Archive of Our Own

Before he even sees the new guy, Buck’s metaphorical hackles are raised. There’s something wrong in the air, something itching at the back of his eyes, just past his hearing, some change in the temperature, something niggling at the edges of his perception. It’s not the full moon for a week and a half, so it’s not like this is some weird new aspect of the moon, but there’s something wrong. Buck feels weirdly on edge, irritable, before he even gets the announcement, and it only worsens.

A new guy. A new probie who’s never fucked up, who has the best possible scores and a medal to boot, who changes unselfconsciously on his very first day looking like that. Buck’s been trying to build something here, to make himself indispensable to the firehouse, to his crew, to build what he can of a pack. Someone new can’t just wander in and ruin that. Can’t threaten his place and his pack, can’t change the dynamics of this team that Buck would fight and die for already.

It doesn’t help that apparently every single person here seems fucking enamored of Eddie Diaz already. It’s been, like, an hour. What the fuck.

“Hey man,” says Diaz, all smiley, like he can’t tell how much Buck doesn’t want to fucking talk to him. Like he can’t feel the way that Buck is having to hold himself back from fucking growling at him, because yeah it might actually scare him off which would be good, but Buck’s still trying to fly under the radar here.

“Hey,” he says instead, in the flattest voice he can manage, and turns and walks away.

It only gets worse, honestly.

The call is a fucking nightmare, he won’t answer to nicknames, he throws his own experience in Buck’s face, and he takes over the medical care and does an excellent job. It’s infuriating. Buck’s teeth ache in his jaw, like they want to turn into fangs.

There’s this weird moment in the station gym, where Diaz sort of confronts him?

“What is your problem, man?” he asks, getting all up in Buck’s face, and it takes everything in him to keep his growls subvocal.

“You are,” he bites out, and then stops himself before he actually snaps his teeth. He hasn’t felt this out of control since before he got to Peru.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” says Diaz, “I didn’t know this was your territory or I would have gone with Station 6, obviously. It’s not like I didn’t ask around when we moved here, no one told me, okay? I’m sorry, but we’ll have to make it work for the moment, and I can transfer when something comes up.”

“What?” Buck manages, his own permanent low grade anger dissipating for a moment in favor of confusion. It sort of sounded like Diaz was going to move to a different station just because Buck was annoyed at him, which is an insane way to live. You can’t transfer every single time you have an issue with a coworker, especially when you don’t even really know each other yet.

“You really should make this more official,” says Diaz, a little superciliously, “I followed procedure.”

“What are you talking about?” Buck asks, bewildered, and then, of course, the alarm goes off.

They don’t get a chance to talk again that shift, or rather, they do, but for whatever reason this is a subject that Diaz is only willing to bring up when they're one on one, and frankly Buck’s not particularly interested in spending any alone time with him. Douchebag.

He gets back to Abby’s apartment by 9am, exhausted and still a little crabby, and he hears his shower running before he’s even unlocked the front door. He assumes it’s Abby, can feel himself perking up in delight even as the door swings open, only to be shocked by the scent in the air. He knows what Abby smells like, lives in an apartment saturated in her scent, but this? Tears spring into his eyes immediately. He might have never smelled it like this, this strong or this clear, but Buck could pick this scent out in the middle of a fire. He could stand in the middle of a perfume emporium, and easily follow this scent alone. This is the smell of his childhood, of tight hugs with his nose buried against her shoulder, of laughter and tears and love. This is Maddie.

“MADDIE?” he yells, racing through the apartment towards the bathroom. He can hear her hear him, and then a stumble, the shower curtain being yanked aside. By the time he gets there, she’s wrapped in a towel, still wet, shower still running behind her, and barrelling into him for a hug. He holds her tightly, uncaring of the damp towel, just glad to have her in his arms, alive and well. What an unspeakable relief.

“Deeply weird of you to jump straight into the shower,” he says later, as they eat lunch.

“Oh fuck off,” laughs Maddie, “I’d been traveling all day, and it was the start of the work day, I didn’t think you’d be home for hours.”

“I don’t exactly have a 9-to-5,” grins Buck, and Maddie waves a hand at him. His cheeks hurt from smiling, and he thinks hers might too. It’s just so good to have her back, like a part of him that he didn’t even realize was agitated has settled. Like this place is immediately just a little more home because Maddie’s here. Like he’s home because Maddie’s here. Like that hole in his heart, yawning and aching so painfully for most of his life, only worse now he’s what he is, is finally closing. God, he missed her so much.

She’s looking at him wistfully, even though they’re sitting right next to one another, like she can read his mind still, after all these years.

“I missed you so much,” she says quietly, so maybe she can.

“Missed you more,” he replies, sincerity making his voice raw.

“Not possible,” she promises quietly, pulling him sideways to lean his head on her shoulder. She runs a hand through his hair, petting him almost. It’s so soothing, so peaceful. He leans further into her, sure that he would be purring if that was a thing that wolves do. “I thought about you every single day,” she admits, “Read all your postcards over and over.”

He kind of wants to whine, it’s easier to express emotions as a wolf, he’s found. It’s less embarrassing, somehow, to admit to being sad, or lonely, or wanting comfort.

She’s promised to stay in L.A., or at least to try. It’s tricky, because it feels like a deception on some levels, not to tell her. Not to explain his own confidence in being able to protect her. He could, easily. Doug won't know what fucking hit him if he tries to break into this apartment to get to Maddie. Buck may not be a monster just because he’s a werewolf, but there’s little he wouldn’t do for Maddie. Doug’s really the monster of the two of them, but Buck’s willing to fight fire with fire, just this once. His teeth ache, just thinking about it.

He feels like he should tell Maddie, but he’s scared, and well. He does look like a monster, and he couldn’t bear it if she ran from him too. Better to keep it secret, and never have to know how she’d react.

“Tell me about your life here,” she says, so he launches into a description of life in the Fire Academy, what his team at the 118 are like, how he met Abby.

He talks and talks, and Maddie holds him close, and pets his hair, and asks him leading questions at all the right times. Whenever she’s been there, he’s never had to fight for her attention, and it’s just as heady now as it was when he was eight years old.

He’s on maybe complaint twenty-three about Diaz, when she starts actively teasing him about it. It’s whatever, on some levels, because he really is annoyed at the guy, but also it’s just so good to have his big sister by his side, pouring him a glass of wine and making fun of him with a bright smile on her face. He’d put up with a lot worse teasing if it would get him to smile like that all the time.

His next shift, he’s just kind of waiting for Diaz to find him and explain whatever the fuck he was talking about the other day, but they don’t actually get a chance to talk properly until after the ambulance. Eddie volunteers himself, and so does Buck. He might not have super fast healing, but he has some form of healing, and sure this might be so close and so quick it doesn’t matter, but maybe if things go bad he can try to shield Eddie or the patient. Even if he couldn’t, he’s not letting anyone else go, and realistically removing a grenade from a guy’s leg is at least a two person job.

They, somehow, make it work. They save the patient, remove the grenade, and even get out of the ambulance a good few minutes before it blows up.

Eddie looks at him assessingly, and Buck only realizes later that he held his breath right up until Eddie said, “You could have my back any day”, and he’d felt himself blush and exhale in the same moment.

“Or, you know, you could have mine,” he stumbles through, aware that he’s feeling shy, even if he’s not sure why, so inexplicably pleased with himself.

He doesn’t realize immediately that the niggling sense of wrongness that had accompanied Eddie is gone, his anger and wariness and unease all quieting in the same moment.

The ambulance goes up, and Eddie cracks a joke about eating, and they head back to the station. The others are mostly going to get an hour or two’s rest, so Buck heads straight for Eddie.

“Sandwiches or omelettes?” he asks, and Eddie blinks at him, a little bemused. “You were hungry, right? I’m not the best chef, but Bobby’s been teaching me breakfast foods, and you don’t need to cook to make a sandwich, so. Sandwiches or omelettes?”

Eddie looks at him for a long moment, tilting his head to the side like a curious dog as he does.

“Omelette, please,” he says eventually. “Thanks, Buck.” He follows silently behind as Buck heads straight to the kitchen in the loft.

It’s quiet in the station, most everyone in the bunkroom, Eddie sitting at the counter watching silently as Buck cracks half a dozen eggs into a bowl, and whisks them loosely with a fork.

“Now might be a good time to talk,” says Eddie, hushed, and he sounds serious.

“Sure,” says Buck, a little bemused, “What did you want to talk about?”

He is, in his defense, focused on seasoning the eggs and blooming pepper in the pan.

“I really wasn’t trying to encroach on your territory, Buck,” says Eddie, quietly. “I didn't know.”

Buck pauses, frowning up at him.

“I don’t mean to intrude on your pack,” Eddie says, earnest.

“Wait,” Buck says, eyes suddenly wide and wild, “Wait, Eddie.”

“What?” Eddie looks back at him, brows furrowing in confusion, “Buck?”

Buck puts down the bowl of whisked eggs without pouring them into the pan, ignoring the way the butter has already melted, the sound of bubbles, and the faint curlicues rising from the pan.

“Eddie,” he says, leaning across the counter, aware that he’s being too intense, and equally aware that there’s no way he could calm down in this moment. “What are you talking about?”

Eddie looks at him confused, like he can tell this is a joke, but he can’t figure out the punchline.

“The 118 is your pack, right? I didn’t know that, or I wouldn’t have joined without at least talking to you first. I didn't mean to intrude like that.”

“Eddie,” Buck is fervent, can feel the energy thrumming through his limbs, “Are you a werewolf?”

Eddie gives him a look like he’s insane.

“Obviously?” he asks, bemused, “Couldn’t you tell?”

Buck kind of wants to cry. Another werewolf.

“Not really,” he admits, and it comes out just a little wobbly. He can see Eddie’s brows furrow in concern. “Never actually met another werewolf before,” he says, and Eddie inhales sharply. “Knew something was off about you though,” he jokes, just a little watery still, “You’re clearly too good to be true.”

It works for making Eddie’s face go from outright alarm to amused, maybe even a little fond.

“Well I’m not starting any fires in the actual station, that’s for sure,” he says, and when Buck frowns a little in confusion he nods his head towards the pan, which is rapidly approaching ‘actually smoking’.

“Oh shit,” he yelps, heading back to it, ignoring Eddie’s low chuckles. “Okay, it’s fine, they’ll just be brown butter omelettes,” he says with dignity. “You’d pay more for that at a restaurant, you know.” He turns the heat down, pours all of the eggs in slowly, and then immediately starts throwing ingredients in. He’ll just cut it in half when he’s done, faster than making two separate omelettes with all the same stuff in them.

“Sure, chef,” laughs Eddie. “Maybe we should save the rest of our talk for after shift is over?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Buck concedes reluctantly, “How’s your place? My sister’s sort of unexpectedly crashing with me at the moment.”

Eddie frowns for a moment, and then looks profoundly sad before visibly shaking it off. “Yeah, maybe, one sec,” he says, reaching for his phone and sending a text. “I’ll let you know? Worst case scenario, we find a park.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Buck, determinedly not asking who he texted, or who might be waiting at home for him. “Go get plates, our omelette is nearly ready.”

They finish their shift at 8.30am due to a last minute fender bender, and when they’re changing back into street clothes in the locker room, Eddie looks at his phone, then tells Buck that they can go to his. He doesn’t explain more, but Buck just rolls with it. It’s not his business, anyway, not really. Still, he can’t help but be excited. He’s not alone. He’s finally got someone he can actually talk to about this. He texts Maddie that he’s getting breakfast with a friend but he’ll message on his way home, so that she doesn’t worry.

He drives, following Eddie’s truck the whole way to his house. It’s a cute place, one floor, a ramp next to the little stairs leading up to the door, a very bare front yard, with high fencing.

“I’m going to put in hedges,” Eddie says as they walk up the front path, “And strengthen the fences. Just need to actually swing by a garden center some day off soon.”

“It’s nice,” says Buck, truthfully. “I’m just in an apartment block at the moment, this seems nicer.”

“Ahh, your invisible girlfriend’s place, right?” says Eddie with an easy smile, and Buck rolls his eyes instead of bristling with anger the way he would have done not even twenty-four hours ago.

“Sure,” says Buck dryly, and Eddie grins just a little, clearly dropping it.

He unlocks his front door, and there’s this moment where Buck’s almost weirdly scared to cross over the threshold, that sense of intrusion from the station is back and multifold, except now Buck feels like the intruder. He throws Eddie a helpless little glance, and sees him standing in the doorway, giving Buck an assessing look.

“Come on in,” says Eddie neutrally, and then, when Buck hesitates a moment longer, “You’re welcome, I promise.”

Buck can feel his own shoulders relaxing, unsure how and why he ended up so tense.

“Thanks,” he says, stepping carefully over the threshold, and he feels fine after all. “You have a lovely home,” he says politely, looking around the living room, toeing his sneakers off to put them in the shoe rack. There are a couple of pairs of kids shoes in there, which he can’t help but clock. Eddie must see him see them, but he says nothing, so Buck follows his lead.

“C’mon,” says Eddie, “This is a couch kind of conversation I think. Do you want coffee?”

“I’ll survive without,” says Buck carefully, padding after him.

“Not sure I will,” says Eddie, walking through the living room into a dining room, then into a kitchen. Buck pads behind him.

“In that case,” he says, “Coffee sounds good.”

They’re not quite in silence while Eddie makes coffee, but they don’t talk about the elephant in the room. Eddie said it was a couch conversation, so Buck’s waiting until they get back to the couch, doesn’t want to push too much or too far, not with something so important. He asks Eddie about how he found the Fire Academy, what he thinks of L.A. so far, whereabouts in Texas he’s from. He wonders, as they watch the coffee percolate, whether Eddie was bitten in Texas or overseas. Whether he knows any other werewolves. What it means for the kid in the house…

“Alright,” says Eddie, handing Buck a mug, “Add your creamer and let’s go.”

He has milk, but he also has this extremely sweet French vanilla creamer, which is what he doctors his own mug with, and there’s something about that which is so endearing to Buck. This tough guy, ex-army, total badass, werewolf, who likes the sweetest and fakest creamer that Buck’s ever ruined a cup of coffee with.

Eddie sits down on the sofa, and Buck follows suit. Eddie takes a heavy gulp of coffee, then turns to look directly at Buck, and his gaze is arresting. Buck is pinned under it.

“So,” says Eddie. “I’m not entirely sure where to start.”

“Me neither,” admits Buck, “I have so many questions.”

“Maybe you start then,” says Eddie, with a faint smile, “Throw some questions my way.” He looks slightly amused, but he’s holding himself kind of tensely, guarded almost.

“You could tell I was a werewolf,” starts Buck, and Eddie gives a nod. “How? How many of us are there? Have you met others before? How long have you been a werewolf?”

“Okay," says Eddie, before Buck can continue, which he easily would. He has so many questions. “You could tell there was something off about me, right?” Buck nods briefly, “Your instincts were telling you that I was another werewolf, a predator not in your pack, it’s probably a factor in why you were being such a dick the other day.” Buck laughs, can’t help himself, and Eddie gives him a pleased little smile in response. “I’ll answer the rest of your questions, Buck, I promise, but there’s one I need to ask first. How long have you been a werewolf?”

“Six or seven years now, I think?” Buck says, “I don’t, like, celebrate the anniversary or anything.”

“Right,” says Eddie, with a little sigh, weirdly heavy for how excited Buck is. “You were bitten, and I’m guessing if you’ve never met other werewolves it wasn’t planned."

“No, god,” laughs Buck, “No, I didn’t even know that’s what it was at first. I thought it must have been a bad dream or something. Honestly took me a couple of months to accept what was happening, and that werewolves were even real.”

“Right,” says Eddie, and he sounds sad again.

“What’s wrong?” Buck asks, that sickening sinking feeling in his stomach, the one that you get when you know someone knows something you don’t, something you should know. “Eddie?”

Eddie sighs heavily again. He leans over, puts a hand on Buck’s shoulder, and he’s barely known him for forty-eight hours, but despite that it does serve to soothe him.

“I was born a werewolf, Buck, I’ve been one all my life. So yes, I know other werewolves. There aren’t tonnes of us, but more than you might think.”

Buck feels a little like he’s missed a step. “Okay?” he says, confused, perhaps a little hurt, “That’s cool. Is it…is it a problem that I was bitten? Should I not have been? Am I going to be in trouble?”

“Dios,” mutters Eddie, “No, no. You’re not in trouble, of course not. Whoever fucking bit you and then, what, left you alone, on the other hand?” The craziest thing about it is that he sounds actually mad about it, properly angry about a chance encounter years ago that Buck barely remembers.

“That…” Buck hesitates, cautious and maybe a little unsure if he should be feeling hurt or not. “That means I shouldn’t have been bitten, right?”

“Not against your will,” says Eddie, gravely, “It’s a huge and permanent change, and it shouldn’t have been done to you. If you thought it was a bad dream, it sounds like it wasn't a nice experience, either. And being left alone to deal with it after? No explanation, no one to help you? No, Buck, that shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“Oh,” says Buck, a little at a loss. He takes a sip of his disgustingly sweet coffee. “It’s. You make me sound like a victim.” He’s never really thought about it that way, even though he does think of that night as an attack.

“I don’t mean—” starts Eddie, and then pauses. “You can feel about it however you want to. Whoever did this to you, though, they did badly by you. I’m sorry you had to deal with it, especially on your own. I can’t imagine what that would be like, how scary that would be.”

“It wasn’t great,” Buck admits, the faintest hint of a waver in his voice before he clears his throat hastily. “I’m okay now, I’ve got most of it figured out, I think, but. Mostly it’s just so great to meet someone else like me.”

Eddie squeezes once more, and then drops his hand with a small smile. “Still got questions, huh?”

“Oh, so many more,” says Buck with a huff of laughter, and Eddie grins at him.

“Alright,” he says, “Hit me.”

They only talk for another hour or so, because they both desperately need to sleep, but it’s kind of amazing. Eddie’s so patient with him, even though Buck’s sure he’s messing up the most obvious things, and it’s probably embarrassing how little he knows even after all these years. They try to focus on the key stuff, control, pack, full moons, but Buck keeps getting distracted by every little tangent, and Eddie indulges him, like he’s trying to make up for how long Buck didn’t know anything.

It’s when Buck’s leaving, heading back to his Jeep to get some actual sleep, that he turns in the doorway to face Eddie again.

“About…about having each other’s backs,” he says hesitantly, and Eddie nods at him with big, solemn eyes. “Maybe you shouldn’t transfer,” he says, his own cheeks flushing just a little. “It’d be good to have someone who knows what he’s doing around here, and, I don’t know, I think you fit well with our little team.”

Eddie’s eyes are so liquid, his expression so overwhelmingly soft, his smile breaks slowly like a sunrise. “You sure?” he asks, voice warm and happy.

“Well how are we meant to have each other’s backs from different stations, huh?” asks Buck, avoiding eye contact just a little.

“You raise a good point,” says Eddie, amused. “It’s your territory, so it’s up to you. But if you’ll have me at the 118, I’d like to stay.”

Buck looks him straight in the eyes, earnest, when he says, “Then stay.”

Eddie nods, and really, that’s that.

They work well together. Within three shifts it’s like they’re reading each other’s minds on calls, handing stuff over before they can even ask for it.

“It’s creepy,” says Chimney as they pile around the loft between calls, “Like the twins from The Shining or something.”

“Like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum,” drawls Hen, not looking up from her game of Solitaire.

“Ignore them, Eddie,” says Buck, sniffily, “They’re just jealous.”

They haven’t actually talked that much more about the whole werewolf thing, but it’s the crux of it, for sure. Their reflexes are that bit faster, their senses that bit better. It’s easy to see how and why they’re almost always on the same page.

They’re sitting on the sofa together, Chimney now roped into helping Bobby with dinner preparations when Buck nudges Eddie with his elbow.

“We should make a plan,” he says, and Eddie furrows his brow in confusion. “We’re not on shift this full moon, but we will be soon enough. I’ve already got a history of ‘migraines’, so Bobby’s used to getting cover for me when he needs to, but you should probably book off early, I don’t know that he can do last minute cover for two easily.”

Eddie’s frown just increases.

“Wait, you’re taking it off?” he says, a little confused, “I thought you said you had control.”

Buck flinches, just a little, hurt.

“I, yeah. I’m not going to, like, hurt anyone, and outside of the full moon I can turn pretty much whenever I want to, or however much I want to.”

“But not on the full moon?” Eddie asks, and then seems to register Buck’s expression, “Oh, stop that, don’t pout, it’s not an insult, you’ve got remarkable control, all things considered.”

The gears turn just a little faster.

“Wait,” says Buck, as he catches up, “Are you saying that you can control it even once the full moon’s risen? I figured that just wasn’t possible, none of the myths say anything about it.” He’s getting excitable, and with it just a little louder.

“Shh,” says Eddie, glancing around the station half-heartedly, but he seems honestly kind of excited to be able to teach Buck something new about lycanthropy. “Okay, so normally I would work it, but maybe next time I take it off as well, and I can try to help you with it?”

Buck can feel his own eyes get rounder with excitement. “Are you sure? The whole on-off-on-off-on-four off thing means that you aren’t on shift for most full moons, so it’s not urgent.”

“Buck,” says Eddie, all composed and sure, and Buck gives up and just nods at him happily. “Cool,” he says, “I’ll clear it with Bobby later.”

“Okay,” says Buck, and it’s funny, now that Maddie’s back in his life, and Eddie’s here and helping him, he doesn't ever have that ache in his chest anymore. The loneliness that characterized so much of his experience of being a werewolf seemingly disappeared overnight, and Buck didn’t even really notice it going.

During their next shift there’s an earthquake, and honestly it’s a rough shift, but it could have been worse. Once Buck’s sure that Hen’s okay, and will stay that way, he could almost shrug the whole day off, nothing to write home about, but then Eddie corners him in the parking lot.

“Hey man,” he says, almost frantic, “My car’s penned in by two others that must have crashed into each other during the quake.”

“You want a ride?” Buck offers, and Eddie gives him a relieved smile.

“Please,” he says, jumping up into the Jeep with no hesitation.

“Put the school address in my phone,” says Buck, as he pulls out of the parking lot, and Eddie throws him a little look, like Buck hasn’t been watching him trying to reach his kid all day. “It was Chris, right? Tell me about him?”

On shift, it would have been too soon, Eddie too stressed about how Chris might be doing, but it seems like enough time has passed now to make him merely pleased at the question.

“He’s a great kid,” says Eddie with a fond little smile, resting back against his headrest. “I’m biased, obviously, but he really is. I’m so fucking lucky.”

“Is he like us?” Buck asks, “Does he know?”

Eddie barks a laugh, “Oh, he knows! Yeah, he’s like us. It’s a dominant gene, so. If you ever have kids, it’s something to think about.”

“Huh, is that the same for me?” Buck asks, “Has it permanently overwritten my genes, or?”

“Uh,” Eddie hesitates, “I actually don’t know. I’ll ask my abuela, and if she doesn’t know she’ll be able to ask around.”

“Wait, is your abuela a werewolf too?”

“Buck,” Eddie laughs, “I said I was a born werewolf, right? My whole family are werewolves, going back generations.”

“Wait,” says Buck, eyes alight with the new information, “On both sides?”

“Yeah, my parents’ marriage was a pack alliance, technically.”

“Oh my god,” says Buck, throwing glances at him between watching the road and checking the route on the satnav, “Are you, like, werewolf royalty?”

Eddie laughs outright, rolling his eyes, “We don’t have royalty, Buck.”

“So sorry, werewolf pedigree,” Buck corrects with a grin.

“Make a dog joke in front of my kid and die,” says Eddie with a mean smile.

“Touchy!” replies Buck, “Is he more of a cat person?”

Eddie laughs. “He actually is, desperately wants us to get a cat. Don’t mention that either, thanks.”

“Okay, damn, what can I talk about with him?”

“Well I don’t suppose you’re going to be up-to-date on his cartoons, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

It’s a slow drive, not because the school is even that far away, but the aftermath of the earthquake has slowed traffic exponentially now that they’re not in an engine with the siren blaring.

“So he’s a werewolf…” prompts Buck.

“Yeah,” says Eddie, “Was the cutest ball of fluff you’ve ever seen when he was a baby.”

“Yeah?” Buck asks, voice warm.

“I’ll find a photo for you some time.”

“His mom?” asks Buck, just a little hesitant. He didn’t remember seeing woman’s shoes in Eddie’s shoe rack, and there was something about Eddie saying it was a dominant gene that made him wonder…

“Not a werewolf, and not in the picture. Those things are not unrelated,” says Eddie shortly. “I told Shannon when she got pregnant, and she was fine with it, but then when he— Anyway, she’s not around anymore.“Chris is great though, and he loves being a werewolf. He does have CP, I don't know what you’ve figured out about the werewolves, but disabilities are just as possible as they are with humans.”

“Makes sense,” says Buck with a nod.

“You’d think,” Eddie says, just quiet enough that Buck probably wouldn’t have heard him if he wasn’t a werewolf himself, but he is, so he just politely pretends not to have heard.

“Will he be able to tell about me?” Buck asks, moving the conversation on.

“Of course,” says Eddie with a grin, “What kind of werewolf can’t tell when there’s another werewolf right in front of him?” Buck throws him a fake scowl, and sees Eddie grinning brightly at him from his passenger seat. It’s nice to see him so much more relaxed, the antithesis of the stressed and scared man he’s been trying to pretend not to be for most of the day.

“Wow,” says Buck dryly, “I see how it is.”

“I can hear him,” says Eddie sweetly, and Buck looks over at him. They’re not far from the school, sure, just a block away now, and if he focused he could probably hear the chatter of the remaining students, but he certainly couldn’t pick any one out of a line up. Still, maybe it’s different if it's your kid, probably it is. “He’ll be excited to meet you, I’ve told him about you.”

“You have?” Buck asks, somewhere between surprised and flattered.

“He could smell that a werewolf had been into our home, the other day. Even if he couldn’t, I wanted him to know that there was another wolf on the team. We knew a lot more of our kind back in Texas, still kind of the new kids on the block here, and I think he was glad to know it wasn’t just us, tía Pepa, and abuela.”

As he’s talking, Buck finally pulls up in the school parking lot, and before he can say anything in response, Eddie’s practically flying out of his car. There’s a tap-tap-tapping that catches Buck’s attention, and before he knows it, he’s watching Eddie racing towards the young boy from the photograph, who’s speeding over to him on crutches just as fast, and they come together in a tight and heartfelt hug. Eddie’s so visibly glad to hold him, so excited to be reunited with his son, and Chris seems to be holding him back just as tightly.

Saltwater, Buck has noticed, has a distinctive smell, so he rubs his eyes roughly, and gets out of the Jeep himself to try to dissipate the scent. They love each other so much, he thinks to himself, trying not to put words as to why that hurts his heart to think about.

It takes truly no time at all to realize that Chris is the coolest kid. No wonder Eddie adores him, he’s amazing. He’s sharp, and funny, and so interested in the world around him. Buck drives them both home, answering questions for Chris the entire way, doing his best to make Chris laugh. He’s got a great laugh.

Chris really is excited to meet him, which is cool. He peppers Buck with questions about life as a human, and how different it was, which makes Eddie flush a dull red and look out the window, like Buck gave a shit that he’d told his kid that he’d been bitten. He’s such a good natured kid. There’s no way his day wasn’t scary with the earthquake, and even though the school was fine, there would have been gossip and rumors, and he must have known Eddie was in the thick of it.

“What’s your pack like?” Chris asks Buck innocently, and Buck winces just a little.

“That’s a good question,” he says to him, catching his eyes in the rear view mirror, hoping his own earnest reply will help Eddie from dying of embarrassment in his passenger seat. “I haven’t really had a pack before, but we’ve got our team at the station, and they’re great, and I have my big sister. What about you?”

“We have a big pack,” says Chris, that kind of little kid brag that doesn’t actually work because Buck doesn’t have the context for it, not properly. “Back in Texas, the Diaz pack is super important.”

“Uh huh,” says Buck, throws a wicked little look at Eddie, “Like werewolf royalty?”

“Kinda,” says Chris smugly, and Eddie groans and laughs in response. “Here in L.A. it’s just me and dad, and my bisabuela, and tía Pepa, at least right now.” He pauses, and then looks at Buck evaluatingly.

“That sounds pretty good,” says Buck, unsure why Chris is looking at him like that.

“It is,” says Chris slowly, “But more people is better. If your pack is small, and you haven’t had one before, maybe you should be in our pack.”

It’s Buck’s turn to nearly choke on his own tongue, and Eddie’s turn to throw him a laughing look.

“That’s really kind of you, Chris. Do you get to make those kind of calls because you're the head of the pack, huh?” It’s a weak deflection, but it's something to say, and if he doesn’t deflect then he’s going to fucking cry.

“He sure isn’t,” says Eddie dryly, “Though you might not be able to tell with the way he’s talking.”

“It’s bisabuela,” says Chris. “Not dad. Just so you know.”

“I think I should wait until I get the invite from your bisabuela then, huh?”

“I guess,” says Chris, “But she’ll like you. You’re nice.”

“Thanks, buddy,” says Buck, unaccountably flattered. It’s a reminder of his days back on the dude ranch, trying hard to get all the kids there to like him, always thrilled when it actually paid off.

“Just down here,” Eddie says, like Buck hasn’t already been to his house before. “Thanks again for giving us a lift, Buck.”

“Of course,” Buck replies. “It was so great to meet you, Chris, I hope I get to see you again soon.”

“You too!” beams Chris, his smile taking up his whole face. God, he's an unreasonably cute kid.

“Wait, just a minute?” Eddie asks, and when Buck nods, he helps grab Chris’ stuff and gets him inside. He jogs back out, and heads for the driver side window.

“Hey,” he says as soon as he’s close, “I’m sorry about that, about half of his questions were deeply personal or inappropriate.”

“Eddie, it’s fine. He’s a kid, I don’t mind, and I would have said if there was anything I didn’t want to answer, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie replies, looking just a little relieved. “He got me thinking, you probably should meet my abuela some time soon. There’s some politics that it would be smart to sort out before it becomes a problem, you know?"

“Not really,” Buck says cheerfully, “But I’ll follow your lead, just say the word on when.”

Eddie smiles, and it’s so nice having someone in this with him, having a best friend for the first time, having someone who knows this crazy secret and gets it. Buck smiles back.

He doesn’t actually get to meet Isabel until she falls on a call, which is entirely unideal, but Eddie’s been struggling with childcare, and he just doesn’t have the spare time at the moment. That’s only going to get worse with Isabel’s broken leg.

Still, they get to have Chris hang out with them at the station all day, and that’s delightful. He wins everyone over easily, and there’s something about him there with them that makes Buck think, Maddie should be here too, then it would be perfect. Not, he thinks, something worth interrogating too much.

He finds Carla’s number in his contacts after talking with Maddie, and the moment when Eddie realizes what he’s doing, what he’s offering, will be ingrained in Buck forever. His soft, shocked eyes, the rumble in his chest almost like a purr when he’d pulled Buck into a close hug. The fervent “Thank you” muttered directly into his ear.

It’s not like Carla knows, so it’s not exactly a perfect solution in Buck’s mind, but no one else seems to be complaining. Besides, it gives them enough time that Eddie can bring him around to meet his abuela properly.

Buck is weirdly nervous. In part, obviously, it’s because he’s never met a pack leader before, or not knowingly. But more than that, this isn’t just any pack leader, it’s Eddie and Chris’ pack leader. More than that even, she’s their family. No one's ever actually introduced Buck to their family before. He had friends at school, sure, but they’d hang out at school, or maybe after football matches, or in diners. He’d go to someone’s house if their parents were away, not specifically to meet them. He met Abby’s family, technically, but that didn’t really feel like it counted. He met her mom because she lived with Abby, he met her brother because he was helping with the funeral. It was incidental, not because Abby actually wanted him to meet them. Okay, time to definitely stop thinking about Abby, he thinks to himself, fussing with his hair just a little in the rear view mirror.

“It’s going to be fine,” says Eddie, amused, “She already calls you ‘that nice young firefighter’.”

“She’s not wrong,” says Buck glibly, but the effect is kind of ruined by going back to fussing with his hair.

“Come on,” says Eddie, amused, as he gets out of Buck’s Jeep, and starts heading towards his abuela’s porch. Buck stumbles to follow. It will be fine, because Eddie says so. If Buck needed to brace in some way, Eddie would warn him, he’s a good friend like that.

Before either of them can knock on the door, it swings open, and there’s Eddie’s abuela.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Buck says, unaccountably nervous, and Eddie visibly tries to hold back laughter. Isabel, saint that she is, swats Eddie in the stomach.

“Good afternoon, Firefighter Buckley,” she says with a smile, “Come on in.”

“Evan Buckley,” he says, “Or Buck, please.”

“Then you must call me Isabel,” she replies with a smile, and Buck can feel himself relaxing.

“Are you doing better?” he asks, “You don’t seem to be limping, even with the cast.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” she scowls, “I can’t believe I was so careless. It was outside, so I have to keep up the act for at least another few weeks, maybe a month.”

“At least a month,” corrects Eddie, “Have you been practicing with your crutches?”

“When I must,” she replies, throwing Eddie an exasperated look.

“Huh,” says Buck, taking a seat on the couch that she gestures at. “I mean, I know our healing seems to be accelerated, but I didn’t realize it was by that much.”

“Ah,” she says, and exchanges a little look with Eddie. “Forgive me, Buck, I forgot the details of your situation. Our healing is only a little accelerated, it’s true, but if you are injured as a human, and there is neither silver nor aconite in the wound, the transformation into your full shift and back should heal you.”

“It does?” Buck asks, excited. “Gotta say, I didn’t actually experiment too much with the healing stuff. Seemed better to wait and see.”

“It does, it’s why if you get badly injured, your body will often try to force the change,” chimes in Eddie. “Useful on occasion, but not great if you’re in public.”

“At least three of my neighbors saw my little fall,” says Isabel self-deprecatingly. “If it had happened inside, I would simply have shifted, and this whole thing would be over already. Alas, I was outside, so Chris had to call an ambulance to keep up appearances, and I won’t be able to shift fully until after this damn cast is off.”

There are a hundred more questions that Buck wants to ask now, and he flickers a glance at Eddie, who seems to recognize that.

“Abuela,” he says, before they can get too off track. “Buck’s not registered, it’s how we ended up in the same fire station.”

“Registered?” Buck asks, “Isn’t it incredibly reckless to have a registry of werewolves if we’re supposed to be keeping it secret?”

“Clever and handsome,” says Isabel approvingly, and Buck feels himself flush just a little. “It’s not a true registry,” she continues, “But there are only so many packs in the world, and we try to stay aware of each other, and respect each other’s territories. There have been terrible territory wars over the years, but since the peace accords, that doesn’t happen so much any more.”

“This was decades ago,” Eddie cuts in, “Before our time.”

“Okay,” says Buck. “Can I register as a lone wolf, as it were? I don’t, uh. I don’t know if Eddie told you, but I don’t know who turned me.”

“He said,” says Isabel with compassion. “We can register you with the local packs as a lone wolf if you’d like, but my Eddie says that you’ve built a pack of your own.”

"He'd know, I guess,” says Buck with an awkward laugh, and Isabel puts her hand on his knee, squeezes comfortingly. It’s small, and arguably frail, thin-skinned in the way that only comes with age. Still, he can feel the power in it, the sheer magnitude of force that is packed behind the diminutive frame of Isabel Diaz, like a paw overlaid over her hand. He’s not at all surprised to know she’s the head of her pack, even if she’s delegated to others in other states. “The pack,” Buck says just a little hesitantly, “I’m the only werewolf. The others are all human, and they don't know about me. Is that… Is that allowed? Is that okay?”

“That’s allowed,” says Isabel kindly. “You have done well, though by chance. We do not tend to tell humans, though an exception is made for those who are legally pack. If you register them as your pack, and you trust them not to tell others, you could tell them, if you wanted to.”

“But I wouldn't have to?”

“No,” she says, squeezing again just a little, “You wouldn’t have to.”

Buck pauses, nods. “I think register them as my pack. I wouldn't have to make a decision about telling them, right?”

“No,” says Isabel, and she's so non-judgemental about this stupid little hang up of Buck’s that it's genuinely heartening. “It would protect them, as well.”

“It would? In what way?”

“They’d officially be your responsibility, so if something were to happen, if anyone were to encroach on your territory or your pack, you could appeal to the council for help. You’d have rights to keep them in your pack, even if someone else turned one of them. You could apply for the paperwork to turn them yourself, if you so chose.”

It’s a lot, and the idea of anyone attacking Maddie, Hen, Chimney, or Bobby the way he’d been attacked makes Buck feel physically nauseous. Isabel, miraculously, seems to see this on his face, and moves him along to the paperwork of it all.

There’s a lot more bureaucracy to being a werewolf than Buck could possibly have imagined, a sentiment that makes Eddie give a harsh bark of laughter when he shares it.

"I can't thank you enough for this, man,” he says to Eddie in a low voice that evening, when they’d gone back to his. Eddie’s tía Pepa had collected Chris from Carla, and brought him over. They’d had dinner at Isabel’s, and it had been delicious, and Buck had felt so at home with her, Eddie, Pepa, and Chris. It had been genuinely refreshing to have a dinner with people who knew, who could commiserate and joke and explain things. Had helped make this whole thing less isolating, less terrifying. He's not sure that Eddie can really understand the breadth of what he’s done to help Buck in this one fell swoop.

“It’s as close to even as I can get, after Carla,” says Eddie easily, and Buck gives him a little scowl.

“That was nothing like this,” complains Buck, elbowing Eddie just a little, where he sits next to him on the couch. Eddie, of course, avoids his elbow so perfectly that his beer doesn’t spill even a little.

“I agree,” says Eddie solemnly, “I’ve still got a long way to make up. You saved Chris and me, with Carla. You must know that.”

“Eddie,” Buck says, turning to look at him fully. “You’ve saved me too, you know? I didn’t realize that I was still so alone in it all, I thought with the 118, with Maddie's arrival, but this? To know and understand this community, to have your help with it all?”

“We have each other’s backs, right?” says Eddie after a long moment, and Buck can’t do anything but smile at him.

“Always,” he promises, smiling, and holds his beer out for Eddie to cheers.

The first full moon they're scheduled to work, Eddie books off weeks in advance. Bobby knows about Chris, of course, and he's always so accommodating about people needing time off, but Eddie still claims it’s his abuela's birthday, so that when Buck calls in sick with a migraine he’s not asked to be last minute cover.

He is, Buck's pretty sure, kind of excited about it. It's kind of endearing. Buck wonders if part of it is about practicing this for when Chris is older, but when he asks what Chris is doing for his full moon Eddie just laughs at him. 

“He'll probably catch up on telenovelas with his bisabuela,” says Eddie. 

“You can watch TV as a wolf?” Buck asks, curiously, and Eddie just gives him a look. “Oh, wow,” he says, “That actually checks out.”

“If it helps," says Eddie with a fond smile, “He has been a wolf for longer than you. Just.”

Buck rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. This is the first full moon that’s felt like it could be fun. They're at Eddie’s house, because he’d insisted, and he was a little hesitant about it, like he wasn’t sure that Buck would be comfortable in new territory. Buck had explained in more depth about his travels, the way that transforming multiple times at Abby's apartment is more of an exception than a norm for him. As is often the case it seems when Buck talks about his personal werewolf experiences, Eddie looks visibly sad for about a minute before he shakes it off.

He arrives in the late afternoon, under strict orders. He'd spent the morning working out in his bedroom, trying to work off his excess energy, hiding just a little from his sister until she’s headed off for a twenty-four. She’s really enjoying her time at dispatch, which is so great. She’s really building a life, and Buck’s so excited for it that he feels nervous if he thinks about it too long. He wants her to stay so badly. He’d cleaned the apartment after she left, used his heightened senses to really get every last bit of dirt. He’d done laundry, had a shower, cooked the stir-fry recipe that Bobby had gone through with him last shift for lunch. He’s sort of nervous, mostly excited. It kind of reminds him of being a kid, the way Maddie was always so excited for Christmas, was so good at infecting him with her enthusiasm. How he'd felt when he was a bit older, and she was going to visit Hershey, the days and weeks before where he was just anticipating her arrival, and how tight she’d hug him when she saw him.

It's impossible not to anticipate the full moon, when you're a werewolf, but mostly it's been kind of stressful, the chance he’ll do something to force himself to move, that he’ll use up his sick leave or his friends’ time patience. This month is different.

Eddie’s quiet in his own excitement, but Buck’s pretty confident that is what it is. What else explains the text he got not ten minutes ago promising that he’s gotten his abuela to make ‘Buck’s favorite’ for dinner, whatever that is? Buck feels like he’s counting the minutes until he finally lets himself leave, and he still ends up arriving a good twenty minutes before he was due.

He’s sitting in his Jeep in the drive, trying to decide if he should drive around the block again, when the front door swings open, Eddie beaming in the doorway. Buck gets out the car, grabs his duffel and heads in.

Chris is still home, not going to his bisabuela until after dinner, so he’s sitting at the dining table doing some sort of worksheet. The radio’s playing some soft jazzy music, and the house smells of cooking foods.

“Where’s Isabel?” he asks as he comes in, “It smells amazing.”

“Oh,” laughs Eddie, ducking his head a little bashfully, “No, she just sent me home with tupperware and oven instructions.”

“Dad can't cook,” announces Chris cheerfully from the table, “Hey Buck!”

“Hey little man!” Buck calls back, “How goes, ooh what is this, biology?”

“It’s cool, we’re learning about how plants grow.”

“Neat,” agrees Buck.

“We’re supposed to grow some, but dad can’t keep plants alive either.”

Behind him, Eddie gives Buck an aggrieved little look, and Buck can't help but laugh at him.

“Well, I haven’t tried to keep a plant alive since I was in elementary school, but I’d be happy to help you try,” offers Buck with a smile, and Chris beams up at him.

“We literally have two pot plants alive in this room,” says Eddie dryly, “Thriving as we speak.”

“Daaad,” complains Chris, “Buck’s agreed to help me!”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but he’s fond about it. If Buck was in wolf form right now, he’s pretty sure he’d be making that rumbling almost purring sound, which is a little embarrassing perhaps, but there's something so nice about this little family, about the way they welcome him in, let him lay claim to bigger and bigger chunks of their time. They’re just so nice.

“Okay, I should actually check on the enchiladas, I’ll never hear the end of it if I burn them,” says Eddie, and Buck follows him into the kitchen, perked up in excitement.

“Enchiladas?” he asks, can’t help himself.

“Yeah, you mentioned they were your favorite, right?” Eddie tosses over his shoulder unconcernedly. Buck had, technically, mentioned that. It was a conversation at the station about his pre-Eddie werewolf adventures, his time traveling down Central and South America until he hit Peru, his hope that Bobby would teach him how to make them one day. “Figured you could do with a full moon treat.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to make dog jokes,” replies Buck in a low voice as he joins Eddie next to the oven, peering in to see if the cheese has melted.

“You aren’t allowed,” corrects Eddie pointedly, “I am a dad, and am therefore obligated to make dad jokes. Don’t want to, but those are the rules. Can’t risk getting my dad privileges revoked.”

From the dining room Chris groans, and Buck shares a bright grin with Eddie.

“They look good,” he says, in a low voice, and Eddie smiles at him.

“Well, you’ll need the energy. Shifting always takes more energy, so we need to make sure you have a big dinner.”

Huh. It makes sense, and Buck often is hungrier around the full moon, but he’s never really stopped to think about the why of that.

“Wait, just me? You aren’t going to shift tonight?” Buck asks, turning wide eyes on Eddie. He’d kind of been looking forward to seeing what someone else looks like as a wolf.

“I mean, I probably will,” says Eddie, “But if your shift is forced on you during full moons, I figured we’d start by you turning, and me seeing what that looks like for you, try to talk you through turning back. Demonstrate if need be, but mostly focus on what’s going on for you.”

It does make sense, mostly. But, well. It sounds maybe a little lonelier than Buck was expecting, none of the shared camaraderie of shifting together, but Eddie’s right, this was to fix a problem.

“Would it be good if I shifted to wolf and back before the moon rises?” Buck asks after a moment. “I don’t, uh. Normally I can control it, like I said, and I can understand well enough, but, I don’t know. Full moons are different. I’m not sure you’ll be able to talk me through it,” Buck admits, a little embarrassed. It was fine when he thought that this is just what full moons are like, but it’s infinitely worse now that he knows that he should be able to control himself on a full moon. He looks up, and Eddie’s giving him a soft, sympathetic look.

“That’s a good idea,” Eddie admits, “Come on, you can change in my bedroom.”

It’s all felt normal and natural, but now Buck is standing alone in Eddie’s sparse bedroom, overwhelmingly aware that he’s essentially in here to strip off. It feels weirdly intimate. Buck’s stripped in a lot of bedrooms over the years, but not like this, not alone, not because he’s about to show the shape of his soul to someone. Casual sex with strangers is infinitely less scary than choosing to let people in, and this is much more serious than sex has ever been.

There’s a faint knock on the door.

“Buck? You shifted yet? Forgot to leave the door cracked for you.”

“One sec,” he calls back, just a little embarrassed, but it successfully catapults him into shucking out of his jeans and underwear, pulling his tee off with one hand. In seconds he’s bare, then he’s changing, shifting in seconds. He pads over to the door, yips softly, and Eddie lets it swing wide.

“Hi,” says Eddie with a smile, “Good dog.”

Buck barks, a combination of fond and annoyed, and uses the weight of his body to push Eddie out of the way towards the living room.

He barely gets his snout into the kitchen before Chris is looking up in delight, immediately getting out of his chair. Buck races over quickly, trying to corral Christopher to the living room so he can sit on the couch.

“Wow,” laughs Chris as they go, “You’re so big!”

Buck spins on himself to look up at Eddie, who’s standing in the doorframe, watching them with amusement.

“You are,” agrees Eddie, and suddenly Buck realizes that he can genuinely find out what he looks like for once. He’s gotten half-shifted selfies, and he’s tried to set up timers or videos, but it’s easy to knock your own phone over and if you don’t have opposable thumbs you can't exactly reset them. Eddie seems to read his wide eyes, because he pulls his phone out of his back pocket. “Say cheese,” he says with a smile, and Chris throws an arm around Buck’s neck from where he’s sitting next to the couch. Buck does his best at a smile, and hopes it doesn’t just look like he’s baring his teeth.

“You’re so much lighter than dad, and definitely bigger,” says Chris cheerfully, and Buck turns towards him, preening just a little as Chris studies him.

“Don’t forget fluffier,” says Eddie with an easy smile, joining Chris on the couch, “He’s definitely a fluffball. Like you,” he punctuates this last with a tickle aimed at Chris, who shrieks in delight. “You want to change back?” he asks Buck after a minute.

Buck’s been enjoying just sitting and watching the two of them playfight, honestly, so much love and happiness in every single action, but that’s probably the correct move.

“No, wait,” calls Chris, “I wanna change too!”

Eddie gives Buck a rueful little smile, as if to say they both should have expected this.

“Did you finish your homework?” he asks, and Chris sighs.

“But I want to be a wolf with Buck, Dad, please?” He may be in human form, but those are definitely puppy dog eyes, Buck thinks, and then Chris throws him a quick look, so Buck turns his own, rather more literal, puppy dog eyes on Eddie.

“Okay, but only briefly!” Eddie cautions, “You still need to finish your homework before dinner, otherwise you won’t have time to watch telenovelas with your abuela, you’ll be too busy with math and physics.”

“Dad, I did math ages ago,” complains Chris, but he’s pulling at his own tee-shirt already, so Buck turns around, settling down with head on the ground, his paws over his eyes.

He opens them abruptly when a weight cannonballs into the side of him, Chris changed into a bright eyed wolf cub. He’s gangly, his balance a little better on four legs than two, but still clearly a little unsturdy. His fur is incredibly soft, and Eddie’s right, it really is fluffy. Buck thinks maybe it’s a little wavy, and that’s why? He doesn’t get a chance to investigate properly, because Chris is nipping at him and then darting away, barking little yips of laughter, climbing heavily over Buck when he doesn’t move quick enough. Eddie, on the couch, his phone out, is openly laughing at Buck.

It’s maybe the direct opposite of the only other experience he’s had of meeting another werewolf in their wolf form. This is like the best kind of daydream, the sort that’s so good that Buck doesn’t even let himself dream it usually. He chases Chris in little circles around the living room, until Eddie calls time, and Chris skitters behind the couch, standing up behind it fully human. Buck turns around again, and from the sounds, Chris gets dressed.

A blanket hits Buck in the head, and he turns to look at Eddie, aggrieved, who just smiles.

“Change back,” he says, “You can use that to cover up if you want.”

Buck listens, changing under the blanket, peering out from it once he’s human again.

“You look ridiculous, get up here,” says Eddie from the couch, and Buck’s a little sprawled under a blanket, only his head poking out, so he probably does look ridiculous, but he makes a point to grumble and complain as he gets to his feet, sits next to Eddie on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket. “It doesn’t look painful,” Eddie notes, “Your shift, I mean.”

“It mostly isn’t,” agrees Buck, “A little sharp maybe, at points, but you heal quick anyway.”

“Hmm,” says Eddie, like he’s making a note of that. “Sorry about earlier, I forgot you’d probably have more privacy issues than us. There’s a certain level of casual nudity that born werewolves tend to just sort of ignore. Like being in the locker rooms at the station, I guess.”

“Makes sense,” says Buck after a moment. “Learnt the hard way that your clothes don’t change with you, you know?”

Eddie laughs at that.

“Do you want to see the pictures?” Eddie asks, getting his phone up.

“Please,” Buck replies, just a little raw at the thought of it.

He’s bigger than he expected maybe. His fur is kind of wavy, and, like Chris, it just makes him look fluffy. Sort of tawny almost, a reddish brown that darkens around his eye, mimicking his birthmark. His eyes are a blue, squinting into a dumb doggy smile in the photo. Chris, his arm around Buck’s neck, is beaming at the camera. It’s good to see himself properly for the first time, yes, but it’s also seeing himself with someone. Seeing himself as a wolf, with someone who is so clearly and visibly excited to spend time with him.

Yeah, he can’t believe he’s a fucking werewolf some days. More than that, he can’t believe he’s found people who like him anyway. It’s the best kind of miracle, the kind he didn’t even think to wish for.

“Here,” says Eddie, flipping through pictures of Buck and Chris, first as a human, then as a cub. “This was my favorite,” and a video starts playing.

Chris, in wolfcub form, darts around Buck, nipping and barking little laughs, while Buck himself spins in a circle, faux growling, and trying to nip Chris in return. They both look so happy, and overlaid is the sound of Eddie trying not to chuckle.

“Your son is a bully,” says Buck teasingly, leaning into Eddie’s side, unable to take his eyes off of the video screen.

“Uh huh,” says Eddie, infinitely unbothered, and they watch the video again from the top.

“Send it to me?” Buck asks, his voice a little rawer than it maybe should be for such a simple question, and Eddie gives him a soft look.

“Already did,” he says, and Buck feels warm at being so well known so quickly. Even without the werewolf of it all, he’s truly never had a friend like Eddie. It’s kind of amazing.

“I should, uh, I should go put people clothes on,” says Buck, abruptly remembering that he’s naked but for the blanket that hangs over the couch.

There’s a faint amused edge to Eddie’s smile as he agrees, and Buck knows he’s thinking about his own supposed privacy issues. If Buck told literally anyone else in his life that Eddie thought he was a prude, or body-shy, or whatever it was he was implying, they’d laugh until they cried. Buck’s not exactly known for being modest.

This is different. Maybe it won’t be soon, hopefully it won’t be. Hopefully he’ll become so used to it, to being different, to that not being shameful or scary, that he’ll be less self-conscious. It’s already a little different, just knowing what he actually looks like. Knowing what Chris looks like too, like this is just normal. Like he’s not a freak or an outlier, or entirely alone in this. It feels vulnerable, sure, but the good kind of vulnerable.

Fully dressed, he looks at the twelve new messages from Eddie, each containing a photo or video, just once more. That’s what he looks like. He was scared, honestly, that he looked like a monster. It’s a genuine relief to know that even as a werewolf, big and clawed, he doesn't look all that intimidating. He still kind of looks like himself.

They eat dinner, and Buck doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go back to subpar takeout enchiladas now that he’s had these. Honestly, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go back to eating dinner alone in Abby’s loft. It’s bad enough that Maddie’s found a new place, it’s even worse to see what a cheerful family dinner can be, should be, like.

“Pack dinner!” corrects Chris cheerfully, when Buck thanks them both for letting him crash their family dinner, and that's almost worse.

“Surely you need your pack head for that one, huh?” points out Buck, and Chris giggles and shrugs at him. He’s an exceptionally cute kid, no matter what form he’s in, and it’s only a problem because he clearly knows it.

“Speaking of,” says Eddie, gathering up their plates, and going to get Chris’ backpack from beside the couch. “That’s her coming down the road.”

It takes a moment for Buck to pick out the distinct sound of a car, of a single heartbeat, of a woman’s breathing.

“Evening, Buck,” she says quietly, still driving her car down the street, meters away, and Buck can’t help his own excited grin in response. It’s good to be reminded that above all of the rest of it, this has its perks. More of them by the minute, really.

“Evening, Isabel,” he says quietly, and pretends not to notice Eddie’s huff of laughter at his own obvious delight at being able to have a conversation half a street away.

Once Chris has gone, things feel a bit different.

It’s not bad, not at all, Eddie’s still rapidly becoming one of his favorite people to spend time with, so he’ll take any excuse. He’s just aware, again, that this is all for a purpose. That Eddie's going to see him hurting and vulnerable, and being a werewolf wrong, apparently. He thought he'd been handling it all so well, and now?

“Hey,” says Eddie, frowning a little, "You okay?”

“Of course,” lies Buck, and watches Eddie’s frown deepen.

“So you know that I can hear your heartbeat change, just a little, when you lie?” says Eddie placidly, and Buck scowls at him just a little, not at all seriously.

“Or when I’m anxious, or excited, or just had a coffee,” he points out, just a little snarky, and Eddie rolls his eyes fondly.

“Okay, so what are you anxious or excited or drinking coffee about, hmm?”

Buck sighs, looks down at his hands.

There’s a long beat or two, and then Eddie puts his hand on Buck’s shoulder, squeezes it gently. “You don’t have to tell me, not if you don’t want to,” offers Eddie, all quiet and sincere, and of course that’s all it takes.

“It’s embarrassing,” admits Buck to the floor, to his hands, to anything that means he doesn’t have to look up. “It was bad, at first, and then, I don’t know. I thought it was better, I thought it was good, but I’ve been getting it all wrong this whole time, and I just, I feel so—” There’s no real way to end that thought, so he just cuts himself off, and focuses on the way Eddie’s hand tightens reflexively on his shoulder.

“You’ve done good,” responds Eddie after a moment, his voice so smooth and sure that Buck can’t actually bring himself to second guess it. “You were dealt an impossible hand, and you did so well. I know you wouldn’t shame anyone we met on a call for reaching out for help, not for anything, so I don't know why you seem to think someone helping you is a bad thing.”

Buck looks up, at him, ready to argue that it’s different somehow, and is arrested by the easy fondness in Eddie’s eyes.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve done about as well as anyone could ever do, and I’m sure it was good, but why not let it be better? Let me help you make it better?”

What is anyone supposed to do in the face of Eddie Diaz’s unadulterated sincerity?

“Yeah,” says Buck, just a little hoarse, “Okay. Thanks, Eddie.”

“It’s what pack’s for,” replies Eddie with a little smile, and Buck does his best not to take it at face value.

When the moon rises, they’ve retreated to Eddie’s bedroom. It’s better to be away from the street facing windows, Eddie says, and he’s on the corner so this side is less likely to have his neighbors hear him. Buck would maybe prefer the living room than this, sitting on Eddie’s bed in nothing but the same blanket from earlier, hyper aware of Eddie across the room, staring at him. Buck’s truly never had much modesty, but he’s wrapped up tightly in the blanket right now, shy in a way that he hasn’t been in years.

“I’ve got your back,” says Eddie, leaning against the wall by his door, his gaze heavy, reassuring.

It helps.

Buck’s just looked up to make eye contact, when the moon rises.

His neck spasms, his head cracking to one side so quickly he starts to give himself whiplash, and then Eddie’s right there, cradling his face in his hands, saying something.

“Look at me,” Eddie’s saying, “The moon calls to you, but she doesn’t control you.”

The night, it.

Buck’s.

The world shifts, and he twitches, shakes, but he doesn’t fall. Eddie’s big brown eyes, his warm hands cradling Buck’s muzzle, the soothing intonation of his chanting speech.

Buck blinks, fully transformed, but not aching, not as much. Not like normal.

“Buck?” calls Eddie, like it’s not the first time, but Buck can actually hear him, can actually pay attention. He thumps down into sitting, looking up at Eddie, and Eddie looks at him incredulously, laughs just a little.

“Good boy,” he says again, and Buck’s himself just enough to curl a lip in pretend disgust. “Your tail is wagging,” says Eddie dryly, and then laughs loudly when Buck spins around to check.

It’s the most coherent he’s ever felt on a full moon. Still a little scattered, still a little confused, still a little overwhelmed. But it’s more than his usual full moons of scent-sense-feeling-memory.

“Come here,” says Eddie, reaching out to Buck, and he scrambles over himself to obey. “Come back. You respond to Buck, so you know who you are. If you know who you are, this is easy. You’re still you either way, right, you’re always you. There’s no wolf that’s separate from you, is there? Look inside yourself, there isn’t. It’s all you.”

It’s not. He’s. He’s… Eddie’s right, is the thing. He is himself. He’s always himself, he’s.

“Come on,” coaxes Eddie, “Think about your human form, it’s any other day, the moon doesn’t control you, you control you, come back, Buck."

The seconds feel long and syrupy, like time is melting and stretching like taffy, like he is, maybe. And then? He’s standing in front of Eddie, human and nude and weeping.

“There you are,” says Eddie fondly, and Buck hiccups with his tears. “Come here,” he says, and pulls Buck in for a hug, unconcerned by his nudity or his crying.

He doesn’t feel as self-conscious as maybe he should, because tonight has truly been the most transformative full moon he’s ever had. He knew, logically, that he'd changed. That he was something different now. He knew that. This still feels different in a new way, a fundamental shift.

Buck’s been many things over the years, but he’s never been very good at knowing himself. It’s weird, even a little disconcerting, to feel like that in itself has changed. He’s himself, and he always will be, and that means something different than it did before that night in Wyoming, but it also means something different now, after tonight.

“You okay?” asks Eddie, a hand warm against the back of Buck’s neck.

“Yeah,” says Buck, talking aloud on a full moon. Wonders never cease. He pushes back from Eddie, and can’t help his smile. “It's a full moon,” he says excitedly, and Eddie grins back at him.

“Sure is,” agrees Eddie, “Look at you! You really are a natural.”

Buck ducks his head at the compliment, but he knows Eddie will sense his quiet pride, his sheer delight.

“Come on,” says Eddie, taking mercy, “Let’s pick something to watch on TV, and then transform to watch it. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” agrees Buck enthusiastically, bounding towards the living room already. Eddie’s liable to pick some sort of terrible reality TV show, and given Chris is out for the night, this is their only chance to watch almost any action movie.

He’s never been this well rested after a full moon. No phantom aches from skin scratched and healed, no bone deep exhaustion, no crushing loneliness.

He’s lying on the couch, still in wolf form, because he chose to transform again, even though it was a full moon. He’s curled up across one side of the couch, and across from him, on the other half, is Eddie, his eyes half-lidded.

Eddie’s a majestic wolf. Smaller than Buck, sure, but not by very much, his fur sleek and shiny and dark. Eddie looks like a predator, until you see how warm and bright his eyes are. Somehow his eyes are warm enough that you can forget he's made of dappled shadows and lean muscle and perfect control.

Eddie catches his eye, makes a little huff of a noise at him, and Buck can feel his own mouth stretching into a stupid grin. Eddie slowly pushes himself up to sitting, and Buck follows suit. The change looks so fluid on Eddie, like a ripple in water, like he doesn’t even have to think about it. Maybe he doesn't, maybe that the thing. Last night Eddie kept saying that there’s no man and no wolf, it’s all the same being, maybe that's the way to think about it, maybe Buck shouldn't even think of it as a change.

Eddie is also extremely naked, still seated on the couch. It’s not. It really isn’t shyness, Buck knows his exact body fat ratio, he knows his body, he’s put a lot of effort into sculpting it, and he's proud of that, but. It’s first thing in the morning, and even Buck might not be able to pull off two guys hanging out naked on the couch. It’s just a weird vibe.

Instead, he leaps off the couch and races along the floor to Eddie’s room, Eddie’s laughter chasing him. His own change back is pretty fluid, but it's not the shift of inhale to exhale like Eddie’s, not yet. It hurts less now though. Eddie had talked him through it a couple of times last night, changing and perfecting, and improving, like training a new muscle memory, actively trying to iron out the moments of pain and discomfort that Buck had sort of assumed were inevitable. Turns out, very little is.

Once they’ve shared a full moon, things get even better. They spend an obnoxious amount of time together, and it’s always so good, especially when Chris is there too. Work is going better than ever, they’re not just a well oiled machine, but they’re a family. A pack. They're registered as a pack, certainly, and Buck can't stop thinking about telling them. About telling Maddie, at least. It felt impossible so recently, and now he can't stop thinking about it. He was scared that she'd see him as a monster so recently, and now he spends more time than he cares to admit looking at a picture of himself and Chris, fluffy and excited, his own tail a blur from wagging. That doesn’t look like a monster. He’s honestly kind of cute.

He moves out of Abby's place, her scent too stale in the air to keep pretending that she’s going to come back to him. Eddie helps him move onto Chim’s couch, but that barely lasts three days. The thing about super senses is that it’s far too easy to learn way too much about your housemates. Thankfully, it doesn’t take much convincing to get Maddie to lend him her couch, at least while he's looking, and Buck already knows all of Maddie’s worst habits.

There’s a scent that Buck doesn’t recognize on Eddie sometimes, but he always makes a point to wash it off thoroughly before leaving the station. It’s one of those things that he knows Eddie must know that he knows? But neither of them are saying anything, so Buck is assuming the polite move is to not mention it until Eddie does?

It smells like a woman.

Eddie doesn't seem particularly settled or happy, so it doesn’t feel like it's the time or place to bring it up. If he’s washing her scent off, presumably that means Chris doesn’t know? He catches Eddie’s eyes a few times, as though to let him know that he’s here if he wants to talk, and leaves it at that.

Maddie tries to talk him into dating again, which mostly seems to mean accompanying her on what are very blatantly dates with Chim, even if neither of them are willing to admit it yet. They’re abstractly sort of sweet, but it would definitely be sweeter if Chimney wasn’t practically his big brother, and Maddie wasn’t literally his big sister.

There’s part of him that wonders, with Maddie and Chimney looking more and more besotted, with the new scent on Eddie that seems to be there more often than not, if he should be looking. Things might not have worked out with Abby, but that doesn’t mean it won’t ever work out with anyone. It’s been nice, focus on Maddie, on himself, on his pack. That doesn’t mean it can’t ever be more.

He should talk about it with Eddie, probably. Sure, he dated Abby while a werewolf, and it was fine, and she never even knew, but it’s not like he knew that there were rules back then. There might well be rules around dating and packs and stuff like that. Maybe that’s got something to do with why Eddie keeps showering this scent off. Maybe if he asks, Eddie will tell him.

Maybe he should wait until he actually finds someone he wants to date.

He hears Thomas join Mitchell, hears his heart stutter, stop. It takes every ounce of hardwon control not to howl.

“He joined his mate,” says Eddie lowly to him, in the engine on the way back to the station. too quiet for the others to hear.

“Still,” says Buck, mournful, and Eddie leans up against him.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Still.”

He calls Ali. He doesn’t talk to Eddie about it.

What’s the point? Eddie will be able to pick up her scent on Buck anyway. He’ll tell Buck if there are rules he needs to know.

The woman is Shannon, Eddie’s wife, Chris’ mother. Buck knew she existed, knew she was still out there, but somehow had never imagined she’d come back. Somehow, something about the way Eddie had talked about her… Well, maybe she wasn’t okay with the werewolf thing and got over it? Definitely something worth getting over, to get to spend time with Chris and Eddie.

She seems pretty dedicated, to just show up at their station like that, to drag Eddie away to snap at him in front of his coworkers. So it’s not like things are perfect, sure, but what’s really clear is that she wants back in both of their lives, Eddie and Chris.

Eddie asks him whether he’s going to say anything, voice low, and Buck is so aware of Chris, not nearly far away enough for a werewolf.

“He’s focused on Santa,” mutters Eddie when Buck hesitates, glancing over with a little wave that gets completely ignored.

“I figured it was none of my business,” Buck hedges, huffing a little laugh when Eddie immediately agrees.

"It just… kinda happened, okay?” starts Eddie.

Buck goes to agree, but even if Chris wanted visiting Santa to be private, they can’t help what they can hear, both so attuned to Chris, especially so far away.

"Please,” he says, so polite, and they both stutter to a stop and grin at each other, endeared. “Please, Santa, I’d like my mom to spend Christmas with us. That’s my Christmas wish.”

"Oh,” says the poor nineteen year old roped into playing Santa, clearly aware of the multitude of reasons why he maybe can’t promise that.

Next to Buck, Eddie makes a little sound, like he’s been punched in the gut.

Buck glances down, and Eddie’s hands are shaking, just a little. He leans into Eddie side, just a nudge, and hears his breathing start back up.

"Not sure you need my opinion, brother,” Buck says, not quite sure why he had to force the cheer into his voice.

"Right,” says Eddie, still a little unsteady, then he shakes his head as if to clear it. “Right,” he says again, more decisive now, “He’s always been the smart one of the three of us.”

"For sure,” agrees Buck, and then starts to get up, because Chris is nearly back over to them. “Hey, little man, how was Santa?”

"He didn’t smell like Santa,” says Chris, nose wrinkling up, while the elf who had helped him over tries to stifle a laugh. “Could you hear me?”

"No, mijo,” says Eddie with an easy smile, “Your Christmas wish is between you and Santa, right?”

"Right!” agrees Chris with a bright smile. “Hot chocolate time?”

"Oh, I think that can probably be arranged,” agrees Eddie with a smile, and they start to set off.

Buck hangs back, melancholy and unsure why.

Behind him, a voice saying, “You two have an adorable son.” The elf who was walking with Chris, a blonde smiling woman who makes this declaration easily and straightforwardly, like there was no other assumption to be made here.

Buck pauses for a moment, debates saying something, glances over his shoulder towards Eddie and Chris. Is he imagining it, or do Eddie’s shoulders seem tighter than they were a moment before? Chris is still listing off things that Santa should smell like: fresh snow, figgy pudding, and magic, obviously, dad. Presumably Eddie is focused on that, not on Buck.

“Thanks,” he says, after his beat of hesitation, because it’s definitely the past of least resistance, even if it feels especially presumptuous given the conversation they’d just been having.

He turns back to chase after Eddie and Chris, and he must have imagined those tense shoulders, because Eddie looks as relaxed as Buck’s ever known him while he teases his kid about what magic smells like.

There were moments, with Abby, where he wanted to curl up beside her on the couch and have her pet his hair. Where he thought that if she’d just known, if he’d just been allowed to tell her, being a werewolf would have made things even better. He could have been her faithful guard dog, could have slept at the foot of her bed, could have been doted on.

The other month, when he was lifting Taylor Kelly up against a wall, he thought that she’d find it exciting if she knew. She’d like the danger of claws tracing up and down her sides.

With Abby, he didn’t ever worry that his passion would overtake him, that his hands would turn to claws while they were in bed together. He respected her too much to ever treat her at all roughly.

It felt like the purest expression of love available.

He doesn’t worry about his claws with Ali either, but not for the same reasons.

Christmas is a weird one for Buck. He did and didn’t love it growing up. Maddie put a lot of effort into making it could, back when she lived with them, and he loved that. Loved spending the day excitedly showing her the presents that Santa had gotten him, playing games with her, the feast of Chinese takeout that his dad always ordered them for dinner. The lights on houses in their neighborhood, and the walks that Maddie would take him on to see all the different displays. The excuse to be warm and cozy, tucked into a blanket fort in Maddie’s room, while it snowed outside.

His parents didn’t really bother with it much, once Maddie left. There was still Chinese takeout, and whatever present she’d brought when she came home from Boston for Thanksgiving. No amount of wontons could make it feel the same, though, once she was spending Christmas day with Doug. As he got even older, old enough to understand how much effort Maddie put in for him, how much that maybe shouldn’t have been her job, he felt even more torn. He still wanted the good old days, still wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket fort with cocoa, but now he felt guilty for wanting it.

When he did see Maddie in the winter, she still seemed excited about Christmas, and he let himself think maybe he wasn’t being selfish to want to see her for it. Maybe Maddie would want to spend Christmas with him again. After she and Doug got married, he pitched it to her, just the once. She’d been talking about Christmas, excited for some party Doug was throwing, and he’d hinted that he’d like to come. She’d tried to cover, but he’d seen the way her face had fallen at the idea. So she loved it, but she didn’t want to spend it with him. That was fine.

On the road, he’d never bothered to mark the occasion, not unless he had to. Not even with Chinese takeout. It felt too close to a celebration, somehow, even if it’s how everyone else was avoiding the holiday.

He’d celebrated last year. He’d signed up for a shift, because why not take the overtime? Bobby and Chim had both been on shift too, nothing better to do, they’d said. For lunch, Bobby had cooked a full roast, all the trimmings, unlike any Christmas Buck had ever had. Hen, offshift, had brought Karen and Denny around in the afternoon with homemade cookies, and they’d played board games between shifts. It had felt almost like being in a kids movie, the sort of scene that Buck never thought he himself would get to play in.

This year, with Maddie back, he’d figured they’d finally be having a return to form. The lost celebrations of his childhood that he’d been trying not to mourn returned to him at last. Instead, Maddie kept claiming that she didn’t want anything to do with Christmas this year. It might even be true, it’s hard to accept, sometimes, that Maddie is only sort of someone he knows. She’s grown and changed and experienced so much, and he knows enough to know that Christmas with Doug wasn’t exactly the fairytale he used to imagine.

Still. If anyone deserves a little Christmas joy… Thankfully, Chim agrees, and together they make it their mission to show Maddie the spirit of the season. It feels weirdly fun to be on this side of it, to get the opportunity to make it special for someone else. He can see the appeal, and for the first time in years is able to look back at those early Christmases without guilt, finally understanding why Maddie had fun in trying to make it magical for him. It’s fun, too, to spend more one on one time with Chimney outside of their shifts. To tease him for what is the most obvious crush in the world on Maddie. Chim’s always kind of treated him like an annoying kid brother, but it’s always got an undercurrent of warmth to it, like despite everything he wants Buck to know he does care. He never really had someone comfortable enough with him to tease him the way Chim does before, it wasn’t something he knew to miss, but he’d miss it now. Chim’s not just a coworker, not just a friend, but he wormed his way into being Buck’s pack before Buck even knew that was a thing he could have. It’s just nice, spending time with him.

“You ever going to ask about it?” asks Eddie.

“It?” Buck asks in return, coy.

“Her, Shannon.” Eddie’s clarification comes with an eyeroll, like he thinks Buck is being stubborn.

“You’ll tell me when there’s something to tell,” says Buck easily, sure, and is rewarded with a quick smile.

“I’ve been thinking Christmas miracles might be catching,” says Eddie. “Going to try to swing one for Chris.”

“He’ll be thrilled,” says Buck earnestly. “You’re a good dad.”

“I try,” says Eddie, gunning for wry, hitting sincere.

There’s this moment, surrounded by the scent of pine trees, where Buck feels, just for a second, like he’s in the woods and he’s smelt a predator. Where a prickle goes up his spine, and he almost wants to flex his claws. It startles him into laughter. He’s been in L.A. so long that a Christmas tree farm looks like a forest. He really is domesticating.

“You’re sure I’m not making a huge mistake?” Eddie asks at four in the morning one shift, as they dry off from the showers and head to the bunkroom. It was a grease fire, and it took longer than it should to get the smell of fries and burnt onion out of their hair.

“I don’t think believing the best in people, especially the people you love, is ever a mistake,” says Buck after a moment or two.

“Even if they leave?” asks Eddie.

It’s easier to face now, months out from the realization that Abby had always known she wasn’t coming back. Easier to deal with the full fallout of the heartbreak, the betrayal, the reality of it all.

“Even then,” Buck agrees. “I can’t control what other people will do. I can’t stop them from leaving, if that’s what they want to do. I’d still rather assume the best, and pick myself back up when I’m wrong. I know she left, before, but she came back.”

Eddie nods slowly. “I left first, you know,” he says, unable to ever let her take the full brunt of that particular charge.

“And you came back too,” agrees Buck. “And you’re not leaving again.”

Eddie nods again, thoughtfully.

“Also, everyone knows not to trust thoughts and decisions after like ten in the evening, and it’s nearly four thirty in the morning,” says Buck, all chipper and teasing.

“Very true,” laughs Eddie.

They’re climbing into bunks next to one another at this point.

“Will you shut up,” laments Chim, “Some of us actually want to grab five.”

“Shoulda borrowed Hen’s spare earplugs when she offered them,” rejoinders Eddie quickly. “Thanks, Buck,” he says in a lower tone, even as he pulls his blanket up.

“Any time,” Buck promises sleepily, as he he can feel himself starting to drift off.

He’s on his way to Maddie’s from a full day with Chris and Eddie, and he thinks he might tell her but he’s also thought that every time he's been home with her for at least the last three weeks, when he smells blood. It’s sharp and acrid, and there’s got to be a lot of it. It’s useful, on calls, being able to smell when someone’s bleeding, to hear the faint whistle of a perforated lung, the barely there creak of a cracked rib. Now, all of his senses flooded with the scent of blood, Buck reacts on instinct, running at full speed, faster than a human should, calling an ambulance already because every single second will count with that much blood.

There’s so much blood that it completely covers the scent of the victim, so it’s not until Buck realizes that he’s running straight for his sister’s place, that he understands what he’s really walking in on, not until he turns the corner, on the phone with dispatch, that he sees Chimney.

He looks dead, but Buck can hear his heart, pulse a little thready but there, still beating. If there wasn’t a woman on the other end of the line asking him to describe the injuries, Buck thinks he would be growling, scared and furious and upset. As it is, human instincts win out, and he’s describing the stab wounds even as he keeps pressure on them, at Chim's side in the blink of an eye. It’s while he’s waiting for the ambulance that he realizes that he can't hear a heartbeat inside the house, can’t smell anything over the stench of blood, and he wants to move, he wants to check on Maddie so badly that if it was any other person bleeding out under his hands he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from moving. Chimney’s pack, though. He’s Buck’s responsibility. More than that, he’s Buck’s friend, his brother. The second there are other paramedics on the scene, Buck is gone, disappearing into Maddie's empty house. In here, he can smell again. The stench of Maddie’s fear, devastation, and something else. The smug satisfaction of a man that Buck didn’t know he would recognize the scent of. Doug Kendall.

He’s panting heavily, his mouth too full of inhumane teeth, his whole body shaking with the effort it takes to remain even vaguely human.

He manages to get his phone out of his pocket without entirely shredding his jeans, and he’s making shaking little growls as he listens to the line ring and ring.

“What’s up, Buck?” asks Eddie cheerfully, and in the seconds it takes Buck to compose himself, he can hear Eddie’s sharp inhale.

“You said…There are rules,” Buck manages to growl out.

“Rules?” Eddie asks, but there’s a subvocal growl to it that wasn’t there before, like hearing Buck’s distress even through the phone is enough to put him on high alert.

“If someone takes a member of my pack, there are rules,” Buck bites out.

“Oh god,” says Eddie lowly, “What happened?”

“Chim’s hurt, Maddie’s gone,” says Buck, and it tears at his vocal chords to say it, because what is the fucking point of being like this if you can’t even use it to protect people.

“Another wolf?” asks Eddie, and there’s movement on the other end of the line, Buck can hear Christopher’s confusion, the sound of Eddie zipping something closed. He’s packing up. He’s coming here. It’s enough to ground Buck, just a little.

“No,” admits Buck, “Maddie’s ex. Eddie, I need to know, what are the rules? He’s human, what does that mean?”

“I’m on my way,” says Eddie, “I have to drop Chris off at Pepa’s but I’ll be there, okay?”

“Can’t go to the hospital with Chim,” says Buck, “I don’t think I can control it enough.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” assures Eddie, and there’s the sound of a car door slamming, an engine starting up. “I’ll call Hen, she can call Bobby. Buck, wait for me.” Buck stills, not even aware until he stops that he’d been pacing in circles, getting himself more and more wound up. He’s stopped still now, shaking with the effort not to transform, not to race and hunt and rend.

“Is Buck okay?” he can hear in the background, and in it he can hear the layers of concern in Chris’ voice. Normally, this would be enough to settle him, he’s pretty sure, but l instead he winds up even tighter, trying not to let his agitation be audible through the phone. Failing.

He’s already failed to protect one member of his pack. The sound of the ambulance peeling away, sirens blaring, is a brutal reminder that no, he’s failed to protect two members of his pack. If something were to happen to Chris as well? Eddie shouldn’t be coming, shouldn’t be leaving Chris unprotected, not on a night like tonight.

“Come on, Buck,” Eddie’s saying in his ear, quiet and sure, “You really think that I’m better in a fight than my abuela? You wanna tell her that she can’t protect Chris?”

In the background, Chris huffs a little laugh, despite all his confusion and stress.

Buck regains his senses just a little. It’s true. Isabel Diaz is the head of a pack of serious and highly respected pack. There’s nowhere safer in L.A. for Chris to be.

He hears the car door open, and the sweet little sound of Chris pressing a hurried kiss to his dad’s shoulder from the backseat before he scrambles to get out of the car. There’s Isabel’s voice, lilting and warm to Chris, then sure and steady as she must look at Eddie.

“Happy hunting,” she says firmly, just a hint of a growl in the words, and Buck wants to howl out wolfsong in response.

“I’ll call you,” promises Eddie, and then the door slams shut, and Buck can hear him tearing away. “Nearly there,” says Eddie, “Just wait, okay? Just wait.”

Buck forgets, inhales through his nose, forgets himself entirely. There’s so much fear in here. An acrid scent that cuts through everything else, that cuts Buck to the bone. This must be what her house in Hershey always smelt like. This must be how she used to live her life, day after day. Alone, and apart from Buck, and terrified out of her mind.

There’s blood in his mouth, and Buck can’t bring himself to regret it, but it’s the wrong taste. It should be his. Doug’s.

A screech of brakes.

“I’m here, Buck, where are you? I’m here," in his ears, and he can’t reply in words, but he lets a high, hurt whine out, and Eddie echoes it back to him, panting, running, closing the gap.

The sudden shift of light from the front door swinging open, and then there he is, Eddie, one hand on each of Buck’s shoulders, breathing with him.

“I’ve got you,” he’s saying, “Come on, Buck, we have to go.”

“To get Maddie?” Buck forces out, and if Eddie were anyone other than who he is, he wouldn’t be able to understand it through Buck’s teeth, his inhuman vocal chords, the shaking subvocal growls which he can’t help.

“To get Maddie,” agrees Eddie, “Come on, you need to be able to look normal enough to get to my truck, okay? That’s all.”

“Okay,” says Buck, clinging to his humanity by the skin of his teeth, by the tips of his claws. “Okay,” he says again, forcing the change on himself, as human as he can make himself.

“This is what he smells like?” asks Eddie, the anger back in his voice, “Maddie’s ex?"

“Doug,” spits Buck, “Her husband.”

The only scent of him in the house is a curling possessive thing. The hungry joy of a hunt completed, the smug pride of victory.

“I’m going to kill him,” says Buck, fiercely. “I’m going to tear him to fucking pieces, I don’t care what the rules are.”

“I’ll help,” promises Eddie without hesitation, “You can’t turn him, but you wouldn’t want to. If he’d taken Maddie without hurting her or Chim, there would be more rules, but you’re clear. She’s in your pack, and he’s already attempted to kill a member of your pack. We don’t have to worry about getting her back, right now we just have to get you to the car, okay?”

“Okay,” agrees Buck, full of a fierce joy. Doug spent years hurting Maddie, tormenting her, far past what Buck ever knew. He wants to pay that back in full. He might be a monster now, wanting to hurt and chase and rip like this might make him a monster, but if that means he can stalk and hunt Doug fucking Kendall? All the better.

In the car, Buck pulls on one of Eddie’s hoodies, pulls the hood low over his face. They keep his window down, and together they track the wisps of Doug and Maddie, her fear and distress strong enough to leak through whatever vehicle they took. They have to drive slowly, trying not to lose it, until they hit the freeways. It might not quite be guesswork, once they’re out of L.A., but it's lot fucking harder to keep a scent when it’s in a car, when the wind is whipping down the highway, when there’s the sound of engines and the stench of petrol trying to cut through everything. Eddie’s lost it, Buck’s pretty sure, but it’s Maddie. Buck could pick the faintest traces of Maddie out of any crowd, can follow the hint of her iron blood tang even across the intersections and freeways that comprise the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Eddie’s phone rings, and he closes Buck’s window all but a crack, to decrease the rushing sound of wind.

It’s Bobby on the other end of the line, and he sounds frantic. “Eddie,” he’s saying, “You need to come to the hospital, Chimney’s hurt, and Maddie and Buck are missing. Buck’s the one who called it in, but no one’s heard from him since, and no one knows what happened.”

“Bobby, I should have called,” says Eddie easily, one hand on the wheel, one grounding on Buck’s leg, the phone held between his ear and his shoulder. “I’ve got Buck, don’t worry.”

“You do?” Bobby asks, relieved, and then, quiet enough to be to himself, if he wasn’t on the phone to two werewolves, “Oh thank you, Lord, thank you.”

“He found Chimney and called it in, checked the house and realized what had happened. Is Athena with you? It’s Maddie’s ex-husband, Doug Kendall, he attacked Chimney and took Maddie."

“I’ll tell her,” says Bobby, and then a long pause. “So why are you with Buck? The two of you aren’t up to anything reckless, are you?”

Eddie smiles a true wolf's smile. “Nothing reckless, Cap, promise. Buck was pretty devastated when he found out, called me to come get him.” Eddie goes all sotto voce, “He's not doing so well, but I’ve got him. You think you can talk to Athena, get them to hold off on his police interview until tomorrow? He’s not in a state to be helpful right now, I don't think.” Buck thinks that only he can pick up on the undercurrent of sly in Eddie’s voice, the disingenuousness to his well meaning concern. He’s not wrong, per say.

“Of course,” says Bobby, all Midwestern generosity. “I'll talk to her. I’ll keep you updated on Chimney."

“We’d both be there for Chimney if we could,” says Eddie, more serious now, “But with Maddie missing…”

“I understand, I do,” says Bobby, kind to a fault, given they’re lying to him, given they’re hunting a human man to find him and kill him. “Tell Buck I’m sorry, and that Athena's on it, she’ll find Maddie.”

“I’ll tell him,” agrees Eddie.

“Look after him,” says Bobby quietly after a moment.

"I will,” promises Eddie, squeezing the hand on Buck’s leg just a little.

"Thank you,” says Bobby, then he hangs up.

Eddie lets Buck’s window down further, and Buck inhales deeply. They were still on this road, in this lane. They drive in silence for a minute, the air whipping in and out of the car the only sound.

“Thank you,” says Buck hoarsely.

“It’s what pack’s for,” says Eddie, not dismissive but straightforward. Like there’s nothing else to say about it. “I’ve got your back, remember?”

Buck leans his head against the window frame, hoping the wind will take away the scent of the tears prickling at his lids.

“I remember,” he says heavily. What’s the point of having a pack, he thinks, If Maddie is missing anyway? What’s the point of me, of being like this, if I can’t even help her?

“We’re getting her back,” says Eddie, sure and steady, like it might not already be too late.

Buck stays silent. The scent is getting stronger, and there’s turning for a gas station up ahead. Maybe he’s being hopeful, but maybe this is what it means to have heightened instincts. He nods at the turn off, and Eddie silently indicates.

A noise, over the roaring hum of cars down the freeway.

There's something in the wind. Maddie, yes, but blood too.

“Eddie,” he says, voice scraping out of him, “Do you smell that? We have to hurry.”

“I know,” says Eddie, speeding up exponentially. One of the perks of heightened reflexes and fast healing is being able to push well past the speed limit in moments like this.

They’re going so fast that they fishtail into the parking lot, and as they do, another car speeds out. There’s a moment, just a moment, where Buck’s torn. Is she in the car? Is she here? It’s hard to tell, the scent of blood is ever increasing, coppery and bright and utterly overwhelming.

He and Eddie tear themselves out of the car before they're even really stopped, and there’s a body on the floor, bleeding sluggishly.

It’s not Maddie, and that’s all that Buck can bring himself to care about in this moment.

“Come on,” says Eddie, already on his hands and knees over the body, and past the rush of adrenaline and his own heartbeat, Buck realizes that he can hear three heartbeats here.

“He’s still alive?” he asks, running over to Eddie, who’s putting pressure on a gunshot wound in his abdomen.

The wound smells of Maddie too. She must have been putting pressure on it too.

“He was gonna kill me,” the guy garbles, “You saved me. You saved me.”

“You’re going to be okay,” says Eddie, “What happened?” Then, over his shoulder, “Buck, call 911 for this guy.”

“Right,” says Buck, dialing on autopilot.

“Don’t give your name,” says Eddie, and Buck nods abruptly.

Dispatch picks up, and Buck relays the man’s condition on autopilot, focused instead on his conversation with Eddie.

“Real weird energy,” the guy is saying, “And she was so nice but her eyes? She was scared. You have to help her, man.”

“We will,” promises Eddie, “That’s why we’re here.”

“He was aiming at my head,” says the guy, and the fear in his voice tremors its way down Buck’s very bones. “She was helping me, and he wanted her to stop, I guess. If you guys hadn’t shown up…” He trails off, panting with pain and terror at the night sky.

“Was that them, in the car?” asks Buck, even though he knows, he’s known since he got out the car.

The guy nods.

Eddie’s hand is still on the wound, they’ve done what they can with no supplies, but he’ll die without that pressure, so they can’t just leave.

Buck growls, frustrated, a feral noise which makes the guy whimper and glance around, like he’s scared of a fucking coyote or something.

“Go,” bites out Eddie, and Buck can hear the reluctance in it. “I’ll catch up.”

“I can’t drive,” Buck admits, as much as he hates to. It’s an active effort to not let his hands consolidate into paws, to fight the change off in every waking second. There’s no way he's safe behind a wheel right now, and even if he’d survive a crash, that's not true for everyone else on the road.

“So run,” says Eddie, “I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Okay,” agrees Buck, already starting to run.

“Make sure you’re not on cameras!” warns Eddie, meters away already, and Buck waits until he’s out of range of the gas station’s security cameras to change, shifting between one foot and the next, landing on all fours, and tearing off.

In the distance, he can hear the faint whine of a siren, hopefully an ambulance coming to relieve Eddie.

Buck knows, logically, the wolves can run fast, but he’s never thought to ask Eddie if they’re faster. He thinks they must be, the world blurring around him, paws thudding on the dirt just to the side of the highway. Hidden from any speed cameras by the barrier, he hopes, the sharp scent of blood and fear and above all Maddie.

They’re faster than him, there’s no way around it, but he’s keeping pace as well as he can, and he’s not that much slower than them.

Into the whipping wind behind him, he hears “Buck, I’m coming” called out loudly from Eddie, and feels his teeth bare as he grins.

There’s a turn off, and Buck’s bracing to leap over the barrier, duck through cars and keep running, when he realizes that the scent has shifted. They’ve turned off too.

He turns, running along the road, and howls to Eddie, to let him know that the hunt is moving, and maybe a little bit to let Doug know too. He's closing in. Doug should know that. He should know that he’s not in control here, he’s not the predator. He’s the prey.

There’s only one car ahead on the road, and it’s slowing. As much as Buck wants to leap ahead, slam into the side, tear through metal and glass to get at Doug’s fucking throat, he slows down instead. He can’t risk attacking the car, because he can't, won’t, risk Maddie.

He follows the turn off slower, waits until the car turns off again. Some kind of holiday cabin retreat. It looks closed. A perfect hunting ground.

Buck can’t quite bring himself to turn around, but he waits until he’ll barely be in sight, and then hops into the middle of the road to sit and wait. Behind him, the rumble of Eddie’s engine gets louder, slowing as he pulls up beside Buck.

The passenger side door opens.

“Jump in,” says Eddie, and Buck pauses. “Come on,” he says, “We’ll coast near the end, but we’ll want the Jeep there for when Athena gets here. We both know she won’t be far behind. Unless you want to tell her that you ran?”

Buck jumps in the damn car.

They coast up, drifting to a stop at the reception cabin.

The scent of Maddie, of Doug, is thick in the air. Anger and fear and a roiling hatred permeating through the stress and sweat and blood.

Eddie folds his clothes up, shifting so easily and naturally that Buck doesn’t even really see it happening. He moves like a predator, and Buck falls into it as well, prowling forward. He’s not sure what to do when they get there, not sure he can bear for Maddie to see him as another monster, but he’s not letting Doug live. He knows that much.

They lope across the retreat together, easily following the trail to the cabin that holds Maddie and Doug. They’re talking inside, he’s setting a fire, maybe? The acrid smell of smoke. Definitely a fire then. He wants to leap in, can barely keep his growls subvocal, but he can't just burst in there, not until he can guarantee that won’t backfire on Maddie. He’s pacing, agonized, trying to figure out if there's a back entrance to the cabin, Eddie at his shoulder, pacing in step with him, his fur bristling with anger.

Inside, the heavy thwack of metal on flesh, and Buck bolts for the front door, terrified he’s too late after all this.

“Oh fuck,” exclaims Maddie, running through the door before Buck can get there, tearing away. The door swings open again, and it’s Doug, head bleeding, pulling a gun out. Before he can get a shot off, Buck growls.

Sure, he could pounce, end this in seconds, but Doug was about to hunt his fucking sister down, so what's a little payback, hmm?

Buck dodges as Doug empties the clip, thinking of Eddie’s reminder in the car that his blood will still read as his if it gets tested. He can’t really think much more beyond that, bloodlust and fury so high, fear so high. He’d really thought, for a moment earlier, he’d thought he was about to walk into the scene of his sister’s murder. Maybe he would have, if he wasn’t like this now.

He’s felt plenty of ways about it since he was turned, sad and scared of what he was. Devastated to become a monster. Had worked hard to accept that he wasn’t.

For the first time, Buck thinks both that he is a monster, and that he’s glad to be one. He barks once, sharp, loud, and Doug skitters back in fear. To the side, coming from behind the cabin, Eddie starts to growl too, low but loud. Doug throws the empty gun, and it bounces off Eddie. They both tilt their heads at him, almost mocking, and finally, finally, Doug tries to run.

It's a good chase.

They harry him away from the path Maddie had chosen, nipping at his heels, falling back, growling and taunting and vicious. Buck wants to just take him down, but if they're doing this, they have to be smart, he knows that. They hunt him to the woods, let him think he's lost them, for just a minute or two.

It shouldn’t surprise him that Doug’s first move, when he thinks he’s alone, is to start looking for Maddie. It's not a surprise, exactly, but it does make things easier. Doug’s a threat, and he’s always going to be a threat, and he’ll chase Maddie for the rest of both of their lives, even if it puts his own at risk. There was a part of him who had thought, when Eddie had told him that he’d be allowed to take out Doug under pack law, that he would get here and he wouldn't want to. Buck's spent his whole life trying to help people, trying not to be seen as a threat. Here and now, it's a relief to have permission, because for the first time in his life he wants to hurt someone, isn't sure he’d be able to hold himself back.

“Maddie,” calls Doug, “Maddie, you bitch, come here.”

Buck’s leapt before Doug even finishes the command, Eddie moving in unison with him.

The hot and salty rush of blood in his teeth, the ease with which his claws tear through flesh, a primal satisfaction that he wouldn't be able to put into words in human form.

It lasts forever, it's over in moments. A monster, vanquished. A monster, created.

Doug had a switchblade, not that it did him much good, the line of fire along Buck’s ribs already healing. Eddie’s nosing at him, pushing him away from the body that used to be Doug. Buck goes. Eddie gets them off the snow and onto the concrete before he shifts, just enough to talk, and Buck follows his lead.

“Maddie,” he says, “We have to find Maddie.”

“We will,” promises Eddie, “We will, but we have to change first, okay? When we find Maddie, when the others get here, we need to pretend we've just arrived, remember?”

“Right,” nods Buck, but he can't help but look back towards the woods behind them, body thrumming with the need to find Maddie, see her, prove she's safe.

“Faster we change, faster we can go back and find her,” says Eddie, and they both slip back into wolves to run to the car as fast as possible.

Eddie was right, of course, they’re nearly back at the edge of the woods, dressed and clean, when the sirens get close.

“I’ll head off Athena, explain that we just got here,” offers Eddie, and Buck nods, distractedly.

Ahead, in the woods, a heartbeat so fast and scared he almost doesn’t recognize it as his sister’s. Her breathing is ragged, but the stench of blood and fear has filled the air so much he can't immediately place where she is.

“Maddie?” he calls, “MADDIE?”

A hitch in breath, a twig cracking, the tremulous cry of “Evan?”

“Maddie! Where are you? Are you okay?” he calls back, spinning in a circle, and then there she is, launching herself at him.

“Evan!” she cries, even as he picks her up in a tight hug, “We have to go, we're not safe, we have to go!”

“Doug–” he starts to say, and she shakes her head.

“Doug’s dead, he’s… Evan, please,” she says, tugging at his hand, and he takes it, lets her pull him into a run.

She calms only when they’re out from the trees, and even then, only barely.

“Let me look at you,” says Buck, holding her head up so he can see for himself the cut on her forehead that’s still bleeding sluggishly.

“Not now,” says Maddie, “We're not safe. There’s, there's something here. Some creature, some kind of wild animal, it—” A deep shuddering breath. “It tore Doug to pieces,” she says, “I heard it, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, Buck, Evan, please, we’re not safe here.”

Buck follows her numbly. He hadn’t— It hadn’t— It was supposed to be a relief, Doug being gone. It was supposed to be proof that she was safe. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to make her even more scared.

“Buckleys!” exclaims Athena’s voice from up ahead, and she’s running towards them, gun in her hand, relief splayed across her face. Behind her and to the side is Eddie, watching Buck with knowing eyes. “Are you injured?” she asks, “Maddie, are you okay?”

“Barely,” says Maddie, “Athena, we need to leave, there’s some kind of wild animal here, it killed Doug, please, we need to go.”

Athena gives her an assessing look, and then, “Doug Kendall is dead?”

“Yes, I— His body is up in the woods, what's left of him, but—”

“Diaz, take Maddie back to the cars, check her over. I need to look over this body. Buckley, you stick with them.”

“But—” Maddie starts.

“Athena has a gun,” says Buck, “If that creature comes back she can shoot it.”

Eddie gives him a sharp look, but Athena nods approvingly.

“Back up’s just behind us, anyway, they’ll join me,” says Athena, “We can secure the scene. Because we’re the actual trained professionals here. Now, back to the cars with all of you, and Buckley, Diaz? Do not think this is over.”

Buck nods, unable to do much more, and loops one of his arms around Maddie’s waist so that he can offer her the extra support if she needs it, so he can feel how alive she is. It howls through him, a fierce rush of joy that has him brushing small tears away even as they head to the carpark, Eddie running through concussion protocol with Maddie just in case.

She can’t ever know, which he already knew, but it's different now, more personal. It’s not that he can’t tell her that he’s a werewolf because it makes him a monster, it’s that he personally has hurt her, has scared her. That’s what makes him a monster.

He killed a man, oh god he killed a man and he doesn’t even feel bad about it, not really, not because someone’s dead.

Eddie, like he can hear the spiral of Buck’s thoughts, elbows him lightly in the side.

“You take over on bandaging so that I can let Bobby and Hen know?” he says, and Buck nods absently. “Light concussion at most, no internal bleeding, some superficial cuts and bruising. She’s going to be okay.” Quieter, just for Buck, he adds, “We came at just the right time, okay? You saved her.”

They're back at the cars, somehow, Maddie perched on the lip of the trunk, Eddie’s first aid kit open beside her.

Maddie's shaking, very slightly, her eyes vacant, like she's stuck inside the memories of the last few hours.

“Hey,” says Buck gently, smoothing her hair off her face. “You’re safe now. I’m sorry I wasn’t there before, but I'm here now, and I’ve got you. You're safe.”

Maddie’s eyes fill with tears, and she offers him a shaky smile.

“I’m glad you weren't there,” she says, “I don’t want you to get hurt, not for me, not ever. I don't know what I would have done if Doug had you too.”

Buck dabs at the dried blood with an antiseptic wipe, and thinks, If I’d been there, he’d have died faster, and then tries not to think about how little he recognizes this side of himself.

“H—Howie was there,” says Maddie quietly, tears flooding down her face anew, “And he— Doug—”

Her voice breaks, and Buck sits down next to her, so that he can put an arm around her shoulder, hold her close again.

“We’ll get an update from Eddie,” he says, “But Chim’s a fighter. He survived rebar through the head, you think a little thing like this is going to slow him down?”

“Chimney’s alive?” Maddie asks, eyes wide and frantic, and Buck’s heart breaks all over again.

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, he’s in hospital, I— I found him, called an ambulance.” He doesn’t make a promise he can’t keep, but honestly, if Chim’s condition worsens then maybe he'll talk to Eddie about their options. He might not want to tell Maddie, not ever, but he can live with her hating him if it keeps the rest of their pack alive.

It’s a problem for later, much like Athena, striding towards them with fury in her gait, much like Eddie’s careful worried eyes. Right now, all Buck can focus on is his sister, so much larger than life usually, so small in this arms right now, shaking with sobs.

He’s beyond thankful to still be crashing on her couch in the recovery period, able to stay up, keep guard. Still, that means that he hears every night that Maddie wakes up, heart racing, from nightmares. He can never tell what she’s dreaming of. If it’s Doug, or if it's him.

It feels crazy to do have to do bureaucracy over what they did to Doug, but Eddie insists it’s good form to inform the wider packs of the city.

“You don’t want a reputation as a pack leader who doesn’t care about the community, you know?” says Eddie, who would actually know, so Buck goes along with whatever he says.

Mostly he seems to need another pack head to be a character witness for him, which Isabel is happy to do, and talk with a representative from some kind of council or delegation or something about the nature of the threat. Buck's not really sure what he’s expecting. A business-like Scandinavian woman in a glass and metal office maybe? Or sitting with a large wolf in a clearing in the woods? It’s neither of those. It’s sitting at her kitchen table with Isabel and Just-Call-Me-Monty, a tiny and very well dressed old black man in giant spectacles, trying his best to pretend that he can't hear Eddie pacing around the backyard.

He’s not entirely sure what it means that Eddie hunted with him, when they’re separate packs. He hadn’t thought to question it, and now he’s suddenly worried, but he can’t actually ask in case Eddie’s not mentioned it for a reason.

“Any word on the police investigation?” asks Monty at the end of their talk, which has been the kind of informal that’s punctuated with coffee and Isabel’s baked goods.

“Closed,” admits Buck, “They’ve assumed some coyotes had started to live in the holiday park during the off season. Didn’t bother to run tests, I guess?”

“It’s pretty common,” says Monty. “They all know there aren’t wolves in California, and it’s not like they assume werewolves!”

It’s a punchline, of sorts, and Buck makes sure to smile and laugh with Isabel, but there’s a sinking feeling in his gut. He’s getting away with it, which is good! But he’s getting away with it. You shouldn’t be able to get away with some things.

Later, when Eddie hears that it’s all squared away from Isabel and in the same breath sees Buck's uneasy smile, he all but drags Buck back to his house.

“What’s wrong?” asks Eddie, a frown furrowing his brow. “I thought it went well.”

“I don’t… Did it go too well?” asks Buck, helpless.

“Ah,” says Eddie, “I forget, sometimes, that you’re not born to this. You were more than justified, you know. He tried to kill a member of your pack, he took another, you knew he’d hurt Maddie before.”

“I know, okay, I know, I just. Are we that much better than him?”

Eddie huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “Buck, yes. Yes, we’re better than him, it's not even comparable. We did what we did to keep your pack safe and alive, he did it to, what, control people? Control Maddie? Feel powerful?”

He’s right, but. But Buck still doesn’t really regret it, doesn’t feel bad, and that in itself feels awful.

“Do you want to do it again? Do you want to pick a human off the street and hunt them down?” asks Eddie placidly, his sharp eyes bright and knowing before Buck even starts to shake his head in horrified protest.

“Of course not!” he says, “God, no.”

“So it’s not about power for you, it was about protection. Look, I know you weren’t raised to this, but it is different for us. A threat to the pack is a threat to us all. The ties that come with pack, the closeness, the community, they’re all in danger with a threat to the pack. No one’s built to be a lone wolf, you know?”

“I was a lone wolf for a while,” says Buck quietly, “And it was survivable.” I wouldn’t survive it now, he doesn't say.

“You did well, spending that long alone,” says Eddie. Buck can hear the sadness in it, the way it always permeates Eddie’s voice when he talks about Buck being bitten, Buck being alone. “But the longer you’re packless, the more danger you're in. It’s why biting someone and then abandoning them is so rare - it’s a sign that you're too far gone. Fully feral.”

“Right,” says Buck slowly.

“And once you’re feral, you’re more likely to expose the community,” says Eddie. “You lose your ability to think, to fear, to plan. You just act.”

“So a threat to the pack is a threat to us all,” Buck echoes, understanding better now. Some day, he’ll have to interrogate Eddie, try to figure out how close he was to gone when he hit L.A., how badly he needed a pack when he got to the 118. One thing at a time.

“Yeah, exactly. We were protecting the pack. We were protecting everyone.”

“I don’t know if I can feel good about it,” Buck says slowly. “I feel like a monster for being as glad as I am, and that feels awful.”

“Buck,” Eddie says, putting his hand on Buck's shoulder, a thumb rubbing gently along Buck’s collarbone, Eddie’s scent soothing in its closeness. “You don’t have to feel good about it, but there was only one monster in that wood, and we put him down, okay?”

“Okay,” says Buck. “Okay.”

“You never have to think about Doug Kendall ever again,” says Eddie, “We’re safe now, we’re all safe.”

Buck nods slowly. He still feels a little off, but there's something reassuring in Eddie not agreeing, not seeing him as a monster or a villain, not dismissing him out of hand either. Maybe, for the moment, being safe can be enough.

It feels weird to say that life returns to normal after they did what they did. Should there even be a normal after that? He has dreams, sometimes, of blood in his teeth and claws and fur, of the sickening rush of adrenaline, and then he wakes, and life is normal again.

There’s an incident at a bank, and between their heightened senses and increased strength, Buck and Eddie are able to get them all out of there with minimal drama. He hates to think how it would have gone down if they hadn’t ‘happened’ to discover the money hidden on their very own engine. Instead, it’s mostly resolved before they’ve even left the scene.

It’s good, healthy probably, to have a reminder that they can use these abilities for good. That they can stop this in its tracks before warrants get issued, or they get dragged in for interviews. Eddie just has to feign a little confusion about who the firefighter messing with their truck was loudly enough for the police to hear and search the vehicle. The engine often carries the scent of random civilians, the nature of driving through the city to help all sorts of people, but the equipment bags? Not so much.

With Hen fully recovered from her brush with scorpion venom, the whole event is quickly relegated simply to Chim talking through various heist scenarios with them all as they pull up at the station.

“I would prefer we weren’t called in, thank you Chimney,” says Bobby pointedly, undercut just a little by his fond smile.

“I’m not saying we do a heist,” says Chim, waving a hand exasperatedly. “I’m just saying that if we were going to do a heist, we’d do a better one than that!”

“I don’t know,” says Buck, “Apart from the allergy thing, I think this was a pretty solid plan.”

“Eddie literally saw them, Buck,” says Chimney flatly, while Eddie and Buck exchange a look. The thrill of a shared secret.

“Okay then,” says Hen, “What do you propose we heist?”

As Chimney starts listing options, Buck and Eddie fall into step with each other, already a familiar routine.

“It’s like we’re superheroes,” says Buck quietly, making Eddie huff a little laugh.

“Oh yeah?” he says, amused.

“We foiled a bank robbery, and no one will ever know!” replies Buck, “We can’t tell them how we did it, or we’ll reveal our secret identities.”

“And our superpowers,” agrees Eddie, playing along, only a little sarcastic. “Yeah, yeah, okay, Avengers Assemble…”

Buck elbows him in the ribs just a little. “Chris will get it,” he says, “He’ll be on my team with this.”

“How about you come around for dinner tonight, and you can pitch it to him?” offers Eddie easily, like Buck’s not always angling for an invite.

“Dinner with my favorite Diaz? And you? Sounds like a plan!” says Buck enthusiastically, getting an elbow to the ribs of his own from Eddie.

Buck’s not waking up with nightmares anymore, because Maddie’s not waking up with nightmares anymore. He should have known it was someone else’s turn.

It’s a regular shift, no natural disasters, no drama, no big crime busts. It should have been a normal shift. They get a call, a hit and run, doesn’t look good says Dispatch.

They’re chatting in the engine on the way to the call, because it doesn’t sound good, sure, but that’s an everyday Thursday for them. That’s the job.

There’s this moment, en route, where Buck has half a second to hear the sounds of the crash and think wow it really doesn’t sound good, and then Eddie’s heartbeat goes fucking haywire.

“Eddie?” he asks, panicking as he sees Eddie’s eyes, wide and wild, darting around the engine, his breathing suddenly ragged.

“What’s going on?” asks Hen from next to them, “Eddie, are you okay?”

“Bad feeling,” Eddie grits out, with a pained grimace, but his eyes are locked on Buck. His knuckles are white, and Buck knows he’s clawing back the change. He’s never seen Eddie struggle with it. Not ever.

“We’re just arriving on scene,” says Bobby, turning around from the front with a frown, “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie tightly. “Just need some fresh air, that’s all.”

Buck can’t figure it out, not until the engine doors open, and there, under the all-encompassing odor of blood, a scent that Eddie’s stopped washing off himself. A scent that is slowly but surely being woven into his house, into his clothes, into Chris.

Oh god, thinks Buck, sick to his stomach, Please, no. He might not know Shannon, but he knows her scent. He knows what Eddie’s said about her, knows Christopher’s excited stories from Christmas past, knows the shape of his smile in every photo with her.

He knows the scent of death, too.

They jump out of the engine together, Eddie clutching Buck’s arm, and there, across the road in bright yellow… Eddie’s claws bite into Buck’s arm, having gone straight through his turnouts. Buck can’t bring himself to be anything other than glad.

Hen and Chimney run to her, and they’re professional, but their shocked and horrified gasps carry easily to enhanced ears.

“Uh, Cap,” calls Hen, trying so hard to stay professional, a thready hint of fear in her voice, and Bobby strides over. Behind him, unable to do anything else, Eddie staggers closer, Buck holding him up.

“I can’t do it,” he’s muttering under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear, “I can’t do this, please, I don’t want to do this.”

“Breathe,” says Buck, just as quiet. “You have to hold on, okay, you have to hold on.”

“Buck,” says Eddie, and it comes out muffled through his teeth, fangs that must be crowding his mouth, and above all else, plaintive.

“I’ve got your back,” Buck promises, “I’ve got you.”

Eddie nods, and claws himself away from the change with visible effort, almost panting with the determination not to let himself shift. He staggers further forward, and falls to his knees, legs cut out beneath him, beside Shannon.

She starts to tear up the second she sees him, even as she smiles tremulously, as she checks he’s really there. “This is so embarrassing,” she says, giving Eddie a wry little look like somehow, even here, they’re in on a joke together.

Next to Buck, Bobby makes a horrible, gutted little sound.

Chim and Hen are trying to stabilize her, trying to do anything at all.

It’s too late, and it has been since before they got off the engine. If they weren’t who and what they are, maybe they wouldn’t know that. Maybe They’d still have the hope and energy that Hen and Chimney are putting in. The scent of death gets ever thicker.

“We should really intubate,” says Chimney, looking up at Bobby with worried eyes, while Eddie and Shannon murmur to each other.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Shannon is saying, and Eddie and fails to look anything other than heartbroken. She knows, Buck realizes, just from Eddie’s face, she already knows.

“We need to get her onto the ambulance,” says Hen, a gentle hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and he nods, stepping back so they can get her into the ambulance, his face so overwhelmingly bleak.

Buck follows, for wont of anything else to do.

“Buck,” says Bobby, reaching out to him, while Eddie climbs up into the ambulance with her.

Buck looks back at him.

“There’s nothing you can do,” says Bobby, haunted with fear and grief and loss.

“Not for Shannon,” Buck agrees dully, and climbs up into the ambulance behind Eddie. Hears Bobby take a breath, pause, exhale. Turn and walk away.

“You’ll tell Chris I’m not leaving because I want to?” Shannon is saying to Eddie, as he holds her hand in both of his, as Hen starts driving and Chimney hovers with the intubation tube. “You’ll tell him I love him, and I didn’t want to leave him again, and that I’m sorry?”

“I promise,” says Eddie, and he sounds entirely hollowed out. “I love you so much. Christopher loves you so much.”

Buck glances at the front of the ambulance, at Hen and Chim’s hushed conversation about much longer they can afford to let Shannon and Eddie talk.

“I could…” Buck offers obliquely. “I know there’s paperwork, but we could fill that in later, I could say I didn’t know any better.”

Eddie almost smiles, a grim little rictus.

“Shannon,” Eddie says, and the air around him smells bitter, like he knows the answer before he asks. “You don’t have to leave, if you don’t want to.”

Shannon frowns, confused for just a moment, before her eyes widen, and there’s a brief flash of animal fear. “I don’t want— No, Eddie, no, I don’t want it, you can’t—”

“Okay,” he says, soothes, immediately, “Okay. I promise, okay, I promise.”

“Good,” she says, subsiding again. “I love you,” she manages, and then Eddie has to step aside as Chimney tries to intubate her.

“Here,” says Buck, as quietly as he can, offering his hand to Eddie.

He expects the brief flash of claws, as they sink in, ache, heal. Instead he feels a tremulous human hand in his. Fingertips soft and human. The whine of flat heart rate monitor.

The funeral is clearly going to be a bigger affair than Buck was maybe expecting. From what Eddie had said, over the months, it was clear that Shannon had no living relatives. Beyond that, it was pretty clear that Eddie’s own family pretty actively and openly held no regard for Shannon either. To say he’s surprised when he shows up to Eddie’s place that evening, and Eddie steps onto the porch with him, closing the front door behind them, to warn him that there will be at least twenty other werewolves at the funeral is an understatement.

“Are you telling me because that means I shouldn’t come?” he asks, after a moment.

“No, man,” says Eddie, and then pauses.

“Eddie, if me being there will make your life harder,” starts Buck, “If you don’t want me to come—”

“I want you there,” says Eddie immediately. “Chris will want you there too. If anyone tries to start anything, Abuela will set them straight. It just. It’s a tense situation to put you in, I get that.”

“If you want me there I want to be there,” says Buck easily. Any other circumstance, yeah, he might balk at meeting a whole host of born werewolves, who will be able to tell if he’s doing werewolf stuff wrong, or whatever. Any other circumstance, he might be grilling Eddie for how to act when two packs meet more formally, or if there’s protocol he’s supposed to be following. Not here, not now. Here and now, Eddie needs someone to be on his side, easily and uncomplicatedly. “Now, how can I help?”

Eddie gives him a rueful little smile. “I don’t know, honestly. I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’ve never— I’ve never had to organize a funeral before.”

Buck clasps Eddie’s shoulder with a tight little smile of his own. “Well, I’ve done it pretty recently, so let’s go through what you’ve got so far. Maybe I can help.”

They step inside, and there on the sofa, Pepa crooning a little song to him as she strokes his fur, is Christopher, in wolf form and curled up as tight and small as he can be.

Immediately, Buck heads over, hesitating just a little at the sheer sight of him, how incredibly closed off he looks. Chris makes a plaintive little whine, and Buck stops second-guessing himself, scoops Chris up still in a little ball, and hugs him tight until he uncurls just a little.

“There we go,” says Pepa coaxingly, “Why don’t we get you some food, Christopher?”

Buck puts him back on the couch, and he shakily gets to all four legs, doesn’t change back, but jumps down from the couch and follows Pepa into the kitchen.

“Thank you,” says Eddie from behind him, voice a little shaky, and Buck goes over, stands pressed up against him, side to side, until the faint scent of saltwater is blinked away.

“Got your back,” Buck reminds him, and Eddie huffs a noise that’s almost a laugh. “Come on, I’m better at bureaucracy than you think.”

Isabel messages him the morning of to let him know that she’s told her pack that the humans in his own pack don’t know, and not to worry, if any of them even think of saying something they’ll have her to deal with. Admittedly, Buck hadn’t really been worried until she said that, but also. It’s Isabel. If there’s anyone in the world he can trust to keep a whole host of people in line, it’s got to be her.

The 118 show up together, each wearing their dress uniforms. Buck’s glad of it, it’s so much easier to enter the church with his pack with him. Eddie’s helped him get better at distinguishing when someone else is a werewolf, and even if he hadn’t, he’d have known something was up by how incredibly on edge he feels, like the fur on his hackles has raised, for all that he’s fully human right now.

“Evancito,” says Isabel, from just inside the entrance, “It is good to see you.” She pulls him close, drops a kiss on each cheek, and Buck can feel his own shoulders relaxing. “Thank you for coming,” she says, earnest, as she holds him by each shoulder.

“Nowhere else I’d want to be,” says Buck earnestly. “Here, let me introduce you to my sister, Maddie, and our coworkers, Chimney, Hen, her wife Karen, and our Captain, Bobby.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” says Isabel, “Eddie is up at the front with Christopher, I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you all.”

“She seems nice,” says Maddie in an undertone as they walk up the aisle towards Eddie and Chris.

“Isabel?” asks Buck, “Oh yeah, she’s the best.”

“Didn’t realize you knew his grandmother so well,” says Maddie thoughtfully.

Buck pauses, hyper aware that they have a much larger audience than Maddie could know. It can’t hurt to remind everyone here that he’s on good terms with the head of their pack.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “We met after she broke her leg, she cooks the best enchiladas I’ve ever had.” As they get closer to the front, and he sees how incredibly stiff looks up ahead, he adds, “She loves Eddie and Chris more than anything.” Up ahead, he sees Eddie soften just a little at the reminder.

“I’m glad,” says Maddie, “And it’s nice to see so many of his family flew out for this as well.”

“Yeah,” says Buck, tries to be as neutral as he can be. “They’re a close family, for all that they’re across multiple states.”

A beat of silence, and Buck thinks for a brief moment about the difference between the Diaz pack and his own. Between the fact that the Diazes might not have approved of Shannon in a variety of ways, but so many of them are here to show their love and support for Eddie and Chris despite that. Between the unshakeable fact that his own pack can only really rely on the people in this room, and Athena Grant, who was working today. The 118 has almost inadvertently collected people who don’t really have anywhere else to turn, who don’t have a strong support system. They’re a close knit group, and there’s a reason for that. Eddie’s part of that group, of course, has already become foundational to it, and yet. This is good, that there are all these people here to support him, but there’s a weird feeling in Buck’s chest, a sense that they’re encroaching, or maybe that he is. It’s not fair, to feel that way, not to him and not to Eddie, and he knows that, but he still has an itch in his chest he can’t really explain.

“Hey,” says Eddie, standing by the aisle at the front row of pews so that he can greet them. Buck sees him take in their dress blues, the misty smile that overtakes his face, the glance down at his own black suit. “I’m still a probie,” he says, just a little choked up.

“None of that,” says Hen, as she pulls him into a hug, “You’re one of us.”

As the others all greet Eddie and offer their condolences, Buck moves past him to a little boy sitting in the middle of the row. There’s something about suits that small, the formality of a child, that feels kind of devastating. Beside Christopher sits a young woman that Buck’s never seen before, her hand in Chris’.

“Hey Chris,” he says, squatting down to talk to him better. “I just wanted to say again that I’m sorry for your loss.”

Chris looks up at him, eyes wide and wet. Buck can see the tremor in him, the effort he’s putting into not changing, not howling at any given moment. He looks back down at his hand in the young woman’s, sees now how tight he’s holding on, it’s almost white and bloodless, his nails carefully hidden from view, no doubt to hide how sharp they are right now.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Buck assures him. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you, and I’m here if you need anything, okay?”

Chris nods tightly, and Buck sighs.

“Okay, little man, I’ll leave you to it.”

Immediately, Chris’ other hand reaches out, grasps Buck’s lapel quickly.

“You’re going?” he says, voice a little growlier than it should be, rough with the change but also with tears.

“Not going going,” says Buck, covering Chris’ little hand with his own. “We’ve got to find some seats, that’s all.”

“You can sit here,” says Chris, plaintively, and the woman next to him throws Buck a tight smile.

“Front row is for family only, Chris,” she says, “No offense,” she adds, glancing at Buck.

“None taken,” promises Buck, squeezing Chris’ hand in his own comfortingly, as he tries to gently detach him from his uniform.

“The 118 are a family,” says Chris.

“We are,” agrees Buck, “But that’s not I think what your…”

“Tía,” says the woman, “I’m his aunt, Adriana.”

“Eddie’s youngest sister,” says Buck with a nod, “I’m Buck.”

“The best friend,” agrees Adriana with a nod of her own. It makes Buck smile, just a little.

“Right. The 118 are a family, but that’s not what your tía Adriana means. I think she means your grandparents, and your bisabuela, and both your tías will want to sit here. Maybe even your dad.”

Chris doesn’t actually laugh, but he does huff out a breath, like for a moment he was amused enough to forget how sad he is, and that’s a win that Buck will happily take.

“We’ll be a few rows back, and we’ll see you after the ceremony, promise.”

Chris gives a heavy breath, then a solemn nod. “After,” he agrees, voice a little less rough than it sounded before.

Buck gives him the most formal salute he can manage, before getting to his feet properly. The 118 and Karen are filing their way into an empty series of pews a few rows back.

“Thanks, man,” says Eddie, clapping Buck on the shoulder, as he walks up to him. “We appreciate you all coming.”

“Shut up,” says Buck, voice openly full of affection and compassion. “We’re not doing this again.”

“Yeah, okay,” says Eddie. “Go take a pew, I’ll see you later.”

Buck pauses, more serious now Eddie’s not determined to thank him for doing what he wanted to do anyway. “If there’s anything you need, anything I can help with…”

“You’ve done more than enough, Buck, I can’t begin to—”

“Eddie,” he interrupts, tone serious, “I’m serious, anything I can help with, just say the word.”

Eddie looks at him, really looks, that uninterrupted eye contact he’s almost scarily good at. Whatever he’s looking for, he must see it, because he breathes deep and then says, “Yeah, okay. Thank you, Buck. I mean it. I’ll say.”

“Good,” says Buck, “Okay, I’m gonna go sit down. I’ll see you guys afterwards.”

As he approaches the pew with the 118 sitting in it, he can hear the susurrus of whispers around the room, and then clearer than any of the others by virtue of who’s talking, “So that’s him?”

“Yeah, Adriana,” says Eddie. “That’s him.”

“He seems sweet,” says Adriana.

“He can hear you,” says Eddie pointedly, and Buck has to stifle a little laugh.

“I’m not complaining,” he mutters, as he takes a seat between Maddie and Bobby.

“I’m sure,” says Eddie dryly, and in the same moment Bobby asks, “What was that?” so Buck has to focus up.

“Oh, nothing, just talking to myself,” says Buck airily. “How are you doing?”

Bobby looks like he’s aged years in the few days since the hit and run. Drawn and pale in a way that worries Buck, reminds him of just after the plane crash last year. He doesn’t smell alcohol on Bobby, thank god, but there is a sharp, acrid scent that he can’t quite place. Grief or desperation or loss. He can tell something is wrong, but not what, and it’s gnawing at him.

Bobby pauses for a long time, before he admits shakily, “I’ve been better.”

Before he can respond to that, the doors of the church swing closed, and everyone settles as the ceremony is about to begin. Buck settles for pressing up against Bobby’s side, an insistent line of warmth and comfort, until he feels Bobby relax into his side, just a little.

It was a beautiful ceremony. They’d gone with Isabel’s church, not least because she’s pretty involved in the community there, and it made it easy to organize. There’d been a moment, while planning, when Buck had asked Eddie if they’d been sure they didn’t want to find Shannon’s own church, and Eddie had given a haunted little laugh and admitted he didn’t even know if Shannon still believed. It’s a beautiful ceremony, but Buck can’t help but think about how overwhelmingly religious it is. How lost Eddie had looked. How little of Shannon was actually present here.

Shannon had lived alone, having inherited her mother’s apartment when she died. Eddie had the keys, but didn’t know the address. When the LAPD had gotten it for him, he’d gone around, and then later told Buck that he hadn’t really known what to do with any of it. How to find her coworkers, her friends. The other people who should be at the goddamn funeral.

The ceremony had been beautiful, but it had mostly been about Eddie and Chris. Maybe funerals are always about the people left alive, and not the person who died, Buck wouldn’t really know. For all that he helped planned Patricia’s funeral, he hadn’t been at the actual ceremony. He’d been helping organize the catering crew at the wake, and besides he’d had an unshakable sense that Abby didn’t really want him there. This is his first time actually attending a funeral, and maybe he’s biased because he didn’t know Shannon, but he can’t help but feel like no one here really did.

Eddie had read a poem or maybe some song lyrics, instead of a reading from the Bible, and Buck had recognized in it that moment of fear and sadness when they’d talked about her faith. The sense that even Eddie, her own husband, didn’t really know her the way he should. Not anymore.

Still. It’s all beautiful.

“So you’re the other packleader?” asks a young man somewhat confrontationally while they all mill about outside the church.

Thankfully, Maddie has left his side to join Chim in small talk with Hen and Karen. Bobby’s stayed inside, cited wanting to go to confession, or at least talk to the priest, but he’d join them outside soon.

“Excuse me?” asks Buck, after looking around to double check the others aren’t in easy reach.

“The packleader sniffing around Edmundo,” clarifies this guy, and it feels pejorative somehow.

Buck narrows his eyes, takes in the number of people, werewolves, who are watching them. This guy might have come over on his own, but he clearly isn’t alone in spirit or sentiment, he’s just who got elected to go over and talk to Buck. He has to keep himself from baring his teeth.

“I’m friends with Eddie, yes,” says Buck, working hard to keep a placid smile on his face.

“That’s it? Not trying to steal a Diaz for your pack?” He’s trying to posture, squaring his shoulders, jaw clenched tight. Unfortunately for him, Buck’s job means that he can spot vanity muscles over functional muscles from twenty paces by now.

“Rafael,” snaps Eddie, appearing out of nowhere, with a glower on his face, “Quit your barking.”

“Just looking out for you, primo,” says Rafael, a tight fake smile on his face.

“I can look out for myself, thanks,” drawls Eddie. “Hey Buck, come on, abuela wants to talk to you.”

Buck follows along, feeling various sets of eyes prickling the back of his neck.

“So I seem to have gained a reputation as a poacher,” says Buck dryly.

“Not with anyone who matters,” dismisses Eddie.

“I appreciate the save,” admits Buck, “Can’t really tell what’s instincts and what counts as, I don’t know, correct form.”

Eddie turns back to throw a faint smile over his shoulder. “Not a save, bud, abuela really does want to talk to you. Besides, it’s the truth, isn’t it? We’re friends. Doesn’t have to be deeper than that.”

“Agreed,” says Buck, catching up properly so he can bump against Eddie’s side. “I assume you’re off shift tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie, “Having the family over tomorrow, doing a big barbecue while everyone’s still in town.” He says it neutrally, careful not to sound loaded or to sigh, or to give any indication he feels any sort of way about it. From the things he’s said while they planned Shannon’s funeral, and from the slight glint of frustration in his eyes, Buck suspects it’s maybe a bigger cause for concern than he’s letting on.

“And you’re hosting?” Buck asks, and hopes the undertone is enough for Eddie to know that for all he’s teasing right now, he’ll be back up if needed.

“God no, Pepa’s hosting,” admits Eddie.

“Now that makes more sense,” says Buck lightly, and earns an elbow to his ribs as a result.

“Gonna go check on Chris,” says Eddie, as they walk up to Isabel, “We’ll see you later?”

“I’m hardly going to leave without saying goodbye,” says Buck, almost scolding.

Eddie nods, bumps up against Buck’s side again, and is gone.

“Isabel,” greets Buck.

“Buck,” she says, takes his arm with both of hers. “Walk with me?”

They meander a little around the church gardens, stopping by a large rose bush, then wandering over to an old tree. At first, Buck thought it was just so that he could be seen on her arm, reinforce to the pack, and Rafael, that he’s a friend, not a threat. Isabel seems almost restless, though.

“What’s wrong, Isabel?” he asks when he can’t hold it in any more.

“Ah,” she says, “I do not know if I should say.” She looks genuinely torn, almost wringing her hands.

“You have to know, if I can help, I want to,” promises Buck, earnest and true.

“Oh, that’s not— Okay. I’m not the one who needs help, Buck.” She sounds earnest but concerned, and Buck can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising, the fear of something new and terrible.

“What’s happened?” he asks, trying not to be too frantic with it. They made it through the rebar, through Doug. They’ll make it through Shannon too, given more time. Buck’s just not sure he can bear more things they have to survive through.

“I stayed in the church later than the rest of you,” says Isabel, “I wanted to thank Father Bolsanaro for his kind words, and such a beautiful ceremony. I had to wait a little while, because someone had asked him whether he would be willing to take confession early.”

“Bobby,” says Buck, feeling sick.

“Your captain, yes. Confession is sacred, Buck, and I would not wish to break its sanctity, but you should know about your own pack. He is not safe, right now. He is full of blame and guilt and loss, you can smell it on him. If I were not who I am, I would not have been able to hear his confession, and I do not—”

“It’s okay,” says Buck. “I already… I had wondered,” he says. This isn’t the time or place to talk about Marcie, it’s not even really the kind of talking about Shannon that should happen right now, they should focus on how she lived, not how she died. Still. It’s how she died that Buck’s been wondering about, when it comes to Bobby. His endless well of guilt, and the way he so clearly sees a younger version of himself in Eddie, and how that will only increase now, but for all the worst ways. “I’ll check in on him.” he promises. “Thank you, for looking out for him, for me.”

“Ay, Buck,” says Isabel, chucking him under the chin. “Like you don’t look out for my boys.”

“Still,” says Buck, “Thank you.”

She nods solemnly, and they both turn back to the front of the church. Standing in the door of the church, blinking in the sun, stand Bobby. He looks pale and drawn.

“I’ll see you later,” says Isabel, assuredly, and Buck nods, ducks his head respectfully at her, and heads towards Bobby.

It doesn’t take much for Bobby to finish reaching out for help. Buck and Hen wait with him for Athena to come and collect him. He hadn’t wanted to bother her, but luckily Hen knows Athena too well to let Bobby pretend that she would be anything other than glad that he’d reached out to them and to her.

While they wait, Chim calls to arrange for Bobby to take leave for a few weeks, teasing them all about what it will be like to be their acting captain.

It’s scary to see him like that, to be reminded of how fragile he’d looked this time last year, how much it had scared Buck to see that tiny little apartment, its four empty plates at the table. It’s better, this time. He’s not actually fallen off the wagon, he just wanted to. He’s struggling, but he’s asking for help sooner too. It’s scary, but it’s doable. Still, he’ll miss him on shifts the next few weeks. When Athena arrives to collect him, having clocked off early, Buck quietly suggests to her that maybe he could come by on his days offshift. She’s gratified, Buck’s pretty sure, how much he cares about Bobby, even if she doesn’t know its full extent.

The next day, Eddie texts him halfway through the afternoon.

We should have arranged a codeword.

why? u need rescuing?

I’m not a damsel in distress.

okay

are you maybe in distress despite not being a damsel?

is that what the codeword would be for?

I didn’t say that.

oh okay, it’s a good and cool and normal bbq and that’s why you need a codeword…

Buck.

i can come over for dinner tonight? if you order from that chinese place i can pick it up on the drive over?

Thank you.

It’s honestly kind of weird having Chim be their captain. He’s a little too quick to be mad with power, and it was funny at first, but now they’re all trying not to get actually annoyed with him.

It only gets worse once the bombings start. He’s clearly trying to lighten the mood, but it’s hard to want the mood lightened, given the circumstances. The callouts have been fake, springing from the sense of fear and paranoia that’s gripped all of Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune. The clench of panic at the realization that they’re being called out to an elementary school just sours into frustration and the lingering aftershocks of fear when they discover that it’s another false alarm.

It hits the point where Buck doesn’t want to believe the bomber is even still out there. He’s done his job, right? He’s sewn fear and dread into the hearts of everyone in the city, and every day now Buck is terrified that they’re going to be called to stampede caused by yet another false alarm.

Every day that nothing happens after all, they collectively take a breath of fresh air, let their guards lower just a little more.

At some point, you have to keep on living.

It’s one of the weeks that Ali’s in town, and despite Buck’s worries that she’ll find it boring, she insists on coming to the viewings with him that he’s got lined up. As much as he’d love to stay with Maddie forever, she’s been pretty obvious that she’d like to go back to having her own place.

Going to the viewings with Ali makes it all the more obvious to Buck that he’s never actually done this before. Never chosen a place all of his own, always just kind of fallen into whatever’s next.

It makes him feel weirdly grown up, like it’s a mark of something bigger, just by virtue of getting the actual choice. With Ali beside him, actually checking things like what compass direction it faces, or when the outlets were put in, it feels like maybe there’s more future there than he’s been giving it credit for. Maybe he’s really building something here.

He settles on a loft, lots of exposed brick and natural light, and a decent kitchen. Crucially, it has actually decent soundproofing. That first night, alone in his new place, feeling his own scent not yet sunken into the walls, is a surreal experience. A place of his own, something he chose, that he can keep, that he can be settled in. A place that can become home.

He won’t feel fully settled until Bobby’s back on shift, and his pack are back together, but it does feel like that same feeling he had a year before, that this could be something great, that he has a future here, but magnified tenfold. He’s got his own place, not merely his girlfriend’s. He’s got his pack, and that’s what they are, truly and legally. He’s got Maddie back, something he would never have been greedy enough to hope for a year ago, and with Doug gone he even knows that she’s safe. He’s met Eddie, and through him he’s gained a whole new understanding of who, of what, he is. He’s gained a community beyond even the 118. That’s hard to beat.

Hen tells them about the bomb that Harry nearly picked up, and maybe it should have put him on high alert, but instead Buck feels relieved. It’s a close miss, but a miss. Harry’s not exactly pack, but he’s not that far off. If Doug taught him anything, it should have been not to lower his guard.

Instead, he’s in the ladder truck, having jumped into the passenger seat, and Bobby is trying to contact them over the radio, and there’s a moment, a split second, where Buck thinks The engine doesn’t usually sound like that. A click, a swish, something out of place. A roar. The air, hot, hurting, glass shattering, skidding out of the window and hitting the tarmac hard, and then—

Pain. Overwhelming, excruciating pain. Pain unlike anything he’s ever felt before. So bad he can only gasp for air, can only scrabble at the ground, nails turning to claws, scratching deep like he can dig his way out.

“Buck,” a voice, quiet behind it all, “Buck? Buck! Buck!”

Buck pants, too much pain, can’t talk, can’t breath, can’t think.

“Buck, I’m coming but you have to keep it together,” the voice promises, “You can’t shift. You have to stay human.”

Footsteps, getting close, another voice, a threat this time, “You’re new.”

He can’t reply, he can’t do anything.

“Please, Buck,” the first voice begs. “You won’t be able to heal with it still on your leg, you have to keep it together.”

It takes everything left in Buck to try to slur out an affirmative, as he claws his way back to humanity.

Every cell in his body screams to switch, promises the sweet relief of healing, the bliss of being the wolf.

There’s no separate wolf, says the voice in his head, It’s all just you.

“I’m coming to you,” promises the other voice, his packmate, “I’ll be there as soon as I can be.

He can feel the wound on his forehead slowly closing up, the steady drip of blood slowing. It helps him focus more.

There’s something happening, shouting and talking, the scent of Bobby. Behind all of that, the constant steady murmur of Eddie, trying to soothe him, trying to keep him grounded. The pull to shift is lessening, because the pain is dissipating.

That might not be a good thing.

The sounds of a scuffle, and then, in mere moments, Eddie. Eddie grabs his hand, holds it tight, uncaring of the claws that must bite into his.

“You’re okay, you’re going to be okay,” he promises Buck, and Buck almost wants to laugh.

Hen and Chimney join them, immediately in full paramedic mode.

“Still with us, Buck?” asks Chimney, and he’s surrounded on all sides by pack now. It’s comforting, almost.

“Buck, how we doing"?” asks Hen, frantically unpacking things from her medbag.

“Kind of numb,” Buck manages, and it’s increasingly an understatement. It’s never a good sign when the patient stops feeling things, in his experience, and it’s scary to know that. For the first time in nearly two years, he almost wishes he wasn’t a firefighter. It feels worse, to know how bad it could be.

They start treating him, and once the lines are in, while they try to figure out how to lift the truck, Eddie leans in close, anguished.

“I could try,” he says, almost silent, “I could maybe lift it.”

“There are camera crews,” Buck replies, barely even breathing out.

“I don’t care,” snaps Eddie.

“Yes,” pants Buck, “You do. Threat to all, remember.”

Subvocal, a whine that only Buck can hear, keening and terrified.

Around them, Bobby and Chimney co-ordinate to lift the ladder truck off him. Buck tightens his hand around Eddie.

“Together,” says Eddie, “If I do it with them, all together.”

“Not believable,” pants Buck. “Stay with me.”

A long beat, while the others start counting down.

“I’ve got you,” promises Eddie, full volume now, “I’ve got you, Buck.” His grip on Buck’s hand tightens.

The numbness disappears as the truck moves, jostles, lands heavily back down on him again, and now Buck is screaming. Screaming and screaming and trying with everything in him not to let it turn into a howl.

Time blurs, melts, disappearing into the haze of pain. The ladder truck moves again, and the pain is like fire, racing through all his bones, licking at his skin, promising him that the shift will save, will free him from this bear trap.

Without Eddie’s hand in his hand, his scent in his nose, his voice in his ears, Buck wouldn’t be able to hold off. As it is, it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He nearly melts into it, unthinkingly, when the sweet relief of freedom hits, as he is pulled out from under the truck lifted off him.

“Hold on,” orders Eddie, still holding his hand tightly, as they put him onto a backboard, and Buck smiles loopily.

“Okay,” he says, the sudden rush of endorphins hitting hard, “Okay.”

They wheel him to the ambulance, and Eddie insists on going into the back with him, so Chimney gets behind the wheel. Hen is hooking him up to all sorts of machines, doing what she can to replenish his blood, while Eddie tries to stem the flow of the wound.

“You can’t shift,” Eddie mutters under his breath. “You’re right, too many people saw for you to be okay in the hospital.”

“The hospital,” Buck mutters. “How do I not?”

“What was that?” Hen asks, “Buckaroo, are you okay? Did you say something?”

“You trust me?” Eddie asks, one hand on Buck’s mangled calf, one on his necklace.

“Yeah,” Buck says, and then when Hen hovers, “M’okay.”

“ETA to the hospital?” Hen asks Chimney, and Buck can hear the fear in her voice, can smell its acrid scent all over the ambulance.

“This is going to hurt,” says Eddie quietly, “I’m sorry.” He takes something, Buck’s not sure what exactly, from around his neck, and there’s the faint click of something metallic, and then a sharp stinging pain all over his leg. “Powdered aconite,” says Eddie, “I’m sorry.” The sharp sting of a claw, thrust into the wound itself, the acid sting of the aconite following. “Should stop your body from wanting to shift to heal it, and should decrease the accelerated healing until after you’re out of surgery at the least.”

Buck wheezes in pain, trying and failing to nod.

“Oh god,” says Hen, “Chim how long?”

“Thirty seconds more,” says Chimney, the ambulance rapidly careening around and then to an abrupt halt.

“You’re going to be okay,” says Eddie fiercely, a promise more than anything else.

The doors swing open, bright light and noise following, and between that and the pain, Buck finally finally passes out.