Chapter Text
The first time Buck went to a therapist, he was eighteen. He'd just left his parent's house and had nowhere to go, staying for short periods anywhere he could. Since he convinced himself that he was going away to try new things far from his parents and sister ― although Buck was always sending her postcards ―, it didn't take long until the moment he was sitting in front of an older man with a tired face and gentle smile.
Dr. Esteves was a kind man with a strong British accent, and Buck went to four appointments with him before heading somewhere else in the country. He didn't spend more than five hours in the therapist's presence in his life, and, yet, Buck could say he was terribly thankful to him.
It was in the second session when Buck said he couldn't truly put his feelings and thoughts in words to get out of his mouth, and that he wasn't sure that he could be honest with the man in front of him. He expected some kind of judgment ― after all, he was supposed to go to therapy to talk ―, but all he got was a kind smile and Dr. Esteves picking something from one of his drawers.
Buck arched his eyebrows, frowning when the old man showed him what he'd picked up from inside his table: a black-leather-cover notebook. The therapist put it over the table, handing him a brand new pencil shortly after, slowly sitting back on his white chair.
"If you can't, then don't say them out loud," Dr. Esteves had said. "Write them down, as messy as they are. It doesn't have to make sense, but it does have to be felt somehow" .
Buck remembers staring at him, and he kept quiet as taking the notebook in his hands and passing his eyes and fingers over the blank pages. He nodded, thanked Dr. Esteves, and stepped out of the comfortable room, his fingers playing with the pencil during his the way to the small apartment he was staying at.
That day, he had opened and closed the notebook more times he could try to count. Nothing came but chaotic thoughts and the inability to put them in order; then, he gave it up.
It took him a month to write anything on the first page.
It was another month without any answers from Maddie, and this time he was really expecting anything from her. Just a sign she was getting the postcards, maybe something about what she thought about the things he'd been doing ― nothing ever came, and it was disappointing.
He had kept the notebook on the back of his backpack, pretty sure he would never use it at all. He opened it a few times and closed shortly after ― nothing ever came, and it just sounded idiotic to try to write anything. That time, though, he wrote something ― just a short sentence, but he didn't regret it at all.
Keep me at the back of your mind; a dark corner, a forgotten land; just keep me somewhere, somehow ― don't leave me behind again.
Buck didn't know exactly why he had written that down, not even if it made sense to anyone else but him, and, in some way, it didn't matter. It was a good feeling, whatever it was that it didn't need to make sense to anyone else ― anyone else needed to know or to approve it. And it felt good, he felt good, for the first time in a while.
So, he kept the notebook. This time on the first pocked of his backpack, so he could just drabble anything, anytime he felt like it. Some days he would write nothing more than three words, and some others, nothing would cross his pencil ― on others, though, he would write enough to make his hand and knuckles ache. Some others would bring him unfinished poems that he could never think about a way to end it. Most of these days weren't quite good.
But there were some rare ones that some peaceful feeling would take over his mind, and the words would flow easily against the paper ― he didn't know which notebook was this one, probably the fourth ―, making him smile softly. He was close to the sea on a warm afternoon, an empty beach, and the sun already prepared to disappear on the horizon; so, Buck took his old backpack and searched for the notebook, this time a white-cover one, and a pencil he always kept close to it.
Not close enough to reach you
nor far enough to let me forget
a drifting boat, a sleepless dreamer
writing letters to the waves and air
and putting them into boxes ―
I broke the bottles against the walls ―
running away from all of the memories
those which I don't remember at all.
These would be the poems he wouldn't mind reading again or searching for any meaning ― they had one, he knew it, but he also knew that he would lose the peaceful feeling if his eyes met his own words ―, and, eventually, he would forget about. It didn't matter, not at all, because he would remember the light feeling when the days were hard enough he couldn't write anything.
He never read any of them out loud, just because he couldn't. But, everything was felt, and it was something, at least.
Buck never stopped buying notebooks or writing texts ― poems, if using the correct name to the structure he usually used. Sometimes he would write something close to a letter with no one to receive it, and sometimes he would only write haikus, but he never stopped writing it down.
When in the SEALs, it would be hard for him to find time to do it. When he did, it would be harder for him to find the words. Buck would spend most of the words he could find writing to Maddie, even if he knew he wouldn't get an answer at all. If there was a possibility of her getting all of the postcards, then it was good enough.
Then, the traveling around the country again and more notebooks he could count. At some point, there was this box with every single notebook he ever had, and it was the only permanent box he would carry with him all the time he decided to move on again, even when he decided to go to Peru. There were a few funny poems from that time.
He remembers when he got to L.A., and a few pages ― about twenty-five ― of his brand new red-cover notebook were filled with hopeful and dreamy words. Sometimes he would read it again, so he could get hopeful towards the future once more, and sometimes he would only feel ridiculous for feeling like a child most of the time. Yet, he never erased a single word from none of those pages.
When he first joined the 118 in Los Angeles though, the poems seemed to have faded from his fingertips. There was no hope nor pain he could write about because he thought that, "hey! Things are finally ― finally! ― working out, and I don't have to keep on shutting down and bottling up, right?"
He did bottle it all up and convinced himself he didn't need the words anymore. So, he found something else to put his feeling on ― sex. And, oh, boy ― that was a bad idea.
Buck knew he was reckless, irresponsible, and an idiot ― he'd heard that enough times to know every single tone those words could be said with ―, but, somehow, hearing that from those he thought he didn't need to hide from hurt more than hearing them from his parents ― which he did hear more than a couple of times. Hearing from Bobby that he lost his place with the 118 was worse than words could describe.
So he tried to describe it.
That was the first time he'd used the notebook after joining the 118, and the hopeful words from the previous pages were replaced by angry, hateful ones.
Make yourself better
try once more; don't try at all
idiotic fool ― is that the flying before the fall?
or have you even left the ground
how long have you been failing?
Oh, boy ― what are you doing?
Why are you still trying?
They were never mean towards the team, though. There was always something good that the poetic persona would destroy, and it would usually end with a question or a suggestion ― every single one of it leading to giving up. Buck didn't notice and, if he did, he could always lie to himself and say that the poetic persona is not himself , and just someone he had created to say all the things he didn't have the courage to.
It didn't make sense, but the poems didn't do either.
.
The tone of the poems changed when Eddie Diaz first stepped into de firehouse.
Buck couldn't explain, as always, and he didn't notice how the hateful poems towards himself became sad ones about the same person. He knew he was being an idiot ― again, Buck also knew ―, but he could help it at all.
So he wrote it down too.
let me go
let me go again
I don't know how to win ― oh, damn
so let me go
give me up again
you've done this before
I believe you ― I know you can
give me up
give me up silently
I don't blame you
― I'd do the same if I met me.
Those were the ones he would write whenever he was alone and hide at the minimal sign of someone else's presence. He didn't know if it was related to Eddie Diaz completely ― the man was a hell of a good firefighter, had been to war and won a silver star ―, or just to something that the possibility of replacement brought up again. If the second, then he would easily blame Eddie Diaz just so he didn't have to think about his past.
He couldn't blame Eddie for so long, though ― t here were a few situations capable of making two people connect, but a near-death experience with bombs and stuff was one of them.
Also, he had found Christopher ― somehow, that kid with a pure joyful smile was the main topic of a few of Buck's poems. Buck didn't know how or when, but there was no chronological order anymore to anything he'd write. He had always avoided going back to old regrets and feelings just so he could savor the rare good ones, but then there wasn't a real reason to do that.
Maddie was suddenly back, and then she almost died. Athena stopped hating him; Bobby wasn't hating him too ― and somewhere in the middle of it, they both got together. Eddie and Buck became best friends, Christopher was a constant smile on his face, and there were feelings he denied feeling about Abby and Ali that came back all at once.
At least this part he could blame on the ladder truck crushing his leg. A funny part of the trauma is that you can blame it for your messy feelings and tears. A sad one is all of the rest.
Those were the most confusing poems he'd ever written, then. None of them was purely about anything, and all of them seemed to want to say everything about all. When he tried to read it again, he wouldn't understand a line or rhyme ― Buck would be just as lost as anyone else would, maybe even more because, well, he was meant to understand it. But, again, it was something.
And it turned into nothing after the embolism and into even less after the tsunami. The poems then would come like waves ― how funny ― of thoughts and pain and loss. He would write about what he saw, about what he felt, and about what he'd lost ― Christopher, blood, and a portion of his sanity.
Oh, there was also the lawsuit. The poems Buck wrote before giving it up were just like the ones from when Eddie Diaz appeared ― hateful, hopeless, and kind of cruel ―, and the ones that were written after he came back to the 118 were even worse ― or better if he thinks about the lyrical part. That was a good one ― bad? Whatever.
Dr. Copeland said it was a great idea, the notebook ― when he accidentally mentioned it to her. Buck thanked her briefly and tried to change the subject, which was luckily understood by the therapist. At the end of that session, though, she'd mentioned that he shouldn't avoid writing even if he thought there was nothing he could say.
"There's never something to say if you don't dare to open your mouth," she had said. Buck frowned, and he truly wished he hadn't heard her when she said that.
Because, now, he was freaking out.
The notebook ― a brown-leather-cover one ― was open over his duvet, and the pencil was on the floor. Buck was cross-legged, wide-eyed, and speechless at the other edge of his bed as if he'd seen a ghost or those spiders he'd rather die than get closer. It was a pathetic scene because not even Harry Potter made such a thing when a diary started to answer his questions ― but, well, Harry Potter didn't end up figuring out that he was in love with the one on the paper and, if the very least, the one on it was obsessed with him, but that's all.
Tom Riddle didn't write him a poem ― or a dozen ― anyway.
But, oh, crap. That was a poem. Written by Buck. Talking about Eddie.
Eddie, who was his best friend.
Eddie, who was straight.
Eddie, who was seeing someone ― that wasn't Buck.
Oh, well.