Archive of Our Own

Buck laid in bed, taking advantage of the day off to laze about for a few minutes longer than he needed to. He didn’t have any plans for the day, most of his usual go-tos impaired by COVID restrictions. He considered calling Eddie for a movie night, but he didn’t want to take away from his time with Christopher now that they could be together under one roof again. And sure, Buck knew he’d be welcome with them in a heartbeat if he mentioned a movie night idea, but it still felt wrong somehow.

His phone chirped with an email notification, and Buck felt around for it on his bedside table without bothering to look. He brought the phone in front of his face, settling into a comfortable position as he checked through his unread emails.

An email from the county health department caught his eye, and he skipped to that one first. He’d been waiting for the results of a COVID-19 test that he’d been required to take after a multi-car pileup on the freeway. It was standard procedure; they needed to test two days, seven days, and fourteen days after large-scale incidents with difficult contact tracing measures. This would be his fourteen day test result.

At this point in the pandemic, Buck had mostly desensitized himself to getting the COVID test, with the frequency they were required to take them at work. He still teared up every time that tiny swab went up to feel his brain (or at least that’s what it felt like), but he’d stopped flinching through the whole thing a few months ago.

The anxiety of waiting for test results hadn’t faded, even though he knew he was in good health and was considered low risk. He’d asked his doctor early on in the pandemic, what with his extensive medical history, but luckily none of that contributed to elevated virus risks.

Buck wasn’t concerned about his own health in regards to COVID, but he was concerned about his friends, family, and co-workers (especially with all the overlaps between them). It was why he had offered to host the team during the early days, when the fear was at its highest about what their duty as first responders meant for their loved ones around them. Hen and Eddie had their kids, and Chimney and Buck were worried about Maddie and the baby, it just made sense to keep all the high exposure opportune people together.

Now, with people slowly relaxing back into their family homes, Buck felt the heightened anxiety associated with being introduced to expanded bubbles. As much as he wasn’t worried about himself contracting the virus, he was far more concerned about passing it on to people who were high risk. Even after getting vaccinated, it was so hard to drop the exposure anxiety after living with it for a year. Despite the relative safety of being vaccinated, it was hard to convince your body to break the habit of danger: stay away.

As much as he wanted to see Christopher in person now that it was safe for him to, at first his brain wouldn’t let him enjoy the moment. Eddie had had to talk him down from an anxiety attack when Eddie had suggested Buck come over to celebrate being fully vaccinated.

His two-week mark from the second shot had been three days ago, and with the excitement of being able to hug Christopher again eventually winning over his COVID anxiety, Buck and Eddie had celebrated with Christopher with pizza and a movie. Even after all his worrying, it had been a breath of fresh air getting to spend time with Christopher in person again rather than strictly over Zoom.

Despite being considered fully vaccinated, LAFD COVID protocols still mandated that everyone complete their testing series after potential super spreader responses. Buck clicked the link to get his test result from two days ago, ready to screenshot it and send it to Bobby for documentation.

Positive

Buck blinked, then promptly closed the screen and went back to his email, and opened the link again.

SARS-COV-2 RNA, QL NAAT, RT PCR/TMA (COVID-19)

Your Value
Positive

Standard Range
Negative

Flag
A

Please review the links below for self-reporting and contact tracing.

Buck’s breath caught in his throat.

No.

No, this wasn’t possible.

He was vaccinated, no—

Buck’s last two tests had been negative. The pileup had happened over two weeks ago, how the hell did he test positive on the fourteen day test? Had he gotten it from another call?

He’d been doing everything right. He practically bathed in hand sanitizer, he used it so often (his incredibly dry-skinned hands could attest to that no matter how much he used the hand cream Maddie had gifted him). He stripped the moment he got home from work, dumped his clothes directly into the washing machine, and then jumped straight into the shower. His water bill had gone through the roof with how often he (and Chimney) had been using it.

He always wore his mask, and was one of the people at work who would constantly make sure others were wearing theirs as well. When eating with other people he held his breath as he pulled his mask down to take a bite, then pulled it back up as he chewed. He maintained six feet of distance whenever possible, and for someone as tactile as him the last few months had been torture.

He’d done everything right.

And yet—

Buck choked on a sob, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as he tried to regulate his breathing. He’d tried so hard to be safe, and it wasn’t enough. He still ended up exposed somehow, and now he’d have to quarantine from everyone for weeks.

Fuck, Chimney would have to quarantine too. They’d spent too much time together in the apartment. If Buck was positive, it was too great a risk that Chimney had been exposed at some point over the last couple days—

Buck’s blood ran cold.

Eddie. Christopher.

He’d been with them three days ago. Sure, he’d worn a mask the whole time he wasn’t putting food in his mouth, but that wasn’t exactly fool proof. He’d cuddled on the couch with them, with Christopher between them, he’d been close to them for hours. He’d tested positive the day after. It was entirely possible that he’d been contagious while at movie night. There was no way to know when he became contagious between the seven day and fourteen day tests.

Buck could’ve given COVID to Christopher. He didn’t even have a vaccine, he was too young—

“Buck?”

Buck panicked and threw the bedsheet over his head. “Get me a mask,” he managed through what he realized were gasping breaths. No wonder Chimney had come to investigate.

“Buck, we’re living together,” Buck could practically hear the eyeroll in Chimney’s voice, “you don’t need a mask.”

“I tested positive. Chim, I tested positive, I—”

“Okay, Buck take deep breaths, come out from under there—”

“No, you have to stay away—”

“Buck, listen to me.” Buck felt Chimney’s weight dip the edge of his bed. “Take the blanket off and talk to me. If you’ve tested positive then I’m already exposed. Your bedsheet isn’t gonna prevent that at this point and it’s just making it harder for you to breathe.”

Chimney had a point, Buck was getting highly uncomfortable in the humid heat building under his bedsheet due to his rapid breathing. Reluctantly, he pulled the sheet down until it was under his chin.

“I got my test results.” Buck’s voice cracked as he spoke. “The fourteen-day one, it was positive.”

Chimney took a deep breath, and Buck resisted the urge to demand he stop breathing while he was around him. It would probably come off as really rude.

“We’ll deal with it, it’s okay. Do you have any symptoms—?”

“I could’ve infected Christopher!” Buck cried, hot tears burning stripes down his face. “He could die and it would be my fault—”

“You can’t go down that rabbit hole, Buckaroo,” Chimney said softly, placing a comforting hand on Buck’s knee. Buck latched onto the sensation, gripping the edge of his sheets with white knuckles.

“Rabbit holes are kinda my thing,” Buck said petulantly, closing his eyes against the reality around him.

There had to be a chance that the test was wrong, there had to be. Even if it was a PCR test, which reportedly had the highest accuracy rating out of the different versions... If the test was wrong, maybe he could go get another test done to prove it. Chimney had asked if he had any symptoms, and he didn’t (at least that he could tell), so there was a chance...

But he knew it was possible to have the virus, be contagious, and still not show any symptoms during the entire infection. And he had to operate under the assumption that he was infectious until he got a negative test. So, what did that mean for next steps?

“I need to call Eddie,” Buck mumbled. He hadn’t dreaded a conversation with his best friend this much since he had to tell him he lost Christopher in a tsunami. Of course this time would have to do with Christopher’s potential death too—

“Don’t do that,” Chimney said softly, and Buck opened his eyes at the tone. “This isn’t your fault, Buck. Eddie’s not gonna blame you.”

“You don’t know that. I put his kid at risk.” Buck could feel his heart rate spike as he spoke.

“Do you blame Eddie for letting you in the house?” Chimney asked pointedly.

“No...”

“Then he’s not gonna blame you for entering it. You’re both in high risk jobs, this was always going to be a risk—”

“Easy for you to say, you were smart. You stayed away from Maddie and your unborn kid, you protected them, and I’m gonna kill Christopher—”

“You can’t do that to yourself, Buck!” Chimney grabbed both of his hands and squeezed. “You don’t even know if Eddie or Christopher caught it from you, don’t freak yourself out over something that hasn’t happened.”

Yet.

Even if Eddie got his test back today and it came back negative, he and Christopher wouldn’t be in the clear for another two weeks. Buck wasn’t sure how he was supposed to survive until then; he’d be trapped in his apartment, festering in his anxiety and fear as he waited for a death sentence that may or may not come to pass for one of the most important people in his life.

He’d be cut off from everyone except Chimney, who would have to quarantine for fourteen days after Buck eventually tested negative. Fuck, Chimney wouldn’t be able to work for a month potentially because of Buck. The 118 would be down one of their best paramedics for a month, and they’d have to replace Buck for two weeks, or they’d have to operate extremely short handed—would Eddie have to quarantine too?

“Do you want me to call Eddie?” Chimney offered, breaking him from his thoughts.

“No,” Buck shook his head, pulling a hand from Chimney and searching his bed for his abandoned phone. The word ‘positive’ still glared back at him and he quickly switched to his contacts. “No, I’ll do it. Could you, ah, could you call Bobby? Tell him I’ll send him the test result in a bit, I just—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Chimney said. He gave Buck’s hand one more squeeze, then pushed off the bed and retreated downstairs to make his own phone call.

Buck looked at this phone in dread, thumb hovering over Eddie’s name for what felt like hours. Only seconds must have passed though because suddenly Buck could hear Chimney’s low voice in the background, greeting Bobby, and somehow that made this even more real, telling someone outside of the apartment.

The LAFD reporting chain in itself would be a nightmare, but luckily that was mostly for Bobby to deal with.

Buck took a deep breath, pressed the call button, and wedged the phone between his ear and his pillow as he waited for the call to connect.

“Hey, Buck, what’s up?”

“Hey, I uh—” Buck paused, his throat already closing on his words. Fuck, how was he supposed to get through this, maybe he should have Chimney do it—

“Buck! Hey, it’s okay, alright? Talk to me, what’s up?”

Ah, more labored breathing freaking out his friends. Way to go, Buck.

“My COVID test came back positive,” Buck said, although from Eddie’s silence on the other line he wasn’t sure he managed to make the last words intelligible.

“The fourteen day one?” Eddie asked finally, squashing that theory.

“Yeah,” Buck breathed. “I...we got it after our shift, that one.”

“And it was positive? You’re...positive about that?”

Buck snorted at the ill-timed humor, but the sound promptly turned into a sob and he slapped his hand to his face in a pointless attempt to hide it.

“Buck, hey, it’s gonna be okay—”

“Movie night,” Buck said, almost choking on the words, and he heard a sharp intake of breath on the other line. “Christopher—”

“Buck, it’s okay—”

“It’s really not—”

“We were both at the same scene, we’ve both been vaccinated, we both had the same risk, okay? Would you blame me if I had a positive test?”

“Of course not, but—”

“This is not your fault. Okay? And even if you’re positive, the vaccine should make the risk of transmission less, right?”

“Ninety-five percent effective and my fucking bad luck harps on the five percent, of course it does,” Buck said bitterly, using his hand to smear his tears across his face.

“That’s not how the efficacy rates work.”

“Yeah, yeah...”

Buck knew that—it was another one of the rabbit holes he’d been down since the pandemic started. He couldn’t help but think this was just another instance of the universe acting against him.

“We’ll make sure Chris gets tested, we’ll keep an eye out for any symptoms, and we’ll go from there, okay? But please don’t freak yourself out, we’re not there yet.”

“Too late,” Buck said with a watery chuckle. He stayed quiet for a moment, straining to hear if Chimney was still on the phone with Bobby. If the silence below was any indication, that conversation had been short. “Fuck, Eddie, I’d never forgive myself—”

“It’s not your fault we’re in a pandemic.”

“I can’t help but think there’s a pattern here, Eds,” Buck whispered, closing his eyes. “A natural disaster and a worldwide pandemic, and I’m the reason Christopher might die in both cases. That makes me the common denominator.”

“That’s ridiculous and you know it.”

“Maybe make sure it’s not my turn to watch Christopher the next time there’s an earthquake?”

“If you’ve stumbled onto how to predict major earthquakes, there are a lot of people who’d be interested in that info besides me.”

“Literally just any time I finally think things are getting better, that’s a pretty good indicator—”

“Buck...”

“Sorry, I’m just...” Buck let out a harsh breath. “Fuck.”

“You’re scared, that’s okay.”

“I’m terrified.” The admission was made on so soft a whisper that Buck himself almost couldn’t hear it.

“Do you want to talk about a plan, would that help?”

“I—yeah, yeah that sounds good,” he agreed, latching onto the promise of a path forward.

“Well first you’ll need to contact Bobby—”

“Chim’s doing that right now. Or, he was, I think they hung up,” Buck strained to listen again, but it was still silent. “I have to send Bobby my test results for documentation.”

“Right, and he’ll take care of LAFD contact tracing to file which calls you’ve been on. You’ll probably get a phone call from the county health department for community contacts once he files. Have you had contact with anyone else besides work and us?”

“No, we’ve been having groceries delivered and I only workout at work or outside and distanced,” he said, thinking back over the last two weeks.

“Good, that’s good, Buck. So you’ll just have to tell them that and tell them you’ve already contacted me. You should talk to Chimney too and see if he’s interacted with anyone, but I think he’s on the same wavelength as you are for hypervigilance.”

“Fat load of good that did,” Buck muttered.

“More than you think, Buck. There are way too many people who take this virus for granted who would’ve potentially spread this to hundreds of people. With all the steps you take—we take—to stay safe, this would’ve been so much worse if you didn’t care.”

“I really hate this.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“S’not your fault.”

“It’s not your fault either.”

“Okay...” Buck took a breath, willing himself to believe Eddie’s words more than his own anxiety. Maybe he could ask Eddie to make a recording of him saying it, just so Buck would have something to drown out his own thoughts in the silence. He almost did; he didn’t think Eddie would have hesitated to agree either if he thought it would help.

“Do you want to do a Netflix watch party tonight? Still have a movie night, you just won’t be able to steal my popcorn.”

“Hey, I’ve bought most of the popcorn in your house!”

“The only thing you haven’t bought is the kettle corn because you hate it.”

“I think you might hate it too with how often it stays on the shelf and out of the microwave.”

“Yeah, sure...”

There was something wistful and fond in Eddie’s tone there but Buck didn’t have the mental energy to pursue the thought.

“Listen, I should go, I do still have to talk to Bobby, but uh—yeah, let me know what Christopher wants to watch and I’ll set up the watch party.”

“Sounds good, I’ll text you. Hey, call me if you need to, okay?”

“I—yeah,” Buck breathed. “I will. Thanks, Eddie.”

“Anytime. Bye, Buck.”

The line went dead and Buck let out a deep breath with a loud whoosh of air.

“You done?” Chimney called from below.

“Yeah,” Buck answered back.

“Bobby just needs you to send a screenshot of your test results, he’ll handle the rest,” Chimney explained.

“Thanks, Chim.”

“Eddie take it okay?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, still feeling undeserving of it.

“Hey.” Buck looked up as Chimney grabbed his hand. “We’re gonna get through this.”

Buck nodded, wishing he could feel as sure as Chimney sounded.

Two days later, while Buck was thoroughly driving himself (and Chimney) insane by incessantly cleaning the apartment, his phone rang from where he had left it on the kitchen table. Dropping his supplies somewhere no one would trip over them later, he made it to the phone at the third ring; the number was unknown but Buck recognized the area code to be local.

“Hello?”

“Am I speaking with Evan Buckley?”

“This is Evan,” Buck said, lips reflexively scowling at the name.

“Hi, Mr. Buckley. My name’s Alex, I’m from the LA County Health Department, I’m calling in regards to your recent COVID-19 test four days ago.”

Buck swallowed. Bobby and Eddie had warned him that the county would likely be reaching out to him for contact tracing.

“Mr. Buckley, are you there?”

“Yes, sorry.”

“No problem. Anyway, I’m calling to inform you that your group’s test results were compromised. The lab only made us aware of the error this morning so we’ve been working on contacting everyone in the test group.”

Buck blinked, sinking into the nearest chair. “What do you mean by ‘compromised?’”

“An investigation is still underway, but it appears that the reporting software experienced a coding error. We believe that one true positive test was picked up, but the logic never switched back to an unknown state, rendering all future tests in that group as a potential false positive. If your test was required for back-to-work or travel reasons, you’ll need to be tested again.”

“Wait. Wait, so—” This was too much emotional whiplash. “So I might not be positive?”

“None of the test group results can be considered accurate at this point, so yes. You’ll need to take a new test to be sure.”

“Um, wow. Okay.”

“I need to continue to call affected personnel, so unless you have any further questions, Mr. Buckley?”

“No! Uh, no, I think I’m good,” Buck stumbled. It all felt too good to be true. “Thank you.”

“I hope your follow-up test has better results for you. Have a good day.”

The line beeped closed and Buck lowered the phone from his ear in a daze. All of that panic, all of that fear and anxiety, all of the fuss other people had to go through...it had been for nothing. Well, potentially nothing. Buck would need to get tested again, but—

“You alright, Buckaroo?”

Chimney’s hand appeared in front of his vision, slowing down from a clear wave to try to get his attention.

“The COVID test was messed up,” Buck said. Chimney’s face melted into some sort of hopeful slackened shock. “That was the health department, they said the results were messed up and I need to test again.”

Chimney fell into a nearby open chair. “Messed up how?”

“Their software broke and reported everyone positive,” Buck said; he thought he paraphrased the issue well enough.

Chimney let out a lengthy sigh. “That’s one hell of a fuck-up.”

The words startled a laugh out of Buck. It was the first time he’d laughed since reading that goddamned email two days ago.

“Eddie’s test must’ve been processed before the fuck-up,” Buck mused. The thought turned sour in his mind, imagining what Eddie would have gone through had their positions been reversed. Buck’s stomach had been in knots because of three hours spent with Christopher, he didn’t want to think about how much worse it would’ve been for Eddie who’d spent days with him.

“Hey, you know we still have to treat ourselves as positive until new test results come back, right?” Chimney reminded him gently.

“I know, but...” Buck shrugged. “I dunno, I feel lighter.”

“Maybe we should keep this to ourselves until we can get some new test results.”

“Yeah, keep the emotional whiplash contained to two people, good idea,” Buck said, grinning. Chimney shook his head with a fond smirk.

Two days later, Buck found himself at the Diaz residence, with Christopher’s favorite kind of ice cream, pizzas, and a newly received ‘Negative’ COVID-19 test in his email inbox, ready to join his favorite boys for movie night. And when Eddie opened the door with a brilliant smile, reaching for the pizza boxes so Buck could maneuver inside, Buck let himself breathe for the first time in days.