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“Are you regretting your silence now?”
“It sure is silent now that your friend is gone.”
“Was it worth it? Killing your friend to keep your information? Information we will squeeze out of you anyway, one way or another. You are just delaying the inevitable.”
“Big, strong American. Not so strong now, are you?”
“What would your friend say if he could see you begging and screaming for mercy, hmm? Well, it does not matter much, does it? The dead cannot speak, can they?”
Buck’s eyes snapped open with a shuddering gasp, relief dousing him like a bucket of water on a hot, summer night. It was dark, and the floor beneath him was hard—had he fallen out of bed—?
Water dripped from his outgrown hair, catching dirt and grime and stinging his eyes as he blinked. That wasn’t right, had his apartment flooded? Wait...was he out on a call and something knocked him out? Was it raining?
“Good, you are finally awake.”
No. No no no, fuck no, please—
He couldn’t be back there—
No, get off me—
Buck was dragged forward, feet and knees scraping against the dirty floor as rough hands pulled him along by the armpits.
“Did you have a nice nap?”
Fuck, he hadn’t been rescued at all, he was still trapped in this hell hole. He would die here after all, it was too good to be true—
A hand fisted in his hair and suddenly he was forced face first into the large barrel of water he’d become well acquainted with over the last few...weeks? It had been weeks, right?
The water was cold, not cold enough to trigger his gasp reflex but cold enough to shock him. He struggled against the arms holding him down despite history warning him to conserve his oxygen. Logically, he knew it wouldn’t necessarily matter, they’d hold him under until he nearly passed out or did pass out—
“Buck!”
Christopher!
The salt water stung his eyes as he opened them, searching for the voice but only seeing the dark walls of the barrel. Buck opened his mouth to shout for the boy, hoping to hear some sort of answering response, but he merely gargled in the water and willed his lungs not to inhale.
“Buck, help!”
Buck thrashed against the arms—he screamed for Christopher, he had to be okay, Eddie would—a copper tang flooded his mouth and Buck’s eyes snapped open in the water again, except this time he could make out a face in the dark murk at the bottom.
Trevor’s lifeless eyes stared back at him. Buck gasped, inhaling accidentally and promptly choking on the bloodied water. Still the arms held him down and Buck blinked desperately to try and rid the black fog from his vision. He looked at Trevor’s head again, but instead of Trevor, it was Eddie—
Buck’s eyes snapped open amidst a convulsive coughing fit. He blindly scratched at the linens around him until finally he could register the softness of his bedspread beneath his fingers. Buck sobbed in relief, rolling over to look at the clock next to his bed to further ground him in reality. 02:24 blinked innocently back at him and Buck rolled onto his back again, desperately trying to regulate his breathing.
He wasn’t in Afghanistan, watching his teammate be slaughtered in front of him—
He wasn’t in the tsunami, trying with everything he had to keep Christopher safe and failing—
He wasn’t in the streets of Los Angeles, watching Eddie bleed out—
“Fuck,” Buck whispered, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He hadn’t had a night terror that vivid in months, not since—not since Eddie had been shot. Not since Buck had had Eddie’s blood in his mouth and Eddie’s glazed eyes stared at him across the asphalt until Eddie’s face had morphed into Trevor’s and back again.
Buck’s hands drifted to his hair as he opened his eyes and tried to take in the familiar apartment ceiling. Despite the many nightmares Buck had over the years about his time in captivity, somehow he’d never experienced a nightmare quite like tonight. He’d woken up twice, one of which while still dreaming and making him think he was still trapped in the living nightmare he’d suffered through for five weeks.
Buck sniffed hard, inhaling deep through his nose in an effort to remind himself that he was above water and could breathe. He repeated the process several times, hoping the repetition would calm him and soothe his beating heart before it broke open his chest and—
It wasn’t working.
Buck realized that despite his efforts, his breathing had not calmed down and he was rapidly on his way to a panic attack. He reached for his phone on the bedside table, opened his contacts and pressed the call button as soon as he found who he was looking for. It wasn’t that late in Hawaii, surely Steve would still be awake—
“Hey, kid. What’s up?”
“Hey, do you have the bandwidth to talk me down from having a panic attack?” Buck wasn’t convinced that he was not already having a panic attack, but maybe Steve wouldn’t pick up on that. Pfft. Who was Buck kidding? “If not, I can call—”
“No no no, you stay on the line, kid. You want me to lead or listen?”
If his lungs had the ability to, Buck would have sighed a deep breath of relief. As it was, a tiny punched sigh forced its way from his mouth. “Uh...listen for now, lead if I need it?”
“You got it. I’m here whenever you’re ready, Ev.”
Buck closed his eyes and immediately snapped them back open when Trevor’s lifeless gaze stared back at him. Buck sobbed once, threading his free hand into his hair and pulling hard at the roots to ground himself.
“I basically just had a cocktail of all my greatest trauma hits in one go,” Buck managed through sharp gasps. Each breath of air sliced at his throat but he was desperate for the oxygen and he couldn’t stop. “The only thing missing was the firetruck bombing and choking on my own blood. Although I guess I had that covered by choking on Trevor’s instead—”
“Breathe, Ev, c’mon. Deep breath with me.”
Buck tried and promptly choked on the saliva that had built up, and that only caused him to panic more. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. If you can speak, you can breathe. Try it slower—”
“I feel like I’m—breathing nails instead of oxygen.”
“Do you have any ice on hand?” Buck frowned at the abrupt change but forced himself to stand on unsteady legs and made his way to the kitchen.
“I have ice cubes,” Buck said thinly, checking his freezer contents even as his hand trembled violently on the handle.
“Perfect, pop one in your mouth.”
“Why?” Buck asked, even as he reached in for an ice cube from the container.
“You need to clear your throat but I know you don’t want to drink anything right now,” Steve said, nailing one of Buck’s biggest problems when he was triggered about his waterboarding. “The ice will melt slow enough, and the cold shouldn’t touch on any unwanted sensations.”
The water had been room temp, and the blood had been—warm—hot—
Buck popped the ice into his mouth without waiting another moment and waited, sucking on the ice and moving it around his mouth as it slowly melted and soothed his throat.
“Having to constantly move it around your mouth to avoid freezing anything helps with keeping your mind occupied on a mindless task,” Steve explained.
It helped, Buck realized in a daze as he worked the ice around his mouth until it dwindled into nothing. Before he knew it, he’d grabbed another cube and started working on that one too, settling down on a chair in his kitchen. He felt less jittery already, less like he would fall apart at the seams if he scratched the itch under his skin too hard.
“Make sure you don’t bite or chew the ice, that’ll fuck up your perfect teeth.”
Buck snorted. The ice was helping more than Buck could have expected, and he knew he’d have to make sure to keep ice cubes on hand in the future. It wouldn’t be a problem at his apartment, and the refrigerator at the firehouse had an ice dispenser so he’d be set at work. And maybe he could ask Eddie if he could put the ice cube tray back in his freezer instead of leaving it out for extra leftovers space. Buck figured he could cook more in repayment and that would be an even trade.
“How’d you know that would work?” Buck asked around a third ice cube in his mouth.
“You’ve never really taken to the classic grounding techniques, so I figured you could use something that occupied your mind enough to forget where it’s stuck and come back to the now, all the while giving your mouth something to do that isn’t drinking and making things worse.”
“Well this is working really well, so thanks,” Buck said, taking comfort in how chilled his tongue and cheeks felt. He finished off the third ice cube and contemplated a fourth, but he felt pretty settled so he decided to leave it for now.
“D’you know what brought tonight on? Or was it just a freak occurrence?”
“It was stupid,” Buck muttered already working his way back to his bed. The ice had worked and helped, but he was starting to feel chilly and was craving the warmth of his comforter.
“The worst triggers are the ones we think are small, tiny, silly, insignificant...that doesn’t make them hurt any less. It’s just harder for us to see them coming. It’s not stupid, Evan.”
“We had a call today,” Buck said, sitting down on the bed. He grabbed the pillow and curled his body around it in a hug as he settled it on his lap. “It was minor, a burn injury from splashing oil at a food place. He mentioned something offhand to another employee about getting an order of disco fries ready for a customer, since he obviously couldn’t do it himself.”
“Ah kid...”
Buck hugged the pillow closer. The team had been well aware of Buck and Trevor’s sports rivalry, and it’d come out that the pair had plans to visit each other’s hometowns and try some local food staples. Trevor had pitched disco fries at Wrigley Field because they were his favorite, and Buck insisted he’d rather try authentic Chicago deep dish pizza somewhere other than a sports park.
“I see him everywhere, Steve. The look in his eyes, right before they... He was so scared. He was so scared, and I—I couldn’t save him—”
“That’s not on you, Evan. There’s nothing you could’ve done to save him, nothing you could’ve said.”
“It should’ve been me—”
“No, you can’t do that to yourself.”
“He—”
“Think about how you feel right now. Really think about it. Would you really wish that on him? Everything you’re feeling right now, do you wish Trevor were feeling it instead?”
This. This was why he’d called Steve. Steve understood him in a way that no one else ever had. He’d seen every side of Buck, he’d broken down and built back up the foundations of what made Buck able to face the day without completely losing himself in the process.
Anyone else would have tried to convince him it wasn’t his fault.
Anyone else would have tried to tell him that ‘Trevor wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.’
It didn’t fucking matter what Trevor would’ve thought, because Trevor was dead.
But if he had lived? If he had been the one sitting here in bed, talking through another panic attack, living through the guilt and anger and fear that Buck sometimes thought would shred his very soul into tatters if he let it fester for too long?
Buck wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone.
Buck was jealous that Trevor didn’t have to live with this, and didn’t that make him an asshole?
Maybe Trevor really did have the easy go of it.
Buck was glad Trevor didn’t have to suffer anymore if the alternative was living through what Buck had to every day.
Buck huffed quietly, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “Why the fuck do you have to make so much sense, huh?”
Steve snorted. “Why do you think I got put in charge of you knuckleheads?”
Buck grinned softly. “Because you were the only son of a bitch crazy enough to try and deal with us.”
“Damn straight.”
Buck leaned back onto his bed with a smile, still hugging the pillow close to his body as he rolled onto his side.
“Did you ever get a chance to go to Wrigley Field?” Steve asked after a moment.
“I’m looking forward to some Wrigley Disco Fries when we get home.”
“Have some Disco Fries for m—”
Buck swallowed, flexing his hand around the phone. When the phone case creaked at the pressure, Buck grimaced and released the pressure. “No,” he said shortly.
“Why not?”
“Because Los Angeles is fucking far from Chicago,” Buck said petulantly.
“Right, because you’ve been in LA the entire time you’ve been discharged.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to go right away,” Buck whispered, vulnerable honestly falling past his lips without resistance after having his protective layers stripped away by the nightmare and Steve’s prodding.
“What’s stopping you now? Besides distance.”
“Support,” Buck said, and part of him felt guilty at the admission. Realistically, he knew Eddie would go with him, without question or hesitation. Hell, Eddie even liked baseball, so he’d probably enjoy the game on its own. But Buck hadn’t yet found the words or the courage to share this part of his life with Eddie, and he didn’t think springing it all on him right before inviting him on an impromptu trip to Chicago was the way to go about it.
“Tell you what. I’ll look up when the Phillies are gonna be in Chicago, and we can make a weekend out of it.”
“Steve, no, I can’t ask you to do that—”
“You didn’t ask, I offered. Besides, the only other team I care about is the Mets and Danno will actually murder me if I go to a Mets game without him. And something tells me you aren’t gonna want an audience for this.”
Buck snorted softly. He could already see it: the food vendor giving him his order of Disco Fries and then promptly dissolving into tears. He trusted Steve to let him have his moment while also not making a fool of himself.
“I was gonna take him to an Eagles game,” Buck said ruefully, but he found himself looking forward to going to Wrigley with Steve. Maybe it would be the kind of closure he’d been denying himself of the last few years.
“We can do a football game, too, kid. I only ever get to see the Pro Bowl out here, I’m not gonna say no to more sporting events with you.”
“Might be hard to get those in on the same weekend.”
“Oh no, I have to visit you twice, what a nightmare.”
“I guess I’ll owe you a few Hawaii trips after this, huh?”
“You’ve always got a place here if you want to visit, you know that.”
“Yeah,” Buck whispered, settling back into bed.
As much as he loved his team, his 118 team, there was something about his SEAL team that inherently soothed him. Perhaps it was because they’d seen the dark shadow cast by his sunny disposition in a way he’d never let anyone else see, but it was nice to have company in the darkness. It sounded more dark and depressing than it actually was, but it was in the darkness that people needed each other the most, and Buck knew that whenever he ended up stuck there, there were people who would help him until he could find the light again.
The 118 had become more of a support and family than he ever expected he could have. His SEAL team kept him alive and intact, reminded him that he was a human being inside the carefully crafted machine, and kept his soul together with a hodgepodge of bubble gum and duct tape. The 118 team took that person and reminded him that he was alive and had a life to live, drenched him in superglue, threw their arms around him and said ‘We’re going to live through this with you.’
Buck felt himself getting dangerously close to the day where he’d have to let the 118 team in on the rest of Evan Buckley. But for now...
“Steve. Thank you.” It wasn’t enough but it was everything he needed to say.
“Always, kid.”