#rip bobby

Now, the couch hasn’t changed, not one bit since Eddie left in pursuit of healing a frayed relationship with his son, and not one bit since Eddie came back, son in tow, in pursuit of healing an open wound left in the devastation of Bobby’s death; even through all the couch has seen in the past year, moving from one broken household to another, it still presents itself the same.

It’s Buck that isn’t.

He’s tried to pretend that everything is okay, not letting the ice crack just yet, willing it to stay cool just a while longer— long enough for him to finally be what he so wishes to be. And maybe that’s the part of him that is the same; the unwillingness to let himself be seen beyond this carefully constructed facade. Others try and take a pick to the surface, rejoicing when it fractures the slightest amount, not knowing the true depth of the ice below.

Maybe that isn’t sustainable in the long run, but the alternative is letting people in and seeing how broken he is inside, seeing the ruins left after his world was shaken with one shutter of the laboratory door. He can’t risk anyone getting a glimpse of those ruins— so he superglues the remaining arches and pillars and acts like everything’s fine and just peachy; just marvel at how they miraculously stand tall after such a life-altering event and let it reflect on the strength I hold! Don’t get too close, though, or the mirage may just be shattered in an instant!

The cushions shift beneath him, dipping to curve around the warm body next to him that finds themself at home on it, the warmth that emanates from the body so familiar it haunts him in every moment he spends apart from it, phantom pains left in its wake.

What’s so unfamiliar is the coldness that finds itself inside of the figure, a reminder of words yet to be said and held back, knowing they’ll come out in echoes of grief and tired voices.

What’s so unfamiliar is the space in between their bodies, a reminder of the last time they’d been close; but even then there’d been a great divide neither knew how to conquer despite their proximity.

Even then it seems impossible to conquer now.

“Everything okay?” Eddie asks, breaking the silence. The way the words form around his tongue, leaving his mouth heavily, shows he knows the weight it carries— a question open to a thousand possibilities, but only answering to the one carrying the most baggage; no, I’m not okay. Regardless of the weight, it also comes down gently, as if he’s bracing himself for the conversation ahead, like he knows he’s not getting the answer he wants.

Buck hears whispers of cracking in his head.

“I’m okay,” he simply responds, every syllable of the word having been forced out of his gut, his heart too busy at war with itself; it’s a battle between choosing to save what little remnants of strength he has left, or throwing it all away and letting Eddie thaw at the ice until it melts away and reveals how Buck has been drowning, the ice preventing him from escaping.

He chooses to save the strength, even if all that strength is going into saving itself.

“So, we’re doing this again, huh?”

This— this is not what he had expected to become familiar; this back-and-forth of Eddie wearing himself thin in desperation for Buck to let him in, let him past the facade just like he had a thousand times before, and Buck refusing to acknowledge that there even is anything to move beyond.

He thinks that he’s wearing his own self thin as a result.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Eds, or what you expect me to do,” he breaks. Now this— this is unfamiliar territory. Albeit not direct, it’s an acknowledgement of an expectation placed upon him by Eddie; an expectation to let his resolve break just enough for his pick to wedge itself deeper into the ice.

Memories of the last time they were this close are blurry, both of them too wrapped up in their own grief to read between the lines they all but screamed. But the clouds part just enough for Buck to remember how the last time Eddie got this close ended.

The ice had thinned.

“I don’t expect you to do anything,” Eddie states firmly, shifting to look at Buck who resolutely decides not to return his gaze— he knows the warmth in those eyes will be his undoing. “I just want you to do something, let yourself feel something,” he says exasperated.

“I am letting myself feel,” he argues, shaking his head as he looks down on the cushions, hands moving to pick at the seams along the edges. “It’s not like I’m holding anything back and breaking at the last second, unlike like some people.”

The words linger in the air, bouncing along walls stained with memories of breakdowns over baseball bats and pieces of drywall. They bounce back to Buck, striking him with clarity. He sits up, moving to look Eddie in the eye just to get across the sudden guilt he feels.

“Eddie, I’m so sor-“

“I just want you to rely on me for once, Buck,” he huffs out before Buck could move his gaze past his neck. Buck inhales sharply, slowly nodding his head while blinking rapidly. His hands move from the cushions to his thighs, palming at his jeans.

“Bobby said that you guys would need me. How are you supposed to rely on a broken record?” He exclaims, his voice going raspy with unshed tears. He moves to speak a few times, only a few broken syllables releasing. His gaze drags itself back down to his hands.

No matter how hard Buck denies it to himself, he knows the others are aware of his pain and his futile attempts to suppress it. It’s in the way they look at him like he’s something fragile, ready to shatter into a million pieces by the touch of a finger; it’s in the way they sparingly shoot him a glance once Bobby is mentioned in a fleeting story; and it’s in the way they treat him like they treat May and Harry— like he’s just lost his dad.

Because he did.

And he knows the others are grieving just like he is. It makes itself known through the laughter at the 118, a voice missing from its symphony; it makes itself known when he cooks dinner for the rest of A-shift and someone makes an off-hand comment about it missing something so uniquely Bobby; and it makes itself known when they’re making plans in the group-chat and Athena reserves a spot for one instead of two.

And that’s why he knows he has to at least try to fix his melody himself, or at least tune it enough to be as listenable as possible, to fill the Bobby-sized void left in their lives; a person that was bigger than their life that was cut short.

“And your solution is to run yourself into the ground with him?” Eddie’s words cut sharply into the air, concern evident in his voice. Buck shrugs his shoulders in lack of an answer— because, truly, what is he thinking?

He’s thinking of the countless times that he encountered death in the past, its shadow taunting him each day he’s alive; and he’s thinking of the countless times that his friends and family ran to support him in the fallout, never leaving him alone, like they were scared that the moment they did, he’d be gone for real that time.

He’s thinking that maybe this was him repaying the favor— he’d take care of them and finally stop running from death’s shadow.

His right hand moves to fidget with the couch cushion’s seam, part of it fraying off.

“You don’t have to be brave, Evan. Let us be scared with you.”

Buck looks up at Eddie.

Crack.

The ice breaks.

And Buck cries.

Buck cries for the family he’s found and for the family he’s lost; he cries for the years he’s spent acting out for attention and the years he’s spent silently screaming for help; he cries for the younger him who longed to feel fatherly love for once in his life; and he cries for the him now who aches with the loss of the father who loved him over and over again, even when he felt he didn’t deserve it.

And Eddie holds him through it, a familiar and comforting touch.

And maybe the peace won’t come right away, and that’s okay.

They have time.