Chapter Text
“Chris, for the last time, turn off the game and come help put away the dishes. Now. ” Buck’s tone is snappish as he sets a plate down with maybe a bit more force than was necessary, the ceramic clacking loudly against the granite countertop. The exhaustion from his shift the day before and the ever-present dark cloud hovering over the Diaz house is wearing his patience thin, try as he might to stop it from doing so. It also doesn’t help that he has been fighting to stay pleasant against a teenager’s stormy attitude for the past… however many days. Buck has lost count. Everything since Eddie went missing has been an awful blur.
It’s been 3 weeks since Eddie was swept away during a particularly dangerous call - violent storms caused flash floods, and an unlucky kayaker found themselves lost downstream. After the first few days went by with no signs of him, Eddie was declared officially missing. Buck, per Eddie’s will, had been forced into a position as Christopher’s legal guardian. This arrangement, hopefully, will only last until Eddie somehow manages to make a reappearance.
IF he makes a reappearance. Buck’s stomach twists violently at the unwanted thought of Eddie lying dead somewhere in the woods, his body twisted and broken among fallen branches and other flood-swept debris. He swallows back bile. Not a good time, Buckley. Not now. Eddie’s gonna be okay, he’s just missing. Missing, not dead. Eddie can’t be dead.
There’s only so much lying to himself that he can do, no matter how much he wants to admit it.
Buck gives a short sigh and tosses the dish towel onto the counter, making his way down the hall to Christopher’s room. He knocks briefly on the mostly-closed door before pushing it open and leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
As much as he hates being the ‘bad cop’, Buck is essentially the only parent Chris has at the moment, and he’s trying his damnedest to do what Eddie would’ve done if he were here. If that means risking the wrath of an angry teen, so be it.
“Chris, I’ve asked you three times to come help put away the dishes. Turn the game off, you’re done for the night.”
Chris doesn’t remove his headphones. He only spares a brief glance out of the corner of his eye to Buck as he pointedly continues playing his game, ignoring the man standing in the doorway.
Sure, Buck knows that being a parent to a teenager already wasn't going to be easy, but to be ignored when he asked politely multiple times for Chris to come help with the dishes? He doesn’t understand how Eddie does it.
Did it, his brain supplies, extraordinarily unhelpfully.
“Christopher.”
With a huff, Chris pulls off his headset and all but slams it down onto his desk before turning sideways in his desk chair to face Buck. “What?”
Buck raises an eyebrow. “I asked you three times to help with the dishes. You’re done with the games for the night.” He puts out a hand for the controller, wiggling his fingers slightly.
“Why? You could’ve done the dishes and put them away yourself.”
Buck takes a deep breath, holding it for a couple of seconds before releasing it with a tense sigh. “It’s been a really fucking long day, Chris. I’m not gonna ask again. Controller, please.”
That, unfortunately, brings the emotions bubbling under the razor-thin surface to an overzealous boil. With a wrath not unlike his father when he loses his temper, Chris explodes. The controller flies past Buck’s head, leaving a dent in the drywall before landing on the floor, a couple of the buttons knocked loose and clattering across the hardwood.
“You’re not my real dad, so stop acting like you are! He’s gone, and you’re standing there acting like you have the right to boss me around. You don’t! You’re not my dad!” His voice is shrill, shaking with anger.
“Chris-” Buck tries.
Christopher cuts him off. “I wish you disappeared instead of Dad. He’d still be here and we’d be happy!”
Buck reels back as if he’s been slapped, mouth working like a fish out of water.
The second the words fall from Christopher’s lips, his eyes go wide and he looks like he wishes he could take them back, but the damage is done.
“Buck-”
Buck steps back, a slightly hysterical giggle bubbling up and out of his lips. I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe? Why am I laughing? This isn’t funny. Is this what it feels like when people laugh at funerals? This feels wrong.
It feels simultaneously like someone’s grabbed hold of his heart and is crushing it in their fist like a cheap stress toy, and like an elephant is crushing his ribs, compressing his lungs and keeping him from taking a full breath. Somewhere in his hindbrain, Buck is aware that he’s probably overreacting to Chris’s rage-fueled outburst, the bone-deep exhaustion and threadbare grip on his sanity catching up to him. Right now though, the majority of his consciousness is concerned with getting out of Christopher’s room before bursting into tears. Chris doesn’t need to see him break down for a second time. Buck can feel the moisture gathering in his eyes as he stands there giggling like some sort of madman.
“Need a minute-” He throws the words out all in one breath, stepping backward again. His skin itches, like it’s too small for his body. He suddenly feels wrong, like he’s stumbled into some twisted, alternate version of his life. It wouldn’t be the first time Buck’s found himself inside some messed up dream world, but he can’t recall sustaining any more life-threatening injuries after the lightning strike. He’s not sure he’d be able to remember, anyway. His brain feels like it’s short-circuiting and he’s on the verge of tears.
Buck turns and all but runs down the hallway, blinking aggressively to clear the tears clouding his vision and spilling down his cheeks. This has to be another nightmare, except it’s not. He did his checklist. He’s awake. Buck’s awake, and he’s living in a fucking nightmare without Eddie and Chris hates him for being the one that got to stay. He remembers how Chris had asked him, in that awful coma dream, to help him find his dad. The guilt of walking away from that version of Chris still eats away at Buck if he lingers too long on the thought. He hadn’t been the one to be left behind that time, but he knows the sting that comes from it.
The unsteady giggling gives way to gasps and hiccups, then to full-blown ugly crying as he bursts into Eddie’s (empty, devoid of life, cold) room. No one’s been in it since he disappeared, evidenced by the fact that the sheets on his bed are still out of place from the last time he slept in it. Buck couldn’t quite bring himself to disturb them and put them back the way Eddie preferred. He’s been sleeping on the couch for the past three weeks, and it’s not exactly doing his back any favors, but he can’t bring himself to sleep in Eddie’s bed. Not like this. Not if Eddie’s not in it with him, wrapped safely in his arms.
He closes the door behind himself, pressing his back to the wood and sliding down until he lands on the floor, legs curled in front of himself and his head resting on his knees as he shakes with the force of his sobs.
He’s gone, Eddie’s gone. He’s gone and he isn’t coming back. What am I gonna do? I can’t raise Chris on my own. I can’t be his dad. I can’t replace him.
“God dammit, Eddie!” Buck slams a hand down on the floor, glaring at the ceiling, the shadows cast by the lamp warped by his tear-blurry eyes. “You fucking left me, you asshole! You left Chris to me in your stupid will and I’ve already failed him. I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I can’t be who you need me to be for him.”
He leans back down, pressing his forehead to his knees and whispering, his voice breaking.
“I need you, Eddie. I can’t do this on my own. Please, come home.”
Buck closes his eyes, his shoulders trembling with silent sobs. He has to keep it together for Chris, even if he’s pissed at him for trying to be a father figure.
Still, who is he kidding? Buck was never meant to be a father to anyone. He isn’t even a good partner, whether kids factor into the equation or not. Not good enough for Abby to stay, not good enough for Ali to stay. Definitely not good enough for Taylor to stay, even if she was his longest-standing relationship. He wasn't good enough for her to keep her word, for her to trust him, for her to think about anything more than herself and her career.
That’s what he does: he fails miserably and makes people walk away, taking whatever little pieces of him that they want, and leaving him riddled with raw, bleeding holes in his heart that feel like they’re never going to heal.
He gives and he gives and he gives, and it’s never enough. Buck carefully carves out pieces of his heart and soul to give them, preserved carefully in glass and wrapped up pretty with a bow, and every time the glass is smashed at his feet, leaving crystalline shards that cut him and make him bleed all over their shoes. Every time, they left him in his own bloody mess. Eventually, that mess becomes too big to clean up properly. Eventually, he bleeds too much, and he’s all alone.
Too much, too much, too much. Buck is too much. Too tall, too loud, too emotional. Ali left after the truck bombing crushed his leg, the possibility of more catastrophic work-related injuries proving to be too much for her to handle. Taylor had fixed him with one of her looks once, eyebrow arching and lip curling as she made a snide comment about how enthusiastically he was talking about whale sharks and their habitats. He hadn’t spoken another word about aquatic creatures for an entire week after that. She left eventually, too. Buck was too much for her to want to stay.
Despite being too much, somehow, he is always not enough. Not enough to keep Abby from leaving him at the airport. Not enough to make her want to come home. Not enough to even get a text message saying they were over. She just vanished, leaving Buck in an empty apartment to pick up the pieces of himself and hope whoever came along next would treat him gently enough to reassemble his broken parts.
That's all he is, right? Parts, and defective ones at that. He was only born to save a brother he never knew he had, and he failed miserably at it. Daniel died because Buck wasn't good enough. He’d never be good enough. Not for his parents’ love, not for his sister to stay, not even for his parents to pay any sort of attention to him if he wasn't broken or bleeding. Buck was just a cluster of broken, defective parts, rattling around and fighting for any scrap of affection he could get, always reminded of exactly just how difficult it was to love him.
Then Eddie came along, and suddenly Buck knew what it was like to be loved like it was as easy as breathing, even if it wasn't in the same way he loved Eddie. He had long since resigned himself to that unequal exchange, the feeling of loving so intensely, but not being loved back as much or in the same way. With Eddie, though, it never felt that way. Eddie never made him feel like too much, even through the lengthiest of Wikipedia deep dives, and constantly reassured him that he was enough ( “Because, Evan-“) when the voices in his head got too loud. He trusted Buck implicitly, and that was something the younger man never wanted to lose. To have Eddie hand him his heart in this way, to place Buck as Christopher’s legal guardian in the event of his untimely death or demise, was a life-altering revelation that Buck had tried not to look at too closely until now.
Now, though, with his tear-stained and blotchy cheeks, Buck realizes just what Eddie was saying to him over the years.
“There’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.” Christopher loves you. I trust you. I know you’ll be there for him if I ever can’t be.
“You act like you’re expendable, but you’re not.” I love you. If you die, a part of me dies too. Please see yourself the way I see you.
I love you. Christopher loves you. You’re a part of our family. We want you.
I love you.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
The weight on Buck’s chest lightens, and he takes a long, shuddery breath and closes his eyes.
I love you too, and I’m sorry it took me too long to realize that.