Chapter Text
Buck knew the moment he saw him that Eddie Diaz was a vampire. The wind told him as it often did like a trustful companion he’d had since childhood that warned him of danger. And nothing was more dangerous than a vampire. Vampires were made creatures, humans once that escaped death by the luck of the draw.
Eddie Diaz ticked all the boxes that sent Buck’s shoulders up to his ears and his hackles raised every time he so much as looked in Buck’s direction. Stunningly beautiful to entrap their prey, human enough that no one noticed when he held his breath too long or barely slept during a twenty-four hour shift, and superior enough to fill the room with his ego the way all vampires thought they were the top of the food chain.
What a vampire was doing walking into fire every day was beyond Buck.
Point was, he didn’t like him because the wind told him so. Well… not precisely but it gave him the feeling and Buck understood what that feeling meant.
“So, a witch, huh?”
Buck froze for half a second before the irritation took over and made him grit his teeth. What was with this dude? Buck clenched his fist at his side as he turned to Eddie, who was perfectly coiffed with his stupid perfect dangerous hair and stupid pretty un-trustable smirk. Eddie waved his hand in front of him with a twist of his wrist, motioning between them.
“I figured that’s what got you all riled up about me being here.”
Buck opened his mouth to argue only to snap it close with a click of his jaw because... yes, that was exactly right but he wasn’t about to give Eddie the satisfaction of saying that out loud. But from the way his smirk stretched into a small smile that disappeared in his cheeks and made Buck’s stomach flip, Eddie already knew.
It should’ve probably irritated Buck more how openly Eddie just announced Buck to the world. But it didn’t. It wasn’t like it used to be centuries before when the word witch was thrown at the end of the pointed finger. Hell, Buck wasn’t even the only magically afflicted person in the house. Bobby was a witch, in name only after he gave up his magic and became one of the Forsaken, and Hen was a daemon, who’s gaze always felt like a kiss on Buck’s cheek when he first arrived. Chimney was blessedly human but he knew too. He couldn’t not know when he’d been raised by a family of daemons and he spent almost all of his waking moments surrounded by Bobby, Buck, and Hen plus there’d been others too. By the time Buck started at the 118, Buck was more surprised than Chimney that the concept of magic was a well-known unspoken secret around the house. There were people in the department who made sure that magical creatures were placed in houses where they would best be utilized.
Los Angeles was weird. It was easier than someone would think to explain away to the humans how someone could smother a fire with a wave of their hand.
But still it was rude and Eddie didn’t know the first thing about Buck.
Eddie stepped forward into the locker room with an easiness that grated at Buck’s nerves and set his teeth on edge. He hated how easy Eddie filled the space like he belonged. Buck’s first couple months had been spent shifting his weight on his feet and feeling like he was too long limbed and in the way to do anything right.
“I’m going to take a guess from the way you were at the call that you have an affinity for air? That and the temperature seems to drop about five degrees whenever I’m near you. I meant no disrespect. I wasn’t trying to step on anybody’s toes or anything.” Eddie waved his hand in front of him again like it was a nervous twitch and Buck was too busy trying to list all the ways he hated Eddie’s face to find it endearing.
Even though it was. It really, really was.
“You didn’t,” Buck said with a sniff. “It was a good call.”
Which Buck had said at the scene even though it tasted like vinegar at the back of his throat. The overworked mechanic had slipped on some oil and impaled himself on pressurized air nozzle. Weird but perfectly human. He didn’t know why Eddie was rubbing his nose in it.
Buck spent more than enough time being reminded just how much of a failure of witch he was back in Pennsylvania, thanks.
“Look, let me buy you a drink at the thing tonight.”
Shit.
Buck forgot. It was tradition for the shift to go out for a drink afterwards with the probie. The crew had taken Buck out and now it seemed they were taking Eddie out too.
There went Buck’s chance of making a hasty exit.
To be fair, he could just not go. But that meant going back to an empty apartment and dealing with Bobby’s disapproving eyebrow lift at the next shift.
So, Buck agreed to the drink. Begrudgingly and with the promise that he would leave after one drink.
One.
Four beers later, Buck was shoving his tongue down the asshole’s throat and feeling brick burn at his back.
Buck didn’t remember how they made it out to the alleyway. He didn’t remember taking off his pants. He didn’t even remember how many fingers he took before he was ready for more. But all he knew was he hated Eddie even more for how perfect he felt inside of him.
That and how much the display of vampiric strength was making his cock throb in time with Eddie’s thrusts up into him, making Buck take it; take whatever Eddie gave him. His legs were pressed up to his chest, hooked over Eddie’s elbows, and bouncing as if they weighed nothing at all as Eddie fucked into him. Every keening gasp that slipped from Buck’s lips was pitching up higher in desperate need, blowing any pretense that Buck wasn’t losing his fucking mind with every slam against his prostate.
He could feel Eddie’s smirk against his collarbone where he’d kept his mouth to pepper kisses against sweaty skin and if Buck was in a charitable mood— which he wasn’t because he wanted more more more — he would’ve been kind of touched by the clear consideration that came from Eddie not moving anywhere close to Buck’s throat.
“Fuck— Hngh! You!” Buck choked out as he clawed at Eddie’s shoulders.
Eddie chuckled as he snapped his hips up three times in rapid succession that had Buck writhing with his head thrown back before Eddie slowed down enough for Buck to catch his breath.
“There’s that spark,” Eddie rumbled as he nuzzled into Buck’s chest. “I saw it when you were being a little brat—”
Eddie punctuated that with another snap of his hips that dragged every inch of Eddie against Buck’s prostate and drew out a sound like Buck was dying from his lips. He clamped down hard around Eddie in retaliation and knotted his hands in Eddie’s hair, dragging him up for a searing kiss that was just as mean as the rest of them. Mean and bruising that made Buck’s lips tingle with the scorch from them. If he wasn’t so busy finding all the reasons to hate him, Buck would’ve been consumed by the kisses of Eddie.
But instead, he was racing to the finish, desperate and aching, as every snap of Eddie’s hips against his ass worked out gasps that were hitching higher and higher up his throat until Buck’s brain short circuited in pleasure.
Buck only felt a little bad that he was pretty sure that stain wouldn’t be coming out of Eddie’s shirt any time soon.
“Fuck!” Eddie growled and the sound rumbled through Buck’s chest to make his insides quiver. “You’re incredible.”
The heat of that praise bloomed somewhere deep and hurting inside Buck. It licked against the bruised parts of his heart that Abby had nearly crushed beneath her feet in her rush to get away from LA, away from her life, and away from Buck as fast as possible. Buck hated how much he needed to hear that but he hated even more that he couldn’t find the energy to believe it.
The wind cooed at Buck’s neck, cooling the sweat that had built up when Eddie had nearly bent him in half, and Buck shifted in Eddie’s arms at the soreness of the stretch. He grimaced and thankfully, Eddie eased him down onto wobbly legs instead of dropping him like he half expected him to do after the way Buck had been acting.
“Thanks,” Buck said without looking up as he hurried to pull on his jeans again. He should say something back. Something better than the bitterness of the gratitude that had been on his tongue.
But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t even look Eddie in the eye. The swoop of endorphins from the admittedly mind blowing sex was fizzling away to something hollow in his chest. If Eddie was bothered, he didn’t show it. He fixed his buckle on his belt with the same self-satisfied smirk quirked up on his lips and Buck was pretty sure that if he had to stare at Eddie’s mouth and the way he filled the space like he belonged for another second longer, Buck was going to scream.
“You want to—”
“Tell the others I’ll see them at the top of shift,” Buck blurted out and Eddie’s eyes widened a fraction in surprise. Buck hedged around Eddie and moved towards the end of the alleyway instead of the back door they’d stumbled out of.
“Wait, Buck! Let me walk—”
But Buck didn’t wait. He called himself an uber and tried to forget about the memory of the taste of Eddie’s tongue on his.
Buck’s wards were off. That was the first thing he realized when he reached for the doorknob to his place and felt the soft resistance of the magic holding him back.
They weren’t off in a way that meant someone had tried to break them but rather they were stronger as if someone had weaved in a chain link of heavy duty protection magic to fortify his ward.
But there was something familiar about the magic too and Buck frowned at the way the spell pressed into his palm, assessing him, before deeming him safe enough to pass. It felt like a hug welcoming him home. The magic. It was like a hug that he could get lost in, tucking his face into her neck, and letting her hold him as the world continued to turn.
“Maddie?” Buck gasped, his heart in his throat and the fear that it was too good to be true keeping him from saying anything else as he pushed open the door and was greeted with the sight of his sister helping herself to a glass of wine at his kitchen island.
Maddie startled at first like she didn’t even feel him when he pushed through the wards and her eyes swung up wide to stare at him. She was pale and nervous as she fiddled with her necklace— one Buck had sent her for her birthday with a postcard that went unanswered— but she was there!
Holy shit! She was there!
Maddie’s face lit up and before Buck could even blink, she was throwing her arms around him and holding him close.
“Mads?” Buck could’ve cried. It’d been too long since he’d heard from her and even longer since he’d seen her; held her. Been held by her.
His magic stirred at the closeness of Maddie’s and the lights overhead flickered at the surge of energy connected in one space. The chandelier back at their parents’ house used to sway every time Maddie came home for Christmas when Buck would run down the stairs and nearly take her out at her knees with how fast he would throw his arms around her.
“What are you doing here?” Buck asked when Maddie seemed perfectly content to stay in their embrace just as long as Buck was. “Where’s Doug? I—”
Buck knew he didn’t imagine the full body flinch that shuddered through Maddie and the wind licked at Buck’s neck in warning.
“Don’t know, don’t care.” The fledgling of hope stirred in Buck’s chest. She’d left him? But Maddie pulled away and wrinkled her nose. “You smell like beer and trash.”
Well, Buck supposed that was what he got for letting a vampire nearly fuck him through a wall in the alleyway behind a bar.
Maddie patted his chest and the heat of her palm seeped into Buck’s muscles.
“Go shower. I’ll be here when you finish.”
Buck never showered faster in all his life and he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he slid out of the bathroom in some sweats and found Maddie sitting quietly in his kitchen. That distant, faraway look she got sometimes when her visions were too intense to shake was blanketed over her expression and Buck was still too giddy with disbelief to really notice the way she smothered that down with a stretch of a smile when she saw him again.
“Hungry?” Buck asked before he started throwing something together Bobby had taught him with what he had in his fridge. Maddie made appraising noises in the back of her throat as she watched Buck mix together the eggs and pour them into a hot skillet that had Buck grinning ear to ear at the approval.
He didn’t have anyone to cook for since Bobby started teaching him.
“How did you find me?” Buck asked when most of the work was done and he just had to stir until the eggs got fluffy.
“Well, I went to the address on the Christmas cards and the guys at the house sent me to a townhouse.”
Buck winced at the memory of Abby’s place he’d left. If Maddie noticed, she didn’t say anything.
“Then the property manager gave me this address which I have to say,” Maddie said with an impressed tilt of her head as she took in Buck’s loft. “This place is nice!”
But Buck recognized a deflection when he saw it. He plated Maddie’s eggs and handed it to her before he leaned onto the counter with his fists.
“Wait… So… You did get those Christmas cards?” Buck kept his tone light even though the hurt still tugged at something in chest every once in a while.
Maddie’s lips tightened into a pucker of a smile as she nodded. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much lately.”
Which was an understatement.
“Three years, Maddie. I haven’t heard from you in three years.” Three long years where Buck counted the days even though he wished he couldn’t.
“Yeah, I know,” Maddie said with a sigh in her voice. “And it’s not what I wanted.”
Buck believed her but that didn’t change the fact that seeing his sister seemed a little too good to be true.
He’d get over it. Eventually. He always did.
“Do Mom and Dad know you’re here?”
“No one knows and please don’t tell them…” Maddie’s head shot up and that flicker of nerves fluttered across her expression before she could stuff it down. “If they call. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m here.”
Buck didn’t bother correcting her that his parents called him about as much as they thought about him which was not at all. Instead, he focused on the ping of interest at Maddie’s words. Buck furrowed his brow as he pressed his lips together.
“Kind of sounds like you’re hiding out.”
“Nah. More like laying low,” Maddie said with a smile that was a little too easy for Buck to really believe it.
Danger. Danger. Maddie in danger. The wind shifted at that and Buck swallowed past the nausea at the surge in power stirring in his gut. He’d fortify his wards when Maddie went to sleep.
“Anyways,” Maddie said with an almost too far stretch of a smile. “What happened to you? You cooked me food. Actual food. Is there a shallot in here?”
Buck couldn’t help the smile from that familiar tickle of Maddie’s teasing.
“My boss at work is like Guy Fieri. He’s been teaching me. We haven’t made it past breakfast though.”
Maddie settled her head on her hands. “Tell me about them. Your team. Your job. Everything!”
So, Buck did. He reiterated some of the things about training that he’d written on a postcard but he spent most of his time talking about the team. About Hen’s genius level wit and Chimney's constant sense of humor. About Bobby and how much he meant to Buck. How Bobby had been one of the first people who didn’t give up on Buck no matter how easily Buck made it. How Bobby had taught Buck that his connection to the wind wasn’t a feeble distraction from his real magic.
“So, are you in his coven?” Maddie asked after they’d cleaned up their plates and made their way over to the couch.
“Ah… No,” Buck winced. “Bobby’s Forsaken. I’m not in a coven.”
It didn’t really feel like Buck’s story to share but Bobby hadn’t been hiding nearly as much after Buck and Hen found him passed out spell drunk and with a bottle of empty Jack in his fist.
“Magic just became another way to numb the pain.” Bobby had told Buck one late night when they both couldn’t sleep.
Maddie’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been without a coven this whole time?”
Buck shrugged as he dropped his gaze down to his wine.
“’s not like they’d accept me to begin with.” He swirled the last of his wine and watched the liquid whirlpool in the center. “Can’t miss what I never had.”
Buck swallowed the rest of his wine and sucked in some air through his teeth as the liquid dried out his mouth.
That was the thing about being a failed prophecy. No one wanted to touch you with a ten foot pole. It was easier for Maddie. She had her visions and was infinitely ten times better at magic than Buck would ever be.
Besides, he had Bobby and Hen and Chimney and now…
Buck’s face must have done something because Maddie’s expression lit up.
“Oh! Oh, I know that face,” Maddie said with a wave of her finger. “Tell me.”
Buck’s groan got caught in his nose as he dropped his head back on the couch.
“There’s a new guy. Eddie. A vampire,” Buck said and then waved his hand in front of him when Maddie’s eyebrows shot up. “I know, right!”
Buck fell into the easiness of talking to Maddie as he ranted about Eddie and his stupid good looks and stupid know it all charisma. He kept the part about where he’d let Eddie fuck him until his brain melted only two hours before to himself but he still felt his face heat up as the beard burn on his chest tingled.
“I don’t know why Bobby brought him on to be honest,” Buck said when his mouth started to hurt from how much he’d been talking.
It was kind of crazy how used to silence Buck had gotten.
Buck jumped when Maddie curled her hand over his.
“Just… be careful,” Maddie said, her eyes softening with the warning but her mouth tight with worry.
Buck frowned. “He’s an asshole but I don’t think Eddie would hurt anyone.”
The logic wasn’t all there because vampires used their familiarity with normalcy to hunt their prey but Eddie wasn’t like that. Even when he was being stupidly arrogant and perfect even Buck couldn’t deny that to most people— to everyone but Buck— he was probably a nice guy.
He knew he hadn’t heard from his sister in years but Maddie had never cared who was a witch or a vampire or human before. Doug had. He’d been a purest asshole that kept his sneers toward Buck behind Maddie’s back when she hadn’t been looking.
But Maddie’s worry turned into fondness that settled over Buck like a warm familiar blanket. He’d missed her. He wanted to burrow deep into that feeling and never let it go.
“I’m not saying that. I’m talking about your crush.”
Buck sputtered. His what?
“I do not—" Maddie’s brow arched high in time with the dip of her lips into her cheek. “I don’t! How… that’s… no!”
“Evan.” Maddie dragged out his name with a roll of her eyes and it was just so familiar, he almost missed the fact that she’d called him by his first name again. “You bristled—"
“I do not bristle!” Buck bristled.
“You practically hissed at him like a black cat when you met him.”
“I did no—"
Maddie cocked her head.
And no! That was the whole point of hate sex. Buck did not have a crush! No. No.
No.
“Anyway!” Buck swerved the conversation away from Maddie’s teasing before his face got any redder than it already was. “This is your first time being in LA. You want to see the sites? Hang around for a little bit?”
Please don’t go. Buck swallowed back that plea before it could pass his lips. Maddie had only come back into his life for two hours and he was already trying to resist clinging to her so she never went away again.
He missed her. The ache of missing her had been something he’d gotten used to but seeing her in front of him, smiling and laughing as she teased him for his nonexistent crush, brought it all back up to the surface.
Buck watched Maddie’s denial creep up into her expression and he tried not to let the sting of rejection get to his eyes.
“I’m just passing through.” Maddie shook her head softly.
Buck swallowed back the disappointment. Maddie was finally free. She was out of Hershey like they always dreamed of doing. He didn’t want to ruin that for her by making her feel bad.
“Listen, even if you are just here for a few days. Welcome to LA. It was getting pretty lonely around here.”
Everything changed when a caller shot himself with a live grenade and Buck and Eddie were gearing up to extract it from his leg in the back of an ambulance in the middle of a deserted parking lot.
It’s Bobby’s fault really.
Bobby waited until Eddie was walking to the back of the ambulance—with a confidence Buck was sure had been crafted from years of being an immortal asshole— before he hurried up beside Buck with a tightness in his voice.
“Alright, listen, Buck! You don’t have to do this.”
“You think I’m going to let the new guy have all the fun? Besides, you wanted us to bond. We might end up real close.”
The only indication Eddie gave of having heard them was an arched brow as he waited by the entrance of the ambulance with the box held out for Buck. Buck took it with a muttered thanks and then climbed up into the back.
Buck felt it the moment he stepped into the ambulance. It burned at the back of his throat and made his skin tingle as he sat down on the bench.
Magic. Smoky and hot that simmered in Buck’s blood as Eddie settled in beside him and talked to the patient as they prepped him. Buck stared down at Charlie as he lamented about how he’d lost his dream of being a marine to a heart arrhythmia. But the magic was there. Smooth and heated like a spiced whisky sliding across his tongue. Buck’s skin broke out in goosebumps as his heart slammed against his chest. Charlie’s place had been chock full of historical memorabilia but Buck hadn’t seen anything to indicate magic outside of the echoes of history haunting the pieces in his collection.
A daemon? Maybe?
But then why was Buck the only one to notice? Charlie had been looking at Buck all night and Buck hadn’t felt it. The wind licked up the nape of Buck’s neck but he shrugged it away to dig deeper into the feeling of the smoldering embers of stirring in his gut.
“Do you feel that?” Buck asked when Charlie drifted off into a chemically induced sleep.
Eddie’s nostrils flared and he shook his head. The tight pinch of his lips said he was lying though.
But Eddie swung his gaze up and pinned Buck to the spot as the deep brown eyes stared up at him. Those deep brown irises he’d been avoiding looking at all shift. They hadn’t said more than two words to each other before the fight in the gym and they’d both silently agreed to pretend their hook up never happened. But Buck’s head went woozy as he got lost in the haze of being looked at like that by Eddie. Ensnared in his attention and willing to do just about anything to keep it.
“You ready?”
Right. Charlie. The guy bleeding out with a grenade that could kill them both.
Buck nodded and held himself up from the swimming swirls of hot magic in the air by doing as Eddie instructed. He kept pressure on the wound and listened attentively as Eddie rambled about sensors and rotations. A small part in the back of Buck’s brain recognized the ramblings for what they were: a sign of nerves as the tension settled hot and thick over them as he tried to clamp down on the grenade.
It would’ve been endearing if Buck wasn’t staring down at the gold cap of a live grenade ten inches away from his face.
“C’mon, you got this!” Buck encouraged as Eddie whined out a grunt of concentration.
“Gonna have to… just …”
Buck felt it as the grenade popped free from damaged tissue and muscle, clamped tight in the jaws of Eddie’s tool. The stimulated buzz of the kindling in the air. It stirred beneath the mistreatment. Hot warm swirlings of magic curling up to purr at the nape of Buck’s neck. It felt warm like basking beneath the summer sun but hot as it bullied the wind in Buck’s senses for dominance.
“ The box,” Eddie said in the low rumbles of a growl and Buck snatched the box up and held it for him.
Buck was an elemental witch. His element was and had always been air. But he could feel the heat of the spark bracing to be ignited in the grenade. It called out to him, whispering in a sing-song siren call for Buck to let it out. All it would take was one twist and the flame would be in his hands. Just one—
“You still with me, Buck?” Eddie’s voice was strained as he held perfectly still and the deadly golden explosive hovered in the air in the clamped jaws of his tool.
Buck blinked and cleared his head of the sparkling sizzle that sang in his blood.
“Yeah…Y-Yeah I’m right here.” Except Buck felt like he was swimming in sensations as the heat of the inception of fire called out to him.
Buck held out the box and locked his arms when it shook with a faint tremble in his hands, rattling the handle against the sides. What was happening?
“Just focus on my voice,” Eddie said. “Focus on your breathing. Don’t hold your breath. Just breathe… Good. That’s good, Buck.”
Buck sucked in another breath and cycled it through his lungs, latching onto Eddie’s every word as Eddie moved so slowly to put the grenade in the box. The wind picked up outside, bristling as the heat of the fire curled around Buck and settled into his skin.
Eddie lowered the grenade and Buck felt the weight shift in his palms as the explosive settled into the floor of the box. The jaws released and the grenade didn’t move.
Buck felt the disappointment and then the forgiveness of the magic nipping at his skin. It swirled in his chest and curled up to sleep now that the temptation had been denied.
Buck let out a sigh and looked up when he felt Eddie’s eyes on him.
They did it! Buck couldn’t even begin to stop the stretch of his smile on his face and the one Eddie gave him in return was enough to nearly knock Buck over by how breathless it made him.
The box rattled as the grenade rolled and they froze.
The fire magic licked at Buck, teasingly and begged Buck to play. It flickered in his eyes and made Buck dizzy with want but Buck shook his head as he squashed it down. The spark would kill Eddie and Charlie in an instant and Buck refused to let that happen. The fire magic purred before it settled again in Buck’s chest like a cat curling up to sleep.
Eddie and Buck made quick work of getting themselves and Charlie out of the ambulance as quickly as possible. They hurried the gurney through the deserted parking lot where the bomb squad had cleared the area and handed off Charlie to the awaiting trauma team. Buck snapped off his bloody gloves to push the sweat on his brow away when Eddie turned around.
“You’re a badass under pressure brother,” Eddie said and Buck felt a different kind of heat bloom in his chest.
Buck blinked and let himself settle into the warmth of that praise.
“Me?”
“Hell yeah.” Eddie nodded. “You can have my back any day.”
Maybe perfect was okay when it was being worn by Eddie.
“Y-Yeah. Or… You know…You can have mine.”
And then Eddie dazzled Buck again with that smile.
It was a nice smile.
Buck liked it.
“Deal,” Eddie said.
Eddie’s hand settled in Buck’s with a firm grip that Buck kind of didn’t want to let go. Buck sensed Bobby before he saw him, his dormant magic cutting through the air around them. “Nice work fellas. Glad you both made it out of there.”
Eddie shrugged as he tossed his head towards Buck.
“Much easier when there was someone with a fire affinity beside me.”
Oh… No, wait that wasn’t—
“I’m not—” Buck started but then Buck felt the fire of the magic snap a second before the ambulance blew up in an explosion of fire and metal.