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Chim, admittedly, panics a little when Buck refuses to pick Jee up.
Ok, to be fair, that sounds harsh. What Buck did, when Chimney's beautiful and perfect daughter ran up to Buck with her mother's big brown eyes and a grin that Chimney can admit is all him to beseech her uncle Buck to go up, please, is to look at her like he's just been shot multiple times and say, in the saddest voice Chimney has ever heard from him (including the time that he got so sad at being unable to come to work that he sued them) that uncle Buck can't today, sweetie, I'm so sorry, do you want a cookie instead?
Jee, after a big pout, accepted a cookie as compensation. Chimney was not so easily assuaged. Later, once Jee is down for a nap, Chimney corners him (walks up to him sitting on the couch).
"Shirt off, Buckley."
Buck raises an eyebrow at him. "Wow, in your own home, Howard?" he asks, with exaggerated affront. "In my sister's home, you are propositioning me for an affair? What will Maddie think?"
"Maddie would've just pulled your shirt off," Chim says, and Buck grimace-pouts because he can't deny it. Chimney wiggles his hand at Buck. Buck glares at him.
"You can't tell me what to do," he says.
"I'm your senior."
Buck rolls his eyes at him, and, fair enough, Chimney isn't sure why he thought that would work.
"I'll text Maddie."
"Maddie has eight more hours on shift, I can deal with her later."
"I'll text Eddie."
Buck actually snorts at that. "Eddie knows not to worry."
That does make Chim feel better, because if Eddie knew what this was and was letting Buck get away with it, it couldn't be too bad. Still--
"I'll text Bobby."
Buck's eyes actually widen reflexively at that, then narrow. "Bobby doesn't like texts," he says.
Chimney stares him down. "I'll call him."
Buck splutters. "You wouldn't"
"Try me."
"he's playing geoguessr with Michael today! Do you know how long it took May, Harry and I to teach him how to play geoguessr?"
Chimney raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Guess you better show me the goods then, evan."
Buck grimaces at him in the distinct way a younger brother does when they're trying to decide if it's worth dueling you to the death. He decides against it, which is wise. If they woke Jee up, she would definitely be on her papa's side.
(Probably. Unless she was in a gremlin mood that day. Chimney has taught his daughter in the ways of chaos perhaps a little too well.)
In the end, he presumably decides it's not worth it, because he rolls his eyes and sighs in the most put-upon way possible before pulling his shirt over his head in a single motion. "Happy?"
Chimney goes for a retort, but the words die on his lips. He stares.
"H-" his throat is suddenly dry. "How...?"
Buck's hand raises to wrap around the back of his neck sheepishly. The movement of muscle shifts the clear wrap around his shoulder, collarbone, pectoral, the dark lines wrapping down the length of them in fine lines moving with it.
"Would you believe that May and Albert both took pictures to send to me?" he asks, a little awkward and a lot fond.
Chimney chokes a little. "Albert?" he asks. "Like, my little brother Albert?"
"My brother in law and friend Albert, yeah," Buck's lips twitch at whatever look is on Chimney's face. "He said--" a softening of his expression, a crack of something vulnerable. "He said that he was sure that I'd want to see it, when I woke up."
And that makes Chimney stumble a little, the irritation in his throat fizzling out all at once, replaced with reluctant, unrepressable fondness.
It is so Albert, is the thing, hopeful in a way that feels almost painful to the touch. No first responder would make a promise like that, even to themselves. It is, Chimney supposes, why that line of work did not fit him, in the end.
"And you decided," he says, forcing himself back on track. "To tattoo it. On your human body."
Buck furrows his brows a little. "What other body would I use?"
Sometimes, Chimney has no idea if Buck is playing up this kind of shit to fuck with him or not. He's pretty sure he does both. "Buck."
"It's cool, okay? I just thought-- it's cool."
"You got it when you died."
"But I didn't."
And Maddie had told him that this is what Buck has been going around saying, but Chim-- Chim doesn't know what to do with that, actually. He closes his eyes for a moment, tries not to hear the clap of thunder in his mind.
"This is really fucked up, you realize."
Infuriatingly, Buck shrugs. "Hey," he says. "We're first responders. We all have things we do to cope-- I get new tattoos." his eyes soften, a little, at whatever he finds in Chimney's expression. "I'm alive, Chim," he says. "I just-- this helps me remember that."
"And we don't?" Chimney feels a little fission of anger, helplessness that tastes like rainwater. "Buck. If you need a reminder of that time you died, I can assure you that all of us remember that moment in full HD."
Buck's voice is soft. "Chim..."
"Do you want me to paint a picture for you?" Chimney asks, voice coming out faster than he means to. "Seeing you hanging up there, giving Eddie slack so he can lower you down, breaking your fucking ribs-- knowing that--"
"Chim--"
"Knowing that I let another brother fall?"
The words hurt as soon as they come out, and Chimney feels grief like something dragged out of him, spread thin over time, space, love with nowhere to go except for all the places that it found its way into. Buck watches him with careful eyes. Kevin would've made a joke, about now, gentle and easygoing. Buck is like him, sometimes, except for all the ways that he isn't.
One way he is: Buck shifts forward, touches Chimney's trembling wrist with gentle hands. "You saved me, Chimney," he says, simply.
Here is, then, the common thread between Chimney's brothers, despite the time and distance and their proximity and lack thereof to life: there is a kindness to them that Chimney does not know what he has done to earn. There is a life to them that Chimney always falls short of protecting.
"You scare me sometimes, man," Chimney says, instead of asking for forgiveness. He knows Buck has already given it to him, anyways. "When you don't let us help with shit like that. When you-- when you think that the only way to remember that you're alive is to remind yourself of the time that you died. You can ask us, you know. We'd help."
"I know." Buck tilts his head at him, considering. "I asked you for help, in my coma dream. You believed me." the words are careful, almost awed. Chimney knows, after all these years, that Buck treasures nothing more than something as simple as belief.
"I'd help you here, too," he says, needing Buck to hear it.
Buck smiles at him, all trust, despite it all. "I know," he says again. "you guys know me well enough to wait for me to wake up."
Chimney thinks about glass windows, lines and roofs, brothers he is older than. "Enough to take pictures of your stupid lightning scars?" he says, exhaling a little.
Buck laughs, and what a miracle it is, for him to laugh again. What wouldn't Chimney do to protect it.
"C'mon," he says. "It's a little cool."
Chimney smirks. "Not as cool as a rebar scar."
Indignant blue eyes: "Anybody can get stabbed by rebar--"
"Oh please, Buckley, you wish your brain was big enough that you could survive a rebar through the noggin--"
When asked later, Chimney will insist that Buck was the first to throw a couch cushion into Chimney's face, forcing swift and forceful retaliation.
He's right, by the way-- his baby girl would totally take his side in a battle against their bright-eyed, newly-tattooed foe.