Chapter Text
Nobody spoke after counselling ended. Not immediately.
The room emptied slowly, all of them meandering in opposite directions. Something about it was like the aftermath of an explosion – people moving carefully through the debris, avoiding eye contact with victims, carrying pieces of themselves that they either didn’t know they had or didn’t know where to put.
And Buck had left first.
It wasn’t dramatic, he hadn’t stormed out or slammed any doors; he had simply stood up again and walked out before anyone could call him back, finding the cold afternoon air preferable to whatever else laid in that room.
Out in the woods, sound seemed to move slower. Birdsong could be enjoyed, rustling leaves fell in flurries overhead, and nature’s tranquillity was almost tangible. By the time he reached the damp trail behind the cabins, the shouting from earlier already felt distant; muffled, like it was completely unreal.
But it wasn’t unreal. That was the problem.
Everything that had been said in that room was true – every harsh word, every feeling, all of it. They’d all meant what they’d said, all of it heart-breaking.
Buck shoved his hands into the pockets of his hood and kept moving.
The trail wound through thick tress still crying from last night’s rain; pine needles softened the ground beneath his feet, and the air was cold enough to sting his nose and lungs every time he inhaled. Water moved quietly over rocks nearby, and squirrels ran across the land without thought. Normal sounds, peaceful ones.
Bobby would love this.
The thought hit him so suddenly that Buck stopped walking. Everything came back to Bobby, somehow – every conversation, every silence, every fight. It was like grief was a compass needle dragging all of them towards the same point, no matter how hard they tried to move on.
Buck bent forward slightly, hands braced against his knees as he exhaled hard through his nose. He was so tired. Not physically; it was worse than that. Emotionally, mentally, psychologically, he was breaking apart and –
Footsteps sounded somewhere behind him. For a second he hoped it was Eddie, and his chest tightened before he could help it.
“Oh,” he sighed, his chest relenting. “Just you.”
Ravi snorted as he approached. “You make everybody feel that welcome?”
“Sorry. I just, I thought –” He stopped himself before he made a mistake, starting at the ground like it owed him money. Ravi’s expression shifted.
“You thought I was Eddie,” Ravi answered.
“I didn’t say that,” Buck insisted, suddenly defensive.
Ravi moved a little. “You didn’t have to.”
Great, he thought. That was exactly what Buck needed in that moment.
Ravi walked over slowly, leaning against the railing beside the trail that overlooked a small lake. For a while, neither of them spoke – it was nice, existing together silently. But after the time passed, Buck could tell there was something that the man wanted to say.
“I meant what I said in there,” he commented quietly.
Buck glanced at him, unsure what to say. “About feeling invisible.”
He shrugged awkwardly. “I know you guys care. That’s not what I mean.”
“No,” he admitted softly. “I know.”
And he meant that; he remembered joining the 118, standing on the outside of something that had already been built – already bonded. Hen and Chim had known each other years, and Bobby had been their Captain for so long before he’d come along. There laid years of history that Buck hadn’t shared.
But Bobby had made room for him. Effortlessly.
Buck swallowed hard. “You should’ve told us.”
Ravi laughed once under his breath. “Would it have changed anything?”
He didn’t answer straight away. Maybe that was the worst thing, he didn’t know. He didn’t much lately, not when all of them had become so wrapped in their own grief that they’d stopped noticing who else was drowning just beside them.
“You belong with us,” he finally managed.
Ravi’s smile was faint. “Yeah. I think that’s the problem.”
Buck frowned, confused. Ravi kept his eyes on the lake.
“You guys are a family in the real way, not the easy way,” he went on. “Families hurt each other worse than anybody else can.”
The wind moved softly through the trees around them. Buck thought about him and Eddie silent across a kitchen table after Chris had left shouting; he remembered Chim raising his voice earlier that day; images of Hen crying in the hospital for Athena flashed in his brain; and, worst of all, he remembered Bobby’s hand on the back of Buck’s neck after a bad call.
That was family. Messy and brutal. But permanent.
“You ever think about leaving?” Buck asked.
Ravi seemed surprised. “The 118?”
Buck shrugged. “When things get like this. When you get fed up with not being seen.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But then something happens and one of you idiots remind me of why I stayed.”
Buck huffed out a laugh despite himself. “High praise.”
Ravi grinned. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
They fell quiet again. Then Ravi nudged him lightly with his elbow.
“You should probably talk to Eddie.”
Buck’s entire body stiffened at he mentioned his name. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Ravi gave him a pointed look that spoke a thousand different words.
“Seriously?” He sighed.
“I didn’t even say anything,” Ravi protested.
“You were thinking it loudly,” Buck retorted.
He watched Ravi smile. “Sounds familiar.”
Buck could only roll his eyes, turning to settle his gaze on the horizon beyond the forest. Years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to stand still and appreciate the beauty of the world around him – he was surprised he could do it now with everything that was going on. But he was grateful, regardless of all the shouting and anger, that they were there because Ravi was right; they were family, and this was the right environment to work through their problems.
Ravi’s expression softened. “He worries about you, you know.”
Buck didn’t want to think about that. “Yeah. I know.”
***
Harry spent the afternoon by the docks, fishing rod in hand. Strangely, he didn’t like fishing; he actually kind of hated it. But he found that few people bothered you when you were holding a rod; adults tended to see it and assumed you were doing something meaningful. Harry used it to hide how hard he was thinking.
His mother did it sometimes. Not often, and she never actually fished; but after a particularly bad case she’d sit at the age of the pier near their old rental cabin and stare over the water like she was waiting for something to answer back. Someone.
Harry understood the sentiment better now.
The lake here felt endless up close, cold and dark enough that he couldn’t see the bottom. It was a little terrifying, if he was honest.
“Any luck?”
Harry raised his head and turned to see Buck stood a few feet away, holding two sodas.
He shrugged. “I don’t think there are any fish here.”
Buck chuckled and approached, handing him a drink before sitting beside him. The wood creaked softly beneath their wait, and even more against Buck’s movement as he stripped off his shoes and socks to dip his feet in the water.
For a while, they just stared out across the water together.
“You really think that you don’t belong with us?” Buck asked eventually.
Harry gripped the fishing rod tighter. “I dunno.”
Buck waited silently – Harry appreciated that about him. The man never forced silence open the way that other people did, always waited for someone to be ready to speak.
Harry sighed. “You guys all know how to do this.”
“Do what?” He asked.
Harry gestured vaguely. “All of it. The firefighter stuff, the grief, the-the pretending to be okay. All of it.”
Buck looked down at the dock boards under him, as if he felt guilty.
“Trust me,” he said quietly, “none of us know how to do this.”
Harry laughed weakly. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“No.” Buck glanced sideways at hm. “We’ve just had time to learn how to hide how bad at it we are; we’ve had time to do it all just a little bit better.”
His words sounded honest enough; Harry believed him, and something about that made him feel a little bit better.
The wind stirred across the lake.
“You know,” Buck said after a while, “when I first joined the 118, I was sure everyone hated me.”
Harry laughed incredulously. “You’re joking.”
“I swear, I’m not,” Buck laughed. “I was…very different then. Ask anyone, I was even more reckless – if you can believe that. I didn’t think before I spoke, I hated being told what to do, and I – well, I’m not going to tell you about that, but you get the picture. I was a lot.”
Harry sniggered. “You’re still a lot.”
“Wow,” Buck grinned.
“I just tell it how it is.”
Harry smiled despite himself; Buck leaned back on his hands.
“Point is, it takes time,” Buck told him.
“For what?”
Buck looked towards the water again. “To let people becomes yours.”
Something about the way Buck said it made Harry think that maybe Buck wasn’t talking about the team anymore – or maybe he was. Harry couldn’t be sure, it was difficult to tell sometimes. Adults, he’d found, could be quite weird; especially these adults.
***
Nobody had dinner together that night. Buk had grabbed something from the dining hall in a hurry, then returned to the dock to eat alone; Hen refused to eat and instead elected to go on a run; Chim had completely disappeared into his cabin and Buck wasn’t sure he would come out to eat; Ravi played basketball by himself after picking at some chicken, and Harry wandered the forest trails with a sandwich in hand as he listened to music.
Eddie sat on the deck of their cabin with a guitar that he had found across his lap and didn’t play a single note. The guitar belonged to the camp – old wood, worn edges, slightly out of tune. It seemed to comfort him anyway.
Resting his forearms across the instrument, he stared into the forest as dusk slowly settled over the trees. He kept replaying the counselling in his head – what haunted him most was the look on Buck’s face. It was angry, defensive, hurt.
You think I don’t know you, Buck?
Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say; maybe it had been too right. That was the problem with Buck sometimes – Eddie could see through him too easily. Right past the jokes and the reckless grin and the constant movement. But Buck hated it when he was hurting badly enough to be seen.
Eddie knew that feeling better than anybody. That probably explained why they kept circling the same arguments over and over again.
A twig snapped nearby, making Eddie glance up.
Hen.
“You hiding too?” She asked.
“I don’t if you can call it hiding,” he replied, gesturing at the very open space around him. “But something like that.”
She glanced at the guitar. “I didn’t know you could play.”
“Just a little.”
She approached him and climbed up the steps, sitting beside Eddie. For a minute neither of them spoke. Then:
“You okay?”
Eddie laughed softly without humour. “Nope.”
“Yeah,” Hen nodded, her own laugh solemn. “Same. I think we all forgot how angry grief makes people. We don’t always avoid it, but we’ve all gone through it enough to respond…without frustration. But sometimes we get caught out.”
Eddie looked down at the guitar strings. “I think Bobby held us together. I think that was why.”
Her expression softened painfully. “He did, didn’t he?”
Eddie swallowed hard. “And ever since everybody’s been waiting for someone to fill the hole he left, especially in the beginning. We’ve moved on as best as we can since but…that sentiment is still there, I think.”
He knew Hen agreed, even if she was silent. Buck always tried too hard, Chim carried too much, Hen pretended like she wasn’t drowning, and Eddie…well, he watched everybody constantly as though if he paid enough attention then nobody else would die.
After a while, Hen slowly stood.
“We should probably find the others before a crime gets accidentally committed,” she said, turning to him.
“Buck will definitely be involved it that does happen,” he said, standing with her.
“Obviously.”
A tiny smile tugged briefly at his mouth; it faded again almost immediately.
***
The campfire that they started wasn’t planned.
They all arrived separately, drawn to what could only be considered as fate. Buck found it first, flamed crackling softly in the clearing near the lake. It was low when he’d found it, left behind by another group earlier in the evening – but he fed it until it roared again, embracing its warmth alone.
Then Ravi showed up carrying a blanket over one shoulder.
After him it was Harry.
Hen and Chim came from opposite directions at almost the exact same time, both looking vaguely annoyed to see that the other was already there.
When Eddie finally arrived, it was with a guitar in hand that no one commented on. No one commented much on anything; they just settled around the fire quietly while darkness deepened around the trees. The flames painted all of them in gold and shadow, and for a while the only sounds were crackling wood and distant birdsong.
Buck sat across from Eddie which he could only hope was intentional, but he couldn’t tell.
Harry stretched his legs towards the heat and stared into the flames. “We sucked at rafting.”
Buck barked out a laugh – he’d not been expecting that. “That’s true.”
“I’m still sure that it was your fault,” Chim told him.
“I’m pretty sure that that is why morale is low,” he shot back, the corners of his lips curving.
Hen sat back. “You nearly killed us.”
“I think that’s a bit dramatic.”
“You flipped the raft!” Hen laughed, her voice raising.
Buck groaned, grinning now. “It floated, didn’t it?”
“Barely,” Chim commented.”
Ravi shook his head. “I can’t believe you people save lives professionally.”
“Neither can we most of the time,” Eddie agreed.
Somewhere over heard, branches shifted in the wind. With it, so did the tension between all of them – it wasn’t gone but it eased, softening around the edges. It became much more familiar.
Buck looked around the fire at all of them; Hen leaned into the warmth with her knees pulled close to her chest. Chim sat beside her despite everything. Ravi was half wrapped in a blanket, and Harry seemed far less guarded than he had been.
And then he looked at Eddie.
The firelight caught along the sharp line of his jaw as he adjusted the guitar absentmindedly across his lap – Buck’s chest ached unexpectedly.
He worried about you, you know, Ravi had said earlier. Buck knew they were family, the real kind. The 118 was a family, and so were Buck and Eddie. He figured that was the only reason that any of them were still standing.
“You gonna play that thing or just stare at it?” Chim asked.
Eddie glanced up, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Someone’s bossy.”
“Comes with the job,” he replied softly. “Come on, what you can play?”
The man chuckled, adjusting the guitar again before strumming a few chords; slowly they turned into some semblance of a song that they all recognised, smiling as the music came together. The sounds drifted through the clearing, warm and worn.
Eddie started singing quietly, his low voice rough a little at the edges. One by one, everyone joined it. They were far from perfect and certainly not professional – Harry missed half the lyrics, and Chim sometimes came into early which made Hen laugh halfway through the verse. Ravi sang deliberately loud just to annoy them.
But, despite it all, they sang. Together. And for the first time since Bobby died, something in Buck’s chest loosened just a little.
***
One problem that came with sharing a room with Eddie Diaz was that silence could never stay simple; Buck realised this about three minutes after they returned to their room. The air felt tense, quietly crushing them both with something they couldn’t name.
Eddie set the guitar quietly against the wall before moving towards his bed, and Buck changed into his sweatpants without speaking. Outside, the wind knocked softly against their windows – inside, neither of them looked at each other.
It should’ve just ended there, but Buck had never been good at leaving things alone when it came to Eddie.
“So,” he finally said, tugging a shirt over his head, “you gonna keep being weird all night?”
Eddie froze beside his bed, slowly turning. “I’m being weird?”
Buck gestured about vaguely. “You know what I mean.”
“No,” Eddie replied flatly, standing straight. “Actually, I don’t.”
Buck exhaled sharply. “You’ve been staring at me like you wanna say something since counselling this morning.
Eddie crossed his arms and scoffed. “Maybe that’s because you walked out halfway through.”
“Oh, here we go,” he sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Don’t do that, Buck.” Eddie insisted, glaring at him.
“Do what?”
“Shut down when things get hard,” he replied. Those words hit hard, and Buck’s expression hardened instantly.
“You think that’s what I’m doing?” He asked, clenching his jaw. “Because I’m pretty sure I came for help when I got addicted. And I’m also pretty sure that I just adopted a kid, and that was hard.”
“You’re angry and scared,” Eddie told him. “You’re refusing to talk about any of it, you just do things and think that’s enough.”
Buck bit something back. “And I think that you’re acting like everybody’s your responsibility again.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not,” Buck insisted.
“Yes, it is.”
Buck stood abruptly. “There it is.”
Eddie was already exasperated. “There what is?”
“That thing you do when you decided that your issues are somehow more valid than everybody else’s.”
Eddie stared at him, surprised by his words. “That’s not what I said, and it certainly isn’t what I think.”
“It’s what you meant,” Buck shot back.
“You don’t know what I meant.”
Buck laughed harshly. “Seriously? Because apparently you know exactly what everybody is feeling all the fucking time, don’t you?”
Eddie looked away first, something that just made Buck angrier.
“You wanna psychoanalyse me?” Buck snapped at the silence. “Fine. But I am tired of people acting like I’m one bad day away from falling apart.”
“You are.”
The room when still. Buck stared at him, and Eddie’s expression shifted immediately like he regretted saying it out loud.
Too late.
“Buck –”
“No, it’s fine.” Buck nodded one, tightly. “Good to know what you think.”
Eddie shook his head. “That’s not what I meant”
“Then what the hell did you mean?” He demanded, getting in Eddie’s face.
Eddie opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling; he didn’t know how to say: I’m terrified of losing you too or You scare me when you stop talking or I know exactly how much pain you’re hiding because I’m hiding it too.
So instead he said the worst thing he could’ve.
“You’re reckless,” Eddie said.
Buck flinched like he’s been hit, and Eddie immediately hated himself for it.
“Wow,” Buck nodded slowly, turning to his bed.
“Buck –”
“No, seriously,” Buck said, climbing under his blanket. “Wow. You know what? Just forget it. Let’s go to sleep.”
Eddie’s own temper sparked now. “That’s mature.”
Buck spun back around instantly. “What the hell do you want from me, Eddie?”
The question cracked through the room louder than shouting ever could’ve. Eddie stared at him blankly; there it was. The real question underneath it all: What do you want from me.
Everything, Eddie thought. Too much.
He wanted more than Eddie could articulate.
“I want you to stop acting like you’re invincible,” he said instead.
Buck laughed bitterly. “And I want you to stop acting like it’s your job to save everybody.”
Neither of them said anything more. When Eddie finally looked away, Buck stared at him for a second more before turning back around. The lights went out a minute later, and darkness settled heavily in the cabin.
But neither of them slept. Buck could hear Eddie turning restlessly every half hour; Eddie could hear Buck still awake every time the mattress.
Anger sat between them sharply, aching and unfinished.
Outside, rain began sometime after midnight.
***
Buck woke up before sunrise, and for one disoriented second he forgot where he was. Then the cabin ceiling came into focus; the work retreat echoed in his mind, and then the fight dawned on him. Eddie’s words floated in his head.
Buck rubbed both hands over his face tiredly before he glanced across the room – Eddie’s bed was empty. A strange, hollow, feeling opened immediately beneath Buck’s ribs and he didn’t know why. It was stupid, he thought. Stupid to think anything more of his relationship with the man.
In a second he shoved his blanket off him, pulling on a hoodie before he rose and stepped outside the cabin. The morning air hit cold enough to wake him fully, stinging his nose like it had the day previous; still he reminisced in nature’s beauty, embracing it like nothing else existed.
When he stared down at the lake, Buck saw him. Eddie was sitting alone at the end of the dock, feet in the water. Buck waited where he stood, staring at the back of the man; he didn’t know whether to go an interrupt him or not. After their argument the night previous, he wasn’t sure if Eddie wanted to see him. He wasn’t completely sure that he wanted to see him, either.
When Buck began to move, he regretted every step. He moved towards Eddie despite every thought in his mind that screamed at him not to, hoping that maybe this time his recklessness would outsmart his rationality.
The dock creaked softly beneath his weight. Eddie glanced back briefly at the sound.
Neither spoke.
Buck sat beside him slowly, leaving a careful space between them.
“You snore,” Eddie said eventually.
Buck blinked. “What?”
“You heard me,” Eddie said plainly, but Buck could see the smile that he was fighting. All Buck could do was stare incredulously before he started to laugh, shaking his head.
“That’s your opening line?”
Eddie shrugged. “Figured we should start with something less emotionally catastrophic.”
Buck looked down at the water. Then, quietly:
“You really think I’m reckless?”
Eddie exhaled slowly. “Do you really think that you’re not?”
Buck swallowed hard. “It’s that bad?”
Eddie turned to him fully. “No. Just…it feels like you don’t care what happens to you. And, speaking as someone who’d quite like to keep you alive and unhurt, it’s worrying.”
The words settled heavily between them. Buck stared out across the lake again, thinking about a response. The truth was that sometimes Buck didn’t care, not entirely – if he could keep someone he loved from getting hurt by doing something himself, why shouldn’t he?
“I care,” he finally said.
Eddie watched him carefully. “Okay.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Buck huffed softly.”
“I’m not.”
That hurt worse, somehow.
The sun slowly began rising over the trees, pale gold bleeding across the water. Neither of them moved as they watched the horizon; but then, carefully – and quietly – Buck let his shoulder brush against Eddie’s.
Eddie stilled. He didn’t pull away. For one fragile moment, everything between them softened again. Nothing was fixed, but it was certainly calmer; calm enough to keep trying, and maybe that was all family really way. Nothing perfect. Just choosing each other again and again, no matter how hard it was.