Work Text:
Buck isn't like Eddie. Or, who Eddie claims he isn't anymore. Really, he's struggling to catch up – one moment, his best friend's rolling his eyes at the fire team steering away from the Q-word, the next he's stepping into the shoes of a believer of all things mystical and well, yet to be proven, if ever.
One thing, though, remains clear – his house is haunted. He knows it.
Eddie and the rest of his close-knit family refuse to believe him, too caught up in their worldly affairs, but Buck's focus remains sharp on uncovering the mystery fallen over his new residence.
It's just, you know, it would've made far more sense for the haunter to be one of a more recent departure. That Buck could get on board with.
If ghosts were real, he'd like to meet Bobby's.
But sometimes you don't get what you want.
Sometimes you get what you didn't know you even needed.
It's seven in the morning, the night after the whole charade with Ravi and the discovery of the old renter, when Buck defeatedly gives up on seeing his old Captain in a phantom form. He's sipping herbal tea, on a recent attempt to cut down his caffeine intake, humming the melody of a rock song he used to love as a teenager back in Pennsylvania. He can't remember its name nor the lyrics, nor the website that lets you find a song by humming it. His brain's still too scrambled from the events of last night.
It's just– He really thought, maybe deliriously so, that his house was haunted by Bobby. After all he's seen in his field of work, he wouldn't be too surprised by ghosts being real. Some supernatural explanation to distract him from all his grief.
His phone suddenly flashes with a notification from Spotify. He picks it up absentmindedly, yawning over his breakfast, just to see an ad. Haven't listened to Linkin Park in a while, eh? Jump back into Minutes to Midnight now!
Hm. Linkin Park. He hasn't heard that name in ages. The last time he thought of the band was probably when he found out Eddie had been a hard-core fan of them during his misfit adolescent years in El Paso. He and Shannon apparently bonded over them.
Buck quickly puts it out of his mind as he gathers his necessities into his duffel and heads to work.
Just as he's making his way out of his new driveway, though, the radio announcer of his favorite station booms with a sudden, "An oldie but a goodie's next. You know, Richard, it's great that LP is back in action. They never will be the same without Chester, though," before proceeding to play… Leave Out All The Rest from Minutes to Midnight.
Buck quickly realizes…that's the song he'd been humming! What a strange coincidence.
The next twenty-four hours pass in a flurry of Halloween-related incidents, most famously the guy putting himself in a grave after some medical condition that went over Buck's head convinced him that he's dead.
Or, you know, an ordinary one-eighteen shift.
When he gets home, he sleeps well into the afternoon. It’s a mostly peaceful sleep, until rudely interrupted by a loud clank from somewhere in the house.
Buck rubs the sleep from his eyes, heading out of his bedroom to investigate. Just in case, he takes his phone with him, – who knows, what if Dwayne’s got someone to pay his bail and he’s broken back into the house?
He checks the attic first, but sees no sign of the previous renter. The kitchen and living room prove to be empty too. The spare bedroom remains dusty – Buck hasn’t had the time to clean it yet, not expecting visitors anytime soon.
Finally, he gives up, and heads to his bathroom. He’s still a little groggy from his nap, so he ends up leaning down over the sink and washing his face. When he straightens back up, the mirror reflection shows his exhaustion-packed expression with the water droplets clinging to his eyelashes and–
Buck jumps, shrieking. His heart is racing in his throat as he slowly turns around and finds a person having claimed a seat atop his washing machine, appearing small and innocent in her yellow, weather-unappropriate dress.
“Hi, Buck,” says– Kim?!
Buck stands frozen in front of her, mouth hanging open. He hasn’t the slightest clue why and how Eddie’s ex-of-sorts ended up in his bathroom, but he’s too startled to react past probably handing her an expression spelling out, what the fuck?
“You are the Buck, right?” she carries on, seemingly unbothered about Buck’s shock. “I only saw you the one time I visited the fire station, but Eddie mentioned you sometimes. It took me a while to place you, but then last night, you were talking about the Captain, and it finally clicked for me. What a coincidence, huh?”
Buck finally gathers himself enough to talk back to her, gripping his phone.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m going to call…911, if you don’t leave.”
Maybe that’s a bit of an overreaction, but– Well, Kim hasn’t left the greatest impression on Buck. Who in their right mind goes out of their way to dress up as the person’s they’re seeing late wife? Not to mention the repercussions of it, still haunting Buck?
Kim merely chuckles. “As much as it would be entertaining to watch the cops arrive here only to bring you in for a mental health check, I seriously suggest you don’t do that, Buck. I come in peace.”
What is she talking about?!
“What peaceful thing could you possibly be trying to achieve?” Buck snides. “Haven’t you uprooted Eddie’s life enough? What are you doing, coming back into our lives like this, eh, Kim? You’ve caused enough disaster for one year.”
Finally, Kim loses her carefree wit. She takes Buck in, bemused.
“Kim? Huh? Who’s Kim?”
Buck narrows his eyes. “Again, I suggest you leave my house before 911 gets here.”
He unlocks his phone, about to dial the familiar number, when something strange happens. His phone jumps out of his hands, as though it has a mind of its own, and freezes in the air for a small moment before landing softly on the carpet of his bathroom. “What the–?”
“I don’t know who this Kim is,” the woman carries on, jumping off the washing machine to land back on the ground. “But I assure you I’m not her. The name’s Shannon. I’m Eddie’s wife. Or, I guess, ex-wife. Do you not remember me?”
Buck lets out a laugh. “Weird deflection. Didn’t you forget something, though? Shannon’s–”
“Dead, yes,” she finishes in his place. “Evidently, I’m a ghost. Spirit. However you’d like to call me.”
Buck’s about to seriously question Kim’s sanity – more than he already has, when he finally takes her in. All five something feet of her, the yellow dress running down to her knees, and–
Okay, so Kim’s feet aren’t touching the ground. They’re hovering an inch above it, seemingly swept up in the air by some invisible force. Though Buck can see his own shadow on the bathroom floor, he can’t see Kim’s.
“What’s– What’s wrong with you?” asks Buck, jumping away so that his lower back painfully meets the bathroom sink.
“Wow. You always talk to women this way?” Kim– Shannon shoots back.
“This isn’t– This is not real,” Buck talks to himself. “I’m still asleep and, for some reason, having a very weird dream about my best friend’s late wife.”
“I assure you this is real,” says Shannon. “How do you usually know when you’re dreaming?”
For the sake of his sanity, he checks out his arms. He sees them, clear as day, all the tattoos he’s inked his body with. None of them are missing or unintelligible. In dreams, Buck usually can’t even steer down his gaze to take in the art on his skin.
He must’ve gone insane. This is some weird manifestation of his grief. Though, why would he be seeing Shannon’s hallucination of all people, instead of Bobby’s?
“For someone who was convinced a ghost was haunting your house just the other night, you sure seem to be a skeptic,” says Shannon’s hallucination. “I assure you, I’m not made up by your mind. I happen to haunt the renters of 3372 Hamilton Way. I don’t know why. My guess is that it’s not very far from the street I died on, but who knows?”
3372 Hamilton Way. That’s Buck’s new address.
“Say something,” prods Buck. “Something only a ghost would know.”
Shannon’s eyes twinkle with glee. “Are you sure you want to go down that route? Because, you know, I’ve seen all your searches on porn websites… How about I just walk through the wall or something?”
“Okay, okay, walk through a wall, then!” says Buck, his cheeks flaming red.
Shannon shrugs noncommittally, then snaps her fingers and–
Disappears from his line of sight.
A moment passes, and she doesn’t come back.
Buck releases a relieved breath. Okay, thankfully this weird hallucination is over.
He heads out of the bathroom, only to stumble right into something icy and–
“Wah!” he stumbles forwards, having walked right through the image of Shannon, standing outside his bathroom door.
The ghost of her.
“Sorry, that’s not pleasant for me either,” she announces, ironing out her dress. “So, I should’ve told you – I can’t actually walk through walls. But I’ve got this cool trick where, if I snap my fingers, I can show up at another location in the house.”
But Buck’s hardly hearing her.
“What the hell?! You’re a ghost!”
“Yes, yes, I thought we settled that already,” Shannon says impatiently. She takes a seat – or an alteration of taking a seat, since her body doesn’t touch its surface – on Buck’s bed. “Can we move on already? I’ve got lots of questions. After being stuck in this house for several years with only Dwayne for my companion, I haven’t kept up with the world. Kept up with Eddie and Christopher. But you know them!”
It’s then Buck realizes.
“Eddie! I gotta call Eddie!”
He’s scrambling for his phone, before remembering that it’s back on the bathroom floor.
“Hey, wait–!” Shannon starts, but Buck’s already back in the bathroom, grabbing his phone and dialing the number at the top of his Recents list. Shannon’s voice booms behind him. “Eddie can’t–”
He slams the door on her, listening in on the beats of the call. It takes one, two–
“Buck, now is not a good time,” Eddie’s voice immediately announces.
It’s not often he says that. Maybe he’s still upset over their unresolved argument from the other day?
“Yeah, I know we kinda had a fight but you gotta come over to–”
“Abuela's dead.”
Buck’s head, previously spinning from the appearance of Shannon, quiets down into something solemn.
“W-what?”
“She passed away in her sleep last night. I gotta– Pepa and I are handling it.”
He realizes then how exhausted Eddie sounds. He’s only heard this tone in his best friend’s voice once, back when Buck would call him after the lab, before Eddie could arrange flights to head back to Los Angeles.
“I'm– I'm so sorry, Eddie. Where are you? I can be there as soon as I can.”
“It's okay. I don't need more company. I've got Pepa and Chris. I can come by later tonight if something's urgent, though?”
Something is urgent. The ghost of Shannon is currently in Buck’s new residence.
But Abuela’s passed away. So has Bobby.
Maybe… With how insane the situation is, Eddie’s got enough on his plate to introduce the ghost of his late wife into his life, despite it probably being the once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity it is.
“N-no, it's okay,” says Buck, still shell-shocked from the news. “Be with your family. I– Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you.”
“Will do. I need to–”
“Yeah. Yeah, off you go. I'm truly sorry, Eddie.”
“Yeah. This year's just been–” Eddie lets out a defeated sigh. “Anyway. Talk to you soon.”
Eddie ends the call, leaving Buck behind in his bathroom, with his heart sunken in his chest. He can’t believe it. Abuela’s gone. Abuela, who always brightened up every room she was in. Abuela, who helped make Eddie into the wonderful human he is. Abuela, who always welcomed Buck to every Diaz family gathering, like he’s part of it.
A tear drips down his cheek, but he brushes it away for later.
After all, he’s got an urgent problem in his bedroom on the other side of the door.
He can’t fool his brain into not believing her. Shannon’s right – just a few days ago, he’d been convinced that a real ghost was haunting his new house. He believed in the possibility of Bobby coming back for one final goodbye. What’s so surprising about ghosts being real, even if it’s not the ghosts you want to be real?
“I can’t believe it,” says Shannon, sniffling in her spot on Buck’s bed, when he enters his bedroom again. “Abuela? Oh, she was such a sweet woman.”
“Yeah,” Buck agrees. He intends to sit on his bed, but can’t help feeling a little afraid from being too close to, well, a supernatural being. He settles instead for the chair by his bedroom desk. “Look, Shannon– Can I call you that? We’ve never properly met.”
Shannon shrugs. “Go ahead.”
“I guess my first question is– Um, why are you a ghost?” Buck settles on.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” she responds. “I would, if I knew. But if we want to guess, I would go for what they say in the movies. Maybe I’m left behind here because my story isn’t quite finished yet. Maybe I need to do something first to be able to finally move on.”
“Like what?” Buck wonders.
“Beats me.”
Buck goes over everything Shannon revealed already in his head. “So, you said– You’ve been haunting this house for several years?”
“Since May 6th, 2019,” she confirms. “Again, I don’t know why this house in particular. It’s not like someone’s given me an explanation. I was here on my own for a few years, before they renovated the house and Dwayne moved in.”
“And Dwayne– He knew about you?”
“Hence the booze,” Shannon guesses. “Apparently, dead or alive, I’m quite the nuisance.”
Buck wrinkles his nose at that, but doesn’t comment on it. It’s not like they’re close enough that telling Shannon she isn’t a nuisance would make her believe it.
There’s something bugging Buck, though.
“I don’t know about Dwayne’s part in all of this, but isn’t it curious that I moved in here? Someone who knew– knows you?”
Shannon shrugs again. “I’d say it’s a convenient coincidence. Dwayne would shut me out all the time, trying to pretend I’m not here, so I never managed to convince him to reach out to my loved ones and see how they’re doing. I hope you’re going to be more forthcoming.”
“I– I don’t know. How am I supposed to tell Eddie about this?” Eddie, who’d believe Buck to be going through some crisis.
“Oh, that’s the thing I was going to tell you before you slammed that door on me – which, rude,” says Shannon, arching a brow at him. “You can’t tell Eddie about me. The thing is, only the person renting the house can see me. Again, I don’t know why.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dwayne sent several priests to the house,” she explains. “They couldn’t see me. Neither could any of his buddies. They all thought he must’ve had too much to drink. Poor dude. I liked him.”
Buck sits with the information he has for a moment. It, evidently, is a very odd predicament. Having the ghost of your best friend’s late wife haunt your house, and not being able to tell him or anyone about it. All Buck knows of Shannon is what Eddie’s told him about her. And it’s not much – Eddie’s been guarded with details.
“Can you just tell me if they’re okay?” asks Shannon, interrupting his thoughts.
“What, who?”
“Eddie. Chris,” her voice breaks over the mention of her son. “Are they doing alright, with me– You know,” she motions to her ghost-self.
“I–” Buck feels like it’s not his place to talk about it in the slightest. “I mean, all I can tell you is what I’ve seen. Eddie’s struggled, so has Christopher, and they miss you every day. But it’s more in the background these days, you know? They’ll never fully move on. It’s not like anyone can, when someone dear to you dies suddenly, without a proper goodbye.”
Buck realizes that he may’ve not been talking about Shannon for that last bit, but it’s a true statement regardless.
Shannon worries her lip, tapping lightly on her thigh.
“You really think Chris still misses me?” she asks quietly, something insecure in her tone.
“Of course he does,” says Buck, attempting to soothe her worries. “You’re his mom.”
“Still, I wasn’t– Wasn’t much of a mom for half of his life. My mom got sick, and Eddie was distracted and– I never wanted to leave Chris, but by leaving Eddie, I had to,” she finishes, sniffing softly through her nose.
Buck wishes he could tell her that the leaving part never bothered Christopher, but he still remembers that night a few years ago, with the thirteen-year-old boy confessing to him that she left us; we loved her, and she left anyway.
Still, though, it’s not his place to share that.
He can, however, share something from his own life.
“I have an older sister, Maddie,” he begins, and Shannon looks up at him. “She was my whole world growing up, back in Pennsylvania. I wanted to leave our complicated home behind with her, run as far as we could. But when the time came to leave, Maddie told me that she couldn’t go with me, for reasons I couldn’t understand until much later. So, I left on my own.”
“Where’d you go?” wonders Shannon.
“Around the Americas,” Buck carries on. “You wouldn’t believe the odd jobs I worked. But eventually, I found a life in Los Angeles, became a firefighter at the one-eighteen, met B-Bobby and Hen and Chim, and eventually, Eddie, of course. In fact, Eddie entered my life at the same time as Maddie re-entered it,” he realizes. “She came to Los Angeles to find me. I was surprised and still a little mad at her, but eventually the truth came out about why she couldn’t leave– But even if so. It doesn’t matter what the excuse for not leaving with me was. It’s the fact that she did come back, even if it took her a hot minute to be ready to.”
Shannon nods in understanding. At least, Buck hopes he reads her well enough.
“Did you forgive her? Maddie, for the lost time?” she wonders.
“She made up for it,” says Buck. “Family, at least real family, always forgives.”
Buck hopes Shannon reads into his implications. He’s never doubted that the Diaz family held much love for one another, when Shannon was still alive. Sure, they went through some tough times, and Shannon tried to divorce Eddie before her death, but love is forever, no matter what shape or form. Eddie still loves Shannon. Chris still does. They must’ve forgiven her.
“You seem to know more about me than you let on,” says Shannon, thoughtful. “You and Eddie are good friends, then?”
“Best friends. We always have each other’s backs,” he adds, hoping it stresses the point.
Something solemn washes over Shannon’s face, but it’s gone before Buck can question it.
“Well, uh, I might pop back in at some point,” she says quickly, standing up from the bed. “I don’t always need to be, well, fleshed out like this. But you’ll feel my presence. I do mess around with the house sometimes for the fun of it.”
“I’ve gathered,” says Buck, chuckling. “Well, it’s been nice to–”
But Shannon’s already snapped her fingers and disappeared from his line of sight.
Buck waits a moment for her to come back, but she doesn’t. He wonders about her abrupt departure, but in the end, can’t come up with any reason for it – after all, it’s not like he knows Shannon. Mostly knows of her.
He realizes then that he’s starving and heads to the kitchen to scramble together some dinner.
Shannon doesn’t ‘pop back in’ for so long, that Buck convinces himself he must’ve endured a mental episode. But then Eddie has some mysterious plans for the night, and he refuses to let Christopher stay at the house all night on his own, so he, very unexpectedly, brings his son to Buck’s.
“Sorry about the last-minute call,” Eddie apologizes on the doorstep. Christopher is lingering about several feet behind him, staring so intensely at his dad’s back like he’s trying to pierce through him with his gaze. Eddie lowers his voice to a whisper and adds, “He’s not too happy about me wanting to find a babysitter. But with Abuela just passed away– I just don’t want him to be left all on his own right now.”
Buck understands. He, too, could hardly handle being alone after Bobby. If nobody was around to distract him, he’d hunch in on himself, his thoughts spiraling into scary, miserable tangents. He wouldn’t want Christopher to feel that way.
Eddie promptly leaves, still secretive about his plans, but Buck can’t linger on it too long, for Chris stomps into the house, heading straight for the kitchen. “I’m hungry,” he grumbles, in his too-deep voice for someone Buck can still recall as an innocent seven-year-old.
Christopher ends up raiding his fridge and the cupboards, until he finally finds Buck’s secret snack stash. Buck’s too endeared by his teenaged hunger to notice a presence beside him by the kitchen island.
“He’s so big,” Shannon voices, full of wonder and a tinge of sadness.
Buck startles a little, but otherwise doesn’t make a noise, remembering what Shannon told him. No one else but him can see her.
“Can you put on a movie?” inquires Chris, oblivious to the presence in the kitchen.
“Uh, what are you into these days?” wonders Buck absentmindedly.
“Something serious,” answers Chris, tossing to Buck several bags of snacks for him to carry to the living room. “Dad still doesn’t let me watch 16+ movies, but you will, right? That’s why you’re the fun, uh, friend,” he adds the last part with a strange smug to his face.
“Hey, your dad is plenty fun,” points out Buck. “But fine. What about–? Hm, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
“Nice try. That’s a kid’s movie.”
“Just because something is partly animated doesn’t make it a kid’s movie,” Buck points out. “It’s actually a very thought-provoking movie! For adults, too.”
Christopher rolls his eyes. “Fine. Put it on.”
Buck feels like he’s won, which is a rarity with teenagers, so he feels accomplished.
“Someone’s got an attitude,” says Shannon, arching a brow as she watches Christopher head to the living room. “Wonder who he got that from.”
“Well, he’s almost fifteen now. Everyone’s got an attitude at that age,” mutters Buck.
Buck starts following after Eddie’s son, when he realizes Shannon has frozen in place.
“Fifteen?” she echoes. Her eyes begin to fill and Buck realizes his casual mistake. “I’ve been dead longer than I was a part of his life.”
“Hey,” Buck starts quietly, trying to be soothing about it. “It’s not your–”
“Buck, what’s taking you so long?” Christopher’s voice booms from the living room.
Buck’s stopped in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, unsure which way to go, who needs him more. Shannon gently – and icily – nudges him backwards, so he settles for the living being in the house.
Buck settles on the couch beside Chris, making some room between them, maybe for Shannon to scoot in. But the ghost takes a seat on the arm of the couch, mere inches from Christopher.
The boy shudders. “Have you got heating on?”
“Yeah, at seventy degrees.”
“Maybe I’m coming down with something,” wonders Christopher, grabbing a fistful of chips from the bag he’s opened. “I wouldn’t mind getting sick. I’ve got this huge test in Biology coming up that I haven’t studied for yet.”
“Hey now,” says Buck, while Shannon huffs out, “Priorities!”
The movie starts and the three of them – though Christopher isn’t aware there are three of them – watch the TV screen intently, laughing together at all the right parts, and frowning when, despite the aged special effects, the creatures of the movie end up scaring them.
Christopher nods off only a few minutes before it’s over, snoring softly as he absentmindedly sinks into the arm of the couch, right next to the ghost version of his mom. He shudders again, so Buck gently covers him with a blanket.
He heads back to the kitchen to get himself a drink, and Shannon quietly follows.
“He seems to like you,” she announces, with a hint of something Buck can’t place to her tone. “You make him laugh. You’ve got this– Dynamic between you.”
“Um, I guess,” says Buck, switching on the kettle for his recent usual – herbal tea to put him to sleep. “We’ve been through a lot together, Chris and I. Most of it good, but– There’s been some hiccups.”
“Hiccups?” prods Shannon, concerned now.
“We might’ve been involved in a tsunami once–” he starts, pausing when Shannon’s eyes bulge out. “But what matters is, we made it out alive. I mean, we did lose each other in the aftershocks for several hours, but Christopher turned up back into our– Eddie’s arms.”
Shannon is quiet for several moments, before she surprises Buck.
“Tell me about it? This… tsunami?”
Whether it’s curiosity or concern, Buck is not about to hide a huge trauma that Christopher experienced from his mother. He indulges her, starting the story as best as he remembers, even with his memories somewhat spotty because, well, it too was Buck’s trauma.
“I suffered a bad injury at work, actually, only a week or so after you, uh, passed away.” He’s not sure if it’s polite to talk to ghosts about their departure, but Shannon urges him to go on. “My leg got messed up. Then my Captain, B-Bobby, wouldn’t let me back to work, even after half a year passed. I got depressed. Wouldn’t leave my house.
“That is, until Eddie showed up at my old place, with Chris in tow, asking me to take him someplace, mostly for my sake,” Buck carries on. “So, I did. I took him to the Santa Monica pier. It was supposed to be a fun little outing, and it was until– Chris noticed that the water had gone away. And then–”
Buck takes a deep, shuddering breath. “The tsunami sirens went off, and I grabbed Chris, running away as fast as I could. I dropped him somewhere safe, somewhere I could retrieve him from after the wave crashed over the pier. It’s a bit blurry when it did, but as soon as I resurfaced, I tried to find him. I don’t know how, but I ended up bringing him to the top of a nearby fire engine, still above the water.
“Other people caught in the wave started screaming for help,” Buck recalls. “I brought as many as I could atop the truck, making sure Chris was okay. Several bodies flowed by in the stream, and I tried to distract Chris so he wouldn’t see them. We were probably on that truck for hours when the aftershocks hit us. And Chris– He slipped from the truck and went under.”
This is the most painful part of the memory. “I jumped back into the water, looking for him, yelling for him as loud as I could, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. I thought that was it. I’d lost him. He’d died under my watch. I’ve killed the most important person to my– To Eddie.
“I spent hours searching for him, questioning everyone that passed by if they’d seen a little boy with red glasses. Then I found his glasses, wrapped up in junk created by the wave. I was preparing my speech to Eddie in my head. How only months after his wife passed away, I’ve taken away his son, too.”
Buck sniffles, and he notices that Shannon, too, is teary-eyed.
“I found Eddie eventually. He was working at a field hospital with the rest of the one-eighteen. He had no idea that Christopher and I had been on the pier. So, I showed him his glasses, about to tell him the worst possible sentence I could muster– When Christopher turned up in a strange woman’s arms, just in Eddie’s line of sight. Relief doesn’t cut it. I was overjoyed. Grateful. I think I even believed in God or some kind of higher power at that moment. Chris was safe, almost unscathed, barring a few bruises. He was with his dad. They were both with each other.”
Buck ends the story there, not certain if he can explain the aftermath of the tsunami just yet, but Shannon doesn’t seem to pry. He realizes that the kettle isn’t making any sounds anymore, having switched off in the middle of Buck’s story. He pours the hot water into a cup with the herbal tea, letting it rest on the kitchen island.
“Thank you,” Shannon says eventually. Earnestly.
“For what?”
Shannon furrows her brows. “For what?” she echoes, attempting a deeper voice that doesn’t sound like Buck’s in the slightest. “What do you think? You saved my son’s life.”
“I didn’t, not really– The woman–”
Shannon cuts him short. “It’s not about who found him. It’s about who was looking for him. Besides, he didn’t magically end up on top of that fire truck. You brought him there. You saved Christopher. I–” She pauses, something seemingly catching up to her. “Not only that, but you also saved Eddie. No wonder he–”
Shannon cuts herself off once more. Buck’s curiosity doesn’t get the better of him. He’s still fragile from reliving the trauma.
“So, take the thanks,” she carries on eventually. “I owe you one.”
Buck cracks a smile at that. How could a ghost possibly repay a favor, even if Buck’s not looking for one?
Before he can answer, though, a knock on the door to the house startles them. Eddie.
Buck quietly maneuvers through the house in the semi-darkness, making sure he doesn’t wake Christopher just yet, opening the door to let Eddie in. He doesn’t look back to check if Shannon follows, but she certainly doesn’t say anything.
“Back so soon?” asks Buck, inviting Eddie to the hallway.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what I was thinking,” says Eddie, in a lowered voice as well, caught up to the fact that Chris must be asleep. “Going on a date? After the disaster that was Kim last year?”
Wait. “You were on a date?”
“It was just drinks with this–” Eddie cuts himself short. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot about something my Abuela told me before she passed away and– I thought I’d go out there looking for it.”
Buck feels his lips thinning into a line. “What did she tell you?”
“Something about– Me looking in the wrong place. So, I thought– I don’t know what I thought, it’s not going to make sense,” says Eddie, uncharacteristically stumbling over his words. That’s more of a Buck thing. “I guess I’m having a crisis.”
“What kind of crisis? Should I be concerned?”
Eddie falls silent. He focuses on something behind Buck’s shoulder, squinting.
Buck follows his gaze. It falls directly on Shannon’s ghost, in the dark hallway behind them.
Wait? Can Eddie see her?
Before he can question his best friend, Eddie’s gaze falls back onto Buck.
“You know, juice,” says Eddie.
Juice? Is that code for something?
“This priest told me that all this time I’ve been picking water over juice,” Eddie clarifies. “Not because I don’t like juice. I actually love juice. Crave it. But I pick water over it because it’s safer.”
“I don’t understand,” says Buck, his nose wrinkling. “Is it because water’s cheaper?”
“No, not that,” Eddie shakes his head. His eyes are– pleading. “I guess I’ve just been trying to– You know, lean into my desire for juice. Except, I tried, tonight, and while I did enjoy it, it still wasn’t– Exactly the kind of juice I’m looking for.”
Buck is so, so lost.
“Maybe you should consider a different brand?”
“What?”
“Like, say you love juice with pulp,” Buck carries on. “But so far, you’ve only tried clear, liquid juice. Maybe you tasted juice with pulp when you were a kid, and have been looking for it since. Maybe you’re looking for something, I don’t know, familiar? Maybe it’s been right in front of you, but you keep walking past it in the store.”
Mostly, Buck’s just rolling with this juice metaphor. He has no clue what it actually stands for. But something, after his speech, seems to occur to Eddie. Something huge, based on the way his eyes widen, then soften the longer he looks at Buck.
“I think–” he manages, licking his lips in wonderment. “Maybe you’re onto something.”
Buck’s still bemused. “Good talk, then? I’ll go wake up Chris.”
“Wait–” Eddie interrupts him, grasping his wrist to stop him from leaving just yet. Something buzzes under Buck’s skin at the light touch. “Um. But how do I–? How do I know the pulp juice wants me to find it? What if it’s–? Hiding from me on purpose? What if it doesn’t want me to have it?”
“I don’t know, Eddie. Sometimes you just gotta risk it,” Buck decides. It’s too late to be talking in circles about some mysterious juice. Frankly, the movie and the conversation with Shannon tired him out.
They go to wake up Chris, who grumbles about the interruption of his nap, but follows Eddie out. Buck stands in the doorway, watching after them to the car. Once Christopher settles into the passenger seat, Eddie shuts the door behind him and heads back to say goodbye to Buck.
“Thanks for watching him,” he says quickly. “You know, he’s too young to have been through as much loss as he has. Shannon, Bobby, now Abuela– I’m worried about him. Do you think I should take him back to therapy?”
“Talk to him about what he wants,” Buck guesses. “Do you want me to help talk to him?”
“It’s alright,” says Eddie. “You’ve done more than enough. I’ll see you around?”
“At work.”
Eddie hesitates a moment, before doing something really strange. He pulls out his hand… For a shake?
Buck’s hand seems to have a mind of its own, because it reaches back, shaking Eddie’s.
They stay in the shake for several moments longer than is acceptable among men, Buck feeling the warmth from Eddie’s skin, letting it seep deep into his bones. This is probably the longest they’ve touched since– Ever.
Eddie clears his throat and finally pulls away, trotting back to his car without another word.
In another moment, Buck shuts the door and turns around, just to be startled by Shannon.
Except, something’s wrong with Shannon. She’s frozen in the hallway where Buck last saw her, her entire ghost-self…glitching in and out of existence?
“What’s happening?” asks Buck, striding toward her.
“I– Don’t– Know–,” she manages, through the stuttering of her existence. “This has– Never– Happened– Before.”
Buck, too, is barely familiar with ghosts, not to mention their logistics. He grows more helpless the longer he takes Shannon in, until finally, the glitching comes to a halt. She finds the ground beneath her feet again – not literally –, and heaves out an exhausted breath.
“That was…strange,” is how she concludes her temporary loss of function.
“Yeah,” breathes out Buck. “Are you okay? Well, as okay as you can be, what, with being a ghost?”
Shannon touches around her non-corporeal body. She doesn’t seem to find a scratch.
“Interesting,” she notes. She doesn’t seem to be freaked out in the slightest. Unlike Buck.
“What’s interesting?”
Shannon looks past Buck, at the door he’d just clicked shut.
“You know,” she starts eventually, deep in thought about something. “I think I may know how to repay that favor.”
“What do you–?”
But Shannon’s already snapped her fingers, disappearing from the hallway.
Buck lets out a sigh, before resolving to just go to sleep.
“What do you know about ghosts?”
It’s not a non-Buck question, but it’s a strange question regardless, when he brings it up to Chimney on their next shift together. Calls haven’t come in for a few hours, and they’re all lounging in the loft. Eddie and Hen are deep in shushed conversation about something, Ravi is reading on his Kindle, and the only person to talk to is his new Captain.
Chimney seems on board with the line of questioning, as Buck expected.
“Okay. Are we talking Casper or Ghost Riders?”
Buck shakes his head. “What’s the difference?”
“One is evil,” says Chim, rolling his eyes to say, duh. “So, Casper or Ghost Riders?”
“Um, let’s just stick to my hypothetical,” decides Buck. “Say, the ghost of a person you know is haunting your house. They’ve been very ghost-like for the most part, but they experienced a bit of a glitch, where they temporarily lost their ghost form.”
“What happened prior to this glitch?” wonders Chim.
Buck scrambles for an answer. Nothing, really? He does still wince at the memory of the strange handshake between him and Eddie, but a handshake has never hurt anyone, ghost or otherwise.
“Don’t indulge him, Chim,” says Hen, from across the loft, where she’s stopped conversing with Eddie at the dining table. “Enough is enough. The ‘ghost’ in your house wasn’t a ghost, Buck. It was just the old renter hiding in your attic.”
“I know that,” says Buck sourly. “I’m talking about a hypothetical ghost.”
“Well,” Chimney carries on, ignoring Hen’s request to end the conversation. “I suppose a ghost glitching is never a good sign. For the ghost, that is. Maybe it means they’re moving on?”
“Moving on? Like, their purpose on Earth being fulfilled?”
“Or becoming evil,” says Chim. “It’s either of the two.”
Buck sure hopes Shannon isn’t turning into an evil ghost. That would suck.
“Back to the moving on part,” he tells Chim. “How would a ghost know what purpose they need fulfilling?”
“Usually, something or someone is keeping them tethered to Earth. So, maybe when the hypothetical ghost is close to that something getting out of the way, they start what you called glitching. Make sense?”
Huh. It makes some sense. But what could possibly be holding Shannon back from entering the afterlife?
Is it Christopher? But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not like Shannon can look out for him in any way. She’s stuck in the house. Until Buck moved in, several years of the haunting later, she had no idea what was going on with Christopher.
Eddie then? That’s an equal amount of sense. Besides, Shannon did move on from Eddie. After all, at her last meeting with Eddie before her death, she proposed a divorce.
Buck’s out of ideas. Maybe he needs to talk to Shannon herself about it.
Next time she appears, he will.
Shannon refuses to re-appear. Buck’s tried calling for her, but all she does in response is hum old Linkin Park songs. It’s especially annoying because Buck can’t tell which songs she’s humming.
It isn’t until the next time Eddie comes over, that Shannon is suddenly there, hovering cross-legged in the air above his living room TV, distracting Buck from the fight they’re watching. Though, only Eddie’s really watching it – Buck cares little about the fight, and much more about Eddie’s enthusiasm about it.
“Why now?” he mouths at her, unable to speak openly with Eddie beside him.
Shannon merely shrugs, not saying a word in turn.
Buck thinks, dunno, maybe she’s missed the sight of Eddie, but then–
A series of strange things start happening.
First, it gets increasingly hot in the living room. Sauna-like temperature. Buck goes to check the heater, but it’s firm on seventy degrees, just like he’s set it to be. He pops the living room window open, but no air seems to come into the space.
“Christ, it’s hot in here,” says Eddie. “Mind if I take my shirt off?”
“No, it’s fine. I think my heater’s going crazy,” guesses Buck.
So, Eddie takes his Henley off. His eyes remain glued to the TV screen, shoveling popcorn into his mouth. Buck’s gaze, however– Trails down the expanse of Eddie’s skin, his toned stomach, his soft, shaved chest – for what reason, Buck has no idea –, and the way his back flexes every time Eddie moves closer to the screen, unaware of his best friend’s staring.
Shannon, still above the TV, honest-to-God giggles.
“What?” he mouths at her. Is this some weird attempt to get her ex-husband naked so she could stare at his body? If so, that’s just– Shameless! It’s not polite to stare at someone without them being aware of it.
And Buck’s staring was different. At least Eddie knows he’s there with him. Besides, Buck was watching Eddie anyway, with or without the shirt.
Minutes pass of this strange heat, with Eddie remaining shirtless. Then Buck’s phone screen comes to life on the coffee table in front of them. It dings with a familiar–
“Is that a Grindr notification?” asks Eddie, furrowing his brows.
“No– I mean, yes, but– I deleted it off my phone!” Buck scrambles for an excuse, not understanding how on Earth his phone could ding with a notification from an app he no longer has. He downloaded it in a moment of weakness after Tommy, but deleted it as soon as he realized he wasn’t ready to have casual sex yet. Maybe ever again.
It doesn’t occur to him why Eddie would know the sound of a Grindr notification.
Eddie’s gaze is still on the TV, but his lips have thinned into a line.
“I didn’t realize you were dating again,” he says under his breath.
“I’m not,” stresses Buck. “Seriously, I don’t understand how that notification came through! I deleted the app months ago.”
“But you were on it, say, those months ago?” wonders Eddie.
“For a little bit,” Buck explains. “I guess, after Tommy blew me off the second time, I wanted to get back out there. I was lonely, and you were in Texas– It was a confusing time. Tommy got in my head about–”
Oh.
Oh.
Buck thinks he realizes what’s happening.
But–
No. There’s no way. Buck has given Shannon no implication that he’s–
Besides, Buck’s not. He’s not! Tommy – and Maddie – were talking crazy.
But what if?
He waits for something else to happen, just to prove his probably deluded suspicions wrong. Except, it doesn’t happen.
They’re proven right.
Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is a pattern.
The TV screen switches suddenly to a different channel. Instead of the sweaty fight, they’re looking at an entirely different sweaty scene. Say, cowboys in a tent, named Ennis and Jack, having a great time–
“I’m not in love with you!” Buck shouts, delirious, aiming at nothing or no one in particular. Not Eddie. Not Shannon.
A long beat passes. Buck refuses to look at Eddie.
“W-what?” he finally manages, choked.
“I’m just saying–” Buck tries, his chest heaving like he’s verging on a panic attack. “You’re straight– So, I can’t– I’m not in love with you, if you were wondering.”
Eddie doesn’t answer. Buck glances over at Shannon, whose face is entirely too smug.
Finally, he lets his graze trail onto Eddie, shock and– hurt? written all over his expression.
He parts his lips several times to speak, but shuts them just as many.
Maybe Buck broke him.
“So, you’re not in l-love with me,” Eddie takes his time with the words. “–because I’m straight? Like, that is your sole reason?”
Ha, Shannon exhales, throwing her fist in the air.
“N-no, I mean–” This is completely uncharted waters. What in the world made Buck bring this up now? It’s been months since the idea was introduced to him by his overly insecure ex-boyfriend. “It’s a pretty solid reason!” he settles on, feeling like he’s won the argument.
Except, Eddie doesn’t seem to think so.
“But what if–” his eyes wander all around Buck’s face, taking in his flaming cheeks. “–what if I wasn’t? How would you feel then?”
Buck’s lost. What if Eddie wasn’t what?
The TV with the sex scene between Ennis and Jack turns up louder in volume.
“Straight, I mean,” Eddie concludes eventually.
Oh. Buck lets out a weak laugh. “I mean, that’s a good hypothetical. If you weren’t straight, hm… I would probably be too scared to fall into the stereotype, you know?”
“Stereotype?”
“Like, falling in love with your same-gender best friend,” Buck explains. “Hen says it’s a queer rite of passage. But it usually never works out.”
“Oh,” Eddie exhales. “I didn’t know that.”
“So, either way, you’re in luck!” Why is Buck’s voice so high all of a sudden?
The sounds from the TV come to a halt. Buck glances at it, finding that the signal is lost.
“I should–” Eddie stands up suddenly. He briefly forgets about the lack of his shirt, and then grabs it from the couch beside him. “I should go.”
“What? Why–?” Buck starts, not catching up to Eddie, who’s moving quickly out of the living room, hastily trying to pull his Henley over his head. He bumps into the wall momentarily, but finally manages to clothe himself again.
“I’ll see you around,” Eddie fires at him, and then the door to Buck’s house slams shut.
What the hell was that about?
He turns to Shannon, no longer hovering above the TV, but sitting in the spot beside him on the couch that Eddie just departed. “What on Earth were you–?” He starts, only to be interrupted by an icy flick to his forehead.
“Are you an idiot?!” Shannon exclaims. “I was trying so hard! Do you think it brings me pleasure trying to make my ex-husband hook up with his boy bestie?”
“Well, you seemed to be having fun!” exclaims Buck. “What made you think that needed to happen?”
“What–? It’s obvious, isn’t it?” says Shannon, deflating. “All this time– I thought I’m the one who’s stuck. But I read through your messages with Eddie over the years. Ana, Marisol, Kim–” Shannon makes a disgusted sound. “It’s Eddie’s who’s stuck. On me.”
“So what? You were the love of his life,” Buck says sourly. A green monster rears its head in his chest at the admission.
“And he might’ve made sure everyone believed that,” Shannon carries on. “But– Okay, that talk Eddie gave you the other night? About the juice?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You’re the juice, Buck! The juice with pulp,” she clarifies. “I admit, Eddie isn’t the greatest at metaphors – never has been –, but it seemed obvious to me, after years of trying to read between his lines. I always suspected that Eddie wasn’t all the way in with me because of something. He didn’t have my back through most of our marriage. Marriage we were forced into as teenagers, I’ll have you know. But you– He has your back. And Christopher– Christopher loves you. In his own antsy teenage way, but he loves you. I could see it clear as day when he was here. He might miss me – I selfishly hope he does – but the role of another parent for him has been filled long before any of you realized it, if you even have. And you love him. And, if I’m right, you love Eddie, too.”
Buck and Shannon sit in a prolonged silence after her speech. Buck’s trying to wrap his head around all of it.
Water. Juice. Juice with pulp. Buck’s never been good with metaphors. Especially not the strange ones from Eddie. His best friend does have a liking for talking between the lines.
“Wait,” he says suddenly, half-catched up to Shannon’s line of thinking. “So, if you think Eddie is stuck on you– That’s what’s holding you back on Earth? What’s making you linger in this house?”
“It makes some sense, doesn’t it?” wonders Shannon.
“But then–” Buck blinks feverishly. “If Eddie moves on from thinking you’re the love of his life– That would mean you would cease to exist.”
Shannon merely stares at him, a small grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“But I can’t– If I were to do something with Eddie– I can’t just kill you,” Buck lands on.
“I’m already dead, Buck,” points out Shannon. “If you were to handle this Eddie business, it wouldn’t kill me. It would set me free. Do you think I like being stuck in this house? I can’t keep ruining people’s lives haunting this place.”
“You haven’t ruined my life,” says Buck. “Not in the slightest. You’re my– My friend. I– I like you.”
Shannon seems taken aback, blinking at him in bemusement. Buck doesn’t get it. Is it really so strange that he’s taken a liking to the ghost residing with him in this house? A ghost that some of the most important people to him love?
Shannon recovers, trying to smile at him again. “Buck. Think about it. Eddie loves you. Eddie Diaz, your greatest friend in the world, loves you the same way you love him. Me? I’m just a ghost. A lingering presence that should’ve been gone from this plane of existence years ago. Are you really willing to sacrifice Eddie’s love for you over plain old me?”
“But–”
“You wished the ghost haunting your house was Bobby’s,” she cuts him off, determined. “I’m not even what you expected. I’m– Irrelevant. I’m just a pawn in this game. It was all about your happiness – maybe that’s why I’m haunting this house, the house that you moved into. And it’s about Eddie’s.”
“But you’re not irrelevant,” argues Buck. “Not to Chris. Not to Eddie. Not to me.”
A lone tear trickles down Shannon’s ghostly cheek.
“I appreciate that, Buck. You’re a good friend,” she says, earnestly. “But it’s time for me to move on. I want to move on. So I can look after you – all three of you –, from wherever I’m heading next. It would be my pleasure.”
Buck realizes that his eyes, too, are wet.
He takes Shannon in, the yellow dress of hers, fading in color.
It finally occurs to him then.
“Eddie loves me?” he chokes out.
Shannon perks up, wiping away her tears. “Now you’re talking!”
“But– He left,” Buck realizes.
“So? Go after him!” Shannon urges.
Buck shoots up from the couch, not entirely sure if that was his doing or Shannon’s. Some force drags him all the way to his door, before he manages to snip off its tread and turn back around, to catch one last glimpse of Shannon.
“Are you going to be here when I get back?” he asks.
Shannon resolutely shakes her head.
“Go get him, cowboy.”
The drive to Eddie’s house is silent. Or, the radio is. Buck’s head is buzzing.
The truth is starting to catch up to him. All the signs over the years, all the almost’s, all the trying and searching for Eddie in other people, when he’d been right in front of him all along. It’s dizzying as much as it’s electrifying.
He briefly thinks if he should stop by the florist’s to get Eddie flowers. Maybe he shouldn’t rush into this. After all, this has been nearly a decade in the making.
In the end, he decides not to. He remembers Shannon back at his house, eager to be done with her curse. He owes it to her to free her. He won’t wait a moment longer than he has to.
By the time Buck parks in front of the home he recently called his own, but has been his for much longer than that, he sees that there are no lights on in the house. It’s getting dark – maybe Eddie didn’t head straight home after Buck’s?
After checking their location-sharing app, no, he sees that Eddie is inside.
He knocks on the door several times, hearing no response. He knows this isn’t the occasion for barging in with his emergency key, so he merely waits.
Minutes pass. Eventually, some of the lights in the house flicker on.
Finally, the door clicks open. On the other side is Eddie, looking rough. His hair’s messed up and tousled, all color to his skin dimmed, nearly like he’s been in mourning.
“Buck, you don’t need to–”
“I lied,” Buck cuts him off at once. “Were you straight, I would still be in love with you. Were it a stereotype, I would still be in love with you. Were you a worm, I would still be in love with you. I am in love with you, no matter what.”
Eddie gapes. That’s the only way Buck would call it.
“So,” he starts again, waiting for Eddie to catch up. “If you think I’m your, eh, juice with pulp, I would really appreciate it if you told me.”
Eddie’s mouth hangs open.
“You understood that?” he lands on eventually.
“I had some help,” says Buck, pocketing his hands with a smirk.
“Buck,” Eddie smiles out his name, like it’s something precious, something joyful, something that needs to be treated with nothing but kindness. “You are. You are my juice with pulp. And– I’m really bad at metaphors, so how about I just say it plainly?”
Eddie steadies himself, before revealing, “I’m in love with you.”
At the same time as a bright light spreads through every particle of Buck, he also feels something dim. A small part of him, but significant enough to have taken up space in his heart regardless. He knows at that very moment, that were he at his house right now, Shannon would no longer delight him with her presence.
And maybe he’s crying because of that, when Eddie kisses him, right there, on his doorstep. He’s crying over how unfair it all is. He gets to have his light, his world, while Shannon takes space in some darkness elsewhere, planes of existence away.
Maybe he’s crying because when Eddie kisses him, he tastes like the juice with pulp that Bobby offered to him as a drink during his first dinner at the one-eighteen. A familiar taste that feels brand new after so long without it.
Maybe he’s crying because Eddie’s an excellent kisser, knowing just how to touch Buck to make him tick. Really, the reason behind the tears isn’t relevant. What matters is that somehow they’ve made it to this moment, despite the losses it took to get there.
He feels Bobby looking down at them. Shannon. Even Eddie’s Abuela.
And maybe the tears turn into those of joy.