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In the immediate aftermath of the bomb explosion that had thrown Buck out of, and then under, the 118’s fire engine all those years ago, Buck had heard a loud ringing in his ears. It had been mostly in the background of his thoughts at the time. Sort of…

covered over

by everything else that had happened that night, and by everything that his body and mind had been struggling to piece together in the moment. Apparently exposure to loud noises can cause NIHL, noise-induced hearing loss, as well as tinnitus which can be present in the short term, or which can persist far longer afterwards.

And the tinnitus itself can sound like anything. It can sound like ringing, or it can be more like roaring, or it can feel like a sort of buzzing inside your ears that vibrates through the back of your skull. Buck, luckily, hadn’t had any significant long-term hearing loss as a result of that terrible day, but he had had tinnitus, and for him it just sounded like ringing.

Most of the time it was fairly dull, and easy to ignore. He would hear it when everything else was really quiet and, in his life, that sort of ‘really quiet’ environment was a rarity. In those rare times when it

was

quiet enough around him that the ringing was noticeable and annoying to him, like it sometimes was when he was trying to get to sleep in the loft at night, he would simply turn on the tv, or put some soft music on. It covered over the issue.

After the lightning strike, when his system was shocked, and the ringing had started up louder again, he read a tip online about rubbing the back of your neck, and drumming along the base of your skull with your fingertips. And it helped him, it really did. He recovered over time, and the noise in his ears got quieter again.

And it more or less stayed quieter for a long time.

But there, standing in Eddie’s kitchen, with the man’s tablet in his hands, and ‘Homes Dot Com’ opened to an array of houses that weren't built in any LA style he knew, the ringing seemed louder. Much louder. And Buck was struggling to put the pieces together over it.

"Oh... homes.com,” Buck heard himself say at the same time he noticed the ringing start back up again. “You're- you're thinking about moving?"

Eddie wasn’t meeting his eyes, and the ringing got louder. Buck started clocking things in bits and pieces, in the same way he did every time he felt his life start to crumble and he started to crumble along with it.

Eddie, not meeting his gaze.

Eddie, wearing a flattering purple button down, even though he liked to wear comfortable clothes at home.

The table with his basket of baked goods sitting on it which had been otherwise cleared off.

The light streaming in through the curtains behind him.

Eddie’s hunched posture, and nervous scent – both so unlike the alpha’s usual casual confidence and collected swagger.

Eddie’s wringing hands.

The tablet.

The tablet, which was opened to a website with a bunch of houses on it.

Buck tried to reign it in. He tried not to put the cart before the horse. This didn’t

mean

anything yet. He needed to focus, so he could hear Eddie’s words, since the man had started talking and Buck, presumably, ought to listen.

"I'm starting to think about it anyway,” Eddie said, answering Buck’s initial question. The one about him moving. “They've uh... in depth neighborhood overviews... Get a real feel for the area."

"Nice,” Buck forced himself to say around a nervous smile. “But where’re you gonna find a place in LA at

your

price point?"

"They're not in LA…” Eddie said, finally glancing up to meet Buck’s eyes. They were huge and brown and devastating as he opened his mouth again. “They're in El Paso."

Buck wasn’t entirely sure that he had heard the last bit, or if he had simply put the pieces together by that point. The conclusion,

they’re in El Paso,

seemed to be delivered to him in Eddie’s voice, but Eddie’s voice had long since incorporated itself into Buck’s inner monologue, and it was difficult sometimes to tell them apart. The Eddie in real life, and the Eddie in Buck’s head- And with the background noise in his ears so utterly

loud

by that point, it was nearly impossible to hear anything in the real world anyway.

"Wait are- are you serious?" Buck felt himself say, unsure of what his face was doing. He hoped he looked calmer than he felt.

From the answering look on Eddie’s face, he probably didn’t.

"I'm tired of missing out on all my son's big moments before he grows up," Eddie answered, his voice low and grave and… apologetic?

"Wow, uh,” Buck said, intelligently, before scrambling for more info. “So- so when would this be happening?"

The button-down…

The cleared off table…

Eddie’s nervous hands…

His unhappy scent.

"I have this virtual appointment with the real estate agent in a few minutes. Get the ball rolling," Eddie confirmed, his voice so, so quiet.

"Hence the button-down," Buck said, suddenly hating the nice shirt.

"Hence the button-down."

When Eddie had echoed it, he had done so with a smile. Buck tried to respond in kind.

"Well... we should move this party to the couch," Buck decided, suddenly hating Eddie’s cleared-off table and all the stupid, pathetic breads he had brought over. And the couch was… Eddie’s couch was always

safety,

ridiculous as that sounded. It was somewhere Buck could sit down, and breathe in the alpha. If Buck strained hard enough he could even sometimes catch a hint of Chris’s scent still clinging to the old fabric, even now-

"We?" Eddie asked, breaking into his thoughts and wading through the static.

"You're gonna need a wingman,” Buck replied over his shoulder. “Some of these places are tragic; I don't

trust

you to pick a nice one on your own."

Eddie smiled again, as Buck made a show of planting himself firmly on the couch. He smiled, like everything was going to be okay.

"Get you a cup of coffee," he said again,

again,

like things were going to work out.

And Buck smiled back.

And then Eddie turned.

And then Buck didn’t need to smile anymore.

But he only had a minute to freak out because after that Eddie was going to walk back into the living room, and sit down next to him with fresh coffee for him, and he was going to expect that Buck be normal, and helpful, and they were going to talk to a real estate agent about how Eddie was looking for a house in Texas. They were going to talk through the logistics of just how Eddie was going to leave him.

Except this wasn’t

about

him. No matter how much he tried to make this about him, this was about Chris. Eddie hadn’t seen Chris in months, except for through stilted texts, and brief, choppy video calls. It wasn’t… a pup needs his father. He needs his alpha, and he needs his pack. Most of Eddie’s family lived in El Paso. They had relocated to LA for a woman – Eddie’s late omega wife – who was no longer there. And Eddie was single now. He had no reason to stay. No reason at all.

Eddie finished with the coffee prep just a little bit faster than Buck had anticipated, and he hadn’t quite managed to back himself away from the ledge entirely before the alpha was suddenly appearing back at his side, and holding a mug down to him.

“Alright, Buck?”

“Ye- Yeah, fine! Totally fine, but hey! When does your appointment start?”

Eddie hummed as he sat down next to Buck, and leaned over to squint at the clock on the screen. Buck held his breath as the alpha leaned into his space, but if Eddie noticed, he didn’t mention it.

“We’ve got another 15 or so. Do you want to see the ones she sent over real quick first?”

“Absolutely. I gotta know what I’m up against here.”

Eddie laughed and leaned over to click back from the general listings and over to the initial list the agent had sent. He didn’t try to take the tablet and Buck, selfishly, did not offer it up. He wanted to do it. He had to… he had to help with this. Eddie was his best friend, not his alpha, but Buck felt the need to help him anyway. The urge to be useful. And Chris, who this whole move was for, was the closest Buck would likely ever have to a pup of his own. He wasn’t,

to be clear,

Buck’s pup. But it had kind of felt like he was… at least before.

Christopher would be taken care of… by you.

Eddie had said that to him. He’d sounded like he’d meant it too.

Buck blinked away tears, determined to stay tethered in the present, and clicked on the first house.

Then made a face and swiped away before even getting into the details on the place while Eddie sat at his side and laughed.

“That one was too…”

“Yeah, I know. I thought the same.”

“And

this

one-”

“I

know.”

“This

one is too much for you.”

“That’s what I said!” Eddie said, with another short laugh.

The move flashed all of his sharp, white teeth, and Buck had to turn and glue his eyes back onto the tablet. He couldn’t… he shouldn’t look at his best friend like that. Hell, when he’d shown up to his house today, it was because he’d used up all the stock in his kitchen mourning the loss of a different alpha. And that was-

he

was the one he was supposed to be missing. The one he did miss.

Well, evidently he could miss more than one person at a time. Evidently he was going to have to.

“Do you like that one then?” Eddie asked, his voice once again cutting through the noise in Buck’s head. “You’ve been staring at it for a minute. Do you… should I ask about that one?”

“What? No, no. God, no. Look at the roof on that one,” Buck said, pointing with his free hand. “The cost of redoing the roof alone would probably be-”

“I only asked because you were staring at it,” Eddie cut in, ducking his head as though to meet Buck’s eyes.

Buck did not let him have it. He couldn’t… Eddie needed to focus on the houses. His meeting started in 4 minutes, and Buck definitely did not need to be taking him away from it.

“Are you sure you’re alright-”

“Did you see any that you were leaning toward?”

Eddie frowned. Buck didn’t need to be able to hear to see it out of the corner of his eye.

“Not yet, but this is just a preliminary sort of meeting. These aren’t exactly a part of a highly filtered list yet-”

“Right, great, so what is the meeting in?”

“Uh, there’s a link to it in my email. Let me just…”

Buck turned the screen but didn’t hand it over, and Eddie, once again, didn’t ask him for it. He simply pulled up the link and joined the meeting. A minute later and the real estate woman joined as well. She was young and pretty, probably an omega based on the way she held herself. Not that that really mattered, except to remind Buck that he was

also

an omega, and Eddie was very clearly an alpha, and the fact that he was helping him look for homes with a real estate agent would look a certain way, and would lead to some certain assumptions.

As it turned out, Buck had nothing to fear, at least in that regard. Eddie introduced him as his friend, and the woman smiled at him politely before launching into the meat of the appointment. She didn’t say much to him, which was good because the ringing had gotten even louder as she and Eddie talked about what he was looking for in a place. Buck threw in an additional feature here and there. He wanted to make sure the doorways would be wide enough to accommodate Chris’s mobility aids. The house needed to have floors his crutches wouldn’t slip on. It needed to have a decent-sized kitchen.

The kitchen was actually the only thing Buck said that Eddie contradicted him on. He said he didn’t mind what size the kitchen was, because he really didn’t do much cooking anyway. He wasn’t rude about it by any means, but it reminded Buck, quite suddenly, that he wouldn’t be there cooking for Eddie. He had, in a moment of incredible forgetfulness, forgotten that this wasn’t for him too.

He didn’t say a word for the rest of the appointment. He smiled when Eddie and the woman smiled. He nodded when Eddie did. He tried, very hard, to look like he was listening, and being a ‘wingman,’ and taking the matter seriously.

But the ringing… the ringing was so damn loud. And Buck couldn’t even use his little internet trick – the tapping on the back of his head – because he was on camera, and that would be weird. So he was stuck pretending. Pretending he could hear, and pretending Eddie’s thigh wasn’t hot against his, and pretending that he was totally fine with the fact that Eddie was evidently a little further along in the decision to leave him than just ‘starting to think about it anyway.’

Buck was fine, fine, fine.

The meeting was wrapping up, and the agent offered, very reasonably, to send the listings for the houses she found which met their criteria to both Eddie and to his friend Buck. There was no insinuation to her words. She didn’t offer like she thought they were looking for a home together. She just offered to keep Buck in the loop.

Buck unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth enough to decline.

“I don’t need to see them. It’s Eddie- It’s just Eddie you need to send them to. Just his email.”

Eddie turned to him, and Buck got the feeling he was trying to catch his eyes again.

“You don’t want her to send them to you too?”

I don’t want her to send them at all,

Buck desperately thought, but didn’t dare say.

I just wish Chris would come back here instead.

It was selfish. It was counterproductive.

“No, I mean… I’m over here all the time anyway, and you can always show me the ones you like if- if you want.”

Eddie’s face flickered strangely, before he seemed to remember he was still in a video call, and it smoothed right back out.

“Alright, well that should do it then. Thank you so much for your time. Uh, you have my email, and my cell…?”

“Yep! I have both of those already,” the woman said, with a polite, unbothered smile. “I think I have what I need to help you narrow it down, Mr. Diaz, and I’ll be in touch! Have a great weekend.”

“Ah, you too,” Eddie said, finally taking the tablet from Buck’s hands. “Bye now.”

The screen went dark, and Eddie swiped back to his email. He slid his hand up and clicked the tablet off a second later.

There was a beat of silence and then-

“So you

don’t

want to be my wingman here then?”

Buck let out a quick breath.

“No, yeah. Yeah, of course I do. I just didn’t want… you know.”

Eddie blinked at him nonplussed before seeming to realize Buck wasn’t going to continue unprompted.

“No, I don’t know. What is the issue here, Buck, because I thought-”

“Eddie, you’re an alpha,” Buck said, watching Eddie’s face pinch tight in confusion.

“Yeah? So what-”

“So I am not your omega. I’m your friend, and this isn’t… that’s not what she is gonna think. An alpha and an omega who are friends looking for a house together. Not that- not that we

are

together, I’m just saying that it would

look

that way-”

Eddie waved him off and, since he was pretty solidly in ‘putting his foot in his own mouth’ territory, Buck let himself be waved off.

“Buck, I don’t care what she thinks. And besides, she doesn’t know I’m an alpha. I only just met with her virtually, remember?”

Buck groaned but Eddie continued anyway.

“And even if she

did

assume we were a couple, which again would be on her, what makes you assume she’d think I was the alpha. Maybe I’m your omega,” Eddie said, a blush creeping up across his face at his own words, even as he doubled down harder. “You’re taller than me anyway.”

The way he said it was with such an earnest expression, like he wasn’t

actually

trying to get Buck’s heart to give out, and Buck couldn’t believe he would be losing this soon. He just… it was like he couldn’t wrap his head around it, even as a sinking chasm had already opened itself up in his chest and dropped his heart down to the ground.

“And bigger,” Buck said, trying to smile convincingly around the terrible, eating feeling. “Don’t forget I’m bigger than you too.”

“I’ve been working out. Getting a little bigger.”

“Yeah, but I’ve still got you beat.”

“Yeah you do.”

The pair lapsed into silence again, before Eddie decided to press a little harder. A little

too

hard, on a spot that was still tender. Something that was really just starting to bleed… Buck picked up on it in his scent before he even opened his mouth.

But open his mouth he did.

“Buck, the move… it isn’t-”

“It’s for your son,” Buck said, cutting him off, before he could utter any variation of the sentiment ‘it’s not about you’ to him. Like that would be any comfort right now. “It is for Christopher. I get it. You should be with him. He’s your pup; he needs you.”

Eddie’s hand came up as though he were going to set it on the join of Buck’s neck and shoulder, and Buck quickly twisted and stood, moving away. Backing out. Of his house. Of his life. He had to… he had to go.

“Buck-”

“Go get your son, Eddie. I have to- I’ll see you back at the station.”

“What? We don’t even go in again until Tuesday.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got-” Buck’s voice choked on the word ‘plans,’ because he clearly didn’t have plans anymore. Tommy had dumped him. Eddie was leaving. Who the hell would he have

plans

with? “Shopping! Gotta stock back up on flour. I think I’m out of eggs again too. Brown sugar. Maybe molasses.”

“Buck, you really don’t have to go-”

“I’ll be- Send me any houses you find. Ones that you like…”

Eddie said something in response. Buck knew he did, because he saw his lips move. He didn’t

hear

the response, because the ringing was so loud it drowned him out. For the first time ever, Buck couldn’t hear him past it, and also for the first time he didn’t really try to.

What he did instead was exit the house, approach his car at the fastest pace he could take that was shy of running, and drive back to his loft. He left his basket. He left all the bread, even though Eddie clearly couldn’t finish it all on his own.

The ringing in his ears stayed long after he had gotten home. Buck played his music extra loud to get to sleep that night.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chimney was on top of the world.Like, Keanu Reeves as rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah jumping out of a plane in Point Break (1991) level ‘on top of the world.’Things at the firehouse had finally returned to normal with Bobby back in the captain’s chair where he belonged. Buck’s boyfriend had become his ex-boyfriend, which meant they had an excuse to once again fall conveniently out of contact with Tommy. His best friends got their daughter back and Denny had made a full recovery from the accident, which meant the whole Wilson clan were healthy and thriving. He had a beautiful (gorgeous, smart, funny… did he mention beautiful?) omega wife who was pregnant with his kit. Everything was really, really great. The timing was even great too, what with Buck’s post-breakup baking kick coming right at the perfect time to satisfy his beautiful (amazing, brilliant, sexy) wife’s pregnancy cravings. The most recent thing for her had been Buck’s cinnamon bread – the kind with the sugary swirl in it, and all the crunchy, caramelized nuts on top. Ever since she’d scarfed half a loaf down during what was supposed to have been a quick stop by his apartment to check in, Buck had been baking a lot of it, and for her, specifically. And now Chim, the loving husband he was, had gotten up early and was stopping by the apartment to pick some more up for her. If he was quick, he’d be able to get to Buck’s apartment and back, and still make it to the station in time for his shift. He would get brownie points with Maddie for doing something nice (no less than his beautiful, incredible, goddess-like wife deserved), Buck would get to offload some of his stress-baked products, and Maddie would get something delicious to take with her to the call center for lunch. It was wins all around.Chim had borrowed Maddie’s key to the apartment for the purposes of the aforementioned bread acquisition, though he still knocked first before going in.And then knocked again when he got no answer.And texted Buck. Nothing long; just a quick ‘stopping by. don’t be naked’ text to razz his brother-in-law.And then knocked a third time.“Alright, Buck. You leave me no choice,” Chim called through the door, flicking through his keys for the one he’d borrowed from Maddie. “I’m breaking in!”Movement out of the corner of his eyes had Chim turning, and his smile dropping. It was an elderly woman wearing a pink sweater and a horrified expression. One of Buck’s neighbors… who now thought he was breaking into an unmated omega’s apartment.Of all the times to be grateful he wasn’t an alpha… Hell, he’d probably already have had the cops called on him if he was one.“Wait, wait,” Chim stammered. “It was a joke. See, this is my brother-in-law’s place. I’m not breaking in! I have a key!”Chim held up the key with a nervous smile, and the woman’s expression faded from horror into sharp irritation and disapproval. She turned away with a huff before Chim could explain himself further, and Chim turned back to the door with a sigh. He let himself in, his optimism for the day already soured. “Buck?” Chim called up to the loft without looking at it. “I think I ticked off one of your neighbors. Any chance you have any apology muffins or something I could…”Chim trailed off as he took in the kitchen. There was a mountain of dirty dishes, pots, spoons, and mixers all piled up in and around the sink, and all with caked on food and batter, like they had been sitting there for days. A cursory glance around the rest of the counter showed piles of discarded cookies and breads, strewn aside with little care. The loaf closest to Chim on the counter was molding. The one next to it was molding too.“... bring over,” Chim finished quietly to himself as his distraction turned over into worry, and a stone of dread sank in his stomach. “Buck?”“Chim?”Chim’s eyes snapped up to the loft where Buck was there, standing in a hoodie and gym shorts at the top of the staircase.“What- what are you doing here?” Buck asked, his voice disoriented as though he’d just woken up. “Is everything okay? Is it Maddie? S- something with the baby?”“No, no, everything’s fine,” Chim reassured him quickly before switching gears. “But I’m not so sure it is for you.”  Because even halfway across the apartment, and nearly a floor above him, Chim didn’t like what he was seeing. Buck’s stubble was grown out even more than what had become the new normal for his brother-in-law’s face in the wake of his breakup. His hair was greasy too, the curls matted down in some spots, and hopelessly frizzy in others. His face was pale, and there were bags under his eyes which frankly weren’t helping his complexion. Overall, Buck looked more like he’d just gotten off of a 48-hour shift, rather than about to go on one, and he didn’t look any better as he descended the stairs and got closer.Chim went to say as much, when Buck quickly cut in. “What? No, I’m- It’s all good here. I’m… totally good.”“Yeah, because people who are totally good tend to describe themselves as being ‘totally good,’” Chim half-joked, feeling the unease in his stomach sink deeper between the dishes, his appearance, and now his squirrely demeanor. “Is this about Tommy?”Buck hesitated a fraction of a second too long for the answer to be a simple affirmative.“Uh, yeah,” Buck agreed, half-heartedly “It’s- it’s been weird not having him around. Knowing that he’s not going to be around here anymore. Possibly forever… It’s been lonely, you know?”“Rrrright,” Chim said, not believing that that was the whole story for a second. “Yeah, break-ups are tough…” Which he would have meant whole-heartedly, except this wasn’t- this didn’t feel like it was about Tommy. For starters Buck had never seemed this bad before, even immediately following the break-up when the hurt and shock were at their peak. Sure, he’d been upset, and baking away his feelings, but this felt different. It felt deeper. His dishes weren’t washed. He wasn’t washed… And, further evidence considered, it didn’t look like Buck had baked anything in days. All this stuff on the counters and table was at least 3 days old. Maybe 4-5 for the moldy bread.As a beta Chim couldn’t really get a good sense of where Buck’s head was at through his scent, unless he wanted to get closer than either of them would be comfortable with and take a deep, deep breath. With few other alternatives, Chim took a breath and prepared for battle.He could practically hear the pushback to the question he started with before he’d even finished voicing it.“Are you sure you’re alright?” “Yep! I’m handling it-”“-’cause if you aren’t, you know you can always come and stay with us for a few days-”“I don’t think-”“-and you know Maddie wouldn’t mind either. She loves having you to babysit-”“I really don’t need to invade your guys’s space-”“-as long as you don’t mind that our ‘guest bedroom’ is the couch-”“Chim-”“-and ‘wake up’ time is whenever Jee gets up and decides it is time for you and her to watch Paw Patrol together-”
“Chim.”
Chim paused and Buck did too. Their verbal battle came to a tenuous ceasefire, though they still eyed each other warily.“Buck…?” Chim prompted when Buck didn’t immediately speak.Buck sighed, and his shoulders slumped. His head tipped just a smidge to the side, turning the move into an omega’s gesture. Into a peace offering.“I’ll be fine, Chim. Really. I just need some space, alright? It’s just a rough patch,” Buck said softly before looking back at him.Chim worried at the inside of his cheek with his teeth, still feeling like he was missing something important. Still feeling that there was more to this story, and that ignoring it would be akin to writing off a rotten board as a cosmetic issue when really termites had eroded the entire framework of a house.Buck, ever more perceptive than they gave him credit for, noticed his skepticism and fell back on an old Buckley tactic.He redirected.“But, hey!” Buck said, his strange mood dissolving as he became all hand gestures and smiles. “You- you must have come here for cinnamon bread then, right? For Maddie. Uh, I don’t have… much in the way of new stuff, but there is definitely a loaf or two of it still in the fridge, and they should still be good…”Buck stepped quickly around him with a newfound energy, and in the blink of an eye he was pulling open the fridge and hunching his massive frame over to rifle through it. By the time he turned back to face him, he was holding a cling wrapped loaf which, upon fleeting inspection, did indeed appear to still be good. “And you were saying something about muffins? I think?” Buck asked, turning back to the fridge immediately after he had pawned off the loaf, and before Chim could get a good look at his face. “What kind of muffins were you looking for?”“Oh, uh, the muffins weren’t for me,” Chim admitted with a wince. “I inadvertently ticked off your neighbor, and was hoping to win my way back into her good graces with apology carbs.”Buck turned back to him with a half-smile, and Chim felt some of the tension he’d been holding ease at the genuine amusement in the expression.“What did you do to my neighbor? And which one?”So, Chim told him about the run-in with the neighbor, and spared no expense of detail. Despite the interaction having taken place roughly within the span of 30 seconds, Chim stretched the retelling out for ages. Buck laughed at him, and Chim let the sound reassure him. This was normal Buck, teasing him about offending his nosy neighbor, and taking the laugh at his expense. The good news for him was that Buck wasn’t close with that particular neighbor, nor was he annoyed with Chim for bothering her. The bad news was that he didn’t have any muffins in the fridge for Chim to take. Also Buck was pretty sure she was strictly vegan which ruled out… most of the contents of the fridge pastries.They ended up deciding that Chim would just apologize again the next time he saw her, but otherwise would leave it at that. It wasn’t like he had really been doing anything wrong anyway. And actually maybe the woman should apologize to him for being so nosy.The conversation and bantering had gotten so light, and normal, that Chim nearly forgot how not-normal it had been when he’d arrived at the apartment until he went to leave.And Buck seemed to, all at once, deflate.“You’re leaving already?” Buck asked, with a strange sort of almost-nervousness.Chim felt the nagging unease from before creep back in. The feeling that he was missing something major here. His eyes flicked unthinkingly up to the loft. The omega’s bed was piled high with pillows and clothing. He tucked away the observation for later examination.“Buck, it’s getting late. We’ve got a shift in… shit. 34 minutes,” Chim said, frowning down at his phone. “You think I still have time to make it back to the house before heading to the station? Probably not, right?”“A shift,” Buck echoed quietly to himself, like he was puzzling through the meaning of the words in real time, before his eyes went wide. “It’s Tuesday already. Shit. Okay, yeah. Uh… you would probably be a few minutes late but, uh, Bobby wouldn’t mind.”“You’re right, he wouldn’t. Good thing Bobby’s back in the captain’s chair, huh? Team’s all back to normal again. Buys me a grace period,” Chim said, tucking his phone back in his pocket, and shuffling the loaf under the other arm.
If he took the more direct route home he’d probably run into traffic. Taking the backroads would be longer, but with less stop and go it’d probably be better overall. It was risky, because if too many others took the backroads as was sometimes the case it would set him even further back, but it was a risk he just might have to take-
“Yeah,” Buck said, his voice so low Chim almost missed it as he ran through his options. “All back to normal.”Chim paused, his body having brought him to the door on autopilot. His free hand was hovering over the handle.“Buck-”“I’ll see you at the station. You gotta go, and I need to get ready.”Chim hesitated for just another second.“You sure you’re alright?” “Go, Chim,” Buck said, smiling. “You’ve got a different Buckley to take care of.”“A Han,” Chim said, a dorky grin undoubtedly spreading itself across his face at the fact that Maddie was his now. His beautiful (talented, incredible, hilarious)- “And I owe you one.”“No you don’t. I baked it for her. You’re delivering it for me. Doing me a favor.”Chim shot him a one-handed finger gun before he was out the door and racing for his car. The second he was on a relatively straight stretch of road, he dialed Maddie’s number.She picked up on the third ring.“Chim? What’s going on? Where are you?” Maddie asked, the sounds of Jee and the dreaded Paw Patrol both on in the background. “Snuck out without even saying good morning to me.”The way she pitched her voice down low and suggestive toward the end had heat pricking around his collar, and had him really regretting leaving early for bread of all things. He should get the recipe from Buck and learn to make it himself. Keep his early mornings spent in bed… Buck. Right. Not getting distracted.“I went to your brother’s place to get that bread you like for your lunch-”“Aww, Chim-”“I think something’s wrong with him.”There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line following a tiny “Uncle Buck?” in the background, and Chim bit his lip, deciding to take the longer route home. The traffic was already looking bad on the main stretch. He should have had Maddie take him off speakerphone first. When Maddie spoke again Chim couldn’t hear Jee or the tv playing in the background.“What’s wrong?”“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me.”“Okay, and? What did you see? You wouldn’t be calling me if you hadn’t seen something.”Chim bit his lip again. It sounded so stupid. Him jumping to conclusions again.“It’s just- His dishes weren’t done, and he looked like he’d been through the wringer when I got there. He looked nervous. He hasn’t been baking…”“And?” Maddie asked, waiting him out while he waffled on whether or not to tell her the last bit he might have, might not have seen.Except she was his omega and his wife. Of course he would tell her everything.“And up in the loft… I could only see it from the kitchen, but it looked almost like the start of a nest.”“A nest?” Maddie asked, sounding confused. “He’s not due for leave for-”“Four months yet, I know.”There was another pause over the line and Chim switched lanes, finally getting out from behind the slow-moving minivan he’d been trapped behind for the past several minutes.The thing was that nests for omegas served two main functions. The first was, naturally, for omegas to spend their heats in. It was something that soothed their instincts to den down somewhere safe during a fairly vulnerable time, though studies showed it had beneficial impacts for people regardless of their designation. Some studies even suggested that they increased fertility, and the likelihood of pregnancy both during and immediately after a heat spell, although the data for it was less clear.The second function of a nest was comfort, though that term could be slightly misleading. An off-heat nest was less a ‘comfort’ in the way that a warm blanket was a comfort, and was more a ‘comfort’ in the way that it was a lifeline. A nest could signal depression, or fear. It could be telling of deep felt discomfort, and an omega that was self-soothing. “Could this be about Tommy still?” Maddie asked, softly. Her voice suggested that she already knew the answer.“I don’t think so.”“So something else is going on.”Chim didn’t respond. He didn’t need to; it wasn’t a question.Maddie sighed.“Alright, well… we’ll just have to keep an eye on him then, right? A closer one. He’ll tell us what is happening sooner or later. He doesn’t- he’s not like me that way.”“Maddie-”“It’s okay,” Maddie cut in, sounding like she meant it. “Just… promise me you’ll look out for him today? Maybe get Hen to help you.”“You know I will,” Chim promised. “We’ll take good care of him.”The conversation wrapped up shortly after that, with Chim letting Maddie know he was stopping by the house quick before work for the drop-off, and with Maddie then teasing him for being a bad boy showing up late to work. When he arrived home, his ‘in and out’ plan was derailed by Jee-Yun giving him the world’s longest goodbye hug, though it was still worth it to see his baby girl, and to be able to give Maddie the bread she had been craving for days.After that he drove to the station. He got there 20 minutes late.He locked eyes with Buck who appeared to have taken it upon himself to distract Bobby until he got there.And he hoped for an easy day.

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Buck knew it was going to be a bad shift even if the calls they got the entire time they were on duty stayed relatively simple and run-of-the-mill, and this was in part because there were a million small things that went wrong that morning before the shift even really got started. First, he didn’t have any fresh bread for Maddie so he had to give Chim some for her that was a few days old (still good, but not great like fresh would have been), then he had forgotten to charge his phone the night before so his battery was sitting at around 20% for the whole shift, then he got cut off in traffic by some aggressive knothead driver and was stuck behind them and their shitty driving half the way back to the station… the list went on. And none of those things would have bothered Buck half as much on a normal day.But this wasn’t a normal day.Because Eddie was leaving.Eddie leaving meant that every shift they worked together would be one of their precious last. It meant that every second and every minute needed to be the best seconds and minutes ever, because he wouldn’t get another chance to enjoy them the same. Not when his alpha best friend was moving to Texas, and his pup best friend’s awesome kid was already in Texas and was looking to stay there. Chris was settling in. Making a life there. Of course, Eddie wouldn’t take him away from that. Eddie was such a good alpha, and a good father.One who also had arrived to the station late that day. Buck had distracted Bobby, yapping his ear off about sea plankton while the captain kindly half-listened, in order to give Chim an opportunity to sneak in and get ready for the shift; it was Buck’s fault he was late after all. He owed him.He hadn’t realized that he would need to cover for Eddie too though, so when Buck finally spotted Chim, and let Bobby politely end their mostly one-sided conversation, Bobby immediately locked onto Eddie who was sneaking toward the locker room still in his civvies. 25 minutes late.“Diaz, you’re late,” Bobby called across the way, in his usual ‘you’re in trouble’ sort of tone.Buck watched Eddie wince halfway across the station at hearing it before he quickly straightened up. “Sorry, sir. I overslept.”“You’re on hose maintenance and you’re last in, so you know what else that leaves you with.”Eddie’s shoulders slumped just the littlest bit at the news he’d likely already been expecting it. Not enough that anyone else would have noticed, but Buck did. It was the closest Eddie ever got to pouting at work.“I’ll have the restrooms looking ship-shape, sir,” Eddie said in a resigned tone, before something flashed across his face and he was straightening even further. “Actually, Bobby, could I talk to you first? I actually wanted to get in early to discuss something with you, but I missed my alarm this morning.”“Sure,” Bobby said, easily. “You want to step into the office?”Eddie’s eyes flicked over to him, and Buck felt pinned like a butterfly in a shadowbox. His gaze was only on him for a second, but Buck felt like he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t interpret the expression lingering in the corners of Eddie’s eyes and mouth, even though he could always read the other alpha like an open book, and he couldn’t breathe.Except, yes he could.And he was.And because he could breathe, and because he was breathing, he had to stand there and listen as Eddie agreed, and took the offer to speak in the privacy of the captain’s office. “Yes, please. That’d be great.”Buck felt like he was going to be sick.As he watched Eddie follow Bobby back to his office, it felt like the Christmas party all over again. It felt a little like that awful, in-between moment when he and Hen had seen Eddie pulling Bobby aside to tell him about leaving the 118, but they hadn’t quite known what they were looking at yet. They hadn’t quite known what they were losing. Only this time Buck knew already, and he knew that he’d be losing him a lot more permanently this time. This wasn’t some rash decision made because Eddie was flailing. This was for Christopher. This was deliberate.“What do you think that is about?” Hen asked, still in that suspended moment unaware, and wandering over casually with a mug of fresh coffee from the loft. She pulled to a stop at his right, just barely in his peripheral.Chim joined her at his other side a beat later, also carrying a coffee.“Don’t know. Maybe he’s asking for some time off.”
To put it mildly.
“Mmh. Chris is still in Texas, right?” Hen asked, rhetorically, taking a sip of her drink. “More likely he’s asking for more time on.” Chim responded with something quippy, probably, and Hen responded after that too, and they both kept sipping their coffees, but the words they were saying seemed muddled and fuzzy. The ringing was there in his ears, and Buck wondered how long it had been there for. Maybe it had been there when he was convincing himself he couldn’t breathe when really he could. Maybe it had just been pressed quiet into the background like normal.“Buck?” One of them asked.“I think if it were our business he would tell us,” Buck heard himself say, his voice far less normal than he would have intended it to be, if he had dedicated any amount of time to thinking about it before his mouth was opening and the words were pouring out. “I think he’ll tell us.”He didn’t have to turn to look at either of them to know they were shooting each other one of their classic wordless glances. Hen probably had an eyebrow raised. Chim probably had both raised.Hen broke the beat of silence first.“So, you definitely already know. So spill it.”“Hen-”“Spillll,” Hen said, her voice light and teasing at the same time it was demanding. “Spill spill spill spill spill. Come on, I know you want to tell us.”“I really don’t think-”“I know you, Buck Buckley. I know you know, and I know you want to tell us what’s going on with Eddie because you’re-”“Hen,” Chim cut in, his tone strangely serious and his defensiveness uncharacteristic. Like somehow he already knew what Eddie was talking about with Bobby; Buck hadn’t told a soul. “Buck’s right. Eddie’ll tell us if it’s something we need to know.”Hen paused as she considered the out of place response, and Buck carefully did not look at her while she did so.“Nnnnno. That’s not how we do things here. We push, we pry, we…” she said slowly, her tone bleeding from amusement to confusion before it suddenly softened. “Buck, are you-”“Eddie,” Chim cut in again, drawing the trio’s attention to where Eddie and Bobby were stepping back out of the captain’s office.The conversation between the men had been fast. Buck’s stomach twisted and flopped at the reminder, once again, of just how serious Eddie was about this decision. It was… great for Christopher. He would have his dad with him again. Of course Eddie wouldn’t drag this whole ordeal out forever.The younger alpha made a beeline straight for them, while Bobby hung back a bit to watch. Buck forced himself to look anywhere in the firehouse other than his captain and his best friends, and ended up watching a rookie polish the bumper on their engine. It was the coward’s way out, but he did it because he knew he would lose his shit if he looked at Eddie or Bobby’s sad eyes while he delivered the news to everyone, and he could not make this about him.And anyway the rookie was doing a good job on the bumper. If the conversation that was happening around him weren’t happening, he might have complimented her on her work.“When do you leave?” Hen asked, either her voice or the question cutting through the static in Buck’s head enough for him to hear it.“As soon as possible,” Eddie replied. “I’ve been looking at homes. Buck’s been helping me… as soon as I can get a place settled, I’ll be transferring to a station in El Paso. It could be a few weeks. Could be sooner…” “And you can’t bring your son back here?” Hen asked, her voice soft. Sympathetic. She understood better than him the pain of being separated from one’s kid, and having to watch someone else raise them.Eddie shook his head. Buck didn’t see it, too busy watching the rookie wring her rag back out into the bucket. The bumper had been dirtier than Buck gave it credit for being. It looked great now.“He’s happy there. He’s made friends. Joined clubs…”“He did that here too.”Eddie smiled. Buck still didn’t look. He still knew it happened. It was the small smile – the one Eddie did when he was sad, but trying to be brave so that nobody would worry. Buck had always wished he would just let himself be sad. Maybe it would have made things easier if he didn’t need to be strong all the time.“He’s built a life for himself there,” Eddie replied, his voice equal parts proud and quietly wounded. “I don’t want- I can’t take that away from him.”The rookie stood from the crouch she’d been in, taking the bucket and rag with her. Buck didn’t hear a single other word in the conversation, and mechanically excused himself to get some coffee when he felt something — a hand, maybe — brush against the outside of his arm. There wasn’t any coffee left in the loft when he got there. Whoever had taken the last mug hadn’t bothered to start a new pot.So Buck didn’t bother either. He just sat with his mug at an empty table until the alarm sounded, or until someone came by to ask him about his chores. Whichever came first. _ _ _ Eddie told the team about the move. In all honesty he was… a little surprised by their surprise. He hadn’t exactly told Buck to tell anyone, but he had assumed that Buck would talk to his sister, who would talk to Chim, who would rope in Hen, and one way or another it would reach back around to Bobby before he even arrived to work with the decision. He expected to be grilled the second he walked into the fire station.Though, he hadn’t thought it would be for being late. He’d been exhausted, looking at a barrage of possible houses, and sending them back and forth with Buck all weekend, and he’d simply slept through his alarm. And it wasn’t like there was anyone else in the house with him to catch it. Not with Chris gone, Carla no longer needed, and Buck suddenly busy for the entire long weekend. Not that any of them were responsible for him, of course. It was his own fault he was late - nobody else’s.But when they’d stepped into Bobby’s office, and Eddie told him about the move, the captain’s eyebrows had shot up in surprise, and he knew that Buck hadn’t told him yet.“El Paso?”“Yep,” Eddie agreed, forcing a confident smile. “That’s where Chris and my parents are, so that’s where I’m meant to be.”Bobby nodded, bringing his hands together and resting his elbows on the desk.“Is that where you want to be?” He asked, simply.He knew the answer already. Eddie knew it too, but he wouldn’t give either of them the satisfaction, or, perhaps more accurately the pain, of hearing it voiced aloud.“I want to be with my son, and I can’t- I’m tired of missing out on my son’s life. I screwed up, I know, but it’s been…” months. “I can’t let the gap between us grow another inch.”Bobby made a face, and Eddie explained.“Yeah that was- It was some advice I got. Really helped me put this whole thing into perspective.”“Advice from whom?”“Another father missing his kids.”The confused look on Bobby’s face didn’t change, and Eddie sighed.“Brad was the one who told me that,” Eddie said, watching as Bobby visibly aged in front of him.“Eddie-” “Look, I know how you feel about him, and I know the guy’s a bit…”Bobby cleared his throat.“Eccentric?”“Eccentric,” Eddie repeated, smiling just a little at the pained look on Bobby’s face. “But he’s not wrong about this. I don’t want to miss out on being a part of my pup’s life.”“You are a part of his life, Eddie, and believe me when I tell you, you are nothing like Brad. I just wonder if you need to move to El Paso to be that ‘bigger part’ that you want to be for him, and if that’s even the solution here.”“He has family there,” Eddie said, regurgitating the same lines he’d repeated to himself again and again as he looked at houses with the same damn layout as the one he grew up in. “He has a life there-”“He’s got family and a life here too. And so do you,” Bobby said firmly, but not forcefully. A beat of silence followed before he continued. “I just want you to remember that you have people here too. You have a pack. This is your decision, but I don’t want you to think it is the only option. I know it felt like it the last time you were talking about leaving the 118.”“I’m not leaving the 118,” Eddie responded, weakly. “I’m leaving California.”Bobby sighed and shot him a sad smile.“I know. And I’m sorry to hear it, if that is what your firm decision is. I know you have to do what is right for your son. You’re a good father, and a good alpha Eddie, whether you or he sees it right now.”Despite his best efforts Eddie felt himself tear up a little, and he quickly looked over Bobby’s shoulder at the clock on the wall instead. Talking to Bobby was always like that — always precisely aimed at all the spots where he was weakest — and quickly threw a joke out to counterbalance.“You think I could get that letter of recommendation for a transfer this time?” Eddie asked with a grin.Bobby laughed.“Yeah. Yeah, I think I could swing that your way. You’d do great anywhere you end up. The team’ll be sorry to see you go,” Bobby added, before his face dropped. “Have you told Buck yet?”Eddie felt himself sweat. He thought about the look on Buck’s face when he’d seen the tablet. He thought about the abrupt way he’d left the house that morning after the video call with the agent. He thought about the million texts he’d sent about houses since then, instead of the normal flood of memes and links to random deep-dive articles he normally would have sent when they were apart.“He knows. He, uh, ‘s been helping me look for a place in El Paso.”Bobby looked suddenly older again. Much older.“Yeah, he’s… that’s great,” Bobby said, seeming to abruptly change his mind on whatever he’d been about to say, causing Eddie to frown. “‘You told the rest of the team yet, or were you waiting to see how the house hunt pans out?”“I figured I’d tell them after I told you. After, you know, I told Buck.”The fact that he hadn’t so much told Buck, as he had been discovered by the omega, after he’d grabbed his tablet impulsively stuck uncomfortably in Eddie’s chest. It felt like lying, though what difference did it really make?“Right, well, I’ll let you go then, unless you had anything else you wanted to talk about?”And there wasn’t much more to say then, really. So, Eddie had declined, and the two men stood and exited the office, and Buck, Hen, and Chim were already all standing there together, and Eddie told them he was leaving.And they were surprised, save for Buck who wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at some rookie, knelt down and scrubbing the fire engine. A beta, he thought. He didn’t know her very well. She was cute enough. Must be what had caught Buck’s eye.The team was supportive. Hen asked him, reasonably, when he’d be leaving, but he didn’t have a solid answer. He talked a little bit about the houses he and Buck had looked at, hoping Buck might finally look his way or say something, but the omega just kept looking at the rookie. His mouth stayed shut.And this wasn’t about Eddie — the move was for his son, of course — but it still stung a little, privately, and unkindly, that Buck didn’t seem more upset. Eddie was talking about leaving not only the 118, but also the state, and driving 12 hours away, and Buck just looked distracted. He looked bored.It didn’t help either that he had been… really helpful about finding Eddie a new place.He had been shockingly helpful, actually. No resistance at all. Hell, Bobby had given him more pushback on the decision, and yet here was his omega best friend acting like he didn’t care at all that he was leaving. But, again, Buck wasn’t his, and he was still getting over a rough breakup, so maybe Eddie needed to stop being selfish and making this all about him again. That was the very thing he had semi-jokingly accused Buck of doing years ago, and yet here he was, making it all about himself in turn. He wasn’t Buck’s whole world, even if Buck was an enormous portion of his. He needed to get over himself and focus on his pup who he missed more than air. His son, who was growing up without him. Chris would be learning his designation in just a few short years; Eddie wanted to be there for it.So, no. He couldn’t focus on Buck’s apathy, or the 118’s pretty new rookie, or Bobby telling him about all the family he had here. He needed to focus on his son, and the fact that he’d be heading toward him soon. And that had to be enough for them all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The US has a housing shortage. That fact isn’t exactly breaking news; housing has been an issue for years, and there were a lot of factors contributing to the issue. The 2008 recession and housing market collapse, population growth, the growing construction material and labor costs… There were plenty of reasons that the demand for housing outpaced the supply of new houses. Decent, affordable housing was hard to come by even in areas that traditionally weren’t highly sought after.Which is what made it so galling just how quickly Eddie’s agent was able to find him a new place. A perfect place. A little house in Texas that met all his criteria.It did however explain how the Diaz family home sold in the span of a heartbeat.One minute it was the house belonging to his good friend Eddie Diaz, and the next minute it was sold. New owners. A new family. Strangers who would be moving their young pack into his house and making it theirs. Buck helped Eddie pack. He was a good friend like that. Not… not a great friend. He wasn’t a great friend, because a great friend probably wouldn’t have been subtly rubbing his scent into everything Eddie was taking with him as he packed. Every shirt, towel, or pair of pants that passed through Buck’s hands to be stuffed away into a moving box swiped over his throat first, or across his wrists. Every piece of furniture, and every picture frame… At first he tried not to — he really, really did — but his instincts demanded that he do something, and if it really bothered Eddie, well then maybe he should have hired professional movers (nevermind the fact that Buck had volunteered himself in the first place, and had convinced the alpha that movers were a waste of money). Eddie would just need to wash Buck’s scent off, or spray his things with Febreze when he got to his new place. And Eddie’s new place… oh boy Eddie’s new place. It was a tiny 2 bedroom, with an even tinier kitchen. It was right near Eddie’s parents. It was right near Chris’s new school. There was a big backyard, and there was a park nearby, and Buck hated it. Words failed to explain just how badly he hated that house. But because he was such a good friend (still just ‘good’; still not ‘great’), Buck flew down to Texas to help him get set up. He wanted to help Eddie unpack. Which was something he deeply regretted mentioning when he initially asked for the time off. The look on Bobby’s face when he had said he’d needed the time to help Eddie get settled back in, in El Paso would haunt him a long time afterward. It was like he had told Bobby that Eddie was throwing himself off a bridge, and that he’d decided to join him. And clearly word had gotten around after that conversation with Bobby, because suddenly Chim was on his case as well.“You know you don’t have to go down there, right, Buck?” Chim had asked, having volunteered himself to dry while Buck was washing dishes from their dinner at the station.Buck scrubbed harder at the baked-on sauce in the bottom of the soapy ziti pan as he debated his response. He should have known Chim would never volunteer for dishes with him without a reason. The whole thing had been a set-up.“I’m his best friend, Chim,” Buck said, in a tone he hoped would dissuade further discussion. “Of course I’m going down there to help.”“Yeah, but you don’t have to,” Chim insisted.Buck sighed and dropped the pan back into the water..“Oh, you mean like how you don’t have to dry the dishes? But yet you’re standing here anyway…”“I didn’t have to book a flight and rearrange my work schedule to be here for you,” Chim said, shooting him a look that was somewhere between a wry smile and genuine concern. “All I had to do was give up playing Mario Kart with Hen one time.”“Uh, I think you mean that you had to give up getting your rear handed to you at Mario Kart one time,” Hen corrected from the table, evidently having tuned in at the mention of her name.“I don’t always- I beat you a few times!” “Once, and it was when you gave me the broken remote. And I have it on good authority that you had been training with my daughter for weeks leading up to that.”“Hey, I can’t help it if I went to the master and if she saw my potential-”“Who do you think taught her everything she knows?”Hen laughed, Chim scowled, and Buck almost thought he was in the clear, before Chim lowered his voice again and turned back to him.“Seriously though. I know he’s your best friend, and I know him being an alpha makes it harder for you-”“Him being an alpha doesn’t mean anything,” Buck cut in, his face hot. “It doesn’t change anything.”Chim stared at him for a beat of silence.“Buck, I’m a beta who married an omega. You know what I meant.”And the thing is Buck did know. He knew that Chim hadn’t meant it in the way that implied that Buck, poor little omega Buck, was helpless not to follow Eddie. He hadn’t meant it in a way that would assume Buck wanted to or needed to grovel and roll over for an alpha he wasn’t even bonded to.He had meant it in a way that it literally, physically stressed him further than it would have if Eddie had been anybody else. Instincts are instincts, and instincts naturally draw alphas and omegas together in a way they simply didn’t for beta pairings. The alpha/omega instincts didn’t compel members to bond or mate necessarily, but it created a unique connection. It oftentimes created a very meaningful connection, romantic or not. There was always going to be a slight pull on Buck from a friendly alpha leaving their pack. Even if Buck hadn’t been as deep in with his heart as he knew that he was.“He- Eddie’s an alpha, but he was never my alpha, you know?” Buck said, with a weak smile. “We’re not bonded. We’re just friends.”Chim pursed his lips, looking like he wanted to believe him, but didn’t really know if he should. It was a look he’d seen on Maddie’s face quite a lot growing up. Buck wondered if he’d picked it up from her.“I’ll be okay, Chim. It’s just moving around some furniture, and unpacking boxes. I’ll be gone a few days, and be back before you know it.”Chim nodded softly, and Buck felt him giving in… for now.“Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” Chim teased. “Think I could get used to the quiet with you two gone.”Buck flicked soapy water at him, and the rest of the shift passed relatively smoothly. _ _ _ As it turned out, talking about helping Eddie unpack and get settled in in Texas, and actually flying down to help Eddie unpack and get settled in were two different things. Buck had seen the house in a virtual walk-through, and Eddie had taken a day to fly down and see it in person before he had closed on it. Buck had logically already known about the sterile white walls throughout most of the home, and the dark wood cabinets in the kitchen that made the tiny room feel smaller, and he had known about the puke green tiles in the bathroom, and the fake fireplace in the living room. He had known, he had known, he had known.What he hadn’t known was how awful Eddie’s things would look placed inside the house. He hadn’t anticipated how badly it would all clash.“Looks good there, doesn’t it?” Eddie asked, cutting into his ruminations. “Or do you think we should move it a little further to the left?”He was talking about the couch. The two of them had just placed it in the living room, and Buck didn’t think the piece had ever looked so uninviting. The dark blue color stood out against the dull of the rest of the house like a sore thumb. It didn’t belong there. None of this belonged here.“Looks fine,” Buck lied, waiting for Eddie to turn around to rub his wrist all along the spot on the couch where he always sat.The pair continued on like that for the rest of the day. They moved all the heavy furniture first, figuring it would be better to work on lighter stuff when they got tired in the afternoon. They set up the master bedroom where Eddie would be staying. Bedframe, side table, mattress, dresser, lamp… Eddie really didn’t have much. He hadn’t had much when he’d first moved to LA either. Some things didn’t change much.The guest room that Buck knew Eddie was hoping would soon be Chris’s room was set up more slowly. With every box they moved Buck waited. They had set up the furniture, but nothing that specifically pushed the room to cross the threshold from ‘guest room’ to ‘Chris’s room’; they hadn’t even put Chris’s sheets on the bed. They were stacking boxes of Chris’s toys and clothing along the wall though. It wasn’t lost on either of them - the strange limbo of the space.“Do you think we should-”Eddie cut himself off. As though there was a possibility that Buck could not have already known where he was going with the question.“I think it will make it look more like a home if we do. Less boxes stacked up everywhere,” Buck added as Eddie nodded.“Do you think he’ll ever…”Eddie trailed off that time. Buck looked away when he saw tears welling in the alpha’s big brown eyes. He couldn’t lose it here. Eddie needed him to be strong.“Yes,” Buck said, with every ounce of conviction in his body.
Yes, Chris will come home to you.
Eddie took a shuddering breath. They both pretended not to notice it, or the way it echoed, over-loud in the still mostly empty house.“Okay,” Eddie said, trying to put on his brave face while he placed a careful hand onto the lid of the box nearest to him as though it were a bomb. “Okay. I’ll get started in here. If you want to… if you want to bring in the kitchen boxes? Maybe?”It wasn’t lost on Buck that Eddie’s hands were shaking. His whole body was trembling really, and his scent was pulled in tight.So was Buck’s, but his was because he was trying not to flood the tiny house with the weight of his grief. He was trying not to make the situation worse for Eddie just because he ached. “Actually, Eddie,” Buck started, licking his lips nervously. “I- uh… would you mind if we switched? I know the layout that he… that we’re going for here too. I could get this room settled.”The look Eddie shot him was equal parts grateful and guilty.“You sure you want me stocking the kitchen? Not sure I’ll know where everything goes.”It was supposed to be light and teasing and Buck saw in his eyes the short moment of forgetfulness. He saw how it had slipped Eddie’s mind, for just a moment-“Eddie, this is your house. You can put stuff wherever you want it to go. Not- I’m not…”“Oh,” Eddie said, his voice tense. “Right.”“I’m not gonna be here.”“I know that.” Ask me to stay, Buck begged, silently and irrationally in his head like Eddie would hear his thoughts. Tell me you need me in Texas with you. Eddie opened his mouth, and Buck had a second of blissful, delusional hope.“I should go get started on that then.”Hope that was just as quickly shattered like glass across the stupid hardwood floors of Eddie’s new Texas house.“Okay,” Buck said, intending to leave it at that, but not able to stop himself from blurting out- “let me know if you need me for anything.”“I don’t need anything from you, Buck. You’re doing enough- more than enough. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, seriously.”
Clearly he wasn’t doing enough because Chris had left, and now Eddie was leaving too.
Buck smiled, hoping it didn’t look as brittle as it felt on his face.“No problem, man. Happy to do it.”And with that Eddie disappeared out the doorway, and Buck listened as his footsteps retreated down the hallway and out the front toward where the moving truck was parked in the stupid big driveway. Buck waited until the alpha was as far away as he would go before scraping the scattered pieces of himself together, and turning back to the task at hand.Going through the boxes and setting up Chris’s room.It shouldn’t be too difficult, really. Buck had spent a lot of time with Chris, back in the Diazs’ old house in LA. He knew how the teen kept his things. He knew what he placed how and where. For example, the stack of video game discs went on the desk in the left-hand corner. The jars of pens and pencils went on the right. On and on Buck went, unloading boxes, and turning the small, dull space into the closest approximation he could of the room Chris had resided in back in LA. There were things missing, of course. There were things that Chris had brought with him to his grandparents when he’d left, and there were things Eddie had since mailed to him at his request. His favorite hoodies, for example, weren’t among the ones Buck tucked into the dresser. His sneakers weren’t there to be tucked alongside his rainboots in the new house’s closet.Buck worked until late hanging posters and curtains, shelving books and trinkets… He went until the only things out of place were the pile of empty boxes haphazardly thrown into the corner by the doorway. The shelves were hung and reloaded with Chris’s toys. The bulletin board with all his drawings were in place. When he turned and realized he’d finished the last box, Buck finally let his shoulders slump, and he took in the room. The window was in the wrong place, as was the door, but otherwise it looked… much the same. Still wrong, without Chris in it, but similar upon first glance.Buck turned back to the door to collect up the empty boxes and lids, and it was only due to his exhaustion that he didn’t startle to see Eddie leaning on the doorframe looking in. He was watching him.“It looks great,” Eddie said, in a strange, low voice. “It’s perfect.”“Not yet,” Buck replied sadly, keenly aware of the missing person, and Eddie nodded. He looked tired.“It’s late,” Eddie continued. “Do you want to order something to eat?”Buck had been sick to his stomach all day, filling this 12-hour away house with Eddie and Chris’s things, and seeing the guilt and exhaustion he felt mirrored on Eddie’s face only made the queasy feeling worse.“Not really.”“Me neither,” Eddie seconded, with a small smile. “Felt like I should offer pizza or something though. Figure that’s what you get when someone helps you move. Pizza and beer.”“I just want to sleep,” Buck said, too tired even to smile.Eddie nodded at that too.“Me too. We should turn in.”The gears in Buck’s head turned slowly. They should turn in, meaning they should sleep, meaning he needed somewhere to sleep. Meaning he should have probably thought about that earlier.“I should get a hotel,” Buck said, belatedly. A headache pressed behind his eyes at the mere thought of trying to find one now. At that point of the night… Eddie frowned, pushing himself up from the doorway to stand in it instead.“What? Buck, no. You’re staying here.”Buck huffed a weak laugh, unsure whether he was feeling relief, desperate want, or heartbreak.“One last night on the Diaz couch. I guess that’s fair. I did help move it in after all.”“No,” Eddie said, “Absolutely not. You just spent the whole day moving furniture for me. You should- you can sleep in my room.”“Eddie-”“Don’t fight me on this, Buck. Please? I don’t have it in me right now.”And honestly Buck didn’t either. He didn’t really even have it in him to be surprised.“Where are you going to sleep then?”Eddie’s face twisted into something guilty and sad. He nodded his head past him, and Buck turned to look at the perfectly re-settled bed. The one he’d set up for when Chris eventually made up with his dad.“I thought I’d… spend a bit of time in here.”Eddie’s big brown eyes were starting to tear up again, and Buck hugged him tight on the way out the door. Eddie squeezed him back just as hard. With his face tucked into Eddie’s shoulder and neck it was impossible to miss the way his scent was drenched in deep sadness. It was almost the same scent as when Eddie was in pain, if slightly less sharp.Buck didn’t say a word about it, painfully aware Eddie was picking up on his scent too. The two men simply stood there for a moment in silence. Buck pulled away first, his instincts screaming at him with every inch he pulled back. He forced himself out into the hallway, and across into Eddie’s new room.It was just as empty and depressing as before, except now it seemed even worse, having spent the last few hours surrounded by the joys and colors of Chris’s things. No wonder Eddie had wanted to stay in there instead. His room was lifeless.Buck had a bag he’d packed with softer clothes to wear for pajamas, but that bag was in the truck, and walking back out even one more time felt like an impossible task. He kicked his shoes off, and dumped his phone onto the nightstand, but that was as far as he was willing to go then. That was all the effort he’d had left to expend.As he settled into Eddie’s bed, on Eddie’s mattress, in Eddie’s house, Buck gave himself permission, for just the night, to pretend that everything was different. (He was an exhausted omega, and his alpha best friend was leaving; sue him). He burrowed his face into the pillows and breathed in Eddie’s familiar scent like that was fine. After a long minute of lying still, he rolled to the side and pressed a hand into the warm spot left behind by his own body heat and pretended it was Eddie’s warmth. He pretended Eddie was lying there with him. He rubbed his wrists along the sheets, and his throat along Eddie’s pillow. It would smell like him when Eddie lay down there next. He tried to imagine that Eddie would like that. He tried not to think about how much he was overstepping. Scenting his chairs and picture frames was one thing, but his bed? His most intimate, vulnerable things? That wasn’t something best friends did. It was something for mates and only mates.Buck fell asleep before he could feel appropriately ashamed of himself. _ _ _ Over the course of the two days he was there, Buck rubbed his scent viciously into practically everything Eddie owned, and not at all into the structure of the house itself. He rubbed his wrists raw with it. He rubbed his neck red and rashy. He unloaded the truck and set the house up just right though. It even looked halfway decent with enough of Eddie’s belongings in it.Then he left. He went home to LA.And all the things that Eddie had left behind – all the things he couldn’t or didn’t want to take with him in the move and so had left with Buck – Buck brought upstairs to the apartment loft. He gathered together boxes, and extra dishes, and things that had once belonged to him, but which had lived in Eddie’s house longer than they had ever lived with him… he brought everything upstairs. He would sort through it later, maybe. All around his bed were stacked boxes. Anything even remotely soft that Eddie had given him — clothing, extra sheets… those he piled onto the bed. Without much thought behind it, Buck shuffled the things around and made a space for himself in the middle. He made something kind of like a nest. Eddie was 12 hours away by car, and yet his scent was in Buck’s nose more than ever. Buck folded himself up in a shirt he had stolen from Eddie and cried himself to sleep his first night back.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Buck was fine.He really was! He was doing well with the new routine he’d found himself in ever since the Diazs’ had left the west coast for Texas. His kitchen was a mess when he finally rolled himself out of bed and headed downstairs the first morning back, so he forced himself through the veritable mountain range of disgusting, moldy dishes first thing. He then cleaned his counters, took out garbage, did some of the piling laundry… It was good. It was good for him to get his apartment set back to straights. ‘Helped him get his head on straight.It was a little weird, climbing back into bed when he was done with his chores, instead of grabbing his keys to take the Jeep over to the Diaz house, but it wasn’t like it was totally unfamiliar or unbearably bad either. It really wasn’t all that different from the occasions when Eddie would be busy with chores or other friends, or when Chris would have something going on with his friends, and so he would just hang out in the apartment and have a lazy day instead. It was pretty much the same thing.Unless he thought about it for too long.Which… he didn’t.And anyway the first few days at work without Eddie were okay too… kind of… mostly. The only really noticeably different things were how Johnson (a quiet, reserved alpha from B shift) was sitting next to him in the engine instead of Eddie, and how the team were all watching him and hovering around him like a bunch of deeply concerned hawks, but both of those things were ultimately fine too. Buck was a grown man. He could handle sitting next to someone different, and getting a bit more attention than normal. To the latter point, his younger self would have killed for that level of attention from loved ones, frankly. He was fine with it all, fine with it all, fine, fine, fine… Then, after a few long, surprisingly grueling days that each felt like separate eternities, their workweek ended and Buck had another 3 days off to himself before he was on the schedule again. He could finally get out from under the concerned gaze of all of his peers, and he did so gladly, ducking offers left and right to come over for dinner, or to head out to the movies. He was polite about it, of course. He was appreciative to his friends for reaching out.But he didn't want to leave his apartment for anything.And so he didn't.He barely even got out of bed during those days that he was off, mostly just getting up to make a quick kitchen or bathroom run. He was still eating. He was taking care of himself, too. Showering and shaving… He was good. He was fine. Even still, with every day that passed, and with every dragging hour, he felt heavier. It was like he was weighed down in every atom and molecule of his body. He slept extra, and he still felt tired.He just barely managed to drag himself out of bed when the long weekend ended and the shifts rolled around again, and he worked his assigned days dutifully. And as the days passed the strangeness and newness of the new routine faded. The team watched him less, and looked less concerned. They backed off. Eddie was gone, and Chris was gone too, and they were all carrying on with their lives. It was fine. Buck was happy for them.Then their weekend — A shift's weekend — came along again, and Buck crawled back into bed to waste away further. Not that that was what he was doing — wasting away. He was resting. He was resting because he was exhausted, and heavy, and clearly he needed to sleep more. He must have picked up a bug or caught something at work. It wasn't exactly unheard of. They dealt with people at their sickest, lowest points all the time. Even though he was more on the ‘fire’ end of fire and rescue, and he wasn't in the ambulance for the most part, the illnesses had a way of getting around the firehouse. They got to everybody; that was just how it was.Buck ate a little less that weekend, but it wasn't a big deal. His stomach soured at the thought of food, which just confirmed what Buck had already figured: he was sick, and he needed to take it easy. It made the decision to shrug off Maddie's offer to go out with her to breakfast a no brainer, though he wasn't sure which day that had been that she had offered. The whole break, short as it was, felt like a bit of a blur.Eventually though, the weekend did end, and Buck had to go to work… except he couldn't get up. His body just felt so heavy. Too heavy. His arm was about a thousand pounds as he stretched it across the bed, but he still managed to lift it up enough to grab his phone from the side table and call out of work. There was no way he could go in feeling this heavy. He just needed… he just needed to sleep it off some more. He needed to rest so he could push past this.The second he had left his message for Bobby, his arm dropped, and his phone slipped from his clumsy fingers and fell to the floor outside of the nes- the bed. It was out of his reach. But the bed still had Eddie’s scent from all the things he'd left behind, and the bed had the photos he'd taken from his fridge on one of his runs downstairs — pictures of Chris and of Eddie — and Buck just couldn't bring himself to drag himself away from it all to grab the phone. It had still been at like, 18% battery the last he'd checked it. It would be fine until he got up next... which would be soon... Next shift, for sure.Buck's eyes closed without his knowledge, and he slept the rest of the day away. He dreamed of Eddie, and puke green tiles, and the Texas heat. He could use some of that heat just then. The apartment was far colder than he liked.Far colder. _ _ _ So, Buck was in bad shape. Initially, that was a conclusion the team had backed him up on, but as the days passed and Buck seemed to be fine, Chim could sense the others grow less and less concerned. And it wasn’t like he didn’t get it! The 118's beloved omega was acting pretty normal if a bit subdued, and they all wanted very badly for him to bounce back from Eddie's move. Nobody wanted Buck to fall apart without the alpha around, after all. They had just... half expected it. The two men hadn't been bonded, but they'd been so close (and codependent if you asked him) that bonding would have seemed almost as an afterthought. Buck should have been devastated. He should have been clawing at the walls.Instead he just seemed... a little sad. A little quiet, but he got the job done same as always. There was no huge, characteristic spiral. No sudden leap in impulsivity.In any case the others seemed to be lowering their guards and putting their worries aside, and Chim couldn’t even really blame them. He couldn't accuse them all of burying their heads in the sand about it because if it weren’t for the way he had seen Buck’s place those few short weeks ago, and the way he'd seen the starts of a nest up in the loft, and if he hadn’t fallen in love with and married the other Buckley sibling, he would have been doing the same thing as the others. He almost would have thought that Buck was doing well, and he wouldn’t have thought that Buck was thoroughly gutted by Eddie's leaving at all.But he wasn't doing well, and he was gutted, and Chim would have been willing to bet good money that he was doing the thing that Maddie had done with pretending she was fine, and pretending she was fine, and pretending she was fine-Until it all became too much and she crashed and ran. Buck was a lot like his sister, but he was different in that one regard. He was a clinger, not a runner.And Chim had no idea what it would look like when Buck couldn't find something to hold onto any longer. _ _ _ "Johnson, you're with Williams today."That was all it took for things to change. Chim did a double-take around the room, his eyes stalling at where Williams was nodding to Johnson sitting a few spots down. Buck was supposed to be there. Buck was supposed to be working with Johnson, as he had been since Eddie had left. Williams was a loaner from another station, and he was supposed to have been their man behind-“Where’s Buck?” Chim asked, cutting in, and turning quickly to seek out the answer from Bobby’s face.Bobby looked at him warily like he had been expecting it.“He’s not in today,” he said simply like that answered the question.“He didn’t show up?”Bobby raised a hand in surrender.“He called out,” the captain replied, with a quiet, falsely confident smile. “He didn’t just not show up.”“Buck never calls out.”“Well, he did today.”“Bobby, he never calls out,” Chim insisted, feeling Hen shift to sit up straighter at his side. “This is the same man who sued to get his job back here, I mean-” Chim cut himself off, realizing the number of people still sitting around them. Bobby had been handing out the assignments for the day to the team, and this wasn’t something the entire firehouse needed to hear about. Although, from the number of curious eyes on him, there was no way the rumor mill wouldn’t be flying already the second Bobby dismissed them to their work.…Which was something Bobby too was well aware of. The captain took a deep breath and quickly dismissed the crew to their tasks. A number of their nosier coworkers got up slowly and lingered within earshot and Bobby visibly, valiantly resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the lack of subtlety.“Chim? Hen?”Bobby nodded to the side, and the pair wordlessly followed Bobby back to his office. They made sure the door was firmly shut behind them, though they all knew the damage had already been done; speculating about Buck is all anyone would be talking about today.Chim started the conversation off, keeping his voice low.“So you two seriously aren’t worried about this at all? Eddie leaves, and Buck suddenly calls out for the first time ever, and that doesn’t bother you?”Bobby sighed, dropping the captain posturing he had been doing for the crew with just the two of them around to see him.“I- first of all, this is not the first time Buck has called out. Just because he doesn’t do it often, doesn’t mean he has never taken time off. And second he told me he was sick. He thought he’d picked up a bug here at work, and he didn’t want to help spread it around.”“So you talked to him?” Chim asked, teetering on the verge of relief.“No,” Bobby said, dashing his hopes, and gesturing to the phone on his desk. “He left a message on the machine. I heard it when I got in this morning.”“Did he say what kind of symptoms he was having?” Hen asked, chiming in, her forehead wrinkled in a blend of confusion and concern. “Because he seemed fine the last time he was in. And no one here is sick that I know of, or that I’ve seen.”Bobby shook his head.“The message was vague, but I mean he could have been getting worse toward the end of Friday’s shift, or sometime over the weekend.”Chim wanted to press, but Bobby was still talking.“Look, he only called out for the day. He’s on tomorrow, so we’ll see him tomorrow, and one or both of you can look him over then. Alright?”Chim bit his lip, and he felt Hen’s eyes drilling into him from his side. He wasn’t convinced, which meant she wasn’t convinced either. That was how they rolled. They always backed up each other’s hunches.Although more often than not it was him backing her hunches. The woman had good instincts, what could he say?Eventually Chim sighed, darting a quick glance toward Hen before facing Bobby once more.“I just think this goes deeper, than a cold, you know? I know he’s seemed fine, but Maddie did too right before she ran.”“He’s not Maddie, Chim,” Hen said, not unkindly, and not disbelievingly. It was just… not certain. “And even if he is lying about the sickness keeping him home, maybe he just… needs the time to process all of this. Needs some space.”Chim slumped back in his chair. Maddie’s plea to look out for her brother pressed like a headache behind his eyes. Maybe Buck was actually sick. Maybe he was coming down with something too, and that’s what the headache was.“I don’t know, you guys,” Chim said, not sure how to convince them or himself. “I’ve just never met a grieving, left-behind omega who benefited from ‘time and space.’ I think that’s just an alpha thing.”Hen snorted, and the mood lifted just a little.“That is definitely not an alpha thing,” Hen said looking at him with a single brow raised in disbelief. “I’m sure Eddie’s hurting just as bad as Buck is.”“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” “No, but the fact that we’ll see him tomorrow, to poke at him, annoy him, and make him laugh like we always do should make you feel better. We’re not turning our backs on him, Chim. We just need to give him what he’s telling us he needs.”“And, nothing for nothing,” Bobby said, adding back in, “but he did call out. He didn’t call to quit, he didn’t just not show up. He plans to come back.”Chim looked at Bobby, then looked at Hen. Both of them were wearing the same look on their faces. They were all in the same boat: worried, but trying to be rational. They had decided on rational, given the evidence (or rather lack of evidence) that they had.That didn’t mean Chim had to like it.“Fine,” Chim agreed. “But if he calls out tomorrow too, one of us is going to check on him.”Bobby and Hen both agreed, and that was where they left the matter. If Buck called out again, the plan was for Chim to go over to the apartment to check on him. Bobby would make his homemade chicken soup for Chim to take with him if the shift was slow enough. Hen would take Jee-Yun to hers if Buck needed the other Buckley for bucking up. It would be fine. They’d show Buck he wasn’t alone. That even if Eddie couldn’t be around, that didn’t mean he had no one he could lean on. No one to call his pack.And as they went about their chores for the day, during a decidedly quieter than normal shift, Chim tried to convince himself that they were doing enough.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

‘When it rains, it pours.’

The origin of the saying reveals that it wasn’t a piece of wisdom carefully passed through the ages. It wasn’t actually

intended

to be a long-lasting idiom at all. It was an advertising slogan. Believe it or not, the saying came from the Morton Salt Company more than a century ago in the early 1910s, back when the business was trying to flaunt the fact that their salt didn’t clump when the air got humid, or when, say, it rained. Their competitors’ salts did. Not Morton’s.

‘When it rains, it pours.’

Taking it as the somewhat bitter, certainly weary idiom it later became — detached from its capitalistic market competition roots — what it really does well is highlight negativity bias. Humans are hardwired to see the bad in things, just as much as they are wired to see patterns. Your car breaks down, you’re late for work, you get home and have a fight with your partner, only to discover that your washing machine is also broken, so now the two of you are sitting in stony silence in the laundromat, not talking as you watch all your jeans and work pants slap against the dingy plastic washer front. Everything happens all at once, it seems. It is raining. It is fucking

pouring.

‘When it rains, it pours.’

You’re supposed to learn from the bad things, see? Noticing and remembering the bad things are the first, crucial steps to learning from said things. The negativity bias is just an adaptive tool like any other. It helps humans keep themselves safe, and alive. So, you notice the bad things more than the good. That is just how it is. Things aren’t necessarily all bad, and there are most certainly good things happening at the same time.

But it is hard to notice all the good things that are happening when the bad things are so, so bad, and so, so much.

It is hard to make out the silver lining through all that fucking pouring rain.

‘When it rains, it pours.’

Ironically, the day the 118 broke down the door to the apartment belonging to one Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley, it was all clear, blue skies. There was no rain, or clumping salt to be found for miles.
 
_ _ _
 
Buck called out the next day too, another short voicemail left for Bobby on the answering machine, and there really wasn’t any more pretending that they all weren’t worried. Bobby pulled the two of them aside at the start of shift before assignment handouts to tell them about Buck’s second absence. His expression was far less restrained than it had been the day before. His scent was pulled in tight, but even Chim with his less sensitive nose could tell that he was worried about their omega.

Not that all that worry got them anywhere. It was nonstop calls all day, the first one interrupting their little impromptu morning meeting.

The shift kept them going and going, barely making it back to the station before they needed to pull out again for the next emergency. The crew ate through every granola bar and emergency ration in the truck, and through most of the ‘instant’ foods in the station cupboards and fridge. They even ate the questionably safe leftovers in the back that Chim had been planning to throw away. There was no downtime for food prep. There wasn’t even time enough to order takeout and expect to be anywhere near the station by the time it got delivered. Bobby didn’t get to make his soup. It was a

mess.

And to top it all off, just before they could escape at the end of the shift, there was a massive fire. A 4-alarm, all-hands-on-deck sort of fire. The team ended up each clocking in several hours of overtime, but stretched as thin as the overall department was, Bobby couldn’t take A-shift out of rotation to compensate. They could all go home for a few hours and rest up, but then they’d be needed back the next day.

And Chim wanted nothing more than to go home, and curl up next to his pregnant omega wife for however long he could get, but

first

he had to check in on Buck. No one had heard from him all day since the voicemail that morning, not that there was much hearing to be done aside from the near constant ringing of the bell at the station. Chim couldn’t even remember the last time he had checked his phone. Probably when he’d pulled it out quick to send a half-garbled text to Maddie about being home late.

In any case the facts were that the shift from hell had eventually ended, and that Buck had called out from it that morning, (or yesterday? Had the shift really run that far over?), which meant that Chim needed to check on him. It had been a different voicemail on the machine, and it was definitely him in the message, so he was at least well and present enough to call out before the start of the shift. It was the ‘no word since’ thing that didn’t fill Chim with confidence. He hadn’t even sent him any memes.

Chim picked up a can of store-bought chicken noodle at a convenience store on the way over. It was nothing close to Bobby’s, but it would be warm at least. He brought his medkit too. Just in case.

He never made it to the door. Chim was just about to pull in and park in the apartment’s parking lot when his phone rang.

It was Maddie.

She was at the hospital.

And in that instant the soup was forgotten. The medkit, his mission… everything. Lost in the fray. Another idiom — one without an etymological background in advertisements this time. The issue of Buck’s absence simply got lost in the fray as Chim spun the car around with a very legal U-turn and shot off.

The rest of the night was a blur. Evidently Maddie’s blood pressure had spiked and then dropped and she’d fallen. She’d called 911. She’d been brought to the hospital. Jee-Yun had been brought to Hen and Karen’s, so she was safe and taken care of.

Someone called Bobby.

At some point he was there at the hospital too, looking about as exhausted as Chim felt. Draining shift. Draining news. And now they had to sit in a too-bright hospital waiting room while the doctors did what they did.

They put her on a blood pressure med, and she ended up being fine, aside from a sore wrist from catching her fall, and some frazzled nerves from the whole situation. The baby was fine too. The spike and the drop… it was just something that happened sometimes to older omegas during their pregnancies. During

geriatric

omegean pregnancies.

Chim felt sick to his stomach by the time the doctor finished explaining the cause, but Maddie didn’t let him take the blame. She had wanted another pup. She had known the risks; they both had. And she would be fine. That was why they had meds for it.

Chim wanted to retort that he should have seen the signs, but he was too tired for a fight he knew would go nowhere. He hadn’t been around. He

wouldn’t

have seen it.

Maddie pulled him in toward her, tucking him in close and kissing the top of his head, and for the first time in hours Chim felt himself untense. Just a little.

Bobby stopped by shortly after to pass along his support and well-wishes, and by the time he stepped out to call and update Buck, it was in the wee early hours of the morning. The man didn’t respond, but nobody would have expected him to. He was sick. Wasn’t he sick? Sick people slept more. Chim wished he was sleeping more too.

Bobby went home, and Chim took Maddie home too. Karen, bless her kind heart, agreed to hold onto Jee-Yun for the night (or morning as it were), since the pup was already sleeping. It was no trouble, according to her. Chim really knew how to pick his friends. He needed to get her flowers or something.

When he finally got to sleep — about 3 hours before he had to get up for the next shift — Chim did so with the nagging feeling in the back of his head that he was forgetting something. Something important…

Well, whatever it was, it would have to wait. It would have to wait until he could think beyond sneaking a hand up under the front of Maddie’s shirt to rest his hand against her heart as his fuzzy mind wavered. To feel the way it beat under his palm. So steady. So… so normal and right.

Outside in the car, cold and obscured by the evening’s shadows, the soup can had rolled underneath the lip of the passenger seat, undelivered, unheated, and uneaten.
 
_ _ _
 
The third day — the third shift — rolled around and Buck didn't call. He didn’t text. Hen said that she’d stopped by before work, since she’d correctly assumed Chim hadn’t made it there the night before, but she didn’t have a key, and Buck didn’t answer when she’d knocked. Her calls had gone straight to voicemail.

They were all running on empty, but as exhausted as the captain had looked earlier that morning, when Chim turned to Bobby then all he could see was the steady strength that came from determination. Grim determination.

“Gear up. Let’s go.”

“Bobby, we have to wait until a call comes through-”

“A call’s not coming. This is on me.”

And that had been it. There was no alarm, but confused as they were, the crew came running when Bobby had thundered out of the office calling for the ambulance.

Everything they were doing went against protocol and they knew it. They didn’t rush out without a call; they lived and died by the bell. They didn’t choose where to go themselves; they went where dispatch sent them. If they stormed into Buck’s apartment and he was fine, not even the plethora of waivers Buck had signed with the department would protect them from liability.

Not that anyone was worried Buck would sue again, but Bobby’s bosses wouldn’t know that. And they would certainly hear about the captain’s decisions that day.

Chim had unthinkingly left his keys at home, and nobody else had a key to Buck’s apartment when they got there. Even if they had, Chim isn’t so sure they would have used it. It was like all the calm that Bobby had had about the situation with Buck had run out the instant he’d gotten to work that morning and realized that Buck hadn’t called. It was like he was making up for lost time. Maybe he had always been that worried.

They called Buck, to no response. Then they called again. Then they broke down the door.

“Buck?”

“Evan Buckley!”

“Buck, are you in here?”

Bobby and Hen were the first two in, and they both froze a few steps into the apartment. It was the smell probably, looking back. The two of them were alphas. They were picking up on what Chim couldn’t.

Chim muscled in past them impatiently, and darted up the stairs to the loft.

“Bu-”

Chim cut himself off as he made it to the landing. He could hear the rest of the team coming up the stairs behind him, but it was like he heard them from a distance.

Buck was there alright. Pale and unmoving in the center of what appeared to be a massive heat nest. There were boxes of junk all around the bed, which only added to the visual effect of the nest spread. Chim couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He looked dead.

One of the practical things that happens when one works enough years as a paramedic is that at a certain point it becomes a habit. You shut down enough that you can work on autopilot when you need to. It sounds callous, but you don’t even necessarily see the person as a person. You see them as a patient. You see them as a responsibility.

Chim felt himself rounding the bed and checking Buck’s pulse like he would any other patient he came across in the field. He found it, weak and thready, but still there. So, he was alive still. That was a good start.

After that he was basically just running through a checklist, same as usual. Forgetting for a moment who it was he was treating made it easier. Hen was there, and they worked as efficiently together as ever. Buck was cold, so they wrapped him in a rescue blanket. He was severely dehydrated, so they pushed fluids. His hormones were incredibly out of level, but they could treat that better at the hospital.

They got him onto a backboard, and they got him down the stairs. They loaded him into the ambulance. They were rushing him to the hospital.

It was around then — the drive to the hospital that Chim had

just

been at for the other Buckley — that the practical, shut-down state started to wear off. When Chim tuned back in, the first thing he noticed was Bobby’s voice.

“You’re okay, kid. We’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

Well, Chim wasn’t. He was going to be sick.

He should have known. He should have

done

something. For weeks he’d been sitting on the feeling that all was not well with the omega. Buck wasn’t that great of an actor that he should have let himself believe that he’d be fine. He should have checked on him the first day he’d called out. He should have stayed that first morning that Buck had seemed weird about him leaving before that. His brother-in-law wasn’t a small or weak person by any measure, but he seemed positively frail laying there in that ambulance. Two alphas and a beta all hovering anxiously around him. It was a tight fit back there. Chim wasn’t even sure who was driving, only that they were moving slow. LA traffic.

“We’ve got you, Buck. It’s going to be alright.”

“Mmh-” Buck groaned, stirring sluggishly as though sedated. His eyes flickered but didn’t open. “-bby?”

“I’m here, Buck,” Bobby said in a choked voice, holding a wrist to Buck’s face for him to scent. “Chim and Hen are with me. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

Buck’s brow furrowed slowly, and Chim put an instinctive, unnecessary hand on his chest as Buck tried harder to rouse himself and sit up as Bobby pulled away.

“What- What- Who’s hurt?”

“You

are, Buck,” Hen said, taking her turn to let Buck catch her scent. “We found you in the loft. Half-dead, dehydrated…”

Buck shook his head, but even that didn’t look right. He did it slowly, like it was making him dizzy.

“‘S just a cold. Just picked up a bug from work.”

“It’s not a bug, Buck,” Chim said, his stomach rolling. “You almost died. You’ve been off ever since Eddie left, and I’m sorry we didn’t see it-”

“Eddie?” Buck asked, opening his eyes properly for the first time. He opened them wide. He looked disoriented. “Don’t tell Eddie.”

“Don’t you think he’d want to know-”

“No, no, no. Don’t tell him.

Please

don’t tell him.”

Maybe they would need that sedation after all.

“Buck-”

“Don’t tell him. You

can’t

tell him. He needs to- he has to be there for Chris. Chris needs him, and I don’t- you can’t. He can’t-”

“It’s okay, Buck,” Bobby said, placing a strong hand on his shoulder. “We won’t tell him. Let’s just worry about getting you better, alright?”

Buck let out a shaky breath, and his eyes slipped closed again. His body slumped back against the backboard, and for just a second Chim thought that he was out again. He wasn’t.

“Hey, guys?” Buck started, weakly. “I don’t think this is a bug.”

Hen was sitting at his side, so when Chim looked up it was the captain’s eyes he caught. They were red and holding back tears. Chim didn’t have to look to know that Hen’s were the exact same.

“No, we don’t think so either.”

Buck did pass back out before they made it to the hospital, but not until after he agreed to let Bobby call and update Maddie. It was a lot to dump on her, given what had happened the night before, but Chim knew better than to try and keep it from her. They shared everything — the good and the bad. The sunny days, and the torrential downpour.

Shortly after they had made it to the hospital, Maddie joined them. Jee once again was staying with the Wilsons. Chim now owed Karen a second flower bouquet. Or maybe an edible arrangement. Just to mix it up.

Or maybe he didn’t owe her anything because they were friends, and friends looked out for each other. Or else they were supposed to. Just like they were supposed to have looked out for Buck.

At the hospital Bobby called in some favors. It was tight and burned through a number of IOUs he’d had, but he got coverage for them at the station. They’d be able to make do.

After that, there was really only one more call to make.

The phone was in Bobby’s hand. He had the contact opened.

“I promised we wouldn’t,” Bobby said, looking between the group of them for insight. Nobody really knew what to do though. Eddie coming back even just for a few days would be the fastest way for Buck to get better. Omega Drop Syndrome. It was something that only bonded omegas experienced… Except Buck wasn’t bonded… And that was still what it looked like was the issue. It could be treated by others in the same pack, but it took more time. It was a lot less straightforward. It was piecemeal.

“He’d be the best thing for him,” Hen said, reasonably, “but we would be betraying his trust to get him here.”

“Well, maybe I could call him,” Maddie said, resting an exhausted hand on her stomach.

“I

didn’t promise not to tell Eddie.”

Chim bit his lip.

“He doesn’t want Eddie to know. It’s not really a matter of who tells him then, is it?”

The group fell silent, and a long, pregnant pause passed before Bobby silently shut his phone off and slipped it back into his pocket. The silence stretched further. No one was happy with it.

“But doesn’t Eddie deserve to know?” Hen asked into the quiet.

There was no answer for that. The answer was ‘yes.’ The answer was also ‘no.’

“Family of Evan Buckley?” A tiny beta nurse asked, startling when the group all stood at once.

They let two visitors in at a time. Maddie and he went first. Hen and Bobby followed after them. Buck was stable but doped up on the rush of hormones they had given him, they’d be keeping him at least for the rest of the day and overnight to make sure the level they had him on stayed level. It was more an art than a science when it came to managing Drop Syndrome. It varied so much from person to person.

Buck had seemed better, or at least less deathly pale and emotionally fraught when he and Maddie went in, though he was pretty out of it so the later point was difficult to tell. When Bobby and Hen rejoined them having had their turns checking in, Maddie told them that she had decided to go back and spend the day with Buck. She told Chim and the others to go home. She said that she'd try talking to Buck, in as many words insinuating that the conversation would be about Eddie.

Eddie, the elephant in the room.

Eddie, Buck’s ‘best friend.’

Eddie, the missing alpha.

Chim wasn't happy about it, given the fact that he was one of the people his wife was all but dismissing, but it was her brother, and he was beyond exhausted. He wasn't a help to anyone right then, and Maddie promised that she would get an uber home instead of trying to drive with the meds she was on. Hen in turn assured them that she would bring Jee back later in the evening, after he'd had an opportunity to get some rest.

Bobby said nothing, but it was clear he was in agreement.

So, outnumbered, Chim went home. And standing in the middle of his quiet, still living room, staring out the front window, Chim registered sunlight for the first time in days. His family were safe as he could make them. His pack were scattered, but okay. They were alright.

He stumbled through into their bedroom and was asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Chris was angry. Like never before in his life, he was

angry.

It felt like his rage coiled down in him all the way through to his core and spiraled back out every pore of his body. He was mad all the time. He was mad at home, mad at school… and everything just made it all worse. His dad, sneaking around with someone who looked like his dead mom and leaving him with women who he didn’t even seem to

like

while he did it, no one ever considering his perspective on

anything

… his grandparents treating him like a child — but they at least got him everything he wanted. Anything he asked for, if it was possible, they bent over backwards to get. They bought him the newest games with all the cool skins, they installed a pool in the backyard… they were cool sometimes.

But only sometimes. When they tried to do everything for him like he couldn’t do things himself, they made him mad too.

And yet a strange thing happened when he was angry, because the longer he was angry, the lonelier he felt. His friends from LA barely reached out, despite how often they’d hung out when he lived in California. Buck messaged him from time to time, and Denny did too, but that was mostly it. Everyone else eventually stopped messaging and moved on.

And his dad- his dad was the

worst!

He barely even seemed to care that he was gone. Chris had wanted space initially, sure, but time passed, and his dad just never put his foot down. The man used to dictate down to the minute just how much screen time he was allowed to have, and get mad at him for raising his voice or being disrespectful, but now he just… didn’t care at all. Summer had come and gone, and Eddie never showed up to the house. He never got into a fight with his parents over taking him, or with him about how it was time to come home. He videocalled him… sometimes… but only when his grandparents scheduled it and set the whole thing up. It didn’t really read as a lot of effort from him. Like maybe he wasn’t worth the effort.

But then, suddenly, Eddie

was

there, and apparently he had

MOVED

there, and when his abuela had finally picked up her jaw off the floor of the entry long enough to let dad in and invite him to dinner, his dad told him that he would be there if Chris wanted to live with him instead. He told him that he wouldn’t make him though if he was happy with his grandparents. He said he would wait until Chris wanted to. He wanted Chris to choose it. He told him he loved him.

And Chris… didn’t know what to think. About any of it, really. It was a lot to take in over lukewarm empanadas. Eddie’s presence clearly rankled his grandparents though which… Chris was maybe okay with.

But, with Eddie here, that meant the house was gone. There really would be no going back to LA. Which meant his friends (the ones that hadn’t done so already) would all forget him. And he and Denny would grow apart. And he and Buck.

Eddie hadn’t mentioned Buck at all since moving back to Texas, which felt stranger and stranger the longer Chris spent with him. Days passed like that, with Eddie always being there at his grandparents house when he got home from school, and they would catch up, and watch dumb telenovelas, and play videogames together. Dad shared stories that he had missed from the 118 after Chris had left, and he would share some less exciting stories from his new firehouse, but he would never, ever talk about Buck. Even with stories which Chris was pretty sure Buck had been a part of, Dad never said his name.

And yet when he went to see Dad’s new house to have dinner there one night, Chris was hit over the head with the scent of Buck as soon as he stepped in the door. It was like Buck was everywhere. He was everywhere, and he was nowhere, and it made him tear up where he was standing in the doorway, because he hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed Buck, and how much he missed his calming, omega scent, and yet despite it all his dad didn’t even acknowledge it. He was acting like everything was perfectly normal.

Well, he was until he saw Chris frozen there in the doorway. Then his brow pinched, and his eyes grew worried, even as an oversize smile spread across his face.

“You alright, Chris? You, uh… the new place not up to your standards or something?”

Eddie paused after he’d asked to let out a short laugh. The response was weird. Dad was being weird.

“Your room is set up just the same though,” Eddie continued, not really clearing anything up. “I swear it is. Just like- just like the old house. If you want to check it out before dinner. Or, actually, I can give you the tour of the place if you want?”

And for a second Chris just looked at his dad. He actually looked at him.

Eddie was standing a few paces away, having made it into the kitchen and having turned around when he’d noticed that Chris hadn’t followed. He looked smaller than Chris had remembered him being, as if the image he’d had of his dad in his head had painted him larger than life. He was still a firefighter and an alpha, so he wasn’t actually

small,

but he wasn’t a giant either. He wasn’t some looming authority figure, or some unassailable villain like his anger had had him believing shortly before Eddie had shown back up in Texas.

He was just a man.

One, who was wringing his hands nervously in front of him, although he stopped the second Chris’s eyes fell toward the motion. Chris noticed he was wearing an apron. Buck’s apron. It was the one Buck had gifted to dad as a gag gift a few years ago, and then had started wearing himself whenever he was over cooking at their place, because they hadn’t owned another apron, and “who doesn’t own an apron, Eddie? Come on.” Chris remembered him saying that. He remembered him smiling too, and he remembered dad smiling back. They had all been sitting at the table together, and Buck’s laughter had filled every corner of the room, and they’d been happy.

But Eddie hadn’t even

mentioned

Buck since he’d come back. Why hadn’t he mentioned Buck? He’d talked about everyone else, and the longer he stood there in the doorway, the more certain Chris was that Buck had been there too. Buck had been in this house. He’d probably helped Dad move. He might even have been the one to pack the stupid, frilly apron into one of the moving boxes.

And Chris wanted to say something. He wanted to demand answers about everything at once. The words — both questions and accusations — were hot on the tip of his tongue, and ready to let fly at the drop of a pin, but when he looked back up at his dad’s face ready for the confrontation, he paused. Because Dad was already looking at him, and his eyes were sad. And as much as Chris loved Buck, dad loved him more. There was no way he didn’t know about the fact that the omega’s scent was draped across every surface of his house. There was no way he had forgotten where the apron he was wearing had come from. There was no way the fact that he hadn’t said Buck’s name had been accidental.

But that was a lot to take in, standing in an unfamiliar doorway without even lukewarm empanadas to help him power through.

“The place is fine, I guess,” Chris said belatedly, looking away from the uncomfortably raw expression on his dad’s face. “I’m gonna go see the new room.”

‘The new room.’ Not… not

his

new room. Not yet. He might have missed his dad like anything, and in some ways he still did miss him, but living with his grandparents didn’t feel emotionally exhausting like this did. He might stay with them a while longer yet.

“Alright, mijo- Chris. Let me know if you want to change anything. We can move stuff around if you want to try something different, or we could pick up some paint-”

“I got it,” Chris said, cutting him off, before tacking on a guilty little “thanks, dad.”

His dad might have said something else in response, but Chris didn’t stick around to hear it. He made sure to click his crutches extra loud against the floor to drown him out as he left.

The house was small, and after only one wrong attempt in which he located a bathroom with hideous green tiles, Chris found ‘the new room.’ And it was… it

was

his room. It felt surreal in a way, stepping into a room that was both his and not his. Everything from the furniture to the trinkets were set up the exact same as they had been in their home in LA, save for just enough small differences to make it all feel wrong. The shelves were all right, and the books, his blankets, and his action figures… But the room didn’t have the same proportions as the last house had had. It was slightly narrower length-wise, and slightly longer width-wise, which made it feel like his room had been picked up and stretched. The lighting was different too, which Chris noticed slightly later. His lamp was the same, and the lightbulbs were the same, but the window was smaller and in a different spot on the wall. His old bedroom had had more natural light. It had had a better view to look out at.

Chris leaned his crutches on the side table and sat down slowly on the edge of his bed. The feeling that the space around him was so close, yet ultimately wrong only grew stronger the more he looked around the room. These were all his things — things he and dad had bought, or found, or been given… but they didn’t feel like his anymore. It was like trying to put on an old sweatshirt that used to be your favorite, but that you’d grown out of a long time ago. It felt like it fit in all the wrong places. It felt tight around the collar.

Maybe Dad had been right. Maybe they could get a few gallons of paint. Or something.

Chris wasn’t sure how long he spent in that room, combing back through his old things and trying to make it all feel like it used to, but eventually the smell of dinner cooking wafted in through the cracked door, and he took the excuse it afforded him to leave. The food wasn’t done yet, but it was getting there. Dad told him he could wait at the table if he wanted, so he did. He took out his phone. Eddie didn’t force the conversation, and Chris was happy about it.

At least, he was happy until it left him staring at his phone which had no new messages. His latest one had been from Buck, and that had been days ago. He didn’t really blame Buck for not texting more. It wasn’t like he had been in the habit of responding.

Chris shot a quick glance over to Dad who had his back turned, and was busy dishing out some kind of lentils onto their plates. When he leaned over to grab glasses for them from the upper cabinet, Chris looked back at the phone screen, grabbed a random meme from his gallery and sent it as a quick text to Buck. He turned off the phone and set it face-down on the table as Dad turned back to him with a smile.

“Now, I know you’ve gotten used to your abuela’s cooking, but I think you’re gonna like this. I’ve made it a couple of times now, so I’ve got it

down,”

Eddie said, putting a surprisingly good-looking dish down in front of him. “It got me nothing but good reviews when I made it for the team at the new firehouse. Originally I got the recipe from-”

Eddie paused where he’d been going to sit, and his voice cut out like a pulled plug. Chris watched anxiously as his dad’s face rippled for a beat before resettling like nothing had happened.

“Well, let me know if you like it, alright? It makes a lot, so there is extra if you want more. Or I could give you some to take back with you.”

What happened here,

Chris wanted to ask.

“It smells good,” Chris said instead.

Dinner from that point on was mostly a quiet affair. Neither of them talked much, though Chris did make sure to compliment his cooking. It was actually really good. Surprisingly good. It was the kind of good where if they had been in LA, and everything hadn’t happened like it had, Chris almost would have thought Buck had made it, and was trying to give his dad the credit. They had tried to do that once, when his dad had made a cake for his birthday, but had accidentally used salt instead of sugar. Buck had made a new one and switched them out at the last second, but Chris could tell.

He almost wished that that was what had happened here too. But it wasn’t. Dad had just gotten better at cooking, apparently. He hadn’t even been gone half a year. He wondered what else had changed.

Dinner wrapped up, and he cleared the table, and Dad washed the dishes, and his phone stayed silent the whole time. Normally, (normally being before he’d left LA), whenever he would text Buck, the omega would get back to him within 5 minutes of him pressing send on something. Within 30 seconds even, the majority of the time. Day or night. Shift or no.

He got back into Dad’s truck, and Dad drove him to his grandparents’ place. His dad drove slow. Both their phones stayed silent.

The next day arrived, the sun barely having had the opportunity to streak in through the blinds over the bedroom window before Chris was wide-awake. He checked his phone first thing.

Nothing.

Buck didn’t get back with anything.

Three days later and Buck still hadn’t gotten back to him. Chris sent two more memes, figuring maybe he’d clicked the first message and just hadn’t had time to respond before getting distracted or called away. The notification went away when you did that. Made it hard to remember. That had to be it.

After the two additional memes, Chris sent a text reading: ‘u alright Buck?’ and one immediately after that read: ‘you didn’t lose your phone again, did you?’

Then he sent another meme.

Then he called Denny.

Buck was in the hospital.

Chris felt the bottom of his stomach drop down into his feet.

He texted Dad, but he didn’t respond right away. He called him but he didn’t respond to that either. What was it with these people having phones and never using them? Chris tried not to imagine that it was because his dad was in the hospital too, and that that was why he wasn’t responding. He tried to be rational about it. He tried to be strong, and to be brave.

Chris shoved his phone hastily into his pocket and raced out of the bedroom, nearly colliding with his abuelo in the hallway leading into the living room. Abuelo tried to say something — something about him getting ready for school — but Chris didn’t listen. He didn’t care. Abuela joined them from the kitchen to scold him about his manners, and Chris ignored what she was saying too.

He told his grandparents to bring him over to Dad’s house.

They tried to tell him to calm down, and to call him instead. They tried to tell him to wait.

Chris didn’t care. He wasn’t going to school, and he needed to see him. He needed to see his dad.

And just like with everything else he had asked for so far, his grandparents bent over backwards to get it for him.

Soon, but not soon enough, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a different truck headed back to his dad’s house. His abuelo drove fast. His phone stayed silent. He rested his head on the window glass, warm already despite the early hour, and he willed his phone to ring.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Every day Eddie woke up, he woke up drowning. There was water in his lungs, and water pressing in all around him. He was soaked through to the bone. He couldn’t tell which way was up. Trying to live in his old hometown in Texas was like drowning. He’d heard people describe their hometowns and their old-school families living in them as ‘suffocating,’ but Eddie had never been suffocated before. Shot, sure. And beaten, and tossed around, and burned… but not suffocated. He had nearly drowned, and he could safely say that out of all of his experiences this was a lot like that one. It felt like he couldn’t get enough air the longer that he was there. It felt like he couldn’t find his way back to solid ground.And it all came back to Buck.It shouldn’t have, Buck was a friend, but it did.Trying to work with a new fire team knowing that Buck wasn't there with him too to have his back was like torture. Going to visit Chris at his parents’ place — the highlight of his day, every day that he could visit — left him hollow. When they would put on a movie, Eddie had to fight the instinct to wait for Buck to arrive, because the omega always got mad when they started a movie without him. He’d even liked to watch the previews for the movie on the occasions they picked up a DVD instead of just streaming something. That was how serious he was about their movie nights. And that was how often he'd been over for those nights too, to the point that Eddie felt near-conditioned to wait for him to start.He had actually slipped up once. Chris had turned to him from the far side of the couch, his eyes uncomfortably knowing and faintly accusing as he’d asked Eddie what they were waiting for. The screen was sitting on the main menu, and the short theme song for the dorky action movie had already looped twice. Buck’s name had formed and died on his tongue in the same instant, and Eddie had found himself picking up the remote and hitting ‘play’ without a word.They’d watched in a silence which never eased and grew more comfortable. After that night Eddie had suggested they play videogames instead. Buck had played games with them too, but that was less often. It was less of their thing, and more of something Chris did with everyone.
Buck, can we go to your house and play videogames?
God, not everything was about him. Why was everything about him? All of Eddie’s thoughts, all of his and Chris’s time together, everything, everything. Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck! And every day felt like being in the well. Every time he closed his eyes Eddie could practically see the eerie green of the glow stick shining in the murky water, and he could practically feel the way that time was running out. He didn't know how much longer he could hold his breath for. He knew that he needed to just keep swimming. Chris was far too old for the sentiment, and the media it came from now, but it stuck in his brain still anyway - the way Buck had looked when he’d told him what Chris had told him during the tsunami. Both the pride and the dragging fear in his eyes when he’d relayed Chris’s advice for them to just keep swimming. That was another movie they’d ended up watching together. Another thing that became their thing.Just keep swimming… And Eddie really did try.But every time he thought of Buck it felt like the water got deeper. The surface climbed further away, and further still.So, he didn't think about Buck. He didn't talk about Buck. He didn't... he didn't even reach out to the man. He couldn't. He was a terrible person and a worse friend, but couldn't let the water get any higher because he’d drown. And he couldn't drown because Chris needed him. His parents already didn't want him there, they had made that fact perfectly clear from the first day Eddie had shown up on their doorstep looking for his son. They didn’t think he could do it — be a parent — and they were looking for ways to get rid of him. They gave him excuses about how Chris needed time before school to get ready, and time afterward to do his homework. They tried telling him that he was cutting into time that Chris should be spending with his new friends. Or time that he could be at his clubs, and did Eddie remember that Chris had joined the chess club? Yes, yes he did, but they only met on Thursdays. It was all excuses the whole way down, and Eddie may not have been interested in forcing his son to engage with him, but he damn sure held no qualms about pressing the issue with his parents. Chris could decide for himself whether he wanted him around.But that didn’t mean his parents’ opinions didn’t matter, because they did have Christopher, and Eddie couldn't give them any opening or leverage to keep him away. Chris might choose to stay with them, but Eddie wasn't... he wasn't a danger to him. He wasn't trying to manipulate him, or abuse him, or neglect him. They wouldn’t have a legal foothold for keeping him there longer than Chris himself wanted.Eddie had fallen apart a little. He could admit that he’d made some bad choices. He could admit that he’d made some really bad, really selfish choices. He just had to show them all that he was put together now. Letting them know how high the water had gotten around him wouldn't help him. He needed to get himself level on his own.Then he could win Chris back.And then someday… maybe someday… they could visit the west coast again. They could take a vacation. Just him and Chris.That was as far as Eddie ever let the fantasy get. He got Chris back, and they were living together like they used to, and he convinced his son to take a trip with him back west. He didn’t let himself picture the places they would stay, or the people they might see. Just the fact of the trip itself. An alpha and his pup out on a nice vacation. Maybe they could drive instead of flying there. They could stretch the trip out a bit… In any case Eddie kept that fantasy tucked in close to his chest, right alongside his heart and his St. Christopher medallion. He let it keep him trudging on, and trudging forward, even when all he wanted to do was lay down forever. His body felt so heavy as the days blurred on, but he still went to work, and dragged himself through each and every day until he could drive back to his parent’s house. Seeing Christopher helped, even if they didn’t talk much. His pup was a surly teen now, and it wasn’t cool to hang out with his dad anymore. He still did though. He never sent Eddie away. And there were times, brief times, when it was almost like it used to be. Chris would forget that he was mad, and Eddie would forget that he was sorry, and they’d laugh, or bicker about something in a telenovela, or over a match in a game that Eddie definitely did not cheat at, and things would be normal. Those moments would always leave Eddie feeling just a little bit lighter. They would make things feel a little less bleak.But not entirely. The new house, when he returned to it every night, was heavy and dark. It was hot too. Ridiculously hot. It was late fall in Texas, and while he hadn’t exactly been expecting frosty conditions, he did have a kickass central air system with the new house. He shouldn’t have had any problems beating the heat. He turned his A/C up, and then up some more. He bought a window unit for his bedroom. It didn’t help. The oppressive heat only made his body feel heavier.Cool water helped some. And cold showers.The military had left him with a lot of unfortunate habits, though if there was any good that had come from his time there, it was that the service had led him to take shorter showers. Much shorter. It had been helpful back when he’d been living in LA where water was expensive. He would take barely 2 minutes to get clean. In and out.But here, in the perpetual furnace that was the house, Eddie found himself kicking the habit. At least for a while.Eddie was stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel, finally feeling like he could take a breath without his brain melting or his body dragging him down, when there was a knock at the front door. It wasn’t just any knock, either. The beat was fast and sharp. It wasn’t the knock of someone who was lost, or someone hawking overpriced cookies or religion. It was alarmed. It was urgent. If Eddie had ever been on the fence as to whether to stop by his room and throw some pants on before answering it, his decision was made for him when he heard the pitch of the voice waiting on him outside.“Dad!?”Eddie was off like a shot for the door, dripping hair, pink towel, and all. He flung the door open so fast it squeaked on its hinges, revealing not only Chris, but also his grim-faced father. Chris’s scent was nervous. His father’s was annoyed. Eddie watched his dad’s mouth turn down into an even more severe, disapproving line as his eyes flickered down to the towel he had answered the door in. Eddie rocked back on his heels, feeling nervous and exposed on so many different levels.“Chris? Dad, what-”“He insisted we come here,” his dad interrupted, unamused. “We told him he needed to call you, but-”“Dad, it’s Buck,” Chris said, talking over his abuelo. His voice sounded scared.And Eddie felt the world tilt on its axis.“What… It’s a school day,” Eddie said, holding his towel tight around his waist, and trying to cling to the things that made sense. His dad wouldn’t be looking so irritated if it was serious, right? But Chris wouldn’t be so scared without a reason… Also neither of them were supposed to be here on his doorstep right now, because- “you’re gonna be late for school.”“Didn’t you hear me!?” Chris shrieked, his voice hiking up a few pitches. “Buck’s in the hospital, Dad. Buck’s sick.” “Buck’s not-” Eddie tried. “He can’t be. Someone… someone would have told me.”That made sense, didn’t it? Of course, someone would have contacted him. If something had happened to Buck, the team would have told him. Or Buck would have if he was well enough to speak for himself. Or… the hospital, right? He was Buck’s emergency contact. Just like Buck was his. And maybe he shouldn’t still be Eddie’s emergency contact, since he was 12 hours away by car, and hundreds of dollars away by plane, and he couldn’t very well drop everything and come running if Eddie needed him, but Eddie had just never gotten around to changing it, and he honestly hadn’t had any plans to, and he kind of didn’t really want to, and, and, and-And the room still felt like it was swaying threateningly. Eddie reached blindly out and braced his free hand against the edge of the couch for stability. He couldn’t stumble. He couldn’t panic. His family was watching.“Dad?” Chris asked, the accusation in his voice gone again, and sharp worry taking its place.“Edmundo, are you-”“I’m fine,” Eddie assured, forcing every ounce of strength and conviction he had into his words as he shoved himself upright. “Just… needed a second. Was just taking a shower, I think the heat got to me.”Except, he hadn’t been taking a hot shower. He’d been taking a cold one, and he still felt like he was burning up. Did he have a fever? Whatever it was was leaving him weak and shaky.No.He could focus on one emergency at a time, and right now it was Not. His. Turn.“What- what happened to Buck? Chris? You said he was- he was sick. In the hospital… what happened?”Eddie sought out his son’s eyes, feeling the hairs prick up all along his body at the terrible, conflicted expression he saw there. The sick feeling only grew worse when Chris hesitated to answer him.  “Chris?” Eddie prompted.And his father stepped in. Gracious for once in his life, his father calmly, rationally suggested that he go get dressed first. He told Chris to have a seat on the couch, and that they could talk when he got back, clothed. The directions made sense, but Eddie didn’t move an inch until Chris did. Chris’s crutches touched quietly to the floor of the entryway, and Eddie backed up to make room for him to move past. Then he just… kept backing up. He kept moving, and he kept swimming. Down the hall, and into his room. Barely half a minute later and he was there in the bedroom, standing in front of his dresser and trying not to lose his shit because what the hell had happened to Buck, and why did no one tell him that his omega was sick and that he was in danger and, and, and- And Chris was trying to explain it to him. Chris would tell him, which meant that Eddie needed to get pants on, but god every piece of clothing he owned smelled like Buck. Why did everything smell like Buck?Eddie lost the incredibly brief battle with his self-control and before he could think better of it he held the shirt he had grabbed up to his face and inhaled. It was like… it was like Buck had been wearing it. He had worn it before, Eddie realized as he let the material fall unfolded, and actually looked at what one he’d picked up from the top of the pile. It was a shirt that had originally been his, then he’d lent it to Buck, and then it had come back to him at some point months or years later. That had happened with a lot of their clothing over the years. Buck was bigger than him, sure, but he tended to wear things tight, which meant that when Eddie wore them they fit him nicely. Eddie could feel tears welling in his eyes and he quickly slipped the shirt on over his head. It didn’t stop the tears from spilling over, and streaking down his cheeks, but it did keep him moving. He slipped on underwear. He shoved himself into jeans and socks. His hands were shaking — his whole body was really — but Eddie pressed it on, pressed it forward.He knew Chris would see that he’d been crying, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. And, frankly, his son wasn’t stupid. He probably knew it already.When Eddie forced himself back out into the living room he was surprised to see that he and Chris were alone. There was no truck in the driveway. His dad was gone.“Did your grandfather take off?” Eddie asked, less as a question of did he leave, and more of a question of why. And Chris, he- he was a really smart kid. Eddie was proud of him every single day of his life.“I told Abuelo I needed to speak to you alone,” Chris answered simply, the undercurrent of anger back in his voice.“What happened to Buck, Chris?”“Omega Drop Syndrome,” Chris said, his eyes as angry as his voice. “Denny told me. He heard his moms talking about it. They said he nearly died before they found him.”“Omega Drop…” Eddie started, shock and rage and loss rushing over him like a tidal wave and raising his temperature for a whole nother reason. Buck was bonded.Bonded and nobody had told him.Bonded to an alpha that had left him.Tommy.Eddie would kill him.The same itch that Eddie had felt under his skin years ago, the rage, fear, and helplessness all rolled into one that had driven him toward underground fighting and very nearly into prison, came flooding back. Everything was out of his control. He needed something he could do. Something he could do to make this feeling go away.But then he looked at his son. His pup Christopher, who was looking less and less like a pup, and more and more like a man with every day that passed. When Eddie looked at him he saw anger. It was… not funny, but ironic, maybe, because all his life Eddie had felt that Chris had inherited his looks from his mom. He’d always looked so much more like her than him. But here, with anger tightening his posture and etched into every corner of his face, he looked, quite strikingly, like him. He reflected him. And Eddie took a breath and let his anger go. It was less like a candle blowing out, and more like a fist unclenching. Hackles lowering. It wasn’t slow, he didn’t have the luxury of time for getting distracted, but it was deliberate. He just… let it go. The anger wouldn’t help him now.He watched Chris’s expression flicker with confusion. He saw him untense just the littlest bit, but unlike him Chris didn’t set his anger to the side.“Okay,” Eddie started, his voice calm, even as the anger receding left his anxiety plenty of room to press back in. “We’ll… we’ll fly out to see him. We can- you’re doing well in all your classes, right? You can take a few days off.”“Dad,” Chris said, flatly.“I really don’t have any time saved up here yet, but I can get a new job. Legally they’re supposed to give me time for this. There’s, you know, special leave for workers helping a pack omega in drop, but if they don’t I’ll find someplace else when we get back-” “Dad,” Chris cut in more insistently.Eddie paused and took him in. There was less visible anger, but the worry was back. He looked wary, frankly. Wary of him.“Chris?”“We need to talk.”“Okay,” Eddie said, watching Chris fidget with the handhold on one of his crutches. Part of the rubber grip was peeling. It would need to be replaced soon. “Okay! I’m listening, mijo. Anything you need to say. I’m listening.”Chris took a deep breath, his fingers stilling on the grip. Eddie braced himself.“I want to go back to LA.”A beat of silence passed before Eddie responded.“Yes. Yes, of course you can come too. To see Buck. I just need to talk to your grandparents first before we-”“No,” Chris interrupted sharply. “I want to move back. I want to live in LA again.”Eddie felt the breath rush out of him for the umpteenth time this morning.“Chris, I- I sold the house, bud,” Eddie said, his voice sounding weak to his own ears. “That’s how I… I thought you liked it here.”“Yeah, but I didn’t want to stay here,” Chris exclaimed. “Why didn’t you come get me?”“I didn’t want-” Eddie started, changing course. “You were so angry with me.”“I’m STILL angry at you!” Chris yelled, his crutch clacking noisily against the floor in emphasis.For a moment the two of them sat there in silence. It was a stunned sort of silence on Eddie’s part, though he really shouldn’t have been surprised. His own anger might have been about Buck, and about what was done to him by a clearly very shitty ex, but Chris’s anger had always been directed toward him. And he had earned every bit of it. And yet for all that anger, Chris still formulated a response before he did.“I’m angry, but I wasn’t… I didn’t-” Chris tried to continue, his voice wobbling and then cracking. “I didn’t want you to give up on me.”In an instant the whole mood changed. Eddie felt the anger draw back out of the room as clearly as if it had brushed along his skin on the way out. “Christopher, mijo, never. God, never,” Eddie swore, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him. To just cup his face, or the back of his head and make him listen. “Chris, there is nothing, and no one in this world more important to me than you. And I’m sorry that- I know I’m not always the best thing for you. I’m sorry that I made you feel… like I would ever , ever give up on you. Not ever, do you hear me?”Chris scrunched his face up like he was trying not to cry, and Eddie felt like throwing up when he turned away from him. His own son felt like he needed to hide that from him. He’d raised him just like his father. He’d failed.“I just wanted things to go back to how they were,” Chris continued, still not looking at him. “With the three of us.”Eddie stiffened. He couldn’t help it.“Chris, I can’t- She’s…”“Not mom,” Chris said, sniffing quietly before tacking on, “and not Marisol, and not not-dead-mom or whatever that lady’s name even was-”
“Chris-”
“I meant you, me, and Buck.”If Eddie tensed any harder something in him would snap. Instead he carefully, slowly tried to ease his muscles a little.“You, me, and Buck?”“Like how it used to be,” Chris said, like that explained everything. Maybe it did. “I miss him.”“I miss him too,” Eddie admitted, feeling a tiny bit of weight slide off his chest with the admission, even though it shouldn’t have been much of an admission at all. Buck was his best friend; of course he should miss him. “Miss him all the time.”Chris turned partly back toward him, and Eddie could see him watching him from the corner of his eye. His face was splotchy from crying. He’d gotten that from the both of them.“Did you two have a fight?” Chris asked, turning the conversation back to Buck.“What? No. Of course not.”Chris bit his lip.“Then why did they not call you when he was in the hospital?”Eddie beat back the anger. He would not make his son like him. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.“I don’t know,” Eddie said instead. “I don’t know, but here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna bring you back to your grandparents,” Eddie continued, holding up a hand when Chris went to protest, “-and you are going to pack some things. It doesn’t have to be everything. Just some clothes, books, and games for a few days. I’ll call the school, I’ll call Bobby, and I’ll book our flights, okay? And then… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about the house yet, but we’ll figure it out. As long as we have each other, right?”Chris shook his head, but Eddie could tell he was coming around in a wordless sort of way.“I can’t believe you sold our house.”“I know-” “Our whole house.” Eddie winced.“I just wanted to be near you,” Eddie said, not proud of how pathetic he was sounding, but unable to regret it for the way it made Chris turn to look at him. “I- I know you’re growing up on me, and you- you have your own life now, and I’m proud of you for it. I just… wanted to be a part of it.”“You are,” Chris said, his cheeks red. “Just… could have been a part of it in LA.”“I know-”“Or could have been a part of it that involved actually talking to me.” “I know,” Eddie said, smiling weakly. “I’m sorry, Chris.”Chris didn’t say anything for a minute. Eddie wished he could get inside his head, though he knew that he’d gotten well more than he could have even hoped for already. They were talking again. They had talked. And things were even looking promising for their continuing to talk.“Can we go get Buck now?” Chris asked, half-smiling and half-joking.What Eddie wanted to do then was grab his son, stuff him into his truck, and drive the whole way back to LA, consequences be damned. But he couldn’t do that. They had a plan. He would do things the right way - pack some things, call Bobby, contact his work and the school. He couldn’t just throw a torch down on their lives here and run. No one had called him about Buck, and as much as it tore him up inside there had to be a reason for that. There was no guarantee that Buck would want to see them, and that was assuming he was up for visitors. There were too many unknowns. Too many things he couldn’t account for… Step by step, they would follow the plan. Bring Chris home, and fight with his parents. Call Bobby, and fight with him. Book their flights, and fight with the tablet, probably. It would be fine. Buck would be fine. All Eddie had to focus on was the things he could control. And keep breathing. And keep swimming.Step by step.Stroke by stroke.They were in the car driving back to Eddie’s parents’ place when Chris turned to him. Eddie kept his eyes on the road, but he felt the change without looking; the ride up till that point had been quiet. He clocked the shift, even before Chris spoke.“Dad?”“Yeah, bud?”“Can I spend the night at your place?”Eddie pursed his lips, barely catching the light in front of him changing to green through his suddenly blurry vision. He blinked away the tears quickly, thankful he was on a fairly straight stretch of road as he pressed down on the gas.“Yeah, bud. Just, uh… you can call me when you’ve got your stuff all packed. I’ll come get you.”“You gonna pick up the phone this time if I do?”It took a beat to realize that Chris was teasing him. Chris was teasing him. Eddie laughed a startled laugh.“I was in the shower for like 5 minutes-”“50 minutes maybe-”“I was NOT in the shower for nearly an hour,” Eddie argued. “You sure they’re teaching you math right in this new school here?”“Well, it is a school in Texas, Dad.”“Oooh,” Eddie said, fighting a smile. “Not nice. Your abuela hear how you talk about her state?”“No,” Chris said, smiling himself when Eddie spared a quick glance over at him. “That’s why I told you, not her.”“Smart kid,” Eddie said, softly.The conversation died back out after that, but the silence was different than before. It was less tense, like they’d both been walking around on eggshells for ages and suddenly didn’t need to anymore. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t exactly how it used to be, but despite the imminent upcoming fight with his parents, the nerve-wracking situation with Buck, and all his other responsibilities pressing in, Eddie felt the first touch of optimism he’d had in a long time.And despite it all, he felt himself smile.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Buck had been better to say the least.

In the aftermath of the lightning strike, Maddie had rallied together everyone they knew on the west coast and had set up a revolving door of visitors to come in, check on him, and report back to her. Buck knew that it had come from a place of love and of fear, but the constant parade of visitors and guests had been too much. What he had needed back then was time to rest. He’d needed time to find himself again when it had felt unnervingly like the Evan Buckley they knew had died with the lightning strike, and someone else — some hollow imposter — had taken his place.

This time around the situation was a little different. Omega Drop Syndrome was the official diagnosis he left the hospital with (even though Buck tried to tell them that made no sense since he

wasn’t

bonded, and didn’t have an alpha), and since the bulk and foundation of the treatment involved getting more love and care from his packmates, the visitors were even

more

frequent than the last time. They were even harder to shoo away, too, because they knew that they were helping. And this time around Buck didn’t even have Eddie’s house he could escape to to hide.

And speaking of Eddie’s house: Eddie. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Buck hadn’t heard from Eddie in weeks, and those weeks felt like years. Buck knew that the alpha needed time. He’d just moved halfway around the country, and was undoubtedly struggling to get settled in at his new job, in his new home, under the oppressive thumb and judgement of his family, while he worked to repair things with his son. He was busy. He was wading through deep waters, Buck

knew

he was… but god did he miss him anyway.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t talk about Eddie with anyone else either. Any time he did, everyone around him got weird, shooting glances toward one another, and putting on strained, pitying faces.

It started back in the hospital with his sister. Buck had been laying in bed, half out of his mind on whatever delightful stuff they had given him, and Maddie had dug in. And he hadn’t been quite able to brush her off like his usual when she got a little weird about Eddie.

“You’re back,” Buck remembered saying, surprised and delighted to see his sister again. He’d had all his visitors. He’d assumed she would have gone home. He was pretty sure he’d told her to, but like… not completely sure. Things seemed hard to remember just then. In a nice way. It was all really floaty.

“I’m back,” Maddie had said with a bright smile like he couldn’t see that her eyes were sad.

“That’s good,” he’d responded, closing his eyes as he suddenly felt a little dizzy. Again, not in a bad way. Closing his eyes felt so nice. “I hate it when people go.”

“Evan,” Maddie had said, her voice more serious.

“Mmh?”

“Can we… can we talk about Eddie now?”

The name had cracked through him like a bolt of lightning, and Buck struggled upright through the haze of drugs. Talk about Eddie? What was there to talk about? Why was her tone so serious?

“Eddie? What happened to him?”

Maddie’s face had been pinched in the way it had always been when she’d had bad news to give him growing up, and Buck fought for clarity as he saw her eyes well up.

“Nothing happened to him, Buck. Something happened to

you.”

Oh. False alarm.

Buck had sighed. He’d let himself fall back against the bed.

“I’m just tired, Mads. I’m alright-”

“No, you’re not. You’re not alright,

again.

You’re always-” Maddie had cut herself off, and Buck hadn’t had the energy to do anything more than frown in worry as she reached down to grasp his hand. Her hands had been warm then. It had felt strange, because her hands were never warm compared to his. “Why didn’t you want the others to tell Eddie about you? Is there something else going on? Did he… Buck, did he hurt you?”

“Maddie-”

“I know- Evan, listen to me. I’ll believe you. I can

help

you.”

“No. It’s not that. Maddie, it isn’t that,” Buck had said with every ounce of strength and conviction in his body. “I can’t- It’s not about me. He has to focus. He has… he has Chris. And his new job- he probably doesn’t have a lot of time saved up yet. Plus his family, he’s- they…”

Buck had trailed off with a noise of frustration as his thoughts kept spiraling away, and for the first time he cursed the drugs they had him on. Simultaneously his body felt floaty, and also like it weighed a million pounds. And his eyes kept closing. But he had to explain something… to someone…

The warm hand around his squeezed, and Buck squeezed back.

“It’s okay, Buck. I’m here. We can talk more later, okay? You should get some rest. I’ve got you.”

You can have my back any day.

“Mmph.

Eddie-”

“Shhh,” a soft voice hushed. The warm hand around his squeezed again.

And Buck didn’t remember much else after that until he was being released from the hospital, and was sitting there in the passenger seat of Bobby’s truck, leaning his head against the window as the captain drove him home.
 
_ _ _

Much to his chagrin the visitors

did

help. As did the scenting, and the talking, and the fresh-cooked meals his packmates always brought that he didn’t have the energy to make for himself anymore. It was a lot, going from his relative isolation to that, but it was good on some baser level to be reminded that he was still loved. He wasn’t abandoned and alone. His heart still ached for an alpha and pup it thought was his, and it thought that he was missing, and he had to keep taking the meds they’d given him at the hospital (albeit, at a much lower dosage) to keep himself going. He spent a lot of time on the balcony, because the sun and warmth was supposed to help with the constant, persistent feeling of being too cold.

One of the things he was supposed to do for his recovery was take the nest down. He was supposed to, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t let Maddie, or Hen, or anyone else strip the bed and wash the sheets either. They still smelled a little bit like Eddie, and Buck was afraid he would break apart completely without it.

He hung the pictures back up on the fridge. It was the first step though, admittedly, it was done less because he was willing to dismantle the nest, and more because he’d taken to sleeping on the couch downstairs, and he didn’t want to walk all the way up to the loft to see their faces. He was still recovering, alright? Like everyone insisted on reminding him, he had almost died.

Then in the continuing stream of visitors, there was a knock at the door. In as much as one can gather from the tonelessness of a knock, it sounded hesitant. It was just a smidge too quiet, as if the person on the other side of the door was half hoping he wouldn’t hear. A quick glance at his phone on the way to answer showed that no one had texted first, and according to the way Maddie normally ran her parade of helpers, no one should be there for another 40 minutes or so.

Buck opened the door.

It was Bobby.

“Bobby?” Buck asked, stepping aside to let the captain in. “I thought you had the ‘late afternoon, and oh, I’m already here, I might as well stay and make dinner too’ shift.”

“Are you saying I don’t like when I stay and make dinner?” Bobby said, raising an eyebrow at him, the corners of his mouth hinting at a smile.

“Oh, now I’d never say that. You know I love your cooking. Been missing it, not being at the firehouse with you guys. I’m just saying you tend to stay later is all,” Buck said, eyeing the tension around Bobby’s eyes with a growing sense of wariness. “And come later too.”

“Yep,” Bobby agreed.

“Which makes me think something happened,” Buck continued, watching the rest of Bobby’s expression fade to match his eyes.

“Yep, well- I don’t think it’s really a bad thing, but it’s something that I wanted to give you a heads-up on, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Alright, well what- what is it?”

“Eddie.”

Buck felt his face twitch. He wishes it hadn’t, but there was nothing he could do about that now. It wasn’t like Bobby would have missed it. He just had to keep moving forward.

“What-”

“Eddie knows,” Bobby continued, looking at him carefully. “He heard that you were in the hospital, he knows about the Omega Drop diagnosis. He told me he’d heard from Chris who’d called Denny when he couldn’t get through to you. He wants to come see you.”

“He-” Buck started stunned and distracted by the ringing in his ears. He hadn’t heard that in a while, or maybe he just hadn’t noticed it. “He can’t. He has to be there in El Paso. For Chris-”

“He wants to bring Chris with him too. They both want to fly out to see you.”

“But Chris has school,” Buck said, trying to walk it through like that would make it all make sense. “He can’t- Chris will fall behind. And Eddie will miss work. He- he’s got a new job. He can’t waste time flying out here to-”

“Buck,” Bobby said, seriously. “You need to let the people in your life — the people who care about you — help you. You need to let them in. Trust me, I know that isn’t easy.”

The captain was pinning him with a firm, knowing look, and Buck felt himself shift uneasily as he caught the subtext.

“Bobby, this isn’t like that-”

“It’s not?” Bobby asked, incredulous. “Buck, this almost-”

“Yeah, I know, it almost killed me-”

“My drinking almost killed

me,”

Bobby said, his voice not rising, but drumming sober and final. “The drugs did too. They did kill my family-

I

killed my family. And it was because I couldn’t- I

wouldn’t

let them help me.”

“Bobby…”

“How much of an inconvenience is it really on Eddie and Chris, for them to fly out to see you?”

Buck sighed and ran a nervous hand back through his hair. His arm felt heavy, and clumsy, and cold. Buck wondered if he’d missed a dose on his meds. He felt terrible.

“I don’t know. Eddie could probably get leave for it if he needed to. And a lot of Chris’s schoolwork could probably be done remotely-”

“Would you fly to them if it were Eddie?”

“Of course,” Buck said, immediately. “Bobby, you

know

I would.”

“What if we were short-staffed at the station? What if you were out of leave, and I’d have to let you go if you took off abruptly for Texas?”

Buck wasn’t stupid. He knew where this was going, but he still squirmed away from the thickness in his chest at the feeling that the captain was brushing against the edge of something important. Something vulnerable.

“Are you trying to tell me something here?” Buck joked, his voice wobbly even to his ears. “I’m not out of a job now, am I?”

“Buck.”

That was all he said. Buck felt hot tears burn his eyes.

“I would have to,” he admitted. “I’d have to go.”

“That’s how it is for Eddie too,” Bobby said, matter of fact. When he said it like that, it was almost like it was the truth.

“It’s not… it’s

different.”

“It isn’t, Buck.”

“It is because I- I…”

Buck couldn’t say it. He couldn’t think it. Eddie, his best friend, his

alpha

best friend… it was just different. Buck couldn’t name it, but he knew Eddie didn’t feel this way.

He

shouldn’t feel this way.

Bobby rested a hand on Buck’s arm and that was all it took for the tentative balance to tip over and the dam to break. In an instant he was sobbing, and Bobby’s hand was quickly joined by its twin, and the pair slid around to his back to drag him into a hug. The older alpha was so warm, and his scent was so familiar and comforting, and it really was a shame that Buck couldn’t enjoy it, what with how busy he was sobbing from the bottom of his soul. He was soaking down the captain’s shirt with snot and tears, but the man’s grip didn’t ease. He just held him. Held on.

“You’re okay, kid. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Buck tried to catch his breath enough to respond, but it wasn’t happening yet. He’d packed this all down too long, and too tight. Words failing him, Buck tucked his wet face into the crook of Bobby’s neck like a young pup.

Safe. Bobby’s scent was safe.

“You’re alright, Buck. It’s gonna be okay.”

Buck sniffed wetly against Bobby’s neck, and in a testament to the man’s undying, near-saintly patience, Bobby still said nothing.

“I just miss him,” Buck choked out. “I miss them both.”

“I know.”

“Nothing is the same without them. Everything feels off.”

“Well, they’re grabbing flights as soon as they can get them, alright? Eddie called me before he’d looked for tickets, but he said he’d text me when he was going to be here.”

“And Chris?” Buck asked, finally pulling himself away from Bobby, and wincing at the mess he’d left behind. “He- you said he called Denny when he couldn’t get through to me, but I didn’t…”

Buck pulled out his phone and went into his messages. He had about a million unreads across his contacts. People he’d stopped talking to when he started to get sick, and hadn’t had the energy to get back to while he’d been getting better.

There were no unreads from Chris.

Actually, there were a few messages, but they weren’t marked unread. He must have seen them. He must have clicked into the texts and just never responded.

No wonder Chris had been worried.

“He texted me,” Buck said, wrestling back a new wave of tears. “I don’t even remember seeing these.”

“Buck, you weren’t all there. He won’t blame you,” Bobby said, his expression sad, but earnest. “I’m sure he was just worried.”

“Yeah, because I thought I’d had a

bug,”

Buck said, sliding comfortably into bitterness. It wasn’t great, but anything was better than more tears.

“Well, since I am here early, how about lunch instead?” Bobby said in an obvious yet welcome bid to distract him before he could keep spiraling. “My treat.”

“You want to go out?” Buck asked, eyeing Bobby’s shirt again, and well-aware of just how terrible he must look as well.

“I was thinking more along the lines of ordering in,” Bobby offered, gauging his response.

Buck pursed his lips, making an exaggerated show of thinking about it.

“We can get takeout, but I pick what we watch.”

Bobby scoffed.

“Please. Like it can be any worse than Chim making me watch all of the Bachelor with him.”

“That show’s actually not that bad,” Buck said, just because he could.

“No.”

They ended up watching some documentary Buck was 80% sure he had seen before, and only half paid attention to. At some point food came and they ate it on the couch. Some time later Bobby left, Hen swapping in for him. She switched the tv over to some crime drama she’d been watching with Athena. Buck didn’t really see the appeal of it, but he was too tired to fight for the remote or complain.

Instead he let his eyes slip shut. He vaguely wished he’d tossed a blanket over himself earlier.

And he drifted off to the sounds of police sirens and squealing tires ringing through the empty loft.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Buck was afraid.

Well, taking a step back, Buck was feeling a lot of things about the fact that The Diazes were back on California soil and soon to be arriving to his apartment. He was happy, first and foremost. He was relieved too, obviously. He was thrilled, and he was grateful, and he was maybe just a little bit teary about the whole thing.

But on top of all of those wonderful things Buck was also deeply, deeply afraid.

Not of Eddie.

To be clear, he was not

ever

afraid of Eddie. Honestly, he trusted the alpha more than he trusted himself, and he had the exact same level of faith in Eddie as he did in his awesome pup, Chris. It was

himself

he was worried about. No one was exactly sure how he would react to the Diazes arrival, and that was including himself. He missed the two of them like air, but it wasn’t exactly a guarantee that their return would make things better. It could actually make him worse when they eventually had to leave again. Buck knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his body and his omegaean instincts weren’t smart enough to keep him from latching onto them again. He didn’t know if his body could take them leaving a second time.

But then again this was Eddie and Chris. Buck would risk or even give his life for either of them under any circumstances, no exceptions. He would give

anything

to see them again, and here he was, presented with an opportunity to do so. He couldn’t not take it.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid though. It didn’t mean he wasn’t standing and pacing by the door until he winded himself and had to sit, and then switching to staring at the clock, and then getting back up to do some more pacing. Occasionally he shook things up and checked his phone instead of the clock, scrolling through his texts, voicemails, and every messaging platform out there for the 11th time in an hour. Nothing from Chris, nothing from Eddie, nothing from Bobby.

Bobby had been the one to go and pick the boys up from the airport because

he

still wasn’t supposed to be operating heavy machinery with the meds he was on. Evidently, ‘heavy machinery’ included cars and not just, like, bulldozers of cranes. Unfortunately, heavy machinery also included fire trucks, so he was still off of work for the time being. As far as he was concerned, the sooner he could get off these meds, the better. And who could say? Maybe by the time the Diazes were leaving again Buck

would

be off of them. Maybe he would be the one driving them back to the airport.

The thought of it — the Diazes leaving again… him driving them to the terminal — made Buck feel winded again. He sat down in the same chair he’d been in and out of all morning with a huff.

And he checked his phone again. Still nothing. It hadn’t even been five minutes since the last time he’d checked. He tucked the device back in his pocket, letting his leg bounce with all the jitters that had been amping him up all morning.

Aside from the fears that he would physically be hurt by the Diazes coming and inevitably going, there were also the other things that he was nervous about pertaining to the initial reunion. He was afraid, for example, of the potential humiliation factor.

Now, Buck had never dropped like this before, but being a first responder he’d been around plenty of other omegas who had. He’d been around people who’d started crying the second they saw their alpha. He’d been around people who passed out… people who

slicked.

He just- it varied from person to person, so he honestly didn’t know how his body was going to react when he saw them. He didn’t know if he was going to do something stupid or embarrassing, and he had, had,

had

to remember that this wasn’t his mate who would be walking through the door, and it wasn't his pup who would be in tow. These were his… friends.

Well, it was his best friend, and his best friend’s pup. He liked to think that Chris was kind of like his friend too, since he certainly wasn’t his… yeah. Yeah, he could say that they were both his friends. It wasn’t like anyone was around to call him on it anyway. They were friends.

His phone buzzed and he immediately dove for it, nearly pitching himself forward out of his seat. He unlocked the screen with shaky fingers, keying in the password wrong twice in his haste to answer.

It was just a message from Maddie, reminding him to take the meds he’d already taken. Buck huffed and relocked his phone, then re-unlocked his phone, knowing that if he didn’t reply to her, she’d just message him again. She was like that. They both were.

The timing of her message was honestly fortuitous though, because Buck was busy scrolling through seemingly endless rows of emoji faces, looking for a face or combination of faces that expressed the sentiment of ‘kind of grateful, kind of annoyed. I’m 30+ years old. I don’t need my big sister to remind me to take the meds I’ve been taking for a week and a half now, thanks,’ when he suddenly heard footsteps outside his door. And voices.

Familiar

voices.

Buck didn’t even have enough time to panic. He just sent off a string of random emoji faces and slipped his phone back into his pocket, as the lock turned in the door.

Then Chris was there, standing in his doorway, and Buck felt a rush of relief because the feeling in his chest was like coming home. He did feel tears spring up in the corners of his eyes, but that felt like relief too. He didn’t pass out. The humiliation didn’t come.

“Hey, Chris,” Buck said, his voice wobbling as he took in how tall Chris was as he stepped over the threshold.

God, he’d gotten so tall. Had he always been

that

tall?

“Hey, Buck,” Chris said quietly back.

And Buck hugged him. He didn’t even try not to cry when Chris stepped forward for the hug with the same apparent eagerness that he felt. He didn’t try not to tuck Chris’s face into his neck either, and he didn’t try not to scent him, and he didn’t pretend that he couldn’t tell when Chris went to pull away after a long minute but he just clung on tighter instead.

Chris let him cling on tighter. Hold on longer. God, Buck had missed this kid. His pup.

NOT

his pup.

Eddie’s pup.

Eddie’s pup.

Eddie’s pup.

He did, eventually, let Chris pull back and retreat a normal distance away. When he did so, he noticed that Chris was crying too. That might have been why Chris hadn’t been in a hurry to wiggle out of his grip before.

“You’re taller,” Buck noted, unable to make his mushy brain come up with anything else as an ice breaker. Something like ‘I missed you like air,’ and ‘I worried about you and your dad every day’ probably wouldn’t be helpful here, but those were the only other things that really came to mind right away.

Chris, for his part, took it and rolled with it, cracking half a smile.

“You’re thinner,” the teen shot back.

“Touché.”

For a second they just looked at one another. Chris’s face flickered with the look of something unreadable before he stepped off a little to the side, and Buck let his eyes finally go back to the doorway. To his… his best friend.

Who was standing there in the threshold crying.
 
_ _ _

Eddie wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when they’d pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building Buck lived in, and Bobby had let the two of them out, but he hadn’t followed them out. Chris had just gotten out of the car, and Eddie had been moving to join him when Bobby had gripped his arm. He hadn't gripped him hard, but the fact that he’d done so at all was enough to be noticeable. Enough to stop him.

And Eddie

had

stopped. He’d looked at his old captain with questioning eyes, and waited for the other man to speak.

Except Bobby didn’t say anything at all. He just looked at him for a minute — a few seconds, really — then he’d let him go. And Eddie couldn't imagine what Bobby had wanted to say to him but didn’t. It was something that he’d wanted to say to Eddie, but he had waited until Chris was out of the car to almost do so. It could have been a heads-up, maybe. Maybe Buck was in worse shape than he’d thought, and he wanted Eddie to be prepared. Maybe he’d looked right through Eddie, and had seen the anger he was still fighting and struggling to let go of, and he had wanted to say something. The unvoiced thing could have just been something mundane. It felt more like it had been something important.

But Eddie had no idea. He had no idea, because Bobby didn’t end up saying anything, and he didn’t stop him when Eddie got out wordlessly to follow his son.

He let Chris take the lead. Both of them knew the way up there by heart. Eddie knew that he could find his way blindfolded, drugged, and dumped out of a moving vehicle; under any circumstances at all, he could make it there. As surely as he knew his own hands, down to their calluses, and hangnails, Eddie knew his way back to Buck.

Still, he walked slowly. Chris was getting impatient with him, but he took his time, walking to the elevator. The doors threatened to close on him. Chris held his crutch out irritatedly to stop it.

Then it felt like he blinked and he was there, and Buck’s door was open, and-

And Eddie saw what Bobby had wanted to say to him.

Buck looked… different. It wasn’t- it wasn’t even that he looked terrible, not that it would have been possible for him to look terrible anyway when he was hugging his son like that. It was more like… Eddie had known Buck for years, right? And he’d seen him in every stage of dress and undress, every degree of sickness and health, he’d seen him through pain, exhaustion, injury, you name it. Every way it was possible to see the man, Eddie had seen it.

Or so he thought, because he'd never seen Buck like this. The omega looked... drained.

Drained wasn't even really the right word to use here, but Eddie didn't know any other way to describe it. He looked thin, like he'd been whittled away, and pale like he'd been sapped of his usual shine and saturation. He looked jittery too, and not in the way he usually did when he was vibrating with the need to tell Eddie about his latest info binge, or when he'd be keyed up from having one too many cups of terrible firehouse coffee when he should probably have been sleeping. He looked shaky. Like he was cold.

Eddie, by contrast, felt his rage burn like an inferno in his chest. He felt hot. He felt sweltering, actually. Because how could Tommy, or

anyone,

do this to Buck? How could they see this incredible, beautiful and kind-hearted man, and then just leave him? How could they have him

for themselves,

and then give that up? Tommy didn't know what he had given up. Eddie would show him. He'd make him see. He'd make him

pay.

Chris stepped to the side to make room for him to enter the apartment and Buck's eyes for the first time drew to his. Even his warm eyes seemed pale, though the bags under them were dark in contrast. He was still beautiful, diminished as he was, and Eddie found himself unwittingly entranced. He felt his anger ebb away quietly like a dream he’d forgotten upon waking.

He stepped forward, and he must have stepped poorly because he stumbled like he was falling. Buck met him there halfway. His skin was cool against Eddie’s like a balm, and Eddie barely shuttered a gasp as one of Buck’s cold hands came up to cup his face. He pressed into it, even though this wasn’t what they did. They were… best friends didn’t do this.

He knew they didn’t.

He didn’t care.

Buck’s thumb swiped across his cheek, and it took Eddie an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that it came away wet. His face was wet. He had been crying. Correction: he was

still

crying.

“What?”

“I asked if you were okay,” Buck said, his voice sounding strange, like Eddie was hearing it through a tunnel, or across a distance, rather than listening to it from barely a few inches away. “You’re burning up.”

“Fine. I’m fine,” Eddie insisted, locking his knees, which had evidently decided to be uncooperative. Must have been why he’d nearly fallen. “You’re just cold.”

Buck tried to move a hand up to his forehead, but once he dropped his hand from Eddie’s jaw, the alpha took the opportunity to tuck down into his neck instead. More blessedly cool skin. More delightfully thick omega scent.

Eddie felt saliva flood his mouth, and he tried not to be weird about it. It was just some baser, primal reaction to realizing his teeth were that close to a trusted omega’s neck. Nothing weird at all about it.

He swallowed it down. His mouth flooded again, and he felt like he was maybe being a little weird about it.

But he didn’t pull back, and Buck’s arms came around to hug him properly, and Eddie moved with him until he was hugging him back. For the first time in months it felt like Eddie could breathe deeply.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Eddie found his legs firmly under him.

And slowly, painfully, he pulled back.

Eddie looked down between them, his mouth pulling in a thin line as he noted that Buck hadn’t only looked thinner, but he’d felt it too. Eddie wondered how long he’d spent getting worse before anyone had caught it. It couldn’t have been before he’d left; he would have noticed. Even with everything else going on, selling the house, worrying about Christopher… he would have noticed if Buck had lost weight like this. He would have done something. He would have intervened.

He caught Chris’s eyes over Buck’s shoulder, and he felt the growing upset die back again. This time he made sure it stayed down. He forced himself to take another deep breath, not regretting it in the slightest when it drew a heady lungful of the omega’s happy scent into his chest, and when he exhaled he again let the anger go. Tommy might have fucked up royally, but Tommy was gone now. He and his son were here, and they would do everything they could for Buck. They would show the omega what it felt like when people actually lo- cared about him.

He took another step back, and Buck let his hand drop from Eddie’s arm. For a beat, they stood there in uncertain silence.

“And I thought my hug was long,” Chris said, adeptly breaking the tension, and drawing up smiles all around.

“Oh, did I not hug you long enough?” Buck teased. “We can’t have that. I can fix it.”

“I’m good. No. No, I said I’m

good,

Buck,” Chris laughed, putting on a very unconvincing show of pushing Buck away as the omega stepped in and scooped him up into a big bear hug.

“Ooooh, I missed you so much. So, so much,” Buck said, his voice wavering between over-the-top teasing excitement, and genuine hurt. Chris clocked the fragile line there same as Eddie, and Eddie spoke up when it looked like the balance was tipping toward Buck crying again.

“Buck, let’s go sit? It’s- We’ve been traveling for a while now, and we were packing up before that…”

“Right!” Buck said, letting Chris free. “Yes! Sorry, of course! You two must be exhausted. Wow, I’m a terrible host. Come in, come in.”

“You’re not a terrible host, Buck,” Eddie said as the trio moved into the living room and got settled in on the couch. “I think we needed that, right?”

“I could have done without the second hug,” Chris said, like the surly teen he was, before softening at Buck’s pouting face. “Not that, you know, I didn’t miss you too.”

Buck looked to be at imminent risk of launching another decreasingly welcome hug at his son, and Eddie made a point to sit down heavily at his other side to distract him. He let their thighs brush as he sat down, though honestly he wasn’t sure which one of them was more distracted by it. He tried to pull himself away, but he ended up leaning even closer instead, until Buck’s cool side was brushing against his own too-warm one. It was like they had magnets underneath both their skin drawing them together. Eddie had never felt anything like it in his life, but it put a goofy smile on Buck’s face, and Eddie was pretty sure that he was smiling too, and if it meant that a little more of Buck’s scent was brushing off onto him, then that was okay too.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Buck asked Chris about Texas, and Chris told him. He kept it really light. Some of the stories Eddie already knew. Some of them were new to him, or things he’d half-heard from his parents, with a lot of details changed. Things left out.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Buck’s knee knocked his, and the conversation shifted. He asked him about the new firehouse. And the new house-house. And the new… everything. Eddie didn’t describe the feeling of drowning that he’d just finally, finally gotten past. He didn’t tell him about the fact that he hated the house, but he loved the fact that everything in it smelled like Buck. He didn’t tell him that his name had hurt him too much to speak it, even when he’d been alone.

He ended up saying that it was alright. He told him honestly that he’d loved being closer with Chris again. He told him they’d talked. He caught Chris’s eyes on the other side of the sofa, and decided to skimp a bit on the details there. They were talking, and they were here. They could maybe talk more later, but really they were here for Buck. They didn’t need to drop the stress of another move on him yet, least of all because Eddie wasn’t sure how it was going to happen.

And then with all the circling around it they’d done, the conversation turned to Buck. It turned to what happened to him.

Or at least it was

supposed

to have done that, because the omega’s most recent brush with death was the elephant in the room as much as it was the reason they were sitting there to begin with, and Eddie had scraped together the courage and words he’d needed to address it, and all the fucking stars were aligned…

And it was then, right then, that Eddie’s damn traitorous body decided to interject. His stomach growled. Noticeably.

Buck and Eddie got up at the same time.

“I’m so sorry. You must be starving-”

“Nope. No. Not your fault,” Eddie said, cutting in before Buck could find another thing to beat himself up about. “I can get something myself. You should be resting, you know. Catching up with Chris… Here, I’ll make us all something,” Eddie finished, stepping around Buck.

“Eddie-”

“I’ve got this. I can cook now. I’ve had practice.”

“Eddie-”

“Dad.”

Eddie turned around.

And the thing was, he was

trying

to get better. Chris told him, pretty bluntly, that he needed to stop making assumptions about what he thought he wanted, and what he thought he needed, and just talk to him. Eddie was trying. God knows he was trying.

He turned back to Buck and his son, and he caught Buck’s eyes first. There was something in them, something young and vulnerable, before he tucked the expression away behind something far more neutral. He looked to his son next, taking in his raised brows, and the unsubtle look he made toward Buck when he knew that Eddie was looking his way. It was a look with the rough verbal equivalent of ‘well?’ and ‘do something.’

Eddie dragged his eyes back to Buck and looked again.

Blank expression, tense shoulders… his face was pale, but it had already been pale. His hands were shaky, but they had already been shaky.

Then Eddie’s nostrils flared as he caught it. Panic. It set all the hairs along his arms on end despite how over-warm he still was, smelling that fear coming off of Buck.

Buck

was

scared. A beat later and Eddie realized what was happening. Buck was scared about him leaving. But he was… he was only going to the kitchen. He was going barely 20 steps away.

Eddie felt his heart shatter like glass as he watched Buck shut it down quick. He fucking

hated

Tommy.

“Do you want- why don’t we move this party to the table?” Eddie said, licking his lips, suddenly nervous all on his own. “Could break out a good board game, or some cards, maybe…”

“Umm, yeah,” Buck said, eventually, his face bright red. “Yeah, we could, uh, that would be fine if- if you want… Chris?”

“That depends,” Chris said, already standing to join them. “Do you still have your lightning math powers?”

Buck laughed, and the tension eased just a little.

“Uh, no. No, just normal math skills now.”

“Then, yeah, we can play.”

“Okay, great! I’ll, uh… I’ll get the cards.”

Buck turned on his heel and there was no hesitation as he marched himself up the stairs. He would only be gone a minute, max. Still Chris turned to Eddie and shot him another look. He’d been doing that a lot recently.

“He’s different,” Chris said, quietly.

“He’s adjusting,” Eddie responded, careful to keep his jaw loose instead of tight. Careful not to pull the cabinet doors open too forcefully, even as he felt like putting his fist through them. “He’ll be fine. He’ll get better. We just need to show him how much we love him.”

Another long look. Eddie decidedly did not squirm under his son’s too-knowing eyes.

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

The mood lightened as Buck returned and got the cards set up, and Eddie got pots on the stove and water boiling. As much as he’d wanted to do something nice to impress Buck and flex his semi-new cooking skills, he was feeling inexplicably drained. He went for timeliness, rather than wow-factor. He made pasta. Sauteed some veggies on the side. It was fine. They didn’t talk about much outside of the game, and about how Buck was definitely not cheating, and ‘yes, he had actually lost his math powers,’ and ‘no, if he really

was

cheating, then shouldn’t he at least be winning?’

He ended up losing. Chris rubbed it in only a little as Eddie moved around them, setting the food on the table. It was good timing. They ate with the mood still high.

They talked some more about Texas, but mostly they just enjoyed one another’s company. It had been a long time since they’d sat down to a meal together. Eddie forgot how much he missed it. Buck did ask Chris about the new house, and if he’d liked the room, and there was a brief moment where Chris didn’t answer quick enough and Buck’s face had fallen. But Chris said he’d got it right, and he’d punctuated it with a smile, and all had been right again.

Then it got late. It felt like it got late fast, once Eddie had cleared the table and done all the dishes because ‘no, sit down, Buck. I can wash a few dishes, and you should be resting. Yes, I’m serious. Don’t act like you’ve never done any of

my

dishes for me, either.’ It got late fast enough that Eddie really hadn’t pried himself out of this bubble that they’d been in long enough to think about where they were going to stay. The loft wasn’t exactly equipped with a guest bedroom, and they couldn’t go back to Eddie’s place.

Clearly.

But Buck had the solution for them anyway.

“Stay here.”

It sounded so simple when he said it, and he didn’t just leave it at that. He made it sound convincing too. He had them get up off the couch to show him how the piece was now a fold-out. They could use it as a proper bed if they wanted to. Buck had gotten it when he’d gotten back from the hospital because the others had taken it upon themselves to stay over to take shifts with him, and Buck hadn’t wanted them sleeping on his shitty couch while they stayed there.

He said it like it was no big deal. Eddie felt guilt wrap around his heart like a fist.

Before he could get too far into his own head, Buck offered to grab some extra blankets for Chris, who was already sprawling out across the sofa bed and making himself comfortable. Eddie volunteered himself to help, and practically as soon as Buck made it up the stairs he decided to head up after him.

Up in the loft the fist around his heart squeezed tight, because as it turned out Buck hadn’t been sleeping on a bed. He’d been sleeping in a nest. A dirty, tangled nest. Surrounded by garbage. That

he

had dumped on the other man when he’d left for Texas.

“Buck…”

Buck turned around from where he’d had his head shoved into the closet.

“Eddie?” Buck asked before his eyes went wide. “Oh, that’s not. It’s just…”

Buck trailed off, and Eddie couldn’t make himself say it. Shannon had made a nest once, right before she’d left. He’d walked in on her taking it down, and she hadn’t even looked at him. Her face had been red and blotchy like she’d been embarrassed for him to see. Kind of like Buck’s face was now. Only Buck wasn’t his wife. He was his best friend. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

“We should take it down,” Eddie said, keeping his voice careful. “I can… if you want, if you’re ready, I can help.”

Buck shut his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not embarrassing, Buck. You were sick- Hell you were dying,” Eddie said, feeling the fist squeeze even sharper around his heart. “And I’m so glad you didn’t.”

Buck’s eyes were glossy, and he looked away from Eddie toward the piled up mattress. Eddie could practically

feel

the way it overwhelmed him.

“Buck. Look at me.”

Buck did.

“I’m so glad that you’re still with me. Please let me help you take this down.”

Buck was quiet for a minute, then he was nodding. His eyes were still teary and Eddie drew him into another hug. He held him longer this time. Buck cried silently against his neck, and Eddie pretended he wasn’t doing the same thing over his shoulder.

They took down the nest. Luckily, Buck had a spare set of sheets tucked in the back of his closet. They were a little stale, but they were clean enough for Eddie to stretch them out across the mattress, while Buck kicked his pile of dirty ones down the stairs. They worked together to pack the boxes better too, and to stack them straighter. Eddie still wanted to bring them straight to the curb where he should have put them the first time, but Buck wanted to hang onto the trinkets, and Eddie wasn’t about to push him. They moved them away from the bed though. They tidied up the space. Soon enough it was livable again. It looked cared for. Eddie wanted Buck to look cared for too. He wished that he could sweep through like he did here, and paint the color back into his cheeks, and press the fat back onto his waist. He’d looked healthy before, and happy. Eddie wished it was as easy as just changing the sheets. Buck’s happiness should always be easy. It should be the default.

Then Buck cut into his wandering thoughts to ask him where he planned on sleeping, and Eddie’s brain blanked. He’d peered down the stairs; Chris had fallen asleep, phone in hand and sprawled out across the entire sofa bed, and he’d looked so young and peaceful that that had been that. He’d just tucked a blanket around him and snuck back away. Because he… he hadn’t really thought about it consciously. His mind and his instincts had automatically,

wrongly

assumed that he’d be sleeping with Buck. Like he’d thought about it just little enough that he’d accidentally convinced himself that that was something that they did. As friends. Sleeping together…

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Buck scoffed, and Eddie felt heat lick up his spine.

“No you won’t.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. It was a pretty weak argument this time from the omega.

“I was in the army, Buck. I’ve slept on a whole lot worse. I’ll get a blow up mattress tomorrow if you still want us here.”

“Ha. ‘If’.”

“I mean it.”

They bickered for a while longer, but ultimately Eddie won out. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t disappointed with his victory. It was the only option anyway. He wouldn’t allow himself anything else, because he certainly wasn’t about to take advantage of his Omega Dropping friend just because he’s an alpha who didn’t think to get a hotel in advance. Eddie had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he had never, and

would

never stoop that low.

And besides, he still slept better on Buck’s cold floor than he had in months of sleeping anywhere else. Just knowing that he was there with his pup and his omega near him, and with everyone under the same roof… It was enough for now.

It was enough for now.

It was enough.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A lot of soldiers struggle when they first get out of the service to readjust to civilian life, and Eddie proved no exception. There was, of course, the initial rough mental adjustment that came from realizing that there was no one around who would be telling you what to do anymore. There was no more predetermined schedule to follow. There would be no running drills, or snap inspections, or picking up and shipping out at the drop of a hat, or at the whim of a commander half a dozen ranks above you. There was no routine, save for whatever one you carved out for yourself, and that was assuming that you came back in good enough shape to do so. Some people did. Some soldiers eventually were able to pick their old lives back up where they’d left them, or else create for themselves a fresh start.

That

wasn’t

the case for Eddie. Eddie came back broken.

His chopper had gone down, and he’d been shot, and he’d been saved, and he’d been laying in that shitty army hospital bed, being given a medal, and he had been in some of the worst pain in his entire life.

Or, he’d

thought

he’d been in the worst pain.

What they didn’t tell you while you were in that crappy hospital bed is that the pain only got worse once you actually made it home. Because once you got home they stopped pumping you full of morphine and all the other good shit they used to keep you calm and quiet in the army hospital.

So, for Eddie, the first thing that even remotely resembled structure and routine was his recovery. His world revolved around it. The PT was brutal and exhausting and took a whole lot out of him, but it wasn’t the only thing he had to readjust to back home in Texas. Shannon was another one. His parents, his family, his son — god bless him — they all… they all

needed

something from him. They needed him to be someone specific when he was struggling to be someone

period.

Coming home Eddie struggled to find a job, and then another job, and then to be a husband, and an alpha, and a father, and a son, and then to pick up a third job, and to every day force his shitty, aching body through either physical therapy or work again, and again, and again.

And it wasn’t always bad. Some days he would come home from PT achy, but a little bit stronger, and some days he got a nibble or at least a reply back from something he’d applied for, and some days he made Shannon smile, and some days he made Chris laugh.

But progress wasn’t linear and it wasn’t steady. There was a lot of starts and stops, and even when there was a lot of progress in one area, there was plenty of pressure building up in other ones.

He got a clean bill of health, and his parents nagged him about being around more or else letting them step in to more directly raise Christopher. He got another job, and he got into another fight with Shannon. He made it through a night without waking up screaming. Shannon left them. It had been a balancing act, and Eddie couldn’t do it. A better metaphor might be juggling, really, because it always felt like there were too many balls in the air. Too many moving parts and he couldn’t keep up, see? He couldn’t move fast enough and things kept falling, falling-

But that had been before. All of it- Shannon had left, and that had been it. Everything had been out of his hands. His tentative little schedule and structure were destroyed.

And, so, Eddie had decided he’d try his luck somewhere else. He’d ended up in California. Following and not following Shannon. Running from, and not running from his parents.

Things had been worse upon moving, just like they had been when he’d gotten back to civilian life. Everything had been overwhelming and disorienting, he’d been flailing and failing… then he landed at the 118 and things had been better. Then they’d been worse, then better, then

far

worse, then briefly better.

Then Kim.

Then Texas.

And now, some things were going really well, but they were going well in a way that felt unsustainable. Eddie had too many balls up in the air again and he could feel himself starting to sweat. He couldn’t handle all of them. Something was going to fall.

His son wanted to move back to LA. That was one of the things that he would categorize as ‘going well,’ but that meant that he needed a new house, first and foremost, and he needed to deal with the one back in Texas.

Another thing was that he needed a job that was in LA. More than one job, probably, because there was no shot he could get something paying at least as much as he was making before he’d left the west coast. He’d burned his bridges when it came to firefighting — running out on his firehouse in Texas and destroying Bobby’s good word about him with it pretty well solidified

that

fact.

So, there was the issue of the job, there was the house, there was his

parents

who were calling every single day checking up on him. They called asking after Christopher, and demanding to know when they’d be back… His parents who kept ‘helpfully’ reminding him of all the things Chris was missing out on with his new friends and at school- and

god,

Chris’s schooling. That was another one he couldn’t let slip much further.

There was Buck.

Lest he forget the reason they were there in LA again to begin with, there was Buck, who had almost died. Buck, whom he hadn’t been there for when he’d needed him. Buck, who was still sick.

Progress wasn’t linear, Eddie

knew

that, but Buck was healing so slowly even with them around. The omega was always still pale and droopy. He was often still cool to the touch.

Plus, he was wasting precious recovery time and energy worrying about

him.

It started a few mornings after they’d been back. Eddie had woken up to the sound of panicked voices, and for a second he hadn’t known where he was, or when. Had he missed the bell going off? An order from the commander? Was it an earthquake? A fire? Were they under attack?

Eddie caught the edge of a familiar scent as an arm moved above him, and a huge, clammy hand pressed cautiously to his forehead. In an instant the life he was currently living came back to him. He was on the apartment floor next to the couch in LA (he never had gotten around to buying that air mattress). He’d been staying in the golden state with Chris and-

“Buck?”

“Eddie!” Buck had gasped, his voice and scent both thick with relief. “Chris, he’s awake!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Eddie groaned, squinting up at Buck and at his son who were hovering over him staring. The yellow-bright sunlight searing in the apartment’s obnoxiously huge windows made it difficult for his eyes to adjust to see their expressions. “Of course I’m awake. I’ve got you leaning over me, yelling and pawing at me.”

The hand on his head disappeared at his words, and Eddie felt a strange sense of loss which he quickly tamped down. Waking up, his emotions were always irrational.

“We’ve been trying to get you up for like 5 minutes, dad,” Chris said, his voice flat.

“And you’re burning up,” Buck added, moving to reapply his hand to his forehead.

Eddie batted him away.

“I’m fine.

I’m fine,

Buck. You’re just cold, remember?” Eddie asked rhetorically, sitting up and moving on autopilot to bunch together the blankets he’d been sleeping on so they wouldn’t be a tripping hazard for Chris’s crutches.

Buck continued to hover barely an arm’s reach away.

“What did you need me for anyway?” Eddie continued, tearing his eyes off of Buck, and shooting a quick glance toward his son who for his part looked thoroughly unimpressed.

With the space between them increased, and Buck’s scent not taking up the

entirety

of Eddie’s senses, Eddie realized the answer to his own question before Buck spoke.

“I made breakfast, but Eddie you are

seriously

warm. And you never sleep that heavily,” Buck said pointedly. Guiltily, almost. Like he had something more to say, but didn’t want Eddie to be mad.

Eddie felt the beginnings of a headache press behind his eyes.

“Please tell me you didn’t call 911.”

“I didn’t!” Buck insisted before quickly relenting. “Okay, I called Maddie… who called Chim, who texted Hen, who told Bobby-”

“Buck.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Buck asked, his voice pitching up defensively.

“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaimed. “Wait 5 minutes for me to wake up!?”

Buck’s mouth pulled into a small pout, and Eddie once again had to look away when it felt like a lot. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, buying himself a second to gather his thoughts. He did feel uncomfortably warm and inexplicably tired given how long he’d been asleep for… not that he was going to give Buck’s neurosis the satisfaction. It was a mild cold,

maybe.

More likely still, it was the consequence of a number of nights spent sleeping on the floor. He wasn’t 20 anymore. The army life was well in his past.

“How many people are storming over here to check on me?” Eddie asked finally opening his eyes and looking between Buck and his son. Buck was the one who answered first.

“None.”

“Really?”

“IF-”

“Oh, here we go.”

“If-”

Buck continued, undeterred, “-you agree to rest some more after breakfast. In a proper bed this time.”

Eddie felt his stomach swoop. He put on his sternest face in response.

“Buck.”

“Eddie.”

Buck had copied his tone and everything.

There was a beat of tense silence in which a staring contest ensued. Chris muttered something about going to eat before everything was completely cold before retreating to the kitchen out of the corner of his eye. Eddie waited until he heard him digging plates out of the cabinet before he spoke, and he kept his voice low when he did so.

“There’s only one ‘proper bed’ in this apartment, Buck.”

Buck didn’t so much as blink. Eddie thought he looked a little better that morning. It felt like some of his fire was back, and there was a tinge of pink in his cheeks.

“I know that.”

“Let me rephrase-” Eddie tried again. “There’s only one bed,

and I’m not going to kick you out of it.”

Buck shrugged.

“I’m not suggesting you do.”

“Buck,” Eddie scoffed, his skin suddenly a size or two too tight. “I’m not gonna take advantage of you just because I have a cold.”

“You’re not,” Buck said simply.

“I’m

taking advantage of you.”

“Buck-”

“Unless you

wanted

the full check-up,” Buck teased, reaching exaggeratedly for his phone again. “Because, you know, Maddie’s just a phonecall away. And Chim, and Hen, and Bobby, and Ravi-”

“You wouldn’t bring Ravi into this.”

“Try me.”

One final beat of stubborn silence passed before Eddie sighed. He was tired, and achy, and he didn’t have it in him to fight. Fighting with Shannon had always felt like one of the more consuming things he’d tried and failed to handle. Not that fighting with Buck, his friend, was the same as fighting with his omega wife had been…

Anyway he gave in. Eddie didn’t let Buck help him up off the floor, but he did let the omega walk unusually close to him as they made their way to the table to eat. He let him slide his chair over so their knees were knocking too. Chris shot them both a raised brow look, but said nothing as they sat down to eat.

His son’s prediction was indeed correct — the food was cold. It was good, Eddie had never mastered sunny-side up eggs the way Buck had, but it was cold.

Eddie didn’t let himself think about Texas or worry about any of his responsibilities as he ate. He didn’t fret about sleeping in Buck’s bed or sleeping in Buck’s bed

with

Buck. He just focused on the sensation of Buck’s thigh against his, and on Buck’s scent in his nose, and on the familiar sounds of clinking forks and glasses. His pack, taken care of. Chris started talking with Buck about some videogame that Buck had picked up since the last time he’d been over, and Buck told him he could make his own character on it. Eddie let it all wash over him. It felt familiar and safe, and his eyes were drooping by the end of the meal.

It didn’t mean anything. At most it meant that maybe he should really prioritize getting that air mattress if they were going to stay with Buck a while longer.

He made sure to perk up when Buck looked at him, but the thin line of the omega’s mouth told him he might not have been successful. When Buck followed that up by exchanging an unsubtle look with Chris Eddie

knew

that he had failed.

As if he needed any more confirmation, Chris volunteered to clear the table when they’d finished eating. Eddie tried to scrounge up the will to argue, but he didn’t have the energy to fight on one front, much less on two. Even though Buck was the one who they were supposed to be worrying about, Eddie was the first one on the stairs heading up, leaving everything else behind.

He hesitated at the top of the stairs, the sight of the bed feeling different with the knowledge that he would be climbing in there. Buck did not share his hang-ups, stepping around him and getting in on the far side of the bed.

“You coming?” Buck asked, his voice soft. He wasn’t threatening him anymore. He was just asking. His posture was so open like there was nothing wrong at all.

Eddie nearly buckled at the knee at the wave of fondness that rushed over him then. He wanted, in that instant, to join him. He wanted to slide into the bed and curl up around the other man. He wanted to pull them together and slide his wrists along his body scenting him, and tuck his face into his neck to scent him some more. He wanted…

To sleep.

That was what he was there to do. He was there to rest, so they could go back to worrying about Buck instead of dealing with his problems. Eddie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In the background he heard the low sounds of videogame music starting up below them. He did eventually need to get on Chris about his school work.

But not right now. For now, Eddie just took another slow breath. In and out.

He joined Buck on the bed. It was… less weird than he’d been expecting. He still wanted to curl in toward the omega, and spread his scent around, but he could control it. He kept a few, careful inches between them, allowing just one foot to inch forward enough to come into contact with Buck’s ankle. It felt like it helped him breathe easier, just having that little point of contact.

“Just this once, okay?” Eddie said, his voice almost a whisper. “Just so I don’t have the cavalry called on me again.”

“Just this once

if

you are looking better when you wake up.”

Eddie snorted.

“If

I’m

looking better? Have you seen yourself recently?”

“I almost died,” Buck retorted, sounding not at all concerned enough about that. “What’s your excuse?”

“I missed you.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could control them. It was a little like being buzzed, being this tired. Made his tongue loose.

“Eddie…”

“Let’s both just get some rest, alright?” Eddie asked, afraid of anything else slipping out.

Buck held his wrist out toward him. Eddie knew what he was asking for, and brought his own down to meet it. It was a little awkward with the angle, both of them laying on their sides facing the other, but Eddie scented him. His eyes were falling closed again.

“Mmh. Wake me if you need me, okay?”

Buck hummed, his scent warm and just a faint bit amused as the world faded at the edges.

“Scout’s honor.”

Eddie was asleep before he could remember that Buck had never been a Scout.
 
_ _ _
 
So, Buck was worried about Eddie.

Officially.

Physically, yeah, the man seemed warm, and he walked around with a near perpetual flush seared across his cheeks and neck, but that wasn’t all of it. His friend also seemed to be… distracted. It was the physical

and

the mental stuff. Eddie looked a lot like he did right before he’d quit the 118 the first time around, when everything had been too much, and he’d started to get pulled under the weight of the things he was carrying around. Buck should have seen the signs back then when Eddie had started to get squirrely and private, because he only ever did that right before doing something drastic. Something drastic like quitting his job, or joining a fight club, or emotionally cheating on his girlfriend with his dead wife’s doppelganger.

Eddie had been in his apartment for a few days now, and it felt like they had barely even talked. They talked, but they never

talked.

Eddie was there, but he only seemed to tune in at brief intervals to worry about him, and then it was like he crawled right back into that place in his head he went to when everything was getting to be too much.

Buck looked at Eddie sleeping soundly a few inches away and he felt his heart squeeze in his chest. His friend looked so much younger when he rested, though even now he could see the laughter lines and the worried crinkles etched across his face. He traced the way they ran along his brow and creased below his eyes.

Buck couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to one of the wrinkles at the corner of his left eye, one he swore hadn’t been there before the alpha had left for Texas, and it wasn’t until his hand was on Eddie’s face again that he remembered the man’s words about not pawing at him. Eddie didn’t even stir though as Buck brushed it lightly with his thumb, and Buck let himself have it, just for the moment.

He let himself have even more too. He let himself be bold. He scooted forward, drawn in by the alpha’s warmth and relaxed scent. He just wanted to get a liiiiittle closer. He wanted just a little bit-

Eddie moved suddenly, and Buck froze but it didn’t help him. Eddie didn’t stop just because he did. He rolled toward him, crossing the meager distance quickly, and tucked his face into Buck’s neck. Buck didn’t even dare to breathe.

Eddie’s lips brushed his mating gland.

Buck felt his heart stop.

Then, Eddie huffed a breath and settled back down, and Buck’s heart tentatively resumed its work of keeping him alive. Every slow exhale from the alpha sent hot air against his bare skin, warming it. Dampening it. Buck tried to ignore the way that every breath sent crackling sparks through him like he was brushing against a live wire. It wasn’t because it was

Eddie’s

mouth right over his gland that he was reacting that way, Buck rationalized, feeling a touch hysterical. It was just because it was an alpha’s mouth… an alpha who happened to be Eddie.

Eddie, who he was worrying about. That’s right. That was what he was doing… worrying. He was… focusing on what was wrong and how to help him.

He was

not

focusing on the warm weight of him sprawled half across his chest, or the occasional gentle brush of his lips on his neck when Eddie took a deeper breath, or the softness of his hair where it pressed against his cheek. Not at all. He was focusing. He would use this time to brainstorm, and come up with a plan. He wasn’t even tired.

He was just resting his eyes.

And thinking.

And thinking…

Buck blinked awake, cursing himself for letting himself sleep even as he had to admit he felt great now. He felt better than he had in a long time, and warm down to his core. He lifted an arm a few inches, noting that it felt lighter. Not back to normal, but night and day better. He must finally be getting better.

Eddie was still out, his body slack and heavy right where he’d first sprawled across him. His mouth was pressed solidly against Buck’s neck now, and Buck realized with a sharp jolt that his neck was

wet

now. Eddie had drooled on him in his sleep. Right over his mating gland.

Which, Buck would say he felt very normal about. Sure, if it were any other alpha who had drooled on his neck Buck would probably get so hard he’d pass out, but this was his best friend Eddie, so he felt normal about it instead.

Plus Eddie was straight.

Plus, even if he was a little bit turned on, Eddie was an alpha, so of course Buck would be into that.

But because the universe hated him, that moment was precisely when Eddie stirred. His arm around him tightened, his breath stuttered, and his mouth pulled away from his skin.

“Mmph? Buck?”

Buck swallowed hard. His throat felt dry.

“I’m here,” Buck said after two tries, trying to be normal and school his expression as Eddie pulled back further and sat up.

Buck could see the exact moment Eddie’s eyes cleared and he came back to the present and saw the saliva on Buck’s neck. He fought the urge to reach a hand up to cover the gland from Eddie’s unhappy scrutiny.

“Dios mío,” Eddie cursed, his voice low and sleep-rough. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Eddie, really.”

“It’s- Jesus, that’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not. Don’t be embarrassed.”

Eddie shook his head before running an impatient hand over his face.

“How long did I sleep for?”

Buck checked his phone. It was almost lunchtime.

“A few hours.”

Eddie cursed some more, and Buck, blaming it on the fact that they were still in bed together, and blaming too the fact that his senses were completely flooded by the alpha, reached out to wrap a hand around Eddie’s upper arm. Eddie didn’t brush him off. Didn’t make a comment about him pawing at him either.

“You needed it,” Buck said, insistently. “It’s okay; I did too. I think Chris is still playing his game downstairs anyway.”

Eddie sighed, Buck’s words having the opposite effect he’d intended and causing the alpha to tense even further.

“He needs to be doing his schoolwork, not playing videogames. I need to- I have to get on that.”

“Eddie,” Buck tried. “He’s not a young pup anymore. He knows to do his homework. He can balance it.”

“I can’t let it slip-” Eddie started frustratedly, before cutting himself off just as abruptly. He was doing the thing again. Shutting down. Keeping him out.

Buck normally wasn’t there to see the metaphorical door as it was closing. He did what he felt anyone would have done then. He jammed his foot into the closing door.

“Let what slip?” Buck asked. “I know this isn’t just you worrying that Chris will slack off and fall behind. What’s weighing on you?”

Buck dared to be a little bolder. He leaned forward and tapped against the side of Eddie’s temple. He had been going for funny. He ended up a little too soft when he asked him “what’s going on in there?”

Buck let his hand dropped and Eddie stared at him. He looked at him for a long moment, and Buck thought that he was going to finally let him in-

“Nothing. It’s… Nothing, Buck. You should be resting,” Eddie said, turning away. “I should go check on Chris-”

Buck dropped his hand back to Eddie’s arm and gripped on, keeping him from leaving.

“Talk to me,” Buck pleaded. “Tell me what’s going on. Let me help.”

“I can

handle

it-”

“I know you can.”

There was a beat of silence. Buck squeezed harder at the expression on Eddie’s face. Disbelieving almost, but less harsh. Disbelieving in a way that felt soft.

“Let me help anyway.”

Eddie’s nostrils flared and he looked away again, only this time he didn’t move to get up. He stayed there. Buck thought he saw the door ease open a crack from what he could make out of Eddie’s profile.

The alpha shuddered a sigh and Buck wished that he could cup his face, or scratch his nails back through his hair. But that didn’t feel like something best friends did, so he didn’t.

After a short pause that felt long, Eddie spoke.

“Chris wants to move back.”

Buck’s jaw dropped. His heart soared and then dropped.

“And you… don’t.”

“What?” Eddie asked, turning slightly back toward him and scrunching his face up. “No, of

course

I do. But I- you know I sold the house, and we don’t have anywhere to stay here now. And I need to sign Chris back up for school here, and find a new doctor, and dentist, and a therapist, and a job, and I’ll probably need to get more than one job because you know how expensive it is to live here, and it will be just like it was in El Paso where I work too much and I never get to see him, and I don’t know

what

I’m gonna do with the house in Texas, but I’m definitely gonna lose money on it, and my parents call every day and they aren’t gonna be too thrilled when I tell them that Chris and I are leaving again, which is fine, but it is just one more thing-”

“Eddie.”

“And you! You almost die and nobody tells me. I could have- I wouldn’t even know now if Chris hadn’t reached out. What would I have done if you had died, hmm? Just like that!? And I wasn’t here, and now I

am

here, and you’re

STILL

not getting better, and I don’t know what to do, because-”

“Eddie!”

“WHAT!?”

The game music had cut out downstairs, and Buck knew Chris had paused it. Eddie’s breaths were coming in too fast, and he still wasn’t looking at him.

Buck dared to rest a firm hand on the back of Eddie’s neck.

“Breathe.”

Eddie scoffed out a shaky laugh, and Buck squeezed harder.

“Do you want to do the jello thing?”

Eddie panted out a few harsh breaths, and Buck almost started speaking again. Eddie just beat him to it.

“No. No, I just need a second. Just- can you give me…”

“You’re okay, Eddie. Take whatever time you need. I’m here. I’ll be right here.”

“Just a minute.”

“Sure.”

A full minute passed of the two of them sitting there, Eddie, calming his breathing down, and Buck holding him tight. He felt the way Eddie’s muscles slowly eased, and he watched as his skin lost some of its panicked fluster. Come to think of it, he felt cooler too. He was still warm, but he didn’t feel feverish. It wasn’t like the heat was radiating off him anymore.

“Can you-” Eddie started lowly before clearing his throat and continuing. “Can you tell Chris I’m alright? I think he- he paused his game.”

Buck released his grip on the back of Eddie’s neck and rubbed at the still-too-tense muscles in his shoulders and upper back.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself while we go have some lunch?”

Eddie shook his head, but it didn’t feel like disagreement so much as it felt like embarrassment again. Or shame.

“I’m the reason they didn’t call you,” Buck admitted, feeling his stomach turn at the hurt, confused look Eddie sent back his way. “I told them all not to tell you. I just wanted you to be able to focus on your son. I didn’t want- I didn’t want to get in the way. I’m sorry.”

Eddie opened his mouth but nothing came out, so Buck just kept going.

“But I’m feeling better today. Like, actually loads better. You- you said I wasn’t getting better but I am. You- you and Chris. You guys being back is helping. A lot.”

“Buck,” Eddie said, weakly.

Buck just kept going.

“And you said Chris wanted to move back, you can just stay with me. If- if you want. Until you find a- a bigger place, you know? So Chris can have an actual room and everything. And the school, I can help.”

Eddie kept facing forward, and Buck wished he would turn back toward him. He wished he could be sure that his words and his conviction were both sinking in.

“We can make this work if you- if that’s what you and Chris want. To come-”

home

“-back to LA.”

Eddie took a shaky breath, and in his profile Buck saw him pull a wry smile.

“It’s just a lot.”

“I know,” Buck agreed. “But you have family here too. And they-

we

want to help you. However we can.”

Eddie darted a look at him before turning away again.

“And you’re really feeling better?”

Aside from the terrifying, crushing hope in his chest, and the lingering feeling that his limbs were a smidge too heavy, Buck really was feeling fine.

“Loads,” Buck assured. “Could probably even work a 12-hr right now if Bobby’d let me.”

Eddie laughed. The videogame battle music resumed downstairs.

“Don’t push it.”

“I won’t.”

“Yeah you will.”

“Okay, I will, but I’m not right now,” Buck defended while smiling.

Eddie turned back to look at him, and the look on his face made Buck’s heart flop around in his chest. He smiled harder.

“You look better,” Eddie admitted. “Pinker, you know? Less pale and ghostly.”

“You don’t like the frail Victorian woman look?”

“No, I like this look,” Eddie said, like he didn’t know that he was kicking Buck’s through poor heart like a sand castle. Then he blinked, and just like he had when he’d awoken, Buck watched his eyes adjust. “I mean, not…”

Buck cleared his throat, not wanting to hear the walk-back.

“You want to go have lunch now?”

“Yes, please. Let’s… let’s do that. I’m starving.”

Buck doubted that, but he was glad that Eddie was looking better. He talked more during lunch too, as though having gotten past the clog of worries jamming him up had been all he’d needed. Buck still yapped most of the meal, but it didn’t feel like he was talking to himself and maybe Christopher anymore. It felt like Eddie was listening.

And while they were cleaning up, Buck was planning.

For real this time. No more falling asleep in the middle.

Eddie wanted to move back.

Eddie wanted to, and felt like he couldn’t. He needed help.

Buck could do that, but he couldn’t do it alone.

When the Diaz boys moved to the living room, Buck went back upstairs, claiming he needed to take his meds. He pulled out his phone the second he was alone. He texted the cavalry.

And he rejoined the men downstairs, lighter than he’d felt in months.