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Bobby took one look at the paperwork piled on his desk and groaned. This was his least favorite part of the job, no doubt about it. He hadn’t become a firefighter to fill out forms all day, but unfortunately, the Captain’s role came with a lot of responsibilities. And a lot of them involved a pen and a piece of paper. Noticing a fresh cup of coffee on his desk, he peered at it curiously. He didn’t remember making it. In fact, he knew he didn’t, because he had gone straight from his car to his desk, dumping his bag at the office door. He would get changed soon, he still had about an hour before the rest of the shift would traipse in the door.
He looked at the coffee cup again, and then noticed it was sitting on a yellow Post-It, which had something scrawled on it. He lifted the cup and read it.
Made you coffee, filled in the forms for you, just need you to sign them off. Buck.
What forms? Buck had been on vacation for the past week, and he didn’t remember giving him anything to fill in. Was his memory playing tricks on him? Or was this old age catching up on him? Nah, couldn’t be, he was only in his 50s after all. Still a young(ish) man. Too young for Alzheimer’s anyway.
Sighing, he picked up the first pile, a neat one held together by a paperclip, and looked at the front page. A “change of relationship” form. The same one he’d handed Buck and Eddie two weeks ago, but they’d denied any shift from simply being best friends. Bobby hadn’t been convinced, though. He’d noticed some small changes, ones that he probably wouldn’t have noticed, had he not been looking for them. Some touches for longer than usual, the way their eyes met across the table at dinner time, Buck giving Eddie a soft look and a dreamy smile like a man in love, the way they arrived in their own cars, yet still managed to get to work within less than a minute of each other every single time. Almost as if they left from the same place at the same time every morning.
He skimmed the document, which confirmed that he and Eddie were in a relationship, and signed it. They’d have to talk about it, but they weren’t going to be on shift together until the end of the week, so it would have to wait until then.
The second document was exactly the same, but had Eddie’s name in place of Buck’s, and was signed by him instead. Bobby signed that too, and put it on top of the first one. Then he realized that there was more.
“Change of address”, the next one read, and on it, Buck had written the address of his loft as his previous address, and Eddie’s as his new one. It took Bobby a little by surprise, if he was honest, but Buck had said something about his lease being due up and the fact he was thinking about moving to another place, so maybe it was just temporary? Or maybe they’d moved faster than any normal couple? Although, those two were anything but a normal couple. How it had taken them so long to come to the conclusion that they were idiots in love was beyond him. Bobby signed that one too, and then came to the last two sheets of paper in the pile.
They were both uniform request forms, nothing out of the ordinary. They requested new uniforms all the time. In their line of work, damage was inevitable. Burns, chars, blood...all came with the territory unfortunately. Knowing Buck, he had gone on vacation and forgotten to tell anyone that he needed a new...Bobby scanned the document...coat, and only remembered a few days ago. He put his pen to the bottom of that piece of paper, then something caught his eye, which made him freeze. Under “reason for request”, Buck had written “change of name”, and under “name on uniform” he had written...Evan Diaz? Frantically, Bobby reached back into the pile and reread the change of relationship form, and sure enough, the box that said “married” had been ticked. On both his and Eddie’s forms. Nope, this was far too much for 7.15am on a Monday morning. This kid had a habit of giving him gray hairs, but this?
“Firefighter Diaz to the office, please!” Bobby eventually ordered through the tannoy, and in record time, his door opened, and Buck strolled in, a massive grin on his face.
“Hey Cap, I guess you got them? Did I fill something in wrong?” He asked, almost too innocently. “I mean, I got Eddie to check them too, and he didn’t say anything, so I assumed that...”
“Buck, stop, please!” Bobby held his hand up to silence the man in front of him, the man that was practically his son. “Is this...is this some kind of joke?” He asked. It had to be some weird prank that the two of them had thought up. After everyone had quizzed the two of them about being together the other week, they’d obviously retaliated by pretending to go the complete opposite way, right? There was no way...
“Nope, no joke.” Buck replied, sliding another piece of paper from the pile, this time from the bottom. “I, um, sat this here in case you needed it, I wasn’t sure.” He handed his marriage certificate over to Bobby, who skimmed it and then looked up at Buck, one eyebrow raised. “It’s real, I promise.”
“It’s real? So you got up on...” He checked the date on the piece of paper “Thursday morning, and decided that you were going to Vegas to get married? To someone you weren’t even dating?”
“Yeah, um, we kind of were, we just didn’t want to say anything until we knew how we felt.” Buck winced, knowing he would be in trouble for that one. They both would be. But it was done now, right? “Bobby, I know it’s sudden, but...”
“Sudden? Yeah, it’s sudden. I hate to ask, but are you completely sure about this? Because if you aren’t...” He trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence. If he wasn’t, if they weren’t, that would absolutely break them, Bobby knew that.
“I love him, I’ve think I’ve always loved him.” Buck whispered, just loud enough for Bobby to hear. “He is...he’s the best thing that has ever happened to me, he’s the best thing you’ve ever given me, and I...I want to spend the rest of my life with him and Christopher. I know from the outside it looks reckless, I know if it was anyone else, I’d think that too. But it’s us, and I think we both know that this has been coming for a really long time, I guess it just took us time to get to the same page.” He sighed. “And now we are.”
“OK, as long as you’re both happy.” Bobby said as he stood up and walked over to Buck, pulling him into a fatherly hug. “But...”
“But what?” Buck asked nervously.
“You’re telling Athena.” He grinned, and Buck groaned, then started to protest. That was not going to be a fun conversation to have. At all. Pulling away, Bobby took his phone out of his pocket, found Athena’s number and pressed the call button before thrusting it into Buck’s hands and making a hasty retreat behind his desk.
“Hey baby.” Buck eventually heard Athena’s voice on the line. “What’s wrong?”
“Hey, ‘Thena, it’s me. Um, so I kind of need to tell you something...”