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“We can take him from here.”
“Wha—no, we-we’re not leaving his side,” Buck says, tightening his grip on the side of the gurney where Chimney lies, rebar impaled through his skull.
“Are you family?” the nurse asks, and Buck hesitates.
“Buck,” Bobby says before he can argue further, placing a grounding hand on his shoulder. He sounds like a father more than a captain when he continues. “Our job ends here at these doors like always.”
Buck doesn’t have the energy to disagree, following Hen and Bobby back to the ambulance. The drive back to the firehouse is quiet, missing the one person who always has the energy to fill the silence. The tension doesn’t break until they’re back at the station, where the B shift crew waits, greeting them with sad eyes. Bobby must’ve called them in, which Buck is grateful for. He doesn’t think he’d be able to finish out the rest of the shift without collapsing of emotional exhaustion, and he definitely wouldn’t trust himself on a call.
Bobby meets his eyes as they change out of their turnouts, grabbing Buck by the elbow and pulling him out of the station to his truck, driving them both back to the hospital. The receptionist directs them to the trauma department’s waiting room, where Hen is already sitting, Karen next to her. Buck hadn’t even noticed her leaving the station before them, but he’s glad she’s here—he’s glad Chimney hasn’t been alone this whole time.
Hen and Karen are curled into each other, Hen’s shoulders shaking against her wife, and Buck averts his gaze, not wanting to invade Hen’s privacy. He sits down across from them, wringing his hands and examining his dirty fingernails. He almost gags at the grime underneath them, the memory of cutting the rebar so they could get Chim out of his car fresh in his mind.
Bobby sits next to him, throwing his arm over the back of Buck’s chair, letting it hover a hairsbreadth from his shoulders. Buck gives into his impulse to find comfort in the older man, turning towards him and buckling into his side. Bobby wraps his arms around Buck, silently letting him cry into the crook between his neck and shoulder.
Are you family? the nurse had asked earlier. Bobby interjected before Buck could answer, but now he thinks about it, about the kindness in the nurse’s eyes cleverly masking the pity that must’ve been behind it. Chimney had dressed into his civvies before leaving the station, so the nurse didn’t know he was a firefighter, didn’t know he was one of them.
But the more Buck thinks about it, Chimney would be family even if they weren’t brothers in arms. He thinks about Chim’s ribbing, the friendly way they make fun of each other. He knows a lot of it comes from Chimney’s insecurities, how he’s convinced Buck is everything he isn’t—looks-wise at least—and he wishes he could take them from him, show him how amazing he is.
He thinks about karaoke nights, Chimney singing by himself more often than not despite inviting Tatiana along. He’s glad that Hen and him can be there as duet partners when he needs one—even though Buck hates karaoke, he’s glad now for those memories. Chimney has a great voice, and so does Hen—Buck’s the odd one out who sucks, yet his friends drunkenly assure him that he’s great. He’s seen the videos; they’re wrong.
He thinks about playing video games and pool in their downtime at the station, Chimney kicking his ass at Mario Kart but always losing at pool. They’re constantly exchanging the same twenty dollar bill, betting against each other even though the outcome almost never changes. Hen beats both of them every time no matter what they play, and Bobby never joins, always choosing to watch instead, more often than not while preparing food for them.
They’re all a family, not just him and Chimney but all of them. Bobby isn’t necessarily a father figure to Hen and Chim the same way he is to Buck, but the emotions are still there. Hen and Chim are so much like siblings that Buck could see it before he’d even formally met either of them. And despite all of Buck’s issues—the sex addiction, the dumbass choices he’s made on the job—he knows that they love him and that they’ll be there for him always. Bobby, Hen, and Chimney are the family he’s made for himself now that he’s grown up. They’re the closest thing he’s had to family since he left home and his sister stopped returning his phone calls.
Chimney is his brother no matter what happens, and Buck can’t imagine losing him so soon. It feels like he just got him, and the idea that the universe might rip him away just like that is heartbreaking. Buck lets out a sob, taking a deep breath when Bobby tightens his grip around him. He picks up his head from his captain’s soaked shirt when he feels a softer, smaller hand on his back. Hen is there, kneeling next to him. He pulls her into a tangled mess of a group hug, the three of them crying for Chim, holding each other tight, hoping beyond anything that Chimney will be fine.
After a few minutes, they pull apart, Karen watching with a sad, fond smile. She holds out a box of tissues to them, which Buck takes from her. Just then, a doctor walks in—he looks exhausted, and Buck’s breath gets caught in his throat.
“Family of Howard Han?” he says, and Buck’s on his feet immediately, anxious to hear how his brother is doing.
“Right here,” he says, grabbing Bobby and Hen’s hands. “We’re his family.”