Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Buck’s been having a bit of a strange day. Given his job as a witch for the Department, the ultra-secret magical organization that operates in plain sight in sunny Los Angeles, strange shouldn’t be new to him.

Magic exists, but not everyone knows about it. Some humans know, but most are ignorant to the different types of people with abilities they walk past every day while drinking their oat milk lattes. The Department is the entity that exists to make sure magic is being used properly.

If there’s a fire that doesn’t make sense, one of the Department’s teams will be sent to take care of it and investigate if needed. There’s a subsection for fire fighting, medics, and law enforcement. Each of the teams seem like a normal first responder unit through the LAFD and LAPD, but their superiors are the ones within the Department.

Within a few months of moving to LA, Buck had found a way to submit his application. He was been tired of staying away from other magical beings. He’d liked traveling all over the world, but he missed the warm spark of magic.

He’s never regretted his decision to join the Department. Even on strange days like today.

It’s not even a full moon. Bobby, his captain and the only werewolf on their team, would be the one affected by that. Hen and Chim, resident healer and water manipulator, respectively, have been normal as well. Neither have made pointed comments about Buck’s feud with the new guy like they had last shift.

No, Buck’s day has been strange because of how the new guy, Eddie Diaz, has been looking at him.

Eddie’s been with the Department for three weeks now.

Buck isn’t proud of how he had reacted when Bobby had introduced their new team member. It takes a lot to approve someone through the Department, and Bobby hadn’t been quiet about how hard he’d fought to get Eddie Diaz to join the 118.

All Buck had heard was Bobby talking proudly about the new guy and how he was going to improve their ability to help the magical population of Los Angeles. He’d seen the writing on the wall that wasn’t there, and took Eddie’s presence as a threat.

He’d been rude, and bratty, and more than a bit creative in his words to the new guy.

Eddie, who had tried to be nice at first, had tilted his head at Buck at the first sign of aggression. He hadn’t looked upset—he had looked curious. Like he knew there was more to the story than what Buck was letting on.

And that’s dangerous.

Because Buck had lied on his application to the Department.

He’d told them he was a witch. That his magical ability was small, but powerful enough to allow him to qualify for his spot at the 118. Buck had made up some lies about intuition being his strongest power, with a small dabbling in aura reading and detecting magical patterns, like the bones and architecture of spells and runes.

Small abilities, nothing to write home about, but good enough to be considered for Bobby’s team.

And Buck had lied about every single one of them.

And Eddie Diaz looked at him like he knew it.

*****

Buck’s day had at least started normally.

He wakes in his loft, wrapped in his comforter, trying to chase the light feeling of his dreams. He’d been somewhere outside. Buck remembers a weeping willow with its branches brushing over his shoulders and curling up to caress his cheek. He’d been happy. Truly, iridescently happy.

And then he wakes up. Alone.

Loneliness isn’t new for Buck. How could it be? But the sting cuts a bit deeper on mornings like this, when he remembers it’s possible to feel differently.

He rolls out of bed, makes his coffee, and eats a protein bar as he drives into work. He slows down as he stares down a green light, neatly changing lanes so he’s in the furthest lane from the median. The person behind him honks and flips him off, but Buck ignores them.

Especially as a giant pickup truck blows the red light from the left side of the intersection, speeding through right where Buck and the car behind him would’ve been if he hadn’t slowed down.

The person behind him stops honking, at least.

Buck parks in his normal spot at the station, waving to Chim as he pulls in a few spots down from him. Hen’s car is already here, meaning she’s inside, waiting for the shift to start. Bobby’s truck is on the far side of the lot. Buck has the feeling he’s making breakfast for them upstairs. He can almost smell the jalapeños he’s chopping for Buck’s omelet.

He grabs his duffel from the backseat of the Jeep and heads in, humming to himself.

Today’s going to be a good day, he thinks furtively. If he hopes for it hard enough, maybe it’ll come true.

And then he hears the roar of an engine as another car pulls into the fire station.

Buck doesn’t even have to turn around. He heads inside before he can see Eddie Diaz behind the wheel of his truck, looking at Buck with his loaded expression and narrowed eyes.

He can still feel his eyes on him as he slips into the changing room, getting into his uniform faster than he thought possible, and heading upstairs to join Bobby in front of the stove. The werewolf grins at him as he slides into place and begins chopping the vegetables he’d set aside for Buck.

The jalapeños are already added to the egg in the pan.

“How are you doing this morning, Buck?” Bobby’s voice is warm. Several degrees different from Philip Buckley, but Buck’s tried to stop comparing them to each other. Bobby is the clear winner in every way that matters.

“Fine, Cap,” he says. He thinks about his dream again, and frowns. He doesn’t dream often, and never remembers them this clearly. He feels like he’s forgetting something, or missed something that should’ve been obvious. “How are you? How’s Athena?”

“All good,” Bobby replies. “She’s working on the murder investigation for the Department worker from last month. Lot of late hours, but she thinks there’s going to be a breakthrough soon.”

It’s rare for a magical being to be murdered—and even rarer for that person to be someone working for the Department. Everyone had been shocked—and everyone in the law enforcement division is determined to crack it.

“If anyone can solve it, it’s ‘Thena,” Buck says.

It had taken years to win over the half-Fae, half-witch. Her smaller stature is thanks to her lineage, but it doesn’t take away from how much ass she can kick. Buck had been slightly terrified of her.

When she married Bobby, she had started warming up to Buck. Now, thanks to the weekly dinners at their place, he knows he can consider the intimidating woman someone he can count on.

All in all, the 118 is exactly what Buck had always wanted.

Until Eddie Diaz had shown up.

A witch with an unwavering ability to push Buck’s buttons—and an unwelcome addition to the found family Buck had acquired.

But Bobby had made it clear that he was here to stay—and Buck has to behave.

The full moon is three days away, and Bobby will be stronger than normal in the days approaching his shift. Buck would be foolish to try anything.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the bane of his existence comes into view, his boots stomping against the stairs, and Buck cuts the bell pepper in front of him a bit harder than he means to.

Bobby makes a low warning noise in the back of his throat.

Silently, Buck splays his free hand in a loose attempt at an apology.

“Good morning, Cap,” Eddie says cheerfully as he beelines to the coffeemaker. And then, flatly, “Buckley.”

“Diaz.”

Bobby looks at the ceiling as if he’d find more patience up there waiting for him.

Eddie takes a sip from his mug, his brown eyes locked on Buck. He keeps his gaze on the cutting board on the counter, reminding himself why it’s a bad idea to pick a fight with the new team member right in front of his boss. Who’s already fired him once before. Three days before the full moon, when his emotions would be less in check.

It’s an effective tactic.

“Breakfast is ready!” Bobby calls several minutes later, gathering the A shift crew to the long dining room table.

Hen and Chim stand up from the couches where they’d been having a lively debate about whether it would be cooler to fly or breathe underwater. It’s far from the most original topic they’ve opined about, but it’s the passion with which they’re conversing that has Buck raising his eyebrows.

“—and that’s why I think flying would be cooler,” Hen finishes, dropping into her seat with a flourish.

“I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” Chim says, taking his plate from Buck with a quick thanks. “Buck? What do you think? Fly or breathe underwater?”

Buck thinks about it as he cuts into his omelet. Bobby had made it perfectly, like always. “I think breathing underwater would be cool. Would I be able to dive anywhere? Would the pressure be an issue past a certain depth?”

“No pressure issues,” Chim confirms.

“Then definitely breathing underwater. Think of all the marine animals I could follow!”

Eddie makes a derisive noise, and Buck’s eye gives a valiant twitch. What the hell?

“I’m guessing you have a different opinion?” His voice isn’t as sharp as it could be, which Buck takes as a win.

“Flying would be better,” Eddie says, taking a bite of his food. “I’d never have to worry about LA traffic again.”

“There are a few solutions to that problem, actually,” Buck mutters darkly. Eddie raises a brow and Buck tilts his head in response.

Eddie’s smart enough to read between the lines.

“Is it a witch thing?” Chim asks suddenly.

“Huh?”

“You two are like territorial house cats, and I’m wondering if it’s because you’re both witches,” Chim explains, taking a sip of his water. When it’s empty, he waves his hand over the glass and it refills. One of the smaller iterations of his power, but no less useful.

“Something like that,” Eddie replies.

“That’s super specific, Eddie,” Hen says. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Happy to help.”

Bobby bites back a smile.

Buck doesn’t answer. He knows why he dislikes Eddie, but he can’t exactly tell them without exposing several things at once. His debilitating abandonment issues, for one, and then there’s the huge secret he’s kept from everyone. He knows exactly what would happen if he tells the truth.

The bell rings, and Buck’s saved from having to come up with a convincing lie.

*****

It’s a fairly routine call, a simple car accident with three cars involved but no injuries, but the hair on the back of Buck’s neck raises all the same. He looks over his shoulder more often than not, which slows him down considerably. Hen and Chim are tasked with helping the first car in the collision, while he and Eddie are triaging the other two.

“Buckley, come on,” Eddie snaps, looking back at him from beside the second car.

He tries to let go of his dread, but its icy fingers cling to his neck and latch on. It’s bone deep, and he knows this isn’t something he should ignore.

Buck stops where he is, and surveys the scene. The first car, where Hen and Chim are, looks fine. The passengers of the car are standing outside, crossing their arms and complaining about insurance increases.

The second car, where Eddie is standing, talking to the driver, looks normal as well. For the life of him, he can’t explain why he has the feeling that something is about to go very, very wrong.

The third car is occupied by a man who looks like he’s in his twenties, with light hair. Buck looks at Eddie, who’s still talking to the owner of the second car, and makes his decision.

He approaches them, putting on his best customer service smile, and says, “Hi! I’m Firefighter Buckley. How are you feeling?”

The man turns to him, his eyes glinting. “I’m fine. I figured I shouldn’t move, right? In case of a neck injury?”

“That’s right,” Buck says, glancing towards Eddie. The witch is smiling at the occupant of the second car, and Buck takes a moment to blink.

Huh. He has such a nice smile.

It’s not the time to be thinking about that, so Buck refocuses on the patient. He makes small talk, ignoring the itching feeling that something’s off. The man nods along and answers his questions, thanking Buck when he tells him he doesn’t seem to have any injuries and will be free to leave once he exchanges information with the other car owners.

When he’s done, Buck goes to stand next to Eddie beside the engine.

“You took your sweet time,” Eddie mutters.

“The guy’s fine,” Buck says instead of responding to the barb. He looks back towards Hen, Chim, and Bobby, still standing by the first car. “I just feel like something…”

He trails off, blinking harshly. Eddie’s saying something, but he doesn’t hear any of it. No, his entire focus is on the other three members of his team. They’re clustered in front of the car, talking easily. Chim laughs at something Hen says, and Bobby gives them a fond look.

Buck’s heart stutters in his chest.

Three of the people he loves most in the world are about to die.

*****

Eddie Diaz didn’t join the 118 with the intention of not getting along with Evan Buckley. He’d agreed to join Bobby’s team after hearing about the different people with abilities on the roster. He had wanted to leave El Paso and his oppressive family behind, no matter where it meant ending up.

But he’d come to be with Abuela and Tia Pepa, two people who had always made him feel wanted and welcome. They’d never said anything about his magic or the fact he had married a human.

And he’d be allowed to practice his magic with his team. None of his other jobs had allowed his magic to be openly used. Not even on his tours. He’d used it against orders when his helicopter had gone down, and knew it would be the end of his time with the army.

When he’d heard about the Department from Tia Pepa, he’d put his application in immediately. The Diaz coven isn’t well known on the west coast, but had enough respected ties in Texas for Bobby to come across his name and ask for him specifically.

It had been an easy yes.

Until he met Evan Buckley.

Eddie’s magic is a fluid thing, fluctuating and shapeless. It’s not as refined as his sisters’ magic, or as impressive as his father’s. It’s…different, and therefore less in the eyes of his parents. It doesn’t matter that he can create portals to other rooms, essentially teleporting, or that his runes are strong enough that he could’ve been a curse breaker on the east coast.

It’s a wild thing compared to the rest of his family, so he left. He took himself and Christopher out of the equation, fleeing to the sunny streets of Los Angeles for the sake of his sanity.

He’d been excited to meet his new coworkers, and had immediately liked Hen and Chim. Both were welcoming, and kind, and explained what they could do. Hen’s healing hands are amazing, allowing her to help patients make it to the hospital where the medwitches can save their lives.

Chim’s ability is dead useful, especially when they’re out fighting fires. It’s not often that the 118 responds to structure fires without traces of magic, but Chim helps them out when they’re dispatched to different scenes. All of them are trained to handle anything, but his power gives them an edge when a home is closer to collapsing than not.

He’d known Bobby’s a werewolf, so he’d only asked a few questions within his first few days.

Evan Buckley, on the other hand, is completely different from the rest of the team. He’d been hostile from the beginning, snapping at him from across the engine bay or posturing when they were in the workout room together. Eddie had thought it was weird at first—most witches liked each other on principle when they first met.

And then he’d asked Buck a few questions.

“Which coven are you with?” A completely normal question, if not a bit of a formality for witches. Everyone has a coven, no matter what. Every witch, from birth, has at least one coven they’re a part of. As they move, grow older, fall in love, or leave behind old bonds, they’ll always find a new coven.

“Oh, uh,” Buck had said, looking unsure. “I’m part of Bobby’s pack.”

Eddie had nodded. He would be as well once he’s through his probationary year, after all. “Right, but which coven are you from?”

Buck had shaken his head.

That had been the first time Eddie was intrigued by him.

The second was when he asked him about his focuses a few days later. It was within his first week of being there, and he hadn’t wanted to ruffle too many feathers. But there was something off about Buck, and Eddie knew he had to figure it out.

“Which area did you declare a focus in?” Another normal question for a witch to ask another witch. Eddie’s lost count of the amount times he’s answered that line of questioning over the years.

But Buck had looked at him like he was speaking another language. “What?”

“Your magic?” Eddie had clarified. “Your area of magic you have proficiency in?”

“Oh!” He’d nodded a few times and said, “Intuition, aura reading, and magical pattern recognition.”

“I’ve never met an intuition witch before,” he’d remarked casually. He’d heard of them, of course, but had never met one in the flesh. Spell casting, fortune telling, or ward making were much more popular areas of studying.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what you want to me to say,” Buck had said before fleeing the room like he was on fire.

Eddie had known something was up after that interaction.

And ever since, he’d paid attention to Buck. There’s so much that doesn’t add up about him.

The other witch always seems to avoid him when he comes into the different common areas in the station. If he’s working out and Eddie comes in, he’s suddenly done with his set and heading to the bunk room. If he’s standing with Bobby talking about something, he’ll fall into silence until Eddie’s gone again, as if he doesn’t trust him to listen to his conversations with their captain.

And then there’s the fact he’s never seen Buck do a lick of magic. To the best of Eddie’s knowledge, he’s never cast a spell within the station’s limits, or warded a scene or used his magic to fetch something from the kitchen without getting up. Small things Eddie had seen every witch do one time or another in their lifetimes.

Buck’s never done any of that.

Eddie hasn’t talked about it with Pepa or Abuela yet. Maybe Buck had a terrible falling out with his previous coven and doesn’t trust witches. Or perhaps he went through some terrible ordeal where he can’t access his magic anymore. It’s extremely rare, but still a logical explanation for the things Eddie’s noticed.

Or maybe…

His gut tells him there’s more to it than Buck’s letting on. His magic is best focused on portals, wards, runes, and defensive spells, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a drop of intuition now and then.

And ever since he’s met Buck, he’s had the feeling that the other man is lying.

So he watches him. He knows Buck’s aware of what he’s doing—that’s probably the main reason he avoids Eddie as much as he does. But Eddie’s resourceful. And he never backs down from a challenge.

He tries talking to Chim about it first. In the first few shifts, he’d realized how horrible the water manipulator is at keeping secrets.

“So what’s Buck’s deal?”

Chim raises an eyebrow. Maybe it wasn’t the most subtle of approaches. And then the other man shrugs. “He’s a good member of the team. Knows his stuff, always eager to help people. Used to be a bit of a player, but then he got a girlfriend. Was super serious, and then she left. He waited for her for a really long time.”

It’s more information than Eddie had been expecting, but he remains focused on his task. “And his magic?”

Chim shrugs again. “Not as obvious as mine or Hen’s. He’s good at reading people. He’ll give us intel at scenes as he sees the auras or something. Buck’s never really explained it.”

Eddie doesn’t doubt that at all.

Buck’s a mystery to him, and Eddie’s never met a puzzle he couldn’t solve. He wants to see what makes Buck tick. He can’t explain it, so he doesn’t try to.

And that brings him to today. Car accidents are super normal for them to respond to, but Buck is super jumpy and looking over his shoulder every two seconds. It’s strange behavior for a non-threatening call. There isn’t even a trace of magic at the scene.

Eddie lets his power unfurl around him as the truck stops, trying to sense if there are any wards or runes to be aware of, but comes up empty. There’s no magical signature anywhere—it’s completely clean.

He always says as much to calm Buck down, but ends up snapping, “Buckley, come on!”

It’s not exactly what he means to say, but it gets the message across. Slightly.

They’d done their job like normal, going back to stand next to the engine when they’re done, when Eddie senses something he’s never felt before.

Magic can feel like anything, really, but there are common iterations of it. Hen’s magic is warm, almost like standing in front of a fire. Chim’s is atmospheric, with the ocean breeze accompanying it when he dips deep into his power. Bobby’s reminds Eddie of the earth, with the moon shining overhead and wind blowing through his hair.

What he’s feeling now is different from anything else he’s ever seen.

It’s like stepping into a puddle of starlight. It wraps around him, almost stifling, but more comforting than not. It must be coming from Buck—who looks like he just saw something terrible. He’s blinking, far faster than he should be, and Eddie’s about to ask him what’s wrong when Buck takes off sprinting.

Eddie follows on instinct, his fingers twitching in anticipation to cast a spell. He’ll have to make it subtle, so no humans realize what’s happening, but he’s ready to do whatever he has to.

“Get down!” Buck screams.

Hen, Chim, and Bobby turn to him with matching confused expressions, but Buck doesn’t stop running. He throws himself at the three of them, knocking all of them to the ground. Eddie has no idea what Buck knows or what he saw, but he trusts him. He has to—Buck is a part of the 118, and therefore a part of his team. And Eddie would never let one of his team get hurt if he can help it.

“Throw up a shield!”

Eddie doesn’t question Buck’s command, he simply does it. His shield spell is rudimentary compared to his sisters’, but it works better than most and it has the added factor of being invisible to humans. The five of them underneath it can see the slight shimmering gold of the shield as it falls into place over them.

There’s a beat, and nothing happens.

Buck’s still stretched over Hen, Chim, and Bobby, and Eddie’s starting to feel a bit foolish about throwing a shield over them when there’s nothing putting them at risk.

Just as he’s thinking about breaking it, the entire world erupts.

*****

Buck knows what the consequences of his choice will be. He knows what’s going to happen. It doesn’t stop him from trying to save his friends’ lives. If he can protect them in any way, he’s going to do it.

He throws himself over them, covering them as much as he can with his body. He’s wearing his turnouts, so he has the added benefit of fire protection. They’re going to need it in a few moments.

Inexplicably, Eddie is behind him. He’d followed. That hadn’t been part of Buck’s warning.

“Throw up a shield!”

And Eddie, bless him, does without question.

Buck has a second to wonder if his vision had been wrong before the world becomes an inferno. He clutches his friends—no, his family—closer to his chest, thanking every deity he can name that Eddie is behind him, protecting them with his shield.

Without Eddie’s magic, they all would’ve died.

Buck’s vision had been only a moment long. He’d seen everyone laughing—and then the explosion happening from under the street. He doesn’t know what caused it. Buck only knew his friends were in danger.

And he’d done everything he could to make sure they would survive. He would prove his vision wrong.

And thanks to Eddie, he did.

But he knows what this means.

Eddie’s magic is protecting them from the fire and the smoke. The air around them is clean, and Hen has the opportunity to ask, “Buck, how on earth did you—”

Buck shook his head. He won’t say it out loud. He won’t tell them he lied.

Chim claps him on the shoulder. The angle is awkward, since he’s still under Buck, and there isn’t enough room for them to move around. The shield is just big enough to cover the four of them on the ground and Eddie crouched beside them.

“I don’t care how, Buck,” Chim says weakly. “I’m just grateful. Thanks man.”

Bobby gives Buck a loaded look, and he nods once. They’ll have to talk about it back at the station. Back within the wards, where it’ll be safe to say the dreaded words.

Buck’s entire life is about to change. And not for the better.

He can’t bring himself to regret it.

When the fire dies down, Eddie drops the shield. He gives them plenty of warning, and the five push themselves to their feet. They move out of the fire’s quickly, heading towards the engine and pulling hoses from the truck. Chim manipulates the water that he can, reducing the reach of the flames.

It takes them another forty minutes to put out the fire and check on everyone who might’ve been hurt in the explosion. The owners of the first and second cars are fine—they had dove out of the way thanks to Buck’s shouted warning.

Bobby tells them there will be an investigation into what had caused the explosion. When asked about how they knew it was going to happen, Bobby had made up an excuse about smelling gas and knowing what it could mean.

It’s a flimsy lie, but the humans won’t know there’s another option. Magic is never the first guess when unexplainable things happen.

Eddie looks towards where the third car had been—but nothing’s there. The car’s long gone. Perhaps it had driven off before the explosion, or right when it had happened. He doesn’t question it.

They eventually start making their way back to the station.

*****

Buck doesn’t look at anyone. He’s sitting in his normal spot in the engine, across from Eddie. The witch looks at him, but Buck doesn’t take his gaze away from the window. Everything’s ruined now.

They’ll know he lied. They won’t forgive him for this—and he wouldn’t blame them. The entire dynamic of their team is based on trust, and he’d basically spat on the oath he made when he first joined.

At least Eddie would be happy. It’s clear he’d known something was up. Now he can take Buck’s spot, just like he thought he would. And he has no one to thank but himself.

Hen and Chim don’t say anything as they drive. Buck thinks they know he won’t respond to anything they say. Hell, Bobby could start telling him he’s always considered him a son and he loves him, and Buck wouldn’t move a muscle.

Thanks to his actions, he’s losing the only real family he’s ever had outside of Maddie. He hasn’t seen or heard from her in years. The 118 had partially filled the hole in his heart, but it doesn’t matter now.

The Department would have him for this.

But still…Hen, Chim, and Bobby are alive right now. That makes it worth it.

He closes his eyes and rests his head against the back of his seat. In his mind, he begins to bid each of them goodbye.

*****

Eddie wonders why Buck looks like he’s about to march to his death. The other man is so pale, his birthmark stands out on his skin like a brand. Hen and Chim alternate between sharing bewildered looks and staring at Buck. Bobby is silent at the front, but Eddie can hear the telltale sound of a text being sent.

If he had to guess, he’d wager he’s texting Athena.

Minutes later, his assumption is proven correct. Athena’s patrol car is already in the station parking lot as the engine pulls into the bay. Buck’s eyes flutter open, and Eddie swears he sees light leave them as he sees who’s waiting for them.

When the engine stops, Buck mutters something under his breath. Eddie doesn’t quite catch it, but understands that it isn’t meant for his ears.

The doors open, and the 118 pile out of the truck. Athena is standing in front of them, her arms crossed and a stormy expression on her beautiful features. Her ears are slightly pointed, given that she’s half-Fae, but it’s the ozone of magic radiating off her that sets off the alarm bells in Eddie’s mind.

“Evan Buckley,” she says, and the temperature of the entire bay drops ten degrees.

Buck moves slowly, like he’s a hundred years old. His head hangs low, and Eddie wonders for the nth time what the hell is going on.

Eddie clenches his jaw as Buck stops in front of Athena.

“I’m sorry,” he says, barely loud enough for Eddie to hear.

That’s when Athena grabs him.

*****

Buck flinches when Athena’s arms come around him. He’s expecting to be hit, or pushed, or at least handcuffed so he can be dragged in front of the head of the Department and punished for lying.

But Athena’s hugging him, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Thank you,” she whispers into his chest. “Bobby told me what you did.”

Buck blinks. He’s waiting for the anger. The betrayal. He’s lied to them for almost two years. He’s pretty sure lying on Department paperwork about your ability is at least a felony.

Athena pulls back from him, but keep her hands on his shoulders. “Who else knows?”

Buck shakes his head. “No one. My family doesn’t know.”

She raises a brow. “No one? Not a single person?”

“Know what?” Chim asks from behind them.

Buck flinches—he’d forgotten they had an audience.

Bobby steps forward. “We won’t tell anyone.”

“Won’t tell anyone what?” Hen pipes up.

Eddie speaks up as well. “What’s going on?”

“How current are the wards?” Athena asks Bobby.

“Eddie relaid them this morning,” he says immediately. “They should be full strength.”

“Buck,” Athena says softly, “I won’t make you say it if you don’t want to. But we need a confirmation.”

“I don’t want to go,” Buck whispers. It’s the most honest thing he’s ever said. His heart is pounding against his ribs. It’s a miracle it remains inside his chest. “If I don’t say anything, do I get to stay?”

Athena’s expression flickers. “Why wouldn’t you get to stay, baby?”

At the pet name, he closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to walk away from the family dinners he’s gotten to join. He doesn’t want to leave the station. The 118 is his family. This is his home.

“If the Department finds out, then they’ll take me,” Buck murmurs. “I lied to everyone; they’re not going to forgive that.”

“I knew it,” Eddie hissed.

Buck’s shoulders drooped even more. They’re never going to let this go. He can’t even blame them.
There’s a smacking noise, and then Hen says, “Now’s not the time, Diaz.”

Bobby puts an arm around his wife. “The wards are up. No one can hear us. And no one will speak a word of this outside this room.”

The werewolf looks at each of his people, taking a moment to meet each one’s eyes until he sees the assent. Eddie stares him down the longest, his mouth turned down, but he eventually nods.

None of them will break his trust.

Buck turns slightly, just enough so he’s facing his family. He looks at the ground, unable to meet their eyes. Softly, he bears his heart and soul to them.

“I’m a psychic.”

And that’s when everything falls apart.

*****

The first thing Eddie feels is anger. And then a rush of wonder, curtailed by even more anger. He had known Buck was lying to them. He’d been right. But he can’t even gloat, because Buck looks like he’s expected to be led to the gallows.

Psychics are one of the rarest beings in the magical community. There’s only a handful every generation. Some are well-known while most keep to themselves. But Buck had been lying about his powers this entire time.

“You lied,” Eddie spits. “To all of us.”

Buck flinches again, and Eddie forces himself to squash the guilt that rises up inside him. “How many lives, Buck? How many lives didn’t get saved because you didn’t want to open your mouth?”

It’s a cruel thing to say.

Eddie knows it as soon as the words slip from his mouth. He doesn’t take it back, though.

“That’s enough, Eddie,” Bobby barks. It’s a commanding tone—if Eddie had been a werewolf, he would’ve bowed his head immediately in submission.

Hen’s the next one to speak. “I get why you didn’t say anything, Buckaroo,” she says gently. “Thank you for saving us today. I get to hug my wife and kid when I go home. That alone absolves you of everything and anything in my eyes.”

“You put us all in danger,” Eddie spits, because he doesn’t know how to stop himself when he’s this angry. He’s a well, dipping hundreds of feet into the earth, and it’s overflowing. “What if someone figured out what you did today? What if there was someone with magic there and realized what you are?”

Buck still hasn’t moved.

“Eddie,” Bobby says, stepping between them. He pushes forward until he’s chest to chest with Eddie. “Walk it off.”

Eddie storms away, letting his boots hit the floor with as much force as he can muster. He knows what he said was mean, but he meant it. Did Buck stop to think about the danger he’d put them all in by revealing his secret in broad daylight? It would’ve been one thing if they were within the wards, where they knew they would be safe.

There’s no telling who saw them today.

*****

Buck’s not surprised by Eddie’s reaction. If anything, it’s the most reasonable thing that’s happened in the last hour. There’s still almost twelve hours left in their shift, so Hen and Chim return to the bunk room.

Bobby, Athena, and Buck go to Bobby’s office and shut the door. With a wave of Athena’s hand, the office is sound-proofed. No one can hear them. It’s a small balm to Buck’s worries.

Athena is the first one to speak. “You lied on every single document the Department has on you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” It could’ve been an accusatory question. But from Athena, it’s softer. It’s a plea for understanding. An olive branch.

Buck takes it and gives her honesty in return. “Safety.”

“For you?”

He nods. “My family…they don’t know what I am. They think I’m a witch with low powers. My sister is a witch, and she’s strong. When I didn’t show anything on the witch aptitude tests, they thought I was just a dud.”

“And when you found out what you were, you didn’t tell anyone?” Bobby asks. His eyes are soft—he knows Buck doesn’t talk about his family. His emergency contacts are the people in this room. He didn’t realize how deep the rift between them was.

“No. If they knew what I was…how powerful I was…they would use it for their own gain. The Buckley coven has been falling from grace for years now, and they would use me as a stepping stone. It wouldn’t change how they saw me.”

“And the fact you lied about being a psychic has nothing to do with the fact that two of the registered psychics with the Department have been murdered within the last year?” Athena levels him with a look that dared him to lie.

“No. I found out about those after. It’s not a great situation, but that’s not why I lied. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.” Buck picks at the stitching of the chair he’s sitting in. His adrenaline is fading, and he’s worried that they’ll pull the rug out from under him any second now.

“If we put you in an aptitude test right now, what result do you think you’ll get?” Athena’s high enough in the Department’s food chain that she could have it arranged within twenty-four hours.

A low-level psychic can see things days in advance.

Buck’s record, by his estimate, is three months.

But he doesn’t go looking for visions anymore. Not since the day that—

He looks down at his lap. He’s a powerful psychic, sure, but not one that tunnels into his power. If he can avoid them, he doesn’t go looking for visions.

Athena scrutinizes him for a long moment. “I won’t put you in the test,” she says finally. “But you will be assigned a protective order. I can make it one of your team members, and I won’t disclose the reason for the order. We can say one of the patients from the call today was aggressive towards you. Based on skill level, I’m going to assign Eddie.”

Buck startles. “Oh, that’s not—”

“Not a decision you’re able to make,” Athena cuts him off. “Eddie will be with you every moment you’re on shift. When not on shift, you will be expected to take precautionary measures. If you prove you cannot follow these measures, then we will reassess.”

Shit.

“He hates me,” he says, hating how much he sounds like a child whining to their parents.

“He’ll follow orders,” Bobby says. He stands from the desk and leaves the office, closing the door behind him. Buck knows he’s going to relay the message to Eddie, and tries not to compare the sound of the door closing to a coffin being bolted shut.

*****

Buck leaves the office ten minutes later. It proves to be a mistake within seconds.

Eddie is standing near the kitchen, his eye twitching in anger. There’s color high in his cheeks and Buck can almost imagine sparks coming out of his closed fists.

“There’s no way in hell you can make me,” Eddie’s saying.

Buck wishes he could teleport away from here. This conversation isn’t meant for him to hear.

“Athena was very clear in her directive,” Bobby says calmly. The werewolf won’t budge.

“He lied to us! For weeks! To the rest of you, for years!”

“And saved our lives at great personal risk to himself. You won’t find any anger for his omission from me.”

Eddie turns, exhaling harshly, and snarls when he catches sight of Buck. “Great,” he spits, pushing his way past Buck. Their shoulders knock together, and Buck blinks at the vision that comes through his mind.

He looks over his shoulder, watching Eddie stomp his way down the stairs. Not every vision he sees comes to pass. He tells himself this over and over again in the vain hopes he’ll believe it.

No matter how hard he tries, Buck can’t imagine a future where he and Eddie Diaz get along.

Chapter Text

When Buck opens his eyes the next morning, it only takes a few seconds to remember his predicament. While he’s thankful that Athena and Bobby didn’t turn him into the Department, he’s still bitter about being assigned a protective order—and to be guarded by Eddie, no less. The witch who hates his guts.

Eddie had somehow known Buck was hiding something, and is now vindicated.

He’s going to be insufferable about this, Buck realizes. Great.

And the worst part, he thinks, is that Eddie’s right. Buck had taken a great risk the day before. Even though it had been done to save the lives of his friends, he’d shown his hand. If anyone who knew what to look for had seen him, his secret’s out.

He’d lied about being a psychic for a reason, after all.

Buck had told Athena and Bobby the truth the night before. If his family had known the power he had, they would’ve used him until there was nothing left. His sister wouldn’t have been able to protect him—not that she could do much of that after leaving him behind to marry Doug.

He’d never had any visions about the medwitch when he met him. He’d suspected, but never had the concrete evidence that he could use to get Maddie out of that situation. He can only hope and pray he’s never hurt her.

Even if he had the visions to prove it, there’s no guarantee his mother and father would’ve believed him.

Oh, poor powerless witch, they’d say. You’re making it up because you want your coddling sister back under the same roof.

It wouldn’t matter that Buck’s telling the truth. It never does.

But he would’ve revealed his secret to save his sister from marrying that man. He knows that down to the marrow of his bones.

It’s almost fitting that he reveals himself to his coworkers while saving their lives. A funny thing of fate, if he has to guess.

Buck slides out of bed and goes down the stairs to his kitchen, pressing a few buttons on his coffeemaker. With the drone of the coffee in the background, he pads over to the pantry and pulls out his favorite protein bar. He can have a larger meal when he gets to the station.

There’s a sudden pressure near his temple, and he closes his eyes. He fights off the vision as it tries to come to him. It’s insistent, almost demanding, but he pushes it away without seeing anything too clearly.

This happens sometimes. Buck’s visions can come unprompted, like the one yesterday with the explosion, or he can go looking for them. If he focuses his mind on something specific, he can usually see a few things surrounding it.

But he doesn’t go looking for visions anymore. He keeps them from coming as much as he can.

The pressure turns into a headache, and he sighs as he takes the now-full cup of coffee from the counter and raises it to his lips. This is the side effect of his magic. If he doesn’t allow himself to have the visions, then his body rebels against him. A game of give and take, where Buck can’t take much more.

How many lives? That’s Eddie’s voice in his head from last night. How many lives didn’t get saved because you didn’t want to open your mouth?

Eddie’s right. There’s probably an infinite number of people Buck could’ve helped through using his visions. But there’s also the fact that every life saved would mean Buck putting one of his loved ones in danger.

The magic of the universe is a balancing act. For every good deed, there is an equally bad one. Neutrality is the true center of the universe, and Buck’s scared to tip the scales too heavily in one direction. There’s no telling what could happen if he saves every person they come across.

He thinks Eddie should understand that, but maybe it’s too big of an idea for the witch to wrap his head around.

He finishes his coffee just as there’s a knock on his door.

Buck sets his cup down in the sink carefully and tiptoes to the door. It’s not the strangest thing to happen—he’s friendly with his neighbors, and had told them multiple times to ask for help if they needed anything.

It’s just that it’s just past seven in the morning, and he knows most of his neighbors would be asleep right now.

An unease feeling curls over him, restricting his throat, and his head pounds as he pushes another vision away. The last thing he wants to do is call out sick the day after telling everyone he’d been lying to them.

Another knock comes, and Buck braces himself. He opens the door only to see Eddie, standing there with his arms crossed and a deep frown.

“Eddie?”

Their shift doesn’t start until eight a.m. and Buck lives less than twenty minutes from the station.

Is he going to drive me to work? Buck wonders, raising a brow at the other man.

And then Eddie uncrosses his arms, revealing a small ball of light held tightly in his right palm. Buck’s eyes dart between his hand and his face, trying to glean some understanding. What the hell—

Eddie throws the ball at Buck, who dodges it only with instinct alone. The ball expands until it’s bright enough to fill the entire loft, forcing him to close his eyes unless he wants to be blinded. He hears Eddie step into his apartment and close the door behind himself, throwing the lock so it’s latched.

With his eyes still closed, Buck demands, “Eddie, what the hell?”

The light fades, and Buck squints at the witch. There’s another spell in his hands, and Buck gives in to the vision as it comes to him.

It’s a weird double-layer of sight, when he has his visions. He can see everything happening in front of him, but he can also see the future as it tries to show itself to him. If he let himself practice, he’d be able to balance both senses without trying.

But Buck doesn’t let himself use his power.

Until now.

The visions are quick snapshots, bursts of motion behind his eyes, and Buck trusts them enough to follow blindly without thinking about it.

Eddie throws another spell at him, but he sees it coming, and can duck under it. He sidesteps another one when Eddie casts it, and steps forward to meet the witch when he lunges for Buck.

The psychic raises an arm, keeping his elbow close to his chest, and absorbs the kick from Eddie smoothly. He knows Eddie can fight—he’d seen him pummel the punching bag at the station more times than he can count—but Buck can, too. He didn’t travel the world by himself without learning a thing or two about self defense.

He sees the tactic Eddie will try to knock him to the floor, and counteracts it before the witch even has a moment to get his balance set. With a twist of his arm and a well-timed kick at Eddie’s supporting leg, the witch is on his back on the floor of Buck’s apartment, staring up at him with a mix of anger and incredulity.

Buck takes a few steps back, chest heaving, as he waits for Eddie to move. His head is killing him and he doesn’t want to keep fighting if Eddie could just calm down for a second.

“So, you really are a psychic,” Eddie sneers as he pushes himself to his feet. His voice drips with disdain and Buck bites back the reply that’s waiting behind his teeth. “And here I thought it was just another lie.”

Buck’s resolve snaps. “Are you really that mad I lied to everyone about it? I apologized!”

Doesn’t Eddie see the risk that comes with them knowing Buck’s power? What if someone finds out and keeps him tied up forever, forced to reveal visions as they come? He’d live a trapped life—a cursed life.

The witch grits his teeth at him. “I knew there was something different about you. I asked everyone, and they told me I was crazy.”

He raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Well, you did just attack the one person you’re supposed to be protecting. I don’t think many people would call that sane.”

Eddie scoffs, and Buck rubs at his forehead. He can tell this headache is going to be a doozy. The vision he’d fended off was probably of Eddie trying to kill him—he should’ve let it come. At least then he wouldn’t have the pounding sensation behind his eyes.

“Why are you here?” Buck finally asks. He wasn’t aware Eddie even knew where he lives.

“Protective order,” Eddie hisses. “I’m driving you to the station.”

“Athena said I could look after myself during off-shift hours—”

“And Bobby told me I was going to drive you today,” Eddie butts in. At least he looks equally miserable about it.

“Okay, I can grab my duffel—”

“After I lay some wards here.”

What does he have against me finishing a sentence?

“Fine.”

Buck leans back against his kitchen counter, debating making another coffee, as he watches Eddie pace the perimeter of his apartment.

His decorations aren’t really personal. Over time, he’s collected a few non-fiction books and knick-knacks from corner stores or different magic shops in LA. He doesn’t have a single picture anywhere in the entire space—it’s too painful to look at the image of his sister and be reminded of how much his misses her.

“Cozy,” Eddie says flatly, and Buck imagines throwing something at his stupid head.

It’s almost enough to cheer him up.

*****

Eddie’s pissed. He’s not doing a good job of hiding it, but he never really started trying, either. Buck can deal with it. His morning had started with a phone call from Bobby as he was getting Chris ready for school.

His heart had plummeted when he had seen his captain’s name flashing across his screen before seven a.m.

“Hi, Cap,” he’d answered, praying to deities he’s not sure he believes in that everything’s alright.

“I want you to pick up Buck this morning and bring him to work,” Bobby had said, leaving no room for argument. “Athena found some more stuff this morning while reviewing open cases within the Department. We’re going to have to be more cautious than we thought.”

Great.

Buck’s dramatic reveal is continuing to be a headache for Eddie. What a shocker.

And because he doesn’t want to get fired for negligence when he’s assigned to protect the most annoying person on the team, he offers to ward Buck’s apartment as well. For safety. And peace of mind.

If Eddie can protect Buck in his own home without having to be there, then that’s more time he gets to spend with his son.

That’s how he finds himself laying wards on every door and window of Buck’s apartment, all while the psychic watches him from his perch in the kitchen.

Eddie doesn’t like being the center of attention. He prefers to be a degree removed from the action. Aware of what’s going on, but not perceived when he doesn’t want to be.

Buck’s eyes on him are making it impossible to focus.

He knows this ward like the back of his hand. It’s a simple spell that prevents anything and everything out unless Eddie approves it. To make his life easy, he lays the spell with the Buckley name as a qualifier. Only Buck and Eddie (since he had made the spell and was grandfathered into the permissions of the boundary) could enter the apartment. If something does manage to make its way past the wards, they’d have a very big problem.

And because Eddie doesn’t trust Buck, he adds a small layer to the spell. It’s not something anyone else would notice, which makes it perfect. It’s almost like a motion detector spell. Every time someone crosses the boundary of the ward, with or without permission from the spell, Eddie’s magic will be notified.

If Buck leaves his house early in the morning to avoid carpooling with Eddie—which he isn’t happy about, either, for the record—he’ll know.

Buck seems like the type of person who’d run.

Eddie finishes laying all the spells as quickly as he can. When he’s done, he silently thanks his magic for helping him and turns to face his current charge.

Buck’s moved to sit on the counter, nursing another cup of coffee and looking through the sliding glass door leading out to the balcony. Eddie had pressed a rune of protection into the glass as a precaution—nothing would be able to break the glass unless it was a great deal stronger than him and his magic.

Something in Buck’s expression makes Eddie frown. It’s forlorn, and almost foreign on the person who usually smiles so wide he can see all his teeth.

He surreptitiously looks around the apartment, using Buck’s distraction as a cover to take in his surroundings. It’s clean, there’s no denying that, but not because it’s organized. There’s barely anything within the entire space. There’s a single chair in front of the tv on the left side of the apartment, and assumably a bed and dresser upstairs.

Bobby had mentioned on the phone this morning that Buck felt safe here since he’d lived here for just over a year.

Almost thirteen months in the same space, and there’s barely anything to show for it. It’s strange.

Eddie would’ve thought Buck would have books overflowing from bookshelves and stacked haphazardly against the walls. Dozens of tchotchkes and knick knacks on every available free space. He’s so full of color, and life, and yet his apartment seems grey and dreary.

Buck, sitting on the counter in his red shirt and dark jeans, seems to be the only color in the entire space.

Eddie pushes that line of thought away. It doesn’t matter how Buck chooses to decorate his apartment. He just needs to make sure the psychic doesn’t die.

“Alright,” Eddie says loudly, making the other man flinch. “Grab your stuff.”

Buck nods stiffly, drinking the rest of his coffee in one gulp and placing the mug in his sink. He trots up the stairs and returns moments later, duffel hanging over his shoulder.

At least he’s already packed.

*****

The car ride is silent.

Eddie doesn’t want to switch on the radio. Buck doesn’t deserve to listen to the top hits of today or whatever the last radio station Chris had requested was playing. He readjusts his grip on the steering wheel, reminding himself that he’ll get to keep the job he really likes if he makes sure Buck doesn’t have an untimely death.

It’s temporary.

Sooner or later, Bobby will realize no one cares about Buck’s power, and Eddie can get back to his normal life.

He glances at Buck from the corner of his eye. The blond’s eyes are closed and his head rests against the back of the seat. There’s a hint of a shadow beneath his eyes, like he hadn’t slept well the night before. Boo hoo, poor little psychic.

That’s what he gets for lying to them as long as he’s known them and putting them in danger. Dick.

But there’s something that keeps nagging at Eddie.

He can’t get the memory of their fight out of his head. He hadn’t planned on throwing a fireball spell at the other man when Buck had opened his door, but it had sounded like a good idea at the time. If he truly was a psychic like he claimed, he would be fine.

And Buck’s better than fine. He’s a damn good fighter. Fast, fluid, quick on his feet. He’d struggled in the beginning, like he had been caught off guard, but then he’d launched into action. Without seeming to try, Buck had gotten Eddie on his back, blinking up at the vaulted ceilings of the loft.

Eddie hasn’t been taken down that quickly since he was in boot camp before his first tour.

What else is he hiding? Eddie thinks as he pulls them into the station, noting Chim’s and Hen’s cars are already in the lot. What else is he lying about?

*****

Buck’s headache doesn’t diminish as he walks into the station. It’s like his body is oscillating between being happy he finally accepted a vision and punishing him of pushing the first two away. Maybe once he eats a decent meal and gets some water into his system he’ll feel better.

He changes quickly in the locker room, trying to ignore Eddie’s presence beside him, and heads upstairs without a word.

Hen and Chim are bickering together on the couch while Bobby preps their food at the stove. Buck waves to the pair and beelines to the werewolf, eyeing how much meat he’s chopping up.

“Feeling the full moon?” It’s a bit of an inside joke between them. Buck had once asked Bobby if he wanted to play fetch the night before a full moon.

Bobby had made him clean both engines until they sparkled.

It had been worth it.

“Protein is good for you,” Bobby says mildly, the corner of his mouth curling. “Any issues this morning?”

Buck makes the wise decision to not complain about the thoughtful gesture his captain had made.

“No,” he replies. “The wards are done. The loft’s never been safer.”

“Good.” Bobby scrapes the sausage into the frying pan, making it sizzle and pop with the oil lining the pan.

Buck sidesteps by an inch, avoiding the three burning hot drops that would’ve landed on his arm if he hadn’t moved.

“I always thought it was luck when you did things like that,” Bobby remarks neutrally.

Buck knows better than to play dumb. They know his secret now, there’s no point in lying. And still it’s hard to shake the muscle memory.

“I don’t even get visions with stuff like that,” Buck offers. It’s more than he’s ever shared about his magic before. “It’s like a voice in the back of my head warning me I should move.”

“I’m sure it’s been helpful over the years.”

Buck can name a few times when it’s saved him a lot of pain. He doesn’t voice any of them.

“I want you to be careful,” Bobby continues, sensing Buck won’t add anything else. “Athena went through the case files for the two psychics who had been murdered within the Department. Neither were working officially for the Department; they were just registered. But there seems to be faint connections between both of them.”

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Buck nods. He isn’t a registered psychic, but now five people within the Department know what he is. That’s five different people who can betray him, even if they don’t mean to. They could say the simplest thing in front of the wrong person, and Buck will be hunted.

It doesn’t help that he obviously had a vision in front of a dozen people at the car accident yesterday. He’s scared to go looking for visions to see if anyone noticed. Looking for visions never ends well for Buck.

“Hey!” Chim leaves the couch and snaps his gum as he stands in front of Buck and Bobby. “What number am I thinking of?”

Despite himself, Buck smirks. “That’s not how it works.”

Chim spreads his hands wide. “Come on, I’ve never met a psychic before. Humor me.”

Buck’s headache pulses again, and he subtly grits his teeth together. Today’s only a twenty-four shift. He’s survived longer shifts with worse injuries. This is nothing. He can handle it.

“Twenty-three,” he says, knowing it won’t be right. He hadn’t been lying about that, his power doesn’t allow him to read minds.

“Better luck next time, Buckaroo,” Chim crows, his eyes crinkling with his smile.

Buck nods, waving off the water manipulator. “Go play with a fire hydrant or something if you’re so bored.”

“Hey, that was one time—”

The alarm rings, and everyone launches into action. Bobby switches off the stove, Chim and Hen sprint down the stairs, and Buck prays for relief. The klaxon does nothing to help his head, and his vision swims slightly as he hustles to the engine.

“Alright, we have a structure fire,” Bobby reads from the MDT in the cab. “Suspected magical detection according to one of the sensors in the area. I want everyone to be more careful than normal.”

Everyone nods.

Buck closes his eyes. His turnout gear is heavy on his frame and he wants nothing but to climb back into his bed and not come out for three days.

Eddie’s knee knocks against his as the engine takes a sharp turn. He cracks his eyes open a hair, surprised to find Eddie already watching him. His confusion is strong enough that his head has a brief respite as Eddie’s leg continues to rest against his.

Unlike the last time they had touched, no vision comes to Buck’s mind.

For a moment, it’s just the two of them, staring at each other from across the cab silently, their legs pressed against one another.

And then the engine comes to a stop, and they snap their attention back to their job.

Buck can’t stop the hiss of pain as the headache returns in full force, making him nearly double over. At the last moment, he catches himself, and only Hen shoots him a confused look as they pile out of the engine.

He waves her off as they look at the scene in front of them.

It’s an older house, with two stories and a wraparound balcony. The windows downstairs are about to crack and give way from the heat of the fire. The smoke pouring out seems to be tinged blue and crackles faintly.

There’s definitely magic involved here.

“Hen, Chim, I want you on the perimeter!” Bobby barks. “Buck, Eddie, go inside and make sure everyone got out! Dispatch says there might be two kids inside!”

Buck shoves as much of his pain away as he can. If there are kids involved, he’s going to do everything within his power to make sure they get out of that fire. He doesn’t care what it takes.

Judging by the grim set of Eddie’s jaw, he’s in agreement.

Together, the two of them pull on their masks and activate their SCBAs before heading into the fire. They’re immediately wrapped in darkness and thick smoke.

Eddie raises his hands, chanting on his breath. A strong wind appears and blows the smoke away from them, making the room they’re standing in more visible. It’s what’s left of a living room. The couch and table are nothing more than embers and cracked wood.

“LAFD!” Buck shouts as loud as he can. He strains his ears, trying to hear if anyone calls back.

“Upstairs!” Eddie yells, heading towards the staircase.

Buck follows.

*****

Eddie hates when kids are in danger. It makes him think of Chris, alone and afraid, surrounded by ash and smoke. It’s easier to call on his magic, asking it to help him find those who need help, and following where it leads.

At the top of the staircase, he opens his hands and imagines his magic unfurling from him. It’s a grounding technique he’d learned from Abuela. His sisters don’t have to do anything like that to use their powers. His father never seemed to have any trouble reminding him of that the few times Eddie’s called on his ability in front of him.

His magic reaches out, and then beelines to Buck behind him. Eddie turns, half-expecting the staircase to give out from under his partner for how much his magic seems to be worried about the other man, but Buck looks fine. He raises his eyebrows at Eddie, silently asking why they stopped.

There’s another reason Eddie knows something was off with Buck. His magic always seems to want to reach out to him.

Eddie’s never felt his power do anything like that before, and is happy to ignore it. There are more pressing issues at hand right now.

“LAFD! Call out if you can hear us!”

Buck’s on his heels as Eddie walks further down the hallway, systematically checking the room as they pass them. It isn’t until they’re at the last doorway that they hear a faint, “Help!”

They don’t look at each other as they fall into line. Eddie kicks the door down and Buck storms in as Eddie calls upon the same spell he’d used earlier to blow away the smoke. Thanks to his magic, the kids huddled in the corner of the room become visible.

“Got them!” Buck calls as he scoops them both into his arms.

“Let’s get out of here,” Eddie says as he looks to the ceiling above them. He doesn’t need his magic to tell him it won’t hold for much longer.

The two men head back the way they came. Eddie leads, since his arms are free. Buck has both kids clutched to his chest. Eddie would offer to take one, but he and Buck both know his arms are better free to cast a spell if needed.

Eddie’s boot barely touches the first stair when Buck screams, “STOP!”

He listens without thinking about it. He’s motionless, and watches in horror as the staircase crumbles before his eyes. The fire had burned hotter in their absence, and ate away at the wooden supports. If Buck hadn’t warned him, Eddie would’ve gone with the stairs, plummeting to the ground.

The fire itself is hotter than it should be. If it hadn’t been for the blue tinge of the smoke, the temperature alone would convince him magic had been involved in starting the blaze.

Eddie turns, eyes wide, and blinks as Buck thrusts the two children into his arms. He staggers slightly under the weight, adjusting his grip on the brother and sister so they won’t slip, and watches as Buck closes his eyes.

“Buck, what the—”

“A ladder,” Buck says, barely loud enough to be heard over the fire roaring below them. They’re running out of time.

“Yeah, I would love a ladder,” Eddie can’t help but bite out. “I’d also take a million dollars if we’re making generic requests.”

Buck opens one eye to glare at him, and he’s shocked by the icy blue of Buck’s eyes.

Then he starts blinking rapidly.

Eddie recognizes it—he’d seen it the day before, before the explosion had nearly taken out their team.

He’s having a vision.

And then Buck takes off down the hallway, heading into one of the rooms they’d already cleared. Eddie follows, balancing the weight of the sniffling children in his arms, and looks over his shoulder at the living room below. They won’t be able to leave the way they came.

“Buck, what are you—”

The man pulls the closet door open and sighs in relief. Inside, there’s tarps, cans of paint, and a large ladder. Buck pulls the last item out and brings it to the window of the room, opening it and punching out the screen. He leans out, judging the distance, and starts sliding the ladder down the side of the house.

Eddie kneels down, releasing the kids. The older one, the girl, takes her brother’s hand. “Go over to the window,” Eddie directs them gently. “He’s going to help you get out.” He closes the door behind them, sealing the fire off for now. With his back turned to the kids, he whispers spells to the door, drawing runes into the wood. He’s going to buy them as much time as he can.

“Hen!” Buck yells from the window. “We have two kids! Around eight and six!”

“Send them down!” comes Hen’s faint reply.

Eddie faces Buck in time to see him pull off his mask and smile at the two children. Even with the soot on his cheeks and his face flushed from the heat of the fire, he looks charming. Welcoming. Alive.

He encourages the kids to the window and then down the ladder, into Hen’s waiting arms. She can silently heal them as they’re loaded into the ambulance, making sure they have the best chance of survival.

“You first,” Buck says suddenly, interrupting Eddie’s train of thought.

“What?”

“You,” he says slowly, “go down the ladder first.”

Eddie blinks. For some reason, the first thing he thinks to say is, “I’m supposed to be protecting you.”

Even though Buck’s the one who saved his life. Twice now, in the past five minutes. First, with the stairs, and then with pulling the ladder seemingly out of thin air.

“You can’t catch yourself with your magic if you fall,” Buck grits out, eyes squinted with pain. “You can catch me if needed. Now go!”

Eddie hates to admit that he’s right, so he says nothing. He rushes to the window and begins climbing out, testing each rung as carefully as he can while also going as fast as possible. When he’s at the bottom, he looks up to the window. Buck’s there, waiting for him to be clear.

And then Buck blinks again.

He’s gone from the window between one heartbeat and the next.

Eddie’s heart stutters in his chest and he screams, “BUCK!”

*****

If there’s one thing Eddie hates most in the world, it’s feeling helpless. When he feels out of control, that’s when things start to go haywire. His magic acts out, his palms don’t stop sweating, and his eye twitches from stress.

It’s been two minutes since Buck disappeared from the window, and there’s no sign of him.

His magic sparks in his palms, begging to be used. It wants to save Buck.

There’s no telling what side effects there could be from the magic mixing with the fire.

Eddie had been ready to rush into the fire once more just to drag Buck out by the scruff of his neck like a misbehaving dog, but Bobby had forbade it. Hen and Chim stand beside Eddie, treating the children they had been able to save.

“Is there anyone else in the house?” Hen asks the girl gently. She shakes her head no, her blonde pigtails swishing with the movement.

Then why the hell did he go back?

Eddie’s going to give him another twenty seconds before he makes a portal into the room he’d seen Buck in last and forcibly remove him from the scene. It’s Eddie’s responsibility that he doesn’t die, damn it!

Just as he lifts his hands to cast the spell, there’s a flurry of movement at the window. Eddie pauses, and feels his shoulders lower as Buck practically throws himself down the ladder. The witch is close enough to brace his weight against the ladder, stabilizing it, and that just might be the only thing that kept the entire thing from falling down.

Buck climbs down one-handed, covered in soot and ash. The house gives an almighty groan as more of the interior collapses. Smoke shoots out from the windows, and Eddie knows Buck had been moments from danger.

Eddie’s magic pulses once as he comes near, and then lies still.

“Buckley,” Bobby says, voice like thunder. “Care to explain what the hell you were—”

The psychic shifts his weight and kneels beside the young boy. “Here you go, little guy. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t forget him.”

In his left hand is a small kitten. Grey and white in color, but the first shade might’ve been from the fire. The boy lets out a wild gasp, tears streaming down his cheeks, and takes the kitten reverently from Buck’s hands.

“You saved him!”

Buck looks up to his captain, exhaustion clear on his features, and says, “Sorry, Cap. Couldn’t let that little guy be separated from his family.”

Bobby pinches his lips together and nods once. And then, “Get the hose. We’ll talk about this later.”

*****

Buck thinks of Pandora’s box as he connects the hose to the fire hydrant across the street from the house. He’d opened the metaphorical box when he went searching for a vision of how to get the kids and Eddie out of that house. In a moment of panic, he’d tunneled into his power and asked for a glimpse of the future.

His headache had lessened, at least.

He’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When asking for a vision, Buck’s found that bad things tend to follow with shocking accuracy. Every time he’d gone searching for the future, he’d been punished for his greed.

He doesn’t know how yet, but there will be a price to pay for his ability to get Eddie and the children out of that house.

*****

It’s not until they’re back at the station that Eddie feels like he can approach Buck. He’d been silent for the last hour they’d worked on the fire, and then didn’t move once on the ride back. When their legs had brushed, he’d stirred slightly, but his eyes never opened.

Eddie’s magic, fickle thing that it is, remains restless. Only when their legs are pressed together does it calm into its normal lull.

He doesn’t examine this development too closely. He’s too busy glaring at Buck.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going back for the cat?”

The engine is barely stopped. Hen and Chim slide out, leaving Buck and Eddie alone in the compartment. Buck’s eyes open, and Eddie’s momentarily stunned by how piercing they are. He hasn’t spent this much time around the other man.

But that’s beside the point.

“I would’ve stayed with you and made sure we both got out.” Eddie leans on his anger to hide the fear he’d felt when Buck didn’t reappear in that window.

The blond stares at him for a moment. And then, quietly, he says, “I didn’t see it until I was at the window. I couldn’t let him die, Eddie.”

“Can’t you control your visions? If you’re so powerful, why did you wait until I was completely on the ground before making the decision to be reckless? Do you think your life is worth that little?” Ever reliable, Eddie’s anger is there to meet him. It’s an old friend. A mirror and a shell, an echo and a chain.

In the back of his mind, he knows Buck doesn’t deserve to be berated right now. He looks tired.

More than tired.

Run down, almost ragged. He’s rubbing at his forehead like he’s losing a battle to a headache. Eddie doesn’t care. Buck can suffer. He’s lied to them. If he has to deal with a little headache, then why is he making it everyone else’s problem?

His words seem to be the spark Buck needs to recover.

His eyes flash. “I’m sorry that my visions weren’t convenient enough for you. Was it not enough to save you from going down the stairs? Or is that just a sorry-ass attempt at thanking me for saving your life?”

Eddie’s hands ball into fists.

“Are you going to throw something at me again?”

His eye twitches. “I’m thinking about it.”

“Maybe I won’t warn you next time.”

“So what you were doing before, then? Not helping people?”
“Fuck you, Eddie.”

Eddie takes a deep breath. His heart is hammering in his chest, his magic is at the tips of his fingers, and he hasn’t felt this alive in….who knows how long. He feels like a live wire, sparking and giving off energy.

Buck looks to be the same way. He doesn’t look as tired—or as haunted. Whatever corner he’d been pulling into, Eddie’s wrath had dragged him out.

And damn if it doesn’t feel good to see a little more light in Buck’s eyes.

“Buckley.”

Bobby’s standing at the door, peering in at them. He’s likely wondering why they’re still in the engine after they’ve been back for so long, but he doesn’t say anything. He simply tilts his head, gesturing for Buck to follow after him.

Buck sighs and follows without a backward glance to Eddie.

Without thinking about it, Eddie casts a wordless spell. It’s one of the first things he learned from Abuela. She had called it a gossiping spell, but Eddie knows what it really is. It’s the ability to eavesdrop on people for a brief moment of time without them knowing.

It’s an invasion of privacy, and not a spell Eddie normally reaches for. He knows it should only be used for good.

But there’s a niggling feeling in his ribs that wants to make sure Buck’s okay.

*****

“I thought you were going to stop being so irresponsible.”

“I saw where the cat was, and knew I’d be able to get to him,” Buck whispers. His headache is back, and worse from before. What he’d felt this morning is nothing compared to the pressure behind his eyes right now. It’s a miracle he didn’t eat it when he walked to Bobby’s office.

“I don’t want you taking risks like this, Buck.” Bobby’s worried about him.

Hell, Buck’s worried too.

“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t reunite that family, Cap.”

“I understand why you did it.” Bobby leans back in his chair. “Just…warn someone, next time? Or keep Eddie with you.”

Buck exhales through his nose. “I didn’t know we moonlight as babysitters, Cap.”

He frowns at that, but continues on. “I’m not going to go against Athena’s wishes. She wants you protected. We both know what could happen if we’re not careful.”

The Department finding out. Someone kidnapping Buck. Someone…killing him.

He thinks of the two psychics who had been murdered. He wonders if they had refused to find visions for the person who was hurting them. If that’s why they didn’t make it.

“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his lap. “I understand.”

Bobby’s silent for a moment, as if gauging how truthful he’s being. And then he says, “I care about you, kid. This doesn’t change how I see you.”

Buck looks up, his brows furrowing. “I lied to you.”

“Out of self-preservation, not deception. And you saved my life. The lives of Hen and Chim. I know who you are. Your power doesn’t change that.”

Embarrassingly, Buck sniffles. “That means a lot, Cap.”

“Get some food. You look a bit peaky.” It’s a kind dismissal.

Buck nods, and stands. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“I know you are.”

He smiles. And says, “Thanks, Cap.”

*****

Eddie pushes a sandwich towards him when he makes it upstairs. Buck looks confused, like he’s never been offered food before.

The witch fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and says, “Eat it. I don’t want to have you keel over. Hen’s better at healing than I am.”

Silently, Buck takes the plate and sits down on one of the stools. He takes a bite and closes his eyes. Eddie wonders when he last ate. He hadn’t seen him eat anything at breakfast—the alarm had gone off so quickly.

Despite himself, Eddie remains in the kitchen with him. They’re silent as he finishes off the sandwich. There’s a bit more color in his cheeks, so Eddie feels better. His magic is more settled, too.

Eddie chooses not to focus on what that might mean.

He’s so busy not focusing on it that the rest of shift passes without incident. They do their chores, Bobby cooks a pleasant dinner, and they make it through the night without the alarm dragging them from slumber.

He goes home, intent on sleeping for several hours until it’s time to pick up Chris from Tia Pepa’s house. A faint murmur tells him when Buck gets home. His perimeter spell is active, and he knows the psychic made it home safely.

Eddie’s in bed, about to pass out, when his magic pulses. His first thought is Chris and the protective runes he’d stitched into all his clothes. But the feeling of Chris being in danger is sharper than this.

This is vague, undefined and wily. He can’t name it.

But he knows what it means.

Someone—or something—broke through the ward at Buck’s apartment.

Chapter Text

Buck’s headache lessens after he eats the sandwich Eddie made him. The fact that the witch had gone out of his way to help Buck, even after they’d bickered so harshly in the engine—Buck doesn’t know what to do with it. It had been just the thing he needed after Bobby’s encouragement.

But how the hell had Eddie known he needed it?

The witch sure is taking the guardian thing seriously.

Their shift finishes without incident. Hen offers to give Buck a ride home, since she’s going to the Whole Foods to pick up some items Karen had requested and it’s around the corner from his apartment.

Buck looks to Eddie—not for permission; he’d never ask for something like that from him—and the witch nods. It’s clear he believes in the power of the wards he’d laid before their shift the day before.

It’s a small mercy to carpool with Hen. The healer is funny and always makes Buck smile a bit wider than he had been before. The twenty minutes they spend together fly by quickly and before he knows it, he’s trudging up the stairs to his apartment and unlocking the door.

He texts Hen to let her know he’s safely inside, and she thumbs up the message.

She hadn’t mentioned his newly-revealed powers at all during their car ride. Buck had been prepared to apologize again, if only for omitting his true ability, but Hen doesn’t even hint at it. She’d been happy to talk about Denny’s upcoming birthday party and a project Karen had been working on in her lab.

He drops his duffel at the base of the stairs and tosses his phone down on top of the fabric, resolving to put away his dirty clothes later. Preferably after a long nap where he can sleep off the remnants of his headache.

He’s lucky, he supposes.

Everyone on the team reacts a bit differently when they ask too much of their power. One time, Hen had tried to revive a patient who’d been too far gone, and she’d fainted for nearly ten minutes. Chim turns pale and sweaty when he tries to call forth more water than he should. Bobby’s hands shake and his teeth grow a bit longer when he feels strongly enough about something to partially trigger his shift.

In the three weeks Eddie had been with their team, he’d only seen the brunet falter once when calling upon his magic. It had been a structure fire, almost like yesterday’s scene, but the inhabitants hadn’t made it out this time. The witch had raised his hands, murmuring under his breath, and Buck had been close enough to make out the words.

Eddie had asked the building to hold just a bit longer, if only to get out the people who’d perished inside. He had wanted them to be able to rejoin their families.

Buck had been the only one who saw his nose bleed when his magic sparked out and fizzled, leaving only a man in front of a burning building, haunted by the fact he couldn’t stop it.

Eddie had been quiet for the rest of that shift. Buck didn’t blame him, and had stayed away so they wouldn’t be drawn into an argument.

Buck sniffs as he grabs a glass from his cabinet and fills it from the pitcher in his fridge. He hadn’t thought about that memory in a while.

Sometimes Buck feels jealous of his friends when he sees them use their magic. Hen saves people every day. Chim’s turned the odds in their favor more times than he can count. Bobby’s fierce love and protection over them helps make them an incredible team. Even Eddie, with his attitude and argumentative manner, helps their team with spells curated for whatever situation they find themselves in.

And then there’s Buck, the psychic who fights off his own visions.

Useless.

The voice in his head sounds more like his father today. It changes day to day. His mother’s voice is saccharinely cruel, but his father’s is cutting. Philip Buckley had never been a man of many words.

Powerless. A waste of a spot in the coven.

Margaret had agreed with her husband.

Buck had grown up on the fringe of his family’s coven. Maddie had books on spells, runes, and wards, while Buck had been shooed out of the living room on nights of the full moon. Her education had been closely supervised by respected witches in their community. Buck had been given small pieces here and there, only enough that he wouldn’t embarrass their family if another witch happened to speak to him.

He’s aware there’s gaps in his knowledge regarding magic.

The moment he’d failed the coven’s version of an aptitude test, his fate had been sealed.

After he had left home, he could’ve gone out and tried to find someone who would teach him everything they knew. But he knew what he was doing and how dangerous it could be to reveal himself. So he got by with the little things he knew.

He hadn’t even confided in Abby, and he’d been willing to spend the rest of his life with her. She’d left him like everyone else did, but his secret had remained safe.

Buck finishes the glass of water and sets it down in the sink beside the two coffee mugs from the day before. He has forty-eight hours off before his next shift—there’s plenty of time for him to clean later. All he wants to do is lie down and forget the world for a few hours.

He exhales, and the atmosphere shifts.

This happens, sometimes.

His power doesn’t always manifest in the form of visions. Like he had told Bobby, sometimes there’s just a voice in his head or a feeling of wrong, wrong, wrong.

That’s what he feels now, alone in his supposedly safe apartment. He’d seen Eddie lay the wards with his own eyes. Eddie’s annoying, and a pain in his ass, but he doesn’t do things by half. He wouldn’t screw up the wards on purpose.

His heart stutters in his chest, and dread snakes down his spine, making his limbs feel heavier. His stomach turns to lead, and a primitive feeling of run, run, please, run makes him curl his hands into fists.

Ever so slowly, Buck turns to face the open layout of his apartment.

There.

Under the shadows of the stairs, there’s a flicker of movement.

Buck doesn’t have defensive magic.

He can’t create a fireball like Eddie or transform into a wolf like Bobby. Chim can summon a shield of water if he needs to. Hen’s knowledge of scalpels and the human body make her lethal if anyone ever tried something with her.

He just has the insistent voice in his head telling him how fucked he is.

The creature under the stairs growls, and every single hair on the back of his neck raises. Bone deep fear sinks into him, and he curses in every language he can think of as it comes into the light.

The hellhound is huge, muscles rippling with every step it takes. Its midnight fur seems to absorb the morning light streaming in from the glass door leading to the balcony. He growls again, and his long fangs ignite sheer terror in Buck. Drool slips from the creature’s mouth to the floor, where it sizzles slightly against the hardwood.

Hellhound encounters are rare, Buck’s fear-addled brain tells him. He’d gone on a binge about different summoning creatures almost a year ago when he’d come across an old book in one of the smaller magic shops a few miles away.

They can only be summoned from the depths of hell, like their name suggests, and require a great amount of power from the summoner. Warlocks, with their cloying stench of ash and sulfur, are normally the people behind the action.

But Buck doesn’t know any warlocks. He keeps to himself outside of the 118. He’s friendly, sure, but never interacts with people in the magical community more than he has to. He never knows who might know of the Buckley coven and put two and two together.

All of that to say, he doesn’t know why the fuck a hellhound is snarling at him in his apartment.

Well, there’s one thing that comes to mind.

Someone saw him at the car accident a few days ago. Someone knows his secret.

Someone knows what he is.

And they sent a hellhound to take care of him.

*****

Eddie doesn’t panic. He assesses what’s going on, and determines the best course of action. He chooses the best route and most efficient spells, while communicating effectively with his team.

In this particular instance, however, he does the following:

He jerks out of bed and pulls on his closest pair of pants.

Eddie grabs his phone and texts Bobby.

Buck. Apt. Danger.

He slams his hands together and pulls them apart, thinking of the apartment he’d protected with his own wards, and summons a portal to the living room.

The doorway isn’t defined—it’s almost like a window, but with the glassy effect where you can’t see what’s happening on the other side.

Eddie throws himself through the portal, not knowing what’s waiting for him, but hoping he isn’t too late.

*****

Buck’s magic might not be able to help him, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely useless. He’d traveled the world by himself. He had known the dangers that came with that decision, and had planned accordingly.

His knowledge of hand to hand combat won’t help him against a hellhound, but his creative problem solving skills will.

Magic shops in LA, especially the seeder ones that attract a less-than-desirable sort of clientele, will sell almost anything for the right price. Buck had stumbled across one a few months ago, and had purchased a few items he’d tucked strategically inside his apartment. A last line of self-defense, if you will.

He’d never thought he’d have to use them so soon.

The hellhound snaps its jaws together, and Buck reaches behind himself to the knife block on his kitchen counter. He draws the biggest one he has, and tries not to falter at how the blade that’s almost the length of his forearm isn't as big as the fangs on the hound currently creeping closer to him.

The kitchen island is between them, but Buck knows all the thing has to do is jump to clear the obstacle completely.

Buck keeps his breathing as calm as he can as he stares into the eyes of death. Panicking won’t help him right now. He needs to keep a clear head.

There’s so much he still wants to do with his life.

He isn’t going to let this dog out of hell take that from him.

He wants to find the weeping willow he’d seen in his dream, where he’d felt incandescently happy.

The hellhound comes a step closer, and Buck springs into action. Just as the snout of the hound is visible from the left corner of the island, he sprints to the right. The dog snarls as he fights his way to the staircase. There’s the horrible sound of claws scraping against the hardwood floors, the dog struggling to find purchase, and the howl signifying giving chase.

The spell jar he needs is on the left side of his bed, closest to where he sleeps.

He’s only three steps from his bedroom when he feels the claws of the hound scrape against his leg.

Buck screams in pain, his calf feeling like it’s on fire with how deeply the hellhound had gotten him, and pushes himself the last few feet to the top. He kicks out with his good leg, the right one, and enjoys the satisfaction of the hound yelping in pain. He turns, ignoring how his body wails in agony, and buries the knife into the shoulder blade of the animal.

The hound lets out an almighty roar. If it hadn’t been ready to kill Buck before, it sure is now.

His hands close around the jar the same moment as the hellhound makes it to the top of the stairs. It lets out a massive snarl, loud enough that Buck feels the vibrations of it in his bones. He looks over his shoulder, heart clenching at the sight of its red eyes, and throws the jar at the dog as hard as he can.

He’d paid almost seven hundred dollars for the jar.

He’d pay triple that price again in a heartbeat.

The spell does exactly as what had been advertised: it bursts into flame, engulfing the glass of the jar and anything it touches with white-hot heat.

The hellhound howls, a wretched, angry noise, and rears back in pain. Its hind leg slips on the surface of the top stair and the beast tumbles down the stairs until it comes to a stop in a flaming heap.

Despite where they come from, hellhounds have only a few weaknesses. The main one is fire.

There’s a joke about irony in there somewhere, but Buck’s in too much pain to think straight. Everything hurts and nothing seems to make sense. He thinks briefly of Maddie, and hopes she’s alright. Maybe he’ll see her when she passes, too.

“BUCK!”

Now he definitely knows he’s in pain. How else would Eddie’s voice, filled with something that could almost be called concern, reach his ears? He’s hallucinating. Audibly. Audible hallucinations are what they’re called, right?

He should know this—

Buck’s eyes flutter shut, finally giving into the pain, as he feels a hand cup his face.

*****

Eddie doesn’t know what had made its way into the apartment. His magic had pulsed in what felt like fear—like it couldn’t believe what had breached the wards. Eddie knows it’s going to be bad.

He’s bracing himself for the worst when he stumbles into Buck’s kitchen, slightly off-balance from the portal he’d come through.

The witch looks around immediately, scanning his surroundings, and stopping when he sees the hellhound climbing the stairs. He’d learned about them as Abuela had taught him magic. They were terrible beings, capable of hunting their prey for weeks without rest or eating. The perfect hunting machines, designed to kill their prey with as much pain as possible.

And this one is hunting Buck.

Eddie’s magic surges into his hands, almost itching in anticipation as he analyzes the hound to find its weakness.

It’s massive, its back almost brushing the ceiling as it climbs the last stair.

Eddie’s strongest fire spell won’t take it down in one shot—but he’s going to do the best he can.

His hands twitch as he summons the flames, but they die out before the spell is fully formed.

The hellhound growls, and Eddie physically recoils from the beast. Every living thing fears death, and this thing is death incarnate.

Before Eddie can do anything—before he can even think—there’s the sound of breaking glass and then the hellhound is on fire, falling down the stairs. His eyes widen as the hound screeches in pain, the high-pitched whines sharp enough for Eddie to grit his teeth.

He throws a shield spell over the hound, keeping it locked in the location it fell. The half-dome glows a faint blue, trapping the animal and the smoke. The beast isn’t moving anymore—there’s only the flames crackling over its body, eating away at its fur and flesh. He keeps the shield over it anyway. He’s not going to let his guard down until the rest of his team can make it here.

There’s a pained noise from the top of the stairs, and Eddie’s heart pulses.

“BUCK!”

The shield will hold for hours without him having to think about it. He sprints up the stairs, sidestepping the burning corpse, and falls to his knees beside Buck.

The psychic is obviously in pain. His left calf is gushing blood, his pants torn in three distinct slashes, and Eddie knows the hellhound had taken a piece of Buck before succumbing to its death.

Eddie cups his cheek, noting how his eyelids flutter briefly with the contact. He’s pale, so much paler than he’d been while they were on shift. His birthmark stands out against his skin, almost angrily, and Eddie presses every healing spell he knows into his hand holding his face.

It’s rudimentary magic compared to what Hen can do, but she’s not here right now. Any wound received from a magical creature is more harmful than something as routine as a knife or a gun. Buck doesn’t have the minutes it could take for her to get here. Hellhounds are worse than the others—he might not have minutes.

“Come on, Buck,” he whispers as he begins drawing runes of healing into his chest, over his LAFD issued shirt. “You’re gonna make it. I’m not giving you a fucking choice.”

He doesn’t know how much time passes as he wills his magic to keep Buck in the realm of the living. Every spell he knows is said. Every rune he can think of is drawn. When he begins repeating the best healing spell he knows for the third time, he takes a more open-minded approach.

He closes his eyes, keeping his right hand cupping Buck’s face and his left one on his chest, right over his heart, and asks the universe to listen.

Please don’t take him. Let me save him, let me heal him. I won’t let him go; not like this. I need him to survive this. Please, let my magic be enough. Let me keep him here.

His magic is writhing in his chest, begging to be poured out into the man underneath his hands. Everything about this is wrong. There’s too much blood, Buck is too pale, and Eddie isn’t strong enough to save him.

In a final moment of desperation, he unleashes everything he has.

Please.

His hands are warm against Buck. There’s a white light bright enough that Eddie can see it through his closed eyelids, and he hears the front door get kicked down.

“Buck! Eddie!”

“Oh, fuck, what is that?”

“Is that—that’s a hellhound—”

Eddie’s never been more happy to hear Bobby, Hen, and Chim. After they get over the surprise of the charred hellhound in the entryway, they come up the stairs.

The brunet is still kneeling over Buck. He removes his hands, ready to shift his position so Hen can come in with her healing magic, when he looks down to Buck. He blinks, sure he’s imagining it, and then blinks again.

Buck’s cheeks have color in them again, and his chest is rising and falling at a normal rate. He feels the side of his neck for a pulse, guided by muscle memory more than thought, and stutters out a breath of relief when he finds a strong heartbeat beneath his fingertips.

“Eddie, what happened?” Hen’s right beside him, pressing her hands onto Buck’s forearm. Skin to skin contact is best for her magic. She closes her eyes to focus, only to open them a few seconds later. “Eddie?”

“Hellhound got his leg,” Eddie manages. “Left calf.”

Hen immediately goes to the wound, but stops once again. “Eddie?”

He doesn’t want to look at it again. His gaze doesn’t seem to want to go further down than Buck’s chest. “Where all the blood is coming from,” he bites out. His heart is just beginning to slow for the first time in ten minutes and he can feel exhaustion nipping at his heels.

A warm feeling under his left nostril informs him what he already knows: he used too much magic, and his body is beginning to rebel against him. His nose is bleeding.

“I know what a wound looks like, Diaz,” Hen says flatly. “There’s nothing here.”

Eddie’s confusion is strong enough to make him look at the ruined muscle he’d barely been able to stomach before. He fights the urge to rub at his eyes like a cartoon character—Hen’s right. The blood is still seeping into the carpet, but Buck’s leg is fine. There isn’t even an indentation in the skin from the path of the claws.

“No, there definitely was something,” he says stupidly. His brain doesn’t seem to want to work.

“I don’t doubt that,” Chim adds helpfully. “I can tell because of the blood.”

“Chim,” Bobby warns. “Eddie, I’m assuming you were healing him when we came in?”

“Every spell I know,” he confirms, unable to look away from the perfectly intact leg.

He hadn’t imagined the injury. He knew it had been bad. Eddie wouldn’t beg the universe to save someone if they weren’t in danger. His magic wouldn’t give itself over to someone Eddie doesn’t even like in order to save their life.

But he can’t think of another explanation.

He’d turned to the universe in a moment of desperation.

And it had answered.

The universe, the cosmic balance, whatever it was, had deigned to listen to Eddie and heal Buck of his life-threatening wound.

Eddie has enough time to think What the fuck? before his exhaustion overwhelms him and darkness takes him into its sweet embrace.

*****

“—not like just anyone can summon a hellhound.”

“Athena’s on her way. She might have a way to identify who might’ve summoned it.”

Buck scrunches his eyes shut against the noise. He feels like shit and the concerned voices aren’t helping matters. Damn, what the hell had—

Hell.

The hellhound.

Oh, fuck, is Buck dead?

He opens his eyes and immediately flinches. The lights are too bright—which means he’s not dead. Heaven or whatever equivalent that really exists wouldn’t be this uncomfortable.

“Buckaroo,” comes a soft voice. It’s filled with love, and he instinctively turns toward it. “Buck, can you hear me?”

He nods, the barest movement of his chin, and the voice sounds like it’s smiling when it says, “Glad you’re still here with us, Buckaroo.”

The lights dim slightly, and he cracks a single eye open. Hen’s standing over him—it looks like he’s still in his apartment, but he’s on his bed. There’s muffled voices coming from downstairs.

“What happened?”

“You singlehandedly killed a hellhound is what happened!” Chim crows from the living room.

It’s too loud, and Buck’s head pounds.

“Not so loud,” comes a quiet command.

“Sorry,” Chim says at half his previous volume. At least it doesn’t make Buck want to grit his teeth. “But you really did kill a hellhound. How long have you been a badass?”

Footsteps climb up the stairs, and Buck’s greeted with the sight of Bobby, Chim, and Eddie filling in the space behind Hen. She hadn’t been standing over him like he thought—she’s sitting in a chair next to his bed, her hands holding one of his. The lamp on his nightstand has been pushed away—that’s how the lights had dimmed earlier.

Buck blinks at the four of them. His last memory is of the hellhound growling, his leg being on fire, and praying to every deity in the world that the spell jar would work. He remembers the howl of the dog as it had burned—and then nothing.

“My leg—” Buck moves to throw the covers off himself, intent on seeing the damage wreaked on him by that damned beast, when Hen pushes on his shoulders and forces him to lie down again.

“Your leg is fine,” she says firmly. “There’s no damage to it—Eddie made sure of it.”

Eddie?

Maybe it hadn’t been a hallucination when he’d heard Eddie shouting his name before he passed out.

His eyes flick to the witch, who looks away before they can make eye contact. The man who hates him, who had once started an argument that lasted almost forty minutes because Buck had loaded the dishwasher ‘wrong’ at the station, had come running to his rescue.

“How did you even know the hellhound was here?” Buck’s phone had been on top of his duffel bag by the stairs—he never would’ve had the chance to grab it and call for help. He’d been so sure he’d die alone in his dull apartment with no one to find him until he missed his next shift at work. He wouldn’t be missed by many.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, and then Eddie says, “I felt it break the wards. I knew something was here, so I called Bobby and made a portal to get here.”

“You can make portals?” It’s not a rare ability, per se, but definitely not common. It’s a cool power—Buck knows he’d use it all the time if he could.

Eddie gives him a blank look, like he can’t believe that’s the part of his statement Buck is focusing on. “Yes.”

“And you healed my leg?”

How powerful is he? Hellhound wounds are almost always lethal—

“Yes.” Eddie’s response is short—and almost strangled.

Buck lifts a brow. What the hell is his deal? Sorry you had to come save the useless liar you can't stand. I’ll put up a No Hellhounds sign outside my front door next time.

If Buck hadn’t been studying Eddie closely, he would’ve missed the corner of his mouth twitching, like it was fighting off a smile. But there’s no missing the frown that follows right after.

“Thanks.” It’s a weak attempt at gratitude, but Buck thinks he deserves a bit of a break. He’s been through—well, it’s too soon to say hell without shuddering—he’s been through a lot. Buck turns his gaze to Bobby, whose concerned expression is enough to send a pang through his chest.

“Athena should be here shortly,” he says gently. “She’ll do everything she can to identify the hellhound and who might’ve summoned it. There’s no guarantee, but she’ll move mountains to find out what she can.”

Buck nods. He doesn’t know how he won over the half-Fae, half-witch, but he’s glad he did. He loves her like a mother, and sometimes he thinks she might look at him like one of her own.

A sudden yawn surprises him. His jaw cracks, and he blinks at Hen. “I just woke up,” he complains. “How am I already tired again?”

“Your body is recovering from a traumatic wound and then a sudden influx of magic,” Hen explains easily. “The fact you’re awake this soon is shocking, actually. You should rest—Athena will do everything she can. We aren’t going to leave your side.”

Buck has enough energy to smile at her before he lets his eyes slip closed. His last thought is of Eddie, and how panicked his voice had sounded when he shouted Buck’s name.

*****

Oh, Eddie fucked up.

This is why he doesn’t ask the universe for things. His plea of desperation, which he thought had been granted when Buck’s leg was healed, was somehow interpreted a bit differently from how he meant it.

He hadn’t noticed it immediately.

It had started small.

When Chim had shouted up to the bedroom about Buck killing a hellhound—which is still something Eddie hasn’t processed yet, thank you very much—he’d felt an echo of pain. He could sympathize with it. If he was just waking up from a serious injury, the last thing he’d want is someone yelling near him.

So he’d said, “Not so loud.”

He’d gone up with Bobby and Chim to check on Buck. It had only been forty minutes since he’d woken up from his own magic-induced sleep, so there’s no way Buck should be awake and talking yet.

It had started feeling strange when Eddie had sworn he could feel the panic radiating from Buck when he’d tried to check on his leg. Hen had stopped him, thankfully, and the blond had gone back down against his pillows.

Eddie’s an empathetic guy, but it should’ve been a red flag that he could tell the exact moment Buck calms down enough to ask, “Eddie?” in response to Hen’s explanation that he’d healed him.

But Buck’s lips hadn’t moved when he spoke.

Eddie blinks, sure he’s still out of it from demanding too much of his magic, when Buck continues.

“How did you even know the hellhound was here?”

He’d been ready to answer, when Buck continued speaking without moving his lips. Surely he would’ve mentioned a proficiency in ventriloquism, right? It’s almost too fast to catch, except for the last sentence.

I wouldn’t be missed by many.

How could he say that—

Except he didn’t, did he?

Eddie doesn’t feel his mouth move. “I felt it break the wards. I knew something was here, so I called Bobby and made a portal to get here.”

“You can make portals?”

Eddie feels a brush of admiration, similar to how his neighbor’s cat sometimes winds its body against his legs. It’s gentle—like it doesn’t know he’s aware of it.

“Yes.”

He hopes his face isn’t revealing how panicked he is—he’s aware of what Buck’s feeling. And worse, what he’s thinking. Oh, the universe really screwed him over this time. That’s the last time he asks it for help.

“And you healed my leg?” Buck’s voice is soft.

His thoughts aren’t. How powerful is he? Hellhound wounds are almost always lethal—

“Yes.” He can barely draw in a breath. How did he fuck up this badly? Did he accidentally recite a spell without realizing?

He hasn’t done that since he was nine and Sophia had annoyed him into turning her hair blue. It had stayed like that for a week, and Eddie has no memory of making it happen.

But, no—he’d asked the universe for his magic to be strong enough to save Buck. And he got more than he asked for.

What the hell is his deal? Sorry you had to come save the useless liar you can't stand. I’ll put up a No Hellhounds sign outside my front door next time.

Eddie’s mouth quirks—how the hell did he never realize Buck’s funny? He forces himself to frown, if only to push away his terror. He needs to fix this. Fast.

He tunes out the rest of their conversation, wracking his brain to think of solutions. He can ask Abuela, or Tia Pepa. They might know more about it. It seems to only be one-sided—Buck isn’t subtle enough to not react if he’s privy to Eddie’s internal monologue.

That’s good, at least.

He needs to figure this out.

Buck eventually slides into unconsciousness again, and Eddie’s granted the knowledge that his last thought is of how Eddie had shouted his name.

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

His magic pulses once in his ribcage, like its emitting a happy purr.

Chapter Text

Eddie knocks on Abuela’s door. It’s been almost six hours since he accidentally bonded himself to the person he can’t stand most in the world. He has not taken a deep breath since his discovery. His—not panic, exactly, because Eddie Diaz doesn’t do that—uncomfortableness is like a ball of energy in his chest, expanding and coalescing beneath his ribs.

Abuela opens the door, smiling widely. “Eddito,” she says warmly, kissing his cheek in greeting. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”

“It’s an…” he trails off. He doesn’t want to say it’s an emergency—although it very much is—and cause her to think something’s wrong. It’s not life or death. It’s just that he can sense Buck’s emotions, even now.

It seems like he can only read his mind when he’s in close proximity to the psychic, which is a small mercy in and of itself. But now, when he’s miles away from the blond, if he focuses hard enough, he can feel whatever emotion Buck’s feeling.

In case you’re curious, right now it’s a combination of mixed annoyance laced with amusement.

Eddie knows Buck had been taken to Bobby and Athena’s house to recover since his apartment is no longer deemed safe. If he had to guess, he’d say Harry and May were trying to entertain Buck while he tried to sleep off the trauma his body had gone through only a few hours before.

“It’s a problem I don’t know how to fix,” he decides on saying, ignoring how high Abuela’s eyebrows raise.

“Come in,” she says, stepping aside.

Her house always smells like his favorite meals from his childhood and spices. It’s warm and cozy—the perfect place to come when he’s stressed out of his mind. Eddie can practically feel his shoulders loosening as he walks further into her home.

“What’s going on?” Abuela waves her hand and the tea kettle fills itself with water before moving to sit over a burner on the stove.

“I…” Used too much magic and bonded myself to the idiot psychic at work who’s been lying to us forever and put us in danger.

That wouldn’t be beneficial to say.

He mulls over it as they both sit down on the couch in the living room.

“I healed someone, and the spell went wrong.” It’s not a lie, but it’s nowhere near the entire truth, either.

She tilts her head, waiting for him to go on. He takes a deep breath, preparing himself, and dives in.

“One of my coworkers lied about something. Something important. And the rest of us have to work together to make sure nothing happens to him. I’m assigned to protect him.”

Abuela nods.

Eddie keeps his gaze on his knees as he continues. “I laid wards at his apartment so he’d be safe. But they—they didn’t work. Somehow a hellhound got through.”

The witch beside him sits up straighter. “A hellhound?”

“I was almost too late,” Eddie whispers. “I felt the moment it got through the wards, and warned our captain before making a portal to his apartment. When I got there, it had already taken a chunk out of his calf.”

Abuela moved her hand to cover her mouth. For most people, that alone would be a death sentence. Unless someone with an incredible amount of magic was right there to help them—and Eddie’s magic isn’t like that.

“He killed the hellhound, and I put a shield over it to make sure it would stay in one spot. I went up the stairs, and—” For a moment, Eddie can’t speak. He’s back in that moment when he’d crested the top of the staircase and saw how much blood had been surrounding Buck. He’d been in so much pain.

“I started healing him. I said every spell I knew, drew every rune, and I did everything I could, Abuela, but it wasn’t working,” he murmurs, shutting his eyes.

A warm palm settles against his leg, and it grounds him for a moment.

“And then what, Eddie?”

“I…I asked the universe to help save him.”

For a long moment, Abuela is silent. Eddie cracks an eye open, squinting to see her reaction. The witch is staring at him, brows halfway to heaven, and then she smiles. It’s the last thing he expects her to do, so he furrows his brows at her in confusion.

“What?” he asks.

Abuela pinches her lips together. And then, slyly, she says, “You asked the universe for something?”

It’s no secret that Eddie doesn’t believe in the higher power like the rest of his family. Despite being an avid magic user, he doesn’t think there’s something in the clouds high above pulling on the strings of fate like certain people like to believe.

“It was a wound from a hellhound,” he defends weakly. “I wasn’t going to be able to heal it by myself!”

In the kitchen, the tea kettle begins to whistle. Abuela stands, moving towards it, and asks over her shoulder, “And then what?”

“My eyes were closed, but there was a bright white light. I remember asking ‘please’ and then the rest of the team showed up. When I looked at him again, he looked normal. Hen, our healer, was the one who noticed his leg was completely fine.”

Abuela sticks her head back into the living room, her eyes narrowed. In her hands are two homemade teabags, but it’s like she’s forgotten she’s holding them. “What exactly did you ask the universe for?”

Eddie blinks. “I don’t remember. I just wanted to save him. My magic was going crazy, and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

“Your magic?”

He hadn’t come here to get more confusion, but it’s not like Eddie ever got what he wanted anyway.

“Yeah?”

Abuela studies him for a moment, and he feels like he’s getting an x-ray. Her magic isn’t based in emotions, but for a few seconds, it sure seems like it. She disappears back into the kitchen, fixing their cups of tea, and Eddie sits in stunned silence.

What the hell?

When she returns, two steaming mugs in hand, he takes his gratefully and sips it. Immediately, he’s more at ease and relaxed. He doesn’t know how she makes her tea, but it’s incredible. It always gives him just what he needs.

“What did your magic feel like? You said it was going crazy,” she prompts gently.

He knows she won’t let it go until he answers. “It’s been like that for a while around him. Every time he’s doing something stupid at work or puts himself in danger, it just wants to—” Eddie mimes strangling the psychic with his free hand. “I don’t get it. And when I saw him like that, just lying there…I knew my magic was going to do everything it could.”

“I won’t ask too many questions,” she tells him. “But is he powerful?”

Eddie thinks about it. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know the extent of what he can do.”

She nods. “But you suspect?”

Eddie remembers how cagey Buck had been in the engine bay when they’d first returned from the car accident. The moment he’d said I’m a psychic, he’d looked to the ground like he expected everyone to rush at him. He’d flinched when Athena had first hugged him.

And then how he’d asked for a vision or something like that to get them out of the structure fire after the staircase had collapsed. He’d led them right to the thing that allowed them to escape.

Eddie can’t ignore the fact that Buck had singlehandedly killed a hellhound, all without magic of his own. The witch doesn’t know if he’d had a vision to help him defend himself, but there’s no denying that Buck wasn’t going down without a fight.

Eddie remembers the look on Athena’s face when he’d dissolved the shield over the hellhound’s corpse. A knife from Buck’s kitchen was buried up to the hilt in the shoulder blade of the beast. The half-Fae, half-witch had muttered something about bravery and stupidity.

He’d been quietly amazed.

Through all the panic Buck had been feeling, through the pain of his wound, he’d had the wherewithal to still fight. Eddie admires him for it.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I think he’s more powerful than he ever let on.”

“And you…protect him?” Her voice is carefully neutral, but he doesn’t understand why.

“I have to,” he answers. “Bobby and Athena assigned me to his protective order. I’m the one who has to look after him and make sure he doesn’t get killed.”

She hums. “And how did the spell go wrong? You said his leg was healed?”

Ah, yes. The worst part of the story.

Eddie takes his time before continuing. “I…” It’ll be like ripping off a bandaid. Painful at first, but better in the long run. “I can read his mind and feel his emotions.”

Abuela does her best impression of a statue and doesn’t move a single muscle of rat least fifteen seconds. “You bonded yourself to him?”

“I didn’t mean to! I can’t stand him!”

She blinks, and he apologizes for his outburst. It’s not her fault he can’t control his magic around Buck.

“I need to know how to undo it.” That’s why he came here. Abuela knows everything, and she’s always been able to point him in the right direction. He trusts her.

“Not every spell can be undone, Eddie.”

For a second, he’s five again. He’d broken a vase in his father’s office, and he’d tried to repair it with a poorly pronounced spell. The shards had dissolved into a fine sand, and he’d run crying to Abuela. She’d held him, and let him cry, and whispered that some spells can’t be undone. Time can’t be turned back, and we can’t ask too much of our power.

She’d kept his father from hitting Eddie when he discovered the broken vase.

“This has to be fixed, Abuela,” he says, an inch from begging. “We hate each other!”

She raises a brow, but says nothing.

“A counter spell, maybe?”

The witch shrugs. Eddie considers briefly ripping his hair out.

“A spell like that, when you invoke the power of the universe, doesn’t go astray by itself.” She takes a sip of her tea casually, like she hadn’t said the most cryptic statement Eddie’s ever heard.

“What?”

“A spell wouldn’t change like that by itself. There’s something else involved.”

“Well, it wasn’t Buck! He doesn’t have magic like that, and he was unconscious for the entire thing.”

Abuela looks at him again. “Buck?”

“Yeah, my coworker. His name’s Evan, but he goes by Buck.”

She hums again. “The universe is a funny thing,” she muses.

Eddie takes another sip of his tea so he doesn’t ask her to clarify. Something tells him she won’t.

“I have some suspicions, but I need to ask around some of my circles to get more answers,” she says. She puts her hand on his leg once more and smiles. “I’ll tell you more when I know more—and when I think you’re ready to hear it.”

*****

Bobby’s French toast is killer. Buck’s never tasted finer food. If he didn’t think he’d get in trouble for making a joke too soon, he’d crack some line about how getting attacked by a hellhound was worth it if it meant getting to eat like this.

But Bobby wouldn’t appreciate it. Not this close to the full moon.

Athena sips her coffee, reading over some documents in manila folders stamped with the official seal of the Department.

Buck doesn’t lean over her shoulder to look at them, but he’s sorely tempted.

May and Harry, Athena’s kids, sit on Buck’s other side at the table. They were both overjoyed when they found out he’d be staying with them for a few days at least. May’s almost eighteen, and well-versed in her magic. She’s half human, thanks to Michael, but good enough to be considered for one of the magical universities in LA.

Buck asks her a few questions about what she hopes to study as Athena reads and Bobby looks over the newspaper. It’s horribly domestic. Buck loves it.

When everyone’s finished, Buck helps Bobby carry all the plates to the sink and begins washing them.

“I’ll be shifting tonight, but I’ll be back by the time you wake up,” Bobby tells him again for the third time.

Buck smiles. “I’ll be alright. I won’t leave the boundaries of the house. If it makes you feel better, I won’t even go outside.”

Bobby nods. “I just—”

“I know,” Buck murmurs. He wasn’t the only one terrified by the fact a hellhound had been sent to kill him. None of them are immune to that. “Athena’s one of the scariest people at the Department. The wards around the house are stronger than anything I’ve ever seen. It’ll be okay, Bobby.”

The werewolf claps a hand against Buck’s shoulder and holds it there for a moment. He presses into the psychic, as if he can will him to be safe from harm. Buck’s eyes sting for a second, and then it passes.

It had been an immediate yes when Bobby and Athena had offered to take him in for a few days. He’d thought Eddie might’ve had something to say about it when he went with them, but the witch had remained silent.

Maybe he regrets saving me.

The thought comes unbidden, and Buck bites back the swirl of doubt as it courses through him. Eddie had come when he felt the wards break. It doesn’t matter how the witch feels about Buck—he’d come to his rescue when he needed him. Buck might’ve killed the hellhound, but it was Eddie who had kept the psychic from joining the beast in death.

“Athena’s going to stay home tonight as well,” Bobby adds.

Buck raises a brow. “She’d stay home from a shift? Because of—me?”

Bobby nods, as if surprised by Buck’s confusion. “We care about you, Buck.”

Buck opens his mouth, unsure of how to respond, when Athena joins them in the kitchen. She’s still holding the files in her hands and looks to the psychic. “I have some things you need to see.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” he says, both for the breakfast and for the verbal reassurance that he’s wanted here. When he’d been about to fall asleep when he first got here, he’d worried he would be imposing. Both Athena and Bobby had cured him of that notion.

Athena gestures for him to join her on the couch. As soon as he’s next to her, she hands him the manilla folders she’d been going over during breakfast. He opens the first one and frowns.

It’s a Department profile of a person. There’s a small two by two picture in the top left corner, detailing a beautiful girl with dark hair and hazel eyes, with her name and address printed out on the right. Under the section marked ability, there’s a hastily written psychic. There’s five or so papers in the folder in total: the first one, and then four pages associated with her murder investigation.

The other folder Athena gave him details much of the same, only it’s a man with short cropped auburn hair and brown eyes. His murder investigation is still ongoing, like the girl’s was. There’s even less papers in his report.

“The psychics who were murdered,” Buck says when he’s done looking at the last folder. He meets Athena’s gaze and asks, “Is there anything else we know?”

The half-Fae nods grimly. “The woman was working in secret for the Department. The Department hasn’t had an official psychic in almost two decades—too much danger associated with the position. Instead, they use them like tipsters. The psychics will come in, detailing everything they can see in their visions, and go about their lives like normal. They usually have protective orders as well.”

Lot of good it did them, Buck thinks darkly.

“What do you know about the magical crime families, Buck?”

Athena’s question catches him off guard. “There’s three or so, right? They all have ‘territories’ throughout the city and go after one another if someone encroaches on their turf.”

“They also go after anyone who interferes with their crimes.”

Buck’s eyes fall down to the folders on his lap. “Let me guess: both of these psychics were informants.”

“I was only able to confirm that the man was,” she says softly. “The girl’s murder is more high profile. I think there might be a witness. But I’m not working the case, and my clearance isn’t high enough to see the details beyond this folder. Which I never showed you, by the way.”

Buck makes a show of zipping his lips with his fingers. “Do you think it was one of the crime families that sent the hellhound?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. There wasn’t any lingering summoning magic on the hound, so I don’t have a lead. But I can think of a few people in each family who would be strong enough to summon it, and get past Eddie’s wards.”

The psychic hums. “How long am I going to be under a protective order?”

She purses her lips at him. “Buckley, you’re going to be under that order for as long as it takes to find out who’s trying to get rid of you. Until we know who’s responsible and they’re facing justice for what they’ve done, you’re going to have Eddie as your shadow.”

He frowns. I don’t even know who should be more upset about this—me or him.

“I’m not even informing the Department of anything!” Buck protests, channeling his frustration into something else. “All my documents have me as a witch!”

“I really think it was someone at the scene of the car accident,” Athena says. “That’s the only outlier that makes sense.”

He can’t even bring himself to regret it. Hen, Chim, and Bobby are all alive—it’s worth almost being killed by a hellhound. But if something like that happens again and it threatens the team—

“I don’t want anyone else endangered by being around me,” Buck insists. “They’re in trouble just because they know my secret!”

“You shared that secret under the safety of the fire station’s wards. The person responsible would have to be standing in the room with us for them to know what we know.”

“It’s no secret how close the 118 is,” Buck points out.

Athena’s mouth quirks to the side as she mulls over his statement. “That’s true,” she agrees hesitantly. “We’ll just have to be careful until the person is caught.”

Buck prays it won’t take long. He doesn’t know how much he can stand with Eddie being around all the time.

*****

Eddie tries to keep his distance from Buck as much as he can. It’s pretty damn hard, considering he’s the one assigned to protecting him, but he gives it his best shot. Bobby drives him to work, which cuts out on the time he’d been trapped listening to the thoughts of the psychic.

But now, while they’re doing chores around the firehouse, it’s nonstop chatter in the back of his head. It’s hard to focus on the engine he’s supposed to be shining while Buck is waxing poetic about the social patterns of squirrels.

Gray squirrels and fox squirrels aren’t territorial, but red squirrels are. The social ones may share dens, but also play together and groom each other. Dominance hierarchies exist in these societies, with older and bigger squirrels usually being more dominant. They’re all part of the Sciuridae family…

Like what the fuck?

Why does he care so much about squirrels? He’d watched some documentary the night before, he’d heard his thoughts about that earlier, but that doesn’t mean he has to spend the entire shift thinking about it!

The least weasel is driven by a compulsion to hunt, even when it physically cannot eat anymore…

Eddie never thought he’d miss the tirade about squirrels. Why does Buck know so many obscure facts about random animals?

He tunes it out as best as he can as he dips the sponge into the soapy water bucket at his feet. He could use his magic to get through this chore even faster, but Bobby likes it when things are done without spells. Something about building character. Eddie doesn’t mind—usually.

Normally he isn’t subjected to the thoughts of the most annoying man he’s ever met.

There’s a lull of merciful silence, and then—

Eddie almost doubles over from the pain. He looks down at himself, almost expecting to see a wound come out of nowhere, as his right hand lifts to hold his temple. It’s like an explosion going on in his head, nearly knocking the witch to his knees. He blinks, bewildered, and looks around the engine to where Buck is refolding the lines of the hoses.

He’s a bit paler than normal and his jaw is clenched. Other that that, he looks completely fine.

Eddie blinks. The pain subsides, and he feels like he can take a deep breath for the first time since it started. As he watches, Buck’s chest rises and falls almost in tandem.

The pain was Buck’s, he realizes. This connection between them isn’t just telepathic. Eddie can feel Buck’s pain as well.

Buck continues folding the hose, like nothing had happened.

Eddie stares at him for a moment. The pain had nearly been blinding—and he acts like nothing happened? Had Eddie imagined it? No, he’d never have the ability to imagine that sort of pain without experiencing it.

And Buck hadn’t reacted in any way Eddie could see…

Does that mean this is something that happens normally? Is it a side effect of visions? Eddie’s magic has never turned on him like that, but he knows different magics can rebound differently on their users. Like his nosebleeds when he asks too much of his power. He’s never seen Buck’s nose bleed.

After the vision he’d had at the car accident scene, he’d blinked a lot. His magic had felt like starlight, and Eddie’s magic had wanted to call to it. And then when they were at the structure fire—Buck had asked for a vision of a ladder, and had blinked until he got one. There was no magical signature with that vision, which made Eddie think each one might be slightly different.

There’s no telling what that pain had been. It’s not like Eddie can ask Buck about it, either. The psychic would either ignore the question or demand an explanation for why he knew it happened. And there’s nothing Eddie can say that won’t sound insane if he reveals he can read Buck’s thoughts, emotions, and now pain.

He’ll just have to wait and see.

It doesn’t take long. They have two calls they respond to in the morning and then they make lunch. Buck’s thoughts are constant through everything, either thinking about work or the most random things when he should be thinking about work.

Eddie had nearly laughed when Buck had been thinking about the history of the burger when an attractive woman was trying to get his phone number during their second call. If you’re wondering, it’s likely an evolution of the hamburger steak, a dish brought to America by German immigrants. Eddie had never wondered about it, but now he knew.

As they’re eating lunch in the loft, Eddie’s knee slams against the table as another wave of pain descends on him without warning. He closes his eyes against it, fighting the urge to make a noise of discomfort, and takes shallow breaths in through his nose.

“Eddie?” Hen’s warm voice is worried. “Are you alright?”

“Leg cramp,” he bites out. Just as suddenly as it had come, the pain is gone. He blinks, confused, and opens his eyes to see his team looking at him with varying looks of concern. “I’m fine.”

“Sure,” Chim says, not sounding like he believes him.

Bobby stares at him for a moment longer, but says nothing.

Eddie looks at Buck last, scared to see if the psychic has caught on. He looks worried, which is more than Eddie had expected. He listens for his thoughts, just in case he has the best poker face in the world.

That was weird. He’s never had a leg cramp like that. Did he start working out more? His ass looks even better—

Eddie chokes on his water, coughing roughly.

“Damn, Diaz,” Hen says, brows furrowed.

“Dude, what’s going on with you?”

Buck simply raises a brow. His thoughts continue, ignorant to Eddie’s listening.

Pick a struggle, dumbass. Can’t sit down for a normal meal or the ability to drink water without dying. You don’t get bonus points for fucking both up. For that ass, though…

Eddie’s cheeks don’t return to their normal color for another twenty minutes.

*****

Buck doesn’t know why his gift chooses today of all days to try and bombard him with visions. It’s hard enough pushing them away and dealing with the residual headache that comes with them—it doesn’t help that Eddie is acting strangely as well.

The witch keeps his distance, like he always does, but he’s shooting looks at Buck every time he thinks the psychic isn’t looking. Even when Buck’s back is turned to him, he swears he can feel the witch’s eyes on him, staring.

If he didn’t have the headache from hell, he’d probably say something about it. It’s been a while since they got into a verbal sparring match. He’s been laying low, mostly out of gratitude for Eddie saving his life. He shouldn’t have to deal with the person he saved snapping at him every chance he got.

That wouldn’t be nice, and Buck can be nice to Eddie. When he wants to be.

He’s wrapping up the last of his chores when he feels Eddie watching him again.

Ugh, he thinks, mostly for his headache but also for the unwanted attention. What the hell did I do to deserve this?

Buck’s thinking about going upstairs and grabbing a snack when he feels another vision coming on. He closes his eyes breathes through the pain as it comes. This one isn’t as bad as the other two had been this morning, but it’s no walk in the park, either.

His head gives a painful pound, like a gong being hit, and the echos of discomfort reverberate all throughout his head.

“Buckley, what the fuck?”

Buck blinks at the witch who’s suddenly standing in front of him, forehead creased with concern.

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Eddie snaps. “Why the hell are you in so much pain?”

Buck immediately straightens his shoulders and looks around, trying to see who’s in hearing distance. He can’t let the others know about this side effect of his visions—if they knew he was pushing them away, they’d punish him.

“I’m not,” he lies, like a liar.

“Don’t give me that shit,” Eddie hisses. He’s keeping his voice down, at least. “Why aren’t you saying anything about the pain?”

“How do you know I’m in pain?” Buck goes to extreme lengths to make sure no one can tell how he’s feeling. He always presents a happy front, where no one can think something’s wrong with him. That way, he won’t get thrown away like he had been before. If he makes others think he’s in control of his power, they won’t think he’s less capable than anyone else.

He blinks at him, his expression softening slightly, and says, “Buck, you’ve had a headache all day. Why don’t you get some water or something?”

“Why do you care?” Buck barks, unable to stop himself. He’s not used to concern without judgement—he doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s easier to push it away. Eddie’s never been like this before. “I’m within the wards of the station. You only have to worry about me when we’re out there.”

“Is that what you really think?”

Buck doesn’t know what Eddie’s expression means, and he doesn’t try to find out.

“How do you know I’m in pain?” he asks again.

Eddie blinks, caught. “You’ve been rubbing your forehead all day, and your shoulders are practically touching your ears.”

Buck shakes his head. “No, I do that every day. How do you know it’s worse than normal?”

Eddie’s magic shouldn’t give him insight to Buck like this. The witch had been suspicious before, but he’s never asked such a direct line of questioning.

Hm, he thinks. Looks like the guy who can’t stand liars has no trouble lying himself.

“Hey!”

Buck raises his brows. “I didn’t say anything.”

Eddie blinks quickly, color rising to his cheeks, and Buck’s stomach drops in horror. There’s only one explanation he can think of that would explain Eddie’s reaction to Buck’s silence. His outrage would make sense if he’d heard Buck’s antagonizing thought.

He offers up a silent prayer he doesn’t think anyone is listening to and thinks, Please don’t tell me you can read my mind.

Eddie pinches his lips together, and Buck swears.

The witch frowns.

Buck tilts his head and thinks as hard as he can, Did you really change your workout routine? Your ass has never looked better.

Eddie blushes prettily and hisses, “Come on, don’t say things like that!”

He fixes him with a flat look. “I didn’t.”

It’s Eddie’s turn to swear.

Well, this is quite the development.

*****

Eddie goes along as Buck grabs his wrist and pulls him towards one of the corners of the station where they won’t be overheard. His magic pulses once, like answering a call, and falls silent once more.

As soon as they’re hidden behind the engine, Buck drops his hand like it burned him. And then he whisper-yells, “What the hell, Eddie?”

Sue him—Eddie really thought he had more time before the psychic would figure it out. If he’d ben able to keep his stupid mouth shut, they wouldn’t be in this position. But his head was hurting as a mirror for Buck’s pain, and he couldn’t believe the blond went along like nothing when it felt like his head was being split open.

Oh, well. Time to rip off the bandage.

“When I saved you, I used too much magic,” he bites out. “It was an accident.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d never do this on purpose!” Buck snaps. “Can you reverse it?”

He grits his teeth. “No, I thought it would be fun to be in your head and feel your pain forever. Of course I’m trying to reverse it!”

“I don’t want you in my head either!” Buck’s chest is rising and falling—he looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “Can you seriously feel my pain?”

“Why do you think I knew you had a headache?”

“Ugh,” Buck groans, shutting his eyes. “What the hell?”

“I don’t want this! Why do you think about squirrels so much? That’s not normal!” Eddie’s magic is rising in his chest, always in tune with his emotions. Right now, it feels like he’s a live wire as he looks at the sharp blue of Buck’s eyes.

His mouth opens slightly, and Eddie’s eyes track the movement as his tongue wets his lips. “I’m sorry my thoughts aren’t scintillating enough for you.”

And then, silently, he adds, Is there something else you’d rather I think of, you prick?

“No,” Eddie answers out loud. Then he winces.

“How the hell does this even happen? You saved my life—thanks, by the way—and now you can read my mind?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I didn’t do this on purpose! I asked Abuela, and she said there was something else. It was an open spell, it wasn’t as structured as a traditional healing spell or something like that.”

“What did you do?” Buck’s voice is less hostile.

He takes a deep breath and considers lying. But that would make him a hypocrite, and Buck would never shut up about it if he found out. So he answers, “I asked for help in healing you.”

“What, like the universe?” It’s clear from his expression that Buck thinks he’s kidding. After all, Eddie is very open about not believing in the power of the universe. When he doesn’t say anything, Buck’s smile dims. “Wait, really?”

“That’s why this happened,” Eddie mutters. “Abuela said there was something else in the spell, something that made the bond. I didn’t do it, so something else must have.”

“A bond?”

“It’s why I can read your mind and feel your pain,” Eddie says tightly. “Again, I wouldn’t do it on purpose.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Buck murmurs. “Can it be reversed?”

“Abuela’s asking around. She’s going to a few different circles—trust me, I want this over with as much as you do.”

You’re not the one with the invasion of privacy, Buck thinks. And then quietly, like he forgot Eddie can hear him, But I do trust you.

Out loud, he says, “Whatever. Let me know when you have a plan to stop it. I’ll do whatever I have to.”

Eddie nods, his magic itching under his palms. It’s restless.

It’s a weird moment of peace between them. He looks at the psychic, studying the hue of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the cut of his cheekbones. Has he never really looked at him before? He opens his mouth, even when he doesn’t know what he’s about to say, but is cut off by the bell ringing.

With practiced ease, the pair leaps into action and run to their turnouts as the others file towards the truck. They get into the compartment quickly, and Eddie’s leg brushes against Buck’s.

Eddie’s magic calms at the contact, and the pain he’s felt since Buck’s first onslaught winks out completely. He blinks, too stunned to move, and catches Buck’s eye across the cab.

His eyes are wide, and Eddie knows he’s realized it as well.

Buck moves his leg again, and Eddie winces as the pain returns to both of them.

He connects their legs, pressing firmly against the psychic’s thigh, and the pain lessens until it’s gone.

He doesn’t need to read Buck’s mind to know they’re thinking the same thing.

*****

The call is routine, Buck sticks close to Eddie, and neither one have their magic or pain react in a negative way. They test the boundaries a bit and find as long as they’re within thirty feet of each other or so, there’s a reduction in their magic rebounding against them.

Eddie’s magic behaves perfectly, and Buck’s eyes aren’t pinched as tight.

It’s a strange development, to say the least.

When the call is over—a simple fender bender—they have their legs pressed together for the entire ride back. Buck’s thoughts are messy, cutting each other off with how quickly his mind whirs, and Eddie doesn’t try to listen in. He wants to respect Buck’s privacy as much as he can. He focuses instead on what he’s going to make Chris for dinner that night.

They get back to the station and get the rig ready for the next call. Bobby has dinner ready for them the moment they’re done. Eddie knows it’s only a matter of time before people realize he and Buck are acting differently, and his luck runs out just after dinner.

It’s Chim who speaks up first. “Why are you sitting together?”

Honestly, it’s a fair question. Buck and Eddie are sitting together on the couch in the upstairs loft close enough that their shoulders brush if one of them breathes too deeply.

“It’s after dinner and we always try to relax as much as we can?” Buck offers.

Hen shakes her head, agreeing with the water manipulator. “No, you two sit on opposite sides of the room if you’re in the same room at all. And now you’re cuddled up on the couch?”
“We’re not cuddled up,” Eddie says flatly. They won’t believe him if he tells the truth. And he doesn’t want to share a secret that Buck doesn’t want to.

“You may as well be!” Chim says, snapping his gum. “I mean, what the hell?”

“Too soon,” Buck sniffs, idly adjusting his leg that had been injured.

It takes everything in him not to laugh at the panic that crosses over Chim’s face. His guilt is radiating off him in waves, and it’s the silent sound of Buck’s laughter inside his head that almost makes Eddie smile.

“They’re not fighting,” Hen says as she drops herself into the armchair. “Let’s enjoy the peace.”

Chim harrumphs, but acquiesces. The four of them sit silently in the loft, either reading their respective books or watching the television that’s playing reruns of Friends.

Buck and Eddie sit together, close enough to feel each other’s warmth, and both try to think of a way out of this.

Neither one is willing to admit it out loud, but being near each other is soothing.

Eddie’s eyes grow heavier as he watches the screen, succumbing to the fatigue of the shift. If he can catch an hour or two of sleep, he’d feel ready for the next call. Just as he closes his eyes, he hears one soft thought from Buck.

I don’t mind being around him if it means my head stops hurting.

It’s a step in the right direction.

Chapter Text

Eddie wakes up feeling heartbroken. It’s not the sharp pain he’d experienced when Shannon had left him, leaving Chris and signed divorce papers in her wake when she disappeared from El Paso two years ago. That had been piercing, and reverberated through his entire body, until he took the time he needed to heal and realize it was the best thing for both of them.

He still loves Shannon, but as a friend. The person who had given him Christopher, the absolute light of his life.

She’s a human, and somewhere in Los Angeles. She’d come to take care of her mother, and Eddie had followed years later. Not for her—for freedom from his parents. But he knew Christopher wanted to see his mother again. And so did Eddie. So he could thank her for the bravery it took for both of them to get the happily-ever-afters they both deserved.
Even if Eddie’s is a long, long ways away.

He hopes she’s happy, wherever she is.

The pain he wakes up with is dulled. All-encompassing. Like an old wound that keeps getting reopened, no matter how many bandages you put over it. If he had to guess, Eddie would say this wound is years deep.

And the pain is not his.

Eddie remembers the bond he shares with Buck, and reaches for his phone without a second thought.

He’s hurt, he thinks as he unlocks his phone and pulls up his messaging app.

And then he takes a moment to think it through.

Buck’s not in physical pain—he can tell that much, even with the miles between them. This heartbrokenness—there’s no other word Eddie can fathom to describe it—is emotional. Eddie can’t take this pain away from him with a spell. Hen couldn’t heal him of this plight.

Eddie’s his guardian, yes, but Buck isn’t dying. Something is bothering him, deeply enough that it woke Eddie from his slumber.

And it’s making the witch sad. For Buck. For the pain he’s feeling, for the fact Eddie can’t fix it. Even if he hugged the other man, and held on for as long as he could, it wouldn’t take away this bone-deep sadness.

Buck feels so much, so freely, and it’s foreign to Eddie.

Anything he feels is kept under lock and key, for his own protection. No one can hurt him if they can’t bother him. His parents had raised a strong man who could always be the man of the house as needed. Abuela had been the one who whispered she would love him no matter what he did with his life, but his parents had still shaped him with their cruel fingers and lofty expectations.

He pushes the bond away. Feeling how Buck feels is making him sympathize with the psychic—it’s the magic doing this, not him. He’s probably just upset about that serious girlfriend Chim had mentioned all those weeks ago. He’d said Buck had waited for her for a long time—maybe this morning was just a bad day for him.

His magic curls in his chest, distraught at the thought of the faceless girlfriend Eddie knows nothing about, and he sighs.

Eddie gets ready for the day, smiling when he hears his son waking up in the next room. There’s no cure for his grumpiness like his kid. Christopher, half-witch, is developing his powers. He’s only eight, and can already make plants grow in the windowsill and in the garden behind the house. Eddie’s never been prouder.

Chris’s latest project has been the weeping willow in the corner of the yard. Every day, he tries to grow it bit more so the branches can brush against the ground like it had in one of the movies he’d watched recently. One of Eddie’s favorite things in the world is to watch his son do magic.

“Good morning, mijo,” he says, kissing the top of his son’s head when Christopher finally comes out of his room. Eddie slices the last piece of fruit and puts it on the plate, laying it next to the toast covered in strawberry jam.

“Thanks, Dad,” Chris says, smiling as he sets the plate down on the table.

He’s not a good cook, but he managed to master three meals for his son. Most of them can be done by an overzealous ten year old, but Eddie’s glad not every meal comes out of a cardboard box from the store.

“What do you say we go to the park today?” He has forty-eight hours until his next shift, and wants to spend as much time with his son as possible. It’s hard between balancing the long hours and having Abuela and Tia Pepa look after Chris.

“Yes!” Chris’s grin is wide.

He smiles. He’d do anything to keep that joyful expression on his son’s face. Eddie packs a bag for the park, making sure to include sunscreen and water bottles, and the few spell books Abuela had pressed into his hand as he had left her house. They might not have much information on his specific problem, but they were about the different magical bonds between people.

He’s going to do his research so he can figure out how to break the bond between himself and Buck.

*****

Buck had dreamt of Maddie last night. It was more of a memory than a dream. It hadn’t been one of his favorites, that’s for damn sure.

“I’m not leaving you,” Maddie whispers against his head as she hugs him tightly to her chest. “I’m just moving in with Doug.”

“He’s mean,” Evan cries. He’s thirteen, a damn teenager, and crying like a baby. He can’t bring himself to care. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m not truly leaving,” she insists, her brown eyes wide. “Boston isn’t that far away. And you can always call. I’m just a phone call away, Evan. That’s all.”

He sobs, holding tighter onto her shirt. “It’s going to be different.”

She strokes his hair, like she used to when he woke up screaming from nightmares. He never told her they were visions. In this moment, selfishly, he’s glad he never shared that secret with her.

“Everything changes eventually, Evan,” she says softly.

Distantly, he thinks it’s nice she’s not trying to lie to him about this.

“They won’t tolerate me if you’re gone.”

Neither one have to use names to know who he’s talking about.

“It’s okay if you don’t have that much power,” she says, holding him tighter to her chest. It’s the exact antithesis of everything his parents had ever snapped at him when Maddie wasn’t in hearing distance. “Being a witch isn’t everything.”

“It is to you,” he says, because it’s true. Maddie’s an excellent witch, capable of mastering any spell she puts her mind to. Anytime Evan had tried to think of a spell that would stump her, she had learned it so she could show him.

Every time he fell, she’d heal his bruises and cuts. His parents would scoff, but Maddie…she would look after him. She would use her magic to help him in any way she could.

And now she’s leaving.

“Only a phone call away,” she promises. “I swear to you on everything I know, Evan—I won’t leave you.”

She’d ended up being a liar. The dream had shifted, because Buck’s psyche hadn’t taken enough damage.

The ridges of the key press into his palm with how tightly he’s holding them. Maddie’s Jeep, the car she’d had for years, was now his. She stands in front of him, her mouth pinched, her left hand tucked into her pocket, hiding the two-carat diamond Doug had gotten her.

“It’s for the best,” she whispers.

Evan knows she’s right. His parents are too busy with their coven to bother raising him, and his lack of magic makes him useless to them anyways. If he told the truth about his power, what he could really do, they would be interested.

But there’s been a reason he’d never told anyone.

Evan must have been seven or eight when the first vision came. He’d woken up crying, and Maddie had run to his room to comfort him and get him back to sleep.

“I had a bad dream,” he had told her.

“I get them, too,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his hairline. “They’re not true. They don’t happen.”

But this nightmare did—a week later. There had been a terrible car accident on their neighborhood street, and Mr. Winkles from two houses down had died, just like Evan had seen in his dream. The car was nothing but a twisted piece of metal against one of his neighbor’s old sycamore trees. Mr. Winkles had never stood a chance, even as a powerful mage.

A freak accident, everyone had said.

“I knew it was going to happen,” he had told Maddie at dinner that night. “I had a bad dream, and I saw the car crash.”

Margaret had lifted her eyes for a moment, studying her youngest son. “I thought you were supposed to be working on your spells, not your ability to make up lies.”

“I’m not lying!”

“His imagination has always been overactive,” Philip remarked under his breath. “How long until he can take another aptitude test?”

“I hate those tests,” Evan had protested. “They tell me I’m not good enough!”

“Because you aren’t,” Margaret snapped. “Maddie had been studying magic for nearly two years when she was your age! And you can’t even conjure a handful of sparks. To think you’re part of the line to the Buckley coven. It’s a disgrace.”

“He still has time,” Maddie had said. “He could be like D—”

“He’s not!”

Philip had looked at Evan then, and said, “You said you saw it in a dream? You saw Mr. Winkles die in a car accident?”

Evan nodded.

“Like a psychic?”

“What’s that?”

“A cursed being, boy,” Philip had snarled. “Psychics—they’re dangerous. Their power might be great, but it’s unnatural. So I want you to think long and hard about if you had a dream where Mr. Winkles died, or if you made up that lie for attention, like you always do.”

Evan looked down at the plate in front of him. “The second one.”

“That’s what I thought,” Philip said, not hiding his disgust.

So, no—Evan had never told Maddie. Not even when he wanted to, more than anything. He’d never felt more alone than after a vision where he couldn’t warn people that bad things were going to happen.

And he’s never been happier about that decision as she hugs him one last time, the Jeep keys still in his hand.

“It’s for the best, Evan,” she whispers.

“For the best,” he echoes.

Both Buckleys ended up being fucking liars, and Buck’s the only one hurt by it.

He doesn’t dream of her often. He tries to avoid it, when he can. Buck knows Maddie isn’t coming back. She’d made her choice, and he made his. He chased his loneliness all over the world, learning more about the magical community and what it meant to be a psychic.

He knows Philip’s words aren’t strictly true. He’d learned there was some truth to the warning: there was always a price to pay. And for a long time, Buck pushed away his visions so he wouldn’t have to pay it.

But he has put his team in danger by having a vision that saved their lives. And then he’d been targeted. Gods, if Eddie had come even one minute sooner, he might’ve been attacked by the hellhound, too.

Buck hates that his team knew his secret before Maddie did.

Even though it’s been years since he’s seen her, she’s still his best friend. His sister, who he loves more than anything in the world.

He misses her so much it hurts.

Buck closes his eyes, trying to remember what it felt like to be hugged by her.

Today isn’t going to be a day where it’s easy to get out of bed. For a moment, he wishes he was back in his stupid unsafe loft, where he could spent the entire day under his covers and have no one notice he can’t get out of bed.

It would take a miracle for Athena and Bobby not to notice. Every other morning he’d been here, Bobby had knocked on his door to signal breakfast was ready. A glance at the clock told him it’s just past seven thirty in the morning, leaving him less than a hour to come up with a convincing excuse that would let him wallow all day like he so desperately wants to.

It takes Buck almost twenty minutes to craft the perfect text that would keep the Nash-Grant family at an arm’s length.

Buck: I woke up with a weird stomach bug, I must’ve picked it up during our shift. I’m not feeling well and don’t want anyone else to get sick. I’m going to try to sleep it off. Hope you have a good morning.

Bobby gives it a thumbs-up fifteen minutes later, and Buck lets out a sigh of relief.

A tear escapes from his eye as he turns on his side, and he does his best to muffle his sobs into the pillow so no one gets concerned.

Not for the first time, he’s tempted to search for visions of Maddie, if only to see how she’s doing. But he doesn’t.

The last time he’d gone searching for visions, it had pushed her away for the last time. He doesn’t deserve this gift, and this is his punishment. This echoing ache inside him that doesn’t ever seem to go away.

This is what he gets for trying to change the future.

*****

Eddie doesn’t see Buck until their next shift together, but thanks to the bond, he knows Buck didn’t have a good forty-eight hours. The witch hadn’t gotten headaches from the psychic, but his depression had seeped into Eddie until he took to sitting next to Chris as he played video games, listening to his laughter to keep the sadness at bay.

When he catches sight of the psychic in the locker room, he doesn’t look like anything tragic had happened. He looks like he always does: alert, quick to grin, and full of energy.

Eddie doesn’t understand him.

“Morning,” he says cautiously, in case Buck’s facade is thinner than a piece of paper.

But the psychic looks at him, twitches his lips, and says, “Morning.”

Eddie narrows his eyes.

Buck tilts his head slightly, and Eddie can see the exact moment Buck remembers the bond between them. Eddie had let it slip he can read his mind and feel his pain—it wouldn’t be a jump for him to conclude Eddie knows how sad he’d been for the past two days.

But he doesn’t say anything.

Buck gets dressed as normal and heads upstairs, chatting easily to Bobby about something. Eddie trails after.

Bobby’s scrambling eggs on the pan, laughing at something Chim had said. And then he looks at Buck and says, “Will eggs be alright? I know you just got over the stomach bug, I don’t want to make it worse.”

Buck shakes his head and says smoothly, “Eggs are fine. Thanks, Bobby.”

Eddie covers his disbelieving noise with a cough, but Buck still turns and glares at him.

Don’t say anything, he thinks sharply at the witch.

He casually shrugs, indicating he doesn’t plan on saying anything. But it’s weird that Buck would hide his sadness about his mysterious girlfriend from the rest of the team—everyone else knew about her, right? Chim’s terrible at keeping secrets, so he would’ve told Eddie not to say anything if he wasn’t the last one to know.

But when he catches Buck’s eye over breakfast, he can’t resist mouthing, “Liar.”

The psychic’s eye twitches, and Eddie’s head is full of every curse word Buck can think of. It’s a stunningly creative display, and Eddie bites back his smile.

His magic is gathering in his knuckles, itching like it wants to jump across the table and be by Buck. But that’s ridiculous, and he ignores it.

When the bell rings, he climbs into the cab and lets Buck make the decision of what to do with their legs. Previously, they had held their legs at different angles so they wouldn’t brush up against each other. But now that they both know there’s some sort of…calming presence when they’re by each other, he lets Buck take the lead.

The psychic’s leg presses gently against his, and Eddie keeps it where it is.

His magic settles, and he continues to ignore it.

*****

Their next call is another structure fire. There’s no magic involved, but Eddie’s ready for anything to happen. Buck had saved his life last time by calling out his warning about the stairs before they had collapsed. He briefly wonders if they’re even, given that they’ve both saved each other’s life now, but shoves the thought away. That isn’t the sort of thing that should be quantified or catalogued.

He’ll save Buck every time he can. Somehow, he knows in his bones it’s the same for the other man.

They roll up on scene, and he adjusts his helmet. It’s a warehouse, three stories tall, with people running out of the front doors and smoke billowing from the windows.

Bobby grabs one and demands, “How many are still in there?”

“Five!” The man shouts, looking back over his shoulder. “Second floor!”

“Okay,” the captain says. “Hen, Chim, you’re on perimeter. Chim, give us as much time as we can get. Buck, Eddie, you’re getting the people out. Do what you have to.”

Use your magic, but don’t get caught.

Buck and Eddie nod in unison. They activate their SCBAs and dart into the burning building.

The sunlight disappears the moment they’re ten feet inside the warehouse. The smoke is thick, cloying and oppressive, and Eddie knows they’re running out of time. He unfurls his hands, letting his magic gather, before sending it out to find anyone it can.

It acts as a homing beacon, and leads them to three people clustered on the stairwell. Eddie feels the briefest brush of admiration from Buck as he subtly uses his magic to clear the smoke so the humans can breathe easier, and they lead them out to the ambulance.

“Two more,” Buck says, looking back to the building.

Eddie nods, and they go back into the fire to find them.

It takes almost three minutes to clear the second floor. They don’t find anyone, and Eddie knows the building won’t hold much longer. He sends a pulse of magic through the building, asking it to be stronger, just for a few minutes longer. The supports groan overhead, and he knows they just bought a little time.

He says as much to Buck, who looks to the stairs. They haven’t gone up to the third floor, and two people are still missing.

“Can you use that spell again?” Buck asks quickly. “To find them?”

Eddie opens his mouth, about to answer, when a beam bends under the heat of the fire. He throws his hands up, catching the pile of metal before it crushes them. His biceps strain under the pressure, and Eddie breathes out harshly, fogging up his mask.

“I can’t do both at the same time,” he grits out. “Buck, you have to move.”

The psychic does, and Eddie lets go of half the beam so it falls where Buck had been standing a moment before. It crashes down to the ground, shaking the foundation beneath their feet.

He caught that, Buck thinks in awe.

Eddie shoots him a look, and Buck lifts a shoulder.

I didn’t realize how strong he is.

His cheeks are heating up from the temperature of the fire. That’s why he’s blushing.

“We don’t have much time,” he says, forcing himself to focus. “Can’t you summon a vision or something?”

Buck doesn’t move. “Uh…”

“We don’t have time for you to think up some lie! Can you summon a vision or not?”

He tries to ignore how Buck flinches, he really does. He’ll apologize later—it’s just that two people’s lives are at stake here, and they need to use all their resources at their disposal.

“I—I can’t,” Buck murmurs, barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

“Can’t or won’t?!”

“I—”

Eddie changes tactics and steps closer to the man. His magic reaches out, like it always seems to, and he lets it. He doesn’t think about it. A tendril wraps around Buck’s wrist, a barely-there glimmer of gold, and Buck looks at it for a moment.

“I know you can help them,” Eddie urges. “We just need a vision of where they are. That’s it.”

Buck’s mouth opens and he stares at Eddie.

“Buck, come on, I know you can do it.” It’s instinct at this point—he knows Buck’s capable of it. He just needs a push.

The psychic nods, and closes his eyes. For seven seconds, he doesn’t move. And then his eyelids flutter, like he’s dreaming, and the patch of starlight Eddie had felt before is all around them.

“Third floor, second room on the right. One is unconscious, the other won’t leave him.” Buck opens his eyes, and the determination in them matches Eddie’s own.

“Let’s go get ‘em, cowboy.”

Eddie’s magic is barely strong enough blow the smoke out of their way as they charge to the third floor. Buck kicks down the door with ease, and yells, “LAFD! We’re going to help you!”

Just like he said there would be, there’s two people in the room. The man is breathing, but Hen will have to use her magic to keep him in the realm of the living. The woman is holding his hand and pleading with him, begging him to stay with her.

She starts crying when she sees Buck and Eddie are there to help them.

“Please,” she screams as they come closer. “Save him!”

“We’re saving both of you,” Buck assures her, stooping so he can get the man over his shoulders. Once he’s secure in a fireman’s carry, he starts towards the hallway. Eddie has the woman close to him, an arm thrown over her shoulder to help protect from debris.

Eddie’s magic is fraying. The building is close to coming down, and he won’t be able to stop it.

“Buck, we have to go,” he says as calmly as he can, praying the psychic will understand the message. He can’t scare the woman.

The building’s about to come down, isn’t it?

He nods once, knowing Buck can see him from the corner of his eye.

How much time do we have?

Eddie shakes his head.

Without a word, Buck starts running as fast as he can with the man over his shoulders.

“What’s he doing?” The woman cries. “Why is he running?”

“We just want to get out of here as quickly as we can,” Eddie says, hoping he sounds calm and collected. He doesn’t panic, thank you very much.

“Okay, we should run then,” the woman says.

Together, they sprint out of the building, coughing harshly, just as the last of Eddie’s magic sparks out and the supports holding up the warehouse begin to collapse.

He falls to his knees, breathing raggedly, and dimly registers his nose is bleeding.

The woman lets go of his arm, joining her partner as Buck carries him to Hen.

Eddie blinks, wondering why everything is so blurry all of a sudden.

And then the world is a bit sharper, if only by a few degrees.

“Eddie.”

“Hng?”

“Eddie, just take a deep breath, okay? Hen can be with you in a moment.” That’s Buck kneeling next to him, isn’t it?

“Okay,” he says, slurring slightly.

“Your nose—oh, too much. I get it.” Buck takes off Eddie’s mask and wipes at his face with a clean rag, clearing the blood before it reaches his mouth. It’s a small gesture Eddie appreciates. “I hope you didn’t end up bonding with the building, too. Is it every time you use too much magic or do you just like making a guy feel special?”

Eddie can’t help it—he laughs.

He’s so handsome when he smiles.

The brunet raises a brow at the thought, and Buck stammers out a sentence that doesn’t make sense.

But that’s fine. The last thing Eddie thinks before he slumps over and succumbs to his fatigue is that he’s glad Buck got out safely.

*****

“One of these days, you two are going to stop fainting and making my days more stressful.”

“You’d get bored without us, Hen. Don’t try and deny it.”

“He’ll probably wake up in twenty minutes or so. You don’t have to wait around.”

“I know.”

There’s a brief silence, and then, “Why are you waiting at his bedside? You’ve never—”

The second voice cuts off the first. “He saved me when we were in the building. The least I can do is wait for him to wake up.”

“Whatever you say, Buckaroo.”

Eddie winces as his consciousness rushes back into him all at once. His eyes fly open, magic sparking, and he takes in his surroundings. His heart rate calms when his magic catches on something familiar, something known, and he quickly retracts it as he realizes his magic had formed a loose chain on Buck’s wrist again.

They’re at the fire station, in the bunk room. He’s in his normal bed, the second one from the door, and Hen and Buck are sitting on either side of his bed. Hen’s healing hand is lightly resting against his wrist, helping to speed along his recovery.

“Magical exhaustion?” he asks, already knowing what she’s going to say.

“Yes,” she confirms. “But it’s not as serious as it could’ve been.”

“Good.”

“How—”

We got back to the station thirty minutes ago. Everyone survived at the scene. The man woke up in the ambulance. No one saw any evidence of magic. You’re safe, and everyone’s secret is safe.

Eddie cuts himself off as Buck answers every single one of his questions, even the ones he wasn’t sure how to ask.

He blinks at the blond, who lifts a single shoulder in response.

“How…?” Hen prompts, waiting for him to finish his question.

“How…are you feeling, Hen?”

Smooth, Buck thinks, his smirk almost audible.

“I’m fine, Eddie,” she says around a laugh. “I’ll be more fine if you don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“Everyone got out,” he manages. “Makes it worth it.”

“Yeah, it does.” Hen removes her hand from his wrist and adds, “Get some more rest. I’m sure bickering with Buck won’t speed along the healing process.”

We don’t know that for sure. Buck waggles his brows at Eddie.

His mouth hurts with the amount of willpower it takes not to laugh.

Hen gives him an odd look, and then turns to look at Buck. The psychic schools his features into neutrality by the time she lays eyes on him.

“Hm,” she says, pursing her lips. And then she stands. “You two are being weird again. I’m going to get some dinner. Eddie, I’m serious about you getting rest. Don’t push it.”

“You got it, Hen.”

The door closes behind her and Eddie almost throws his pillow at Buck.

“We get it, you’re a funny guy,” he hisses under his breath. It wouldn’t surprise him if Hen waited outside and tried to eavesdrop on them. “Don’t make me laugh when it would look weird.”

Buck gives his best impression of Who, me?

“Eddie, I would never,” he says. His shit eating grin makes it hard to believe him.

“You just did.”

“Can’t prove it,” Buck says, a corner of his mouth tugging upwards.

Eddie exhales through his nose and shakes his head. “Dumbass,” he says under his breath.

Buck hears him. But he doesn’t say anything. It’s not the first time he’s called him that. Hell, it’s not even the hundredth. But it’s the first time he’s said it with any sort of fondness in his tone.

“Prick,” he says in return after a moment. It’s not as hostile as it was the last time he’d called Eddie that. It’s warmer.

“Thank you,” Eddie says then, because the thought had suddenly occurred to him. “For finding the vision to save those two.”

“Oh,” Buck says, looking down at the floor. “Yeah. Uh, no problem.”

“You saved them.” For the life of him, Eddie can’t understand why Buck’s being so skittish. “We wouldn’t have found them in time if it wasn’t for you.”

“Uh huh.” Buck’s still looking at the floor.

“Buck, look at me.”

The psychic clenches his jaw instead.

“Hey.” He twitches his right fingers, and the golden thread reaches for Buck, humming slightly as it settles against his wrist. He tugs lightly, pulling him closer. “Buck, I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

How could you possibly know that?

“Because you’re refusing to look at me. Because I know you want to help everyone you can, even at your own detriment, sometimes. So if you aren’t using your power, then it must be for an important reason.” Eddie’s not imagining the way Buck’s chest stutters at his words. “So I wanted to thank you, for being brave and helping save them.”

A beat of silence, and then, It wasn’t brave.

Eddie wants to fight him on it. He wants to go in circles with this man, and argue until they’re both red in the face and panting. He wants to chase that live wire feeling he only seems to get around Buck. But this isn’t the time.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says instead. “You helped save them. You don’t have to act like some martyr—”

Buck yanks his wrist out of Eddie’s magic easily. He takes a few steps back and glares at the witch. “It was a risk,” he spits. “Every time I go searching for visions, every time I try to adjust the future to help someone, it throws it back in my face and makes it worse. That’s why I don’t go looking for visions. How did you phrase it before? Oh, right. ‘How many lives didn’t get saved because you didn’t want to open your mouth?’”

“Buck, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

The door shuts behind Buck and Eddie stares at it, wondering what the hell just happened.

*****

Buck’s halfway down the stairs when another vision tries to come to him. He pushes it away with all his might, ignoring the immediate headache that settles around his temples. He catches a slight glimpse of it, something where there’s a lot of light and happiness, and tries not to feel worse.

Eddie is such a prick. Who the fuck demands a vision and then calls him a martyr for understanding the risks that come along with it? Who does that?

And since when did Eddie let his magic go like that? Buck’s never seen the gold filament extending from Eddie, the extension of his power, until now. Every other time, his magic has been controlled. Centered. Now, it almost seems…like he doesn’t know what to do with it half the time.

Buck swears he feels it brush against him when they’re in the cab of the engine or when they’re close to one another. It’s worth being next to him, even if only for the reprieve that he gets from the headaches when they’re together.

He just doesn’t understand why.

And don’t even get him started on the whole mind-reading and pain-feeling business. What the fuck is that about?

Maddie might know, he thinks, because he’s pathetic and easy to leave. His sister would’ve been able to help him with so much over the last few years. And now that he’s dreaming about her again…it’s opening himself up to a whole new kind of heartbreak.

But she’s gone. She doesn’t have an interest in being around him, just like everyone else. Hell, once Eddie figures out how to undo this bond they share, he’ll leave too.

It’s what people do.

Buck isn’t the kind of person that makes people want to stay.

He sits down on the couch, grateful everyone else is downstairs. Hen must be doing chores, Chim’s probably working out, and Bobby’s most likely working on the incident report in his office. For a moment, he’s blessedly alone.

It’s just him and his thoughts.

Another vision tries to come, and he groans as he pushes it away.

He doesn’t want to see the future right now.

He just wants to—

“Evan?”

*****

Eddie’s used to being mad after a fight with Buck. Hell, in the three weeks they’ve worked together, before he learned Buck’s secret, they fought at least twice a day. They were no better than hissing cats, constantly antagonizing each other.

So the feeling in his chest shouldn’t be new. It shouldn’t be sharp, and biting, and foreign. It shouldn’t feel like guilt.

Because Eddie didn’t mean it. He didn’t know it was going to be some sort of trigger for Buck to callously suggest he was being dramatic about his visions.

And it’s not his fault—Buck is ridiculously tight-lipped when it comes to talking about his ability. And that’s coming from Eddie, whose own team doesn’t know he has a son. He knows how to play things close to his chest. But Buck’s better than him at his own game when it comes to his power.

He adjusts himself on the bed, shuffling around until he’s more comfortable, and closes his eyes. If he tries, he’s sure he can get some more sleep before their next call comes in. His body is definitely not fully recovered from everything he’d demanded of it from their last call, and—

His eyes shoot open.

Without thinking, Eddie shoves the blankets off himself and creates a portal, barely thinking about the spell. He can only focus on the sharp bleat of panic emanating down the bond from Buck. There’s layers to his panic, Eddie realizes.

It’s a coalescing mess, full of heartbreak, worry, confusion, fear, and what feels like…love? Joy? Happiness? It’s all swirling together too much for Eddie to make sense of it in the seconds he has to get to Buck.

He steps through the portal, knowing his magic will lead him right to where Buck is. He’s still in the fire house, he knows that. Eddie’s wards would have warned him if the psychic had left the premises.

Eddie lands on his feet and shoves Buck behind himself with one hand, placing himself between the psychic and whatever was causing him to panic like this. They’re within the wards, so it shouldn’t be something horrible, but then again, the hellhound had managed to get through at Buck’s loft—

His magic stretches behind him, fussing over Buck as if it could sense any injuries he might’ve sustained, and calms when it finds nothing wrong with the psychic.

Eddie blinks at the woman in front of him. She has short dark brown hair, warm eyes, and her hands are held up in front of her body in a placating manner. There’s an aura of power around her, and Eddie immediately knows she’s another witch.

“Eddie!” Buck’s voice is a mix of confusion and indignation. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Hen, Chim, and Bobby run up from downstairs, attracted by all the yelling. The three of them look at the stranger with trepidation—especially with how aggressively Eddie’s standing in front of Buck.

The woman doesn’t look away from Eddie. She takes a calming breath and says, “I’m Maddie. I’m Evan’s sister.”