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1
Hen has always been good at reading people, it's what makes her such a good paramedic. When she first met Buck she thought that he was your stereotypical young straight frat bro, who would ask 'can I watch' when they find out she's a lesbian with a wife. She was pleasantly surprised that he's not like that, he genuinely cares about everyone from the people on calls to his friends at the station. Buck was her friend, is her point, though he did tend to overshare, and now was a prime example of it or at least she thought it was.
Hen, Chimney and Buck are sitting at the table in the loft upstairs, enjoying the downtime between calls. The others are scattered around the station and Bobby's was in his office doing paperwork. So Chim and her are the only ones listening to Buck's account of his weekend. Hen likes Buck, mostly, but she knows way more than she needs or wants about his sex life. This time though is a bit different, so that's refreshing. It started with him getting a text, and smiling at his phone.
“Who’s got you smiling like that?” Chimney asks, then adds on. “leave out the graphic details. please.“
Buck looks up, looking slightly caught out. "Oh, just Nathan. I met him at a bar last night," he responds, either not noticing the last part or ignoring it. Hen is slightly surprised for a moment. She didn't know Buck was queer. She guesses she let her assumptions get the better of her. Chimney also seems to be surprised because he takes a moment before he responds back.
“Oh…umm, I didn’t realise you gave your number out to people, you must really like this guy” Chim inquired.
“Yeah, he’s super cool, he's a kindergarten teacher and he’s gay” then Buck tilts his head as if he is thinking through something. " Or at least I think he is cause I met him at a gay bar after he hit on me, so he could be bi or something. Not that it really matters" he finishes with.
Hen got the impression that his roommates, which were the people he tended to go out with, were your stereotypical frat bros, so she was kinda surprised they went to a gay bar in the first place considering all the women in there would be lesbians. Or at the bare minimum not wanting to be hit on by a guy, even if they did swing that way. "I didn't realise your roommates were into those types of bars?" she replied. Buck looked over to her as if he forgot she was also at the table and could hear their conversation.
"We usually go to 'straight' bars, but one of my roommates is gay and asked if could go to a gay bar at least once and we thought, why not you know." he put air quotes around the word straight as if he wasn't hundred percent sure if that the right term for an average non-gay bar. When he mentioned the gay roommate, she felt like he said it as if the gay roommate was the odd one out in their group when it comes to sexuality. She might be reading too much into it or maybe it's because Buck still likes women, so it's not like he is completely different to his straight friends compared to this one gay one. Or maybe he just hadn't been to a gay bar before, just because he was queer doesn’t mean he has been to one.
"That's nice, not all straight guys would go out of their way to go places without available women, especially on a night out" she said. He shrugs as if to say 'eh'.
“It was actually really fun, different, but fun. Those drag queens are really talented, the drunker I got the more I forgot that they weren’t just women with extravagant makeup and hair.” he said and Hen could definitely believe that.
The room went quiet for a second and then the chime of Buck's phone went off, reminding both Chimney and Hen of what started this conversion. "This is where you met this Nathan I assume" Chimney says, as he vaguely waves his hand at the phone to make his point.
Hen heard the sound of a message being sent from Buck’s phone before he chimed back in with “Yeah, so I lost my friends at one point and was standing by the bar and Nathan came up to me, told me he thought I was hot and offered to buy me drink, then I said thanks, but it’s probably a bad idea to waste your flirting and money on a straight guy” Hen did a double take at that, guess she was right the first time. She does have to admit she is a little disappointed that she is the only queer person on their shift again (or out one she amends). “We laughed about that and he made a joke about how the hot ones are always straight, then we hung out for the rest of the night, he was really cool.”
Before Hen or Chim could get a word in edgewise he continued on "and really hot like he had these big brown eyes, abs for days, and his laugh just lights up a room. Oh and a tight ass. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t already have a boyfriend, or guys throwing themselves at him. Can you believe that the entire time we hung out which was like a few hours no one hit on him?” He looked at them and stopped talking as if expecting an answer. Chim gave Hen a ‘can you believe this’ look before responding to Buck’s question.
“Ummm, I mean he was hanging out with a guy in a gay bar for hours at a time, they probably assumed he was taken” Chimney said.
Buck looked at him confused and asked "By who?"
“You, Buck.” Hen answered.
Buck opened his mouth and then closed it a couple of times. He eventually settled on "Well I mean he was hot enough that the average person would ignore that" and then in air quotes " or 'steal him away from me' you know"
He genuinely seemed to believe this and couldn't understand why this guy wasn't beating guys off with a stick. Hen is not so sure that Buck is straight. But she is sure that if he isn't he definitely doesn't know. There are many things she could say, but she decides on "beauty's subjective, just cause you think he's hot doesn't mean everyone else does"
Buck scoffs, "Whatever you say Hen, Chim might have a point though cause the Uber driver thought we were together"
Chim perked up at being addressed, then looked to Buck in bafflement. “Why did you share an Uber?” He asked. That’s a fair question Hen thought.
He perked up at that, looking like he would have jumped out of his chair if it was socially acceptable. “Oh you will never believe this, but Nathan lives in a share house across the road from us, so it just made sense because it would be cheaper. What are the chances though, right?” That was an interesting coincidence and she said as much.
“What was he texting you about then?” Chimney asked.
"We're gonna have burgers after we get out of work today. He is just confirming, times and plans" he said, to his phone instead of them. He was smiling at it again. Buck's phone starts to ring, he excuses himself from the table and starts to walk down the stairs. Once Buck's out of earshot, Chimney slides his chair closer to Hen and says.
“He’s going on a date, right. I’m not crazy, right?”
“You're not crazy, he may not realise it’s a date but it's a date. I’m sure he’ll have a crazy story for us tomorrow” Hen said. Buck might not be as straight as he thought, and Hen added that to the list of things she knew about him in her head.
2
Buck doesn't like Eddie. That's surprising to Hen, because Buck likes everyone. He gets annoyed by people, sure but he never outright hates them. It's weird. At the end of the day it's not her circus and not her monkeys, so she stays out of it.
Buck comes grumbling upstairs, she doesn't know what exactly he says but it sounds like it's something to do with Eddie and the sexist calendar. He aggressively pulls a mug from the cupboard and starts pouring some coffee.
"Aww, aren't you sweet getting me coffee" she says, with faux obliviousness. He looks at her then grabs another mug and pours more coffee. He brings both mugs to the table and sits down.
He looks at his drink as if it killed his dog. Hen takes a sip of her coffee, puts it on the table, lets out a sigh and asks "Why do you hate Eddie so much?" Otherwise, he's gonna be like this all day and Hen is too tired to deal with this for the rest of their shift. She barely got any sleep last night because there was construction just outside.
Buck blushes, clearly embarrassed that he had been caught out. He starts to rant. "Well for one, he's just perfect at his job, like too perfect, thinks he is too good for mistakes" that sounds like a compliment, not a complaint, Hen thought. "And he's just come in time for the calendar, and with those eyes and face and abs and," he lets out an annoyed huff. Again doesn't sound like complaints, sounds like compliments. If Hen is being honest, which she can be since she's in her own head, it sounds like Buck might just be attracted to Eddie and is getting annoyed about it, but since he doesn't realise he is into men he interprets it into whatever this is.
Buck takes a breath and continues on, changing trajectory. "He thinks he can just come into this team and act like he's always been here. Like he's better than us" This is the first true complaint Buck has had about Eddie, kinda. Buck continues to rant 'complaints' about Eddie but it becomes background noise. He seems to just need to let this out, so Hen will just let him talk himself out. She has other things to think about and plan anyway. She does have to admit Eddie being added to the team just got a little more interesting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In their next shift, Eddie and Buck are best friends, so she was right about it being a misplaced attraction, on Buck's end.
3
"….Ryan Reynolds I think." is what Hen hears as she walks up the stairs to the loft. What has she just walked into? Chimney and some C shift are standing around the table, no one sitting down, Hen notes. She thought all of C shift was gone since their shift ended 20 minutes ago. They must have got caught in some kind of debate with Chim. He has that effect on people.
Chimney notices Hen and calls over to her. “Hen, what about you?”. Hen has no idea what is happening and she replies by the time she has joined the group, unconsciously she noticed that it was all of the straight men of C shift there.
“About what?” She asks, C shift is saying something about Chris Evans in the background.
“What Male celebrity would you have sex with?” Chimney asks as if it's obvious. Hen looks at him, dumbfounded. Is this an alternate reality where she is straight.
"Well, as a lesbian, none" Hen says.
Chim rolls his eyes as if to say, ‘yeah we know that’. "And we're straight," Chimney waves his hand around the group. "So who is it?". Oh, it's one of those conversations about your boy crush or who you go gay for, which straight men tend to do.
“Still no one” she says again.
“Oh come on it's just a little bit of fun, it doesn't mean that your sexuality is invalid, if you answer” Chimney says. Hen is getting a little annoyed by this now so she decided to shut down this line of questioning.
"Lesbains have spent their entire lives hearing, are you sure you're not just bi? Or you haven't met the right man yet, or I can change that and thousands of other lesbophobic comments, so no I'm not gonna disregard that for some ‘joke’ ’’. Chimney and the rest of the group went quiet, she clearly killed the mood. As if summoned to bring the mood back, Buck was at the top of the stairs.
“Buck settle an argument for us, who’s the hottest Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans?” One of C shift asked. Buck looked at them clearly confused about what he just walked into, he tilted his head.
"Ummmm" he says as if this was a philosophy question and not a dumb sex question. "Neither of them, that spot belongs to Markus Bachowski" he finishes with, he has this dreamy look in his eyes.
“Who is Markus Bachowski?” one of C shift asks. Buck looked a mix of offended and also excited that he has an excuse to gush.
"You know, the channel 7 weather man" Buck said as if this is common knowledge. The C shift guys just inaudibly say 'oh'. It looked like they were going to move on from the conversation or onto another celebrity, but Buck got this hunger in his eyes that Hen never wanted to see from anyone ever except Karen. "Yeah that smile, that ass and oh those abs" he looked over to the original questioner. “ he once stretched and I could see that he was ripped and I just wanted to, run my tongue over them you know”
C shift looks very uncomfortable and like they regret even starting this conversion because this is where it ended up leading to. "Uhhh" said one of them. But Buck just took that as a yes and kept going.
"I'd let him rock my world, his voice would be hoarse by the time we'd be done, if you get what I mean. So yeah I fuck him if he asked" Buck punctuated the sentence with the last part as if his rant wasn't obvious.
“Don’t you mean you let him fuck you if he asked?” One of the C shifts guys asked. Hen thought he shouldn’t be encouraging this, but whatever.
"We have time for both beside I'm not picky, I'd let him-" Eddie was walking up the stairs, C shift and Chimney saw this as an out and yelled louder than necessary considering he was only less than a few meters away.
“Eddie, what about you, who’s your male celebrity crush?” Chimney asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer that and they could change the subject.
"ummm, no one, why?" he asked back, confused. He must make the connection between everyone's faces and Buck's. He sighed as if this was an old argument. He turns to Buck. "Please tell me that you're not talking about Markus Bachowski?"
Buck looked back at him like a confused puppy and replied " well of course and they asked, I was just telling the truth."
A more annoyed sigh left Eddie's mouth "they didn't ask for a step-by-step guide, you talk about him way too much for polite company" then added as an afterthought "or any company"
Buck looked slightly offended by that “I don’t, your just being dramatic-”
Eddie interrupts with indignation "dramatic?" he then starts with an impersonation of Buck "he could rain on me any day, if you get what I mean, or his voice would be so hoarse after moaning out my name, right Eddie or-"
Buck looked slightly sheepish “okay maybe I get a little enthusiastic, but I haven’t talked about him in like two months”
“That’s because I avoid the topic of the weather or channel 7 when we hang out or if we watch the news I have Christopher in the room with us.” Eddie replies back with as if he was expecting this response
“So you're using Chris as a human shield, tsk, tsk, tsk” Buck says with mock disappointment.
“Yeah cause I don’t want to hear about some guy’ ejac-” Eddie was loudly interrupted by Bobby. He must have just got off the stairs and none of them noticed.
"Okay," Bobby says loudly. "I'm not going to ask for context," Buck looks like he's about to interrupt him, "But" Bobby says loudly again to show that he will not be interrupted. "I will remind you that this is a workplace and we have to keep things professional. There is a time and place for these types of conversions." Bobby looks directly at Buck and Eddie. "Here and now is not one of them, especially considering we can get called out at any mo-"
The bell goes off as if to punctuate Bobby’s point, they all start to get into their gear and C shift starts to finally make their way home. Buck is bi, definitely. Hen just has to wait for the day he realises it, knowing Buck though and considering what she just witnessed, Hen thinks she might be waiting a while.
4
Hen was ready for the shift to be over, it's hour 22 of 24 and Hen is just done. There at a low-priority call, a 30 year old man got stuck on the roof after his ladder fell away. They were just packing up the scene and Buck was talking with the patient. He had that 'I really want to leave but that would be rude' face on. Hen just hopes that they don't have to stay very long because of it.
Buck starts to make his way over to the truck. He lets out a massive sigh and rubs his face. “You all good there, Buck?” Eddie asks as he closes the cabinet they keep the balloon in and jumps back onto the pavement to join the group.
Buck looks up. “He was just the fifth person to hit on me in the last like 8 calls. And he was determined.” Buck answered, tiredness clear in his tone. Hen hated when people wouldn’t back off, it was one thing to shoot your shot, be rejected and take that gracefully it was a whole other thing for them to ignore the rejection. Hen tended to threaten people with forks when that happened but Buck was too nice for that method so he tended to get stuck in flirtations he didn’t want. They all give him sympathetic looks.
"I mean I know we deal with a lot of stupidity in this job, but trying to shoot your shot after a guy has told you he's straight is definitely… a choice" Chimney says, pausing at the end as if looking for the right words for the moment, the location and the company. Hen probably would have landed on idiotic but to each their own.
Buck looks up confused at that, his face morphs into a few different emotions before landing the facial expression version of the word huh. “I am straight, aren't I” Buck says the same way someone might comment on sunny weather. “I didn’t think to say that, maybe I should lead with that next time” he mulls this over as if it never crossed his mind. Hen is stunned. How is he so oblivious to his own bisexuality? She would flick him on the side of his head for his stupidity if they were not in public. At least she isn’t alone in this feeling though, both Eddie and Chimney look confused.
Chimney says after a beat of silence " "Do you forget you're straight often?".
Bucks looks over at Chim as if what he said was a bit redundant “um, yeah, don’t you?” Buck tilts his head as if thinking about the past unwanted flirtation harder. “ I mean the guy was hot, I just wasn’t in the mood, you know?” He directs this question to the group.
Eddie, who had been standing there in stunned silence, added onto Buck’s point by saying “And you're also not into men”. That was just a lie, Hen thought, but she kept that to herself.
Before Buck could deny or agree with the statement. Bobby’s voice cut in saying, a little exasperatedly “I’m sure this conversion is very exciting but let's have it in the truck.” he walks off obviously expecting them to follow him. They all shuffle their way to the truck.
When she first started noticing these signs in Buck back when he was a probie, she thought he would figure it out soon but here they are six years later and still nothing. A bi girl she went on a date with before Eva or Karen, said that for the longest time, she thought it was a normal straight thing to find everyone attractive, it was just that no one ever talked about it. Maybe that's what Buck thinks about his bisexuality. She should recommend him a book on queer history or something otherwise they might be here for another six years.
+1
It was a beautiful ceremony (or as beautiful as one in a hospital could be), she's honestly not even surprised this happened considering this group. Maddie looks radiant in her white dress and Chimney looks as if this is the best day of his life even with the hospital gown. They deserve this, Maddie and Chimney have been through so much both individually and together, they deserve there happily ever after.
When the cake was getting handed out, Karen claimed that she didn't want any, but soon enough she was stealing spoonfuls off Hen's plate. Hen acted with mock annoyance when Karen grabbed a spoon and started eating it right off her plate. Hen can't really be mad because she loves it when she and Karen share food, it feels romantic and intimate, and Karen knows this. She will say that she doesn't want any, then eat off Hen's plate because she knows how much Hen enjoys it. In turn Hen always gets more than she needs to compensate. God, she loves her wife.
Buck walks into the room with Tommy trailing behind him saying “uh.. Look who almost made it”
Tommy must have just come from a shift because he's still wearing his turnout, clearly he was in such a rush to get here that he didn’t wash the soot from his face and general body. Tommy turns to the happy couple and says “Congratulations you two I’m sorry I missed the ceremony”.
Hen is surprised to see him here, considering he doesn't know Maddie and the last time he and Chim talked before rescuing Bobby and Athena from the shipwreck was at least a couple of years ago. She was also surprised to see him and Buck getting along, she thought Buck hated him, for daring to be Eddie's friend she guesses they made up. Hen looks over to Buck he has soot all around his mouth. Oh they really made up, looks like Buck has finally caught up with everyone else about his bisexuality or at least with her and Karen. She looks over to Karen and raises an eyebrow, she smiles slightly, so she saw it as well.
“Thanks Tommy, looks like you were” Chimney looks over to Buck who was standing next to him with the biggest smile on his face. Hen can see the moment he connects the dots. “Busy” he ends with. Buck looks back at Tommy and says something about cake and they both walk towards the cake slices.
Hen leans into her wife and says in such a low tone that only Karen can hear. “Well, It’s about damn time”. Karen giggles into her and agrees.
It’s been a long time coming. Hen has been waiting a long time, but she is happy for Buck that he finally figured it out. As much as she complained to Karen about how oblivious Buck is to his own sexuality and how much they have laughed at some of his not so straight antics. She is genuinely happy for him. He is her friend (family) after all. She added a tick next to bisexual on the list of things she knows about Buck in her head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hen is leaning against the side of the firehouse looking out into the carpark, sending a text off to Karen asking if she wants her to pick up groceries on her way back. Buck walks out of the firehouse just as she looks up from her phone and starts walking. He’s alone, which is weird cause he and Eddie are usually attached at the hip, she like 70% sure he and Eddie carpool to work like half the time. They always arrive together and leave together.
“Buck” she calls out to get his attention. He stills slightly, not in a scared way more surprised like he didn’t expect to be talked to even though it's a carpark and all of his friends finished a shift at the same time.
“Hmm” he says, he's twirling his keys around his finger, she is surprised that they never fly off and hit someone in the eye when he does that.
She in step with him and asks "are you able to watch Mara and Denny for us this Saturday?, Karen and I are going to her high school reunion"
He squints his eyes at Hen as if he is not sure what reaction this information should have. “Is this gonna be a good reunion or a bad one cause I know I wouldn't want to see some of the people I went to highschool with.”
“Good, at least I think Karen seems excited to go and besides you know me, I won't let it get bad.” Buck nods, leaning against his car, looking a little bashful but agreeing with her. Hen continues with the rest of her previous statement “So are you able to look after Denny and Mara for us?” Buck scrunches his face, the way he does when he feels like he’s disappointing people.
Face apologetic, he says “I can’t, sorry, I have a date.”
“Ahh, Tommy, yeah, must be going well if you have another date.” Hen says, Buck looks slightly surprised for a second, Hen’s not sure what for, he blushes slightly and looks down at the ground.
“I forgot that you guys know this about me now, but yeah going pretty well.” Buck says, looking back at her with a soft smile.
Hen has known Buck was bi for years, but he didn't know he was bi till recently. This is a big thing for him. Sexuality is a big thing for anyone. In this moment Hen really lets that sink in. She leans against the other car standing across from him, and says “I’m glad you finally figured it out.”
Buck lets these words wash over him and smiles slightly, then looks confused again and looks towards Hen with a slight tilt of his head, like a confused puppy. “Wait..what do mean finally figured it out?” he asks.
That’s a fair question, to be honest. “Well, I don’t like to make assumptions about things like this, but there have been some signs over the years” Hen admits.
Buck leans off the car and exclaims "what signs? cause this is pretty new news to me, and like… years, like how early?"
Hen huffs out a breath, and drops her bag onto the concrete, it’s one of those conversations she thinks. Buck looks at her, slightly concerned.
"A few months into knowing you probably, but that was just theory, it wasn't confirmed in my head till later" Hen answered.
Buck has a look of disbelief on his face, "really?, that early. Am I the last to know?" he says with slight curiosity in his tone. He doesn't seem upset that all his friends knew before him, just confused about what they saw and he didn't.
"No, I wouldn't say that, really it was just Karen and I" She looks up to the sky in contemplation the clouds are in the shape of a tree, a dog and an upside down teddy bear. " and Athena probably, but everyone else is too straight to notice" Hen ends her statement with, she means that with all the affection in the world. It's just some of them don't see queerness until it hits them in the face.
Buck places his bag on the top of his car, clearly gearing up for a longer conversation. "Well what were the signs then?" he asks.
Hen chuckles slightly. "Would you like it chronologically or alphabetically?"
“Ha, ha very funny” Buck responds deadpan. He looks at her with a ‘go on’ expression.
"A few months into your probie year." She pauses for a moment. A lot happened during Buck's probie year. She should be more specific. "Before you got fired for like 4 hours" Buck laughs good naturedly, clearly seeing the humour in it now that it has been so long. "There was…" she can't remember what his name was "Andrew?, Ethan?, no I think it had an N…nick?”
Before she could ramble more male names off the top of her head, Buck said “Nathan?”
She clicked her fingers in triumph at Buck and replies "Yes that's it, so you met Nathan at a gay bar flirted with him the whole night, was confused why he was single cause" she put air quotes around the next words "'he was so hot' and then went on a 'date' with him the next day.”
Buck looks contemplative, as if remembering the whole encounter. He shrugs "yeah I'll concede with that one.” He tilts his head slightly up "should I tell him I figured it out, we're friends on Facebook still. I think he married now" he adds on as an afterthought.
Hen doesn't really know if there is a right answer to that considering they probably haven't talked for months if not years. She shrugs her shoulders to convey this. He thinks for a little longer, grabs his phone out of his pocket and quickly types something down. He looks back at her and asks "that can't be all of it?"
“It is definitely not, well there was Eddie and then that wea—“ she was interrupted by Buck. He looks confused?, shocked? Maybe both.
"Eddie?" He asks slightly louder than necessary. She knew why he was asking, she's not oblivious, (unlike some people). She just wants to fuck with him though so she plays dumb.
“Yeah, Eddie, our coworker,“ she gestures between them. “Your best friend” she gestures vaguely at him.
He splutters a bit "I know who Eddie is" Buck rolls his eyes at Hen's apparent idiocy. He lets out an annoyed huff. "What does Eddie have to do with my bisexuality?" He asks more of himself than Hen, but she's going to answer the question anyway.
"Eddie's 1st shift" Hen said. She thinks that's pretty self explanatory. He looks back at her with that confused puppy look. She decides to continue on "all the 'complaints'" and she puts air quotes around that word. "were compliments" she can see that he was about to argue against her about this so she continues on before he can get a word in edgewise. She pitched her voice a bit higher into a bad impression of Buck " he's so good at his job and gets along with everyone, it's so annoying and he's so hot, there's no way he's not gonna win the stupid sexist calendar." She gave him a pointed look. "I mean sure part of it was you feeling like you were being replaced but it was mainly that you thought Eddie was hot and didn't know what to do with that." She pauses for a second, thinking, then adds on "and then you two became the best of friends after he gave you one compliment"
Buck looked at Hen as if she just reshaped his entire worldview. She doesn’t think he’s still aware she is still here or that they’re standing in the parking lot of the station. He's so lost in his own head. Probably rethinking his whole friendship with Eddie with this new lens. Maybe, she should have used a different example.
He opens his mouth a few times then quietly adds, "Am I into Eddie?" She is not sure if he wants that question to be answered or if he is just trying to make sense of the mess in his head. Is Buck into Eddie? Sometimes she thinks yes because of how they act, but also they are just that codependent by default, so sometimes she thinks that's just how their friendship works. She stopped trying to figure it out a while ago because it was giving her a headache.
“I can’t answer that for you, Buck.” She states “all I can say is that you were once, but only you can answer for now” she adds on at the end.
He looks back at her, blinks and mumbles “um, yeah I guess you're right” the mood has gotten too serious considering this was supposed to be about her making fun of him about his obliviousness to his bisexuality, not him having a crisis over his best friend. She decides to go on with her list, to try and bring the mood back to what it had been before. “Then there was that weather guy,”
“Markus Bachowski from channel 7” he supplied.
“Right, Markus Bachowski. He was a real unwanted eye opener to your sexual preferences.” She shivers slightly at the memory.
He starts laughing and says "Okay that one I already figured out, I was watching the weather the next day after I figured out I was bisexual and was like 'Oh this makes way more sense now', I still stand by it, except this time I can admit he's hot without all the hoops." he has a big smile on his face. This revelation he had about his sexuality seems to have been a big weight off his shoulders, she is happy for him.
At that moment, she got a message from Karen.
Karen: yes please, we need milk, bread, muesli bars for Denny's lunches and flour
Hen: can do, see you soon love you
Karen: love you too <3
Buck looks at her as if to ask ‘who’s that’,“ That was Karen so I have to go, though I think we have time for one more ‘straight’ Buck moment”, she says, adding air quotes around the word straight.
He snorts at that “okay hit me with it”
“A few months ago, you were complaining about a guy not getting the hint on a call and Chim said something about it being weird that the vic kept hitting on a straight guy, and you said something about forgetting you were straight and next time you should lead, with that.” That was one of the most obvious ones to her and she feels like Chimney or Edidie might have caught on if they were not interrupted by Bobby.
He mulls over his answer for a beat “I think subconsciously I didn't want to lie, even if I didn't know it at the time” he responds back with. She gets up off the car and stands next to Buck pulling him into a side hug and says “In all seriousness, I’m really happy for you and really proud of you.” He had such a fond and sincere smile gracing his face.
He leans back into her a bit and replies "Thanks, Hen, that means a lot coming from you" a beat passes "not that I don't appreciate Maddie and Eddie and what they said, but they're straight, it really means a lot coming from another queer person" he steps out of her embrace " Especially someone as badass and unapologetic as you". The moment is broken by the chime of Hen's phone again. "I should let you go, hope you have fun with Karen's reunion thing" he grabs his keys out of his pocket, unlocks the jeep and then throws his bag into the back seat.
Hen grabs her bag off the floor and puts it over her shoulder and says “I’ll try, see you next shift” she waves to him as she walks off and he gets behind his wheel.
“See you then” he shoots back before closing the door.
She gets into her own car and checks her phone
Karen: and grapes
Hen loves Karen so much.
Hen: Hen has thumbed up “and grapes”
For so much time it was just Hen who knew Buck was bi but now they both (and the rest of 118) do. She starts her car and drives out of the car park.