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Buck calls it “the incident in the kitchen.”
It’s easier, that way. “Incident” sounds clinical. Sounds like something you fill out a form for, a supervisor sticks in a file, and nobody cares about ever again. Incidents happen all the time. People complain about them -
(“That’s what you always do, Buck. Make it all about you”)
- But complaining doesn’t change anything, and it doesn’t make them a big deal. And Buck is determined that it won’t be a big deal. It can’t be.
Bobby’s death is a big deal.
Maddie’s baby, the new one, whose name rips into his chest and carves out a spot that makes it hard to breathe, is a big deal.
Tommy being as near and as far away as he always is … that is a big deal.
That’s enough big deals for anyone. Buck can’t deal with anymore, and so the incident in the kitchen can’t be one. He won’t let it be one.
~*~
For about a week after “the incident in the kitchen,” Eddie takes a leave of absence to go get his stuff in Texas. The stuff he’d moved down there less than a year ago, when he’d decided to up and move there. After one of the other times that he’d accused Buck of being selfish, but Buck doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about that, because that leads back to the incident in the kitchen, which hasn’t quite filed itself away into a folder that he has forgotten… no matter how much he wants to.
During the week that Eddie is away, Buck rents a storage shed and a shitty hotel room while he looks for a new place. He doesn’t have much packing to do; much of the stuff wasn’t unpacked after all.
There was a time he might have couch surfed. But he doesn’t want to be in the way. There was a time he would have asked someone at the 118 to help him move his stuff to the storage shed. But he doesn’t want to make it all about him.
He makes it through the bedroom and the bathroom and his legs start to ache. He sits in the living room, and he starts to think about moving the stuff out of the kitchen and he has a full blown panic attack.
He doesn’t have to kid himself about why. The kitchen incident.
How is he supposed to move his shit out of the kitchen at this rate? Why is even affecting him this way? It’s not like he hasn’t gone into the kitchen since the incident. It’s so stupid.
“Trauma works in mysterious ways,” Dr. Copeland’s voice echoes in his ears from years ago.
Fair enough. Maybe… maybe he does want help.
So he calls the one person that he could count on, even for some light domestic terrorism.
“I can’t steal anymore helicopters for at least another year,” Tommy deadpans when he answers.
“Can you move some boxes?” Buck asks instead.
“Are … we stealing boxes from the government?” Tommy asks.
“No. We aren’t stealing anything,” Buck says with exasperation.
“I’m almost disappointed.”
“You’re disappointed we aren’t committing light domestic terrorism?”
“Guess I didn’t work out all those issues with DADT in therapy after all,” Tommy says. “Something to work on, I guess.”
For the first time since Bobby’s funeral, Buck actually lets out a genuine soft laugh. “Sorry to disappoint. Just my boxes. I’m moving.”
There’s a pause. “Again?”
It should be judgey, and it could be. But it’s just confused.
“Eddie’s coming back from El Paso. He wants his place back,” Buck explains.
A long pause. “He just made you move out? You have a lease. A legal, binding contract,” Tommy says.
“Chris needs his old place back. Deserves it,” Buck says with a shrug. “And it’s Eddie’s place, and I don’t want to make it about me, and I hate this house! and - "
He hadn’t realized that he was talking fast or that his breath was coming faster than he wanted it to - because he’s mentally right back there, in the kitchen incident … and that’s so stupid, but -
“Evan.”
Tommy’s voice cuts through the panic. “Of course I’ll help you.”
And it grounds him to the present, and away from the kitchen incident.
~*~
“How have you been holding up?” Tommy asks when he arrives. “Since our last bout of domestic terrorism.”
“Fine,” Buck says automatically.
“Mm.” Tommy murmurs when he picks up a box. “You know, you and I had a lot of problems, but lying to each other was never one of them.”
Buck watches him take the box out to the truck. Tommy’s both called him out on his shit, but also given him his space. He’s also … not raised his voice. Has Tommy ever raised his voice? Buck tries to remember.
It’s such a contrast to the kitchen incident. He can’t think of that right now. He takes two more boxes out to the truck before he says, “So does that mean you finally believe me?”
“About what?” Tommy asks, and those beautiful crow’s feet are scrunched up in confusion. Buck wants to kiss them. He wants to lick them. He wants to -
He doesn’t have those rights anymore.
“You accused me of being in love with Eddie. And I told you I wasn’t. And you didn’t believe me. Do you believe me now? If you think we never lied. Do you believe me now? That I wasn't lying about being in love with Eddie?”
Tommy’s face does three different frowns at once. Then he says, “Is this when you want to have this conversation?”
“I’m not in love with Eddie!” Buck says, and his voice sounds like Jee when she is about to cry. No, that’s wrong. He doesn’t want to sound this way. Tommy’s face finds a fourth type of frown, which is impressive, because who knew there were that many frowns? Buck wants to hold his face, to trace those frown lines, and keep them for himself. “It’s - it’s i-important that you know that!”
And he realizes then, that he’s said too much, that he’s made it all about him again, so he starts to go back to get another box. Tommy’s hand reaches out for him, and Buck for a moment, forgets who he is talking to and he winces.
It’s stupid.
Tommy lets go immediately.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Did… something happen?”
Now, Buck wasn’t around when Tommy was working on the ground as a firefighter, but he imagines this is the voice Tommy used to use when he was confronted with a scared kid or a frightened damsel in distress or anyone else who needed rescued. Someone too afraid to reach out and take his hand. Buck knows this, because it sounds pretty damn similar to the voice Buck uses.
“N- no,” he begins, but Tommy’s right. Of all their sins, they don’t lie to each other. “There was an incident.”
~*~
Afterwards, Tommy lets Buck cry into his shoulder, and it feels so fucking stupid.
“It’s not stupid,” Tommy tells him. “He assaulted you, Evan.”
“No.”
“Evan - "
“It’s - It’s Eddie. I’m not in love with him, but he’s been my best friend for 8 years. I can’t … I can’t.”
There’s snot on Tommy’s shirt, and Tommy doesn’t seem to mind. Buck thinks that Eddie really, really would have.
“Okay,” Tommy says softly. “But if I had told you the same story about my friend, Sal, would you feel the same?”
No.
He doesn’t answer Tommy. He just says, “I can’t go back into the kitchen without having a panic attack. It's ... ridiculous. I've been in there since, but I can't today, for some reason.”
“You don’t have to,” Tommy says. “Let me take care of it.”
~*~
“You can call when you need to talk,” Tommy says after the last box is put in the shed. “Or when you want to. You don’t have to wait til you need a favor.”
~*~
Two weeks after “the incident in the kitchen,” Eddie comes back from Texas, they are on the same team again, and the dreams start.
In the dreams, Eddie is sitting at a table with Doug, eating dinner and laughing like old friends - the way Eddie used to do with Buck. It feels … disloyal. But it doesn’t feel wrong. Buck wakes up, covered in sweat, his hand reaching for the phone, calling Maddie, forgetting what time it is.
“Buck?” she says. “It’s 2 in the morning.”
“Right.” he says. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. Bobby’s up with a tummy ache,” she answers. “What’s wrong, Buck?”
Bobby. It’s a reminder, and an unwelcome one, that her life is so happy, and his is very, very much not. He’s happy for her. He’s so happy for her. It makes him a shitty brother to be … jealous of the happiness she has.
Maybe jealous isn’t the right word. He doesn’t want to take her happiness. He just wants a little sliver of his own. is that too much to ask for?
The trials and tribulations of Evan Buckley: a tragedy in 97 acts, Eddie’s voice mocks him.
“Buck?” Maddie prods, and the baby begins to cry.
“I’ll call back tomorrow,” he says. “When it’s daylight.”
~*~
But he can’t get back to sleep. So he takes Tommy up on his offer.
He texts first, this time.
Are you awake?
Yeah. What’s going on? Domestic terrorism?
Pretty sure if you ask like that, it leaves a trail that shows premeditation.
Well, as long as we’re doing premeditation, the offer to kick Eddie’s ass is still on the table.
No felonies, either.
Misdemeanors?
‘Fraid not.
I’ll never get my rage at DADT out of my system at this rate.
How does beating up Eddie and committing jaywalking help you stick it to the army for DADT?
Well, I’d be beating up Eddie for a bisexual man that I used to date.
And Lt. Col. Sanders really, really was a stickler for protocol. I’m sure he’d be pissed about jaywalking.
“Used to date” hurts. But talking to Tommy doesn’t. It feels like he’s being taken to shore by a determined lifeguard among a ocean full of people who can’t fucking tell when he is drowning.
~*~
“Everything okay with you?” Chim asks the next day at work. “Maddie mentioned you called at 2 in the morning.”
They try to eat together now. Buck doesn’t see the point. They order take-out and catering most days. Nobody cooks. Should he offer again? Nobody had wanted it last time. So they want the sit down meals, but not the actual homecooked part.
Makes sense, really. Isn’t that what they are doing? Cosplaying Bobby’s memories without honoring what really made them special?
“Butt dial,” Buck says, dismissively. “Everything’s fine, Captain.”
“If someone had called me at two in the morning when Christopher was a baby,” Eddie says around a forkful of chow mein. “I would have kicked their ass.”
Buck thinks of “the kitchen incident” and his blood runs cold. “Yeah, I bet.”
‘What’s that supposed to mean?” Eddie says and he sets his fork down a little too roughly.
Buck needs air.
~*~
“You okay?” Ravi asks later when Buck is cleaning the engines.
“I’m fine, Ravi,” Buck says.
“Mm.” Ravi tilts his head. “I had an aunt once. Used to jump like you did at dinner. I didn’t much care for her husband.”
Something cold curls in Buck’s stomach. The dreams sit out of his reach and mock him.
“Well, with my luck in love, it’s unlikely I’ll ever have a husband, so there is that,” Buck says.
“So there’s no abusive … boyfriend to worry about?” Ravi asks, and then amends. “Or girlfriend?”
“All my ponds are dried up at the moment,” he says, and at Ravi’s confused look, he clarifies, “No, Ravi. There’s no one.”
“So not a boyfriend or a girlfriend,” Ravi says. He looks across the station, and his gaze lands on Eddie.
“It’s not like that,” Buck says softly.
“Yeah,” Ravi says. “Mr. Silver Star would never, right?”
“Right.” Buck’s voice is tight in his throat, and he can’t feel his own legs.
“Because he only joined a fight ring where he nearly killed a guy because he was going through some stuff,” Ravi clarifies. “Which he definitely isn’t going through some stuff right now.”
Buck closes his eyes and sits down on the edge of the fire truck. “Look, he’s a good guy, he just - "
“Gets angry sometimes?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. That’s what my aunt used to say too.”
~*~
“What is your deal today!” Eddie snaps and he slams his locker shut.
“I don’t have a deal.” Buck tries to focus on the present, though his mind can feel Eddie’s hand on his shoulder and the feel of the kitchen counter pressing against his back.
“You were ten seconds too soon for that maneuver. Ravi could have been seriously injured!”
“He wasn’t,” Buck said. “If we had waited ten seconds longer, he would have been injured, and the patient would have died, too.”
“That wasn’t your fucking call. You aren’t the captain.”
“Neither are you.”
And then - then Eddie gets right in his space again. Buck takes a step backwards, but Eddie reaches out, and he grabs his arm. “No, but we both know that the only reason you aren’t being written up by the captain for not following the chain of command is because he’s family.”
Eddie’s hand is digging into his arm.
“Let go of me.”
Eddie doesn’t let go.
“You are always, always thinking of yourself. Someone else is going to die because of you.”
“Let go of me!”
Eddie’s hands dig in deeper, for just a fraction, and Buck doesn’t mean to gasp, but he does.
Ravi’s voice then, interrupts them. “He told you to let go. You should.”
Eddie lets go.
“He’s overreacting,” Eddie said. “I - "
“I need your assistance, Firefighter Buckley,” Ravi says, cutting Eddie off.
It’s an out, and a pathetic one, but Buck takes it.
“Thank you,” he tells Ravi as they walk away.
“Teammates have each others’ backs, right?” Ravi says.
Buck doesn’t answer, mostly because his throat feels swollen shut.
~*~
It’s only after the shift, when Buck is in his shitty hotel room and taking off his clothes that he realizes that there are bruises there where Eddie’s hand had been.
~*~
It’s not a surprise when Doug comes to visit him again in his dreams. And in his dreams, Eddie and Doug take turns digging into his arm, telling him he is overreacting when he cries out.
He wakes up and calls Tommy.
“Hello?”
The voice is sleepy.
“Sorry. I woke you up.”
“It’s okay, Evan. Domestic terrorism?”
The laugh is shaky, but it’s there.
“Not quite,” Buck says. “Just a bad dream.”
“Bad dreams are harder to fix than domestic terrorism charges,” Tommy says, and Buck hears the rustle of sheets. There’s no sound of someone else’s voice, or the sound Tommy reassuring someone else. He’s probably alone, Buck figures. It’s not any of Buck’s business, but his heart doesn’t care about that detail.
“I just needed to hear a friendly voice,” Buck explains.
“Do you want to come over?” Tommy says. “You don’t sound like you’re getting sleep anytime soon.”
“I don’t want to keep you up.”
“Evan, you just told me that you had a bad dream that's going to keep you awake. I’m not going to go back to bed anytime soon. Might as well have our sleepless nights together instead of apart, right?”
Why be together when we can be apart? Buck’s ridiculous little heart speeds up, and he tells it to quit running away because that’s how it gets broken.
“See you in a half hour?” Buck says, because his heart doesn’t fucking listen.
~*~
He doesn’t tell Tommy about Doug. Not right away.
Instead, he tells him about Daniel.
“I was born to save him,” Buck says. “And it didn’t work. My parents never really forgave me for that.”
Tommy’s large, safe hands reach for Buck’s hand while they sit on the couch in Tommy’s living room. “I don’t have any kids,” Tommy said. “But I have cousins. A couple rugrats through Sal that I’m responsible for if he and Gina kick the bucket. And I’m pretty sure that the only reason you’re supposed to have a kid is to love them.”
“Yeah,” Buck acknowledges. “I don’t have any kids either. But every time I look at Jee or Christopher, I wonder what on earth my parents were doing back then. But then, I haven’t been around the new baby much. So maybe I’m not any different.”
“Mmm. He’s not your responsibility, so there is a difference.”
“I’m not sure there is.”
“If anything, god forbid, happened, and Robert Wade Han - "
“It’s Robert Nash Han.”
“What? That’s stupid.”
Buck grins a little. Bitchy Tommy is his favorite Tommy. “It is, huh?”
“Anyway, if Robert Nash Han fell into your custody, you would love that little boy with your whole heart, despite his stupid name, and despite the fact that you would be getting stabbed in the heart each time you said his name.”
“But how do you know that?” Buck insists. “How do you know I’m not just like them?”
“Because you won’t let me kick Eddie’s ass,” Tommy answers. “Even though he deserves it. Because when you actually do love someone, you love them.”
Oh.
Oh.
When you actually do love someone.
“I don’t love Eddie,” he denies. “I’m not in love with - "
“I didn’t say in love,” Tommy corrects. “I’m not interested in having that fight, Evan. But you love him. He’s your best friend. Of course you do. I love Sal. Why shouldn’t you love Eddie? If you didn't love him so much, it wouldn't hurt you to acknowledge what he did to you.”
Buck stares at him for a long minute, trying to decide why this is the conversation they are having now, and not the one they had … before. Why this one lacks the jealousy.
“His friendship is special to me,” Buck says softly.
“I know,” Tommy acknowledges, and his voice doesn't have any of that jealousy that it had that morning in Eddie’s kitchen.
Still, Buck needs to clarify.
“Not .. not like this is…was,” Buck says , gesturing between him and Tommy. “But a different kind. It’s like… I lost a brother I never knew when I was young, but gained one back when Eddie came long. and now… now it feels like I lost this one too.”
"And it's too soon after Bobby for you to have to grieve the loss of any more family," Tommy says.
All Buck can do is nod. Any time would have been terrible to grieve the loss of Eddie, but doing so now... sucks so much. Now is when he should have been relying on his brother the most.
“You can stay here,” Tommy tells him. “In the guest bedroom. Instead of the shitty hotel.”
“Are you sure?” Buck asks. “I woke you up, I come over and keep you awake, I - " make it all about me.
“Here’s the thing,” Tommy said. “I’m going to be kind of shitty for a minute and say something I probably shouldn’t say.”
“I mean. I kind of deserve it.”
“No, no you don’t,” Tommy said. “You deserve good things, Evan. The shitty thing I’m going to say is this: I don’t understand Eddie or your parents, because it is impossible for me to stay… away. To keep you … as someone I don’t care about. Even when I’m sure you’re going to break my heart. Even when - .”
Tommy stops himself from finishing the sentence. But he doesn’t have to, because Buck knows what the rest of the sentence is; the incident in the kitchen for Tommy is a much different incident. Evan didn’t raise his hand to Tommy in that kitchen, but he sure did hurt him.
“I didn’t mean what I said, you know,” Buck says in the quiet of the early morning. “God, Tommy. The idea that I don’t have feelings for you is so crazy. I spent months baking so much shit that my grocery store ran out of sugar and flour in some futile attempt to get over you.”
“You baked to get over me?”
“Baked ziti, cookies, so much banana bread - I even made a baked Alaska.” Buck looks into those blue eyes that he missed so much. “I wanted to call you all the time and throw every ounce of self respect out the window. That was after you left the first time. When Ravi found you in the bar, it was the answer to everything I wanted. You told me you were fighting the urge to call me, and I should have told you, I was fighting the urge to call you, too.”
Tommy’s eyes soften, then he jokes softly, “I feel like I sorta should have gotten to taste the Baked Alaska.”
Buck bumps his shoulder, lightly, but it’s enough that it jerks the sore arm from where Eddie had caused a bruise the day before, and Buck winces.
Tommy picks up on it right away. "What's wrong?" he asks.
For all their faults - they don't lie to each other.
~*~
Tommy’s fingers are reverent and gentle as they caress the bruise that Eddie left on Buck’s skin. “I’ve killed men before, you know.”
“Uh, what?”
“I was in the army.”
“Right.”
“Howie says your sister’s killed a man too.”
“Um, yes."
“Between us, I think there’s a high chance that they wouldn’t find his body.”
“Is there a way to tell you that I don’t want you to kill him that won’t make you think I’m in love with him?”
Tommy looks at him and then sighs. “I know you don’t want me to kill him. You are very good and very kind. And your heart is bigger than the Pacific Ocean.”
“You say that … like it’s a bad thing.”
“No,” Tommy corrects. “It’s one of the many things I love about you.”
The word is out there, then. And it lies there, waiting for Buck to pick it up or to ignore it. Tommy doesn’t press either way. Because that’s who Tommy is; he takes things at Buck’s pace, always.
So Buck picks it up.
“I love you too,” he says softly, but the words are loud in his ears - right up until Tommy’s lips touch his.
~*~
“Hey, when is your next shift?” Buck asks as he trails Tommy’s collarbone. “Do you go back tomorrow too?”
“Mmm,” Tommy says, and his fingers are in Buck’s curls, so honestly, Buck could get distracted by the feel of Tommy’s fingers in his scalp. Here, in this post-coital moment of everything is safe and fine and good, Buck could just relax and enjoy the comfort being here brings.
But if that had ever been Buck’s m.o., much of his life would have been easier.
And he knows that a non-response from Tommy is not a good response.
Reluctantly, Buck looks up from the his worship of Tommy’s collarbone and asks, “Tommy?”
There’s a sigh, before Tommy says, “Actually, I have about five more months before I go back to work.”
“What do you mean?” Buck asks.
But part of him already knows. Because he remembers those conversations that he had with Chim, Hen… and Eddie … back when they’d gone to look for Athena and Bobby. They had been sure there would be consequences, even if they didn’t die in a hurricane. Career-ending consequences - not the medals and pats on the back that had come.
“Turns out, the army doesn’t love the domestic terrorism as much as I do,” Tommy says, his voice full of more mirth than Buck think the situation deserves. “Grounded for six months.”
“Grounded?” Buck sits up, and he feels the loss of Tommy’s fingers in his curls immediately. “That’s not fair. Nothing happened to any of us.”
Tommy shrugs. “You lost your captain. It would look really bad if they came after you. They’d have to show footage of you … when Bobby died. And as someone who was there, they’d lose that battle.”
“You saw?” Buck asks. It makes sense, he supposes. He knows Tommy was there. He knows that. But everything from the time Bobby died to the funeral is a blur that Buck isn’t ready to look too closely at.
“I saw. I saw and I couldn’t do anything but watch you fall apart while I was stuck somewhere else,” Tommy says, his voice raspier than Buck’s ever heard it before. “Everything I’ve done since I left home at 17 was built upon me being able to do something. A consequence of 17 years of not being able to do jackshit in that house. I joined the army. I learned to fly. I became a firefighter. I learned Muay Thai…hell, I got really good at walking away to protect myself. All acts of protection, in some way or the other. But there in that tent, I couldn’t do anything to help you. I couldn’t even hold you.”
“I wanted you to,” Buck blurts out, and he winces at the look on Tommy’s face, because hurting a man he knows is good is a terrible thing. “I mean, I wanted Bobby to live. Sure. That was the main thing. But I wanted - I wanted …”
Buck trails off, and Tommy simply pulls him close again, tighter this time. “This?” Tommy asks.
“Yes,” Buck murmurs into his chests, and he hates that his eyes are wet. He tries to hold it back, but Tommy is holding him so tight, and his hands are in Buck’s curls again.
“I’ve already seen you cry, Evan, and I’ve never wanted to be at your side more than I did at that moment,” Tommy tells him.
Buck buries his head in Tommy’s chest, and lets go of weeks worth of grief.
~*~
Buck has 72 hours off, so when he wakes up in Tommy’s bed the next morning - because of course, he cannot start kissing Tommy Kinard and retire to the guest bedroom - Tommy smiles at him and asks him to come to the Deluca barbecue.
“They’ll love you,” Tommy tells him.
Now, Buck is not sure of that, and he is less sure of that when the very broad-shouldered blond-ish man identified as Sal spends the first twenty minutes giving him a very suspicious glare, as if he could tell all of Buck’s sins by if he just stared at him long enough. Or maybe because he’s already heard most of Buck’s sins from Tommy.
But before he can get too uncomfortable, a excitable toddler comes up to him and informs him, “I’M THREE!”
Buck kneels down at her height. “Oh, really?” he says. “That’s a pretty awesome age.”
“YEAH IT IS,” she says, at a volume that could have raised not only the dead, but specifically dead dinosaurs. “HOW MANY ARE YOU?”
“Hmm,” Buck says. “I’m that ten times… plus four.”
The kid frowns as she thinks about that. “THAT SOUNDS OLD,” she says. “HOLD ME. GET ME CAKE. PLEASE?”
He glances over at Tommy. “Think it’s okay?” he asks.
“This is Laura,” Tommy tells him. “She’s Sal and Gina’s youngest. They won’t mind.”
By the time that Laura’s cake has been obtained, Laura has decided to talk in regular decibels, and has also told him all about dinosaurs, Barbie, and why unicorns make great pets. It’s a pretty solid conversation, really - better than anything that’s been going on at the 118 lately.
Laura begins to eat her cake as Buck carries her back over to Tommy, who is standing next to Sal and Gina. Sal no longer looks disapproving. Instead, he looks vaguely amused.
“I see you were charmed by the cake princess,” Gina says warmly. “Did you say thank you to Mr. Buckley, Laura Jean?”
“No,” Laura admits.
Buck covers a laugh by ducking his head into his arm.
“Don’t you think you should so?” Gina says firmly.
“THANK YOU, MR. BUCKLEY,” Laura exclaims. “OH. BALLONS. PUT ME DOWN PLEASE.”
Buck sets her down, and she hands her mother the rest of her cake before running off to get the balloons in question.
“You seem pretty good with kids,” Gina remarks. “Not everyone can handle an energetic three year old, and Laura is a very energetic three year old. "
“Ah, I have a niece about her age,” Buck says. “Pretty energetic herself. And I likely have some undiagnosed ADHD in my favor, so it works to relate with the energetic ones.”
“She gets her loudness from her daddy,” Gina says.
“Like hell,” Sal says. “You say that like you aren’t from fucking Jersey, Gina.”
Sal is loud, but his words are fond.
“Says the man from New York,” Gina retorts, and she is not as loud, but she is also incredibly fond.
Buck watches them and a cold feeling of jealousy curls up in his chest. Buck imagines it looks like the tapeworms he used to remove in Peru; it screams to him, I want this. And when Tommy leans over and squeezes his hand, it screams louder.
It’s so clear that they love each other, and it’s so clear that nobody is going to leave. It looks … effortless. The kind of love that Bobby and Athena have - had, he thinks.
“DADDY! UNCLE TOMMY! COME HELP ME!” Laura’s voice calls from across the yard. “My shoe is stuck!”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” Sal says, with the kind of warm exasperation that was never heard in the Buckley house as he heads over to her.
“I’ll be right back,” Tommy promises with another hand squeeze. “Princess calls.”
Buck nods and watches him go. She does not need two grown firefighter men to help her free her shoe from the wooden playground set Sal and Gina have in their backyard… but there’s a warmth in the pit of Buck’s stomach at the fact that Tommy doesn’t hesitate.
“Come help me with the rolls,” Gina says. “No barbecue needs rolls, but my husband likes them.”
“Of course,” Buck says, and he follows Gina into the kitchen. He takes the honey butter offered and begins to put it on top of the rolls.
“You know,” Gina says as she works on her set of rolls. “You looked pretty wistful out there for a minute. I don’t mean to pry, but I thought you and Tommy were doing better this time around.”
This time around she says. Buck wonders how many times she’s heard had to hear about their …”rounds.” But she doesn’t seem as annoyed, the way that… the people who Buck had complained… grieved … to were.
“It is,” Buck says. “It is. Really. But you know that some of our … rounds have been … not so steady.”
“That’s true of a lot of couples,” Gina answers, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Really? You and Sal… god you make it look so effortless.”
Gina laughs. It’s a big laugh that fills the entire kitchen and makes Buck’s cheeks feel warm. “Listen, sweetheart,” she says. “Ain’t nothing about my relationship with Sal ever been effortless. It’s been a lot of things, but never that. This is the kind of relationship you have to hammer out, not sit around and wait on.”
You don’t find it son, you make it. Words from years ago echo in Buck’s ears, and he smiles down at the rolls. “Yeah?” he says with a small smile. “You couldn’t tell from watching the two of you out there.”
“Well, it’s been twenty fucking years,” Gina laughs. “We promised for better or for worse, and we certainly tested the latter. We’ve had some fights and some periods where I was angrier at him than I liked him. But I loved him through all of it.”
“Sounds familiar,” Buck says, without meaning to.
And Gina gives him the kind of smirk that says it can keep up with everything that Tommy has ever told him about Sal Deluca. “Well, you probably never had a period of being jealous of Kristen Stewart, at least.”
“You were jealous of Kristen Stewart? You were jealous?” Buck asks. Sal hasn’t even looked at any other woman this entire barbecue.
“Sure. It’s normal for couples to get jealous,” she says, in a way that tells Buck she knows about a certain argument he and Tommy had the second time they broke up. “Normal, healthy couples learn how to hash through it. Sal and I did - because we knew were never going to stop being jealous. So we were going to have to learn how to talk about it. So we did. Couples therapy? A hell of a thing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Even helped me get over being jealous of Tommy.”
“You were jealous of Tommy?” Buck hands Gina the rest of the butter and he watches her put it in the refrigerator.
She picks up her tray of rolls before she answers him. “Oh, sure I was. Tommy wasn’t always out or honest with himself, but they were very close. That closeness got under my skin and festered like a boil that you just can’t stop picking at.”
Buck looks out the window, across the yard, where Sal and Tommy are squatting down, talking to Laura about her shoe.
She flashes him a big, pink-lipstick grin. “There was never anything to worry about, Buck.”
Buck picks up his tray of rolls too and he follows her out of the kitchen. “How did Sal take it, when you told him you were jealous?”
“Oh, that was a fun argument,” Gina chuckles. “He was mad as hell. How dare I accuse him of wanting to fuck his best friend, etc.”
“Well,” Buck says, a little defensively, because he isn’t thinking about Gina and Sal at all, “It was a little shitty of you.”
“Mmmmmm,” Gina says. The rolls find their place next to the potato chips, and Gina turns to look at him. “Like I said, we’re all gonna be jealous from time to time. And hashing it out helped me realize how much Sal cared about me. Besides… it’s not like Sal’s not had his own bits of stupid jealous fits.”
Buck tries not to think about Eddie these days, but he thinks of Eddie’s ankle.
“Yeah,” Buck says with a sigh. “Yeah, I guess I forgot that part.”
That shouldn’t make any sense to Gina. But she looks at him like she knows, and she probably does. Does Tommy tell these people everything? How much more of Tommy’s life does Buck not know about? Suddenly that river of information seems like an ocean and Buck wants to swim all of it all at once - and then spend the rest of his life swimming it again to make sure he hasn’t missed anything.
~*~
They’re on their way home, and Buck wonders how to bring it up. It all seems so important - it’s not like he’s afraid. It’s just … there’s so much. There had been so much before, and he had latched on to the wrong things first.
What if he latches on to the wrong thing again?
“You seem quiet,” Tommy mentions. “Did you not like Gina and Sal?”
“No. They were great,” Buck hastens to assure him. "
“It’s okay if you don’t. I haven’t always loved all of your friends. Gina and Sal.. can be a lot.”
“Pretty sure the only one of my friends you don’t like is Eddie. And pretty sure that’s … recent.”
“Mmm. Well, I do entertain pleasant thoughts of reminding him which one of us is better at Muay Thai, at the moment. So I think it counts.”
Buck laughs and he watches as Tommy’s grin goes from cautious to sincere. He watches the crinkles grow around Tommy’s eyes and all he can think about is how much he wants to have barbecue cookouts in their own backyard.
“Gina was telling me about how she was jealous about you… and Sal once,” Buck said.
“Mmm. Sal and I are just friends, Evan.”
“I know,” Buck said. “She said there was never anything to worry about.”
Tommy hesitates. Interesting.
“Tommy?”
“She was right,” Tommy said. “Sal was straight. There was never going to be anything. But. She was also … right. I wanted there to be. Once.”
That old, stupid, selfish jealousy - the kind that had ruined Eddie’s ankle, rears its head. Buck knows it isn’t fair. It isn’t.
And yet…
“I was out here, dating women. Trying so hard. Not to be - the man my father didn’t want want me to be. And Sal was there. My best friend. And he didn’t stop being my best friend, even when he left the station. Then I left, too. And I could be more honest about who I was. And I knew who Sal was. And hell, I loved Gina. I do!” Tommy shook his head. “But I had fallen in love with my straight best friend anyway.”
Eddie’s straight.
And that fucking scoff.
He’d spent so many fucking mornings trying to wonder what that scoff had meant. Did it mean that Tommy didn’t think Eddie was straight? That Tommy didn’t believe him?
No. It meant that Tommy knew, from experience, that it didn’t matter if Eddie was straight.
“After you and I had our second blow out, I went and had a good cry to Gina,” Tommy remarks as they pull into the driveway. “She told me in no uncertain terms that just because I fell for my straight best friend, it didn’t mean you would do the same.”
“I’m not - "
Tommy squeezes his hand. “I believe you. Maybe I believed you from the minute that Gina went full New Jersey and yelled at me. Maybe … before then. But - ”
“But you weren’t going to pick up the phone and tell me that because the last thing I said to you implied that I was using you as a booty call,” Buck says miserably.
“Well. Yes.” Tommy says.
Buck swallows thickly, and his vision swims as he looks at the house in front of him. “Gina says …. she says that she and Sal… h-have to hammer their r-relationship. T-hat they have to make it work.”
Tommy turns the truck off. But he waits for Buck to finish.
“I want to hammer it out with you,” Buck says. “All our miscommunications, our screw-ups… I want to work on them. I want to fix them. I want to find new issues and new problems, and hammer them in too. Together.”
In the cab of his truck, Tommy kisses him the same way he had the first time, complete with those two fingers touching his face so gently.
“Some of those issues might need a sledgehammer,” Tommy says. “Fortunately, I think I have one in the garage.”
Buck laughs into the next kiss.
You don’t find it; you make it.
There’s nobody else he wants to make it with, of that Buck is certain.
~*~
There’s a package on the porch when they walk up; it’s huge.
“Probably a new punching bag,” Tommy says. “I’ve been wanting to get one or a while, and well…” he takes a deep breath, and Buck can almost feel those walls go back up, before Tommy says, “What you told me about Diaz … what he did to you. The way he’s treating you. I’m trying to have a healthy outlet for how that makes me feel.”
“You’re going to go punch a bag because I don’t want you to punch Eddie in the face?”
Tommy scofffs - as he had, during their kitchen incident. But it’s softer this time, as he leans over and picks up the box.
Handle me like that, Buck thinks with a desperation that he’s only ever had for Tommy.
“I’m going to punch a bag tomorrow, while you’re looking at places to live… because it helps me get rid of some of the excess adrenaline. So I can be calm when you’re with me,” Tommy corrects gently. “Let me put this inside, then we’ll settle and watch a movie. How’s that sound?”
“Can’t wait.”
They, in fact, do not watch a movie. But the couch sees plenty of action.
~*~
The next day, as Buck is getting ready to go see some apartments that his realtor picked out, Tommy is also getting ready.
“I thought you were grounded?” Buck says as they sit down to eat breakfast. God, Tommy is so good at breakfast, he thinks, as he begins to devour his eggs.
He doesn’t remember being this ravenous in a long time. But then… maybe it’s because he went from a kitchen he didn’t want to be in to a shitty hotel he couldn’t cook in to a firehouse kitchen that is fucking haunted.
He’s on his third piece of bacon before Tommy responds. “Being grounded had conditions,” Tommy says. “Namely, therapy.”
“They’re forcing you to get therapy?” Buck asks. “Because you stole a helicopter to save someone’s life?”
“They’re’ forcing me to get therapy because I stole a helicopter for my boyfriend and committed domestic terrorism,” Tommy corrects.
“Technically we were ex-boyfriends. At the time.”
“See, that actually makes the situation sound crazier.”
Buck digs into his pile of eggs and nods in agreement. “So how’s therapy going?” he asks.
Tommy takes a drink of his coffee and considers his reply. “Well. It turns out you can’t outfuck yourself by joining the army.”
“… Yeah?” Buck says. “I take it that means that you’re digging up some old childhood traumas?”
“Mmm. Apparently I allowed the way my parents handled their … conflicts… to influence my adult relationships,” Tommy says.
Buck looks up from his eggs. He’s heard similar things from his own therapist, of course. “Oh yeah?”
Tommy sighs and eats an entire piece of toast before he answers. Buck lets him. This is more of a conversation about Tommy’s past than they had in the entire six months they dated. Buck can be patient, even if, actually, Buck sucks at being patient and he wants to shake the rest of it out of Tommy like it’s the last quarter in a piggy bank.
“My parents were big on yelling. Throwing stuff. My dad… threw a pot of boiling water at my mother once. It missed her, thank god, but - but the point is … conflicts were loud. Noisy, and that never solved anything. It just made everyone’s lives more miserable.”
“So you leave before their can be conflict,” Buck says, and then he wants to kick himself.
Tommy doesn’t seem to mind.
“It’s not just relationship shit. I didn’t speak up when Gerrard was running the station like a Ku Klux Klan member.” Tommy shakes his head. “Then there’s the army. Christ. There’s a long list of shit I should have spoken up about in the army, but I didn’t. It is my therapists’ perspective that all of those fuck-ups is seven year old Tommy running as far away from that house on Cherry Street as he can.”
Buck thinks of himself at seven, and the ways his parents definitely fucked him and Maddie up. He thinks to himself that he hates Tommy’s parents.
He leans over and squeezes Tommy’s hand. It still has toast crumbs on it.
Tommy squeezes back.
“And yeah, I leave,” Tommy says. “When I should have stayed in that apartment and hashed out with you why I wasn’t ready to live together …yet. I leave when I’m pissed because of something you said the night after we had what could have been the reconciliation sex we both wanted, when we should have had a good argument instead. Hell, you were certainly ready to have one.”
“Yeah, but I was a dick.”
“Mmmm,” Tommy says. “We both could have done things differently that morning. I was right to tell you that I had … jealousy issues about Eddie. Absolutely. That’s something we needed to discuss, and it sucks that got so pissed about it. But I could have done it much better and hey, maybe you wouldn’t have been so … mmmm brutal about it.”
It’s nice of Tommy not to say Buck was shitty about it. It contrasts in Buck’s mind to the incident in the kitchen, but Buck pushes that away. He’s in a different kitchen now. He doesn’t want that to infect this one. This one is happy.
“I mean, I could have told you and Eddie that I was jealous during the basketball game, too,” Buck pointed out. “Instead of taking out Eddie’s ankle.”
Tommy laughs, and his hand reaches out, to touch Buck’s arm. Buck has long sleeves on, but Buck knows what he’s touching. It’s the bruise.
“Be safe today,” Tommy says. “Don’t get hit by any falling beams when you're looking at fixer uppers."
“Be safe today,” Buck says automatically. “I mean, you still have to brave LA traffic.”
Tommy’s mouth curves into a smile, and the kiss tastes like forgiveness and toast.
~*~
The next two weeks at work are strained.
But when has it not been strained? Buck knows there weas a time he looked forward to coming to work. But he also knows that time died with Bobby. He wonders, if things had been different with Eddie, if he could have still enjoyed coming to the 118.
Buck sits in the meeting and listens to Chimney give a captain's briefing, and he wonders why this is so formal. Maybe it's Chimney's way to let them know that he isn't Bobby.
But they already know that.
Then again, when else would they even have a meeting? It's not like they do family dinners anymore. Buck's stomach growls, and he takes out a granola bar from his pocket. He gives half to Ravi, who is sitting beside him. Ravi grins at him. "I love food," he mouths.
Buck smiles softly.
Buck's actual work partner is sitting across the room, next to Hen. It's weird, but Buck is grateful.
At the front of the room, Chimney clears his throat and says, "And that brings us to important changes. As most of you know, we have been using floaters for our paramedic team. But Hen deserves a permanent partner. Fortunately, our own former army medic has decided to step up."
Former army medic?
"Eddie Diaz has decided to undergo the additional training to become certified as a paramedic," Chimney continues. "He'll be taking my place in the paramedic team."
He won't be my partner anymore, Buck realizes. He should be upset. Part of him ... is upset. Because there's a very real sense of loss about the way things used to be - the relationships that Buck used to have in this place are all gone, and he can't deny that any longer.
I'll always have your back, a voice from eight years ago whispers mockingly, but hell, that hadn't been true in years, had it?
Ravi is tapping him gently on the arm, and he realizes belatedly that Chimney is talking to him. He looks at Chim and tries to pretend he was paying attention.
"As I was saying, Firefighter Buckley," Chimney says, sounding as annoyed as he'd sounded when Buck was a 26 year old probie, "your new partner will be Ravi."
"An upgrade," Ravi says; he makes it sound like a joke, but Buck remembers their conversation from before, and thinks maybe it wasn't.
"The best of upgrades," Buck agrees.
~*~
Later, Buck is at his locker, putting stuff away. He doesn't hear Eddie until Eddie slams the locker next to him.
He's not proud of the fact that he jumps. But he chalks it up to being surprised. It's a believable lie.
"So when is the tantrum coming?" Eddie asks. "You certainly made a scene upstairs. You might as well get the tantrum out of the way."
A scene? What are you talking about? "What do you mean? I didn't make any scene upstairs."
"Oh, please. You were clearly upset and acting like a kicked puppy because I'm working with Hen now."
"No? Why would I do that?"
"Because you don't care about what is best for me or what makes me happy. Everything is always about you. So go ahead, get your tantrum out of the way."
Buck takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to cause a scene. He doesn't want to yell. "I'm happy for you, Eddie. The only person having a tantrum right now is you."
It's the wrong thing to say, and Eddie's eyes darken. For a minute, fear runs through Buck's veins, but he doesn't have time to tell himself to calm down before Eddie reaches forward and shoves him - (again, his mind supplies) - up against the locker.
The locker is open, and it is the outside of the door that slams into Buck's spine. He lets out a gasp and digs his fingers into his palms to keep from crying out in pain.
"I can't wait to work with Hen," Eddie snaps, and then he goes up stairs.
Buck closes his locker and leans against it. He waits for the pain to stop.
He's still waiting when the bell rings.
~*~
It's a fucking domestic violence call.
Buck watches Hen and Eddie handle her injuries, and Buck watches Eddie with the kind of fury that he didn't know was possible.
How dare you pretend to care? he thinks.
The woman is ... not doing too well, and he sits down next to her.
"We got this, Buck," Eddie says.
Buck ignores him. No I fucking don't think you do.
"I bet he seemed like a real charmer when you first met him," he says. "Handsome, and funny, and kind. Someone you thought you could trust. To have your back. No matter what."
She stops spiraling and looks up at Buck and nods. "Yes," she says. "He was a knight in shining armor."
"Buck, we - " Eddie starts, but Hen lays a hand on Eddie's chest. A polite shut up. He works here, too, you fucking asshole. Or well, maybe that's not what she means. But it's currently what Buck feels.
"It's hard to believe that someone you loved. Someone you would have died for, would have treated you like you didn't matter at all," he says softly.
Her eyes are full of tears. He wonders if that's what he looked like when he was sobbing into Tommy's chest.
But she nods. "He was just so mad at me. It doesn't matter what I do. He just keeps being mad at me. Today, I asked him about his day at work, but I didn't look up from dinner, so he - he threw the knife at me. When it missed, he got even madder and picked up the pan."
"Did he hit you in the head?" Buck asks. "Because my friends here, they are worried about possible brain trauma. That's pretty serious, Hannah, and we need to get you checked out."
"He'll be so mad."
"But he'll be mad anyway, won't he? Because it's never really about you. It's about him being a fucking asshole, Hannah."
She nods and reaches for his hand. "Okay. I'll go." She sniffles. "You know... the first time ... it was just a shove. A shove and he felt sorry about it later. Apologized even. Now we're here."
He squeezes her hand, before he steps back and lets Hen do her job.
It's not the first time he's been on a domestic violence call, but it's the first time he gets sick when he gets back in the truck.
~*~
It's the longest 48 hour shift of his life.
~*~
After his shift, Buck has a meeting scheduled with his realtor to look at a couple of other places. The thing that Buck knows is that he could just milk the current arrangement with Tommy. He could stay there for … a while. He could probably even manage to stay there long enough for the two of them to become permanent roommates.
But they have agreed to hammer it out. This is something they want for the long-term. That means taking no short cuts. That means they can’t skip steps.
That means the best thing Buck can do right now is get his own place.
The first two are absolute failures. They are completely boring, minimalist apartments in all shades of white and grey and beige, and Buck wants nothing to do with them. They remind him of everything terrible that had been about the old loft apartment that Ali had picked out - the impersonalization of it all.
“I think you’ll like this one,” the realtor says about the third choice. “It’s a fixer upper… but it has some of that character you keep saying you like.”
Thank god, Buck thinks.
And the realtor is right; it’s perfect. Sure, it needs some fixing - a hammer here, and a sledgehammer there. But Buck can already feel what the finished work will look like.
He can see art on the walls, a couch long enough to really stretch out on, and a table with family meals that continue, no matter the level of grief or hardship.
“I want it,” he says, midway through the kitchen.
She looks at him and smiles. “You should probably wait til we finish the tour. Legally speaking.”
Fair enough. So he follows her, but the certainty only grows as he goes from room to room.
“I want it,” he says again, and they put in an offer.
~*~
He’s sitting behind the wheel, looking at the red light, when Maddie calls.
“Hey,” she says. “You never called me back.”
That’s because I realized I couldn’t tell you that I was dreaming about your ex-husband sitting at the table with my … friend. Ex-friend? Co-worker.
There had been a time in which Buck knew exactly what Eddie was, but now his mind jumps over puddles filled with regret, stumbling for the right word.
“I just had a bad dream, Maddie,” he says, which is both the truth and a lie. “I just needed to hear your voice.”
“Hmm,” she says. “Listen, how do you feel about babysitting Jee and Bobby soon? Chim and I could really use the time off to just decompress you know.”
Where am I supposed to babysit them? he wonders. At the crappy hotel room I was staying in? At my boyfriend’s house, where he is generously letting me stay - the boyfriend that you think I’m secretly only with because Eddie doesn’t want to fuck me?
Buck takes a deep breath and counts to ten. Then he says, “I can’t really do that right now, Maddie.”
“Oh. Is something wrong? Usually, you’d jump to look after Jee.” She pauses. “It’s not because of Bobby’s name, is it? I know you didn’t love it, but it’s not fair to him to hold that against him. It’s not different than how Mom and Dad - "
“Maddie,” he interrupts. “I am literally in the middle of moving.”
She pauses. “Moving? I thought you and Eddie were roommates now?”
A cold pit of nausea bubbles up in his stomach and for a moment, Buck grips the steering wheel so hard it hurts his hands.
“No.”
“Well, why not?” Maddie asks. “You just moved in there not too long ago. You broke your lease to move in there. Where are you living if not with him? You can’t change houses every two months, Buck.”
“I know that.”
“Why didn’t you come to us?”
“You just had a baby, Maddie!” He doesn’t mean to sound as exasperated as he does. But it’s a ridiculous question. It is.
Maddie pauses, then says. “Then why didn’t you just stay with Eddie till you found something else? You two are best friends. You practically fell apart when he left.”
No. That wasn’t true. Was it?
He bruise on his arm starts to ache. Maybe it’s because of how strong he’s gripping the wheel.
“I missed him. He was my best friend, and he left abruptly. That’s normal, Maddie.”
She laughs, gently, he supposes. “It was a little more than that, Buck.”
His stomach rolls again, and he grips the steering wheel tighter, and he finds himself unable to follow the conversation that Maddie is having. She is still having it when he pulls into the 122.
“I have to go,” he says.
He turns his phone off and sits there for a minute. He’s not sure why he’s here. He hadn’t planned on coming here. But the bruise on his arm aches more and more, and he finds his steps increasing with speed as he walks into the station.
Sal sees him before Buck has the chance to say anything. He’s standing in the middle of the maintenance storage area.
“Buckley,” Sal says, pausing in the middle of the supply boxes that he’s unpacking. “Didn’t expect to see your handsome face today. You miss me that much? It’s understandable.”
“You and Tommy have been friends for a long time, right?”
There’s someone else there - a paramedic whose name Buck doesn’t recognize, but who looks at her captain as if to ask “is everything okay?” It’s fair, maybe. Maybe it’s the question Buck would have asked Bobby - if he was still here, if the ship Buck was stuck in still had any direction and was going anywhere - if some random firefighter had showed up to their station and started asking random questions.
“Joyce, give us some space, alright?” Sal says, and she shrugs. She follows the command as easily as anyone at the 118 would have followed Bobby.
Sal must be as good of a captain as he is a friend, and there’s a jealousy and a longing there that Buck knows makes him unkind, so he tells it to hush.
But it’s very fucking loud.
He picks up one of the supply boxes and opens it, to reveal gauze. He looks at the accompanying compartment and pulls it open.
He frowns at it.
“Did it personally piss on your shoe, or what?” Sal demands. “Also, is there a reason you came to my fire station to work? Thought you were making the bad choice to stay at the 118 after rescinding your transfer.”
Buck’s bruise really fucking hurts.
“This storage department is very disorganized,” he says instead.
Sal stares at him.
“Right,” he says. “That’s a reasonable answer to my question.”
“Technically,” Buck says, reorganizing the gauze in a way that makes some fucking sense. “You didn’t answer mine first.”
“Tommy and I have been friends since about the time you were learning your multiplication tables, you mook,” Sal retorts.
“He’s not that much older than me.”
“He’s ancient.”
Buck pulls out several rolls of tape. Why didn’t the tape go in the same general area? Who designed this space?
“In all that time you’ve known each other… you’ve never … shoved him, right?” Buck puts the tape in his hand in with the tape on the shelf, even though it doesn’t belong there.
“You mean on a call?” Sal asks. “I think once. A beam almost fell on us. Fucked up both of our legs. I felt like an asshole for months.”
“You pushed him out of the way because a beam almost fell on you and you felt bad?” Buck clarifies.
“Well, yeah. He’s my friend and I hurt him. Sure, I saved his life, but I still fucked up his knee. Probably going to give him the twinge in his old age. Which you know, should be next Wednesday. For fuck’s sake, Buckley, if you don’t like where something is, change it. Quit glaring at it like it stepped on your puppy’s tail.”
Buck takes the tape out and puts it with the gauze, where it fucking belongs.
“But … that’s the only time, right?” Buck asks.
“When the fuck else would I have shoved him?”
Buck remembers the kitchen incident, but he also remembers the grocery store incident, and he wants to yell that some people have best friends who play by different rules than Sal does.
“I guess you wouldn’t have,” Buck says finally.
“No, I wouldn’t have,” Sal says, and he sounds angry for a minute. “And I know damn well that for all his faults, Tommy would never. Not with the kind of father he had, the kind he never wanted to be. So are we having a conversation about you?”
It hits Buck then, what Sal is suggesting, and it makes him sick to stomach.
“No,” he protests. “I would never.”
I would never. Sal would never. Tommy would never.
But Eddie would. Eddie has.
Sal looks at him, then rubs his neck. “You want to work the rest of the day here? I know you’re off today, but the fun thing about being Captain is that I can draft you and they’ll yell at me, and you’ll still get paid. You can reorganize this shitty maintence area.”
He hands him a clipboard.
Buck takes it. “I should warn you, the 118 tells me I’m a tyrant when I get one of these.”
“Does this look like the 118?” Sal huffs before he walks away.
No. It really doesn’t, Buck thinks.
~*~
I heard Sal drafted you.
Half-drafted, half-volunteered.
But it’s fun. I get to have a clipboard.
I’ll be home for dinner. I can’t wait to tell you about the house I found today.
It’s a fixer upper, but it’s perfect.
Can’t wait to break it in. Love you. Stay safe.
Love you too. I’m only on maintenance today.
Stay safe anyway.
~*~
The clipboard is a nice distraction. He focuses on the maintenance storage, and he talks to a few of the firefighters that come in - including Joyce, who no longer seems to look at him like he’s a potential threat.
But the person he doesn’t expect the most shows up to linger, for a moment: Lena Bosko. He’s in the middle of restocking the radio straps when she clears her throat and says, distinctly, “Hey, Buckley.”
He looks up, from his spot, squatting on the floor, and offers her a small smile. The years and brattiness that had once been between them aren’t necessary (he has bigger issues, these days, after all).
“Bosko,” he says. “I thought you went back to the 136.”
“I did,” she answers. “But my cap decided to retire. After that… I tried to stay on for a few years, but it just never quite felt like home.”
“Yeah,” Buck says, looking down at his clipboard as he stands up. “I certainly understand that.”
She nods. “I know you do. My best memories of the 118 are of Captain Nash. Is that why you’re coming here? For a fresh start?”
“Oh, I’m not … coming here. Not really. I just… needed a distraction today.”
“It’s not a bad place to work,” Lena says. “In fact… Sal’s a pretty good captain. Runs a tight ship. Knows which shit to let slide and which shit to put a stop to immediately. Maybe … think about it.”
She leaves before he can say too much more, but he is still thinking about her words when Sal comes back at the end of the day to tell him that he’s signed Buck up to be a floater for the next three months.
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Sal says. “I cleared it with the chief. I just need your signature.”
“Does Chimney have to approve it?”
“Who the fuck is - oh. Captain Han?” Sal rolls his eyes. “No. I went above his pay grade. Also, if he doesn’t like it, he can talk to the union and they can explain how the floating process works.”
A year ago, Buck would have talked it over with his captain first. Two years ago, Buck would have told Sal no.
But a lot has changed since then, hasn’t it?
Buck signs the paperwork.
“See you in 48 hours, Buckley,” Sal says. “And for the record, this is the best this storage has ever looked. You can be a clipboard tyrant any time you want.”
“You might change your mind in the next three months,” Buck retorts.
Sal snorts. “Yeah, well. You might change your mind in the next three months and decide you want to stay here, too. Permanently.”
~*~
When Buck walks into the house, he doesn’t see Tommy immediately. So he goes on a little search for him.
He finds him, sweaty and furious, beating hell out of the new punching bag, in his Muay Thai set up. Buck leans quietly on the door leading into the basement, watching as Tommy takes out his aggression on the target.
He takes a moment to consider. Tommy’s anger is so … raw, and earlier, Sal’s anger had been so loud.
But Buck hadn’t been afraid, earlier. He isn’t afraid now.
He’d been afraid during the kitchen incident. He'd been afraid in the locker room.
Sure. He hadn’t been crying in the corner. But he’d been afraid enough that when he’d needed to go back in the kitchen to pack his stuff alone, he’d locked up. He’d been afraid enough that the ghost of Doug Kendall keeps weaseling his way back into Buck’s dreams.
But with Sal, Buck had been aware enough to argue back. With Tommy, Buck can sit here and watch him, watching those amazing back muscles ripple while Buck observes the kind of unbridled fury that Tommy’s never let him see.
“Evan?”
Tommy’s voice brings him out of his self-reflection.
“Hi,” Buck says.
“You should have said something.” Tommy sounds sheepish - as if he’s ashamed of how carried away he’d gotten. “There’s a reason I do this when you’re not here.”
“You’re allowed to be angry sometimes, Tommy,” Buck tells him. “You don’t have to hide it from me.”
Tommy comes to sit next to him. He’s soaked in sweat. Buck doesn’t know if it is the sweat or the vulnerability that is so fucking hot right now, but either way, he makes himself sit still, when all he wants to do is crawl into Tommy’s lap.
“You know, so are you, Evan. You’re allowed to be angry, too.”
So maybe Buck will crawl into Tommy’s lap.
~*~
Some time later, they find their way out of each other’s laps, and onto the couch. They end up watching a sappy Julia Roberts movie that was definitely made in a pre-social media era, because Ms. Anna Scott would never have hidden that easily, otherwise.
“Ravi says he’ll help me move,” Evan says, with his head lying on Tommy’s lap. “All I have to do is feed him in return.”
“Mmm,” Tommy says, with his fingers running through Buck’s curls. “Ask Ravi how he feels about basketball.”
Buck laughs, but his good mood is cut short by a text he receives from Eddie.
He sits up abruptly, reading it once, then twice, then three times. “Are you kidding me?”
Tommy pauses the movie. “Eddie?” he assumes.
There’s an undercurrent of that anger that had been there in the basement - Buck can see now, now that he knows what it looks like.
You’re allowed to be angry, too, Evan.
Buck looks at him, then reads the message. “Chimney told us you were floating to a different station. Didn’t you think you should discuss it with your captain first? With your team? Or is this your way of getting me back for having the audacity to go for the paramedic position?” Buck swallows, so angry that the words swim in front of his eyes, but he continues on, his voice breaking mid-way. “A real friend would have been happy for me instead of throwing a tantrum. A real teammate wouldn’t have thrown his family under the bus when they need him the most.”
Tommy’s jaw clenches, but Buck watches him push the anger way. “What an asshole.”
“Why should I be mad that he’s going to be a paramedic?” Buck asks. “I’m happy for him. I’m always happy for him. No matter what it means for me! That’s what I do - he- he says the opposite. That I-I make it about me. That I’m selfish.”
“Evan. You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met. Even when I’m mad at you, even when I thought that maybe I didn’t mean more than a booty call… I didn’t believe you to be selfish. It’s bullshit.”
“I was happy for him he when he came to the station and ignored all chain of command, acting like I was some probie he had to boss around. I was happy for him when I found a babysitter to sort out his paperwork, because he couldn’t do it himself. I was happy for him when I almost died in the tsunami because he couldn’t leave me alone when I was depressed after I almost died and forced me to serve as a babysitter when I had no business babysitting Chris that day! I was happy for him when he screamed at me and almost punched me in the grocery store! I was happy for him when I fucking groveled after the lawsuit and all he did was scream at me more, lecture me on the fucking chain of command and tell me I deserve to get punched for filing it.”
Tommy goes very still. But he doesn’t interrupt.
So, the torrent of anger continues. Because Tommy hasn’t interrupted him. Tommy hasn’t told him he’s too much. Tommy is listening.
“I was happy for him when he signed me up to be Chris’ legal guadian without even asking my permission! I was happy for him when he fucked up his entire life and moved thousands of miles away and blamed me for the fact that Chris didn’t want to stay! I was happy for him when he came back and blamed me for Bobby’s death and assaulted me in the fucking kitchen! How much happier do i have to be for him!”
“You don’t,” Tommy says.
It’s simple.
Is it that simple?
Buck leans back down into the couch, and he lets Tommy pull him close.
He knows, sitting on that couch, that he isn’t going back to the 118. The floating is going to turn into a permanent position.
~*~
Other texts come. Maddie is worried. Ravi congratulates him. Hen wonders if the call with Hannah had something to do with it.
His brother-in-law is under the impression that he is ruining Bobby’s legacy.
Buck doesn’t tell Tommy about that one; their friendship is special to Tommy.
But he does lie in bed for a long time and wish he could ask Bobby for advice.
~*~
It takes another month for everything to line up with schedules and for the offer to get accepted on the house.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, while Buck waits on their schedules to line up, he and Tommy are in the middle of making lunch, when there is a knock on the door.
“At least we know it’s nobody from the 118,” Tommy offers. “Ravi’s at work.”
“Fair,” Buck says, and he hates that he’s relieved that it’s no longer anyone from the place he used to consider home.
He gets up to answer the door, because Tommy’s hands are full of squished tomatoes.
On the other side of the door is the last persona he’d expected to see.
“Athena,” he says. Then he forgets how to talk.
“Buckaroo,” she says. “Thought I might find you here. You’re a hard man to find these days.”
“Sorry,” he says, because if there’s anyone on this planet who has the right to be angrier than he does, it’s Athena.
But she doesn’t look angry. She just smiles at him - it’s a little less bright, but it’s a smile anyway. “Don’t apologize. You’re entitled to your personal time. But there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Do you have a minute?”
Buck looks over at Tommy, who nods at him. Buck steps out of the house, and he walks towards the cop car with Athena.
“It’s a nice house,” she says.
“It’s not permanent,” Buck explains. “I actually closed on a house. A little fixer-upper. I’ll be moving in a couple of weeks.”
“I’m proud of you, Buckaroo,” she says. “And Bobby would be, too.”
Buck bites his lip. “You’re the only person who thinks so,” he says quietly. “It’s not a very popular opinion these days.”
“Well,” she says dryly. “I daresay my opinion is the most important one on this particular issue.”
He laughs softly. “Well… that’s true.”
She touches his arm. “Listen. Bobby loved you. And you loved him. Nobody with any sense would doubt that. I love my parents, too - but I moved out of their house, eventually. It’s what children are meant to do, Buckaroo.”
His throat aches with tears that don’t feel fair to shed in front of her. He nods instead. “Thanks, Athena.”
“May signed up for the academy,” she comments. “She wants to follow in her stepfather’s footsteps.”
“That’s incredible,” Buck begins, then he sees the look on her face. “Ah. You don’t approve.”
“No, I don’t approve! My baby girl was planning on law school. Her future was set. Now, she’s throwing that all away for a job that took my husband’s life. Of course I don’t approve!” Athena took a deep breath. “But, children aren’t obligated to live their lives in a way that makes their parents happy. They are only obligated to live their lives and love them anyway.”
Buck smiles softly, and he thinks he will remember this conversation for a long time, every time someone tries to make him feel guilty for leaving the 118.
“Apparenly they let you put in your choice of stations when you go to the academy these days. It’s no guarantee, but …” Athena looks at him. “She’s put your new station. I hope you’ll keep an eye out for her?”
“Of course,” he says. “I couldn’t do anything else.”
She pats his arm. “Invite us to that housewarming when your house is in the shape for it, Buckaroo.”
“I will,” he promises.
“Oh, and Buckaroo? Make sure you ask Deluca about Maurice.”
~*~
Four very bright and sunny Saturdays later, Buck, Tommy, Sal, and Ravi move Buck’s stuff into Buck’s little house.
They make quick work of it.
In the middle of moving the TV, Sal says to Buck, “So your friend Ravi is trying to transfer to our station. He as good at being a firefighter as he is at destroying spinach dip?”
Buck looks at Sal in surprise. “He’s trying to transfer? That’s awesome. He’s great! I trained him, you know.”
Buck supposes he shouldn't be surprised. Ravi has asked a lot of questions about the work culture of the 122 since Buck started working there, what type of captain Sal is, and how his cowokers get along. The 118 was never quite the family to Ravi that it was to Buck, but it came so close - then it was ripped away from him.
Buck can't give it back, but ... he does like the idea of stealing Ravi away to a better place.
He is a firefighter, after all - rescues are the name of his game.
“Yeah, he mentioned that about 50 times.”
Buck laughs. “So I taught him everything I know. You know what kind of a firefighter I am.”
They set the TV down, and Sal shrugs. “And I’m sure you know that the Grant kid also wants to come to our station.”
“I did hear about that, yeah,” Buck agrees. “It wasn’t exactly my plan to bring any strays, but … May and Ravi are great.”
Sal leans up against the wall, and looks at him thoughtfully. “You know, Nash fired me because I was dick, once. Then he un-fired me and had me transferred instead - to the 122. If he hadn’t given me that second chance… I wouldn’t have the career I have now.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. Well. Anyway, the least I can do is look after his better strays, right?” Sal rolls his eyes. “Anybody else at the 118 going to bring me a sob story anytime soon?”
“No,” Buck says.
“Mmm. A little birdie already bitched about Diaz, so that’s a no, in case you were thinking about it.”
“Oh. Tommy mentioned - ?”
“Nah. Bosko.”
Oh. Bosko is still holding a grudge against Eddie? Buck laughs and thinks that maybe he and Lena are going to be pretty great friends.
Maybe the 122 will never be the “family” he’d once had, but it can still be pretty great.
~*~
Later, after Sal and Ravi leave, Tommy gets out the left over spinach dip and a bottle of Champagne.
Buck remembers the Champagne they didn’t get to drink, before - what seems like a lifetime ago.
“To the future we’re going to build, ” Tommy says, as he holds up his glass in toast.
“To building a future,” Buck agrees, as he clicks their glasses together. “Together.”
There, in the soft light of his kitchen, they sip their Champagne and dream of the future.