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Buck hears it, but it doesn’t fully land at first—not in a way his body knows how to respond to. The words reach him in pieces, scattered somewhere between Hen’s voice and the noise of the room, like his brain is still trying to decide whether it’s safe to interpret them correctly.
He doesn’t move right away.
Not because he’s calm, but because there’s a delay between hearing something and understanding what it means, and for a few seconds he exists entirely inside that gap. The room keeps going around him anyway—someone shifts behind him, a chair scrapes lightly across the floor, voices overlap again like nothing has changed shape at all.
But something has.
Buck swallows once, sharp and automatic, like his body is trying to reset itself into something that makes sense. His mouth opens before he fully thinks about speaking, like instinct is trying to get ahead of whatever is building in his chest.
“Yeah,” he says too quickly, too lightly, like it can still be undone if he keeps the tone small enough. “I just meant—”
He stops.
Because he doesn’t actually know what he meant anymore, and the sentence hangs there without anywhere to go.
For a second, no one steps in to fix it for him.
And that’s what makes it stick.
xxxxxxx
Buck hears the last thing Hen says like it’s happening slightly out of sync with the rest of the room, like his brain is no longer matching the timing of what’s in front of him. It’s clear enough that he understands the words, but they don’t stay in place long enough to become something he can respond to properly.
Someone says his name.
Maybe.
Or maybe it’s just the shape of it in the air, pulled from somewhere behind him where attention is supposed to go. He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t fully turn at first either, just shifts slightly like his body is deciding whether staying or leaving requires less effort, and it makes the decision for him before his mind catches up.
Leaving.
That part arrives cleanly, without negotiation.
He steps back once, then again, and suddenly it’s no longer a thought but movement, something physical pulling him toward the exit faster than he can attach meaning to it. The room doesn’t stop for him—it keeps talking, keeps existing, keeps moving like nothing has shifted out of place.
“Buck—”
He hears it behind him.
Closer now.
Sharp enough that it should stop him.
Eddie.
Or maybe not fully Eddie, not in a way he can hold onto long enough to process, just a voice that feels like it should matter more than it does right now. It almost catches him—almost pulls him back into the space he’s already halfway out of—but not quite.
His hand is already on the door.
He opens it too fast, like if he slows down he’ll have to think about what he’s doing, and then he’s outside before the room fully catches up to him leaving. The change in air hits him differently, but he doesn’t process it long enough for it to matter.
“Buck, wait—”
He stops for half a second.
Just long enough for it to almost reach him.
But it doesn’t.
He turns his head slightly, not enough to see clearly, just enough to register movement behind him, someone there, someone calling, someone trying. It doesn’t resolve into anything stable in his mind, just noise with weight behind it.
He should say something.
He doesn’t know what.
What comes out instead is smaller than language, smaller than intention.
“Sorry.”
It isn’t aimed properly at anything. Just released into the space behind him like a reflex his body learned before he had the awareness to question it.
Then he keeps walking.
And whatever voice was behind him doesn’t reach him in time.
xxxxxxx
Buck doesn’t really register getting into the car properly.
There’s no clear moment where leaving becomes arriving somewhere else—just a shift, like his body continues moving on its own while the rest of him lags slightly behind. One second he’s outside the building, and the next the door is closed, the seatbelt is on, his hands are on the wheel like they belong there even though he doesn’t remember deciding any of it.
The engine starts immediately.
That feels wrong in a way he can’t explain.
Everything should be harder than this.
The parking lot is still there in front of him, bright and ordinary and completely unchanged, like nothing inside the building behind him just shifted the shape of his entire night. He stares at it too long, like waiting for something to interrupt the fact that he’s still here.
Nothing does.
He puts the car in reverse.
Then stops.
Just for a second.
Because for a second there’s something at the edge of his mind—something he didn’t fully carry out of the room with him.
“Buck—”
It’s not clear.
Not fully formed.
But it still makes his fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel before he can stop it.
He looks up.
There’s no one behind him. No movement near the car. The building stands still in the rearview like it never held anything loud enough to follow him out.
So he moves.
Reverses out.
Drives.
At first the road feels normal in the way roads are supposed to feel normal—lights, intersections, movement that should be familiar enough to settle into—but it doesn’t settle. Everything passes through him slightly late, like he’s watching it happen a fraction after it already did.
Green lights he goes through without remembering choosing to. Red lights he only fully notices once he’s already stopped. Turns that happen too automatically for someone who doesn’t feel fully inside the act of driving.
The city is still functioning exactly the way it always does.
That’s what makes it worse.
People still walking. Still talking. Still existing in lanes that make sense.
Buck feels like he is drifting just slightly outside of them.
His phone sits in the cupholder, screen dark.
He doesn’t touch it.
That realization lands a little too late, like he only notices the absence of the reflex after it fails to happen.
His hand twitches once toward it anyway, muscle memory reaching for something that usually fills the silence, but it stops halfway. There’s nothing waiting for him there either.
The silence in the car is worse than the engine.
It fills everything the way conversation should have, the way distraction normally would, except there’s nothing interrupting it now. Just him, the road, and the steady awareness that something earlier didn’t resolve the way it usually does.
Buck swallows.
His throat feels tight in a way that has nothing to do with anything physical.
At a red light, he stares forward too long.
The brake lights in front of him blur slightly.
Hen’s voice comes back in fragments.
The room.
His own movement leaving before he could explain it.
The way no one followed in a way that reached him in time.
It doesn’t come back in order.
Just pieces.
A sound. A tone. The feeling of being looked at like something shifted and no one had decided what it meant yet.
His grip tightens again.
The light turns green.
He doesn’t move immediately.
A horn behind him jolts him forward and he reacts too late, pulling out too quickly like his body is catching up to instructions he didn’t process fast enough the first time.
“Sorry,” he mutters automatically.
No one answers.
There’s no one there to answer.
That realization doesn’t come all at once.
It arrives slowly, like everything else tonight.
His chest feels wrong now.
Not pain exactly.
More like pressure without direction, like something inside him is trying to organize itself around a shape it doesn’t recognize yet.
The road feels longer than it should.
Not physically.
Just continuous.
Like it doesn’t end at his apartment anymore, like it could keep going if he let it, and for a second that almost feels easier than what comes after.
Because what comes after means thinking again.
It means replaying Hen’s voice properly.
It means hearing his own response without the buffer of motion.
It means finding the exact point where something shifted and he didn’t notice it happening.
Buck’s breathing changes without permission.
Slightly shallower.
Slightly faster.
He forces it steady again, like he knows how to do that, like this is just another thing he can regulate if he tries hard enough.
It doesn’t fully work.
A turn comes too late and he corrects sharply, tires adjusting with a small jolt that makes his stomach drop slightly.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, like control is still something he can access if he reaches for it correctly.
It isn’t.
His phone vibrates once in the cupholder.
The sound makes him flinch before he can stop it.
He looks at it immediately.
Then stops himself halfway.
Doesn’t pick it up.
That alone feels like stepping off something unstable.
The vibration stops.
Silence returns.
Worse than before.
Because now there’s proof something tried to reach him and he didn’t answer.
His jaw tightens.
The apartment building comes into view too soon.
Or not soon enough.
He can’t tell which one it is.
He parks without fully remembering the sequence of doing it.
Engine off.
Keys still in his hand.
Then not.
Somewhere in that gap, his body exits the rest of him.
And when he finally sits still, staring through the windshield at a reflection of himself that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to him, Buck realizes the part that broke tonight wasn’t loud.
It was gradual.
And it started long before he ever left the building.
xxxxxx
Buck doesn’t remember getting out of the car in a way that feels like a decision, just a series of movements his body completed without asking permission from the rest of him first. One moment he’s sitting there with both hands still locked around the steering wheel, staring through the windshield at nothing specific, and the next the engine is off, the keys are in his hand, and the apartment building is standing in front of him like it has been waiting the entire time without needing him to arrive properly in order for it to continue existing.
The walk to the loft happens in disconnected pieces that never fully settle into memory correctly, steps without counting them, movement without intention, the automatic rhythm of someone following a route they’ve taken too many times to think about anymore even though tonight nothing about it feels familiar in the way it usually does. His body knows where to go anyway. Up the stairs. Down the hallway. Keys turning in the lock before his brain catches up to the fact that he’s already there.
That part feels almost worse somehow.
Like his body still knows how to come home even though the rest of him hasn’t caught up yet.
The loft door swings open and Buck steps inside, and the silence hits differently this time—not soft, not background, not the kind that settles unnoticed into the edges of a room while life keeps moving around it. This silence lands all at once, full and immediate, like the loft itself has been holding its breath since he left and finally let it go the second he walked back in.
Buck stops in the doorway without meaning to, just stands there with his keys still hanging loosely from one hand, phone somewhere in his pocket, jacket still on his shoulders like he forgot to finish arriving. The TV is still running from earlier, voices and canned laughter spilling faintly through the room, but it doesn’t register properly as sound anymore. It just adds texture to the quiet instead of interrupting it.
The loft looks exactly the same as it always does.
That’s what makes it feel wrong.
Nothing here changed. The couch is still where it always is, the kitchen still half-lit by the glow of the television, the blanket still thrown over one corner of the couch like someone only stepped away for a minute instead of hours ago. The room looks untouched by whatever happened tonight, untouched by Hen’s voice or the hallway or the drive home or the strange, slow fracture that’s been widening in Buck’s chest since he walked out of the station.
Or maybe nothing happened.
Maybe that’s worse.
Buck steps farther inside slowly, like the air itself might resist him if he moves too quickly, and the door swings shut behind him with a soft click that still makes him flinch before he can stop himself. He doesn’t know why. The reaction feels too immediate for the sound itself, like his nervous system is responding to something larger than the room can hold.
His keys leave his hand without him consciously deciding to put them down. They miss the bowl by the stairs and strike the counter instead, sliding slightly crooked near the edge, and under normal circumstances he would fix them immediately without even thinking about it.
He doesn’t.
His hand stays half-raised for a second too long, hovering there like it forgot what it was supposed to do next before finally dropping slowly back to his side.
The loft feels different tonight. Larger somehow. Or emptier. Or maybe just more aware of itself, every sound carrying too far, every patch of silence sitting too still once it settles. Buck walks forward without choosing where he’s going, gaze drifting aimlessly across spaces that should feel familiar enough to ground him but somehow don’t.
The couch is there.
The kitchen is there.
Everything is exactly where it should be, like the room has no memory at all of what happened outside of it.
His phone vibrates once in his pocket.
Buck doesn’t look at it immediately.
That alone feels unfamiliar enough to notice.
Usually his hand would already be moving before the thought even formed, reflex faster than awareness, but tonight the instinct arrives delayed, like even his habits are hesitating around him now. He pulls the phone out anyway after a second, the screen lighting up harsh against the dim apartment.
Not Eddie.
Something else.
Something irrelevant enough that it shouldn’t matter either way.
But it still doesn’t help.
Buck locks the screen again almost immediately and sets the phone down on the counter harder than he means to, the sound sharp in the quiet room, then stares at it for half a second like it might explain what he’s supposed to do next if he looks at it long enough.
It doesn’t.
The silence settles back into place the moment the screen goes dark, and this time it doesn’t feel like something surrounding him anymore. It feels internal. Like the room itself has noticed him standing in it and decided not to look away.
Buck exhales slowly through his nose, too controlled, too careful, like if he regulates every movement precisely enough he can force his body into believing nothing is wrong. It doesn’t work. The TV continues talking somewhere behind him, voices rising and falling in rhythms that belong to another version of the loft entirely, one he no longer feels fully connected to.
He takes another step forward.
Then stops.
Because something feels wrong in a way he can’t immediately identify—not loud, not dramatic, just the quiet awareness of absence, the feeling of something slightly out of place without knowing what it is yet.
His eyes drift toward the couch without meaning to.
And that’s when it lands.
The slight indentation in the cushion where he sat earlier. The uneven fold in the blanket. And something else, small enough that his brain doesn’t fully process it at first.
Buck’s focus sharpens slowly.
Too slowly.
A plastic dinosaur sits between the cushions like it has always belonged there.
Christopher’s.
The recognition cuts through everything else instantly, sharper and cleaner than Hen’s voice or the silence or the drive home ever managed to be. This is different. Specific in a way the rest of the night hasn’t been, something tangible enough to anchor itself inside him before he can push it away.
Buck doesn’t move at first.
He just looks at it.
Like if he stares long enough it might stop meaning what it obviously means.
But it doesn’t change.
It just sits there quietly beneath the glow of the television, waiting in a way that feels too intentional for something so small, and suddenly the loft feels less like an empty apartment and more like a space that remembers things he hasn’t figured out how to say out loud yet.
Buck swallows once, slow and careful, fingers twitching faintly at his side like they want to reach for something—his phone, the counter, the couch, anything solid enough to interrupt whatever is building in his chest—but nothing comes. No distraction. No text. No interruption large enough to pull him out of the feeling settling deeper inside him with every passing second.
Just the dinosaur.
Just the couch.
Just the silence that feels like it has been waiting all night for him to finally notice it properly.
Buck takes one small step backward without meaning to, then another, retreating slowly until the edge of the kitchen counter presses against his lower back and his hand closes around it automatically like his body needs proof that something in the room is still solid.
The loft doesn’t move.
Nothing changes.
But something inside him shifts anyway, not fast enough to call panic and not dramatic enough to fully name, just a slow internal destabilization that makes everything around him feel slightly less steady than it did a minute ago.
Like the ground itself hasn’t changed.
Only the way he’s standing on it has.
And for the first time since he walked through the door, Buck realizes the silence isn’t just surrounding him anymore.
It’s staying.
xxxxxx
Buck stays near the counter for longer than he means to, fingers curled loosely against the edge like the pressure alone is enough to keep him anchored in place, even though nothing about the feeling in his chest has actually settled. The loft remains painfully unchanged around him, the television still talking softly in the background while the silence underneath it stretches wider with every second he spends standing still inside it.
His phone sits abandoned on the counter a few inches away, dark-screened and motionless now, but Buck can still feel its presence in the room like something waiting to disappoint him again. He tells himself not to look at it, not because he expects Eddie to text, but because some part of him is already too aware of what it feels like when he doesn’t.
The dinosaur is still on the couch.
Buck doesn’t look directly at it anymore, but his attention keeps circling back anyway, catching on it every time his eyes drift even slightly toward the living room. Something about it feels unbearable now in a way he can’t fully explain, like it stopped being a forgotten toy the second he walked through the door and became proof of something else entirely.
He pushes himself away from the counter eventually, movement returning in restless fragments instead of intention, and starts pacing through the loft without realizing he’s doing it at first. Kitchen to couch. Couch to kitchen. Small circles that never quite settle anywhere, like if he keeps moving long enough the feeling won’t fully catch up to him.
It doesn’t work.
Every time he slows down, the thoughts rush back in immediately, overlapping too fast to separate cleanly from each other—Hen’s voice, Eddie calling after him in the hallway, the silence in the car, the way the loft feels too large tonight, like it no longer expects him to fill space inside it the way it used to.
His phone vibrates once against the counter.
Buck’s head snaps toward it before he can stop himself.
The reaction feels humiliating almost instantly.
He stares at the screen without moving closer at first, pulse suddenly too loud in the quiet room, then finally reaches for it anyway because not checking somehow feels worse than disappointment does.
Not Eddie.
A message from Maddie asking if he got home safe.
Buck reads it twice without answering, thumb hovering uselessly over the keyboard while guilt twists low in his stomach for reasons he can’t fully explain. The text is normal. Gentle. Nothing inside it should hurt.
But it does anyway.
Because Eddie still hasn’t reached out.
The thought lands harder this time, no longer fleeting enough to ignore, and Buck feels something inside him shift quietly around it, like his brain has finally stopped waiting for evidence against the fear and started adjusting itself to fit the shape of it instead.
He locks the phone again and sets it back down more carefully this time, like handling it gently might somehow lessen the weight attached to it now. The silence settles immediately back into place afterward, filling the loft so completely that even the television starts sounding distant again.
Buck looks toward the couch without meaning to.
The dinosaur is still there.
Waiting.
xxxxxxxx
Buck stares at the dinosaur for too long before he finally moves toward the couch again, slow and hesitant in a way that feels unfamiliar inside his own home. He stops just short of sitting down, gaze fixed on the small plastic shape resting between the cushions like it belongs there more naturally than he does right now.
Christopher left it here without thinking.
That part lands harder than it should.
Not because it means anything on its own, but because Christopher never has to question whether he’ll come back for things later. He leaves pieces of himself scattered around Buck’s loft the same way he leaves them at Eddie’s house, easy and unquestioning, like belonging somewhere has always been simple for him.
Buck swallows slowly and looks away first.
The thought shifts before he can stop it from shifting, pulling Eddie into it automatically because Eddie is always there somewhere underneath every version of Christopher in Buck’s mind. Movie nights on this couch. Eddie leaning against the kitchen counter half-smiling while Christopher talks over both of them. The quiet certainty Buck used to feel inside moments like that, like there was already a place shaped for him inside them before he ever arrived.
Now the memory feels different.
Not ruined.
Just fragile in a way he didn’t notice before.
Buck finally sits down, but the movement feels awkward and uneven, like his body no longer fully trusts the space underneath it. The couch dips softly beneath his weight and something in his chest tightens immediately afterward, sharp enough that he has to lean forward and brace his elbows against his knees just to ground himself again.
His phone stays untouched on the counter.
That should help.
Instead it makes the silence louder.
Because every second Eddie doesn’t text stretches slightly further than the one before it, until Buck can feel his mind beginning to fill the gaps automatically, turning absence into meaning faster than he can stop it. He knows he’s doing it while it’s happening. That’s the worst part.
He still can’t stop.
The grocery store flashes through his head again without warning.
Eddie saying his name.
Not angry. Not even cruel.
Just tired.
Buck closes his eyes briefly like that might stop the memory from sharpening any further, but it only makes it clearer instead—the way Eddie turned away afterward, the way the conversation never properly reset, the strange lingering feeling Buck carried out of the store even before tonight gave it shape.
His chest feels tight again.
Not panic.
Something quieter.
Something sinking.
And suddenly the thought arrives fully formed before he can interrupt it.
If Eddie is happier when things are quieter… when Buck is quieter… then eventually Christopher will notice too.
Buck’s eyes open immediately.
The loft feels different again after that, smaller somehow despite all the empty space inside it, and he stares down at his hands like they belong to someone else for a second because the thought doesn’t feel dramatic enough to reject outright.
That’s what scares him.
Not the fear itself.
How reasonable it sounds once it’s there.
Christopher wouldn’t stop loving him all at once. Buck knows that immediately. It would happen slowly, naturally, in tiny shifts no one would even notice while they were happening. A little less excitement when Buck walks into the room. A little less reaching for him first. Eddie not needing to ask Buck over as often because things are simply… easier now.
Easier.
The word lands heavily inside him.
Buck realizes with slow, nauseating clarity that he has already started adjusting himself around the possibility without meaning to. Making himself quieter. Smaller. Less present before anyone has actually asked him to.
Like he’s trying to soften the inconvenience of losing him before it even happens.
His breathing goes shallow without permission.
He leans back against the couch slowly, staring up at the ceiling while the television continues murmuring meaninglessly in the background, and for the first time all night Buck stops waiting for something to fix the feeling before it fully settles.
Nothing does.
So it stays.
xxxxxx
Buck doesn’t realize he’s crying at first.
Not fully.
There’s no sharp breaking point, no sudden collapse that announces itself loudly enough to interrupt the silence already filling the loft. It happens quietly instead, one tear slipping free before he even notices the pressure building behind his eyes, followed by another a few seconds later when he finally lifts a hand to his face and feels dampness there he doesn’t remember putting there.
He laughs once under his breath.
The sound comes out wrong immediately.
Small. Frayed at the edges. Like something trying too hard to pass as okay even after the effort has already failed.
Buck drags both hands over his face harder this time, pressing his palms briefly against his eyes like he can physically stop whatever is opening up inside him if he applies enough pressure to it. It doesn’t work. The tightness in his chest only shifts lower instead, heavier now, settling somewhere beneath his ribs where it feels impossible to breathe around properly.
The loft is still unbearably quiet.
The TV keeps talking to itself in the background, distant enough now that it barely sounds real anymore, and Buck suddenly can’t stand it. He reaches blindly for the remote without looking away from the floor and mutes it immediately.
The silence afterward crashes down so hard it almost feels physical.
Buck freezes.
Because somehow this version is worse.
Without the television filling space, every thought inside his head suddenly sounds louder, clearer, impossible to escape from. Eddie not texting. Hen’s voice. The hallway. Christopher’s dinosaur still sitting beside him on the couch like proof of something Buck doesn’t want to finish thinking about.
His breathing catches slightly.
Then again.
Buck presses the heels of his hands against his eyes once more and tries to force himself steady before it turns into something bigger, something harder to contain, but the thoughts keep circling too fast now, overlapping each other until he can’t separate where one ends and the next begins.
Maybe Eddie was only calling after him because that’s what decent people do.
Maybe Hen didn’t mean anything by it at all and Buck is just doing what he always does—making things bigger, heavier, harder than they need to be until everyone around him gets exhausted trying to keep up with it.
Maybe that’s the real problem.
Not tonight.
Him.
The thought settles into place with terrifying ease.
Buck lowers his hands slowly and stares across the loft at nothing in particular, eyes burning now, throat tight enough that swallowing hurts. Because once the idea forms properly, his brain starts rearranging memories around it automatically, fitting old moments into the shape of it like they were always meant to belong there.
Eddie getting frustrated.
Chim going quiet sometimes.
Bobby’s tired expression after arguments.
The lawsuit.
God.
Buck’s stomach twists sharply.
Maybe they forgave him because they had to.
Maybe they moved on because it was easier than staying angry forever.
Maybe none of that actually meant they wanted him there again.
His chest caves inward around the thought so suddenly that he folds forward without realizing he’s moving, elbows braced against his knees while his breathing turns shallow and uneven beneath the weight of it.
The dinosaur catches his eye again from the edge of the couch cushion.
And this time Buck can’t stop himself from reaching for it.
His fingers close carefully around the small plastic shape, holding it loosely in both hands like something fragile even though it isn’t, and the second he does, something inside him breaks a little further open.
Because Christopher trusts him completely.
Always has.
And Buck suddenly feels terrified of the possibility that one day Christopher might stop doing it so easily.
Another tear slips down before he can stop it.
Then another.
Buck lowers his head slowly, shoulders curling inward around the dinosaur still clutched carefully in his hands, and finally lets himself cry properly for the first time all night while the silence sits beside him and refuses to leave.
xxxxx
Buck doesn’t know how long he stays folded in on himself like that, curled forward on the couch with Christopher’s dinosaur trapped carefully between both hands like it’s something fragile enough to break if he loosens his grip even slightly. Time stops feeling structured after a while, dissolving slowly into something softer and less reliable where minutes stretch too long and then disappear entirely, and eventually the crying fades not because he feels better or because anything inside him actually settled, but because his body seems to run out of energy to keep forcing the grief outward in a way he can survive physically.
Afterward, the silence comes back heavier than before.
Buck wipes roughly at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie and leans back against the couch in slow increments, exhaustion pressing into him hard enough now that even sitting upright feels strangely difficult. His chest still aches in uneven pulses beneath his ribs, the kind that arrive late after crying too hard for too long, and every breath drags slightly on the way in like something inside him tightened while he wasn’t paying attention and never fully loosened afterward.
His phone lights up again on the counter across the room.
Buck notices immediately.
Of course he does.
Hope hits so fast it almost feels violent, sharp enough that his body reacts before the rest of him can catch up properly, and for one humiliating second he is already half-reaching toward the counter because some part of him still believes Eddie might finally be there waiting for him if he checks quickly enough.
Not Eddie.
Again.
This time the disappointment settles differently. Quieter. Less sharp around the edges.
That’s what scares him.
Because it means some part of his brain is already starting to adjust to the absence instead of fighting it.
Buck stares at the notification without opening it, fingers tightening unconsciously around the dinosaur still resting in his lap while the room around him sinks deeper into quiet. The loft feels colder now, though he can’t tell if that’s real or just what happens after emotional exhaustion burns through the adrenaline that was keeping him upright earlier.
His gaze drifts slowly toward the windows instead, toward the city lights glowing faintly through the dark glass while traffic continues moving several stories below him in neat predictable lines that have nothing to do with him at all. People are still out there somewhere driving home, laughing, existing normally, and Buck suddenly feels disconnected from all of it in a way he doesn’t know how to explain properly even to himself.
Because the worst part is that none of this feels dramatic from the inside.
It feels logical.
That thought keeps returning no matter how many times he tries to shove it away before it fully settles.
Maybe Eddie didn’t text because he needed space after tonight. Maybe Hen’s comment only hurt this badly because some part of Buck already knew there was truth buried inside it somewhere. Maybe everyone around him spends more time managing him than actually wanting him there, and Buck just never noticed because they were kind enough not to say it out loud.
The thoughts overlap faster after that, rearranging themselves into something heavier every time they circle back through his head.
Too much.
Too emotional.
Too exhausting.
Buck closes his eyes tightly against the words, but it doesn’t help because they don’t sound like someone else anymore.
That’s the problem.
His own voice has started sounding like theirs.
The phone screen dims again after sitting ignored for too long, the loft slipping almost completely dark except for the city light bleeding faintly through the windows and the weak glow of the muted television still flickering silently in the background. Buck suddenly feels unbearably alone inside the apartment—not physically alone, not in the simple temporary way he usually is after long shifts, but something deeper than that, something colder.
Unchosen.
The realization settles low and heavy inside his chest while he stares blankly across the room, fingers still curled too tightly around the dinosaur.
Christopher would be devastated if Buck disappeared from his life.
That thought arrives immediately, instinctive and certain enough to cut cleanly through the spiral for half a second.
Then another thought follows behind it before Buck can stop it.
But eventually he’d adjust.
Buck’s stomach twists so violently he nearly drops the dinosaur onto the couch cushion.
“No,” he whispers out loud immediately, voice cracking hard around the word before he can control it.
The sound startles him.
Not because of what he said.
Because it’s the first thing he’s spoken out loud in what feels like hours.
Buck presses a shaking hand against his mouth afterward like he can physically force the thought back inside before it settles too deeply into something dangerous, pulse suddenly loud in his ears now, every emotion in him turning sharp and unstable all at once beneath the exhaustion.
The loft feels too large again.
Too quiet.
Too aware of him standing inside it.
Buck rises abruptly from the couch because sitting still suddenly feels impossible, the movement uneven enough that he nearly loses his balance before catching himself against the armrest. Christopher’s dinosaur stays clenched tightly in one hand while he starts pacing again without meaning to, crossing aimless circles through the apartment with breathing that keeps slipping shallow no matter how carefully he tries to steady it.
And somewhere underneath all of it—under the exhaustion, under the crying, under the spiral still tightening slowly around his chest—one terrible realization finally settles fully into place.
He hasn’t stopped waiting for Eddie to text him even once.
xxxxx
Buck keeps pacing long after the movement stops helping.
The loft blurs around him in fragments as he circles through it over and over again, kitchen to couch to windows and back, Christopher’s dinosaur still trapped tightly in his hand while his thoughts continue folding in on themselves faster than he can properly separate them. Every time he slows down enough for silence to catch up, his chest tightens all over again, so he keeps moving instead, like momentum alone might stop whatever is happening inside him from fully settling into place.
It doesn’t.
The phone stays dark on the counter.
Buck notices every second it remains that way.
That’s the humiliating part.
Not the waiting itself, but how completely his body has oriented around it without his permission, like some part of him still believes the entire night can be undone by a single vibration across the counter. Every few passes through the loft his eyes flick toward it automatically before he can stop himself, pulse kicking painfully each time only to crash again when nothing has changed.
Eventually the pacing slows anyway.
Not because he calms down.
Because exhaustion starts dragging at him harder than the panic does.
Buck stops near the kitchen counter again and braces both hands against it, head lowered while he focuses too hard on breathing evenly through his nose, trying to force his body back under control before the spiral turns into something worse. His reflection catches faintly in the dark kitchen window across from him and he looks away almost immediately because he doesn’t fully recognize the expression staring back.
Too tired.
Too open.
Like someone who has already been left behind and is only just now realizing it happened.
His throat tightens painfully around the thought.
Because logically, rationally, Buck knows Eddie not texting him for a few hours should not feel catastrophic. People get busy. People need space after arguments. People go home tired and distracted all the time without it meaning anything permanent.
But that’s not what this feels like.
This feels like confirmation.
The realization lands slowly enough that Buck almost misses it at first, hidden beneath all the other noise in his head, but once it surfaces he can’t push it back down again. Somewhere between leaving the station and sitting alone on this couch waiting for a text that never came, his brain stopped treating tonight like an isolated moment and started treating it like proof.
Proof that maybe everyone has just been slowly growing tired of him for longer than he noticed.
Buck squeezes his eyes shut hard enough to hurt.
“No,” he whispers again, quieter this time, but the denial feels weaker now because the fear underneath it already sounds too reasonable in his own head.
He thinks about Eddie in the grocery store.
About the exhaustion in his voice.
About the way Buck kept talking anyway because he always keeps talking when he gets nervous, words spilling faster the more he feels himself losing control of a conversation. He remembers Eddie rubbing a hand over his face afterward, small and tired and probably meaningless at the time, except now Buck can’t stop replaying it like evidence.
Too much.
Again.
Always again.
Buck’s breathing turns uneven without permission.
He grips the counter harder.
Because suddenly memories are surfacing faster than he can stop them, moments he hadn’t thought about in years rearranging themselves into something ugly now that his brain has decided on a pattern and refuses to let it go.
Maddie telling him gently to slow down sometimes.
Taylor looking exhausted during fights.
His parents’ faces whenever he got emotional for too long.
People loving him most easily when he was useful, entertaining, uncomplicated.
Buck feels something cold settle low in his stomach as the thought forms fully before he can stop it.
Maybe the problem isn’t that people leave.
Maybe the problem is that eventually they know him long enough not to.
The silence afterward feels enormous.
Buck opens his eyes slowly and realizes his vision has gone blurry again without him noticing when the tears started this time. He laughs once under his breath, small and broken in a way that barely sounds human anymore, then drags both hands over his face hard enough that the dinosaur presses awkwardly against his wrist.
His phone vibrates suddenly against the counter.
Buck startles so violently he nearly drops it.
xxxxx
For one sharp, desperate second, hope floods through him so fast it almost hurts.
Buck grabs for the phone immediately, pulse crashing hard against his ribs while his brain scrambles ahead of itself, already trying to imagine Eddie’s name lighting up the screen, already trying to build relief before he’s even fully unlocked it.
Not Eddie.
The disappointment hits hard enough this time that Buck actually feels his stomach drop.
It’s Chim.
A simple message.
You okay?
Buck stares at the words for a long moment without answering, chest tightening painfully around the fact that Chim reached out before Eddie did. The thought arrives ugly and immediate before he can stop it, and once it’s there his brain sinks into it automatically, turning it over from every possible angle like there might still be a version of this that doesn’t hurt if he thinks about it long enough.
Maybe Eddie asked Chim to check on him instead.
Maybe Eddie didn’t know what to say.
Or maybe—
Buck’s breathing catches sharply.
Or maybe Eddie just didn’t want to.
The spiral shifts instantly after that, tightening fast enough that Buck has to grip the edge of the counter harder to steady himself while his pulse starts climbing all over again. He knows he’s catastrophizing. He knows that logically. Eddie not texting for one night should not feel like abandonment, should not feel like standing on the edge of something irreversible.
But logic stopped mattering somewhere back in the car.
Buck locks the phone without answering Chim and drops it back onto the counter harder than he means to, the sound cracking loudly through the apartment before silence rushes immediately back in to swallow it whole again.
The loft suddenly feels unbearable.
Too quiet.
Too still.
Too full of Eddie somehow despite him not being there at all.
Buck presses both hands flat against the counter and lowers his head between his shoulders while he tries to force air properly into his lungs again. His thoughts are moving too fast now, overlapping so quickly that he can barely hold onto one long enough to finish it before another crashes into place on top of it.
Maybe Hen was right.
Maybe Buck does make everything about himself eventually.
Because tonight wasn’t even supposed to be about him.
And somehow here he is again, alone in his loft spiraling so hard over one comment and one missing text that it feels like the center of the universe anyway.
His throat burns.
Tears blur his vision again before he fully realizes they’re coming.
Buck laughs once under his breath, exhausted and miserable and deeply ashamed of how completely he’s falling apart over this, then drags a trembling hand down his face while the dinosaur remains trapped awkwardly in his other grip like he forgot he was still holding it.
Christopher.
The thought hurts immediately.
Because Buck knows, somewhere underneath all the panic, that Christopher would hate seeing him like this. Not because Christopher would judge him, but because he would worry, immediate and wholehearted in the way children do when someone they love is hurting.
And suddenly Buck can hear Christopher’s voice so clearly in his head it almost feels real.
Buck, you okay?
His chest caves inward around the imagined question.
Because the answer is no.
The answer has been no for hours now.
Buck slides slowly down against the kitchen counter before he fully realizes his legs are giving out, ending up sitting hard on the floor with his back pressed against the cabinets while the loft stretches wide and dark around him. He pulls one knee loosely toward his chest on instinct, still gripping the dinosaur too tightly, breathing uneven and shallow while the city lights outside flicker faintly across the apartment walls.
The phone stays dark on the counter above him.
No Eddie.
Still.
And that absence has started feeling bigger than the room itself.
xxxxx
Buck stays on the kitchen floor longer than he realizes, back pressed against the cabinet doors while the city light beyond the windows shifts faintly across the loft in slow-moving patterns that make time feel unreliable somehow. The crying has mostly stopped again, but the aftermath of it still lingers heavily inside his chest, leaving him hollowed out and raw in a way that makes every thought scrape harder against him on the way through, like his mind lost whatever protective layer normally keeps emotions from cutting this deep.
The apartment is completely silent now except for the occasional sound drifting faintly up from the street below.
His phone remains on the counter above him.
Dark.
Still.
Buck keeps looking at it anyway.
The habit has become automatic over the course of the night, his attention dragging helplessly back toward it every few seconds before he can stop himself, like some part of him still believes the entire evening can be undone if Eddie’s name appears on the screen quickly enough. Every time the phone stays dark, disappointment settles a little differently inside him—not sharp anymore, not surprising, just heavier each time it lands, until eventually it starts feeling less like waiting and more like learning something slowly.
That’s the part Buck can’t stop feeding.
The idea that silence means something.
The idea that if Eddie wanted to reach out, he already would have.
Buck closes his eyes briefly and lets his head rest against the cabinet behind him, exhaustion dragging heavily at every part of him now. His body feels strangely disconnected, wrung out from too many hours of spiraling and crying and trying unsuccessfully to regulate emotions that only seem to grow larger the more he tries to contain them, and for a second he genuinely considers leaving the phone where it is and forcing himself to go to bed before the night gets any worse.
But the thought of sleeping feels impossible.
Because sleeping means letting go of the waiting.
And Buck realizes with slow, miserable clarity that he still hasn’t stopped waiting for Eddie to text him even once tonight.
The realization sits painfully in his chest for several long seconds before Buck finally pushes himself unsteadily back onto his feet, using the edge of the counter for balance while dizziness washes briefly through him from standing too fast after sitting curled on the floor for so long. Exhaustion drags at his limbs immediately, heavy enough that even reaching for the phone feels strangely difficult now, but he does it anyway because some part of him still needs to know.
Needs proof.
His thumb hesitates over the screen for only a second before unlocking it.
The messages app opens automatically like muscle memory has taken over completely at this point, and Eddie’s thread sits near the top of the screen exactly where Buck knew it would be before he even looked.
Buck stares at it without breathing properly for a moment.
The last text is from yesterday.
Something easy.
Something normal.
Eddie asking if Buck still had Christopher’s sweatshirt because apparently it disappeared into the void of Buck’s loft after movie night again, followed immediately afterward by another message accusing Buck of “organized theft” when Buck never answered right away.
Under normal circumstances Buck would smile automatically reading it. He would already be halfway through typing something sarcastic back before Eddie could send another follow-up pretending to threaten him over stolen clothing.
Tonight the thread feels unbearable to look at.
Too familiar.
Too warm.
Like evidence from another version of his life entirely, one that suddenly feels fragile in hindsight even though it never did before tonight.
Buck scrolls upward before he fully realizes he’s doing it, thumb dragging slowly through months of conversations that blur together into something so deeply woven into his daily life that seeing it all at once suddenly makes his chest ache.
You coming over later?
Chris wants to know if you’re alive.
Drive safe.
Movie night Friday?
Call me when you get home.
Buck swallows hard enough that it hurts.
Because Eddie used to reach for him automatically too.
The realization lands heavily inside him, sharper than anything else has tonight, and Buck grips the edge of the counter with his free hand like he needs something solid beneath him before his thoughts can tip fully out of control again. His breathing starts going uneven almost immediately afterward, slower at first, then shallower the longer he stares at the thread because suddenly every message feels like proof of something he no longer knows how to trust.
Maybe Eddie stopped texting because he’s exhausted.
Maybe tonight finally pushed something too far.
Maybe Eddie looked at Buck in that hallway and realized all at once that Buck really is too much when he’s hurting.
The thought settles viciously fast.
Buck’s throat burns.
Before he can stop himself, he clicks into the message box.
His thumb hovers there for a long moment while the cursor blinks patiently against the empty space, waiting for something Buck himself doesn’t fully know how to say anymore.
Sorry.
The word appears before he consciously decides to type it.
Buck stares at it immediately afterward, chest tightening painfully around the realization that he doesn’t even know what specifically he’s apologizing for anymore.
Tonight.
The lawsuit.
Being emotional.
Spiraling.
Taking up too much space inside other people’s lives until eventually they start pulling away just to breathe properly again.
The thoughts overlap too quickly to untangle from each other.
His thumb trembles faintly over the send button while his pulse crashes hard enough in his ears that he almost misses the next thought when it hits him.
What if Eddie only answers because he feels obligated to?
Buck freezes completely.
The idea lands so hard his stomach twists sharply around it, because suddenly the possibility of Eddie responding out of guilt feels infinitely worse than silence ever did. At least silence still leaves room for uncertainty. Obligation would mean Buck was right all along.
He deletes the word immediately.
The text box empties again.
The silence in the loft swells painfully around him the moment it disappears, and Buck presses the heel of one hand hard against his eyes while exhaustion and panic twist together so tightly inside his chest that he can barely separate them anymore.
And somewhere underneath all of it, beneath the waiting and the fear and the spiraling thoughts still eating through him piece by piece, Buck finally starts understanding just how far gone he already is tonight.
Because a few hours ago Eddie not texting hurt.
Now the possibility of Eddie replying out of obligation somehow hurts more.
Buck lowers his hand slowly, breathing uneven and exhausted in the middle of the silent loft while the city light flickers faintly through the windows around him.
Then—
Three sharp knocks echo suddenly through the apartment.
xxxxx
Buck startles so violently the phone nearly slips out of his hand.
For one disoriented second his brain can’t process the sound properly, the sharp knocking echoing through the loft in a way that feels disconnected from reality after so many hours spent trapped entirely inside his own head, and he just stands there frozen beside the kitchen counter while his pulse crashes hard against his ribs like his body has mistaken surprise for danger.
The knocks come again.
Firm.
Intentional.
Not impatient, but certain enough that whoever is outside already expects the door to open eventually.
Buck stares toward the entryway without moving.
His first irrational thought is Eddie.
It hits instantly, painfully automatic, hope flaring hard enough inside his chest that it almost physically hurts before logic catches up enough to tear it back down again. Eddie would text first. Or call. Or just use his key if something was actually wrong.
Wouldn’t he?
The uncertainty settles ugly and immediate in the space the hope leaves behind.
“Buck.”
The voice through the door stops his thoughts cold.
Athena.
Relief crashes through him so suddenly it nearly buckles his knees.
Not because he’s disappointed it isn’t Eddie—although some part of him still aches sharply around that too—but because the second he recognizes Athena’s voice, Buck realizes he doesn’t have enough energy left to keep pretending he’s fine in front of someone who will see through it anyway.
The realization terrifies him.
He still doesn’t move right away.
The loft suddenly feels exposed around him, every piece of evidence from the night sitting out in plain sight now that another person is about to walk into it. The dark television screen. His phone still clenched too tightly in one hand. Christopher’s dinosaur abandoned on the counter beside him after he set it down without remembering doing it.
And himself.
Red-eyed and exhausted and visibly coming apart in ways he probably should have hidden better before opening the door.
“Buck,” Athena calls again, steadier this time. “I know you’re awake.”
Buck exhales shakily through his nose and drags one hand hard down his face before finally forcing his feet to move. The walk to the door feels strangely uneven, exhaustion pulling heavily at every step now that adrenaline has nowhere left to go, and by the time he reaches the handle his chest already feels too tight again.
For a brief second he considers not opening it.
The thought flashes through him fast and ugly.
Not because he doesn’t want Athena there, but because opening the door means being seen, and Buck suddenly feels painfully aware of how little control he has left over whatever expression is sitting on his face right now.
Athena will know immediately.
That certainty settles heavily in his stomach.
Buck unlocks the door anyway.
The moment it opens, Athena’s eyes find his face and sharpen almost imperceptibly.
She doesn’t react dramatically.
That’s what makes it worse.
No visible shock. No immediate questions. Just one long, assessing look that takes him in completely before she steps fully into the silence of the loft like she already understands more than he wants her to.
Buck steps back automatically to let her inside, fingers tightening briefly around the edge of the door while she walks past him.
Athena pauses after only a few steps.
Her gaze moves once across the apartment, quiet and observant in a way that makes Buck feel suddenly transparent.
The untouched couch.
The dark loft.
The dinosaur on the counter.
Then her attention returns to him.
And Buck realizes, with slow dread settling low in his chest, that he must look far worse than he thought he did.
“Hey,” Athena says finally, voice calm and grounded enough that it almost hurts to hear after hours spent alone with his own thoughts.
Buck opens his mouth automatically.
“I’m fine,” he says immediately.
The lie sounds exhausted even to him.
Athena doesn’t call him out on it.
She just keeps looking at him for one long second too many, the silence stretching gently between them while Buck feels every instinct inside himself scrambling desperately to pull the pieces back together before they fully fall apart in front of her.
Then Athena’s expression softens slightly around the edges.
And somehow that’s the thing that almost breaks him completely.
xxxxx
Buck looks away first.
He can’t help it.
The softness in Athena’s expression lands somewhere deep enough inside him that his immediate instinct is to retreat from it before it reaches whatever fragile thing has been barely holding him together for the last several hours, and suddenly the loft feels too small to contain another person seeing him this clearly. His grip tightens unconsciously around the edge of the door before he finally lets it go and steps farther into the apartment, movements restless and uneven in a way that makes it obvious he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he’s no longer alone.
Athena closes the door quietly behind her.
The sound settles softly into the silence, final without being harsh, and Buck feels something inside his chest twist painfully around the realization that there’s no real hiding left now. Not from her. Not with the way she’s already looking at him.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” she asks after a moment, voice calm enough that it doesn’t feel like pressure.
That almost makes it worse.
Because if she sounded alarmed or angry or even frustrated, Buck would know how to respond to that. He knows how to apologize. Knows how to smooth things over, make himself smaller, easier, less emotionally complicated to deal with.
But Athena sounds patient.
Steady.
Like she’s prepared to stay as long as this takes.
Buck’s throat tightens immediately.
“Nothing happened,” he says automatically, too fast to sound believable even to himself. “I’m just tired.”
Athena raises one eyebrow slightly.
Buck actually hears the weakness in the excuse after it leaves his mouth and feels embarrassment crawl hot across the back of his neck because of course she doesn’t believe him. He looks exhausted. Worse than exhausted. He probably looks exactly like someone who has been alone in a dark apartment unraveling for hours.
Athena’s gaze flicks briefly toward the counter behind him.
To the dinosaur.
Then back to his face.
“You’ve been crying,” she says quietly.
Not accusatory.
Just true.
Buck swallows hard enough that it hurts.
The instinct to deny it rises automatically anyway.
“I’m fine,” he repeats, voice thinner this time, and the second the words leave him he hates them because they sound fragile now instead of convincing, stretched too tightly over something already splitting apart underneath.
Athena doesn’t push immediately.
That’s the thing about her.
She never fills silence just because other people are uncomfortable inside it.
So the quiet stretches gently between them while Buck stands there trying unsuccessfully to pull himself back together under the weight of being perceived too clearly, and eventually the pressure of it becomes unbearable enough that he starts talking just to escape it.
“I think I made everything weird,” he blurts suddenly.
The words fall out before he can stop them.
Buck freezes immediately afterward like he’s surprised to hear them out loud.
Athena stays still.
“Okay,” she says carefully. “What happened?”
Buck laughs once under his breath, small and exhausted and fraying badly around the edges.
“I don’t even know anymore,” he admits, dragging one hand hard across his face while his thoughts immediately start spiraling faster again now that he’s trying to explain them out loud. “I just— tonight got weird and then I left and now I can’t stop thinking about it and I know I’m probably blowing it out of proportion but—”
His voice catches abruptly.
Buck looks away.
Because suddenly the loft feels too exposed again, every piece of evidence from the night sitting around them in plain sight while Athena stands there quietly witnessing all of it.
The untouched couch.
The muted television.
Christopher’s dinosaur.
Him.
Athena watches him for another long second before speaking again.
“Buck,” she says gently, “look at me.”
He tries not to.
That’s the problem.
Because something in her voice makes the exhaustion inside him loosen dangerously around the edges, and Buck suddenly knows with absolute certainty that if he looks directly at her right now, whatever control he still has left is probably gone.
Still, after a second, he forces himself to lift his eyes anyway.
Athena’s expression softens immediately the moment he does.
And Buck breaks a little further open under the weight of it.
“You wanna know the part that’s really messed up?” he asks quietly before he can stop himself.
Athena doesn’t interrupt.
Buck laughs again, weaker this time.
“I can’t tell if everyone’s actually upset with me,” he admits, voice cracking slightly around the words, “or if I just finally noticed they’re tired of me.”
xxxxx
Athena doesn’t answer immediately.
She just looks at him.
And Buck realizes almost instantly that he should not have said that part out loud.
The silence stretches gently between them, not empty exactly, but careful in a way that makes him feel suddenly exposed from the inside out, like Athena is trying to decide which part of what he just admitted needs to be handled first. Buck’s chest tightens under the weight of it almost immediately, instinct already kicking in hard enough that he wants to take the words back before they settle into something real.
“I know that sounds insane,” he says quickly, the apology already threading itself through his voice before he can stop it. “I’m just tired and overthinking and making everything dramatic again, I know—”
“KBuck.”
Athena says his name softly.
Not sharp enough to interrupt.
Just enough to stop him from spiraling further into the explanation.
Buck’s mouth closes automatically.
And suddenly the loft feels unbearably quiet again.
Athena studies him for another long moment before stepping farther into the apartment, movements slow and unhurried like she’s trying not to startle something already wounded. She sets her purse down near the counter without taking her eyes fully off him, then glances once toward the couch before looking back at his face.
“When’s the last time you slept?” she asks.
The question catches him off guard hard enough that he blinks.
“What?”
“When’s the last time you actually slept,” Athena repeats, gentler now.
Buck swallows.
“I don’t know. Last night, I guess.”
Athena’s expression doesn’t change much, but something in it sharpens slightly anyway, like she heard the uncertainty underneath the answer instead of the answer itself.
“And ate?”
Buck hesitates longer this time.
That hesitation is apparently enough.
Athena exhales quietly through her nose and Buck feels shame crawl instantly up the back of his neck because he suddenly realizes exactly what he must look like standing here right now—exhausted, red-eyed, emotionally wrecked, pacing around a dark apartment holding himself together badly enough that Athena figured out within thirty seconds of walking through the door that something was seriously wrong.
“I’m okay,” he says again automatically, weaker now.
Athena tilts her head slightly.
“No,” she says calmly. “You’re really not.”
The honesty in it lands harder than if she’d argued with him.
Buck looks away immediately.
Because the thing is—he knows she’s right. Somewhere underneath all the panic and spiraling and exhaustion, he knows this stopped being normal hours ago. But admitting that out loud feels dangerous somehow, like once he acknowledges how bad it got tonight, he won’t be able to force it back under control again afterward.
Athena steps closer slowly.
Not enough to crowd him.
Just enough that her voice doesn’t have to cross the whole apartment anymore when she speaks.
“You wanna tell me what happened tonight?” she asks quietly.
Buck laughs once under his breath, exhausted and miserable around the edges.
“I honestly don’t even know anymore.”
“That’s okay,” Athena says immediately. “Start with what you do know.”
Buck’s throat tightens painfully around the words before he even says them.
“I think…” He stops, drags a hand over his face, then tries again quieter. “I think I got too emotional about something and now I can’t tell if everyone’s upset with me because I actually did something wrong or because they’re finally exhausted enough to stop pretending I’m not a problem.”
The silence after that feels enormous.
Buck stares at the floor the second the words leave his mouth, breathing suddenly too shallow again because hearing the thought out loud makes it sound worse somehow. More real. He can feel humiliation starting to crawl through him immediately afterward, sharp and immediate and unbearable enough that his instinct is already to backtrack before Athena can respond.
“I know that sounds stupid,” he says quickly. “I just mean—”
“Buck.”
His voice stops automatically again.
Athena’s expression shifts then, softening in a way that almost hurts to look at directly.
And when she speaks this time, her voice is so steady it makes something inside his chest ache.
“That does not sound stupid,” she says quietly. “That sounds like someone who’s been alone with his own thoughts for way too long tonight.”
Buck feels his eyes burn almost instantly.
Because somehow that’s worse than disagreement.
Worse than being told he’s irrational.
She sounds like she understands how he got here.
And Buck suddenly realizes, with terrifying clarity, that part of him was genuinely expecting her to confirm it instead.
xxxx
Buck looks away so fast it almost hurts his neck.
Because that realization lands harder than anything else has tonight—not the silence, not Eddie not texting, not even the spiraling thoughts that have been eating through him for hours now. Somewhere deep down, some exhausted and frightened part of him had already braced for Athena to look at him and confirm it quietly, gently, like a truth everyone else understood before he did.
You are too much.
People are getting tired.
You should’ve noticed sooner.
Instead she’s standing here looking at him like none of those thoughts make sense to her at all.
Buck feels something in his chest pull painfully tight around that disconnect.
“I know it’s irrational,” he says quickly, words rushing out uneven now that he’s trying to regain control of the conversation before it slips too far away from him emotionally. “Like logically I know everybody has their own stuff going on and Eddie probably just fell asleep or got distracted or something and I’m turning it into this whole thing because that’s apparently what my brain decided to do tonight—”
“Buck.”
Athena says it gently again.
Still grounding.
Still calm.
But Buck hears the concern underneath it more clearly this time, and somehow that makes the exhaustion pressing down on him feel suddenly impossible to hold upright against anymore.
His voice falters.
“I just…” He swallows hard. “I can’t get it to stop.”
The admission settles heavily into the room.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
If anything, the quietness of it makes it worse.
Because Buck sounds genuinely lost saying it, like he’s been trying unsuccessfully to wrestle his own thoughts back under control for so long now that he’s finally starting to realize he can’t do it alone tonight.
Athena watches him carefully for a moment before her gaze drifts briefly toward the counter beside him.
Toward the phone.
Toward Christopher’s dinosaur sitting abandoned beside it.
Then back to Buck again.
“You’ve been standing in this apartment convincing yourself everybody would be better off without you, haven’t you?”
Buck freezes.
Completely.
The words hit so directly that for one horrifying second he genuinely forgets how to breathe.
Because he never actually said that part out loud.
Not fully.
But Athena is looking at him like she already knows anyway.
Buck’s throat tightens violently.
“I didn’t say that,” he whispers automatically.
Athena’s expression softens immediately.
“No,” she says quietly. “You didn’t have to.”
Buck stares at her helplessly while panic and shame twist sharply together inside his chest, because hearing the thought spoken plainly by someone else suddenly makes the entire night sound so much worse than it did trapped inside his own head. Irrational. Dangerous. Bigger than he meant for it to become.
“I know it’s messed up,” he says quickly, breathing uneven again now. “I know normal people don’t— I wasn’t gonna do anything, I just—”
Athena’s face changes instantly at that.
Not panic.
Something steadier and far more serious.
“Hey,” she says firmly, stepping closer without hesitation now. “Slow down.”
Buck presses a hand hard against his forehead like he can physically stop the spiral from getting any further away from him if he just concentrates hard enough.
“I’m fine,” he says automatically again, but his voice breaks badly around the words this time.
Athena doesn’t even acknowledge the lie anymore.
Instead she reaches out slowly and wraps one hand carefully around his wrist, grounding without restraining, steady enough that Buck startles slightly from the contact alone.
“Look at me.”
Buck tries not to.
He really does.
Because he can already feel the pressure building dangerously behind his ribs again, exhaustion and humiliation and grief twisting together so tightly now that he doesn’t fully trust himself not to completely fall apart if somebody stays gentle with him much longer.
But Athena waits.
Patient.
Certain.
And eventually Buck forces himself to lift his eyes.
The compassion on her face nearly undoes him instantly.
“You are not thinking clearly right now,” she says softly. “And you’ve been alone with this for too long already.”
Buck’s lower lip trembles once before he can stop it.
Humiliation crashes through him immediately afterward.
“God,” he laughs weakly, dragging his free hand over his face. “This is so embarrassing.”
Athena’s grip on his wrist tightens slightly.
“No,” she says firmly enough that he actually stills. “This is what happens when somebody spends hours convincing themselves they’re only lovable when they’re useful.”
The room goes silent.
Buck stops breathing for a second.
Because that one lands too cleanly.
Too accurately.
And suddenly every thought he’s had tonight feels exposed all at once, pulled apart under bright light in a way he never intended another person to see.