Archive of Our Own

“You okay, Buckley?” Captain Mehta’s voice reaches Buck from the opposite side of the deep crevasse that has just opened up, yawning and terrible, inside Buck’s chest as he watches the trauma team wheel Eddie into the hospital.

It takes him a second to register the words, and then a few more before he realizes that it was a question directed at him specifically, and that people generally expect answers to those.

“No,” he says, finally, honestly, but the captain of the 133 isn’t looking at him anymore and doesn’t wait to hear his reply.

–

Eddie’s in surgery and will be for a while, and Buck’s hands are shaking as he tries to retrieve his phone from his pocket. He can’t quite seem to get a solid grip on it; the case keeps slipping out of his fingers before he can pull it free.

He needs–he needs to see Christopher. And in order to do that, he needs his phone, so he can arrange a ride. As he steps outside, he tugs harder, and nearly drops the thing on the sidewalk when his pants finally release their hold on it.

“Buck.”

He jerks his head up, startled. Taylor is standing there in the bright sunlight. Had she been waiting out here to cover the story? He doesn’t see her cameraman, but he’s probably set up behind the barricade with the rest of the press camped outside the ambulance entrance.

“Uh. No–no comment, Taylor.” He moves to push past her, pulling off his mask; he needs to get to Eddie’s house.

“No, Buck. That’s not why I’m here. Really. I’m not working this one,” she says, stepping in front of him. “I just heard a firefighter was shot. You didn’t answer my calls. I got worried.”

Buck sways a little and has to steady himself against the wall. “Sorry. I… I wasn’t checking my phone.” He waves the hand holding the phone in question weakly.

“Is that blood?”

He looks down. His jeans are splattered with red-brown stains. Someone from the 133 had given him a shirt to replace the one he’d been wearing, but there was only so much he could do about the rest of it with only a restroom sink and a handful of paper towels to work with.

“Oh. It’s um…” He swallows; his mouth still tastes like blood, it’s– “It’s not mine, it’s Eddie’s.”

She frowns and steps closer to him, reaching out like she wants to touch his face. He tries not to flinch backwards and she drops her hand. “Eddie was the firefighter who was shot?”

Buck’s really starting to feel light-headed now, he thinks maybe he needs to sit down before he passes out.

“He was standing right in front of me,” he says. “And… I–I need to talk to Christopher. Someone has to tell Chris. I–” He glances down at his phone again; somehow, it’s still in his hand. “I don’t… I don’t have my car. I need to call a ride.”

“Why don’t I drive you,” Taylor offers. “We can stop by your place–”

“No, no… I’ve got–”

“You can’t go see his son looking like this,” she insists, and grabs him by the wrist to tow him towards her car.

He lets her.

–

They’re at his apartment for less than twenty minutes.

Taylor leads him to the bathroom and turns on the shower, pushing him towards it, before going to his bedroom to retrieve a clean t-shirt and pants for him.

The water is probably hotter than it should be, because he’s still feeling like he’s about to faint. But he stands under the spray, one hand braced against the tile wall, and scrubs at his skin and hair until the water circling the drain isn’t tinged with red.

Then he stumbles out of the shower to pull on the clothes she had helpfully set on the bathroom counter for him without really bothering to towel himself dry first.

Taylor nods at him when he emerges from the bathroom, still dripping a little, but clean enough to pass muster, apparently. They head back down to her car.

–

On the ride over, he tries to rehearse in his head what he’s going to say to Chris, but his mind keeps circling back to that moment when they were standing by the truck, talking to Captain Mehta, and Eddie’d just–just jerked forward and Buck felt something wet hit his face and Eddie – Eddie just looked at him, like he couldn’t believe what was happening either. And then suddenly Buck was on the ground, being held down, when Eddie needed him.

They’re at Eddie’s house before he knows it. Buck has to summon every ounce of strength remaining in his body to get out of Taylor’s car and walk inside. Carla is there to greet them, her face a careful mask over obvious worry.

He’d called her from the hospital. Hadn’t said much, just that Eddie had been hurt and he was coming over to talk to Christopher about it. She must’ve looked up more information on her phone about what happened, because she doesn’t look surprised when he tells her what little he knows in a stilted whisper.

She hugs him carefully, and then pats his shoulder before turning to glance behind her.

“He’s in his room. I didn’t tell him what happened, just said that you were coming over, but I think he knows something’s wrong.”

Buck nods. “Okay.”

Taylor squeezes his arm. “Do you want me to stay?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “No. It’s okay. You can go–both of you. I–I don’t know how much longer…” He takes a steadying breath. “He’s still in surgery. There’s nothing else any of us can do right now but wait. Bobby–Bobby’s going to text everyone when they know more. I can stay here with Chris tonight.”

Chris is sitting on his bed when Buck opens the door. He looks like he’s been waiting for bad news. It’s breaking Buck’s heart that he’s got to deliver some to him. He’s only ten years old and already lost one parent. Buck really, really hopes he’s not about to lose a second.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Hey, Christopher,” he breathes.

“Where’s Dad?” Direct and to the point, that’s his favorite Superman.

“Um. He–he’s, uh, he’s not coming home tonight, Chris.”

“Why not?” Chris frowns.

“Well, uh…” Buck sits down on the bed next to him and rubs his hands on his jeans. “Well, he–he got hurt at work today.”

“In a fire?”

“No, not–not in a fire.” Buck feels too warm, like he’s getting sick, but he’s pretty sure it’s just the shock of everything. “Uh, the truth is, someone… hurt your dad.”

“On purpose?” Chris’ eyes are wide.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“A bad guy?” He sniffs.

“Yeah, yeah, a bad… a bad guy.” Buck’s voice is cracking.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Chris’ voice has dropped practically to a whisper.

Buck wants desperately to tell him yes, of course, absolutely. But he can’t lie to Chris either. “You know, your dad is, uh… he’s tough as nails. He’s a fighter, right?” he says instead.

Chris nods, sniffling.

“So, uh, he’s–he’s with the doctors now…”

“Like the ones that fixed you?” Buck can hear the hope creeping into his voice and feels guilty.

“Uh huh. Yeah, like the ones who fixed me.” That was true enough, but he’d been incredibly lucky, and Eddie… there’d been so much blood.

“Then he’s gonna be okay, right?” Chris looks up at him, eyes pleading.

“Uh…” Buck freezes for the second time that day, meeting Chris’ gaze. He wants–

His phone dings with an incoming text message. He has to blink his eyes several times to read it.

Out of surgery. Doctors say it went well.

He exhales nearly all of the air in his lungs in one relieved burst.

“Yeah, I think so, buddy,” he manages to croak. “I think so.” And then the dam breaks, and he lets out an ugly sob, burying his face in his trembling hands.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Chris tells him, wrapping his arms around Buck’s shoulders.

He tries to nod, wants to stop crying, get himself together, for Chris’ sake, but that light-headed feeling is back again, and he still feels like he’s burning up, skin hot and wrong somehow.

“Hey, buddy,” he slurs, tipping sideways down onto Chris’ bed. “I’m not feelin’ so good–”

Chris watches as his eyes go funny and fluttery and every muscle in Buck’s body seems to tense up at the same time and then he starts to shake all over.

“Buck! Buck! Buck!” Chris shouts, panicked.

–

Chris nearly calls 9-1-1.

He knows that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone is hurt or really sick and you don't know how else to help them. But he also knows that that rule doesn’t necessarily apply to family.

Dad and Abuelo and Grandma and Tía Pepa had told him that it was really important that nobody could know about their family’s secret, and that meant if it was one of them, then he was supposed to tell someone in the family first. Because they can heal faster than other people, and if anyone who didn’t know their secret saw, it could put all of them in danger.

Chris wishes he could change like the rest of his family, but he's still too young and nobody knows how his CP might affect his shifting or if he’ll even be able to do it at all, because Mom couldn’t.

Abuelita said it would happen someday soon, because he could already smell things way better than his friends at school and sometimes when the moon was full he felt a little funny, itchy, and like the bones in his arms and legs were made of rubber. Dad told him to be patient, it would happen when it was supposed to, and then he looked kinda sad, so Chris didn’t ask him about it again. Chris wasn’t very good at being patient, but he was trying.

Mom hadn’t been like the rest of their family. She couldn’t heal really fast or shift like Dad or his grandparents and aunts and older cousins could. He’d asked her once why she couldn’t and she’d said it was because she was happy being who she was, which didn’t make much sense to Chris.

Dad had told him that it was possible for people who weren’t family to become like them, but it was a big, permanent thing that was only supposed to happen if they really wanted it and were old enough to decide for themselves and the rest of the family agreed they could. So he had to be super careful not to get too rough when he played with his friends, and never tell anyone about what they could do unless his dad said it was okay first.

Sometimes he wondered if it would have made a difference, if Mom might still be alive if she’d been like them.

Buck is family too, but different like Mom had been, like Carla is, only Dad doesn’t look at Carla like he looks at Buck, and he doesn’t know their secret yet. Chris wanted to tell him, but Dad had said he should be the one to tell Buck, so Chris had to wait. But then Dad never did, he just kept saying it wasn’t the right time. Grown ups were weird.

But now Buck is really sick. He was shaking and his skin is really hot and Chris can’t get him to wake up, no matter how loud he shouts. Seeing Buck like this made him think of his mom, and he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him too. Chris loves Buck; he’s at their house all the time, goes with them to cool places like the zoo, helps him with his homework, and he’d saved Chris’ life when they’d both been caught in the tsunami at the pier.

This is an emergency, he’s sure of it. Buck needs help. And he would call 9-1-1 if it wasn't for one thing–Buck doesn’t smell like his normal self anymore. He smells hurt, and sad, and kinda weirdly like Dad and Pepa and Abuelita and the rest of his family do right before the full moon, which doesn’t make any sense.

Sometimes Buck smells a little like Dad when they’d been at work together for hours and hours, or after he comes over to have dinner and watch movies with them, but never like this. The smell goes deeper than that, like it’s coming from Buck himself.

It makes Chris think that maybe this is a family sort of emergency after all.

–

Eddie wakes up to the smell of blood and industrial disinfectant in his nose, a heavy, pulsating ache in his chest, and Buck’s name on his lips.

Before he can do more than mumble the half-formed question on his mind–Where’s Buck? Is he alright?–he hears the scrape-squeak of a chair moving against a linoleum floor, and Ana Flores puts a soft, warm hand on his bare arm.

“Eddie? It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re in the hospital,” she says, in a soothing tone.

His mouth feels bone dry. “Buck?” he rasps again, blinking at her until her face comes more or less into focus.

She bites her lip. “He’s watching Christopher. He’s fine, Eddie. You’re the one who gave us a scare.”

Relieved, he flops his head back into the pillow and closes his eyes again. The flicker of the fluorescent light above his bed is making his head hurt. “Time is it?” he manages.

“A little after 2 a.m. You were in surgery for a while. And then they kept you in recovery for longer than we expected.” He can practically hear her thinking, it’s so loud in the silence between them. It was probably a lot more touch and go than she’s letting on. He’d nearly died again and left Chris without either of his parents. “I should–I should go tell the nurse you’re awake.”

“Mm,” he grunts and hears her leave the room, trailing the scent of a floral perfume in her wake.

–

Chris calls his bisabuela. She answers on the first ring and comes over right away, telling him that everything will be alright. He really wants to believe her, even though he can see how worried she is. She tells Chris to wait in the living room and goes in to look at Buck, who is lying in Chris’ bed, sweating and unconscious, but at least he’s stopped shaking so badly.

She’s in there for what feels like a super long time. He hates being stuck out here not knowing what’s wrong with his Buck. Why did adults always think he needed to wait outside? He was the one who got help!

When she finally comes out, he can still see the worry in her eyes, but she smiles at him.

“What’s wrong with Buck?” he asks. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s very sick, Christopher,” she says, her voice sad. “You did the right thing, calling me.” She sits next to him on the sofa. “Do you remember when I told you about how some people are born as wolves, and some become them later in life?”

Chris nods.

“Sometimes, the change from one to the other is very hard,” she says, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “And the person becomes very ill before it’s done.”

“So Buck is… going to be like us now?” he asks. “Like our family?”

She purses her lips and finally nods. “Yes, Buck is becoming like us. It’s going to be very difficult for him, so you must be patient, okay?”

Chris nods. He loves Buck and just wants him to be okay. He’ll do whatever he needs to, as long as it means he’ll be alright.

“You’re a good boy, Christopher,” Abuelita says, patting his shoulder.

–

Buck wakes up in Christopher’s bed with a start and promptly gets himself tangled in the sheets badly enough that he tumbles unceremoniously onto the floor with a bone-rattling thud.

“Ow,” he groans and tries to wriggle free. He feels strange, sorta loose and wrung out, like he does sometimes after a particularly tough call, except everything seems brighter and louder than it ought to be. Did he hit his head when he fell out of bed?

“Buenas tardes,” a familiar voice calls out softly from the doorway. Buck lifts his head to find Eddie’s abuela peering down at him, an expression halfway between concerned and amused on her face.

“Hi,” he says and looks around, finally registering exactly where he is, and more importantly, who’s missing from this picture. “Where’s Christopher?”

“Asleep in his father’s room,” she answers. “You kept us up all night worrying, nieto.”

“I did?” Buck manages to sit up further, untangling his legs carefully. “What–what happened?” He looks over at the window. The curtains have been pulled closed, but it’s clearly well past dawn outside, and Isabel had said “tardes”, so… afternoon then. Last thing he remembers he’d been talking to Chris. What–?

“How are you feeling?” she asks instead of answering his question.

“Fine,” he says too quickly and pulls himself to his feet. It surprises him a little that he manages to stand up so easily, not a single wobble or flash of vertigo, and he covers his reaction by bending again to pick up the sheets and blanket from the floor.

The sheets stink of his own sweat and shower gel mixed with Chris’ shampoo and he thinks maybe he ought to throw them in the laundry rather than try to remake the bed. He wrinkles his nose and piles them in a heap at the foot of the bed for now.

Buck turns back to face Isabel, who is now regarding him quietly, her eyes sad.

“What’s wrong?” He has a terrible thought. “Is–is Eddie still okay?”

“Oh, no, no,” she assures him, stepping closer to take his nearest hand in hers. “Our Eddie is as well as can be expected. He woke up last night in the hospital. Your captain called early this morning, said he was asking after you. I told him that you were asleep.”

“Then what…?” This close to her, he suddenly notices that he’s smelling more than just the sheets he sweated through; it’s everything, sharp and in his face and overwhelming. He can smell what he recognizes as the soap from Eddie’s bathroom, Isabel’s hand cream, what’s probably her chicken tortilla soup warming in the kitchen, Christopher–

He tries to pull away from her, startled, but her grip tightens on his hand and she holds him in place, clearly stronger than she looks.

“Shh… it’s okay,” she says and brings her other hand up to pat his cheek gently. Isabel herself smells warm and safe somehow and Buck finds himself swaying towards her involuntarily, only just managing to check the motion in time to avoid collapsing into her arms.

“What’s going on?” he asks again, voice shaky. “Abuela, you’re scaring me.”

She guides him back to the bed and sits next to him, keeping a hand on his arm. “It seems that gunman was responsible for more than just hurting my nieto. Tell me, Buck, you were with him when it happened, yes?”

He nods, confused.

“There must have been a lot of blood,” she says bluntly, shocking him a little. “Do you remember if you were hurt as well? It could have been something very small. It’s important.”

Buck starts to shake his head, but stops.

None of the shooter’s bullets had hit him, that he was certain of, but there’d been all that broken glass beneath the truck that he’d had to crawl through to get to Eddie. It hadn’t even slowed him down at the time, but there’d been bits of glass collected around the drain when he’d finished with his hurried shower at his loft.

Alarmed, he inspects his forearms for cuts but finds the skin there completely unbroken and smooth. That doesn’t seem right. “Wha–”

Isabel shakes her head. “You won’t find anything now.”

That makes even less sense to Buck.

“It usually requires a bite,” she continues, “but sometimes blood is enough, if it gets inside.”

“Bite?”

She smiles, a little fondly, and pats his knee. “If my Eddie had bitten you, you would have remembered it, I think.”

Yeah, Buck’s pretty sure he’d have remembered that.

“Wait, you’re saying… Eddie’s blood. You think Eddie gave me something? Is he sick?” Buck blanches, suddenly remembering every gristly detail from his bloodborne pathogens exposure training.

“Not sick, no.” Isabel shakes her head. “Pero, nuestra familia es especial. We are different–for many generations–it is in our blood. Most of the time we look the same, but when the moon is full, we are lobos.”

“What?”

–

This is the longest Eddie has ever spent in the hospital, not including when he’d been recovering from the helicopter crash that had led to him being awarded a silver star and given an early discharge from the army. The delay there had mostly been because they’d been waiting to process his paperwork though. This time he is genuinely still hurt.

Eddie doesn’t know what to make of it; normally he heals so quickly that even serious injuries are no more than minor inconveniences for him, but for some reason, this single gunshot wound is taking forever to heal. He came dangerously close to bleeding out on the street because of it, a fact that he’s currently doing his best to ignore. Becoming a firefighter was supposed to be less dangerous than the military.

On the plus side, it means that his secret is more than safe. As far as he can tell, none of his doctors suspect anything unusual. But that doesn’t make it less worrying. Not healing rapidly means something is very wrong with him and he can’t exactly ask them to figure out what it is.

He’ll feel a lot better as soon as he can talk to his family privately, but so far only Pepa has been in to see him, reporting that his Abuela and Buck are with Christopher and will be along to see him as soon as possible. They have a brief discussion about his injuries while Ana’s in the restroom. Pepa doesn’t know any more than he does about what’s suppressing his normal healing abilities, but promises she’ll try to find out whatever she can and let him know.

Ana hovers at his bedside for most of the day after he wakes up, fussing over him and trying to make conversation. They run out of things to talk about a few hours in and the silence is anything but restful. He finally tells her to go home to get some sleep late in the afternoon, if only to save himself the effort of coming up with safe conversational topics.

The soft look and gentle kiss she gives him as she leaves makes him feel guilty, but not enough to change his mind and ask her to stay.

Without her presence, he can breathe a little easier, and visits from his friends and coworkers at the 118 are less awkward. He’s glad to see them all, especially Bobby, who, thanks to Athena, has the latest official information about the shooting. But none of them were there when it happened, and none of them are who he really needs to see right now.

The police are still investigating. No one has been able to find the shooter. Bobby reluctantly tells him that two other firefighters have also been shot since he was; both of them lucky to have survived their injuries. Someone is clearly running around LA with a high powered rifle, gunning for firefighters.

The LAFD have responded to the threat by issuing bulletproof vests to all personnel and arranging for every firetruck and ambulance in the city to have a police escort for all their calls. It’s only a matter of time before someone else is seriously injured or killed though if the shooter isn’t found soon. Eddie aches to be back out there with his friends.

–

Buck has no idea what to think.

Isabel had left him alone for a few minutes to collect himself after laying out an insane explanation for what was going on. He has absolutely no idea what difference a few minutes is supposed to make though. She’d basically told him that his entire life was about to change, radically. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

The Diaz family are all werewolves, apparently, and he’d swear that that’s impossible if it weren’t for the fact that he’s feeling undeniably strange and certain things that she’d said made a crazy kind of sense–the way Eddie had always seemed to bounce back from long shifts like it was nothing, how he could have sworn he’d seen Eddie get hurt on a call at least a dozen times, only to find him whole and unscathed when they returned to the station. And hadn’t he just been joking with Chim recently about how they’d somehow never worked a full moon shift with Eddie?

Accepting that Eddie is a werewolf and that he himself might be one are completely different propositions though. Sure, he feels weird. And yeah, maybe he can smell things no normal person could have, and okay, yes, he’d underestimated his own strength and nearly broken the bathroom faucet when he’d gone in there to relieve himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to turn into a wild animal when the full moon rises in a little over a week.

Does it?

“Buck?” A small voice interrupts his thoughts.

He looks up, Christopher is peering in at him from the doorway, his hand on the doorknob.

“Heyyy, bud,” he says, fishing for a smile to give him. He thinks he’s at least partially successful.

Chris blinks at him. “Are you okay now, Buck?” he finally says.

Buck sits up straighter. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. See?” He holds his arms out wide.

Chris darts into the room and tumbles into his arms with a full-body hug. He squeezes Buck tightly.

“Hey, hey, easy there. It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

“You scared me,” Chris mumbles into his shirt.

“I know, and I’m real sorry about that, I didn’t mean to.” He pets Chris’ hair and tries to avoid tearing up again.

Finally, Chris eases up on his grip on Buck and leans back to look at him. “Abuelita said you’re going to be like us now.” It’s almost a question.

And Buck can’t exactly say no to that face, can he? “Uh, yeah, she mentioned that.” He shifts Christopher over slightly to put him on the bed next to him. “How come you never told me you’ve got real superpowers, huh?” he says with a hint of a teasing smile.

Chris laughs and gives him the widest grin ever. “‘Cause it was su-supposed to be a secret!”

–

Eddie is completely unprepared for when Buck finally walks into his hospital room that evening, smelling of wolf and looking like he hasn’t slept in at least two days.

“Hey, Eddie.” Buck gives him a lopsided smile.

“Buck, good to see you, man.” He frowns, confused. Buck’s changed scent is throwing him for a loop.

He knows Buck’s been at Eddie’s house with Christopher for the past day or so, but it’s more than that. This isn’t just the normal wolfiness of his house rubbing off on him, this is something deeper, richer, like it’s coming from Buck himself. It's simultaneously setting Eddie’s teeth on edge and making him want to pull Buck close and bury his nose in his throat. He’s met other werewolves that he isn’t related to before, and this is kinda like that, except Buck’s human and those other wolves had also smelled like potential threats, not like home.

Eddie pushes himself more upright with his good arm and squints at Buck, trying to puzzle out what’s happened from his body language. Buck fidgets under his scrutiny, but doesn’t say anything else as he takes a seat next to Eddie’s bed.

“How’s Christopher doing?” Eddie asks, after giving them both a second to collect their thoughts.

“Better than I am. He uh... he really wanted to be here too, but I told him maybe we could do a video call if you were feeling up for it. Wasn’t sure you’d want Chris to see you hurt like this.”

“That makes sense. It’s okay though, we can call him in a few minutes.”

“He’ll like that. He’s been worried sick about you.” Buck nods and drops his gaze to somewhere in the vicinity of his shoes. “I uh…” He swallows. “I kind of lost it when I told him you got shot. I’m sorry. I should’ve held it together.”

Eddie shakes his head, wishing he could reach out and touch Buck right now to reassure him, but he’s sitting on the wrong side of his bed for that. “You were there for him when I couldn’t be. That’s what matters.”

“Still, I think I made it worse after that when I…”

Eddie’s fingers tangle themselves up in the thin sheets of his hospital bed. “When you…?” he asks.

Buck shakes his head and then huffs a little, like he’s just thought of something that annoyed him. He lifts his chin sharply to catch Eddie’s eyes. Eddie swallows heavily.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, voice low and rough.

“Tell you what?” Eddie asks, even though he’s pretty sure he can guess.

Buck leans forward in his chair, expression tight and closed off. “The Diaz family secret?” he says through gritted teeth. “Kinda seems like the sort of thing you should tell your best friend before he has to find out the hard way.”

There it is. Eddie’s stomach plummets. “The hard way?”

Buck rolls his eyes. “C’mon Eddie, don’t pretend you can’t smell it on me. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

He nods, slowly, because he’s right, the sinking feeling in his stomach bottoming out. “How?”

Buck shrugs, the movement sharp and jerky. “Not sure. Your abuela tried to explain everything to me, but the best we can figure, it must’ve happened while I was trying to save your life. I ended up with your blood all over me.”

He flexes his hands, staring down at them, like maybe he can still see the blood. “Started feeling lightheaded not long after they got you into surgery. I thought it was just the adrenaline wearing off. And then I had a seizure with Christopher in the room right after telling him his dad was in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry. I–I didn’t think… I shouldn’t have… I'm so sorry, Buck.” He’d never even considered–as long as he wasn’t shifted, the risk of transmission through contact with his blood alone should’ve been miniscule.

Buck shakes his head. “You didn’t ask to get shot.”

“You never asked for this though,” he argues. “I never even told you it was a possibility. If you’d known–”

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have done anything differently, Eddie. I would’ve liked to have known,” he says, pointedly, “because you’re my friend, and I’d like to think you could’ve trusted me with this, but it wouldn’t have changed a thing. I told you I’d always have your back and I meant it.”

Guilt still seeps into Eddie’s bones. “I guess you must have a lot of questions for me then.”

“Yeah.” He laughs, it’s not exactly a happy sound, but it’s not bitter either. “But most of them can wait until you’re out of the hospital. Full moon’s not till next Wednesday. We’ve got time.”

Eddie grimaces. “Hopefully I’ll be out of here by then.”

“You’d better, Christopher’s gonna riot if we make him wait too long.”

–

Buck goes back to work for his next shift after a brief lecture from Abuela about what he should and shouldn’t do as a newly minted werewolf. (Now there’s a sentence Buck never expected he’d hear himself think.)

At the top of the Don’ts list are: ‘Don’t work on the night of the full moon’ (he’s going to have to ask somebody to trade him shifts, because he’s pretty sure he’s scheduled that night), ‘don’t handle anything made of silver’ (lucky he’s got a job where he’s pretty much always wearing gloves), and ‘don’t tell anyone about the werewolf thing’ (duh).

That last rule comes with a bunch of reminders to be extra careful in situations where he’s exerting himself. Turns out werewolves are a lot stronger than regular humans, and until he’s used to his new strength, it’s going to be a challenge to figure out how much force to apply, when it’s safe to push himself, and when he needs to pretend to struggle or ask for help because regular Buck would have.

(He’s definitely going to have a conversation with Eddie once he’s healed up and out of the hospital about how, apparently, he’s been faking his way through every single workout they’ve ever done together; followed by a friendly weight lifting competition, because Buck is dying to know what his max deadlift is now.)

Things at the 118 are tense. He’s honestly surprised Bobby didn’t tell him to take a couple days off, but they’re already short one firefighter, and Buck gets the sense Bobby would rather have everyone where he can keep an eye on them after what happened to Eddie.

The police still haven’t caught the sniper, which means every time they go out on a call it’s potentially with a giant target painted on their backs.

Buck can’t even rely on his new super-fast healing to keep him safe, because whatever the guy has been using for ammo did a number on Eddie’s shoulder and even a regular bullet to the head would be hard to come back from. After a practical demonstration involving a paring knife in Eddie’s kitchen, Buck is firmly in the true believers’ camp when it comes to the subject of werewolf healing abilities, but that doesn’t mean he’s invincible.

Actually, now that Buck thinks about it, he wonders if Athena would tell him anything about the rounds they’d recovered from the scene if he asked. Because he’s pretty sure Eddie should’ve been able to fully heal from a regular gunshot wound to the shoulder in less than a few hours, unless the rapid blood loss slowed his recovery time somehow.

He’s honestly not sure why Eddie hasn’t said anything about it to him. But beyond some grumbling about how much he hates being cooped up in the hospital, the subject of his delayed recovery has barely come up. He can tell Abuela is worried, but she only shook her head when he asked her about it, so he’s on his own if he wants to figure this out.

They’ve all been kind of assuming that these are random attacks against the fire department; but what if they’re not? If the shooter had been using something special that can hurt werewolves like Eddie, did that mean he’d been targeted specifically? He and Eddie weren’t even supposed to have been at that call that day. Was there another werewolf working for the 133? And if so, how’d the shooter find out about either of them?

Was there a way to tell just by looking at someone? Buck doesn’t think there is. Eddie and his family looked perfectly normal to him before and after he found out, and it’s not like he looks any different now than he did a week ago, right? Now that he’s part of the club, he can smell the difference between a regular person and a werewolf, but normal people’s noses aren’t that good. Though, for all he knows, there might be some kind of supernatural creature detecting devices or magic glasses that you can get if you’ve got the right connections.

Buck’s still brand new to all this. Pepa had laughed when he’d asked her if there was a wiki where he could look up stuff if he had more questions. In retrospect, yeah, it probably wouldn’t make sense to list a bunch of facts about yourself on the internet if you’re trying to keep your existence a secret from the rest of the world, so fair enough, but he still thinks it would be pretty nice to have.

He’s been reading everything he can find online though, and after wading through dozens and dozens of conflicting folklore articles and horror stories and a few really weird romance novels, he’s settled on reading up on regular wolves, since Abuela assured him that’s basically what they turn into.

Did you know wolves like to greet each other and check on their packmates’ health by licking into each other’s mouths? Buck has to take a moment to reboot his brain after he imagines Eddie doing that to him sometime.

He just needs to make it through the next week without getting shot or losing his damn mind.

The full moon is circled on his calendar now, but the reality of what’s going to happen to him when it arrives hasn’t really sunk in for Buck yet. It’s not that he thinks Abuela or Chris or Eddie are lying to him, but the idea of his body changing, of becoming something entirely different, is so completely in the realm of fantasy that he’s not sure he really believes it yet.

It’s a long shift.

–

Buck spends his day off falling into yet another research spiral. He’d tried asking Athena a few subtle questions about the bullets used in the shooting, but she’d shut him down with a, “Buckaroo, you know I can’t talk about an open investigation. We’re looking into it, that’s all you need to know. We’re going to find this guy though, I promise you that.”

Abuela and Pepa aren’t much help either when he asks. Pepa is just as concerned as he is that Eddie’s not healing quickly enough and wants answers, but Isabel is being oddly mysterious about it. She pats his arm and says, “it is enough that he is healing at all, nieto,” and then warns him to be careful at work again.

So he’s left with reading everything he can in the news about the shootings.

There’s footage of one of the incidents online, the one at the scene of a car accident taken from a traffic camera and posted by a local news station. He clicks play before thinking about what effect watching it might have on him.

It’s a mistake.

Even through the tinny speakers of his laptop, the sound of the gunshot makes him flinch, and his heart starts racing. He has to quickly exit out of the video when he sees the firefighter on screen hit the ground.

Blood. There’s so much blood, and Eddie’s fading right before his eyes.

“We’re so close, I just… I need you to hang–I need you to hang on.”

Buck shoves himself out of his chair, shaking his head. It doesn’t really make the images in his mind go away, but it helps a little, to remind himself that Eddie’s alive. Eddie is going to be okay. Probably. Definitely.

He paces in Eddie’s dining room for a few minutes until he’s pulled himself out of the memory enough to calm down somewhat. Fuck. He scrubs at his hair roughly, feeling like his whole body is tingling and on the edge of an invisible precipice.

Huffing out a frustrated breath, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror hanging on the dining room wall and freezes. His eyes are the wrong color.

“What the…” Buck steps closer to the mirror. As he watches, his irises shift in slow motion from a rich golden color back to their normal blue. He blinks. They stay blue.

Chris finds him standing there, still staring at his reflection ten minutes later.

“Buck?”

He blinks again and turns to Chris. “Yeah? What’s up, buddy?”

“What are you doing?” Chris makes a face at him like he thinks Buck is acting weird. He’s not wrong.

“Uh…” He doesn’t really want to tell Eddie's kid that he’s been having an existential crisis because seeing his own eyes just spontaneously change color made the fact that his whole body is going to change entirely in just a week from now feel real in a way it hadn’t before. He fumbles for something else to say to him, because Chris is still staring up at him expectantly.

“I uh… well, actually maybe you can help me out, since you know way more about this wolf stuff than I do.”

“Help you with what?”

“Do you know what it means if your eyes change colors all of a sudden? Is it–is that something that happens a lot?”

Chris squints at him like if he looks hard enough, he can see Buck’s eyes change too. “I think it means you got really upset. That’s when it happens to Dad. Are you alright, Buck?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. I was just reading something in the news that made me a little sad, but I’m fine now. You don’t have to worry or anything,” Buck reassures him.

“What was it?” Chris asks curiously.

He shakes his head. “Just somebody got hurt at their job.” It’s not technically a lie. “C’mon, are you ready for me to check over your homework?”

“I guess,” Chris sighs, but he lets Buck lead them back to his bedroom.

–

They’re responding to a call from a construction site in downtown Los Angeles. Something went wrong loading a crane and now a man’s life literally hangs in the balance, pinned in place by the weight of several thousand pounds of girder suspended from the heavy steel cable currently slow-motion slicing its way through his arm.

Someone is going to have to go up there to get him free, but it means a several story climb without any air support from the LAPD. Anyone climbing up there right now will be a sitting duck, if their sniper is watching.

Buck distantly hears the conversation happening behind him. He’s looking up at the crane and making his own calculations. If they wait for the police helicopter to get into position it might be too late. Their man up there is bleeding too much. He pulls on his climbing harness and grabs the rope, saw, and tourniquet strap he’ll need.

He may not have been able to protect Eddie, but he can damn well protect the rest of his team now. He starts climbing.

“Buck, nobody cleared you to go up there,” Cap’s voice echoes over his radio. “You’re completely exposed and we don’t have any way to protect you. Buckley. Buckley, respond,” Bobby calls.

“I’ve got this, Cap. I brought a tourniquet,” he replies, still climbing. “Hen and Chim can walk me through anything else I need to do.”

He keeps climbing, ignoring the feeling of being exposed as he moves further and further upwards.

Up, up, it feels like he’s been climbing forever. The ground is so far below him. He can hear his patient screaming now, and focuses on placing each foot securely above the other, one step at a time. Finally, he’s at the top, clipping his line to a beam there before venturing out along the arm.

“Hey Cliff,” he calls out, glad he remembered to get the man’s name before heading up the ladder. “My name is Buck. I’m gonna get you down.”

The wind is stronger up here than it had been at street level. Buck has to hold on tight to the support beams as he leans over to examine Cliff’s injuries.

His shoulder is a bloody mess where the steel cable is digging into his arm, but he’s still able to move his fingers and squeeze Buck’s hand weakly when he asks him to. That’s good news; if they can get him down without bleeding out, he’ll probably get to keep his arm.

“Get this off of me!” Cliff groans.

“Deal. First, let’s get this tourniquet on you though, okay?” He threads the nylon strap around the man’s shoulder. “Hen, Chim, I’m prepping the tourniquet,” he says into the radio.

“You want to place it well above the wound.”

Right, he knows that. Cliff squirms and Buck tugs the thing into position, bracing himself against the buffeting winds.

“Don’t forget to warn him,” Chim’s voice reminds him.

“Hey, Cliff,” he says, “um… so this is going to hurt.” Then he yanks the tourniquet tight and reaches for the tool slung around his chest.

Cliff screams, but Buck ignores him as he concentrates on dealing with the cable pinning his arm to the crane.

“Make sure the area below us is clear down there,” he says into the radio, pausing to wait for confirmation that they’re good before completing the cut. The cable snaps and gives way, its cargo plummeting to the ground below.

“Still with me?” he asks Cliff, who nods weakly. “Good, good. We’re going to get you down now,” he promises, and grins down at the man.

–

Buck sort of expects to get a lecture from Bobby after the crane incident, but when said lecture doesn’t come, he starts to feel nervous. He makes it through half a shift of awkward silence before confronting Bobby in the station kitchen.

“Are you ever going to say anything?” he asks.

“I don’t know, Buck, what would you like me to say,” Bobby replies, leaning against the refrigerator. He looks exhausted.

“Uh, I mean, it’s usually ‘what were you thinking?’ or ‘that was reckless.’ Or my personal favorite, ‘you could’ve been killed.’” Buck pushes a hand through his hair, anxiously.

Bobby looks at him. “It doesn’t seem like I need to have the conversation, you know it by heart already. And still, you went full Buck.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Bobby sighs. “You’ll always be the guy who acts before he thinks. And I think I’ve come to terms with that, in part because I’ve realized I don’t have a choice; you’re not going to change. I also know that, whatever actions you take, no matter how impulsive or dangerous they are, they come from your heart. Because you care.”

Buck blinks back the tears that come unbidden to his eyes. “Thank you.”

Bobby’s next words bring him back down to Earth. “Today was not that. You didn’t get caught up in some moment and rush in where angels fear to tread. You made a deliberate choice to make yourself a target.”

“Yeah.” Buck steps forward and stands up straighter. “I made myself a target because I wasn’t going to let any of you guys take that risk. Because I can’t handle anyone else getting hurt right now.”

It’s more honest than he’d intended to be, but what does it matter? It’s not like he’d change anything at this point. Eddie had nearly bled out in front of him, and he was a goddamn werewolf. The rest of them were ordinary humans with ordinary human vulnerabilities to things like high caliber bullets. He’d have done it even if he was still an ordinary human himself.

“Buck, what happened to Eddie wasn’t your fault.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No, I was just the guy standing there when it happened who couldn’t do anything to protect him,” Buck says, his voice cracking a little. “Well, this time, I could do something to protect the rest of you. So I did.”

“We’re a team, and we’re supposed to protect each other,” Bobby says, shaking his head. “Don’t do it again.”

Buck isn’t making any promises.

–

Eddie is due to be released from the hospital three days later. According to the doctors, he’s apparently making a ‘remarkable’ recovery already. They have no idea. Still, it’s good news.

“Okay, uh, the nurse is getting your meds and discharge papers ready.”

Buck is there to pick him up and deliver him home safely for his surprise party, but Eddie waylays him when he comes into the hospital room to collect him.

“Great,” Eddie says. “Hey, since we’ve got a minute…”

Buck looks at him, trying to interpret the weirdly serious expression on his face. “Uh, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve just been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.” Buck sits down on the bed beside him.

“So, you might’ve noticed, I almost died. Again,” he says.

Buck tries to say something but Eddie interrupts him.

“I’ve had a lot of close calls. This one wasn’t even my closest. Firefighting is a dangerous job, even for people like me–like us.”

“Yeah, Eddie–” Buck begins.

“Just let me finish.” Eddie holds up the hand not strapped to his chest in a sling. “After the last time, when that well collapsed on top of me–”

“Which you survived…”

“After that, it got me thinking, you know, what would happen to Christopher if I hadn’t?”

Buck makes a noise in protest but Eddie ignores him.

“After the well, I went to my attorney and changed my will. So someday if I, uh, if I didn’t make it… Christopher would be taken care of… by you.”

“What?” Buck doesn’t think he’s heard him correctly.

“It’s in my will, if I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.” Eddie’s voice is steady but Buck can smell how nervous he is to be telling him this.

“Uh…” Buck doesn’t know what to say. “How does that even work? Don’t you… don’t you need my consent?”

“My attorney said you could refuse–”

“You know I wouldn’t.”

“–I know you wouldn’t.”

Buck swallows. “He has grandparents, other family.”

“Yeah.” Eddie nods. “After Shannon died they all tried to guilt me into giving Christopher to them. It’s not what I wanted then, it’s not what I want now.”

“Wouldn’t they fight for him?” Buck doesn’t know much about werewolf families, but from what he’s learned so far, they’re really protective of their own, especially against outsiders. He doesn’t think Eddie’s parents are likely to make an exception for him just because he accidentally stumbled his way into sharing the family legacy.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you. That’s what I want for him.”

“You said you did this last year… before I even became a–” He can’t say the word just yet. He stares down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them in a slow rhythm. “What if the worst had happened? I would’ve found out everything all at once, on the worst fucking day of my life. Why are you only just telling me now, Eddie?”

“Because, Evan, you came in here the other day and you talked about how I didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth about my family.” Eddie reaches out to grip Buck’s hand; it’s a little awkward because Buck is sitting on his right side and he has to reach past his immobilized arm.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I need you to know that. I trust you with my life. I trust you with my son. It was never about trust; I care about you, Buck. We’re partners. I’m always going to have your back, and I hope you’ll always have mine. I didn’t tell you my secret not because I thought you’d judge me for it and stop being my friend, but because even knowing that we exist is dangerous.”

There are groups out there who don’t like what we are, who dedicate their lives to hunting us down and killing us if they can. These people wouldn’t hesitate to hurt someone close to us if they thought it might get them more information. The fewer people who know about us, the better. I was trying to protect you, Buck.”

“Okay. But. You still could’ve told me about the will, Eddie,” he says; he’s not going to let him dodge answering his real question.

Eddie closes his eyes and nods. “I know. I’m sorry. I just–I didn’t know how to say it.”

And, alright, Buck can relate to that. “Okay.”

–

Eddie’s homecoming celebration is a fairly subdued affair, by 118 standards.

Ana had texted Buck on Thursday evening, wanting to know if there was anything she could do to help, so he’d put her in charge of arranging the food and the majority of the decorations. Before he left for the hospital, Buck had kept Chris occupied making a big “Welcome Home, Dad!” banner while Ana handled the set up with Abuela and Pepa.

She’d ordered two of those long party subs and laid them out on the dining room table with a bowl of caesar salad, pile of paper plates, and a carefully arranged display of store-bought cupcakes that spelled out “GET WELL SOON” in shiny plastic letters stuck into the frosting. There’s a big dispenser jug of lemonade perched next to a stack of plastic cups on the counter in the kitchen. Several yellow and blue balloons are taped up to the living room walls strategically and a vase of cheerful flowers positioned on the coffee table.

Christopher gets the first and longest hug when they walk in the door. Eddie pulls him in tight with his good arm and buries his face in Chris’ hair. Buck can’t tell if he’s just soaking in his son’s scent or trying to hide the tears that are definitely threatening to make an appearance.

When Eddie finally lets his son go, Buck hangs back at Chris’ side while his father makes the rounds of the rest of his well wishers. He gets a few significant looks from the members of Eddie’s extended family who didn’t know about his recent… conversion yet and wants to avoid any awkward conversations in mixed company. Is it cowardly to use Eddie’s kid as a shield against his relatives? Probably. Does Buck care? Nope.

Most of the ‘A Shift’ regulars are in attendance along with Carla and the handful of Los Angeles Diazes available to come by on short notice. Eddie spends the first twenty minutes or so of the party being passed from one gentle embrace to another and the next thirty leaning against various walls while listening to people talk around him. Someone hands him a cup of lemonade at one point. Buck thinks it was Ana.

They’d agreed to keep things short, and once Buck spots the telltale tightness around Eddie’s eyes returning and the strained smile he’s making, he steps in and starts politely thanking people for coming, suggesting that they take an extra cupcake for the road.

As soon as they’re down to the last few guests–Ana, Pepa, and Isabel–he steers Eddie over to plant him on the couch that’s been Buck’s temporary bed for the past week. Eddie goes willingly, slumping against the throw pillows.

There’s still quite a bit of food left over to put away and decorations to take down, and that keeps Buck and the others busy for the next half hour or so. By the time they’re finished, Eddie is slumped over on the sofa, fast asleep, his forehead creased with a frown, even unconscious.

“I can stay a little longer if you need help getting him into bed,” Ana offers. There’s something odd about her expression as she looks at Buck while she says it, like she wants to say something else entirely.

“No, it’s alright, I’ve got things from here. I’ve got a lot of experience putting tired Diazes to bed,” he answers and gives her a wry smile. “Thanks again for all your help today, Ana.”

She nods, bites her lip, and then goes to retrieve her purse from the kitchen.

Buck walks her to the door. He has to lean down to accept the quick, one-armed hug she gives him. “Have a good evening. Drive safe,” he says.

Ana sends one final glance over her shoulder towards Eddie on the couch before stepping through the doorway. “Tell him to call me, will you?”

“Sure thing,” he promises.

Pepa leaves shortly after Ana, taking Isabel with her, and promising to check in on her nephew after she gets off work tomorrow while Buck is on shift.

And like that, Buck finds himself left alone in the house with Eddie and Christopher (who had disappeared into his bedroom with his Nintendo Switch when the party got too boring for him). It’s barely 7 p.m. and he feels exhausted, deep down in his bones, like he’s run a marathon or something. He rubs at his face.

No one had asked if he intended to stay the night now that Eddie was home, they’d all just assumed he would and left him to it. Buck doesn’t particularly care to examine what that says about his relationship with Eddie, or the fluttery feeling thinking about it causes in his chest.

He bends to touch Eddie’s good arm to wake him, but he’s clearly down for the count, because he doesn’t even stir a little.

“Eddie, Eds, c’mon, man. Let’s get you to your bed, this couch is hell on your back if you stay on it too long. Believe me, I speak from experience,” he says, running a hand over Eddie’s hair instead of shaking him, to spare his injured shoulder.

Instead of getting up, Eddie hums and leans into his touch, his face going slack and relaxed, so Buck pets him a little longer, unable to resist the temptation, until finally Eddie opens his eyes.

“Ah, there you are. C’mon. Up. Bed. I will carry you if I have to,” Buck threatens with a smile. “I’ve done it before. Need you to use those legs for me and walk to your bedroom so it doesn’t have to come to that.”

Eddie blinks up at him, but the words must eventually penetrate through the thick soup of sleep in his brain, because he sits up and allows Buck to help him to his feet.

They shuffle down the hallway together to Eddie’s room and Buck quickly gets him tucked carefully into his bed.

“Get some rest, Eds,” he says, moving towards the door.

“Buck?” Eddie’s voice is soft and low.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go,” Eddie all but whispers.

Something warm shivers its way down Buck’s spine. He shakes his head to clear it. “I’m not going anywhere, man. I’ve just gotta check on Christopher. I’ll be back soon though, promise.”

By the time he gets Chris squared away with a new library book and instructions that he can only read until nine and then it’s lights out, Eddie is snoring again.

Buck smiles and leans over to gently reposition his arm against the pillow so that his shoulder won’t ache unnecessarily in the morning. The movement must not be subtle enough though, because Eddie’s free hand catches Buck’s wrist as he tries to straighten up.

“Hey, buddy,” Buck says. “It’s just me again. You can go back to sleep.”

Eddie mumbles something Buck doesn’t catch and tugs on his arm, easily pulling him halfway onto the bed with him. Jeez, he keeps forgetting that the guy is even stronger than he looks.

“Whoa.” He slowly but firmly pulls back, trying to free himself from Eddie’s vice-like grip without hurting him.

“Buck.” Eddie’s voice sounds remarkably normal now. Buck glances down at his face to find his best friend looking back at him, steady and unsettling. “You should stay.”

“Uh…” Buck says, very articulately.

“‘m not gonna bite…” Eddie’s hand has now worked its way up to Buck’s shoulder and he gives it a friendly squeeze.

Buck laughs. “I don’t know, man, that’s not what I heard.” He grins when Eddie laughs too.

“C’mon. I sleep better with company. We both will,” Eddie argues sleepily. “Issa wolf thing.”

“Alright,” Buck relents, because an actual bed really is an improvement on that couch and he has trouble resisting Diaz eyes even on a good day, and climbs in under the covers on Eddie’s left side. “Move over so I don’t fall out of bed in the middle of the night.”

Eddie does, shoving a second pillow in Buck’s direction clumsily.

Buck’s fast asleep before he can overthink this decision.

–

Eddie calls Ana on Sunday afternoon while Buck is at work. He’s not sure what he’s going to say to her before he picks up the phone, but he knows he needs to end things between them.

It probably shouldn’t have taken waking up in bed with his best friend cuddled up next to him and feeling safer than he’s ever felt in his life to realize that there’s something seriously wrong with his relationship with his girlfriend, but here he is.

She takes it well. Or at least she doesn’t seem surprised when he fumbles his way through an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ explanation of why they shouldn’t see each other anymore. They haven’t even slept together yet, despite having been dating for nearly three months now, so he gets why she might’ve seen this coming before he did. They’d come close a couple times, but he’d put her off saying he wanted to go slow because it was his first relationship since Shannon died.

“I’m sorry,” he says and means it, and they hang up.

He feels a little guilty that the first thing he does after he gets off the phone with her is text Buck.

Just broke up with Ana.

They must not be on a call, because Buck replies to him only a few minutes later.

oh man, i’m sorry. you okay?

I’m fine. Wasn’t working out. Better to end things now than string her along, right?

yeah, man. that makes sense.

Chris okay?

Haven’t told him yet.

Don’t think he’ll be too upset. He wasn’t that happy when I started dating her.

he wants his dad happy tho

Me too.

Buck sends him a string of emojis in reply, a lot of them hearts.

gtg. we’re getting called out. talk later.

–

The police make an arrest on Monday morning and the LAFD breathes a collective sigh of relief.

The 118 is called out to a structure fire that night. Buck’s working the back half of a 48, thanks to the shift trade he’d had to make to get the night of the full moon off, along with the rest of the ‘A Shift’ on their regular 24. The fire is in an industrial area near the garment district; former factory space looks like, no current tenants officially, three stories.

Dispatch reports one person named “Ethan” potentially inside; he’d been alert enough to call 9-1-1, but the call had disconnected before the operator could get an approximate location for the man.

“Glad we don’t need bulletproof vests anymore,” Chim mutters, retrieving a length of hose from the truck.

“Yeah, I’m not missing them,” Buck replies, tapping into the nearest hydrant.

Bobby, Chim, and Hen have gone inside looking for their caller while Ravi and Buck try to knock down the blaze from the outside with the hoses.

“No sign of him here on two, I’m moving on to three,” Bobby calls over the radio.

“Copy that, Cap!” Hen replies.

“118, we have an order to evacuate the building,” a familiar voice interrupts from Dispatch.

“Evacuate? On whose authority?” Bobby’s voice is sharp even over the radio.

“LAPD.”

“Copy that, Dispatch, coming out,” Hen replies.

“Hang on, I think I see our victim,” Bobby reports. “Third floor, bravo, second right from the stairs. Wilson, Han you head out; I’ll be right behind you.”

“Sound off when you have him, Cap.”

The radio goes silent then and stays that way for too long.

Buck tries to focus on the job in front of him, putting out what flames he can to leave them a clear path to safety. It’s working, they’ve got the fire mostly contained to this side of the building, but he’ll feel a hell of a lot better when his team is all outside.

Then he hears Chimney’s voice call, “Come in, Captain Nash.”

Nothing.

Buck hands off his hose to Ortiz and is ready to go charging into the building to pull them out himself when Hen and Chim emerge from the building’s smoke-filled front entrance without Bobby.

Hen gets back on the radio again as soon as they get clear. “Cap, respond. What’s your twenty?”

“Bobby’s still inside?” Athena asks them, having appeared suddenly on scene. There are more uniformed police approaching behind her.

“They ordered everybody out of the building, but he didn’t follow us,” Hen replies, looking behind her at the blaze. “It’s a maze in there.”

“He said he had eyes on our victim, Ethan,” Chim says.

“Ethan Copeland? He’s not a victim. He’s the sniper,” Athena snaps, expression deadly serious.

“What?” Chimney gropes for his mic. “Come in, Captain Nash!”

Still no response.

Buck’s getting that itching feeling under his skin again.

“What’s going on, I thought you guys had the sniper in custody this morning?” Hen asks.

“We got the wrong man,” Athena says, looking at the man in an LAPD uniform with stars on his collar who’s joined them.

“Sniper’s ex-LAPD. After his partner quit, we realized Copeland was a problem and removed him from duty,” the man says, grimacing.

“Now he’s making everybody pay for it,” chimes in another woman in a suit who’s joined them; Buck recognizes her as the detective he spoke to briefly after the shooting. Danvers, maybe?

“Anybody have any idea where inside this building Bobby is?” Athena asks.

“He called it out when he found the guy,” Buck answers. “Third floor, bravo side. Somewhere around that window I think.” He points.

“All right. SWAT’s right behind us. We’re taking over this scene,” Athena’s companion says.

“You’re taking over the fire?” Chimney turns on the man. “Who’re you?”

“Division Chief Aldous Pate. Until we learn otherwise, we’re treating this as a hostage situation. Who are you?” he asks.

“Howard Han, 118. And I guess, since my captain’s trapped inside that fire, I’m in charge of this scene,” Chim says, keying his mic again. “Cap, come in.”

Chim is still arguing with Chief Pate over who, exactly, is in charge of the scene when Athena gets Buck’s attention. He follows her to the ladder truck.

“I need you to get me in there,” she says when they’re sufficiently alone.

“What? No, Athena…”

“If we don’t do something, Bobby’s going to die in there, Buck,” she says, fixing him with a steely stare. “He’s unprotected, possibly injured. You need to help me.”

“Help you do what?” Hen asks, joining them.

“Go get my husband.”

–

They smuggle Athena wearing full turnout gear past the assembling SWAT crews, while Chimney continues to argue with the LAPD that they don’t have time to wait, they need to send people in to get Bobby out now. They aren’t waiting; Chim just doesn’t know that yet.

Sticking close to her, they get her up to their planned insertion point on the roof using the ladder truck. This side of the building should still be structurally sound, but there are never any guarantees when you’re dealing with a fire of this size.

Buck forces the skylight open with his Halligan and checks that the room below is relatively clear before turning back to face Athena.

“I’m going with you,” he says, reaching to secure his mask.

“No, Buck.” She stops him with a hand on his chest. “I can’t protect you in there. He’s trying to kill firefighters.”

“Yeah, and you’re dressed as one,” he argues.

Athena shakes her head and holds up her service weapon. “I’m going in, alone, and that’s final. Now tell me what to do.”

–

She gets Bobby out in one piece, if not unharmed.

Thankfully, Copeland hadn’t hit any major arteries when he shot Bobby in the abdomen and they’re able to get him out of the building and on his way to the hospital immediately, before he’s lost too much blood.

Buck desperately wants to climb into the ambulance after him and ride along, but Athena’s already in there with Hen and there’s only so much room in the back of the rig. Plus, with the fire still roaring behind them, threatening to jump to neighboring buildings, they still have work to do, so he stays put and does his job like a professional.

Copeland is a different story.

Later, the official report will say that Ethan Copeland, ex-LAPD SWAT sniper, snapped after an incident on the job two months prior. His partner accidentally shot the wrong person during a stand-off with police and later resigned from the department when the weight of what he’d done became too much to bear. Copeland took the news of his partner’s retirement poorly and was suspended from active duty pending an investigation when his behavior became more erratic. He was killed following an armed confrontation with police in which he took an LAFD captain hostage.

Unofficially, things are a bit more complicated.

Buck overhears from the police as they’re finishing up on scene that the bullets used in the sniper attacks were silver, which would explain why Eddie’s bullet wound is taking so damn long to heal, and raises further questions about Copeland’s motivations. Questions Buck’s not sure he’s qualified to answer.

Bobby was the only person who spoke with Copeland for any length of time, but he isn’t really in a position to offer much in the way of insight into the other man’s thought process at the moment. From what little he heard from Athena as they were getting Bobby loaded into the ambulance, Buck suspects he got an earful from the man while they were alone together, and he fully expects Cap will have questions for Eddie after they release him from the hospital.

With the 133’s help, they’re able to get the fire out and hand over the scene entirely to the LAPD. Athena sends a text out to the team before they’re back at the station that Bobby is out of surgery already and is expected to be fine; they can come see him in the morning.

There’s still six hours left until they’re off shift and Buck’s so tired he can’t even see straight. Dispatch knows they’re short crew and puts them on offline status for a few hours, so as soon as he’s got his gear off and hung up, Buck collapses in the bunk room without even bothering to hit the showers first.

–

Since he traded away his next regular shift, Buck has the coming 72 hours off. That’s plenty of time to alternate between worrying about Bobby’s recovery and what Bobby knows, the implications of a police sniper possibly targeting the city’s supernatural first responders, what it means for Eddie’s prognosis that the bullet he took was silver, and his own impending date with the full moon on Wednesday night. To say he’s preoccupied would be an understatement.

At least, that’s the explanation he’s sticking with for why, instead of going home to check on his loft and sleep in his own perfectly comfortable bed, he drives straight to Eddie’s house and lets himself in using his key.

It’s a school day, so he pokes his head into Christopher’s room to find him sitting at his desk, headphones on, as he does his remote classes.

Eddie is propped up on a pile of pillows on Chris’ bed, a paperback novel laying next to him on the bedspread. He’s snoring softly, mouth half open. Buck thinks he might be drooling a little.

“Hey, Chris,” Buck whispers, not wanting to interrupt.

Chris grins at him and rolls his eyes at his dad on the bed. “He’s been sleeping all morning,” he says, keeping his voice low.

“Healing is hard work, bud. Your dad’s probably going to be sleeping a lot more than usual for a while.” He quickly sidesteps around Chris to stay out of the camera’s shot as much as possible.

“Maybe I should take him back to his own bed. I think I could use a little more sleep myself. If you need anything you can come get me though, okay?”

“Sure, Buck,” Chris says, distracted.

Buck glances at his computer screen. It looks like the teacher is showing the class a diagram of the water cycle. He presses a quick kiss to the top of Chris’ head and turns back to the bed to roust Eddie.

“Hey, Eds,” he says, putting his hand on Eddie’s left shoulder and squeezing it gently. “Chris says your snoring is interrupting his classes,” he teases.

“Mm? Buck?” Eddie blinks at him. “You’re home?”

He’s not going to touch the warm feelings that hearing Eddie casually refer to his house as Buck’s home gives him. “Yeah, man. Let’s get you back to your own room so you’re not distracting Chris.”

“Oh, okay,” Eddie agrees, clearly not entirely awake yet. That’s alright, he only needs to be conscious enough to move to the other room. Buck helps him up and guides him out of Chris’ bedroom and down the hallway to his own.

He pulls the covers back to help Eddie climb into his own bed and tucks them in around him.

Eddie’s hair is a fluffy mess without any product in it and between that and his warm scent, Buck kinda wants to curl up around him. That’s probably just some sort of wolf instinct affecting him, right?

Whatever it is, Buck’s too tired to fight it.

He rummages in Eddie’s dresser for a pair of shorts and his sleep hoodie and changes out of his clothes, glad he dragged himself to the showers at the station before he left. Setting an alarm on his phone to wake himself up in a few hours to make lunch, he climbs into the bed behind Eddie and rests a careful hand on his hip.

He’s asleep again a minute later.

–

Later, when Buck tells Eddie what happened with Bobby and the sniper with silver bullets, Eddie gets quiet.

“Do you think we need to be worried about this?” Buck asks, poking at the grilled cheese sandwiches he’s making with a spatula.

“I don’t know.” Eddie rubs his face; he’s well on his way to growing a full beard now, since he hasn’t bothered with shaving since the shooting. It looks good on him.

“If this guy was one of those hunters you told me about, he might have friends.”

“Yeah.” Eddie frowns. “We’ll have to talk to Bobby, find out what the sniper said to him.”

“Are you going to tell Bobby about the–about the wolf thing if he asks?”

“I don’t know. I may have to.” He shakes his head. “How do you think he’ll take it?”

Buck shrugs and flips the grilled cheese over in the pan. “Might take some convincing at first, but once we get him to believe us, I don’t think he’d have a problem with it, really. Bobby’s a pretty accepting guy. And we’ve worked together for years; he knows us.”

“We don’t have to tell him about you, if you don’t want him to know.”

“Not going to take him very long to figure it out if we’re suddenly both skipping full moon shifts.” Buck laughs. “It’s okay. I trust Bobby. If we’re telling him about this, we’re telling him about both of us.”

–

They decide to wait until Bobby is out of the hospital before they try to talk to him about Copeland, but he’s still their captain and friend, so he and Eddie leave Chris with his abuela that afternoon and drive over to see him.

Bobby’s awake when they arrive, fortunately, and in good spirits despite the bullet wound.

“Was kind of hoping to be done with hospitals for a while, Cap,” Eddie jokes, and Bobby smiles.

“Believe me, I’d have preferred the same,” he says. “Glad to see you up and about, Diaz.”

Eddie nods and looks down at the sling across his chest. “Thanks, Bobby.”

Bobby turns to Buck. “I hear you’re the one responsible for letting Athena charge into a burning building without backup.”

“It was her idea, I swear, Cap!" Buck sputters. "I tried to go with her, but she wouldn’t let me. Have you ever tried arguing with her? It’s impossible!”

Bobby laughs. “I’m not mad at you, Buck. I know my wife.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad you were there to help her do what she was going to do anyway as safely as possible.”

Still flushing, Buck nods. “Just relieved she was able to get to you in time,” he mutters.

There’s a moment where he thinks Bobby might be about to bring up what happened when he was alone with Copeland, but it passes. Instead they chat for a few minutes about when the doctors think Bobby can go home, who’s been in to see him so far, and how their respective kids are doing.

Buck and Eddie make their exit with the promise that they’ll see him again soon when Bobby starts looking like he might need another dose of pain meds.

–

And then, before Buck knows it, it’s the day of the full moon.

He can tell there’s something different when he wakes up in Eddie’s bed, plastered like a barnacle to Eddie’s back, one arm slung around his waist, nose buried in the hair at the nape of Eddie’s neck. Well, that part isn't what’s different, that’s become a regular occurrence since Eddie was discharged from the hospital and Buck started sharing a bed with him again.

He doesn’t remember them getting quite this close when they were sharing Buck’s bed while everyone was quarantining themselves at his loft, but he’s not exactly complaining about the change.

Carefully disentangling himself from Eddie after allowing himself a moment to soak in the warmth and comfort and sense of rightness he feels wrapped around his best friend like this, Buck rolls over onto his back to breathe and take stock of himself.

There’s this kind of low level hum of pent-up energy just beneath his skin, worse than usual (because he’s always been more restless than most people) and Buck doesn’t know quite what to do with it. He wants to run a marathon or climb a mountain or go do something, anything, active to burn it off. He almost wishes he was on shift today because he could use the distraction to keep his thoughts off the steadily ticking countdown in the back of his mind.

When Eddie wakes up, he’s still laying there, practically vibrating as he contemplates what’s waiting for him. He must sense some of what Buck’s thinking, because the first thing he says is, “you’re going to be okay, you know.”

“Hmm?” Buck turns on his side to face him. Eddie looks soft and rumpled in the morning light.

“Tonight. It’s going to be okay. You’ll be alright. It’s not as scary as whatever you’re thinking.”

Buck nods. He’s not that nervous. Mostly. “I’m not freaking out just yet,” he assures him. “It just sorta feels like I swallowed a bunch of angry bees or something. Everything’s buzzing inside.”

“Ah.” Eddie yawns. “That’s normal. Full moon always feels like that; it’ll get worse the closer we get to… you know. You get used to it.”

“Oh. What should I do in the meantime?”

“Exercise helps. You could go for a run or I’ve got a heavy bag on the back porch,” he offers.

“What about you? Not sure either of those are an option with your shoulder still messed up. Are you going to be okay?”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, Buck, I’ll be fine. I’ve been doing this since I was twelve, practically all my life.”

So Buck goes for a long run around Eddie’s neighborhood while Eddie handles getting Chris up, fed, and ready for school just like it’s any other day.

Outside, it’s a typical spring morning in Southern California, cloudy and cool, pretty perfect weather for running, actually. LA’s air quality is never really what you’d call ‘great’, but it feels good to get his lungs pumping harder. Everything feels even brighter and louder than his new normal to him; it’s distracting enough that he’s mostly able to clear his mind for a while.

Buck makes himself do about six miles and returns to the house sweaty and only slightly less energetic than he left. One of Eddie’s neighbors is bringing her recycling bin in from the curb and gives him a suspicious look, so he smiles and waves and makes a point of stretching out in the driveway for a few minutes like he belongs there.

When he eventually comes back inside, Eddie is just stepping out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped low around his waist. He’s not wearing his sling and the bandages haven’t been replaced on his shoulder either, so Buck can see the red mark where the sniper’s bullet had exited and sprayed him with Eddie’s blood. There’s still a fair amount of bruising around the wound, but it looks so much better than it did just three days ago when Buck last helped him change the dressings. He’s still holding his right arm bent awkwardly across his chest like he’s in pain though.

“Is that going to be a problem tonight?” Buck asks, pointing at Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie grimaces. “Probably not? I think the shift should take care of the rest of the healing process. Might hurt more than usual, but I should be okay to run.”

“More than usual? Meaning it usually hurts?” This is information that probably should have been shared with Buck sooner.

“Uh…” Eddie looks dumbfounded. “Yeah, it hurts. It’s basically your entire body being broken down and rebuilding itself in about a minute; why would you think that it wouldn’t hurt?”

And okay, when he puts it like that, it sounds obvious, but still – “I don’t know how any of this works, man. Until last week, I didn’t know that was something that bodies could do.”

“Fair enough.” Eddie drops his gaze. “I’m sorry, Buck. It’s going to hurt. I wasn’t lying earlier though–it’s not that bad and it does get easier.”

“Not much either of us can do about it now anyway,” Buck says, maybe more harshly than he intends.

“No,” Eddie agrees.

–

Pepa stops by to pick up Chris that afternoon. Normally, all the local members of the Diaz family spend the full moon together at a cabin in the mountains north of LA. There are a few regular humans in the mix who stay behind watching the children still too young to change, while the wolves run all night as a pack.

Since it’s Buck’s first time, Eddie had offered to take him out alone before subjecting him to the chaos of the full Diaz pack, an offer he’d gladly accepted. So instead, they get into Eddie’s truck and drive for more than two hours to a campsite he’d reserved somewhere in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Listening to Eddie’s directions, bitching about traffic, and admiring the abrupt appearance of rocky pine forest is enough to distract Buck from the steadily growing itch in his limbs for a while, and he grins as they finally turn onto the unpaved forest road that marks the last leg of their journey.

Fifteen minutes of bumpy driving later, they’re pulling up to their campsite, marked only by a conspicuous ring of stones and ashes left from a campfire and a painted wooden post with metal numbers nailed to it.

Buck hops out of the truck as soon as he shuts off the engine and stretches, breathing in the fresh air. “It smells amazing out here,” he announces, bouncing excitedly on his toes.

Eddie exits on the passenger side more slowly, shaking his head fondly at Buck.

“Come on, perrito, we’ve got a tent to set up and you’re the one with two fully functional arms at the moment,” Eddie says, gesturing towards the truck.

Buck dutifully retrieves their gear and begins setting up camp according to Eddie’s instructions. It’s mostly for show, as they’ll be spending the majority of their night running around these woods on four legs, but it’ll be nice to have somewhere comfortable to sleep off the shapeshifting hangover in the morning.

“Okay,” Eddie says, once Buck has filled the large metal water bowl they brought and left it next to the open tent. Buck’s hands are shaking now and he nearly sloshes water all over the ground.

“Here’s where things get interesting - I’m going to let you go first so I can make sure you’re alright. Then I’ll join you.”

“You can do that?” Buck feels like his heart is going a mile a minute in his chest now, he can’t imagine being able to control this.

Eddie nods. “I can hold off the shift for a while if I need to or change even when it’s not the full moon. You’ll learn how too, eventually. It just takes experience.”

“Awesome.” Buck’s voice has gotten noticeably rougher since they arrived.

“So you’re gonna start to feel a really strong urge to shift soon. I’m not sure how to describe it, but you’ll know it when you feel it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We should probably get undressed now.” Eddie starts fumbling with the buttons on his shirt awkwardly, his right arm still not fully cooperating.

“Here, let me–” Buck tugs his own shirt over his head easily and then comes over to help Eddie deal with his. He tosses both shirts into the tent behind them and then yanks off his shoes and socks to toss them as well.

“Thanks.” Eddie is breathing almost as hard as Buck is now, his St. Christopher’s medal gleaming in the moonlight as it rises and falls with his chest.

They’re standing so close to one another that Buck can see the gold bleed into Eddie’s brown eyes, radiating outward from his pupils like a pinwheel effect. If it weren’t so unnerving, Buck thinks it would be incredibly cool.

He must stand there staring into Eddie’s eyes for longer than he should, because Eddie clears his throat, startling Buck back into the present.

“I think we’d better finish getting undressed; you’re already starting to shift,” Eddie says gently, bending to tug off his own shoes.

“I am? I mean–right.” Buck steps back and shoves off his shorts and boxer briefs unceremoniously. Eddie swallows visibly and does the same.

Buck leans forward to take Eddie’s shorts with his own and walks them unsteadily over to the tent. Before he throws their clothes inside though, he has an idea, and tugs his phone out of his pocket, flicking open the camera app.

“Hey, Eddie, can I ask you a favor?”

“Yeah, what?”

“I kinda want to see what this looks like, y’know, from the outside. If I give you my phone will you record it for me?” He holds out his phone. The itching feeling and muscle tremors have gotten so bad now that he nearly drops it.

“Buck, no, that’s a bad idea; what if someone else sees it on your phone?”

“Nobody’s going to see it but me. I’ll delete it right after I watch it. C’mon Eddie, I just want to know,” he pleads.

“It’s not going to be pretty,” Eddie warns, taking the phone from him.

“I know. I can handle it. We deal with blood and gnarly injuries all the time at work. Plus, I watched the recording from my surgery when they pulled the plate out of my leg.”

“That’s not really the same.”

“Close enough,” Buck replies through gritted teeth. It’s really starting to hurt now and the spasms are coming in waves, rolling through his entire body. “Uh, Eddie, I think–I think I’m close.”

Eddie nods, taking a step away from him and pointing the phone at him. “Just let it happen, okay? Don’t try to fight it. You got this, bud.”

Buck whines and drops to his knees.

The waves pick up momentum until there’s a painful lurch and then it feels like he’s being torn apart from the inside. It’s the ladder truck landing on his leg all over again. He screams and falls forward onto half-formed paws, not hands. Buck’s pretty sure he should have passed out from the pain by now, but instead it continues and he’s distantly aware of a sort of pulling, wrenching sensation that starts at the base of his spine and runs up through to his mouth.

And then, abruptly, the pain stops, and Buck can open his eyes.

The campsite looks different now, the colors subtly off somehow, duller maybe, except the moonlight makes everything so much easier to see, and the scents and sounds around him are incredible. If he thought his nose was more sensitive before, that was nothing. This is a whole other world.

“Dios, look at you,” Eddie breathes, interrupting Buck’s sensory overload.

Buck climbs to his feet carefully, stretching out his new body. He feels good now, powerful and coiled like a spring. He leaps cheerfully towards Eddie, throwing his front paws at his chest. It’s time for Eddie to join him so they can go run.

“Whoa, hey, easy, Buck!” Eddie says, startled.

Buck whines and licks Eddie’s face. Time to go!

“Okay, hold on.” Eddie pushes Buck off of him and goes over to drop something into the tent. He stretches, rubbing his shoulder. “Stay over there. I’ll be with you in a second.”

Eddie closes his eyes and drops gracefully to his hands and knees. He groans, and then his skin seems to ripple like water and shimmy outward, like he’s being stretched like gum. Thick, dark fur blurs his changing form and before he knows it, Buck is looking at a large brown wolf standing where his best friend had just been.

At first, the sight of another wolf this close makes him hesitate as a short burst of wariness bubbles up from the back of his mind, but something stronger inside of him still instinctively recognizes Eddie as safe, and he barrels into him enthusiastically.

Eddie growls and rolls him, mock biting at his flanks, before hopping to his feet and darting towards the trees at the edge of the clearing their campsite occupies. Buck gets back onto his feet and gives chase, following Eddie deeper into the forest.

–

Buck wakes up in their tent to the sound of birds tweeting up a storm and a heavy, warm body half-draped over his own. Eddie’s head is laying on his chest, one arm curled beneath and around Buck’s right shoulder, and one leg thrown over Buck’s left leg, slotting between his thighs. When Buck tries to shift his weight slightly, Eddie clings tighter, pressing himself flush against Buck’s hip.

And if Buck wasn’t fully awake before, he is now, because that’s–Eddie’s putting a bit more of himself into this full body hug than usual and this is now officially more than Buck can reasonably ignore. His heart can’t take it.

“Eddie,” Buck groans. “Eddie, I need you to wake up, man.”

“Mmph,” Eddie says, mouth pressed against Buck’s collarbone.

“Eddie, seriously.” Buck shakes him a little. “I need some conscious consent here, because I really want to kiss you right now, and if that’s not where you’re at I’d really like to know before I completely screw up our friendship.”

“Buck?” Eddie pushes himself up enough to look Buck in the eye, but doing that also brings other areas of his anatomy into even closer contact with Buck’s, and they both groan at the increased pressure.

“Eddie, please,” Buck begs. “Either kiss me or let me up before I embarrass myself here.”

Miracle of miracles, Eddie kisses him.

–

Things escalate and then conclude rather quickly from there.

It’s not exactly Buck’s finest performance, stamina-wise, but in his defense, Eddie’s really hot, and he’s been at least halfway in love with the guy since he put his hand on Buck’s shoulder and told him there was no one else in the world he trusted more with his son.

Buck’s memories of the previous night after he shifted are sort of hazy and impressionistic. He remembers scents and general feelings more than any specific events. He hopes he remembers every second of this morning for the rest of his life.

They clean themselves up with Buck’s discarded t-shirt and then lay there on the sleeping bags panting and soaking in the afterglow for a while.

Eddie’s the first one to breach the silence. “So, uh, that happened,” he says.

Buck snorts. “Yeah, it did.”

“I, um, I didn’t really plan for this.”

“I figured.” Buck skims a hand down Eddie’s ribs. The bullet wound on his shoulder has faded to a shiny pink mark the size of a quarter. “You’re not having second thoughts now are you?”

Eddie inhales a shaky breath and then says, “no, I think I’m good with this, if you are?”

“I was the one who asked you to kiss me,” Buck reminds him.

“You did.” Eddie rolls over onto his side and puts a hand on Buck’s chest. “You’re still allowed to change your mind.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” Buck raises an eyebrow at him.

“No! Hell no, just trying to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“And what page is that? What are we doing here, Eddie? Is this just a one-time thing or are we–is this the start of something?” he asks.

“I think… we started this something a long time ago,” Eddie answers. “It just took us until now to realize it.”

–

Thanks to LA’s never ending traffic, they have another two plus hour drive back home to talk about… everything else.

“So, I know we got a little… side-tracked this morning with other things but, how are you feeling about…?”

“The werewolf thing?” Buck asks, grinning at him.

“Yeah, the werewolf thing.” Eddie chuckles, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Honestly? Pretty great actually.” He shrugs. “I don’t really know what I expected, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah, it hurt like hell at first, and this definitely qualifies as the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me, but it felt good. You haven’t ruined my life, Eds. And that reminds me, I have a video to watch.”

He pulls out his phone.

Eddie glances over at him briefly. “You sure you want to see that? I snapped a couple photos at the end; you don’t have to watch the video.”

“I saw you do it; it can’t be that bad.” Buck shrugs and hits play.

Watching himself on video is always a little surreal, but this takes the cake. What he remembers it feeling like doesn’t quite match up with the bizarre transformation he can see taking place in the moonlit clearing on screen. Eddie’s partially right, it is kind of disturbing to see his own face distort and reshape itself, but the end result is undeniably amazing. Because there he is, with four legs and a tail, fur a mix of tan, brown, cream, and gray. Wolf Buck! It’s so cool.

The footage cuts out right as he basically throws himself at Eddie. He swipes left to get to the next items in his camera roll and finds a few slightly out of focus shots of a shiny black canine nose, whiskered muzzle, inquisitive golden eyes, and a glimpse of fuzzy ears, and finally a single full body photo of his wolf-self looking back at Eddie impatiently.

“I’m keeping the photos,” he announces immediately.

“Buck–” Eddie sighs. “I don’t think–”

“I’m not going to post them on Instagram or anything. And if anybody sees them accidentally, I can just say I met a wolf dog. That’s way more plausible than somebody we know guessing that it’s me in the photos,” Buck reasons. “Besides, I’ve got to show Christopher at least; he’s going to be sad he missed seeing his Buck wolf-out.” He waggles his phone in Eddie’s direction.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “At least put a real passcode on your phone, Buck. That facial recognition lock isn’t secure.”

–

Chris is excited to see the photos when they pick him up. He practically demands Buck’s phone as soon as he’s buckled in.

“Whoa, Buck, you look so different. Dad’s wolf is really dark all over, like his hair. How come yours has so many colors?”

“I don’t know, buddy, maybe it’s because my regular hair isn’t all one color? My beard is kind of a mix of blond and brown if I let it grow in.”

He scratches his jaw; it’s probably time for a shave when they get home if he doesn’t want to end up looking like ‘Mountain Man’ Diaz next to him.

“You still have your birthmark though,” Chris points out.

Buck takes his phone back and sure enough, he’s right. In one of the blurry close-ups Eddie took you can see patches of darker fur above his left eye in roughly the same shape.

“Obviously. Wouldn’t be me without it,” he says, grinning back at Chris.

–

Bobby is released from the hospital on Friday morning. The worst of his injuries were from a much smaller caliber weapon than Eddie’s and managed to miss most of his organs entirely. Once they’re reasonably confident that he’s escaped a secondary infection, the doctors send him home.

Since ‘A Shift’ is on duty all day Friday and Bobby isn’t quite in a partying mood yet, having refused a prescription for the heavier duty pain-killers, Athena tells everyone they’ll just have to schedule a team dinner in a week or two when he’s feeling better. This means Buck and Eddie have Cap to themselves when they drop by the Grant-Nash house on Saturday afternoon.

Eddie isn’t wearing his sling, because they decided that even if they don’t end up telling Bobby about the werewolf thing, they’ll need to start laying the groundwork for getting Eddie back to work sooner rather than later by convincing everyone that Eddie’s recovery is going better than expected.

Regardless of where their conversation may end up going, they come armed with a dish of Abuela’s enchiladas to smooth the way. Buck presents them to Athena with a smile when she answers the door.

“Hey, Athena, we come bearing provisions!” he announces. “Is the boss man up for visitors?”

“For you two, I think he might be,” she answers, laughing. “Come on in, he’s out on the back patio.”

“Thanks, Athena,” Eddie says, following Buck.

“Eddie Diaz, don’t think you can sneak past me without telling me how you are.” She puts her hands on her hips and stares him down with a look that’s somehow both motherly concern and trained interrogation tactic.

“Feeling a lot better, thanks. I’m out of the sling and my range of motion doesn’t seem to be as limited as the docs feared.” He raises his right arm carefully in demonstration.

“Well, look at you. Sounds like they’ll have you back at the station in no time at this rate.” She smiles at him.

“Hope so.”

“We’d better. The job isn’t the same without you, man,” Buck chimes in.

Athena leads them down the stairs into the living room, peeling off to go put the enchiladas in the fridge.

“I’ll let you two bend his ear for a while; he’s already been getting restless sitting on the sidelines and it’s been less than a week. Maybe a few stories from the job will help him feel more connected with the team while he’s out.” She waves to her husband through the windows.

“If you boys need anything to drink, feel free to help yourselves, the kitchen’s right here,” she says, wandering off to another room.

They head through the open glass doorway to join Bobby where he’s sitting propped up carefully with outdoor pillows on a patio lounger.

“Hey, Cap,” Buck greets him and drags a chair over to sit next to him. “Mind a little company this fine afternoon?”

“Not at all,” Bobby says, setting down the book he’d been reading. “Just please don’t tell me things are already getting out of hand again at the station under Chimney’s leadership.”

They all chuckle.

“He hasn’t gone mad with power again yet, Cap, but I’ll keep you updated on that,” Buck says.

“Well, then you’ve already improved my day.” Bobby smiles at them and Buck would almost believe he’s feeling alright if it weren’t for the sour scents of sweat, antibiotic ointment, and blood lingering in the air around him.

“Actually, Bobby, we were hoping to ask you about something else, if you’re feeling up to talking about it,” Eddie says.

“What’s that?” Bobby asks warily.

“We were wondering if Copeland said anything to you, while he was holding you hostage in that fire, about why he was targeting firefighters?” Buck answers for Eddie.

Bobby looks from Buck’s face to Eddie’s, one eyebrow raised. “Why do I get the sense that this isn’t simple curiosity?”

“I’d just like to know if I need to be concerned that this guy had friends who might decide to finish the job he started,” Eddie says, “if this was just a general grudge against firefighters, or if he was aiming for me and the others specifically.”

“I might have overheard a few things from the police at the factory fire that got me worried,” Buck admits.

“What things?” Bobby’s eyes narrow.

Eddie shoots Buck a look. Buck shakes his head.

“We asked you first, Cap,” he says instead of answering his question.

Both of Bobby’s eyebrows are raised now. He looks between them again and then clears his throat.

“Copeland said a lot of things to me that night. Most of it didn’t make any sense. He said that he was hunting monsters, that the LAFD had been ‘infiltrated’ and was being poisoned from within.”

Buck and Eddie exchange another look. Bobby watches them do it.

“Is there something either of you would like to share with me?”

“That depends,” Eddie hedges.

“On?”

“Whether you’re sure you really want to know.”

“I see. And is keeping this a secret something that could endanger the lives of 118 personnel or anyone else for that matter?”

“Uh…”

“Well…”

Bobby rubs his face and sighs.

“Would this secret happen to have anything to do with the fact that you’ve traded or called out for every full moon shift you’ve been scheduled for since joining the LAFD?” he asks Eddie.

Buck and Eddie stare at him, wide eyed.

Bobby nods. “I thought it might.” He looks over at Buck. “You too now?”

Buck chokes on his own saliva and starts coughing.

“How did you–” Eddie manages to force out.

“Know about you? You’re not the first I’ve had under my command. Once you know what to look for, it’s not really that hard to spot. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Eddie says.

Buck nods his thanks as well, having only just stopped coughing. Words are a little beyond him just this second.

“As for whether or not Copeland was acting alone, I believe so, but the police investigation is still running down loose ends to tie up. With Copeland dead, they’re likely to move quickly to close out the case, but I’ll let you know if I learn anything relevant from Athena. We’re just going to have to wait and see and stay vigilant in the meantime.”

Not the best news, but far from the worst. Not only does Bobby know their secret and support them anyway, but they hadn’t even had to convince him that werewolves exist.

Buck shares a couple stories about their calls on his last shift and then they say their goodbyes before Bobby or Athena feel obligated to ask them to stay for dinner. Bobby needs the rest and they need to be getting back to collect Christopher from Carla.

–

Eddie doesn’t say much on the drive back.

“Are you alright?” Buck finally asks while they’re waiting for the light at the second-to-last intersection before the turn into Eddie’s neighborhood.

Eddie grips the wheel tighter and nods. “Just thinking.”

“Worrying about Christopher.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“It’s okay, I am too.” Buck leans his head against the passenger side window. If he closes his eyes, he’ll see Eddie lying there in the street, arm stretched towards him while the pool of blood beneath him gets larger. So, he keeps them open.

“You know I’ll do everything in my power to keep him safe. And you too. Chris needs you too much; I need you. I can’t imagine what I’d do without either of you in my life.”

“Hey, hey, Evan,” Eddie says, grabbing Buck’s hand. “You matter too. You’re part of this family, this partnership. We protect each other, watch each other’s backs. No one is expendable here.”

An indescribable warmth fills Buck’s chest at his words and he has to blink back the tears that well up and blur his vision. “Deal,” he says, bringing Eddie’s hand up to his lips to press a kiss onto it.