Chapter Text
"Chris. Chris, *wake up!*”
Buck’s voice was hushed, and he was whispering, and shaking Chris’s shoulder hard. Harder than he usually did when he woke Chris up.
“Buck? What’s wrong?” Chris mumbled as he rubbed his eyes blearily.
“Chris, I need you to be really quiet, and really brave, okay?” Buck was staring straight into Chris’s eyes, really close right above him, but his eyes kept flicking away to look down his stairs. A rattling noise came from somewhere down there.
“Okay?” Chris said. He was confused, and didn’t know what Buck meant. He was going to ask what was happening, but then Buck was lifting him off the bed and carrying him into the bathroom.
Buck kept speaking to Chris even as he was moving him, and it was kind of annoying because Chris was perfectly able to walk in there himself. Why is Buck acting so weird?
“I need you to hide in here, and lock the door behind you. I already put Jee in here, see, she’s still sleeping in her bassinet. I put her bag of stuff in there too. I need you to stay very quiet, and keep Jee as quiet as you can if she wakes up, okay? It’s like a game of hide and seek like we always play, okay Chris? But you can’t come out until I come back for you. It’s really important. Really really important Chris.”
Buck’s eyes were wide, and he was speaking really fast, and really quietly. Something was wrong, Chris realised at last, and he knew he had to do as Buck said.
He nodded without speaking, and Buck kissed him on the top of his forehead as he gently put Chris down on the floor, right in his fringe.
Then Buck was pulling the door shut, and closing it carefully.
“Lock it Chris,” he whispered just before it closed, and Chris nodded again.
The snick of the lock sounded awfully loud in the quiet bathroom.
Taking a deep breath, Chris turned and looked around. Buck had put Jee’s bassinet inside the shower. It looked funny there, but Chris guessed that it was the only place it would really fit. Jee-Yun was still sleeping, like Chris kind of wanted to be. They’d been with Buck all day, had played lots of fun games, and Chris was tired. He hadn’t napped for long, he didn’t think.
Buck and him had lain down on Buck’s bed upstairs in his loft while Jee had her nap. They’d been watching the newest Captain Sparklez Minecraft YouTube video, the sound turned down low. Captain Sparklez sometimes swore in his videos and Dad didn’t like that, but Buck always let Chris watch them when they were together, as long as Buck was watching it with him. Buck was super cool like that.
Grian was actually Chris’s favourite YouTuber, but Grian never swore at all, so he was allowed to watch his videos at home. Dad even watched them with him sometimes, and then they tried to build the stuff that Grian made together. That was lots of fun, because Dad was really bad at Minecraft. Buck was better, but Chris was the best, and when all three of them played together, it was always heaps of fun. Family Minecraft nights were sick.
They’d finished Captain Sparklez’s video, and started watching one of Dream’s, but Chris wasn’t a Dream stan, so he’d let himself drift off to sleep instead.
He was tired. Buck was looking after him while Dad was visiting Grandma and Abeulito in Texas. He’d been gone for two days, and was coming home tomorrow. Buck had been staying at their house, but today he was looking after Jee for Aunt Maddie, so they’d come to his loft for the day. Buck had lots of stuff here for Jee, so it was easier to look after her here, he’d told Chris.
Jee was learning to crawl, and that morning Buck had pretended to be a tunnel for her to crawl through, making an arch with his hands and knees; and then a bridge by lying on his tummy so Jee could climb over him. Jee went under Buck again and again and again; and over him again and again again as well. Chris showed her how to do it, crawling under and over Buck himself and she followed him. His hair tickled Buck’s tummy because he was so much bigger than Jee, and Buck’s laughter had given Chris a nice warm feeling in his tummy.
They’d played like that for ages. Chris liked Jee, even if she was a baby still and cried sometimes. He liked to pretend that she was his little sister. She was almost his cousin, he figured, and that was practically a sister. If his Dad would stop being so silly about how much he liked Buck, maybe they would get married and then Jee would be his cousin for real. That would be awesome.
Then they’d had a tickle fight. Well, really it was Chris and Buck that did most of the tickling, but Jee tried, her chubby little fingers poking them both in their tummies. When they pretended to laugh, she squealed with giggles too. It was the best sound ever. Even better than when Buck farted from laughing so much.
Jee made another sound then, and a gross stinky smell went up Chris’s nose. It was worse than Buck’s fart.
“Eww!” he’d said, pinching his nose shut, but Buck just laughed again.
“It’s just a dirty diaper Chris, you used to have them all the time when you were a baby you know!”
“I did not!” Chris had told him indignantly, “You didn’t know me then, you don’t know that!”
Buck had just snorted at him, like Dad did when he was trying not to laugh at something, and told Chris to follow him as he climbed to his feet and then picked Jee up. “Come on, I’ll show you how to make Jee feel all nice and clean again.”
Watching Buck change Jee’s dirty diaper was not the greatest thing. It smelt really bad. But Buck made it seem like fun, making cooing noises at Jee as he wiped her down, and blowing raspberries on her tummy once she had a fresh diaper on. He taught Chris how to blow raspberries on Jee’s tummy too, and her happy squeals almost made Chris think that changing dirty diapers wasn’t that bad.
Almost. He still wasn’t planning on volunteering to do it himself any time soon.
They’d had lunch then, and Buck let Chris feed Jee her mashed apple. It was harder than he’d thought it would be. Jee kept trying to grab the tiny spoon, and she didn’t always open her mouth in time. Bits of mashed apple ended up all over her little face, and all over Chris’s hand; the tray on her high chair; and the floor as well.
Instead of getting mad at the mess, Buck just laughed and took photos of them both.
Giving Jee her bottle after lunch was easier. Chris sat on the couch and held Jee very, very carefully when Buck put her in his arms. Buck showed him how to hold the bottle properly, telling him how to stop air from being in the wrong place, and how to support Jee’s head while she drank. Buck took more photos then. He always took a lot of photos, but that was okay, because Chris liked looking at them. Maybe he’d ask Buck for some of the ones of him and Jee to put up in his bedroom at home.
Seeing how good Chris was with a baby might help Dad decide to give him a little brother or sister for real. That would be better than anything in the whole wide world. Nearly as good as him and Buck finally being boyfriends, which Chris was still waiting for. He was starting to think he might need to sit them both down and have a serious talk to them about it, they were taking so long to do it.
Buck burped Jee after her bottle, and didn’t even seem to mind when she spat a little bit of milk up on his shirt. He just changed his shirt while Chris played with Jee on Buck’s bed upstairs. Chris could make it all the way up the stairs all by himself now, even if it did take him a long time. Buck was always careful to stay behind him in case he fell, but he never told Chris to hurry up. He just let Chris take as long as he needed. Even when he had stinky baby spit on him.
After Buck got changed it was time for Jee’s nap, and that was good, because Chris was getting tired by then too. Looking after a baby was hard work. Even a good baby like Jee, who hardly ever cried.
Buck had rocked Jee in his arms, and sung nice songs to her. She’d cried a little, and Buck had told Chris that it was just because she was really tired. Then she went to sleep, and Buck had kissed her gently on her forehead. He’d bent down for Chris to kiss her too, and Chris copied what Buck had done, kissing her on her head softly. Then Buck had put Jee down in her little bassinet next to his bed, and Chris had covered her with her little pink blankie, making sure that the soft baby seal toy he’d bought her at the zoo, with his own money, was safe in the bassinet with her.
He loved Jee so much, and so did Buck.
Then it was Buck and Chris time, ‘cos Minecraft wasn’t suitable for babies, and that was fun too.
Then Chris had fallen asleep, and now he was here, hiding in the bathroom.
He still didn’t know why Buck had put them both in here. It wasn’t like any game they’d ever played before, not even hide and seek like Buck had said, not really.
Chris yawned, and wanted to wash his face to help him wake up. Buck had said to be quiet though. Would turning the tap on be noisy? Chris wasn’t sure. He thought about it, standing in the bathroom quietly. Jee was still asleep.
He’d just decided that if he was very careful, turning the tap just a little bit should be okay. Just enough for a tiny bit of water to come out, not a lot. He was starting to get thirsty as well as wanting to wash his face.
Taking a step towards the sink, Chris stopped abruptly as he heard noises coming through the bathroom door.
“Get out!” Buck’s voice sounded suddenly, loudly. It nearly didn’t sound like Buck at all, he sounded so angry. Maybe a pigeon had flown in through the balcony doors, and he was trying to get it out before it pooped everywhere. Chris was glad that he and Jee were in the bathroom with the door shut. No wonder Buck sounded angry if a pigeon was making yucky mess everywhere in his home. Pigeon poop was gross.
There was a noise like when Dad uses the kitchen mallet to flatten chicken when they have schnitzels then, and Buck grunted. Had he fallen over? It sounded like he was hurt. Chris turned towards the door of the bathroom, then hesitated. Buck had told him to stay here with Jee. Buck was a firefighter, he would be okay, even if he’d fallen over. Chris would do as Buck said, and wait for him to finish chasing the pigeon out.
More thumping sounds came, and more grunts from Buck. It sounded like the pigeon was really making a lot of trouble. Maybe there were two pigeons? Chris wondered again if he should go out and help Buck.
“No, don’t!” Buck yelled out, like he knew what Chris was thinking, and Chris froze with his hand on the door knob.
He heard Buck cry out in pain then. Chris knew what that sounded like. Dad used to do that, after he got shot. Sometimes Dad had forgotten he had a sore arm and reached high for something, and then he’d yell from how bad it hurt. Buck had yelled like that.
Chris started feeling scared. Pigeons couldn’t speak English, so why would Buck tell a bird not to do something. And nothing a pigeon did would hurt Buck bad enough to make him yell like that.
Something was wrong.
A soft whimper came from the bassinet, and Chris turned to see that Jee was waking up. No! Buck said we had to be quiet. If Jee started crying… Chris didn’t know what might happen if Jee started crying. He didn’t want to find out.
He went to the propped open door of the shower as quickly as he could, and lifted Jee carefully out of the bassinet. It was hard. He hadn’t lifted her by himself before, and the way the bassinet was sitting in the shower made it tricky too.
Jee looked sleepy still, but Chris could tell she was waking up more. So he knelt down on the floor and put her down, moving very carefully again, then sat down next to her and pulled her onto his lap, cuddling her close.
“Shhh, shhh,” he whispered to the baby, rocking her in his arms a bit like he’d seen Buck do.
The sounds downstairs had stopped.
Chris swallowed, and listened hard, still rocking Jee. Fear grew inside him, making him feel sick in his tummy.
Heavy foot steps started coming up the stairs.
That’s not Buck. Chris knew the sound of Buck’s steps on those stairs. The thudding he was hearing was nothing like the way that Buck almost dances up the steps.
Chris's heart was pounding in his chest, making it hurt.
The footsteps stopped. Someone was in Buck’s bedroom. Someone Buck had yelled at.
Chris was really scared now. He tried to swallow again, but there was a big lump in his throat.
There was someone bad standing right outside the bathroom.
What would Daddy do? Chris tried to think. Daddy would fight. He’d been a soldier; he knew how to fight. But Chris didn’t. He was only little still. And he had Jee Yun to look after. Buck said to be brave. I can do that. I can be brave like Buck.
Chris took a deep breath and kept rocking Jee. Kept shushing her, in a very, very quiet voice. He held Jee tighter, determined not to let anything bad happen to her.
Startled by the suddenly tight grip around her, Jee let rip with a loud wail of fright.
Her cry made Chris jump, and he nearly dropped her. But he didn’t. He held onto her, trying to shush her.
Jee kept crying. She got louder, really screaming now. The sound was nearly deafening Chris in the small bathroom.
What do I do? Chris thought frantically, still rocking Jee. What had Buck done when Jee cried? He sang to her, Chris remembered. He remembered the song too, and started singing it to Jee. His voice wasn’t very loud, because he was too scared to be louder. And he could hear his voice wavering, shaking like his arms were. It didn’t matter. Jee was scared too, and he needed to be brave for her.
“Hush little baby, please don’t cry, Bucky’s gonna sing you a lullaby,
And if that lullaby don’t work, Bucky’s gonna teach you how to twerk
So hush little baby, please don’t cry, Bucky’s gonna sing you a lullaby.
If you go to sleep right now, Bucky’s gonna take a great big bow.
Cos Bucky is the best uncle there is, even better than Uncle Albert the diz.”
It seemed to be working. Jee wasn’t screaming anymore. She was still crying, but it was quieter now. Chris reached up to stroke her face – and saw the Smartwatch that Buck had given him for Christmas on his wrist.
He could call 9-1-1!
But should he? Would the bad person bust down the door and hurt them if he did that? Chris didn’t know what to do. He kept singing softly to Jee. Kept rocking her.
Kept trying to listen to what was happening outside the door.
Chris had sung the parts of the song that he remembered so many times his throat was hurting before he decided it would be alright to call. He hadn’t heard any noises from outside since before Jee had started screaming.
The bad person hadn’t come to get them.
Buck hadn’t either.
“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher answered, and Chris breathed out a sigh of relief.
“There’s a bad person,” Chris whispered into his watch. Jee started crying again when he stopped singing, and he shushed her, trying to rock her while talking into his watch.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, can you repeat that?” the dispatcher asked, and Chris tried again.
“My name is Chris. There’s a bad person outside. We’re hiding in the bathroom,” he said, louder this time.
“Okay Chris, can you tell us where you are? And how old you are?
It was better, having someone to talk to. Chris took a deep breath again, and told them Buck’s address, and that he was twelve.
“We’re sending the police to you now Chris. Is there someone with you?”
“Jee is with me, but she’s just a baby,” he answered. Jee was crying louder now, and he could smell that she’d dirtied her diaper. She was wriggling a lot too, and he was having trouble holding onto her.
“Are there any grownups with you Chris?” the voice asked him. As he opened his mouth to tell them about Buck, Jee twisted and threw her arms out – and grabbed his watch.
“Jee, no!” Chris cried out, but it was too late, she’d ended the call. He sighed, and cuddled Jee close, rocking his whole body from side to side with her in his arms against his chest. At least he’d told them the address. Help was on the way.
“It’s okay Jee, I know you didn’t mean to do that. Let’s get that nasty diaper off and get you all nice and clean again, huh?”
He didn’t really want to change Jee’s dirty diaper, but when Buck had done it earlier he’d told Chris all about diaper rash and how keeping a dirty diaper on a baby for too long could really hurt them. Chris didn’t want that to happen to Jee.
So he lay her down on the bathroom mat, being super careful not to thump her little head on the floor. He pulled her baby bag closer and looked through it, finding all the things that Buck had used before. Then he took a deep breath, undid the clips at the bottom of Jee’s onesie, and peeled off the sticky bits on the sides of her diaper.
It was awful. There was poop smeared all over the inside of it, and all over Jee. It was gooey, just like the mashed apple he’d fed her for lunch, but it didn’t smell anything like that had.
Jee wriggled, and smeared poop around even more. Gross. Maybe if he talked to her like Buck had when he changed her, this might be easier.
“You’re a stinky little Jee Jee, aren’t you bubby? Yes, yes you are!” Chris cooed at her as he grabbed lots of wipes from the packet. He was using more than Buck had, but he didn’t care. The smell made him want to vomit, so he tried to hold his breath – but then he couldn’t talk to Jee, and she wriggled more.
Chris persevered, throwing wipes to the side until Jee was finally clean enough. He’d tried to fold the diaper onto itself like he’d seen Buck do, but had only pushed poop around more, so he just shoved it to the side and cleaned Jee with more wipes. Then he got a clean diaper, and tried to push it under Jee. That took some doing but he eventually got it under her.
Doing it up was harder than he’d thought as well. It took a few goes until he got it nice and snug against her tummy, and he had no idea what he’d been babbling at Jee as he tried.
But finally he was done. Jee was clean, and much calmer now. He leant down and blew a raspberry on her tummy, and she giggled at him just like she had before. So he did it again, and grinned back at her when she giggled again. Then he closed her onesie up and did the clips up again.
Climbing to his feet around Jee was hard, but Chris managed, being very careful not to stand on her. He washed his hands at the sink, dried them, then sat back on the floor again. Leaning his back against the cupboard under the sink, away from the stinky wipes and diaper, Chris picked Jee up again and cradled her in his arms. They were getting sore from holding her so much, but he didn’t want to leave her on the floor. His legs were getting sore too and he tried to ignore them.
He felt better when he held her, and he thought she felt the same.
Where was Buck? Was he okay? Chris hadn’t heard anything from outside the door for a long time. Maybe Buck had chased the bad person out and was waiting for the police to come and take them away. Chris felt proud that Buck trusted him to look after Jee. He was a good cousin.
After what seemed like ages and ages, Chris heard people coming into the apartment. Lots of people, making a lot of noise.
"LAPD" was shouted, and he knew it was safe to open the bathroom door. He put Jee down on the floor again, and unlocked the door.
“We’re up here,” Chris called out as he sat down again and took Jee back in his arms, ready to protect her if he had to.
Noisy boots came up the stairs then, and police officers were standing in the bathroom door looking down on them. Chris didn’t know who they were, but they were wearing the same clothes that Mama 'Thena wore to work, so he knew they were good people.
"Where's Buck?" Chris asked as he climbed to his feet, letting a police officer take Jee from him.
"The man who broke in has been taken to hospital," the officer replied, and that was good.
Chris walked carefully out into the bedroom and found his crutches, sighing as he felt the familiar support under him. That was better.
But Buck wasn't there. "Okay, but where's Buck?" Chris asked again, and the officers all looked at each other.
"There was only one person here son. He was unconscious at the foot of the stairs, so he's been taken to hospital in police custody. He can't hurt you now," the officer explained to Chris.
“Damned junkie must have fallen down the stairs,” one of the officers said to another in a mean voice, “fell onto his own knife, too.”
The other officer laughed, but it wasn’t like Buck’s laugh. If it was a colour, it would be a yucky yellow brown, like what had been in Jee’s diaper. Not like Buck’s laugh at all. His laugh was like sunlight and rainbows and everything nice.
Chris started to ask about Buck again, but was interrupted by another officer. “Where are your parents, son?”
“Dad’s in Texas visiting Grandma and Abuelito,” Chris told them.
“And your Mom?”
“Mom… Mom’s dead,” Chris said, trying to hold back a sniffle. He wished she was there now, holding him close. She always made him feel better. Jee let out an unhappy squawk, and Chris sat down on Buck’s bed, suddenly tired.
“Let me hold her. She gets scared of strangers,” he told the officer holding her. He saw the officers look at each other, then the one holding Jee shrugged, and passed her to Chris. Holding her close, Chris rocked her and shushed her again, giving her a finger to suck on like he’d seen Auntie Maddie do, and she quietened down.
“How long have you been here alone Chris? You and your sister?” one of the officers asked him then, and he frowned up at her. Jee wasn’t his sister – and they hadn’t been alone.
“We weren’t alone! Buck was looking after us."
"And where is Buck now?"
"I don't know. He told me to hide like we were playing a game. And now he's not here!" Chris was getting frustrated, and scared all over again. He didn’t know any of these people. He wanted Buck – or Dad. Tears started falling from his eyes, and he blinked to get rid of them.
“Dispatch, we have two unaccompanied minors here. Possibly abandoned. Send someone from Child Services to this location,” one of the officers spoke into his radio, and that wasn’t right. Buck wouldn’t abandon them. He loved them.
Chris tried to tell them that, but they wouldn’t listen.
“-obviously traumatised,” he heard them saying quietly to each other as they went down the stairs, telling Chris to stay where he was. One of the officers went into the bathroom. He could see them packing up Jee’s baby bag.
“It’s disgusting, leaving a child home alone to care for an infant on his own.”
“Crippled too, did you see his crutches? Poor kids.”
The voices drifted up from downstairs, and what they were saying made Chris angry. He wasn’t a cripple, Dad said so. Just because he had CP didn’t mean he needed anyone’s sympathy. He’d looked after Jee just fine when he’d needed too. These police officers were dumb. Not smart like Mama ‘Thena.
Mama ‘Thena! It felt like an actual light bulb went off in Chris’s head when he thought of her. She could help them! She’d find Buck for them!
“Hey!” Chris shouted down to the police officer’s downstairs. “You need to call Sergeant Athena Grant-Nash. She knows us, she’ll help us.”
“Sit tight kid, we’ve got Child Services on the way. They’ll look after you and your sister,” one of them told him.
“No! I don’t want to go with them! Call Sergeant Grant, she’ll look after us!”
“Kid, we’re not going to bother a sergeant with this. Leave it be,” the officer said grumpily, with an angry look that scared Chris.
It was no good, they wouldn’t listen to him. Chris started to feel a different kind of scared then. Maybe he could tell them about Auntie Maddie- but what if they took Jee away when they found out she wasn’t his sister? Then he’d be all alone, and so would she. He didn’t want that.
Chris kept his mouth shut.
After a while, a lady who said she was from Child Services got there. She reminded Chris of Carla a little bit. Carla! Hope flared inside him when he remembered her, and he told the nice lady about her.
“We can call her, she’ll come and get us!” he said excitedly, and lifted his watch to get the number. The watch that stayed dark, no matter how much he tapped the screen. The battery had gone flat.
“It’s okay sweetie, we’ll find her once we take care of you two. Come on, you need to come with me now, you can’t stay in a crime scene, the police need to do their work.”
“But I don’t want to,” Chris told her, “I want to stay here so Buck knows where we are.”
“You can’t stay here Chris. It will be alright, you’ll see. I’ve got your sisters bag right here, and is that your bag that I saw downstairs? You don’t live here, do you.”
“No, Buck lives here, he was looking after us. But I don’t know where he is now,” Chris said, and was embarrassed to feel tears in his eyes again.
He was a big boy; he shouldn’t be crying. He wasn’t even hurt. But he’d been scared for a long time, and he was tired. A lot had happened, and he didn’t know what to do. Buck would know – but Buck wasn’t there.
“Can we call my dad?” he asked, trying to stop his voice from trembling, and the nice lady nodded.
“Of course we can Chris. Do you know his number?”
Chris tried, he really tried, but his head was hurting, and he couldn’t remember it. “It’s in my watch, but I left my charger at home.”
“We can charge it at the station while we find someone to look after you both, alright Chris? Come on, we need to go now,” she told him.
Taking a deep breath so he could be brave for Jee, Chris stood and nodded to the nice lady.
“We’ll go with you. But when we get there, I want to call Carla, and my dad.”
He let her take Jee, and started to follow her to the stairs.
“Honey, I’m going to ask an officer to carry you down these stairs, alright? You shouldn’t be going down them on your own, not with… with your crutches,” the lady said to him, and he frowned at her. She sounded a bit like Grandma did, when she wouldn’t let Chris do things that he was perfectly capable of doing.
“I can do it!” Chris told her, but she shook her head. “This is a crime scene Chris, it’s better if you don’t touch anything, alright?”
He sighed, because that kind of made sense, and nodded, then gritted his teeth as he was carried down the stairs and right out of Buck’s flat like a baby.
On the way out, he saw a large puddle of blood at the bottom of the stairs to Buck’s bedroom.
Chris felt cold all over when he saw that.
It definitely hadn’t been a pigeon.
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Later that afternoon, Maddie knocked on Buck’s door when she arrived to pick Jee up. She’d had a long day of therapy and apartment hunting, and was grateful that she hadn’t had to take Jee with her. Uncle Buck was the best.
Uncle Buck didn’t answer the door, so Maddie used her key, thinking that maybe he was bathing Jee and couldn’t come to the door.
There were black smudges around the lock on the door, and she frowned at them, wondering what they were. They looked like the forensic dust that the police used when checking for fingerprints. Maybe Buck and Chris had been playing detective.
“I’m here!” she announced as she went through the door.
No-one answered. The flat was silent, and empty. Chairs had been knocked over next to the dining table.
And there was a large pool of blood at the foot of the stairs.
“Buck?” Maddie called out, then “Chris? Where are you?”
There was no answer.
“Jee?” she called out, despite knowing that Jee wasn’t even talking yet. “Buck? Chris? Jee? Where are you?”
She was running up the stairs then, searching for her baby, for her brother, for Chris.
They weren’t there. None of them were there.
There was nothing.
Nothing except a large puddle of blood, congealing on the floor.
It looked horribly familiar to Maddie, and she shuddered, shoving away the memory of Chimney lying on the ground after he'd been stabbed.
Where were they all?
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