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The first thing Buck noticed about Adam was that he never looked nervous in group.
Everyone else did.
People fidgeted with paper coffee cups, bounced knees, stared at the carpet like it held all the answers. But Adam sat relaxed in the folding chair at the edge of the circle, one ankle over his knee, sleeves pushed to his elbows, like talking about addiction was as normal as talking about the weather.
Buck hated him immediately.
Which probably should’ve been a warning sign.
The counselor prompted smiled gently. “You wanna share tonight?”
No. God, no.
But Buck cleared his throat anyway.
“My sister says I isolate when things get hard,” he muttered. “So… apparently talking is healthier.”
A few chuckles circled the room.
Buck rubbed his palms together. “I’m trying. That’s all I got.”
“That’s enough,” someone said quietly from beside him.
Being a firefighter after recovery came with a special kind of hell. Every bad call crawled under his skin now. Every adrenaline spike felt dangerous. Every sleepless night made him wonder if his brain still remembered how easy it used to be to numb everything.
Buck looked over at Adam.
The guy sitting there was around his age, dark hair curling at the ends, sharp jaw softened by tired eyes.
Adam smiled at him. Not pitying. Not fake encouraging. Just understanding.
“I’m Adam,” he said after the meeting ended. “And your sister’s right.”
Buck snorted. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know addicts.”
That should’ve irritated him.
Instead, Buck found himself smiling for the first time all day.
Three weeks later, Adam was waiting outside the community center after group.
“You always leave like the building’s on fire,” he called.
Buck paused halfway to the Jeep. “Occupational hazard.”
Adam grinned. “You wanna grab coffee?”
Buck should’ve said no.
Recovery had rules. Don’t rush relationships. Don’t get attached to people in vulnerable places. Don’t mistake understanding for stability.
But Adam made him feel quiet inside for the first time in months.
So Buck said yes.
Adam was easy to talk to.
That was the problem.
He listened without pity. Never looked at Buck like he was broken. Never treated him like glass the way everyone else did now.
Not Maddie. Not Chim. Not Hen. Not Athena. Not May. Not Ravi. Not Harry. Not Eddie with his constant worried staring.
Adam just… saw him.
They started getting coffee after meetings. Then dinners. Then nights sitting in Noah’s apartment listening to records while rain hit the windows.
Buck didn’t realize he was falling until Adam brushed his fingers across Buck’s wrist one night and Buck forgot how to breathe.
“You’re thinking too hard again,” Adam murmured.
Buck laughed softly. “Story of my life.”
Adam kissed him then.
Slow. Gentle. Like Buck was something worth handling carefully.
And for the first time since rehab, Buck felt quiet inside.
At first, everyone loved him.
That was the worst part.
“He’s good for you,” Maddie told Buck one night while they washed dishes after dinner at the firehouse.
Buck tried not to smile too hard. “Yeah?”
“You laugh more.”
Across the room, by the couch, Adam sat on the floor helping Jee-Yun stack blocks while Chimney pretended to coach from the couch.
“Okay, no, that tower violates several building codes,” Chimney said.
Adam laughed easily. “Good thing I’m not a firefighter.”
“Smartest thing you’ve said all night,” Eddie muttered from the table.
Buck flipped him off without heat.
Even Athena approved after meeting Adam at the dinner.
“He watches people carefully,” she told Buck later. “Usually means someone’s survived something.”
Buck had swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “He has.”
The first crack appeared two months later.
Buck had a bad shift. Apartment fire. Dead kid.
Too small. Too burned.
He couldn’t stop seeing it.
By the time he got to Adam’s apartment his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Adam took one look at him and said softly, “Bad call?”
Buck nodded.
“I can’t turn my brain off.”
Adam disappeared into the kitchen.
When he came back, he held out a small pill.
Buck froze instantly.
“No.”
“It’s just something to help you sleep.”
“No.”
Adam sat beside him calmly. “Buck, look at me. This isn’t the stuff you were abusing.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“You’re spiraling.”
Buck stood abruptly, pulse hammering.
Three months ago he would’ve taken anything someone offered him. Wouldn’t even have hesitated.
Adam raised both hands. “Okay. Okay. Forget it.”
But the damage was done.
Because later that night, long after Adam had fallen asleep beside him, Buck stared at the ceiling and thought about how easy it would’ve been.
How badly part of him had wanted to say yes.
The relapse happened slowly.
Then all at once.
Adam never pushed outright after that first night.
That was what made it worse.
It became casual comments. Tiny nudges.
“You’re too hard on yourself.” “One pill won’t kill you.” “You deserve a break.” “You’re stronger now.”
Buck resisted for weeks.
Until one sleepless night after a brutal rescue left his nerves shredded raw.
“You ever get tired,” Adam said quietly, “of feeling everything all the time?”
Buck’s chest hurt instantly because yes.
God, yes.
Adam stood slowly and crossed the room.
“You know what recovery groups don’t tell you?” he murmured. “Sometimes surviving hurts worse than using.”
Buck looked away.
That silence was answer enough.
Adam touched his wrist gently. “You’re shaking.
Buck hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re drowning.”
The words landed too hard because they were true.
Adam held out one pill between two fingers.
“Just to sleep tonight.”
Buck stared at it.
Every alarm bell in his head screamed.
But underneath the panic was exhaustion so deep it felt endless.
Just to sleep tonight.
Just one night without nightmares.
Without Bobby’s death replaying behind his eyes every time he blinked.
Without hearing Chimney trying so hard to fill impossible shoes as captain.
Without feeling like everyone watched him now waiting for him to fall apart again.
Buck took the pill.
The relapse started small, stared slow.
One pill after rough shifts.
Then after nightmares.
Then before nightmares.
Buck stopped going to meetings consistently.
Started snapping at people.
Started disappearing after shifts with excuses that barely made sense.
Eddie noticed first.
Of course he did.
“You missed dinner again,” Eddie said one evening outside the station.
Buck shoved gear into his locker. “Didn’t know I was married to you.”
Eddie’s expression hardened immediately.
Buck regretted it the second the words left his mouth.
“Sorry.”
“No,” Eddie said quietly. “You’re not.”
Buck looked away.
Eddie stepped closer. “Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.”
“Buck.”
“I said I’m fine.”
The sharpness echoed through the locker room.
Ravi suddenly found the floor fascinating.
Harry looked startled.
Eddie went still in the way he only did when he was deeply angry or deeply scared.
“You sound exactly like you did before rehab,” he said softly.
Buck’s blood turned cold.
“Don’t.”
“Then tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
Eddie stared at him for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
And walked away.
That hurt worse than yelling would’ve.
It all exploded two weeks later.
Buck nodded off during inventory check.
Just for a second.
But Chimney saw it.
The silence in the engine bay turned terrifying instantly.
“Buck.”
Buck jerked awake.
Chimney’s face had gone pale.
“Office,” he said quietly.
Buck followed on numb legs.
The second the door shut, Chimney spoke.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Buck couldn’t.
Chimney’s eyes filled immediately with heartbreak more than anger.
“Oh, Buck…”
Buck folded in on himself.
“I tried,” he whispered.
Chimney pressed a hand over his mouth hard enough to hide the shaking.
“When?”
Buck said nothing.
“Did Adam give it to you?”
That made Buck look up too fast.
And Chimney knew.
“Jesus Christ.”
Buck stood abruptly. “I can handle it.”
“That is literally the addiction talking!”
Buck flinched.
Chimney scrubbed both hands down his face. “Okay. Okay. Sit down.”
“I don’t need—”
“Sit. Down.”
Captain voice.
Buck obeyed automatically.
The office door opened a second later.
Athena and Maddie.
Apparently Chimney had texted them.
One look at Buck and their entire expression changed.
Not judgment.
Not disappointment.
Just fierce, terrifying focus.
“How bad?” Maddie asked quietly.
Buck broke.
Everything poured out after that.
The pills.
The lies.
The shame.
How good it felt not to hurt for a few hours.
How much he hated himself afterward.
They listened without interrupting once.
When he finally finished, trembling and wrecked, Maddie crouched in front of him.
“Listen to me carefully,” she said.
Buck couldn’t meet her eyes.
She waited until he did.
“This family has already buried one person. We are not burying you too.”
Buck’s throat closed painfully.
Athena squeezed his shoulder once, from her place beside him.
“You are coming back from this.”
Adam disappeared the second Buck stopped answering.
Which somehow hurt even though Buck should’ve expected it.
Three days into detox, Buck sat wrapped in a blanket on Maddie and Chimney’s couch staring blankly at the television.
Maddie brought him tea he didn’t drink.
“You should sleep.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re sweating through a blanket.”
Buck gave her a tired look. “You always this annoying?”
“Yep.”
For the first time in days, Buck smiled faintly.
Maddie’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
“Oh, don’t do that,” Buck muttered.
She sat beside him carefully.
“I was so scared,” she whispered.
Buck stared at the floor.
“I know.”
“You stopped answering calls.”
Buck covered his face with both hands. “Maddie—”
She pulled him into a hug before he could apologize.
“You came back,” she whispered fiercely. “That’s what matters.”
Recovery the second time was uglier.
Less hopeful.
More honest.
Buck hated every second of it.
But he wasn’t alone.
Maddie drove him to meetings when he didn’t trust himself to go alone.
Eddie sat with him through panic attacks without saying a word.
Hen read books for him.
Ravi showed up with terrible gas station snacks and even worse motivational speeches.
May made him playlists for sleepless nights.
Harry trained with him at the gym until Buck could exhaust himself naturally again.
Athena checked in constantly in ways subtle enough not to suffocate him.
And Chimney—
Chimney watched him like someone guarding a ledge.
One night after shift, Buck found him alone in the captain’s office staring at Bobby’s old mug.
“I’m sorry,” Buck said quietly.
Chimney looked up.
“For making this harder.”
A long silence stretched between them.
Then Chimney sighed.
“You know what Bobby used to say when one of us screwed up?”
Buck smiled weakly. “Depends how bad we screwed up.”
That got a snort out of Chimney.
“He said being a family means loving people in their worst moments too.”
Buck’s eyes burned instantly.
Chimney leaned back in the chair that still sometimes looked too big for him.
“You scared the hell out of me, Buck.”
“I know.”
“But you came clean before we lost you completely.”
Buck swallowed hard.
Chimney pointed toward the door.
“Now get out there before Ravi steals your food again.”
"I heard that!” Ravi shouted from outside.
Buck laughed unexpectedly.
Real laughter.
The kind he hadn’t realized he’d missed.
And for the first time in months, the darkness inside him loosened just a little.