Chapter Text
Buck does not like recruitment days.
It’s not like he hates new recruits specifically, even though they seem to be getting stupider and stupider as they come out of the academy. It’s not even that he resents newness in the firehouse – it’s more that they never, ever seem to be able to be able to deal with him.
Or, specifically – parts of him.
Bobby tries to screen them, he does. But how exactly does one screen for a very specific kind of racism that’s only been around for the last thirty-ish years? “By the way – how do you feel about working with a hybrid?” doesn’t quite cover it – and it’s not like they don’t lie.
“Cheer up, Buckaroo,” Chim says. “Maybe this year won’t be as bad.”
“I’m cheerful,” Buck insists.
“Ears,” Hen says lazily, pointing at them without looking.
Buck runs a hand over them – they’re flattened back, aeroplane mode as Chim calls it, and he kind of hates himself for the fact that they give him away every time. “Okay, fine,” he sighs. “Just – is it really so hard for people to understand?”
“That you have a set of cat ears and a tail?” Hen says. “Yes.”
Buck sighs. It’s normal – this is the only place he’s ever worked that hasn’t asked him to hide his genetic expression – but it’s still normal for people to stare. To try and grab. To an extent, he even gets it – hybrids have only been around for forty or so years, and Buck was born about fifteen years after the first one recorded – times haven’t caught up. People know racism is bad, than homophobia is bad, hell, they can even understand intolerance in broader terms like xenophobia, in general – but nobody’s caught up with speciesism just yet.
“Bobby said the new guy is good,” Chim says. “Straight and narrow. Won’t give you an issues.”
“Right, just like the last one didn’t.”
“Okay, but he was a dick even by regular standards,” Hen reassures him. “Bobby won’t put any of us through that again.”
“Would it kill them to hire another hybrid?”
“They’d have to apply first, Buckaroo,” Chim points out.
Buck sighs, but tries to think on the bright side. Maybe after Peterson – who was, it turns out, racist on top of being speciesist – Bobby really will have done some more research.
Maybe the new guy won’t be so bad.
~*~
Eddie Diaz hates hybrids.
Buck hasn’t asked him, of course. Bobby introduces him – brings him out to the crew, where Buck is sitting with his ears on full display.
He used to hide them from the new recruits. Now, he’d rather know if they hate him right off the bat. His tail is curled up around his waist – it’s part of his spine, after all, and he doesn’t feel like putting that at risk.
“Everyone, this is Eddie Diaz, new recruit,” Bobby announces. “I had to compete with station 136 to bring him here. Eddie, this is the A-crew – Henrietta Wilson, Howard Han, and Evan Buckley.”
Eddie nods at them all. For a moment, Buck is almost drawn to him – Eddie’s lean, but muscular, olive-skinned and brown-haired and warm-eyed. He smiles at them – he’s got gorgeous, plump lips, surprisingly sharp canine teeth that do something to Buck on an animalistic level, and soft-looking brown hair. He’s – well, Buck’s stubborn, not blind; Eddie Diaz is beautiful.
Then his eyes land on Buck – and just like that, Buck’s desire to get to know the guy is wiped totally clean. Eddie’s visibly shocked by him – he doesn’t even meet Buck’s eyes, just stares at his ears. Buck flattens them back pointedly, but the guy doesn’t seem to get it – Hen winces next to him, and Chim sighs.
Eddie opens and closes his mouth a few times. “You-” he stammers, looking at Buck. “You’re-”
“Part cat,” Buck says waspishly, and stands up to leave the room, making his displeasure clear to anyone with a fucking clue by folding his ears back. “What was your first clue?”
Chimney stabs at his roast chicken morosely. “And we’re off to a great start,” he sighs.
~*~
“I’m not saying you have to like him, Buck, but you have to be able to work with him.”
Buck racks the barbell, sits up, and towels his face off. “I can work with him,” he says to Bobby shortly. “I’ve worked with every other recruit you’ve brought on who thinks it’s fine to gawk at me. Why would this be any different?”
“I’m going to talk to him,” Bobby says. “You’re right. The way he looked at you was inappropriate. Buck – I’m on your side, here. I always have been.”
Buck softens a little at that. Bobby’s right – he’s always stuck up for Buck, even when Buck was doing stupid things like stealing firetrucks to have marathon sex in. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I know. I just – it’s bad enough people don’t respect me out there, Bobby. But in here?”
“I know,” Bobby soothes. “I do. And I appreciate that you play nice with them.”
“Can’t afford not to,” Buck mumbles, his self-righteous anger suddenly dissipating. “Otherwise I’ll just be labelled a violent hybrid and locked up.”
“Athena would never let that happen.”
Buck doesn’t argue. There’s no point. He’s the first hybrid Bobby’s ever met as well – and Bobby isn’t like him. None of them are. They don’t get where he’s coming from. “I’ll work with him,” he says. “But don’t expect anything else from me.”
“I don’t,” Bobby says.
~*~
How is it possible to fire a training grenade into your own leg?
That’s the thought crossing Buck’s mind as they barrel down the freeway to their next job. And he gets his answer quickly – stupidity, recklessness and a tiny bit of apathy. Turns out, you can accomplish anything with those three things on your side.
Their only problem isn’t the fifty-seven-year-old male who’s fired a training round into his leg and is now bleeding to fucking death all over the place. It’s that they’re in an apartment building – and that the fourth ingredient to “accidentally fires grenade into self” is a loud bang from upstairs and a fire alarm going off.
“We’ve got a twofer,” Chim says.
“Twofer?” Eddie asks. He’s been in the seat next to Buck, not looking at him, and Buck has left his ears pointedly flat. Eddie might not understand what that means, but he can make his displeasure abundantly clear to everyone else.
“Fire and injury,” Hen says. “If we don’t do something now it’ll be a triple threat. Cap?”
“You and Chim stabilize the victim for transport,” Bobby says. “Buck, see if you can work out where this fire is coming from. Eddie, you go with him.”
Eddie nods even as Buck makes a face to himself. This is undoubtedly one of Cap’s team-building exercises, an effort to get Buck and Eddie to get along better. It’s not as if Buck’s unwilling to try – he’d love to give people the benefit of the doubt. He’s just not in a position where he can, really.
(He’s done it before. Too many times, more than once, more than enough. It’s never worked out for him.)
He heads off along the north-facing hallway of the building, his ears up, listening intently. He can’t hear the telltale groaning or crackling yet, but…
His radio crackles. “Wilson reporting in,” Hen’s voice comes. “Moving the ambulance closer to the patient.”
“Roger that. Buckley, Diaz, back to my location.”
Buck turns, nearly runs right into Eddie, who – yeah, sure enough, the guy has been staring at his ears. Buck sighs as he brushes past on his way back to where they came from. Looks like they’re riding in the back with their patient.
“You’re listening for fire?” Eddie asks.
“My ears do more than just frame my face,” Buck says.
“So your hearing is good?” Eddie asks, arching an eyebrow.
Buck scowls back. If Eddie’s going to be a prick, he can meet the guy halfway. “Good?” he says. “I once heard a baby crying. Five floors up. Through a wall.”
Eddie at least looks mollified by that. “Alright,” he says, and Buck blinks – the sudden deferment surprises him. “So what can you hear now?”
Buck focuses. The wind is pretty strong, and he’s getting interference. He strains his hearing for two minutes – and is distantly surprised Eddie leaves him alone long enough for him to do that – and eventually, he picks up on it. A distant crackle. He sniffs – smoke.
“Third floor,” he says. “It’s – it’s in the walls.”
“Crap,” Eddie says. “In the walls? You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I can smell the smoke. We need to get the residents evacuated.”
“Okay,” Eddie says – he doesn’t even question Buck, which is both surprising and nice. “I’ll let him know. And our patient?”
“Bleeding out,” Buck admits. Blood is always the easiest to smell, and he can smell it from down the hallway. “We need to move him quickly.”
“Roger that.”
~*~
The building is evacuated, and Buck and Eddie manage to get the old man out – he’s still got the damn training round in his leg. Buck wrinkles his nose at the smell of the blood, mixed with gunpowder – his eyes water.
“You good?” Eddie asks brusquely.
Buck nods. “Fine.”
“Your eyes-”
“Are irritated,” Buck says, desperately trying to not fire up. “I’ll be fine once we’re out properly.”
They get the guy into the ambulance. Eddie steals a glance at Buck’s ears, which are folded back – standard, in the field, when he doesn’t have to listen for anything – and Buck looks away from him. Apparently, Eddie’s still not over having to work with a hybrid.
“Oh, crap,” Eddie breathes.
“What,” Buck says impatiently.
“This,” Eddie breathes. “This round – it’s got a yellow cap on it.”
“And?” He looks up – and sees that Eddie is pale-faced, ramrod still. His irritation towards the other man disintegrates. “Uh – what is it?”
“Yellow caps are live,” Eddie breathes – and then slams his fist against the back of the ambulance. “Pull over!”
~*~
The bomb squad is an hour out.
“He doesn’t have that long,” Buck points out. “He’s going to bleed to death if we don’t get him into surgery.”
And then Eddie, who is apparently suicidal, says something about being familiar with the ordinates. With being able to move the thing in a specific way to get it out. It’s jargon to Buck, but – Bobby asked if he could work with the guy. And he can.
“I’m in,” he says.
Bobby looks at him, surprised – but so does Eddie. He opens his mouth to say something – but Buck beats him to it. “I’ll be able to hear it,” he says. “The bomb, that is. The rotations. If it – rotates the way you says it does, I’ll be able to hear that.”
Eddie nods.
“You don’t have to do this,” Bobby says to Buck, as they’re getting suited up into bomb vests. It protects his chest and neck, but the rest of him will be fucking shredded if the thing goes off. Fantastic.
“Hey, you wanted me to work with him,” Buck says dryly. “We might end up real close.”
~*~
They get the bomb out of the guy. Eddie smiles at him like Buck set the world alight for him. For the first time since he met Eddie, Buck thinks – I wish you didn’t hate me because of what I look like. We could make a really good team.
But that’s not the world he lives in. He pushes the thought down, wheels the guy out, and rips the bomb-proof vest off. He’s stalking back to the truck before anyone can congratulate him.
~*~
“Can we talk?”
Buck flattens his ears back. He heard Eddie approaching – smelled him – but figured the guy wouldn’t be dumb enough to actually talk to him.
After a moment of silence, Eddie sighs. “I’m not here to cause you problems, Evan,” he says quietly. “I just want to talk. If you have time.”
It’s jarring, to hear his given name in conversation. He never did tell Eddie to call him Buck. He looks up at the guy – he’s standing in the doorway, hovering, and even though it’s a communal locker room, he’s making it pretty clear – the space is Buck’s, and he really won’t come closer if Buck declines to talk to him.
Buck gives up on trying to towel his ears dry – they’re stupidly fluffy and hard to get dry at the best of times, when he’s not some unholy combination of annoyed and anxious. Now, rushing and feeling fidgety, he’s got no hope.
He flattens them back – so he can grab his beanie and yank it on – and Eddie winces. “What about?” Buck asks shortly.
Eddie takes a breath. “I wanted to apologise,” he says. “For how I’ve acted today.”
Buck blinks. That was the last thing he was expecting.
“Look,” Eddie says, “I’ve never met anyone with a different genetic expression before. Hybrids are – they’re like planets to me.”
Buck arches an eyebrow. It was going so well. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I learned about you guys in school and I’ve seen pictures but never been up close and personal,” Eddie says. “Evan, I’m not – I’m really not horribly speciesist. I was surprised to see a neko-”
Buck slams his locker door. “Hybrid,” he snaps. “Not neko.”
Eddie flushes, but he doesn’t look angry – in fact, he holds his hands up. “I’m sorry,” he says, sounding genuine, and Buck relaxes – by about a hair. “This is – this is what I mean. I’m not trying to be speciesist. I was surprised to see you here, yeah. I grew up in a really small town in Texas. There was no one there with a different genetic expression. When I was eighteen, I joined the military, and they… aren’t exactly hybrid-friendly.”
Buck nods warily. “Texas, huh?” He shakes his head. “Makes sense, what with a lot of the south being wildly racist anyway.”
Eddie nods. He doesn’t argue. “The point I’m trying to make is – is I just don’t know. I’m sorry that I let it make you uncomfortable. I really didn’t mean to.”
Buck watches him. Eddie smells – nervous, he realizes. The apology is genuine, and he’s worried Buck won’t accept it.
“You really haven’t met a hybrid before?” Buck asks.
“No,” Eddie breathes. “I’m sorry.”
When Buck doesn’t respond – just smooths his hair and ears to try and get his beanie on – Eddie takes another deep breath. “Neko,” he says. “That’s offensive?”
“Incredibly offensive,” Buck mutters. “You might as well have just walked into a bar and shouted the n-word at the top of your lungs.”
“Shit.” Eddie rubs his face. “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s like I said, I – I haven’t ever…” He straightens up. “I won’t call you that again,” he says seriously.
Buck nods, more curious than offended at this point. It seems to actually matter to Eddie that Buck accepts his apology – and it’s more than Buck’s ever gotten, honestly.
“Mostly,” he says, and Eddie looks up, “once we turn eighteen, we head straight for big cities. Bigger communities, more acceptance. It’s… not all that surprising you haven’t met a hybrid before.”
“Is that what you did?” Eddie asks hesitantly.
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “First hybrid to get through the firefighter academy in Los Angeles.”
“That’s a pretty badass claim to fame,” Eddie says.
Damn it, Buck might look like he’s part-cat, but some latent genes must belong to a golden retriever, because that statement makes him inexplicably happy. “Yeah?”
Eddie smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “And back there – that you could hear the fire, and smell the smoke, and tell me when the ordinance was rattling… that was incredible. You’re a badass under pressure.”
Buck rarely gets to use his ears or tail for anything – it’s mainly his agility that comes in useful – and he smiles again. “Uh,” he says. “Um – thanks.”
Eddie’s smile grows warmer. For the first time since he got here, Buck settles – Eddie might not actually be a speciesist prick after all. Maybe he is uneducated and doesn’t know and – does feel bad?
“What I’m trying to say,” Eddie says, “is that you can have my back any day.”
Buck beams. He has to quash the sudden purr threatening to erupt in his throat – Eddie might be fine now, but if he works out Buck can purr and has claws and a tail? It could be all over for them before it’s started. Like it nearly already was.
“Yeah,” he says, pleased. “Or uh – you could have mine.”
Eddie’s face splits into a pleased smile. “Okay. Deal.”
The locker room door opens, and Buck realizes Eddie’s drifted closer to him. Probably soothed by Buck not bristling as much, or that he can’t see Buck’s ears and it’s more normal for him.
“Okay, okay, break it up,” Chim says, bustling through.
“Break what up?” Buck asks.
Chim stands between them, narrows his eyes. “You aren’t fighting?”
“No.” Buck closes his locker. “Eddie came in to apologise.”
Chim turns to look at Eddie suspiciously. “You did, huh?”
“… Yes?”
“Good.” Chim claps Buck on the shoulder. “Nobody puts Buckaroo in the corner.”
“Did – was that a Dirty Dancing reference?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be.” Chim looks at Buck. “You all good? Are your eyes okay?”
“They’re fine,” Buck promises. “I had a shower. It was just the gunpowder.”
“Alright.” Chim pats him again. “So – drinks this Friday? After shift? Everyone in?”
“I’m in,” Buck says, and when Eddie doesn’t answer, he looks up – Eddie’s not saying anything, at least until Buck tilts his head questioningly. Is Eddie unsure of coming out with them? “Are you coming?” he asks.
“I – yeah. Sure.”
~*~
The rest of the week goes well.
Buck and Eddie get along better, much to everyone’s undisguised relief. Eddie even asks if he’s okay when they have to jump in the pool to save some idiot social media influencer with his head trapped in a microwave.
“You look freaked,” Eddie notes, and hands over the towel he’d been using to dry off his own hair. Buck takes it gratefully. “Are you okay?”
“I hate water,” Buck grumbles. His tail is wet too, but no matter how comfortable he’s starting to feel around Eddie, he’d prefer to keep that part of himself quiet for now.
Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up. “But… showering…”
“You haven’t seen his shower cap?” Chim sniggers, and Buck whips him with the towel. “Hey!” Then, to Eddie, having not learned his lesson – “It’s got Hello Kitty on it.”
Buck shoves him into the pool.
~*~
The place they’re going to is dark, loud, smells like about twenty things Buck wishes he couldn’t identify, and makes him want to hide his ears.
Thankfully, he brought a baseball cap with him. It’ll make hearing even more difficult than it was going to be, but he puts it on before he gets out of the car – he’s got his tail wrapped around his waist, under his shirt, not even noticeable. It’s a craft he’s perfected out of necessity. Nothing could be worse than singed fur.
The others are already in there, including Eddie, who scans the room as the door opens – and spots Buck almost instantly. He waves.
Buck heads over, sighing at the pounding of the music. They’re in a booth, which helps a little – but he still can’t hear very well, with the music and human speech blending together. The people on the next table over had sex before they came here and didn’t bother showering.
The booth moves next to him. He turns – Eddie’s sitting down next to him with a bowl of waffle fries. He offers them – Buck takes a few, scanning the bar. There are strobe lights off in the VIP lounge that hurt to look at, so he looks away. Eddie’s scent is familiar to him now, and he tries to use it to ground himself.
“Evan?”
He turns. Eddie’s watching him, his brow furrowed.
Hesitantly, Buck sweeps his cap off. His ears spring up. “Sorry?” he asks.
“Can you – you can’t hear me properly, can you?” Eddie asks.
Buck has to take a moment to decipher that, sure he’s missed most of the sentence verbally even as he watches Eddie’s lips move. They’re alone in the booth with Hen and Chim at the pool table and a few of the others ordering drinks. Buck blinks.
“Hey,” Eddie says, watching him intently. “Want to go outside?”
He hesitates. Eddie is new and Buck doesn’t know him all that well and they’re still on shaky ground after their initial introductions – really, Eddie could be about to do anything to him. But – God, it’s just too loud in here, too overwhelming.
But he looks concerned. And Buck doesn’t think he can fake that. His senses are clamoring for rest – his ears are beginning to hurt from the noise, and the smells are cloying, making him feel physically sick. If he stays here much longer, he’ll have a migraine – or he’ll be puking.
He slides from the booth, allowing Eddie to guide him with a hand on his shoulder. Within a few seconds, they’re out of the bar and on the street – blessedly quiet, compared to indoors.
“God,” Buck sighs, taking a huge, deep breath of fresh air. “Thank you.”
“That’s okay. You looked pretty overwhelmed.”
He was, truthfully, not that he would have said. He’s used to this – social events that he can only attend for a half-hour before he’s in an eye-watering amount of pain, or someone gets drunk and handsy and wants to touch his ears or tail. He’s never liked it. He probably never will.
Beside him, Eddie shifts, and the wind throws his scent towards Buck. He hones in on it – Eddie’s got a naturally earthy scent, something complimented by the cologne he wears. After the oily, slick smells of the bar, it’s soothing to Buck’s fragmented nerves – he takes another breath through his nose, and then another.
“Hey,” Eddie says quietly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I am now.”
“Good. The way you were breathing, I – I thought you might be about to throw up.”
Buck smiles. “Worried about having to Heimlich a hairball out of me, Diaz?”
It’s a joke, but Eddie looks genuinely distressed at the thought, and what comes out of his mouth is a stammering pile of apologies that Buck can’t quite make heads or tails of. “Sorry,” he says, quickly, and pats Eddie’s shoulder. “It was a joke. A hybrid joke. Not a very good one.”
“Do you – you don’t actually get hairballs, do you?” Eddie asks.
He sounds so genuinely worried and distressed about the idea that Buck can’t help it – he laughs, then tries to stop at Eddie’s indignant expression. “Sorry, sorry,” he chuckles. “No. I don’t. I might be part cat, but I don’t groom my ears by licking myself.”
Eddie groans, rubbing his face. “I’m being so speciesist,” he says mournfully. “I don’t mean to be, Evan, I’m sorry.”
Buck smiles. Eddie might be putting his foot in his mouth, but he’s not being an asshole, or even deliberately messing up. He just doesn’t know, and he seems to want to help. “Buck,” he corrects gently.
Eddie looks at him.
“Everyone at the firehouse calls me Buck,” Buck says, smiling softly.
Finally, tentatively, Eddie smiles back. “Buck, then,” he says. “You know – we didn’t get to eat in there. You hungry?”
He steps back from the curb a little, his body angled towards a strip of restaurants down further. A few of them have great hybrid-specific foods to choose from.
Buck falls into step with him. “Starving,” he says.
~*~
Eddie chooses – and actually picks a place that has hybrid-specific foods, as well. That surprises Buck a little. Maybe Eddie is genuinely trying to be better? Buck doesn’t typically eat those foods – bad experiences in early adulthood – but hell, he’ll try tonight.
The waitress brings them four menus – one for drinks, two for regular human food, and one that she gives to Buck with a pretty smile. It’s their full list of hybrid food – Buck flicks to the page that’s feline-specific. Eddie watches him.
“So,” he says. “Uh… part cat?”
“Part cat,” Buck says. “What gave me away?”
Eddie doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, even when the obvious and non-offensive answer is clearly “your huge fluffy ears”. Buck just smiles at him.
“Calico?” Eddie asks, finally.
“Yep.” Buck looks up. “You can ask me questions,” he says. “That’s – you know, fine. You can’t understand if you don’t ask.”
“Okay.” Eddie takes a deep breath. “Is anyone else in your family…?”
“My sister, Maddie. No one else. We’re not really sure how the genes got into the family.” Buck finally spots something that looks appetizing and makes a note of it. “Hey – thanks for getting me out of that bar. It’s just – in places like that, it’s not that I can’t hear. It’s just too much. The music is too similar in pitch to human voices.”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “Yeah, I figured, you – you looked like you were trying to lip-read.”
“You noticed that?”
“Yeah.”
The waitress comes back and takes their orders, leaves them with their drinks. Buck sips at his beer, watching Eddie – Eddie watches him back. Weirdly, Buck doesn’t feel like he’s being studied – just observed.
There’s a crash in the kitchen. His left ear betrays him, swivels in place to catch the worst of the noise and the resulting swearing. Four tables away, a couple is having an argument – she’s pregnant, insisting that it’s his. It’s not, and Buck can tell because he can smell that she’s lying. Well – more that she’s nervous, really. They kind of smell the same.
“Something interesting?” Eddie asks.
Buck looks up sheepishly. He does that a lot – accidentally listens in on conversations, what with his huge ears, and then totally ignores what’s going on in front of him. He’s been told he makes a range of facial expressions, too.
“Sorry,” he says.
“Don’t be. You said your hearing is good, after all.” Eddie sips his beer – the establishment is fairly low-key, and there aren’t many people in here. “What’re they talking about?”
“She’s pregnant, and she’s saying he’s the dad,” Buck says.
“Oof,” Eddie says, wincing.
“He isn’t. She’s lying.”
“Oooof.”
Buck smiles; he probably shouldn’t tell Eddie because hey, invasion of privacy, but – they’re sitting here and Eddie’s not really acting like he’s different. He’s taking Buck’s weird little cat quirks into his stride now, or at least trying to.
He’s going to freak when he realizes Buck has a tail and a penchant for napping on the closest warm body. But that can be dealt with later.
Their orders come out, and Buck shuffles some things around on the table to make room for the waitress to put their plates down. Once she’s left, Eddie says, “So… why don’t you tell anyone that those bars aren’t fun for you?”
Buck shrugs, stabs at his gnocchi. “It’s not really fair on them,” Buck says. “To have to find a different place to hang out just because I have trouble. I mostly just leave after an hour or two and nobody seems to notice.”
Eddie nods. “I’ve only been around a week,” he says. “But I think if you told them, they’d be more than happy to go somewhere else.”
He’s right, but Buck has never felt comfortable with saying anything – it just highlights that he’s different, the only one on the team so negatively affected by noise and strobe lights and cloying smells. He can manage a few hours a week as long as he regularly steps outside for some air.
“Anyway,” Eddie says. “I’ll mind my own business.”
“I guess it is your business now that you’re part of the team,” Buck says. “I appreciate you caring, man. I just… don’t like drawing attention to myself.”
“Your ears,” Eddie says, and Buck feels them twitch, like they have a mind of their own and know they’ve been mentioned. “You weren’t hiding them on my first day.”
“Better for me to know if you’re going to be a prick right away,” Buck says. “I don’t have the luxury of wondering. If we’re on a bad call with someone who really doesn’t like me… it’s not a show-off thing.”
“It’s safety,” Eddie realizes aloud. “I get it.”
He really does seem to. Buck smiles, then goes back to his food.
“Do you chase laser pointers?” Eddie asks.
Buck’s about to snap – and then looks up to find Eddie smiling at him teasingly. They’re joking. Buck’s so used to taking everything as an insult he didn’t even consider it might be playful until he saw Eddie’s face.
“Only red ones,” he says.
Eddie laughs.