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The documentary begins with the camera panning across Los Angeles’ city skyline, the words, “THE EVERYDAY HERO” overlaid on top of the city in bold. Below that, in a much smaller font, are the words “Brought to you by Skywitness News Eight,” and even smaller still is, “With reporter Taylor Kelly.”
A voiceover begins, asking the words, “What does being a firefighter mean to you?”
The screen goes dark for a moment, and then the footage starts rolling, immediately jumping into two firefighters hanging out on a couch together, presumably in between calls. The camera zooms in on the expressions of the two firefighters, who–with some editing magic–is helpfully labeled with the text “Henrietta ‘Hen’ Wilson” in the corner of the screen. She gives the camera a look that is closer to a grimace than a smile, “Huh?”
“What does being a firefighter mean to you?” The voice from the voiceover repeats, although it sounds far closer this time, and less like it was recorded with studio-level equipment. The camera pans over to Taylor Kelly, to show that she was the one who asked the question, then back to the firefighters.
The other firefighter– Howard ‘Chimney’ Han –straightens from where he had been casually sprawled and says, in an incredibly serious tone, “It means I don’t have to cook as many meals for myself.”
Firefighter Wilson snorts under her breath, but nods anyway, “Yeah, put that down as my answer, too.”
“What does being a firefighter mean to you?”
This time, Taylor Kelly is already in the frame as she asks the question. Behind her are a set of stairs, and in the edge of the frame one can see the red gleam of a parked vehicle. Her smile doesn’t falter even as the person she is asking–whose presence is helpfully captioned as Captain Robert ‘Bobby’ Nash–brushes past her with a short, “Seems like it means getting hounded at work!” thrown over his shoulder.
Taylor turns back toward the camera after her head followed Captain Nash off to wherever he went off-camera, and while her smile may not have faltered, it gains a slightly sharper edge, “Here at Station 118–and stations just like it across the world–a group of remarkable first responders put their lives on the line every day for us: the people of Los Angeles. I, Taylor Kelly, from Skywitness News Eight, am going to be taking a deep dive into the lives and workplace of these everyday heroes.”
With another glance over her shoulder towards where Captain Nash had disappeared, Taylor’s smile turns a bit more playful, “Welcome to the world of firefighting, folks! No bluff, no bluster: just real people, doing real work.”
“What does firefighting mean to you?”
In a stark contrast to the first two times the question was asked, where the humor of Firefighter Han and Wilson’s answers was apparent and the brisk impatience of Captain Nash showed a more human side of the faceless concept of first responders, the background music was soft and sweet (as opposed to non-existent). Once again, there were two firefighters on the screen–Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley and Edmundo ‘Eddie’ Diaz–and they had been in the middle of leaning over Firefighter Diaz’s phone when Taylor asked the question.
Firefighter Diaz’s face shutters for a moment, before stilling into something far more controlled. He leans into Firefighter Buckley and the cameras are able to pick up his quiet, “You first.”
Firefighter Buckley is all smiles–the sort of smile that lights up a room– and he looks not at the camera, but somewhere slightly past it, where it can be assumed Taylor Kelly is standing.
“Being a firefighter is everything to me!” He says brightly, and the cheerfulness of his words are at odds with the soft music until Buckley continues, “I’ve… I’ve always wanted to feel useful. To save people, to do the right thing, to- to make the world a better place, y’know? And now I get to do that every… well, almost every day, right alongside people that feel like family.” Whether it is a conscious decision or not, Buckley shifts to the side and his shoulder presses against Firefighter Diaz’s, “So. To me, being a firefighter means, uhh… it means I’ve got a place in the world. That I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Diaz doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at his hands, and after a long enough pause Buckley laughs awkwardly and turns away from Taylor, “Eddie? What about you?”
Firefighter Diaz’s face makes some complicated expression again, but it’s gone in an instant. He replies with a simple, “You pretty much summed it up, man.”
“Buck!”
Firefighter Buckley’s head whips around at the sound of his name, and he smiles brightly at the sight of Taylor Kelly–followed, of course, by her cameraman–hustling toward him before he can get into his car. It’s late in the evening, but there are flood lamps that line the outside of the station and L.A. is never truly dark, so the clarity of the camera is still good enough to see the way that, despite the tired slope of Firefighter Buckley’s shoulders, his happiness still seems genuine and sincere. Out of all the members of Station 118, Firefighter Buckley had been the most cooperative with Taylor Kelly and her filming, so that is perhaps why he is the only person ever filmed while not on-shift over the entire duration of the documentary.
“Oh, hey! What’s up? Did you need something?” Firefighter Buckley asks, eyes flitting between the camera–or, more specifically, the person holding the camera–and Taylor. He’s holding his car keys in his hand, but he doesn’t seem to even notice their presence anymore.
Taylor starts to shake her head no, then pauses, “Well, sort of? I had a question for you.”
“Alright, shoot,” Firefighter Buckley answers good naturedly, some of the tension bleeding out of his face. He puts his car keys back in his pocket and is seemingly content with being filmed and kept from going home even after a long shift, which included an apartment fire that took hours to contain and deal with. Taylor and her cameraman had been held back and away from most of the action during their recording of the call, after Captain Nash refused to let them record people who had just lost everything to a fire for television entertainment.
“You just finished up a twenty-four hour shift, ” Taylor starts, “Which, I imagine for all the five-to-niners out there, seems like a very long time to spend with people who aren’t your family, especially when you risk your life alongside them nearly every day. Just today you went inside of a burning building with only Firefighter Diaz at your back, and performed several risky maneuvers in the process in order to save more people. What is it like working a job that puts your life on the line–and in the hands of your co-workers–for such extended periods of time? And how do personal grievances or tensions affect how you work together in the field?”
Firefighter Buckley is practically vibrating in place as he waits for Taylor to finish talking so he can answer. As soon as she’s done, Buckley blurts out, “First off, you’re wrong.”
Taylor arches a brow, but doesn’t say anything, and Firefighter Buckley waves his hands out semi-frantically as he attempts to backtrack, “Wait, no, that came out wrong. I meant that, uh, you’re wrong about the whole ‘people who aren’t your family’ part. ‘Cause the team is my family. You…” Buckley runs a hand through his hair, dislodging some soot from the earlier fire that hadn’t washed out in the shower, and blows a puff of air out of his nose. Viewers have already realized that Firefighter Buckly is not the type to sit still: he is the type of person that has to be constantly moving in order to think straight.
But for right now, he makes a conscious effort to slow himself down. This is important to him, that much is apparent, and he visibly struggles to find the right words, “You get to know people, right? Like, really know them. You can’t… or, at least, I can’t… spend this long working alongside people, getting a good adrenaline rush after a solid save or sharing the crushing feeling of a terrible day with them, over and over and over again, without getting to know them. And, sure, maybe I don’t know everything about them, but it’s superficial stuff, y’know? Favorite color or music artist or song or movie… Like, maybe I dunno that sort of stuff, but I know that Eddie’s got my back no matter what. There is no one I’d trust more with my life than him, except for maybe Cap. I know that Hen is, like, the most badass person I’ve ever met and keeps such a cool head even in tough situations that I’m totally jealous of her for it. And Chim is, just… I dunno. He’s like a brother, right? I’ve never had a brother before, but I feel like… like what we have is brotherhood. He teases me and I tease him, and we always give each other a hard time, but he’s solid. We’re solid.”
“And the Captain?” Taylor prods.
“Cap’s great,” Buckley says honestly, voice rasping a little with emotion, “He’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. He always knows just what to do, just what to say, he’s-he’s-” Buckley cuts himself off, gesturing aimlessly, eventually settling on, “They’re family.”
The sounds of traffic can be heard faintly in the background, and Taylor seems about to wrap up the impromptu questioning when Buckley’s head snaps back to Taylor from where his gaze had gone distant and far while attempting to explain just what the people of Station 118 meant to him, “And, uh, about the fighting or arguments and stuff,” Buckley shrugs, “Of course we fight and bicker and get into arguments. But when we’re on a call? Man… I could be at Chim’s throat one second before that alarm goes off, but once it goes off? Once we’re on? It’s like everything falls into place. It’s, just. Like with any real family: when you need each other, you just fall into place.”
The documentary is long, and while it shows a few of the wild calls that firefighters go on and interviews from some of the people at the scenes, the main two focal points are on the reason why Firefighter Wilson decided to become a paramedic and Firefighter Buckley’s parking lot conversation about family. The documentary closes off on a sweet note from Taylor about learning more about the city’s first responders, and it appears to be finished.
The screen fades to black.
Then, the bright words “BUCK’S BLOOPER REEL” appear.
“-Wait, let’s backtrack,” Taylor’s voice is close to the camera. There aren’t any professional microphones involved, unlike with the rest of the documentary, so her voice echoes slightly and the camera quality is less clean and crisp. When Taylor pops into frame and adjusts the view, it becomes obvious that she’s recording on her phone and has propped it up on one of the benches in the locker room. She steps back, revealing Firefighter Buckley standing in front of a glass window with a net of names written on the window in dry erase marker.
“What are you doing?” Buckley’s voice is a bit further away, but still easily decipherable despite the echo.
“Setting up my phone to record this. You’re actually ridiculous,” Taylor’s voice is no longer professional and serious, instead taking on a more playful note, and she rolls her eyes at the camera and mouths the words, “This guy!!”
Despite all of that, though, her expression is more fond than one might expect.
Buckley scoffs, “If I’m being ridiculous, then it’s totally your fault. You set this off by asking about family dynamics or whatever.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect you to make a whole family tree! Move out of the way, I want the camera to see this.”
Buckley obliges, moving to the side and revealing multiple iterations of a family tree that has only grown in size with each remake. Taylor moves to stand beside him, and she shakes her head in exasperation, “Okay, now go. I need the world to understand what I’m going through.”
“Going through!” Buckley repeats in mock offense, “I’ll let you know that this is prime television right here. Everyone loves a complicated family drama.”
Taylor doesn’t deny it, and waves at him to continue on with whatever he had been doing before she set up the camera.
Firefighter Buckley straightens up as he jokingly clears his throat, “Okay, we’re going to jump straight into version four of the Station 118 and Co. family tree. So, obviously Bobby and Athena are, like, the mom and dad of the family,” Taylor nods along when Buckley turns to look at her for confirmation, but as soon as he looks away she mouths the word ‘obviously’ to the camera with another teasing eye roll, “And here is where I struggled, ‘cause-”
“Struggling already?” Taylor interrupts, elbowing Buckley in the ribs, “Didn’t we just start?”
“I dunno,” Firefighter Buckley says, his tone deceptively light, “Did you want to have footage of the family tree, or should I just erase it?”
Taylor stays quiet, and Firefighter Buckley laughs to himself, “Anyway. Originally, I wanted to put down me, Hen, Chim, and Eddie as their kids because that’s hilarious, but it also didn’t feel quite right, either. So I’m going to say that Hen is Athena’s sister, okay? They knew each other first, I think, from before Bobby was the captain, so that makes sense. Although that would mean that Hen is Bobby’s sister-in-law, which feels weird, but I’ve elected to ignore that!”
Taylor nods along, “This is definitely how family trees work.”
Buckley ignores her and dramatically points to himself, “After a lack of a better option, I have decided that Bobby is now my father–sorry-not-sorry, biological father of mine–which makes Athena my stepmother. To make this blended family even more beautiful, we have Athena’s two kids–who I will not be naming, because I don’t trust you to not post this or something on your Instagram once the documentary is up or whatever–and her ex-husband. I’ve never met him, but, like, family is family and so he’s on the tree.”
“Of course,” Taylor agrees, and Buckley shoots her a look.
“Okay so I know you are being patronizing right now, but shh: this is where it gets good. I had a hard time deciding where to put Chim, ‘cause he’s like my brother, but I think him and my sister have a weird tension-thing going on that they are both currently in denial about.”
For the first time, Taylor drops her teasing and leans in closer to look at the wonky family tree. She hums under her breath, “Okay, so since this whole thing already disregards blood relations, put Chimney as your brother and then put Chimney and your sister together as a couple, that way she’s still in the tree and your sister.”
Buckley frowns, tapping the dry erase marker against his lips, “Okay. So… My sister by blood is now my sister-in-law according to the version four family tree? An in-law-by-blood?”
“Don’t think too hard,” Taylor offers, stealing the dry erase marker and erasing the sibling tie between ‘BUCK’ and ‘BUCK’S AMAZING SISTER’ and adjusting the tree accordingly, “You’ll tire out your one brain cell.”
“I’ll let you know,” Buckley retorts primly, “That the one brain cell you are currently mocking is also the brain cell that convinced Bobby to answer your questions about why we all eat our meals together. And convinced him to let you ask for an interview from bodybuilder-guy.”
“I hate that you’re right, and also that you are only further proving the father allegations.”
Buckley laughs out loud, and claps one hand on Taylor’s shoulder, “First thing we all learned here, Tay: Bobby is never beating the father allegations. Once you get that down, you’ll fit right in.”
Taylor shrugs, seeming like she might say something else, but then the sound of footsteps trudging down the stairs alongside Firefighter Diaz’s voice catches their attention. It echoes loudly in the room due the poor sound quality, “Buck? I heard you laughing, what’s going on?”
Taylor and Buckley share one panicked look before Taylor is diving for her phone and Buckley is hurriedly wiping away the family tree.
Someone–most likely Taylor–is holding on the phone again and secretly recording. She zooms in on Captain Nash and Firefighter Buckley in the kitchen, working around each other seamlessly. Buckley makes direct eye contact with the camera as he says, “Hey Cap? Try this for me and tell me if I got it right?”
Captain Nash tastes whatever Buckley had been making–some stew on the stove–and claps a hand on Buckley’s shoulder, “Good job, son. Maybe add a bit more salt?”
Buckley says something that the camera doesn’t pick up, but when Captain Nash is no longer facing him, Buckley mouths the words, “Father allegations,” at Taylor and the camera rocks as the audio picks up her barely stifled laughter.
The camera first focuses in Firefighter Buckley, who is sitting on one of the chairs upstairs in between calls. He looks around casually, then slides a piece of paper over to the cameraperson, who is, presumably, Taylor on her phone. The theory is proven right as her hand slides into frame and picks up the piece of paper, which has the words “FIREFAM AND CO. FAMILY TREE V.6,” written at the top.
FIREFAM AND CO. FAMILY TREE V.6
The camera pans back up to Buckley, who checks to make sure no one is around, before he leans in, “I feel like Hen and Chim should be siblings, but that makes the tree look a bit too circular for me, so they’re gonna have to settle for being aunt and nephew. And, like, I don’t think Chim is really Bobby’s son or anything–I dunno how to describe them, but son is definitely not right–but I refuse to give him up as my brother, so sucks to suck, this is what we are dealing with.”
Taylor also leans in, “Why is Eddie all alone? You’ve isolated him on the family tree.”
Buckley frowns even as he nods, looking far more stressed than he has any reason to be considering it is a piece of paper with an imaginary family tree on it, “I didn’t know where to put him.”
“Brother, maybe?” Taylor offers, and Buckley literally gags. The camera jolts back, as if Taylor was worried that Buckley might throw up.
“No!” He hisses, looking around frantically, “Eddie is so not my brother. But–crap–Eddie’s kid is totally Bobby’s grandson. They were so good together when he was here… Okay, gimme back the paper.” Taylor hands back over the paper, and Buckley starts scratching things out with his pen.
Eventually, he hands it back to Taylor, “I did that fast. I hope to God there is no accidental incest.”
FIREFAM AND CO. FAMILY TREE V.7
Taylor lets the camera linger on the revised family tree for a moment, before turning the camera around to show her own unimpressed expression as she says, “How the hell was your only solution tying yourself into your own family through your sister marrying Chimney? You’ve gotta keep the core of the family as the core, not this in-law stuff!”
“I had to include Eddie somehow!” Buckley defends, “And hey, now it makes way more sense!” His face falters for a moment, “Other than the fact that now Bobby and Athena are my, uhh, sibling-in-laws? Since if Hen and Chim are now siblings, plus Athena is Hen’s sister, and my sister marries Chim, bringing me into the family…” Buck trails off, his voice sounding incredibly confused, “Dude, family trees suck. I’m so lost. But I think my point is that Bobby is my, uh, brother-in-law now, which is. Weird.”
“Or,” Taylor butts in, before Buckley can spiral too far, “Just marry Eddie and then, bam, he’s in the family!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The camera is still on Taylor’s face, and she makes sure to look directly into the camera to show off her exasperated expression, “What? Most of the relationships here are just based on vibes anyway, except for the already-existing kids. It’s not like you are actually marrying Eddie.”
Buckley sputters, “Yeah, well, there’d have to be married vibes first for us to be married vibes on the family tree!”
The phone clatters to the floor as Taylor starts laughing–loudly–and just over the sound of her laughter is Buckley’s near-frantic voice, “Taylor! Taylor?? What vibes are you talking about? What vibes?”
And then, even more damningly, Firefighter Diaz’s voice cuts through Taylor’s laughter, rough with what sounds like sleep, “What the hell are you two laughing about now? When is the stupid filming going to be done? You’re waking everyone up with your- uh. With. Whatever. Buck. Buck, c’mon, you need to sleep, just. Just leave her. Okay? Let’s go to sleep.”
Taylor’s laughter pauses just long enough to hear Firefighter Buckley go, “Shit. Those vibes.”
Which, of course, just sets off Taylor’s hysterical laughter once more.
Almost jarringly, the scene cuts to Taylor Kelly sitting at some kitchen table–the background is not that of the firehouse–eating a pint of ice cream. She has one eyebrow already raised suspiciously, and points her spoon at the camera, “And there you have it, L.A.. I hope it’s reassuring–or maybe it’s not–to know that our first responders are just like everyone else out there: able to be hopelessly pining dorks who don’t know how to talk about their feelings. Anyway, I dunno if the blooper cut will actually make it into the documentary but,” Taylor shrugs, “Buck was right about it ending up on my Insta if it doesn’t.”
There is a groan from somewhere beside her, and Taylor tilts the phone to show Buckley–Buck, really–with his forehead pressed against the kitchen table, his own pint of ice cream half-finished.
“You’re the worst,” He says, although the accusation is half-hearted at best.
Taylor eats a spoonful of her ice cream, looking far too smug, “Hey, you’re the one who called me to help you draft a ‘I’m hopelessly in love with you and may have accidentally revealed that to my friend who will post about it, so I wanted to tell you about that whole thing first so you found out from me’ text.”
“Yeah! ‘Cause you are the one who will post about it!”
“Call me a motivational speaker. Except I don’t charge you for my advice.”
“You made me buy you ice cream??” Buck’s voice is incredulous, “And I think this is more like blackmail than motivating.”
“Shh,” Taylor hushes, “Trust me on this. Did you send it yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he answer?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d he say?” Taylor’s voice changes from prodding and a little bit judgemental to something more gentle: more friendly.
“Dunno. Too stressed to check.”
Taylor does not appear to have the same worries, so reaches over to grab Buck’s phone, even going so far as to grab his limp hand and use his finger to unlock it. Buck doesn’t protest.
Taylor reads the text message, then flips the phone around to show the camera with a satisfied smirk.
EDDIE
Jesus Buck.
Only you would manage to get yourself into this sort of situation.
But the answer is yes.
It’s always been yes.