Reading Time:
18 Minutes

Part 1

Firefighter Evan Buckley’s first day back on the job after six months of paternity leave and Guide training was not what Eddie expected. He’d transferred into the station to take the man’s place in heavy rescue and had endured a series of partners there after that had left a lot to be desired. The department had managed to cycle every single unbonded Guide on the job through a partnership with him since he was hired. It was the nature of such organizations, and it hadn’t felt malicious.

Eddie wasn’t opposed to making a connection but hadn’t rushed toward that process after leaving the Army. He brushed his fingers over the conservator cuff he’d been given shortly after he came online by an Army doctor and took a deep breath. He’d removed it periodically since his discharge but never outside of his own home.

The Burton Foundation was aware of him but hadn’t given him a hard sell regarding registration because there were a host of federal laws preventing it. He knew there was a refuge to be found there, and nothing about the organization was off-putting. In truth, he was just comfortable with the suppression and felt safe. At the start, it had been about his son and providing him with consistency and security. Then it had just become a habit, and perhaps a bit of a shield against a very complicated and noisy world.

The problem was, after six months on the job, the entire shift he worked with was comfortable enough with him to talk shit right in front of him about his own business. It was really unfortunate that he liked most of them too much to complain about it. There had been an issue here and there when he’d started but that had been smoothed out very quickly as he’d drawn a very specific line with the offender and they’d been removed from the station entirely.

Eddie slouched down on the sofa with a pout and stared at his phone. The problem was two-fold—Buck was gorgeous and also of such a high moral caliber that the Fey Court had given him a wish baby as a single parent. Single parents weren’t unheard of, but they were very rare. That he’d come online as an alpha guide in response to the arrival of his son also spoke to special relationship with the psionic plane.

“You cool?”

Eddie huffed and sent Hen Wilson a baleful look that had her laughing outright at him, which was only marginally better than the snickering he’d endured since the shift had started.

“I’m fine.”

“We did warn you.”

Eddie was of the opinion that no warning would’ve been sufficient, so he wasn’t going to hold a grudge for very long.

“How were we to know he’d come back unbonded? We weren’t even kept in the loop on that front.” She shrugged. “Just ignore that part of him like you did all the other Guides the department has thrown at you since you got out of the academy.”

It had, in fact, started at the academy at least in LA but he’d gotten very good at ignoring people who were clearly not a good match for him. The magic on the conservator cuff just muted his senses into the normal range but it did nothing to prevent him from connecting with the psionic plane.

Buck came up to the loft that point, stopped right in front of his pouting spot and crossed his arms over a broad chest that Eddie was absolutely not impressed by in the slightest.

Hen snorted and ran away.

“What level of dumbass are you currently dedicated to?” Buck asked and Eddie huffed. “I’d like to establish a baseline before the end of shift.”

“Guides are normally very nice to me,” Eddie muttered.

“I’m sure,” Buck said. “In fact, most people are probably nice to you because of your looks and overt alpha vibe.” He made a face like he was disappointed by society in general. “And this,” he motioned to Eddie, “is the result.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Eddie protested.

“I’m sure you think so,” Buck said and grimaced. “Another byproduct of the general level of coddling you receive from practically everyone in your life. You’re the baby in your family, right? Golden child? Only son?”

Eddie huffed.

“Right,” Buck said slowly and shook his head. “For the record, I’m low on patience when it comes to dumbass behavior. So, your baseline better be incredibly tolerable. My kid only decided a month ago that it was generally acceptable to sleep through the whole night in his own bed instead of on my chest. The nanny that the Burton Foundation provided blamed me for it, which was very unfair.”

It didn’t look like a bad place to sleep, but Eddie was grateful he kept that thought to himself.

“Name?”

“Wyatt,” Buck said. “Seven months old as of yesterday.”

“I’m a wish baby,” Eddie confessed and Buck sighed.

“Wow, it just gets better and better,” Buck said wryly then dropped down in the chair across from Eddie. “Older sister?”

“Two,” Eddie said. “Mom was told not to have another natural pregnancy due to complications with her heart so basically my whole damn family wished daily for me, on both sides, for three years straight when my parents announced they were going to wish for a third child.”

“Three years,” Buck repeated. “I half-assed wishes once on the way home from work because there’d been a kid at a scene and he’d been fun to talk to. I thought, that’d be nice—you know—to have a kid. Woke up with a wish baby and a fey with an attitude problem who moved into the condo I inherited and had intended on selling.”

“The fey stayed?”

“I’m her retirement plan,” Buck retorted and Eddie laughed. “And her last delivery and Ursa decided that a beach-front property was the best choice. So, I didn’t sell my uncle’s house, and the property taxes are probably going to ruin my life but at least it’ll only get more valuable with time even if that money isn’t sitting in a high interest money market account.”

“Does she boss you around?” Eddie asked curiously.

“No, but she does go on dates with shady dudes without even introducing them to us,” Buck said. “Last week she had a date with a ker who had a real attitude problem and a custom Armani suit. I only saw him because the little jerk had his driver park his stupid Humvee in my driveway.”

He laughed and shrugged when he got a dirty look for his trouble.

“And as if that wasn’t enough,” Buck said and motioned toward him. “Now there’s you.”

“I don’t appreciate coming last,” Eddie said.

Buck quirked an eyebrow and gave him a very frank inspection. “Don’t tell me lies.”

Eddie’s face heated despite his best efforts. “That’s not what I…. Shut up.”

Buck stood and stretched as he looked Eddie over again. “At least the view is nice. I’m going to work out. Do you mind spotting?”

“I can probably handle it,” Eddie said. “What’s your deadlift?”

“I don’t lift my max on shift but I’m at 410 right now,” Buck said. “I stick around 220 at work. You?”

Eddie stood and followed along behind Buck out of the loft and hoped that it wasn’t going to become a life trend. “My max is 275 now, but I was at 250 when I started at the 118. I increased it based on your reported weight in gear since I was told you were the biggest asset at the station and would be my partner when you came off leave unless you bonded with a Sentinel and brought them to work.”

“Thanks for that,” Buck said. “Most don’t bother much over the requirement. I had no matches in the system, by the way. I did a full search across both North and South America.”

“Not a single match?”

“Some partials, but no full matches and since I tested at level six, I couldn’t afford that kind of risk with a new baby at home and a fey living in my house acting like I’m the worst human being she ever gave a baby to.”

Eddie laughed. “Single parents don’t often get wish babies, so I think you’re probably a cut above most on that front.”

“She used my credit card to buy me a parenting book on Amazon, so I don’t know about that,” Buck said and headed for the locker room. “We’ve got two hours down and while we do this work out you can tell me how you got rid of Chim.”

Eddie huffed. “I didn’t get rid of that guy.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Buck said as he untucked his uniform shirt and casually pulled it over his head.

Following Buck into the locker room might have been the biggest mistake of Eddie’s whole entire life. He went to his own locker and pulled out his own work out stuff then proceeded to pretend he was ignoring Buck stripping down to a pair of fitted boxers and throwing on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

“You don’t have a conservator cuff,” he blurted out then grimaced because he didn’t want to actually talk about it, but it was related to the whole Howard Han situation.

“I have one,” Buck said easily. “I’ve spent the last two months weaning myself off of it. I didn’t want to depend on it for management in case it gets broken or removed during a medical process.”

“Howard Han questioned me relentlessly for three shifts straight regarding my cuff,” Eddie said roughly and focused on Buck. “The point blank asked me in front of half the shift if I was just afraid of being a Sentinel. Since I didn’t want to tell him that I put it on to prevent myself from going literally fucking insane due to catastrophic injury in a combat zone, and I wasn’t going to defend myself indefinitely…I filed a complaint. The others don’t bring it up at all—a mixture of shame and probably fear of getting the same treatment by the department.”

“Shame because none of them tried to rein him in,” Buck surmised.

“Right, though he was careful to never do it in front of Bobby,” Eddie said. “And he was immediately transferred out, given a thorough evaluation and they discovered that he wasn’t actually fit for field duty due to his previous head injury. Why no one questioned that after getting a piece of rebar through his head remains an immense fucking problem for me. Regardless, he’s with Metro Dispatch these days and isn’t allowed contact with Sentinels or Guides on calls unless there is literally no other choice to be made.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have done that shit in front of Bobby,” Buck said and leaned on the locker as he waited for Eddie to put on some shoes. “You’re not registered with the Burton Foundation.”

“No, not yet,” Eddie said and stood. “How did you know?”

“Because we would’ve met months ago, if you were,” Buck said simply and walked off toward the gym.

“How are you so sure about that?” Eddie asked, more frustrated than anything else.

“How are you not?” Buck retorted and walked over to the weight bench to set up. “Seriously? Did you get any training?”

“I went to Burton schools as a kid,” Eddie said. “And took training courses in the Army as well in case I came online in theater. I’m just comfortable as I am.”

“Comfortable,” Buck repeated with a nod then settled down on the bench and Eddie moved into place to spot.

“You made that sound like a curse word,” Eddie said wryly and Buck laughed as he started to lift.

“Being comfortable is a difficult thing to part with,” Buck said. “It’s also harder to risk to a situation where your control would be nominal to say the least. I get it. I don’t necessarily see it as a choice I’d make, but I don’t think it’s awful or anything.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Limited,” Buck said. “And the potential for stagnation is immense, but you already know that. You’ve been in a holding pattern for a while, right? Living just in those moments after you were injured—relieved to be alive.”

He couldn’t deny it and that was frustrating. “Are you counting?”

“Thirty-six,” he said and continued to lift. “I’m not going to lecture you about the cuff, your lack of registration or anything in between.”

“Okay,” Eddie said and helped put the bar in place after fifty reps. “But?”

“No buts,” Buck said easily and left the bench. “Did you want to lift today?”

“Today is my cardio day so I’ll get on the treadmill in a few,” Eddie said. “Everyone always has some sort of caveat—even my kid will throw one at me like it’s reasonable and I’m an asshole for thinking otherwise.”

Buck shrugged. “No caveats on the lecture front—you’d respond badly to that kind of behavior anyways. Clearly, there’s only one option.”

Eddie made a face as Buck headed toward the treadmills.

“We can get a few miles in,” Buck said. “Then I’ll work with some hand weights. I skipped leg day for the last three weeks and I’m going to suffer for that, so I’ll get back on schedule off-duty.”

“What’s the option?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

* * * *

“Are you being a troll?”

Buck raised an eyebrow at Bobby. “Who told you that? Because, I don’t think any part of that concept is in your personal lexicon.”

Bobby laughed. “Hen.”

Buck hummed under his breath and stretched his legs as he drank some water. The work out had been good even with the very distracting company he’d inflicted on himself. “No trolling. But he’s a hot mess and you know I can’t hardly tolerate that kind of thing. It’s worse now that I’m online.” He shrugged. “But I know the line.”

“He seems to handle himself well.”

“He’s pretty content with that conservator cuff, and that’s fine. It’s why the technology exists and it created a great deal of autonomy in the symbiotic nature of the relationships between Sentinels and Guides. Though there was never as much of a problem as mundanes assumed there to be. Plenty of people project their own desires and needs onto others for both good and bad.

“Historically speaking, a good pair bond between a Sentinel and Guide was exactly what it was supposed to be, and both were served equally by it. The real problem existed in the spaces in between a natural meeting and compatibility matching where religious and government organizations tried to interfere for various fucked up reasons.”

Bobby nodded and exhaled slowly. “Being latent has never bothered me the way it does others. What do you suppose that means?”

“I wasn’t resentful or bothered to be latent,” Buck pointed out. “I think that’s the normal feeling latents should have but some see being online as a special circumstance they deserve and the denial creates resentment. Society elevates Sentinels and Guides in a way that isn’t always to the good.”

Bobby nodded. “Once, when I was younger, I told my father that I wouldn’t come online at all unless my Sentinel actually needed me. It’s clear that never happened.”

“I thought the same thing,” Buck said. “Until Wyatt just…appeared.” He took a deep breath. “It was such a strange and oddly painful moment for me. I called the Foundation, but I couldn’t even speak so there is a recording, on my file, of Ursa Nightriver, former High Vizier of the Fey Court, giving them a fey-shaped lecture regarding their piss poor emergency response system. You should’ve seen their faces when they found out she’s living in my attic. She brought her own furniture. I wasn’t consulted about any of it.”

“So, what’s your plan?” Bobby asked. “Since you’re in the market for a Sentinel and you’ve got a prime choice actively pouting about your existence in your space.”

“Oh, well, he thinks that cuff he’s wearing is comfortable,” Buck said wryly and Bobby laughed. “It’s like no one bothered to tell him that the conservator cuff is roughly ten percent of the shelter a compatible Guide can provide a Sentinel. His current version of normal is going to start driving him nuts fairly quickly. I figure he might last two shifts before he follows me all the way home.”

Bobby laughed. “Thanks, in advance, for the entertainment.”

Buck just nodded and finished his water. “How’s Brook doing with the new therapist?”

“Less acting out and more general pouting,” Bobby said. “Robbie trying and failing to live with their mother for a month didn’t help but I wasn’t going to take the choice from him. Marcy is so focused on taking care of her mother that she can’t see the damage being done to the kids and everything I’ve said to her has basically gone in one ear and out the other. She doesn’t take my opinions regarding her mother seriously since I left her shortly after Brook was born because of the enmeshment with her mother.

“It was never going to get better on that front and Patricia is a parasite. Robbie had to see that his mother would never put him first as long as her mother is alive.” Bobby grimaced. “Brook never seemed to have an illusions on that front but that could be because she doesn’t have any memories of ever living with Marcy. I had full custody of her before she was even a year old.”

“Has Robbie agreed to therapy?”

“Yes, but only because Brook trying to practice her own therapy on him and he agreed to go get his own therapy homework out of self-defense,” Bobby said and Buck laughed. “Brook wants to know how old she’ll have to be to babysit Wyatt, by the way. I told her that probably wouldn’t happen, but we’d arrange for her to see him again soon.”

Buck nodded because as much as he adored Brook she wasn’t old enough to baby sit. “If she asks again, tell her that I’m only allowing certified nannies from the Foundation to take care of him because of his latent status because that’s the truth. His latency seems very much on the cusp.”

“Here’s hoping he at least waits until adulthood,” Bobby said.

“I’ve been told a stable family situation with a Sentinel parent will help keep him settled on that front,” Buck admitted. “Which is why I had such an extensive search.”

“How compatible are you and Eddie?”

“If he were registered with the Foundation, I’d have met him first and probably only him,” Buck said and shrugged when Bobby sighed. “I know, but it’s perfectly okay that he didn’t register. I’ve had plenty of time to settle into my new deal and now I can focus on his situation.” He huffed a little. “While I pretend he’s not my problem.”

Bobby laughed. “He’s in no single way prepared for any of this.”

“Well, that’s his own fault,” Buck retorted, because it was and he wasn’t going to let anyone say otherwise.

Though that did remind him that he needed to tell the Foundation about the dumbass the psionic plane had given him. He pulled out his phone and started a text to his assigned liaison officer as Bobby motioned him out of the office. He went to the kitchen, refilled his water bottle from the filter in the fridge door, drank it all, filled it again and slouched down on the sofa.

He checked his watch and wasn’t surprised when Eddie appeared in under five minutes. Buck raised an eyebrow.

Eddie huffed and sat down on the sofa beside him. Buck had been super careful not to touch the man, had even waved instead of offering a hand when they’d been introduced but Sentinels were used to people not offering their touch.

“Problem?” Buck questioned and Eddie huffed again. “How old is your kid?”

“Seven,” Eddie said. “I share custody with his mother who refused to marry me because I was a latent Sentinel. At the time, I was…hurt by the rejection but now I’m just relieved because she makes me itch. Literally, itch. I had tests done and it turns out I’m allergic to her.”

Buck laughed a little. “Seriously? Do you know how rare that is? Even for a Sentinel?”

“Yeah, I was told. I’m more allergic to her body fluids but her shedding skin cells are a factor as well. Christopher has two sets of everything basically and only ever takes his backpack back and forth between her house and mine. He’s good about it and always vacuums the surface of his backpack before bringing it into the house. I have a little portable hand vac thing he can use.” Eddie slouched. “Why am I telling you this?”

“Guides put off a lot of feel good vibes so confiding in one is very easy,” Buck explained. “You said you put on the cuff due to injury. Want to tell me about that?”

“I was shot in the line of duty,” Eddie said. “Three times and came online shortly after the first bullet hit. I don’t remember any of it, really, because I was driven into a feral combat drive. Not even the third bullet, in my thigh, took me down. The evac crew had to tranq me. I woke up in a field hospital in so much agony I could only scream. The sensory spike was so extreme they were afraid I’d go feral again.

“There was a Guide there—bonded to the Sentinel surgeon they’d brought in to get the bullets and bullet fragments out of me because apparently they can’t risk leaving anything foreign in a Sentinel’s body. He got me calmed down enough and explained the cuff. Then put it on me with my consent.” He touched it. “It’s state of the art—the kind of thing that would cost a civilian upwards of 20,000 dollars. It was eventually adjusted to fit my psionic profile exactly by a shaman shortly before I was transferred to a hospital in Germany.

“I thought that I’d have to give it back when I was discharged, but it was made part of my severance from the Army. So, after two tours and the intent to make a career in the Army I was involuntarily severed, given a couple of medals, this cuff, and a check.” He cleared his throat. “I only recently stopped resenting people who thank me for my service.”

“Most won’t ever understand that kind of loss because they see themselves focusing on their own survival in your shoes,” Buck said. “We see that daily doing this job, too. Survival is what anyone outside of a traumatic event focuses on because that’s the baseline for what is basically considered a good outcome.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said and shifted, his arm brushed against Buck’s and they both stilled. “Oh.” He shuddered and immediately moved to the end of the sofa away from him. “Dios. Sorry.”

Buck turned slightly leaned against the arm of the sofa and stared at Eddie who had basically retreated as far as he could without actually leaving the piece of furniture they were sharing. “You probably need ten different kinds of therapy. I’m going to start collecting pamphlets.”

Eddie made a face at him. “Shut up.”

“And probably referrals,” Buck continued. “My seven-month-old has better interpersonal skills, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” Eddie muttered.

“Whatever, bro,” Buck said and rolled off the couch when Eddie groaned. “By the way, did you know that bracelet was designed to give you about ten percent of the psionic support of an actual Guide?”

Eddie’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Buck admitted with a grimace. “Start working on yourself immediately, bud, because this level of dumbass is beyond the pale and I don’t even get paid to put with it.”

“Hey Buck! Come help with the ladder truck inventory!”

Buck pocketed his phone and headed toward the sound of Cosmo Fuentes, the ladder’s engineer, after shaking his head at Eddie in an exaggerated fashion for sport.

He might as well get some kind of amusement out of the situation.