Chapter Text
Buck can’t seem to make himself go inside.
He can’t walk away from the scene of the crime because if he does that means it’s really over. It’s done. Case solved. Another slaughtered relationship that meant too much to him, leaving him completely alone again.
Well, not completely.
He has Maddie, Bobby, Chim, Hen, Athena… a whole laundry list of people waiting to help him pick up the pieces. But for how long? One day, they will begin to leave, trickling off one by one.
Maddie and Chim will decide LA is not safe for Jee. Karen will decide she can’t handle almost losing Hen again and make her pick a different career. Life and kids will get in the way. Bobby will retire and they’ll move somewhere more affordable. Like Florida. Old people are always moving to Florida.
It’s inevitable. The proof is right there in the U-Haul that’s about to disappear around the corner. It has all of Eddie’s most prized possessions packed away, tucked tight and safe, and Buck’s not among the valued few. He is standing in the middle of the street, letting the rain soak him through to the bone.
Buck thought this time he really had something. He was holding on so tightly that he’s sure he left claw marks on Eddie’s skin.
It didn’t matter. It never fucking matters.
He turns toward the house.
The terrible thing is that feeling like this makes him a bad person. He’s hurt and betrayed and desperate and in agony over something that is better for Chris and Eddie. Chris can’t come home yet but Eddie can’t repair their relationship from eight hundred miles away. This makes the most sense for them. Eddie isn’t choosing to leave Buck, he’s choosing to go after his son.
Somehow, that does not make it hurt any less.
Buck imagines running into Kim one day. He imagines seeing her on the sidewalk and running her over with his stupid new truck. He imagines they get a call to her workplace and he refuses to help. He imagines she walks into his gym and he throws a dumbbell at her head.
These are not very charitable thoughts. They are not very Buck-like thoughts. If he were still seeing his therapist, she would say that he’s dysregulated. Buck would argue he has been dysregulated since he was born but who the fuck is counting.
Maybe Buck is just cursed. Or he is the curse. Maybe everything he touches will always dissolve and fizzle like some fucked up, reverse Midos. He should accept what is instead of trying so damn hard to create connections that he’s just going to demolish anyway.
Will anyone ever stay? Will anyone ever choose him? He was born unchosen and it seems he will die that way. There will always be something that matters more than him, always be some inevitable, unstoppable force severing every connection he tries to make.
“I’m sorry to tell you this way, but I can’t leave with you. For one crazy minute, I really thought I could do it. But then reality set in and I realized that my life is here. “
“I know it’s who you are, I’m just not sure if it’s who I am.”
Suitcases on the bed and closing airport doors.
A news article. Fiery hair disappearing out his door for the last time.
A funeral for a man who is like a mirror or a portal to a future. A prophecy that Buck cannot outrun.
A woman, wrapped in a shroud of death, pressing at his wound until he can’t take it anymore.
“I know how this ends. I’m not your last, I’m your first. If I moved in with you--you wouldn’t mean to, you wouldn’t plan for it--but you’d end up breaking my heart.”
Buck doesn’t remember making it into the house. It’s like he blinks, clearing the vision of every person who ever walked away, and suddenly he’s standing over Christopher’s bed. The dark blue comforter that Buck helped him pick out swims in his vision, blurred by unshed tears. He can hear the roaring of waves crashing over him. He can feel Chris’ tiny body curled in his arms, shaking from the cold and the wet but smiling into his collarbone all the same.
The noise that comes out of Buck is wounded and broken. He sinks slowly onto the bed before his knees can give out and drag him down against his will. He curls up on his side, arms around his midsection to keep himself together. It’s the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do.
Nothing has ever hurt this bad. Everyone he’s ever cared about has left, one way or another, but it never felt like this. He shouldn’t be surprised, though, should he?
Eddie was everything. He was comfort and safety and familiarity and family and home all wrapped up into one. Eddie wasn’t just his friend, he was Buck’s confidant and partner, the one place Buck felt safe to be truly himself. And, worst of all, Eddie had trusted him back. Eddie leaned on him for support just as much as Buck leaned on Eddie. Even after his countless mistakes, Eddie had still pressed Chris into Buck’s waiting hands.
I don’t trust anyone with my son like I trust you.
He’d carved a Buck-sized shape for himself into the Diaz household. He’d felt so sure of it. His place with them had become sacred, this one thing, these two people in the whole universe he trusted to always be there.
He should have known better. How many times did he have to learn this lesson? It was never different. He will never be different.
“I can’t do this again,” he sobs.
There is, as always, no one to hear his plea. He’s long accepted that there is likely no god listening either. It’s just him, alone in this house, begging the motes of dust and the pain in his chest to have mercy on him. He can’t stop himself from repeating this pathetic mantra, as though if he says it enough that will make everything go back to normal.
“I can’t do this,” he heaves into Chris’ pillow, turning his face into the fabric to muffle the sound of his own voice. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
How is he supposed to survive this? Eddie and Chris are everywhere . Chris’s drawings cover the fridge. He has framed photos of the two of them on nearly every available surface. Eddie still has a few pieces of clothing in the closet. There’s a copy of Eddie’s will in the fireproof safe under his desk.
Memories of Eddie are pressed into every inch of the firehouse like long-dead flowers enclosed between pages of a book. Every place Buck’s feet have touched so too have Eddie’s. The very air seems coated with Eddie’s oxygen like a permanent stain. Every time Buck takes a breath, it will be like dragging Eddie’s absence directly into his lungs, more poisonous than anything.
He can’t even leave LA this time. That used to be his usual pattern. He’d drift for a while, working odd jobs and moving on when the money started to run dry. Occasionally, he’d stick around a little longer because of some pretty girl who said his name with a smile. He’d stay only as long as that smile kept turning in his direction, like a sunflower reaching for the sun. And when the sun winked out of the sky, wilting, Buck would move on again.
It’s almost instinctive. This pain, while uniquely intense, is still familiar. It brings with it this innate sense that he should flee. The urge to rip up every one of his roots is a crushing weight over his ribcage.
He thinks through every item he owns; none of it is worth saving. He’d pack a duffel with the essentials and hit the road with whatever he has in his wallet. His passport is still valid… maybe he’d high-tail it all the way to Canada this time. Maybe Alaska.
It wouldn’t matter where, he just has to get away . Away from this feeling that’s crushing him from all sides. But he knows better, doesn’t he? He can run as far as he wants but this time the crushing sensation will follow him. Eddie and Chris changed something fundamental at the very core of his soul; a change that could never be undone. They are irrevocably tied to him and so now is the pain of their loss.
They are not dead. Quit acting like it.
No, they’re not dead, but he’s still lost them. Eddie promised, he swore up and down that they wouldn’t lose contact. He said he’d call him all the time, that they would video chat at least once a week. Buck believes that they’ll try but this isn’t his first rodeo. He knows long-distance never lasts, especially when Eddie has so much life to deal with.
A part of him just wants a clean break instead of dragging this out for the weeks or months it might take for Eddie to finally accept what Buck already knows. He’s not strong enough for the slow fade but he also doesn’t think he’s strong enough to tell Eddie he gives up either.
The only thing he can do is the one thing he’s always done.
Hold on until there’s nothing left to hold onto.
Buck lays on Chris’ bed for a long time, letting the tears wash over him and through him until his cup has run dry. It feels like it takes hours. His leg and back are aching, and there is nothing left inside of him. A numb sort of tingling sensation washes through him.
He doesn’t feel anything again for quite some time.