Archive of Our Own

Evan—goes by Buck—Buckley runs away from home when he’s twenty-years-old.

He’s not sure he can even call it that. He’s an adult, so technically, he can run away and nobody is obligated to look for him. Not that he thinks his parents would. He tried—with Maddie; showed up at the hospital she works at and asked if he could stay with her for a while, after he got kicked out of community college and crashed his bike, but her husband hates him for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand and she made up some excuse about things being too complicated and look—he knows him and Maddie aren’t as close as they used to be, he just thought—

Anyway, he needs to leave Hershey.

It’s hard because his parents are on him from the moment he walks through the door, screaming at him about how he’s reckless, but he pounds up the stairs to his bedroom anyway and starts throwing things into a backpack—a toothbrush, a few pairs of clothes, pictures of him and Maddie when the two of them were little. He can’t take everything, but he can take enough to get by until he finds a job and an apartment and a way to survive.

He has some money left from school—what he didn’t use on his bike modifications. It’s not enough to survive, but it’s enough for a one-way bus ticket out of here. He declines Maddie’s calls, ignores her I’m outside text until she gives up and drives away, and waits until his parents are asleep before he sneaks out the front door and makes the two-hour trek to the bus station.

He thinks if he can just make it to Harrisburg, he can go anywhere he wants to. The thought is both exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. He’s never really been on his own before. There is a difference between being on your own and being alone and he’s always been one and never really been the other.

So this is all new to him.

He’s never really been outside Hershey either, so it’s not like he has a place in mind. He’ll probably decide when he gets there—close his eyes and picture himself throwing a dart at a map and picking the first place it lands. Maybe Florida. Maybe California. Maybe Texas. Hell—he thinks he’d move to Montana right now.

And he doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t. He’ll have to find a place to stay that won’t drain his bank account. So probably not California then. He’s not opposed to roommates—but he doesn’t want to pull them off of Craigslist. He’ll need to find somewhere to work. He’s not qualified for much, but he can be. He’ll do whatever it takes.

He has to make this work.

His parents will never forgive him if they find him. He thinks they’d probably track him down just to properly tell him they don’t want anything to do with him. And he thinks it would probably hurt more than he wants it to. He tried for so long to please his parents. To be somebody they would be proud of.

He hates that it took him this long to realize they never will be.

He’s bone tired by the time he makes it to the bus station and he doesn’t mean physically. He could probably trek another few miles if he really wanted to, but mentally, his brain feels like it’s shutting down on him. It’s hard, he thinks—being twenty-years-old and already not knowing who he is and then having everybody else give up on him. Like they don’t believe he has it in him to be somebody greater than who he is right now.

Just his luck—there’s a sign on the window that says Opens at 7 AM, which is another seven hours from now. He could have left later. But—he thinks if he were to have put it off any longer, slept in his bed or let his mother kiss his forehead the way she does when she doesn’t want to fight anymore but she’s still entirely too disappointed in him—he might have stayed.

He probably would have.

So he sleeps on a bench outside the station and he ignores every phone call that comes in from his parents and sister when the sun does finally come up. And he stares at the screen maybe a little too long as he buys a one-way ticket to Harrisburg and tries not to count whatever he has left when he shoves it into his back pocket.

Maddie leaves him a message on her fourth call.

“Evan.” She says—frantic—and he decides he hates the name. Feels a bit too much like somebody meant to do what he never could. “Mom and Dad said it looks like your closet’s been emptied and your room’s trashed. They called me to ask if I knew where you were. I know it hasn’t always been easy for you—especially lately—and I’m sorry. But—come back home, okay? We can talk to them together. Or—or at least tell me where you’re headed and I can send you some money.”

Her voice is teary and he kind of hates himself for it. Hates that he didn’t ask her to leave with him and hates even more that he knows she wouldn’t have. He adores his sister—but her life has always been here, even though he kind of wishes it wasn’t. Which is why he drops his phone into the trash on his way out to board Bus 118.

He never does tell her where he’s headed.

To be fair, he doesn’t head anywhere at first.

Georgia. Virginia Beach. Montana. He bartends for a while and it pays the bills and he meets a girl and he learns how to surf and he lives as much as he can without really living—you know? Nothing he actually sees himself doing for the rest of his life and nothing he can brag about because he has nobody to brag to and that’s a sad thought so he tries really hard not to think about it.

He does send postcards to Maddie every once in a while—and he thinks he does it more for himself than he does for her. There’s something about it—writing out the words, pretending like someone’s reading it back on the other end even though he’s not sure anybody does.

He hasn’t talked to her since—well, since—and he hates that he doesn’t know if Maddie’s as angry with him as he used to be with her. (Not angry, he thinks, just—lonely. And sometimes, when Buck is lonely, he misses his sister more than he knows what to do with because it was Maddie and Evan for such a long time and now it’s just Evan and he’s never been just Evan in a way where he doesn’t feel like he’s destroying himself and somebody else.

So he’s back and forth and he’s never really in one place for long because he doesn’t know how to be. The world’s too quiet for him now—(and isn’t that sad—that the voices in his head that sounded a lot like his parents when they screamed nothing you do has ever been good enough were probably some of the only constants he had).

Montana takes him to Oregon which eventually takes him to Peru—which, yeah, sounds crazy, but he knows a guy who gets him back into mixology. Doesn’t hate it—probably one of the better jobs he’s had—and he’s there for another few months when a different guy takes interest in the fact that he’s from Hershey and invites him to come live with him and a couple of his roommates in LA and Buck accepts because he loves the ocean and because he wants that.

A family.

So he gets a job off of Main as a bartender because it’s what he’s good at and because he’s not sure yet what he wants to do with his life. His roommates are fine but they throw a lot of parties that he doesn’t always want to show his face at and he wouldn’t say it’s the family he dreamed of. He isn’t exactly happy but he’s not miserable either and if this is as close as he ever gets—maybe he’ll have to take it.

It's four months after he’s moved to LA—he’s working the late shift—when he notices the man at the end of the bar. Angled toward the corner mostly, not directly in front of him but it’s not like he would have to go out of his way to talk to the guy either. And it’s not that he cares but this particular guy has come in the past three nights. And he never orders a drink. He just sits there and spins the band on his finger and looks like he’d rather be anywhere else and he always comes in on the early end of the rush so Buck’s had a few moments to study him.

His hands shake every time he spins the band and there are bags under his eyes that say he probably hasn’t slept in a while—not days, but more like weeks or months. Sometimes, Buck watches as he grips the counter or folds his hands over one another and squeezes them as if he’s trying to hold a part of himself together.

On the third night—tonight—Buck finally clears his throat. “Are you okay?”

“Hm?” The man looks up to meet his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I can—get you a water.” Buck offers hesitantly. “Or—something to eat. I—I haven’t worked here long enough to know what’s good—but I can recommend you some of the more popular food.”

The man offers him a smile—all weak and lines around his eyes. “Your parents are probably really proud of you, Kid.”

He’s not entirely sure whether that’s an insult or an attempt made at conversation. Either way, Buck feels his heart clench. “Probably not.” He says. “Haven’t seen them or my sister in three years now and I doubt I will anytime soon.”

“I’d do anything to see my children again.” The man whispers—but it seems kind of like he’s been talking around Buck instead of to him. “Left them back in Minnesota.”

“Minnesota.” Buck murmurs. “What brings you to California?”

“Job transfer.”

“Where do you work?”

“I’m—ah, the new Fire Captain at Station 118.”

Station 118, Buck thinks and the numbers flicker in his mind like a vision yet to come.

“Really?” Buck’s eyes widen dramatically. “That’s—awesome. Saving lives and everything, that’s like—one of the most rewarding jobs a person can have.”

The man offers him another weak smile. “What’s your name, Kid?”

He gestures down at his shirt that reads Buckley. “Well—it’s Evan Buckley. But another guy named Evan works the day shift so I’m Buck—to make things easier.”

Thinks it fits him better too. Evan belonged to somebody else, but Buck—Buck’s his. He’s allowed to be anybody he wants to be when he’s Buck. The fact has never felt as fitting to him as it somehow does right now.

“What about you?” Buck asks.

The man gestures at his own self. “Bobby Nash.”

He’s about to respond when a loud laugh from a table on the other side of the room turns both their heads. It’s three people—two Black women and an Asian man. They’re cackling at something one of them must have said and Buck wonders—for a split moment—what it would be like to be a part of a group of people like that.

From the look on his face—Bobby’s thinking the same.

A clap of thunder sounds from somewhere in the distance. It’s been downpouring since the moment Buck started his shift nearly nine hours ago—which absolutely blows for him because he walks to and from work (nearly eight blocks one way).

“Are you okay?” Bobby asks.

Buck shakes his head. “Ah, yeah. Just—haven’t saved up for a car yet and I’m thinking about how I need to walk back to mine and my roommates’ place in this.”

Bobby furrows his eyebrows. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.” Buck admits. “I’ve only been here for a couple of months and I—I’m still deciding if it’s where I actually want to be. My roommates are kind of loud and—it isn’t really how I thought it would be when I agreed to live with them. I don’t know if they’d actually notice if I didn’t come home one night.”

“Huh.” Bobby says and he spins the band on his finger again. “I moved into my place about a week ago. Don’t start with the 118 until tomorrow. Thought I—I’d unpack, but turns out there’s not a lot to unpack.” A flash of pain passes over his face. “Accidentally put in for a two-bedroom cause I’m so used to—”

He laughs humorlessly like he thinks Buck will understand but he doesn’t. Why wouldn’t Bobby’s family move to California with him? Fire Captain isn’t a temporary position. Well, he doesn’t think it is, anyway. He’s not a firefighter so he doesn’t know for sure. Maybe Bobby’s family needed to finish some things in Minnesota and would be here later.

But then Bobby says—

“You can spend the night in my second bedroom if you want.”

Buck blinks. “What about your family?”

“Like I said—they’re in Minnesota.” Bobby says lifelessly, then— “And don’t mention my family again.”

There’s a story there. Divorce, maybe? Wife has custody of their children? Buck doesn’t know, but he’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t ask. Especially not when somebody just offered him a dry ride to a night of peace and quiet.

And he shouldn’t say yes because he knows nothing about this man but he’s seen him now for four days and he thinks if Bobby wanted to kill him—he probably would have already. And he saw the look in Bobby’s eyes when he looked over at that table of friends. Like he wanted in with them to laugh and feel a little less lonely.

He thinks maybe Bobby’s just lonely and Buck knows that feeling.

“Yeah.” Buck agrees. “Thank you.”

They fall into somewhat of a routine.

Sometimes, Bobby will come home from the firehouse and Buck’s already prepared dinner and set his table with plates and silverware he didn’t even know he had. The kid’s no Gordon Ramsey, but Bobby promises himself somewhere around the second or third time Buck does this—cooks dinner for them—that he’ll teach him.

Huh.

It’s weird, Bobby thinks, listening to the kid ramble on about his day with animated hands, that he kind of almost likes him. And then he feels guilty—Buck’s not a replacement for the family he lost back in Minnesota—but maybe he doesn’t have to be. Maybe he can miss them and enjoy someone else’s company and that doesn’t have to make him a monster.

And he didn’t mean to like the kid.

Honestly, after that first night (the one where Bobby—because he was a nice human being and not because he thought hearing somebody rattle about his apartment would make him think Marcy and Robert and Brook were still alive—invited Buck to sleep in his second bedroom), he was sure he’d never see him again. It was like—his good deed or whatever, and then the kid went back home and he went back to staring at his living room wall like it might offend him.

But—Bobby’s never had silence.

Never not had two children running about his living room when he arrived home from work. Never not heard his wife’s laughter when she greeted him at the door. And now he lives in a two-bedroom apartment (because he’s an idiot) alone and the silence is killing him because it reminds him a little too much of all the things he doesn’t have.

So he spends a lot of time at the bar (and he doesn’t drink—even though he wants to).

It’s redemption and punishment all at once. Like maybe if he withholds himself from the one thing he can’t have, it’ll make him a better person. Or it won’t and he’ll die anyway because that’s always been the plan—one-hundred-and-forty-eight names.

Sometimes—when the kid’s not busy—he’ll ask Bobby about his shifts and he sounds so genuinely excited that Bobby can’t help but to have the conversation. And the kid will ask questions and talk about Bobby’s co-workers and random things he read on the news and it’s both a bit endearing and tragic because he sees qualities of both of his actual kids in Buck and that terrifies him.

He doesn’t have that conversation because he can’t have that conversation but he does promise to cook Buck an actual homecooked meal instead of all the fried food he must eat when he’s on break at the bar. And it’s been a while since he’s cooked for anybody, but when Buck swallows a mouthful and says, holy—that’s amazing, Bobby, he thinks he’s still got it.

So—no, Buck’s not his kid, but he’s a kid because he’s twenty-three years old and he has a mostly-good head on his shoulders but he just needs some guidance and Bobby’s attempting to find a way to provide that without clouding the line between his actual kids and Buck—a different kid that he has absolutely no real attachment to (which is what he tells himself).

“How are your roommates?” Bobby asks when they’ve done this a couple of times—when Bobby’s cooked a couple of different meals for Buck, and he knows he can just write down recipes for Buck to try on his own but there’s something about having somebody to cook for that makes him feel a little less lonely.

Buck looks back at him like he’s not sure whether the question’s serious or not. “God—I can’t take it anymore—trying to find my own place.”

And when Bobby says— “You know, you can always stay here,” he finds that he’s not sure whether he doesn’t mean it which is almost worse than meaning it.

Buck’s only stayed over three times in the six months they’ve known each other because they both have barbed-wire shields wrapped around their hearts but—okay, fine, he cares about the kid which is fine (and nothing to panic about—one-hundred-and-forty-eight names, still the end goal it’s been and always will be) because he cares about a lot of people like his crew at the 118 but he still keeps them at arm’s length because he knows—

Him doing this is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

But he teaches the kid to cook anyway and he lets him stay in his second bedroom while he searches for his own place and Bobby cooks them dinner whenever he can and Buck starts fake calling him Pops and he lets it slide beside it’s just a joke (he thinks) and it’s after a few hours a couple of days later when Buck texts him that he picked up a later shift that Bobby realizes what he texted the kid back.

Be safe.

“Can I help you?”

Buck looks up to find a vaguely familiar-looking Asian man walking toward him. He has dark hair and he’s wearing a nametag that says Han. He looks friendly enough. Buck offers him a wide smile and lifts one hand in a wave.

The man snaps his fingers in front of Buck’s face. “You’re our bartender.”

He is, Buck realizes, their bartender—the group Buck constantly wishes he was a part of. He didn’t know the guy worked here. With Bobby. And it’s not like him and Bobby don’t talk about his crew here, but Buck’s never actually connected the dots because it’s not like Bobby hangs out with them outside of work.

He doesn’t invite them to his and Buck’s family dinners (the weekly ones they have now that Buck has his own place because Bobby said don’t be a stranger, Kid and Buck had said we can still have dinner here sometimes because he panicked—thought if he didn’t give Bobby a reason to be in his life that maybe he wouldn’t want to be). And Bobby doesn’t invite Buck to team meals because he doesn’t work at the 118 and Buck understands that—Bobby wants to keep his work and home lives separate.

At least he thought he did.

Until Bobby texted him last night and said come by the station for lunch tomorrow and Buck found he could do nothing but text back okay because Bobby’s co-workers will be there and he’s not one of them and he’s not really sure where he fits in with a group of firefighters when he’s—him.

“Evan Buckley.” He says as he holds out a hand for the man to shake. “Call me Buck.”

“Howard Han.” The man returns his hand. “Call me Chimney.”

“Chimney!” Buck’s face lights up at the mention. “Bobby’s told me a lot about you. I—hope that’s okay with you. I mean—he hasn’t told me too much.”

Chimney snorts. “Right—you’re Bobby’s kid.”

And Buck’s heart does that weird thing it does when somebody calls him Bobby’s kid because he’s not. He’s not Bobby’s kid—he’s Phillip and Margaret Buckley’s kid (and he hasn’t spoken to them in four years now, but he has to be theirs because he has to be somebody’s, and besides, they’re his only tie to Maddie—who he doesn’t want to think about right now). Bobby’s taken him in and kind of acted like a Dad, maybe, but that’s just because he is a Dad and Buck’s certain he’ll see his kids again soon because he’s a really good not-Dad figure to Buck.

“Not really.” Buck murmurs. “Uh—Bobby invited me here for lunch with you guys.”

Chimney nods like he knows this. “Everybody’s upstairs.”

Everybody.

The 118—Bobby’s work family. Who he cares about and sees every day and—he wanted Buck to meet them. And he’s not entirely sure why. Not sure what he’s supposed to introduce himself as to them. Bobby’s old roommate? No, that sounds weird because Buck’s twenty-four and Buck doesn’t think—he was only Bobby’s roommate because they had some kind of father-son relationship that Buck doesn’t know how to explain.

“Buckley.” Chimney calls. “It’s this way.”

He follows Chimney up the stairs because he feels like he has to. And it’s not like anyone’s looking at him when he rounds the top of the stairs. Well—until Chimney says, “Cap! Your kid’s here.”

Buck flushes and kind of wishes he could disappear but Bobby turns to him with a smile and a roll of his eyes like he knows Chimney’s making a joke. “Buck.” He says, drying his hands and walking over to Buck to clap him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the 118—I see you’ve met Chim.” Chimney waves a hand behind him as he heads towards the table. “That’s Hen.” Bobby says, nodding toward the Black woman that Buck recognizes as one of Chimney’s friends from the bar.

“Welcome to the 118, Buckaroo.” Hen says with a wave over her shoulder.

And Buck’s shoulders relax. He doesn’t know—and maybe in other circumstances, he would have wondered—what Bobby’s said about him. But they all seem to know him—at least the idea of him or whatever they’ve been told. Bobby introduces him to the rest of the team who all greet him with one-armed waves and friendly smiles and Buck thinks yeah—I can do this.

He’s welcome.

Bobby sets the meal on the table and Buck takes a seat in between him and Hen. Everybody around him talks and laughs and Buck stays quiet because he’s afraid to speak—afraid to be shut down or told he’s too annoying or too something—but Bobby includes him as much as he can and he thinks he finally understands why Bobby wanted him to come to lunch when another pair of footsteps fall up the stairs.

“’Thena!” Hen calls to somebody over her shoulder. “You’re late.”

“I’m here now.” A woman replies and Buck turns to find the other Black woman he sees sometimes with Hen and Chimney. She greets everyone around the table before her eyes fall on Buck. “You’re new,” She says and then flicks her gaze to Bobby. “How young are you picking them, Nash?”

Bobby chuckles. “Athena, this is Buck—he’s—” He waves his hand around like she’s supposed to understand. “Buck, this is Sergeant Athena Grant with the LAPD.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Buck says cautiously.

“I have a question for you, Buck.” Athena says and Buck sends Bobby a look that the man responds to with a look a look of his own that says—just go with it. “What is it about you twenty-somethings that think the law doesn’t apply to you?”

Buck furrows his eyebrows. “Uh, I don’t—”

“I just had to arrest a twenty-three-year-old for vandalism—I would have considered a fine but it’s his third one in three months.” She shakes her head as she takes a seat on Hen’s other side. “It was a string of break-ins last week—twenty-one-years-old.”

“Uh—” Buck stammers.

Bobby shakes his head like he’s used to this. “Buck’s a good one.”

“He better hope so—” Athena points her fork at him but her eyes are softer. “Now that you’re with these fools—I’m going to be keeping an eye on you.”

And he knows she’s only half-serious, but he thinks now that you’re with these fools and I’m going to be keeping an eye on you and then he thinks—

That sounds kind of nice.

Bobby’s going to be so fuckin’ mad.

He’d finally saved up for a car and he’d been proud of himself. Sure, it’s a little rundown and shitty and it has over two-hundred-thousand miles on it. The engine makes a grinding noise whenever he starts it and the brakes only sometimes work, but hey—it gets him from Point A to Point B so that’s all that really matters.

Bobby had offered to loan him the money for a down payment on a better car, but Buck had shaken his head and told him he needed to do this. He wasn’t even sure why. Maybe he felt like he’d taken too much from Bobby—which sounds ridiculous. The guy’s the closest thing Buck’s ever had to a father and that includes his own.

So it doesn’t matter that the car’s not perfect. It just matters that it’s his. He’s checked off one more box on a long list of steps titled Buck’s Guide to Adulting. Find himself a job? Check. Rent his own place? Check. Buy a shitty little car he doesn’t owe any money on? Check.

It’s only kind of maybe a problem when it decides to storm out. And listen—he’s had a license for almost ten years. He’s had to drive in rain before. He knows how to drive in rain. The problem lies in the fact that the less-than-perfect car he bought just to prove to his kind of pseudo-father that he could doesn’t know how to drive rain.

He doesn’t have plans for the night—so when his boss asks if he can cover a couple more hours at the bar, he doesn’t hesitate to say yes. He’s finally in a place where he feels financially comfortable with himself, but if he can put a few extra dollars in his Savings account, maybe he can save up to do something with it. 

His phone buzzes around nine o’clock with a text from Bobby. It’s a photo of him and his 118 crew at the firehouse. Buck’s heart squeezes a bit. He likes that Bobby found this family for himself. He wonders sometimes—what it would be like to be a part of it.

BOBBY: Think a storm’s coming late tonight. Make sure you’re home before it starts. We’re on a twenty-four so might not be able to talk. Dinner tomorrow. Bobby.

Buck snorts. It’s so Bobby. Somebody on the team probably wrote it for him—Bobby’s not exactly technologically gifted—but the signature at the end is undoubtedly him. It’s also undoubtedly him that he would text Buck to check on him when a storm’s rolling through the city.

BUCK: You’re getting better!!! Picked up a few more hours at work. I’ll text to let you know when I’m home. Tell the team I said hey. Save people!!

He debates on typing love you before he backtracks and sends the message as is. Buck’s pretty sure Bobby knows what he is to him. He knows—but they don’t talk about it. They don’t tell each other I love you even though it’s obvious they do. He doesn’t call Bobby his father even though he thinks the man exhibits all of the signs. Bobby doesn’t call him his son even though he thinks he kind of really wants him to.

But Bobby does text him things like be safe and don’t forget to get your oil changed and come over for dinner tomorrow. He looks out for him in a way Buck’s never been looked out for and he thinks he kind of owes Bobby everything.

The remainder of the night is pretty slow with the storm approaching. Buck’s out of there by eleven and he can’t help but be relieved as he gathers his things because the rain’s coming down hard and it’s only supposed to get harder as the night goes on. He tucks his hoodie under his arm, clocks out for the night and says goodbye to a few of his co-workers before stepping out into the pouring rain and jogging the few feet to the lot around the back where his car is.

Oh—the headlights don’t work either, by the way. No, well, they do, except he kind of has to press the indicator the entire time. And they’re not very bright. But again—his car, so it’s fine. He doesn’t typically drive a lot at night anyways.

But tonight—tonight he has to. He climbs into the car, throws his things in the passenger seat, and listens to the sputtering of the engine as it turns on. The radio is playing some Hank Williams song he doesn’t know all the words to, but he doesn’t bother changing it as he shifts the car in place and pulls out of the parking lot.

He turns the windshield wipers to their highest setting and squints into the darkness. The roads are already starting to flood, but again, he’s driven through rain before. Besides, he’s not very far from home. It was one of his requirements for living in the city. His apartment and his workplace needed to be close to one another. He didn’t want to work across town and be required to brave the morning traffic through LA.

So everything’s fine.

It doesn’t matter that, in hindsight, he probably should have listened to Bobby because as much as the man pokes fun at him and teases him and annoys him, he does it because he wants Buck to stay safe. It doesn’t matter that he’s pretty sure if he texted Bobby right now, the man would be here in a flash—fire truck and all—to pick him up.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter until he hears the crunching of metal—a sharp, sudden pain that begins in his left ear and reverberates throughout his entire body. It doesn’t matter until he feels the car jerk to a halt even though he’s pretty sure his foot is still on the gas pedal. He’s driven this car enough times that he knows you have to press down a little harder. He thinks he is, but he still feels like he’s stuck at a standstill.

Maybe he’s stuck on a branch or—

“Hey!” A hand is suddenly against his chest, pressing him back down into the seat even though he doesn’t remember trying to get out of the seat. “Sir, it’s okay—”

He waves his hand around in a circle and squints into the darkness. “Do you ‘ave a phone?”

The woman(?) (forgive him, please, it’s—it’s really dark and it hasn’t stopped raining and she’s all blurry and he also kind of can’t really hear her over the rain and the spluttering of the machine he’s trapped in and also the pain that’s radiating through his skull) blinks. “A phone?” She says, and he thinks she sounds younger than somebody should to have to deal with this. “Right, of course—I’ll call an ambulance.”

“My Dad.” He says, and he wishes his mouth would work because he doesn’t think Bobby is really his father, but it feels right, and ‘my kind-of, adopted, surrogate father who took me in when nobody else would’ isn’t really a phrase he feels like he can say right now.

She shakes her head. “I—We can call your Dad after, but I need to call you an ambulance.”

“No.” He argues, but his head hurts when he shakes it, so he leans back in the seat and tilts his face up just enough to meet hers. “Firefighter.”

“Your Dad’s a firefighter?”

He hums. “118.”

“Do you know his phone number?”

“911.” He blinks.

She stares at him for a moment, then— “Okay, ah, hold on. Maybe they can transfer us through to your Dad.” There’s a pause. “Hi! Hello, yes, uh—can you transfer me to Station 118? I’m on Main and this guy was in a pretty bad accident. No, he’s responsive, but he said his Dad works for Station 118—”

“Captain.” Buck whispers. "Bobby’s Captain.”

“Your father’s the Captain?” She says, and she sounds somewhat dumbfounded and impressed and horrified all at the same time. “Can you transfer me to the Captain of Station 118?” She looks back at him and he offers her a weak smile. “Thank you.”

They’re on hour seventeen of a twenty-four when the call comes through.

It’s been a pretty slow night. Bobby can’t remember the last time it rained this hard for this amount of time. Usually, when it rains, people get stupid, but save for a fender-bender due to a broken light and an accident where a man slipped and fell and found his head in a sewer grate, the team has had a relatively calm (not to say the Q-word) last couple of hours.

Until now.

He’s cleaning up the kitchen from a late dinner when his phone rings. And it’s not unusual for him to receive calls, but it’s almost unusual for him to receive them while he’s on shift. He can probably count on one hand the people who call him—his team and Buck, really, all of who are either at the station with him or know where he is.

He’s arms-deep in dirty dish water, though, so he lets it ring through. Instead, he listens to his team as they laugh and chat and sometimes look back at him to ask his opinion and he thinks about how this is what it means to be a part of a family. This is what he was looking for when he left Minnesota and then the guilt rears its ugly head because he thinks about everything that will happen once he’s filled in those one-hundred-and-forty-eight names.

But then his phone rings again and he pulls his hands from the sink— “Cap?” Chim says. “Do you want me to answer that for you?”

“Would you?” He asks as he dries his hands.

He hears Chimney answer the phone, hears him say Bbby Nash’s phone and then I’m sorry—who is this?, and it never—it never crosses his mind. And it should have, he thinks later, because they’re them and he’s him and all he ever does is break things.

“Cap!” Chimney calls, frantic. “Bobby!”

He’s across the room in a flash—pulling his phone out of Chimney’s hand. “Bobby Nash.” He says breathily and he waits for his world to collapse for the second time.

“Hi Bobby.” There’s a woman on the other line. “This is Abby over at Dispatch. I—I have a woman on the line who says she needs to reach you—what did you say your name was?”

“Nicole.” A smaller voice answers. “I—I’m sorry to bother you, Bobby. I—I witnessed an accident outside my window and the guy begged me to call you instead of an ambulance—he said he’s your son.”

Son.

His brain short circuits. He—no, no, his son isn’t here. It’s his fault. His fault. His fault. He’ll never see his family again. He’s—they’re dead and that’s on him. No matter how many times he goes to confession and says he’s sorry—he can’t bring them back.

“No.” He stutters. “No—”

“Bobby!” A more familiar voice calls out and his heart full-on stops.

“Buck?” He says, and—and that makes sense.

The kid is almost his. He’s not—Bobby will never allow himself the forgiveness that it would take to call anybody else his in that way. He had a wife and two beautiful children and he lost them and he doesn’t deserve an opportunity to rebuild that.

But he loves Buck—he can’t help that. So he checks in on him with once-a-week dinners and make sure to change the batteries in your fire alarms texts and he also keeps him at arm’s length because he made a promise to himself and if he allows somebody else to worm their way into his heart (the way Buck and the rest of his team already have)—it’ll make it that much harder.

“That’s him.” Nicole says.

“Yeah.” Bobby clears his throat—shifts his eyes to Chimney. “That’s my kid.”

It’s easier, he thinks—to acknowledge it, to play the part, rather than explain to a stranger how he’s not really the kid’s father. Worse—he thinks he wouldn’t want Buck to hear him even though Buck knows Bobby’s not his father.

Just—he probably hit his head.

“H—How is he?” He says, because sure, he heard him, but he knows better than anybody that that doesn’t always mean somebody’s in the clear. He’s watched people completely shatter over bodies of loved ones they were so certain would be fine. He’s danced with death enough times to know it takes and takes and takes and leaves no remorse in its wake.

“Conscious.” The woman says. “He’s—I think he has a concussion. He’s—a bit confused, and I’m not a Doctor, but he might have, like, a ruptured eardrum because his ear is all bloody and he can’t hear all that well unless I scream. Listen—should I like—call somebody?”

“Was anybody else involved in the crash?” Bobby says as Chimney hurries off to the other side of the loft to gather the rest of the team and Bobby knows—he knows he needs to move, but he doesn’t really know how.

“No.” Nicole answers. “Just—looks like he hit a light pole.”

“Bobby!” Chimney calls, and—right.

He manages to make it down the stairs and into the fire truck before his legs give out on him which is kind of impressive. Nicole is still breathing heavily on the other end of the line—he can hear her whispered no, don’t move and he wants to yell at his—the kid. He knows—well, he doesn’t because he isn’t—but he knows because he has Bobby—

He can’t do through this again.

It’s what he thinks on the entire drive to Main.

This is why he didn’t—why he couldn’t get attached. Because he does. It’s been—over two years since he first met Buck. Two years since the kid lived with him and he taught him how to cook and they kind of became each other’s family because if they didn’t, Bobby thinks he would have kicked him to the curb a while back but he couldn’t. He enjoys his company. As much as he enjoys a room filled with the 118. As much as he enjoyed a room filled with Marcy and Robert and Brook.

And that—he thinks—is his downfall.

He’s out of the truck before it’s even really stopped. Chim’s holding him back—saying Hen and I need to assess him­ first—and all Bobby says is, “That’s my kid.”

And Chim knows because of course he does. It’s not like they’ve kept it a secret. He lets Buck into the station—lets him use their weight room and eat their food. He let him into the team’s lives and he knows they adore the kid. But they don’t have the same responsibility that he has—even though he doesn’t, not really, because Buck’s twenty-five, almost twenty-six.

“Bobby.” Chim says. “It’s okay.”

Hen’s already over at the car—the car Bobby absolutely hates, by the way—with Buck, who didn’t listen (surprise surprise) because he’s leaning against the trunk of the totaled car. Nicole is standing on the pavement—giving a statement to Athena Grant.

“Bobby!”

He lets out a breath and makes his way over to them. “Jesus Christ, Kid.”

“Looks like a Grade 1 Concussion.” Hen turns to Bobby. “Seems as if the bouts of confusion were temporary as he seems to be lucid now and the ear should heal on its own in a few weeks, but we’ll take him to the hospital just to be sure.”

Bobby swallows. “Why are you telling me this?”

Hen gives him a look that he doesn’t know how to decipher. “We’ll load up and give you a moment to talk.”

Buck shifts his eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re—” Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a deep sigh and tries not to sound as though he’s an overbearing parent. “Are you okay?”

The kid frowns. “Am I—okay?”

“Yeah.” Bobby says. “Are you okay?”

“You’re not angry?”

“Buck.” Bobby shakes his head, exasperated. “Why would I be angry?”

“I don’t know.” He says. “My parents usually were.”

“They were—” Bobby pauses. “—angry with you when you were hurt?”

And—Bobby understands because his father definitely wasn’t father of the year but they don’t talk about Buck’s parents. Or, rather, Buck doesn’t talk about his parents. It’s one of those things—like Minnesota—that they push down and don’t bring up.

“I was hurt a lot.” Buck says, like that makes up for anything. “I did it on purpose for a while since they seemed to care, but then—they stopped, probably because it happened too much. They’d take me to get stitches or whatever and then they’d go back to ignoring me. That’s why I didn’t call you tonight.” He lowers his head. “Kind of knew I shouldn’t be driving in this—” Bobby kind of forgot it was still raining for a while there. “—but I thought you’d be mad—or worse—that you’d actually come and then you’d be mad.”

“Buck.” Bobby says, and he reaches an arm out to cup the back of the kid’s neck. “It doesn’t matter where I’m at or who I’m with or whether I’m on a shift or not. If you ever need me, you call and I will be there as soon as I can—okay?”

Buck swallows. “Okay.”

Buck would like to point out that this—isn’t his fault.

Not really.

Not completely.

Bobby suggests that Buck stay with him while he recovers—two or three or four or however many it takes days—and Buck accepts because he misses the company and he thinks he might be able to trick Bobby into cooking him a homecooked meal or two.

It also means that Buck is alone at Bobby’s place while the man’s at work—which isn’t the problem because he’s on day three of his concussion and the headache is nearly gone and he actually turned on the kitchen light today without it bothering him too much. He can probably go back to his place tomorrow—all things considered.

The problem is that Buck can’t sit still for long periods of time. He’s never been able to—not when he was a kid and not now. If he’s alone with his thoughts, he stews in them. Thinks about everything that’s happened and everything that might. So him being out of work without a car and no company and confined to Bobby’s place—it’s not ideal for him.

So he paces.

Walks back and forth across the living room floor in front of the coffee table. Thinks about Maddie and how she’s doing and if she’s still with the husband Buck hated. He stops to order takeout about twenty minutes in and then paces some more. Thinks about their parents and whether or not they’re still in Hershey. Back and forth. The 118. Back and forth. What kind of call they’re on and whether or not it’s dangerous. Back and forth.

He opens Bobby’s front door to grab his order and eats it on the couch while he watches an episode of Family Feud. It’s the first day since the crash that he can watch TV without feeling like he might puke but he’s still not really watching it. Just letting his eyes dance across the screen while he stirs rice around his place.

And how is he supposed to know when he goes to throw his trash away in the kitchen and stumbles upon a book of some kind. And—okay, maybe this is his fault, because Bobby obviously meant to throw it away but he’s curious because Bobby’s a private person—even now, even with him—and he doesn’t fully understand why.

So he settles back on Bobby’s couch with the book in his hands—after he washes them because he isn’t an animal. And he flips through the pages and it’s odd, he thinks, because it’s nothing but this list of numbers—one through one-hundred-and-forty-eight. And some numbers have names beside them—people he’s saved, Buck recognizes from Bobby’s stories—but a lot of them don’t and he’s not sure what to make of it because why one-hundred-and-forty-eight exactly?

And he doesn’t think—when Bobby comes home, he thinks he’ll ask him about it—and he doesn’t think it’ll be a big deal except for maybe he’ll have to apologize for taking it from the trash can in the first place so even that’s a stretch.

Turns out—it’s a huge fuckin’ deal.

Bobby’s in a semi-okay mood when he walks through the door at around eight o’clock at night and he greets Buck with a nod and hangs his keys up by the door and everything’s normal between the pair until Buck stands and picks up the book from the table— “So, Bobby—I’ve got to ask. What’s the deal with this book?”

Bobby’s eyes flit between Buck and the book in his hand. “You read my book?” He says, and Buck blinks because this—this isn’t the Bobby he knows.

“I mean—” He stumbles over his words. “I—I peeked once or twice—”

Bobby’s across the floor in less than a second, grabbing Buck by his t-shirt and pinning him to the nearest wall and Buck sees the look in his eyes—the anger and the disassociation and the complete look of disgust he gives Buck—when he growls at him— “Don’t ever do that again.”

And there’s an apology on the tip of his tongue when Bobby pulls away, but before he can actually form the words, Bobby says, “I think you should head home.”

Buck’s heart beats harder. “Bobby—I’m so sorry.”

“This was a bad idea.” Bobby says, and Buck doesn’t know what this is but he feels his chest crack in two anyway. “You need to leave, Buck.”

“I won’t do it again.” Buck stammers.

Bobby look at him then. “I’m sorry, Kid.”

And that’s that.

He calls Chimney to pick him up because he doesn’t have a car and he doesn’t think he should ask Bobby to drive him home and Chimney makes a big deal about it for all of two minutes until Buck says, “Chimney, please,” and his voice cracks and Chimney says— “Be there in five.”

And he tells Chimney—about the book, about how Bobby yelled at him (doesn’t even care that he shoved hm against the wall because Buck kind of thinks maybe he deserved it), about how he ruins everything and he thinks Bobby will never talk to him again—and Chimney just looks back at him and says, “Man, it’s like an unspoken rule—you don’t touch the book.”

So Buck sits in his guilt for exactly six days because the 118 is his family and as long as he doesn’t have Bobby, he doesn’t have them, which sucks and he thinks maybe he should find himself some friends of his own but he was comfortable, he thinks. For the first time in his life—when somebody told him they cared about him—he believed them.

And then he had to ruin it.

He works and he picks up extra shifts and he watches Athena and Hen and Chimney come in for a drink one night and Athena saddles up in front of him and offers him a smile and says— “He hasn’t given up on you, Buck.”

He doesn’t know how Athena knows that. Knows her and Hen are close but he thought Bobby only talked to her during lunch at the 118 and—does everybody at the 118 know he fucked up as royally as he did and made Bobby hate him? They have to, he thinks. He would have probably been at two or three of them otherwise.

He sets her usual down in front of her. “Wouldn’t be the first person.”

She sends him a look and he avoids her eyes for the rest of the night while he mixes drinks and he thinks about how wrong it feels. It never felt that way before. Sure, he never wanted to bartend for the rest of his life anyway, but it feels especially wrong for him now. And he’s still not sure of what he wants to do exactly. He just kind of knows where he wants to be. And it’s not here.

But he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go so he works his shift and he closes up and he walks home the way he has for the past week and his feet ache by the time he bounds up to his front door and he doesn’t expect to see Bobby standing outside of it.

“Bobby.” Buck says cautiously.

Bobby clears his throat. “Uh—hey, Kid.”

“Hey.” Buck says, and he knows he’s at fault, but he still tightens the barbed-wire he’s had wrapped around his heart because he’s been through this before—Bobby’s not the first parental figure that’s been disappointed in him.

“Let’s head inside and talk.” Bobby says and Buck opens his door.

He just manages to put his keys on the kitchen table when Bobby says, “My family hasn’t been in Minnesota waiting for me.”

Buck pauses. “But you said—”

“I’m from Minnesota.” Bobby tells him. “That’s—I moved to L.A. to start fresh because—I caused an apartment fire back in 2014. I injured my back while on duty and I would manage my pain with medications and alcohol and—I had a problem. My wife, Marcy, she knew—but I didn’t want our kids to find out so I would—I would rent out this apartment just to get high.” He snorts humorlessly and covers his mouth with his fist. “One day, I forgot to turn off the heater and I forgot the keys in our apartment and—I ended up asleep on the roof.”

“Bobby.” Buck whispers.

“I tried to go back—” Bobby says, and there’s tears streaming down his face. “I couldn’t save them and Marcy—she made it to the hospital before she died. One-hundred-and-forty-eight people were killed in that fire because of me.”

“One-hundred-and-forty-eight.” Buck repeats. “That’s why—”

Bobby looks away, like he’s ashamed of what he’s about to tell Buck. “When I moved here—I had a deal with myself that I would—I would save one-hundred-and-forty-eight people. Balance those lives I took. And then—I would take my life.”

“Bobby.” Buck says.

“That was always the plan, Buck.”

“But the book—” Buck says. “I found it in your trash.”

“Yeah.” Bobby agrees. “Some stuff happened and Chim and I had an argument about it all because my blood—anyway, that’s a story for another time. I didn’t tell you because you don’t see me how the 118 does. I’m their Captain.”

“And you’re my—” Buck trails off, but Bobby understand anyway.

“I didn’t give up on you, Kid.” Bobby says. “Athena told me you said—I want you to know I didn’t give up on you. I just—gave up on myself, I think.”

“I’m sorry about your family, Bobby.” Buck says quietly. “I know you miss them.”

Bobby nods. “Every day, Kid.”

“Um—and I want you to know—I think you saved me too. I don’t know where I would be if I had never met you. If you had never introduced me to your team at the 118. I don’t know where I would be, but I know it wouldn’t be here.” Buck says. “Just in case you—”

“Thank you, Buck.” Bobby clears his throat. “I’m—ah, sorry about the other day.”

“You don’t have to be.” Buck tells him. “I didn’t—”

“I do.” Bobby tells him. “Just—you’re a kid. You’re my—” He waves his hand and Buck wonders what it is about the two of them that they just can’t say the words. “You didn’t know—and I should have told you sooner.”

“Well—” Buck says, because he knows Bobby doesn’t want to talk about it. “Are you keeping any other secrets from me?”

Bobby looks away. “Actually, Athena and I are—”

Buck’s mouth falls open. “I so knew!”

“You did not.” Bobby laughs—actually laughs, and Buck thinks maybe that’s the key to grief.

And he knows—because he’s not an idiot—he knows the way Bobby grieves his family is different than the way he grieves his own. He knows that. And maybe it’s selfish because he can pick up his phone and call his parents anytime he wants to. Call his sister. He should. Call Maddie—his parents not so much.

But grief is different. And he knows it’ll probably never go away—for either of them. He thinks if he called his parents up right now, he would still grieve the childhood they never gave him. And it hurts because Bobby is a good father, Buck’s sure of this, and then there are people like his parents who—

It just sucks.

But maybe that’s the reason, he thinks. He’ll never replace Bobby’s children and Bobby will never fully replace his father even if Buck kind of wants him to. They can just—be there. This little non-blood related family they created with each other and Athena and her kids and Bobby’s work team and their own families.

And Buck thinks of how grateful he is to have that. Even if it’s not his. He think he’ll hold onto it for as long as he can.

Evan Buckley meets Eddie Diaz when he’s twenty-six.

Bobby’s been raving about him ever since he started a few weeks ago, talking about how much he thinks Buck will like him. Apparently the guy’s an Army medic. Has a kid that Bobby says is super fuckin’ cute. Buck’s not entirely sure what he would have in common with somebody like that but he agrees to meet him anyway because he has nothing better to do.

He shows up at the station for lunch a few days later. Bobby and the team are still on a call so Buck kills his time in the weight room since he’s sure they won’t mind—they never do. Lately, he’s been spending more and more time here. He’s not even sure why. Just—somehow, these people and this place—they’re kind of like his family.

So, anyway, he kills his time and when he hears the truck roll back into the station, he bounces up the stairs and into the loft two steps at a time. He doesn’t even wait for them before he starts pulling plates out of cabinets and setting the table because he knows where everything is. Thinks he should probably be a firefighter at this point.

But it did take him a while—to feel comfortable, to feel like he was part of this family that consists of a group of firefighters and a twenty-six-year-old whatever he is. So, no, he doesn’t think it’s his fault that he’s in a maybe-kind-of-shitty mood the rest of the day when somebody he has definitely never seen before bounds up the stairs and calls over his shoulder— “Uh-huh! Still waiting for you to teach me, Cap.”

“Who the hell are you?” Buck blurts.

The man whips his head around to face him. “Eddie Diaz.” He says slowly, unsure, like Buck could be talking to somebody else. Which—it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have a uniform and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t work here. These people—they’re kind of all he has.

“Eddie?” Buck says. “Is that like—short for Eduardo?”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “No.”

He folds his arms over his chest. “People ever call you Diaz?”

“Not if they want me to respond.”

“Buck.” Hen says, coming up the stairs. “He doesn’t know you well enough for this.”

“I’m just saying—something’s got to give. We’ve got Cap, Hen, Chimney, Buck.” He lands a hand on his own chest. “We can’t just call you Eddie.”

“Can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.” Not-Eduardo says at he opens the fridge.

“I like to always operate under the assumption that nothing he says is serious.” Chim throws in his unwanted two-cents as he ascends the stairs with Cap on his heels. “Believe me—it will make your life a whole lot easier.”

Bobby snorts. Which—is fine because he makes fun of Buck all the time—and it’s never in a mean way so it doesn’t bother him. Except Eddie snorts. And that’s different than Bobby because Bobby knows him. Bobby has taken him in and provided for him and taught him to cook and been a father when Buck needed one and all Eddie’s done is—

—is try to insert himself into Buck’s family.

And then he says— “Do you work here?”

It’s not—it’s not even that he says it in a mean way. Honestly, it’s just a question and it’s a question that has one answer. It’s not even a complicated answer. But he sees the LAFD on the chests of the people he loves and he realizes they’re all—they’re all somebody. They’ve all lived lives and saved people and they’ve probably all felt good about it and that’s something Buck has never experienced and what if he never does?

What if he has nothing to show for who he is except for a bunch of cities he’s never fully been able to call home and a group of people whose lives he just inserted himself into because nobody’s ever really chosen him because they want him? Even Bobby, he thinks. Buck’s always just—somehow been there.

He wonders how many people would choose him if they had a choice.

“Buck doesn’t work here.” Bobby says. “He’s—he’s just a part of the family.”

Him and Bobby have gotten better—ever since the accident and the names in a book and ever since Bobby started seeing Athena—with acknowledging what they are to each other. Sometimes, Bobby will say something like Jesus, is this how I raised you? and it’s a joke but it makes Buck smile just the same.

“Extended family.” Chimney points a spoon at them.

“Ah.” Eddie acknowledges. “Well—it’s nice to meet you, Buck.”

He decides then that he hates Eddie. Doesn’t know why Bobby ever thought the two of them would be friends. It doesn’t matter that he’s wormed his way into Bobby’s good graces or the team’s good graces because he will never worm his way into Buck’s. And sure—the guy might have the world’s cutest kid (even though Buck will never find out because he’s never going to willingly spend a day with this guy) and Buck loves kids but it doesn’t matter because he hates Eddie.

Would the team choose Eddie over him?

He hates that he doesn’t know.

And as long as that’s true—

—he will never be friends with Eddie Diaz.

Unfortunately, Christopher Diaz is the world’s cutest kid.

Buck finds this out because exactly two days after he meets Eddie Diaz for the first time and swears he will never willingly spend another second with the guy, a text comes through on his phone from an unknown number.

UNKNOWN: Is this Buck?

And then—

UNKNOWN: It’s Eddie Diaz.

Buck thinks he might kill Bobby. After the lunch at the fire station where Buck glared daggers over the table at the 118’s newest member while Bobby shot him questionable looks for the entire forty-five minutes, the man texted him later that night to say apologize to Eddie to which Buck responded over my dead body. He thinks this is probably Bobby’s form of payback.

UNKNOWN: I’m kind of in the need for a favor and Cap sent me your number.

Definitely might kill Bobby.

UNKNOWN: I know you don’t like me that much and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to step on your toes with Bobby or the team. I think maybe we just got off on the wrong foot and I was hoping you’d be willing to start over.

UNKNOWN: Also—could you watch my kid for a couple of hours?

What—

BUCK: Excuse me?

UNKNOWN: Oh thank God. I didn’t know if you’d actually answer. Bobby said you love kids and well—I love this one. I’m kind of all he has. His usual babysitter’s out of town because her mother’s sick and Cap can’t afford to let me take the whole day off.

UNKNOWN: His name is Christopher and he’s seven-years-old. He has CP but he can get around on his own pretty good with his crutches. I promise he’s not a difficult kid.

And what else is Buck supposed to do except say—

BUCK: Okay.

Which is how Buck finds himself in Eddie Diaz’s house not even an hour later with a seven-year-old who, like he said—is the world’s cutest kid. He watched Eddie squeeze Christopher to his chest and pepper his forehead with kisses on the way back to work and Buck thought Eddie is kind of a really good father.

And he doesn’t know what that means but he thinks it means he dislikes Eddie a little less than he thought he did.

“Are you a firefighter?” Christopher asks Buck as he scoops a forkful of microwavable mac-and-cheese (Buck has to do some serious food shopping for this family) into his mouth.

And this kid—he’s kind of like the coolest person Buck’s ever met because he didn’t even question it when Eddie said this is my friend, Buck (a stretch) and he’s going to stay with you until I’m home from work. He just looked at Buck and said do you like video games? and Buck laughed and threw his head back and said to Eddie okay, Diaz, I think we’ll be fine.

He clears his throat. “Uh—no.”

“Then how do you know my Dad?” The kid asks, face scrunched up, cheese running down his chin and Buck hands him a napkin to wipe himself up.

“I know your Dad’s Captain at work.” Buck explains. “He introduced me to your Dad a couple of days ago.”

“Do you want to be a firefighter?” Christopher asks curiously.

Buck snorts. “Uh—I don’t think that’s my calling in life, Buddy.”

“What’s a—a calling?” Christopher asks.

“It’s like what you’re meant to do.” Buck tells him. “Like—your Dad was meant to be a firefighter and he was also meant to be your Dad. I don’t know if I’ve found my calling yet. I think there will probably be a sign.”

“I want to be a firefighter.”

“I bet you’d be a really good one.” Buck tells the kid fondly. “My—uh, Bobby, your Dad’s Captain says your Dad is a really good firefighter.”

“He’s a really good Dad too.” Christopher says, like it’s just a fact—like Eddie deserves some kind of World’s Best Father award and Buck wonders what it’s like to think that—as a child—that your parent is the coolest person you know.

“Yeah.” Buck murmurs. “Seems like he’s the best. So—uh, what do you like to do for fun?”

Christopher slurps at his juice. “Have you ever been to the zoo?”

“I haven’t.” Buck says. “Do you like the zoo?”

The kid laughs. “I don’t know! I’ve never been there.”

Buck shakes his head with a smile. “Huh—well, maybe I can take you there someday.” He reaches across the table and pokes Christopher in the arm. “It’ll be our little thing.”

“What about Dad?” Christopher asks seriously.

“Hm.” Buck pretends to think. “Well—you and your Dad probably have your thing.”

Christopher’s little face scrunches up like he’s thinking really hard. “Oh—Dad wakes me up every morning so we can get ready together. We ex-er-cise and then we have breakfast and then we brush our teeth together.” He looks up at Buck timidly. “Can that be mine and Dad’s thing?”

And Buck—he thinks his heart might explode because that’s really fuckin’ cute. How this kid lights up at mention of his Dad. How attentive Eddie seems to be to Christopher’s needs. How Buck can tell—one day in—that Eddie and Christopher’s favorite person is each other.

“It sure can.” Buck says. “You and your Dad can have your mornings so he doesn’t get left out and we can have the zoo. How does that sound to you?”

“Okay!” Christopher agrees with a grin and Buck knows this is only day one and that he shouldn’t promise Christopher a second and a third and a fourth, but honestly—he thinks he could spend the day with Eddie Diaz if it means getting to hang out with Christopher.

Christopher finishes his meal and Buck hands him another napkin to clean his face while he cleans the dishes and then Christopher asks if he wants to play a video game and Buck shakes his head at the boy and says, what kind of question is that? and Christopher giggles and darts off to gather the controllers while Buck pulls his phone out of his pocket.

BUCK: World’s cutest kid. FYI.

EDDIE DIAZ: He gets it from me.

Buck snorts and it’s only when he puts his phone away that he realizes—

He just smiled at something Eddie Diaz said.

Christopher’s passed out across Buck’s lap when Eddie walks through the door around nine o’clock after work. He texted Buck around seven that it would be a few more hours and that he felt horrible about it and he was so sorry and Buck texted back with—please, I love this kid and he didn’t realize until after he’d sent it that maybe it wasn’t what he should have but Eddie hearted the text in return and Buck forgot all about whether it was right or not.

“You could have put him to bed.” Eddie says as he hangs his keys on the hook by the door and lifts Christopher off of Buck’s lap. “Has he been out for a while?”

“About an hour or so.” Buck says. “He wanted to stay up and wait for you but he looked tired so I convinced him to lay on the couch while we waited instead.”

“I’m going to put him to bed.” Eddie nods towards the hallway. “Do you want to stay for a drink?”

Buck runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Ah—sure.”

He waits while Eddie puts Christopher to bed and he texts Bobby—thanks—and Bobby texts back a thumbs-up because he knows exactly what Buck’s talking about without him having to say it and Buck appreciates that that’s how their relationship has always been.

“Thank you again for doing this.” Eddie says as he grabs two beers from the fridge and plops down on the couch next to Buck. “Carla’s out of town and my Abuela can’t keep up with Christopher the way she used to.”  

“It’s not a problem.” Buck promises. “Christopher’s a great kid.”

Eddie smiles. “He is. I—ah, he doesn’t get that from me.”

“I thought he did.” Buck teases, and then— “His mom?"

“Ah—she passed a couple of months ago.” Eddie says with a swallow, like he’s working his throat to not cry. “We were already separated by that point and she—hadn’t been in Christopher’s life for about two years before that. But—she was still my best friend. Always has been. And I don’t blame her for—I wasn’t always present when Christopher was younger. Spent a lot of time in Afghanistan as an Army medic because I thought—I thought it might help me deal with Christopher’s diagnosis and—and then Shannon left and I didn’t have a choice but—Christopher is the best thing either of us have ever done and I could never regret that.”

Buck hums. “You’re a good father, Eddie.”

“You met me two days ago.” Eddie snorts. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know what it’s like to not have good parents.” Buck says thoughtfully. “I saw you with Christopher before you left for work. And—I spent half the day today with your kid and he doesn’t shut up about how awesome he thinks you are.”

Eddie bites back a smile and takes another sip of beer. “Well—I’m sorry. That must have been kind of annoying for you—listening to somebody talk about how awesome I am.”

“It wasn’t.” Buck says instead and he smiles when Eddie nearly chokes. “I wanted to apologize to you about the other day.”

“Buck.” Eddie says.

“Let me finish.” Buck says. “I—Honestly, I was kind of intimidated.”

“By me?” Eddie clarifies.

“Bobby introduced me to the 118 about a year-and-a-half ago.” Buck says, running his fingers over the perspiration on his bottle. “I’ve been on my own since I was twenty-years-old and Bobby’s the first person I met in that time that I felt a genuine connection with. He’s like—the closest person I have to family. And when he introduced me to the 118—they became my family. Hen and Chimney and then Athena.”

“And you thought—” Eddie raises an eyebrow. “—that I would do something to compromise your relationship with them?”

“Not consciously.” He says. “Maybe. I don’t know. Just—you seemed so comfortable.”

“Buck.” Eddie says. “My intention was never to step in your way. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a—a firefighter or not. It’s pretty clear to me you have a relationship with them that extends beyond that. Just—I would like to be a part of it.”

“The 118.” Buck confirms.

“Them.” Eddie nods. “But—also with you.”

Buck blinks. “Even though I’m not a firefighter?”

“Hell yeah.” Eddie tells him. “Like I said, firefighter or not—you can have my back any day.”

Buck stares back at Eddie. Feels the warmth that spreads over him at his words. He should probably text Bobby later and apologize. Tell him that he was right and Eddie’s actually pretty cool and that Buck thinks they could maybe be good friends.

“Yeah.” He says. “Or, you know, you could…you could have mine.”

Maddie falls back into his life on a Tuesday.

Well—stumbles through his front door, is more like it. He’s on his way out the door to work—has his keys in his hand—when he opens the door and—

“Evan!”

There’s arms around his neck before he’s really able to register them. He hugs her back—of course he does—but he can’t help the way his mind rears back and it’s not because he doesn’t love her or because he hasn’t missed the hell out of her but—Maddie feels like a part of someone who he used to be and he likes the person he is now.

“Maddie.” He says when she pulls back and cups his face in between her hands and his heart aches because this is his sister, but he’s—he’s made a family, he thinks. With a kind-of pseudo-father and a team of firefighters who look out for him and a best friend who he kind of lights up around every time he’s around and his son that Buck already loves like he’s his own. “Why—what are you doing here, Maddie?”

“I wanted to see my little brother.” She tells him.

“How’d you know where I live?”

“Well—” She says. “First, I went to the address you sent your last Christmas card from but the guy told me you moved out about a year ago so he gave me your new address and the guy there directed me here.”

He blinks. “Bobby told you where I was?”

“Evan, it’s me.” She says as she wheels an entire suitcase past him and into his apartment. “I know it’s been a while, but—”

“Wait.” He says. “You did get those Christmas cards?”

She pauses. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much lately.”

“Six years, Maddie.” He tells her. “I haven’t heard from you in six years.”

“Yeah—I know.” She says. “And it’s not what I wanted. But—I didn’t know you’d run away from home. I didn’t have any idea were you were until you started sending Postcards and three months later, you’d send another one. It’s not—it’s not your fault. I should have reached out. And I’m sorry that I didn’t. But I did miss you.”

“Where is Doug?” He asks.

She plops onto his couch. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

Buck pauses. “You left him?”

“Finally.”

“Geez, Mads.” He says. “What took you so long?”

And maybe that’s not fair because he knows—he knows it isn’t easy for women to walk away from a situation like that, but—this is his sister. He would have walked through fire for her to be able to leave her shitty excuse of a husband. Would have bought her a plane ticket himself and let her have his bed while he slept on the couch with a baseball bat ready to beat the ever-loving-shit out of her ex at any given moment because he wouldn’t have survived without Maddie because she’s the one who took care of him.

She’s the only person from back then he’s missed like a limb.

“Do Mom and Dad know?” He asks when she hesitates.

She shakes her head. “No one knows. And please don’t tell them if they call—” She says as though they’ve called him at all over the past few years. “I don’t want anyone to know that I’m here.”

His heart bottoms out. “Kind of sounds like you’re hiding out.”

“More like laying low.” She says with a smile that isn’t really hers. “So—how did you end up here in California?”

“It’s a long story.” He says. “Well, actually—the California part isn’t really that long. I was in Peru and I met a guy who needed a roommate—I assume you talked to him first—and I ended up in LA living with him for a while. And then I bartend over at a place on Main which is where I met Bobby one day.”

“The second guy I talked to.” She says.

He nods. “Yeah—uh, we’re still in touch. He’s kind of like—well, I lived with him for a short time when I didn’t have a car because my roommates sucked and he only lives like two blocks from the place where I work. Stayed in his guest bedroom for a few months until I found this place.”

“That was nice of him.” Maddie says.

Buck shoots her a smile. “Yeah—Bobby’s great. I’m, uh, having dinner with him and his girlfriend and maybe her kids this week if you want to come. It’s like—this weekly family thing I used to do with Bobby and then he started dating Athena and she’s awesome—I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid or whatever.”

“No!” Maddie says. “Evan, no. That’s awesome. I’m glad you found people here who you feel like you can be yourself around.” She shoots him a knowing smile. “I’d be happy to join.”

Here’s how it all goes to shit.

Eddie drops Christopher off at Buck’s place on one of his off days, which—that works, Buck loves Christopher. Eddie presses a kiss to Christopher’s head on the way out the door and grips Buck in a shoulder squeeze and everything’s entirely fine. So fine that Buck doesn’t even feel like it maybe won’t be fine because he’s been attending therapy and he’s been more open with people—Hen and Chimney and Eddie and Bobby and Athena and everyone else who usually asks him about his day and most of the time he’ll say it’s good but he’s learned—at other times—to say kind of bad, but I think it’ll be better tomorrow and that’s progress.

His sister has decided to stick around—which Buck kind of loves even though he doesn’t say it to her face (not that much progress). She’s also started a relationship with Chimney after her ex came after them one night (long story, not his to tell—Athena and Bobby saved her and Buck sometimes still has nightmares about it)—which Buck kind of hates but also not really because Chimney does make her happy and Buck wants his sister to be happy.

So when Christopher asks to go to the Pier—Buck says yes.

And they have fun. Christopher laughs constantly and Buck feels like his heart might give out from how fuckin’ adorable this kid is. He wins Christopher a giant stuffed bear and buys them too much sugar and sends Eddie updates about their day and Eddie responds with hearts and he thinks you’re the best, Buck and when Buck hearts that one, Eddie sends another—we both do. So Buck’s a little bit on Cloud 9.

And then—

And then—

And then—

A tsunami happens, because of course it does, and it’s fine—well, it’s not fine, per se, but he thinks he can handle this—him and Christopher on the back of a fire truck (how ironic, he thinks, thinking of Bobby and Eddie—who Buck had texted to tell him they were headed home and they were, but then Christopher wanted to sit on the Boardwalk and Buck said okay and now—and the rest of the 118) and he’s clutching Christopher to his chest because what else can he do but wait for somebody to rescue them?

He hopes it both is and isn’t Bobby and Eddie. Hopes this is something they can push behind them into the back of their minds when everybody turns up fine and—

“Help!” A voice shouts from somewhere in the distance. “Help me!”

Christopher shudders against him and he thinks about the fact that he’s only eight-years-old—this poor kid who’s lost his mother not once but twice and who’s probably seen more than most children his age should have to.

“Chris—” Buck says and Christopher holds onto him a bit tighter even as Buck pulls away. “I need you to sit right here for me—you promise me?”

“Yeah.” The kid says.

Christopher is his responsibility, he knows this—but he’s Buck. He can’t just sit here and listen to somebody die. So he ruffles the kid’s hair and offers him a pathetic smile and he channels his inner Bobby to think about what he would do.

And then he grabs the ladder.

It takes longer than it probably would have a firefighter—but he manages to hoist the woman back onto the firetruck and it’s only when he thinks he’s kind of proud of himself that Christopher points behind him at the rather large group of people struggling to swim towards them.

“Buck!” He says.

And listen—he does what he can because he can. That’s what he would tell anybody at the end of the day if they asked. He’s not a hero because people still died—people that he might’ve been able to save but he didn’t because he wasn’t fast enough or because he didn’t know how or just because he couldn’t. He watches as bodies float by and he covers Christopher’s eyes because Eddie doesn’t want Christopher to know this kind of world exists.

Neither does Buck.

So he plays I Spy with Christopher and maybe things would have been fine and maybe Buck would have been able to sleep for the next couple of months—he’ll never know—if the things that happen next didn’t actually happen.

Your responsibility, he thinks.

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell your father.” Buck says after the waters have calmed and they might actually be in the clear. “I take you out one time and, ah—look what happens.”

Christopher looks up at Buck. “You saved me.” He says simply. “And you saved them.”

He absolutely fuckin’ loves this kid. Hasn’t even known him that long but it doesn’t matter because he loves him anyway. Would die for him the way Eddie would. The way Athena would for her own kids or Hen would for Denny or—the way Bobby might for him, he thinks.

“No, we did that together.” He tells Christopher with his voice full of emotion. “You and me make a great team. Give me a high-five.” He pulls the kid back into his arms because Christopher’s okay and he’s okay—save for a few cuts and the fact that his muscles are incredibly fuckin’ sore and he thinks he might sleep for the next week—and he can’t wait to stumble home to Eddie and hold the kid up in his arms and say Look, Eddie, I kept him safe like you told me to.

His responsibility.

You can’t save them all, Bobby told him once after a long shift in which they had lost the father of a young boy—one of those you have to choose situations Buck couldn’t imagine being in when he had to decide which one of them to save. So you assess the situation and you save the one who has the better odds and you pray to God you don’t regret it in the end.

His responsibility.

Do you ever save yourself first? Buck asked Hen once.

Only when it’s absolutely necessary.

His responsibility.

He’s still clutching Christopher to him when another wave rolls through. More people. Hell—what does he know? You saved them. Who is he to decide who lives? He can’t—which means he has an obligation to save everybody he can.

The fire truck rocks with the weight of the wave like it’s saying you’ve had enough and Buck yells back no I haven’t and then there’s a splash behind him and—and his world goes still.

You saved me. You saved me. You saved me.

“Christopher!” Buck launches himself back—people be damned—but Christopher is no longer on the fire truck and—

He wishes he could remember what happened next. But the truth is—it’s all kind of a blur. There’s hours in between—hours of looking for Christopher and moments of clarity in which he thinks he found him and moments of complete defeat in which he realized he hasn’t.

Your responsibility, his mind screams.

Somehow, he’s led on a wild goose chase that eventually leads him to body bags, a phone call with Maddie (a dispatcher now, did he mention?) that makes him feel even worse when she says he has to tell Eddie about Christopher, and then—

“Buck?”

Oh God.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie demands, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you okay?” Then— “Where is Christopher?”

“Eddie.” Buck chokes out.

Eddie’s eyes dart between Buck’s face and his chest. “Why—why do you have his glasses?”

Does he? He glances down. He thinks he remembers picking them up at some point. Doesn’t really know for sure. Maybe Christopher gave them to him. No. That wouldn’t make sense—Christopher wouldn’t. His hand trembles as he reaches up to touch them with a bloodied hand. Hold on—when had he started bleeding this much?

“We, um—” Buck stammers. “Me and Christopher, we were—at the beach…” Eddie’s eyes darken and Buck breaks because it’s his fault, it’s his fault, it’s all his fault. He thought he could play some kind of hero and he can’t even take care of his best friend’s kid. “Listen to me, okay?” He slips the glasses over his head. “I swear to you, okay? I—I tried. But I—just—Eddie, I don’t know how to say it. Um—he just—he just vanished.”

Eddie’s eyes fall behind him. “Christopher.”

“Wha—” Buck says, but Eddie’s not in front of him anymore, and then—

“Christopher!” Eddie says again.

“Dad!” A familiar voice calls and Buck—

“Buck—” Chim says, suddenly, in front of him. “What happened to you?”

His eyes are still on Eddie and Christopher, like he can’t believe they’re there and he didn’t entirely fail them (even though he’s sure he’ll never see Christopher or Eddie again which stings more than he wants it to), when Bobby appears in front of him.

“Hey.” He says cautiously, eyes scanning Buck’s bloodied figure before he turns his head to glance over at Eddie and Christopher and then back to Buck. “You two okay?” Bobby asks and he doesn’t know if he means Buck and Eddie or Buck and Christopher but right now it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah.” Buck says. “We’re great.”

And then he collapses.

Bobby takes his weight first (metaphorically and literally) because one, he’s there, in front of Buck and just so happens to be the first to catch his limp body, and two, because the man has taken every one of Buck’s problems on his shoulders since the moment he met him.

“Kid.” He says—hand on Buck’s shoulder. “Buck, look at me.”

He’s clutching somebody’s arm (Hen? Chimney?)—eyes still trained on the Diazes—so he doesn’t notice Bobby unravel the wrap from his bloodied hand. Doesn’t notice him let out a string of curses as he motions Hen over to fix the mess Buck made. He can’t find it in him to care. Also can’t stand up at the moment but it’s fine.

Christopher’s okay.

He spends that night in Bobby and Athena’s guest bedroom because Bobby forcefully puts him in a car and drives him there and Buck thinks maybe Bobby needs this as much as he does even if he never says it and Buck never allows him to. The man makes him breakfast in the morning and tells him he can stay another night and Athena kisses his cheek on the way out the door and it feels like home all over again.

It’s not until a couple of days later—when he’s back at his place and wallowing in silence—that a knock sounds on his door.

“Hey, Buck!” Christopher says as he walks himself into Buck’s legs and he immediately wraps his arms around the kid because he hasn’t had them around him since—well, since you know.

He chokes on a half-laugh, half-sob. “Hey, Buddy.”

“Good morning, Buck.” Eddie follows in behind them and sets Christopher’s backpack on Buck’s kitchen table—the one he’d been wallowing at moments before. “Okay—there’s a morning snack and a midday snack, two coloring books and a bunch of Legos.” He looks up at Buck and whispers in a mock-serious tone, “Between us, he’s never built anything that kind of looks like anything, he just likes sticking things together.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled up twenty-dollar bill. “There’s $20 for Pizza—and if I were you, I’d eat a couple of extra slices, you look like you’re wasting away to nothing.”

“Eddie.” Buck deadpans.

“I will say—honestly,” Eddie continues over him. “This is kind of working out for me, you looking after Christopher. I mean, you’re no Abuela and you’re half a Carla, but you do in a pinch.”

He furrows his eyebrows. “You want me to watch Christopher?”

Because there’s no actual way. Not after—the Pier and Buck—he lost him. He lost his best friend’s kid and he didn’t find him until—no, Buck didn’t find him. He found Eddie and Eddie was the one who found Christopher and all Buck did was collapse in Bobby’s arms and—

“It’s easy.” Eddie says with a shrug. “He’s not very fast.”

Buck makes some kind of choking noise. “After everything that happened?”

“A natural disaster happened, Buck.”

“I lost him, Eddie.”

“No.” Eddie disagrees seriously. “You saved him. You saved so many other people. That’s how he remembers it.” He points at Christopher.

Buck stares at him. “I was—I was supposed to look out for him.”

“And what—” Eddie wonders. “You think you failed? I fail that kid more times than I care to count and I’m his father. But I love him enough to never stop trying—and I know you do too.”

There’s something unspoken in the words. I know you do too. Like it’s just kind of a fact that Buck has taken Christopher in as his own. Obviously not like that because Eddie’s his father. Buck would never do anything to step on Eddie’s toes when it comes to Christopher. But yeah, he loves the kid like he’s his.

“Buck.” Eddie says, clapping a hand on his shoulder and—oh, well—did Eddie’s eyes always look like—well, kind of like Buck wants to drown himself in them? And he can’t ignore them—because Eddie actually shifts so he’s staring at Buck and Buck’s staring right back and he wonders if they’re still having a conversation about Christopher or if something just shifted between them. “There is nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.”

And isn’t that a fuckin’ I love you if Buck’s ever heard one?

Has he ever heard one? (Maddie doesn’t count.)

He blinks a couple of times, but Eddie’s already moving his hand away (and it’s kind of like Buck’s just been burned a little bit) and calling out to Christopher and Buck’s still frozen in the kitchen of his apartment with Eddie Diaz heart eyes.

“Oh—” Eddie says on his way out, like he hasn’t already altered Buck’s entire world in a look and a sentence and moment. “Thank you for not giving up.”

“I’m not saying I want to—do what you guys do.” Buck says, taking a swig of his beer, feet crossed over one another on the coffee table at Eddie’s house. “Just—I think I want more for myself.”

It’s half-past eleven o’clock at night, which means Buck should probably be heading out soon, but Eddie hasn’t yet asked him to leave and he doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Really, Eddie is the one who asked him to come over (every night this week).

Christopher’s been having nightmares ever since the tsunami. Mostly about losing Buck—and you don’t have to tell him that’s his fault, he already knows. But Eddie seems to want him around them anyway because every time Christopher’s cried out in his sleep for Buck this past week, Eddie has called him up and asked him to come over and every time—Buck says yes.

Maybe you should move in, Eddie had joked a few days ago after Buck had left Christopher’s room after reassuring the boy they were both safe. Again—he’s not unpacking that at this moment, thank you, but he hates that his first thought was how quickly he could hire a truck to move.

“Hm.” His best friend agrees. “Why can’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Buck asks.

“Why can’t you do what we do?” Eddie rephrases.

Buck snorts. “That’s funny.” Except his best friend is the epitome of serious as he mirrors his stare back at him. “Eddie—in case you forgot—I lost your son in the middle of a tsunami. I didn’t know where he was for hours. People can’t depend on me.”

“Buck.” Eddie says, and Buck kind of loves the way he does. “You saved Christopher—did a better job of it than I could have ever imagined in a situation like that. You saved a lot of people. Do you know how many strangers have come by the station the past few weeks looking for someone named Buck because they want to thank you for that day?”

He swallows. “I did what I could.”

“It was enough—” Eddie says, even though he doesn’t think it was. People died. Christopher could have—and Buck would’ve never forgiven himself. “Buck, a natural disaster happened. It’s horrible that it did, but you can’t hold onto that guilt because you think you could’ve saved more people or helped out in some other way. You had no responsibility to—but you still jumped in.”

“I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I didn’t.”

“I know.” Eddie tells him with half of a smile. “That’s what I love about you.”

Buck’s heart skips a beat. That’s what I love about you. And he knows how Eddie means it—knows he doesn’t really love Buck in the way Buck kind of thinks he could love Eddie if he gave him the chance to but he can’t force a relationship on somebody who doesn’t want it and he’s not even sure of what he wants at the moment but what he does know is that he kind of loves spending time with the Diaz boys.

In whatever way they’ll have him.

“Yeah.” Buck croaks out. “Uh—thank you.”

Eddie snorts. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“Yeah—” He repeats, not entirely sure what he’s meant to think about, but it’s Eddie—so of course he says yes. Would probably say yes if he asked him to jump off of a bridge (Eddie would probably rather tell Buck all the dangers of such a stunt than ask Buck to actually do it but it’s the point that Buck would do anything Eddie asked him to).

And that’s kind of the danger, he thinks. He’s only really known Eddie for a year—has been friends with him for even less of that time. He doesn’t want to think about what might happen two or three or four months from now—or however long it takes—when Eddie inevitably decides that Buck is too much for him to handle.

It’s bound to happen.

Or, if it doesn’t—Eddie will find somebody. Look at the guy, Buck thinks. He’ll move on from the death of his wife and fall in love with another beautiful woman who will love Christopher the way a mother should and Buck doesn’t know what that means for him. Not only in Eddie’s life but also in Christopher’s because yeah, he loves the kid, he doesn’t think that’s some groundbreaking news because Buck gets attached to people and Buck loves kids and he definitely gets attached to people who have kids and he’s gotten both attached to Eddie and Christopher.

He doesn’t know how Eddie feels about it, but he doubts the love of Eddie’s life—whoever it might be—would want him around twenty-four-seven and he kind of wants to be around Eddie and Chris twenty-four-seven.

“Besides,” Eddie says in what begins a single phrase that tilts Buck’s entire world on its axis. “You would look good in uniform.”

Firefighter Evan Buckley walks into Station 118 on a Thursday.

Bobby takes one look at him and says, “God help me.”

“You wanted me here.” Buck’s mouth falls open in a mock-hurt expression because Bobby did put a request in to have him at Station 118—not that he could have pictured himself at any other station with any other group of people. “And I was told to report to you.”

“Welcome to the 118, Buck.” Bobby says, then— “Officially.”

“It’s like nothing’s even changed.” Hen says, coming down the stairs with Eddie (who Buck avoids eye-contact with because it’s hard enough seeing his best friend in regular clothes let alone dressed in uniform). “It’s good to have you here, Buck.”

“At least there’s no awkward introductions.” Eddie offers him a smile.

“Alright.” Bobby says. “You know I’m your Captain here, right?”

“Yes.” Buck says, rolling his eyes. “I know you’re my Captain, Bobby.”

“You know what I mean.” Bobby says, scratching the back of his neck as his face turns a shade of red Buck’s never seen before. “I mean I’m not like—you know.”

“What he means…” Chimney says, appearing from God-knows-where like he always does because he likes to make Buck miserable (and by that Buck means he kind of loves the guy and if Chimney doesn’t pick him as his Best Man when he marries his sister, they’re going to have words and Buck may take back his permission for Chimney to marry said sister) “…is that we’re a family here, but not—you know, your family.”

“Exactly.” Bobby agrees, and then— “Wait.”

Buck furrows his eyebrows and blinks. “I think I’ve even more confused.”

“What Chimney means,” Hen says. “…is that the 118 family is like—like we’re a family, you know this, we would die for each other, but it’s not—this is work.”

“Exactly.” Chimney nods like that’s what he said.

Buck blinks. “So—you’re a family but not a family?”

“Buck.” Eddie says with a snort. “I think what they’re trying to say is that you’re a part of Bobby’s family more than the rest of us are.”

“Jesus.” Chimney says. “What everyone is trying to say, Buckley, is that you’re like—Bobby’s real kid—in his actual real-life family. Like, you have family dinners none of us come to because we’re the work family.

Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose. “Just keep it professional while we’re at work, okay? I know we have a—familial relationship—but I’m your Captain while we’re on shift.”

“Okay.” Buck says, because that was a whirlwind, but he thinks about how Bobby said we have a familial relationship and how Chimney said you’re Bobby’s real kid even though he isn’t—and his heart feels full and empty all at the same time and he kind of hates Phillip Buckley even though he hasn’t thought of the man in years except for every time he wishes he could’ve been the father to Buck that Bobby’s been.

And it’s not—it’s never that he regrets the life he’s built for himself here. But he’ll always kind of half. Bobby’s not-real kid. Christopher’s not-real father. He’s never really gotten to be somebody’s everything and he wishes he could say that’s only ben a realization of his since the tsunami, but he thinks maybe it’s been a long string of events.

He sees the way Bobby and Athena are at family dinners. The way Hen and Karen are and Chimney and Maddie. He wonders when he’ll have the chance to host his own family dinner with somebody and hold hands with his…somebody…across the table. To laugh with his own kids about childhood memories and tell work stories and have that fullness that everybody around him does.

And it’s not—it’s him, he thinks. He’ll never really be all in on anything or anybody because Buck doesn’t think he deserves it. His parents abandoned him (mentally and emotionally) until he turned and abandoned them (physically). And there—he knows there has to be a reason that nobody wants him. That he’s just a mosaic made of broken parts that everybody around him have filled in because they either don’t want to see him fall or don’t want to bother to pick up the pieces.

“Kid.” Bobby says. “Are you okay?”

It’s your first day here, he thinks. Don’t screw it up.

“’Course, Cap.” He says. “I’m fine.”

He thinks if he says it enough—maybe he’ll believe it.

“I—I think I’m bisexual.”

They’re at dinner—him and Bobby and Athena and her kids—when the words spill from his mouth and land on the table in front of them. He doesn’t dare look at Bobby when he says it—he’s terrified the man might be disappointed in him. Disown him even though Buck’s hardly his to disown.

Harry’s fork clatters to the plate. “Déjà vu.” He says.

Buck blinks at him.

“Our—ah, Dad came out to us at this table.” May explains gently. “A couple of years ago.”

“Oh.” Buck says—a lump in his throat—as he readies himself to bolt. “I’m sorry.”

Athena offers him a smile. “Bobby.” She says. “You want to take this one?”

Buck chances a look at his—okay, fine, his father. He thinks it’s probably easier to think of Bobby as his Dad than anything else. Easier to tell people too. Bobby’s not looking at him in disgust. He’s not looking at him like he might disown him. He’s not looking at him like he might wish for a new kid because Buck just told him he’s interested in men.

He’s looking at him like he’s proud of him.

Buck swallows. “You’re not—you’re not angry?”

The words come out like he’s twelve-years-old again. Like he’s in the middle of an argument with his parents and they’re looking at him like all Buck’s worth is something he was never able to give them even though he doesn’t know what it is. Like he thought Bobby might react the same because he did something—he is something—he’s not supposed to be.

“Buck.” Bobby says. “Are you happy?”

He nods. “Yeah. I—I didn’t know, because I’ve always liked women, you know? ‘Cause there was Abby—” Bobby makes a noise of protest (9-1-1 Dispatcher Buck almost fell for—if Bobby hadn’t stepped in and talked Buck through all the things that were absolutely and entirely wrong with that situation). “—and then there was Ali and I know that only lasted a couple of months, but I did like her. And—And I slept with Taylor—”

“Buck.” Bobby says. “I know you like women.”

He clears his throat. “Right.” He says. “But—I just—I’ve started to realize that the way I felt about them—I’ve felt the same way about somebody else. Except—it’s so much more.” He says. “I think I could wake up next to this person every day for the rest of my life. Love him through the bad and the good and the ugly. I’ve never felt like that before. Like I could settle down with somebody and say yeah—I’m married and be proud about it.”

“Oh, Buck.” Athena says.

He looks to Athena. “I don’t—I want you to be okay with this too.”

“Evan Buckley.” She says. “I knew when I married Bobby—I knew what that came with. I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical of you when we first met.” Bobby snorts out a laugh from the head of the table like he knows exactly what she’s talking about. “But you are an incredible young man and I am so happy you are a part of this family. And here’s what I tell my kids—that has nothing to do with the way you were raised or who you like. It has to do with what choices you make and whether or not you’re making them for the right reasons. It has to do with the kind of person you are, and you are one of the best I know.”

Buck swallows back his emotion. When he met Bobby—he had to adjust to the man’s presence in his life. The way he taught Buck to cook. The way he checked up on him. The way he told him he cared about him. And then the 118—and Buck had to get used to that. The way Hen offered advice and Chimney teased him like a younger brother and—and Eddie. And with Eddie came Christopher and that—

But he never expected Athena.

This semi-mother figure and her two children who tease him relentlessly and text him in the middle of the night to ask him for advice. Who invites him to family dinners even when Bobby’s on a shift and can’t make it because she enjoys his company. Because he came with Bobby and she’s accepted that even though she didn’t have to.

“Thank you.” He says softly.

“I’m proud of you.” Bobby picks up where Athena left off. “And I want to make sure you’re proud of yourself.”

Buck smiles over at him. “I am.”

“Good.” Bobby says.

“Can I ask you a question?” Harry pipes up.

Buck turns toward him. “Yeah—sure.”

“Is it Eddie?” Harry asks and Buck chokes.

“Oh—it so is!” May chimes in and Buck shovels more food in his mouth to avoid having to answer even though Bobby and Athena are both giving him knowing looks.

Yeah—he thinks—maybe this is what it’s like to have a family.

“Chimney’s not here, right?” Buck asks his sister as he steps into her and Chimney’s apartment in the early hours of the following morning with two cups of coffee (Maddie’s singular cup she allows herself to have a day now that she’s growing Buck’s favorite niece).

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “He went to pick up some groceries—I’ve been craving chips for a week and we just finished the last bag last night.”

“Right.” Buck says.

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. Honestly, he thinks he should have been more nervous with Bobby and Athena because this is Maddie. His older sister. Honestly—he thinks she might already know. Not because she’s said anything but because every time he mentions Eddie (granted—a little more than the average person would their completely straight platonic best friend), she shoots him a look like she’s waiting for him to understand.

“Why are you here?” Maddie asks. “Not—that I don’t love you.”

Buck clears his throat. “I—I needed to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.” Maddie says with a raised eyebrow. “You look worried.”

“Not worried.” He clarifies. “Just—uh, so I had dinner with Bobby and Athena last night.”

“That’s not new.”

“No.” Buck says. “But—what I might have accidentally blurted out at the table was. And—they’re all extremely supportive of me. Which is—kind of a relief. And I wanted to make sure you and me were on the same page because I—”

“You’re in love with Eddie.”

“I’m bisexual.”

“Oh—” They say at the same time—eyes wide—and Buck is both relieved and a bit overwhelmed because is he that obvious? He doesn’t think—as far as he knows, Eddie doesn’t know, so he didn’t think he was. But Bobby and Athena know and May and Harry know and his sister knows so Chim probably knows which means Hen definitely knows.

“That works too.” Maddie says.

Buck’s cheeks flame. “I—Why does everybody think I’m in love with Eddie?”

“Aren’t you?” She asks, eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know.” He admits. “I mean—yes, I’m attracted to Eddie. But—how can I know that I love him if I never really experienced it before? And I love you and I love Bobby and Athena and—but that’s familial love. And I’ve been with women who I care about but I’ve never really been in love with any of them. Never really saw a future with any of them.”

“And you see a future with Eddie?”

“It’s different—” He says. “Because I know Eddie has a son and he has him to think about—but I love Christopher and Eddie and I love them separately and together. It has never been a dealbreaker for me. Honestly, it’s—they’re kind of like my dream family. And sometimes—Eddie will text and say—hey, do you need anything from the store? like I’m a part of their family and I feel like I could be.”

“I think they think you are.” Maddie says.

“We work together.” Buck tells her—like he’s looking for any excuse under the sun to not have to entertain the idea of telling his best friend he’s in love with him. Because—what then? Say he tells him and Eddie doesn’t feel the same way. What is he supposed to do? Move on? Has anybody ever moved on from the Diaz family? Ever not looked at the two of them and saw the light in the middle of a tunnel of haze?

And worse—he thinks, what if Eddie feels the same, because there are some moments where Buck feels like he could. Where Buck looks at him and Eddie looks back and nobody’s ever really looked back at Evan Buckley before.

“I’m okay.” He says. “If this is all he ever gives me—I’m okay with it.”

“Are you sure?” Maddie asks. “It might break your heart.”

“I’d rather have pieces of him than none at all.” Buck says. “I mean—if it was Chimney—wouldn’t you rather have him at all costs?”

“Yeah.” Maddie says, resting a hand on her stomach. “But I would never forgive myself if I wasted a chance at what I could have had—we Buckleys deserve a win, Evan.”

He just doesn’t know how many the universe is willing to give.

It’s the worst two days of Buck’s life.

This is how it starts.

Maddie fails to tell him that she invited their parents to visit until approximately three hours before they show up. And look—Buck understands that she’s pregnant and she wants her daughter to have the relationship with them that the two of them never did. He just doesn’t understand why he needs to show up.

He hasn’t seen them since he was twenty-years-old and he ran away from home and he can already tell they’re going to make him feel that way again. Like they were forced into having him and like he’s a disappointment and a burden and they never wanted him. Didn’t want him then—don’t want him now.

But he loves his sister and she says she thinks they’re willing to try and he’s been talking about his feelings in therapy so when he says, fine, but we’re a team, okay? and Maddie agrees, he thinks he can fake a smile and pretend for a few hours.

Turns out he can’t.

He wears a relatively nice button-up that he hopes doesn’t scream I tried too hard to make you love me and he forces Albert (Chimney’s kid brother—not his story) to pre-heat the oven to make baked brie with fig jam even though he doesn’t like figs all that much and he hates that there’s still a part of him that wants his parents’ love.

That wants them to walk in and cup his face in their hands and tell them how sorry they are and he would forgive them because he knows himself—and he hates himself because Maddie said they’re willing to try and he took that and ran with it until his hopes skyrocketed.

Maddie opens the door and Chimney introduces himself and Buck watches their interactions while his heart beats out of his chest. And Maddie’s so—so patient and good with them and accepting in a way that maybe Buck never was. Maybe they had Maddie and they only wanted one child but he arrived nine years later and he was so different than she was that they didn’t want to bother.

Maybe.

“Evan.” His mother says.

He clears his throat. “Uh—Buck.”

“Buck.” His mother acknowledges. “You’re still letting people call you that.”

Maddie must have told them at some point. Which—is fine. That’s his sister and they’re his parents and they’re allowed to know things about him. “It’s just a nickname, Mom.”

Chimney ends up telling them that people call him Howard (which Buck’s never called him in his life) and Maddie saddles up next to him and links her pinky in his the way they used to when they were kids and it calms Buck just enough to the point where he doesn’t feel like he needs to run for the door or text Bobby to fake an emergency.

Except he makes conversation about the weather (because what else?) and his mother looks at him like she hates the way he talks and then she comments on Maddie’s pregnancy and then their father comments on Maddie’s ex-husband and Buck clenches his fists because he wishes so badly that he could punch one of them even though he knows he never would.

He was taught better than that (By Maddie—never them).

“Now, Evan—” His father says when they’re done tearing his sister apart and oh here it comes, he thinks. “Maddie tells us that you’ve been seeing a therapist.”

Buck’s jaw clenches. “She did?” He asks, surprised, because this is news to him and he knows his sister wants him to have a relationship with their parents but he just—he can’t, okay, not until they act like they actually want anything to do with him or his life in L.A. and he can’t really blame his sister for not understanding that because she was wanted by them.

“Anything we should be worried about there?” Their father asks as though Buck didn’t just survive a tsunami and become a firefighter and realize he’s kind of in love with his best friend (which they don’t know about—granted), but he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with talking through his feelings because it’s helped and because Bobby recommended Dr. Copeland and Buck likes talking to her because he feels safe and understood and like he finally understands the parts of himself that he didn’t six months or a year ago.

“No.” Buck says. “No, of course not. That’s the job, you know? It can be stressful and it’s good to try and get ahead of it.”

And then—their mother says, “You know, your father and I went to see a therapist,” and Buck says back, “Uh really, when?” and she says—“After all this business with Maddie and the husband who shall not be named.” And Buck sees his sister’s face fall. Sees the way Chimney grips her shoulders and the way their father says— “Buck had to call to tell us that Doug was dead.”

Which is true—except for the fact that he made sure to call at three in the morning so they wouldn’t answer because he didn’t want to talk to them. He paced his bedroom for a solid six minutes before he caved and left a voicemail on his mother’s phone. And when she attempted to call him back the next day, he was kind of glad he was in the middle of a shift.

And he should have left it there. Sure, he felt kind of shitty, but he made sure to build an extra wall around his heart because he knew they’d make him feel that way. And he knows it’s his fault—he agrees to dinner with them the next night and even Maddie looks like she’s surprised. But he figures he owes her and he doesn’t want to leave her and Chimney on their own with them because Maddie will agree even if she doesn’t and Buck’s always the one who fights back.

Except he regrets it the moment he steps through the door because they’re not even twenty minutes into dinner when their parents start criticizing their careers and Maddie and Chimney try to defend them and Buck tries to keep his mouth shut because he doesn’t want to blow up and embarrass his sister or Chimney and Bobby and Eddie have both already told him he can call them if he needs to make an exit.

And then their father just has to say— “Seems like danger just by association. I mean—from what I hear, Evan has had quite a few close calls even before he became a firefighter.”

Buck looks up at him. “From what you hear?” He says, and now he’s mad. “Cause you could have come and seen for yourself. I—I live through a tsunami and you can’t even bother to call. And—I shouldn’t be surprised because it’s not like you’ve ever called before.”

And listen—nobody has to tell him that he could pick up the phone and call because he knows that he could. But—it’s been years, and what Maddie and Chimney and everyone else can’t understand is that they’ve never tried. He ran away and the first time they asked about him—pretended to care about him—was when Maddie arrived in L.A.

He heard them over the phone one night—about two-and-a-half months into Maddie’s arrival, after she’d called and told them where she was—when they were in the middle of a movie night and his sister stepped away to answer a phone call from their father. And he heard them on the phone when she told them she was with him—he heard his father ask Maddie, oh, how is your brother? Haven’t thought about him in a while.

“Evan—I’ve told you.” His mother says, even though she hasn’t since he was maybe twelve-years-old and throwing himself out of trees to get her attention and she would send Maddie to wipe away his cuts and then cry to their father about how she couldn’t stand to see her children in pain.

“You’re not good with seeing your kids hurt.” Buck echoes the memory. “I’ve got it.”

“You don’t know—” She starts.

“Mom!” Maddie says, and they exchange a look over the table—some unspoken secret that Buck’s not a part of. Like it’s the three of them—maybe four, now, because Chimney keeps looking at him like he feels sorry for him or like there’s something he wants to say—against him. He’s still pushing the food on his plate around with his fork, appetite destroyed, when Maddie pushes away from the table and says, “Who’s ready for dessert?”

“Good idea.” Their father says. “Oh! Howard, where’d you put that box we brought?”

And honestly—Buck’s not sure whether he says it to spite him or not because Chimney hands over a box that has Maddie engraved into it in cursive font and their mother says, “Your baby box,” and there’s a moment—and it’s a stupid fuckin’ moment because he should’ve known—but there’s one single moment when Buck lowers his walls and says, “I didn’t know you made these for us—when do I get mine?”

He watches the look on their faces, the not-quite guilt as they glance at each other, and nobody has to tell him for him to know. And Chimney tries to make it better when he says, “You’re not even a grown-up yet, they’re probably still adding stuff to it.” And he appreciates Chim because the guy’s been like a brother to him since before he even started dating his sister and he can see the anger in Chimney’s eyes, but the damage has already been done.

And Buck—he might be a little angry because their mother tells Maddie they knew she’d come to her senses and they never gave up hope and Buck says, “You never gave up hope?”

“Evan, let’s not do this.” Maddie pleads.

He shoots her a look. “United front, remember?”

He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t understand the way that they are. Not just with him but her too. Blaming her for what her ex-husband did when Buck was the one who had to sit in wait, scared to death of losing his sister when he had just gotten her back. The first one to visit her at the hospital when Bobby and Athena rescued her. He’d collapsed into Bobby’s arms the minute he left her side and she doesn’t know that but she should know that he would.

And he’s not really angry with Maddie. He knows this. She’s just trying to keep the peace and that would probably be him under any other circumstances, but he’s twenty-eight and he’s tired because he doesn’t know how to let anybody in without some kind of ultimatum involved because the only two people who were ever required to love him never really did.

But—that aside, he thinks, they loved Maddie. And Buck’s willing t be the problem child but he’s not willing to let them shit on his sister because her ex-husband was a piece of shit and Buck wants every day to bring him back to life so he can kill him all over again.

“You guys didn’t even go to her wedding.” He demands.

Their mother sighs heavily. “She was making a terrible mistake—we told her that.”

“Yeah.” Buck agrees because he knew that. “People make mistakes.” He flashes back to when he’d not-so-accidentally read Bobby’s book and caused a blow-up between them that took a week to fix and he still remembers the way he thought Bobby would never speak to him again. “Doesn’t mean you give up on them. But you did. She married Doug and you cut her off.”

“At the time,” Phillip Buckley (because he doesn’t want to call this man his father anymore because he knows what it means to have a father who loves him) says. “We thought it was for the best.”

“We didn’t know what was going on.” Margaret Buckley defends helplessly. “I swear, Maddie. We didn’t know he was hurting you.”

“Well, you should have.” Buck argues and maybe it’s partly because he blames himself. He always knew, even at fourteen-years-old, that there was something not right about Maddie’s boyfriend and eventual husband. How often he would call her or the way he would demand things. Maddie would tell him it was sweet and he—he should have listened to his gut anyway but he was just a kid back then and they—they were their parents. “You should have known! You were right there in the same town. How could you not know? Actually, you know what—maybe it does track, cause you barely knew what was going on with your own kids when we were under the same roof.” He can’t believe he ever wanted these people’s approval. “Maybe you never gave up hope, but you sure as hell gave up on her.” He sinks back into his chair and meets his mother’s eye when he says— “You gave up on both of us.”

He can’t—he needs to leave. Call Bobby or Eddie or someone who won’t constantly put him down or make him feel like he’s a burden. He rises from his chair and then spins himself back around to face them one more time. “Oh! And, uh, you want to know why I’m really in therapy? It is because I have spent my entire life feeling like a constant disappointment.” He chances a glance at his sister who looks like she might cry and he hates it because he knows this isn’t what she wanted for today to be like but he’s tired. “And you want to talk about our jobs?” Oh—the irony. “You think my job is dangerous? I have walked through fire every single day of my life because of you! That is why I am in therapy—because nothing I ever did was good enough!”

“We tried!” Phillip argues. “But you always—”

“You never made it easy on us! Either one of you!”

“We were supposed to?” Maddie asks, and Buck thinks she sounds as heartbroken as he might feel about it all. “We were kids.”

“Evan—” Their mother turns to him. “I don’t know what you expected us to do!”

He blinks. Like—full-stop, just blinks, because if they don’t understand at this point, they’re never going to. And listen—Phillip and Margaret Buckley might be really great people. But they’re shitty parents and that’s just a fact he has to live with. He will never measure up to what his parents want him to be because what they want is for him to not be theirs and they got their wish for that one a long time ago.

“Love me anyway.” He says, and his voice breaks on the phrase because it’s such an easy thing to do, he thinks. To love your child unconditionally. He sees it every day. Eddie loves Chris. Hen and Karen love Denny. Athena and Michael love May and Harry. Maddie and Chimney love their little girl and she hasn’t even entered the world yet.

And here’s the real kicker.

He shouldn’t have to apologize, he thinks, and he knows this. Even Eddie says, the next day, as he watches Buck pound into a punching bag— “What do you have to apologize for?” and he looks at Buck like he sees through him and Buck looks back at Eddie like he’s the sun and the stars and the whole galaxy. “Did you say anything that wasn’t true?”

“No, but—”

“Look.” Eddie reasons. “Maybe you could have come at it a little bit differently. But, if that’s how you feel, how they made you feel, you have every right to say so.”

So he doesn’t apologize to them. Embarrassingly, he thinks it’s partly because Eddie said he didn’t have to and he can survive as long as Eddie thinks he did the right thing because he also thinks he did the right thing.

But he does apologize to Maddie.

And he thinks he knows—someplace deep down—when she looks at him and puts her hand on his knee and says, “You have never been a disappointment,” that something between them is about to shift.

He just doesn’t know what.

So he opens her baby box and he shoves the thought down that he doesn’t have one because Maddie shouldn’t have to grieve his childhood too and he’s almost—it’s almost normal because he finds a photo and it’s him, he thinks, and maybe that makes it a little better (it doesn’t) because they might not have made him a box but at least they kept photos of him.

Except the back of the photo says 4^th of July, 1988 which doesn’t make sense because Buck wasn’t born yet. So it’s a mistake. Except it’s not because Maddie’s staring at him with those sad and teary eyes and his stomach bottoms out when he says— “Maddie, who is this?”

“That’s Daniel.” His sister says. “He died. He was our brother.”

“Do you think I’m unlovable?” Buck asks and his voice breaks on the last word like he believes it to be true and he’s waiting for the Grant-Nash clan to confirm his worst fears.

Because it’s easy, he thinks, for them to say they love him and he’s a good person and they’re glad to have him in their lives and he knows he should believe them because they have no reason to lie but he’s had it engraved in his brain since he was a kid that nothing he’s done has ever been enough and that—

That kind of destroys a person.

“Buck.” Bobby says, cupping the back of his neck. “I’m sorry that your parents lost a child. It must have been extremely hard for them and for your sister. But—” He says, when Buck lowers his eyes to his lap. “That doesn’t make the way they’ve treated you right.”

“They had me to save my brother.” Buck explains. “And I failed them.”

“You were a baby, Buck.” Athena says on the other side of him. “It shouldn’t have been your place to have to save your brother.”

“They were allowed to take the time to grieve the child they lost.” Bobby reasons. “But they should have provided for the children they still did have.”

He shakes his head. “They never really wanted me.”

“You were dealt a bad hand with people who should have done it differently.” Athena taps his knee gently. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have people who wouldn’t follow you to the ends of the earth and off of it.”

He chokes out a humorless laugh. “I really thought—when they pulled out Maddie’s baby box they had made, I thought—wow, at least they cared enough to do that.”

Bobby furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t.” He says. “I asked them where mine was and they stared at me like they forgot I was even their kid for a second. Which—they’ve forgotten me before, so it’s like, jokes on me, because I know I shouldn’t let it get to me. I just—I thought it’d be different this time. Thought I had a shot at having parents who wanted me.”

“What makes you think we don’t want you?” Athena says, and Buck cracks a soft smile as he leans towards her.

“Thanks, ‘Thena.” He says. “Just—I meant from when I was a kid. I thought—maybe they wanted me enough to keep the memory of me, you know? All of Maddie’s accomplishments from the time she was born were in there. And it’s like they couldn’t wait to pretend like I didn’t exist to them. I know I probably didn’t have a lot. But—”

“Bobby.” Athena says, and the two of them exchange a look over Buck’s head that he doesn’t quite understand.

Bobby hesitates. “Really?”

“Bobby.” Athena says again.

Bobby sighs, but he stands and heads into his and Athena’s bedroom. After a second or two, Bobby emerges with a relatively lengthy book in his hands. It look like a photo album and its titled Grant-Nash Children on the front cover—the same way Maddie’s baby box had been titled.

“Athena had two separate books for May and Harry when we met.” Bobby explains as he takes his seat next to Buck again. He opens the first page and there’s a photo of baby May Grant—taken the day she was born. He flips the page and May’s measurements are listed. Seven pounds, five ounces at birth. Her birth certificate is plastered on the next page.

Buck isn’t entirely sure why Bobby and Athena are showing him this. Sure, it’s cute, but he doesn’t really want to think about all the nice things parents do for their kids right now. Bobby flips through a few more pages until he lands on May’s school pictures. There’s one for every year. Kindergarten through 12^th Grade.

Bobby flips through more pages until they land on Harry. His is much of the same. Obviously, he’s not finished school so there are less pictures of him, but there are spots for where every single one of them will be.

And then he flips through more until he lands on Robert Nash Jr. Buck swallows. Bobby has a few photos in there. Scrawled out chicken scratch of Robert’s measurements when he was born. A copy of what Buck assumes is a re-printed copy of his birth certificate. A lot of their family’s belongings were destroyed in the fire Bobby lost his family in.

Brook’s is must of the same. Bobby’s written facts about each of them—things they liked to do for fun. Detailed descriptions of what their laughs sounded like so he never forgets. Buck wants to cry over it.

And then Bobby flips the page.

Evan Buckley.

He blinks. And then blinks again. And again. And every time he opens his eyes—nope, his name’s still written there, in the Grant-Nash Children photo album. Bobby doesn’t look to see his reaction before he flips the page.

They didn’t know each other when Buck was a baby—obviously—so the first photos of him in the book are from when he’s twenty or twenty-one. Definitely when he worked at the bar. Maybe when he lived at Bobby’s. He’s not entirely sure. There’s a recipe Bobby wrote for him and a picture that Buck sent him when he bought his first car (the one he totaled). A copy of Buck’s forms from when he joined the 118.

Buck’s throat works. “I—I don’t understand.”

“I know there’s not much.” Bobby says. “I—I wish there was more. I tried to grab whatever I could but obviously, I don’t have—”

“Bobby.” Buck says. “Why am I in here?”

Bobby stares back at him. “Because you’re my kid.”

Buck makes some kind of choking noise in the back of his throat and turns to Athena. She’s looking back at him like she knows exactly what was in that book. Like Bobby didn’t go rogue and just fill it with pictures of him and say—you’re my kid.

“Athena.” Buck says.

She smiles back at him. “Buck.”

And that’s enough for him to fall apart.  

He’s still reeling from that situation when Eddie shoots him a text and asks if he wants to come by for dinner and play a round of video games with him and Christopher and he should say no because his world has been tilted on his axis twice in the span of three days but he says yes anyway because it’s Eddie and Christopher and they’re—his.

They play a round which turns into two which turns into seven and it’s past Christopher’s bedtime by the time that they put down the remotes and Christopher hops up and wraps his tiny arms around Buck’s neck and Buck feels like he’s home.

“Goodnight, Bud.” He whispers into the kid’s curls.

Christopher looks at him. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

And Buck hates that he looks at Eddie for confirmation because he thinks he looks a little desperate for a certain Diaz’s attention and spoiler alert—it’s not Christopher’s. And when Eddie looks back at him and says well, will you be? Buck says— okay.

“Can I ask you a question?” Buck says, twenty minutes later, after he watched from the door while Eddie tucked Christopher into bed.

Eddie blinks at him. “Of course.”

“Do you—” Buck swallows. “Like—God, I shouldn’t even ask you this because Bobby and Athena and Maddie have already—”

“Buck.” Eddie says, voice amused.

“Do you think I’m unlovable?” Buck blurts.

“What?” Eddie asks, voice less amused.

“Like—” Buck shakes his head. “When you look at me—do you see me as somebody who has the potential to one day have what Bobby and Athena have? Or—I don’t even have to be talking about romantic love. What about you and Christoher? Do you think I’m somebody who has the potential to have that someday? A family. A—a partner who loves me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Buck says, dropping down onto Eddie’s couch. “Everything. Sorry—it’s just been kind of a rough couple of days.”

“Does this have anything to do with your parents?”

“They had me for parts, Eddie.” He says, because Eddie already knows this. He was silent at work today, which prompted a conversation where Buck blurted my parents only wanted me for defective parts in order to save my dead older brother I never met. Bobby had told him to come by after our shift to talk which prompted the conversation he had with Bobby and Athena which then led to the invitation to Eddie’s house.

“And that was a shitty decision.” Eddie says.

“Yeah.” Buck murmurs.

Eddie sighs. Like actually sighs. Pushes off of the coffee table to join Buck on the couch and nods a couple of times. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”

Buck nods.

“I see somebody who really pisses me off.”

Buck freezes. “What?”

“You piss me off.” Eddie repeats and Buck feels his stomach bottom out because yes, he asked for the truth, but he never expected it to come from Eddie and it hurts more than it should because he thinks that’s what I love about you and he thinks you can have my back any day and he thinks there is nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you. “God, Buck—you still have no idea how I feel about you, do you?”

Buck blinks. “You just said I piss you off.

“You do!” Eddie confirms. “Because you still don’t see it.”

“See what?” Buck demands back.

“That I’m in love with you!”

And—

What?

Now he’s really speechless—blinking at Eddie like he’s not quite sure what to do. He thinks maybe his ears are clogged because he thinks he just heard Eddie—

“What?” He asks dumbly.

Eddie stands again—beer on the table—and paces back and forth in front of him. “You piss me off because you constantly talk about yourself like you’re a burden that someone needs to carry instead of their entire goddamn world.”

“I’m the world?” Buck clarifies.

“No.” Eddie says with a bit of a laugh. “You’re the universe.”

“I’m the—” Buck says. “You’re in love with me.”

“Have been for a while.” Eddie deadpans. “Thank you for noticing.”

“Eddie—”

Eddie kisses him like he’s drowning and Buck’s the air he needs to breathe him back to life. Maybe that’s a shitty way to put it, but—no, fuck it, Eddie’s kissing him, he doesn’t have time to come up with shitty metaphors.

And Buck kisses back because what else is he supposed to do? Eddie Diaz is kissing him like Buck is his air and Evan Buckley is kissing him back like Eddie’s his home.

And well—that’s all you really need to know.

They’re called out to an accident on a cliffside about five months after Buck begins working at the 118.

It should be relatively simple, Buck thinks—woman who slipped and tumbled over the edge while arguing with her teenage daughter, but she called 911 herself so she’s responsive. Buck knocks his knee against Eddie’s the entire ride to the scene because one—he loves to annoy Bobby, especially when the man shoots him exasperated but fond looks like he knows Buck is way too good at testing his patience but he likes that he’s happy—and two—because Eddie Diaz is his boyfriend and that’s a whole other thing he’s not entirely sure he’s processed yet.

He wakes up next to Eddie and he falls asleep next to Eddie and he really should just move in with him and Christopher even though they’ve only been together for three months because it’s not like he spends time there anyway, but also, if Eddie’s willing to have him, Buck thinks he’d like to stay for the rest of his life.

There’s something equally terrifying and exhilarating about finding home in a person instead of a place.

Eddie hops out of the truck first but he waits for Buck before he makes any moves and it’s such a little thing but it makes Buck’s heart flip all the same because he’s never really been with somebody so attentive to his person. Sure, he’s slept with women who have been with him for the sole purpose of being with him but none of them ever really loved him. He’s not entirely sure he ever loved any of them. He thinks he could have—maybe—but he kind of likes that he didn’t.

Because he absolutely and beautifully and maybe a bit tragically loves Eddie Diaz.

“Buck and Eddie.” Bobby says, and oh—that fits. “You’re going down.”

There’s a young girl—maybe fourteen or fifteen—crying her eyes out by the cliffside. Chim bends down to assess her, check her over for injuries, while him and Eddie get harnessed up. Eddie double and triple and quadruple checks him even though Buck knows how to secure himself but he doesn’t complain because he does the same in return.

The girl’s cries echo in his ears until they’re about halfway down. The woman fell about sixty feet before landing on a jagged rock, but if Buck cranes his head, he can just see the outline of her body as they move toward her.

“Hey!” Eddie calls as they descend closer. “Can you hear us?”

When they’re just about over her, she chokes out a low groan and her head shifts. “Yeah—I—I can hear you.” She says. “Can’t really feel much though.”

“Don’t worry.” Buck says, and he’s too busy focusing on the fact that she’s alive that he misses the look Eddie shoots him. “We’ll get you out of here.”

Her limbs are twisted at all the wrong angles and there’s a puddle of blood leaking from somewhere underneath her—probably from the rock she landed on. As soon as their feet hit rock, Buck’s down next to her. Eddie says something to Bobby through his radio and Buck smiles gently at the woman to keep her calm.

“I’m Buck.” He says. “And this is Eddie.”

“Buck.” She says on a low whimper. “I’m Jessica.”

“Our Captain’s going to be sending down some equipment so we can get you out of here.” He says gently, looking up at Eddie, who’s still giving him that same worried look.

“Thanks.” She tells him. “I—I bet you didn’t think you—ah, would be doing this today. Just—we wanted to go on a hike, you know? I—I should have been paying more attention to where we were headed. “Daisy and I have been fighting for days. I just—I just wanted to make her happy.”

Buck nods sympathetically. “Kids are difficult at that age.”

“Do you have kids?” Jessica asks. 

Eddie opens his mouth to respond—Buck should let him respond. Except—

“Yeah.” He says without a second thought. “We have a son—he’s nine.”

Eddie’s head snaps up to meet his and fuck—he didn’t mean to say—it’s not like—sure, he’s known Eddie for years, but they’ve only been together for a few months and—he can’t—he fuckin’ adores Christopher, loves that kid like he was there from the moment he came into the world, like he held his slimy body in his arms and named him and—but he’s not Buck’s.

He’s Eddie’s and he’s Shannon’s and there’s a line, he thinks, between being Eddie’s boyfriend and being Christopher’s father and he might’ve just crossed it but he’s dug himself into a grave this far and he won’t take it back because that means he didn’t mean it and he meant it.

“I remember when Daisy was nine.” The woman swallows painfully. “God—they’re so full of life then. She used to tell me she loved me every day. And then—then the teenager years kicked in and it’s all Mom, you’re annoying and you don’t love me if you won’t let me go over to my friend’s place tonight—and it’s those moments where it’s like—” She coughs and her chest shutters.

“Jessica—” Eddie warns.

Her eyes don’t leave Buck’s. “It’s in those moments where it’s like—I don’t know if I’m really cut out to do this whole parenting thing, you know? And then you look at them—at your kid—and it’s like they’re the best decision you’ve ever made.” Red foams at her lips and Eddie tilts his head up to the sky in a way that Buck knows, but it doesn’t matter—he lets her talk anyway. “I wasn’t even the one to name her.”

Buck furrows his eyebrows and tries to blink away the tears he knows are about to fall—calls with parents and their children are always hard. He knows this mother’s child is waiting for her to come back up at the top of that cliff and he can’t—and it’s not that he doesn’t want to because God—he would tell her to stop talking in a heartbeat if he thought it would help.

But Eddie’s the medic and Buck hasn’t been on the job for that long but he knows—he knows she doesn’t have a lot of time. So he lets her talk. “Her father?”

“God no.” The woman chokes on a laugh and more red splatters. “Left before I even had that baby girl in my arms. I fought like hell for her—on my own. No—I asked her biological parents to name her before they handed her over to me. Felt like—like the least I could do.”

Realization dawns on Buck. “She’s adopted.”

“She’s the best decision I ever made.” She repeats. “Felt like—like fate when they picked the name of my late sister.” Her eyes dim. “Will I see her now?”

“Yeah.” Eddie says—when Buck can’t. “You will.”

“B—Buck.” Jessica gasps out before she shifts her eyes. “Eddie. You promise me you’ll make sure my daughter knows she’s loved. I—I would do it all again if I had to. And when you go home, you hug that boy of yours.”

Eddie squeezes her hand. “We will.”

“It’s ‘mportant.” She trails off. “For people to know how—how loved they are.”

Her chest stops rising before her eyes fall shut. Buck chokes out a sound that he’s not entirely sure exists in the world. It’s not his first loss—kid on a rollercoaster, he doesn’t want to think about that right now—but it’s a loss that hits him all the same.

“Buck.” Eddie says, and Buck can hear the emotion in his voice that would probably sound exactly like his own if he thought he could talk. “We have to—”

“Buckley, Diaz.” Bobby’s voice comes through the radio. “We’re about ready to—”

“Cap.” Eddie says back into his. “She’s—”

Buck makes that sound again and buries his face in his hands. And he knew—realistically, he knew there was nothing they could do for her—but now that she’s dead and her daughter’s on top of that cliff with Bobby and she’s—he thinks maybe they didn’t try hard enough—maybe they could have saved her—

“Buck.” Eddie says, and he’s in front of him now. “Baby.”

They made a promise to Bobby—back when this thing between them actually started—that they’d stick to being professional at work. They filed the respective paperwork and had the conversations and they are good at being professionals—usually.

But Bobby’s not here right now.

So Buck lets himself fall apart a little—lets Eddie cradle his face in his hands and press a reassuring kiss to his forehead—and he thinks about Christopher and how badly he wishes he could wrap the kid up and squeeze the life out of him and then he thinks about how Eddie might actually break up with him later for what he said and he falls apart a little more.

He doesn’t remember how they make it back to the top of the cliff. All he knows is he’s soaked in blood and dirt and in Eddie’s arms one minute and the next—he’s still soaked in blood and dirt but he’s in Bobby’s arms and Eddie and Chimney are in front of him with worried gazes and he doesn’t know where Eddie went but then he hears— “Mom, no!”

“Buck.” Bobby says. “It’s okay, Kid.”

It’s not—he thinks—and maybe he didn’t think it would be this hard. He doesn’t like losing people any day but he hates it even more when it’s like this—open and gut wrenching and he can hear the cries of a fifteen-year-old who really shouldn’t have to deal with this because her mother loved her and his parents never—

“It’s okay.” Bobby repeats. “Just relax.”

He lets Bobby take his weight. Let’s his team do the work while he files himself into the truck and stares out the window. He doesn’t react when Chimney and Hen and Eddie take their places around him. Doesn’t react when Bobby climbs into the front seat or when they start to move. Doesn’t even react when Eddie presses another kiss to the side of his head and Bobby doesn’t say anything even though Buck knows he saw because his eyes are trained on the rearview mirror the entire ride back to the station.

“I love you.” Eddie whispers and everyone hears him but it’s okay.

It's important for people to know how loved they are.

He thinks—not for the first time, but it’s definitely a rarity—that today, he might.

And when they pull back into the station and Bobby sends him and Eddie home with a shoot me a message when you’re home and a take care of him, Eddie, it only strengthens the thought—that he is loved. And it doesn’t matter that it’s by a family that’s not really his but one that he chose—one that chose him in return. Maybe that makes it all the more special.

And when him and Eddie stumble through the door of the Diaz home a half-hour later—exhausted and drained and any other word in the dictionary that mean the same thing that Buck doesn’t know because he’s too tired right now—Christopher is off the couch and racing toward them, his crutches clattering on the floor as he throws his arms around Buck.

Eddie must have texted Carla.

“You’re my Buck.” Christopher tells him and Buck thinks his heart might explode.

“And you’re my Chris.” He tells him. “I love you, buddy.”

“I love you, too.” Christopher says back.

Eddie clears his throat. “Buck—about earlier—”

“Not now, Eddie.” He whispers softly—because he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. “Just—please don’t make us talk about that right now.”

“Okay.” Eddie presses a kiss to his collarbone. “You are so loved, Evan Buckley.”

And God—isn’t there healing in the fact that he thinks he’s starting to believe him?

They have a couple of good days—because isn’t that how it always happens?

Really, he should have expected it. He should have, but he doesn’t, and that’s the problem. It’s not like he could have prevented it—obviously—because there was a kid involved and Eddie is as bad as him when it comes to kids.

So when Eddie comes to him—so sure that the woman they’d saved from her balcony just a couple of days before was purposely making her kid sick—Buck believes him. He knows Eddie’s thinking of Christopher—he’s thinking of Christopher—so he vows to do whatever he can to make sure the mother gets put away.

Which is where it all goes to shit (again).

“Diaz.” Mehta says, because it’s just Buck and Eddie from the 118 (it’s somehow always Buck and Eddie, isn’t it?) but Eddie sounded the alarm so the 133 is also here. “Do you want to ride with the kid to the hospital?”

Buck nods. “Go ahead.”

“Yeah.” His boyfriend—except he’s not allowed to think about him like that at work—says with a nod. “That’d be—”

He’s been a firefighter for a while now. Buck, that is. Eddie’s been one for even longer but he can’t speak for Eddie—he can only speak for himself. He’s not entirely sure he’s fully known what blood tasted like until this moment. And that’s—he must have, at some point, throughout childhood, with all his scrapes and cuts, but—he can’t remember.

He’s definitely never tasted Eddie’s blood.

Until now.

There’s—there’s blood on him. His boyfriend’s blood, he thinks, it’s on him. Eddie’s—Eddie. And it’s weird how his first thought is I kind of liked this shirt because fuck the shirt. Eddie’s—and why is Buck covered in blood? Right. Eddie—

Oh God.

By the time he truly registers what’s happened, Eddie’s on the ground. He’s on the ground and his eyes are wide and he’s staring at Buck like it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other and all Buck can think is—you are so loved, Evan Buckley, and he wonders if he ever will be again.

Buck’s halfway to wondering if he should let himself be shot too when somebody shoves him back behind the fire truck. “Get down!”

Firefighter down, he thinks. There’s a firefighter down. God—he wonders who it is. Hopes it’s not somebody from the 118. Hopes it isn’t—

And then he watches as Eddie’s hand reaches out—reaches for him—and he knows, like a soulmate or whatever those stupid things are that Maddie reads, that if Eddie Diaz was dead, he would know it. He would. He would feel him leave the earth. Feel the pain in his chest as his heart gave out and he died from a broken heart.

So no, Eddie isn’t dead.

He hopes.

And then Eddie’s eyes flutter shut.

The only thing Buck can think to do is roll underneath the fire truck. He has to—he has to make it to Eddie and he can’t do that if he’s shot so he’s trying really hard to not get shot right now but it’s a little difficult when there’s people shooting at them.

“Stay down!” He yells, even though he’s not sure Eddie can hear him, as he army crawls under the fire truck in a horrifying attempt to make it to the man he loves and all he can think about is—this might be a death sentence. It might be, and then their kid will be an orphan and Eddie would never forgive him except they’ll be together and Buck would be dead and alone and their kid would hate them and probably never visit their graves and it would all be for nothing.

So he can’t let Eddie die.

“Eddie.” He says over and over, like it’s a plea, a promise, a prayer, a way for him to keep existing when Eddie might not and he thinks of how Bobby might kill him after all of this and then—Eddie might be dead and Buck might want to be dead next to him.

Is that what it means to be somebody’s everything?

His hand clamps down over Eddie’s and—God, he can see the wound, it’s so close, there’s so much blood and Buck knows blood, he can handle blood, but he can’t—this is Eddie. He pulls on Eddie’s arm until they’re out, until Eddie screams and Buck feels thankful because screaming means alive and alive means they can both breathe.

And Buck—he doesn’t think because he hoists Eddie over his shoulder and lifts him into the truck and he thinks about the last time they were in the truck—Eddie’s hand rubbing circles over his leg and Buck hiding a smile so Bobby wouldn’t know even though he did—except now his boyfriend’s blood is on his face and in his hands and not in Eddie’s body where it should be.

“Come on!” Buck screams as he lays Eddie’s head down and uses his teeth to rip open a packet of gauze and his hands to rip open Eddie’s shirt.

And Eddie looks—he looks dead so Buck doesn’t look at him.

“Just—Just stay with me, okay?” He says instead, bowing his head so it’s on Eddie’s exposed chest and he thinks about how much Bobby would hate him right now and how he doesn’t really give a shit because he needs to feel Eddie’s heartbeat. “Baby, stay with me.”

Eddie shifts, eyes wide. “Are you hurt?”

He’s looking at Buck’s face, the blood running down his nose and his neck and his forehead and it hits him all over again that it’s Eddie’s blood. “No.” He says shakily. “No, you just—you just hang on. We’re three minutes away, we’re so close.” Eddie’s eyes flutter and Buck reaches out to cup at his neck, rubbing his thumb over his pulse point. “I need you to hang on.”

Honestly, if this were any other situation, he would give credit to the driver because they arrive at the hospital in record time, but it’s not any other situation and Buck watches as they strap Eddie to a stretcher and wheel him into the hospital with a bunch of medical nonsense he doesn’t understand because it’s Eddie but he probably would on a normal day.

“Are you okay, Buckley?” Mehta says.

He doesn’t answer for a long while. “No.”

Eventually—he paces the waiting room for a long time until the others show up. Hen and Chimney and Bobby and Athena. He’s still covered in blood when they do. He was afraid if he looked in the mirror—it doesn’t matter, really, because they all take one look at him and he collapses into a heap anyway.

“Buck.” Athena says, and she’s the first to him. “Honey, look at me.”

He does—barely meets her eyes, but he looks at her and there’s tears in her eyes because she knows Buck and she knows Buck and Eddie and he doesn’t know if one exists without the other and that’s not healthy, he knows, but hell—maybe him and Eddie are the next Romeo and Juliet—tragic, but a love story all at the same time.

She folds him into her arms like he’s one of her children and he buries his face in her shoulder and lets the tears fall. He doesn’t sob, not directly, but he cries the same. And when Bobby walks away and comes back with a washcloth and wipes the blood clean from his face, he thinks maybe he can let them shoulder the pain for a while.

And then—

“I have to tell Christopher.”

Hen frowns. “Buck.”

“He has to know.” Buck argues. “It’s—It’s his Dad.”

“I can come with you.” Bobby offers. “We can tell him together.”

Buck shakes his head. “It has to be me.”

“Okay,” Athena says gently. “Well—let’s wipe the rest of your face and grab you some new clothes before you do. You can’t see Christopher like this.”

He does eventually see Christopher—can’t put it off like he wants to—although he is dressed in a much cleaner pair of clothes. He hovers outside the kid’s door for a few minutes and thinks of how big Christopher’s gotten already and he hopes Eddie’s around to see it. God—Eddie has to be there to see it because Buck can’t raise him on his own.

“Hey, Buck.” Christopher says.

Buck offers him a somewhat messy smile. “Hey.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Um—” Buck hesitates. “He’s, uh, he’s not coming home tonight, Chris.”

Christopher pauses. “Why not?”

“Well—” Buck says, and he doesn’t know how to do this. Doesn’t know how to tell a kid somebody shot his father. “He got hurt at work today.”

“In a fire?” Chris asks.

“No.” Buck chokes out. “Uh, no, not in a fire. Uh—the truth is, someone hurt your Dad.”

Christopher looks at Buck. “On purpose?” He says, like he can’t believe it, and honestly—he can’t either. Eddie’s never hurt anybody.

“Yeah, I think so.” He tells him anyway.

And Buck—he can’t do this. A tear slips free from his eye and he uses the pad of his thumb to wipe it away. The Diaz boys—he’s loved them for so long it almost feels like a lifetime and yet it’s never going to feel like enough time.

“Listen.” Buck says, and he tries not to break when he does. “Your Dad…is tough as nails. He’s a fighter, right?” He says and Christopher nods as Buck wipes his eyes again. “He’s with the Doctors now.”

His phone vibrates with a text just as Christopher asks, “Is he going to be okay?”

BOBBY [POPS]: Out of surgery. Doctors say it went well.

“Yeah.” Buck says as his shoulders deflate. “Yeah—I think so, Buddy.”

His phone clatters to the floor as his body begins to shake and this time—he does sob. He hates it because Christopher is a kid and he should be the one to comfort him because Eddie is his Dad but he can’t—and Christopher’s arm folds its way around Buck’s shoulder until they’re pressed into a little bubble together and Christopher says, “It’s going to be okay, Buck.”

And he thinks maybe they can comfort each other.

He wishes he could say things slow down after that, but unfortunately—they don’t. Instead—Buck gets angry. Angry at the world. Angry at Eddie. Mostly angry at himself. And he should be at home with Christopher—and he is, most of the time—but sometimes he test the waters.

And a lot of patience.

Like when he chooses to climb up a scaffolding to get to a crane where a guy’s arm is pinned down by a cable. Which—doesn’t sound that bad, because he’s a firefighter, right? Except he might have a sniper trained on him and Bobby specifically told him not to and he does it anyway and yeah, he succeeded and Hen and Chimney are more than impressed but Bobby’s kind of looking at him like he’s disappointed or he wants to lecture him and Buck hates both of them equally.

So—when they get back to the station and Bobby’s angrily chopping vegetables and very pointedly not talking to Buck, he takes matters upon himself to make the first move.

“Are you ever going to say anything?” He asks, leaning against the counter, because he just wishes Bobby would get it over with—yell at him so they can move past it and go back to doing that thing they do where Buck annoys him and Bobby rolls his eyes at least nine times a day and he feels like he has somebody who looks out for him.

Bobby throws the knife on the counter and turns to face him and Buck pauses because Bobby isn’t looking at him like he’s angry or disappointed—he’s kind of just looking at him like he’s done. “I don’t know, Buck. What would you like me to say?”

“Uh—” He swallows. “I mean, usually, it’s ‘What were you thinking?’… ‘That was reckless.’…or my personal favorite, ‘You could’ve been killed.’”

“No, it doesn’t seem like I need to have the conversation.” Bobby says and now he sounds kind of like he’s angry which is honestly relieving for Buck. Anger means somebody cares. “You know it by heart already—and still, you went full Buck.”

They say that to him a lot. Going Buck. Being Buck. He’s not entirely sure whether it’s an insult or not. He asked Eddie once, who told him—you’re Buck, how could that ever be a bad thing? and it really wasn’t an answer but he smiled anyway and then they did—some other stuff—and Buck let it go.

He kind of wishes he wouldn’t have.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Buck says.

Bobby sighs heavily. “You’ll never be the guy who thinks before he acts. And I’ve learned to come to terms with that—in part because I’ve realized I don’t have a choice.” Here it comes, Buck thinks solemnly. “You’re never going to change. But also because I know, whatever actions you take, no matter how dangerous or impulsive they may be, they come from your heart because you care.”

“Wow.” Buck says, a bit surprised. “Thank you.”

“Today was not that.” Bobby says instead. “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 agrees because he thinks Bobby thinks he won’t. “I made myself a target because I wasn’t going to let any of you guys take that risk because I cannot handle anyone else getting hurt right now.”

“Buck.” Bobby says, and his voice is softer, more gentle, more of the relationship Buck and Bobby are used to and he kind of wishes Bobby would yell at him again because he can’t handle this right now. “What happened to Eddie was not your fault.”

“No.” Buck scoffs back. “No, I was just the guy standing there who couldn’t do anything to protect him. Well, today—I could do something to protect the rest of you. So I did.”

“What do you think would have happened today, Buck?” Bobby asks. “If things took a turn for the worst and you got shot. Do you think that would make your boyfriend happy because you think he thinks you didn’t protect him? Do you think that would make me happy? I would not be okay with losing you, Buck. Eddie and Christopher would not be okay with losing you. You have people who love you. They love you.” He pauses. “I love you.”

Buck pauses. And—he knows. He knows Bobby loves him. But he can’t remember a moment that the man’s ever said it. To his credit—he doesn’t say it either.

“What?” Buck asks.

Bobby rolls his eyes. “You’re my kid, Buck.” Then— “We’re a team and we’re supposed to protect each other.” Another pause. “Don’t do it again.”

Eddie wakes up three days later.

Buck’s not there, and he hates that he’s not there, but Chimney is and he calls him as soon as Eddie opens his eyes and croaks out Buck’s name. Eddie calls Christopher and they chat for a while while Buck memorizes the lines of Eddie’s face and thinks about the fact that he’ll get to fall asleep next to him again.

“He doing okay?” Eddie asks when Christopher hangs up.

Buck snorts half-heartedly. “Better than me.” Eddie reaches out to grasp at his fingers and he plays with Eddie’s ring finger as he talks. “I—I kind of lost it when I told him you got shot. I’m sorry, I should have held it together.”

“You were there for him when I couldn’t be.” Eddie croaks out. “You’re always there for him. That is what matters.”

“Still.” Buck says, finally looking up at Eddie, expression solemn. “I think it might’ve been better for him if I was the one who got shot.”

Eddie turns his face to meet Buck’s. “Buck.”

“Hm.” He says.

“Don’t ever say that again.”

And Buck wishes he wouldn’t have, maybe, because Eddie’s quiet around him for the next couple of days before he leaves the hospital. He lets Buck kiss his forehead and hold his face between his hands like he might never see him again but he stares at Buck like he’s a puzzle he has yet to figure out and Buck doesn’t like that.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.” Eddie says as the two of them sit beside each other on his hospital a few days later, when he finally gets to leave the hospital and they are waiting for the nurses to gather his discharge papers. “You might have noticed—I almost died.”

Buck shoots him an exasperated look. “Eddie.”

“Again.” Eddie chuckles like something’s funny even though Buck’s a bit traumatized by wherever this conversation is headed. “I’ve had a lot of close calls. This one wasn’t even my closest.”

“Eddie.” Buck says.

“Just me finish.” Eddie tells him, like he’s even really started. “After the last time—when that well collapsed on top of me—”

Buck wasn’t a member of the 118 when that happened. Kind of wishes he would have been because he would have dug Eddie out himself if he had the chance. He heard about it from Bobby who told the story like it didn’t crush Buck’s chest (after Buck realized his feelings, before he admitted them to Bobby). He showed up at Eddie’s place exactly three days after that happened with take-out and a lecture about why the hell didn’t you tell me, Eddie? and Eddie said because I know how you are and I knew you would panic and I didn’t want you to!

Which—fair.

Buck had nightmares about it for two weeks straight.

“Which you survived.” Buck points out.

Eddie looks at him. “After that—I mean, it doesn’t matter much anymore, because it’s—we’re you and me and like, you know—but after that, it got me thinking—what would happen to Christopher if I hadn’t? So I went to my attorney and changed my will.”

Buck swallows. “Eddie.”

“He’s yours, Buck.” Eddie says softly. “I mean—he’s yours now anyway. But—I knew before you and I were ever together. I want you to know that. So—I made it that someday, if I ever, ah—didn’t make it, Christopher would be taken care of by you.”

“What?” Buck says.

“It’s in my will, that if I die—you become Christopher’s legal guardian.”

“Can we not talk about you dying right now?” Buck says, exasperated. “Also—doesn’t Christopher have, like, grandparents? I mean—wouldn’t they try and fight for him? Even now.”

“I don’t know.” Eddie says thoughtfully. “Maybe. Probably. But no one will ever fight for our son as hard as you—that is what I want for him.”

And God—isn’t Christopher Eddie’s love language? Because Christopher is Eddie’s world—Buck has known that from the minute he stepped through the front door of the Diaz home and saw Eddie showering his son in kisses and Buck thought Eddie Diaz is a really great father and he constantly thinks it to this day—and Eddie trusts Buck with his world. 

“You said you did this last year.” Buck says. “Why are you just telling me now?”

“Because—Evan.” Eddie says and Buck swallows because Eddie never full-names him unless he’s angry or—no, mostly angry. “You came in here the other day and you said you thought it would’ve been better if it had been you who was shot.” He shakes his head. “You act like you are expendable but you’re wrong.”

“Eddie—” He says. “I didn’t mean—”

“You did.” Eddie says, because he knows Buck better than Buck knows himself. “And I know you love me and Christopher. And we love you back—so, so much. But I need you to love yourself too and I don’t want you to do it for me.” Eddie leans forward and presses his forehead to Buck’s, nose buried in Buck’s hairline. “I know you know I love you.”

“I know you do.” Buck croaks.

“Then believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere.” Eddie presses a kiss to Buck’s ear. “Not if I can help it—and I know sometimes we can’t. But I want you to believe you are good enough for people to want to stay.”

Buck leans into Eddie’s touch. “You make me want to.”

They’re halfway through a twenty-four hour shift when Buck’s phone rings.

Buck nearly chokes on the water he’s drinking when he sees the Caller ID. It’s Christopher’s school which is already alarming enough but it’s extra alarming because Buck is the back up contact when Eddie can’t answer his phone and Eddie’s sitting exactly three feet from Buck and his phone hasn’t sounded—and Buck knows Eddie keeps his ringer on for these specific reasons.

Bobby looks up at him. “You okay?”

“Uh—yeah.” Buck says, looking from Bobby to his phone to Eddie and back. “Eds?”

Eddie looks up from his conversation with Chimney. “Hm?”

Buck waves his phone around. “Christopher’s school is on the line.”

And Eddie freezes. They both do, because they were taught to assume the worst and Buck answers while Eddie slides over and they both hold their breath as Buck says, “Evan Buckley.”

“Mr. Buckley.” A woman greets him. “This is Ms. Williams with Administrations. I was calling on behalf of Christopher Diaz—you’re his secondary contact when his father, Edmundo Diaz, cannot be reached.”

“Right.” Buck says. “But Eddie—”

“Christopher said his father was out of town on important business.”

Buck watches as Eddie’s face falls—and not because Christopher lied, he thinks, but because Chris told the lie so Eddie wouldn’t be contacted. He reaches out to intertwine his fingers through Eddie’s and focuses his attention back on the phone.

“What happened exactly?” Buck asks.

“It appears Christopher was in a fight with another boy.”

Eddie stills and Buck’s jaw drops. “Uh—that doesn’t sound like him.”

“I didn’t think so either.” Ms. Williams says. “But Christopher refuses to tell us what happened to prompt such a reaction so I’m going to ask that you come by to pick him up. And perhaps you may be able to get in touch with his father as well. We’ll have no choice but to suspend Christopher for three days.”

“I’ll be right there.” Buck says, and he turns to Eddie after he hangs up the phone. “Your call.”

“I—” Eddie says. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How about you let me pick him up?” Buck suggests. “And I’ll bring him back here so we can talk to him together.”

Eddie nods numbly and Buck presses a soft kiss to his mouth (while Bobby’s turned away!) before he jogs down the steps and out to his car. And maybe he presses his foot down a little for the entire drive there but—this is Christopher.

True to Ms. Williams’ word—Christopher is silent when Buck walks into the office. He raises both of his eyebrows at the kid but Chris simply grabs his crutches and walks out the door and Buck is left to follow behind him.

Buck waits until they’re outside before he speaks. “Why didn’t you want your Dad to pick you up from the office?”

Christopher kicks at a rock. “Just—I thought you were kind of like my Dad.”

And—Buck and Christopher don’t talk about it in the same way that he and Bobby don’t talk about it. What him and Christopher do do is every night before Christopher goes to bed, he’ll wander up to Buck and Eddie and say love you, even at twelve-years-old when Buck thinks he’s about to enter that I hate my parents phase that all teenagers have, and Buck always kind of feels like he won the lottery when he says love you, bud even though his heart beats out of his chest like it’s yelling back at him this is where you belong.

And doesn’t he know it.

“I am kind of like your Dad.” Buck say—and it’s a big thing, he thinks, that he’s at the point where he feels like he may actually deserve to be. And he isn’t saying that he’s the world’s greatest parent because he doesn’t think that by a long shot. He doesn’t think anyone who’s ever been some half-decent parent has thought that. And he’s surely no Eddie Diaz—who he watches help their kid with his homework and asks both Chris and Buck at least six times a day if they’re good or if they need anything and Buck always thinks how lucky we are to have this man.

But he knows how much he adores the kid in front of him. And he can’t control everything—finally accepted that he couldn’t control the tsunami or Eddie being shot or the way his parents really felt about him and he sees that now. But he can control how present he is in the lives of the people he loves and who love him. Showing their kid he loves him every single day and learning to accept it in return.

“Hey—” He says when Christopher kicks at another stone. “I’m honored that you think of me like that, Chris, because I think of you as my kid.” He bumps their shoulders together. “But—you can’t try and pit us against each other. Eddie is still your Dad. He’s still involved in every decision that’s made about you—and I think he feels hurt because you told Ms. Williams he wasn’t able to talk to her and you know your Dad would run here in a heartbeat if you needed him to.”

“He’s going to be so mad.” Christopher says quietly.

“He might be upset.” Buck admits, but still—Christopher is a sweet kid and there must’ve been a reason. “But you know he loves you no matter what—we both do.”

Buck tosses Christopher’s backpack in the car and helps him up onto the seat. “I didn’t—I wanted you to come because I didn’t want Dad to be sad.”

“Why would he be sad, Buddy?”

Christopher sniffles. “Because of what Carter said.”

“What did Carter say?” Buck presses.

“Promise you won’t tell Dad.”

“Christopher.”

“Buck.” Christopher says. “It’s really bad.”

“I’ll think about it.” Buck settles on. “What did he say?”

Christopher avoids Buck’s eye. “He said—Dad probably doesn’t want to be my Dad because Mom left because I couldn’t—because I’m different.” He says—even though Buck thinks Christopher is trying to use nicer words. “And he said that—that Dad got stuck with me after she—she died.”

Buck blinks at the kid. “We’re going back to the fire station.”

“Buck!” Christopher pleads.

“Christopher—” Buck says in the same tone and he kind of wants to cry. No—what he really wants to do is take one of Christopher’s crutches and storm back inside that school and beat that kid until he—no. No. He isn’t violent. He’s not.

“Christopher.” He says again. “Your Dad is like—your biggest fan.”

The kid nods but he doesn’t look at Buck. “Hey.” He reaches out to cup the kid’s chin and lifts his head so they’re eye-to-eye. “I’m super proud of you.”

“Because I hurt somebody?” Christopher asks.

“Because you stood up for yourself.” Buck corrects. “Your Dad would never be upset with you for that.”

“Is Dad stuck with me?”

And Buck’s heart breaks because this kid—Christopher is such a happy and bubbly kid who knows Eddie loves him in the same way that Buck knows the people around him love him. But it’s always going to be hard sometimes and it’s especially going to be hard if there are people constantly trying to tear you down.

“I’ll tell you what.” Buck says, because he can feel the tears happening and Christopher absolutely cannot see him cry because that would defeat the purpose of the whole I don’t want Dad to be sad thing Christopher had happening. “We’ll go back to the station—Bobby’s cooking lunch—and we will talk to your Dad together and I’ll make sure he’s not mad at you.”

“Okay.” Christopher agrees.

The kid’s quiet for the entire ride back to the station and Buck does let a few tears slip because this is new to him—being a father—and he doesn’t know how to comfort this kid who he thinks shines brighter than the sun but he doesn’t know how to tell him that.

Eddie’s eyes are as red as his own when they ascend the stairs and Buck tells Christopher to sit on the couch and talk to Hen and Chimney while he talks to Eddie. And he does—explain the situation as gently as he can even though Eddie cries a multitude of tears which makes Buck want to cry all over again but he can’t because he’s the one angled toward Christopher and he’s the one the kid is looking at.

“Christopher.” Eddie says when he’s wiped his tears. “Come here.”

And Buck watches the kid walk over like he’s still afraid Eddie might yell and he watches as Eddie pulls the kid into his arms and hugs him extra tight and then they switch gears and Buck grabs him and hugs him extra tight and Christopher lets out a laugh.

“You are—” Eddie tells him. “—the best thing I have ever done.”

“But you didn’t have a choice.” Christopher says.

“Doesn’t matter.” Eddie shakes his head. “I would choose you over and over and over again and I would still have you here with me. And—you know? I think that kid’s jealous because you have a Buck.” He nods towards Buck and oh— “Nobody else has one of those.”

And Buck’s heart melts as he squeezes the kid to him again. “I would choose you over and over if I could too.”

“I would choose you too.” Christopher says and Buck believes him.

He leaves Christopher with Eddie for a moment—lets Eddie dote on his kid because he thinks both of them need it—and wanders over to Bobby. And he watches Christopher laugh as Eddie whispers something in his ear and he smiles about it all because he thinks Christopher does believe that they love him and that’s—Buck wishes he had parents who told him they loved him when he was twelve years old.

He thinks maybe he would have believed him then.

“That kid adores you.” Bobby says.

Buck smiles. “I adore him back.”

Bobby watches him watch his little family and he smiles. “You’re a good Dad, Buck.”

“Hm.” Buck says, looking back at Bobby. “Well—I learned from you.”

What's that saying?

Once is by chance.

Twice is a coincidence.

Three times is a pattern.

They should have stayed in bed today.

Multiple days, actually.

If Eddie knew then what he knows now—a too-white waiting room, Christopher’s tear-soaked face shoved into his shoulder, Bobby nowhere to be found—he would’ve forced them to stay home and Buck would’ve hated it but Eddie would’ve found a way—faked a migraine or something because he knows Buck would have been too worried about him to actually go into work.

Instead—

It starts like this.

Buck’s face is buried in Eddie’s collarbone from behind when he opens his eyes. Typically, Eddie’s tucked into Buck’s chest when they wake, but they must have shifted at some point because Buck’s arms are wrapped around him and Eddie’s left leg is slotted between Buck’s—trapped between his feet.

He’s never felt more right.

Their kid’s down the hall tucked into his own bed and they’ll drop him off at school in a little while and Buck will press a kiss to the top of his head and squeeze him in a way that makes Eddie’s heart skip a beat and Christopher roll his eyes and Eddie will think about how far Buck’s come from just hoping he’s a part of their family to actually accepting that he is and then he’ll think—and not for the first time—what it would be like to be married to Evan Buckley.

Eddie’s alarm sounds exactly two-and-a-half minutes later and he feels when Buck’s eyes flit open because his eyelashes tickle the back of Eddie’s neck and he closes his eyes the way he always has whenever he wakes up before his boyfriend because Buck presses his mouth to his shoulder which means Eddie gets to raise an arm up behind him and run his fingers through Buck’s curls.

“Hm.” Buck whispers. “Hey, baby.”

There’s something about the domesticity between them that Eddie loves. Not just the sex—but it’s him and Buck, so that’s pretty mind-blowing too—but the fact that the two of them are able to have an actual conversation—tell each other their problems, their secrets, their fears. Because Buck was Buck-his-boyfriend, he was Buck-his-best-friend so it’s not like a lot changed between them except for the fact that Eddie kind of gets to kiss Buck whenever he wants—except for at work (which he still sometimes breaks, like when they’re in the locker room, just the two of them, and Buck presses his shoulder into Eddie’s and Eddie leans over and cups the back of his neck and presses his mouth to Buck’s). Honestly, their whole relationship should just be called ‘testing Bobby’s patience’.

“Hey.” Eddie says back, sleepily.

“French Toast or Pancakes?”

Eddie blinks. “What?”

“Which one do you think Christopher wants?” Buck asks.

“You spoil him too much.” Eddie says. “It’s a school day—we’re fine with cereal.”

“Pancakes it is.” Buck says with a smile and another kiss to Eddie’s shoulder before he throws the blanket off of them. “You can have first shower.”

Don’t go, something screams in the back of Eddie’s mind but it’s too far for him to reach so he lets Buck stumble out of bed and he snorts when his boyfriend trips over last night’s clothes and it feels exactly like it always does.

Like they’re fine.

Christopher’s already dressed and at the table when Eddie finishes his shower and walks out of his and Buck’s room. They’re chatting animatedly about something—Eddie hears zoo and Sunday and maybe we can convince Dad and he knows he’s gone for these two. Buck’s still wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, but he’s acquired an apron that says Don’t be afraid to take whisks and Eddie’s certain he might love him more than he did twenty minutes ago.

“Dad!” Christopher says when Eddie makes his way into the kitchen. “Can we?”

Buck looks at him with that look and Eddie ruffles Christopher’s hair. “Sure, Kid,” he says with a playful sigh even though he’s not entirely sure what he agreed to.

But if it’s a day with his boys—he’ll take twenty.

The rest of the day goes as most of them do—well, okay, minus the fact that Buck’s parents are in town and even though he’s refused to see them despite the fact that Maddie called last night to ask him if he’d stop by for dinner (I love you, Mads, and I’d do anything for you— Eddie heard through the cracked door of their bedroom while the siblings were on the phone together, —but please don’t ask me to do this—Eddie assumed Maddie agreed because Buck had ended the call with Eddie and I will bring Christopher by for dinner later this week.), Eddie knows Buck’s been on edge for most of the day because his phone keeps going off with texts from his parents.

“Hey—” Eddie suggests later, when they’re in the truck and on their way to the scene of an accident caused by a lightning strike, and he can see that Buck’s jaw is clenched. “Turn your phone off.”

It’s him and Eddie and Bobby because Chim and Hen are behind them in the ambulance and Eddie is kind of grateful because it means he can say things like I hate your parents and I know I’ve never met them but I don’t have to because he knows Bobby understands.  

Buck shakes his head. “I don’t want them to win.”

“Kid.” Bobby says from the front seat. “Turn the phone off.”

Buck sighs in frustration but he slides the screen off anyway and Eddie can just see the hint of one of Phillip Buckley’s texts— you’re going to do this to your mother?—that he knows Buck will see once he turns his phone back on and he wishes he could punch the guy. He trains his attention back and Bobby through the rearview and Bobby shakes his head—calm down.

“You okay?” Bobby asks Buck instead.

Buck turns his face toward the window—away from Eddie, which kind of hurts because Buck and him are each other’s go-to. “I shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting to see them after what happened last time.” Last time, when Buck showed up on his doorstep with tear-stained eyes and yeah, it led to this and Eddie wouldn’t trade that for anything—but he wishes it didn’t have to happen like that because he doesn’t want to see Buck like that ever again.

“You shouldn’t.” Bobby agrees. “Buck—family’s not always blood. I know you know that. And it can be, sometimes, like you have Maddie, but you don’t have to feel guilty because you don’t want to spend time with somebody who’s hurt you.”

Buck’s voice cracks. “But I do.”

Eddie shoots Bobby a helpless look as he reaches out to place a hand on Buck’s shoulder—and it’s only when Buck shakes him off that Eddie decides he really fuckin’ hates Buck’s parents. Like, he hates them, and he was raised Catholic, so he knows he’s not supposed to hate anybody, but they’re an exception because how—

This is Buck.

Eddie’s literal favorite person—right behind his son. He doesn’t understand how anyone could see him and deem him unlovable? Could not want to fight for him? He has no idea. And he’s so grateful to Bobby because he sees the way Bobby loves Buck like a father should and Buck knows that but Eddie also knows that that doesn’t matter when there’s somebody who’s supposed to love you over your shoulder telling you all the things you did that weren’t good enough.

“Kid.” Bobby says.

Buck doesn’t say anything else. He does let Bobby pat his shoulder when they finally climb out of the truck a few minutes later and Eddie doesn’t say anything because he knows Buck’s relationship with Bobby is beyond anything that ever could ever understand he knows that Buck probably needs that right now. And Buck does his job well and he doesn’t let his emotions get in the way and Eddie stares at him a little longer than he should and Buck avoids eye contact like this is it—the thing he can’t talk to Eddie about.

When they walk through the front door later that night, Eddie sheds his shoes by the door and Buck hangs his keys on the hook and Eddie presses his fingers into Buck’s collarbone. “Buck—you have to talk about this.”

“It’s fine.” Buck says, voice hollow. “Will you tell Chris I love him? I—I think I’m going to go to bed.”

Eddie feels his heart fall into his stomach. “Buck—”

“It’s fine.” He repeats. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Eddie echoes back, cupping the back of his boyfriend’s neck. “Don’t you dare let any of what they said to you make you not believe that. I love you, Evan Buckley.”

Buck offers him a weak smile. “I know.”

Eddie sleeps god-awful that night. Buck’s beside him, but he’s as far away from Eddie as he’s able to be without falling off the bed. Eddie wakes up cold with the blanket thrown on the floor and the alarm clock beeping at him and he’s alone which is—not great because he doesn’t like when Buck’s alone and in his head.

Except when he walks into the kitchen—Buck’s back at the stove. “Dad!” Christopher turns toward him. “Buck said we can have French Toast today.”

Eddie looks pointedly at his boyfriend. “Did you sleep?”

“Some.” Buck admits. “I—I was kind of an asshole to my boyfriend last night and felt like I needed to apologize.”

Eddie’s heart stutters. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He says. “I just—you know you can talk to me about these things.”

“I know.” Buck says. “And I’m still sorry.”

He can read the tension still in his boyfriend’s shoulders, so he says, “What did they say?”

Buck doesn’t say anything—just picks up his phone and tosses it over the counter at Eddie. Buck’s password is his birthday which kind of stops Eddie’s heart every time he thinks about it but it also makes it easy to navigate to Buck’s texts.

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: Evan, it’s your father. Maddie said you refuse to come to dinner which has made your mother extremely upset. Stop acting like a child. We will see you tonight at Howard and your sister’s house.

BUCK: I’m sorry Mom’s upset but I’m not coming.

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: After everything we’ve done for you?

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: We’re your family, Evan. Your blood. You can stop playing house now with your Captain and that little friend of yours and his kid.

BUCK: Christopher is our kid. And Eddie and Bobby are my family. I appreciate the invite and I don’t want Mom to be upset but I’m still not coming to dinner.

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: You’re going to do this to your mother?

  DAD [NOT BOBBY]: Evan.

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: Don’t be ridiculous, Evan. Your mother and I had a hard enough time with you and we’re your family. They’re not going to stick around.

DAD [NOT BOBBY]: Your mother’s asking where you are.

“Can I see?” Christopher asks, trying to read over Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie pulls the phone back. “No.” He says, emotions high. “But—you can tell Buck you love him and give him a hug and thank him for cooking for you.”

Christopher looks at Eddie like he has an extra head but he finally climbs out of his chair and slides over to Buck with the help of the counter. “Thanks for breakfast, Buck.” He says, wrapping an arm around Buck. “I love you.”

Buck chuckles but it sounds wet. “I love you too.”

And Eddie knows that this thing with the Buckley parents isn’t over—he knows that—because his boyfriend cares about people and he cares what they think and Buck is the type of person who will let it sit inside of him until he blows up and Eddie’s not about to let him do that.

They have a late shift so they drop Christopher off at school together and they hold hands the entire ride back and Eddie thinks it’ll be okay—that he’ll talk to Buck when they get home, recruit Bobby if he has to—and Buck will realize how loved he is because Eddie knows he knows and sometimes he just needs somebody to remind him.

Except that when Buck parks, he says—I’ll meet you at work later and Eddie blinks at him because they always drive to work together. But Buck reverses out of the driveway the minute Eddie climbs out of the car and it kind of feels like he’s just been broken up with even though Eddie knows Buck would never do that.

He just has some things to figure out.

So Eddie paces the house and texts Buck at least two times to ask you okay? and Buck answers on the second one to say at Chim and Maddie’s house and Eddie, for the life of him, cannot figure out why because he knows the Buckleys don’t head home until tomorrow and he can’t understand why Buck would want to—to put himself through that.

But he does understand Buck and his heart and he loves his boyfriend for it so he texts back let me know if you need me and Buck says I always need you and Eddie’s about ready to drive to Chimney and Maddie’s place when his phone rings.

“Hey.” He says, breathless, when he picks up. “You okay?”

“I’m okay.” Buck says, and to his credit—he sounds it. “I’m going to stop by Bobby’s for a minute and then I’ll—can I pick you up for work? Kind of realized it wouldn’t feel right to drive in without you.”

Eddie snorts. “You can pick me up for work.”

“Okay.” Buck says. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Eddie echoes and it’s only after Buck hangs up does he rush to their shared room and rummage through the back of his sock drawer for—ah, there it is.

Tonight, he promises. When they arrive home from work, he’ll tell Carla and Christopher and then he’ll make a plan. Doesn’t care what it is. Just—he wants to take the next step in their relationship and call Evan Buckley his fiancé. Tonight, he promises again, he’ll have the plan to propose at the end of the night.

Buck picks him up for work and they drive in together the way they always do and they greet their friends the way they always do and there’s something in the back of Eddie’s mind—like some kind of buzzing or warning sign—but he ignores it because he’s happy.

They’re called out to a building fire shortly after and it’s them and Bobby in the fire truck like how it always is and Eddie thinks later he’ll grab Bobby alone and ask for his permission to marry Buck because he’s kind of his father anyway. Buck doesn’t talk about what happened earlier at Chimney and Maddie’s, but he does seem lighter which Eddie thinks is good.

“Okay—” Bobby calls when they climb out of the truck. “Hendrix, Meyers, Perez! Start evacuating the building! Chimney, Buck, Eddie—” He turns. “You guys are on ladder duty! I want you to get up to that window and hit it! Let’s go!”

No, Eddie thinks. No, that’s not right. Buck shouldn’t—

But he doesn’t know why Buck shouldn’t so he raises the ladder while Buck gears himself up when Chimney says, “Hey! Where do you think you’re going? I got this.”

It’s raining now—pouring, actually, after a couple of days of dry lightning—so they’re yelling over each other to talk. “No way,” Buck argues playfully. “You got the last one.”

“Didn’t realize you were keeping track.”

“Come on, Chim, it’s me.” Buck says. “I’m always keeping track.”

And then Eddie secures him and says— “Alright, cowboy, go get ‘em,” and it’s both flirty and not all at the same time but Chimney rolls his eyes anyway and Buck says, “Alright,” before he ascends the ladder while Eddie watches.

Why can’t you do what we do? Eddie thinks, and it feels like a lifetime ago.

Maybe it’s because he finally has an answer.

Something’s not right. The buzzing’s back—in the back of Eddie’s mind—except this time it’s like a flashing red light that screams Danger! except he doesn’t know where to look. Buck has the hose in his hand and he’s—

Buck looks up at the sky and Eddie doesn’t know what’s wrong because the rain’s too loud and he can’t reach Buck from where he’s at. He’s thinking about calling to him—somehow—or calling to Bobby to tell him that this is wrong when there’s a flash.

And it—Eddie feels it. It ripples through him and sends him backwards—off the ladder and against the wet ground. His helmet hits the ground next to him and he lets out a grunt. Shit. Did he just get struck by lightning?

And then his eyes widen.

Buck.

Buck’s—Eddie grabs his helmet and sticks it back on his head—why does he care about the helmet right now?—and then he squints up into the air and—

Buck.

Except he’s—Buck’s not moving. He’s not even on top of the ladder anymore. No, instead—Buck’s hanging from it. Arms limp at his sides. Head thrown back like he doesn’t have the strength to pick it back up. Like he can’t.

“Buck!” Eddie screams and then he’s up the ladder—doesn’t even care about being secured or that one wrong move and he’s over the other side and dead on the ground. “Buck!” He calls as he folds himself over the top of the ladder. “Buck! Can you hear me?”

Buck can’t hear him because Buck’s not—God, what are the chances of surviving this? He doesn’t know. Thinks he should know. No, he definitely knows. But he can’t—Buck has always defied the odds. Beaten everything that’s been thrown his way. He’ll survive this.

He has to.

“We need more slack!” Eddie shouts down to Chimney and then— “I swear to God, Buck—if you even think about leaving me like this—”

Eddie’s off the ladder as quick as he’s up as soon as Buck’s down and in Bobby’s arms. Bobby has water running down his face—or maybe it’s tears, Eddie thinks, because he’s not sure whether it’s water or tears running down his own face either—and he’s folded over Buck’s body like he’s trying to shield him from the rain while Chimney and Hen rip his coat open and feel for a pulse.

“It’s okay, Kid.” Bobby whispers. “You’re okay.”

Eddie watches—because he can’t do anything else—and it’s only when he watches Hen shake her head and say, “No pulse,” and then— “He’s in full cardiac arrest!” does he jump in because Buck’s only thirty-years-old and they have so much—so much life left to live together.

He can’t die.

“Let me—” He chokes out.

“Eddie,” Bobby says. “You’re driving—get off.”

And all Eddie can do is stare at Bobby—both of them with tears mixing with the rain falling down their cheeks—because that’s a horrible idea. He can’t—but he has to because Chimney’s trying to pump life back into his boyfriend’s chest and all he can do is nod and count the seconds since Buck took his last breath.

Three minutes and seventeen seconds.

Bobby thinks maybe he got too comfortable.

Never forgot—because he never could—but he settled into a life with Athena and her kids and the team at the 118 and the extra relationship he had with Buck and he was happy. Maybe for a moment in time, but he was, he thinks, happy with where he was.

And maybe this is the universe’s way of saying fuck you, Bobby Nash because he can’t—they don’t know if Buck will wake up. That’s what the Doctor said. He might never wake up because he went into cardiac arrest at thirty-years-old and Bobby thinks there’s irony in there somewhere—he just has no desire to find it.

He finds Eddie hovering against the window of Buck’s hospital room. Eyes trained in the room on his boyfriend’s figure. Bobby has yet to step foot into that view. Thinks it’ll make it real. He’ll be reminded of it all and then he’ll be reminded that Buck is dying and he can’t—

He can’t lose another kid.

“I was going to pull you aside after shift—” Eddie says, eyes still trained on Buck, but he’s talking to Bobby. “Ask you for permission to marry him.”

“My permission?” Bobby asks.

“Well—yours and Maddie’s.” Eddie says. “I figured you would tell Athena and Maddie would tell Chim who would tell Hen and everybody would know.”

“You don’t have to ask.” Bobby says. “And even if you did—I would say yes. And I think Maddie would too. Anybody who looks at you two can see how you feel about each other.”

Eddie hums. “Might not matter now.”

“Eddie.”

“I don’t—” Eddie says. “I know it’s not healthy to revolve your life around somebody—but before Buck, my life was Christopher, and then after Buck—I can’t imagine it without either one of them in it. And Christopher—God, that kid loves Buck.”

“Think about how lucky we are.” Bobby says. “To love and be loved by somebody like him.”

Eddie turns back to the window and Bobby escapes down the hallway. He pauses when Christopher looks up at him from one of the chairs—not directly in front of Buck’s room, but to the side where Eddie can still keep an eye on him. Bobby’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be back here, but he’d vouch for the kid if he had to.

“Hey.” Bobby says as he sits next to him. “You okay?”

Christopher sniffles and rubs at his eyes underneath his glasses. “I don’t want Buck to die like how my Mom did.”

Bobby glances back at Eddie—hovering by the wall of Buck’s room, like he can’t stand to be away from him but he can’t quite bring himself to enter. Bobby understands. Hasn’t even brought himself to look at the kid—his thirty-year-old kid—through the window of Buck’s hospital room. He’s too afraid he’ll see what he can’t face.

Eddie looks back at him and Bobby can see the fear in his eyes. The what if—the I don’t know how to live without him. Bobby’s not sure he does either. He’s only known Buck ten years, maybe, such a blip in the time of things because he’s lived a whole lifetime before the kid came into his life and he has his own life with Athena and Buck has his own life with Eddie, but—

But that’s still his kid.

“Buck’s one of the strongest people I know.” Bobby tells Christopher instead because they need a distraction away from the wires and tubes and the smell of death. "And I know how much he loves you and your Dad. He’s fighting to get back to you, Chris—I promise.”

“And you.” Christopher says. “You’re his Dad.”

Bobby’s not sure how much Christopher knows—about either his and Buck’s relationship or about Buck’s relationship with his actual parents—but he’s found that he’s accepted it. The title of Buck’s father. He’ll never outright call himself it or pretend to have any kind of claim over him—but he’ll tell him how it is and yeah, maybe he looks out for Buck a little bit more than the rest of them, but they always knew that.

“He has a lot of people here who love him.” Bobby says, eyes trained on Eddie even as he talks to Christopher. “He knows that.”

Christopher sniffles again and Bobby opens his mouth when there’s a loud shout and a group tears through the hallway. Bobby stands—Maddie gives him a sympathetic look when she sees him, her own eyes glassy. Athena’s beside Maddie, staring at Bobby like she’s ready for trouble. Behind the two of them are Phillip and Margaret Buckley.

“What happened?” Buck and Maddie’s father asks.

Athena places a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “Lightning strike.”

“Evan.” Their mother says on a sigh, like she thinks it’s his fault lightning hit when it did and tried to take Buck from them.

“He’ll be fine.” Phillip says, running a hand down his wife’s back.

“Maybe if he had some guidance.” Margaret Buckley says and Bobby blinks back at her. “Running around—trying to fight fires—Evan isn’t equipped for that.”

Maddie shakes her head. “He’s a good firefighter, Mom.”

“More than good.” Bobby agrees. “What do you mean if he had more guidance?”

“I think what Margaret is trying to say—” Phillip Buckley says. “—is that you telling Evan he can be a firefighter is some kind of pipe dream.”

“A pipe dream.” Bobby repeats.

Phillip shakes his head. “I know you don’t understand.” He tells Bobby. “But Evan is—he’s always gotten into trouble—ever since he was little. Has dreams he can’t really achieve. And we tried, the two of us, to talk him out of them but he was adamant on making something of himself.”

And Bobby can’t help it. Doesn’t even know what happened until his knuckles crash against Phillip Buckley’s face. He feels the pain. Sees the blood spurt from the man’s nose or his hand and Bobby’s not really sure which and he doesn’t care.

“Dad!” Maddie says.

“Bobby!” Athena echoes.

“Phillip!” Margaret screams.

Bobby shakes out his hand and stretches his knuckles to make sure they’re not broken. “That’s my kid.” He says. “You’ve never and will never be the father to your son that you should’ve been from the moment he was born.” He shifts his gaze to Buck and Maddie’s mother. “I have sat and watched your son grow into one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of having in my life. And you know where he gets that from?” He nods towards Maddie. “Every special quality your son has has come from the person who raised him.”

“Bobby.” Athena places a hand on his shoulder.

He shakes his hand out again—bloody knuckles and all—and looks back at his wife. Athena’s eyes are filled with pride even though she tries to shoot him one of her scolding looks but he knows she isn’t mad.

It’s been a long time coming.

There’s a beeping sound.

He’s—Eddie’s alarm, maybe? No. No, Eddie’s alarm doesn’t sound like that. Besides—he doesn’t usually need Eddie’s alarm to wake him up. He can usually tell by the way Eddie’s breathing shifts from beside him. The way his boyfriend pretends to be out cold when he’s subconsciously running his hand over Buck’s.

That’s his favorite part of the day.

Except—Eddie’s not beside him (rare). Usually, even when his boyfriend wakes up before him, he cuddles close to Buck and lays his head on his bicep or tangles their legs together or something so that they’re always pressed against each other.

His eyes flutter open to the brightest shade of white he’s ever seen. God—it’s like—where the hell is he? A hospital. He doesn’t remember being injured. When did—

“Oh—Good to see you’re awake.”

A face swims into view and he blinks away the cloudiness in his vision. A Doctor—somebody who can tell him what happened. He opens his mouth to ask when a sniffle shatters through the beeping in his ear from the other side of the bed.

“Maddie?” He says when he turns to face the crying figure.

“Thank God.” She breathes, reaching forward to wrap her arms around him and—ah, for somebody who’s in the hospital—shouldn’t he feel pain? “God—Evan. We were so worried.”

“What—” He tracks the tear stains on her face. “Where are we?”

“You’re in the hospital.” Maddie sits back—tracks his face cautiously. “You and the team were on your way to a call and—and there was an accident.”

“What kind of accident?” He asks.

“Some kid—the son of somebody Bobby arrested before you worked with the 118—he set a bunch of mail bombs and—and he tried to blow up your fire truck.”

“Is everybody okay?” Buck asks and his sister looks sick. “Mads.”

“Evan—” She says. “I’m so sorry.”

Buck’s heart pounds. “Why are you sorry?”

Maddie shifts her eyes between him and the Doctor and the bottom of Buck’s bed—which, oh, he’s in a full leg cast. Why doesn’t he remember this? He doesn’t feel pain anywhere else. Doesn’t have any head injuries or—maybe he passed out.

The door opens and Chimney stumbles in—eyes wide and filled with tears. “Buckley.” He says on a sigh of relief. “Man, it’s good to see you awake.”

“Where’s Jee-Yun?” Buck asks.

Chimney blinks at him. “Who’s Jee-Yun?”

“Your daughter.” Buck says, eyes shifting between Chimney and his sister. “Don’t tell me you left her with Mom and Dad.”

Chimney exchanges a look with Maddie. “Buck—”

“Where’s Eddie?” He asks. “And Bobby.”

“Buck.” Chimney says. “Bobby and Eddie both died on the scene.”

And—

Buck’s brain short-circuits. No. That can’t be—No. What—No, he thinks. They can’t. Why doesn’t he remember? He—he was on a ladder, he thinks. A ladder—and Bobby and Eddie were—nowhere near him.

“Eddie’s—” He chokes out. “Christopher.”

“Eddie’s parents are on their way from Texas to pick up Christopher.” Maddie tells him, squeezing Buck’s hand.

Buck snatches his hand back. “What—No, you can’t let them take him.”

“Buck, they’re Eddie’s—”

“It’s—I’m Christopher’s guardian.”

“No.” Chimney says slowly. “Buck—I know he was your best friend, but you haven’t really known the guy long enough for him to give you custody of his son.”

Best friend. Haven’t known him long enough. Eddie’s parents are on their way.

“No.” He says. “They’re not dead.”

No.

No.

No.

His eyes roll back into his head.

He’s back in the hospital when he wakes up.

Except—this time, Eddie Diaz is sitting at his bedside.

“Jesus.” Buck breathes. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Eddie blinks back at him. “Bobby asked me to come by.” He says. “Wanted to settle things without the team involved and figured—I don’t know—that I was the best person to do it.”

“Eds.” Buck says. “I’m—”

“He’s put your transfer paperwork in already.” Eddie lifts a duffle bag at his feet and drops it back down. “This is everything from your locker at the 118—you’re officially relieved of duty at Station 118.”

Buck lets out a strangled laugh. “Eddie?”

Except—he notices for the first time that Eddie’s all wrong. His hair is short and his skin is bruised and he looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. There’s an angry look on his face that Buck’s never seen on his boyfriend. This Eddie—this Eddie isn’t his boyfriend.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Eddie asks as he pushes out of his chair. “The lawsuit’s bad enough and then you had to go and tell your lawyer everything about us.” What—what the hell is Eddie talking about? “Personal things.”

And then Buck says—“Why—why are you so pissed at me?”

“Because you’re exhausting!” Eddie shoots back, and oh—Buck thinks his heart might’ve actually bottomed out. “We all have our own problems, but you don’t see us whining about it. No, somehow, we just manage to suck it up. Why can’t you?”

And it’s—it’s funny how his brain works, how it says, I don’t know in return even though he doesn’t remember a single word of what Eddie’s just said to him. He doesn’t remember a lawsuit—doesn’t remember Bobby filing transfer papers. He’s the one who—he begged Bobby to take him on at the 118.

“Do you know how much Christopher misses you?” Eddie says when Buck doesn’t respond—and that’s the one that does it. “No, how could you? You’re not around.”

“Eddie.” Buck says. “I never—”

The machine beside him starts beeping. Louder and louder and louder until Buck can’t breathe and Eddie just—just sits there and watches him struggle. Eddie would never—

Buck’s eyes roll back into his head again.

This time, when he opens them—he’s at the firehouse.

Buck breathes out a sigh of relief and pushes himself up on the couch. Eddie and Hen and Chimney are all sitting around the table and—why does his boyfriend have a mustache?

Okay, it’s—whatever. At least he’s in the firehouse. Eddie isn’t yelling at him and Bobby isn’t dead or firing him and things are back to normal. Except—when he pushes himself off the couch—Hen turns to look at him and she sends him such a sympathetic look that he knows whatever this is—it isn’t right.

“Where’s Bobby?” Buck asks.

Eddie freezes. “Buck.”

“God—has Christopher seen what’s on your face?” He asks, and it’s supposed to be a joke but Hen and Chimney and Eddie all freeze and Buck thinks—maybe he wasn’t supposed to say that.

“From you, Buck?” Chimney asks.

God—he cannot handle another alternate reality right now. Especially because these are his friends and they’re in the firehouse and they’re all looking at him like he’s made of glass and he’s not sure why.

“Listen—do you guys have any idea why I would have a dream about a—a fire truck bombing and a lawsuit of some kind and—”

“Buck.” Hen says. “Do you have a concussion?”

Does he?

He blinks. “March of 2023.”

Eddie freezes. “What?”

“What happened in March of 2023?”

Chimney looks between the three of them. “Uh—you almost died from a lightning strike.”

And that—

Buck wakes up.

Eddie—his Eddie, with tears and snot streaming down his face—and Christopher, who’s staring at Buck like he doesn’t know what to make of him, and Bobby, who’s folded over Buck’s bed with a prayer book in his hands—they’re all here.

And shit—he hurts.

“Eds.” He whispers softly.

Eddie launches himself off of the bed in an attempt to get to him and Buck shoots back against the bed because he doesn’t expect the way Eddie grabs both of his cheeks in his hands and kisses Buck on the forehead. And then he melts because this is his Eddie.

“Hey, Christopher.” He says, reaching his arm out for the kid and Christopher hesitantly takes hold like he’s afraid he might hurt him. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Christopher blinks back at him—eyes filled with tears—and Buck hates that he made these people that he loves and who love him worry about him. “Don’t do that again.”

“I’ll try not to.” Buck promises.

And then he shifts his eyes to meet Bobby—Bobby, who’s own eyes are wide and wet and who is staring at Buck like he’s a little bit of a miracle. “I’m sorry.”

Bobby raises an eyebrow. “Why are you sorry?”

“I didn’t want you to have to go through that again.” Buck says, and he hopes they both know what he’s talking about. “I didn’t mean to scare everybody.”

“We were scared because we love you.” Bobby says and he leans forward to place a hand on Buck’s shoulder. “Kid—you might put me into an early grave.”

A knock sounds on the door and Athena sticks her head in. “Bobby, I—Oh!” She steps further into the room until she’s by Buck’s bedside and places a swift kiss on the top of his head. “God—Evan Buckley, we missed the hell out of you.”

“I missed you guys too.” He says. “Where’s Maddie?”

“Her and Hen and Chim took Denny and Jee to the cafeteria.” Eddie explains. “They’ll be here in a few—they’re all worried about you.”

“And uh—” Buck trails off. “My parents—did they?”

“Bobby punched your Dad!” Christopher tells him giddily.

“Christopher!” Eddie scolds. “We shouldn’t encourage violence.”

“It was awesome.” The kid ignores his father.

Buck snorts and sends Bobby a look. “You punched my Dad?”

“Biological father.” Bobby corrects—eyes locked dead-on Buck’s. “That man’s never been a Dad to you.”

Buck smiles—eyes locked right back. “It’s okay.” He says. “I already have one—didn’t really need another anyway.”

Bobby smiles back at him and then clears his throat and stands. “Christopher—let’s let your fathers have a minute to talk.”

“Okay.” Christopher agrees way too easily but he still burrows into Buck’s side before he does and whispers in his ear— “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thank you, Buddy.” Buck says. “I’m glad I’m okay too.”

Christopher and Bobby and Athena head out the door and Athena looks back at winks at—possibly Eddie, possibly him, he’s not really sure. He cranes his next to make sure they’re down the hallway and then turns to his boyfriend. “Marry me.”

“I need to ask you a question.” Eddie says at the same time.

Eddie’s mouth falls. “I—I have a ring.”

“I don’t care.” Buck tells him. “I—I had a lot of weird dreams when I was out about you dying or hating me or just—I don’t know, but I don’t want to spend another second of my life not with you in the way I know we should be.”

“Buck—”

“I’ll wear your ring.” Buck tells him. “But tell me you’ll marry me.”

And Eddie cups Buck’s face between his hands and presses their foreheads together and this is the reason, he thinks. All of it was—just to get to Eddie. Back to this. Because Eddie’s home and Buck doesn’t want to be anywhere else ever again.

“Of course I’ll marry you.” Eddie says.

“Good.” Buck says with a smile. “How do you feel about growing a mustache?”