black butterflies

don't want to remember

it had been four months since the earthquake accident, and on the outside everything looked like it was back to normal, on the inside it was as if things would never be back to normal, like there was never a normal to exist. 

eddie took a few weeks off to wrap his head around everything and to spend some extra time with christopher and appreciate what he had in his life. buck on the other hand was throwing himself back into his work the next day, and 10x harder than before. he was offering to fill in for other people from other shifts, working overtime in anyway he could, even staying late just to do the custodial duties. anyone who knows buck knows that he hates doing any sort of cleaning, so it was blatantly obvious that something was wrong. 

no ones talked about that day, except for one night when buck invited eddie over to his house for drinks. everyone else in the house hasn't said a word, they didn't know what to say or what not to say, the team bit their tongue because they knew one wrong word could cause buck to light up in a million shades of different emotions. after so much waiting it just made no sense to bring it up. 

that night at bucks house wasn't like the normal times that eddie and buck would get together and drink. this time it felt like they were almost hesitant to say anything at all, even if it had nothing to do with that night. the two felt like they were more distanced from each other, when being in an accident like that should have brought them together even more. 

the night started out like their normal get togethers, getting out the drinks from the fridge and sitting out on the balcony. however, this time around instead of talking about the new crazy call they had been called to that week, they stayed silent just looking out at the water in the distance. after sitting outside for almost an hour in dead silence, eddie decided to speak up.

"so uh, how are you holding up after the earthquake?" 

buck whipped his head to the side to face eddie. he struggled to find the right words and could only let out little mumbles of half a word before he cut himself off. 

"alright, i'm doing alright. i've been through worse." he nods almost as if he's trying to convince  himself if that's actually how he's feeling. 

"what uh, what about you, how are you doing?" 

"those few weeks i took off to spend with christopher definitely helped me out, i have no idea how i'd be feeling right now if i didn't take that time off. it made me put things I perspective and see what I'm truly thankful for in life." he says slowly as if he has more to say, but can't decide if he wants to say it or not. 

"d-do you want to go up onto the roof?" buck asks hesitantly 

"yeah uh let me grab some more beers from the fridge and we can head up there?" 

"that sounds good." he says with a nod and gets up from his chair

as the two make their way onto the roof, they sit on the outdoor couch set up and turn on the string lights for a soft lighting. buck looks up at the stars and admires the constellations he can make out. due to the busy city of los angeles  and all of the light pollution, there isn't much to be seen, but he still finds a way. 

"do you think that things will ever get back to normal?" buck says not meaning to say it out loud

"i don't really know evan, but i do know that it's our choice if we decide to turn things back to normal, or if we want to keep things awkward and distance ourselves from each other, we can do that too."

when eddie finishes his sentence the two both take in what was said. as much as buck didn't want to admit it, he knew that he was distancing himself. he was distancing himself because every time he would look at eddie all he could imagine was if he didn't make it out of that house. if he was the only one to make it out of the house alive, and eddie was no longer there next to him. it's no secret that buck didn't like eddie when he first came to the firehouse, but in no time eddie would become bucks closest friend and would make him the happiest version of himself ever. 

"you know how much i need you in my life eddie, you know how important you are to me, and how much i enjoy seeing you, but after the earthquake i haven't been able to wrap my head around anything that happened, i'm not like you eddie it's not that easy for me to just forget and move on from that day."

"who said i forgot about that day. evan just because I took those weeks off and look like i'm doing okay, that doesn't mean i am. everyday i think about how it could have been my last day and how i could've never seen christopher again. evan, everyday i think about how something could've happened to you...how I would have never been able to recover from that."

the two lock eyes and then turn away sitting there in silence. these are two men who never like opening up about their emotions or how they feel. this was out of the ordinary for them, and they liked it but also hated it at the same time.

"can we just agree to leave this here, we take it to the grave." eddie speaks up

"no one ever needs to know we had this talk, ever. i dont want to remember that day ever again."