Hell is a lonely apartment in New York
Buck always had an active mind. He thought ten steps ahead of his friends and family from day one and caused utter chaos from the moment he could walk. Maybe that was why he eventually joined the New York Fire Department after his travels. He thought it was a good way to ground his unique set of chaotic tendencies. What better place for a fast paced, active mind to work than the scene of a fire? One where if you weren't fast paced, you would burn. Fire had never bothered Buck anyway. Fire had always seemed like an old friend rather than an enemy. The flames that licked at his turnout gear seemed to caress him while it taunted the others. While the inferno wanted to cause pain and havoc on his teammates, it had only wanted to protect him since he was young. He had never suffered a burn or felt the sting that followed the intense heat of a house fire circling around him. So, calling himself a firefighter had seemed like the perfect fit.
Buck couldn’t remember the last time his body took so long to analyse his surroundings and put the pieces together since he joined the department, but waking up in his own bed, alone, certainly gave his brain a little bit of a delay.
Buck lay there for a good ten minutes feeling utterly lost. Utterly and completely lost. There was no blaze. There were no signs of dancing demons ready to start the well deserved punitive suffering. No. Unless the demons of hell had gotten very imaginative in their torture, he was definitely at home. Why was he at home? Wasn’t he just escaping from a twisted, sadistic comic book villain? A secluded concrete compound specially designed to keep them locked away in servitude despite their ‘unnatural talents’. A place where his life was completely turned on its head when he realised Avilions were still alive. Now he was lying in his bed on the top floor of his loft staring at the black wooden beams that blended into the black ceiling wondering what was going on. He was lying on his bog standard Ikea bed staring at his ceiling? The one he had bought in a rush after his first bed needed to be disposed of. For reasons. Thank God for the expensive memory foam mattress that padded the steel framed flat pack monstrosity. Yes, this was his bed, he was sure of it, but how?
He turned his head from one side of the room to the other. To his right was his bedside table. He knew it was the right one because he’d made it himself out of his old travel cases. He had a matching one on the other side but with a few noticeable differences that helped make them beautifully unique. He didn’t need them for travelling anymore but they had served him well. He couldn’t bear to throw them away, and they didn’t deserve to be hidden by his barely ironed henleys and threadbare jeans in the back of the wardrobe. Eddie called him a hoarder. He called it resourceful. Plus, he knew they looked cool and he loved being able to see the stickers and travel tags still stuck to them. Reminding him of all his amazing adventures.
Looking to the left found him staring over the edge of the raised platform his bedroom resided on and into his beloved black kitchen, the living room resting just below the platform. His cherished marble counter took centre stage, framed by the exposed brick that Buck ran his hand along as he made his way down the steel stairway. It was rough and it had texture, did that mean this was real? He had always found a sense of peace in his apartment. The mixture of the rough elements of stone and brick with the more lavish furnishing and natural elements of the added plants dotted across the whole apartment, had always made Buck feel grounded and balanced.
He spun in place the second his feet brushed the hard wood floors downstairs and everything looked normal. But how could it? Everything looked the same but also didn’t at the same time. Glancing around the nooks and crannies of his apartment, Buck realised his apartment was missing pieces of his life. The important things. The silly domestic things. It was missing the penguin shaped vase Christopher had painted for him on an adventure to a pottery painting class they had attended 3 months before the compound. It was supposed to be resting on the windowsill with the other pots and vases, full of plants and flowers Buck had carefully cultivated over the last few years after his plant research phase.
It was also missing his new favourite guitar the firehouse had clubbed together to get him for his last Christmas with them. Damn it. He loved that guitar. He breathed a sigh of relief as he glanced in the corner and realised his prized piano was still sitting exactly where he had put her the second he had moved in. She was the first thing he had moved in before a single box or his bed. The first bed.
His apartment was missing the medal of valour above the fireplace - the one presented to him after the dispatch centre fire. Eddie had made a big deal out of it, and at the time Buck thought his insistence was annoying. He had long ago decided that boasting about his achievements was futile. It wasn’t like he had anyone that cared about the things he had achieved anyways. He tried to tell Eddie that it didn’t matter, only for Eddie to boast for him; shower him with love and attention and awe. Eddie soothed his doubts and his self depreciation, explaining that he deserved the good things he received in his life and he was allowed to have pride in himself. So Eddie had insisted on the medal being displayed where everyone could see it - pride of place on the mantle.
Eddie had been that person for him since the beginning. Well before they even started dating, Eddie was the one person who was right there beside him without needing to be asked. With his dark brown hair and shining brown eyes, the Latino was Buck’s lifeline. Whenever Buck couldn’t name the feelings pulling him under, Eds would lead him home to watch cartoons with his son as the therapy he never knew he needed. Chris, as impossible as it should have been, was able to fix the cracks in Buck’s heart with just a smile. Chris was the sweetest six year old you could ever meet and had grabbed onto Buck’s heart and claimed it as his own within moments of first meeting each other. He was the image of his father in a smaller package, with the same gorgeous eyes Buck loved and huge dimples that beamed at him with so much love. Both Diaz boys had the same caring quality with the glint of mischief that spoke of the fun and love they brought with them. Eddie and Chris were his life. The life he never knew he needed or wanted until he was taken from them.
It was that thought that made Buck realise the problem with his apartment. This was home, but it was home without heart and family. It was home before he actually thought of it as a home.
When Buck caught sight of the TV an idea came to him. He rushed to turn it on and stabbed the buttons until it showed the news channel. The little bar in the corner held the answer to this mystery and Buck couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The date. This wasn’t possible. The day was right. So was the month. The year, though, was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. He flicked through channel after channel to double check and triple check that there wasn’t an error. They all said the same. September 30th 2019. Oh Fuck. What did Ron do?
Buck rushed to the bathroom and stared for far too long at his reflection staring in shock right back at him. He was clean. There was no grime or sweat or blood covering his face and body. His hair was back to the golden blonde curls that had been shaved off as soon as he had entered the compound. Several pieces were falling into his eyes like they usually did after a long shift, finally enjoying the release from the messy bun they were put in while on calls. His full, carefully styled beard was back sitting across his jaw, a couple of shades darker than his head, and Buck could feel the softness of the beard oil he used to use as he ran his fingers across the clean cut lines that sculpted the beard along his jaw. This couldn’t be real.
Glancing down, he saw the strong toned physique he had spent years perfecting when he joined the academy; muscles he thought were lost to the malnourishment of the past two years. He met his own eyes in the mirror and finally saw the two contrasting eye colours staring back at him. Both blue but one with a corner pocket of a mix of amber and orange that he had since birth. Heterochromia Iridum the doctors called it. The last link to the Avilion world. The thing that fucked me over in the end.
He used to hate those eyes. He hated how different they made him, the attention they brought, and the bullying they had caused. How people called him a freak, the ‘Avilion with no powers’. Right now, though, those mismatched eyes were the only thing he could count on to always be his constant, and he allowed their presence to calm his budding panic attack. What once was a cause of indelible torment was now a permanent reminder that he wasn’t alone. With all of his siblings having the same genetic condition, with the truth finally coming out, Buck no longer feared standing out. He belonged.
Oh God, his siblings!
The panic started again. Where were they? Did they survive too?