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It always amazed the 118 how quickly a seemingly normal call could go off the rails. It often felt like there was no such thing as a normal call. Today's emergency, though, had to set some sort of record as far as interpersonal issues were concerned. Their station was sent to attend an emergency in a neighborhood, which, upon initial examination, appeared to be a straight-forward auto accident.
The back of a tiny blue Prius was completely crumpled by a huge Ram 2500 while backing out of a driveway. The size of the impact was the first major red flag. The second was the fact that so many neighbors are circling like vultures to observe the excitement firsthand. A husband and wife were on the front lawn, mid-screaming match, when their company arrived.
It was soon clear the collision had taken place in the street directly in front of their house. The truck evidently belonged to the husband, and the Prius to the wife, who is holding her arm awkwardly. A neighbor evidently helped her out of the vehicle after the airbag went off, which was red flag number three.
Two children stand with the good Samaritan neighbor; the pair watch the proceedings with wide, terrified, wet eyes. The children's visible fear makes Buck’s stomach ache and his chest tighten.
He nearly flinches when their father speaks. “Come on, kids, we’re going to your grandmothers.”
Hen is making a valiant effort to check the wife over on the other side of the street. Bobby makes himself busy setting up a perimeter, blocking the neighborhood from incoming and outgoing traffic. Firefighters scramble with cones and signs at his command.
Buck feels a bit like he’s watching the scene unfold from a million miles away. Eddie edges around the angry husband to check the kids over on the porch; they hadn't been able to get a clear answer on whether either of them had been involved in the wreck in any way from either of their parents. Chimney distracts the man while Eddie crouches down to talk to them in soothing tones, distracting them from the scene of their parents ongoing shouting match.
"Ma'am, we really need to get you to the hospital for a head CT and an X-ray on that arm,” Hen pleads in a gentle tone. The wounded wife is too busy trying to get back to her children, but is blocked by the husband at every move.
The specifics of the scene are cloudy, but all that matters to Buck is that the kids seem afraid of their father. The world seems to come back into focus, and Buck makes a move to stand between the man and the children, who are now attempting to hide behind the neighbor and Eddie to get away from their father. He’s stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. Bobby appears upset and apologetic.
“There’s really nothing we can do on the record.” They can all hear the frustration in Bobby’s tone vividly. “Unless he presents himself as a genuine danger to someone else, without evidence, we have to let him take the kids since he is physically able. At least until the police can figure out where they were in the middle of this...'accident'.”
“The kids don’t want to go with him, Bobby,” Buck pleads, his voice brimming with desperation. He’s got panic rising in his chest, threatening to spill over. He closes his eyes. For a moment, Buck is a child again, standing on a different lawn, terrified of a different set of adults. “They’re scared of him.”
He needs Bobby to understand that the kids, under no circumstances, could go anywhere with that man if the feeling in his gut was anything to go on. Bobby shook his head helplessly. There’s something desperate in his own expression that makes Buck’s chest want to collapse inward. “Buck…”
“I know, I know.” Buck hates that he can feel tears welling in his eyes. He storms away so he can pace while still keeping an eye on his team members. Chimney and Athena are both attempting to deescalate the outraged father, who only seems to be getting angrier.
Hen has managed to get the wife to sit on the back of the ambulance for a checkup while the husband is distracted from their children.
Athena looks tired as she joins Buck and Bobby after breaking away from deescalation with Chimney. Buck searches her face for help. Before he has a chance to speak, Athena murmurs. “It's just like Bobby says, unless he presents himself as a danger to….someone else, there isn’t anything we can do.”
There’s something in her voice that he knows he should be reading into. It hits him out of nowhere. Buck knows exactly what he has to do. He drops his shoulders, puffing out his chest a little, trying to exude confidence.
“Hold on. I’ve got this Cap.” Buck says, beelining towards the angry father. Chimney frowns at him but backs off to join Hen at the ambulance to check the wife over.
“Buck, what are you—?” Bobby says, startled. He lunges after him, but Buck is already too far away. Bobby cuts himself off, throwing his hands up uselessly. Athena, on the other hand, smirks. She is barely masking a laugh and has to turn away to hide her expression as Buck charges in. Bobby glances at his wife to gauge her reaction. His confusion grows when Athena simply shrugs and makes no move to go after Buck or call him off.
“Hey man,” they can all hear Buck saying to the suspect.
Realization settles in, and the defensive line of Bobby’s shoulders drops. He lets out an exasperated sigh when he realizes just what his wife has given Buck permission to do. Buck, for his part, plays the conversation perfectly, egging the angry dad on with a smile and a tone both polite but dripping in condescension. The wife of the man has tuned in; she stands shaking violently, scared, as Hen and Chim try to calm her down. He's going to get angry. She darts towards the kids, and Buck redirects his attention back to him loudly, drawing attention from Eddie, Hen, and Chimney, who all look slightly worried and confused.
“What’s happening?” Eddie asks, approaching Bobby and Athena, still holding onto the two kids. The infuriated husband hasn’t seemed to notice that his kids are no longer safely behind him on the porch; his entire attention is trained on Buck.
Buck says something that sounds suspiciously like “plastic surgeon". The guy swings on Buck; his fist connects with Buck’s cheek. Buck makes a show of staggering backwards; he hits the ground with a tiny oof. Athena lunges forward to make the arrest, citing the illegality of assaulting a firefighter on the job.
The man angrily argues with her, but Athena barrels on, loudly reciting his rights and escorting him to the back of her police car.
Eddie sprints over to check on Buck, who is still sitting on the pavement, a little stunned. When he crouches to look Buck over, his friend merely grins at him and shakes himself a little. There’s blood pouring down his face, but Buck barely seems to mind.
“The fuck?!” Eddie asks him in disbelief. He tilts Buck’s head back and forth to examine the damage a little more frantically than necessary, in Buck’s opinion.
Hen pushes Eddie out of the way to shine a light in Buck’s eyes and ask him the usual series of concussion screening questions. Once she’s certain he’s fine, she sets about staunching the blood flow with gauze. Eddie gently helps Buck to his feet while he focuses on holding the gauze on his face so he doesn’t ruin his LAFD shirt any further.
“Buck,” Eddie says impatiently, clearly still waiting for an answer to his question.
“The kids were scared of him,” Buck says when Eddie searches his face. The tension in Eddie’s body melts. He glances over his shoulder at the kids who are clinging to their mother, who is crying with relief. “I couldn’t let them go with him.”
“You’re a moron,” Eddie hisses, but there’s no heat behind the accusation, only concern.
“Come on, let's go back to the station and clean up, or we’re going to be late for our own barbecue. Our shift ended an hour ago; I’m ready to go home.” Bobby’s voice startles the pair of them. Hen had disappeared sometime during their conversation to pack up and hand their patient off. He sounds torn between exasperation, affection, and grudging acceptance.
Buck beams at him around his gauze and rushes for the engine, Eddie on his heels.
+++
Buck and Eddie are showered and on their way to Bobby’s with Chris in tow an hour and a half later. May answers the door when Buck knocks; he beams and gives her a hug. She and Eddie do a complicated handshake they’d started during their time together at dispatch. It never failed to make Buck roll his eyes at how pleased Eddie was with himself each time.
“Bobby’s rushing around in the kitchen. But he told me to give you this when you got here.” May holds out a bag of frozen peas, and Buck sighs in exasperation, but he gently presses the bag against his swollen face. Chris runs off to find Harry and Denny, and Buck and Eddie head out the back door to join the adults.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Athena teases as she pours wine. “The hero of the hour.”
Buck laughs, waving her off. “Shut up, ‘Thena." She looks amused. “This is the only time I’ll let you get away with that.”
"Hey, so don’t kill me,” Chimney says, looking up from his phone. “I did warn your sister, though.”
“Come on, Chim, you didn’t have to tell Maddie. She’s only going to nag me.” Buck complains.
“She was going to find out either way!” Chimney replies defensively.
“You know I can hear you, right?" Maddie asks him, and Buck startles, spinning to see his big sister behind him, hands on her hips. She shakes her head. “What are we going to do with you? Let me see it. Come on.”
“Hen, Chim, and Eddie have all checked me over like 40 times. I’m concussion-free; my nose has stopped bleeding, and it's just a little tender, okay? Call off the dogs.”
“Evan Buckley,” Maddie threatens.
Buck sighs affectionately and relinquishes the frozen peas to let her get a good look at his face. “See, I’m fine. Stop fussing.”
“I will decide that for myself,” Maddie replies, gently tenderly touching the swollen area with expert fingers. “I was a nurse for a long time, you know.”
“You worry too much,” Buck complains. “You should be used to this by now.”
“One would think,” Maddie agrees, finally taking her seat. Buck is a little relieved to have the attention taken off of him when Bobby steps out the back.
“Foods ready.”
Once dinner is over and the kids have fled the table, the 118 give the lowdown to Maddie, Karen, and May, who all eagerly listen to the events of the afternoon. Chimney tells the story dramatically, earning affectionate eye rolls from his coworkers.
"He’s not kidding, though. You were all over that, Buckaroo,” Athena says in amusement. She’s on the other side of Buck tonight, and when she notices he’s had his fresh bag of frozen peas off his face for awhile, she lifts his wrist, forcing him to press it back to his swollen cheek.
“You seemed to have plenty of practice goading that guy on,” Eddie agrees in annoyance. “It would have been nice to know what was happening before I walked up, just as the guy decked you.”
“Well, it's not like I could exactly be like, 'Hey Eddie, I’m going to make this guy over here punch me'. One, because you wouldn’t have let me do it. Two, because what I did was definitely a moral gray area as far as our job is concerned. But you’re also not entirely wrong; I have plenty of practice goading people into punching me from my high school years.”
Buck admits with a grin. The statement earns him curious looks from his friends. Athena’s eyebrows draw together in a frown. “I used to get into fights all the time.”
“I’m not sure they’re necessarily considered fights if you don’t punch them back, Evan,” Maddie says in annoyance.
Buck rolls his eyes and says, “You know what I mean, Madeline.”
“That’s not my name,” Maddie replies, unimpressed.
“Magdalene.”
“Evan.”
“Megalodon.” Maddie throws a waded-up paper towel at his head, fighting down a grin.
“What do you mean he didn’t punch back?” Eddie asks testily, whipping his head to look at Buck with an accusatory expression.
“Calm down over there fight club. And come on, I was a teenager. My thing back then was being weird and edgy.”
"Wait, can we go back?” Hen asks, “Weird and edgy? So you’re telling me baby Buck Buckley wasn’t a jock?” There is a disbelieving lilt to her tone.
“He was weird and edgy,” Maddie confirms. “He was even in a garage band his senior year.”
“Megatron!” Buck exclaims in betrayal.
“Oh my god! A band? What type of music?” Chimney beams like he’s just won the lottery.
“That screaming stuff. Buck was the vocalist, so he did all the screaming.” Maddie informs them. “It was grating. Not my thing. Some people said they were good, though.”
“Please tell me there’s video,” Athena asks, glancing at the mortified Buck with a smirk.
“Oh, you bet!” Maddie promises while fishing her phone out of her pocket. "There is probably plenty online too. They had a decent local fanbase."
“You really know how to kick a boy when he’s down, don’t you, Mads?” Buck asks, sulking.
“So what I’m hearing is that you had an emo phase?” May jokes, and Buck flushes pink.
“I don’t know what that means.” He lies.
"Oh, for sure, all black everything. Hang on, here’s the photos.” Maddie says, and everyone around the table eagerly passes her phone around while Buck whines.
“These are adorable and also my favorite thing.” Karen announces, grinning at Buck, who rolls his eyes but is unable to keep himself from grinning.
“So you liked making people punch you? I’m not sure I’m putting two and two together,” Chimney said, shaking his head but grinning down at the photos of a moody teenage Buck wearing tight ripped girls jeans, a black band shirt, and a leather jacket with combat boots and some smudgy eyeliner. He was sporting a split lip and a black eye.
“I don’t really know how to explain high school, Buck, or Evan, I guess. He was… in a different headspace, for sure. Music was kind of a solace, but as far as the fights at school… I think partially I was because I was just so numb back then, but I got a thrill out of picking fights. I enjoyed picking the fights more than the actual fighting, but at the same time, I didn’t mind it; the adrenaline and pain tended to cut through the numbness.”
“Jesus Christ.” Hen is horrified. Everyone but Maddie is looking at Buck a bit like he’s grown a second head.
“It was also a plus because black eyes and visible bruises meant my parents gave me a second glance. It was a little bonus.”
“I—” Words seemed to fail Chimney, who seems to both have so much to say and nothing at all.
“Like Maddie said, I was dark and edgy.”
“And you don’t see how that’s not fucked up?” Chimney asks.
Buck takes a long drag off the Bourbon neat Eddie sets in front of him. “I mean, in retrospect, I can see it wasn’t the healthiest way of dealing with things. My therapist and I are still working through a lot in the Before High School Era Buck. “I mean, it's not really that different than the times I’ve gone into self-destruct mode in the time you’ve known me.” Buck admits, thinking back to the sanitizer factory after his parents visited—the time he’d nearly given up, or would have if the 118 hadn’t rescued him. Or the time after Eddie had been shot by the sniper and he’d climbed the scaffolding, even after he spotted the suspicious glint, a dark part of him was praying that bullets would tear through his unarmored body.
“Have I mentioned before how much I truly hate your parents?” Chimney asks vehemently.
“Yeah, they probably should have put me in therapy,” Buck laughs, breezily brushing it off. He doesn’t like the way Eddie is looking at him—a bit like a kicked puppy. Discomfort is crawling up and down his skin. He’s relieved when Hen, who seems to sense his discomfort, changes the subject.
“So, baby Buck didn’t play a single sport? Maddie, I demand you get on finding that footage of that band you were talking about.” Maddie delights in digging through old Facebook memories while Buck whines at her. When she’s unable to pull anything from the archive, he sighs and gets his own phone out. He pulls up the old band YouTube and surrenders his device to the group. They laugh in delight at the videos of Buck screaming garbled vocals—even a few videos of local shows they’d played.
“Before now, I always pictured you as the golden boy, captain of the football team.” Hen admits, smiling down at a baby edgy Evan Buckley.
“He was pretty damn scrawny in these,” Athena points out.
“Nah, I was more of a loner. No one gave me a second glance until I was in college; that’s when I started getting muscles and dressing less edgy. Besides, kids aren’t the nicest to the edgy openly bisexual know-it-all kid.”
The offhanded open admission seems to take everyone off guard; although it wasn’t something Buck kept hidden, he’s never explicitly confirmed his sexuality aloud before.
“So, pissing the guy off was really a walk in the park for you,” Eddie says with a sigh.
“Easy as breathing, I’ve always had a knack for pushing buttons, especially my parents.” Buck jokes while the rest of the 118 cringe. Bobby, who has been noticeably silent, looks so unbearably sad that Buck has to look away. “Come on, this was so far in the past at this point. What I did to get attention from my parents is neither here nor there.”
“It was our childhood. It was what it was. Is it any wonder I fled my parents house the first chance I got?” Maddie jokes.
"Really, neither of you see how all of that’s a little fucked up? And I can’t really judge; I’m like the poster child for daddy issues.” Chimney points out. May shakes her head. "You two are the meme where it's like: I told my friends a funny story, but then everyone looked horrified and apologized. I’m still not sure what went wrong!”
Maddie rolls her eyes. “Our entire childhood was soaked in grief and self-esteem issues. Is it really any wonder we had issues as teenagers?”
“Christ, you two need family counseling.” Karen says, shaking her head.
“This is the emotionally stunted man you want helping raise your child?” Hen verifies to Eddie, “This one? You’re certain.”
“It's already legally binding, so,” Eddie replied flippantly.
“I’m sorry, did you two get married without telling us?” Chimney jokes but still appears a little lost.
“Or start dating, for that matter?” Athena inquires.
Buck and Eddie are both immediately flustered. “What? No—”
“I’m in his will,” Buck blurts.
"Oh, because that is so much better than not being married without us knowing.” Hen replies, rolling her eyes.
“What do you mean, in his will?" Bobby questions, “There might be paperwork you need to sign at work.”
“It's not a big deal.” Eddie waves them off. “After the well collapse, I amended my will that Buck should take over custody of Chris if I were to die.”
The backyard is dead silent. For the second time that night, Buck’s skin is crawling with discomfort. He wants to laugh to ease the tension, but he can barely breathe. Eddie, who was usually the quieter of the two, starts rambling.
“I mean, it makes the most sense. My parents made me emotionally constipated, and I didn’t want to pass on any more of that generational trauma to Chris. Besides, Buck’s been practically helping me raise Chris since I started at the 118.” There’s another extended silence, which May finally breaks.
“Somehow being in your will is the gayest thing Buck has managed to do, and I just saw him in a picture of women's skinny jeans.” May points out.
“They didn’t make men's skinny jeans back then!” Buck defends.
"God, you’re old.”
The entire table dissolves into laughter.
“Men will do anything but admit their feelings,” Hen says, muffled into her hands, earning a laugh from Athena. Buck feels himself blush, and he grins at Eddie a little sheepishly. When they’re sitting alone at the table later that evening, he catches Eddie watching him.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I guess the cat is out of the bag, on the whole will thing.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I just…”
“It's not like it was a secret. I assumed you’d have told Maddie by now at least.”
“It felt weirdly…”
“Intimate?” Eddie offers when Buck is unable to come up with a word to fit that conversation that night in the hospital.
Buck nods and laughs a little self-consciously. Eddie holds his gaze and says, “Maybe Hen was onto something earlier.”
“About?” Buck asks, because Buck needs to hear him say it.
“Me. Having feelings for you. That go beyond platonic.”
“Oh.” Buck says dumbly.
“Is that a good oh, or a bad one?” Eddie’s voice wavers a little.
Buck lets out a slow, shaky breath. “Definitely a good one. Me too, I mean.” Eddie reaches out and cups the side of Buck’s face, thumb tracing his cheekbone gently.
They’re both startled out of the moment by a knock on the glass windows behind them. May slides the patio door open and says, “I changed my mind. That’s the gayest shit Buck’s done tonight.”
There’s laughter that leaks from inside the house, and Buck and Eddie can only laugh along because, because yeah maybe it took them a little too long to get here. But neither of them would change a moment of it.
It's impossible not to smile when Eddie finally kisses him.