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It’s Christmas, and Buck has been feeling okay – not happy, not yet, but okay. Maddie and Chimney aren’t here, and maybe it’s his fault, but he’s got Taylor with him, who he thinks he might love, and the whole station, who he knows he loves, and there’s mulled wine and plates of cranberry salad being passed around and a Santa hat on his head and he’s feeling okay.
And then Eddie says, “I’m leaving the 118.”
It’s Christmas, and Eddie is leaving the 118, and it’s Christmas, and Buck thinks he might hate Eddie just a little. Ravi is the first to move to hug him, because Ravi knows Eddie the least, because he’s likely to be a little sad but nothing else, and Buck watches Eddie’s arms come around him in response and all he can think is, it’s Christmas.
Hen, second, and this hug lasts longer. Eddie has to stoop, and her arms go around her neck and their cheeks press together, and over her shoulder, behind one of her big hoop earrings, Eddie glances up at Buck, who is standing still. He’s still wearing the Santa hat. He doesn’t know what to feel. He doesn’t really want to hug Eddie right now.
“Buck,” Eddie says. Is all he says.
And Buck has always been weak, for Eddie, will probably always be, and so when Hen slips out of his arms Buck steps in willingly, arms tight around his shoulders, pushing his nose into the curve of his neck. Eddie grips him so tightly it almost hurts, fingers digging into his back, but Buck says nothing, just feels his eyes prick, a little.
It’s Christmas. He’s wearing a Santa hat. He might love Taylor, but he definitely loves Eddie.
And that’s the bitch of it all, he thinks, as he tries his hardest not to cry in Eddie’s arms, nose filled with the scent of his laundry detergent and cologne and something like the spiced rum that was being covertly passed around. “I’m sorry,” Eddie says to him, which he didn’t say to the other two. Buck doesn’t ask why.
“Me, too,” he whispers.
*
He gets it, is the thing.
The nightmares are few and far between, nowadays, but they’re still there. If it’s not the fire truck, waking up with a gasp lodged in his throat, phantom pain in his leg, damp all over with sweat, it’s the tsunami: black water, Christopher’s head disappearing below the surface. Buck diving in after him and only encountering empty space, or worse, unable to move, paralysed on top of the truck, watching as Chris screams soundlessly below the water.
And they were okay, in the end, but they were nearly not, and Christopher’s a kid. He’s already lost his mother – he can’t lose Eddie too.
Buck just wishes he didn’t have to, either.
*
Eddie gave Bobby his two weeks’, so he still has a handful of shifts left before he’s gone for good. This, Buck thinks, is the worst part, as he watches Eddie doze on one of the couches upstairs, his book splayed, forgotten, across his chest. He’d thought that it’d be when Eddie left, but it’s not, because it’s this, instead: watching Eddie take up space, knowing that every minute together brings them a minute closer to his final day.
Still, Buck tries. He jokes around with Eddie at dinner, puts his muddy boots in his lap when they’re watching TV only because he knows Eddie will shove them off, sits close enough in the fire truck that their thighs touch. Tries not to think that his partner, his best friend, will soon be gone.
On Eddie’s second-last shift, there’s a sixteen-car pileup on the intersection, and all hands are on deck to retrieve survivors. Buck and Eddie work in slick seamless tandem, prising open cars and pulling victims from melting seats. “Jaws,” Buck says, and Eddie is already handing them to him before he’s even closed his mouth again, and all at once Buck feels so tangibly Eddie’s loss that for a moment he can’t move, just kind of stares at him, covered in soot and other people’s blood. His face is tired, but his eyes are determined. He has the kind of jawline Buck wants to fit his hands around, framing, like a picture.
“Buck?” Eddie prompts.
And Buck thinks, fuck. “Sorry, on it,” he says, and takes the jaws from Eddie’s hands.
The woman they’re retrieving is a mother, young, from her driver’s licence, only a couple years younger than Buck is. Her shoulder was dislocated in the crash from her seatbelt but she’s more concerned with her infant in the backseat.
“Is he okay?” she’s demanding to Buck when he prises her door off. “Please, I—I heard his carseat bump, is he—”
Buck peers into the backseat. Blessedly, the child is fine, just blinking up at the car ceiling like he’s not sure where he is. “He’s fine, ma’am. Not a scratch.”
She sobs in relief. “Oh, thank God.”
The baby is easy enough to extract, unclipping the carseat and pulling him out through the roof, but the mother is trickier, because she’s pinned to her seat by the dashboard, which has been crushed forward by the force of the crash. Buck looks at Eddie, who’s already looking back at him, and they come to a silent agreement.
“Okay, ma’am,” Eddie says, leaning in, “my partner and I are going to have to prise this dash away from your legs so we can get you out of here. It’s probably going to hurt – brace yourself.”
The mother nods, eyes and mouth filled with tears. Buck retrieves a spreader from the ambulance, and when he comes back Eddie is still leaning into the car, holding the woman’s hand, asking her about her son. “He’s called Sam,” she says tearfully. “He’s—he’s only eight months old.”
“I can assure you, Sam is in good hands,” Eddie says.
“Do you have any kids?”
Buck hesitates, behind him. Gently, Eddie says, “Just the one. Christopher.”
Over Eddie’s shoulder, Buck sees the woman smile, tremulously. “How old?”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven,” she says, breathless. “That’s a big age.”
“They all are,” Eddie agrees. “But we’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”
“How do you do this, every day? Don’t you ever get scared?”
Buck’s hand tightens around the spreader. He feels like his throat has gone treacly. “Sometimes,” Eddie says, simply. “But I just remember that I have him waiting for me back home, and that… makes it all better.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, behind him. I’m leaving the 118.
Eddie turns, sees Buck. “Great,” he says; holds out his hand, and Buck deposits the spreader into them. “Come on, just here. We’ll get you out, ma’am.”
They get her out, because of course they do, because they’re Buck and Eddie, and they get the job done. Hen and Ravi come over with the gurney, and Eddie helps Hen lift the mother on, and Buck watches him and thinks, you’re leaving, and doesn’t think he can speak. His jaw feels tight and achey.
There’s a hand on his shoulder. He startles a little; turns to see Bobby, who’s watching him probably with the same expression Buck was watching Eddie. “Are you okay?” he says.
“We still have more people to save,” Buck says, and shakes Bobby’s hand, striding off to the next car. He’s not okay, but he can’t say that, because that’s not fair to think. It’s not fair to be angry or hurt at Eddie leaving, because Christopher needs his dad, and Eddie is the most selfless, generous father Buck has ever known, but there’s something selfish in him that is.
Maybe he’s a bad person; he probably is. He tries his hardest, to be good, but he’s tired, and he’s sad, and there’s an aching seeping spread in his chest that feels like a bloodstain, and he kind of wants to go home to his apartment and go to sleep.
Only when he does get there, eventually, Taylor’s already there too, sat at his kitchen table on her laptop. Her shoes are off, and she’s just in socks that show off her delicate ankle bone. Her hair clipped out of her face, eyes narrowed in thought, as she types away, and she’s got a mug, his mug, next to her filled with coffee, and all Buck can think about is how shit he feels.
“Hey, babe,” she says, without lifting her eyes from her laptop, “good shift?”
“Taylor,” he says. Is all he can say.
She looks up at that. Her face creases in concern when she sees his face. “Is everything okay?”
“I,” he says, and then nothing more, because it’s not all okay, because he’s already lost one family and now the other one is splintering right before his eyes; because—
Because. Eddie was more than just a friend. He and Christopher. They were—
They were Buck’s family.
And he knows that doesn’t have to change, but he can’t stop thinking of Red, who died surrounded by his friends and family but spent most of his retirement alone in his apartment clinging onto the memory of a girl he once loved. That won’t happen to us, Bobby had promised, Eddie had promised, and Buck wants to believe them so badly but he can’t help but fear the worst. That with Maddie and Chimney and now his best friend gone the rest of the firehouse is going to gradually split off, too.
Firefighters work bad schedules. Buck and Eddie would hang out on their intersecting shifts off, dicking around on Buck’s Playstation or trying out new recipes in Eddie’s kitchen, cutting up celery into small enough pieces that Christopher wouldn’t be able to taste them, sharing a beer after Christopher’s fallen asleep that would sometimes turn into them both falling asleep on the couch, Buck’s head falling to Eddie’s shoulder, waking up with a crick in the neck but smelling of Eddie, worth it because he would get to stay for breakfast—
Well.
Buck can’t help but feel like this is the beginning of the end, for that.
So now, in his big empty apartment, with a girl he thinks he might love but also thinks he might not sat in front of him, with worried blue eyes and one of his mugs in front of her, he feels—
Well, he’s not sure what he feels. He feels wordless, is the thing: hollowed out, excavated. Maybe he’s mourning. Which is fucking dumb, because Eddie’s just leaving the 118, not the fucking planet.
“I,” he says again, and to his horror he feels his eyes fill with tears. Taylor stands immediately, comes up to him, and Buck wants to say I think maybe we should take a break but then she puts a hand on the side of his face and says softly, “Eddie?” and Buck breaks, and her arms come around him, and his around her. She’s so little in his arms that he can wrap them all the way around her, elbows to wrists, and her hair is soft against his cheek and she smells of his bedsheets, and this is why Buck is not a good person, because he’s in her arms, and yet he can only think of Eddie and falling asleep on his couch, getting bagels together in the morning on their way to work whenever he stays the night and his voice saying I’m leaving the 118.
“It’ll be okay,” Taylor whispers against his shoulder.
Buck is so fucking sick of okay.
*
They throw a party on Eddie’s last day, something with cake and streamers held at Bobby and Athena’s house. Buck is on Eddie duty, because it’s a surprise party, though parties like these have become frequent enough around any sort of life event that they’re hardly much of a surprise anymore. He’s a shit liar, always has been, so when Eddie raises an eyebrow and says, “Where are we going?” Buck blurts, “Food.”
“We’re going to food,” Eddie says.
“Get food,” Buck says. “We’re going to get food.”
“Where?”
“Uh – Chinese.”
“We’re going to get food from Chinese?”
He’s smiling now, messing around with him; he definitely knows what this is. It’s his last day, and he’s family, and everyone had simply waved goodbye and given him small hugs when he left the station for the last time. Buck had tried not to think about it too much, but seeing Eddie in his car back in his civvies, uniform folded away on the bench to be taken away and washed so someone else can put it on, hurts more than he thought it would.
Or rather, it hurts exactly as he thought it would, which is a lot. Buck keeps trying to tell himself that it’s just a fucking job, except seeing Eddie cross the line of the front door probably for the last time feels a little like he’s walking out of his life, too.
Still, Buck knows better than to pollute his best friend’s big day. So he keeps his mouth shut, pastes on a smile, and rolls his eyes as Eddie teases him about his awful poker face.
It’s worth it, anyway, for his expression when he sees everyone at the Grant-Nash’s, shouting “surprise!” with balloons and party hats and cake. He turns to Buck halfway down the stairs from the front door, something like disbelief and wonderment and something else inexplicable but so painfully sincere in his eyes that Buck’s throat grows a little thick. “You did this?” he says.
Buck shrugs, modestly. “It’s not every day the LAFD loses its best firefighter.”
They both sort of tear up, at that, and then start laughing, because they’re at a party and this is supposed to be fun. Eddie pulls him into a hug, the kind of hug he does where he hooks one arm around Buck’s shoulders and the other tight around his back, where Buck can only cling back and try not to tear up even further. When Eddie pulls away, his hands slip belatedly: one at Buck’s waist, the other at the curve of his neck. It’s cruel, is what it is, but it’s also just Eddie, and Buck just smiles a little tremulously at him and tries not to break into pieces.
It’s a nice time, as well, which is kind of the shittiest part. Buck sits on the couch in the living room with a plate of cake – he got the double-d of Good Luck Eddie!, which feels like the world’s most ill-timed unhumorous entendre – with the kids, Christopher and Denny and Harry and Hen’s new fosters Chloe and Miles, laughing along to all their stories and allowing Denny and Christopher to drive toy trucks up and down his legs. Half his mind is a world away.
“Buck, Buck,” Christopher says, pulling at his sleeve, and Buck comes out of his thoughts to see him and Denny peering up at him eagerly. “Can we show Chloe and Miles the garden?”
“What’s in the garden?” Buck says.
“Wormwood!” Harry says. “It’s this part of the tree covered in worms.” He makes wiggly fingers at Chloe, who squeals a little.
“Okay, okay,” Buck says. “Let’s go.”
The kids rush out the door before he’s even pushed himself off the couch, and for a brief moment he stands there, watching as Denny helps Christopher carefully jump the porch into the grass. A small wry smile tugs at his lips against his volition.
It’s hard, to stay angry at Eddie, when Christopher is smiling like that. Eddie would go to the ends of the earth for the kid, and Buck knows he wouldn’t be far behind.
Still, he’s not expecting the blow of grief that hits him, then. It’s not goodbye, and he knows it, but he knows that something’s about to change, between him and the Diazes, and probably not for the better. He feels like he’s stood at the very edge of a fulcrum, waiting to fall one way or another.
There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he startles a little in surprise out of his reverie, glancing to the side as Hen comes to a stop next to him. Her hand stays warm on his shoulder, but she’s looking out through the sliding glass doors into the garden. For a few moments, they stand there in silence, watching the kids romp and trip all over the garden, Harry carefully depositing worms into everyone’s cupped hands.
“What are they doing?” Hen wonders, half to herself.
“Wormwood,” Buck says.
“You know what, I don’t think I want to ask,” she says, and Buck snorts. “Hey, you know while we all appreciate you playing babysitter, you don’t have to spend your evening just looking after the kids.”
Buck doesn’t tell her it’s less about looking after the kids and more about avoiding Eddie. “I know.”
She smiles at him anyway, a little sadly, like she knows. Hen always knows. “There’s cake in the kitchen,” she coaxes. “I think Eddie might give a speech.”
Buck shrugs. “He’s been practicing in his sleep. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“I think he’d like it if you were there anyway.”
“It’s just one speech.”
Hen sighs. “Are you okay, Evan?”
Evan. “I’m fine.”
He can feel her gaze on him, eyes gentle behind her glasses. “Are you really?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because Eddie’s your best friend,” she says, and Buck bites the inside of his cheek. “Because you love each other. Because he’s leaving.”
“Just the 118,” he says, uncomfortably. “Not the country.”
Hen’s eyes are sympathetic. “Buck.”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
She doesn’t believe him, which is maybe fair, because Buck’s not sure he would have, either, but mercifully, thankfully, she doesn’t push. Buck thinks that maybe Hen’s always been the one who understood him most. “Okay,” she says, finally. She squeezes his shoulder. “You wanna help me bring out plates?”
“Uh, I’ll pass, if that’s okay,” Buck says. “Said I’d help the kids.”
Hen huffs out a laugh. “Of course you did. Tell them to wash their hands before they come back in.”
“Will do,” Buck says, and pretends not to notice the way she glances at him, something small and sad and sympathetic, before she turns away to the kitchen. He grits his teeth, tastes something like blood, and steps out through the sliding doors, pasting on a smile as all the kids turn to him and cheer at his arrival.
“Your worm,” Harry bestows upon him importantly, and Buck obediently cups his hands in front of him and lets Harry tip a worm into them. It is pink, muddy, writhing like a live wire. Christopher shuffles up to him, nudges their arms together, and shows Buck his own worm.
“Yours is bigger than mine,” Buck says.
Christopher smiles. “Her name is Dory.”
“Dory’s a fish.”
“Dory can also be a worm,” Christopher says. He digs his knee into Buck’s thigh. “What is yours called?”
“I haven’t named him yet. Do you wanna do it?”
Christopher thinks about this important decision. His head tips naturally onto Buck’s shoulder, and Buck’s heart clenches. He turns his nose into Christopher’s hair, breathes him in: soap and soil and tamales and Eddie. His eyes sting, a little.
“Buck,” Christopher decides, finally.
“Yeah, bud?”
“No, the worm. The worm is called Buck.”
Despite himself, Buck laughs. “Buck? What are you implying, Chris? Are you saying I’m a worm?”
Chris giggles as Buck gently tussles with him. “Noo!”
“What’s with the name, then?”
“Worms are cool,” Christopher says, like it’s that simple. “And so are you.”
Buck remembers what it was like to be eleven. He aches so badly for it again that his chest hurts. Carefully, he tips Buck the worm into one hand, throws the other around Christopher’s shoulder to reel him in tight against his side. Chris goes willingly, humming as he squints down through his glasses at his own worm, and Buck thinks of Eddie and the firehouse and I’m leaving the 118 and wonders why his heart kind of feels like it’s just split in two.
*
Buck likes 118 parties because they end at 9pm.
All the kids are beginning to come down from sugar rushes, sluggish and sleepily curled up on the couch together, still carefully cradling their worms. As the only non-parent there, Buck leans against the wall and watches with a small smile as Hen and Karen coerce Denny into putting the worm back in the soil where it belongs. Chloe surprisingly is the most resistant to this idea, until Karen strokes her hair and tells her it won’t be able to survive if it doesn’t go in soil, and then, when Chloe looks like she’s about to cry, begrudges that they can come back soon to visit Wormwood.
“Hey,” says a voice from behind him, and Buck turns to of course see Eddie, watching him with a soft look on his face. It’s late enough that the sun has slunk down behind the hills, the warm orange bulb of the light fixture bathing Eddie’s face amber. Buck hates him a little, mostly because he doesn’t hate him at all.
“Hey,” Buck says.
Eddie nods towards Christopher, who is half-asleep against Harry, who is half-asleep against the arm of the sofa, both still clutching their worms. “Mind helping me get him back?”
And how can Buck say no? “Yeah, ‘course.”
They drove here in Buck’s Jeep, so after everyone has waved their goodbyes and pulled Eddie into hugs, the kind where cheeks brush and the promises of staying in touch are hummed into hairlines, the two of them carefully lift Christopher into the backseat. Christopher dozes against the window, hand opening and closing like the worms are still cupped there, and Buck leans in to tighten the seatbelt around him at the same time as Eddie does. They look at each other; their faces are unbearably close. Then Eddie says, “Excuse me,” and Buck pulls back. In the darkness Eddie’s eyes looked like liquid amber. Buck climbs into the cool front seat and has a silent panic attack.
Soon after, Eddie gets into the passenger seat, and they drive off. It’s silent in the car, but comfortably so, because they’ve gotten good at this quiet co-existence, not feeling like they have to ever bridge a silence with forced conversation. At least, it’s probably comfortable to Eddie; Buck tries not to drive off the road.
When they get back to Eddie’s, Buck half-expects to drive off then and there, but Eddie glances back at him as he’s getting out the car and opening the backseat door, and Buck jumps out too, helping Eddie lift Chris onto his shoulder. He’s getting heavier, Chris, day by day – a growth spurt is due, soon. Buck knows Eddie will be devastated when he can’t pick him up anymore. “Just the front door,” Eddie says, passing him his keychain, and Buck fumbles around for the correct key. He opens the door, and Eddie steps past him indoors, and together they stagger to Chris’s room, lay him carefully out in bed. Peel off his socks and shoes, help him get changed into pajamas.
He’s half-asleep, so he’s only barely cooperative. Still, just when he’s settling down into the pillows, his eyes open. “Wait, where’s… where’s Buck?”
Eddie glances at Buck. Confused, Buck says, “I’m right here, buddy.”
“No, not you. Other Buck.” Christopher yawns. His eyes begin to droop closed again. “The worm.”
Eddie’s eyebrows lift. Buck feels his own lips twitch upwards. “He had to stay at Harry’s house. You can’t take him here.”
“Why… not?”
“Because worms can only live in dirt. But you can visit him soon.”
Christopher seems content with this explanation. “Okay,” he says. He closes his eyes, settles back into the pillows. “Love you, Dad. Love you, Buck.”
“I don’t know if he’s talking about me or the worm,” Buck whispers to Eddie.
Eddie smiles, but he doesn’t respond, just stoops to dust a kiss to Christopher’s forehead. “Night, buddy,” he says gently. “We love you too.” Buck’s heart does something complicated in his chest. We. A unit. Buck and Eddie, slick seamless tandem.
No more.
They quietly pad out of the room, Eddie leaving the door open just a crack, the way Christopher has taken to liking having it since the tsunami. Buck watches him do it, feeling like an intruder in the house. He wants to leave. He wants to stay. He wants to run far away. He wants to bury himself back in Eddie’s arms and inhale his scent and fall asleep next to him on the couch and play trash video games with Christopher. He wants Eddie back at the 118.
Eddie disappears briefly into the kitchen; Buck hears the fridge open, and the clink of glass. He reappears with two beers, offers one to Buck. “You want?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Buck says. They collapse on the couch, prise off the caps, and take long swigs. They don’t have alcohol at 118 parties much, because of Bobby, but also because one of the better lessons Buck’s learned at thirty is that he doesn’t need to get shit-faced to have a good time. That sometimes just enjoying himself in the moment is good enough. Still, it doesn’t hurt, to take the edge off an abrasive day.
He and Eddie would do this a lot, share a drink on one of their couches after a long shift if neither of them could sleep. The beer goes sour in Buck’s mouth at the thought.
Not anymore, now.
“Taylor couldn’t make it?” Eddie says finally, after a long moment.
Buck shrugs. “She was working.”
He’s been privately relieved when she’d told him, though he’d felt guilty about it for days afterwards. He knows their relationship is reaching its expiry date; knows it’s nothing to do with her, but all with him, with this pseudo-family he’s formed with his best friend and best friend’s son and the weird messy complicated feelings around it he’s not letting himself unpick. It’s ironic, he thinks, that he’d been so angry at Abby for dragging him on when she knew they were only existing on borrowed time, when now he’s doing almost the same thing. He hates himself sometimes.
“I didn’t see you much tonight,” Eddie says suddenly.
Buck glances at him. Eddie’s watching him, eyes gentle. Buck diverts his attention to the rim of his beer bottle; picks at it, with a fingernail. There’s blood under one of them, from a broken leg today he didn’t scrub off hard enough. “I was on worm duty,” is all he can say.
“I kind of thought you might have been avoiding me.”
Buck looks at him again. There’s an attempt at levity on Eddie’s face. Please don’t say you were avoiding me, he really means. Buck feels like shit. He looks down at his bottle. “I wasn’t,” he says. “Or—maybe I was. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Eddie’s voice is a little hurt. Quietly, Buck says, “I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what? Avoid me at my own party?”
“I don’t really want to talk about this now, Eddie.”
“Then when, Buck? When do we talk about this?”
“I don’t know. Never?”
Eddie puts his bottle on the table. “Look at me.”
Buck doesn’t want to, but does. Eddie’s eyes are kind, confused, hurt, firm. Buck thinks he’s gonna cry.
“Be honest,” Eddie says.
“I can’t,” Buck whispers.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s really selfish. And I promised myself I wouldn’t.”
Eddie’s voice is scarcely above a whisper. “Wouldn’t what?”
“Ask you to stay.”
Eddie sits back. For the first time, Buck risks a glance at him. His eyes are hurt, confused. A little pissed off, too. “That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“You can’t—you can’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.”
Eddie exhales, harshly. His eyes are damp; he scrubs a frustrated hand through his hair. “You… you know why I have to do this. I’m doing this for—”
“Christopher, I know.” The empty sucking feeling is back in his chest, like his ribs are being cracked open one by one. He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have stayed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No.” Eddie’s voice is flat. “Maybe you shouldn’t’ve.”
Buck’s eyes sting. He bites the inside of his cheek.
“I mean—” And the frustration is back in his voice. “How long have you felt like this?”
“I don’t know,” Buck says, quietly. “A while.”
“Since Christmas?”
“Maybe before.”
Eddie stills. There is a long pause. “But…”
But he hadn’t said anything yet. “I know,” Buck says, softly.
“Buck.” He sounds like he might cry, too.
“It’s okay, really,” Buck says. “I just—”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because this job has hurt you.”
“It’s hurt you too.”
Buck’s eyes sting. “You need to take care of your family.”
“You are my family!” and now Eddie has taken his shoulder, and looking at him right in the eyes. These past few weeks Buck has felt like a wound-up balloon, getting tighter and tighter each day, jaw aching from clenching back words so often, and this, this one ruinous look from Eddie, imploring, has fissures cracking open across its surface. Buck thinks he might split apart right on Eddie’s couch. “You—you’re my family, Buck. And family take care of each other. This isn’t just about me and Chris anymore.”
“But it is,” Buck says. “This has always been you and Chris. And I’ve been lucky enough to be let into that sometimes, but—”
“Buck—”
“I can’t resent you for looking after your kid, Eddie. I can’t… I can’t make you choose.”
Eddie sits back. His eyes are damp, hurt. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s fair?”
“You could have told me.”
“This has nothing to do with me.”
“This has everything—”
“Please don’t say that,” Buck whispers tremulously. “Please—please don’t say that. Not tonight.”
Eddie looks like he might cry. “You could’ve—fuck. Buck.”
“Would it have changed anything if I did?”
There is a very long silence. Eddie’s eyes are upset, plagued. “I—I don’t know.” A beat. Buck’s heart feels like it might come right out of his chest. “Maybe. Yeah.”
The pain in Buck’s ribs gets worse. He shouldn’t have asked.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers, finally.
“You’re doing this for Christopher,” Buck says.
“If I’d known—”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Buck.” Eddie’s eyes are imploring, but Buck can’t. Not now.
“Please, Eddie. I can’t—” His throat is thick. “Not tonight.”
Eddie watches him for a long, silent moment. Buck’s jaw aches; his eyes sting. With no label to distract himself, he instead picks at the knee of his jeans.
And then, finally, finally, Eddie whispers, “Okay.”
Buck thinks he might break. Then Eddie reaches over and puts his hand on his shoulder again, in the spot where his throat curves, and touches his thumb carefully to his clavicle, as if reassuring himself he’s still there, and Buck nearly does. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Buck says. “I just… need time to be a little bit selfish.”
“Of course, Buck,” and Eddie’s voice is so achingly sincere Buck thinks he might shatter into pieces. “As much as time as you need.”
It’s really all Buck needs to hear. “I’m gonna hug you now, man. Just so you know.”
Eddie exhales a surprised laugh, but his eyes are soft, and he pulls Buck into the hug first, arms tight around him. Buck tucks his face into Eddie’s shoulder and for the first time lets the tears fall.
“Will you stay?” Eddie whispers. “Here, tonight?”
Yes, Buck thinks, forever, if you’d take me. “I’ll stay.” Eddie makes a move as if to pull back, but in a surge of courage that surprises even Buck himself, Buck doesn’t let him, instead tightens his arms. “But… just like this. For a little longer.”
“Okay,” Eddie says softly against his hair. “Just for a little longer.”
*
Life goes on. As life is wont to do.
Buck tries to get used to life at the 118 without Eddie. On paper, it works out fine – Ravi officially becomes Buck’s partner, and another paramedic, Johnson, takes Eddie’s place as Chimney’s stand-in. The bell rings, and they all climb into the fire truck and save lives, and it’s okay, it’s working, but it’s not, not really, because Eddie was so much more than just Buck’s partner. He’s everywhere around the station – in the bunks, in the locker room, the kitchen, the couches. Buck can’t go anywhere without seeing Eddie leaning somewhere, smirking in the peanut gallery, napping on one of the sofas, burning pop tarts in the toaster.
On the first day without him, an elevator cable snaps with two people inside, so the 118 drive downtown with ropes and the winch to rescue them. Buck, predictably, is the one sent to abseil down the elevator chute to start prising open the roof. He hears the sound of feet landing behind him, and on nothing other than pure instinct, calls over his shoulder, “Eddie, I need the saw.”
“Uh,” says a voice that is decidedly not Eddie’s, and Buck turns to see Ravi stood there, holding the saw in his arms. “Here.”
Fuck. “Sorry,” Buck mutters, and takes it from him. “Thanks, probie.”
Ravi blessedly doesn’t mention it to him, but he must bring it up to Bobby, because when they get back to the station for lunch he starts making chicken parm, Buck’s favourite, and usually a no-go in the station because of how unhealthy Bobby always says it is. Buck just stares down at it as Bobby slides him a plate, and then glances at him, but Bobby is busy passing garlic bread down the table to Johnson.
“Bobby,” he says, finally.
“Come on, Buck,” Bobby says, with a smile. “I finally make your favourite and you’re not even eating? You know how to hurt a man.”
Buck wants to push it, but there is something gently firm in Bobby’s eyes that has him picking up his knife and fork. He cuts himself the tiniest portion, puts it in his mouth. It’s delicious. Of course it is.
He feels like crying.
After, when they’re washing up, Bobby says lightly, “Buck? Can I talk to you in my office?”
“Oh, I’ve seen porn that started like this,” Ravi says, half to himself. Everyone stares at him, and he flames red. “Did I say that aloud?”
“Gross, probie,” Buck says.
Hen pulls her hands out of the hot soapy water. “For that you can finish the dishes. Need to bleach my eyes of that thought.”
“Now, Buckley,” Bobby says.
Buck and Hen make eye contact. Despite himself, when he sees Hen start to snigger, he can’t help it, and bites down hard on his lip to stop himself from laughing. “You heard him, Buck,” Hen whispers, poking at him with a wet finger. “Or he’ll put you over his knee.”
“Hen!” Buck hisses, but Hen just cackles to herself as she drifts off towards the lounge area. Buck can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips as her laughter follows her towards the couch, until Bobby prompts, “Buck?” and he remembers.
“Coming, Cap,” he says.
Bobby’s office is small and sparsely decorated. He hardly ever actually uses it, only really keeps it for moments like these, whenever he needs to conduct a capital-T talk. Buck’s been in here probably more than anyone. He remembers one of the first ones, when Bobby had pulled him in to tell him off for his frosty welcome towards Eddie. “I get this is probably hard for you,” he’d said. “You probably think of him as competition for the handsome muscled recruit. But we’re a team, and Eddie’s a good man. You need to get over yourself. This isn’t just about you.”
At least he’s staying consistent.
“You don’t have to do this, by the way,” Buck says, as he enters.
Bobby raises an eyebrow at him. “Do what?”
“Keep checking up on me. You know, making my favourite foods, letting me do all the cool manoeuvres without telling me that’s too dangerous, Buck, like… like I’m in mourning, or something. I’m fine.”
“Well, are you?”
Buck frowns. “Am I what?”
“In mourning,” Bobby says, simply.
Instinctually, Buck wants to scoff. Of course he’s not in mourning; that’s fucking stupid. His friend has just left the job – that’s it. He’s not dead, or in another country. He’s still here. And then he really thinks about it, about what he’s feeling. How Eddie’s not just a friend, how this is not just a job.
Oh, he realises dully. Maybe he is. “I’m fine.”
Bobby is evidently unconvinced. “Listen, Buck. I get that it’s probably… hard, not having Eddie around—”
“Cap, I’m fine.”
“Not when you’re walking around with your tail between your legs. Not when you call people by the wrong names.”
Fuck. So he did spill. Buck’s fists clench. “Probie.”
“Hen, actually,” Bobby says. “She overheard you down the chute.”
Great. “So what? Is this an intervention?”
“This,” Bobby says, “is me making sure you’re okay, as a captain, and a friend.”
The words are at the tip of his tongue. No, I’m not okay. I’m really fucking pissed and hurt and sad and I don’t know what to do without him here. But all Buck can say is, “I’m fine.”
(He’s getting real sick of fine, too.)
“And I believe you,” Bobby says, gently. “I just want to make sure that… while it may feel like you’re losing family left right and centre, you know you still have us. You still have me.”
It’s the exact wrong thing to say, mostly because it’s also exactly right. Buck’s throat grows a little thick. “I know.”
“So if that means every now and then I have to bring this calorie bomb of fat and cheese into my kitchen, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Okay?”
Buck nods. His ambivalent bravado is fracturing; something about the exhaustion of the day, the aching longing for something that’s already slipped too far out of his fingers, and Bobby’s unfailing kindness, has him crumpling. “Okay,” he whispers. His voice, humiliatingly, cracks halfway through, and he feels his face crumple. “Shit, I’m sorry—”
Bobby’s face softens. “Oh, come here, kid,” he says, and even though Buck is thirty years old with an apartment, a girl he might love and a boy he definitely does, even though he has a mortgage and a job where he walks through fire and climbs buildings, even though the last time Buck hugged his father was when he was eight and his father hadn’t hugged back, he practically folds into Bobby’s arms. Bobby holds him tight, and Buck sinks into his shoulder. He doesn’t let himself cry – not here, not over this – but a few traitorous tears slip out anyway, soaking the sleeve of Bobby’s shirt.
He’s just so tired.
“Sorry,” he croaks out, pulling back, and scrubbing the back of his hand across his face. “I just—this isn’t—”
“Buck,” Bobby says, softly, “you don’t need to explain yourself to me.”
“I’m just so fucking pissed at him,” Buck whispers. “But that’s—that’s not fair.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s doing this for Christopher. This has nothing to do with me.” Buck sniffs, a little. His fingers bite into his palms. “But I’m still so mad at him. That’s not fair, right? That’s selfish?”
“I don’t think it’s selfish.”
Buck snorts, and wipes his nose. “Yeah, thanks, man.”
“Evan, look at me.”
He only calls him Evan when it’s a serious talk. Buck reluctantly meets his eyes.
“It’s not selfish,” Bobby says again. “Eddie is your best friend. If I’m honest, I think we both know he’s also a little more than that. And this is your life. It’s understandable, that by him leaving the 118 it feels like he’s walking away from you, too.”
And that’s just it, isn’t it, because this is has never just been about Eddie no longer being a firefighter. They could be fucking archaeologists and Buck thinks he’d still feel like this. He thinks that all along this has been about Red, about his own loveless apartment, about Taylor who he might love who tastes more and more like insurance each time he kisses her; all along been about him getting left behind. The only thing Buck has in his life is this job.
Though he knows rationally it’s not true, it’s hard to fight the belief that by Eddie quitting his job, he’s quitting Buck too.
“Maybe,” he says quietly.
Bobby squeezes his shoulder one last time. “You’ll find your feet again,” he promises. “But until then, I’m gonna keep making you chicken parm. Is that okay?”
Buck manages a nod.
“How’d I do on the first go?”
“It was all right, I guess.”
Bobby smiles then. “Get out of my office, kid.”
Buck does, and he finds that he’s smiling a little, too; wryly, and his eyes still feel a little damp, but it’s one of his first genuine ones in a while. “Nice talking to you too, Pops.”
He hasn’t called Bobby that in probably years; ironically when he used it most at the beginning was when he least viewed Bobby as a father figure, more of a hardass killjoy. Still, he uses it now, intentionally, because it’s the only way he knows how to express how grateful he is to have Bobby in his life when he feels like everyone else has fractured off. Something like pleasant surprise shutters over Bobby’s face, and then a real, genuine smile.
For the first time, Buck feels like there might be hope after all.
*
“Buck!”
The door has barely opened all the way before Buck is being barraged by four and a half feet of excited energy and unkempt hair. He feels his mouth stretch into a grin, something agitated in his chest finally settling down, as he hauls Christopher up into a big hug.
“Hey, Superman!” he says. “This is a nice welcome.”
“It’s been so long,” Christopher says plainly. Their cheeks brush together. Buck makes a move to put him down, but Chris grips his neck even tighter, and Buck bites back his smile. Fuck, he’s missed him so much. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry, bud, work’s kept me pretty busy. But I’m here now.”
Finally, Christopher begins to squirm a little, and Buck sets him back down on his feet. When he pulls back, Christopher is beaming up at him behind his glasses, so wide his eyes have gone all squinty. Buck’s heart skips a beat when for the first time he spots Eddie behind him, leaning against the doorframe in a pair of jeans and a slouchy old T-shirt, feet bare and eyes soft.
“I’m here now,” he finds himself saying again.
“Yeah,” Eddie says softly, “you are.”
Buck smiles at him, and Eddie smiles back.
“Come oooooon,” Christopher says, tugging Buck’s hand. “I wanna show you my new book.”
The new book is something about crocodiles and dinosaurs that Christopher seems to have virtually memorised. He sits Buck down on the couch and plops himself next to him, book balanced on both of their laps, and talks him through every single page. At some point Eddie disappears – either to take a shower or perhaps a quick trip to Timbuktu and back – and then he joins them on the couch, on Christopher’s other side. “Still dinosaurs?” he says amusedly.
“Yes, Dad,” Christopher says, like anything otherwise is ridiculous. “We haven’t even gotten to stegosaurus yet.”
“I think Buck might want a break from dinosaurs, bud.”
“We can read the stegosaurus page,” Buck says.
Eddie glances at him. “Really?”
Buck shrugs. “Sure. I don’t mind.”
Eddie watches him for a moment, before he nods, and tousles Christopher’s hair. “Just the stegosaurus, Chris, and then I need him to help me make dinner.”
“We’re definitely taking a break after that if that’s the case,” Buck whispers to Christopher. “We can’t leave your dad by himself in the kitchen by himself.”
Christopher giggles delightedly. “He burned pasta last night.”
“Christopher!” Eddie warns from the kitchen.
Buck and Christopher share grins. Buck feels light as air. He’s forgotten how easy it is to be in the Diaz household, how settled he feels here. He throws an arm around Christopher’s shoulders, reels him in a little tighter against his side. “All right, bud, talk to me about stegosauruses. Are they the ones with the long necks?”
By the time dinner rolls around, Buck has learnt that not only are stegosauruses not the ones with the long neck but they are also herbivores who appear to have lived in Portugal. He gets so genuinely invested in the fates of these poor fuckers that when Eddie sticks his head around the door and asks for his help he groans alongside Christopher. “But Dad,” Chris says, “we were just getting to the good part!”
“You’ve been on that page for half an hour, Chris,” Eddie says. “How much more left is there to say?”
“It’s a double spread.”
“You know some scientists think that the stegosaurus had two brains?” Buck says. “How cool is that?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Okay, I think my kid’s given you Stockholm Syndrome. Chris, can you go finish your homework? Buck’s gonna help me make dinner.”
“Dinosaurs after dinner,” Christopher says to Buck solemnly.
Buck nods. “Dinosaurs after dinner.”
They do their handshake, and part ways.
“That handshake grows more and more elaborate every time I see you do it,” Eddie says, when Buck enters the kitchen. Endearingly, he has every single ingredient lined up on the counter but has not cracked a single one open, instead staring down very hard at his Abuela’s recipe book like somehow the barely legible Spanish scribbles will grant him answers.
Instead of doing something insane, like going up to where he’s hunched over the counter and fitting his fingers through his beltloops into the dip of his hips, Buck says, “I’m planning to have a Cirque du Soleil routine worked out by the time he’s fifteen. Backflips and all.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Eddie’s still squinting down at the recipe book. “Do you think I could substitute garlic powder for just garlic?”
“Uh, probably not.” Buck comes over to him and peers down at the book, arms touching. Most of it is in Spanish, but having been around Eddie and his relatives for so long Buck’s gotten decent at inferring meaning – but even this escapes him. “Dude, what is this?”
“Not sure yet,” Eddie says, which is parts relieving and cause for concern. “We’ll work it out.”
“Yeah, except you’re not allowed to improvise in the kitchen. We made a rule forbidding it.” Buck flips a few pages. “Just make spaghetti, or something.”
“I’m not making you spaghetti, Buck, come on.”
Buck pauses, and raises an eyebrow. “Are you making this fancy meal because of me?”
Eddie doesn’t look at him, but his ears go a little pink. Buck is delighted. “No.”
“Aw, dude,” Buck coos. He puts a hand over his heart. “Nothing says friendship like food poisoning.”
“Fuck off, I’m not gonna poison you. At least I don’t think I am.” He flips back to the previous page and squints down, pointing at something that looks like a hieroglyph. “Do you think that’s an ingredient or a hex?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in hexes.”
“Yeah, well, not where Abuela is concerned.” Eddie closes the recipe book with a sigh. “Should I just order in?”
“I think so,” Buck says solemnly. “For our safety.”
Eddie flips him off in a hand movement that turns into something of a gesture towards his laptop on the kitchen table. “Get us something from that nice Thai place on Thomason. What was it? Thai O’Clock?”
“Time for Thai,” Buck says, amused. Eddie says Thai O’Clock every single time. “Yeah, sure. Kung pao chicken for you?”
“Oh, yeah, thanks. And don’t forget—”
“Spring rolls, yeah, yeah, I’ve got it.” Eddie always gets crabby when he doesn’t have spring rolls. As Eddie starts packing all the ingredients back into their various cupboards, Buck slides into one of the chairs and pulls Eddie’s laptop towards him, tracing circles on the trackpad to wake the screen up. He’s not sure what he’s expecting on his screen, but a job application is certainly not one of them.
It’s kinda funny, how fast his heart can sink in his chest.
“Oh, also don’t forget that pak choi thing they have,” Eddie adds, still packing his spices away. His back is turned, oblivious to the way Buck has gone stone-still at the table. “It’s probably not super healthy because it’s drowned in soy sauce but if it gets Chris to eat his greens—” He must turn, then, and see Buck, because his voice turns concerned. “Buck? You okay?”
“Uh,” Buck says, and he’s aware his voice is pitched an octave lower than normal. He clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” For a moment, he debates keeping what he’s seen to himself, and then decides the better of it. “Um – what’s the application for?”
“The—” Too late, Eddie must remember what it is, because something like embarrassment passes his face. He crosses the kitchen to the table, leans down next to Buck to look at the screen. “Oh, yeah. I’m just—thinking about what I’m going to do now. You know, since…”
Since he’s no longer at the 118. “Yeah,” Buck says. Rationally, he’d known that Eddie would be getting a job elsewhere – the LAFD paid well, but not enough that he’d be able to stay trying out new recipes in his home forever – but seeing it like this feels like the final nail in the coffin.
He’s left. He’s really left.
Too late, he realises that this isn’t the time for him to be selfish, hurting Buck. He’s had time to grieve – and the fact that he still is now, and feels like he might be forever, is irrelevant. He needs to be supportive Buck now.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
Eddie looks a little surprised he’s asked, which makes Buck feel like a piece of shit. He sits in the chair on the other side of the corner; their knees touch beneath the table. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I’ve just been… filling out a bunch of tests and evaluations to see what sticks.”
He doesn’t look particularly thrilled with the findings. Despite himself, Buck feels a corner of his lips twitch. “What’d they say?”
“You’re gonna laugh,” Eddie grumbles.
“Laugh at you? Never?”
Eddie eyes him like he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, but finally acquiesces with a sigh. “Priest.”
And Buck cries.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Eddie says darkly, folding his arms. “I’d be a good priest.”
“You’d look sexy in those robes, that’s for sure,” Buck says, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “Okay, so maybe that’s not the best fit for you. There must be others.”
Eddie flaps his hand. “I don’t know. A lot of hands-on stuff.”
Buck can’t help himself. “Firefighter?”
“That came up, yeah.” Eddie sighs. “I wish I could put other details in. Not just what I want to do but what I can do, as a single dad.”
“Well, you always have priest as a fall-back.”
Eddie shoots him a look, and Buck smiles innocently at him. “Real funny, man,” he says. He sighs again. “I don’t know.”
“Have you applied anywhere yet?”
“Not yet. I got… accepted on a course, though.”
Buck stares at him. “Eddie, man, that’s great!” Eddie doesn’t look very happy about this. “Or… is it?”
Eddie lifts a shoulder. No, Buck read that wrong: he’s not unhappy, he’s… insecure. “I just… don’t know if I’ll be any good.”
“What is it?”
“Teaching.”
Teaching. Buck’s silence stretches too long, and Eddie gets that hunched-in closed look he sometimes does whenever he’s embarrassed about something.
“I knew it, I shouldn’t have said anything—”
“No!” Buck blurts. “No, I was just—surprised, is all.”
Eddie watches him cautiously. “Because you don’t think it’s me.”
“Because I didn’t know that stuff interested you,” Buck corrects gently, and Eddie slowly loses that caged look in his eyes. “I mean, I didn’t—are you, like… qualified?”
The corner of Eddie’s mouth ticks up, a little. “I have a history degree, Buck.”
And what? Buck gapes at him. “You do?”
“Have I not mentioned that?”
“Uh, you definitely fucking have not?”
The thought of Eddie sat in a library reading about the Declaration of Independence whilst wearing glasses and a dorky sweater vest is enough to make Buck sweat. He forcibly pulls his mind away from ideas about getting fucked behind the stacks before he gets a hard-on ten feet away from Christopher.
Blessedly, Eddie doesn’t seem to notice his panic. “Yeah. At UT. I… didn’t really think I’d ever have to use it, but it’s kinda been handy now.”
Stop thinking of handjobs, Buckley. “So you’d become a history teacher, you think?”
Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just doing the teacher training first, you know, to get fully qualified.”
It’s maybe a little terrifying, how easily Buck can picture it. Before today – hell, ten minutes ago – he didn’t think he could ever imagine Eddie as anything other than a firefighter, head to toe in the uniform, scaling buildings and putting out fires, but now… Well. A future is crystallising right before his eyes, where Eddie gets a job at the local high school, instead of reading about the Declaration of Independence in glasses and sweater vests now teaching it, inspiring probably dozens of kids to go into a similar occupation, with his passion and smiley eyes.
Slowly but surely, Eddie is carving himself a path away from the 118. And Buck is realising he’s going to have to be okay with that.
(He’s so fucking sick of okay.)
“I think you’d be a great teacher,” he says.
Eddie glances at him. There is something complicated like hope in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, and the way Eddie is looking at him is feeling almost too intimate, like he’s peeling back all his layers until he gets down to his fleshy pulsing heart that sounds out Eddie Eddie Eddie with every beat, so he adds, “Though you’ll need to work on your patience.”
It works. The weirdly intimate atmosphere disappears as Eddie raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Oh, yeah?”
“No more dinosaurs, Chris. Still dinosaurs, Chris? How long is this fucking dinosaur chapter, Chris?”
“I never said fucking,” Eddie corrects, and Buck laughs. “It’s such a big book, Buck. I regret the day I bought it for him.”
“It’s actually super interesting.”
“Oh, yeah, I can tell. Did know that stegosauruses have three hearts? How cool is that?”
“Two brains, actually, and don’t be jealous—”
“You’re making it hard to be the fun parent,” Eddie says, and it’s still joking, but also it’s not, and Buck suddenly feels rooted to the spot, even as Eddie obliviously pulls his laptop closer to him to order their food himself. The fun parent. Like there’s another parent in the equation, like Buck’s the parent in that equation, like Buck’s Christopher’s parent, and is this what a happy panic attack feels like? “You like your pad thai with shrimp, right?”
The fun parent. Christopher.
Eddie is your best friend. If I’m honest, I think we both know he’s also a little more than that, too.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Buck?” And now Eddie’s glancing at him. “Shrimp?”
Roughly, Buck jerks himself out of his reverie. “Oh, sorry,” he says. “Yeah, shrimp’s good.”
“Okay,” Eddie says, and then, “Christopher? What do you want, bud?”
Christopher comes into the kitchen almost immediately, as though he’d been anticipating the take-out, and as Eddie helps him read all the options on the online menu, he idles towards Buck, and when he gets close enough he reaches for his hands which Buck has learned means he wants to be pulled onto his lap. Buck obliges, though his mind is spinning.
The fun parent. This isn’t just about me and Chris anymore. You are family!
I think we both know he’s also a little more than that, too.
Oh fuck.
I really need to break up with Taylor, Buck realises.
*
Buck takes Taylor to the bench he last saw Abby.
“You know, when you told me you wanted to talk here,” Taylor says, “my friends all thought you were going to propose.”
Buck glances at her. Her eyes are cool on the skyline.
“And you?” he says.
She lifts a shoulder. A cloud passes; highlights the faint sheen of tears in her eyes. “My job means I’m pretty good at spotting disasters.”
It’s sad. It’s amicable. Buck knows that his feelings for Taylor pale in comparison to his for Eddie, but when she hugs him goodbye for the last time, and he buries his nose into her red curls and smells her lemon shampoo and the perfume she keeps a bottle of on his dresser, he remembers every time he wondered if he loved her. It would have been so easy to – if not for Eddie.
“What will you tell your friends?” Buck says.
She presses her lips together in a small, tremulous smile. “That we’re over,” she says. “That you broke my heart. That I didn’t break yours.”
“I’m sorry.” He means it, too. Near the end, he knows that Taylor cared more about him than he did her.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I kind of saw it coming.”
“In another life, you would have been a really good meteorologist.”
They both laugh at that. Then Taylor cries. Buck hugs her once more, which is still probably one too many, because he doesn’t get to comfort her like that anymore, and then they both catch separate buses back to their empty, loveless apartments.
Though he’s beginning to think maybe his isn’t as loveless as he thinks.
*
Eddie passes his teacher training with flying colours.
Buck knew he would, because Eddie is not the kind to half-ass things – he even won at war, which Buck’s honestly not sure you could even do – but when Eddie calls him breathlessly midway through his shift to let him know Buck can’t help but celebrate with him.
And then, because he’s at work:
“Is that Eddie?”
Hen comes over, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. She raises an eyebrow.
“Is that Hen?” Eddie says, almost at the same time. There’s an exhale. “Fuck, I—didn’t even check if you were available, you’re at work, of course—”
“Yeah, it’s Eddie,” Buck says to Hen. He hears Eddie splutter a little indignantly at getting cut off. “Wanna say hi?”
“Uh, you better,” Hen says, and pulls the phone away from Buck’s ear herself, jabbing the speaker button. “Diaz?”
Eddie’s voice is a little meek. “Hi, Hen.”
“Now why did I hear that you’re becoming a teacher through Buck, of all people? Did my number disappear from your phone?”
Buck grins. Eddie flounders for a little bit before deciding on, “I… wasn’t sure if anyone really cared?”
“Cared!” Hen squawks. “What, you think just because you’re not working here any more you’ve escaped us? Think again, Edmundo.” Then she turns her disapproving gaze on Buck. “Though don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’re hoarding him, hoarder.”
“I am not hoarding him,” Buck says, exasperated, but before either he or Eddie can defend themselves any further Bobby approaches them.
“Did I hear Eddie’s name?” he says.
“Hi, Cap,” Eddie’s voice says. It’s probably instinct more than anything, calling him Cap, but Buck warms anyway. No matter how many qualifications he gets, there’ll always be a part of him still working at the 118. “Sorry, I didn’t realise Buck was on shift.”
“A couple months off the job has made you complacent, Diaz,” Bobby says. “You need to get on that.”
“On that!” Eddie says. “Now that I’m off it I realise how jacked my sleep schedule was.”
“That’s half the fun,” Hen says dreamily. “Never seeing loved ones… eighteen-hour naps…”
“The muscle cramps,” Buck adds, and they all wince. Nothing like coming home after a long shift for a fifteen-hour power nap only to wake up unable to move from the position you’ve pretzeled yourself into.
Eddie laughs. “Yeah, I can’t say I miss that.”
“Buck tells us you’ve applied to become a teacher now?” Bobby says. “How’s that going?”
“He just got his certification,” Buck says proudly.
Bobby gives the phone a significant look, like Eddie can see. “Thank you, Buck, but I want to hear it from the man himself. How are you finding it, Eddie?”
“Difficult, but… really rewarding.” Buck can almost hear his smile through the phone. He doesn’t think the stone of grief in the pit of his gut will ever disappear, not really, but knowing that Eddie is happy makes it so much easier. “I didn’t think I’d enjoy it so much, but I am.”
“And Christopher?”
“I think Christopher is a little confused about what my job actually entails – he keeps asking me to do his Math homework for him – but… we’re good. We’re really good.”
And, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
“I’m glad,” Bobby says, and he sounds like he means it. “Don’t be a stranger, Diaz. You may no longer work here but this is still your home. Come and visit us soon.”
“I will,” Eddie promises.
At that moment, the bell suddenly rings, and around them everyone starts jogging towards the trucks. Bobby and Hen conduct hasty goodbyes and start moving with them, and even though Buck knows he should be joining them, he can’t help but hold onto the line for a little longer.
“Hey,” he says, just the two of them again.
“Hey,” Eddie says. His voice is warm. “You should go.”
“I should, but—” He bites his cheek. “I’m happy for you, man. You know that, right?”
Eddie’s voice goes soft. “Yeah, Buck. I know.”
“Okay.” Buck can’t stop the small smile from spreading. “Good. I was just checking.”
“Buckley!” Bobby calls, from the truck. “Come on!”
“Talk to you later?” Buck says.
“Later,” Eddie promises. “See you, Buck.”
“See you.”
He shoves his phone into his back pocket and grabs his gear. In a way, it feels a little like progress.
*
Chimney returns in the spring. And, two months after that:
So does Maddie.
Jee-Yun is one now, with a thatch of dark black hair and her mother’s smile. She’s sort of walking now, comes up to Buck’s knee, and has teeny tiny baby teeth that she bares at Buck when he shows up to Chimney’s apartment in a lopsided grin. “Ba!” she says.
“Hi, baby,” Buck whispers. He picks her up, carefully, and her pudgy little arms come around his neck. She’s so small in his arms. He tucks his nose into her hair; she smells of pears and Maddie.
For the first time, he glances over her head at the other person stood in the doorway.
“Hey, stranger,” Maddie says, softly.
He can only smile a little damply back at her. “Hey.”
There’s a lot to talk about, a lot they don’t talk about. Instead, Maddie leads him in, and makes him a cup of tea, puts honey in it like she’d always do when they were kids and he had a sore throat, and they sit down on the couch together. Buck doesn’t let go of Jee-Yun. He’s not really sure he can.
“She looks like both of you,” he whispers. She’s fallen asleep in his arms, one fist curled in his shirt. He gently brushes the hair out of her face.
When he looks up, Maddie is watching them both with something soft in her eyes. “You should see the way she laughs,” she says. “She gets that from you.”
Something a little overwhelmed bubbles in Buck’s chest. He cradles Jee-Yun closer to his chest. “Are you staying?”
Maddie’s eyes go a little misty. “Buck—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts, because it’s not, not really, but they have time, and she’s in front of him for the first time in nearly a year, and he’s just glad that he can be here. “I’m just—wondering.”
Maddie’s throat moves, but she nods, reaching out for his hand. “Yeah,” she says, softly. “We’re staying.”
“Good,” Buck says. “I missed you.”
Tears spill down Maddie’s cheeks, at that, but all she does is move up on the couch next to him, resting her cheek against his shoulder. She is warm and soft against his side, her daughter warmer and softer in the curve of his arm. He’s so much bigger than her now. He wondered when he stopped being her little brother.
Then he decides it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here, now.
*
With the summer comes Buck’s birthday.
Thirty-one, this year, which for some reason feels so much more momentous than thirty, because instead of broaching the doorway of adulthood he’s striding right through. After the year – the pandemic, Eddie’s accident, Maddie leaving, and then Eddie leaving too – Buck’s content to have a small celebration, just with friends and cake. (The cake is important.)
Eddie offers to have it at his place, which makes something like the tectonic plates of his heart do something complicated. It’s been a long time, since Buck’s come to terms with the fact that he loves Eddie, loves him like Maddie loves Chimney, the way he thought he loved Taylor and then some, and there are some days where it feels a little like a weight on his chest, watching Eddie grow comfortable in his new life away from the 118, Buck feeling a million miles away, heart so heavy he fears sleeping on his stomach less it fall through and crack his ribs. But there are other days, most days, where the knowledge of it keeps him warm, content. He loves Eddie, loves him like the sun rises, instinctually and easily, and the knowledge that he is allowed to share even a little bit of Eddie’s love in return feels like enough. It feels okay.
Buck has grown so used to okay.
So he says yes, and the day before he turns thirty-one Eddie throws a party at his home, consisting only of friends and family, which still means upwards of twenty people. There is, as promised, cake, but also beer and Bobby’s famous empanadas and so many pizzas Buck reckons Eddie could wallpaper the whole house twice over, inside and out. Maddie and Chimney are here, too, one of the first times the two of them together been in the full 118 setting since they’ve been back, so Buck splits the spotlight of the evening with them, though he can’t say he minds. Something about watching Maddie’s sparkling eyes and smile, Chimney’s roaring laugh over the music, when they’ve spent the last half a year hurting and hiding, is better than any amount of attention. He spends the night pink-cheeked and happily tipsy, getting hugs and kisses from everyone he knows, passed around between guests like one of his own parcels – but never straying too far from Eddie, who is always an arms-length away, at his elbow, laughing next to him.
Buck tells himself it’s because he’s the host and it’s Buck’s party – but something treacherous in him whispers, I think we both know he’s also a little more than that.
“Buck!” And that’s Christopher, coming up to him, Eddie’s steadying hand on his shoulder. He’s getting taller every time Buck sees him, but not enough so that Buck doesn’t have to kneel to meet his eyes. He knows he’ll be sad the day he has to stop. “We got you a present!”
“A present?” Buck puts on a show of faux-surprise. “For me?”
Christopher giggles. “It’s your birthday!”
“So it is, bud,” Buck says, and graciously takes the wrapped gift from Christopher’s hand. He looks up at Eddie over Christopher’s head for any clue, but Eddie simply smiles knowingly and mimes locking his lips, the bastard. Buck resists the urge to flip him off, instead busying himself carefully peeling the wrapping paper off.
Christopher watches him, a hint impatiently. “Come oooon, Buck!”
Just to mess with him, Buck purposely rips open the next side in slow-motion, and Christopher bursts out laughing, pushing at his shoulder. Buck decides to take pity on him and holds out his arm. “Hey, you wanna help me unwrap it? You’ve done it so tightly.”
Christopher preens at the chance to help out. “Yeah!” He suctions himself to Buck’s side, Buck roping a careful arm around his waist so he doesn’t send them backwards, and helps Buck one-handedly shuck the rest of the paper off. With Christopher blocking his view, Buck’s only working off touch, and when all the paper finally comes off he encounters a sharp corner, and then another, and another: a book?
He shifts Christopher gently to the side so he can get a look over his shoulder, and when he does something floods in his chest.
“Do you like it?” Christopher is watching him, a little anxiously, nibbling at his thumbnail.
“He picked it out by himself,” Eddie says.
Buck can only gently trace a hand across the front cover. Stegosaurus: An Extraordinary Specimen and the Secrets It Reveals. “Chris, I love it,” he says. “Thank you so much.”
Christopher brightens. “Stegosauruses are the best dinosaurs.”
“They sure are. And now I have a whole book about them, thank you!” He gives Christopher a big hug, only lets the tears prick his eyes when his face is tucked safely into Christopher’s shoulder where he can’t see. Eddie does, though, and something in his face grows gentle. He clears his throat to stop himself from genuinely blubbering on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey, you wanna come over soon and read it with me?”
Christopher beams. “Can I?”
“Duh! I won’t start it without you.” Buck leans back into his eyeline. “Sound good?”
“Sounds good,” Christopher says solemnly, and they do their handshake. Since dinner at Eddie’s they’ve added a whole section. Buck’s working towards tossing Christopher in the air next. Chris would love it; Eddie probably not so much.
Pleased that his present has been received so well, Christopher heads, satisfied, back to the living room where all the other kids are, crouched around May’s iPad watching fail compilations on YouTube. (Buck may have briefly joined in. Listen, he’s not allowed to laugh on the job, and sometimes people falling off trampolines is funny, okay?) It leaves just Buck and Eddie out on the back porch, Buck still crouched down, looking down at the book.
“You’re so lame,” Eddie says, and Buck glances at him as he straightens. “I can’t believe you actually got emotional over a dinosaur book.”
“They’re cool!” Buck defends, and Eddie laughs. “Besides, it’s the thought, right?”
Eddie’s eyes are glitter-soft. “Yeah.”
He’s watching him almost ruinously that Buck finds he can’t hold his gaze for longer than a few seconds. He coughs, shoving his spare hand in his pocket. “So, Christopher got me a present. Do I get something from you too?”
He doesn’t realise how euphemistic it sounds until it’s out of his mouth, and he internally kicks himself. Then he notices how, while his face is unbothered, Eddie’s ears have gone that delicious shade of pink, and he hides a smirk. “You do, actually,” he says, and digs around in his back pocket for something before producing it.
He hands Buck a small black box. Buck’s heart starts beating very fast.
“If this a wedding ring,” he says, “my answer’s definitely yes.”
Eddie laughs, probably because he thinks he’s joking. “Just open the box, Buck.”
Rolling his eyes, Buck opens the box – and all the breath leaves his lungs.
Distantly, he’s aware of Eddie watching him anxiously, trying to gauge a reaction from his expression. When Buck doesn’t immediately respond, he jokes, a little weakly, “I mean, it’s no dinosaur book, but…”
As though it might disappear in front of his eyes, Buck carefully touches the little silver key in the box. “Is this…?”
“Front door.” Buck glances up at him, to see Eddie smiling softly at him. “I thought it was kinda overdue. You having a key.”
“Eddie…”
“Listen, I know—I know, this year has been kind of hard, for both of us. You know, the sniper, and everything happening with Maddie, and then me leaving… I know it’s been difficult, and I’ve—kind of been a shit friend, lately, because I’m so busy with Chris and this new job—”
“Eddie,” Buck interrupts, but Eddie shakes his head.
“Can I just—” he says, and Buck nods blindly, not even knowing what he’s saying yes to. Eddie exhales. “Leaving… leaving the 118 was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. Usually there’s always a right answer, with me, like—like I know what I have to do, I’m good at making hard decisions, especially when there’s family involved, but this time it was… It was different. Because Chris is my son and my whole world, but you—the 118 is family, too. You’re family, Buck.” Eddie shakes his head. “It felt like I had to choose which one was more important. And I—I didn’t know what I could give, outside of being a firefighter. Outside of being Chris’s dad. It felt like jumping off a cliff that I couldn’t see the bottom of. All I knew was I had to do it for him.”
Buck watches him. The key bites into his hand.
“But you—you’ve made it so easy. To move on, from here. To carve a new path. And I can never thank you enough for that.”
Buck unsticks his tongue. “But I didn’t do anything.”
Eddie smiles, softly. “Yeah, you did. You stayed.”
Buck feels rooted to the spot. He can only stare at him.
Eddie is the first to break eye contact, self-consciously scratching the back of his head. “I know that we don’t… really talk about that night. But I… I do remember it. And what you said. And I know that—it was hard, me leaving. So I just wanted to thank you, for sticking around anyway. Because you talked about needing time to be selfish, but I think supporting me the way you have while I’ve tried to navigate this new life is actually one of the kindest, most selfless things you could have done. And I want you to know that I am so, so grateful for you.”
Buck’s throat is thick. “You’re my best friend.”
“And I hurt you,” Eddie says softly.
It’s weird, hearing it like that. Buck supposes this is what Bobby and Dr Copeland have been telling him along – that he’s allowed to feel pissed off and betrayed – but he’d never really comprehended it properly, not until now. Not until Eddie is stood in front of him offering him a key to his house acknowledging it himself.
Buck feels the tectonic plates shift again. This time, into place.
“You were in a shitty position,” Buck says. “If it wasn’t me, it was Christopher.”
Eddie smiles at him at that, softly. “And that’s why you could never be selfish, Buck. That’s why I trust you with my son’s life, implicitly and always.” He presses the key into Buck’s hands, folds Buck’s fingers around it. “That’s why this is long overdue. Because you’re family.”
And Buck kisses him.
He loves Eddie, so much that sometimes it hurts; wears it like a protective blanket, something to fend away the colder days, and having him stood in front of him, with a key and a book about dinosaurs and I hurt you and a party he threw for him ten feet away, he can’t help it. He doesn’t know if Eddie feels the same: on his better days, he sometimes thinks maybe, but he knows he’s doing this for himself. Knows that he’s still so fucking tired of okay, and for once, just once, is taking something he wants for himself.
For a moment, Eddie is still beneath his hands, arms by his sides, lips barely moving against Buck’s. And then, just as Buck is about to move away, an apology on his tongue, Eddie brings his hand up, feather-soft, to cup Buck’s shoulder, and kisses him back.
Buck’s whole body practically sings.
They have to pull back, at some point, for breath’s sake, but Eddie doesn’t let him go far; keeps their foreheads pressed together, hand still on his shoulder, the other at his waist. The key is still clenched tight in Buck’s fist. “I’ve wanted you to do that for a while,” Eddie says.
Buck smiles; knows Eddie will feel it more than he can see it. “Then why didn’t you?”
“I wanted you to be sure.”
Of course. Because Buck is a lone kite, but Eddie has a kid, and a dead wife, and the scar of a bullet-wound still pink at the shoulder. Like any of that has ever mattered to Buck before. “I’m sure,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve been more sure about anything in my life, to be honest.”
“Yeah?”
Buck nods.
Eddie kisses him again. He tastes of champagne and birthday cake. Buck could sink into him. “I love you,” he says. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry I hurt you in the process.”
“I’m not,” Buck says. “I think things have worked out just the way they were meant to.” He uncurls his hand in the scant space between their chests, and the key sits in his palm, gleaming. “Though usually, you know, the kissing comes before the key.”
“Which usually comes before the co-parenting,” Eddie says, “but I don’t think we’ve ever done this in the right order.”
Buck snorts, and kisses him again, because he can. Because he’s allowed. Because it’s his birthday, and he’s thirty-two, and Eddie has left the 118 but he hasn’t left him; because he thought he loved Taylor, but he definitely loves Eddie, and Eddie’s kid, and the life Eddie has out ahead of him, and in the room behind them his friends, his family, are laughing and dancing to music, and he has the key to Eddie’s house in his hand and the key to Eddie’s heart in his head, and he’s feeling good.
He’s so fucking sick of okay. And for the first time, he’s realising he doesn’t have to settle for it.
“I think you might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Buck says, when finally they pull away.
Eddie smiles at him. His eyes are a little misty. Nerd. “Me, too.”
“I was talking to the dinosaur book.”
“Fuck off,” Eddie says, with a laugh, but he kisses him again, and this:
This is living. This is good.