Chapter Text
Stacy doesn’t stir when Buck untangles their legs and carefully slips out of bed. The pale glow of a sodium-vapor street lamp barely peeks through gauzy curtains, fighting back against the pre-dawn gloom. Buck peers into the deep shadows cloaking the unfamiliar room, searching for his clothes.
It’s easier said than done. Piles of fabric cover the floor, with rumpled shirts and sweaters strewn over every surface. There’s probably a week's worth of laundry here. Maybe two. It sets Buck’s teeth on edge. He works very hard to keep his spaces organized; cleanliness isn’t his natural state of being, but it has a huge impact on the constant buzzing in his brain. Chaos begets chaos, and Stacy’s home is the definition of disorder.
He locates his boxers and jeans, pulling them on quickly and checking the pockets for his wallet and keys before spinning around and slamming his bad leg into the nightstand with a solid thunk. Buck chokes down a curse, gaze snapping to the woman sleeping mere feet away. His eyes have adjusted to the dim enough to make out her features: dark brows and darker hair, a too-perfect nose, and a wicked smile fallen slack with exhaustion.
She’s gorgeous, even now; hair tousled and makeup smudged from the kind of sex Buck hasn’t had in years. Sleeping with a stranger hadn’t exactly been on his to-do list when he walked into his favorite local dive bar earlier that night, but Stacy had this confidence, this unabashed desire that seeped into Buck’s skin and hit like a truck. She was a much better distraction than his original plan: drinking alone until his brain stopped screaming.
Before he knew it, they were tumbling out of an Uber and pushing through the front door of a modest bungalow; a whirlwind of lips and heat and sighs. Stacy may only be half his size, but there was no doubt about who was in charge. She knew what she wanted, taking control of her own pleasure and letting Buck’s mind blissfully disconnect from his body. It was everything and nothing at the same time. A great distraction and the most meaningless thing in the world. Lust without the looming spectre of actual love. Impersonal. Temporary. Perfect.
It was the kind of night that can’t – shouldn’t – last. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t want it to. Sticking around, getting to know each other, would ruin the magic. If Buck leaves now, if he sneaks out before they have the chance to be something more, he can avoid the inevitable heartbreak that follows him like a shadow. Just this once, he can be the one that walks away.
A moment of tense silence passes, but Stacy shows no signs of waking. Buck huffs a small sigh, relieved to make a clean getaway, and creeps into the living room. It’s just as much of a disaster as the bedroom, but, in time, he manages to locate the rest of his clothes. He dresses quickly, calls an Uber, and slips quietly into the cool night air.
He doesn’t look back.
“What about this place?”
Buck looms over Eddie’s shoulder and squints at the tablet in his hands. “Uh-uh. You do not want to share an open-concept house with a teenager.”
“I don’t know,” Eddie turns his head minutely, glancing at his friend as best he can without pulling back, “it might be nice to keep an eye on Christopher when I’m in the kitchen.”
“Are you prepared to get yelled at for using the ice maker when he’s watching a movie?”
Eddie frowns, brows pulling together in a tight bunch. “How long’s he been doing that?”
“Couple years now,” Buck shrugs, straightening up and reaching for the fridge. He grabs two beers, passes one to his friend, and settles into his seat at Eddie’s kitchen table with a practiced ease. “Apparently, my apartment is ‘too echoey’ and sound from my kitchen ‘ruins the vibe.’” His exaggerated air quotes earn him a small chuckle – more of a snort, really – and he tries to memorize the sound, to file it away in some part of his heart that’s rooted here, in California.
A fresh wave of sadness washes over Buck at the thought, wrapping cold tendrils around his ribs and squeezing until his lungs feel like roadkill. He takes a swig of his drink to disguise the way his breath hitches, the way his face tenses in a desperate attempt not to frown.
It’s been exactly six and a half days since Eddie announced he was moving to El Paso to be closer to his son. Six and a half days since Buck threw his unwavering support behind this plan, since he promised to help house hunt and figure out logistics. Six and a half days. Barely a week.
It feels like eons.
In some ways, this is a problem of his own making. Deep down, Buck knows that if he pleads his case, if he points out all the ways this move is ill-conceived and rash, if he puts his foot down and asks Eddie to stay, there’s a chance, however slim, he might win.
But this isn’t about Buck. It isn’t even about Eddie, if they’re being honest. It’s about Christopher: a boy who’s already been through so much in his short life, who’s been left and uprooted and put through more loss than most adults would be able to recover from. A boy with a father who loves him.
What kind of man would Buck be if he put his needs before a child’s, especially a child like Chris? Buck loves that kid more than he can even understand, most days. The feeling’s always there, lying dormant somewhere behind his ribs, just waiting for any excuse to swell like a balloon and take over the space reserved for his heart; as overwhelming as grief with none of the pain.
Buck would jump in front of a train for Chris, there’s no world in which he’d put his own selfish need for attention before the boy’s chance to have a meaningful relationship with his father, even if that means losing the one person he never thought he’d have to say goodbye to.
So, six and a half days ago, when Eddie told him about El Paso, he lied.
He took all of the feelings churning in his gut, buried them away, and covered the grave with fake smiles and offers of assistance. Eddie may be leaving, and Chris hasn’t answered any of Buck’s texts since he fled California, but Buck can still be there for them in all the ways no one was ever there for him. He can still be useful, one last time.
“Noted. No open kitchens,” Eddie smiles gently and takes a drink, shaking Buck out of his thoughts. “Any other advice, O Wise One?”
His partner has this inscrutable look in his eyes, something between humor and guilt – or is it pity? Fuck, he hopes not.
Sometimes, despite his best efforts, the pain still peeks through, wailing like a ghost and clawing at the inside of its coffin, nails cracked and bleeding. Sometimes the cheerful mask slips. Sometimes Eddie catches it.
He needs you, dumbass, Buck thinks for the millionth time, reciting it like a mantra. Get it together.
With some effort, Buck rolls his eyes and forces a smile. He snatches the tablet from his friend and flips through the current “favorites” list, over a dozen houses long. “Try to get an induction stove if you can find one, they’re way better for you than gas…”
Buck launches into a tangent about the emerging study of home air quality, leaning into the distraction. He shifts forward in his chair, ranting enthusiastically until the tension starts to bleed out of Eddie’s shoulders and that look fades into something open and genuine.
They stay like that for hours, pruning the list of potential houses in the cheerful glow of Eddie’s familiar kitchen and Buck’s counterfeit smiles.
It’s almost enough.
A loud beep echoes through the apartment, knocking Buck’s thoughts out of orbit and sending them careening back into his body. He jumps a little, snapping his head towards the glowing oven door and shaking the small surge of adrenaline out of his hands. It’s involuntary, the energy; a reflex drilled into his bones by eight years spent responding to firehouse bells. Helpful in the field. Useless when baking.
The oven timer beeps again, urging Buck up from where he sits cross legged on the floor, back pressed into the uneven surface of a cabinet door. A groan rushes past his lips as he stands, his joints popping and creaking with the movement. His left ankle throbs more than usual, a hair's breadth away from distracting.
Sitting on the floor isn’t exactly ideal, but there’s something strangely soothing about watching things bake, and Buck was desperate for a distraction. Normally, he would busy himself by prepping the next steps in the recipe or starting something new entirely, but this is the fourth and final batch of sugar cookies and the last few piping bags of icing are starting to solidify. Even if he wanted to start another project at this point, every single wire rack is laden with festive cookies, spread out across his kitchen like a saccharine explosion.
Buck silences the timer and pulls the tray, searing heat seeping through his cloth oven mitt as he haphazardly tries to clear some space for the steaming batch. There’s really no good way to organize them all, so at least a half dozen cookies end up layered across their lukewarm counterparts, smudging the carefully iced faces on a whole row of cheerful snowmen.
Task complete, Buck steps back and surveys the chaos. He’d started baking the moment he walked in the door, desperate to chase away the sting of helping his best friend find a home nearly a thousand miles away. The news of Eddie’s imminent departure may have cured him of the urge to call Tommy, but his fervent need to keep busy – to do something – increased tenfold.
Baking had been a great distraction, for a while. The precision had forced him to focus on something other than his phone and his ex and his wounded pride, but it does next to nothing for him now. No matter how many cookies he decorates or loaves he bakes, nothing can change the fact that Eddie – his partner, his best friend, the one person he thought he’d finally get to keep – is leaving.
Tears well up, hot and thick, coating Buck’s lashes before he even realizes he’s crying. His heart beats against the walls of his chest, crashing to the forefront of his awareness, splintering his thoughts until all he can process is agony, visceral and all-consuming.
Buck digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, pressing down until dull pain rises to the surface and derails his latest spiral. It takes longer than anticipated, but he comes back to his senses one by one; breathes in the cloying scent of his latest creation, hears the hum of the convection oven, feels the bile in his throat.
This isn’t working.
Instead of getting out of his head, all Buck’s managed to do tonight is entomb himself in his empty, echoey apartment. Glossy photos of a younger, happier Christopher watch him from their home on the fridge, and Buck wishes he knew some way to turn off his brain that isn’t as permanent as dying.
Stacy, Buck remembers with startling clarity. Everything got quiet when I was with Stacy.
It was an impressive feat, given the circumstances: Buck met her a mere four hours after Eddie broke the news about El Paso. The fact that he’d been able to feel anything other than abject misery that night was so miraculous it almost makes him wish he’d gotten her number.
Almost.
There’s no room left in his body for the highs and lows of actually knowing someone, even if they spend more time fucking than talking. Buck’s too self-aware to believe he won’t ruin it, eventually. He’ll start out appropriately chill and detached, but over time the urge to cling to a partner will build and build, a tightening vice grip that’s sure to chase anyone away in the end. And then where would he be? Alone? Abandoned? Again?
No, he takes a deep breath and unties his apron, draping it over the back of a chair. Not this time.
A few minutes and a quick change of clothes later, Buck hurtles out of the front door of his apartment, desperate to be somewhere far, far away from the tomb he’s been living in.
The man in Buck’s arms leans closer, grinding against his thigh and sending a crackle of electricity up his spine. A groan escapes his lips, but it’s lost in the pulse of an afrobeat bassline that thrums through the air and coats his skin. They’ve been pressed together on the dance floor for at least three songs now, and Buck’s spent most of that time with his hands wrapped around the man’s waist, thumbs tracing over the strip of exposed skin below the hem of his crop top.
Buck’s never actually been to a gay bar before tonight, and he’d be lying if he said the idea hadn’t made him nervous. Despite spending over six months having regular sex with his boyfriend, the little voice in the back of his head has been hell-bent on convincing him he’s not “gay enough” to be here.
It didn’t help that Tommy hadn’t been a fan of doing anything even remotely associated with queerness. For all he opined about Buck’s tenuous “readiness” or “lack of experience”, the guy wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. The music is loud, the drinks are strong enough to kill an elephant, and the black-painted floor has a tacky quality that pulls at the soles of Buck’s Nike’s, trying fruitlessly to root him in place.
He loves it.
The fact that everyone here loves him is just a fun bonus.
Buck knows he’s hot, it isn’t exactly news, but the looks he’s gotten tonight have been hungrier than anything he’s ever seen before. He could feel eyes on him from the moment he walked in, tracking his journey from the bouncer to the bar, staring at his arms and his chest and his stomach without even a hint of shame. It feels good to be desired like this, to be seen as a pretty thing instead of a man with a mind and a life.
He’d barely gotten through his first drink – more vodka than soda – when the man in the crop top had wordlessly draped an arm around the back of his neck and pulled him to the dance floor. They never exchanged names – Buck wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the music even if he’d wanted to – but the guy is drop-dead gorgeous in a way Buck didn’t think was possible. His cheekbones are high and angular, with dark skin that glows under the shifting purple lights and a perfect fade cut into his hair.
The man – Crop Top – drops his chin and grinds again, looking up at Buck through thick lashes and fuck this is exactly what he needed tonight.
Throwing caution to the wind, Buck slides a hand up the back of Crop Top’s neck and scratches dull fingernails into the coarse stubble before dragging him into a kiss. It’s sloppy and passionate and hot, just barely tame enough for a public place with strangers pressed in on all sides, sharing sweat.
They keep at it for another song or two, slowly losing all composure under a haze of tongues and teeth, but eventually it becomes too much to contain. Crop Top pulls away first, breaking into a mischievous smirk, wicked in the dim club lights. He hooks his fingers through Buck’s belt loops and hauls him with surprising strength towards the bathroom, walking backwards all the way with practiced ease.
Crop Top weaves them through the crowd, pushing past glistening bodies and half a dozen blossoming flings. A few strangers give them cheeky nods and salutes as they pass, but Buck pays them no mind. His only focus is on those eyes and those lips and the fire in his gut as they stumble into an empty stall and lock the door behind them.
“Whaddya want, baby?” Crop Top purrs, lips brushing the shell of Buck’s ear and hand rubbing firmly against the front of his rapidly tightening jeans.
Buck squirms at the contact, tipping his head back to rest on the graffiti-covered wall, breath coming out as little more than a pant. “Anything,” he huffs. “Just don’t make me choose.”
“I can work with that.”
Before Buck can process what’s happening, Crop Top drops his head and sucks a bruise into the side of his neck. Their bodies are closer than they were on the dance floor, and Buck can feel every breath, every shift of muscle as Crop Top works his way down his chest, planting kiss after kiss on any exposed skin he can find.
With every bruise, every scrape of teeth, Buck can feel his mind slip further and further out of reality and into the pleasure. It’s heaven, it’s fire, fuck, it’s everything.
By the time he hears the zipper of his jeans slide open, sees the look on Crop Top’s face as he drops to his knees on the cracked tile floor, Buck’s on another plane of existence entirely. Nothing feels real, save the face in his hands, the mouth on his skin, and the lightning in his veins.
Perfect.
Buck stifles a yawn as he shuffles into the station. The fuzzy tinge of a hangover coats his tongue and presses at the back of his eyes, but his body feels loose and warm; more relaxed than he’s been in months. Even the slight ache in his leg fades into the background of his senses, awash in a satisfied haze. Going out the night before a twenty four hour shift is rarely a sound decision, but there’s no room left in Buck’s body for regret; only peace.
Golden light shines through the open bay doors as he crosses the threshold, glinting off polished chrome and illuminating the exhausted members of C-shift as they finish up the last of their chores. Buck’s over twenty minutes early – a habit drilled into him by Gerrard that he can’t seem to break – but he’s not the only one. A peal of laughter bounces past the glass wall of the locker room, and he follows, drawn to the sound of his friends.
“That is a bold-faced lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Chimney playfully accuses, pointing an open stick of deodorant at Eddie for emphasis. “No teenager willingly spends their free time playing chess.”
“Mine does,” Eddie shrugs, doing up the last few buttons on his uniform shirt and straightening out the cuffs of his short sleeves. The fabric hugs his bicep, squeezing the flesh of his arm as though it had recently shrunk in the wash. Buck knows he’s been hitting the gym more since Christopher left, but he hadn’t realized it had hit the point where Eddie needed bigger shirts.
“You’d be surprised, Chim,” Hen chuckles. She’s already dressed and ready for their shift, boots laced and shining, and a comfortable aura radiating out in all directions. “Denny’s school had to send an email out to the parents about how many students play chess on their phones during class.”
“What happened to teenage hijinx? What happened to fun?” Chimney gapes between Hen and Eddie in disbelief.
“Mark your calendar,” Hen points at her partner with mock stoicism. “In ten years I’m going to ask if you’d prefer Jee to be a troublemaker or a chess player.”
“He’s not gonna have a choice,” Buck finally interjects, setting down his duffel bag and reaching for his locker. “Jee-Yun’s a Buckley, trouble’s written into her DNA.”
“I’m praying she inherits Maddie’s sanity instead. Though the world better watch out if you ever have kids one day. They’ll be menaces.”
Chimney doesn’t mean it as an insult, not really, but the words slide past the glow of his good mood nonetheless; a knife between the ribs.
“You know it,” Buck manages to huff out a weak laugh, praying it’s enough to let the attention pass him by without a thorough examination. If anyone bothered to look even an inch below the surface, they’d see that Buck’s wanted a family for as long as he can remember. He even managed to carve one out for himself, for a time. But that dream is rapidly coming to an end, and he’s sworn to secrecy about the whole thing.
There’s next to no chance Hen or Chimney would be able to heal the ache Buck’s been carrying around for the last week, but keeping up the charade feels more than a little like drowning.
Even Christopher’s been kept in the dark about his father’s plans, but it’s not as though there’s any risk of Buck letting the truth slip to the kid. That would require them to be on speaking terms, now wouldn’t it?
Buck drops his eyes and unzips his bag, letting the conversation move on without him, familiar voices washing over the room like gentle waves. Dwelling on his loneliness – his jealousy over his friends and their families – won’t get him anywhere. Best to just accept his lot in life and try to make do.
“Looks like someone’s feeling festive,” Chimney says in a bubbly, sing-song voice. He reaches past Buck’s face and pulls a large tupperware of frosted snowman sugar cookies from his duffel. “Please tell me these are for us.”
Buck can’t help but smile at the shit-eating grin on Chim’s face. “Those are just for the three of you, and these,” he reaches back into his bag and pulls out two more identical tupperware, all filled to the brim with cookies, “are for the rest of the house. I learned my lesson with the banana bread.”
“It’s not my fault everyone else was too slow! I gave them ample warning to get up to the kitchen–”
“You gave them thirty seconds, Chim.” Eddie corrects without even turning around from the small mirror hanging in his locker, fussing with his already-perfect hair.
“Are you telling me a bunch of firefighters can’t climb a flight of stairs in thirty se–”
“Buck,” Hen interjects, unwilling to humor her partner’s weak justifications, “did you spend your whole forty-eight off baking Christmas cookies? It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.” She raises an eyebrow, concern evident in every aspect of her demeanor.
“They were the only cookie cutters I had,” Buck huffs defensively, standing up straight in an attempt to appear stronger than Hen’s withering gaze. It doesn’t work. “Look, I promise I actually left my apartment this time. I hung out at Eddie’s place–”
“That’s a given,” Chim says around a mouthful of cookie crumbs.
“–and I tried out a new bar out in WeHo.”
“WeHo, huh?” Hen slips into a sly smile, crossing her arms and cocking her head to the side playfully. “You finally gettin’ back on the horse?”
“Definitely not,” Buck scoffs, pulling his work clothes out of his duffel. “I have no interest in dating right now.” It’s the absolute truth, but Hen raises her eyebrow impossibly higher and peers at him over the rim of her glasses.
“What’s so special about WeHo?” Eddie stage whispers to Chimney, one hand reaching slowly past Chim’s chest to the tub of cookies clutched in his iron grip.
“Gay bars,” Hen says bluntly, without breaking eye contact with her queer protégé.
“Ah,” Eddie breathes.
“Oh!” Chim exclaims, a glimmer of hope in his eye. “Does this mean we’re finally done pining over Tommy?”
Buck considers this for a moment, undoing the top button of his shirt as he does. “Honestly, I haven’t thought about him all week.”
“Then who, pray tell, gave you this?” Hen reaches forward and pokes a finger into the base of Buck’s newly exposed neck, right above his collar bone. It hurts like a bruise, and the sensation replaces every rational thought in his mind with an all-consuming dread.
“Uh…”
Is this how deer feel, right before they’re hit by an oncoming car?
“You never got his name, did you?” Hen chuckles, retracting her hand.
“I mean, it was, uh, it was pretty loud in there,” Buck stammers. He reaches up to his neck, trying unsuccessfully to blindly locate the hickey. “I couldn’t really hear anything…”
The glint of Eddie’s mirror catches his attention, and he pushes past his partner to survey the damage. He tilts the door back and forth, looking at the circular red and purple mark from multiple angles. It’s been less than eight hours since he got the damn thing, how did he already forget that Crop Top had given him a hickey?
Wait, Buck freezes. He didn’t stop at my neck…
Deft fingers undo two more buttons, pulling his shirt into an exaggerated “v” and confirming the worst. Colorful splotches dot his chest, and if Buck’s memory serves, they won’t be contained to just the upper third of his torso.
“Shit,” he whispers, a prickle of shame creeping up the back of his neck.
Eddie turns his back on the scene with a huff, snatching the cookie tub from Chimney’s suddenly-slack grip.
“Oh my god,” Chim gasps. “He’s back.”
“Who’s back?” Eddie asks, glancing between Hen and Chimney.
“Buck 1.0,” Hen says, a smile in her voice.
“Oh come on, it was one hookup.” It’s a lie, he knows, but telling his friends about Stacy surely isn’t going to help his case right now. “I’m not the kind of guy who acts like an ass on calls and steals fire trucks anymore.” He slams Eddie’s locker closed, locking eyes with his partner in the reflection for a brief moment as the mirror swings out of sight.
“You stole a fire truck two months ago,” Chim offers before biting the head off of one of the sloppier-looking snowmen.
“No, Bobby stole a fire truck.” He makes it back to the safety of his own locker, facing away from his friends as he undoes the rest of his shirt buttons and shimmies out of the fabric. “At best, I was an accomplice.”
“Don’t you mean ‘at worst?’” Hen deadpans.
“Whatever…”
“Wait, back up,” Eddie interjects, his voice tinged with an air of incredulity. “You actually stole a fire truck?”
“Three times!” Chimney chimes in as Buck groans. “In one week!”
“Hey!” Buck calls over his shoulder, racing to cover the constellation on his chest as fast as his hands can manage. “One of those was sanctioned by the LAPD!”
“Eddie,” Hen challenges, “I know I’ve told you this story, why are you surprised now?”
“I thought it was some sort of probie hazing ritual, like you were trying to see how gullible I was. We did shit like that all the time in the Army.” Even without looking, Buck can practically see his friend shrug, an overdramatic frown almost certainly plastered on his face. “I never actually believed Buck managed to steal an Engine without losing his job.”
“I did lose my job,” Buck snaps reflexively. It’s too sharp, even to his own ears, and a tense silence falls over the room.
Shit.
Buck finishes up the last of his buttons and pulls a lighthearted smile from somewhere in the aether before spinning back towards his friends. “But only for an afternoon,” he quips, tone as light as he can manage. “Oh and Eddie, you might want to get your facts straight; it was a ladder truck, not an engine. Way harder to steal.”
“Bobby found you, like, immediately,” Hen scoffs, posture relaxing back into a casual slouch.
Eddie wrinkles his nose. “I still can’t believe you had sex in a ladder truck.”
“The truck didn’t deserve that,” Chimney teases. “You probably traumatized the old girl!”
“Yeah, well, she traumatized me right back,” Buck chuckles a little ruefully before taking a seat on the worn wooden bench and reaching for his shoelaces. “I think we’re even.”
The silence returns, thicker than before, and Buck can feel the weight of every concerned gaze pointed his way. He’s not trying to be morbid; it’s been years since the memory of the truck bombing sent him into any sort of spiral. Nowadays it’s just… life. Pain comes and goes, ebbing and flowing from one day to the next, woven into the rhythm of his routine.
Buck’s ankle throbs a little as he pulls off his sneaker – he really should have stretched this morning – but it’s almost negligible in the grand scheme of things. This doesn’t warrant his friend’s concern; he’s fine.
Thankfully, mercifully, Eddie understands.
“Look on the bright side,” his partner calls into the stifling quiet. Buck raises his gaze enough to catch a glimpse of Eddie’s lopsided smile. “I’m pretty sure our current truck’s safe from any future shenanigans. Wouldn’t want to risk the other leg now would we?”
Nobody laughs outright, but the steely tension in the air snaps like a cut wire. It’s remarkable, this sixth sense of Eddie’s; serious when Buck needs him to be, lighthearted when he knows Buck can take it. He almost never guesses wrong, like he understands the inner workings of his partner’s mind better than Buck himself.
What the fuck am I gonna do without him?
The thought muscles to the forefront of Buck’s head without warning, slamming into his skull hard enough to leave a ringing in his ears. His smile falters.
This isn’t the place for that, he scolds, fighting back against his subconscious. This isn’t the time. People are watching, damnit.
“Like I said,” Buck snorts, injecting a lighthearted lilt back into his voice, “I’m not that guy anymore. My ‘Buck 1.0’ days are long behind me.”
“For the sake of the men and women of Los Angeles,” Hen muses, closing her locker and squinting down at Buck with an amused expression, “they’d better be.”