Chapter Text
Buck aches. Not in the way broken bones ache, not even the kind of ache that comes after a hard shift.This is different. This is hollow and buzzing all at once. His brain won’t shut up. Too loud, too fast. But at the same time it feels like he’s wading through wet cement. Everything stings even more lately. Noise. Light. People talking at him too quickly or too softly, expecting him to just get it.
There’s a pressure behind his eyes that never quite goes away.
The team doesn’t notice, or they pretend not to. Or maybe they do and just don’t say anything, because Buck always bounces back eventually. Right? He always cracks a joke, gets his rhythm back, pushes through.
He’s good at pushing through.
What they don’t see is that sometimes, after calls, Buck has to sit in the dark of the supply room and press his palms into his eyes just to block the world out. What they don’t know is how long it sometimes takes him to wind down after one siren, how he can still feel it hours later, whirring around in his cochlea. Like it gets lost in the labyrinth.
What they’ll never guess is how much effort it takes not to scream when someone touches him unexpectedly. Or how often he imagines disappearing, not dying exactly, just... ceasing. Fading out of the frame, like one of those glitchy camera feeds where you blink and someone’s gone.
There’s a pot on the stove. The water boiled off sometime between 9 and 11 p.m., leaving a scorched, gluey mess of pasta stuck to the bottom like eschar. The smoke alarm chirped once before giving up. Buck didn’t flinch.
He’s curled on the couch now, hoodie pulled low over his face, the sleeves long enough to cover his hands. His right leg is pulled tightly against his chest, the other stretched out with surgical precision because if it bends too far, it throbs. A steady, familiar ache in the limb that ebbs and then floods the tissue again.
It doesn’t make sense. The leg healed. Fast, even. He’s been running on it, jumping out of moving trucks on it, dragging victims twice his size on it.
But tonight, as so many times, it feels like it’s filled with wet sand. Like the bone remembers something he doesn’t. He presses his thumb into the muscle behind his knee, trying to quiet the buzz crawling beneath his skin. It doesn’t help.
He should shower.
He meant to.
But when he stood and opened the bathroom door earlier, the overhead light blinked on, sharp, white, buzzing and cut into his senses like a blade. The kind of light that makes everything feel too loud. Too exposed.The hum of the bulb seemed to crawl inside his skull. His skin went tight. His mouth dried out. Just from a light. So he turned and left without ever going in. He doesn’t remember sitting back down.
His phone lights up.
FaceTime.
Eddie.
For a moment, Buck stares at it like it’s a math problem he can’t quite solve. The screen glows bright, urgent. Then his thumb swipes. He answers before he decides to.
Eddie’s face fills the screen, warm and familiar and far away. He’s in a sunlit room, hair damp, t-shirt clinging to his shoulder. Buck can hear the faint sound of Chris laughing in the background.
“Hey,” Eddie says. “You look... tired.”
Buck shrugs. It barely qualifies as movement.
“I’m fine,” he lies. His voice sounds wrong, like it belongs to someone pretending to be him.
Eddie pauses. Eyes narrowing. Quietly observant.
“Is your leg hurting again?”
Buck hesitates. His brain stutters. Words don’t form.
Is it pain? Is it grief? Is it anything?
Eventually he settles on: “It’s just sore. Phantom stuff, maybe.”
“You should get it looked at,” Eddie says softly.
Buck rubs at it without thinking. The skin feels hot under his hand. Tight. He doesn’t know how to explain that it isn’t just his leg. That it’s his chest, too. Too full. That it’s his hands, twitchy and useless. That it’s the silence. The light. The smell of burnt food still clinging to the walls. He doesn’t know how to explain that he doesn’t feel bad, exactly, just disconnected. Like someone turned the contrast down on the world.
“I will,” he says. “Soon.”
Eddie looks at him for a long moment. Not pressing. Just seeing him in a way that makes Buck want to disappear.
“Have you eaten today?”
Buck opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries a smile. “'Was going to.”
Eddie doesn’t call him out. Just nods slowly. “Alright. You want me to stay on while you do?”
The offer hits like a kick to Buck’s chest, too direct, too much. The idea of eating while someone watches, even Eddie, feels impossible. It exposes the empty kitchen, the untouched dishes in the sink, the fact that he hasn’t moved from this spot in hours.
“I’m good,” he says quickly. “I’ll eat after. Promise.”
Before Eddie can answer, there’s a loud crash in the background, something falling, maybe a pan. Chris shouts from somewhere offscreen: “Dad!”
Eddie’s head turns sharply. “One sec… Hey, I’ll call you later, okay?”
Buck nods before Eddie finishes speaking. “Yeah. Go.”
Eddie hesitates, just for a second, then says, “Text me, alright?”
“I will.”
Eddie lingers a moment more, face unreadable, then ends the call.
The screen goes dark.
The silence rushes in, fast and total. The ache in Buck’s leg pulses once, twice, like a quiet accusation.
He stares at the black screen until his reflection starts to blur. He could’ve said something. He almost did.
But what would he have said?
He doesn’t have the words. Just symptoms.
Static in his limbs. That dragging weight behind his ribs. The persistent buzz in his skin that makes even soft sounds feel sharp.
He can’t name what’s wrong.
And not knowing makes it feel like maybe nothing is.
And if it’s nothing, then why would he burden Eddie? Eddie, who’s already dealing with a kid who barely looks him in the eye right now?
So instead, Buck does what he always does.
He says he’s fine.
And then he tries to make himself small enough that it won’t matter if maybe he isn’t.
Buck's first laugh of the day is too loud.
Chim cracks a joke, something dumb about Bobby’s coffee being strong enough to strip paint and Buck laughs too fast, too hard. It tumbles out like a reflex, like his body trying to prove he's fine before anyone can question it.
It echoes a little too much in the kitchen.
Hen raises an eyebrow: “You good, Buckaroo?”
Bobby smiles, not unkindly: “That’s a strong reaction for 7 a.m.”
Buck grins back, all teeth: “Guess I’m just in a good mood.”
He sips the coffee and pretends it doesn’t taste like mud. Too unconcerned by his own discomfort to get the sugar. He keeps smiling like it’s muscle memory. No one says anything else, but something lingers in the air, a flicker of eyes, a shift in posture.
It doesn’t matter that no one meant anything by it.
He knows what they meant.
He’s being too much. Again. Always. Too loud, too eager, too big for the space he takes up.
They don’t have to say it. He already knows. He’s known it forever.
He’s exhausting. He talks too fast, reacts too fast, feels too fast. He fills rooms like a storm cloud and then wonders why everyone walks out quieter.
Of course they’re tired of it. Tired of him.
He doesn’t blame them. He’s tired of him too.
Later hee sits on the bench in the bunk room with his elbows pressed into his knees, watching the floor blur if he stares long enough. His leg throbs again, sharp behind the knee, dull down the calf. He shifts his weight, presses hard into it with the heel of his hand. It’s not about relief. It’s just something to focus on.
He thinks about calling Eddie.
Just to talk. Just to hear his voice. But the thought feels ridiculous the second it forms. Eddie has enough going on. Chris. Texas. Rebuilding trust. He doesn't need Buck pulling at his sleeve like a child.
Especially not when Buck doesn’t even know what he’d say.
There’s nothing wrong. Not technically. His leg’s sore. His thoughts are loud. He hasn’t eaten. He’s not sleeping. But that’s not an emergency. That’s just... normal. For him.
He doesn’t even know how to start the sentence: “Hey, I think something might be wrong with me.”
It would sound dramatic. Selfish. Like a grab for attention. And if he said it out loud, they’d expect reasons. Labels. He has none. Just this weight in his chest and this sense that he’s always on the verge of breaking something. Maybe himself. Maybe everything around him. So he keeps it quiet.
Fixes his expression in the mirror. Closes his locker. Steps back out into the world like nothing’s fraying under his skin.
Because no one wants a Buck who needs things.
Around noon Buck’s already been on edge for all of the morning. The leg throbs beneath his skin like a muted alarm, but he refuses to let it show. The ache is a whisper he’s learned to ignore.
There is a training drill today. It is ladders, rescues, stair climbs. Physical, loud, demanding. It is overtaxing his leg, making him stiff. When the team calls him out on taking a break, he laughs it off.
“I’m good. Just warming up.”
He pushes harder.
Faster.
Bigger.
Every jump, every sprint, every climb is an effort to prove he’s not fragile. Not broken. Not that guy with the leg that could quit on him any second.
His muscles scream. His breath hits ragged.
But he keeps going.
By the end of the drill, the dull ache in his leg blooms into a sharp, stabbing pain that steals the breath from his lungs.
He stumbles climbing down the ladder. His ankle twists badly. Sharp agony shoots up his calf and sends a hot spike through his knee.
He freezes.
The team rushes over.
“Buck, you okay?”
He forces a grin. “Fine. Just a tweak.”
But inside, a wave of frustration and shame crashes.
He wanted to show them he’s fine. Stronger than ever.
Instead, he’s just hurt.
When they’re back in the station Buck’s leg is propped up, wrapped in ice. He presses his fingers into the sore spot, trying to will the pain away.
It doesn’t work.
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Figures.”
The word tastes like failure on his tongue. He hates feeling weak. Hates that his body won’t cooperate, that it betrays him right when he’s trying hardest.
But it’s not just the pain. It’s what it means.
That he’s broken. That he’s fragile. That he can’t keep up.
That he shouldn’t have tried.
He hates that shame. How it curls in his gut, heavy and relentless. A shadow he can’t escape, not even when he’s alone.
He wants to bury it deep, push it down, pretend it’s not there.
But it’s there.
Always there.
He clenches his fists until his nails dig into his palms, as if hurting himself will make the ache inside quieter.
But it doesn’t.
Because the worst part isn’t the pain in his leg.
It’s the pain in himself.