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“What’s happening?”
“Eddie. You have arrived.” Chim said, in a voice that would be better suited coming out of a cheap arcade fortune teller. He was sitting at the head of the firehouse dining table, in Bobby’s seat. The rest of the table was full, bar the seat at the end closest to Eddie, opposite Chimney. Chimney who was wearing what looked like a Judge’s wig if it had been run over by the fire truck.
“Yeah,” Eddie began, shooting a look at Buck, who was paused on the top step, just to make sure they were both seeing the same thing. Although, he wouldn’t be all that surprised if the pair of them were having joint hallucinations of their weird co-workers. Buck only shrugged, stepping forward to bump his shoulder with Eddie’s. “I work here?”
“Come, sit.” Athena said, because apparently, she was in on this. Great. Eddie looked over the rest of the table, only to really actually wish he hadn’t. The table, fuller than Eddie had seen it even at Christmas, held all of A-shift, a couple stragglers from B-shift, Maddie, Jee-Yun, Karen, Josh, his Tia Pepa somehow (had Bobby gone into his file to get her number?), and even Albert, propped up on a facetime call by Chim’s elbow. At his prolonged (and completely justified, if you asked Eddie, this was a new level of HR violation even for the 118) silence Athena raised an eyebrow, gestured wordlessly to the empty set at the foot of the table.
Eddie sat.
“Is this an intervention?” Buck asked, trailing after Eddie. “Why don’t I get a seat?”
“You’re not invited, Buckley.” Chimney said with a roll of his eyes.
Bobby levelled him with one of his Dad looks. “You can pull up a chair Buck.” He did not make any attempt to break up the creepy little gathering. Eddie wished he’d gone to station six. No, he didn’t, he wouldn’t give up the 118 for anything, except maybe Chris coming home.
Buck did, squeezing into the narrow space next to Eddie, leaving them pressed together shoulder to knee.
“Is this an intervention?" Eddie asked, an echo of Buck's earlier question. Personally, Eddie was of the belief that it was too late for an intervention. He'd already imploded his life, catastrophically.
"Call it a peer review." Hen said.
"You're peer reviewing what exact-"
"You can't be trusted to make decisions on your own.” Ravi cut off, painfully blunt as ever. "Most recently, your plans to run away to Texas."
No-one said anything for a long moment.
"Well, yes- that. But tactfully." Hen went on, looking only fondly exasperated at Ravi’s interruption. Eddie missed the days when Buck was chasing him around the station. Simpler times. His life even kind of made sense back then. Eddie had... No idea what was going on anymore. Or how Tia Pepa was involved in it.
“You- You’re all here to peer review my decision to fix my relationship with my son."
“Exactly."
“It’s a stupid decision.” Ravi said. Based off the wince that crossed his face a moment later, someone had kicked him in the shin for that. He hoped it was Johnson. Johnson had hard feet.
A glance around the table showed Eddie a room full of expressions that matched Ravi’s words. Except for Buck. Buck’s face was carefully neutral. Eddie didn’t actually know what to make of that, a matter that was practically [very rare] when it came to him and Buck. Normally Eddie could read him at a glance, and the exchange was mutual. This, Buck carefully shielding his true thoughts, bought Eddie closer to regretting his decision that the ‘intervention’ could ever dream of. Myve that had been their goal.
Chimney cleared his throat irritatingly. Eddie wished there wasn’t the length of the table between his boot and Chimney’s ankles.
“Even if it was a stupid decision, it would be my stupid decision to make.”
“Wrong!” Chimney called, pointing a finger at him.
From his left, Jee made a loud buzzer noise. Maddie was hiding a laugh against the top of her head. Eddie was pretty sure they’d rehearsed this.
“It is no longer your stupid decision to make. It is now ours.” Hen gestured diplomatically around the table.
“The council’s.”
“The council is a stupid name.” Albert piped up, voice tinny. Ravi pointed at Chimney’s phone in agreement.
“I will hang up on you!” Chimney exclaimed, leaning over so his forehead took up most of Albert’s view.
“Why is Albert even here?” Buck asked.
“I don’t want to do ths.” Eddie said. He tried to push his chair back, but Buck’s seat was blocking the way (he wondered if that had also been planned, and then wondered if he was actually putting far too much faith into Chimney’s planning abilities). Buck didn’t notice, engaged in a staring contest with Maddie, who looked like she wanted to deach down the table to smack Byck upside the head. God knows why she wasn’t directing that ire upon her buffoon of a husbamd.
“Eddito,” His Tia Pepa began, voice soothing. “We are not mocking you. We are doing this because we care. This- This decision of yours is not well planned.”
“Not well planned? What does that mean?”
“We have a list.” Chim said, procuring a well worn sheet of paper from his pocket.
“We tell you where the flaws in this plan of yours lie, and then you can tell what you think the benefits are…” Bobby went on, even as he shot Eddie an [appraising] look, one he knew meant that at Eddie’s word he’d pull the captain card and send everyone off to work. Eddie shook his head minutely.
God knows why,
“Well, that clears it all up.” And like clockwork, like it had been planned, the alarm went.