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Buck’s not an idiot.
Or he would like to think he’s not an idiot.
Turns out, having a full length cast on your leg spanning from thigh to foot can make getting around difficult. Especially a one bedroom apartment that has stairs to the aforementioned single bedroom.
Again, he’s not stupid. He knows that he can ask for help. He knows he’s allowed to. And the swinging door of people parading through his apartment once he got released from the hospital shows that. Of course, work cropped back up and certain people weren’t able to show their face as much, but they did when it counted.
It counted right?
There’s been a slimy feeling residing in his head since he got released and he swears he can see the outlines of his parent’s faces over his teammates and friends as they flock around him his first few days of being released. The attention, his injury, and then of course, them leaving once he was situated and not dying.
They have work - things to do, he keeps hoping and trying to remind himself. They wouldn’t just leave. He hopes.
The slimy feeling built and built and of course his feelings leads to his downfall. Impulsiveness. Recklessness he can practically hear in Bobby’s Captain voice.
Long story short, Buck wanted his bed. There’s stairs. Buck climbed said stairs and somehow managed to slip, probably being unbalanced from being unable to bend his left leg. Buck crashes into stairs. Side of his right hand really hurts and Buck sheepishly calls Carla to drive him to the hospital so he can get it checked out. Something metacarpal. Cast on his hand. Somehow the 118 still finds out because of course why wouldn’t they and now Eddie has suspiciously shown up at Buck’s loft when Buck’s pretty sure Eddie just got off a shift.
Buck thinks there’s a secret plan called ‘Check on Buck for Apartment Related Injuries’ that Eddie has been roped into. He would think Maddie would be next on the list to visit him if she hadn’t already been by earlier and given him an earful about the stairs.
“They said metacarpal?” Eddie asks, currently holding Buck’s bandaged and stiff hand in between them sitting at Buck’s kitchen island.
“Yeah.” He answers, “I think that’s the bones of the hand? Not the fingers, but the palm. At least that’s what Google said.” And Maddie. Buck's not about to tell Eddie about Maddie's visit and her angrily fretting over his casted leg, casted hand and the goddamn stairs.
The cast wraps around his palm, his ring and pinky finger, and stops just halfway down his forearm. His index finger, middle finger, and thumb are free from the cast at least.
“Yep. Those are the ones.” Eddie’s eyes flick up from the cast to meet Buck’s. There’s a slight glint to his eyes that Buck doesn’t appreciate. “And how exactly did this happen again?”
Buck’s lips flatten into a thin line. “I don’t suppose Carla already told you? Cause I’m pretty sure you just had a shift.”
Eddie just huffs, a tiny laugh that Buck feels like is code for ‘yeah Carla absolutely told me’.
‘Well, she did say that something had happened. And that she had gotten a call from you. And said something along the lines of ‘why does that damn boy own a place with metal stairs to his bedroom?’ So, not hard to guess.”
Eddie pauses, looking back down at the cast, but Buck watches his gaze fall to the leg that is still wrapped in plaster.
“You do remember you have a shattered leg that is still healing, right? Can’t exactly be traipsing up and down stairs with that.”
Buck doesn’t really have a response to that.
“A comminuted fracture you mean?” Buck says instead. That word he learned from Maddie.
Eddie rolls his eyes as his gaze finds its way back up to Buck’s. “Yes. A comminuted fracture. To your leg. And you’re lucky that your metacarpal fracture was a simple, closed one. Are you done avoiding the topic yet?”
Yeah, Buck definitely doesn’t have a response to that.
He sighs instead, “Look, I’m sorry okay? I just…I don’t know. I…guess I forgot I can ask for help.”
“You forgot?”
“…No. I just-I don’t like it.”
“The help?”
“Sort of. More the leaving.”
“Leaving? Buck, no one’s leaving you-“
“I know that. I think. I just…” Buck’s not one to talk about his parents. Not openly anyway. But he can’t help the surge of guilt and fear and remorse at thinking of the Buckley parental pair and their reactions to him being injured as a child. Guilt for almost feeling like he was leading them on, getting them to care simply because he was injured. Fear of them realizing he wasn’t enough to be coddled over. Remorse for them being worried and then for them practically shoving him into the background once he was healed.
He tries again.
“I uh, I don’t have a great relationship with my parents.” He sees Eddie’s slightly confused look, “And-and it’s relevant I swear. Just hear me out.”
Eddie simply nods.
“I used to get injured a lot as a kid. I think it kind of became a thing for me. I’d get injured and suddenly my parents were there, looking after me. Worried about me.”
“As a parent should.”
“Right. But, kid me realized that if was injured, they would care. If I wasn’t injured…”
“You thought they didn’t care.”
“I know they didn’t care. I can’t explain it, but a lot of the times it felt like I was in the background, in a way. I wasn’t relevant to them unless if they were worried over me. Which, sounds fucked up when I say it out loud, but it feels true. At least I know Maddie cared.”
“Well, for their sake I hope it’s not true.” Eddie replies.
“Their sake?”
“Yeah. Cause if it was, I’d be pissed. I know the others would too.”
There’s a small release of relief within Buck’s chest as Eddie says that. It doesn’t feel monumental, but it feels like enough that Buck still blinks and gives a small smile at his words. He thinks he knows that he’s important to the inner circle at the 118, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that he might actually be.
“Well, it’s nice of you to say-“ He’s interrupted by a phone alarm. His phone alarm to be specific.
Buck reaches with his good hand to the phone he’s left laying face down on the counter beside him, flipping it over to reveal a blinking alarm on his screen that just reads ’T 🔫’.
Ah.
Shit.
Having one leg wrapped up while having to do an intramuscular thigh injection isn’t terrible, but being slightly one handed due to a metacarpal fracture?
That’s terrible.
The realization must show on Buck’s face because Eddie cuts into his thoughts of ‘oh fuck’ with “Did something happen?”
Buck’s gaze snaps to Eddies from his phone screen.
“Oh. Ah. No. Not exactly-I just realized something.”
Suddenly, something else clicks.
Eddie Diaz, combat medic.
Is he really about to do what he’s thinking about?
He can already Maddie spiritually yelling at him somewhere that she used to be a nurse!
“Say, you were a combat medic, right?”
Eddie’s face shifts to confused. “Yeah. Why?”
“Do you know how to IM injections? Uh, intramuscular?”
“I know what IM is-but yes. I know how to do those but why are you suddenly asking me this?”
“Well. You said I should be asking for help, right?”
“Uh huh. But why do you need help with an intramuscular injection?”
Buck simply waves his casted hand at Eddie.
“Kind can’t use both hands right now, duh.”
Eddie glances between Buck’s casted hand and his face, clearly still confused.
“Yeah, I get that, but I what I don’t understand is why you need an injection for something.”
Ah.
Double shit.
Maddie-well, of course Maddie knew already.
But for everyone else…he hasn’t actually, y’know, come out to anyone on the team. Part of him thought he didn’t need to, just assuming that they knew or that they could tell that he was trans. Transgender. Born a different gender. Yadda yadda. He also assumed that Bobby knew cause he was Captain, he’d have access to things like regular medications or conditions that his team could have as long as they didn’t impede with the whole fire-fighting bit.
But if Eddie didn’t just assume he was trans, as Buck well, assumed, people did, then could there be a possibility that Bobby didn’t know either? Bobby just thought that he was a younger guy for some reason taking testosterone regularly? Older cis guys certainly do take T for medicinal purposes, a just-getting-older type of deal, but younger guys or people might be taking it for using steroids - besides the whole trans thing.
Did Bobby think he was on steroids?
Not the point.
“So. Uh, I’m realizing I haven’t actually told any of you this. And now I’m seriously wondering what Bobby’s impression of me is-but uh.”
Pause. C’mon spit it out.
“I’m trans.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything, just blinks at Buck with the same slightly confused look at his face, but now it also looks a little more like realization.
“Like, transgender.”
Eddie doesn’t look as confused anymore but still hasn’t said anything.
“Like, I was born a girl and then got older and realized I didn’t wanna be one. So I transitioned to-to be a guy. Trans guy. I’m a trans gu-“
“I know what trans means.” Eddie interrupts.
“Oh.”
“I just wasn’t expecting it.” He shrugs.
Wait what?
“Wait, what? What do you mean you weren’t expecting it?” Buck knows he passes, he rarely gets called ma’am, miss, lady, what have you, maybe only by confused patients because their sight is so blurry that they can’t tell right from left or up from down but still. There’s still something lurking in the back of his mind that says god, you’re so OBVIOUSLY trying to be a guy. Emphasis on trying.
“I mean, you don’t, I don’t know, you don’t seem trans? Or, look it, I guess? That might be offensive-but point is, I didn’t realize until you just told me. Which, suddenly needing someone else to be able to do an injection for you makes more sense. I think.”
Huh. He thinks. Buck can work with that.
“Okay, let’s backtrack. What do you know about someone being trans? Or just, trans people?”
Eddie’s face scrunches.
“Uh. Well, obviously, you transition. Like, one gender to the other. Or sometimes I guess…no gender? Still wrapping my head around that one. Point is, where we’re going with this, you take medication for it. I used to work with guys in the army who would take testosterone shots, who would sometimes ask me for help, or usually just advice or how to do it properly. They didn’t always listen but y’know, army guys.”
“Army guys.”
“Yeah. Army guys.” Eddie scoffs. “Point is, you’ve got a busted up hand and that’s gonna be hard to use to draw up and do an injection, right?
“Right.” Buck affirms.
“So,” Eddie points at him, “I’ll help you on one condition.”
“One condition?”
A condition? What’s Eddie about to spring on him? Was there something about Buck being trans that Eddie didn’t like? Did he want Buck to not tell Chris? Did he think Chris knowing would be bad-
“For the love of all that’s holy, stop using the stairs.”