Chapter Text
How did he get there? Buck wasn’t really sure. His head was spinning. He was sweating so badly that his clothes were sticking to him. The music was so loud he couldn’t hear his own thoughts; it felt like his heart was pounding in time with the beat. He was getting his wish of being anywhere but drowning on his own. He was surrounded by bodies, people he didn’t recognize. He was dancing, hands on someone’s waist. Just don’t ask him for their name. That wasn’t what it was. He would take whatever fleeting connection he could get, dancing to fill the void.
Suddenly, everyone was too close, the music too loud, and he felt his chest getting tighter. He wondered if anyone noticed him as the anxiety kicked in and if anyone could see he was a fraud trying to overcompensate for something that wasn’t there. The woman who was dancing with him looked up over her shoulder at him. Next thing he knew, he was following her into the bathrooms in the back.
Everything was groggy when Buck woke up in the morning. He was on the couch in last night’s clothes, and some annoying thing was buzzing away. He closed his eyes, hoping it would go away. It took him a few minutes to realize it was his phone.
Shit. He was supposed to meet Maddie for lunch. He searched around until he found his phone on the kitchen island. Sure enough, Maddie had been texting him all morning.
Maddie: Morning
Maddie: What time are you coming?
Maddie: Can you pick up lunch from that Thai place around the corner? You know my usual
Maddie: Evan?
Maddie: You’re still coming for lunch right?
3 missed calls from Maddie
Maddie: Evan seriously I know you dont like calls but you need to answer something
Buck : Call off the search party, I just woke up late this morning
Maddie didn’t need to know why.
Buck: I’ll still be there for lunch
Buck: Let me get ready and grab the food.
I’ll let you know when I’m on the way with the food
Maddie : See you soon
Buck threw his phone on the couch and rubbed his face in his hands. Now that he’d appeased Maddie for a little while, he could focus on getting rid of the pounding in his head. He swore he used to handle this a lot better. Forcing himself up, he went upstairs to get ready as vague memories from the night before came back to him – the dancing, the bathroom hookup. He felt sick. He was trying to fix his hair when he paused, just looking at himself in the mirror. He looked every bit the wreck he felt. He had no idea how he was going to convince Maddie he was okay, but he had no other choice.
Buck: Got the food, on my way to you now
Maddie was already in the break room when he got there. She sat at the table with two bottles of water already set out in front of her. She was scrolling through something on her phone, but her eyes flicked up the second Buck walked in. He put the bag of food down, and they started going through the containers. Maddie eyed him.
“You look terrible.”
He was well aware of that fact but played along anyway. “Thanks - just what every guy wants to hear.” He opened the bottle of water and drank it all.
“I’m just being honest. I’ve been worried about you with how flakey you’ve been recently.”
Buck shrugged. “I’ve been busy,” he said as he started digging into the food. If he was eating, he couldn’t be talking. That was his game plan to get through the conversation.
“Too busy for your big sister?”
Buck gave her a sheepish smile.
“Well, at least you have the decency to look guilty. I miss you, Evan. I know things have been tough since the injury and the lawsuit, and I know you disagreed with me on some of that stuff, but we’re family, right? It’s you and me through it all.”
He nodded, not offering her much. Maddie put her food down.
“Really, Evan, you’ve got nothing.”
Buck looked at her. “Not really, everything’s fine. I just don’t want you in the middle of it all, and I’m keeping myself busy.” He sighed, realizing she’d want to argue. “And I know I’m not putting you in the middle of it, but it just happens by default with you dating Chimney. Things haven’t exactly gone back to the way they were...” Maddie looked ready to interrupt, but Buck stopped her. “Which is completely expected. Look, I don’t really feel like talking about it. How’s work been?” He went back to eating, signaling her line of questioning was over.
She eyed Buck suspiciously, not convinced she was getting the whole story from anyone. “Well, I had this one call this morning...” She decided to leave it be for now.
Oh well. It’s just one night, right? This is what he thought once he got back to his loft after his lunch with Maddie. Except one night turned into two, which turned into three, and then suddenly, it had been a week since he had slept in his loft. He’d with a different person every night, back to sleeping his way through Los Angeles. He never overstayed his welcome. If they even made it back to the person’s place, it was always theirs, never his, then he was gone before the sun came up. Men, women, it didn’t matter to him, anyone who was willing to fill that place for the night. Even if he wanted more than one night, there would’ve been no point in trying. All they saw him as was a hot body and a good time. The only way it kept working was if none of them knew him. He was tired of begging people to stay in his life. Tired of trying to understand why people didn’t love him.
There was a voice in the back of his mind, reminding him of the work he put into becoming Buck 2.0 and how hard he’d tried to put his Buck 1.0 days behind him. It was barely a whisper now, easily drowned out by the sex and alcohol. It helped that it felt different this time. The pit in his stomach returned almost immediately. His skin crawled. He felt dirty in a way no shower could get rid of – it clung to his skin no matter how hard he scrubbed. There was an emptiness growing.
At least there in the shower, no one could see or hear him falling apart.
He still made sure to show up to work for every shift. It wasn’t the first time in his life that he had gotten used to showing up to work hungover. He would’ve felt worse about that, but it wasn’t like he went out on many calls anyway, so he’d usually sobered up by the time he had to go on one.
The day started like usual. Buck showed up for his shift, barely making it in time. He kept his head down, went to the locker room, and, once he was done, went about his job. He didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even acknowledge them; you’d barely know he was there. He doesn’t join them for lunch. He hasn’t had much of an appetite lately. He should have missed cooking lunch with Bobby and learning whatever new information he could, but he didn’t. He didn’t particularly miss any of it anymore. He’d stopped cooking, baking, and watching the documentaries he’d once loved. Luckily, he didn’t have too long to think about his persistent lack of eating because the alarm rang, and Bobby yelled, “Buckley, you’re with Diaz” over the balcony railing.
In the engine, Buck stayed silent, letting everyone talk around him. It felt longer than it actually was for them to reach the scene. A partial building collapse occurred at a downtown construction site. Everything ran smoothly until it got to the last few people. They were on the second floor of some scaffolding when they started to feel it shake.
“Buck.” It was just a statement, a warning. Even with all the friction between the two of them, they could still read each other with ease.
“I know.” Eddie was ready with a worker, and both of them were secured. “You go; I’ll be behind you.”
“Are you sure?” He eyed Buck, who was still securing the other construction worker. He was taking too long.
Buck nodded. He finished securing the victim; neither construction worker was showing signs of severe injury, so it should have been fine. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Eddie nodded, then left.
While on his way down, Buck lost his footing on unstable debris – a sudden shift in the structural integrity caused a support beam to snap and fall. He pushed the construction worker out of the way, but in the process, he got thrown back. He saw the blood down his arm before he felt it. He didn’t let himself focus on the injuries, instead concentrating on getting the construction worker down safely.
Once the EMTs had finished assessing and caring for the construction workers, Hen walked over to Buck, who was attending to the hoses.
“That looks like it hurts. Let me take a look at it.”
Buck shrugged, continuing to pack the stuff up without looking at her. She’d been giving him pitying looks since his first shift after the lawsuit, but she wasn’t doing anything about it, so he wondered what the point was. If this was supposed to be an olive branch, it was a pretty bad one. “I’m fine, Hen. I’ve had plenty worse.”
“Buck...” It was funny how much sympathy could be conveyed in a single word. It only made him more determined to suck it up and continue. “Please let me look at you. Your head is bleeding, and who knows what happened with your arm? We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t make you get checked out. I’m half tempted to force you to go to the hospital myself.”
Ah, that was what this was about. He turned to look at her.
“Don’t worry, we can document that I refused medical attention, so I can’t go and sue you later.”
Hen didn’t know what to say. “I... that’s not what this is.” When would they all move on from this? It seemed to be still following them around like a dark cloud they couldn’t get rid of. She knew everyone was hurt; she was hurt too, but surely this had dragged on for long enough.
The discussion ended when Bobby walked by and looked between them. “Buckley, listen to Hen; either she checks you out, or you go to the hospital.” Buck looked like he was about to argue. “It’s protocol, you know that. This isn’t up for discussion.” Bobby walked off as if to prove his point.
“Fine,” Buck grumbled and walked towards the ambulance. No one else bothered them as Hen fixed Buck up. They sat there in silence except for the occasional “this may hurt” or another comment from Hen. It should have hurt, but it didn’t, or at least he didn’t feel it. He supposed that feeling any amount of pain was something. It was better than nothing. It was a reminder that he was still alive. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Hen decided that he needed his arm wrapped in bandages at the minimum and that he should be put on concussion protocol. She tried to convince him to let them drop him off at the hospital. What Hen didn’t, and Buck wasn’t willing to tell her, was that he wasn’t sure he could handle another hospital bill right now, even if it would at least be covered under insurance now that he was working. Eventually, she caved after Buck agreed to go home once they returned to the station. Home. If that’s what you can call it. It didn’t feel like he had a home anymore. The 118 was supposed to be his home. The people had always been his home, not the place. Now, he felt like he should be grateful that they even took care of his injury. No one else says anything to him on the ride back.
“What the hell is wrong with you today? Do you have some sort of death wish?” Eddie stormed into the locker room. Buck was standing, staring into his locker. The same one that not long ago had Bosko’s name instead of his own. He didn’t want to fight over whatever it was Eddie was coming to him with. He’d tried so hard to stop them from seeing him as the enemy, giving them every bit of himself he could, turning into what he thought they needed, whether that be overworking himself to the bone or making himself as invisible as possible. He was tired. Maybe he didn’t have an explicit death wish, but he’d stopped caring what happened to him. It wasn’t like anyone else cared, either.
“Since when do you care?” Buck scoffed.
“Sorry, I don’t want to explain to my son how yet another important person in his life died.”
“I’m sure you’d come up with something, like how you did during the lawsuit.”
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Grow up, Buck. Some of us don’t have the luxury of being selfish like you. Some of us have people counting on us to make it home in one piece.” Buck didn’t know if it was intentional, but the comment hit its mark. If it wasn’t enough for him to know he was alone, now they were going to point it out to him, too. Buck schooled his expression and didn’t let Eddie see him wince. He remained quiet.
“Where were you?” Eddie finally broke the silence.
“I was right there on the second level, Eddie.”
“No, not on the call.” Buck couldn’t remember the last time he saw Eddie this angry. “Where were you two nights ago when Chris was calling you because he needed his Buck? I went by your loft yesterday after you never returned his call, hoping that there was some damn good reason you weren’t picking up the phone after you promised him you’d always answer him if he needed you, except your car wasn’t there, and neither were you. You weren’t with Maddie because I checked with her, too. She said she hadn’t heard from you since your lunch.”
The guilt hit Buck immediately. He hadn’t even noticed any missed calls. Chris had needed him, and he hadn’t been there.
“Well, out with it. What could have possibly been more important than Christopher?”
He didn’t have any reason, let alone a good one. He remained silent. All he felt was the overwhelming shame of having let Christopher down again. He was proving to everyone that he was a useless screw-up.
“It’s none of your business where I was.”
“It is my business when Christopher is the one suffering, when sometimes he relies on you just as much as he does me. If you need to be mad at me because you feel hard-done-by by the consequences of your own actions, go ahead, but the least you should do after everything is show up for him.”
“Well, he shouldn’t need to rely on me, should he? You’re his dad, not me. Why don’t you try being there?”
“BUCK! That’s enough. Both of you.” Buck turned to look at Bobby and saw everyone standing there, staring at them. It was the shock on their faces that got to him. He grabbed his things, locked his locker, and left. No one stopped him. He was done for the day anyway.
Part of him wished that someone would follow him if only to ask him if he was okay. They should’ve known that he would never say something like that and mean it. Christopher meant the world to him. But the way they were looking at him... they were shocked, sure, but they were also angry. And Eddie... God, Eddie had looked like Buck had punched him as hard as he could. In a way, he had, right in the gut, where he knew it would hurt. The worst part was that they had landed so many symbolic hits against Buck over the last few months that it had felt good to get one against them. But fuck, he’d used Christopher to do it, and that was a low he’d never thought he would hit.
He was in no state to be anywhere near Christopher at the moment. It was a good job he hadn’t been at his apartment when Eddie had shown up. It’d been so long since he’d been there for more than five minutes that he didn’t know what state it was in. Based on how little effort he’d put into maintaining it over the last few months, he could only imagine.
He didn’t remember the drive. That was a common theme lately. He thought about what he said to Eddie. Everyone else had given up on him. He just hadn’t noticed he’d given up on himself, too. He looked through his kitchen, ignoring the mess, until he found what he was looking for.
“I’m being serious, Maddie. You should’ve heard what he said to Eddie today. He practically told Eddie to parent Chris himself and to stop relying on him.” For the first time in a while, Chimney had volunteered information about Buck without Maddie prompting him. Her heart sank with every piece of information he’d given her about the call, the injury, and the argument with Eddie afterward. It solidified the gut feeling she had that something was wrong.
“But Buck loves Christopher. He absolutely adores that boy and would do anything for him.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Maddie. We all heard their shouting match. We all heard Buck say it.” Maddie didn’t move; her facial expression didn’t change. “Ask anyone who was there today if you don’t believe me.” Chimney threw his hands up.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. I don’t believe Buck. He would never say something like that.”
“You’re not the one working long shifts with him. Clearly, he doesn’t feel bad about any of what he did to us. Maybe you don’t know your brother as well as you think you do.”
No, the problem was quite the opposite. Maddie knew her brother too well. She’d seen more of the aftermath with their parents than anyone else. She had been the one to pick up the pieces every time he reacted to their parents. She had seen every self-inflicted injury, or injury he’d done nothing to prevent, every attempt at doing whatever he could to get attention to the detriment of himself. When they were younger, and it had been just two of them, she hadn’t known what to do. She had been just a kid herself. Helping stitch him up was all she’d been equipped to do. She’d hoped that time would heal those wounds, that he would grow out of it.
But she wasn’t that naive teen anymore. She wasn’t barely an adult, scared out of her mind trying to keep Doug happy, keep herself alive. This time, she could do more and would do more. It was time for someone to intervene and get them all to start acting like the family they were. They all needed to talk it out and apologize to each other, whether they wanted to or not. She’s had enough of being kept out of it.
Maddie : We need to talk.
Maddie : Alone
Maddie : It’s about Buck
Athena : I’ll let you know when Bobby leaves for his shift tomorrow