Chapter Text
When Eddie blinks himself awake, Hen isn’t even in the car with him. There’s sun spilling in through the windshield, brighter than it’d been when he first got in, and a blanket tucked around his lap, and Chim hissing out a curse as he attempts, rather poorly, to silence his phone and whatever screeching video is playing out on it.
“Shit, shit, shit–” Chim says, as Eddie groans and pulls himself up and away from the cramped position he woke up in. He feels somewhat better rested, which makes no sense considering he should have slept for forty-five minutes at the most, if traffic was particularly bad. Maybe, Hen drove around for a little while longer, tried to get him a full hour, and was inside with Chris while Chim ran out to wake him up. That made… some amount of sense, he thinks, as he rubs the last bit of sleep out of his eyes, trying his best to peek out at the car’s dash and read the time. It puts him a bit behind on letting Carla out on time, but as long as he’s not too late in letting her go home it shouldn’t be too–.
The time clock on Hen’s dash blinks a steady 2:44.
Eddie stares, near open-mouthed, as Chim finally gets his phone to stop playing the most distorted version of Never Gonna Give You Up Eddie has ever heard.
“Thank god,” Chim sighs, as if Eddie isn’t working through the most debilitating set of emotions he’s felt since his wife asked for a divorce and died on the same day. “My bad man, Maddie sent that to me, and I thought I had my volume all the way down. I guess I only muted it on YouTube, but you’d think it would have turned TikTok down too, but nooo. It’s just as loud as– hey, are you okay?”
Chim looks genuinely concerned, leaning over the gear shift to get a better look at him, but Eddie doesn’t have the capacity to address it. The only thing on his mind is the time, and the fact that Chim and Hen are presumably still here. Did they send Carla home? Did they drive all this time or did they just get back?
And what about Chris?
“Oh my god, Chris,” Eddie yelps, whirling around to try for his seatbelt. Chim doesn’t let him go far, snatching his arm with whip-like precision.
“Whoa, easy,” Chim says. “He’s fine. He’s inside with Hen and Bobby.”
Eddie stops, blinks, tries to parse through that despite a brain that seems to be filled with jelly. It sticks on the ‘fine’, finally works past it, and then catches even more fully on the other part of the sentence.
“Wait– Bobby? When did Bobby get here?” He drags his hand across his face, tries and fails to wake himself up, to get out the questions that need to be asked before he has some sort of a conniption. “Chim, it's nearly three . Why are you still here? Why is everyone still here?”
“We’re still here because Carla needed to go home, and you needed to sleep. Hen said you didn’t wake up once on your way over. I’ve never seen you sleep in a car before.”
“I don’t usually sleep in a car, but that doesn’t– You should have woken me up.”
For the time since this conversation started, Chim looks chagrined.
“Yeah, we debated on getting you inside, but Hen didn’t think we could get you inside without waking you up fully. Your back probably isn’t going to like us, but there really wasn’t a better opt–”
“I don’t care about my back,” Eddie snaps. “Look– Thank you for driving me home and getting the truck back, but it's been over five hours since our shift ended. You all should be home, asleep, and I should be taking care of my son. He hasn’t seen me in over a day.”
“And he’s perfectly fine.”
“You don’t get to tell me what my son is–” Eddie starts, spine straightening in an instant, before his voice breaks off. Across from him, Chim has his brows crinkled up and his hands up in front of him, out and easy, but it's not defensive. It’s reaching, worried, and Eddie feels all the fight drain out of him in a single breath. “God, Chim. I’m sorry. I wasn’t–”
“No problem. It’s been a rough week, huh?”
It’s an olive branch, one Eddie grabs with desperation. He props his elbows onto the console and drops his head against his clasped hands with a frantic nod.
“Yeah. Yeah, its been–” He sniffs out this ugly sound that feels like it was wrenched from somewhere deep in his chest. Chim’s hand clamps down on his shoulder a second after, warm and steady pressure that helps pull him from his spiral. “It’s been pretty bad.”
“You can say that again,” Chim quips, voice softer than usual. His hand doesn’t let up from its steady presence against his shoulder. “We haven’t had a shit-shift blackout in years. Not since Buck was a brand new probie. Although Buck and Maddie’s uncanny-valley doppelgangers is a new square I’ll have to add in. Can’t say I’ve ever run into that one before. We’ve got to keep adding those oddballs onto the boards or else it won’t be shit-shift bingo anymore, just worse-than-our-usual-shift bingo, to go with our injuries-none-of-us-should-have bingo, and that’s nowhere near as catchy.”
Chim’s humor is always infectious, and while it doesn’t make Eddie actually smile, it does pull his face out of his hands. Chim lets his hand fall away after a swift squeeze, as he checks his phone for much longer than he needs to in an attempt to give Eddie just a bit of privacy. Eddie smears his hands against somehow dry cheeks and does his best to reign himself in.
“Sorry for that, Chim,” he says, once he looks less like he’s about to fall apart in the passenger seat of Hen’s 2016 Subaru.
Chim waves him off as he puts away his phone.
“Like I said, no problem, man. We’re overstepping a bit, anyway.”
Eddie shakes his head.
“No. No, you’ve been great. Thank you, really. I– did you plan this at the station?”
Chim face drops, and then he groans. Eddie would be a bit more concerned if not for the obvious way it's more playful than anything else.
“Damn it, Diaz, you couldn’t have been a bit less aware? I bet Hen twenty that you’d be too exhausted to piece it together, and think we called Bobby afterwards.”
Eddie stares at him, feels the world rewrite itself just the same as it did ten minutes ago. Slowly he parrots back the information he just learned.
“Hen bet that I’d piece together the fact that you, her, and Bobby planned to drive me to sleep like a toddler, so that you could watch me sleep while Hen and Bobby went in and took care of my son?”
“Yeah, and somehow she still won,” Chim says with a frustrated huff. “And we didn’t plan to drive you to sleep. Honestly, Hen was going to suggest you sit down on the couch while we put up the groceries and hope that you crashed there. It was inevitable, man. You were running on absolutely no sleep. The car part was just what ended up happening.”
Eddie lets out a laugh that builds the longer he thinks about this. His friends are ridiculous.
He loves them so much.
“Okay, okay this all makes sense except for one thing.” He says, barreling through the laughter that re-emerges at Chim’s confused expression. “When did the rest of you sleep? We all just got off a twenty-four, it's not like you all are much better rested than I am.”
“See, that’s where Athena came in.”
“You got Athena in on this?” Eddie says, incredulously, infectious smile still in place. He’s still absolutely exhausted, with that ever-persistent headache still pulsing behind his eyes, but there’s something absurd and hilarious about this situation. It’s just all so– funny isn’t the word. There’s nothing funny about what's going on. He’d rather his son not be whatever form of traumatized this is, and he’d rather get his sleep in his bed instead of cramped into the corner of his co-worker’s car, but the pure-hearted ridiculousness of everything is infectious.
He feels the most well-rested he has in days after what he can only qualify as one of the worst shifts of his life, behind only Buck being blown up and an actual fucking tsunami, and his coworker just explained that they convinced the police sargent that is also his boss’s wife to watch his kid for the morning so he could nap in his own driveway.
His life is some sort of fucked up sitcom, but god, did he get some good friends out of it. He powers through the hysterical laughter still bubbling in his chest.
“What, did she watch Chris for a few hours while you all napped on my couch?”
Chim shrugs.
“Hen ended up taking your bed, while Bobby and I split the couch, but yeah. Pretty much. Just know we love you, man, because that couch is so uncomfortable its ridiculous. I have no clue how Buck tolerates that thing.”
“Practice,” Eddie says and finds that his smile somehow stays in place. It feels a bit contrived to thank Chimney again, after everything that's already been said, but the words are bubbling up in him. How can he not be thankful? They don’t have an easy job in general, and the last shift was clearly something dreamed up specifically to torture them, and yet here his whole crew was, making sure that he and his son were taken care of. It’s not something anyone has ever done for him, not his parents, not his friends from home, not his wife, and it was done so easily. Eddie almost feels like he’s been tricked, in the best way possible.
He opens his mouth to say all that, or whatever semblance of that he can eloquently put out into the world, when Chim shoves his finger in Eddie’s face.
“If the next words out of your mouth are thank you, I’ll convince Cap to put you on bathroom duty for the next month.”
Eddie shuts his mouth. Pauses for a second. Opens it again.
“There’s no way Bobby—“
“There’s exactly a way Bobby would do it. You’re family, we’re” Chim swings a circle with his hands, including himself, Eddie, and everyone else inside the house before continuing. “Family. You don’t thank family, not for stuff like this. You take it on the chin, because I’m pretty sure Hen and Athena got bored and toured every cabinet in your house while Bobby was teaching Chris how to make mashed potatoes, and take everything we’re offering so that I can stop being reminded of Sarah McGlocklin commercials every time you clock in.” He throws his finger back in Eddie’s face. “Enough thanking us. Got it?”
Eddie puts up his hands, defeated in a way that feels more like a victory than anything else.
“Alright,” he says. “I won’t say it again.”
“Good. Now if you’re not going to go back to sleep, we’d better head in. Bobby and Chris made lunch, but insisted, we wait for you before we dig in. It’s been at least an hour, and everything is just sitting there warming in the oven, and if we wait too much longer I’m going to chew my way out this damn car.”
Eddie laughs, as he pulls open his car door.
“I hear you. I hear you.” He rounds the car to meet Chim at the driver's side, and doesn’t hesitate to step into the side hug, Chim quickly pulls him into. It’s barely a second but it helps with something Eddie didn’t even know he needed help with. Chim smiles as he releases him, before taking him by the shoulders and steering him towards the house.
“Get a move on, Diaz,” he cheers, as he leads him towards the door. “I’m ready for food, and you haven’t eaten in hours.”
“Again, Chim, whose fault is that,” Eddie says. He turns to tease Chim some more, or at least catch the offense splattered across his face, when the door opens.
“Eddie, wha– Chim, you were supposed to let him sleep more,” Hen hisses, opening the door more fully. She’s got two cups of coffee in her hands, obviously on her way out to either relieve or join Chim in whatever rotating sentry duty they planned while Eddie was in the car.
“Good to see you too, Hen,” Eddie says, reaching out to take one of the coffees. He steps inside so Chim, already huffing, can peak his head out from behind him.
“I thought my volume was down!” Chim defends. “It’s not my fault Mr. Trained-in-a-Warzone could hear a mouse fart in the next county over.”
“Chim, you were blasting Rick Astley so loudly the windows shook,” Eddie says, and snorts when Hen uses her now free hand to smack Chim on the arm.
“Chimney,” she snaps, but before Eddie can step in and defend him, because he really is a light sleeper especially when he was nearing six hours, his attention is completely stolen away.
“Daddy!” Chris cries. Eddie has never moved quicker. He clears the room in four strides, depositing his coffee on the table, to run and scoop his son up in his arms, crutches and all. Chris doesn’t screech and laugh like he usually does when Eddie pulls him up in the air, arms out like he’s superman, but he does immediately return the hug, melting into Eddie’s embrace.
“Hi, Chris,” Eddie says, because all other words have been punched out of his chest.
“Hi, Daddy,” Chris says, cheek and cheek with Eddie. His little arms squeeze around Eddie’s neck. “Did you get some sleep?”
“Yeah, mijo. I did.” Eddie squeezes back, one arm pressed to the flat of Chris’s back, tracking the easy rise and fall of his breaths. He feels the same as he usually does, if a bit less squirmy, which eases some knot pressed behind Eddie’s sternum. Most of his friends have kids, they know how to take care of one, but he’s never left Chris without someone without expecting it first. There was some fear in the back of his mind, that he’d walk in and Chris would be hurt or sick or with some other ailment that would destroy every sense of peace he’d found.
But the Chris in his arms is just the same Chris that always jumps into them, a little more worn, but still happy, still loved. By more people than just himself.
“What about you, Chris?” He whispers, pressing a kiss into what must be freshly washed curls. They’re still damp at the edges, curling upwards, with that soft apple scent of his shampoo. “Did you get some sleep?”
Chris nods, hair tickling the underside of Eddie’s jaw.
“I slept after the movies ended. Miss Athena showed me an easy way to get to sleep super quick. You have to count something easy while you take loooong , deep breaths. Like this!” He draws in a deep belly breath then lets it out slowly, eyes closed. “She says she imagines sheep, which is silly. Who imagines sheep? I imagined otters because that’s what we see the most at the zoo, and then firetrucks because it made me think of you!” His voice gets a bit meek. “I still had another nightmare, but Bobby and Chimney read me a story after. I got them to do voices for all of the characters.”
“Oh, did you?”
Eddie pulls back slightly so he can get a better look at Chris. There’s the start of bags under his eyes, blossoming purple and black, but the soft smile under them seems real. So does the temporary tattoo of a tiger on his cheek and the smear of what seems to be icing on his eyebrow and the sprinkles at the corner of his mouth. He reaches his hand up to brush the last two away, before letting his hand land there, palm on the tiger, thumb just below his son’s eye.
He feels the giggle blossom there before he hears it.
“For like three different books, Dad.” He leans up to stage-whisper in Eddie’s ear. “They didn’t know they could stop.”
“He got Bobby to do the Queen,” Athena’s voice chimes in. Eddie glances up to find her leaning up against the kitchen counter, phone held up with as much open glee as he’s ever seen from her. “I’ve got videos. I’ll send them to you later.”
Eddie’s chest feels warm. He and Athena aren’t particularly close, not like he is with the rest of the team. They simply haven’t spent enough time together, and yet she took time out of one of her rare days off to look after his son, to make sure her husband’s coworkers –family, he corrects, remembering the conversation with Chim– are safe and supported. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to thank her. He doesn’t know if he can.
He mouths it at her anyways, this ‘thank you’ he feels in the depths of his soul. She nods at him in response, with this look in her eyes like she’s a lot more familiar with this sort of situation than she should be. He’d heard Buck mention in passing that one of her kids was hospitalized before he joined the 118, but the way he’d spoken about it, he has a feeling it wasn’t something as simple as an overnight stay.
Maybe he and Athena should get to know each other better. They may have a lot more in common than he originally thought.
“I can’t wait,” he says and means it. He doesn’t remember if he has Athena’s number saved or not, but after this, he thinks he’ll convince Chim or Hen to give it to him. Honestly, after this, he thinks he may find it there, without having to ask at all.
In his arms, Chris finally starts to squirm, a restless this and that, which means Eddie has about three seconds to put him down before he attempts, rather poorly, to do so himself. Eddie really doesn’t want to try and catch a falling eight-year-old today, but he also really doesn’t want to let go. As grateful as he is that his team pulled this, and he is grateful, he’s missed his son, and apparently his son missed him, because instead of the usual dramatics, Chris just settles back in against Eddie’s chest.
When he glances up at him, his smile is a bit more shy.
“Hey Dad?” He says, pulling at Eddie’s shirt.
“Yes, mijo?”
“I had a lot of fun. Do you think everyone would do this again?”
Eddie reaches over to brush Chris’s bangs back and cup his face the same as he had earlier.
“I think we can arrange that. Do you want it to be just like this?”
“No,” Chris says giggling. “You should join us next time, and so should Denny and Ms. Karen.”
Eddie feels himself soften.
“Okay Chris.”
He goes to let his son down, but before he can, he pulls himself up, putting his mouth right by Eddie’s ear. This time, his whisper is truly that, soft and quiet.
“But we have to invite Buck okay? It’s important.”
Straight to the heart, this kid. Eddie steels himself, kneeling down to Chris’s level. Behind him, he can hear Bobby join whatever squabble Hen and Chim are still having, and the soft footfalls of Athena making her way over to them, giving them privacy even if none of them are willing to leave right now.
It makes Eddie feel both protected and on trial at the same time. He pushes the feeling down. His friends have done so much for him today. There’s no need for him to get weird about it now.
“I’ll try, okay bud? But right now, there’s a lot going on. I don’t know how soon we can make that happen.”
“But it’d make him happy!” Chris cries.
“I know. It probably would.” He sinks his fingers into his son’s curls. “But it's not possible right now. As soon as it is, we’ll do that, okay?”
Chris pouts for just a second, face turned away from Eddie before he nods.
“Okay, Daddy.” He sniffs once, but before Eddie can worry about tears, he scrubs his face with his arm and continues on, as if that one sound didn’t just leave Eddie’s heart ground up in the dirt. “Did Miss Hen show you her tattoos?”
Eddie sucks in a breath that feels half sob, before he reigns himself in. This kid. Eight years with him and he still managed to suckerpunch Eddie at every available opportunity. He plasters a smile back on his face if only to keep from showing his kid just how much that switch up hit him. He leverages himself back up to his feet.
“What, she got some too?”
Chris nods.
“Just like your tiger?”
“No, not just like my tiger Daddy, “ Chris says with a roll of his eyes. “We had way more animals than just tigers.”
“What, lions and tigers?”
“And bears!” Chris cheers, catching onto the reference with ease.
Eddie laughs. His clever, clever kid. He has Eddie’s whole heart wrapped around one little finger.
“Well then, I have to see them,” He whips around to where Hen and the others are still bickering at the front door. “Hey, Hen! You’ve got to show me your tattoos! Chris said you have a whole zoo on your arms.”
“Not a whole zoo, Dad,” Chris laughs, just as Chim responds:
“What Chris you didn’t tell him about my tattoos? You said they were so cool!”
“Obviously not as cool as mine,” Hen says, walking up to fist bump Chris. She rolls up her sleeves to show Eddie the slightly crooked dragon perched on her bicep. “Chris did it himself. The inkwork is immaculate.”
“Not as immaculate as his cooking,” Bobby adds in, clapping a hand against Eddie’s shoulder before winking down at Chris. “I think these are the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever made.”
“It's because they’re made with love,” Chris chimes in, before attempting, horribly, to wink back at Bobby. “And a lot of heavy cream. Bobby says that’s important, Dad. It makes everything fluffy. Our mashed potatoes are never fluffy.”
Eddie doesn’t even fault him for the dig at his cooking skills. He’s had Bobby’s mashed potatoes. They are exceptionally fluffy. Athena takes over for him though, reaching out to ruffle Chris’s hair.
“No digs at your Dad’s cooking when you’re both sleep deprived. Wait until we’ve had something to eat at least.”
Chris leans into her hand with a smile before nodding.
“Yes, Miss Athena. I can help set the table.”
Eddie, who had been previously batting off Chim’s attempts to show off his own temporary tattoos, feels his attention shift in an instant. His mouth drops open in shock.
“Christopher,” he says, astonished. “You’ve never offered to do that once. Athena, what did you do with my kid?”
“Daaad,” Chris whines, as he walks away to grab the plates. “It's just setting the table.”
“I’m aware, mijo. I’ve just never seen you jump to do it before. Usually, I have to hold your video games hostage.”
Chris’s face flames behind the couple plates he’s carefully walking over to the table. Athena hides a laugh in her hand. Bobby hides his in a huff. The rest of his friends are nowhere near that subtle and burst into laughter.
“You do not!” Chris cries. “Dad, you’re not supposed to tell them that.”
Eddie holds up his hands in surrender.
“Alright, alright, my bad. Here, I’ll help you.”
He turns around to reach for the cups, but not before he mouths a ‘ but really how ’ at Athena. There’s no answer to be found, not that Eddie expected one, just an ease that continues through the rest of the evening.
Lunch, or rather, dinner at this point, is a fun affair, with Chris continuing to regale him with the events he missed while he was asleep, interspersed with the rest of his team’s frequent interjections. They play three absolutely devastating rounds of cribbage that his eight-year old -and Bobby surprisingly– decimate, argue about how Eddie must have caused the whole Buckley-lookalike debacle because he said slow two shifts ago –” in relation to the coffee maker!” “as if that matters, Diaz”-- and watch Chim and Chris practically fight to the death over a game of Mario Kart that his son wins anyway – ”there’s no way, he had to be cheating” “he’s eight, Chim”. After, there’s at least half an hour where Athena and Hen rag on him for the contents of his medicine cabinet, which leads into Bobby doing the same for the state of his spice drawers –”I’m just confused on how you have cumin but you don’t have a single jar of curry powder” “When would I use curry powder” “Its a very versatile spice”-- which somehow leads to Chim, Hen, and Eddie screaming at each other as they attempt the world’s worst round of Overcooked while Bobby and Athena teach Chris how to play poker in the background.
By the time everyone starts to leave, it's nearing eight, and Chris is practically listing into his ice cream bowl. He’s not quite asleep yet, but his blinking is getting steadily heavier. He doesn’t even attempt to wave as anyone else leaves, just takes the hair scrubs and high fives as everyone passes by him.
Eddie’s experience is much more tailored.
Hen leaves first, phone pressed to her ear as she chats away with her wife.
“Denny has a project he conveniently forgot to tell us about,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I expect we’ll work through bedtime to get it done.”
She waves off Eddie’s attempts to apologize for keeping her out, with a pointed look that prompts him to just go ahead and shut his mouth, and then follows it up with a hug that steals the breath out of his lungs.
“We’ve got you, Diaz,” she says, warm hands pressed flat against his back. “You tell us how that appointment goes tomorrow, and if you need anything–” she pulls him away just enough to look him in the eyes. “-- anything you let us know. You and that sweet son of yours are ours now, for better or for worse. You better start acting like it.”
Eddie shuts his eyes to sag into the embrace and let Hen hold him up like he’s seen her do to so many others.
“I’ll try.”
Hen brings up her fist against his cheek, the same and yet so different from the way Lena had that very morning.
“You better.”
It feels like a promise, one he intends to keep. There’s something about these people, this family, that makes him act differently than he’s ever in the past. There’s no running here, just acceptance and love like he’s never had.
Chim leaves thirty minutes later, yawning as he evicts himself from Eddie’s couch. He scrubs a hand through his hair, does the same to Chris’s, and drags Eddie into his side in the span of three steps. It's quick, even more so than the hug he drew Eddie into a few hours ago, but the ease from which he does so is more important than the duration.
“Don’t do anything crazy, you hear?” Chim says, pointing at Chris. He sends Eddie a wink. “And if you do, make sure to call me. I want to hear all about it.”
“He’s doing nothing except sleeping,” Eddie says, with a roll of his eyes. A smile he can’t hide plays at the corner of his lips, especially when Chim claps a hand on his shoulder before he leaves, squeezing just once before walking off. It's the same shoulder he had caught earlier, when Eddie was seconds away from losing it in Hen’s car, and it's just as effective at dropping his guard, at easing every ounce of worry in his chest.
Chim hasn’t mentioned being an older brother, but there’s something in the way he acts that reminds Eddie of how he is with his sisters, protective and teasing all at once. It's odd to be on the other side of it, especially as an adult, but nice.
Bobby and Athena leave at the same time, just a little after Chim. Athena first, stepping away with a kiss on the top of Chris’s head and Eddie’s cheek, no words but a soft smile as she hands Eddie off to her husband, who immediately drags him into a hug.
“I am so proud of you,” Bobby says, and all semblance of stoicism Eddie has breaks in an instant. He doesn’t quite cry, at this point, he’s afraid he can’t, but the noise that’s ripped out of him is as close to a sob as he’s come all day. His forehead digs into Bobby’s shoulder, and there’s a warm hand on his neck, steadying him, and he feels almost like he’s crumbling apart and being put back together all at the same time. “Thank you for letting us help.”
Eddie’s breaths hitch. He curls further in on himself, face buried in the folds of Bobby’s coat.
“Chim said I couldn’t say that to you.”
Bobby chuckles, this deep sound that thunders through his chest.
“Or I’d put you on bathroom duty? I gave him that speech years ago. It's a miracle he still remembers it.”
“He uh–” He pulls himself away slightly, to drag his wrist over his eyes. He comes away dry, but if this keeps going, he doesn’t know how much longer that will be true. “He gave a pretty good rendition.”
“Well, it's true. You and Chris are family now, and we’ll do this as often as you need.”
And, Eddie has a feeling, there’ll be no consequences for it. No threats they’ll get Chris taken away. No digs at his competence as a father. Just unwavering support given whenever he needs it. It's a gift, one he thinks would have been unexpected had he not seen the breadcrumbs laid out for it ages ago, had he not thought about Bobby saying, without hesitation, “yeah you did, right here” every night for weeks after it had happened.
This is where he and Chris belong, these people are who they belong with. Well, these people and one other, but Eddie doesn’t have the bandwidth to fix everything right now. Instead, he lets Bobby drag him in for one more hug, hauls Chris up to wave goodbye to them at the door, and then sets them up for the long night.
He’ll think about Buck later. Right now, everything is about Chris.
Eddie sets them up in his bed, and its a testament to how exhausted Chris is that he doesn’t even argue, not about Eddie getting him dressed, not about Eddie washing his face or helping him brush his teeth or comb his hair, not even when Eddie, for a brief second, forgets Dandy out in the living room. He’s pliant in a way that would be worrying if Eddie didn’t know, first hand, how exhausting the previous week has been. Even the good bits, the pool, having everyone over, Chim apparently being bribed into reading at least one chapter of the Hobbit in what Chris describes as “the world’s worst” Spanish, are tiring for an eight year old this low on sleep. Hell, it's been tiring on Eddie, and he’s not the one having nightmares.
Less than an hour after Bobby and Athena say their goodbyes, Chris is bundled up beside him, pajamas on, teeth brushed, Dandy in hand, more than ready to conk out for the night. The only thing he requests half-asleep against Eddie’s chest, is the same nightly ritual he always requests.
To say goodnight to Shannon.
Dr. Messa had been the one to suggest it when Chris first started therapy. It began as letters, little college-ruled sheets Chris would stuff into envelopes, decorated with pink and green stickers, adorned with Mom in Carla’s handwriting because Chris said both his and Eddie’s were too messy. Then, when those letters became so many Eddie was having trouble finding a place to put them, Buck ended up suggesting just telling Shannon everything at night instead.
“That way she gets to hear your voice. I'm certain she misses it.”
It had been helpful at the time. Eddie didn’t have the heart to throw away any of the letters, and this proved to be a mess-free solution to the problem. That is, until Eddie started having to listen in. Chris poured his heart out in these little talks, these moments that reminded Eddie of being told to pray as a kid without any of the awkwardness. Chris would curl up in bed, hug him or Dandy or, up until a month ago, Buck, and just talk. Sometimes, it was about his day, other times he told her how much he missed her, more often than not he included whoever was there, asked them to say hi, to join in.
Tonight is no different.
“Hi Mom,” Chris starts, voice half muffled against Dandy’s mane. He keeps curling his hand around Dandy’s paw, clasping and unclasping it. “Today was really fun. I think you would have liked it. We made mashed potatoes, and I learned how to play poker, and Chim is really bad at Spanish.”
“Chris,” Eddie warns.
“Okay, okay. Dad says to say Chimney is still learning Spanish, and that I made him read a pretty tough book, so it's not his fault he said that hobbits had tea and chicken instead of tea and scones. Plus, I can’t be too mad. He had the best voice when we were reading Narnia. He made Aslan sound like his voice could cross seven canyons! Or the whole ocean.”
His voice gets soft.
“That’s kind of why they were here. Do you remember when Buck and I got stuck in that huge tsunami? When the ocean went back and then tried to swallow everyone? I dream about it sometimes, or it used to be sometimes. Now it's all the time.” Eddie puffs out a breath between his teeth, and tries, desperately not to interrupt. Chris needs this, more than he needs his Dad breaking down every time he mentions the tsunami. “Dr. Messa says that it’s normal, but they’re really, really scary.”
Chris sniffs, small hands coming up to wipe at his eyes. He shakes off the support Eddie offers, curling even further into Dandy.
“Not yet, Daddy. I’m still talking to Mom, okay?”
No. Not okay. Eddie feels like his chest’s caving in. He wants to gather Chris up in his arms. He wants to hold him close, and keep him safe, and promise that shaking bundle against his chest that nothing like that would ever happen again. But that’s not what Chris needs. Not right now. Right now he needs to speak, and Eddie, for all the ways he feels like every word is wrenching something fragile and deep, needs to let him.
“Okay, buddy,” Eddie says, through a glass-coated throat. He reaches out, but instead of touching Chris he grabs hold of Dandy’s other paw, gripping it like his life depends on it. “You talk to your Mom, and when you’re done, you let me know okay?”
Chris nods. A single tear slides down his cheek, then another and another, until he’s practically sobbing, and still Eddie stays frozen as he can be, tears of his own gliding down his cheeks. Chris had asked, and Eddie has learned, there’s very little his son wants that he will not do everything to provide.
Even this. Especially this.
“I don’t want to keep having these dreams, Mommy,” Chris whimpers, face hidden in Dandy’s fur. “Sometimes, sometimes they’re about what happened, about how I didn’t catch Buck’s hand. How I fell in the water. And, and other times, they’re not what happened. Sometimes, I don’t find the lady who found me. And, and sometimes, I find her, but I don’t find Daddy. And sometimes I find Daddy, but we never find Buck.”
Chris’s voice breaks off. Eddie’s heart breaks with it, shatters right there in his chest. He can’t listen to this. He has to listen to this.
“I don’t like it when we can’t find him. I don’t like any of it. Mommy, I want it to stop!” Before Eddie can say so much of a word, because he promised to stay still but Chris has devolved from crying to panicking, he throws himself back into Eddie’s chest. “Dad, I’m done– I’m–”
That’s all Eddie needs. Every muscle he has unclamps as he darts forward to scoop Chris into his arms.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, mijo,” he says, and then like the words have been ripped out of him: “You’re safe. There’s no water here. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe, and I love you, and I’m so sorry, you’re feeling like this, Chris.”
“I just want to stop! I don’t know why I can’t stop!” He sobs into Eddie’s t-shirt. “I want to stop, Daddy.”
“I know. I know.” Eddie draws Chris up above his chest, leans him up on his shoulder. “I know you do. We’re going to get you there. We’ve got that appointment with your doctor, and that new trick Athena taught you, and I’m going to be there every step of the way. You’re not alone. You’re not alone, sweetheart.”
Eddie hopes his son hears it. At this point, Chris is too overloaded for Eddie to calm down easily, or even to do anything but wail into Eddie’s collar. They have to wait it out. The same as they’ve waited out everything else since this stupid tsunami happened.
Eddie is frustrated and exhausted and so fucking heartbroken its ridiculous, but there’s nothing more to be done. Not until tomorrow. Not until that stupid appointment. So he does what he can. He keeps up the noise. His son is imagining the ocean? Okay. Eddie sounds nothing like the ocean. His best friend is Buck. He knows how to keep up a conversation. As Chris cries himself out in his arms, Eddie talks about anything, everything. He talks about how B-shift redecorated the bathroom on the upper floor, and then about how everyone, even Bobby, hates it. He talks about Chim’s newest conviction that the Trolls doll he keeps taped to the top of the truck will somehow prevent them from getting more shitty calls, as if their unit was known for staying out of trouble. He talks about Hen nearly going ballistic when Eddie accidentally finished off her special carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He talks about missing Buck like a fucking limb, like his shadow, like his fucking heart. He talks for hours, until his voice goes hoarse, until his lips crack, until he ends up falling asleep too, sitting upright against his headboard.
Maybe that’s what makes Chris waking up from this nightmare so jarring. There’s no space between them. Even two nights ago, Chris fell asleep on the other side of the mattress, and those nightmares were smaller, less abrupt. There’d been at least a little tossing and turning before Chris woke up, some indication to get Eddie awake and ready. Now there’s nothing, or at least, nothing that Eddie hears, just silence and then screaming.
Eddie jerks awake and, in the process, nearly sends Chris flying. He catches him at the last moment, but the terror of the nightmare combined with being launched a good foot in the air destroys whatever chance Eddie has at calming his son. If Chris was upset last night, now he’s practically hysterical, and nothing Eddie does is calming him down.
Because he doesn’t want Eddie.
“Buck,” Chris sobs, as Eddie rocks him around their couch, Dr. Messa’s number ringing and ringing to nothing. No one’s answered his calls the last six times he’s placed them, and what's the use of an emergency number if there’s no one there to answer it? Fucking nothing. He throws the phone down on the couch and tries not to let the panic enter his voice. He’s Chris’s father. He can calm him down after a nightmare. He doesn’t need a fucking shrink to tell him how to parent his child.
But none of the usual tactics have worked, and this isn’t a usual nightmare, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do.
He rocked him, sang to him, wore a new hole in the baseboards carrying him from his room to the living room and back. He put on his favorite tv shows and movies, read a chapter out of The Hobbit, told him as many times as he can that he’s safe and loved and protected, that he’s with Eddie right now and they don’t need to step foot in a pool ever again if Chris doesn’t want to.
And Chris is still sobbing. Not as hard as when he first woke up, but its less because he’s calmer and more because he’s too exhausted to continue the wailing he’d done when he first woke up. This can’t be normal or healthy. Is it a flashback? Something worse? Is the lack of sleep causing it? Eddie doesn’t know and no one will answer him. Nothing he’s saying is getting through, and Chris hasn’t said anything Eddie can work with. All he gets is one word:
Buck
over and over and over again. Buck please, and Buck don’t go, and Buck where are you, and Buck, we need to find Daddy. That’s the only time Eddie gets through to him, bouncing him up in his arms.
“Daddy’s here, Chris. I swear, mijo. Daddy’s here,” he says, anything and everything to calm his son down.
“But where’s Buck?” Chris wails, and whatever stretch of calm Eddie gains disappears. He paces another circle around the couch, rocking Chris the best he can through the panic coursing through his chest. Maybe he should call Athena and Bobby? They seemed so in control yesterday. But maybe, maybe this isn’t just the nightmares? Maybe this is some sort of medical issue Eddie just can’t figure out. Then should he message Hen or Chim? Hen seems like the best option, she’s got a baby she knows about this, but Chim lives closer so maybe Chim? Just so he can get someone here faster?
He just– He just doesn’t know .
Eddie shakes himself, planting his feet to try and keep in the here and now. Chris is depending on you Eddie. Think . Just, call one of them and then the other. Easy. They both can look him over. They’re the most competent paramedics he knows, but even more so when they’re working together. They’ll take care of Chris. They’ll calm Eddie. They’ll fix all this just like they did hours ago, and Eddie just needs someone to fix this because between his hysterical son and the panic threatening to bowl him over, he’s not fixing shit.
He reaches down to grab his phone to do any of this and his fingers meet nothing but cushion and air. He jerks his gaze away from his son, a frantic slew of comfort dying on his tongue, as he stares down at his empty couch.
“No,” he says, and finds once he starts it, he can’t stop. “ Fuck , no no no no.”
There’s nothing there. No phone despite Eddie throwing it there just minutes ago. He drops to a kneel in front of the couch, panic setting in as there’s no obvious glint of light as he moves the pillows down, and then to the side, and then throws them off the couch entirely.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He instinctively covers Chris’s ears as he switches from the pillows to the cushions, searching under each and then throwing those too. In his arms, Chris has tempered off to soft cries, but what if Eddie was right? What if there’s something more here? He can’t just sit here, holding his son. He needs to move and think and do something. Anything . But there’s no phone to be found, not on the couch, not in it, not even –he flattens his hands against Chris’s back to keep him from hitting the floor– under the couch.
Nothing.
There’s a distinct thump as Eddie’s knees give way, as he lands ass first on the ground and stays there, Chris sniffling in his lap. A static like sound enters through his ears and then travels through his chest, to his stomach, all the way down to his toes. It fills every cavity with sound and then promptly wipes away all of it, strips him until there’s nothing but the feel of his heart beating erratically in his chest and the scrunch of Chris’s hands against his tee shirt.
There’re options from here, Eddie knows. There has to be. He can go out and wake a neighbor. He can get into his car and find an ER. He can drive to the damn fire station and deal with it there. He can do something, but for the first time in a long time, not only does Eddie not want to do it alone, there’s options for that to happen. There’s Hen and Chim and Bobby and Athena standing open armed ready to help and hold and heal. Eddie just can't reach them.
But he can reach Buck.
Some part of his brain snags on the thought, holds it up and loosens the grip on whatever panic is currently surging through him. That’s what Chris wants right? To see Buck. And there’s no sign that Chris is medically unstable. He’s still breathing. His heart rate is still normal, on the upper end of it sure, but within normal range. Eddie knows. He’s been checking every few minutes. Chris is, or should be, medically fine. This is panicking, and nightmares, and a hole in their hearts that's been held open for far too long.
The solution is found just twenty minutes away with a drive Eddie could do blindfolded.
Who gives a shit about the stupid order to keep away? His son is hurting, and Buck would never, under any circumstance, allow that to happen. He’d fought through a tsunami to find Chris. He’s his most adamant protector behind Eddie. There’s no way Buck would look at this shitshow, at Chris in hysterics and Eddie seconds away from following him, and not find some way to fix it.
It’s like something vital has shifted, some force that propels him forward faster than anything else has in weeks. The idea of someone fixing this, of Buck fixing this, forces every other unimportant thought out of his mind. His thoughts swing on a pendulum, a violent back and forth of Chris to Buck, Buck to Chris, all consuming as it always is.
He hitches Chris further up in his arms and hauls them up off the floor with a fervor. Keys. He needs his keys. Counter maybe? He takes off for the kitchen at a jog, Chris bouncing against his shoulder as he digs through the snacks his friends supplied them with. Not there in that bag, but maybe the other counter? Or did Chim hang it on one of the hooks?
“Buck?” Chris sniffles, still teary-eyed on Eddie’s shoulder.
“Not yet, mijo,” Eddie answers, throwing around the bags. “But we’re going. I swear, we’re going to go see him. I just need to find my keys.”
Chris starts to cry again, this quiet little sound, but its lost its mournful quality. It sounds almost relieved, even if Eddie refuses to think any instance of his baby crying brings any sort of relief. If anything it heightens his senses, reignites his desperation. That pendulum swings towards Chris and Eddie will force them all towards Buck, towards that light on the horizon that promises warmth and relief all at once.
It becomes a mantra, a silent phrase that Eddie repeats under his breath as he tears through his kitchen, finding nothing, nothing, nothing in the bundles of snacks and drinks now filling his shelves.
Get Chris to Buck , Eddie thinks, as he changes course, flying out of the kitchen to run into Chris’s room. Keys next, everything Chris needs now. Coat, tennis shoes, Dandy, all bundled up next to Chris and then Eddie’s shoes tugged on haphazardly as he checks coat hooks and finally finds his keys hung up next to the bathroom.
“Almost done, Chris,” Eddie says, slightly out of breath. There’s this staccato to his heartbeats, this thundering sort of thump that steals all sense from his head. He’s borderline too tired to be driving, but what else is he meant to do? Sit here and hold Chris all night till they both pass out from exhaustion? And then what? There’s no forward from here, no magic formula. There’s just Eddie and Chris, but if he thinks this through, does this right, it might be Eddie, Chris and Buck, and that equation has always, always worked better for them.
He props Chris down on the bench by the doorway, one hand on his shoulder, the other cupping his cheek. The tiger tattoo is still there, slightly faded by tears and sleeves, Eddie’s placeholder as he swipes his thumb under his son’s eye. Chris looks up at that, this teary-hitched breath eeking out of him, more alert and aware than he’s been in nearly an hour.
“There you are, mijo,” Eddie breathes, and if he didn’t already think he was making the right choice, the awareness in Chris’s eyes would make that decision again for him. “You’re alright. I’m going to make it all better. Can you help me get your shoes on? We’re gonna go for a drive.”
“To see Buck?”
Eddie could cry, but instead he nods, dipping down to help Chris feed his feet into his sneakers. He’s doing something right here. He has to be.
Get Chris to Buck. Something in him screams. Get Chris to Buck.
“Yeah, buddy. We’re going to see Buck.”
“Promise?”
Chris’s small hands grasp at Eddie’s sleepshirt, creasing divots and canyons into the expanse of his chest. In a second, a whole mountain range sits there, born from nothing but his son’s hands. Eddie cannot hope to fill it all. He would never be able to. His wellspring is too dry, too unclean, too underwhelming to fill up the vastness of what Chris deserves. He simply falls short.
Buck has never fallen short of anything. In him lives something far more than Eddie has ever known, this fountain that keeps pouring out love and adoration and kindness and safety that Eddie could drown himself in and not have explored enough. Often, his brain refuses everything that isn’t black and white. In his head he’s had this idea of family, at least in the way family meant to him as a kid: his mom, his dad, his sisters, for as long as he’ll have her, his abuela. Straight easy lines, a tree built from the ground up, fenced in with every critique Eddie’s had hurled at him for years:
Get married for your family. Get a job for your family. Move back in for your family, a family that was meant to be just him and Shannon and Chris.
Now, there’s no Shannon. His parents haven’t called since the funeral. His sisters, busy with their own growing families, don’t have any time to drive up and see them. By that logic, he and Chris should have nothing. No family. No tree. Just a fence around an empty field.
And yet Eddie slept, and Chris has a tiger tattoo, and there’s a kitchen full of more snacks than either of them can eat, and the promise of safety and security on the horizon. There’s something Chris needs just twenty minutes away, and Eddie promised his son that whatever he needed he’d provide. No matter the consequence. No matter the cost.
He hooks his pinkie over his son’s, the way Buck taught them nearly a year ago.
“I promise, baby.”
Something like the dawn passes over Chris’s face, soft light billowing into bright tear-filled excitement. He throws himself into Eddie’s chest, clasped pinkies still crossed between them.
“We’re going to see Buck!” Chris says, all wide-eyed wonder, and how can Eddie refuse the first breath of relief they’ve felt in hours.
“We’re going to see Buck,” he echoes, soft in all the ways Chris’s exclamation is not. It’s a gut punch without the pain, a phrase that steals all the air from his lungs, fills him up whole and burns all the unneeded out.
They’re going to see Buck, and they’re going to see him now before Eddie loses whatever grasp he has on this situation. He hauls Chris up in his arms, bends down to grab Dandy, and hopes to god he still has that emergency set of crutches stuffed in the backseat. Chris for his part goes easy, still tear-filled, still sniffly, but with a sort of calm that Eddie hadn’t seen anywhere in the past few hours.
Get Chris to Buck , he thinks, but now it has this finality to it. Desperation at the edges but security underneath. He still moves them at a breakneck pace, buckling Chris into his car seat, before practically throwing himself into the front. There’s something animalistic taking over him, more instinct than thought. All semblance of a plan falls out of place as he straps himself in and follows that all-encompassing need propelling him forward.
All steps, all actions, lead to one place.
Eddie wishes he could be surprised, but he knows himself, and he knows his son. It's inevitable. The sun to the moon, the clouds to the rain, Eddie's heart to his fucking soul.
Get Chris to Buck. His heart's always been screaming it. He might as well listen.