The Deployment Notice

1.

The phone held to his ear rings.

Once.

Twice.

"Buck?" Eddie's voice came through sounding exhausted, "We just got off shift, what's going on?"

A distant part of him felt guilty, he knew Eddie was tired. Their shift had been let out at 2 A.M. and he knew Eddie had planned on crashing as soon as he got home so he could wake up early and pick Chris up from his Abuela's and take him to school.

"Eddie, I-" he started, not exactly sure how to explain what was going on, "I need you to come here. I- something happened and I think you're the closest anyone will be able to come to understanding."

"Ok, I'm coming." Easy as that, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised, "Buck are you hurt?"

"No." He laughed bitterly, listening to the scuffle of Eddie closing his front door behind him and locking up. "I just need you here."

"Ok, I'm on my way." Eddie says, "Buck, what's-"

He hung up before Eddie could ask anything else and waited.

He was sat on his kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, legs sprawled out with a thick white envelope and an open bottle of whiskey between them. He could feel his face painfully blank, he was always so expressive, he liked himself that way, but right now it was blank. He was angry, beyond angry, and part of him was grieving, and another part of him was terrified. But at the same time he felt nothing at all.

He waited, and in the meantime finished a third of the bottle, working his way to half by the time he heard a key slide into the lock. He heard the lock click and the door was being pushed open.

"Buck?!" Eddie called into the seemingly empty apartment, "where are you?"

"Here." He called, his voice sounded off even to him.

Eddie strode around the cabinets and then was stopped short at the sight that Buck was sure he made, "Buck, what's-"

He cut Eddie off by tossing the envelope at his feet and taking another swig from the bottle of warm whiskey. It tasted awful.

Eddie continued just staring at him in shock, he supposed it was fair considering Eddie had never seen him quite as fucked up as this before. That probably wasn't true, he just hadn't seen him reacting like this to being this fucked up before.

He gestured to the envelope in a 'go on' fashion, and that seemed to break him out of whatever stupor he was in. With one last confused and concerned look at him Eddie reached down and scooped up the envelope taking out the papers and reading through their contents.

"I don't understand." Eddie said after seemingly having read through the papers at least three times.

"C'mon Eds," Buck huffed out a mirthless chuckle, "I know that you know what a deployment issue looks like."

"No, I got that part." Eddie stated, voice hard, "I just don't understand why you're receiving one."

Oh, he's pissed, Buck thought with a little satisfaction, good, so am I.

"That'd be because I'm getting deployed." He laughed bitterly this time taking another swig, "c'mon now Eds, I know we gave you Army guys shit for not having any brains, but now is really not the time to live up to the standard."

He was goading him. He wasn't entirely sure why, Eddie wasn't the one who sent him the goddamn papers, but he was pissed, and he just didn't care anymore.

"Don't be a smartass, Buck!" Eddie was yelling now, shaking the papers towards him for emphasis. "why the hell are you getting deployed?"

Good.