Work Text:
9-1-1, what’s your emergency?
A man just fell through my roof!
-
Eddie was not having a great year. First, the fire truck explodes, leaving him to have the worst flashback he has ever had since being discharged. Then, his ex-wife and son get stuck in the tsunami that decimated Santa Monica, with Eddie being unaware that they were even in danger until he saw them while on duty at a temporary hospital. Shannon had gotten the brunt of the injuries, but both of them bore the mental scars, as evidenced by both of their nightmares.
Things had only just started to settle down, the nightmares becoming less and less frequent. Eddie, however, was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, aware that bad things often came in threes.
The alarm rang out, bringing Eddie out from his spiral, racing down the stairs from the loft, getting his turnouts on, and onto the truck in record time. He puts his headset on as McAllister, Jackson, and Bobby get in seconds after he did, Hen and Chimney in the ambulance. The siren started up, and they were off to their call. Bobby gives them the run down as they watch cars and streets go by.
“Apparently someone has fallen through a woman’s roof. Dispatch has said that the woman doesn’t know the man, so be careful. We don’t know his intentions, or if he is armed. He is reportedly injured and stuck, so we can’t avoid him entirely.”
Eddie is apprehensive for the rest of the ride there. An unknown man falling through your roof? Why was he on the roof in the first place? How does someone fall through a roof? These questions annoyed him until they arrived, where he was able to switch to professional mode.
When they get there, they are immediately accosted by an older woman, who’s shouting about how she saw the man fall from the sky. Well, that answers all of his questions.
All of them share a glance at that. There was a very limited chance that he had survived if he didn’t originally start on the roof. If he had fallen from a plane, or something similar, the impact alone has a high chance of killing him outright, and that’s without a roof to fall through and get impaled by.
The glance only lasts a few seconds, and they are back to it. Bobby sends Hen and Chimney in first, to assess whether the patient is still alive. To all of their surprise, Hen finds a pulse, and states that he’s breathing. Eddie and Jackson are then called in to start carefully removing debris so Hen and Chimney can access him to better assess his condition. Moving the debris carefully, Eddie starts to see that the man has on what only could be called fantastical clothing. He looks like he has just come off the set of a fantasy movie, which adds more questions. After putting smelling salts under the man's nose, he wakes up with a start.
“Wha-” he mutters, his eyes only barely visible through all of the roof debris Eddie didn’t want to move because the man was on top of, but already Eddie can tell they are a bright blue. Suddenly, he tries to sit up, agitated. Hen tries to stop him, but he manages to get up. He has no injuries, miraculously, except for a bright red bruise above his left eye, which could mean a possible concussion. Eddie gets the gurney that had been brought in by Jackson after Hen’s declaration of him being alive, and Hen manages to convince him to get on. Eddie catches the man saying heartbreakingly, “I can’t believe she pushed me,” before he’s out the door.
Eddie looked around, to see if anyone else had heard that, but everyone was in clean up mode, looking to clear any hazards so the woman could at least come back into her house. He knows what he heard, however, so he goes up to Bobby.
“Hey Cap?”
Bobby pauses midway through picking up more ceiling, raising his eyebrow in question. “Yes, Eddie?”
“I overheard something the patient said just now, and it sounds like something I should maybe report?”
“Are you asking me if you should report it, or telling me that you are reporting something?” Bobby’s face is amused.
“I’m reporting.” Eddie says decisively, and then says, “he said ‘I can’t believe she pushed me’.” Bobby looks at him in alarm, stating, “that’s attempted murder, from what we know of what happened. We should definitely report that. I’ll call Athena and have her meet us at the station when we finish cleaning up.”
Eddie relaxed, satisfied that he had done the right thing, and continued cleaning up. They ended up perfectly timing their return to the station for lunch, which Bobby got started on straight away. Athena arrived halfway through, with information on the patient.
“His name is Evan, according to him. The doctors are saying he has a concussion, because he keeps going back and forth between saying he was in a plane, and in the clouds, but the one consistent detail is that his mother pushed him off with no parachute attached to him.”
She spat the word ‘mother’ with so much venom, Eddie was surprised she didn’t turn into a snake right there and then. Athena had always been protective of children whose parents had committed crimes against them, though, so it wasn’t that surprising. She sighs, and continues.
“I tried to ask him whether or not he has any other family, but that just set him off on how he can ‘go find Daniel now’, I’m guessing either a brother or boyfriend.”
Eddie sits there in silence, soaking all of this information in as he eats Bobby’s Mac n’ Cheese, and hopes that Evan can find Daniel, whoever he is to him. He can’t get out of his head how sad he had sounded when he had said she, who he now knows was his mother, had pushed him.
The rest of the day goes by as routine, with a couple of calls, nothing major, thank goodness, and then the sun is setting, and Eddie is getting ready to get some sleep, before they inevitably get called out during the middle of the night. He has just called Christopher, who he had said goodnight to. Well, technically he called Shannon because Chris doesn’t have a phone yet, but he talked to Christopher the majority of the phone call.
Eddie manages to fall asleep quite quickly, but is plagued by sad, blue eyes, and a figure that looks a little too much like his own mother. He wakes up to the bunk room being completely silent, and nothing amiss. He doesn’t know why he’s awake, but he suddenly finds that he can’t fall back asleep. After around half an hour of tossing and turning, he quietly gets out of his bunk, and goes to the loft, intending on making a cup of tea and sitting on the couch until he starts to drift off. Cupping the warm mug, he makes his way over to the couch, and sits down.
Only to find that there is already someone on the couch that he didn’t see, startling so badly that quite a big portion of his hot tea was launched onto whoever was unfortunate enough to have fallen asleep on the couch, instead of the bunks. They both yell, them in pain, and him in fright, which of course wakes the whole station. It wasn’t even two seconds later that the light above the couch was turned on, and Eddie could see that it was not, in fact, a fellow firefighter who had fallen asleep before they could get to the bunks, but someone else. Someone very familiar.
“Evan?” Eddie blurts out, even more confused than he had been before, and Evan’s head jerks up, from where he was sitting up and hissing in pain because Eddie’s hot tea had burnt him.
“How do you know my name?” He asks, his face half scared, half confused. Before Eddie could answer, Bobby’s voice rings out, ever the voice of reason.
“I think our first priority is seeing to those burns, and then finding out why you’re in our loft without permission.”
Evan’s face displays a guilty look, but it soon turns to pain as Hen goes full paramedic mode and treats his burns. The tea mostly splashed onto his arms, and some on his legs, because for some reason he’s wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the winter, both very baggy on him. Hen finishes wrapping them in gauze, stating, “they aren’t bad enough for a trip to the hospital, but they have to be cleaned and maintained for the next couple of days.”
Bobby then comes back from reporting the station as offline due to dealing with an in-house medical call, and gets right to questioning why Evan was even on the couch in the first place.
“I… I had nowhere else to go. I signed myself out of the hospital, and then realised I have no place to stay. Then I remembered seeing your station number on your helmets.”
He pauses, then says, a lot quieter, “I know it was wrong, but I didn’t want to wake someone up only to go back to the hospital, it’s too white, too much like…”
Evan stares at the floor, eyes unfocused as if he’s seeing something else other than the floor. Bobby, Hen, Chimney, and him all look at each other, and Bobby looks as if he comes to a decision.
“You can stay on the couch for tonight. Our shift ends at 9am tomorrow, we’ll figure out something a little bit more long term then.”
“Thank you…” Evan trails off, and Eddie realises he doesn’t know any of their names. Bobby seems to realise as well, because he introduces himself and the rest of the team.
“You can call me Bobby. The paramedic that treated your burns is Hen, the other paramedic Chimney, and the one that you startled is Eddie.”
“Thank you Bobby. I would introduce myself to you, but it seems as if you already know my name.” He looks directly at Eddie at that, and he gives a sheepish expression in return.
“Yeah. Do you remember the police officer that questioned you at the hospital?” Bobby says, and at Evan’s nod, Bobby continues, “That’s my wife. She went and questioned you at my request after we overheard some… Interesting things you said at the scene.”
Evan was silent for quite a while after that, at which point Eddie was sure he wasn’t going to respond, until he quipped, “well, thank goodness, because I was freaking out a little about how you knew my name.”
The team laughs at that, and it isn’t too long until they are all going back to sleep. They end up being called out once more before the sun rises, a heart attack call that was quick and easy, before coming back to the station and waiting for Bobby to finish cooking breakfast.
While they waited, the team got to know Evan, all of them spread out on the couch or in armchairs, learning that he doesn’t really get cold due to his hometown being ‘colder than you could imagine’. Eddie guesses that’s why he’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but before he could ask Evan, Bobby starts telling stories about Minnesota and ice skating.
Bobby finishes cooking breakfast, and all of them get up from where they were lounging, and start to sit at the table. Evan, however, stays on the couch, looking longingly at the food that was being put on the table for the firefighters to grab as they please. Contradictingly, Evan seems surprised when Bobby invites him to have breakfast with them.
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to impose on-”
“Nonsense,” comes a voice behind them, all of them turning toward it. Athena was coming up from the stairs, and had obviously overheard Evan’s rambling about imposing.
“Bobby loves feeding people, it’s no imposition to give the man what he wants.”
Evan seems to accept that, because he joins the table and stares at all the food options. He finally starts piling a portion of scrambled eggs onto his plate, but doesn’t put anything else. Eddie thinks it’s weird, but maybe the man just really loves eggs?
Evan is oblivious to the looks Eddie and the other firefighters are giving him, and he doesn’t get a chance to look up and see them, because at that point Chimney’s phone starts ringing with the ringtone he assigned for Maddie, his girlfriend. Eddie had met her a couple of times, at various different ‘firefam’ outings. She was nice, but Eddie didn’t really know her that well.
“Hello, your boyfriend speaking.” Chimney answers, and by his grin widening, he can tell it got Maddie to laugh. Chimney continues on, everyone silent so they can hear what he says next. After the scare with Maddie’s ex, everyone was a little bit protective over her. Especially Athena, who had all but adopted the girl after finding out she no longer speaks to her parents.
“Sure, you can come, Bobby as usual has made enough to feed an army, so there’s plenty here.”
Everyone cheers after hearing that they’ll be having another house guest, silently begging the alarm to stay quiet so they can actually enjoy it. Eddie then looks at Evan, who looks confused. Eddie had completely forgotten that Evan has no context for much, having only met them yesterday. Dios, it feels like Evan’s been here for so much longer than a day, with him having fit so well into their dynamic. He decides to clue him in.
“Maddie is Chimney’s girlfriend. They’ve been dating about 10 months, after a scare when Maddie’s ex boyfriend tried to kidnap her.”
Evan looks distraught at that, and Eddie is quick to reassure him that Doug is no longer a problem. If anything, Evan looks more distraught at that, so Eddie leaves him be, putting more on his plate from Bobby’s choices of breakfast.
They were cleaning up the dishes, Evan insisting he help, when Maddie arrived. She calls out a greeting from the apparatus bay, which for some reason makes Evan tense beside Eddie, who was washing up, Evan drying. He sees in his peripheral Evan shakes his head, as if trying to clear a particularly bothersome thought, and he continues drying, picking up a glass.
Maddie comes up the stairs, repeating her greeting, and Evan makes a strangled gasp. Concerned, Eddie looks at him properly, noticing with increased concern that he looks like he has seen a ghost, his skin almost white. It makes his birthmark, which they had discovered after Hen had asked about it before breakfast, stand out even more against his skin. Eddie would have asked him if he was alright, but he started sobbing, dropping the glass he was holding with a loud shatter, and stumbling towards Maddie.
Maddie, drawn by the glass shattering, looks toward them, and gasps, her hand flying toward her mouth. It’s quickly dropped, however, because Evan tackles her in a hug, which she accepts. Eddie notices that Maddie has started to cry as well. Eddie finally looks toward Chimney, who looks at each of the team, equally baffled. He was about to ask outloud what was happening, but Evan beat him to it.
“They- They told me that you jumped. That you w-were gone.” He sobs into Maddie’s chest, and from his vantage point, he can see a look he’d only ever seen on Athena before. Absolute rage.
After calming Evan down, they finally are in the loop about what happened. Maddie was Madeline, Evan’s sister, who their parents, after Maddie had left in anger, had told their youngest son that Maddie had died. Eddie wasn’t renowned for having detective instincts, but even he could tell that both of them were leaving something out. However, he didn’t want to cause any more distress to Evan than he had already experienced, so he let it be. He did catch Athena looking suspiciously at the pair of them also, so he felt reassured that he wasn’t the only one who’s red flags had been raised.
Evan, however, had caught the wording of ‘youngest son’ from Eddie, latching on to it.
“What did you mean, when you said youngest son? How do you know-”
Eddie looks at Maddie, but she shrugs. “Uh, I assumed that Danny was also your brother, considering he’s Maddie’s brother?” Eddie says.
“Danny…” His head swivels towards Maddie, his face again an alarmingly pale colour. “Daniel is here?”
Maddie looks at a loss to what to say, but eventually says, “Yes? He’s been here longer than me.”
Evan starts laughing, and if it were any other circumstance, he would probably marvel at how his laugh sounds, like joy incarnate. However, given the fact that he’s just had a major lie be revealed, and is now looking like his parents also lied about Danny, it is more than concerning.
Turns out that Danny’s departure was so sudden, they couldn’t even give a proper lie, and just said that Danny was missing. Eddie has never wanted to punch someone so much as the Buckley parents. It looks like he would have to get in line behind Maddie, though, because if her face had shown rage before, this one was murderous. Their shift ends not too long after that, with Evan insisting he go back with Maddie, as he wanted to see his brother.
Eddie only hears things from Chimney about Evan after that. Apparently he is settling into LA quite well, having completed a weeks course in bartending, and is now a bartender for a club in the city. Evan has his own apartment now, according to Chim. in the same area as Maddie, which Eddie doubts is a coincidence. He knows if he had found out Sophia or Adrianna were alive after their parents lied to him about it for who knows how long, he wouldn’t really want to be too far away from them. Eddie ignores the urge to ask Chimney directly about Evan, as it seems Chim is only privy to the things Maddie shares.
He has to also ignore the much stronger urge to ask Maddie or Danny when he sees them, which is driving him crazy. Why does he care so much about Evan’s welfare?
The dream that he had the night he discovered Evan on the couch recurs so often that he no longer is surprised when he wakes up with the memory of bright blue eyes shining. Sometimes they’re laughing, and sometimes the eyes are just so incredibly sad that his heart aches.
Suddenly, Christmas is upon them, and they are unfortunately working for the first half of the day. He says unfortunately for two reasons; one, they don’t get to spend the morning with their family, and two, they get the bulk of crazy calls, with people not knowing how to operate gifts they’ve received, attempting to cook crazy breakfasts, and fights breaking out leading to injuries. However, fortune smiles upon them when their shift doesn’t run over, and he can go home on time, to enjoy some time with Shannon and Chris, before heading over to Athena and Bobby’s for Christmas dinner.
“Dad!” Comes the shout from Christopher, and he can’t help but grin at the sound, as he walks through the hallway and into the living room, which is surprisingly not covered in wrapping paper. Shannon spots him looking at the still wrapped presents and laughs, explaining.
“Christopher here wanted to wait until you got home to open his presents.”
“Yeah, it’s not as fun without both of you here.”
He winces at that, as does Shannon, but they quickly recover, and get to opening presents. He had probably gone overboard with presents for the both of them this year, but everytime he had tried to talk himself out of buying it, he had remembered that sinking feeling as he stood at the VA hospital, watching Shannon with her bright yellow flower shirt carry Christopher with his equally as bright shirt into the medical tent.
By the looks that Shannon is giving him, she understands why both of them are getting so many presents, but she doesn’t say anything, thankfully. He can live with knowing she knows, but having to talk about her knowing why he went all out this year is not something he wants to do.
Before long, they have to get ready to go to Athena and Bobby’s, and they split up, Shannon getting ready first, while Eddie and Chris take care of the mess so they don’t have to do it tomorrow. They make a game out of it, competing with each other on how fast and how many pieces of wrapping paper they can pick up. He lets Christopher win, just to see him laugh in triumph when his garbage bag ends up double the size of Eddie’s.
When Shannon comes out of her room, they swap, with Eddie going to get Christopher ready while Shannon prepares the food they were taking. Eddie would have done it, but didn’t want to hear how he poisons every meal he cooks with his cooking skills from Christopher, so let’s Shannon do it. After Christopher is showered and ready, he gets ready himself, and by the time he’s finished, Shannon and Christopher are playing with one of his new toys on the couch, waiting for him.
“Alright, let’s go!” Shannon says once she spots him, to the delight of Christopher, who hasn’t seen Harry and Denny in a while. The drive there is uneventful, besides LA traffic being more crazy than normal, which is actually to be expected on Christmas. They get there 10 minutes after they were supposed to, which is a pretty good time considering the traffic they had to wade through.
Athena greets them at the door, giving Shannon and Eddie a hug, before telling Chris that Denny and Harry are in Harry’s room, where Chris then speeds off to. The party is in full swing, with Hen, Karen, Maddie, and Chimney in a conversation, and Bobby and Danny at the grill. He pretends he isn’t disappointed that Evan isn’t here, and he can tell Shannon is looking at him weirdly, but he ignores it.
He instead goes to join Bobby and Danny at the grill. Despite his atrocious cooking skills, he truly knows and appreciates grilling, and so it has become a tradition that he and Bobby grilled together. When Danny joined the firefam after Chimney and Maddie started dating, he didn’t know a thing about grilling, but was really intrigued by it, so he and Bobby took him under their wings, and now Danny can sort of grill.
Eddie loses track of time, the only thing mattering is good company and the meat he is grilling. Athena then calls everyone to dinner, having kept the meat they grilled warm in the oven until all of it was done. She calls up the stairs to the boys, and footsteps thundering on stairs comes not too much later, much to the amusement of everyone else. Eddie’s last hope of Evan being in the room with the boys was dashed when they all came out with no blue eyed man in sight.
Unable to hide his disappointment from himself any longer, he sighs, then tucks into the delicious spread of roast meat, vegetables, and side dishes that was in front of him. He grabs a little bit of everything, and he can see Shannon arranging a plate for Christopher.
Midway through dinner, there is a knock on the door, and Athena gets up to answer it, grumbling. He hears her greet someone, and then the apologies of that someone, saying the ‘traffic is awful,’ and ‘why do you live here, everyone is so inconsiderate’. Then, someone is at the top of the stairs, and it’s revealed to be Evan.
Maddie is the first one to say something, teasingly ribbing at him, “Evan, I told you to leave at least an hour before because of traffic, how did you forget?”
The grumbled, “I didn’t forget, I slept through my alarm,” was heard by everyone, and the table laughed, which made Evan’s cheek go red. Eddie had to look away at that, before his own cheeks changed colour, which Shannon, ever the observant person, caught. She gave him a shit-eating grin, and he could tell he was going to be in for it later.
Evan joins the table without much fuss after that, and after everyone had finished their plates, Athena said that dessert was about half an hour away, they were just waiting on the pies to heat up in the oven. Everyone dispersed after that, with Athena gathering up all the plates and putting them in the dishwasher. Evan looked like he wanted to help, but the glare that Athena sent him made him go sit on the couch.
Eddie was just debating whether he should go over there and strike up a conversation, but was for some reason nervous about it, when his own son beat him to the punch.
“Are you the guy that fell through the roof?”
Evan lets out a startled laugh at the forwardness of the question, but answers anyway. He leans forward, getting on Chris’s level before answering, “Yeah, I was. I wasn’t even hurt that bad, either, which I’m told is a miracle.”
Christopher nods, and says, “I was in a tsunami and didn’t get hurt that bad. Daddy kept on saying it was a miracle too.”
Evan, to his credit, doesn’t show too much shock at that declaration, instead saying, “well, I think that means we were destined to meet. Two miracles, facing the world.”
Eddie isn’t sure how he feels about that, but Chris apparently did.
“Cool! Does this mean we’re best friends?”
“Well that depends, do you want to be best friends?”
“Yeah, you seem really cool.”
Evan chuckles, then says, “well ok, best friend, what should we do while we wait for dessert?”
Chris ponders the question for a little bit, then says decisively, “we should play with the animal kit I got from Mummy.”
“Sounds fun!” Then Evan does something Eddie doesn’t expect, and gets off the couch and onto the floor, to play animals with Chris. Even Eddie doesn’t get that dedicated when playing with Christopher, his body not as forgiving as it was. When Denny and Harry come back to playing, after bothering both Hen and Karen, and Athena, into arranging a sleepover for tonight, Evan includes them seamlessly. Arguments about who gets what animal, the cheetah apparently being a popular choice, were dealt with as if he had years of experience.
He would’ve continued staring unhindered, but Shannon sidled up to him where he was still at the dinner table, and said with a delighted tone, “so, are you gonna tell me why you haven’t taken our eyes off of Christopher since the moment we finished dinner?”
“I’m watching him, like a responsible parent.” He says, and even to his own ears he sounds like he’s lying. Shannon, having known him since he was in high school, of course hears it also, and jumps on it.
“Oh? Yeah, it really does look like he needs you to watch him. It isn’t like he’s having the time of his life being watched by a certain other adult.” He can practically hear the light bulb go off in her brain, despite not looking at her.
“Unless you’re not watching Christopher at all, and watching a certain individual with blue eyes and a birthmark?”
He looks at her then, and she immediately senses that he needs her to be serious. She’s always been able to do it, even before he really knew her. It’s just a fact of life at this point. Shannon can read him like a book. She sighs, and says, “Eddie, I know we didn’t end our marriage on very good terms, and had to work for what we have now. I need you to know, though, that I wouldn’t change a single thing. We really are better friends than we ever were as a couple.”
She grabs his hand, and gets to the hammer driving in the nail. “I can see that you’re scared of the potential of whatever you’re thinking about Evan. Don’t be. It really does feel like he would be an excellent fit to our family, if the laughter from Chris is any indication.”
She nods toward where all four of them are deep, belly laughing. It even looks like Chris might be crying with laughter.
“Think about it, ok?” Shannon says, and he nods, unable to say anything from the lump of emotion that feels stuck in his throat.
His attention is drawn to Chris once more, as he screeches out a disbelieving, “What!”
He looks over at Eddie, scepticism clear on his face, as he shouts at Eddie, “Dad! Evan has never been to the zoo! Not even when he was a kid!”
Shannon chuckles next to him, and Eddie doesn’t even know how to respond, when Chris gets up and walks the short distance to him. Chris grabs his arms as support, and then begs Eddie to invite Evan when they next go, which happened to be a couple of days into the new year.
“If Evan is free, then I don’t see why not.” Shannon answers for him, and he shoots a betrayed look to her smug one, and turns to Evan.
Chris then questions if it’s ok with him too, and he looks between Chris and Evan, both of them wearing such similar expressions of hope it’s hard not to laugh.
“Of course you can come.” He says, and Evan beams at him at that. Eddie genuinely thinks his heart rate might blow through the roof with how cute it makes him look, but that’s nobody's business except his own. And Shannon’s, because she laughs, the traitor.
Athena calls for dessert then, and he tries to drown out the new feelings he’s just given himself permission to feel with excessive ice cream and pie. It does not work, it only serves to give him a stomach ache, but it was worth a try.
The period between Christmas and New Year has always been a blur of leftovers and no school, but it feels like he blinks and it’s the day of the zoo visit. Shannon, ever the beautiful person she is, only laughs at him for five minutes after seeing his bed covered with discarded outfits.
“Is this how you were before our first date?” Shannon asks, and he contemplates lying, but that would just make Shannon laugh harder than telling the truth, so he nods. To his surprise, she doesn’t say anything or laugh, just goes, “huh.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Eddie says frantically, and Shannon laughs then, leaving the room. Eddie ends up deciding on a green Henley, and light blue jeans, and has just enough time to shower before putting them on, and leaving with Shannon in the passenger seat, and Chris in the back.
He pulls up to Evan’s building, where Evan was waiting outside, wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans, with his hair more curly than Eddie had ever seen. He knows the second Chris spots him, because he shouts out “Evan!”
Evan responds back with, “Chris!” They both laugh as Evan climbs into the backseat, high fiving Chris, then putting his seat belt on.
“Hey Eddie, Shannon. Thanks for picking me up, getting a car is a lot harder than originally thought.”
Shannon, despite how much Eddie likes to complain about her, is a real saint, because she replies when Eddie doesn’t, “It’s ok, I know the struggle, don’t worry. How have you been settling in rent wise? I know it was a shock to my system when I was first selling my Mother’s house and looking for places to rent.”
He catches Evan’s confused face in the rearview mirror, before Chris asks, “Mummy, what’s rent?”
Which turns the rest of the car ride into an education in renting versus buying a house, why some people might rent, how much it costs per week. Let it be known that Christopher is a curious child, and if he doesn’t understand something, he asks questions until he does. It’s something that Eddie made sure to foster in Chris, and Shannon has taken his lead on it. Anyone can see that it makes Chris immensely happy to learn. He thinks he spots Evan wiping tears away as they park, but he doesn’t want to ask. If Evan wants him to know, he’ll tell him. If Eddie gives him a pat on the back as they leave the car park, well that was just because he appreciated his help with getting Chris out of his car seat.
They walk into the zoo, with Chris and Evan talking a mile a minute about the animals they want to see, with Chris giving recommendations and Evan taking them under advisement, changing his favourites to match Chris’s, to the boy's delightment.
What follows is a day of Shannon and Eddie trailing behind Evan and Chris, Evan spouting off facts of each animal they visit, such as that the pattern on a Gorilla’s nose is as unique as a human's fingerprint, while they were at the Gorilla enclosure. From behind, Eddie can’t believe how similar Evan and Chris look. With Evan’s hair being curly, they have the same hair, same excited demeanour, and had even managed to dress alike. It was like Evan had been in their life for years, not months, and that’s when Eddie decided to take the, frankly, terrifying, leap.
He was going to ask Evan out, sooner than later if his heart had anything to say about it. First, though, he had to make sure Chris was ok with it. He started devising a plan to get Chris on his own, Shannon quickly catching on when Eddie started subtly implying about his feet being sore, and being hungry.
“We should probably stop for lunch then, you grumble bum.” Chris laughs at Shannon calling him names, which he pretended to be offended by, which only made him laugh harder. It really does sometimes be his own son.
“What do you say, mijo, wanna hang with your dear old dad while Evan and Mummy get our food?”
“Yeah!”
Eddie silently rejoices that Chris isn’t too cool yet to hang out with him, and gives Shannon what he wants to eat. After a while of Chris and him hanging out in silence, he breaks it by opening up this delicate conversation.
“So, mijo, you enjoy hanging out with Evan?”
“Yeah! He has so many fun facts, and they’re cool facts too!”
“Well, what if Evan was around more often? How would you feel about that?” He probes, feeling like he already knows that answer, but scared Chris might say no anyway.
“He can? I would love that!”
“What I meant by that, Chris, was that I was thinking of asking Evan out, on a date. Do you know what that means?”
“Like how you and Mummy were before you got di-” Chris scrunches up his face, and tries again, “di-vor-said?”
Eddie helps Chris sound it out, and once he’s consistently getting the word right, he answers honestly.
“Kind of. There won’t be as much yelling as there was when me and your mum were married, but Evan and I won’t be married if we decided to start dating anyway. That’s something a long way off, bud.”
That’s even if he says yes to a date, but he has a feeling that Evan is a sure thing. He can’t explain it, but it's there.
“Ok, you can ask Evan out on a date. But he has to stay my best friend.” He can see genuine fear in Christopher’s eyes, which he is quick to reassure.
“I don’t think anything in the whole wide world would stop Evan from being your best friend, mijo.”
Chris nods, assured, and then lights up.
“Evan! Mummy!” Chris must spot the food that they have in their hands, because in the same tone he yells out, “food!”
Eddie turns around to see both of them laughing at Chris’s reaction, and they all sit down to eat their food. Chris finishes first, his meal considerably smaller than everyone else’s, and begs to be taken to the playground. Evan finishes his meal not long after Chris, and offers to take him. If anything, that solidifies his decision to ask him out, as he looks just as excited at the prospect of taking Chris to the playground as Chris does that he gets to play on it.
After a while of quiet, Shannon starts laughing, much to Eddie’s offence. Despite not knowing what she’s laughing at, he can tell she’s laughing at him, and he does not like it very much at all. She finishes laughing, sighing, then saying, “You two know exactly when to look longingly at each other just when the other person won't see it. It’s like watching the audience in a tennis match, your heads are looking in the same direction.”
When he doesn’t say anything except look at her baffled, she states, “I had a very interesting conversation with Evan when we were getting our food. He thought you and I were still married, because we live together. He thought you were unavailable, and was torturing himself pining over you while he thought you were unavailable.”
He can’t help it, the idea of him still being married to Shannon is so laughable he bursts out laughing, to be joined by Shannon a couple of seconds later. After their laughter settled down, he grins at Shannon, and leans in, as if telling her a secret. Then he caught the meaning of her other words, and felt alive, just as he told her.
“I asked Christopher if I could ask Evan out, and he said I could. So, I’m gonna ask him when we get back home.”
Instead of the delighted face he expected, he is met with a raised eyebrow. He finds out why, when she points out, “You know that Chris is going to spill the beans? Probably already has? That kid has no filter, and if you didn’t ask him to specifically keep it a secret, he’s not going to understand that it is.”
He had, somehow, forgotten about that. Whoops. He had no time to dwell on it, however, because speak of the devil and the devil shall appear, Evan and Chris were now in sight, walking back to their table. They looked happy but exhausted, especially Chris. Shannon and him exchanged a glance, and unanimously decided that they should probably go home.
They started packing up, and as Chris and Evan reached them, Chris started begging to go home, so that was a win, because normally it was a struggle to get Chris home from the zoo whenever they went. Turns out, Chris had asked Evan if he could come stay for a movie, and Evan hadn’t learnt how to say no to Chris’s patented puppy eyes.
Evan was quick to say, “if it’s ok with you guys, I mean-”
“Of course it’s ok with us, you can come over whenever, Evan.” Eddie says, meaning it with his entire soul.
Instead of looking away, he keeps looking at Evan, and notices that he does indeed blush and smile, just like Eddie had been doing whenever Evan had done something adorable, usually involving Chris.
They start making their way to the car, Chris being carried by Evan by the time they get there, with Evan only needing a few seconds to figure out how the car seat works. Eddie isn’t jealous because it took him hours to figure it out at all, thank you very much. Shannon drives, which he’s thankful about, because there is no way he could trust himself to drive with how nervous he was getting about his pending question for Evan.
Eddie barely remembers the car ride back to his house, because they no longer were dropping Evan off, but what he does remember is Chris and Evan talking quietly to each other. They were so much in their own world, that they don’t even notice that they’re home. Evan only noticed when the car door shut, which snapped him out of his reverie and he then told Chris, “Oh, look at that! We’re at your house.”
Chris gets inside, Evan not too far behind him, and immediately takes Evan for a tour. Chris isn’t known for being anything other than thorough, so an hour later they are still in Chris’s room, although Eddie suspects that Chris has just gotten distracted playing with his new toys.
Shannon was busy preparing dinner, so that left him free to watch them play together from the doorway, neither of them noticing him there. It turns out he was right, Chris had gotten distracted, but Evan didn’t seem to mind, so Eddie let it be. After a while, he left and got the dinner table ready, setting four places instead of the normal three, which Eddie couldn’t help but feel it felt more right, after standing back and admiring his handiwork.
Dinner was a boisterous affair, with Chris giving a play-by-play of their zoo visit, then what Evan and him played with in his room, his smile only really leaving his face when he was concentrating on cutting his food.
After dinner was movie time, in which Chris picked out an animated movie, How To Train Your Dragon. Chris insisted that Evan, him, and Eddie should all sit on the couch together, Evan in the middle and Chris on one side, Eddie on the other. Shannon looked at him amused, and took her spot in the armchair. The movie started, and Chris bounced on the couch, excited to see the movie, even though he’s seen it a hundred times before.
During the movie, he could tell Evan was really invested, his eyes never leaving the screen. Eddie should know, he looked at Evan pretty much the whole movie. Which is how he caught Evan flinching at a fight between the main character and his father, and deciding to be bold, leant some of his weight against the man. To which Evan responded what seemed like almost unconsciously by leaning against Eddie.
They spent the rest of the movie like that, Eddie catching Shannon’s reaction when a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh sounded out from over where the armchair is. By the time the movie had finished, Evan was crying silently, Chris was asleep, and Eddie was beyond ready to ask Evan out. Shannon scooped up Chris, going to get him ready for bed, which left him, finally, alone with Evan.
“Hey.” He nudged Evan, and he turned and blinked at him. His eyes were so blue, like the sky on a clear- Focus, Eddie.
“I was wondering, if you're free sometime soon?”
“Uh, I’ll have to check my roster for the bar, but I should be. Why?”
Ok, Eddie, here it comes, “I uh, wanted to know… Ifyouwantedtogoonadatewithme?”
Evan’s brows draw together, and Eddie’s heart is beating out of his chest. “Um,” he starts, and then says, “I didn’t catch that last part, but Eddie, you can ask me anything, and if I can give it to you, I would. I couldn’t deny you, or Chris, anything.”
Dios, is it any wonder he wants to date the man? He takes a deep breath, and tries again.
“Would you like to go out on a date? With me, I mean.”
Evan’s face instantly transforms into the brightest and happiest smile Eddie had ever seen, and he says, still grinning, “Eddie, I have been waiting for you to ask since Shannon told me you were divorced.”
Eddie huffs, the nervous energy suddenly disappearing, and said, “which was today. You still haven’t given me an answer.” He says, grinning.
“Well just for that, you may have to wait for your answer.”
“Really, it’s like that? Is it presumptuous to take your impatience as an answer?”
Evan’s grin is impish as he replies, “Yes.”
Eddie sighs dramatically, then says, “Then I shall wait a thousand years if I have to, in order to hear a yes.”
Evan rolls his eyes playfully, then, looking directly into Eddie’s eyes, he says, “Yes, Eddie. It wouldn’t have been anything else but a yes.”
The world seems to blur together after Evan Buckley said yes to him. January turned into February, which then turned into March. All too soon, he and Evan had been dating for three months, and life had never been so good. He barely remembers feeling like the other shoe was going to drop, because feeling like that would be a disservice to the bliss he was experiencing. He should’ve known that that was his honeymoon period with Evan.
The day started out relatively normal. Chimney had gone on a date with Maddie last night, he was talking about it as he left the locker room to go to it. Evan had gone to his shift an hour ago, and then Chimney was calling him. Which isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but the way he opened up the conversation when Eddie answered was.
“How come 9-1-1 doesn’t answer when I call?”
“Uh, why are you calling 9-1-1? Is something wrong, Chim?” He asks, starting to plan what he would do if Chim needed him. It turns out to be unnecessary, however, because Chimney quickly answers in the negative. But, then he says something even more baffling.
“Maddie said she loved me.”
Eddie feels very ill-equipped to deal with this, but he tries, because what is family for?
“Wasn’t that the point of last night? To tell her how you feel, and for her to do the same?”
Chimney goes on to explain that Maddie had told him that she actually couldn’t say those exact words, because of Doug, so her saying them in a ‘robot voice’ is concerning. Eddie’s gotta admit, Chimney’s convinced him, so he hangs up and calls Shannon to come watch Christopher, stating that something weird was going on with dispatch. Shannon, having become friends with Maddie over the three months where he was dating her brother, agreed immediately.
He gets in the truck as soon as Shannon gets there, having said goodbye to Chris and promising that they would have father/son time tomorrow. He then starts toward dispatch, mind running with possibilities. He gets another call from Chim halfway there, him saying that Evan had texted him, asking what was going on. Eddie probably has a few texts from Evan also, but he’s driving, so he’s unable to check.
Chimney says, “Athena has been pulled into the loop, and she says that we shouldn’t tell anyone else about this. We’ve deactivated the GPS system, it seems like they’re tracking it.”
Athena! How had Eddie not considered letting her know about this? He’s glad Chimney had, and tells him exactly that.
“Uh, I didn’t call Athena, she got called to- Y’know what, it doesn’t matter, she’s here now.”
Eddie finally arrives outside dispatch, and to his surprise, he finds a massive S.W.A.T. operation, with Athena, Chimney, Evan, and surprisingly Danny, in the centre of it all.
He goes up to his boyfriend, linking his hand with his and squeezing. Evan doesn’t even look at Eddie, just squeezes Eddie’s hand in return, which brings a brief smile to his face. Eddie doesn’t even know what’s going on, because he’s been more focused on Evan and Danny, who have been exchanging increasingly worrying glances. Finally, Danny nods his head to behind a firetruck, where Evan follows, telling Eddie he’ll be right back.
Curiosity gets the better of Eddie, however, and he follows them. As soon as they are out of earshot of where they were, they start arguing.
“Evan, I know exactly what you’re thinking of doing, because I want to do it too, but it’s just not plausible. Scratch that, it’s not only not plausible, it’s downright dangerous, because even though Maddie would know to warn others to close their eyes, who knows how many people would listen, or if the bad guys would also listen, making it redundant.”
Evan goes to interrupt, but Danny silences him with a finger held up between them. Eddie doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, but before he could really think of what the hell it could possibly be about, Danny was continuing.
“Plus, I know you haven’t told Eddie about it yet.” Well that certainly would have piqued his interest, if it could be piqued anymore than it already was.
Danny continues, “Do you really want him to find out like this? In a high stress situation, where different variables will probably cause him to react badly?”
“No, I don’t want any of that. I want to tell him, hell I’ve almost told him so many times, and what it means for him and Chris. I just- I spent so much time thinking I could never have him and now I am terrified that I’m gonna lose him after being allowed to have him.”
“But I also can’t stand the idea of Maddie in danger. I spent almost three dec-” Evan had turned to pace, like he does when he’s really agitated and deliberating, but in doing so, had turned to face Eddie. Eddie, who was very much in earshot, and probably is showing all over his face that he just heard whatever this conversation was.
“Eddie, I-”
Evan was interrupted by S.W.A.T. bringing the dispatchers out, and Eddie hadn’t even realised that they had gone in. One by one, the dispatchers came out, hands held up high to signify they weren’t a threat. Eddie spots Maddie amongst them, and she looks unharmed. Physically, that is. He has no idea what had happened in there, but just the fact that she was held hostage would have had some effect mentally.
He sees in his peripheral vision that Danny and Evan have also seen Maddie, but they make no move to go to her. Eddie finds out a second later why, when Maddie embraces Chimney in a hug that is worthy of a romance movie. As he makes his way to his truck, he hears Danny say to Evan, “Maddie told Chimney last night after their big date, and it went well. Go home and tell-”
The rest is lost to distance as he gets further and further away. He reaches his truck, and hesitates, debating the morality of leaving before talking to Evan. Before he could reach a decision, Evan’s voice reached his ears.
“Eddie! Wait, don’t go yet.” Eddie turns to find Evan jogging to catch up to him, and it seems the decision is made for him, because he isn’t leaving now that Evan has seen him. It doesn’t take long for Evan to be right in front of him, and his body is begging to find comfort in his boyfriend, but his heart isn’t sure that he could handle being rejected by Evan, so he doesn’t, instead staying standing by his truck.
Evan finally speaks, nerves evident in his voice and body, “can we talk when we both are home? From what you heard from that conversation, you know I have something to tell you, but I don’t want to do it out here. You deserve somewhere private for this conversation.”
Eddie loves that even though Evan is nervous and clearly has something big to share, he’s still thinking about what Eddie needs and deserves. It’s that detail that convinces him to hear Evan out, and he agrees, which makes Evan smile.
Eddie probably shouldn’t be driving, but he drove his truck here and doesn’t want to leave it, so he forces himself to concentrate on the road, calling Shannon on the way there, asking her to take Chris out to the park or something. When she asks why, he tells her Evan and him need to have a hard conversation, which he doesn’t want Chris to overhear, which she takes in the complete wrong way, but hangs up before Eddie could correct her.
He pulls into the driveway, noting the lack of Jeep, meaning he was home before Evan. He unlocks the door and puts his things away, glad to notice that Shannon and Chris were out of the house. He sits down on the couch to wait for Evan, and he doesn’t have to wait long before he hears the front door open, Eddie’s nerves doubling now that this conversation is imminent.
“Hey.” Evan says, and his voice gives away that he’s just as nervous as Eddie is.
“Uh, where are Chris and Shannon?” Evan asks, looking around, as if expecting them to pop up and yell ‘surprise!’
“I called Shannon on my way home. She’s taken Chris to the park. I heard you mention that it affects Chris too, and I don’t want him to overhear any of what we talk about like I did, because as bad as I took it, he’s gonna take it much worse if it’s not explained to him.”
Evan nods, agreeing, and Eddie loves that he can count on him to have Chris’s best interests at heart.
“Uh, well, I guess I should start explaining, but first we need to go somewhere dark.”
Somewhere dark? Instead of questioning it, Eddie just leads the way to their bedroom, which has blackout curtains.
After closing the curtains, he turns to Evan, who takes a deep breath.
“So, I’m a star.” He says, with the tone of someone who has just ripped off a band-aid and is expecting pain to soon follow.
“A star? Like a movie star? Evan, I don’t care if you're famous, is that really what this is about? Because-”
“No, not that kind of star, although I could see myself playing a swash-buckling pirate or something. I mean a literal star. Look.” He closes his eyes, and his face becomes peaceful, like how he looks when he’s having a good sleep. Then, something Eddie completely didn’t expect, is he starts to glow. Eddie understands why Evan wanted to go into a dark room now, because even though it’s almost pitch black, Evan is still only emitting a weak glow.
Evan goes on to explain, “Maddie, Danny, and I are stars. Danny was the first one to leave the clouds where we grew up, and Maddie had already moved to a different section of cloud, so I was all alone. When they told me Danny had gone down, and they had lost track of him, I didn’t know what to think. I found out later that they just couldn’t be bothered to keep watch over him, but I didn’t know that then. Then, Maddie left the clouds, and they could tell I wanted to follow both of them. They told me Maddie had been killed by a greedy human that still remembered the old ways, and I was too devastated to muster up the energy to rage against the world.”
Eddie could tell this was hard for Evan to talk about, so he threaded his fingers through Evan’s and squeezed, Evan smiling at him gratefully. After a little while, Evan continued.
“Then, one day I did get the energy to rage. Except it wasn’t at the world, it was at the elder stars for allowing my brother to be lost. Turns out, my parents had lied, and didn’t report that Daniel had gone down, which is a huge offence. They got in trouble, and then they took it out on me. By pushing me off and sending my hurtling toward earth with no money, nothing a star normally has when deciding to leave the clouds for good.”
Eddie remembers seeing roof debris, clearing it out of the way for his first glimpse at blue eyes. He then registers something Evan had said, and asks, “the ‘old ways’? What do you mean by that?”
“Back when stars were a lot clearer to see, a lot more stars decided to leave the clouds, because humans were considered in good faith because they used us to navigate, stuff like that. But then, someone discovered that if you trick a star into feeling content, and then cut out their heart and eat it, you steal some of the star's lifespan.”
Evan sounds rightly horrified. Eddie doesn’t know what part to focus on, so he focuses on how it sounds like Evan has a different lifespan to humans.
“How… How long is your lifespan?”
“Uh, naturally? We can live for thousands of years. However, we can still die from wounds, sickness, stuff like that.”
“So, you’re going to outlive me and Chris? If you don’t die from wounds.”
Eddie doesn’t know what he expected Evan’s answer to be, but it certainly isn’t what he says next.
“Not… Not exactly. See, at the end of the old ages, a star named Yvaine got knocked out of the sky. She then fell in love with a human, Tristan. It was discovered that if a star gives you their heart, out of love, the life span rule also applies.”
“So what you’re saying is if you fall in love with a star, you live as long as they do?”
“Other way around. If a star falls in love with you, you live as long as them. Which means it also applies to Chris, because I love you both equally.”
“Oh, ok.” Eddie manages to squeak out, which he thinks is the best possible reaction he could’ve given, considering he was just told he, along with his son, are now practically immortal. He can see that him freaking out is affecting Evan, however, so he takes a deep breath, and smiles at him.
“Thank you for trusting me with this. I can’t even imagine how scared you must have been.”
Eddie squeezes Evan’s hand for extra measure, and Eddie gets an ingenious idea then. It must have shown on his face, because Evan starts grinning also.
“What?” Evan asks, and Eddie moves to the door, closing it, and says, his voice dropping a whole octave, “Shannon thinks the reason why we wanted Chris out of the house is because we wanted some alone time.”
Evan immediately catches on to what he means, if his smile is anything to go by.
“Well, then who are we to disappoint the ex-wife?” Evan replies, and Eddie grins
“I am so glad we are on the same page.”
That makes Evan pause. He says, his voice emotional, “Me too, Eddie, me too.”
A year later
Eddie sits on the couch in the firehouse loft, idly playing some match game on his phone to kill time before 9am. He had tried doing all his chores, but that only took him to 8:30, and because he knew not to even ask if Bobby wanted his help in the kitchen, here he was. He had just completed another level of the game, when he heard the voice he had been waiting for.
“Hey guys, I’m here!” Evan’s voice rang out from the apparatus bay. Eddie quickly turned his phone off and went down the stairs, grinning at how his boyfriend looked in his brand new LAFD uniform. Chimney and Hen were busy stocking the ambulance, so he led Evan back up to the loft, where Bobby was just finishing up breakfast.
Upon entering the loft, Bobby grinned at Evan, saying in his patented Captain voice, “Probationary Firefighter Evan Buckley. Welcome to the 118.”
“Thank you Captain Nash. And call me Buck from now on.”
Eddie grinned. The firefam was finally complete, and so was his family. Or at least, it will be, when he finally figures out how to give Evan the box hidden in his sock drawer, that contained a ring he had spent hours shopping for. Engraved on the inside were the words ‘for as long as we both shall live,’ which Eddie thought apt considering their situation.