Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chimney came back to work the Thursday after Christmas, a small red dot in the middle of his forehead and a doctor’s note clutched tight in his hand, the only real evidence of him having been in an accident at all. Buck didn’t want to say it was a miracle, he wasn’t sure if he believed in those, but he figured Chim’s miraculous recovery and return to work was probably as close as he was going to get to miraculous in his life. They threw a party for his return, Hen ordered a monstrosity of a cake that actually had the best frosting Buck had ever tasted in his life, and he was elbows deep in sudsy water when Athena sidled up next to him at the sink, her lips pursed like Buck was quickly starting to realize meant she had something she wanted answered. Buck had been cornered his fair share during his life, be it by a pushy Maddie and a cupcake or his mother and her frown or Eddie and his grin as he boxed Buck against the counter but, well… he didn’t really like it either way. Athena waited until he was separate from the celebration, Bobby busy clapping Chim’s shoulder with his hand and Hen sliding in easily beside him to grab the plates as he finished washing them. 

“Uh,” he cleared his throat. “I didn’t do anything wrong this time, right?” Buck was aiming for a joke but clearly hit slightly off center because Athena snorted and shared a significant look that he wasn’t meant to understand with Hen around his back. 

Hen swiped the towel from his shoulder and used it to wipe down the plate she had snagged from his hands. “That depends, Buck.” She said wisely, mischievously, a glint in her eyes that he was beginning to realize meant only trouble. “What did you do wrong?” 

Buck could honestly list off twenty things he had done wrong in the past few hours but he was pretty sure Hen was looking for one specific one and not him admitting that he had accidentally stocked the wrong antiseptic on the last call and switched it out the moment their backs were turned. “It sounds like you have something specific in mind.” He smiled at her as cheekily as he could manage. 

Hen scoffed and brushed his shoulder with her own. “No,” Athena said from where she had stopped at the other side of the table. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Buckaroo.” 

Well, that was a new one. 

Really, Buck’s call me anything had only meant to be extended to Eddie and Christopher but it wasn’t like he minded all that much. He had grown accustomed to answering to whatever name people threw at him - kid, Evan, Ev, the odd boyfriend or crush’s name, he had even been called Maddie once or twice or… several times (and there had been a time, he was pretty sure, when his mother had thrown up her hands in frustration and said Daniel and then paled like she couldn’t believe what she had uttered). Nicknames weren’t something that the Buckley’s did which meant that it was something that Buck latched onto like he did anything he wasn’t allowed to do when he was a child. “Okay?” He cautiously handed Hen another plate and she smiled in a way that he knew was meant to be disarming. 

“How’s your friend doing?” Athena asked casually, tapping her fingers on the table behind her. 

Buck furrowed his brow. “My friend?” Really, it could mean any number of people. Buck had a habit of referring to anyone he had more than two conversations with as his friend. The girl at the coffee shop? A friend. Abby and Carla? Friends. 

“Mister Diaz.” Athena tilted up her chin as she said it. 

Fishing, fishing, fishing. Maddie made the same face when she wanted information from him.  He shared a look with Hen but she only widened her eyes in clear interest. Buck rolled his eyes. “He’s fine .” Or he was… working on fine. Christmas had been rough for both him and Chris and it had been rough for Buck and they hadn’t spent it together but Buck had pretended not to notice the redness around his eyes when they video-chatted the next morning and Eddie pretended to do the same. 

He had a feeling they were doing a whole lot of pretending lately. “Did his boy have a good Christmas?” 

“Chris?” 

Athena hummed with a nod. 

“Yeah he…” Buck shrugged. “We did a little after Christmas thing together.” They had gone to the beach, with all the palm trees set up with holiday lights and ornaments. Buck had thrown together a picnic with Abby’s (and, partially, Bobby’s) help. She hadn’t been able to stay long because of a shift at dispatch but the three of them had stayed until well past Christopher’s bedtime, watching the stars twinkle above them (what little they could see) and the waves crash over the shore. Christopher had tried to bury Eddie in the sand and Abby had rested her head on his shoulder and Eddie had held his hand and… It had been a good day. “Wait, I…” He scrambled to wipe his hands off on his pants and Bobby caught the motion with a small shake of his head. He grabbed his phone from his back pocket. “I have a picture!” 

He had a whole slew of pictures, really. But he had sent this one to Maddie and he had traced the little Read bubble on the bottom right corner that was displayed underneath it and he had convinced himself, a little, that he had seen the three little blue dots appear like she was typing before he blinked and realized it had just been his overactive imagination. Hen carefully took his phone and softened around the edges, shooting him a fond look over the screen before tilting it towards Athena. “That’s your friend from the Academy, right?” 

“Yeah.” Buck nodded and turned back to the task he had been assigned. “He officially finished training a few weeks ago but he’s waiting to schedule his certification tests for when Chris is done with school.” 

“ Friend .” Athena said pointedly. “You two seemed awfully friendly at the park.” 

Buck refused to feel guilty about his… whatever it was with Eddie. There was nothing wrong with having a healthy, diverse sex life - even if that was… with a technically still married man. He scratched at his cheek and bit his tongue. Eddie’s business wasn’t Buck’s to spill. “You know,” Hen said cautiously. Carefully. “This… Bobby’s worked really hard to make this station accepting.” 

Buck wrinkled his forehead. “I know?” 

“I just…” Hen shook her head. “I know it might be a little… scary. To tell us if you’re…” 

“Hanging out at the park with my friend?” Buck supplied when she trailed off. 

“Buck,” Athena said with a roll of her eyes and gently placed his phone on the counter within arms reach. “Are you dating that man?” She nodded significantly towards the screen, the picture he had captured of Eddie holding Christopher up to look at the lights on a palm tree, twin, identical smiles on their faces, the lights reflecting in the lenses of Christopher’s glasses, slowly fading as his screen locked itself. 

“Because it doesn’t matter!” Hen rushed to reassure. “Bobby doesn’t put up with discrimination from anyone .” 

“Eddie’s married.” Hen and Athena shared another look, Athena’s hands raising up to her shoulders to catch a shrug. “It’s complicated.” He conceded with a jerk of his head. “It’s like… not really a relationship but we… hang out and stuff.” 

“Hang out?” Athena asked dryly. 

“And stuff ?” Hen echoed. 

“Well, yeah.” Buck rolled his eyes. “Like, we’ve had sex.” 

Hen pulled a face. “You’ve…?” 

“Yeah, like three, four times.” Four and a half , really, because Buck counted that time in the back of his car as only half since only one of them had gotten off by the end of it. “But it’s no… it’s no big deal.” 

“But he’s married.” Hen repeated slowly. 

“She’s not, like… around.” Buck waved dismissively. 

Athena grunted. “That much was obvious from the park.” 

“Yeah, right,” Buck shook his head. “What was that about, anyway?” 

“It was a noise complaint.” Athena said with a roll of her lips. “They happen all the time.” 

“It wasn’t just a noise complaint.” Not just because of who it was that had filed it. Buck had heard it in her voice, had seen the way that woman had thrown those people like it was an insult. 

Hen rested her hip on the counter, her kind eyes imploring into the side of his face. “Buck,” she began. “You know you’re… you’re worth more than a… a…” She mushed her lips together. 

“I’m not a homewrecker, Hen.” He was getting kind of tired, actually, of people insinuating that he was. “Look, Eddie’s wife… she left him when they were in Texas like, two years ago? Just up and left one night; he didn’t have any idea where she was. And he moved out here because his parents were driving him insane and the healthcare’s better. We met at the Academy and it’s been two years since he’s even talked to her so…” 

“But he’s still married , Buck.” 

“But it’s not like that , Hen.” 

“Buck,” Hen fixed him with that look again. “You know you’re worth more than that.” 

Slowly, carefully, he turned his eyes away from Hen’s kind face. It was like she was begging him to understand something that should have been obvious on the surface. Connor made the same face but his words, somehow, felt more condescending whenever he spoke about Eddie. Like he had any right to pass judgment on whatever it was they had between the two of them. “More than what ?” He balked and shook his head. “Listen, Hen, no offense but… you don’t even know him. Or us. Or… our whole thing.” 

“Okay but, Buck,” her hand was gentle and soft on his forearm, tugging it out from under the spray of water to hold his hand in both of hers. “What else is there to get?” She asked softly, not unkindly. “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” 

“Then it might be a goose.” He rolled his eyes and tugged his hand out of hers. “Or… or a swan . A loon. A… a pelican, heron, a magpie goose!” Athena screwed up her face at his analogy. Why do you know so many aquatic birds? Her pursed lips asked. It was because all Buck had been able to do in the last week was obsess over birds after seeing some documentary on National Geographic on a day off. He preferred it if the team kept thinking that his preferred method for spending his free time was clubbing and going to bars, not sitting in his bedroom with his laptop open watching movies suggested to him by a six year old. “Eddie’s… Eddie’s my friend, okay?” 

“And you sleep with all of your friends?” Athena asked wryly. 

“I don’t have many friends.” 

Hen blinked, taken aback by the bluntness of his answer, perhaps. “Buck…” 

“I appreciate what you’re doing, okay?” He chewed at the inside of his lip. “But I didn’t… I didn’t really ask for your opinion.” He hadn’t really asked for anyone’s opinion. 

“You know you’re my friend, right?” Hen asked softly. 

And honestly… honestly Buck hadn’t really thought about it. They were a team, Chimney and Hen were great friends together and he liked working with them. They were fun and energetic and they didn’t really mind explaining things when he just couldn’t understand it. But friends were… they were Connor and Wyatt and Tim. Abby, maybe. Wyatt’s girlfriend. Friendship was hard to come by and Buck had never been all that good at keeping people around him. He was lucky, really, that Eddie had stuck around as long as he had. That… that the feeling was reciprocal, whatever the feeling was. 

He was pretty sure Eddie was the best relationship he had ever had in his life. Romantic or otherwise. 

But Hen was saying all the things everyone used to say - you’re my friend, Evan . Friendship came in fits and bursts. It was fleeting and quick and… Buck didn’t want fleeting and quick. Not with the firehouse, not with Eddie, not with anyone anymore. He couldn’t tell her that, though. Not without setting off some serious alarm bells that he hadn’t quite figured out how to turn off yet - so he cocked his head to the side the way Maddie told him always made him look cuter and smiled the crooked little smile that used to get him out of trouble and said, “I’m like a fungus, Hen. Once you get me once, I’m always coming back.” 

She screwed up her face but a smile pulled at her lips all the same. “You’re not my type, Buck.” 

He waved off her comment. “I didn’t mean it like that .” 

Hen’s shoulders jumped with a chuckle. “I know you didn’t.” Buck was pretty sure they hadn’t known each other long enough to be fond but she looked at him either way as though she was. Bobby looked at him like that too and Buck knew, he knew , that there had been a time when the three of them had worked together without Chimney around. There had been jokes and long shifts and Hen had caught him crying exactly once and said nothing about it. They had walked into Bobby’s drab little apartment with no personality and shoved him underneath the shower and they had tried to help put him back together. And there were things that Buck knew about the two of them that he was never going to tell anyone else - he hadn’t told Eddie about Bobby’s struggles with addiction or his family or about Hen’s anxiety ridden cleaning or the way she had clung to his forearm hard enough to leave bruises when they dropped Bobby off at that Alcohol’s Anonymous Meeting and gone right back to work. He didn’t think any of that constituted friendship, though. Merely as things that Buck had been trusted with and would keep safe, just like he never told anyone about the times Connor had gotten into arguments with his parents about wasting his life away in Hollywood or that Tim’s mom had kicked him out at seventeen or that Wyatt had once tried cocaine. He never told anyone about the times that he had woken up at two in the morning to find Eddie awake in his kitchen staring at the wall with a haunted frown on his face, or that Christopher had asked him, once, if Buck could help him find his mom. Buck had broken trust exactly once - when he was fourteen and Maddie had showed up to his football game with a bruise on her arm in the shape of a hand and he had told his mother and father. It had been shrugged off, confronted, maybe, when he wasn’t around, and Doug had shown up to every single family event afterwards and stared at Evan as though he was at fault for something. “But look, Buck, you deserve to be more than someone’s… one night stand.” 

“Does it count as a one night stand if you’ve done it more than once?” He asked absently. 

“If he doesn’t at least feed you afterwards, it does.” Athena commented wryly and Buck had a feeling that nothing he did or said got past her. She flicked her eyes up and down his back like she was trying to figure him out. 

He smiled goofily. “It’s a good thing he feeds me, then.” 

She hummed but conceded with a nod. “Just don’t get hurt, Buck.”

“Me?” He scoffed and held a sudsy hand up to his chest. “I’m not the one you have to be worried about.” 

--

Buck never really got Valentine’s Day. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t participate in it - he did all of the same things everyone else did when he was little. He bought the little paper Valentine’s. He sat at his parent’s kitchen table and painstakingly wrote out the name of every single kid in his class. He saved the best for the people most important to him, wrote a little note on the one for his best friends, agonized over which one to hand to his crushes. He spent all of his allowance for washing the dishes or dusting to picture frames on two boxes of chocolate from the grocery store - one for his mother and one for Maddie because his father had told him that it was the job of all good men to buy women whatever they wanted on Valentine’s Day. But Maddie had told him with a laugh when she was in high school and he was in second grade that he didn’t have to give her anything. That Valentine’s Day was for romantic love, not platonic. And Buck had thought it was stupid but he had listened to her anyway and then the… the holiday just stopped really mattering all that much. 

But Abby loved it. 

“I just think it’s great, you know.” She enthused from the other side of the little stand-up table they had secured at the coffee shop five minutes from the firehouse. Technically, Buck was on call - he could leave the firehouse and do whatever he wanted so long as, if they called him, he’d be on his way in. Technically , he didn’t really have anything to do except stay pointedly out of the apartment until Eddie picked Christopher up from school at four. More importantly, Buck had forgotten entirely that it was February fourteenth until he woke up that morning and Wyatt begged him to help pick out the perfect date-night-please-take-this-off-me-with-your-teeth-outfit. It had been a long week, really, what with Chimney accidentally throwing off the dynamic Buck, Hen and Bobby had built around each other by coming back to work and Christopher’s school vacation creeping up. Abby invited him out to lunch because she was also off and Buck had agreed because he was going to just be wandering on the beach anyway and because, contrary to at least Eddie’s belief, he actually liked her. “A whole day dedicated to love.”

Abby was nice. She was absolutely beautiful to look at, and she didn’t make him feel stupid or… or inferior despite the age difference. She smiled at his jokes, she listened to his stories about work and asked relevant questions, and if he ever had trouble not taking the cases home with him she understood in a way that no one else really did. Abby had told him that he deserved better than Tim constantly asking him for help paying rent and she had told him to stop hooking up with Connor if he couldn’t even admit that they had done anything the next day and she had listened to him list off every single way Eddie made him feel valued and only looked uncomfortable twice. 

The thing was that… Well, that Buck had seen some flowers on his way to the coffee shop that he thought would look really nice on her kitchen table and so he had bought them for her. And Abby had ducked her nose into them with a really sweet smile and a blush on her cheeks and Buck had the distinct idea that he had, maybe, possibly, royally given her the wrong impression. “Right? And like…” Buck fumbled. Valentine’s Day is for boyfriends and girlfriends, Evan, not for siblings. Maddie had said it so confidently. “It doesn’t have to just be for romantic love, right?” He laughed nervously. “It can… you can express that to friends too!” 

Abby smiled indulgently, the corners of her eyes wrinkling just a bit more when her lips pulled upwards. “Absolutely.” She reached across the table to pat his hand and startled, just a bit, at the barista at the counter calling her name. “Oh! I ordered your drink for you, I hope that’s okay.” 

“Oh.” Buck didn’t really… like it when other people did that. They tended not to know what exactly it was that he liked. Chimney had gotten the coffee order for the past week from the same little coffee shop they were now in and had insisted on getting everyone the Season’s Special and Buck hadn’t had the heart to tell him that it tasted like sugary crap. “No that’s… that’s fine.” He hastily assured. “Thank you.” 

Abby beamed and stepped away, tucking a strand of long hair behind her ear as she walked. He tapped his fingers on the table, moved slowly out of the way of a couple of college girls and glanced at the time on his phone screen. Just another… three hours to go until he was free and clear to do something with someone that didn’t make his stomach feel all twisty and weird. 

>> Chris forgot to buy Valentine’s for his class.

<< Eddie no 

>> He didn’t tell me until this morning.

>> Why does he need one for each kid?

<< So that no one feels left out

<< Duh

>> What are you up to? 

<< Lunch with Abby

>> Buck, it’s Valentine’s Day

<< I forgot 🙁

>> Ugh. 

<< Ugh 🙄

Abby handed him a paper cup, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “I hope they’re not calling you in.” 

And, really, it was a possibility. That was the entire point of on call . Buck could be called in at absolutely any time during the day and it didn’t really matter what he was doing at the time. Abby knew that, though. Buck had had work interrupt one too many hang outs with one too many friends for any of them to not understand what it meant. “No,” he snorted. “Chris forgot to tell Eddie about the classroom Valentine’s policy.” 

She smiled but it was dimmed, her eyes floating quickly over to her flowers and then back to his face. “There’s a classroom Valentine’s policy?” 

“Yeah, the whole…” He waved. “You make one for everyone in your class and then you guys just hand them out during snack time or something.” 

“Oh, we never… We never did that in school.” Abby shrugged. “We just brought what we wanted to our friends or crushes. Handed them out during lunch.” 

That’s what my mom would say too , Eddie would have muttered with an eye roll, low enough for only Buck to hear it and a purposeful dig at Abby and his… twenty-year age difference. “I think it was so that, uhm… no one got left out?” Buck shrugged and toyed with the plastic lid on his coffee cup. “And it was really only in elementary school.” 

“I bet you got all the Valentine’s.” Abby teased and took a sip from her own cup, sighing happily at the flavor. “Oh, this is great . I got you the same thing, you’re going to love it.” 

Buck very much doubted that and yet, he took a sip and… he was right. He did not love it. Wordlessly, he swallowed and tossed her a smile regardless - she had tried anyway, and wasn’t that really all that mattered. He itched at the corner of his neck, wincing at the way it pulled at the skin and coughed into his elbow. “It’s great,” he enthused just to see her smile again (Abby had a nice smile, okay? It made her look softer, somehow made the brown in her eyes seem more golden, and he kind of liked the way her smile highlighted the wrinkles forming next to her eyes). “Thanks.” 

She wiggled her shoulders. “Of course.” Abby deftly reached out a finger to trail over a flower petal. “Do you have any plans tonight? You could…” She cleared her throat. “You could stay over at mine for dinner? I know you’re on call and your apartment isn’t exactly close by.” 

Here was what Buck knew about friendships - they tended to come with strings attached. He could consider Abby his friend as much as he wanted and Buck knew he could be the most oblivious person on the planet sometimes but Abby wouldn’t have looked twice at him if she wasn’t lonely and he wasn’t willing. And, really, Buck wondered sometimes why he wasn’t just… Letting her do what she wanted. Letting her do him , so to speak. You sleep with all of your friends? Athena had asked and Buck had denied it but, well… historically speaking…. And hey! If it kept her happy and it kept her around, who was it really hurting? 

Except there was the Eddie of it all. And more importantly… Buck hadn’t been with anyone else since anything began with Eddie. It didn’t really feel like betrayal - Buck still flirted with people and they flirted back and if he went out drinking and someone bought him a drink he didn’t bother telling them they couldn’t talk to him. But he didn’t go home with anyone, he didn’t kiss anyone and he certainly didn’t do anything else with anyone. It was just that… it didn’t seem worth it. The idea of kissing anyone else when Eddie tasted like whatever they had eaten before or his shitty morning coffee or the mint of his toothpaste… no one else’s stubble would feel quite right against his skin and no one else’s hands would leave invisible scorch marks on his legs and… why sleep with anyone else when he had already had the best? And Buck was someone that liked sex, but he was also someone who didn’t like to lie . He had told Eddie a hilarious amount of times that there was nothing to worry about when it came to Abby and, no matter how pretty she was, Buck wasn’t about to break his word. 

Plus, it was probably telling that he was with Abby having lunch and he was still thinking about the Eddie of it all. 

“Oh,” he shook his head. “That’s sweet.” 

Abby perked up, softly looking at him through her eyelashes and, he had to give it to her, if he didn’t already have plans he probably would have given in. “We could even go out somewhere?” 

“I…” He took another sip of that terrible Season Special that Chimney had been forcing down his throat for the last week and coughed again at the drag of it as he swallowed and shook his head, aiming for apologetic. “I’m sorry, Abby, I… Eddie and I are probably just going to hang out. Watch a movie with Chris or something.” He shot her a half smile. “Maybe go out early in the morning to buy some discount chocolate.” 

Because Eddie didn’t like Valentine’s Day much either. He liked the set up for it - buying a present for Christopher from Cupid and making him a special breakfast. He was still at the age where showing familial love on the day was acceptable, and Buck was pretty sure no one deserved a moment of peace and happiness than either of the Diaz boys. Abby shook her head at her coffee cup with a little smile. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Yeah.” He coughed again, wishing he had a water to wash down whatever flavor was sticking to the back of his throat so stubbornly. 

“What’s going on with you two?” Abby tilted her head as she asked, her eyes curious and her smile pained. 

It was like the kitchen all over again. “What do you mean?” Only Buck thought that she got it . He thought Abby understood it more than he did, even, what with the way she kept looking at them whenever they were together. Eddie was his friend, Eddie wasn’t exactly Abby’s friend but he wasn’t not her friend either. They slept together sometimes, they kissed sometimes. 

“Do you like him?” 

“What… what?” Buck laughed. “Of course I like him. He’s… he’s Eddie. ” 

“No,” Abby shook her head. “No, Buck, do you… like him?” 

“He’s my friend, Abby.” 

“Are you two dating?” She asked bluntly.

“We’re… we’re friends.” 

“He kisses you every time he sees you.” Abby pointed out. “And you spend more time with him and Chris than you do with your roommates.” 

“He’s doing it on his own,” Buck defended. “I’m just helping him out.” 

“By being free childcare?” 

“By hanging out with my friend .” 

“Buck,” Abby laughed, not unkindly he was sure but it still made something tingle up his spine in frustration. Thankfully, after Christmas, Hen had sort of let it lie. Everytime he mentioned Eddie she would make a face he pretended not to catch but she didn’t bother bringing it back up again. “He’s using you.” 

“How is that any different to what you’re doing?” 

Abby flinched back as though burned, blinking at him as though she had never seen him before. “What does that mean?”
“That means… Abby, you only called me because you wanted to sleep with me.” 

“That’s not true.” She insisted. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

“And I’ve… I’ve let that slide, you know? Because you’re my friend .” Buck shook his head with a little laugh. “Why can’t you wrap your head around me and Eddie doing the same thing?” 

“Because it’s not the same thing.” She insisted. “Buck, he’s married. You’re… well, you’re not exactly the…” 

“Not exactly the what ?” 

“The…” Abby pursed her lips. “You’re not the monogamous type.” 

Buck screwed up his face and opened his mouth to counter her, but a tickle in the back of his throat had him coughing again into his elbow. Abby didn’t bother waiting before speaking again. “Eddie has a kid, Buck. He’s not just… going to be able to play around with you forever.” 

“Why do people keep thinking that we’re both not adults that can make our own decisions?” Buck wondered loudly, scoffing and pushing away from the table. “Abby, I get it, okay? You’re… I don’t know. You don’t like him. He doesn’t like you. You’re both my friends.” 

“I don’t dislike Eddie.” She argued softly. 

“The difference is that only one of you is trying to ruin my friendship with the other.” 

“I’m not trying to ruin your friendship with him, either.” She shook her head. “You’re putting words into my mouth.” 

He groaned and tossed his head forward to land on his fist. “Look, can’t you just… accept it?” He asked with a shrug. “If I get hurt at the end of it then that’s on me, okay? It’s not on anyone else.” 

“You’re going to have to define it sooner or later.” 

“Because you would?” 

Abby blinked again. “What? Define it?” 

“Yeah,” He pointed between the two of them with his coffee cup. “If you and I were a thing. If we… weren’t just friends. Would you define it? Or would you just… let it be what it is?”

“I’d… we’d be dating.” Abby said after a moment of contemplation. “If we were a thing.” 

“You see I don’t… I don’t think that’s true.” 

“Buck.” 

“Abby.” He countered. “I’m not saying you’re a bad person or anything. Just that… you can’t shit on Eddie for doing the same exact thing that you want to do.” 

“Buck,” Abby repeated passionately, reaching across the table to lay a gentle touch on his wrist. “You’re my friend.” 

It sounded… polluted compared to how Hen had said it. You’re my friend , Hen had said like the thought that he imagined anything else was insulting. You’re my friend, said Abby like an afterthought. Like… like if she said it enough maybe she could convince him it was true. Maybe she could convince herself of it. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I am now ,” he said with a contemplative frown. “But that’s not -.” 

“I just don’t think it’s that smart to enter into something with Eddie when you don’t even know what you want.” 

Maybe the difference the entire time was that… that Eddie had been his friend first before he had wandered his way into anything else . Buck had been the one to make the first move but if he had never been interested at all, Eddie would still have been his friend. He still would have invited Buck over for movie nights, still would have let him hang out with Chris, still would have laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories, comforted him after a bad day. They had more in common than attraction and location. He took another sip at his coffee and let his eyes drift to the ceiling and then back down, a tickle in his throat building up to a cough. “I know what I don’t want anymore.” He said with a wrinkle of his nose. “I’m sorry, Abby but this coffee is not good.” 

She laughed, bright and easy - carefree despite their previous conversation. “It’s the special.” 

“God, I know.” He pressed the back of his hand to his lips and pushed the coffee cup to the other side of the table. “Chim’s been getting it for me every single coffee run.” 

“Just got tired of it?” 

“No, it’s just not good .” 

“Then why do you drink it?” Abby asked with a slowly widening smile. 

“I don’t want to be rude .” Just take it and say thank you, his mother had said. Don’t rock the boat, don’t insult anyone. Just take it, say thank you, and complain about it later. They only served the Season Special for the rest of the month, anyway. Buck could hold out until they moved on and then it would be his turn to get the coffee run whenever they had downtime that wasn’t at the station. 

Conversation flowed easier after that, Buck carefully keeping the conversation turned away from anything Eddie related. It was something he was discovering he was rather good at - Hen couldn’t shoot him concerned looks if he just… didn’t bring Eddie up at the station, Abby couldn’t tell him he was making a mistake if she didn’t know just who Buck was texting throughout the afternoon, Connor couldn’t try and lecture him if Buck didn’t tell him whose house he was sleeping at. Buck would adamantly say that he wasn’t keeping Eddie a secret - if anyone asked he would have told. It was just that… he was tired of hearing everyone else’s opinions. 

He walked her to her car and opened her door for her since her hands were full and Buck would swear to anyone that was listening that he was just being nice . He hadn’t thought when buying Abby flowers, he hadn’t thought when opening her door, he hadn’t thought, apparently, their entire friendship because while he knew why, exactly, Abby had first called him he had thought she had let that fire within her die. She gently placed the flowers in her empty cupholder and lingered, carefully studying his face with an expression he wasn’t quite paying attention to. “Thank you.” Abby said carefully. 

“Hmm?” Buck blinked with a confused little smile.

“For spending time with me today.” 

“Oh,” he waved her off. “Anytime, Abby. Really.” 

“Since you and Eddie are just friends…” Her voice lowered, sultry in the afternoon sun, a strand of hair blowing across her nose. Buck barely resisted throwing out a groan. Was everyone incapable of wrapping their heads around -? Abby’s mouth squarely landed on his, her shoes creaking as she stood on her toes. Her lips were soft, supple, flavored, even, of whatever chapstick she had slid into her purse earlier. She kissed him once, twice, and then she pulled back with a sweet little smile, dragging her hand very purposely down his chest. “Maybe we can be just friends too.” 

Mechanically, he stepped back onto the curb with a goodbye he couldn’t even remember stuttering out. “Oh my god ,” he muttered to himself as she drove away, slapping his hand to his forehead and cheeks lighting on fire and heart jumping into his throat. “Eddie was right .” He dropped his face in his hands with a groan. “He’s never going to let me forget it.” 

--

Technically , he didn’t actually have to let Eddie know what had happened. He could have gone to Eddie’s house, let Christopher distract him by going through his class Valentine’s one-by-one again, ate dinner, gone home, and never contacted Abby again. He could have… followed through. Gone to Abby’s house and had sex with her like she so clearly wanted. There didn’t have to be a choice between the two of them and Buck certainly didn’t have to make one. He could be friends with both of them and sleep with both of them and… he couldn’t actually do that. Sex complicated things, sex with two people who also knew each other complicated more things and for some reason Buck couldn’t stop thinking about how Christopher would somehow end up stuck between all of it rather than himself. Buck couldn’t sleep with both Eddie and Abby and he didn’t really want to live without either of them so cutting out one for the other wasn’t… really going to work. 

Things would be so much easier, really, if Buck had someone to talk things over with. He couldn’t talk to Connor about it without somehow having to calculate Connor into the mix too. Wyatt would listen but the man could barely handle his job let alone handle Buck’s bad track record of choosing friendships. It would just be weird to talk to Bobby about it, even if the older man had told Buck more than one time that he could come to him with anything. Chimney would listen, probably. Maybe even give half decent advice, but Buck wasn’t sure if he trusted the man who apparently had made up stories to keep his ex-fiance. He could ask Hen but going to Hen meant admitting that he was still seeing Eddie and…. 

He missed Maddie. 

Buck missed her more and more with each day she was gone. He missed her like he assumed some people missed lost limbs. It was like she was there but whenever he went to reach for her, to smooth his hand over the hurt, he was only met with open air. 

Christopher wandered into his bedroom after dinner, declared he was going to work on a special picture for his art class, and left the two of them alone, both of their phones between the two of them on the kitchen table. Their screens lit up at the same time - Abby’s name flashing on Buck’s screen like a taunt and… “Who’s Bianca Nettles?” 

Eddie flushed, quickly reaching over to press the side button on his screen to clear the notification from sight. “How was your lunch with Abby?” 

Buck wrinkled his nose. “It was…” he waved off a more solid answer. “Is Bianca a special woman in your life, Eddie?” 

“No,” Eddie scowled, a pink dusting his cheeks. “She’s just…” 

Buck raised his brows. 

“A lawyer.” 

He pulled a face, “A lawyer?” Buck remembered the park, the accusations Shannon’s cousin had thrown out in front of Athena. Had she submitted a formal complaint? Said something about… being scared of Eddie of all people? The gentlest man alive? Buck had had to kill a spider for him more than once because Eddie would rather just let them outside and complain that they ended up back in the house. “For… for what? Eddie, is everything okay?” 

Eddie smiled softly, shaking his head with a small, bashful laugh. “Everything’s fine. She’s… a divorce lawyer.” He shrugged like the comment wasn’t meant to have Buck’s heart pounding in his chest. “I’m just… I’m tired of waiting for her to come back, you know? We… I deserve better than that.” 

“You do .” 

 “If she wants to come back for Chris that’s… that’s one thing. But I don’t think there’s going to be any… reconciliation between me and her.” 

“Does she…” Buck stammered with a hard swallow. “Do you know where she is? Now?” 

“No,” Eddie confirmed with an eye roll. “The firm says they’re working on it but…” He shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.” He nudged Buck’s hand where it sat between them, linking their fingers together for just a moment before straightening up. “Chris and I made cupcakes last night. He insisted we save you one.” 

“Oh.” 

Christopher’s voice echoed down the hall, “They're special Valentine’s Day cupcakes!” He announced loudly, his steps shuffling slowly from his room and stopping at Buck’s shoulder. He leaned against his knee, beaming when Buck hoisted him up to sit on his lap, his head nearly smacking into his forehead as he settled. “Daddy burnt half of them.” 

“I did not .” Eddie scoffed. “I can follow a box recipe.” 

“Bisabuela had to help.” 

“She helped decorate. ” 

“You called her because… because you couldn’t make frosting.” 

“Frosting is hard .” Eddie grumbled, ducking behind the refrigerator door with a sheepish smile. Christopher tossed his head back in a laugh, moving his entire body in the process and nearly toppling off of the knee he had perched on. He leaned into the arm Buck had wrapped around his stomach to hold him in place when Eddie straightened back up, a paper plate full of cupcakes in her hand. “Cuál era para Evan?” He pointed between the four - pink tops misshapen at the top with bright red foil cups. They were messy, boxed cake was never as good as from scratch, but nothing in Buck’s entire life had looked as appetizing. 

“That one!” Chris pointed and then groaned when Eddie proceeded to grab the wrong one. “ No ,” he flapped his hand until Eddie placed the platter on the table and slid it closer. “Este!” 

“Este?” Buck knew more Spanish than he understood, really. More phrases that he knew how to use in context than the actual meaning and, since moving to Los Angeles, there hadn’t really been much of a reason for him to use even the Spanish he did know. Still, when Buck pointed at the same misshapen cupcake Chris nearly stuck his finger in and repeated the word Christopher had used, Eddie’s eyes lingered on his face and when Buck looked at him his eyes drifted down to his mouth for a moment before shooting back up with a soft look. “You didn’t have to get me anything.” He spoke to Christopher but he hoped his words hit Eddie the way he had been meaning them to. 

“We… we made them for everyone!” Christopher insisted, patiently waiting for Eddie to peel off a cupcake foil and hand it over to him. 

And Buck had gotten them nothing. It’s for romantic love, Maddie had said. Yet Christopher was a child and Eddie had gotten him a stuffed bear from Cupid and a box of chocolates and they had made cupcakes and, apparently, made Buck one specifically. He didn’t know what to do with the way it made his stomach bubble and so he swiped his finger through the frosting and popped it into his mouth instead. “Thank you,” he decided on instead, hugging Chris around the middle and tugging him closer. He turned his head to cough into his elbow, the frosting stuck in his throat. “Can I have a water?” 

Eddie wordlessly handed him a glass and he took a sip slowly, his heart racing as he tried to figure out what exactly to do next. Maybe they would add it to the list of things they didn’t talk about, or maybe they just weren’t talking about it more because Christopher was between them, chattering about his day at school and the new book he had started reading before bed. “About the whole… cupcake thing -.” Eddie began once Christopher was in bed and they were standing hip to hip on Eddie’s front porch, the chill in the air pausing goosebumps on both of their skin. 

“Abby kissed me.” 

It wasn’t what Buck had meant to say at all but it had come out all the same, directed somewhere towards Eddie’s knuckles instead of his face. He needed to replace the porch light, Buck noted absently, it was flickering every few minutes ominously. The streetlight bounced off the windshield of Buck’s Jeep, moonlight pinging off the paint of Eddie’s truck, and they couldn’t see the stars this close to the city but Buck still tilted his head up to the clouds to count them. “Is that…” Eddie started and then stopped and when Buck merely pursed his lips with a frown, his hand found the skin of Buck’s wrist, tapping there until he finally dropped his gaze to his. “Is that something you wanted to happen?” 

It was hard not to be honest to Eddie. No one had ever really looked at him the way Eddie always did, let alone bothered to phrase the question that way - like if Buck said it wasn’t then that was it. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. “You know it’s not.” The thing was… the thing was that Buck didn’t really know why it wasn’t something he wanted. Him and Eddie weren’t exclusive - they weren’t really anything at all beyond, maybe, friends with benefits. They weren’t a relationship, closer to a… a… a situationship if he had to throw a word into things. 

“She shouldn’t have done that.” Eddie said after taking a moment to frown. 

“It’s… it’s fine.” Buck shrugged and accidentally dislodged Eddie’s fingers from where they had curled around his wrist. “And I mean, hey, you… you were right. She only really wanted to talk to me to sleep with me.” 

“I didn’t really want to be right,” Eddie mumbled. “You know you deserve better than that, right?” 

“It is what it is.” 

“You’re not just someone to… to sleep with and throw away.” Eddie insisted. 

“Well, I’m not exactly marry me material either.” Buck joked lightly, scratching at his neck. “It’s not like we’re not friends now or anything. I think she just…” He waved and cleared his throat. “She got the wrong impression.” 

“Evan, if you didn’t want her to kiss you then she shouldn’t have kissed you.” Eddie said it like it was an important thing for Buck to understand. That, if he didn’t, he would keep saying it over and over again until he did. Like he’d say the same thing to Abby until she apologized. It was the same way he talked about Chris and his parents - Eddie wouldn’t do a thing to stand up for himself, but the moment anyone implied his son couldn’t do anything Eddie would make them apologize. 

That amount of attention, of dedication , was more than Buck expected. Not because Eddie wasn’t good or gentle or dedicated or any number of things but because… well because Buck was Buck . He swallowed past the scratch building in his throat and blinked until he could look at Eddie without wanting to melt into the wood of his porch. “Okay.” His cheeks were flushed, although Buck was completely aware that that was because of the way Eddie always seemed to have the right thing to say and less to do with the conversation. 

“Okay.” Eddie echoed, softly and to the side of his face. Slowly, Buck reached over, wrapped his fingers around the ones Eddie had left hanging between them and held on with a light, easy grip. 

Traffic was always softer at Eddie’s house - he lived far enough away from the main road that there wasn’t a constant background noise of car horns and shouting voices, be it from joy or frustration. His neighbors seemed nice enough, quiet and easily used to Eddie’s odd hours. He had a couple on the left with a newborn and a single woman on his right with a big, puffy mutt of a dog that she sometimes let Christopher play with. They weren’t like the neighbors at the apartment, they didn’t knock loudly at the door if Eddie was up too late or making too much noise. They didn’t join for parties but they wished Christopher a happy birthday when they saw the balloons he had come home with from the park. Buck’s neighbors didn’t like his odd hours, stared at him when he came in like he was doing something more suspicious than trekking in and out in an LAFD uniform with a duffle bag. His neighbors would have been seconds away from calling the police if they caught him lingering outside of the building, head tilted up towards the sky, holding the tips of Eddie’s fingers deftly in his own. 

He breathed in deep, let Abby’s unwanted kiss fall off his shoulders and rolled his head to look towards Eddie instead. He really was beautiful, although Buck was pretty sure Eddie wouldn’t use that word to describe himself. Even with the stubble on his chin and the strength of him. It was something about the way he carried himself, the way he would give up everything for the people he cared about. He wanted to tell Maddie everything about him. He had typed out paragraphs and attached pictures that he’d never send. He’d sent his address on a postcard with a picture of the sunset over the pier, written exactly one sentence on the back - I think I’ve made an actual friend here, Maddie. His name is Eddie and he’s everything - and never sent it, pressed it instead between two pages and proceeded to use it as a bookmark. He wanted to tell everyone about Eddie, but he also wanted to keep him close. Hold onto him for himself just a little bit longer. 

Buck had never really… had anything for himself before. 

Not that Eddie was his. Not that Eddie was even just his. 

You’re not the monogamous type.  

He could be. 

If Eddie… wanted him to be. 

Buck cleared his throat again and then coughed into his elbow when that didn’t seem to help. “Are you okay, man?” Eddie asked with a scrunched up brow. “You’ve been coughing a lot today.” 

“Yeah,” Buck waved the concern off and sucked in a deep breath. “Must be allergies or something.” 

“It’s February.” 

“In California.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Maddie… I used to always make her a special Valentine’s Day card. Like every single year, I’d break out the construction paper and glitter glue and write her the worst poems.” 

Eddie’s concern softened into something gentler. “Yeah?” He prodded and shuffled just a bit closer, his fingers tangling more concretely with Buck’s, palms pressed firmly together rather than loosely held apart. “My parents refused to buy the ones from the store for us to hand out to our class so Adriana and I had to sit at the kitchen table a week before and just… get creative.” 

“I mean, I made my mom them too.” Buck tossed out with a shrug. “But she never really did anything with them.” 

“I think my mom still has all of mine.” Eddie said with a chuckle. “She’d probably break them out if you asked her nice enough.” 

And Buck could imagine doing it - meeting someone with Eddie’s smile and nose and hair color. Offering her his hand with a bashful smile and introducing himself - Evan Buckley, ma’am, I’m dating your son. She would sit him down on the couch and pull out a box of momentos and Eddie would pretend they bothered him until she purposely got a detail wrong with a wink in Buck’s direction and then he’d sit down next to him, an arm around his shoulders and his voice blending in with hers like a symphony. Buck had stopped giving his mother Valentine’s before he stopped giving them to Maddie. He had been eight, held it out to her in all of its terrible glitter glue glory and proudly told her that he came up with the poem himself . She had thanked him, kissed his head and sent him to play with Maddie and his father in the foyer. She had used it as kindling for the fireplace the same night because they had been out of wood and Evan had watched the flames and imagined he could see the sparkles burst in them. “Maddie, uhm,” he swallowed the urge to cough again. “She was… nineteen? And she had just met her husband and she told me very seriously that you didn’t give Valentine’s to your sisters.” 

Eddie wrinkled his nose in insult. “That’s bullshit.” 

“I mean,” He shrugged. “She didn’t do it to be mean or anything. Valentine’s Day is for romantic love.” 

“It’s technically to celebrate Saint Valentine.” Eddie corrected with a little, shit eating grin. “Or at least that’s what I was taught in CCD.” 

“I had friends that did that.” 

“Not you?” 

“No.” Buck snorted. “ No , dad had golf on Sundays and mom had her tennis club meetings.” 

“And what did you have?” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged with a sardonic laugh. “Maddie had dance and voice lessons.” 

“I didn’t ask about Maddie.” 

“I don’t really remember.” He admitted. “I was on the football team in high school.” 

Eddie tilted his head, narrowed his eyes the way he tended to do when he was trying to figure out if Buck was being purposely obtuse. He hummed after a moment, his free hand reaching up between them to smooth a thumb under Buck’s eye. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Evan.” Eddie’s touch was always grounding. It didn’t make his pulse jump the way it used to, not always , but it did something different to it all together. It wasn’t quite like Eddie slowed his anxious thoughts down, so much as he dulled the edges of them. He welcomed Buck’s mouth on his own with a steady breath inwards and exhale against the skin of his cheek and curved his hand around to the back of his head to keep him in place. 

Romantic or platonic , Buck wanted to ask. How do you mean it? Romantic or platonic? Only he didn’t want to voice all of the things they weren’t voicing between them. He didn’t want to take that step and find that there was no ground there to catch him, no harness to keep him from splattering on the pavement. He’d take whatever Eddie was willing to give him, he’d go at his pace and not ask for more than he was handing out. Eddie kissed like he wanted to take his time, like there was no rush to get from kissing on his front porch to shedding clothes and falling into bed. He tasted like the cupcake he had eaten after dinner and like the beer he had been sipping at and a little bit like toothpaste still, somehow. His hand didn’t let go of Buck’s until he was close enough for him to grab onto and he only rested them lightly against the hollow of his throat. His back arched, a little, when Buck’s hand found a home there, the other curling loosely over the wrist of the hand Eddie had buried in the hair on top of his head and it really was the worst time for Buck’s throat to tickle and yet…. 

He turned his head, pushed Eddie carefully far enough back to avoid coughing on him and coughed again. 

And again. 

And again. 

And again . 

“Hey.” Eddie’s hand landed on the back of his neck. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he said with a scratchy throat. “I’m fi-.” Another cough cut him off and this time, when he tried to breathe in, the air caught in his throat and pushed out in a wheeze. Oh , he thought, his mind spiraling with statistics and EMT training and… This isn’t good . Panicking wouldn’t… help the situation even if he could feel it starting to claw at his lungs. Buck grabbed for a sip of something - you couldn’t panic and drink water! Every time Buck had cried so much he couldn’t breathe, Maddie had shoved a glass of water in his hand and rubbed circles in his back until he drank the whole thing and could talk again. Not that this… was the same thing at all. 

“Okay,” Eddie’s hands weren’t Maddie’s. His voice wasn’t hers as well, but they still guided him to sit down on the front step, kneeling down carefully with him. “Okay, just…” It wasn’t the first time Buck had heard Eddie use his no-nonsense-professional voice. He had used it when Chris scraped his elbow or when he was struggling through physical therapy stretches. He had used it to coach a fellow recruit through a difficult, designed to fail test in the Academy. Calm, collected, professional, I know what I’m doing . Buck didn’t have a voice that said that yet. “What’s up?” Eddie kept a hand steady on his chest, another finding his pulse point at his wrist and eyes on his watch as he counted. “Your heart is racing .” He muttered. 

And not in a good way. He wanted to snark but was much too focused on trying to catch the breath that kept being just moments away. 

“Coughing,” Eddie muttered. “Can’t catch your breath?” He checked and Buck nodded even with his heart in his throat. “You’re a little feverish.” Eddie chewed on the inside of his lip and sat back on his haunches. “You said that you thought this was allergies. Could it be something you ate?” 

He shook his head. No , he wanted to argue. Buck was good about that! And his allergies weren’t bad enough for even an accidental ingestion would cause anaphylaxis. He had never been hospitalized for allergies. He would know if he was. Strawberries weren’t even a winter fruit. They were easy enough to avoid and he had diligently avoided them since learning they made his skin break out in hives. “Evan.” Eddie cautioned gently. “I think you need a hospital.” 

He wanted to groan but he could only clamp a hand firmly on Eddie’s wrist and hold him in place. He shut his eyes, chased after another ragged, painful breath, and tilted his head into Eddie’s shoulder. “Okay.” His hand found the back of his head again, even as Eddie shifted to work his phone out of his back pocket. “Okay, this is… it’s going to be okay. Just keep breathing.” 

Eddie pushed in closer, his thumb drawing a curved line into the skin at the bottom of his hairline, his own breaths deliberate and slow and Buck tried to listen, really, to the information Eddie relayed to whoever he was talking to on the other end of the phone. It would be embarrassing, later, when the situation calmed down. The entire thing would be, he just knew it. A firefighter who other rescue units had to be called in to make sure was alright because he couldn’t breathe after making out with his… not-boyfriend on the front porch on Valentine’s Day. And Eddie’s house was in the response radius of the 118 - both Bobby and Chimney were working that night and no matter how much Buck wanted anyone else to respond he also… really wanted Bobby’s authoritative voice telling him what to do. “You’re okay,” Eddie repeated like he did whenever Christopher worked himself up into a fit, only his voice was tinged with something closer to worry. “Just a few more minutes, okay? Try to breathe as much as you can.” 

I’m trying , he wanted to insist, even as tears started to gather at the corners of his eyes and his vision started to go fuzzy. 

Maddie used to sing to him, Buck remembered abruptly. Whenever she was putting him to sleep or whenever he was home sick. She would even do it when she moved out, call him up from Boston and sing softly through the phone. “Shit,” Eddie cursed. “Okay.” Ever so gently he guided him backwards until he could feel the wood planks under his head, his face hovering over the Buck’s like the moon. He squeezed his eyes shut and kept count in his head. “This isn’t how I imagined taking your clothes off today.” He joked wryly, deft fingers undoing the buttons at his throat. “Hey.” He tapped Buck’s cheek until he opened his eyes to look at him, smoothing his thumb over his cheek with a soft, gentle smile. “You’re going to be fine .” Only mortified , really. In the grand scheme of things, Buck had done worse on dates. “I have to elevate your legs, okay? But I’m still right here.” Eddie waited until Buck nodded to show he had registered his words before doing as he said he was going to, back on his knees with strong hands carefully leveraging Buck’s legs until they were resting on one thigh, his other bent down beneath him. Not really the way Buck had assumed he would get Eddie on his knees that night. 

In total it took about five minutes for the paramedics to arrive - thankfully not the 118 - but by the time they did, Buck hadn’t really been all that able to make out anything except the searing pain in his lungs and the feel of Eddie’s hand on his own. It was more than a little embarrassing to have hands he didn’t know shoving a needle into his leg, and a little more embarrassing that it worked but the reaction made him sleepy and the lack of oxygen had them slipping a mask over his face and loading him up into the ambulance anyway. 

Eddie hadn’t gone with him - he hadn’t been able to with Christopher asleep - but it had taken him all of twenty minutes after Buck had gotten a bed in the emergency room to arrive, Buck’s jacket slung over his arm and a relieved smile stretching over his face when he saw Buck sitting up, the scratchy hospital blanket spread over his long legs. “Hey.” Eddie stepped closer, tossed the jacket over Buck’s lap, and glanced quickly at the screen to his left, beeping and keeping track of Buck’s vitals. “You’re alive.” 

“Not funny.” Buck said with another small, little cough - this one, thankfully, much easier to breathe through. 

 “Doctors say what it was, yet?” Eddie asked, his smile still strong on his face but the grip he placed on Buck’s hand - careful of the IV they had placed there just in case but was unused - was tight. 

Buck shrugged, scratched at his cheek and grabbed the ice water a nurse had given him upon arrival. “Where’s Chris?” 

“Pepa swung by.” Eddie admitted with a tilt of his head. “He’s worried about you but I told him you’d be back in the morning to get a big hug.” 

“I’d love a hug.” Buck admitted softly and Eddie sighed before sitting himself down on the free corner of the bed near his hip. “You didn’t have to come.” He muttered after a moment of contemplation. “I’m sorry for… doing this.” He shrugged. 

“For doing what?” Eddie asked, eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “Did you purposely give yourself an allergic reaction?” 

Buck shrugged again, eyes firm on a loose strand of string on the blanket. He pulled at it with long fingers and tried to swallow past the shame. “No, but…” He sighed and tilted his head back against the pillow. “The doctor said it was… prolonged exposure.” 

Eddie scrunched his face. “To what?” 

“Strawberries.” Buck admitted with red cheeks. 

“Those…” Eddie started and then stopped, groaning and dragging a long suffering hand down his face. It was a familiar expression. Buck’s parents had worn it whenever he ended up in the hospital too. “The cupcakes.” 

“Probably something else too.” Buck said, sinking further back into the pillows. “It’s been growing for a while I just… I was stupid. I thought it was just a cold or allergies or something.” 

“Well, it was allergies.” Eddie sardonically scoffed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“About what?” 

“About…” He waved his hand to encompass the hospital room. “About your allergies , Evan. I would have avoided it if I had known.” 

“I didn’t think…” He had never really had to tell anyone about it before. Beyond no one asking, strawberries were just usually easy enough to ignore. “I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t need you to be sorry.” Eddie insisted, squeezing the hand he had claimed in his own. “I just need you to be okay.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re in a hospital bed, kid.” Said a voice from the doorway, authoritative and soft and something that both settled the fizzing in Buck’s stomach and had his embarrassment tipping his head back against the pillow with a moan, his hand tearing itself out of Eddie’s to instead press against his eyes. “You’re not fine .” Bobby said it with a smile, though, even if it was tinged with a hint of worry around his eyes. He stopped by the foot of the bed, glancing at Eddie with curiosity on his face. “The hospital called. Said you might need a ride home.” 

Buck wanted the hospital bed to eat him whole. “Clearly.” He mumbled into the skin of his palms. 

“I guess they were wrong.” Bobby finished with a chuckle. 

It was heartening that he had shown up at all, though. “Thanks for… coming.” He mumbled. 

Bobby’s eyes softened, his hand clamping down on Buck’s ankle through the fabric of his blanket. “Course, Buck.” He turned to Eddie, then, stopping himself from saying anything more with a distraction. “I’m Bobby Nash. Buck’s captain.” 

Eddie’s face changed, quickly filtering into the professional expression he always threw towards Malcolm or any of the other instructors at the Academy. He wiped his hand on his pants and stood to his full height, just a bit shorter than Bobby and just as wide in the shoulders. “Eddie Diaz, sir.” 

They clasped strong in the middle, sized each other up before Bobby let go first, gestured for Eddie to sit back down and took the empty seat by the side. “Don’t you…” Buck cleared his throat again. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” 

Bobby shook his head. “No. I thought I’d have a chat with your doctor, see what accommodations we have to make at work.” 

“No,” Buck shook his head with a flush. “No, you don’t… you don’t need to make any accommodations.” 

Bobby fixed him with a look. “We’re at least keeping an epi-pen for you at the station. Diaz,” Eddie’s head shot up from where he had ducked it to hide a smile as he scratched at his nose. “You’re at the Academy, right?” 

“Well… sort of.” Eddie said with a shrug. 

“He’s finished all the training.” Buck bragged, just a little, for him. 

Fondly, Eddie nudged his knee and Buck nudged him back. “My certification test is scheduled for the summer.” 

“I know you have a few stations scouting you out.” Bobby hummed and sat back in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “After how you responded today, I might have to toss the 118 into the mix.” 

“Oh,” Eddie blinked. “Uhm, thank you, sir.” 

“Wait, really?” Buck asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly. His mind floated with scenarios, things that could or couldn’t be done if they ended up working together. Would they be on the same shift? Would that work with Christopher’s schedule or would they have to be on different shifts? Eddie wasn’t going for paramedic but, if he did, would that mean that he’d be working side-by-side with Buck or with someone else? Would they even work well together? “We could work together?”

If they worked together could they… be together? 

Bobby smiled indulgently and reached out, patting Buck’s shoulder softly. “ You ,” he said pointedly, teasingly. “Have to make it through your probationary year in one piece for anything like that to even happen.” 

“Besides,” Eddie said with a smirk. “I might not want to work with you.” 

Buck’s cheeks flared up and he shoved Eddie’s shoulder lightly. “Jerk.” 

He chuckled, shoving back and letting his hand linger for a moment to brush over Buck’s jaw. “Why don’t you get some rest, Evan? I’ve heard nearly dying can really take it out of you.” 

He would know, wouldn’t he? Two bullet wounds that had torn into his shoulder and side and knocked him out of commission - left him with scars that Buck had pressed his mouth to. “I’m okay.” Buck leaned back, though, resting his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes for only a moment. 

No one had ever…. 

He didn’t want to wake up and realize it hadn’t been real. 

“Okay.” Eddie confirmed with a soft nod, reaching up to brush a hand through his hair and shifting so that he was more comfortably on the bed. “Want to tell us why you didn’t tell anyone you were allergic to strawberries ?” 

“Oh my god,” Buck said with a groan. “Shut up.” 

--

Bobby, thankfully, didn’t bring it up in front of the rest of the team. The it being the hospital visit or the epi-pen Buck kept on his person at all times now. He had nodded approvingly at the paper Buck had provided him for it - the prescribing doctor, the expiration date, the information needing to be added to his official paperwork just in case . He had carefully made two fruit salads, though. One with little cut up strawberries and one without, taking care to even wash the knife and cutting board between uses and pointedly shoving Buck a bowl of the safe one when no one else was looking. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was the hospital visit or the way Buck didn’t bring it up, or something that Bobby had seen while he was creating light chatter between him and Eddie, but Bobby said nothing about it. 

Buck could confidently say that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

In… more than one aspect of his life. 

Buck had very clearly decided not to spend time alone with Abby, something uncomfortable swirling in his gut every time Carla left them in a room with only the other for company. He kept a good distance between their bodies, determined to keep from giving her the wrong impression again. 

Eddie told him he was giving her more grace than she deserved. 

Wyatt had officially announced that he was moving out in Spring, and Tim had had an absolute breakdown over it. How are we going to afford rent, man? He had asked. 

When was the last time you even covered your share of rent, Tim? Wyatt had thrown in his face and Buck had wanted to jump out of the window to avoid the entire thing. 

This isn’t your problem , Eddie had said after complaining that the divorce lawyers hadn’t had much luck getting in contact with Shannon, even when going through her family. At least Chris has been approved for aid, finally. But that aid was set to retire by summer, nice as she was. 

Maddie still wasn’t answering and when Buck had last asked his parents about it they had told him not to worry. You worry too much about her, Evan, really. His mother had said. Your sister is a grown woman, she’ll talk to you when she wants to. Except it didn’t feel right. It hadn’t felt right when she moved to Boston and it hadn’t felt right when she married Doug and it just got worse and worse the longer she went without talking to him. Whether it was the anger that mixed with hurt or the worry that had Buck calling his parents in the first place after his brief hospital stay, though, Buck couldn’t say. 

I don’t like him , Connor had said the last time Eddie had dropped him off at the apartment. 

I didn’t ask, Buck had barely resisted screaming at him and had, instead, rolled his eyes and locked his bedroom door. 

“You good, kid?” Bobby settled down on the couch beside him as he asked, a careful cushion between the two of them and a cracker offered out in offering. He shook his head and muttered a thank you , straightening up from where he had been slumped down to rub at his forehead. It wasn’t just them on the shift, the firehouse had a good twenty firefighters at a time bustling about it, but it was just the two of them out of Bobby’s core-crew as Thayer called it. Hen had a family matter to attend to and Chimney a doctor’s appointment and it felt weird working without them, even if Buck had done it before. Bobby sighed and smacked his lips together. “You seem stressed out.” 

Earlier, they had delivered several babies and Buck had been in a good mood. 

Earlier, he had only a kiss goodbye from Eddie at the door and a tight hug from Christopher filling his head. 

>> Are you okay?

He had sent it to Maddie with a bite of his lip and butterflies in his stomach, an olive branch for her to grab onto if she wanted it, the lack of acknowledgement on his birthday and the unanswered Merry Christmas message stinging the back of his throat despite his unfounded hope that she would respond this time. 

If he just kept trying . 

Kept reminding her… of something. Of him? That she wasn’t alone? He didn’t know what he was doing, honestly, besides dragging his already bloody skin on the pavement. If it hurt when she didn’t answer then at least it meant that she wasn’t a figment of his overactive imagination. 

It had been five hours. 

The message didn’t even have its typical, somewhat comforting Read listed next to it. “It’s just been… a long…” Month. Day. Life. Although, Buck supposed that was awfully dramatic for twenty-six. He hadn’t even lived that long, hadn’t gone to war like Eddie, hadn’t lost a family like Bobby, hadn’t got stabbed through the skull with a piece of rebar like Chim, hadn’t found the love of his life like Hen. “I’m okay, Bobby.” He said with a lazy, barely there smile in the Captain’s direction. 

Bobby frowned. Clearly, Buck’s attempt to convince him wasn’t nearly as convincing as Buck’s parents had led him to believe. “Everything okay with your friend?” He asked lightly. “Eddie.” He clarified. “Although, I think you’ve mentioned other friends?” 

Buck was pretty sure Eddie was his only friend at this point. He shrugged and toyed with a hangnail. “Yeah, he’s… he’s fine. Chris finally has a home health aid but she’s… retiring at the end of spring so…” He shrugged. “It’s some delayed stress for them.” 

“And for you.” Bobby observed. 

Buck snorted. “It’s not… I’m not his dad or anything.”

“No, but you spend a lot of time with him, don’t you?” 

“I help Eddie out.” He fixed Bobby with a funny look out of the corner of the eye. “It’s not like it’s a chore to hang out with Chris.” 

“I’m not saying it is.” Bobby defended softly. “Just that being that close to things… It can make the situation stressful for you too.” 

“It’s fine.” He mumbled. 

Bobby’s eyes swept over him again. “What about Abby Clark? From dispatch?” 

“What about her?” 

“Well, you two are pretty close, right?” 

Buck winced. “That’s… complicated.” 

“How’s it complicated?” 

“Why do you want to know so bad?” He asked around a laugh. “Seriously, what’s going on?” 

It was Bobby’s turn to shrug, an innocent curiosity on his face. “Chim and Hen share a lot about their lives with us.” He said after a moment. “You tend to hold your cards closer to your chest.” 

“I think Chim would say that you’re lucky to get me to shut up.” 

“I think Chim,” Bobby said pointedly. “Is just teasing you.” 

And he was, Buck knew he was, just like he knew Bobby wasn’t entirely wrong on his observation either. He just didn’t really see the point in… sharing things with the rest of them all the time. Why give himself up to people that were going to inevitably find a reason to ditch him too? “Abby’s fine.” He tossed between the two of them, hoping the information would be enough to keep Bobby from prying back further. “I think, anyway. Her mom’s sick and that’s… messing with her a lot probably but, I don’t know, she’ll be fine… I hope.” 

“Her mom’s sick…” Bobby’s eyes trailed to the ceiling. “Eddie’s son has cerebral palsy.” 

“Yeah, I keep telling them they have more in common then they think they do too.” Buck rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “I think they’re just convinced they have to hate each other.” 

“They hate each other?” 

He snorted. “I don’t know what is going on with them, honestly.” Buck was beginning to think that he didn’t understand much of anything anymore. “Abby’s convinced Eddie’s using me, Eddie’s convinced Abby only wants to sleep with me and, like, only one of them really seems correct about the other.” 

Bobby nodded like he understood. “Eddie didn’t seem like the type to be using you.” 

“He’s the one that’s right.” 

“Abby just… wants to sleep with you?” 

“I don’t know, really.” Buck said quickly. “She kissed me? Which was… kind of weird?” 

“Why is it weird?” 

“Well, I didn’t… really want her to kiss me?” 

Bobby frowned. “I see.” 

“But I also kind of… I would have, you know? If… if Eddie hadn’t…” Been around. Been a thing . Kissed him first. Slept with him. Ruined Buck’s ability to perceive absolutely anyone else. “Gotten in my head about it.” 

“What did he get in your head about?” 

“Well just…” He rubbed the back of his neck and chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Abby’s like, forty-six, right?” 

“Right.” 

“And I’m… twenty -six.” 

“That’s a pretty big age gap.” Bobby observed patiently. 

“And I guess he thinks the whole… contacting me thing was weird too?” Buck shrugged. “I don’t know, I told him it wasn’t all that different from Tinder and… then I had to explain what Tinder was.” He hadn’t, actually, but with the way Bobby was looking at him, Buck had a feeling he was about to have to. “It’s a… a hook-up app.” 

“I know what Tinder is, Buck.” Bobby said with a laugh. “Why does Eddie think the way Abby reached out to you is weird?” 

“Well, I don’t…” He trailed off. “I don’t want to get her in trouble.” It’s illegal. That was what the internet said, anyway. Or at the least it was ethically… not exactly right. “She could, uhm… probably lose her job over it.” 

Bobby frowned. “Buck.” He started and then stopped, cautiously watching him even as he huddled further into the couch. 

“If I tell you, you’re going to have to report her.” Buck supplied after a moment. “And she doesn’t… deserve that. She’s good at her job and… it didn’t harm anyone.” 

“It didn’t harm you?” 

“No.” He scoffed with a shake of his head. “ No ,” he insisted. “Abby never hurt me.”

Except it didn’t feel entirely true. The way she had gotten his number hadn’t hurt him and her friendship hadn’t hurt him and her kiss had made him feel sick but it hadn’t actually done anything to him. “Anyway, it’s kind of funny, really. But uhm. Eddie doesn’t really like her but Christopher loves her. He’s convinced the two of them are good friends.” 

“But they’re not?” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged again. “Apparently, it’s complicated.” He laughed. “Do you ever just feel like if everything slowed down for like, ten minutes, you’d be able to figure it all out?” 

Bobby’s ankles crossed on the carpet a cushion’s space between Buck’s. “I think you just have to take that ten minutes, then, Buck.” 

“My sister hasn’t talked to me in three years.” He blurted out without thinking. 

Bobby blinked and then settled more firmly into the seat. “You never… mentioned having a sister.” 

“Maddie.” Buck said and tightened the arms around his chest with a frown. “She’s my older sister.” 

“By how much?” 

“Nine years.”
“That’s a pretty big age gap.” Buck nodded in agreement and Bobby carefully twisted to look at him. “You two were close?” 

“Yeah.” He whispered and something inside of him cracked. He bit his lip to keep it at bay, blinking down at his watch with a frown. “I don’t… I’m worried about her.” 

“I can imagine.” Bobby reached for him but his hand landed on the couch beside his shoulder instead of on it. Buck almost wished the grip had connected. Settled. “It’s been three years?”

“Yeah, uhm,” he swallowed. “Usually, she’ll… read my messages but, like, not answer? But she didn’t this time and… I don’t know. It’s dumb but it just… it doesn’t feel right.” 

“I think,” Bobby said slowly. “It’s okay to trust your gut. You could call for a wellness check. Ask Athena to stop by?” 

“She lives in Boston.” Buck said with a small smile. He could imagine it, too. Athena knocking on Maddie and Doug’s door and dragging his sister away to safety. Although he wasn’t… entirely sure if Doug was unsafe or if it was his own mind simply framing things that way. “Unless you think Athena would jump on a plane for that.” 

“You could call BPD.” Bobby advised. “Ask them to do it.” 

“I don’t know where she lives.” He admitted softly. “Uhm, her and her husband. They moved after I left. I… I send stuff to the hospital she works at.” 

“She works at a hospital?” 

“Yeah, she’s an ER nurse.” 

“Have you thought about contacting the hospital she works at?” Bobby offered. “They might not be able to do much for you but they might be able to confirm she still works there.” 

The thought of it just… made Buck feel more terrible about the entire thing. “Her husband works at the same hospital.” He said and shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t… want to get her in trouble.” With the hospital. With Doug. With… anyone really. He never wanted to get Maddie in trouble. 

Bobby frowned, though, and squinted sideways at him. “Is there reason to be worried about that?” 

“I’m not… sure. Like… Like Doug’s a nice guy! It’s just a vibe.” 

“A vibe?” 

“A feeling. A… he didn’t really like it when Maddie would do something with me? Like he never got in the way or anything but he always just… did it with us.” 

“He didn’t let you two do anything alone?” 

“Not really.” Buck mumbled. “I used to go stay with them in Boston during vacations and he got really mad when….” He trailed off, scratched at his cheek and shook his head. It wasn’t exactly a good memory. Coming out had been difficult, and he had never really told his parents but he had told Maddie and cried to Maddie and she had bundled him up in her fluffiest blanket and curled herself around him in her bed and Doug had gotten home and thrown a fit until he realized Buck wasn’t actually sleeping. There had been another time, when Buck had been sixteen and surly and just gotten his license. The first place he had even driven on his own was to visit Maddie, eager to show off his new skill, but he had clipped Doug’s bumper when parking and left the smallest ding in the paint. Maddie hadn’t been home yet and he had considered Doug a friend, maybe. Someone he had known since he was nine, definitely. Doug had shoved him into the wall and apologized profusely a few minutes later - this is just what boys do, right? Doug had laughed with a gentle cuff of his knuckles against Buck’s shoulder. Maddie doesn’t need to know about it. “I’ll, uh… I’ll try to call her later, I guess.” 

“Buck…” Bobby began and stopped as the bell rang loudly through the station. They simultaneously jumped to their feet and rushed out, Buck’s uneasy feeling quickly disappearing into the haze of the job. 

--

Buck had a drink dripping down his face and a hurt angry woman accusing him of something he had never done. Tim was chortling, Connor was shoving napkins into his hand and Eddie… Eddie looked two seconds away from jumping over the bar with a set to his jaw that Buck couldn’t say he had ever really seen before. “Hey,” Eddie didn’t jump over the bar, but he did lean quite a ways across it, reaching over and grabbing Buck’s wrist to pull him closer, only stopping when the wood pressed into his side as he tried to blink the sting of the alcohol that had handed in his eyes away. “We should wash that out.” 

“What the fuck. ” Buck flapped his hands in frustration. 

  Connor nearly smacked his face trying to dab off his dripping chin. “Let me get your eyes -.” 

“Do not -!” Eddie started. 

Buck ducked under his arm. “Water only!” 

He supposed he should be thankful, really, even as his eyes stung and he tilted his head back to try and drip some water into them, that all the woman had thrown at him was a drink. His confusion had settled into something closer to worry, though, swirling deep in his gut at her yelled out reason why . 

Buck had slept with a lot of people over the years. He wasn’t all that ashamed of it even if sometimes he thought that he should be. He had never led someone to believe that he was looking for anything else and he certainly had never chatted up more than one woman at once. Not that it seemed to matter, though. Not to the woman that had just thrown a drink in his face or the woman that had marched into the firehouse and slapped him in the face and not to any of his coworkers that he had thought were his friends, really. Clearly, Buck had apparently made a name for himself that he wasn’t even aware of and that name centered somewhere around untrustworthy.  

He scowled and grabbed for more paper towels, the employee bathroom’s door swinging open and shut, the lock quickly engaging. “Can you help?” He asked Eddie miserably - getting the angle to flush out your own eyes was hard and Buck was pretty sure he had spilled more water on his shirt and the floor tiles than he had his target. 

Eddie chuckled, carefully stepped over to him and gripped at his shirt to tug him away from the puddle he had managed to amass. “Come here.” He waited until Buck had bent his knees enough for him to get a good angle. “At least the drink didn’t have any strawberries in it.” 

“Shut up .” Buck groaned and squeezed his eyes shut when Eddie tapped his chin twice, a nonverbal sign that he couldn’t explain to anyone how it came to be. One tap meant I’m here , two taps meant you’re good , three taps meant there’s a problem. They didn’t use the three taps all that often. 

Eddie waited for him to tilt his chin down, searched his eyes for a moment before deeming him good enough to survive, and leaned himself back against the bathroom counter, biceps bulging across his chest. “Want to tell me what that was about?” He nodded to the door as though Buck could forget having a drink thrown in his face by a woman he had never met. 

“I don’t know .” He muttered irritably. 

“Okay.” Eddie mumbled, his eyes following Buck’s every movement in a way that made him feel so incredibly… seen. “Want to tell me what she thinks it was about? Because, I’ve got to tell you man, people don’t just throw drinks in guy’s faces for no reason.” 

“I don’t…” Buck rubbed at the back of his head and pushed out a harsh, angry breath. “I didn’t do anything!” 

“Buck -.” 

“I swear! ” 

“Buck.” 

“I didn’t… I don’t even know her!” 

“ Evan. ” He clamped his mouth shut and blinked around the burning in his eyes. He hoped he could just pretend that it was still from the alcohol that had been thrown in his face and not the frustrated, confused humiliation swirling in his gut. Eddie squished his lips into a thin line and dropped his arms, shifted his feet and sighed. “I believe you didn’t know her, okay? I just… I need you to back up a little, okay? Because all I saw was you hanging out with your friends and then this woman throwing a drink in your face.” 

He was so careful with him, with the way he asked things of Buck and broke things down without being accusatory. And Buck hadn’t realized how worried he had been about whether Eddie believed him or not until he was saying that he did . He dropped his shoulders and shuffled closer, relief spreading down his back when Eddie only opened out his arms a little at his side and let him fold himself forward, the top of his head pressed into the point of Eddie’s collarbone. “This has been happening all week .” He whined and reached between them to squeeze at his nose. 

Eddie’s hand closed on his wrist and tugged his hand away. “Stop that.” He chided softly, his voice a rumble through his chest, his other hand drawing a soothing line down the back of Buck’s arm. “The woman at the station?” 

“She just… walked in and slapped me.” Buck groaned, the imprint of her hand on his cheek had been gone after only a few minutes but he could still feel the sting if he shut his eyes “Said that I led her on or something?” 

“And you didn’t know her either?” Eddie asked softly. 

“I didn’t -!” Buck nearly pulled back to insist but Eddie only tugged him closer with a stern look. 

“I know, Evan, I believe you.” Eddie repeated. “I’m just trying to work it all out, okay?” 

“I wouldn’t do that.” 

“Yeah, because you’re not an asshole.” Eddie agreed. 

“No, I…” Buck swallowed. “I wouldn’t do that to you .” 

Eddie blinked, eyes scrunching like they always did when he was confused, but the tips of his ears reddening at the implication. “Oh. You…?” 

“I haven’t…” Buck bit the inside of his bottom lip and searched Eddie’s eyes for some sort of… confirmation. “Not with anyone else.” 

“Oh.” Eddie whispered, the expression puffing out of his lips like Buck had knocked the wind out of him. 

“And I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t do that to them either, of - of course.” He stuttered quickly, a blush forming hot on his cheeks. “I’m… I’m not…” 

“An asshole?” Eddie tossed out with a soft little smirk. 

“No one believes me.” 

Eddie’s eyes softened, as they usually did whenever Buck said something particularly… dumb? Slow? “Not no one.” 

Because Eddie had said it twice already, hadn’t he? I believe you . “Not no one.” Buck mumbled. 

Buck had been in tense rescues, he had climbed mountains and gone swimming during storms, and climbed up tall cranes during his stints in construction work. He had done, objectively, terrifying things before. Every single day he helped people through the most terrifying moments of their lives. He had slept in his car on the side of a road in a country he didn’t speak more than the most rudimentary of the native language. He had packed up all of his favorite clothes with scrapes on his face and taken Maddie’s Jeep with only two hundred dollars in his bank account and… run away. 

And nothing felt as terrifying, or had his heart pounding as quickly, as staring into Eddie’s eyes in the bathroom of his old job. 

This had the potential to destroy him, didn’t it? 

He was being reckless, wasn’t he? Throwing all of his heart at Eddie and begging him to catch it. Connor had warned him against it, Hen had told him not to get hurt but Eddie had… Eddie would never…. “I haven’t either.” Eddie said in a rush, as though the words were something he had to get out before they choked him. 

“You haven’t?” 

“Not a person.” 

It felt a little ridiculous, to feel the grin starting to spread through his chest, something like happiness lighting him on fire from the inside. “Only me?” He asked with a silly little bashful grin. 

Eddie matched it with his own, his cheeks softly pink. “Only you.” 

Eddie caught him easily when Buck surged forward, cradled his chin in his hands and kissed him hard. He pressed just as close, quickly turned the kiss into something open mouthed and dirty. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to suck you off at work, right?” Buck asked into his mouth, breathless by the confession and Eddie’s hands under his shirt, hot and familiar and the only thing Buck wanted to feel for the rest of his life. 

“The door’s locked.” Eddie mumbled. 

Buck smirked. 

Well. 

If the door was locked. 

--

Buck woke up at three fifty six in the morning, his phone vibrating loudly on the pillow beside his ear and Eddie plastered heavy and comfortable against his back. He groaned, fumbled for his phone with his eyes squeezed shut and hoped to god it wasn’t Bobby calling him in when he had been up all night doing some rather unsavory things after following Eddie home after his shift. He smooshed his face harder into the fabric of the pillow and squinted at his screen. Eddie shifted against his back, pressed a dry kiss to his spine and rolled away, throwing his arm lazily over his eyes, his bare chest rising up and down as his breathing started to even out. 

It wasn’t Bobby. It wasn’t a saved number at all. Buck frowned and accepted it even when something told him he shouldn’t. 508 , he thought absently. That was… Massachusetts wasn’t it? “‘Llo?” He cleared his throat. “Go for Buck.” 

“Evan?” It was funny, really, Buck didn’t have this particular voice memorized. He couldn’t tell anyone what they sounded like and yet, the moment he heard it, he placed it and he was sitting up in Eddie’s bed almost frantically. 

“Doug?” 

Eddie jumped, his arm dropping from where it was covering his eyes and his eyebrows pulling down in concerned confusion. 

Doug breathed out, sharp and focused. “Good, okay. Listen, Evan -.” 

“Is Maddie okay?” 

“That’s why I’m calling.” Doug said quickly. “Maddie’s missing.”

Buck blinked, shooting to his feet and beginning to pace across the carpet. “What… what do you mean missing?” 

“I got home from work last night,” Doug explained impatiently. “And she wasn’t home. All of her things are still here besides her wallet.” 

“Her car?” 

“She gave that to you , remember.” Doug snarked. 

Right. “Like six years ago.” Buck scoffed. “What… have you called the police? F-filed a report?” 

“I don’t want to cause any panic.” Doug said authoritatively, like he had when Buck was fourteen and asked Maddie to come to his football game. “You just let me know if she contacts you, okay?” 

“You just told me my sister is missing , Doug.” Buck stopped and stared at a scuff on Eddie’s wall. He knew Maddie’s face as well as his own, dreamt of her on bad days and good days and just… normal days. When she smiled at him he had always felt like everything was better in the world. “I don’t… you should call the police .” 

“Evan.” Doug snorted. “You haven’t talked to your sister in three years. Do you really think you know her as well as you once had?” 

It was cold in his chest, where it had once been warm at the memory of Maddie. His eyes burned with tears and his throat constricted with a familiar frustration. “You’re right.” He admitted with a set to his jaw. “I’ll… I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” 

“That’s all I ask.” 

“You’ll… you’ll do the same, right?” 

“I have to get to work.” 

“Doug?” 

The phone clicked off. 

He stared at the wall. Maddie could be anywhere. Bleeding out. Suffering. It was worse than when she was in Boston, his messages unanswered. At least then he had known where she was. The unknown location was… harrowing. “Evan?” Eddie called softly from the bed, the bed springs creaking as he pushed himself up to sit. “What’s going on?” 

“Maddie’s missing.” Buck supplied hollowly. “That was her, uh… husband." He cleared his throat and mused a hand through his messy curls, looking at Eddie through glassy eyes. "She’s missing.”