Eddie interrupted Buck to make it clear what his intentions were.
“Well baby steps?” Buck asked, to reassure Eddie and himself that Eddie was making progress.
“Yeah, baby steps,” Eddie said in agreement.
It took a lot of disappearing and reappearing bubbles for Eddie to ultimately decide to text Chris:
I love you, I’ll give you as much time as you need. I miss you as well, so does Buck, you will always have a home here waiting for you.
Today, 7:32 PM
Can we call tomorrow afternoon? I have a double shift off starting tomorrow at noon.
Today, 7:35 PM
Ten minutes passed and Eddie remained staring at his phone, Chris hadn’t seen his text yet, he was probably busy and hadn’t checked his phone. Still Eddie couldn’t bring himself to look away.
He spent 20 minutes watching his phone waiting to get any response from Chris.
Buck had sat by him the whole time, not as focused as Eddie, but still, he was there.
He looked over to Eddie to check the status of whether Chris had seen his message.
Buck looked as if he was about to say something but the bell interrupted. And the pair ran out to respond to another call.
———
The call that they were sent on was rough, a fire started in a family’s residence.
The older couple that lived in the burning building took a long time to leave, trying to save as many family pictures, items from their kid’s childhood and memories as they could before evacuated.
Bobby tried to explain to them that it was dangerous to stay there longer to grab items but they refused to listen and said that the books and photos and old clothing belonged to their children and were the only things they had of their childhoods.
It was a reckless decision but everyone, especially the members that had kids themselves, could understand why they did what they did.
On the way back to the station Eddie thought about what he would do to save the items he has from Chris’s childhood, he knew that he would risk it all to save the most important mementos.
It was clear that everyone had the same thought process as everyone stayed silent throughout the trip back looking unsettled by the most recent emergency.
Eddie ran to the loft to check his phone, and found nothing new in his conversation with Chris.
Their shift carried on and Eddie still had no response from Christopher.
Although it stressed him out, Eddie decided that it was, probably, for the best that Chris didn’t see his text at 1:00 in the morning.
He decided to hit the bunks so if another call came in he would be able to help as opposed to being so tired that he was completely out of it.
———
Another call didn’t come in for 4 hours, allowing everyone to be decently rested before going out again.
“I just don’t buy this,” Chimney said while driving to their call, “The EMS gods don’t just forgive and forget that easily.”
“I don’t know, I feel like they would have sent us a sign by now, saying that they were going to send a disaster our way,” Ravi argued.
“The kid has a point,” chimed in Bobby.
“Or they are waiting for our guards to be down so they can surprise us,” Hen added to the conversation, in support of what her best friend thought about the situation.
“Maybe, but they’ve never caused large scale emergencies just because we’ve upset them,” Buck reasoned.
Eddie felt like he was listening to a debate about different conspiracy theories.
He really didn’t believe in anything they were saying but it was a good distraction from wondering what Chris was doing in Texas.
“We’re here,” Eddie called out with relief as they arrived on scene.
The call was for a man who was cleaning the glass barriers on the roof of a multi-story building when his line broke, barely saving himself from falling by grabbing onto the fencing he was cleaning.
They had gotten on site just in time to set up the inflatable mat to catch the man.
The rescue being a close call was not what Eddie was looking for when he decided he wanted distraction to engage in.
———
After responding to another call the 118 found themselves at peace. They were able to sit down as a house and eat the breakfast Bobby made without interruption.
After breakfast Eddie still found no response to his message but he tried to stay away from it and found himself at ease in talking to Buck.
By talking to Buck, Eddie really meant listening to Buck.
He had gone down a rabbit hole of information on wikipedia between calls earlier in the morning and was dying to tell someone what he had learnt.
This was a usual thing for Buck and Eddie as Buck really enjoyed researching random facts that could or could not prove useful in the future.
Buck had found one article on otters which piqued his interest, so decided he wanted to delve into as many information reports about them as the internet had.
“Did you know that on every square inch of skin they have millions of strands of hair?” Buck genuinely asked despite the routine of ‘fun facts with Buck’ being that Eddie definitely didn’t know the fact before.
When Buck would start sharing niche details about things that he was interested in he was often dismissed by the people he shared the facts to.
Eddie didn’t.
Sure he was not adverse to poking a little fun when Buck started to go on his ramble but that's what their friendship was built on: the quips they fired at each other, harmless insult based jokes, that were returned by Buck.
But Eddie never dismissed Buck. He never made him feel like he was odd.
Eddie listened to every word Buck said when he started to relay lots of interesting facts to him.
Some people that made fun of Buck for his fun facts made fun of him because of their lost patience with him when he shared random information.
Eddie didn’t find it annoying.
He loved it when Buck would get passionate about a topic and share his love for it.
Eddie did find that he could get a bit too intense about some of his research dives, the Billy Boils of it all, but that was because of his concern about the stress that Buck carried needlessly.
But Eddie always reacted to Buck’s deep dives with love, something that Eddie could swear he found others didn’t do for Buck.
Buck continued on about otters until the bell rang for another call.
———
The end of the shift drew near as the 118 had an hour left on the clock before their 24 hours were over.
They had responded to numerous calls but not really any more calls than they usually received.
When back at the station after their last emergency, Eddie found a new notification on his phone.
Chris had read his message and replied to him:
Can we call tomorrow afternoon? I have a double shift off starting tomorrow at noon.
Yesterday, 7:35 PM
Read today at 10:57 AM
Today
Sure
Today, 10:59 AM
I have a local chess tournament at 2:00, so does 4:00 work for you?
Today, 11:05 AM
Yes it does, I’ll call you
Today, 11:16 AM
Barely a minute later Eddie got a notification saying that Chris had reacted to his message with the thumbs up emoji.
Eddie felt as though time seemed to fly by after hearing back from Chris so much so that before he knew it: the shift had finally come to an end.
In the change rooms Chimney was rushing as fast as he could to leave the station before, as he said, “The EMS gods change their mind about having mercy on us this time.”
Eddie rolled his eyes as he watched Chim say goodbye to Bobby mid-sprint. Chimney’s actions had reached a point where Eddie wasn’t quite sure if he believed that Chimney was as superstitious as he let on or if he just wanted to keep up a joke.
The rest of the 118 left as a group and slowly walked out of the house.
“Well even if the gods decided not to give us a record-breaking amount of calls this shift, this shift was still pretty nightmarish,” Hen said when they passed the fire engines.
“It wasn’t that bad,” argued Ravi. Although Ravi played some part in trying to appease the gods, Ravi wasn’t nearly as stressed about the EMS gods as Hen and Chimney were, so he likely didn’t feel more tired than usual.
“How did you find today’s shift Eddie?” Buck asked, with the intention to talk to him alone but inadvertently turning everyone’s attention towards Eddie.
Eddie put his hands in his pockets and gripped onto his phone, “Best shift for a long time,” he answered with a sentimental expression on his face.
“Really?” Bobby questioned, quite surprised. Bobby hadn’t found the shift to be ‘nightmarish’ but he didn’t remember anything that made it particularly enjoyable.
“Yeah, I don’t know, I think the universe works in mysterious ways,” Eddie added, “and whatever higher power that was in control today was on my side.
“How so?” Hen was genuinely confused by Eddie’s answers.
“Nothing bad happened,” Eddie explained with a slight smirk on his face as he went ahead of the rest of his team. Hen scoffed at him then returned the smile.
Eddie paused just outside the house to say goodbye to everyone as they parted ways.
Buck stayed behind to say goodbye to Eddie separately before he left.
“In fact something great happened,” Eddie added to his previous statement, causing Buck slight confusion before he remembered what he had said before. Eddie pulled out his phone to show Buck his messages to Christopher.
Eddie watched as Buck’s eyes darted around the screen to read the text. A tear welled up in his eyes and fell, creating a wobbly path on the way down his face.
Buck gave a wide smile and then went in for a hug. Eddie barely turned off his phone before Buck reached him.
“You’re gonna be okay kid,” Buck reassured Eddie as he pulled him tighter.
“Yeah,” Eddie said with his voice breaking ever so slightly as he looked at Buck and then he looked down at his lock screen, a picture of himself, Chris and Buck, “I think we’re gonna be okay.”