Chapter Text
Buck misses snow, sometimes.
He brought it up one night, sixteen hours into a twenty-four, buoyed against the end of the LA summer by memories of sliding through slush on the way to school. Hen scoffed, utterly unconvinced that anyone could enjoy being pelted by frozen rain; Chim turned his nose up haughtily at the mere idea. Nash—and he was Nash back then, stuck on a pedestal in Buck’s mind, too high up to dream of reaching—hummed in that thoughtful, oddly deep way of his.
“Did you ever make snow cream?” he said, and Buck perked up, excited enough for Hen to call him a golden retriever puppy but it didn’t matter because yes, Buck made snow cream when he was young and Bobby was looking at him fondly and…
Buck misses snow, sometimes. What he doesn’t miss is the cold, how it wraps you up, bundles you in a pins-and-needles embrace, clinging long after the first prickles of warmth settle into firm and reddened skin. He doesn’t miss the tight pain of headaches and chafed ears and muscles that sing with exhaustion as they try to make their own heat. He never expected to find his childhood hell on the west coast.
“How’s our little hero doing?” Hen asks. Her hand scalds like fire on his forehead, and he knows well the feeling of flame, now.
Buck pushes into her touch, locking his teeth together, fighting against the ‘F-f-f-freezing,’ he’d rasp if he could muster up the strength to speak. He already feels like a cartoon as he shivers his way towards homeostasis; he doesn’t need to plant the image in everyone else’s mind.
“Your temp’s coming back up. I don’t think we have to worry about hypothermia, but we’re gonna have you ride with us to the ED just in case.” She pats his cheek when he whines, a bit too hard to be comforting. “It’s a good thing you’re tough, Buckaroo.”
Chim, buckling the sodden and shaking child that Buck just dragged out of the Pacific onto the stretcher, sighs long-sufferingly. “I’m starting to think a prophet came up with that saying just for him. ‘If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.’ That’s Buckley to his core.”
“N-n-nice,” Buck manages to snark through his trembling, rolling his eyes. “Never heard th-that one before.”
“And yet, it clearly never stuck with you,” Chim mutters.
“I saved the k-kid. Isn’t that what we’re ‘sposed to do?”
Chim pops his gum obnoxiously, saying, “Hey, Buckley, do me a favor. How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Didn’t hit my h-head, Chim.”
Hen slaps both of Chimney’s hands down, his middle fingers brandished, and pushes him towards the ambulance. “Maybe try not pissing Cap off more. Buck made his bed but that doesn’t mean you need to lie in it with him.”
Enough feeling has crept back into Buck’s limbs for him to wish it hadn’t; he stretches his fingers, hissing as his knuckles morph from an oversaturated pink to a stark white. His jaw doesn’t attempt to chatter off of his skull when he cracks it open and his core no longer flutters uncontrollably, but a steady wave of exhaustion pulls his eyelids down, droops his head. Wrestling with the foil blanket slung loosely around him, he fumbles to his feet, intent on sneaking back onto the engine.
“Nice try,” Hen says. She draws the blanket closed with a mortifyingly loud series of crinkles; her pursed lips say try me as he fights the coddling. “Hey, Cap? This one’s all set for transport. We’re good to go.”
Buck flinches.
Bobby stands apart from the rest of the 118, hands clenched at his sides. His stare threatens to freeze Buck over again; his gritted jaw and tightly wound restraint speak for him.
“Save me,” Buck begs, catching Hen’s arm as she starts packing up her kit. “Please.”
“If you put it off it’s only going to get worse. Here’s another saying just for you: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Talk to him. Maybe he’ll break through that thick skull of yours.”
“Or maybe he’ll break it open.”
Hen zips up her bag shut and waves Bobby over. “He won’t. You might wish he did, but that’s another story entirely. Just hear him out.”
And she leaves him right there, stooped in the passenger-side doorway of the ambulance, heart pounding as Bobby crunches through the gravel towards him.
Buck waits, and waits, and waits, until—
“What were you thinking?” Bobby says, and he sounds tired.
Buck shifts uneasily. “I—”
“No. Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.” Hands on his hips, Bobby drops his voice low, cages Buck in with responsibility. “Do you know how easy it is to drown in fifty degree water when you fall from that height? Your body hits it and wants to gasp, and you’re down in one breath. One.”
“I know, Cap. I did my water rescue certs just like everyone else.”
“Oh, did you? And did it occur to you for even a second that was the reason why none of us were jumping in?”
Crossing his arms, Buck finds footing in indignation. He squares his shoulders, matches Bobby’s glare. “Look, I got the job done, didn’t I? The kid’s safe, and—”
“And you, kid, should’ve waited for us. We’re a team. If you can’t act like it, if you can’t handle that, then you need to ask yourself why you’re even here.”
This dance is well-worn, comfortable in its discomfort; Buck bites down on his temper, knowing that anything he says will get him nowhere, fast.
“How many times are we going to have to do this?” Bobby says. “How many times am I gonna stand here talking at you because you’re so far off in your own world that you can’t even hear me?”
“I hear you,” Buck whispers.
“Do you? You don’t act like it, Buck, and you certainly don’t put anything I say to use. You need to work with me, with us. You need to get over yourself.”
And Buck doesn’t know how to take that to heart without taking it as a blade, slipping through the iron bars of his ribs and choking out his breath. He nods unsteadily, unsure if the rattle in his chest is lingering traces of the ocean down below or shards of bone, a new wound to carry. Get over yourself like there’s any part of him to get over; like there’s any smidge of worth in him that he hoists up as a shield to hide behind.
“You got it, Cap,” he says flatly.
Bobby shakes his head, looks to the heavens like he’s begging his God for strength; he pulls his turnout jacket off and slings it around Buck’s shoulders over the foil blanket.
“Don’t do it again,” he mutters.
Wide-eyed, Buck watches as Bobby makes his way to the engine, snagging the soaked turnout bearing BUCKLEY as he goes.
“He didn’t kill me…”
“Yet.” Hen pops up from behind the back of the bus, smiling innocently for all of her eavesdropping. “I’d be more concerned about the fact you almost killed yourself if I were you.”
Buck shrugs, tries to piece himself back together. He doesn’t really care; he’s here for a purpose and he’ll lay his life down with no second thoughts. If he can’t live as a hero then he’ll die as one, and Bobby's words won’t haunt his grave. Probably.
Hen sighs, hauling him up to full height and flicking his hair back into place. “Cap worries about you, and for the love of God, I need you to stop giving him reasons to.”
“Cap worries about all of us. That’s literally his job.”
“Mm. Maybe. But I didn’t see me and Chim diving off of a bluff in the middle of February, and honestly? I don’t think we’d be wearing his jacket if we did. I don’t even know if we’d be wearing LAFD badges anymore.”
Buck fidgets with the sleeves of Bobby’s turnout, face flushed with more than returning circulation. SEAL training was relentless, dehumanizing, a practice in how deeply Buck’s character could be dissected every time he dared to utter ‘no.’ That experience would almost be preferable to Bobby’s disappointment, his broadcasted frustration. Cap makes it personal, makes it heavy; he doesn’t pull his punches when he stares Buck down and tells him to listen, and to live.
“You’re still a probie, Buck,” Hen says gently. “You're only halfway through the year. Try and survive the rest of your probationary period and try not to get yourself fired.”
“I did my job,” Buck snaps.
“There’s more to life than this job, and there’s more to this job than sacrificing yourself. You’re trying to prove something, you’re pretty clear about that, but here’s the thing I think you don’t get.” Hen rounds on him, a friendly hand on his arm guiding him to the closed ambulance doors. “If there’s something there, something you want us to see, then we’ll find it. If you force us to look, well…”
“You’ll look away.”
“Yeah.” Hen claps him on the shoulder, her tone discordantly breezy when she says, “Or we’ll be forced to watch you die.”
“That’s bleak.”
“That’s reality. You’re a good guy, but you’re missing the bigger picture.”
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to ask what I’m missing?”
Hen snorts, draws her words out like she’s explaining something to a petulant child. “This is the part where I tell you you’re the first probie I’ve seen in ten years that has a name.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Buck asks.
“Have you ever raised puppies or kittens? ‘Cause you don’t name them until you know they’re gonna live. And, Buckaroo? Bobby took a chance on you. We took that chance and ran with it. So stop giving him grey hairs and stop scaring us like that. Got it?”
He doesn’t get it, not really, but he’s spent enough weeks, months with the 118 to know when Hen is speaking from the heart. Buck isn’t a liar; he doesn’t nod, he doesn’t say he understands, and he doesn’t promise he’ll be more careful. He squeezes her hand, still wrapped around his arm, and he tells her: “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she says, warily warm, somehow knowing. “And now is the part where I feed you to the wolves. Good luck with Chim.”
Buck blinks, steeling himself before opening the ambulance doors. Chim’s voice spills out, pitched down to soothe the kid dwarfed under heat-trapping blankets on the stretcher:
“—which is when I said, ‘There’s no way. There is no possible way in creation that this dog can do a kick-flip.’ And do you know what that dog did right in front of me?”
“A kick-flip?” the kid whispers, engrossed and awestruck.
Chim leans over the head of the stretcher, more serious than Buck has ever seen him. “That was the coolest moment of my life.” He tucks the IV lines out of the boy’s reach, taking notice of his audience when he pulls away. “Nice of you to finally join us.”
“Thanks,” Buck says wryly. “You two seem like you’re getting along. It took him months to tell me about Sky, the Skating Schneagle. That’s a schnauzer beagle,” he adds for Jimmy’s giggling benefit.
“Jimmy here has a very sophisticated sense of humor. Really, he has a great worldview. He told me all about how thoughtless he thinks it was for you to jump in after him like that.”
“Actually, I said—”
Chim shakes his head, covering Jimmy’s mouth with an oxygen mask. “I have a feeling he’s lost enough of his dignity today. Maybe we can spare Buck the finer details.”
Buck, hunched over in something that scalds like shame and simmers like anger, climbs into the bus and turns around to tug the doors shut.
“Or, should I say, we can spare Nash the finer details.”
Falling still, Buck remembers the jacket with a wince, though far too late to spare himself.
“As far as sartorial choices go, identity theft is a pretty bold one. It’s a statement.” Chim beams at Buck’s sneer, cast out as he takes a seat on the bench.
“Why’re you wearing Captain Nash’s jacket?” Jimmy asks, all of his rambling energy honed in on Buck. “Is he your dad? My dad always gives me his jacket when I’m cold.” He nods to himself, evidently pleased with his own logic, and careens to the next stop on his train of thought. “Captain Nash was really nice. He let me use his radio to ask the hospital if they could give me ice cream.”
“Hot ice cream only, kiddo,” Chim says.
“Like a hot fudge sundae? Maybe they’ll have whipped cream, a-and cherries.”
A smile slants its way across Buck’s lips in spite of his poor mood; he really does love kids, and he isn’t sorry he risked his life for this one.
“Captain Nash isn’t my dad,” he says, “but he did use the ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’ tone on me.”
“That’s awful. Sometimes I think it’s better when they yell,” Jimmy breathes, as sagely as a seven year old can. “Do you… Do you think my dad is gonna be mad at me?”
“He might seem like he’s mad,” Chim says, speaking to Jimmy with his eyes on Buck, “but if he is, that’s only ‘cause he’s scared.”
Gathering tiny fistfuls of foil blankets, Jimmy’s lip starts to wobble. “I shouldn’t have run away like that. He’s gotta be really afraid.”
Buck clears his throat, handing the kid a tissue and resolutely telling himself this conversation is in no way applicable to his life. “We all do things we’re not proud of, you know. Sometimes—sometimes people will tell you not to do something and you don’t understand why until you do it anyway and it’s too late to take it back.”
“Are you proud of yourself for jumping in the water after me?”
“I’m…” Buck feels himself crumble, overwrought, bogged down in his drenched uniform. “I’m proud of myself for saving you, but… Maybe not the way I did.”
“Good,” Jimmy says, reaching over to pat his knee. “Mrs. Rosenthal calls that ‘listening and learning.’ Hey, maybe if you ask Captain Nash nicely, he’ll give you a sticker. Mrs. Rosenthal gives me Ninja Turtles ones when I listen to her.”
Heat drags up Buck's neck at being put in his place by a first grader; he sets about distracting himself by charting his and Jimmy’s vitals, ignoring Chim’s helpless laughter.
“Am I gonna have to call my dad myself?” Jimmy asks quietly. “I don’t… I don’t wanna hear him cry.”
Chimney hums. “Your dad’s on the way to the hospital right now, bud. He should be there by the time we bring you in.”
“I should tell him I’m sorry. Mrs. Rosenthal says that a little sorry goes a long way, and I think she’s right.”
Chim looks to Buck serenely; Buck ducks even further into his jacket—Bobby’s jacket—and feels about two feet tall.
“Your Mrs. Rosenthal sounds great,” Chim says. “Is she your teacher?”
“She’s my neighbor. Dad says if she was any older she’d be dust, but I think she’s awesome. Did you know she has a collection of dead people’s hair? So cool.”
A second passes slowly, marching along as Buck stares helplessly at Chim and Chim stares awkwardly at Jimmy and Jimmy stares peaceably at nothing; Hen shatters the moment, rapping against the divider twice and shouting: “Guys, we’ll be there in a minute!”
“Thank God,” Buck mutters.
“Nah, usually I find it’s better to just thank Hen,” Chim whispers. “She always answers my prayers.”
Jimmy sits idly, not at all concerned with the deflating tension.
Groaning as he rises, Chim bends over the stretcher. “Well, Jimmy, I’d say it was nice to meet you, but…”
“But you only met me because I was playing too close to the edge and fell in the water,” Jimmy says glumly. “I’m gonna apologize. Maybe my dad will get me ice cream if I do, but you know what? I think it’s okay if he doesn’t. He cares about me, and sometimes that means telling me when I did something wrong.”
Buck glowers as Chim works through a variety of emotions, finally landing on sheer joy.
“That’s a great outlook, kid. I think we could all learn from that.”
Buck reads the meaning loud and all too clear. “Uh… Yeah. Good—good job, Jimmy.”
As soon as the ambulance pulls to a full stop, Buck throws the door open. He jumps to the ground, nearly knocking Hen over as she hustles to the back.
“You should’ve wished me good luck with Jimmy,” he hisses. She only smiles evenly, entirely unaffected.
“Kids, man,” Chim says as he hops out of the bus. “They’ll point out your every flaw with pinpoint accuracy and tell you exactly how to fix them, kindergarten-style. It’s like free therapy.”
Buck scoffs. “Right up until he brought up Mrs. Rosenthal’s hobbies. That was more like free torture.”
“Oh, you don’t even know torture yet,” Hen says. “Help us bring him in and I’ll put in a good word for you with the doctor. Cap, on the other hand, will pick you up once you’re discharged, and then you’ll have to fill out an incident report together. I don’t think I have enough good words to cover you there.”
Buck swallows tightly, snaps a glance at Jimmy; Jimmy peers down at him, waving his hands and splaying them out as if saying go on.
“Thanks, Hen,” Buck says, stitching together a smile that doesn’t quite reach his cheeks. “But I have to…”—he sighs, deep enough that it aches in his abdomen—“listen and learn.”
“M-kay, well, you do that.” Hen turns away dismissively, reaching for the kid’s hand. “Jimmy, are you good to go? We’ll hang out with you until you’re all checked in.”
“Yes,” he says simply. “They didn’t—they didn’t actually say I couldn’t have ice cream.”
Buck grins when Hen swivels to him for context; he pulls the stretcher on its tracks, lowering down the legs. Unloading a child is easier than loading an adult and he has the Stryker down in moments, passing it off to Chim and a team of nurses.
“Do I really have to be seen?” he asks Hen.
“Think of how you feel right now the next time you decide to be an idiot,” she says, leading him to the doors.
“Hey, Hen?” Chim sings from up ahead. “Should we check him in as Evan Buckley or as Evan Nash?”
Buck groans; he tightens Bobby’s jacket around himself and lets Hen lead him to his doom.
Hours pass inanely, the march of time marked only by vitals and vials of blood. Buck waits either for his brain to start leaking out of his ears in sheer boredom or his discharge papers, not overly confident about which will greet him first. His borrowed scrubs itch and his ego aches and he can’t even bask in the nurse’s attention, wholly defeated by the day.
“Ready to get out of here?” says his nurse, Rachel. She smiles brightly when he bolts upright from his cot, ripping the papers out of her hand. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Very much so,” Buck says. “Um, thank you, for…”
“For nothing. We both know it’s true, but it’s good to be cautious.” She hands him his belongings bag from the floor, fogged up with condensation from his uniform, and a pair of anti-slip socks. “I’m afraid we don’t have any extra shoes.”
“No problem. It’s better than trying to get my boots back on.”
“Take care, Mr. Buckley. No offense, but I hope we don’t see you around here again.”
Buck grits his teeth into a smile, pulling on the scratchy socks and gathering up his things. He wanders to the waiting room, phone in hand, his thumb hesitating over Bobby’s number and twitching its rebellion. He’s still on the clock and Bobby is probably still annoyed; he teeters on a poorly strung tightrope of wanting to keep his job and wanting to save his pride, delay the inevitable second half of the lecture just a touch longer.
“All set?” breaks him from his conflict. He spins on his heel to find Bobby sitting patiently in a plasticine chair, composed, with no sign of the storm Buck was imagining would be hanging over him.
“Y-yeah,” Buck says. “They gave me a clean bill of health.” Bobby’s turnout is slung over his elbow, the bright green patient belongings bag heavy in his hand. “My cholesterol was apparently higher than they’d like, though.”
“You’re young. You have time to fix it.” Standing, concealing a grimace as he subtly stretches, Bobby takes the bag from him. “I told the crew we’d pick up Thai food on our way back. There’s a new place on La Brea that Hen’s been begging to try.”
“Will that help my cholesterol?” Buck asks, picking up into a jog to keep pace as Bobby heads for the ED doors.
“Probably not, but it should help your spirits. I heard Jimmy gave you a run for your money. Chim said you were nearly in tears.”
“I wasn’t—okay, he…he hit kinda hard. In my defense, I didn’t expect to get reamed out by a seven year old whose life I just saved. They didn’t teach us how to handle that in the academy.”
Bobby relieves him of the turnout once they reach the battalion vehicle, tossing it into the backseat along with the belongings bag. Buck doesn’t think he imagines Bobby’s scrutiny as he looks him over, nodding to himself once.
“That comes with experience, which—”
“I don’t have,” Buck sighs. He climbs into the passenger seat and clicks on his seatbelt, staring ahead as Bobby folds himself behind the wheel and buckles in. Where Buck drives like he has nothing to lose, Bobby drives like he’s lost everything; his signature caution is present as he slowly rolls the car onto the road. There’s a story in everything Bobby does, an intention to each movement; there’s a grief that defines him, and it’s one that promises agony to all who read it.
If Buck knows one thing for certain, it’s that Bobby’s story is pressed down in heavy lines in the black book he carries with him everywhere he goes. He thinks that would probably be the final push to a severance package and tries to stomp down on the urge to take a peek.
“Everything is so ‘this or that’ with you,” Bobby says. “You say you don’t have experience like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. It’s just a fact, and if you cared enough to keep yourself alive then you’d gain it. Besides, that’s not what I was going to say.”
Buck sits up, angling towards him.
“I was going to say it comes with experience, which doesn’t even really help. Kids can be…brutal.”
Buck nods tiredly, going through the motions of a laugh. He might be healthy but he took a dip in the Pacific off of a cliff, and youth isn’t a balm for all aches. “He wasn’t wrong, though. He told me I should apologize.”
Sliding to a stop at a red light, Bobby looks at him encouragingly. Buck chooses, instead, to squirm in his seat. Bobby rolls his eyes and presses down the gas once the light flickers green.
“I’m not sorry for saving him.”
“That’s not the problem, Buck. Anyone can jump first and deal with the consequences later, there is nothing special about that. You just—you think, I know you do. I know you’re smart and you pretend you're not and I won’t ask why, but what I need to know is why you think it’s okay to play with your life like that.”
Buck taps his fingers against his knees, echoes of the moment they got to the scene flashing behind his eyes, overlaying with the rush of blood in his ears.
“We could’ve lost Jimmy. I-I saw him paddling, heard him screaming, and…”
“Look, kid. I’ve been a firefighter for three decades. I’ve seen careers and lives end in an instant with a better to ask forgiveness attitude or a single poor choice. If you think this is all about the saves then you’re not prepared for the losses.”
“He could’ve died, Bobby. I wasn’t going to stand there and watch.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not the excuse you think it is.” Bobby turns into the restaurant lot and puts the car in park, staring straight ahead at the building’s spotless siding. “You’re right. We could have lost Jimmy. It takes us three minutes and seventeen seconds to get into harnesses and set up the winch, and water rescue was nine minutes out. A wave might have come and taken him, or he could have hit his head on a rock, or he could’ve just gotten too tired to keep himself afloat. In a different reality, Jimmy didn’t make it.”
Tears in his eyes, Buck studies his hands, scratching his nails lightly on his thighs. He remembers feeling lost at sea at Jimmy’s age, feeling unmoored, like no one but his sister could reach out and throw him a rope. Jimmy was drowning, not in metaphor, and he saved him; after all that, he still did the wrong thing.
“But, in that reality,” Bobby continues, “all of us would have made it home safely. You just got lucky today. Luck doesn’t last forever. We wouldn’t have forgotten him, wouldn’t have brushed his memory off, but we would’ve laced up our boots the next shift and gotten back to work. Are the people whose lives we’d save after be worth any more or less than Jimmy’s?”
Buck shakes his head, startling when Bobby places a hand on his shoulder; he meets Bobby’s gaze and doesn’t bother hiding the damp tracks on his cheeks.
“You need to put yourself first,” Bobby says. “Save yourself so you can keep saving others. I want to be able to give you your badge but I won’t give you endless chances to earn it.”
“I’m sorry,” Buck whispers. “I…reacted. But you’re right, I do think, and—I’m sorry.”
Bobby smiles, small, bittersweet. “You’re young. You have time to fix it.”
“‘Fix’ being my attitude, or…” His stomach growls, too loud and for too long and he sighs as Bobby chuckles at his misfortune.
“Why don’t we start with fixing that. We can work on your death wish later.”
And Hen was right: Buck’s been invisible his whole life but his team sees him just like she said they would. The problem is, this isn’t the part of him that he wants to be seen. This is when he always runs, on the cusp of true perception; for the first time, he thinks it might be worth staying, seeing where the road he’s already on will take him instead of swerving towards a new one.
Bobby steps out of the car, pausing when Buck calls his name and says, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, kid. Just—”
“Don’t do it again.”
“I really feel like being able to finish that sentence means you should understand it by now.”
A strangled laugh chokes up Buck’s throat; he closes his eyes at the slam of the car door, his breaths already slowing into sleep.
***
“You look…”
“Amazing, right?” Buck tries. He slants a smile and nearly convinces himself of its veracity when he catches sight of it in the locker room mirror. He then catches sight of Bobby’s frown and feels his energy dwindle, drained by the demands of the day.
“You look nervous,” Bobby says. “You’re sweating.” He rifles through Buck’s locker and pulls out a fresh uniform top, shaking out non-existent wrinkles. “Change your shirt. Your dress blues are meant to look blue.”
Buck huffs and takes it, tackling the buttons of his damp and blackened shirt with one hand. “Gee, thanks. That’s a nice vote of confidence.”
“When have you ever needed to borrow confidence from me? This isn’t like you.”
Tossing his old shirt on the floor, Buck pulls on the crisp replacement, doing up the buttons with anxious concentration. He forces himself not to check his phone, abandoning hope for a text from Maddie, from his parents.
He grasps for levity with a thrown out: “Maybe I’m just scared about the amount of dad jokes I can sense are coming. Your speeches are…something else.”
“No dad jokes,” Bobby promises, “just a story or two about your first few months. Remember that time we went to a call at that pool party and you—”
“Cap, I swear to God, if you mention that in your speech I will walk out.”
“And who says that’s not my intention?” Bobby beams, countering Buck’s sneer. He leans against the lockers with his hands slotted in his pockets, lolling his head towards Buck, twitching his lip as Buck grabs his clip-on tie. “Listen, there’s nothing to get worked up about. It’s just us, right? The point is to honor the work you’ve put in over this last year, congratulate you for the life you chose.”
“I don’t see what’s so special about it. I’m still gonna be doing the same job I’ve been doing this whole time.”
“And now you’ll have the title to prove it. It’s a formality, but it’s one we celebrate. If Hen sees you walking around with that look on your face then she might throw out your cake. She has opinions about spoilsports.”
“This is just my face, Cap.” The tie won’t sit flat no matter what he does and he adjusts it with mounting frustration, feeling for all the world like a snake charmer as it wriggles out of place. “What flavor did she get?”
“Something with sprinkles, I think. She said she thought it’d suit your tastes.”
“I’m pretty sure funfetti is Denny’s favorite type of cake. She’s probably banking on taking home leftovers. It’s not exactly a full house out there.”
The bay only hosts a few tables, filled pitifully by the firefighters currently on shift; the thought is there but the reality is depressing. Buck rips his tie off, caught on the folly of how important this day should feel. A creak of metal snags his attention and he focuses back on Bobby, staring at the tie he holds out, identical to his own except for the lack of a cheap clip.
“Can I?” Bobby says.
“Um, sure. Do you just keep a spare in your locker for emergencies?”
“Why not? I’ve always hated the department-issued ones.”
Buck shrugs, spinning around when Bobby nudges him to face the mirror.
“What’s really going on?” Bobby says, low and gentle as he threads the fabric under Buck’s collar, pulling the ends to the right lengths. “I know this isn’t stagefright; I’ve seen you ham it up in front of live TV cameras too many times to count.”
“I really thought—and, I-I feel stupid for even thinking this, but… I thought my parents might come. I thought they’d be proud.”
Bobby slows as he weaves the tie into a knot. He meets Buck’s eyes in the mirror and ducks away before Buck can make heads or tails of the shape of his lips, downturned in more than pity.
“You never talk about them. I wasn’t sure if you reached out.”
“Oh, I did.” Buck pitches his voice higher, sneering himself into an imitation of Margaret. “‘Evan, how could you be so selfish? Could you ever try to put yourself in our shoes? How’re we supposed to even breathe knowing that you’re out there risking your life?’”
“What we do isn’t without consequence,” Bobby offers. “It takes a toll on those who care about us. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone here whose family doesn’t worry about them.”
But Buck knows better by now than to accept broken bones and split skin as the only impetus for anything close to worry or care or love. He chokes down memories of suffocating in his parents' embrace as he fought to be seen and he was, only to realize he mattered purely as a bloodied canvas for them to throw their guilt at.
“Maybe I’d mind it less if they meant it,” he mutters. “They don’t care, Cap. They never have.”
“They don’t care about what you do?”
“They don’t care about me. About who I am, or-or how I am. I don’t fit into their picture perfect family. I figured it’d hurt less by now, but… It’s hard not to notice that they didn’t show up.”
Bobby sighs, settling the tie flat; he turns Buck around to smooth out his shirt and fix one of his cuffs. Buck stands still and lets him fuss until he’s apparently satisfied, feeling laid bare and far from celebratory.
“I’m sorry, kid” Bobby says quietly. “You deserve better.”
“Do I? Or do I just deserve exactly what I’ve gotten?”
“This is a big achievement, Buck,” Bobby chides. “Even if they don’t understand that, they should understand that it’s important to you. I’m sorry that they don’t, and I’m sorry they’re not here. Still,”—reaching into his pocket, Bobby slips out a sliver of metal and curls Buck’s hand around it—“you’re not alone. We give up so much time with our families that we make new ones here to survive. It’s a brotherhood: we stand together and we fall together.”
“Am I getting a sneak peek into your speech?” Buck says absently. He opens his hand to find what looks to be a standard-issue tie-clip sitting in his palm: silver, gleaming.
“No,” Bobby drawls; he turns the clip over in Buck's hand. A hint of writing shines in the light. “That’s going to be cornier.”
Buck snorts and presses down on the spring, narrowing his eyes on the inside of the clip as he reads: Gens una sumus.
“What does it mean? Not all of us were altar boys. The only Latin I know is c’est la vie.”
“That’s French, Buck,” Bobby says, fondly amused. “Gens una sumus. We are one family. I borrowed it from the St. Louis fire department. Hopefully they won’t mind.”
Clarity settles in an instant, a flashbang of images knocking through Buck’s mind: Chim fastidiously fixing his hair for him this morning, nose crinkled as he theatrically gagged at the scent of the pomade; Hen’s flourish as she swung around around the bay, keeping the cake she got for him just out of reach; Bobby’s precious time spent turning him from a walking disaster to a firefighter worthy of his title, hearing him out and being present. He clips his tie into place and takes a step back.
“Thank you, Bobby. Really.” Tucking his shirt tightly under the band of his trousers, Buck puffs his chest out, then folds his hands behind his back. “So, how do I look now?”
“You look like you’re ready,” Bobby says, quiet, but more importantly, quietly proud.
Buck pulls him into a hug, pulls away. “You’re not… You’re not actually gonna mention that pool party, right?”
“You’ll just have to see,” Bobby says, a wicked smile skewing his words. Buck tweaks the gold bars pinned to his captain’s lapel out of place, darting out of the locker room and up the stairs before he can find out the extent of Bobby's good humor.
After the ceremony, after cake and congratulations, they clear away the tables and put the station back online. And when they get a call, when Buck pulls on his turnouts over his official firefighter badge for the first time, Hen and Chim start giggling.
Buck cocks his head, climbing into the engine when they wave him off; the odd moment passes. It takes him four years and ten months exactly to remember it, and to figure out why.