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“For the record, I did tell you that was going to happen if you kept stealing the firetruck.”
Buck sighed and turned around, drying the pot in his right hand with a clean towel as he looked at the man sitting across the table from him.
After the events of the day before, Bobby had put him on dish duty for the rest of the week. Normally Buck would have argued against it, but considering he had been fired and rehired in the span of two hours on said day, he decided for once not to test the thin ice he was standing on.
“Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, you only told me, what, fifty times?”
The man’s lip twitched. “Fifty? Oh, come on, Buck. You know me better than that,” he titled his head, his ice-blue eyes barely hiding his amusement. “It was at least seventy, if not a hundred. Do you even listen to me half the time?”
“Well, how am I supposed to? If you won’t teach me wolf-speak-”
Buck laughed and dodged a balled-up piece of paper thrown his way. He grinned as the other snorted, a rare smile appearing on his normally inscrutable face.
“You suck, you know that?”
“And you're easy to tease.”
Buck turned around to put the thoroughly dried pot in its place in the cabinet next to the sink. As he picked up and began washing a bowl, he heard his friend and fellow probie sigh. He probably rolled his eyes, too, but Buck wasn’t certain. The other blonde could be pretty stoic sometimes.
“You and Leo would get along great.”
“Leo? You mean your boyfriend in Canada?”
Buck narrowly dodged another ball of paper. He heard a groan from its place of origin.
“For the last time, Buck, he’s real. And for your information, he lives in Indiana, not Canada.”
“Of course he does, Jase,” Buck soothed-but-not-really,”He lives there on a ranch with his pet dragon and a bunch of unicorns. His address is at the end of a rainbow, right?”
A sudden choking sound echoed in the loft. Buck stilled, legitimately concerned for Jason. Then, laughter followed it and he eased.
He blames his momentary lapse in awareness as to why he managed to get hit that time.
“I hate you so much,” Jason said fondly. “Why are we friends again?”
“Probably because we’re in the same family. What’s the name again? Canis? Canidae?”
Buck grinned as he heard Jason sigh behind him again. He took the lack of paper being thrown as a sign of defeat.
In truth, Buck and Jason hadn’t started out as friends. Buck was even kinda jealous of him when they were in the academy even though the guy was two years younger than him. He was just so…perfect. He was the fastest and strongest person in their group of recruits. But then, a few weeks after their training started, Jason had taken Buck aside and, completely out of the blue, asked if he knew how to surf.
“Uh, no. Why? Do you?”
“Yeah. I was planning on catching some waves tomorrow with a friend, but they had to cancel. So, do you want to come with me instead? I could teach you.”
Buck hadn’t even blinked. His love of the beach and desire to learn overpowered his insecurity. “Sure!”
That was the first time he had ever seen Jason smile.
The next morning, Jason took him to the beach and they began his lessons. He had a rough start, but Buck learned pretty quickly. They spent most of the day in the water, Jason seeming to have an affinity for staying on his board. Buck made a comment on it, saying that his last name fit him. He then proceeded to laugh at the exasperated expression that marred Jason’s face as he muttered to himself. Apparently, that wasn’t the first time someone had made a pun about his last name. And, judging by his frown at Buck’s wild grin, he knew it wasn’t going to be the last time either.
For the rest of the night, they sat by a fire and told each other about their lives- Well, parts of their lives, at least. Buck could tell Jason was censoring a lot of what he said, but he let it slide. Buck did the same whenever his childhood came up.
In the end, it turned out he and Jason had a decent amount in common. And not just physically. For example, they were both younger siblings who had a much older sister who they didn’t see much of. They'd also traveled a lot and had a complicated relationship with their parents. Both biological and adoptive, in Jason’s case.
Buck hadn’t believed him at first when Jason told him about Lupa. Someone being named that was odd enough; add that with the fact that she ran an ultra-private sanctuary for wolves? Come on now.
Jason had raised an eyebrow when Buck questioned him about it, acting as if it was strange Buck didn’t just believe him. But to his credit, he did go on to talk about both the sanctuary and his childhood in detail.
Apparently, when Jason was two, his parents had given him up for adoption. Lupa, who was an experienced foster parent, took him in and raised him amongst the wolves she looked after. She taught him all kinds of stuff, like self-defense and wilderness survival tips. And when she was busy with something, she would leave Jason with the wolves to look after him.
Buck had freaked out at that, but Jason just laughed and told him it was fine. He said he was “part of their pack”. Like that was totally a normal thing. The only thing Buck thought was weirder than that was when he compared Jason to Mowgli and the other just gave him a blank look before asking Buck what he was talking about. He acted like Buck was the weird one. Him. Mr. I-Was-Partly-Raised-By-Wolves.
Buck had never wanted to be friends with someone more in his life.
It was around midnight when they finally called it a night. Jason (with the skill of a 100-year-old blind dog who only knew how to text and drink a smoothie at the same time) drove Buck back to his house, leaving him with the promise that they would meet up at his apartment later that week to watch the live-action Jungle Book. (Buck had never seen the animated one; not fully, at least.)
From that day onward, Buck and Jason’s friendship grew. They often teamed up after that, whether it be for drills or games, earning them the mocking nicknames “Golden Retriever #1” and “Golden Retriever #2”. Buck took issue with it only because Jason was clearly a canis lupus, not a canis familiaris. Or, in other words, a wolf, not a dog.
Jason had sighed exasperatedly when Buck told him his reasoning – which had been with the scientific terms included – but the older boy could tell he found it funny by the twitch of his lips.
By graduation, the two were practically inseparable (“Pack-bonded” Buck had once joked). Whoever was in charge of deploying the probies must have noticed that because Buck and Jason were both assigned to the 118.
Which led to now.
“-ere, Buck?”
Buck blinked, the memories fading away as he became aware of his surroundings once more. Man, how long had he been zoning out for? It must have been a decent amount of time considering the remaining dishes and cups were nowhere to be seen, most likely in their respective cupboards. Buck had a habit of doing that: working on one task while his mind was millions of miles away. His body seemed to go on auto-pilot during those times, acting on muscle memory or something similar. It was usually useful, but sometimes it bothered him, making him wonder if he had missed anything important while he wasn’t paying attention. He shook his head before turning around to face Jason. “Uh, yeah?”
The blonde didn’t look perturbed like most people did when Buck got into the “zone”. He simply sat there patiently like he always did, waiting for Buck to get back with the program. In the beginning, Buck used to think Jason was like that because of his personality, but he soon learned it was rather because a lot of his friends tended to do the same exact thing and he was used to it. Apparently, his boyfriend in Cana- Er, Indiana did that kind of thing all the time.
“I just wanted to know if we’re still on for tonight?” he asked. They had made plans earlier that week to watch Oliver and Company tonight. It was part of Jason’s “education”. Turns out Lupa didn’t think it was essential to introduce Jason to the wonders of television when he was under her care and because of it, he never really got into it on his own. Man, if only Chim knew. And he thought Buck was bad. Jason would have given him an aneurysm.
“Yeah, I’ll be able to make it,” Buck said, his voice becoming rueful as he continued. ”That’s the good thing about being on dish duty, I guess. There’s no way I can get too hurt that we have to cancel.”
“Eh, I wouldn’t say that,” Jason teased,”I mean, have you met you? I wouldn’t be surprised if you still managed to end up in the hospital. Probably by slipping on something and stabbing yourself with a fork. Or even worse. A spoon.”
Buck rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I’m not that bad.”
Jason muttered something that sounded like “When compared to Percy? Sure.” before saying louder,”Seriously. You have the worst luck, Buck. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were cursed.”
“What, you don’t believe in curses?” Buck shot back. To be fair, he never really did either until someone said the Q-word for the first time while he was on shift.
“Oh, no, I do. I just don’t know what you could’ve done to piss off Tyche or Fortuna that bad.”
Old Buck would have paused, wondering what the heck two ladies with weird names had to do with anything. But at this point, he had learned to roll with Jason name-dropping gods from different religions. Apparently, he believed that they all existed, though he had a tendency to focus on the Roman ones. Omnism was the word for it, Buck was pretty sure. It used to throw him off, but after being on the job for a while, he had gotten used to it. It even amused him a little when he thought about it. An Episcopalian, an Omnist, a Catholic, and whatever the hell Hen and Chim were walk into a firehouse…
Yeah, they were definitely a motley crew. And Buck would never trade them for anything.
“Oh, looks like they’re back.”
Buck blinked. Dammit. He zoned out. Again.
“They’ll probably need help unloading. Come on, Buck,” Jason stood up and walked over to the stairs. He was mid-step when he realized Buck hadn’t followed him. He turned and called,”Hey, you coming?”
Buck looked around, making sure there was nothing amiss. The counters were clean. The sink was dry. And the cabinets were all organized.
Everything was where it belonged.
Buck smiled softly and followed him. “Yeah, I’m coming.”