Chapter Text
Buck staring sightlessly up at the bunk room ceiling waiting for sleep to come was an exercise in futility.
Coming back to the Station after a gruelling five hours at a multiple vehicular pile up just south of Verdugo Viejo, Bobby had sent them to get cleaned up before they’d chowed down on the chili Bobby and Buck had put in the slow cooker to simmer overnight. Hen and Chimney had slumped together on the kitchen island, finishing incident and paramedic reports, Eddie had started snoring quietly into his phone with an empty text chat simply labelled Christopher, and Buck had blearily tried to help Serrano with last week’s newspaper crossword puzzle.
It hadn’t helped any; Serrano had misspelled excitement as ecitnent - which hadn’t even been the right answer, Sousa had muttered - and that had been when Bobby, elbow deep in the sink to keep himself awake, had thrown in the towel and ordered them into the bunk room, bleary eyed and squinting against the dim light as he’d followed his own advice.
They were just past midnight through a twenty four hour shift, Buck’s third consecutive one before he and Tommy had a full five days PTO between them to escape, leaving the sunny and catastrophic suburbs of Los Angeles behind to visit Vista in San Diego. Planned extensively with an excel sheet and a polycarbonate clipboard that Tommy had dug out from the depths of Staples and gifted it to Buck at the last cookout at Bobby’s, those five days were the only thing keeping Buck going right now.
It was nominally to go and visit the Botanical Gardens and the Moonlight Amphitheater, two places that they’d both wanted to see individually, but Buck had left enough wiggle room in the itinerary for extra activities and so had been thinking of adding the Antique Gas and Steam Engine museum to it, mostly because he’d heard that they’d recently come into ownership of a mostly intact and fully working steam fire engine from the nineteen twenties. Other than that, they’d planned to - more or less - play tourists, relaxing in the sun and bouncing from restaurant to attraction to their hotel bedroom.
Despite the excitement of his and Tommy’s first couples staycation, exhaustion weighs his steps and keeps his eyes burning and gritty. Despite a boiling hot shower that had let Buck more lobster than Firefighter and having relaxed muscles Buck hadn’t even known where sore, sleep is more elusive than ever.
His digital watch blares zero one fifteen in glaring red numbers up at him. Buck has been lying here for more than an hour with only a vague headache pounding to life behind his eyes and a list of aviation facts from a half hearted research for Christopher to show for it.
Eddie was sprawled out on the bunk a few feet over; he’d succumbed back to sleep pretty quickly when Buck had frogmarched him into the bunk room, Sousa tripping over his feet and directing them. He’d done so literally mid sentence about Christopher having muttered something about a school report on aviation and its mark on history on the weekly video chats that Eddie tried to enforce and Eddie had asked Buck to ask Tommy, as if Eddie wasn’t Tommy’s friend too. Buck had been thirty minutes into a deep dep dive of aviation facts that he peripherally knew from exposure with Tommy and the rest of his friends and coworkers at the 217; Captain Melton had directed Buck to the small library of aviation books and research papers kept in their Van Nuys HQ and Tommy kept complaining about Buck stealing his coworkers and how Buck better not get his pilot’s license otherwise Tommy was in danger of losing his job, too.
He keeps a perpetually open Notes tab on his phone for things like this; he likes lists. Alphabetizes them, notes down the facts he wants - even things Tommy says he offhandedly likes - and what he ends up deep diving into. Half the time, they tended to just just around with no clear correlation despite the fact that Buck knows he’d made a connection somewhere.
The amount of times Tommy had ended up sprawled asleep between his legs with the only light being Buck’s phone as he researched and scratched at Tommy’s scruff and curls only to accidentally wake Tommy up when Buck fell asleep and dropped his phone on Tommy’s crown was innumerable.
When the ceiling starts to swim in front of Buck’s eyes and his phone starts to beep beep from low battery, Buck gives it up.
He swings himself up from his bunk, wincing as his boots thud a little too loudly. Eddie’s soft whistling snores almost drown out Hen’s steady breathing, and the way Chimney mutters something about purple unicorns and Jee-Yun. He grins as he shrugs on his LAFD hoodie; Buck had been the one to win a four foot tall sparkly pink and purple unicorn when he and Tommy had gone to the arcade. There’s a photo strip on his fridge at the loft, Buck half in Tommy’s lap as he makes the unicorn kiss Tommy on the cheek as Buck kisses the other.
Santiago gives a soft snore as Buck edges open the door, the dim shaft of golden light thankfully missing the man’s face. Sousa snorts and almost rolls of his bunk. Serrano tilts her head and waves at him as Buck slips out, socked foot tilting Sousa back into his bunk.
The apparatus floor is as silent as the bunk rooms, ladder trucks and triple engines looming eerily in the dimmed golden glow instead of the usual florescence as they dwarf the smaller RA’s. It had taken Buck a while to get used to the almost haunted houseness of the Fire House at night when he’d first been a probie; his travels around the US and his youth had had Buck staying up all night most of the time, strobe lights and drinks hazing his memories until they felt more like dreams, surrounded by too loud music and ever shifting people. Peru had been a sunlit dream of ease and belonging, he thinks that if he’d not found Connor and followed him to LA, Peru would’ve been where Buck could have eventually found his life, put down those roots that had been so aching for water and room to grow.
Los Angeles had been everything and nothing like what Buck had first expected, despite his love for Peru, he’d followed Connor and hadn’t looked back since. Firefighting might have been based off a dream of comradery that he’d only really found in training for the SEAL’s and a hope that this could be something he was good at, but now he wonders how he never thought of it before. Between everything, the fear and the loss and the gut wrenching grief of everything, LA had given him friends, a family, had given him purpose. Had given him Maddie back, had given him a brother, had given him Eddie and Christopher.
LA had given him Tommy.
The dimmed lights of the mezzanine blind Buck briefly as he rounds the top of the stairs. Much like the apparatus floor, the mezzanine kitchen is deserted; remains of a few late night meals of the left over garlic bread and the soaking slow cooker ceramic pot in the sink let Buck know someone had been up and about. A half empty glass of water lets him know it was probably Sousa - an amazing engine driver but with the utter inability to finish drinks and the even more exasperating inability to wash that glass up.
Buck plugs his phone into the charger, lighting it up briefly so Buck can see the lock screen photo.
It’s him and Tommy, both of them shirtless and showing the hairy pelt of his partner’s chest, damp with sweat and sunscreen. Tommy’s wearing the smile that always makes Buck more than a little weak at the knees; eyes and cheeks crinkled up with the width and size of it, dimpled and and chin cleft prominent as he holds Buck in a bridal carry, the sun blinding but nothing compared to how Tommy looks at Buck, as if he never wants to look away again.
As he’s watching, his phone lights up and a preview of a text message pops into view.
[0124] Tommy <3: Just finishing up in Condor Peak and should be heading back soon. Hope you’ve had a good shift, baby, stay safe!
Fondness tucks itself into every crevice of Buck’s being, helpless against the wash of love as he stares at the easy given love and affection that Tommy affords him. Buck doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this, not even with Abby. Being with Tommy is as easy as breathing, like something has slotted into place and the world has suddenly shifted on its axis and showed Buck that this is how love should be. Effortless, equal, but with a level of work to keep that trust and communication working. Buck had never thought he could have this, that he didn’t deserve something like this, and Dr Copeland had had a lot to say about that.
He pulls down the text that had so enraptured him and replies;
[0126] Me: Hope everything went well, big guy! See you soon, and stay safe <3
He purposefully clicks the screen off, knowing that Tommy was probably refueling and going through preflight checks and so wouldn’t be able to answer.
Shucking the arms of his hoodie up to his elbows, Buck starts on the left over dishes. It was the sort of mindless work that Buck tried to avoid when he was tired but unable to sleep; mindless when his mind needed something to concentrate and fixate on lest he wanted it to drift to things he didn’t want it to. Now though, it gets him thinking of Tommy.
Dr. Copeland and he have been talking more often than before, almost twice a week for the last few months. After having mandatory sessions post lightning strike, in a turn of events it had been Buck who’d requested the extra therapy sessions. When his and Tommy’s first few dates had ended up in a little bit of a disaster and with Buck having more than a few small breakdowns over how stupid he felt about not knowing something so apparently vital to his identity and many - so many - research binges that had him blurting out fact and stories to everyone who stood still long enough to listen, Buck had been sat down by well meaning friends and asked if he knew he was spiraling. He hadn’t, not really, not consciously.
It’s only when he looks down that Buck realizes he’s been washing the same plate for a few minutes. He clenches his eyes shut for a moment, before placing the dish on the draining board and reaching for something else.
Dr. Copeland and he had started discussing Buck’s habits in relationships, even when he’d unmeaningly trapped Taylor in the relationship by moving her in after making a mistake. Buck hadn't meant to, but that didn’t erase the fact he had. The sessions had been hard, still were honestly, but Buck couldn’t deny that they were worth it. Dr. Copeland’s virtual office had seen more than a few crying sessions and sobbing as Buck had been forced to come to terms with the fact that he thought himself undeserving of love unless he was useful and that a lot of his validation came externally because he’d never been given the proper tools to give it to himself when he was a child. It had put a lot of things in perspective, and Buck had ended up spending a lot of time dissecting a lot of his reactions, especially in regards to feeling ignored; the lawsuit had been put into a more different light and Buck had spent a long night sobbing into Tommy’s comforting and handsome chest for comfort.
There’s a soft tread of footsteps from the mezzanine staircase and Buck places the last dish on the draining board, discarding the damp gloves.
“Didn’t know you were returning to the one-eighteen, Tommy.”
Buck laughed, turning around. Bobby smiles at him as he flicks on the kettle, sleep drawn face thrown into shadows. His hair is rumpled on one side, with pillow lines stretching across his cheek.
Buck looks down at his hoodie as Bobby grabs two mugs from the cupboard; it’s LAFD issued, in the usual navy blue with the departmental insignia inscribed on the right breast. It’s only when he looks beneath the printed shield that he sees LAFD AIR OPS in tiny white lettering. Buck laughs helplessly. No wonder it had felt looser in the waist and tighter in the shoulders, even as the arms fell almost to his finger tips. Buck’s department issued hoodies were well fitted, enough give in the torso that he could move and shift comfortably, looking good but practical. It’s only as he pays proper attention that he realizes Tommy’s hoodie falls a little looser and lower than Buck’s own. It feels a little like a hug.
“Hadn’t even realized, Cap,” Buck laughs quietly in the deserted kitchen. “Couldn’t sleep?”
He turns to Bobby, murmuring a quiet thank you as he takes his usual mug - a pale pink with sparkly writing proclaiming you are deer to me! around a prancing deer that Maddie and Chimney had given him with love from Jee-Yun for his birthday - and cradles it in his palm.
Bobby sighs, settling across from him against the kitchen island.
“Just couldn’t get back to sleep.” Bobby says. He blows on the steam curling up from his own mug - a tattered Bruce Springsteen printed on the sides from his and Bobby’s concert - and Buck does the same, hunching over his own drink. Bobby peers at him from over the rim.
“What about you, kid?” Bobby asks, and there’s a sort of knowing glean in his eyes. “You’re usually sacked out by now, especially with your shift pattern this week.”
Buck can’t deny the fondness that wells up in his chest. He and Bobby have had their ups and downs, and for a long time Buck had thought they’d both destroyed the growing relationship between them in the wake of the lawsuit. Bobby had been all but screaming at him that he was worried and had gone about it the wrong way, and Buck had fallen back onto old coping mechanisms of needing to be useful to be loved, thinking he had to fight for the right to be loved. Both of them had done damage, and it had stained their relationship, both in and out of work, for a long while after the lawsuit and it had taken time for them to be both on an even keel with one another. It had taken a little longer for Buck to feel as if Bobby trusted him, and for Bobby to actually trust him and there was still a part of Buck that often slipped into that headspace, that perhaps Bobby didn’t trust him to know his skills and his limitations and when he was able to push.
Therapy, Buck decides, was fucking wild.
Very useful, but wild. If someone had told the Buck of yesteryears past that he’d be in a somewhat emotionally healthy place and regularly went to therapy and liked having healthy communication with his boyfriend and friends, Buck probably would have needed a mandatory psych hold.
“I’m excited,” He admits, swallowing another gulp of coffee. It burns briefly at the back of his throat. “Tommy and I are heading to Vista the day after we finish our last shifts, and it’s- it’s gonna be nice just being able to switch off and be with one another for a few days, y’know?”
“How are things going with you and Tommy? It’s coming up to almost a year, isn’t it?”
Buck has to swallow the immediate and instinctive eleven months and fourteen days that bubbles up happily. Perhaps Bobby can sense the helpless love that Buck is hopeless to push back, because Bobby only smiles at him, shadowed but no less happy for him.
“Almost a year,” Buck says casually. He’s never been less casual, honestly. There’s a tone of excitement that he can never hide when he talks about Tommy. He deliberately avoids looking at the massive Kinard Fund mason jar that Chimney rattles at him every time he mentions Tommy, or lights up when Tommy gets in contact. “I’ve-I’m-”
Buck gestures, a little helpless in his utter fondness. Coffee almost slops over the rim.
“I’m glad,” Bobby tells him. He drains the rest of his mug, and nudges Buck out of the way with a soft elbow to the side. Buck leans against the side of the dish drainer. Bobby rinses his mug, and turns so he’s resting a hip against the counter in front of the sink, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I’ve never seen you so settled, so sure of yourself, Buck.”
Buck flushes, he can feel it around his throat, creeping up to his jaw and cheeks. His ears burn.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad that you’ve managed to find someone that makes you feel like that, especially with everything that’s happened in the last few years,” Bobby says. In the dim light of the kitchen, there’s a look of what Buck can’t help but label love on his face. “Are you happy?”
Buck can’t choke the words out through the tight knot in his throat. He clutches at his slowly cooling mug, takes a swig just to try and collect his thoughts.
“Yeah,” Buck says after a moment. “Yeah, I’m so happy with him, Bobby, I really am.”
Then;
“I - I think I love him, Bobby,” He admits softly. It’s the first time he’s actually said it out loud; allowed a physical manifestation or label to be put onto his emotions, the way he feels about Tommy, the breathlessness, the sheer happiness. “No, no, I know I love him, I just haven’t told him, y’know? Pr-pretty sure he loves me too but fuck, I dunno if I’d be able to say it if- if he doesn’t say it back. I’ve-I’ve never felt like this, Bobby, and I dunno what to do with myself some days I just love him so fucking much.”
A hand beneath the base of his mug takes it gently from him, putting it in the sink. Another hand resting heavily on his shoulder, thumb resting against his right collarbone, and Buck can’t help but lean into it.
“I’m so proud of you, son,” Bobby says, his free hand clasping the back of Buck’s nape, squeezing gently. “You’ve grown into an amazing man right before my eyes, and I’ve never been prouder than to know that amazing man.”
“Jeez, Bobby,” Buck laughs wetly, rubbing an eye with his wrist. His right hand grasps Bobby’s right wrist, feeling the tendons of it as Bobby’s thumb presses into below his clavicle. “Tryin’ to make me cry?”
Bobby laughs softly, shakes Buck lightly by his shoulder.
“All that therapy gets you in touch with your emotions, kid.” Bobby smiles. He squeezes Buck’s shoulder and nape before pulling back.
“Don’t I fuckin’ know.” Buck scrubs hastily at his eyes.
Bobby gives him the respect of turning away, allowing Buck to pull himself together without an audience.
In the silence of the mezzanine kitchen, Buck and Bobby slip on to the tall breakfast bar chairs, sitting across from one another. Over Bobby’s shoulder, Buck can see the silhouette of the ladder truck, can trace the ambulance siren boxes in the silvery moonlight and dim fluorescents. On the counter, Buck’s phone lights up briefly, flashing that photo of him and Tommy before it falls to blackness again.
For a moment, he and Bobby sit in silence, with Bobby staring down at his clasped hands. Then;
“You gonna tell him?”
“Thought about when we go to Vista,” Buck says, pressing his hands against the chilled counter top before tucking them into Tommy’s hoodie sleeves. His nail snags on a loose thread that he carefully unspools. “I just-”
“You love him so much you never know how to put it into words?”
“Yeah.”
Buck looks up from where he’s been tying that loose thread into a bow, and bites back a grin when he sees how Bobby fiddles with his temporary silicon wedding ring, turning it over and over on his finger.
“When Athena and I decided to give it a proper go,” Bobby says slowly, as if carefully picking every word. Buck leans forward, bracing his elbows on the edge of the breakfast bar. “I never thought I’d deserve a love like Marcy and I had. We weren’t perfect, far from it, but. But Marcy was my wife and my best friend for years, and when I lost her and the kids, I felt like something had been….carved out of me.”
Buck sits, enraptured. He and Bobby are close, Buck knows, and they’ve talked about a lot of things that blurs the line between captain and subordinate and even friends outside of work and family, but there has always been a fragile wall between them - between everyone bar Athena really - about Bobby’s dead family. That Bobby is talking about Marcy, Bobby Jr and Brooke now, to Buck…
“It’s taken me a while to realize that I do deserve a love like that again, but that it can never be exactly like what Marcy and I had. Marcy and Athena are two different people, and to compare them to one another does them both a massive disservice. When Athena and I decided to do this properly, I told her that I thought my love was-was broken, unworthy. I’d killed Marcy and Bobby Jr and Brooke after all, ah ah, let me finish, kiddo-”
Bobby holds up a hand when Buck makes an enraged noise in the back of his throat, mouth opening to argue. Buck sinks back into his seat, mutinous.
“She said that none of us were born unworthy or undeserving of love, that our actions and choices made and shaped us. Yes, I’d made a mistake but I was paying my penance and was trying to even my score; it wasn’t like before, when we first met, Buck, where I was just a, a shell of a man, just trying to save as many as I killed and then intending to kill myself. I’m trying to become the man my children will be proud of, that my wife will be proud of, both Marcy and Athena.”
Bobby stares down at his wedding ring, smoothing a thumb across the expanse of it. On finishing shift, Bobby will take the deliberate time to replace it with a thin silver band.
“Telling Athena that I loved her? I was so nervous I sat in my car for nearly twenty minutes before going into her house. I wanted to tell her so badly, but I would always get caught up in my head, in my insecurity and the man I used to be that I was trying to repair. But when I did tell her, Buck?”
Bobby laughs, scrubbing a hand down his face, fisting his hands beneath his chin. His eyes are crinkled into a smile in the kitchen’s gloom.
Buck watches him, heart a knot in his throat, the corner of the breakfast bar cutting into his chest. He traces the name AVIATOR KINARD inscribed in printed letters beneath LAFD AIR OPS, and wonders what Tommy would say if Buck said he could see more than just a relationship with Tommy, that he saw a future, with rings and a shared surname and home. Wonders what Tommy would say when Buck says “I love you, I think you’re the other half of my heart”, if he’d say it back.
“Athena wasn’t who I thought I was going to spend my life with,” Bobby tells him, and though there’s a wealth of unmoored grief in his voice, beneath there’s a note of utmost pride and joy that almost overshadows it. “But she’s who I chose. I told her I loved her and it was like I’d been waiting from the very first moment I saw her to say it. We have our problems, just as any other couples do, but she’s my wife and I’m her husband. We choose each other every day that we love each other.”
Buck bites his bottom lip until almost blood, feels the way his eyes burn, spools the loose thread into a bow around his ring finger, a cheap fantasy of what he truly wants. Bobby has opened his heart to Buck in a shadowed mezzanine kitchen at work, breaking himself in twain to try and give Buck the courage to do it himself to his own heart.
“What-what if he, what if Tommy doesn’t-?”
Bobby leans forward, presses a hand over Bucks. His body-warm silicon ring is a siren call against the back of Buck’s left hand. He thinks, briefly, of Tommy’s large hands; calloused and work roughened, with his short nails he clips in the bathroom when Buck brushes his teeth at the sink, how the veins pop when he holds Buck’s own hand, wonders what they would look like with a ring around his left ring finger, silver or gold and battered with age and love and domesticity.
“Then he isn’t the person for you,” Bobby tells him frankly. Buck stares at the table top. “You tell him goodbye, you nurse a broken heart with support from friends and family and you find a way to carry on. But-”
Bobby ducks his head, forcing Buck to make eye contact. Bobby reaches both hands across the breakfast bar now, squeezes Buck’s wrists gently.
“That man, Buck? He’s head over heels for you, kid, I’ve never seen Tommy so happy, and I’ve never seen you as happy as I have since you and he got together. He looks at you as if he needs you to breathe; he loves you, Buck, maybe you just need to love yourself a little more to see that.”
Buck takes a moment to breathe, eyes burning, chest feeling a little like it’s caving in on itself.
“You sound like Dr. Copeland.” Buck jests tearily, smiling through his scratchy throat.
Bobby laughs, leaning back. Buck feels a little bereft after losing the grounding touch.
“She’s a smart woman, Buck, you should listen to her.”
“I’ll tell her you said that,” Buck tells him. “She’s gonna be insufferable about it, too.”
Buck scrubs his hands over his face, through his curls, then curses when he gets caught in them.
Bobby just shakes his head, standing away from the kitchen table. The clock on the oven says zero three zero five in blaring red when they both glance at it.
“Try and get some more sleep, huh, kid?” Bobby says, hand clasped on Buck’s shoulder to give him a shake. “Hopefully get another hour or so before-”
Bobby doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before the klaxons whine to life, shattering the silence of the Fire House.
“Before that.” Bobby laughs.
Buck only shakes his head, shouldering his hoodie off as he reaches for his phone.
Over the shrieking klaxons and the sudden clattering of life as almost a dozen boots hit the apparatus floor as Buck and Bobby jog down the mezzanine stairs, the tannoy speakers click to life with a familiar voice.
“Attention Station One-Eighteen. Ladder One-Eighteen. RA One-Eighteen. Suspected heart attack victim stuck in a house at six-two-six S Kenneth Road, Burbank, nine-one-five-zero-one. Attention Station One-Eighteen. Ladder One-Eighteen. RA-”
The familiar voice of Dispatch fades into the shrieks of the ladder truck and Ambulance sirens, casting strange shadows across the night-dark streets of West Glendale.