"Hi Alfonso"
French could hear the smile on Buck's mom's face as she greeted him. "Hi Mrs. Vu." He said back. It didn't escape anyone's notice that she didn't bother greeting anyone else.
Buck jumped out of the car to go through the front door with the rest of them. He held the door open for each of them, waving them each through impatiently. "Come on, the surprise is in my room."
French couldn't help but be annoyed with his and Steve's use of the word "surprise" recently. Weren't surprised supposed to be good? He didn't imagine he would be excited for whatever Buck had in store for them.
They all made their way upstairs to Buck's room, and French realized Steve was staring at a blank space on the wall in confusion.
"Dude." He said.
French looked between him and Buck, who entered the room last.
"No." Buck said, his voice was shaky.
"What the fuck?" Steve demanded.
French knew Buck's room well enough to know that there had been a vanity and mirror there before. Though the marks on the wall where it had been would have told him as much anyways.
"Mom?" Buck called, bouncing a little with anxiety before he turned around and darted into the hall, "Where's my mirror?"
Those remaining in Buck's room stayed silent, listening to the exchange between Buck and his mom about the mirror being taken to Goodwill without Buck's knowledge.
French finally turned to Steve, pushing his glasses up as he said, "Can you please just tell us what's happening?"
Steve looked after Buck again as if wondering if he should say anything without him present, then admitted "Buck saw Rachel. Inside his mirror. She sang to him."
French scoffed. Something he wouldn't have done if Buck had still been in the room, but Steve always brought out the worst in him.
"He didn't see Rachel. He thought he saw Rachel." He said.
Buck chose that moment to return to his room, sneaking up behind French. "I saw and heard her." He insisted, and French felt ashamed at having spoken so harshly before. "I just know it was her." Buck said forcefully.
French softened his tone and tried to reason with Buck gently, telling him about when he thought he saw Homer in the mirror, but Buck wasn't having it. It was different, he said. A trick of the brain. French didn't disagree, but what he didn't say was that that's exactly what he thought happened to Buck, too. A trick of the brain, nothing more.
"I was visited." Buck stood firm.
"Visited. Okay" French couldn't help the chuckle that escaped. This whole ordeal with OA was getting more and more ridiculous and she wasn't even there anymore. Buck was never one to hide his emotions. Usually French loved that about him. Reading people was never one of his strong suits, but he didn't have to try with Buck. Buck was an open book. But now he looked away from Buck as soon as he spoke, not wanting to see the hurt that would surely be reflected on his face at his words and derisive chuckle.
"I'm not asking you to believe in OA." Buck told him earnestly, taking a step to close the distance French had tried to put between them. "I'm asking you to believe in me."
French looked back up at him then. Forcing himself to face the emotions he saw there. Sadness and pain, but also hope and... trust, maybe. Trust that French wouldn't turn him away when Buck needed him. And god help him, he did believe in Buck, of course he did. But OA was crazy, and all of this was crazy, and there were other things to worry about in life than whether a dead girl was in another dimension or not. But Buck was asking French to believe in him, and how could he deny him something as simple as that? How could he deny him anything?
"Something happened through that mirror." Buck said. Maybe he would have kept going, but his mom chose that moment to walk through the door.
"I told you to tag whatever you wanted to keep." She said. "I'm not driving down to Goodwill at this hour."
"Well, I'll drive." Steve told her.
"She's definitely not going with you." Mrs. Vu responded.
A stab of empathetic pain for what Buck must be feeling went through French at hearing him being so blatantly misgendered by him mother. He knew that Buck's parents didn't respect his identity, but to misgender your kid in front of four of his friends... French felt the anger rise in his chest, but still he tried to keep the peace when Angie spoke up with a shocked and angered "Excuse me?"
"Okay," He interjected, "look, um..." he hesitated, not entirely sure what he wanted to say when he opened his mouth. "I think we've all been through a lot recently. And this mirror is obviously important to Buck, Mrs. Vu. So... How about I drive us to Goodwill?" He asked. If this is what Buck wanted, needed, then that's what they would do. And Mrs. Vu had always liked him, though the implications of why she liked him weren't lost on him and he sometimes resented her for it. In any case, he knew she wouldn't say no to him.
Angie offered up her mom's car, which was a relief because the idea of trekking all the way back to his dump of a home with the four of them in tow, just to pile them all into his POS car for a trip to Goodwill did not sound like his idea of a fun time.
None of this sounded like a good time anyways, but as he turned back to Buck, Buck looked up at him with the smallest, saddest smile French had ever seen, and he knew that it was worth it. Anything was worth putting a smile on Buck's face, however small that smile may be.