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Eddie, generally speaking, is good at getting along with people.
It's just a matter of manners, after all, and Eddie was nothing if not good at being a polite, good-natured guy. It'd been built into him, first by his parents, then by the rigid social mores of the army. Conversations were like a dance: if everybody knew the steps, it was frictionless, easy, completely impersonal.
Evan Buckley, Eddie was rapidly learning, did not know the steps. In fact, Eddie isn't sure if he's ever learned what dancing is at all.
Metaphorically speaking, obviously. Eddie has never danced with a man in his life.
Buckley shakes his hand when the captain introduces the two of them, no hint of a smile on his face, though he has a face that looks like it was meant for smiling.
"Nice to meet you," Eddie says.
"Yeah," Buckley grunts back. Okay, not the strongest start.
Eddie glances beside him to catch Captain Nash's eye, and Captain Nash smiles a little at him, something wry at the edge of his expression. It makes Eddie feel like they're in on some joke, though he can't imagine what that might be.
Normally, Eddie wouldn't bother with guys like this, all bluster and half-assed stoicism. Easier to just go with whatever they say, pretend at respect until you either earned the real stuff or until it ceases to matter. Unfortunately, there were two issues with that specific approach in this case.
One: Eddie is meant to partner with Buckley, he's pretty sure. Captain Nash hadn't said it outright, but he'd mentioned in glancing terms about keeping up with someone, balancing out the team. There was a sparkle in his eyes, then, that Eddie hadn't understood. Not until now, seeing the same affection multiplied, directed towards Buckley and his impatient blue eyes.
Two: Eddie really, really doesn't want to.
There was something about the specific way that Buckley's lips pursed, in contrast to the laughter Eddie had heard when he'd walked into the station, that makes something spark inside of him. Childish and ridiculous, a kind of mischief that he thought he'd managed to finally suppress after Shannon, Chris, the military. Eddie wants Buckley to snap, to show the life that he'd heard from him before they'd laid eyes on each other. He wants to make him look at Eddie, to see what he actually thinks, behind the careful flatness of his current expression.
(He wants, perhaps, to hear that laugh again.)
So instead of nodding and moving on, Eddie ticks his grin up a little at the edge, not quite enough to notice, if you weren't paying attention.
"You the guy I'm takin' over for?" he asks, perfectly innocent unless you knew him. Buckley's eyes sharpen on his smile, a vein twitching at the nape of his neck.
Han - Chimney - slings an arm over Buckley before he can answer, grins. "Our old probie, yep!" he says, all affection that Eddie watches fly directly over Buckley's head.
Eddie hums, starts following as everyone starts to move towards the loft. He can feel Buckley's eyes on him the whole way, prickly and irritated. He grins a little wider, forces himself not to show too much. He notices Buckley's eyes take him in anyways.
Something in his stomach swoops, somewhere between anticipation and anxiety. Buckley doesn't know him. He doesn't know him, but--
Why is it that some part of Eddie thinks that it would be far too easy for him to figure him out, if he keeps looking?
(And why, some part of Eddie wonders, right before he locks the words away where they can't complicate his life, does Eddie want to keep his eyes on him anyways?)
The 118 is odd. Buckley is…odder.
"Is he, uh, is he supposed to be doing that?" Eddie asks, watching as Buckley wanders away from the engine. It was a medical call, fair enough, so he wasn't put on any duty but crowd control, but he was distinctly not headed towards the direction of the crowd.
Wilson (Hen) barely glances up before she says: "Just make sure he's not getting himself into trouble," her tone bland and apparently used to-- a member of the team just doing…whatever he wants?
Eddie swallows a question about if this is normal for their group, and jogs after Buckley instead. Damned long legs. The park where the minor bike collision occurred is surrounded by a garden, pretty and well-maintained, and he wonders for a moment what in the hell a guy like Buckley would be doing anywhere near a gazebo.
Eventually, he finds him kneeling beside a small figure, his tone a far cry from what he'd aimed at Eddie before. Eddie hesitates, stops before Buckley can catch sight of him, watches carefully instead.
"And if you do this," Buckley says, low and conspiratorial. "It becomes a crab, see?"
The little girl who'd been sitting forlornly on the ground gasps, ponytail swinging with her enthusiasm. "Woah," she whispers, sounding nothing so much as like Chris when he thinks Eddie has done something cool. It makes something ache inside of him, missing his little boy so much that it startles him, a little.
"You want it?" Buckley asks, a smile obvious in his voice. It makes Eddie want to step forward, to catch a glimpse at the corners of his lips, this brilliant, sparkling thing that tastes like bubbles on his tongue.
Before he can, the little girl nods, and Buckley swings her into his arms, easy and practiced. He turns around, and Eddie barely catches a glimpse of sunshine, pink, blue, before Buckley's expression folds down, wary.
"Diaz," he says carefully. "Did Cap need anything? I thought you were supposed to be on crowd duty."
"We were," Eddie says pointedly. "But Hen told me to come make sure you weren't doing anything stupid."
The words make Buckley's expression shutter more, and he shrugs a shoulder carelessly, doing a bad job at pretending that he doesn't care. "I saw this little pirate lost at sea," he says, engaging with the kid even in his more stoic demeanor. "And thought we should get her to shore to find her mom."
"Ma said not to talk to strangers," the little girl informs Eddie, who puts on an appropriately solemn expression in return. "But Mr. Buck said that he was also a sailor, and a firefighter, and he made me a crab!"
She waves a little piece of paper that, startlingly, is folded to look remarkably similar to a crab. Eddie blinks at it, then back to Buckley, whose hands (not that he's been looking) don't seem to be the type used to delicate work. When he looks at him, though, Buckley's expression goes slightly alarmed. It makes Eddie want to laugh a little, want to reassure him that don't worry, I play pretend with my kid all the time. But if the guy was this stressed about his whole macho demeanor getting even slightly tarnished, he might not be someone Eddie wanted to introduce to Chris right away.
A shame, since he's pretty sure Chris would go crazy for a paper crab.
So instead, he smiles, acting like it's no big deal. "That's great!" he says to the little girl, smiling as she clutches her homemade paper crab to her chest. "You wanna know a secret?" An intrigued little nod. "I'm actually a firefighter, too."
A blink, then the little girl turns to Buckley, as if to confirm his words. For a moment, Buckley looks like he's thinking about denying it, but then he puts on a smile. "He is," he whispers, conspiratorial. "He wasn't a sailor, though."
The little girl nods, as if accepting his words as gospel. "Should we go find your mom, little pirate?" Eddie asks her.
"O-kay," she sighs, as if it were some arduous trial they were asking of her. Eddie bites down on a smile, catches Buckley doing the same. For a moment, their eyes meet, and something like instinct makes Buckley grin at him, camaraderie like a bright, bouncing thing between them. Eddie catches it, startled by its warmth, a little heat rushing into his cheeks.
He ducks down, blinks, drops the bubbly, effervescent thing to somewhere that doesn't send static over his fingertips. By the time he looks back up, Buckley's already walking away.
Get your head in the game, Diaz, Eddie tells himself, before jogging over to join him.
The strangest part of it was that everybody in the 118 seemed to take everything in stride.
Not just with Buckley, though that's the part that Eddie's brain keeps getting snagged on. The Captain - Bobby, Bobby, man, it was weird for everyone to be this casual - told Eddie to help out with a medical call, deferring to him despite it being his first shift. And Buckley, despite something delightfully snarling behind his teeth, let him.
The probie, leading a call.
It's weird. Eddie kind of likes it.
Still, it only seems to wind Buckley up more, something going even more guarded and brittle in the way he holds himself. Pride, Eddie thinks. But that doesn't feel quite right. It almost felt betrayed, though why on earth that would be was beyond Eddie.
As fun as it is to watch Buckley twist himself in pretzels, though, Eddie finds himself trying to poke something else out of him. Something sunshine-bright, something that vibrates through Eddie's teeth, sparks at his fingers, buzzes between them like a sustained note at the end of a dance.
So when he sees Buckley trying to take pictures of himself at the gym, he tries to build some bridges.
"What's your problem, man?"
Alright. He doesn't try that hard to build bridges.
Still, at least Buckley's honest. "You're my problem," he says, flat and irritated. "You're-- you're not supposed to just walk in here like you've been here for years. Like you're just-- allowed to do anything you want--"
Eddie frowns, crosses his arms. "I'm just following orders, man," he points out, watching the shift of Buckley's muscles, the tight edges of his expression. "Sorry you don't like it, but it's just doing the job."
A small, sharp inhale. "Your job," Buckley snaps lowly. "Is being a probie. You're supposed to-- there's supposed to be a getting-to-know-you period first. You're supposed to learn. You can't just-- waltz in, and expect everyone to trust you with everything. Like you already know what to do. Like--"
He cuts himself off, lips pressed together tightly. Eddie feels a little off-center, feeling like he landed a sucker-punch when he'd been aiming for a friendly little shove to the shoulder. He opens his mouth, closes it, chooses his next words carefully.
"Look, dude, I know you're going through a rough patch with, you know, you and your girlfriend's breakup, but--"
"What the fuck--" Buckley says. His eyes dart over to Chimney, who studiously does not look back. Eddie thinks about issuing an apology to him, later. "We're not broken up, and it's none of your fucking business, dude."
Eddie shrugs a shoulder. "I'm just saying. We're all on the same team, we all do good work-- doesn't mean I'm better than you, just because I've done it while being shot at."
"Jesus christ," Buckley says, and walks away. Eddie looks after him, then towards Chimney.
"That didn't go well," he says blandly. Chimney grimaces, shrugs. Eddie sighs.
It would all be so much easier, he thinks, if Buckley weren't so fun to rile up.
Buckley's still on edge on their next call. Possibly even moreso. Unfortunately, Captain-Nash-Call-Me-Bobby seems insistant on Eddie being buddie-buddie with him. Eddie doesn't know if if this is helping, at this point, but the captain's the captain, so he dutifully follows Buck into the house where a man is grimacing and holding his leg in a puddle of water by the sink, his partner fretting over him as a steady stream of water continues to seep out from beneath the sink cabinet.
"Could use a hand stabilizing him while we carry him out," Hen says, looking the man over with damp knees.
Eddie sees Buckley begin to step forward from his periphery, only to droop back down when Bobby turns to Eddie: "Diaz, help Wilson and Han get the victim out. Buck, you're gonna help with the partner."
Buckley doesn't argue this time, just turns soft eyes towards the victim's trembling partner, voice low as he reaches out with a steadying hand on his elbow. Eddie turns before he can see what he says, rushing out with the paramedics. He wonders, briefly, if Buckley knows that he's being left behind because of how undeniably good he is at this part of a call, the effortless way people respond to his words like flowers turning towards the sun.
The man's leg is broken, but not too badly. "I was just trying to fix the damn sink," he grits out, as Hen sets the bone. He lets out a yelp, then a pained whimper. His next words come out in an airy hiss. "Then the fuckin'-- thing blew, and boom, water, and I just wanted Ben out of the way--"
Eddie hums at him, nods sympathetically. "Plumbing's a bitch," he agrees.
"And this is why you call a professional," Chimney adds, grinning easily as he affixes a splint. "Now c'mon, let's get you into the back of the ambulance. Your partner can call a plumber from the waiting room."
Hen looks at Eddie. "Go grab Buck and Ben," she says, lifting the blackboard with Chimney. "Tell Ben that he can ride in the ambulance, if he wants."
Eddie nods, walking back into the house. There's the sound of low chattering, warm and steady, and Eddie feels a little like a moth being drawn to a flame as he makes his way in deeper, eyes catching at the knicknacks and and pictures scattered around the walls and mantles. Something clenches inside of him, brief and pointless, as he thinks about Bedford street, Christopher's laughter, the missing piece from their home that's shrinking every day, despite himself.
He goes into the kitchen, catching the tailend of Buckley's words, easy and comforting: "-- that hard," he's saying. "But you should still get him to call a professional, next time."
"Trust me, I'm gonna," Ben says dryly, voice calmer now, breathing easy. Their eyes both turn towards him as he walks in, blinking as he sees the sprawl of Buckley's legs out from under the sink, his entire upper body in the cabinet as he speaks, water soaking into his turnouts.
Eddie frowns. "What are you doing?"
Buckley opens his mouth, but Ben gets there first. "You firefighters sure are handy," he says, smiling. "Saving husbands and fixing sinks."
Eddie smiles at him reflexively, even as he takes in this new information. "Your husband's waiting in the ambulance for you, if you want to ride with him," he says, instead of commenting.
Ben exhales, relieved. "Yeah," he breathes out. "Yeah, I'd-- I'd like that." He starts moving, then pauses, looks down at Buckley. "Thank you," he says, sincere and bright. Buckley smiles back, and then it's just him and Eddie, who lopes over towards him.
"Huh," he says, looking at the underside of the sink, which was no longer spilling a steady stream of water onto the kitchen tiles.
Buckley folds himself back up, squinting at him with an annoyed little furrow to his brows. "Bobby need me now?" he asks, an edge to his voice.
Eddie could answer him gently, but a wicked little thrill runs through him, and he hears his abuela tutting in his head as he goes: "Nah, man, we got it. Just checking if you needed anything, since we finished up faster than anticipated."
A furious little twitch, and Eddie's cheeks hurt with the force of pressing down his smile.
"Whatever," Buckley says, flat, grumpy. He stands up, patches of damp at his sleeves, the backs of his pants.
Eddie's eyes follow him. "Did you really fix that sink?" he asks, unable to help himself.
A shrug. Then, in a low little grumble: "Not like it matters, apparently."
His shoulder shoves past Eddie's as he walks past him, seeming only half on purpose. Eddie stares after him, startled to find a smile tugging at the edge of his lip as he watches the irritated line of Buckley's shoulder as he stomps off, apparently annoyed at…being a good firefighter? A good guy?
What a (forgive him, abuela) fucking freak.
Eddie has, by the last few hours of his shift, more or less given up on understanding Buckley.
Everyone insists that he'll soften up, get used to Eddie, become the bright, cheerful person that they all seem to know him as. Eddie isn't so sure -- not about Buckley's real personality, he's gotten enough glimpses to know that Buckley isn't like that with anyone who isn't, well, Eddie -- but rather about Buckley getting used to him.
There was something about Eddie specifically, he thinks, and as fun as it is to poke at, there is a part of it that digs under his skin, childish and irritated. Eddie is good at making friends, at convincing people to like him, at proving his worth through sheer competence, if nothing else.
And Buckley likes competence, is the thing. He trails Hen and Chimney like a little kid sometimes, peppering them with questions and looking at them with delight whenever they answer. He listens to Captain Nash quietly and thoughtfully, trying his best to understand even if he doesn't agree. He does the station chores without complaint and is good with patients on calls and plays with little kids and grins at every small delight the world gives him.
Except Eddie. And Eddie thinks he knows the shape of the issue but he doesn't know how to fix it, can't help but think that there's some nuance to the furrow in Buckley's brows that he hasn't quite grasped yet.
And he wants to, with a determination that surprises himself. He's strangely sure of becoming Buckley's partner and friend, in a way that few things have been sure to him. Honestly, it's almost a little embarrassing, like a kid on a playground chasing someone around, pushing them into the dirt, all the while thinking be my friend, be my friend, I just want to play.
A part of Eddie thinks that, if he just pushes Buckley until he snaps, he'll finally figure out that twisted, hidden-away thing. Another part isn't sure he'll manage it before things between them are soured altogether.
This, of course, is when Buckley decides to prove him wrong yet again.
There is a man with a bomb in his leg, and Buckley climbs into the back of an ambulance with him like he's never known fear in his life.
His hands are steady, his eyes sharp. When Eddie looks at him, there's something startlingly sweet and lopsided around his lips, a sparkle in his eye. Eddie blinks. Adrenaline rushes through his veins, like sparklers on a summer night. He's having fun, he realizes, and he tries to school his expression into something less delighted. But Buckley beams at him like they're sharing a joke, and Eddie doesn't know what to do except to beam back.
They school their expressions as they get out of the ambulance, delight less a meteor shower now and more a note passing under tables in the middle of class, quieter but no less thrilling.
The words spill from Eddie, a little too sweet, a little too much want underneath: "You're a badass under pressure--" Fuck. Bring it back. Make it normal again. "-- brother."
Nailed it.
Buckley's eyes crinkle at the edges. He ducks his head for a moment, and Eddie holds his breath. Then he looks back up, and his eyes are bright, luminous, delighted.
"Me?" Buckley asks, almost breathless.
Eddie's chest jumps, hops, skips. He holds out a hand. "Hell yeah, you can have my back any day." Be my friend, be my friend, I just want to play.
Buck takes his hand, looking at Eddie like he's figured something out. "Or-- you know, you could have mine."
Eddie laughs, can't quite help it. "Deal," he says, their fingers warm against each other. He thinks about what he's going to tell Christopher when he gets home. Guess what? Daddy made a new friend! He's pretty sure Christopher will want to know about Buck. He's a lot like Eddie, after all.
And he still doesn't quite understand Buck, the calluses on his fingers that don't match up with his, the quirks of his expression that Eddie can't quite read. But he thinks, watching Buck tell Bobby that he's believed in Eddie all along, that maybe Buck will now give him a chance to find out.