Chapter Text
Maddie sighed to herself as she made her way down the hall to Buck’s door. They had plans to go to a late lunch—had even confirmed the time this morning—and now that she was here to pick him up, he wasn’t responding to her texts.
She knocked at his door, but there was no answer other than the muffled music of one of those melancholy indie bands that Buck pretends are not his favorite.
Sighing to herself, she digs through her purse for her copy of his key, letting herself in and shutting the door softly behind her. She drops her purse on the table as she rounds the stairs, expecting her baby brother to be sprawled out on his couch asleep, long legs spread haphazardly over cushions and the coffee table alike.
Instead what she sees is some girl—some blond bitch—standing over Buck, who is sitting in the armchair in the corner of the living room, completely boxed in by the TV, the wall and the girl.
Now normally, Maddie wouldn’t jump to that kind of conclusion so quickly, but in the approximately six seconds she’s known the girl existed the bitch has slapped her brother twice. Pretty hard.
“Excuse me, what is going on here?” There’s a momentary pause—a few seconds of Maddie taking in the scene more clearly—Buck's phone is on the floor under the stairs, sporting a freshly cracked screen. He's got one shoe on, one shoe off. He’s gripping the arms of the chair so tightly she can see the raised tendons in his hands from where she stood across the room, and until she’d said something, he’d had his eyes trained on the floor.
“Is this her?” The blond screeches, gesturing wildly toward Maddie. “She’s got to be what—ten years older than you?”
“Hey—“ (true, but still)
Buck casts Maddie a pleading glance, still making no move to stand or defend himself. “Kylie calm down please. This is my sister. I’m not cheating—“
“And I’m supposed to believe that? Who the fuck makes lunch date plans with their sister at six in the morning?”
Buck gave a bewildered little scoff. “People who get off work at six in the morning?”
She raises her hand as if to hit him again and Maddie has had quite enough. Limbs trembling with adrenaline, she wordlessly closes the distance between her and Kylie, reaching out and grabbing a fistful of her top and dragging her back a few paces, forcing her swing to go wild and knocking her off balance.
Maddie lets her fall to her ass on the floor and takes a step back. “C’mon bitch, you want to hit someone? Pick on someone your own size.” She honest-to-god rolls up her sleeves, which would be amusing if the entire situation wasn’t just so surreal.
Buck pushes himself to standing, taking the long way around the coffee table to get between the girl and his sister. He stops short of touching Maddie, though—simply raising his hands and speaking to her softly in an attempt to quell the fear and rage warring in her eyes. “Maddie, no.”
Maddie backs off a little, though she glares at Kylie the whole time the girl struggles to her feet. Once there she puffs a bit of her blond hair out of her face and shoots both of them scathing stares. “I’m out of here. Don’t bother calling me again, Evan.”
“He won’t, bitch.” Maddie spat after her, following her a few steps as she stomped toward the door, grabbing her bag off the couch on her way.
Buck actually chuckles a little, though he looks stressed as hell. “I think I can count the times I’ve heard you call another woman that on one hand and two of them are today.”
Maddie flounders a little. “Well…she deserved it.”
He nods along and leads the way to the kitchen, doing his best to ignore the awkward gait the one shoe caused. He rummages around in the freezer for a pack of peas to hold against his cheek before making his way to one of the dining chairs and plopping down sideways in it with a groan.
Maddie is silent for perhaps too long. He goes from looking at her to looking at the floor after a while. “Go ahead and say whatever it is.” He says, shoulders curling in just a bit.
“Why? Why would you just sit there and let her do that—hit you like that?”
Buck shrugs, flipping the bag around and placing it against his cheek again. “I dunno—it happened really fast. She was about to head out and I guess I left my phone in the kitchen. She must have snooped and saw our conversation or something because she just came out here screaming that I was a cheater and threw my phone against the wall. It all kind of escalated from there.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’d just sit there and let her do that to you.” Maddie is trying to keep her voice calm, but after everything, after Doug—she honestly couldn’t fathom why her baby brother would willingly let his partner hurt him.
Buck shrugs again, meeting her eyes for an instant before going back to staring at the linoleum. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Uh, defend yourself? Stop her?”
Buck looks at her, incredulous. “You saw how much bigger I am than her. I could’ve hurt her—she was so close to me and I was so boxed in that even if I’d just like—stood up too fast, I could have knocked her over and she might’ve hit the table or the TV and I dunno, I couldn’t think of anything but just letting her get it out of her system until she gave me enough room to get up and walk away.”
“Buck—“
“Anyway, I’m a big guy, it’s not like I can’t take a few smacks—“
“Buck—“
“—I mean it’s not like she’s really strong or anything—“
“Buck, slow down—“
“—I’m a firefighter for fuck’s sake, it’s not like—“
“Evan, please—“
“—she can’t really hurt me. It’s ok, Maddie.”
“No,” she says with finality, gesturing angrily. “It’s really not ok. None of that was ok.”
She crosses over to him, reaching out to gently play with one of his stray curls, attempting and failing at tucking it back into the rest of his hair. “I know you get lonely sometimes,” she steadfastly ignores the way his eyes immediately fill with tears, carrying on with a voice that barely wavered, “and I know that there’s a hole in your heart that you desperately want to fill with a family, but Evan—“
He ducks his head here, the tears finally escaping to form twin trails down his cheeks, and Maddie has to lift his chin so he will look at her again.
“Evan, you have to know that it’s better to be alone than be with someone who is willing to hurt you. That’s not…that’s not love. That’s possession. That’s abuse. You deserve someone who wants to build a happy life with you.”
Buck lightly pulls out of her grasp, “Can we drop it? I promise that would have been the end of it anyway. I just…I couldn’t take the chance of hurting her.”
He still won’t look at her.
Maddie inwardly sighed. “Yeah, Buck. Of course. Do you still want to go get lunch?”
Buck hums quietly, shaking his head. “How about delivery instead?”
She glances over to where his phone is still on the floor under the stairs and pulls out her own. “Sure.”