Archive of Our Own

Eddie comes to learn that the best thing about nearly dying is that your best friend brings you juice. 

Before, he would say that the best thing about nearly dying this time, is that Buck now has a spare room - a spare room with a bed that is nicer than Eddie’s own. Buck probably paid a stupid amount for the ergonomic mattress and even though Eddie is reaping the benefits of it now, he would still shake his head at Buck if he ever found out the price. This means no one is relegated to the couch; no one wakes up with a crick in their neck because they’re too weird about each other to admit that they can share the bed. Buck would give Eddie his bed one hundred times over, and that would mean he would be waking up poorly-rested and achy and still insistent on doting on Eddie all day while he recovers from a stabbing that he still maintains is not that serious.

Chimney has him out of work, albeit just for a little while, and Christopher is away on a camp for high-achieving students that Eddie couldn’t even grumble about since it meant Chris was doing a good job at school. It’s not enough for Eddie. Perfect conditions to send him stir-crazy; the lack of stimulation making him feel useless and completely bored. So, when Buck tilted his head; feigning nonchalance as he said you can come stay at mine if you want, Eddie embarrassingly jumped at the chance and became a permanent resident of Buck’s spare room and the left side of his couch. 

The worst thing about nearly dying - again - is that. The answer is in the question. It’s precisely that you nearly died. It’s the feeling that you cheated something. Something that’s gonna catch up with you the next time you turn your head or let your guard down a second too long. You can’t distract yourself from it; the immediate aftermath consisting of spiking heart rate and the inescapable doom that feels like your whole body has been plunged into an ice bath. It’s every time you let yourself drift, let your mind wander to something nice, something decidedly not the circumstances of your almost-death, you’re swerved back into the fast line; mind racing with the improbability of both the event and your survival. 

It was the unyielding helplessness that gave way to a terrifying acceptance. It was the I’m going to die here, right now. 

Eddie can hear Buck in the kitchen, now, singing out of tune to his shitty pop girls playlist that he insists to Ravi that doesn’t exist. Eddie can imagine him as well - probably pulling his and Eddie’s matching mugs - sharks for Eddie and turtles for Buck - down from the cupboard to fill with coffee that is only just right when Buck makes it. Eddie knows he should show face; he should drag himself out of bed and insert himself in Buck’s way until he’s forced to let him help make breakfast. Selfishly, he wants to play out their scheduled routine of Eddie appearing in the kitchen doorway with a half-offer to help and Buck startling at his voice before giving Eddie the fondest look he’s ever received and telling him to just stand there and look pretty. 

It sends a pleasant shiver through Eddie every time; the throwaway compliment from Buck paired with the general state of him in the morning - slightly bleary-eyed and slow-moving, giving Eddie plenty of time to revel in watching him. 

Instead, he continues staring up at the ceiling; eyes flicking around the parameter like he’s studying it. He thinks about Christopher; how much he wishes he was here after being forced so recently - in that elevator - to grapple with the thought that he was leaving Chris for good. He wishes he could press his head into Chris’ curls, smell the apple-scented shampoo that he’s used consistently since he was seven. He’s eternally thankful that Christopher’s teenage years have not killed his gentle nature. Sometimes he still looks at Eddie like he believes he’s a superhero even though he’s older now, aware of all the areas Eddie falls short in. He’s smarter than Eddie, as well, and perhaps perfectly so, as that’s likely where he has learnt to forgive Eddie’s mistakes; understanding his dad completely. Mostly, Eddie loves that Christopher is still affectionate, still insisted on sitting at Eddie’s bedside before he left for camp, and allowed Eddie to hug him so tightly when he left that he probably bordered on embarrassing him. 

Eddie always chases touch. He always chases free, easy love with Christopher, desperate not to let it be as confusing for him as he grows up as it was for Eddie. Desperate for it to not be as complicated as it still sometimes feels for Eddie.

A light knock on the bedroom door pulls Eddie out of his own mind. He sits up, letting the duvet pool around his hips, just in time for Buck to push the door open with his hip; a plate of waffles precariously held in one hand, expected mug of coffee in the other. 

His heart flips in his chest. It stumbles and stutters over beats; torn. He’s torn between being comforted by Buck’s presence – always desperate to be in his vicinity. It makes him feel light; weightless, to be taken care of so seriously, so intently, and his body echoes that sentiment in the flutter of a missed heartbeat. 

But, old habits die hard. The other side of his heart stuttering at the impossibility of this ever feeling right. Something sharp and relentless gnaws at the corner of his mind, the well-known, practiced to the point of perfection reminder that he is horrendously unworthy. It persists unkindly, the feeling of guilt, the conviction that Buck is putting Eddie above himself; and having to treat Eddie as a responsibility because he imposed himself. His mind defies all logic, it contorts Buck’s reputation, twisting him beyond recognisability as his incredibly generous and wildly loyal best friend who offered Eddie to stay over with puppy-dog eyes, leaving no room for worrying if it was out of obligation. 

Eddie knows he is blanking primarily at the implications. The traipsing into his bedroom as Eddie sits underneath rumpled sheets with breakfast and an easy grin, seems to rise above platonic, sitting on the shelf above. He doesn’t want to be treated as Buck’s boyfriend, for all the same reasons – his own mind destroying the possibility of him ever properly revelling in it. 

“Buck—” Eddie starts. 

“Good morning!” Buck says, ignoring Eddie. “This is for you. Please don’t complain. I was just up early this morning and didn’t wanna leave without having made you something.”

“Buck, I can do all this by myself, you know,” he insists, but he betrays himself as he reaches for the coffee. 

“I know,” Buck says and he’s almost smirking at Eddie in a way that he knows means he sees right through him. His mouth ticks up playfully like he knows Eddie enjoys being doted on. Who wouldn’t? But, and maybe Buck knows this too, Eddie still has to fight him on it - appease himself by pretending to have it forced upon him. “I just—I want to, okay? You just got stabbed and I want you to heal.”

Eddie sighs. “I got stabbed a week ago. And it–”

“Wasn’t that deep, I know,” Buck interjects, and levels Eddie with a stare.

Eddie stares back for a second, but he hasn’t got the capacity for a proper back-and-forth right now. He gives in, just like he knew he would. “Okay, well, thank you.”

He takes the waffles from Buck, barely satisfied with the little argument he put up and much more soothed by the approving smile that Buck hands Eddie alongside the food. 

“Hold on,” Buck says before rushing back out the room and reappearing with a glass of orange juice. “It’s hot today, thought you might want this,” he offers, placing the juice beside the coffee on the nightstand. 

Eddie blanks, staring at the glass. 

Eddie doesn’t drink juice. Maybe this is not a conscious decision, but he’s aware that it’s a fact that exists about himself, nonetheless. He buys it for Christopher and he occasionally drinks a single swig of it right out of the carton - sweaty from the gym and head practically inside of the fridge - like it's a contraband drug. He sometimes pours the dregs of a carton into a glass when Chris deems himself over it, and knocks it back like a shot of tequila that he barely likes. But other than that, he steers clear of juice - sticking to coffee in the morning; venturing toward a protein shake occasionally; and drinking beer of an evening as his one vice. 

“Uh— thank you,” Eddie says, partially thrown off by something as mundane as juice. He hopes Buck doesn’t catch it; doesn’t catch how the addition to their routine has Eddie so unsettled, and how the presence of something he isn’t used to makes an itch burrow under his skin.

The thought of Buck wanting Eddie to have something sweet; something indulgent; something that will make him feel far better than drinking hot coffee on a warm morning, makes him feel dizzy. The image of Buck pouring juice into a glass to carry over to him plays round in his mind; a film reel of how effortlessly Buck commits himself to anything that will make Eddie’s life not just easier, but just marginally better. It's second nature to him and that sends Eddie insane; unequipped to deal with what that stirs up in him. 

“No worries, man,” Buck says, unaware. “I’ve gotta go to work. I’ll see you tonight.” He words it like a question, voice venturing up high at the end, exposing his own doubts. It doesn't sit right with Eddie - the notion that he would disappear anywhere or want to hide out in his room when Buck comes home, sick of his company. He hates the way Buck second-guesses how important he is to Eddie, when Eddie’s reciprocation of their awful co-dependency and desperation to be in each other’s orbit is one of the only things that comes naturally to him these days. 

“I’ll be here,” Eddie nods.

He eats the waffles; they’re full of chocolate chips like how he makes them for Christopher and it tugs on a part of Eddie that inhabits the deepest part of his chest. It lives between his ribs, a complicated system of roots and flowers that are tangled up in the same way Buck and Eddie themselves are. Chris blooms between them, a place for them to both hand over a portion of their hearts that’s way less scary, way less difficult to look at than it maybe should be. Buck treats them both like they’re worth keeping; and Eddie knows Christopher is everything; the most perfect child conceivable who is equal parts quick as he is kind, but he can’t always extend himself such favorable judgement.

He drinks both the coffee and the juice and he prefers the juice so much that it pisses him off, consuming his thoughts for the next hour. He brushes his teeth straight afterward but swears the taste of orange lingers. 

When Buck returns from work, Eddie has washed his breakfast dishes and laid across Buck’s couch, theoretically watching television but more so playing words with friends as if it’s an olympic sport and he’s gunning for a gold medal. He picked at leftovers in Buck’s fridge at lunch time, eating a spring roll for something to do rather than because he was hungry and then flopped back on the couch wishing desperately that he had something more to think about other than Buck returning.

“Hey,” Buck says, cheery and loud as ever as he walks through his front door. 

You could never miss him - the jangle of his keys as he puts them down and the way he kicks his shoes against the wall as he takes them off should piss Eddie off, but anything that serves as proof of Buck’s existence - noisy or otherwise - could never annoy Eddie, really. It’s an unapologetic way of living and Eddie would never dream of wanting Buck to apologise for anything. 

“Hi, bud. How was it?”

Buck sighs. “Fine. Boring. Missed you."

The tell-tale grabbing of Eddie’s attention, the pique of his ears like a dog. The unsurprising desire to dig into that. “Yeah. I miss being out there, too.”

He moves round to stand in front of Eddie, peering down at him so intently that it makes Eddie nervous. He diverts his own eyes for a beat - looking vaguely off behind Buck’s shoulder, before refocusing on his face. One day, he will be capable of enjoying the reminder that Buck misses him, without it being immediately combined with the fear of having to face what that means. 

“You don’t miss me?” Buck asks, one eyebrow arched. “I would miss the job, but I would miss you more.”

“Of course I miss you, Buck.” 

It’s a needless nonsensical argument, but Buck needs reassurances like most people need oxygen and Eddie is far too willing to give them to him even if they inch dangerously close to acknowledgement. He worries that sometimes - namely when he had to chase Chris across state lines - he was not forthcoming enough with how he really felt about Buck, not transparent enough about how he shared the sentiment of a piece of his heart being ripped out and left behind. He let Buck worry and spiral out about being unimportant to yet another person in his life. Even when Eddie could barely breathe at the idea that he had to leave Buck behind, he knows that Buck fared just as poorly, the feeling of being abandoned touching an ugly base, a familiar chanting of not enough not enough that Eddie didn’t try hard enough to quell. 

He’s the best friend he’s ever had, and potentially the best friend anyone could ever have - generous to a fault and terrifyingly perceptive of Eddie, reading him as if he’s a book written in a language only Buck can speak and not even Eddie has the translation into English for. Being without Buck makes him feel off-balance, like the air pressure around him has changed and parts of his body are working overtime to recalibrate. 

It doesn’t really matter anyway because Eddie doesn’t think he could really distinguish times that he misses Buck with times that he doesn’t. He’s living with the guy but he might miss him more when he’s right next to him on the couch than when he’s halfway through a 24 hour shift at work. His fingertips itch to reach out when Buck is so close by. He feels like a sunflower, predisposed to lean in Buck’s direction, blooming under his gaze. 

When Buck’s at work, it’s less obvious how close Eddie is to having all of him. He can’t look at Buck and see his own wants mirrored on his face. He can’t see Buck’s open expression, silently telling Eddie it’s okay to want, it’s okay to touch. 

Eddie craves the plausible deniability that comes with distance. The three seconds in which Buck isn’t on his mind. He craves the remaining hours of Buck’s shift to stretch slowly in front of him, so he can use the time to meticulously teach himself that his feelings are normal - platonic, platonic, platonic. 

“Good,” he says, finally.

Buck toes a dangerous line of joking around with Eddie and being genuinely hurt when he doesn’t match his almost-too-scary-to-look-at devotion and obsession. Eddie’s given up being freaked out by it; the fact he wouldn’t dream of sitting pressed up against Chim or Hen and saying he would miss them if he had to work a shift without them, and instead just accepts that, for him and Buck, it’s different and it always will be. Friendship just comes as a slightly different branding to them. 

Eddie knows he experiences his own kind of obsession. He holds it more subtly, not daring to ask Buck to validate their relationship because he’s well aware of the way it transcends boundaries. He isn’t in a position to make demands of Buck - unprepared to admit how much he thinks about Buck, or kidding himself into thinking it’s all normal. He’s unequipped to iron out the mess of his own feelings, to wade through the murky waters of what it all means.

It’s far easier to cope with his own thoughts - the mess of his own mind - if he tries not to think about Buck’s. If he never has to face Buck’s feelings. Besides, what’s written on Buck’s face isn’t messy at all, and that makes it even harder to look at. Eddie could guess what Buck wants with pinpoint accuracy, and if he were brave enough to ask, he thinks Buck could tell him. He’s not confused. He wants Eddie and Eddie doesn’t know what to do with that.

“What did you do today?” he asks, predictably sitting as close to Eddie as is humanly possible. 

“Ah, same old,” Eddie says, pretending to consider. “Sat on the couch, sat on the couch some more.”

“That’s good,” Buck approves and he’s being so genuine; he’s so thrilled at the fact Eddie hasn’t exerted himself despite him being completely and utterly fine and going only slightly insane — in different ways, maybe — at how bored he is and how much Buck delights in the whole thing. 

He lulls his head back along the couch; it lands on Buck’s shoulder and he doesn’t move it. “It’s not good, Buck. I’m going to go crazy.”

There’s nothing really keeping him in the house but there’s equally nothing he wants to do without Buck or Christopher. Perhaps distantly he knows that getting to whine about it is making it worthwhile. Seeing the sparkle in Buck’s eyes as he watches him complain feels like being a newly-hatched chick under a heat lamp, Buck’s eyes on him becoming integral to his survival. Seeing the jut of his bottom lip as he thinks of new ways to make it all better makes him feel kept and treasured in a way he hasn’t with anyone before.

“Tell you what,” he says. “To make it all better, you can choose what we get for dinner and we can watch your telenovela tonight.” 

He smiles down at Eddie and it ignites something in his chest to be subject to his undivided attention right now. He’s all too aware of how close they are, how many points of contact are between them. They feel alight, like Eddie’s burnt from the inside out in every place Buck touches him. It should send Eddie running for the hills in how natural it feels and how much he wants to be even closer to Buck. 

“Thanks, Buck,” he says, far too quietly; far too fond. 

Buck nods before pushing himself off the couch, wandering into the kitchen. Eddie contemplates following him, knowing that Buck won’t go more than a minute before shouting across rooms for him anyway, but he doesn’t. The thrill of waiting for Buck to summon him is enough to keep him planted in his seat, waiting for the reminder that Buck can’t go without him. God knows he doesn’t need the reminder - Buck immediately imprinted on him like a baby duckling and ever since has treated Eddie like his favorite subject and his favorite person all at once. There’s rarely a time where Eddie walks into a room and people’s eyes don’t flick behind him, expecting Buck to be following. 

“Eddie!” 

“Yeah?”

“Have you eaten properly?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and gets up, giving in and following Buck’s voice into the kitchen.

“Yes, Buck. I ate our leftovers for lunch.”

Buck hums. “I cut up this watermelon for you. You didn’t see?”

Eddie didn’t see. It troubles him that he didn’t see. He tries to catch Buck’s face to see if he’s upset with him, but he doesn’t look sad, just thoughtful. “No. Sorry, bud.”

“No, it’s not important. Just— eat it for me tomorrow, yeah?”

“Okay,” Eddie agrees easily. 

They order pizza at Eddie’s request - the good kind; the more expensive kind that comes with six different types of cheese and garlic knots that are even better than the ones Bobby used to make. 

Buck goes to the door when it arrives and he insists on paying, making a bad joke about Eddie being out of work. 

As they eat, they watch the tv that Eddie picks, and Buck doesn’t complain once about not understanding what’s going on. Eddie still whispers hurried explanations to him when it’s convenient and he tries not to blush at the way Buck leans into his space to listen. He can feel Buck looking at him far more than he looks at the tv; piercing blue gaze on him enough to make him shiver. Eddie’s never really minded Buck’s unrelenting gaze; the shine of it feeling like a beacon from a lighthouse, the only kind of bright light Eddie could enjoy because it’s guiding him home. 

Buck packs away the leftovers, pointedly storing them underneath the watermelon so Eddie won’t miss it again tomorrow. When he comes back into the living room, Eddie has sprawled out along the couch and Buck doesn’t give him the chance to right himself - he just picks up Eddie’s legs and sits with them in his lap. 

His hand burns through Eddie’s sweatpants. It almost feels claiming, but it mostly has the scary ability of making Eddie feel safe. Something he’s been feeling with increasing frequency since he’s started pseudo-living with Buck. He’s barely moved to do anything for himself since getting here and when Buck couples that with a soft touch or a lazy smile, Eddie’s nervous system rewires itself; his heart beats to a new rhythm and his brain glosses over to think only of Buck. 

Eddie’s episode ends but it rolls into the next one and neither of them make a move to change it. Eddie watches with half his attention elsewhere - on Buck, predictably - mostly distracted by the pressure of Buck’s fingers on his ankles, distractedly switching between holding and digging into the bone. Buck’s staring down at his phone, probably on Wikipedia reading about something that Eddie will hear about the next time there’s more than a beat of silence between them that doesn’t stretch lazily like this one.

“You cold?” Buck asks, eventually. 

Eddie blinks. It’s summer. It’s not late and Eddie runs hot. Of course he’s not cold. 

“Not really,” he offers. 

Buck hums and drops the conversation for approximately ten seconds. 

“Are you comfy?” he asks. 

“Very,” Eddie sighs, smiling.

Buck laughs breathily and runs a hand from Eddie’s ankle along the inside of his calf. 

“Do you want to get out of that shirt?” 

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. He looks down at his t-shirt. He’s had it for ages; an old band t-shirt with holes in the hem. It serves its purpose, but that’s about all worth noting. 

“Evan Buckley,” Eddie scoffs. “How presumptuous of you.”

Buck laughs again, low and quiet. “I could get you into something a bit more comfortable.”

Buck continues slow, thoughtless movements of his hands on Eddie’s legs, digging in with just enough pressure to be grounding, calming the ache that exists permanently inside him. It could get Eddie to agree to anything, probably. 

“Okay,” Eddie agrees and Buck pushes Eddie’s legs out of his lap to wander to his bedroom. He reappears with one of his own hoodies; his favorite one if Eddie had to guess.

He throws it into Eddie’s lap like he didn’t orchestrate this whole moment. Like his assessing eyes and tactical silences didn’t make it clear that he thought Eddie should accept anything he was suggesting.

“Thanks,” Eddie says. He sits up to pull the t-shirt over his head and can feel Buck’s eyes on him, flicking across his chest with enough attention to being noncommittal that it’s glaringly intentional. 

He replaces his shirt with the hoodie and it’s so comfortable, slightly too big on him and softer than anything he’s ever had in his own wardrobe. It’s something Buck would buy because he doesn’t have to fight against himself to fork out more than a hundred dollars for something that’s inarguably worth it. 

There’s nothing that whispers to Buck that he doesn’t deserve what he wants. There’s no pressure at the top of his spine that feels a lot like Ramon’s hand guiding him away from anything he looks at for too long. 

Buck nods in approval and sits back underneath Eddie’s legs, hands back on them like they belong there. 

“You look good in that,” Buck offers eventually.

Eddie arches an eyebrow. “It’s a hoodie, Buck. You can’t be serious.”

Buck looks like he wants to argue; push back on him. “You look comfy, Eddie. Happy.” 

The sincerity in his voice floors Eddie, it drips over him like honey, sweet and healing. It lives inside his core, mending things he didn’t even know were broken.

“I’m happy you’re here, Eddie,” he adds on, as if Eddie needed another hammer to be taken to his emotional walls. As if he needed the reminder that Buck knows what he needs; knows him better than Eddie knows himself. 

If he has a stinging at his waterline, it’s only because Buck has been dismantling everything that Eddie has had surrounding him since the day they met. Graduating from chipping away at his walls to organising a full demolition process. He wants to see every part of Eddie, nothing Eddie could reveal would have Buck shying away. These days, a pointed look from Buck has Eddie wanting to pull them down himself, give over the last part of himself, place it at Buck’s feet knowing he’ll take care of it. 

“I’m happy I’m here, too.”

The next day, Eddie disrupts his own routine again. He knows Buck will be at the gym early on his day off, so Eddie waits and waits until he thinks he must have left the house, and then ventures into the kitchen expecting it to be empty. Eddie can scrape cereal together himself whether Buck likes it or not. 

Instead, he’s met with Buck. He’s wearing his gym clothes, tiny shorts and a t-shirt that’s obscenely tight, stretched across his back.

He has headphones draped over his neck like he’s about to head out, but he’s fiddling with a blender, an array of fruit littering the worktops. He hits the side of the blender once and it whirs to life, blending up whatever Buck had shoved in there. 

He watches Buck as he waits and the familiar tightness in his chest endures. He waits for quiet before he clears his throat. 

“Eddie,” Buck says, smiling wide as he turns around. 

“Hey.” Eddie mirrors his smile easily. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

Buck tilts his head and looks down at his watch. “Hmm, I guess it is later than usual.” 

Heat rises in Eddie’s face - he knows Buck’s schedule better than Buck does, apparently. He feels like he’s playing with fire, always one step too close to revealing the contents of his mind - the way BuckBuckBuck spins round in there, rarely intercepted by anything else. 

“You want some of this?” Buck asks, gesturing with a thumb to the blender on the counter.

Eddie wrinkles his nose up. A default reaction to anything that doesn’t exist within the tried and tested list of what Eddie Diaz likes, knows, approves of. 

“What is it?” he asks, mostly just to be nice, but sometimes because his desire to share, to take anything that Buck also stakes a claim to, beats out his trepidation. 

Buck falters, laughs at himself a bit. “Uhh– banana, mango and pineapple.” He stops to think, examining the counter. “Umm– ginger! And coconut water.”

Eddie steps further into the kitchen, leaning back against the counter beside Buck. “Sure. Thanks, Buck.”

He lights up and splits the smoothie across two glasses. He hands one to Eddie with a grin and leans beside him, shoulders bumping.

Eddie sips from his glass - it’s nice as he should’ve expected. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, it tastes like the sun, like catching the last of the day’s warmth, indulging in an evening outside. Buck always has good taste. Whatever he had thrown in that blender would’ve annoyingly come out perfectly, and he wouldn’t offer something to Eddie that he didn’t think he would like.

“This is good, right?” Buck asks after a while, holding his glass out in front of him as if he’s admiring it.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees and he presses into Buck’s shoulder a fraction more. 

“What do you wanna do later?” Buck asks, after another beat, looking over at Eddie. 

Eddie shrugs, the movement jostling Buck, too. “Whatever you want.”

“Eddie,” Buck complains, and Eddie finally looks back at him, meeting his eyes. They’re still pressed together, Buck’s head tilted toward Eddie’s and something crackles in the tiny gap between their faces. 

These days, there’s something charged and something alive between them. A zap of electricity or a sting of something red-hot that can’t be examined because of its nature. It’s too dangerous; Eddie doesn’t want to get burnt in the fallout. He doesn’t want to cling to an idea; a faraway hope. He’s been desperate before; desperate for something, everything, to be there when it just isn’t. 

“It’s your day off, bud,” he argues instead of baring his soul. He can’t pick; this has to be on Buck’s conditions in case it crumbles and Buck becomes another name on Eddie’s list of people he tried to let in, only for them to shy away from whatever mess is interwoven into the beats of his heart. 

Even his parents thought he was too complicated. His mother used to tut and shake her head at Eddie as though he wasn’t meeting any of her expectations or failing a secret test. His dad talked to him like he didn’t get Eddie; like they would never get each other. He treated Eddie like a time bomb or a spooked animal for most of his childhood, only subverting from this to snap at him or bark orders. 

Past girlfriends, who Eddie would rather never think about again, always fit incorrectly. They couldn’t jam themselves up against Eddie’s jagged sides without getting hurt in the process. As much as Eddie hoped and prayed for one of them to melt against him like he was never even sharp in the first place, they never quite did. 

With Buck, it may be the fact that he never tries to smooth Eddie over. He bends to Eddie’s whims and takes anything Eddie offers him with excited hands and genuine gratitude. He knows Eddie to his core; the hesitancy, the outright trauma, his ability to deny, deny, deny until he doesn’t even remember wanting. He takes Eddie how he is and he still seems to think he’s the greatest person he knows.

“Exactly, Eddie,” Buck says. “It’s my day off, and I wanna do what you wanna do.”

He looks away from Buck, mind spinning with the quiet knowledge that he can’t be the one to make any decisions in this process. In whatever way his relationship with Buck is changing, he can’t be the one to call the shots. He can’t be the one to let Buck hand over his love, Eddie promising he can hand his right back, if he isn’t sure that he can. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, but he’s performing. 

“I’ll think about it,” he says, finally looking Buck in the eye again. 

Buck smiles at him like he’s said the magic words and it’s silent for a pointed moment. The rising sun paints the room golden and they’re so, so close to each other; closer than they should be and it’s so domestic it makes Eddie ache. 

Buck has flowers on his kitchen side and a plant beside his sink. The air perpetually smells sweet thanks to his affinity for baking. He has mismatched plates and bowls, collected because they’re pretty rather than because they match anything or serve their purpose particularly well. He has at least three aprons hanging on the back of the door - two patterned and one just grey. 

Everything about this house is so Buck. It’s warm, light and inviting in its mess because it feels like you can’t ruin it by stepping through the threshold. Eddie hopes he can’t mess Buck up. He wants to live with mismatched plates and mess that he doesn’t instantly itch to clean up. He wants to learn to bake or at least be trusted with the icing. He wants to bring home enough flowers that they need to buy more vases. Standing in Buck’s kitchen, dappled with light and banana peel, everything Eddie wants, exists. He knows he would only want all of that with Buck. 

Buck makes Eddie feel hopeful. He makes him forget himself. He makes him think that there’s a slither of possibility in which Eddie can give everything, can hand over every part of himself in exchange for every part of Buck. It’s a dizzying experience, to doubt yourself so completely and then with a flash of Buck’s smile, want to try, try to throw caution to the wind because Buck would make it so good, easier than anything has ever been before. 

Maybe, that’s why Eddie latched onto Buck, because of the light. The light that exudes from Buck and paints Eddie in a much more forgiving way than he might deserve. He wants to deserve Buck and an easy morning where they can discuss what they’re doing that day and Eddie doesn’t feel like he’s surviving on stolen moments. Or, maybe he can see they have similar scars. The scar from being too much looks eerily similar to the scar of never being enough and Eddie knows that Buck has both, anyway. Maybe, they’ll fit, maybe they’ll match each other. Maybe this would be different, Buck’s light could shine through the cracks and gaps within Eddie and it would be pretty instead of highlighting everything that’s missing. 

When Buck returns from the gym, he showers and stares expectantly up at Eddie, prompting a decision out of him. 

“A hike,” Eddie offers like a question and Buck beams, forgetting entirely about his endeavour to ensure that Eddie barely moves a muscle.

Eddie showers whilst Buck scrambles to pour trail mix into ziploc bags, spread peanut butter and jelly onto bread and fill up water bottles. He shoves them all into one bag that he has over his shoulder when Eddie steps out the bedroom.

Eddie stares at him through his sunglasses. At the way his still-slightly-damp curls sit, the way he shoots an easy grin at Eddie when he notices him. 

“You ready?” he asks, hoisting the bag up on his shoulder.

“Lead the way,” Eddie says, gesturing toward the front door.

Buck drives them to their favorite hiking trail, easy one-hand grip on the wheel. He taps his other hand on his thigh, vaguely in time with Eddie’s country music blaring through the car’s speakers. 

Whilst they walk, they talk a lot about Christopher - about how much Eddie misses him and Buck agrees like he’s not sure he’s allowed to, like he doesn’t have a right to miss Chris. It drives Eddie mad that Buck still doubts his place in Christopher’s life, but it's not the time to be examining that. It never seems to be the time. 

They stop and eat the snacks Buck brought, sitting on a rock that’s barely big enough for them both. Buck passes him a sandwich, it’s been flattened in his bag but Eddie treasures it like it’s the last meal on Earth. He takes long swigs from his water bottle and looks out, at the green grass that’s yet to be dried out by the sun, up at the sky that’s free of clouds and so vast it makes Eddie feel comfortably insignificant. Like nothing really matters all that much in the grand scheme of things, and that the tiny things that Eddie attaches meaning to are worth his full attention. If he can’t have everything, he can at least have something. 

Buck talks about Theo and Eddie can practically see the cogs turning in his head. He pauses so often as if he’s trying not to give himself away, and he waves his hands around in dismissal every time he’s talked for too long. He avoids eye contact like it’ll hurt him and Eddie knows what it all means. 

“You should if you want to, you know?” Eddie tells him after a beat of silence.

“What?” Buck asks, quickly like he was waiting for Eddie to say something; maybe say exactly that.

“Foster him. Take him in. Whatever.”

Buck finally meets his eyes and they look a little shiny. “I don’t know, Eddie,” he says eventually. 

“I’ll be around,” Eddie offers.

“I know,” Buck nods. “Thanks.”

Eddie drops it and they start walking again. They fall into silence. It’s comfortable and familiar, sometimes preferred after a long shift or a conversation that neither of them really wanted to have. 

Almost back at the car, Buck turns to him. “You wanna go out tonight?”

“Like out out?” Eddie asks, a skeptical eyebrow already raised. 

“Yeah.”

Eddie considers. His head constructs a clumsy list and comes up short of any reason why he shouldn’t. There’s no Chris to worry about, no work in the morning and he desperately wants to stay wrapped up in Buck’s steady presence, hanging onto every word he throws in his direction. 

One look at Buck’s bright eyes confirms it, every ray of the sun reflected in them. “Okay, sure.” 

Buck stops the car at a gas station on the way home. It’s hardly a long enough drive to warrant stopping but it’s so hot and they both downed their water bottles and Buck operates in a way that is out of reach for Eddie. If he’s thirsty, why can’t he go and buy a drink - it’s not a personal failure to have not waited until he’s home. Eddie waits in the car whilst Buck runs in, telling Eddie he’ll grab him something. He returns quickly and tosses a bottle of iced tea into Eddie’s lap, already drinking from his own matching bottle. 

He puts it in the cup holder after downing half of it, winks at Eddie and restarts the car. 

Eddie takes another shower that evening. He stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom when he’s done, hands in his hair prepared to tame it with gel like he almost always does.

Buck appears in the doorway, critical downturn of his mouth. 

“What can I do for you, Buckley?”

“Skip the gel.”

“Buck.”

“I’m serious, Eddie,” He steps into the bathroom and instantly crowds into Eddie’s personal space. “You could have curls in your hair, y'know,” he says.

He raises a hand and pushes it through Eddie’s damp hair. His fingertips graze Eddie’s scalp and he has to stop himself pushing into the touch, feeling like a touch-starved cat. 

“I know. I just can’t keep up with that, Buck.”

Buck shakes his head. “It’s not that hard. Let me show you.”

Eddie lets him. Shockingly, once again, he lets Buck drag him wherever he best sees fit. He leans against the counter whilst Buck applies his curl cream to Eddie’s hair, capable hands buried in there like he’s done this a hundred times before.

Eddie watches him concentrate, wide eyes surveying like he’s doing something uniquely important. His tongue juts out against his teeth and heat radiates off him where he’s impossibly close, and Eddie wants to kiss him. He thinks he can admit that right now, he wants nothing more than to take this sickly-sweet domesticity and kiss Buck about it. 

He looks behind Buck, clenching his jaw to stop himself saying something he’d regret or worse; doing something he wouldn’t. 

Buck steps back when he’s finished and grins like he’s happy with his work. Eddie turns to look in the mirror behind him, and he looks different. Strands of his hair fall over his forehead, loose and artful. It feels like a terrible representation of himself; far more relaxed with Buck. Being able to chill out momentarily, have Buck carry some of his weight, take a full breath, lean and be met with the resistance of another person. It feels like a far cry from his usual stiffness; rigidity from where he’s shouldering too much. It feels like grounds to admit he doesn’t always have everything under control. It feels like grounds to stop pretending he understands everything. It feels like leaning to the gray area; the possibility for change.

“Do you like it?” Buck asks from behind him, rocking on the balls of his feet.

“Yeah. It’s way better.”

Buck punches him lightly on his back. “I told you. I’m gonna buy you some of that shit, man. You look so good like that.”

Eddie can see that he’s blushing. He turns around to face Buck. “I only want the same stuff you use.”

Buck smiles. “Whatever you want, Eddie.”

They uber to the bar, Buck ordering it on his phone and watching out of Eddie’s window until it arrives. They ride in silence, Eddie watches the familiar streets of LA, the bright lights that never get a day off. He wants something to change, to look different to reflect the way everything seems to be changing for Eddie, but everything is stubbornly the same. 

At the bar, Buck takes initiative and leads him in. He has to duck underneath fake vines and fairy lights; the mood lighting screaming you must buy an overpriced cocktail and you will enjoy it! 

Buck looks behind him as if to check Eddie hasn’t bolted back out the door and grins when he meets Eddie’s eyes. 

He grabs Eddie’s hand, weaving him through people congregating to get to the bar. When he’s sufficiently close enough, Buck untangles his hand from Eddie’s and places it on the small of his back, keeping him near. He leans in enough for Eddie to smell his cologne - cedar with something kinda citrusy underneath. It makes sense for Buck, he thinks, he’s as warm as he is bright, as safe as he is exciting. 

Practically in Eddie’s ear, he asks, “what do you want?”

Eddie shrugs. “Anything. You pick.”

Buck smiles with his whole face, and turns to flag down someone behind the bar. 

The music is too loud for Eddie to hear what he asks for, but he doesn’t miss the way Buck radiates charm; like a couple of words uttered to someone is enough to have them doing a double-take, wondering how anyone is just like that. He stands so unapologetically big; commanding space around him and it’s as terrifying to witness in crowds or from far away, as it is to experience one-on-one. 

Buck takes both drinks from the bar and Eddie follows him toward a couch in a tucked-away corner.

He puts the lighter drink in front of Eddie and nods. 

“What is it?” Eddie asks, eyebrows knit together. 

“Lychee martini.”

Eddie takes a hesitant sip. It tastes kinda like apple juice but it’s good - sweet and buzzy enough to eventually make Eddie loosen up a bit. 

“Good?” Buck asks 

“Good,” Eddie affirms. “What’s yours?”

“Pornstar.”

The pink light flickers over his face, and he’s magnetic, glowing. Eddie watches him tilt his glass and sip from it. 

“You wanna try mine?” he asks, looking at Eddie through his eyelashes. He feels so terrifyingly alive.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, he’s barely thinking but he slides his drink along the table to Buck and takes Buck’s.

He sips from the same spot Buck just had, and it’s nicer. Nicer than his one, sweeter, thicker as it coats the back of his teeth. 

He tries to push it back toward Buck, but Buck puts a hand up. “Keep it. You prefer it, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie concedes, feeling caught-out and exposed. He can’t hide from Buck, he picks up on everything, the tiny flickerings of emotion that are so-almost nothing, that Buck pays specific attention to their improbable existence. 

Buck doesn’t know how to be anything but sincere. He tells Eddie he prefers Eddie’s drink as well and Eddie doesn’t even think he’s lying.

Buck talks to him about work, the shift that Eddie missed yesterday. He recounts every call in detail, as if he doesn’t want Eddie to have felt left out. He gestures wildly as he talks, but he remains laser-focused on Eddie, hunched over almost to be tipping into Eddie’s personal space as he talks over the music. Eddie dreads to think of the way he looks; entirely mesmerised by every tangent, every word that Buck says, leaning just as far into him and barely breaking eye contact to even sip from his drink.

Buck eventually replaces their drinks; placing a hand on Eddie’s thigh before getting up to order the same two drinks again. He sits back down almost unnoticeably closer, but Eddie feels the proximity changing with startling clarity. It’s suffocating in the best way; like Buck is actively stealing the breath out of his lungs and Eddie wouldn’t trust anyone else to hold it for him. He feels Buck’s arm over the back of the couch, and his skin burns with the tiny space between Buck’s fingertips and the nape of his neck. 

It’s so warm; two drinks turns into four and Eddie shifts closer to Buck, and Buck smiles in the way he only does for him. Eddie is thoroughly screwed; he stumbles over a story about one of his neighbors and he feels his own gaze dipping to Buck’s mouth, a hitch in his own breath as he imagines leaning in and kissing him. 

Time blurs; the world could’ve literally stopped spinning and Eddie would be none the wiser. A plane could crash into the bar, or a tiger could tear through the building and Eddie wouldn’t have in it himself to separate from Buck, to move out of his bubble, to drag his eyeline away from him. 

God, he wants to kiss him. Buck probably knows. 

There’s no space between them, just terrifying static. Buck must be able to feel it and he’s not shying away. His endless trust in Eddie is currently coming to a devastating, catastrophic ending where he’ll wait for Eddie to make the first move, lean in. 

Eddie wants just as much. He wants, wants, wants. He wants to be able to quietly quell Buck’s worry that he’s going to take more than he’s being offered.

But, he can’t. He can already see the storm clouds on the horizon, the darkening of the sky from blue into grey. He can predict the rain, the flash of lightning that killed Buck once, and Eddie can’t be responsible for ruining him again. 

He pulls back infinitesimally. Buck notices, his face falls, just as impossible to notice if not for the way Eddie knows him. If not for the way Eddie can’t pay attention to anything but him. He falters and corrects himself, sinks the rest of his drink and gestures for Eddie to get up. 

Eddie tosses and turns. He can’t sleep for the memory of him ducking back into the couch when he should’ve pushed himself into Buck.

He thinks about the past few days, the unending vicinity of Buck. Buck’s giving, giving, giving and Eddie allowing himself to take. Allowing himself to get comfortable, to play house, to watch Buck just as much as Buck watches him. 

Is he leading Buck on? Will he ever be able to forget what’s been drilled into him, what he’s drilled into himself despite knowing it can never be true?

With nothing but time to sit with everything, he thinks of the late nights spent with Buck and Christopher sprawled on his couch. They feel natural, right, and comfortable enough to turn into the rest of Eddie’s life. He thinks of the dates he went on with women. They felt rehearsed, practiced, invoked a kind of panic that most people would only feel in the presence of a wild animal. He had one foot out the door every time he entertained a date with a woman, the knowledge it would never work always reared its ugly head before Eddie had enough time to pretend to settle into it. 

He knows he holds Buck to a different light. He fits into every gap that Eddie has. Gaps than he previously believed were supposed to remain permanently empty, the memory of Shannon being the only possible chance at filling them. 

Buck is a part of his family. Christopher adores Buck, and Buck loves Chris right back as though he’s his own. His biggest gap may be just that. The worry that Christopher needs Buck as well, because Eddie’s grip on his own life is too loose, and sometimes Buck’s easier to talk to, less predisposed to blow up his own life. 

Maybe, that should be enough. What could Eddie want for his son more than Buck’s unconditional love? Buck has love flowing through his veins, and he gives it to Chris and Eddie as easy as breathing. Everything makes too much sense. They would make a damn good couple. Their friends would be overjoyed yet unsurprised if Buck and Eddie wandered into work hand-in-hand. Their uncanny co-dependency; their silent communication - it would be insane to think that nobody’s considered them together before. It wouldn’t be such a leap of faith - having Buck as his boyfriend instead of merely his best friend. 

Maybe, that’s the worst bit. It’s too easy. Eddie doesn’t deserve easy. He’s hardwired to like a challenge. He doesn’t deserve going to bed early whilst Buck locks up the front door and shuts all the windows. He doesn’t deserve Buck carrying Eddie’s groceries from the car, allowing Eddie to walk ahead unburdened. He doesn’t deserve a cliché ending where he gets to marry his best friend, adopt a dog and wake up every day with the sun on his back and Buck wrapped around him like a vine. 

He’s supposed to protect. Be the man of the house. He can’t admit that most of the time he’d rather be held than do the holding. He got Shannon pregnant and any kind of ship carrying an awakening, a chance at self-discovery sailed. Eddie had to marry her, be a good husband and walk the straight and narrow. 

He was a soldier. He was raised with indifference, under a conditional kind of love that made him stoic; made him resilient in a way that is so forced it shows that it wasn’t a choice. Something’s clearly made him like that - the untimely death of his wife, the horrors he’s witnessed and the quiet knowledge that if he gave up an inch of it, it would come gunning for a mile. It’s built on shaky foundations; if he loses his balance, it becomes clear he’s not brave, he’s barely tough and he craves with an intensity that scares him. 

In the end, he manages around three hours of sleep. In the morning, he wanders into the kitchen, Buck’s already in there standing at the sink. He’s wearing sweatpants and no shirt - as if Eddie needed something else to contend with - and he offers Eddie a tentative smile when he meets his eyes. 

Eddie opens Buck’s fridge. It’s something to do, distract himself from Buck’s state of undress and the thoughts that won’t stop battering around his skull like they’re trying to give him a headache. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, so he just takes out Buck’s soy milk and pours himself cereal, taking it into Buck’s dining room to further escape him.

He tries to keep his thoughts safe as he eats, about his impending return to work and throwing himself back into the job to ease the itch under his skin. 

Buck walks in, eventually. He places a glass of orange juice next to Eddie’s bowl and a tiny bottle of similarly orange liquid - the words immunity and wellness splashed across the label.

“Drink that,” Buck instructs, gesturing to it. “It might help clear your head.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says, looking up at Buck who is hardly doing a good job at concealing the way he’s examining Eddie. His narrowed gaze doesn’t scare Eddie, though, it’s familiar, as Buck always harbors a desperation to know exactly what is going on with Eddie, at all times. 

Buck leaves. He walks back to his bedroom and Eddie only has his thoughts for company all over again. He doesn’t have a headache, he’s not hungover so the wellness shot seems to be overkill - a tactic of Buck’s to get ahead of something before it collapses. 

But the way he said clear your head, Eddie is sure he knows. He knows of the storm inside Eddie’s head; the back-and-forward dance of being so sure and so confused. The insistence that he wants Buck and the insistence that he couldn’t deserve him waging a war that may never end. 

Eddie drinks the shot. The ginger burns his throat and he fights the urge to think that it’s some kind of cosmic right. Maybe, he can think of it as the last kick in the right direction. The unnecessary punishing of himself could end in a heartbeat if he stopped finding himself deserving of a little bit of hurt alongside his little bit of pleasure. He takes a long drink from the juice as well, staving off a self-deprecating laugh. He likes juice, he knows he does, now. And he likes Buck. He likes Buck so much. 

With Buck being avoidant for the rest of the day, hiding out in his room and only coming out to carry a basket of laundry across the house, Eddie takes it upon himself to do the grocery shopping. He’s spiralling out; enough time spent cooped up in Buck’s house and his own upheaval warrants him leaving the house. He should probably do something nice for Buck. Pay him back for the whole hospitality even if they stopped owing each other anything eight years ago. 

“Buck,” he yells, pulling the shopping list that was pinned to Buck’s fridge down and slipping it into his pocket. 

“Yeah?” he calls back, appearing in the doorway of his bedroom. 

“I’m gonna get your groceries. You need anything not on the list?”

He pauses, thinks. “Nah. Thanks, Eddie.”

“You got it,” he says with a nod and then he’s out the house. 

Eddie likes different supermarkets to Buck. He likes the ones that sell shit in bulk; the cereal Chris likes but Eddie thinks is a health violation. The protein bars, protein powder that Eddie likes. Buck likes the ones that are overflowing with exotic fruit, the ones with juice bars and counters with samples. He likes grocery shopping to be an activity; Eddie thinks it’s a chore.

He goes to his favorite because it’s closer and Buck won’t complain because he never does. He might whine a bit, but his heart’s never in it; dramatic because it’s fun rather than because he’s annoyed. 

Eddie buys Buck’s eggs, the tomatoes and herbs that he puts in pasta sauce, flour and butter for his baking and steaks that he knows he takes to Maddie’s to grill with Chimney.

The last thing on the list. Juice. It just says juice and when Eddie pulls up to the aisle with the juice, there are more options than he could’ve possibly imagined. He’s got the classics down - apple, orange, he could even venture out to cranberry, but some of these combinations are throwing him through a loop. What would Buck like the best? He’s been giving Eddie orange juice for the past few days but he’s not even sure if he’s seen Buck actually drink any of it. 

Eddie feels like he has the illusion of choice. Everything is the same but a little bit different. Apple and mango. Apple, mango and lime. Orange and mango. It all spins round in his head; too much to think about. Too much to consider for someone who feels decidedly not knowledgeable in this field. He’s not panicking because it’s only juice, but the overhead lights are awfully clinical and bright and he can’t quite make himself reach for the orange juice - the safe, probably correct option.

He continues to stare, they continue to blur. Orange becomes mango becomes grapefruit and he just wants out. He leaves without the juice. He pays for everything else and drives back to Buck’s with the feeling that he’s let him down somehow. 

He unpacks Buck’s groceries, and he’s got his head buried in the fridge when Buck wanders in, leaning against the kitchen doorway. 

“Hey,” he says. “You get everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie lies. 

Buck looks around, at everything Eddie has unpacked onto the counter and the open fridge.

“Did you get any juice?” he asks. 

Eddie falters. “Uh, no,” he says. “I wasn’t sure which one to get.”

“Bullshit, Eddie,” Buck insists, but it’s not biting, it’s more exasperated like he’s sick of a week of Eddie’s antics.

“What— I’m telling you, man, you gotta be more specific. There are like twenty juice options at that place.”

Buck sighs. “Right. My bad, then.”

Eddie winces, backtracks. “No. I’m sorry— I’m sorry I didn’t get your juice.”

“Are you?”

“Yes,” Eddie insists, biting a bit now. 

“I’ve noticed, you know. You being weird. You disappearing into your own head every time I speak,” Buck says, eyes trained on Eddie’s face.

“I haven’t, Buck. Everything is normal,” Eddie tries. A lacklustre attempt to save face. 

“You have, Eddie.” Buck sighs again and Eddie wants to scream in the face of Buck’s tone that rides the line of sympathy at Eddie’s clear turmoil and frustration at being subject to it.

Eddie’s mind is grasping at straws. He’s trying to burrow in somewhere, but there’s nowhere he can hide that Buck won’t see him. There’s nothing he can say. No way he can tell Buck any version of the truth. 

“Maybe I just need a bit of space,” Eddie snaps, desperate. 

“Space?” Buck questions, eyebrows touching his hairline, huffing the word like it hurt to come out. “I’m not keeping you here, Eddie.”

Eddie scoffs. “It feels like you are—”

“Don’t do that. You can’t have it both ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Buck pushes off the doorframe and steps closer to Eddie. He stands just out of reach, enough distance to feel awkward and unlike them. “You know what that means. You like being doted on. It’s good for you to slow down.” 

Eddie panics at the read. “It’s too much.”

Buck looks like he’s been slapped. “I’m too much?”

“Fuck—No—You know that’s not what I meant,” he says, insistent even in his chaos not to hit Buck’s biggest insecurities, not to say something he could never take back. 

“I can’t read your fucking mind, Eddie. You’re a mess. You don’t even know what’s going on up there.” He gestures toward Eddie’s head and steps closer. “How am I supposed to do anything with that? You know something has shifted here, between us. Do you expect us to keep dancing around it? How can you go on like this? It’s not healthy, man.”

Eddie’s mind spins. Buck’s got his entire psyche down just from one missing bottle of juice. It’s scary to be known so well; to be known completely even when you’re desperate not to be, when you think you’ve hidden something successfully. 

“Where is this coming from? You’re freaking out because I didn’t— I didn’t buy you juice?” 

“Eddie.” He sighs. “You’re freaking out about juice. It’s written all over your face—”

“I don’t care about juice,” Eddie interjects.  

“It’s not about the fucking juice,” Buck snaps, slamming a hand on the counter. “You have to know it’s not about the juice, Eddie. You tried to kiss me.”

It's all coming out now, Eddie thinks. He knew Buck could tell Eddie wanted to kiss him. He just can’t be sure how early he had really given himself away, how quickly Buck figured out that everything Eddie says likely means something else entirely. “I’m only playing off what you give me. You take me out and buy me drinks. You pay for everything. What am I supposed to do with that?”

Buck seems to falter, a quirk of his lips as if he’s going to say something before he gives up. He eventually breathes once, a deep exhale through his nose and says, “so we both know what we want. What's the problem, then?”

“The problem? The problem is I’m not your fucking boyfriend, Buck. You’re dangling something in front of me that I can’t take.”

Buck’s face turns softer. “Why not? I know what you want. You have it, Eddie. You just need to take it.” 

Eddie can’t, he scrambles. “I don’t— I don’t want you,” he insists, sure that they can both tell he’s lying through his teeth.

“I’m not entertaining this, Eddie.” He shakes his head. “You’re changing like the wind and I’m not dealing with it right now. I’m going to Maddie’s. You don’t have to be here when I get back.”

He marches out the kitchen, noisily grabbing his keys and wallet and slamming the front door behind him. 

Eddie’s breath catches with the rattle of the door on its hinges. The sound is so final, another person realising Eddie’s more effort than he’s worth. Another relationship in ruins because Eddie can’t just say what he fucking means. He’s set fire to everything, burnt the bridge he relies the most on and now he’s left with the ruins. The ugly reality that he could lose Buck if he keeps this up. 

He can’t see the forest for the trees. Too caught up in worrying about whether everything’s too easy, whether he’s abandoning everything he’s constructed for himself. He drops his pretences around Buck; the idea that everything has to be worked for, earned in some way. 

What existed in the back of his mind has now clocked him square in the face. What he wants is palpable; it’s becoming so obvious. Now that Buck’s walked out, all that Eddie wants is for him to come back. He wants it to be easy, he doesn’t want to have walls. He wants to indulge, to take and not have it eat at him for hours afterward.

He’s gay. The thought hits him like a freight train and the room spins to accommodate the crash. This is the difference - the wanting that comes first with Buck, rather than being something that Eddie has to convince himself of. Buck wants to give him everything, and this is the first time he wants to take. Everything feels different, like the clouds have blown over or smoke has cleared and Eddie’s line of sight is just that bit better. That’s how he could describe Buck; like blinking awake or smearing condensation off a foggy mirror – something that allows Eddie to finally see what was barely being concealed. 

It’s scary to feel like the world is being flipped upside down; like the colours are inverted or everything has started operating backwards, but deep down know that everything is exactly the same. Eddie is the only thing that has changed; a shift in perspective; a realisation that he’s finding no choice but to take. 

He puts a fist to his chest, rubbing harshly as if he’s trying to undo an invisible knot. He sure can feel it; pressure that stops his lungs expanding, stops him pulling in a full breath. Tears sting at his waterline; he tries to blink against the feeling but he’s powerless against them. They fall down his face, quick and hot even against his flushed cheeks. 

Everything spills out. Everything he’s shoved into dark corners; everything he’s haphazardly stacked away behind a door that's threatening to burst open. It all courses through him until he’s sobbing, tears streaming down his face whilst his chest heaves like he’s just run a marathon.

He slides down the kitchen counter, falling until he’s sat on Buck’s kitchen floor. He puts his head in his hands, catching his tears and broken, stilted gasps. It gives him some illusion of burying himself away whilst he surrenders himself to the tears. 

He cries because he feels like he only has himself to blame. It feels like he’s personally derailed his own life by not giving himself the chance to realise this sooner. By hiding from Buck because he’s drilled into himself that he could never be worthy, despite Buck’s face spelling out that he wants Eddie in every angle of light, every glance across a crowded room. 

He cries until he has nothing else to give. He has nothing but tear-streaked cheeks and a full-body ache that resembles the ones he has after a particularly thorough workout. He leans his head back and it thumps against a cupboard and he breathes heavily, blinking up at the ceiling. His mind wanders; it feels like it’s full of cotton or seaweed, something that moves against him, providing resistance as he tries to wade through it. 

He knows he can’t go on like this, Buck said as much. He knows it’s killing him; making him miserable and unfulfilled. He knows it’s in his own power to change the way he thinks; the way he limits himself. To seize the opportunity of him and Buck with both hands would leave him far happier in the long run, even if it was accompanied with his quintessential panic. Maybe, the panic could live on the surface for a change. Something that Buck could touch and instantly calm, instead of something that feels like part of Eddie’s marrow, other people’s attempts to alter being futile. 

He’s coming to realise that life comes from him. It’s a collection of his own decisions, his own choices that are steering the ship. Only Eddie can change the course, only Eddie can write the ending of his own story. He’s the one in the driving seat, he’s the one running this show, the only one who can decide to let Buck in. He wants to flip the script, here and now. 

Eddie distantly hears the front door open again. Time evades him, he could’ve been slumped against Buck’s cabinets for three hours, his mind running in circles. 

“Eddie,” Buck calls hesitantly.

Eddie doesn’t answer, he wipes at his eyes and when he opens them again, Buck is standing in front of him. 

“Hey, hey,” he implores. “What’s up? What’s going on?”

Eddie’s head is pounding. He tries to speak, the words stuck in his throat, wedged against everything he’s spent his whole life swallowing down. 

“Okay, okay,” Buck placates. “Can you get up? Come with me?”

He takes Eddie’s left arm, gently coaxing him up. Eddie leans against him, moving from the floor to shuffle into the living room. He drops back against Buck’s couch feeling he’s had all his strings severed; all the fight removed from his body and he feels dangerously close to crying again.

“Talk to me,” Buck asks, wide eyes boring into Eddie as if he’s begging. “Please?”

“I uh— I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Eddie tries. It’s a start, he guesses, but it’s nowhere near where he wants to end. 

“Nothing’s wrong with you, Eddie. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

“No, you uh— you were right. I have been a bit of a mess. I find it uh— difficult, let’s say, to accept what you’re giving me.”

Buck’s expression softens. “I know that, Eddie.”

Eddie smiles despite himself, a half-there thing that he doesn’t have the energy to fight. “Of course you know. Sometimes I think you know everything about me.”

“I don’t think you hide everything as well as you think you do,” Buck tells him gently like he’s worried Eddie won’t like hearing it. 

Eddie doesn’t mind, though. Buck’s right after all. Even if Buck wasn’t capable of seeing right through Eddie, he suspects he still would’ve known something was amiss, something was weathering away at him. 

“Right. Well what’s one more thing, then?”

“I don’t want you to be upset, Eddie, we really don’t have to talk about it. I can’t stand to see you like this. Especially not because of me. If you don’t want anything to change, it doesn’t have to.”

“No, it’s important that I say this. I don’t want it to be like this anymore.” He gestures weakly between him and Buck, and leaves his hand in Buck’s space letting it fall onto his thigh. Buck instantly puts hand on Eddie’s and it eases tension from underneath his skin. “I want to change. I want to be with you.”

Buck’s breath catches audibly and his eyes look shiny.

Eddie continues, “I’m pretty sure I’m gay,” he says and clears his throat. “It’s difficult for me, I guess. This is the first time anything’s felt so real and it’s scary, Buck, because you’re so good to me and I do want this, so much. I just have a hard time feeling deserving.”

Buck’s grip tightens on his hand. “Eddie,” he breathes, it sounds like a prayer. Eddie’s always loved the way Buck says his name. “You deserve everything.”

Eddie nods, blinks away the wet in his eyes. “I want to learn to agree with you,” he whispers. “I’m going to try.”

Buck pulls him in, after that. He holds him impossibly close, to the point he swears he can feel his bones crushing. He pushes a hand into the back of Eddie’s hair and Eddie breathes deeply into his neck. “However long you need Eddie,” Buck promises him quietly. “I will wait for you. I’ll be here.”

“I know,” Eddie says, quickly. “I want you around all the time. I want to figure this out, together.”

Buck pulls away eventually and gives Eddie the softest, most reassuring smile. “I’m sorry I walked out on you,” he says, diverting his eyes onto his lap. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve been there for you. This is huge, Eddie. I wouldn’t want you to go through it alone.”

“Hey,” Eddie says, “Water under the bridge. You’re here now.”

Buck’s mouth falls open. Nobody has ever looked at Eddie quite like that, before. With so much love; so much wonder as if they are in pure, unadulterated awe of him. It’s crazy to see the way he feels about Buck, reflected back in Buck’s face, directed at him. He’s not sure he will ever get used to staring into the eyes of such patience, such steadiness just for him. 

He’s gonna be brave, he thinks. He’s gonna take. He drops his eyes to Buck’s mouth, the way it’s hanging slightly open. He reaches out and knocks his hand underneath Buck’s chin, before snaking it round to hold onto Buck’s jaw. He leans in, and Buck catches on; his dark, blown-wide pupils being the last thing Eddie sees before he’s finally, finally kissing Buck.

It’s everything; it’s probably what Eddie was made to do. It feels inevitable like that, instantly addicting. The slide of Buck’s tongue against his, the feeling of his breath hitching, his hands wandering and grasping at Eddie’s arms before sliding up to grab at his hair. 

He pulls away eventually, marvelling at the red of Buck’s lips and the darker flush of his birthmark. He’s so pretty; and in that very moment Eddie can’t believe he ever deprived himself of this. He can’t believe he was going to spend the rest of his life not kissing Evan Buckley. 

The next few days pass in a blur of complete bliss; joy that Eddie previously thought of as unattainable. He stops sleeping in the spare room, taking his rightful spot in Buck’s bed. Every night he falls asleep with Buck pressed against him, tangled together or stretched alongside him so there’s no part of Eddie that isn't touching Buck, and he can barely tell where he ends and Buck begins. 

They spend a lot of time in Buck’s room. Whenever Buck isn’t working, he tackles Eddie into bed, kissing along every inch of his skin and expertly taking Eddie apart just to put him back together again. 

They talk, as well, mostly about what they’re going to say to Christopher when he returns home. About Eddie and everything his mind has raced with this past week or so. Eddie perches on the kitchen counter and finds the courage to talk, whilst Buck stirs pasta sauce and listens so intently it makes Eddie breathless. Buck kisses him whenever he stumbles over his words, and the display of disgustingly sweet domesticity that Eddie so desperately wants for the rest of his life, makes him continue talking. 

When the day rolls around to collect Christopher, Buck and Eddie climb into Eddie’s truck bright and early; Eddie far too overjoyed to see his baby again. Buck sits in the passenger seat, bouncing his knee like he’s trying to cause a tiny earthquake.

“Buck,” Eddie sighs. “Stop that.”

Buck grimaces and dutifully stills his leg. “Sorry.”

Eddie reaches over and takes one of Buck’s hands. “It’s gonna be fine,” he reassures. “There is no universe in which Christopher will be upset with this.”

Buck scoffs. “He could be, Eddie. It’s a big change.”

Eddie glares over at him. “Is it? That boy is crazy perceptive. I don’t think he’s gonna be that surprised.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s gonna like it,” Buck mumbles, unwilling to give in. 

“Buck, he loves you. He likes being home most when we’re all there. He’ll like this change.” 

Eddie kisses the back of Buck’s hand to punctuate his point, and Buck relents; sitting back in the seat with a smile he can’t fight. 

Eddie swings the truck into Christopher’s school’s parking lot and jumps out, leaning against his door to wait impatiently for Chris’ bus to pull in. Buck rounds to stand next to him, pushing into Eddie’s space like a horse demanding attention. 

Eddie kisses his temple, taking advantage of his proximity and Buck tangles their hands together again. 

“Please stop worrying. You’re practically vibrating.”

“Eddie,” Buck whines. “This is so serious.”

“So serious,” Eddie agrees, nodding exaggeratedly. “But it’s going to be completely fine.” 

Chris’ bus pulls in, and he’s quick off of it, beelining straight to Buck and Eddie, wide smile on his face.

“Hey, mijo,” Eddie says, pulling away from Buck to wrap Christopher in his arms, holding him tightly against his chest and burying his face in his curls. He’s devastatingly tall these days, almost as tall as Eddie, and it’s bittersweet like every reminder of him growing up is. 

“Hey, dad,” Chris says when Eddie pulls away, a smile still playing on his face as he turns to Buck. “Were you guys holding hands?” he asks, grin only growing as he gets to tease them.

Eddie spins to also look at Buck, catching him as he blanks; the brows that pull together on his forehead; his mouth forming words that never quite make it out. “Uhh–”

“Right. Well that answers that,” Chris deadpans. “Dad, I need help getting my bags.”

“Lead the way, sir,” Eddie answers, holding a hand out to gesture for Chris to walk ahead. He steps back into Buck before following, kissing him once and whispering “see, no worries.”

Buck ducks his head and Eddie chases after Christopher, falling into step with him. He’s aware of the permanent smile on his face, the way his steps feel lighter, like he’s stopped carrying something heavy around with him.

“You’re okay with this, right?” Eddie asks, a slight quiver of fear that’s immediately dulled by Chris levelling him with one of his trademarked looks. 

“Dad,” he sighs. “Of course. I think you’re the last person to realise you two are meant to be together.”

Eddie’s heart skips a beat. “Thank you, Chris. You’re a good kid.”

“I know,” Chris says, shooting Eddie another grin. 

“But maybe don’t say things like that to Buck. You might break him,” Eddie warns and the laugh that startles out of Chris warms Eddie to the core.

They take Christopher for lunch, and he talks a mile a minute about camp; about everything he learnt and the plans for his future that Eddie never dared to dream for himself. Buck looks giddy the whole time, delighting in Eddie being pressed against him in the booth, the stars in Chris’ eyes as he talks at them, never once being tripped up by the change in their relationship. He asks Chris questions and looks over at Eddie when he answers, as if to say god, this kid, and Eddie smiles back, way too happy to even speak.

When they get home, Chris unpacks in his room, giving Buck and Eddie a wide berth before he comes out for dinner and a movie. Eddie flops onto the couch, feeling lazy and indulgent. His face hurts from smiling and he’s spent the day not examining his own every move, content to move through the day how he actually wants to. 

Buck disappears into the kitchen and when he returns, he brings both him and Eddie a glass of orange juice, placing them on the coffee table and turning to Eddie with a tiny, knowing smile on his face. 

“Eddie,” he starts.

“I love you, Buck,” Eddie cuts in, looking from the juice to Buck. 

Buck deflates against the cushions, breathing through his nose. “Thank god. I love you,” he says, breathily. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Eddie says, impossibly fondly, and then Buck’s leaning in, or Eddie’s leaning in and they’re kissing, unhurried like forever. 

“I want to bring you juice forever,” Buck mumbles against Eddie’s mouth. 

“And you will,” Eddie promises, kissing him again, again, again.