Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Buck knew they loved him. He knew they cared about him, he did (had to know it, had to believe it, or else the stunt that had completely upended his life had all been for nothing), but.

He also knew that the 118 didn’t particularly like him at the moment.

And this? This was about money.

This would be him begging for money he no longer had because he spent it all suing the department, and had won, but then had refused any percentage of the payout to prove to them that he was serious about this. It was never supposed to be about money. So he’d shut the settlement down.

(Including the portion intended to cover his lawyer fees.

And medical expenses.

And the month-long break in his wages between filing the lawsuit and officially being reinstated as a firefighter.)

What savings he had were drained into meeting minimum payments to keep from being sent to collections, and any money that started coming in soon would be devoured by autopays and late fees. And even if everything he owed was suddenly paid off, leaving him at net zero?

LA was a very expensive city to live in.

And he couldn’t, just couldn’t, ask for help.

Not from his parents, ever. They’d cut him off when he was nineteen for a reason.

Not from his coworkers and friends, either. Not with the way things were right now.

He just needed to give them time, time to respect him again, time for everyone to become friends again.

The last thing he needed was to rub this weakness, this neediness, in their faces. To fix things, he needed to remind them about what made him useful: That he was capable, he was helpful, he was strong.

No one needed to know.

It would only be for a couple of months.

All this to say:

About a week after starting back at the 118, and about three weeks before he was supposed to start getting a steady check again, Buck quietly moved out of his loft—

—and into his jeep.

He said nothing, and no one noticed.

It was easier than he’d thought it would be. Buck had never been the type to get bogged down by belongings.

You couldn’t survive living on the road for a few years if you were liable to get your heart broken over every house plant or hope chest you had to leave behind.

Conversely, that reality, that ease, left a complicated ache in his chest that he hadn’t known to prepare himself for. These things he had unwittingly come to view as emblematic of the life he had built for himself in LA, reduced to, well, what they were. Things. Objects with weight and mass that he no longer had room for. The furniture and electronics and decorations that he’d filled his life with ceasing to matter to him the moment he sold them or lent them out or pawned them or, with no other option, donated them. All the care, all the pride, evaporated the moment whatever it was left his sight.

Selling his old stuff gave him a comfortable budget of gas money for the next few months, at least. He knew that he would be grateful for the financial cushion once winter rolled in, even if he was staying in LA.

Which he was. Of course he was.

It wasn’t the first time he’d ever lived out of his jeep, obviously, but it was the first time he was doing it while also having health insurance. (Or it would be, once they got his paperwork sorted out.)

He was luckier than most.

His job, for one. For every 24-hour shift he worked, he had a place to sleep, access to a shower, and a fridge full of food paid for by the city. Being man behind on every call sucked, but it gave him time to wash his clothes and sneak extra food without drawing attention to himself.

He started arriving early for his shifts, to grab some food, take a shower, and change before anyone from his shift could catch a glimpse of how hungry or rumpled he was. He didn’t know what he’d say if anyone asked about his newfound punctuality, hadn’t really come up with a believable excuse, but luckily no one bothered.

So that had him covered every one out of three days; it was more support than he’d had when he was nineteen.

He tried reaching out to B and C, hinting that if anyone needed coverage, he wouldn't mind a back-to-back, but—apparently Bobby had warned off the other crews in advance, predicting that Buck would do exactly that, even if his motivations were probably different from whatever Bobby had envisioned.

It smarted, how little anyone seemed to trust him anymore.

But things would change. They just needed a little more time.

And Buck could give them time.

As much as they needed.

Genuinely, though?

It felt good to be back.

The months of watching the world move on without him, months of not knowing, of feeling like an outsider in the only real family he’s ever had—it had felt like trying to breathe through mud.

Being back, even in the limited capacity where he was barely allowed to do anything at all? It was really, really good.

He knew this house. Touching every inch of the station as he scrubbed the place top to bottom, checking and rechecking supplies, confirming everything worked and was where it needed to be, and fixing it when it wasn’t? It settled him. It felt real in the way nothing had felt real since the accident. He was accomplishing something tangible, with his hands.

He dove headfirst into the chores with, if not uncharacteristic, then exaggerated vigor. Seeing all his tools again, handling them, remembering the weight and heft and upkeep made him feel more ready for when he would need to use them again.

Most of his tools, anyway.

When he tried to get anywhere close to the engines, Bobby would appear out of nowhere, armed with some complaint or criticism that always seemed to result in Buck being sent to a different part of the house to work, a tactic so transparent that it would have made Buck laugh if Bobby’s secondary goal wasn't so blatantly to make Buck miserable.

Did Bobby think Buck was so desperate to go on a call that he’d, what, sneak into the ambulance and hide until they left?

Bobby’s distrust itched against his skin worse than the rest, even if. Even if Buck understood why he was still angry.

So, when the engines were out, the time he spent in the house was great. Time to eat, cook, stretch his legs, do all the interior upkeep work that he knew how to do better than he could do his own dishes. The checks, the confirmation that everything would be safe for everyone else.

It was when everyone came back, when he’d run out of chores, when the people actually on duty were lounging around casually discussing a recent call that Buck didn’t know a thing about.

It wasn’t just the conversations he couldn’t join, the looks were starting to drive him crazy. The staring. The way people would watch him whenever he moved something heavy, or jumped, or climbed, or jogged across the station, but conspicuously glance away whenever he actually tried to meet anyone's eyes.

They were probably thinking he was getting what he deserved. Which, he, well, he probably was, but Buck had never excelled at being a good sport about that sort of thing.

But whatever. Sure, the looks made his shoulders tighten and his ears burn, but they had nothing on the looks he was waiting for and conspicuously not getting.

Eddie was avoiding him with the kind of single-minded determination he always put toward anything more complicated than brushing his teeth, which. Sure, if Eddie was going to be mad at someone, that’s how he would do it, but why was he still mad at Buck?

Buck had tried to casually start the conversation a few times, each instance with a carefully rehearsed script that he never got to use because Eddie would take off without even saying hi back.

It got to the point where, two weeks in, Buck got fed up and tried to force the issue.

He dropped into the chair next to Eddie at the dinner table (ignoring how conspicuously everyone wasn’t looking at him) and demanded to know. “What's your problem, man?”

Eddie looked up from his meal with deliberately infuriating slowness. “What.”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Maybe I just don’t feel like talking to you.”

“Sure. Just like you didn’t yesterday, and just like you won’t tomorrow. What’s your problem with me?” Buck demanded.

“Not everything is about you.”

“Cut the bullshit.” He snapped, “You don't think I should be here, do you? You’re pissed they let me come back.”

Eddie looked at him, finally looked at him, but his expression was unreadable. “You don't want to know what I think.”

It was cold, and it stung enough to stun Buck into silence as Eddie abruptly grabbed his plate and stood, stalking over to the sinks without looking at anybody.

“Hey,” Buck's voice cracked humiliatingly, so he tried again. “Hey!” Eddie didn’t look back.

Without even thinking about it, Buck stood to follow.

A familiar, muscular arm wrapped itself around his shoulders and steered him away from the kitchen and over to one of the plush red couches scattered around the upper floor.

They plopped down onto the couch as a unit: Hen smoothly removing her arm from around his shoulder and picking up a book she’d clearly set down to go collect him before he made a fool of himself, Buck trying to seem less affected by the not-conversation with Eddie than he really was. Not that he’d ever been able to fool her. After a moment, he sighed and gave up. “Heya Hen.”

“Hi, Buck,” she said, a little warm, a little wry. Like they were sharing an inside joke.

He looked over at her, and for a moment was gripped by the sudden, nonsensical fear that he might start crying. It was only for a second, but was definitely still visible on his face because Hen stopped reading. She put her book in her lap, holding her place with a finger between the pages, and gave Buck her full attention. Tilting her head to the side, she considered him in a way that felt painfully familiar. “You doing okay?”

When Buck had first started at the 118, he’d been young and desperate to succeed and anxious to make up for both, and she’d been way nicer than she should have been to a wild-eyed kid who spent the first four months of their working relationship feeling like a wild animal someone had let into the firehouse on accident.

Buck had walked into the 118 station with a half-decade of life experience that didn’t do him a bit of good in the real world. He could pick locks, scale a sheer cliff face without gear, and make friends in three languages. He could identify Rohypnol by flavor and viscosity. He could hold a handstand on the saddle of a moving horse for almost 14 seconds.

But.

There were things everyone else in the world knew about being an adult that he’d never learned; simple, boring, obvious sorts of things he had still been too embarrassed to admit to Bobby he needed help with. He knows Bobby now, knows that Bobby wouldn’t have thought less of him, but back then he had been so desperate to impress him. So terrified to disappoint a man who looked at Buck like he might be headed somewhere worthwhile.

Those early days, Hen had been a lifeline.

Right now, it felt like that raw edge from his first few months was back somehow, but instead of making him sharp, it just left him susceptible to further fraying.

“Yeah, Hen. I’m okay.” Buck rubbed his neck. “How are you? Are Denny and Karen doing good?”

She smiled at him.

And they talked.

Not the distant, impersonal chatter of firefighter and civilian, not the hushed check-ins when Bobby wasn’t looking, but really, actually talking, as though the last six months hadn’t even happened.

In following shifts, he found himself seeking her out, trotting along at her heels, basking in the sheer relief of having someone to talk to. Someone who knew him. Hen filled him in on the calls they’d been on when he asked, her retellings perhaps more math-centric and anatomically specific than Buck’s own would have been, but whatever. It was nice.

His planned diet of alternating eating nothing but pilfered snacks for two days and then stuffing himself with heavy carbs and protein on the third was, admittedly, not his finest work.

He was hungry, hungry in a way he couldn’t remember being since he was a kid. Hungry in a way that made him feel sick and dizzy. Unfortunately, he was also eating in a way that made him feel sick and dizzy.

Someone smarter than him probably could’ve guessed what was going to happen.

Hen caught him stumbling out of the bathroom after a solid minute of vomiting (a waste of Bobby’s cooking, waste of calories that Buck could not afford to give up right now) embarrassingly early into a 24 hour shift. Like a little kid, he had eaten so much that he’d made himself sick.

She watched patiently as he settled himself against the wall of the locker room and began taking slow measured sips from his water bottle. She waited until Buck, exhausted, dragged his eyes over to her and croaked, “What.”

“If you’re coming down with something, you don’t need to be here.” Hen told him calmly. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

“I swear I’m not sick Hen. I think I…I ate something bad.”

“How did you manage to find bad food here?” She asked, taking a seat on the bench in front of him.

“I don’t know,” Buck sighed, then scowled. “Maybe it was sabotage.”

“Sabotage?”

“I mean, maybe someone around here poisoned me. I wasn’t sick this morning.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, trying to make her laugh.

Hen wasn’t impressed. “No one would do that to the food,” she said flatly.

“Yeah,” Buck huffed bitterly. “The food.”

Hen leaned over and flicked him on the forehead. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Buckley. They wouldn’t do it to you, either.”

Buck stared at his hands, stomach an uneasy balance between roiling and famished. “Was it a mistake to come back?” he whispered. Right now, it felt...not hopeless, but. Stationary. Locked in place, just like every stupid decision he’d made to get here in the first place. “Should I request a transfer?”

Hen flicked him again, damn, that was starting to hurt. “No, no you should not, and you know it.”

Buck’s expression twisted. “Everyone hates me now.”

“No one hates you, Buck. At least, no one who didn’t hate you before this whole mess.”

He winced. Good old Hen. Brutally honest.

“There’s a word for this. Catastrophizing?” She tried, and he looked at her blankly. “You might have heard it in therapy.”

Buck grimaced. “No, I was, um. Bad at therapy. Never made it to a second session.”

Hen raised an eyebrow, but thankfully didn’t comment. “It means you're daisy-chaining worst case scenarios until you've convinced yourself the world is ending. Sound familiar?"

Buck cocked his head to the side curiously. "Maybe." he thought about for a second. “So...what you’re saying is I’m worrying too much?" he schooled his face into something carefully earnest. "I'm being too careful?”

“No. No, no, no. Buck. Stop. Look at me.” Hen actually held his face between her hands so he couldn’t look away as she stared him down. Her hands were warm and soft, but not too soft. Strong, too. It felt nice.

“I know what you think you just heard.”

Buck’s lips twitched.

“And what do I think I just heard?”

She didn’t look amused. “We are discussing social interaction, not work. Do not. Apply this. To firefighting.”

“Well, Hen, if you think I’m living too cautiously—" Buck tried to keep a straight face.

“You’re not cautious. You’ve never been cautious a day in your life. You’re sullen and anxious, and you’re driving yourself up a wall.”

“I don’t know...what I’m hearing is I need to be braver.” His grin broke out. “Maybe take more risks—”

She dropped his face to throw her hands up. “Any fear you feel while working is a logical response to danger, and you have the training to react appropriately under those circumstances. Whether or not you use it.” Hen interjected firmly, starting to laugh despite herself. “Do not let my advice be the thing that kills you. I swear, Buck, if you were half as scared of fire as you are of getting your heart broken—”

“—I probably wouldn’t be a firefighter.” Buck grinned, shrugging one shoulder.

“Stay with me, Buckley. This advice is social. You get it? Social.”

He nodded.

“So. Listen to me.” Hen patted him on the shoulder. “Stop trying to read everyone’s minds. Because you can’t read minds,” She paused, and Buck shook his head, “so the only thing you’ll get out of it is a stomach ulcer and this harebrained conclusion that the pack has exiled you.”

She said it with enough contempt that Buck felt the door closing on any potential pack/exile centric arguments. It probably wouldn’t have worked out for him anyway.

“Then how am I supposed to know what they’re thinking?” Buck said instead, only half joking. “They won’t talk to me.”

“I’ll talk to you, and I’ll tell you: Everyone doesn’t hate you. There are,” Hen said, “some of our coworkers who are still mad at you and have every right to be. You hurt some feelings out here.”

Buck hunched his shoulders self-consciously. “I...I know I did.”

“You do.” Hen nodded. “And the resulting tension from some people being mad at you is making everyone else feel awkward.” She tilted her head to one side, better to meet his eyes. “You know, people aren’t exactly lining up to talk to Eddie, either. Which you would have noticed if you could get out from under your own spotlight for a minute.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“So it’s one of those...social-animal situations.”

“I know you can have a hard time sensing that sort of thing, Buck,” Hen said, nicer than she should have been, “but I promise: No one is out to get you.”

It helped, a little. That night, lying on the hood of his jeep, he thought about what she’d said, because Hen was a lot smarter than him, and listening to her was generally a pretty good idea.

So.

He was no longer panicking because Rick hadn’t spoken to him since he got back, because without the haze of rejection clouding his thoughts it occurred to him that he and Rick had never really talked in the first place.

So that was better.

Except.

He could never admit this to Hen, but the knowledge that somebody, somewhere, was mad at him made him feel raw and embarrassed in a way he couldn’t explain.

It was a pitiful, childish instinct. He had always been overly sensitive as a kid. God knew his parents could never stand it. He hated to think of that flinching, clingy misery following him into adulthood and wrecking things here, too.

It was like he could feel sharp awareness boiling underneath his skin, not just anger at whatever he had done, but an accompanying judgment passed on every single thing about him. They probably thought his voice was annoying, his brain told him. And that his ideas were stupid, and that he wasn’t any good at his job, and that he was too immature and too impulsive and too emotional and too Buck to be worth keeping around.

But even that, he could take. For better or for worse, Buck had been himself his entire life. He’d have to learn to live with himself sooner or later, and those kinds of thoughts, while not pleasant, were at least a reliable kind of familiar.

The real thing that was bothering him?

The very, very worst part about all of this?

What was killing him was the fact that it was Bobby and Eddie who were still mad at him.

He loved Hen and Chim.

But he also knew, more or less, where he stood with them.

Hen was someone he could ask the “real adult” questions that other people would make him feel stupid for not knowing, or someone to talk him down when a full morning of anxiety-fueled research had him convinced he had a brain tumor, but not someone he could call up for a beer if he got lonely in the early hours of the morning.

(Not when Hen had a family to take care of.)

Chimney was someone who would pick him up from anywhere, at any time if he called him for help, someone he could speak frankly to about his love life without being judged, but not someone he could ever talk to about his parents.

(Not when Chimney'd had it so much worse.)

He knew them.

With Bobby and Eddie, there was always that something more he could never stop craving. Not just the aching curiosity of Would you still love me if I told you or Would you help me if I asked, but more, too. That thrum of Look at me, Look at me, Look at me he couldn’t seem to shut off in his brain. He wanted them to think about him when he wasn’t around, the way he did with them. It was a craving that often showed itself when he met new people, that urge to impress, to matter, but with Bobby and Eddie that want had stuck around way longer than normal.

The only other times he’d felt it that way, that strongly—

—his stomach dropped when he realized—

—was probably with Abby. Or before that, maybe his parents.

Buck pressed his palms against his eyes and groaned, trying to will away the embarrassment simmering in his veins.

Jesus Christ, he was pathetic. Wasn’t that just the perfectly on-brand level of melodramatic that made him so fucking annoying, the kind of self-absorbed stupidity that drove everyone away in the first place—

His leg, propped where it was on the roof, was seized by such a powerful cramp that he lurched half-way into a seated position and had to cover his mouth to keep from audibly yelping.

He ended up limping a few slow laps around his jeep until he could flex his ankle and knee without pain. He checked his watch: it was just past two in the morning.

He was torn between staying up and trying to get some rest. The choice felt utterly inconsequential, since he wasn’t working tomorrow. And not working meant he wouldn’t be doing anything else either, except hiding out in his car or charging his phone at the library.

In the end, a slowly worsening headache made the decision for him, he crawled into his backseat to try and get some sleep.

It wasn’t comfortable, but it was familiar.

This wasn’t the first time he’d ever lived out of his jeep, but Buck was starting to discover that living out of his jeep and living in his jeep weren’t quite the same thing.

Before, there had always been a goal to work toward, a new horizon, an interesting job, an unfamiliar stretch of stars to sleep under. Here, he was where he needed to be, already doing what he was supposed to be doing. And it was nearly impossible to see the stars in LA at any time of year.

His first time around, if he found himself wanting a real bed for the night, it hadn’t exactly been a hardship for him to find one. On a cold enough night, he would find the closest dive and play pool for a few hours, scanning the room for interest first, pleasure second. He’d accept the first local or put-up offer he got and enjoy a bed, a shower, and if he was lucky, breakfast, all at no financial cost to himself.

Thinking back on it, the process made the Buck of right now feel...scummy.

But he wasn’t that guy anymore.

He had new aches that came from everything from catastrophic life-altering injury to simply not being nineteen anymore.

Buck also hadn’t had the nightmares, before.

The imagined sound, the knowledge, of rushing water heading toward him, ready to consume him and Christopher, where was Christopher—

Other nights would find him shaking, nauseous, because his leg, oh god his leg, is this what dying feels like? He at least thought it would be faster—

But he always woke up and it was only raining, or it was just a cramp.

And Buck breathed, and waited, and breathed. Checked the time on his phone. Massaged his leg. Tried to fall back asleep. Some nights, he even succeeded.

No matter what. Being back at the 118 was worth it.

It had to be.

“Hey, buddy.” Buck whirled around to find Chimney leaning against the doorframe of the laundry room, eyeing the cheerily thudding machines with a put-upon air of gentlemanly distaste. “What's up? You trying to make the rest of us slouches look bad?”

It took Buck a moment to find his voice. “No! No, I, Uh…It's mine, actually. From home. My water's out.” Water being out was something that happened to people, right? Buck was mostly guessing.

It looked like he guessed right, because Chimney's expression twisted in sympathy. “Man, that sucks. Hope they fix it soon.” He trotted further into the room, coming to stand beside Buck. “Also. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Am I in trouble?” was Buck's first thought, and also unfortunately his first question.

Chimney gave him a weird look. “What? No. Why would you be—? No.”

Chimney pulled two rickety chairs from the corner, gesturing gallantly for Buck to sit first. He did, although he had been standing in the first place because the chairs in here were kind of shitty.

Chimney took a seat himself and clapped his hands once. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I'm just gonna ask: Are you on another one of your cleanses? Because you've been losing a lot of weight, and I know you care about physical fitness almost as much as I do—”

That surprised a short bark of a laugh from Buck, and Chimney acknowledged his victory with a nod before continuing.

“—but Buck, whatever new thing you're trying. I'm not sure it's doing you any favors.”

“Oh. Um.” Buck said, because he couldn't exactly tell Chimney his new thing was living in his car.

“A job like ours, people don't have any business fasting, and you really don't need to lose any weight.” Chimney told him gently. So, so gently.

Oh no.

Oh no.

“It's not what you think,” Buck protested, cheeks pinking. How vain did Chimney think he was? “I…I just—”

“Buck, listen to me. If you're going to be skipping meals, well. You’re an adult. I can’t stop you. But you can't be skimping out on water on top of that. You get a lot of your daily hydration from fresh fruits and vegetables, so if you're not eating those things, you'll actually need to drink more water to make up for it.”

Carefully, Buck said, “I'm probably not getting enough water. And I'm not eating nothing, it's just…”

Chimney crossed his arms. “Let me guess. Nothing but protein?”

Jerky and peanuts, Buck thought, but said, “How'd you know?”

Chimney poked him in the chest, “Because I know you.”

Buck smiled at him, just a little. “Yeah. You do, don't you.” he swallowed. “Thanks.”

Chimney waved him off. “Don't worry about it, sweetie. If you're gonna drink, I’d rather you do it in the house.”

Buck snorted.

“Listen Buck. You screw up sometimes. Everybody does.” Chim clapped a hand on his shoulder. “But don’t beat yourself up too much. Nobody wants you sick, okay? And, uh...” He gave Buck a few awkward pats before stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking back onto his heels. “I’m sure Eddie and Cap’ll come around. Eventually. They missed you a lot.” He coughed. “We all did. It’s good to have you back.”

Buck grinned. “Ah, what was that last part? Didn’t quite hear you.”

“I said you’re a cheeky brat.” Chim grinned at him. “And you’re coming over for dinner. Clear your plans and mourn your diet.”

The next time he had 48 off, Buck really did try to consciously drink more water. He also did a little research while he was charging stuff at the public library, trying to look busy and serious so no one would ask him what he was doing here.

But it was a library. Do they even kick people out of libraries? He’d ask Athena, except that would definitely make her suspicious. And there was also the fact that she maybe, possibly hated him now. What with him suing her husband and all.

But.

With context backed up by research, what Chim had said was making a lot more sense. As far as Buck could tell, the main difference between intermittent starving and intermittent fasting was control. Fasting made people feel in control. Not having food made Buck feel wildly out of control. But maybe having guidelines would help.

If he could pick up some fresh fruit and a pack of Gatorade, maybe—

But when he checked his bank account info on his phone, his first check still hadn’t come in.

Forget the groceries, then.

He’d just...try to drink more water.

Buck didn’t feel safe, sleeping in his jeep.

That had to be it. That was why the nightmares were getting worse.

In the end, his solution was pretty simple.

There's an equipment closet that's been locked since he started at the 118. It's near the laundry room, tucked away behind an alcove, around a corner that wasn't well lit. It was absolutely perfect.

Buck spent three separate shifts hunting for that key.

In the end, he had to pick the lock to get in. The closet was dusty, the air was stale, but it was dry and insulated and very nearly empty.

He couldn’t, couldn’t sleep in the Jeep every night he had off. Surviving two out of every three nights on no food and bad sleep was just...starting to wear on him in a way that was becoming noticeable.

He had bedding from his old apartment that he was able to sneak in during his shift when the engines were gone on a call.

It wasn’t going to be every night. Maybe it wouldn’t even be every week. When he was on call, he could sleep in the bunk room.

But when he felt overwhelmed by how visible he was, how exposed he was all the time? Having a door, without windows, that he could shut and lock behind himself might be the thing that could hold him together. At least until he could get his money problems sorted out for good.

It was a small, out-of-the-way space, with no one else even using it. Why couldn’t it be Buck’s?

Under seasoned burritos on whole wheat tortillas with Chim and Maddie should not have been as delicious as they were, but the dinner did happen in the middle of a 48 off.

If she was mad at him, she didn’t show it. They had always been good at setting that sort of thing aside, ending arguments in the same conversation that started them or, failing that, dropping the topic entirely. It had never been worth risking the stability of Maddie & Buck to stay mad at each other for long.

Even now, over a decade later, Buck didn’t know if he would have it in him to get properly angry at Maddie for anything.

He had thought about telling Maddie about his apartment, his money problems, but...seeing her now, he knew he’d made the right call.

Maddie was beautiful, happy, smiling. Happy with Chim, safe from Doug, without their parents to pick apart her every decision. Without Buck’s problems to drag her down and break her heart.

He didn’t know if she even knew their parents had cut him off. It had been years ago. Buck had made his peace with it.

If she didn’t know, telling her would hurt her. It would be their parents letting Maddie down, again, hurting her again, thousands of miles away and seven years later.

He had failed to protect Maddie from enough, this past year.

He wouldn’t let this hurt her too.

So, when he casually asked if she wouldn’t mind picking up his prescription from the pharmacy for him, citing an almost empty bottle and plans that couldn’t be changed, he knew she’d accept.

And when she picked it up, and found herself paying full price for blood thinners (only thirty bucks, give or take, but that was still thirty bucks that he just didn’t have), insurance deducting nothing, he would explain that there was a delay getting his new card on file, but that he could pay her back the difference once his paperwork got sorted out.

And she would smile and say, “You’re my baby brother! Don’t even think about it. Pay me back by coming over for dinner again next week.”

The two of them against the world, back-to-back, trying to protect each other.

That’s how it always was.

Sequestered in his back closet during C shift, escaping from an astonishingly loud thunderstorm that had woken him with a start (sounded like bombs going off under his feet again and again—no. Don’t get started), Buck...well.

Buck couldn’t figure out why Eddie was still mad at him.

The first thing Buck had loved about Eddie was the way he was with Christopher. It was such a stark contrast from Buck’s own experiences that at first it didn’t seem possible. This concept of Eddie’s son, Christopher, who was perfect because Eddie thought he was perfect. Now, Christopher was an amazing kid. He just deserved good things, in a way Buck never had even when he was small. Everyone who met Chris understood that. Chris was the best. But...a few times, Buck thought about that house in Pennsylvania, the quiet, cold desperation seeping into every corner, every wall. He thought about Chris. He thought about what it would have been like in that house for a kid as bright and fearless as Chris, a kid who needed other people the way Chris did, and the thought hurts him. It stings. He can’t hold it in his brain for too long because it makes his chest ache.

Eddie loved Christopher like it was easy. And loving Christopher was easy, the easiest thing in the world, but...A different kind of parent might have gotten it wrong, and thought that it wasn’t.

All this to say: The way Eddie loves Chris was the first thing Buck loved about Eddie.

Being friends with Eddie, it almost made him feel like a little of that perfect was for him, too. How bad could he be, if this man with everything would allow Buck to integrate himself so completely, leaving fingerprints on his most precious things? Letting him meet, and more than that, trusting him with Chris?

Having Eddie mad at him, still mad at him, felt like an indictment of everything his parents had ever thought about him. Buck was just fundamentally not enough. Or too much. Always one or the other, and sometimes both.

He just—he just wanted to know why. Why Eddie still wasn’t talking to him.

He knew why Bobby was still mad, at least—Buck had taken Bobby’s private, personal struggles and thrown them in his face for professional gain.

Bobby hating him right now made sense.

It wasn’t something he could just make up for, with Bobby.

But with Eddie? It didn’t make any sense for him to still be mad. If he was pissed Buck wasn’t able to babysit during the legal proceedings, shutting Buck out for a month afterwards and not letting him even see Christopher didn’t make any sense at all.

Unless.

Maybe Eddie had finally noticed the way Buck...the way Buck looked at him.

That would be an excellent reason to keep avoiding him.

Buck was clumsily, coltishly greedy when it came to Eddie. The way he was always trying to get his attention, weasel into his life, his conversations, his home. His tiny, perfect family.

Maybe the time spent not talking had clued Eddie in on how weird and clingy Buck was.

Buck didn’t even know what an apology for something like that would look like.

He missed Christopher.

He missed Eddie.

And he didn’t know how to fix this.

Hunger clawed at his stomach, screamed in his chest.

He breathed through it until it burned less brightly.

In, out. In out.

Blinked moisture from his eyes.

“I think something's wrong with me.” He told the ceiling of this tiny, cramped closet. Whispered, like it was a secret.

The rain died down eventually. Buck waited for the engines to go out on a call and snuck back out to his jeep.

He wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

Buck, hair still damp from his shower, made it a point to catch eyes as people drifted in for A-Shift, handing out cheery greetings with a vengeance.

It was stupid for people to avoid him, he’d decided at some point.

He worked here. They were the ones acting weird.

Bleary, sleepy hellos drifted his way, slightly more of them than he’d gotten on his last shift. He considered it a victory that apparently some people were getting tired of mustering the energy to be kind of rude to a coworker first thing in the morning.

As he strolled through the station, a muttered stream of colorful swears filled the air. The origin was a pair of boots sticking out from beneath what must be the new ladder truck (not that Bobby would let Buck anywhere near it).

Buck gave one of the boots a friendly kick. “All good down there?”

Rick rolled out, squinting at the bright lights and scrubbing sweat from his brow with a filthy sleeve. Buck let out a low whistle.

“Oh, hey Buckley.” Rick yawned. “How’s your grip strength?”

People tell me I have a hard time letting go. “Strong enough, usually. Why?”

"Do you think you could get down here and take a look at this? I was taking care of the oil, but I couldn’t get the panel to retighten.”

“Retighten?” Buck asked, confused. “What were you doing down there?”

“Taking care of the oil.”

“Why don’t you,” Buck glanced around, but Bobby was nowhere in sight, “let me take a look.”

“You sure?” Rick asked , but he was already climbing to his feet and handing Buck his toolbelt. “You’re a lifesaver, Buckley.”

“That’s the dream. What else have I got to do around here?”

“More laundry?”

The smile dropped from Buck’s face like a stone as he turned to scowl at Rick. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whoa, sorry, didn’t mean anything by it.” Rick threw his hands up. “You’ve just been doing a lot of it lately, which makes sense. I heard your water was out? Chimney said—"

“Yeah, I bet he did.” Buck muttered. That’s what he gets for telling Chimney anything. “Don’t worry about it.”

Rick put his hands on his hips. “You a little jumpy there, Buckley? I’d say I don’t bite but—”

“If you were trying to tighten bolts down here with your teeth, I think I’ve found your problem.” Buck was already on his back, sliding under the truck. Rick’s surprised laughter followed him under.

Buck used to find himself crawling under the trucks a couple of times a month, easy. More of his useless life experience making itself handy.

“I think you’ve got the wrong tools for this,” Buck said, baffled at the wrench he’d found abandoned under the truck.

He searched instinctively for the oil pan Rick had been using, but couldn’t find one.

“Where’s your old oil?” He called.

“There isn’t any. I wasn’t changing, just checking the levels.”

Wait. What?

“You were checking the oil levels from underneath?” Buck asked incredulously.

“Am I not supposed to?” Rick called back.

Is this what passed for vehicle maintenance while Bobby refused to let Buck do his job?

“You can check next to the engine block.” Buck sighed. “Best practice is to keep track of your mileage and get it changed on a schedule. Second best is to take a sample and send it to an oil lab. I’ll show you where—"

At that moment, a tremendous CRASH shook the station.

Buck took a sharp breath, surprised by the sudden tremor—had there been an earthquake?—and the smell, the taste of oil and gasoline consumed his senses, the hot, muggy air under the truck, the yells of alarm, voices were rising in confusion and anger all around him, and, and his leg seized in a sudden, vicious cramp—

—Buck was going to die. The truck was collapsing on top of him, not again, not again, his face was wet, wet with blood, where was it coming from—

—he was gasping fast and shallow. Was there smoke coming from somewhere? There had to be, because it didn't feel like he was getting any air—

His hands were plastered to the underside of the truck in a desperate bid to protect himself, muscles straining, shoulders screaming, but If I let go it’ll come down—

“Buck, let go! Drop your hands!”

Was someone here? Who was—

“Firefighter Buckley! GET DOWN!”

Training had him slamming his hands down and flattening himself to the ground, muscles quivering with coiled tension, as though anything would help what was about to happen, thousands of pounds of machinery on top of him in an instant, no amount of training or preparation or knowing would ever be enough to—

Hands wrapped around his ankles and he was dragged out from under the truck and into bright, artificial lights.

And he.

He was.

He.

Buck tried to get his breathing under control, first. Tried to crane his head back, to get a look at the wreckage behind him, because if it wasn’t me then who was down there—

But.

The engine looked fine. He couldn’t see the fire. He...where were they?

Buck’s ankles were released and two sets of hands seized his arms, hauling him unceremoniously to his feet.

His left leg buckled underneath him and it was only the powerful grip on his arms that kept him from crumpling to the ground.

“Thanks,” he tried to say, but didn’t know if he’d succeeded.

Being upright was a serious improvement to being on the ground, that was for sure.

He could take stock, this way. He could feel his legs. They weren’t broken. They weren’t broken. He raised his head from where he had been staring intently at his own body, searching for damage, to find a familiar face.

Chimney had one of his arms in a tight grip at the bicep and was staring at Buck with an intent, unreadable expression.

“I don’t know where the blood is coming from,” he mumbled, slurring a little, because if Chimney was treating him, he needed to know Buck was hurt, “I don’t know where I’m bleeding.”

Chimney’s lips moved, but Buck, but Buck couldn’t hear anything over the blood roaring in his ears. Chimney must have noticed, because he instead touched Buck’s slick, wet face and showed him the black staining his fingertips. Not blood. Oil.

Chimney was trying to talk to him again, and Buck struggled to interpret movement without sound. When just watching didn’t work, he followed along with the motion, forming the shapes with his own mouth, and only then could he understand.

You’re safe, Chimney was telling him, over and over again, You’re safe.

Two guys had him. Chimney and Rick, who looked white as a sheet when Buck tried to meet his eyes. They propped him up between the two of them as he slowly regained his bearings. His feet found the ground and supported him. His senses started taking in the world around him as it was.

The ringing in his ears had softened enough that he could just register Rick saying something to him, something like “—Buckley, man, I wasn’t fucking thinking, I’m so sorry—” When Buck regains his bearings enough to finally look around.

Buck was.

He was at the firehouse.

And when he had the thought, it was like a bubble popped. Of course he was at the station. He’d never left. Why had his body seemed to think he was somewhere else?

There were some guys in the gym next to some toppled exercise equipment, one of the big machines (the source of that big crash, had to be), but they made no move to right it, or clean up the weights that had rolled everywhere, or do anything at all.

Because they, like every other firefighter within his current field of vision, were all staring directly at Buck.

He scans the room slowly, drowsily cataloging every person he can see. Two legs, two arms, conscious, out of danger. And the next, and the next. He doesn’t look at their faces, doesn’t want to see what kind expressions he’s earned himself with whatever the hell had just happened.

Movement from the corner of his eye has his head turning sluggishly to see Bobby approaching them from across the station.

He looked...he looked furious.

Cold dread dripped down Buck’s spine. The last thing he wanted was to be yelled at right now.

Not in front of everyone, when he was still blinking tears of panic from his eyes and his clothes were soaked in fear-sweat. He squirmed out of Chim and Rick's grip, mumbling, “Don’t tell Bobby what happened,” as he slipped free.

Maybe they tried to stop him. He wasn’t sure.

Muscles aching and nerves thrumming with a jittery misery, Buck took a few stumbling steps to confirm his balance, and then took off toward the locker room, toward some semblance of privacy.

He had just crossed the threshold when Bobby caught up to him, got close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice for Buck to hear and obey when he said, “Buck, stop.”

Buck stopped.

He felt his nerves drop into his boots and took a shaky breath, not turning around. “Why?” he asked.

“I need to talk to you.”

Buck’s lip curled. “They bust up your equipment, but I’m the one in trouble? That tracks.”

“This isn’t about who’s in trouble, Buck. We need to talk about what just happened in there.” Bobby was doing something with his voice, trying to sound a certain way, authoritative or something, but it meant that Buck had no idea how Bobby really felt.

Not that it mattered. Buck had already seen his face. He already knew Bobby was mad at him.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Buck said stiffly, looking away. “Nothing happened. It’s fine.” The proof was outside the glass walls: The engine was fine, the station was fine. Chim and Rick were fine. Buck was the only casualty, and he hadn’t even gotten hurt. Not really.

“Fine?” Bobby snorted. An unfriendly sound. “Give me one good reason not to send you home for the rest of this shift.”

Something in Buck snapped and he spun around to face Bobby, barely keeping his balance at the ferocity of the motion.

How dare he.

Buck had spent the last two days waiting to come back here, and Bobby wanted to just send him away like it didn’t matter? He hadn’t even had time to eat anything yet.

“You think being alone is going to help me?” His voice sounded rough and watery, but Bobby was listening, so he had to keep going. “You want to cut me off from everybody so I can come back when I’m not a problem anymore, is that it?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do, kid, I just think you need—"

“Don’t call me kid,” Buck snapped, “I’m not a kid, and you don’t know what I need better than I do.” He took a step toward Bobby, fuming. “What I need, what I’ve needed this whole time, is to be back with the 118.”

Bobby was still looking at Buck like he didn’t know anything, and Buck hated, hated that look. “You want to be at work. You need to be safe. You shouldn’t be here!”

“I don’t feel safe anywhere else!” Buck exploded, trying to drown out the You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here that wouldn’t stop ringing in his ears.

Adrenaline that had only just begun to fade surged back up with a vengeance, throwing him into that wild animal kind of panic from his probie days, from his days on the road, from when he was a teenager. The kind of panic that left him feeling unsteady and dangerous and vulnerable, like any minute someone was going to try to drag him out of here by the scruff of his neck. You shouldn’t be here.

Buck pushed it away, tried to keep the tears clogging his throat out of his voice as he seethed, “Why does this disqualify me? Everyone’s traumatized. Everyone gets scared. They all get to stay with—they get to be here.” He swallowed. “But when it’s me, I can’t work anymore. Why is it only me who can’t take it? Why is it only me,” he demanded, “who can’t ever be good enough for you? Why don’t you trust me?”

Buck’s voice broke and went raspy, the way it always did when he yelled. He didn’t want to be yelling at Bobby, but now that he’d started he didn’t know how to stop.

“Your situation was different and you know it.”

“Do I? Because from where I’m standing,” Buck’s chest was heaving, “you kept telling me to slow down. And stop trying. You didn’t care—”

“Don’t say that.” Bobby sounded seriously angry now. Buck doesn’t know if he’d ever heard Bobby talk to him with that tone of voice before. “You don’t get to say that. All you thought about was getting back out. But you’re never cautious. Something could have gone wrong! You need to learn to be more careful with yourself—”

“This didn’t happen to me because I wasn’t careful!” Buck’s voice shook. “I was doing my job, and someone hurt me because of it! There’s no amount of careful that could have protected me!”

“That isn’t an excuse to tear yourself apart in the aftermath. You were already recovering just fine, better than expected, you didn’t need to—"

“But I did. You don’t understand. It wasn’t happening to you. When I fought to get this back, and succeeded,” Buck gestured to his healthy legs first, but in his agitated state, his hands jerked as he spoke and spread to indicate the rest of him, too. The whole station. The whole world, “you called it a, a miracle. But it wasn’t a miracle. It was months, it was my surgeons and my physical therapists, it was me killing myself to get back what I lost. What was taken from me.”

If Buck had been able to see through the furious tears blurring his vision, he might have seen how violently Bobby flinched at those words. But he couldn't, so nothing stopped his furious tirade as it barreled toward its conclusion.

“You,” he snarled, “wanted me to give up. You didn’t think I could do it! You didn’t want me to come back!” The accusations Buck was hurling at Bobby weren’t true. But they felt a little true, when Buck immersed himself in the misery and dread of the past month, of the past six months of his life. More than that, though? They felt mean. And right now, Buck was targeting with intent to harm. “Stop pretending to care about me. If you want me gone so badly, just,” His breath hitched, but maybe no one noticed, “just pretend you have an ounce of actual respect for me and tell me to my face.”

The words were roiling inside of him like magma, as if they’d been painfully trapped somewhere deep and dark for years and years, waiting, bubbling up out of him now only because Buck had finally, finally opened his mouth to scream. “Stop lying to me,” He demanded, but not of Bobby. Not really.

Bobby’s mouth moved, but no words came out. Finally, he said “...Kid, I—”

“I’m not your kid.” Buck’s voice cracked.

Buck and Bobby stared at each other. The station was utterly silent. Buck wished he could take it back, snatch the words out of the air where they hung between the two of them, heavy like a broken promise.

The silence was broken by the bell.

Conversation over, then.

The 118 was needed elsewhere.

“Sounds like you need to get going,” Buck muttered, shouldering past Bobby to head to the showers. Trying to put as much distance between himself and everything. anything. as was possible. Tears blurred his vision.

He wedged the doorstop into place behind him and stumbled to the vanity. He bent over the sinks, leaning on his elbows and scrubbing his face until his skin hurt. Deep, slow breaths.

He didn’t hear if anyone had tried to follow him into the bathroom, but he did hear the engines leave, sirens kicking up and then trailing off into the distance.

Distantly, he hoped someone had finished fixing the ladder truck.

Buck rested his face in his hands, hunched over the sink as he was, and locked his knees to prevent his legs from giving out.

He was so, so fired.