like real people do
The only thing worse than asking for something people don’t want to give is asking for something people know you don’t want at all.
Eddie stands at Bobby and Athena’s door, and for the second time the weight of his resignation letter is so foreign in his hands he thinks it might be imprinting into his fingertips. He closes his eyes, imagines he could read himself in Braille code. Scars on his knuckles and calluses on his broad palms - a man, a soldier, a father, a firefighter. Ink stains and red stamps and resignation letters - a runner. A shell. A failure.
Buck would tell him not to be so hard on himself. Buck would read something different, would turn him into something different, lead into gold in the wake of his alchemical touch. But Eddie doesn’t get to see himself the way Buck does, not anymore. Not if he ever wants to survive leaving his best friend behind.
He raps on Bobby’s door; he feels the door press into his knuckles, wishes it broke the skin so he’d have some kind of visible sign of the way it hurts.
“Eddie!” Bobby’s smiling when he opens the door, face easy and relaxed and calm. He swings the door open wide, welcoming in a way Eddie never fails to notice. “What can I do for you?”
Eddie feels the pit in his stomach grow. Why does he always have to bring people bad news? Why is he always the one leaving, always the one running away? After everything, all of the therapy and the talking and the breakdowns, he fucking hates that he’s back here again.
“I, um.” Eddie swallows, mouth dry and mind blank. Why does he never have the right words when he needs them? “I need to talk to you. About something. It’s, uh… it’s important.”
Bobby pulls the door open even wider, ushers him inside with a frown Eddie wishes he hadn’t put there. “Is everything okay? No one’s hurt, are they?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Eddie swallows again. That used to be where he’d leave things - swallowing them into a deep dark box where they couldn’t bother anyone, let alone him, pushing away anything that didn’t match the image he knew he had to maintain.
Now, Eddie forcibly relaxes his shoulders, takes the cold water Bobby passes him with a smile and a nod. They walk into the kitchen, taking seats at the dining room table, side by side. “Just me, missing Chris.”
Eddie feels heat prickle over his cheeks, at the back of his neck. He hates to admit it, even though he’s sure it’s obvious to everyone he meets.
Bobby nods sympathetically. “It’s a hard thing, to be apart from the ones you love.” He pauses, eyes on Eddie’s face like he’s checking explosive chemicals for signs of reaction. “Especially when it comes bound up with things like guilt and failed expectations.”
Eddie drinks a mouthful of water, letting it sit in his mouth for a moment, feeling the cold slide all the way down his throat. “It is,” he allows.
From outside, he catches sight of Harry, Denny, and some other kids he doesn’t recognise playing catch in the garden, despite the icy wind. They’re bundled up in gloves and hats and ferocious smiles that keep the cold at bay, and watching them feels both like a rare gift and a knife in the fucking heart.
“It is,” he says again, tone more certain, “Which is why it’s not something I’m going to put up with any longer.”
He’s waiting for Bobby to be confused; he expects a head tilt, a curious but wary look in the other man’s eyes. What he gets instead is a strange kind of…deflation. Bobby sighs, nodding. Like he knew this was coming, but had hoped to avoid it anyway.
“You’re leaving us,” Bobby says, more a statement than a question.
“I’m moving to Texas,” Eddie confirms. For some reason, the different phrasing is important. He doesn’t want to leave LA - he especially does not want to leave the 118. But Chris is in Texas, and so that’s where he has to go.
Bobby nods like he understands everything Eddie’s saying along with everything he isn’t, cool and calm as he processes the information.
Eddie looks down at the resignation letter in his hands. It’s in one of those paper file folders that’s supposed to hide what they contain, but which is at risk of falling apart at any moment. He places it onto the table, slow like he thinks the wood might collapse beneath it.
“Does Buck know?” Bobby asks suddenly, and Eddie meets his eyes with a jolt.
He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Of course Bobby would ask about people first, paperwork later.
Eddie nods. His eyes prickle with heat, and he forces himself to blink before he does anything too incriminating like tear up.
“Yeah. Yeah, he saw me looking at rentals in El Paso.”
Bobby nods, waiting. He’s sitting in the armchair across from Eddie with one ankle crossed over his knee, and he’s tapping his fingers quietly against his own water glass. “And?” he prompts, once Eddie fails to elaborate the first time.
Eddie sighs, trying to shake off the heavy sticky guilt he feels at being the reason for the worry in Bobby’s eyes. “And…I think he’s doing okay,” Eddie murmurs. “He helped me look. But then again, it’s Buck - of course he did.”
Bobby chuckles, tone fond. “Of course he did,” he agrees. “But I wasn’t actually asking about Buck, Eddie. I was asking about you. Telling him, planning to leave him and everyone else at the 118…it must have been difficult.”
Eddie drinks another mouthful of water, puts the glass down on the table with a too-loud thud. He forces himself not to get up, not to clench his fingers into a fist, to stay seated and calm. Bobby's only trying to help, he knows that.
“Yeah,” he agrees. Bobby’s right, obviously, so what is he even supposed to say? “It sucked.” Hopefully that will do.
Bobby looks at him a moment longer before seeming to accept that no further explanation is forthcoming; he leans back in his chair and moves on with the conversation. “Have you found a house, then? Is that why you’re telling me now?”
There’s no accusation in Bobby’s tone, but Eddie feels the hot burn of shame slide down his throat as he swallows all the same. He never meant to keep this from Bobby, and yet he can’t deny he never wanted to tell Bobby at all.
“Eddie?” Eddie meets Bobby’s eyes. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, the house is sorted, or it will be once I sell my place here.” Eddie takes another drink of water; his mouth is so dry. “I should be leaving by the end of the month,” he confesses, staring straight ahead just like they do at church, sordid truths slipping from his lips only when he is not observed head on.
Bobby hums, a contemplative sound. “For how long?”
“Sorry?” Eddie looks back at Bobby, but the other man isn’t staring back at him, simply toying with his shirt cuff and looking around the room.
“How long will you be gone for?” Bobby’s voice is casual in the way that means it isn’t, he isn’t. Eddie feels his heartbeat pick up.
He’s got so many answers to that question: forever or not long or end of the year, I hope, or even as long as it takes. Some of those answers are honest and some of them are wishful thinking, and none of them feel like the answer Bobby’s looking for.
Eddie looks back at the table; he thinks ironically that he’s assumed his confession position. Oh, if Father Brian could see him now - choosing joy in a way that only seems to bring everyone more grief.
“I don’t know,” he whispers, and it's the best truth he has.
It’s not enough, and he knows that. It’s not enough, and if he were in church or in El Paso with his parents he has no doubt he’d be reminded of that without hesitation.
“Okay,” Bobby accepts.
And then, without giving Eddie time to register his words, he continues, “Are those resignation forms?”
Eddie slides the folder across the table, confused. What else would they be?
He doesn’t say that, but Bobby must be able to see it in his eyes, because the other man chuckles. “Of course they are,” he allows. “I don’t think you should submit them.”
Eddie stiffens. He knows it’s Bobby’s right to refuse him; hell, he knows he’s messed Bobby around before, but he never expected-
“I’ll organise transfer forms for you instead. Less permanent, makes for an easier transition. There’s a few Captains I can talk to, but I’m sure getting you a temporary placement shouldn’t be too hard, and it gives you more flexibility.”
Eddie exhales, unable to do more than nod gratefully. “That sounds good,” he manages after a moment.
That sounds more than good. That sounds like Bobby’s on his side, like he’s a foundation Eddie can be supported by, rather than one he has to scrabble at with bent and broken nails as the ground shakes underfoot. He knows he shouldn't be surprised - Bobby's saved him more than once before. But it still hits him like a blow beneath the belt, seeing nothing but cool acceptance and warm sympathy in his Captain's eyes.
“Thank you,” Eddie adds, once he’s wrestled away the shameful heat pricking at his eyes.
Bobby makes eye contact again then, making sure Eddie’s paying attention to him before he responds. “You’re family, Eddie. Whatever you need, whatever you want - we’re here for you.”
And Eddie…Look, Eddie knows that’s true. He knows it and he’s known it since the day he and Buck agreed to have each other’s backs, and it was like the remaining ice between him and the rest of the 118 melted away under a veritable wave of affection, camaraderie and loyalty. He knows it every time they wait for each other in hospitals, every time Hen and Chim tease him and Buck for something, every time his 118 family chips in to help Chris and the rest of his actual family, like tía Pepa and Abuela.
But it’s hard to feel that some things are true, when you’re not sure that they should be. When Eddie fucks up, when he hurts people, when he leaves…he never quite expects the 118 to stand by him. But they do.
Eddie exhales again, trying to will the tension to leave him. He’s doing better now, and he knows it. He’s not denying himself joy. He’s done with the guilt and the shame, and he’s prioritising his happiness as well as that of his son. Even if this hurts (and dios he didn’t expect it to hurt this much, but it does and it does and it’s damning him), he knows it's the right thing to do.
Eddie stands up, grabbing the forms as he goes and agreeing to meet Bobby before their next shift to talk over work options in LA.
And then a few minutes later, he leaves Bobby and Athena’s house without thinking that it could be the last time he ever steps foot in it, without letting it feel like a goodbye. He’s not saying goodbye yet, he’s not.
Eddie closes the door gently behind him, stuffs his hands in his jean pockets as he walks down the garden path. It’s starting to rain, spitting half heartedly as he unlocks his car.
He tries not to let himself admit, even in his own head, that he’ll have to say goodbye eventually. He tries to believe that the 118 is the kind of place where distance doesn’t matter, because family is always by your side. His parents always said that - family is always there for you - and for the first time, that thought is a promise rather than a threat.
Now all he has to do is count down the days until he puts that theory to the test.
***
Without quite meaning to, Buck begins a countdown until the day that Eddie is no longer a constant by his side.
He gets confirmed dates from Eddie a day or so after Bobby organises a transfer to a station in Texas (at which point the move is three weeks, six days, eighteen hours, twenty minutes away if Eddie is on time for his flight, so forty minutes because he won’t be).
Eddie and Buck are the same as always at work; they have each other’s backs, they move in perpetual perfect tandem. By now, Buck doesn’t need to see or hear Eddie - he can feel his partner move through the world, always a half step behind him.
Buck spends every shift trying not to think about that presence becoming an absence. But at work, he shoves that thought down down down, keeping a smile on his face and easy jokes on the tip of his tongue and a laser focus on the job. He saves people, and he hangs out with his team, and he says nothing about Eddie moving to El Paso. (Three weeks, six days, eighteen hours becomes two weeks, one day, three hours.)
At home, he helps Eddie look for houses, helps him organise increasingly long face times with Chris, encourages him to call Helena and Ramon to tell them he’s coming to Texas.
“They’re not going to like it, Buck.”
“I said tell, not ask.”
Before Buck has time to blink, time to breathe, nearly a month has gone by (making it just four days, five hours left). And he’s fine. He’s coping.
He’s fine when Bobby gets the transfer forms (at three weeks one day seven hours five minutes) and he’s fine when Eddie packs up the house (between two weeks and one week, the last box taped shut at six days and twenty-seven minutes) and he’s fine when Eddie finishes his last shift at the 118 (three days, four hours, eight minutes).
Even though it's a last shift for good this time.
But then there’s only a weekend before Eddie leaves him, and Buck doesn’t have a shift, and he doesn't have anywhere to go that feels like home anymore. Just like that.
His apartment has always felt empty, in the way Air BnBs feel empty, like a liminal space. Eddie’s house has become a labyrinth of moving boxes, haunted by the reminder of his leaving.
Buck goes to Maddie’s.
He’s expecting to catch his sister unawares. She’s so busy these days, with Chim and Jee and another baby on the way. Buck doesn’t blame her - he’s so so happy that she’s built the life she’s always deserved. He’s even happier it’s here in LA, where he gets to be a part of it.
Sometimes, though, a small childish voice in him whispers that he misses the days when it was just the two of them. He knows it’s just a remnant of his childhood, that sense that he’d always been the one left behind. Buck tells himself that it’s in the past, even when it feels like a lie.
But Maddie doesn’t seem surprised to see him in the least. When he knocks on the door, she welcomes him into a surprisingly tidy and quiet apartment. There’s clutter on the oak wood table, still, but the magazines and toys and purse have been scooped to one end where the fruit bowl lived. The floor is swept and clearer than Buck has ever seen it; the windows are ajar to let in the cool autumn morning air.
“Chim took Jee to the park,” his sister says, by way of explanation.
“And you decided now was the time for some spring cleaning?” It’s November.
Maddie huffs a little laugh. “I needed something to occupy myself.”
“I know the feeling,” Buck replies wryly.
Without asking, Maddie begins to brew them both some hot tea. Buck sits down at the table, feeling like a child again as his sister takes care of him. The wooden chair creaks beneath him; he can hear birdsong through the adjacent window. It's a picturesque scene, and he refuses to bulldoze through it.
“So,” Maddie says, her emergency-first-responder voice belying the subject change, “Is it finally time to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” Buck asks, because if he’s going to be treated like a child he fully intends to act like one.
He runs a finger over the knots in the wood of the table and avoids his sister’s stare. Fun fact: knots are formed in wood when branches fall from trees, gone forever but always leaving behind a permanent mark.
“You really think no one can see it?” Maddie asks, joining him at the table and sliding across a steaming mug of herbal tea. Buck takes it, pressing his fingers into the ridges of the ceramic. His nails are short, chipped, and ragged. He can admire Maddie’s perfect ruby red acrylics from across the table.
“See what?”
“Buck.” Maddie’s tone brooks no argument.
“It’s not a big deal,” Buck tries instead, deflecting the weight of her assessment.
His skin itches; he wants to stand up and pace. He sips from his tea instead. Fun fact: herbal tea has been shown to have physical and psychological benefits.
“Your best friend is moving away, Buck. It’s okay for it to be a big deal.”
And that - that hurts. Somehow, Buck has gone the whole month without anyone saying it out loud.
Out loud, the words echo.
They reverberate, and Buck wants to crumble beneath them, like a crucial support pillar too old and fragile to be up to code, like the first pebble of an avalanche.
Buck exhales. “I’m fine,” he says, because he is, and because Maddie has enough to worry about.
She doesn’t need to be worrying about him too.
Maddie puts down her steaming mug. In the early morning light, Buck can see the way her exhale pushes the steam in eddies above the table.
“You really do think we can’t tell,” Maddie says quietly, as if to herself. Then, louder, “Buck, I know you’re not fine - even if you don’t realise it. You’ve been quiet and withdrawn ever since Eddie announced he was moving - since before then, even. I’m figuring he told you first. It feels like you’re just…” She waves a hand through the air, trying to find the word.
“What?”
“Lost. Like you’re moving through your daily life, and nothing has changed, but everything has changed because you’re not really living it anymore.”
Buck drops his sister’s warm gaze.
He fiddles with the handle of his mug, with the table, with his sleeve - but none of it offers any escape. Buck desperately didn’t want to have to talk about this, because he knows as soon as he does, he won’t be able to stop.
Because Eddie is leaving and Buck can’t stop thinking about it. Eddie is leaving and Buck feels so much he chokes on it, every hour of every day. Eddie is leaving and it isn’t about Buck, not even a little, so Buck has to swallow it all down and down and down so he doesn't drive anyone else away.
He’d been hoping, praying, that no one else would notice.
“Buck,” Maddie’s gaze is comforting, but it holds a note of warning in it. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
Maddie sighs, getting exasperated. “Checking out. Trying to push me away. Trying to hide whatever it is that you’re feeling. I can’t help you if you do that, Buck. I need you to be honest with me.”
She sounds just like she does on the 9-1-1 phone lines, and somehow Buck can’t stomach it. He doesn’t want to feel like another emergency his sister has to solve. This isn’t even about him - it isn’t fair that he always has so many feelings, always has to make it someone else’s problem.
“You don’t need to help me, Maddie. I’m not a caller who needs saving.” Buck snaps the words without meaning to, without realising the bite in his tone.
Maddie leans back in her chair. “Buck,” she says again, and her tone is a final warning. Like when they were kids, and she was commanding him to do his homework, or come eat dinner, or stop throwing himself into danger.
Buck sighs, forcing everything down, down, down. “I’m sorry.” And he is. He’s always fucking sorry.
“It’s okay,” Maddie repeats. “For you to be upset. Anyone would be, Buck, and you most of all. I’ve never known anyone who loves as whole-heartedly as you do.”
Maddie has this way with words. She’s always making his greatest fears, his ugliest flaws, seem like a gift. She makes him sound like a normal person, like a good one.
But for once, it's not enough. Because Maddie doesn’t know how much Buck feels right now - and it's not the ‘has a big heart and cares for his best friend’ feelings. No, it’s something much uglier than that. Buck feels awful things, envious and angry and hurtful things, and he refuses to let anyone know they’re there.
Hell, even Buck barely knows. He refuses to know. It's in a box, after all. It’s in a box with the lid slammed down and a thousand more important things piled on top. He shuts it up tight every morning, goes to work and tries to save as many lives as he can, jokes with his team, goes home and helps Eddie pack, goes back to his empty cold apartment where he’s alone and forces himself not to cry, not to hit something. At 3am most nights, he can’t sleep, and he lies awake trying to study the feeling from out of the corners of his eye, never facing it head on but trying to understand it. Why he feels so much. Why he can’t be normal about this. He can never find an answer, and it’s not about him, so he shuts the box. He shuts the box and he goes to work and he saves lives, because that's something worthwhile that he can do.
“I know,” Buck replies, instead of saying any of that. “I know, and I am going to miss him. But there’s nothing I can do about any of it, and it’s what’s best for him and Chris.”
All true. All what Buck wished was the extent of his feelings on the matter. All that he can admit right here, right now.
Buck shifts in his seat, finishing up his tea. “I’m gonna be fine, Maddie,” he says gently, and it’s barely even a lie. “So tell me about the baby!”
Thankfully, Maddie lets it drop, happy to tell him about doctor’s appointments and baby names and nursery planning with Chim. Buck chips in with facts from his latest research spiral - some of them obscure enough that even Maddy’s nurse training and first pregnancy hadn’t taught her them yet. And Buck knows, he knows that won’t be the end of it, because Maddie has always known him too well. He’ll just have to do better at shoving everything down... And then one day he’ll say he’s fine like he always does, and it won’t be a lie.