Chapter Text
Buck took a sudden lurch to his left and strong arms kept him from falling straight into a plant pot. The same arms gently guided him towards a familiar looking front door. His thoughts were scrambled, his mind unclear, and he couldn’t put his finger on whose door it was. It wasn’t his door; he was outside and he would need to be inside for it to be his door. It wasn’t Eddie’s door.
Eddie. He should talk to Eddie.
He tried to turn but he tripped on a step which seemingly came out of nowhere. Those strong arms saved him again.
Someone was out to get him.
He kept being guided towards that familiar door.
That familiar door wasn’t the familiar door he wanted it to be.
“No!” Buck protested, turning his back on the door. “Go Eddie’s.”
He attempted to walk back to the car parked at the side of the road, to insist on being driven to Eddie’s, but his plan was made difficult by the world’s insistence on spinning and the inability of his eyes to focus. He swayed and stumbled as he even tried to take one step.
“Now, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” those strong arms were back again, pulling him back to the doorstep. “Not in this state.”
Those strong arms needed to disappear. They were supposed to have disappeared. They had disappeared. But now they were back. One arm kept him steady whilst the other banged on the familiar door.
Buck took a long swig of the drink in his hand, its contents warming his throat.
The door opened.
“Maddie!” Buck grinned upon immediately recognising the woman who answered as his sister.
No wonder it was a familiar door.
He attempted to step towards her but instead found himself going in a backwards motion, those strong arms fast to steady him. Buck wished he wasn’t so reliant on them.
Maddie’s smile faltered at his tottering movements and her smile dropped entirely when her eyes shifted to the owner of those strong arms. Her lips parted as her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Tommy. Hi.” Maddie did her best to cover her surprise and shot Buck a questioning look.
Buck shrugged lazily.
“Hi Maddie. I didn’t know where else to go. He’s gotten himself into quite a state. I thought it best not to drive him back to his empty apartment.” Those strong arms left him – of course they fucking did – as Tommy stepped back. “I’ll, uh, I’ll leave you to it.”
Buck scoffed into his drink, “Yeah, leave, it’s what you’re good at. You’re nothing special, y’know. Everyone leaves! Everyone… leaves.”
“Right. Thanks, Tommy,” Maddie called after the other man’s retreating figure.
“Yeah… no problem.”
Maddie placed her hands on Buck’s shoulders to steady him and directed him through her door with a hiss of, “What the hell is with you?”
“Me?” Buck returned as Maddie shut the door with a thump. “You’re the one who just thanked the guy for leaving.”
Maddie groaned, running her hands over her face, before responding calmly, “Okay. First of all, I didn’t thank him for leaving, I thanked him for not abandoning you in this state. And secondly… what is going on, Buck? You’ve resisted texting him for weeks and suddenly you’re seeking him out in person?”
Buck pulled a face, offended by the accusation. “That’s not what happened.”
“Sure, it isn’t.”
Buck chucked back more of his drink as he attempted to move through to the kitchen only to walk straight into a couch.
“Ow!” he complained, cradling his no-doubt bruised knee. “Why’d you move the couch?”
“The couch is in the same place it’s always been,” Maddie insisted as she eyed the thermos in his hand. “What are you drinking?”
“Hot chocolate.”
“You don’t like hot chocolate.”
“So do!”
“You don’t. Even as a kid you pulled faces at it, no matter how much cream or how many marshmallows I put on it.”
“S’not true,” Buck argued weakly and Maddie snatched the cup out his hand. “Hey!”
She pulled the lid off and sniffed its contents, her face contorting. “You know, alcohol doesn’t go in hot chocolate.”
“It does today!”
He reached a hand out to swipe back his drink and attempted to take a step forward only to slam his shin into the coffee table, releasing a series of curses as pain shot up his leg.
“Okay, let’s get you sat down before you topple over,” Maddie suggested in that familiar tone which tells him he doesn’t actually have a choice; argue all you like but I’m not backing down on this.
The guiding arms were back, only this time they’re softer, gentler and caring as they helped him onto the couch. These arms didn’t immediately abandon him as soon as they reach their intended destination.
“Hell, Buck, it’s one in the afternoon,” Maddie muttered.
Buck groaned; was that it? The day had already felt so long. The damn day was never-ending. He was trapped in one of the worst days of his life.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he returned.
He sunk back into Maddie’s couch, his head dropping against the fluffed cushions as his mind wandered to Eddie’s couch, to the last time Tommy had left him, to drowning his sorrows with the comforting knowledge that he wasn’t alone; Eddie was right there, albeit suddenly moustache-less and half-naked, but, regardless, they were there, together. Buck hadn’t even considered going anywhere else, the second the door had shut on Tommy, he had just clicked into autopilot, his automatic response guiding him to Eddie’s doorstep.
This time he had no control over whose doorstep he wound up on. The moment he had found himself back in Tommy’s car, his mind had been screaming for Eddie’s and he’d been very vocal about that too – telling Tommy he’d missed the turning, advising him on the best place to pull a U-turn, even offering to jump out and walk the rest of the way – but Tommy was not the awesome Uber driver Buck had gotten the night of their break-up – the one who had so helpfully stopped at a liquor store so Buck could buy a six pack – Tommy had his own destination in mind and that was that.
And Tommy hadn’t made any sense. Any time Buck mentioned Eddie, Tommy had come back with some response like ‘give him space’, ‘give him time’, or ‘let him sleep on it' as if giving Eddie space, time and sleep was going to change anything. As if space wasn’t the entire problem. As if time was on Buck’s side.
“Hey, Maddie, can you-oh.”
Buck frowned. Maddie’s spot on the couch was empty. She had disappeared, perhaps even jumped on the ‘leaving Buck’ train. It was a train which had haunted him his entire life but appeared to have stepped up its frequency of service in recent months. He can but hope the damn thing derails before Eddie’s pre-booked travel.
He sighed and reached for his hot chocolate, only to freeze. He scanned the coffee table, empty of cups. Where did he put that drink? His eyes went wide. If he’d dropped it and spilt the contents all over the carpet, Maddie would kill him. He slid of the couch, dropping onto the floor with all the grace of a raging bull. He found no spilt hot chocolate, only a soft carpet, welcoming to his fingers running across it and utterly enticing to his head.
Buck lay sprawled out across the carpet, deciding against fighting his heavy eyelids. Maybe sleep was all he needed.
Perhaps he’d wake in bed to find the whole day to be a terrifying nightmare.
Perhaps he’d wake to find everything just perfect.
“Buck.” Maddie’s sigh kept him from his desired sleep.
“Go away. Disappear again. Do that teleport trick,” Buck mumbled into the carpet.
“No way. You’re not falling asleep on the floor of my front room,” Maddie refused to relent, pulling on his arms, continuing to keep him from sleep, and being, quite frankly, annoying. “You fall asleep now, you’ll wake up hungover with no recollection of the day’s events and I’ll be left forever wondering how I came to find you and your ex on my doorstep.”
Buck scowled up at Maddie as he pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the couch, “You say that like you caught us snogging.”
“Did you kiss?”
“No! What the hell, Maddie?” Buck shot that down immediately and then, a better question, “How did you just disappear?”
“I didn’t disappear. I walked into the kitchen,” Maddie corrected and shoved a glass of water in his face. “Drink.”
Buck pushed her hand away. “I don’t want water.”
“You’ll be thanking me in the morning,” Maddie insisted.
Buck was just as insistent with his refusal, “I want hot chocolate.”
“You don’t like hot chocolate, Buck.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Only when you fill it with alcohol.”
“And normal hot chocolate too.”
Maddie scoffed, “Since when?”
“What can I get you, sir?” the young barista behind the counter – ‘Lily’ her nametag read – wore a bright smile as Eddie stepped up, Buck right behind him.
“I’ll get a hot chocolate. Biggest size you’ve got,” Eddie ordered.
Buck glanced at him in surprise. That wasn’t his usual middle-of-the-road straight-forward latte order.
“Cream and marshmallows?” Lily inquired, tapping buttons on the till.
“Oh, for sure,” Eddie agreed.
Buck stared and, no longer able to contain himself, interrupted, “Since when do you drink hot chocolate?”
Eddie shrugged, “It’s Christopher’s go-to order. Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up loving it as much as he does.”
Buck nodded softly. With Christopher still in El Paso, it seemed Eddie was trying everything he could to feel close to his son. He wasn’t going to argue with that.
“Same for you, sir?” Lily’s attention turned on him.
Buck screwed his nose up at the very thought. He couldn’t think of anything worse than hot chocolate. If chocolate were meant to be hot, the packaging would contain details of how to cook it. Chocolate was meant to be rock hard, still cold from the fridge; none of this room temperature, melted, or hot nonsense.
“Oh no,” Buck declined fast. “A cappuccino for me, please.”
“Since today,” Buck shrugged as he answered Maddie. “But even the hot chocolate has left me! I’m three-for-three today.”
“Tommy didn’t leave you,” Maddie inferred on one of the three and, on Buck’s look, amended, “Not today, at least. If anything I’d say he probably helped you today. Did you show up at his place in this state?”
Buck grabbed a cushion from her couch and hit her with it.
“I didn’t go searching him out!” Buck corrected her. “The universe is mocking me. I’m in the coffee shop, just ordered a hot chocolate and I lose my balance and fall into this guy, spilling its contents all over him and I’m there panicking and worrying about burns through his shirt and he goes ‘don’t worry, my boyfriend’s a firefighter, he’ll look after me’ and up rocks Tommy and that’s how I find out he’s moved on entirely and the ground refuses to swallow me up and Reece is insisting on buying me a new drink even though I fell into him and Tommy’s acting all concerned about me as if he even gave a shit when-”
“Buck,” Maddie placed a hand on his chest, “breathe.”
Buck took in a sharp breath, unaware that he hadn’t even taken a second to breathe as the day’s events had poured out of his mouth. He caught his breath before diving straight in again.
“Anyway Reece insisted on him and Tommy getting me home and I try to talk my way out of it but Reece is having none of it and so I ask to be dropped at Eddie’s and Tommy huffs out some ‘of course’ comment, acting like he knows me so well so I shoot at him that Eddie’s taking a leaf out of his book and is leaving me, to which his response is ‘well, that explains the drinking’ and, at this point, I’m fully expecting to be thrown out of the car. Instead, Tommy misses the junction to Eddie’s and starts acting like he knows Eddie just as well as me talking about giving him time and space and that he might change his mind. I mean, change his mind? Come on! There’s no talking Eddie out of moving to El Paso to make things right with Chris. Right?”
He looked to Maddie expectantly, awaiting her agreement. He found her staring at him, her eyes narrowed and a faint furrow in her brow and he could almost see her brain working away inside her head. He didn’t understand the reaction; he’d asked a simple enough question.
“Wait…” Maddie drew out as she collected her thoughts from the rush of information. “Eddie’s moving back to El Paso?”
“Yes, Eddie’s moving to Texas,” Buck glossed over it; it was old news, old news he didn’t want to think too much of.
“Since when?”
Buck considered.
“Since today,” he realised.
Maybe not so old news.
The damn day was never ending.
“Well, that does explain the drinking,” Maddie’s response infuriatingly mirrored Tommy’s.
“You’re not meant to agree with my ex!” Buck snapped at her.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Maddie apologised sincerely and then, gently, “So, what did you say to Eddie, when he told you he was moving?”
“I said I’d help him. Jumped in on his meeting with his realtor. Helped get the ball rolling,” Buck groaned. “Right now, the only thing stopping me from jumping in my jeep, driving over there, and telling him he can’t leave is that my jeep is still parked outside the liquor store.”
“That, and that you would never drink drive,” Maddie added pointedly.
“That too,” Buck agreed. “So will you drive me?”
“Oh, no way,” Maddie declined definitively.
“I’ll get an Uber then,” Buck decided, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
His fingers betrayed him, the phone dropped onto the carpet and Maddie grabbed it before his slow reactions even had a chance. His phone immediately went behind her back.
“Hey! Give it back!”
“Nope,” Maddie shook her head. “Sober Buck will thank me in the morning.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Yes, he will,” Maddie maintained. “There’s a reason Sober Buck helped Eddie get things started with the house move.”
“Yeah, because he’s too scared to accept that his feelings for Eddie are more than platonic.”
“Wow.”
“Wow what?”
“Wow, I didn’t realise that even Drunk Buck had accepted that," Maddie said. "I just meant Sober Buck knows he can’t stand in the middle of Eddie and Chris. Chris is Eddie's son; he'll always come first.”
“Yeah, well, Drunk Buck is selfish and wants to put his own wants before the needs of Eddie and Chris.”
“But Drunk Buck still has some clutches of self-control?" Maddie suggested hopefully.
“No." Buck responded definitively. "Drunk Buck has a sister who won’t let him do something Sober Buck will deeply regret.”
“That too.”
Buck sighed. “I don’t know what to do, Maddie.”
“Yes, you do. Sometimes… sometimes when we love something, we have to let it go. It’s hard, but it’s right.”
“So that’s it?” Buck spoke reluctantly. “I just… let him go…”
“I’m sorry.” Maddie’s voice was filled with sympathy and she pulled him in close to her, wrapping her arms tightly round him. “I know that’s not what you want to hear and I’m so, so sorry but, Buck, you’re not alone. I need you to know that. You’ve still got me, Chim, Jee, the little one. And you’ve got the rest of the 118 – Bobby and Athena, Hen and Karen. You’re not alone.”
Buck’s hand gripped onto her arm, keeping her close, feeling an unwillingness to ever let go in case she went to. Her words were adamant that she was staying but it still felt too much of a risk. She’d left twice before. Everyone leaves in the end.
Even Eddie.
A single tear escaped his eye, rolling slowly down his cheek.
Everyone left. It was a cruel fact of his life. One he’d accepted early on. One that had continued to prove true in all his romantic endeavours and so he rushed things, clung on too tight, asked big questions too soon in a desperate attempt to prevent what he truly knew, deep down, was coming. The end, them leaving, was expected.
He never expected it with Eddie.
He’d let his guard down.
Expected forever.
Something about Eddie just seemed so permanent; everlasting.
Eddie had yet to even leave and it already hurt a thousand times more than all the times Buck had been left before.
Buck sniffed. More tears threatened to burst the banks at his eyelids. He aggressively wiped at the tear on his cheek.
“I can make you a hot chocolate?” Maddie offered softly, breaking the silence. “No alcohol.”
Buck considered. He didn’t even like hot chocolate and it meant releasing his death grip on Maddie’s arm, but hot chocolate sounded pretty damn good in that moment.
“Cream and marshmallows?” Buck requested.
“Anything for you.”