Chapter Text
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“You’re not certain when you feel
Hurt yet violent when you deal
With how the world drags along
You’re not alone
And nothing good was ever free
No one gets it, no one sees
So here you stand, beloved freak
You’re not alone...
Sometimes we get so tired and weak
We love the sky and leave our feet
You’re not alone...
People lie and people steal
They misinterpret how you feel
And so we doubt and we conceal
You’re not alone
When we’re gone we will remain
So here you stand, beloved freak...”
~Beloved Freak - Garbage
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April 10, 1999 - 12:34PM - Itasca State Park, Minnesota
Bobby follows the markings he’d left on the trees, the boy looking every which way in equal parts awe and fear. He holds onto Bobby with nails that were sharp and misshapen, but luckily he’s wearing long sleeves, since he had removed his jacket to drape over Evan’s naked little body. It is spring so it’s still cold, and thankfully most of the snow had melted. Also, that’s probably why the boy is so thin, because very few people ever visited the park when there was snow on the ground; it was too dangerous. The man hopes he hadn’t been forced to eat raw meat from a kill made by the wolf. He shudders to think of it, and decides to put it out of his mind.
When he gets to camp, it seemed his brother had already started a fire and was cooking something. It was likely some of the meat he had brought, since they weren’t allowed to hunt in the park. They had rifles, sure, but it was for protection against wolves, or black bears, even if its brown bears that are more likely to attack.
“You were gone so long, I thought you’d gotten lost,” his brother is saying as he comes out of the tent. He freezes as he’s straightening, and he’s taller than Bobby at 6’5 and he hears Evan start to growl in his arms as he spots him. “What the hell? Where’d you find a kid?” He steps toward them and Bobby feels the moment Evan shifts and snarls defensively at his brother. “What the fuck, Bobby! Put that thing down!”
Bobby is trying to shush Evan but his head lifts angrily at that. “He’s not a thing,” he snaps. “He’s a little boy and he needs help!”
“He’s a shifter Bobby. Their kind are dangerous!”
He shakes his head. “He’s not dangerous. Evan is just scared.”
“Jesus, you named it?” He frowns. “You’re not thinking of keeping it, are you?”
Bobby and his brother have fought before, it’s hard not to when they were two rowdy boys growing up with only two years apart. However, at the moment he’s so angry with the man that he could literally see himself reaching over and punching him. “Evan is not an it! He told me his name, and I’m certainly not leaving him here,” he tells him firmly.
“Yes, you are. That thing isn’t coming inside my truck.”
“Then I guess I’m hitchhiking back to St. Paul,” Bobby tells him, grabbing his pack and pulling it onto one shoulder.
“That’s a three day walk, Bobby,” the man says in shock. “I know you feel guilty over your family’s death, but that’s no reason to take that thing in!”
Bobby feels his anger boil up to the surface as the man mentions his family, his wife and his two beloved children. “You’re lucky I have Evan in my arms, or I’d punch you in the face right now,” he tells him angrily. As if sensing his anger, the rumble of a growl starts in the back of Evan’s throat again, and decides that it’s best if he and his brother go their separate ways. He knew he could walk back to the city, at least until he reached a main interstate. That would take him at least half a day, or a day, to get there.
“Bobby!” the other man yells after him, but Bobby just continues walking out of their campsite and toward the path that would lead to the parking area. Maybe he could hitch a ride from someone going relatively in the same direction as him. He’s in luck as he sees a car he’d spotted earlier when they arrived, that had Anoka on the license plate, which was a county in St. Paul. They’d looked like they had been getting ready to leave, and sure enough the elderly but still spry looking couple were getting in their car.
While they look a bit wary of him as he approaches and asks for a ride, but its when they spot Buck that their demeanor changes. Evan stares at them curiously, head tilted curiously. He’d shifted back to a human on the walk to the parking area. Now he whines and Bobby is surprised when he hears a small ‘woof’ sound from the man and a what can only be a purr from the woman.
Bobby realizes all at once that the couple are shifters, since he knows they’re able to identify each other. He’s not sure if its from scent or some other special sense they possess, but it works in their favor then. When they learn of the situation, they’re all to happy to give them a ride back to St. Paul, although they’ll have to squeeze in the backseat with their camping equipment that they’ve crammed into the back of their station wagon, but also takes up most of the back seat.
They manage to make it work and soon they’re on their way back to St. Paul. When they arrive, the couple refuses any gas money from Bobby, stating that his decision to willingly take on one of theirs is thanks enough. It’s nice to meet shifters their age, since its rare for their kind to make it to old age.
“There are more of us than you realize, dear,” the woman tells him. “We’ve just gotten better at hiding, which is sadly a necessity when the entire world hates you.”
Bobby wishes it wasn’t like that. He wishes that he could promise that Buck would have a good childhood from that moment onward, but he knows its a pipe dream. The world doesn’t accept people like Evan, sees them as unnatural and even those that aren’t hateful outright, are still indifferent to their situations and circumstances. While the world is changing constantly and one day they might be accepted by most people, it’s a change that will take years, possibly decades.
He gets their contact information before they part ways, even if they tell him that they’re soon planning on moving to New York at the start of summer. That there is a larger number of shifters there, and their son is also there. Bobby still insists, since he wants to be able to turn to someone that knows what it feels like to grow up as a shifter he can rely on. They happily agree, already enamored with little Evan.
He make the necessary calls to CPS as soon as he gets inside his house, the empty one bedroom feeling more alive than it ever did when he had moved there four months prior. Evan is moving around the apartment, sometimes on all fours and other times on two legs, as he jumps on his single bed. As he hears someone pick up on the other side of the line, he thinks that he needs to get a bed for Evan.
Bobby probably needs to move altogether.
It’s ridiculous how easy it is to adopt Evan, so much so that Bobby’s almost angry. They all but beg him to come over to sign the papers to formally adopt him. There’s no mention of any checks, either of his house or his background. They don’t mention trying to find his family, not that anyone would report him missing. He was purposefully abandoned at the state park, of that Bobby has no doubt.
After he agrees to come in the next day with the boy so he could be registered and sign some papers, he sets about the hardest task yet. He has to get Evan in a bath and get him cleaned up. Also, possibly cut his hair, judging by how matted it looks.
Bobby probably doesn’t have any scissors strong enough to cut through that tangled mess.
It starts well, carrying him into the bathroom wearing Bobby’s shirt that’s too big on his tiny frame. He’d fought him at first, even going so far as to growl at him, but he’d eventually let Bobby put him in the shirt.
He sits him on the toilet seat. “Alright, now let’s see if we can get you nice and clean,” he says with a smile. Evan peers up at him attentively, head tilted slightly in curiosity. His brow burrows when he reaches for the faucet and startles as he turns it and water starts coming out.
“Water!” he squeaks, hopping up on the toilet seat in a crouch as if to see it better.
Now comes the hard part.
“Yes, do you wanna swim?” Bobby asks. While he knows that wolves are known to swim, he knows it’s not the same when he’s transformed in a human. Besides, even if they change into their animal forms is on a biological level, its easy to distinguish a shifter animal from a regular animal. Their eyes for example, and he’s sure they don’t completely retain their human mind while transformed, which explains why Evan mostly forgot how to speak.
Also, shifters when fully grown are known to be stronger and faster than the average baseline human.
Which is why, when Bobby lifts him after removing his shirt from him, he’s barely able to hang on as Evan fights him with a howl. “It’s okay, Evan!” He curses as his sharp fingernails scratch up his arms, narrowly avoiding his face getting the same treatment. Bobby’s glad he had the foresight to lock the door as he loses hold of the boy and he bolts for the door. He doesn’t seem to remember how to open the door, and claws at it before he scrambles away from Bobby as he approaches him, and winds up in the cupboard under the sink.
Bobby crouches in front of the cupboard, peering in through the crack where one of the doors doesn’t close because it’s slightly out of place. He can see one blue eye peering out at him, and when he reaches for the handle, the child lets out a whimper that goes straight through his heart.
“Alright, alright,” he says, backing away while still crouched. He probably looks ridiculous, but he doesn’t want to scare Evan anymore than he already is by standing at his full 6 feet height. Evan is so tiny and looks so young, which is probably more to do with malnourishment than his actual age. He looks to be five years old, but Bobby wouldn’t be surprised if he was six, possibly seven.
He looks back over his shoulder at the filled tub and has an idea. “There’s nothing to be scare of, Evan,” he tells him in what he hopes is a soothing voice. The cupboard door rattles and realizes that he always startles or flinches when he says his name. So, he decides to go with the other part of his name. “Alright, Buck?” Evan, now nicknamed Buck in Bobby’s mind, leans in closer to the crack in the door.
Bobby shuffles back until he reaches the tub, conscious of those blue eyes watching his every move, and kicks off his boots and peels off his socks. Then Bobby climbs in the tub, hearing Buck whine but he doesn’t stop as he then lowers himself until he’s sitting in the tub, clothes and all.
“See, nothing to be afraid of, Buck,” he says with a smile. He holds out a hand toward him when he sees Buck poke his whole head out to look at him, big blue eyes wide in shock and awe. “Come on.”
He holds his breath as Buck slowly climbs out of the cupboard, glancing around as if someone might jump out at him, and Bobby wonders if his fear of the water had to do with being attacked before. He knows that his mother would never have done it, not with the way she had cared for the boy despite obviously knowing he wasn’t a normal wolf. So, possibly another wolf or animal, maybe while in the water, or drinking from a watering hole. That might be why he was so filthy, and why there had been several empty water bottles around the makeshift campsite the wolf mother had led Bobby to.
Bobby knows he certainly has his work cut out for him in trying to acclimate him to a regular human life. Although, when he finally takes his hand and he convinces him to sit in the tub next to him, it feels like a victory. Bobby starts to slowly and carefully wash him so as not to startle him, and the water in the tub is soon filthy that he has to drain it. He decides not to fill it again and just let the water and smiles as Buck plays with the water falling from the faucet with squeals of laughter. Bobby is glad when he doesn’t object when he starts to shampoo his hair, having a little hiccup when he tries to tip his head back to wash it out with the detachable shower head, since he had to pull the pin and the water stopped coming where he was splashing it everywhere.
He’d likely have a lot of water to clean up, especially when he had to get out in his soaking wet clothes.
Bobby is relieved that when he adds the conditioner, it softens his hair enough that he’s able to pass a comb through it, and besides a few stubborn tangles, he was able to de-tangle his hair. That means he doesn’t have to cut it, which is a relief since he doesn’t want to know what would have happened if he tried to come close to Buck with a pair of scissors. Bobby thinks that he needs to build more trust with him until he tries that.
“Did I miss a spot,” he mumbles, using the towel to try and wipe his face. Then he realizes that its not a smudge of dirt, but a birthmark over his eyebrow and the side of his left eye. “Oh! Well, okay then.” He smiles and pokes his nose, laughing when Buck scrounges his nose and tries to see what was on there.
Now he has to find Buck something to wear, and decides to call a friend of his, Carl who is part of the St Paul fire department as well, and who has two boys that are around Buck’s size. Luckily, when he calls he tells Bobby he has some clothes his boys have outgrown and will bring them over.
“Are you sure about this, Bobby?” Carl asks when he drops the clothes off half an hour later. He’d explained a bit to him over the phone, and now Bobby pauses with a frown. He hadn’t thought his friend would be like his brother, would be so intolerant. Then again, he guesses it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Most people were intolerant of shifters, and he wondered if he would have to hide that part of Buck away so he could have a normal life. It’s like what shifter couple had said, about hiding away being a necessity.
The only problem is that Buck doesn’t know that being a shifter is considered a bad thing in society and shifts whenever he pleases.
“Of course,” he says firmly.
The other man sighs, but then he nods. “Alright, well it won’t be easy, but I’ll support you.” Bobby is relieved, since he knows that with his support, things will be easier. He is the battalion chief after all.
“Thanks, Carl,” he tells him.
He smiles when later that night he finds Buck, who has fallen asleep tucked against the side of the couch. Buck is wearing some dark blue shorts and a bright orange shirt, and is barefoot. Bobby had tried to get socks and shoes on him, but he had fought him and at one point had shifted and tore one of the socks apart before he scurried away to hide somewhere. So, he decided to try again in the future.
Now he picks him up, smiling to himself when he whines and then curls into his arms, burying his nose against his shoulder as he inhales. That seems to calm him as he goes limp in his hold and Bobby laughs softly, trying to keep his head from flopping back over his arm at a weird angle.
Bobby lays him out on his bed where Buck curls onto his side, where he unconsciously shifts in his sleep and then proceeds to to kick his four legs and paws as if he’s running. Bobby wouldn’t be surprised if he was dreaming about running, and feels his heart melt a little bit more. He hasn’t had him even 24 hours and already he’s wiggled inside his heart, and wedged a barrier between him and Bobby’s brother that Bobby didn’t even regret. Bobby was willing to fight for him, because he promised a dying wolf mom that he would, and Bobby wouldn’t break that promise.
“I’m going to take care of you, kid,” he murmurs as he runs the back of his hand along his furry head, and smiles when Buck leans toward his touch with a happy whine.
Bobby leaves the room, and goes went around the house gathering every bottle of liquor and beer he has in the house, and dumps them in the sink of the kitchen. He also takes every pill bottle and throws everything, that isn’t a simple bottle of Tylenol, in the toilet bowl and flushes it. Bobby would be better, for Buck and his family that had died on account of his addiction, but also for himself.
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May 22, 1999 - 7:22AM - Bobby’s Grandmother’s house
Bobby wasn’t sure if he could call the last few weeks good, but they hadn’t been terrible. He had asked for a leave of absence from work so he could take care of Buck, and he had enough in savings to be fine for a while. He would never be glad to have the money from the life insurance him and his wife had gotten for each other and the kids, but it helped now a month into his unpaid personal leave.
However, now he was nearing the last of his leave and he needed to get back to work. That meant that he would have to get a babysitter, which would be difficult as there were more bigoted people amongst his groups of friends than he realized. These were the same people that had supported him when his family had been killed, and which now shunned him because he had adopted Buck.
Bobby wasn’t sure how to feel, torn in two ways. He was grateful for their previous support, but was angry that they had rejected not only him, but Buck. And that was his answer, wasn’t it? Buck was an innocent child that didn’t ask to be born the way he was, so therefore he couldn’t be at fault for anything. So, he decided he was fine with losing them as friends, since he didn’t need friends like that.
In the end, he had no choice but to ask his grandmother, which is not something he was happy to do.
It was two days after he’d left his brother in Itasca that his grandmother had shown up at his door. Buck had growled defensively at seeing a stranger, still sounding animalistic even in his human from, and had run to hide in the bedroom. Which was ideal since they had a full scale argument that he had never had with his grandmother, who regardless of being raised in the late 20s, had been open-minded and supportive during the human rights movement in the 60s.
So, for her to flat out tell him that Buck would ‘ruin his life’, had floored Bobby and got him thinking that he didn’t know who she was.
By the time he’d convinced her to go home, he had been emotionally exhausted and contemplating that perhaps moving to a bigger place wasn’t the right choice after adopting Buck. Maybe he needed to move out of Minnesota completely.
That’s why he was hesitant to ask his grandmother to take care of Buck while he was at work. It would only be once every three days, and was relieved when she reluctantly agreed. As long as Buck wasn’t mistreated, he was sure his connection to his family could be salvaged.
“Alright, Buck,” he said as he put the boy down. He still couldn’t get him to put on shoes, but at least managed to make him understand that he couldn’t shift around other people. Also, his vocabulary had improved a bit, but he was sure he would need more than a month to learn more than the few words he knew at the moment.
“Go home?” Buck asks him.
Bobby smiles and smoothes a few strands of his hair down. He’d managed to cut it a bit shorter while he was asleep, so it was more shaped now and the longer strands were just touching his shoulder. “Not yet. I have to go to work,” he tells him.
His head tilts. “Work?” he repeats in confusion. Bobby had tried to teach him as much as he could, but there were some things that would just take him time to learn. Unfortunately, he was out of time and had to separate himself from the boy. At least until tomorrow morning.
“I‘ll be back,” he reassures him, smiling despite the worry that’s churning in his gut.
Buck nods even if Bobby is sure he doesn’t understand him. Then he holds his pinky up and Bobby is relieved. “Promise?”
Bobby wraps his finger with his small pinky and shakes it gently. “I promise. For now, you’re going to stay with Nana,” he tells him, motioning to his grandmother that’s lingering in the doorway. She has a blank expression and Bobby is questioning himself all over again and his decision on leaving Buck with her.
Especially because his brother’s kids came over after school and on the weekends, until his brother can get off work, and he already knows how he feels about Bobby adopting Buck. He’s mostly grateful that with it being Saturday, it’s likely his sister-in-law that’ll drop the kids off, since his brother works six day weeks, sometimes seven days.
“No shifting, okay?” Bobby tells him, hoping that would at least make things easier between his grandmother and Buck.
The little boy nods. “No shifting,” he agrees.
He inhales deeply, and lifts the boy in his arms, holding him longer than he should since he was already running late, but he hates leaving him. Finally, he puts him down and steps back toward his truck. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, kid,” he says.
Then Bobby gets in his truck and leaves Buck behind, watching through his rear view mirror until he’d gone too far to see him anymore.
Bobby hopes he isn’t making a mistake.
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May 23, 1999 - 9:08AM - St. Paul, Minnesota
He’s exhausted by the time he leaves the station, and while he would like to go directly home, he has to go pick up Buck. Bobby had called three times yesterday to check up on Buck and make sure he was alright, and managed to speak to him on the phone when his grandmother had convinced him to take the phone.
It had seemed that things were going better than he had thought, and at least there hadn’t been any angry calls from the woman. As he pulls up to house, he barely makes it out of the truck before the front door bursts open and Buck is rushing out to meet him. He manages to turn and open his arms before the boy is leaping at him, and Bobby laughs as he stumbles back against his truck. “Well, good morning to you as well, Buck.”
“You back!” he cheers as he bounces in his hold, and Bobby is lucky that Buck is so light or he’d have dropped him by now. He wonders if his growth would be stunted because of the malnourishment he’d suffered for who knows how long he’d been out in the wild.
“I am,” he chuckles, letting the boy fiddle with his name tag that says Nash, since he hadn’t bother to change out of his uniform yet. It had filled him with no small amount of both pride and sadness to put Buck’s name down as Evan Robert Nash.
He sees that his brother’s kids are indeed there, since the man’s oldest son is sitting on the porch off to the side. The boy is almost fifteen and has almost reached Bobby’s height, just shy two or three inches. Their family had always been tall, even the girls, so his dad expected him to continue growing.
“Hey, Brian,” he calls in greeting.
The boy glances over with a scowl on his face and would have taken it as normal sulky teenage behavior if his eyes weren’t looking at Buck. As for Buck, he doesn’t seem to notice the other’s glare as he continues to tell Bobby of his day with his broken vocabulary. He intends to have it grow by the time the next school year comes around.
Although, he isn’t sure if he’d have a problem enrolling him in a regular school with all the prejudice against shifters. He’d cross that bridge when he got to it.
He moves toward the house and set Buck down on the porch. “Can you watch your cousin while I got speak to Nana?” he tells the teen.
“He’s not my cousin,” Brian grumbles.
Bobby refrains from sighing and knows that it was likely that his brother had poisoned his son (and the rest of his four children) against Buck, or at the very least told them the boy was a shifter.
“He is,” he tells him firmly. “I adopted him as my son, so he is your cousin.”
Brian shrugs but says nothing more. Bobby sighs and shakes his head, then reaches over to smooth a hand down Buck’s head and through his downy hair. “Stay with Brian,” he tells Buck.
Buck plops himself down next to the older boy as Bobby goes inside, to talk to his grandmother and make sure there had been no problems. She didn’t have much to say, but the few things she said, while not hateful, were not nice either.
So, nothing much had changed in the month he’d had Buck with him.
“Well, if you can watch him on Tuesday for my next shift,” he tells her, rubbing a hand down his face.
She sighs but ultimately nods. “Hopefully you can teach him more words, Robert. It’s bad enough he has that unnatural form. He doesn’t have to whine and groan like some wild animal,” she says with a huff.
“He isn’t an animal, gran,” he defends Buck. Bobby is much too tired to argue with her again, but he couldn’t let it go. He owed it to Buck to defend him when he wasn’t able to himself. “He’s a child, my child.”
She scoffs but says nothing more, and dismisses him with a wave of her hand. Bobby decides to just walk away before it turns into another full blown argument, especially with Buck and Brian less than ten feet away.
When he gets to the door, he sees Buck sitting next to Brian who is playing with a light gray Game Boy. He feels himself unconsciously smile as Buck looks in awe at the game boy and Brian has it tilted toward him so he could see the small screen better.
It seems maybe all hope was not lost for his family. At least, for the newest generation.
When he drops Buck off at his grandmother’s Tuesday morning, he smiles a bit easier as Buck rushes toward Brian who was once again sitting on the porch with his legs hanging off the edge of it. The older boy turns his attention to Buck and soon his two younger brothers and sister come running around the side of the house. He sees them hesitate, and when Brian doesn’t warn them off they all crowd around Buck curiously.
Bobby sees his gran watching from the doorway with a frown and he sighs. Maybe the woman would likely never accept him, and Bobby was saddened by this. It wouldn’t change his choice though, would never give up Buck, for anyone.
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June 09, 1999 - 6:25AM
Bobby had gradually gotten more comfortable leaving Buck at his grandmother’s house, mostly because Brian had taken him under his wing; the big brother of all four younger children and thus their protector. He felt like things could be better, since even his gran had started to soften a bit where Buck was concerned.
Now, as he pulls up to the house, Brian leaves the porch and comes over to get Buck who was straining against the car seat that he still has to use because of his tiny size. The first time Bobby had put him in the car seat he’d tried to gnaw through the straps, and Bobby had reached out and tapped his nose and said a firm no. Buck hadn’t tried to chew through them again, but when he knew it was time to get them off, he would strain against them until he was red in the face.
“Calm down, I got you,” Brian murmurs, smoothing a hand down the younger boy’s head. Buck calms immediately, and when free launches himself at Brian, who was use to it and was immediately ready to catch him. Buck wraps his skinny legs around his middle and arms around his neck, and after a brief greeting to his uncle, the teenager starts walking toward the house, Bobby close behind.
Only then does he look to the house and falters as he sees his brother’s truck parked on the side, having not seen it coming down the driveway due to the trees covering most of that side of the house. He inhales and continues forward, since it was no use leaving now. Bobby has work and he can’t keep putting off the meeting with his brother, because like it or not, they were part of the same family.
Although he frowns when he realizes that he’d come to drop his kids off in his single cab pickup again, which meant that while the three smaller kids could fit in the front with him, that left Brian riding in the back where he wouldn’t be able to secure himself. Also, neither of the others had car seats, and as someone that had lost two children, Bobby had admonished his brother for this, and over his pride for not just using his wife’s mini van to drop the kids off. Every time he knew that his brother dropped them off, Bobby prayed that a tragedy was avoided. He knew the unique and unbearable pain that came with losing a child, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Bobby also has no mercy or sympathy for people that purposefully hurt children.
He’s confronted by his brother as they get to the door and knew that his thoughts of Buck and other shifters hasn’t changed by the look of disgust on his face as he sees Brian carrying Buck. “Put that thing down, Brian,” he snaps, making both boy flinch at his sharp tone.
Bobby is not a violent man and always believes in a peaceful resolution to any problem. However, in that moment he would have punched his brother in the mouth if Buck and Brian hadn’t been there. “Brian, take your cousin inside. I smell Nana’s famous French toast from here.”
His brother’s (if he could still call him that at this point) face contorts in outrage. “That abomination isn’t his cousin,” he practically spits.
“Now, Brian,” Bobby says firmly. It’s a testament on who Brian respects more when he scurries around his father and goes inside without putting Buck down.
“How dare-!”
Bobby strikes out, hearing as his brother chokes after he’s struck him viciously in the throat, not enough to cause permanent damage, but just hard enough to have him stumble back and lose the ability to speak for a few moments. “You listen to me,” Bobby hisses quietly as he steps toward him. Even if the other was 6’5 compared to Bobby’s 6 feet, he had never backed off, and with him hunched over slightly from the blow it puts them eye to eye. “If I ever hear you speak about my son like that again, I will make it so you aren’t able to talk again.”
He turns toward the door when he hears footsteps, and sees Brian come around the corner with Buck resting on his hip. Buck seems happy and content in his arms and it warms his heart seeing them getting along. “Nana wants to know if you or dad are staying for breakfast?” he asks, looking between the two men warily.
“Nana said come eat!” Buck says, a piece of the French toast in his hand that he stuffed in his mouth a moment later.
“Tell her your dad is leaving, and I’ll swing by to talk to her before leaving,” Bobby tells Brian. The teen nods slowly, looking between them once more before retreating back toward the kitchen.
Bobby keeps his smile on his face until they’re out of sight, and then turns back to his ex-brother, because he refused to think of him as family any longer. “Get moving,” he tells him.
“Mom and dad would be disappointed,” he snaps at Bobby.
“Yeah, well, they’re dead, so we’ll never know.”
The other spits at his feet, saliva and blood landing on his shoes and then turns to leave. Bobby inhales as he watched him leave and knows that their relationship was likely over by that point.
Bobby can’t bring himself to feel bad about it.
5:09PM
Bobby gets a frantic call from Brian eight hours into his 24 hour shift, and has to rush to his grandmother’s house, likely breaking a few speed limit laws but luckily gets there without being pulled over. When he arrives he sees that there was a police car and an ambulance in the driveway and he rushes out of his truck, barely remembering to shift it into park. He’s at the door in an instant, crashing through the door.
“What’s happened? Buck?! Where’s my son??” he shouts, sounding hysterical.
He recognizes the police officer, who had gone to school with Bobby since kindergarten, but he ignores him when he sees Buck. The boy has a bruised face, blood around his mouth, down his chin and the front of his shirt. “What happened?” Bobby shouts, feeling like he couldn’t breathe for a moment.
Buck burst into tears, leaving the couch and hiding behind it. Bobby is so confused by everything, but he knows he needs to comfort Buck right now. The man goes around the couch, crouching down to look as nonthreatening as possible, and it feels like they’ve come back full circle to the first time he’d had Buck with him.
It breaks his heart to see Buck curled up defensively between the back of the couch and the wall. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs gently. “I’m not mad at you, I promise. Please, come here.” He holds his arms out, and waits for the little boy to come to him.
“I was bad,” he tells Bobby.
Bobby can hear the others in the room but ignores them as he concentrates on his son. “No, you’re not bad. Why do you think so?”
“I shifted,” Buck says in a small voice.
Bobby curses in his mind when he realizes that because Bobby had told Buck not to shift, he’d taken it as a bad thing to do so even if Bobby had told him this for his own protection.
“No, no, baby,” he reassures. “You aren’t bad.”
“Promise?” Buck whimpers.
Bobby nods. “I promise.”
Buck gives another sob before he scurries into his arms and Bobby doesn’t care if he’s covered in blood (that doesn’t appear to be his), and just held him tightly. He is just so glad that besides the bruising to his face, he doesn’t appear to be hurt. Although, he’d have to take him to the doctor to make sure, just as soon as he found out what the hell had happened.
It turns out that when Brian’s father had come for him and his siblings, they’d been rough-housing with Buck. Brian’s youngest brother was about the same age as Buck (but larger) had been rolling around on the ground with Buck as they all squealed and cried out with laughter. The man had attacked Buck thinking he was attacking his son despite their laughter, hitting him in the face. He’d fallen away with a howl of pain and when the large man had tried to lift his leg to stomp on him, ignoring Brian and his other children’s screams for him to stop, Buck had transformed and bit him in the leg in self-defense.
While they deemed that what Buck had done was in self-defense, they also didn’t charge his ex-brother for his attack on a seven year old child. It had taken everything in Bobby not to go over to the hospital and beat the man’s ass, but refused to leave Buck’s side.
“Am I a freak?” Buck asks him quietly as they lay in bed that night. His Captain had let him take the rest of the day off, and he’d been so grateful to the man.
Bobby feels like he’d been dealt a physical blow. “What? Of course not. Who told you that?” he asks, although he already knows.
“Brian’s daddy. He called me a freak,” he says, voice shaking.
He swallows a few times to keep from crying, over how cruel the world could be, and especially a man that Bobby had once considered his brother. “No, you are not a freak. You are my beloved son.”
“Beloved... freak?”
Bobby does sob then and pulls Buck close.
When the pediatric doctor that Bobby had taken his kids to before they died refuses to see Buck, he knows it’s time to leave St. Paul.
He puts in the transfer the next day, and picks a spot in a New York City fire house.-
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