Those He Left Behind

All Buck wanted was to be with his family, but things weren’t the same after the lawsuit. He was sidelined, buried in chores, still on the outs with the 118, especially Bobby and Eddie. Unwilling to give up on them, Buck kept his head down and did his job.

Until he died, all alone, while his team was out on a call.

Grief and guilt consume them. They should have been there, should have seen the signs— should have *saved* him. But Bobby had let his anger blind him, believing there’d be time to make things right. And Eddie had stayed silent, convinced there’d be a someday. Now, Buck is gone, and they can never make it right.

They weren’t the only ones Buck left behind, however. When a group of Navy SEALs arrives at Buck’s funeral, their presence brings more than just surprise. It brings truths the 118 never saw coming, and more grief than they ever could have imagined.

[Fic is complete and will be updated weekly on Sunday nights, AEST] Pairing: pre-Buddie Chapters / Length: 1 of 5 / 20k total Ratings / Warnings: Mature, Major Character Death

Reblogs appreciated!

I am shocked by the (positive) reaction this has received, thank you all!!

Also giggling that, despite my poll results indicating most people wouldn’t read it, there are clearly enough who do!

Thank you everyone who commented. I adore you all.

PLEASE tag your spoilers

I am BEGGING you.

Not everyone wants to engage in speculation before watching each new 9-1-1 episode. Not everyone wants to see every still, synopsis, or set leak. Some of us just want to go in blind and experience it as it airs.

And not everyone can watch live. Some people don’t have time for days, others, months. Australia hasn’t even started airing 8A, let alone 8B. But people act like the entire fandom is on the same schedule. I’ve had 8B spoilers dropped in the comments of my 8A fic by people who just assumed everyone was caught up because they were. But we are not all the same.

The Discords I’m in do a great job enforcing spoiler rules. Reddit tries, but there are always people who don’t care. Tumblr has a filtering system, but it only works if people actually USE the #911 spoilers tag. Some do. A lot don’t. And I’ve seen blogs say they only tag for one day. One. Day. What the fuck.

It sucks getting spoiled when you’re actively trying to avoid it. And it’s so damn easy to prevent.

Use spoiler warnings on Reddit.

Mark things with the spoiler formatting in Discord.

Tag your posts on Tumblr with #911 spoilers. You already know how to tag, you do it for everything else.

Be a decent fan. PLEASE.

Mark your spoilers.

(I am not tagging this post with the spoiler tag because I am hoping others who are, like me, filtering it, will reblog this and get the word out.)

Please reblog this.

Those who've apologised for not tagging and who intend to do so from now on - thank you from all of us who are trying to avoid spoilers. Let's hope the word keeps being spread and more do the same.

For myself personally, despite having all variations of 911 spoilers filtered for both tags and content, Tumblr is all it's wisdom decided to show me posts clearly tagged properly with tags on my list today. So I have been spoiled and have seen the BTS leaks that just came out.

Goddammit Tumblr, what the hell is wrong with you.

Long Post Warning: And a warning that I'm skipping into another fandom than I normally do, but for good reason...

So, I'm a Bucky Barnes fan. "No, really? You don't say? With a username like that, we never would have guessed!" I know. Shocking. I'm also a Bucky Barnes fan that follows several fans of a ship known as BuckTommy from, I think, 9-1-1? The show might have a longer name than that. I don't watch said show.

I have seen several of those people (one in particular, whose posts I love to see so so much) start their posts off with something along the lines of, "Okay, so let's say Buck..." and so on. And I will read, because Bucky has been known to go by Buck, and those people who are BuckTommy fans are also MCU/Marvel fans (that's actually why I followed them in the first place, but now I'm getting bonus other content and God I love being introduced to other shows through people on this site).

I will read to a point where I'm like, "Hang on. This feels off? What am I reading?" And then I'll read a name like Chim or Hen and I go, "Oh. OH! This is NOT a Marvel post."

And I will keep reading. Because my goodness, I am so fucking HOOKED on BuckTommy even though I don't watch that show. I saw their first kiss and I was in. I watched, through gifs and posts, their googoo eyes for each other. Buck talking about Tommy to anyone who will listen (and those who don't want to hear it?), and I'm just in love with them. I adore them. I would do anything for those two men, Your Honor.

And then I cried through the breakup that I DIDN'T EVEN WATCH. I watched fans of the show go feral over it. I watched people get so mad and I was mad with them. Because excuse me? Excuse me?! What?

I was just getting into these two together and now they're just... not?

And then all the homophobic discourse from people about them? And people being so cruel and rude? About the actors? Not just the characters, but the actors themselves? At least, from reading other people's posts, that's what I gathered from it. As a gay man, I was both floored and not surprised at the same time. I was just angry. And I kind of stopped reading for a while because it hurt my heart.

Then, I saw the, "Fuck it, we're going to write them getting back together," posts. And I started reading again. Because my goodness, how beautiful and powerful is a fandom? That they just fought back against hate by writing what they want? It's wonderful.

And then. Then came the fires in California. And that fandom came together to raise money for the firefighters or the families or... something out that way. I can't remember which. But I know the show is about emergency workers, largely firefighters, I believe, and it makes so much sense that people who love a show about firefighters would go to the ends of the earth to help fight such a massive fire in their own way.

And I don't know if anyone out there said anything, but I watched. It looked to me like they raised more than their goal in less than a week? Maybe my timing was off. But they blasted that shit out of the water, and I'm so so proud of them. Had I money at the time, I would have donated, because what they were doing was so honorable and beautiful, but they did so well on their own. They came together as a community and kicked ass for people many of them might not have even known. But they did it out of the goodness of their hearts and the shared love of a show.

So, like, from a Bucky Barnes fan who stumbled into your guys' world ages ago and kinda enjoys kicking it on the fringes? You guys are largely amazing and beautiful. Especially the BuckTommy fans that I've seen, but as a fandom on the whole. I wanted to just toss out there a little kindness from one corner of the internet to another. You guys kick ass. Thank you for shining some beautiful and kind light in a world that really, really needs it right now.

This is so heart-warming and was truly lovely to read. It illustrates everything I love about the community aspect of fandom and how powerful it can be when used for good.

I followed the MCU -> 911 pipeline myself years ago when I wrote a Spiderman and the Avengers fic and joined a server where they all kept talking about these hot firefighters... the rest was history. I've been watching the show and having fun writing Buck whump and angst ever since.

(I have the same issue as you, @onebuckybitch only with the name Eddie - Eddie Diaz in 911 and Eddie idk his surname in Stranger Things. I've seen the show but am not in the fandom but I keep seeing posts about it that I enjoy very much!)

Isn't fandom great!

RYAN GUZMAN as EDMUNDO 'EDDIE' DIAZ

9-1-1 | S08E12: Disconnected

As an Aussie this confused me so much - if it’s so hot why is he walking around in long sleeved shirts and jeans??

Are you not allowed to wear t-shirts and shorts in Texas? You wouldn’t catch an Aussie wearing that in summer here, even to a job interview. There are very nice collared shirt sleeved shirts that are acceptable and lightweight slacks that are cooler than jeans.