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Buck is silently mourning his entire existence, minding his business perusing the animal rescue centres “Adopt Me!” portion of the website. His whole world has been turned upside down one too many times these last nine months and his favourite kid and his best friend and favourite person in the world left him.
It had nothing to do with him. He knows. It doesn’t stop the feeling of being abandoned though.
That’s just Buck's natural life cycle. He lets himself finally, finally, get comfortable with someone and they leave. Maddie, Abbey, Ali, Taylor, Tommy. Chris. Eddie. Chris and Eddie.
For all the people that have left, he never imagined one could rival the feeling he was thrown in when Maddie disappeared from his life. The time she left for college, the times when she’d pull away for Doug, the time she told him to leave but it was like she did, the time she ran to Boston. No one could rival that. Make him feel as abandoned, helpless, alone.
Then, Christopher.
Buck couldn’t do anything about it. It had nothing to do with him! He had no place to say anything! Yet, Eddie asked him to talk to Chris. And then he left. Chris ran to him the last time. What had he done that Chris was running towards someone else this time? Away from him this time?
Buck feels so guilty for missing Christopher the way he does, when it was partly his fault for not stopping Eddie from seeing Kim sooner and not saying the right thing to Chris to get him to stay. He can’t tell anyone about the guilt, the abandonment. Not Maddie. Not Eddie. Not Bobby. He won’t even let himself tell himself. Pushing it deep, so deep, it has no hope to see any form of the sun.
Buck has so much guilt that he feels abandoned by Chris, which joins the guilt of missing him 12, 080 feet down.
Buck wants to message Chris the moment he’s out the door with his grandparents. To ask if his flight was okay. If he got to his grandparents safely. To ask about his time at the lake, to ask if he’s making friends, to ask how starting high school is, to ask what it’s like to be back to a place he must not remember a lot of, to ask what it’s like to be where his father grew up, to ask his thoughts about the new book that was published in the Hunger Games series since he’d finally gotten to it, to ask about what the Zoos and Museums are like in El Paso, to ask about the new Switch 2 console and if he wants it and what colour and what stickers and what he thinks of the concept attachments - to tease him and say “You’re too young to know that this is basically the DS. They killed my DS for a lousy remake. And for Chris to say “Buck! They just made it better, you millennial!”, to ask how he is feeling with everything that’s happened to him. To tell Chris that he will always be there for him no matter what, that Chris can tell him anything and Buck will be there for him at the drop of a hat.
But he can’t. He won’t. It’s not his place. It’s not fair to Eddie for him to be in contact with Christopher, when the boy won’t answer the phone for his dad. Wouldn’t look him in the eye or say “I love you” back. Even when Eddie and Christopher start talking again, because Christopher is still short with him and doesn’t always answer and doesn’t say I love you back.
Then Chris sent him a TikTok of a new Mummy Joe animatic and he panicked. Ran to the kitchen to ask Eddie if it was alright to message Chris back.
“Buck. Of course. You don’t need to ask me, you never had to before and you don’t need to now.” A rigid response, shoulders tense and voice robotic. A real, tiny but real smile on his face.
So, Buck kept it to this. Never pushing. Following Christopher’s lead. Never actually telling Chris he can talk about the situation, because Chris never did. So he wouldn’t push. That would be selfish, it would be so Buck would know everything’s okay.
It’s not his place to demand to know that everything is okay.
Buck was still Buck. Eagerly being Chris’ Buck just like before he left. The friend Buck. Not the Buck that has serious talks about dead moms, dads dating, dads almost dying, parents making mistakes, calling multiple girlfriends special, natural disasters, couches. But the Buck who can go toe to toe with animal facts, jokes about super powers, Eddie's cooking, space facts, video game lore. The Buck who sends over so many new Lego sets Eddie gets a call from the Diazes and Buck gets a text from Chris.
Superman 🦸♂️🐠
Abuela said you have too much money
and I have too many sets for this tiny room
But I disagree! I want the new botanical set😁😇🫴
Followed by a quickly typed out:
FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON
!!!!
Which Buck dutifully answers with
🤨
You sure this has nothing to do with the
homecoming dance?👀
Which gets him a rolling eyes emoji and nothing else in response.
Then Eddie leaves.
And again it has nothing to do with him! He knows! But his body doesn’t. His chest doesn’t. His nervous system can’t decipher the difference between every time Maddie has left him combined and Chris and Eddie leaving him. It can tell the difference between Abbey leaving him and Eddie leaving him, throwing him for a loop when realizing which one hurts more.
He calls Eddie at least three times during his drive to El Paso.
Eddie calls him at least twice.
His body can’t even let that mean something.
The three months Eddie’s been gone, they’ve fallen into a routine. Well, as much of a routine as firefighters not working on the same shift at the same station in the same state in the same time zone can get in.
They FaceTime in place of a call whenever possible. One of them always calling during downtime at their station, on grocery store runs, at 3:00 am on the start of a 48 hour off, after Diaz family dinners, after a new Buckley-Han baby update, after Chris talks to Eddie and lets his dad in more.
Buck and Chris are still texting like before Eddie left. Not too serious for Buck to feel like he’s overstepping. Which is an odd feeling to have, not experiencing it since the tsunami. There was no overstepping with Chris. There was no overstepping with Eddie. Not since; “I love him enough to never stop trying, and I know you do too.” and “There is nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you” and “Because, Evan” and “It's in my will, if I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.” and “I knew you wouldn’t.” were all said with such sincerity, meaning, and trust.
They were his. They were his.
Now he’s holding his tongue - deleting typed out messages - about probing too deep into the psyche of a kid he once knew inside out, probing too deep into the chest of his best friend.
He and Eddie used to talk about everything all the time. No detail too much. No detail too little. No detail, no matter how devastating or uncomfortable or difficult, left behind even if it took time to get it out.
Now they only talk about surface level topics all the time.
They talk about the weather, the traffic, the calls they get sent on, the funny thing they saw on the street, Eddie's new coworkers, the telenovela they watch on FaceTime. Until it’s broken by confessions of I miss you’s that’s not talked about the way Buck needs it to be.
Until the routine is broken.
Buck knows Eddie was going to talk to Christopher tonight. Talk. About the situation. About Kim. About what Eddie won’t tell Buck because
“I need to talk to my son. I- I- can’t, Buck. I need to talk to Chris. I’m sorry-”
“No, Eds. It’s- I’m not owed anything here, okay? I just… just. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” A breathtaking, wide smile, bright eyes, rosey cheeks. “Buck, I’m okay.”
But the routine is broken. Because Eddie hasn’t called. Or texted. It’s been five hours. Five hours since Eddie went to go talk to Chris. And he hasn’t talked to Buck about it and he doesn’t know what to think of that.
You could say he’s spiraling. Buck doesn’t think he’s in the place to deny that.
Yes, it’s normal to worry about your best friend. Yes, it’s normal to be worried about your best friend’s kid. No, it’s not normal to think neither are answering because a meteor hit their house. No, it’s not normal to think neither are answering so the natural progression is to either call El Paso PD for a welfare check or getting on a plane himself and knocking down the door.
He sends Eddie
I.C.E. Eddie Diaz
Hey, how’d it go?
Call me if you need.
Call me regardless.
I’ll be waiting up
Everything good?
Eds
Eddie really how is everything?
Are you okay?
Eddie?
And he sends Chris
Superman 🦸♂️🐠
We need to watch Pop Culture Jeopardy! Maybe even need to go on it! We’d win for sure 👊🏻😎
New Bistro Huddy video! So weird he can be all these characters at once! Sometimes I forget 😶🌫️
New Nursery Nurse video too! What a day! Do you think teachers are actually this messy 😳?
And just as he’s watching - after searching for - a deep sea quiz on TikTok and getting ready to send the link to Christopher so they can do it, he gets a response. He hears the ringtone before he looks at the notification banner. He knows it's Christopher.
Although it doesn’t rid the anxiety he feels for Eddie, he feels relieved.
For all of one second before he reads the message as the banner is leaving the screen as quickly as it came.
Then he’s stuck. Frozen. The video stuck replaying several times, screen stuck on the share screen with “Link copied!”, unable to breathe, unable to move. The message repeating in his head, the banner burned into his eyes and seeing it every time he blinks.
Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know?
What?
Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know? Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know? Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know?
As soon as his phone screen stops spinning and his brain recognizes his phone is playing an AI voice and his lungs fill with air again, he clicks into his iMessage app and into Christopher’s contact.
Superman 🦸♂️🐠
Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know?
Know what? Sorry Chris, I’m not sure what you mean
You didn’t know about Kim.
And when you found out you tried to stop dad.
Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t know.
How can Buck respond to that? How was he supposed to breathe after that? How was he supposed to see his keyboard through eyes that can no longer focus? Type with thumbs that can’t stop shaking?
It takes him a while to make a response or even begin typing one out, thinking about how long Chris waits makes him want to puke.
I’m sorry bud, it wasn’t my place.
I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It didn’t matter what I knew.
It did matter. Does matter.
And what the hell do you mean it wasn’t your place?
Whatever. It matters what you know. It matters that you knew.
Why didn’t youtell me!
I’m sorry Chris.
But really would it have changed anything?
It would have still happened. And it’s a messed up thing that happened and I’m sos
sorry that it did. Especially to you and your dad.
It would have changed everything.
Buck
I was mad at you too.
For so long. Because I thought you knew.
And you were just sitting there and telling me that things are complicated and adults
mess up and parents are not perfectI know parents aren’t perfect and I know this situation
sucks.
I didn’t need you to say that too. But I thought you knew and didn’t do anything about
it and were defending dad anyway
I was mad at you
So I left because there wasn’t anywhere else to go
Buck doesn’t know what to do with that. Doesn’t know what to do with the fact that Chris would have run to him again if he was fully honest with him and not just treading water because he was in uncharted territory, trying not to drown and take Eddie and Chris with him. Doesn’t know what to do with the fact that Eddie still hasn’t answered him. Doesn’t know what to do with the fact that this is all his fault. He blinks a few times to see new messages.
Buck?
You didn’t message me either. When I left.
And it made me angrier
Dad told me you asked him if it was okay. To talk to me.
And now I’m angry again. Because why.
Chris…
Buddy I know and love how close we are. But I’m just your dad’s friend. As much as I want to be
more to you than that, that’s really it, right?
And I can’t act like I have authority over you you know?
I can’t just like, tell you things about him to make sense of his actions. And if you’re not talking
to him I don’t have the right to talk to you.
And really I also just needed to know you were okay and I wanted to talk to you about your dad and
about what was going on
But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to your dad. Just know I wanted to. God, I miss you.
You know I miss you right?
Of course I do. I miss you too.
But you have to know that you’re not just my dads friend. You are Buck
Dad used to call you my Buck. That never changed.
You’re not Uncle Buck to me. You’re not like Bobby, or Chimney, or just my dads friend.
You’re my Buck. And I thought you knew that.
You say you’d like to. But you are.
Dad said you do that.
Refuse to know how much you matter to people.
He said to tell you you didn’t need to ask him to talk to me ever
I’m mad at you too
I wish you told me
I really really wish I did too
It’s just Your dad wasn’t okay when everything was happening. And you’re the kid. You aren’t supposed
to be aware of that. You aren’t supposed to know every gritty detail. Even if you’re a teenager and think
you can handle it.
You are supposed to think your parents are superheroes and can do and handle anything. Even though
you can see them go through things, you are supposed to see them deal with it.
But your dad wasn’t at that moment and I didn’t know so I couldn’t help.
And when I found out, I thought I helped. I promise I really did. Otherwise I would
have done more. Really Chris.
I’m mad at me too
I didn’t have the parents where I could look at them like that.
I only had Maddie. And I still think Maddie can get through anything.
I don’t want that for you. I want for you to see your dad and feel safe.
I do. I really do. Youhave to know that I see Dad and you and I feel safe
I was just angry. And I didn’t know what else to do
When he sees Eddie and Buck. He feels safe. Safe. Safe.
I know. I ran from my parents too. It’s lonely to run huh?
Yeah. It is.
I miss you.
You know, dad really tried. After you talked to him about ending it with Kim.
What do you mean?
You said it’s your fault because you didn’t notice dad wasn’t okay.
But he was after you talked to him. He told Kim the truth and he asked her
to leave. But she came back.
She surprised him and changed everything to look even more like mom and
pretended to be her.
And He wasn’t expecting it. Or for me to see her.
So it’s not your fault.
It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault.
You act too grown up for your own good.
I guess
Now I’m going to ask how you are? Besides angry
I feel better after talking to dad. I understand everything a bit more I liked it
here for a bit Met new people and got to see family. Learned chess. But I miss home.
I know. Home misses you too
I just want stuff to stop happening
You’re going to be okay kid
That’s my line
*wicked gif*
God you’re so old!
Hey! No DS attachment for you!
BUCK
NO I
M SORRY
WAIT
HSHJDI!
!!,!,!!!!!
Love you, kid
love you too
Buck laughs through a sigh of relief as he exits the chat with Chris. So, so much relief. Chris is okay. Chris is okay.
But Eddie? Eddie still hasn’t called him. Still hasn’t texted him. It’s been at least another hour since he and Chris started texting.
Just as he was about to call him after waiting one more hour and several dozen texts later, Eddie beat him to the punch.
He answers not even halfway through the first ring.
There's a few seconds where no one says anything, silence filling the call. Filling the 800 miles. Filling the space that is slowly being devoid of all the feelings Buck has stuffed down 12, 080 feet deep.
“Hey Buck.” Eddie's voice comes through the phone, shaky and hoarse as if he’d been yelling.
Buck cards a hand through his hair before going to bite at his fingers, bouncing his leg where he sits on the edge of his bed. “Hey Eddie. How’d the conversation with Chris go?” He sort of knows. But he asks anyway.
“Really good actually. He uh- he wants to go home soon.” Eddie takes a shaky breath before continuing, “He has so much anger right now. He was mad that it happened. Mad at me for starting it. Mad at Kim for what she did. Mad at you for not telling him - which you know but whatever. Mad at my parents for doing nothing. Mad at me for taking this long to come to him. Mad at me for taking this long to talk to him about what happened. I never want him to be anything but happy. But I caused this.”
“Eds, you have to know he doesn’t believe you caused everything that has happened. You have to know you didn’t cause everything that has happened. You are a good dad.” Buck stands up from his spot on the couch, as if Eddie can see him and that will prove his conviction even more than the strength and clarity in his voice.
“Yeah… I know that. Or I’m working to believe that. I guess.” Another deep breath. “I want you to know Chris asked me to help him text you, so I know what you two were talking about. I just- I think you need to know.”
Buck sits back down. “Oh. Uh- yeah. Um. Sorry if I crossed any lin-"
Eddie cuts him off with a dry, humourless laugh. “Shut up. I was literally there helping him type out that you are more than just my best friend- uh to him. Helping him explain that you literally can’t cross any lines when it comes to him.”
Buck has a feeling the attitude that’s coming from Eddie's voice isn’t directed at him. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry. What’s up then? I know Chris wants to come home, but you sound so defeated. What’s wrong?”
Another deep breath. The beginning sounds of a sob crackling through the static of the phone. Buck can’t breathe.
“My parents.” A pause. Another breath, not from Buck. “We got into a yelling match. I told them- God you’d think they’d be happy that their son and grandson are happy? I told them I talked it out with Chris and he’s ready to go home. That we’ll be leaving soon. And they- they started going off on me. Saying the same bullshit they’ve always said. Throwing this in my face as if I haven’t had to face this for nine Goddamn months.”
Buck hates that he can’t see Eddie right now. He can only guess Eddie is outside pacing in circles, running one hand down his red face.
“Buck, they started saying they’re going to fight for custody of Chris.”
Buck doesn’t know when he started breathing again, but he’s definitely not anymore.
The “What?” that he lets out is indistinguishable to a chicken making noise into a megaphone. “They- they they can’t do that!” Buck jumps to his feet and starts pacing his bedroom and running his hand down his red face, imagining that he and Eddie have probably swapped actions.
“They can and they will-"
“No! Eddie! They seriously can’t do that. Chris is 14. He has more of a say in this than anyone else. You’re his dad. His life- I don’t care that it’s been 9 months- his life is here. 7 years of it. His trusted adults are here. His parents life is here. His mom’s grave is here. His doctors are here. His amazing school is here. You have a spectacular support system, family, a stable job, all of that is here. They won’t win.” Buck lets out in the one breath he’d been holding, ending with heavy breathing into the silence that has filled the call once again. “They can’t win, Eddie.” His voice cracks, and he just needs a second. “You have everything you need from Chris, me, the 118, your family here, your sisters. No matter what they like to think or say or try to make you believe, they don’t rule everything. Their word doesn’t count over all of ours. Most of all Christophers.”
His voice is on the verge of pleading, “Please tell me you know that?”
All Buck hears from Eddie is hiccupped breathing.
“Eds? Hey. Breath. Eddie breathe with me. In for four, hold for six, out for 8. Can you? Eddie?”
“I can’t- Buck I-"
“Yes you can Eddie. With me. Come on. Let’s just start with two seconds then, yeah?”
And so they breathe. And breathe and breathe.
“Thank you Buck.”
“Of course. I have your back. Always” and Buck can’t resist the smile he gets anytime he says that.
“And I have yours.” Is said in a way where he can tell Eddie is flushed and holds a smile on his face and his eyes are all wide and Buck finds himself wishing they were on FaceTime instead. Knows Eddie is glad they aren’t. Eddie clears his throat, “When we get back, I’m going to tell you what I needed to tell Christopher first.”
Well. If that didn’t light Bucks nerve endings on fire. “Way to tease a guy Eddie.” Buck gives a small, (un)convincing laugh, trying to do a 180 from the seriousness of this conversation. He’s not sure how much more he can take. “How about a hint?”
“Buck.” A warning. A fake warning, but a warning nonetheless.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m forcing you to go to sleep. Have a goodnight, man. You sound like you’re going to drop.” Buck doesn’t want to stop talking to Eddie. He never wants to stop talking to Eddie. But if he doesn’t he won’t get any sleep for his 48 hour shift, and worse; he might get his hopes up for what Eddie needs to tell him.
“Yeah. Goodnight, Buck.”
Neither drop the call for a few moments, they just listen to each other breathe.
Buck can finally, really breathe. His chest is no longer tight. His nervous system is no longer confused.
Because they’re his again. Chris and Eddie. His feelings of guilt and abandonment have been fished out of the depths, pulled out onto dry land and stomped on. They’re his again.