contain multitudes

Tagged by @damnit-buck mwah I started working on something new last week so have some car crash buck.

The slam of the door echos as Buck storms out of Bobby's house. He doesn't look back. Just gets in the Jeep and throws it into gear.

How could he? How could he? Racing through his head. He doesn't know where he's going. It doesn't matter. Anywhere but here.

Bobby was supposed to be someone he could trust. Sometime between being fired and recovering from having his leg crushed, it got harder to ignore that Bobby is more than his captain. All the days he showed up at the loft with another meal. All the PT appointments he drove Buck to. All the times he let Buck shout at him and took his pain like it was easy. 

Did it all mean nothing? Bobby could sideline Buck like he meant nothing?

Buck rolls to a stop at a red light. It's a quiet night. He lowers the windows, wanting to feel the wind. Thoughts of pushing the gas and seeing how fast he can go tempt him. He could drive anyway. Pick a direction and go. Why stay? Bobby certainly doesn't want him.

The traffic light changes.

He still has that lawyer's card somewhere. The lawyer could get Bobby to see reason. Prove that this is unfair. Get him back where he belongs.

Buck presses the gas. He doesn’t check the cross roads.

He blows past the speed limit and keeps going. The wind hits his face. It’s not enough to calm his heart. The tension in his jaw doesn’t lessen. The rage doesn’t dampen.

He doesn’t see the stop sign. He doesn’t see the truck speeding through the intersection. He doesn’t have any time to panic or prepare. The impact is sudden and fierce, right into the driver's side.

Losing consciousness would be too kind. He feels it all. The slam of the airbag hitting his chest. The twist of the metal frame wrapping around his leg. The crack of his radius and ulna. The spray of glass raining down on him. Everything spinning. 

Blood drips down his temple. Oozes from other cuts. It's a lot of blood.

Blood thinners Buck thinks. That’s bad, right? Whatever is wrong, that must make it worse.

One’s a standard, dark navy LAFD mug, one of a good half-dozen or so that have somehow found their way here from the station. The other is bright green, covered in cutesy cartoon animals, proudly proclaiming ‘I went WILD at the LA zoo!’ Christopher had a sticker of the same design plastered onto the hardtop of his pencil case for most of fourth grade. Eddie always thought the elephant was a little wall-eyed, would joke about him needing medical attention for the stroke.

The mugs are the first thing Eddie sees when he walks into his kitchen, the things his sleep-drenched mind chooses to focus on. The navy is filled to the brim, the coffee a deep black that’s surely masking an extra spoonful or two of sugar. He can’t see the contents of the other, already mostly drunk away, but it’s doubtlessly lighter, though probably not the creamy tan Eddie’s been seeing for years, since the apparently permanent change over to oat milk. Oat milk that now lives in his own refrigerator, too.

There’s a plate piled high with silver dollar pancakes set out on the island. Chris has already helped himself to more than his fair share, cheeks bulging with the ones he’s already shoved into his mouth. He’s now slowly and carefully moving some onto Theo’s plate. Theo must have been given some of the watermelon Eddie had cut up yesterday afternoon but it’s already gone, pink juice staining his chin and the front of his monster truck pajamas as he gleefully sucks each one of his sticky fingers.

Eddie closes his eyes.

It’s a far cry from their last morning all together like this. Just a few days ago he had woken up in the same way; alone in the bed he had had to share, drawn to the kitchen by sounds of life and gnawing hunger. Chris, sullen and cranky after another night camped out on Buck’s couch, had snapped at Theo to just shut up already. And Theo had screamed and screamed until Buck picked him up, balancing him on one hip, letting him bury his snotty, tear-stained face into his neck. Buck’s expression would twist and he’d quietly grunt every time a tiny socked foot dug into the softness of his belly. That was not a day for pancakes, and Eddie had watched Buck struggle to try and pour out cereal and milk with only one hand free.

Eddie had barely taken a step closer, ready to take some part of it over, but had received his own snapped I got it for his efforts.

He had closed his eyes then, too, listening to Buck’s coffee maker as it burbled to life – Buck had forgotten to set the timer, but at least it gave Eddie something to do. By the time the coffee was done, there was barely enough time to drink it, the countdown to getting out the door already well under way. Eddie ended up burning his tongue, had spent the rest of the day scraping the numb roughness of it against the roof of his mouth.

It had felt the same, that morning, in that kitchen full of distress and upset. The same as it feels now, in this kitchen full of warmth and laughter and, most importantly, pancakes.