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The construction crew that had been working on the 118 were only hired for cosmetic work on the outside of the building, fixing sagging door frames and repairing loose and broken bricks in the wall. They must be the worst crew in the entire city, between almost killing a fire captain and denting the engine, but Buck can’t blame them for how a 5.6 earthquake cracked the foundation and knocked the firehouse’s support beams out of alignment. The entire firehouse fell like a house of cards, thankfully evacuated by the time the ceiling started caving in.
Without a firehouse, everyone gets split up across the city. Some take the opportunity for an impromptu vacation—Hen does, using up her banked PTO so the Wilsons can enjoy being reunited. Chimney decides to work parttime at the Fire Academy, on a somewhat normal schedule for the first time in two decades, which he and Jee-yun are more than thrilled about. Bobby gets sent back to the Hot Shots shooting lot. Eddie fills in at the 133. Buck isn’t assigned to a single station; he’s a floater, moving from firehouse to firehouse, whoever needs an extra body.
By his fourth firehouse in three weeks, Buck is almost used to it.
This week, he’s with Station 29 over on Sunset. He only got the email the night before, something about one of their regulars on C-shift having to start his paternity leave a couple days early. There’s already a floater ready for the rest of his leave, the email said, so Buck is just filling in for the guy’s next two shifts before he’s off to the next station.
Buck looks on the brightside: he’s networking. He’s making connections. He’s getting to know captains, officers, and some of them have been nice enough to let Buck pick their brains. His first placement was with the 55, and the vibe there was definitely more of the good ol’ boys club. Gerrard would’ve fit in with them, Buck thinks. Buck didn’t. He was too used to the 118, to Bobby’s style of captaining. None of the guys over there had seemed too impressed with Buck’s eight years of service with the LAFD. They treated him like a probie. Buck knows that he’s the new guy, expects to get some shit; still, Buck thought there would be some acknowledgement of the fact he’s a recognized firefighter. He has a medal!
Buck’s been more apprehensive when showing up to new stations, after that. Station 29 is over in Hollywood Hills, with fresh brickwork and chrome accents. The 118 had been renovated within the last decade, but Station 29 is like stepping into a mansion. It’s a two-level station, like most firehouses in the city. Buck takes inventory of it as he walks in: the bunkroom in the back corner, the closed-off locker room, the stairs leading up to the common area. Buck nods at some of the guys he sees around the station, his hands tight around the straight of his heavy duffel bag.
They were able to recover their turnouts, once the wreckage of the 118 started being cleared away. Buck’s been carting them around with the rest of his gear, tossing them in the Jeep after each shift because he doesn’t have a locker to keep them in. He has a bag with bedding and spare uniforms in his Jeep, but he never bothers with bringing it in unless he thinks he’s actually going to sleep on shift. Buck has mostly been getting away with dozing in the various living areas, always crashing hard at the loft when he gets off.
Still, carrying around his duffel makes him feel an awful lot like being 26 and walking into the 118 for the first time. Buck had been sick with nerves that day, and the 118—Bobby—settled him in with ease. The 118 has always been Buck’s place. He always felt comfortable walking into the apparatus day, pulling on his uniform and turning into Buck the firefighter.
It’s harder to find that comfort at any of these stations. Buck feels 26 again, anxious energy thrumming under his skin, and the longer the rebuilding takes, it just gets worse.
Buck swallows it down, like he always does, and looks for Captain Wright on the upper level. Buck figured it’s best to locate the officer and make his introductions, ask what they need him to do. At his last two placements, he had just been waved off and told to make friends with the other firefighters. Captain Wright isn’t any different. He barely spares Buck a second look as he fills out forms. Just says, “Welcome, Buckley,” and Buck heads downstairs to change and hang up his turnouts.
Buck likes wearing the button-up these days. It makes him seem more professional. The downside is it makes him seem uptight, especially when he’s talking to guys dressed down in t-shirts and loose pants. Buck’s fixing the sleeve cuffs on his shirt as he leaves the locker room and almost knocks into one of the 29’s guys, who looks more dressed for a workout than fighting fires.
“Hey, man, you’re the floater?” the guy asks.
“Evan Buckley,” he says, extending a hand. The guy doesn’t look familiar, but Buck doesn’t really expect to recognize anyone. The LAFD is way too large for that. “Everyone calls me Buck, though.”
He hasn’t been called Buck by anyone at these stations. No one has tossed out an Evan, either, which he’s pathetically grateful for, but it feels like another reminder. No one here is his friend. No one here cares about Buck—just the extra body.
“Nick Montgomery,” the guy says, shaking his hand. “You’re from the 118, right?”
“Yeah, actually.” Buck feels his face stretch into a genuine smile. It’s been awhile since he used those muscles. “Am I that famous?”
“I’ve seen you on the news enough,” Nick says. He falls into step as Buck goes to hang his turnouts in the empty wall mount. “It’s pretty crazy, all the shit that’s happened to your house. Kinda like you guys are cursed, honestly.”
Buck frowns as he sets up his locker. “Is that, like, a thing? That the 118 is cursed?”
“At the point,” Nick says, blowing out a huge sigh, “it’s gotta be.”
Buck can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but he can’t argue with him either. He doesn’t know if he believes in curses so much as karma, superstitions, and bad luck. He’s not much of a believer in the big shit, like Bobby is. But the idea of the 118 being cursed just makes sense. Or, at the very least, Buck is cursed.
“Hope I don’t rub off on the 29, then,” Buck jokes. It doesn’t land the way he hoped. Nick just gives him an awkward smile and disappears, leaving Buck to get used to the fire station on his own.
In the couple hours before their first call, Buck has mostly integrated with the rest of the shift. He familiarizes himself with the truck, learns they keep their hydrant ket on the shelf instead of the pull-out tray, that the tool bags are stored with the salvage covers for some reason. He jokes around with a couple of the guys in the living area, finds common ground talking about the Dodgers and playoffs—thankfully, Buck is kept up-to-date between Chimney and Eddie—and upcoming Halloween plans. A lot of the guys on shift have kids; Buck thinks about jumping in, showing them pictures of Christopher, but the words never make it out of his mouth.
Their first call is an easy one: residential fire, no casualties, just a charred living room from way too many candles. Buck gets a seat on the engine, ends up sitting across from Nick. There’s not much shatter over the headsets as they go from the residential fire to an MVA, and by the time he’s slouching back into the engine, Buck has mostly forgotten about Nick’s weird introduction.
He remembers, suddenly, when Nick pipes up and says, “Hey, were you are that Keyline crash last month?”
Everyone’s eyes go to Buck suddenly. He shifts in his seat, uncomfortable with their attention. “Yeah, actually.”
“Shit, man, really?” someone asks. Patterson, if Buck remembers correctly. He’s been introduced to a lot of names and faces over the last few weeks. He’s starting to see the appeal in calling probies, well, probies. “We were routed to LAX, didn’t get to see any of the action.”
“I thought the 118 was with us at the airport?”
“I, uh, I wasn’t with them,” Buck says with a tight smile. “They were the first house to respond to the crash, though.”
Nick squints at him. “So where were you?”
Buck opens his mouth, closes it. Athena had been insistent that no one mentions which off-duty LAPD officer landed the plane, and the gag order has held this far. Buck’s not going to be the one who ruins that. “I was in the right place to help shut down the 5 so it could be used as a runway.”
The press got to have a field day with that, at least. Buck and Bobby weren’t named, but Brad held no less than five interviews about working with the LAFD that night. None of the interviews mentioned how he fainted, of course, or that Bobby technically stole a prop fire engine. There was a vague timeline of events that floated around online until everyone moved onto the next thing, but Brad let it slip that Bobby—the LAFD technical advisor for the show—was the one who had the idea to shut down I-5. Buck had been mentioned, an offhand remark about shutting down northbound traffic. The lack of identifying information didn’t stop him from printing out the interview and sticking it to his fridge.
“Damn,” Patterson says with an impressed head nod. “Fucking Los Angeles, man, we get all the crazies.”
It makes Buck laugh, breaks through the tension. He agrees, opens his mouth to say something else—
“I wanted to transfer out of the state after the tsunami,” Nick says. He’s not looking at Buck, just at Patterson and the other guys, but Buck feels pinned down anyways. “And that fucking sniper? If my girl didn’t love the city so much, I would’ve moved us out to fucking Arkansas or something.”
“Then you’d gotta deal with tornadoes,” Patterson says sagely. A laugh from everyone, like this is a shared joke. Buck on the outside looking in. He feels itchy all of a sudden, like there’s something crawling under his skin. Buck twists his hands in his lap, trying to crack his knuckles and just feeling the bones grate against each other. “You’ve been working for a while, right, Buckley?”
“Eight years,” Buck says. He has to clear his throat. “Give or take.” Maybe seven years, given the amount of time Buck has spent convalescing.
“You have seen it all,” Patterson says with an impressed whistle.
Nick adds, “He’s from the 118, man.”
“Oh, shit.” Patterson widens his eyes and Buck braces himself. “You gotta have some stories.”
Buck does, and he doesn’t want to talk about any of them, but none of the guys in the engine seem to realize that. Or they do—and they simply don’t care. If it were his team, if he were sitting across from Eddie, Hen and Chimney in the seats next to him, they’d notice. They’d let him switch topics, let him get away with it. No matter how much Buck deflects—nah, I bet you guys have some horror stories of your own—it keeps coming back to the 118 and every tragedy Buck has seen.
He can’t talk about the bombing, or the tsunami, or the shooting, or the blackout. All the personal tragedies his family had been involved in, all the accidents Buck was at the epicenter for. Even collateral damage hurts. He talks about flying in to save the Uno, because that's public knowledge. He talks about the train derailment.
Weirdly, it reminds him of when he was dating Natalia. She liked hearing his stories, the ones he could never talk about with his team because they were too painful. She had been interested, and Buck was desperate for anyone who would look at him like he’s normal and not someone to be handled with gloves. Buck gave her all his stories, and she would talk about death, and then Buck would be thinking about death the next time he was staring down a fire, a car wreck, a jumper desperate for it.
The thing with Natalia is that she never understood how much Buck feared death. How scared he was of it, no matter how many times he had been acquainted with it. She made it her living to make peace with death; Buck made it his to always be fighting it. They weren’t compatible for other reasons, but it hurt Buck when he realized—she never got to know him. Not past all the times he’s been too close to never coming back.
It’s the same with Station 29. The guys in the engine, they only like the thrill of Buck’s stories. Maybe they’re worse than the calls they’ve shown up to. They listen to Buck recount the times he’s almost died and they can think: man, sure glad I’m not that guy. To them, Buck is just a floater; there’s no point in getting to know him on a personal level.
By the time they get back to the firehouse, it’s late enough that Buck can get away with picking an empty bunk and pretending to get some shut eye. He doesn’t fall asleep. Can’t. Only a handful of guys are trying to sleep, everyone else crowded around in the common area. Sometimes Buck hears their laughter drift down.
He missed the 118. He misses the soft couches, Bobby’s cooking, the way Eddie will knock their boots together wherever they sit. Buck curls up on a cot, feels a cold hand wrapped around his heart, and just feels lonely.
Buck’s on a weird schedule these days. The entire LAFD runs the same shift schedule, so A-shift at the 118 would be working the days as A-shift at any of station. Buck went from A-shift to bouncing between the three different platoons at different stations, picking up overtime during shift change, and crashing hard during his Kelly days.
It puts him on an asynchronous schedule with the rest of the team. Chimney works a boring 9-5 at the Academy, and Maddie almost exclusively has day shift now that she’s a senior at dispatch. Eddie’s on A-shift with the 133 under Mehta, and now that Hen’s back from her vacation, she’s filling a paramedic spot at Station 49 and considering the Leadership Academy. Bobby’s schedule is equally unpredictable as Buck’s, thanks to the weird call times for the Hot Shots shoots.
It’s hard to make their schedules match up. At the top of each week, Buck does his best to make plans. He finds breaks in his off-days to get coffee with Maddie while she’s at work; Buck cooks dinner for two and shows up at Eddie’s house, leaves the leftovers in the fridge when he’s on shift; he starts sending voice messages to Bobby, the two of them trading minute-long audio notes back and forth because there’s never enough time to get on the phone.
It’s not a good replacement for being at the 118 together, but Buck is trying. It’s enough. He’s letting it be enough.
His second—and last—shift with the 29 ended on a sour note. Buck carried three teenagers out of a burning house and had to watch as the ambulance pulled away with one of them, a young girl with intensive burns over her arms, coding on the gurney. When the bus pulled back into the station, Buck didn’t need to ask to know what her fate was.
After calls like this, Bobby always reaches out to the entire team. Offers a listening ear, company, going out to a diner. Captain Wright doesn’t do any of that. He’s gruff during shift change, gruff when sending Buck out, and Buck drives to his loft in a daze. After shifts like these, Buck doesn’t like being alone. Usually, he isn’t, because Eddie knows Buck doesn’t want to be alone and drags him around while he does errands and chores. Sometimes Chimney steps in, declares brother-in-law duties. Sometimes it’s Bobby, sharing the haunted look in Buck’s eyes as they talk about it over pancakes and coffee.
Buck gets back to the empty loft and stares at the ceiling. He knows everyone’s schedule, knows Eddie and Maddie are at work, but he texts them anyways. Maddie’s getting lunch with Chimney, so she’s out. Eddie doesn’t reply and Buck convinces himself it’s because the 133 is on a call. He knows Bobby is working, because he sent a blurry picture of the shooting lot earlier this morning with a frowning emoji. Buck couldn’t decide if it was because of the early hour, or if it was because Brad Torrence was horrifically out of safety compliance.
He doesn’t want to be alone, though, so Buck texts Tommy. They’re coming up on their sixth month anniversary. Buck needs to start planning for that. Maybe a fancy dinner? The idea is a little exhausting. Buck didn’t really consider how dating another first responder would go, especially one at a different house, especially one on a different shift schedule. When the 118 is back up and running, Buck will be back on A-shift; Tommy is on C-shift with the 217. Their schedules have aligned more now that Buck’s a floater, but there’s been a lot of rain checks and missed calls over the last six months.
Today is one of those days when their schedules line up. Tommy agrees to come over that evening, so Buck crashes through the rest of the morning and the early afternoon, wakes up with a dry mouth and the beginnings of a headache. He stares at the ceiling some more. It’s a brilliantly sunny day in Los Angeles and the loft is lit from the windows, gauzy shapes against the walls. It’s a beautiful day, and a teenager died because Buck wasn't fast enough, and somehow he’s supposed to move past it.
By the time Tommy shows up, Buck has moved on from staring at the ceiling and the shadows on the wall to cooking dinner. The loft smells good, a pork chop recipe he got from Bobby. His mood has somehow dragged itself back up, mostly due to the prospect of not being alone. Tommy shows up, and Buck’s stomach flutters, and it’s a good night. Tommy smiles at him, and Buck matches it, and his loneliness seeps away over dinner and drinks.
Tommy doesn’t ask how his day was, how his shift went, and Buck tells himself he’s grateful for it. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He already left voice messages for Bobby, received a long one that Bobby definitely recorded at the crafts table. Tommy doesn’t talk about his bad shifts; he’s not the same as Buck. Buck needs to talk through them, left someone else tend to the wounds of his bleeding heart, staunch the blood. And Tommy’s presence is doing that. It’s enough.
They have dinner, watch TV, end up on the bed with Tommy’s hands on his waistband. Buck tries his best to pay attention, to stay focused. His brain runs at a hundred miles a minute, he knows. He has a propensity for spiraling, he knows. Buck just feels heavy, the kind of bone-deep heaviness that’s so hard to shake off. His arms have felt like two-ton bricks ever since he let go of that girl, and he’s not a good enough actor to hide it.
“You okay?” Tommy asks. He’s pressing Buck down against the bed. They were kissing. His hand is pressing against Buck’s dick through the fabric of his boxers. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere,” Buck says, instead of telling him I lost someone today. Buck surges up and kisses him, and Tommy keeps things going.
Buck doesn’t tell him A teenage girl died today and her parents are never going to see her again. Her siblings are never going to see her again.
Buck doesn’t tell him, I miss Christopher like a hole in my chest. I miss my family. I’m sick of people leaving. Don’t leave, please.
Buck just kisses Tommy, lets the body take over, and Tommy doesn’t question it.
When Tommy finally falls asleep, Buck stays awake. His post-orgasm glow had fled within seconds. He’s back to staring at the ceiling, turning the call over in his head. It’s not the first time he’s lost someone on the job, and it certainly won’t be the last. Sometimes Buck thinks he should start carrying a little black book of his own, marking down the names of everyone he’s failed so save. He knows better than that, knows that’s when he’s be staring down a steep slope he won’t be able to return from. Buck knows he should talk to Bobby or Maddie, maybe even a therapist, when it gets to this point.
It’s not like Buck needs anyone to tell him what his issues are. They might as well be written on his forehead in bright red marker. He’s not ignoring it or anything; Buck just doesn’t see the point in re-litigating them every time he feels like this, every time he feels like a dog that got sent back to the pound. It’s not like he doesn’t have his friends and family, and Tommy is sleeping right next to him, but there’s a hole in Buck’s chest he’s had since he was born and he still doesn’t know how to fill it.
Buck likes his next placement a hell of a lot more. Station 92 in Culver City. The B-shift there is filled with a bunch of newer guys, and Buck’s got the most seniority after the shift officers. Captain Lawlor is enthusiastically happy that he’s filling in with them, says to Buck, “Nash tells me you’ve been good with the probies at the 118?”
“Some, yeah,” Buck says with a laugh. He still feels bad for terrorizing Ravi with a chainsaw. A-shift had another probie who floated with them for a couple of months last year, and Bobby had assigned Buck to help him out too.
“Great,” Lawlor says with too much relief.
He sends Buck off to deal with the 92’s probie, a twenty-something kid named Luke Cafferty who already got the nickname of Coffee because he broke three of the station’s coffee machines. He’s fumbling and awkward and Buck turns into his designated partner for the calls they have that day. Still, Cafferty is resolved in being a firefighter. He’s more than happy to listen to Buck talk about his probie year, actually interested in it, too, so Buck doesn’t mind talking about it. Honestly, he kinda misses his probie year. The worst thing that happened to him was an emergency tracheotomy when he was off-shift—he misses when life was that simple.
He’s with the 92 for a full week of shifts, three in a row and one more after his Kelly days, so Buck doesn’t mind settling in with the guys. It’s a good station, even if Captain Lawlor is nothing like Bobby’s steady presence. It’s a bit of a mess, honestly; Lawlor had only recently been promoted, and his shift is filled with young guys. Buck steps in where he can, probably oversteps, but Lawlor seems more than thankful to offload some of the administrative duties and let Buck cook family meals.
He could probably swing a longer assignment at the 92. Buck goes as far as drafting an email to the reassignment coordinators, except it sits unset in his drafts for a couple of days. Asking for a permanent placement feels like giving up. Feels like running away. Buck knows it isn’t, knowing Eddie isn’t going to stay with the 133 forever, or Chimney will stay as an instructor, but it’s different when it’s Buck. He’s spent most of his life leaving and being left. He didn’t ask to leave the 118, never had except when it seemed like his home was falling apart around him and he wanted to leave before he was left again, but if he asked for this permanent placement—he’s be leaving again.
The 118 will be back in service in another month or two, Buck tells himself. He can handle another month of floating between stations, another month of only catching his family for fleeting chats on the phone or quick dinners. Buck will be fine.
He deletes the email draft and does his best to make sure Cafferty doesn’t trip over the hoses while he rolls them up, soaks up the kid’s starry eyes and compliments, and misses his firehouse.
During his string of off-days, Buck and Maddie finally manage to get a couple hours to themselves on a Friday. Chimney is working, but Maddie took the morning off because Jee-yun had to go to the dentist, so Buck takes them out to the children’s museum in Santa Monica. Jee-yun got a clean bill of health from the dentist and a sticky hand she got from the dentist’s toy box. She takes great pleasure in slapping Buck with it, and Maddie’s attempts to scold her aren’t effective, given how she’s laughing through it.
The sticky hand is abandoned once they get to the museum, Jee-yun leaving her mom and uncle in the dust as she joins the group of toddlers climbing over an interactive playset. Buck and Maddie find seats at the edge of the room, smiling at Jee-yun whenever she looks over at them.
“How has she been doing, since Mara left?” Buck asks. It’s been a month since Hen and Karen took their daughter home, and Jee-yun didn’t exactly get why Mara was leaving. She’s too young to understand the particulars of circumventing foster licenses, and would demand Mara back every day.
“She’s getting over it, I think,” Maddie says with a soft smile. “She still misses Mara, but we’ve been trying to let them have playdates together. Mara’s so good with her, too.”
There’s something wistful in her voice. Buck gives her a sidelong look, but Maddie’s attention is on Jee-yon. If she was, she’d tell him—right?
“Has she started asking for another sibling?” Buck says, nudging their shoulders together. “Or you?”
“What?” Maddie blinks, snapping her head towards him. “Oh, no. Maybe? I mean, I loved having siblings,” and she gives him a bright smile, even though the plural siblings sends a stabbing pain through Buck’s gut, “but that’s just… I haven’t even brought it up with Howie.”
“He also has siblings,” Buck reminds her. Now that he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure the only people he knows who don’t have siblings are Hen and Athena. “Besides, we turned out alright.”
Despite what their parents did to them, to him, making Buck for one thing only and casting him aside when he couldn’t meet expectations. He’s over it. He’s used to it. His parents are the same unknowable entity they’ve been his entire life, even though he now knows the name and shape of their grief. Buck thinks a lot of how he turned out was thanks to Maddie—both when she stayed and when she left.
“You might want to get on it, though,” Buck says, already feeling the joke turning sour as he says the words. “You don’t want there to be a big age gap.”
Maddie frowns and Buck starts kicking himself.
It’s not like she had much of a choice in it. It’s not like Maddie wanted to leave him behind, but Buck was nine and she was eighteen and going to college. Maddie was eighteen and had never been anything other than a sister, sometimes a mother, and leaving was the only way she could figure out who Maddie was. It’s not like her life was a paradise after she left him. Maddie got stuck with Doug, and Buck got stuck with their dead brother’s ghost, and neither of them had a home to return to.
“Was it that bad?” she asks, her voice soft. “You and me?”
Buck wraps an arm around her shoulder, tugs her in so he can press a kiss to her temple. He can already feels the tears pressing at his eyes. “No, it never was,” he promises, mouth pressed to her hairline. “You know how happy I was to have a sister, no matter how much distance was between us.”
He sent all those postcards, after all. He kept a space in his life, because he wanted Maddie back. He did everything he could to make her stay, and she did. She tried. Buck wouldn’t change anything he’s done.
“I know,” Maddie says back, tilting into him.
Jee-yun calls for their attention, showing off as she makes an impressive jump over the play equipment. Buck lets out a boisterous whoop that has her giggling and Maddie muffling a laugh into his shoulder.
It doesn’t matter, what happened in their childhood. It’s what they have now that matters: Buck and Maddie, and a family that neither of them expected to have.
The thought follows him. Buck doesn’t make an effort to think about Daniel often. He knows about his dead brother, asked Maddie about him, but Daniel is just the empty puzzle piece whose shape Buck has felt out. He knows what’s missing, knows the contours of the hole carved out of him. And now Buck knows his name: Daniel. Buck had mourned him, the year he found out about him, but the specter of Daniel Buckley has always just been a specter.
Sometimes, the grief hits him by surprise. Sometimes, Buck imagines the life he might’ve had if he had an older brother, if there was one more person in the Buckley house when he was growing up. Maybe if Daniel lived, his parents would like him more. Buck wouldn’t have been a failure they would look at for eighteen years. Maybe if Daniel lived, Buck wouldn’t be so used to being left behind.
Daniel was the first one who left, after all.
There’s no point in dwelling on it. That’s what his old therapist said. What happened has happened, and now Buck has to live with it.
Buck gets back to the loft after dropping Jee-yun and Maddie off, and he wants to crawl into his bed for the foreseeable future. It’s not like he’s that tired, but something’s weighing down his bones, and the loft is so empty after a morning spent in the sunshine.
His phone goes off, a message from Tommy, aksing if he can come over. Buck is so excited about someone reaching out first, about not being alone, that he agrees. It’s not what he needs, Buck knows, but Tommy likes his company enough and Buck has that Daniel-shaped hole in his chest he just wants to fill for once.
Buck’s last shift with the 92 is a bit of a shitshow. It seems all the work he did with Cafferty on their last string of shifts has washed out of his head, and Buck’s trying not to be impatient with him, but it’s hard when Cafferty goes to charge a line at a restaurant fire, but he pulled a 2.5 hose so he gets knocked off his feet, and Buck ends up soaking wet. He’s grateful he didn’t put in that request for a permanent position, but the day goes steadily downhill from there.
It’s not a cursed shift, but it does feel like one. Buck doesn’t get a moment of rest between calls, too busy trying to clean up after the probie and make sure the inventory checks are completed. He knows Captain Lawlor is grateful for his help, seeing as Buck is filling in for his lieutenant, but Lawlor doesn’t offer his thanks and Buck feels the insecurity stretch across his back.
It’s the restaurant fire, then a medical call, then a car accident where the sedan is so crumpled they have to cut the roof off of it. Buck gets firsthand experience on how annoying his gung-ho attitude in his probie year must have been, barely managing to stop Cafferty from bringing the circular saw down before they can cover the civilians still inside the car. He feels like he’s dragging his feet, a second from tipping onto the closest soft surface when they get back to the station, but dispatch sends them out again before they can even take a breather.
They end up in a business park, speeding past several towering buildings and parking decks but the one their victim on is obvious—it’s the only one that has a guy dangling off it, after all. The call had come from a bystander and a crowd has gathered in their response time. Buck squints against the setting sun as he jumps out of the truck, barely able to get a look at the guy with how the sun is reflecting right off the glass windows of the building he’s dangling off. He has a hold on some sort of rope or wiring, but it’s long enough that it’s put him two stories below the roof.
“Captain?” Buck asks, because the entire crew has slowed to a stop, Captain Lawlor included. The man is just staring up at the victim. “Your call?”
“Oh, um.” Captain Lawlor flounders, and Buck misses Bobby with a physical pang in his chest. Bobby wouldn’t hesitate. “Rope or ladder, do you think?”
It takes Buck a moment to realize the question is directed at him. It takes him another moment to make the decision: “Rope, get an airbag set up underneath in case they fall.”
“Buckley, Cafferty, get yourselves up to the roof,” Lawlor says with a decisive nod. He starts barking at the others to get the airbag deployed, to start working on crowd control.
Buck just claps Cafferty on the back and starts grabbing the rope they need.
“What are we doing?” Cafferty asks, joining Buck. He knows what to do; he grabs the proper equipment, slings the coiled rope over his shoulder, grabs the winch when Buck indicates it. But he hesitates, still.
Buck gives him a smile, sticking a helmet on his head. “All you gotta do is work the winch, kid. Seniority means I get to do the fun stuff.”
It’s barely fun. It’s not that Buck went into firefighting for the adrenaline rush—okay, maybe that was part of it, but he stayed because firefighting was more than just that. It was the family. It was the feeling of doing good, of being something. Buck had to hold onto that feeling if he wanted to keep his job, forever grateful to Bobby for his second chance, but he still has fun on the job.
With his team. With Eddie, Hen, Chimney, and Bobby. Here, Buck doesn’t knock his arm against Cafferty’s because they’re not partners. He doesn’t have Eddie to doublecheck his harness, Bobby’s steady voice on the radio, Hen and Chimney waiting to administer care if needed. It’s just Buck and a group of people who are good at their jobs—coworkers. Not a family. Not people he can let himself trust.
So Buck takes the fun job, rappelling down the side of the building while Cafferty keeps an eye on the winch. It’s simple enough. The airbag is waiting below them, but Buck doesn’t want to let their victim take such a long fall. He doesn’t hurry, doesn’t make stupid mistakes, because Buck is certain of his own ability if nothing else.
“Hey, how we doing?” he asks once he gets closer to their victim. Without the glare from the sun, he can see that it’s a guy. There’s a large camera dangling from his neck, held on by a strap. The guy’s entire body is tense, clinging to the cable that must’ve snapped off from the roof.
“Terrible!” the guy says, his voice shaking but undeniably pissed off. “Jesus Christ, I just wanted to get some photos!”
“Okay, okay,” Buck says, slowing to a stop when he reaches the guy. “You still got your camera, you’ll be fine. Now, I’m just going to get this rescue belt around you—”
“The funeral’s going to be over by the time you guys let me go,” the guy whines. “Can’t you, like, turn me around? There’s still some good sightlines from right here.”
“What?”
The guy rolls his eyes, like Buck is the idiot for not understanding why he doesn’t want to be rescued. He looks like he would be gesturing impatiently, but his hands have a white-knuckled grip on the cable. “Just, get that harness thing on me and let me take some photos, okay? It’s not gonna take long, man.”
“Photos of what?” Buck asks as he starts to get the rescue band around the guy. His muscles are shaking, cramped up. Usually, it’s more difficult when the victim is thrashing, making it harder to get the rescue belt around them. This guy isn’t belligerent, but he is suffering from muscle failure, and Buck’s extra careful to keep his touch light in case his grip totally fails.
“Edward Fall’s funeral,” the guy says, like he isn’t hanging off a building. “They tried to keep it a secret, but I got a source telling me they were going out to the plot today. Shit, dude, TMZ was gonna pay out the ass if I got some good shots of it.”
“You were taking photos of some guy’s funeral?” Buck asks. He cinches the rescue belt, makes sure the guy is steady and connected. “Why?”
“Do you not know who Edward Fall is?” he says incredulously. “The actor? Strike Force 20? Quarrels & Reunions? Jesus, dude, do you live under a rock?” Buck doesn’t get a chance to defend himself. “He’s, like, a super popular actor. And his funeral is a closed affair but I need the photo to sell, okay? Rent’s due in a week.”
Buck reaches for his radio, telling Cafferty to start pulling them up. “Alright, you can let go of the cable.”
“What? No, I need to get the photo!”
The guy starts thrashing then. Buck swallows back a grunt as an elbow hits him right in the solar plexus. He really hates this part about rope rescues. The guy’s grip on the cable slackens, and there’s a pause where he realizes this and freezes, and then Cafferty starts hauling them up on the winch.
“Not cool, man,” the guy says. He tries to twist, but the harnesses don’t really allow for it.
Buck shrugs. He doesn’t particularly feel sorry about it. There’s a part of him that still feels weird about death—after dying himself, after seeing his family come so close to deal, Buck’s lost any understanding of the morbid curiosity or cruelty people have for the dead. Natalia might have a different perspective on things, but they saw differently on a lot of things.
At the ledge of the roof, Cafferty helps drag the guy over the edge as Buck pushes him up. Once the guy is safe, Buck gets ready to pull himself over the edge—but there’s an unmistakable click as a biner comes undone. Buck meets Cafferty’s eyes for a moment, then takes in the probie’s hands on the wrong biner, and his stomach drops before the rest of him does.
It’s not a long fall. It is long enough for Buck’s mind to, nonsensically, remember Devon. He thinks, Is this how it felt? before he’s hitting the surface of the airbag, all the wind knocked out of him.
“Buckley?”
He hears Lawlor’s voice first. He’s still trying to take stock of his body, still trying to remember that he has one. There are hands on him helping him out of the airbag, then Lawlor is in front of him again. Buck blinks and the world rushes in.
“You alright, Buckley?” Lawlor asks, probably not for the first time.
“Yeah,” he says, having to repeat himself when his voice fails on the first attempt. “The guy…?”
“Cafferty’s got him, PD’s on their way,” Lawlor says. “Let’s get you looked over.”
Buck lets himself be shepherded over to the ambulance. The paramedics with the 92 are good enough, even if Buck really only trusts Hen and Chimney. It’s not like he’s grievously injured, just intensively bruised, but Buck lets them check him over anyways. He can see from his perch inside the bus as the cops pull up, arresting their victim. It’s not like Buck likes to see it, or cares, but there’s some sense of satisfaction as the camera gets pulled away from him. No creeper funeral shots for him.
“I am so sorry,” Cafferty says the second he’s within Buck’s eyeline.
“It’s fine,” Buck says, the words falling out of him before he thinks about it. He doesn’t even consider being mad. Buck survived the fall and the probie learned an invaluable lesson. “Just… maybe a ropes training refresher?”
“Absolutely,” Cafferty says, turning into a bobblehead with the amount of nodding he’s doing. “Are you okay?”
“Just fine, kid,” Buck says. Weird. Cafferty is a decade his junior, maybe, but Buck’s never really been aware of that until now. Sure, Buck has eight years of service, but it’s never really made him feel senior compared to others. Except now. “You’re doing good, okay?”
Because Buck needed someone to tell him that during his probie year, when everything was overwhelming and he was learning as much on the job as he did in the Academy. Bobby had helped, but they weren’t a family yet. They weren’t close yet. Buck had to fumble his way through mistakes, and he had, but maybe—maybe he can give Cafferty what he needed, once.
Captain Lawlor makes him man behind for the rest of the shift, which Buck doesn’t mind. He does get pulled in during shift change, all hands needed for an MVA during rush hour, but is mostly another pair of hands triaging the bystanders. Before Lawlor sends him out, he gives Buck an exit interview, which he’s pathetically thankful for.
“You’ve been a big help,” Lawlor says, pulling Buck aside right before he leaves the station. “You’re a steady presence on any team, Buckley. If I didn’t know Nash would tear my head off, I’d probably steal you for myself.”
Buck laughs, feeling the stress of the last few weeks slipping away, even if just for a moment. “Thanks. I’d offer to stay, but…”
But he has a home to get back to. Lawlor knows that much.
It’s midmorning by the time Buck gets back to the loft, and he’s not thinking about much more than collapsing onto his bed. His back is starting to ache now, the pain finally settling in. He caught a glimpse of the bruises in the mirror, stretching from his shoulders to his waist. The airbags are a soft surface, but Buck hadn’t been prepared for the fall. He’s lucky he didn’t land on his neck wrong. It takes too long for him to get comfortable. Buck’s an expert at sleeping in any condition, day or night, a bed or the passenger of his Jeep, but it’s slow to come this time.
When he wakes up, later in the afternoon than he wanted, there’s a handful of texts on his phone. There’s one from Eddie right at the top, from a couple hours ago, asking if Buck is busy.
He typos no less than three times in his excitement to reply that he’s free. Buck adds you won’t belieeeeeve the shift i just had!!! because now, a couple hours removed, it seems insane. Another classic case of Bad Luck Buck; the team has been keeping track of them.
He waits. And waits. There isn’t a response. Buck hesitates over another follow-up, suggesting dinner or a beer. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t like eating alone. Eddie knows this. Eddie, probably, wouldn’t mind if Buck showed up at the Diaz house. At least, he wouldn’t say anything. Sometimes Buck doesn’t know where the line is, still struggles over feeling out when he turns into too much. It’s unfair to Eddie, because Eddie has done his best to convince Buck that he’ll never be too much but—Buck has spent his entire life waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the door to close behind him. He doesn’t want that to happen with Eddie.
He never gets a response. Which is fine. Eddie is busy, somehow, even though Buck knows with Christopher in Texas, Eddie has a lot of free time in his empty house. Still, it’s totally fine. He tries texting Bobby next with the same offer: dinner, a debriefing on Buck’s latest shift. At least Bobby’s answer comes eventually, an apology because he’s on a night shoot.
Buck could keep trying. He could go down his entire contact list and probability suggests that someone would have a free evening. But with his best bets already turning him down, Buck doesn’t want to try. Doesn’t want to look desperate, or needy, that line of too much that he’s constantly straddling. He’s an adult. Adults can spend a night alone. Can cook a dinner for one and eat it alone.
He wishes he wasn’t. The loft, even with all the ways he’s tried to personalize it, make it seem like he lives there, still feels like a bachelor apartment for someone else. It still feels like the prison it was after the truck bombing, when Buck was mostly couchbound and spent more time than he cares to admit staring blankly at exposed brick.
It was nicer when he was dating Taylor, when she moved in. It still didn’t feel like a forever thing, because Buck never wanted to live in an apartment his entire life, but he liked having another person with him. Even though their schedules were at odds, and Taylor would wake up him early morning when she crawled into bed with him, it was nice. Buck didn’t feel this aching loneliness, because even when he had to eat dinner alone, he knew there would be someone coming home to him.
That’s all he’s ever wanted, really. Someone that comes home for Buck, instead of Buck always being the one to paw at the door, begging to be let in. He misses Taylor sometimes, misses their friendship, misses their easy companionship most of all.
Buck stares at his phone, waiting for a message to come in. It never does. Eventually, he gets out of bed and reheats his meal prepped chicken from earlier in the week. He checks his email for his next station. It feels like he’s twenty all over again, with a phone that doesn’t light up with calls from Maddie and an all-encompassing desperation to find a home.
Eddie gets back to him. He always does. It takes the rest of the night, but he responds with a sorry and invites Buck over for lunch—and Buck is in his Jeep before he realizes it’s ten in the morning and way too early for lunch, but Eddie doesn’t seem to mind. He just looks amused when Buck lets himself into the house thirty minutes later, a paper bag of baked goods in one hands and two coffees in the other.
“You’re early,” Eddie teases, smiling at him over the back of the couch. He looks rough, and Buck isn’t going to tell him that, but his stubble is growing in around the mustache and it’s not really working for him. Though that may be because of the dark circles under Eddie’s eyes. Buck can always tell when Eddie’s having a rough day, rough week, because it’s always written on his face.
There’s a lot Buck could say in response, but he just shrugs instead. “Got bored,” he settles on, which is about 10% of the reason why. He hands the bag of pastries to Eddie and smiles as he rifles through it like a kid.
Buck settles on the couch across from him, knocking their legs together. His upper body is all stiff and sore from that fall. His back is already purpled, and even the soft couch makes him wince in discomfort. He had barely been able to sleep, because he’s never been a stomach sleeper but that’s the only position that didn’t feel like actual agony.
He doesn’t think Eddie noticed, too focused on his pan dulce, but Buck tries to surreptitiously stretch out his shoulders and shift into a comfortable position, except he rams his shoulder into the frame of the couch and a hiss escapes through clenched teeth.
“What’d you do to yourself?” Eddie asks, attention back on Buck. He sets the pastries onto the coffee table. “What happened on your shift?”
“It’s nothing,” Buck says, waving him off, but Eddie undeterred. “It was just a rough rope rescue. I was with a probie and he’s not as good at manning the winch.”
“Let me see,” Eddie insists. Buck hesitates, so Eddie makes an impatient motion with his hands. “C’mon, take it off.”
“Treat me to dinner first,” Buck mutters, but he follows instructions.
He knows it looks bad. It looks worse than it feels, he tells Eddie, but that only earns him a scoff as Eddie carefully traces over his bruised back. His hands are only a light pressure. They don’t hurt.
“Christ, Buck, how do you get this from a rope rescue?”
Buck sighs. “Unclipped the wrong biner and, uh, fell onto the crash bag.”
There’s a stony kind of silence Eddie gets, whenever he gets mad. It hasn’t been turned on Buck in a long time, but his shoulders still tense from the memory of it. Eddie lets out a long exhale, and Buck’s shoulders slump with it.
“Will you let me put some arnica on it?” Eddie asks, instead of grilling him for details. Buck is thankful. A day removed from the call, and it feels less thrilling and more like dumb luck. He could’ve died. It’s not a thought he has all that often, even with how dangerous his job is.
“Whatever makes you feel better,” Buck replies, even though the answer is an obvious yes.
Eddie shuffles off to grab the arnica gel while Buck curls his legs under him on the couch, sipping at his coffee. He tries to ignore the warm, fluttering thing behind his ribs. Buck feels an awful lot like a stray dog that was finally invited inside, unable to stop wagging his tail, a smile at the corner of his lips just because.
Buck settles with his head propped up on one knee as Eddie starts rubbing in the gel—after a whispered apology when Buck flinches from the cold. Eddie is thorough but gentle, and it feels like he’s pressing Buck back into his body with every circling motion of his hands.
“So what happened?” Eddie asks after a couple moments of quiet. Usually Buck is the one who breaks the silence, though he and Eddie never really need to talk to understand each other. “That unbelievable call you had.”
“Oh, it’s the same one,” Buck says with a laugh. “This guy was, like, trying to take creeper shots of someone’s funeral?” Eddie lets out a disgruntled noise, his hands pressing harder into Buck’s shoulders for a moment. The bruise smarts, but Buck’s used to the pain. “Anyways, he had fallen off the roof and was holding on to one of those cable railings. Captain called for a rope rescue and when I was getting the rescue belt on the guy he was asking me if I could let him take some photos of the funeral!”
“What an asshole.”
Buck nods. “Right? He was pretty mad, but I think he got madder when the cop had taken his camera for evidence.”
“What he deserves,” Eddie says. His hands are still moving in hypnotic circles on Buck’s back. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you.”
“It’s fine,” Buck says, the words so familiar on his tongue.
“Maybe I’ll convince Mehta we need another guy on A-shift,” Eddie muses. His thumbs sweep up the line of Buck’s shoulder blades. “I’m sick of not working with my partner.”
Buck is sick of it too. The longer it takes to get back to the 118, to his team, the worse Buck feels. He knows he’s a good firefighter. He knows that there are good firefighters in the LAFD, because to make it in this city, they need to be the best of the best. But there’s no one he trusts at his back like he trusts Eddie.
“Just another month,” Buck says. He’s clinging to that with all his might. “We can make it.”
Eddie’s hands still on his back, run up to his shoulders. “Just a month,” Eddie echoes. “I can’t wait until we’re back on the same schedule.”
“Me too,” Buck agrees. He twists his head to look over his shoulder, so he can see the way Eddie is smiling at him, but then his back screams at him, and Buck reluctantly straightens up.
“Yeah, you’re not going to be doing any hero maneuvers for the next week.” Eddie’s voice is amused, at least. “You know where you’re going next?”
“No,” Buck says with a sigh. “I got a couple more days before my next shift, so I’ll get all my rest and healing in then.”
“Good,” Eddie says. His hands firm on Buck’s back, his voice firm. “Alright, I’m all done here. Don’t smear that on my couch, Buck.”
Which means Buck gets to sit next to him shirtless, at least until the gel dries and sinks into his skin, while Eddie puts on a mindless telenovela. Buck relaxes into the cushions, his back still tender but hurting less, especially once Eddie grabs him a tylenol.
It’s almost good. They don’t talk about the elephant in the room, but it’s midday on a weekday. Buck’s good at pretending, the same way Eddie is. He can pretend Christopher is at school in the city, and not at school 700 miles away. He knows Eddie is doing the same thing.
Another month, and Buck will be back with the 118, back with his family. Hopefully Christopher will be back, too. But for now, Buck pretends this is enough, the careful facade he and Eddie construct every time they hang out.
Buck works Halloween. The 118 was supposed to host the LAFD’s haunted house, but that honor gets passed over to the 133. Buck looks at the photos Eddie sends them over the week leading up to the day. Mehta constructs a damn good haunted house; Buck is definitely jealous. Bobby grumbles about it, because he had been excited about it this year, had a whole notepad of plans. Buck was excited too. He loves Halloween, and unlike most of his coworkers, he also loves working Halloween. Even though they get the worse calls, and there are way too many car accidents involving kids, it’s always great to see the city out and moving.
But instead of working Halloween with his team, Buck is at Station 34 under Captain Spann. It’s definitely his worst placement in a while. The 34 is the most paramilitary of all the stations he’s been at: line-up at shift change, line-up at the top of every hour, high expectations on cleanliness and attitude. Buck takes pride in his job. Buck takes pride in being good at his job. He’s never fallen below standards, never given a captain a reason to actually give him a write-up, but Captain Spann hauls Buck into his office after only half a shift.
“You had your phone out on the call,” Spann says, sitting behind his desk and looking thunderous. He’s Bobby’s age, maybe, salt-and-pepper hair with a severe tilt to his eyebrows. He has none of Bobby’s geniality. “Why?”
“I was looking up the building on realtor sites, sir,” Buck says. He only had it out in the truck. It’s something he’s done on a few calls, pulling up the address listing and taking a moment to analyze the building layout. Bobby had commended him for it once, when Buck saw there was a basement and took the time to break down every door on the first floor and found two unconscious victims in a not-legal AirBnB.
The 34 just got back from a house fire. Dispatch sounded uncertain over the radio, so Buck just took a moment to look up the house. He found it on Zillow, studied it for points of egress, and tucked it away the second Captain Spann barked at him to do so.
“I can’t imagine that was a good use of your time,” Spann says. Buck has to bite down on his response. “Hand it over.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Since I can’t trust you to be professional on the job, I’m going to keep your phone in my office.” Spann reaches out a hand, raising one eyebrow. It’s startling effective.
“But, sir, I’ve used my phone as a back-up radio or flashlight,” Buck says. He thinks, distantly, there is part of him that’s panicking. Grasping at straws. Buck has used it when his flashlight died, or when his radio breaks, but it’s never been a life threatening problem before. “I promise you I won’t use it for any other reason.”
Spann isn’t convinced. He keeps his hand held out. Buck knows that if he drags this out, it’ll be worse. A write-up for ignoring orders. Maybe he’ll even be sent home early and he’ll have to spend the rest of Halloween in his empty apartment.
Buck doesn’t sigh or pout as he hands over his phone, but it’s close enough.
“Good decision,” Spann says, condescending enough that it crawls down Buck’s spine. “I’m certain you have chores to get to.”
“Yes, sir,” Buck says, taking the dismissal for what it is.
It’s not like he can’t survive without his phone. Buck’s spent plenty of shifts with his phone dead or charging because he forgot to charge it. It’s just that usually, he’s with the 118. Usually, there’s Eddie to joke with, or Chimney to annoy, or Bobby to shadow around the kitchen. Here, Buck doesn’t have anything or anyone to distract him as he polishes the engine and mops the bathroom.
He’s grateful when they’re on a string of calls that takes them until after midnight, and Buck doesn’t feel any compunctions about setting up on a bunk for some sleep. He has to grab his bag of bedding from his Jeep, has to awkwardly survey the bunk room until he finds the most unused bunk—in the corner, its springs poking through—and settles in. They’re woken up several hours later by another call, and they’re busy enough that it pushes them through to shift change.
Buck is thankful he only was rostered at the 34 for a day. He catches Captain Spann as the man is walking out of the station, asking, “Captain? My phone?”
There’s a blankness in Spann’s face before he blinks and wipes it away. “Of course you’d be so desperate to get it back,” he says meanly. “Alright, Buckley.”
Buck’s phone was in a locked drawer. Buck’s phone is filled with messages, almost dead because it’s been going off all night and it was only half-charged when Spann confiscated it. Buck sits in the front seat of the Jeep as he scrolls through them.
Most of the messages are from the group chat with everyone. He knows the Wilsons and Hans were going trick-or-treating together, starting with a very adorable photo of them in their Wizards of Oz costumes. Eddie was off, sending a tally of how many trick-or-treaters he got; Bobby was invited to a party by Brad, dragged Athena along, and there’s extremely long diatribes against Hollywood’s C-list; Maddie had to work and kept them updated on the outlandish calls she’s taken.
There’s a few messages about him. Eddie asked if anyone heard from him, and Maddie assured him he was busy on calls. Thanks to working at dispatch, she knew exactly when Station 34 had been busy. Buck stares at the messages, the proof his family is still keeping an eye out for him.
His thumbs hover over the keypad. He doesn’t know what it say. It’s weird to admit that he got his phone confiscated like a high schooler. And the shift wasn’t bad, it just sucked, because Captain Spann sucks, and Buck never wants to come back to the 34. Buck just apologizes, says his phone died overnight, and scrolls all the way up to the picture of the Han-Wilson costume group and says: you guys look so good!!!
He doesn’t wait for a response. He tucks his phone in the cupholder and starts driving back to the loft, his eyes catching on all the Halloween paraphernalia Los Angeles is decked out with, and will before the next couple weeks until it all deteriorates into trash on the street.
There still isn’t an answer by the time Buck gets to his empty loft. It’s fine. It’s cool. It’s early—people are probably sleeping off their late nights, the sugar highs.
Buck remembers going trick-or-treating when he was a kid. Maddie took him, dressed him up in the best costume they could create from the house’s closets. When she left for college, Buck took himself, wandering around the neighborhood for a night, filling up a pillowcase with candy. He stopped when he was thirteen, because his parents saw him trying to leave the house in a yellow raincoat and Margaret said, “Oh, Evan, don’t you think you’re a little too old for that?”
Thirteen-year-old Evan, excited at the concept of seeming mature, had agreed. He spent that Halloween watching movies on the living room TV, scared himself because The Blair Witch Project played and he thought it was all so real.
This Buck wants to know what Halloween feels like from the other side, taking kids trick-or-treating. He’s gone with Eddie and Christopher a few times when Christopher was younger, but those nights always ended early with one of them carrying Christopher when his legs got too tired. Buck wants to hand out candy to kids, wants to decorate a house, wants to make traditions like how he and Maddie went through his pillowcase of candy and bartered over who got the Twix and who got the Snickers.
It’s just Buck and his empty, undecorated apartment. He leaves his phone downstairs when he crashes for the rest of the morning.
With his and Tommy’s six month anniversary on the horizon, Buck consults the experts: Redditors. This is only his second relationship that lasted for this long, and Buck doesn’t know the playbook. Do people celebrate a six month anniversary? Does he need to get Tommy a present? Do they need to go somewhere fancy? Do they need to have the talk?
Like everything, the advice he finds online is conflicting. Buck decides on going out for dinner, a slightly more fancy date. He decides against a present—doesn’t want to seem like too much. He doesn’t want to scare Tommy off, not when this is the most successful relationship Buck’s had in awhile. Buck can’t ruin this one, too.
His current placement—Station 93—has him on C-shift, same as Tommy, so they’re able to meet up more often. Their anniversary falls right in the middle of their Kelly days, and Buck isn’t complaining when Tommy invites him over that first night. He likes it, likes being wanted, likes that he isn’t the one that always has to reach out first. The night before their anniversary they get take-out, watch a movie on the couch, and Buck wonders if he can have this for forever. If he wants it for forever.
Tommy’s schedule is as open as Buck’s is. They spend lazy nights in, go out to eat or to the movies or some other date activity either of them come up with. Buck doesn’t spend so much time alone these days. Even when the rest of his family is busy, Tommy is there. Buck thinks that counts for something. Tommy wouldn’t want to be here if he didn’t want to, right?
Buck knows, thanks to some some background process that analyzes every interaction he has with others, he’s being clingy. He has a tendency to cling. Tommy doesn’t seem to mind, though. He doesn’t mind when Buck is Buck, never complains, and Buck is hopeful. Maybe this is the one. Maybe this is the one that’s going to last.
For their anniversary, they go out for Italian. Buck had to swing by the loft to change clothes, so he met Tommy at the restaurant, the man already at a booth waiting for him. It’s nice. It’s good. They talk, because Buck can always find something to talk about. Tommy presses his leg against Buck’s under the table, like a promise for later.
And then Tommy pulls out the box, and Buck panics for a moment.
“I didn’t get you anything,” he says, because that’s what everyone on Reddit said. This isn’t an anniversary meant for fancy presents but Tommy got him a present, and fuck, this box is pretty big. Apprehension wraps itself around Buck as he carefully opens the box, paper packaging spilling out to reveal… Lakers tickets.
That makes more sense. When anonymous internet strangers were advocating for presents, it was always for an experience. Not some fancy watch or jewelry, but an experience for the two of them. Buck tries to make sure his expression doesn’t drop into disappointment. It’s not that he is disappointed, because he doesn’t mind going to games, even if he doesn’t like basketball, it’s just… Basketball tickets?
“And you don’t even have to take me,” Tommy says. Weird. “Take Eddie if you want—” Oh, that’ll be fun, at least. Eddie never minds when Buck inevitably gets bored and starts scrolling through the top posts on r/All. “—and die.”
Okay, that sounds right. Buck realizes he says it out loud after a moment. At least, judging by the look on Tommy’s face, his reaction to the present was the right one. Good. Buck’s doing good.
And then a woman asks if Buck could take a photo of her and her friends, and he fumbles the entire conversation. She was flirting, he thinks. She touched him on the shoulder even though she already had his attention. And Buck flirted back, maybe? He didn’t mean to, but he picked up his phone on some old muscle memory, and maybe that’s all this is now. Muscle memory. A woman flirts with him, Buck flirts back, slipping into a role again.
He doesn’t mean to, because he’s with Tommy and he wants to stay with Tommy. But Buck doesn’t know what he is, not really, so when he asks, “Have you ever…?” it’s a relief when Tommy said yes.
That relief trips over into shock when Tommy says Abby Clark.
Buck knew about Tommy from Abby, but he was always some shapeless figure. When Abby talked about Tommy, it was always brief, like she never wanted to linger on it. Buck understood that. He took it to mean Abby had moved on entirely, on to him, so Buck never pushed on the subject.
It was a startling break-up, he knew. Tommy just dumped her without warning, broke off the engagement, dropped totally off the map. Abby had to deal with her mom’s Alzheimer’s after that, and when Buck came around—yeah, he was a himbo half her age, had his own heart broken in return. It seems like they’re making a real good cycle.
His conversation with Josh and Maddie wasn’t helpful anyways. Buck gets it. He’s not stupid, he’s best friends with Hen, he knows about homophobia and transphobia and that gay marriage only became recognized in all 50 states in 2015. Josh’s point was that Tommy dated and almost married Abby because the idea of being openly gay was too scary—but that still doesn’t mean he didn’t break Abby’s heart. That he doesn’t have the capacity to break Buck’s heart.
Buck runs through the list. Tommy broke it off with Abby because he’s gay and Abby is a woman. That’s not a problem for the two of them, since Buck is a guy. Tommy likes spending time with Buck, invites him over, asks to come over all the time. Buck never minds, always agrees when he isn’t busy. They like spending time together. And Buck knows that they could really make this work. Buck wants to make it work, wants to try, because he’s never had a relationship like this, so totally life-altering, not since Abby.
When he decides to ask Tommy to move in, he doesn’t tell anyone. It’s not like he told anyone when he asked Taylor, although that was definitely a worse decision. Buck was fixing a mistake with another mistake, he knew. But asking Tommy to move in with him—or maybe in with Tommy, they can figure out the details later—is taking that next step. Buck’s been waiting for a relationship like this, where taking the next step is exciting and thrilling.
He asks Tommy to sit down, and Buck is actually going to talk about his reservations, talk about what he wants to do next. He explains Abby, and Tommy’s face cycles through a range of emotions—guilt over the himbo comment, which Buck finds funny more than anything else—but Buck rushes through his speech because he wants to asks, “I want you to move in with me.” And he keeps rambling, but every word is true. “Why be apart when we can be together?”
There’s a long pause after Buck finishes, and Tommy swallows thickly. “Evan, that’s so sweet,” he says, and Buck ignores the way Evan feels like a hot iron every time, “but I can’t move in with you.”
There’s the first nail. “Why not?” he asks with a laugh because—why not? Their relationship is going great. It’s time for that next step, and Buck wants to take it.
“Because I know how this ends,” Tommy says, and keeps talking, but blood is rushing in Buck's ears.
He knows a break-up speech when he hears one. He’s heard a lot. Ever since Brittany Tanner in the 10th grade, Buck’s understood that he’s always for a fun time—not a long one. He’s advertised himself as that. It wasn’t until Abby that he realized he wanted more, a relationship and a future, but he’s never had that much luck with any of it.
“I’m saying, no matter how badly I wanted to be, I’m not your last. I’m your first,” Tommy says.
“They can be the same thing,” Buck says, insists on it, because they can. Nevermind all evidence points that Tommy is correct. Abby, his first love, his first heartbreak. Maddie and Doug. Eddie and Shannon. Athena and Michael. Buck knows about instalove, spent the better part of the summer inundated with romance novels and read more than a few of them—it’s always been more of a fantasy than the truth.
Buck wanted to make this one work, though. He wanted to, desperate for it, because he finally figured it out. Buck finally figured out that missing piece. Everything was supposed to get better after this. Buck was supposed to have it figured out by now.
“They usually aren’t,” Tommy says. He says more words, but Buck only tunes in when Tommy says: “You would end up breaking my heart.”
The second nail.
Like Tommy’s the one that just offered up his heart and watched it get stepped on. Like Tommy’s the one that took the step—and fell down, landed in a heap of broken bones.
“Did you just break up with me?” Buck asks, because he needs to know. Because his break-ups have always been slightly ambiguous. It’s why he waited so long for Abby. It’s why he and Taylor haunted the apartment on opposite schedules for a week. Buck needs someone to make a clean break. Buck is tired of how it keeps healing crooked.
Just say it. Say it, he demands, but Tommy doesn’t.
“I guess I did,” Tommy says, and maybe—maybe? “Believe me, I didn’t see it coming, either.”
He says Buck, and that’s the final nail.
The door closes behind Tommy, and Buck is left in the coffin of his apartment where relationships go to die. That’s four break-ups in this very room. That’s four failed relationships, one after another. Tommy’s not his last, but Buck doesn’t think he’s going to have a last ever. He thinks of Red, dying with no one who knows, no one who loves him. It’s a future Buck has always been scared of and here it comes again, threatening to choke him.
The silence of the loft is too much. Buck’s head is spinning. It’s less of an actual thought or plan, just, I need to get out of here, and there’s only ever one place he would go.
Buck rings the doorbell, because if he walks in there and Eddie is staring blankly at the TV, Buck’s probably going to do something drastic. He’s calling dibs on being the depressed one tonight, firmly taking the mantle off Eddie’s shoulders. Except when Eddie opens the door, he’s pantsless and sweaty and decidedly not moping. Buck doesn’t question it. He hands Eddie a beer and sinks onto the couch, hoping to take the edge off the swirl of anger and grief settling in his stomach.
It’s the first time he’s seen Eddie in several days. Maybe a week, maybe more. The days have been slipping together ever since Buck started being a floater and his routine was promptly destroyed. So he doesn’t know exactly when Eddie shaved his mustache.
“You shaved?” he asks, if just to break the silence. It’s a nicer conversation topic than most of the ones at their disposal.
“Like an hour ago,” Eddie says.
Something in Buck relaxes. He hasn’t missed much, then. Eddie doesn’t say anything else, content to drink the beer Buck brought and just sit with him. Eddie is the only person who does this. It’s why Buck always ends up here, on Eddie’s couch, because when that door closes behind him, the entire world falls away. Buck doesn’t have to worry about anything else.
“Tommy broke up with me,” he says. Buck stares straight ahead, at the mantel filled with pictures. Most of them have Christopher. “I asked him to move in with me, and he said no, and he broke up with me.”
“Oh, Buck.” Coming from anyone else, it would sound patronizing. Not from Eddie. It’s the perfect amount of sympathy, Eddie’s dry tone, not condemning or pitying. “You wanted him to move in?”
“It was our six month anniversary,” Buck says, like that explains everything. “Maybe it was too fast, yeah? I should’ve… I should’ve waited.”
There he goes, Evan Buckley, rushing in headfirst, all impulse and big emotions. He’s too much. He always is.
“Was that why he broke it off?” Eddie asks. “Moving too fast?”
“No.” Buck huffs out an explosive sigh, takes another long pull from his beer. “He said… He said he’s not my last, he’s my first.”
Buck can see Eddie’s wince out the corner of his eye. Yeah.
“What a jackass,” Eddie says.
“I just didn’t see it coming,” Buck continues. “It wasn’t… He could’ve said no, yeah? And we could’ve kept dating, see if it could come up again but…”
But Tommy decided he had enough of Buck, like everyone else, and left him alone.
“I’m sorry, Buck,” Eddie says. He claps Buck on the shoulder, rattles him slightly. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“I think I’d settle for anyone who stays,” Buck mutters.
He should want better for himself, he knows. That’s what everyone would tell him. But Buck’s been on this hamster wheel for years, and he’s getting real sick of it. He’ll settle. He’ll find someone who can stand him, even if they don’t like him, even if they think he’s too much, and figure out how to sand off his edges so that he fits. Like shoving the wrong puzzle piece in a hole, bending its cardboard edges and ruining the picture. Whatever. Buck’s just sick of it—of feeling so goddamn lonely all the time.
“Buck,” Eddie says, and this time there’s the pity. Eddie moves his hand, holds onto Buck’s shoulder, thumb falling into the crevice above his clavicle. “You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t?” Buck says with a laugh. It sounds hysterical, even to his own ears. “Yeah, man, c’mon, keep telling me how I’m supposed to feel.”
“You deserve to feel happy,” Eddie says slowly, like he’s looking for the right words. “Feel, I don’t know, joyful.”
“Well, I’ll get right on that,” Buck says, raising up his beer bottle as a toast to being joyful. Eddie’s hand falls from his shoulder as he shifts away. “For now, can I at least wallow?”
Eddie makes a face, like Buck is being the saddest man on the planet. He nods, though. “Yeah, you can.”
“Awesome,” Buck says, and proceeds to wallow on the Diaz couch until Eddie decides it’s late enough to go to bed. Buck just kicks his legs up when Eddie leaves.
At least he has this. At least he has Eddie, Eddie’s couch, a place to run to. Buck knows it’s not really his, not in the way he’s been looking for something to be his. Buck would settle for just this couch, the Diaz’s living room, but that’s not a life, not a home. The stray dog gets invited in for the night, because it's raining outside. He'll get kicked out in the morning.
He’s just as alone on the couch as he was in his apartment.
Sometime after learning love languages and demanding everyone at the station take a Myers-Briggs test, Buck stumbled down a rabbit hole of unethical science experiments. Buck learned about a scientist in the 1950s who had this experiment with baby rhesus monkeys. He took the monkeys from their moms and constructed surrogate mothers for them: cloth mother and wire mother. The wire mother only had food and cloth mother only offered a soft scrap of blanket.
The monkeys deeply preferred cloth mother, only ever visiting wire mother for food. Buck had read about them and figured—well, yeah. Obviously. There’s no point in bothering with wire mother when all she could offer is food. That’s what a parent is supposed to do. Of course the baby monkeys would prefer cloth mother. Maddie wasn’t the one who fed Buck, who bought him clothes, and registered him for school, but she was the one who comforted him.
Wire mother. Cloth mother.
But that wasn’t the worst of the experiments. Because this guy was deeply, totally, ontologically evil. Buck read every word of his Wikipedia page with a sick feeling in his gut. After the surrogate mothers, the guy started doing isolation experiments. The baby monkeys would be by themselves for months, and Buck knows how they felt, alone in his empty house, alone in a house with two parents who saw right through them. When the monkeys were finally removed from isolation, they were bad at being monkeys.
The isolated monkeys almost never recovered from being isolated. They didn’t know monkey social cues, didn’t know how to take care of themselves. Some of them died, like being freed was such a shocking event that their bodies gave up on them.
Buck thinks, on his worse days, he was put through the same experiments. Buck thinks he came out of it not knowing how to be a person. His childhood was marked with injuries and bouts of loneliness, his teenage years the same, and his early 20s spent fumbling around the country soaking up every spare scrap of affection he could get. Isolation. Wire mother, cloth mother.
Buck doesn’t know how to be a person. Doesn’t know how to be the right amount to make someone stay. There has to be a secret, some sort of formula that Buck just hasn’t unlocked yet.
Or maybe—maybe he’s just fucked up. Maybe he’s been alone too long and it’s ruined his chances of ever having a real relationship.
The scientist never loved the monkeys. He just wanted something he could use, variables and controls that would give him the outcome he wanted. Evan Buckley was a specific set of variables and controls meant to do one thing only, and he failed in that.
It makes sense, too, that he was never loved. He can’t be.
Maddie is pregnant again. She didn’t want to tell Buck, and that stings, but he lets the wave of happiness carry him through the rest of the night. He’s going to have another niece or nephew—Jee-yun’s going to have a sibling. That’s good. Having a sibling was good for him. He’s glad she’ll get to experience it.
He’s dealing with the break-up, even though everyone is more than a little suspicious of the amount of baked goods he starts taking to everyone’s houses. Buck’s fridge is stuffed with loafs, and he’s going through more bags of flour than he can count. He’s considering restarting a sourdough starter, after his pandemic starter died a sudden and explosive death on the countertop.
Because Buck can give this if nothing else. He’s good at cooking. He and Bobby would trade-off making family dinner for the 118, sometimes working together. If Buck’s not good for anything else, not good for dating or staying, then he can make himself useful in other ways.
It stings when he’s at a station that doesn’t really follow the family dinner tradition. He’s been with Station 84 for the past week, and everyone there subsists on protein bars and packed lunches. They’ll order takeout or grab something from a nearby food truck at the end of a call, but the fridge and cabinets stay bare of ingredients, and Buck has idle hands through the long hours of his shifts.
He doesn’t mean to text Tommy. Buck doesn’t want to be that clingy ex, the one who’s desperate for a second chance. It’s just hard to ignore the urge when it’s late at night, Buck is curled up in the bunks, and staring at his messages with Tommy. The last things they texted were about Tommy dropping off the items Buck had left at his apartment. There was an entire box. Buck had scrounged his loft, looking for even just a pair of socks, any excuse to ask Tommy to meet up—but there had been nothing.
That should have been another sign. Buck did the same thing with Abby, basically moving into her apartment during the latter half of their relationship. Tommy didn’t leave anything behind. Tommy never planned on staying. Only Buck did, leaving pieces of himself all over the place in hopes one of them will finally stick.
Buck doesn’t mean to text Tommy, but he can’t keep his hands busy at the station, and he’s in a station full of strangers and not his family, and he’s already feeling pathetic. So he sends why? and waits and waits. His phone screen keeps dimming, but Buck taps it every time. It takes forever, but Tommy finally starts typing back. The gray bubbles show up. Buck waits, his stomach clenched with anticipation.
Tommy’s text, when he finally sends it, is unhelpful: I think we were looking for different things in this relationship.
Unfair. Buck scowls at the screen, angrily tapping out his message. ok we could’ve talked about it???
I’m sorry Buck, Tommy replies. Buck again, like their relationship necessitated an Evan. Buck wonders if that’s part of it, if he needs to start letting people call him by his first name. Maybe they’ll stay then?
i just want to know what it was, Buck sends back. He double texts: it’s not like i’m asking for an exit interview.
He doesn’t get a reply. Buck figures he never will, so he finally clicks his phone off. In the dark of the bunk room, Buck can imagine he’s with the 118. It’s missing the sound of Chimney’s snores, the white noise machine Hen keeps by her bunk, the way Eddie will mutter in his sleep. It’s missing Bobby up in his office, maybe crashing on his couch, carefully keeping an eye on anything for his team. His family.
Buck misses them intensely, an ache that starts in his chest and grounds itself into his bones. Buck spent his entire life looking for a home and he found it in the 118. It’s still there, because that’s what they kept telling him, that they’d love him even if he wasn’t a firefighter or with the 118, but it’s hard to remember that when Buck hasn’t seen most of them in weeks and one of his more stable relationships has slipped away.
Everyone leaves. That’s a lesson Buck learned early on in his life and keeps learning. People leave, and leave, and Buck gets left behind. The world keeps turning. The sun will always set. Buck gets left behind.
At least he still has firefighting. That’s all Buck can focus on these days. He’s getting shorter stints at each station, only needing to be pulled in when someone calls out. The LAFD is large enough that there’s always space for Buck, and he racks up more overtime than he has in awhile. There’s no one to spend his off days with. Buck would rather use that time making a difference.
He’s with Station 53 for a shift, and the guys there are friendly enough. Buck laughs with them, plays a couple games of ping pong, but he never lets himself think he can have more. They’re coworkers. They’re still practically strangers. He keeps himself at a certain distance—not too much, not too much. They trade stories, and Buck feels like he’s playing a role. He’s the cocky firefighter from his early years, the one addicted to the adrenaline rush. He fits in with these guys. Buck sands off his edges, figures out how to create the least friction.
The shift isn’t bad, not until they’re called to a large structure fire with two other companies. Buck hopes it’s Eddie with the 133 or Hen with the 49. It’s neither, though, and Buck lets the disappointment sit in his chest for a few moments as he waits for his instructions. It’s a huge brick house, McMansion sized, and the flames are steadily eating at the back of it. Fully involved with timber framing. Buck watches as the fire flickers, finds a new fuel source, grows in size.
“Buckley!” The 53’s captain is shouting at him and two others—Hall and Robins—to grab a line and push it back from the front of the house. All the inhabitants are accounted for, at least. The IC is just worried about the fire spreading, catching onto the trees or the grass.
But doesn’t question his orders, just nods and grabs a 2.5 hose as Robins starts charging it. They’re good guys, Hall and Robins. Hall has two kids. He’s thinking about retiring soon, switching careers, wanting to spend more time with his kids. Robins is getting married in a couple of months. These thoughts sit at the back of Buck’s head, knocking together as they suppress the flames eating at the wooden staircase, pushing forward into the next room.
Buck wonders what they know about them. Buck wonders what facts, if any, they’ve picked up about Evan Buckley.
They push forward, and the fire is falling under their attack, but then the IC’s voice crackles over their radio. “—structural problems,” he’s saying, and Buck can barely hear him over the sound of the fire, the creak of the house. They’re on the first floor of four. The world starts to shake. “Evacuate now!”
“Go, go, go!” Buck says, waving Robins and Hall off. Follow the line. Follow the line and they’ll make it outside, they’ll be fine.
The ceiling cracks, plaster and wood and fire raining down. Buck’s hand falls from the line and it shifts away from him with the pressure of the water in it. Robins looks behind him, and Buck thinks marriage, and thinks about Hall’s two kids, and Buck shoves him forward as the ceiling fully caves in.
There is a sharp pain in his side. Buck’s nerves alert him of this fact as his brain slowly comes online. There’s a sharp pain in his side, and it’s hard to breathe, and it’s so goddamn hot. Buck paws around, tries to familiarize himself with where he is. What happened.
A structure fire. The ceiling. Buck lost the line. And now—
He blinks. He can’t see much. His SCBA mask has been knocked off, and Buck shuffles until he can find it. There’s a crack in the visor, and the seal is torn, but it’s better than breathing in smoke, so he shoves it back on. Okay, he can breathe now. What’s next?
His side. Right. Buck can’t really move his torso to look at it, craning his neck and seeing nothing but his turnouts. The pain worsens but Buck knows he needs to figure out what it is. He needs to know the severity of the injury. He plants his feet—and that’s a win, at least, that his legs aren’t crushed under all this rubble—and pushes up.
A scream rips itself out of his throat as white-hot pain lances through him. His vision swims, black dots floating in front of him. His entire body is frozen from the pain, muscles locked, and carefully, so carefully, Buck reaches behind his back.
He finds the source of the injury: a piece of wood jabbed into his lower abdomen, blood pooling underneath him. Buck knows better than to take it out. He shifts, rolls onto his uninjured side to take the pressure off. He pants into his broken mask, his breath fogging up the visor, as pain radiates outwards from that spot.
He needs to—He needs to find the line. He needs to find his way out of this room, the inferno. His radio is busted, he hopes, because it’s quiet, and all Buck can hear is the crackle of the fire and his own heavy breathing. He needs to move but he’s stuck to the floor. His limbs are heavy. He should be able to move, he can, but there’s a disconnect. His body doesn’t want to move. Buck stares at the hardwood flooring. More fuel for the fire. If he stays—
That’s the thing. Buck stays. He planted his roots in Los Angeles and it brought Maddie back to him. Buck stayed, and he had the 118, a family, a life he never could have imagined for himself when he was in Pennsylvania, isolated from any source of love.
The surrogate mother experiments had an open-field test. The monkeys were placed in a new environment. If their surrogate mother was there, the monkeys would cling to her, but eventually explore the space. If their surrogate mother was missing, the monkeys would freeze, paralyzed with fear.
Buck, alone in the burning house, without any of his people outside waiting for him, feels that same paralysis in his bones.
There’s no one calling out for him on his radio. Bobby isn’t out there, barking orders for retrieval. Eddie isn’t disobeying orders to get to him, neither is Hen, or Chimney. Buck is alone. There’s no one that Buck needs to come home to. He only has his empty loft and a broken heart, and everyone else has someone. Has each other. Buck is just a hanger-on. A second thought. Buck is there for a good time—never a long time.
It’s unfair. It’s unfair. Buck has spent his entire life trying to make something of it, trying to figure out what Evan Buckley can amount to. He did. He found firefighting. He found a family. He built a life for himself, because no one would do it for him, because no one loved him enough to stay. Buck stays. Buck loves, and gets his heart broken, and still he stays.
He can’t just give up. You never give up, Athena had told him once, when Buck’s entire world was falling apart around him. Buck has done so much to make this life, to keep it, came so close to losing it because he held on too tightly and still—he has it. He wants it.
The pain intensifies as Buck manages to get his knees up under him. He should try to stabilize the wood, keep it from falling out of the wound, but he doesn’t have enough energy to spare. He needs to find his line. Buck climbs to his feet, but can barely manage a few steps before he slams down onto his hands and knees. Blood rushes in his ears again, his vision flickering, but Buck doesn’t let his body give up.
He crawls forward. He should’ve started this way. Stay low to the ground, stable, hoping he’s moving towards the front of the house. There’s the debris from the ceiling collapse in the way, but on the floor, Buck can just barely get his bulk underneath it. He keeps move forward. He feels water under his gloves, splashing around him as he pulls himself forward. The piece of wood sticking out of his back hits something, and Buck cries out, a sob ripping through him, but he grits his teeth against the pain and keeps moving.
The water, the line, the fire raging around him. Buck grabs onto it with both hands, carefully pulls himself along the length. The house is ruined, falling down around him. Buck doesn’t think about it. Hand over hand, pulling himself out of the house, the fire biting at his turnouts and exposed skin, his visor fogged and eyes burning from the heat.
There are hands on him. Someone’s yelling, and there are bright lights. The SCBA mask on his face is switched out. Hands are on his back, the piece of wood, and he jerks in place. Buck sees fire engine red and the wounded animal in his chest backs down. Eddie has him, he thinks distantly. Hen and Chimney. Bobby.
He did it, Buck thinks, and his body gives out.
Buck wakes up in a hospital room. This isn’t an unfamiliar occurrence to him. It takes a couple of seconds for the why to hit him, and his body twists on the bed as if the piece of wood is still sticking out of his back.
“Buck?” Bobby’s leaning over him, a hand falling to his bicep. There’s nothing but concern on the man’s face, his eyebrows wrinkled together.
There’s a noise from his other side, and Maddie’s leaning over him, her eyes already red and watery. “Evan?” she asks, her voice barely more than a whisper.
It’s enough to make Buck bursts into tears.
He thinks he’s embarrassed on some distant level, as Bobby and Maddie try to comfort him. Bobby’s hand is a steady pressure on his bicep, and Maddie cards through his hair as she cries too—when one Buckley falls, the other is close behind.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she’s telling him, gripping his hand tightly. Bobby’s saying the same things on his other side, and Buck’s vision ping-pongs between them. It makes his head hurt.
It takes several minutes before he can calm down, and Bobby helps him take a sip of water so he can rasp out, “What happened?”
“You were impaled by a shard of wood when the ceiling collapsed,” Bobby says. His voice is steady, but he’s not able to look Buck in the eyes. “From what I gathered, the IC was out of contact with you for ten minutes before you dragged yourself out.”
“Oh,” Buck says. Ten minutes? He didn’t think it would’ve been that long. Buck never would have left someone in a building for that long. He would have been looking for them the entire time. “Surgery?”
“Minor. The piece of wood wasn’t deep,” Maddie says, drawing his attention. “Missed everything important. The damage to your lungs was the main worry.”
“Mask got knocked off,” Buck mutters. Every word feels like it’s fire, and Bobby hands him the water again.
“You have a minor concussion,” Bobby adds. “You did what you were supposed to do, Buck. You got out.”
Buck can’t help but feel like he left something behind in that burning house.
He’s thankful when a nurse finally bustles in and gives Buck a break from Maddie and Bobby’s worrying. She’s patient as she goes over his injuries, his recovery, and Buck tries to latch on to every word. He’s out of work for a couple weeks. He’ll be confined to the loft. His stomach sinks with the thought.
“We got a lot of people in the waiting room for you,” the nurse finishes it with.
“Really?” Buck glances at Maddie.
“Obviously,” she says, rolling her eyes but her voice is thick. “Everyone showed up.”
Because he was hurt. Buck landed himself in the hospital, again, and everyone finds a break in their busy days and schedules to hang out in the waiting room for him. That makes sense. That tracks with Buck’s entire life.
“We want to keep you here for the rest of the night, Mr. Buckley,” the nurse says, “but then you should be discharged.” She gives him a smile and leaves. Buck tries not to feel like he’s just been thrown to the wolves.
“Do I…” he starts, but the words falter in his throat. He thinks about feigning exhaustion. That would get him out of more conversation, he thinks, but he’s never been a good liar, much less to Maddie and Bobby.
“We don’t have to do it now,” Bobby says, already knowing what Buck wants before he says it. “Rest up, Buck. We’ll still be here when you wake up.”
Buck finds that hard to believe. He looks to his other side, Maddie, and she gives him a smile. Squeezes his hand. “I’ll be here,” she whispers like a promise, and Buck latches onto it. Cloth mother, he thinks distantly, and pretends to sleep until he actually falls asleep.
When Buck wakes up next, it’s still only Maddie and Bobby in the room. It takes him a moment to realize they’re really here, for him, and the twisting feeling in his gut is less from being slightly impaled and more about the delight and guilt warring inside him.
“You’re up!” Maddie says, noticing the way he’s blinking between the two of them. “Are you feeling okay, Evan?”
Evan. Back to that. Maddie’s the only one that ever really gets to call him Evan and get away with it. Buck doesn’t complain when people use it, not usually, but Maddie’s the only one who sees Buck and Evan and likes them both. He hopes. She came to Los Angeles for him, he has to remember that.
“Better,” Buck says. “When can I leave?”
Bobby huffs out a laugh, and he shares a smile with Maddie, and Buck feels something warm suffuse through his chest. He missed this, missed having his family around him. He can plot out the beats of their conversation, because they’ve done this so many times before.
“Soon,” Maddie promises. “But there’s a whole waiting room of people waiting to see you.” She pauses, waiting for Buck to agree to let them in. They’re both a little tender about it these days. Buck remembers the way everyone had rushed into his room after he woke up from his coma, the way his happiness tipped him into exhaustion so quickly. Maddie’s careful not to push too far these days.
“It’s fine,” Buck says. He smiles and hopes it doesn’t look like the wince it feels like. “Send ‘em in.”
It’s a steady trickle of visitors. Maddie and Bobby don’t want to overwhelm him, probably since he burst into tears upon waking up, and he’s grateful for that. It’s Hen and Athena first, then Chimney with Jee-yun. Maddie disappears with her husband for a moment, and Bobby steps out into the hall, and finally Eddie steps in.
“Buck,” he says, and his voice breaks on the name, crossing the distance between the door and the bed in a blink. “God, Buck, I was so worried.”
“Huh?” is all Buck can manage. He’s overwhelmed with the way Eddie is leaning over him, a hand on his shoulder, pinning Buck onto the bed with that point of contact and his gaze. “It was nothing, Eddie. Another one of my usual close calls.”
Even as he says the words, Buck knows it’s a lie. It was something, he knows, a dangerous precipice Buck has been talking himself away from his entire life. He’s come close to death plenty of times before.
For the last few years, he’s never been alone for them.
“I wasn’t there,” Eddie says, like he can hear Buck’s thoughts. His face crumples, his mouth twitching to the side. Buck recognizes the motion; it’s when Eddie is trying to keep himself from crying. There’s the shine of tears in his eyes, and his eyes are red.
“I’m fine,” Buck says quietly. He reaches up to cover Eddie’s hand with his own, fumbles with their fingers until Eddie is holding his hand tightly. “They’re already going to release me, I’m okay.”
“What happened?” Eddie asks. “Bobby told us what he got from the IC but—” He cuts himself off, his hand tightening around Buck’s. Finally, Eddie breaks the staring contest, looking at the monitor to the side.
Buck tugs his hand lightly, tugs Eddie’s attention back to him. “I was on an attack line with two other guys,” Buck says. “We were trying to evacuate and the ceiling collapsed. I guess I was knocked out for a minute, got the, uh, slight impalement, but I got out.”
Buck doesn’t know what to do with the way Eddie is looking at him. Eddie’s gaze can’t stay still, roving over Buck’s face like he’s taking him in for the first time. His hand is clenched tight around Buck’s, almost too tight, but Buck will let him hold on for as long and as tightly as he needs to. Eddie is here. In the fire, that’s all Buck wanted—for Eddie to get him. And now, he is.
“I’m gonna get you to the 133,” Eddie says with a choked-up laugh. The first tear falls, finally breaking free of his waterline. Buck wants to reach his hand up and wipe it away, but his hands are too heavy and too clumsy, and Eddie already thumbed it away. “Maybe I’ll go ahead and finish the 118’s renos myself.”
“You didn’t even know what Spackle was,” Buck retorts with a smile. Eddie and renovations is a recipe for disaster. “Leave the experts to it.”
Buck wants to go home, though. He doesn’t want to go to the 133 or another station. He misses his station. Despite his jokes, that desperation must show on his face.
“Soon,” Eddie promises, like he has any control over it, but Buck clings to the promise anyways. Eddie’s hand in his, the promise of going home soon.
Maddie steps back in with a nurse, and Eddie’s fingers draw a line over Buck’s palm as he pulls away. Buck focuses on that, the brand on his hand, as Maddie and the nurse go over his discharge.
He’s wheeled out an hour later, Bobby pushing the wheelchair hospital policy insists on. He has a prescription for antibiotics and clear instructions that someone needs to keep him on concussion watch, a duty Maddie assigns herself as they maneuver Buck into her sensible little sedan. He wants to snap that he isn’t an invalid, but he’s too pathetically grateful for the way Bobby’s hands linger on his shoulder to really be mad.
He should probably move out of the loft, he thinks distantly as Maddie helps him up the steps to his bed. He gets injured way too much for this. Besides, the loft is bad luck at this point.
It’s easier to blame the loft than himself.
Buck hates the loft. He has this thought every time he’s injured. He hates the twelve steps from the lower level to the bedroom. He hates the vaulted ceilings that make everything echo. He hates the way the cold seeps in through the large windows. He hates it, and wants to move, but Buck really doesn’t have a good reason to move. So he keeps the loft, even when the rent jacks up, even when it’s turned into a mausoleum of failed relationships.
He’s not alone for the first couple days, at least. The loft is easier to stomach when there’s someone else in there. Maddie stays for a day, then Bobby, and then it turns into another endless cycle of visitors and distractions. Buck lets it happen. He’s raw and aching, and this is the most people he’s really talked to in months, and he’s so desperate for it he doesn’t mind being pathetic about it.
Buck lets himself pretend he’s wanted, that he has all these people who are going to stick around, until it tips over to nighttime and his designated babysitter goes home. The loft gets darker, closes in on him. His fridge is filled with tupperwares, and Buck selects one at random for his dinner. He barely tastes it, even when it’s Bobby’s lasagna or Maddie’s mac’n’cheese casserole. It feels rote, the process of eating, sleeping, waking up in the morning and getting ready for his next visitor.
This is what happens when he gets injured. Buck learned this lesson when he was a kid. A scraped knee earns him a hug; a broken bone earns him breakfast in bed; a surgery earns him the feeling of hands carding through his hair. It’s not so different when he’s in his 30s. And just like when he was a kid—he gets better, and the gentle touches stop. Buck gets better, and Buck gets left alone.
How many times can a dog be kicked before it finally stops begging for more attention? How many times does it suffer the cycle, kicked ribs and apologies, slinking back after licking its wounds, just to do it again?
After a week, Buck’s healed enough that the twelve steps to his bed doesn’t send stabbing pain through his side. After a week, Buck calls an Uber and hopes that, by the time he comes back, the loft will have exploded or suffered some equally terrible fate.
He gets dropped off at a coffee shop, because Buck figured that was easier than the under-construction firehouse a few blocks down. The fall air is crisp in his lungs as he makes the trek. His lungs and throat are mostly healed, besides a cough that hits him late at night. Buck feels more like a human in the actual air, face tilted up towards the sun.
There are yellow construction signs around the firehouse. Buck stands on the sidewalk, even though he wants to bypass all the signs and the locks on the bay doors, and take in the state of his home. They had to completely rebuild it. The concrete foundation cracked with the earthquake, the supports for the loft failed. The ceiling caved in. The brick walls tilted in on the collapse, entire sections falling down.
Buck and Bobby had stood outside the evacuated firehouse and watched it fall apart.
Buck stands in front of the rebuilt firehouse and wonders if it’ll be the same.
There’s a philosophical concept—the ship of Theseus. How much of a place can be replaced until it’s no longer the same thing? How much of Buck can be broken and fixed, pins added and removed, blood transfusion, skin grafts, until he’s no longer Buck? The 118 is entirely rebuilt—how much of it is the same? The outside already looks different, the shape of the building new. It’s not the same. It’s not the 118. It’s not home.
Buck stands in front of the rebuilt firehouse alone, but it’s not a surprise when Eddie comes up next to him.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he says mildly, hands stuffed in his pockets. There’s an easiness to his voice that’s been missing. He’s changed, too. Buck missed it.
“Don’t ask me how I’m feeling,” Buck warns, an echo of what he said after his coma. Eddie just laughs, the same way he did back then, and doesn’t ask.
They stand quietly for another minute or so, just looking at the firehouse. Eddie breaks it by saying, “Bobby said it should reopen in two weeks. It just needs to pass a final safety inspection and then we’ll get it back.”
Get it back, like it’s been taken from them. It’s how Buck feels. The 118 is the one thing Buck wanted to keep that let him keep it. The 118 is a building. It can’t run away like Maddie did. It can’t get upset at Buck. Even after the lawsuit, when Buck was finally allowed back but not allowed on calls, the 118 was a steady presence. It didn’t change in his absence. He took that for granted.
“I won’t be cleared for duty for another month,” Buck says dully. He’ll miss it. Of course he will.
“Doesn’t mean you won’t be there,” Eddie replies. He knocks their shoulders together. “Wanna hear my other good news?”
Buck finally looks away from the firehouse, but Eddie keeps his gaze trained ahead. There’s a slight smile on his face, so it must be good news. Those types of smiles have been hard to catch these days.
“Sure,” Buck says, suddenly desperate to hear anything good. Everything in his life has been going steadily downhill.
“I talked to Christopher,” Eddie says, ducking his head for a moment. He still doesn’t look at Buck. “We, uh, we had a lot to talk about. I had a lot to talk about. I had figured this thing out, about myself, my grief, and how I kept hurting him. So we talked it out, y’know?”
“Yeah?” Buck’s voice is barely louder than a whisper. He’s missed Christopher like crazy. He’s never let himself think about it, touch it, another one of those gaping holes in his chest he knows the name and shape of. Eddie didn’t want to talk about him, and Christopher is Eddie’s, not Buck’s, so it’s not like Buck has a claim to miss him more. He kept it tucked away, the same way Eddie kept it tucked away. The fact they haven’t been working together let them ignore it for so long.
“He wants to come home,” Eddie says. He finally looks at Buck. There’s a wide smile on his face, his eyes crinkled with joy. “He’s going to come home.”
“Yeah?” Buck says again, louder, more excited.
It settles in his chest: he’s coming home. Buck laughs and wraps his arms around Eddie in a tight hug, feels Eddie return it more gingerly. Their chests pressed together, Buck’s heart hammering in his ears. Eddie’s face is tucked into his shoulder, his nose pressed into the same spot he always puts his thumb.
Eddie doesn’t let go, so neither does Buck. He says, into Buck’s collarbone, “The thing I had figured out was, uhm. I’m gay.”
It takes Buck a moment. He squeezes Eddie tighter, hears him exhale all the air in his lungs. “I’m proud of you,” Buck says and means it. Eddie presses his face into Buck’s shoulder, digs his nose in, like if he just tried harder they could merge together. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Obviously,” Eddie says with a scoff. “I always want to tell you about these things.”
It warms Buck up from the inside-out. He knows Eddie is telling the truth. Eddie bottles everything up until it explodes, mentos in a coke bottle. It’s just a matter of releasing the pressure. He always tells Buck eventually.
They’re still hugging. Buck thinks maybe he should let go, that it’s reached the point of too much. Two grown men hugging for minutes on the sidewalk. He would even think it’s a little weird. Eddie never lets go, though. He keeps his arms around Buck, his fingers digging into his back, and Buck soaks it up. Every scrap of attention, every second of comfort. Eddie gives it so easily.
The first time all of them manage to get together that’s not a hospital waiting room is a week later, meeting at the Wilsons for a family dinner. Buck is escorted by Eddie, because he’s mostly been spending all their shared free time at the Diaz house. Christopher still has a few more weeks left in the fall semester that he’s finishing out, but he’ll be home in time for Christmas. Buck and Eddie are doing their best to make the Diaz house look festive.
The Wilsons are way ahead of them, with a tree set up in the living room and garland strewn around doorframes and windows. Thanksgiving had passed quietly, Buck joining Maddie and Chimney for a dinner, but Christmas has always been his favorite holiday. He had been dreading it this year, with Christopher down in Texas.
They all shove around the dining table in mismatched chairs, Buck and Eddie knocking elbows. It’s a good dinner. Everyone is laughing, talking, having fun, and Buck just basks it in. They start trading stories, starting with Chimney and the kids he’s been teaching; Bobby and his nearly-over fight with Brad Torrence; Hen and her weirdest calls with the 49; Eddie and the worst rescue he had to do at the 133. It’s all new stories, and then everyone’s eyes turn to Buck.
He has a lot of stories. Buck always manages to attract the crazies, suffering from a unique case of bad luck. He starts telling them about his time with the 92, the photographer that had tumbled off the roof. Everyone is appropriately shocked by the photographer’s demand to take photos of the funeral. When Buck gets to the point where Cafferty had unclipped the wrong biner, where Buck fell over a hundred feet onto the crashpad, he falters.
He didn’t get hurt, is the point. But if he tells him about it anyways, he knows how they’ll react. The concern, the pity, the guilt. Buck doesn’t want to make them care retroactively. He knew they cared then, too, but it still stings.
He skips it. He doesn’t mention the fall, just the rope rescue and the fact that Cafferty broke three coffee machines, and the conversation moves on from him.
Eddie knows the full story, shooting Buck concerned glances. He doesn’t set the record straight. Eddie will follow Buck’s lead on things, even though Buck can tell he disagrees by the twist to his mouth. Buck’s throat feels too full to even try to whisper or brush him off. It’s hard to breathe, like the days after the fire. The room is too hot. He pushes his chair brack, giving Eddie a tight smile when the man gives him a questioning look.
“I just need some air,” he says quietly around the lump in his throat. Eddie nods, allowing Buck his escape.
It doesn’t go unnoticed, he knows, but no one follows him when he steps outside for a moment. The room had felt too hot all of a sudden, his lungs incapable of holding a deep breath, but the cold air helps. He counts out his breathing, sitting on the steps leading into the backyard. Hen and Karen have such a nice house, with so much open space. There’s a couple of toys littered in the yard. It’s nothing like the house back in Pennsylvania, where Buck couldn’t leave anything sitting in the yard or else his mom would shout at him.
The door opens and Buck hedges his bets: Eddie, Bobby, or Maddie? None of the above. Instead, Mara settles down onto the steps next to him.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks. In the months Mara spent with Maddie and Chimney, Buck had been a babysitter more than once. It always made him miss Christopher, even though he’s a proper teenager and would resent being compared to nine-year-old Mara. He probably wouldn’t. Christopher liked hanging with Jee-yun. He’s a good kid.
“I didn’t want you to be alone,” Mara says matter-of-factly. “No one should be sad alone.”
And that’s, well. That’s more emotionally mature than Buck ever managed to be when he was nine. “Yeah? You’re probably right.”
She smiles at him. “Where have you been?” she asks next, and it hits like a hammer. “You promised to take us swimming.”
“I did, huh?” Buck says. He remembers doing that. It was the tailend of summer, the hottest it had been all year, and Buck promised he would take Jee-yun and Mara to the beach or the pool. He knows Maddie avoids the beach, for about the same reasons Buck does, but the two girls had been so excited. “It’s a little cold these days, but we can figure something out.”
“You didn’t answer me.” Mara stares at him, dark brown eyes imploring. Buck has always been an easy touch when it comes to kids.
“I’ve just been on a weird schedule. You know how our firehouse needed to be fixed so your moms took you guys on a vacation?” Mara nods. “When she came back, she got a spot at another firehouse. But I’ve been working with a bunch of firehouses, so I’m not on the same schedule as everyone else.”
“Like me?” Mara asks.
It takes Buck a minute to realize. “Yeah, like you,” he says, even if it’s not the same. Mara was in the foster system going from placement to placement; Buck was just doing his job. “Kinda sucked, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I’m here now. I really like it.” Mara pauses, then tilts her head against his bicep for a second. “I hope you find your home.”
Buck knows his eyes are stinging from tears. At least he can blame the tears on how his throat has tightened up. “Yeah, kid. Me too.”
Mara heads back inside after a minute, and Buck gives himself a moment to wipe at his eyes before he follows. He feels like a nine-year-old just pointed out all his issues, and Buck really doesn’t know how to recover from that. He can start putting them into place now.
Kids see things so easily. Buck’s jealous of it. Buck feels like he’s been rewired just from that short conversation, taking his seat to Eddie’s left with a genuine smile.
Eddie takes him back to the Diaz house, even though Buck could probably return to the loft and not be in danger of certain death. He doesn’t complain. He likes when Eddie wrangles him, shoving him towards the passenger seat of his truck after all the goodbyes have been dispensed. It’s not often that Eddie is the one driving him around—because Buck gets anxiety-induced motion sickness when others drive him, but never with Eddie—so he lets himself enjoy it.
Eddie had asked, “Ready to go home?” and Buck had agreed because he knew where Eddie meant.
Buck has never really had a home, if he gets into it. Buck was raised in a house, not a home. He spent half a decade couch surfing, living in motel inns, or sleeping in his Jeep. Whenever he was homesick, it was only ever for Maddie. The first apartment he rented was a bachelor’s pad that never quite fit. He never had a home, not like the Diaz house is a home to Eddie and Christopher, or how Maddie and Chimney made a home in their ex-haunted house.
He knows it’s the 118. Buck made the 118 into a family and a home because he was so desperate for one, and now it’s gone. It’s turned into something else. The ship of Theseus—how much can be replaced until it’s no longer home?”
At least he still has this house. Eddie’s home. Buck had told Maddie years ago: I’m not really a guest. It’s always been true. It was true before his leg was crushed, before the tsunami, before the coma. Eddie had made space for him in his home before Buck ever bled for it. And Buck always ends up here, on Eddie’s comfortable couch, because Eddie has never treated him differently. Even when Buck was bleeding, broken bones and an unfixable heart, Eddie has always treated him the same. Buck’s never had to work for his love before.
That’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s love, and Buck would convince himself it’s the same love he has for Chimney, the same love he has for Hen and everyone else in their family—but it’s Eddie. Of course it’s different.
Eddie’s on the other end of the couch, his eyes trained on the TV. It’s a reality show, because Eddie is into that sort of trash. He’s drinking water, even though Buck told him he could have a beer if he wanted, but Eddie said it wasn’t fair since Buck can’t drink on his antibiotics. He said it so easily, like he really didn’t mind. Buck’s starting to realize that.
He laughs at something on the screen, a flash of his canines, and Buck reflexively smiles to match him. It’s hard not to. When Eddie is happy, odds are Buck is happy too.
Josh Russo’s voice slams into his head: Is his happiness at least as important as yours?
Yeah. Yes. Eddie’s happiness has always ranked somewhere above Buck’s. Everyone’s happiness does. Buck likes to fix things, likes to make things better. He was meant to give parts of himself away so others would live. Could be happy. Buck never grew out of that, the central purpose of his life, even if he failed the one person he was meant to save.
It works both ways, though. Eddie has always been there for Buck. When Buck was kicking himself after the embolism, after the tsunami, after his break-ups, after his injuries, Eddie has done his best to make Buck feel better.
And could you see a future there?
There’s a future Buck never hopes comes to pass, a future that means a will is read and Buck turns from godfather to guardian, and Buck never wants to see that happen.
There’s a future Buck has only just started to think about, and it’s everything he’s ever wanted. A home. A family. Someone that loves him, not because they’re family or because Buck’s bleeding and broken.
Buck studies Eddie’s profile. He already has it committed to memory. Buck has spent so much of the last several years looking at Eddie, checking to make sure he’s breathing. Sometimes it’s hard to tear his eyes away.
Eddie looks over and catches Buck’s gaze. He frowns, just slight enough for that crease to form between his eyebrows. “Everything okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Eddie teases, with a dangerous curve to his mouth. “What about?”
“You,” Buck says, dangerously honest because he can’t find it in himself to lie. He’s not a very good liar, especially when it comes to Eddie. He always feels bad about it, a sick feeling in his gut he can never shake until he finally comes clean.
Eddie’s frown deepens and he turns to give Buck his full attention. He always does that. Buck never realized how rare it was, accustomed to being background noise to everyone around him, until Eddie started paying attention. “What about me?”
“How much I like being here.” Buck rubs his hand over the throw blanket on the back of the couch. He bought it. Years ago, because none of the blankets Eddie had in the house were big enough to cover Buck’s long legs. Eddie thought it was funny, that asshole, but when Buck bought over an oversized, soft blanket, it turned into Eddie’s favorite blanket. It’s a little threadbare now, after being washed so often.
“Yeah?” Eddie’s voice is quiet, barely louder than the squabble on the television. “I like it when you’re here.”
“I hate the loft,” Buck says suddenly and loudly. Eddie flinches slightly at the abrupt change in volume, and a small part of Buck feels bad about it. “It feels like it’s cursed, y’know? Like, every relationship I’ve had since Abby just—” he makes a fizzling noise, hands moving to demonstrate an explosion “—in there, right? And it could be me, yeah, but I think it’s the loft’s fault. Because Ali helped me find it, and I fucked up by asking Taylor to move in, and then Natalia got freaked out by Kameron, and now Tommy. So, like, it has to be the loft, right?”
He’s desperate, Buck realizes. He’s begging. It’s the loft’s fault. It’s not something innate in Buck that makes everyone leave, right?
“What… What are you talking about?” Eddie asks.
Usually, they’re on the same wavelength. Except now, Buck’s brain is moving faster than his mouth is, and he doesn’t know how to say it.
“I don’t want to keep fucking up my relationships,” Buck says.
“You won’t,” Eddie tells him. His voice is resolute, and Buck clings to that. “And if you really hate the loft, maybe you should move?”
Buck doesn’t want to move. Or, Buck does want to move, and he already knows where, but he can’t ask for that. He’s already a stray dog sleeping on Eddie’s couch. No one wants to keep a stray.
“Buck,” Eddie says, and his voice is so quiet. He shuffles closer on the couch, until his knees are pressed into Buck’s thigh. He’s all deep brown eyes, wells of concern, worry lines around his eyes. “What’s wrong? Does it— Are you in pain?”
“No,” Buck says, which isn’t really true. There’s a dull pain from the surgery site, but Buck’s already used to it. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just…”
Eddie gives him a moment to finish his sentence, but prompts him when Buck never finds the words. “Just…?”
“I think I’m in love with you,” Buck says, back to dangerous honesty. He looks at Eddie’s knee pressed against his thigh, a solid point of contact. Buck wants more; Buck wants to run away, pretend he never said those words. He stays still instead.
“Oh.” Eddie’s voice is weirdly strangled. “And that’s…?”
“I don’t know,” Buck says miserably. Not miserably. He doesn’t think being in love with Eddie is miserable—it’s probably the only good thing Buck has going right now, this love. He just doesn’t know where to put it. It’s suffocated every relationship he’s had. “And I can’t—I ruin every relationship I’ve ever been in, Eddie. I can’t ruin this one too.”
Buck buries his face in his hands, digging his nails into his skin. It’s easier to focus on the sharp sting of pain, the dull throb in his side.
“If you ruin all your relationships, what does that say about mine?” Eddie grabs onto Buck’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his face. He’s shifted even closer, leaned into Buck’s space. He’s rubbing circles onto the pulse point of Buck’s wrists.
“I can’t lose you,” Buck says. “And, god, you haven’t even said it back, I’m just making assum—”
“Of course I love you,” Eddie says, cutting through Buck’s spiral. His hands tighten around Buck’s wrists. “How could I not?”
Buck laughs, but it comes out wet. Eddie lets him take a hand back to he can wipe at his face, even though he hasn’t started crying yet. “For a lot of reasons, Eddie. I’m kinda a mess.”
“And I’m not?” Eddie retorts. “I want this. I want you, Buck.”
Buck, not Evan. The distinction is important, Buck thinks.
“And when you decide I’m too much?” Buck asks. “I can’t… I’m the common denominator, Eddie. No one sticks around. Not for me. And I can’t be— I can’t be just your first, Eddie. I think that might actually kill me.”
“You’ll be my first,” Eddie starts, and Buck’s stomach clenches, his eyes stinging with tears, “and my last, and my only. God, Buck, you have no idea what you do to me. You’re everything to me, okay? And I think— I never want you to just settle for someone. I’ll stay. If that’s all you need, I’ll stay. You’re the only reason I’m still in Los Angeles, Buck. I stayed because of you, for you. However long you’ll let me, I’ll stay and I’ll love you.”
“Please,” Buck says. His voice is thick with tears. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for.
Eddie does. Eddie always does.
He leans in, closes the scant distance between them, and kisses Buck. It feels like coming home. It’s the tailend of a long drive, seeing the familiar street signs and landmarks, knowing you’re about to be home. Something has finally slotted itself into that empty hole in Buck’s chest, the missing jigsaw piece Buck has been looking for his entire life. Eddie’s hand is on Buck’s cheek, and he kisses Buck so gently, so sweetly. The room could be on fire and Buck probably wouldn’t notice, because all his focus is on Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
It’s like the floodgates opened. Buck leans into Eddie and deepens the kiss. He can’t figure out where to put his hands. He wants to be touching every part of Eddie, committing him to memory, his hands running over Eddie’s shoulders, down his arms, hands cupping Eddie’s knees.
When Eddie finally pulls away, Buck chases him. He’s stopped by Eddie pressing their foreheads together, laughing softly into the space between them.
“I want to take this slow,” he says like a confession. “I don’t want to fuck this up either, Buck.”
“Slow,” Buck echoes. His voice sounds dazed even to himself. “Okay. Okay, yeah, I can do slow.”
Despite their words, Buck kisses him again and Eddie lets him. It’s slower this time—lingers. They’re breathing each others’ air and maybe it should feel weird, but Buck thinks this is just how things go for the two of them.
“You’re a menace,” Eddie says, but it’s all fond. He draws back, looks at his watch, pulls a face. “Do you— Do you want to stay here tonight?”
“Wasn’t I already?”
“With me.” Eddie’s face is bright red, the slight curve of a sheepish smile. “In my bed.”
Just to be a dick, Buck repeats: “Wasn’t I already?” He’s been taking the bed the last few nights he’s stayed over, Eddie on the couch, because he’s still healing from a minor surgery.
“Don’t be a jackass,” Eddie says, but he’s smiling wide. “I just— I don’t want to let go of you.”
“Oh.” Buck blinks. Eddie’s hands are back on his wrists, loosely holding onto him. Give a dog a collar, Buck thinks wildly. “I don’t want you to, either.”
He doesn’t know how much he meant it until the words pass his lips.
Eddie kisses him again, his hands framing Buck’s face. They’re never going to get anything done ever again. Buck wants to spend the rest of his life kissing Eddie, swaying into his personal space, Eddie’s large hands circling his wrists like a promise.
“Good,” Eddie says, practically beaming. “Because I want to keep you.”
It’s all Buck has ever wanted, for someone to keep him. Like a dog that’s spent too long in the shelter, one failed family after another. Buck always wanted someone to want him, in the forever kind of way. He’s glad it’s Eddie. If nothing else, he can trust that Eddie means it.
Buck isn’t cleared for duty when the 118 reopens. The department makes a whole ordeal out of it, a photo-op and news story. Buck’s glad he’s not healed, because medical leave means he doesn’t have to pull on his dress blues or have his face put in the paper. Again. Eddie does, though, and Buck takes great pleasure in fixing his tie for him. Why it needs being fixed it also Buck’s fault, but no harm, no foul.
He’s there when the press finally packs it up. The construction signs have disappeared, as well as the piles of lumber and cement, a corner of the parking lot still covered in dirt from where the construction workers set up shop. Buck parks in his usual parking spot, because that hasn’t changed, but he can’t get out of the car. Not yet. He’s too scared to see the interior, too scared to see what has changed.
When Buck was 23, he had gone back to Hershey for the holidays. He was missing Maddie and hoped she and their parents had some sort of holiday dinner planned. He wasn’t given a warm welcome back to his childhood home, and Margaret Buckley had pursed her lips and said, “Well, I guess you can be in the guest room.”
That’s how Buck learn his home had painted over his existence. His bedroom was turned into an office, piled with her grading and bankers boxes of important paperwork. All his belongings had been consolidated to two storage boxes in the attic. When Buck learned his parents weren’t talking to Maddie either, he picked up his bag and left. On to Montana, Colorado, Peru.
He doesn’t want to see how the 118 has changed itself. Buck doesn’t want to see the new kitchen, the new bunkroom, the new locker room because his locker with its pictures of Christopher and Jee-yun won’t be there anymore. It won’t be home. Buck is going to have to start over again.
The driver’s door opens, and Eddie stands in front of him, deeply unimpressed. He’s still in his dress blues. “C’mon, Buck, it’s not that bad.”
“I know, I know,” he says, still moving slowly as he unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out. Eddie barely moves back, so Buck ends up entirely in his space. “I’m just being stupid.”
“You’re not.” Eddie frowns at him, presses his thumb into that spot above his collarbone. “But I promise you, you’re going to like it.”
Buck doesn’t trust that, but he does trust Eddie, so he lets Eddie drag him towards the building anyways. The exterior has changed its shape. It doesn’t look like the firehouse Buck had walked into years ago, heart on his sleeve. They get to the bay doors and Buck drags his feet, just a little but Eddie pulls him in anyways.
He stares at the concrete until Eddie slows to a stop, Buck bounces off his shoulder. He takes a deep breath, looks up, and—
“It’s the same?” he breathes out, eyes roaming over the parts of the building he can see.
There are differences, of course. The loft extends further into the apparatus bay, and the gym is actually closed-off behind glass walls. The locker room—Buck assumes it’s the locker room—has actual walls now, allowing for privacy. Buck can already see that one beam in the loft he always hit his head on is gone. Heavy wood beams instead of concrete pillars, and the STATION 118 sign is firmly in place in the loft, straight ahead.
“Well, the city didn’t think there was much to be approved on,” Bobby says. He’s smiling, the way he does whenever one of his little secrets gets revealed. “I told them to pull up the old design plan, just build that.”
“Bobby, I—”
“No matter how it looked like, I knew it would still be the same 118,” Bobby says. He steps closer, wrapping Buck into a half hug. Buck leans into it, soaks up the affection, allows himself to pretend it’s not just because Buck is still hurt. Bobby never blurs the boundaries of professionalism at work. He means it. “Because you would be here. But I know how much this place means to you, kid. I wasn’t going to change it without you.”
“I would’ve dealt with it,” Buck says, wiping at his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry. Not when he’s only been in this building for barely more than a minute.
“You don’t have to,” Bobby says, a promise that extends past this conversation. “C’mon, they updated the kitchen, you’re gonna love it.”
Buck lets himself be corralled into the loft, where Bobby shows off the updated kitchen. The 118 isn’t online yet, but it’s filled with members from all three shifts. Buck wonders where all of them have been these past few months. He’s shared a few shifts with guys from the B and C platoon at different stations, but Buck hasn’t been with anyone from A shift. Los Angeles is too big of a city, sometimes.
“Y’know, I’ve gotten a lot of commendations from captains across the city about you,” Bobby says quietly. He’s making family dinner. It’s only fitting, the first meal at the newly rebuilt 118. Buck gets to help, playing sous chef and feeling settled for the first time in months.
“Really?” Buck asks. “I didn’t think I made that good of an impression on them.”
“Buck.” Bobby stops moving, leveling him with a look. It always makes Buck come to a full stop, and he does that now, pausing in dicing the onions. “You’ve dealt with a lot these past few months. And I know you’re going to downplay it, but don’t bother. I got more than one captain who wants to poach you, and several more that want to know if you’re healing well. You’ve made an impression on them. A good one.”
“Oh. You told them no, right?”
Bobby laughs. “Obviously, Buck. You’re staying here. It’s where you belong.”
The certainty he says it, the surety that Buck has always depended on, makes the words lodge under his ribs, nestle next to his heart. Buck is staying. He’s home. He’s finally home.
Eddie and Buck have two different ideas of going slow. For Buck, going slow was how he took things with Abby: phone calls and text messages, dates and coffee before he ever got invited to her apartment. He might’ve accelerated the schedule at the end, but it’s still slower than any of his other relationships. He might’ve overcorrected, the way he always does.
For Eddie, going slow seems to mean they don’t have sex, but just about everything else is on the table. He invites Buck over all the time, asks him to spend the night all the time. He kisses Buck in the morning, in the kitchen, before he leaves for a shift with the 118. He’s always texting Buck, too, like the time they have to spend apart is agony for him.
Buck is still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does. When he’s finally cleared for duty, showing up at the 118 and unpacking the duffel bags he’s been keeping in the Jeep for the last few months, there’s a cake and celebrations, but it’s climbing into the ladder truck that really settles things. Eddie’s knee knocks against his own, Bobby is in the passenger seat, Hen and Chim are teasing the two of them because of course they couldn’t keep it a secret.
After their shifts, they go back to the Diaz house. Buck is starting to call it home, too. He forgets about the loft. They’re not going slow at all, but they’ve spent seven years getting themselves to this point.
“I can’t wait for you to move in with me,” Eddie says one night, when they’re half-asleep after a long shift, long day. He’s curled up with his head on Buck’s chest, playing with his fingers. “With us.”
Oh. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Buck’s never been asked this before. His chest feels heavy all of a sudden, but Buck knows the feeling for what it is: love. He’s in love with his best friend, who wants Buck to move in, and maybe Buck has finally been given a home.
The 118, he found it, he made it into a home. Eddie already had one, and he’s giving it to Buck, the same way he gave his heart to Buck all those years ago.
“You asking me to move in?” Buck asks, his voice thick.
Eddie leverages himself up, crawling over Buck so he can look him in the eyes. There’s a bashful smile on his face, like he still doubts the answer. “Yeah. Yeah, Buck. You want to move in with me?”
“Yes,” Buck says, and a grin splits his face in half. He rolls them over, pinning Eddie to the bed as he kisses his forehead, his cheek, the corner of his mouth because Eddie can’t stop laughing long enough to stay still. “God, yes, of course I will.”
Eddie’s legs hook around his waist, and Buck can’t stop smiling. He’s never felt this before, like he’s going to choke on all the love he’s feeling, the sheer happiness finding a new home behind his ribs.
“I love you,” Eddie says. His hands are holding on tightly to Buck’s shoulders. Eddie likes holding on to him, they both found out. Buck’s made it his life’s mission to never step out of arm’s reach unless he has to.
“I love you, too,” Buck says, and thinks, to hell with being slow. They’ve done everything out of order anyways, basically are carrying out an eight-year-long engagement. Not that they’re engaged, but Buck thinks that’s definitely on the horizon. He’s always wanted to get married, tied to someone in bureaucracy and red tape and paperwork.
He can go slower than that, but not glacial. Buck’s hands wander down to Eddie’s waistband, and it’s an enthusiastic yes from the way his kisses turn biting. It’s not how Buck thought it would go, the first time he gets his hand on Eddie’s dick, but it’s not like Buck is complaining. He’d never complain about watching Eddie come completely undone underneath him, because of Buck. Eddie’s moans reverberate in Buck’s chest, match the tattoo of his heart, and Buck doesn’t want anything else in the world.
He has Eddie. He has a home, a family. It’s all Buck has ever wanted.
Eddie returns the favor, clever fingers taking Buck apart expertly. He kisses away the tears that escape, because Buck’s always been easy to tears, and this is no different. Maybe neither of them know how to go slow at all. Buck curls up with Eddie’s arms wrapped around him, like Buck is the smaller of the two.
He gets to have this for the rest of his life. Buck doesn’t want to break this moment, though, Eddie’s mouth pressed against his temple, his heart beating under Buck’s ear.
“I love you,” Buck says again. Not for the first time. Not for the last.
He can feel Eddie’s smile against his temple. “I love you, too, Buck,” he says. Buck’s name always sounds good coming from Eddie’s mouth. His arms tighten around Buck. Stray dog given a collar and a name tag and a: “Welcome home.”