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It would be a hundred times easier
If we were young again
But as it is, and it is
To think that we could stay the same
Two Slow Dancers — Mitski
“Seriously?”
Buck’s mouth quirks into a lopsided smile—a little amused, a little rueful, a little yeah, yeah, I know. He offers Eddie a languid shrug. They’re leaned close enough against the gymnasium walls for the motion to bump their shoulders together.
“I got asked,” Buck replies, mild.
If he was still in his twenties—still in the reckless throes of his Buck 1.0 days—he might’ve said it differently. It probably would’ve come out like a bite: sharp and quick, tinged with the knee-jerk defensiveness of a guy always needing to prove himself. The not-quite-yet-resolved part of him desperate to be wanted, to be chosen, wouldn’t have let it sound like anything less.
Now, though, Buck 3.0 or 4.0 or whatever-point-whatever says it for what it is: a simple fact, stripped of anything performative. He did get asked to prom, just like he did get a haircut a week ago, and he did botch his omelet this morning. It’s more of an expository statement than anything else.
“I don’t doubt it.” Eddie thumps Buck’s chest good-naturedly. “Bet you were the belle of the ball.”
“Please.” Buck rolls his eyes. “You make it sound like I had a long line of suitors.”
“You make it sound like you didn’t.”
Buck glances at Eddie. He’s staring straight ahead, a fond smirk pulling at his lips—the kind that comes from knowing someone down to the bones, even the versions they weren’t around for. There’s this certainty in it that’s making Buck wonder if Eddie had somehow been there for his senior year—standing just a few lockers down, basketball tucked under one arm, watching awkward promposal after awkward promposal unfold.
Eddie has that glint in his eyes, too. It’s just shy of a challenge, daring Buck to argue with him. An unspoken go ahead, hotshot, prove me wrong.
Buck’s smile slips into something coy when he admits, “There were a few.”
“A few,” Eddie echoes.
“A few girls, yeah.”
Eddie doesn’t look surprised in the slightest. He just rolls his hand, wordlessly prompting Buck to continue.
Buck simply shrugs again in response, his arm brushing Eddie’s as he does. The movement creates a bit of friction between their suit jackets. Eddie’s umber-brown velvet drags against Buck’s powder-blue corduroy, the material snagging momentarily before sliding free. The feeling is a little strange and visceral, but not necessarily unpleasant. It’s kind of grounding, actually.
The gym is a sensory… nightmare isn’t the right word, but a sensory something. A mix of top 40s music, joy-drunk laughter, and squeaking shoes from every direction, all muddled together into a chaotic, shapeless soup of sound. It teeters precariously between something fun and exciting, and something that might be fun and exciting if Buck could get a few drinks in him. He isn’t totally sure which camp he’s fallen into yet, but it’s probably the latter. Not ideal, considering they’re in a school gymnasium. He’s shit out of luck unless someone spikes the punch.
So, yeah—call him weird for zeroing in on it, but that push and pull of fabric is a bit of a godsend. Amid the writhing, restless sea of well-dressed bodies around them, it’s an anchor. A welcome reminder of the solid, steady weight at his side.
“You plan on sharing more with the class, or do I need to give your sister a ring for details?” Eddie asks.
Buck scoffs. “Don’t give her an excuse to dig out the yearbooks.”
“Yearbooks?” Eddie perks up at that, his expression eerily reminiscent of the one he had when Buck told him he broke up with Natalia: shamelessly intrigued, comically bad at schooling it. He goes to push himself off the wall, patting his jacket in search of his phone. “Definitely gonna call her now.”
Buck almost laughs, because Eddie speaking to Maddie for anything outside of an emergency is honestly hilarious to imagine. He can count the number of times the two of them have interacted on one hand. There’s no way they’ve exchanged numbers.
Still, he lifts an arm to block Eddie from moving any further, playing along like the threat carries weight. “You haven’t seen pictures of me as a teenager for a reason. Acne Evan does not need to see the light of modern day, thank you very much.”
“Acne Evan? That’s what they called you?” Eddie frowns a very dramatic, very endearing U-shaped frown. “Aren’t bullies supposed to be clever?”
Buck shakes his head in that half-wistful, half-exasperated way he’s seen older people do when talking about their so-called glory days. It feels strange when he does it, like he’s trying on a shirt that doesn’t fit him. It shouldn’t fit him, because high school was just two-odd years ago, right? Not over ten, right?
“They didn’t actually call me that,” he says.
Eddie rolls his hand again. Go on.
Buck exhales out, out, out. “My football team used to call me Bubble Wrap Buckley. That was the nickname that stuck.”
And he actually does laugh a little now, recounting the memory. It’s not haha funny, just funny in the way that enough time and distance makes everything funny, even the things that used to hurt. He laughs the same way whenever he thinks about his coach calling him tight end like it was an insult, or his parents forgetting his fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth birthday—three years in a row.
Eddie winces in sympathy, sucking air through his teeth. “Yeah, I can see why. That’s pretty catchy.”
Buck splays a hand over his heart like a man scorned. “Et tu, Brute?”
Eddie chuckles—low and breathy and hardly audible, yet somehow still clear as a bell to Buck through all the noise. He slips his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he leans back against the wall, his elbow nudging into Buck’s side as he does.
It gives Buck a feeling he can’t quite put a name to, having it there. Maybe something akin to slotting a long-missing piece into a long-unfinished puzzle. It’s a little distracting, but the good kind of distracting. The kind that tethers his mile-a-minute mind to one thing.
“If it makes you feel any better, I had a huge zit”—Eddie taps the hollow of his left cheek emphatically, dimpling the skin—“right here in freshman year. Couldn’t get rid of the sucker for months. Tried damn near everything. Creams, oils, toothpaste—”
“Toothpaste?” Buck repeats incredulously.
“One of Shannon’s friends told me to do it. She called it a hack.”
“I think she was the hack.”
“Hurt like hell when I tried it.” Eddie tsks. “Thought the burning meant it was working.”
Buck thinks about saying, “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”
And maybe he would say it if the context was different. Maybe if Eddie was in his turnouts and not in a tux. Maybe if his stubble wasn’t grown out in the way that makes Buck’s skin itch. Maybe if the decorative lights around the gym weren’t making him look soft and hazy around the edges, like something out of a dream. Maybe if Buck could call him pretty like a joke, and not like something he actually—
“How huge of a zit are we talking?” Buck asks instead. He crosses his arms and shifts his feet and—fine, if he sways a little further into Eddie’s bubble, that’s his business. He’s never been good at the whole personal space thing, anyway. Ask anyone who’s ever walked beside him on the street. It’s not just a problem he has with Eddie, okay? It’s not.
Eddie makes a comically large, golf ball-sized circle with his thumb and forefinger, hovering it over the spot he tapped.
Buck snorts at the visual. “It was not that big.”
“Sure felt like it,” Eddie says. “Damn thing looked like a second head. Got saddled with my own nickname for it, too.”
“Lemme guess.” Buck pretends to think hard about it for a second. Even hums, all stretched out and long like he’s really wracking his brain, before he settles on: “Something volcano-themed?”
Eddie’s eyebrows twitch in surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Bullies aren’t clever,” Buck replies dryly. “They’re predictable.”
“I dunno. I knew a lot of straight-A assholes.” Eddie shrugs. Arms brush together. Velvet catches corduroy. “Guess you can’t fault ‘em for getting creative, though. Cracking open books beats cracking open skulls.”
“What’d they call you? Krakatoa? Cotopaxi?”
“Mount Vesuvius, actually.” Eddie grins. “I didn’t mind it. Made me sound kinda sexy.”
“Yeah, totally.” Buck nods, slow and sarcastic. “Super sexy.”
Eddie grins wider, all rosy cheeks and canines and creased eyes and—
Invisible flames lick at the back of Buck’s neck, burning his skin solar hot. All of him feels uncomfortably warm now, but especially in the curve of his side where Eddie’s arm is still pressed against him. It doesn’t so much steady him anymore as it sears him like a brand.
It also makes him want to say stupid things. Things he’s not supposed to say. Things he’s locked away in a vault somewhere deep inside his skull, rigged with tripwires and emergency lights and warning signs. Things like—
“Prairie,” Buck blurts.
Eddie cocks his head, puzzled. A loose strand of hair slips free with the motion, falling across his forehead. Buck automatically lifts his hand, fingers twitching with the impulse to tuck it back into place—then stops short, detours, and quickly shoves it through his own curls instead. The movement is stiff and awkward. A pathetic attempt at displacement.
“Prairie?” Eddie asks.
“The first girl who asked me to prom.” Buck shifts his feet again. This time, he moves away from Eddie. Not far, just enough to put a little distance between them. Enough to calm the churning-crashing-eroding waves in his stomach a bit, lest he start developing Eddie-shaped ulcers. “You wanted details, so—uh, anyway. Her name was Prairie. Prairie Andrews.”
Eddie silently mouths her name a few times, trying it out. Prairie. Prairie. Prairie. The crease between his eyebrows deepens each time he does it.
“What?” Buck asks.
Eddie narrows his eyes. “Her parents were that type of parent, huh?”
“What type?”
“The type who names their kid Prairie.” Eddie says her name like it’s something noxious in his mouth. He says it like, “Abby. His fiancée’s Abby.”
Buck blinks once, twice. “Still not following.”
“Y’know, like—” Eddie gestures vaguely, trying to pull the words out of the space between them. “Those parents.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Buck stifles a laugh. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“You remember those neighbors I told you about? The ones I had back in El Paso?”
“The ones who walked around outside barefoot?”
“Same type.” Eddie’s glare sharpens like he’s seeing them materialize in front of him. “They named their kid Moonbeam, like—like something out of those cat books Chris used to read. Fucking Moonbeam, Buck.”
Buck can’t hold it back anymore. He bursts out laughing, a full-body thing that sends him careening back into Eddie’s orbit. Back into his gravitational field.
And—alright, listen. Buck would never say it out loud, but he secretly adores the way Eddie rarely hides his distaste for people. Buck has spent a lot of time around those who insist on seeing the best in everyone; so-called saints who smooth over flaws and make excuses, some holier-than-thou bullshit that makes him want to tear his skin off. Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t waste the effort. If he has a bone to pick with someone, he picks it clean. It’s pretty refreshing, honestly.
It also really makes Buck want to meet Sophia and Adriana someday, because it’s the kind of sass that only growing up with sisters can forge. He’d kill to be a fly on the wall in a room with the three of them. For now, he’s grateful for the glimpses he gets when he eavesdrops on their weekly Diaz sibling calls. It’s a lot of rehashing old high-school drama, gossiping about extended family, recapping cheesy telenovelas—stuff they pretend not to love complaining about.
Buck’s laughter settles enough for him to speak. “Prairie was… she was nice, okay? She used to knit her friends these crazy intricate sweaters, and she always sat with the shy kids at lunch, and she’d make a point to remember peoples’ names, and…”
He drones on, counting each trait off on his fingers like he’s ticking through a list. Eddie nods along, idly tapping his Oxfords to the beat of the music. Buck can feel the vibrations of it through the floor, even through the erratic rhythm of a hundred other stomping feet.
“She also smelled really nice. No clue what she wore, but it was something like…” Buck inhales, trying to chase the memory of it, but all he gets is rubber, wood varnish, and sweat. His old high-school gym smelled the exact same. Every school gymnasium does. It’s weirdly comforting.
“Like…?” Eddie prompts.
Buck exhales, shaking his head. “I dunno. I’m not a perfume guy, but it was something citrus-y and coconut-y. Something nice. She was nice.”
“But not nice enough for prom?” Eddie asks.
Buck grimaces. “She loved horses.”
“So?”
“No, like—she loved horses. She doodled horses on every assignment, and she only read books if they were about horses, and she had a million pictures of horses in her locker. It was all horses, all the time. They were basically the only thing she ever talked about.”
“A girl named Prairie? Obsessed with horses?” Eddie claps a hand over his mouth, feigning shock. “Say it ain’t so.”
Buck cracks up again, his ribs already burning with a familiar, well-earned ache.
He’s come to associate that ache with a lot of things in his life. It’s sleepless, delirious bunk room conversations with Ravi and Chimney. It’s cheap wine and card games with Hen, Karen, and Maddie. It’s making breakfast for the A-shift with Bobby, or dinner with Athena. It’s playing video games with Christopher and coloring with Jee-Yun. It’s… God, it’s nearly every moment spent with Eddie.
And it’s an ache Buck feels pretty damn fortunate to call familiar, because it’s a physical reminder of how lucky he is to love.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Buck starts, still chuckling a little. “She was…”
“Nice?” Eddie finishes, quirking a brow.
Buck smiles sheepishly. “I liked her as a friend. We probably would’ve had fun if we did go together, but—”
“Hey, no need to explain.” Eddie waves him off. “I’d say nay on the horse girl, too.”
“Nay? Like neigh?” Buck sniffs. “Good one.”
Eddie flashes that thousand-watt grin again. Buck’s own smile falters. He hastily looks away, blinking hard.
The ache he feels now is different—one that’s far less pleasant and far too familiar. A lingering, peripheral soreness, bruise-like in its presence. Relatively easy to live with and forget about, until certain things press too hard against it. Things like brown eyes, and bottom lip scars, and broad shoulders, and calloused hands, and—
Eddie’s foot taps away. Buck tries to ignore the way his heart has fallen in sync with it.
“Alright, loverboy,” Eddie says. “Who else?”
“Else?” Buck echoes, his brain lagging a step behind. He’s watching a group of guys break into a conga line in the middle of the gym to Katy Perry’s Firework, the absurdity of it barely registering. It takes him a few seconds to process Eddie’s question, to remember what they were even talking about at all.
Right. Girls. Prom. Girls asking him to prom.
“This girl Jade.” Buck’s voice comes out audibly strained. He’s pathetic. Pathetic. “Liu Jade. She was, um. She was nice, too.”
Eddie steps into Buck’s vision, his eyebrows pinched together in concern. He immediately clocks that something’s off, because of course he does. They’ve been friends long enough to become eerily perceptive of each other—a borderline telepathic connection that’s extremely useful for working together, and extremely annoying for situations like this.
“You okay?” Eddie’s tone is the same one he uses on distress calls: low and measured, like he’s talking someone off a ledge. He follows Buck’s line of sight, trying to assess the problem. “Is it too loud in here? The hallway’s probably less crowded if you wanna—”
“She was kinda scary, actually,” Buck interjects, plastering a smile back on. “Don’t think I ever saw her wearing anything that wasn’t black. She had this whole Lydia Deetz thing going on.”
Eddie blinks, taken aback. “You finally watched Beetlejuice?”
“Had time to kill on a Q-word shift when you were out sick last month.”
Eddie levels him with a long-tired look. “We’re not at work, Buck. Pretty sure you’re in the clear to say”—he wiggles his fingers mockingly, lowering his voice to a theatrical whisper—"quiet.”
Buck’s smile shifts into something more genuine. “She didn’t even technically ask me. She just turned around in Physics the week before and went, ‘You owe me a slow dance, Buckley. Pick me up at six.’”
“Damn. That’s bold.”
“I did owe her. We had a project together on magnetism that was worth half our grade, and I barely understood any of it, so she had to do most of the work.” Buck winces, because he still feels bad about the all-nighters she pulled to get it done. “All I did was make the PowerPoint.”
“I’ve seen the ones you used to make for Christopher’s classes,” Eddie says. “Bet it was great.”
Buck’s cheeks go warm. Why is he so warm? His upper lip and lower back are completely drenched in sweat, which, gross. “You know about that?”
“You have a weird obsession with using Helvetica. Wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“It’s a good font.”
“And you add smiley faces to everything.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“One of those assignments was on dolphin migration patterns.”
“Exactly. Plenty to smile about right there.” Buck’s claw-machine brain immediately overflows with every fun fact he and Christopher stuffed into that PowerPoint, and the first one it latches onto is: “Scientists are pretty sure they navigate with the Earth’s magnetic field. How cool is that?”
Eddie’s smiling again—that specific one reserved solely for Buck’s infodumping, which is different enough from his other smiles that yes, Buck has categorized it.
And he has to laugh a little when he sways back into Eddie’s space again, because as it turns out, he does understand magnetism. His insatiable need to be closecloseclose to Eddie at all times is the textbook fucking example of it.
“But you still told her no?” Eddie asks. He settles back against the wall, his head tipped back with his throat on full display, and—and Buck is going insane. It takes him one, two, five seconds to remember who they’re talking about. His brain might be melting. The sweat in and around his ears might be brain juice.
“She just wasn’t…” Buck sighs. She just wasn’t you is the absurd thought he has, which makes no sense, because Eddie wasn’t even there. “I didn’t feel that way about her.”
“You can go to prom with friends.” Eddie gestures between them. That’s what we’re doing.
“No, no, I-I know, I just…”
“Did you not want to go?”
“No, it’s not that. I didn’t—” Buck huffs, frustrated. “There just wasn’t any reason for me to go.”
He’s getting fidgety. There’s this loose thread on the sleeve of his suit that he keeps wrapping around his ring finger, cutting off the circulation. He feels Eddie’s eyes on it.
Once again, Eddie asks, “Who else?”
“Does it matter?” Buck replies, a bit too brisk. A bit too Buck 1.0.
“Just curious, s’all.” Eddie holds his palms up in surrender. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
A few agonizing seconds of silence go by—enough time for early 2010s pop to fade into early 2000s R&B, for the conga line to dissolve into slow dancing. Buck sighs again, willing his irritation to ebb. The rest of the names tumble out of him with the exhale.
“Mia Sulliven, Isolde March, Sanya Kulkarni, and Charlotte Quinn.”
Buck isn’t looking at Eddie anymore, but he can hear him smiling when he asks, “Just a few girls, huh?”
Buck hmphs. “Six is a few.”
“Good ol’ beer logic,” Eddie teases. “And what were those few like?”
“Mia had this whole on-again, off-again thing with another guy. Didn’t wanna get involved. Isolde was funny and really pretty, but… I just didn’t feel that way about her, either. And Sanya unasked me before I could say no. She went stag instead.”
“What about Charlotte?”
“Republican.”
“Ah.” Eddie clicks his tongue. “Understandable.”
They fall silent again. Buck watches couple after couple sway together; watches hands settle into the smalls of backs, heads nestle into the crooks of necks. A few of them are singing along to the song playing, off-key and way too loud.
“But you know that it’s over, we knew it was through,
Let it burn, let it burn, gotta let it burn…”
If she were here, Lucy would be losing her mind over it. She used to constantly gripe about unsolicited singing back when she worked at the station. People humming while they washed windows, belting out lyrics while they loaded up the truck—it drove her nuts. Buck never understood the pet peeve. He usually finds that sort of thing harmless. Sweet, even.
But now? Now he gets it. He stares at the couples hard, like maybe he could smite them? If he gave it enough effort?
“Isn’t this a breakup song?” Eddie squints at the DJ table. “Who hired this guy?”
“Beats having you up there,” Buck mutters. “I’ll take Usher over Bob Seger.”
Eddie frowns. “What’s wrong with Seger?”
“You’ve been playing Stranger in Town non-stop for the past two months.”
Eddie’s frown molds into a pout, and—ugh, it’s adorable. He’s adorable. “I thought you liked his music.”
Buck fails to fight the smile his face breaks into when he replies, “Yeah, in moderation. Not every time we go out driving.”
“Whatever.” Eddie blows a raspberry, pushing himself off the wall. “I’m gonna go see if he’s taking requests.”
Buck, naturally, goes to follow him. He loosens his tie, and smooths out the front of his suit, and bites back a dumb remark on dad rock, and—
And he hesitates.
Eddie gets all of five steps away before he realizes he’s lost his shadow. He turns and gives Buck a once-over, concern etching his features again, and asks, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Buck replies automatically. “It’s just…”
A weird pain has settled somewhere in his middle—not quite the ache of laughter, and not quite the ache of longing. He feels around his sternum and diaphragm, trying to make sense of it, but it’s impossible to pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from.
“Buck,” Eddie says, soft in the way that makes Buck’s heart stammer. “We can head out if you’re not feeling—”
Buck shakes his head, lowering his hands. “No, it’s… I’m just hungry. Didn’t eat enough for dinner.”
The lie slips out of him, easy as anything. So easy, in fact, that he immediately believes it himself. The ache he’s feeling has to be hunger. What else would it be?
He doesn’t stop and wonder why he can’t remember what he had for dinner, just like he can’t remember how they got here, or why they’re even participating in adult prom in the first place. He just says the lie, and it becomes something adjacent to the truth.
Eddie stares at him for a long moment. His expression is gentle, but his eyes are scalpels: whetted and precise, searching for whatever’s hidden underneath. Buck sets his jaw and straightens his spine, trying not to squirm. He feels like the frog he dissected in eleventh grade. Pinned. Peeled open. Laid bare.
“I’m glad we’re doing this now,” Eddie says abruptly. “Prom, I mean.”
It’s not the response Buck was expecting to hear. He barely gets a chance to form fragments of a reply before he’s knocked sideways again.
“You look good, by the way.” Eddie smiles, eyeing him up and down. “Really good.”
And Buck’s brain bluescreens, because he hasn’t seen that smile before. Not directed at him, anyway. It’s somehow both shy and assured, like Eddie is saying something he’s thought a hundred times before, but never out loud.
Buck immediately forgets the pain in his middle.
And here’s the thing. If Buck was paying just a little more attention, he probably would’ve clocked what the pain in his middle meant a lot sooner. It wouldn’t change the outcome, sure, but he’d at least be ahead of the curve.
The worst part is that it’s all rather obvious in retrospect, because the signs are all there. The flickering lights. The gymnasium air rippling and warping like heat off pavement. The dark patches on everyone’s suits and dresses.
He should’ve seen it.
But all he sees is Eddie. Everything else is just white noise and set dressing.
“Dude, stand up.”
“No.”
“You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“I can do it, alright? Just—ow, fuck—just gimme a sec. I can do it.”
Buck covers his mouth, trying to conceal his laughter. Chimney shoots him a death glare. It doesn’t really land, considering he’s starfished out on the ground with his hair sticking in a thousand directions. He looks ridiculous.
“When have you ever been able to do the worm?” Buck asks.
“When I was nineteen.”
“Oh, okay. So, like, fifty years ago?”
“Har, har,” Chimney deadpans. Once again, he tries to push himself into a body roll, but all he succeeds in doing is slamming his hips into the floor. He curses under his breath, laying down flat again. “It’s this stupid suit. There’s zero mobility in this thing.”
“Yeah, the suit’s the problem.” Buck extends a hand. “C’mon, old man. People are starting to stare.”
Chimney takes it, huffing and puffing like he’s just ran a marathon. He brushes off the front of his sage-green slacks and sighs, dejected. “What’d they say about time in Star Trek? Something to do with fire?”
“Time is the fire in which we burn,” Buck rotes.
“Okay, nerd,” Chimney says, brows skyhigh. “Surprised you knew that.”
Buck isn’t. He’s not the best at remembering movie quotes—or watching movies, for that matter—but the night he saw Generations with Eddie and Christopher a few years back is hard to forget. There was some big Trekkie event down at the Vineland Drive-In that they went all out for. Eddie decked out the bed of his truck with an air mattress, a billion blankets and pillows, and enough snacks to feed a village. Buck got these crappy Spirit Halloween costumes for the three of them to wear. Plastic phasers, Starfleet insignia stickers—the whole works.
And Christopher fell asleep ten minutes in, naturally.
The memory warms Buck’s already-too-warm chest. Eddie, Spock-eared with a mouthful of popcorn, beaming at Buck in the blue-green glow of the screen. Christopher, tucked in between them, snoring like a lawnmower. It’s a bittersweet feeling, reflecting on it. Even when Buck was there in the moment, he felt like an outsider. Like the image of it—the three of them together, a ready-made, makeshift family—was stuck behind a glass wall in a museum. Beautiful and visible and there, but still out of his reach. Untouchable. Not his.
“Anyways,” Chimney says, waving a hand like he’s sweeping time itself off a table, “it sucks. Makes you sore, droopy, and weirdly emotional over TV commercials. What a rip.”
“What’s a rip?”
Buck and Chimney turn around. Ravi has appeared behind them, sipping something bright red from a plastic champagne cup. He’s wearing flame-shaped sunglasses and multiple glow stick necklaces, his purple suit jacket tied haphazardly around his waist.
“Time,” Buck replies. He points at Ravi’s drink. “Can I borrow some of that?”
“Not really borrowing if I don’t get it back,” Ravi says, but he passes Buck the cup anyway. Buck grunts in thanks, draining it in one gulp. He’s expecting the taste of cherry or cranberry, but it’s neither. It tastes like carbonated cigarettes. He coughs and gags.
“What’d you mix this with?” Buck’s face screws up in disgust. “Liquid Smoke?”
“It’s Strawberry Fanta,” Ravi says, puzzled. “You stroking out or something? Tasting burnt toast?”
“Pretty sure you smell burnt toast when you’re having a stroke,” Chimney says.
“Eighty percent of taste is smell,” Buck shoots back. He sniffs the cup, nearly gagging again as he does. “There’s no way this is Fanta.”
“Dude.” Ravi lowers his sunglasses and squints at him. “Why are you sweating so much?”
“Feels like we’re in a sauna,” Buck whines. He rolls up the sleeves of his tux, furiously fanning his face. “A/C must’ve kicked the bucket.”
“Aren’t you the one that usually runs cold?” Chimney asks. “Boy, you and Eddie really are made for each other. That guy’s a furnace.”
Buck forces a laugh, but it catches in his throat. He knows Chimney’s kidding. Those kinds of jabs get lobbed at him and Eddie all the time at the firehouse. He doesn’t go a day without hearing whispers of, “They’re like an old married couple,” and, “Aww, did they get divorced again?” from the B-shift. It never used to bother him, but that was before he realized he’s head over heels for his best friend. Now those jokes aren’t funny at all.
“Speak of the devil.” Ravi points behind Buck. “Guess those childhood salsa classes paid off.”
Buck swivels around, dread creeping down his spine. He spots Eddie in the center of the dance floor. His dress shirt is unbuttoned half-way, his tie nowhere to be found. He’s totally lost in his dancing—eyes closed, arms above his head, hips rolling in rhythm to impassioned vocals crying out, “Y grita, fuego, mantenlo prendido, fuego, no lo dejes apagar.” The visual makes Buck sweat harder, if that’s even possible.
“They were ballroom classes, actually,” Buck says wearily. The music thrums around them. He feels it in his teeth.
Chimney slings an arm over his shoulder—or tries to, but with their height difference, he only manages to get it around Buck’s upper back. “As fun as it’s been watching you two literally dance around each other, it’s been getting pretty old.”
“Like you?” Buck eyes the crown of his head. “Think I’m starting to see some grays.”
“Ouch.” Chimney pulls away, offended. “You get mean when you’re lovesick.”
“I’m not…” Buck trails off in a sigh. He’s not naive enough to pretend that everyone doesn’t already know he’s gone for Eddie. If he was any more obvious with his pining, NASA would be able to track it from the ISS. Might even get registered as its own planet. “He just got back from Texas. I don’t wanna mess things up.”
“You’re still living in his house,” Ravi says. “That’s as messy as it gets.”
“Yeah, but… I don’t think he wants me to stay.”
“Are you sure?”
Buck is silent. It’s not something that’s even close to the realm of possibility in his mind. Eddie hasn’t asked him to leave, per say, but Buck knows Eddie’s too kind to give him the boot. He’d probably let Buck crash there permanently, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something Eddie actually wants. Buck should be hunting for apartments. He should be giving Eddie and Christopher space to figure things out, not curling up on their couch like a dog.
“He’s straight,” Buck protests.
Ravi peers over at Eddie. “Again. Are you sure?”
Buck thinks about Tommy’s scoff when Buck said the same thing. He thinks about Maddie folding kitchen towels at the counter, her exhausted-big-sister face and her casual-but-pointed, “It wouldn’t be so crazy.” He thinks about the way Eddie smiled at him earlier. He thinks about bludgeoning himself in the skull with the nearest hard object he can find.
“Just go dance with him, man.” Chimney pushes him forward gently. “You’re the one giving me grays.”
Buck resists the nudging, feet planted firmly on the ground like he’s glued there. “I can’t.” He forces another laugh. “I suck at dancing.”
“So does Ravi,” Chimney retorts.
“Excuse you?” Ravi immediately peels off his sunglasses and his jacket, shoving both into Chimney’s arms as if he’s about to enter a wrestling ring. “Watch and learn, gramps.”
Then, like it’s nothing, Ravi drops down, his body undulating into a shockingly-clean, perfectly-executed worm. He shoots back up like he’s got springs in his knees, grinning smugly. Chimney’s face washes blank.
“Welp, I’m leaving,” he monotones. “Gotta go update my will. Look at retirement homes. Buy some sketchy pills from infomercials. You coming?”
Buck laughs for real this time. “Nah, you go ahead. I haven’t tracked down the snack table yet.”
“Suit yourself.” Chimney shrugs. “I’m gonna bury my woes in ice cream at home. The good old-fashioned, red-blooded-American way.”
“Better hurry.” Buck grins. “Jee might get to it first.”
“Mind if I grab a ride?” Ravi asks Chimney. “I have a frolf tournament in the morning.”
“Eddie’s the Uber driver, but sure.” Chimney passes Ravi his shades and jacket back. “Let’s roll, Corey Hart. You’re paying for gas.”
The two of them start moving toward the gymnasium’s exit, weaving through the crowd. Buck’s just about to get moving himself—where, he’s not entirely sure, but pretty much anywhere that isn’t in the vicinity of Eddie is ideal—when Chimney suddenly doubles back, catching his arm before he gets far.
“Hey, Buck.”
His voice is low. Heavy as lead. A shade of serious that’s unlike him.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Chimney says. “About what happened. We fought like hell, but…” He blinks hard, unable to finish. His chin starts to wobble, his eyes vessel-rich and red. He looks like he’s about to cry.
“What Chim is trying to say,” Ravi jumps in, just as weirdly solemn, “is that we love you, brother. Always have, always will.”
Buck just stares at them, totally lost. Chimney’s sorry? Sorry about what? The last time they actually fought over something was fridge space at the station. Sure, he got a little heated over Chimney’s organizational methods, but loose bell peppers and multiple half-empty bottles of iced tea isn’t anything to cry over.
He’s about to ask what he’s missed, but the two of them have already slipped back into the crowd. Piles of dancers swallow their path, bodies upon bodies upon bodies clustering around Buck. He stands on his toes, trying to spot his friends, but strangely, he doesn’t even see them reach the doors. He doesn’t see them, period. It’s like they’ve disappeared from the gym without a trace.
Stranger still, he can’t get the taste of ash out of his mouth.
Buck finds Hen by a large photo stand-in, the kind that he always used to see at the Santa Monica pier with Christopher. The face hole is over a badly-painted picture of Sampson, the LAFD’s sheepadoodle mascot, flexing his biceps.
“This is a little gratuitous, isn’t it?” Buck asks.
“Charity events are never actually charity,” Hen replies, pursing her lips. She adjusts the board where it’s started to lean precariously. “The Fire Chief wanted to make sure everybody knows the LAFD shelled out money for prom.”
“Yeah, about that.” Buck scratches the back of his head like it might jumpstart his brain. He keeps trying to remember when they planned to go to this, but he’s drawing nothing but blanks. It’s like the last twelve hours have been wiped from his harddrive. “Why are we even—?”
“Nice tux,” Hen remarks. “Haven’t seen you wear that one before.”
Buck looks down at himself, a little uneasy. “Me neither,” he admits. He can’t remember when he wore it last, let alone where he even bought it. “You look great, too.”
“What, this old thing?” Hen does a little spin, showing off her own suit: an ivory, shoulder-padded silk number, with gold lapel chains and a jeweled 118 firetruck brooch glittering on her chest pocket. “I just threw this on.”
“Alright, don’t let it go to your head.” Buck chuckles. Scanning the crowd, he asks, “Where’s Karen?”
“Uhhh, at home?” Hen gives him a weird look. “Wouldn’t make much sense for her to be here, would it?”
Buck frowns. None of this really makes sense to him. He can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. Again, there’s the heat problem. He’s this close to stripping down to his undershirt and boxers, public indecency be damned.
There’s the scoreboard clock at the top of the gym, too. It hasn’t budged from 10:70PM in the past hour, which really makes no sense to him, considering the numbers. He keeps compulsively checking it, hoping it’ll right itself, but it never does.
He’s also started picking up on all these misplaced sounds. Peals of laughter that occasionally pitch into screams. Popping and crackling noises, like wood slats splitting in two. Glass breaking, sharp and piercing. And—
“Does this song usually have this many sirens in it?” Buck asks, pointing around them.
Hen tilts her head, pausing to listen.
“‘Cause I’m smokin’, baby, baby,
The way you swerve and curve really wracks my nerves…”
“I don’t hear sirens,” Hen replies, bemused. “You mean the intro, right?”
Buck shakes his head. He heard alarm noises all throughout the last song, too: faraway and faint, but still definitely there. He’s pretty sure Hot in Herre never had any to begin with. It’s like the DJ has a weird hard-on for the sound effect. Buck’s one more song away from accidentally spilling some Fanta on his mixer board.
“Speaking of significant others that aren’t here.” Hen smirks. “Where’s Eddie?”
Buck blushes. “Is it really that obvious?”
“Hey, at least you aren’t a river in Egypt about it anymore.” Hen taps her temple. “Spares me the headache of being a lone witness to the slow burn.”
Buck rubs his own temple, grimacing. His head is pounding now—a dull, pressured throb behind his eyes, like someone’s repeatedly inflating and deflating a balloon inside his skull. “I’m glad one of us is having fun with it.”
Hen’s eyes soften. She hums sympathetically, pulling him in for a side-hug. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Buck.”
Man, wouldn’t that be nice? Not being worried about fucking up the greatest friendship he’s ever known? Not being terrified to hold onto what he has, and being just as terrified to lose it? Not being scared of leaving claw marks on the people he cares about, because he doesn’t know how to love someone without inevitably hurting them in the process?
Hen leans away and scrunches up her nose. “Stop spiraling. You’re stinking up the place.”
“Sorry.” Buck huffs a laugh. “Pretty sure that’s just B.O. It’s a million degrees in here right now.”
Hen gives him another look. This one is more benign. More protective. More Mother Hen. “You really should—”
“Tell Eddie how I feel,” Buck finishes. He picks at the skin around his forefinger, pressing his thumbnail into the exposed dermis. The rest of him already hurts—his chest, his head, his heart—so he hardly registers the pain of it. “Heard, loud and clear. Will do.”
“I was gonna say that you should hit the locker room. Go freshen up a bit, but—” Hen suddenly frowns. She steps back to regard him fully. “Hang on. Why should you be the one to make a move?”
Buck mirrors her frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Hen continues, “that you’re always the one making moves for people. Choosing them. Fighting for them. Neglecting your own needs for them.” She crosses her arms, indignant. “He’s the one who should be fighting this time.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Buck asks incredulously. “All Eddie does is fight for people. His son, his relationships, his team.” He throws up his hands in exasperation. “He literally fought in a war, Hen.”
“He did?” Hen’s eyes widen in faux-surprise. “Does he have a silver star, too? You might’ve mentioned it one or two—no, three-hundred times.”
Buck takes a defensive step back, nearly tripping against the photo stand-in as he does. He glowers at it, willing the cardboard to burst into flames. “Look, it doesn’t matter how I feel. He’s—”
“Straight?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Riddled with catholic guilt?”
“Uh, sure, that too, but that’s not what I—”
“Too far up his own ass to see what’s in front of him?”
“He’s not gonna choose me, okay?”
Buck slumps into a nearby folding chair, defeated. His eyes naturally find Eddie, who’s not too far away from them.
He’s chatting with some woman. Buck watches him lean in close, his mouth tilted in a rare, private smile—the one he gave Buck earlier, the one Buck selfishly thought was just for him. The both of them laugh like they’re sharing an inside joke Buck will forever be on the outside of.
She looks easy-going. Sure of herself. Patient. Everything that Buck isn’t.
Of course Eddie’s talking to her. She’s exactly his type. Buck already knows from a glance that she’s the kind of person who never gets resentful over missed texts and unanswered FaceTimes. Who doesn’t throw tantrums or intentionally put herself in danger just to be noticed. Who wouldn’t fall to pieces if someone pulls away.
She’s holding her hand on Eddie’s shoulder like it’s belonged there for years. Buck’s own shoulder burns. He can almost feel the pressure of a palm over his collarbone, a thumb in the dip of his clavicle. It hurts worse than his chest, head, and heart combined.
Hen sits beside him with a sigh. Before she can say anything else, Buck barrels on, the words flooding out of him like a tsunami. “Even if he wasn’t straight, why would he choose me? I-I lash out, and—and I make everything about me, and I—” He barks a delirious laugh. “I use dogs to make people jealous, Hen. Who would actually want that?”
“You’re wanted, Buck,” Hen murmurs, gentle. “You are.”
“Abby didn’t want me.” Buck’s face crumples. “Or Tommy.”
“Yeah, well.” Hen squeezes his shoulder. It absolves some of the ache there. “You’re forgetting a pretty crucial connecting thread between the two of them.”
“What’s that?”
“They suck.”
Buck blows air through his nose, amused. He scrubs his eyes and rises to his feet. “I should go. I’m wiped.”
“Don’t pull an Irish exit.” Hen stands beside him. “Just… hang around for a bit. Let him come to you first.”
“Might be ten seventy-one by the time that happens,” Buck jokes weakly.
Hen’s eyebrows draw together. “What?”
“The scoreboard clock. It’s been stuck at—”
“Oh—before you go.” Hen pulls a Polaroid camera out of her bag, motioning Buck over to the photo stand-in. “I want a picture.”
Today has already been so goddamn weird, Buck doesn’t even fight it. He just chuckles and lets himself be corralled behind the cardboard. Pokes his head through the hole—even smiles all big and wild-eyed like a dumb kid—and pretends like everything is fine. Everything is fine. He’s got people who care about him. People who want him, supposedly. What right does he have to complain?
“Aaaand…” Hen holds the camera over her eye. It clicks and flashes and whirs. “Perfect.”
Buck wanders back over to her. The Polaroid chugs out the film. Hen waves it in the air to speed up the development and passes it to Buck between two fingers.
“I’m not very photogenic,” Buck says, looking down at the picture, “so don’t go putting this on the firehouse fridge if it’s…”
He trails off. The floor beneath his feet goes liquid.
It’s objectively a nice photo. The ambient glow of the gym casts everything in warm, amber light. The framing of the picture is symmetrical and balanced. Even the shitty painting of Sampson looks good, the neon yellows and reds of his fire hat popping from the flash of the camera. Hen is right, per usual. Everything does look perfect.
Everything except for his face.
There’s a few dark scuffs on his cheeks that he didn’t realize were there before, and his hair is a bit of a wreck, but that’s not that unusual for a party. He’s still wild-eyed, still poking his head through the hole of the stand-in. That part is normal.
But he’s not smiling in the picture.
He looks terrified.
Buck hears Hen’s voice beside him. It sounds muffled and bitcrushed to hell, almost as if it’s coming through a radio transmission.
“I’m glad I met you, Buck. Don’t be scared, okay? I love you.”
Buck whips his head towards her, startled, but Hen is nowhere to be found. All he sees are strangers dancing across the floor, countless PROM 2025 posters on the walls, and orange streamers dangling from the ceiling.
He checks the scoreboard again, breathing hard. It’s difficult to focus on it through his pounding headache and his adrenaline-spiked haze, but he’s lucid enough to notice that it’s finally changed. Gone is the 10:70PM. It’s displaying something entirely different now.
CODE I.
Right before one of Buck’s football games in high school, the quarterback told him that this big-shot college recruiter was scouting their team for talented players. The quarterback told him—the scrawny, hot-headed, eighteen-year-old version of him—like Buck actually had a shot at being picked. Like he could be one of the lucky few to be wanted. To be chosen.
And you know what’s funny? Buck believed it.
Maybe it was the streak of solid downs he’d played the week before. Maybe it was the way the quarterback smiled at him when he said it. Regardless of the catalyst, Buck felt a momentary spike of confidence in himself. And, funnier still, he felt—for one of the very, very few times in his life—that he deserved to feel that way.
But like most good things in Buck’s life, that feeling didn’t last past the locker room. The second he got out on the field, a wave of panic washed over him. Consumed him. Swallowed him whole.
He remembers frantically scanning the bleachers for the recruiter like a man with a sniper on him. Why, exactly, he’s not sure. He didn’t even know what they looked like, and there were hundreds of people at that game, so it should have been impossible to spot them. Maybe that was where all the rest of Buck’s bravery went—into wanting to catch a glimpse of the person who had a hand in his fate before they pulled the trigger. Needing to know the face of the incoming train before it either carried him out of Hershey, or crushed him flat.
And, as it so happens, he did spot the recruiter. Ten yards away, dressed in a navy-blue windbreaker and a Penn State ballcap, was a woman with a one-way ticket to a future. An escape.
Things got blurry after that. Buck remembers going for a brutal, unnecessary block downfield—a move that wasn’t motivated by tactics or strategy, but by pure, unfettered ego. The kind of play that screams, look at me. At the time, he didn’t care about helping the team. He needed to prove something. Always, always proving something. He wanted to make sure that recruiter saw just how hard he could hit, how far he’d go, how desperate he was.
The play might’ve made him look gutsy and ruthless if it panned out, but was completely reckless and stupid in practice. He’s not sure if he timed it wrong, or if he had his footing way off, or if he just wanted to hit something. Whatever the reason, it ended the same: him getting completely leveled by the other team’s linebacker.
He remembers white-hot, searing pain shooting through his ankle. He remembers the crowd falling into a hushed silence, and both teams kneeling down beside him in horror. He remembers staring up into the blinding floodlights above and thinking, I blew it. I fucked up my one good shot at making something of myself.
He remembers thinking, good.
Some players helped him limp back into the stands for first aid. His parents found him not too long after. The irony of having them actually show up to one of his games on that particular night wasn’t lost on him, but it also wasn’t all that surprising. They’ve always had a keen propensity for being bystanders only to the worst moments of his carwreck of a life.
His mother was in hysterics, naturally. Warbling and waffling on and on about, “You can’t keep doing this to us!” and, “Why do you always insist on hurting yourself?” and, “You’re not expendable, Evan!”
The irony of that last one isn’t lost on him, either.
But the worst part wasn’t the broken ankle. It wasn’t even the fact that Buck lost his chance at a full-ride football scholarship. The truth is, even though he had a killer instinct for fakeouts and misdirects, and he could sprint forty yards faster than most kids his age, he knew he’d never get picked. Not because he was smaller than other tight ends, or because of his weak verticals, but because he was Buck.
He never even spoke to the recruiter. He didn’t have to. Buck knew she saw him for who he was. Impulsive. Undisciplined. Defiant. Both the devastating, reckoning forest fire, and the heedless arsonist who sparked it.
No, the worst part about it was the look on his father’s face.
Where Margaret was always unbearable noise, Phillip was always crushing silence. A cold, impervious dam that rarely, if ever, broke open. He was hardly ever involved in Buck’s disciplinary history. Most of his energy went into either calming his wife down or disappearing altogether. That old saying—the one about trees falling with no one there to hear—felt tailor-made for him, albeit with a small amendment. Phillip always heard the crash. Heard the splitting bark and snapping branches every time his son fell. He usually just elected to ignore it.
This time was different, though. Buck, grass-stained and teary-eyed, remembered looking up at his father and silently begging him, please, for the love of God, just look at me. And, miraculously, he was finally given some semblance of emotion. Phillip finally acknowledged the fallen tree.
But not in the way Buck wanted. Never in the way he needed. All Buck was met with was a downturned mouth and a hard crease between his father’s brow. There was no warmth in his eyes, no understanding. No comprehension of how tired Buck was, how tired he’s always been.
It wasn’t a look that said, I see you. It was a look that seethed, I see failure. Though, in Buck’s case, perhaps those two things aren’t all that different.
So maybe it isn’t enough for Buck to be wanted or chosen. He’s been both—wanted for spare parts, chosen for a quick fuck, used up and discarded like a disposable means to a desired end—and it feels much, much worse than being cast aside entirely. The truth is, all Buck has ever wanted is to be seen. To have someone look beyond the impulsive, undisciplined, defiant guy on the surface, and see the scared, exhausted, lonely soul underneath. To have someone look at him—really look at him—and love him anyway. It should never have been too much to ask, but it’s something he’s been fighting like hell for his entire life.
And tonight, after he manages to break through the mass of people in the gym, Buck—breathless, bewildered, and scared beyond belief—actually gets what he wants.
He finds Bobby and Athena.
Athena, lambent even at rest, is adorned in a stunning off-shoulder, marmalade-colored dress. She’s wiping the front of Bobby’s classic black tuxedo with a napkin, her lips pursed in gentle frustration. Whatever she’s trying to get off won’t budge. Bobby’s enduring the fuss with a faint, bemused smile, like a man who’s long since surrendered to the inevitability of being cared for.
Buck thinks he calls out to them, but he isn’t positive anything comes out. There’s hardly any air left in his lungs, and his ears won’t stop ringing. It feels like he’s already been screaming for hours, and now there’s nothing left to give.
But they see him. They lift their heads and lock eyes with him, their expressions immediately knitting into something reposeful but alert—the kind of paternal awareness Buck has seldom been privy to—and they see him.
He nearly falls to his knees in relief. His legs carry him halfway before giving out, and he stumbles into the nearest chair. Throat raw and near-tears, he rasps, “Something’s wrong. I-I don’t know where I am, and my chest is killing me, a-and I can’t remember anything that happened today, and—”
“Breathe, baby,” Athena soothes, stroking his back. It can’t be pleasant for her. He’s soaked through all his layers, so overheated he’s feverish, but if she notices, she doesn’t mention it. “Tell us what happened.”
“I don’t know,” Buck replies, voice cracking at the edges. “The team, they’re… they keep telling me they’re sorry, and that I shouldn’t be scared, and that they love me. I-It’s like they think I’m…”
His voice falls away. He’s distracted, eyes fixed on the stain on Bobby’s chest. Bobby follows his gaze and chuckles, jabbing a thumb over to dozens of bags of marshmallows on the table. “Lost a fight with a s’more. Very serious. Multiple casualties.”
“Like father, like son,” Athena muses, shaking her head with a fond huff. “Harry never got through a single camping trip without getting chocolate all over his damn clothes.” She reaches over and grabs a Biscoff cookie, offering it to Buck. “Eat something before you keel over.”
Buck lets out a wet, unsteady laugh despite himself. He wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and replies, “M’not hungry. Thanks, though.”
“Sounds like you’re having a rough night.” Athena’s still rubbing circles into his back, warm and firm and just shy of overstimulating, but Buck’s not about to refuse the comfort. Gently, she asks, “Do you need a ride home?”
“It’s okay,” Buck says, even though it’s really not. “South Bedford’s nowhere near your place. Wouldn’t wanna put you out.”
Athena snorts. “I’m already put out. It’s way past my bedtime, this dress is itchy as hell, and”—she frowns at a nearby couple sloppily making out with each other—“I’ve seen enough PDA tonight to last a lifetime.”
“Don’t forget the DJ,” Bobby adds. “Don’t even know half the stuff he’s playing. Who hired this guy?”
“Like father, like father,” Buck mutters. “Eddie asked the same thing.”
Bobby and Athena share what’s probably supposed to be a private look, but it’s not very subtle. Buck’s head pounds and pounds and pounds.
“I don’t mind taking you home if you need some air, Buck,” Athena reassures. “Cruiser’s right out front. Just say the word.”
Buck mulls it over. Truth be told, he wants nothing more than to get the fuck out of here. To get back to his—Eddie’s—house, where everything is safe and quiet and familiar. Familiar squishy floors, familiar cramped kitchen, familiar navy-blue couch with Eddie-Chris-Buck-shaped creases in it. The sheer amount of unfamiliarity in this stupid gymnasium is scaring him shitless. He should take the get-out-of-jail-free card. He should say, “Yes, get me the fuck out of here.”
Instead, for whatever reason, he asks, “Got any sage advice on the whole me-and-Eddie thing?”
Bobby and Athena share another look. This one is even less subtle. They look dumbfounded.
“He told you?” Bobby asks.
Buck is so, so lost. He’s so sick of being lost. He laughs, but even to him, it sounds bitter. Angry, even, and he can’t keep that anger out of his tone when he asks, “Told me what?”
“Um.” Bobby blinks. “No comment?”
“Everybody else had a comment,” Buck shoots back. “C’mon, go ahead. I can take it.” He thumps his chest sarcastically, which is a dumb move, because it feels moments away from caving in. “Tell me we should get a bunkroom, or that the tension between us is gonna set off the sprinklers, or—wait, no, lemme guess. You've already got the employee relationship paperwork written up.”
Bobby blinks harder. “You know about the paperwork?”
Athena holds up a hand to silence him. “We’re not trying to upset you, Buck. S’just a little surprising you wanna talk about it now.”
“No time like the present, right?” With an alarming amount of effort, Buck rises to his feet. His knees buckle a little, so it’s more of an awkward, baby deer-like stagger to a stand, but he gets there. Gesturing around them, he sneers, “What better place to talk about the tragedy of my love life than prom?”
Bobby stares at him for a beat. He doesn’t look disappointed, necessarily, but his expression is something adjacent to it. Maybe not disappointed in Buck, but disappointed in the very Buck-esc way he’s acting.
“What?” Buck asks, challenging. Always challenging, even when he’s seemingly always destined to lose.
Bobby doesn’t take the bait. He simply pushes himself up with a grunt and makes a circle with his pointer finger. “Turn around. Let me fix your tie.”
Buck’s not really game for having anything tight around his neck right now, sore lungs considered, but he reluctantly obeys, letting Bobby get to work. Bobby steadies him by the shoulders before removing his tie entirely to start the loop fresh.
“Y’know, I had a conversation with this one guy a few years back,” Bobby says. “He was pretty nervous about screwing things up with this older woman he liked.”
“Oh, yeah?” Buck already knows where this is going. “What was this guy like?”
“Kind of a punk. He was pretty combative. Had trouble following orders.” Bobby blows air through his nose. “Had a harder time using my firetruck for actual work-related reasons.”
“Sounds like a punk,” Buck says dryly. “What was his name? Devan? Puck?”
“Something like that,” Bobby replies. He finishes the tie’s knot, gently tugging it upwards until it’s snug against Buck’s collar. “But beneath all the chauvinism and theatrics was a heart of gold. He was a guy who had a lot to love to give, and a hell of a lot more to get in return. And you know what? Even if he didn’t always believe it, he deserved that kind of love.” Bobby pulls Buck’s arm, turning him back around to meet his eyes. “Still does.”
Buck’s own eyes sting. Over his shoulder to Athena, voice wavering, he says, “Subtly isn’t your husband’s strong suit.”
“No, it certainly is not,” Athena agrees, coming to stand beside them. “But being a good judge of character is. He always saw you as a good man, Buck.” She ruffles his hair playfully, adding, “Even back when you were a punk.”
“Really?” Buck turns back to Bobby. “Is that why you fired me? ‘Cause I had good character?”
“Well, that’s the thing about character,” Bobby replies. “You gotta build it first.”
Buck’s not nearly self-effacing enough to think he hasn’t changed tremendously since first joining the 118. He’s not as confident as he’d like to be at his grown-ass age, but he’s made progress. Most of the change has been for the better, too, which has to count for something. He’s better at his job. Better at letting the hard things go. Better at talking to people when he’s feeling down. Better at apologizing, and collaborating, and thinking before he acts. Just… better.
The only thing he can’t seem to get better at is learning to be alone. That’s proving to be quite the Sisyphean task.
“Truth is, I don’t got a clue what’s going on between you and Eddie.” Athena frowns. “Whatever it is, it seems messy.”
“That’s the long and short of it.” Buck smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m just glad he’s back in L.A.”
“That makes three of us,” Bobby says. “Four, if we’re counting Ravi. I think he was getting tired of me accidentally calling him Eddie.”
“Don’t think he loved bar-hopping with me, either,” Buck says, smiling fully now. “He might switch back to B-shift.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Or mine. Thought he was gonna kill me when I showed him quarters.”
“You were trying to Eddie-fy him?” Athena guffaws. “‘Course he was pissed.”
Buck’s face falls. Shit, he was, wasn’t he? He knows that he sees Eddie in everything—coffee-ringed tables, sun-bleached turnouts, worn-in boots by the front door—but it’s a bit mortifying that everyone else knows it, too.
“I’ll say this, though.” Athena rests a hand on Buck’s chest, just shy of his stammering heart. “I do know that he’d be lucky to have you. The real you.”
“I don’t—”
“Hey now. Remember what I said about being Buck?”
“Uh, don’t stop?”
“You better not. ‘Cause we love that Buck to pieces.”
Buck swallows around the lump in his throat and manages a quiet, “Thanks, Athena.”
She nods once, curt. Then, peering behind Buck with a death glare, she adds, “Just promise me that if anything does happen between you two, you won’t pull this kind of nonsense in public.”
Buck trails her line of sight. The couple from before have moved on from sucking face to borderline dry humping each other, which can’t possibly be easy to do horizontally—at least without a wall present. Athena maneuvers between him and Bobby, storming over to them. Through the lively chatter and pulsating music of the gym, he can hear her call over to them with an aggrieved, “You must be outta your damn minds to be getting down and dirty to Disco Inferno! Break it up, people!”
“Sergeant Grant never sleeps, huh?” Buck shakes his head, bemused. “Did she police May’s prom, too?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Bobby asks, somehow both reproachful and fond. “She threatened to charge every boy that asked May to dance with ‘solicitation of a minor.’ Doesn’t really work when they’re all the same grade.”
“Sounds about right.”
Bobby hovers into Buck’s vision. “Ready to call it? Looks like you’re about to pass out.”
Buck stubbornly averts his gaze, which ends up being a poor course of action. His eyes land on Eddie—always, always back to Eddie, because Buck can never seem to shake the near-cosmic link he has with the guy.
However, this time, Eddie catches his eyes, too. His face lights up in recognition—all aglow under the lights. He also seems a little tired, but in a blissful, contended sort of way, like his exhaustion is simply from too many late nights, and just the right amount of laughter.
It’s hard to describe what he looks like now, but if Buck had to put it into words, it’d probably involve something along the lines of morning sun or the rest of my life.
“I’m fine,” Buck finds himself saying. “Just…”
“Hungry?” Bobby guesses knowingly.
“Something like that,” Buck replies with a sigh. He leans over to the table, reaching to pull a Biscoff out of a bowl. “Can’t remember the last time I—”
He doesn’t get to finish.
In the span of a few seconds, before Buck has the chance to even begin to prepare himself to process any of it, three things happen in quick succession.
First, the biscuit that he just grabbed crumbles apart. Not into actual crumbs, but pitch-black, gritty ash. It slips between his fingers, floating to the ground below as if it’s sinking in water.
Second, an ear-splitting alarm goes off in the gym, shrill and deafening. So impossibly loud that it feels like it’s breaking Buck’s skull apart. If he screams in pain, he can’t hear it. He can’t hear anything beyond the roar of the bell.
And third, all of the lights in the gymnasium go out. Besides the dim, red glare from a couple emergency exit signs, and the glow of CODE I on the scoreboard clock, it’s completely dark.
Buck’s eyes snap back to Bobby just as the alarm stops. The silence is immediate and absolute, but not peaceful. It’s cavernous. He nearly does pass out from what he sees.
The gym is empty, save the two of them. Bobby’s no longer dressed in his prom attire. Instead, he’s wearing his turnouts. Debris clings to every inch of his jacket, the reflective strips dulled by dust and soot. Through the scuffed, smeared shield of his SCBA mask, Buck can just barely make out his eyes. They’re desolate and blood-shot, shrouded with something unimaginable. Something ruined.
His voice is steady when he speaks, but there’s a hollow, sepultural timbre beneath it. It’s as if he’s talking to someone who’s no longer listening. Someone who’s already—
“You’re gonna be okay, Buck. Remember that.”
No.
No, no, no. This can’t be happening again. This isn’t happening again.
“I love you, kid.”
“Stop it,” Buck breathes. He staggers backwards in horror, blinking hard to rid himself of the nightmare in front of him, but the image doesn’t shift. Everything from that night in the lab rushes back to him in an instant. The tang of metal and blood in the air. The dull screech of electrical wires shorting out, and the high, keening whistle of broken valves releasing gas. Cold dread snakes through his ribs when he grits out, “Stop. You can’t… y-you survived, Cap. You’re not dead. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
He keeps frantically repeating it to himself over and over again. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. It can’t be. He has to be dreaming. That’s why all that stuff from before also happened, right? That’s why none of this makes sense to him, right? It’s just a dream, or some fucked-up hallucination. Everything’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. Buck just needs to wake up.
But there is something wrong. Besides the obvious, there’s something off about the scene that’s playing out in front of Buck. It’s alarmingly close to what happened in the lab, but some things are very, very different, too.
For one, Bobby’s still wearing his mask. Why is he still wearing his mask? Buck distinctly remembers seeing Bobby’s entire face—his bloody nose, his haunted expression, his eyes. Buck burned all of it into his mind, because he thought it’d be the last time he’d ever see Bobby again. If this is just his brain cruelly replaying that nightmare, why would it change that part?
And then there’s Bobby’s voice. The words are the same—Buck could recite them in his sleep by now—but the delivery is different. Not in structure, but in weight. There’s an unrecognizable grief in his tone now. The sheer, unadulterated anguish beneath it is staggering.
It’s like Buck’s the one who’s—
The lights go out completely. There’s no lingering glow from the exit signs or scoreboard, no moonlight filtering in from the rooftop windows. There’s just nothing. Suffocating, agonizing nothing. It’s darker and quieter than anything Buck has ever experienced. Silence presses down on him, broken only by his hysterical, ragged breathing, and Bobby’s voice endlessly looping in his head. I love you, kid. I love you, kid. I—
Then, with a sudden thunk, the ceiling panels blaze back to life like someone’s flipped a breaker. One by one, the lights stutter on. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The gym snaps back into motion with each ignition. The music blares again. Laughter erupts. Dancers spin, bodies rejoice, voices rise in a strange, disjointed harmony—almost like nothing ever happened.
Almost.
The scoreboard’s glitching. Two vertical lines sputter in and out beside CODE I, changing the I into a different letter. Changing it into—
“You avoiding me, Buck?”
Buck nearly jumps out of his skin. Eddie’s now standing in front of him. His dress shirt is unbuttoned further, revealing a chest freckled with fragments of confetti. It’s a sight that would usually draw Buck in like a moth to firelight, but he can’t focus. The room around them tilts and blurs at the edges, everything a half-second out of sync. Buck can’t focus, can’t breathe, can’t think.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey,” Eddie says, uneasy. “What’s going on?”
He reaches out to Buck, but he doesn’t make contact. Buck flinches away like he’s been burned, his eyes fixed onto the scoreboard’s relentless flickering. Back and forth, back and forth, it switches from CODE I to CODE F, as if it can’t decide which one to settle on. It makes no sense. It makes no sense.
The ceiling panels start flickering, too. Coruscating and flaring, slow and hypnotic. The light catches the twirling, glittering streamers above. The way they twitch and curl is unnatural. Not the kind of motion spurred by a breeze or spare gusts of ventilation, but by heat.
They almost look like…
Like…
Oh.
The truth finally hits Buck. Hits him hard and fast square in the chest, arcing through his arms and legs like a second lightning strike.
And as he bolts out of the gym, carried forward by feet he can no longer feel, with panicked, staccato breaths punching out of him in bursts, it also hits him that this particular school gymnasium actually does smell different from the rest.
There’s the rubber, and the wood varnish, and the sweat. That’s all still there.
But the smell of smoke is new.
Buck had this one English teacher in senior year. He can’t remember the guy’s name to save his life—go figure, since he can apparently remember the first and last names of all the girls who asked him to prom—but a few details about him stuck. Rancid coffee breath. A Dune-themed mug full of pencils chewed to splinters. A grating habit of tacking students’ names onto the end of every sentence.
He also had an affinity for spouting literary sayings like they were gospel. We are our choices, Evan. To define is to limit, Evan. Fear is the mind-killer, Evan.
He had a point with that last one, actually.
For better or worse, human beings are pretty enigmatic when it comes to fear, especially in Buck’s line of work. They process traumatic situations in ways that are impractical, irrational, or entirely unexpected. While Buck’s occupational training did help prepare him for some pretty dire straits, there’s only so far that drills, protocols, and simulated emergencies will go. Probies can memorize de-escalation techniques and study behavioral psychology until their eyes bleed, but there isn’t a textbook in the world that could ever truly prepare a first responder for the raw, visceral reactions people have when confronted with the unfathomable. The impossible.
Shock is the easiest response to manage, weirdly enough. When terror hijacks a person’s brain, they become pliant. Malleable. Easy to corral. All Buck has to do is keep his voice steady and his instructions clear. People are desperate for any kind of direction in chaos. Give them a loadstar, and they’ll follow it.
The worst is when they get angry or shut down completely. That’s a hell of a lot harder to deal with. It really doesn’t help when there’s a building collapsing or a freeway about to give way, and Buck has to deal with the nightmare scenario of someone screaming and throwing punches at him—or worse, someone going catatonic, refusing to move.
But the strangest symptom of fear, by far, is when people laugh. Buck has witnessed the sole survivors of car accidents dissolve into hysterics next to body bags. He’s seen victims giggling uncontrollably while dangling from structures, seconds away from falling to their deaths. He knows that comedy and tragedy are fused at the hip, but still. It’s strange. Why, in the face of the unthinkable, would a person laugh?
Then again, Buck can’t really judge, because that’s exactly what he does when he realizes he’s dying.
He laughs.
It slips out before he can swallow it down. It’s a short, bitter sound, more of a weird exhale than anything. It quickly evolves into chuckling, rough and broken. The way it tumbles out of him is almost sob-like. He actually doubles over a little with it—hands on his thighs, shoulders shaking, eyes stinging with tears.
And he’s still laughing when Eddie finds him a few minutes later, sitting on the floor, back against a locker. He’s half-staring at a Fahrenheit 451 poster on the wall, half-staring at nothing at all, and he laughs and laughs and laughs, because—
“Every damn song,” Buck manages through his giggles.
“What?” Eddie asks, a little breathless, his hair a mess. Buck’s fingers twitch with the same unconscious urge to fix it as before. He laughs harder.
Eddie drops to a crouch. His hands hover carefully over Buck like they’re poised over a wound. Again, he asks, “What?”
Buck splays a hand over his chest to calm himself. Breathes in, in, in, just to feel his lungs scream in protest, then out, all in a whoosh. He’s half expecting to see smoke and ash with the exhale. It feels like his entire body is full of it, which—fuck, it probably is at this point.
“Every song they’re playing is about fire.”
Eddie’s face, previously scrunched together in confusion, smooths into something blank and unreadable. He’s silent.
Buck’s hand falls into his lap. “You know about what’s going on, don’t you?”
“I do,” Eddie replies.
“Then you lied to me.”
“I did?”
“You said we’re not at work.” Buck laughs again. It’s not haha funny, just funny in the way that dying makes everything funny. “Guess that’s what I get for saying the Q-word.”
Eddie makes a dubious noise. He sits cross-legged, his knee just shy of Buck’s calf. “Technically, I said it. I’ll take the heat for it.”
“Heat,” Buck mutters. “Good one.”
Eddie doesn’t smile. Instead, he scoots a bit closer. “Listen, Buck. I… where are you going?”
Buck forces himself to his feet. Usually, being around Eddie is like breathing, but Buck can’t seem to do either very well right now. It’s even harder to keep himself upright. God, he’s so tired.
“I lied to you, too.”
“About?”
Buck drifts to a nearby locker. 704—the same number he had all through high school. It’s not actually his old locker, not really, but his fingers still move on instinct, spinning the locker’s padlock through a familiar rhythm: 06-27-91.
The door swings open. Inside is a battered Pre-Calc textbook that’s splitting at the seams, a handful of crumpled, empty Ziploc bags, and a hideous blue-and-orange letterman jacket. He runs his hands over the pilled fabric and cracked leather, then flips the jacket over to find a familiar frayed player number.
“Go Trojans,” Buck monotones.
Eddie stands and makes his way over to Buck, his Oxfords echoing against the linoleum floors. Beneath the sound, Buck can still hear the faint trill of a fire alarm.
“Try it on,” Eddie says.
“Wouldn’t fit,” Buck replies.
“I thought size didn’t matter,” Eddie jokes half-heartedly. When Buck doesn’t laugh, he tries again. “It’s a pretty big jacket, pal. You’re yoked, but not that—”
“It wouldn’t fit,” Buck interjects, “because it isn’t mine.”
“Oh.” Eddie squints at the name engraved into the sleeve. “Who’s Maddox?”
“My team’s quarterback.”
Buck might be imagining it, but there’s a weird note in Eddie’s voice when he asks, “He gave you his jacket?”
“Wrecked mine after my first kegger.” Buck sighs. “Don’t ask.”
Eddie places his hand on Buck’s shoulder. Buck can feel the warmth of it bleeding through his suit, sinking into skin and tendon and bone. He always feels it, even when it isn’t there. A phantom limb of sorts. Another thing that doesn’t actually belong to him. Another thing he can’t seem to let go of.
“What did you lie about, Buck?”
There’s a beat of silence, only filled by the distant shattering of glass, then:
“That only a few girls asked me to prom.”
Buck idly rubs his thumb over the stray threads by the jacket’s hem, smoothing them into place. Eddie is quiet for a long moment. Buck can’t bear to look at him.
“Why didn’t you…?” The question hovers, unfinished.
“I thought he was kidding when he asked.” Buck sighs again, his lungs crackling a little as he does. “I think I laughed it off or made a dumb joke about it. Must’ve crushed him. He didn’t talk to me much outside of practice after that.”
Eddie’s grip on Buck’s shoulder tightens infinitesimally. “You know I don’t care about that stuff, man. I mean, I do care, but—”
“It’s not like I didn’t go with him because I was afraid or… or ashamed or anything. I genuinely didn’t know he was asking for real at the time.” Buck laughs, soft and self-deprecating. “I wasn’t the sharpest tool back then. Maybe I would’ve said yes if I—”
“Not what I meant.” Eddie turns him gently, guiding Buck to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me he asked you to prom?”
Buck could give him the truth. He could say it’s because that quarterback had these warm, brown eyes, and dark hair that always fell across them. He could say it’s because that quarterback was more interested in basketball and dancing than football. He could say it’s because Ryland Maddox was one of the only people Buck felt he could be himself around; that he reminded Buck of someone he hadn’t met yet, but somehow already missed.
“I don’t know,” Buck murmurs instead. “Sorry.”
Eddie shrugs. “Doesn’t really count as a lie, anyway.”
“A lie of omission’s still a lie.”
“Fair enough.” Eddie’s mouth presses thin. He suddenly looks nervous. “Look, if we’re on a truth kick here, then… I haven’t been totally honest with you, either. I wanted to tell you… I need to tell you—”
“About the work thing, right?” Buck looks around them. Looks anywhere that Eddie isn’t. “We were on a call for a structure fire. I remember that part now.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And I got hurt.”
Eddie clears his throat. “Yeah.”
“Was the call actually at an adult prom?”
“Yup.”
“But not an LAFD-sponsored adult prom?”
Eddie sniffs. “Nah, that’s the coma dream talking. We just crashed the party.”
Buck nods like he understands. He doesn’t. He doesn’t have a fucking clue why this is happening to him again. Last time, it was like something out there was trying to teach him about self-love and acceptance, but… maybe these kinds of dreams are just inexplicable, chemical-based reactions to dying. Maybe there’s no point to it. No code to crack, no lesson to learn.
Or maybe him being completely and utterly lost is the point of it all, and there’s no eventual destination he’s supposed to be arriving at. Maybe the Rubik’s Cube Buck keeps trying to solve is just a cube, given to him by a malevolent God who just wants to see how many times he’ll try and ram it into a circle-shaped hole.
“I… I still can’t remember much,” Buck admits. “Can you walk me through it?”
Eddie smiles and lets him go. “Delivery driver to death doula. I’m bulking out my resume lately, huh?”
“You’re already doing a better job than my last one.”
Eddie chuckles. He opens the locker next to Buck’s and pulls out two SCBA masks, passing one over with a flourish. “Put this on.”
“Why?”
“For the gym.” His smile falters. “It’s pretty bad in there.”
Buck puts the jacket away and takes the mask. The second he slips it over his head, the hallway in front of them shifts. Decorative lanterns fade into emergency lights. The quiet, crepuscular hush of night spilling through the windows turns caliginous. Smoke surrounds them in a thick, unrelenting fog, so dense and endless that it becomes Buck. He can’t tell where his body starts and that fucking smoke ends.
“Just breathe, okay?” Eddie’s hand hovers in the small of Buck’s back. “I got you.”
Buck didn’t even realize he started hyperventilating again. He does his best to regulate his breathing, but his lungs won’t expand. It feels like something’s clamping down on his chest. The ache he’s been feeling in his middle is tenfold now.
“C’mon, bud. Work with me here.” Eddie starts breathing himself, a bit exaggerated and volitional. In through his nose, out through his mouth. “Wouldn’t want me to start doing CPR, would you?”
A startled laugh punches out of Buck, and that gets some air back into him. Slowly, he starts mirroring Eddie. In and out, in and out—over and over until he reaches somewhat of an equilibrium.
“I walked under a ladder yesterday,” Buck pants. “And your neighbor had her black cat outside this morning.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, putting on his own mask. “Don’t you start.”
Buck’s legs hurt like hell—the chronic pain in one of them going catacalysmic—but he starts shuffling forward. Eddie’s hand doesn’t stray far from his back. Still that lifeline, still that anchor.
“It’s just… do you think that has anything to do with this?”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Remember Hen’s compact mirror?”
“The one that broke, like, three months ago?”
“Six years and nine months of bad luck to go.”
“Wouldn’t she be the one having the bad luck?”
“I was the one who sat on it.”
“How many different ways do you want me to say jinxes aren’t real, Buck?”
“Can you say it in Spanish?”
“What am I, your monkey?”
“We’re in a place of learning.”
“Fine. ‘Las maldiciones no existen.’ Or, ‘Eso de los embrujos es puro cuento,’ if you wanna get fancy with it.”
“Cool.”
“I’m gonna give you a swirlie.”
“Y’know, I never actually learned what that means.”
“Seriously? You were on a football team.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll show you. This is a place of learning, after all.”
“Shut up.”
They get to the gymnasium doors. Buck can’t see much through the vertical panes. Just a low, golden blaze, and his own reflection watching him.
“You ready?” Eddie asks.
“I… I-I’m gonna hang back a sec. Just gotta…” Buck waves his hand ambiguously, unable to come up with an excuse. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
“Alright.” Eddie makes his way in, leaving plumes of smoke in his wake. “See you on the other side.”
The door clicks shut behind him. Buck stands motionless, eyes boring into his reflection, stuck on the person staring back at him.
It’s not him. Not him as he is now, but… him when he was a senior. His hair is a bit longer, a bit more unkempt. He’s wearing a Class of 2009 hoodie, and an ugly, burgundy-colored shiner—a souvenir earned from his first bar fight.
He looks so different. Younger, obviously, but also smaller. Not just in size, but in presence, like a kid who hasn’t learned how to take up space, let alone believe that he’s allowed to.
He almost didn’t recognize himself when he first looked into the glass. Probably wouldn’t even glance twice if he passed this version of him on the street.
The only thing that feels familiar is the longing in his eyes. That placeless, atom-deep kind of longing. Immeasurable and incomprehensible. He spots it instantly, and it rattles him how easy it is to recognize it. To remember every single moment he’s felt it, in every single iteration it took on.
Then again, it’s hard to forget something when it’s all you’ve ever known.
Eddie was underselling it. The gymnasium isn’t pretty bad. It’s apocalyptic.
Ash coats everything in thick, uneven drifts, packed tall enough that moving through it feels like trudging through freshly-fallen snow. Every square inch of the floor is obscured by a maze of fractured rafters and melted bleachers, blackened support beams skewering the space like graves in a cemetery. Anything not already swallowed by debris is ablaze, the flames so blinding they tinge white at the edges—but, strangely, Buck can’t feel the heat of it anymore. He walks close enough to the fire to earn third-degree burns, but it doesn’t blister or singe him. If he didn’t know any better, he’d chalk them up to nothing more than an illusion.
Buck finds Eddie knelt down beside what was once the DJ table, but is now a pathetic pile of burnt wires and switchboards.
“Sounds like it started from an overloaded extension cord,” Eddie remarks, poking at a disintegrated laptop. “Dumbass plugged in too many speakers and lights into one power strip. Sparks caught his table skirt, which then caught some streamers, and… boom.”
“What’s the bigger crime?” Buck asks. “Bad electrical safety, or a bad taste in music?”
“Dude’s a piece of shit,” Eddie replies sourly. “Witnesses said he just bolted and drove off. Didn’t even stop to help anyone.”
Bile rises in Buck’s throat. “How many people were in here?”
“Dispatch ballparked about four hundred. Maybe five. Either way, they overbooked it. This place only has one emergency exit.”
“And how many people…?” Buck can’t even finish the thought. He feels like he’s about to vomit.
“Our response time was under four minutes,” Eddie says, visibly proud. “Rest of the cavalry came in six. Most people were smart enough to stay calm and file out themselves. We were able to save the rest of the stragglers once we got here.”
“So everyone got out?”
Eddie looks up at him pointedly. “Almost everyone.”
“Right, I-I know, but—” A stabbing pain erupts in Buck’s sternum, just below his heart. He grits his teeth and pushes through it. “Civilian-wise, everyone’s safe?”
“Some idiot got himself stuck under the rafters. That’s it.”
Eddie sounds uncharacteristically furious when he says it. He spits it out like it’s something acrid in his mouth. Buck is stunned. He understands feeling upset about not reaching someone in time, but Eddie’s rage feels out of place. An intensity that’s rare for him to cast on a casualty.
“Eddie, I…”
“You’re over here.” Eddie stands, ducking under a fallen lighting fixture towards a stack of ceiling slats. “Cap told you to leave him until the team could get more wet stuff on the red stuff, but… well, you’re you. A support beam took you out right as you got to him.”
Buck squeezes his eyes shut. Memories flash behind his eyelids. Bobby screaming at him to stay outside. Athena holding her husband back, desperate to avoid nearly becoming a widow again. He remembers hauling himself through hellfire to reach the victim, warning calls from his radio and ear-piercing alarms threatening to cleave his skull in two, and then… nothing. Just a split-second pressure coming down on his chest, then darkness.
When Buck opens his eyes, he sees a limp body—his limp body—laying lifeless underneath the wreckage. He kicks at his own boot, but there’s no response.
The sight of it brings him a weird sense of calm. Remembering everything should be horrifying, but it’s strangely mollifying. Death itself isn’t scary to him—he’s seen so much of it that it’s hard to separate himself from it. It’s the not-knowing that was the terrifying part.
And now he knows.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Eddie asks. He still sounds pissed, but a knowing kind of pissed. Like he saw this coming from a mile away.
“You’re all safe,” Buck murmurs. “That’s what matters.”
Eddie makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Jesus, Buck. You’re not—”
A ringtone cuts him off. Eddie reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out his phone, glowering at it.
“It’s for you,” Eddie mutters, handing it over. Buck blearily blinks down at the cracked screen. The caller ID simply reads, 9-1-1. He lifts it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey, little brother.”
The room goes blurry in front of Buck. He blinks hard to clear the haze that’s forming. “I’m… I didn’t—”
“Shhh. It’s okay.”
“You’re… where are you?”
“At dispatch.” There’s some muffled chatter on the other end of the line, the distant sound of laughter, then: “Sue says hi. Josh wants to know what you’re wearing.”
“A… a suit?”
“Duh. What color?” She sounds disconcertingly blithe, like she’s asking about the weather.
“Blue.” Tears spill down Buck’s cheeks. “Like, a periwinkle kind of blue.”
“Nice. Always liked you in that color.”
“What’re you—? Maddie, I’m dying.”
“I know, dummy.” She hums, fond. “I heard you.”
“W-What?”
“You tried to radio me right before you went in.” She still sounds unnervingly casual about it, as if they’re just catching up on the latest episode of Love Island or making last-minute dinner plans. “You left your comms on. I’ve heard a lot of death rattles over the years, but jeez. Yours sure is something.”
Buck’s knees buckle. Eddie catches his elbow right before he falls.
It’s been over a week since he last saw Maddie. He went over to her and Chimney’s place last Wednesday to babysit Jee. They barely said two words to each other before she rushed out the door. He can’t even remember the last time he hugged her.
“I’m so sorry,” Buck whispers. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“How’s the music? Have they played any Dolly yet? Kenny Rogers?”
Buck laughs wetly. The everyday ease to this conversation is freaking him out, but he can play along. He has to, or he might lose it.
“Pretty sure I heard Something’s Burning earlier.”
“Ooh, that’s a gooder.” She sighs, wistful. “They played nothing but Nickelback at my prom. Doug loved it.”
“Of course he did.”
“That’s okay. I still tore up that dance floor.”
“You would’ve fit right in with Chim tonight. He tried to do the worm.”
“Please tell me you got a video of that. No, wait, switch this to FaceTime. I wanna see it live.”
“He, uh… he left a while ago. It’s just me and Eddie.”
“Have you danced with him yet?”
Buck groans. “Maddie, please. Give it a rest.”
“Give what a rest? Me being right about you being in love with him?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Promise me that you’ll dance with him.”
“Be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. You can’t see it, but I’ve got my pinky out. C’mon, swear.”
Buck half-rolls his eyes, half-chokes down a cry. He holds out his pinky. “Okay, weirdo. I swear.”
“Good. Let me talk to him for a sec. He owes me a favor.”
Buck hesitates. He doesn’t want to let the phone go. He doesn’t want to go.
“I love you, too, Evan.” Her voice finally breaks. “It’s you and me against the world, right? We’ll see each other again soon.”
Buck can barely get out: “Promise?”
“Pinky promise.”
He gives up the phone. Eddie takes it and gingerly holds it up to his ear, like it might shatter to pieces in his hand.
Buck doesn’t hear whatever he says to her. He’s zoned out, staring at his body—corpse?—among the rubble. His arm is bent at an unnatural angle. Broken. He remembers the last time he broke that arm. Driving Maddie’s Jeep to the hospital one-handed, the windows rolled down with a Nick Drake song blaring from the speakers—itching to pick her up from her shift. Itching for freedom.
In a way, they both finally have it now.
“Hey.” Eddie shakes him out of his stupor. “Earth to Buck.”
Buck glances at him. He looks a lot more tired now. A little shaken, too.
It’s not like he anticipated saying goodbye to all of his loved ones tonight, but this is the goodbye that Buck is the least prepared for. A selfish part of him wants more time—wants to cling to the crumbling cliffside as long as he can—but he knows he’s already long been out of it. It’s too late.
“You should go,” Buck says, shooting for casual. It falls somewhere between a question and a sob. “You’ve got an early start tomorrow. Someone has to drive Chris to chess club in the morning.”
“He can get a ride from his friends. He might be a little scarred from the whole Uber thing, but he has that as a backup, too.”
“I’m serious.” Buck closes his eyes. He sees a rain-soaked street. Moving boxes. A U-Haul. The world as he knows it ending again. “Just… get out of here. Beat the traffic.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t leave without a slow dance?” Buck huffs out the rest of the air in his lungs through a laugh. “Who’s the belle of the ball now?”
“I can’t leave, period.”
Buck’s eyes fly open. His heart stops beating. Icy horror seeps through his blood, the first bit of cold he’s known in hours. So gelid it feels coagulated.
“Why not?” His voice is barely audible over the roar of the fire.
“You’re the smartest guy I know, Buck.” Eddie smiles sadly. “Didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you.”
“Spell what out?”
Eddie turns around. He kicks a calcined piece of drywall aside, revealing another LAFD-issued work boot beside Buck’s.
“Who’d you think was the idiot stuck under the rafters?”
Buck gets about five seconds of blissful denial before he nosedives straight into anger.
He rips off his mask. The flames and building fragments vanish with its removal, balloons and plastic stars and crepe-paper archways taking their place once more. Buck hardly notices the change. All he sees is red.
His rage is so raw and all-encompassing that he must black out from it. One moment, he’s staring at Eddie—finally clocking the charred edges of his suit, the ash clinging to the velvet—and the next, he’s bludgeoning the cardboard Sampson stand-in with a table leg.
Eddie’s leaning against a wall nearby, hands in his pockets. Far too mild for what the situation calls for, he remarks, “There’s another one of Sparky by the bathroom.”
Buck responds by hucking the table leg at the scoreboard. It nails the screen dead-center, lodging itself into the glass. The CODE F blinks once, twice, before switching into a simple OT.
Eddie whistles, low and appreciative. “Damn, forget football. Looks like baseball’s your calling.”
Buck’s in front of him in a few strides. He gets in Eddie’s face—close enough to see the broken blood vessels in his eyes, the dried blood in his brow—and seethes, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Wasn’t the right time.”
“So—what, had to wait for the perfect moment? Clock to strike midnight?”
Eddie shrugs. “Prom’s full of melodrama. Can’t blame a guy for sticking to the script.”
Buck fists a hand in his collar, hauling him closer. Eddie doesn’t even flinch—just exhales, soft and warm against Buck’s face. It’s enough to make Buck’s anger quell slightly.
“Haven’t seen you this worked up since Gerrard,” Eddie murmurs. “Could always be worse. He could’ve been in charge of the music.”
“Y-You’re dying,” Buck whispers. “You and me, we’re… there’s zero chance we’re getting out of this alive. We’re dead.”
“Sure.” Eddie shrugs again. “Almost.”
“Wh—how are you okay with this?”
Eddie grabs Buck’s wrist lightning fast, trying to tear his hand loose. Irritation flashes in his eyes when he grits out, “You think I’m okay, Buck? Just business as usual over here?”
“I don’t know, Eddie,” Buck snarks. Just like that, he’s angry again—that hot-and-cold instability he’s never been able to grow out of coming out full-force. “I thought we were done with the whole lock it all down, soldier on thing. Guess I missed the memo.”
“What do you want me to do? Scream? Cry? Throw a tantrum?”
“I want you to stop pretending like everything’s fine.”
“Sorry that I don’t go around parading my problems like I’m in a goddamn play.” Eddie chuckles, dark and humorless. “You do any theatre in high school? Maybe that’s your calling.”
“At least I know how to feel.”
“Making it all about you again, huh? Shocker.”
Buck tightens his grip. “What about Christopher? He’s waking up tomorrow without a father. You wanna shrug that off, too?”
“You think I’d shrug off leaving our kid with my parents again?” Eddie shoves Buck away. “Go to hell, Buck.”
Buck staggers backward, his eyes wide.
He had to have misheard what Eddie just said. There’s no way he meant that Christopher is their—
Eddie’s breathing hard. Too hard. He slides down the wall into a fetal position—elbows on his knees, head in his hands. His exhales sound like wheezing. He’s been holding it together pretty well so far, but the facade’s starting to crack. He’s just as hurt as Buck.
“W-Whoa, hey.” Buck drops down beside him. His hand lingers uselessly near Eddie’s shoulder, unsure.
“This isn’t easy for me, either. Just got a headstart on dying, s’all.” Eddie’s voice strains at the edges. He sounds dangerously close to crying. “You missed me going through the five stages to Fireball before you got here. Seriously, imagine that. Pitbull serenading your fucking cremation.”
“Still beats Seger,” Buck mutters.
Eddie heaves out a laugh. “Shut up. I’m trying to feel over here.”
“Sorry.” Buck frowns. “Did everyone…?”
“Make their rounds? Tell me they love me?” Eddie cards a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. It falls back into his glassy eyes anyway. “Sure did. Felt like getting crowned prom queen.”
“What about…?” Buck’s throat closes. He can’t say it.
“I tried calling him,” Eddie murmurs, already on Buck’s wavelength. “All I got was dead air, like… like the call got dropped. Maybe we can only talk to people who were involved with the scene.”
“It’s not like he’s good at picking up his phone to begin with,” Buck says. “But you guys have been good lately, right? Haven’t seen you two staying up late night after night playing video games together in years.”
“Yeah, but—” A strange, high-pitched noise keens out of Eddie. He sets his jaw and shakes his head sharply, seemingly at war with himself. “Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to talk to him one more time.”
“He knows how much you love him, Eddie. He does.”
Eddie’s head sinks lower. His shoulders begin shaking.
They sit together like that on the ground for a long, long time—Eddie silently sobbing, Buck’s hand still hovering over him.
Buck’s eyes slip closed. Behind his eyelids, he sees dozens of post-its on the bathroom mirror: one reminding Christopher to screw the cap back on his toothpaste, another that simply says, te quiero, mijo. Sees kitschy home decor—a cowboy boot toilet brush, a frog-shaped soap holder. Sees sunlight through window curtains, casting golden light across sky-blue bedroom walls. He sees all of the mornings he was supposed to wake up to; the life he was supposed to live.
Eventually, Eddie wipes his face and side-eyes Buck’s hand. “M’not gonna bite you, man,” he croaks. “You can—”
His words descend into dry coughs. He hacks for a moment before regaining his breath, slumping back against the wall as he gulps air back into his lungs.
“You need CPR over there?” Buck asks, a half-hearted joke that sounds pathetic, even for him.
Eddie reaches for his hand, laying it down to his shoulder. He holds it there, giving it a firm squeeze. “Might take you up on that. Desperate times, right?”
Buck doesn’t know if he has the heart to keep messing around like this. Literally. Half of his damn heart is several miles away on South Bedford, sound asleep. The other half is a few feet from him, burning to death under wooden slats and metal framework.
“What do we do.” Buck doesn’t even make it a question. Why bother? He’s pretty sure there isn’t an answer.
“Well,” Eddie starts, “there’s Plan A. That’s the one where we try to leave. That emergency exit might still work.”
“Something tells me you’ve already tried Plan A.”
Eddie sighs. “It didn’t work for me. You might get lucky, though.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Buck says simply. “End of story.”
“Figured as much.” Eddie’s thumb rubs in the divot of Buck’s wrist, cartographing it. “Plan B’s a bit cliché, but… we can try and make the most of this. Throw on some music, dance around a little. That’s what all these dumb songs are about, right? Partying like it’s your last night on Earth?”
Buck blinks, mulling it over. He mulls and mulls and mulls. Thinks about both options hard—inverting them, revolving them, tearing them apart—until the ache in his middle spreads throughout his entire skull.
“What’s Plan C?” Buck asks shakily.
Eddie lets out a breath. “Sorry.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Buck pulls his hand free, vehemently shaking his head. “There’s gotta be another way.”
“There isn’t,” Eddie insists. “Trust me. I’ve rolled through everything, all the way to Plan Z. Nothing works.”
“I can call Maddie again. She can send more units.”
“I’m telling you, dude. There’s—”
“Or maybe we need to break something. Should we break something?”
“You already pummelled a cardboard dog to death.” Eddie looks up at the scoreboard clock, frowning. “Not sure how more property damage is gonna fix this.”
“I-I had to break a window last time. I literally had a breakthrough, Eddie. That’s how I got back in my body.”
Buck’s hysterical, saying it—his eyes wide and unseeing, his frame shivering uncontrollably. The absurdity of there being a last time, as if waking up in a coma dream is some kind of routine sabbatical, doesn’t even phase him.
“Buck, I… Jesus, man, stop leaving when I’m trying to talk to you.”
It’s no use. Buck’s already on his feet again. He scoops up his discarded SCBA mask and frantically jams it back on. Throws himself willingly—easily—back into hell, because if there’s even a slim chance of pulling Eddie out of it, he’ll take that chance every time.
The scene is a maelstrom. Fire clawing at the walls, ash choking the air, alarms wailing like a death knell. Sound collapses into a low, droning hum, pulsing at the base of Buck’s skull. His limbs move sluggishly as he shambles over to their bodies.
“Buck.”
He tears at the wreckage—twisted metal, charred plaster—but nothing stays in his grip. Every time he almost latches on to something, the mirage in front of him shifts and morphs into old, familiar hells. When he digs, he’s on all fours in a mudslide, earth sloughing beneath his nails, Eddie buried fifty feet below. When he pulls, his palms scrape pavement, iron tanging on his tongue, Eddie bleeding out in the street.
“Buck.”
He’s trying, he’s trying, but everything he touches slips through his fingers. Literally slips through. None of it is corporeal anymore. Even the floor beneath him begins to deteriorate, phantom-soft. The gym peels back around him, piece by piece, until it feels like he’s in a museum again, kneeling before some ancient, inaccessible artifact. Eddie’s still out of his reach. Untouchable. Never his.
“This can’t be it,” Buck chokes out. He pivots, bolting towards the exit. “There’s gotta be a way out. There has to be—”
“Buck, stop!”
He freezes, a gasp ripping out of him. He’s pushed the door open, already stepped halfway through it, his weight lurching him forward, but there’s no ground to stand on. A hand yanks him back by the collar of his suit jacket before he falls.
There’s nothing beyond the exit. No parking lot, no streetlamps, no star-studded sky, nothing. Just an endless void. It’s like looking into the gaping maw of a black hole.
“What is this?” Buck whispers.
Eddie’s ragged breathing echoes. “You don’t see anything?”
Buck’s foot still dangles off the edge, hovering over the crest of wooden floor and oblivion. He steps back, benumbed.
“So much for pearly gates and St. Petey, huh?” Eddie rasps.
Buck can’t even cry. He just sinks to the floor, unblinking, gazing into the abyss. Eddie follows him down, pulling him into his arms. Buck doesn’t resist.
“Y’know what’s funny?” Eddie murmurs in his ear, chin resting on his shoulder. “It’s Friday the thirteenth today.”
Buck doesn’t respond.
“And I opened an umbrella inside a couple days ago. Maybe you were right about”—Eddie waves a hand flippantly—“all that screaming universe stuff.”
Eddie’s wrong. The universe doesn’t scream. Buck sees that now.
It laughs.
“Burning Down the House?”
“Pass.”
“Burn It to the Ground?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, I’m not a big Nickelback guy, either. Umm—oh, here’s a good one. We Didn’t Start the Fire?”
“Is there anything that isn’t about fire?”
Eddie scrolls on the laptop’s trackpad. “Not that I can see. We got Firestarter, Playing with Fire, Through the Fire and Flames—”
“I’m not dancing right now, Eddie.”
Eddie lifts his head from the screen, turning to Buck. “So that’s it? You’re just gonna wallflower yourself to death?”
The gymnasium exit is closed now. Buck’s still on the floor, his aching spine pressing into cool steel. He thunks the back of his head against it, hard enough to hurt—more than it already does, anyway.
“We’re out of time,” Buck says. Now he’s the one shrugging, all nonchalant and indifferent. “What’s the point?”
“What’s the point? You were all guns blazing a minute ago.” Eddie’s gathered a collection of glow stick bracelets, both of his wrists stacked with them. He frisbees one, two, three at Buck. “C’mon. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a quitter.”
Hearing that pisses Buck off a little. He has every right to wallflower if he wants to. He’s tired of fighting. Tired of feeling. He just wants to rest.
“Uh-uh.” Eddie walks over to him. Kicks at his calf. “Get up. Quit pouting.”
“Ow.”
“Vamanos. Ponte las pilas.” He holds out a hand. “You owe me a slow dance, Buckley. I haven’t gotten one yet.”
It’s absurd, the way Buck’s heart flutters at that. Even to his dying breath, Eddie has a penchant for taking Buck’s away.
But Buck is stubborn, also to his dying breath. He doesn’t have much fight left in him, but his diffidence still kicks behind his ribs, thrashing like something cornered and bleeding.
“What about that woman?”
Eddie frowns. “What woman?”
“The one you were talking to earlier.” Buck has to resist the urge to actually pout. He’s thirty-four years old, for God’s sake—not some kid who missed out on Valentine’s Day candy from a classmate. “Looked like you two were hitting it off.”
Eddie nods to himself, a grin pulling at his lips. “You got me. I was definitely interested in that very married, very gay woman. Totally wasn’t just keeping her company while her wife was in the bathroom.”
Oops. Buck read that interaction completely wrong. Molten embarrassment floods through his cheeks. “S-Sorry, I thought… you were standing pretty close to her. Seemed like you had a lot in common.”
“We did.” Quieter, almost a mumble, Eddie adds, “One of those two things, anyway.”
Buck tilts his head, puzzled. “You’re not married.”
Eddie’s expression softens, just south of exasperated. “Buck.”
Oh.
Oh.
Eddie imitates trumpet fanfare. A bit timorous, he sing-songs, “Surprise.”
It shouldn’t be, really. Everyone else already had their suspicions about Eddie’s sexuality. It’s just that Buck has been operating on a few unshakable, seemingly unquestionable truths about his team for the last several years. Chimney’s favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back. Bobby always double-checks if he’s left something on at the station—the television, the stove, the space heater. Hen hates musicals, but has a soft spot for Falsettos. Eddie is straight. The idea of any of those being false is like waking up to the sun rising in the west. It goes against everything Buck thought he knew. It rewrites the sky.
“Guess the building’s not the only thing that’s flaming now, huh?” Buck breathes, reeling.
“You’re one to talk.” Eddie smiles, holding his hand out further. “I’m not dying without that dance. I’ll even let you pick the music.”
Buck own hand twitches, unsure. In any other situation, he wouldn’t choose you. This is a friend thing. Don’t get your hopes up. “You know I suck at it.”
Like an unshakable, unquestionable truth of his own, Eddie replies, “There’s no one in this world I’d rather slow dance in a burning room with than you.”
Buck’s eyes water. “I’m not gonna be able to dip you.”
“That’s okay.”
“And I’m probably gonna step on your feet the whole time.”
“That’s okay, too.”
Buck has long resigned himself to being a puller. Even when he’s the one leaving, he’s always, always hanging on to things as he goes. He’ll dig his heels in, grasping at whatever’s about to be torn from his hands, and he’ll pull, and pull, and pull.
But this time, just this once, he lets someone else do the pulling.
He takes Eddie’s hand. Eddie hoists him to his feet, then guides him back to the DJ table. Buck takes a few precious moments to scan the laptop’s library of songs, hundreds of iterations of the words fire and flames and burning blurred by tears. When he finally finds a winner, he turns the laptop to face Eddie, gauging his reaction. Eddie hums approvingly, tapping the spacebar to start it. Gentle guitar strums and piano notes begin to reverberate around them.
“Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone…”
Eddie offers his hand once more. “May I have this dance?”
Buck lets another precious moment tick by, just so he can take in the sight of Eddie. The bits of confetti still peeking out beneath his dress shirt, haloing his St. Christopher medal. The mole under his eye. His folded ears. His laugh lines. His smile—yet another private, rare smile, one that Buck has only seen a handful of occasions, and one that’s always directed at him. It’s light and easy, like a thirty-odd year weight has been lifted. Like somehow, miraculously, Buck is the impetus of it.
Seeing him like this, it occurs to Buck that love isn’t all that different from sadness, the way it fills the chest and creases the eyes. But it’s funny—real, bonafide haha funny this time—because Buck doesn’t feel sad anymore. He just feels love, wholly and unapologetically, and it doesn’t matter if he gets it in return. Knowing it’s something tangible—one of the few things in his life that actually belongs to him—is enough.
Buck laces his fingers in-between Eddie’s, weaving their hands together. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Eddie leads him to the center of the gymnasium. The ceiling panels above flutter into a low, amber hue—a gentle flicker, not unlike a flame. It makes it easy to pretend the hidden blaze around them is merely candlelight.
They begin to sway. Buck’s arms find their way around Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie’s hands settle on Buck’s waist, steadying him. Always steadying him.
“Thank you,” Buck murmurs.
“For?”
“Being honest with me.”
Eddie snorts. “Save your flowers. You figured out most of what happened on your own.” He reaches up and taps Buck’s temple. “You’ve always been the brains of this operation.”
Buck squints at him, fond. “What does that make you? The beauty?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“I’m not talking about the fire, Eddie.” They’re alone in the gym now, but they’re still talking so, so quiet. A decibel reserved for middle-of-the-night, half-asleep conversations in the kitchen, like anything louder might shatter it. “Thank you for being honest with me about you.”
“Oh.” Eddie blinks. “Uh, sure. No prob.”
“When did you figure it out?”
Eddie briefly tenses under Buck’s arms. He looks somewhere behind Buck, his mouth working around the words for a moment, then: “Wish I could say it was a deep-down-I-always-knew kinda thing. The signs were probably there. Dating always felt like…”
“Like you had to perform?” Buck quirks an eyebrow.
Eddie squeezes his waist in response, a playful warning. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up.”
“So it was recent, then.”
Eddie must find a very interesting spot on the wall behind them, because he can’t seem to meet Buck’s eyes anymore. “Sort of.”
Buck’s stomach twists uncomfortably. “Please don’t tell me Tommy had anything to do with it.”
A surprised laugh erupts from Eddie, loud and unabashed. “God, no. What made you think that?”
“You went to Vegas together.”
“Yeah, for wrestling. Me being gay has nothing to do with Tommy, dude. Believe me.”
“Okay.” Buck chuckles, quiet and relieved. “Good.”
“Well, it kinda does.”
“What?”
“Not like that.”
“Then what?” Buck ducks his head into Eddie’s vision, insistent. “Sorry, but you gotta spell it out for me again. My brain’s fried.”
Eddie’s eyes dart around Buck’s face for a beat, his lashes fluttering with the movement—and then the tension in his frame melts out of him with a long, resigned exhale.
“Alright, look. Remember when I said this whole thing between us”—he replicates the back-and-forth gesture he made that day in the rain, which is a little difficult with their close proximity now—“has been messy and hard?”
“Yeah?”
Eddie’s silent for a moment, seemingly searching for his words again. Serious, more serious than Buck’s seen him be in a long, long time, he says, “Any time I’ve ever wanted something for myself, it’s been the same thing. Messy and hard.”
He shakes his head once sharply. For the billionth time that night, a strand of hair tumbles across his forehead. For the billionth time that night, Buck wants to push it back. Except this time, he does—gentle and absentminded, as if in a trance, Buck tucks it back into place.
“What do you want, Eddie?” His voice is barely audible. He’s still terrified to break whatever this is.
Eddie’s brows knit together. “Depends what version of me you’re asking.”
“What about Eddie 1.0?”
Eddie chuckles humorlessly. “He wanted his marriage to work. That was the messiest and hardest thing, by far.”
“And Eddie 2.0?”
“Cool it with the software updates.” Eddie gives him another warning squeeze. “Makes me sound like a Hildy knock-off.”
Buck hums. “You do like spying on people.”
Eddie scoffs, affronted. “I do not.”
“Oh? What would you call your little morning-coffee-by-the-living-room-window routine, then?”
“People watching.” Eddie hmphs. “I’m still trying to feel over here, by the way. Do you mind?”
Buck’s so in love with him, it’s like his own software was pre-coded with it. He sways infinitesimally closer, caught in Eddie’s gravity again. “Sorry. What else did the old you want?”
Eddie sighs. “Not to feel broken anymore. Or maybe just to know that I could eventually be fixed.”
“Can’t fix something that isn’t actually broken,” Buck says.
“I know that now. Had to go through my own trials and tribulations to get there, though.”
“I’m proud of you, Eddie. You should be, too.”
“I am,” Eddie says, and he sounds like he means it, but grief quickly overrides the pride in his eyes. He pulls Buck into an embrace—his hands settling into the small of Buck’s back, his head nestling into the crook of Buck’s neck. Voice muffled by Buck’s suit, he adds, “I wanted to stop failing Christopher. I wanted to be a good father.”
Buck breathes in, in, in. He smells rubber and wood varnish and sweat and smoke, but much stronger than any of that, he smells cedar and bergamot and home.
“You already have,” he murmurs. “You already are.”
“Yeah, but… it was still messy and hard.”
“Most good things are.”
“You’re wrong.” Eddie lifts his head slightly, just enough to be heard clearer. “What I want now, it’s… it’s simple. It’s easy.”
Buck’s heart hammers in his chest. He’s terrified that Eddie can probably hear it. “What does this have to do with you being gay?”
“Slow your roll, cowboy. I’m getting to it.”
Buck eyes the scoreboard clock. It’s still displaying OT. They’re quite literally running overtime. The song that’s playing is nearly over now, too. Regardless, Buck tries to be patient. He owes Eddie that much.
“Maybe that’s why I didn’t know it was something I wanted until recently. I’ve only known how to want when it’s painful or scary or complicated, but… that’s not the way I felt when I figured it out.” Eddie swallows, his throat clicking. “Guess it’s easy to miss the obvious when it comes as easy as breathing.”
“The way you felt,” Buck echoes. He’s not worried about Eddie hearing his heart anymore. He’s fairly certain it’s stopped beating. “Felt about what?”
Eddie lifts his head fully, and he’s so, so close. Close enough for Buck to count every eyelash, every freckle, every second that they don’t have left.
All Eddie whispers before he closes the distance between them is a simple, easy: “You.”
Buck doesn’t process that they’re kissing until several beats later, every synapse and neuron in his brain simultaneously firing and shorting out at once. When he does finally get up to speed, the first absurd thought he has is, I’m tasting blood in Eddie’s mouth. The second, equally absurd thought that follows is, this isn’t the first time I’ve tasted Eddie’s blood.
And he feels sad now, once he gets over the surprise of having Eddie kiss him—having Eddie want to kiss him—and the thrill of this being their first kiss. He’s memorizing the ridges and valleys of Eddie’s mouth, making up for years of lost time with his teeth and tongue, and he’s devastated, because his first kiss with Eddie will also be his last.
The kiss is messy. Desperate. A whine tears out of Eddie’s throat when Buck cards his fingers through his hair and pulls; a hiss fizzles out of Buck when Eddie bites his lip a bit too hard in response. Perhaps that’s the least surprising part about it all, that unapologetic desperation. After all, nothing they’ve ever done together has been slow or restrained.
But then, just as sudden as it began, the fire ebbs into smouldering coals, warm and enduring. The kiss becomes something unhurried and drawn out, like they have the rest of their lives reserved just for this. It’s not far from the truth. Even so, when it settles into nothing more than the simple pressing of mouths together—the easy exchange of breaths, in and out until it’s impossible to tell who’s inhaling and exhaling—it’s still the hardest thing Buck has ever done, and he still wants nothing more than to keep kissing Eddie until there’s no oxygen left to share.
The only reason Buck pulls back first is because his cheeks are wet. His eyes flutter open to see Eddie’s eyelashes clumped together with tears. He’s half-lidded and flushed beet-red—and crying, apparently.
“W-What’s wrong?” Buck stammers.
“Nothing, just…” Eddie shakes his head, awed. “That’s what it’s supposed to feel like, huh?”
Buck’s about to respond—with what, exactly, he’s not sure. Probably something stupid like, “I never usually give CPR on the first date,” or, “We should keep practicing, just in case there’s a pop quiz tomorrow,” or, “I love you.”
But he doesn’t get the chance to say any of it. The song that was playing has long ended, so there’s nothing preventing them from hearing the atonal, uneven beeping coming from the speakers now. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it is. The way his heartbeat aligns with it clears up the mystery pretty quickly.
“Guess that’s last call.” Eddie scrubs his eyes with his sleeve. “At least we’re not on clean-up duty.”
“Totally,” Buck replies, numb. “I’ll take dying over unpaid labor any day.”
They walk together towards the exit, hand in trembling hand, and they’re passing dumb remarks between each other like it’s just another day at the station. Like they’re leaving the locker room at the end of a twenty-four, their only obligation for the evening being a six-pack of beer and HOTSHOTS reruns.
“Imagine sweeping all this shit up.” Eddie kicks at a fallen streamer. “I’ve already got confetti in places that should never have confetti.”
“They ever make you stack chairs in school?”
”Yeah. The ones at La Selle were heavy as lead.”
Buck picks up a stray balloon, spiking it into the air. “Probably actually filled with lead, too.”
“Wonder how much asbestos is in this place.”
“Did you know they used to use asbestos as fake snow in movies?”
“Really?”
“Yup. Y’know that one scene in The Wizard of Oz? That’s one-hundred percent asbestos.”
“Good thing this isn’t a winter formal.”
“Amen to that.”
They stop short of death’s door. The invisible EKG machine beeps very, very slow now.
“Speaking of.” Eddie side-eyes Buck guiltily. “Can I admit something?”
“Hit me.”
“This is coming from a lapsed Catholic and all, but… I was still kinda hoping I would see something on the other side.” Eddie huffs a weary laugh. “Don’t know what I was expecting.”
“Big fluffy clouds?” Buck offers. “Golden harps?”
“Just… something.” Eddie stares straight ahead, solemn. “You ever wonder what heaven would look like?”
And sure, Buck grew up Episcopalian, but he hasn’t given the aesthetics of heaven much thought. Why would he, when he already knows it looks like breakfasts at firehouse tables, or dinners in a warm-lit dining room? He doesn’t need scripture or breviaries or epitomes to teach him about the salvation he’s already found in the cathedrals of Eddie’s hands, the altars of his mouth.
When Buck doesn’t say anything, Eddie fills the silence. “Can I admit something else?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve never been to prom, either.”
Buck’s eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I thought you went with Shannon.”
“Nah. She had a thing.”
“But you still didn’t go?”
“Jury’s still out on fate, but…” Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand tight before he releases it, settling both of his hands on the door’s crash bar instead. “Maybe I was just waiting for the right moment to go.”
He pushes it open. Darkness yawns. The heart rate monitor finally settles into a single, uninterrupted tone.
“W-Wait,” Buck rasps, catching Eddie by the elbow. “I also have to tell you something.”
Eddie turns back, and Buck isn’t sure how, but he knows Eddie knows what he’s about to say. Maybe it’s the fond smirk pulling at his lips—the kind that comes from knowing someone down to the bones, even the versions they won’t get to see.
“I love you, too,” Eddie says, certain.
He says it like all the different ways he says Buck’s name: patient and endeared and amused and exasperated, and always, always like it’s something precious in his mouth.
It’s only right then and there, seconds from the end, that another horrible realization hits Buck. Not hard and fast like another lightning strike, but a slow, cancerous ache.
“You’re not real,” Buck whispers. “This is all in my head. You wouldn’t actually say that.”
“We already share a house,” Eddie replies. “You don’t think we could share a coma dream, too?”
“Sorry I never moved out.”
“I was never gonna ask you to.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Not to make it all about me again, but you’re only saying that because I want to hear it. You wouldn’t—”
“Buck. Hey.” Eddie clutches him by the shoulders. “Maybe this is all in my head, because I’m telling you—the way I feel about you seems pretty damn real to me.”
It’s a nice thought. And even though he knows it’s a lie, Buck has spent a great deal of his life running from the truth. What’s one more lap around the field?
“See you on the other side?” Buck asks, tipping his head towards the exit.
There’s no trace of irony or levity in Eddie’s voice—just raw, blistering sincerity—when he breathes, “God, I hope so.”
Buck goes first. He hangs in the doorway, leaning down into the blackness. The universe stares back. No screaming. No laughter. Just silence, whole and absolute.
He’s heard from a few lucky victims who have come to after having their hearts stop that dying is like falling asleep. Buck hopes that’s true for him, too. He hopes it’s nothing more than dozing off on a navy-blue couch. He hopes he’ll hear the sound of Eddie putting dishes away in the kitchen, and the sound of Christopher’s laughter just down the hall.
Buck closes his eyes and steps forward, bracing for the fall, and…
And his foot touches down on cold cement.
His eyes fly open. He sees the outside of the high school. Sees firetrucks and ambulances, a crowd of shell-shocked people, and a night sky riddled with stars. A red-eye flight winks at him in its slow path across the horizon. The moon is round and full.
“Huh.”
Buck whirls around, startled. Eddie is behind him, arms crossed, giving him a once-over.
“I liked the tux,” he says, “but it’s good to know you can rock a dress, too.”
Buck only gets a split second to look down at himself, to see that his powder-blue corduroy suit has been replaced with a powder-blue hospital gown, before everything goes white.
If dying is like falling asleep, waking up from a coma is like coming to after a long nap.
It’s not like how it is in the movies. There’s no moment where he gasps awake and remembers everything all at once. There’s pockets of consciousness—fluorescent light filtering in and out between his eyelids, sounds of shouting and crying from voices he recognizes—but he flows in and out of it for an unknowable amount of time. He fights to stay coherent, almost getting there a few times, feeling his senses slowly return. Then, just as gradual, he succumbs to the fog again.
The only constant is the pain. Any moment he’s able to feel anything, it’s unimaginable, solar-hot pain. But, and he’s not too proud to thank a God he doesn’t believe in for this, that too begins to fade.
When he’s finally lucid, he’s already sitting up in the hospital bed, dozens of pillows stacked tall behind him. He must have already been awake for a while, because he doesn’t even remember opening his eyes. The first thing he hears is the sound of someone slurping something through a straw. He cranes his neck towards it.
Eddie is a few feet away in a hospital bed of his own, drinking a juice box. His right leg is encased in fiberglass and plaster, and his hair is a mess, but he otherwise looks completely fine.
“Hey, roomie,” he says, mild. “Listen, no offense, but we gotta do something about the snoring. It’s like I’m bunking with a damn lawnmower.”
If Buck was strong enough to walk, he’d be over to Eddie in seconds. Screw personal space. He’d find a way under his skin, weave himself in-between Eddie’s ligaments and sinew until both their pulses aligned right now if he could.
“You’ve been staring at the wall for the past five minutes.” Eddie’s voice is sandpaper rough, but still so, so soft. He pauses to take another gulp of juice, then adds, “You remember that short story they made us read in senior year? The one with the wallpaper? It was like that. Real creepy.”
“Where’s—” is all Buck can get out before he chokes on air, immediately breaking into a hacking fit. Eddie tosses him a spare Minute Maid. Buck tries to catch it, until he realizes his arm is in a sling.
“In the cafeteria.” Eddie frowns down at his food tray. There’s something on it that resembles mashed potatoes, if mashed potatoes were grey and soupy. “Kinda hoping they left for real food, though. St. Vincent won’t be winning any Michelin stars anytime soon, I can tell you that.”
“Do they know?”
“You were talking to them earlier. You weren’t making a lot of sense, but the nurses said that was just the morphine. You’re all clear for brain damage, as far as they can tell.” Eddie squints at him. “What do you remember?”
“The fire.”
“Okay, good. What else?”
“Not much. Just light and voices.” Buck cycles through a few failed attempts of stabbing the juice box with the flimsy plastic straw before he gets it right. “How long were we out?”
“A few days. They had us both tubed up, apparently.”
Jesus. “And how long were we in the gym?”
“A few minutes.”
Buck sips his juice, stunned. They shouldn’t have made it out alive. There was so much smoke, so much debris. Buck can still taste ash in his mouth, still feels flames licking at his skin. They were crushed. How are they alive?
“It started raining after you went in after me,” Eddie says. “Which I’m still pissed about, by the way. Don’t ever do that shit again. You could actually die.”
“So could you,” Buck shoots back.
“Pain in the ass,” Eddie mutters. “Anyways. The only reason we’re still kicking is because it poured hard enough to put most of the fire out. We both went into cardiac arrest right as the team got us in the ambulance.”
“Your heart stopped.”
“For a couple minutes, yeah. So did yours. Three minutes and fifty-two seconds this time.” Eddie raises his juice in a toast. “Congrats on the new personal record.”
Buck stares at him hard, not daring to blink. He’s afraid this is just another twisted segment of the dream, that the other shoe is still poised to drop. “It never rains this time of year. Nothing was on the forecast.”
“I know.” Eddie shakes his head, bemused. “Big guy upstairs must’ve been feeling generous.”
Buck stares down at his cast. There’s dozens of signatures and doodles on it from loved ones. It’s nearly completely covered, save an empty pocket of space in his inner wrist.
“Maddie and Chim took Chris back to our place. He wanted to bring his PlayStation.” Eddie eyes the tiny television in the corner of the room. “Not sure how well playing Fortnite one-handed is gonna go for you, but count me out. I’m too old for that game.”
“I’m a year older than you.”
Eddie shifts in his bed, grimacing. “My back says otherwise.”
Buck finally looks away. He cranes his neck to the other half of the room, towards the side table. It’s littered with Get Well Soon! cards, edible arrangements, and bouquets of flowers. Lilies, amsonias, roses—just shy of a meadow. There’s even a little sketch from Christopher of the three of them. The top of the page simply reads, My Family.
“You don’t remember anything else?” Eddie asks, quiet. Prodding.
Buck swallows around the lump in his throat. “Like what?”
“Like…” He trails off, his brows furrowed. He looks troubled. “I don’t know. I just thought maybe you…”
“What about you?” Buck turns back to him. He’s half-joking, half-serious when he asks, “Any weird dreams?”
Eddie perks up at that. “Yeah, actually. Yes.”
“What were they about?”
“It was just the one.” Eddie sits up straighter with his hands out, seemingly prepared to dive right into it—but then he sighs, deflating just as quickly. “Nevermind. S’dumb.”
“Can’t be dumber than escaping death basically unscathed,” Buck retorts. He leans forward. “C’mon, I’m all ears. What happened?”
Eddie tugs at the collar of his hospital gown, a nervous tic that makes him look a hell of a lot younger than he claims to feel. There’s a few more seconds of silent ruminating, a few more absentminded swigs of juice, then—
“You ever been to prom?”
Hearing it should shock Buck. It should shake the ground beneath him, should shift his tectonic plates, should make his eyes bulge out of his skull like a goddamn Looney Tunes character, but it doesn’t. He hardly even reacts to the question.
Maybe it’s the residual morphine in his veins. Maybe it’s the fact that the two of them have aligned on every other axis. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t surprise Buck in the slightest that they somehow shared a coma dream. They share damn near everything else. A home. A kid. A heartbeat.
“Nah,” Buck replies.
“Seriously?”
Buck’s mouth quirks into a lopsided smile—a little drowsy, a little relieved, a little I’m in love with you.
“I got asked.”