Chapter Text
Chapter 1
I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost
The room is on fire, invisible smoke
And all of my heroes die all alone
Help me hold onto you
“So, Buck, why did want to be a firefighter?,” Chimney asks him during dinner.
Buck doesn’t know how to reply honestly without a very long, very deranged explanation, so he smiles shyly at table and stalls for a second.
Buck isn’t just the youngest person on the team, he’s also the probie on a group that has been together for a little while. Hen and Chimney have been on the 118 for a couple of years, and Buck saw how in sync they acted on the calls they had so far. Bobby is like this fearless leader, who’s fair and tough, but who also ignores any and all personal questions – which is making Buck feel unbalanced.
He wants to fit here and, for once in his life, Buck doesn’t know what to do if he fucks things up.
“My mom always said I was an adrenaline junkie and I’ve always wanted to help people,” it’s what Buck decides to say. “And I guess one day I realized being a firefighter was a combination of both.”
It’s true, sure, but far from all of it. Did he decided to be a firefighter because he saw a fire one on TV during a random Tuesday? Yes. Did something click on his mind that day? Also yes.
Is there this huge part of him that has always yearned for it for reasons he would rather die than explain? Well, nothing in life is simple, sure.
His answer must be good, though, because there are encouraging smiles across the table, but they feel slightly forced as well. Buck doesn’t know anything about whoever was working with them before him, but he has this feeling like he has big shoes to fill.
“What about you guys?,” he asks back, looking around the table, desperately trying to understand his coworkers.
He wants this to work. He likes LA and he likes his job. It feels right.
It also feels like there’s something big still missing.
-
A thing about Buck is that he likes sex.
It’s the only aspect of his existence he has never felt like a fuckup.
There are five different apps for dating on his phone – including one for Christians that he downloaded by mistake but still swipes. At least once every two days, he sees someone new, but never the same person twice. He isn’t good at relationships, not by a long shot, but it’s hard to feel alone or lost when there’s someone kissing the side of your neck.
So, look: borrowing the firetruck for a quickie during a shift is not a smart move. Buck can admit that much. But, on his defense, LA traffic sucks and the firetruck is the perfect solution for that. Besides, the radio will tell him if he’s needed. And the hookup is two blocks away from the station, so it would barely impact on time of arrival at a scene.
So it may be less than professional, but it makes perfect sense.
The girl - GroovyHeels, the name of her profile – dared him to bring the truck.
She’s straddling him, his mouth going down her neck, when he hears a put-upon sigh, followed by a resigned “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Buck jumps, screams and throws her off him in a heartbeat. He looks around and finally finds himself staring at a corner where there’s a man – tall, brown hair, brown eyes, sharp jawline and strong build in a LAFD shirt – staring at the ceiling of the truck with a slightly grossed out expression.
“What is it?,” the girl asks him, trying to cover herself and look around to find the source of his scare.
The man looks back at them both and freezes when his eyes meet Buck’s. Or better: when he realizes Buck can see him. GroovyHeels is looking at the same direction, but she can’t see anything other than the perfectly fine interior of the truck.
“You can see me?,” the guy asks at the same time the girl says: “Firehose?” and she now sounds she’s slightly scared he’s crazy for looking intently at nothing.
He probably is, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Sorry,” he forces himself to look away from the man. Buck is tense now, he never knows how these encounters will go. “I thought I heard someone calling me on the radio.”
She seems to relax at his words, “oh. That’s fine!”
He can feel the man staring at his face with a burning intensity and Buck knows that way too well. GroovyHeels steps forward as if to start kissing him again, so he sidesteps her quickly, reaching down for his LAFD shirt on the floor, awkwardly shuffling with his pants on his tights. She pouts, crossing her arms over her chest.
She’s fucking gorgeous but he’s not into non-consensual voyeurism.
“It kind of ruined the mood for me, sorry,” he sounds as apologetic and pathetic as he feels.
He’s being cockblocked by a ghost. He can’t even say that this is first time it has happened in his life.
It’s sad.
She nods, slightly angry, but doesn’t push, just gets dressed, fixes her clothes and jumps out of the truck with more grace than he thought possible, well, considering. She doesn’t look back as she gets into her car and drives away. The moment she’s truly gone, Buck looks back at the surprised guest.
Besides the fact that during his life the man was a firefighter, the only other thing Buck knows about him is that he died in this truck.
“So,” Buck starts, giving him his winning smile, and goes for a joke, “couldn’t escape the job even after death, huh?”
There’s a beat of silence, before: “You can see me.”
“Yep,” Buck replies, resisting the urge to add a duh at the end there. Then, Buck remembers the situation that just happened and is flooded with shame, “sorry about the free show.”
Mr. Ghost, arches an eyebrow, looking incredibly judgmental as he says: “you stole the truck to… sleep someone?”
“Of course not,” Buck rolls his eyes. The guy just found someone who can see him and he’s worried about a little work misconduct? Prude. “I just borrowed the truck to have sex with someone.”
“How has Bobby not fired you yet?”
Buck laughs, but he has wondered that a couple of the times the past two weeks, a few times he has been a bit… reckless on the job and Bobby has been disappointed.
He ignores his own shortcomings to focus on what really matters: now Buck also knows the ghost hasn’t died freakishly long ago, sinde Bobby has only been captain of the 118 for less than a year.
“Hey, I’m a good firefighter!,” Buck protests anyway.
“Yeah, sure. The tale of a hero called Firehose?”
“It’s a nickname for the dating apps,” he defends himself, feeling himself flush terribly. It’s meant to be cheeky and stupid, but he always hated the idea of another firefighter hearing about it. Flooded with embarrassment, but before he dies of shame, he adds: “what’s your name?”
The man stares at him for a second, concentrating as if Buck is extremely confusing. That’s a new one. People normally think they have Buck figured out in two seconds flat. And truthfully, the whole seeing dead people aside, he considers himself a very plain human being.
“I’m Eddie,” the stuck-up ghost replies, slowly. “Why aren’t you scared of seeing me?”
Buck tilts his head to the side, “you’re not very scary.”
“I mean, you’re seeing a gh---you can see me and you’re not freaking out.”
Buck shrugs, “oh. It’s been twenty-six years of this, dude. It would be kind of pathetic if I flipped out every time. Trust me, you’ve been a very polite ghost.”
“What the fuck,” it’s what Eddie says.
He’s about to laugh – it’s been a while since he has had such a confused and judgmental ghost – when the radio cracks with life and Buck practically throws himself towards the driving seat.
When he looks to the back of the truck, Eddie is gone.
-
That’s the thing with ghosts. They come and they go. They’re stuck – to someone, to someplace, to something – but they aren’t always physically (well, as physically as a ghost can be) there. Sometimes they vanish and it’s like no time at all has passed to them when they appear again. Buck has asked more ghosts than he can count about it, but they don’t remember where they go. To them, it’s like a vacuum of nothing in those in-between moments.
In his teenage years, he was bullied in school for taking too much interest in religions and mysticism. People thought he was a walking bomb, but he was just desperately trying to understand the afterlife, and what he was supposed to do.
Also, why him? Of all fucking people.
He wishes he knew more. Falling short is no news to him.
Evan Buckley, the constant disappointment, ever since his birth.
-
Now he gets that the spot he has use to belong to Eddie, last name unknown, who died on a shift. Well, it’s no surprise nobody on the team talks about his predecessor, which means that Buck has to be the annoying little shit he knows how to be and bring up their dead colleague.
“So, who’s Eddie?”
The table freezes around him.
Bobby is, unsurprisingly, the first to recover, but he takes his time grabbing a napkin and starts cleaning his spotless face. “Where did you hear that name?”
Buck – as usual – did not think that far ahead. No one so much said the person on the team before him was a man, so he can’t blame gossip. Saying he’s a psychic isn’t going to cut either. The only thing he can think of is --- “I found a paper with Eddie written on it on the floor? But there’s no Eddie on the B shift.”
“What else was on the paper?,” Chimney asks.
“Ink,” Buck waves his hand around like that’s a good explanation, and everyone’s puzzled looks intensifies. “So, Eddie?”
Bobby sighs like he thought he would have more time to prepare for this. Hen and Chimney are silent, which is innerving. Buck learned in his short time here that Hen normally has something to say and Chimney loves his one-liners.
“Nearly two months ago there was a snipper targeting firefighters here in LA. He used to be LAFD and he obviously held some grudges against the organization. Eddie Diaz was one of the men he shot, he… Eddie was on a call with us when he was shot."
Buck remembers hearing about the shootings, but he didn’t imagine he would end up working on a firehouse affected by it. He just remembers his bravado – he was sure he wouldn’t be scared, and boasted at the academy he was prepared for anything.
He clearly wasn’t prepared for this. So, Eddie got hurt during a call and died on the truck, on the way back to the hospital.
What a fucking bummer.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Buck tells the rest of the table, sincerely. He can’t imagine how shitty must have been to be to the 118 to see a colleague die like that.
Hen shakes her head at him with her mouth tilted downwards, “he didn’t die, Buck.”
“He didn’t?,” Buck asks, more shocked than it’s appropriate but no one seems to notice it.
“No, he’s in a coma,” it’s Chimney who replies this time, with a wince. Buck stares, mouth dropping open. “Doctors aren’t sure why he hasn’t woken up. There wasn’t brain damage by their estimates, but Eddie just got unconscious when they arrived at the hospital, and he--- doesn’t wake up.”
Buck nods, speechless.
That.
That is new.
Buck doesn’t know how to help that.
-
Because here’s the thing about Buck – he’s been seeing dead people since he can remember. Most movies get it right: you only get stuck around here if you have unfinished business. So, Buck tries to help. He asks them what’s keeping them, and if they know, he tries to fix it. If they don’t, it happens sometimes, he still tries to figure out.
Dead people? He knows the basic drill.
Maddie used to be obsessed with a show with that theme. He tried to tell her once but she thought he was making fun of her over it.
So Buck carries this annoying secret. It gets a little lonely and annoying, sometimes.
Right now, he really wishes he had someone to bounce ideas off with, because he doesn’t know what the fuck he should do about a guy who’s a ghost but not actually dead.
-
It’s later that day when Buck sees Eddie for the second time. He’s sitting on the back of the firetruck, staring at the distance with a frown on his face. He seems fucking miserable. Buck looks around and when he’s sure there’s no one close enough to hear him, he starts talking.
“Good news: you’re not dead!,” he tells Eddie. “You’re just in a coma!”
Eddie turns sharply already judging Buck, “you need to learn what good news are.”
Buck rolls his eyes but he smiles at Eddie’s brooding. “Was it your charming personality that got you shot?”
Should Buck bring up the shooting? Probably not, but he never learned when to shut his mouth and it’s out before he can stop himself. He’s expecting some anger or brooding, but Eddie rolls his eyes.
“Better than getting shot because I slept with somebody else’s wife,” Eddie smirks back at him.
“Ah, there’s where you are wrong, my friend,” Buck shakes his head. “I don’t sleep with people in committed relationships. I’m all for casual, but I’m against cheating.”
Eddie stares at him again, apparently trying to decide if it’s worth to continue that line of discussion. He decides against it, or maybe it finally sinks in what Buck said at the start, because he seems lost for a minute: “I’m in a coma?”
Buck nods.
“I asked the team about you, they said you’re in a coma and the doctors are not sure why,” he clarifies. “So, I don’t know how to help you. Normally I’d try to find out why you’re stuck here and solve that, but I don’t know if that works on a coma. You’re my first comatose ghost! Entity? I don’t know what to call you.”
“Eddie is just fine,” he mumbles. Then Eddie shakes his head, “that’s what you do? You help ghosts, then?”
“I mean, I’m a firefighter, that’s what I get paid to do. But I guess I try to help when I can?,” Buck shrugs. “Some ghosts aren’t sure why they are stuck here. I mostly talk to them so they maybe figure out, or at least have some company. There’s the angry ones too and I just avoid those? I don’t know any exorcisms.”
“Of course,” Eddie nods along, but there’s a desperation there, like he’s going insane. “You wouldn’t want to piss off an angry ghost.”
Buck gives Eddie a second to digest it all. “Something you think that would keep you here?”
“My son,” he replies, instantly. Bucks feels as if he was punched. Eddie is young, so he must have a baby or a little kid waiting for him.
He can’t imagine the pain that must be to exist away from them. It’s always harder for parents to let go of their kids when they’re young – a lot of them can’t. They are stuck waiting for the kid to grow, terrified something will happen to them, but incapable of protecting them. Buck knows the restless, useless feeling.
“What’s his name?”
“Chris, his name is Christopher,” Eddie whispers, a smile on his lips like he can’t help but feel warmed by the name. “He’s ten. He’s amazing and... His mom is also---she died three years ago.”
Buck closes his eyes for a second, a strong sentiment for a boy he doesn’t know. His parents are alive, but he was alone for most of his childhood, a ghost on his own house – he would have been completely alone if it weren’t for Maddie, and he desperately doesn’t want that kid to feel like he did. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Eddie waves his hand. “I just can’t go and leave him alone, but I can’t even go to him, because I’m stuck to this stupid firetruck.”
Buck doesn’t understand why the firetruck. If Eddie had died there, sure, it would have made sense. But mostly ghosts are attached to the places they died, to an object important to them or to a person. From what he learned prying, Eddie was still conscious when he arrived at the hospital, so that should be where his soul was hanging out.
He frowns, “there’s nothing in particular you like about this truck?”
Eddie stares at him like he lost his mind.
“You’re the one who uses it as a personal motel room,” Buck feels himself flushing from his head down his collar, “to me it’s just a truck. Well, now I’m slightly grossed out about it after finding you---”
“Oh my God, nothing much happened!,” Buck groans out. It’s true – Eddie interrupted before anything really untoward happened.
“What do you mean nothing much happen?,” Chimney asks from behind him, looking around, clearly trying to find whoever Buck was talking to. Gladly, this has happened too many times in his life that he doesn’t even flinch.
He turns around shrugging, with practiced ease. “I wanted to hook up with this girl but then kinda lost the mood. There was this annoying guy that cockblocked me, you know?,” he adds that bit pointedly.
Eddie just rolls his eyes, and because of Chimney, Buck can’t flip him off without looking insane.
“And now you’re mumbling to yourself about it?,” still, Chimney sounds like he’s only 30% worried. Talking to oneself doesn’t really rank high on the madness scale of firefighters.
Buck bites his lips and tries to look sad, “she was really hot.”
“Meh,” Eddie disagrees from the firetruck.
“No, really,” Buck continues over Eddie because she was hot. “She was smoking. And she was a good kisser.”
Eddie shakes his head, “it looked so-so from the outside.”
“And then this mood-killer,” Buck continues, “this grumpy, no fun, judgmental guy, just says something rude and watches us. Like a pervert.”
“I wasn’t watching y---you were the one instigating public sex, besides there was nothing interesting to see,” Eddie points out at the same time Chimney frowns.
“That sounds awful.”
Buck sighs, “now I lost the possible love of my life.”
Eddie and Chimney laugh.
“Do you even know her name, Firehose?,” Eddie quips.
“I doubt it,” Chimney says. “You don’t ever seem really invested on your one-night stands. And you have a lot of those from the amount of hickeys I’ve seen.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows on the side as if that’s interesting information. Buck feels himself blush but holds his head higher. “I’m single and attractive, I should enjoy that.”
“Don’t you get tired of it?,” Chimney asks, genuinely. “I saw you with that kid today. I don’t know, despite your fuck boy attitude, you look like you want a family.”
He does. He also knows better than to wish for things he can’t have.
“I love kids, man,” he says instead. “But as far as building a family goes, that would mean be in a long-term relationship and I’m not good at those.”
Chimney smirks, “can’t keep it in your pants?”
Buck shakes his head because while that’s the reason most people assume, but it’s not at all the problem. The truth is he has too much baggage.
“Let’s just say that the people I date and I don’t see things the same way and that gets in the way,” he says and he can see a look of understanding flashing in Eddie’s face. “But honestly, I like one-night stands. And I’m good at them, if you ever want to find out,” he adds with a wink.
Chimney gapes at him, stutters over a “Did you hit your head?”
“No? You’re cute, Chimney,” Buck says very seriously.
“I’m—straight,” he adds. “And I’m in a relationship!”
“I was straight too, once upon a time,” Buck adds with an air with wistfulness. Chimney trips on his haste to step back and Buck holds back a laugh.
“I---” Chimney pauses. Buck maintains his poker face. He doesn’t dare to look at Eddie because he thinks he’ll find the man grinning like a maniac. After some tense fifteen seconds, Chimney shakes his head. “You’re fucking with me.”
Buck gives him a smile that’s all sharp teeth, “too easy, man.”
Chimney curses at him and walks away and Eddie is laughing, legs hanging off the truck moving around excitedly, enjoying the entertainment. His brown eyes are sparkling with light and he looks very much alive. It aches something in Buck he can’t really explain. He’s sure Eddie is supposed to be alive and well and there.
Eddie also looks like he has questions, but that’s the bad thing about this whole business. Buck can’t keep a conversation going smoothly, not without attracting Hen’s attention who’s coming closer.
He gives a what can you do? kind of shrug towards Eddie and walks away.
On the other hand, this is good. Buck doesn’t want more prying on his life – it should be the other way around here.
-
Buck doesn’t know how he differentiates between ghosts and people alive. There’s no aura around them or something telling like that – but Buck is always sure. If they materialize out of nowhere, that’s pretty telling, but most times they look about the same as everyone else. He normally just has this instinctual feeling that clues him in.
For instance: Sophie.
He knows she’s a ghost the moment he sees her, on his way home from the station, standing still on a park bench. He stops his car the first spot he finds, then he puts his phone to his ear to make it seem like he’s talking to someone to approaches her without looking crazy.
It’s one of the tricks he’s learned with time.
They discuss her life until she swears all she needs is to know if her mom is fine. Buck opens Instagram and the moment he finds the Sophie’s mom, Sophie has this sad smile on her face, tears in her eyes. She tells him her mom’s phone number and he calls, pretending to be a friend of hers from high school, Sophie smoothly clueing him on what to say.
He watches as she listens to her mom talk and she looks more and more settled as it progresses.
Sophie’s gone by the time Buck says goodbye to her mom.
There’s this aching on his heart, because there’s no one in this world that would stay behind just for him.
He wonders if wanting that makes him selfish.
-
Is all Eddie needs is a phone call with his son?
But would Eddie wake up or die?
Buck doesn’t fucking know – and he’s slightly scared to figure it out. It’s the first time he has somebody else’s life at stake completely by himself. Normally, when he deals with ghosts, it’s not like he can kill somebody who’s already dead.
-
Buck’s house feels gigantic and empty, his roommates are nowhere in sight. There’s a club near enough, and he ignores every ghost in the way, there, everywhere. All he focuses on is a girl smirking at him over her drink and Buck doesn’t really have to think before he makes his way over. She’s pretty, she’s loud and she’s fun.
They fuck on a bathroom stall and he offers round two at his bed.
She spends the night. He wakes up alone, but there’s a ghost he knows standing on his kitchen, looking sadly at him.
He ignores it. He goes for a walk and ends up running until he feels like he’s going to collapse on the ground in front of him, his eyes blurring slightly. He’s fine, it’s fine, he won’t cry.
Buck just has too many emotions – too sensitive, too reckless, too open – and he just swallows everything down and feels like shit.
“You got a sore throat, Buck?,” Hen asks him the moment he arrived at the station.
He looks away, this bitterness stuck to his throat. He isn’t bitter. He’s the guy that likes to be upbeat. So, he smiles wide, “I did too many songs at karaoke.”
Hen nods along smiling back easily, unaware.
-
Bobby hates when Buck doesn’t listen. He knows that. Buck knows that he maybe needs to think things through more often, it’s still his first month and he should be trying to be on his best behavior.
But when he sees the man – a ghost, he should clarify – standing outside the building, screaming “go back! Go back right now! Mary is still fucking there!” - Buck doesn’t explain anything to anyone, he just throws himself back into the burning building.
“I’m going back in,” it’s all the warning he gives.
“Buck!,” Hen and Chimney yell after him but he doesn’t turn back around.
He pretends not to hear Bobby on his ear, threatening his job. “Firefighter Buckley, come back right now, it’s an order!”
“There’s a woman in here, Cap,” he finally tells over the radio, still searching. He turns off the radio right after so no one screams at him more. It’s a burning office building, with lots of cubicles. He’s desperately trying to guess where he has to go, when the ghost that was screaming before appears near a door, anxiously looking at Buck, swearing under his breath.
Buck follows the ghost.
“Please, please, save Mary,” the ghost screams, turning left on a hallway, getting closer and closer to the worst of the fire.
Buck wonders if this is actually Death, trying to lead him towards his own end and down to hell. He hasn’t been in a fire this bad before and it feels biblical. He’s having trouble walking, even seeing – the sweat on his face is burning his eyes – and he’s wondering if he’ll see the women before he himself passes out.
That’s when the ghost stops, kneeling down next to a body. There’s a woman, in her 30s, surrounded by flames, passed out under a table – he can see her breathing, but she’s coughing up a lot. Buck swears under his breath, first worried about her smoke inhalation, but then trying to figure out how he’s going to get to her – when a small flame-free path opens up before him.
He glances at the ghost, who’s standing there, concentrating at the floor.
“Fucking do your job!,” the ghost screams at him, desperate and angry, and Buck runs through the flames, picks her up, and races back.
The ghost is walking closely on their way, trying to touch Mary – whoever she is to him – and Buck pretends not to see, only caring about the fire around. As he leaves the building, Hen races toward him with a gurney ready to help out the unconscious woman.
“How did you know?,” Hen asks, as she listens to the woman’s heartbeat and breathing.
Buck looks back at where the ghost was, but he’s gone now. All the man needed to do was to make sure his loved one was saved, and not even death could stop him.
He feels tears prickling on his eyes as he says: “I had a hunch.”
Bobby scolds him for an hour and it almost distracts him from the grief he feels for a man he never properly met.
-
“I would normally tell Tatiana I had a hunch we missed a person and that I went to a burning building to save a woman today,” Chimney tells him and Hen, throwing himself on the couch, “but even she would tell me I was an idiot.”
Buck stops reading about the illegal deforestation of the Amazon Forest to raise his eyes at Chimney. “She was going to die.”
Hen and Chimney share a look. Then, Hen speaks softly, “Buck, you shouldn’t have raced back without talking to us first. The building wasn’t deemed safe anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You could’ve died, Buck,” Chimney chips. “I mean, this firehouse would be quieter, but it would matter, yeah.”
Buck wants to argue that it wouldn’t. No one would really cry if he died – Maddie would, maybe. If she even heard about it, but it was hard to know if Doug would let news of him even get to her. Maybe in a few years she would notice the absense of his postcards.
He knows that he can’t say that. He shrugs and ignores how Bobby is still making him sit back from calls.
He goes straight to a nightclub when he leaves – the music is loud, he can’t hear his thoughts – and he fucks a girl while she bites down his neck – she’s alive, he’s alive, he's fucking alive, he’s not a ghost – and when he gets home he’s so tired he passes out.
He’s not too drunk to miss the ghost hanging out his living room, but Buck doesn’t greet them.
He knows the disappointment on their face.
-
“Are you a sex addicted or something?,” Eddie asks, pointing at Buck’s neck in the middle of the shift, as Buck cleans the inside of the truck with a toothbrush – a punishment for his stunt on the previous shift.
He's so not in the mood. “Are you always so uptight, Little Mr. Perfect?”
Eddie scoffs, but doesn’t press anymore. The silent stare is somehow worse and Buck snaps at those.
“Everyone has had one night stands, man, just leave me the fuck alone.”
“Not everyone,” Eddie replies almost in reflex and when Buck looks at his face, Buck sees the regret there.
“Seriously? You’ve never had a one-night stand?” Eddie just glares at him, so Buck takes that as a yes. He smirks, his mood improving over being able to pester someone else. “Come on, still. Don’t judge me! You’ve slept with people after a couple of dates, right? It’s pretty much the same.”
Somehow, Eddie looks even more constipated.
“No fucking way.”
Eddie finally snaps, “Not everyone is willing to risk their jobs for sex,” he looks around like someone might hear them, which. He’s so embarrassed he forgot he’s a ghost. Buck is howling with laughter, trying to keep it silent.
“So you’ve only had sex after serious dating?,” Buck inquires. He looks Eddie up and down and smirks. “You didn’t introduce yourself as a romantic, Eddie.”
“That’s not---,” Eddie cuts himself off. “Shannon and I---we were young so---”
“Christopher’s mom?,” Buck guesses.
“Yeah, we. We were young, so we waited until we were sure we were in love, because we were sixteen. And then she was pregnant and we got married.”
“That’s sweet,” Buck tells him, and it’s not to piss Eddie off. He lost his virginity with a girl when he was sixteen too and she broke up with him two days later. “But you’ve been a widower for three years, right? And after that you waited until you were in love again? That must’ve been hard.”
Eddie crosses his arms and looks away.
Buck sucks in a breath, because it sounds awfully like Eddie has only ever slept with one person. He opens his mouth---
“If you say a word, I’ll punch you in the face, Firehose.”
Buck raises his arms in surrender, “that’s a shitty lie. Romantic guy like you? Punching a ray of sunshine like me? Unlikely.”
Eddie does the most dramatic thing and disappears on thin air. Buck is pretty sure he did on purpose too, which makes it more funny.
“That’s very Richard Gere of you,” he tells the empty truck.
He also has to admit: dying only having slept with one person should not be allowed. Buck must find a way to bring Eddie back.
-
They are having lunch the next day when Buck brings Eddie up again – pretty much because during food time, people can’t run away from him. The whole situation has been non-stop on his mind.
“So, I was thinking about Eddie,” he starts slowly, the table looking around each other as if on cue. “Could I visit him? I feel like I should, considering I have his job.”
Bobby, despite still being angry at Buck, has a small smile on his lips. “You don’t have his job, you’d be hired even if he was still here.”
Buck feels some relieve slipping from his shoulders because he had been feeling slightly guilty about only having his job because Eddie was out.
“Still, shouldn’t a visit a coworker?”
“Eddie was a no-nonsense kind of man, he would say there’s no reason for you to visit him out of a sense of duty,” Bobby tells him. “That being said, it’s sweet that you want to pay your respects to him, so I’m going to give you the information for you to visit.”
He smiles gratefully, because he’s trying his best to figure out this whole ghost-alive thing. He claims he needs to finish cleaning the firetruck so he can hang around there to have a shot of talking to Eddie again. There’s no Eddie when he arrives, which is sad because it means he actually have to focus on cleaning the truck, but after a while he notices someone looking at him through the window.
“Boo!,” Eddie shouts, and then in his normal voice: “that’s what I’m supposed to say, right?”
The guy is definitely going to pretend the last conversation never happened and Buck will gladly go along with it. He likes this weird companionship he has with Eddie.
So Buck smiles, looking around before abandoning his stuff and jumping inside the truck, closing the door like a maniac behind himself. “I’m going to visit you at the hospital.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows, eyes gloss away for a second, then: “any idea as of what to expect?”
“No,” Buck tilts his head. “I haven’t got a clue. I was thinking… do you hear what people say to you? ‘Cause I read that lots of comatose patients have memories of what was said to them when they were in a coma.”
“Sometimes,” Eddie admits. “It’s like a distant dream, you know? I can hear them or smell them, but it’s hard to concentrate on it. Chris is the one I can listen the most. I used to think he was praying to me, but now I know he must’ve been on my bedside.”
Buck files all the information away for future reference, because it’s interesting shit. Something is way more telling, though. “You a religious guy?”
“No, but my abuela is. She had to drag me to Sunday school. I never really knew what I believed, but recently… I figure maybe she was right and all the catholic guilt came rushing back,” he added with a self depreciating shrug. Buck snorted, shaking his head.
He grew up in a no faith household.
Nowadays Buck knows that there’s something afterwards, but he has no idea what. It’s not like the ghosts come back to tell him after they move on.
“I thought about reaching out to your kid,” Buck admits, because there’s no segway to the religion stuff. “But a grown man talking to a child randomly is… weird.”
Eddie laughs at that, his whole body shaking with it – he looks almost carefree for a moment. Buck is suddenly aware of how beautiful Eddie is, and all he wants is him alive.
“Chris would scream at the top of his lungs if you just approached him on a playground. That kid knows about stranger danger.”
“You’re a good dad,” Buck realizes. He knew Eddie missed his kid, but knowing he put in the work on his education is a different matter. Eddie seems like he’s about to protest, but Buck cuts him off, “Trust me, I can tell. You’re a good dad.”
“I love that kid more than anything, I don’t know if that makes me a good dad, because I fucked up more times than I can count.”
Buck should tell him he was never loved by his parents. That they never understood him and they never tried. He was a nuisance, someone they had to raise out of duty. And it took Buck years to understand why. He’s not much of a great mind, but he’s sure that if his parents died, he would be far below their list of worries.
“That’s all you can do, you know?,” Buck tells him. “As someone’s kid – all I could ask is that my parents loved me anyway.”
Eddie stares at him, trying to understand him again, and Buck doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s the one who’s supposed to be piecing shit together. It’s what he’s been doing all his life and there’s nothing to know about himself.
“I don’t know if that’s true. I know my parents love me, but they have always been so goddamn disappointed in every choice I ever made that really outshines it all.”
Buck considers that for a second, “are you disappointed in Christopher?”
“No,” Eddie shakes his head hurriedly, like the thought is fucking ridiculous. “Chris has cerebral palsy, right? But that kid does everything he wants and he goes through life like a champ. I don’t think I could be more proud of him.”
“And if he wanted to be a rodeo clown?,” Buck challenges. Eddie raises his eyebrows, but Buck raises his hands, “I’m serious. If Chris told you he wanted to be something you think it’s ridiculous. Would you still be proud?”
Eddie shrugs, “if he was happy and supporting himself, I would be more than proud. All I want is for my kid to be happy. I just hope I taught him the right tools for that.”
Buck stares at Eddie for a second – because how can a man be so judgmental and handsome, but also so fucking nice as a dad, and still end up stuck in a fucking ambulance as a comatose ghost?
Life is unfair as shit.
“Well,” Buck clears his throat because he feels flooded with emotions suddenly. “There you go. You learned from your parent’s mistakes. Hence, you’re a good dad. I’m sure everyone can see it but you, even if I’m the only one that can see you.”
Buck ignores how Eddie rolls his eyes at him again. He thinks they would be friends if they worked together, like Hen and Chimney. It would be nice – Buck never had a real friend before.
“You’re weird, Firehose.”
It's funny, Eddie doesn’t say it with reproach or disgust, just curiosity.
“I see dead people, of course I’m weird,” Buck rolls his eyes.
“That’s not what I meant, you---”
But Buck doesn’t get to figure out what Eddie meant, because suddenly the alarms go off and all firefighters are rushing to the truck. Eddie doesn’t disappear, but that shuts him up.
“Why are you in the back?,” Bobby asks from the driver’s seat. “You love driving… do you want to?”
Buck realizes this is an olive branch Bobby is throwing here. They haven’t really spoken, about anything again, but he takes the offer for what it is.
He shakes his head.
“I was cleaning,” he replies and they all don’t pay attention how he was just seated cleaning nothing when they arrived. Emergencies tend to suck people’s attention easily enough. Eddie shakes his head at him through the trip, but he vanishes at one point of the ride.
Hen keeps looking at him weird throughout the shift. Buck raises his eyebrows at her a couple of times, but she just says something random each time. He has no idea what she’s thinking.
Still, he is nervous.
Did she heard him say something to Eddie? Or talking to himself in general? Those are always weird to explain to coworkers, but a general I talk to myself solve those, even if there’s some awkwardness afterwards. He quietly waits for her to come up to him and it happens at the end of the shift.
He’s changing into his civilian clothes when Hen sits next to him. Chimney and Bobby are already gone, so Buck decides to hurry things along and smiles down at her with a quiet “hey, Hen.”
“Heey, Buck,” her smile seems forced. Buck stops with his shirt on his hands and waits her out, an old itching on his skin from the awkwardness. She stares at him for a while before sighing slowly. “I know you haven’t known me for long, but you know that we’re a family here, right?”
“Uh hu,” he mumbles back, frowning, having no idea where she’s going with this.
He also has no idea how to explain to her that family doesn’t mean particularly good things for him. There’s a heavy silence between them that he hadn’t experience so far on the firehouse. She seems also lost as to how approach whatever subject she’s trying to get. “Buck… earlier today, I was passing by the firetruck.”
So she did heard him talking to Eddie. Nothing surprising that far.
“Okay?” He didn’t think talking to himself would warrant this level of worry. “What’s up?”
“Buck--- do you think you see ghosts?”