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19:00 | October 30 th , 2019 | Interstate 10

‘Evan Buckley: It Had Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.’

Both the working title of his autobiography and a potential epithet for his future headstone. You know. Assuming anyone cared enough by then to give him a proper burial. There was still a nonzero chance he’d get ‘donated to science’ only to end up as one of those cadavers used for blast testing IEDs by the US military.

Ok... maybe he was leaning into that flair for dramatics Maddie always claimed he had. But he couldn’t help it! Because it was hard not to feel like the world was ending when literally everything that made it worth living was suddenly in sight but out of reach. Like he was on the other side of tempered glass, doomed to an eternity of being an outsider looking in. And it was no one’s fault but his own.

Bobby’s invitation to the rage room had been a good first step. In which direction? Hard to say. But at that moment, it didn’t feel useful to scrutinize. Because he was back. Bobby had extended the olive branch, and Buck was back. With terms, conditions, and release forms, sure... but back, nonetheless.

If nothing else, it was enough to keep him in LA, even if it was starting to feel like a losing battle. Even if, sometimes, it felt like there was nothing really left to care about.

“They gave me the option to transfer you. They understood why I might not want you back after everything you put us through. But I said no. You’re coming back to the 118 where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You won’t regret it.”

“You might.”

The conversation in Buck’s mind played over and over again like late night reruns of a shitty sitcom. And despite it ending with a way back and a path forward, Buck couldn’t quite shake the unease that’d gripped his chest for a weeks after the fact. Because Bobby wouldn’t have kept him in the 118 if he hadn’t been wanted in at least some capacity…

Right?

It didn’t really matter now, even though it did. Because Buck had gotten everything he’d ever wanted, and he wouldn’t let it go again. No matter how viciously tried to shake him loose. No matter how much it hurt the more he dug his fingers in.

That might be why he sent Eddie the message he did:

Buck | 6:03 pm: I miss you. I’m sorry.

Short, simple, straight to the point... and sent about an hour ago only to just now notice he’d been left on read. Which was fine— totally fine. Warranted too! But that didn’t mean it hadn’t stung. Hadn’t wrenched open an old wound that never quite got the chance to fully scab over.

Kicking off his sheets and pushing out of bed, Buck elected to do something about it. Nothing so bold as to show up to Eddie’s house announced with only two hours of daylight left. No. He wasn’t that brazen, and he’d rather not get decked in the face while still on blood thinners. But he needed to get out. Out of his apartment, out of his own head, and maybe even out of the city if the mileage on his gas tank allowed it.

He didn’t realize how insane that last part sounded until his keys were in the ignition, and he was peeling down the street. Past Eddie’s house. Past Chim and Maddie’s apartment. Past Hen and Karen’s place. Then the firestation. Then Bobby and Athena’s. It wasn’t until highway turned into interstate that he finally came back to himself, and he realized...

There were almost two hours he couldn’t account for.

Look at you. You shouldn’t be driving right now. You should turn around.

It was a distant thought and one he easily ignored.

All you brought were your keys and your wallet. You should turn around.

Again. All valid points. And he considered them all as he kept driving.

You have work tomorrow. It’s your first day back. You can’t risk being late—not after everything. Turn around. Now.

He probably would’ve ignored that too, steadily bearing down on the gas until he was breaking all sorts of traffic laws. But luckily for him, it hadn’t come to that. Because for the first time in longer than he cared to admit, his phone rang.

It was Maddie.

Without hesitation, he answered, voice taking a frantic edge as he asked, “Maddie, are you there? Are you ok—did something happen?”

There was a brief pause of stunned silence where he could practically hear his sister recoiling back in surprise. But as she recovered, diligently recollecting herself, she still couldn’t shake the apprehension from her voice as she said, “Uh, yeah? Yeah, I’m ok... are you ok?”

And it had been such a loaded question without even trying. Regardless, he did his best to answer. Maddie deserved that much. “Yeah. I’m great,” he said after a beat, keeping his tone light and airy as he refused to address the massive elephant in the room. Mainly: this had been the first they’d talked in a while, and he was still working out how he was supposed to feel about that.

Because it’s not like he thought Maddie wouldn’t have answered if he’d called first. Or that she wouldn’t drop everything to stop by his apartment if he’d told her that he’d been struggling. It’s just that none of it felt fair to ask for. None of it felt deserved. Because Maddie had a good thing going with Chim and the rest of the 118, and if his lawsuit against the city hadn’t managed to ruin that for her, Buck refused to be what ruined that for her now.

“Are you driving?” his sister suddenly asked, sending his heart careening into his stomach. It hadn’t been asked unkindly, but somehow, it still felt like an accusation. “Why does it sound like you’re on the highway?”

Sighing, Buck replied, “I am on the highway.”

The interstate, actually. But the difference felt too inconsequential to correct.

“Can I ask why?” came Maddie’s immediate follow-up. And she probably thought she was doing a great job at keeping the panic from her voice.

Buck gave her an ‘A’ for effort regardless. “Just needed to get out for a bit. Clear my head. That’s all.” It wasn’t even a lie.

Still, his sister remained unsatisfied, “The night before your first shift back?”

Oh. So she had heard. Good to know.

Whether sensing his trepidation or simply hearing the gears beginning to turn on the other end of the phone line, she didn’t wait for his input before continuing, “I swung by your apartment earlier and noticed your car wasn’t parked in its usual spot. And then I heard from Chim that’d you’d been invited back to the station a week ago. So, I guess I was just wondering why I had to find that out from my boyfriend instead of my brother?”

“You seemed busy,” Buck replied, knowing full well it was a lame excuse. Unfortunately, it was all he had left to offer.

“Hey,” Maddie said, tone far gentler than it’d been before, “I’m never gonna be too busy for you, ok? Work’s just been...”

“Exhausting?” Yeah. Buck knew the feeling.

“Sort of a strong word there. But sure. I guess.”

And as the conversation lulled, it felt like a gap existed between them that neither sibling knew how to cross. It was all too new to them; it’d never existed there before. Not with distance or time or even fucking Doug. But it exists now. So now… they were forced to deal with it.

“It’s getting late,” Maddie eventually said, startling Buck from his thoughts, “you should probably be getting home soon, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Buck eventually said. Unconvincingly.

There was another pause, this one longer than the last. Then, “Evan, you are coming back, right?”

“With everything I did,” he began, huffing a quiet laugh devoid of any and all humor, “it’d be pretty shitty if I didn’t.”

And for a moment, Maddie didn’t speak. It felt like enough of an answer in its own right.

Swallowing the bile rising in his throat, Buck elected to move past it. No use pushing away the last person he still had in his corner. He was dumb, but he wasn’t that dumb. Arguably. So, exhaling a weary breath, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll head home now.”

Because that’s what he was supposed to do, right? He was supposed to turn around, drive however long it’d take to get back to LA, all in time for his shift in the morning. And there’d be a banner and balloons, and they’d all go back to the way things were, pretending that Buck hadn’t sued not only the city, but Bobby too. Because they were good people, and that's what good people did. At the very least, they were better than him.

Better than what he’d deserved.

“Call me when you get home safe, alright?” Maddie said, sighing in what—in part—sounded like relief. The other part? Resignation.

“You gonna be up until then?” Buck asked, glancing at the time. It was already getting late. He didn’t want to keep her up if she had work tomorrow.

There was a long pause where neither said a word. Then, “I should be.” She sounded uncertain. Unsure. And Buck didn’t know what to make of it.

“O...kay? If you’re falling asleep, you don’t have to stay up. I’m a grown man. I can drive home on my own, I promise.”

“No, it’s just... me and Chim went out tonight. I should still be up by the time you get home.”

Well, seeing as the two were dating, that wasn’t exactly unusual. But still: “Oh.”

“Does that,” she hesitantly trailed, “bother you?”

“What? No,” Buck said, words tart on his tongue despite meaning them, “tell him I said hey.”

“I think he’d prefer to hear it from you,” she said, gentle and kind if not a bit exasperated.

Huffing what he thinks was supposed to be a laugh, Buck shook his head, “Maybe tomorrow.” Emphasis on the maybe. He still wasn’t sure how much the other would appreciate him trying to talk to him right now.

Maddie must’ve picked up on those doubts for she was already slotting back into that worried older sister role she’d had foisted onto her for as long as he could remember. “I mean it. I know things got a little ‘dicey’ between you all for a second there, but they miss you. More than I think you realize. And while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding your footing before jumping back into things... just make sure you actually end up taking that leap, ok?”

It was good advice. Great, even. Unfortunately, however, it was about as effective as her first rendition of some approximation back in middle school. Back when he was some insecure little kid who just wanted to have friends. Because now, that little kid was an adult, and no matter how much he wanted to take his big sister’s advice as the solution to all his problems, he couldn’t. Because it’s a little hard to find your footing when you weren’t all too sure where you even stood anymore.

“Ok,” Buck said in spite of that, “I will.”

And when he could hear the smile in his sister’s voice, he knew the lie had been worth it, “I’m holding you to it. Seriously. I have ways of finding things out, you know.”

Yeah. Chim’s failure to keep secrets coupled with his inability to tell Maddie ‘no.’ Oh, and gossip. Lots and lots of gossip.

“So call me, alright? When you get home and after your shift tomorrow. I want to hear all about it from you this time,” Maddie exhaled. It wasn’t the laundry list of demands he’d been expecting, but still. He didn’t know why it felt so daunting.

“I miss you,” he said before he could stop himself, and... oh. Right. Yeah, that was probably it.

“I miss you too,” Maddie replied. No pause. No hesitation. Nothing but the honest truth, and he thinks that’s what hurt the most. “I’ll see you soon, ok? Let me know what days you have off so we can get lunch.”

Murmuring a quick, “Of course. See you soon,” he was hanging up before she’d gotten the chance to say anything else, tossing his phone into the passenger side and groaning when it kept sliding, wedging itself in the gap between the seat and the door.

Groaning his frustration, Buck ignored the urge to pull over and find it. After all, it’s not like he’d been expecting many phone calls as of late, Maddie alone having been a surprise. One he was still reeling from, in fact. Because it should’ve made him feel better—it was supposed to have made him feel better. But really, all it did was awaken a familiar ache that’d been building in his chest for weeks on end, flaring up at the most inopportune times. Like scratching an itch and wondering why it still burned.

The paper bag in his passenger seat didn’t help either. Sitting there. Mocking him. All because he had enough forethought to pick up a refill on his blood thinners before beginning his hapless journey. 

“Alright,” he breathed, flexing both hands against the steering wheel, “time to go home.”

With no one else on the road with him, Buck used his left turn signal and pulled a U-turn across the interstate’s yellow line.

BOOM.

“No way...” Buck muttered in disbelief as the sound of his tire thumping and flapping against the road echoed through his Jeep, “no fucking way.”

With his hazards on, he pulled off to the side of the road, right under the big green sign reading ‘Leaving California.’ Unbuckling his seatbelt, Buck hopped out of his car to inspect the damage.

A handful of discarded nails stuck out of his front left tire, air hissing as it rapidly deflated before his very eyes. With numbing acceptance as he exhaled a loud groan, he retrieved the jack tools from his rear cargo, saying a silent prayer that he somehow remembered how he was supposed to do this.

At least Jeep’s had their spare on the outside? Not like that did him much good. Because while he’d managed to successfully get his spare unattached and propped up against the side of his car, his flat wasn’t nearly as accommodating...

“God,” he hissed, tire iron popping off the last stubborn lug nut for the fifth time, “damnit!”

With a furious huff, he threw the tool, watching as it bounced and clattered against the asphalt. Illuminated by nothing but the moon and a nearby streetlight, he knelt down with a wince, futilely attempting to dislodge the lug nut with his fingers as he ignored the discomfort in his bad leg. Taking a deep, calming breath as he braced both hands against the rims of the Jeep... Buck felt a familiar bitterness begin to seep in. The kind he’d felt every other time he had tried to come home only to be blocked in a way he was never fully capable of anticipating. Recovering from a crush injury. A pulmonary embolism. Bobby. And now: approximately five nails that must’ve fallen out of somebody’s work truck.

“Car trouble?” a voice called from behind.

And Buck was not proud of the sound he made. Snatching up the tire iron, he whirled on the new arrival, wielding the tool like he intended to use it.

“Woah there!” the stranger said, keeping his hands where Buck could see them. He was a slightly older man dressed in a dark green hoody, a battered duffle bag thrown loosely over his shoulder as he offered a placating smile, “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to startle you, friend.”

Still warily keeping his guard, Buck cast a quick glance toward the road, wondering if he really lacked that much spatial awareness to miss someone’s car pulling up next to him. But no. There was no car. “Where...?”

“Car ran out of gas about a couple miles that way,” the man supplied, as if reading his mind, “and I haven’t got a phone.”

Well. In a way, it was sort of comforting to know that at least someone was having a shittier night than he was. “And I thought I had bad luck,” Buck sighed, finally lowering the tire iron.

Giving a wry smile and a light shrug, the man seemed to appreciate the gesture. Then, extending a hand, he introduced himself, “Martin.”

And despite his better judgement and every lesson of ‘Stanger Danger’ Maddie had ever bestowed upon him... “Buck,” he said, reaching out to shake it.

Satisfied with the shift in attitude, Martin smirked, giving the flat tire of the Jeep a pointed nod, “You know, I used to work in a garage. Maybe we can help each other out here. I can help you with that tire, and maybe you can give me a ride back to civilization.”

It felt like the first lifeline Buck had been thrown in a long while. “Really?” he asked, already handing over the tire iron before he’d fully realized what he was doing.

The man didn’t hesitate to take it. Adjusting his grip, he gestured for the other to get out of his way before getting to work.

Buck didn’t hesitate to oblige.

“So,” the man grunted as he finally knocked loose that last stubborn bolt, “what brings you out to the middle of nowhere this late?”

Oh. Small talk. Buck could do small talk. “Just needed to get away,” he said as he helped remove the flat, rolling the spare over and holding it steady as Martin worked to secure it. “Clear my mind for a little bit.

“Yeah... I know what you mean,” the man slowly remarked, tone cryptic as he tightened the final lug nut.

Buck didn’t think much of it. After all: if he’d been the one stranded out in the middle of nowhere  with no clear way of getting home, he’d probably be a little ‘off’ as well. That, and it didn’t feel particularly useful to question someone who’d just saved his ass.

“Looks like we’re all done,” the man clapped his hands together with decisive finality, handing back the tire iron and gesturing to the jack, “you mind putting all these tools away so we can get this show on the road?”

And if his lawsuit against Bobby had taught him anything at all, it was this: don’t spit in the face of someone who’d only ever been trying to help. With that hard-learned lesson in mind, Buck smiled, “Yeah, of course! Just hop in and we’ll be off in a minute.”

Watching as Martin threw his duffle into the passenger side, Buck gathered the jack tools into his arms before walking to the back of his Jeep. Opening the cargo door, he carefully loaded them back into their compartment, hopefully never to be seen again.

Then, he felt a presence at his back.

‘Martin , ’ his head helpfully supplied. Without even glancing back, he smiled, “Hey. Without you, I probably would’ve been out here for a while. So thanks again for your—”

He felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressing against the back of his head as a loud CLICK echoed into the night.

“Help...” Buck finished, mouth dry.

“Hands on your head and back away from the car,” Martin sneered, the rigid edge of a loaded firearm resting against his scalp. “No sudden movements.”

Not even risking a nod, Buck did as he was told. Slowly and carefully. And he didn’t stop until he was standing in the middle of the road, wondering if it would’ve been better or worse if a car suddenly came barreling down the highway. But no. No one came. Because just like everything else that he’d been through for the last couple months... he was alone in this as well.

“Please,” he said, back still turned to Martin as he resented the way his voice shook, “my sister won’t understand why I never came home.”

But Martin didn’t reply. Not immediately. Instead, Buck felt the gun pressed into the back of his skull disappear as the man backed away, approaching the car. But even still: he didn’t dare move.

“I don’t want to kill you. I just want the car,” he heard Martin say, opening the driver’s side door and presumably clambering inside, “but if you fuck around, I won’t hesitate.”

With the slam of the car door and the sound of the engine firing up, Buck finally risked a look back just in time to watch the man roll down the front windows and take the car out of ‘park.’ And all of a sudden, he remembered something. Something crucial. Something more important than his phone, his wallet, and his Jeep combined.

His blood thinners.

“H-hey!” he exclaimed, taking a staggering lurch forward before he could think better of it.

Without any hesitation, Martin pointed his revolver out the open window and fired.

The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the asphalt, inches from Buck’s feet. A smoking hole in its wake. “Jesus Christ—"

“I told you to stay the fuck back!” the man yelled, keeping his gun aimed as he cocked back the hammer for a second shot.

But if left without his prescription for too long, he was as good as dead anyways. Keeping his hands where the other could see them, Buck let his desperation and every heartfelt plea come tumbling out, “Wait—wait—wait! Please, I had a pulmonary embolism not that long ago because of some blood clots, and I need those blood thinners. They’re in that paper bag in the seat next to you, so if you could please just—”

Huffing a furious breath, Martin grabbed the paper bag from the passenger side and pelted Buck in the chest with it. “For what it’s worth...” he sighed with a sympathy that wrang completely hollow, “I hope you have a better day tomorrow, you unlucky son of a bitch.”

Though, somehow, Buck seriously doubted that.

Without waiting for a reaction or reply, the man bore down on the gas and peeled down the highway, leaving Buck stranded in the middle of nowhere somewhere along Interstate 10.

And as Buck watched the red brake lights of his Jeep disappear into the distance, clutching his prescription of blood thinners tightly to his chest... there was really only one thing left to do. Tilting his head back until he was staring at the stars, he took a deep breath and screamed into the night:

“Fuck!”

And much like every other one of his recent cries for help, it had gone unanswered. 

9:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Los Angeles, CA  

Eddie had never considered himself a particularly angry person prior to this year. Then again: he’d never really considered himself at all until recently. Those long, introspective periods where he was forced to think about nothing but himself, the world, and his place in it? Yeah, that wasn’t him. Because Eddie had already known exactly who he was, and he had never needed to question it:

He was a firefighter. A veteran. A son, a brother, and a father. And until recently: a husband. Eddie didn’t need some forced moment of self-actualization to dig deeper than that, because that was about as deep as he cared to go.

But that hadn’t always been the case. Because recently, those walls he’d erected around himself in the hollow name of obligation had been carefully and deliberately stripped away at. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. And there was only one culprit. The same culprit who had him scrambling to build them back up stronger than ever the moment he’d filed that lawsuit. The moment Buck had grabbed him by the neck, smiled sickly sweet, and demanded he feel his absence. And—God—did Eddie feel it.

‘I miss you. I’m sorry.’

Eddie thinks that might’ve explained the fury behind his strikes last night, despite knowing full well he hadn’t been pulling any punches before that. Because Buck didn’t get to miss him. He didn’t get to worm his way into his life, fixing things that Eddie hadn’t even known were broken, and then leave like it hadn’t even mattered. Because it’d already been a month since they’d talked—like really talked. Not text messages that Eddie ignored. Not anguish hidden behind insults hurled in a grocery store. Just... talked. So what’s one more day? Buck could wait one more day.

It felt like Shannon. Sort of. In a strange way Eddie hadn’t felt fully equipped to confront yet. Because Buck wasn’t the mother of his child. He wasn’t his wife. He hadn’t asked for a divorce and then died. But it felt the same. Like how in those early days of Shannon first leaving, Eddie had made himself so angry he was certain he’d stopped breathing, but still refusing to let go. Suffocating in silence. But that was just some days. Because most days...

Most days, Eddie missed Buck like a limb. One that he was still adapting to living without, ignoring each and every phantom pain he should’ve never been made to endure. Because that’s all Eddie felt like he ever did anymore. Fucking endure.

“Hey, anyone see Buck come in this morning?” Hen called as she entered the loft, brow furrowed in concern, “I don’t think he’s ever been late for work before. Like, ever.”

Personally, Eddie thought the man’s first shift back after suing Bobby and the department might’ve qualified as extenuating circumstances. But he digresses.

“Weird,” Chim commented from the table, slowly nursing a cup of coffee with a thoughtful expression, “Maddie said she talked to him last night, and he sounded like he was ready to come back. Not really sure what would’ve changed that…” 

Whether by habit or silent accusation, every head in the loft turned to face Eddie at once.

“I’m not his keeper,” he muttered, plugging his phone into the charge port in the kitchen. He’d forgotten to charge it when he’d gotten home, and it’d been dead since at least 10 pm last night.

As if on cue, Bobby entered the common area, frowning as he asked, “Anyone hear from Buckley today?”

And Eddie wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or malcontented by that. The knowledge that he wasn’t the only one who seemed to feel the other’s absence like a gaping flesh wound.

“No,” Hen supplied, mouth flattening into a grim line, “no one.”

“Really,” Bobby commented, less of a question and more of a resigned sense of acknowledgement. But whatever mild form of surprise he’d felt at that particular reveal was gone as soon as it had arrived as he sighed, “Send him my way if he tries to sneak in later. I got a box of Halloween decorations with his name on it.”

The finality in his tone had a couple members of their team exchanging apprehensive glances— Hen and Chim especially. Because that kind of detachment didn’t seem like the man at all. Though, perhaps it would’ve been more of a cause for concern if it hadn’t been pretty par for the course as of late.

The vast majority of the firehouse were in collective, unofficial agreement to just not talk about it. Like Buck was some sixteen year-old family dog that was clearly getting up there in years, and despite dad’s not-so-subtle hints that maybe it was time to ‘call it,’ no one was willing to touch that subject with a ten-foot pole. But the ones that did , however ...

They irked Eddie more than he wanted to admit.

The ones who’d snickered amongst themselves upon the realization that Buck hadn’t come in for his first shift back. The ones who’d almost looked disappointed by that fact—not because they cared about the man, but because they’d meticulously planned every way they had planned on ignoring him, just so they could deliberately show Buck how much they didn’t care he’d returned. The ones who pretended that Buck betraying whatever ‘brotherhood’ they’d shared by virtue of working at the same fire station was in any way comparable to what Eddie was feeling. Because unlike them, he had a reason to be pissed. Because he had a kid at home still waking up from nightmares of a tsunami, and a 6’2, 200 lb hole in his chest that he couldn’t even begin to explain.

But Eddie could ignore that, knowing full well whatever lingering indignation they still held would fizzle out by the end of the week if not that very same shift. Because Buck was nothing if not annoyingly endearing, and once they’d been reminded of that, it’d be like nothing had ever happened at all.

The ones Eddie couldn’t ignore, however, were the ones using the lawsuit as an excuse to justify every past issue they’d had with the man. The ones harboring the kind of vitriol that Eddie couldn’t even match on his worst days.

Like Anderson and Stevens. Both working at the 118 before both Buck and Eddie, working the alternate shift to the two men. For good reason. Eddie just hadn’t understood how much until about two weeks back. Because two weeks back, he’d been carefully getting changed into his work-clothes, minding the bruises littered across his ribs, when he’d caught both men huddled over their phones and laughing. Interest piqued, he’d approached them, and they let him. Because—and he hated to admit it—both men had gotten a whole lot friendlier toward him after word got around about what happened at the grocery store. Because while they’d never particularly liked Eddie, they’d apparently hated Buck. And Eddie hadn’t known the true depths of that until they were showing him the phone screen, snickering the entire time.

“Here’s to hoping the next one finishes the job. Right, Diaz?”

Eddie had barely heard Anderson past the ringing in his ears, watching news footage edited to sped-up dubstep of the aftermath of the ladder truck explosion. With video of Buck screaming beneath the truck spliced with dashcam footage of the actual explosion in some cruel attempt at a joke, he thinks his body must’ve reacted before the rest of him. Because the next thing Eddie knew, he was reaching over and shoving the man into a row of nearby lockers. Face first. As hard as he could. And if not for Bosko of all people getting between the three of them, he’d have shown Stevens exactly what he was missing out on.

“He’s not worth losing your job over,” Bosko had said, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back before he could lunge.

Eddie had been ready to bite her head off until he’d realized she hadn’t been talking about Buck. That, and the fact Bobby had come storming in only seconds after, demanding just what the hell was going on.

Choking down that suffocating rage, Eddie didn’t waste any time explaining.  

And to say Bobby had been pissed would be an understatement. Shoulders stiff and words clipped, he ordered Stevens to peel Anderson off the floor and meet him in his office. After they had, doors closed behind them, the muffled yells the walls couldn’t quite insulate hadn’t stopped for at least fifteen minutes after. When they had, Anderson and Stevens emerging with their tails tucked adequately between their legs… they hadn’t bothered making eye contact with anyone for the rest of their shift. And two days later, their lockers had been cleaned out, and neither man had been back since.

Eddie didn’t bother asking Bobby if they ever would. He also didn’t ask why he’d yet to receive any official write-up for technically attacking them first. It didn’t feel right to look a gift horse in the mouth like that, after all.

“Ok,” Bobby announced, carrying a clipboard, “If everyone that’s bothered to show up is here, then I guess we better—”  

Just then, the alarm rang, effectively tabling Bobby’s daily debrief.

Setting the clipboard aside, their captain gestured them all forth, “Alright. You heard the bell. Let’s move out.”

Dressing into his turnout and loading into the engine, Eddie felt his unease begin to creep in; unable to shake the feeling that something was oddly and inexplicably wrong. And he wasn’t the only one. Dodging the matching looks of confusion and concern coming from both Hen and Chim, he busied himself with his seat buckle just to give him something to do other than bristle beneath their stares.

“So,” Chim was the first to venture as they sped down the road, “what do we think happened with Buck?”

“I don’t know...” Hen frowned, expression pensive if not a little disturbed. “Because someone who does all that to get back to work doesn’t just decide to give up at the finish line. Especially not him.”

“Then maybe we don’t know him as well as we thought we did,” Eddie muttered to no one in particular. Still, that didn’t stop nearly every head in the engine from turning to face him, Bobby the only one doing him the favor of not bothering.

“You don’t think you’re being a little harsh here, Diaz?” Chim asked with the same apprehension he’d held for him since that day in the grocery store.  

Scoffing, Eddie fired back, “You don’t think you’re being a little too generous, Han?”

“Enough,” Bobby called from the captain’s seat before things had a chance to devolve from there. “We’re coming up on the scene. Dispatch says it’s a two vehicle collision reported by some bystanders who witnessed the crash. So be ready.”

After that, the interior fell quiet as they rode the rest of the distance in silence. Tires rolling to a stop, no one wasted any time before hopping out into the road to inspect the damage. What they found, however, was infinitely worse than whatever they’d been expecting.

“Is that...” Hen trailed, eyes wide in dawning horror.

Because one car had its driver out and about, wandering around in a daze with a goose-egg the size of a baseball on her forehead, and a distasteful Halloween decoration hanging out of its windshield. But the other? The other was a familiar looking Jeep, wrecked against a nearby telephone pole.

Ignoring the lurch in his gut and the curious absence of the vehicle’s spare tire, Eddie checked the license plate to confirm the worst of his fears:

“Buck!”

“Hen, Chim—check out the driver of the other car,” Bobby commanded, hot on Eddie’s tail as the man took off toward the wreckage without any hesitation or warning. And Eddie wondered if the panic gripping his chest was the same as his own.

“Buck!” he called again, feet skittering to a halt as he reached the driver’s side door. It was a small mercy that it had opened without any resistance as soon as he’d pulled the handle. “Buck, can you hear me—”

The man in the Jeep groaned, turning his head against the bloodied airbag to face his rescuer. And when he did, Eddie froze. Because this was Buck’s Jeep. It was Buck’s phone that had clattered against the road as soon as he’d opened the door. And in the backseat, those were very much Buck’s belongings that had previously only ever occupied the relative security of his apartment. But him? The man in the driver’s seat?

That wasn’t Buck.

And something about that realization must’ve flashed across his face with the subtlety of a lifted truck’s obnoxious LED headlights. Because as soon as the other saw it, he was already reaching for something at his belt, sunlight glinting off its metallic barrel.

Fist cracking against the stranger’s jaw, Eddie didn’t waste a second before dragging him out of the Jeep, throwing him down against the asphalt.

“Eddie—” Bobby yelled in alarm, getting ready to pry him off the other. That was, until, he saw the stranger Eddie was currently attempting to throttle. Taking a staggering step back, it was unclear whether it was out of shock or to simply let the other man get a few good hits in.

Whatever it was, his better nature won out in the end. Hooking his hands beneath Eddie’s arms, he attempted to pull him off the other as he thrashed.

“Eddie,” Bobby hissed and strained, doing his best to restrain his hands so they couldn’t go for the stranger’s neck again. “Eddie, you are going to kill him.”

And if it took a second longer than usual for his brain to comprehend that it’d been a warning, not an order... well, that was between him and God. “He has his car, his phone, a backseat filled with all this shit...” he wheezed, arms no longer flailing but still bearing down on the thief with his knee to keep him pinned, “he has a gun. W-why the fuck does he have a gun?”

Bobby stilled from behind him, and the next thing he knew, the older man was leaning forward to remove the weapon, sliding it away and across the pavement. Rising to his feet, voice rough and ragged, he gave Eddie a firm clasp on the shoulder before commanding, “Keep him pinned.”

“Cap, this isn’t a decoration,” Hen called from the front of the other car, watching the scene before her unfold in horror but doing the job she needed to regardless.

“He’s also still alive,” Chim supplied, face pale as he worked on the person groaning in the windshield.

And because he was their captain and he too had a job to do, Bobby pushed all those feelings aside. The despair. The worry. The anguish. He compartmentalized it all, packing them all into neat, tiny boxes before shoving them deep down, clicking his radio:

“Dispatch, there’s been a development with the two car collision on 23rd. We’ve got a possible carjacking, burglary, and... and a missing person. The suspect was armed but now restrained. Please send police backup and another RA unit.”

Knee still pressed into the stranger’s spine, Eddie didn’t let up. Not even for a second. And as sirens wailed in the distance, signaling to any and all that could hear that something had happened—something horrifyingly, life-alteringly bad had happened...

For the first time in a long while, Eddie felt his anger leave him. Only to be replaced by the inexplicable feeling of loss.

Chapter Text

11:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Los Angeles, CA  

Time seemed to move in slow motion after that fateful call, everyone filing into the firehouse with a lack of urgency unfamiliar to them. And for Eddie, it felt like trudging through some never-ending dreamscape. Everything ever so slightly off. No possible end in sight

 But this wasn’t a dream. Buck was gone, and this was real.

“How’s Maddie doing?” Hen asked Chim as he rejoined the group, having had to excuse himself to make a phone call from the privacy of the roof.

Stress etching his brow, the man roughly exhaled, “Her little brother could be dead in a ditch somewhere. How do you think she’s doing?”

And between Eddie’s full body flinch and the look he’d received from Hen, it was enough to have him apologizing immediately.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he sighed, running a rough hand through his hair. Eyes betraying a worry he hadn’t even attempted to mask, he continued, “She’s a mess. Sue’s making her take the rest of the day off, and she’s waiting in the employee break room until she’s good enough to drive.”

Swallowing the bilious fear crawling up his throat, Eddie remained hunched over the kitchen island, clutching his phone between in a white-knuckled grip. Thumbing over the power button, he didn’t dare press down. For if he had, there was no doubt what text notification would be greeting him upon powering on:

‘I miss you. I’m sorry.’

Yeah. Eddie was sorry too. And he was starting to suspect he wasn’t the only one.

Expression clouded, Bobby ascended the stairs with a stiffness in his shoulders he’d carried since their return. Having all but barricaded himself in his office prior, his sudden presence had managed to startle most of the team out of their stupor.

“Chim, I’m letting you off early. Go take care of Maddie,” the man said, a tightness in his eyes that hadn’t been there an hour prior. “As for the rest of us, I requested dispatch take us offline until we get a little more information about what’s going on.”

A collective sigh of relief rippled through the common area. Chim especially. Clasping his captain on the shoulder on route to the stairs, he murmured a subdued though earnest, “Thank you.”

But before he could make good on the gift he’d been given, another set of feet were echoing up the stairs, their owner calling out, “You might want to hold off on that for a minute.”

“Athena?” Bobby asked, just as taken aback as the rest as the police sergeant entered the loft, decked out in full uniform. Then, deciding to ask what everyone else had been thinking, “You’re the one working Buck’s case?”

“No. I’m too close to the subject,” she supplied, and based on expression alone, that admittance brought her no pleasure. “Detective Ransone is taking a look at Buck’s apartment as we speak. I’ve simply requested some time off to update some concerned parties.”

“His apartment?” Eddie was the first to ask, the dread bubbling in his gut growing tenfold.

“Our little carjacker must’ve gotten his address from his driver’s license. He ransacked the place of any and all valuables,” she explained, getting straight to the point in a way he had always appreciated, “and by the looks of it, he decided to go as far to stay the night. We’ll have to review the apartment’s security footage, but we’re pretty sure Buck wasn’t in his apartment at this time.”

If there was relief to be found in her words, Eddie couldn’t find it. Because all that told him was that the police couldn’t find Buck, and there was a reason for that.

And with the way Chim’s face went slack in dawning realization, he might’ve had a theory as to why: “Maddie said he was out on a late night drive. Said something about him being on the highway.”

Blinking back, surprised, Athena immediately pressed for more, “Do you know why?”

“No, but Maddie... she thought something might’ve happened he wasn’t telling her about.”

Staring down at the black screen of his phone, Eddie's grip around it tightened. Hoping his words hadn’t sounded as hollowed-out as the rest of him, he said, “You should contact his bank too. Make sure that asshole didn’t make any big purchases or withdrawals or...”

The look the woman gave him was nothing if not sympathetic and understanding. Pitying, almost. And if it’d been anyone else, it probably would’ve pissed Eddie off. But this was Athena, so it didn’t.

“We will, Eddie,” she said, something in her tone she couldn’t quite hide, “we will.”

Hen had been the one to catch it before the rest of them. “But that’s not all you came here to tell us,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Face grim but knowing, Athena didn’t bother keeping them in suspense. Though, Eddie didn’t think he’d have minded being gently eased into it:

“The revolver you found on his person... there was a single bullet missing from the chamber.”

Eddie felt his world stop, suddenly and all at once. Because one bullet would be all it took. Because even without hitting something vital, it wouldn’t have mattered. Not with Buck. Not with the blood thinners.

“Do...” Bobby began, choking on his words as he came to that same conclusion, “do you have any idea where we might find him?”

And the way Athena’s brow furrowed in frustration felt like answer enough. Still, she replied,  “Our suspect is awake and under police supervision, but hasn’t said a word since being admitted to the hospital. We think he might try to use this as leverage.”

Because that’s what they always did when there was a body, right? Leverage it. So that no one got to have any closure. Not family, or friends, or whatever the hell Eddie was to Buck at this point. Though... a part of him thinks it a little ironic to want that now. Closure. Avoiding it with the other only to want it when it was far too late to give. Because Eddie was a hypocrite, Buck was missing, and the two of them had never gotten the chance to fix things. And now, they never would.

“Could he?” he found himself asking.

“Not if I have anything to do with it. If I can find Buck on my own, trust that I will exhaust any and all resources until I do,” Athena said, forever a lighthouse in the middle of every raging storm.

It must’ve been exhausting.

Cocking an eyebrow, Chim remarked, “I thought you were off the case.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this in any official capacity,” Athena explained, and with the solemn resolve in her eyes... whatever she was willing to resort to was probably better left off the books. “But you should know, I didn’t just come down here with bad news.”

And despite every instinct of Eddie’s screaming at him not to hope, he couldn’t stop it from taking root, engraining itself deep in the cavity of his chest and flourishing before he could tear it out with a ferocity bordering violent.

Retrieving her phone from her pocket, Athena swiped through a collection of mugshots of the man that’d been in Buck’s car, significantly less bruised then what’d he been after the accident and his subsequent run-in with a pissed off Eddie Diaz.

“We processed him for arrest the best we could from the hospital. But what little we managed to enter into our database still pinged our system,” she said, showing them what looked to be the photo of a vandalized living room of an unfamiliar house. When she swiped again, however... Eddie had to look away. It’d been a picture of Buck’s ransacked loft, bearing shocking similarities to the photo preceding. “Martin Smith. Wanted for burglary and kidnapping in Arizona. Repeat offender on the burglary charge. He’s apparently been on the run for the last five days after a home invasion went wrong.”

Eddie felt like he could throw up, for one of those charges certainly stood out from the rest: “Kidnapping?”

“That would be the older fellow of the house he robbed. According to his accomplices, Martin hadn’t known the man would be home. They were forced to... restrain him.”

“And this is good news because...?” Hen asked, the only one managing to collect herself enough to do so.

“He’s not a killer. It’s not in his M.O..”

“He had a gun.”

“And we’re currently having it looked at by ballistics to make sure it was actually fired. Now is not the time for us to be losing hope.”

Which felt far easier said than done to the point of unfairness, especially when she’d only made it a point to address Eddie as she said it. “What am I supposed to tell Chris?” he said, so quietly he didn’t think anyone had even heard.

He was wrong. “Right now? Nothing. Not until we know more,” Athena said, speaking with an authority Eddie had desperately needed in that moment. “No point in scaring him about something that could very well be resolved by the end of the day.”

And Eddie could only hope that one day, Athena’s steadfast voice of reason replaced the one that’d been shrieking at him the moment he’d been informed of Buck’s lawsuit. The one willing to encourage each and every one of his recent impulses, laughing as the time ticked down to the inevitable moment he finally let himself self-destruct. Because without it, perhaps he’d never have joined that fight club. He'd have been home with his son, charging his phone, and torturing himself over Buck’s last text until he’d finally caved and texted him back. Because maybe if he had, Buck wouldn’t have felt the need to leave.

Maybe if he had, they’d have gotten the chance to fix things.

“I think I need to call Carla. Tell her to drop Chris off at Pepa's house after school,” he said, biting the metaphorical bullet and pressing the down on the home button until his phone began booting up. Every second it took to power on felt like a lifetime. “If he sees me now, he’ll know something’s wrong.”

“Do what you have to,” Athena said, nothing if not understanding.

Her husband seemed to be of a similar mind. “Do you need time off too?” Bobby asked him.

“Don’t you?” Eddie snapped only to regret it upon the man’s weary exhale and Athena’s disapproving frown. Because Eddie was angry. Why the hell was he still so angry? Sighing and muttering his quiet apology, he turned his attention back to his phone. Because it was on. But not only that, he had a notification.

A voicemail.

Breath hitching, Eddie was pressing the notification before that treacherous feeling of hope had gotten the chance to take root again. Because if this was a false alarm—if this was nothing more than God’s plan to shatter Eddie in penance for everything he’d ever gotten wrong—

“H-hey, Eddie!” Buck’s voice crackled through the speaker, punctuated by every gasp that rippled through the fire station, “I know I’m probably the last person you want calling this late, but...”

3:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

When lost, the smartest choice was typically remaining where you were and waiting for help to arrive. However, seeing as the last ‘help’ he’d gotten had decided to shoot at him... yeah. Buck would have to pass this go around. Thanks.

He only wished his option by default had extended a bit beyond ‘pick a direction’ and ‘start walking.’ But it hadn’t. So, covered with dust and dirt from every time the wind randomly decided to kick up, Buck walked. And walked. And walked. For hours and hours with no end in sight—bored out of his mind—occasionally attempting to rap Eminem’s entire extended discography from memory...

Buck quickly discovered he had a very poor memory.

But he could handle the boredom. He’d been handling it for months, sequestered to his apartment with a crush injury while his visitors dwindled to few and far between. But the exhaustion? The pain shooting up his leg with each step? That was a little harder to ignore as he limped down the side of the interstate.

Eventually though, whatever higher power he’d managed to piss off this last year of his life must’ve entertained the briefest twinkling of mercy. Because as he spotted a structure in the distance, illuminated by a single streetlight off the side of the interstate, he felt something akin to hope. Ignoring the pain and the bone deep exhaustion accompanying it, Buck grimaced as he picked up the pace.

He was quick to find, however, that it hadn’t been mercy at all. But rather, the cruel sense of humor of a wrathful god that had  just been winding him up for one hell of a punchline. And it didn’t even have the courtesy of being funny!

It was a gas station. An abandoned gas station. Sign painted over and dusty, old newspapers glued to the windows, he approached the double doors, stepping over various pieces of trash and waste littering the ground as he gripped each handle with either hand and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

As if on cue, a gust of wind tore through the covered section of the gas station, making him shiver. With an audible groan, Buck took a step back to reassess, recalling a wisdom Bobby had imparted on him during his first year with the department:

“There is not a locked room anywhere that the right tools and enough time can't break open.”

Oh, if only the man could see how he'd apply that advice now. With a weary sigh as he reconsidered every single life decision that had led him to this point... Buck picked up a nearby chunk of concrete.

CRASH.

Clearing glass and newspaper away with a stray piece of rebar, he carefully reached a hand through the broken pane of the door and unlocked it, vaguely concerned that that’d been his first and only solution. Opening the door and minding the glass on the dirty linoleum floors, that concern was easily ignored.

Standing at the entrance of the pitch-black gas station… it felt like the beginning of every single horror movie ever. But he figured whatever creature of nightmare was hiding in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to jump out and gore him couldn’t possibly be any worse than the last couple months of his life leading up to it. In fact, if that hypothetical monster managed to accomplish what the combined powers of a ladder truck, pulmonary embolism, and tsunami could not, it had sort of earned it at that point.

But perhaps ‘pitch-black’ had been sort of an exaggeration—God knows he’d always been prone to those. Because as the yellowish-orange glow of the streetlight outside trickled in through the gap of the door, it was just enough to illuminate the front counter and the small box of old, disposable lighters. And although it might’ve taken some trial and error, he found two or three that were still functional, using his newly found light to explore the interior for anything useful. Because this qualified as a survival situation, right? And that’s what people did in survival situations.

Sluggishly moving through each aisle, he found very little in the way of food, the shelves most picked clean with whatever left behind being far past its expiration date. Fortunately, he had a little more luck in terms of water. Finding a couple small plastic bottles that were still good to drink, he downed one in a few deep gulps, relieved to be rid of the dry, cottony feeling on his tongue.

Pressing his back to the nearest wall, he slid down until he’d reached the floor. Wincing, he elevated his bad leg on an empty box, relieved to finally be taking some weight off it. Though, it’d been a relief that was short lived, because without the pain to distract him, he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering.  

Between the blood clots, the tsunami, the lawsuit... if there was ever a sign that he shouldn’t return to work, he’d clearly been ignoring them until he couldn’t any more. And who the hell was he kidding—he’d probably end up ignoring this one too. Because that’s just who he was. For better or for worse, he never knew when to quit.

Because maybe Bobby had been right. Maybe he hadn’t been ready after all.

Squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath, he willed those thoughts from his head. Because he had just as much of a right to return to work as anyone else, regardless of what Bobby or the brass or anyone else had to say. And he wasn’t going to let some shitty ‘3am insecurities’ convince him otherwise.

When he’d opened them again, he found that they were drawn to the hole he’d left in the front door. Or rather, what resided past it. Brow furrowing as he leaned forward, he could just barely make out the outline of something in the middle distance, on the opposite side of it highway and mere feet outside the radius of light provided by the streetlight. And once he’d realized what it was, the change he’d gotten from paying for his prescription in cash began to burn a hole in his front pocket:

A payphone.

Ignoring the ache in his bones and the tiredness in his eyes, Buck shot up off the dirty floor, hobbling out of the gas station and across the street until he approached the glass booth. Stomping down the weeds that had overgrown the exterior and wrenching open the door, he muttered a quick prayer that this piece of shit was still functional. Though, the dim, flickering overhead light didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“Please, please, please just give me a fucking break tonight,” he whispered, stepping into the booth as he fished the change from his pocket. Having just enough for a single call, Buck rang the only number he knew by heart:

Eddie.

Punching in the numbers with the caution and reverence they deserved, there was a part of Buck that feared it’d all be in vain. That Eddie would hear his plight, consider it carefully, and then hang up without a single word in response, leaving Buck to whatever fate was awaiting him off the side of the interstate. However, there was an even bigger—far more significant—part of him that knew that that was bullshit. That no matter what, no matter how hard they fought, Eddie wouldn’t abandon him in his time of need—

The call went straight to voicemail.

Sucking in a deep breath, Buck rested his head against the door in defeat, watching as he fogged up the dingy glass upon his next doleful exhale. It was all he could do to keep himself from bashing the receiver against the callbox until it broke. Or until he’d enacted enough violence against an inanimate object to feel marginally better. Whichever came first, really.

Startling as the machine beeped at him, indicating that he should probably start leaving his message... Buck didn't think. He just did: “H-hey, Eddie! I know I’m probably the last person you want calling this late, but...”

Huffing a laugh in spite of himself and the bleakness of his situation, he chuckled, “I’m really starting to wish I didn’t let you talk me into watching ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ that one time. Or ‘ One Wrong Turn’ that other time. Or ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ that last time... shit—what is with Hollywood and hillbilly cannibals? Seriously, if there’s ever a class of people that regularly engages in cannibalism, everyone knows it’s billionaires.”

Grimacing at his ill-timed attempt at a joke—Eddie didn’t like him right now, he wouldn’t find it funny—Buck quickly changed tactics, “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve just called Maddie, but this was her date night with Chim, and she’s got an early shift tomorrow, and... and I can’t remember off the top of my head if the last digit in her number is an eight or a three.”

Briefly distracted by the sound of a distant train whistle, Buck used the pause to quickly recollect his thoughts. After all, he hadn’t even told Eddie why he’d been calling: “I got carjacked somewhere on I-10, and I... I have no idea where I am—I can’t even find a sign that’s not been painted over at this damn gas station. I’m cold, and sore, and don’t really know what to do because it’s dark outside and I don’t think hitchhiking with a stranger is the best idea right now seeing as the last one shot at me. And I-I’m fine by the way. It was just a warning shot. Sort of. I think.”

He heard the whistle again. Louder this time. Turning his head, he could make out the distant lights of a train coming down the railroad tracks he hadn’t even known about, watching as it reduced its speed to slowly take the bend in the tracks.

“I know I haven’t done a lot to deserve it lately, but I really need to know if someone is coming for me or...”

Or if I’m as alone as I feel right now.

“My leg hurts,” he muttered, knowing full well the ache swelling in his ankle meant having to end this call sooner rather than later. “So, uh... yeah. Sorry to bother you. Thanks. Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, Buck sincerely hoped his voicemail hadn’t been as disjointed and confusing as it had felt. And unlike the movies, the payphone didn’t spit his change out for him, letting him try another number. One that might actually pick up. Like 9-1-1.

“Dumbass,” he grumbled, wondering why the hell he’d thought that Eddie would somehow be more willing or capable of helping him than whatever call center he’d be connected to.

…but maybe that’d been the point. Because Buck had used his one phone call to contact someone who’d made it abundantly clear where they stood with one another, knowing full well the chances of help were slim to none. Because maybe he hadn’t actually wanted help. Because maybe  if he’d managed to make it home on his own, this time, it would count. This time, he’d have earned it.

Realizing how dumb that was, he quickly shook that thought from his head. Stamping it down until it returned to the deepest parts of his psyche with the rest of the shit he wasn’t willing to unpack.

Limping back to the gas station, Buck could do little else than cling to the fact that this was Eddie he was talking about. Because even if the man didn’t necessarily like him, he didn’t think he hated him. Not enough to pretend he hadn’t gotten his message. Not enough to refuse to call him back once getting it or—at the very least—giving the number to Maddie so she could.

Taking a seat on the floor behind the front counter of the gas station, Buck resigned himself to the monotony of waiting, refusing to fall asleep until he either heard the payphone ring or if help had somehow miraculously arrived.

And, oh, did he wait.

4:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

Buck was bored. More bored than anyone on Earth had ever been bored before. Even more than he’d been on bedrest, because at least when he’d been stuck in his apartment, he had his TV. Now, he had nothing. Nothing but plastic water bottles, a handful of cheap lighters, and a couple of dead roaches in a corner he was trying not to make direct eye contact with. 

And still, the phone didn’t ring.

5:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

Eyes burning from lack of sleep, Buck opted to stay moving. And by ‘moving,’ he meant hopping around on his good foot while doing something he thinks was supposed to resemble jumping-jacks.

It was around this time he decided to rifle through some drawers he’d neglected in his first walkthrough. And when he did, he found stacks and stacks of... maps?

Maps. He found fucking maps. Maps of railroads to be exact. Some of them local, some of them spanning the entire country.

“So. This gas station had a resident ferroequinologist I see,” Buck remarked, holding the lighter closer to examine a map of particular interest. It was marked up with sharpie and highlighter, mapping out a single train route through southern California. Along the route, a location had been starred, the words ‘You Are Here’ scribbled next to it.

He supposed that probably explained the train he saw.

“Maybe I can wave them down for a ride,” Buck chuckled, delirious with exhaustion. And with nothing else to do, he poured over them like a man whose special interest was trains. And trespassing. Trains and trespassing. 

Huzzah.

6:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

Buck felt silly. Because he had called Eddie, asking for help, and he hadn’t even the faintest idea where the hell he was. A gas station he hadn’t known the name of on an interstate that spanned eight states? Thanks, dumbass, really narrowed that one down for him.

But Eddie still had the number for the payphone, right? Because that’s the whole reason phone’s store your call history. So Eddie could call him back. Eddie would be calling him back...

Right?

7:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

The sun was rising, so Buck tore open his bag from the pharmacy and took his morning dose of blood thinners. Swallowing them down with a mouthful of lukewarm bottled water, he wondered when things were supposed to start fixing themselves. Because that’s what happened when you got hurt. Things fix themselves. You got an extension on that paper you didn’t write, got out of that date you never should’ve agreed to, and the people who were supposed to love you actually did for a while. So... yeah. Getting hurt usually fixed things.

Well. Assuming it didn’t happen too often, that is. A lesson he was eventually forced to learn late into his teen years when some of his more reckless stints garnered little more than a disapproving eye roll that made him want to crawl out of his skin. Because everyone had a limit, and when it came to dealing with Buck, most people hit it sooner rather than later. His parents, his friends, occasionally some of his old teachers…

Getting hurt was supposed to fix things.

 8:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

The phone didn’t ring. 

9:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

The phone didn’t ring, and Buck wondered if Eddie had finally reached his limit too.

10:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

The phone wasn’t going to ring.

11:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

No one’s coming.

A thought that’d been ringing in his skull like a death knell for what had felt like hours. But without a watch, he would never know for sure. And perhaps that was for the best. Not knowing just how pitiably and pathetically long it’d taken him to realize he’d been forsaken. How long he’d been in denial.

Because denial begets anger which begets bargaining and depression but not acceptance. Never acceptance. Only that deeply rooted shame that came from asking for help that wasn’t going to come. Not now. Not for you. Because you are nothing but a dog that’s been kicked one too many times, and you are still incapable of getting it through your skull to stay away.

What did Eddie look like receiving his call, he wondered. Had he been angry? Surprised? Had he opened the voicemail only to hear Buck’s voice, immediately deleting it before he’d gotten little more than the first word out? Had Eddie even gotten his message in the first place?

Buck hoped he hadn’t. God—he really hoped he hadn’t. But he supposed it didn’t matter now. Whatever had ultimately become of his cry for help, the result had been the same: 

No one was coming. He was on his own.

Train whistle sounding in the distance, Buck rose to his feet with something akin to the acceptance that’d been eluding him. It felt like resolve. Determination. The simple acknowledgement that even if everyone else had given up on him, Buck was not ready to give up on himself. Leg feeling marginally less cramped than it’d been the night before, he gathered the two 8 oz water bottles he had left and exited the gas station. Walking past the payphone across the street, he waited.

This was a dumb idea. He knew it was a dumb idea. One born from railroad maps and a lack of sleep he’d have found impressive if not for how much it hurt. Because he didn’t think he had many other options. Because as another train came chugging down the tracks, slowing to a crawl as it traversed the bend, he didn’t even give himself a chance to think. He just ran. Because if Buck was right—if he had read the map correctly—this was his ticket back to Los Angeles. Perhaps the only one he’d ever get. So ignoring the cramping in his joints and the exhaustion in his movements, he reached out. And as his fingertips grazed the metallic exterior, only one thought crossed his mind:

Please don’t be a felony—please don’t be a felony—please don’t be a felony—

Successfully snagging a hand on one of its side rungs, Buck used his last bit of strength to hoist himself up, climbing the ladder until he’d reached the top and flopping down on the cushion of the locomotive’s cargo.

Mulch. Buck had never been so happy to touch mulch before. Lying face down as the sun beat down on him from behind, he began to laugh. Laughter which quickly devolved into hysterics as he felt the train come out of the curve, picking up speed as it flew down the tracks.

And no matter how much the conductor wailed on their whistle, Buck found himself no longer capable of fending off the siren call of sleep. “Just a minute. I’ll just close them for a minute,” he muttered, cheek pressed into the soft brown mulch and his eyes finally beginning to shut. And with that comforting lie as the wheels of the engine gently rocking him back and forth, Buck succumbed to his exhaustion. 

And back at the gas station, when the train was miles and miles away…

The payphone began to ring.

Chapter Text

15:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Los Angeles, CA  

It took less effort than Eddie had expected for Bobby to convince him to take the rest of the day off. But as he’d been met with nothing but the soothing, gentle words of a man who craved the comfort he gave... he hadn’t stood a chance.

Calling Buck back only to get no response hadn’t exactly helped his crumbling mental state either. Nor had it helped the four consecutive attempts preceding, the automated voice of a payphone informing him no one was available and to please try again later.

Later? Buck might not have ‘later.’ Not if he was lost. Not if he was lost without his blood thinners. Because Buck hadn’t called Maddie. Or Bobby. Or Chim, or Hen, or even Athena. Because out of everyone he could’ve called, Buck had called Eddie. And Eddie had failed him. 

Even worse, the man had assumed he’d been bothering him. Like getting carjacked and presumably held at gunpoint had been some major inconvenience for Eddie simply by virtue of asking for help…

Had things gotten that bad? Had Eddie really let things get that bad?

Regardless, with both him and Chim currently out of commission, he figured the rest of the crew weren’t far behind. With that in mind, he didn’t let the lingering guilt of getting off early keep him from hopping into his truck and racing back home. Because at least in the privacy of his own house, he’d be left to his own devices. He could be as erratic and irrational as he wanted to be without Hen or Bobby or whoever the hell stepping in to talk him down. He didn’t have to listen to them telling him over and over and over again to listen to Athena—to stand down and let the police handle it.

But that’d been hours ago, back when Eddie had been so sure he was on the fringes of something brilliant. That if he’d just had an hour to choke down his panic and fucking think, he’d have formulated a plot and already executed it. Unfortunately for him, however, he hadn’t been nearly as rational about things as he’d expected. Because between Buck and Eddie, that’s who he was. ‘The Rational One.’

Not anymore.

Frantically pacing around his house, he must’ve rang the number Buck had called him from upwards of a hundred times in the hopes that somebody—anybody—would answer. In the hopes that some helpful stranger would tell him that Buck was fine and where to find him. But of course, he could never be so lucky. And it wasn’t until he heard the telltale sound of keys and the creak of the front door that he realized he’d forgotten something crucial:

Eddie had forgotten to call Carla.

Schooling his expression into the perfect mask of calm, he met the arrivals at the door upon the sound of crutches clicking against hardwood. He’d even thought he’d been doing a pretty good job too. That was, until he rounded the corner and made his presence known.

Upon first laying eyes on his dad, Christopher’s instantly brightened, excitement palpable as he shuffled over to meet him. But before he could close the remaining distance... he faltered. Smile dimming as he froze dead in his tracks, he asked in a tone far older than it should’ve been, “Who got hurt?”

Shit.

“Hey—hey, no one got hurt,” Eddie reassured, words soft and earnest despite the lie, “what made you say that?”

Face downcast, Chris didn’t even look at him as he muttered, “You’re home early. You’re only ever home early when someone gets hurt.”

Inwardly cursing, Eddie had to move past it for now. Because now, he didn’t have the time to fully grapple with how quick Christopher was growing up in a world that had never possessed the mercy of pulling its punches.

Not missing Carla’s concerned looked from the doorway, Eddie replied, “Work just got a little crazy today, and Bobby gave me the rest of the shift off. That’s all.”

Regardless of how believable the excuse actually was, his son still seemed to accept the explanation. However, his next question was a little harder to field: “Did you talk to Buck yet?”

And you’d think with the amount of difficult questions he’d had to answer as of late would have prepared him for this one. The ones about where Buck had gone, and when he’d be back, and why Eddie didn’t just invite him over then lock all the doors and windows so he couldn’t run away again.

‘It’s complicated, Chris. I don’t know, Chris. Because that’s technically kidnapping, Chris.’

So... you could say none of his usual canned responses sufficed. “Sort of,” he eventually settled on, hoping it didn’t sound as uncertain as he felt.

Exhaling a soft sigh, he opted for his next tactic: misdirection. “Hey, I have to talk to Carla for a minute. Do you mind hanging out in your room until we’re done?”

Brow pinched in apprehension, something appeared to settle in Chris at that. Something resembling acceptance. Resignation. The understanding that even your parents will lie to you sometimes.

Eddie hated seeing that look on someone so young, let alone on his own son . But he knew that in this case, the alternative would’ve been far worse. Because if Chris reacted how he knew he would, Eddie didn’t even want to think about what the boy would do if he figured out why. If he found out that Buck was gone, and he was gone because of Eddie.

‘I miss you. I’m sorry.’

Would he have come over? If Eddie had swallowed his pride and answered that text message, would Buck have come over?

He’d have knocked instead of using the key Eddie had never even considered taking back—not even at their worst. Eyes fixed at his feet, he’d wait at the threshold of the door until the other gruffly beckoned him inside, never taking the act of him opening the door as permission. Eddie would gesture at him to take a seat on the couch without ever doing the same, crossing his arms over his chest as he told Buck to say whatever the hell he needed to say. He’d apologize, and Eddie would apologize too. And they’d go back to the way things were—the way things should’ve been.

But they couldn’t. Not now, and not while Buck was missing, thinking the other had hated him enough to forsake him. Not while anger steeped in dread still churned in Eddie’s gut like poison, bilious and vile.Because Shannon had left, and then Buck followed suit. And if Eddie thought about that for too long, he’d be forced to reckon with why that had felt like the second half of the same betrayal.

“You are not nearly as much of a closed book as you seem to think you are,” Carla remarked, words punctuated by Chris slamming his bedroom door. “What happened?”

Staring down the closed door of his son’s room, Eddie eventually replied, “Something went down at work.”

“So I’ve gathered,” Carla said, entirely unimpressed.

“It’s Buck,” Eddie sighed, electing to rip off the Band-Aid and be done with it. “Something happened to Buck.”

Eyes wide with worry and brow knotted in concern, she asked, “‘Something happened’ as in a hospital visit, or ‘something happened’ as in you two had another spat in a grocery store?”

Huffing a humorless laugh, Eddie supposed it was as fair a question as any. “We responded to a car accident this morning, and we found Buck’s Jeep at the scene. But he wasn’t the one driving it.”

Stricken by the admission, the woman gasped, “He was robbed?”

“Carjacked. Somewhere along the interstate from what little we’ve pieced together,” and he took no pleasure in having to be the one to relay what little he knew. But he figured if Athena had managed it earlier, Eddie could just as well. Just this once. “I... he called me. He called me last night, and I wasn’t around to answer. I didn’t see the voicemail until it was too late.”

“Too late?” Carla asked, “What do you mean ‘too late’?”

And Eddie told her everything. He told her about Athena’s profile on their thief, about the contents of the voicemail, and about how Buck hadn’t picked up the phone when he’d called back or the hundreds of times after the fact. All while making sure to conveniently leave out why he hadn’t been around to answer the call. 

“Athena thinks he made the call from a payphone. Last I heard, she was gonna have the department use the number to locate it. But since she had to turn the case over to someone else, we probably won’t hear more until they’ve already followed up on it.”

“Ok. Ok...” Carla said, nodding along as she attempted to silently work something out on her own. As soon as she did, she asked, “Then why haven’t you?”

Blinking back, confused, he asked, “Why haven’t I what?”

“Followed up on it,” she said, like it was obvious. But when that was decidedly not the case, Eddie far too lost for his own good, she huffed, shaking her head in disbelief, “Payphones have directories. Online directories. Did you think people just magically had their numbers memorized?”

Eddie considered her words. Processed them. And as the gears began to turn, smoke and cobwebs practically billowing out of his ears... he was gone. Turning on his heel, feet thumping against the floorboards, he bounded down the hallway and into his bedroom.

“Shit—shit—shit—” he hissed, grabbing his laptop on route to his bed and flinging it open. Fingers slamming against his keyboard, he typed his request into the search bar at a speed he hadn’t even known he’d possessed. And sure enough, a long list of payphone directories popped up in the results.

Eddie clicked the first one, pulling up the number on his phone before punching it into his computer. Screen blanking as it processed the inquiry, every second it refused to spit out an answer felt like another year off his life. Then, by the grace of God (and Google Chrome), the request went through, giving him the address of some off-brand gas station off the side of I-10.

Found you.

Exhaling a deep, shuddering breath as his adrenaline dropped, he turned to address the figure lingering in the doorway. Carla stood there, expression knowing as he buried his head in his hands and muttered, “I don’t think I pay you enough.”

“We can talk about it when you get back,” she chuckled, quiet yet fond. Noting the bewilderment in his expression, she clicked her tongue and said, “What? Don’t act like you expect me to believe you plan on sitting there twiddling your thumbs instead of rushing off to the rescue like a regular, everyday Prince Charming.”

And Eddie had to laugh—a raw and ragged feeling in his throat. Because if he was supposed to be Prince Charming, he suspected Cinderella was about to be sorely disappointed.

Clearing his throat and sobering at the thought, his mind turned to other pressing matters, “If I go, do you mind…?”

“Eddie,” Carla began, disappointed that he even felt the need to ask, “there’s no ‘if.’ I don’t mind watching Chris for a couple more hours for something other than some late night drinking with some friends after work. Go get him.”

Wincing as Carla unwittingly threw his latest excuse for staying out late directly into his face, there was something in her tone that made him suspect she’d known it was bullshit all along. But in an act of boundless mercy, she didn’t call him on it. Not directly at least. The face she was making—meaningful but somehow not accusatory—achieved that all on its own.

“I should probably go talk to him,” Eddie sighed, already rising from his seat on the bed.

“You probably should,” she said with a grim nod, “because when we first walked in, the face you were making had me convinced someone had been shot.”

Groaning as he ran a hand down his face, Eddie resolved himself to fixing it the only way he knew how: having an honest conversation with his son. Sidestepping Carla on route to the hallway, he didn’t waste a minute before gently rapping his finger against Chris’ door, waiting patiently for a reply. When he didn’t get one, he reached for the handle, slowly twisting it open as he exhaled a low, questioning murmur, “Chris?”

The boy sat at his desk, scribbling on a piece of looseleaf paper with a blue colored pencil, never making an effort to acknowledge his father’s existence. And when he heard the unmistakable sound of quiet sobs his son failed to stifle, Eddie closed the distance in an instant.

“You lied,” Chris sniffed, wiping his eyes with one hand while still trying to color with the other. Letting his dad pull him into his arms despite doing very little to acknowledge the gesture, he gritted out, “You said no one got hurt, but you lied.”

And if Eddie hadn’t been keenly aware of the boy’s penchant for eavesdropping as of late, he’d have had no idea how he would’ve known. But since he was ... “What have I told you about snooping?” he sighed, hugging his son tighter.

“You could’ve tried talking quieter,” the boy muttered, and Eddie could practically hear his eye roll.

“Chris,” he warned. Gentle but firm.

“Sorry...”

But deep down, Eddie knew that was not the apology owed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” he said, “I didn’t want to scare you if I didn’t have to.”

Chris considered this, face scrunching in deliberation. Setting down his colored pencil, he turned in his father’s arms to hit him with the full force of his disapproving glare, “I’m scared now.”

Which was a fair point. So fair, in fact, Eddie didn’t bother chastising him on his tone. “I know. But you don’t need to be, ok? Buck’s gonna be fine, he’s just a little lost right now. That’s all.”

Frown turning pensive, Chris looked up and asked, “But you know where to find him, right?”

With a careful, deliberate nod, Eddie smiled, “I think I might.”

And in an instant, gone was the melancholy despair of an eight year old that understood he’d been lied to. In its place was a fiery indignation as he began shoving his dad toward the door, nearly toppling out of his desk chair in the process. “Then what are you waiting for? Go!”

Sputtering in surprise, Eddie caught Chris right before he could hit the floor, helping to get him back on steady ground before stammering out, “I was just coming to tell you Carla’s gonna be watching you while I’m gone.”

But Chris was unrelenting, practically throwing himself against his father’s legs as he spurred him forth, “Ok! That’s fine! I got it!”

“So don’t stay up too late—”

“I know!”

“And make sure you brush your teeth before you go to bed—”

“I know, I know— go!”

It wasn’t until Eddie was stumbling into the living room, Chris at his heels, that he felt the urge to turn around and put his foot down. Literally. “Chris, wait,” he said, freezing in his tracks despite his son’s incessant shoving, “I need to grab some things first.”

The boy reluctantly conceded, but not without exhaling a long, impatient sigh everytime Eddie remembered something else he needed to bring with him. A change of clothes (Buck’s might’ve gotten dirty). Some food and water (in case either of them needed it). His med-bag (if worse comes to worst).

“Dad!” Chris exclaimed, stamping his foot. Patience waning.

“Ok, ok, I’m going. I promise,” Eddie placated, noting Carla’s amusement as she watched the scene unfold from the hallway. Shooting her an exasperated glance as he slung his packed bag over his shoulder, he took a knee in front of the boy. Leveling with him. “Hey. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Chris groaned, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But even if it was, Eddie couldn’t risk it going unsaid. Not again, and not with his own son.

“I know, I just... wanted to say it. That’s all,” he murmured, knowing he could say it a million more times and it would still never feel like enough. So, hands on Chris’ shoulders, smiling as he gave them a comforting squeeze, “You promise to actually go to bed when Carla asks you to instead of staying up to read like last time?”

Brow furrowed and lips drawn into a pout, Chris replied, “Depends. Will you wake me up when you and Buck get back?”

Something in Eddie’s chest loosened at that. The assumption that out of everywhere Eddie could possibly bring him and anywhere Buck could ever want to go, they’d always end up here. Back home with Chris.

‘Do you know how much Christopher misses you? How could you—you’re not around!”

‘I-I didn’t realize that. Maybe I could come and visit Christopher? You know, the lawsuit doesn’t prevent that.’

“Of course I’ll wake you up,” Eddie sighed, meaning it. However, that admission did very little to ease the apprehension and worry etched into the boy’s face as he stared down at his feet, refusing to meet his father’s stare. “Chris?”

The boy didn’t stir. And if not for being mere inches away, Eddie might’ve assumed he hadn’t heard. Then, so quiet he’d almost missed it: “What if Buck doesn’t want to see me?”

Eddie recoiled like he’d been slapped, the air forcibly expelled from his lungs by nothing but his words alone. Recovering for his son’s sake, however, he quickly and earnestly replied, “He always wants to see you.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“He does,” Eddie said, firmer than before.

Exhaling a rough huff of frustration, Chris finally craned his neck back to snap, “But what if he doesn’t?”

With the fire in his son’s eyes all but extinguished by the tears welling up against his will, the tightness in Eddie’s chest returned tenfold as he wondered which of the excuses he’d made for Buck’s absence was the most to blame.

“Then I will drag him into this house by his ankles,” he said, coarsely clearing his throat, hoping it hid the way his voice cracked around his words, “while you lock all the doors and windows.”

Raising an eyebrow as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, Chris sniffled, “I thought you said that was kidnapping.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Buck’s not a kid then.”

Chris froze, expression thoughtful as he considered this. Then, gasping in awe, “A loophole.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Carla stepped into the living room, “I think we all eventually need to sit down and have a conversation about you two coming up with that as a solution.”

“But not today,” Chris said.

“Not today,” Eddie confirmed with a light chuckle, giving the boy one final pat on the shoulder, rising to his feet. “And besides, it won’t even be necessary! Because like I said: he always wants to see you, Chris. I promise.”

Carla gave an honest nod as the boy looked to her for her input, rallying her support within those words and the truth behind them.

And finally— finally —Eddie saw it. The first crack in Chris’ resolve to believing nothing but the contrary. “Ok,” he murmured, voice small and subdued, “I think I believe you.”

If nothing else, the concession had Eddie breathing a little easier. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be leaving his son thinking that Buck not being around had something to do with him. “Good,” he said, “because I have to pick someone up from a gas station, and I think he’d be really sad to hear you say that he doesn’t want to see you.”

Eyes wide and mouth agape, scandalized, Chris whacked his dad on the leg and exclaimed, “Don’t tell him then!”

“I won’t,” Eddie laughed, ruffling his kid’s hair as he fended off the ‘attack.’ Turning back to Carla one final time as he approached the door, he made sure to say, “If I end up staying out longer than you can stay for, I can call Pepa.”

At that, the woman just waved him off, “All you need to worry about right now is getting that expensive truck of yours on the interstate, ok? I’m here for the long-haul.”

And... yeah, Eddie was really starting to suspect he didn’t pay her enough. Choked up and not even knowing why, he managed to grit out a quick but earnest, “Thank you," before opening the door.

Triple checking to make sure he’d packed his phone charger as he bid the two a final farewell, Eddie was outside. Car keys in hand, he never slowed his stride, the thought of Buck stranded urging him forward. The thought of him alone, patiently waiting for help he couldn’t be sure was actually coming.  The thought of finding him, them talking, and things going back to the way they’d always been. The way things should’ve been. And as Eddie unlocked his truck, hand coming up to grasp the handle, he vowed to do everything in his power to—

“Eddie Diaz, you better not be doing what the hell it is I think you’re doing.”

Whirling to face the source of the sudden accusation, Eddie was shocked to find Athena Grant in her squad car glaring back at him, window down so he could experience the brunt of her disapproval. Like he was a child that’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

But Eddie wasn’t a child; he was an adult. And Athena didn’t get to tell him what to do.

“I’m an adult,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest in a bold, manly way he was certain only drove that point home, “and you can’t tell me what to do.”

From where she was parked on the curb, Athena raised a brow.

Arms still crossed, Eddie raised one back.

Wordlessly and without breaking eye contact, Athena reached over to flick on the red and blue lights of her squad car. Because even off-duty, she was still a cop.

Dammit.

“I thought you were off the case,” he sighed, because Eddie could make thinly veiled accusations too.

Though, whatever mild satisfaction he’d felt at that was all too brief, Athena firing back, “And you were never on it to begin with.”

Which, ok. Fine. All technically true. However: “He called me. Out of everyone he could’ve called, Buck called me.” Because to Eddie, that meant something. That had to mean something.

“And a whole lot of good that did him,” Athena snapped, only faltering slightly when the man flinched at her words. Sighing, her eyes softened with sympathy and perhaps even an inkling of regret, but only for a moment. There one second but gone the next. Expression hardening, she asked, “What do you plan on doing when it doesn’t end up being as simple as showing up to a gas station and giving him a ride home?”

Damn. She must’ve done her research too. Defensive, Eddie bristled, “Why are you so sure it won’t be?”

Though, between the clench of her jaw and the unimpressed roll of her eyes, that attitude had been cowed almost immediately, Eddie feeling strangely small as she pinned him beneath her steely glare.

“Tell me,” she began, words no less rigid than before, “how many times did you ring that payphone only for him to never pick up?”

Eyes drifting to his feet, Eddie didn’t say a word. He couldn’t.

But Athena wasn’t done: “Ok. Now explain to me how that is in any way normal behavior for Buck.”

Again. No reply. And somehow, this silence felt more damning than the last.

“Exactly,” she said, not taking any particular pleasure in it, “and the more you keep treating this like it is—like you two are just carpooling after a wild night out—the more likely you’ll end up in a situation you didn’t prepare yourself for. Because sure. Maybe Buck stayed put after being given absolutely no reason to think he should. But more likely, he didn’t. And I don’t think you’ll have any idea what to do if that ends up being the case.”

And she was right. Deep down, he knew that she was right. “Athena, I need to fix this,” Eddie said in spite of that, “please, let me fix this.”

But with barely even a crack in the woman’s stony exterior, he wondered whether he’d actually gotten through to her, or if he’d just end up handcuffed to the exhaust pipe of his truck while she sped down the road, on her way to clean up his mess. Hope dying in his chest, he briefly considered relenting, returning to his house only to double back again once her car had cleared the street.

“Hop in,” Athena sighed, the audible click of her car doors unlocking leaving the man dumbfounded.

“Hop in?” he repeated, not entirely sure he hadn’t imagined it.  

Eyes narrowing as if knowing exactly what the man had planned once she’d left him to his own devices... “Don’t make me say it twice.”

So Eddie didn’t. Pulling the strap of his bag tighter around him as he pocketed his car keys, he didn’t make her wait either.

“So, I’m guessing you looked up the number too,” he remarked, opening the passenger door and clambering inside. “How did you know I was gonna go get him?

“I had a feeling,” she said, cryptic and distant. Then, nodding pointedly at her rearview mirror, “And so did my other ride-along.”

Eyes following the gesture, what Eddie found had left him reeling. “Bobby?” he asked, turning fully in his seat to face the man in the back.

Because in the back of the squad car was none other than Bobby Nash, staring back at him as the corners of his mouth pulled into an awkward, uncomfortable smile.

Glancing between the couple for answers neither seemed willing to give, Eddie asked, “Why are you sitting in the back seat?”

But just as Bobby opened his mouth to reply, Athena interjected. “So I can do this,” she said, slapping the plastic partition between the front and the back shut. Cutting him off.

Staring at the woman as she took her car out of park, pulling out of his neighborhood like nothing had happened at all... Eddie was overcome with a small, strange feeling. The kind he’d always get when he was little and his parents were fighting.

“Are you two alright?” he asked, casting a brief look Bobby’s way.

The man had taken to leaning back against his seat, folding his hands in his lap and closing his mouth in tired acceptance.

Acknowledging the question with barely more than a hum in response, Athena navigated the wild midday traffic of Los Angeles without even breaking a sweat. But as Eddie’s stare bore into her from the right, no sign of his concern dwindling anytime soon, she looked at him and sighed, “We will be.”

And that would just have to be good enough for now. With a careful nod as he took to staring out the side window, Eddie resigned himself for the most awkward car ride of his life.

16:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | ???

Buck came to suddenly and all at once, startling awake atop a mound of mulch, soft but firm beneath his fingertips. Groggily adjusting to his surroundings, he blinked the sleep from his eyes as he took stock of his new environment, and...

Um...

Huh. This didn’t look like LA. Like, at all. Because in LA, you couldn’t spit without hitting a building, or a car, or a telephone pole, or something. But right here, right now? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing but cacti, buffelgrass, and dirt as far as the eye can see.

Well, actually, that wasn’t entirely the truth. Because there wasn’t ‘nothing.’ There were trains! Several trains, in fact—mostly boxcars. And they littered the assortment of railways sprawled across the area, all convening at a single turntable in the center. But with only a handful of floodlights overseeing the depot in lieu of any obvious human supervision… Buck failed to see how that was of any use to him in his current dilemma.

It was sort of cool though. You know. In spite of everything.

However, that notion didn’t last long. Not as Buck confirmed the worst of his fears, staring at the empty spot on the tracks where the engine used to be.

Groaning, he exhaled a string of curses as he mentally kicked himself for not only falling asleep, but for also staying sleep during the crucial part of his journey where they disconnected his train car and left him stranded in the middle of the fucking desert. Like, he knew he could be a heavy sleeper but holy shit that was pushing it.

Shoving off his mound of mulch—his glorious mound of mulch—Buck descended the metal rungs of the train car until his feet were on solid ground, wincing as his leg creaked beneath his weight.

“Oh my God, this is gonna suck...” he sighed, thinking that—perhaps—he may have put a little too much faith in his ability to accurately read a map. But he didn’t give himself too long to feel sorry for himself. Because he was the one who got himself into this mess in the first place, therefore: he was the one that had to suck it up and deal with it. So, with his water bottles from the gas station in hand and little option left once again...

Buck picked a direction and started walking.

Chapter Text

20:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Los Angeles, CA

Maddie Buckley has officially had a fucking day. The one she was doomed to have the moment she’d taken Tara’s call for help and used it to entangle herself in the life of a woman who’d never asked her to. Now, Chim was angry at her—understandably so—and she had some mandated therapy sessions to attend. Oh. And her little brother was missing. Can’t forget about that!

She should’ve called him—she had meant to call him. But she and Chim had run into Tara and her husband, and then Chim had managed to piece together the entire sordid tale from all her half-truths and blatant lies, and...

Maddie had meant to call him.

By the time Chim had called her to tell her he was on his way to pick her from work, she had nearly been inconsolable. So much so, Sue had personally made sure to remain at her side until she was certain she’d be alright on her own. As if she hadn’t been the one to formally reprimand the other only thirty minutes prior.

When Chim had finally walked in, locking eyes with Maddie on the break room couch, it was like the world around them had melted away, the events of the previous night going with it. The two moved toward one another in tandem, all but falling into each other’s welcoming arms.

“Maddie,” he said, drawing her close, “Buck’s gonna be okay, I promise. Eddie got a voicemail from him last night. He’s still out there, and Athena’s gonna find him—”

“A voicemail?” she asked, all that terrible fear that had gripped her chest following that first call briefly dissipating. “What voicemail?”

Lips pressed into a thin line, Chim didn’t waste any time explaining.

And suddenly, gone was any bewildered confusion that may have still lingered. In its place? Trepidation. Unease. And surprisingly enough: anger. Because Buck had called Eddie... and he hadn’t answered?

“If it makes you feel any better,” Chim sighed, grimacing as she turned a fraction of that heat back on him, “I promise you he’s off somewhere beating himself up about this more than you ever could.”

But it didn’t make Maddie feel any better. In fact, it only seemed to piss her off that much more, “Who the hell in this day and age lets their phone die and then doesn’t charge it?”

“Maybe he had something going on last night,” the man offered with a pointed nod, “like the rest of us.”

And, yeah. Ok. Fair enough. But still: better to let herself be mad about this now to get it out of her system than end up saying something to Eddie she’d later regret. Because it wasn’t his fault. Not really.

“Can you take me home?” she breathed, most of that previous fight sinking back into the recesses of her mind where it belonged. Back where it couldn’t hurt her or anyone else.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, nothing but understanding in a way Maddie wasn’t sure she’d ever fully deserve. Not with her baggage, and certainly not with what it culminated in the night before.

But before the two could leave, Chim froze. Remember something.

“Oh! Wait. Hold on...” he said, fishing something out of his back pocket. Extending an arm, he tried to hand it off to her, “Here.”

Taking it, Maddie was surprised to find she was holding a phone. Buck’s phone.

“Athena gave it to me before I left the station,” Chim supplied, sensing her questions before she’d gotten the chance to ask them. “The detectives don’t need it for their investigation, and she said it was probably safer with you than collecting dust in some evidence locker somewhere. That, and the rest of his stuff she’s gonna try and get released to you when she’s back.”

“Back?” Maddie asked. It seemed relevant. “Back from where?”

And as Chim gave her the rundown—that Athena was going to bring Buck back herself, no matter what the protocol of the department dictated—she felt the closest thing to peace she could muster in the last hour and a half. Although, that hadn’t meant there weren’t other causes for concern…

“Wait. Did you say the guy that carjacked him broke into his apartment?”

So, that’s where that currently left them. In Buck’s loft with an assortment of cleaning supplies after they’d been informed by police that the ‘crime scene’ was clear. Using the spare key Maddie had on hand to let themselves in, the sight that had greeted them had left her a little shocked, a little dumbfounded, and exceptionally pissed off.

Empty bottles and beer cans littered the kitchen counter, interspersed with various wrappers of whatever junk food Buck had just so happened to have stocked in his kitchen. Strewn about with the kind of disregard only possessed by someone with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be the one who had to clean it up.

“I am going to clean this place like it has never been cleaned before,” she swore, nose wrinkling as the faint stench of cigarettes assaulted her nostrils.

Chim concurred with a solemn nod, shaking open a trash bag before clearing the counter.

Leaving him with an old rag and a spray bottle of Lysol, Maddie ascended the stairs on a mission. Grimacing as the scent of cigarette smoke grew tenfold, she made short work of stripping the bed down to its mattress pad before deciding ‘fuck it’ and stripping that as well. Holding Buck’s pillow in both hands after shucking it free of its satin case, she caught a whiff of it and gagged,

“Christ...” Chim coughed, brandishing an empty pack of Marlboros from the kitchen as he called out to the other, “did he try to hotbox your brother’s apartment or what?”

Descending the stairs, a laundry basket nestled carefully in her arms, Maddie sighed, “It would certainly seem like he tried.”

Eyeing the contents of her basket, the man quirked an eyebrow and asked, “You’re washing his pillow?”

“I’m throwing it out. Or burning it. I haven’t decided yet,” she said, dropping the basket against the laminate flooring and snatching the offending item off the top. Shoving it into the nearest trash bag, she huffed, “I’ll get him a new one.”

Chim gave an apprehensive nod before getting back to work, spritzing every surface of the kitchen to his heart’s content. Until the stench of cigarettes and booze was more or less masked by the scent of antiseptic and lavender.

“We should burn a couple candles,” he said, nose wrinkling as he tied off the latest trash bag. “You think he keeps any lying around?”

But just as Maddie opened her mouth to inform him of all the holiday scented ones Buck had hoarded from last Christmas… there was a knock at the door. And when she looked to Chim for answers, he hadn’t seemed nearly as surprised as she’d been.

“There you are,” he said as he opened it, beckoning in whoever had been standing on the other side. “Took you long enough.”

Standing in the doorway with a mop and bucket in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, It was Hen. And once she laid eyes on Maddie, her lips twisted into a sad smile. Setting her supplies down at the door, she crossed the distance to wrap the other woman in a tight hug and said, “How’re you holding up?”

“I think I’ll feel better once he’s home,” Maddie murmured, hugging her back. “Thanks for coming. I hope Karen doesn’t mind that we’re keeping you out so late.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maddie caught Chim shaking his head in visible panic just as she felt Hen stiffen in her arms. And suddenly, she found herself racking her brain for the reason why. Was she supposed to know why?

“We got some IVF news, and... and I think we both needed me out of the house for a while,” Hen said after a pause, something in her expression telling Maddie not to pry. Walking deeper into the apartment, she winced at the stench that greeted her, “Did that scumbag steal his TV too or can I put on some Pandora while we clean?”

Maddie gave a wry smile, “TVs gone. Last I heard, it’s in an evidence locker somewhere along with anything else that looked mildly valuable.”

With a disappointed and disbelieving huff, Hen set the wine down in the kitchen on route to the living room, taking a bewildered look around. “How does this even happen?”

“When Buck gets back, maybe we can ask him,” Chim sighed, grabbing the bottle before fishing an opener out of a nearby drawer.

Unsatisfied but knowing it was the best he could manage with what they had, Hen let the matter lie, stepping around the trash and crumbs littering the floor. She carefully made her way to the vacuum charging next to the empty TV stand. Or—as it would turn out—the mostly empty TV stand.

Before she could reach for the vacuum in its charging port, she froze, fixated on an object resting on the dusty, wooden surface. Taking it in hand and flipping it over to get a better look, she held it up for both Maddie and Chim to see and said, “Ok, not to stereotype or anything, but Buck doesn’t really strike me as the kind of person who’d own a CD player let alone one to play this album.”

Walking over to investigate, Maddie took the case from Hen to study it closer. Cracking it open, her breath hitched at what she found: Enya’s ‘A Day Without Rain’ with a giant scratch down the front cover art of the disk.

“This...” she stammered, hands tightening around the cheap, plastic case as if she intended to snap it in two. And with the memory it brought, perhaps she did. “This is our mom’s. She’d always put this on when she was cleaning the house. Seriously. I could probably sing ‘Only Time’ from memory at this point.”

“Ok,” Hen trailed, cautious in her approach. Shooting Chim a concerned look from across the room she thought the other wouldn’t see, she asked, “Then why does your brother have it?”

Maddie traced a finger down the ugly gash down its front, core lighting up with white hot anger from the memory it wrought.

“I don’t know,” she said, pushing the emotion down enough to grit out, “Mom wouldn’t have given it to him.”

“I’m sensing a story here,” Chim remarked, finding his place at her side. Placing a steadying hand on her shoulder, he slowly eased the CD out of her ironclad grip.

Maddie let him, exhaling a rough sigh as she explained, “He’s the one that scratched it. He wanted to listen to something else and tripped after he’d taken it out of the player. Ending up scraping it across the floor and scuffing the hardwood. And mom... God, she lost her shit on him. I’d never seen her yell like that in my life let alone at a ten year-old.”

“Ten?” Hen asked. Horrified.

And the resignation in the other’s expression was enough to confirm the worst. Despite that, Maddie opted to continue, “He was inconsolable for hours; refused to go near that sound system for years. I mean, our mom would always have these big blow ups around that time of year, but never one this bad. Never while he was so young.”

“So,” Chim began, words dripping in a disdain that hadn’t been directed at her, “this was an annual thing.”

Yeah. Ever since 1993. Ever since Daniel. “It was the anniversary of something,” Maddie said, forcing a detachment into her tone she was certain the other didn’t believe. Not even for a second. “Something awful.”

Mercifully, neither Chim nor Hen pressed her on it, the latter of which going on to say, “Still doesn’t justify it. I couldn’t imagine yelling at Denny like that; at a kid just trying to learn how to do something for themselves.”

But all Maddie could manage was a stiff shake of her head, because no. That hadn’t been it. That hadn’t been why he’d done it.

“He didn’t think he was allowed to ask for help,” she said, eyes wet and throat burning upon the admission, “our parents never really gave the impression that we could ask for help, and I guess I’m just worried that he still, uh...”

Words tapering into a quiet sob, she slapped her hands over her mouth to try and choke it back.

“That he still doesn’t think he’s allowed to ask for help,” Hen finished for her, rubbing a comforting hand down her back upon the other’s silent, tearful nod.

“Hey—hey,” Chim soothed, tone coaxing and gentle, “Buck knows he could call any of us for help, ok? He called Eddie, and he wouldn’t have done that if he thought he couldn’t.”

And the flurry of emotions that assaulted her in that instant nearly knocked Maddie flat on her ass. Frustration. Exasperation. Bewilderment. But mostly, she just felt sad. Because he was so close to getting it, and yet so far off the mark.

“Do you really think he thought Eddie would pick up?” she asked, expression hardening, “If you were Buck, would you have thought he’d pick up?”

“What are you trying to say?” Hen was the first to ask.

Which—evidently—was not the easiest question for her to answer. Not because she didn’t know how, but rather, because she did. And it wasn’t something any of them would want to hear. Regardless:

“I’m saying that, sure, there’s a chance that deep down, Buck truly believed he could count on Eddie picking up the phone when he called. But there’s an even bigger chance that, subconsciously, he knew that he wouldn’t. And I’m willing to bet that’s why he called him, whether he knew it or not.”

Chim and Hen ruminated on this in silence, frowning as each of them reached their own damning conclusions.

“That’s...” Hen trailed, “going to be a hard conversation to have with Eddie when he gets back.”

“Dibs on not telling him,” Chim muttered, pensive lines etched into his face. Jagged and deep.

And Maddie could do little else than blink back, confused, still stuck on the first part as she asked, “Back? Where’d he go?”

For a moment, no one said a word. Then, slowly turning to Chim, Hen eventually asked, “You didn’t tell her?”

“I forgot,” the man said, looking a little pale from Maddie’s incredulous stare. Steeling himself with a sigh, he decided to elaborate, “Athena caught Eddie as he was leaving to go get Buck, and she brought him with her. She texted me about an hour back, and I meant to tell you when we got to his apartment, but then we opened the door and all I could think about was how badly this place smelled. Maddie, it hit me like a brick wall. I’m surprised I even still remember my name.”

And instead of getting angry, Maddie calmed herself with a deep inhale... only to grimace at the smell of cigarettes and booze still lingering in the stale air.

Alright. Fair enough.

“Of course he did,” she said, electing to move past it. “Should we invite Bobby over too? I feel kind of bad if he’s the only one without company tonight.”

Hen gave Chim pointed another look. This one far more exasperated than the last.

“Yeah,” he said. Nervous. “About that...”

“Chim.”

“The stench rattled me!”

Groaning, Maddie ran a frustrated hand through her hair, though the gesture lacked any real heat behind it. Because it wasn’t a big deal. Not really, and not when she herself still had her fair share of apologizing to get around to. About the night before. About Tara. But before she could wave off his impending apology as it began to spring from his tongue, every head in the apartment turned to face whatever had started vibrating against the kitchen counter.

Bzzt... Bzzt...

“Is that...?” Hen started to ask, fixated on the phone Maddie had plugged into its charger when she first walked in.

“It’s Buck’s,” Maddie managed, already across the room and snatching the device off the counter. Tapping the phone until the screen lit back up, her eyes widened at the notification, “It’s a video from an unknown number.”

Hen and Chim were at her side in an instant, each looking over one of her shoulders as they took in the sight for themselves.

“Too bad it’s locked,” the man sighed, “if it wasn’t, we’d be able to—”

Without hesitation, Maddie punched in the four digit code. Unlocking Buck’s phone.

The two stood behind her. Stunned into silence. Then, “You know his passcode?”

“It’s the same pin our parents used for the garage code our entire lives. He uses it for everything,” Maddie replied like it was obvious. Noting their alarm, she quickly tacked on, “Don’t tell him I know that.”

And whatever thoughts and feelings either of the two might’ve had about that became null and void as the woman opened the video, letting it play out for all of them to see:

The video had been shot in the darkness of night, the lens taking a moment to fully adjust. When it had, a young man none of them recognized was recording himself poorly lip-syncing to some honky-tonk country song playing faintly in the distance, occasionally interrupted by the sound of violent retching.

The camera view flipped, showing a car with all its doors opened and the aforementioned song pouring from its speakers. Excluding the man holding the camera, there were three others gathered around, unaware they were being filmed:

One was hunched over, both hands braced against the side of the vehicle as he emptied the contents of his stomach. Another man was at his side, giving him a comforting pat on the back as he spewed. And the last was on the opposite side of the car, shaking out a floor mat covered in what every context clue suggested was most likely vomit.

That third one grimaced, dropping the mat on the asphalt of the parking lot with a wet SPLAT. Opening his mouth like he was about to say something, he did a double-take at the camera. Expression morphing into fury, he bellowed, “Ezra, you jackass, put the fucking phone down and stop filming!”

The man holding the phone made an offended sound, yelling back, “He told me to!”

“No he didn’t—put it away before I come over there and slap the dogshit out of you!”

The video abruptly ended, leaving the occupants of Buck’s apartment stunned and silent, attempting to decipher the plot of what they had just watched. Because they didn’t recognize the man filming. They didn’t recognize the man cleaning the vomit out of the car nor did they recognize the one lending his comfort despite looking a little green, even in the cover of night. What they had recognized, however, were the broad set of shoulders currently hunched in on themselves as their owner puked down the side of a gray Toyota Corolla.

Buck.

“What the hell is going on?” Chim asked, staring at the paused thumbnail of the video until the screen went dark.

 Confusion and worry clouding her mind, Maddie wondered the same.

19:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | ???

If he hadn’t been so dehydrated, Buck probably would’ve cried from relief when he finally saw the distant lights of civilization illuminated in the night. It was small. Faint. One building compared to the city skyline he’d grown accustomed to. But even still… it was salvation.

Shoes scuffing against the dirt and sand of the desert, he staggered onto the highway. Feet touching asphalt instead of wilderness, Buck had very nearly been overcome by the urge to beat on his chest, look up to the heavens, and scream, “I am man—hear me roar!” But he didn’t, because that would simply require energy he no longer possessed.

Exhausted, he limped by the handful of cars parked outside the rinky-dink bar he’d somehow managed to stumble across, noting the plates as he passed. Freezing in his tracks, he felt his blood run cold. Because they were not Californian plates. They were Arizonan.

Buck was in Arizona.

With a strangled, furious shout, he used his good foot to kick a stray, empty bottle as hard as he could, watching it shatter as it struck a nearby curb. Chest heaving with each fuming breath, he closed his eyes, making a deliberate effort to calm himself down.

“Ok,” he sighed once successful, “ok, I feel better. Holy shit.”

But before he got the chance to fully capitalize on this tentative state of emotional stability, he caught a glimpse of himself in a car’s side mirror. Covered from head to toe with the desert’s bounty, tinged orange with dirt and dust, he resolved his next course of action to be making himself somewhat presentable before marching into ‘Sticky Dickie’s Bar and Grill,’ demanding they let him use their phone, and then hoping for the best. However, now that he really thought about it... ‘pitiful and dirty’ might work to his advantage here.

Spotting a spigot sticking out the side of the building, his need to be clean quickly won out over his desire to emotionally manipulate strangers. Deeming the dubious contents of the rusted faucet as ‘better than nothing,’ he walked over, wincing with each step.

Cupping his hands under the water, he shuddered in relief as the liquid pooled in his cracked and dry palms. Splashing his face, he scrubbed and scrubbed until the water streaming down his neck ran mostly clear. He was so desperate to feel clean, in fact, he was willing to ignore the smell of rotten eggs in the water as he doused his hair. Though, he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t complicated matters concerning the pill bottle of blood thinners in his front pocket. Not when he didn’t have enough spit to try and take them dry.

“...dude, leave him the hell alone.”

“Why? I need help, he clearly does too, so why don’t I just figure out if we can help each other?”

“Because I don’t think your brand of ‘help’ is what he needs right now. And besides, what if he’s dangerous?”

“Then I defend myself!”

“You have the bone density of a small, frail bird. That dude could snap you over his knee.”

Brow furrowing as he wiped the water and wet dirt from his eyes, Buck craned his neck at the sound of approaching feet. Facing three young men who faltered in their advance, he took a guarded step back, recalling the most recent lesson he’d learned about strange men approaching him for ‘favors’ in the middle of the night.

As another beat of silence passed, the tension strung beneath the four became unbearable. Or, well... unbearable for one in particular.  

“Are you homeless?” the shortest of the trio asked, wearing a University of Arizona sweatshirt.

Eyes widened in horror and second-hand embarrassment, the tallest of the group groaned, “Jesus Christ, Ezra—”

Waving him off, the former—Ezra—continued, “Sorry, sorry, what I meant to ask was: what would you be willing to do to eat right now?”

Buck took another step back.

“No, no, no, not like that! This isn’t a sex thing,” the man clarified, which did not inspire confidence. “I just need someone who can eat an ungodly amount of food in thirty minutes or less.”

Ezra’s two companions winced, the one who’d be silent up until this point leaning over to whisper, “...still kinda sounds like a sex thing, man.”

“Shut up, John!” he snapped, reaching out to shove him by the shoulder as the other dodged the attempt. Turning his full attention back to Buck, his call to action turned desperate, “Listen, dude, this is fucking serious. My life’s work is on the line here, and I have been conned and cheated out of it. A wrong I have been diligently trying to right only to have the big hats at Sticky Dickie’s Bar and Grill spit in my face upon the attempt!”

At a bit of a loss, Buck hesitantly nodded along—more so to placate than anything else. Throat dry, he rasped, “I still don’t really understand what this has to do with me.”

Taking a deep breath, the young man bowed his head in reverence and replied, “Sticky Dickie’s Belly Buster Challenge.” And he said it like he was waiting for applause.

Buck never gave it, instead looking to the man’s friends for something resembling an explanation.

The tall one decided to take a stab at it, scowling, “They have a food challenge where if you can eat five pounds of pulled pork topped with mac-and-cheese, bacon, and green onions in under thirty minutes, you get your meal comped and picture on their wall of fame. Ezra tried it last month and ate the whole thing, but because he didn’t finish his drink, he didn’t technically win. Then, he threw a chair at someone. And now he is no longer welcome in this establishment.”

“O...kay?” Buck drawled, still maintaining a healthy distance between him and the strangers.

Undaunted by the other’s apprehension, Ezra continued, gesturing to his friends, “I was gonna have one of them do it, but John left his Lactaid pills at home, and Marcus is just being a douche about it.”

The tall one, Marcus, scowled, “Maybe if you told me what we were doing before you drove us out here, I could’ve reminded you that I’m a fucking vegetarian.”

“See?” Ezra scoffed, talking to Buck like the others weren’t even there. “Douchebag.”

“He wants the shirt,” John—the quiet one—interjected upon Buck’s befuddled stare.

Reeling from the continuous onslaught of pointless information, Buck asked, “What?”

“They give you a shirt when you beat it,” the young man sighed, gesturing vaguely at Ezra, “and he wants you to win it for him.”

If nothing else, Buck could appreciate that at least one of them was capable of getting to the goddamn point. Because, to put it very mildly, traversing the Arizonan desert for hours on end had sort of wanned on his patience. Just a bit.

“If you do this for me,” Ezra said in spite of that, “I will do anything for you.”

Raising a curious brow, Buck considered this. “Anything?” he asked.

“Most things,” the other was quick to clarify.

And given Buck’s current situation, that tradeoff didn’t sound half bad. The issue was: the only thing he could think to ask for was using one of their cellphones. And what good did that do him? Five pounds of pulled pork consumed only for, what, another phone call denied? A voicemail deleted? A text message unread?

With a bitter sigh and a rueful shake of his head, Buck scrapped the meager beginnings of that specific plan. Because a phone wasn’t going to cut it. Because he had to think bigger. Smarter.

“Can you give me a ride back to LA?” he asked, deciding—fuck it—go big or go home. And Buck really wanted to go home.

And sure. Maybe it was a little dumb asking for a ride from a couple of strangers after being shot at by the last one, but with the way the rod in his leg twinged with each step... he was willing to risk it.  

“Absolutely not,” came Ezra’s immediate reply, dashing Buck’s hopes immediately. Unwilling to entertain them for even a moment. “That’s like twenty hours! Right? I know how time works.”

“Twenty?” Buck balked, eyes probably bulging out of his skull. Looking around, he felt compelled to reassess his surroundings, “Where the hell are we?”

“We’re like thirty minutes outside Phoenix,” Marcus simpered, side-eying his friend, “so... still not a twenty hour drive.”

“Not even close,” John breathed, looking especially disappointed in Ezra. More from the time blindness or the lack of tact? Hard to say.

“Oh,” Buck said, skipping every stage of grief, beelining straight to acceptance. Because yeah.  Ok. Not like anything else in the last day and a half has worked out for him. Why start now? Waving at the trio as he turned to leave, “Well, good luck with that—”

“Wait, that’s it?” Ezra exclaimed, words tinged in incredulity. The kind that could only come from a person who very much wasn’t used to having another turn their back on them.

God—Buck wished he could relate to that. “Uh... yeah?”

“You’re not even gonna, like, try to negotiate with me?”

“No?” Buck said, starting to pick up on some mixed signals he didn’t particularly appreciate. Shooting the young man an odd look, he made another move to leave.

“Ok, ok, shit, you drive a hard bargain, hold on!” Ezra called, stumbling after him until he was standing directly in Buck’s way. Blocking his path. Pursing his lips, he racked his brain for his next offer. “If you do this for me, I will... pay... for a bus?”

“A bus?” Buck asked, peering up at the moon hung high in the night sky. He might not have had the exact time, but it seemed a little late for a bus.

“A bus,” Ezra confirmed with a smug nod, puffing his chest out, “and you’d be getting a free meal on top of it. Which, no offense, looks like something you need right about now.”

On cue, Buck’s stomach gave a voracious groan; a quick but effective reminder that he’d gone a full day without any food. And all of a sudden, five pounds of pulled pork was starting to sound really good, actually.

Closing his eyes, taking a breath, and weighing his options... Buck wondered how things would’ve turned out if he hadn’t called Eddie. If he’d taken a gamble on Maddie’s number, or if he’d called 9-1-1 instead. Would he be home already? Would he still have that cancerous pit in his stomach that had wedged itself deeper and deeper with each passing second that payphone failed to ring?

“I’ll do it,” he said, surprising the triad of college aged men who hadn’t expected him to agree so readily.

And perhaps if the last couple hours of his life had turned out a little differently, Buck would’ve been surprised too. But he wasn’t. Because this was it. Because Buck would get back to LA on his own, or not at all.

Chapter Text

20:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | ‘Phoenix,’ AZ

Buck was starting to suspect he might be what some would call ‘stubborn.’ And although he’d reached that conclusion rather suddenly, he had not done so based on nothing.

He hadn’t reached it while walking through the bar’s double doors, nor while handing the nearest waiter the credit card he’d been given, requesting the infamous food challenge. He hadn’t even reached it while peering through the nearest window, watching Ezra shadowbox in the parking lot when he thought no one could see him. Like he was the one about to eat five pounds of meat.

No. It wasn’t until an aluminum foil pan was being slammed down in front of him—the scent of pork and cheese and onions flooding his nostrils—that the thought flitted through his mind, because...

Was this really easier than making a phone call?

An obnoxious alarm blared through the bar, sounding far too much like the bell back at the fire station for Buck’s comfort. But it was not without its purpose. Because as the alarm continued to sound, it announced the entrance of an older man wearing a ridiculously large cowboy hat and carrying a microphone.

Mr. Sticky Dickie, he presumed.

Voice crackling through the bar’s speaker system, the man prattled on about the manufactured stakes and this being their hundredth-something challenger. None of which Buck paid much mind to as he entered what he thinks must’ve been some sort of dissociative state. The kind that only ever seemed necessary when the demands of the job required it. When he was forced to shut his mind off and do whatever it was he had to.

Suddenly, the name ‘Sticky Dickie’s Belly Buster Challenge’ had made a lot of sense, for he feared that the human body was not built to consume this amount of pork.

In the distance, Buck could make out the front doors of the bar opening and closing, three figures scuttling through and disappearing into the crowd of patrons. Ezra wore a disguise consisting solely of a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, the latter of which only seemed to bring more attention to the man seeing that those were not commonly worn indoors. Or at night.

John and Marcus lingered nearby, ducking their heads in what might’ve been shame as their companion whooped and hollered from the sidelines, egging Buck on a fraction louder than the other regulars.

But Buck hadn’t much time to concern himself with the man seemingly intent on blowing his cover, because as the alarm blared for the second time, it was game on. And he must’ve briefly blacked out, for the next time he regained consciousness, he was already two-thirds of the way done with ten minutes to spare. According to the countdown clock on the nearby wall, that is.

Although his empty stomach had provided somewhat of an advantage, it’d been gone within the first five minutes as he remained hunkered over a plate of pulled pork, shoveling in handful after handful with his bare hands.

With one minute to spare and the last handful of meat, onions, and cheese already on route to his mouth, Buck used his other hand to grab the glass of water on his left. Slamming it back hard enough to risk chipping a tooth, he downed it in three gulps. And... well:

Ever eat so much food at once it feels like you’ve committed some sort of crime against humanity? Yeah, it was sort of like that. Every ounce of willpower from that moment forward was preoccupied with not throwing up, for Buck knew if he had, he’d immediately keel over and die in a puddle of his own vomit.

But he’d won. Despite everything, he had won. And he had never known a victory that had tasted so sweet, or... so much like onions.

Dazed but victorious, Buck had enough of a mind to wipe the grease off his hands with a discarded napkin before taking the shirt that at some point had been presented to him. Shaking out the fabric, he took a good look at his prize as the man in the cowboy hat returned for his second spiel.

‘I got porked at Sticky Dickies’ was written in bold text inside a speech bubble. It was coming out of some stock image rip-off of Piggly Wiggly.

But the lingering high of his triumph was cut tragically short in the next moment. The moment that ‘Mr. Sticky Dickie’ peered into the crowd and paused his spiel. Eyes narrowing in apprehension, they just as quickly widened in realization.

“Schulte, that better not be you I see back there! What kind of asshole wears sunglasses indoors at night?”

Confused murmurs rippled through the bar’s patrons, most of which were craning their necks around to figure out just who the hell the man was talking to.  

Marcus and John glanced at one another, seemingly coming to the same silent conclusion. Slowly shuffling away from Ezra, toward the door, they not-so-subtly gestured for Buck to do the same.

Awkwardly clearing his throat, Buck began to push out of his seat, intent on doing just that. However, the ironclad grip that came down on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks, planting his ass firmly back in the cheap plastic chair beneath him.

Glowering down at Buck, a large shadow cast over his face by that ridiculous looking cowboy hat... the man was far stronger than he looked.

Uh-oh.

“You know these clowns, son?” he asked. His greying, bushy mustache twitching in anger.

“Uh... no?” Buck lied. Unconvincingly. And as he winced at the grip on his shoulder tightening, he wondered if now was a good time to randomly bring up the fact he was on blood thinners.

Ezra, who apparently had the survival instincts of an amoeba, was of a different mind. Shooting to his feet, completely unaware his other companions were already one foot out the door each, he pointed an aggressive finger at the man and yelled, “Fuck you, asshole, I know my rights—that shirt is mine!”

The man scoffed, and that was the only warning Buck got before the shirt he’d won was unceremoniously ripped from his hands. “Get out,” he said, not even waiting for so much as a breath in response before shoving the younger man out of his seat.

And as Buck stumbled forward, managing to find his footing before he could face-plant into the corner of the nearest table, he was starting to understand why Ezra had thrown that chair. Because as a chilling rage he hadn’t felt since Bobby and Athena’s weeks ago spread throughout every iota of his being, he decided to do what he did best these days:

Something stupid and reckless.

Blindly reaching out behind him until he made contact with a cheap polyester blend of fabric, he curled his hand into it, yanking it free. Shirt in hand, Buck ran for the door, silently praying that his leg didn’t choose that exact moment to crap out on him.

Ezra caught on faster than he thought he would, already beelining out the door a good couple feet ahead of him.

But just when it seemed like escape was assured, a large man stepped directly in Buck’s path. Because Sticky Dickie’s Bar and Grill had a bouncer. Of course they had a bouncer. A bouncer who was currently craning back a fist, getting ready to punch his lights out.

Skidding to a halt and frantically waving his arms out in front of him, Buck exclaimed, “Wait—wait—wait—I’m on blood thinners!”

And his luck might’ve finally taken a turn for the better, because after a flicker of hesitation, the bouncer lowered his fist with a frustrated sigh. “Then what the hell are you doing picking fights in bars? Goddamnit, just get the fuck outta here already!”

Stepping out of the way, he made a rough gesture for Buck to leave, not even bothering to take back the shirt.

Rattling off a quick yet sincere apology, Buck was out the door before the man got the chance to change his mind. Crossing the parking lot with absolutely no concept of a plan, someone whistling from across the way had been a small mercy.

Head snapping to meet the source, he laid eyes on a gray Toyota Corolla, engine running with Ezra in the passenger side, waving him over.

With the enraged shouts of none other than Mr. Sticky Dickie echoing from deep within the bar, screaming something nearly unintelligible about how he could, ‘Forget about getting his picture on their wall of champions,’ Buck didn’t have time to mull over his options with the discernment he probably should’ve.

“Buck—you legend! You absolute legend!” Ezra yelled as soon as he’d dove headfirst into the backseat, kicking the door closed behind him just as Marcus floored the gas, peeling out of the parking lot and down the road. And in a strange way, it sort of reminded him of what it’d been like to live in a frat house again…

Fuck. He really was back to square one now, huh?

Sitting up and buckling his seatbelt, Buck ignored the bubble in his stomach that was either from the copious amount of pork he’d consumed or the existential dread buzzing beneath his skin like a hornets nest that’d just been kicked.

“Ezra, no one wants their picture taken right now,” John sighed. Soft spoken and banished to the backseat beside him.

And sure enough, glancing up, Buck was met with a phonescreen as Ezra took a selfie of him and the entire interior of the car.

“Do those have time stamps?” he found himself asking before he’d even been fully aware of it. Before he’d fully even reckoned with why.

“Dude, they have everything,” Ezra replied, snapping another photo. “Time stamps, location data, you name it.”

That was all Buck needed to hear to finally get the cogs turning.

“Can you send those to me?” he asked. Because while he might not have had his phone anymore—lost to his jeep, wherever that had ended up—his number was still synced to his laptop. And it might not hurt to have proof of his impromptu ‘sabbatical’ as soon as he touched back in LA. “I, uh... I got carjacked the day before a shift at work. And I’m gonna need all the proof I can get if I wanna keep my job.”

And Buck really needed to keep his job.

Feeling the car decelerate ever so slightly, it wasn’t until he made eye contact with Marcus through the rearview mirror that he got a clue as to why.

“You got carjacked?” the other man asked, brow furrowed.

Next came John, asking, “And your work wouldn’t take your word for it?”

“Yo, Buck. Hand me my shirt.”

...that was Ezra. Which Buck obliged.

“Should we take you to a police station?” Marcus chimed in again, expression clouded in apprehension and uncertainty. “No. Seriously. Do I need to pull a U-turn and take you to the nearest police station?”

“Wait,” John began, and it was the closest thing to concern Buck had heard in a long while. Other than from Maddie, that is. “Why wouldn’t your work take your word for it?”

With an audible scoff from the front seat, Ezra gave his two-cents, “Have you ever worked a day in your life? What kind of corporation do you think would take him at his word—”

“Shut the fuck up for a minute!” John snapped, irritation coming off him in waves.

Stunned by the outburst, it had the desired effect. Ezra sat back in his seat and shut the fuck up, ultimately deciding against further provoking the normally calm and collected man further. The man that he’d managed to push to his limit over the course of the ill-fated night.

It sort of reminded him of Eddie.

Swallowing thickly as John stared at him with expectant, dark brown eyes that felt all too familiar, Buck explained, “Me and my boss used to be close. But I did something that fucked it all up, and now I don’t want to give him another reason to not let me back.”

He’d kept it simple. Vague. And he’d hoped it was enough to satisfy their curiosity while he sat back and resigned himself to wherever they were taking him...

Wait, where the hell were they taking him?

He didn’t get the chance to ask, Marcus following up with, “What’d you do?” while the other two stared at him, expressions asking the same.

And he wasn’t sure why—perhps that crushing loneliness that’d been following him for weeks on end had finally caught up to him—but Buck told them. Buck told them everything . From the ladder truck to the lawsuit and every sordid detail in between. Everything.

The car fell silent, each of them coming to their own conclusions. Then:

“Have you tried telling someone how you feel?” John asked in the kind of genuine earnestness that made Buck want to cry.

But he didn’t cry. Instead: “Sort of. I ambushed him and the rest of my team in a grocery store, and then my best friend yelled at me about it.”

“What’d he say?” Ezra craned his neck back to ask, something in his eyes that Buck didn’t really like. Because it didn’t feel like it was coming from the same place of concern that John’s questions had. But rather, it came from a place of morbid curiosity. The kind only concerned with satisfying his own need for entertainment.

Again, Buck told them.

About the words exchanged. About how he’d had breakups with long-term girlfriends that hadn’t been nearly as intense. About how he wasn’t all that sure where that left Eddie and him, and was even less sure how they were supposed to get back to where they’d been before.

“Oh,” John remarked after another bout of silence, shifting uncomfortably against the cushion of his seat. “Have you considered journaling about how you feel?”

Which... wasn’t actually a bad idea. Maybe he’d consider it more when he got back to LA.

Ezra, however, appeared to be of a different mind.

“Nah, fuck that,” he scoffed. Like a man who thought he’d had all the answers and had never once paused to consider that he might have sorely been overestimating himself. “If the next time you talk to that dude, you don’t open your mouth and exhale a cloud of locust, you’re doing it wrong.”

From the driver’s side, Marcus groaned, “Don’t listen to that advice. It’s not good advice.”

“You’re right. It’s amazing advice!”

“Not if you want to have any friends afterwards.”

Grimacing, there was a rumble in Buck’s stomach. The sort that only got worse the longer he wondered whether or not that ship had long since sailed.

“But, like, fuck that guy. Just a little bit,” Ezra said. Relentless. “You know?”

No. Buck didn’t ‘know,’ actually. And he was starting to wish he’d known then that getting in this car would be a mistake.

“You don’t even know why he said it. You’d probably take his side if you did,” he grumbled. Hell—Buck was the one that got yelled at and even he was still on Eddie’s side.

“Alright, well, I’m not gonna deny the possibility. But he’s not the one that got me this sick-ass t-shirt, now is he?”

“That just means you’re biased.”

“Yeah, dude...” Marcus trailed, suddenly uncomfortable. Perhaps he noticed the shift in Buck’s demeanor whereas Ezra never quite managed. “You don’t have the emotional maturity for this. Maybe sit this one out.”

“Excuse me?” Ezra said. He looked genuinely offended. “I’ll have you know my ‘emotional maturity’ is fine.”

“You threw a chair at someone because they wouldn’t give you a shirt,” John muttered, not even sounding like he’d meant to be heard, “and then rubbed it in his face that you broke up with his daughter the year before.”

And at that, Buck felt something deep within himself untether, because... “You what?”

“Veronica,” Ezra reminisced with a wistful sigh that made Buck want to come up from behind and strangle him. “The one that got away.”

“She’s not the one that got away,” Marcus scoffed. “She’s the girl you broke up with so you could go to Fort Lauderdale single for spring break.”

Oh God.

“Well, it’s better than the alternative! I was just gonna cheat on her.”

Oh God!

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Buck asked, gasping in pain from another twinge in his abdomen. This one far more foreboding than the last. “Holy shit—why didn’t you tell me that?”

“You were on a need to know basis,” Ezra shrugged. “And that was not something you needed to know.”

Yes. It was, actually. Because if Buck had known, he wouldn’t have unwittingly helped some massive piece of shit he’d just met, let alone be trapped inside a car with him.

“Let me out,” he groaned, struggling with his seatbelt.

“No way! We’re almost back to the motel,” Ezra explained like he should care. Like that should matter.

It didn’t.

“I don’t care, let me out,” Buck repeated, a little firmer than before.

Firm enough to make Marcus hesitate, at least. “You sure? Ezra’s right, we’re almost there.”

Buck nodded. He was sure. Perhaps more sure than he’d ever been about anything in a long time.

Ezra apparently didn’t get that same memo. Glaring at Marcus as he began to ease down on the brakes, he turned in his seat to face the man sitting behind him.  “Buck, as your friend, let me give you some advice—”

“We’re not friends.”

Barking a surprised laugh, Ezra remained unfazed. Undeterred. “Based on what you’ve shared, I might as well be your best friend.”

“Eddie’s my best friend.”

And as the entire car collectively winced, the gurgle in Buck’s stomach returned tenfold. A gurgle that only got worse as Ezra held his stare, simpering, “Is he though?”

Is he though?

The words rang through his skull alongside every other doubt that had plagued him the moment he’d dialed that payphone and got sent to voicemail. Because there had once been a time where he could’ve shot that idea down with the vicious impunity it had deserved...

But that time had passed, and it had no plans on coming back.

Keeling over, Buck puked down the front of his shirt to the sound of screams of shock and horror, everyone lurching forward as Marcus slammed on the brakes.

Chapter Text

21:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | ‘Phoenix,’ AZ

Ezra was right. They had nearly reached their stop by the time Buck had finally spewed.

Cursing, Marcus slammed on his brakes in front of a flickering, neon sign heralding the presence of a rundown motel that looked older than all four men combined. Four men who were currently retching from the stench of half-digested pork and stomach acid, all scrambling to get out of the car.

Hands braced against the side of the car as he coughed up the remnants still left of his stomach, Buck closed his eyes and chose to focus on nothing but the generic country song filtering through the car radio.

“Ezra, you jackass, put the fucking phone down and stop filming!”

“He told me to!”

“No he didn’t—put it away before I come over there and slap the dogshit out of you!”

Buck felt a comforting pat on his back, albeit a hesitant one. Craning his neck back as he wiped the vomit off his chin, he was met with John who seemed torn between stepping closer to help or keeping a respectful distance.

“Uh,” the young man trailed, gesturing to Buck’s front, “you kinda got something on your...”

Looking down, Buck couldn’t even manage a grimace at his puke stained shirt. Too sick to feel disgusted by himself, he bobbed his head in silent acknowledgement, not really sure what he was supposed to do about that right this moment.

He stepped away from the car, hoping to create enough distance between him and it to escape the pungent smell of its interior. Daring a glance around to inspect the damage he’d wrought on his traveling companions... somehow, out of all of them, Marcus had gotten the worst of it.

With a longsuffering sigh, the man in question dropped one of the car’s floor mats against the pavement with a wet splat before marching toward Ezra.

Snickering, Ezra fished a small key ring out of his front pocket.  “And you said I was an idiot for making us stop here and getting a room before—”

“Don’t talk to me until I’ve taken a shower,” Marcus sneered, roughly snatching it from the other’s hand. Shoes squelching with each step, he crossed the motel parking lot, unlocked the door to their room, and slammed it shut behind him. A definitive end to a sordid saga.

Sort of.

“If I give you my number...” Buck began, addressing Ezra. Because he’d meant what he said before: he needed that timestamp. “Can you send me that video?”

The other man gave a thoughtful hum as he tapped his index finger against his bottom lip, pretending that the request required some serious deliberation. “I don’t know,” he eventually drawled, “I usually only do those sorts of things for friends.”

And Buck wasn’t even surprised at this point. With a rueful shake of his head and a humorless huff, he muttered to himself, “Alright.”

John, however, was not nearly as ready to throw in the metaphorical towel on his behalf. “Don’t be dick, man,” he sneered from the driver’s side of the car, switching off the engine. “Send him the video or I’ll call your dad and tell him what actually happened to your tuition money the second semester of sophomore year.”

Immediately, Ezra paled, stammering out some half-assed defense of himself. But as John continued to stare him down from the car, never wavering, he was eventually forced to relent.

“Christ, dude, I was just joking,” he grumbled, grabbing his phone and gesturing Buck over, shooting his friend a withering glare.

“The bus money too,” John called right after Buck had punched his number in and the text had been sent.

Muttering something rude beneath his breath, Ezra thumbed through his wallet in search of his promised payment, giving Buck the sneaking suspicion that the plan had always been to try and rip him off.

“Here,” he said, shoving a crumpled dollar bill into his hands. “Don’t ever say I didn’t do anything for you.”

Buck unfurled the paper just as Ezra began to slink his way to the shared motel room. Staring at the single dollar bill, he could manage little more than a choked off sound of surprise as he blinked uselessly down at it.

Five dollars. Ezra had only given him five dollars.

Anger replaced shock, and soon enough, Buck was yelling after the little shit to say, “Hey, this isn’t enough to—”

“Good luck!” Ezra called back, shooting him a smug look as he waved over his shoulder.

Fist tightening around the paper, Buck had to stop himself from lurching forward in furious pursuit. Taking several deep breaths, he felt what he needed to before letting it go, because I’m not a violent person, I’m not a violent person, I’m not a violent person...

“Hey,” John murmured, materializing at his side, “let me see.”

Numbly, Buck handed him the money.

John took it, turning it over in his hands a few times to confirm the depths of his friend’s depravity. “What the fuck?”

Yeah. That’d been along the lines of what Buck had been thinking. “Maybe the bus station clerk will give me a discount if I cry,” he snorted, for his sense of humor was all he had left.

With a sound of disgust, John gave him back his meager earnings before stomping after Ezra, only pumping the breaks to his belated war path once he’d reached the door to the room.

He watched as John jiggled the handle. Then knocked on the door. Then jiggled the handle again. And when none of that seemed to get him anywhere, he hung his head in shame before meekly making his way back to the other just to announce, “Ezra, uh... locked us out.”

Buck let out an involuntary chuckle. Because yeah. Sounds about right.

“Marcus would probably let us in,” John quietly offered, only to doubt himself mere seconds later. “But... he takes long showers even when he hasn’t been thrown up on. And you smell pretty gnarly right now, man. I don’t know if I’d want to sit in all that if I were you.”

And Buck figured that he should’ve been used to it by now, for it felt all too familiar to everything else he’d been dealing with these last few months: a brief acknowledgement of his mountain of problems without offering any real solutions. Pity without purpose.

Casting a glance at the motel office that was most definitely closed this hour of night, he began to rethink his stance on phone calls as he weighed the pros and cons of camping outside until the attendant clocked in the next morning.

Cons: he’d be sitting in vomit for an inordinate amount of time. Pros: at least it was his own vomit?

“I should probably get going then,” he eventually sighed, no longer angry. Just tired. “Thanks for your help.”

Confused, John replied, “I didn’t really help though.”

“Yeah, well,” Buck shrugged, figuring that being marginally less of an asshole than his shithead friend was worthy of praise regardless. “Thanks anyways.”

With a small wave, he turned on his heel and walked toward the office. None of the lights were on, confirming what he already suspected. It was going to be a long night.

“There’s a gas station down the road, I was gonna go pick up some cleaning supplies,” John called after him, giving Buck pause. As he turned around to face him, the other took it as permission to continue, “Let me give you a ride? Just so you can get cleaned up in their bathroom. I can help you figure out what to do after.”

Again, Buck weighed the pros and cons.

Cons: he hasn’t had a whole lot of luck with cars, strangers, or gas stations as of late. Pros: he could absolutely take John in a fight. You know. If it came to that.

Voicing none of this, Buck instead asked, “You sure?”

John gave a small but earnest nod, gesturing toward what he was now dubbing ‘The Puke-mobile.’

Grimacing, once again, Buck asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” John said, never wavering. “I’m sure.”

And Buck longed for the days in which he could be so certain. But with little option left, he swallowed his doubts and followed John to the car.

21:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | Interstate 10

In retrospect, Eddie wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. The entire last year of his life had been curveball after curveball with him striking out more times than he cared to admit. So he’s not all too sure why he’d thought that this would be any different. But alas, here he was. A perpetual optimist, apparently.

As the cruiser rolled to a stop, Eddie was already unbuckling his seat belt and hopping out of the still moving vehicle, both to Bobby and Athena’s dismay. Which they voiced. Loudly.

“Eddie, hold on a minute—”

“Have you lost your—”

But the moment his boots hit the pavement, everything else faded to the background. Everything but his heart hammering in his ribcage, the empty payphone across the street, and the front door of the gas station smashed in with a chunk of concrete.

“Buck,” he yelled, throwing open the broken glass door only to be greeted by eerie silence and oppressive dusk. “Buck, are you in here?”

There was no reply, and Eddie’s mind immediately turned to the worst. Buck didn’t have his blood thinners. Buck threw another clot. Buck was currently suffocating on a fountain of his own blood and couldn’t call out for help—

“Eddie, breathe.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, the tightness in his chest loosened a fraction as Eddie turned and faced the source.

Bobby stared back at him. Shining the flashlight on his phone with one hand, he used the other to reach out, placing it firmly on Eddie’s shoulder. “You alright?”

Forcing another breath, managing to get a little more air this time, Eddie shook his head. Craning his neck in a desperate attempt to locate something—someone—that might not even be there anymore, he stammered, “I don’t... I don’t think he’s...”

Bobby gave the room a quick pass of his flashlight, calling out, “Buck? You there?” when Eddie could not.

But again. There was no response.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to charge into an abandoned gas station by yourself at night?” Athena said from the open doorway, broken glass door winging shut behind her.

“No,” Bobby said with another pass of the light, this one slower than the last. “I don’t think it’s ever come up.”

With an audible scoff, Athena ventured further into the building with a flashlight of her own, honing in on the collection of junk strewn across a nearby counter. Something orange glinted in the center amongst the cheap plastic lighters and empty water bottles.

Not wasting a moment, Eddie stepped closer to investigate. Rummaging through, he pulled out a prescription bottle of blood thinners. Empty. ‘BUCKLEY, EVAN’ written in the appropriate box with its ‘Date Filled’ made to be about a month back.

If nothing else, it confirmed at least part of what they already knew: Buck had been here at some point, even if they had no idea where he’d gone.

Bobby took the pill bottle, sighing in relief as he handed it off to Athena. “He hasn’t been off the blood thinners for as long as we thought.”

Eyes flickering from the bottle to the trash on the counter, Athena considered this carefully. “He hasn’t been off them at all,” she said, picking up a small, white paper bag from the pile before presenting it to both men. “Look.”

Eddie leaned in close enough to make out the logo of a local pharmacy stamped across the front. Just beneath it was another label, and unlike Buck’s empty prescription, this one was dated sometime yesterday.

“He still has his blood thinners,” he breathed, willing to take the victory where he could. It wasn’t a small one either, despite the remaining mystery dampening any celebration it should’ve inspired. “But he’s not here anymore, is he.”

“We should look around a bit more before heading out but...” Athena frowned, giving the building’s interior another assessing look. “It would appear so.”

Eddie appreciated the honesty. It was better than false hope. Kinder too. Though, it did very little to ease the festering pit in his stomach, or the deafening chorus of ‘ my fault—my fault—my fault’ ringing in his skull like a dissonant chime.

“What,” Bobby began, briefly breaking him from those thoughts, “are those?”

Turning around to investigate, Eddie watched as Athena poured over a messy stack of papers, the lines of her forehead deepening as she shuffled the stack. Fixated on one paper in particular, her eyes widened in realization before her face went slack in begrudging acceptance. Picking up the stack and flipping it over, she exhaled, “Maps.”

And Eddie had the sneaking suspicion he might’ve been missing something here. “...Of?”

“Train routes.”

Yep. He was definitely missing something. And it wasn’t until Bobby illuminated the map in question with his phone, Eddie making out a location starred in Sharpie with the words ‘You are here’ scrawled next to it, that he caught the faintest inkling of significance.

Stomach dropping, Eddie paled. “He wouldn’t.”

Bobby and Athena fixed him with a Look. One that told him to think long and hard about what he just asserted, and to try again.

A train whistle echoed in the distance, getting louder and louder as it got closer and closer.

“He would,” Eddie groaned, inwardly cursing Buck and whatever state of exhaustion he must’ve been in to think that train hopping was a viable solution to his problems.

“These are old,” Bobby said, taking the map from his wife and studying it carefully, “but if they’re accurate and he got lucky, he might already be back in LA.”

With the year they’d all been having, Eddie wasn’t sure how much stock he was willing to put into things like ‘luck.’

Athena must’ve felt the same. “And if he’s unlucky?”

“New Mexico,” Bobby replied, expression grim. “Maybe Arizona if he decided to get off before then.”

And just like that, the illusion that Eddie had been clinging to for the last however many hours shattered around him. The fantasy that he’d be able to atone for every mistake he’d ever made if he could just fix the one he’d made last night. But it’d been nothing more than that. A fantasy. The kind born from the feverish desperation that came with caring about someone far more than you had the capacity to be angry with them, and no longer knowing for sure whether they knew that too.

But as the sound of fingers tapping against a phone screen quietly filled the oppressive silence, Eddie was grateful for something to focus on other than his impending spiral. “What’re you doing?”

Athena didn’t spare him so much as a glance. “Looking for a place nearby with a drive-thru,” she said, still tapping away. “I need a coffee and a chance to think.”

22:00 | October 31 st , 2019 | ‘Phoenix,’ AZ

When Buck had first walked into the gas station covered in his own vomit, he’d been under the impression it would garner him at least some amount of sympathy. Enough to use their bathroom, perhaps.

“Uh... hi,” he said, approaching the gas station attendant at the front counter. When the young man barely looked up from whatever he was doing on his phone, Buck cleared his throat and asked, “Can I use your bathroom?”

Wordlessly, the attendant gestured vaguely to a laminated sheet of printer paper hung nearby, somehow managing to pay Buck even less attention than before.

‘BATHROOM FOR PAYING CUSTOMERS ONLY’

Staring uselessly at the sign that he sort of felt was only there to spite him personally, the money he’d gotten from Ezra started burning a hole in his front pocket. Fishing it out, he gave a resigned huff, because it’s not like it’d be enough for a bus anyways.

Slapping it down on the counter and handing the man a pack of breath mints from a nearby display, his $3.99 total blinked back at him on the register’s screen. And that was before tax.

“That’s...” Not the price of breath mints, “Fine. Thanks. Can I use the bathroom now?”

The man slid over the key ring along with his change—three quarters and four pennies.

Buck shoved it all into his pocket, managing a polite nod despite his mounting frustration. Shuffling through the mostly empty gas station until he’d reached the back, he was grateful for the privacy of a family bathroom.

He locked the door behind him before approaching the ceramic sink in the corner, stained with something that Buck didn’t care to investigate for his own peace of mind. And the first thing he did was turn on the water, cupping his hands underneath the faucet before splashing it in his face and washing out his mouth. Then, stripping out of his shirt, he ran it under the stream, quietly gagging as he watched the chunks of pork swirl down the drain.

Hanging his shirt up to dry on the nearby hand drier, he opted to spot-clean his jeans, grabbing a large wad of toilet paper from its dispenser before making his way back to the sink. And whether it was due to the events of the last two days finally catching up to him, or the simple fact that he stepped wrong…  he supposed it didn’t really matter. The result was the same.

Leg cramping as pain shot through his shin, Buck grunted and stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the sink just in time to keep himself from face planting into the bathroom tile.

Water droplets running down his face and onto his naked chest, he gritted his teeth and pushed himself back to standing, favoring his unmarred leg. Hunched over the running sink as he stared into the mirror, suddenly...

Suddenly, he felt like he was five years old again having puked down the front of his pajamas, nervously pacing the bathroom as he worked up the courage to go wake up his parents. Only this time, he didn’t have Maddie just down the hall from him. Who’d heard the sound of his retching and had made her way to the bathroom, letting out a quiet ‘Oh, Evan...’ as he descended into blubbering sobs. Who’d peeled him out of his soiled clothes without so much as a grimace, corralling him into the shower to help him clean himself off. Who’d dried him with the fuzziest towel she could find, changed his sheets, and tucked him back into bed with a hug goodnight and a promise to check up on him in the morning.

Because Maddie was safely back in LA with Chim, and Bobby, and everyone else he’d been disappointing as of late. With balloons that were already deflating, a banner they’d probably need to hang up again, and a ‘welcome back’ cake that’d be sitting in the station fridge for longer than anyone had been expecting it to.

Toilet paper disintegrating after being held beneath the faucet for a bit too long, Buck clenched it in his fist before tossing it in the overflowing trashcan in the corner. Kicking off his shoes and unzipping his pants, he’d have to ‘spot-clean’ a little differently than originally planned.

But as he shucked off his jeans, making direct eye contact with something he’d been diligently avoiding ever since getting his cast off, he froze.

Swallowing thickly, he could do little else than stare at the rough, jagged scar spanning the entire length of his shin; from the top of his knee to the bottom of his ankle. Angry and red. Because no matter how many surgeries it’d undergone—no matter how many times it’d been torn apart and stitched back together again—no matter how many futile attempts were made to recapture the likeness of what had been lost far longer than anyone seemed willing to admit… it would never be the same. Not ever again.

Buck wrung the wet fabric of his jeans tighter and tighter between his palms, knuckles whitening from the intensity of his grip. Because who the fuck did he think he was? Walking into that station day one and imprinting on Bobby like some orphaned, baby duck. Suing him for his job and expecting everything to go back to the way it was. Saying he wanted to be treated like everyone else only to go ‘No, wait, not like that’ when he got exactly what he’d asked for.

“There were never gonna be any balloons,” he muttered, dolefully glaring at his reflection before limping out of the bathroom. Words as meaningless and hollow as he felt.

Leaving the keys with the attendant on his way out of the gas station, he shuddered in relief as he was enveloped by the warm night air. A staggering step up from the building’s AC system cranked one notch too high while wearing wet clothes.

Popping a couple overpriced breath mints into his mouth, he walked over to the only car occupying a pump, catching the attention of the vehicle’s owner.

“You look better!” John remarked, pleasantly surprised.

And yeah. Buck didn’t doubt that. In fact, he was willing to bet he could’ve walked out of that gas station in his underwear and it still would’ve been an upgrade.

“Thanks,” he breathed, planting his ass firmly on a nearby curb, shoulders sagging from the relief of getting to take some weight off his leg. “Maybe they’ll actually let me on the bus like this. You know. Assuming I could actually afford it.”

John’s face did something complicated. Something that was apologetic for a crime he wasn’t even guilty of.

“I’d give you the money if I had it, but I just used all my cash on gas and Lysol wipes. And I hit the limit on my credit card a couple days back buying groceries,” the younger man admitted, taking a seat next to Buck on the curb. “I don’t think it would’ve been enough for a bus ticket anyways.”

“In that case... here.” Buck fished the change from his pocket with one hand and grabbed John’s with the other. Dropping the coins into the other’s palm, he chuckled, “I think you need it more than me.”

John barely had barely just closed his fist around the change before breaking out into a stunned bout of laughter. “Aw, fuck you, dude,” he said, trying to pass back the money but to no avail. Buck wasn’t taking it back. “Can’t I just take you to a police station so you can tell them what happened? You were literally carjacked.”

Quickly sobering, Buck grimaced. “Probably better if you don’t. I might’ve done something mildly illegal today.”

“...besides stealing a shirt?”

“Besides stealing a shirt,” Buck confirmed. And when John leaned away from him ever so slightly, he decided to elaborate, “I hitched a ride on a train, and it’s gonna be pretty hard to explain how I got this far from California in a day without a car.”

“Oh,” John acknowledged, typing something into his phone. “That’s not that bad.”

“Then why are you calling the police?”

“I’m not calling the police,” John said. “I’m looking it up. Reddit says up to 90 days in jail and a fine. But it depends on how nice the cops are.”

With the year he’d been having, that wasn’t a gamble Buck felt comfortable making. Stretching his legs until he heard the joints pop, he sighed, “Think it might be better to wait until I get back to LA. Don’t really feel like getting another lawyer anytime soon.”

“Yeah... you don’t really have a lot of luck with those, do you.”

“I mean,” Buck winced, “he won my case.”

Technically, it was a settlement. But still. It seemed a touch ridiculous to blame a man for doing the job Buck had hired him to do, even if it sort of felt like he’d done it a little too well and little too willingly.

If John had something to add, he dutifully kept it to himself. Regarding Buck’s legal representation, that is. Concerning everything else... “My phone still has some charge. If you had someone you needed to call—”

Buck huffed, shaking his head. “I’ve only got one number memorized,” he said, recalling how well that had panned out last time. “He probably won’t even pick up.”

“Ah,” John said, nervously picking at the sides of his phone case as he thought back to what little details he knew. And perhaps Buck hadn’t let as much slip as he’d initially thought, because soon enough, the younger man was holding out his phone again. “Might still be smart to try though?”

Well, shit. There was no arguing with that kind of foolproof logic, huh?

But despite his silent gripes, Buck’s resolve began to fracture. And whether that had more to do with the blossom of hope foolishly flourishing in his chest or the desire to satiate his own morbid curiosity... he couldn’t say for certain.

“What if he doesn’t pick up?” he muttered, not quite ready to take that leap. The fall might actually kill him this time.

“What if he does?” John reasoned back.

“Honestly? That might be worse.”

But John didn’t falter. Undeterred, he simply held out his phone again, dialer already open and ready for the other to punch in Eddie’s number.

Brain on autopilot, Buck took the phone from him, taking a moment to consider his options carefully. Because he could either accept this new reality where he’d effectively excommunicated himself from his best friend’s life, or he could swallow his pride and call.

In the end, it wasn’t that surprising of a decision.

Dialing Eddie’s number and hitting the call button, the phone rang. And rang. And rang. And all of a sudden, Buck felt what he had back in that payphone. Something all too familiar all too soon. “I told you, he’s not gonna—”

“Hello?”

Buck froze, hand clutching the phone like a vice because... holy shit. Holy shiiiiiit.

John was not nearly as paralyzed in shock and fear. Gesturing frantically, he mouthed for Buck to ‘Say something!’

But Buck was at a bit of a loss here. Because Eddie had picked up when he’d called, and he’d only done it one day too-fucking-late. And in front of an audience he’d spent the better part of five minutes convincing there was no way he’d answer? Call him dramatic, but it was starting to feel like Eddie was going out of his way to spite him.

“You asshole...” Buck breathed, barely above a whisper and not even fully registering the fact he’d said. It wasn’t until he heard the telltale gasp of shock crackle through the speaker that he’d begun to suspect he might’ve let that particular ‘inside thought’ slip.

“Buck?” Eddie asked, tone clouded in awe. But before Buck had the chance to convince himself that’d been a good sign, the frustrated huff from the other end of the line transported him somewhere miles away. Somewhere with harsh overhead lighting and inconveniently located cat laxatives. “Buck, where the hell are—”

Buck clicked the power button once, cutting Eddie off mid-sentence. Chest tight and shoulders stiff, he handed John his phone back without so much as a grunt to acknowledge what had just happened. Because nope. Nu-uh. Not doing it. Also: go to hell.

Eyes wide as he took back his phone, John cautiously ventured, “Did you mean to hang up?”

“Yep.”

“Did you mean to call him an asshole?”

“Maybe.”

With a slow, assessing nod, John stared at his phone screen. Debating something. But before he could open his mouth to fill the other in, the device began to vibrate.

“He’s calling back,” John gawked, briefly fumbling with the phone before presenting it to Buck once again.

With a noncommittal hum, he made no move to take it. Staring at his feet, he couldn’t even bring himself to even look at it.

Slowly but surely, John retracted his hand, letting the call ring and ring with no hope of ever being answered.

And Buck didn’t bother stamping down the surge of bitter satisfaction that came with knowing the other finally got the chance to know exactly how that felt, even if he knew he’d hate himself for it later.

Pressing his thumb against the side button, John held it down until his phone powered off. “Maybe this is a conversation you two need to have in person. Face-to-face. Just so nothing gets miscommunicated,” he meekly offered, giving off the distinct vibes of someone who just stepped in the middle of something they were in no way equipped to handle. “I’m getting the feeling that might be a thing with you two.”

Yeah. That’s fair.

For a solid minute, neither of the two said a word, letting the awkward, stilted silence speak for itself. But before Buck could come to the conclusion he had no better options, saying, ‘Wait. Hold on. Sorry. Give me the phone back,’ John beat him to the punch:

“I have an uncle.”

Glancing over, Buck waited patiently for John to elaborate. But when he never did… “Congratulations?”

 “He has a bar,” the other explained upon picking up on Buck’s confusion. “I think he might be able to help you out.”

Which, sure, sounded ominous. But Buck had already committed two crimes in the last twenty-four hours. How bad could it possibly be? In fact, he really only had one pressing concern...

“What kind of bar?”

Blinking back at him, astonished, John asked, “Does it matter?”

“Sort of,” Buck answered honestly. “I’m not really in the mood for Sticky Dickie’s sister location.”

“It’s not like Sticky Dickie’s,” John laughed, carefree and louder than he’d meant to. Amusement tapering off into a cough, he rose from the curb, gesturing for Buck to stay put. Opening the passenger side of the now puke-free car, he fished something out of the glove box, “Speaking of which... here. Put this on.”

Buck grunted as a cotton shirt smacked him in the face. Rubbing his eyes and shooting John a weak glare, he unfurled the fabric only to be greeted by a familiar cartoon pig.

“You won it,” John shrugged in response to Buck’s questioning stare. “It’s yours.”

“Ezra might disagree.”

“Yeah. He’ll probably be really pissed when he finds out,” John said, face splitting into a wide grin. Like the idea alone was enough to inspire a level of jubilation and glee previously undiscovered. “Also, you didn’t get all the vomit out of your shirt. It smells like pork.”

Ok. He was sold.

Shrugging off his shirt and exchanging a bout of conspiratorial snickers with John, Buck pulled on the cotton tee. And he was so grateful to be free of the wet article of clothing, he didn’t even care that it was one size too small.

“And you’re sure he’ll help?” Buck asked, settling into the passenger side of the vehicle. Expression hopeful.

“I called him to check while you were in the bathroom,” John admitted as he started up the car, waiting for the other to buckle in before taking it out of park. “He didn’t pick up, but he never does when he’s working—and he’s always working. But this isn’t the first bus ticket I’ve asked him to buy on short notice. Don’t worry about it.”

And Buck resolved to at least try. But that was a little hard to accomplish when nothing thus far had exactly panned out for him the way he’d hoped. Even still: he hoped. Staring at John’s powered-off phone in the cup holder as they sped toward the highway skyline, knowing it couldn’t ring but unable to tear his eyes away regardless...

Secretly, Buck hoped.

Chapter Text

22:00 | October 31st, 2019 | Interstate 10

The events of the day creeped up on Eddie like some villain in the night. Hiding in the cover of shadow. Waiting for the first sign of weakness to finally go in for the kill. And given how long they’d been driving with absolutely nothing to show for it—nothing but railroad tracks and a dead end...

He was only surprised it’d taken so long.

Letting Bobby usher his shambling form out of the gas station and toward the police cruiser, Eddie plopped himself down in the passenger side like a sack of dead weight. Staring blankly ahead, an empty prescription bottle clutched tightly in his white-knuckled grip, he waited for his companions to rejoin him in the vessel of their hapless journey. Bobby in the back, stretching out his legs until the joints popped. Athena in the front, punching in the coordinates to wherever they were heading to next.

Gravel crunched beneath rubber as Athena pulled out of the abandoned station. With her husband exiled to the backseat and her other passenger unwilling to make polite conversation, the only thing left to keep the woman company was the automated voice of her GPS app telling her to get off at the next exit.

Sleep would’ve been a small mercy. So of course, the higher power currently sneering down at him had decided to deprive Eddie of that as well. The ads on the radio that were always six times louder than the songs preceding it. The flashes of dim orange flooding the car’s interior with each pass of a light pole. The occasional pothole that had even Bobby cursing. All of it—all of it—was put there as a malicious act against Eddie personally, and he was no longer in the correct headspace to deny himself such petty superstitions.

Settling back against his seat, his latest attempt at sleep was thwarted as he felt the car jerk into park, wincing as someone flicked on the interior light. Looking around, Eddie found himself in the parking lot of some generic fast-food chain, this one only slightly more populated than the gas station’s. Even still, he remained vaguely aware of someone parked in the drive-thru, leaning out their car window to argue with the poor minimum wage worker trying to hand them their food.

The gentle rap of knuckles against the dividing panel between the front and back let him know he wasn’t the only one.

“It’ll be quicker if I go inside and order for us,” Bobby said as soon as Athena slid it out of the way to hear him out.

The woman considered this with the same chilly demeanor she’d reserved for him and him alone these last few hours. Eventually, though, she relented, leaning over to dig her card out of her wallet.

But Bobby waved her off, brandishing his own before turning to Eddie, asking, “You want anything?”

Eddie shook his head, muttering a quick, “I’m fine.” Because there was something about indulging his needs now when he had no way of knowing that Buck was capable of doing the same that just didn’t sit right with him

Expression wary, for a moment, it seemed like Bobby might linger. But any reservations the man might’ve had were gone as soon as he glanced at his wife. And whatever look he was currently receiving, it was enough to have him swallowing his doubts, making a quick departure.

It wasn’t until the man was already halfway across the parking lot that Eddie realized Bobby never asked his wife for her order.

Athena too. But instead of rolling down her window to inform her husband of that particular mistake... her face softened. And Eddie wondered if it had more to do with what she wasn’t willing to let show to his face, or the fact that the man had likely already known what she wanted and hadn’t needed to ask.

Eddie should probably ask about what was going on with them. No. Scratch that. He was going to ask. But unfortunately, Athena beat him to the punch, and she had some questions of her own.

“Do you need to get back home to Christopher?” she said, scrolling through the numerous pictures of train maps on her phone’s camera roll, occasionally pausing to zoom in on an area of interest.

“No,” Eddie answered honestly. “I ran it by Carla. She’s fine watching him for the night.”

Athena fixed him with a look that had him feeling pinned beneath the weight of it. “The morning too?”

The question wasn’t accusatory, but it still managed to raise his hackles, nonetheless. “I’ll call her again to double check.”

The woman gave a mild hum of acknowledgement, flicking her phone off with a quick click of the side button. Shifting in her seat to face him fully, she continued, “We don’t know what train Buck caught or where it was heading. There’s no shame in calling it for the night, especially with a child at home. You know that, right?”

It felt like a way out. An excuse. And it irritated him like nearly nothing else. Because while Eddie hadn’t known the plan, he’d trusted Athena enough to know that she’d figure it out. Now, however, he was wondering whether or not that trust had been misplaced.

“If you’re trying to figure out a way to tell me you’re already giving up, then maybe you should’ve let me drive myself—”

“What were you doing last night when Buck called?”

And there was no ire in the way she said it. No malice. No weak attempt at some sort of gotcha moment. Just boundless patience and an endless well of understanding, like someone who was trying to confirm what she already knew but was giving him an opportunity to come clean anyways.

Too bad he wasn’t willing to take it in the slightest.

“Out drinking with friends,” he lied while not even knowing why he still bothered.

“Which friends?” came her immediate follow up, barely giving him the chance to breathe.

Eddie paused. Hesitating. Then, “You wouldn’t know them.”

“Try me.”

“Just... some friends,” he trailed, resisting the urge to wipe the sweat beading at his brow. Greeted with nothing but her unimpressed stare in response, he felt the need to quickly tack on, “From a different station. The 136. Bosko introduced us.”

That last part technically wasn’t even a lie.

“And you know, I find that interesting,”—which was never something you wanted to hear, and from Athena no less— “because when I asked Hen if you’d mentioned anything about the night before, she said that you told her you’d gone out to see a late night showing of a movie.”

And Eddie didn’t panic, because Eddie doesn’t panic. But as he racked his brain for a worthwhile excuse, coming back with nothing... it was a pretty near thing.

“We did see a movie,” he eventually settled on. Floundering. “After we got drinks. I suggested we see a movie.”

“Oh, really,” the woman remarked, a lilt in her voice that only made his stomach sink further. “Which movie?”

Shit. He had nothing.

Athena must’ve known that too.

“If you’re gonna give people a fake story, make sure you give everyone the same fake story,” she began, expression hardening. Any previous humor in her voice now long gone. “So, let me ask you again: what were you doing last night when Buck called?”

At the end of his rope with little option left, Eddie was forced to tell the truth:

“I was... street fighting?”

“Is that a question?”

“No,” he said, firmer than before, “I was street fighting. I joined a fight club, and I started street fighting. Illegally.”

Eyes narrowed ever so slightly, the woman simply stared. Stunned into silence. As if out of her entire list of theories, the one was ranked at the bottom alongside ‘interpretative dance lessons’ and ‘competitive frisbee golf.’

“A fight club,” she repeated back. Dumbfounded. “Did you not understand the point of that book?”

“...there’s a book?”

“By Chuck Palahniuk.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Mhm. A book  about how grown men achieve intimacy through violence. At least in part.”

Huh. Fitting.

“Which is strange,” Athena continued, “because I have never once considered you a violent man.”

And a year prior, Eddie probably would’ve agreed. But a year prior, he wasn't a widower who almost lost his son to a tsunami. A year prior, his best friend hadn’t navigated that same tsunami in a body that tried to kill him only to then go on to file the world’s stupidest lawsuit.

“Because you’re exhausting. We all have our own problems, but you don’t see us whining about it. No, somehow, we just manage to suck it up. Why can’t you?”

Because a year prior, Eddie wasn’t drowning. And it would’ve been far too hypocritical to scream for a lifeline now.

“Eddie Diaz,” Athena said, eyes conveying an earnestness that he didn’t know what to do with. “You are not a violent man.”

He offered a noncommittal shrug and nothing else, failing not to linger on something he’d rather forget.

With a quiet sigh and a stern frown, Athena gave him a once over. Then: “As someone who's taken more than a few late night calls to sketchy bars, you would not believe the kind of shit people get up to. The gaggles of drunk idiots picking fights for no other reason than wanting to hurt someone the way they’ve been hurting.”

Eddie winced but otherwise kept his mouth shut, because... ouch.

“But,” she added before his dejection got the chance to loiter, “sometimes when you strip those people down to their core parts—past the dirt, grime, and sweat—you get to see them for what they truly are. And who they are is really just some scared, cornered person that felt like they deserved to be hit back twice as hard.”

“Still pretty shitty of them though,” he couldn’t keep himself from muttering, “don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But they were hurting, and I’m not sure they’d ever been taught to deal with it another way.”

“Oh.” His throat tightened. Like someone had taken him by the neck and squeezed.

Athena didn’t give him the chance to recover, already asking, “Why were you so angry that Buck filed that lawsuit?”

And considering how long Eddie had spent sulking, and lamenting, and raging about his best friend’s problem solving abilities, you’d think he’d have come up with the words to explain how he felt about it and why. And yet... “Weren’t you?”

“Why would I be angry?” Athena questioned, almost sounding amused.

“He sued your husband,” Eddie huffed. That should’ve been obvious.

Mulling this over with a pensive bob of her head, she shrugged. “I was disappointed. Sad, even. But I was never angry.”

And the way she said it made it sound so simple. Unfortunately, even with the events of the last few hours, Eddie wasn’t quite sold. “How?” he asked.

But Athena remained unfazed. “Like I said: sometimes when people are hurting, they choose to deal with things the only way they know how. But for Buck... it might’ve had more to do with him thinking it was the only option he had left.”

“Suing wasn’t his only option. It was his first,” Eddie scoffed.

Raising a curious brow, the woman regarded him oddly. “And you know that how?”

“Because he could’ve come to me, and he didn’t.”

“Did he know that?”

“I...” Eddie paused, staring at the woman like she’d grown a second head. Because how could she ask him that? “Of course he did. How could he not?”

Athena didn’t bother with a reply. Lips pursing, she looked to be deep in thought, silently debating something with herself. Like there was something she knew that he didn’t. Something she wasn’t telling him.

Eddie furrowed his brow in suspicion. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Maybe this is a conversation better had with Bobby,” she sighed, a tightness settling around her eyes.

...Bobby?

As if on cue, a light tap on Athena’s window startled the man out of the line of questioning that would’ve no doubt followed. And as the woman rolled down her window, the scent of french-fries and burger grease wafting through the inside of the cruiser...

Goddamnit. Eddie should’ve ordered something while he had the chance.

But as Bobby handed Athena a cardboard tray of coffees with one hand and three paper to-go bags with the other, he figured it hadn’t really mattered. Bobby had him covered. Fishing out a burger wrapped in aluminum and a carton of fries from the bag he’d been handed, he thanked the older man with a grateful nod.

With Bobby climbing into the backseat and Athena busy pouring creamer into her coffee, Eddie didn’t waste any time digging in, unwrapping his burger. But he’d barely sunk his teeth in for the first bite when he felt his phone begin to incessantly vibrate in his front pocket.

Setting his food down on the aluminum foil, he looked around in a frantic search for something to wipe his hands on, eventually settling on the front of his jeans. Because he knew full well the consequences of missing a phone call, and he didn’t plan on making that same mistake twice.

Phone in hand, an unknown number flashed across the screen, and Eddie didn’t hesitate to answer:

“Hello?”

He was greeted by stifling silence, Bobby and Athena’s expectant stares boring into him on what felt like all sides. Still, he could’ve sworn he heard someone’s breath hitch on the other end of the line—

“You asshole...”

Eddie knew that voice. He knew that voice like it were his own.

“Buck?” he breathed, wondering if it sounded as desperate as it felt. Because Eddie wasn’t so much asking for confirmation as he was begging for a response. Something—anything—more than a ‘You asshole.’ But he never got it. Pulling his phone back, checking to see that the call was still connected, Eddie wasn’t sure whether or not he was relieved to find himself still on the line.

That’s when he felt it. Anger born from worry. And before he could stamp it down alongside the frustration that had seeped into him, it was already too late.

“Buck, where the hell are—”

There was a faint click, and the call died. Or rather, Buck had killed it, along with whatever hope still lived in the cavity of Eddie’s chest.

“Is that really how you answer the damn phone?” Athena exclaimed.

“Call him back,” Bobby said at the same time, voice muffled by the divider.

But Eddie was already on it, pressing the number at the top of his call history. It rang maybe all of three times before the call was cut short, not even being given the option to leave a voicemail.

Ignored.

No... worse than ignored. Declined. Like the man had deemed whatever fate he’d meet out there, alone, a better alternative to whatever help Eddie had to offer.

Swallowing the bile rising from the back of his throat, Eddie called again. And again. And again.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. (xxx)xxx-xxxx is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up—”

Eddie hung up and opened his text messages, rapidly typing out his desperate, last-ditch effort to be heard.

Eddie | 10:39 pm: I don’t know whose phone this is but please tell Buck to call me back.

Eddie | 10:39 pm: And that I’m sorry.

Eddie | 10:39 pm: No. Don’t tell him that last part. He’ll hate that.

Eddie | 10:40 pm: I’ll tell him myself.

Eddie | 10:40 pm: Just the first part then. Please.

“Don’t overdo it now,” Athena muttered with a rueful shake of her head.

But before Eddie got the chance to whirl on her, defensively demanding just what the hell he was supposed to do... someone’s phone pinged.

Every head in the car snapped toward the phone resting on the dashboard as its screen flashed, signaling the arrival of a text message.

“It’s from Maddie,” Athena announced, retrieving her phone to take a closer look.  

And Eddie couldn’t help but be a little disappointed at that. But that disappointment was short-lived, for soon enough, the woman was breathing a fresh sigh of relief.

“Maddie got sent a video of Buck. Some unknown number talking about they ‘hope this helps your issue with work,’” Athena announced, the corners of her mouth upturned into beginnings of a smile. The first he’d seen all night. “She sent over the metadata.”

Eddie blinked, trying to process the new information before eventually having to ask, “Metadata?”

“Why does Maddie have Captain Mehta’s data?” Bobby also asked. Voice still muffled by the divider.

Athena paused. Tilting her head to face the ceiling, she took a couple deep breaths and out as she silently counted to ten. Without further ado, she flashed both men her phone screen, showing them a paused video of someone hunched over and puking down the side of what looked to be a Toyota Corolla.

Buck. It was Buck.

“The video has its location data,” Athena said before Eddie could linger too long on the fact Buck was apparently sick enough to be throwing up. “And it’s recent.”

Later, Eddie was sure he’d be freaking out about the fact that his phone was capable of secretly tracking him. But that was a problem for future-him. Because now, sitting in that car as Athena punched in the new coordinates into her GPS, it didn’t feel so foolish to hope.

24:00 | November 1st, 2019 | ???

Slack jawed, Buck stared up at the sign from the passenger side of the car, face illuminated by flickering neon. Purple. Then blue. Then pink. Then purple again...

‘THE RAPTURE’

“Uh... John?”

“Yeah?”

“This is a strip club.”

“Yeah.”

“A male strip club.”

“Yeah...”

Well. Buck supposed that’s what he got for not asking enough questions. Pinching his brow as he forced himself to calm down, he deemed those efforts a success when the next words out of his mouth were nothing but measured and steady: “Mind walking me in?”

With a stiff, stilted nod, John unbuckled his seatbelt and joined Buck outside the car.

They walked up to the light blue building together, each step punctuated by the rhythmic thump of an electronic beat that he could feel in his kidneys. Approaching the double doors stitched with red velvet fabric, he waited for John to proceed first, only stepping through the threshold once the other held it open for him.

The first thing he noticed once inside was that everything was too damn loud. The music, the décor, the patrons—everything. 

The second thing he noticed was all the half-naked men, to the point that—even for a male strip club—it seemed a bit excessive. Not that he’d know anything about that, that is. It was just that, this was sort of a lot, you know? Not that that’s a bad thing! Buck of all people was no stranger to flaunting one’s sexuality, even if this particular brand of it had some peculiar thoughts bubbling to the surface of his psyche. But... maybe ‘peculiar’ wasn’t the right word for it. Like, sure, he’d occasionally catch himself checking out a hot guy’s ass from time to time, but that’s normal.

...Buck technically hadn’t said anything, but he still feels like he should shut up now.

“Is that Alverez’ baby nephew?” he heard one of the workers ask as they passed, venturing further and further into the club’s neon purple glow.

“We’ve been spotted,” John said, tone grim.

But Buck didn’t have any of those same reservations. After all, any conversation he could have at this point was a welcome distraction from those aforementioned thoughts of his. Or at least, it would’ve if he’d remembered that almost every person that could walk up and talk to them right now was 1) jacked, and 2) wearing some form of jockstrap and nothing else.

That particular reminder came in the form of a man standing at roughly his height, approaching the pair at a frightening speed as he tugged a shirt over his naked torso, aggressively buttoning it up to his neck.

John’s voice took a nervous edge as he began to say, “Hey, Uncle Mateo—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” the man demanded, brow furrowed and mustache twitching. One impressive enough to put even the likes of Tom Selleck to shame.

Holding his hands out in an effort to placate, John remained more or less undaunted. “I’m sorry, I know you said you don’t want me dropping by during business hours.”

Which Buck thinks would’ve been pertinent information to disclose prior. But whatever.

“You’re right. I did say that,” the man—Mateo—replied, looking vaguely like a version of Eddie he could imagine meeting in ten or so years. Which Buck really didn’t need to think right about. Not here. Not now. Not when the mere thought of the man made his insides ache.

Deep brown eyes flickering from his nephew to the stranger beside them, once they’d honed in on Buck, they narrowed.

“Get out,” Mateo said, not an ounce of warmth to be found.

Whelp.

Buck turned on his heel and made a move for the door, only to be stopped by the arm flung in front of his chest, blocking his path.

“You have not come this far to give up that easily,” John hissed. Incredulous.

And true. He hadn’t. But the younger man had failed to consider one key detail. Leaning in close, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the music, Buck didn’t hesitate enlightening him: “Uh... hey, John. Not gonna lie, I’m a little out of my comfort zone right now.”

Just then, another worker sauntered past. His hips swaying as he walked on by with two perfect globes for an ass, it reignited Buck’s ongoing mental debate on whether it was ruder to stare or not to stare in this kind of establishment.

“Are you and I gonna have a problem here?” Mateo snapped, effectively shattering Buck from the inexplicable daze he’d found himself in.

Confused by the anger he’d been met with, it didn’t take long for him to realize that the man probably heard what he’d said to his nephew. Couple that with the collection of pride flags hung on the wall behind the bar...yeah. Buck could see how he might’ve come across a certain way.

Desperate to clear things up, he stammered, “No! No, not at all! I-I’m an ally.”

He even held up a little fist to really drive his point home.

“Really,” the man drawled, not quite sure what to make of him. Regardless, Buck didn’t miss the subtle once over he’d given him, or the appreciative bob of his head when he was done. “How much of an ally?”

Feeling strangely small in that moment, Buck squeaked out, “...there’s a scale?”

“There might be.”

“He got carjacked,” John suddenly said, interrupting whatever weird tension that had settled between the two men. “At gunpoint. Allegedly.”

Mateo blinked before reeling back, exclaiming in shock and horror, “Christ—why come here? Go to the cops!”

“He will after he gets home! Which is why we’re here,” John continued to advocate on his behalf. “He needs money for a bus to take him back home to LA.”

“Of course he does…” his uncle sighed, sounding disappointed but not surprised. “Johnny, you know the bar’s been struggling. I can’t just shell out cash for a bus ticket like that. Not to mention the fact we’re open for another four hours with at least two bachelorette parties, and I’m down a bartender after Donovan walked a couple hours back—”

Buck perked up, and before he was fully aware of it, he was already asking, “You need a bartender?”

Mateo looked at him, eyes alight in both interest and intrigue. “Yeah. You know someone?”

“That depends,” Buck trailed with a coy grin. “You willing to pay for their bus ticket?”

And soon enough, whatever lingering apprehension the man had once harbored for Buck was replaced with something closer to curiosity. Something playful, even.

“Counteroffer,” Mateo said, expression suddenly serious. “You work for free, but I let you keep whatever tips you make.”

With a nod, Buck extended a hand to shake on it. “Deal.”

“But maybe don’t agree to that without nailing down a ride to the bus station first?” John frantically interjected, stepping between the two before his uncle got the chance to finalize things with a binding handshaking.

“I’ll give him a ride once we’re closed. I’m not an asshole,” Mateo said. Then, giving a nephew a pointed look, “Unlike that one loser you still hang out with.”

John stared down at his feet. Clearly embarrassed, but not once making an effort to deny it.

“Ezra,” Buck said, not even caring if he was right. He just needed to get that last dig in. He needed it more than he needed air.

Curious, Mateo asked, “Not a fan?”

“Not at all.”

The man let out a brash laugh, clapping his hands together in utter delight. “What’d you say your name was again?”

“Buck.”

“Buck,” he repeated, as if testing out how the name tasted on his tongue. “I think you and I are gonna get along just fine.”

John regarded his uncle suspiciously. “You warmed up to him fast.”

Reaching over to give the other a firm pat on the back, the man shrugged, “I can appreciate when someone has a good judge of character. Unlike some people.”

Leaning out of his grasp, John sighed, “Yeah. Ok. Whatever. Is now a bad time to mention that I need money for gas?”

With a huff, muttering something mildly rude beneath his breath, the man reached down into the waistband of his underwear. They were a pair of skintight, shimmering red briefs, and until the very moment, Buck had been making a pointed effort not to look at them. But as the other retrieved a wad of cash someone had stuck down there sometime earlier in the night...

He had failed.

“I gotta get back behind the bar, but I’ll send someone over in a minute to show you where we get ready. You can take a quick shower and change out of...”—grimacing, Mateo gestured to what Buck was currently wearing— “that.”

And... yeah. Buck figured that was as fair an ask as any.

Depositing the cash into John’s open hand and giving the younger man one final pat on the back, Mateo was off. Crossing the strip club with a few wide strides, he shucked himself free of the shirt he’d only been wearing for his nephew’s sake.

Staring down at no less than thirty dollars in the palm of his hand, John crinkled his nose. “It’s warm,” he muttered, shoving the cash into his front pocket regardless.

“It’d be weirder if it wasn’t,” Buck offered. They’d both seen where he’d pulled the money from, after all.

Exhaling a breathless chuckle, John concurred with a slight bob of his head. “Thanks for being nice to us. Me, Marcus, my uncle...” he suddenly said with a sincerity Buck hadn’t been expecting. “I know we don’t always make it easy.”

Forcing himself into a quick recovery, he waved the younger man off. “Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. Neither do I.”

It hadn’t had the desired effect. Because instead of providing a definitive, lighthearted end to their grand saga, it did the opposite. Smiling sadly, John just shook his head and said, “You really believe that. Don’t you.”

It felt like damnation. It felt like absolution. It felt like everything and nothing all at once. Because it was something he hadn’t known he needed to hear, and it was coming from someone he’d probably never see again. Which is exactly why John had said. Because anyone that stuck around long enough to know him would know that it wasn’t true.

Clearing his throat with an awkward grunt, John dug his hand back into his pocket before presenting the contents to Buck, “Here. Consider it your first tip.”

Buck took it. And it wasn’t until his mind caught up with the rest of his body, ten whole dollars staring back at him, that he realized his mistake. “Wait—”

 “Take care of yourself, Buck,” John said, dodging the other’s attempt at handing his money back.

“I, uh...” Buck stammered, watching as John made his way to the door, the younger man throwing a quick glance over his shoulder to shoot him a genuine smile.

Opening the door as he waved goodbye, John stepped into the night. Gone from his life almost as quickly as he’d arrived.

“Yeah,” Buck murmured, closing his fist around the money as a wobbly grin spread across his face. “You too.”

Damn… I think I’m gonna miss him.

That’s when a hand came down on his shoulder, startling him from the seclusion of the moment. “Buck, right?” a man just as naked as the rest asked. “Follow me. I’ll show you the back.”

Brain on autopilot, Buck trailed after him, a little less reserved about checking out his ass and the underwear that barely covered it.

It was teal and sequined. In case you were curious.

Buck stepped into a backroom as the other held the door open for him, gesturing him forward. Once inside, he pointed out a shower curtain in the back nearly hidden from view by clothing racks and stacks of boxes.

“I’ll have someone leave you something for when you’re done,” the man said before closing the door behind him.

Standing alone in the center of the room, left to his own devices, Buck made sure he didn’t stand around longer enough to let his doubts creep in. Locating a clean towel, he slung it over the shower curtain rod before cranking up the faucet to scalding, taking the quickest shower of his life with some of the worst water pressure he’d ever experienced.

But no matter how fast he assumed he was, the devil worked faster. The ‘devil’ being the male stripper who’d been tasked with picking out an outfit for him, that is. 

As Buck stepped out of the shower, drying off with the towel before wrapping it tightly around his waist, his eyes were drawn to something splayed out across the seat of a metal folding chair that hadn’t been there before. And as he took a cautious step forward to investigate, he soon realized that ‘outfit’ had been a generous assumption.

“You’re joking,” he whispered, holding it up to his face to confirm that—yes—this was real. This was happening. Even then, he couldn’t help quickly scanning the room, looking for the rest of it along with any cameras. Because in his mind, there was still a nonzero chance he was being Punk’d.

In his hands, Buck held a jockstrap sewed from a golden polyester fabric. Cheaply made with a distinct chemical smell. And it was small—way too small. For what Buck was packing, at least. And that wasn’t even him trying to brag!

Giving the pouch an experimental tug, he was relieved to find that it was made from a material that stretches.

So, closing his eyes, he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, repeating the process a couple more times until he felt ready to return to the real world on steady ground and unwavering feet.

“Yeah,” Buck said after a minute, nodding as he mentally hyped himself up for the road ahead. “Yeah, ok. Alright.”

Because a couple days ago, Buck had fully planned on walking into a fire station for his first shift back with his head held high, carrying the confidence of a man that hadn’t taken a sledgehammer to practically every relationship he’d ever truly cherished. And for better or for worse, he was still that man.

Buck dragged the underwear up his legs and hips until its straps rested snugly against his ass, adjusting himself in the pouch until he was certain nothing would accidently pop out. Approaching the door, his heart hammering like the muffled bass playing through the club’s speakers, he repeated the same tired mantra in his head over and over again until it stuck:

This is a strip club. This is normal. In fact, it’d be weirder if you were wearing actual clothes right now.

That’s what he told himself as he pushed open the door, leaving the backroom and sauntering up to the bar.

He didn’t miss the appreciative look Mateo gave him as he settled into his work, falling back on the skills he’d picked up during his bartending days like he’d never even left.

And—fuck it—Buck gave him one back, slipping into that Buck 1.0 persona easier than he’d care to admit.

Because he’d taught himself how to walk again. He’d passed his recertification with flying colors. He’d survived a fucking tsunami. Getting paid to look hot for a couple hours was nothing by comparison.

So that’s what Buck did. He took orders. He poured drinks. He let himself be ogled by strangers as he tried not to think too hard about the faint breeze against his ass cheeks. And you know what? He more or less succeeded.

Chapter Text

3:00 | November 1st, 2019 | ‘Phoenix,’ AZ

By the time the cruiser had pulled up to some dingy motel, Eddie was fighting the losing battle of staying awake. And while Bobby had technically gotten him a coffee when they’d stopped all those hours back, both men were in silent agreement that any caffeine the group could scrounge together from this point forth went to the one driving. In this case: Athena.

Hands jittering against the steering wheel and AC cranked to freezing, if the woman was about to nod off behind the wheel and kill them all... she hid it well.

Cruiser rolling to a stop in the empty parking lot, Eddie kept his head on a pivot, scanning his surroundings for the car he’d seen in Maddie’s video but finding nothing. No Buck. No puke covered Toyota Corolla. Nothing. In fact, other than them, the area around the motel appeared completely abandoned. And if not for the faint flickering of its welcome sign, Eddie would’ve been more than willing to believe it.

That, and one of the doors flinging open, two men filing out. One of them notably pissed off compared to the other.

“That asshole,” Eddie heard the shorter one yell as he paced. “That fucking asshole!”

With a resigned huff as he closed the door behind him, the taller of the pair said something to the other Eddie couldn’t quite make out.

Whatever it was, it only seemed to inflame the passions of the other.

“No—no! That’s bullshit because then why wouldn’t he say something before leaving? Johnny’s a fucking pussy—he wouldn’t leave without running it by me first. Buck corrupted him!”

And as soon as that name left his mouth, Eddie was out the car door, Bobby and Athena not far behind.

“Goddamn, dude, you’re not his fucking caretaker,” the taller one leaned down to hiss, unaware of the approaching presence. “If John really left and isn’t planning on coming back, he probably got sick of how you’ve been treating him for the last four years and finally decided to do something about it. Not because some stranger told him to.”

“He might if that stranger sucks! You know. In more ways than one.”

Alright. Time for Eddie to step in.

Adding a little more weight to his steps to announce his presence for him, that didn’t stop him from waving the pair down. “Hey—”

Unconcerned with the whims of a stranger approaching in the cover of night, the shorter of the two whirled on him, scoffing, “Stay the hell out of this, baldy!”

...Baldy.

Baldy?

“A buzzcut isn’t the same as being bald, jackass,” Eddie snapped, patience already running out for a man who possessed less manners than his goddamn nine year old.

It wasn’t even that much of a buzzcut anymore. He’d been growing it out!

“Just saying,” he shrugged, an infuriating smirk etched into his face. “You don’t really have the head shape to pull it off.”

Almost immediately, the man’s friend cranked his arm back, punching him in the shoulder and saving Eddie the effort.

“Ow!”

“Shut up,” the taller one sneered at the other’s objections. Turning to Eddie with a placating look, he sighed, “Your head is fine.”

 And despite the fact he was still rubbing the soreness from his arm, it didn’t stop the other from incredulously squawking, “Oh! You’ve sampled it?”

It had Eddie closing his eyes, willing the red leaking into his vision to secede. Because if there was even a chance that Buck had been forced to spend some inordinate amount of time with these guys...

He owed him more than an apology.

So... at least two apologies.

From behind, he just barely managed to catch Bobby muttering to his wife, “I feel like two conversations are going on right now, and I don’t understand either of them.”

“Head’s another term for fellatio,” Athena supplied. Full volume.

“Ah,” the man remarked, “Clever.”

Wordlessly, the same one as before pulled his arm back, hitting his friend again.

“Fuck—quit it!”

“Alright,” Bobby said, officially deciding to step in. Hands held out in an attempt to crown himself mediator.  “Everyone take a deep breath, and try to calm down.”

All it really accomplished was making the two strangers that much more wary, the taller of the pair finally asking what they probably should’ve started with: “Who the hell are you guys anyways?”

As if on cue, the other took a gander at the parking lot, blinking back in shock and realization. Like he was just now noticing the big police cruiser not even parked that far away.

“Officer,” he loudly announced, a lilt in his voice and a massive chip on his shoulder, “I would like to file a police report, for I have been robbed.”

His friend groaned, rubbing an exhausted hand down his face. “Dude. It’s a dumb shirt Buck won for you at a gross bar—”

“I’ll have you know it is a goddamn honor to get porked at Sticky Dickies!”

And briefly, Eddie’s world froze on its axis. Because— “Buck got porked where?”

Garnering nothing more from the younger man than a simpering grin...

Eddie had finally had it. Flinging a hand out, he curled a fist into the little shit’s shirt, dragging him forward to sneer, “Buck got porked where?”

Once again, Bobby stepped in to intervene, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Ok. Alright. Easy. I don’t think he meant that in the way you’re taking it.”

Hand still tangled in the fabric of the short man’s shirt, Eddie shot him a bewildered look, tone dripping in disbelief as he asked, “You understand the implications of ‘porked’ but not ‘head’?”

With a disapproving frown, Bobby replied, “One’s a little more obvious.”

“Is it though?” the man in Eddie’s grasp squeaked, dangling on his tippy toes.

At the same time, his companion asked, “You know Buck?”

The latter struck a little harder than the former

“We do,” Athena replied just as Eddie dropped the other, watching him scramble away to a safe distance. “And I couldn’t help but pick up on the fact that you do too.”

But before either stranger got the chance to come clean, they were illuminated by the dim headlights of a car turning into the parking lot, and their priorities shifted.

Especially the manlet’s.

“Fucking—John!” he yelled, stomping over to the vehicle as its driver pulled into the nearest parking space, entirely unconcerned with every preceding. “Where the hell were you? You were gone for hours!”

A man around the other two’s age stepped out of the driver’s side, eyes widening upon the other’s approach; shoulders shrinking in on himself but possessing a certain resolve despite the meek exterior.

“Ezra, what...?” John trailed. But instead of continuing to address his companion, his eyes flickered over to Athena’s police cruiser before landing on Athena herself. “Are we getting arrested?”

“That depends,” the woman began. “Is there something I need to arrest you for?”

The young man gave a polite shake of his head. “No, ma’am. I’m just a little confused about what’s going on right now—”

He was cut off with a rough shove to his chest that sent him colliding with the side of his car.

“Where’s my fucking shirt, asshole!” Ezra demanded, hands up and ready like he intended to shove him again. Like someone who’d forgotten they’d been dangling from their shirt collar not too long ago.

Eddie started walking over to remind him.

And just like that, any bravado the other had previously boasted vanished in an instant. Scurrying away from Eddie like a rat from a housecat, Ezra frantically stammered, “Woah—woah—woah—easy man! Be cool, be cool!”

“You first,” Eddie said with a rough jut of his jaw, placing himself firmly between the two. Giving John a second to recollect himself, he had the urge to reach out and dust the young man off. Ignoring it, he instead asked “You ok?”

“Fine,” John sighed. “Thanks.”

Taking him at his word, Eddie let the matter rest.

Athena too, more or less. Shooting Ezra a warning look, she otherwise ignored the man in favor of approaching John.

“I’m Sergeant Athena Grant,” she introduced herself before gesturing to her companions, “This is my husband Bobby, and our friend Eddie—”

And the cogs that’d started creaking into motion upon his arrival had finally begun to turn.

“Eddie? You’re Eddie?” John exclaimed, eyes wide in bewildered awe as he honed in on him and him alone. “Aw shit, man, I’m sorry. I just turned my phone on a couple miles back. I was gonna call you after I parked.”

Now, Eddie’s cogs were turning too. “Buck used your phone to call me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

John answered nonetheless, giving a single, grim nod.

But just as Eddie opened his mouth to press him for specifics—where is he, how is he, why the hell would you turn your phone off—Ezra picked that exact moment to remind them all of his presence. Like they could forget.

“Holy shit,” he wheezed before launching into a grating bout of hysterical laughter. “Holy shit—I feel like I just won the fucking Powerball. Oh my God, is this what crack feels like? Marcus. Marcus, dude, I feel like I’m on crack.”

His friend, Marcus, wasn’t nearly as amused. Leaning away as Ezra repeatedly slapped him on the bicep in an attempt to get him to join in on his revelry, Marcus turned around and walked back into their motel room without another word.

“Ok, I think we could all do without the commentary for a little bit,” Bobby announced with a stern and pointed look, his statement punctuated by the slam of the door.

Ezra ignored it all, still laughing as he said, “Oh shit, Johnny boy, where’d you ditch him? You’re in trouuuuuble.”

“I-I didn’t ditch him,” the other stammered, visibly offended by the mere suggestion that he would. Turning to Eddie, expression pleading, he explained, “Neither of us had enough money for a bus ticket, so I gave him a ride to my uncle’s bar to see if—”

“Gay uncle Mateo?” Ezra exclaimed, each new development of this unfurling tale bringing him nothing but elation. “You introduced him to your gay uncle Mateo?”

John’s eyes narrowed, and there was a flicker of anger Eddie didn’t think anyone was expecting from the young man.  

“Stop calling him that,” he scowled, taking a step toward Ezra like he intended to do something about it.

“Is he not gay? Is he not your uncle?”

“Yeah, but it sounds fucking derogatory when you say it like that!”

This time, Athena was the one deciding to play mediator. “Alright, if everybody could calm down and—”

Her attempt went entirely ignored in favor of the ensuing argument:

“Whatever, dude,” Ezra scoffed. “Maybe I just find it a little weird that you’re bending over backwards trying to help a stranger that ruined your car by blowing chunks in the back of it.”

“Because he’s nice. Like, actually nice,” John yelled, defending Buck’s honor before anyone else had gotten the chance. “Nice enough that he didn’t punch your lights out for tricking him into eating five pounds of pork for five dollars when you said you’d buy him a bus ticket.”

Sputtering in indignation, the other exclaimed, “A day pass is like three bucks.”

“For a city bus. For a bus taking you from Phoenix to LA? That isn’t even close, and you know it.”

Ezra was quiet for a long while. And for a moment, Eddie assumed it was out of genuine remorse. The realization that he’d been a massive piece of shit to someone who genuinely hadn’t deserved it. To someone like Buck.

But of course, they could never be so lucky.

“Oh! Ok, I see what’s happening now,” Ezra drawled with a self-satisfied smirk. The kind that made you wonder how much it’d take to wipe it clean off his face, “Must run in the family.”

A cold, numbing anger spread throughout Eddie’s being before settling alongside the other emotions winding in his gut. Confusion. Apprehension. And strangely enough: fear. The sort he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since he was thirteen, and people had started whispering about another boy in his grade. Not since his mom had sat him down at the kitchen table one night, politely informing him that he wouldn’t be hanging out with Joel from down the street anymore. Not since his mom and dad spoke in hushed tones in the living room, oblivious to Eddie’s presence as he hugged his knees to his chest, eavesdropping from the top step of the stairs.

“Didn’t their eldest run off with another woman not that long ago?”

“Mm. Must run in the family.”

And poor John looked entirely too lost as he asked, “...what?”

“I mean, you weren’t exactly interested when I tried to hook you up with Miranda last year.”

“Why would I be interested in Miranda?”

“Miranda’s hot!”

“Miranda stole her dog’s anxiety medication in high school and sold it back to the kids in her neighborhood.”

“She...” Ezra trailed, turning to address Eddie, Bobby, and Athena. As if remembering that they were somehow a part of this now. “Admittedly, she did do that. But my point still stands!”

“And what point is that exactly?” Eddie sneered, that inkling of fear giving way to even more anger. Because fuck it—if Ezra was gonna involve him, he was getting involved.

Raising an unimpressed brow, the man snickered, “I think you know what my point is.”

But before Eddie, or Athena, or Bobby could open their mouths to tell the man exactly what they thought about that, they were cut off by the sound of keys jangling and a door slamming.

Back turned to the rest of them, Marcus locked the door behind him before turning around, pelting Ezra in the chest with the motel room key much to the other’s sputtering confusion.

“I know it’s sort of a foreign concept,” Marcus said, two overnight bags slung over each of his shoulders, “but some of us are capable of showing basic human decency to someone we’re not sexually attracted to.”

“This goes a little further than ‘basic’ human decency,” Ezra scowled as he bent over to pick the key ring off the ground. “He’s fixated on the dude!”

“I don’t think he’s the one with the fixation here.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

But before Marcus got the chance throw Ezra’s own words back at him—I think you know what my point is—John was already interjecting:

“It means you’re a selfish asshole. You expect everyone to do whatever it takes to fulfill whatever whim it is you seem to have that day, and the one time I do something for me without running it by you first, you have a fucking conniption.”

Face red as he stammered for the words evading him, Ezra was all but abandoned to stew in the suffocating silence of his own creation. But whatever bout of introspection their damning stares might’ve wrought was escaped through the sheer force of his own stubborn willpower.

“For you? Huh... so you were trying to fuck him,” Ezra said, an edge to his words that hadn’t been there before. A final desperate attempt to cut John off at the knees in the only way he seemed to know how. “So, what happened? Did you introduce him to your gay uncle, and he suddenly stopped giving you the time of day—”

Somewhere amidst the exchange, the two had drifted closer and closer together. Like a meteor drawn in by the merciless strength of Jupiter’s gravitational pull. And Eddie hadn’t been fully aware how little a distance truly remained until John lurched forward, cracking his fist against Ezra’s jaw.

Good for you, John.

And before Ezra even hit the ground, clutching his face, he was already pointing an accusatory finger and screaming, “That’s assault! Officer, arrest him!”

“Technically,” Marcus deadpanned, making absolutely no move to help, “I think it’s battery.”

“Actually, it’s both,” Athena sighed, ignoring Ezra in favor of approaching John just as tears of frustration began rolling down his cheeks. Reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder as the younger man nursed his bloody knuckles... “Good thing I’m off-duty.”

“S-sorry,” John choked out, sucking in a sharp, shallow breath as he tried to calm himself down. “He’s just such an asshole sometimes.”

“We can see that,” Bobby was the next to reassure, words soft and soothing. Nodding his head in the direction of Athena’s police cruiser, he continued, “How about you follow us over there for a minute so our friend Eddie here can take a look at that hand of yours. After that, you can tell us a little more about where Buck ended up. Sound good?”

With a stiff jerk of his head, John relented, allowing himself to be guided over to sit on a nearby curb as Eddie fetched the med kit he’d packed.

Making no move to stand back up, Ezra watched it all with a befuddled, stupefied expression.

Marcus stayed with him. Looming over him. Speaking to him in hushed, angry whispers. And based on the face the other pulled... it accomplished little more than rubbing some metaphorical salt into his very real wounds.

Perhaps that’d been the point.

Paying them little mind, Eddie turned his sole attention back to his patient. Gently dabbing disinfectant over John's split knuckles, he whispered a quiet apology as the other hissed in pain, quickly applying a topical antibiotic and some gauze to ease the sting.

“Here,” Eddie said as he cracked a cold compress, handing over the disposable pack. “This should help with pain and bruising.”

And sure. The irony was not lost on him that he’d said it while his own knuckles were a kaleidoscope of bruises from when he’d beaten his fellow man for a wad of cash and some bastardized semblance of peace. From when he’d dragged that thief out of Buck’s jeep, feeling his world crashing down around him as he crashed his fist against his jaw.

That’s when Eddie felt it. A buzz in his back pocket that had him abandoning everything else in lieu of checking.

Frantically digging it out, his phone screen lit up with a text notification from an unsaved number. The same one from a couple hours before. Not hesitating to click on it, he was redirected to a second screen with a name, an address, and an approximately 3.8 star rating on Google Reviews.

‘THE RAPTURE’

Glancing up in confusion, John stared back at him with a wry grin and tearstained cheeks, his injured hand crossed over his chest. His other holding his phone.

“It’s a one to two hour drive, and my uncle said he’d give Buck a ride to the nearest bus stop after closing,” he explained, voice tired and subdued. “If you hurry, you might be able to catch up to him. The bar closes at 4 am, but they usually stay at least an hour after for cleanup.”

“I...” Eddie trailed, not entirely sure he had the words required to sum up the breadth of what he was feeling. Eventually, however, he settled on, “Thank you.”

Thank you for telling me where he is.

Thank you for trying to help him.

Thank you for being there when I wasn’t.

Without sparing his phone a second glance, he handed it off to Athena to punch into her GPS app.

And she did. Though, not without scrolling down the page, investigating this aforementioned ‘bar’ little more thoroughly than Eddie had cared to.

“Oh, Buck,” she sighed, eyes widening ever so slightly. “What have you gotten yourself into...”

Which Eddie, admittedly, found a little odd. But before he could ask just what she meant by that, a voice called from across the parking lot:

“Hey, John.” Marcus waved from where he stood beside their car, bags still slung over his shoulders. “You coming?”

John got the memo far faster than anyone else. Rising to standing as he gave Eddie one final look, he gestured to his hand and said, “Uh, thanks. And for what it’s worth: I hope everything works out between you two.”

The way he said it… it felt loaded. Somehow.

And just like that, John was gone. Crossing the parking lot, he climbed into the passenger side of the car and handed the keys off to Marcus in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t until the car roared to life and started reversing out of its space that everyone else realized what Eddie had slowly begun to suspect.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Ezra stammered, finally rising to his feet and walking over. Walking which turned into sprinting as the car peeled out of the parking lot, speeding down the road and out of sight. “What the fuck!”

“Time to go,” Bobby announced, quickly ushering Eddie and Athena back toward the cruiser as Ezra was preoccupied futilely chasing after his companions. After all, the last thing they needed right now was him attempting to hitch a ride.

Eddie was pretty sure the guy had a phone, so this wasn’t as morally objectionable as it seemed.

Probably.

“Hey,” Bobby said as he stood in front of the driver’s side. “Let me drive.”

With Athena’s path forward blocked, the woman opened her mouth to argue.

“You’re exhausted, and I took a nap in the back for a couple hours,” her husband said before she got the chance, brow furrowed and pleading as he held his hand out for the keys. “Athena, please.”

Those appeared to be the magic words. The harsher lines of her face smoothing over with a tired sigh, Athena relented. She handed Bobby the keys.

“Five pounds of pork for five dollars...” she scoffed, walking around to the passenger side like the previous stalemate hadn’t happened at all. “Am I wrong for being relieved he at least found a way to get himself fed?”

Bobby turned the car on, his first line of business being setting the AC to reasonable 70 ºF opposed to the freezing 60 ºF Athena had set it at. “No,” he said, “but I don’t know how useful it was seeing as he threw it all up.”

“Hm,” Athena hummed, buckling her seatbelt and placing her phone back on the dashboard. Brushing the man’s arm to get his attention, she directed it to her GPS app. “This is where we’re headed, by the way.”

Bobby leaned in, examining it closely. There was a long pause. Then, “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“What?” Eddie asked as he settled into the back, knocking on the divider to make sure he’d been heard.

Sparing him but a brief glance, Bobby and Athena proceeded to share a silent exchange.

Bobby raised an eyebrow.

Athena furrowed hers.

Bobby leaned in closer for emphasis, raising his other eyebrow.

Athena shook her head.

Bobby pursed his lips. Considering this.

“Don’t worry about it,” the man eventually turned to say, and Eddie wasn’t sure how much of that he truly believed. “Get some sleep while you can. We still have a long road ahead.”

And Bobby had no idea how right he’d been.

1:00 | November 1st, 2019 | THE RAPTURE

Being half-naked in public really wasn’t all that bad, assuming you didn’t think about it too hard for too long. And after Buck had made the deliberate, concentrated effort to honor that sentiment...

Guess what. He didn’t think about it.

For one (1) whole hour, Buck did not think about it. Matter of fact, he was more than confident in his capabilities of making it to two, and he probably would’ve accomplished that feat had he not noticed something. Or—more accurately—a lack of something.

Measuring out the vodka he needed for a Screwdriver, he’d barely filled the jigger to its meniscus when it struck him. Hard. Pouring its contents into the rest of the drink, he handed it off to its respective recipient before ditching the vodka on the bar wall, jostling the other bottles rougher than he’d intended to. Enough that it’d been heard over the deep bass of the club’s stereo system.

“Everything alright over there?” Mateo called without ever glancing his way, far too preoccupied pouring a line of shots for a group loitering by the bar top.

“Yeah, I’m just,” Buck began, blowing out a puff of air from his cheeks, “not seeing a tip jar right now.”

And while he hadn’t necessarily meant for it to be an accusation... that was absolutely how it came across.

If nothing else, at least Mateo was looking at him now.

“Hm,” he hummed in vague acknowledgement, giving Buck a quick once over before turning his sights to something lingering just behind him and smiling. Like the other man’s irritation was the cutest thing in the world. “Take two steps back real quick?”

Audibly scoffing, Buck made a show of it, taking two dramatic steps backwards.

He felt the waistband of his jockstrap pull back before the sting of elastic snapping against his ass.

“Wow!” Buck yelped, hips shooting forward. “Ok!”

Head whipping back to face the source, he was met with the man he’d just served a drink to, smiling back at him from behind the rim of his drink. He made sure to wink at Buck before disappearing into the crowd of the club, shrugging past members of a bachelorette party that walked in not too long ago on route to the primary entertainment provided by the establishment.

Which was, evidently, not Buck. A realization that had dawned the moment he’d blindly reached back to retrieve the present left for him in the waistband of his underwear, pulling what was no doubt a sour look in response, because—seriously—one dollar?

Cheapskate.

“You make most of your tips when they close out their tabs,” Mateo explained. A mind reader, apparently. He then gestured below the belt. “That part’s just a fun bonus.”

Yeah. ‘Fun.’

“I knew that,” Buck muttered, already pouring his next drink. Because he’d bartended in Peru for over a year. Of course he knew that. Even still, he could keep the uncertainty from plaguing his thoughts.

Mateo regarded him oddly, raising an inquisitive brow as he asked, “Worried?”

Buck shrugged, because while it might not have been the exact word he’d use, that hadn’t meant the other was necessarily wrong. ‘Disturbed’ might’ve been a better word for it. Maybe ‘confused.’ Both of those seemed more akin to what he was feeling as he was forced to confront the fact that his ‘Buck 1.0’ mask wasn’t raking in the kind of cash he’d been expecting it too.

A mask that was chipped and cracked from overuse after months and months of disuse. Every time he plastered on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, skin feeling two sizes too small as he tried to cram himself back into a box he’d long since outgrown. Back when he’d been likable. Pleasant. Fun to talk to. Because Buck didn’t really feel like any of those things anymore, and he was starting to worry he’d never truly been that at all.

Huh. Apparently ‘worried’ had been the right word.

But before he could ruminate on that for too long, the clank of shot glasses against his workstation snapped him out of it.   

Mateo saddled up beside him, pouring another line of shots before stacking them on a nearby plate. Gesturing to the far side of the club using the tequila pour spout, he said, “Do me a favor and take these over to that group of ladies over there. Tell them it’s on the house.”

Brain on autopilot, Buck didn’t bother questioning the command as he balanced the plate with no less than fifteen shots atop it in his arms, already on his way over. Weaving in and out of swarths of warm bodies insistent on standing in every conceivable walkway available to him, pardoning and excusing himself as he brushed up against a couple of them. And some of them were more than willing to return the favor.

Just before Buck managed to free himself from the swarm, a set of hands on his hips were pulling him back; someone pressing themselves against the line of his back. Jostling the plate in his hands, he exhaled an offended gasp as the tequila shots sloshed in their glasses. Because rude.

“What time do you get off later, beautiful?”

“Uh,” Buck trailed as he looked over his shoulder. Some nondescript looking guy stared back at him, his breath hot on his neck. “You talking to me, man?”

“Who else?”

And Buck was drawing a bit of blank here because... his hands were on Buck’s hips. His crotch was brushing against Buck’s ass. And yet: it still wasn’t registering that Buck was the one he was addressing.

“That’s,” he sighed as the dude started to grind his hips forward to the rhythm of the electronic beat, “a good question.”

He’d probably have been more affronted by the act if it wasn’t the first time someone had been willing to touch him in a good minute. It was kind of nice. Sort of. Nice in a ‘I’m-so-touch-starved-I’m-willing-to-ignore-your-bulge-digging-into-my-lower-back’ kind of way.

Buck heard the unknown man take a deep inhale, like he intended to say something else.

“Eh—eh, hold that thought?” Buck said, attempting to shimmy himself free from the other’s grasp. Successful, he didn’t spare a glance back on route to his destination, muttering beneath his breath when he was far enough away, “And keep holding it.”

Staying the course, he made his way to a table with about twenty or so women gathered around, at least half of them eyeing him like a slab of USDA prime beef. And although it was pathetic to admit, it was probably the most excited anyone’s been to see him since filing the lawsuit. Meanwhile, the other half was far too preoccupied cheering on the bride-to-be as she enthusiastically received a lap dance to pay him much mind.

Which Buck never really understood. That whole ‘last night of freedom’ thing. Because if you’re in a committed relationship with someone, he didn’t think that suddenly changed the night before you got married.

Whatever. It wasn’t his business. He was just the guy bringing them their booze. Speaking of which...

“Hello, ladies,” he said with a playful grin and an arch in his brow, setting the plate of shots down in front of them, “this one’s on the house—”

Buck didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before swarths of hands were digging into the elastic band around his hips, tugging him every which way by his jockstrap.

And you know what? Buck let them. Happily so. Because, overall, he was just grateful for the chance to step back into familiar territory. Because women... Buck got women. In a sense. You know, as much as a straight man could.

So, of course, someone tall and broad hooked their chin over his shoulder, dragging him kicking and screaming back to unsteady ground; thick, wiry chest hair scratching against his skin in a way he couldn’t really bring himself to mind that much.

Yes. A straight man. Buck was a mostly straight man.

“Hey,” he breathed as soon as he glanced over and found Mateo looking back.

“Hey,” the other replied. A low, deep rumble he could feel against his back. “Get sidetracked?”

Blinking back, Buck couldn’t help but ask, “D-did I?” He wasn’t aware he’d actually been gone that long.

Mateo gave little more than a noncommittal hum, a sly look in his eyes that suggested that the other go along with whatever he had planned.

And as Buck glanced down, spotting an exorbitant amount of cash stuffed into the elastic of his underwear that hadn’t been there prior... yeah. He figured it paid to just go with the motions.

“Everyone enjoying their night?” Mateo asked, chin still hooked over Buck’s shoulder with no sign of leaving any time soon, hands slowly migrating to his waist.

Leaning back against the other by a fraction, Buck smiled back at the women in front of him with half lidded eyes. Like he was some sort of prop that was only there to look pretty.

But Buck could do that, and he could do it well. A little too well, in fact.

“Woah,” he exclaimed as the bride-to-be who’d previously been seated beneath a gyrating man suddenly materialized in front of him, hands flying for his chest. “Hello!”

“Hi,” she said, an intensity in her gaze.

“Hello,” Buck repeated, not really sure where to go from here. Quite literally trapped between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

“I can’t make out with you,” the unstoppable force said, swallowing thickly like she was trying not to puke.

The immovable object snorted his amusement.

“Right,” Buck said anyways, ignoring him. Because that was a factual statement. She could not do that. Buck would not let her.

“I’m getting married tomorrow,” she reiterated as she continued to fondle his chest like a pair of stress balls, “so I can’t make out with you.”

“Right...”

Where the fuck was she going with this?

Releasing his left pec and only his left pec, she waved someone in her bachelorette group over. Another woman came walking over, vigorously riffling through the purse slung over her shoulder, only stumbling over her feet once or twice. With a victorious huff, the woman yanked free a wallet from the bag, presenting it to the bride.

Ah. Ok. He was pretty sure he knew where she was going with this.

Pulling out two crisp twenty dollar bills, she addressed both Buck and the man holding onto him as she said, “I will pay you twenty dollars each to make out with one another.”

Ope. Never mind.

Subconsciously, one of his hands came up to clutch at a string of pearls he was not currently wearing.

“Is...” Buck stammered, looking over his shoulder for reassurance and only getting a shit-eating grin in return. “Is that, like, a thing? That people are into?”

Watching. Paying to watch.

“Yes,” said Mateo.

“Yes,” said the woman’s friend.

“Yes,” said at least three other people in the bachelorette party, plus the dancer previously giving the bride her lap dance.

Seeing as it was a literal strip club, that had probably been a dumb ask.

“Well then, I guess that begs the question,” Mateo drawled, voice a rich baritone as he drew him tighter against his chest, making him shudder. “What is Buck here willing to do for twenty dollars?”

And... listen. Mateo was an attractive guy. A very attractive guy. The kind of guy some closeted singer in the 80s would probably write a chart-topping rock ballad about. Given, he was no Eddie. But then again, who was? Other than Eddie.

Obviously.

Anyways. His point was: a hot dude was a hot dude.

And twenty dollars was twenty dollars.

Tilting his head, Buck reached a hand back, tangling it in the other’s hair before crashing their mouths together. He let out a contended hum as he swallowed down the man’s grunt of surprise.

That surprise had been short-lived.

Curling an arm over his chest, Mateo used the other to grab him by the jaw, locking him in place to do as he pleased.

Shifting in his hold until they were chest to chest, Buck groaned as the other’s mustache tickled his upper lip. Lightheaded, he wondered if maybe he could talk Eddie into growing one out once they were back on good terms.

...he wasn’t really sure why he was having thoughts like that. But he kept having them.

And those thoughts were there to stay, along with the searing heat in the base of his stomach upon his own internal revelation that this was doing something for him. An external one too. It was currently jabbing Mateo in the thigh.

But this wasn’t about Mateo. Not really. It wasn’t even about the money. It was about something... else. Something more. Something he was still trying to put the right words to.

Slow to pull away from the other man, lips still tingling, Buck wondered if he’d finally figured it out.

“Is that why you sent me over with a plate of free drinks?” he asked, breathless and barely loud enough to be heard of the music of the club.

“Thought it might help you along with that ‘bus fund’ of yours,” Mateo chuckled, giving him an encouraging slap on the thigh before eventually taking a step back. “Bachelorette parties always tip pretty well.

The pair of twenty dollar bills currently being shoved into their underwear by the enthusiastic bride attested to that fact.

With a stuttering nod, Buck asked, “And that last part?”

“A fun bonus.”

Yeah. Buck couldn’t help but smile. Fun.

“Don’t look now,” Mateo said, clearing his throat and interrupting whatever moment they’d been having. Gesturing behind the other, he laughed, “But I think they might be waving you over for body shots.”

Buck turned around to confirm that, yes, that’s indeed what was happening right now.

“Uh, should I...?” he trailed, uncertain and looking to Mateo for guidance.

And the man gave it, because anyone related to John was probably destined to be pretty ok.  

“It’s slow at the bar right now, but keep an ear out for me calling you back,” he said, waving him off with a knowing look and flippant flick of his hand. “Remember to smile.”

With that, Mateo was off. Sauntering back behind the club’s bar top like he hadn’t rocked the foundations of Buck’s previous existence with his mouth alone.

As Buck let himself be steered over to one of the tables reserved by the bachelorette party, he hadn’t realized how grateful he’d been for the chance to get off his leg until one of the women was pushing him back, trying to get him fully horizontal.

“One for the road?” she practically purred, holding out a shot of tequila for him to take.

And Buck wasn’t an idiot, ok? He knew that alcohol and anti-coagulants didn’t exactly pair well. Matter of fact, he was about to open his mouth to say as much. But the woman opened her wallet, inadvertently flashing the wad of cash she’d withdrawn for this very occasion, and suddenly... all those perfectly reasonable reservations seemed to vanish into thin air.

Figuring that one shot couldn’t hurt, he took the glass, downing it faster than you could say ‘blood thinners.’

Chapter Text

3:00 | November 1st, 2019 | THE RAPTURE

Two hours later, and Buck felt like he was fucking floating. Not from overconsumption, mind you. But rather, from that euphoric feeling when all his worries washed away. ‘High on Life,’ if you will. The elation that came with knowing what it felt like to actually have people like him again.

Though, he had to admit... those last three shots of tequila had also felt reeeeal nice. And so would the forth! Probably. That’s what Buck told himself as he grabbed the most recent shot he’d been handed, downing it in a single swig to the cheers of the bachelorette party he’d all but latched onto. Or, perhaps, they’d latched onto him.

Semantics, semantics.

But while his tomfooleries with this particular group of strangers were of no real concern to him, the same could not be said for others.

“Buck,” a voice called from behind.

Turning around to face the source, a hazy film over his field of vision, he thought for a moment it might’ve been Eddie staring back.

But Eddie didn’t have a mustache.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mateo asked, wearing a pissed-off expression Buck didn’t understand in the slightest.

Seriously—all he did was let a girl drink tequila out of the dip of his stomach before proceeding to give her a lap dance that looked like someone trying to shake a worm out of their ass. But he’d been tipped handsomely for it anyways, so... who gave a fuck?

Not Buck.

Mateo stared back, mustache twitching in anger from the lack of response. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Just...” Buck groaned, holding up two fingers. “Four.”

“Four,” Mateo repeated. Doubtful.

“Mhm.”

And it was true! As long as you ignored the three he’d had an hour ago. But that was an hour ago, and Buck was a different person back then. Therefore: it didn’t count.

Making a noncommittal noise, he attempted to turn back around and rejoin the bachelorette party as they called his name.

The hand gripping him by the bicep didn’t let him get very far.

Anger giving way to concern, Mateo interrogated, “Are you a lightweight or are you lying to me?” 

“Pshhahhh… neither!”

“You’re fucking wasted, man,” the other said, face finally settling on something far too familiar for its own good:

Disappointment.

It made Buck wanna crawl out of his own skin.

And maybe it showed. Mateo’s expression softened. “Take thirty and sober up in the back,” he murmured, giving Buck a light shove in the direction away from the bachelorette party as they made their protests and pouts known.

So, Buck got ready to open his mouth and argue.

“No more taking shots with them for tips,” Mateo cut him off before he got the chance. “If you’re short on a bus ticket, I’ll make up the difference. I’m serious. Take a break and stop pushing your luck.”

A break. Buck could’ve scoffed. All it ever felt like he did was go on break. The one from work after the ladder truck. The second one from work after the embolism. The one from Ali that ended up being a little more permanent the second she touched down in New York...

Face twisting into a scowl, he sneered, “Ok, Bobby.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Mateo replied flatly. Entirely too unimpressed for his liking.

“It’s an insult,” Buck said. Loudly. He might’ve even been yelling. “I’m insulting you. Don’t you feel insulted?”

And the man didn’t look disappointed anymore. He just looked sad. “If this ‘Bobby’ guy is the first person who comes to mind when someone’s trying to stop you from being a reckless dumbass, then he sounds pretty alright in my book.”

With a neutral expression and a hard set in his jaw, Mateo left the other to his own devices, stalking back to the bar without sparing him so much as another glance. Leaving Buck to fester in his bitterness alongside a familiar feeling of loss that had him tearing up as soon as the other’s back was turned.

Ohhhhkay... maybe it was about time to ease off the tequila.

Muttering an apology to the party, much to their collective disappointment—which only made him feel worse—Buck quietly dismissed himself to the most secluded corner of the bar he could find: a corner booth covered with spilled alcohol and loose body glitter that no one in attendance dared occupy.

No one but Buck, that is.

Plopping down, he exhaled an involuntary sigh of relief once the weight was off his bad leg, ignoring the way his bare skin stuck to the pleather cushions.

World distorted and swirling, Buck closed his eyes, pressing himself flush against the back cushion as he began to sway where he sat. Kilting forward before lurching back. Like a boat being rocked by wave after wave after wave—

“Hey,” someone slurred from nearby. “Hey, you!”

“My name’s not ‘you,’” Buck murmured, eyes remaining closed.

It did not deter the interloper.

“What’s your name then?” they ventured, voice louder. Closer.

“Buck.”

“Buck!” and they sounded nearly as drunk as he felt. “I have a job for you, Buck.”

With an audible groan, Buck finally opened his eyes.

A woman stared back, around his age—maybe a little older. Dark hair. Even darker eyes. A hot pink, novelty cowboy hat lined with fringes of fluff. Low cut top. Nice boobs. Like... really nice boobs.

But he didn’t have long to consider what that particular assessment meant for his most recent revelation (courtesy of Mateo), for soon enough, the woman was talking again: “I need your help with something.”

Which could’ve meant anything. Which probably meant that Buck should ask some clarifying questions. Which—unsurprisingly—meant that he didn’t bother doing anything of the sort.

“Yeah.” He shrugged, pushing himself to wobbling feet. “Sure.”

Linking arms with the stranger, he let her drag him through the club, only ever pausing when she’d occasionally reach over to slap away wandering hands, bellowing, “No! He’s mine!”

It made Buck go all lightheaded and giggly. Because it was a nice thought. Being someone’s. Maybe not hers. But someone’s.

If only.

The woman led him to a section of the club even more secluded than the last, stopping at a couch pressed against the wall. A single woman sat atop it wearing the same hot pink cowboy hat as the other, sucking down her drink through a neon bendy straw paired with a miserable expression. And every time she was approached by a stripper intent on showing her a good time, she’d wordlessly hand them a five dollar bill to make them go away.

Oh. This must’ve been that second bachelorette party Mateo had mentioned earlier. It was a lot smaller than the last.

“Alright. Here we are,” the woman yanking him around by his arm announced, flinging Buck forward much to the other woman’s displeasure. “Time to do your thing.”

Giving him a quick once over, whatever the sitting woman saw... she was not impressed.

Which was fair. Because even drunk, Buck understood that people had their preferences. And they probably got even more important the moment you were theoretically supposed to receive a lap dance from someone who didn’t quite match them. Though... he wasn’t quite sure how to breach the topic that he was both ready and willing to find a stripper with a fatter ass for her.

Obviously that was the issue here.

“You don’t really look like a stripper,” the woman staring him down finally muttered, taking another long sip of her drink.

“Right? He’s perfect,” her friend exclaimed, taking it upon herself to shove the man forward again. “Take a seat. Put your feet up for a bit. Make yourself comfortable.”

Which was not what you typically expected to hear mere seconds before popping a squat, performing some approximation of what you assumed a lap dance was supposed to be.

Smacking against the couch cushion with a quiet grunt, Buck stared up at the original woman in dazed confusion. Was...

Was he the one getting a lap dance right now?

Evidently not.

“Now just, uh...” she trailed, already backing up into the crowded floor of the strip club. “Listen to her? Please? I’ll be right back!”

With that, she was gone, disappearing into the horde.

And it was probably the first time since entering his drunken state that Buck had been rendered completely and utterly speechless, for he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing right now.

Blinking back at the woman he was left with, it didn’t look like she had any more of a clue than him.

“Monica,” she eventually said, extending a hand.

“Buck,” he replied, reaching out to shake it.

But even with introductions out of the way, Buck still wasn’t so sure how to proceed.

Thankfully, Monica had him covered. Leaning back against the couch, she grumbled, “I think Natalie just needed a break from my moping. Sorry that you’re the one stuck with babysitting duties.”  

“I don’t mind,” came Buck’s immediate reply. Because really. He didn’t. Because he of all people knew what it felt like to burden your loved ones with an endless score of personal tragedies. “What’s wrong?”

The woman regarded him strangely, which Buck didn't necessarily mind. After all, if their situations had been flipped, he too might’ve been hesitant to unload all his most recent troubles on a half-naked stranger in gold spandex underwear.

But whatever reluctance Monica harbored was short lived as she soon explained, “I’m getting married tomorrow.”

Which sounded like a good thing. But paired with the woman’s face, tone, and general demeanor...

Eh. Jury’s still out.

“Congratulations?” he said, nonetheless. “I think.”

“Thank you.” 

“I’m getting the feeling that maybe you’re not all that excited about it though,” Buck ventured, unsure whether or not he’d have dared without that last shot of tequila.

“I’m elated.” It sounded genuine—earnest, even. But her expression remained unchanged. Distant and somber. “But... maybe not as much as I should be.”

“...nervous?” Buck asked. It felt like a reasonable guess.

“Hard to be nervous your second go around.”

“Oh... widowed?” he trailed. Because considering that half his previous social circle was some form of widow or widower, it wasn’t that unfair of a question. Maybe just an inappropriate one.

“Divorced.”

And Buck was under the impression that that was a pretty sizable step up from what he’d assumed. “So what’s the issue then?”

“My ex-husband,” she muttered.

Yeah. Those were tricky, and based on the woman’s tone, this wasn’t an Athena and Michael situation. Buck sincerely hoped it wasn’t a Maddie and Doug situation either.

“I’m sorry.”

With a wry smile, she shook her head. “Not your fault he stole my mom’s wedding dress.”

“He stole your mom’s wedding dress?” Buck parroted back, voice barely above a whisper as his eyes began to burn, because that... that was just so awful.

“I wanted to wear it to my first wedding, but the alternations didn’t get done on time.” Monica shrugged, feigning nonchalance but missing it by a mile. “I don’t think I really minded at the time though, because she...”

She paused, swallowing thickly before pressing on: “I still had her with me back then.”

Yep. That did it. The floodgates were open, and Buck couldn’t close them. And as soon as the first wounded noise escaped from the back of his throat, neither could Monica.

He didn’t know who moved first—he didn’t particularly care. One moment, the two were sitting next to each other at a respectful distance; the next, the two clung to each other as they wept for her dead mom. For every dead mom. For an imaginary version of his mom who loved him, and that he could bring himself to love back.

“Holy shit,” a voice said a couple feet in front of them. Glancing up, vision blurred with thick, hot tears, Buck could just make out the outline of Natalie as she stood before them, gripping a drink in each hand. “I wasn’t even gone for ten minutes.”

“S-Sor—” Buck attempted to apologize before giving up. He couldn’t get a word out. It only made him cry harder.

“Ok, damn, uh...” Natalie stammered, quickly approaching the sobbing pair on the couch, offering them the drinks she’d been holding. “Water?”

They both took it, tearfully sipping their respective cups until they’d calmed down. More or less.

“So,” Natalie began. Apprehensive. “What the hell happened?”

“Dead mom. Wedding dress,” Buck choked out, drowning his sorrows with good ole H2O before he got the chance to start blubbering again.

“Aw shit, Monica, you told him about that?” the woman apologetically winced. “I only dragged him over here to keep an eye on you while I stepped out to make a phone call. You traumatized our stripper!”

“Sorry,” Monica muttered, carefully nursing her glass with the same miserable expression as before.

“No. Don’t apologize. I get it. Sorry that it’s got you feeling down tonight,” her friend sighed, taking a seat next to her on the couch. The side opposite from Buck. “It just sucks that asshole basically made you choose between the dress and Beans.”

Blinking back, Buck was nearly at a loss for words, because... “Beans?”

“Her cat,” the woman explained. “He tried stealing him when she left, so she was a little more preoccupied with that than some old dress.”

And whatever memory those words had wrought, it had Monica drunkenly snickering to herself. “At least that one has a happy ending.”

Curiosity piqued, Buck couldn’t help but ask, “Oh?”

“I threatened to kill him.”

“Oh.”

“With a gun,” she clarified.

“Right.” Because, yeah, that was certainly one way to do that.

“She got her cat back though!” Natalie shouted in glee. Beaming. “And also a restraining order. So she can’t get her mom’s dress back by knocking on his door and asking for it.”

Monica gave an audible scoff, her previous delight gone as soon as it’d arrived. “He wouldn’t even give it back if I could.”

Which made sense. Anyone willing to hold an innocent animal hostage to hurt another person probably wasn’t drawing the line at a wedding dress.

“Wish I could help,” Buck muttered, distinctly useless at that moment. Because he didn’t have a solution. He didn’t have any ideas. He hadn’t even been that good of a shoulder to cry on. All he had was a gut feeling that he should be doing more, and the bone deep exhaustion that came with knowing that it still wouldn’t be good enough.

“Maybe you can,” Natalie said, startling him from his thoughts. 

“...what?”

The woman shrugged. “I’ve found that strippers possess a certain wisdom.”

“I’m not actually a stripper.” Because, turns out: he couldn’t even do that right! Which meant that he was literally just some dude in his underwear, flaunting a couple bands stuffed into the elastic for shits and giggles.

Regardless, Natalie seemed unfazed. “What are you then?”

“Firefighter.”

“Oh,” she said with a flippant wave of her hand. “Same thing.”

“How so?”

“Pole.”

 True. True.

“So tell me O’ Wise Not-Actually-A-Stripper-But-Close-Enough,” the woman dramatically announced. Reaching over her friend to take Buck by either side of the jaw, she smushed his cheeks together.  “What do we do in these trying times?”

She gave him a little shake like he was a magic eight ball.

“I don’t know,” Buck slurred. Dizzy.

Frowning, she released him with disappointed huff that made him wilt, albeit unintentional.

“Well, I’m fresh out of ideas,” Natalie said, plopping back against the cushions. “Sorry Moni.”

“’s fine,” her friend said, punctuated by another long sip of water.

Taking a page out of Monica’s book, Buck worked on his drink, downing most of the water in two large gulps. But somewhere along his journey to the bottom of his glass, he was struck with an epiphany that had him pulling off the rim, gasping for air. “Eddie would know.”

Both women stared back at him, glancing at one another in confusion.

“Who’s Eddie?” Natalie was the first to ask, glancing around the club like she expected another ‘stripper’ to materialize from the crowd.

“Eddie,” Buck began, ignoring the way his heart clenched, “has a Silver Star.”

And a leg that worked. And people that liked him. And the best-est kid in the whole wide world.

And an ass that just won’t quit.

Because Eddie was proactive. A problem solver. He wouldn’t let a small speed bump—admittedly preceded by a much larger one—get in the way of things. He’d get that wedding dress, get himself back to LA, and then, like... do a backflip. Or something.

But before he got the chance to say any of that out loud, a figure approached from his periphery, immediately making their presence known:

“There you are.”

A woman stood before him. Tall. Taller than him. But that might have just been because he was sitting down (it was totally because he was sitting down). And the longer she lingered, eyes transfixed on the company he kept, it became pretty obvious that she was not talking to him.

“Well, well, well,” Natalie smugly drawled, “look who finally decided to show up.”

“It’s a fifteen minute drive and I made it in ten,” the other woman deadpanned, already making her way to Monica on the couch. Kneeling down until she was eye level with the sniffling woman, she asked, “You alright?”

Monica managed a jerky nod Buck wasn’t sure anyone in their right mind would believe in the slightest. “Mhm...”

“Ok,” the other woman sighed, taking Monica’s nearly empty glass of water and setting it down on the nearest flat surface. “Time to go, I think.”

“Priya, no! That’s not why I called!” Natalie whined in protest, stomping her feet from where she sat. “You’ve spent the entire night cooped up in that hotel room. Partake in the festivities, mayhaps? Geez, it’s like you’re not even getting married tomorrow!”

Wait. What?

“Partake in the—” Priya repeated back, words tapering off into an incredulous laugh. “What, so both brides can be hungover on their wedding day? Hard pass.”

The realization hit him so hard, it had him keeling over to bury his head in his hands. Groaning.

“Uh... Buck?” someone asked. Probably Natalie.

“I suck,” he muttered, head still in his hands. “I suck so bad.”

Because he was an asshole. An assumption-making asshole. God—he even used to be friends with Hen and Karen! Michael too. He of all people should know better.

...he also made out with a dude after nearly twenty-nine years of being under the assumption he was strictly into women, but that was a little harder to wrap his head around while drunk. Easier to write that off as a fluke—along with the raging ten minute erection that followed.

“You thought that after hearing about my ex-husband that I’d be marrying another man,” Monica said. Not accusatory, but accurate just the same.

Buck confirmed with a single, pitiful nod.

“Plenty of people are into both,” she explained as she wiped her nose on her sleeve, still a little teary eyed.

And it felt like someone had finally done him the service of unlocking the secrets of the universe. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

What a strange and beautiful world they lived in.

“You didn’t know that?” she asked, head cocked to the side.

“I mean...” he trailed, “vaguely?”

“What is happening right now?” Priya suddenly asked, cutting the interaction short. “Who is he?”

“Buck,” Monica said.

“Buck,” he also said, half a beat later.

“Buck...” Priya repeated for confirmation, giving him a quick once over. Silent as she deliberated on how she felt about the half-naked man sitting next to her bride-to-be. Eventually, she asked, “You work here, Buck?”

He had to pause to consider it, eventually replying, “It’s complicated.”

A response that only seemed to make the other woman that much more suspicious. “Expand on that.”

“Aw, lay off the dude,” Natalie groaned in his defense. “You can’t get jealous when you’re the one who suggested she and I come here for her bachelorette in the first place.

And while Buck had never really been one to judge, he couldn’t help but ask, “Uh. Why’d you do that?”

Unbothered, Priya explained, “Nat likes hot dudes, and Moni likes their Moscow Mules.”

“They put blueberries in them,” Monica sniffled.

Fuck. Buck definitely hadn’t been putting blueberries in the Moscow Mules.

“Thought it’d be a good way to take her mind off things,” Priya continued, “and I told them to call me if things got out of hand.”

“And I told you she’d have more fun with you here. Which is why I called,” Natalie cut in with a very matter-of-fact tone.

Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, Priya murmured, “Not really my scene.”

“Then maybe you should’ve suggested bowling.”

“Stop fighting,” Monica sighed.

Which was news to Buck. That was probably one of the most civilized disagreements he’d bore witness to in quite some time. Though, considering he sued the last person he’d gotten really pissed at… maybe that wasn’t as high a bar as he’d thought.

“No one could’ve made this night any better or worse,” the woman went on to say, brow furrowing at the memory of her ex-husband. “Because he tried to ruin the last five years of my life, and it kinda sucks that he still has the power to ruin this too.”

And perhaps Buck would’ve been more inclined to believe she’d made peace with that fact if she hadn’t looked so damn sad. Which was more than likely to blame for what followed...

“But you know where the dress is?” he asked. A plan hatching.

Without an ounce of emotion—negative or otherwise—she recited the facts: “Upstairs. Second room on the right. In the closet. Top shelf.”

If nothing else, his question managed to catch Natalie’s attention. “What’s with that face?” she asked, leaning over to conspiratorially whisper in his ear.

And with the confidence of a drunk who had never been more sure of anything in his life, Buck replied, “I think I know what Eddie would do.”

5:00 | November 1st, 2019 | THE RAPTURE

Pulling into the latest parking lot, Eddie didn’t notice anything quote-unquote ‘off.’ In its center was a building paved in light blue brick, lined in bright white accents with a large velvet door at its center. But even with the blacked-out windows and flashing neon signs outlining bodies of the more masculine inclination… Eddie failed to make some critical associations.

As always, he was the first one out of the car, boots hitting the asphalt a solid ten seconds before Bobby and Athena had even managed to unbuckle their seatbelts. It wasn’t until he was scurrying up the steps leading to the door that he heard Bobby calling after him to wait up. 

And this was it. The moment of truth. That’s what he told himself at least as he peered out into the vastness of the mostly empty parking lot, still populated by three cars that must’ve belonged to whatever workers had stuck around to clean up. 

“If you hurry, you might be able to catch up to him. The bar closes at four, but they usually stay at least an hour after for cleanup.”

Eddie prayed that at least one of them belonged to John's uncle.

“Hold up a minute, Eddie,” Bobby said as soon as he caught up, just as he took a step forward to open the doors. “You sure you don’t want to wait outside?”

“I’ve been in a bar before,” he scoffed. Perhaps he’d have felt worse about the tone he’d taken if the other man hadn’t started talking to him like he was some cornered animal about an hour back.

Athena exhaled a long suffering sigh on her way over, muttering, “Let it happen, Bobby,” as she passed him on route to the door. Without warning or further ado, she pushed open the double doors.

Eddie didn’t hesitate to follow her through the threshold. But as soon as he did...

Ah.

Well. He supposed that explained what Bobby had said earlier. However, it did very little to explain why he seemed to think that Eddie couldn’t handle a couple mostly naked men. He’d been in the army, after all.

But just as the trio had stepped into the empty strip club, they were just as soon brought to a stuttering halt.

A man sweeping the floor, clad in nothing but spandex underwear, spotted them from across the empty bar. “Sorry, we’re closed for the—”

“We’re looking for a man by the name of Evan Buckley,” Athena replied, effectively steamrolling the man. Presenting her police badge in one hand, she held her phone with a photo of Buck in the other. “Goes by ‘Buck.’”

The man rolled his eyes, irritation radiating off him in a way that had Eddie grinding his molars together. “Let me get my boss for you,” he said, disappearing into a backroom, electing to make someone else deal with it.

Asshole.

A second man materialized from the same door the other left through, expression neutral and impassive as he took in the sight of the new arrivals. Shrugging on a loose button-up for a modicum of modesty, Eddie felt nothing but relief that this man was intent on being marginally less naked than the last.

“Heard you’re looking for me,” he announced, sauntering into the room with a thick mustache and a generous amount of chest hair that would’ve been weirder not to note.

“Not quite,” Athena replied, flashing the photo on her phone again. When the man leaned in to take a closer look, she continued, “His name’s Evan Buckley. Seen him?”

The man gave a quiet hum, eyes briefly flickering down to the badge she’d reattached to her belt. So quick you’d almost miss it. “No,” he said, back straightening, “sorry.”

It had Bobby double-checking the address on his phone in confusion while Eddie immediately looked to Athena for the ‘ok’ to start smashing windows.

The woman ignored them both, pocketing her phone and crossing her arms over her chest. “That so?”

The man mimicked the gesture. “Yep.”

Athena stared him down in silence. Studying him. Like he was nothing more than the most recent problem to fix. “Well,” she eventually began, “that’s not what John said.”

It didn’t have the desired effect, the man barely reacting before replying, “Which John? I know a lot of Johns.”

“Your nephew, I presume.”

Furrowing his brow and tapping his chin with his index finger, he made a show out of pretending to mull it over. “Nope. No nephews.”

“Well, someone claiming to be your nephew certainly gave us the address of this bar,” Athena explained like she was running through the facts with a combative suspect, determined to catch them in a lie. Eyes scanning the room as she slowly began walking the perimeter of the bar, she eventually paused in front of an accent wall covered in various pictures and keepsakes. Like some kind of strip club trophy wall.

The woman gave it a quick once over. Then, she gave it another, this time with a little more purpose as she honed in on a specific section. Spine stiffening and eyes widening just a fraction, her expression returned to the perfect picture of neutral indifference as she turned her attention back on the man.

“Mateo, right?” she said, smile tight. “Interesting wall you have here. Mind if I take a closer look?”

“Knock yourself out,” he said, not once making an attempt to deny the namesake. Sighing as he crossed the room, he grabbed a nearby rag and found his place behind the bar. “Mind if I finish wiping down my bar top in the meantime?”

“You said it best,” she replied, words sharper than before. “Knock yourself out.”

Shaking his head, Mateo muttered something to himself that no one could hear. Spraying down the bar top with store-brand disinfectant, he paid her little mind as he began to clean.

Athena used the opportunity to closely examine a particular picture, hands reaching out to grasp it by the frame, carefully removing it from the wall.

“You’re sure you don’t know him?” she asked again, hands and frame held behind her back as she stalked closer toward the bar.

Barely glancing up from where he worked, the man huffed a condescending laugh. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Perhaps if he’d been paying more attention, he would’ve known it was a trap.

“And, you see, I find that funny,” she said slowly, standing directly in front of him on the opposite side of the bar top. In a flurry of movement that made the man flinch, she slammed the picture frame face up on the counter, yelling, “Because he sure as hell seems to know you.”

And on first glance, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. Not for a place like this. Just two men looking very cozy with one another, and...

Eddie did a double take. Then a triple take. Then, bracing his hands on the counter, he leaned in close to confirm for himself that his eyes were not deceiving him. Because it would’ve been so easy to write it off as the man across from him making out with some faceless stranger he’d likely never meet. But he couldn’t. Because as his eyes landed on the familiar tattoo on his bare chest, they just as soon drifted over to the birthmark caught in the bright flash of the camera.

In the picture, stood Buck and Mateo, the former pinned in place by the latter; the large hand on his jaw maneuvering him where the other wanted, devouring him in a ravenous kiss. Clad in nothing but a flimsy, golden jockstrap with a couple of dollar bills crudely stuffed into the elastic, very little was left to the imagination. 

Whatever face Eddie was making, he would wager a guess that it was not a pleasant one. Because as he finally looked up to face the man across the counter, body pumping him with enough adrenaline to fight a mountain lion… Mateo took a wide step back.

“Easy, man,” he said, careful and cautious as he held his hands out in front of him.

Attention flickering between the pair, Athena never made a move to intervene. Instead, she opted to join Eddie in his silent stare down, channeling the combined power of their death glares in hopes of intimidating the man into giving them what they wanted: answers.  

The two only remained vaguely aware of Bobby’s presence, reminded of the fact when the man cleared his throat, reaching over to flip the picture frame face down. “Ahem. Well.”

“Care to tell me why you felt the need to lie?” Athena demanded, the first to break the stilted silence.  “For all you knew, he could’ve been a serial killer!”

“Is he?” Mateo asked with the same air of apathy as before.

“No.”

“Guess it’s alright then,” he muttered, pinching his brow before facing the door across the empty strip club. “Mathew—get the hell in here!”

Around twenty seconds or so later, a man popped his head out. The same one from when they first walked in.

One hand resting on his hip as the other snatched up the picture frame, Mateo held it up like the man across the room could see it. “Were you the one who took this picture? How the hell did you get it framed so fast?”

“There’s a 24/7 CVS across the street, and we already had the picture frame lying around,” the other shrugged with the kind of smug satisfaction that Eddie couldn’t stand in the slightest. “Seemed like something you’d wanna remember.”

This time, Bobby was the one with questions: “Do either of you two plan on elaborating?”

“On the record?” the man began, entirely unaffected by Bobby’s ‘pissed-off fire-captain voice’ that he’d broken out for that very special occasion. “First boner I’d ever popped that had me planning out our future together.”

Bobby made a neutral sound of displeasure as Eddie sputtered like a misfiring engine.

Fortunately, Athena was more than willing to step in, albeit with a scowl. “And off the record?”

“That,” the man smirked, a faint dusting of red upon his cheeks, “is not for polite company.”

Eddie was gonna kill him.

Not because he had an issue with Buck being interested in men. Obviously not! No, the issue lied with the fact that Eddie thought if Buck was going to be letting another man do that to him, he should at least be hot. Like, superhumanly hot. Not sort-of hot. Not moderately-to-severely hot. Not even ‘I-got-asked-to-work-at-PacSun-back-in-high-school-and-it’s-still-my-crowning-achievement’ hot...

He had a point to this, originally.

“Ok, I think maybe it would do us all a little good to get back on topic,” Bobby sighed, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder.

And to give himself a little credit, Eddie allowed it to have the desired effect, surrendering to the calmness that swept through him. But that wasn’t to say he was willing to let the issue lie. Nope. Quite the contrary.

“I’m only going to ask this once,” he started. A deep breath in. A deep breath out. “Where the hell is Buck?”

Mateo simply stared back at him, cocking an eyebrow as he let out a quiet snort of amusement.

Fuck you—fuck you—fuck you—

“You think this is some sort of joke?” Eddie snapped.

“No,” the other simpered. “But it is funny.”

And suddenly: Eddie found himself at a critical crossroad. Faced with the decision between swallowing his pride and being the bigger man, or giving into his anger and resorting to juvenile name-calling

“Wipe that shit off your upper lip before talking to me like that, douchebag.”

Name-calling it is, then.

With a blank expression betrayed only by the subtle twitch in his mustache, Mateo immediately fired back: “Buck seemed to like it.”

Eddie flared his nostrils, for that was the final straw. Though, he never actually got the chance to act on it.

In his periphery, the employee that’d previously excused himself to the backroom approached. “Hello, hi! Just popping in to let you know,” the man said with a patronizing, false cheer as he flashed him his phone, “I do have 9-1-1 on speed dial. Just something to keep in mind.”

With an audible scoff, Eddie looked him over from head to toe, finding nothing to write home about other than some turquoise, sequined shorts. And all things considered, that was probably the lowest point of his night: the fact he was getting talked down to by a man so unnoteworthy in appearance, it looked like he’d get sent home third on the Bachelorette.

“It’s three numbers,” he hissed, spitting his venom as he whirled on the man. “How much more help do you need?”

“Eddie,” Bobby said, a firmness in his tone not typically reserved for him. “Take a walk.”

And for a split second, it was like the world had come to a screeching halt. Pointing to himself, incredulity bleeding into his stare, Eddie squawked, “Me?”

“Yes. You,” the older man sighed. Exhausted. “Go calm down in the car. Athena and I will handle it.”

The anger churning in Eddie’s gut bubbled in his stomach, crawling up his esophagus and threatening to spill out of his gaping mouth. The same anger he’d been suffering for works. The kind of anger he proceeded to mentally beat back with a stick. Because he had yelled at Buck in a grocery store under harsh fluorescent lighting, neighboring the produce aisle.

He’d be damned if he did the same to Bobby in a male strip club.

“Fine,” he eventually huffed. But before Mateo or his employee could look too smug about that fact, he snatched the picture frame off the counter faster than anyone could react and started stomping away.

“Dude, come on...”

“Eddie—"

“I’m keeping this!” he snapped, brandishing the frame in a cool and collected type of way that totally didn’t border unhinged at all. But as held it in both hands, running the pads of his thumbs across the smooth varnish of the thick wood... it was a nice frame. Like, a really nice frame.

Grumbling a handful of expletives, he turned it over, fumbling with the back before successfully extracting the picture. Sulking back to the bar top, averting every morbidly curious stare in his wake, Eddie slapped the empty frame down on the counter before making his hasty retreat once more.

The door to the strip club swooshed shut behind him, cutting off Bobby and Athena’s murmured apologies just in time.

Left alone to shudder in the cold November air, he felt something strange settle his ribcage as he stared numbly down at the picture crumpled between his white-knuckled fist. Delicately unfurling the glossy paper, he did his best to smooth out the dents and creases only to find himself choking up at the sight that greeted him: Buck forever frozen in time, locked in a loving embrace with another man, looking happier than Eddie had seen him in months.

And suddenly, that ‘something’ in his chest felt crucial. Vital. Like something he didn’t dare try to name.

Eddie ripped the picture in half, carefully folding the pieces on top of each other before tearing it again and again and again. Destroying the evidence but not the emotion it wrought. Opening his palm, he watched the pile of scrap flutter across the empty parking lot from a particularly strong gust of wind.

That’s when the phantom echoes of both Christopher and Buck began screaming at him in his subconscious, like the time he had dared to throw an orange peel out the open car window in their presence. God... he could still hear Chris’ scandalized gasp from the backseat:

“Litterbug!”

“Kick him, Chris!” Buck had egged on from the driver’s side, cackling at the ‘pap pap pap’ of the boy’s flailing limps as they slapped against the back of his father’s seat.

“It’s biodegradable,” Eddie had exclaimed, his son only pausing his vicious onslaught to ask what that meant.

Rattling off a quick definition, Buck had filled the rest of their drive with every fun fact he knew about plant-based fertilizers, fielding every question and concern that Chris could possibly come up with as Eddie observed from the passenger side, a gentle warmth spreading throughout his chest.

Which was essentially to say: he blamed Buck for his current predicament—scurrying around a strip club’s parking lot, frantically chasing down scraps of loose paper depicting his half-naked best friend in a state of 'disarray.' Because Eddie Diaz was a lot of things, but he was no litterbug.

Breathing a sigh of relief as he snatched up the last piece, he took a minute to collect himself on the asphalt, briefly panting on all fours. Eventually pushing himself up to his knees, catching his breath, Eddie couldn’t stop himself from flipping over the last scrap to examine it.

What stared back was the side of Buck’s jaw and the smooth column of his neck, both wrenched back to meet the cropped-out visage of a man shoving his tongue down his throat. And Eddie froze. Awestruck. Like for a second, if he wanted to, he could pretend that...

He closed his fist around the scraps and shot to his feet. Soles of his boots scraping against loose gravel, he stalked toward the dumpster pressed against the side of the building. Tossing the ruined picture inside and slamming the lid shut… it didn’t feel like that was the only thing he’d been trying to throw away.

Hands shaking as he swallowed his bile, Eddie backed away from the dumpster, stumbling toward the car on unsteady feet.

Chapter Text

7:00 | November 1st, 2019 | Los Angeles, CA

When Maddie first awoke, she did so to the sound of a phone pinging with rapid fire text notifications. Eyes bleary with sleep, she slammed her hand down on the bedside table, blindly searching for the offending device.

With a groan of frustration, she sat up, rubbing her eyes as the phone continued to chime.

Amidst the sleep-fueled chaos, the door to the bathroom opened, Chim popping his head out to whisper-yell, “Did I wake you up?”

Maddie waved him off with a flick of her hand, finally managing to grab the phone. Buck’s phone. Because after what had transpired mere hours ago in his loft, she vowed to always keep the thing within arm’s reach until this living nightmare reached its end. And as the screen glowed to life, a wall of text messages and attachments from an unknown number…

She knew it’d been the right choice.

“It’s Buck,” she said, unlocking his phone and opening the text thread. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she startled when she found that the man had materialized at her side, fully dressed for his shift in an hour.

Murmuring a quick apology, Chim asked, “In the flesh?”

Oh, Maddie wished. Mouth pressed into a pensive frown, she shook her head and showed him the screen. It was mostly comprised of a handful of blurry thumbnails save for the single text at the bottom:

(xxx)-xxx-xxxx | 7:08 am: Well. Here you go.

“More videos?” Chim asked, scratching his head in confusion, “He making a documentary or something?”

“I’ll ask when he gets back,” Maddie muttered, hitting play on the first video of the thread. It was only fifteen seconds long, dropping them dead center into an ongoing argument:

“—put your pants on!”

“I’m faster without them!”

With a period of violent rustling and hissed curses as someone readjusted the phone camera, it wasn’t until whoever was recording turned on the flash that Maddie saw her brother. Matter of fact, she saw too much of her brother. Far more than she’d ever wanted to see.

“Riddle be this, dum-dum: what’re you gonna do when something pops out, he grabs you by the wiener, and yanks—”

“I’m not watching these,” Maddie said, dropping the phone on the bed like it was on fire. Looking over at her boyfriend, expectant and pleading, he stared back at her with a matching wide-eyed expression. “Howie...”

Knowing what she was going to ask before she’d gotten the chance to ask it, he began to sputter, “Why do I have to get scarred for life?”

“Because you’re not related to him,” Maddie exclaimed.

“Well. In a way, you could say that I’ve come to think of him as a broth—”

“That’s really sweet, but I know what you’re doing and it’s not gonna work.”

Shoulders sagging with a defeated huff, Chim relented. Retrieving the phone off the comforter, he began scrubbing through the videos, occasionally making a resigned sound of mild displeasure.

“Well?” Maddie asked after a moment, the suspense becoming unbearable.

Brow pinched and mouth pressed into a thin line, the man remained mostly silent as he continued his leisurely scrolling. “Hm.”

“Howard—”

“I am being forced to look at half-naked videos of your brother for his own wellbeing,” he exhaled with the patience of a saint. “I’m gonna need a minute.”

 And with that, Maddie’s mouth clicked shut. Folding her hands gingerly in her lap, she resigned herself to waiting, giving the other the minute he required.

Scrubbing through the most recent video, Chim furrowed his brow in concentration. “Aha! This looks like something,” he announced, turning the phone to show her.

Leaning in close, Maddie glanced between the man and the phone screen, wondering just what the hell he’d seen to warrant such a premature proclamation of victory:

In the middle of an unkempt field stood a two-story house, illuminated by nothing but its porchlight and the waxing moon overhead. And whoever was recording had decided to do so from the passenger side of a roofless car.

“Moni,” a voice hissed, “why the hell are you recording this?

“Evidence!”

“For what? They’re the ones committing the crime right now.”

“Did...” Maddie blinked. “Did she just say ‘crime’?”

Just then, two figures emerged out of the tall brush in the video, creeping up the stairs of the porch. Both of which appeared fully clothed. Thankfully. Approaching the front door and fiddling with the handle, the pair disappeared into the abode, closing the door behind them.

“Hey, uh,” Chim began. Paling. “You don’t think that one of the people that just went into that house was—”

“Do you even need to ask?” Maddie groaned, dread churning in her gut. Because context clues, Howie, come on!

“No, but I’d like to consider myself an optimist.” 

“...since when?”

Chim only sighed. Unable to wait on bated breath for whatever came next, he scrubbed through the video again, stopping just short of fifteen minutes later. Perturbed

Upon noticing his expression, Maddie asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, but something’s off,” he muttered. Frowning. “Call me crazy, but it feels like they’ve been inside too long.”

“Something off,” one of the voices in the phone remarked. “They’ve been inside too long.”

Eyes bugging out of his skull as he gestured aggressively to the device in his hand, Chim yelled, “That’s what I’m saying!”

But before Maddie got the chance to step in, mindlessly attempting to assuage those concerns, a light on the second story of the house flickered on. And she just couldn’t shake the feeling that it heralded something awful.

“Shit,” the voices in the video echoed.

Well. That certainly hadn’t helped either.

Dark figures blurred past the window in bursts of movement, several more lights in the house turning on in rapid succession. Though, it wasn’t until a woman came flying out the front door like a bat out of hell that anyone knew for sure what was happening.

“He woke up,” she screeched, booking it toward the camera. “He woke up—start the fucking car!”

“We never turned it off, Nat!” one of the women called back, just as the other yelled:

“Where the hell did Buck go?”

All it seemed to accomplish was confirming the worst of Maddie’s fears. And soon enough, she’d be given a brand new one.

One of the windows on the second-story flung open, a figure climbing out of the house accompanied by a white, puffy blob. She wasn’t even afforded the opportunity to process what it was before they were on the move, scuttling across the shingles on route to the lattice fence stretching from roof to porch. Bundling what she eventually recognized to be a wedding dress into their arms, they swung themselves over the ledge, beginning their hasty descent.

They got maybe half of the way before the lattice snapped, sending them tumbling to the field below as Maddie yelped, covering her face in terror as she watched what must’ve been her brother fall.

But just as soon as Buck hit the ground, he shot right back up, wedding dress held overhead and streaking behind him as he sprinted into the field. Victorious.

But that victory was short-lived as another figure emerged in the front doorway, brandishing something long and skinny, its barrel glinting dangerously in the moonlight.

“Monica, that better not be you!” they yelled from the porch.

Whoever was holding the camera let out a disgruntled scoff before screaming with the rage of a woman scorned, “Fuck you, Jackson—this is three-hundred feet!”

The woman who’d fled via door finally crossed the remaining distance, quickly opening and closing the car behind her as she flung herself into the backseat, chest heaving from exertion.

Buck was not nearly as lucky.

BOOM!

He hit the deck mid-sprint, completely obscured under the cover of the tall grass. 

“Aw, fuck, he’s strapped now?!”

“It’s fine! It’s literally fine! It was just a warning shot!”

And Maddie had never felt so compelled to reach through a phone screen and throttle someone before.

But by the grace of God, Buck shot to his feet—unharmed—sprinting even faster now. And he didn’t stop until he was diving face first into the convertible, legs flying over his head, drowning in swaths of silk and tulle. Like a runaway bride.

Another gunshot echoed in the night, punctuated by a chorus of screams. One of them was Chim.

The driver chose that critical moment to stomp on the gas, peeling down the dirt road until the house was nothing more than a dot in the horizon. With nothing but the frantic, fearful breaths of both the car’s occupants and their unplanned voyeurs to fill the silence, Maddie reached out to tap the phone screen, shocked to find at least three more minutes left in the video.

“You never said... he had... a shotgun...” Buck wheezed in between each desperate gasp for air, pushing away the fabric of the gown until he was visible to the camera.

“He didn’t used to—I swear!” the person behind the camera exclaimed. “He must’ve bought it after I threatened him for my cat back...”

“Checks out,” he groaned, shifting until he was laying back, head pressed against the chest of the woman in the backseat.

Absentmindedly carding her fingers through his hair, that woman chuckled, “Lucky for us, Jackson couldn’t shoot a fart out of his own ass.”

Buck started snickering alongside her. Digging something out of his front pocket in the meantime, he presented it to whoever was behind the camera. It looked like a standard house key. “And let that be a lesson to all in changing your locks after the divorce... shit, do I need to change my locks now too?”

“You’re divorced?”

Buck made a noncommittal noise before his head lolled to the side, pillowed by the woman’s impressive bosom.

And Maddie sincerely hoped she was not about to watch her brother motorboat a stranger.

“Hell of an escape you made out that upstairs window,” the woman panted, breathless and—thankfully—un-motorboated. “Really put those firefighting skills to the test tonight!”

Buck glowed from the praise. Beaming, he tilted his head back, yelling into the night with reckless abandon, “Hear that, Bobby? Who says you can’t be a firefighter on blood thinners.”

A hush fell over the convertible, and the hand carding through his hair froze. Eyes wide and startled, the woman looked directly at the camera and asked, “Did he just say he was on blood thinners?”

The video cut to black. But before its contents and implications that came with it could fully sink in, Maddie was moving. Taking the phone from a bewildered Chim, she dialed back the unknown number.

7:00 | November 1st, 2019 | ???

Buck woke up with a crick in his neck and a full bladder. Groaning, he made a move to sit up only to be shocked and dismayed to find that he was already sitting mostly upright.

That’s when the nausea hit.

He fumbled briefly with the handle on his left. Successfully flinging open the car door, he spilled onto the ground with a dull thud, pain shooting through his leg. Lying face down, he closed his eyes and rested his cheek on the asphalt, cold and damp with morning dew; waiting to throw up but never actually managing. Which felt crueler somehow.

Someone leaned over the side of the car, their silhouette engulfing him from above as they asked, “Aw, hey, you ok?”

It sounded like Natalie, and she’d said it with a level of concern that filled him with the inexplicable urge to cry. To be perfectly fair, however, he always felt like he was one ‘Oh, Buck...’ away from bursting into tears. These days, at least.

“Yeah, I’m ok,” he said, pushing himself up and off the ground, swallowing his pained grimace as he tweaked his leg. “Kinda have to pee though.”

“There’s a couple bushes over there if you’re interested,” she offered. “Just a forewarning though: they might already have some pee on them.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, “Because you already peed—”

“Because I already peed on them.”

Well. It was a good thing that beggars can’t be choosers. Shuffling past the bushes, Buck didn’t drop his pants until he was certain he was completely obscured, emptying his bladder with a sigh. Blinking down at himself, it was at that moment he realized two things:

One: his jeans were inside out.

Two: this was not the pair of underwear he’d started out in, marking the second article of clothing he’d lost since the beginning of his ‘journey.’

With an irritated groan, he shucked off his pants, flipping them inside out as he avoided direct eye contact with the golden jockstrap adorning his hips. And it was only when he was standing there—jeans around his ankles and ass in the breeze—that the events of the night before hit him like a brick wall as he battled valiantly through the next wave of nausea.

“Uh... question,” he began, poking his head out from behind the bushes to address the women in the car, two of whom were only just now waking up. “Do any of you happen to know where all my money went?”

“Do you think it might’ve fell out when you went tumbling through that second story window?” Monica yawned from the passenger side, hugging her wedding dress close to her chest.

Buck paled as he considered that likelihood. Because with his luck... yeah. Yeah, that was a real possibility. Fuck.

“Not to worry,” Priya said, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she rifled through the middle console of the car. “Here. Made sure to keep it safe for you.”

She handed him a plastic bag filled with dollar bills, smelling faintly of trail mix.

Bewildered yet relieved, he took it from her, counting out what he had. And up until that exact moment, Buck had been under the impression he’d mostly been raking in stacks of singles the night before. But he’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.  

“Got enough?” Priya asked.

“Yeah. Maybe even enough for next month’s rent,” he said, shoving the money back into the old chip bag. Then, with an exasperated huff, “Did I choose the wrong career path?”

“Seeing as you’re on literal blood thinners... maybe,” the woman finished with a pinched expression and disapproving frown. Digging through her middle console once again, she pulled out a familiar prescription bottle before handing it off to him. “You’re lucky you dropped this in the car and not his house. Would’ve been nice to know about it beforehand, just FYI.”

And if Buck hadn’t been battling his third wave of nausea, a splitting headache, and that aforementioned crick in his neck, he probably would’ve used a nicer tone for what followed. But alas: “Yeah. Would’ve also been nice to know about the shotgun, but you don’t see me complaining.”

“We, uh...” Priya trailed, at least bothering to look a little ashamed. “We didn’t know about the shotgun.”

“Noted.”

“Well. Can’t do anything about that now,” Natalie exclaimed, clapping her hands together in a way that made everyone battling a hangover wince. Including herself. “But just in case your physician didn’t mention it: drinking on anticoagulants is not typically recommended! And this is coming from an ER doctor. Which is one of two reasons why we didn’t take you to the nearest hospital after that little revelation.”

“What was the other reason?”

“Drunk-you was weirdly resistant to the idea.”

Made sense. Even sober, Buck didn’t particularly like hospitals. Because every time he seemed to step foot into one, they were always finding new things that were wrong with him. Scarier things.

 “Ok. One more question.” Shoving his prescription into his front pocket along with the wad of cash, he gestured vaguely to the wooded backroad they were parked on the side off. “Where the hell are we?”

“Down the road from the nearest bus station. Drunk-you was very persistent about that,” Priya deadpanned. “Almost killed what was left of my battery just routing here with my GPS app. I got like 2% left from that and of all the videos Moni shot from the night before.”

Buck looked at the woman in question, cocking a curious brow.

Monica shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Given, I was very drunk.”

And it’s not like he was one to judge. Still, recording something while actively aiding and abetting a crime was certainly... a choice. Though, it didn’t stop him from finding a way that could work in his favor:

“Hey, if I give you my number, do you mind sending those to me? I don’t really have a phone right now, but I’m hoping it’ll be backed up on my computer when I get home.”

All it seemed to earn him was three stares of varying confusion.

“The videos of you breaking and entering into my ex’s house?” Monica asked. But any apprehension directed at the request was gone nearly as soon as it had arrived. “What the hell. Sure.”

“It’s more about the location data. I missed my first shift back to work because of, uh... reasons. And I sort of need any proof I can get at this point that it wasn’t my fault,” he explained, feeling more and more foolish with each word uttered. “I guess it sounds pretty dumb when I say it all out loud.”

“It’s not dumb. Just maybe crop those parts out,” she said, quickly clarifying, “The crime parts.”

And to that, he gave a wry smile. Because yeah. Probably best to keep this little side quest a secret.

“Now hop in. You’ve got a bus to catch,” Natalie announced, opening the back door for him to crawl in. “Unless drunk-you was talking out of his ass about needing to get back to LA.”

Buck chuckled. Obliging. “He was not.”

Settling into the seat beside her, he buckled his seat belt as Priya started the car, rattling off his phone number for Monica to send him those videos.

They reached their destination in a matter of minutes, rolling up to the station of some bus line he’d never heard of. Car shifting to park, Buck made a move to leave only to be stopped on his way out.

“Oh. And take this,” Natalie said, handing him something heavy.

Without thinking, he took it from her. Which left him staring at an old gym sock weighed down by some mysterious bulk hanging from his right hand.

“What,” he drawled, “is it?”

“Approximately $12.25 in change.”

“Ok. Awesome. Why?”

Smiling at him with the brightness of a thousand suns, she replied, “Self-defense. Ever get hit in the face with a sock full of quarters before?”

He shook his head.

“Hurts,” she clarified, suddenly serious. “You also let something slip about a carjacking last night. Figured that with your luck, you needed an ‘equalizer’ of sorts.”

Yep. Mhm. Makes sense. Or it would’ve if not for one key detail:

“Why’d you bring a sock full of quarters to the strip club?”

“In case I ran out of singles.” She shrugged. “Strippers take change, right?”

Buck’s eyes subconsciously drifted down to his crotch. Jockstrap hidden beneath his jeans, he attempted to work out those logistics but fell tragically short. “I don’t see how they could.”

“Then maybe you’re just not creative enough. Speaking of: might wanna jump up and down a few times. Got a couple of ‘em real good up there,” Natalie said, miming what Buck thought was supposed to be a coin slot.

“Hm,” he hummed. Mouth pressed into a thin, disapproving line, he opted to look to the others for answers.

“She’s joking, she would never do that,” Monica supplied, voice taking a frantic edge. “She’s literally an ER doctor—she pulls weird shit out of people’s asses multiple times a week. She knows better.”

Which would’ve been comforting if not for the look Natalie was currently giving him. A look that had him deliberately adding a little more bounce to his step as he exited the car. Just in case.

“So. I guess this is it then,” Buck announced, arms falling at his sides as he shifted awkwardly between feet. He’d never been good at goodbyes.

“This is it,” Priya confirmed. “It’s been fun—”

“Wait. Hold on a minute,” Monica interjected, leaning over the back of her seat to grab something. “I have something for you too.”

Buck made a distressed sound from the back of his throat. Because with the sock of quarters still dangling limply in hand, he wasn’t all too sure about receiving another ‘gift’ from the trio.

“Here. It’s not gonna be as overcast these next couple days,” the woman said, “and who knows how long you’ll be waiting for a bus out here.”

She handed him her fluffy, hot pink cowboy hat with the words ‘Sassy B*tch’ written in glittery cursive around the rim.

“That’s...” he trailed, deciding to try it on before passing any real judgment. Once he had, eyes mercifully shielded from the morning sun… he couldn’t hide his relief if he’d tried. “Wonderful. Thank you.”

“Take these too,” Priya said, handing him a pair of cheap sunglasses. “Hangovers suck.”

And—holy shit—this was so different from the last trio he’d stumbled across.

“Look at us! We’re like the three Magi,” Natalie exclaimed before turning back to Buck, shooting him a soft smile. “Not to rush you or anything, but you might wanna hurry up and grab a ticket. We got a wedding to attend, but we don’t mind waiting here until you make sure they’ve got a bus that can actually take you home.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, grateful for the shades currently hiding the emotion in his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll go do that. Thanks again—”

The phone in the cupholder buzzed withanin incoming call, and all four heads turned just in time to witness a number flashing across the screen. And that number...

Buck recognized that number.

He recognized that number because it was his number.

“Hey, can I see that real quick?” he asked, jaw tight and fist clenched. Because there was only one person who could have access to his phone right now. Only issue was: he couldn’t figure out why the hell they were calling.

Priya and Monica shared a look but neither objected to the request.

With the phone now clenched between his white-knuckled grip, Buck took a deep inhale. Steeling himself. Then, without waiting a second longer, he pressed answer.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, and that was all he needed to unleash the vitriol he’d been harboring.

“Martin, when I catch you...” he glowered, louder than he’d intended—a fact he only became aware of when he was met with nothing but stunned silence in return. Which, admittedly, he found a bit odd. Nonetheless: “I don’t actually know what I’m gonna do yet, but when I’m done, you will have a new appreciation for the function of your legs.”

If nothing else, it managed to startle the other into actually speaking, gasping out, “Bu—”

The call cut out, and Buck was left standing there, checking the phone to make sure he hadn’t accidentally hung up.

“Oh. It died,” he said, staring at the black screen a moment before handing the phone back to its rightful owner. “I think I made my point though.”

“Who’s Martin?” Priya was the first to warily venture.

“Guy that carjacked me at gunpoint and stole my phone.”

“...what’re you gonna do to him?”

“Realistically? Nothing. But it’s nice to pretend.”

She held his stare for a moment, squinting ever so slightly. But eventually, she simply shrugged, “Sounds reasonable.”

Yes. It was very reasonable. So reasonable, in fact, he was currently pondering a reality where those threats could come to fruition. But not this one. Because Buck was not a violent man, and he had already reached his monthly capacity for crime.

“I, uh... should probably go then,” he said, gesturing to the rundown bus station with one hand while readjusting his novelty cowboy hat with the other. “Thank you for everything, and congrats on the wedding.”

“Call us when you get back to LA,” Monica called after him as he walked away, “you have Priya’s number now!”

“I will,” he shouted back, waving over his shoulder.

Stepping up to the bus station clerk, he ignored the man’s pointed look at his current ensemble as he scanned the timetable for upcoming buses. And as luck would finally have it, there was a bus to LA departing in less than thirty minutes.

Huffing a breathless laugh, Buck turned back to the car parked across the street still waiting for him, smiling as he gave its occupants a thumbs up.

He could hear their cheers from even there.

“Good luck, Buck!” all three yelled as they sped away, waving as they flew down the highway.

And despite it being more of a goodbye than he’d gotten with John—certainly more than he’d gotten with Mateo (which he felt bad about)—it still tasted bittersweet.

Quickly paying for his ticket and taking a seat on a nearby bench, he twisted the cap off his prescription bottle, popping the recommended dose into his mouth and swallowing it dry. Crisis averted. Rolling up his jeans to massage the soreness from his leg, he grimaced, noticing a couple nasty bruises he hadn’t had the night before.

Buck ignored it. The bruises, the reasons for the bruises, the jagged scar down his shin... he ignored it all. Instead, he busied himself with figuring out how his conversation with his employer was going to go once he touched back in LA:

“Now, Bobby, if you would be so kind as to turn your attention to Exhibit A—me puking down the side of a car—you will see that none of this was actually my fault. In fact, I believe it was Aristotle who once said...”

Do I even bother?

Jaw snapping shut, the question rang against the walls of his skull like a marble in a steel cup. Dissonant and hollow. Giving him a whole new reason for his headache. Because he wasn’t all too sure he trusted himself to answer that right now, if ever again.

A welcome distraction came in the form of a truck towing a horse trailer down the road, its squeaky back wheel creaking with each rotation. Smiling to himself as he leaned forward, trying to see if any horses were inside, that smile immediately fell as the trailer hit a pothole, slamming against the asphalt with a resounding BANG.

Back wheel flying off as the truck slammed on its brakes, the doors of the trailer flung open; two Appaloosas barreling out, squealing as they darted into the wilderness.

Buck watched in bewildered awe as an old woman stepped out of the truck, repeatedly hitting the now empty trailer with her walking stick as she yelled, “Piece of shit! Hunk of junk!”

Limping over to examine the trailer with a pensive look, she cupped a hand over her eyes before scanning the horizon. And whatever she found must not have been of much comfort, her shoulders sagging as she shifted most of her weight onto her walking stick. Defeated.

Frowning, Buck glanced down at his bus ticket. Then at the dim analogue wall-clock flashing the time.

Twenty minutes. He had twenty minutes until his bus arrived.

He could make it back in twenty minutes.

Without giving himself a chance to think better of it, Buck pushed himself off the stiff wooden bench, already on his way over as he called out to her, “Hi, ma’am! Do you need some help with that?”