Work Text:
Buck walks into work the same way he always does on anniversary days, happy to be alive but lower energy than usual. He arrives 15 minutes early to the shift so he can change into his uniform and drink some coffee, trying to mentally prepare for the day. He gets changed, applying some icy hot to his bad leg, willing the pain to go away but knowing it never will. He finds the entire crew upstairs, milling about the kitchen. Which is surprising since their shift doesn’t start for another ten minutes and Chimney always runs into shift as the clock ticks 9 due to Jee-Yun’s new daycare and the ever present LA traffic. His suspicions are raised when he sees Chris next to Maddie.
He resolves to figure this out after a cup of coffee, which is immediately given to him. Eddie smiles, “Morning bud.”
“Morning? What’s going on?”
“Well, it’s the fifth year after you blew up.”
Buck takes a long drag from his coffee, rolling his eyes. He sighs. “I’m aware.”
“Soooooooooooooo. We wanted to celebrate.” Hen explains.
“You never got a cake for coming back. We thought that was stupid. Soooooooooooo, cake.” Chimney continues.
“Guyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyssssssssssssssssssssssss.” He starts tearing up a little.
“Let us do this.” Hen pleads with him, voice full of emotion.
“Oh, I’m not stopping you all.” He starts smiling, excited for some good cake, hoping it’ll buy him enough time for the tylenol he took on the way in to kick in.
Buck stands in front of the table; Hen and Chimney remove the comically large box from the table, revealing the cake crash complete with fondant Buck under the truck and sugary flames coming off the truck. “Woah.” He’s blown away by the detail and seeing it from a 3rd person POV compared to his memories in 4K 1st person POV.
He takes a moment, just staring at the recreated destruction, tilting his head this way and that to see extra details. “Do you like it?” Hen asks, a little unnerved by his silence. In the 7 years she’s known that man, she’s never seen him silent.
He tears up a little again, nodding. “Yeah. It’s, it’s really good.” Eddie walks up beside him, giving him a couple of tissues. He swallows thickly, trying to manage his emotions. “Well come on, it’s not gonna eat itself.” He tries to joke.
Athena walks over to him with a knife, “Would you like the honor?”
“I don’t know where to start.” A real smile graces his face.
“I’d say about where you are is a good start.”
“Can you do it?”
“Of course.” She makes the first cut, giving him the first piece, a large piece of the fire truck body. He also gets his fondant lookalike. From there, Athena serves everyone else the cake. They’re all sitting around, enjoying the cake and coffee, mingling before the stress of the day really starts.
Out of nowhere, Buck starts laughing.
Everyone else quiets down as Buck continues. He has a full audience when he says. “It's weird how the worst night of my life is something I’m grateful for.”
The room silences, the tines of forks cease as each person processes the statement in real time.
“Come again.” Athena breaks the silence, her tone begging the recipient to rethink their statement.
“I’m grateful for that.” He nods to the most destroyed cake. “Because if that didn’t happen, I’d be dead.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Let me explain.” The fury in Athena’s eyes begs him to continue quickly.
“The mission they wanted me on had no survivors.” He shrugs, eating more cake. Everyone is shook, paused in movement, a piece of cake falls from fork to plate in the complete stillness. “What mission?”
“A SEALS mission.” He answers truthfully, going back to his cake.
The room explodes at this.
He tries to quiet them down. “Guys! GUYS! GUYS!!!!!!!!!”
Athena whistles, getting everyone to shut up. She looks at Buck. “You have one shot to tell this story.”
“Not much of a story.” He shrugs, too nonchalantly according to Athena’s glare. He sighs. “I was a Navy SEAL for three, five years? Something like that.” He waves off, taking another bite of cake while he thinks. “I was deployed a couple times. I was between tours when I travelled. Ended up here. Didn’t think much of it. I had finished my contract so I was a free man.”
…
“What happened?” Hen breaks out of her stupor first, trying to help Buck move the story along.
“Oh. They were gonna call me like a week after the bombing for a mission I ‘couldn’t refuse.’ No survivors.”
A couple people react audibly, most just sit there. Even Eddie, the former military man, is stunned with how blaise Buck is about this.
“You were gonna be deployed?”
“Oh yeah. ‘Biggest mission of our careers.’ Wish that mattered.”
“You-”
“Do you miss them?”
“Sometimes. Gonna be honest, most of them were fuckers who are resting with Doug in Hell. I got some good life insurance money though.” Buck shrugs, eating more cake. “You’ve gotta tell me the name of your cake guy. He deserves so much for this stuff.”
“We pay………….. We pay him well.” Chim mutters out
“Back up, you were in the military?”
“Yeah. I don’t talk about it..” He shrugs, grabbing another slice. “It beat being homeless, Pennsylvanian winters are no joke. Dude found me in my jeep, asked if I needed help.”
“And you just said yes?!” Hen asks, deeply concerned.
“Yeah. It was either I go with him and maybe get murdered or sleep in the jeep and actually die. Not a hard choice.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Ended up in basic a couple months later, guy let me stay in his house while the paperwork processed. Got through basic, got pulled for SEAL training, suceeded there, went to war.”
“When was this?”
“2012? I think I started training in 2010, finally deployed 2012. It was crazy. 10/10 do not recommend active war zone.”
“So, wait. You were still in reserves when you joined?”
“Technically yes. I hadn’t been severely injured at that point. They sent me home at the end of tour two and I started driving. That’s when I toured the country.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“What’s there to say? It happened forever ago and I didn’t want to be the army guy. Then, when I found out you guys were chill, it felt too late. Well, really I just don’t like talking about it. I worked with a bunch of lonely assholes who blamed all their problems on the world. I was the first to go home since I didn’t sign on again. Two of them put me down in case of death. Got the call a couple years ago, it’s been wild since.”
“So, they’re dead?”
“Yep. Seriously, is this a raspberry peach filling?”
“Yeahhhhhhhhhhh. Going back, you were homeless?”
“Oh yeah. Old news.”
“NOT TO US!!!!!!”
“Guys, relax. This was years ago.”
“How did-”
“The bomb damaged my leg too much for active duty combat. I was formally discharged, never to be reinstated again.” He shrugs, looking at the cake again. “This is just insane. Worst day of my life saved my life. I’m gonna be thinking about that for a while. Anyways, morning report in 5 right?”
“Yeah.” Hen answers absent mindedly.
“Sweet. I’m gonna go wash up. My hands are sticky. “
He just walks away. “Did that just happen?”
“Yep.”
“And weeeeeee?????”
“Are just supposed to work like normal I guess?”
“Crazy lore drop.” Ravi remarks, trying to finish his cake before Bobby starts report. “Thanks again for the cake. Eventually, the other firefighters meander out to the engine bay for report leaving Maddie, Athena, and Chris alone in the kitchen.
“Is he ever gonna tell us that story?” Chris asks, still confused.
Athena thinks for a moment. “Knowing Buck, probably not.”
“And we’re supposed to be ok with that?” Maddie asks, still unsure of what happened.
Athena just shrugs. “He’ll tell us at some point, if he wants to. For now. Let’s get out of here.”