Word Count: 5,243
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with 911, Fox, or anything else related to that particular universe.
The call came over the radios as they meandered streets in the city. A mass casualty event in the south, a possible terrorist incident, a missing driver. Polson had flicked on the lights and sirens, executed a sharp U-turn at the next intersection, and begun speeding through the traffic.
There were ambulances and firefighters and police crawling the scene by the time they arrived. Crumpled bodies covered with plastic and sheets, smears of blood along the road, a dark grey 4WD smouldering against a shattered shopfront. Eddie cast his eyes across the carnage, pointing Polson and Tandy towards one of the patrol units to make their presence known.
"What have we got?" he said as he approached the car, where two plain-clothed detectives were taking photographs and jotting notes.
"Suspect fled the scene heading west. Witnesses reported he was male, six feet, dark hair, light shirt and jeans," the woman reported, flipping through her notebook. "Accounts have varied about facial features and skin colour, but been consistent about his direction and clothing."
"Do we know a motivation?" Nicholls asked and both detectives shook their heads.
"Some have said it looked deliberate, others said the vehicle appeared out of nowhere. We've got six DOA on the side of the road and another eight transported to hospital. Three were critical," the male said and Eddie exchanged glances with Nicholls and Walker. Whoever this guy was, they needed to find him. Fast.
He regrouped with Tandy and Polson and made contact with HQ to provide an update on their location, status, and a rough plan. Once Athena's voice crackled back with an approval, he flagged down some of the members of various patrol units to implement a grid search of surrounding streets.
"We don't know who this guy is, we don't know where he might be, and we don't know if he's armed and possibly dangerous, so keep your eyes open," he ordered. When he received a series of nods, he directed the various patrol units and then led his squad west where they fanned across the street to knock on doors and peer over fences.
"Sarge!"
Nicholls jogged behind him as they crossed to the other side of the road, where a stain of blood on an ajar door had them all lifting guns into position. He waved two fingers around the back, pointed at his eyes. Tandy and Walker nodded and departed, while Nicholls and Polson slid behind him. There was a crackle on his radio that sounded like static but was the signal that the other two were in position. Swallowing any trepidation, he eased the door open, stretching his ear for sound.
"LAPD! Is there anyone in here?" he shouted, hovering by the doorframe.
He was answered by silence so he gestured at Polson. She pressed against her radio twice to indicate entry and then Eddie moved forward, crouched with his gun drawn as he swept into the house.
"Clear," he whispered as he looked over the living room, his words mimicked by Nicholls as he left the front bedroom.
Polson tapped his shoulder and pointed at a streak of blood on the wall by the staircase. He nodded, gave a thumbs up, and Tandy and Walker joined them at the base of the stairs. The two men gave small shakes of their head so Eddie gestured at the stairs.
Walker went first, followed by Eddie. The stairs creaked and Eddie winced with every footstep that drew attention to their rise to the second floor. As quiet and well-trained as they were, there was no accounting for noisy stairs.
Walker moved to the room on the left with Polson while Nicholls and Tandy peeled off to the right. Eddie kicked through the door in front of him, fingers twitching on the trigger as he lay eyes on their target.
"LAPD! Show me your hands!"
The man, his skin as tan as Eddie's, didn't have a light shirt anymore. There was a circle of red that had congealed, and instead it was his face which was light, faded of colour. Walker touched a hand to Eddie's shoulder and Eddie pushed a foot to the man's shoulder.
He tipped towards the side of the cabinet and Eddie dropped his hand from the trigger to catch him, fingers at his neck as Walker lifted his shirt. There were three clear bullet holes, and Eddie shook his head at his squad.
"Call the coroner," he said, holstering the gun and surveying the man in front of him. "Contact HQ. We have a bigger crime than we thought."
Eddie's eyes itched as he stared at the paper in front of him. It had been a long day chasing leads and talking to suspects, eventually tracking down the name of the vic. The incident had been scaled back from a terrorist incident to a tragic accident in light of his fatal wounds. Camera footage clearly showed he wasn't in control of his limbs after he'd escaped the vehicle and started stumbling down the road, and tracking backwards had led them to where Peters had crawled into the car. They'd crashed the house just before midnight, dragging their protesting murder suspect through the house in his underwear.
All that carnage after a drug deal went bad. Eight were dead, with another two still critical and five others hospitalised.
Sitting in the drawing class, it was hard for Eddie to think about anything except the broken bodies and the trails of blood he'd tracked around the city the day before. His poor night of sleep made him yawn intermittently, and he felt guilty that he couldn't even pay much attention to Buck. It seemed as though the most they were going to see of Buck's skin was where the waistline of his jeans began. Geraldine had quipped a, "Well, that's a damn shame!" which had left most in the class in stitches. Even Buck had managed a small, embarrassed smile.
Eddie's gaze drifted over the blank page and though he hadn't snapped the pencil, the churning nausea left him feeling unsettled. He hadn't been able to eat properly all day and when Abuela had run her hands over his face when she'd arrived to look after Christopher for the evening, he knew she'd seen the distance in his eyes. It was a look he knew had been there all day and it was a look he'd tried to shut out in the wake of all her fussing after Shannon died.
"I can stay later if you need more time," Abuela had murmured with a nod towards where Chris was munching on a carrot. He'd nodded his acceptance, promising to text if his plans changed. Buck might have to go to work after class again but Eddie could find a barstool somewhere and sit on it until some of the images in his head dulled around the edges.
An hour and a half later, he'd managed some vague shapes that had some crosshatched shading but nothing resembled any particular feature of Buck and none of it seemed to align with what Natalie had explained was the focus for the day. They were merely circles or cubes, nonsense scribbles that made coming to the class feel like a waste. He couldn't see any progress in his artistic abilities, couldn't find the place where he felt calm and untouchable, couldn't believe he was continuing to do this so many months later and for what? What was it getting him?
He glared at the page in front of him with dissatisfaction. While everyone else engaged in quiet conversation around him as they packed up, he tore the paper from the sketchbook and began tearing it into pieces of confetti. He was reaching for another page, intent on tearing that up too, when a hand he'd watched draw with ease for months touched the back of his.
"One day, you'll look back on those and see your growth," Natalie said, stilling his actions. He could understand how she'd interpreted the destruction of his work but it wasn't for that reason today. It hadn't been anything close to that.
He glowered at the shredded chunks of paper that littered his desk and nodded, brushing them into a small pile and closing his book. "Sorry," he muttered, shoving the book in his bag, sweeping the paper into his hands and throwing it in a bin on his way out of the building. He tried to ignore how his hands were trembling, how his chest felt tight with fury, how difficult it was to get a solid breath past the knot in his throat as he stalked to his car and folded into the driver's seat, fingers burying in his hair. The classes were meant to help with calming him after difficult calls, not make it impossible to see straight because his vision blurred with barely-contained tears.
He flinched at the soft rap of knuckles on the glass beside him, peering past his hands to see a terribly familiar face watching him. He bit the inside of his cheek and forced his fingers to loosen so that he could open the door.
"You want to get that drink this week?" Buck asked lightly, eyes drifting over Eddie's face with obvious concern. He knew he had to look like a wreck. It was certainly how he felt.
Eddie hesitated and his gaze dropped to where he placed his shaking hands in his lap. "I- I'm not sure I'm particularly good company like this."
"That's okay." Buck shrugged, a twitch at the edge of his lips. "I'm working anyway so you can just sit in a corner and wallow, and I'll replenish the drink when you need it."
Eddie frowned as he lifted his eyes back to Buck. "You…work in a bar?"
"One of my jobs, yes. The night rate is good." Buck looked more comfortable and calm this week, a glimmer behind his eyes again. Eddie wished he knew how to find his way out of the dark that quickly. Maybe it would mean he didn't have to come to the class.
"One of your jobs?"
Buck's eyebrows wiggled, lips curling into a smirk. "You only learned my name last week. I think you've got to wait a little longer before you get my entire life history."
And Eddie really wasn't in the smiling sort of mood but he couldn't deny how Buck's gentle teasing wormed its way into some of the cracks in his emotions and nestled among the shards. It helped get some air back into his strangled lungs.
"Yet you're inviting me to your workplace?"
Buck's eyes skipped over his expression again, perhaps recognising the storm that was raging inside him. "Honestly, you look like you need a hug but I figured I didn't know you well enough to offer that."
Eddie rolled his eyes even as he fought the huff of a laugh that stuck among the web of fractures in his chest. "So your next best offer was alcohol?"
Buck shrugged, smirk softening into a smile. "You just asked four questions in a row and I've answered each one. You should be proud of me."
He snorted before he could stop himself, rubbing a hand across his face in an attempt to wipe the faint hint of a smile away. "What would you like me to say here? 'I'm so proud of you, Buck. Well done on not asking questions this week!'?"
Buck straightened his shoulders, tilted his head a little, and Eddie would almost go so far as to say he was preening. "Yes, yes, that'll do nicely for my ego," he teased and Eddie fixed him with a stare, which didn't make Buck's grin falter in the slightest. "Anyway. Look. You don't have to come out. Like I said, I'll be working. I just- I noticed you were distracted tonight and figured I'd ask. See if you were okay."
And Eddie…knew he'd have to text Abuela, but that was sort of what she'd implied he needed before he left anyway, right? She knew him better than he knew himself, sometimes. Perhaps especially when he'd had tough calls or rough days. Yesterday's chaos had made the news, so there was no doubt she knew about it.
"I, uh… I need to text my Abuela," he said, pawing at the pocket of his jeans to free his phone. "She's looking after my son."
"Son?" The pitch of Buck's voice rose and Eddie wasn't surprised. It was the same sort of reaction he always got, alongside You seem too young to have a kid or Your Abuela? Where's your wife?
He hummed, thumbs shifting over the letters to form words. "Christopher. He's nine."
"Oh."
That was the second-most common reaction he always got, regardless of what he'd initially been asked.
He sent the text, doing his best to find a teasing smile that felt genuine rather than forced when he looked back to the curious blue in front of him. "Sorry. Was that too much of my entire life history when you only found out my name last week?"
Buck chuckled, hands disappearing into his pockets as he rocked onto his heels. "As long as we stick to only one thing a week, I should know your social security number by the time I'm a hundred."
"Such high hopes," he joked.
"Anything to steal your pension and benefits, old man," Buck said with a wink, which temporarily stalled Eddie's brain from working out the response he was meant to formulate. "Alright. Can I have your phone? I'll put the address of the bar in so that you don't have to follow me."
Eddie handed over the device, watching with amusement as Buck's tongue poked past his lips and his thumbs danced across the keyboard. "I hope you're not trying to hack into my bank details right now."
Buck did a sharp salute with his right hand, something that made Eddie's eyebrows rise because most made a wobbly sort of gesture with a too-low elbow and index and middle finger held together. He clearly had military training of some kind.
"Scout's honour," Buck said, eyes glinting when they met Eddie's. "I'd have to know more information to get past all these security questions anyway."
He smiled even though he hadn't wanted to when he'd shown up to class. "Brat."
"Thank you," Buck said with a grin and something resembling a curtsey as he handed the phone back with the address entered into the system. "See you soon."
Buck was already striding away when the response from Abuela came through, a brief "Diviértete, mantente a salvo, te quiero" that he thumbed out of the way to tap on the 'GO' for the address Buck had given him.
It was a half-hour drive across the city which meant it was at least forty-five minutes to get home. He needed to factor that into whatever time he decided to leave, because he had a shift tomorrow starting at midday which meant he was responsible for getting Chris to school. For now, though… For now, he could recline into his seat, focus on the instructions that reminded him of the simple orders he once followed in basic training, and thought about the opportunity to let go of some of the dark clouds that hovered around him if Buck's energy remained in his vicinity.
He didn't want to think about Buck too much, not in any sort of meaningful way, but he knew there was a pull between them, an ease to their two interactions that left him genuinely smiling and laughing for the first time in months, maybe even a year. Maybe longer, considering how rocky things had been with Shannon before her death. It was refreshing, in a terrifying sort of way, because outside of work and family he didn't have a lot of other people in his life. He knew the team had his back, knew how terrible they felt when he'd lost Shannon and taken two weeks off to try to piece together the fractures of his life and reassure and comfort Chris, but they were his team, like when he was deployed.
It was different with Buck. He couldn't explain it if anyone had asked, but it was different.
He parked his truck in the lot beside the bar, fingers tapping across the steering wheel as he stared at the neon sign above the entrance. Everaces. A heart and a spade twinkled either side of the word and Eddie knew it was too late to back out now. It wasn't like this was even a date, like it even meant anything when Buck was working, but he still felt nervous. He hadn't really gone out since sometime before Shannon re-entered the picture, and even then it had been fleeting and awkward when he had such little experience with social interactions in large groups of strangers. Give him a quiet dinner at home with Chris any day.
He climbed out of his truck at the same time as a motorcycle rumbled into the lot, and he didn't pay too much attention to it until he realised he recognised the leather jacket and the breadth of the shoulders. And then he wondered if the early June heat that still lingered into the night was responsible for the flush that erupted across his skin and spread across his face.
Buck peeled the helmet off his head, scratching fingers through tousled hair, and grinned at him. "Thought you might've chickened out."
Eddie eyed the bike with a mixture of interest and apprehension. "Didn't know you were into bikes."
Buck secured the helmet in a hatch and Eddie tried not to get too distracted by the stretch of denim across his thighs. "It's easier getting from the centre to here on the bike than in my Jeep. Manoeuvres faster through traffic or around accidents."
Eddie pretended like the dryness in his throat when Buck swung one leg over to stand was just because he was minutes away from getting a drink. "I hope you're not weaving between cars in a way that'll get you killed."
"My sister would kill me if that happened," Buck said and it took Eddie a moment to realise the joke in the sentence which explained why Buck's eyes were twinkling at him.
"Smart woman," he said with a nod and Buck agreed and then gestured towards the door.
"Shall we?"
And if Eddie didn't know that Buck was working, he'd almost feel like this was a date.
He fell into step beside Buck, catching the way Buck nodded at the burly bouncer by the door as they ascended the handful of stairs and entered. It was more laidback inside than he'd expected, fairy lights strung across the ceiling to paint colours across the faces of patrons who were gathered into booths and comfy-looking sofas. It was busy without being crowded or crushingly noisy, and it looked like it could easily double as a sumptuous café during the day.
"C'mon." Buck's fingers were light against his arm as he guided Eddie towards the bar, pointing at a few free seats scattered around the timber top and then towards a few places around the room. Eddie hadn't even noticed all the empty spaces but Buck seemed to have taken the information in with barely a glance. "Beer? Wine? Spirit? Cocktail?"
"Beer's fine," he said, feeling a wave of nerves when Buck's fingers left his skin.
Buck ducked beneath a counter and reappeared on the other side, bumping hips with a guy who was probably a similar age as he strolled past to fetch the bottle from a fridge. The guy, shorter and more blond than Buck, nodded in response, cheeks dimpling around a smile, and Buck smiled back as he returned to Eddie with a couple of options. Eddie accepted the lite option from Buck's left hand, figuring that between the drive and his midday shift he probably shouldn't drink too much or too fast.
"Make yourself comfortable. I need to change," Buck said as he pushed the other beer across the counter towards the other man. The bottle was caught, twirled within his hands, and then disappeared into a fridge beneath the counter. It looked like such an effortless, well-rehearsed move, that it caught Eddie off-guard.
By the time he realised he should say something to Buck, he had already disappeared through a door to a back room. Eddie unscrewed the cap and scratched at the label while he looked around. There was the distant beat of music from a speaker somewhere, the faint strains of a guitar lilting through conversation, but it wasn't enough to discern what it was or where it was emanating from. It seemed to just give a background rhythm to the conversations without drowning anyone out. He appreciated it, if only because there was nothing worse than being somewhere and having to shout to be heard over a din of music he didn't like listening to anyway.
Buck reappeared a few minutes later in a short sleeve, black t-shirt. The coloured lights danced off the Marks on his skin, while the tattoos looked even darker to give him an edge of strength. The swell of his biceps only heightened the image and the absence of colour highlighted his shoulder to waist ratio. There was little left to the imagination of anyone that looked at him. And Eddie had looked at him. A lot.
But he'd never seen him like this.
For a while, Eddie simply observed Buck as he manoeuvred easily around the other man. He took orders from whoever approached the counter, pouring wine, fetching beers, tipping a myriad of liquids together before dancing to a beat Eddie couldn't hear while his arms shook the cocktail mixer. If Buck usually seemed distant in classes, something hooded in his eyes and guarded in the set of his jaw, he was a different person here. His shoulders were relaxed and his eyes sparkled and his smiles almost seemed genuine enough that Eddie might have thought they were real if he didn't know what Buck truly looked like when he let the pretence fall away and he laughed.
Was it weird to watch someone so closely when he'd already watched him closely for months? Eddie wasn't sure.
Two-thirds of his beer were gone when Buck wandered by again, a fresh bottle spinning against his palm. "I think I promised replenishment?" Buck said and Eddie nodded, propping his chin in his hand.
"I'm assuming you've set up a tab and will be responsible in ensuring I don't end up tipping off the stool before I have to go home," he said, though Eddie also knew he had a grandmother at home to relieve from caring for his kid so that was unlikely.
Buck smiled, one of those warm smiles that Eddie knew was different to the others that had been thrown around so far. It went all the way to his eyes, made them sparkle differently under the coloured lights. "It's a second lite beer, man. Are you that much of a light-weight?"
A smile was rapidly finding its way across Eddie's lips. "No. My Abuela probably put tequila in my milk bottles when my mother wasn't looking."
Buck laughed, shaking his head as he placed the bottle beside the other in front of Eddie. "So what you're saying is, watch out because you could drink me under the table."
Eddie shrugged, but his eyebrows twitched a little higher at the thought of a challenge. "Maybe if I didn't have a shift tomorrow and you weren't on a shift, I'd consider it."
Buck's eyes seemed a shade darker when they looked at Eddie, laced with something that left heat coiling inside his stomach and erasing some of the lingering chill from yesterday's miseries. "You're working tomorrow?"
He lifted his bottle to his lips to finish it off, meeting Buck's stare. "Not all of us have to work the night shifts," he teased.
Buck's nose scrunched. "Fair point," he muttered.
"So, how'd you end up working at a place like this?" Eddie said with a gesture towards the room that hummed with noise and activity. Somehow, it still didn't seem overpowering. Maybe he was too focused on every glance Buck threw across the room, every twitch of his smile, every shift of muscle beneath his arms that made the pink Marks catch the light.
"Everaces?" Buck shrugged, grasped Eddie's empty bottle and twirled it in his hands. "Knew a girl who knew a guy who needed someone for nights in case things got rough."
Eddie blinked, eyes flicking across some of the people gathered at the edge of the bar either obtaining drinks or looking to buy one. Switching off what he did by day was nearly impossible but the drawing classes helped lull some of that away, and Buck's joking helped too. "Does it…get rough often?"
"We only ever deal in rough," Buck replied with a grin, flashing a wink as Eddie wondered if there was any way to take that which wasn't an innuendo. He felt as though he might've swallowed his tongue, or at the very least it had been tied into knots, and then Buck was gone again, drifting to someone else at the other end of the bar waving her hand because she had an order to lodge.
He was still trying to figure out how to get his brain to restart as he watched Buck move around, and realised belatedly how many other people were watching Buck too. He wondered if Buck realised how much attention he drew towards him, like he was responsible for hypnotising the crowds with his mere presence. Was that what had lured Buck to the modelling at the art class? Buck's interactions with Natalie hadn't seemed to be laced with awkwardness or despair, so he could only assume she wasn't the reason behind the blackened Mark that was currently concealed beneath the shirt. It meant that to anyone else at the bar, the pale pink stripes were a clear indication that Buck had plenty of experience and he wasn't afraid to flaunt it. Eddie idly wondered how many Marks might exist below the waistband of his pants, whether there were other tattoos scrawled across his skin, whether he had other birthmark-like blemishes.
And then he realised how all those thoughts were probably incredibly inappropriate for someone he was only meant to draw, for someone he wasn't meant to be so blatantly interested in when Shannon hadn't even been dead a year ago. He tried to stare at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, glowering at himself and mentally scolding the direction his thoughts had gone.
Yet while he stared at himself, he also started questioning just how Buck might see him after what had felt like some fairly flirtatious words. Was he a person, someone to actually get to know? Or was he just another person to inscribe a pink Mark about so many others across his skin? It wasn't as though Eddie was looking for anything serious, or anything at all. He still felt hollowed out by Shannon's abrupt death, still looked at her picture every day on the dresser in an attempt to atone for all that he'd done wrong during their relationship. He couldn't imagine pursuing anyone after all those failures and missteps.
And besides, what would Buck see in him anyway? He shook his head, knowing he was probably misreading everything, overthinking everything like he so often did, like he so often had to do because he'd been trained to analyse every situation, every nuanced gesture, every flicker in facial expressions. He searched for truths and lies every shift and it wasn't as though he could simply turn that off. It boiled down to Buck either wanting him for another hook-up or maybe he was just being generous, reaching out a hand to offer help to Eddie after he'd reached out a week ago. He knew the easiest way to find out was with a simple question, but maybe the answer wasn't one he wanted to hear and he wasn't sure how he'd process that.
He glanced at his watch as he approached the end of his second beer, calculating that he needed to start the trek home to relieve Abuela and attempt to get some sleep. If he didn't rest, the shift tomorrow was going to be a long and hellish one, no matter how simple or harsh the calls might be.
He waved at Buck, who pointed towards the fridge with a questioning brow. Eddie shook his head and lifted his wrist with the watch. Buck gave him a "One minute" gesture that Eddie nodded at before turning away again. Eddie followed Buck's gaze and saw the brunette girl across the counter, the way she was twisting a lock of hair around her finger and smiling – almost leering – at Buck.
Well.
That explained the many Marks.
The way Buck leaned against the counter and smiled back at her made his heart sink. It was painfully obvious this hadn't been intended as a date, or that Buck had any real interest in him beyond reaching out. There was something about the curve of his shoulders that suggested Buck was very interested in the girl in front of him and…maybe it should have been reassuring, maybe it should have comforted him that he now knew the reality of the situation.
Instead, the chilled stone had returned to his stomach and he just wanted to go home and see Christopher, just wanted to fold around a pillow until everything stopped aching so much and he could sleep.
He dug a $20 note from his wallet and folded it beneath his bottle. It was too much for two lite beers but he didn't want Buck to hassle him about leaving a tip at the next class. With one last glance at Buck as he laughed at something the girl said, Eddie slid off his stool and slipped between the sea of chairs and people, escaping into the bustling noise of LA at night alone.
Maybe he was a coward.
Maybe he was pathetic.
Maybe he was exhausted because he'd had to work that day on plots and plans and schematics for Pride that weekend and the myriad of potential deployments and stationing of teams and foot patrols across the route and around the city in case anything erupted, and his brain was swimming in his skull at the thought of anything else that required thinking.
Maybe he was lying to himself.
Whatever his reasoning was, he skipped going to the art class for the week. Instead, he spent the evening with Chris curled under his arm while they watched a movie. He jerked awake when Chris patted his cheek.
"Movie's finished, Dad," Chris said, his eyes moving between the TV and Eddie's face.
Eddie yawned and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Time for bed for both of us then," he said, lifting Chris to his feet and setting him in the bathroom to change into his pyjamas and brush his teeth.
As Eddie lay in bed and closed his eyes, he let himself admit at least some fragment of the truth: he wasn't sure how he would've felt if he'd noticed another fresh pink Mark on Buck's skin.
~TBC~