Chapter Text
It wasn’t uncommon for members of the 118 to be in and out of the Wilson household. As long as Denny could remember, his mom’s coworkers had always been like extended uncles to him, starting with Uncle Howie, then Buck, Eddie, and eventually, Ravi and Albert (though they usually only mingled at Bobby and Athena’s many cookouts). And with that, had come a slew of “unofficial” cousins to grow up together.
So when Denny bounced into the kitchen to grab a snack for him and Mara as they continued their marathon of Christmas movies, he wasn’t surprised to see Buck sitting at the table with his mothers, a variety of breads and cookies scattered between them on the surface. Denny wasn’t sure what started his Uncle Buck’s spontaneous love for baking (he had overheard his moms discussing how Tommy was lucky Athena hadn’t ran into him yet, so whatever had happened must have been bad), but the chocolate chip cookies that Buck kept bringing him and Mara were just a bonus to him.
“Hey, Uncle Buck,” Denny greeted as he bounded for the refrigerator, grabbing a water and another juice box for his sister.
“Hey Denny.” Buck gave him a small smile. “I uh, I brought some more goodies for you guys.”
“Oh cool!” Denny let the door shut and maneuvered the drinks in his hand and took the saran-wrapped stack of cookies that was being offered to him. “Thanks, Buck!”
“Don’t eat all of them at one go,” Karen warned, “Grammy Toni is coming over for dinner later.”
“We won’t, Mama!” As he bounced back towards the living room, he heard a chuckle from the blonde firefighter.
“I’m glad somebody appreciates my breakup baking,” he said.
“I mean, if the world suddenly didn’t need firefighters, you could definitely open your own bakery with Bobby,” came Hen’s reply.
“Hey, Mara, look what Buck brought us!” His sister looked up from the game she was playing on her tablet, eyes lighting up at the saran wrapped cookies in her brother’s hands.
“Are those chocolate chocolate chips like the last ones?” she asked as Denny wrapped the small tower of cookies, setting her tablet down.
“Survey says…yes!” Denny pulled the wrap away to reveal the chocolate chips with Buck’s (or really, Bobby’s) super-secret chocolate frosting drizzled on the top.
“Then, we can’t have just plain water and juice with these, Denny!” Mara declared, pulling the cookie that Denny had plucked from the top from his hand. “There is only one way to eat these!”
Denny shook his head and couldn’t help but smile. “Do I need to get one glass of milk, or two?”
“Duh, two,” Mara said, rolling her eyes. "I love you, but I'm not sharing these with you."
“Be right back.” Denny grabbed the juice box and unopened bottle of water, and started down the hall back towards the kitchen. He was just about to reenter the room when both of his mothers’s raised voices stopped him in his tracks.
“What do you mean, back to Texas?!” Hen was saying.
“Eddie’s thinking of moving back to Texas,” Buck was saying. There was a pause, and then the small clink of a glass hitting the surface of the table. “And like a dumbass, I didn’t say anything. Hell, I actually spoke to the real estate agent with him, Hen.”
“Does this have to do with Chris?” Karen asked. “I mean, I know he’s probably still mad at his father, but I honestly thought he would have returned by now.”
At the beginning of summer, Christopher had left Los Angeles for El Paso, deciding to spend the summer with his grandparents. It was another thing that Denny wasn’t quite sure what had happened (and when Denny had asked Chris through text, he had just got a short reply on how his dad “needed therapy or something,” and that he couldn’t bear to be around him for the foreseeable future).
Throughout the years, a group chat had been created amongst the 118 kids, and helped them all stay in contact after Harry ended up leaving to stay in Florida with his dad and David, and for when May left for college. When Mara joined their family, they had initiated her into the group chat, though she was still on the younger side to really care about it.
Now, with Christopher in Texas and Harry back in LA, the group still kept the younger Diaz in the loop of what was going on while he was away.
“He said that he didn’t want to miss another moment of Chris’s life,” Buck said with a deep sigh. “And honestly, I understand that. I get it. Chris has started to set down roots in Texas, he has new friends, is a part of some new groups and clubs, and Eddie doesn’t want to destroy that for him.”
“But?” Karen said softly. “I know it’s there, Buckaroo.”
There was a sniffle, another pause, and the glass made a louder clink as it was returned to the table. “But why does it feel like I’m being left all over again?” Buck replied. Emotion was thick in his voice, even Denny could tell that he was crying without even seeing him. He had heard that tone in his moms's voices when they’ve dealt with issues in the past, of hearing conversations that he wasn’t supposed to be privy of, just like this one.
The thing was, when Denny and Harry had last spoken to Chris, he hadn’t mentioned anything about being part of any new groups or clubs. In fact, the last time they spoke to Chris about a month ago, he had been chomping at the bit to get back to LA. He had told them of how his grandparents had tried to force him to like swimming, even though he still had some flashbacks about the tsunami years ago. He told them of his grandpa only wanting to play Chess with him, to keep him away from his games and phone.
From what Denny had understood, Chris hated being in Texas, but his grandparents had convinced him that his dad was doing better without him, and it was only best for him to stay in El Paso. Though, despite Harry, Denny, and even May telling him how sad and upset their “Uncle Eddie,” had been since he left, it still wasn’t enough for Chris’s grandparents to believe, thinking that the kids were just saying such things to get the young boy back to LA. After that, they had forbade him from speaking to his friends back home.
So, their group chat had been dormant for far too long.
“Oh, Buck,” Karen’s voice took him from his thoughts, and he went back to listening. “You know that’s not the case. Maddie and Chim are still here. We’re still here. Bobby and Athena are still here.”
“But you all have each other," Buck replied. “Maddie has Chim, and you have Hen, and Bobby has Athena. Eddie and Chris? They were mine.”
“And they still are, Buck,” Hen said. “They always will be.”
“Will they, though?” Buck asked. “What happens when Eddie moves back to Texas, and he starts laying down roots there right with Chris? What-what happens when he meets somebody that loves them more than…than anything in the world, and they forget me ?”
There is a long pause, another loud clink of glass meeting wood, before Karen’s voice softly replies.
“Oh, Honey, you’re in love with him…aren’t you?”
Denny didn’t stick around for any more of the conversation, and instead retreated back towards the living room. He had never heard any of his mom’s friends so distraught, so upset. And look, Denny was 14. While is mothers still thought he was a baby, he actually was old enough to know when to take things seriously. He was also old enough to know that sometimes, the adults in his life were complete morons.
But this? Chris was extremely unhappy in Texas, and couldn’t escape. And now Eddie was going to move, and take away any chance of Denny getting to see one of his best friends ever again. And not only that, but it was apparently getting ready to have a major domino effect on the entire 118.
“Uh, Denny?” Mara’s voice brought Denny from his thoughts. “I thought you were going to get us milk?”
“I thought we would go and thank Buck together,” Denny said. “You know, he did bring us our favorite cookies.”
Mara, being 9, went along with his suggestion, grabbing the stack of cookies and bouncing into the kitchen, making her presence known, which Denny knew would somber up the adults enough to act like nothing was wrong.
Later, after Buck had left and everybody had gone to bed, Denny finally opened up the chat group, appropriately named, “Kid 118.”
DMan10: Hey Chris, did you know your dad is moving to Texas??
ScienceKid: HE’S WAT.
ScienceKid: WHEN?
HarryHoudini: What?!
MayIsTheName: Does Bobby and Mom know this?!
DMan10: Buck was over at our house today. I overheard him telling Mom and Mama.
DMan10: I’m not sure if anybody else knows.
DMan10: I figured Buck just stopped by to bring more baked things.
MayIsTheName: Oh yeah, Mom mentioned something about Buck being on a random baking kick. Said it was to help him from calling Tommy since they broke up.
ScienceKid: Wait, Tommy and Buck broke up?!
ScienceKid: WTF.
ScienceKid: What else have I effing missed?!
DMan10: Well, Uncle Howie and Aunt Maddie are having a second kid.
ScienceKid: WHAT.
HarryHoudini: WHAT?
MayIsTheName: Ahhhh that’s exciting!!
HarryHoudini: You would be like ohmahgerd babeeeee. 🙄 *rolling eye emoji*
MayIsTheName: Shut it, little brother.
HarryHoudini: 🙄 *eye rolling emoji*
ScienceKid: Okay, okay, we’re getting distracted.
ScienceKid: Can we focus on getting me home? Before my dad totally screws up.
HarryHoudini: Dude, just call your dad and tell him to come get you.
ScienceKid: Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that? /s
ScienceKid: My Abuela and Abuelo monitor EVERYTHING I do, y’all.
Dman10: “Y’all?” 😂 *crying laughing emoji”
ScienceKid: Please, this place is making me crazy.
MayIsTheName: Wait, if your grandparents are watching everything you are doing, how are you talking to us?
ScienceKid: I had to change the name of the group. I made it look like I was part of a chess club.
HarryHoudini: 🤢 *green face vomit emoji*
ScienceKid: Dude.
HarryHoudini: Sorry. But, Chess Club? Are those even a thing? Is Texas stuck in the 50’s or something?
MayIsTheName: In more ways than one, little brother.
DMan10: Have you tried to reach out to Buck?
DMan10: Dude, he was like, hella upset earlier.
DMan10: Like, crying and everything.
Science Kid: Buck was crying?
ScienceKid: Man, if Abuela hadn’t totally reset my phone and made me lose all the numbers I had, I would have called Buck like the day I got here.
ScienceKid: I was just mad at Dad, y’know.
ScienceKid: I didn’t think Abuela and Abuelo were going to alienate me so much from everybody.
DMan10: There was something else. But I left before I heard the answer.
ScienceKid: ??
MayIsTheName: ?
HarryHoudini: ??
DMan10: Um, so….Mama asked Buck if he was like….
ScienceKid: …
MayIsTheName: …
HarryHoudini: Well, spit it out Den, damn.
DMan10: In love…with…your…dad?
DMan10: 🤷🏾♂️ *shrugging emoji*
ScienceMan: Oh, yeah, those two have been in love with each other forever. But they’re too dumb to realize it.
ScienceMan: Or at least confess it to each other.
MayIsTheName: Bobby let it slip that there is a betting pool at work about it. 😂 *laughing emoji*
ScienceKid: I was hoping when Buck came out that it would cause Dad to realize some things, but he was stuck with Marisol.
ScienceKid: But now that they are both single……
ScienceKid: *gif of the Grinch giving an evil smile*
ScienceKid: I mean, Buck is in Dad’s will as my guardian.
MayIsTheName: WHAT.
HarryHoudini: Dude, that’s kinda badass, tbh.
DMan10: Wait, how do you know that?!
ScienceKid: Dad’s password to his safe box is my birthday 🙄 *rolling eye emoji* I found a copy of his will and read it.
ScienceKid: I mean, idk if Buck knows that. But I’m sure if he did, he would come and get me in a heartbeat.
MayIsTheName: Wait!
ScienceKid: ?
HarryHoudini: ??
DMan10: ???
MayIsTheName: I got an idea!
And as the night went on, the four teenagers began to plot, in what Denny could only hope would be the best Christmas surprise anybody in their extended family could ever wish for.