Tagged by the incredible @pimento-playing-hopscotch and @anewkindofme
Look who finally as words to share!!! I'm making no promises, but I'm pretty sure the next chapter of A Little Comfort will be out this weekend ☺
“So Buck never told you about the last time somebody used that word?” Hen asked when Eddie expressed his sincerest doubt about jinxes.
“The gods took it out of contest!” Buck pouted petulantly, making a face as Hen dived in to tell the story.
“That’s rough, buddy,” Eddie said, patting his shoulder and suppressing his laugh at the story of Buck and the dishwasher.
“It was out of context!” Buck protested.
Bobby turned and smiled down at him fondly, chuckling at his memory of a sudsy, bubbly Buck. He might not strictly believe in jinxes – at least, that’s what he would tell everybody – but he did have a feeling that they were going to be in for a long day, no matter how many scenes they were called out to.
Their first call was one for the books – a man having duct taped himself to a bulletin board, the publicity stunt causing a car crash. After that one, it seemed that maybe the universe was calming down and not going to take Ravi’s utterance of the Q-word into account. Everything seemed like it was going to calm down until nearly the second Bobby pulled the baked mac and cheese from the oven. Chimney poised to cut in to it, Buck running over expressing his apologies and then right then, the alarm went off. And just like that, the universe had decided that they did need to be punished because for the next several hours, the calls came one after another, the macaroni was burnt to high heavens, and ordering in wasn’t even an option because no one would have a chance to eat anyway.
At the end of the call rescuing a little boy from a washing machine, Buck felt his tummy turn a little and he put his hand over it, trying to quiet it down. He’d never gotten a chance to eat and now his stomach was letting him know that he needed food, but there was no time because he hadn’t even been let off the rig before they were pulling back out. At least, if they were on a call, his mind would be preoccupied with helping. They headed into the party supply store talking about Eddie having seen Ana Flores, Christopher’s teacher, and just as soon as that conversation started, it ended as they took in the turned over helium tanks on a man fully dressed as a clown.
“Interesting,” Buck said, looking at the scene.
“Help me move some of these tanks to relieve the pressure,” Bobby said.
Buck started to giggle, turning to Eddie who was doing the same. The helium was not turned off and, as a result, Bobby was sounding like Mickey Mouse.
“Come on!” Bobby said again.
Even more giggles came from the two of them, their eyes squinty from laughing so hard even as they moved to start helping.
“It’s your voice!” Buck said.
“Buck!” Hen said. “Be a professional!”
Hen chiming in her own two-cents did nothing to make either of them stop laughing and, instead, they both doubled over to help get the helium tanks off the man. Afterward, Buck kept giggling as he followed Bobby back to the fire engine.
“You sounded like Mickey Mouse,” Buck giggled. “Can we get a helium tank for at home?”
“It’s not good to breathe in that much helium,” Bobby said, his voice back to normal.
“But you sounded like Mickey,” Buck pouted. “Please?”
Bobby shook his head fondly and cupped the back of his head before directing him onto the engine and going to get the front. They weren’t thirty seconds down the road before they were rerouting from station to another call which, according to Eddie, was nice and simple and proof that they weren’t cursed.
