Chapter Text
The shoebox is heavier than it looks.
Eddie Diaz stands in the doorway of his house, staring down at it like it’s a live grenade. It’s not the size of the box that makes his chest ache, it’s the handwriting scrawled across the cardboard lid. He doesn’t need to open it to know who it belongs too.
Buck.
The marker bleeds, messy, familiar. He has seen it on sticky notes, on Christopher’s school forms, on the back of diner receipts Buck always doodled on when they were bored on late night shifts. He sees it now, and it hurts worse than anything else ever could.
His legs feel like sandbags as he carries the box inside. Christopher’s at Carla’s tonight, thank God, because Eddie can’t imagine explaining this. He sets the box on the dining table, his hands trembling as he pulls at the tape holding it shut.
Inside: cassette tapes.
He stares. Who even uses tapes anymore?
But there they are. A neat row of plastic shells, each one labeled in Buck’s handwriting. 'Cassette 1: Side A.' 'Cassette 1: Side B.' And on, and on.
Eddie reaches for the first one, his throat dry. Beneath it, tucked into the cardboard, a folded sheet of paper. He opens it with shaking hands.
If you’re reading this, you have the tapes. You’re on them. You’re a reason why.
Eddie’s breath stutters. He drops the paper like it burns him.
No.
It can’t be.
He stumbles to his bedroom closet, digging through boxes until he finds it: the old tape player, dusty and half forgotten. He plugs it in, jams the first cassette into the slot, and presses play.
The whirr of old spools fills the silence. Then,
Hey. It’s me. Buck.
If you’ve got these tapes, that means you’re one of the reasons why. Why I’m gone. Why I’m not here anymore. Don’t bother trying to stop me, it's too late. Don’t bother trying to pretend you don’t deserve to listen. If you have received the tapes, you do.
Thirteen tapes. Thirteen sides. Thirteen people. And yeah, Eddie, that includes you.
So, let’s start at the beginning. Cassette 1, Side A. Bobby Nash.
Eddie’s entire body goes cold. He presses his hand over his mouth, muffling the sound clawing its way out of his throat.
“Buck,” he whispers, but Buck doesn’t answer.
Buck never will.
Bobby, Cap. My mentor. My father figure, or at least that’s what I thought.
You know, when I first joined the 118, you told me this job was about family. About trust. About second chances. About having each other's backs. And I believed you. God, I believe you.
But when I came back after the lawsuit, you made sure I knew I wasn’t family anymore. No more fires. No more rescues. Just chores. Paperwork. Man behind. Always behind, in and out of the station. Never trusted. Never forgiven.
Do you know what that felt like? To stand in the firehouse I bled for and realize my captain thought I was nothing more than a liability? A maid? It killed me, Bobby. Not all at once. But piece by piece. Every time you looked past me, I lost another piece of myself.
And I kept telling myself it was temporary. That if I worked harder, kept my head down, you’d see me again. You’d see Buck, the firefighter you once believed in. But you never did.
You told me family never gives up on each other. And then you gave up on me.
Eddie’s vision blurs, his grip tightening on the steering wheel of his truck. He doesn’t remember leaving the house. He doesn’t remember starting the engine. But now he’s parked outside the station, staring through the glass doors at Bobby inside, clipboard in hand, leading roll call.
The rest of the team gathers around him, focused, nodding. The picture of unity. Family.
Eddie’s chest feels like it’s caving in. He can still hear Buck’s voice spilling from the player balanced on the passenger seat.
He wants to turn it off. God, he wants to. But he can’t.
Buck’s words echo in his skull, tearing at old memories. The days Buck spent scrubbing rigs while everyone else went out on calls. The way he lingered in the back, his jaw tight, his smile forced. The silence Bobby never broke, the silence no one broke.
Eddie thought, what did he think? That Bobby was being cautious? That Buck needed to earn his trust back? He told himself it wasn’t his place to question a captain’s orders.
But Buck noticed. Buck felt every cut. And Eddie… Eddie just stood there.
“He’s not wrong,” Eddie mutters to the empty truck. “Bobby iced him out. And I didn’t fight it. I didn’t fight for him.”
The guilt tastes like blood on his tongue.
Do you remember, Bobby, when you first told me about your past? Your mistakes? You trusted me with that. And I never judged you. I stood by you. I thought that meant we were… I thought it meant something.
But when it was my turn, when I screwed up, you didn’t return the favor. You punished me. You punished me long after the lawsuit was dropped. Long after I begged for another chance.
And the thing is, Bobby, I would’ve done anything for you. For the team. For this family you promised me.
But you didn’t want Buck the firefighter anymore. You just wanted Buck the reminder. The cautionary tale. The screw up.
And after a while, I started to believe you. Maybe that’s all I was.
Eddie swipes at his eyes with the ends of his hand, furious with himself. His throat is raw. He keeps staring at Bobby through the station glass, seeing him laugh at something Chim says. The same laugh Eddie’s heard a hundred times.
He used to love that sound. Now it makes him sick.
“You did this, Cap,” Eddie whispers, the words trembling. “You broke him. And I let you.”
The truth cuts deeper than anything. Eddie’s loyalty to Bobby, his silence, his obedience, it all made him complicit. He should have asked questions. He should have fought harder. But he didn’t.
Now Buck’s gone. And all Eddie has left is a voice on a tape and a guilt that won’t ever let him breathe again.
So that’s reason number one. Bobby Nash. The man who promised me family, and then made sure I never felt like family again.
You started the chain, Bobby. You lit the match.
And if you’re listening to this, congratulations. You’re the beginning of the reasons why I’m not here anymore.
The tape clicks off with a hiss of static. Eddie doesn’t breathe until it stops. He pulls the cassette from the player, staring at it like it might bite him.
He sets it back on the passenger seat, his hands trembling. His chest feels like it’s collapsing, he can't listen to more, but he knows, he knows he has to keep going.
Buck’s voice told him there are more tapes. More reasons. And Eddie’s name is on one of them.
The weight of that is enough to crush him.
He closes his eyes, whispering into the silence of the truck.
“I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so goddamn sorry.”
But Buck isn’t there to hear him anymore.
Only the tapes are.