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Maddie unfolds the blanket, billowing it out to spread over Buck’s couch. Opposite her, Chimney grabs the corners, tucking them in between the armrest and the cushions. He pats the material, the air trapped beneath whooshing out with a sigh.
“Should be comfy enough,” he declares, stretching his arms above his head. “I’ll go tell Hen.”
Nodding, Maddie chews on a hangnail. Despite the late hour, she feels wired up. Unburnt energy rushes through her, sizzling through her veins. It must show on her expression, tight and tense, because Chimney glances up at her and immediately pauses in his tracks.
“Are you alright?” he asks quietly. He makes his way around the couch to stand in front of her, hands settling on her elbows. “What’s wrong?”
“Just–” Maddie waves a vague hand, eyebrows drawing together. “Nothing specific. Just this. All of this, it feels…”
“Yeah,” Chimney murmurs, head dipping. “I know. But he’s– he seems to be getting there, right?”
Sniffing, Maddie blinks away the beginning prickle of tears. Honestly, she doesn’t know how she still has any left to give. She’s cried so much recently – mostly in the bathroom after Buck’s fallen asleep – she’d have thought she was all wrung dry.
Nothing about this is fair. Seeing Buck hurting like this, her brother, her baby brother, feels like a knife sinking into the base of her spine. Twisting deep into her flesh, scooping out her insides. He’s in so much pain all of the time, and Maddie can’t take it away. She can’t kiss over his bandaids, or wipe the gravel from his palms, or sneak ice cream from the freezer for him.
Maddie knows how to take care of her brother, but she doesn't know this.
“Yeah,” she whispers, wiping her nose. Smiling wobbly, she does a quick scan of the living room. “Do you know where he is? Buck?”
After the toasts died down and the night air grew too cold for the dwindling fire to abolish, they all headed back inside the house. Athena caught her halfway down the garden to talk, and Maddie squeezed Buck’s arm to let him know she’d catch up with him. Except she’s back inside, and Athena’s driving home with Harry, and Maddie can’t see Buck waiting anywhere.
The only reason panic doesn’t immediately flood down her spine is for the smile Chimney gives her, soft and reassuring. He strokes up her forearms, looping around her wrists and then her hands, their fingers tangling together.
“He’s still outside with Eddie I think,” he says, gaze darting over her shoulder.
Maddie follows it, turning around to peer through the sliding doors. The glass distorts the view of outside, warping everything outwards, but the two figures sitting by the fireplace are obvious enough to make out. Two dark smudges against the flickering orange. She watches them for a moment, studying their curving silhouettes to make sure their shape won’t disappear into the shadows, and then looks back at Chimney.
“I’m going to see if they’re alright,” she says, swiping her thumb over the wedding band digging into his finger. “Are you still okay to–”
“Yes,” Chimney cuts in before the worried question can leave her lips. “Stay, Mads. I’ll hug the kids goodnight for you.”
“Extra tight?"
“Extra tight,” he says.
Her shoulders deflate, strain she didn’t know she was holding easing out over her muscles. Leaning forward, Maddie brushes a kiss to the corner of his lips, and pulls away to grab her cardigan where it’s draped over the back of the armchair. Wrapping the wool tight around herself, she inches open the door and steps into the garden.
Fluffy socks sinking into the dewy grass, Maddie makes her way over to the fireplace where Buck and Eddie are sitting. Wind whips her hair into her face. She tucks it away behind her ears and takes in the scene.
In the seat Maddie was previously in, Eddie’s talking quietly to her brother, their heads bent close over the fire. She can’t really hear what he’s saying over the wind, only catching snippets of gentle syllables. Settled on Buck’s back, Eddie’s hand swipes absently up and down his spine, deft fingers smoothing out the creases of Buck’s robe. He murmurs something, laughing around the words, and Maddie watches as Buck’s cheeks dimple, a small smile tugging his lips upwards.
Swallowing, Maddie clears her throat quietly, crossing the last few paces up to them.
“Hi, you two,” she says, carefully walking around the fire to sit on Buck’s other side.
Buck smiles at her, eyes slow-blinking and droopy. His knee pushes into Eddie’s as he shifts in his place, pulling his sleeves further over his hands.
“Hey, Maddie,” Eddie says, face rosy in the dusky light. “You okay?”
“I was just coming to ask you that,” she admits. “It’s getting cold out here.”
To prove her point, a harsh gust of wind rattles through the trees, shoving the flames to one side. Buck shivers, his shoulders drawing inwards as if to trap the last dregs of heat. Laughing softly, Eddie nods. His hand has travelled to Buck’s shoulder now, knuckles dragging slowly over his neck.
“Yeah, we were about to head inside,” Eddie says, and Buck hums in agreement.
“Wanted to make the most of the fire,” he says, voice croaky. “Haven’t had one in ages.”
His legs stretch out, shoes shuffling closer to the firepit like he’s trying to steal the warmth through the metal and into his toes. Maddie’s heart pangs, lurching out against her ribs.
“When was the last one? November?” she asks, propping her chin up on her hand.
Cold seeps in through the newfound gap of her cardigan. She suppresses the rattling of her teeth, focusing on the look of concentration etching over Buck’s face.
“No, we couldn’t do it then. Chimney got food poisoning the day before, remember?” he says.
Despite herself, Maddie lets out a sudden burst of laughter, the sound spilling from her before she can tuck it away. She apologises around her giggles, pressing her fingers to her lips.
“God, it’d be hard to forget that if I tried,” she sighs, and Buck huffs a laugh too, head shaking. “The house was chaos.”
“It was chaos at the station too,” Eddie chimes in, poking Buck lightly in the ribs. “Being interim captain for that one shift was hell.”
Buck rolls his eyes, shooting Maddie a can-you-believe-him? type of look before glancing at Eddie. It’s almost funny how quickly his expression softens. How clearly the fondness in his eyes shines. It makes Maddie’s breath catch in her throat just being a witness to it, lodging there like a dam built solely on emotion and fragility.
“That’s because you’re a kissass,” Buck says, swaying teasingly into Eddie’s side. “Kissasses don’t make good captains.”
“I’m not a kissass. I just have respect for my superiors.”
Buck grins, and the sight of it startles Maddie. She hasn’t seen him smile like that in weeks. It’s like the sun rising during the Polar Night.
“Blah, blah, chain of command,” he says. “Yeah, I know the schtick. Doesn’t change that you were terrible.”
From anyone else, it would probably sound like an insult. At least, if she were Eddie, she’d feel a little hurt by it. But Eddie only returns Buck’s wide grin, sharp canines flashing like this is something they’ve joked about before, something he’s used to being ribbed about.
It hits Maddie for the hundredth time that she doesn’t know everything about Buck’s life anymore. That there are some things – small, delicate things – that he would never share with her, just as there are things about her life she would never tell him.
It’s the intimacy of family, she realizes, suddenly, firmly. They both have those: a family away from each other. Each other isn’t all they have anymore.
It’s not as bittersweet as Maddie once thought it would be. Just sweet.
“Okay. I’m going to make myself a hot chocolate,” she announces, feeling only slightly bad for dragging her brother’s attention away from the person he so clearly never wants to stop looking at. “Coming?”
Buck eyes flick to Eddie like he just can’t help himself before he’s nodding, shakily getting to his feet. She stamps down the instinctive urge to reach out and steady him. It’s habit, born from every time she’s seen Buck topple, but she can’t let it overcome her. Buck needs to do this by himself, for himself, and has told her as much.
By his side, Eddie looks like he’s having the same dilemma, hand dropping from Buck’s shoulder to ball at his side, fingers curling into his palm. There’s a line between his eyebrows as he stares up at Buck, assessing him with a perfunctory scan over his body. Maybe he approves of what he finds, or maybe he’s had the same conversation with Buck that Maddie has, because he doesn’t reach out, only stands up next to him.
“You better have marshmallows, Buckley,” he says, and Maddie can’t help but let out another delirious laugh.
Hen gives them a sleepy wave from the couch as the three of them step inside, her duvet pulled up to her chin. On the pile of pillows and blankets on the floor, Ravi and May are already fast asleep, their fingertips touching in the space between them. Maddie pulls an adored face at Hen as she passes. It’s ridiculously cute.
“Choose your mug,” Eddie’s saying when Maddie follows into the kitchen.
Everything’s still in slight disarray, Buck’s belongings all out of order, but Eddie seems to navigate through it all with ease. He opens the upper left cabinet, revealing the frankly absurd amount of ceramic mugs.
Buck doesn’t even look, just potters sluggishly to the fridge. “Sharks.”
Hand hovering over the rims of the mug for a second, Eddie yoinks out the mug third from the back. It’s a turquoise-blue shade with little silver sharks painted in a circle spanning the width. He places it down on the counter and the noise jumps Maddie back into action.
“Hey,” she says to Buck, who’s closing the fridge, milk carton dangling from his hands. “Stop, I’ll make them. You go get comfy.”
For a second, it seems like Buck’s about to protest, mouth opening on a retort. But then he stops, fingers loosening their grip on the milk to let Maddie take it from him. He brushes his hair back from his forehead, curls grown out longer than he usually lets them.
“Okay,” he agrees.
His hands slide into the pockets of his robes and then he’s turning into the hallway, heading down to his bedroom. The door squeaks as he pushes it open, and Maddie breathes with the noise. She turns to where Eddie’s pulling a non-stick pan from a bottom drawer, flicking on the stove as he does so. He looks so familiar here, naturally flitting around the kitchen like it's his own.
Sensing her eyes on him, Eddie glances back at her.
“I’ve got it, if you want to go join him,” he says easily. “Trust me, I’m an expert hot chocolate maker.”
Maddie smiles, handing him the milk with little complaint. She’ll probably feel guilty about it later, and wish she protested a little more, but Eddie’s wiggling his fingers to prompt her, and Maddie really wants to go sit with her brother.
“Oh, there are no doubts here,” she says, tracing the handle of one of the mugs. “I’ve heard many great things.”
Eddie snorts, bowing his head as he pours the milk into the pot, moving it to simmer over the heat.
“Well now I’m worried. Buck has a tendency to overexaggerate.”
“He does, doesn’t he?”
Buck’s sitting up in his bed when Maddie slips inside the room, his robe discarded on the carpet. He’s tugged on a hoodie, dark and seamless, and Maddie can’t help but smile at the way it almost swallows him whole. He looks like a little bug, and she tells him as much, if only to hear the half endeared, half embarrassed breath he lets out.
“I thought you promised me hot chocolate,” he says as she climbs onto the mattress beside him, back flat against the headboard.
“Eddie’s making it.”
She stretches out her arm – a silent offering. Buck takes it without hesitation, his body slumping into her side like all his bones have collapsed in on themselves like a folding chair. He rests his head on her chest, hair tickling her jaw. Maddie blinks back another wave of tears and wraps her arm around him.
“Great,” Buck says, fiddling with his fingers, “now we’re all going to get cavities. He puts, like, six spoonfuls of chocolate powder in them. He's a sugar fiend.”
“I’m used to it. On Tuesday Jee-Yun asked me to try the cup of tea she made and it was straight water and sugar. There were gummy bears floating in it,” she says.
Buck laughs a little, warm breath hitting her chin. “Sounds about right. I miss her.”
“She misses you too,” Maddie assures, rubbing his arm. “She has a collection of drawings ready and waiting to passionately present.”
“Can’t wait,” Buck says, and there’s not a single note of sarcasm in his voice.
They fall into a humming quiet, the sound of Ravi snoring and Eddie tapping teaspoons together trickling in from outside the bedroom. Buck’s breathing is heavy, slow and deliberate in the way he does when he’s bone-dead exhausted and trying not to show it. Maddie knows he hasn’t been sleeping well, knows he’s plagued by insomnia, and nightmares, and the shivers that startle him awake.
“Do you want to read?” she asks eventually, moving his hair out of his face again.
Buck shakes his head as best as he can where he’s pressed against her. “We were going to watch a documentary series.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“Sea life,” he says, eyes trained down to where his fingers are plucking at her cardigan. “Eddie and I watch it every Wednesday but we missed last week’s. He said he prerecorded it here.”
Maddie presses a kiss to his forehead. “That’s lucky. Mind if I watch it with you guys?”
“Please,” he mumbles.
When Eddie comes in a handful of minutes later, carrying a tray of steaming mugs, Buck lifts his head to blink blearily at him.
“Need a hand?” Maddie asks, leg bending to get out of the bed.
Eddie’s face scrunches in a polite dismissal. “No, no stay. I’m good.”
He slides the tray carefully onto the top of Buck’s dresser, handing one mug to her and Buck’s shark one on the nightstand. His own has a blanket of marshmallows bobbing on the surface, already melting and spreading into pearly pink foam.
“Eddie,” Buck says – a calling or a question, Maddie isn’t sure.
Putting his mug down next to Buck’s, Eddie looks at them curled up on the bed with one hand propped on his hip, eyes crinkled in the corners.
“Buck,” he replies, and his name sounds like something softer on Eddie’s tongue, something a lot like baby. “Were you guys about to start the documentary?”
“Not without you,” Buck answers. He pats the sliver of space next to him clumsily. “There’s enough space."
“Not sure about that, bud,” Eddie says, but he sits anyway, groaning softly as he stretches his legs out.
Sinking back into Maddie’s side, Buck hums contently, the vibration of it buzzing through her arm. She tilts her head until her cheek presses against the top of his head. Buck’s TV blinks to life, Eddie quietly navigating to the recorded channel segment to find the documentary.
The room floods with blue as the episode plays, a low cello echoing through the room as the title screen dissolves into view, and Maddie feels Buck sigh heavily, his whole body moving with it. His fingers flick in his lap, hand rolling over the inside of his thigh.
“I think this episode’s about tropical waters,” Buck informs quietly.
His legs drag over the duvet, tucking into himself until his toes bump just below Eddie’s knee. Maddie watches as Eddie drops his hand to squeeze Buck’s ankle, thumb tracing over the bone before letting go again.
“I don’t know much about sea animals,” Maddie says. “Gonna need some pointers about what’s what.”
Eddie takes a sip of his hot chocolate, blowing on the marshmallow coated liquid. “You might say you’re a little out of your depth.”
Maddie blinks at him. He smiles back. Buck lets out an ugly snorting noise into her cardigan.
“You’re an idiot,” he says, and Eddie shrugs, cheeks pink with the pleased pride of making Buck laugh.
“Do you have a list of ocean puns up your sleeve?” Maddie asks him, raising an eyebrow.
Taking another sip of his drink, Eddie settles back into the pillows, arm stretched out so it settles somewhere near the back of Buck’s neck. Maddie wonders if there’s a magnet tucked beneath the skin there, always drawing him in.
“It’s the Dad jokes,” he says. “They just come naturally now. It’s like a default setting.”
On the screen, a blue-ringed octopus slithers over the sand. She suppresses a shudder, if only because Buck makes a small noise of delight at the undulating creature.
“Remember when we pulled that octopus off that lady’s face,” Eddie says, eyes fixed to the animal in a weird mix of apprehensive admiration.
Buck’s hand swats blindly at Eddie’s arm. “I’m trying to listen.”
There’s no bite in his tone, not a lick of seriousness. It’s just soft, and silly, and automated like this too has happened before – a well oiled machine. It feels even more so when Buck’s hand settles where it’s landed, fingers curling around Eddie’s elbow. His thumb presses into one of the dark moles dotted all over Eddie’s arm. Maddie sinks her teeth into her cheek so she doesn’t make an audible noise of both adoration and self-satisfaction.
It’s not the time for ‘i told you so’s’ and, frankly, Maddie kind of just wants to hug them both. She tucks the feeling close to her chest and folds it shut for now.
“Sorry,” Eddie says, eyes still trained to the screen, gleaming in the oceanic lighting. “Didn’t mean to krill your vibe.”
Maddie wakes up some indeterminable time later, neck aching. She cracks her eyes open slowly, taking in the early morning light pushing through the gaps in the blinds. Birds sing outside. There’s a quiet murmur of voices.
She shifts where she’s sprawled on Buck’s tangled duvet covers, slowly rolling onto her other side. Sharp pain shoots up her neck, the aching throb of being bent in the same position for hours. She’ll have a kink there for days.
The mattress beside her is empty but warm when she haphazardly brushes over it with her palm, evidence of Buck not being gone for long. The voices start again, closer this time, words clearer. Maddie rubs the sleep from her eyes and squints over to the open door just as Buck walks back inside the bedroom.
He’s scrubbing a hand over his face, undereye bags deep and cutting into his skin. His eyes are all watery, face flushed and sweaty.
“Sorry,” he says, and it takes a second for Maddie to realize he’s not talking to her.
“Stop apologizing,” Eddie says, coming in behind Buck. He closes the door quietly behind him before moving to step in front of Buck. “I don’t want to hear it, alright? It’s okay.”
Buck sways slightly on his feet, listing forward into where Eddie’s hands are hovering. Eddie catches him easily, spreading his hands over biceps to steady him.
“I don’t feel good, Eds,” Buck whispers, a shattering chord that cracks Maddie’s heart right down the middle.
She turns her head further into the pillow to wipe away the dampness collecting by the corner of her eye, tears springing like a hair-trigger at the audible sound of Buck’s pain.
“I know you don’t,” Eddie replies gently. “Think you can stomach some more water?”
“Mhm.”
There’s a dip in the mattress as they perch down on the side of the bed, backs now facing Maddie. She stares at the glimpse of Buck’s profile, watching dutifully as he gingerly sips some water, throat constricting as violently as if he was gargling acid.
“Okay,” Eddie says when Buck hands the glass back, half of the water drunk. “How about some sleep, huh?”
Buck makes a pitiful, broken sort of sound. “Eddie, I– I can’t.”
Maddie’s not sure what he means – what it is exactly that he can’t do. Sleep, or something deeper, something more encompassing.
“You can,” Eddie says, a friendly firmness in his voice. “I’ll stay right here with you, and– and Maddie’s here too. We’ll get some rest together.”
“Every time I fall asleep I wake up again.”
Eddie’s head bows forward, shoulders rolling. “I know. I know it’s frustrating.”
“I just can’t sleep,” Buck reiterates shakily. “It’s not– It’s not happening.”
From age four to seven, Buck had trouble with sleep. Maddie remembers it clear as day, the restlessness (not unlike that which caught ahold of her tonight) that plagued him, that made it feel impossible for him to ever fall asleep. When he did eventually get to sleep, he often woke soon after from nightmares, and ended up climbing tearfully into her bed for the rest of the night.
The thought of him experiencing that kind of torment again, that kind of thwarting, makes Maddie want to scream. She never wanted for him to have to go through it ever again.
“Let’s just lie down then,” Eddie says, redirecting Buck. “Christopher is visiting tomorrow, remember? Wanna plan what you want to do together? I think we should stop playing board games with him, he’s getting frighteningly good at anticipating our moves ahead of time. Don’t want him growing up into a Disney villain.”
“He’d be a good evil mastermind,” Buck agrees, “if he was, y’know. Evil at all.”
Eddie laughs, and there’s the rustle of sheets as Buck settles back against the pillows, shoulder pressing into Maddie’s. She slips her eyes back shut before he can notice she’s awake, wanting, for some inexplicable reason, for her brother to keep this moment a secret. The intimacy of family, and all.
“Yeah, that kid is all good,” Eddie says, sighing as he also lies down, probably half-dangling off the edge of the mattress. “Hey, maybe he could bring over his geography project and you could work on it together.”
“Only if it doesn’t involve volcanoes,” Buck says, and doesn’t elaborate further on that particular dealbreaker.
They talk for a while longer, voices lapsing and evening out the longer the conversation stretches. Maddie’s barely listening to the words by the time they putter off, just the swell of Buck speaking, and the lisp of Eddie’s fond replies. It’s soothing, and she finds herself reaching for Buck’s hand after the two of them have fallen quiet, fingers crawling over the duvet to reach his.
She slides their palms together, squeezing his three times. Beside her, his breathing pauses, stuttering and then starting again in one long exhale. He squeezes back twice.
When Maddie wakes again, well into the late morning, Buck’s snoring loudly, hair fluttering with every puff of breath. Beside him, Eddie’s reading his book, thin glasses perched on the slope of his nose. His hand rests on Buck’s chest. Not clutching, or grasping, or keeping him locked safely in place. Just resting, like all he really wants to do is feel the movement of Buck’s lungs.
So much of this doesn’t make sense, but that does. Maddie hugs her cardigan closer around herself and lets herself take a breath – her first full one since…she doesn't know when. A long time.
Buck will be okay. Despite her fear she knows that innately. It’s almost noon, and there’s a mug of cold hot chocolate beside her, and her baby brother is safe, sleeping soundly next to a man who would do anything for him. Maddie feels pretty confident about that, and she drifts again.