if my emotional processing IS making a digital archive of our relationship.
gemini mars. it’s my box of memories. just put it in the attic of my mind. fond feelings only whenever I choose to look through it.
If that’s the final score why the hell am i expecting misery.
pointing fingers at myself for choosing not to wallow.
already been through the rapture.
now what’s left is the other side.
I CHOSE grace. I decided to decay.
not burn. let the process be, if maybe for the first time.
and that’s good. it’s gotta be good. it’s just the whiplash. the learning how to walk a new body, feeling almost like a new soul. unborn all new again. let’s start over. take the detours. follow the gut you’ve tried your whole (hollow?) life to ignore.
if it still hasn’t worked so far, why not try to do it over. change the choices. just do it again, your way. why did you ever doubt it?
My 911 Summer/Hiatus/Pride project, the Buck's big Bi road trip fic, starts posting today. I'm pretending 8B didn't happen (because it took me a while to write this) and I'm aiming for 12 chapters and weekly upates. Fic is on ao3 and I'll make a masterpost for updated chapters next week. For now:
Prologue: El Paso
Buck had offered his jeep to help Eddie transport his stuff to El Paso in one go. Well, he called it offering, Eddie might have called it insisting. But it did make more sense than to take the trip multiple times or hire a moving company. And Eddie was moving states, so maybe, just maybe Buck wanted to delay the moment where he had to really say goodbye to his best friend as long as possible. El Paso had been within reach, when he had still had a boyfriend who could have flown him there by helicopter in a few hours, but, well. He didn’t anymore now, did he? Besides, he hadn’t seen Chris in person in nearly six months. Why would he miss the chance to visit him?
Eddie had already left a few days earlier, so he could celebrate Thanksgiving with his family, while Buck had stayed behind to celebrate with his. So he left the day after with a truckload of small furniture and boxes full of books and kitchen stuff. He realised he felt a little lighter with every mile he left Los Angeles further behind, remembering the freedom of the open road.
Seeing Chris again was a balm on Buck’s soul he hadn’t known he needed. He had known the boy almost half the kid’s life and those six months had been the longest they had ever gone without seeing each other face to face. With everything else going on he had barely realised how much he had missed him or how good it felt to hear that Chris had missed him, too.
He was still living with his grand parents and didn’t immediately move in with Eddie, but he had agreed to a sleep over for one of the nights that Buck was staying. Eddie was glowing with happiness, even if Chris ignored him most of the time. But with Buck there as a buffer the evening progressed a lot better than any of them had probably expected. Eventually Chris and Eddie even got so caught up in a videogame it almost felt like nothing had changed at all. Buck tried to burn the image of them whooping and yelling on the sofa into his mind. Then he left them to it, and slipped out into the yard, slightly bigger than the one Eddie had had in LA, to give them some time together while they weren’t fighting.
He sat down on the porch looking up at the night sky. It wasn’t as bright as the constant glow of LA, but they were still in a city with plenty of light pollution, so stargazing was barely possible. Buck tried to find at least Orion anyway.
"Are you okay?"
Buck turned and saw Chris standing on the door.
"Shouldn’t you be in bed?" he asked back.
"It’s Saturday, Buck," Chris told him as he made his way over and plopped down next to him.
"You’re not okay," he observed after a moment.
"Not really," Buck admitted. "I kinda don’t want to go back home."
"Is it because Dad and I moved here?" Chris asked.
"A little. But it’s kind of everything. You guys are here now, Bobby and Athena are busy building their new home, Chim and Maddie are busy preparing for the new baby, Hen and Karen need some time as a family after everything they went through with Mara and Denny. Everyone is kind of busy with their own stuff and I... I just bake. It would be different if I still had Tommy, but ..." He took a deep breath. "Home feels a little lonely right now, is all."
"You could stay here," Chris suggested.
Buck chuckled. "And do what? You’ll be in school, with your new friends. And your Dad’s gonna start a new job here. Am I supposed to sit at home waiting for you guys all day?"
Chris rolled his eyes but chuckled, too. "I mean, you could bake for us," he suggested innocently.
Buck chuckled. "I could do that," he agreed.
"Maybe you need to go away for a bit, too" Chris suggested more seriously after a moment. "Like I needed to go away."
"I thought you didn’t want to be around your dad when you left?" Buck asked. It was probably the most direct they had addressed the whole fallout of what Eddie had done ever since Buck had gotten that call in the early morning. He wasn’t sure it was the right thing to say, but the words had tumbled out before he could stop them.
"I mean, yeah, sure. But I also couldn’t be in the house anymore. After seeing... her... it didn’t feel safe anymore. Not like a home should be, you know? Not like a place were you can go when everything gets too much. After- after, being there was too much," Chris confessed. And Buck knew what he meant. Home was supposed to be a refuge, but after everything that had happened, home, his home, felt like a constant reminder of everything he had lost or would never have. He had memories of three break ups in the loft, and the birth of a baby that was his but wasn’t. The things everyone in his life had, except for him. He didn’t begrudge anyone their family or their partner, but it just meant there was no one there for Buck, and when their family needed them they would always leave him, just like Eddie had, because it was the right thing to do.
And so every time he went back there, all he noticed was how empty it was. Maybe Chris was right, maybe he needed to be the one who went away for a bit.
"Where would I go?" he asked quietly.
Chris shrugged. "Anywhere you want. You’re an adult, you don’t have to go life with your grandparents to get away."
That at least got a laugh out of Buck. "Well, that would be difficult, seeing as I don’t have any grandparents," he pointed out.
Chris nudged his shoulder. "You know what I mean. You can just go, anywhere, do anything."
"I guess that’s true," Buck had to admit.
The idea didn’t leave him alone that night. He knew for certain that he didn’t want to do what he had done the last time he had left his home and gone on the road. He didn’t want to bounce around, from job to job, sleeping in his car when he didn’t have one. For one thing he was too old for that, but he also didn’t want to give up his job. If there was one thing he was still absolutely certain about despite everything, it was that he was a fire fighter and he never wanted that to change. So he didn’t want to quit his job and go looking for a new one somewhere else. That was not what this was about. It wasn’t about figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. But maybe he needed to figure out how he wanted to live it.
"I think that might be a good idea, actually," Bobby said, when Buck called him the next morning and told him about his thoughts. "You’ve been through a lot of new experiences and changes in the last couple of months. Taking some time away from everything to process could be a good thing."
"I just don’t want you to think I’m leaving you hanging. I know with Eddie gone we’re already a man down and..."
"Buck, take as much time as you need," Bobby said reassuringly. "We will deal with that. You have nearly three months of PTO left, that’s before next year’s amount gets added. If you need more, call me again, and we can work out the paperwork for you to take a sabbatical. Just let me know what you need and we’ll figure something out, okay? And never worry, as long as I or Hen are Captain, there will always be a place for you to come back to at the 118."
"Thanks Bobby," Buck swallowed heavily. "Well, I have to be back in time for the baby, right? So it won’t be that long."
"That’s in June, Buck," Bobby chuckled.
Eddie seemed more surprised to learn that Buck didn’t plan to immediately return to LA, but after he had processed that new information he nodded.
"Honestly, sounds like a great idea," he echoed Bobby’s sentiment. "Get out of the rut a little."
"You don’t think it’s impulsive and selfish?" Buck asked sceptically.
Eddie shrugged. "I mean, sure, it’s you after all, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s not like you got someone waiting for you at home."
"Yeah," Buck muttered. Rub it in why don’t you, he thought.
"Hey, I just mean, you can afford to be a bit selfish and you’re not hurting anyone," Eddie said. "Have you thought of where you’ll go?"
Buck shrugged. "Wherever the road leads?"
Eddie shook his head exasperated. "And there’s the impulsive part coming in," he commented. "At least aim for the next stop. Like, you could go to Austin. At least you know some people there. I know," he admitted, "I know, we haven’t really stayed in contact with the guys from the wild fire, but I still sometimes talk to Marwani. I could let her know you’re coming her way."
"You sometimes still talk to Firefox?" Buck asked still as baffled as he had been the first time he had heard Eddie talk about Marjan Marwani.
Eddie shrugged. "Yeah. Mostly just commenting under her Insta posts, but she usually replies."
