The missing siblings that time forgot

Buck tried to keep himself together as the team rode back to the firehouse. He tried to keep his panicked breaths and shaking hands from the attention of his teammates. From the attention of Eddie. He sighed in relief when they were finally back at the house and, looking at the time, just in time for the end of their shift. He usually showered at the firehouse before leaving for home and got changed into his civilian clothes. He usually shouted goodbye to the team. Today he just wanted to run. Run as fast as he could home and lock the doors until he knew he was completely alone and break down in the silence of his apartment. Another point for the lonely of New York right? 

Buck shrugged off his turn out gear, ran and grabbed his work bag from the locker room, and ran. As the panic began to swell, he didn’t even hear the shouts of confusion from the team as they saw their youngest member race away with a shout of “See you next shift.” He didn’t even realise until he got home that he had also left his car at the station. Choosing to run the 40 blocks back to his apartment. To be far it wasn’t far for him and he had run to and from work before, but it must have been odd to the others that he had chosen to leave his car behind. But he wasn’t thinking about being right and wrong, looking normal, he was just thinking about how Donnie had found him and what he was going to do when he got a hold of Buck again. 

Buck’s head reeled as he passed block after block. Snapshots of the compound, of Donnie, came one after another. Again and again until Buck wanted to do nothing more than to scream. The visions of Donnie’s menacing smirk as he pressed the button of the shock collar over and over when Buck failed another one of his training tests. Donnie telling him how no one cared for him, how no one was even looking for him. A tear ran down Buck’s face every time Donnie reminded him of the irreparable damage with his family. Buck shivered as he ran as he thought of the proud smile Donnie held as Buck set person after person on fire during their ‘display sessions’ for the sponsors to prove just how much of a weapon Buck could be. How he proved his worth. That was what their kind had been reverted to now, weapons. Donnie had treated Buck like his personal project. His pet. There was a time in his life when Donnie was in complete control of every move Buck made. Was responsible for every shock and every bruise that littered Buck’s body. Every soldier had a favourite sibling, had a favourite toy, but none were as possessive as Donnie was over Buck. Donnie was everything, and that was what was most terrifying. There was a time when Donnie was two things to Buck, his salvation and his doom. But mostly his doom. 

As Buck ran faster and faster, nearly knocking over several passers by in his haste to get home, he could feel the cold metal against his neck of the shock collar he had worn all day, everyday at the compound. The collar that had controlled all of them. Made them stay. The collars had depleted their powers so they couldn’t use them to stand up for themselves, while also being used to punish them when they misbehaved. When they answered back or refused to do as they were told. Breathing too loud was misbehaving to some of the soldiers. He could feel himself getting out of breath a couple blocks away from his apartment as he began to hyperventilate in his panic, but all he could focus on was the bubbling feeling of his powers coming up to the surface. He was losing it. Losing control. But he was too much in the flashback to do anything about it. Visions of TK’s sliced up back as he refused to perform clouded his mind instead. Visions of Connor’s bruised face. Cameron covering his ears to block out the world around him. Visions of Gabriel slowly breaking bit by bit until it was hard to link the boy that came in, to the boy that escaped with them. Buck could feel the heat increasing, but he was too gone to care. He didn’t even notice he was in his apartment until another tear finally hit the kitchen counter, followed by the inferno that took hold,circling his hands that gripped onto the counter desperate to ground himself to something. Anything. His head felt like it was floating into a fiery abyss as haunting images of the compound flashed across his vision and the fire grew and grew.

Imogen screaming, begging for the soldiers to stop as they forced her to look into darker and darker futures. Followed by the screams of Imogen’s testers as she forced them to look at even worse scenarios she was forced to create and project into their minds.

This was torture. Physical true torture. Buck sank to his knees as he slid down to the floor, his hands still grasped to the side of the counter tightly. Taking a deep breath, he counted to ten to try and calm himself down. The fire beneath his hands growing and growing as if someone had poured a bottle of gasoline along the counter top. 

TK running over to Buck’s bedside after another display for the sponsors, as he sobbed remembering the charred remains of  the ‘volunteers.’ His whispered words of ‘it’s not your fault,’ and ‘we’ll go home soon.’

He took deep breaths again and again trying to get rid of the sick feeling that had settled in his stomach and trying to find anything else to focus on but the noises around him. But it didn’t work. The smoke just grew thicker and thicker around him. The heat increasing and increasing until a vibrant inferno of orange, red and black circled him in a chaotic frenzy of destruction and despair. 

The ever confident and collected Ron being forced to his knees and submit as the electrical current rocketed through his whole body after another bout of misguided power. 

 He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t catch a breath. It hurt. The pain. It wouldn’t stop. 

Elijah's back, covered in whip marks and bruises. 

It would never stop.

Skyla’s bloodied hands.

They were never getting out of here. They were going to be stuck in the compound until they died one by one. Donnie would make sure Buck was the last one left. He knew it. He just wanted it all to stop. 

*knock knock*

“Bucky” *knock* “ Bucky *knock* “ Bucky?”

Buck froze. The turbulent mix of fire and smoke seemed to drop from the sky in an instant. Like they were held up with a string that was suddenly cut, leaving the flame in Buck’s hands and their destruction in their wake. 

Was that Chris? Chris couldn’t be here. He couldn’t be near him like this. It wasn’t safe. 

“Buck,” Chris giggled as he knocked again. 

Buck opened his eyes in panic, ready to rush and save Chris from the soldiers. When he opened his eyes though, he was surprised to find he wasn’t in the compound. He was in his apartment. In his Kitchen? Holding the counter which was on fire. He took a breath and began to calm down. Wait…

 HIS KITCHEN WAS ON FIRE ! 

Buck raced for the extinguisher that he kept under the sink. 

“Erm just a second buddy,” Buck hastily shouted over his shoulder as he raced back to the kitchen counter. “Just sorting a technical glitch.” 

Technical glitch? God you have got to get fucking better at lying Buck! 

“Ev you ok?” came Eddies voice behind the door. “Why can I smell smoke? And why can I hear the sound of your extinguisher? What's going on?” 

Buck could hear the hasty jingle of keys as Eddie tried to find the spare on his key ring. Damn it. He knew giving him a key was going to come back to bite him. 

As the last few flickers puttered out on the counter, the door swung open revealing a shocked Eddie looking over Buck’s kitchen. Buck could see Chris hidden just behind his father, his face a perfect mirror image of the older Diaz, neither imagining movie night would start this way. 

“So … How are you?” Buck asked with an awkward chuckle as he gave one last squeeze of the extinguisher handle when he noticed an extra lone flame hovering just on the brim of the counters edge. 

“Bucky your kitchen is all foamy,” Chris giggled as he ran towards Buck.Buck barely managed to drop the extinguisher before Chris leaped into his arms. 

“Yeah I’m going for a new look, what do you think bud?”

“It’s silly.”

“Silly, I’ll show you silly,”Buck smiled as he began to tickle Chris’s sides. Buck could feel the memories he was trapped in just melt away as he heard the little boys giggle. God he loved this kid. Chris was one of the people he had missed the most when he was trapped.  He had the most infectious laugh you ever heard. If only he could bottle Chris and carry him around forever. Maybe then he would be able to stay intact. Just for a little while.

“Ev what the hell happened?” Eddie exclaimed as he slowly walked closer to the kitchen counter, the door still wide open behind him. 

“I … I … I dropped a match … I was going  to light a candle and I dropped it and the counter just went up. I guess whatever it is made out of is more flammable than I thought,” Buck nervously laughed as he tried to come up with an excuse. Telling Eddie ‘Hey Eddie, I set my own countertop on fire because my abuser suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I panicked’ Yeah that sounded normal. 

“You dropped a match?” Eddie looked at him with exasperation, a raised eyebrow daring Buck to lie. “ Really?” 

“Yeah … it was stupid I know, clumsy me right?” Buck said as he placed Chris back on the floor and walked towards the cupboard to get a couple of cleaning supplies to start getting rid of all the foam. Chris immediately raced towards the TV ready to set it up for movie night, completely oblivious to the tension in the room. 

“You ok Ev? You ran out of the station pretty fast. And now this? What's going on?” Eddie asked as he began to help scrape the foam off the counter into the bucket Buck had handed him, glancing at the scorch marks for a moment but thankfully staying silent. Buck knew he was using the casual tone to pretend like he wasn’t worrying about him. Eddie used that tone to convince a lot of people he wasn’t worried about anything. Buck knew better. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry. The call. It made me think about my friend. About his life before. I was distracted and just ran home. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.” Buck said, partly telling the truth. He was worried about Peter and the call did make him think about the time before the compound for him. How shit Peter must have felt at that point in his life.But he was more upset about seeing Donnie. 

“Hey, it’s ok Buck,” Eddie said softly as he bent down next to Buck who was trying to scrape the foam from the floor into the second bucket next to him. Luckily believing the anguished look on Buck’s face was worrying about Peter, instead of the person he was really worried about.“Peter is in a better place now. You said it yourself . He gets to be who he always should have been. It’s all ok.” 

Buck wished he could believe him, but until he saw Peter face to face, he couldn’t pretend to believe he was all ok. For now though, he just needed to get his kitchen clean and get on with movie night and try and pretend that was all that was bothering him. He couldn’t let Eddie know about Donnie. Couldn’t let him know about his powers. He was still hoping he’d never find out about the investigation, the fire on his kitchen counter hit a little too close to home on that subject. What if what Eddie had seen when he arrived at his apartment made him think worse of Buck if the investigators ever questioned him again? What if he brought it up and it made Buck sound more guilty? He hoped Chris had picked a good movie to calm his nerves. 

Once the kitchen was finally clean and the snacks carefully set out by Chris while waiting for them to finish, they sat down to watch the latest disney plus release. It was another made up fantasy starring an Avilion that was hiding their powers from the world.  Chris had always been in love and obsessed with Avilions, like most kids were. As the disney castle flashed on the tv screen, Buck thoughts drifted to the investigation. The counter fire making it difficult to try and forget. 

He remembers the day the investigators knocked on his door and stood in the very room he was sitting in now. Asking all sorts of questions about previous calls he had been on and what he remembered. He remembered feeling so confused and lost on why they were there, panicking if he said the wrong thing and anxious to call Eddie to make him feel better.  He remembered the initial fear that they have discovered his secret and they were going to force him away from his life to ‘protect him.’

Then he remembered the looks of his team a couple of days later when he walked into the firehouse after 48 hours at home. They had been visited too. They had ‘connected the dots’ between the same questions they had been asked and the investigators added questioning about their relationships with him. He had been put on permanent man behind duty by the department during the investigation, and his relationships with the team declined rapidly. A couple of weeks later he had been in handcuffs with the word arson used as he was dragged out of his apartment into the waiting police car. 

Eddie had bailed him out that afternoon, but nothing was the same after that. His family had slowly begun to believe his charges during the investigation and turned their backs one after another, the arrest cementing it all . Chimney had been the first to turn his back on Buck, and had spent all his spare time ensuring the rest of the firehouse felt the same. Eddie and Chris were all he had left. Until  Shannon. Shannon, Chris’s mother and Eddie’ ex, had already begun to wedge her way in between them weeks earlier , and had used the situation to her advantage. They saw each other less and less as she spun lie after lie into Eddie’ ear. Even they turned their backs fully after the final fire two blocks away from his apartment. Buck still didn’t know why Eddie had so insisted he knew it was Buck that had started it during their final argument. When their relationship  had barely been hanging on by a thread. He guessed whoever the real arsonist was had figured out a way to set him up. He was just too hurt to think Eddie would turn his back on him too to ask too many questions. He had left for Texas a day later and become a fugitive. Had arrived in the compound two days after that. His life had been over. What life he really had in the first place. 

As Buck looked over at his favourite boys as they laughed at the TV, flashes of all the hurt and pain he had been through settled in his mind, he vowed he would make sure the past wouldn’t repeat itself. 

He was sat so close to Eddie and could feel their fingertips slowly caress each other without either owner looking down. They had always had little touches like this, little hints that both parties wanted more, felt more, but neither ever seemed to cross that line. Well not in this timeline. Yet, this right here is what he wanted, had wanted for years. This was something he had. Something good that was yanked away from him. He couldn’t let this be taken away from him again. But at the same time, there was so much more to lose now and so many more secrets between them. He wanted Eddie so much, but he wasn’t sure if he could/should have him. He knew he had to do something with this chance though.

He had such a long list of what he needed to do. He would find his siblings. He would keep Donnie and the ghosts of the compound away. He would make sure his name stayed innocent. Find the true arsonist and stop whatever he had used to set him up and turn Eddie against him. Find a way to keep Shannon at a distance from his family. He wasn’t sure if could ever forget what Eddie had done when he first woke up. But seeing Eddie now, with the soft smile on his face as the three of them were cuddled up tight, Buck reminded himself that this Eddie hadn’t done anything. This Eddie loved Buck. This Eddie and Buck didn’t have anyone working to turn each other against each other yet. And Buck would figure out a way to keep it that way. 

He was done playing the puppet , the fool. He would get the happy ending he always dreamed of, no matter what. And it would start with talking to Peter. They would find a way to save each other. Then, they would find a way to save everyone else. That’s what Disney was about right? Building the fire bit by bit, until the prince or princess came along and put it out and saved everyone. The happily ever after.