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Buck Buckley cannot possibly be real.
Eddie is standing in Buck’s apartment – Buck’s invisible girlfriend’s apartment, technically – and has just been handed the perfect solution to his worst troubles. Because Buck just happened to have a friend who has the skillset to help Eddie sort through Chris’s care and getting him into a better, more specialized school, who has an opening in her own schedule and might be able to be his solution, and if she can’t, she’s assured him she’ll find it. Because Buck listens to the things his friends say, and thinks about those things while he’s alone, and tries to find ways to help the people he cares about, when he can.
And Buck is just standing there, as Carla leaves, with an easy, self-satisfied smile, like he hasn’t just personally handed Eddie the keys to his entire life in LA actually being sustainable. Like it’s nothing! Like it’s just a casual, easy thing that anybody would do for one of their friends and not one of the most thoughtful things anyone’s ever done for Eddie in his entire fucking life.
Because here’s the thing: if Eddie hadn’t been able to find a path to sustainable childcare, this whole dream of firefighting and being in LA and escaping his parents would’ve fallen apart. And if he’d gone back to El Paso, it would’ve been to shame and I-told-you-sos and renewed attempts to take his baby away from him entirely.
And then Buck learned Eddie had a problem, knew he had a solution, and just… connected them. Without any expectation at all that Eddie would repay him or even notice how groundbreaking, amazing, wonderful a thing had just been handed to him.
Buck is the kind of guy who loves his friends deeply and wholeheartedly. Eddie has learned that very, very quickly. He doesn’t hold anything back.
Eddie finds it almost overwhelming, being centered in the blinding spotlight that is Buck’s attention.
All of which is to say, can you really blame Eddie for what he does next?
He’s standing there, in the middle of the kitchen, staring at a man who has rapidly become the best friend that he’s ever had, who has just presented him with the solution to his biggest problem, who continues to look at him with an easy smile that Eddie is increasingly aware that he’d do pretty much anything to earn. What’s he supposed to do, if not kiss Buck about it?
So he does, quick and soft and deeply affectionate. It’s easy and familiar, the kind of kiss you give a partner you’ve been with for years, a casually intimate thank you.
His brain kicks back on a moment later, and he steps back. That’s… not the relationship he has with Buck.
He thinks, all of a sudden, that he wants that kind of relationship with Buck. Wants to be someone that Buck takes care of, wants to be the person to take care of Buck in return. Wants to keep getting to know him, to learn him to the bone, to weave their lives together.
That might require some further investigation, once his best friend isn’t staring, wide-eyed, at him from two feet away.
“I – sorry,” Eddie says. “I shouldn’t have done that, that was rude.”
“Rude?” Buck echoes, seeming startled.
“I should’ve at least asked,” says Eddie. “I mean – I probably shouldn’t have done it at all, but –“
“Who says you shouldn’t have done it?” Buck cuts in quickly.
Eddie blinks once – twice. “Your – your girlfriend. My wife.”
Buck takes a half step closer, swaying into Eddie’s space. “I’m prepared to admit that Abby’s probably already moved on. And when’s the last time you heard from Shannon, exactly?”
Buck knows exactly when, from the same conversation where he learned her name. The whole thing spilled out of Eddie just the other day,
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Eddie says, but he’s leaning closer, too. “It was an accident, just – automatic.”
“Wanna do it on purpose?” Buck says, his voice low.
“Are you even into men?” Eddie asks. He’s never so much as considered it, never met anyone that made him trip over that imaginary line and wonder what if? But he’s wondering now.
“I think I’m reevaluating why I was so worked up over you joining the team,” says Buck.
“Oh, yeah?” says Eddie.
“Yeah, I mean – among other reasons, you’re hot, Ed,” says Buck. “And I didn’t know what to do with it, and all of a sudden I’m pulling your pigtails like a ten-year-old with parents who haven’t told him that’s a shitty way to get someone’s attention.”
Eddie laughs. “Strong opinions against pigtail pulling from a guy who’s just admitted he was doing it.”
“Maddie raised me right,” Buck says, grinning. “Well – she did her best.”
“Alright,” says Eddie. “What does that mean for us? For now?”
“What does – Eddie!” Buck says, “Eddie. Kiss me again, and we can go from there.”
And what’s Eddie to do, if not kiss Buck again?
This is the easy part, kissing Buck in a kitchen that’s not actually his, letting his hands roam a little and letting himself enjoy it. Because yeah, they’ve kind of blown right past it, but this probably warrants at least a little bit of introspection on both of their parts before they get in too deep.
Buck has rapidly fallen into place in Eddie’s life as probably his best friend in LA, with today as an entry in his spirited case for best friend, period. That’s not something that Eddie wants to risk by rushing into something that neither of them have thought through fully. And Eddie is, technically, still married, never mind the fact that he hasn’t heard from Shannon even once since she left; that’s something he’ll have to reckon with. Not just the being married, but the fact that somewhere in the last three years, he moved on without noticing.
It's not that he doesn’t care for Shannon anymore. She was one of his best, dearest friends once, and the first love of his life. But at the same time, she’s been gone for – a while. For so much of their son’s life. And with that distance, Eddie can let himself recognize that their relationship had been falling apart basically since the day they got married. The relationship being a disaster wasn’t the same as falling out of love with her, but it probably contributed.
Anyway.
Tonight doesn’t go any further than curious, exploratory kissing, although they do make it to the couch instead of standing in the middle of the kitchen the whole time. But when Eddie and Buck part ways, it’s with a quiet agreement that this is something they want to keep exploring, a relationship they want to pursue.
They also agree that if, after some time to settle into it, either one of them decides it’s not the right fit, they won’t have any hard feelings. They’re friends, best friends, and neither of them is willing to risk that, but this is new ground for both of them, and there’s a real chance it’s not going to be quite right.
Eddie doesn’t think, lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling when he gets home, that that’ll be the case for him. He’s never thought about guys before, but he’s finding that he’s enjoying thinking about one particular guy now, now that he’s let himself cross that line in his head. Now that the door is open.
Buck had just one request of Eddie, once they’d stopped to talk about it more seriously toward the end of the night: if they’re doing this, they’re going to do it for real. Buck spent years chasing intimacy through hookups and fast-fading friendships, and now that he’s had a taste of a “real” relationship, he doesn’t want to slide back into that habit. Eddie wasn’t about to fight him on that; he isn’t looking for something fleeting out of all this, either. He’s just starting to feel settled in LA, and Buck is already deeply enmeshed in his life, and Eddie’s not about to go disrupting that willy-nilly.
All of which is to say that they’ve got a date scheduled for Thursday night.
Eddie is nervous, but in a fluttery, excited way that he hasn’t felt in a long time. He thinks that this could be really, really good.
And if it doesn’t work out, he trusts that he’ll still have Buck on the other side.
(But he thinks it might just work out.)
--
Things are going really, really well with Eddie so far, in Buck’s personal opinion. They’ve decided to take things slowly; so far they’ve been on two honest-to-God dates and neither of them have ended with someone in the ER, which means they’re by default two of the best dates Buck’s ever been on. But in all seriousness, it’s been easy to fall into something romantic with Eddie.
They clicked so fast as friends, but that could very well not have translated as easily as it has into dating. Buck feels very, very lucky that it’s going so well. They haven’t told anyone about it yet, waiting to settle into it a bit more before either of them is willing to come out. Because that’s what telling their friends that they’re dating would be, coming out.
Buck’s never considered himself anything but straight before now, but he’s also never had a reason to think too hard about it. He’d known he was into girls young enough, and girls were into him, and exploring anything further would have been complicated. It’s not complicated with Eddie, though.
He keeps waiting for Eddie to get tired of him, to want a break. They work together, like, a million hours a week, and then they hang out in their free time with and without Christopher, aka the coolest kid on the planet, and now they’re also going on dates. Like, on top of all the time they already spent together.
But every time he starts to hint that it would be okay if Eddie wanted a break from him, Eddie shoots him this look that Buck can only interpret as offended he’s even asking.
“You’re my best friend and my boyfriend,” Eddie says one evening, reaching over to thread their fingers together. He’s looking at Buck steadily, holding his gaze like he’s trying to stare Buck into listening. “You’re funny and kind and smart, and my son thinks you’re the coolest person in the entire world. Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?”
“Boyfriend?” Buck echoes, the rest of what Eddie said washing over him a bit less distinctly.
Eddie laughs softly. He squeezes the hand he’s holding. “Yeah, Buck. You’re the one who said we needed to do this for real. Isn’t that – I mean, that’s what you meant, right? What you wanted?”
“Eddie,” says Buck. “Of course that’s what I wanted, I just – it’s not exactly been – you’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Eddie says. “More sure of you than of me, some days, to be honest.”
“I’m sure of you,” Buck says.
“Great,” says Eddie. “I knew you had my back.”
Oh.
“And you’ve got mine,” says Buck.
Eddie grins. He squeezes Buck’s hand again before letting go and leaning back, stretching out across his side of the couch. “Always.”
So things are going well.
Buck has Eddie’s permission to tell Maddie whenever he’s ready. Obviously Buck could come out to her without telling her about the relationship, or about Eddie, but it would be an incomplete story and he knows she’d have questions. Eddie has assured Buck that he trusts his judgment, trusts Maddie, but Buck is still taking his time about it. He wants to talk to her about it, he just… doesn’t quite know how.
It's like, he’s well into his twenties, right? Shouldn’t he have figured out before now that men are an option? He spent high school being a very vocal ally, even though that was not really a cool thing to be at the time, and he spent his young adulthood sleeping his way across the country. Surely one of those things would’ve led to him looking at guys at some point, right?
So he’s a little embarrassed to have not figured it out until now, and he’s a little frustrated that he’s embarrassed because understanding yourself is a journey that doesn’t end and he does, in fact, know that.
It took him days to even stop to consider what word he wants to apply to himself; he’s been very focused on figuring out his attraction to Eddie, specifically, and it took a while to wonder what that attraction to Eddie, specifically, meant for Buck, generally. He thinks he’s settling into bisexual, maybe, but he’s not feeling too stressed about ironing out the details.
Anyway.
All of this thinking he’s doing on his own, except when he’s pacing Eddie’s living room and rambling to him out loud, but that’s basically the same thing. It’s nice to talk it through with Eddie, too, because while their experiences have been different, they’re still going through the same late-twenties journey of self discovery.
Before Buck has found a way to approach coming out to his big sister, but after he and Eddie have fallen into bed for the first time, the 118 responds to a helicopter crash.
The crash, itself, is somehow not the most interesting part of the story, though. That honor goes to Taylor Kelly, the traffic reporter who’d been in the helicopter, convincing her station to let her do a feature on their team as a bid for more airtime.
She also makes a bid for Buck’s phone number, several times, her intentions more and more clear with each ask. And the thing is, she’s hot. She’s very much to Buck’s taste, if he were still looking to just hook up with people and feel kind of shitty about himself when he’s done.
But that’s not what Buck wants anymore. He’s not wandering anymore, not constantly reaching for anything to make himself feel grounded and human. And he’s got a boyfriend! All of which means that he’s flattered by Taylor’s advances, but not actually interested.
Taylor seems to find this mildly annoying. Buck gets the feeling she doesn’t usually have to work very hard to get guys’ attention.
In the middle of the shift she’s following, the whole team gets dosed with mystery drugs via delicious pastry.
(The whole team except for Chimney, who was late upstairs and did not get any. He was pissed off at the time, but it’s probably for the best that one of them still had their head on straight.)
The whole thing is honestly kind of fuzzy for Buck. His most specific impression is of a room full of tiny, fully made up pageant ladies. They’re definitely grown ups, with that much makeup and all the hair, but for some reason they’re tiny.
Bobby has a much less fun time of the whole thing than Buck and Eddie and Hen, unfortunately, and worse yet the camera crew captures all of it. Buck hears through the grapevine that Taylor tries to get that footage aired, too.
If he’d had any interest in her before – he didn’t – he certainly wouldn’t after hearing that.
Chimney invites Buck out for drinks a few days later. He seems to think that Buck obviously and repeatedly turning Taylor down is a cry for help, like not being interested in hookups means something is wrong, and not that he’s finally accepted that they’re bad for him. Not that he might’ve found a real relationship that’s working.
Chim doesn’t know about that yet, obviously, but it’s the principle.
Only then, for some reason, Chimney has also invited Maddie out to Buck’s mandatory consolation drinks. Which sparks a conversation that reveals to Buck that the two of them seem to be dating completely obliviously. Both of them insist they’re just friends, but the more they talk the more clear it is that they’re spending most of their free time together, that they go out to eat regularly and order in together just as often.
“If I’d known I was going to be third-wheeling tonight, I’d have invited my boyfriend and called it a double date,” Buck says eventually, feeling frustrated. “As it is, I really don’t feel like sitting here and listening to you two giggle over your inside jokes, so –“
“Boyfriend?” Maddie says.
Buck freezes. “That’s not the point.”
“I think it is now,” says Maddie.
“Nope,” says Buck. “I’m bisexual, I’m seeing someone, this conversation is still about you being in denial.”
“Evan,” Maddie says, blinking glassy eyes at him. God, he hasn’t gotten that look in a while, he’d almost forgotten what it was like.
“This isn’t how I meant to come out,” Buck admits.
“Evan,” Maddie says again.
“Oh, look, they’re calling you up for your not at all romantic karaoke duet,” Buck says. He’s not even lying. “I’m gonna get another drink and maybe go home.”
He texts Eddie under the table, checking that he’s still willing to swing over and pick him up. He gets an immediate yes, I’ll be there in 20 in reply.
“We’re not done talking about this,” says Maddie.
“Aren’t we?” says Buck.
“Hey,” Chim says as he stands, pausing next to Buck and putting a hand on his shoulder, “I’m proud of you.”
“Go sing,” Buck says. He can’t handle being emotional about this right now.
Chim nods, and pulls Maddie away with him.
He stands, too, and heads for the bar to order another drink. He’s been letting himself order cocktails more lately, after a phase where he was really only drinking beer because the guys he’d been rooming with when he moved to California thought the drinks he preferred were girly. He doesn’t live with them anymore, and also he’s decided that that opinion is bullshit, and even if it were true, what’s wrong with that, really?
He's got nothing against beer, enjoys it even, but the variety has been nice.
The bartender slides him a beer.
“I haven’t ordered yet,” Buck says.
The bartender nods down the bar. “It’s from her.”
When Buck turns to look, he finds he’s not really surprised to find Taylor Kelly watching him.
“Right,” says Buck. “Alright, fine.”
He takes the beer and moves down a few seats toward her.
“Thanks,” he says, because that’s polite.
“You’re welcome,” she replies. “I took a guess; you seem like a beer guy.”
Buck doesn’t know what that means and he doesn’t know how he feels about it. He doesn’t ask.
“Sure,” Buck says instead. “Why, though?”
“You’re interesting,” says Taylor. She’s watching him, her expression intense. He has yet to see her not look kind of intense though, he supposes. “I don’t often get turned down by straight, single men.”
“Well, I’m neither, so,” says Buck. He checks his phone. It’s only been five minutes since Eddie’s text.
“Really?” says Taylor. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for gay.”
“I’m bisexual, just taken,” Buck says. It’s easier to say to someone who doesn’t matter.
“Very interesting,” says Taylor.
“Not really,” Buck says.
“I don’t suppose your partner would be willing to share?”
Buck tilts his head back, regretting every decision that brought him to this bar tonight. “No, he would not.”
Taylor taps perfectly manicured nails on the bar top. “Well, it was worth a shot.”
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” says Buck.
“It’s a good quality in a reporter,” says Taylor.
“I’m sure it is,” Buck replies. He takes a drink from his mostly untouched beer, then sets it back on the bar. “Well, this has been fun,” it hasn’t, “but I’ve got to go.”
“Thought you were with the lovebirds, there,” Taylor says, nodding toward Chim and Maddie, in their own little world on the karaoke stage.
“My boyfriend’s picking me up,” says Buck. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah,” says Taylor. “See you around.”
Buck waits outside in the cool evening air the ten minutes until Eddie’s familiar, beat-up truck pulls up.
--
Carla found Chris a great school, a private one that’s much better equipped to meet his needs than the public school he’s been attending. It honestly seems too good to be true, when Eddie tours it. Carla is with him, of course, asking all the questions he’s too frazzled to remember on his own.
They’re winding the tour down when their guide, someone from admissions, says, “We’d like to have an interview with Christopher’s mother as well, before we formally accept him. We like to have a clear picture of the whole family.”
“Christopher’s mother and I are separated; she hasn’t seen him in three years,” Eddie says. He’s surprised by how steady his voice sounds. “I can reach out, if it’s a dealbreaker, but I was under the impression that nontraditional families were welcome here.”
“Oh!” the tour guide says, going greyish pale. She flips through the papers on her clipboard. “I am so, so sorry. Someone must have misread – I see that there’s a note on your application that you don’t have a current address for her, somehow that ended up on my notes as her living at your address. Of course, of course, we don’t need to speak with her if she’s not an active part of Christopher’s life.”
“Good,” says Eddie. “Thank you.”
“And I am so sorry for the scare,” she says. “Trust me when I say that there will be a team meeting about this. I don’t want us scaring away prospective parents over entirely avoidable errors.”
“I appreciate it,” Eddie says.
The school seems like a great fit for Chris, it would have been really disappointing to have it fall apart because Eddie and Shannon aren’t speaking.
But the whole thing does get Eddie thinking that he’s probably due to reach out to Shannon again. He’d sent her a text when they moved and never heard back, but there’s something else that’s been on his mind lately.
He should maybe call, for this, but he can’t quite work up the nerve. The text he ends up with, unassuming under last year’s Hey, Christopher and I are moving to LA soon and we’d love to see you, is blunt. He thinks after three years of silence, he deserves to be direct about it.
TO: SHANNON YOUNG
I want a divorce and a real custody agreement. After that you can go back to ignoring me.
Four days later, he hears from his wife for the first time since the day she left.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie,” Shannon says by way of greeting, when he picks up the phone. “After all this time?”
“You came up in conversation when I was getting Chris enrolled at his new school, and I figured it was time,” Eddie says.
“Time for us to be done,” says Shannon.
“We’ve been done, Shan,” says Eddie.
“And I suppose you want full custody?” she asks.
Eddie sighs. “Not if you’re willing to commit to being in his life. Christopher misses you. He still asks about you. I don’t know what to tell him.”
“I miss him, too,” Shannon says softly.
“Then let’s figure this out,” says Eddie.
“I don’t know how to be a mom anymore,” says Shannon. “I’m not sure I ever did.”
“I’ve learned the important part is showing up,” Eddie says. “The rest of it you figure out as you go.”
“I’m not going to lie, I never thought you’d be the one asking for a divorce,” Shannon says. “I thought, if we ever reconnected, we’d try to rekindle something and probably crash and burn just as badly as the first time, but we’d both be too stubborn to give in.”
“I think this is better for us, in the long run,” Eddie says with a soft laugh.
“Oh, definitely,” Shannon says, laughing too.
“And I – I met someone,” says Eddie. “Someone I think that I could definitely fall in love with. And both of you deserve better than me trying to navigate that still married.”
“Oh, Eddie,” Shannon says, soft again, “really?”
It’s not really the sarcastic, impatient way she used to say it when she was pissed off with him. It’s really like honestly, like truly, like I’d love that for you.
“Yeah, really,” Eddie says honestly. “I really loved you, you know? But I think it was always going to go to shit between us. We didn’t want to get married, we didn’t know how to be what each other needed, and we were both always going to be mad about it.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong,” says Shannon, “but like I said, I’m a little surprised you’re the one bringing it up. This girl you’re seeing must be something really special.”
Eddie takes a breath. “Yeah, he really is.”
There’s a pause.
“Oh,” Shannon says again. “Well, I suppose that would do it.”
Eddie can’t help but laugh. “I don’t have a – a word yet. But I did love you. And I think I could love him, too.”
“I’m happy for you, Eddie, I really am,” says Shannon. “I hope this thing with him is better than we were.”
“I think it’s going to be,” says Eddie.
“So,” Shannon says, adopting an overly casual tone, “about that divorce.”
In the end, it’s the easiest conversation they’ve had in years.
They meet in person a few days later, to start working out the details before they get lawyers involved and to start discussing how to start bringing Shannon back into Christopher’s life.
They decide, to give themselves time to figure out how to be friends again and to start in on the formal divorce process and also because it would be really, really special, that Shannon is going to surprise Christopher for Christmas. That gives them a few weeks to start settling into their new normal, and for Shannon to meet Buck so she can start to know who Eddie has brought into their son’s life.
Christopher still doesn’t know that Eddie and Buck are dating – the first step toward that should probably, actually, be telling him that Eddie and Shannon won’t be getting back together even though she’s going to be around again – but he knows Buck as Eddie’s best friend and as the guy who answers all of his questions. Chris thinks Buck is one of the coolest people in the world, actually, and Eddie really can’t disagree.
Buck comes along for the annual Santa visit. Even if they weren’t dating, Eddie probably would’ve invited him along; he hates taking Chris to see Santa alone, and he and Shannon decided to wait a little longer before she walks back into Chris’s life. Plus, Buck’s been kind of down ever since his sister said she’s not really up for Christmas this year, and it’s easy, automatic to pull him close and bring him along.
Chris insists that he can go talk to Santa on his own, so Eddie and Buck perch on the edge of a fountain nearby where they can watch from a distance. Their knees are pressed together, their fingers keep brushing, and Buck is teasing him for being “afraid” of Santa. It’s easy, and it’s fun, and Eddie can see his whole future spilling out in front of him.
When Chris is done, Eddie scoops him up and heads toward the stand selling hot chocolate that Buck spotted on their way in. He’s a few steps ahead of Buck, but only a few, so he hears when the elf who’d walked Chris out says –
“You two have an adorable son.”
And that Buck’s response is an easy, “Thanks,” before bounding over to catch up with the Diazes.
And he sees it again, the whole potential future he has here with Buck. Buck, who his kid already adores. Buck, who he’s already well on his way to in love with, no turning back. He sees Christmases and birthdays and trips to the zoo, family vacations and parties and cookouts where Eddie gets to hold Buck’s hand in front of all their friends. Where they get teased for being so embarrassingly in love. He sees Shannon and Buck becoming friends, teaming up against him in the way only a partner and an ex can, sees the three of them working as a team as they watch Christopher grow up. Maybe there will be some yet-faceless partner of Shannon’s in the mix, too, someday.
It's everything Eddie has ever wanted, could ever want, he realizes.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Buck says, leaning in to his space and speaking softly.
Eddie shakes his head. “I’ll tell you later.”
“All good, though?” says Buck.
“Definitely,” says Eddie. He bumps their shoulders together as they walk. “Never better.”
--
After Christmas – and, more importantly, after the reintroduction of Shannon Young Diaz into Christopher’s life and the serious conversation about Eddie and Shannon’s divorce that followed – Buck and Eddie don’t exactly come out publicly with their relationship, but they do stop keeping it a secret. They only people they tell directly are Bobby, in the interest of verifying that they’re allowed to date within the station, and Maddie, who Buck felt like he owed a more direct conversation than anyone else.
(Christopher, they’re waiting a little longer to tell. He’s still settling into the idea of Eddie and Shannon not getting back together, even though she’s back in his life, and none of them wanted to overwhelm him with also introducing the idea of Eddie dating someone else. Buck thinks he’s starting to notice the way that Eddie and Buck are drawn together like magnets, though, so maybe the time is coming soon. Not that that’s his call to make; he knows Eddie and Shannon have discussed it a lot and he’s prepared to roll with whenever they think the time is right.)
All of which is to say that Buck has been having a pretty great start to 2019.
And then Chimney gets stabbed and Maddie gets kidnapped and Buck gets a little bit arrested. Not actually arrested, he didn’t do anything precisely illegal, but lightly detained.
Eddie kisses him in front of other people – other people they know – for the first time, that day. Buck is about to leave with Athena, to try to track down Maddie and Doug, with Eddie’s assurance that he’ll stay here with Chim and keep him in the loop. Eddie catches him by one arm and pulls him close, pressing a firm kiss to his lips and only pulling back a fraction afterward.
“I know you want to bring Maddie home safe,” Eddie says seriously, his eyes locked on Buck’s, “but I need you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid to do it.”
The most honest answer that Buck can offer Eddie is, “C’mon, you know Athena won’t let me.”
Eddie sighs. “Right.”
“Sorry,” says Buck.
“No, don’t be sorry,” Eddie says. “I’d rather you be honest. Go bring Maddie home.”
“I’m gonna try,” says Buck.
Eddie kisses him again.
“Bring her home, babe,” says Eddie.
And Buck does.
It’s really fucking hard, it’s scary, it’s terrifying, but he brings her home. In the end, Doug is dead and Maddie is battered but breathing, and Buck is either going to sleep for a week or never sleep again.
Chim and Maddie both have some recovering to do physically, not to mention the mental recovery that will probably take a lot longer, but they’re both at least alive to do it.
Time slips by.
Eddie introduces Shannon – as his amicable ex – to their friends, inviting her out to team drinks on a day when Karen and Maddie and Athena and Athena’s ex-husband Michael will be there. She slots in with the group pretty easily, which doesn’t surprise Buck much given how well he’s been getting along with her lately.
That did surprise him. He kind of expected there to be at least a little bit of friction with her, given that his relationship with Eddie is one of the things that pushed him to finally take the leap and ask for a divorce. But, as Shannon pointed out wryly the first time Buck mentioned that line of thought, they’d already been careening toward divorce much longer than Buck has been in the picture. This was just a push that let it be easy, friendly, rather than bitter. Neither of them is pretending that there was anything left to salvage of their romantic relationship, so they’ve been relearning how to be friends.
Buck and Eddie get a little bolder, a little more comfortable letting themselves be a couple in front of their friends, too. They’re still not doing a ton of kissing in public, but Buck has found that it’s really nice to just hold Eddie’s hand when they’re standing next to each other at a party, or wedge a little closer than he has to in a booth at a bar.
In April, the 118 is accused of robbing a bank. They didn’t, obviously, but Bobby ends up getting suspended anyway, after the process of the investigation reveals more of his past than he’d probably have liked.
While Bobby is suspended, they have Chimney as their interim captain. He is not great at it. He’s clearly feeling the pressure of filling Bobby’s shoes, and Buck has some sympathy for that but is also really fucking tired of it. He can’t wait until all this is done.
And then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, in the second week of Chimney’s interim captaincy and just two days after Eddie decided it was time to tell Chris about his relationship, something terrible happens.
Buck can’t say that he had a bad feeling before they arrived on scene or anything, but as soon as he steps out of the engine at the car crash, he can tell that something is very, very wrong.
Obviously something is very wrong – they’re firefighters, called to the scene of an emergency. But something is specifically wrong. Something is about to be very wrong.
Everyone has met Shannon a few times, now, but Buck knows her best beside Eddie himself. So it’s not entirely surprising that Hen didn’t recognize her in this context, lying broken on the street in a pool of her own blood.
That’s okay.
Buck recognizes her.
He pivots sharply, turning back toward where Eddie is leaning into the car – swerved a few feet away and crashed into a light pole – to help the driver.
“Eddie,” he says, his voice low and urgent.
“Buck, could you give me a hand with –“
“Eddie,” Buck says again, putting a hand on Eddie’s arm.
He freezes, then straightens to look Buck in the eye. “What’s wrong?”
“The pedestrian,” Buck starts. He chews on the inside of his lip.
“Buck,” Eddie says, his brow furrowing in concern.
“It’s Shannon, Ed,” says Buck. “And she’s not looking good. Swap me, I’ll help here, you go to her.”
“I – what?” says Eddie.
“The pedestrian she hit is Shannon,” Buck repeats, as gently as he can. He’s shaken, and he’s only just been getting to know Shannon. He can’t imagine how Eddie must feel. “You should go be with her.”
“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I – yeah. Yeah.”
Shannon doesn’t make it. Buck is pretty sure that they lose her in the ambulance and just can’t get her back, although the exact details are vague because the important part, right now, is the way that Eddie is shaking apart in his arms.
The next few days are hard. Eddie has to go home and explain what happened to Christopher, and then the responsibility for a funeral for Shannon falls to him as her not-quite-ex-husband. Buck tries to support him and Christopher as best as he can, making phone calls when Eddie is overwhelmed and doing research to ease the decision-making process.
Eddie’s parents and sisters come into town for the funeral, just a few days earlier than they were planning to come, with Eddie’s shield ceremony in just a week. His parents and Adriana, who’s only sixteen, stay with Eddie’s Tía Pepa, who has the most guest rooms. Sophia, the middle sister who’s about to finish college, stays with their abuela.
Buck gets the immediate impression that Eddie’s parents didn’t like Shannon very much. They dote on Christopher, but despite all the attention they’re giving him and despite the reason they’re here, they never say a single comforting word to him about his mother. He’s also getting the impression that they don’t know what to do with him.
Eddie had introduced Buck to his family – save for Pepa and Isabel, who already know Buck as his boyfriend – as his best friend, and a friend of Shannon’s. He hadn’t wanted to come out to his parents, though he’d said his sisters would probably be cool, and Buck wasn’t about to push him on it. Coming out, Buck has learned, is a deeply personal decision to make, and frequently a very scary one. And he can read between the lines of my sisters would probably be cool about it to understand but my parents probably wouldn’t.
But Buck sees the way Helena’s eyes track the way he and Eddie reach for each other any time they’re close enough to touch. He sees the way Ramon notices how Chris gravitates to him when he needs a break. They’re both obviously perceiving the shape of Buck’s relationship to his boys, without having the context to put the pieces together into the right shape.
He also hears – around a corner after sitting with Chris in his room for a while reading through his massive stack of dinosaur books from the library – the comment that Helena makes about him to Eddie.
“Why is your friend still here?” she hisses. “Everyone else went home an hour ago.”
Everyone else except for Eddie’s parents and sisters, she means.
“He’s here because Chris and I want him to be here, Mom,” Eddie says, sounding bone tired. “And because he loves us and wants to take care of us while we’re going through something terrible.”
“Oh, he loves you?” Helena echoes.
“Yeah, Mom, he’s my best friend,” says Eddie. “He loves us.”
It makes Buck feel warm to know that Eddie is that confident that Buck loves him and Christopher. And he does love them, but knowing that Eddie knows that – knows that he trusts it enough to say it with confidence to his mom when she’s giving him shit – makes Buck really happy.
“Eddie, I’m not sure that’s –“
“Hey, Ed, Christopher’s asleep,” Buck says, deciding now is a good time to interrupt. “He’s pretty wiped, so I figured we’d probably be better off letting him sleep until dinner than waking him up.”
“That’s great, thank you so much,” says Eddie. He drifts, naturally, into Buck’s space as he swings around the dining table.
Buck catches him by the elbow and draws him in a little closer, indifferent to the presence of Eddie’s mother. Eddie looks worn and exhausted himself, and he deserves a little comfort. “Yeah, always.”
Eddie smiles, tired but genuine.
“I know.”
--
Eddie’s parents are still in town when the bombs start showing up on doorsteps. They make a lot of noise over whether or not Eddie should be firefighting at all, when it means getting involved in dangerous situations like this.
Eddie is doing his best to ignore that and stay focused on the job when he’s at work and on Chris when he’s at home. Buck is being amazing, Eddie really doesn’t know how he got so lucky as to find a partner – a work partner or a romantic partner – as perfect as Buck. He’s been patient with Eddie’s fluctuating moods and with Christopher’s clinginess and with Eddie’s godforsaken parents showing up at random times when they’re home.
Anyway. The bombs.
They’re stressful, not least because nobody seems quite certain of the pattern behind them. They’re stressful, because one of them shows up on Athena Grant’s doorstep.
They’re stressful, because –
It’s rare that Eddie and Buck aren’t knee-to-knee in the engine, and he doesn’t have a clear impression, later, of why they weren’t, today. All he knows is that he’s chatting with Hen one moment and then there’s a huge, chest-rumbling boom. The engine stops, pulls over, and their team spills out, trying to assess what’s happened.
It becomes quickly apparent that what’s happened is that whatever bomb had gone off had been in or on their ladder truck, which is overturned in the middle of the street. Through the debris and smoke it’s clear that their teammates who had been inside are strewn across the intersection, all thrown from the cab in the explosion. Someone seems to be pinned partially underneath the truck.
Someone –
Buck is pinned under the ladder truck, groaning in obvious pain. Eddie makes to dart forward toward him, uncertain of how to help but knowing he wants to be close. To at least hold his hand.
Hen grabs him by the back of his jacket. “Look.”
A civilian – a guy a few years younger than Eddie and Buck, by appearances – has strolled almost casually onto the scene, shouting for Bobby. He’s also very obviously wearing another bomb.
Bobby isn’t here, though, because he’s still suspended, and Eddie doesn’t know how they’re going to placate this kid before they completely lose Buck.
Chimney steps forward, as captain, and Eddie is barely listening to anything they’re saying. He’s laser focused on Buck.
He can’t lose Buck, too, not so soon after Shannon. Not when they’ve still got so much future ahead of them.
He’s trusting that Hen is listening, paying attention, and will let him go when it’s safe enough.
Bobby shows up out of nowhere, and the next thing Eddie knows Hen has released her death grip on the back of his jacket and he’s darting forward to fall to his knees next to Buck.
He takes Buck’s hand. He doesn’t seem super aware of Eddie at first.
“Hey, baby, how’re you feeling?” Eddie asks.
Buck groans. “Bad.”
“Yeah, I bet,” says Eddie. “We’re gonna try to get you out, okay?”
“Hurts,” says Buck.
“I know, I know,” Eddie says.
“Sorry,” Buck says.
“What?” says Eddie. “No, no, don’t be sorry. Somebody did this to you. We’re gonna get you out.”
“Shan just died,” says Buck. “Now me, too.”
“You are not going to die,” Eddie says. He’s not going to let it happen. He doesn’t know how they’re going to get him out, yet, but he’s not going to lose Buck today. “We’re not going to let you die.”
“Love you,” Buck mumbles.
“Hey, hey,” Eddie says, “I love you, too, but stay with me, okay?”
Somewhere in all of this, the truck – miraculously – starts to move. Their team have been trying, to little success, but a huge crowd surrounds them now. Civilians, who had been watching the scene, swarmed forward to help. With that help, they free Buck, get him loaded into the ambulance and hopefully to safety.
For the second time in two weeks, Eddie finds himself standing in the middle of a Los Angeles intersection with the blood of someone he loves soaking through the knees of his pants.
He collapses into Bobby, as soon as he comes close enough, sobbing openly into his shoulder.
They’ve freed Buck from under the truck but there’s no knowing, yet, if he’ll live. If he’ll keep his leg. If he’ll ever be able to fight fires again.
--
Eddie insists that Buck spend his recovery in the Diaz house.
“Your apartment is a loft, dumbass,” he’d said with such firmness that it almost covered the haunted look in his eye.
Still, Buck gets ready for Eddie’s shield ceremony at Maddie’s apartment, since she’d offered to help him maneuver into his uniform since Eddie would be busy. They’d hacked a leg off of his pants, to get it over the cast, but it’s worth it. He needs to be there for Eddie, after all of this.
If he maybe also gets into a fight with his sister about the medical choices he’s making while they do that, that’s neither here nor there.
Eddie doesn’t let Buck do anything during the party. He parks Buck at a table and any time he even thinks about getting up – for more food or to socialize or anything – Eddie materializes with whatever it was he was getting up for like he’s read his mind. Not that Buck is complaining. It means the world to him that Eddie wants to take care of him, that he’s sticking with him despite – everything.
This is more than Eddie signed up for. He says as much, over cake.
“Jesus Christ, Buck,” Eddie replies. “This is exactly what I signed up for. You’re my boyfriend, and I love you. Even when the world goes to shit.”
“Still,” Buck insists. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” says Eddie. “Just love me.”
“I do,” Buck promises.
Eddie beams.
Buck thinks that if they can make it through the year they’ve had – through mutual sexuality crises and through Eddie and Shannon navigating divorce, through Maddie’s kidnapping and Shannon’s death and the bomb that crushed Buck’s leg – they can probably make it through anything.
He never thought he’d have something like that. A real, honest-to-god partner, who loves him as deeply and genuinely as Eddie does every day.
Buck finds, as Eddie laces their fingers together on the table regardless of who might see them, that he can’t wait for what the future might bring them. Even the hard parts.
“Buck!” Chris chirps, flopping into a chair at their table. Denny Wilson and Harry Grant follow, piling into the chairs on either side. “Denny doesn’t believe me that birds are dinosaurs.”
Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand, smiling indulgently as Buck launches into an explanation.
(He’s looking forward to the good parts, too.)