Work Text:
There Be Lions at the Gate
Buck and Eddy were standing outside an apartment building watching as both mother and son were put in opposite ambulances to head off to separate hospitals. Both of them hope the son gets the therapy he needed to get over his mother’s need for attention by getting him sick all the time.
Buck was still in his civilian clothes while his best friend was in his uniform, having come directly to the apartment from work in the captain’s vehicle. The captain of another station, Mehta, was nearby watching his crew clean up the site to turn everything over to the police. Buck had had a funny feeling since the day before when they had first run into the mother and son on a call, and now it flowed into a full-blown headache followed by coming online as a high-level guide from the latency he had been before. Just as he sensed the enemy nearby ready to shoot Eddie while feeling malice towards the uniform he was wearing.
Buck made a roar of rage that shocked everyone as they all felt him come online and turned to watch him forward tackling his partner just as the sound of a rifle went off and Eddie was grazed by the bullet to his arm. Everyone suddenly taking cover as Buck and Eddie, separately, were back in-country, and heading to the cover of the captain’s engine they had come in to dive underneath it.
Once under it, Buck reached his back belt and pulled out his own hidden weapon from the holster there and aimed it at the place where he just knew the enemy was positioned. Took quick aim and fired two quick shots, both hitting the head of the sniper that was hidden there. Killing him instantly. To the shock of Eddie who never thought his friend had ever even thought of handling a weapon before.
Buck dragged Eddie out to the other side of the engine to get the medical equipment there to bandage his friend while the police checked up on the now quiet sniper. Finding him dead, his familiar vehicle from the times he was at SWAT seen near him on the hillside. Sniper rifle in his dead hands showing he had recently fired it before being killed by a firefighter of all things.
Meanwhile, while Eddie was getting checked out, Buck was being questioned as his own weapon was being bagged and the local S&G Counsel personnel were on the way to get him in isolation till, he evened out. Both Eddie and the police find out Buck had been his own SEAL team’s Overwatch while serving overseas on missions before he asked to be put in the reserves after a bad set of missions that ended up with most of his team injured out. That was the time off both their captain and Chim only reluctantly gave him and only when forced to by headquarters because both of them had either refused to read his file or refused to believe what was in it.
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After both Buck and Eddie were checked out for their injuries from the shooting and the shooting board had cleared Buck, Buck found out from his new trainer while he was still in isolation, that the 118 was under an audit to see just how they were doing with calls and personnel involving S&G. So far failing every litmus test badly as none of the top people the captain relied on had any training in how to be or treat any S&G personnel and instead went out of their way to not be helpful in any way.
Eddie and his son, Chris, came to see Buck the next evening after everything had calmed down. With the three of them making the decision to get on a long vacation while they could since everything has been so stressful on all of them lately. Eddie had even had it out with his now ex-girlfriend over his and his son’s feeling over the shooting and its impact on the three of the men in their lives. Including Chris in that. As such, while Buck was learning about his new skills, Chris and Eddie would see about renting a motor home for them to do some traveling in and then they would just travel around the western states and see the sights in the comfort of their traveling home. If the LAFD had problems with them taking time off Buck knew a place in Colorado that would take him and Eddie in a heartbeat that they could go to with no problems.
And that was what they did in the end. Eddie and Buck headed to the old ranch Buck had worked on before and in the spare time working the area SAR. All the while, Chris went to the area school or if snowed in went online to do classes that way.
All three of them have plenty of family time now to head up into the mountains to chill out when they needed to.
Their old crew at the 118 being sanctioned by the Counsel and put on probation until they came under the mandate they were supposed to, but now not even Buck’s sister, Maddie, knew where the young family had gotten too. Only the kids left behind ever heard from any of them again but no words or when they ever would ever return.
Fini
12/15/2025