Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts in January, because of course it does.

January the first, to be precise, the moment the clock ticks over to midnight and the ball drops into the New Year. Fireworks paint the Los Angeles sky with glitter, just like the colourful splodges he used to make on paper for Fourth of July when he was a kid. Natalia leans in, jasmine perfume and curls, curving a hand around Buck’s neck and Buck -

Buck watches Eddie.

It’s only a moment, one single solitary moment that Buck catches Eddie dipping down to kiss Marisol, welcoming in the New Year the way they’re supposed to before Natalia demands his attention back, before the freeze frame is broken and the party resumes with shouts and cheers, but it’s enough for a jolt of - of something to race through Buck, something ugly and unpleasant he doesn’t care to recognise.

He shoves it down, buries it under the glass of prosecco pressed into his hand, returns to the party and purposefully doesn’t think about any of it, not when he’s drinking shots with Hen or taking ridiculous selfies with Chim or raiding the kitchen for ingredients to make before dawn nachos with Bobby.

Later, though, when the guests are gone and he’s fucking Natalia in his bed, making a mess of the sheets and with her breathy moans in his ear, Buck can’t help the flash of someone different, different hands and eyes and lips, unknown in this context but oh so familiar. He comes, another name almost on his lips like a prayer, like a sin, and he bites down on Natalia’s shoulder to stop it from slipping out.

Buck breaks up with Natalia two weeks later.

“So,” Hen begins, during a quiet moment of a quiet shift, setting her mug of tea down on the table, a half-assed attempt at a New Year’s resolution to reduce her caffeine intake. “How’s Buck?”

“Fine,” Buck mumbles. Hen raises an eyebrow and honestly Buck can’t blame her, with the way he’s half draped over the table, arm pillowing his cheek, but he doesn’t want to talk about this, about that, about anything at all.

“Uh huh. Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” 

Buck folds his other arm onto the table, rolls his forehead until he’s face down. Childishly he hopes that if he can’t see Hen, she’ll leave him alone, but life has rarely ever really gone his way.

“You seem sad, Buckaroo. Has something happened? Are you and Natalia okay?”

“I’m fine,” he repeats into the cotton of his sleeve, but then sighs, takes the easy way out like he always does. “We broke up. But it’s- I’m fine. It’s whatever.”

“Buck,” Hen starts, but Buck is literally saved by the bell, the clanging echoing around the firehouse. It’s only a few seconds before thuds from heavy boots join it.

Buck lifts his head up, moves his chair back with a scrape.

“Seriously, Hen. I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all.”

He smiles, hopes it’s enough to convince Hen to leave it. She does, in as far as talking about it, but she keeps shooting him all of these looks for the rest of the shift that Buck does his best to ignore.

Buck is restless, that night, like he has been every night of the year so far. There’s an energy buzzing through him that keeps him awake, tossing and turning in his bed. He ends up staring up at this ceiling, watching the shadows change and shift as one day bleeds into the next. It’s the sort of restlessness he’s felt before, the kind that usually precipitates jumping into the jeep and driving somewhere new, or heading to the nearest bar to find someone to kiss and hold, if only for a short while.

Buck isn’t going to do either of those things. Not when he has the 118, a purpose to stay with responsibilities and a reliable pay check, people he likes looking out for him in an almost irritating, cloying kind of way that he wouldn’t trade for the world. He’s worked so hard to prove himself, gain distance from what he was like back in his probation year, that Buck’s not going to throw it all away now for quick sex when he’s sad. 

That doesn’t stop him from reaching down underneath his bed sheets though, dipping under the waistband of his underwear to fondle his dick. An orgasm is an orgasm after all, whether it’s by his own hand or somebody else’s, and this way he doesn’t have to leave his apartment, go through the effort of dressing up in order to attract someone else. It doesn’t take him long to get hard, breath coming in little puffs as he sets the rhythm and pressure, knowing exactly what is needed to get off and how to get there. Buck doesn’t need anything special, just needs something quick to settle his nerves and hopefully let him get some sleep before he has to get up again and go through another day.

His eyes close tight, screwing up against the shadowy light spilling in from outside through the gap in his curtains. Images are quick to form, dark brown eyes with thick lashes, fanning over cheeks, and Buck looks down, to squared jaw and soft lips, down further still to toned muscled, defined pecs and narrow hips. Buck’s imagination flicks up again, back to the familiar eyes and the way soft, brown hair curls into it and- 

Buck comes, a moan he’s not quite able to hold back slipping out as he makes a mess of his hand. He opens his eyes again, trying to catch his breath, knees bent where he’d been looking for more leverage. The image behind his eyelids dissipates but the memory doesn’t, a curl of shame mixing in with the physical release, tainting the endorphins he’d been hoping for. He’s not too sure what was happening, had continued to happen ever since that party, but whatever it turned out to be it could only spell trouble.

He gets up, cleans off his shaking hand in the bathroom, collapses back onto his bed face first and pulls the sheets up and over his head. It doesn’t work much when the thing he’s trying to escape is stuck in his own thoughts, keeping him awake despite his best efforts, but eventually before dawn he manages to slip off into sleep.

His last thought before he does so is that if Eddie were to ever find out, about any of it, he was fucked.

Buck can’t look Eddie in the eye the next day, skirting around the edges of the firehouse trying to keep to himself. It’s uneventful, as shifts go, only a few incidents that barely necessitate a full team of firefighters, and Bobby sticks them on various tasks that otherwise get ignored when it’s busier. They’re onto stock take when Eddie finally calls Buck out on it, cornering by the storage cabinets.

“Hey, Buck. I feel like I’ve barely seen you all shift.”

“Bobby had me helping him with the paperwork in his office,” Buck mumbles, not a lie - Bobby genuinely had kept Buck holed up in the office, sorting and filing - but even if he hadn’t Buck would have avoided Eddie.

“Well do you want to come over after the shift? Chris keeps bugging me to ask you about some kind of tournament?”

“Mario Kart.”

“Yeah. I think he misses you.”

It’s a low blow, and Buck knows that Eddie knows that. There’s not much Buck wouldn’t do for Chris, even pushing down whatever it was that had surfaced in order to spend the evening hyper aware of how close Eddie actually was just to make the kid happy.

It was a bad idea.

“Sure.”

“Great, I’ll order pizza.”

Such a bad idea.

It’s perhaps the worst idea Buck has had in a long time, a considerable feat considering his long history of fuck ups. Eddie’s excitement at seeing Buck is rivalled only by Chris’, crutches abandoned in favour of wrapping skinny arms around Buck’s torso.

“Buck!”

Buck can’t help but hug him back, a little extra tightly to squash down the unexpected and frankly unwelcome lump that had formed in his throat.

“Hey kid,” he managed, once he was sure it wouldn’t get garbled with misplaced emotion. “Ready to lose at Mario Kart?”

“I think you’re talking about yourself,” Chris retorts, all pre-teen sass and confidence.

“I think we’re actually talking about your dad.”

“Hey,” Eddie interrupts, amid Chris’ giggles. “Do you want pizza or not?”

“Da- ad.”

“Ed- die, ” Buck copies, causing more giggles from Chris, before Eddie shoos them both into the living room. 

The game is already set up, one set of controllers waiting for Buck where he usually sits on the sofa. Chris scrambles into his own seat, clicking through the various options until he’s found the one he wants, staring at Buck with a shit-eating grin until Buck realises the one that’s been picked.

“Special Cup? Really?”

“I thought you liked Rainbow Road,” Chris gasps between cackles.

 “Yeah, well, we’ll see who’s laughing after I’ve won.”

He doesn’t win, and it’s still Chris who’s laughing, little breathless giggles slipping out in between Buck’s complaints and child-friendly curses, the virtual car swerving wildly left and right off the track. Eddie wanders in halfway through the next cup, putting a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and then perching on the edge of the armchair with his phone in hand. Buck resists the urge to look over, keeps an intense eye on the screen instead, getting flipped over by a red shell for his efforts, his character waving his arms in frustration. Buck can relate.

Eddie’s phone buzzes, barely audible over the loud, energetic noises of the videogame, and Buck watches out of the corner of his eye as Eddie looks down, smiles softly, relaxing a little in posture before getting to his feet again.

“Chris, Marisol’s coming over for dinner too. You don’t mind, do you Buck?”

Buck’s car veers sharply off the road again, the little rain cloud fishing his character up from the virtual abyss. “Nope,” he manages, just before his character is dropped back on the road again. Eddie nods, disappearing from the room, already buried back in his phone again.

“Should’ve said yes,” Chris mutters, “they kiss all the time.”

“I thought you liked Marisol?”

“She brings cake,” Chris admits with a sniff, and as Buck loses the race again, he can’t help but think Chris is right, that he should have said yes.

Marisol arrives, with a lingering kiss for Eddie and a cake that she leaves on the kitchen table, protected in its plastic tub. Chris winks at Buck conspiratorially, before reaching for the side plates drying in the rack and cutting a slice.

“Did you ask?” Eddie says, arm curling around Marisol’s waist, leaning to peer at Chris. Buck watches, a little lost on the couch, acutely aware of how out of place he is in the family charade as Chris rolls his eyes and lifts the slice onto a plate.

“Oh, surely he can have a slice?” Marisol asks, a giggly lilt to her voice that makes Buck’s skin crawl. Eddie caves quickly, finally dropping the arm around Marisol’s waist to move closer to the table and cut more slices. 

“Buck, did you want some?”

“It’s strawberry,” Marisol says, turning to finally address Buck’s presence for the first time since arriving. 

“I’ll get him one,” Chris answers for Buck, grabbing another plate. “We can eat in my room, I’ll show you the lego I’m working on.”

“Um- maybe next time, Chris,” Buck starts, standing up and wiping slightly sweaty palms over his thighs. “I- uh, I need to get home.”

He tries not to squirm under Chris’ crestfallen gaze, still clutching the plate, and at the guilt that starts gnawing away at him for not immediately capitulating. Even Eddie looks disappointed, in a way that feels entirely unfair given that it’s Eddie that’s put them all in this predicament.

Well. That’s a little unfair. Technically it’s actually Buck who’s suddenly developed some sort of- obsession , or something, whatever it is, but it’s easier for Buck to blame Eddie in that moment, so that he can run and leave feeling slightly less shit about the situation. Otherwise, Buck is fairly sure he’ll bare himself utterly and completely to Eddie right there in the kitchen, Chris and Marisol watching his self destruction like a jury. 

It’s not really something he needs, and after some garbled goodbyes Buck manages to escape, taking a moment to catch his breath once safely inside his jeep.

January melts into February, the days their usual blur of emergencies and incidents. Buck can still feel a weird tension between him and Eddie, one that he does his best to avoid acknowledging. Eddie doesn’t push it this time, doesn’t try to corner him and trick him into hanging out, and Buck is able to trundle all the way to Valentine’s Day pretending that everything is okay.

Buck has never been overly fond of  Valentine’s day, the over-commercialism in every direction and enough red and pink to make his eyes hurt. Even the station is decorated, little paper hearts strung together on a long piece of string and hung up along the railings on the mezzanine. Buck’s not sure who put them up - he suspects Ravi - but the sight of it mocks him, makes Buck want to tear it all down. 

He doesn’t, just takes a deep breath and tries not to slam his locker door shut too hard.

Luckily it’s a busy shift, the sort of shit that has them hopping from call to call so much that Buck can’t even hate the cupcakes that Maddie drops off at the station, baby pink buttercream swirled into crowns on top of the chocolate sponge and dotted with sugary sprinkles, too hungry and desperate to eat to care about how they may or may not be tied into an over commercialised holiday. In fact, he manages to forget it’s Valentine’s day at all, right up until the end of the shift when everyone disperses, heading to their partners and their plans, leaving Buck to head back to his apartment for another night alone. 

The emptiness is gaping, silence all the more gnawing after the hustle and bustle of the day. Buck plays a podcast out loud, some true crime drama he’d found a few days ago, just for the background noise whilst he washes away the day’s sweat and grime in the shower. It almost works, all the way through Buck contemplating cooking and then maybe ordering in, before ultimately settling for a bowl of cereal eaten standing up in his kitchen, surrounded by gleaming appliances he doesn’t use, but then the episode ends and he’s left alone in silence once again.

The restlessness is back but this time it’s buzzing, swarming, unstoppable and uncontrollable. The worst part is that Buck knows what it wants, what would settle it, but that would wreck everything. 

Instead, he runs up the stairs to his bedroom almost on autopilot, stripping out of his usual post-work uniform of sweats and into jeans, a tight top, everything he used to put on when going out to try and fill the void. He doesn’t check his appearance in the mirror, doesn’t need to; it’s a tried and tested formula Buck already knows will work. 

He gets to the bar on autopilot, some seedy place that he’s been to before for exactly the same purpose. It’s further from his apartment than it was to the shared house he’d been living in before, but Buck ignores the difference, ignores the way that he seems to have regressed back to his former self. Instead, he pays the entrance fee, gets the black stamp on his hand, the ink smudging and bleeding into the little lines of his skin, and dips through the heavy beaded curtain into the guts of the club.

It’s dark and sweaty, just the way he’s always liked it, the bass pounding in his ears and behind his eyes. Buck goes with the push and pull until he reaches the bar, slipping between other patrons in order to get noticed and receive his drink more quickly. The guy behind the bar isn’t someone he recognises - it’s been too long for Buck to be considered a regular anymore, and staff turnover was always high - and the bartender flicks him an up and down, silvery eyeliner glittering under the red and blue lights. 

“What can I get you?” He purrs, reaching down for a glass. The tank top ripples with the movement.

“Vodka tonic. Two. Please.”

“Sure.”

Buck pays, and seconds later the drinks slide towards him over the bartop, a small paper straw balancing precariously in the liquid. Buck takes it out of the drink, taps it on the side of the glass and abandons it, downing the drink quickly before picking the next one up and moving away.

He sticks to the edges of the room at first, circling a little, taking a little more time with his second drink. The alcohol starts to take effect, warming through his veins and making him feel slightly more relaxed as the chemicals take hold. A second circle, another drink, and eventually he finds himself grinding up against someone nameless and faceless, neither mattering much to Buck. The other guy is even taller than Buck, but less bulky, a tall streak of a man that’s all sinewy muscle. Blonde hair flops into the guy's eyes, tickles Buck’s forehead when he leans down to kiss him, soft lips catching on the chaps in Buck’s own.

They get buffeted towards the side of the room, right up to the wall, Buck’s back pressing against the brickwork. A tongue sneaks it’s way into Buck’s mouth, teasing at his lips, but Buck isn’t interested in teasing, doesn’t care enough for gentle and thoughtful when it’s only ever going to be a quick fuck in a club. Instead he brings a hand up into the guy's hair, strands sliding between his fingers, whilst the other presses the guy closer at the hips, legs parting to make it as unsubtle as possible what it is he’s asking for.

They end up in the toilet cubicle, the one right at the end and furthest away from the bathroom door, Buck on his knees with the guy’s dick in his mouth. It’s not the best blowjob he’s ever given but that doesn’t seem to bother the guy, not with the way he’s gasping and holding tightly onto Buck’s shoulder. Buck tries, he does, and there’s a sharp tap on his shoulder.

“I’m- I’m gonna-”

That’s all the warning that Buck gets and he pulls back quickly, just in time for the guy to come all over him, his eyes screwing shut as he makes a mess of Buck’s cheek, the top of his tee-shirt. Buck stands, dabs at it a little with some balled up toilet paper to get the worst of it off whilst the other guy catches his breath and tucks himself back into his jeans. Once reclothed, Buck reaches for the lock.

“What about you?” the guy interrupts, softly and sincerely in a way that doesn’t fit the nature of where they were, what they’d just done. The intimacy in his tone makes Buck want to shrink back, hide under the weight of the implication. 

“I’m good.”

“Sure? I can buy you a drink, maybe we can head-”

“No,” Buck says, forcefully, unlocking the door and stepping out of the cubicle and into the dingy bathroom, washing his hands quickly in the sink. “Thanks. But no. I gotta-” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder, leaving the guy looking a little bewildered with his fly still undone, and heads straight for the bar, ordering another vodka tonic. It burns slightly, on his tongue and in his throat, and Buck likes to think that it’s searing away the taste of the guy, the guilt that’s been sitting heavy ever since he got up from the tiled floor. 

There’s a scrape along the bartop, a shot glass filled with some unknown liquid being pushed towards him. Looking up, the bartender from earlier has a matching one, winking as he lifts it up to his lips.

“Looks like you could use one,” the bartender said, and Buck nods, picking it up without hesitation. He’s not sure what’s in it until the tequila touches his tongue, sweet and peppery, a lime wedge offered to him for afterwards. Buck’s never particularly liked to chase his tequila with lime, if he drinks it at all, and he waves it away with a careless hand.

The bartender sets down his own glass and leans across the counter top, crossing his arms as he gets closer to Buck. “My shift’s over now. Want some company?”

Buck stares at him, a little unfocused due to the proximity, before leaning forwards until his lips are a breath away from the bartender’s.

“Sure.”

“Lucas,” the bartender - Lucas - replies, before closing the distance with a quick peck. “Come dance with me.”

And Buck follows him, back onto the dancefloor, back to where all those inconsequential and anonymous people are, too absorbed in their own partners and worries and troubles to care what Buck is doing. Buck thinks he sees the guy from earlier, staring at him with a frown from across the dancefloor, but Buck doesn’t care. He doesn’t owe the guy anything, doesn’t have anything to offer anyway, happy - or not happy, none of this is making Buck happy, but he can’t settle on any other description - to hold onto Lucas’ waist, let them sway somewhat in time to the music, lips locked. It’s more careless than before, teeth nipping and catching on each other’s lips, not bothering to soothe the bites with tongues. Eventually Lucas moves to Buck’s neck and Buck’s eyes close, content to let Lucas suck a bruise into his skin, physical evidence of the debauchery Buck sought out that night. 

With his eyes closed it’s easier for his mind to wander, to let Lucas change and shift, hair lightening and lengthening, torso filling out ever so slightly to that of a firefighter’s physique, muscles existing due to necessity rather than vanity. Buck tilts his head, parts his lips, wants to live in that moment forever, and barely even notices how hard he is, how he wants more and more and more , with the way his hips have started moving and grinding into the body in front of him until a voice pulls him back into the present.

“You like this, huh?”

It’s the wrong voice and it rips him back into the moment with such force it leaves Buck with a breathless stutter, small little gasps as his eyes fly open and he tries to regain his bearings. Everything feels too much, spinning around him as everything tries to recalibrate again, and Lucas takes this as an opportunity to kiss him once more, spit slick and insistent. Buck hesitates for a split second, between the push and pull as he makes a decision, before closing his eyes again and kissing back, slipping once again into his fantasy. The song changes around them, pulsating and beating, going faster and faster whilst the two of them grind their hips against each other once more until Buck’s falling over the edge, Eddie’s name mixing in with the music and his own laboured breathing, unheard by anyone else.

Buck stumbles away, extricates himself from Lucas’ arms and out of the club. He feels sick and he reaches out to steady himself against the rough brickwork of the building. The bouncer eyes him with an unimpressed eyebrow raised and Buck resists the urge to flip him off, heading off instead to another bar to get the memories out of his mouth and his mind.

It’s the sunlight that wakes him up the next morning. That, and an uncomfortable crick in his neck, born from a night spent not in a bed. Buck’s leg is cramping vaguely, the way it has ever since the truck landed on it and he was wired together again with titanium rods, just like the skeletons in the museum Maddie used to take him to when he was a child, escaping arguing parents for an afternoon. There’s a pounding beginning behind his forehead, insistent and repetitive, and Buck just knows that if he tries to open his eyes it’ll get ten times worse.

It’s not like he doesn’t know where he is; after all, he’s spent enough time on Eddie’s couch to recognise the slightly lumpy cushions that become his pillow, the scratchy fabric against his cheek. Buck doesn’t particularly want to be there, can’t even remember getting to Eddie’s in the first place, and as long as he keeps his eyes closed then he won’t have to face whatever it was that took place the previous night.

Eddie, unfortunately, seems to have other ideas, if the way a glass is set down heavily on the table right by Buck’s head is anything to go by. Buck screws his eyes up, little crinkles forming by the corners, but he refuses to open them still.

“I know you’re awake, Buck. Stop pretending.”

Buck wants to snort, wants to shake and scream at Eddie until all of his secrets come rattling loose. Instead, he goes for peeling one eye open to aim a pirate-eyed glare.

“ ‘m tired.”

“You’re hungover,” Eddie corrects, folding his arms and assuming the annoyed parent pose Buck hates on principle. 

“Fine. Hungover and tired.”

“What the fuck, Buck? What happened last night? You call me at three in the morning, absolutely wasted- ”

“I’m sorry, alright?” God, but Buck does not need this lecture. Not again, not from Eddie. He’s heard it enough from everyone else in his life. Eddie clicks his tongue, but mercifully drops it. 

“Well, there’s coffee in the kitchen and I left a towel and clothes for you in the bathroom. I’d invite you to stay longer, but Marisol wants to go out for lunch and then I have to go pick up Chris from his sleepover.”

“Marisol’s here?” Buck asks, slightly panicked and more horrified at the thought. Eddie stares at him, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, Buck, it was Valentine’s. We had plans.”

“I’m sorry,” Buck repeats, and he is, he means it, but not for the reasons he should. He hopes he didn’t say anything too incriminating, not that he particularly cares what Marisol thinks of him; so far, he’s managed to keep his distance, avoided getting to know Marisol, but he can’t tell if Eddie is just pissed that their night was interrupted or if he’d said something to fuck their relationship over. 

Eddie shrugs, still not committing to an answer, and leaves Buck to his own devices. He sits up slowly, reaching for the water and downing it in quick, greedy gulps, before shuffling to the bathroom for the quickest shower possible, pulling on sweats that are a little too short in the leg and the sleeve. When he leaves he can smell more coffee, can hear the radio in the kitchen, and he knows that if he was to go in there right then it would be to a sight more domestic than he could possibly handle at that moment.

Instead, Buck gathers up his clothes, folding them up into a small pile so it’s not too obvious what they are, finds his shoes and leaves.

Eddie doesn’t speak to him the next shift, or the shift after that. The distance from before is back, cooler than before and this time Eddie doesn’t try to seek him out. Buck can almost pretend that it doesn’t bother him, let work absorb him instead. Buck would like to think that it’s successful, but the way he can’t shut his mind down when he’s lying spread-eagled in bed, sleep nowhere to be found, says otherwise. Hen shoots him odd looks and Buck knows that there are questions on the tip of her tongue, little aborted movements made in his direction that speak towards wanting to ask, wanting to know more and may, even, offer comfort, but Buck always moves, shies away before he has to admit anything to her that he can’t even acknowledge to himself.

Word must get back to Bobby, because two days later Buck is cornered by him in the kitchen. He’d only snuck upstairs to grab some strawberries, find some way to fill the growing, gnawing hole that had opened up in his stomach, hoping that the unease was being caused  by hunger rather than anything else. Bobby is by the stove, guarding his pans like a dragon, but he still points at the plates on the draining board with a spatula.

“Lay the table?”

Buck nods, moving wordlessly to the sink and picking each plate up one by one, the ceramic scraping against the plastic covered metal of the drying rack and stacking them up on the side, ready to be ferried to the table.

He’s just setting out the various coffee mugs, each one different and unique, a mishmash of personalities hiding in the kitchen cupboards, when Bobby finally speaks again, tipping the bacon into a serving dish ready to be carried over.

“You’ve been very quiet lately.”

It’s a statement, an accusation, something that has Buck cringing automatically even if the words are dripping with concern that is guaranteed to be genuine by virtue of coming from Bobby himself. Buck wishes he could just get his strawberries and leave, hide away in the gym area of the bunks without having to interact with anyone at all, but his colleagues are nosy at best. 

“I’m fine,” Buck replies, a knee jerk response that’s been on the tip of his tongue all week. Bobby hums, clearly unimpressed with the response, and Buck tries not to sigh at having to elaborate further. “Just a bit tired. I uh- haven’t been sleeping well recently. It’s fine. I’m okay.”

“Mm, well. Athena wants to know if you’ll come over for dinner tonight. I think she misses you.”

“Athena?” Buck asks, can’t help the way surprise colours his tone. He’s still not used to being someone that Athena actually cares about, especially after the way that she used to view him. He wonders how disappointed she would be if she ever found out about Valentine’s.

“I’m making lasagne.”

Another dirty trick to get him to spend time outside of work, but it works almost as well as Chris; Buck loves Bobby’s lasagne, not that they have it very often, craves being able to make it one day, having enough people to make it for. 

“Fine.”

“Great! You can bring dessert.” 

Dinner is awkward, at least for Buck. He’s ushered into the house with warm smiles and welcome gestures, the pie that he’d picked up from the grocery store on the way over quickly taken out of his hands and set on the side for later. Athena pours them drinks and Bobby serves the food, lasagne as promised, little side plates for salad out next to placemats and garlic bread already sat steaming in a basket. It leaves a weird sense of adulthood that Buck isn’t used to; he knows that he’s not a child, hasn’t been a child for over a decade, legally, but whenever he’s at dinner with Bobby and Athena he can’t help but feel that he’s been incorrectly elevated to the adult’s table, that instead he should belong to the low table with ill fitting chairs eating pizza instead. 

They chatter, light-hearted and easy to slip in and out of, and Buck wrestles.  He knows that they want to ask, want to know exactly what’s going on, but Buck is the master of aversion, knows how to steer things away from him and back onto Athena and Bobby and events in general, not giving anything of his life away. Buck knows it’s a defence mechanism, a way to bury things down as far as possible without acknowledging it, but he can’t break away from it.

Unfortunately, Bobby also knows this, and manages to pin Buck down once the dishes have been cleared away, Athena sticking to the kitchen whilst they drift onto the patio outside with iced tea and leftover slices of pie.

“So. What’s been going on?”

It’s a direct question, one that Buck knows he isn’t going to be able to wriggle out of without some serious manoeuvring and honestly -

Honestly, Buck is tired.

The idea of telling someone something, anything, about his life is too tantalising, a way of finally offloading some of his thoughts and anxieties to someone who has strong enough shoulders to hold them. He can’t tell Bobby about Eddie - he can barely admit it to himself, stomach twisting into knots and cutting off all of his air supply the moment he even strays slightly close to an admission in that regard - but even just telling Bobby that he likes boys too, that he’s not actually straight, would be a relief.

See, here’s the thing. Everyone assumes Buck is oh so straight, despite never coming out as such. Ever since he was old enough to be interested in someone of any gender, the default has always been girls only. What they don’t know, though, is that whilst everyone thinks he lost his virginity to Mia Richards at his senior year homecoming - no cliché prom for him - Buck actually lost it to Mark Creevey earlier that summer, rushed teenage fumblings in the Buckley family basement whilst his parents had been out or away or fuck knows where, and Maddie was with Doug.

There’d been more whilst Buck had been travelling, and when he’d finally settled in LA, a string of men, women, both and neither trailed behind him in a confetti string of one-night stands’ hook ups in club bathrooms and unknown bedrooms, condom wrappers left in his wake. Buck wasn’t shy about his sexual history, but nobody ever asked, just assumed he was straight based on his desperate, half-assed attempts at something a little more permanent. Buck was tired of the assumptions; he was tired, period.

He doesn’t say all of this to Bobby, outside under the dark and air polluted sky, stars barely visible. The garden is in bloom again, splashes of colour leached out by the night time, and the grass is neat and tidy underfoot. Vaguely Buck wonders when Bobby has time to garden, or if it’s Athena’s doing, or if they just hire someone to do it for them. He thinks that’s unlikely. 

“I’m bi,” he says instead, into the quiet. Bobby doesn’t react; no sharp intake of breath, no freezing, nothing. He just keeps looking at Buck with that same, intense, concerned look as he waits for Buck to say his piece. “Or like - not straight, anyway. I’m not sure that I want to label it, you know? I like girls and guys and whatever, it doesn’t - I don’t want to -”

“Thank you for telling us,” Bobby says, sincerely, cutting off the rambling. Buck shuts his mouth, nods, then takes a bite of pie just for something to do. The filling is overly sweet and the pastry sticks to the roof of his mouth. “Is there someone that you’re dating? Or-”

Buck chokes on a laugh, cutting Bobby off before he can get too close to the truth of the matter. He’s not ready for that, happy to swing on the coattails that coming out was the issue. “No. I just- wanted to tell someone.”

“Well, thank you for telling me,” Bobby replies, and Buck nods, and aches, the old ache that always flares whenever he wishes that this was real, that he didn’t always have to rely on found family, that his real one could have been enough. He’s used to having to figure stuff out, how to be independent, because what other choice did he have, but it never stopped the guilt and the want whenever it became more glaringly obvious how little his real parents cared. “Obviously I’ll keep this just between us,” Bobby begins to say, and Buck shakes his head.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t- I know I should probably be the one to say, but- it’ll be easier to just, like, tell them. I don’t care if the others at work know.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll just- tell them all at once.”

“Buck- however you want to do it is fine. Or even if you don’t want to tell them at all. Whatever way makes you comfortable.”

Buck  nods, stares at the plate in his lap. Bobby’s hand seems to be hovering a little awkwardly, clearly trying to decide where the line between co-worker and pseudo parent is, whether it’s one to be breached in this case, but Buck isn’t sure he can stand anyone touching him right now.

“I do want to tell them,” he settles on eventually, leaning down to put his plate on the ground. “There’s not really anything to- to act on, or anyone to meet, but it’s just- I just don’t want to feel like I’m hiding it.”

“If you want to tell them, then tell them. Or don’t. There’s no pressure, and whatever support you need in it, just let me know, okay? I’ll follow your lead.”

Buck nods again, because that seems to be all he’s really capable of doing in that moment, especially with the way the lump has formed in his throat. It wasn’t something he had planned on sharing, that night or even in the foreseeable future, never having seen a need for sharing it before, but he couldn’t deny the relief he felt that someone else knew. Buck had never felt like he’d been hiding his sexuality, hadn’t seen the need to correct people’s assumptions in the past, but now he can see the appeal in telling people.

“Maybe… maybe I’ll tell Maddie first.”

“Okay.”

“And then the others.”

“Okay,” Bobby repeats, and this time the hand stops hovering, lands on Buck’s shoulder with a short squeeze. The touch isn’t as bad as Buck thought it would be, able to obtain the comfort that was being intended, and basked in the relief the evening had unintentionally brought.

Buck keeps to his word, telling Maddie at the next opportunity. It’s a rare joint day off, their schedules somehow aligning in a way that the universe rarely grants them, and they spend it taking advantage of the early spring sunshine in the park. Buck spends the morning running after Jee-Yun, helping her down the slide and pushing her on the swings, her squeals of joy loud and prompting smiles from both Buck and Maddie. 

“So,” Maddie asks later, Jee-Yun fast asleep in her pushchair while they enjoy overpriced coffee and cake in the little café at the edge of the park, sat at a table outside under the striped awning. “What’s up?”

“Why do you think there’s anything up?”

She shoots him a look, the unimpressed, big sister look that comes from having known Buck his whole life. Even with her fork hovering over the slice of carrot cake she’d chosen, frosting clinging to the tines, and the Barbie sticker Jee had given her earlier stuck proudly on her jacket, it still makes Buck cave within seconds.

“I went to Bobby and Athena’s the other night.”

“Okay…”

“I um… I talked to Bobby. I told him that - that I like guys too. And I wanted to tell you, too, so… yeah. This is me telling you.”

Maddie’s silent, just for a second, fork still mid-air, but it’s just enough time for Buck’s heart to start racing with adrenaline. She sets it down on her plate and pushes the chair back, legs scraping over the concrete sidewalk, and before Buck can really register what’s happened she’s wrapped him up in a tight hug. It’s the sort of hug she’d given him when he was a kid, when they were both kids, sitting cross legged on scratchy knitted bedspreads that had been given to them by well-meaning grandparents. Buck hadn’t received one of those hugs in a while and he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed them. He sinks into it, lets the comfort surround him and seep into his bones.

Eventually, Maddie pulls away, wiping at the corners of her eyes and settles back into her own seat again. Still, she reaches across the table, takes his hand in hers, holds it tight.

“I love you,” she says, eyes glimmering with unshed tears. Her voice is a little wobbly; Buck gives her hand a squeeze.

“I love you too,” he promises, one of their cross your heart, pinky finger playground promises that’s always been the strongest of vows.

“And I’m proud of you. I know it’s not always easy, and I wish I could have done things differently, helped you better, but… I’m so proud of you, Evan, you have no idea.”

Buck has to swallow twice before the lump in his throat can dissolve enough to speak again. By the time he’s got his voice back, Jee-Yun is stirring in her pushchair, forehead creasing into the frown of a toddler displeased with waking up. Maddie turns to her, ready to coo and cajole as necessary, but Buck catches the way she swipes at her eyes, brushing away the few tears still clinging to her eyelashes. She sits back up with Jee-Yun in tow, still sleepy and grumpy, leaning into her mother with disgruntled affection.

“Cake,” is all she says, pointing at Buck’s plate. He grins, splits the remainder into two and picks one half up, sliding the rest of the plate over to Jee-Yun who attacks it with the type of grace only a toddler could achieve.

“Is it good?” he asks, once Jee-Yun’s cheeks and fingers are chocolate smeared, sticky smudges on the table top and Jee’s top. She nods, attention still on the crumbs she’s busy forming on the plate. “I think that’s a yes.”

“You can do the laundry then,” Maddie says, taking the final bite of her own food.

“Sure. I’ll send it back with Chim.”

After Maddie and Bobby, coming out to the rest of the team is easy. Buck just announces it the next morning when they’re settling down for breakfast, to be met with cries of support and promises from Hen to take him to the best gay clubs. Buck doesn’t point out that he’s got his own preferred places already, not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm, and Bobby raises his glass of orange juice in a brief toast with a proud smile, before getting everyone to simmer down long enough for the daily announcements to be made.

Eddie, though, stays more elusive with his reaction. Buck sees the smile, the general words of support are spoken with enough conviction to be genuine, but otherwise he keeps up the avoidance of Buck, skulking around the ambulance or hiding out in the gym. Buck doesn’t understand it, can’t wrap his head around what, exactly, Eddie’s issue is. It’s enough this time to get him feeling angry, irritated at the way Eddie can’t seem to just spit out whatever the matter is. It’s hypocritical, Buck is keenly aware just how hypocritical it actually is that he’s annoyed at Eddie’s lack of communication, but that’s not enough to stop him from finding Eddie in the locker room, a reversal of the situation from the previous month.

“Eddie,” Buck starts, coming to a stop at the end of the bench. Eddie pauses where he’s staring into the depths of his locker, fingers curled over the top of the door.

“Buck.” It’s an acknowledgement, even accompanied by a curt nod, but all it does is rile Buck up further.

“I’m sorry, okay? Whatever it was that I did or said, I’m sorry.” It comes out a little aggressive for an apology, but it’s the best Buck has, all he can think to do or say. Eddie sighs.

“It’s… whatever, Buck. It’s fine.”

“Well clearly it’s not, because you’ve been butt-hurt ever since.”

“Seriously? ‘Butt-hurt’? You’ve been spending too much time with Chris.”

“I haven’t been spending any time with Chris, because you’ve been pissed over something I don’t even remember and avoiding me instead of just saying what it is.”

Something flutters across Eddie’s face, so quickly that Buck almost misses it, and even though he didn’t he’s still not sure what ‘it’ is, or how to react to it. It’s disconcerting, this gulf that’s grown between them, and Buck’s not sure how to deal with the fact he can no longer read Eddie like the back of his hand.

He wants Eddie to accept the apology, or tell him what happened, or get angry. (He really wants Eddie to kiss him, push him against the lockers and fuck anyone who might walk in and see them, because it’s just them, they’re the only ones who matter and-)

“Fine. I get it.” Eddie shuts the locker with a metal clang, turning to face Buck. Buck squashes the fantasy that had been playing in the back of his mind, something he’s becoming alarmingly adept at, focusing on Eddie’s answer instead and trying to decipher the meaning.

“Right. You get it. So-”

“We’re friends again,” Eddie confirms, heading to the door. He pauses briefly at the threshold, hand tight around the handle. “You shouldn’t apologise when you don’t know what you’re apologising for,” he adds over his shoulder, before heading out and leaving Buck alone in the locker room, confused and increasingly sure that somehow, somewhere, he’s fucked something up.

Things reach an equilibrium after that. They go back to normal whilst at work and Buck gets the hang of ignoring his feelings, the strange little butterflies that make him feel slightly nauseous whenever he first sees Eddie on shift, the way his breath seems to catch when Eddie calls his name. It doesn’t stop him from picturing him late at night, shimmering into existence behind his eyelids, one hand beneath the sheets until he’s gasping and stuttering into unconsciousness, but he learns to shut it out of his mind, refusing to entertain any thoughts of what it may or may not imply. If he ignores it long enough, maybe Buck can pretend it never happened in the first place.

The way that Eddie keeps making his breath catch, especially in the locker room when they’re getting ready to head home, arms curling into his tee-shirt in a way that has Buck trying not fixate on the muscles that have flexed, is enough to suggest just how badly that particular attempt is going. He refuses to admit it though, to himself or to anyone else, but he’s a Buckley and Buckleys can keep secrets. His parents are proof enough. 

Work keeps up its usual chaotic rhythm, having them bounce around between calls and the firehouse at a pace that forces Buck to not think about anything else. They limp on through to the end of the week, collapsing into the weekend with relieved sighs and slaps to the back in the locker room, shoving laundry into stinking duffle bags and heaving them over their shoulders. Before they can leave Hen hands him an envelope, Eddie receiving a similar one, a dark navy blue with his name written across in a looping golden script. Buck frowns, first at the envelope and then at Hen.

“What’s this?”

“You know, if you bothered to actually open it, you would find out,” Hen replies, a smirk on her lips. Buck rolls his eyes, but doesn’t open the envelope straight away; doesn’t have to, because Eddie has already taken that step for him, easing out an impressive looking cardstock that’s slightly shiny on top and the same colour as the envelope.

“Bachelor party?” he asks, flicking his eyes up under the swoop of his hair in the sort of look that always makes Buck a little weak at the knees, enough to lose his train of thought with the punch drunk sucker-punch to the stomach it gives him.

“Yep,” Hen confirms, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “There’s an RSVP but attendance is not optional and it’s already been cleared with Bobby.”

“Am I even allowed to attend?” Buck wonders, finally running a finger under the gummy gap of his own envelope. “Considering that Maddie’s my sister and all?”

“Not optional,” Hen repeats, and Buck gives a small, defeated nod.

“Aye aye, Boss.”

“Good,” Hen says, stern expression clearing. “Kevin’s sharing with Ravi, and Bobby agreed to take care of Chim, so you boys are in a room together. Athena offered to give us a lift to the airport, so don’t be late.”

It’s hot and bright when they reach Las Vegas, the lights glinting with reflected sun and highlighting the artifice. Buck keeps his sunglasses firmly perched on the bridge of his nose, wonders if it would be terribly rude if he just snuck back into the hotel room he’s sharing with Eddie and taking a good, long nap. He concluded pretty quickly that it would, instead dumping his bag on the bed instead and mustering up the bright, bouncy façade that the others are expecting and joining the others in the foyer of the hotel.

Hen keeps them busy, moving seamlessly from a late lunch that tastes so much better than the stale breakfast sandwiches they’d choked down at the airport to the bus tour, all of them sat two by two on the top deck. Buck ends up next to Eddie because of course he does, but the trip is more relaxing than Buck had anticipated. By the end he finds himself pointing out random things, sharing the little scraps of information he’d found during one of his late night internet deep dives and stored for someone who’d actually care. Eddie listens, asking questions or making observations of his own, and Buck is only momentarily distracted by the way the breeze ruffles Eddie’s hair as they trundle along the main strip.

The afternoon and evening pass in a whirlwind of sightseeing and food, each of them pausing in their hotel rooms long enough to dress up for dinner in the fancy restaurant below, teasing each other and sharing stories. For once Buck isn’t next to Eddie, is next to Bobby instead with Eddie opposite him, but that’s almost worse. The lines of Eddie’s jacket are sharp and angular, a dark contrast to the gold walls behind him, and Buck wants to reach out and stroke his fingers along the inky black, see if it actually exists. He watches as Eddie cuts up his steak, small, precise movements with his cutlery with the silver flashing a reflection of the restaurant lights across the room, watches as he reaches for his wine glass, curls fingers around the delicate stem, the way his throat bobs as he takes a sip and the slight staining of his lips when he lowers it again. Buck is gripped by a desperate desire to lean over and lick it off, taste the drink on Eddie’s tongue, and the moment he realises he clears his throat abruptly, tearing his gaze away to stare at the chicken on his own plate instead. 

He’s not quite quick enough to miss the smirk Eddie throws his way and he does his best to avoid him for the rest of the evening, throwing his attention almost aggressively towards Chim and the rest of the table, participating with enough exuberance that should distract anyone from the desire that’s set up home in his stomach and his veins, and the guilt that’s chasing it.

It works, right up until they end up in the club, all of them minus Bobby who cries off after the dinner, retreating to his hotel room to give them time to let loose without being under the eye of their boss. From the moment they enter Buck feels a little too old to be there, the club full of young twenty-somethings in too short skirts and too tight tee-shirts, dancing and grinding away to an EDM beat that Buck has never really enjoyed. The glitterball winks above the seething crowd, sending back the lights that swing over everyone in haphazardly thrown yellows and blues, casting strange shadows on people’s faces, and the whole place teeters along the precarious edge of overwhelming.

Hen leans into his space, shouts in his ear in an attempt to be heard over the music, “drink?”

“Yes,” Buck shouts back, almost immediately, and the two of them herd Chim and Eddie over to the bar, jostling and side-stepping their way to the front to be served. 

Hen orders them shots, four little glasses lined up in front of them and being filled with clear liquid that burns Buck’s mouth and throat as he downs it. Chim shakes his head in front of him, spilling out into a grin, and dumps his own glass back onto the bar top only to be handed another by Hen. Buck shakes his head when his own second shot is offered, pressing it into Chim’s hands with a mischievous wink, turning instead to get an actual drink. The people around them heave and Hen and Chimney get cut off, caught in the tide of people to drift on towards the dance floor and away from Buck and Eddie.

Buck places an order, passing on one of the drinks to Eddie and grabbing his own, and the two of them migrate away from the bar and towards the edges of the room where they can stand awkwardly in the shadows, watching the bacchanalia taking place in front of them.

“Don’t want to dance?” Eddie asks, leaning in like Hen had, close enough that Buck can feel his breath wash over his cheek. The desire from before flares, white hot, licking its way through his veins and making it hard to concentrate on anything else. He takes a sip of his drink to try and chase it away, but the sticky sweetness of the mixer doesn’t help much.

“Not really my sort of music,” Buck says instead, tracing the rim of his cup with his finger and purposefully not looking at Eddie.

“No?”

“No. And you’re hardly dancing either.”

Eddie laughs and Buck chances a glance upwards, at the lights whipping over Eddie’s face, the carefree expression. 

“Can’t dance to this.”

“That kinda sounds like a challenge. Like, I’m pretty sure that the creators of EDM would disagree with that given that it’s, y’know, dance music. Kinda implies you can dance to it.”

“Okay, well, want to prove me wrong?”

“What?”

“Show me.” Buck is suddenly hyper aware of how close Eddie is, how he hadn’t taken a step back since the start of their conversation. His eyes drop to Eddie’s lips again, lingering, before Eddie commands his attention once more. “How would you dance to this?”

“Well,” Buck says, trying to hide how his mouth has gone sandpaper dry, “why am I dancing? Give me a scenario.”

“You’re dancing to convince me.”

“I guess… well if I was trying to convince someone, it would-”

“No,” Eddie interrupts. “Not someone, me.”

Buck gapes at him, stares at the molten look in Eddie’s eyes, before it clicks into place. What Eddie wants, what he’s actually talking about. Still, Buck has to know, has to make sure.

“Do you want convincing?”

“I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

“Well,” Buck starts, then drains his drink, sets it down on a ledge littered with other plastic cups. “I guess I would put my hands on your hips, to start with.”

“Show me,” Eddie commands, and Buck complies, can’t do anything else. He closes his eyes, listens to the music, lets the beat settle into his bones and starts swaying. Eddie places his own hands on Buck’s hips, pulling even closer, and Buck doesn’t open his eyes at first but he does tilt his head back, tries to get a breath in and gather his bearings. They reach some sort of rhythm, although it’s unclear if it matches the beat of the music, and Buck risks opening his eyes again.

Eddie’s dipped close to him, so, so close, and Buck can’t help it anymore, can’t hold back. He doesn’t think about anything else, about the repercussions or consequences; just lifts up, ever so slightly, at the same time as Eddie shifts, and really it’s impossible to know which one of them initiates the kiss. 

The first one is brief but the second is not, hidden away in their dark corner away from prying eyes or anyone who would care, hands sliding into hair and twisting in shirts, trying to pull the other close, always closer. Buck can taste the vodka and tequila, the red wine from earlier, wants to sink into it and does, spreading his legs a little when Eddie pushes his hips forward, but it’s not enough, can never be enough. He wants more, wants it all, wants everything, and when Eddie pulls back a little he feels almost angry at stopping.

“Want to go back to the hotel?” Eddie actually asks, lips swollen, hair a little wild.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Buck replies. Eddie pauses, surges forward for another kiss, and then they skulk their way out of the club and back to their hotel room. 

The hotel isn’t far, but it’s far enough for Buck to start feeling awkward, for the reality of what’s happening to actually sink in. He texts Hen on the way, lets her know that they’ve left, gets a thumbs up and photo of her and Chim in line for a taxi of their own in response. By the time they get in he feels almost jittery with anxiety, with the knowledge of what they’ve done, what they intend to do, and he sits heavily on one of the beds, Eddie joining hesitantly beside him. Buck barely registers him, thinks instead how everything has irreversibly changed, forever, because -

Because Buck couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold it together, let his feelings get the better of him, and-

He’s brought out of the spiral by gentle fingers brushing down the side of his face, blinks back into the presence of Eddie, looking at him. Buck isn’t quite able to work out exactly what his expression means, decides he doesn’t want to probe too much.

“Okay?” Eddie asks, quietly, safe in the sanctity of the hotel room with its large, twin beds, the gold furnishings, thick black out curtains and plush carpets.

“Okay,” Buck replies, a little shakily, letting out a breath. “Okay,” he repeats, more sure this time, and Eddie nods.

“Okay,” Eddie echoes, but still doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything further and Buck leans forward again, brushing his lips against Eddie’s once more. It’s barely a kiss at first, something fleeting and hesitant. Buck’s not entirely sure that he’s breathing, doesn’t want to cause any movement that might cause Eddie to skitter away. The thought is unbearable, now that Buck has him here, finally, cotton soft under his fingers. He’s not holding on to Eddie, not really, barely grazing over the fabric, the moment far too fragile for anything more.

“Is this okay?” Eddie asks, whispers, a murmur that washes over Buck’s lips. His fingers flex in Eddie’s shirt, turning into a proper grip, and he tilts his head up to slot their lips together more easily.

Still, he waits, lets Eddie make the decision to finally kiss properly, a real one as opposed to the playground movements of earlier. He’s still not breathing, still doesn’t want to accidentally break whatever spell has been cast, but he can’t help the moan that slips out, unbidden and without permission as Eddie’s tongue darts out to tease at Buck’s lips.

It triggers something in Eddie, because the next thing that Buck knows Eddie is pushing him back, down into the mattress and pressing his weight into Buck. Buck holds him, brackets Eddie with his legs, and hisses when Eddie presses down into him. Buck’s helpless, to the situation, to the little shocks that spark through wherever Eddie’s pressing into him, to the way that their lips don’t part, hot, heavy and insistent.

He’s not sure when they shed their clothes; one minute there’s too much fabric in the way and the next Eddie is grazing fingerprints into Buck’s skin, stealing his breath and rationality at the same time. His hips jolt up against his will, grinding into Eddie. He wants more, wants everything, knows that he’s greedy enough to take everything Eddie will offer and still not be satisfied.

Buck runs his fingers down Eddie’s spine, revels in the way it causes Eddie to arch, back curving beautifully and hips knocking more forcefully into Buck’s. He does it again, chasing the goosebumps already raised, stealing the sounds Eddie makes with his mouth and tongue, stopping them from reaching the room in a move that’s uncharacteristically selfish.

Or maybe the selfishness is in character, at least when it comes to this, comes to Eddie. Buck takes and takes, everything that Eddie is willing to give, clinging on tightly as their movements gather pace and a more defined rhythm, a purpose and desperation to the thrusts until they’re tipping over, coming with muffled groans and grunts bitten into each other’s shoulders and biceps.

They don't stay close, after. Eddie rolls off him and they stay panting side by side, staring up at the ceiling as the endorphins start to settle. Buck can feel the sweat and come starting to dry on his skin, itchy and irritating, and the usual lethargy he gets after sex doesn’t seem to want to appear. He feels agitated, a low humming buzzing underneath his skin, the sort of electricity that is too much, makes him want to peel the skin from his body in a bout of hypersensitivity. Buck wants to bridge the gap, wants to reach for Eddie just as a way to ground himself, let the current leach itself into the bed and away, but he can’t. He can’t even turn his head over on the pillow, tear his gaze from the slightly dingy ceiling, to see if Eddie is feeling the same thing.

Eventually, when it’s too much and reaches a crescendo, Buck opens his mouth to say something, anything, but it’s too late.

The bed shakes as Eddie lurches up from it, disappearing into the bathroom without looking at Buck once, snagging a large towel on the way. The lock clunks into place with a deafening finality, and Buck’s mouth snaps shut just as he can hear the shower turn on.

Buck waits, and waits, but Eddie never comes back out, and he eventually passes out just before dawn, grey early morning light filling the room through the flimsy curtains. It’s a short sleep, and not at all restful, and when Buck wakes up again the room is empty.

Breakfast is an awkward, quiet affair, full of hangovers and regret. Hen and Chim are subdued, Buck is maudlin and silent, and Eddie is nowhere to be seen. Only Bobby seems unaffected, calmly reading the paper provided by the hotel and sipping on fresh coffee and orange juice, seemingly happy enough in playing the role of the grown up.

“What time’s the flight?” Chim asks eventually, straightening up as a stack of fluffy pancakes arrives, picking up his fork to push the berries on the top to the side, scattering them over his plate, in favour of drenching them with the small pot of syrup provided instead.

“We have to leave in an hour,” Hen replies, reaching over to steal Chim’s berries and add them to her own fruit salad. Chimney turns the plate round to make it easier, carving through his own breakfast with the fork.

Buck says nothing, eats nothing, despite the plate of food in front of him. He feels hollow, eyes gritty with a lack of sleep and an unpleasant knot sitting in his stomach. He refuses to think about earlier, too scared to ask where Eddie might be. He doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth, and eating anything is out of the question with the anxiety gnawing away at him from inside out, and he fiddles with his phone as an excuse to not have to look or talk to anyone.

Unfortunately, Chimney doesn’t seem to get the message, because when he’s demolished a good three quarters of the pancakes, two cups of coffee, and looking significantly better for it, he fixes Buck with an accusatory stare until Buck has to look back.

“Where’s Eddie?”

Buck’s heart beats so violently it lodges itself somewhere in his throat, making it almost impossible to give a response. He’s just about managed an, “I don’t know,” slightly choked around the edges, when Bobby nods towards the entrance of the dining room.

“He’s here now.”

Buck doesn’t look round, refuses to give into that temptation, but he does watch as Eddie curves around the table, folds into a seat between Hen and Bobby, murmuring apologies for being late even as he reaches for the coffee pot in the middle of the table. Hen waves him off, passing him the breakfast menu, but Buck can’t tear his eyes away, can’t seem to calm his heart rate down from galloping, return it back to where it belongs in his chest. He slides his palms from the table to his jeans, hidden away from view, and wipes them as subtly as possible over the scratchy fabric.

The thing is, the thing is, Eddie looks relatively unaffected. Everything about him is normal, from the way he’s sitting, casually glancing through the menu as if he’s ordering anything other than the scrambled eggs, the way his hair falls just so in its normal swoops, the easy smile and easier answer he gives when Bobby asks him something. He looks fine and composed in a way that is the complete opposite to how Buck is feeling, trying with everything in his power to maintain just an image of an even keel, and it’s a little… insulting, if Buck is honest, how little Eddie seems to care about the previous evening. How Eddie has managed to box everything up so neatly already, put it away and shoved it aside so he can get on with his day and life. Buck can read a message, can tell that clearly it was a one night, never to be discussed thing, and tries not to stab at the sausage he’d ordered for appearance’s sake too viciously. 

Buck wishes he could do the same, could compartmentalise the way Eddie is so adept to, but he worries - fears - knows - that in this case, when it comes to Eddie, it bled into his conscious thoughts too long ago to be able to be shut down now. Just another thing Buck has fucked up to join a long, long list.

He takes a sip of his own orange juice to try and swallow the lump in his throat, and the acid curdles with the guilt in his stomach.

The flight home is - fine, in the most dismissive form of the word. In an effort to save money their seats were dotted throughout the plane rather than banked together, dropped hither and thither in a pattern only sensical to the booking algorithm. Buck’s tired, that uncomfortable gritty kind of tired, and takes advantage of the fact he’s sat between someone dressed in an impeccable business suit, which seems out of place in their section of the plane, and the wall of the plane itself to rest his head against the hard surface next to him and doze from the moment they start to taxi down the runway.

Maddie’s waiting for him by the time they’re all spat out of the airport, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the bright sunlight their eyes had been shielded from by the liminal protection of the airport itself. The others have already peeled off to their own rides and families, leaving just Buck and Chimney to slouch their way out of the terminal and onto the asphalt outside, heading towards the car. Jee’s sitting on her hip and spots them first, sticking out her hand to point at them with spikey fingers. 

Chim rushes over immediately, scooping up a squealing Jee and pressing loud kisses over her cheeks. It’s a display of energy that, until that moment, had been completely absent, and Buck finds it rather unfair considering his own exhaustion. He hangs back, lets them have their moment, fiddles with the strap of his bag and ignores the shot of loneliness that streaks through him. It’s too maudlin a thought for being this tired, and not even one that Buck is a stranger too. He knows how to push it down, lock it into a box where it can’t spoil anything, and by the time Maddie looks up, beckons him over with a smile and an outstretched hand, Buck has the feeling wrestled back into control.

He’s fine. He’s just tired. 

(Even though the box is straining, creaking at the edges with all the things that Buck doesn’t want to examine, can’t admit to himself, a tangle of anxiety and loneliness and, a whispering thread through it all, Eddie . It’s only a matter of time before it shatters completely and the thought of having to confront everything he’s been hiding makes Buck feel sick, but really.

He’s fine.)

If Buck had thought things would go back to normal between himself and Eddie after they return from Vegas, he was very wrong.

See, the thing is, the last few months - ever since January the first, to be precise - there had been a cycle. Something happens, something that sparks some sort of crisis in Buck, has him spiralling and obsessing, and he either retreats from Eddie to find some sort of equilibrium again, regain his footing before he can be around his friend once more before crossing some sort of invisible divide and doing something to wreck their relationship beyond repair.

Something like sleeping with Eddie during a trip to Vegas.

He’s fully prepared to have Eddie pull away, to put himself very firmly on the other side of the gulf that Buck has so recklessly dug between them, a crater carved from Buck’s inability to think things through before acting. It would be par for the course in Buck’s life, and he spends a sleepless night with his stomachs in knots about how things will go the next day at work, whether there would be any way to salvage the shards that their relationship has undoubtedly broken into. He even goes as far as researching ways he could be transferred, a deep dive into the depths of the HR department pages, drafting a letter of apology to Bobby, to Hen and to Chimney, that blinks at him from his laptop screen in the early hours of the morning. They’re long and rambling, a digital confession of his transgressions, definitely the sort of thing that’s unlikely to be sent without serious revision courtesy of Maddie and a bottle of wine shared between them.

Buck feels a little like he’s entering a lion’s den when he walks into the firehouse the next morning. The grip on his bag turns white knuckled to try and stem the anxiety induced tremors snaking their way up his arm to his hands, and he does his best to slip unobtrusively to the locker room, skulking around the edges in an attempt to go unnoticed, disappearing to the quieter parts if the building when he’s finished. Buck even takes it upon himself to inventory the supply cupboard, focusing on each item wholly and individually, trying to force any other thoughts out of his mind.

Buck needn’t have worried, though. When the bell finally does ring, all of them crowding into the truck shoulder to shoulder, Eddie takes his usual spot next to Buck, the same cocky smirk being chucked at Buck thoughtlessly as normal. Piece by piece the anxiety starts to bleed away from Buck, dissolving in normalcy, until the familiar adrenaline rush is the only thing Buck can really feel.

The rest of the shift passes quickly, Buck buoyed by hazy relief that sees him through the next day, and the next, all the way to the weekend and end of the shift pattern. His work bag and keys are tossed on the wide expanse of his kitchen counter, skittering across a little with a jingle of the metal, and he makes a beeline for the bathroom and his usual post shift shower.

After, though, when Buck has finally extracted himself from the hot water and dressed in the soft, sweatpant shorts Maddie had gifted him when he’d crushed his leg, he stands in the middle of his living room, breathing in the quiet and still. The evening sun has found its way into his apartment, puddling on the floor in a golden rectangle and its here Buck stands, ignoring the strange grey shadows appearing on the walls behind him. It’s not something he often seeks or stops to appreciate, too wrapped up in the go go go of life, but sometimes-

Sometimes-

The still is broken by a loud knock on the door.

Buck blinks his eyes open, unsure when he’d even closed them, but it still takes another knock for him to come back to himself enough to stride over and open it.

Eddie’s on the other side, a pack of beer in one hand and the other resting on the door frame.

“Chris has a sleepover,” he says, straightening up a little, lifting the beer slightly. Buck watches the curl of his bicep at the movement, before returning his gaze to Eddie’s face. “Thought we could… hang.”

He’s looking at Buck with the same expression as Vegas, that molten intensity, the way his eyes keep darting to Buck’s lips, and Buck knows in a split second what’s about to happen, can see the whole evening mapped out in his mind, before Eddie surges forward to prove him right.

They crash through his apartment in a way that’s almost impressive, considering Buck’s inability to furnish the place. Buck thinks that Eddie shuts the door, somehow, hearing a thud that barely registers through the kiss, but he’s too focused on the feel of Eddie’s hair through his fingers, the cotton of his tee-shirt and then the smooth softness of his skin when Buck has pulled it off, discarding it to the floor as they make their way to the foot of the stairs and pause there, leaning against the wall, taking each other in.

Eventually Eddie pulls back slightly and Buck is able to catch his breath, just for a moment, and Buck looks at him. This close he can see the sweep of Eddie’s eyelashes, the tiny dust of freckles over his nose that are otherwise invisible. He wants to reach out, trace each one into a constellation only he can know about, but he doesn’t.

Eddie doesn’t seem to have the same reservations, lifting his hands to rest on Buck’s cheeks, the pads of his thumbs brushing oh so gently over his cheekbones. Buck manages one, single, shuddering breath, eyes fluttering closed again, desperate to regain some sort of bearings, reclaim an attempt to control the situation. It doesn’t work, any possible progress completely undone when Eddie asks, low and quiet, “bed?”

It’s framed like a choice but it isn’t really, couldn’t be a choice when Eddie is looking at him like that , speaking to him like that , and all Buck can do is just nod, let the moment sweep him up and carry them away. He’s not sure where, and the idea of thinking about it was too much, the want bleeding into anxiety, so Buck just - doesn’t.

Not when they make it up the stairs, not when Eddie is steadily stripping him of his clothes, when they actually make it into the bed, when Eddie opens him up carefully but almost clinically, a small furrow creased into his forehead that Buck would reach up to smooth out if he was in control of his limbs. Then he’s pressing into Buck and his mouth falls open, head tipping back, and any thought at all vanishes, gives way easily to pleasure only, seeping into every crack and crevice in his brain and synapses until it’s too much, he’s overflowing, and he comes with Eddie’s name unuttered on his lips.

He misses Eddie’s own orgasm, head too high in the clouds, only aware of the fact when Eddie pulls out, pulls away, withdrawing to flop on the bed beside Buck. Buck turns his head on the pillow, looks at Eddie and hopes he looks back, but Eddie is resolutely staring at the ceiling with the kind of neutral expression that has Buck’s anxiety spiking.

“I have to go,” Eddie says eventually, still not looking at Buck. The anxiety swoops again, plummeting into a free fall.

“Oh,” Buck says, small and confused. That single syllable is still enough for Eddie to finally look at him though, smiling in a way that’s probably meant to be reassuring.

It’s not.

“In case Chris needs me, if there’s an issue at the sleepover. Anyway, it’s probably better if I don’t stay after.”

“Sure,” Buck says, because there’s not much more he can do but agree, but the lie feels dirty on his lips, a stain in the space between them. “Do you-“

“I’ll see you tomorrow Buck.”

Eddie leans over, leaves a quick kiss to Buck’s lips, before pulling on his jeans and shirt again and seeing himself out of the apartment. Buck just lies there on the bed, clinging to that last kiss, and trying very hard not to wonder if maybe things had been fucked irreparably after all.

The day of Maddie and Chimney’s wedding is almost unbearably humid. Clouds sit heavy in the sky, hiding the usual cerulean that LA takes for granted until it vanishes, and Buck hovers by the air conditioning unit, hoping that it’s not obvious that he’s sweating through his light beige suit.

Still, it’s a beautiful wedding, a stark difference from Maddie’s first. She looks happy for one thing, eyes bright and sparkling like the water visible through the great glass windows overlooking the marina. Chim matches her expression, a sort of disbelieving, absolute, joy, a bright grin bursting out the moment Maddie enters the room, hanging off the edge of their father’s arm, and staying there right until they’re waved off in their taxi at the end of the night. Buck is sure their cheeks must hurt by that point, but he’s more overwhelmingly happy that they both have cause for their cheeks to hurt in that way. That much genuine smiling can hardly be a bad thing.

The rain starts later, after the dinner and the cake and speeches, back in the ceremony room that has since been transformed into a dance floor. The music and disco lights hide the start of the rain, the way that the wind whips over the water and through the boats, but Buck is close enough to the windows to see the boats bobbing on growing waves rippling through. It’s less of a shock for him, then, when a crack of lightning interrupts Maddie and Chimney’s escape compared to everyone else who hadn’t been paying attention. Maddie’s eyes grow wide, one foot in the car, glancing back over the assembled well wishers with a light laugh, but they don’t stop, slipping into the taxi and being whisked away into the night.

Once they’ve gone most go back inside, running and screeching from the weather, but Buck stays where he is. There’s something almost intoxicating about standing out in the storm, watching nature’s temper tantrum streak through the sky around him. He skulks by the edge of the building, trying to keep to the eaves that don’t do much to stop his suit getting soaked through at any rate. Buck knows that he’s probably ruining it, staining the material with polluted rain, but he has no intention of wearing it again despite what Maddie and their mother had said when he’d paid for it and he pays no mind to the way the water is seeping into the fabric, turning it dark and sticky against his skin.

“You’ll catch a cold, standing out like that,” comes a voice from behind Buck, cutting through the storm. Buck raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t turn around.

“Y’know, you can’t actually catch colds from the rain. It’s a virus, it’s not- you can’t- it doesn’t work like that.”

“Still,” Eddie says, stepping forward a little and brushing across Buck’s fingers with his own. “Come with me?”

“I don’t really want to go inside,” Buck says, and Eddie’s fingers coalesce around his own, holding onto his hand and giving it a light tug.

“We don’t have to go back there. We can ditch.”

“Chris?”

“Went home with Pepa about two hours ago.”

Buck hesitates, logic making a brief, last minute attempt at convincing him that this was a bad idea but logic was always doomed to fail and Buck gives in and nods, shifting his own fingers in Eddie’s hold so it’s more balanced, equally making the decision together for bad or good.

They end up at Buck’s again and this time Eddie spreads out across the mattress beneath him, stretching out across the sheets as if it were an altar. Buck’s not sure who they would be worshipping so chooses Eddie, tracing a line across Eddie’s clavicle as he sinks down, giving himself over and revelling in the pleasure he receives in return. Eddie’s hands are on his hips, curving round the skin, the muscle and the bones, and Buck is so sure that any bruises left behind will be carved into him, rainbow evidence of what they’ve done, proof that, however briefly, Eddie was his and he was Eddie’s.

The thought brings out a shudder in Buck, hidden behind the rolling of his hips, and it’s enough that he doesn’t protest when Eddie shifts beneath him, moving them so he can sit up far enough to trace around one of Buck’s nipples with his tongue and his teeth. The position Eddie’s put them in is more intimate than anything they’ve done until now and Buck has to bury his fingers in Eddie’s hair, to hold him there and remind himself that this version of Eddie is, somehow, impossibly, real.

Buck screws his eyes closed, clings tighter and tighter, trying to hold onto a time and a closeness that doesn’t belong to them and will ultimately be taken from them once the moment is complete, and they stay in that position until they both spiral into each other, a desperate release that’s not as satisfying as Buck would like, but still has him gasping out into the room. 

Then, he pries his fingers from Eddie’s hair, from his skin, piece by piece, to put himself back together again, try and fit the shards into one being to protect himself from the inevitable moment when Eddie leaves. He doesn’t disappoint; Eddie waits long enough to catch his breath, staring at the ceiling, before putting his suit on again and leaving with only a kiss to the cheek that stings more than any words could.

A pattern forms after that, if a pattern can be formed in three matching occasions. It’s always Buck’s bed they fall into, at the end of a difficult shift or after a team bonding night at the bar or on a shared day off, Chris having gone on a sleepover at a friend’s house and Buck steadily treading a worn path into the veneer of his floorboards out of sheer boredom, his cabinets already stuffed with groceries from a trip to the shops earlier and each appliance gleaming in a way that would have made his drill sergeant from his short stint in the Navy proud. Each time, Eddie invites himself over, turns up at Buck’s doorstep, and Buck is weak, too weak not to invite him in, up the stairs, into his bed, letting Eddie do whatever he wants. The permissions drip from his lips like honey, but afterwards, when Eddie leaves him lying on the bed and avoiding Buck’s eyes, the words to get him to say get caught on the jagged edges in Buck’s throat, sharp and lethal, and anything Buck has to say gets swallowed down with the glass.

The door clicks closed and Buck takes deep, shuddering, breaths, staring at his ceiling fan, at the curtains, at anything at all to ignore the yawning chasm of loneliness that seeps in like a tide. Fingers scratch over the surface of his messed up sheets, feeling the stale cotton, and eventually he heaves himself upright, strips the bed, hides the mess away in the washing machine and takes a shower, clearing away the evidence of what happened with a clinical efficiency that borders on ruthlessness. 

When everything is hidden away Buck ends up back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The memories and feelings are harder to push down in their mental boxes, and in the netherworld night time Buck finds himself in they chase round each other, one blurring into the other until he feels nauseous. 

Every time, he doesn’t sleep.

Fourth of July dawns bright and warm, the combination of a bright blue sky and lack of any sort of breeze promising a sweltering type of weather that will leave Buck a hot and sticky mess of sweat by the end of the shift. 

It’s an easy shift though, despite the climbing heat, and a short one. Bobby treats them to a box of popsicles on the way back to the firehouse after their final call out, the icy orange juice melting and sliding down the side to coat Buck’s fingers in a sticky film. He licks at them, scraping up the sharp trails of citrus, and laughs at Hen’s disgusted scoff at his actions. 

“You coming to Eddie’s later?” asks Chim once they’re back, fishing belongings out of their lockers. 

“He’s roped me into helping set it up,” Buck grumbles, shovelling his work shirt into his bag. “It’s alright for him, he’s not been working outside all day.”

“ You’ve not been working outside all day either, you spent most of the day losing to me at Mario Kart.”

“You live with Maddie, of course you’re better at Mario Kart. You have to be just to keep up with her.”

“Yeah, she is insanely good at it,” Chim admits a little sheepishly.

“Should do a showdown between her and Chris. At least it’d be somewhat of a fair game.”

“Maybe we can set something up tonight. See you later, Buckley.”

Chim hefts his bag onto his shoulder, flicks his sunglasses down to his nose, and saunters out of the locker room. Buck stares into his own locker for a moment, trying to work out if there’s anything else he needs, before jiggling the door shut around the slightly warped corner, tugging on the zip of his gym bag until it’s shut. Small black flecks rain down on the contents inside as he does so, the inner lining shedding in protest at still being used despite its age. Buck, not for the first time, makes a mental note to replace it, which he forgets the moment his phone chimes just as he reaches his Jeep.

He slides into the driver’s seat and dumps the bag in the footwell of the passenger side in one smooth movement, fishing his phone out of his pocket in the process. It’s from Chris, which isn’t unusual, but the message itself is enough to make Buck frown a little in confusion, finger hovering on the call button when another chimes through.

Just say yes.

It’ll be easier.

Before Buck can reply, or even think about what he could possibly send beyond a confused, ‘?’, the phone rings, Eddie’s name flashing across the screen. Buck swipes across to accept the call without even thinking, mentally preparing for some hideous scenario that he’d tumble headfirst into without thought if it meant protecting Christopher from any kind of unknown harm.

“Hello?”

“Buck, good. Are you finished? Are you on your way?”

“Hi Eddie, good to speak to you too. The shift was fine, thanks for asking.”

“Buck.”

“The fine citizens of LA seem to mostly be behaving themselves, and the traffic wasn’t too bad for once-”

“ Buck .”

“Geez. Yes, I’ve finished, yes I’m on my way. As soon as you stop calling me I can set off.”

“I need you to go to the store.” There’s a pause. “Please.”

“Can I come?” Buck hears Christopher, a little distantly, and if he closes his eyes he can see the way that Chris leans against Eddie, reaching up to try and tug the phone down to say, “Hi Buck!”

“Hey, buddy. Sure, I can swing by and pick you up if that’s alright with your dad?”

“Sure, fine, I’ll write you a list.”

“See you soon then.”

“Bye!” Chris sing-songs back through the fine, Eddie’s own parting more subdued, and the call cuts off. Buck drops his phone into the cup holder, switches on the ignition, and peels out of the parking lot in the direction of Eddie’s.

He’s met with a frantic Eddie who intercepts him in the hallway, and a peek behind him into the kitchen shows just a little of the chaos within. Eddie shoves a list to Buck’s chest, mumbles something incoherent, and wanders off again just as Chris comes into view to join him. Buck helps him into the Jeep and hands over control of his phone, the two of them breaking into an impromptu karaoke session all the way to the store. It doesn’t take long to work their way through the list that seems mostly comprised of desserts and sides, a pile that gets added to by both Buck and Chris as they wind their way through the supermarket and end up at the cash register. Buck only feels moderately guilty at the impending sugar rushes likely following the consumption of their haul, nudging one of the containers of potato salad further onto the conveyer belt and pretending that a dish made of starch and mayonnaise is healthy because it has salad in the name.

“Why’s your dad so stressed?” Buck finally asks once they’re back in the Jeep, the music turned on low this time.

“He tried to make it all himself,” Chris replies with an eye-roll, more interested in watching the scenery go past outside of the window. 

“But he’s really bad at baking,” Buck says, not that he himself has much room to judge. “Why would he try something like that?”

“I don’t know. I think there was a bet or something, but he nearly set the kitchen on fire. I’m not supposed to tell anyone that though,” Chris tacks on, turning to look at Buck with a wide-eyed look.

“My lips are sealed,” Buck promises, right as they pull up outside the house. 

He makes sure that Christopher gets inside safely before ferrying in the shopping bags. Chris for his part heads straight for his bedroom, ducking away from the hand Eddie reaches out to ruffle his hair with on the way. Eddie grimaces a little, reaching out to relieve Buck from one of the bags and checking inside to see what’s there.

“All good?” Buck asks, unable to help the smirk and quirked eyebrow that make their way onto his face at the inspection. Eddie glances up again with a relieved smile.

“Perfect, thanks.”

He takes another bag from Buck’s hand, using the proximity to lean in and kiss Buck briefly on the lips, seemingly unconsciously, before hurrying into the kitchen and calling out various tasks over his shoulder as he goes.

Buck stands rooted to the spot, brain frozen in that one moment. He isn’t sure what it means or how to react, is keenly aware that Christopher is only a door away and that Eddie clearly hadn’t meant to do that, hadn’t even registered he had done it. He couldn’t have intended the kiss; it was far too intimate, too domestic, to anything they had done before, outside the realm of what they usually did. It lacked the desperation, the need to feel someone else’s heartbeat and sweat and skin, a take take take that always ended in Eddie leaving. 

Eddie always left, he didn’t give domesticity, and he never gave it freely.

The rules, the equilibrium, had been broken yet again, but when Eddie calls for Buck, asks for the rest of the groceries, Buck can’t help but shuffle forward, comply like he always does, tries to force the churning in his stomach and wipe away damp palms before he reaches the kitchen.

He can’t help but feel tired over the easy acquiescence though.

The party is loud and busy, the kind that Buck tends to prefer. Bobby arrives early to help Eddie set up the barbecue and Christopher slinks out of his room just after he arrives, helping Buck to set up the speakers outside and curate a party playlist that mostly ignores the shouted suggestions from Eddie and Bobby. It’s relaxed and fun, the sort of environment that allows Buck to slip in and out of conversations, weaving his way around people he loves with a mechanical smile and easy teasing that never goes beyond surface deep. 

He avoids Eddie though, not that it’s hard. Eddie spends most of the time hovering next to Bobby at the barbecue, an easy expression on his face whilst brandishing the tongs that is the antithesis of the stressed out whirlwind Buck had walked into after work earlier. Buck eventually settles at a spot in the kitchen slicing up watermelon, glancing out the window every so often at Eddie, at the way he seems so relaxed, as if he hadn’t thrown Buck into a tailspin earlier by kissing him out of the blue, blurring the line in whatever relationship they had even further with that moment of domesticity.

Buck’s still staring when Maddie comes through, setting a tupperware of cookies on the kitchen table, unclipping the lid, and fishing them out to put on a plate. Her entrance feels sudden enough that Buck jumps, the knife slipping a little and slicing a cut on his finger. Buck swears, lifting it up immediately and opens the drawer he knows contains the first aid kit, fishing through it to find a band aid, Maddie watching him the whole time.

 “Are you alright? You seem a little…” she waves a hand through the air vaguely, as if that one gesture is enough to make up for the lack of words. Buck still understands what she’s trying to say though, and his mouth pulls down slightly at the insinuation as he finishes tending to his finger, putting the packaging into the bin.

“I’m fine.”

“Buck-”

“Really Maddie,” Buck interrupts, the same painted on fake half smile he wore all throughout high school whenever someone tripped a little too close to caring for comfort. “I’m just a bit tired, it’s been a long run of shifts, but I’m fine.”

Maybe, if there hadn’t been nine years and a Doug shaped chasm of separation between them, Maddie may have been able to see through it, cut through the protection that Buck tried so hard to cultivate and layer around himself to prevent others from witnessing the desperate screaming at his core. There is that gap though, and instead she just smiles, hands him a cookie painted with red, white and blue, and pats him on the arm instead as she passes through to head back into the garden.

“Try and get some rest then,” she says, and Buck bites into the cookie to try and curb the delirious, frantic laughter that threatens to bubble up. He’s not sure if he’s had any real rest since Vegas.

(If he’s being really truthful, he’s not sure he’s had rest since the start of the year).

He wanders further through the house, relishing the quiet and opportunity to breathe, to pull himself back to some semblance of together again. The sounds from outside, the squeals and shouts and chatter and laughter, are more muffled, a little less overwhelming and overstimulating, and bit by bit Buck is able to relax again. It helps that everyone seems too occupied to pay him much mind, with no second glances spared when he sidles back outside again. 

It’s cooler now, twilight mingling with the last of the daytime, causing a strip of fiery orange to cut through the sky. It’s dark enough now for fireworks, and Buck can spot the bursts of glitter that start to decorate the sky through the trees from the local show. Guests slowly start peeling off, opting to either head to the show properly or slink back to their own homes, but Buck drops down into one of the camping chairs strewn across the lawn instead and it’s not long before Eddie plops down next to him, reaching out to nudge a beer bottle against Buck’s thigh. Buck takes it with a murmur of thanks, taking a small sip before depositing it safely in the cup holder.

“Having fun?” Eddie asks, shifting around a little in his chair until he’s slumped down into it in a way that makes Buck’s own back twinge.

“Sure, definitely beats working the evening shift.”

“You know, that’s not exactly a resounding endorsement.”

“It was fun, Eddie,” Buck relents, softly, and Eddie smiles, looking a little relieved, before looking back out through the trees again. 

“I… wanted Chris to have a good time. I don’t get to spend every holiday with him anyway and with Shannon… I just want to make sure that the holidays I do get to have with him are the best. I just… I just want him to be happy.”

“He is,” Buck says, immediately and with complete conviction. This, he is sure about. “He’s happy, Eddie. God, he’s such a good kid, he couldn’t be that good unless he was.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, takes a sip of his own beer to try and hide the embarrassed expression that flashes across his face at the praise, but it doesn’t mask the flush of pride that creeps up his neck. “Alright, no need to lay it on too thick.”

“I’m being serious.”

“...you really think so?”

“Yeah.” 

Buck watches as Eddie lowers the bottle again, settling it down carefully on the grass so that it doesn’t fall over, before flicking his eyes back up to Eddie’s face again. It lingers, briefly, on Eddie’s lips, at the way they curve slightly on one side, knowing intimately what they feel like under his, how they taste when he runs his tongue on them, before finally looking Eddie in the eye. Eddie’s staring at him, soft but intense, the same sort of look he gives Buck just before they kiss, before they sleep together, before-

The door behind them slams shut and Buck blinks, knocking back a little in his seat, away from where he had started to lean in towards Eddie. Chris is making his way towards them, tucking himself into Eddie’s side when he reaches them and managing to emphasise the pre part of preteen in the process. Buck watches as Eddie’s arm curves automatically around Chris’ waist, pulling him tighter and offering any support that may needed in that one gesture. 

“Tired?” Eddie asks, and Chris nods. 

“I think everyone’s gone now.”

Eddie hums, fingers brushing up and down on Chris’ hip. “You want to head to bed then?” Chris nods again but doesn’t move from his spot until Eddie nudges him, getting up himself and following Chris inside. Buck waits for the door to close, lets them have whatever moment they both seem to need, before heaving himself up from the chair and starting to collect the few abandoned plates, glasses and bottles that are still strewn around the garden.

He’s in the kitchen again when Eddie finds him, stacking glasses carefully on the draining board. Eddie moves around behind him, but Buck doesn’t turn around until his task is finished, hearing the fridge door open and dishes clinking together as they’re jenga-ed around inside.

When he does turn around, Eddie’s watching him again, expression the same as the one outside. Buck’s mouth goes dry and his stomach swoops a little, and Buck wishes that Eddie didn’t always have this effect on him, that sometimes he could be the suave one who caused Eddie to lose his composure a little.

He’s not sure what to say and the air between them grows thicker as the tension grows. Buck wills himself to say something, anything, but all that manages to come out is-

“You kissed me. Earlier.”

Eddie blinks, a little nonplussed and clearly trying to remember exactly what Buck is talking about. Buck can see the moment it clicks, a brief widening of Eddie’s eyes before he schools his expression back under control, wipes it and replaces it with the same look as earlier, the one that has Buck powerless and compliant. Eddie shifts a little closer to Buck, and Buck just shuffles back, turning his body in a mirror to Eddie’s. 

“...what if I want to kiss you again?”

This time, it’s Buck who leans forwards, closing the small gap between them and pressing their lips together. Their kisses are familiar by now, a push and pull dance that they’ve practised too many times before for it to be awkward. They slot together naturally, the kiss as easy as breathing, and Buck doesn’t think as he lets Eddie crowd him against the sink, opening his mouth up to Eddie’s tongue and pulling him closer with a tight arm between Eddie’s shoulder blades, his other hand sifting through Eddie’s hair.

He catches a moan just as it’s about to slip out, pulling back a little to swallow it back down. Eddie frowns a little as the kiss breaks, but Buck refuses to let it distract him no matter how much he wants to wipe it off.

“What about Chris?”

“He’s in bed.”

“But what if he wakes up?”

“He’s not going to. Buck, if you don’t want to do anything, that’s fine, but Chris is dead to the world and I want to, so-”

Buck cuts him off with another kiss, this one headier than the last. Eddie pushes him back into the edge of the kitchen sink and Buck gets sandwiched, but any discomfort in his lower back is ignored, rendered obsolete as a feeling when he has Eddie pressed against him, hands running under his tee-shirt and making him shiver at the touch. It should scare him, really, how easily Buck forgets that anything else in the world exists when he has Eddie kissing him like this, but nothing is as important as wrapping himself around Eddie and feeling him in every way possible. 

Buck’s not sure how, but they make it to Eddie’s bedroom without smacking into walls or furniture on the way, managing to even keep their clothes on right up until the door clicks closed. As soon as it has Buck takes the opportunity to reverse their roles, to pin Eddie up against it and kiss him as hard as he can. It’s Eddie who normally has the control, who shapes the direction they take and Buck is swept along, but this time they flip, Buck pulling Eddie’s shirt off impatiently to access the skin and muscle underneath. He wants to lick it, to taste it, tease at Eddie’s nipples with his teeth until Eddie is just as breathless as Buck always is, and he does so without further thought. 

Eddie whines, some sort of sound that he’s never made before, and Buck has to kiss him again, unable to help himself. It’s enough of a distraction for Eddie to take back some of the control and they reach the bed, Buck sprawling out across the covers whilst Eddie covers him from above. There’s a pause, then, Eddie hovering over Buck, weight on his arms, and Buck raises his hand up to trace a finger over Eddie’s temple, cheek bones, right down to his lips. Eddie shudders a little, eyes closing, and Buck reaches up again to cup the back of Eddie’s head gently and pull him down into the sweetest, most tender kiss they’ve ever shared. 

He revels in it, the soft slide of their lips, the little gasps that fall between them in crystallised drops of sound, the way Eddie’s eyelashes flutter against Buck’s cheeks. Distantly, he can feel the slow, grinding rocks of Eddie’s hips against his own, his legs spreading unconsciously to make the space for Eddie that only ever belongs to him and his own hips mirroring the actions. It’s something that feels natural, that has become natural from all the other times they’ve fallen into bed together, but there’s still something, a thrumming sort of undercurrent, that if Buck focuses too much on it is enough to set his teeth on edge.

At some point, the rest of their clothes come off, and Eddie opens Buck up with careful caresses and hitched breaths, before pressing inside of him in an action that simultaneously sets Buck on fire and soothes all of his nerves in one movement. His mouth falls open as Eddie starts to move with some sort of purpose and it’s impossible for him to close it again, the magnitude of the moment too great to be kept in despite his best efforts. Instead, Buck gives himself over to it, lets every inch of his body feel it, until it’s too much and he comes, choking on a sob that gets caught in his throat. 

Eddie’s seconds behind him, but Buck misses it, has to close his eyes and shut out the world as he tries to come back to himself. Tears tickle his cheeks and he’s not even sure why he’s crying, only that for once it’s too much, that whatever’s been stirred and dredged up inside him ever since Las Vegas, ever since January, has reached a climax of its own. 

He feels fingertips trying to brush the tears away, hears soft murmurs of confused reassurances, and he’s pulled into Eddie’s side. A soft sheet is tugged over the two of them as a wave of exhaustion crashes over him, and for the first time Buck gets to fall asleep in Eddie’s arms.

It’s late, when Buck wakes up, a strip of sunlight acting as a search beam and pinpointing him in Eddie’s bed. He feels sore and wrung out from the unexpected emotion of the previous night, and he doesn’t need the glance to his left to know that Eddie’s already gone. Buck’s woken up alone too many times not to know what an empty bed feels like, and regardless he can hear Eddie crashing about in the kitchen, undoubtedly getting things ready to start the day.

Buck still has to check though, needs the confirmatory visual that Eddie hadn’t, couldn’t, didn’t want to, wait for him. The flare of disappointment is sharp but fleeting, ruthlessly pushed down; no matter Eddie’s intentions, Chris needs him, and Buck can’t imagine a world where Chris’ needs don’t take priority. He’d chew Eddie out himself if he thought that Chris was being ignored in favour of Buck’s own clinginess.

The knee on his good leg pops as he stands and he shuffles out of the bedroom towards the kitchen, stopping only to pull on the clothes that Eddie had left out for him on top of the hamper. It reminds him almost too much of the morning after Valentine’s Day, of the mess he’d managed to leave in its wake. Buck wonders if he’ll ever stop making dumb decisions that threatens his friendship - relationship? Situationship seems too juvenile, but Buck’s pretty sure that friends don’t have quite as much sex as he and Eddie do - when it comes to Eddie. It’s something else he has to try and push aside as he walks into the day, taking a few seconds to steel himself before he turns the corner into the kitchen. As expected Chris and Eddie are already there, dressed and ready for their days in a way Buck absolutely cannot relate to.

Chris spots him first from his vantage spot opposite the doorway, expression splitting into a happy, surprised grin.

“Buck! Did you stay over?”

“Yeah, by the time we put everything away I was pretty tired,” Buck says, edging his way into the room and into a seat opposite Christopher, who immediately pulls the bowl set out for Eddie closer and fills it with the sugary cereal they always eat together when Buck’s babysitting.

“Morning. Coffee,” Eddie adds, sliding a mug across the table to Buck with the sort of smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Eddie’s fake smile is a subtle thing, too many years of practice making it difficult to tell which of his expressions are true, but Buck knows Eddie, has spent so long analysing and memorising every little facial movement that he can tell immediately.

It makes his stomach sink so fast he feels nauseous, and Buck tries to cover it up with a gulp of coffee that burns his throat and tongue on the way down. He manages to not splutter it all over the table, eyes watering in the process, and follows it down with a spoon of the cereal he doesn’t really want in an attempt to soothe the stinging. Chris grins at him from across the table, spoon sticking out handle first from between his teeth, and Eddie rolls his eyes when he turns around and catches sight of it.

“C’mon, Chris, eat your breakfast. Carla’s going to be here soon.”

Christopher’s smile slides down into a frown and he pulls the spoon out of his mouth with a slight scrape. “Why can’t I just stay here and hang out with Buck?”

“Sorry bud, but I gotta work today. Actually, speaking of, I kinda need to - my stuff is back at the loft, so-”

Buck jerks a thumb over his shoulder, using that one gesture to articulate everything that’s stuck around the lump in his throat, and scoots his chair back from the table. The cereal is only half eaten and his mug is still mostly full, but Eddie still isn’t looking at him properly, still has that fake little smile that makes a small part of Buck want to shrivel up, and he has to retreat. He’s still not sure exactly what emotion was brought up last night, but whatever it was was a shattering of sorts and Buck desperately wants to hide away at home to lick his wounds.

Chris makes noises of protest that follow Buck all the way down the hall, but Eddie just waves goodbye, moving around his kitchen with a carefully practised nonchalance that haunts Buck all the way back to his apartment.

The shift that day is one of the most awkward shifts Buck has ever experienced, even with his history of bad decisions. The saving grace of it all is that it’s busy, spent darting across the city to attend all manner of disasters that stops Buck from becoming too insular, caught on the snags of his own thoughts until he’s tumbling down holes that are impossible to climb out of. It doesn’t stop the fact that there’s something strained between him and Eddie, a pressure point building that Buck has a terrible suspicion is his fault, a direct response to the tears he’d been unable to control the night before. It makes part of him want to curl up in shame, hide away and nurse the emotional wounds until he’s reconstructed again, but the best he has been able to do is papiermache over the cracks that have formed during an extra long shower when he’d got back to his loft that morning, for which the LA traffic punished him by making him almost be late for the shift and cause his anxiety to spike once again.

Eddie doesn’t talk to him for the whole shift. He speaks, but nothing further than what the others would expect, no more than is necessary, and by the time they’re traipsing upstairs for a late dinner Buck wants to scream.  It’s as if the buzzing from the previous night has come back tenfold, swarming underneath his skin and Buck has to grit his teeth to stop it from spewing out in some hideously shameful manner. He skulks around the table, sequestering himself away between Ravi and Chim, blaming hunger whenever someone asks him why he’s being quiet.

Eddie doesn’t ask, keeps to his own end of the table, doesn’t even look Buck’s way for the entire meal. 

Buck leaves quickly when the shift finally ends. He sees Eddie heading into Bobby’s office but Buck doesn’t want to stay and find out why, sure that he wouldn’t like the answer if he did. The strands of anxiety that have been twisting all day tighten even further, and he grips the steering wheel of the jeep until his knuckles turn white, as if by holding it he can keep in control for just a little bit longer. The only thing that happens though is that he arrives back at his apartment without any recollection of the journey there, and he sits for a moment in the parking lot with his face in his hands.

He doesn’t want this to happen, can’t afford for this to happen. Buck’s used to being ignored, has had an entire childhood of training in it, but this is too much. It’s accompanied with the slimy, insidious knowledge that he’s the cause of it, that he fucked up all the way back in Las Vegas when he and Eddie first kissed, first slept together, carving splinters into their relationship right up until he’s crying in Eddie’s bed and facing the very real possibility that Eddie wants nothing to do with him any more.

His fingers start to tremble where they’re pressed over his eyes, breath starting to speed up in a way that has a small, detached part of his brain monitoring the situation with mild concern. Buck isn’t particularly interested in having his impending breakdown there in the car out in the open for everyone to see, so instead he breathes out, tight and controlled, imagining the birthday cake candles just like he was taught, and pulls his hands away from his face.

His cheeks are, mercifully, dry, despite the sting and tightening in his throat that usually precedes tears. It’s minute, the relief, but it’s still enough to propel him out of his seat, remembering his work bag a second before he shuts the door and dragging it out of the footwell. Buck’s reminded again that he meant to replace it after work, had planned to make an evening out of the simple errand in an attempt to prove - to himself, the universe, the imaginary jury in his mind that passes judgement over his every decision - that he’s fine, a fully functioning adult who can cope with being by himself. Buck adds it to the bottom of the catalogue of failures, a running list that sends that imaginary jury into whispered titters and words of disapproval.

The noise follows him all the way up the stairs to his apartment, until Buck crawls into bed with the duvet pulled over his head in an attempt to shut them out.

Eddie’s not at work the next day, or the day after that. The third is a rest day, but Buck spends it pacing anxious grooves into his apartment’s floor, trying to tamp down on his impulse to text, call, go barging round and make sure Eddie is okay. Chris at least posts a picture of some sort of hideous ice cream concoction, a monster of chocolate syrup and m&ms in an unfamiliar looking bowl so Buck has to assume that whatever it is that’s going on, it’s nothing bad, but it doesn’t take the sting out of being ignored.

The fourth day, he goes to Bobby.

“Eddie? He’s fine, he’s just taking some annual leave. I think he mentioned something about cousins? I didn’t ask in all honesty. You’ve got some left though, maybe you should take a leaf out of his book.”

Buck waves off Bobby’s concern and stops counting.

Eddie’s loud in his silence, though. Buck can’t help the way his eyes slide to the empty seat at the table, tries and fails not to snap at Ravi, cleans his apartment with a fervour that even his mother would have been concerned about had he replicated it when he was younger. The loneliness gnaws at him, twisting and evolving into something that wraps around his every thought, creeps into the empty parts of his day until Buck wishes he could take a scrubbing brush to his insides, wipe everything clean until he’s as spotless as his countertops.

Buck doesn’t do any of that, though, doesn’t even grant the thoughts the dignity of being spoken. He does take on extra shifts though, lending a hand through the tough summer weeks where call-outs are frequent and staff members are vying for time off. It does at least grant him with favour with his colleagues, a healthier looking bank account, and crucially a bone deep exhaustion that leads to Buck being able to do little more than choke down whatever food he’s managed to grab on his way home and pass out on top of his sheets.

He manages it for almost two weeks, before the cracks deepen into fault lines.

From the moment he walks into the firehouse, Buck can tell the shift is going to be shitshow. He can tell from the way his bones are fizzing, an agitation settling deep into his muscles and sinew that’s enough to set his teeth on edge. He helps himself to coffee from the pot, wrapping both hands around it to try and hide the trembling that was starting to set in.

“Help me with breakfast?” Bobby asks, already opening the fridge and pulling out a tray of eggs. Buck doesn’t really want to, wants to hide away in a cupboard somewhere until the day is over, but he dutifully takes the punnet of strawberries being offered to them and heads to the sink to rinse them.

It’s enough of a task to keep his hands busy but not stop his mind drifting, bouncing over thoughts and memories in a way that’s impossible to keep up with. Time itself starts to act strangely after breakfast, skipping like the old scratched CDs that Buck still keeps in the glove compartment of his Jeep, despite no longer having a car with a CD player. Each time he blinks, the day has moved on without his permission, jumping from scene to scene and leaving Buck almost breathless with his attempts to catch up.

“You’re awfully quiet today, Buck.” Hen observes, and Buck frowns a little, unsure as to when they’d all climbed into the truck. His gear feels heavy and restrictive, caging him in, but Buck still finds himself hoping it’s all there, that he hasn’t forgotten anything through his inability to keep track of each passing moment of the shift. It feels a little like the tsunami, after he’d lost Christopher and was left stumbling towards the field hospital, but Buck doesn’t like thinking about that at the best of times and  he forces the thought out of his mind with a monumental push, the kind of force required to lift a fire truck off another person’s leg, and-

“Buck?”

Buck blinks back into the present, tries to laugh it off. “Sorry, just a bit tired I guess. What were you saying?”

Hen gives him a strange look but launches into a tale about Denny instead, and Buck curls his fingers as best he can in his thick gloves to try and hide the trembling.

He manages to stay present for the rest of the journey, although the focus Buck puts into not drifting away pulls his attention away from Hen and Chimney’s chatter. He makes sure to laugh and smile and scoff at seemingly the right places, participating in a conversation he isn’t following and without contributing to. It seems to work, as he’s not addressed again on the trip, but all too soon they’re standing at the scene and Buck-

Buck can’t move.

He’s not sure why. There’s nothing new about the incident and sure, it’s dangerous in the way all fires are dangerous, but there’s no additional factors to make handling it particularly difficult. There are no people, for a start, just an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town a bunch of kids had been mucking around in until they’d realised they couldn’t put the fire out themselves. They hadn’t even run away, instead retreating a good distance and calling 911 themselves. They were dumb, but not bad, and really the fire shouldn’t take them that long to put out.

But Buck couldn’t fucking move. 

Hen made a beeline straight to where the teenagers were huddled by the police car with matching guilty expressions, her medical bag bouncing against her side. Bobby wheeled round to face the rest of them, quickly divvying the tasks between them.

“Alright, Buck, Ravi, you guys take the left. Chim, you stay here with me and we’ll take this side. It should be fine but keep an eye out for any sudden gusts of wind, the last thing we need is for this to spread.”

There’s a ripple of assent through the group, and Buck watches as they disperse, gathering equipment and fixing visors into place as they go. He forces one foot in front of the other, stumbling along the side of the truck, but his legs feel like jelly and a churning in his gut has him coming to a stop again, hand bracing on the side of the vehicle as he tries to push down the nausea. Buck wants to curl up, to shrink and reduce himself into the smallest form possible, but he would rather not lick his wounds in sight of the others.

It’s getting hard to breathe, now, short little gasps of not enough oxygen that leaves little black spots in his vision, and Buck manages to get round the other side of the fire truck, protected from the fire and prying eyes, and here he sinks to the dirt, crouching down with his back against the tyres and forehead pressed to his knees. Buck screws his eyes shut, tight tight tight , mind scrabbling as he tries to remember the breathing exercises Doctor Copeland had taught him, but it’s not working, he can’t remember how long he’s meant to breath in, hold, release for. 

A heavy hand lands on the top of his back, rubbing large circles across his shoulder blades, and the accompanying murmured instructions somehow manage to cut through the ringing in Buck’s ears. He grasps at them, pathetically grateful for the lifeline, falling into the easy role of following instruction the way he’s been expected to his whole life. Eventually, the gasps subside, giving way to even, if slightly ragged around the edges, breaths, and he braves looking up, moving his hands away from his eyes.

Bobby’s in front of him, kneeling in the dusty ground and with a grim expression on his face that melts a little around the edges when Buck looks at him, softening with concern. Shame flares, partnered with a guilt hot enough to make his eyes prickle with tears, but above all Buck just feels drained.

“You back with me?” Bobby asks, and Buck just nods, can’t fathom speaking at that moment. “Good. C’mon, let’s get you in the truck. I’ll wait with you until Hen’s finished checking over the kids.”

“I don’t- what- Ravi-”

“Chim and Ravi have it covered.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise. Here, I’ll help you up.”

Bobby places one hand under Buck’s forearm, the other around his waist, and helps to hoist Buck up from the ground. Buck puts his hand out again to steady himself, feeling sluggish in a different way to earlier, a deep, aching exhaustion setting up a permanent home in his bones, and he shuffles over to the door, climbing into the front of the truck and trying to sink down into his uniform, wondering if it would be enough to completely disappear and avoid the inevitable scrutiny of his teammates. 

It isn’t, and when Hen approaches with her usual expression of kind concern, Buck closes his eyes to escape it, waiting for them to return to the firehouse and the questions he knows will come.

Buck trudges through the firehouse after Bobby, flexing his fingers in an attempt to get his hands to stop shaking. No one says anything to him as they pass through, studiously focusing on other tasks in attempt to give Buck some semblance of privacy, but Buck doesn’t notice these acts of mercy, slipping into a kind of autopilot where all he has to do is put one foot in front of the other and everything else is just static.

Bobby directs him to the sofa when they get to his office, shutting the door and grabbing the chair that normally sits in front of his desk to perch opposite Buck. Buck sits heavily on the sofa as directed, slumping down into the old, sagging cushions, curling his fingers into fists on top of his thighs when they still won’t stop trembling.

“So. What’s going on?” Bobby asks, once Buck is as comfortable as he’s likely to get.

“I’m sorry,” Buck replies, a knee jerk reaction he can’t help. 

“I know, kid, but that’s not what I asked you.”

“I don’t know what happened, I just- I- I’m so tired , Bobby,” he says, and to Buck’s horror his voice cracks, splitting under the weight of half the truth, tears pricking at his eyes with a sharp insistence that has him scrubbing at his face like a child. He hears Bobby hum in acknowledgement and when he chances a look up, braves parting from the safety of his palms, Bobby is smiling kindly at him. It makes Buck feel slightly sick.

“I know. You know you’ve not taken any time off this year?”

“I went to Vegas,” Buck points out. Bobby shakes his head.

“Breaks in shift schedules don’t count.”

“I don’t- I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep, I don’t need-”

“Buck, it’s not a punishment. It’s your legal entitlement, and it’s there to stop you from burning out. Look, I am going to send you home for the rest of the shift, because keeping you here would frankly be dangerous to both you and the rest of the team. I can’t force you to take your leave, but I recommend that you do.”

Buck nods, averting his eyes to fiddle with a loose thread on the end of his sleeve. He pulls it and the cotton unravels further, leaving a hole in the sleeve’s hem.

“Is there someone who can pick you up? I don’t want you driving.”

Buck ducks his head down further, tries to ignore how reminiscent it was of the few times he’d had to go home sick from school, arguing with the school nurse that his dad was at work and his mum busy and that he was fine, really, he didn’t need-

“Buck?”

“Maddie’s at work. Eddie’s-” gone. Hates me. 

“I can ask Athena?”

“No.” Buck shakes his head, the idea a bit too much like being picked up by his parents, too frayed and fractured for that particular parallel. “No, I’ll- I can text Maddie, see when she finishes.”

Bobby nods and waits for Buck to fish his phone out of his pocket, tapping out a message quickly and waiting for a response. The screen has just gone dark when it lights up again with the reply. Buck scans it quickly, before turning it to Bobby.

“She says forty-five minutes.”

“Alright. Do you want to wait here or in the bunk room?”

“I can go to the bunk room, I’m sure you have stuff to do and-”

“Buck,” Bobby interrupts, “what do you want ?”

“…can I stay here?” 

Bobby smiles, nods, gets up and moves around to the other side of his desk. He returns with a folded blanket he’d pulled out from the bottom drawer of his desk, handing it over to Buck.

“Get some rest. I’ll wake you when Maddie arrives.”

Bobby leaves, shutting the door with a soft click, and Buck waits for a beat longer before unfolding the blanket. It’s the same sort as the ones on the bunks, as the ones Buck has slept under in hospitals, and he curls up as much as he can on the small sofa, knees tucked up towards his chest. 

It’s far from comfortable, and Buck is asleep in only five minutes.

Maddie slips in as promised about an hour later, just as the alarm rings through the firehouse and wakes Buck up. For a moment he’s disoriented, almost rolling off the sofa in his haste to get up and to the truck whilst his brain is still booting up. He bangs his elbow on the arm of the sofa, hard enough to break through the post nap haze, and he sits back down heavily, rubbing at it, when he realises that he’s not going to be going with them.

It’s then that Maddie knocks on the door softly, pokes her head round like she used to do with his bedroom door when they were younger, armed with bandages and hugs and older sibling pleas to be more careful in the future. Things seem to have changed very little, the main difference being that she has to reach up, this time, to soothe a hand through his curls, pat his arm instead of curling her own around his shoulders and leaning her cheek on the top of his head. Buck still leans into her side, finds himself shrinking down back to his childhood and the firm, unshakable belief that things will get better, that Maddie can fix it.

“Do you want to come back to mine? Or would you prefer your own apartment?” She asks eventually, tone carefully neutral so as not to give any of her own opinions away. Buck is pathetically grateful she does, that she doesn’t seem to push him into his own, empty, lonely apartment, a yawning chasm of too much space and quiet. The idea of going back to that makes his palms itch and his heart race, and even though he knows she wouldn’t force him there, his response is still stuttered and breathless.

“I don’t- I can’t- please, Maddie, please don’t make me go back-”

“Okay,” Maddie says, holding him tighter and rocking him slightly from side to side. “It’s okay. We’ll go back to mine.”

It’s a further five, ten, infinite number of minutes before Buck is able to uncurl himself from the sofa, taking small shuffling steps forwards out of the office and through the empty firehouse. Buck doesn’t like being there without the others, hates to see the gap left behind by the truck and ambulance, an expanse of grey concrete flooring that seems endless, and he doesn’t linger. There’s one pit stop to the locker room for him to grab his stuff, carefully avoiding Eddie’s locker with a practised ease that never seems to be habit, and then they’re off again, out into the early afternoon sunshine that almost immediately causes prickles of sweat to bead underneath Buck’s long sleeved shirt.

He doesn’t keep his eyes open in the car, but he doesn’t doze either. Maddie switches on the radio, set to the same station she used to listen to as a teenager, a background hum that neither of them try to interrupt. It’s almost peaceful, a momentary pause in their days where they could soak up the minutes of respite offered by the traffic and the commute before either of them had to plaster smiles on again, pull on masks of humanity demanded on them by other people. Buck wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to do that, too frayed and worn thin, but it’s not an immediate concern, not something that needs to be considered at that moment of time. 

Instead, he just leans his head against the warm safety glass of the window with his eyes closed, and lets the soft music and chatter of the DJs wash over him until Maddie is touching his arm gently to let them know they’ve arrived.

“So,” Maddie begins, once they’re sitting on the sofa, each cradling their own mug of steaming tea. There’s a plate of cookies on the coffee table that Buck can’t even fathom eating, and her tone is gentle in the way that means Buck will have to tell the whole truth, instead of the half lies he used to get away with when she’d first come to LA and they were getting to know each other as adults. “What happened?”

“Panic attack,” he mumbles, fiddling with the label of his tea bag. It’s the same chamomile and lavender blend as his sleepy time tea, and Buck hadn’t realised Maddie had even noticed the type of tea he drank. “I haven’t been sleeping so well, lately, and it- it just came to a head, I guess.”

“Mhm.”

“…and I fucked things up with Eddie,” Buck admits, head ducking under the weight of the admission and voice cracking as he forces the words out. “Pretty sure he hates me.”

“What happened?” Maddie asks again, stretching her arm out. Buck just about managed to set his mug down on the coffee table, surface protected by a wooden coaster, before he tips into Maddie’s embrace and tells the whole sorry story pressed into her side.

Buck feels drained when he’s finished, and almost numb. He’d turned his head part way through, not yet ready to face Maddie properly but needing to breathe more easily, and he stares blankly at the dark tv opposite him.

“Bobby thinks I should take some time off,” he says eventually, when the silence reaches a crescendo. His voice is a little hoarse from talking and holding back sobs in his throat.

“I think that might be a good idea,” Maddie agrees. “You need a break, Evan.”

He doesn’t ask what the point of that would be, but it’s a near thing.

“What would- what would I even do?”

“Rest,” Maddie says almost immediately and with the slightest glimmer of amusement that melts away almost immediately. She sighs, Buck feeling the rise and fall of her chest as she does so, and he closes his eyes again. “Whatever you need. You can stay here, with me and Chim, or hibernate in your loft for a week, or you could go somewhere, take an actual vacation for once. There must be somewhere you haven’t seen yet.”

“The Redwoods,” Buck says, the errant thought slipping out without permission and  surprising even himself. “I’ve never seen the Redwoods.”

“Do you want to?”

There’s only really one thing that Buck knows he wants for certain, something that is monumentally out of reach, but the more he thinks about it the more he realises-

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Then go see the Redwoods.”

Buck goes the next day. He spends the night curled up on the too short sofa, Jee bringing out her own bedding and curling up on the floor next to him, ecstatic to have an impromptu sleepover, and it’s the best night’s sleep Buck has had in months. In the morning Maddie hands him a cooler bag filled with snacks and Chimney gives him a lift to the station to fill in the leave request and pick up the Jeep, and even if it’s a little weird to stay in his civvies whilst everyone around him is changing into their uniform, the approving look Bobby gives him as he signs off on the form has some of the rocks Buck hadn’t even realised were sitting on his chest lift, leaving it a little easier to breathe.

The traffic snarls its way through LA the way it usually does but Buck doesn’t mind for once, settling into the drive with a travel mug of coffee and a series of podcasts downloaded onto his phone. He stops off briefly at his apartment, focusing only on finding his camping equipment and shoving as much clean clothing as he can find into a bag, juggling everything in his arms to try and reduce the number of trips needed to take everything down to his Jeep and slinging it all across the backseats with little regard for any sort of organisational system. Eventually he makes it to the highway, satnav chirping out instructions every so often, and Buck can feel how his muscles start to relax piece by piece. 

This, he knows how to do. He knows how to drive, how to slip back into an almost nomadic lifestyle, no responsibilities or pressures beyond those immediately necessary for survival. He loves LA, loves the life he’s built for himself there, but he hadn’t realised how much it had felt like shackles until now. Buck had avoided travelling too much once he’d settled in LA, too determined to forge roots and connection to a sense of permanence and acceptance that had been absent back in Hershey, but he hadn’t appreciated the undercurrent of restlessness that had been suffocating until now.

Maybe Bobby was right about this whole vacation thing.

It takes him three days in total to reach the National Park, including pit stops for breaks and brief sightseeing. He manages to reserve a last minute spot at one of the campsites in the Park during a lunch stop on his first day, sat at a small diner table, swiping through the details on his phone with one hand and holding half of a large chicken sandwich with the other, trying not to drop little pieces of shredded lettuce everywhere. The ‘ping’ of a confirmation email comes through just as he’s finishing up his food, and Buck wipes his hands off on the little paper napkin before setting off again. 

Buck arrives just in time for the beginning of sunset, finding his pitch and quickly setting up the tent. He’s tucked away in the far edge of the campsite, a quiet little corner that seems to be in a bubble away from the rest of the world. Even there, in that clearing, the trees around him tower up into the heavens, and when Buck climbs into his sleeping bag later that night, once the orange burn of the sun setting has finished outlining his surroundings in inky black, he feels a tingle of peace wash through him.

He feels it again the next day, standing at the foot of the trees and gazing up to the canopy above, an infinitesimal speck compared to the tree Buck’s stood next to. In that moment, his worries and problems feel even smaller, so far away from the crisp wood air filling his lungs instead of the pollution of LA, and Buck closes his eyes to breathe the tranquillity in.

Buck is back in his loft for all of five minutes before there’s an unexpected, insistent, knock at the door. He spares a moment to glance at the array of bags displaced haphazardly across the kitchen island and floor, wondering whether he could get away with pretending to not be in, but the knocking comes again and Buck trudges over to the door instead with a barely repressed sigh.

“What-” 

The question dies on his lips when he comes face to face with Eddie, hand once again raised to knock in mid air the same way he had all those months ago when the mess had first started.

 Buck knows better this time, though, folding his arms and being the one to lean against the door frame for once.

“You weren’t here,” Eddie says, once the silence has stretched uncomfortably. Buck snorts at the hypocrisy. 

“Neither were you.”

They stare each other down, a chasm of space between them that seem insurmountable in that moment. Suddenly, Buck can see how it’s going to go, a flicker frame of his future, of Eddie flicking his fingers and Buck running to him always in an endless cycle until he can’t anymore, worn out and flicked aside once Eddie loses interest.

Buck doesn’t want that, is already so exhausted by the idea of that scenario, that it’s easy for once to not give into the yearning, to reach out and catch Eddie between his fingertips, pull him in for a kiss the way they always seem to do. He waits, wants to see what Eddie will do next, whether the timeline can be pulled off course after all.

“Can I come in?” Eddie asks finally, and Buck nods, moving out of the doorway and over to the kitchen. He doesn’t ask, just pulls out two mugs and starts the coffee machine, needing the strength of a task to keep him focused on what he wants.

Even if it’s not what he actually wants. But Buck knows, has listened to enough Rolling Stones, that he can’t always get that. Instead he breathes deep, remembers the trees, and decides to choose the peace instead.

“Chris and I took a trip to see my cousins,” Eddie begins, once Buck has the coffee machine gurgling the way and is seated opposite the island.

“I know. Bobby said when you stopped showing up to work.”

Eddie flinches at that, ducks his head down, and a part of Buck is viciously glad. It’s a mean part of him, one he tends not to acknowledge, but he’s feeling defensive and on edge to begin with and can’t quite tamp down on the flare that spikes up.

“I just needed to get away for a bit, get some space to think about things.”

“About us,” Buck clarifies, but Eddie surprises him by shaking his head.

“Not everything is about you, you know,” he says, a hint of a smirk, and Buck teeters on the edge of being disarmed once again by Eddie, but the vulnerability quickly bleeds into the expression. “I wanted to talk to you, about last time. I promise I was going to come and talk to you. I just needed to get some stuff sorted first, but then when I got back you’d already gone.”

“I thought you hated me,” Buck admits, knotting his fingers together and resting them on the countertop. It’s easier to stare at them than at Eddie when he confesses, “I thought I’d fucked everything up. Y’know. When…” 

He trails off, not quite able to verbalise exactly what happened last time, the all encompassing grief he’d felt, the realisation of what could have been would never be.

At the realisation that, really, he’d been in love with Eddie the whole time and the devastating knowledge that he was forever out of reach.

“When you cried,” Eddie picks up, and he sounds so careful that Buck looks up. “I thought - I thought I’d hurt you. And I never wanted to hurt you before, of course not, you’re my best friend, but - I hadn’t felt scared like that before. Ever, not even with Sharon. And I’m not proud of it, but figuring out that I was in love with you freaked me out a bit and I needed to take a moment to think it all through.”

Buck studies Eddie carefully, searching for the truth in Eddie’s words. He wants to believe them, wants to put trust in what’s painted across Eddie’s face, never before witnessing so much care, such reciprocal fragility - at least not directed at him - that it almost leads to no other choice.

Buck has to be sure though. He’s not sure he could stomach being wrong.

“Did you? Get everything figured out?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, a little puff of an admission, but it’s crystal clear in its meaning and a sliver of tension that had been a rod in Buck’s spine melts away.

“And?”

“I love you.”

It’s vulnerable, and quiet, but strong in conviction and Buck doesn’t hesitate anymore, doesn’t even think about the actions until he’s crossed the few steps of space between them, catching Eddie’s face with his hands just before they land into a kiss.

It’s short, and sweet, and tastes of promises and everything Buck had thought was out of reach. He pulls back just barely, can’t bear to be apart now that he finally has him, but he has to say - 

“I love you too.”

The return smile is blindingly bright, before it gets swallowed up by a kiss.

Several Months Later

The music is loud, spilling through the rooms of the house in an uncoordinated mess, colliding with the chatter and laughter of the party guests. Buck has been smiling all night, greeting people and making sure drinks are topped up, that there’s no shortage of food, scrolling through his phone for a suitable playlist with Christopher peering over his elbow only to give up and hand his phone over completely. Every so often Eddie catches his eye and grins, the pair of novelty glasses Jee had stuck over Buck’s face only to be stolen moments later perched firmly on his nose, shedding glitter throughout the house like fairy dust, and Buck smiles back, bright and happy.

Still, the party is loud, and Buck retreats to the kitchen in the last few minutes of the year, busying himself with making sure there are enough glasses ready for the toasts, handing over the tray to Maddie when she comes drifting through. She reaches out, squeezes his bicep before picking the tray up and heading back into the living room, and Buck starts loading the dishwasher instead.

It had been Eddie’s idea, to host the New Year’s Eve party that year, one that had taken Buck very little convincing to agree to. The planning had been straightforward, but they had still managed to neglect to finish unpacking the last of the boxes that had come from Buck’s loft, having officially given up the lease three weeks earlier, leading to a last minute run around slotting the last of Buck’s belongings amongst Eddie and Christopher’s lives. Buck had been anxious at first about the transition, about what it would mean for Christopher and for a Eddie, how their lives would fully mesh together, but those worries had been quickly dispelled and now Buck wasn’t sure how he’d ever lived alone to begin with.

“There you are,” Buck hears, and he straightens up from the dishwasher to see Eddie leaning against the counter, two glasses of Prosecco in his hands. “You’re gonna miss the countdown.”

“Eh,” Buck says with a wave of his hand, shuffling over and taking one of the glasses. “It’s the same every year. Nothing ever very mind blowing.”

Eddie curves an arm around his waist, settling into its natural place without any thought, and Buck can hear the shouted countdown coming from the other room. They’re close enough that Buck can count all the light freckles on Eddie’s face, tiny little pinpricks that he’s traced so many times before, already committed them to memory.

“I read that the person you’re with when it turns midnight on New Year’s is who you’ll spend the whole year with,” Buck says, breaking the quiet little bubble they’ve created in the corner of the kitchen.

“Did you want to go back through to everyone else?”

“No, I’m good here.”

This time, when Buck kisses in the New Year, taste of Prosecco on his lips and tongue, it’s with his eyes closed, contentment settling in his bones and without any further want in the world.