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The drive home from the hospital is awkward.
It usually is, because it’s almost always Buck’s fault that he was there. And everything always comes crashing down on the way home, when the you’re-alive relief morphs into you-could’ve-died panic.
The silence is stifling and uncomfortable, stretches across the car like an endless void, never yielding no matter how loud the radio is as it cycles through over-played pop songs.
Maddie’s hands shake every time she takes them off the wheel, and Buck presses himself against the door, forehead resting on the window, so he doesn’t have to see.
She has several pamphlets for addiction and suicide that she tried to take subtly tucked into her purse, and he has a banana bag and an outstanding appointment with a psychiatrist at the end of the week.
Buck only agreed because he had to, unless he wanted to stay even longer in the hospital and do a stint in the psychiatric ward or a rehab, depending on what they wanted to do with him.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself, Maddie,” he says suddenly, desperately, “you have to believe me.”
He can’t blame her if she doesn’t, he barely does himself. The doctors and nurses were certainly hesitant to, even after his dozen different renditions of: It was an accident.
He had just lost track of when he had last taken a pill, how many he had taken. But he knows how it looked, a man fresh off being kidnapped and tortured, almost a year after his beloved captain died in front of him, self-medicating with anti-anxiety pills no one in his tight-knit inner circle knew about.
“Buck…” Maddie sighs, turning to look at him while they’re stopped at a red light. Buck makes eye contact with her eyebrows, because actually looking in her eyes, that are no-doubt filled with tears, might actually kill him.
“I wasn’t. Really.” Buck wishes there was some magic word, a look, a tilt of his head, that he could do or say to make her believe him.
A car behind them honks twice.
“I’m going!” Maddie yells at no one. “Asshole,” she mutters.
It’s quiet for a few moments, and Buck’s hospital breakfast of tasteless, stale bagel and cup of colorless, unidentifiable fruit swirls dangerously in his stomach.
“I believe you.”
Buck lets out one fast, sharp breath of relief, which immediately gets sucked back in through his teeth as they turn onto his street and he sees familiar cars lining his driveway.
He thought they’d at least give him a day before pouncing on him, but it’s not even pushing noon yet.
“Fuck.”
Maddie’s hand settles over his, giving him a reassuring squeeze. Buck wants to pull some special sibling card, debt himself for a thousand favors to get out of this, but Maddie shakes her head softly like she can read his mind.
“We’ll go in together.”
She lets go of his hand as they get out of the car, and Buck briefly considers taking off down the block. But Maddie’s back next to him before he can really consider it, and she links their arms and practically drags him across the yard.
Buck sees Eddie pacing through the window, and his wrists start to ache from anxiety. He looked it up once; increased muscle tension from the fight-or-flight response.
The door is unlocked, and they barely made it inside before Eddie’s in front of him. He’s in the same clothes, hair a slightly-greasy mess, heavy bags under his eyes.
Buck’s suddenly struck with a moment from yesterday, how he had gotten cold and tired, his hands trembling, the look in Eddie’s eyes as he burst through his bedroom doorway, the panic as he called 9-1-1 and tried to get him to throw up. It makes his legs weak and nearly brings him to his knees.
Eddie hugs him then, practically holds him up, cradles the back of his head for a moment, worried Buck’s about to slide through his fingers like sand.
“Okay?” he asks.
Buck nods once. Maddie and Eddie flank themselves on either side of him. For a moment, Buck lets himself joke that he’s homecoming king, and they’re leading him across the football field to collect his crown.
Athena, Hen, and Chm are sitting on the couch, Ravi on the arm of it. His two armchairs are empty, pushed to either side of the couch. In front of it all, is a chair dragged in from the kitchen, sitting center stage.
Buck comes to a halt in the doorway, Maddie and Eddie coming stopping a half-step in front of him.
“No banner?” he asks bitterly, because he’s tired, and his stomach still hurts from getting it pumped, and he wants nothing more than to lock himself in the hall closet and curl up into a ball and never be seen again.
Buck regrets saying as soon as it leaves his mouth. The mood in the room, which wasn’t the best to begin with, turns even worse. Tension is practically bleeding from the walls.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, running a shaky hand through his frizzy, knotted hair. “I’ll just…”
He sits in the chair and tries to remind himself that this isn’t a trial, isn’t an attack. Maddie and Eddie go sit in their respective seats.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Buck rushes out in some feeble effort to control the narrative. “I just– I had a bad day yesterday, and I didn’t know what to do.”
He’s had a line of bad yesterdays, in a line of bad last weeks, in a line of bad last months.
“Then you ask for help,” Hen says, taking the initiative to lead the charge. “Remember? You told Bobby that.”
Buck flinches, bunches his hands up in his lap so he doesn’t make a snippy comment about the irony of her being the one to make that statement. “Don’t– Don’t turn that around on me. I– I– I’m not an addict.”
It looks and sounds terrible.
Yeah, guys, I’m totally not an addict, even if I was taking a bunch of pills no one knew about, and I’m fresh from the hospital, and probably going through some light withdrawal from stopping said pills that I definitely don’t have a growing dependency on.
“Buck,” Eddie says shortly. “You had three different pill bottles hidden in your house.”
He gestures to the coffee table, and Buck frowns at the bottles, now empty, sitting there.
Buck wonders how long after finding him did Eddie frantically pull the house apart until he found them. How many drawers up-ended, cabinets rifled through. What he thought as he finally found them, as he looked up what each one was. If he flushed them, threw them out, smashed them into a powder and let the wind blow it all away.
"They're anxiety meds. Take when needed."
"You've been abusing that need."
"I'm fine," Buck spits, sort of like a wild animal trapped and snarling at the person coming to free him, willing to gnaw his own leg off to get out. "I just need a couple days and then I can come back to work, and it'll be fine."
“You’re not coming back to work,” Chim announces, sitting up straight.
“You fired me?” Buck asks incredulously. His leg aches distantly, and he wonders how long it will take him to come back from this one.
“I suspended you, indefinitely, until you get some help.”
Buck shakes his head violently. “You can’t do that.”
"Oh, yes, I can. Captains decide who is and isn't fit for duty, and you are not fit for duty."
“You want me to get help? I am, I did.” He points angrily at the pill bottles. “Those got prescribed to me. I just took too many, is all.”
Chim sighs, rubbing at his eyes like Buck’s very existence gives him a headache. “You wouldn’t have taken too many if you had come to one of us when you were struggling.”
Eddie leans forward. “Why didn’t you ask anyone for help?”
“I wanted to go to Bobby,” Buck snaps, grief rising beneath his skin like a bad itch he can’t even reach. He wants to rip himself open and scratch at the itch until he bleeds.
He wanted–wants–Bobby, who let Buck text him everyday after the lightning strike, just to make sure he was still alive. Buck doesn’t get that now, because Bobby isn’t alive, and he can’t talk to him, can’t make sure that any of this is real, that he’s Buck.
He feels a bit like a child, pathetic and snot-covered, begging for mommy and daddy to clean and kiss his boo-boos. His throat bobs suddenly, dangerously, threatening to upend his stomach into his lap.
The room is quiet and Buck doesn’t dare look up. He stares down at his hands and tries to ignore the bright orange of the pill bottles he can see out of the corner of his eyes. "I don't know how to be okay without him."
“None of us do,” Athena says.
Buck feels guilt flood him from head to toe. Thinking he has the right to fall apart and be a mess when Bobby’s widow is sitting just across from him.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I don’t– I’m being–” dramatic, pathetic, needy, selfish?
“Don’t do that,” Eddie cuts through. “You have the right to grieve him, and you don’t have to feel guilty for it.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Buck lies. “I just don’t know why it’s so hard.”
“You’ve been looking out for everyone,” Ravi says. “And we’ve been leaning on each other, but you haven’t. You can’t take this alone.”
“It’s why we have each other,” Hen adds. “We’re a team, Buck, a family. That hasn’t stopped.”
“I’m sorry,” Buck sighs, using all the willpower he has in his body not to sob. Because it’s bad enough admitting he needs help, and crying in front everyone might actually break him. “I really am. And I’ll get help, I promise.”
It’s quiet for a moment, his heart aching in his chest, then Chim gets up. “Alright. Group hug?”
Buck snorts once, weakly, and stands up. Maddie and Eddie get to him first, plastering themselves against his sides and half of his back, Chim, Hen, Ravi, and Athena jam into his front.
It’s a mess of hair in mouths and awkwardly placed arms, but they make it work.
The team stays for about half an hour, picking at the modest vegetable and fruit trays someone must’ve picked up on the way. Buck doesn’t eat, still nauseous, and wonders if there’s a special deal at the grocery store if you tell them it’s for an intervention.
After Buck yawns for the fifth time, Eddie starts to ‘subtly’ kick everyone out.
Ravi pats him on the back as he goes, and Buck remembers the little probie he used to terrorize. “Feel better, Buck.”
Athena forces him to lean down so she can kiss his forehead. “I’m not Bobby, but I can be Athena.”
“Yeah, ‘Thena,” Buck breathes.
She gives his arm a squeeze and sends him a caring look that almost withers him to nothing.
“I wonder who Chim’s gonna fire next,” he whispers into Hen’s ear as she hugs him.
She snorts and pulls away. “Hopefully himself. Take care of yourself, Buckaroo.”
Chim hugs him next, resting his head on his chest like he always does. “I heard that, by the way,” he calls down the hallway. “Make sure my tough love works, okay?”
“I will.”
Maddie rests her head on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay. Eddie’s got me.”
Maddie nods to herself, and looks hesitant as she goes to leave.
“I’m good, Maddie.”
Eddie walks her to the door.
“He needs his banana bag.”
There's a rustling as she pulls the bag from her purse and hands it over.
“I know,” Eddie says.
"And he didn't eat much at the hospital."
"We'll have lunch soon. I got him, Maddie."
"Thank you, Eddie. If you hadn't– Thank you."
Buck hears the door click shut, and he’s suddenly nervous, for some reason. Because now it’s just him and Eddie. Eddie, who’s always made it easier, who’s always looked right through him and called him on his bullshit.
"Eddie, I– I– around Chris, I was never..." Buck stutters out as soon as Eddie's back in the room. "I wouldn't do that."
Eddie looks at him for a long time, eyes flickering over his face. "I know. It's why you needed notice for us to come over, isn't it? Why you didn't answer the door? I saw you through the window."
Buck grimaces. He knew that Eddie had seen him. "Yeah. I– They weren't to get high, or anything like that. They just kinda made me loopy and spacey. I didn't want to scare him."
Buck doesn't mention that they scared him the first time he took them. How the anxiety and panic hadn't let up, how he just got dizzy and tired and had to sleep on the couch, how he woke up with his brain fuzzy and feeling like it got sucked dry.
Eddie sits on the coffee table, sets up the IV stand and puts on a pair of gloves. He holds the IV catheter ready. “Don’t look while I do it.” Buck must make a face, because Eddie gives him a hard look. “I’m serious, I don’t need you passing out on me.”
"It's fine,” Buck mumbles. He doesn’t have a fear of needles, he just doesn’t like them. Who likes needles anyway? And Eddie’s being dramatic, it’s not like he’ll pass out, just might get pale in the face and a little lightheaded.
"No, it's not fine!" Eddie exclaims, the tears sitting in his eyes finally coming loose. "Nothing is fine."
Buck jolts. He’s only good for making people worried. “I’m sorry.”
"Stop apologizing! We can't lose you, I can't lose you. I won't go through it again."
"Bobby?” Buck asks. “Abu–"
"Shannon.”
Buck feels his heart jump. “Oh,” he says stupidly. “Oh.”
"Yeah," Eddie says stiffly. He lets the rest of his tears fall, then wipes at his cheeks. "So you can't die, you can't. When I found you, I– Fuck. I thought you were dead, Buck. I thought you had killed yourself."
Buck looks down at his hands, at the skin he’s shredded raw over the past week, at the way they shake, at the nails digging into his palm. "I–"
Eddie ducks his head down until he’s forced to make eye contact. Not his eyebrows, not the bridge of his nose, not the edge of his face.
"So you're going to get help. Not because we told you to and you want to get us off your back, but because you want help and you want to get better."
“I do,” he whispers. “I want to get better. But I– I don’t know how.”
Eddie’s hand settles on his knee. It’s grounding, comforting, forces him to not shut down. “We’ll figure it out. Together. I’ve always had your back.”
"And I've had yours?" Buck asks, unsure of how he’ll keep going if he hasn’t
"Yeah, bud,” Eddie says lightly. It hits him hard in the gut like a punch. “You have."
Buck runs his fingers against the hem of his shirt, the legs of his sweatpants. “I have a psychiatrist appointment later this week.”
“That’s good.”
“Will you– Um.” Buck’s teeth chew at his bottom lip. “The– The pills got prescribed from some guy I met with on zoom. Probably not even the right kind. The dosages could’ve been all wrong, too.”
“Some guy?” Eddie asks, head cocked to the side and eyebrow raised.
"A doctor.” Buck shrugs. “I dunno. He had, like, half a star on yelp."
Eddie shakes his head, mouth twitching as he fights a barely visible smile.
“I know. But I’m going to a good one now. Will you– I don’t wanna go alone,” he mumbles pathetically, trying to say it quietly enough that Eddie could pretend he didn’t hear him, and Buck can pretend he never said it.
"Of course I'll come," Eddie says instantly. Solid, unyielding. "Now let me put your IV in."
Buck nods as Eddie rolls up the sleeve of his right arm.
“You should do my left arm.”
“You like to sleep on your left side.”
Somehow, after all these past weeks and months–drowning in grief, getting kidnapped, tortured, thinking he’s about to be killed, self-medicationing until he woke up in the hospital and came home to an intervention–this is what breaks him. The simple fact of Eddie knowing what side he sleeps on.
“Oh, god,” Buck sobs, hunching over and hiding his face into the palm of his hands. His body convulses violently, shoulders shaking and limbs going weak.
“Hey,” Eddie says lightly, his hand settling across Buck’s back. It’s warm, practically burns him through the fabric.
“I’m going to be like this forever,” he bawls, terror shooting through his body like lightning. His head aches, stomach churns, nervous system lights up in panic.
“No, no, Buck,” Eddie urges, hands against his sides, his shoulders, his face. “It’s not forever.”
“Yes, it is,” Buck gasps.
“No. It’s not forever. Healing takes a while, and it isn’t linear, but it happens.”
He pulls him close, and Buck stuffs his face into the crook of his neck, and Eddie doesn’t flinch at the tears soaking the collar of his shirt.
“I’ve got you, bud. It’s okay. You’re not alone, you are not alone.”