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Chapter Text

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

It was late at night, and Buck had been sleeping comfortably on the firehouse bunk beds. He got out of the room and joined the others, who were also robotically getting ready to get out of the station. Everyone moved around each other with ease, like all their movements were a practiced dance, a choreography they had memorized and rehearsed a thousand times. 

They were sitting on the truck and on their way in what felt like no time. Eddie was in front of him, as usual, and he still looked sort of sleepy. He was staring blankly ahead, as if recalling some sort of dream. He must have sensed Buck’s eyes on him, because he looked up to meet them, and gave Buck that warm smile of his.

Despite the fact that this was just Eddie, his coworker and best friend of, what, 5 years? Buck still felt his heart perform this weird little jump in his ribcage, which in turn caused the smile he wanted to give in return to be wonky and too late to feel natural. Now he just looked awkward, and weird, and the amused glace he received from said best friend confirmed his suspicions.

He cleared his throat and elected to simply push this new memory out of his mind in hopes it’d be unreachable soon, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the flicker of embarrassment low inside his chest.

He might be a little dramatic, but he can’t exactly help it.

Soon enough, they arrived to the place where the call was made. Dispatch informed them the caller was inside an abandoned building, right in the middle of nowhere. He was a 17-year-old boy, and was calling for his 16-year-old friend, under whom the floor had given out. The kid fell down, just a flight of stairs, and landed on some kind of creepy abandoned basement, knocked unconscious.

The team entered the building and searched it, until they found the first of the boys.

“Hello, LAFD, are you the one who called?” Bobby asked, when he caught sight of a teenager who was pacing anxiously, one hand holding his phone to his ear, and both eyes trained on the hole that opened up on the floor.

“Yes! Yes, here! They’re here, Josh, thank you, thank you!” the boy said, and hung up on the 9-1-1 dispatcher. He gestured wildly for them to walk closer, and started explaining himself, “Caleb is down there, it must be some kind of basement! We were just having a look, I swear! We weren’t doing much of anything and suddenly the floor gave up on him and he just went down! He’s not answering, please, tell me he’s not dead,” the poor boy rambled, “He can’t be. He can’t be dead.”

Bobby quickly put them to work, “Buck, Eddie, find me a way to get to Caleb. Kid, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Aiden,” the boy answered, looking paler every minute that passed.

“Okay, Hen and Chim, look Aiden over, make sure he’s feeling alright.”

Buck started searching around the place, for some way of getting to the lower level of the building. Every wall in sight was dirty, painted on, or growing moss. All the exits of their current room led to either another, smaller room, or were blocked. The stairs must have been behind some blocked door, because when he looked at Eddie, who was searching on the other side of the building, he shook his head looking defeated.

“Cap, the stairs must be blocked, we can’t go down the easy way.” Buck turned to inform Bobby, who sighed.

“Alright, Eddie, you’re going down with the ropes. Check Caleb, put him on a stretcher and get him up here. Buck, you’ll be on the watch.” Bobby ordered, and the two men jumped up and went looking for the ropes.

“I love when Cap chooses me over you to go down with the ropes,” Eddie teased Buck.

“Shut up.” Buck demanded, throwing a knowing smile his way, anyway.

They got the ropes and the stretcher from the truck and made quick work of its set up. Soon enough, Eddie was descending upon the basement floor and checking the poor boy’s vitals. He was some years older than Chris, but calls with kids always got him thinking of his own, no matter the age.

This particular kid had a pulse, was breathing and had reactive pupils. There wasn’t any external bleeding, so he would probably get out of this one with nothing more than a concussion and maybe a broken bone. Eddie put a cervical collar on him and quickly got him on the stretcher. He looked up at Buck and signalled for him to pull the boy up.

When Aiden saw Eddie giving him the thumbs up, he approached Buck and started frantically asking him, “Will he be alright? He’s not… He’s alive, right?”

Buck gave him a soft smile, trying his best to look reassuring. “Well, he’s got the neck brace on and my partner didn’t need to perform any emergency procedures, so I’m sure he’s fine. He probably got lucky. Are you two friends?” he asked, trying to get Aiden thinking of something else. He looked so deeply worried and anxious for this boy’s well-being. He knew the feeling all too well.

“Yes, he’s my best friend, my favourite person. He’s the only one who gets me. It’s his birthday, soon. He always has a bad day, because no one really cares about it at home. I was trying to give him a good birthday week, to make up for it,” Aiden rambled. When Buck had brought the boy up to their floor completely, Aiden threw himself at his side, and grabbed his hand tightly. Hen and Chim got started on him, too, just to make sure.

“Caleb loves visiting abandoned buildings like this. I think it’s really creepy, but I found this one for him, to give him a good start of the week. And I failed spectacularly. Idiot.” He finished, self-deprecatingly. Suddenly, he looked so alike to Buck himself. His furrowed brows, his pouting lips, his saddened, guilty eyes. Oh, Buck was sure Aiden was feeling a pressure on his chest akin to his own.

“Kid, it was an accident. I bet he was having the time of his life before this happened. Plus, just showing him how much you know him and how much you care must have meant a lot to him,” he said, placatingly, “I know firsthand how that makes you feel. Look, that man down there that’s waiting for me to pull him up?” he pointed at Eddie, who looked at him with a confused face. Cute. He started doing so while continuing his story.

“That guy is my best friend. He knows me better than anyone, and every time he shows me just how much he does, I feel so seen. It makes me feel so close to him, it’s… it’s just really nice. I’m sure Caleb was feeling just like that, too. And he’ll tell you as soon as he wakes up.”

Hen had Caleb rolling away towards the ambulance before he got an answer, and obviously Aiden forgot all about Buck as soon as his friend was moving away.

He walked alongside the paramedics, not once letting go of his best friend’s hand.

Buck hoped what he said to him had helped, at least partially, to calm the boy’s guilt. He really meant everything he said. The warm feeling he got whenever Eddie sent him an article on something he was interested in, every time he got his favourite pizza order without having to ask, every time he just lifted his brows at him, nudging him to talk about what was wrong when he sensed he was slightly off… it could quite literally get him all giggly and giddy.

It meant that Eddie paid attention. Eddie listened to his long rambles and Eddie watched him enough to recognise his mannerisms. Eddie learned about him, liked him enough to stay by his side and cared enough to remember everything.

To be loved is to be known, and all that cheesy shit, right?

“What was that about?” Eddie asked, out of the loop, while he took the harness off.

“Poor kid was so worried he had ruined Caleb’s birthday week.” Buck answered.

“Birthday week? Kids are so spoiled nowadays,” Eddie joked, bumping their shoulders together and helping him pack up the equipment.

“Well, yes,” Buck started with a smile, “But this was sweet. Aiden wanted to give Caleb a good week leading up to his birthday because the day of, he never has a good time. Says no one cares about it at home.”

“Oh,” Eddie replied, looking dejected. “That is really nice.”

“They’re best friends.”

Eddie looked to his side, and waited until Buck met his eyes. Then, he smiled and let their arms and shoulders touch again, only this time, it was gentle and warm.

“Just like you and I.” Eddie finished before they got on the truck.

———————————————

Cute? Huh.

———————————————

At exactly 10:23 am, Buck was sitting on the sofa at the loft, with his feet up on it and under Eddie’s legs. He was reading this book he found in a public library about the history of dark magic, when the alarm went off again.

He jumped up excitedly and ran to his place. They were having a pretty q-u-i-e-t day, no big emergencies, no little calls, ever since the one at 3 am with the two little best friends in distress.

The trip was fast, as the emergency took place in a house near the station. When they got there, LAPD was already in the scene. He searched in hopes of finding Athena, and sure enough, there she was. The whole team walked towards her, and her worried face lit up with relief when she spotted them.

“Captain Nash, thank god you’re all here,” she said, “we have a weird case, we think it’s a medical one.”

Okay, Buck did not feel disappointed at that. Really. He didn’t feel joy at the suffering of others. But he did enjoy days with a little more action. A little more rescuing. Sue him.

Athena, oblivious to his deflating mood at the fact that he wouldn’t be doing much of anything on this call, kept on explaining what it was all about.

“A 22-year-old girl named Willow called earlier today, claiming she was locked up in the bathroom, hiding from a bunch of strangers that had broken into her house and were claiming to be her family. When we got here, those supposed strangers answered and they seemed to have no clue what we were talking about when we explained the situation. They let us in and their house is full of pictures. The mother and siblings of this girl all appear to be who they claim to be, according to those.” She explained.

“So, you think the problem is somewhere in the girl’s brain.” Hen finished for her.

“Exactly. It’s plausible, isn’t it?” Athena asked as she led them all inside.

“Oh, sure. I have a few disorders in mind. Where is Willow?” Hen inquired, looking around the house.

Sitting in the kitchen, Buck saw a middle age woman, a slender man in his late 20s and a tan girl who seemed close to her 20s herself. They all shared the same kind of hair. Warm brown, straight and fluffy. Their brows were furrowed in worry, and they all gave his team the same look when they heard them enter. One of immediate attention and attentiveness, their brown eyes all followed them down the hall, where Athena led them. They sure looked like a family.

“The help is here!” she called out to someone, then turned to look at them and spoke much lower, “She’s still locked up in the bathroom, refused to get out.”

Hen took the lead and knocked softly on the door, before calling out with a soothing voice, “Willow? I’m Hen, a paramedic, I’m here to help you. The police are here to take care of the people you warned them of, they won’t be able to hurt you. Would you mind opening the door, so that we can talk?”

A short silence followed, before the distinct sound of a door being unlocked swiftly broke it, and Willow came to stand in front of them. She was average in height, had tanned skin herself, and she shared the exact same soft hair and warm eyes with the worried people he had spotted sitting in the kitchen. There was no doubt about it, they all belonged together. So, what was going on in this girl’s brain, that made her believe so wholeheartedly that these weren’t her people?

“Why don’t we go sit down on your living room, Willow?” asked Hen, “that way you’ll be more comfortable, I’m sure we’ll get our answers soon.”

Willow nodded and started walking towards it. Maybe Hen was putting her memory to test.
When the girl sat down on the worn-out sofa, both paramedics ran their usual tests on her, before starting up with their questions.

“I think it’s probably Capgras Syndrome, she knows these people look like her family but believes they have been replaced by imposters” Chim whispered, right before Hen asked the girl a new question:

“Do you think these strangers look like your family, Willow? Or are they different?”

“No, they’re different. Complete strangers,” she answered.

“Well, shit, that was my best guess.” Chim complained and took another step back, as if signalling his surrender.

All of a sudden, things got all the more interesting.

In true telenovela style, someone dramatically walked through the front door. It was a tall, skinny girl, who looked to be around the same age as Willow. Her hair was dark and curly; her skin was light and dotted with countless freckles. She looked to be the most worried of them all, which was saying a lot.

What was truly interesting about it, was Willow’s reaction.

“Mimi!” she exclaimed, having immediately lit up in recognition. She quickly got up, ran to meet the other girl and threw herself into her arms. Mimi embraced her automatically, like that’s what she was born to do.

Willow’s family must have heard the commotion, because they walked out of the kitchen, and smiled for what was probably the first time, today. The woman Buck guessed was Willow’s mother walked up to him and clarified the situation.

“That’s Michelle, my daughter’s best friend. They have been attached at the hip ever since they were 5 years old,” she said, “They are so intimately close, their bond is so special. Looks like it’s downright biological, huh? She’s the only one my Willow recognizes.” The woman looked to be a little sad, but fondness of her daughter and her best friend seemed to outweigh the negative feelings she must have been experiencing.

Buck looked at the girls. Michelle was caressing her friend’s hair, kissing her forehead and whispering words of comfort, reassuring her that yes, they really are your family. That’s your mom, Jocelyn, your sister Jane and your brother Johnny. Her eyes looked so soft and so caring. Yes, he was recognizing the pattern of best friends in distress for the day, but the situations were so different from one another. Not in the sense of the emergencies themselves, but on how Buck saw himself on the people in danger.

With Aiden, he felt a sense of kinship, of similarity. He heard his story and saw himself in it. Knew they had both felt the same shame, the same guilt. Saw his care for Eddie reflected on Aiden’s care for Caleb.

With Willow, though, he got a sense of longing. A yearning for something that seemed so distant, so unattainable. The softness of how the girls interacted with each other, their looks, their voices, their touches. He looked at it all and wished he could have it. Wished Eddie would look at him like that, wished their hugs looked like that, wished he’d talk to Buck like that.

Buck didn’t really know where this was all coming from. He was probably just touch-starved, desperately craving contact and latching onto the first person that came to mind. And, of course, that would be his best friend, as that seemed to be the theme of the day.

He needed to focus on the call. He’d solve his needy problem later, when he wasn’t on the clock. He willed his mind to listen as Hen started her questions back again.

“Do you remember falling recently, Willow? Maybe you hit your head at some point?” she asked. Willow tilted her head, like a confused puppy. Buck caught the affectionate grin from Michelle at the gesture.

“Yes, she did!” intervened her mother, “she was playing with the dog, and Chester accidentally threw her to the ground, flat on her back. She must have hit her head then, but she seemed totally fine, I didn’t even think of considering that she…” Jocelyn trailed off guiltily.

Hen jumped to reassure her. “That’s completely fine, ma’am. It’s to be expected, there was no way to know. She probably injured her occipital lobe. That could have caused an acquired sort of prosopagnosia,” she explained.

“Face blindness, of course!” Buck chimed in, then blushed and shut his mouth when everyone turned to look at him.

(He did not catch the same affectionate grin he had seen on Michelle’s face, plastered on Eddie’s this time. Mimi did, though.)

“How can she recognize my face, though?” Michelle asked, light pink dusting her cheeks at the honour.

Buck jumped in to explain, “Well, acquired prosopagnosia usually means damage on the part of the brain consciously recognizes faces. But I see that you two are very close, and a very intense bond comes with intense emotional salience, and that means, Willow, that your limbic system goes a little crazy when you see Michelle. The components of the limbic system are really involved in emotional memory and the social relevance of stimuli,” Buck explains, moving his hands around excitedly.

“So, this emotional salience facilitates plasticity which kind of activates the subvisual routes that allow partial face recognition, which combined with emotional memory, probably Michelle’s scent, because smell heightens memory, and context clues, let you recognize her immediately.”

It was after Buck finished his explanation that he finally noticed all the eyes on him and had the grace to blush a little more.

“Sorry. I read an article a few days ago. It’s just a hypothesis though, I’m sure your doctor will explain better!” He scrambled to take everyone’s attention off of him. Hen shook her head amusedly and led Willow towards the ambulance, Michelle never once letting go of her hand.

Buck noticed the flustered look on both of the girls faces, like they had been called out on something. That didn’t stop them from positively ignoring each other’s personal space and standing as close as possible to one another.

“I’m going to save the ‘limbic system going crazy’ line for my speech at their wedding,” said Jocelyn, still by his side.

Buck turned to look at her with wide eyes, “They’re together?” he asked.

“They sure looked like it, they were giving each other heart-eyes the whole time. One person can’t look at someone like that without their feelings being obvious,” added Eddie, coming to stand close to his other side. Somewhere in the room (Buck couldn’t be bothered to look away from Eddie’s little smile) Chim snorted.

“I don’t think they’re together, or at least they haven’t told me so. But I am completely sure they will be, and I doubt they’ll ever stop, once they get there. They bring each other’s best sides out. They’re meant to be.” Jocelyn smiled fondly and put her hand on Buck’s arm in a motherly gesture.

“If your explanation is what finally gets them to start dating, you will receive an invitation for their wedding, firefighter Buckley, I’m not even kidding. Thank you, guys, for all your help!” she finished and went to grab her car keys and usher her other kids outside to be in the hospital for Willow.

Buck maintained a strained smile on his face until they were out of the house, too. It was then when he turned to Eddie, glued to his side as usual, and slapped his good shoulder lightly.

“You should have told me to shut it!” he scolded, “I shouldn’t be going around giving medical explanations that I’m totally not qualified for on the job!”

“It was very interesting, not official and it will not interfere with Willow’s treatment. Only, maybe, with her love life,” Eddie joked. Buck just groaned and sat down on his place on the truck.

The supposedly minor call had ended up having a butterfly effect on Buck. Jocelyn, Willow, Michelle, they were all very sweet, but they had caused a tornado to be formed in Buck’s mind. It was cluttering every thought, messing with his emotions, altering his perception, reorganizing memories, he thinks a cow or two had gone up in the air flying.

He was spiralling, staring blankly at a fixed point in front of him, his thoughts were racing around and their speed made them blurry and hard to focus on. Buck had longed for having someone look at him like Michelle and Willow looked at each other. Someone that was specifically Eddie. He had not thought of anyone else. Willow and Michelle were in love. According to Jocelyn. And to Eddie. He wanted Eddie to look at him like that. Eddie said the girls were in love because of how they looked at each other. Buck wanted Eddie to look at him like that. What?

His chest was getting tight, and Buck’s first instinct was ‘flight’. Flee, escape, ignore. He needed to go back to his original hypothesis. He should be scientific about this. Science is good, science gives you real answers.

He had a hypothesis and he should stick to it. Experiment, get evidence, contrast it, observe differences, correlate results with a cause, you know. He was touch starved, so he’d get someone (not Eddie!) to touch him and then he’d watch as the longing melted away and he’d be normal again.

Easy-peasy. Back to work.

———————————————

They had had less than an hour back at the station when they next heard the bell ringing. The whole time, Buck had been working on his chores, not rambling away with Eddie like he normally would have. If the guy had noticed, he didn’t mention it, just gave him space and a smile as they sat back down at their places.

“We have a GSW in a mansion at Bel Air. Just one victim. LAPD is there taking care of the aggressor and taking statements. We need to attend the victim quickly and get him to the hospital.” Bobby explained to his team. As soon as they arrived, Buck made sure to stay out of the way and let the paramedics of the team take the lead.

They followed a stoic looking blonde girl through the luxurious rooms and corridors of an old mansion, towards what seemed to be a living room. There was a man on the floor, laying on a pool of blood. He was well on his 30s, had shiny black hair that reached his shoulders, and a lot of dark tattoos that peaked from behind his punk style clothes. He didn’t look like he belonged there.

Over his body on the floor was kneeling a man around the same age, wearing patched old clothes in all shades of brown, and a deep sorrow on his face. He was cradling the man on the floor’s face and begging him to hold on.

Hen and Chim immediately took action, pushed the man away and started doing their jobs. They didn’t have to do it for long. It seemed they were too late.

They shook their heads sadly at Bobby, whose face fell a little before contacting the responsible department to take care of the body. Buck turned to look at Eddie, who looked back at him softly and nodded, knowing perfectly well what his next move would be.

Together, they walked towards the soft looking man wearing brown. They slowly walked him towards an old, elegant armchair and led him to sit down. Stray tears were running down his face, but he had a blank expression that revealed the shock he must have felt inside.

“What’s your name?” Buck asked softly. The man looked at him and his eyelids trembled up and down, as if he couldn’t decide between wanting to close his eyes or holding onto the tears welling up in them.

“Roman,” he whispered. Buck and Eddie nodded.

“Roman, can you tell us what happened?” Eddie asked, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Bella killed my Simon.” Roman stopped looking at either of them. He faced forward and let his eyes grow distant, watching something that wasn’t really there.

“Your Simon?” Buck asked him gently, and Roman nodded.

“We had to wait so long for this. It had been 12 years, I…” He trailed off. “We broke things off between us, it was a huge misunderstanding. We were so young, we didn’t know better. But we knew now. It’s been 12 years of growth, we knew better,” he rambled on.

“We knew better now and we were ready. Ready to try and stop missing each other. We were going to be together for the rest of our lives, I… I was so excited to grow old with him. He’s the love of my life,” Roman lamented, putting his head on his hands and shaking with uncontrollable sobs. Buck didn’t even try to school his face into an unshakeable, professional mask.

“I should’ve fought harder back then. We could’ve had so many more years together. I should’ve known. But we were 21,” he mumbled, “He was my best friend.”

Buck’s heart dropped. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t breathe. In a flash, he was in an ambulance, putting pressure on his bleeding best friend’s wound, begging him to stay with him as he slowly closed his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Roman. I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel,” he lied in a whisper, brushed the man’s shoulder comfortingly, and left Eddie to talk to him. Eddie knew about loss, Eddie would help. He stumbled towards the exit and rested against a wall outside the living room.

He tried to breathe in slowly and deeply, tried to look around in search of five things he could see, tried telling himself that everything was alright, that Eddie was a few steps away, alive and well. Nothing was working. He could feel his heartbeat everywhere on his body, his chest was tight, he seemed unable to let oxygen in, his vision was getting blurry, he was trembling, he felt lightheaded. Out of the blue, a hand reached out and pulled him out of his hellish spiral.

He looked up to find Bobby, staring at him with a concerned but resolved look.

“Two fast breaths in, one slow breath out, kid. You can do it,” he instructed, and Buck immediately listened and obliged. He could hear Bobby praising him and asking him to focus on random things until his body had slowed down and he could think clearly again. He blinked the tears away and whispered his thank yous. His very honest and heartfelt thank yous.

Bobby nodded and rubbed his thumb over his shoulder, “What happened back there, kid?”

“I’m so sorry, Cap. I shouldn’t have let this happen on the job. I’m sorry,” he immediately apologized, but he was cut off by Bobby’s soothing voice.

“Buck, you didn’t put anyone’s life in danger. There was nothing we could do when we got here, and you still did something by comforting the spouse of the victim. It’s all okay. I just want to make sure that you’re alright.”

Buck’s shoulders lost some of the tension they had been greedily collecting like a treasure. He considered his options. He could bare his heart and soul to Bobby, tell him everything that was wrong, everything that induced his panic. But he held this fear of his so close to his chest. Telling someone, telling Bobby… it felt like too much soul-baring to him, honestly. But the man had just talked him down from an anxiety attack. So.

“It was a gunshot wound, Cap. And Roman, the spouse, he… He called the victim his best friend. It just took me back, is all.”

Bobby nodded in understanding, “Are you talking to someone about this?” he asked in a scolding fatherly tone, pointing his index finger at him, and everything.

“Yes, Bobby,” Buck answered in true teenager fashion. (No, Bobby, he thought privately. This fear was, indeed, so close to his chest, he hadn’t even thought about telling his therapist. Oops. He begrudgingly made a mental note to bring it up during his next session.)

The medical examiner department arrived and entered the living room. Buck only had time to blink once or twice before Eddie was walking out of it, a handful of seconds before the rest of the team, eyes looking around a little wildly. When brown met blue, the wildness turned to concern just as Eddie walked towards him and gripped his shoulders tightly.

“Buck! Are you okay? What happened? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking all over him in search of something evidently wrong.

“Eds, I’m fine,” Buck said placatingly while gently taking Eddie’s hands out of his shoulders, “I’ll tell you later, we gotta get moving now, yeah?”

The tint of worry did not leave Eddie’s eyes at his words, and Buck could feel them following him all the way back to the station.

———————————————

In the hour or so they had left of their 24-hour shift, Buck’s mind slowly drifted away from the Eddie-getting-shot-by-a-sniper incident. However, his brain only let that happen so he could focus on Roman and Simon. The sorrow in Roman’s eyes, the desperate grip he had on Simon’s face when they arrived, his unashamed begging down on his knees.

He remembered that accident so many years back, in his probie time, where that old couple had only been separated by death for a few minutes. The survivor didn’t need to live with his loss for long, and though the end of their lives turned him blue for a while every time he was reminded of them, that thought brought him comfort. No one knows what comes after death, but wherever those two ended up, they ended up together.

He didn’t really know whether it was cruel to wish the same kindness on Roman. Was it worse to die young and miss so many of the good things the universe had in stock for you to experience, or to experience them all and still be weighed down by the deadly grip of grief? Is it better to live drowning or to not live at all?

His mind once again drifted back to Eddie. If something were to happen to him, if one day his best friend did not get to return home, would he want to keep on living? The answer probably was no; he wouldn’t want to. But he’d keep living anyway. He’d have Chris to take care of, and leaving that kid alone in this world just because he lost his best friend would be the worst act of selfishness he could ever fathom.

His thoughts revolved around death and loss and grief even as he took care of all his chores. No one dared to bother him, knowing him well enough to let him try and be distracted after losing someone on a call.

As their shift ended, though, Eddie seemed to have had enough of letting him wallow in pity and cornered him as he was leaving the dressing room.

“Will you come ‘round to mine for a beer?” he asked, and Buck blinked.

“Eddie, it’s 1 pm.”

“Okay, so we’ll have lunch. I’ll make you something,” Eddie countered.

“That sounds like a threat,” he joked, “Are you trying to poison me?”

“Okay, you’ll make something and I’ll help where I can!” Eddie exclaimed and grabbed his arm to pull him towards his truck.

“Eddie, I have my car here.”

“So, stay the night! I’ll bring you here tomorrow so you can get home, or whatever.”

Buck snorted and gave up. He had really felt like being alone for the day, but his best friend’s insistence on spending time with him made him feel warm all over, and it was just too hard to keep denying himself the pleasure of his company.

“Okay,” Buck gave in, “So bring me home, you stubborn idiot.” And if Eddie had blushed a little at the wording of his sentence, Buck was not the one to notice.

They drove in amicable silence, listening to music in Spanish that he could halfway understand, until they got home. Eddie opened the door, and they both got rid of their shoes and jackets, and went to wash their hands. As Buck began to work on their lunch, Eddie did end up getting out two beers and started setting the table.

They worked perfectly well in tandem, just as compenetrated as they did in rescues. It had always felt like they could read each other’s minds, like they knew one another’s intentions without having to waste time voicing them. It’s what made them such a good team.

As Buck was plating their food, Eddie finally opened his mouth. He was never one to beat much around the bush.

“What happened at the last call, Buck?”

He froze for a couple of seconds before sighing. This wasn’t unexpected. At all. He had been waiting, a bit anxiously, for Eddie to ask him about it. Had been planning on what to tell him, on how to explain that his brush with death was still haunting him, how the thought of losing him was a recurring nightmare. He answered without turning to look at him.

“An anxiety attack, that’s all”

He wasn’t all that brave. Eddie was relentless.

“Sure, okay. What caused it?” he pressed, and Buck sighed louder.

“Eddie, I’m not sure if you’re really the person I should be talking about this with,” he argued, because he was probably right about that. Talking about how badly the memory of Eddie getting shot still made him feel, with Eddie himself, the one to get shot, to go through the pain of the wound and the recovery, to live through the fear and the trauma. It was selfish and unfair, and Buck wouldn’t do that to him.

He then made the mistake of looking at Eddie. The look of hurt in his lovely brown eyes washed away most of his previously sturdy conviction.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Eddie – I do, you know that I do! It’s just… It wouldn’t be fair to you,” he tried to explain.

Eddie just tilted his head about it.

Buck sighed yet again, and carried on. “It wouldn’t be fair to burden you with it because you obviously had it much worse! It’s… it’s your trauma and I shouldn’t be making it about me. You’ve mentioned that I do that. Sometimes.”

Eddie stayed quiet for a couple of minutes. Opened his mouth a few times but nothing came out. Finally, he shook his head, like he couldn’t come up with a defence for himself. “Just… start telling me, please, Buck. I’m worried about you. I promise to stop you if it’s too much.”

Buck looked down at their plates of food getting cold and gave in. He put them in their respective places at the table and sat down. He grabbed his fork, and didn’t even try to grab a bite.

“I have nightmares about the day you got shot,” he confessed.

His ears rang in the following silence. He didn’t dare look up.

Eddie grabbed his chair from the other end of the table and brought it to Buck’s side. He sat down, way closer to him, and offered his hand.

“Keep going, Buck.”

Buck did. He took his hand and told him about the countless nights of waking up hyperventilating in a cold sweat. About the flashbacks he got sometimes when he noticed that Eddie was innocently standing at the same distance from him that he had that day. About the ache in his chest every time he thought about it.

“This call, it was a gunshot wound, Eddie,” Buck said. “I thought I could handle it. You… you obviously had it worse and you were handling it. But then Roman called Simon his best friend and I lost it.”

Eddie squeezed his hand and rubbed his thumb over it. “Buck, I get it,” he whispered.

“Yeah?” he asked. He saw Eddie nod in response.

“I… I get nightmares about you, too, Buck. About you getting struck. About you in a coma. About you not waking up. I can’t sleep during storms anymore. I get it, Evan.”

Buck blinked away tears. He rarely let people call him Evan, it didn’t even feel like his name anymore. But when Eddie did it, it felt his again. It felt like Eddie was reaching out and talking to another version of him. A fragile, vulnerable, scared version of him that he had tried so hard to hide away, had tried to protect by burying it. At times like these, only Eddie could reach Evan.

Buck nodded and smiled lightly. Eddie let go of his hand so they could both eat their cold food. None of them complained, nor re-heated it. Their knees were pressed against each other the whole time.

———————————————

Lovely?

———————————————

A little while after, they were on their way to pick Christopher up from school. Buck had offered to call an uber and go home, and Eddie had called him stupid and senseless. Said Chris would be ecstatic at having his Buck over as a surprise. They could make a movie night out of it, seeing as it was a Friday.

Chris did, in fact, seem ecstatic. He gave Buck his biggest smile and hugged him as strongly as he could right away. He relished the moment, dreading the fact that Chris was rapidly growing into a teenager and probably would soon avoid this sort of affectionate contact, especially in public.

The kid chatted away the whole way home, and both he and Eddie couldn’t keep their grins off their faces as they nodded and asked questions and reacted at all the right times.

He complained, as any other child, when his dad urged him to do his homework right away. “It’s Friday, dad! I have another two days to do it!”

“Oh, well… I guess we’ll have to leave the surprise reward for another day, then. That’s a shame, I’m sure Buck would have enjoyed it…” his dad said with a big sigh, dropping is shoulders in obvious disappointment.

“No!” Chris exclaimed, already running to his room, “I’ll do them!”

Eddie laughed and Buck shook his head at him, wearing an amused grin in spite of his disapproval. “You have mastered the art of manipulating your 11-year-old child.”

Eddie put his hands up in an innocent gesture. “I’m simply teaching him that being consistent and hard-working has its benefits!”

“Uh huh,” Buck mumbled sassily, raising his eyebrows, “And what is this grand reward you’re promising in exchange of all this consistency and hard work, if I may ask?” he said, walking closer.

Eddie’s breath caught for the shortest millisecond, and before anyone could ponder on the meaning of it, he shrugged and suggested: “Pizza and movie night?”

“That’s lame, we would have done that anyway, Eds,” he complained, letting himself fall on the couch. Eddie sat next to him, close enough for their knees to touch, as always.

“Okay, you come up with something less lame, then.”

Buck barely even had to think about it, “Let’s get tickets for the zoo! For the three of us!”

Eddie snorted, “That kid knows the zoo’s layout better than his own house at this point.”

“So?” Buck rolled his eyes teasingly. “He’s growing up so quick, I wanna squeeze every moment while he still wants to go out in public with us.”

The look he received was fond, if amused at the same time.

“Spoken like a true parent. Okay, tomorrow’s good for the zoo, right?” Eddie asked while getting up to go look for his laptop. Buck’s heart jumped a little out of beat behind his ribs, but he didn’t let himself look too much into the phrasing, he didn’t let himself hope for something he might never truly have.

“Yeah. Tomorrow,” He agreed, while actively ignoring the warmth in his chest and on his cheeks.

———————————————

Chris cheered when his dad showed him the zoo tickets, and thanked them both with a shared hug. When Buck asked him to choose a movie for the night while Eddie ordered their usual pizza, he all but glowed as he went through every single streaming service in search for something that caught his eye. He ended up picking the Super Mario Bros movie. It was a good choice.

Chris fell asleep with a full stomach and a pleased smile 43 minutes into the film. He was resting against Buck’s arm, and holding Eddie’s hand on his other side.

Buck often marvelled at how this kid could be so joyful after everything he had been through. This kid had suffered through so much loss, so much change. It’s hard to understand how he could fit all the grief inside his little body, and still leave plenty of space for the good.

He guessed that’s the bright side of being too young for tragedy. Christopher’s body is still made for growth. He’s grown so much since the tsunami shook their lives. He’s grown a lot since that car took his mother’s life. He’s grown since that bullet hit his father. He’s grown since the lightning reached Buck. He goes through fear and loss and pain, and then he grows, and wisely uses all that extra space to stock up in happiness. If life was fair, he wouldn’t have had to do it. But life has never been fair, and Chris managed to be happy anyway.

Everyone always assumes the youth knows nothing, but Buck thinks everyone should learn a little from the youth. He thinks that children know something the rest of them don’t, something that wears off with age, like an old memory you know is there but you can’t quite reach anymore.

He let Eddie take his Chris away from his side, and get him to his bed (not without kissing his curly hair good night, first.)

When he came back, he was smiling sleepily. “Are you ready to go to sleep yet?” Buck asked, and smiled as Eddie nodded his head.

“You know where everything is, make yourself comfortable,” Eddie began instructing, as if Buck needed any guidance with something he’s done so many times.

“I just need to brush my teeth and the bathroom’s all yours. Oh, don’t forget your glass of water.” Buck always wakes up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth, and he hates getting up to look for something to drink.

“I know, Eddie. Have a good night,” he smiled.

Eddie smiled right back. “Good night, Buck.”

Buck went to the kitchen, filled his glass with water and left it on the table by the couch. He brushed his teeth with his extra tooth brush that he once left there. He took his blanket, his pillow, and some pyjamas from the corridor closet, where Eddie always keeps everything Buck needs for his nights here.

He laid down on the couch and sleep came rapidly for him. His eyes were heavy and his heart was content as he let his consciousness steadily slip through his fingers.

Chapter Text

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

It was late at night, and Buck had been sleeping comfortably on the firehouse bunk beds. He got out of the room and joined the others, who were also robotically getting ready to get out of the station. Everyone moved around each other with ease, like all their movements were a practiced dance, a choreography they had memorized and rehearsed a thousand times. 

Wait. Huh?

Buck stopped dead on his trucks. This was all wrong. He had fallen asleep on Eddie’s couch, what was he doing back at the station? What time was it?

Hen pushed him into the truck. “Buck, come on! We have work!” she urged him, and despite his confusion, he sat down and listened as Bobby gave them information about the call. Everything was horrifyingly familiar.

They arrived and looked up at the abandoned building, and Buck had been there the day before, hadn’t he? He went through the corridors and Aiden was just where he remembered. He explained the same situation and Bobby gave out the same exacts orders.

He went looking around and, of course, found doors either to other rooms or blocked. He looked back at Eddie, who shook his head, again.

“Cap, the stairs must be blocked, we can’t go down the easy way.” Buck turned to inform Bobby for the second time (he’s pretty sure?).

“Alright, Eddie, you’re going down with the ropes. Check Caleb, put him on a stretcher and get him up here. Buck, you’ll be on the watch.” Bobby ordered, and the two men went looking for the equipment.

“I love when Cap chooses me over you to go down with the ropes,” Eddie teased Buck, and his tone didn’t sound quite as relaxed as the first-time round, but Buck wasn’t really in the best headspace right then to look into it, was he?

“Yeah, I know,” he answered distractedly and tried his best at sending him a playful smile.

Eddie went down to Caleb’s level, did his job and put him on a stretcher. Aiden then, of course, approached him with the same exact questions:

“Will he be alright? He’s not… He’s alive, right?”

Buck had to suck up all his disorientation and comfort this poor kid. He assured him that his friend would be alright and inquired about the reasons they had to be here.

Aiden recounted the same story he had shared the day before (had he?) and Buck tried to react as naturally as possible. It was like watching an episode or two of a show you had been watching along with someone else, and then having to rewatch the same episodes acting like you hadn’t committed the worst possible act of betrayal.

“Aiden, it was an accident. I bet he was having the time of his life, and I’m sure you were making him feel seen,” he tried to recall his own words, while pulling both Caleb and Eddie up to ground level.

“That’s a really nice feeling, don’t you think? Feeling like someone knows you?” he asked the kid, who seemed to think about it before letting his shoulders drop a little and nodding his head.

“Thank you,” Aiden said to him, before walking away, holding his friend’s hand.

When Eddie had taken the harness off, he asked again about their conversation, and Buck’s answer was shorter this time.

“He wanted to give Caleb a good birthday. They’re best friends,” he explained with a distant voice.

“Just like you and I,” Eddie replied, and if this time their shoulders didn’t brush, well. It for sure hadn’t bothered Buck. Not even a little.

———————————————

Back at the station, Buck couldn’t fall asleep. He was having the trippiest goddamn night of his life. He had been so sure that he already lived this day yesterday. Had he hallucinated everything? Was this like a premonitory dream situation?

Were those types of dreams supposed to be this detailed? His memory of the day wasn’t hazy, blurry, just a little out of reach, the way dreams tended to be after you woke up. They felt like real memories, and even though he had inevitably changed his own words at one point or another, everyone else’s stayed mostly the same. The emergency had been exactly the same. Caleb was in the same basement floor, Aiden had the same worries, Bobby gave the same orders, all of it had the same results. Caleb seemed okay and he left the building with his hand on Aiden’s.

Buck kept tossing and turning, trying to sleep felt utterly useless. He had the sneaky feeling that he only had 2 calls left that day, and he wouldn’t need to do much of anything, so not long after, he gave up on resting and got out of the room.

His plan consisted on sitting on one of the couches and going down the internet rabbit hole of premonitory dreams or time travel or God knows what, when he heard someone working out at the station’s gym.

Curiosity got the best of him, and his plans did a 180 when he spotted Eddie lifting weights like his life depended on the burn of his muscles.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Buck asked, walking closer. Eddie looked at him a little startled, but even through the tightness of his face, he managed to give Buck a warm grin.

He then left his working out behind and turned his body towards Buck.

“I’m having a weird day. You?” he asked and Buck sighed in sympathy.

“Yeah, me too. What’s making it weird for you?” Buck questioned, following the other as he walked towards the changing room. At the question, though, his steps halted. He turned and faced Buck with an expression he knew meant Eddie was hiding something.

“Oh, nothing much. It’s just me. I think.”

Buck raised his eyebrows, “You think?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s just my head. It’s my head acting weird, don’t worry about it,” he evaded answering. Typical Eddie. “What’s going on with you, though?” Now he was changing the topic and the focus of the conversation. Sure.

“I think I had a weird dream. It’s kind of freaking me out,” he said honestly. He thought about lying, about hiding it in fear of sounding crazy. But at the end of the day, it was Eddie. He could trust Eddie, Eddie always had his back.

“You wanna talk about it?” his friend offered, and of course he accepted.

They did end up on the couch, as he had been planning before. Buck sat with his legs crossed, looking towards the turned off TV. Eddie, on the other hand, sat facing him, his full attention collected inside his brown eyes and focused entirely on him. Buck always found that look of his thrilling, when it was directed at him.

“I don’t know if you’re gonna believe me,” Buck confessed. Eddie tilted his head and furrowed his brows.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Buck grinned a little sadly, “You don’t believe in jinxes, or curses, or the universe, that kind of things.”

“What does a dream of yours have to do with the universe?” Eddie asked raising a slightly judgemental, if confused, eyebrow.

“See, Eds, you’re already questioning me!” he accused pointing his open palm at his friend. Eddie lifted his empty hands in surrender.

“Okay, I promise I’ll listen,” he swore, and Buck had no other option but believe him.

“I know it sounds crazy, and unbelievable, but…” he trailed off, unsure of how to explain the situation, “I think I had kind of a premonitory dream, I guess? I was going to research it but I didn’t really have time so I’m not sure. I didn’t think it was a dream at first, because it felt so real, but there’s no other plausible explanation, is there? I mean, time travel is much more difficult to wrap my head around, but it also feels so different from every other dream I’ve ever had, but I’ve also never had a premonitory dream, so I wouldn’t know! But– “

“Buck.”

“Yeah?” he answered, nearly out of breath.

“Tell me your dream.”

“Okay.”

Eddie put his hand on Buck’s wrist, and its comforting weight grounded him as he started recounting his story.

“This dream, well, it felt like a normal day to me. It feels like it was yesterday. So yesterday, I woke up at around 3am for a call. In an abandoned building, a 16-year-old fell through the floor, his best friend called. The doors were blocked, you went down with ropes, I brought you two up. The kid was fine, only unconscious. Sounds familiar?”

“Aiden and Caleb,” Eddie confirmed, nodding with a serious face.

“Yes. And then we came back, and had another call at 10:20 am, a girl named Willow couldn’t recognize her family, only her best friend. It was a case of acquired prosopagnosia, caused by a fall. I made a fool of myself explaining why the poor girl could only recognize her best friend. I basically accused her of being a lesbian.”

Eddie snorted, despite it all.

“And then, our last call of the shift, it was a gunshot wound, and– “

“Roman and Simon,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, and Roman said…” Buck trailed off, looking back at Eddie, “What?”

“And then I invited you home, you made us lunch, we talked about your anxiety attack, we picked Chris up and bought him tickets for the zoo.”

Buck’s mouth hung open. He couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. He couldn’t get a word out. He could only blink and listen.

“You fell asleep on my couch and I fell asleep on my bed. And then we woke up here,” Eddie finished. Buck blinked some more before asking once again:

“What?”

“Buck,” Eddie started, moving both hands to his shoulders, “I dreamed it too.”

———————————————

The rest of the team gradually started waking up, making coffee and conversation until Bobby got started with breakfast. Buck and Eddie did not participate in any of those activities; Buck too much into his research spiral, and Eddie too busy staring blankly ahead and occasionally shaking his head in silence, as if discarding possible theories that he pulled out of thin air.

“Freud said the future that premonitory dreams show us isn’t the one that will happen but the one that we want to happen,” commented Buck, on probably his 36^th website of the morning.

“Freud also said everyone wants to sleep with their mom. You shouldn’t take everything he says to heart,” Eddie rebutted, not taking his eyes off of the still turned off TV.

Buck groaned defeatedly, acknowledging that Eddie did have a point there.

“Well, there sure is a lot of information about premonitory dreams. Obviously, science disagrees that you can actually predict the future through a dream. Every article says that the brain spends the whole time we’re awake just gathering every bit of information possible, even bits we don’t consciously know,” Buck rambled on, “And then, when we go to sleep, it likes to play with all the information and come up with possible outcomes and, statistically speaking, of course at some point it has to get it right, you know?”

Eddie nodded and finally, his round eyes landed on Buck’s, “Sure, that bit makes sense.”

“I sense a but coming,” Buck interrupted.

“But,” Eddie confirmed, “Let’s be honest with ourselves. What are the chances that we both would dream about exactly the same emergencies, with the same names and the same stories, and the same outcomes, during the same night? And then have it all happen in real life the very next day?”

Buck sighed, “No, yeah. I know. For that to happen we’d have to have, like, identical neural activation patterns, and identical memories, and identical emotional states, and synchronized REM cycles. Our chances are…” He tried to actually count, but there were just too many zeroes, “Well, it’s just too close to actual impossibility.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Do you have a better theory?” Buck challenged, only a tiny bit annoyed by the hopelessness of understanding what was going on with the both of them.

“I’m trying to be reasonable about this, Buck,” Eddie defended, “but there’s not a whole lot of space for that, is there? It’s like we’re stuck in a goddamn sci-fi movie,” he complained.

“What are you guys bitching about?” Hen asked from the table. Both men whipped their heads to look at her, startled, and quickly scrambled for an excuse.

“Nothing,” Eddie said, ever a practical man.

“Sigmund Freud,” Buck responded, with a straight face. Eddie side eyed him.

Hen narrowed her eyes at them, but finally shrugged her shoulders and went back to her breakfast, “Fair.”

Buck turned back and checked his watch. 10 am was nearing, and he remembered the second call of the dream had been not long after that point.

“Do you think we’ll have predicted the next call too?” he asked Eddie.

“Only one way to find out, I think,” he answered conspiratorially, and so they both sat there and waited.

———————————————

Sure enough, at exactly 10:23 am, the bell loudly confirmed their suspicions. They arrived fast, and of course, the location of the emergency was the same as in the dream. Athena’s face lit up in much the same relief, and she retold much the same story. All throughout their trip to the bathroom Willow was hiding in, Buck and Eddie looked at each other with wide, troubled eyes.

Buck listened, once again, as Hen calmed the girl down, walked her towards the sofa, and started asking her questions.

“I think it’s probably Capgras Syndrome, she knows these people look like her family but believes they have been replaced by imposters” Chim unknowingly reiterated.

“No, I think it’s definitely not that,” Eddie assured him with confidence, and Buck snorted.

“Why not?” Chim asked, just as Hen asked the question that would dismantle his theory.

“Well, shit, that was my best guess.”

Eddie looked at Buck with a proud and amused smile, and Buck teasingly rolled his eyes in return, ignoring the rush of excitement their complicity always brought him.

He smiled fondly as Mimi made her entrance and the girls affectionately reunited. He half-heartedly listened to Jocelyn explaining the situation to them, as he was rudely reminded of his sudden longing for his best friend. He had forgotten all about this little problem of his, what with all the gunshots and anxiety attacks and weirdly accurate premonitory dreams.

He told himself he didn’t have time for proving any hypothesis right in that moment, and tried to will away the sudden ache in his chest.

When Mimi voiced her uncertainty as to why Willow only recognized her, Eddie elbowed him in the ribs. For a man that worked so hard to be big and muscly, he sure had pointy elbows.

Buck took it as his cue to explain just why that had happened, making sure to include the crazy limbic system line that would land him a wedding invitation in a few years. When they were done and walking back to the truck, Buck groaned, “I can’t believe I got a second chance at this call and I still managed to embarrass myself.”

Eddie laughed at him right on his face, but was quick to reassure him with a warm hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t embarrass yourself, idiot. You made yourself look smart. It’s nice that you know those kinds of things,” he complimented, and Buck only embarrassed himself further by blushing.

It was all worth it, if only because he managed to get a terribly beautiful smile directed at him.

———————————————

Terribly beautiful? Jesus fucking Christ.

———————————————

Buck knew they didn’t have long before the next call. He couldn’t even think of going back on Google in search of more articles that might explain their weird synchronized dreams, too occupied with the growing dread weighing his chest down. He tried to work out, if only to take his attention from that pressure to the aching of his muscles.

It wasn’t really working.

The time came around, and he could feel Eddie’s worried eyes on him the whole trip there. When they got out of the truck in front of the old mansion, it was Eddie’s hand on his shoulder that kept him from turning around and running away.

And then, there they were. Simon lying on a pool of his own blood and Roman holding on tight to the loss of his life.

Buck took a deep breath and pondered on what to do. He had no idea if he would be capable of talking to Roman about this, even if the knowledge of what his explanation could trigger should count as a tool to help him be prepared.

Eddie didn’t let him spiral on his own, squeezing his shoulder and talking to him gently, “Buck, please remember that I’m here, okay? I’m right here.”

Buck nodded, unable to speak.

“And, you know. Even if I’m here, you don’t have to go through this, yeah? Let me talk to him.”

Buck found his voice, if only to say, “I should be the one offering that. You’re the one who got shot.”

“Buckley, come on. We talked about this in our dream, remember that?” Eddie joked, “I’ll let you handle it if someday we have to deal with someone’s best friend being struck by lightning, yeah?”

Buck cracked a little, genuine smile and nodded. Eddie took it as his cue to go grab Roman and gently talk to him about the worst moment of his life. Even if this time around he didn’t need to leave the room, his face seemed to be his tell when it came to hiding blinding anxiety. He knew that, because Bobby approached him once again, to ask him if everything was alright.

“They’re best friends, Cap,” he said, not for the first time that day. He didn’t offer more explanations, and Bobby didn’t seem to need them. He just nodded in understanding and rubbed his back in support.

Bobby waited until their work was done on the scene and they were walking back to raise the same concerns he had that night.

“Are you talking to someone about this, Buck?”

“Yes, Bobby,” he answered, and even though he was still lying, this time he sounded less bratty. Bobby nodded, satisfied.

“Kid,” he added a few seconds later, “If you ever feel like talking to me about it, you know I’d gladly lend you a listening ear, right?”

Buck felt the kind of comfort a kid feels when he has a bad day at school and has his dad hug him and tell him it’ll all be okay. His eyes got glassy but his smile was warm when he directed it towards Bobby.

“Thanks, Cap. I do know,” he promises as they part ways to sit on the truck.

A second later, Eddie was sitting in front of him, obviously paying attention to his mood. He felt those eyes on him, followed closely by his feet trapping one of Buck’s between them. He let Eddie’s touch bring comfort as well, discarding the flickering flame of guilt slowly igniting on the back of his mind at letting his best friend touch him without knowledge of just how much Buck enjoyed it.

The whole way there, everyone was silent. As well as in their prediction, everyone left him alone to his chores, allowing him time to process and dwell and ruminate, as he usually would. Well, that’s to say, everyone left him alone but Eddie. Eddie would not leave him alone for a single second. He stuck close and made two-people-jobs out of simple, definitely-one-person tasks.

Buck didn’t have it in him to be annoyed, though. He had already done his dwelling the night before, and was feeling lighter about the whole sniper-incident-flashbacks ordeal. So, even if he was feeling a little blue over the tragic death of Simon Grey, his mood was considerably better. He even let himself enjoy the attention he was receiving from his partner.

When their shift ended, the man cornering him in the dressing room gave him a terrible sense of déjà vu.

“Lunch at mine?” Eddie asked.

“Didn’t get enough of me last night?” Buck asked back.

Chim side-eyed him.

“Uh, I mean-“ he rushed to explain, but Chim raised a hand to stop him.

“I do not need to know what you meant, Buckley,” he teased, and made a quick exit.

Buck blushed bright pink and looked back at Eddie, who didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. The man just shrugged and reiterated, “So? Lunch?”

Buck rolled his eyes fondly, “Sure, let’s go. I guess I’ll cook again.”

———————————————

“Was today better?” Eddie asked, while sitting on the kitchen counter being decidedly unhelpful at the task of making lunch. He was swinging his feet around like a giddy kid and taking a swig out of his beer at 1:34 pm, like, well. Like a man in his thirties, Buck guessed.

“Yes, Eddie. Having such a thorough warning of what was about to come certainly helped,” he replied, sounding just the tiniest bit sarcastic.

“What’s with your mood, then? What’s bothering you?” he continued his interrogation. Buck stilled.

What was bothering him? You mean, apart from the very sudden yearning for his best friend’s warm hands on any part of his body? Apart from the life-consuming flame of guilt shining steady and dangerous, that kept feeding on his longing as if it were oxygen?

The shitty part about being knowledgeable and prepared for all the things that had bothered him during the dream, was that he no longer could ignore the disconcerting presence of something new and scary that kept threatening with pushing him down the cliff of realization.

Buck tried his best anyway.

“Nothing’s up with my mood, Eddie,” he replied, defensively, “I’m just still weirded out by the whole situation. I don’t think we’re gonna be able to figure out how or why this could happen,” he confessed. It was true, though it ranked low on his Things to Overthink mental list on that very moment, to be completely honest.

(Isn’t that kind of crazy? He and Eddie had this insane shared dream that predicted their whole day down to the exact words of a caller’s mother explaining her daughter’s complicated love life. Science could not explain it if the world’s fate depended on it, they had no idea what it meant or whether it would happen again, and still, his mind is focused only on his best friend and his hands and his eyes and… yeah.)

Eddie seemed to accept his excuse, nodding his head and looking resigned. “Yeah, I don’t think so, either. Maybe it was just a freak coincidence of nature, and that’s it.”

“You think?” Buck questioned.

Eddie shrugged, “Well, it doesn’t seem like something science can explain,” he started, quoting Buck’s own thoughts, “and it was weird, sure, but it’s not exactly something negative, is it? I mean, knowing exactly everything that’s going to happen, and that everything is going to be, well, mostly okay? It’s comforting, isn’t it?”

Buck looked at him and hoped his eyes wouldn’t betray him. “Yeah, it is. And we’re here now, anyway. Only the best part of the day left.”

Eddie smiled brightly at him and Buck ignored the tingling on his stomach. He finished their lunch and together, they set the table and got to work. It was the same exact lunch as in their dream (garlic spinach pasta), to keep up with tradition.

Soon after, they were on their way to pick Chris up, and Buck couldn’t wait to see the happiest kid in the world. They listened again as he repeated his words, and Eddie bribed him with a reward so he would do his homework.

“The zoo, then?” Buck asked wiggling his eyebrows playfully.

“Yes, Buck, the zoo. I hope we get to go this time around,” Eddie confirmed, falsely annoyed.

“I’m actually so excited about it. I want to watch the elephants. Did you know they can hear through their feet? They have special nerve endings that detect ground vibrations and they’re transmitted to their inner ear and that’s why they can hear the vibrations!” Buck rambled excitedly.

There was something written all over Eddie’s face, something in a foreign language that he couldn’t quite read.

“That’s nice, Buck. What other animals do you know weird things about?” Eddie asked, opening his door and letting Buck in as if he was a vampire ready to suck every minute left in the day, and use them to talk endlessly about how hummingbirds can fly backwards and polar bears’ skin is actually black.

When Chris heard about their trip to the zoo, he smiled just as big and hugged them just as tight as he had done in their dream. They picked the same pizzas and watched the same movie. Christopher fell asleep during the same scene, resting his head against Buck’s right arm and holding on dearly to Eddie’s left hand.

Eddie put him to bed, and came back smiling sleepily.

“Bed time,” Buck said, and Eddie nodded.

“You know where everything is.”

“Yeah. Good night, Eddie,” he finished their conversation softly.

“Good night, Buck. I hope I’ll wake up on my own bed tomorrow.”

By the time Buck finished his whole night routine, his eyes were heavy. He laid down on the couch as he felt sleep taking over him. He let his whole body relax, and focused on the same warmth he had felt in his heart once upon a dream.

Chapter Text

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

He stopped dead on his tracks. What? No. This couldn’t be happening to him. Just. No.

He couldn’t move. He was frozen on the spot. What the fuck.

He turned around slowly, and found Eddie’s eyes. They were open wide and wild, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening in real life. Buck could relate.

The non-stopping alarm urged them to get out of their stupor-induced paralysis and they ran into the truck to go visit Aiden and Caleb once again. Of course, everything went exactly the same as always. They found Aiden, listened to his explanations, couldn’t find a way down, Eddie got called on rope rescue, Buck tried to comfort the kid. Blah, blah, blah.

Afterwards, they made their way back to the truck with matching shell-shocked expressions painted on both of their faces. Ravi was the first to notice.

“Uh, are you guys okay?” he asked, eyes flicking between them. They both snapped their heads towards him.

“Why do you ask?” Buck inquired. And, okay, he only sounded a little, um. Unsound of mind.

“What do you know?” Eddie demanded, just slightly adding to the insanity vibe they had going on.

Ravi threw up his hands, pleading for mercy, “You guys looked… I was just checking!”

Buck and Eddie looked at each other and sighed deeply, shaking their heads in an entirely too fed-up manner for 3-something a.m. They didn’t open their mouths even once for the rest of the trip. They didn’t talk, they didn’t plot, they didn’t theorize. They just walked up to their bunks without a single word and laid down. They didn’t sleep either, at least not him. Buck was pretty sure he didn’t even blink once, the whole night. He just stared at the ceiling, motionless, waiting for the sun to shine on him or something, as if that would magically shed some light on the whole issue.

It was really kind of the universe, to at least grant him the much-needed time to helplessly spiral about what the actual fuck was going on.

How could this be happening? How could it be possible? This, this whole day repeating itself over and over, it couldn’t just be passed as a dream anymore. Those weren’t dreams, he had known it in his gut the day before, but it had just been spelled out for him.

You know what they say. Once was an accident, twice was a coincidence. But three times? Three times meant there had to be cameras hidden somewhere and a whole audience of people laughing at his face. Because it had to be a fucking joke. No other explanation was plausible.

It didn’t feel like all that long before people were getting up and starting their morning all around him. Buck took it as a sign to get up as well, taking the chance to let his eyes wander in search of a certain messy-dark-haired man. Said man was sitting on his bunk bed, looking as though he was contemplating all his life choices.

Here’s where their very-well-known wordless communication came in handy. Buck did not have it in him to say anything. His head was a mess. If thoughts were threads, they’d all be spectacularly tangled up, in such a way that pulling on one end of a yellow thread would just tighten the knot on the other end, tying up the red, blue, purple, pink, green and rainbow threads together as well, so that the only progress you managed was making the tangle ten times worse. Eddie seemed to agree.

That’s how they spent the whole morning not saying a single word to each other. They recited their lines like mediocre actors on a low budget show and worked together on their chores, ignoring the looks of confusion and astonishment their coworkers kept sending them. To the eye of the outsider, it may have looked like they had a bad fight and were mutually giving each other the cold shoulder while still being unable to detach themselves from one another’s hip.

Buck got that it was a weird sight to wake up to, but he could not stress enough how little he cared at the moment. He only cared about getting out of that damn firehouse, for once, and have a long rest of the day to try and detangle his goddamn brain convolutions.

His plans, honestly, only included himself for once. He was not in a good mood, and didn’t want to infect Chris with it.

At the end of the shift, someone cornered him in the locker room, as per usual.

“Buck,” Eddie finally spoke, and he merely hummed in response.

“We’re going out and talking about this,” Eddie outright informed him, rather than politely asking. Buck didn’t even try to fight it.

“Sure.”

———————————————

They picked a bar that was wonderfully open at 1:13 p.m. Half the customers were ladies that surely came straight from brunch, either because they still had drinks to have or gossip to share, and the other half were men that looked like they would happily not speak a single word ever again.

Buck found the quietest, most secluded corner in the whole bar, sat, and waited for Eddie to come back from a mysterious phone call he had to make before starting very probably the weirdest conversation of their lives.

Even in the middle of the day, the ambience was dark and kind of gloomy (definitely not his fault. He was not watching the place through some sort of emo-coloured glasses.) So, when he ordered a shot instead of a beer or a fucking juice, really, was he the one to blame? Or was the barman the real culprit, what with making him feel like it was 1 a.m. instead of 1 p.m.?

“Get me one or two of those, too, Buckley,” Eddie called, making his way to their table. Buck wanted to ask what the hell he was thinking of doing with Chris, if he was planning on getting at least a little tipsy, but he shut his mouth and ordered two shots for his best friend and a second one for himself.

He needn’t have worried, as it turns out. Just as he sat down on the booth, Eddie informed him that Carla would be picking Chris up, watching him for the evening, and then dropping him off at Tía Pepa’s for the night. With that weight off their shoulders, they really had no option but confront the situation at hand.

With both being two shots in, they got started.

“Obviously we’re not having premonitory dreams,” Buck said. Eddie sighed deeply and nodded.

“Got that much.”

“Maybe we’re time travelling.”

“In our sleep?” Eddie refuted.

“Maybe we’re stuck in a freaky time loop, you know, groundhog-day style.”

“In real life? Really?”

“Maybe we’re in hell and Chimney is actually a demon that’s torturing us.”

Eddie sighed louder, “You’ve rewatched that show too many times.”

“Okay,” Buck pointed a reprimanding index finger at him, “There’s no such thing as watching that show too many times-”

“Buck,” Eddie sighed for the billionth time that day.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, man,” Buck started, “I know you’re more of a science kind of guy, don’t believe in anything that can’t be proven and all-”

Eddie grumbled in agreement, looking longingly at his empty shot glasses.

“But what’s happening to us, well. It seems pretty supernatural to me. So, you’re gonna have to open your mind a little for me, dude.”

Eddie thought about it for, easily, 2 hours straight (47 seconds) before resignedly getting up and announcing, “I’m getting us more drinks.”

———————————————

3 shots, 2 beers and 1 sex on the beach (because life made no sense anymore) after, they ended up discussing the probability of a possibly supernatural situation being thrust upon them for a reason only some form of higher power with an appallingly boring life understood.

Buck was moving his hands animatedly while Eddie leaned back with his arms crossed over his chest and that sassy look of his that Buck always finds too ridiculously endearing for someone that’s clearly making fun of him.

“Okay, like, I know you prefer thinking this is some kind of psychological malfunction, or some logical shit like that-“

“I sure would, Buck,” Eddie confirmed, and he wasn’t saying much but it still felt like he was teasing him.

“But think about it!” Drunk Buck sounded much more excited about their thing, “We could be stuck on a time loop. Wouldn’t that be so cool?”

Eddie snorted, “No. It would be torture, actually.”

“Oh, you wanna go back to that theory?” Buck asked with that childlike wonder of his, “We could be in hell. Or in the purgatory! This could be our punishment.”

He then seemed to catch up with what he was saying.

“Really, Eddie? Being stuck on time with me is your definition of torture? You sure know how to flatter a guy,” he said dryly, looking at his friend with a deadpan face.

Eddie laughed, and for about 4 seconds, all was right in the world.

“Maybe this is a glitch in the simulation,” Buck reasoned, ignoring the way his heart had taken breakdancing as its new hobby, apparently?

Eddie tilted his head at the new hypothesis, “The simulation? What am I missing?” he asked, amusedly.

“Yeah? Eddie, you must have heard about the simulation at some point!” he exclaimed, internally claiming his hours of deep dives in conspiracy theories to be common knowledge.

Eddie snorted, used to his antics, and conceded, “Alright, Buckley, explain away.”

And that’s how they passed their time, talking about how they lived in this simulation created by some higher being, intended to study them as a species, and that sometimes it glitched, hence the déjà vu’s and other spooky shit science can hardly explain.

“So, kind of like the matrix,” Eddie had said, and Buck nodded excitedly, earning himself a gorgeous fond smile from his friend.

They strayed from the simulation topic, talking about the dream theory, the multiverse and the parallel universes, various time loops, the Mandela effect, and somehow, also about flat-earthers.

Buck’s earlier concern and bad mood were left lying on the floor under the sticky wooden table, much like a forgotten cardigan you take off because of the heat coming from the crowd inside the bar, and only miss when you’re already well on your way home and the cold becomes a problem once again.

After having a very late lunch and so many drinks his vision had started to go blurry, Buck and Eddie decided to take matters into the privacy of Buck’s loft. Oh, Buck really shouldn’t let his train of thought stop in that station. Not with alcohol lowering all his already poor inhibitions.

Upon arriving and sitting down on his couch, though, he realized he was cold. Metaphorically speaking. That’s to say he picked up his concerns from the floor where they had carelessly left them before and let them settle on his chest, pushing at his lungs and making him a little breathless.

“Eddie, we’re totally in a time loop.”

That night, Buck discovered that alcohol gets Eddie a little looser on the head. He seemed a little more open to these surreal, supernatural things the team is always talking about and he is always complaining aren’t real.

“Ugh,” Eddie grumbled, “I know.”

Buck blinked a couple of times before asking a clarifying, “Huh?”

“I know how ridiculous it sounds, Buck, but honestly…” Eddie trailed off, looking for the right words in his probably disorganized, half-drunk mind, “What other thing could it be? Maybe… I don’t know, man, maybe physics can explain it?”

Buck lit up at that, “Yeah! I’ll- I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow! Or well, maybe first thing tomorrow we’ll have to rescue Caleb, but as soon as there’s time,” Buck joked.

Eddie smiled tiredly, “I don’t know if you’re gonna find much on why it would happen specifically to the two of us, only.”

A lightbulb went off in Buck’s head as soon as he heard Eddie’s phrasing of his worries, “Dude, that’s just it!” he exclaimed, getting up so he’d be able to pace around like a crazy scientist that finally had his eureka moment and would finally complete the theory he’d spent years working on.

“What if we’re not the only ones?”

———————————————

Gorgeous? Ugh. This is getting out of hand.

———————————————

An hour later found them lying on the floor, surrounded by empty beer bottles and looking at a white board that Buck, for some reason, had stored somewhere in his loft at some point in time.

“So, definitely not Chimney, then?” Buck asked, already reaching to cross out his name from the mental map of all their friends and loved ones they had been laying out on the board.

“He definitely seemed not to know anything about Willow’s case last time around, so yeah, no,” Eddie answered, resting his head on his arms.

“Okay, and we said no Bobby-“ Buck kept going.

“He’d worry himself sick thinking we’ve gone crazy.”

“And no Athena-“

“She’d think we’re on LSD again.”

“That leaves us Hen from the 118,” Buck concluded proudly, circling her name on the board and painting over all the other ones.

“And Ravi,” Eddie added, and Buck rolled his eyes at him.

“I don’t trust Ravi not to just go with it even if it’s not happening to him, too.”

Eddie snorted and lifted his head from his arms. “Sure, Buck,” he teased.

“I’m serious!” Buck insisted, “I’m pretty sure he has a crush on you, he’d agree with anything you said.” Eddie laughed and shook his head, reaching to take the marker from Buck’s hands.

(If their hands brushed for like, two seconds, Buck for sure didn’t notice, and he for sure didn’t let the fleeting contact send sparks up his arm.)

Now in possession of the marker, Eddie crossed out Ravi’s name himself. “There you go, you can breathe now,” he teased, “Should we leave your sister out of it?”

Buck thought about it, pondering on what weighed more: her sisterly advice in cases of supernatural phenomena or her sisterly worry for her baby brother going clinically insane. In the end, he concluded that Maddie would most likely, probably, possibly, just brush him off thinking it was a drunk mind game and would just tell him to sleep his paranoia off and that she’d check on him in the morning. Which, of course, she wouldn’t do, because the next morning he’d wake up to the alarm bell once again.

“Nah, let’s give her a call. She’s smarter than us.”

Eddie smiled and muttered something like “not a hard goal to accomplish,” before circling Maddie’s name as well.

“Can you think of anyone else? Do you wanna check with someone in your family?” Asked Buck, bringing his eyes to the Diaz part of the map.

“Obviously not Chris, not Pepa, not Abuela…” he trailed off, humming, “I think it’s best if we leave them be. We have two very smart girls on our hands.”

“Probably the only two people capable of keeping something like this to themselves, too,” Buck added, “Surely Chim would’ve spilled everything to everyone during the very first repeat.”

Eddie snorted and agreed with a nod. “Okay,” he said, sitting up and grabbing his phone, “Call time. Hen first,” he commanded already looking for her contact and pressing the call button.

She picked up after a few seconds of waiting, “Eddie, hi! Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Hi, Hen, I’m here with Buck,” Eddie started.

“Hi, Buck!”

“Hi, Hen,” Buck echoed, “Listen, we’d like to ask you something.”

“Uh oh, should I be worried?” Hen said, only half joking.

Eddie and Buck looked at each other, trying to tug at their telepathic link, so as to decide how to broach the topic without sounding completely insane.

“Have you… noticed anything out of the ordinary for the past, like… three days?” Eddie asked, tactfully.

There was a long, charged silence on the other end of the line. Shoulders tensed and eyes locked on the phone, they waited for Hen to answer.

Finally, she replied in a lower voice, “Well, now that you’ve said it…”

Buck gasped once before quickly finding Eddie’s eyes in disbelief. How could they not have noticed that Hen was going through the exact same thing? Surely, she would have been acting something out of the ordinary. Had Buck been so consumed in his confusion about time repeating itself and his best friend’s warm, beautiful eyes (please forget he said that) to notice something so big happening to Hen?

“Chim has been acting pretty weird! Yesterday I sat him down for a little gossip sesh about y- uhm… about an old friend’s love life, and he looked at me all weird, and just blurted out the lamest excuse before running off! I’ve never seen him do something like that…” Hen kept going, but Buck honestly wasn’t listening anymore. The hopeful breath he had taken in at Hen’s affirmative left his lungs in a disappointed sigh and Eddie nodded sympathetically.

“Oh, yeah. That’s totally what I wanted to talk to you about,” Eddie answered with flat sarcasm, “I, too, find myself worried sick over Chim not wanting to gossip about us.” Buck mostly didn’t have it in him to be rude to Hen, but he couldn’t help but find every joke that stumbled out of this man’s mouth to be the funniest thing to ever be said. He tried to play off his snort of laughter as Eddie said his goodbyes and rolled his eyes at Hen, who was not present to presence such mockery of a dear friend whose crime was merely not being stuck on a time loop with them.

It wasn’t until he was pressing the call button on Maddie’s contact on his phone, that he caught up with the fact that Eddie had said Chim and Hen had wanted to gossip about them? About Eddie and him? What was there to gossip about? Had they somehow caught on his sudden desire to be all up and close with his friend? Was he really that obvious?

Maddie’s low ‘hey, Buck’ through the phone cut his overthinking short. “What’s up?” she asked, and Buck decided to steal Eddie’s line.

“I just wanted to ask,” he started, “Have you… perhaps… noticed anything out of the ordinary these last 3 days or so?” Buck asked, going for a nonchalant, unbothered guy who totally isn’t experiencing anything out of the ordinary.

He waited in silence, imagining the way Maddie was one hundred percent tilting her head like a confused puppy, thinking about what he could possibly mean. He had a bad feeling about this side quest of finding other people stranded on time.

“If this is about Chim, I’m not going to say a word about him or about his poor secret keeping abilities,” she concluded, not giving him a chance to deny the allegations.

“I’m not talking about Chimney, god,” Buck complained anyway, “What’s going on with him, anyway? What secret is he trying to keep now?”

“Nothing!” Maddie said, at the same time as Eddie tightly exclaimed, “That is so not important right now.”

Buck looked between his friend and his phone, before he let out a sigh. “So, nothing else is going on, Maddie?”

“No?” she asked instead of just answering, “Why? Is everything okay with you?”

“Uh huh, yeah. Everything is peachy. I’ll have to call you back, though! Eddie and I have an on-going investigation that we need to go back to! Love you, bye!” he exclaimed.

“Wait, investig-” Maddie started questioning before she was rudely cut off by his annoyed younger brother. He looked at Eddie with a resigned face.

“This isn’t gonna work,” Eddie said, reading his mind as always. Buck shook his head.

“Totally not. Maybe we’re the only ones on a loop,” he proposed.

“That’s a bit egotistical, isn’t it?” Eddie asked, getting up and walking towards the fridge and grabbing two more beers for them. Buck thought about his words, grabbing the bottle Eddie offered and taking a sip, before leaving it on the floor and laying back down on the floor, staring at his ceiling.

“What, thinking only us two are getting tortured by the universe?” he questioned, and Eddie shrugged.

“Thinking we’re important enough to be the only ones going through this.”

“Maybe the universe is trying to get a message across and it’s only for us to hear. Maybe we need to figure out what it is and then it’ll stop torturing us like this,” Buck offered.

Eddie gave him one of those smiles that clearly meant he thought Buck was a little silly for believing in things like the universe, but that he was kind of endeared anyway.

“I know, I know. You don’t believe in the universe.”

“I do believe in the universe, technically,” Eddie corrected. “It’s just that I don’t believe that the universe is a sentient, all-powerful thing that can just change the laws of physics at will for the only purpose of sending two dudes a message.”

“Then what’s going on, Eddie?” Buck asked, and he meant for it to sound teasing, playful. But when he opened his mouth, desperation came out of it unannounced, filtered through his voice. Eddie took pity.

“I don’t know, Buck. But we’re gonna figure this out, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

———————————————

The hours passed, and Buck and Eddie didn’t leave the loft. They just talked, and talked, and talked some more. Not about anything important, or anything confusing. Not about The Time Loop Thing. It was just a steady beat of intertwined thoughts. The conversation didn’t clear any of his confusion up, but Buck felt so much lighter anyway.

Eddie was currently on the phone with Chris, apologizing for not being there and wishing him a good night and sweet dreams. Buck wasn’t sure what excuse he had used, but it’s not like Chris would know what happened tomorrow, when the day would reset once again.

Meanwhile, Buck took a second batch of blueberry cookies out of the oven. Baking was kind of a coping mechanism of his, that he used against anxiety, or against impulses that he needed to control. And right at that moment, Buck was actually really stressed (although less so than some hours ago) and full of really stupid impulses. Impulses like going back to the couch and sitting on his best friend’s lap. Grabbing his face, kissing him silly. Dragging him up the stairs, towards his bedroom, maybe.

But also, impulses like grabbing Eddie’s phone and saying good night to Chris as if he was his, too. Of laying down with him and feel the long line of Eddie’s body pressed to his, and just breathe. Of staying close, of perpetual touch. Of giving him the softest of kisses.

It was so getting out of hand. He did not have time for this. For pining after a straight man that happened to be the most important person of his life. And all because of some touch-starved phase?

He couldn’t ruin their friendship for something so… inconsequential. No matter how much his body and his mind pulled him towards Eddie. He had impulses to control. Hence, the many, many cookies.

The object of his anxieties appeared in his field of vision, with the intention of stealing the best-looking cookie he could find. Buck was startled for a moment, before his heart settled once again, as it had during their long conversation.

“How’s Chris?” he asked, “Was he upset you weren’t there?”

Eddie took a bite and shook his head. “He’s not upset, just a little confused. He asked about you.”

Buck was sure his heart was actually smiling just as bright as him, “Yeah? But we hadn’t actually made plans before, had we? I mean, these past days, they were spontaneous.”

Eddie suddenly broke eye contact and cleared his throat. “Well, I mean…”

Buck tilted his head and hit his friend’s arm playfully, “What?”

“Yesterday- well, I mean. On Thursday, I may or may have not have mentioned that you were coming around on Friday.”

Buck couldn’t help the fond smile that bloomed on his face. “Aw, Eds. Did you two miss me?” He asked, and although his tone remained playful, hope laced his words.

When Eddie answered, his voice was sincere. “Yeah, of course. We miss you every time you’re not home, Buck.”

Home, Buck thought, and he had to tilt his head down to hide his glistening eyes. The sense of belonging somewhere always got him the tiniest bit emotional, it’s a fun little quirk of his. Eddie didn’t wait long before planting a warm hand on his shoulder and gently speaking again.

“Buck, come on. Leave the cookies for tomorrow. We’ve had a hell of a day, and I’m exhausted,” he demanded, pushing him around as he wished, leading him up the stairs.

“The cookies won’t be here tomorrow, Diaz,” Buck poked.

“I really don’t care, Buckley, I just wanna get you to your bed so I can get to your couch and sleep all the way into this morning, again.”

Buck scoffed and rolled his eyes, “My bed is plenty big, Eddie. You don’t need to take the couch. We can share.”

Buck thought he saw Eddie kind of almost miss a step on the stairs, but when he looked back, his face was all neutral and he was completely upright, so maybe he was tired and imagining things.

“Your couch is pretty shitty,” Eddie conceded, and Buck really shouldn’t have taken that as a win. He was totally not excited about sharing a bed. He was not thinking about the many romance stories where bed-sharing is a key point in getting the protagonists together. That would be so weird, and Buck is never weird. He’s always very normal.

“Like your couch isn’t shitty!” he teased back, hoping to conceal some of his incredibly normal thoughts.

“Alright, alright, we can share my bed when you spend the night at home, too, then,” Eddie said, and looked terribly embarrassed right after, so Buck really couldn’t take it to heart. It still made his cheeks feel warm, but he managed not to look outright euphoric at the proposition. See? He was so normal.

They went through their night routine, even if doing it in Buck’s loft instead of at Eddie’s was far from their usual thing. When they got in the bed, Buck barely had time to feel awkward and nervous before exhaustion took over his body. He turned to look at Eddie, on the left side of his bed, and found him already looking back.

“I really, really hope to wake up tomorrow and find you drooling on my pillow,” Buck said.

Eddie snorted and closed his eyes, ready to fall asleep. “Fuck you, I don’t drool on my sleep.”

“Sure you don’t,” Buck quipped through a yawn. Eddie only let a short, breathy laugh out as a response.

His own eyes felt heavy, and he felt consciousness steadily slipping out of him. Before he fell fully asleep, Buck whispered an incredibly soft, “I also miss you guys when I’m not home.”

Chapter Text

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

Ugh. Fuck.

Sigh. Okay.

Buck searched for Eddie once again. He was sitting in bed, holding the bridge of his nose in exasperation. When he looked up and his eyes met Buck’s, he shrugged and signalled with his head that it was time to go.

On their way into the building, Buck had to resist the urge of grabbing the ropes equipment in order to save them a trip later on. Everything went according to script, and a secured Caleb left in an ambulance with a worried but reassured Aiden holding his hand.

Then, on their way back to the station, Buck and Eddie sat next to each other, instead of their usual places. The exhaustion from the little sleep they got the days before didn’t seem to reset along with time, which was honestly a fucking bummer. However, it did mean that Eddie rested his head on Buck’s shoulder the entire ride back (and that definitely did not alert any butterfly to take flight inside any stomach.)

They all went right back to sleep once they arrived at the firehouse, but the minute his head hit the pillow, Buck was no longer tired. He could hardly keep his eyes closed with the restlessness of not knowing. He gave sleep a chance for like 20 minutes, before promptly giving up and making his way to the couches.

Once he was seated and comfortable, he immediately started his research of the day, the physical mechanism behind time loops. He looked everywhere: On Google, Reddit, academic paper sites… He was downloading his fourth article when he felt a familiar hand land on his shoulder.

“What are you doing up?” Eddie asked as he sat down next to him on the couch.

“I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d get started on our research,” Buck replied, trying to keep his wandering eyes from straying towards Eddie.

He tilted his head, curiously, “Is there much on it?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes, actually,” Buck started, “I mean, I’m not really looking at the logistics of it happening to two people at once, just… Time loops in general. I haven’t read anything yet, but I thought I’d get every article that seems a little trustworthy.”

Eddie hummed thoughtfully, before getting out his own phone, “You do that. I’m going to look for every movie there is on time loops. We can watch them with Chris, if they’re not too scary, yeah?”

Buck automatically smiled, like it was instinct for the thought of Christopher to go paired up with happiness. “Yeah, I’m always up for movie night with my favourite Diaz.”

“I’ll pretend it doesn’t sting that I’m not your favourite Diaz,” Eddie teased, but Buck’s always known he actually loves it.

“Well, you’re my fourth favourite if that helps.”

Eddie gasped dramatically and looked sharply up at him, “Fourth?!” he exclaimed.

“Well, your Abuela and your Tía Pepa do rank higher than you, I’m afraid,” Buck smiled. Eddie clutched his imaginary pearls.

“Betrayal. You think you’re best friends with someone, and then they stab you in the back like this-”

“You are so dramatic,” Buck states.

“A guy can’t innocently introduce his best friend to his grandma without the grandma taking his place in the-”

“Oh my god,” Buck let himself drop on the sofa, draping his arm over his eyes, “You’re not taking anyone’s place on the Diaz ranking if you keep bitching about it, that’s for sure.”

He got a bright laugh out of Eddie, who casually let himself fall against Buck and rest his head on Buck’s stomach. If he felt Buck freeze, he didn’t let it show. As if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, Eddie unlocked his phone and typed out ‘time loop movies’ on Google. Buck mirrored his actions and resumed his search.

He did get to reading the first article. He did, he was invested. The thing is, the previous restlessness that decided to haunt him in the bunk room was slowly seeping out of his body, in favour of letting a warm sort of peace invade him. It was calming, and pleasant, coming in waves from every point of contact with Eddie’s body. Gradually, he let himself relax, resting his hand on his chest, merely an inch away from Eddie’s brown hair.

Eddie must have felt him lose all his tension, must have deduced he was falling asleep. Because, during his last moments of consciousness for the night, he felt how Eddie set his phone on the table next to them, and furrowed further into his body, like he was on top of a giant, very solid pillow.

Lastly, he heard a gentle, affectionate whisper, “Goodnight, Buck.”

———————————————

His dreams that night were hazy, and feathery soft. He felt at home, in a room lit up with iridescent light coming through the window.

There was a tender presence that shone golden, and it was tugging at something he knew to be his soul. He felt the connection between them like a reassuring, familiar hand where his neck meets his shoulder.

In the dream, his heart was walking outside his body, and it was all smiles and golden curls and giggles. Being separated from it was terrifying, but one look at his heart and fear dissipated. Only happiness existed in the realm of his dream.

The three of them, they were safe inside their home. There were no waves that could bring down their walls to drown them, no strikes of electricity that could reach them, no way to hurt any of them.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes again at 9:02 a.m. The first thing he saw was Hen, taking a picture of him and laughing.

Correction, a picture of them. As he became more and more lucid, he remembered the man who was sleeping on top of him. He ignored the way his chest tickled in a childish sort of giddiness, and snorted at Hen’s antics.

In the haze of waking up from an incredibly pleasant, if incredibly blurry dream, he let himself indulge in his impulses just a little. Slowly, he let his hand furrow into Eddie’s hair. He’d always known it would be soft; it looked like it was, especially when he kept it longer and without any products to hold it back. But as soon as his fingertips made contact with Eddie’s scalp, the silky strands running through his fingers simply amazed him.

How could Buck be amazed by someone’s hair being soft? Well. He’s a simple guy, it seems.

“Eddie, wake up, Hen’s making fun of us,” he demanded, whispering so as not to startle him awake. Eddie groaned in response and turned around, facing the back of the couch and not at all caring that he was currently using Buck as a pillow. He never was a morning person, and Buck found himself stupidly endeared by it.

“Aw, look at them, Chim!” Hen called for her best friend, “Cuddling on the job!”

“We’re just sleeping-” Buck complained.

“I don’t see anything!” Chim squeaked at the same exact time, and run out to clean the truck, apparently.

“What is it with him lately?” Hen complained under her breath and left to go sit at the table as Bobby got done with breakfast.

When Eddie seemed to be more awake and alert, Buck felt him freeze up. He glanced up at Buck as if he had only just remembered where he was lying down. In the space of a heartbeat, he was up and greeting Buck with an awkward ‘good morning’. Buck barely had time to say it back before he was leaping towards the kitchen table.

He’d have to try to unpack that reaction some other time, because breakfast was calling and he wouldn’t ignore the smell of Bobby’s pancakes longer than absolutely necessary.

After said pancakes, and after cleaning up the ladder truck, they got called to Willow’s house, and then to Simon’s. Buck tried not to let it touch him. Tried to maintain distance, let Eddie handle talking with Roman. Tried to breathe through his anxiety; 4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 8 seconds out. Tried to focus on his body, on being present in the moment, on not getting into his head like he normally would.

It worked fairly well. They were back at the station before he knew, and the sombre mood didn’t keep him from feeling a little proud at having handled himself and his worries. In an effort to keep it up, he tried to find something to take his mind off the last call of the day, while they waited for their shift to be over.

As he looked around for his distraction, his eyes automatically landed on Eddie. Of course. There was something magnetic about him that dragged Buck’s eyes towards his standing place, no matter what. Eddie, regrettably, wouldn’t do as a distraction, though. Not when his anxiety revolved around him and his tendency to involuntarily test his own mortality.

However, right at that moment Eddie was standing next to Chimney, talking conspiratorially. Ah, there it is, he thought, my distraction.

Chimney was being weird, and that always meant he was trying to hide a secret, which he would most probably fail spectacularly at. But he must be actually trying this time, if even Hen clearly didn’t know about it.

No matter how much effort Chim put into it, he was designed to spill said secret at some point, so Buck decided his new plan to distract himself consisted on pestering him until he inevitably let Buck in on the information he was missing.

During the 2 hours they had left, Buck followed Chimney everywhere he went.

“Chim, what’s got you so tense lately? You wanna talk about it?” he tried first, subtlety probably being his best weapon.

Chim jumped and looked nervously at him, “I’m fine, what are you talking about? I’m perfectly relaxed!” he squealed, quickly making it out of the room.

Buck tried to be persuasive next, “You know, I can tell you’re dying to talk about it, Chimney. You can tell me, take the pressure off, feel better about it. I won’t tell anyone.” He used a voice that brushed dangerously his flirty tone, which felt so wrong on so many levels. He switched the tone immediately.

“Come on, what’d ya say? It’s a win-win situation!” he said in an overexcited manner. Chimney looked pained.

“I’m not telling you anything.”

Later on, he played his ace. The best card of the deck. His strongest soldier. “I know Maddie knows. I’ll tell her you told me, and you know she’ll believe me, Chim. She’ll be so mad at you,” he emphasized.

Chimney looked just about done with him. “I am a good friend, Evan Buckley. I’ll keep this secret even if it kills me,” he proclaimed dramatically, and Buck could admit he was a little impressed.

“Never thought I’d see the day, Howard Han,” he mirrored, “Well played.”

They parted ways and he walked directly to Eddie, who was getting changed. He let himself notice that this was his first time approaching Eddie at the changing room, instead of the other way round, in all of the Fridays they had lived up until now.

“Chim has a secret and he won’t tell me,” He whined to Eddie. He had a funny reaction. He looked alarmed for half a second, before he schooled his expression. His neutral face didn’t last long, before it melted into poorly disguised relief.

“He didn’t tell you? Wow. Must be one hell of a secret,” Eddie replied, clearly forcing his tone to be casual. Or, well. Maybe it wasn’t that clear, after all, Eddie could be a really good liar. But Buck knew him down to his core, and knowing when he was hiding something, knowing when he was faking or lying, it came as an instinct to him.

So, it was pretty obvious now. The secret was Eddie’s. It stung a little, the fact that Eddie had something he wanted to keep from most people, and instead of choosing Buck to talk about it, he chose Chimney. They were best friends after all, aren’t best friends supposed to tell each other everything? To be each other’s confidante, to trust each other over everyone else?

Whatever. Buck wasn’t jealous. Buck did not need to prove his importance in Eddie’s life to anyone at all. Least of all Eddie. Least of all Chimney Han. Whatever. Buck could be normal about this.

———————————————

Buck was not normal. At heart, he was not normal. He had never been, fundamentally, a normal person. And he was even less normal about this. But that was okay. He could freak out in solitude. Nothing had to come out of this. Eddie didn’t have to know.

“Why Chim and not me?” he blurted out from the passenger seat of Eddie’s truck. Ah, shit. There goes any pretense of normalcy, he thought.

“Huh?” Eddie asked, eloquent as always.

Buck sighed and repeated himself, “Why’d you tell Chimney and not me?”

Eddie obviously tried to play dumb. As if that would ever work with Buck. “About what? I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”

“The secret Chim is keeping! I know it’s yours.”

Eddie stayed silent for a couple of seconds, “No, it’s not,” he countered. One last desperate try. Buck simply scoffed.

“Okay, fine,” Eddie conceded, annoyed. “It’s my secret. What, are you jealous that I didn’t tell you?”

Buck could only scoff again, though this time he couldn’t manage to sound irritated. He looked down as he played with his own fingers, like a little kid that had just been chastised. So what if he was jealous? So what if it hurt?

“I just like to think you trust me more that you trust Chimney, I guess,” he said, in a near whisper, “I know this isn’t about me, sorry.”

Eddie immediately softened. “I do trust you more than Chim. More than anyone,” he soothed, “you know that, Buck.”

When Buck only nodded mutely in response, he tried to explain himself further.

“I didn’t mean to tell him, Buck. I…” Eddie trailed off, unsure, “I’m not ready for it to stop being a secret, I guess. When Chim found out, it was completely accidental, but I couldn’t deny it and now he knows. I made him promise he wouldn’t tell. But it’s not a matter of trust, okay?”

Buck thought about it for a moment, before saying, in the most lighthearted, teasing voice he could muster, “Will I be the second to know?”

It had the intended effect. Eddie laughed, openly and brightly. A little, proud grin made its way onto Buck’s face as well, and he finally left his fingers alone to look out the window. They were just arriving at Eddie’s.

“For the record, as soon as you’re ready, if you need any help with this secret of yours you already know I’ll do everything I can,” he clarified, although he had a feeling Eddie already knew all this.

He smiled, a subdued and sad little thing, and said, “I don’t know if you can help me, but thank you for being here anyway. You always are.”

“Of course,” Buck replied, like it was obvious. Like they were talking about truths of the universe. Fire is hot, water is wet, and Buck would do anything for Eddie. Simple as that.

They shared a smile before climbing out of the truck and walking inside Eddie’s house.

It was a given at this point. As long as it was Friday, they’d spend the day together. Buck was only the slightest bit anxious about Eddie getting completely sick of him. You can only do so many 48-hour shifts attached to each other’s hip before getting it through your head that the other person genuinely enjoys your company. Even through particularly thick skulls such as Evan Buckley’s.

“You start with your research, okay? I’ll make us lunch today,” Eddie commanded, and Buck gave him a suspicious glance. Eddie rolled his eyes, “I’ll keep it simple, I’m not going to poison you, Buckley.”

Buck laughed and threw his open palms up in surrender, before making his way to Eddie’s ratty couch that he loved so strangely much for an inanimate object, and taking out his phone. He was submerged in articles about closed time-like curves, and quantum mechanics, and all the particles in the entire universe.

The smell that trailed from the kitchen to the living room was fairly decent, which was a pleasant surprise. He was used to the scent of burnt food whenever Eddie dared to step foot inside to try and cook something. It was honestly impressive, the way Eddie managed to reduce everything he touched to a lump of coal, and still have it be raw on the inside, all while being a firefighter. And a very competent one at that.

It was terribly endearing. And a little dangerous. For the integrity of their house and their stomachs. But at least he was pretty.

They ate Eddie’s decent food while Buck chatted away about the theory he was currently reading:

“We are in a bootstrap paradox,” he proclaimed, patiently waiting for Eddie to look confused and ask away, so he could keep on explaining. He got an amused smile instead, which was good enough.

“That happens when an event causes itself as a consequence. In a time loop, the traveler goes back in time to observe an event that they caused in the first place,” he finished with a satisfied smile.

“What did we cause, though? We went to a couple calls and then had lunch and spent time with my kid,” Eddie asked, very validly.

That gave Buck a pause, “Oh. Yeah. No, I don’t get it either.”

Eddie gave him a fond chuckle as a consolation prize for not finding anything good. “Buck, we have so much time on our hands. You’ll find something that makes sense, it’s one of your many talents,” he complimented, and Buck only blushed a little at the praise.

“What about you, Diaz? What are you adding to help the cause?” he teased.

Eddie smiled, “Well, I haven’t found any time loop movies for kids. But Chris has been insisting that he’s old enough now, and he should be allowed to watch ‘cooler’ movies with us. You know, violence and all. Like a big boy,” he recounted, “So I guess I can look for some big-boy time loop movies for us to watch.”

“Yeah! For research!” Buck cheered.

“For research,” Eddie agreed with a grin. Lately he’d been smiling a lot more. He seemed lighter, in a way. Buck didn’t know why, especially given the circumstances, but it was incredibly nice anyway.

———————————————

“Guess what we’re watching today, Chris!” Eddie asked, once they got home once again.

“Oh! Uh… The Mario Bros movie!” an excited Christopher tried, and Buck laughed.

“No, mijo, you said you wanted grown-up movies, did you not?” Eddie asked, knowing perfectly well how to get his son on board with anything. Mostly.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “What is it!”

“Groundhog day, you’ll see, it’s a really cool movie for grown-ups only,” Eddie insisted, and Chris cheered.

As the three of them snuggled together on the couch, with the best kid in the world sitting warm and happy between them, Buck announced a fun fact about the film, “You know, Chris, this movie happens in Pennsylvania, where I’m from!”

Chris looked up at him, “Were you there when they filmed it?” he asked, equally enthusiastic. That kid was always instinctively matching his energy. Hence the Best Friend Forever title, Buck guessed.

“Oh, no, buddy. The story happens in Punxsutawney, which is in Pennsylvania, but the movie was filmed in Illinois,” Buck corrected.

Christopher pouted, momentarily disappointed, before the movie started and the feeling was completely swept off his memory. Buck, who was mirroring his petulant expression, didn’t quite have the same luck, managing to maintain the disappointment for a couple minutes longer.

As soon as he caught sight of Eddie fondly snickering under his breath at the two of them, though, his own pout was done for too. He wished he could snap a picture of the moment without it coming off as really weird and intense. Eddie looked just so comfortable, and so light. He looked like he felt complete, like the sunlight filling their home was coming from him instead of the windows.

Whatever. Buck didn’t even want a picture. In essence, Eddie was the sun, for sure. (Did he even need to explain that bit? Warm, golden, welcoming, made life worth living.) But, in this instance, he was just like the moon. As beautiful as she looked each and every night, a picture just couldn’t capture such grace and elegance fairly.

The same was true for Eddie. A simple photo made with a simple cell phone just wouldn’t even begin to be able to capture the way he positively glowed like a sunbeam through the clouds on a spring afternoon. Instead, he’d imprint the image on his mind, so he could always revisit it by just closing his eyes and coming back to this moment.

After a few long seconds of staring at his friend’s smiling face like a complete and total weirdo, he finally looked back towards the screen, and tried to push his mind to focus on watching Phil Connors relive the same day over and over until he finally learned his lesson and became a better person. That seemed to do the trick.

Chris was thrilled to watch a grown-up movie for all of 20 minutes, but approaching the end of the story, he concluded he was not all that impressed. He was of the opinion that the more explosions and special effects a film had, the more awards it was deserving of.

In compensation for being slightly let down by his father’s taste in cinematography, he demanded a family session of video games. Some would say Christopher was a big fan of bonding time with his dad and his Buck. Others would think he was just a big fan of scraping together as much screen time as he possibly could.

Both would be correct.

“Man, I love that kid,” Buck proclaimed once they tucked Chris in, emphasizing the word ‘love’ with all the strength of his affection. Eddie nodded, looking right at peace, sitting down once again on his couch.

“I know, Buck. And he loves you right back,” Eddie replied with an award-winning smile. Buck did not swoon in silence.

“What’d you think of the movie, then?” he asked, aiming for a quick topic change before something inside him got injured from moving around so much in such a tight and cluttered space.

“Still don’t think the universe is trying to send us a message. And much less that our message would be ‘be better people’,” Eddie confessed, “We already save people for a living, how much better can we get?”

“And you’re the humblest man I know, too,” Buck teased, but silently agreed. He felt generally at peace with his moral compass, and he didn’t feel like he had done anything wrong at all during that first Friday before their first repeat. Had he?

“Shut it, Buckley, or I won’t let you sleep on my bed,” Eddie threatened, with not one bit of truth hiding behind his words. It caught Buck off guard, until he remembered the promise his friend made back yesterday-today at his loft.

“Eddie, man, you totally don’t need to let me sleep on your bed. I was kidding, I don’t mind the couch at all,” he placated as he made his way towards the little closet where they stored the sheets and pillows reserved for him.

Eddie got up and grabbed his elbow, tenderly but firmly, just like his voice on the rare occasion he had to tell Christopher off for something. “Buck. Come on. Don’t make me have to insist, you know I’ll win.”

“You’re a stubborn motherfucker, do you know that?” Buck answered, which only confirmed that yes, Buck did, in fact, know that Eddie would always win. Eddie would always get what he wanted. Buck would always let him. Not only that, but he would also absolutely go to any lengths to procure him whatever his heart desired. Like a loser.

He got the millionth grin of the day in return. It made him just as happy as the first.

As they brushed their teeth in a synchronized rhythm, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Buck thought that, all things considered, being stuck on a time loop really wasn’t as bad as it initially seemed.

Sure, every day that passed, his anxiety about not knowing what was going on or how to fix it only grew. The fact that he wasn’t resting properly obviously hadn’t been magically erased from his body and it made him feel more tired every Friday.

Also, he was sick and tired. Sick of hearing the same things and having the same conversations over and over again (sans Christopher, of course), and tired of not being able to erase the heart wrenching image of Roman holding Simon’s face as he begged, from his memory, because he got a fresh reminder every single time they arrived to their old mansion and it would probably be burned into the inside of his eyelids for the rest of his life.

But Eddie was glowing. Eddie was smiling. Eddie was floating. Eddie was enjoying these days with his son and his best friend. Eddie kept teasing him and listening to him speak. Eddie pushed him to research because he knew he’d enjoy it. Eddie ordered take out when he thought he shouldn’t cook. Eddie let him sleep in his bed.

Eddie Diaz was going to be sleeping on the same bed. Next to him. Probably shirtless (he always ran hot).

The same thoughts danced in circles around his mind while he got inside the covers with Eddie, a careful distance between them.

His smiling, happy, tremendously hot, shirtless best friend was lying next to him in bed, looking at him with the word ‘love’ written all over his eyes. How could anyone say life was anything other than wonderful?

“Try to go to sleep soon, Buck. I know exhaustion must be catching up to you, too,” Eddie demanded as he got inside the covers.

“Yeah,” Buck agreed, and left it at that. His mind was blank and he couldn’t think of anything worth saying. Eddie must have considered he looked too uncomfortable, because he reached out with a soothing, warm hand and gently placed it on his wrist.

“Buck, relax for me, okay?” his friend asked, and Buck took a deep breath because, again, he could never deny Eddie anything. “Have a good night, tomorrow some people will need saving and some movies will need watching!”

Buck nodded, closing his eyes and whispering, “You have a good night too, Eds.”

“See you tomorrow at 3 a.m.”

And if he felt Eddie’s fingers slide from his wrist to his palm, if he let his own fingertips make contact with them, if he went to sleep holding Eddie’s hand with touch light as a whisper? Well, then what of it?

———————————————

He wasn’t even going to question the sunlight comment. It gets to a point, you know?

Chapter Text

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

This was getting kind of really boring.

Eddie looked just as bored as him. They really needed to find a way to make their work day more interesting, because Buck was sure if he had to repeat yet again the same exact lines one more time, he’d go crazy.

Eddie seemed to have the same train of thought, because 6 minutes later, when they arrived at the scene, he watched as his friend took the ropes and stretcher with him, uncalled for.

Buck smirked knowingly at him, and received an amused wink. At last, things got a little interesting. (He said, as he currently lived through a movie-worthy time phenomenon with his hot best friend). (He had to stop thinking of Eddie as hot. It was not helping).

When they told Bobby the doors were blocked, Eddie took the equipment in hand, and showed it to him just as the orders to go grab it flew out of Bobby’s mouth. When Bobby caught up with what Eddie was doing, his eyes grew larger and his brows closer, surprised and confused in equal measures.

“How did you- doesn’t matter,” he cut himself off, “Buck, go with him.”

“On it, Cap!” Buck agreed through his laughter.

“You’re gonna make the poor man question his sanity all day, Diaz!” he jokingly reprimanded once they were far enough, “He’ll think his old age is already fucking with his memory!”

Eddie laughed brightly back at him. That laugh made everything worth it, always.

———————————————

“You’re cheating! You’re a cheating piece of shit!” Buck exclaimed with the scorching passion of a thousand suns, and Eddie scoffed loudly in return. Buck regretted ever trusting him with something like this. That had been his second mistake.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Eddie responded in retaliation, just as heated as he had sounded, “I have never once cheated, not once in my entire life, Buck.”

“I caught you cheating just last week!”

“That was a one-time thing!”

“Oh my God, you guys,” Chim intervened, calmly, “It doesn’t matter if Eddie was cheating or not, I’m gonna win anyway.”

They were wisely using their free time between calls for a tournament at Mario Kart. Buck was currently losing. By a lot.

It wasn’t his fault, though! He was not to blame for Eddie’s lying and manipulative nature when it came to video games, or for Chimney’s weirdly innate talent at driving a virtual car, but funnily enough, only if they let him choose Peach as his character. That had been his first mistake.

“You can say goodbye to your little pink princess, Chim. I’m never letting you pick her, ever again,” Buck warned him. You could call him a sore loser; it’d be totally fair. He wouldn’t stop being sore.

“Please, I know you’re too attached to Yoshi to ever pick any other character. You’d feel like you were abandoning him, and we all know how well you do with that,” Chim answered calmly.

“Fuck you,” Buck said fighting against the very mature urge of sticking his tongue out at his brother-in-law. He lost the fight. Eddie laughed, though, and dirty cheater or not, his laugh was beautiful, so everything was okay.

Was he getting repetitive, with his thoughts about Eddie’s laugh and Eddie’s smile? Probably. But he smiled so pretty, and just… It was aesthetically pleasant. Everyone liked to see Eddie smile, they must, because he looked just so pretty, objectively. Buck knew he could stare at Eddie all day, no problem at all. He figured everyone else was the same, because Eddie’s otherworldly attractiveness was just a fact of the world. So, it’s totally not weird, then, to think so obsessively about his friend’s mouth. Smile. It wasn’t weird. Buck was just human, that’s all.

A perfectly normal human with perfectly functioning eyes. That was his curse.

Enough with the rambling.

———————————————

Not a word.

———————————————

“You can look now, mijo!” Eddie exclaimed from the passenger seat, as they arrived at their destination of the afternoon.

“A cinema?!” the kid exclaimed, excited as always.

“A car cinema!” Buck completed, just as thrilled, “We stay in the car, and tune the radio to the cinema’s station so we can hear it as well!”

“Like in old movies!” Chris said, and both Buck and Eddie snickered.

“Sí, mi amor. Como los viejos hacían antes,” Eddie answered, and Buck understood at least three quarters of the sentiment. When it was the three of them, occasionally, Eddie would sneak in a little Spanish, just to keep Chris on his toes, Buck supposed. The kid didn’t really speak that much in Spanish, seeing as his whole life in LA was in English. But he did take his shiny skills out on a walk to show off in front of his Abuela.

The movie for this Friday was what looked like a cheesy teen romance. A 17-year-old boy stuck in a time loop meets a 17-year-old girl also stuck in a time loop. They fall in love, but the girl is terribly scared of change and that has her stuck. Emotionally. And physically – in time. It’s only when she embraces change, and loss, and beginnings, that whatever was playing with time allows it to flow freely once again.

Chris seemed happy enough about this movie. It was probably because this one was far more appropriate for his age, easier for him to follow. Or maybe it was the novelty of watching a film inside his car, who could possibly know?

What Buck knew was that Chris was content enough with their day not to ask for video games in compensation. He found joy in spending the evening with his dad and his Buck, having Mexican food for dinner and talking endlessly about hypotheticals that only an 11-year-old could come up with.

Chris fell asleep in the car, on their way back. His face was peaceful, fully relaxed, and yet he still managed to look happy. Buck loved him with every bone of his body. With every drop of his blood and every corner of his brain. Eddie saw Buck and told him to take bed-time duty today, so they must have been telling the truth. His eyes.

A few minutes later, they finally got into bed, together once again. They were curled into each other from a distance. Buck on the left side and Eddie on the right. Their hands were on the pillow, an inch away from one another and Buck wanted to reach out with his pinky finger and trap Eddie’s. Wanted to hold Eddie’s hand. Wanted to hold Eddie.

He wondered if Eddie could tell. If his eyes were telling the truth again.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

“Have you ever watched Groundhog day, Cap?”

Bobby momentarily stopped cutting his onions up so that he could turn his head and look at his sous chef. He was wearing what was his signature expression as of late: confused.

“What?”

“It’s a movie where the main character gets stuck on-” Buck began to explain in his fun-fact-spewing-machine voice, when Bobby interrupted.

“Yes, yes, I’ve watched it, of course I’ve watched it,” his captain placated, resuming his task so that they could actually eat the food before the bell rang. Not that it would ring again that day, anyway, “I’m just confused as to where this is coming from.”

“Promise not to think I’m crazy?” Buck asked, and Eddie snorted from his place at the kitchen table, where he had been reading a magazine, for lack of a more productive thing to do.

“He’s going to think you’re crazy. And he’s going to think it’s contagious, because that’ll make me crazy as well,” Eddie argued. He hadn’t been much on board with his idea of telling Bobby in seek of some paternal advice.

“I won’t think either of you are crazy. Come on, spill.”

Buck and Eddie looked at each other, telepathy coming into play once again.

“So, the craziest things happened to us the other day,” Buck said.

“Not the best way to phrase it, Buck,” Eddie teased.

“One Friday, I went to sleep, and I woke up the next day on the same Friday, all over again,” Buck continued, paying no mind to his friend’s concerns.

“I thought it was a weirdly vivid premonitory dream, because everything was happening exactly the same way as the day before. And then, Cap, I found out the same thing was happening to Eddie!” Buck exclaimed, pausing for dramatic effect.

Bobby was staring at his onion like it was at fault for the career choices he had taken.

“We thought it was, like, extreme levels of uncanny, that we’d both dream the exact same thing, and then watch that thing become a reality, you know? But we let it pass. Except, the next day…”

Eddie intervened, “It became clear our dream hypothesis was wrong.”

Bobby nodded mutely, staring blankly at the poor onion, “Are you… are you two telling me you’re stuck re-doing the same day over and over,” he asked, flatly.

“Yes, you got it, Cap!” Buck answered, as if he hadn’t just knowingly push at the man’s brain until it stopped working.

The silence was kind of deafening. Eddie went back to his magazine and Buck kept stirring some chopped vegetables he had thrown into the pan. He decided to accelerate Bobby’s processing time by keeping q-u-i-e-t (it wasn’t wise to even think it) for probably the first time in his entire life.

“Okay. So, you’re on a time loop. That’s okay. How… how are you two holding up, then?” Bobby asked. He sounded so lost and he looked so confused, but the man was trying his best to be supportive and helpful even in the weirdest of circumstances. Buck felt a pang of pain in his chest, like something with gentle yet sharp claws was pulling at his heart strings.

“We… We’re holding up good, Cap. We just miss talking with you guys.”

One of the hardest parts of what they were living through was that being the only ones living it felt like losing a big part of every person they loved. It was like being stuck with only a small preview of them, like watching a trailer of a movie that would never come out.

Sure, physically, everyone was still here. They could even forget their scripts, like they had decided to do with Bobby. But everything they said, everything they confided and every advice they received would be erased from everyone’s memory, like it never even happened.

Bobby tried to help them in the best way he knew. Making really good food and lending them a listening ear, even if he didn’t actually understand what was going on. Buck tried to forget about the fleeting nature of the entire interaction, in favour of finding comfort in his captain knowing the truth and trying to believe the unbelievable if only to help someone in distress.

———————————————

“Do you believe in the multiverse?” Buck asked, sprawled all over Eddie’s couch.

“What?” Eddie asked from above, since Buck’s head was currently resting on his legs. Like bros do.

“The multiverse,” Buck repeated. He seriously wondered, sometimes, had Eddie ever picked up a phone? Had he ever opened Google? Had he ever been online? On any app? At all?

“No clue.”

He sighed. “Eddie. Get a TikTok account, please. You are atrociously ignorant about modern-day online culture.”

“No. I don’t want to accidentally sell all my information to some spy,” Eddie argued, and Buck only snorted at him.

“And I don’t want to be manipulated by the internet!” he passionately continued his defence, moving his hands around wildly as he emphasized his point, making Buck laugh out loud, “I’m not kidding, Buck! In 2016 people were getting spied on in Facebook! So that they could be manipulated into agreeing with pro Second Amendment bullshit! I’m so serious!”

Buck felt a fondness so enormous he swore it was leaking out of his eyes. So enormous he couldn’t come up with a big enough word to name it.

“A couple of funny videos won’t convert you into a pro-gun bigot, Eds,” Buck replied, looking away so that Eddie wouldn’t be able to just look at his face and read his thoughts in that uncanny way of his.

“Don’t care. I’ll rely on you for my internet education.”

“Sure,” Buck agreed, and that was that.

There was a couple of bits of comfortable silence, before Eddie tapped the top of his head and asked a very valid question, “Are you not going to elaborate on the multiverse thing?”

“Oh right!” Buck exclaimed, and normally, maybe, he would’ve jumped up in the excitement of getting to talk about something he had been reading on. But Eddie’s hand had casually stayed on his hair, absentmindedly stroking and sending ticklish sparks down Buck’s spine. So, he gladly stayed put while he talked.

“There’s a theory that says there are infinite parallel universes out there, right? And every situation you can think of, there’s a parallel universe where that’s the reality. For every decision you have to make, there’s a parallel universe for every possible outcome,” he started explaining slowly.

“So, for example, there’s a universe out there where you, God forbid, moved to Finland instead of LA. There’s also a universe where we met as kids, and a universe where Hen is married to a man, or a universe where you’re actually Superman!”

“To a man?” Eddie asked. Again, very valid.

“I know,” he responded emphatically, “Heterosexual Hen Wilson is out there, Eddie. It won’t let me sleep at night.”

Eddie laughed brightly. Ah, there it is, he thought.

“And how is the multiverse related to our problem?” Eddie questioned, and Buck jumped to continue his monologue.

“Okay, think about it like this: up until our very first Friday, we had been living in Universe A. Then, when we went to sleep, or whatever triggered the time travelling, we somehow jumped to Universe B, which was exactly identical to Universe A until we started making changes during the second Friday. Then we jumped to Universe C, and Universe D, blah, blah, blah…”

Eddie hummed thoughtfully, and he left the caresses to his hair behind in the process. Buck barely had time to feel the disappointment, because his fingers quickly picked up yet another activity, this time it was gently scratching at his scalp, making him shudder.

“Okay. That would explain how we… time travel, I guess,” Eddie stated, “but I still don’t think I get the why. We’re not any closer to the cause.”

Buck sighed, “I know. I’ve read about people travelling to different universes willingly, and I’ve heard about quantum jumping, but we still don’t know why this is happening to us.”

“You’re still doing a very good job at researching, cariño,” Eddie said, and the world stopped.

It was meant to be soothing, and damn if it didn’t have the intended effect. He already felt a thousand times better about his many failed attempts at understanding what was happening to them.

The pet-name, though. The pet-name.

Eddie didn’t seem to have intended to say that word. After it left his mouth, he closed it abruptly, looking like he was regretting ever opening it. His fingers left Buck’s scalp just as suddenly, and for a moment Buck feared the worst.

But Eddie didn’t push his head out of his lap. He didn’t run out of Buck’s loft. He just picked up the remote and turned on the TV, acting as if nothing of importance had just happened.

It wasn’t the first time that word was pronounced around him. He heard Eddie call Christopher cariño numerous times. It meant something like beloved, and Buck thought it was really sweet.

It wasn’t the first time the word was directed at him, either. Tía Pepa and Isabel had both called him that on many occasions. It was a warm and familiar word, and it made him feel warm and, indeed, familiar. At least in those stances.

Hearing it come out of Eddie’s lips didn’t have him feeling anything like that. It made him feel like his heart was on fire. It made him feel claimed, like Eddie had just left his mark, so everyone would know just where he belonged. Even if it was spoken into the cold air of Buck’s empty house.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep his spiralling to a minimum.

It didn’t have to mean anything, the way he reacted to a simple cariño.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

“This one isn’t gonna work, either.”

Eddie huffed, but nodded in agreement. They had been watching the more violent time loop films in the Christopher-free hours before picking him up from school.

So far, the ones where the day gets re-started when the main character dies weren’t exactly helpful.

“I mean, we don’t even know if we’d go back in time if we died during the time loop,” Buck continued complaining. He was taking a little pleasure in it. Eddie wouldn’t stop dismantling his enthusiastic theories (even if it was rightfully so), and in Buck’s mind, that meant he earned the right to be a little difficult about Eddie’s movie choices. Some may say the word bitchy might be more accurate. That was irrelevant.

“And, I mean. I haven’t seen any aliens around. I don’t know about you.”

“I get it, Buck.”

“Or any serial killers wearing baby masks. I haven’t been murdered, ever. Not even once.”

“Buckley,” Eddie warned.

“And funnily enough, I never ran into any glowing cave in Palm Springs. Wait, have you? You should’ve honestly led with that the first time we repeated a Friday, Eddie.”

“Buck!” Eddie exclaimed. He was aiming for an exasperated tone, but the lack of bite in his voice and the grin he was struggling to disguise sold him out.

“What?” Buck asked with an honest-to-God giggle. Eddie’s eyes looked unbearably fond. He found that staring into them was like staring into the sun, too bright for Buck to handle.

“You are an idiot,” Eddie said, pushing at his shoulder from the other side of the couch, “I’m well aware that no movie is going to depict our exact situation, Buckley, that’d be so creepy. We’re just watching for- for ideas!” he exclaimed, getting worked up. His brows were furrowed, he was moving his hands around wildly and his voice went an octave higher. It was so cute.

“Any ideas yet, Eds?” Buck teased and Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Well, I don’t want to kill anyone or blow myself up. And I still don’t think the universe is trying to send us a message so that we somehow better ourselves. So…” he trailed off, making Buck laugh.

“So, nothing,” Buck concluded.

“Yet!” Eddie insisted, turning around and letting himself fall backwards so that he was laying down, his head resting next to Buck’s thighs.

“We’ll keep trying, Eds” Buck whispered, biting back a pet-name of his own.

———————————————

“That is so tall!” Chris exclaimed, dragging out the ‘oh’ in that cute child manner as a way of emphasizing his amazement.

“I know!” Buck exclaimed back, equally as enthusiastic. “That’s the Mamenchisaurus, their necks could be up to fifty feet!”

“Fifty!” Chris yelled and looked back up at the fossil. They were on a little adventure, at the Natural History Museum of LA. Chris had been thrilled at the mere idea of not having to even touch his homework that day, let alone spending all their free time learning about dinosaurs, rare gems, and nature.

“Yes, they’re the dinosaurs with the longest neck!” Buck continued dropping fun facts, thrilled that Chris was just as eager to learn as he was.

“I thought that was the… Brachiosaurus?” Chris asked, stumbling a little through the name and prompting Buck to shake his head and explain.

“No, those are only the better-known dinosaurs with long necks. But theirs only go up to 39 feet, so they fell a little short for that title, I’m afraid!” he explained, and Chris nodded wisely.

“Then this will have to be my new favourite dinosaur,” the kid stated seriously, and Buck fought the smile off his face to match his sudden solemnity.

“It was inevitable. Mine is the Therizinosaurus, but I don’t think there’s a fossil of it here,” he finished explaining sadly.

“Why is it your favourite?” Eddie asked, genuinely curious, and his insides were set on fire. He immediately went on a tangent about it.

“Well, they’re built so weird, kind of like a velociraptor, but they were actually herbivorous. And they had 3 feet long claws and feathers, too!”

“A dinosaur that looks menacing but is actually harmless?” Eddie cleared up.

“Uh huh, that’s exactly it!” Buck confirmed.

“Was it tall, too?” Eddie kept going.

“Uh… I mean, compared to us, yeah. Like 20 feet tall.”

Eddie snorted and shook his head, amused. Buck tilted his, like a confused puppy.

“Buck, that’s you if you were a dinosaur!” Eddie explained with a snicker and Christopher perked up.

“He’s right! You can look big and scary, but you’re actually the best person ever!” their kid piped in and Buck blushed.

“Oh, that’s really sweet of you. I guess your dad is right!” he conceded, “Well, then, Chris, then you’d be the Troodon, because it’s the smartest dinosaur of all!”

Christopher cheered, and happily picked up the dino sighting where they had left off. God, Chris looked so joyful smiling like that, and it’s all Buck could do to not to burst into happy tears. Family time with his two Diaz boys always left him feeling claimed and complete. Like he belonged.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

“Is there a reason why you’re upside down?” asked Eddie, walking into the couch area of the loft at the firehouse.

Buck was currently upside down, indeed. He was lying with his legs up on the back of the couch, his head hanging over the edge.

“Just felt like it,” Buck cleared up, and Eddie seemed to just accept it as typical enough of him to let it pass with no further questioning. When he felt his friend sitting down next to him, he turned his world right-side up again. Not figuratively, he wasn’t being cheesy for once. It was just that his blood was all swiftly travelling to his head and the pressure was beginning to hurt.

“Do you know what closed time-like curves are?” Buck asked, and Eddie tilted his head, something he must have picked up from him.

“Is that another online concept only screen-addicted people understand?” Eddie questioned and Buck shook his head.

“No! I had no clue what those words all together meant, but now I know all about them!”

Eddie gifted him a fond look, “Of course. You may start your surely very long explanation,” he conceded, and Buck readily accepted the invitation.

“You know wormholes yeah? From sci-fi movies,” he waited for confirmation, then kept going, “Well, this is the same. Except that instead of just space, it’s spacetime that has a wormhole on it?” he tried explaining, unsure.

“It’s just a path curved in spacetime, you know? Like the concept of spacetime is curved and travelling through the curve takes you back where it started. And general relativity technically allows it!” he pulled his phone to look at the article again, to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

“Yeah, we gotta forget about the multiverse thing for this one. This only works under the assumption that there’s only one universe,” he continued reading.

“Done,” Eddie agreed.

“Good, then for this to explain us time travelling, we’d have to…” he paused to read out loud, robotically, “exist outside of the time-unwinding mechanism so as not to lose our memories. Oh, it says it’s practically impossible.”

“Fun,” his friend said, deadpan.

“Ugh, I’m never gonna figure this out,” Buck groaned, just about ready to give up. He was starting to doubt the utility of his research anyway. How would any lessons of physics help them get out of a loop that was totally outside their power?

“Buck, don’t get frustrated, you’re doing good. We have a difficult situation in our hands but you’re trying your best to solve it,” Eddie soothed, affectionately exasperated, “So stop whining about it, will you?”

He only grumbled as an answer, before he buried his face on the cushions of the couch.

“Buck…” Eddie warned, to no avail.

A strange urge came upon him and took over his body. Without actually meaning to and not understanding where this wish was coming from, he mumbled, “Maybe I’d feel better about it if you talked to me as nice as last time.”

Having his face hidden away meant Eddie couldn’t see his anxious expression, which was a win, sure. But sadly, it also meant he couldn’t see Eddie’s. He couldn’t tell how the request would go over with him. He couldn’t watch his Eds closely for one of his micro-reactions, those that he could hide from everyone except for him. It had his heart going a little crazy for all the wrong reasons.

A gentle, painfully familiar hand landed on his shoulder, like that’s where it belonged.

“Everything’s going to be alright, cariño. You’re doing great,” Eddie said softly and it smoothed something that had wrinkled inside him, “Gracias a Dios que estoy aquí atrapado contigo, corazón. No sé qué haría sin ti.”

Not enough of those last words were bar-Spanish, so he didn’t really catch the meaning. They made him smile all the same.

———————————————

His Eds?

———————————————

It was currently 3 a.m. and Eddie was giving him a look that meant trouble.

They were on their way to Aiden and Caleb for the million and seventh time, approximately, and Eddie seemed set on the idea of finding new ways to keep them both entertained in the incredibly boring and tedious task of repetition.

When they got out of the truck, Buck finally figured out what his plan for that Friday was.

“Tell Aiden everything will be alright for us while we’re searching for doors, Chim,” Eddie mentioned casually.

Chimney turned to him like he was speaking a foreign language. “What?” he asked.

“I just wanted to tell you to be reassuring. These are teenagers we’re talking about. You know how they get,” Eddie said, casually lying to his face in an Oscars worthy performance. This man was a menace.

“Oh, uh, sure,” Chim agreed, seemingly doubting his own ears.

“And be quick with Caleb once we get him up to our floor. Kid took a big hit to his head.”

Chim turned around again, but as they walked through the doors, he seemed to decide Eddie’s nonsense wasn’t worth the explanation.

Buck watched everything from the sidelines, biting his lower lip to keep from laughing out loud. When Eddie looked back at him and saw his struggle, his eyes gleamed. He looked so goddamn proud of himself. It was insanely cute.

The moment introductions were made, and the rest of the team learned the kids’ names and story, Chimney’s eyes looked about ready to pop out of their sockets. He turned dramatically slowly towards Eddie, his mouth hanging open, when Bobby demanded he hurry the hell up.

Buck was pretty sure he didn`t close his mouth for the entirety of their stay in the abandoned building. Back in the truck, he looked at Eddie like he just discovered he had been co-existing with an alien.

“How… how did you do that?” he got the courage to ask.

“Do what?” Eddie asked innocently, and Buck could only laugh quietly into his palm.

Later, as 10:23 a.m. approached, Eddie kept sending him the same look over and over again. God save him, it was not helping him at all.

“Poor Willow,” Eddie commented as they jumped out of the truck, low enough only Buck and Chim could listen.

“Who’s Willow?” Chim asked, and Eddie only rolled his eyes before adding:

“I hope Michelle gets here soon.”

“Who’s Michelle?!”

Next, of course, they listened to Athena’s explanation once again, before sitting through Hen’s clinical questioning and Jocelyn’s warm words about her daughter and her love life.

He saw Chim turn towards them, as he always did, and just when he opened his mouth to make his usual guess, Buck opened his, too.

“I think it’s probably Capgras Syndrome, she knows these people look like her family but believes they have been replaced by imposters” they said at the same time.

Chim closed his mouth and looked startled. Buck continued quoting the scene.

“Do you think these strangers look like your family, Willow? Or are they different?” Hen said, while Buck whispered the same words at the same time.

“No, they’re different. Complete strangers,” Buck quoted Willow, too. Low enough that only his brother-in-law would hear. And his brother-in-law looked frozen.

Buck pointed at the door and whispered, “Now, Mimi,” right before said door opened and the pale girl showed up.

“Mimi!” Willow exclaimed, and as the sweet scene unfolded, Chim looked about ready to faint. Eddie gripped Buck’s arm so hard he would probably leave a bruise in a valiant effort not to laugh in front of patients. He kind of wished the bruise wouldn’t fade by the next morning. He could probably use the reminder that he made Eddie want to laugh that hard.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

Buck sat on the warm sand and watched as his two favourite boys in the entire world made their way as quickly as they could towards the ocean.

The sun was burning bright, but never brighter than Christopher’s smile. His feet were hit by the cold water and the kid didn’t even flinch. He just excitedly walked into it, followed closely by his father.

Even years later, Buck still had trouble with the beach. Even sitting at a distance to make sure the water couldn’t touch him, his heart was still pounding so hard that its beat drowned the summery sound of waves and laughter.

Time passed quickly as he tried to reign his worries under control, taking deep breaths and paying close attention to his surroundings. Soon enough, his boys were walking back out of the water. Chris stayed closer to the shore, so that he could play with the wet sand.

Meanwhile, a shirtless, drenched Eddie was making his way towards him, and sitting down right beside him, probably closer than strictly necessary. Buck suddenly forgot all about his worries only to focus on not giggling like a flustered teenage girl.

“You doing okay, cariño?” Eddie asked, and oh, now he was more than okay. Eddie was getting so comfortable with the pet-names, and Buck could feel himself going a little insane about it.

“I’m okay. Just amazed at your kid,” he replied, bumping their shoulders together.

Eddie smiled, broadly and proudly, and Buck agreed. “I know. I have no idea who he gets it from,” Eddie said.

“The resilience? I can think of a person or two. The members of the Diaz family are nothing if not stubborn,” Buck joked. He still meant every word. Their stubbornness was charming to say the least.

“The bravery,” Eddie corrected, eyes on his son.

“You’re plenty brave, Eds. The bravest man I’ve ever known,” Buck argued as he let their shoulders stay in touch, offering an anchor.

“The bravest man you’ve ever known shouldn’t be someone whose first reaction to adversity is running away,” he said bitterly.

“Eddie. Stop being so cruel to yourself,” he demanded, “You came back to him, and you stayed. It was so hard, so many times, and you stayed for all of it.”

Eddie was silent for a long moment, looking at the horizon before turning his warm, brown eyes to him.

“You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known,” he told Buck.

“I ran, too. For so many years.”

“Not away, though. You were always running towards something. And you found it,” Eddie smiled.

“I made it, Eds.”

Eddie nodded, and pressed their sides together before saying.

“He gets it from you. The bravery.”

———————————————

There was a cute, blond boy sleeping on his chest. He felt so light, with the weight of Christopher on him.

“You realize every movie is gonna tell us the universe is trying to send us a message’” he asked, and Eddie groaned from his end of the couch.

“Maybe we gotta figure something out. There ought to be something we’re doing wrong. We just have to make it right!” Buck theorized.

“In this movie she got out by learning to help others. That’s our whole job! We help every day! What more could the universe possibly want from us?!” Eddie exclaimed, looking about ready to tear his hair out.

“Okay, maybe it’s not that,” Buck said soothingly. He moved his right hand to gently cup Christopher’s ear, so that he wouldn’t wake up to his father’s desperately dramatic cries for understanding.

“Rob got out by admitting the significance someone had in his life. Maybe we need to be more truthful,” he tried, not really buying into any of it anymore. What girl would he even need to be truthful about?

Eddie just snorted into his hands and lowered his voice to make sure Chris really wouldn’t wake up to him saying his next words.

“Are you talking about the guy who had to lose his virginity over and over ‘cause he kept doing it wrong?”

“Well, you don’t need to focus on that part of the movie, Edmundo!” Buck reprimanded with a soft laugh.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

“Did you grab the wine?” Buck asked.

“Yes, Buck, I’m not completely useless.”

“I never said you were! Just forgetful, at times!” Buck defended as he knocked on Hen and Karen’s door.

The couple opened the door, and cheered with their own bottle in hand. They had agreed to meet up for wine night, something apparently Eddie had been doing for a while without his knowledge. Even his sister was in on it. And Athena. He felt slightly left out, but decided not to intrude in on their little secret meetings. Instead, he made one of his own!

And he included Eddie. Because he was co-dependent like that.

“So! What’s going on with you, guys? Any news you wanna share?” Karen asked after they had been talking for a while.

Two glasses in, Buck managed to notice when Hen gently yet pointedly elbowed her wife, but he just couldn’t come up with a plausible reason why.

(However, he didn’t catch the way Eddie’s eyes widened and he subtly shook his head in warning.)

“Actually, I have a question for you, Karen,” Buck intervened, and Karen looked at him curiously.

“Oh? About what?”

“Well, you’re a literal rocket scientist,” he started.

“Yeah?” Karen asked.

“And that means you know physics better than anyone,” he continued.

“I don’t know about anyone, but…”

“Yes, she does!” Hen filled in, proud of her wife. Karen smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“So how would you go about explaining time loops?” Buck finally got to the point.

Karen tilted her head, “Time loops?” And little did she know, she just gave him an opening to go into one of his many rambles.

“Yeah! It’s just that I’ve been reading about it, and I can’t figure it out! The last article I read was about some crazy theory about needing to somehow go through every single particle in the universe except for the people stuck on the time loop, and point their momenta in the opposite direction. And then everything moves backwards until it reaches the correct point and then, you pause everything and flip the momenta again so everything moves forwards again.”

Hen and Karen looked at him with stunned faces. Eddie just smiled fondly.

“Which, you know, sounds absolutely crazy to me, but the universe can work any way it wants, I guess. It’s just that then it said that that was only following classical physics, and the world goes by quantum mechanics? And those have random outcomes and particles aren’t well defined like that, so…”

“Uh…” Karen blinked, “Well, you’re… right about that last part. The way our universe works is explained by quantum mechanics. Okay, let me think…” she said, before finishing her glass in one big gulp.

Eddie snickered softly and said, “He has that effect on people.”

Hen and Karen both grinned in agreement, before they all turned to Karen for guidance.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I know for sure, and then I’ll tell you a theory, okay? Because there isn’t actually anything on time travel as of now, we’re not that evolved,” Karen cleared up.

“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” Buck said, leaning in to listen attentively.

“Well, what we know for sure is real, is the wavefunction of the universe, that evolves according to the Schrödinger equation,”

“The cat guy!” Buck interrupted, getting a laugh out the three of them.

“Yes, the cat guy. So, when a quantum measurement which could have, let’s say 3 outcomes, occurs, that means the universe splits into 3 branches, that are parallel copies of itself, yeah? And there’s no way for the branches to interact or for anyone or anything to travel from one to another.”

“Aw,” he whined, disappointed.

“And here’s where my theorizing begins, I fear. I guess that time travelling would mean travelling to a time before the branching, so you’d need some superior intelligence to unwind that wavefunction and all the branches, making sure it stays consistent, so that time can move forwards again. And I guess a time loop would mean that superior intelligence doing that over and over again?”

“Some superior intelligence, like, the universe?” Buck asked, engaged.

“Uh…” Karen hesitated, a bit lost.

“He’s talking about the universe as a sentient, all-powerful thing. Like the universe is God,” Eddie quickly cleared up.

“Oh! Well, sure!” Karen agreed.

They kind of fell into a companiable silence while they refilled their glasses, probably for the last time for the night. Curiosity seemed to win over Hen, because as soon as she put the bottle down, a question flew out of her mouth.

“Why have you been researching that, Buck?”

“Because we’re stuck on a time loop,” Eddie answered casually.

Their friends stared in silence. Buck was pretty sure if he had been the one to say it, they would’ve doubted him immediately. But Eddie had this sort of authority that made an absolutely insane thing to say sound mostly serious. Maybe it stemmed from his skepticism about everything slightly supernatural, like an innate belief he wouldn’t make up something like this. Which Buck totally would do, to mess with his friends. So, he supposed fair was fair.

“Both of you,” Hen stated.

“Yep,” Eddie confirmed, though it wasn`t really a question.

“For… how long?” Karen asked, sounding like she was questioning her own question.

“Oh, no clue,” Eddie answered.

“Like… 46 Fridays, easily,” Buck responded.

“Are you counting?” Eddie turned towards him, surprised.

“I was, but I lost count. Days have started to kind of bleed together.”

“Ugh, I know. I have no idea if it’s been a month or 6 years by now,” Eddie complained.

“Aw, time really flies by when you’re with me, doesn’t it?” Buck teased, hitting his shoulder with a jokingly flirty hand.

“Guys,” Hen interrupted, “Are you serious?”

“Deadly.”

———————————————

Buck took off his shirt, as he usually did at the very end of Fridays, and got into his side of the bed. He was so used to sharing with Eddie by now, that he didn’t even get nervous anymore.

They both kept to their own spaces, almost never touching anywhere at all, which should be considered an early goddamn Christmas miracle, because Buck was what you could call an octopus. Every person he had ever shared a bed with had woken up with an armful of Evan Buckley. At night, fully asleep, he tended to search unconsciously for the heat source and cling to it like a life line.

It never mattered who the person was to him: partners, friends, Maddie… doesn’t matter. You name them, Buck has probably cuddled them.

Not Eddie, though. With Eddie, there seemed to be this solid, unplottable wall that he wouldn’t cross uninvited, even in dreams. He knew to keep to his side and so he did.

The object of his thoughts made the mattress shift as he got into the opposite side of their bed. He sighed, contentedly and closed his eyes. He had seemed happier, lately. Smiling more, Buck thought he moved as if he felt lighter.

They hadn’t come around to actually… talking about it, though. Not past their theories and attempts at understanding what was going on. Buck actually had no idea what was going on in Eddie’s mind.

“How have you been?” he dared ask. He was well aware of Eddie’s natural distaste for speaking of his emotions, but, well. This was probably worth the risk.

“What?” Eddie asked, snickering, “Buck, we’ve been together all the time for God only knows how many days in a row. You know how I’ve been.”

“I can read you like a magazine, Diaz, but I can’t actually read your mind.” He took a breath and rolled around, to properly look at him. “So, would you tell me? I feel like you’re smiling so much more.”

Eddie stayed silent for a few moments, and he almost fell into the pit of self-consciousness, forgetting all about his place in Eddie’s life and not believing himself worthy of asking, or some shit like that. Instead, Eddie spoke.

“Maybe I am smiling more,” Eddie said in a whisper.

“Is there a reason for it?” Buck whispered back. Then Eddie looked into his eyes.

“You?” Eddie asked. Buck could not believe it. He was trying to have a serious conversation, and the man chose that moment to take his sassy voice out for a walk. He spoke like the reason of his newfound happiness was obvious.

“What do you mean, me? I’m nothing new.”

Eddie shook his head in disappointment. He went as far as to roll his eyes. “I know you’re not new in my life. But… we’re together all the time now. You make me happy, Buck.”

He could feel his eyes itching to get glassy at the recognition.

“I make you happy?”

“You know you do.”

“Yeah, but…” Buck trailed off. He hooked his hands together and focused on them, not wanting to disclose just how vulnerable he suddenly felt. Stupid of him. Eddie could read him like a magazine, too. He didn’t need to see Buck’s eyes to understand.

The mattress shifted again, and he felt Eddie’s skin on his own, warm and soft like it had always been. It wasn’t sudden. His friend moved towards him slowly, as if he was trying not to startle a stray animal. He took him carefully into his arms and pushed his head to rest against his bare chest.

Buck could feel his body relaxing, whether his mind agreed with it or not. Eddie’s fingers in his hair gave him goosebumps, and he tried to hide his shudder.

“You must know, by now. How important you are to me.”

Buck took a deep breath. “I know, I know.”

“Do you?” Eddie inquired.

“Yeah, I mean. We’re best friends. You trust me so much with Christopher. I know we always have each other’s backs.”

“It’s not just about trusting you, Buck. You’re not only a safe place for me and my son. You… you make me happy, just by being you. Just by being here with me. You make me laugh and you laugh at everything I say, too. You listen to me and you tell me so much interesting shit, I just…”

Eddie brought him a little closer to his chest. He used the slightest pressure. It was almost imperceptible. Buck wanted to crawl inside of him.

“We’re in a really weird situation. I should be freaking out. In fact, the weirdest part about all this is the fact that I’m not freaking out at all. But the fact that I’m here with you makes everything so damn much easier.”

“So, yeah. You make me feel like we’re gonna be okay in the end. And we’re spending a lot more time together. So, I’m happier. So, I’m smiling a lot more. Is that what you wanted to know, cariño?”

Buck nodded into his chest and refused to let go. He had crossed Eddie’s walls. With an invitation. There was no getting rid of him now.

“You make me real happy, too, Eds. I’ve been smiling so much more, lately, too. ‘Cause of you.”

“Thank God, all that cheesy speech would have been ridiculous otherwise,” Eddie deadpanned.

Buck laughed wetly, and none of them mentioned the tears staining Eddie’s chest.

“I would have had to flee the country. It would have been inconvenient.”

“Shut up, you idiot.”

They fell asleep that way. Pressed close together and smiling.

———————————————

He wanted to crawl inside of his chest. By the way. His chest, only.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

Buck was fucking flying. Don’t bother asking why, you know why. He was in such a good mood, he couldn’t even remember last time life was so colourful.

Ugh, everything was great. He loved his friends, he loved his kid, he loved his job, he loved his Eddie. He made Eddie happy. Him! He felt giddy.

He didn’t even mind having to repeat their rescues all over again. He reassured poor Aiden and watched as he held Caleb’s hand as they walked away. Then, he got in a few hours of good sleep that left him feeling rested and awake by the time he woke up.

He and Eddie worked in tandem in both of their chores, like they always did. They chatted idly about everything and nothing, both wearing unfaltering grins and sparky eyes.

They both got chatty with Jocelyn about her girls and shed some light over what was a very stressful morning for their family. Buck recited his usual lines about prosopagnosia and love and lesbians, and he earned his usual future wedding invitation.

It wasn’t until he sat on the truck on their way to their last emergency that his smile began to fade. He wasn’t anxious anymore, he knew what was coming, he had grown used to it.

Roman didn’t have that privilege. Simon even less so.

Neither of them had the advantage of knowing what was coming, or the knowledge to stop it. They were stuck, living each the worst and the last days of their lives, over and over, and over. And here he was, happy.

Buck entered the room and watched as Roman held Simon’s face in his hands, his touch careful and gentle even in the midst of his life-altering desperation. They both deserved so much better. Deserved to have a good Friday, followed by a good Saturday. They didn’t deserve to be stuck on this fatidic day.

Buck didn’t deserve to be so unbothered by this loop, while others were suffering more than ever, day and day again. He had once again been acting selfishly, like he was always accused of.

He guessed only so many people can call you out on something before you have to assume they may be right.

He watched from the sidelines, this time not filled with anxiety, but ridden with guilt. He listened to Bobby’s concerns and advice once again, for the first time in many weeks.

He felt Eddie’s eyes on him until the end of the day, and unlike the rest of the crew who could probably guess he felt like this over the gunshot victim and his own memories, Eddie knew that that couldn’t be it. He could feel his friend’s confusion rolling off in waves, and Buck couldn’t carry the weight of making someone else miserable, so he left everything aside just to bring him comfort.

As their work day came to an end, he was the one to approach Eddie, who seemed relieved when he read in his face that he wanted to talk things over.

“You don’t need to worry so much for me, Eds. I’m okay, it’s just that I was very happy this morning, and it hit me hard that while I’m okay, those two are stuck reliving the worst day of their lives,” he explained.

Eddie remained silent for a few moments, probably unsure of how to be helpful. Little did he know.

Finally, his friend moved to envelop him in a tight embrace. “I get that, Buck. We’ll figure it out, we’ll figure out a way to end this thing and they won’t be stuck suffering anymore. But in the meantime, you don’t have to be miserable about it, corazón. None of it is your fault.”

Buck took a deep breath and nodded. Normally, just a hug from Eddie would have all the tension bleeding out of his body like some sort of magical cure. Normally, his words would have eased his worry and his guilt.

He couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Couldn’t be so graceful with himself when he didn’t deserve it. He wouldn’t let this go again.

———————————————

Buck was looking at the TV, but his mind was far away from it, back at the Grey’s mansion.

The weight of Christopher’s head resting against his arm wasn’t enough to anchor him to this house. The feeling of Eddie’s familiar hand on his shoulder wasn’t enough to rid him of his guilt. Not that day. Not that Friday.

They had a movie on, but Buck wouldn’t be able to mention a single thing that had happened to the protagonist. His mind was on Simon. Who knows how many people were waiting on him? How many people were expecting to see him again? How many people would fall to their knees at the worst news they had ever received?

When they got out of this loop (if), what would Roman do? Would he be able to handle the overwhelming grief that would follow him around like a haunting spirit?

Did Simon have a loving mother? A proud father? Did he have any concerned siblings waiting to hear from him? Did he have an 11-year-old son that depended on him for a living? Friends that would miss laughing with him? Did he have a Buck? Was Roman his Buck?

The credits rolled and his mind was heavy with loss and guilt and what-if’s.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

He was getting ready. He was mentally preparing himself. I can do it, he chanted in his mind, I can totally do this.

Buck was no stranger to this. They have lost more people that he can count on the job. Sometimes they’re just too late. Sometimes there’s just no way. And he was used to talking to the family of the victims, he knew how to treat the shock, how to try and soothe the worst pain of all. It was never enough, it would never be enough. But it was something. It was a start.

Buck was planning on talking to Roman today. Try and comfort the man as best as he could, while simultaneously getting all the information he could about the situation that landed them there. What were they even fighting about?

As soon as his eyes caught sight of the gate of the mansion he knew so well by now, his stomach twisted until it was all tied in knots.

He knew what was coming. He was prepared. He was the expert here, on how to deal with this situation. Everyone else, except for Eddie, of course, was horrifyingly new. I can do it.

They walked into the scene. There was nothing they could do. Bobby called whoever was necessary. He looked at Eddie, who was ready to march up to Roman and have their usual talk, one Buck was never present for.

This time, Buck caught Eddie’s wrist. “Let me?” he asked, and Eddie seemed to understand. He seemed to remember that Buck had felt guilty, guilty about forgetting how miserable this people were every day. He nodded and let him do it alone.

And so, he walked towards Roman, helped him sit down, and laid a firmly comforting hand on his shoulder.

“What’s your name?” he asked softly, an echo of that first Friday. He asked like he didn’t already know, like this man’s name hadn’t plagued his thoughts like a virus.

The poor man looked at him with tear-filled eyes, and let out a weak whisper of “Roman.”

“Hi, Roman. Can you tell me what happened?” he nodded.

“Bella killed my Simon,” the man stated, and his eyes grew distant once again. Buck wished he could travel to wherever Roman went just then. He wished he could understand better.

He wanted to ask him again about Simon, let him talk about the love of his life, listen to the devastating tragedy of waiting for too long and having too little time left as a result. He’d ask, another Friday. This Friday was for gathering information.

“Bella? Who’s Bella, Roman?” he asked instead, and the man seemed too out of it to question why he’d need to know that, given that he decidedly wasn’t a cop.

“Bella, Bella Lockwood, but she used to be Bella Grey. She’s Simon’s cousin,” he explained.

“His cousin? Why would she…?” Buck trailed off, unsure of how to broach the problem. Roman understood either way, of course he did.

“She’s crazy. She’s always been crazy, I think. It’s no wonder, this family…” Roman paused, “This family drives everyone insane. My poor Simon was spared because he had the courage to leave, but they’re filthy rich, deeply disordered, fascist motherfuckers, you know the type.” He sounded so angry, rightfully so.

“I do know the type. Simon wasn’t like that, then?” he inquired, gave him an open to talk about his love.

“God, no. Simon has always been kind. And a rebel at heart. He left when he turned sixteen and never once looked back. He didn’t miss his parents one bit. His only regret was leaving his little brother behind, but none of us could ever convince Reggie to leave. He was a stubborn son of a bitch.”

The man had a mouth on him, that’s for sure.

“We came back here because… Because Bella had something of Reggie’s. He died when he was 19, and Bella told us she found a diary of his. Taunted Simon with it, claimed she was going to burn it.”

“Oh, she is crazy,” Buck agreed. It seemed to be the right thing to say.

“Yeah. And Simon is wonderful, but he’s incredibly impulsive and short-sighted.” Buck knew Roman was complaining, but he still sounded so unbearably endeared. The present tense stung, it hurt like a fucking bitch. Buck would have to make sure Roman could use it again.

He’d make sure Roman could talk about his Simon in present tense without being wrong about it.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

Jesus fucking Christ, these guys were weird. Like, weird weird, in the way filthy rich, deeply disordered, fascist families often were, he supposed.

Eddie was sleeping on his bed, and Buck had decided to do one of the things he did best. Go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about his worries.

He had found a lot on them, and he wasn’t sure whether or not to be surprised. There was a family tree of the Grey family, and it went up to eight recorded generations. Some of the family units were inbred. Literally. It was a mess.

And what he found on them, gosh. He didn’t even know where all that wealth came from. They were old money, who married into old money, and had 3 kids each, who all married into old money, too. Over and over and over until today.

And from interviews with the contemporary members of that family, he could tell these guys were all kinds of… intolerant. Roman wasn’t joking when he called them fascist, let’s leave it at that.

He supposed not all of them were that bad, some didn’t even appear in all the family trees he found. Like Simon.

He also found information on Reggie. Reginald Grey, a mouthful of a name for someone that would never get to grow into it. He was barely 19 when he died. He drowned in some cave in England, doing God knows what. He was so young, Buck couldn’t imagine the pain of losing someone you love so early. Although, he guessed it was always too early. It certainly was for Roman. It would be for him, if he lost Eddie.

Bella Lockwood was another matter entirely. She had been institutionalized before. She had attacked other people before, she had homicidal tendencies and had been forced into mandated therapy about it. But you don’t really have to do anything remotely unpleasant for you, if you’re rich. Law doesn’t apply to the wealthy. To the powerful enough. She was out in 7 days.

She had never killed anyone, not before that day. Only going by what he could find on the internet, though. Because money doesn’t just buy you freedom, it buys you silence as well. It lets you keep your secrets, no matter how dark.

Buck wouldn’t let her get away with it.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

Buck knew a lot of things. He knew he was being distant. He knew he was acting different. He knew he was worrying everyone. He knew, most of all, he was worrying Eddie. The man had tried for multiple days to talk to him about it. He dragged him home, tried to interrogate him. When that didn’t work, he tried to soften him up. With hugs, with beers, with pet-names, with Chris.

Nothing worked. Buck was ridden with guilt and determination, and telling Eddie about it would just worry him sick. More than silence would.

He tried to let him know none of it was his fault. That Eddie hadn’t done anything wrong, that Buck would be okay.

He knew it wasn’t working.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

He had a plan. It was reckless. One could call it impulsive, if it wasn’t premeditated. It would work. Everyone would be okay.

Bella was crazy, but she didn’t seem strong. She had been into drugs, some of them had names he had never even heard of. Drug addicts were never all that strong, and he was. He could handle Bella just fine, gun or not.

Sure, a bullet was stronger than him, but he had the element of surprise on his side. Bella didn’t.

His plan would work. It had to. He knew it would.

———————————————

Buck opened his eyes, and he was up before he could even process what he needed to be doing. The bell was ringing, warning his team of a call they needed to get ready for.

———————————————

Aiden was just as nervous that Friday as he was any of the other Fridays. Of course. Buck tried his very best to be calm, and present, and reassuring. He told the kid all about intentions and goodness, and the connection between knowing someone and loving them. The equality of love and attention.

It worked; Aiden changed his perspective. He counted this call as a win. The boys left holding hands, and Buck was sure they would both be alright, and even more bonded than before.

He didn’t sleep, back at the firehouse. He didn’t blink an eye. He kept going over his plan, obsessively, over and over and over and over like everything in his life. Over and over and over and over.

He’d like to go see Willow, chat with Jocelyn, earn his usual wedding invitation. But he couldn’t, not this Friday. He trusted Eddie to know Buck’s usual lines. He’d be able to attend as a plus one, surely.

At 7 in the morning, he walked up to Bobby and told him he was feeling sick. He was nauseous and his head felt like it couldn’t decide whether to implode or explode. Bobby, unused to this, gave him the whole day, and the next shift off, just to be sure. Buck wasn’t sure he’d get to the next shift, wasn’t sure if any of this would change the time loop. But he could use a free Monday. (He could use a Monday).

7 a.m. was early, he didn’t need all that time. He only wanted to get out of the firehouse that early to make sure Eddie wasn’t awake for it. To make sure he wouldn’t be followed.

By 10.am. he was sitting on his car near the mansion. He was waiting on Simon and Roman, figured if coming to the house had been an impulsive decision, everything would have happened fairly fast.

He had been waiting for nearly an hour when they showed up. It was the first time he had seen Simon alive. He looked lively, indeed. And angry, he could see the rage bursting out of his skin.

He couldn’t very well just walk in after them, because at this point of the day, neither of them was aware of who he was. He wouldn’t be able to stop them, either. Roman had mentioned Simon being impulsive, and he was the picture of anger in the moment, with good reason. That wouldn’t work. So that left him a third option.

Wait until things got heated, then interrupt in time.

He got out of the car, once the two were inside the house. He walked up to the door and paid close attention. He knew for a fact, the room where the murder took place was close to the entrance, so he was betting on being able to listen in on some kind of yelling and loud voices.

And he was right, because at 10:54 a.m. he heard a rich, masculine voice shouting about ‘having no right to his brother’s belongings’. Then, the most bone-chilling yelling reached his ears. Bella Lockwood sure had a disturbing voice.

Before he could talk himself down from it, he called. He rang the bell, he banged violently on the door, he claimed to be the police.

When the door opened up, he saw the light. Simon was standing there, Roman close on his back, and they looked so relieved to see him, you’d think they remembered all their previous days too. They both ran out of the house, complaining about the crazy cousin and how her dramatics put everyone in danger.

Then, there Bella was. Her hair was dark and wild, the exact same as her eyes. Something about her was off-putting, in the subtlest of ways. Having her feral eyes trained on him had him feeling like he was taking a peaceful midnight stroll through the forest, when he suddenly felt like something was observing him from the dark. You know, when you can’t put your finger on it, but your instincts kick in, anyway. And you feel like you should’ve started running away about 3 hours ago.

Ah, how charming. Bella had had time of taking out her gun. It was hanging loosely on her hand, like it was a little toy and not the fine line between life and death.

“You called the cops?” she inquired, over his shoulder. She was looking at her cousin now, and Buck was relieved.

“No, they just must have heard your yelling from space, you rotten old witch!” Simon hollered

“Let’s all calm down,” Buck tried, gesturing for Simon and Roman to back up, and keeping his eyes on Bella like the feral animal she was.

Simon complained, “She has something of mine!” and Buck nearly rolled his eyes.

“She also has a gun, so let’s be careful.”

Roman seemed to be the more level-headed out of the two of them, pulling at Simon’s arm, and trying to get them to safety. This was working, his plan was working. Soon, the three would get out of here, out of danger’s way, and everything would be fine.

He’d save a man’s life and get to come back to his home, with his Eddie and his Chris. To watch a stupid movie with his two favourite boys laying next to him and keeping him warm.

Except Bella was holding the gun firmly, now. And she was raising it, and pointing it at Simon without a care in the world. All his attention was pulled into her eyes. They didn’t have her previous predatory look. She looked cold and in control of her thoughts and her actions.

She was ready to pull the trigger when Buck jumped. He landed on the floor, but he didn’t feel the impact. Just a burning pain, born in the middle of his chest and expanding all throughout his body. It brought him back to the very first time Eddie called him cariño, when his chest was set on fire.

Nonsensically, he thought he was glad to be going through this. That a bullet had gone through him. This way, he could finally understand Eddie a little more. More than most people in their lives. More than he used to.

Oh, Eddie. God, Eddie. Buck’s bleeding heart had one last wish, and it was only to see those warm, brown eyes once more before it stopped beating.

But Eddie wasn’t there, and Buck was cold, and lonely. A tear escaped his eye before the world went black.