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Chapter Text

Buck has always been superstitious.

With the job he had, it was hard not to be. Still, his friends would all say that Buck tended to go above and beyond when it came to superstition. He knocked on wood and crossed himself; he eyed the full moon like it was an omen every time it came back around, and he had little rituals to stave off bad energy. 

Maddie used to laugh at him when he was younger and asked for salt after a horror movie, but she did, without fail, always let him sleep with the salt shaker in his bedroom.

Now, though, she doesn’t seem to be too fond of his superstitions. She didn’t believe him. She thought he was spiraling, going insane.

“Evan, please.” She had begged. “You have to stop.”

They were trying to move on, but Buck couldn’t.

The mirrors were covered, the windows closed and lined with salt, crystals and flowers and herbs hung from pieces of string, just like the pieces of his broken heart.

“I can’t let them go,” Buck replied. 

It was simple, his desperation. Pathetic too, like a loyal hound waiting at a door, waiting for a master that will never return.

He had searched desperately for something, anything that could give him back his family. 

He found it.

Late at night, on a dirt road with Vegas lights on the horizon, he found it. 

The party city was the only thing around, and even then, it was miles away. Mentally, Buck had already done the math and knew it could be up to a full hour before first responders find him if he called 911, but he won’t. He won’t call. He doesn’t think he can. The desert will swallow him up, dry him out and feed from his corpse, taking what it needs from him, then leaving him to rot, just like everyone else had.

Buck parked his Jeep at the crossroads, buried his offering under the dirt, and waited.

The knock on his window startled him, but he rolled his window down all the same.

On the other side, the man stood tall and thin, willowy in a way that wasn’t human. His skin was darker than his own sun-kissed tan, similar to the dark brown of the desert plains, perfect for them to walk off and blend into the background, convincing you that seeing him at all was a trick of the eyes. Still, it was night, and any man needed warmth, so the being was dressed in a strange fur coat, patchworked and thick with visible stitches.

The being lowered his head to talk to him through the open car window, “You look quite determined, stranger.”

Buck turned his head to stare straight into those wolf-like eyes, “I’m pretty desperate, stranger .”

The stories were all the same: a dirt road, a crossroads, a stranger, and a deal. The stories go back thousands of years, over and over, and after that Halloween, Buck has learned to listen to every little superstition and folktale he’s ever been told.

Too-sharp, too-many, too-white teeth bared in the mockery of a grin. “What are you desperate for, young man? Love? Fame? Money?”

“I have saved hundreds of lives,” Buck answered instead. “I was born to save a life, and instead I saved hundreds. I walked into burning buildings, scaled down cliffsides, and swam in dangerous waters.”

The man sucked his teeth. “A little hero, huh? Does it not satisfy you? The thrill? I can make the world call your name, make you be remembered forever, make sure nobody ever leaves you again.”

“I– No.” He shook his head. “I saved hundreds, and yet two were still taken from me. I want them back.”

“The dead don’t come back,” The man wasn’t playing now. His eyes were cold, distant, and yellow like the moon.

“I can’t let go,” Buck’s voice broke, tears threatened to spill, but he couldn’t walk away now. “I’m owed a debt, and they were stolen from me .”

Christopher had been so happy that morning, yelling about how Eddie was picking him up to go bowling. Buck had promised Eddie to cover his shift so that the two could go out and bond.

“Stolen from you,” The being clicked his tongue, unimpressed. “Owe you a debt.”

Buck understands in a heartbeat. Selfish, he was being selfish again.

“Owe him a debt.” He corrected. “Eddie has saved far more lives than I have. Chris is innocent and good .”

Clawed nails beat a staccato on the windowsill, one bushy eyebrow raising. “Edmundo Diaz has killed, and even without those balances being checked, you have still saved more. Christopher Diaz is a child; they’re all innocent and good, yet they all still die.”

“Please,” Buck begged. “Take me instead. I’ll do anything. Even if it’s just Chris, please , tell me how I can get them back.”

Eddie once said that he chose Buck to take Chris because he knew that he would always fight for him. Buck prayed that Eddie understood that he wasn’t abandoning his friend, just trying his best to bargain for their kid.

Tears were flowing down his face now, free and silent. Buck wished they could be loud, like the screams he had let out when he had first found out.

“Hundreds of lives, huh?”

“Yes.”

“How many lives would you sacrifice to get them back?”

Buck wished he could say all of them. Wished he could say he would sacrifice the world, set it all ablaze if it meant he could get Eddie and Chris back. But he couldn’t. Eddie and Chris would hate that; it would destroy them if they found out that they came back in exchange for someone else.

Buck, however, was expendable. He was spare parts, that’s all he was born to be.

“One.” Buck squared his shoulders. “My life, and all the potential lives I would save if I continued to live.”

“That’s a very good deal, little lifesaver.”

“I want them ,” Buck said. “Just them .”

Just Eddie and Chris. Just his family back.

The being grinned, too many teeth in his mouth, canines long and inching towards something animalistic. “Get in the passenger seat.”

Buck opened the Jeep door and got out, despite every single survival instinct he had shouting at him not to. To close the door and roll up the window and step on the gas. The creature— oh, he’s nowhere near human — was hunched over, yet still a full foot taller than him. They had fur and claws and fangs, and he was their prey.

Buck was living up to his name. Just a buck in the sights of a bigger predator.

He chose to be here. He chose to drive out to the middle of nowhere. He is choosing to save his family.

He didn’t put his seat belt on as he sat back down again. He won’t be living long enough to have it matter.

“So, Evan Buckley, do you understand what this deal is?” They asked as the car door shut behind them.

They weren’t even bothering to look human anymore.

There was a coyote in his car, and Buck knew it was just waiting to devour him.

Buck kept his eyes in front, towards the small speck of light on the horizon that was a city. A city full of people, drinking and laughing and celebrating, all oblivious to the way that he will never do that again. He kept his eyes facing forward because he was too much of a coward to see those teeth tear out his throat.

“They say that Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads, who borrowed his guitar and tuned it, and he became the greatest blues player to ever live,” Buck had seen that a thousand times over in his search for a solution.

“I ain’t no devil,” Coyote replied. “But the concept works the same. I take a little drive, and at the end of the road, your future is gone and your humans are alive.”

“Simple.” Buck swallowed. 

“Simple.” Coyote echoed, with something in his tone. Amusement? He seemed like the type to toy with his prey.

The car began to move.

His heart was beating so loudly, he could hear it echo in the Jeep. In his ears, the steady thrum was little more than a drum. A war drum, as Buck fought for his family with the very last of his strength.

He had left letters behind, all stacked up in his loft, with far too many names. He knew what Maddie would think happened when he failed to come home, what she would think had happened when she read the letter with her name. He hoped that when Eddie and Chris showed back up, she would understand. He really doesn’t want to leave her, but he had to.

This was what he was born to do. To save.

“Where’s the end of the road?” He asked, closing his eyes, bracing for it.

Coyote laughed. “That’s for you to decide.”

Buck’s eyes flew open, mouth a millisecond behind to ask what the hell the being meant, but he was met with an empty Jeep.

An empty Jeep, on a busy beach.

Santa Monica was busy in a way that Buck hadn’t seen in years . People were walking across the beach, hands held or chasing each other or even just a simple jog, their feet kicking up sand with every step. Children were laughing, and there were families ushering them away as the sun set over the sea. It looked… perfect. No memorials on the fencing, no rebuilt shops, nothing. 

Buck suddenly felt pinned again, like there was a truck on his foot, like there was several thousand tons of water hitting him at once, like he had been struck by lightning.

The dash on his Jeep blinked lights that said it should be past midnight, but the sun was only just setting now.

Was this death?

Was death truly this kind, this warm, this soft? A beach to play on, a sea to swim in, a sun to bathe in?

Santa Monica would not be the place he’d wish to stay forever in, not with all the memories it brought him, but it was good enough. It was the reason why Eddie trusted Buck with Christopher, even when he’d lost him. It reminded Buck that he was still fighting for Chris, forever.

It was peace.

Until it wasn’t.

Buck caught his reflection in the rearview mirror, and all blood left his face.

Smooth skin, young and unblemished with the slow crawl of wrinkles that had begun to carve themselves around the corner of his eyes. Hair sleek and gelled back, curls unrealized and threatened into place, thick and full. Smooth chin, not a single coarse hair from shaving every other day, just a handful of red bumps from youth.

He was young again.

His breath caught as he looked out the window of the Jeep and saw a kid fall and scrape their knee, a small imperfection but proof. Blood welled up alongside tears.

Buck wasn’t dead. The road hadn’t ended. The future was gone.

The future was gone, and the past is now.

Buck was in the past.

Chapter Text

Buck had all his scars.

Somehow, that was the most reassuring part of this whole thing.

He had all his scars.

He didn’t imagine it all.

Everything he had gone through. The people he knew, the things he had lost, they were all real. It wasn’t another coma dream; he wasn’t dying in the desert because of the deal he made.

Buck had made a deal; he had given up the future, and now he was back in the past, ready to see this to the end of the road.

Just him and his Jeep, just like old times.

In a 24/7 gym bathroom, Buck rediscovered what he looked like. A teenager, with too-thin wrists and acne, and scars he had no business having. Lightning scars on his forearm that intersected the cut from the tsunami, small burns from years of rescues, and the thin, straight line down his leg from the surgeries after the crush. He had scrubbed the desert dust off him with a relish, the awful free soap he had grabbed turning his skin red, but it didn’t scrub any memories off.

His tattoos were gone, and he spared a brief moment of bafflement at the logic behind that. Younger body, older scars, but no tattoos? That didn’t make any sense at all, tattoos were basically just colorful scars, cuts with ink stuck under the skin.

But no, he was only left with the memories in his head and the cuts on the surface of his skin.

Nothing underneath.

Buck slipped out of the gym quietly, mixing with a couple of college-age guys so the fact that he didn’t scan out with a membership card wasn’t noticeable. It was a trick he perfected at nineteen, back when he was living out of his Jeep and hadn’t yet learned the skill of flirting his way into a bed for a night or a week.

Well, he guessed he was sleeping in his Jeep again.

It wasn’t his favourite thing to do, especially in such a warm state like California. By the time he had turned 23, he had a pretty good savings account for his age, especially since he rarely paid rent but was always doing quick jobs that paid in cash. He mostly used it to get emergency hotel stays in snowy states or during heat waves when his car’s A/C wouldn’t be enough, right up until he dumped 80% of it to pay for his fire science degree and his rent for the year of training and studying leading up to getting assigned to the 118 as a probie so he wouldn’t take out a loan to pay for it all. It was worth it, and he got most of his savings back in the two years before he got his leg crushed, and it was wiped back out again between the hospital fees and lawyer fees. He had been so very lucky that he hadn’t gone into debt because of it all, but he still had been very careful with name brands and coupons for the following year.

Right now, though, Buck had no savings. He was seventeen, and he had no savings at all.

He was supposed to be in Hershey. He was supposed to be finishing off his senior year, looking at nearby colleges, knowing that his grades would never be enough to get in. Not in Los Angeles, with a Jeep which he definitely didn’t own right now, without a single document proving who he was.

Coyote was a trickster, a being with power who had his motivations, and having Buck lose everything, be lost and alone in LA with no way to rebuild what he was– who he was… He knew that would break him.

No documents, no money, no home: Buck had no way to be a firefighter again.

All those lives he had saved, unable to do so again.

He’d been tricked .

Buck had offered himself, not those lives. Eddie and Chris… they’d hate this. They’d be furious. They…

They are alive. Breathing.

Buck scrambled towards a stranger, just another Angelino on the street. “H-Hey! Excuse me! My phone is dead and I don’t remember the date, I think I forgot chess club this morning.”

Buck was a terrible liar, but raising Chris had taught him how to pretend. Kids love stories, with voices and acting and the full works. Buck can’t act, or lie, but he can pretend for a few short seconds before anyone could side-eye him and realise he’s up to something.

The lady raised an eyebrow at him, “September 27th. It’s 10pm, kid, a bit late to turn up now.”

Buck gave a shaky grin, “Man, my mom’s gonna kill me. I can’t believe it’s September 27 already, 2011 is almost over!”

Please tell him that he got the year wrong. Please .

“World’s ending in only a few months,” She joked in response. “Do you need me to call your mom?”

Shit.

“Nah, she’s picking me up soon, I’ll be fine. Thank you,” Buck wanted to scream.

Chris was born sometime in the past 24 hours in El Paso, Texas. Chris was alive .

The lady left, and Buck wandered back to his Jeep.

The tank was still half-full, but Buck couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to do when it ran out. He had no money at all, nothing to refill it with. He should try to head back to Hershey, grab his documents and emergency savings. He should try to head down to El Paso, find Eddie and tell him not to enlist, that he can find a home in LA. But he had no money and no way to get money.

Buck was a stranger to everyone he knew, and with no way to meet them again.

Sitting in the driver's seat, a whole road ahead of him, and nowhere to drive. 

Well, one place to drive.

Buck put the Jeep into gear and prayed he wouldn’t get pulled over. The glovebox was empty of any paperwork and his lack of ID would mean a great time in a holding cell if Athena got her hands on him.

Away from Santa Monica, that’s all he has to drive away from right now. Away from the beach, towards… somewhere. Anywhere.

And if anywhere looked a little like home, like the 118, then it’s not like there’s anyone here to know.