Chapter Text
November
“Who is it?” Eddie spat the question out, glaring at Buck from his spot by the fireplace and the altar with the ofrendas that none of them had the heart to dismantle just yet. He was falling back on old habits, toxic habits. He was falling back on the old safety of anger to cover up the hurt.
He knew he was doing it, but the alternative was to break, and he could not do that. Not now. Not when he already had to figure out how to clean the mess of yet another soon-to-be-broken marriage. Not when he’d have to help keep Chris together.
“Who’s what?” his husband asked, and had the audacity to try and look confused, which just pissed Eddie off even more. Buck had gotten home just a minute earlier, greeting him happily and chatting up a storm as he took off his shoes, just as he always did. He’d claimed to have been at Maddie’s for some sibling bonding time, except…
Except Eddie had called Maddie, and she’d had utterly no idea what he was talking about when he asked if Buck was there.
Except that it wasn’t the only time in recent weeks that Buck had claimed to be somewhere, only for it to be a lie.
“The person you’ve been seeing,” he snarled, doing his best to keep from just screaming the words. He should not have been doing this tonight, with Chris in his room and Abuela watching her shows in hers. But Eddie was just so… Hurt. “The person you’ve been fucking behind my back.”
And Buck just stared at him.
In utter silence.
August
The new house, and the living arrangements, was an adjustment. Somehow, they managed to move in both themselves and Abuela over just a couple days in the middle of July. Admittedly, they’d had ample help from everyone at the station, because their coworkers would probably help dispose of multiple bodies if the payment was Bobby’s and Abuela’s food. Even the ones from B and C shifts.
Weeks later, and they were still unpacking boxes. Like the first time Eddie had moved, Chris’ room had been finished and furnished before literally anything else. His walls had new paint and the ceiling had glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it. So did the master bedroom - the bedroom with the ensuite - and the spare one, actually. The spare one because there would, hopefully, be another child living in it before too long. The master bedroom because, despite their best efforts, Abuela had managed to bully them into taking it through sheer force of personality, and Buck had extra stars left over.
The rest of the house was a work in progress. It was kinda fun, in a way, to meld their things together with Abuela’s. The furniture was a mish-match of both of theirs - Abuela’s favorite chair, for example, was in the living room with Eddie’s slightly newer couch - while the kitchen cabinets were simply overflowing with pots and pans and what-have-you. And Eddie and Buck kept coming home from shifts to find that more things had found places on the walls.
They, through unspoken and unanimous agreement, left Abuela to the decorating. Neither of them had truly realized how lonely and bored the woman must have been, living by herself, until they noticed how much happier she seemed to be now. Thankfully, after getting her on their insurance, it was a simple matter for Carla to take her on as a client as well, since the aide was already going to be there for Christopher.
A simple matter, and a weight off Eddie’s shoulders, who hadn’t quite managed to ward off his fears of another broken hip after his father brought it up during the trip to Texas months before.
It was mid-August now. Chris was going back to school, and both Buck and Eddie had promised to be free labor to help May move into her dorm later in the week, and things were good. And Buck was certain that he hadn’t stopped smiling since the first Sunday that they managed to properly host everyone for dinner.
Things were good.
That isn’t to say that things were uneventful, though.
Buck had seen many extraordinary things that were now seared into his memory. A bus sticking out of the side of a building; a skyscraper leaning over the street; the ocean itself raising up to smash them like Neptune’s fist. A blimp resting precariously upon the light fixtures of a sports stadium didn’t quite manage to rival anything but the bus, but it was still quite the sight. It was already starting to deflate, and something was on fire and putting out smoke, either the lights or the blimp’s gondola.
“If this is what we get in August, I hate to see what this year’s September Disaster is going to be,” Buck told the others as he pulled the truck into the parking lot, peering through the windshield at it. Ortiz, who normally drove the ladder truck, had called in, and so Buck was the next qualified person to drive.
“September Disaster?” Albert echoed from behind him.
“Yeah, y’know. Every September, there’s a disaster,” Buck explained as he pulled them to a stop. “Earthquake, tsunami, earthquakes and a mudslide. Cyberterrorism. Every September except my first one, actually.”
“You were the disaster that September,” Bobby quipped from the captain’s seat, ignoring Buck’s offended squawk as everyone hopped out. Immediately, he started issuing their marching orders. “Buck, Hen, kill that light tower. Eddie, when the ladder’s in position, run point with Albert.”
Nodding, Buck and Eddie bumped wrists before separating to grab the equipment they needed. Before long, Buck was hurrying beside Hen, Halligan in hand. The electrical box for the lights was, of course, directly beneath the drooping dirigible. Even as he brute forced the box open, he couldn’t help but shoot anxious looks at what was looming above them, and caught Hen doing the same.
There was no finesse, and no time for it. The moment the panel door swung open, Hen was reaching in with her own tool and started cutting through wires. There was a small snap and crackle and a minor burst of sparks, and then the strange sensation of an absence of a sound - the electric hum - that Buck hadn’t even realized he was hearing.
“Power’s out,” Hen relayed into the radio. “It’s safe to approach.”
There wasn’t an immediate acknowledgement, but as they headed back for the trucks, Buck saw Bobby climb up to stand beside the person operating the ladder controls.
“Eddie, Albert, ladder’s moving into position. Let’s get that fire out.”
Buck lost track of where Hen went after they stowed away the tools. He went to hover around the ladder truck, just below where Bobby was standing, and craned his neck to watch as Eddie and Albert climbed up with another Halligan and a fire extinguisher. He hated, absolutely hated, when he wasn’t there to literally have his husband’s back, when he had to stand by and watch and hope as someone else had it. But he’d have to get used to it, considering that when Bobby went on his honeymoon, Buck would be spending two weeks in the same position.
So this was good practice, even if he hated it.
“Fire’s out, Cap,” Eddie radioed after several minutes of smothering the fire. “Swing us over to the cab.”
“No sure how long you’ll have,” Bobby radioed back as the ladder was adjusted to allow them access to the cabin door. “Blimp's getting heavier as it deflates.”
There wasn’t an immediate reply. From below, Buck saw Eddy switch the extinguisher for the Halligan and bust the door open. And then his heart leaped into his throat as the whole thing rocked ominously the moment his husband stepped a foot inside. Albert, bless him, immediately grabbed the back of Eddie’s coat.
Buck couldn’t see what was happening from his vantage point. All he knew was that Eddie disappeared inside, leaving Albert alone at the end of the ladder. Someone, one of the pilots, appeared at the entry way and the paramedic helped her out.
And then the entire thing rocked again.
“Buck.” Hen’s voice had him leaping in his skin, and he tore his eyes away from the tableau above to find her holding a c-collar out to him. “For the pilot with the head injury.”
“Yes ma’am,” Buck said, snagging it out of her hand and clambered up, slipping the collar onto his arm for safe keeping..
“That’s it, Al, nice and easy. Let’s get her down here,” Bobby was saying into the radio as Buck passed, and the two nodded to each other in acknowledgement. “Eddie, Buck’s on his way up to help evacuate the co-pilot.”
He hurried up the ladder, pausing to give Albert a warning of “on your left” before squeezing around him and the patient he was escorting down. The moment he got to the open entryway, spotting Eddie hunched over the unmoving co-pilot.
“Babe, hey,” he called, getting his husband's attention and stretching his arm out to hand him the collar. The other man took it with a smile and started putting it around the patient’s neck, who in turn must have done something that Buck couldn’t see, because Eddie was grabbing his radio and saying,
“Cap, pilot’s coming to.”
“Alright,” Bobby replied. “You two, move fast, move safe.”
“Sir, can you feel the pressure I’m applying?” he heard Eddie ask, and could see him rubbing at the patient’s chest. He couldn’t hear the reply, but there must have been one, because Eddie let out a relieved, “Good.”
His husband made quick work of the straps still holding the pilot in place, and with a short countdown, got the man to his feet. And it would have been a perfectly easy and simple task to get the man to Buck, except they were essentially on a giant seesaw of death. The moment the two stepped away from the controls, the entire thing rocked dangerously. Gravity was not their friend today.
Which, actually…
“Cap!” Buck hollered down, bypassing the radio in favor of well developed lungs. “Lower me three feet!”
“Copy that.”
He held on as the hydraulics worked to move the ladder beneath him, lowering it so it was just beneath the bottom lip of the entryway. There was a bit more ominous teetering that followed, as Eddie and the co-pilot gingerly made their way to him and the ladder. The moment the patient was in reach, Buck reached out and got a firm hold of him, helping him to cross the small gulf of open air.
The captain had said to move safe, but he’d also said to move fast, and so Buck felt no guilt about perhaps hurrying the man along. He kept glancing between the patient, the bottom of the ladder, and back to the blimp above. Bobby’s somewhat worried urgings to Eddie over the radio was not helping Buck’s anxiety any, either.
And then there was a jolt, and when Buck looked up, he saw Eddie sliding down the ladder a few rungs before he managed to grab hold of the railing and stop himself.
It was easier, after that, to climb down the rest of the way.
“Did you know that the Hindenburg disaster literally only took less than a minute?” Buck asked the others, looking up from his phone.
It was downtime between calls, and they had gathered in the den area, waiting for the clock to run out and free them to head home. He was curled up against Eddie’s side as his husband was soundly trounced by Hen at Mario Kart. Albert was perched in one of the comfy chairs, his own phone in hand.
Probably texting Ravi, since he was stuck helping cover on another shift for the week.
“Oh, the humanity,” Hen said, and then cheered as she managed to hit Eddie with a shell, sending him spinning off course.
“And they still don’t know what caused it to catch fire,” Buck continued. “But there’s been theories that it was anything from static electricity to sabotage to-”
“Buck.” Bobby’s voice cut him off. “I need to talk to you in my office.”
There was something about the captain’s face, when Buck glanced up, that had his stomach curdling. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly. The frown, perhaps. Or the pinched look of his eyes. Whatever it was, Buck didn’t like it.
“Yeah, uh, sure,” he said, reluctantly pushing himself off the couch and away from his husband. “Now?”
“Please,” Bobby said, and then turned to walk away. Buck shared confused looks with the others, before shrugging and following.
He had long ago stopped feeling like he’d been called to the principal whenever he stepped foot in the captain’s office, but the ghost of that feeling crept up on him now as he stepped through the door. He didn’t close it behind him, and Bobby didn’t mention it, so he didn’t think he was in trouble.
Not that he’d done anything to be in trouble for, but still.
“Is this more impromptu captain’s lessons?” he asked, walking forward to lean against one of the chairs facing the desk, as Bobby sat behind it with a sigh. “Y’know, I was thinking about signing up for those leadership courses you mentioned, the ones the department offers. And I’ve been uh, working through the books they suggest.”
“That’s good,” Bobby said, nodding. “But that’s… That’s not really why I called you in here.”
“Okay,” Buck said, drawing the word out. This was doing absolutely nothing to help with his building anxiety. “Am- Am I in trouble? Did I do something…?”
“No, no, you- No,” the captain told him, shaking his head. “You’ve been exemplary on the field, as always.”
Normally, the praise would have Buck preening, but this time…
“So then what’s going on?”
“I just got off the phone with the battalion chief,” Bobby explained, and the man wasn’t quite meeting Buck’s eyes. “They wanted to talk about who would be in charge while I was away.”
“Well, I mean, you’ve been pretty insistent on it being me for months now,” Buck said, trying to keep his tone light. “So I don’t see what the problem is.”
“That is the problem, apparently,” the captain said.
“What’s the problem?”
“I was told that the brass…” Bobby paused, hesitated. “I was told that at this time, they don’t think you’re the best person to be left in charge of A-shift in my absence.”
“What?” he blurted out. “Why? Did- Did I do something?”
“No, Buck, you-”
“Because I don’t understand, pops, they had no problem with me being put in charge back in… Back in May.” He trailed off, realization washing over him like ice water. Back in May, before Jonah Greenway. Back in May, before… “Taylor. This is about Taylor’s story, isn’t it? They’re still angry about that?”
He remembered how angry the chief had been, right afterwards. The way he’d been raked over the coals as they sought for a scapegoat to blame for their embarrassment, and as Taylor’s friend, he’d nearly been the perfect candidate. If one ignored the fact that he was busy nearly being murdered by the subject of her story. He had thought that he managed to dodge anything more than that temporary discomfort of being grilled for anything and everything he might have told the reporter, but clearly he had not.
He and Taylor had barely even spoken in months, and yet here they were.
“I’m being punished,” Buck said, feeling oddly hollow. He’d been dreading being left in charge, but now that he was being told that he couldn’t do it… “I’m being punished for something that I didn’t even do.”
“I’m sorry, Buck,” Bobby said, finally looking him in the eye. And Buck wanted to tell him exactly where to stick that ‘sorry,’ but he knew it wasn’t the captain’s fault. “Maybe… Maybe when there’s been more time to put the whole thing behind them.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he agreed, in a voice devoid of emotions. “I’m just gonna…”
He did not slam the door behind him, and considered it a win.