Archive of Our Own ^beta

Buck glanced around the pier—sun shining, children laughing, a guy eating a funnel cake with a little too much enthusiasm—took a deep breath, and tried to muster up some joy.

It wasn’t really working.

He was in a beautiful place, on a beautiful day, and all he could do was wish he was back on the engine, going on calls with his team. Seeing the 136 arrive for a medical call—a guy in a dinosaur suit who had overheated, it looked like—only made it worse.

Maddie and Hen had heckled him non-stop, though, telling him he had to get out of the house, that the blood clots they’d detected before his recertification exam weren’t the worst thing in the world: he was alive, he would get better, and the doctors just needed a little time to make sure he could adjust to the blood thinners before getting back to work.

“You survived a truck landing on your leg, Buck, you can handle a few weeks off,” Chim had added, snapping his gum. And when Buck had opened his mouth to protest, he’d raised a hand, forestalling him. “Listen, I know it’s really hard to be away. Trust me, I know. But we almost lost you, kid. Bobby’s face when he saw that it was you under the truck… just. Just let yourself rest a little, huh?”

Buck’s mind had flashed to Bobby’s non-stop mothering after the bomb—Athena and Bobby had actually strong-armed Buck into staying with them for nearly four weeks after he got out of the hospital—and he’d relented.

Which is why he was at the pier today, dutifully sending updates to the 118-plus-Maddie group-chat and trying to ensure his smile looked real rather than pained in the selfies he was taking.

He grimaced at his latest effort; he didn’t really seem to be succeeding. He noticed something, though, in the background of the picture: a blond kid with glasses and crutches. He squinted as he tried to zoom in. He kind of recognized him, from a call…

He glanced up and around, trying to find the kid among the crowd, and finally clocked him standing near a really, really hot guy who was... probably his dad? Buck tilted his head, trying to figure out if it really was the kid he remembered—what was his name?—or someone else entirely, and was startled when the super-hot guy met his eyes. And immediately scowled.

Oh, shit, did he think Buck was a perv, or something?

The guy looked seriously angry, though—almost too angry? And he seemed to be coming over to where Buck was standing by the railing, which seemed a little extreme. Or maybe not, given that Buck had been staring at his kid—maybe Buck should let him get a punch in or something? Hen always told him that he needed to be more mindful of how it looked when he did things like this.

Before the guy got more than two steps in Buck’s direction, though, the little kid seemed to tug at his shirt.

“Daddy? Where did all the water go?”

It struck Buck, then, that he’d stopped hearing the soothing background noise of the water hitting the poles of the pier, the seagulls, and he glanced around to see a crowd gathered by the railing. He stepped closer himself, and saw one of the more terrifying sights he’d ever seen: the ocean had receded almost entirely.

Which could only really mean one thing.

Even before the pier’s alarm started blaring, Buck was already yelling and turning, waving his hands frantically at the people around him.

“Get back now! Move! Get away from the water!”

He started running, and saw the angry guy carrying his kid ahead of him. Buck met the kid’s eyes over his dad’s shoulders and he felt sure, again, that he recognized him from somewhere, but then the water was coming, and there was nothing else he could do but swim.

It was like being back in BUD/S, being drown-proofed over and over again during Hell Week; it was worse. The force of the water when it hit left him breathless, debris and cables hitting him, the current flipping him around dizzyingly until he could orient himself and swim up, take a breath to replenish his screaming lungs.

As Buck tried to swim, to gain some form of control, he blinked past the stinging salty water and saw sheer chaos. The entire pier was submerged, and he was at least three blocks inland, it looked like.

“Dad! Daddy!”

“Christopher! Stay there, I’m coming!”

Buck glanced around when he heard the yells, gasping for breath, and caught sight of the little boy and the angry hot dad. Buck was closer to the kid, so he swam towards him with everything he had, ignoring the sting of the water against the cuts he’d gotten, ignoring the slight strain he could already feel in his leg.

“I got you, buddy, I got you,” he gasped out, when he finally had the kid, boosting him up on his hip so he wouldn’t have to struggle so hard against the current.

Buck looked around and met the hot dad’s eyes—he didn’t look angry at all, now, just completely terrified—and then saw a flash of red in the corner of his eye. Something deep inside him unclenched; he didn’t know how, yet, but he did know that a fire truck would make all the difference.

“Swim toward the fire truck!” Buck yelled at the dad, and then glanced down at the kid in his arms. “We’ll swim together, okay, bud? We’ll meet your dad over there. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” the kid said, nodding seriously, and Buck promised himself that no matter what, he was getting him through this.

Buck started swimming then, carefully holding the kid above water, muscles straining against the strong current. He’d hated the training and hated the cold mentality that defined it even more, but he had never been more grateful for the SEALs than he was right now—moving forward in the water no matter what had become completely ingrained in him over those months in Coronado.

They finally reached the fire truck and the kid’s dad, and together the two of them pushed the kid up and into safety. Wheezing with tiredness and relief, Buck met the hot dad’s gaze and was a little startled at the intensity in those warm, brown eyes.

“Thank you,” the guy gasped, voice shaking with sentiment and probably exhaustion.

Buck smiled, or tried to, anyway—his entire body was shaking a little too much with adrenaline and a yawning fear he was deliberately pushing away for a proper smile to come through.

“No need, man,” he replied. “It’s my job.”

“... your job?”

“He’s a firefighter, daddy!” a voice piped up from above them. The kid was grinning down at them— somehow still grinning even amidst all of it. “He’s the one that played with me when abuela broke her hip, I told you about him!”

Of course. It hit Buck, then, where he remembered the kid from: a call that had come in around four months ago, an older woman who had broken her hip in one of those really fancy houses up in the Hills. Hen and Chim had obviously done most of the work, and Bobby had been talking to the home aide, who had been mortified, so Buck had taken on the task of distracting the kid—Christopher.

Buck smiled up at him, then, the smile coming easier at the memory. “You’re the one who played with me, bud! You beat the stuffing out of me in tic-tac-toe!”

“That’s why you were staring?” the guy asked quietly.

Buck glanced back down to meet his eyes. “Yeah, sorry. I, uh, I was trying to figure out where I remembered him from. But I know it looked weird, Hen always tells me, so—”

“No, don’t even worry about it,” the guy interrupted, a small smile on his face. It made him look even more gorgeous. “You just—you just saved my kid, and he’s been talking about you for months now. No need to apologize.”

Before Buck could reply to that, though, he saw a huge piece of debris coming their way quickly, moving with the current, and before he could think about it, he grabbed the guy by the hips and shoved him up and onto the firetruck’s roof, diving into the cab of the truck just seconds before the massive pile of debris would’ve crushed them both.

When he waded out again, the guy was calling out for him.

“Hey! Firefighter!”

“It’s Buck,” Buck said hoarsely, slowly pulling himself up—he clearly needed to get out of the water before anything else happened.

The hot dad grabbed him, then, strong and sure hands hauling him up. Buck met his eyes once he was on top of the firetruck and was startled to see the guy looking him over frantically, as if he’d been worried.

“I’m Eddie,” the guy finally said, lips quirking into another small smile. “And you, Buck, need to stop doing crazy shit like that.”

“Like I said—kinda my job,” Buck replied, smiling back.

Eddie gave him an annoyed look and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, Christopher interrupted.

“Daddy, you said a bad word! And there’s more people in the water!”

Christopher was right—Buck stood up and could see a woman waving frantically, holding on to a lamppost, and he spotted at least a couple of people trapped inside cars. He glanced down at his leg and tested his weight on it; it twinged slightly, but it would hold. It had to hold.

“So, how do we do this?” Eddie said.

Buck met his eyes, eyebrows raising in surprise.

“What, you thought I’d just let you do this alone? This may be your job, but I can help,” Eddie said, voice quiet but certain. “Just tell me what to do.”

Buck swallowed hard, then, grateful. He absolutely refused to have Eddie leave the safety of the firetruck and risk Christopher staying alone, but the support Eddie could give him from here would make everything easier.

He took a deep breath, tried to make himself think like Bobby would (and god, the thought of his team out there—they had to be okay, they just had to) and took stock of the supplies he could see, the various supports, obstacles, and pathways.

“Alright; I’m gonna use the hose as a tether; it’s long enough,” Buck explained. “I’ll take it as far as I can and tie it to that tree, and that way we can get the people trapped on that side—I’ll send them your way, and you help them up?”

“You got it,” Eddie replied, nodding. “I’ll call out if I see anyone else.”

Buck nodded back, squeezed Christopher’s shoulder, and then turned to make his way through the treacherous pathway he’d spied across the firetruck, an awning, and a couple of cars. He could do this; they could do this.

It was possibly the most exhausting thing he’d done—a mixture of Hell Week, the airplane crash, and the earthquake all mixed together—but as he sent each new person Eddie’s way, heard him confirm that they were safe up on the truck, heard Eddie and Christopher encouraging him, calling out when they saw another person, he knew he couldn’t stop. Saving lives was where he’d found himself, and whether he had the uniform on or not, whether he was on medical leave or not, this was what he was best at.

People seemed to react a little strangely when they made it to Eddie, oddly flustered, but Buck figured that it was probably a mixture of trauma and how insanely attractive Eddie was—seriously, they were in the middle of a damn tsunami and the guy looked like he’d stepped off a runway or something—so he put it out of his mind and kept moving.

Finally, unbelievably, it seemed as if they’d gotten to everybody they could, and Buck made his weary way back to the firetruck, grateful for Eddie’s strong arms as he helped him up a second time onto the roof of the truck.

“You did it, Buck,” Christopher said with a smile, once he was sitting next to them.

Buck glanced up from where he was giving another wary look at his leg, surreptitiously stretching out the knots he could feel in the thigh muscle with one of his hands.

“We did it, Superman. Couldn’t have done it without you and your dad,” he said, smiling back at Christopher before meeting Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie was already looking at him and just like before, the warm brown gaze felt like it was reading Buck from the inside out. Eddie’s eyebrows were a little scrunched, like he was worried, but he smiled at Buck, almost like he couldn’t help it.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked quietly, quickly looking down at where Buck was rubbing his leg and then back up.

“Yeah, of course,” Buck replied quickly, pulling his hand away from his leg. When he saw Eddie shooting him a disbelieving look, though, he shrugged slightly. “I will be. I, uh. I got hurt at work a while ago, so my leg is a little shaky. It’s a long story.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “We got time.”

Before Buck could figure out how to explain the bombing in a way that wouldn’t traumatize Christopher or freak Eddie out, though, he caught sight of something in the water that chilled him to the bone.

Bodies.

Floating right towards them.

Buck met Eddie’s wide eyes with his own and cleared his throat, putting an arm around Christopher to gently turn him away from the water.

“Hey, bud, have you ever heard of rusticles?”

“Rusticles?” Chris asked, frowning up at him slightly. “No, what are they?”

“Well, they’re like icicles, but made of rust,” Buck explained. On Christopher’s other side, Eddie had shifted to block Christopher’s view as much as he could, and he gave Buck a small nod. “Do you know about the Titanic?”

“Yeah! My daddy read me a book about shipwrecks last month!”

“I did,” Eddie said, and shot Buck a wry smile. “It was, uh. Age appropriate. So not too many details.”

Buck smiled back. “I figured.” He glanced down at Christopher again. “Okay, so, rusticles form really, really deep under the ocean, on ships that have iron on them, like the Titanic—the water way down there interacts with the iron and rusticles start to form all over, and here’s the really crazy part: they start to eat the ships.”

“Really?” Christopher asked, eyes wide. “That’s awesome! What do they look like?”

“Like green, twisted icicles,” Buck said. “I promise I’ll show you a picture once I have a dry cellphone.”

“Thank god there are no cellphones right now,” Eddie muttered quietly.

Buck looked up at him, confused. Why wouldn’t Eddie want them to have a working cellphone? He didn’t get a chance to ask, though, because the fire truck started shuddering—the water was moving again, strongly.

“Hang on tight, the water’s receding!” Buck called out to the rest of the people on the truck, and had to move quickly when an older man almost fell off when the wave of receding water hit them.

He pulled the man back up and turned to see if everyone else was alright—he got a shock when he saw Eddie and Christopher on the floor.

“Are you two okay?” he asked, kneeling next to them, helping Eddie pull Christopher up.

“Yeah, yeah. We had a close call, but we’re good,” Eddie gasped. He swallowed and met Buck’s eyes, looking serious and worried. “But, uh… Buck, we really need to figure out a way to get out of here.”

“I know,” Buck said, knowing he looked just as worried.

They’d gotten lucky, but everyone on top of the fire truck looked tired and thirsty, and the basic EMT skills that Buck had been able to deploy wouldn’t really do much against serious dehydration. Given the time that had gone by, he knew that rescue crews had to be deployed—he just had to make sure one of the crews noticed them.

“What are you thinking?” Eddie said, and some part of Buck could hardly believe that Eddie could already read him like this. He knew that in the next few days he’d get stuck on that, on the almost immediate camaraderie, on how well they’d worked together.

But that was for future Buck to obsess over; current Buck had to do something a little crazy. Given everything he’d already done today, though, crazy was relative.

“Well, the thing is—this is bound to be a mass casualty situation,” Buck began, as quietly as possible. All the other people they’d rescued had seen many of the floating bodies, so it wouldn’t be news to them, but Buck didn’t want to make it worse. He kept going when Eddie nodded solemnly. “So I’m totally sure that all available first responders are out there, on boats and whatever else they can get their hands on, to rescue who they can. We just need to make sure they know where we are.”

“Alright, yeah. How can we do that?”

Buck glanced toward the front of the fire truck. “Flares. Every truck has a small box of flares by the captain’s seat, so I just need to get back in there and look for it.”

“Won’t they be soaked through, though?” Eddie asked.

“The box is supposed to be waterproof, so I’m hoping they’re not,” Buck replied. At Eddie’s raised eyebrow, he shrugged. “It’s worth trying, isn’t it?”

“Not if it gets you hurt,” Eddie said, quiet and intense.

And Buck refused to dwell on how that declaration made him feel, because he couldn’t be reacting like this to someone he’d just met, no matter how insanely attractive they were and how crazy the circumstances; he just couldn’t.

“I’ll be alright,” was all he said. “Trust me, Eddie, I’ll be okay. Just, uh—call out if you see any debris heading my way?”

“Of course, Buck,” Eddie replied.

With a nod, Buck slowly clambered back into the water, hissing slightly at the sting of the salt water on the various cuts he’d accumulated over the last few hours. He could already hear Hen and Chim haranguing him about infection and the blood thinners.

He met Eddie’s eyes—Eddie was looking at him like he was scared Buck would disappear if he blinked—took a deep breath, and swam inside the truck’s cab. It took him longer than it really should have, considering how many times Bobby had made him inventory the supplies for all the trucks and the ambulance, but he finally found the little grey box wedged under the seat and pulled it out.

Buck swam back out and saw that Eddie and Christopher were both craning their necks, saw Eddie breathe out loudly when Buck surfaced. Even before Buck could say anything, Eddie was already reaching down to help pull him up, almost seamlessly getting him back up on the truck.

“Will the flare work, Buck?” Christopher asked. Clearly Eddie had filled him in while Buck had been searching.

Buck glanced up from where he was carefully opening the gray box and taking out one of the flares. “I really hope so, bud.” He fit the stick inside the gun, and aimed high. “Here we go.”

The flare shot out, bright red, and Buck hoped with everything inside him that one of the rescue crews would see it—the day was waning fast, and it would be much harder for anyone to find them after the sun set. He was also worried because he could feel his own strength diminishing, his leg truly throbbing now, and he didn’t know how much longer he could be useful, keeping everyone safe.

“Hey, Chris—why don’t you tell Buck about some of the other shipwrecks we read about?”

Eddie’s warm voice penetrated through the fog of worry, and Buck glanced up to meet his eyes. He saw his own worry reflected in Eddie’s face, but also an assurance—Buck wasn’t alone, here, and whatever else happened, he knew Eddie and he would try to get Christopher and everyone else through.

With nothing more to do but wait, Buck leaned back, stretched out his leg as much as he could, and focused on listening to Chris tell him about Spanish treasure galleons.

After twenty minutes or so, and at least three more shipwreck stories, Buck finally heard it: the sound of a couple of engines heading their way. He clambered up to his feet with more difficulty than he would’ve liked—his leg was badly stiffened up now—and nearly cried when he saw the rescue teams bobbing in the water towards them.

“Who are they, Buck?” Chris asked from below.

Buck smiled as he waved both arms and heard Chim’s surprised shout. “My team, bud. They’re my team.”

When the two rubber boats pulled up alongside them, Buck didn’t quite know how to react. Bobby, Hen, and Chimney were all looking at him with a mixture of worry and relief and shock, and they all sort of froze until one of the boat drivers cleared his throat.

“Evan Buckley,” Hen finally said, her voice choked up. “Only you could take a day to relax and rest and wind up in a tsunami.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Buck replied, shrugging slightly.

“Get over here,” Hen gasped, gesturing, and Buck took a deep breath and practically leapt onto the waiting arms of Hen and Chim.

Buck felt Bobby’s arms go around the three of them, felt Bobby desperately clutch the back of his head.

“We were so worried, kid,” Bobby whispered into his ear. “We knew you were out here, but didn’t know where.”

“I’m okay, guys,” Buck said, leaning into their arms, hugging them even tighter. He was so relieved to be with them, so unbelievably relieved that they were alright. Some exhausted and scared part of him had thought he was never getting off of the truck, that he’d pulled everyone out of the water only to get them stuck, and seeing his team coming to get them had been a benediction. “I’m alright.”

Chim was the one who leaned back first, and took a look around at everyone on the truck. “And what’s all this? Was the 126 giving a tour to civilians when the wave hit or something?”

“Buck saved them!” Christopher piped up, before Buck could reply.

Bobby, Hen, and Chimney all looked at Christopher, who was leaning against his dad and smiling.

“He did?” Chim asked him.

“No, I, uh—Eddie helped,” Buck said, rubbing the back of his neck and gesturing toward Eddie with his other hand.

“I just pulled them on top of the truck—Buck was the one who went out time after time to get everyone to safety,” Eddie said, giving Buck a significant look. “He’s the real hero, here.”

Bobby turned to look at Buck, then, a whisper of a smile on his face. “Yeah, he is. With or without the uniform, on shift or on leave, you’re a firefighter, Buck.”

Buck swallowed hard against the rush of emotion that made him feel, Bobby’s approval and words warming him up from the inside. Bobby had been so worried since the bomb, had looked at Buck with such trepidation for weeks now, insisting he take recertification easier, slow down… Some part of Buck had been scared that maybe Bobby thought Buck couldn’t make it back on the team, that he was done as a firefighter. So his words meant everything right now.

“How about we get these people into the boats and get them some medical attention, yeah?” Bobby asked, waving Hen, Chim, and the rest of the crew toward the survivors. “And you, Buck—you’re going straight to the hospital. Don’t think I haven’t seen your limp. And the doctors will need to check you over just in case of any internal bleeding because of the blood thinners.”

“Blood thinners?”

Buck turned back at Eddie’s whisper-shout; he’d sort of forgotten how close they were standing. The look in Eddie’s eyes—scared and worried—made him wince.

“Yeah, it’s, uh. Part of that long story we didn’t get a chance to get into.”

Bobby glanced between him and Eddie with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Everyone’s loaded, Cap!” Chim called out, then. “Except for Buck’s new friends. Come on, buddy,” he said, helping Christopher navigate the railing.

Before Buck knew what was happening—before he could really say a proper goodbye—Eddie and Christopher had been loaded into one of the larger boats, and Bobby had herded Buck into the smaller boat, one hand firm on his shoulder, like he was scared Buck would disappear if he let go.

“Bye, Buck! Come to my house to play again soon!” Christopher called out, as the larger boat slowly pulled away from the truck.

“Bye, Chris! I will,” Buck called back, waving.

Eddie waved back silently, an unreadable expression on his face. If Buck could’ve called it anything, he would’ve called it yearning, but it didn’t make sense—people weren’t like him, they didn’t get all intense and emotional like he did. Eddie was probably just exhausted, same as Buck, and that was it.

As their own smaller boat pulled away, though, Buck never looked away from Eddie and Christopher, and he saw that Eddie didn’t look away either, until they turned a corner and were gone.

“Let’s get you to the hospital, Buck,” Bobby said quietly. “Don’t worry; your friends will be alright. The 106 will take good care of them.”

“I know,” Buck replied, lips quirking into a half-hearted smile.

“You know, I’m not sure how, but the guy looked kinda familiar,” Chim interjected, eyebrows scrunched. “I’m almost sure I’ve seen him before.”

“You always say that, Chim, and it’s never true,” Hen said, rolling her eyes.

“I do not!”

“Uh, what about the fiasco last week where you swore you’d just seen Bruce Willis and it turned out to be a random bald white guy?”

Buck closed his eyes, then, leaning against Bobby, feeling safe next to his captain, listening to the comforting sounds of Hen and Chim bickering. He might not see Eddie and Chris again, but he was sure they’d be safe.

And Buck? Buck was with his family.

Buck was lying on top of his yoga mat, breathing deeply—he’d just finished a C2 class he’d taken online, and had made the choice to stay in savasana. The yoga teacher had said to hold space open for whatever was needed, and Buck needed to stay in this moment a little longer: feeling the stretch of his muscles, the strength of his breathing.

There had been days, after the bomb, when he’d felt his own body no longer belonged to him—like it was no longer a body at all, really, but a collection of aches and pains. One of his physical therapists had recommended yoga, and when Buck balked at the notion of being in a room full of people who might gawk at his scars and his impaired mobility (and, if he was honest, as he considered the not unreasonable possibility that he’d slept with a significant number of the available yoga teachers in the LA area), the PT told him about yoga studios that had online sessions people could subscribe to.

In the back-and-forth of his leg and the blood clots, yoga had helped him reconnect with his own limbs, and now that he was recovering from the wear and tear of the tsunami—the doctors had said he should rest at least a couple of weeks before even thinking about taking the recertification test—he needed the reconnection badly.

At least he wasn’t feeling as frustrated as before; he wanted to get back to work with his team, of course, but he felt a little less worried about it. Maybe because Bobby had stopped looking ill whenever he mentioned recertification, maybe because his own unspoken fears about no longer being able to rescue anybody again had subsided. It was weird to think of the tsunami having a silver lining, but there it was.

The other silver lining, of course, had been living in Buck’s head rent free for days (and nights). Some days, when he got particularly desperate, he figured that if he really begged Maddie she might track down Eddie’s address for him, and he could maybe show up and say he was taking up Christopher on his invitation. But then common sense—and, like, privacy laws—prevailed, and he knew he couldn’t be that creepy.

He’d halfheartedly tried to look Eddie up on Facebook and Instagram, but clearly Diaz was a very, very common last name, because he’d gotten so many hits he’d become immediately overwhelmed. He’d nevertheless kept a lookout on his own notifications—maybe Eddie would contact him? It was bound to be a little easier to find Evan Buckleys, wasn’t it?—but as days went by and nothing happened, he resigned himself to having Eddie Diaz be one of the ones that got away.

Buck’s maudlin line of thought was suddenly interrupted by his phone ringing—his landline. Who the hell even called on the landline anymore?

“Hello?” he said, after rising up from his mat to answer. He really hoped it wasn’t a spam caller who wanted to talk about extending his warranty.

“Is this Evan Buckley?” a female voice asked, sounding at once commanding and annoyed.

“Uh—yeah?”

“Evan Buckley, the firefighter?” the woman on the other end insisted.

“Yes, that’s me,” Buck confirmed. “Uh, who is this?”

“My name is Adriana. Listen, I’m calling because you helped someone, and they want to send a token of their appreciation—could you give me your address?”

Buck’s sense of preservation kicked in then—mostly the Athena in his head shaking her head in exasperation—and he frowned slightly. It wasn’t uncommon for firefighters to get presents (they actually got them all the time), but giving out his personal address was just asking for trouble. And probably a very disappointed look from Bobby, not to mention a scolding from Athena.

“Um, you really don’t need to do that, ma’m. I’m glad whoever I helped is fine; it’s my job,” he finally replied.

“No, please—it’s very important that we get this present to you.”

“Then just please send it to my station, it’s the 118. We can’t really receive personal gifts,” Buck said.

Buck heard the lady, Adriana, muttering on the other side of the line—speaking Spanish, maybe? He really couldn’t make it out, not with his own pretty crappy bartending Spanish.

“Fine, we’ll send it to the station. Goodbye.”

“Good-” Buck didn’t finish before the call was ended from the other side. “Huh. That was weird.”

He put the interaction out of his mind and forgot about it almost entirely, training and recertification and signing a million waivers taking up the lion’s share of his attention. When he was finally back to the station after a little over a month and noticed a fairly big pile of discarded cookie boxes, cake boxes, and gift packaging outside the firehouse, though, he remembered the strange phone call.

“Welcome back, Buck,” Chim called out, coming out to greet him as Buck was getting out of his Jeep. “How does it feel?”

Buck took a deep breath, and smiled. “Amazing. I’m really glad to be back.”

“Good,” Chim said, smiling a little. Then he clapped Buck on the back and started leading him inside. “We really needed you back, man. Bobby has pretty much refused to make those scones I love without you to help him—he says everyone else is useless as a sous chef.”

“Oh, so you only missed me for my kitchen assistant skills?”

“You bet, buddy,” Chim said, smirking.

Buck rolled his eyes, but felt deeply grateful that Chim, in his inimitable Chim way, was trying to reassure him that he’d been missed, that he hadn’t been replaced while he’d been out. He glanced at the discarded packages out of the corner of his eye before they entered the bay, and something made him turn to Chimney.

“Hey, did we get presents and stuff when I was gone?”

Chim frowned at him. “Uh, Buck. We’re firefighters. Of course we got presents while you were gone—we actually got more than usual for a couple of weeks there, because of the tsunami and all.”

Which, duh, of course. It’s just that Buck had thought, after some reflection, that maybe the gift that lady had talked about might’ve been from Eddie? But he had no evidence for it, and there was seriously no way to know. And also, he refused to ask about it specifically because he would never, ever live down Hen and Chim’s teasing.

“Did you guys save me any of the good stuff?” he finally asked Chim.

“Eh, I think Hen saved you a cookie,” Chim replied. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

When they finally made it to the stairs to the loft, though, Buck stopped, open-mouthed. There was a huge banner, bright red, with Welcome Back, Buck! written in yellow letters that were messy and glittery—probably because of Harry and Denny, if Buck guessed correctly. And right below it were Bobby, Hen, Athena, Maddie, Gomez, Harris, and even a bunch of people from B-shift, surrounding a huge cake.

“I—you guys, you didn’t have to,” he said, biting his lip hard to try to keep tears at bay. There had been such a fear that he wouldn’t be back at all, that his family was gone again, and this was just so overwhelming.

“Of course we had to, Buck,” Bobby said, smiling gently. “You put in a huge effort to get back, even with a lot of setbacks, and the 118 wasn’t the same without you. Plus, you gave Hen a chance to order her most complex cake yet.”

Buck stepped closer and focused on the details of the cake. It was—intense.

“I mean, I had to figure out a way to combine the truck, and the tsunami, and the blood thinners,” Hen explained, walking over to Buck to give him a sideways hug. “So, you know—”

“-you ended up with a truck exploding in the middle of the ocean?” Buck said, eyebrows raised.

“And it’s red velvet, because it’s bleeding inside,” Hen confirmed, grinning.

Buck huffed out a laugh. “Thank you, Hen. It’s amazing.”

It was only after his first shift back ended and he was heading back to his truck that Buck remembered the pile of discarded packages, the question he hadn’t dared to ask. He hoped that if Eddie and Chris had sent something, they weren’t upset that Buck hadn’t thanked them personally. He hoped that he’d somehow see them again, even though it was sort of impossible to imagine how in a city so big.

He hoped.

“So you didn’t watch any of the, like, action movie franchises—Jurassic Park, Terminator, Die Hard…?”

“I did not, Chim,” Buck replied, trying to keep his voice patient. Bobby was looking over with some concern from the kitchen, though, so maybe he wasn’t succeeding.

“And none of the supernatural teeny bopper ones, either? Or the ones where the kids are child soldiers? Twilight, Moon Bitten, Hunger Games, Divergent, Harry Potter?”

“No, Chim, I also did not watch the supernatural child soldier movies,” Buck said, and then frowned. “That’s a really weird category, though.”

“No, they’re not one category, Buck, they’re different ones,” Chim said. He snapped his gum thoughtfully. “Well, maybe some of them are the same category. It is kind of weird.”

“What’s kind of weird is that you watched them all, Chim,” Hen piped up, sitting next to Buck and handing him a plate of hummus and crackers. Clearly Bobby had sent her with snacks in the hope that if Buck was fed, he wouldn’t strangle Chimney.

“Listen, Henrietta, I am well-rounded and have depths,” Chim said, huffily. “Also, Moon Bitten is actually really cool. The werewolf special effects are way better than the ones in Twilight, and the kid actors were pretty great in it.”

“If you say so,” Hen said, raising her eyebrows.

Buck busied himself spreading hummus on his crackers and hoped that the Buck-doesn’t-know-pop-culture extravaganza was over. It always happened on Friday or Saturday overnight shifts because Chim needed to keep himself awake, and it was always annoying.

After a moment’s peace, however, Chim burst out with, “Okay, but did you watch Star Wars? You must’ve watched Star Wars, Buck!”

Buck sighed and rolled his eyes. “No, Chim, I also did not watch Star Wars when I was a kid. You know this, we’ve definitely talked about it before!”

“I’m just trying to figure out how,” Chim exclaimed. “Did you live off in the wilderness, or something? You would tell us if you and Maddie were raised Amish, wouldn’t you? Or if you were in a cult?”

Buck toyed with twin impulses. Either make up a cult he and Maddie had grown up with and string Chim along the entire shift—he was sure Hen would follow his lead, and he could text Maddie about it—or maybe tell Chim the truth and shut him up already: he and Maddie had been raised by completely emotionally absent parents who couldn’t be bothered to take them to the movies or adjust their media-watching tastes to anything kid-friendly, so Buck had mostly grown up on Maddie reading him the books she’d check out from the library.

The first option seemed a little complicated and kind of insensitive, though, and the second… he didn’t think he could take the pity in their eyes when they heard. They’d mean well, Bobby and Hen and Chim, they really would. But the Buckley parents weren’t a bomb Buck was quite ready to set off in the firehouse just yet.

In any event, Bobby was already coming over from the kitchen, clearly ready to play mediator and have Chim lay off—he was the one who’d come closest to figuring it out, Buck thought, because he’d seen Buck’s emergency contacts in his paperwork: Bobby himself, back when he’d first started at the 118, and then Maddie and Bobby after she’d shown up.

They were thankfully interrupted by the alarm, though, and as Buck ran by Bobby to get to the trucks, Bobby stopped him for a second to squeeze his shoulder, a wordless reminder that he was there. Buck nodded. He knew.

Once in the truck, they all leaned forward slightly to hear Bobby explain the scene they were about to roll into.

“So it looks like a club went extremely over their occupancy limits and the smoke machine malfunctioned, some strobe-lights went a little crazy, and maybe the sprinklers? Dispatch was having a hard time getting a straight story out of anyone,” Bobby explained, already looking weary. “I’m afraid we’re heading into a messy scene, everyone, so buckle up. Full turn-out until we know what we’re dealing with.”

There were already a couple of patrol cars outside the club when they pulled in, and Buck spied an exasperated Athena doing her best to control the crowd. As they got out of the truck and got their gear together, Buck looked curiously at the club: it didn’t look like one of the more exclusive ones where movie studios usually hosted afterparties or whatever, but it was seriously full, and a whole lot of pretty intense-looking girls were begging Athena and her officers to let them inside.

“Absolutely not—the place is over capacity and it’s being evacuated. The best thing you can do is head on home,” Athena was saying.

“No, but you don’t understand, we got a tip that he’d be here tonight! We have to see him; he’s, like, my future husband!”

“And I’m sure he’ll be a lucky guy, but not tonight,” Athena bit out. She gave a warning nod to the patrolmen around her, and then went to meet Bobby and the 118. “We’ll try to keep them contained out here, but as you can see, they’re real rowdy.”

“Why exactly are they all here? Do we know?” Bobby asked.

Athena shrugged. “Some actor was spotted going inside, or rumored to be spotted inside; I don’t know. But it spread like wildfire on social media and the club owners decided to capitalize instead of following the damn occupancy rules, and here we are.”

“Alright—118, let’s go. Hen, Chimney, I need you treating people. Set up where you find the best light and air. Chavez, Johnson, and I will triage and send people your way, and Buck, I need you to figure out the smoke machine and sprinkler situation, get the emergency lights on.”

“Got it, Cap,” Buck said, and followed the rest of the team inside.

Messy and rowdy were understatements: Buck could barely see between the excessive smoke and the malfunctioning strobe-lights, and the combination of the crowd and the sprinklers made him feel too warm and uncomfortably wet almost immediately.

Luckily, Buck had bartended at more than one club like this, so he followed his long-buried instinct and headed towards where he figured the electrical box would be. He had a bit of a hard time getting there, because people kept grabbing him or stumbling into him, but he was finally able to make it to the corner where the electrical box was, as he’d expected.

“How we doing with the smoke and the sprinklers, Buck?” Bobby’s voice crackled over the radio.

“Almost there, Cap. I just got to the electrical box,” Buck replied.

“Great, keep me posted.”

Buck set his equipment down, took out one of the cutters, and opened the box. He whistled when he got a good look at the wires and the receptors—they were seriously messed up. Someone had clearly been jerry-rigging them for a while to keep all the equipment going, but something this old and badly maintained was bound to glitch like it had tonight; it was actually lucky that malfunctioning strobe-lights, smoke machines, and sprinklers were the only damage. He shut down the main electrical system and immediately turned on the emergency overhead lights as well as the smoke extractors, and the sudden lack of music coupled with the bright halogen lights made quite a few people exclaim.

“We’re good now, Cap—where else do you need me?” Buck asked over the radio, ignoring a few people who were trying to get his attention by offering him shots.

“Could you help us escort people out? It’s still too crowded and Hen and Chim are getting annoyed.”

“You got it.”

Buck grabbed his equipment and turned back to the crowd. More than a few people were still attempting to dance, and the bartender looked like he wanted to murder the dozen still hassling him for drinks.

“Okay, everyone out! The club is closed; we need you to make your way to the exit!” Buck called out.

Herding the crowd out took the better part of an hour, and involved Buck fending off drunken dancing, pick-up attempts, and having to almost forcibly remove a couple of girls from the bathroom.

“Ladies, you have to get out.”

“No, please! We’ll just hide out here and wait until things get back to normal and sneak out, we just don’t want to lose our spot! It was super hard getting in the first time, and we have to see him! Everyone said he’d be here tonight,” one of the girls pleaded, blinking up at him through running mascara.

Buck took a deep breath, clinging to his patience by a thread. “I don’t know how else to tell you this, but this entire club has been evacuated—nobody else is left except people too hurt to walk and a bunch of first responders. Whoever you wanted to see is bound to be long gone.”

Finally, they were finished: tired, annoyed, and bedraggled.

Buck shrugged off his turnout coat and put it inside the truck, grabbing a few bottles of water for himself and the rest of the team. Hen and Chim nodded gratefully as he handed them theirs, and Bobby smiled while he continued to debrief with Athena.

As Buck took a deep drink, he spied a taco place a couple of doors down from the club—El Venadito. He remembered going there a couple of times, ages ago after going out dancing. The cozy taqueria was open extremely late and had insanely low prices, and the tacos themselves were pretty awesome.

“I’m starving—I think I’m gonna go get some tacos. Does anybody want anything?”

“I’ll take two carnitas tacos,” Hen said. “And maybe get a little bit of everything for everyone else? We didn’t get a chance to eat before the call came in, and I’m sure everyone’s starving.”

“Yeah, sure,” Buck replied.

“I’ll come with, Buckaroo,” Chim said, jumping out of the ambulance. “I don’t trust your taste in tacos.”

“Whatever.”

El Venadito was pretty empty when they went inside—just a guy wearing a hoodie and sitting way in the back, hunched over a big plate of tacos—so Buck didn’t feel bad about placing a huge order.

“You just off shift?” the cashier asked, nodding at his and Chim’s uniforms.

“Ah, no, unfortunately,” Buck replied. “We’ve still got the rest of the night to go. But we just finished a call at that club next door which was kind of exhausting, so we’re refueling.”

“Ah, I gotcha. Well, don’t worry boys— your order will be out soon,” the guy said.

Buck nodded and walked slightly toward the back, peering at the decoration. There were a bunch of framed menus signed by different people, probably actors and singers and all that, but Buck didn’t recognize many of the names. He spotted one that seemed a little familiar, and as he walked a little closer to try to get a better look, he almost collided with the other patron of the taquería.

Who was Eddie Diaz.

“Buck?” Eddie asked, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

“Eddie! I—wow. I never thought I’d run into you again,” Buck said, swallowing hard, forcing himself to take a deep breath. “What are you doing here?” he asked, and then sort of hated himself for the question. What else would Eddie be doing here but eating tacos?

“I’m, uh. I’m having a late-night dinner, laying low,” Eddie replied, smiling a little, gracefully ignoring how dumb Buck’s question was. “You?”

“Oh, uh, we’re just getting dinner for the team,” Buck said, gesturing towards himself and towards Chimney, who was doing a bad job of pretending to look at his phone and not at them. “We just had a rough call, so we were due some tacos.”

Eddie seemed to finally realize what Buck was wearing—the turn-out pants, suspenders, LAFD t-shirt—and his eyes widened a little. If Buck didn’t know any better, he would’ve said Eddie was blushing, but the light in the taquería wasn’t great.

“You’re working again,” Eddie whispered, and then cleared his throat. “I mean, um. You—you look great. You’re all healed after the tsunami and the blood thinners and all that?”

Buck couldn’t believe Eddie remembered—it had been an almost off-hand comment by Bobby in the middle of the craziest day ever.

“Yeah,” he replied, and shrugged slightly. “I mean, I was out for a little over a month, and I’m still on the blood thinners for now, but I feel just fine.”

“Good, that’s... That’s so good, Buck,” Eddie said, smiling.

Buck smiled back, and they just looked at each other for a moment, silent, until Buck thought of something he’d been desperate to find out.

“How is Christopher? Is he doing okay, after—everything?”

Eddie’s smile went a little sideways, a little sad. “Yeah, more or less. He’s had quite a few nightmares and he was feeling pretty anxious, so I took him to a therapist… it’s working, I think. He’s mostly back to his sunshine self, and he keeps bragging to everyone about his hero firefighter friend who saved him.”

“I’m so glad, Eddie,” Buck said. “I was so worried, but I had no way to reach you, and, well.” He paused, shrugged bashfully. It wasn’t like he had any cool points to protect by pretending he hadn’t been thinking about Eddie and Chris since then, and he felt touched that Chris remembered him fondly. “Yeah, I’ve been worried.”

“I was worried about you, too,” Eddie said softly, brown eyes warm and sincere, and Buck melted a little inside. “I, um. I tried to find you, but I think maybe we got our wires crossed.”

“You tried to find me?” Buck asked, almost stepping back in shock.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Um, my sister, she tried to help me track you down. Did you get a call from an intense-sounding lady soon after the tsunami?”

And it struck Buck, then—that call he got from that lady who kept asking him where he lived.

“I—I did,” Buck said. “But I didn’t realize…”

“Uh, Buckaroo? Our order’s up, and Cap’s telling us we gotta go,” Chim interrupted, his voice making both Buck and Eddie startle. “Dispatch just sent us a cozy little backyard fire gone wrong, so we’re gonna eat on the truck.”

Buck realized that the background noise he’d been hearing was Bobby on the radio, and he winced.

“I, uh—”

“You have to go,” Eddie said, nodding understandingly.

“Yeah,” Buck said.

“Listen, um. If you want. Just if you want. Maybe we could exchange numbers?” Eddie asked, taking his phone out of his jeans. “I’d, uh. I’d really like to buy you coffee, thank you properly for that day.”

“Oh, you don’t—you don’t need to thank me,” Buck said, immediately. “I was just... I was doing what anyone would’ve done.”

“I doubt that, Buck,” Eddie said. “But then let me just buy you a coffee because I want to?”

And Buck felt his heart pounding in his chest at that, because this could hardly be real, right? The ridiculously hot guy he’d met in the middle of a damn tsunami and hadn’t stopped thinking about since wasn’t asking him out, was he?

But it looked like he was, and, almost as if somebody else was taking control of his body, Buck felt himself nod, take out his phone, and casually exchange numbers, as if this was just a normal, chill thing and Buck wasn’t about to pass out because the hottest man he’d ever met had asked him for his number.

“I’ll call you, Buck,” Eddie promised, before Buck and Chim left the taqueria. “Have a good rest of the shift.”

“Thanks, Eds,” Buck replied, smiling.

...and promptly berated himself all the way back to the truck. Eds? Oh god, he hoped Eddie didn’t feel it was weird that Buck was calling him that already.

“So,” Chim said, voice full of mirth. “That was tsunami guy, huh?”

Buck rolled his eyes, resigned to an entire shift of Chim teasing him. “Yes, Chim, that was tsunami guy. And yes, we’re probably going out.”

“Aw, c’mon, Buckaroo—you know I tease because I love!” Chim said, pulling him into a rough sideways hug.

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t drop the tacos,” Buck replied, laughing.

“You know, I know none of you believe me, but I swear the guy looks familiar,” Chim said after a moment, thoughtful. “I just can’t quite put my finger on how.”

Buck opened one of the paper bags they’d been handed, and started eating one of the tacos. He was not getting involved in another argument about Chim recognizing people again. Last time, he’d sworn he’d seen Sylvester Stallone and it had just been some dude in a muscle shirt.

Buck pulled into the parking lot at Lake Balboa park, and gave himself another nervous glance in the rear-view mirror.

After a week of texting and enough low-key flirting to nearly give Buck a heart condition, Eddie and he had agreed to meet for coffee on Thursday, since Buck had the day off from the station and Eddie said he had a flexible schedule for now. Buck had suggested a couple of coffee houses he liked, but Eddie had proposed taking their coffee on the go and walking around Lake Balboa, which sounded pretty great—Buck never really spent time in Van Nuys, and he’d wanted to check out the park for a while.

With a deep breath, Buck got out of his Jeep and made his way to the entrance, hoping that the outfit Maddie had helped him pick out really did make him look good. (You look amazing in that pink sweater, Evan. Trust me, I’m your big sister, I’m always right.) He caught sight of Eddie right away—he was waiting right by the gate they’d agreed to, and he was already holding two cardboard cups.

“Hey! I thought we were going to the coffee shop first?” Buck greeted him, as he jogged the last steps to the entrance.

Eddie shrugged, smiling. “I figured I’d save us some time, and I did say that the coffee was on me. You said you liked almond milk lattes, right?” he said, extending one of the cups toward Buck.

Buck took it, smiling back. “Yeah, I did! I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“I pay attention, Buck,” Eddie said, and Buck somehow knew Eddie meant that he paid attention to more than Buck’s coffee preferences.

It was a strange feeling, having someone outside of Maddie and the 118 really care about what Buck liked or didn’t, pay attention to the things he said—his disastrous dating history pre- and post- Abby had mostly consisted of one-night stands where neither the girls or the guys he went out with seemed to care about him beyond his ability to get them off. And Abby, well… Abby had seemed to care until she didn’t.

“Shall we?” Eddie asked, gesturing towards the entrance of the park.

Buck nodded and followed him in, taking advantage of the moment to really look at Eddie. He was just as gorgeous as Buck remembered—he really hadn’t had much time to take him in during their run-in at the taqueria, and Eddie’s hoodie had been kind of huge—and Buck had to thank the inventors of form-fitting jeans and henleys because Eddie Diaz wearing that combination was truly perfection. He found it just a little strange that Eddie was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, though, considering it wasn’t too sunny out, but he figured that maybe Eddie was just a little light-sensitive.

As they entered the park, Buck gave an appreciative glance around: it was beautiful. Also fairly quiet and calm, but Buck figured that was down to the fact that it was around five in the evening on a weekday.

“It’s really nice out here,” he said, shooting a smile at Eddie.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah—Chris and I love it. Lots to do, and it’s pretty quiet; people mostly mind their own business. You haven’t been here before?”

Buck took a sip of his latte before answering; it was absolutely perfect. He made a mental note to ask Eddie exactly what coffee shop he’d gone to, because Hen and he had an ongoing low-level rivalry to find the best coffee place in the city, and so far Hen was winning. Buck was pretty sure that Karen was helping her cheat, somehow—probably with an algorithm or something.

“I actually haven’t,” he replied. “When I got to LA I made a list of all the places I wanted to visit and things I wanted to see, and I did manage to hit a lot of them in the first few months, but after I passed the Fire Academy test I kind of let the list fall by the wayside.”

Eddie cocked his head, giving him a curious glance. “Wait, so you’re not from LA?”

“Nope, I’m from Pennsylvania,” Buck said, smiling. “Why? Do I look like I’m from LA?”

“I don’t know, I mean—the blond, blue-eyed good looks, you’re kinda, uh. Bit of a classic California dreamboat,” Eddie shrugged, coloring slightly.

Buck was delighted, both by the notion that Eddie found him a dreamboat—which, who even said that outside of, like, people in the fifties?—and by Eddie’s blush.

“You think I’m a dreamboat?” he asked teasingly.

Eddie rolled his eyes, knocked his shoulder into Buck’s. “Shut up—you have to know you’re gorgeous.”

It wasn’t that Buck hadn’t heard that he was hot before; he took pride in his physical appearance, and his escapades as Firehose on Tinder and Grindr both attested to the fact that he knew how to use his looks to get a hook-up, but. The way Eddie said it, it just—it felt different, somehow. More real. And it pushed Buck into saying what he’d been thinking since he first caught sight of Eddie scowling at him across the pier.

“So are you,” he said, no hint of a joke in his voice anymore.

They looked at each other, then, and it was like it had been a few times before—on top of the firetruck, at the taquería. Charged and full of an electric sort of promise that sparked underneath Buck’s skin, that he could swear sparked under Eddie’s, too.

After a moment, Eddie cleared his throat, took a sip of his coffee. “So why did you move to LA from Pennsylvania, then? Firefighting?”

Buck scrunched up his face. “I, uh—I actually took the long way ’round to make it from there to here,” he said, trying to figure out a way to summarize his comings and goings after being kicked out of school and getting the Jeep from Maddie, and failing. “Spent some time on the East coast doing random jobs. Did construction, I was a mixologist in Virginia Beach, I was in the SEALs for a bit, did some work at a dude ranch when I dropped out… and then, um, then I was in Peru for a bit, and then I came to LA for firefighting.”

Eddie was looking at him with wide eyes, mouth slightly open. “Jeez, Buck, that’s—you weren’t kidding about the long way ’round.”

Buck rubbed the back of his neck, shrugged. “Yeah, um. When I left home, my sister Maddie told me to go find what I loved, where I belonged… it took me a while, but I found it.”

“And that’s firefighting?” Eddie asked, sounding genuinely invested in Buck’s story, in Buck’s answer.

“Firefighting, and the 118,” Buck said, nodding.

Eddie smiled, a beautiful, small gift of a smile. “I’m glad, Buck. You, uh—you were clearly meant to do it. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure what would’ve happened that day on the pier.”

It was Buck’s turn to jostle Eddie gently with his shoulder.

“Hey—you would’ve gotten him through it,” he told Eddie seriously. “I’d known you for like a second and I could tell you were an amazing dad. A tsunami stood no chance.”

Eddie glanced towards the ground, then, biting his lip. He kicked at a rock on the path they were walking.

“I wasn’t always,” he whispered, after a moment’s silence.

“What do you mean?” Buck asked, voice careful.

Eddie took a deep breath, let it out audibly. “I, uh. I had Chris when I was like nineteen—his mom and I, we liked each other a lot, loved each other, even. But it wasn’t ever meant to be something serious, you know? So when Shannon got pregnant, when Chris was born, I sort of, um. Spiraled a bit.”

Eddie paused, glanced up at Buck, and then glanced back down again. “I, uh—I came into quite a bit of money when I was young, so I made sure that, y’know, things were covered, that part wasn’t the issue. But I couldn’t figure out how to be there. And it got a little worse when we got Chris’ CP diagnosis. I got my shit together, eventually. I had to, ‘cause Shannon—Chris’ mom—she’s a photographer and her career kind of took off and, uh. She said it was my turn to be there.”

Buck took that in, a little floored by Eddie’s trust. He tried to figure out what he could say that wouldn’t sound trite or dumb or simply not enough, and he finally said what was bursting out of him, what years and years of cold words and colder glances and sheer and utter disinterest from his parents had taught him.

“And you are here now, Eddie. You’re here now, and that’s what matters,” he said, putting a careful hand around Eddie’s wrist, pulling him to a gentle stop. “You say you spiraled, and you made some mistakes, but—Eddie, the way you’re with Christopher now, the way that kid looks at you… whatever mistakes you made, it’s clear you’ve made up for them. And that kid knows you love him. Trust me; it pours out of you.”

Eddie looked down at Buck’s hand around his wrist, then up at Buck, his eyes a little shiny. He opened his mouth, then closed it, rolling his lips inside, like he couldn’t quite figure out what to say. He shifted the arm in Buck’s loose hold to grab Buck’s hand, squeeze it. And then Eddie raised his other hand, placed it carefully on Buck’s cheek—it felt light as air, but electrifying—and leaned in to kiss Buck.

The kiss felt like a question Buck had been dying to answer, and he opened his mouth to Eddie’s, sinking into his warmth, kissing back with everything he had. They pulled back after a moment, some distant part of Buck’s mind aware that they were in a public park, and Eddie rested his forehead on Buck’s.

“I really like you, Evan Buckley,” Eddie whispered.

Buck smiled. “I really like you, too, Eddie Diaz.”

They kept walking, then, and Eddie finally got around to sharing that he was from El Paso but had moved to LA pretty young with his whole family, even though his parents and sisters were now back in Texas. He didn’t seem to want to talk much about growing up, and since Buck could sympathize—he hated talking about his own parents—he steered the conversation away and towards lighter fare like some of the dumber calls the 118 had been on, to Eddie’s evident relief.

By the time they’d walked for nearly two hours and Eddie had to leave, Buck had agreed to go to dinner at Eddie’s house on Sunday and hang out with Chris, who had apparently been very jealous that Eddie was seeing him.

After they said goodbye with another—shorter—kiss and Buck was sitting in his car, he realized that Eddie hadn’t ever let go of his hand after grabbing it.

He smiled the whole way back home.

As Buck drove up to Eddie’s house, following the directions of his GPS, he had a moment of feeling genuinely intimidated. He’d been here before, of course, when the 118 had gotten the call for Eddie’s abuela and her hip and he’d met Christopher for the first time, but when he was on the job the houses they went to were sort of secondary.

Now, though, he looked at the huge house with some trepidation. Eddie had said he’d come into money when he was younger, but he’d seemed so uncomfortable talking about it and about his past that Buck had figured maybe a rich relative had died, or something. And it wasn’t that Buck was totally unfamiliar with large, intimidating houses—the Buckleys had a bunch of annoying, country-club friends and they’d tried to force Buck into socializing with their kids until they decided Buck was too accident-prone and embarrassing and he got to stay home—but he always felt a little like a bull in a china shop inside them.

A crackling sound coming from the intercom at the gate made him jump.

“You coming in any time soon, or just going to stare at the gate?”

Eddie’s voice was slightly distorted and scratchy, but Buck could still hear the amusement in it, and he felt himself blush furiously.

“You, uh—you can see me?”

“Yeah, Buck, the house has a few cameras,” Eddie replied, clearly barely stopping himself from laughing.

“Oh. Um, yeah, I just got. A little nervous,” Buck said.

There was a beat of silence.

“No need to be,” Eddie said, and now his voice sounded warm, and how did that even work, how did Eddie Diaz manage to twist Buck up even through a scratchy intercom? “Chris is already waiting for you at the front door—he’s very excited to see you again.”

With that, the front gate swung open. Buck took a deep breath, and drove inside.

The driveway somehow seemed a little longer than he remembered, although that probably had to do with the fact that Buck was driving it on a Jeep and not a fire engine, but he could spy Chris at the front door, as promised, practically shaking with excitement.

“Buck! You’re here!” Chris said, as soon as Buck was out of his car.

“Hey, buddy,” Buck greeted him, leaning down for the hug Chris was offering. Little kid hugs were truly the best. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“You want to come play Legos with me?” Chris asked, grinning.

“Let him come into the house before you drag him off to play, kid,” Eddie admonished, coming up to the door behind him and smiling down at where Buck was still kneeling in front of Christopher.

If Eddie’s warm voice had flustered Buck over the damn intercom, being in his actual physical presence again, seeing his smile—it was all threatening to make Buck blue-screen. He was wearing another jeans and henley combination—black, this time—and he looked amazing. Buck sort of stared at him, mouth slightly open, before shaking himself out of it and coming back up to his feet, reaching out one hand to make sure that Chris was steady.

“Um, hi,” he said, eloquently.

Eddie’s eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile grew. Buck’s heart pounded in his chest.

“Hey,” Eddie replied. “Is this gonna be a thing, you lingering around doors and gates?”

Honestly, if Eddie kept smiling at him like that, Buck couldn’t promise that this wouldn’t happen again, so he shrugged slightly. “Maybe?”

Eddie huffed out a laugh, and then tilted his head. “C’mon, let’s go in. Chris has a whole lot of Legos he wants to show you—he’s been getting them ready most of the afternoon. I’m gonna go check on the food for dinner.”

It turned out not to be an exaggeration: Chris led the way to his room immediately, so Buck barely got a glimpse of the high ceilings, shiny chrome appliances and huge windows before he was faced with a veritable mountain of Legos.

“Will you help me build this one?” Chris asked, sitting on the floor and pointing toward a box that had a picture of an elaborate starship on it.

Buck sat down in front of him, carefully sweeping the floor with his eyes to avoid any painful Lego-related accidents, and took the box in his hands. It looked a little complicated, but he figured between the two of them they could make it happen.

“Let’s do it, bud.”

They both became absorbed in their task, and in between Christopher peppering him with questions about what it was like being a firefighter and sharing that he himself wanted to be a pirate-astronaut-firefighter—Buck was unclear as to whether he meant that alternatively or cumulatively, but he had to give Chris props for choosing future jobs with cool costumes—Buck kind of forgot that he was in Eddie Diaz’ house, on what was, theoretically, a date.

Until the man himself appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat, startling Buck into dropping a little plastic antenna he was trying and failing to place on the weird starship.

“You two ready to eat or are you going to finish that Star Destroyer?”

Buck frowned and looked down at the starship they were attempting to assemble. “Star Destroyer?”

“Yeah, it’s from Star Wars,” Eddie replied, then cocked his head after Buck shook his head. “You, uh—you don’t know Star Wars?”

“...I know it has stars? And wars?” Buck said, and at the shocked look on Eddie’s face, elaborated. “My parents weren’t really big on taking Maddie and me to the movies… or the park, or. Well. Anywhere, really. So we kind of missed a lot of things growing up? Movies and stuff? Chim always makes fun of me because of it.”

“Huh. That makes sense,” Eddie said, quietly.

“What does?”

“Never mind. Uh, I was kind of thinking out loud,” Eddie said, and then sat down next to Buck and took the little fiddly antenna from him, fitting it correctly into the starship. The slight brush of their hands and their knees felt electric. “What have you two been talking about?”

“Buck was telling me some firefighter stories!” Chris exclaimed, gesturing so excitedly that he dropped the wing of the starship he was working on. “One time, a little girl got stuck inside one of those claw games and Buck had to get her out, and then he had to go help three ladies who were all having babies at the same time, and then a guy had a super-long tapeworm!”

Eddie raised his eyebrows and turned to Buck, who shrugged.

“It was the full moon—we get a lot of crazy calls on full moons,” he said. He’d obviously not mentioned the guy who had eaten someone’s face, but Chris had gotten a kick out of the rest of the stories.

“Well, how about we hear some more of these stories over dinner?” Eddie said, slowly standing up and putting out a hand for Buck to take. “Those enchiladas won’t eat themselves.”

“Did you make them, dad?” Chris asked, sounding extremely skeptical.

“No, mijo, I didn’t—your aunt Pepa dropped them off earlier,” Eddie replied.

“Oh, good,” Chris said, leading the way out of his room.

He’d sounded so honestly relieved that Buck couldn’t help himself; he had to rib Eddie. “So, uh, you’re not usually a cook?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he laughed a little. “Not at all a cook, really—my skill set begins and ends with pouring cereal and making the occasional quesadilla. What about you?”

“Well, I used to be kind of hopeless, but Bobby started teaching me when I joined the 118,” Buck said, smiling at the memory of Bobby’s horrified look when Buck had first been assigned kitchen duties and had nearly given everyone food poisoning. “We’re now almost finished with dinner and about to start on desserts, so it’s going pretty well.”

“Maybe I’ll get to see for myself later?” Eddie asked, sounding a little uncertain.

Buck met his eyes, and couldn’t do anything but nod. “Yeah. Yeah, for sure.”

Eddie smiled, a warm, sideways smile that made Buck’s breath catch in his throat. It might be too soon—almost definitely too soon—but he knew that he was falling for Eddie. He just hoped he wasn’t falling alone.

Dinner was amazing. The enchiladas were truly among the greatest things Buck had ever eaten, and he gushed over them enough that Eddie promised to ask his aunt Pepa for the recipe, which made Buck feel a little crazy, but in a good way.

As promised, Buck shared a few more firefighting stories, focusing on the funny or easy ones and editing liberally to avoid traumatizing Chris, to Eddie’s evident appreciation. Buck also finally got more of an idea of what Eddie did—like quite a few people in LA, he seemed to be in the entertainment industry, if his very vague mention of scripts and sets was any guide, but he made it sound like he hadn’t really had any particularly big breaks, and he seemed sort of reluctant to get into it at all. Buck had roomed with (and hooked up with) enough aspiring actor-director-scriptwriter-slash-waiters when he’d first gotten to LA that he knew it could be a sore spot, and while he could see from the house and furnishings that Eddie was definitely not struggling, he really didn’t want to screw up their second date by pressing for more details.

“Dad, can I watch a movie with Buck after dinner?” Chris asked, his mouth smeared with green sauce.

Eddie leaned toward him and gently wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You gotta wake up early for school tomorrow, kid—how about an episode of one of your shows instead?”

“Clone Wars!” Chris agreed happily, and turned to Buck. “Buck, have you watched Clone Wars?”

“I have not, bud, but I’m guessing there are clones and there are wars,” Buck replied, smiling when Chris giggled. “You can tell me who’s who so I don’t get lost, though, how about that?”

“Yeah! I’m a really good explainer; dad always says so,” Chris said.

“I bet he’s right,” Buck said, meeting Eddie’s eyes above Chris’ head. Eddie was smiling fondly at them both. “C’mon, let’s get these plates to the kitchen and then we can go watch it.”

“Oh, no, Buck, you don’t have to do that,” Eddie protested, waving a hand.

“Hey, the cook doesn’t clean,” Buck said, and then paused, cocking his head. “Or, well, the person who heated up the food cooked by their amazing aunt doesn’t clean.”

Eddie chuckled, and nudged Buck’s shoulder as they both stood up to take the plates back to the kitchen, Chris following behind them. Buck had another slight moment of intimidation as they walked into the kitchen, which was so huge he was sure about three quarters of his own loft would fit inside it, but he shook it off and started to rinse and wash the plates before handing them off to Chris, who was carefully drying them under Eddie’s supervision.

When they eventually settled in the TV room—a wholly separate room from the living room, because the size of Eddie’s house really couldn’t be overstated—Buck looked around curiously while Eddie fiddled with the remote, trying to locate any knick-knacks or pictures. He loved snooping around in people’s houses, a habit that Bobby despaired of on calls but Maddie chalked up to their own house growing up being totally devoid of any photographs or anything that indicated an actual family lived there and it wasn’t just a magazine catalogue house.

Eddie’s house was… honestly not too different from that. There was a cozy throw over one of the couches, clearly handmade, and Buck spied another bucket of Chris’ Legos, but everything else seemed a little too clean.

Eddie must’ve noticed him looking around, because he grimaced slightly. “Yeah, the house is—it’s a little too big for Chris and me, but, um.” Eddie cut himself off, glanced down at Chris quickly, and then up at Buck. “When Chris’ mom dropped him off with me, the place I was living in was sort of terrible for him, lots of stairs, a little too complicated. I sort of agreed to this place sight unseen, and I guess I just... haven’t really felt comfortable making it too much my own. My abuela and my sisters give me a hard time about it.”

Buck nodded. Being able to just rent a place this big was not something he could really relate to, but feeling like a stranger in a place he should call his he knew. “I mean, I sort of get it. My parents’ house was… like a museum, or something, more than a house. And then I moved around so much, for so long, that even now with the place I’m living in—it still feels a little weird to call it mine. But, uh. Maddie told me to start small, and then it would get a little easier. Maybe you can try that? A couple of pictures, or frame one of Chris’ drawings?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s good advice, Buck. Thanks,” Eddie said softly.

“Dad, put on the show,” Chris interrupted, whining slightly.

“Right—sorry, kid.”

Eddie pressed play, and Buck settled in, leaning close to Chris who began explaining who was who and why he liked each character as they ate the popcorn Chris had convinced Eddie to make. The show was fun, if maybe a little too intense for kids? Maybe? But honestly Buck hadn’t ever really watched kid TV shows, so what did he know. He liked the clones, anyway, just as much as Chris seemed to, and he guessed that was all that mattered.

One episode turned into a second one, thanks to Chris’ pleading eyes, but towards the end Chris started to flag, listing gradually until he leaned into Buck’s chest and fell asleep. Buck started breathing carefully, desperate not to startle or wake him, and when he met Eddie’s eyes, he became arrested by what he saw there—it was fond, and maybe a little scared, and something Buck couldn’t quite read. The entire moment felt as fragile as a soap bubble, just as delicate, as ephemeral.

“Should I, uh. D’you want me to carry him to his room?” Buck asked quietly, after a moment.

The soft look in Eddie’s eyes resolved into a smile, and he shook his head. “No, don’t worry. I’m an old hand at this.”

With that, Eddie stood up and carefully scooped Chris up from where he was leaning on Buck’s chest, his warmth and the woodsy scent of his cologne enveloping Buck for a single, startling second before they were gone.

“Be right back,” Eddie said, shushing Chris’ sleepy complaints with a soothing hand over his curls.

Buck stayed on the couch for a moment, staring at the blinking episode menu blankly, before the silence drove him to stand up and gather the half-empty bowl of popcorn and the glasses of water and take them into the kitchen.

That’s where Eddie found him some time later, as Buck was setting the last clean glass on the drainer. Buck had felt a constant sort of buzz under his skin since he’d arrived, something that had come and gone throughout the evening, and now that he and Eddie were alone, staring at each other across the kitchen in a silence that felt somehow loud, the buzz resolved into something sharply simple: want.

“Hey,” Buck said, quietly.

Almost as if Buck’s voice had unlocked something, Eddie crossed the kitchen in two long strides and took Buck’s face in his hands, pulling him down for a deep, long kiss that made Buck moan and clutch at Eddie’s shoulders, his knees feeling unsteady.

Eddie pulled back slightly for a second, ran a delicate thumb over Buck’s birthmark—which made him shiver—and then kissed Buck again, even deeper, somehow, while walking him backwards until Buck’s back was against the fridge. It made Buck almost delirious, the fact that Eddie was strong enough to move him, and he opened his legs, welcoming Eddie’s knee between them.

One of Eddie’s hands moved from his face to Buck’s waist, then inside his shirt, and Buck groaned, thunking his head back on the fridge and almost instinctively pushing his hips up.

“Jesus, Buck,” Eddie panted, the hand at his waist clutching him hard before Eddie pressed a kiss to his throat, then lower on his neck.

When Buck pushed his hips up again, the kiss turned into suction, and Buck gasped, one hand going to Eddie’s ass to pull him even closer, even harder, and the other at the back of his head to keep him there, marking Buck up.

It was like they couldn’t stop, like they were teenagers in the back of a car or at some random house party—Eddie kept moving against Buck and Buck kept thrusting up and their kisses became messier and messier until Buck came, breathing into Eddie’s mouth, seeing stars, Eddie following soon after.

Eddie rested his forehead against Buck’s neck—it was throbbing a little; Buck would have a hell of a hickey soon—and Buck ran his fingers gently over the short hairs at Eddie’s nape, slowly getting his breath back.

“That was….” he began, trailing off, still a little lust-drunk.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed into his neck. Buck could feel him smiling.

“Yeah,” Buck repeated. Eddie looked up, then, and they just looked at each other for a moment. Buck could’ve stayed in that moment forever, probably, but the wet spot in his jeans began getting uncomfortable. “I, uh. I might need to borrow some pants before I go home.”

Eddie’s smile turned into a smirk, and he stepped back from Buck, taking one of his hands to lead him out of the kitchen. “C’mon, we’ll find you something.”

It was a little weird to be going into Eddie’s bedroom to get decent when they’d, well... when they’d more or less had sex in the kitchen? But Buck took it as an opportunity to snoop around some more, so while Eddie hunted down some pants in his walk-in closet, Buck took a look around the darkened room. It looked like it had a tiny bit more personality—there were some actual photographs on the dresser, at least, and a little plant—but the decoration more or less said “high-end hotel room” rather than “actual house where people lived”.

“Here you go,” Eddie said, handing over a pair of soft jogging pants and startling Buck out of his thoughts. “You can use the bathroom if you want. Or, um. D’you. Would you maybe want to stay over?”

Buck looked at Eddie, mouth slightly open. He wanted to say yes, desperately, every part of him suddenly aching to stay in Eddie’s presence even longer, to crawl into bed with him and maybe between his legs again, but. The responsible, adult part of him knew he had a 24-hour shift starting tomorrow at 7 am and his uniform was at home, and he needed to actually sleep at some point before being on-call for twenty-four hours, which he knew he really wouldn’t if he stayed in Eddie’s bed.

So, with true regret, he shook his head. “I—I really want to, but I can’t. I’m on a twenty-four hour shift tomorrow first thing, so…”

“So it’s a really bad idea, yeah,” Eddie completed his sentence, mouth twisting slightly. “No, I get it, no worries. I just. Um. Thought I’d ask.”

And it made Buck feel so warm, that Eddie had even asked, that Eddie had wanted him to stay, and Eddie looked so discomfited that it burst out of Buck before he thought about it.

“Do you want to come to a barbecue with me next weekend? You and Chris, I mean?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to—it was probably way, way too early to have Eddie meet the 118, and would probably hint to Eddie just how quickly Buck was falling for him, but he couldn’t regret asking. “It’s at Bobby’s house, kind of a monthly tradition for the 118.”

Eddie looked at him for a moment, contemplative, but then he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.”

“Great,” Buck echoed, smiling. He then shifted, and grimaced slightly as he felt the front of his jeans. “I’m gonna, uh. Go change.”

Even after he changed, it was another twenty minutes before he finally made it out of Eddie’s house—he hadn’t been able to resist going for a good night kiss, which had kind of turned into a good night make-out by the door—and Buck could not regret even for a second that getting up in the morning would probably suck.

It had been an amazing night, every single part of it. Hanging out with Chris, having dinner and being part of Chris and Eddie’s routine, somehow, and then, well. Buck wanted to be back in Eddie’s arms as soon as possible.

Some part of Buck thought that maybe, maybe, he was finally getting it right. After the unfulfilling mess that had been Virginia Beach and his first few months in LA, after the heartbreak of Abby leaving him, then Ali cutting and running as soon as his job got real… maybe this could be it.

Of course, Buck probably should’ve known better.

Things were fine for most of the week.

Buck had taken to texting back and forth with Eddie after the taquería, silly stories about the job, the occasional selfie, to which Eddie reciprocated with updates on Chris, a couple of rants about a Hildy coffee machine that one of his sisters had gotten him and Eddie felt was the devil incarnate, and general commiseration about how dumb people could be. He also sent Buck a couple of pictures—one pulling a face, the other just him and Christopher smiling at the camera—and Buck had promptly saved him into his phone.

“Why are you making cow eyes at your cell phone, Buckaroo?” Hen asked, sitting down next to him on the couch at the station.

No calls had come in for around an hour, and most people had taken advantage of the break to go nap, but Buck had felt a little anxious, so he’d stayed up, scrolling through the texts he and Eddie had sent each other.

“Oh, um. It’s—it’s Eddie,” he finally replied.

“Ah, of course. Your tsunami guy,” Hen said. “Everything going okay?”

Buck huffed out a laugh at the moniker—he doubted they would stop anytime soon, considering how long they’d called Ali “Earthquake Girl”. It also maybe had to do with the fact that Buck had tried to downplay just how much into Eddie he was, how it felt completely different from Ali or any of the girls he’d gone out with before Abby, because he wanted to avoid teasing and Bobby’s concerned eyes. Still, he was feeling kind of stressed out, and Hen would probably make a good sounding board.

“Yeah, it’s. It’s going really great, actually,” Buck said, biting his lip. “I, uh. I actually invited him to Bobby’s on Sunday.”

Hen raised her eyebrows. “Really? That’s—that’s a big step, Buck. It really must be going well.”

Buck’s phone buzzed with another text from Eddie, and Buck glanced down at it, smiling automatically, which made Hen laugh a little.

“Yeah, it is. I mean. I know it’s maybe a little early for the family barbecue? But I really like him, Hen.”

Hen smiled, then, that warm smile that had made Buck feel better even on the roughest of days. “I’m happy for you, Buck. I really am. You deserve that.” She paused, and then nudged him with her elbow. “And I promise I’ll try to make sure Chim behaves himself.”

“Thank you, Hen,” Buck said, smiling back at her.

“Don’t thank me yet—I can try to handle Chim, but you know Athena is going to cross-examine your boy to hell and back, and even I know better than to step in when that starts,” Hen said, before standing up again and heading to the kitchen.

Oh, no. He’d been so worried about Eddie meeting Chim and Maddie and getting a one-two punch of ‘tease Buck’ and ‘share embarrassing stories of kid Buck’ that he hadn’t even thought about Athena. He glanced down at his phone again and tried to think how he could ask if Eddie had ever been arrested without sounding totally weird. He came up blank.

He’d just—he’d deal with it on Sunday.

By Thursday, Buck had sent about seven different texts explaining Bobby’s stance on grilling assistance (don’t assist unless he specifically tasks you because you will ruin his method), preemptively apologizing for whatever Chim would say to tease them, and double-checking if Chris needed anything in particular moved or shifted to ensure his mobility around the house or yard. He might’ve been freaking out a little. Eddie seemed generally amused, thankfully, and patiently answered all the detailed questions about Chris’ and his potential allergies and food likes and dislikes that Buck sent his way, even when Buck sent one at eleven thirty at night because he’d freaked out watching a random documentary on allergens on Netflix.

On Friday, though, Eddie stopped responding.

Buck didn’t really register it at first—he was on shift, and they were pretty busy, dealing with a strange pile-up of traffic-related incidents one after the other, and then an electrical fire at an apartment building where the sprinklers came on way too late, only to soak them all after they’d put out the actual fire.

But by the time they’d gotten back to the station for dinner, he realized that Eddie hadn’t replied to the text Buck had sent in the morning, which was unusual enough, but he’d also ignored the couple of follow-up texts Buck had sent complaining about LA Friday drivers, which had never happened since they’d started texting. Eddie replied right away every time—faster than Buck, even, which was something considering Buck felt anxious if he ever let a text sit unanswered for more than five minutes.

He frowned, and typed out a new text. Maybe Eddie was having a bad day?

To: Eddie
Hey, how’s your day going? Everything ok? Sry about the rant. We had way too many traffic calls 2day

A couple of seconds later his phone buzzed, and Buck stared at the screen, confused.

Delivery failed

It could only mean one thing, but Buck still tried to call, only to hang up halfway through the automatic ”The number you are calling is no longer in service.”

Buck looked at the phone in his hands, lost. He already knew Eddie wasn’t on Facebook or Instagram or anything—hell, from the way Eddie seemed to hate technology, it was almost a miracle that he’d had a cell phone.

But what it meant in practice was that Buck had no way to reach him, no way to understand if Eddie was safe, if Cristopher was okay, or if the problem was Buck himself. For once, Buck decided that he wouldn’t catastrophize, would try not to assume. He hadn’t managed to give Eddie Bobby’s address, but maybe Eddie would contact him, somehow, and explain what had happened, and it would be fine.

On Sunday, though, after dodging Hen and Chim’s knowing glances, after Maddie had given him an extra brownie and Athena three scoops of her favorite bourbon-vanilla ice-cream and Bobby had made sure he was distracted as his sous-chef the entire time as the hours went by and Eddie and Chris didn’t magically show up… Buck had to face the truth.

He’d been ghosted, again. He’d fallen too hard and somehow screwed it up without even realizing how, and he was alone, even amidst his careful, kind family, who were handling him like he was made of glass.

Later that night, as he walked into his empty, dark loft—he’d refused Bobby’s insistent invitation to sleep over at his and Athena’s, even as some part of him felt immensely grateful for the offer—Buck sat down heavily on his couch and stared at the dark TV in front of him. He was struck by the unwelcome echo in negative: a week ago he’d been sitting on another couch, Chris snuggled up to him, Eddie laughing at them both, so sure that he was welcome, so strangely certain that he and Eddie were on the same page.

Maybe Maddie and the team had been right—it felt like if he breathed wrong, he’d shatter.

The next week was a little blurry.

Buck did his work and did it well, of course—it was easy to focus when someone’s life was on the line—but whenever they weren’t on a call, he did whatever he could to distract himself. Rolled up the hoses, cleaned the engines, baked at least five trays of brownies, restocked the ambulances and the trucks… anything and everything to avoid sitting alone with his thoughts.

At some point, though, after he’d finished an inventory of the station cleaning supplies and realized the night shift had given way to the afternoon, Buck sat down in front of the TV in the loft and just. Stopped.

“You, uh—you’re watching the news, Evan?”

Maddie’s soft voice pulled him out of the vague fugue state he’d been in, and he realized that Taylor Kelly was on TV, reporting about some LA type whose house had been broken into.

“... at this time police continue to have no leads on the source of the leak of the actor’s private cellphone and address, but they are still investigating. Through his agent, the actor of the massive Moon Bitten franchise has requested the public respect his privacy…”

Buck turned the TV off, absent-mindedly remembering that Chim liked the movie they’d been talking about, and turned to Maddie, who was looking at him with so much warmth and kindness that it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

“Hey, Maddie,” he said, clearing his throat after his voice came out hoarse. “No, I’m just. Um. Here.”

Maddie smiled slightly and sat down next to him, taking his hand. “Well, I’m going to take you out to lunch at your favorite burger place, so how about you go change so we can get going?”

Buck frowned. “Wait, but—Mads, I’m on shift.”

“Your shift ended at seven, Buck,” Maddie said gently. “It’s almost noon.”

Buck glanced around, then, and realized that Hen and Chim were long gone, that everyone moving around the station was from B shift. The only person left from his team was Bobby, steadily working on paperwork at the kitchen counter, having clearly stayed behind to keep an eye on him. Buck met his warm gaze for a moment and nodded at him, more grateful than he could really express; Bobby smiled slightly, and nodded back.

“Yeah, um. Let’s go get lunch.”

Over burgers, fries, and milkshakes, Maddie distracted Buck with tales of her latest 911 calls, the ongoing power struggle between Josh and a new operator over the good microwave in their kitchen, and her own dithering over whether to go ahead and move in with Chim or not. Buck felt the tension he’d been carrying melt over the course of their lunch, and by the end of it was even teasing Maddie about paying rent for a place she only slept in once a week.

“It’s good to see you smile, Evan,” Maddie said, dipping one of her remaining fries into her milkshake—a habit of hers Buck had acquired despite much teasing by the 118. “I know the whole Eddie thing has been rough.”

Buck bit his lip. “It’s. It’s more than that, Mads… I just—this is the third person I’ve gone out with who just leaves, you know? And I know it was early and maybe it’s my own fault because I got a little too deep too soon, but I just hate…. I hate that I keep being the one left on the other side of an unanswered text.”

Maddie looked at him seriously for a moment. “Buck, I’m not going to try to give explanations or excuses for what Eddie did. I don’t know if you’ll ever find out why—maybe you will, and it’ll be a great explanation, or it’ll suck. But what I think you can do right now is look at it from your side, rather than his.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—do you regret any of it? The time you spent with him, with Chris? Do you regret falling for him?”

And Buck thought back to that first moment on the pier, to the insanity that followed—rescuing Christopher and Eddie’s strong arms pulling him up onto the fire truck, the laughter and the terror and the strange, immediate trust. Seeing him again in that taquería, the electricity and spark, their long walk in the park that ended only because Eddie had to pick up Chris and not because they’d run out of things to say, that warm evening at Eddie’s house with Legos and Clone Wars and enchiladas, and that unbelievable moment in the kitchen…

He could regret none of it.

“I don’t,” he replied honestly.

Maddie nodded with a sad smile, and took Buck’s hand in hers. “You have such a big heart, Evan—the biggest heart. What you two shared... from what you’ve told me, it was amazing. Don’t feel sorry for having felt it, okay?”

“Okay,” Buck whispered. “Thanks, Mads.”

“That’s what I’m here for. And, hey—you get to pick the food this Buffriday, and it’ll be on Chim and me.”

Buck huffed out a laugh, and agreed.

Later that day, he decided to drive to the Hills before heading home, and went slowly past Eddie’s house. It looked even more intimidating than usual, and Buck frowned, until he realized why—it looked totally empty, devoid of activity. And then Buck spied a small, tasteful sign advertising it for lease, by one of those companies that only dealt with serious money.

Buck sighed, and made his way home.

Whatever had happened, there was some consolation in thinking that Eddie hadn’t just left him; clearly something more had taken place. Buck didn’t know if he’d ever figure out what, but in the meantime, Maddie’s words were a balm: he couldn’t regret his side of things. Not a single second.

“Okay, Hen—this is for all the marbles, and by the marbles I mean the last of Bobby’s chocolate fudge brownies. Are you ready?” Buck asked, narrowing his eyes over the flashcard he was holding.

They were set up in the firehouse living room, and Buck was helping Hen study. Ostensibly, Hen had pulled him into it because he was always researching stuff anyway and she was sure he’d be the best study partner, but Buck knew she was actually keeping him distracted from dwelling on his own thoughts, and he really appreciated it.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this,” Hen said.

“What is the eighth step of the Krebs cycle?”

Hen bit her lip, and Buck could see her go over the steps in her head before she nodded and said, “When fumarate gets converted to malate.”

“Uh—that’s actually the seventh step,” Buck said, wincing.

Hen groaned, leaning back into the couch. “I really, really hate biochem. What’s the eighth?”

“Malate is dehydrogenated to form oxaloacetate,” Buck read from the flashcard. He looked up and Hen looked so discouraged that he couldn’t help it. “Hey, you can totally have the last brownie. And we’ll go over this again, okay? You can do this. You stuck your hand inside a guy’s heart, Hen! That’s way harder than the Krebs cycle.”

“Thanks, Buckaroo,” Hen said, smiling slightly. And then she pointed toward the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. “Although I think maybe Chim just ate the last brownie.”

Buck turned to look at the kitchen counter where, sure enough, Chim was cramming the last of the brownie into his mouth.

“What?” he asked, when he saw that Buck and Hen were both looking at him.

Just as Buck opened his mouth to berate him, though, the alarm went off.

Once they were in the truck, Bobby turned toward them slightly, looking concerned—Buck could see that whatever he’d gotten from dispatch had him worried.

“Okay, everyone, this is going to be a complicated call, so listen up: we’re heading to a movie shoot that went wrong,” Bobby explained. “Apparently they were doing some driving stunt and something happened to the car, which went over a cliff and is stuck on the side of an office building. Not sure if there are injured outside of the stunt driver, but we should be ready for anything.” He paused, and then gave Chim a meaningful glance. “And Chim, please keep it professional.”

Chim gave an outraged shout. “Hey, why am I being singled out here? I am the most professional!”

“Chim, three weeks ago you went up to some woman because you thought she was Julia Roberts just because of her hair,” Hen said, rolling her eyes.

“It wasn’t just the hair! She also had, you know. Like. A smile,” Chim said, gesturing.

Bobby turned toward them again. “Well, smile or no smile—we’ll keep it professional, no matter who we see. Apparently the movie is independent, from what they said to dispatch, so maybe there will be nobody to actually distract you, Chim.”

They drove through a gate that advertised a long-abandoned construction, and Buck could see why it would work as a movie set—there was a half-finished road and bridge, a few housing structures, and an office building that looked empty and derelict. The whole thing looked apocalyptic.

Once they parked, they emerged to barely controlled chaos. A few people immediately went up to Bobby, started explaining what had happened, but Buck drifted toward the site of the accident, knowing Bobby would let them all know the pertinent information once he had it.

“...it’s the stunt driver for our lead actor, and the cameraperson in the backseat…”

“We just—we’re not sure what happened, but we can’t actually get in from inside the building, something seems to be blocking the door…”

“...they do have a radio on them, yes…”

The car—a black muscle car, maybe a Chevy Charger?—had clearly taken a bad turn in the abandoned, half-constructed highway bridge and somehow gone over and got stuck on the side of the building. It looked somewhat stable for now, but Buck figured that as soon as they started trying to get to the victims they’d lose the stability fast. Buck gave a speculative glance up to the roof, and, just in case, started getting the harness, winch, and the ropes ready.

“Okay, everyone, here’s what we got,” Bobby called out. “Two people stuck inside the car, stunt driver and cameraman. There appears to be something blocking the door to the floor the car is stuck in but we don’t know what, since the place has been abandoned for a while. We also have radio contact with them—looks like the driver is mostly responsive but stuck on something, and he’s saying the cameraman stopped responding to him a few minutes ago.”

Buck, Hen, and Chim shared a glance at that. It meant that the cameraman had to be evacuated faster, but getting him out of the car first would be much harder.

“We’ll divide into two teams—Chim, Buck, Reyes, you’re all going up with me. Bring the Halligan, the hammer, the jaws, everything else we might need. Hen—you stay with the rest of the crew below in case we end up having to lower the victims.”

Buck and the rest scrambled to obey, and soon enough they were running up five flights of stairs. It struck Buck, as they were climbing, that Bobby’s warning, while probably important, hadn’t really been necessary. They were on a movie set and maybe there were famous people wandering around—not that Buck would really recognize them, he acknowledged—but there were lives at stake and they were all wholly focused on that.

Still, after they’d hammered their way past the obstruction at the door and were finally surrounding the black car, Buck had to purposefully remind himself to focus. It wasn’t that the driver was famous or an actor, but that he looked like Eddie. Same black hair and haircut, similar build, tone of skin, like an eerie duplicate that wasn’t quite right. Bobby shot Buck a concerned glance when he noticed him freeze, and it was enough for Buck to shake himself and begin to evaluate the cameraman with Reyes while Chim and Bobby focused on the driver.

“Hey, buddy, can you hear me?” Buck called out, trying to get as close as he could without tipping the car over.

The man groaned but didn’t answer, and Buck saw that he had a serious contusion on his forehead and was bleeding pretty profusely. They had to get him out fast. When he turned back to Chim and Bobby, he could tell from their grim faces they were contemplating the worst possible thing they could as first responders: what if they could only save one?

Buck took a deep breath, and proposed what he’d been thinking since they arrived. He refused to have to make that choice; he refused to leave this place with only one person.

“Bobby—what if we take the cameraman from the outside? I can go up to the roof with Reyes, he can lower me down, and I’ll cut my way through with the saw and get him onto a basket.”

“A rope rescue?” Bobby asked, grimacing a little. He glanced back at the driver and Chim, who gave a little nod, and sighed. “Alright. Yes. But if things start going sideways, Reyes is pulling you out, Buckley. No arguments.”

“You got it, Cap.”

Buck led Reyes up to the roof, and put on the harness while Reyes set up the winch. When everything was ready, he radioed Bobby to let him know he was ready. Before making his way down, he noticed that a lot more people seemed to be around now, looking up at the car and Buck himself, and one of them looked strangely familiar. Buck blinked and took a deep breath—he was just seeing things; it had been the driver looking so much like Eddie that had shook him off balance. He needed to focus on the rescue. He couldn’t let a single thing go wrong.

“Okay, I’m going down,” Buck told Reyes, and started the descent.

The rest of the rescue went by in flashes: getting to the car, taking out the saw and telling the cameraman to brace himself, radioing Bobby so people would get out of the way below as the car door fell, getting the neck brace on the victim and calling for the basket.

The car creaked ominously more than once, and shifted enough that Buck heard Bobby calling angrily over the radio, heard the crowd below yell in alarm, but Buck was able to steady it by bracing himself against the side of the building. He kept going, working steadily until finally, finally, he could lower the victim down to where Hen was waiting for the rest of the team with the gurney ready.

“Victim’s all clear, Bobby—you guys can pull out the driver now,” Buck radioed, and after Bobby acknowledged, tugged on his line so Reyes would know to keep lowering him down.

When he touched down onto the ground, Buck let out a relieved breath, absently acknowledging the people clapping off to the side as he unclipped himself from the line, and started taking off his harness. Before he could finish, though, somebody was breaking through the crowd and making his way toward him like a shot.

“Buck! Buck, are you—are you alright?”

Buck looked up and froze, mouth falling open. It was Eddie.

It was Eddie, and he was dressed just like the stunt driver—white t-shirt, artistically torn and dirtied, leather jacket, jeans—and he looked as gorgeous as he always had but somehow unreal and untouchable, like Buck was seeing him through a window, like Buck was seeing him through a screen.

Buck thought back to the conversation with Bobby when they got to the scene, when he’d let them know that the driver was a stunt for the lead actor in the production. He remembered Eddie vaguely talking about being in the industry, wearing a cap and glasses when they were at the park, the people on top of the truck during the tsunami looking at him strangely. He remembered Chim always saying Eddie reminded him of someone.

And then, almost as if called by his thoughts, Chim was running towards them.

“Buck, Bobby’s asking—oh, shit that’s…. That’s Edmundo Diaz from Moon Bitten,” Chim gasped, as he skidded to a stop when he caught sight of Eddie.

Eddie was famous.

So many things fell into place, then, at exactly the same time as other things fell out. The house, the weird free hours, the reluctance to use specifics when talking about work.

Buck didn’t know how to process it, couldn’t figure out what to say. Eddie looked between Chim and Buck, something uncomfortable but determined on his face, and stepped closer.

“I was—I wasn’t on set when the accident happened, but then I arrived and I saw you up there,” Eddie paused, swallowed. The look in his eyes was almost too much for Buck to bear: worried and intense and entirely focused, like the rest of the world had ceased to exist and Buck was the center of Eddie’s universe. “Are you okay?” he asked again.

And the multiple things Buck was feeling—everything he’d been feeling since that first text had bounced, in the weeks of silence that followed, the sadness and the hurt and the ache—they resolved into a clean, pure anger, because how dare Eddie. How dare Eddie look at him like that, how dare he ask if Buck was alright with a voice nearly breaking with worry, how dare he look like the most beautiful thing Buck had ever seen.

So Buck gathered what he could of his sanity, and continued tugging off his harness.

“I’m fine, Eddie. This is my job,” he answered shortly.

“No, I know. I know that, but—”

“Why do you even care?” Buck interrupted, hating that his voice sounded more wounded than angry.

“What do you mean why do I care? Buck, you were literally just dangling from a fucking rope off the side of a building, you could’ve been killed!” Eddie exclaimed.

“And what, a dead firefighter would’ve been bad for your movie?” Buck said, feeling a savage need to hurt.

Eddie reeled back at that, almost like Buck had struck him, and Chim made a low sound from nearby. Buck ran a hand over his face, let out a breath. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to hurt Eddie—not really.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “That was uncalled for.”

Eddie bit his lip. “Maybe not. Buck—I can only imagine how angry you are, and you’re allowed to be, but. Would you let me explain?”

Buck looked at him for a long moment, silent. At his brown eyes shining with sincerity, his hands opening and closing anxiously, his perfect fucking cheekbones. But then he heard Bobby calling out to them, Hen explaining that the second ambulance was already on the way to the hospital, and he just couldn’t do this right now, couldn’t hear whatever explanation Eddie wanted to give him. Not like this.

“I’m on shift, Eddie,” Buck answered with a pained shrug. “I—I can’t do this right now. I just can’t.”

And Eddie rolled his lips into his mouth, glanced down, looking like he was somehow shrinking into himself, like he was wounded.

“Buck, we gotta go,” Chim said, serious and subdued, like he hated that he had to interrupt them.

Buck acknowledged him with a jerky nod of his head before glancing back at Eddie, and tried to smile, figured that whatever he achieved was more like a pained rictus than a smile.

“Take care of yourself, Eddie,” he said, and started walking toward the truck with Chim.

“Wait, Buck,” Eddie said, when they were almost past him, reaching a hand out that hovered just out of range of Buck’s elbow, the near-miss electric. “Will you—would you let me explain later?”

Buck paused, swallowed hard. He weighed his hurt and his anger with the need to understand what happened, with the need, even now, to take away that look in Eddie’s eyes. “Yeah.” And while the savage anger that had taken over was gone, he still couldn’t help a bit of a dig. “But I don’t have a working number for you, and apparently you moved out of your house, so… you figure out how.”

Eddie winced at that, but nodded.

Once they were back in the truck, everyone was quiet, staring at Buck like they were waiting for him to cry or scream or break down. Buck didn’t know if Bobby had gotten the story from Chim somehow, or if Eddie and he had made a bigger scene than he’d realized, but he didn’t really know how to bridge the silence. He was still a little stuck, reeling from hearing Eddie’s voice again, seeing his face.

Finally, Chim snapped his gum. “I knew it. I knew I’d seen Eddie before.”

“Chim, not now,” Hen hissed, jostling him with an elbow.

But it was enough to cut through Buck’s numbness, and he looked at Chim gratefully, laughing a bit. “Promise I’ll believe you next time.”

“I don’t know, Buck—his record is still like one in forty. Not sure we should be making that promise just yet,” Bobby said from the front.

Bobby, Hen, and Chim descended into friendly bickering then, and Buck leaned his head against the seat. Whatever had just happened, whatever was coming next, whatever Eddie told him or didn’t, his team had his back. He’d be fine.

Buck woke up the next day pretty sore: the rope and harness had done a bit of a number on him when he’d been forced to brace himself to avoid the car shifting, and he’d forgotten to apply any deep heat or to ice anything before heading to bed.

As the events of the day before ran through his mind, though, Buck figured he could be forgiven for this carelessness—he’d gotten home to freak out, pretty much, and had ended up calling Maddie to get some reassurance that he hadn’t just done something unbearably stupid by refusing to hear Eddie’s explanation right then and there.

“Evan, you were in the middle of a call and you never expected to see him there, of course it makes sense that you’d want to wait,” Maddie said, voice soothing. “He’ll figure out a way to find you so you can talk, okay? And if he doesn’t… that also says something, right?”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Mads.”

Buck shuffled to the shower, wincing when the hot water hit his bruises, and felt really very grateful he had the day off. He decided to dress in his coziest joggers and most comfortable tank top, and made an executive decision that he’d hang out on the couch, watch one of the documentaries on his Netflix queue, and relax.

Just as the coffee was finishing brewing, though, Buck’s doorbell rang, interrupting his inner ongoing pro and con list as to whether he should have really stacked waffles or just cereal and fruit. A little startled, Buck walked toward the door—Maddie and Bobby had a key, so they never knocked, and Chim and Hen would usually text him before coming by.

On the other side of the door, though, was Eddie.

Eddie, looking like he hadn’t slept at all: hair messy, bags under his eyes, black t-shirt a little wrinkled. And still, even with all that, the most beautiful man Buck had ever seen.

Buck stared at him, somehow just as shocked as he’d been yesterday, even though he knew he’d asked Eddie to do the work, to find him. Which sort of made him wonder.

“Eddie—how, uh. How did you get my address?” he asked.

Eddie shifted on his feet, a tiny little tell which betrayed his nerves.

“I, um. I actually got it from your Captain at the firehouse,” Eddie said, voice a little hoarse.

“Bobby gave it to you?” Buck said, incredulous. And then, as something else struck him. “Wait, you went by the firehouse? Why?”

“You told me to make the effort to find you, Buck, and you were right to put that on me. But when my phone crashed I lost your number—I lost everything, really, because I hate the cloud and all that—so, um. The 118 was all I had to go on.” Eddie paused, then, and gave Buck a rueful smile. “I have to say, Bobby really does love you like a son.”

“What do you mean?” Buck asked, frowning a little.

“He gave me a really hard time, is what I mean,” Eddie replied, shrugging a little. “I mean, I deserved it, but. He kind of put me through the wringer. I thought he wouldn’t give me your address or your number at all, actually, but eventually I told him that…” he drifted off, glanced down.

“That what?”

Eddie looked up at him, and there was something so painfully honest in his eyes that Buck felt like he’d been struck by lighting, a little.

“That I knew I’d screwed up, but I didn’t want to find you just to make myself feel better. That you deserved an explanation, and you deserved to hear it from me, and all I wanted was to make sure you got it,” Eddie replied. “And whatever came afterwards—if you wanted to kick me out, or punch me, or... Or whatever. I knew that was in your hands.”

Buck nodded, then, and took a deep breath. He really did want to hear Eddie’s explanation. And he knew—he knew—that Bobby wouldn’t have given Eddie his address if he hadn’t been convinced, if he thought that Eddie would somehow hurt Buck again. So he moved aside, and gestured for Eddie to come in.

“You, um. You want some coffee?”

“Sure,” Eddie replied, walking inside and looking curiously around the loft. “This is a pretty great place, Buck. I love the bike on the wall, and those paintings.”

Buck walked back towards Eddie with a cup—he remembered from their day at the park that Eddie took it totally black, which had made Buck tease him about hating his own taste buds.

“Thanks. I like it quite a bit myself,” Buck said, and then sat down at one of the stools by the kitchen counter. “But I don’t think you came by to talk about my interior decorating skills.”

Eddie froze a little, but then took a step closer to Buck and leaned on the counter.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, shifting nervously on his feet again. “I guess the first place to start would be that, um. I’m an actor, and, well—”

“You’re pretty famous?” Buck said, drily.

Chim had filled him in about just how massive the Moon Bitten franchise had been, and on the fact that Eddie—or Edmundo Diaz, rather—had been a household name since he was a teenager, even if over the last few years he’d retreated from the big budget spotlight and had done a series of weird independent movies.

Eddie let out a sigh. “Yeah.”

“So why not tell me, Eddie? Why dance around what you did for a living?” Buck asked. “I mean, I get that it wasn’t really something to get into in the middle of a tsunami, but after you asked me out and everything… did you think I’d sell you out, or something?”

“No!” Eddie exclaimed immediately, putting out a hand that hovered over Buck’s forearm for a second before Eddie pulled back. “No, not at all, Buck. I guess—I guess I was just so happy to get to know somebody who didn’t have any preconceived notions about me, who didn’t think I should or shouldn’t be this or that just because they’d seen me in a movie or read an interview… it was so refreshing to just... be me. Without having to get into an argument about werewolf love triangles, or whether the Twilight guys were my enemies.”

Buck bit his lip, conflicted. He understood where Eddie was coming from—or kind of understood, it wasn’t like he really knew what it was like to be famous on that level, LA Spiderman moment aside—but he still had to wonder if he and Eddie really had any future if Eddie had been so conflicted about sharing such a huge part of himself with Buck.

“I get that, I think,” he finally said. “But Eddie, what was going to happen next? Were you going to show up to Bobby’s barbecue and just pretend you weren’t yourself if someone recognized you? Were you even considering that you and I were actually getting somewhere real?”

Because that was the deepest fear Buck had. That he’d been falling and falling deeper, and Eddie had just used him as a distraction, as an easy way to step outside his stressful life. That Buck had been good for a coffee and some sex, but that creating anything real and lasting wasn’t something Eddie was interested in, when Buck had been falling so hard and so fast.

“Of course we were going somewhere real, Buck,” Eddie replied softly, and this time didn’t stop himself from placing his hand on Buck’s forearm, his touch almost giving Buck goosebumps. “And I swear I was trying to figure out a way to tell you—I, um. I actually planned on telling you that Friday, before the barbecue.”

“But you stopped answering me instead,” Buck said, mind going back to that horrible day, to the pain and confusion he’d felt when Eddie stopped replying, when his text had bounced back.

“I didn’t want to,” Eddie said, eyebrows furrowed, voice anguished. “It’s just that, on Thursday night—there was a leak. We’re not sure from where, yet, but my personal phone number and my address got leaked, and I started getting thousands of messages and calls and the phone totally crashed and became totally unusable. And then, somebody actually tried to break into the house early Friday morning.”

Buck gasped, suddenly remembering that random report he’d heard on the news. That had been Eddie? Fuck. He and Christopher must’ve been so scared.

“I’m so sorry, Eds—I can’t even imagine how scary that must have been.”

Eddie gave him a smile that looked more like a grimace. “I mean, it’s not something that hasn’t happened before. I usually have to change numbers every couple of months, but, uh. I sort of delayed the last change because, well… I was talking to you. And I didn’t really know how to explain.”

Buck stared at Eddie for a moment, eyebrows raised.

“Eddie, you could’ve just said you switched carriers or something!”

“I know, I know,” Eddie groaned, taking his hand from Buck’s arm and running his palm over his face. “It sounds so stupid, but. But I was already keeping this huge thing from you, and I just didn’t want to lie anymore. Not even over something so small.”

And Buck felt himself melt at that, because Jesus, Eddie. It was the sort of thing that made Buck feel like maybe he hadn’t been alone, in feeling a lot too fast, in letting his heart get ahead of his head.

“Okay, so I totally get why you had to cancel your number and leave your house,” said Buck, because, seriously—even in all their wild imaginings, Maddie and he had not ever come up with Eddie being a major superstar who got stalked out of his home.“But why didn’t you try to contact me, or come find me? Your sister with the scary voice did that, after the tsunami….”

Eddie looked at Buck for a moment, something conflicted in his warm brown eyes. “Because I got scared. Because in the middle of having to move and deal with the police and the lawyers and my agent, I just—I couldn’t imagine that you’d want to stick around, not when my life can be so complicated and messy. Nobody's ever really wanted to stick around before, when they have to deal with the real me and not the actor.”

“I—I can sort of see that. But that wasn’t your choice to make, Eddie,” Buck said quietly, a little wounded. “And taking it from me just left me feeling like you didn’t even think I was worth a goodbye text.”

“I know,” Eddie said, nodding, looking distraught. “I know that. And I regretted it every single minute since your last text about allergies up until yesterday, you need to know that. I can't even tell you how absolutely horrible I felt about it. I just—the more time that passed, I just couldn’t figure out how to reach out. How to even begin to explain. And I know that only hurt you more, and I'm so sorry.”

Buck took a sip of his now-lukewarm coffee, then, and sat with everything that Eddie had explained. Hen and Chim sometimes told him that he forgave people too quickly, often to his own detriment. But the thing was, he didn’t want to stay mad at Eddie: he’d been hurt more than angry, was the thing. And he didn’t want that hurt to get in the way of something that could be truly good, could be real. Of course, it wasn’t just up to him—the only way this would actually work would be if they were both truly on the same page.

“So what happens now, Eddie? Are you still scared?”

“Honestly, Buck? Yeah, I am. I'm scared,” Eddie said, leaning slightly closer. “But however scared I am is nothing to how fucking terrified I was yesterday, watching you dangling from that rope, thinking that I’d have to see you get hurt or worse without ever knowing why I’d vanished.” He paused, and his eyes darted to Buck’s shoulder, where one of the bruises he’d gotten yesterday was visible. “I don’t want fear to hold me back anymore, Buck—I did it when I was a stupid kid and let my agent convince me that I couldn’t be an out bisexual actor and should only date models, and I did it again when I got one of those models pregnant and ran away into alcohol and a shitty crowd that almost made me lose everything. But to have that fear make me lose you, make me lose this chance to have something that actually means something... I couldn't live with myself.”

And hearing Eddie open himself up like that, it made Buck reach out, this time, taking the hand that Eddie was resting on the kitchen counter in his.

“I’m scared too, Eddie,” Buck confessed in a small voice. “I told you a little bit about my dating history, and, I mean. I can be kind of a lot. But maybe… maybe we can be scared together?”

“Really, Buck? You forgive me?”

Buck used his hold on Eddie’s hand to pull him towards him, and Eddie stumbled into Buck, fitting into the space between his open legs. He was staring down at Buck like he could hardly believe his eyes, his gaze moving over every bit of Buck’s face like he was trying to memorize him.

Buck leaned up and kissed him softly, feeling the electric spark between them catch fire just like it had the first time, every bit of his body saying yes, yes, yes. Eddie opened his mouth to Buck’s after a second, and then his hands went to Buck’s shoulders, clutching him, like he was scared Buck would vanish or change his mind. Buck raised a gentle hand to Eddie’s face, ran a thumb over his cheekbone—he was going nowhere, not ever, if he could help it.

Buck pulled back after a moment, rested his forehead against Eddie’s.

“I forgive you,” he breathed out. “Just don’t do it again.”

And Eddie’s smile at that was like the rising sun, warming every bit of Buck.

“I promise,” Eddie said, before leaning down for another kiss.

Eddie stayed, for the rest of the day. They ordered take-out and hung out on Buck's couch, and Eddie told him about getting scouted in a mall when he was a teenager and his entire life changing the next moment, before he was really ready. Buck talked a little more in-depth about his own parents, and exactly why he'd taken such a long way round to the 118. After a couple of beers they also talked a little bit more about what had happened with them—the things that had gone wrong, and the things that had gone right. Most of all, Eddie held his hand and looked at him with soft eyes, and Buck started trusting again that this time, he wouldn't let go.

Two years later

“We’re here with Edmundo Diaz on the red carpet for the LA premiere of his very first full-length feature as a director, A Planet That Insists. Edmundo, insiders are already saying this movie could very well earn you an Oscar nod—they’re calling it an intimate, beautiful look at fatherhood and love. What can you say to that?”

Buck tried to hold back a grin as he saw Eddie attempt to hide his wince at the reporter’s Edmundo, and Chris giggled next to him. Eddie turned back to look at them where they were standing waiting for him to get through the red carpet interviews, and his smile immediately went from the polished PR version to the real thing: that true, warm smile he only ever had for Christopher and Buck.

Buck smiled back, gave him a small nod. They had his back—he wasn’t alone.

Eddie nodded back and turned to the reporter.

“Well, I think awards and all that is getting a little ahead of things. But I really hope people enjoy it and find it honest and real. I was inspired by the two most real things in my life—my son and my husband—so if that comes through, I’ll be happy.”

The reporter looked a little dazed, and Buck totally understood: having Eddie Diaz be devastatingly sincere in your direction would make anyone’s knees weak. The interview went on for a few more minutes and then Eddie had to stand around for pictures.

As Eddie got back to where Chris and Buck were waiting for him, he reached out to take Buck’s hand in his and put his other hand on Chris’ shoulder.

“You doing okay? This isn’t too much?” Eddie asked, betraying nerves for the first time that night.

“Never too much if we’re together, remember?” Buck said, before pulling him in for a short kiss, breaking off with a laugh when Chris said “ewww” below them.

Eddie laughed too, looking radiant. “Together,” he affirmed.