Dandelions

Josh Russo

Edited 7/11/2025

---

Josh could always tell what kind of silence he was dealing with. The calm kind had a pulse to it; it was the sound of work getting done. The other kind, the one that meant chaos was hovering just out of sight, had sharp edges.

Tonight, it was somewhere in between.

The dispatch floor felt off, like the room was holding its breath. Keyboards clicked too loud, chair wheels squeaked too easily. Across the aisle, Linda was on a call, face perfectly neutral except for the tiny twitch near her mouth that always gave her away.

Josh lifted an eyebrow, and she muted her headset, before turning to him. "Cat in a tree."

Of course it was, Josh almost choked laughing into his coffee, which had gone from warm to tragic hours ago. He figured that'd be the end of it.

It wasn't.

Because apparently, Captain Buckley had decided that no creature — human or feline — was getting left behind on his watch.

Josh stared at the screen as Buck's unit marked themselves out on the call. "You've gotta be kidding me," he said, too quietly for it to count as a complaint.

"Captain Buckley doesn't leave anyone behind," Linda grinned without looking up. "Not even Mr. Whiskers."

Josh leaned back, watching the log update — Active dispatch. Cat rescue. Ladder deployed. He could practically hear the groan from the truck when the team realized what they were doing.

"You're kidding me," he repeated, though he was smiling now. He always did when it came to Buck. The man had zero chill and even less self-preservation, but he always meant well.

Josh had heard the stories before Maddie had even joined the dispatch center. Calls that read more like movie scripts than reports. Buck in a flood, Buck hanging from a helicopter, Buck sprinting into a gas leak with a toolkit and a prayer.

It was too ridiculous to make up, even if you tried.

And the funny thing was, it was never about showboating. That's what people got wrong. Buck didn't do it for the credit; he did it because he cared too much. Even if it was only a cat.

Two days later, Maddie took a call that made Josh look up mid-sip.

"Wait," she said into her headset, brow furrowing. "Did you say the car is—hanging?"

Josh blinked. "Off a cliff?" She nodded, already mouthing Buck at him. "Oh, he's gonna love this," Josh muttered.

And of course, he did. Twenty minutes later, the update came through: car secured, driver safe, Buck and Eddie still dangling from a harness like it was just another Tuesday. Josh pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to smile.

After that, you could feel the change in the air. The way people started checking the CAD when Buck's name popped up. Linda had even started a betting pool about what ridiculous call he'd answer next.

Josh still got a kick out of it, he couldn't help it, but he'd stopped being shocked a long time ago.

There was something in Buck's voice when it came through the comms. Calm, even when the world at the other end was falling apart. When Buck spoke, you could almost believe everything was going to be fine.

And maybe that was the strangest part — watching someone quietly become the kind of person everyone trusts without them realizing it was happening. A month into captaincy, and Buck had already rewritten half the rulebook. Not officially, of course — the brass moved slower than traffic on the 405 — but on scenes? The firefighter teams trusted him, and so did the dispatchers.