Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Buck knows the story the same way all Buckley witches know the story. Maria Buckley, née Owens, had loved a man, and he’d promised to love her, too. He promised it over and over.

When Maria fell pregnant, her joy was unmatched. She first bore a boy with blue eyes and honey-colored hair; then, three years later, grew pregnant again. Her husband, dark-eyed and suspicious as the boy began displaying signs of his magic, became convinced she had been unfaithful. In a fit of rage, he went to the church and accused her of being a witch. They came for her with torches in their hands, that they pressed to the wooden beams of her house. They dragged her to the pyre, big-bellied, and would not listen to her cries for mercy for her son.

She stood in the flames and they did not touch her. The fire burned for hours; her clothes became ashes, the ropes disintegrated from her wrists, and Maria Buckley stepped down and walked home. 

She lived. The child she was carrying lived.

The little boy left behind in the tinderbox house did not. 

She promised herself that she would never feel such painful loss again, and that her husband would feel it a hundred times over. She brought to bear all the power within her to ensure it would be so, but there were consequences beyond her reckoning. 

Buck knows the story the same way all Buckley witches know the story: Maria Buckley, née Owens, had doomed the firstborn son of every Buckley to die before his tenth birthday. 

Buck was born just two minutes after Daniel. 

It was long enough.

*

“Buck! Get in here.”

Buck rolls his eyes and winks at the little girl in the booster seat. She giggles up at him and draws an elegant squiggle across the kids activity sheet. “Duty calls,” he tells her. “I wanna see a masterpiece when I get back, okay?”

He gives a nod to her parents and follows the sound of Bobby’s voice back to the kitchen of The Firehouse Bakery & Kitchen. He’s got flour in his hair, which is typical for Bobby around this time; Buck uses a whisper of his magic to shake it out as he rounds the table and knocks their shoulders together. 

“What’s up?”

“I need you to take over for Hen. The school called, Denny isn’t feeling well and needs to be picked up.”

Buck frowns over at where Hen is hanging up her apron. “Yeah, no problem,” he says. “Hen, don’t you and Karen carpool? You wanna borrow the Jeep? I parked it in the old truck bay.”

The bakery gets its name from the old fire station its located inside; Bobby had done an incredible job with the renovations, had even built an apartment above where the old hangout spot used to be. He’d lived there before marrying Athena; Buck lives there now.

Hen’s smile is warm and relieved, deftly catching Buck’s keys when he tosses them over. “You’re a peach, Buckaroo,” she tells him. “There’s no weird magic shit I’ve gotta hide from my very curious, very grumpy son, is there?”

“I left a newt eyeball in there one time,” Buck whines. 

“Yeah, what you should be asking our Buckaroney about is whether there’s any weird sex shit you’ve gotta hide,” Chimney contributes, super helpfully. Buck throws one of Bobby’s rolls at him, which he catches and stuffs into his mouth.

“Bobby, they’re bullying me,” he complains. “You all know I’ve been celibate since Abby.” At three unimpressed looks, he amends, “Okay, basically celibate. More or less. I mean, broadly.” A beat, and then, “Look, I’m not fucking anybody in the foodsafe areas anymore, which I think really deserves some acknowledgement, here.”

Bobby doesn’t look up from where he is kneading dough. “So is there any weird sex stuff in the Jeep?”

Buck opens his mouth to defend himself, then pauses. “Well, maybe lock the glove box,” he mutters, to Chimney’s horrible cackling. Hen rolls her eyes and waves a hand goodbye, promising to bring the Jeep back once Karen gets home. Chim takes over at the counter and Buck slots into Hen’s empty station. 

They’re a small team, but they work well together: Chim on their selection of stupid fancy coffees, Hen on the limited lunch menu, and Bobby up at dawn to make the baked goods. Buck, who’d been helpless in the kitchen when he arrived, had been put on front of house duties, being the only one of them who considered himself an extrovert. It had been nearly a year of careful, diligent lessons before Bobby had trusted him to pinch hit in the kitchen. 

But now he thinks he’s pretty good. Sometimes he cheats, a little, breathing warmth and comfort and satisfaction into the food, asking the stove to let him know when the food inside is perfectly cooked. But mostly he sticks to what Bobby has taught him, diligence and care and patience. Low and slow, Bobby’s grandmother used to tell him, her voice warm and sweet while she taught him family recipes.

Buck’s grandmother used to say dig a hole in the ground and sooner or later you’ll find something you wish had stayed buried.

So, you know. Different upbringings.

Today Buck weaves a little bit of silly joy into lunch for the family with the future Picasso in the booster seat and lets Bobby’s warm instructions wash over him. He’s been here two years now, the longest he’s been anywhere since he left Pennsylvania. He’d thought any hope of finding a place like this — a family like this — had disappeared with Maddie, and then Hen, two years into med school, had seen his leg get crushed by a car in front of the bakery and run outside to triage. She’d been taken aback a little when his more superficial wounds had healed immediately, automatically, but Buck had gotten good at that sort of magic as a kid. He didn’t even mean to do it now; it happened as instinctually as breathing, little cuts and bruises disappearing on their own.

The destroyed leg had required a hospital stay, and with it came the cadre of curious, bossy, well-meaning and deeply annoying bakery staff who were appalled to learn that Buck had nobody in the world who’d want to visit him and were determined to make themselves stick. 

It had helped that Bobby’s late wife had been a witch, too, and Buck hadn’t been able to resist how warm and lovely it felt, to be known like this, to be known with it. Bobby had no magic himself but his wife had told him a lot, and he’d passed on what he remembered. He’d even given Buck her old spellbook, an exchange which had made them both weep while pretending not to. 

It helps too that Buck never sees Daniel when he’s with them. 

Daniel, the brother he barely remembers, the brother his parents had always clearly wished had been born second, the brother whose eternally 6-year-old ghost flickers in and out of the corner of Buck’s vision before disaster. Who maybe is the one who brings it. 

Buck doesn’t blame him, really. He died while Buck got to live, and he’s six-years-old and pissed. Buck gets it. On his worst days, Buck is pissed too.

*

Buck always closes The Firehouse, being that he lives there. Today he’s doing it for that reason and because Hen still has the Jeep. He doesn’t mind, though; it’s meditative, sort of, cleaning down the countertops and washing dishes. He rarely even uses his magic, unless he’s in a rush, and today he’s not.

Bobby helps with the initial sweep, piling dishes in the sink to be rinsed and put into the dishwasher and checking in on his starter with the insane devotion of a person who really believes his yeast colony can hear him talking to it. When he’s done, he leans a hip against the counter and watches Buck prep silverware for tomorrow.

“We were kidding today,” he says, voice quiet. “About the Jeep.”

Buck furrows his brow for a moment, then remembers. He huffs. “I know, Bobby.”

“You’ve grown up a lot. Since Abby. I don’t want you to think we don’t see it.” He hesitates, then adds: “I thought maybe you’d try to date someone seriously again, once you’d had some time. But it doesn’t seem like you’re out there much.”

Buck turns away to face the sink, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “Well, you know,” he says cheerfully, “love never comes when you look for it, as they say.”

Bobby hums, probably not buying Buck’s nonchalance for even one half of a second, but he lets it go, humming instead and changing the subject. “The new garden’s looking good. You think you’ll have the rosebushes in this month?”

“They’re getting delivered next week,” he says, glad for the new topic. His parents were never huge on the typical trappings of magic, but the garden had always been beautiful, growing herbs they refused to use. “I’m digging up the soil for them now, getting it ready.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” Bobby says, sincere as he claps a hand on Buck’s shoulder. He gives it a brief squeeze before he heads out. Buck waits until the door is closed to brace his hands against the counter and breathe out, long and slow.

It’s fine, really. He’s fine. He’s not lonely. He has an extremely active group chat on his phone called FireFam, and when he wants to fuck, he can go out and fuck. Abby had been the exception, not the rule, a weird blip in Buck’s otherwise pristine record of keeping himself out of scenarios in which someone might, conceivably, at some point, want to have a child with him.

Abby, who had spent her whole life being caretaker for another person and no desire to start the process over — and who’d been nearing an age where pregnancy wouldn’t have been an option anyway — had been a nice solution, for a while. He’d thought maybe she could have been the solution forever, but Buck was rapidly beginning to think that there was no such thing as solutions at all, much less such a thing as forever. 

Anyway, she was happy somewhere, far away from him. He’d made sure of it, pressed it into her luggage as he helped her carry it to the car, whispered it into her hair as he hugged her goodbye. His magic wasn’t the strongest in the world, but he was good at this part of it. The giving it away part.

Buck turns on some music and lets his mind empty, moving through the routine and letting his body carry him. Every so often he has to stop and stretch his leg, which rarely hurts except on days when he doesn’t sit down enough. He stops thinking about Abby and babies doomed to die. He finishes the counters, the silver, the kitchen; opens the fridge to urge growth into Bobby’s precious starter; he mops the floor and runs the dishwasher and stacks the chairs and is about to turn out the light when the door opens, the bell jingling. 

“Um,” a little voice says: “hello?”

Buck turns around. The little voice belongs to a little boy, balanced on crutches, blinking big eyes behind his red glasses. He’s alone, which seems crazy, because he’s so tiny that Buck could squish him between his forefinger and his thumb. Buck blinks a couple of times and then, when the boy doesn’t disappear, he says, “Hi.”

The boy comes more fully inside, struggling a little with the door. “Can I use your phone to call my Dad?”

Buck hurries over to him, propping the door open and helping the little boy inside. “Sure,” he says, “is he nearby? Should we go find him?”

The kid shakes his head. “I got off the school bus too early,” he laments. “I got confused about the stop. We just moved here and my normal teacher wasn’t riding with us. They told us at school to look for policemen when we’re lost but I thought this was a fire station.”

“Ahh, common mistake,” Buck reassures him, pulling a seat down off the table for the kid to sit in. He swings his legs back and forth a little; they don’t touch the ground. “It used to be a fire station. But now we just make croissants.”

“What’s a croissant?”

“It’s like if a calzone had no filling and spoke French.”

“What’s a calzone?”

“It’s like if a pizza was a dumpling.”

“Cool,” the kids says. “I’m Christopher. My friends call me Chris.”

Buck shakes his hand before grabbing his phone from his back pocket and unlocking it. “I’m Evan. My friends call me Buck. Here you go.”

Chris dials very carefully, squinting a little at the screen, which is very cute. Buck hops over the counter to grab one of Hen’s secret Gatorades from the cooler and pours some into a coffee cup for him, putting a lid on it just to be safe. Chris takes a sip and then flashes a big thumbs up, beaming that smile at him.

“Hi Dad,” he says into the phone. “No, I’m okay. I’m at a bakery. I got off at the wrong stop. No. No, she wasn’t there. I don’t know, some other teacher. Uh huh. Uh huh. I’m with Buck. He gave me Gatorade.” A pause. “My new friend who gave me Gatorade.” Another pause. Buck tries not to feel warmed by being called this kid’s friend. Chris pulls the phone from his phase and holds it out toward Buck. “He wants to talk to you.” 

Buck takes the phone. “Uh, hi,” he says. “I promise I’m not kidnapping your kid, he got confused because he thought the bakery I work at was a fire station.”

The man on the other end of the line blows out a long, shaky breath. “Yeah, I uh, I figured if you were kidnapping him he wouldn’t get unsupervised phone privileges.”

“Well, I could just be really bad at it,” Buck points out. “Everybody has a first time.” There’s a beat. Buck wants to hit himself. “I’m not though. Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, he’s safe here while we wait, let me give you the address.”

“Thank you,” Chris’s dad says. “He wouldn’t have even gotten home for another thirty minutes, I had no idea there was anything wrong. I don’t — the school is supposed to make sure they make it to their parents, I don’t know how — God, I didn’t want him on the bus but I haven’t been able to find someone to — I’m sorry. Do you mind staying with him, just until I get there? I’ll — I can pay you, or — ”

Buck cuts him off. “Dude. That would be literally crazy. Of course I’ll hang with him. He’s cool, we’re buds now, right Chris?”

“Right!” Chris cries. “Buck is teaching me about croissants! They’re like pizza dumplings!”

“Well, he’s got the spirit,” Buck laughs. “Anyway, seriously man, it’s fine. We’ll chill til you get here.”

Chris’s dad breathes out another thank you and Buck hangs up, texting the address and then, because the poor guy sounded so freaked out, a photo of Chris, sitting happily and drinking his Gatorade. He adds sorry its not sugar free, he might be a little hype by the time u pick him up.

Chris’s dad hearts the photo and says Thank you. I’ll be there shortly. He uses proper punctuation and capitalization and everything, like real Boomer shit, so Buck figures they’re waiting for one of those cheerful middle-age dads, balding on the top, kind of Bobby vibes. Bobby texts like that, too. 

Buck pulls down a seat for himself to sit next to Chris and they spend the next thirty minutes talking about basically every cool thing there is in the world: dinosaurs, and animal facts, and Chris’s science project about volcanoes, and about how earthquakes happen, and about how Chris moved here earlier this year from El Paso with his Dad because his mom died and his Dad fought with his grandparents a lot about Chris’s CP (“That’s cerebral palsy,” Chris explains, gesturing at his crutches, and Buck sits on his hands to keep from putting them on Chris’s skin and asking his magic for a miracle). Buck gives him a hug for that and tells him that he left home because he fought with his parents, too, so he’s really lucky to have his Dad, who sounds like he’s probably pretty cool.

“Yeah, he’s the coolest,” Chris says, easy as anything. “But he doesn’t know as much as you do about dinosaurs.”

“Well,” Buck tells him, “I’ve gotta differentiate myself somehow.”

“What’s differentiate?”

“It’s making something stand out from other things.”

“Oh. That sounds like one of Dad’s calendar words.”

Buck is weirdly charmed by this. “Word of the Day?” he asks. “I have one of those. Today’s word was smithereen. It means tiny pieces.”

Chris mouths smithereen to himself, then nods. “I dropped a glass and it broke into smithereens.” 

“You got it.” 

It’s then that the door swings back open and Chris’s dad bursts in. His eyes fall on his son immediately and he practically skids to a stop, kneeling in front of him and checking him over, eyes flicking over his face as a hand goes to cup his neck. Chris beams at him, lets the triage happen with a kind of affectionate, resigned look, the kind that suggests that he gets this treatment a lot.

He is not, it turns out, a middle-aged Bobby type.

He’s probably Buck’s age, and he’s hot as fuck.

“Uhhhh,” Buck says, gaping at him, and tries really, really hard not to objectify the father of his new best friend, even though said father is model-hot and currently kneeling in front of him, looking up. Buck makes himself think about sandwiches. “Hi, sorry, welcome, do you — we have Gatorade?”

Chris’s dad laughs, and the sound sends a shiver directly from Buck’s neck to his toes. He wants to die, but instead he holds out a hand and help the man climb to his feet. When he gets there, they sort of just stand there holding hands, which feels weird and good, so Buck turns it into a shake. “I’m Buck,” says Buck.

“Eddie,” says Eddie. “Listen, man, I can’t thank you enough, I — you have no idea, I was losing my mind on the drive over. I called the school and absolutely lost it on some poor admin.”

“Dad,” Chris admonishes. “That was probably Miss Julie! She’s nice!”

Eddie huffs at him, ruffling his hair and then looking back to Buck, smiling a warm little smile. “Yeah, well, poor Miss Julie aside, they’re about to get some very strongly worded emails from me. I can’t believe they let a seven-year-old just ... get off the bus.”

“I thought it was my stop,” Chris mumbles, looking down. “Sorry.”

“No,” says Eddie quickly, bending down to press a kiss to Chris’s curly head. “I’m not mad at you, buddy. You did all the right things, you found a safe place and called me. Good work.”

Oh no, Buck thinks, backing up a little so he can hide his hands, which he thinks might be glowing a little from the desire to press protection onto both of them, these two strangers who are looking at each other in a way that Buck’s parents never once looked at him.

Maddie had, maybe. A long time ago. 

“Well,” he manages, clearing his throat, “I for one am glad for this adventure, because it means I got to meet the coolest dude in Los Angeles.” Eddie looks over at him, surprise clear on his face, and Buck laughs. “I meant Chris, man. I don’t even know you.” 

“Oh,” Eddie says, and he’s not blushing exactly, but he’s not not blushing. Buck’s gonna scream. “Yeah, of course. I, ah, I think he’s pretty cool too.” They stand there, sort of just smiling at each other, until Eddie gives his head a little shake and laughs a little. “Well. We should get going. Thank you, again. I don’t even know how to say it enough.”

Buck shakes his head, gathering Chris’s crutches and, unable to help himself, pressing just a little bit of protection into them, good luck and calm. “No problem, seriously. We had fun. Bring him by any time.”

“Buck said we could have free croissants,” Chris says.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on there,” Buck teases, “I said you could have free croissants. Your dad here’s still gotta earn it.”

Eddie grins. “Looking forward to it,” he says, and Buck swears — swears — he sees something flash in his eyes, interested and sharp. But before Buck can say anything else, Eddie sweeps Chris up into his arms and carries him out to a huge pickup truck parked out front. Chris waves goodbye over his shoulder, and Buck waves back, feeling weirdly verklempt to see them go.

*

Four days later, Eddie and Christopher are back, this time during open hours. Chris lights up when he sees Buck, running forward on his crutches. Buck squats down with his arms open so he can catch him in a welcoming hug, standing up and swinging him around a little. 

Eddie, still frozen at the door, stares at them for a moment and then visibly shakes it off, offering Buck a warm smile. “Hi,” he says. “Christopher, what do we say?”

“Hi Buck!” Chris yells, directly into Buck’s ear canal. “Thank you for watching me when I was lost! I made you a card and I would like a croissant!”

Buck laughs, burying his head in Chris’s curls for a moment to hide his face. When he pulls away, Eddie is giving him that weird look again, but whatever. Buck likes his kid, sue him. Chris is the funniest person alive, that’s not Buck’s fault. 

“Hi Chris. You’re welcome. I can’t wait to see my card. I’m sure I can rustle you up a croissant. Hey Bobby! We need baked goods out here for some VIPs!”

Bobby’s head emerges from the kitchen doorway, brow twisted in a puzzled frown. When he sets eyes on Eddie, the puzzlement falls away and his eyebrows lift, pleased and surprised. “Detective Diaz!” he says. “Well, this is a surprise. Is my wife with you?”

Buck looks between the two of them as Eddie breaks into a smile and strides over to where Bobby is emerging more fully from the kitchen, brushing flour off his hands and onto his apron. They shake hands and Eddie claps Bobby’s shoulder with warmth and no small degree of familiarity. “Bobby! Small world — no, it’s just me and Chris. We, ah, found ourselves here by mistake the other day. I didn’t realize this was your place.”

“You guys know each other?” Buck asks, shifting Chris to his hip. The boy leans his head on Buck’s shoulder, getting comfortable. “Wait, you know Athena?”

Eddie digs into his pocket and pulls out a badge holder, flipping it open. “Detective Eddie Diaz, nice to meet you,” he says, his grin twisted to the side, voice dropping low. Buck holds himself very still and doesn’t make the sound that his mouth wants him to make, which is, “Guh.” 

Instead, he whistles and then leans down to Chris, stage-whispering, “Wow, now I see why you said your dad was the coolest. I didn’t realize he was an officer of the law.”

“He can do like one million push-ups,” Chris brags.

“One million, huh?” he muses, looking Eddie up and down. “You know what, kid, I sort of believe you.”

Eddie is definitely blushing now, to Buck’s delight. “Maybe not one million,” he hedges.

Bobby chuckles, and hooks his thumb over his shoulder. “You boys stay here, I’ll go get some fresh bakes. We haven’t put ’em out for the lunch rush yet.” He disappears back into the kitchen, leaving Buck alone with a heavy, happy Chris and an Eddie Diaz who is now leaning sinfully against the counter, hip cocked slightly and a soft smile on his face as he watches Buck shift his weight to make Chris more comfortable. Buck’s going to put him in jail for that smile. Citizen’s arrest.

“Uh, so,” Eddie says, “Chris, do you want to show Buck the thank-you card you made?”

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded-up piece of paper, holding it out to Chris, who takes it and then solemnly passes it over to Buck. When he unfolds it, delicately and with one hand, the inside has a picture of two stick figures holding hands. One of them has crutches. The writing says THANK YOU BUCK and has a vaguely rendered school bus next to it.

Buck is going to keep it forever. 

“Wow,” he says, “thanks so much, buddy. This is a real work of art. I’m going to hang it on my fridge.”

“Really?”

“Really really.”

“Cool,” Chris says. “I can draw you more stuff, too, if you guys have crayons here. I can draw Batman and Superman and the Ninja Turtles and stuff.”

“Wow, I love those guys,” decides Buck, even though he’d never been allowed to watch cartoons when he was a kid. He settles Chris at one of the tables and jogs over to where they keep the kids activity menus and crayon boxes. Chris loses interest in him immediately, head down as he draws, tongue poking out a little.

Buck joins Eddie back at the counter, grinning. “You’ve got a cool kid,” he tells him. “Good work.”

“Thanks,” Eddie laughs. “Not sure how much I had to do with it, other than the obvious, but I’ll take it.”

And Buck shouldn’t, obviously, he knows, but he’s never had great impulse control and Eddie smells like cologne mixing with his sweat, and that’s not Buck’s fault. So he makes his eyes big and guileless and says, “What’s the obvious?” and gets to fill all the way up with delight as Eddie goes flush and coughs into his hand, fumbling to find an answer that isn’t had sex. Eventually, to put him out of his misery, Buck lets himself laugh. “Sorry, man. I couldn’t resist.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Eddie says, realizing he’s being teased. He gives Buck a little shove, then catches him when he rocks back a little too far. His hand on Buck’s arm is warm and firm, his eyes sparkling. He looks — well. Buck’s not confused about why some woman would want to procreate with him. “So ... you work for Bobby?”

Eddie winces as Buck raises an eyebrow at him for the obviousness of the question. “For a few years now, yeah. He, uh, kind of Shanghai’d me from my travels after I was hit by a car in front of the shop. I’m fine now,” he adds at the crease in Eddie’s forehead. “But — yeah. He and Athena sort of decided I was a stray they wanted to feed, and here I am.”

Eddie hums, nodding. “I like Athena. We don’t work together a lot, but she’s a good cop.”

“She’s good at pretty much everything,” Buck says dryly. “You should see her play Go Fish. She’s a shark, man. Absolutely merciless.”

“Go Fish?” Eddie repeats, just as Bobby re-emerges from the kitchen, triumphant with a tray of baked replacements in his arms and flanked by Hen, carrying the readymade sandwiches. 

Buck hops over the counter to take the heavier tray from Hen, who in turn extends a hand and introduces herself to Eddie, grinning. “I’m Hen, I do the real food around here — and Buckaroo is referring to Bobby and Athena’s famous family game nights. They host them every month or so. You and Christopher should come to the next one; everybody with kids brings ’em and they tire themselves out in the backyard while the grownups get violent over Monopoly.”

“We don’t play Monopoly,” Buck assures Eddie quickly, cutting Hen a glare. “It’s banned.”

“. . . Why?” Eddie asks, looking between them.

“Because Hen and Karen cheat,” Buck says at the same time that Hen answers, “Because Buck can’t reconcile himself to the nepotistic nature of real estate wealth generation.”

“You can’t be married in Monopoly, ” Buck grits out, an old argument but not one he’s ready to give up yet. “It’s not a team game!”

“Real estate is about relationships,” Hen answers placidly. “Eddie, tell him.”

Eddie holds his hands up, mouth a half-smile. “I don’t know shit about real estate,” he says. “I pay my mortgage and weep, that’s all.”

“And I was going to give you a free croissant for bringing Chris by,” Buck laments, betrayed. “Just for that, no freebies for you, Diaz.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Eddie wheedles, leaning in close enough that Buck can smell his — cologne? deodorant? bodywash? — again. He’s got a stupid mouth, plump and tugged-up at the edges. His voice drops a little. “You sure I can’t convince you?”

Buck considers him for a moment. He’s being flirted with, he thinks. He’s pretty sure. It’s possible that Eddie’s just hot enough that everything he does looks like flirting, but he’s leaned all the way toward Buck and there’s something about the way he’s looking up at Buck, like he’s forgotten Hen and Bobby are even in the room.

“Tell you what,” Buck says, looking over at Bobby and then quickly away when he catches the dry, knowing expression on his face. “Bring Chris to the next family game night, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Just Chris?” Eddie asks.

Buck ignores the way his cheeks feel hot. “You can come too,” he allows, and then reaches for a croissant and tears it in two. “Half now, half when you fulfill your end of the bargain.”

Eddie laughs, low and easy. “Sure,” he says, “deal.”

Buck takes a bite of the second half of the croissant, holding Eddie’s gaze, and licks a crumb from the corner of his mouth. Eddie’s eyes flick down to his mouth and then back up, eyes going dark.

Hen kicks him under the counter. 

“Ow!” Buck squawks, loudly enough to draw Chris’s attention.

His eyes light up. “Oh, hey!” he says. “They do look like if a pizza was a dumpling was French!”

The weird tension breaks, and Buck throws his head back to laugh. “C’mere and get your pizza dumpling, kid,” he says, and doesn’t look at Eddie again until he’s seeing them out with promises to come to the next family game night.

When the door closes behind them, Hen says: “Oh my God, that was so embarrassing. I’m telling Chim.”

“I hate you,” Buck tells her, but she’s already disappearing back into the kitchen yelling Chimney’s name.

*

hey eddie consider this ur formal invitation to family game night @ bobby & athenas, sat 6pm sharp athena does NOT wait for everybody to arrive to start the festivities

Sounds good. We’ll be there.

What should I bring?

christopher duh

I meant more for food or drink.

uhhhh

idk i never bring anything

i know hen likes red wine that’s prob a safe bet

... I’ll just text Athena.

*

That’s Tuesday. On Wednesday, Buck’s roses arrive. On Thursday he sees Daniel in the Jeep's rear view mirror as he pulls out of the old truck bay, and on Friday, his phone rings.

It doesn’t vibrate: it rings. 

He knows before turning it over that it will be Maddie. He knows because only Maddie could make his silenced phone call out for him. He slides the phone open without looking at it. He is already grabbing his keys. “Maddie,” he says. “Where are you?”

“Pasadena,” she whispers. “It’s, there’s a motel. My location’s on, I’m locked in the bathroom. I don’t know where he is.”

Buck presses the phone closer to his ear, wishing he could just climb through it and get to his sister now, right now. Ten minutes ago, he wants to have gotten to her, before he even knew she needed him to be there. “I’m coming,” he promises. “I’m in LA. It’s twenty minutes.”

“I know.” Maddie chokes out a quiet little laugh. “I know, I was — coming. To you. But he caught up.”

Buck tries to wrestle down the flare of fury as the speed on his Jeep jumps up. No cops, he thinks at the roadway. No traffic no accidents no highway patrol no wildlife no traffic lights no car trouble no bad weather no earthquakes no cops no cops no cops.

Buck’s not the most powerful witch in the world, but he makes it to Pasadena in record time. 

The motel is dingy and old, the kind of place you go when you don’t want anyone to think to follow you. Maddie is on the second floor and Buck doesn’t bother knocking, just shoves his shoulder into the door to bust it open. The room is empty except for a discarded suitcase on the bed and a hospital bag that Buck doesn’t touch. The radio is playing a Dire Straits song: I got the dragon at noon, yes, and I won the fight; now I want my reward in heaven tonight, just like you promised.

“Maddie,” he calls, “Mads, it’s me,” and then the bathroom door is opening and his sister is tumbling into his arms, gasping a name nobody calls him anymore. She seems so much smaller than the last time he’d seen her, thin and leaf-light, a dark bruise covering her cheek. Buck pulls away to touch it tenderly, heals it without even trying. He runs his hands across the rest of her face, down her arms, cleaning up the marks Doug left on her, and Maddie lets him. Gradually she stops shaking, her smile growing from tremulous to warm. 

“Evan,” she murmurs, “I’m okay. You got them all. I’m okay.” She puts a hand to his cheek and tilts his face up, making him look at her.

Maddie.

Maddie. 

Buck bursts into tears.

“Ohhhh, baby brother,” Maddie laughs, musical and fond, “I know. I — look, I’m here, I’m safe now, huh? You’ve got me, right? C’mon. None of this.”

“I got here thinking I’d have to kill him and then — Maddie.” He swallows the jammed-up sorrow in his throat, to think of her so far away, bruised and hurting and alone. “All this time?”

“Not all of it. He … things changed when his mother got sick, I don’t know. She had always wanted grandchildren.”

Buck’s grip tightens instinctively and he has to force himself to ease up. “Let’s get out of here,” he says through a jaw so tight he’s half afraid it’s going to lock up. “The Jeep is still running, we can — ”

“Leaving so soon? We haven’t even had a chance to catch up.”

Buck spins, shoving Maddie behind him. Doug stands in the doorway, stumbling a little. Drunk, maybe, Buck doesn’t know. He feels it again, the swell of fury, and breathes in deeply through his nose. “Let us leave and we won’t press charges,” he bargains. “Come on, man. Don’t do this.”

Doug spreads his arms wide. “Do what?” he asks. “Talk to my wife?”

“You did a lot more than talk to her,” Buck snaps, and Doug gives an ugly laugh. 

“She heals quick,” he sneers. “Look, not a scratch on her.”

Buck curls his hands into fists. 

“I knew she’d come here,” Doug goes on. “I found the post cards. As soon as I realized she was gone I just knew she’d go running right to you.”

He reaches his hand into the back of his jeans, and then there is a gun pointed at the two of them. Maddie’s hands tighten in the back of Buck’s shirt. 

“Doug,” she says, voice quiet. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I got scared, you know how I get. You know how crazy I can be, don’t you? That’s why I need you to teach me when I’m wrong. Right?”

Doug tips over a little, catches himself. He squints at Maddie. “Right,” he says. “I’m teaching you.”

Maddie steps out from behind Buck. When he tries to grab her back, she bats him away, holding her hands out wide. “I know you are,” she murmurs. “Thank you. I need you. You know how much I need you.” 

In the mirror behind Doug’s head, Maddie splits in two, one body continuing to talk to Doug, soothing and low like she used to speak to frightened patients and the other leaning forward, eyes locked with Buck’s. 

“Evan,” the second Maddie says. “There’s a syringe in the bag on the bed.”

He frowns, confused.

“There’s a syringe,” Second Maddie repeats, “in the bag. On the bed.” 

Buck looks over: the hospital bag. Right. He looks back at Maddie, and Second Maddie nods. The first Maddie, the real Maddie, is taking Doug’s hands in her own and stepping forward, turning them so his back is to Buck, so he can’t see as Buck inches slowly toward the bed and tucks his hand into the bag, closing around what he hopes to God is the right thing before pulling back. Doug looks over at him, sharp. The gun comes back up, waving dangerously between them.

“You’re trying to trick me,” he says. “You think I’m stupid? I’m not stupid. I know there’s something weird about you, I know — that’s why you wouldn’t get pregnant, that’s why — ”

He swings the gun around to face Maddie, pressing it into her temple, and Buck doesn’t think, just steps forward and jams the syringe into Doug’s neck and presses inward, emptying it. Doug goes rigid, gun falling to the floor, and Maddie leaps away as he collapses, head smashing into the mirror. It cracks.

Bad luck, Buck thinks distantly. Blood drips from Doug’s head to the floor as he seizes, mouth foaming bubbles for a few seconds before he goes completely, eerily still.

Maddie is already on the ground, her fingers pressed to Doug’s neck. “Shit,” she’s saying, “shit, fuck, there’s no — fuck, did you empty that thing? Oh God.”

Buck looks down at the empty syringe. His whole body feels numb. “What is it?”

“I thought it was fucking ketamine,” Maddie hisses. “He’s been stealing it from the hospital, I thought he was using it to get high, but it wouldn’t — this isn’t a ketamine overdose. I don’t know what the fuck drug he’d have that would make him foam like that.”

She looks up at Buck, and whatever she sees on his face must shake her out of her own head, because she rises and steps over to him, bringing her hands to her face. “Hey,” she murmurs, “hey, it’s okay. It was an accident. It was an accident, you didn’t mean to.”

“Did I just murder a man,” Buck asks plainly, oddly calm.

Maddie bites her lip. “No,” she tells him, voice fierce enough that it sparks something alive in Buck. She hasn’t sounded like that all night. She hasn’t sounded like that in years. “You acted in, in, in self-defense, and in defense of me. It’s not murder. Okay? It’s not murder.”

Together, they turn to look at Doug’s body, motionless on the floor.

Buck’s first instinct is to call Athena, and his second instinct is to never, ever do that. He can’t get her involved in his mistakes. He can’t put her in the position of having to, fuck, arrest him for killing a man. He takes a deep, shaky breath, then pulls away from Maddie and kneels beside the body. He presses his fingertips, shaking, to Doug’s neck, where the pulse should be, and pushes magic into it. He knows it won’t work; it hadn’t, after all, worked with Daniel. Buck had pushed everything he had into his brother and it had just felt like his magic was evaporating, like Buck was evaporating with it.

Buck tries anyway. 

Come back, he wills Doug through his magic: come back, you stupid son of a bitch.

Nothing happens. For a second, he feels something, some dark tendril reaching up toward him, but then it’s gone and his magic falls into Doug the way water falls into an abyss, never hitting the ground, disappearing into the dark.

“We can call the police,” Maddie says quietly. “I’ll tell them I did it. It was self-defense. I panicked afterward and called you and you found us like this.”

Buck shakes his head. “I healed you,” he points out. “Maybe if ... if I hadn’t, you could ... but Maddie, you’re practically glowing with health.”

She looks at herself in the mirror and startles. “Oh,” she says, hand drifting with wonder toward her face. “I haven’t ... God. I haven’t looked this good in years.”

“It’s how I remember you,” Buck tells her quietly, and Maddie’s smile is watery when she gives it to him. Buck clears his head and thinks. “They have your name at the front desk, right? So we can’t just leave him here for them to find.”

“So, what, you want to bury him?” Maddie asks incredulously. “Where? We’re in the middle of Pasadena.”

Buck shakes his head. “Not in Pasadena. LA. I have a — there’s a back garden, I’ve been digging up the soil to plant roses. Nobody will think anything of it.”

“Buck . . .”

“Maddie,” Buck says, voice firm, “You didn’t let me protect you before. Let me do it now. Please.”

She visibly hesitates, and then sighs. “All right,” she says, “but if they do find him, you let me take the fall. Okay? That has to be the deal.”

She holds her hand out, pinky up. The radio sings angel of mercy, you'll come to no harm.

Buck looks at Maddie's pinkie for a long moment, wavering, and then reaches his hand out to hers and twines their fingers.

*

They get Doug's body into the backseat and back to LA, Buck thinking no cops no cops no cops the whole drive. He’s grateful for the garage-like nature of the old truck bay, because it offers them privacy once the door closes, and together they drag Doug out back and onto the grass.

He’s heavy as shit. Buck has a new appreciation for the term deadweight. 

“I’ll dig,” Buck says, tossing Maddie the house keys. “You — go upstairs. Take a shower. You can borrow clothes and we can figure out what tomorrow looks like.”

Maddie looks like she wants to fight him, but she’s also been driving twelve hours a day since she left Boston and hasn’t eaten since breakfast. So she gives in, kissing Buck’s cheek and then disappearing back inside.

Buck looks over at Doug. Something turns over in his stomach, that strange tendril again, but he pushes it away. There’s no time for regret, and no point besides. He puts the shovel in the ground.

By the time the sun is coming up, Buck has put Doug in the ground and the roses on top of him.

He goes inside and finds Maddie passed out on the couch, a plate of food waiting for him. It brings tears to his eyes, a little, because Maddie is still trying to take care of him, even though — even though. 

He eats, showers, and collapses into his bed, too exhausted to think about anything, too tired to feel it. 

When he wakes up in the morning, it’s to loud knocking on his door, and when he looks at his phone he realizes it’s almost 9AM.

“Shit,” he says, leaping out of bed and half-stumbling down the stairs. Maddie is sitting frozen on the couch, staring at the door with a look of terror on her face. Buck pulls it open, already apologizing as Chimney’s form comes into view. “Sorry, sorry, I overslept, I’ll be down in a second, I — ”

“It’s my fault,” Maddie blurts out, and for one heart-stopping second Buck thinks she’s going to tell him everything. But she just tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and gives a helpless laugh. “I showed up as a surprise and kept him up all night catching up. I’m his sister, Maddie.”

Chimney blinks like someone has hit him over the head with a frying pan. “Maddie,” he repeats. “Howard. Howie. Uh, Chimney.” 

Maddie glances at Buck for help. He says, “Legal name Howard. But everyone calls him Chimney because — ”

“ANYWAY,” Chim interrupts, “it’s okay. No problem. I’ll cover for you and tell Bobby you’re — indisposed. It’s no big deal.”

Buck gapes at him. The last time he slept in it was because he had a fever of 102 and and Chimney had duct taped an ice pack to his head instead of letting him off.

Maddie smiles. “Thanks, that’s so nice.”

“I’m nice,” says Chim, somewhat stupidly.

“You very much are not,” says Buck, bewildered, as he ushers Chim out the door. 

“Don’t forget about game night tonight!” Chim says loudly, voice squeaking. “Uh, you have to come. I mean, you both can. Should. Otherwise Bobby will worry.”

“Thank you, Chimney,” Buck says firmly, and closes the door.

Behind him, Maddie lets out a slightly hysterical giggle. “I thought he was the police,” she admits. “What’s game night?”

Buck scrubs at his forehead. Fuck. It’s Saturday; he’d forgotten. “It’s, uh, my boss and his wife host them every month or so. Technically we do play games but it’s really just an excuse to get everyone together. I forgot . . . fuck, it’s fine, I’ll tell Bobby we can’t go.”

But Maddie is shaking her head, moving forward to grab a gentle hold on Buck’s wrist. “No. We should go.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if we don’t, they’ll know something is up. If I were just here on a completely normal surprise visit, wouldn’t you still go?”

The irritating thing is that Maddie is right; if she had shown up, ready to reconcile, just planning to stay for a few days to see her baby brother, he’d have been thrilled at the timing. He’d have wanted to show her off to everybody, to prove that he’d had somebody who loved him before them, that the mysterious sister he’d insisted existed was real and had come to see him.

Buck glances nervously out the window, at the back garden. It looks messy, the roses sprawling huge and healthy out onto the lawn. He frowns a little; he must have bought a size bigger than he’d realized, and last night hadn’t exactly been in the mindset to evaluate them. But he could have sworn they weren’t so lush yesterday. 

Still; whatever. Better healthy roses than wilting ones, he supposes, and it makes them look like they’ve been there longer than they have. If anything, it will only help them if anyone comes looking.

He sighs, dropping his body onto the couch and his head into his hands. Maddie sits quietly next to him, hand coming up to rub a slow, comforting circle.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “For getting you mixed up in this.”

“Maddie,” he admonishes. “Come on.”

“No, Buck, I’m serious. I know you love me. I knew you’d come. But now — are you okay? Yesterday was . . .” She blows out a long breath and shakes her head helplessly, unable to come up with any words to describe what yesterday was.

Buck grins a little. “A shit show,” he offers. “An unmitigated fucking disaster.”

Maddie leans into him, their shoulders pressing close. She smells like his bodywash, and it makes something well up in him, some old longing he’d set to rest a long time ago. Buck can’t stop himself from gathering her up into his arms, holding her as close as she can get. Maddie holds him back, shaking a little. Burying her face into the bend of his neck.

“I really missed you,” Buck mumbles into the hug, and Maddie lets out a broken half-laugh, half-sob.

“You have no idea how much I missed you,” she tells him. “Your postcards were the only thing that kept me going, sometimes. I’m sorry I never answered them. I didn’t know what to say. I knew you’d know something was wrong no matter what I wrote and I didn’t want you to get dragged into my mess.”

She laughs wetly. “So much for that plan, I guess.”

Buck gives her a squeeze. “I want to be dragged into your messes,” he tells her, and means it. “But you shouldn’t have suffered quietly for so long.”

“It really wasn’t always,” Maddie says. She draws back and plays with her fingers, not looking at Buck. “When we first got married, he was so — he really was so good to me. He understood that I didn’t want kids, or I thought he did. I guess he thought he could change my mind. And then his mom got sick, and I don’t know. I guess he ran out of patience.”

“Maddie. ”

“I know, Buck. But I just . . .” She shrugs. “It’s hard to leave. I don’t know.”

Buck closes his eyes. He’s struck with a memory, him and Maddie in the attic plucking flower petals into a bowl and holding them up to the moon. She had wished for a little girl, just one, healthy and happy and safe. But Buck hadn’t trusted that the curse wouldn’t take the only child if there were no boys to take. So instead he’d woven a spell to ensure the only child he’d have would be an impossible boy, which was to say, that he’d never have a child at all.

He’ll have four legs and four tongues and four eyes. He’ll be smarter than anyone we know. He’ll never get lost, even if he’s traveling somewhere that he’s never been. And most importantly, he'll never get burned.

He and Maddie had held out their pinkies and bound their magic together to make the spell stronger, to make it stick. Buck had felt their magic twine, and has ever since. Every spell has a whisper of his sister in it.

He takes her hand in his and holds it against his chest.

“I’m glad you called me,” he says. “No matter what happens next. So don’t go away again, okay?”

Maddie manages a watery smile. “I’ll stay. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“So, forever,” Buck decides, and outside his window, the roses inch closer to the door.

*

Between Friday’s insanity and the Saturday spent curled up on the couch with Maddie, telling her about his travels, about Bobby and Athen and Chimney and Hen, about his leg and how he’d tried so hard to heal it with magic and all he got for his trouble was a pulmonary embolism, Bucks forgets about Eddie and Chris. 

They’re already at Bobby’s by the time Buck and Maddie get there; in fact, they are the last two to arrive and spend a few minutes standing out on the stoop, holding hands and gathering their courage.

“They love you,” Maddie reminds him. “It’s just a game night like any other game night.”

“Yeah,” Buck agrees, and then turns to look at her, biting his lip with no small amount of guilt. “The thing is, I, ah. I haven’t talked much. About you. Or, I mean. About Pennsylvania generally. It didn’t feel like there was much to say.”

Maddie tips her head to the side, curious. “But they know I exist,” she says. “Your cute friend didn’t seem surprised that you had a sister.”

Buck very bravely tables her use of the word cute to describe Howard Han for a later time. “Yeah, I mean. They know about you, and that we weren’t in contact. I’m not sure how to explain you suddenly being here like it’s normal.”

“I missed you,” Maddie says with a shrug. “I was tired of not speaking. I came to try to fix things between us. It’s true, anyway.”

Buck breathes in, and out. He squeezes Maddie’s hand, and together they push the door open.

Immediately they’re swept into the chaos, Denny dashing by with a shouted greeting and Harry close on his heels. Buck is opening his mouth to shout hello back when he gets the breath knocked out of him by the force of someone flinging their entire bodyweight into his middle; on instinct, he wraps his hands around his attacker and lifts until they’re eye to eye. Chris squints at him, giggling.

“Hi Buck!” he says, wriggling a little until Buck brings him in close for a hug before settling him on his hip. “We got here at 5:45 because Dad’s scared of Athena. Is this your girlfriend?”

Buck laughs. “Hi, Chris. No, this is my sister, Maddie. Maddie, this is my best friend in the entire world, Christopher.”

Maddie shoots him a glance, eyebrows raised, but then she extends a hand to Chris to shake. “Well, then I’m really happy to meet you, Chris. I was worried Buck was out here without anyone to look after him, but now that I see he’s got you, I know he’s all set.”

Chris beams, wrapping both arms around Buck’s shoulders. “Yeah,” he says, “and he has my dad, too. My dad says he thinks Buck is cool.”

“Wow, can’t believe I raised a snitch,” Eddie’s voice says as he rounds the corner. He’s grinning, eyes seeking out Buck’s immediately, and Buck’s mouth goes a little dry because Eddie is wearing jeans and a henley which Buck doesn’t think should be allowed without prior warning. He holds out a hand for Maddie to shake. “Hi, I’m Eddie. This one’s mine.”

Buck dutifully tries to hand Chris over, but he squirms down to the ground first, announcing that Harry said they could take turns on his Switch. He gives Buck another big smile before hustling out the same direction Denny and Harry had gone.

“I’m Maddie,” Maddie is saying, and tips her head toward Buck. “This one’s mine.”

Buck makes an offended face. “Excuse me, who taught who how to hotwire a car,” he demands, and Maddie pokes her tongue out.

“Hot Tyler from two doors down taught both of us,” Maddie says dryly.

“Yeah, but I was better at it. You’d have never gotten it down if I hadn’t sat with you and taught you the bunny ears trick.”

Eddie looks between them, folding his arms over his chest with a mock-stern glare. “As an officer of the law I feel obliged to remind you both that hotwiring vehicles is illegal.”

Buck gives Eddie what Bobby calls his Wasn’t Me smile. “And we do not endorse it, Officer,” he promises. “We learned for informational purposes only.”

“Uh huh.”

“Scout’s honor!”

“Are you a Scout?”

“Uhhhhh,” says Buck. “I was a Scout?”

Maddie laughs. “Buck got kicked out of his troop,” she tells Eddie, like a traitor. “Because he blew up a campfire and tried to blame a bear.”

What Maddie is not saying is that he’d blown up the campfire because he was trying to start one with just his magic, and he had been too young to have great control over it. He’d wound up with a huge blaze; they’d had to call the rangers in to put it out. 

“It could have been bears,” Buck mutters. 

“What could have been bears?” asks Hen. “Also, get in here, we’re starting. Athena’s got Guess Who.”

Buck, Maddie, and Eddie dutifully follow her into the living room and Buck does a round of introductions. He stumbles a little explaining why Maddie came for a surprise visit, and is endlessly grateful when she steps in gracefully, smoothing things over with deliberate charm Buck has never seen from her before. He wonders briefly, uncharitably, if she’s using magic, and then hates himself. Maddie wouldn’t charm people Buck loves. 

It’s worse, somehow, to realize she’s good at it because she must have been doing this for years: smoothing over, covering up, making sure nobody peeked behind the curtain of her marriage to Doug. 

Buck pushes the thought away. When he thinks about Doug, something a squeezes in his chest, furious and dark, a tendril of something wrapped round his ribs like fingers on the bars of a cage.

So he doesn’t think about him. He drinks Athena’s deadly homemade margaritas and plays Guess Who and smokes Chimney and Hen but gets smoked by Athena and Eddie, who are promptly accused of unfairly deploying their special detective skills. By round three of margaritas, Buck doesn’t have to try to push away the thought of Doug at all; his head is pleasantly empty, his body floating. He and Eddie have migrated toward each other on the couch, legs pressed together from knee to hip. 

They’re playing Go Fish and cheating together, holding their cards out far enough so they can see each other’s hands, and by round four of margaritas everyone has given up on the pretense of games and are sprawled across the furniture, laughing and ribbing one another, increasingly unhinged.

At some point, May comes home and looks at them with the kind of disdain only a teenager can manage as she says, “Wow, you guys are wasted. I guess I’m babysitting tonight since exactly none of you other than Bobby can drive.”

She goes and collects everybody’s keys like a good cop’s daughter, which just makes them all laugh harder. Buck can’t seem to stop laughing. Nobody can.

Eddie is so close to Buck that Buck can feel him breathing. They keep looking at each other. Eddie keeps looking, eyes dark and hot and focused, saying criminal things like I used to ride rodeo, I’m pretty good at hanging on to a good buck. 

“Buck!” cries Chimney, laughing hysterically at what is objectively not very funny. “Buck, like Buck!”

Eddie hums and takes another drink, looking directly at Buck as he does it. 

Distantly, some part of Buck’s brain reminds him that game night isn’t usually like this, that they drink but they don’t get messy, that it’s wildly inappropriate for him to reach out and run his hand up Eddie’s thigh and say, “How good does a buck have to be?”

Distantly, some part of Buck’s brain registers the radio turning on in the kitchen, angel of mercy I want my reward.

But Eddie is right there, shifting closer into Buck’s hand, and when Buck looks around he realizes that Bobby and Athena are gone, Hen and Karen are gone, Maddie and Chimney are even gone, and Buck spares exactly one second to wonder how Maddie got herself home before they’re kissing, Eddie’s lips hot and demanding against his own, mumbling something into Buck’s mouth that tastes like the word Uber.

Buck nods frantically, pulling away, impatiently gathering his shoes from the door while Eddie orders a car, and he doesn’t even know if Eddie says goodbye to Chris before they’re outside, Buck shoving Eddie against the side of the house, sinking his teeth into the sweet, soft skin beneath the hinge of Eddie’s jaw. Eddie groans and claws him closer, chest heaving, frantic: Buck has never felt like this. Never, during a hookup, not even the ones he’d liked, not even Abby. He wants to climb inside Eddie’s mouth. He wants to bury his nose in Eddie’s armpit. He wants —

He squats down and heaves Eddie up by his thighs and Eddie lets out a sound Buck’s sure he’d be embarrassed by if he weren’t so out of his mind with it, struggling to thrust up against Buck’s stomach, locking his ankles behind Buck’s back. His mouth is everywhere, and he’s saying something — Buck can’t hear it properly over the roaring in his ears, the yes yes yes, angel of mercy yes.

A car honks. Buck thinks they must get into it, thinks they probably scandalize their driver because he can’t stop touching Eddie, can’t stop kissing him. It feels painful to be even one inch away. 

“I want to wreck you,” Eddie is babbling as they get out of the car, chasing each other into Eddie’s house. “Jesus Christ I feel insane, you make me feel insane, I’ve never wanted another man before and then you just showed the fuck up out of nowhere — ”

The roar in Buck’s head ratchets up to eleven. “You’ve never fucked a man before?” he breathes, dizzy with it, with being Eddie’s first. “God. Fuck. God. Can I — will you — Eddie.”

They’re in his bedroom. Buck thinks maybe he keeps losing time and he wants to stop, because he wants to remember this, every second of it, but it’s like something has wrapped a dark silk blindfold around his eyes and only lets him peek at odd intervals. He has never felt more inside his body and outside of his brain. His hands burn where they touch Eddie’s skin. His mouth buzzes. He knows he’s shaking. His magic is everywhere, obvious and bright, impossible to miss.

But Eddie seems too lost in touching Buck to notice it. Their clothes are gone. Eddie is a heavy weight on top of him, their dicks pressed together, delicious, better than anything, more beautiful than roses. Buck hooks his legs behind Eddie’s back and urges him forward, wants to get off like this, just like this: Eddie taking what he wants, Buck giving it freely. 

“Buck,” Eddie murmurs into his shoulder, movements growing erratic, “I want you so much. I want you so much.”

He sounds bewildered by it.

“I’m right here,” Buck assures him. 

“It’s not close enough,” Eddie complains, “I don’t understand why I feel like this, I’ve never — I want you everywhere, all the time, I can’t stop thinking about it — ”

“Don’t,” Buck commands. He can feel himself getting close, presses up into Eddie and is thrilled by the way a shudder rocks through him. “Don’t stop thinking about me. Ever.”

His magic floats down and wraps around them, weaving into Eddie’s hair and giving it a tug, and just like that, Eddie is coming against Buck’s stomach and Buck is following after.

Eddie collapses on top of him and Buck’s arms come up automatically, wrapping around him, keeping him close.

“Stay the night,” Eddie mumbles against Buck’s chest. 

“Yeah,” Buck agrees, hazy and floaty and calm, keeping Eddie still and sated against him, humming a gentle and vaguely familiar melody into Buck’s skin until Buck is pulled under into black sleep.

*

He wakes to his phone. Maddie. He knows it like he always knows it.

Eddie is still a heavy weight, but no longer directly above Buck. He’s shifted to the side, arm tight around Buck’s middle. Buck uses a little bit of magic to ease out from under his hold without waking him. 

He feels — off, somehow. Snatches of the night before come back to him and he tries to put his finger on what’s wrong with the images, but he can’t quite place it as he dresses quickly and flicks open his phone. “Hey,” he croaks into it, still half-asleep. “I abandoned you yesterday, I’m sorry, I — ”

“Buck,” Maddie interrupts. Her voice is reedy, like she’s whispering. “Something fucked up happened last night.”

Buck is immediately awake and alert. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Maddie tells him, but she doesn’t sound fine. She sounds wretched. “I’m — I think I’m at Chimney’s house.”

Buck pulls his phone away from his ear and stares at it. “Chimney,” he repeats blankly. “Why?”

“We . . . I think probably the same reason you’re at what I assume is Eddie’s house. But I,” Maddie audibly swallows. “I don’t think that any of us meant to.”

It feels like being hit with an ice-cold firehose. Buck’s finger, still shifting through last night, touches down exactly on the feeling of wrongness. Everything comes back to him as if it had happened to someone else. The margaritas, the laughter, the increasingly unhinged atmosphere, everybody disappearing in pairs. 

“I woke up because Chimney was humming in his sleep,” Maddie tells him. “It was that song. Doug always loved it.”

Buck thinks of Eddie, heavy on his chest, pressing the song into Buck’s skin. Angel of mercy, there's no need for alarm. The knight in his armor wants a night in your arms. 

Eddie saying I’ve never wanted a man before. 

Buck is going to be sick.

He — he had — had Eddie even wanted — ?

“I used your phone location to add a stop, I’m coming in an Uber to pick you up,” Maddie is telling him. “We’re going to figure out what’s going on, okay?”

“Okay,” Buck says numbly. He braces against Eddie’s sink and looks out the window. 

In the driveway, Daniel flickers in and out, raising his hand in a stuttering wave.