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Buck watched and listened to his friend get angrier and angrier at the world and for some reason at him. Finally, out of nowhere, Eddie backed him against the kitchen counter with his hand violently clasping Buck’s shoulder and calling him out that it was always about him.
This, on top of everything else that had been traumatizing in the last year or two to him, had him going back to a place he never thought he would go to.
His face blanked to the face he wore in country, and he stood up from the automatic slouch he was always in. Standing taller than his ex-friend and bigger, getting an automatic reaction from Eddie of digging the hand into his shoulder enough to feel the bruises rising.
Opening his senses back up to take everything as though he was the mirror in the room and looking at things objectively as it would. Seeing the camera in the corner, by the door, which was filming everything to the cloud which he and the landlord could access for the next three months or forever if required for the LEO’s.
He just stood tall as Eddie tried to pressure him down with his hurtful hand on his shoulder and his other in a fist nearly cocked back. Buck calmly reached in his jeans’ pocket and pulled his phone out, pushing the emergency services button on it and getting the Dispatcher immediately, which shocked Eddie into letting go.
The phone was on loudspeaker so both could hear the dispatcher as Bast asked for a patrol car to his location to “escort” him for his own safety to his rental vehicle. It seemed as though his rental agreement was being forcibly broken, literally. And he stressed the word forcibly, to Eddie’s sudden hunched form. Which was why he wanted the safety of the escort out. Eddie backed up to the other side of the room and had just figured out that the whole discussion with dispatch was being done dispassionately, as was the “look” Buck was giving him.
Eddie listened as Buck gave dispatch the fact the entire confrontation from living room to the kitchen was under one camera or another, with the cameras being put in at the behest of the landlord due to area break-ins and the entrance to the house was openly marked stating that cameras were filming on the premises.
Getting another wince from Eddie as he went over just what and how he had acted to his nominal friend. Further turning into himself as he heard further the fact that the LEGAL renter and his landlord have ACCESS to the recordings and can give them to the police and the lawyers they might need. The fact that Buck OWNED all the furniture in the house, including the recently bought appliances and stating that if he were kicked out then everything WOULD BE GOING WITH HIM as per the LEGAL receipt, he had in the bank box. Which also held his rental agreement signed by both the past renter, Eddie – wince - and the landlord.
At that time the police, not Athena who would have generally involved herself but was on grief leave, arrived, getting Buck to hang up from dispatch, and put his phone on the counter Eddie had forced him up against and from which he hadn’t moved.
Bast calmly took off his shirt to show the blooming recent bruise given him by the angry Eddie, then gave the code to access the cloud to the Sgt in charge to access to get the dispassionate view of what happened, while the other cop stood between Eddie and Buck as well as any possible escape he might get. Both taking notes and asking several questions, especially when Buck told them to get a warrant to access the station’s own cameras to further see the toxicity against him there that Eddie had participated in since his return from Texas, as well as everyone else’s actions against him. Reminding Eddie of the actions taken by everyone else when Maddie had ran away because of her PPD a few years ago when Buck mentioned that his injury was still awaiting his call as to whether he would act on it, and with this action, and the action of those at the station, including the one who had been harmed at that time, he was giving the go ahead to serve the arrest warrant for the Interim Captain Han that had been waiting in the wings and been forgotten about till now. Even going so far as to give the case number and detective’s name who had investigated the whole matter and the fact that THAT incident was also on the cloud and awaiting now for Han’s trial.
As Eddie was being arrested for Assault and Trespassing with Intent to Cause Mischief, and CPS was being called for his son – it was decided by all that it would be in the best interest to take the son of the abuser than force the victim to take him in – he listened as CPS was called for Maddie and Chim’s kids as they attacked the cops sent to question them about Chim’s attacking Buck both recently and in the past, and both now were also under arrest.
He looked at Buck, who was being treated by the paramedics from the specially called 122 instead of the compromised 118, and didn’t see anything that looked like the Buck, he knew that would give in and let things go.
Chris was pitching an unholy fit and tantrum with those who had come for him, and was being treated accordingly, being held by his underarms and dragged out since he wasn’t cooperating at all, while another came out with his things. Eddie was told that his son was under arrest as well for attacking the CPS worker with his crutch and would be spending the night in a juvie cell.
Eddie looked beggingly at his former friend who now was also being escorted out of the house with him, but to the ambulance instead, the dispassionate person looking back at him just told him something he slightly remembered his own Sgt had told him long ago; “When an opportunity in a fight presents itself, ‘I’ don’t hit — ‘it’ hits all by itself.”
Next time he saw Buck it was at his hearing where he was remanded to jail for six months and in jail forced to undergo anger management therapy. He also permanently lost his son to the system till Chris was 21 due to his son’s own actions.
Han was put in prison for his own actions, and his entitlement issues left him crippled within two months. Maddie served her time in jail and moved away after losing her own children for being violent to the police.
Bast moved onto another station and left the toxicity behind him along with his “Buck” persona though those that knew him before missed the happy kid and weren’t sure of the replacement they got in Bast even if they took him more seriously now.
Fini
11/9/2025
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11/18/2025