Chapter Text
From the moment she introduced herself, it was obvious that Sergeant Athena Grant was a policewoman of unshakable principles. That also put her in a mental box labelled “one of Buck’s least favourite type of cops.”
Great.
The blond resisted the urge to look back to the front door where he left Chimney. “Uhm, so, can I help you, sergeant?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I have a few questions to ask, Mr. Buckley and I advise you tell me the truth,” she said, not even trying to soften the authority bleeding in her voice.
He frowned in apprehension, eyes flickering around to look for an escape, but the policewoman had chosen her ambush spot perfectly. Not seeing any chance to run, he gave her a fake smile. “Alright then, shoot.”
“Where have you been since the 9th of last month?”
“Home?” He tried, but winced when the woman looked even more unimpressed than she was before. She crossed her arms, a severe look in her eyes.
“You wanna try that again?”
This time, he did look back to the front door for help, relief sloping down his shoulders when the older man immediately understood the situation. He turned back toward her, pasting on a bland smile. “Uh, no offence but I don’t think it’s any of your business, sergeant.”
Buck bit his inner cheek when the woman narrowed her eyes, dark and predatory like a prowling panther. “You disappeared after the bombing,” she said slowly, “there’s no record of your disappearance on the CCTVs around your apartment, no notes, no sign of struggle. It was like you just vanished. No one could track you down until today and that requires a lot of effort, boy. So, I ask you again— where. Were. You?”
She walked closer with every word and it took everything in him to stand his ground. His mind raced to discern her motive; as far as he knew, the police never paid him a visit during the short days between the bombing and his “disappearance”.
Why would a police sergeant be looking for him?
Praying the nerves didn’t show on his face, he frowned. “Look, I told you—"
“Buck!”
The two turned toward the voice, finding an Asian man strolling towards them with his hands in his pockets. “Hello, ma’am,” Chimney greet with a bright smile, gum snapping and all. He gestured toward the blond, “mind if I take him?”
“No,” she deadpanned, then turned back toward Buck, “Mr. Buckley, stay. I’m not done—”
The younger man opened his mouth to protest but the older man made an apologetic noise. “Sorry, we’re supposed to meet someone in about an hour and with this traffic?” He hissed and shook his head, “I’m afraid if we don’t move now, we’re gonna be late.”
“Now, hold—”
He didn’t let the policewoman get another word in before he grasped Buck’s forearm, pulling him away with faux urgency. Seated at the back of the car, the blond spared a glance at the black woman, cataloguing the stern line of her mouth and the determined glint in her eyes.
He had a feeling that this was far from their last meeting.
---
“Okay, we’re here.” Chimney turned toward the backseat. “Look alive, buck boy!”
Here?
Buck craned his neck close to the window, trying to see where “here” was. All he could see was a house with a terracotta roof half hidden behind a lot of plants. Then, the older man brought the car closer and through the wrought iron gates.
Located in Bel Air, the moderately sized, Spanish-style house was surrounded by lush, vivid greens. The thick shrubs and swaying trees around it served as a natural privacy fence, isolating the property from the rest of the world. Backlit by the setting sun, the area gave off an almost whimsical, storybook look.
The blond made a face. “I thought you were lying about meeting someone.”
“Do I look like a liar to you?” When Buck pointedly didn’t answer, he made a wounded noise. “Oh, ye of little faith!”
The blond rolled his eyes at the theatrics but his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the window. A familiar face smiled down at him when he rolled down the window, eye level with the open collar of the other man’s dress shirt. “Eddie? What are you doing here?”
“Having dinner. This is Abuela’s house,” he slapped the car roof, “come on in.”
Buck hesitated at the casual invite, stumbling slightly when he was bodily pulled out of the car. “What do you—”
“I see that Eddie had dragged someone in,” said a feminine voice from behind the brunet; a petite older woman that looked vaguely familiar, “and who is it this time? Your new cortejo, hmm?”
The woman didn’t seem all that friendly, her dark eyes looking at the blond from head to toe in an almost clinical way. Clueless and— to be honest— alarmed, Buck looked at Eddie for guidance. The older man heaved a sigh, “do not scare him off, Aunt Pepa. Buck, this is Josephine Diaz, my aunt; Aunt Pepa, this Evan Buckley— you’ve heard of him.”
Understanding dawned on the older woman but before she could say anything, a familiar voice rang out from the front door. “Evanito,” the old woman greeted him with a sweet smile on her face, “it’s good to see you again.” She held his hands, gently patting the back of his hand. “How have you been, cielito?”
Buck ducked his head slightly and smiled at her, suddenly shy at the affectionate treatment. “Hi, Abuela. I’m good. Uh, how are you?”
“Good, good. Have you eaten? Come on in.”
The arched front door opens into a foyer with terrazzo-tile floors and a beautiful curving staircase. To the right, they passed by the warmly furnished living room with a cosy fireplace and glass door that opened to the pool area, and into a dining room.
“Eddie here didn’t warn us in advance that he wanted to bring a plus one, so it’s nothing fancy,” she said conversationally as they passed the archway. There were already a few people sitting on the dining chairs including children. One girl was glued to her phone while the remaining two boys had their heads bowed together— Buck would recognise those curls everywhere.
“Oh, who is this, Eddie? Your little cortejo?”
The older man rolled his eyes at the teasing tone but didn’t reply. Instead, he turned toward the blond. “These are my little sisters, Sophia,” he gestured toward a beautiful brunette, “and Adriana,” he pointed to the young woman waving at him. Buck smiled at them; Sophia looked older than him but Adriana looked to be his age, maybe even younger.
“Hi, I’m Buck. Evan Buckley,” he said, as a warm hand on the small of his back guided him to a seat next to Chris. “Hey, Chris,” he greeted the boy, whose head shot up at the sound of his voice. “Hey, Buck,” he replied with a grin, but was quickly distracted by the handheld console he was holding.
“Buckley?” The siblings looked at each other, a wordless conversation going over his head and for a moment he saw his own siblings, shooting looks at each other at the dining table; he missed them fiercely. Adriana leaned back against her chair, shooting her brother a sly smile, “not bad. He’s pretty cute.”
“Uh, thanks?”
Abuela clapped her hands, “now, no chattering while eating. No games either,” she said pointedly at the two groaning boys. “Eddie?” Seated, the man nodded, clasping his hands together and bowing his head. The rest followed and Buck scrambled to copy, feeling a tingling sensation prickling his belly as he listened to the older man reciting a prayer in rapid Spanish, his voice deep and low.
Damn.
Thirsting over someone who was reciting a prayer was a new low, even for him; he winced and tried to focus on anything but the steady voice.
After a moment or two, he felt a bony elbow poke him on his side and glanced up to see Chris’s smiling face. “It’s over, Buck.” The man flushed in embarrassment, clearing his throat slightly when Eddie passed him a plate with an amused huff.
Despite Abuela’s earlier words, the meal was not a quiet affair. Friendly conversations were thrown around and Buck sensed that the two sisters weren’t in California very often. Despite being L.A. natives, their accents weren’t quite… there. Buck would know; his own accent was scrambled due to his years on the road, creating this strange, sing song-y voice that both charmed and annoyed others.
Sophia sounded a little Upstate New York or Chicago, while Adriana was more Boston with her broad ‘a’s. Though, his favourite among the siblings was Eddie, with his smooth ‘a’s and hard rolling ‘r’s that made him shiver every time he spoke in rapid Spanish.
And by God, did he spoke a lot of Spanish that night.
He could see that they tried, but Buck had a feeling that they were only using English as to not make him feel left out, because almost half of the time they slipped back into Spanish anyway. Not that he was complaining.
After the meal, they moved to a seating area right by the pool, a housekeeper silently bringing a jug of something while the kids devoured the cut-up fruits.
Buck was a bit removed from the rest, choosing to bask in the fairytale-like garden next to the pool. It was a beautiful garden and there was a charming alcove there, a little hidden but not so isolated that he couldn’t see the Diazes.
A distance away, Adriana giggled and spoke something to Eddie, to which the older man groaned and shot her an exasperated smile. Buck could hear his name thrown there but he had no clue what they were talking about. Though, between the teasing tone and whatever it was that got the older man to smile like that— well, he had an idea.
Buck leaned back against the rattan chair, lulled by the good food warming his belly and bright chatters in a distance. It was something that was familiar and yet so foreign to him, the memories of his time at the Diaz’s house clashing with the cold hallways of his own childhood home. The blond refused to acknowledge the tinge of jealousy in his wistful recollection.
“So, Buck, what do you do for a living?”
He blinked at the question, pulled out of the warm cocoon draped around him. Sophia had settled on the chair beside him some time ago. She smiled at him and Buck realised with a laugh that she had asked him a question. “Oh, I’m a freelance surfing instructor.”
“Really? You look pretty pale for someone who spends so much time in the sun,” she said teasingly, probably a joke about his whiteness and she was right, he burned easier than he tanned; Maddie had once pointed at Edward Cullen’s glittering vampire body and said ‘look, it’s you.’ Still, he could feel his smile dimming slightly.
“Uhm, yeah. I just haven’t been able to surf much these days,” he answered vaguely. Sophia tilted her head in consideration, dark eyes glinting under the moonlight and for a second, Buck was struck by how Eddie-like the simple gesture was.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the older man was suddenly there to hand him a glass of juice.
“You should get back into it,” the brunet slipped in seamlessly, “I know how much you love the ocean, muneco.” At the corner of his eyes, he could see Sophia’s eyebrows shot up at the petname but ignored it in favour of staring at the brunet.
“I can?”
Eddie smiled down at him, placing a hand on the juncture of the blond’s shoulder from where he was standing behind him. “Yeah, why not? Maybe you can take Chris during the weekends, I’m sure he’d love to surf with you. You miss it, don’t you?” There was an undercurrent of something in his voice but Buck was embarrassingly more interested in the way his thumb was dipping into his shirt collar, rubbing circles above his clavicle bone.
“Y-yeah,” he answered, avoiding those dark eyes and gulping down nothing as the fingers lifted from his shoulder to caress the sensitive spot under his jaw, “but I’m not sure about just going out like that.” He was vaguely aware of Eddie’s sister getting up and silently walking away, leaving the two alone.
Fuck.
The hand stilled, “why not?”
Buck closed his eyes briefly, keeping mum but Eddie wasn’t having it. Calloused fingers tipped his chin up, “eyes up here, muneco. What did you mean by that?” The blond craned his neck to look at him in the eyes, pressing down the flush at the other man’s quiet ‘good boy’.
“I just— there was a policewoman looking for me. Said I disappeared and wanted to know where I’ve been. It’s weird but,” he bit his lip, “I think she had something to tell me. I don’t think she wants to hurt me.”
“What did you say to her?”
“Uh, nothing.”
Eddie hummed absently and Buck shivered. The fingers on his chin travelled back down the length of his neck and left goosebumps on its trail. A large hand clasped on his nape, “what’s her name, carino?”
“Athena Grant,” he answered, ignoring the thumb on his jackrabbiting pulse, “she’s a sergeant, I think.”
---
Days passed and at Eddie’s encouragement, Buck agreed to go back to surfing on the weekends. He still wasn’t taking any students— not during winter, anyway— but Chris had whooped so loud that his cheeks hurt from grinning so hard.
Well, wetsuits existed for a reason.
Sadly, Eddie wasn’t able to join them due to a prior schedule, an unavoidable meeting with some councilman he didn’t bother to learn the name of. Though he did left Chimney and a doctor named Hen (real name also unknown) with them— one to keep an eye on their surroundings and the other to patch them up in case of anything.
Grabbing his surfboard, he knew there were more hiding amongst the crowd. He wasn’t a fool; the older man wouldn’t leave his son with just a single guard.
What a helicopter parent, the blond snorted inwardly but he didn’t think about it too much, not when he had Chris in his hands and the ocean waves lapping around his waist.
Despite the cool temperature, the duo spent over an hour and a half together in the water before the boy visibly flagged. Buck had carried him back to the beach, placing him next to Hen on the blanket. The woman handed him a towel then, but he declined the gesture; he wasn’t ready to stop.
After making sure that the boy was okay with staying there, he wasted no time and dived right back into the water. He then spent almost two hours getting thrown around by mother nature in his wetsuit, tasting salt until his eyes reddened from the seawater.
Buck wished he could say the exhilaration during those short hours was worth overworking his muscles, but as his lockscreen blinked 12:26AM, he was already regretting the decision.
The blond winced as he tossed around on the bed, his sore body preventing him from finding a comfortable position to lay down and sleep. As it turned out, pushing your muscles after over two months of inactivity would fuck you up real good.
He tossed his blanket aside with a sigh and walked out of his bedroom, wanting to stretch his body. He thought the house was asleep but the not even a minute after, he was face to face with Eddie.
“Can’t sleep?”
The older man was in his sleepwear, a bottle of beer in his hand as he lounged on the sofa downstairs. The TV was playing a basketball match, the glow illuminating only parts of his face. Here, with his eyes glinting in the dark of the night, the brunet looked almost ethereal.
Meanwhile, Buck was in his ratty shorts and sleep sweater, hair all mussed up from tossing and turning on his bed. He was only halfway down the stairs, wincing with every step. “Yeah, my muscles are sore as hell. Forgot how strenuous surfing is.”
“Yeah?” Eddie reached for the remote, turning off the TV before he closed the distance between them in a few long strides. “I can give you a massage if you want,” he said casually. The blond considered rejecting his offer, heat climbing up his neck when he remembered the last time Eddie put his hands on him. But before he could say anything, a jolt of pain ran up his thigh when he shifted and he thought, fuck it.
“Sure, if you want.”
---
Okay, maybe he should’ve shut up instead.
In his bedroom, Buck laid down on his stomach, his face red with embarrassment from being close to naked with nothing but a tiny towel to preserve his modesty. It wasn’t to say he was a prude, no, that would be a lie. He had been in this situation plenty of times before but this was different. This wasn’t some stranger he picked up from a bar; this was Eddie. He would see this guy during breakfast tomorrow and the days after.
“Relax a little, muneco. You’re so tense,” the older man said quietly, his deep voice doing nothing to help. Buck forced himself to relax but he couldn’t help the jump in his pulse at the sound of a bottle cap popping. There was a slick sound that made him bury his flushing face in the pillow under his head, rough palms rubbing the ointment between them to warm it up.
It took a few seconds before those warm hands started rubbing oil into his tense neck and shoulders, slowly but firmly massaging out the knots there.
He sighed in pleasure, melting into the mattress as those calloused hands expertly made their way up and down the length his back with practiced ease. But it was the touch itself, more than nthe technique that was causing his pulse to quicken.
Then, the brunet methodically moved toward his arms, massaging his palm with a delicateness that made him shy. It felt intimate, somehow, the heat of another body blanketing him when the man ran both of his hands from his shoulders down to his arms.
“Eres hermoso mi angelito,” a low voice murmured above him, the gust of air sending shivers down his spine.
Then, the body heat pulled away, fingers trailing down his body and leaving goosebumps in their wake. He didn’t know what those words meant but heat pooled in his belly regardless— in the same time dread dropped down his stomach. He knew what was happening when the other man traced wide palms slowly pressing up his calves.
He was horny.
The gentle pressure of the massage was a stark contrast to the turmoil that was brewing inside him. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of conflicting emotions, his desire and embarrassment warring for dominance. The air in the room seemed to thicken, heavy with tension, as Eddie's fingers danced across the contours of his legs, tracing the curves of his muscles with a deliberate slowness.
Eddie had been so kind to help him with his aching body but here he was, so painfully turned on that he could barely hear anything past the blood thrumming in his ears.
Mortified, the blond ignored the sparks of pleasure travelling up his legs. With his eyes closed, he allowed his mind to run away from him. ‘Think of grandmas in bikinis; cute puppies being left behind; Chimney doing a strip tease,’ he winced in disgust, ‘ugh, okay, maybe not that.’
He worried on his bottom lip, doing his best to not to hump the bed. Seductive grandmas, tiny kittens, polar bears surrounded by melting icesheets, he chanted in his head but he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a low gasping moan when the older man pressed on a particularly sore spot. He felt like a puddle of goo, his sore muscles unwinding as the oil heated his skin. At the sound, the brunet chuckled a little, “that good?”
“Fuck yeah,” the younger man grinned against the pillow, “how are you so good at this?”
The hands rubbed circles on his waist as he waited for the answer. “Lots of practice. Abuela, Pepa, they both get sore especially when the weather gets colder,” he hummed, “and with Chris. He gets cramps on bad days, all the time.”
The younger man turned his head to the side, eyes closed and savouring the glide of his knuckles on his back. ‘Yeah, that makes—’
“Ah!” Buck made an acknowledging noise that turned into a cut off moan when the man cupped his sore ass cheeks underneath the pushed-up towel. Calloused hands grabbed the muscles firmly and he had to push down another moan as he let out a nervous laugh, “woah, man, warn a guy next time!”
The brunet laughed with him but didn’t reply. His warm hands rubbed over the firm globes of his ass and the blond curled his toes to prevent himself from squirming under those talented hands. Hell, he even started praying that the other man wouldn’t notice his rapidly hardening dick, trapped between his towel covered stomach and the soft mattress.
‘Great, now he’s gonna think I’m a weird perv,’ the younger man lamented inwardly.
“Alright, spread your legs,” he said casually, two fingers tapping the back of his thigh. There was a gravelly quality in his voice that Buck refused to examine. “I’m gonna do your thighs next.”
He thought to protest because he didn’t want to make this weirder for the other man but Eddie took his pause as a challenge. Buck bit down a frankly embarrassing whine as the older man grabbed his legs to pull them apart, holding his thighs in a firm grip to keep them spread when he reflexively moved. “Don’t move,” he ordered and Buck would laugh if he wasn’t so turned on, he could explode.
‘Move?’ He thought about the tiny towel valiantly hiding his very obvious hard on, ‘yeah, don’t worry about that, buddy.’
The protest died on his tongue, replaced by a series of ragged breaths that he struggled to keep under control. The warmth of the other man's hands seeped into his skin, radiating a sense of relaxation that belied the growing tension in his lower body. Blissfully oblivious to his thoughts, Eddie started massaging the ointment into his inflamed inner thighs with clinical precision, if not for the times where his thumb or knuckles would accidentally graze his sack and perineum, making him squirm and whimper like a whore.
Just when he was starting to lose himself in the haze of pleasure, the brunet tapped his upper thigh, right under the swell of his ass. “All done,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?”
The blond opened his mouth but realised he couldn’t speak without sounding too thin. Instead, he lifted a hand to give the older man a silent thumb up, making him laugh. ‘He has a nice laugh,’ he thought absently.
“Right. You should feel better now, but I’m leaving the ointment here,” a clack of glass against the wooden nightstand, “so try to get some sleep, okay?”
Buck made some nonsensical noise and muttered a thanks that hopefully didn’t sound too breathy, feigning exhaustion until he heard the door click.
As soon as he made sure the man was out of the room, his hand shot down to grasp his hard shaft. It didn’t take much for him to come when he was this hard and leaking; a few dry strokes that bordered on uncomfortable and he was already coming, an embarrassingly pornographic moan escaping his lips.
Chest heaving, he stared at his soft cock and soiled hand. “What the fuck was that?”
---
Chimney placed the file on the wooden desk with a quiet thump.
“Athena Grant, nee Carter. 50 years old. LAPD sergeant, had declined several promotions because she claimed that a desk job would just drive her crazy,” he said lightly, gum snapping. “Can’t say I understand her.”
“She’s clean. No bribes, no gang connections since the start of her career. Higher ups would say she’s a wildcard; there are several marks on her profile but from what I gathered, she’s generally well respected, even though her junior officers think she’s a bit too intense,” Ravi recited flatly, standing straight beside the Korean man.
Eddie flipped through the folder, studying the stern face on the picture. It must’ve been taken a few years ago; her hair was shorter and there were more lines on her face in the CCTV footage they got from the café Buck went to. Here, her dark eyes glinted sharply, bellying her character and the fact that once she set her eyes on something, she would probably follow a trail with dogged determination.
On anyone else, he admired the trait but on a cop? Pah.
A pain in the ass, he thought boredly. He flipped through the papers again, eyes trailing on the pictures attached.
“Family?”
“A husband and two children, but she’s going through a divorce,” Ravi answered instantly. “Her parents live in Belleville, Florida.”
The short man whistled, plopping on the leather couch in the middle of the office. “A divorce? Damn, no wonder she was so broody.” Eddie made a considering noise, “what else? What brought her to Buck?”
“That’s the thing,” the young man cleared his throat, swiping through his tablet with a divot between his eyebrows, “I can’t find anything. Arson, rape, home invasion. She’s not working on any case even remotely close to Buck. His apartment building was outside of her division and so was the beach where he worked at.”
The don leaned against his chair, rubbing his lips in consideration as he skimmed through the file. Recent activities, movements, personal life. Nothing. He studied the GPS lines on the map, thick spidery red lines forming her patrol routes. Then, he followed a line that went out of her jurisdiction and paused.
“This address, what’s there?”
Ravi leaned toward the file and squinted, tapping the address into the map. “Uhm, I think it’s a residential area, mid to low income, neither safe nor dangerous,” he summarised, “nothing remarkable.”
But Eddie wasn’t looking for any of those.
“It’s not within Athena’s division. Barely, but it’s not. How far is it from her station?”
“8 minutes,” he answered instantly. Chimney looked between them with a considering look, silently watching the back and forth.
Making a curious noise, the don drummed his fingers against the wooden desk. “8 minutes to the west, 15 to the east, 12 to the north,” he muttered under his breath, “this house is smack dab in the middle of three stations. She stopped around here 21 times in the past 6 months, starting from around 4-5 months ago but not a single time was she dispatched there.” His mind raced to connect the dots, staring at her movement report in and out of uniform for the past 6 months.
Giddiness bubbled in his blood like champagne. “You know what’s to the south?”
It was a rhetorical question, but one that made his two men straighten their spine in realisation.
“The Kendall’s territory,” the Korean man breathed, “and we all know what happened around 4-5 months ago.”
A missing woman, a frantic chase and something bad enough to make the unshakable Doug Kendall run around like a headless chicken.
The tall brunet leaned back against his chair with a pleased smile, looking like the cat that ate the canary. “Looks like we’ve found our runaway Buckley.”