Chapter Text
It starts with a cheap solution to an easily fixed problem; it starts as a joke. It starts with Buck complaining that Chris’ school gave him a hard time at pick-up again and it starts as Eddie whining that he filled out all of the authorization paperwork, and really, what do they want at this point? A marriage certificate? It starts with an idea planted carelessly and raised by hand, tended to until tax breaks and marital benefits give way to real contemplation. It starts and Buck doesn’t know how it’ll end. He avoids Eddie like the plague.
Then, the plague reaches California.
“I’m taking the couch,” Chim sings the second Buck opens the door, tossing his bags into Buck’s arms and stalking off to claim his territory.
Hen steps inside the loft. “I don’t know why he thinks I’m gonna fight him on that one,” she says. “Karen got me an ultra-deluxe blow-up mattress, whatever that means. I’m almost positive it’s better than that rock you call a couch.”
Buck wobbles for balance as Hen stacks her bags on top of Chim’s. “I’ll have you know my couch is very comfortable. I slept on that thing for three months and it only took like, a year for my back to stop hurting.”
“Let’s pray we’re only here for three months,” Hen mutters.
He’s memorized it, Executive Order N-33-20. In summation: stay at home. It’s not much of an option for any of his team. He can’t protect them from a microbe, a virus that eats and eats and— They’re saying it’ll be two weeks. Just two weeks inside. Buck might not be a paramedic or an army medic but he can see the signs. He can see the cases skyrocketing and the hospitals filling up, ventilators in the halls and ECMO on back-order. He can see his patients dying. He can see Hen’s shoulders drooping when she reads the latest reports and he can see Chim’s fists clench when new warnings howl of untold danger to pregnancies. He can’t see Eddie.
They’ve been avoiding each other. Which isn’t the easiest thing in the world since they’re partners, but they’ve found their own ways. What once was a shoulder slapped too hard after a rescue is now a polite nod. What once was You can have my back any day is now You can watch my back as I walk away. Marriage. A burred scream has been building between Buck’s very alveoli. He doesn’t let it out. He knows it will consume him. There’s a novel phrase emerging in this mid-apocalyptic reality: the new normal. He doesn’t want any part of this to become normal.
He’s still unsure if that was pride in Cap’s eyes when he pitched his offer for the team to stay at his apartment. It might have been sheer relief. Chimney has been squirrely, safely stashed in a hotel away from Maddie. Hen has been sleeping in a tent in her backyard. The grapevine whispers that Chris is living with Carla but Buck doesn’t know. It hurts. This might be Bobby’s circus but these are Buck’s monkeys; he wants them in his sight. He wants to know where they are and how they’re doing and if the next cough will be their last and… It’s possible he’s losing his mind. He started talking to his sourdough starter last week. Dr. Copeland said not to worry too much about the fact that he’s humanized it to the point that he can’t bring himself to bake with it. Her. She has a name.
Doughy lives in the pantry now. She can’t spill his secrets from the dry-dark.
Buck was casual, reasonable when he asked Eddie to join them in the loft-bunker. Eddie was quiet, sullen when he agreed. It wasn’t the reaction Buck was hoping for but it was better than a barely-tipped head and a corporate smile. They’ll figure it out. Buck hardly even notices the N-95 he slips on every time he leaves the apartment anymore. He’s pretty sure he can adjust to a reality where they brought up marriage.
He drops Hen and Chim’s bags on the floor. The box for the blow-up hits the hardwood at the wrong angle, popping open at the seams. A cacophony of PVC erupts. He sighs.
“Where’s Eddie?” he says.
“How should we know?” Chim responds. The TV whines out the intro to The View. This might have been a mistake. “You’re the one he’s attached at the hip to— Oh, wait, were attached at the hip to.”
Hen perches on the coffee table. “He’s still saying goodbye to Chris. They’re both having a pretty hard time with the separation.”
“Yeah,” Buck murmurs. “I can’t imagine this is easy for either of them.”
“You wouldn’t have to imagine anything if you actually talked to him. Seriously, this is getting old.”
Buck looks to Chim for backup. Chim offers no such lifeline.
“She’s right,” he says. “It’s painful enough at work. I’m begging you not to make us live with it full-time.”
“It’ll be fine,” Buck says. His voice wobbles. “We’re all adults here, right? We can handle it.”
Chimney laughs. “We’re adults, Buckaroo. You’re only lumped in on a technicality.” He settles into the couch, propping his sneakers on Hen’s thigh. “What’re you guys even fighting about? This is the most tense things have been between you two since the lawsuit.”
“Please tell me you’re not suing us again,” Hen says slowly.
Buck rolls his eyes. “I didn’t sue you. Just the city and…Bobby. Anyway, we’re not fighting.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she says. “You’re all awkward nods and handshakes. When have you ever shaken each other’s hands? It’s unnatural.”
Gathering the mattress up off the floor, Buck finds the plug at the end of the pump. His couch is… Okay, it’s fine enough to sit on and Albert doesn’t mind sleeping on it for the most part. It’s just not big enough for four adults to live on for extended periods of time. He plugs the blow-up in. It wheezes. Noxious fumes pour off of the material and send him into a sneezing fit.
“What’s wrong with a handshake?” he asks once the tears clear from his eyes.
Chim muffles a scream into a throw pillow. “Maybe the fact that you seem to have adopted it in favor of literally any other form of communication. What happened to ‘there’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you’ and ‘no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you’?”
“I told you that in confidence,” Buck mutters. “And I really can’t see what that has to do with anything.
“It has everything to do with everything, Buckley. I’m telling you confidently and in confidence that you must have fucked something up monumentally for the two of you to have devolved into weird cavemen.”
Buck looks to Hen with a prayer on his lips. “Are you gonna let him bully me in my own home? Why is it automatically my fault that things are—”
“Bad,” she says. “They’re bad, Buck. The kid gloves are off. Spill.”
He sees no outs; he knows he can’t escape. Eddie will knock on the door any minute and if Buck doesn’t get this off of his chest it might turn into another blood clot and actually kill him this time. He stares up at the ceiling, begging for mercy he knows he won’t get.
“I… I maybe, possibly realized that I want to marry Eddie,” he says in a rush of breath. He almost hopes the sentiment is indecipherable. No such luck.
Hen budges Chim’s dropped jaw shut. Her own stays wide open. Buck flops onto the mattress and ignores its shuddering.
“And you don’t feel like you should maybe, I don’t know, talk to him about dating first?” Hen says. “You don’t feel like that’s skipping a few steps?”
Buck groans. The sound echoes in the loft, the whine of an ancient tree as it warps in the wind. “I know it is. That’s half of the problem.”
“What’s the other half of the problem?” Chim asks. “Because I can see too many possible problems there and I’m doubting your math.”
“He’s gonna hate me,” Buck whines. “H-he’s gonna hate me and I’m gonna be arrested for thought crimes and put on trial for being the world’s worst friend.”
Hen bridges the gap between the coffee table and the blow-up, placing a hand on his knee. Any other day, it might soothe him.
“Okay, slow down,” she says. “First of all, he won’t hate you. I don’t think he’s even really capable of that.”
And Buck waits, and he waits, and he waits, but—“Was there more to that? A ‘second of all’?”
“Give me a few minutes for my brain to boot back up. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been holding out hope for this moment?”
“Hold on,” Chim says. He pulls out his phone, pointer finger in the air. “You placed your bet on Eddie’s first shift, so that’s gonna be five hundred and sixty five days. Ooh, too bad—you were thirty four days off of your bet for when Buck was gonna realize. Riley from B-shift beat you out.”
Buck twists to snatch the phone so quickly he’s nearly positive he pulls a muscle. The spreadsheet is vast, thorough and excessively detailed. He scrolls and scrolls through color-coded headers and narrows his eyes when he spies names he can’t even connect to faces. Some are too familiar.
“Chief Williams… Captain Mehta is on here?”
Hen huffs a laugh. “There’s a reason his house calls him Captain Meddler.”
“Why’re we talking about Jeshan?”
Buck freezes.
“Eddie!” he says. “Hey…man, what’re you—” He scrubs his hand through his hair, grimacing. “I thought you’d knock,” he finishes up lamely.
Eddie raises his hands, rears his head back. “Oh, I’m sorry, do I have to knock now?”
“‘Course not,” Buck says with a queasy smile. “I was just…surprised.”
“Mhm. Alright, well, where should I put my bags?”
It’s an excellent question with a terrible answer. Bobby has been telling him to think before he acts for years but it’s Dr. Copeland’s voice that murmurs in Buck’s ear this time: Did you really not know it would end up like this, or have you just been ignoring the possibility and telling yourself it will be fine? Buck still can’t face it. Instead, he spends a costly few seconds trying to figure out what, if anything, it says about himself that he only takes advice he paid for.
Eddie looks at him expectantly. His face is flat.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll take them up. Is it— I mean, do you… Are you…” He winces at Eddie’s blank stare. “You’re fine bunking down with me, right?”
Hen shouldn’t sound so delighted when she says, “We already called the first floor, Diaz. Looks like you’ll be getting real close.”
Eddie doesn’t bat an eye. “I sleep on the right. I’m afraid that’s non-negotiable. Last time I tried to sleep on the left, I almost smothered Shannon.”
“N-no problem,” Buck says. “I’ll just…bring these upstairs.”
“You do that.”
Buck doesn’t retreat. He doesn’t have a tail so it isn’t tucked between his legs. Eddie’s bags are surprisingly heavy and the bed shakes when Buck drops them on it. Fine. It’ll be fine.
Voice raised, Eddie asks, “Is there beer in the fridge?”
“I think there’s some Heineken behind the eggs,” Buck says.
“It’s eleven in the morning,” Chim points out.
Eddie huffs. “So?”
“You’re so right. Gimme one.”
The universe might be trying to tell Buck something. The nightstand on the right side of the bed is already empty. Buck sleeps on the left. It would be so easy to just…continue exactly as they are, a little differently. He doesn’t want to turn their world upside down but he’s realizing they might still be standing the right way up if it does. He tunes into the chatter of his team downstairs, letting their bickering wash over him. He lets himself be soothed. He needs it.
He’s tired of sanitizer and temperature checks and holing away from empty streets. He’s tired of doom-scrolling rabbit holes that kick his heart up into panic. Chris and Maddie and Bobby are in the most vulnerable populations; Eddie, Hen, Chim, Athena and Albert are healthy and strong but he doesn’t know if that even matters. He’s not sure anything does.
“You coming, Buck?” Eddie calls. “Sharknado’s playing and I brought tequila.”
Chim cheers. “We should take a sip of beer when something stupid happens and a shot of tequila when something even stupider happens.”
Well. This matters. Buck thunders down the stairs.
“I’m in,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I have shark-shaped shot glasses around here somewhere.”
“I’m out,” says Hen. “And if any of you fools give yourselves alcohol poisoning, I’m not calling an ambulance. I’m calling Bobby and Athena. Mom and Dad can deal with you.”
Buck’s ducks sit in a row on the couch. Everything will be fine. He tunes out the voice of his therapist deep in his mind that whispers, You’re doing it again.
***
Down, down, down come curtains of dust and debris; fetid water pools in grooves scaled out of the concrete floor when a tremor struck the earth and a quake rolled out. Iron girders criss-cross the parking garage and beams of sunlight cast mirages of heavenly angels across them. Car alarms whine in the near-far but the sound is nothing compared to the brittle crackles of Eddie’s ribs snapping under the weight of the floor above and the floor below, tented in the middle and converging on him and him alone. A desperation-bent halligan sits next to Buck and Buck sits next to his best friend as gravity kills him faster than croaked breaths can pull in fractions of life.
Buck’s vocal cords are stripped-out remnants of Eddie, get down! but he stretches them past their limit, well into slivered sinew and he aches. The dust hardly has time to settle before it clouds up, atomic-thick and rapturously heavy. Eddie hardly has time to gasp before death’s scythe bores down another inch into his throat.
“Eddie, Eds, stay with me,” Buck rasps. He holds onto Eddie's hand like a rusted vice, bare fingers on his pulse and it’s a hitched thing, broken as an unbroken horse as it kicks and rears and flags.
“‘m tired, Buck,” comes as a whimper and it comes as a surprise. Eddie is so still.
Buck tries on a smile and buys a grimace. “You’ve kept me up with your sleep-boxing for two months straight. I need to play this fair; it’s my payback.”
“Not sure any of this is really fair.”
“I know, Eds. I know.” Buck reaches for his radio and twists his head to shield Eddie from his whip-force panic. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! Firefighter down on the bravo-side third floor stairwell.” He lifts his finger off of the button, snarling when he only gets a crackling silence in return. Thirteen minutes in the dust and Eddie’s ticking towards an end Buck can’t follow him to. Without a radio line, none of the team will be able to find them before Eddie steps off the stoop and dips into eternity.
He tries again: “Really need you here, Cap. Please.”
Eddie’s been fighting his whole life. Buck loves him for it; he mourns for him because of it. He doesn’t want him to stop fighting now, no matter how tired he is, because he doesn’t want to have to mourn him. Eddie can’t throw punches at a reaper. He’s slowing down. His PASS alarm starts a siren’s call and Buck can only hope his own sobs are a better tether to lure him home.
Rubble spills down the periphery of this would-be-will-be grave. Eddie heaves in a shallow breath.
“I’m sorry. ’M so sorry, Buck.”
Buck scrapes his cheek wiping tears with the coarse cuff of his turnout sleeve. He doesn’t register the pain.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says. “I might bill you for my therapy after this but we’re getting out of here.”
“One of us is. I need it to be you.”
“And I need it to be both of us. I’ve got your back, remember? That means you have mine. Chris isn’t tall enough to reach it just yet and I need…” Grief rattles up his esophagus, cinching tightly around his throat. He knows. He knows how this goes.
“You’ll be what he needs,” Eddie grunts. “You’ll take care of him, keep him safe.”
“I will, I will but I— I don’t know how to do that without you.”
“You do. Always have.”
“I need you there with me, with him. How am I ‘sposed to-to tell him that I lost you?”
Eddie squeezes his hand. The wrap of his fingers is feeble, far too weak.
“Just tell him that I love him,” Eddie says. “Tell him you love him. He’ll get taller, have your back, too.”
“Please don’t go,” Buck begs.
“Sorry,” Eddie rasps. “Sorry, Buck. Didn’t— Didn’t want to.”
“Just keep talking, okay? Hey—remember this morning, you were telling me about some project Chris was doing with Carla?”
Eddie’s mouth opens; it closes. His lips wrap around words but it takes long seconds for any sound to carry them. “They’re…raising chickens.”
“Yeah?” Buck shifts as close as possible. It’s not enough. “Carla doesn’t strike me as a chicken person. How’d Chris manage that?”
“He asked.”
And it’s as simple as that. Buck used to agonize over what to teach this kid that he loves as his own. These days, he’s starting to understand that Chris is the one that’s teaching him. ‘He asked.’ He asked. He was and is braver than Buck could ever be. Even at the end of it all, the question that’s been on the tip of Buck’s tongue for months snuffs itself on his teeth. He’s a coward: he gets closer to letting it free only with each second Eddie is dragged up the steps towards the pearly gates. Buck wonders if he’ll ever learn how to act when he isn’t desperate in extremis.
“All—” Eddie breaks off into rough and flailing coughs. Blood flecks his teeth. “All that matters…is that he’s happy. Happy with you.”
“How’re we supposed to do that without you?”
“You’ll figure it out,” Eddie whispers. “You always do.” A tired peace evens out the agony etched deep into his skin.
Maybe Buck isn’t as brave as Christopher. Maybe he can’t ask but he can—
“Marry me,” Buck whispers.
—demand. They made a deal. They made it so that me and you became us and Buck doesn’t know if he can live with the blunt dissection they’re racing towards.
Eddie’s eyes slam open; he stares at Buck, crimson dripping from his lips and he’s always been beautiful but this is wrong.
“Wha—”
“Marry me,” Buck says, louder, firm. “I don’t think anyone wants to be a Buckley but I… I’ll be a Diaz—or we can hyphenate, yeah? Chris can choose for himself.”
Eddie’s brow pinches; Buck itches to smooth it out.
“You…were a Diaz,” Eddie wheezes. “I fucked it all up, and…”
And no. Not here. Not now. Throat closing, Buck says, “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Sorry, I just…” Buck smiles but he knows he’s showing too many teeth. “Say yes. All you need to do right now is keep breathing and say yes. I’m making this so easy for you, Eds. You’re not allowed to give up.”
“‘m I allowed to say no?” Eddie says, his grin sharp and pained and red.
“Absolutely not,” Buck laughs, sobs. “How many more times can Chris wear his favorite suit before he grows out of it? You’d be doing him a disservice.”
“Where’s the wedding gonna be?”
Buck trails his fingers down the inside of Eddie's wrist. “Definitely not the pier.” He smiles shakily at Eddie's wracking huff. “Not a boat, either. Honestly, I’m thinking of swearing off buildings now.”
“N-not my fault.”
“‘Course not,” Buck mutters. “But you had to be the hero and push me out of the way.”
“Chris would kill me if I didn’t save you.”
Buck has only ever slept on Eddie’s couch. The few times Eddie couldn’t make it home, stuck in the ED for a few hours overnight, Buck crashed in the living room to keep an eye on Chris. Eddie is dying. He won’t come back from this and his sofa sucks but Buck knows that after a while, he’ll have to accept that his best friend is gone. He’ll have to move into the bedroom with Eddie’s furniture and pictures and bed. All he can think about is a stupid couch as Eddie is struggling for breaths because he can’t even begin to imagine a future where he has to raise Chris on memories of his father instead of raising him alongside the man himself. He can’t keep Eddie alive now and he isn’t sure he’ll be strong enough to keep him alive in Chris’ mind.
“I’ll kill you myself if you die on me, Eds.”
Eddie laughs. It sounds like I’m already dead. “Would you…would you really want to marry me? Can’t say I have the best track record.”
“That’s an easy fix. We’ll just have to make sure it sticks this time.”
“Why didn’t I think about that before?”
His heartbeat slows, slows under Buck’s fingers. “‘Cause you’re an idiot. But that’s okay. I am, too.”
“You’re a pretty idiot,” Eddie says. The effort seems to hurt.
“Shut up,” Buck croaks. “How’s this: we’ll get married in the fall. Chris and Pepa will walk you down the aisle and Maddie will give me away, and Bobby’ll marry us off, complaining about allergies the whole time while he cries like a baby.”
“Hen and…Chim could…DJ.”
“They could,” Buck agrees with a wet laugh. “I just don’t know if they should.”
“Woulda liked to be there,” Eddie gasps. “With you. ‘M sorry.”
The air changes; a weighty pressure descends. Eddie’s mouth goes lax and his body slumps and a whining breath chokes up his throat. Buck can only watch him through a film of too-late tears.
“Hey, hey, stay with me, Eddie,” he says. But he’s always the one that’s left behind.
“I love you,” Eddie whispers. His eyes shutter closed. His pulse fades away.
Silence.
“Eddie?” Nothing. “Eds?” Nothing. “Eddie, please—” Nothing.
His nails and fingertips tear on rough cement and he bashes his forehead on exposed rebar but the blood is meaningless. Eddie isn’t moving and Buck’s throat aches and he doesn’t stop clawing, wailing as proves himself to be as useless as he’s always feared. A red sheen coats his vision and it coats Eddie’s jaw and— No, no, no, no; he fights the arms that wrap around him, tugging him away from the collapse.
“Get off me,” he growls as he kicks and kicks, seeing shadows race towards the debris. “Let me help him!”
Shouts swing back and forth through the space but he hears them as though they’re snapping out of the split between worlds. He adds to the barrage of noise with shredded screams of Eddie’s name.
“I got you, kid. I got you,” hits his ear and he heaves, dragged from the scene.
He loses strength the second he loses sight of Eddie, his legs falling out from under him. He’s caught and lowered down, huddling against a turnout-covered chest, his tears leaving muddied trails as he weeps. He grasps at Bobby’s jacket—and he knows it’s Bobby from the litany of reassurances spilling into his awareness, the gloved hand holding him steady against an unsteady heartbeat—pleading for more time, pushing away and pulling closer.
“You gave him something to live for,” Bobby says. “He still has a chance.”
“Let go. Let go of me, let me—”
Bobby reels him tighter against his chest. “You did your part. You need to let everyone else do theirs.”
“If it was Athena—”
“Stop,” Bobby snaps. “You’re hurt. Let them do their jobs.”
Eddie’s PASS alarm turns off. It’s too quiet. Sterile packaging crinkles; orders and commands fly low through the garage. Buck breaks free.
“Buck,” Bobby says, then: “Buckley! Give them space.”
And Buck has no choice: Hen and Chim are crowded around the nook Eddie lies unmoving in while paramedics from the 122 and 133 form a conveyor belt of supplies and equipment. His path is blocked and he stumbles backward, eyes blurring, mouth flooded with acid and regret. Bobby catches him before he falls.
Buck’s world narrows in on Eddie’s slack face.
“I felt his heart stop,” he whispers. Bobby’s juddering inhale rocks them both on their feet.
“There’s no reason to give up on him yet. You need to have faith.”
“You weren’t there,” Buck says numbly. “You didn’t… He said he loved me. I felt his heart stop.”
Bobby sighs. It feels like a sob against the back of Buck’s neck. “We were there, kid. The button on your radio must have jammed in the collapse; we could hear you but I couldn’t— We fought to get to you. He’ll fight to come back to you.”
An airbag is wedged under the load-bearing chunk of concrete pressing Eddie to the floor; Buck flinches at the groan of the compressor, dust billowing out around it. He can’t feel his hands and his breaths must belong to someone else because he can’t slow them down or speed them up. He drifts on the edge of consciousness. His limbs are too weak to wage war.
“They’re getting him out,” Bobby murmurs. “Don’t give up hope.”
Hope won’t save him. Buck can’t save him but he could hold his hand, tell him—
Oh, God. He never said it back. Time, he needs— He needs more time. They both do. This isn’t fair.
Eddie is freed in a whining twist of cement and wrecked reinforcement. Hen jumps in to start compressions and Buck has never wanted to hurt anyone but he’d give anything to be the one breaking Eddie’s ribs beneath his hands, keep his heart pumping by will alone. 120 bpm of stay with me but Bobby’s arms are iron-strong around his middle and he knows he’d fall straight to the floor if he wrestled out of them. He still wants to try.
“He doesn’t know,” Buck says. “He doesn’t know and I can’t tell him.”
Bobby sighs. “He knows, kid. The whole damn world knows how much you love him and Chris.”
“I couldn’t— I didn’t have the chance to say it back.”
Clutching him tighter, Bobby whispers prayers that barely cut through the drone of the scene. Buck slumps back against him. He doesn’t know the have to throw at a god he doesn’t believe in so he tosses out every one that he can and hopes that something sticks. Kind and unkind and Please and Don’t and Bobby can bring him to mass as many times as he wants but Buck knows none of this is enough.
Then again, the hands of Hen are far more giving than the hands of God.
“We got a pulse!” someone yells and Buck doesn’t care whose voice it is because the LifePak beeps a familiar rhythm and Eddie’s chest starts to rise and fall.
Bobby laughs, a wispy, haggard thing. “He’ll never stop fighting for you.”
The second that Eddie is strapped to a bright orange backboard, Buck’s knees give out. He retches in the grime. Sound and shapes bustle around him. Bobby’s grip on the collar of his jacket saves him from careening headfirst into his own sick. He hears his name and it sounds like a benediction; he looks up and he catches Eddie’s eyes and he sees something otherworldly in their gleam.
“Yes,” Eddie rasps.
Buck giggles deliriously. He passes out with a smile on his lips.
***
“They look fine. I really don’t see—”
“They don’t look fine, Mads. They look like a toddler tied them.”
Maddie clenches her eyes shut. She slows her breathing. “Okay. Maybe if you let me tie your shoes, you’d stop freaking out. Seriously, I’ve never seen your hands shake this badly.”
“They’re not shaking,” Buck says. He clasps them together and ignores their fine trembling.
“It’s okay to be nervous. This is…big. It doesn’t mean you’re getting cold feet or that something’s about to go wrong.”
“Stop reading my mind,” Buck snaps. He kicks his foot up on the chair and ties his shoe again. Still not right.
“I’m gonna go see if Eddie needs anything.”
“You mean you’re gonna go take a walk to get away from the groomzilla?” Buck snarks.
Maddie groans. “No one’s calling you a groomzilla, Buck. We all understand.”
“Chimney did. Twice. You didn’t correct him either time.”
“Hey— Take some deep breaths. I’ll be back in a few.”
“You’d better not come back with any tea!” Buck calls after her. The door yowls itself closed. He attacks his shoes once more.
So, maybe he is nervous. Not terribly, but on a scale from kitchen fire to tsunami, he’s hovering at around a 7.1 earthquake. Shaky and a bit sweaty but not panicking. Yet. It’s just— They waited long enough; as soon as Eddie’s bandages were off, wedding planning was on. Except Eddie got shot and his new bandages were covered in blood that Buck knows the taste of now and Maddie had Jee-Yun and then she ran away and…
In a world of unknowns, they seized the known with every fiber of their beings. Buck never imagined himself getting married under a wisteria arch in his boss’ backyard on a Tuesday morning in the middle of September. He also never imagined that his boss would have been the one to offer to host his wedding. And cater it. And officiate it. And let himself be the grout that smoothes over Buck’s chipping exterior. Buck can’t complain. He will anyway, but that has more to do with the fact that his laces are so starched they could probably stand straight up on their own.
The door to May’s bedroom squeaks open.
“I think I figured it out,” Buck says without looking up. “They’re still a little uneven but it’s better, I guess. Maybe I should super glue them in place.”
“I’ve found there are very few problems that super glue can actually solve.”
Buck freezes. “You’re not Maddie.”
“That I am not,” Bobby says. “I did pass her in the hall, though. She said you’re a bit…frazzled.”
“She said I’m a mess, didn’t she?”
Bobby’s eyes crinkle up at the edges. “Just that you might be a little lost.”
“That’s an understatement,” Buck mutters. “If you’re gonna be my shepherd, will you… Can you help me with,”—he looks around the sea of silks and tightly woven linens—“everything?”
Bobby nods, pushing out of his lean against the door frame. He places a large box and a larger bag on the floor next to May’s vanity. He rolls up his sleeves before rolling Buck’s down and fastening the buttons.
“Someday, you’ll get tired of saving me,” Buck says wryly.
A curious smile skews Bobby’s lips as he drapes the tie around Buck’s neck.
“You’ve never needed saving, kid,” he says. “But I can promise you I’ll never get tired of being here for you.”
“You say that like you didn’t call me irritating the other day.”
“I believe I called you troublesome, which is exactly what you were being.”
“That’s a Scooby-Doo insult,” Buck drawls. “You need to up your game.”
“Should I be offended by that?”
“If you want.” Buck shifts his gaze to the table. He rolls his eyes. “Those better not be more gifts. Maddie said she saw five on the table from you and Athena and three from May. We both know dispatchers aren’t paid that well.”
Bobby lifts a shoulder. “We’re proud of you. I’m proud of you. You and Eddie deserve this.”
“You did this, you know. You gave me a chance, helped me figure myself out. You gave me Eddie and Chris and I’m never gonna be able to thank you enough for that.”
Bobby hums. He spins Buck in the mirror and it’s eerily similar to all those years before, the day he gained his badge. The mirror in the station isn’t occluded with polaroids and crinkled concert tickets, though. Maybe it should be.
“This was all you,” Bobby says. “Give yourself some credit. You worked your ass off to get here.”
Buck pitches a long and drawn out sigh. “Consider this my feedback for this year’s performance review: learn how to take a compliment.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“You’re impossible,” Buck says fondly, lifting his chin for Bobby to settle his collar.
Bobby scoffs. “Pot, meet kettle.”
“Hi, kettle. I’m—”
The door squeaks. Again. Buck’s surprised Bobby hasn’t fixed it yet.
“Oh, thank God,” Maddie breathes. She places a steaming mug on the nightstand and plops down on the bed, the long skirt of her dress billowing up over the duvet. “I couldn’t get him to stand still long enough to tackle his suit. I was hoping some chamomile would help,—”
“I hate chamomile, Mads. How many times do we have to go over this?”
“—but I doubted he’d drink it,” she finishes, her glare lacking heat. “I was running out of options.”
“You don’t hate chamomile,” says Bobby. “Or any tea. You just never let it steep properly.”
“And Maddie leaves the bag in for too long.”
Maddie huffs. “Are you keeping track of your gifts? Don’t forget who gave you what; you need to remember that so you can write thank-you notes.”
“That sounds awful, actually,” Buck says. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Buck—”
“Okay,” Bobby cuts in smoothly, “how’s the tie looking?”
Buck faces the mirror after one last scowl at his sister. Chris picked the tie out a few months ago, a floral affair of blues and greens. They picked the decorations out to match it.
“It looks good,” Buck says. He hardly recognizes himself. Maddie and Bobby look on with private smiles from behind him and he thinks he might be one right word away from a breakdown. “Sorry, I’m— I should be able to do this myself. I didn’t mean to put you guys out. You can go finish getting ready and I’ll just…”
“Buck, it’s fine,” Maddie says. “This is how weddings are supposed to go.”
It’s not how Maddie’s wedding went. Buck flashes her a smile that he hopes says thank you but might come off as I should have been there if her frown is anything to go by.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
She sighs. “Don’t be. Just accept that we want to be here, okay?”
“If it helps, Eddie is so worked up that he seems to have forgotten how to button his shirt,” Bobby says. “Chris had to do it for him. May got it on video.”
“That actually does help,” Buck laughs. “Um, thanks. Both of you. I’m glad you’re here.”
Bobby squeezes his arm gently. “Wouldn’t miss this, kid. Do you want to put your jacket on now or do you want to open your gifts first?”
“No, the jacket should be second,” Maddie says. “I’m guessing whatever you got him is going to make him cry. That linen blend is probably gonna stain.”
“She of little faith,” Buck mutters. He already stained the thigh of his trousers with a single tear. He doesn’t mention it. “Shouldn’t I wait to open them with Eddie?”
Bobby shrugs. “You can. He knows what the first one is, though, and ‘Thena’s still wrangling him into his suit.”
Accepting the bag Bobby hands him, Buck drops onto the bed next to his sister. Tissue paper sticks out of the scalloped edges of the gift. He tosses the wrapping to the floor and he pulls out a brand new turnout, beaming at the shiny DIAZ along the back.
“I thought this wasn’t coming in until after the honeymoon,” he says.
Bobby matches his grin. “I pulled some strings. I figured you’d want it as soon as possible.”
“You mean you annoyed people into finishing it sooner, don’t you?”
“I— Yes.” Bobby picks up the box. He holds it gingerly; he offers it with a there-and-gone flash of something Buck now knows is his own form of grief. “Careful with this one. It’s fragile.”
Buck pulls the flaps of the box open. His shoulders crawl up to his ears. “Oh…”
The edges of the wide frame are stained wood, so dark the surface is nearly black. The glass is pristine, unsmudged, and Buck can only hover his fingertip above it. He knows exactly what’s trapped in the frame; he’s worn it almost every day for years.
“I’ve been warned that this is cheating,” Bobby says, “but I was also given the blessing to show it to you under the stipulation that you get an eye exam done. I want you to look at that, kid. Really look.”
And Buck can’t hide from it any longer. “I… I know.”
Bobby blinks. “How long?”
“A while. I’m not really sure exactly. I never wanted to ask what it was about, especially after I came back to work after the lawsuit and Eddie’s name was… Yeah. I didn’t know that you knew, though.”
“For a few years now, yeah.” Bobby props his hip on the vanity, his head tilted at a forty five degree angle of confusion. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Hen was right,” Maddie mutters. “The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.” It’s not quite quiet enough.
“It’s my wedding day,” says Buck. “You have to be nice to me. Anyway, when did they even put it on? It has to have been Hen and Chim, right?”
Bobby grins. “‘Course it was. When do you think?”
Buck pauses. “Oh my god, is that why they were laughing at me when I got my badge?”
Because he remembers coldcoldwarm and a name on his back that didn’t weigh him down like his own but it wasn’t until after that something fundamental changed. When he thinks about it, the giggling never really went away. They must have placed a bet. He might shake them down for a cut of the winnings.
“You’d have to ask them,” Bobby says. “Hen showed it to me herself, but I’d guess it was around then.”
Buck hums. “Has it really been there that long?”
“According to Howie,” Maddie says, “it’s been four years and ten months even since you became a Nash. Three years, four months, and eighteen days for the Diaz title, but that clock will have to officially be reset for today.”
Buck blinks. “How long have you known?”
“Why do you assume I knew?”
“You’re my sister. You know everything.”
“That’s true,” Maddie says. “I saw it on the news a few years ago. The tunnel fire. But I saw it before that even without seeing the tape. Neither of you are very subtle.”
“Did everyone know before me?” Bobby says.
Buck does his level best not to laugh. “Yes. Chief Alonzo thinks this whole thing is hysterical.”
“Of course he does.”
Waiting out Bobby’s huffing and puffing routine, Buck can only stare down at the framed scrap of his coat and think this has been my family the whole time.
Bobby clears his throat. “Now, we’ve got something old and something new, but I think we should finish up the tradition.”
“You really didn’t have to do all of this, Cap,” Buck says. He watches warily as Bobby half-smirks-half-smiles.
“Try telling my wife that. If she had her way, you’d be getting married on a beach in Cabo right now.”
“And burning like a lobster. I’m having visions of what May’s wedding is going to look like.”
“I’m hoping Athena is getting it out of her system with you.”
Buck snorts. “That’s unlikely.”
“You’re probably right. But…here: something borrowed,” he says, pulling his watch off and placing it in Buck’s hand.
Buck blinks helplessly down at the worn leather band and the scratched quartz face.
“It was my father’s,” Bobby explains quietly.
“You never talk about him.”
“He was…troubled. It was never easy with him but I loved him anyway.” Bobby’s eyes darken; the clouds part in the twitch of a second. “This is the last thing I have left of him. I wore it at my wedding with Marcy, then Athena. I saved it to start a new tradition.”
“What if I break it?”
“Then you break it. This is what I kept it for. We can’t predict the future but we can make a new one. I never expected for my life to unfold the way it did, but then I look at it, at my family, and I’m…happy.”
Buck tries to hand it back with trembling fingers; Bobby slots it on his wrist before he can pull away.
“No, Bobby— You should keep it safe for Harry.”
“Harry would riot,” Bobby says, voice low and warm and kind. It’s too much. “He wanted you to wear it today. You know he’s seen you dance before. He understands the risks.”
“But you saved it for—”
“My kid.”
No, now it’s too much.
Maddie was right to save the jacket for later. Buck scrubs an ugly tear off of his cheek. He wasn’t mourning the absence of the family that should be waiting for him outside but they’re pushed from his mind entirely as he watches the hands on the watch march him ever closer to his vows. Bobby will be right there next to him. He settles into the idea of this easy acceptance, knowing that it wasn’t easy at all.
“Thank you,” he says, doing exactly what Bobby has been telling him to do for years: letting himself have this. He doesn’t do it with as much grace as he’d like. “That’s, um… What about my something blue?”
Bobby chuckles; he whistles and the door slams open this time, a grinning Chris clattering inside. His suit is a steel blue that lights up his eyes. It’s almost the exact same shade as Buck’s. Buck doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He does a little bit of both as he drops to his knees, pulling Chris into a hug.
“What’s this, Chris? I thought we agreed you were going to wear your favorite grey suit.”
“The sleeves were too short,” Chris says. “And I wanted to surprise you.”
“He wanted to match his Buck,” Bobby adds.
Eddie pops in the doorway, cheeks pink, hair an absolute mess. He’s as radiant as the sun and every star in the sky and Buck doesn’t even mind the scoffs that Maddie and Chris send his way for his doubtlessly besotted look.
“Evidently, Cap can’t say no to him,” Eddie intones. “They went suit shopping while we met with the florist a few weeks ago.”
“Carla says it’s ‘cause I have the face of an angel,” Chris declares.
“Carla would be absolutely right,” Buck says. “As always.” He turns to Eddie, chiding, “Isn’t it bad luck for you to be here? This is a 118 wedding; we kinda need all the luck we can get.”
“My eyes are closed,” Eddie says.
“I can see that they’re not.”
Eddie’s lip twitches. May’s room isn’t all that big to begin with; as packed as it is, the closest he can get to a greeting is a kiss pressed to the back of Buck’s outstretched hand.
“That means you’re looking,” Eddie points out.
The reality of an audience swallows Buck’s reflexive and not at all appropriate response. He hands Eddie the frame, instead.
“Did you see what Bobby gave me?”
Eddie falls still. He traces his name through the glass. “But I…”
“It was just a bend in the road,” Bobby softly says. “It’s the same tape. I think Hen and Chim thought I was nuts for pulling it out of the trash, but I knew you’d get back here.”
“I didn’t think you’d ever show him,” Eddie murmurs.
Bobby claps him on the arm. “He already knew.”
Buck flushes as all eyes find him. Yeah, okay, he knew but that doesn’t mean he knew what to do with it.
He did a family tree in third grade. Maddie helped him as much as she could but she couldn’t explain why their grandparents weren’t in their lives, why their aunts and uncles and cousins were names with no faces. All of the other kids had pictures glued to cardboard sheets covered in glitter; Buck had a piece of printer paper and a creeping suspicion that he was missing something. He’d been missing something his whole life but this felt tangible, real. And then the world pressed a knife into his hands and his choices were to turn it out on the universe or in on himself, severing ‘Buck’ free from the necrotic tissue of his family name.
There’s more to his name than B-U-C-K. There’s more to it than D-I-A-Z. There’s more to it than the void in the middle his parents never bothered to fill but broaching that now would be a step too far taken way too fast. He has a middle-ground idea. Probably stupid. Definitely ridiculous. He’s starting to wonder if that’s such a bad thing.
“Anyway,” Bobby says, “you’re getting the real deal, Eddie. Tape falls off. I don’t think you have to worry about your name falling off of your husband.”
“You say that like you haven’t met him,” Eddie says. His eyes are misty and damp.
Maddie rubs her palm over Eddie’s back once, twice. “Did I ever tell you about the time he—”
Buck is trying to be stealthy, but…7.1 earthquake-levels of anxiety. He might even be up to mudslide-levels at this point. He winces as he knocks a tower of May’s lip glosses to the floor. At least she has an area rug under the vanity.
He’d say ‘Don’t mind me’ but there’d be little point to it. The room becomes one of held breaths. The new turnout is crisp and clean in his hand. He presses it flat on the rumpled bed and fetches a roll of silver duct tape from Maddie’s wedding emergency kit, spilling open on the floor. She brought it for wardrobe malfunctions and this might just be the most pressing one. The first rip of tape screeches through the otherwise silent room.
Bobby is the first to catch on.
“Buck, kid, I don’t need you to do that.”
Buck tunes him out. The tape frays, clumps together in melted pieces from the heat of his fingers. ‘N’ comes out disconnected and warped but ‘A’ is sharper, more identifiable. ‘S’ is going to be a little more difficult. Buck leans into the weight of a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t stop.
“I’ll fix it once we get back from our honeymoon,” he says, quiet in his distraction. His tongue pokes through his teeth. He thinks the room might clear out but he doesn’t bother checking. “Chim probably still has that black tape somewhere.”
“You don’t have to do any of this,” Bobby murmurs. “I— I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but this is you and Eddie’s day. Just celebrate you.”
“You’re a part of that. You always have been.”
Bobby nudges him to turn, only half of the ‘S’ completed.
“I know that,” he says. “You know that. That’s what matters.”
“Yeah, but you forget it, sometimes. I do, too. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want any of us trapped in another collapsing garage, waiting until the last possible second to put a name on something when we already know it’s there.”
“Buck…”
“You gave me your dad’s watch,” Buck whispers. “You said it’s for your kid. Let me do this.”
“As if I could ever stop you,” Bobby says, and it could be a tease but Buck doesn’t think it is at all.
He shoots Bobby a smile. He gets back to the ‘S’. He speaks to the coat because Bobby doesn’t even have allergies, the bastard, and that excuse won’t work on either of them if the tear that’s gathering in his eye falls.
“I don’t want you to be a footnote,” Buck says. “I-I don’t want you to be a joke, ‘cause you’re not. I told you once that you were one of the most important people in my life. I meant it then. I mean it now.”
“And I believed you then.” Bobby sighs, worrying his hands together. “Why do this, though? It’s one thing to care about someone. It’s another to tie yourself to them and I can’t— You deserve the world. I’ve never been able to give it to you. I never will be.”
Buck lowers the tape. He faces the man who showed him what it’s like to have a father and paved the path for him to become one himself.
“Who’s here today?” he says. “Who’s gonna hand me an actual old man-handkerchief when I start blubbering in front of our entire family? Who’s gonna be standing there when I say ‘I do,’ sign my name on a marriage certificate and become Buck Diaz? ‘Cause we both know it’s not my parents.”
Bobby’s head cocks to the side. His eyes narrow. “You’re legally changing your name to Buck?”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“Sorry.” Bobby shifts; he starts to rise. “You should be getting ready with your son and your fiance, not—”
“Do you really think you’re that hard to love? Because I love you. That’s what this is.” The last leg of the ‘H’ adheres tightly to the turnout. Buck holds it up proudly and his mind catches up to his mouth when his pleased eyes lock with Bobby’s deer-in-headlights stare. “For— For me, at least. I don’t expect you to… I shouldn’t have—”
Bobby pulls him into a hug, smothers his rambling with his shoulder. “Hey. I love you, kid. Never doubt that.”
A snotty sob careens in from the hallway. Buck groans.
“Really?”
Chim’s hoarse voice batters through the doorway: “It’s a wedding, Buckaroo. Let us cry.”
So he does.
An hour later, Buck signs his name on a crisp white sheet of paper. He doesn’t begin again; he becomes, and he thinks he becomes what he was always meant to be. The family that stood by him from high to low and bolstered him through the in between weeps to a degree that should shock him but somehow doesn’t. Bobby taught him how to dance and Buck steps on his toes just like he did through every lesson. He never once steps on Eddie’s feet when they take to the flimsy floor layered over the grass. He swings Chris around under the tent and he knows his kid will be too big to do it again pretty soon, so he whirls and dips him until his arms scream to let go. He waits until Chris lets go first. It’s perfect. They never needed luck at all.
And life is a funny thing: when he goes back to work after a honeymoon chock full of characteristically misfortunate events, it isn’t an adjustment in the slightest to answer to ‘Diaz’ or ‘Nash.’