#mayswords

“I wanna hear him say yeah,” Buck sings. He points the hairbrush at Eddie, alternating each for each of their lines.

“Yeah,” Eddie responds into the mic.

“Yeah-”

“Yeah-”

“Yeah, I like it that wayy!” They chorus. Eddie tosses his ridiculous hat to the side as they launch into the next verse.

Maddie watches in awe. They still haven’t realised she’s in the apartment. She’s kind of hoping they don’t.

She watches as Eddie curls his fingers into Buck’s belt loops and pulls him closer, his hands going from his jeans to the skin right above it under Buck’s shirt once he moves in. Buck doesn’t resist. His own hands land on Eddie’s butt as Eddie leans in more.

Eddie’s singing turns husky. Buck licks his lips as Eddie sings almost into his mouth, “Any man of mine better walk the line, better show me a teasin’, squeezin’, pleasin’ kinda time--”

Okay, there’s only so much Maddie can watch in good faith. She clears her throat as loudly and deliberately as possible. Both men turn like deers caught in headlights. She sees the colour drain out of Eddie’s face as it simultaneously floods Buck’s.

“Maddie!”

“Hi,” Maddie says, barely trying to conceal the shit-eating grin on her face.

The music stops, courtesy of Eddie, as Buck tramples down the stairs.

“What, uh, what’re you doing here?”

“I came to return your jacket. Why wasn’t I invited to this dance party? You know I love Shania Twain,” Maddie pouts. Buck’s face is redder than she’s ever seen.

“It wasn’t… planned,” Buck starts. “Eddie came over to help me pack for our Austin trip and he found that stupid hat - you remember that hat? I had it when I was on the ranch - and then we just-”

“Buck,” Maddie interrupts. “I was joking, it’s fine.” She glances past his shoulder where Eddie is meekly descending the stairs.

“I’m just gonna be… there,” Eddie says before quickly walking to the couch and shrinking into it. Maddie chuckles.

“Alright, I just wanted to come say have a safe flight. I’ll leave you to it now,” she winks at her brother. He groans.

“Please don’t.”

“Noted,” she says, picking up her bag. “Have fun there.”

“Wait, Mads, you… uh, you don’t wanna ask about… about this?” Buck asks, confused. Maddie smiles. She wants to say something along the lines of do you think we’re stupid? But he looks worried, and Maddie doesn’t have the heart to rub it in his face. Yet.

Instead, she squeezes his hand and says, “We’ll talk when you’re back, okay?”

Buck nods, relief washing over his face.

“See you, Buck. Bye, Eddie!” she calls.

“Later,” Eddie calls back.

“Um, I thought we were here to celebrate Chimney’s fifteen years on the job,” Hen said.

“I thought we were here for Athena’s retirement party.”

“Who the hell said I was retiring?”

Maddie said, “Mm, Karen, this is for your new job, right?”

“No? I thought we were celebrating Eddie’s coming out.”

“We most definitely are not.” Eddie’s face flushed.

“Isn’t this for May going back to college?”

“I hope not. I’m only leaving next month.”

“Anniversary?” Chimney suggested.

“Whose?” Bobby asked.

“Yours and Athena’s?”

“Nope.”

“Well, what does the cake say?”

Eddie opened the cake box. “It just has a smiley face on it.”

“Okay, who was in charge of the cake?”

“Bobby’s the one who told me to keep it generic!” Hen snapped.

Ravi felt himself slipping away about halfway through this. He sips his drink and sighs. He had tried so hard to avoid getting sucked into this… this weird, enmeshed family dynamic the A shifters had. But it was hard. There was something magnetic about them, they kept pulling him into their shit.

He didn’t mind working with them – they’re for sure some of the most competent people he’s ever been on shift with. It’s just everything else that makes them… bizarre.

Like this exact situation, for example. How does this group of people hang out so frequently that they have no idea why they’re there?

(Buck’s suggested Fourth of July. Athena’s shot it down because she insists she would’ve had the red-white-blue food otherwise. Also, it’s the middle of the month.)

Don’t get him wrong, he likes them, he does. It’s just that he prefers the Venn diagram of his friends, family, and co-workers to not be one big circle, thank you very much.

It started way before he became an A shift regular, he thinks. That fateful Q-word day. Maybe he did jinx himself for life.

Ravi had gone back and recounted the story to his B-shift colleagues, and they had basically said, “Yeah, that tracks,” – and that’s how Ravi began his spiral into the infamous lore of A-shift.

He should’ve known they were all disaster magnets. He listens in abject horror and fascination as they tell him about the rebar, the tracheotomy, the hand-in-man’s-chest, and of course, the LSD brownies.

He stops them after a bit and decides the less he knows about these people the better. Then the treasure hunt happened, and he literally found a dead body with the group, and he guessed that counts as some kind of trauma bonding, but it still kept him wary.

And then the sniper situation unfolded, and Ravi got to temporarily be on A shift for a bit. It was an experience for sure (and getting shot is one of the less goofy things to happen to the group) but they pulled through, and Ravi was ready to go back to B shift.

But then Chimney left to chase the love of his life, and Ravi gets it, he’d do the same, so he was still stuck on the opposite shift.

It was then that Ravi started realising how little personal space these six people actually had. He somehow kept getting invited to events – Chimney’s brother’s firefighter test being the most random of them all – but he was too polite to decline them.

Somewhere between the dead author and prison riots, he'd been adopted as the token normal guy of the team; somehow, he didn't mind.

“Alright now, enough!” Athena’s voice cuts through the commotion and snaps Ravi out of his wine-induced introspection.

“It doesn’t matter what we’re here for. This was bound to happen at some point. Let’s just enjoy this party and plan better for the next one.”

The garden murmurs in agreement as they raise their glasses again.

“To family,” Bobby announces.

“To family!” Ravi choruses with everyone, clinking his glass with Hen and Maddie’s.

The air is thick with barbeque and joy. The patio lights twinkle in time with Bobby’s 60s mix playing in the background, and the idle chatter of his friends make the wine settle gently in his belly.

Eddie, despite himself, obliges, and watches as Chim’s marker scritch-scratches across the paper. Someone from the B shift decided to leave a box of art supplies for the more artistically inclined firefighters to occupy their time with during slow shifts. Chimney was decidedly not one of them, but that didn’t stop him from trying anyway.

That’s why he’s locked in intense eye contact with Eddie, and it’s making him only slightly nervous.

Eddie watches, mostly amused, as Chim squints at him. Eddie squints back.

“Stop using your face,” Chim says, his gaze fixed.

“Do I wanna know what this is?” Hen asks as she crosses them to go to the kitchen.

“I’m studying his features.”

Hen grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and loops back around. She inspects over Chim’s shoulder.

“That looks nothing like Eddie.”

“I’m aware, that’s why I’m studying his features,” Chim replies, exasperated.

He stares for a minute more. Eddie goes back to looking at his phone, letting Hen and Chim’s conversation fade to the background.

He refreshes his texts and frowns when nothing new pops up from Buck. He’d offered to do the coffee run that morning, like he’d been offering for the past few weeks - which shouldn’t have bothered Eddie, but knowing that 1) Buck likes the coffee shop near Channel 8’s offices and 2) he only started doing the coffee runs again after Taylor going to work earlier, made something inside him sour.

Stupidly, he misses him.

It’s dumb and he knows it. He and Chris only see Buck a day less than usual, but still. Eddie could sort of deal with not seeing Buck outside of work because of Taylor. But her taking up his time with him during work too? Eddie felt like a child.

“Mm, that nose doesn’t look right,” Hen’s voice brings him out of his brooding.

“I know,” Chim replies.

“And I don’t think that’s what eyes look like, in general.”

“Okay, DaVinci, I got this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you do.”

Eddie refreshes his texts and lights up when he sees a message pop up, but it’s gone as soon as it comes when he sees it’s from Ana. He grumbles and swipes the notification away.

When he looks up he’s met with Hen and Chimney nearly in his face, both of them clutching sketchpads and observing him with a serial killer’s intensity.

He jumps.

“Jesus, what the hell guys?”

“Mouth shut, chin down,” Hen instructs, and Eddie knows better than to argue.

He endures it for a minute more before Bobby appears out of his office.

“Do I wanna know?” he asks. Eddie shakes his head.

“Don’t move,” Hen says sharply, and Chimney moves even closer.

Eddie opens his mouth to announce that he’s done, but is interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Guess who’s back with donuts as an apology for taking too long,” Buck’s voice floats across the loft, and Eddie instantly feels lighter.

“Ah, thank you. How’s Taylor doing?” Bobby asks, and Eddie has to stop himself from dramatically frowning.

“Can you hand me the eraser? His pupils just went pin-prick,” Hen asks.

“Uh, she’s good,” Buck smiles.

“Are you adding in that vein in his forehead now?” Chimney whispers.

“What’re you guys doing?” Buck asks as he slides the cup holder onto the counter.

“Sketching Eddie,” Chimney says, scribbling on his pad. “It’s been a slow shift.”

“Somehow this is making it slower,” Eddie mutters. Buck chuckles.

He surveys the budding artists.

“Hmm,” he says.

Hen looks up at him, brows furrowed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Those are both nice,” Buck says slowly. Hen looks irritated.

“But…?” she prompts.

He hands her the coffee. “But, neither really looks like him.”

“How dare you,” Chimney scoffs as he accepts his drink, “I’ve been staring at him on purpose for thirty minutes now. I dare you to get more realistic than this.”

Buck takes a sip of what Eddie knows is dangerously sugary coffee and shrugs. “Okay.”

Eddie blinks. “What?”

“Pass me a pencil,” Buck says, sitting down. Eddie gets up to watch but Hen sits him back down.

“You don’t have to,” Eddie starts, because if Buck’s methods were anything like Hen and Chim’s, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

But Buck picks up a pad and just starts sketching.

Eddie watches his wrist move across the page, his head turning every couple of minutes. He erases now and then, but moves steadily for the most part. His head doesn’t lift up even once.

He finishes by blowing the eraser dust off and handing the pad to Hen. Her eyebrows shoot up.

“Woah.”

“It’s good?” Eddie asks, craning his neck. Chimney lets out a low whistle.

Bobby peers over Chim’s shoulder. “Wow. I didn’t know you were an artist, Buck.”

“I dabble.”

“How did you do this?” Hen demands, shaking the sketchbook. “You didn’t even look at him!”

Buck simply shrugs, and Eddie swears he sees some red creeping up his neck.

“I didn’t need to.”

Eddie feels the warmth in his own cheeks.

He grabs the sketchbook from Hen. His jaw drops.

He looks…

“Did Gomez put colour pencils in that box? Pass me the red one.”

Eddie barely registers the rest of the conversation as he slowly takes in the paper in front of him. It’s a simple headshot, from the shoulders up - but he looks…

“This is how you see me?” he asks. Buck leans on the couch.

“This is just how you look, Eds.”

“I…” Eddie starts, but the thought dies on his tongue.

Buck’s arm brushes against his shoulder. “Is it good?”

“I look happy,” he says, his eyes not leaving the book. “I wasn’t even smiling when you were sketching.”

“Like I said, I didn’t have to look at you.”

Eddie’s grip on the sketchbook is tighter than he’d like to admit.

“It looks great, Buck. You’re very talented,” he manages. Why, he asks himself, why why why is this simple thing making him lose his mind? The implications of Buck not needing to see him to sketch him coupled with him making Eddie look like the most loving and lively person ever, despite Eddie rarely feeling like that, were too much for him to process in the moment.

“You can keep it,” Buck says.

“Oh, no,” Eddie responds, and immediately regrets it when Buck cocks his head. “Not because it’s not good, I just… don’t know where I’d put it. And this is your art. You should put it in your portfolio or something.”

Buck smiles. “Suit yourself.”

He flops onto the couch next to Eddie. “By the way, I think we’re one punch away from a free fro-yo on our cards. Wanna take Chris out tomorrow?”

“First of all, my card is definitely nowhere near done,” Eddie says. “Secondly, if you’re putting that kid on a sugar high you’re the one that needs to ride it out.”

“Jeez, okay. You’re lucky it’s a Friday.”

“I’ll keep the couch ready.”

Buck produces a black coffee and a maple log from seemingly nowhere and goes off to the bunks. Eddie watches him leave.

When he gets home, he sees a brown cardboard package lying on his doorstep. He opens it to be greeted by his face in graphite, smiling from behind a glass frame. The hastily scrawled note on it reads - “Your dresser is a good choice.”