Archive of Our Own

Eddie

Hi, May

Could you help me check on Buck?

I would do it myself but I’m on shift right now and he isn’t answering my calls

May

Of course :)

May has been meaning to get around to checking on Buck, anyways. But with him getting kidnapped in the middle of her frenzied job-search-slash-personal crisis, she’s had trouble finding a spare moment to make the journey to his house. It’s during times like these she wished he’d never moved out of the Diaz’s place. He’d live nearby, and he’d have Eddie and Chris. May thinks Buck could get through anything, as long as he had them.

But Buck doesn’t live with them. Buck is alone in that too-large house of his, and May can’t even begin to imagine what he’s going through right now. 

She sighs and knocks on his door, waiting expectantly for him to answer. But there’s no response. 

May glances at the window, searching for some sign of Buck’s presence. But there’s nothing there. It’s weird—there’s not even a sliver of light peeking through the curtains. She’s been to Buck’s house before. He has a tendency to make sure all the lights are on at any given moment—which is probably disastrous for his electricity bill, but she feels like it’s accurate to his personality. He can’t help but light up a room, no matter what it costs him.

May knocks again, and is met with the same lack of a response. She thinks about texting Eddie. He could probably figure out what’s going on, he always can. May thinks he might be psychically linked with Buck. She doesn’t really believe in that stuff, but with the way they act around each other…well, she has eyes.

But that’s besides the point. It doesn’t matter right now. She can’t bother Eddie. There’s no reason to prematurely worry him. Buck is probably fine. Maybe he’s asleep, or at an impromptu therapy session. There are dozens of reasonable explanations for this.

She just has to check. To make sure. So she fiddles around in her purse, fingers grazing her keys and wallet, before she finds what she’s looking for. A stray hairpin, the one she’s kept in there since she found out they could be used to pick locks. Just in case I ever have to, she’d told Harry, when he questioned it.

Inserting the hairpin into the slot ingrained into the handle of Buck’s door, May twists it, lets herself in, and instantly realizes that something is wrong. 

An odd sense of foreboding, of dread, creeps up on her the second she steps into his house. Like she’d guessed from her outside view, it’s pitch-dark inside. And it’s quiet, but not in the natural, unassuming way. 

Maybe it’s a sixth sense she’s developed from her time as a dispatcher. Maddie had told her that it was something she’d quickly acquired—those heightened senses, the attuned intuition. All May really knows is that the silence feels more like an absence of something, something that should be there.

She finds her way to a light switch, hands flailing around in the dark, and manages to flick it on. The living room grows bright with warm gold-white, and when May looks around, for one fateful second, she allows herself to bask in the familiarity.

And then she sees him, and her heart drops. Slumped against a wall, skin pale and sallow, with what looks like vomit staining the front of his gray T-shirt, is Buck.

Adrenaline fills her body before she can even process it, process seeing him like this. She rushes over to him, doing her best to recall everything she’s learned, despite the fact that her thoughts are a scrambled mess right now. Turn him over on his side. Okay, she can do that. It’ll stop him from choking on his own vomit. May knows this, it’s basic first-aid. Fixing both her hands on his arms, she lowers him to the floor as gently as she can, tilting his body to the side as her hands shake. Her fingers travel down to his wrist, and she presses two of them to the skin below his palm.

A pulse. Weak, but it’s there. She lifts her arm away from him, and that’s when it hits her. There’s a bottle of pills lying on the floor, stray little white capsules strewn amongst the wooden panels.

This is Buck, and he’s overdosed, and it’s him. The man who’s like a brother to her, who’s been a part of her family for a decade, and he’s half-dead on the floor, and no one knew. No one knew just how badly he was struggling. May’s shaking uncontrollably now, tears streaming down her face. Is this how her mom felt, all those years ago? When she found her, body limp, heartbeat nonexistent? Is this what it’s like, to be on the other side of the situation, wondering why Buck didn’t tell anyone what was going on? Having to call—

Fuck. She has to call 9-1-1. Panicked breaths escape her lips as she grabs for her phone, retrieving it from her purse. As she punches the numbers in, May silently curses herself. She should know better. She’s a former dispatcher, for God’s sake. How was this not her first instinct?

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” says a calm, measured voice on the other end of the phone, and May realizes with a jolt that it’s Maddie.

With that realization, all rational thought goes out the window. She knows what the most helpful course of action would be. State the address first, the symptoms being displayed, the fact that this is a suspected suicide attempt, but instead, all she manages to do is say, as her voice trembles, “Maddie?” 

Her voice cracks, the name morphing into a sob.

“May, is that you?” Maddie asks, her tone edged with concern. “What’s going on?”

“It’s—It’s Buck,” she manages. “I’m at his house, Eddie asked me to check on him, he’s—” 

“He’s what? May, tell me what’s happening.” Her voice is growing louder, and May can hear the fear that bleeds into it, Maddie’s ever-professional demeanor stuttering. 

“He’s overdosed, I think.” May says. “He’s—um, I found him, and the lights were off, and he has a pulse but it’s weak, and there was—there was a pill bottle on the floor next to him.”

“Okay,” Maddie says, clearly shaken, clearly scared. May can hear the way she’s fighting the terror that threatens to seep through her voice. “I’m sending the closest available units. Have you—”

May knows what she’s going to say. “I turned him over on his side, yes. I don’t think that there’s a choking hazard anymore.” She wipes a tear off her face.

“Okay. Good. Can you tell me what he took?” 

May bends down and picks up the almost-empty orange bottle, eyes scanning the label. 

“Tramadol,” she reads out.

That’s bad, she knows it’s bad. And Maddie clearly knows it too, because May swears she can hear her curse under her breath. “He has a history of blood clots,” Maddie says, clearly agitated. “Which doctor in their right mind prescribed that?”

Not to mention the anti-anxiety medication Buck is definitely on. You’re not supposed to mix those with opioids—the side effects can be disastrous. But May doesn’t say that out loud, even as anger and panic in equal parts continue to fester inside her. Before she knows it, her breath is coming out in short gasps again.

“ETA, two minutes,” Maddie says. “Hang tight, May. He’s going to be okay.”

She says that last part like she’s trying to convince herself of it, too. May tries not to think about that too much, just focusing on the number. That’s something concrete, something measurable. She can count on the LAFD to be here in the next two minutes.

Maddie speaks again, lower this time. “I’m sending the 118.”

The unspoken message behind her words is I’m sending the only people we can completely trust. For the first time today, May feels something adjacent to relief. A little guiltily, she’s also glad that it’s Harry’s day off. He won’t have to see Buck like this. 

But the moment is short-lived, because she looks at Buck’s still, unmoving figure again, lying stationary on the floor, and even though she knows he’s still alive, that help is coming, her brain keeps telling her that he’s dead, he’s gone, and she didn’t know she was struggling, and how didn’t she? She’s been through it herself. Not this exact situation, but all the same—

The door bursts open. Chimney’s yelling some sort of command, Eddie’s rushing over to Buck at lightning speed, Hen following him closely, and May can’t breathe. She isn’t the only person in the room who can help Buck anymore. It should calm her down. But all it does is remind her that the situation is out of her hands now. She takes a step back, her vision tunneling as her chest tightens. She can only make out fragments of what’s happening before her.

“Administering naloxone—”

“Buck, you have to wake up. Come on, man.”

And, inexplicably, she sees Chimney nod at Ravi, who, as if on cue, instantly comes running over to her. 

“Hey, May,” he says. “You have to breathe with me, okay? He’s—he’s gonna be fine.” 

Even though May’s vision is blurred with tears, she can still make out Ravi’s face, the tears that pinprick his eyes, and how scared he is. How scared they both are. It isn’t comforting, not in the slightest. But as her breath starts to edge towards hyperventilation, he takes her trembling hands in his own, and the warmth of his skin anchors her. It gives her something to focus on that isn’t just her brother’s practically-lifeless body or how terrified every person in this room is.

“There you go,” Ravi says quietly, as her breathing slows. One of his hands makes its way to her back, gently tracing circles into her skin, while the other remains entwined with her own hand.

“He’s going to be okay,” Ravi says again, voice stronger this time, and finally, May actually believes it.

Ravi’s eyes are fixed on May throughout the entire ambulance ride, but she pretends not to notice. She’s laser-focused on Buck, lying limply on the stretcher in front of all of them. He’s still unresponsive. Alive, but unresponsive. He’d woken for a second when Hen had performed a sternal rub, but then slipped back into…whatever this state is. 

He looks so small, so weak. And he may have been cleaned up now, but every time May’s eyes scan his face, she sees his vomit-streaked collar, the image of the orange pill bottle flashing through her mind. It makes her nauseous, the way the past hour keeps replaying in her mind, a sickening loop. The speed at which Eddie is driving doesn’t help either, but she won’t tell him to slow down. She can’t. Every minute they spend in here is a minute she can feel Buck slipping away from her, from this family.

May allows herself the luxury of squeezing Ravi’s hand. She doesn’t let the touch linger for too long, too nervous to stop fidgeting, but she knows he needs more comfort than he’s letting on. Buck may be her brother, but he’s Ravi’s friend, too.

After what feels like an eternity, an unstable, siren-filled one, the ambulance pulls into a hospital parking lot. May watches Eddie leap out the door, and watches Ravi and Hen and Chimney wheel Buck out on the stretcher. She watches, and watches, and watches, until her legs catch up with her brain and she goes running after them.

After yelling something to a doctor about how she’s his stepsister (technically untrue, but it’s the only way she can adhere to the family-only policy), May finds herself sitting next to Buck’s hospital bed. The hospital staff had managed to revive him, so when she looks at him now, peacefully sleeping, she’s no longer scared, just sad. Buck shouldn’t have to be in this position. No one should.

May’s phone pings with a text. 

Maddie

118 is off shift

Howie and I are on our way

thank you for keeping him company

Buck stirs. The sound seems to have woken him up. As a blue eye flickers open, May sighs with relief.

So this is what it’s like to be on the other side of the situation. She’s sat at hospital bedsides more times than she wishes she had. But to sit with the knowledge that one of your loved ones has done this to themselves is different. 

The seconds that it takes for Buck to fully become aware of his surroundings stretch into what feels like forever, until, finally, he speaks.

“…May?” he says, voice peppered with a quiet sort of confusion.

“Oh my God, Buck,” May says, and practically launches herself at him, wrapping her arms around his body. She might be concerned, and scared, and a little angry, but Buck is in front of her, and he’s alive, and in this moment, that’s all that matters. Streams of salty tears start to roll down her face, tracking over her cheeks and lips. They start to drip onto Buck’s hospital gown, which May feels the slightest bit bad about—she knows from personal experience that the material is uncomfortable enough without someone crying into your shoulder—but mostly, she’s just relieved. So, so relieved.

When she pulls back, albeit reluctantly, she knows she has to choose her next words carefully. She can’t be confrontational, or immediately start interrogating him. It’s not going to help either of them. 

“Do you know what happened?” May asks.

Buck’s brow furrows for a second, and he looks away—whether he’s trying to recall the past hour or just being avoidant, May isn’t sure. But then his expression darkens, eyes widening slightly, and he says, “Oh, shit.”

He looks at her again. “You think I tried to kill myself.”

May just stays silent.

“May, I didn’t. You have to believe me.”

She isn’t sure she does. “Buck, please don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I swear, I’m not.”

“Okay,” May says. “Okay. What happened, then?”

“I—” Buck takes a deep breath. “I may have been taking more Tramadol than I’ve been prescribed. It’s just—” his voice breaks. “Ever since that day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. And when I got back, I just found myself wishing, more than anything, that Bobby was still here. He would know how to handle this. But he’s not, he’s gone, and the only thing that lets me forget that are those pills.”

They’re both crying now. It’s silent, but Buck’s eyes are red and May can feel the stains the teardrops are leaving on her skin. She believes him now, but a part of her wishes she didn’t.

“Buck…” May says. That’s all she can say, really. It conveys everything she has to. 

Buck looks down, guilt etched all over his face. May knows what he’s thinking. That Bobby would be so disappointed.

May isn’t sure she agrees. Yes, some small, ugly part of her brain wants her to yell at him is this how you’re honoring Bobby’s legacy?—but she knows that wouldn’t be fair. There are so many horrific factors affecting Buck’s life right now, traumas May could never imagine the horrors of.

“I’m sorry,” Buck says, and May’s heart breaks.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Buck.” May says. “Addiction—or, you might not even be addicted. I don’t know the exact details. You could’ve just…become a little too dependent on them. Either way, it wasn’t in your control, not fully.”

“I just—” Buck says, wiping a tear from his face. “Bobby worked so hard for his sobriety, and I can’t even cope with losing him without…without drugs.” It’s a clear struggle for him to get the last word out. “I can’t imagine what he would think of me, if he saw me now.”

“Buck, listen to me,” May says. She isn’t sure what she’s going to say, but she’ll find the words. She has to, to stop him from going further down this unfair, self-deprecating spiral. “Bobby…he wouldn’t judge you. And he’d never be mad at you for this. He’d know it’s out of your control. He’d understand. The only thing he’d ever do is try to help you.”

“How can you be so sure?” Buck says, looking at her with big, tear-filled eyes.

May knows exactly how. In recent years, every time the anniversary of her suicide attempt had come up, and the subsequent guilt and sadness would rise, she used to talk to Bobby about it. He’d never judged her. He was the only person who really understood what could drive a person to want to take their own life. And he’d never even lecture her about the dangers of drugs, because he knew that she knew them already. All he’d ever done was provide comfort and understanding.

God, she misses him so much.

She says as much to Buck, and it seems to calm him down. His eyes fill with sadness and sympathy when she mentions her attempt. May and him had practically been strangers when it had happened. She’s never talked about it with him.

“Fuck,” he says. “I didn’t even—you found me, May. You shouldn’t have had to see that. And especially with your history—God, I didn’t even think about the consequences of what I was doing.”

“You were hurting, Buck. You weren’t worrying about those things. No one could possibly have expected you to.”

“Still,” Buck says. “I should have known better.”

“You were just trying to deal with your pain,” May says. “I can’t blame you for that.”

She takes his hand, her basil-green nail polish—now chipped from all the anxious fidgeting she did on the way here—contrasting with his starkly pale, clammy skin. It unsettles her, for a moment, just how much this has weakened him. But she doesn’t show that. 

“And if you say anything else bad about yourself,” she says instead, “I’ll punch you in the face.”

And for the first time since he came back from New Mexico, May sees Buck smile.

“You really think you could do that?” he says.

“Don’t make me prove it,” she says, matching his tone.

Buck laughs—an actual, real laugh, and May starts to giggle, and despite the fact that so many parts of their lives have been broken, despite the fact that Buck has a long, emotional road ahead of him, this is the moment May realizes that everything is going to be okay. She knows it in her bones. She and Buck have both been through horrible things, and they’ve always come out stronger. Even though they’ve been hurt time and time again, they’re still here, laughing in spite of the sadness, holding on to the good things they have.

They’ll work through this. They’re Bobby Nash’s children, after all. It’s what they do.