Chapter Text
“Eddie. Hey, calm down. No one’s gonna hurt you. We’re just trying to help.” Hen’s voice is controlled, careful, like she’s talking down a skittish animal.
“Don’t…don’t c com…no, no, d don’t tou touch me.” Eddie sounds terrified as Buck rounds the corner. He’s huddled, small, tucked up between the ambulance and the fire engine, hair plastered to one side of his face as dark rivulets of blood run down from his head, along his cheek. Dripping off his jaw and into his turnouts, soaking his undershirt. One eye is tracking, the other, he can’t tell, because the brown of his iris is lost in the deep crimson that covers the white. It leaks like a violent tear, red instead of clear, rolling down along his nose, merging with the nosebleed that drips steadily over his lips and off his chin. He looks like someone bludgeoned him over the head with a baseball bat. Because that’s exactly what had happened.
Athena was there, police cruisers lining up the side street, their fire engine and ambulance both on standby. The call had come in thirty minutes ago. Dispatch said it was a family dispute but there were kids in the house. Seven, nine and thirteen.
Their dad and his brother were arguing over their mom. It got violent. The kids had been locked in the upstairs bedroom but the thirteen year old, who had his phone confiscated earlier, pulled it out from the dresser and made the call to 911. They didn’t know what was happening downstairs but they could hear furniture being thrown, glass breaking and screams from all three adults. The youngest of the three children was hysterical.
While the police tried to get the attention of the adults, Buck and Eddie were sent up the ladder to pull the kids to safety before it became a hostage situation. The first two went easy. Eddie had just handed over the third when the door burst open and one of the men stormed the room with a bat.
He swung. Caught Eddie on the head as he was climbing down. Buck wasn’t looking up when it happened, but his breath caught in his throat when he heard the man shout. A dull thwack! followed, and then he saw Eddie plummet right past him, hitting the ground in seconds. There was a loud, reverberating thud, the sickening oomph when he landed sideways. And a moment of complete silence.
Everyone looked up in shock, then down at Eddie, out cold on the paved driveway. Hen and Chim were already rushing towards him, Ravi still staring open mouthed from where he was waiting for the kid.
Buck hurries down the last few steps, the child held firmly in one arm. Hen drops to Eddie’s side, Chim already puling open his turnouts, having got there first. Bobby rushes past Buck to go to them, but Eddie suddenly flails and fights, pushing and kicking, shoving. He takes them all by surprise, the speed, the strength, self preservation kicking in, his need to escape overtaking everything else. Chim falls backwards, Hen catches him by the shoulder and before anyone can stop him, Eddie scrambles away from them, swaying dangerously, and disappears between the two vehicles.
Buck hops down the last two steps, hands the kid over to Ravi, making sure they’re safe before giving chase. The kids are fine, all unhurt. The police are breaking down the front door, a second ambulance already on the way incase there’s a need for it, but their team is focused on one of their own.
Chim and Hen are trying to lure Eddie out from the narrow gap and Buck wants to go to him, but Bobby has him by the arm and is holding him in place just behind them. Both are crouched to Eddie’s eye level. Its clear he’s confused.
And hiding.
From them.
Chim has his Jee voice on when he says, “Eddie, you’re hurt. We just want to help you, ok?”
“Who?” Eddie slurs, shaking, eyes squinting at the pair of them. Who? “Edd..iee?”
Buck feels Bobby startle at the question. Hen takes a step closer, hands held up, placating. Eddie follows with his good eye, pressing back tighter into the space, right hand over his chest, the other held out to stop them.
“Do you know who I am?” She points to Chim, “Who he is?”
Eddie shakes his head, regrets it immediately, left hand flying to his forehead, pushing against pain. He moans low, eyelids fluttering, looks like he might pass out but he stubbornly swallows against it. His answer is a question.
Resounding.
Devastating.
“No?”
“Do you know who you are?” she asks.
“Uh…Eddie?” He hedges. But it sounds like he’s repeating what they called him. His own name rolls unfamiliar on his tongue.
Chim makes an aborted sound, but gestures with his hand to Eddie’s head. “You’re hurt, buddy. We’re paramedics. We just wanna take a look, make sure you’re ok.”
Eddie looks at them, then at his clothes. Seems to notice they’re similar. He pauses, frowns, looks down again, then up, away. His attention has moved on. They can rush in, corner him, strap him down and do what needs to be done. Eddie will understand, even thank them for it once he’s back in his senses.
But…This isn’t the Eddie who trusts them. They’re strangers to him. The memory loss could be temporary, maybe confusion from the hit he took, or something worse. They cannot agitate him further but they need to assess him and get him to the hospital.
He’s already tilting to the side from blood loss from the looming adrenaline crash and clear head injury. He’s favouring his right side, air whistling between bloodstained teeth. He could have broken ribs. He could have internal bleeding. A punctured lung.
They don’t want to knock him out though. He might never wake up again. Eddie is their friend. Right now, they’re not his.
Buck pulls away from Bobby by force, drops to his knees right there where he stands, at the edge of the fire engine. The motion snags Eddie's scattered attention from where he was cowering away from Hen and Chim, to Buck, where he sits on his fucked up knee with a stake forcing its way through his heart.
Eddie.
His best friend.
He’s Buck’s life…
And Eddie is scared.
Eddie doesn’t know them.
But before he can crash out about it, his eyes lock on Eddie’s.
The stake stops trying to pierce his heart. Eddie is staring at him with…its not quite recognition, but something close. From where he’s curled into himself, Buck can see his fingers clenching around the opened seam of his jacket. He shuffles, and as if drawn to Buck, his body sways forward. Eddie catches himself with the hand from his head, the other still holding his chest with a wince. He’s not moving it from there, maybe he can’t, maybe he’s holding himself together.
He’s shaking so hard you can hear the fabric rustle against the side of the Engine.
Everyone shuffles, wanting to help but they’re stopped by his whimper. His quiet, panicked nonono…his good eye skitters across them again and land on Buck as if on instinct, desperate. Silently begging him…for something
Buck can’t help himself.
“Eddie?” He calls softly.
Eddie hums, takes it as a call to answer, coughs out a mouthful of pink and red spit. He pushes himself forward and crawls towards him, one hand, two knees, wobbly, terrified, locked in on Buck as if he is the target and the safety net.
Buck lifts up into a low half crouch half run and reaches him just before he falls. Eddie grabs at his turnouts with his good hand, stuffs his bloody face into Buck’s chest and holds onto him like a lifeline.
He’s shaking so hard Buck feels it in his bones.
“Eds, you’re hurt. Can I see?” he holds him, firm but gentle.
All he gets is a warm puff of air, before Eddie gasps, “You. Safe. Who?”
His fingers are twisted in Buck’s jacket, blood is now coating the yellow, Eddie’s head sliding down with it. Buck swallows hard. Eddie doesn’t know him, but he’s somehow safety. Bucks breath hitches before he controls it. He can’t stop the tear that rolls down anyway.
“Buck. I’m Buck.” He tells him, shifting slightly to look down at him. Eddie is half in his lap, legs folded sideways where they gave up holding his weight.
“B’ck.” Eddie repeats slowly. “I’m…Eddie?”
“Yeah bud, you are.”
“K.”
“Can Hen and Chim take a look? You’re bleeding pretty badly. Where are you hurting?”
Eddie coughs, groans, spits up more blood. His grip loosens then tightens, as if Buck will let him go if he doesn’t hold on. Buck would never…
He seems to realize that he is bleeding, and he does hurt.
“Hmm…ches, h…head, arm? Don’t-don’t leave me…”
“Not going anywhere, Eds. I’ve got your back.” Buck waits a few seconds for him to settle down, cupping the back of his neck, thumb moving gently along his carotid, checking his pulse. “Can our friends come closer? They just want to make sure you’re ok. Yeah?”
Eddie sags into Buck, pliant. “Mn.”
Hen comes into view slowly. Works around the configuration they make. Chim has already gone to fetch the stretcher. Bobby is watching, but from a decent distance. He doesn’t crowd or interfere, but he looks worried. Buck has no idea what else is going on with the other situation. Athena can handle it.
With Buck’s help, they manage to get Eddie to sit up a little so she can check him over. He stubbornly holds onto Buck, and to consciousness, even if all his stats are off. Buck persuades him to lie on the stretcher but he does so with his eye on him, making sure he’s still close. Buck takes his hand and only then, does Eddie allow them to put on the oxygen mask, hook him up to an IV line and the rest of the monitors.
Buck is trying to keep Eddie calm but his thoughts are racing. Hen asks him questions. He answers some, doesn’t understand most of them. He doesn’t know Buck, but says he feels safe when he’s close to him.
What happens at the hospital when they separate them?
Eddie will need scans, he’ll have to wait outside while they help him. Hen looks frazzled, unhappy with the reading she’s getting. He’s got low breath sounds on the right, his ribs are either fractured or broken. There’s a solid line of red/blue/purple from his right shoulder down to his hip, the side he landed on. The head wound is still bleeding through the gauze and his one eye is completely shot. Its moving but the entirety of it is so red its almost fully black, pupil blown wide. All his words are slurred and syrupy.
“Buck?” Eddie squeezes his hand. “Buck…”
“What do you need?” He leans over immediately listening. But it seems all Eddie wants to do is call his name. There’s definitely a concussion. He looks dazed. Scared.
“Hey, its gonna be ok. You’re doing so good, Eds. Were almost there. The doctors are gonna help you feel better.”
He’s already agitated and Buck is still holding his hand. Eddie clings, tugging him closer every time the ambulance turns and the gap widens between them. By the time they’re pulling into the emergency bay, Eddie is semi awake. He stirs once the doors open, flinches at the light and starts pulling at Buck, trying to keep him in sight. Hen had managed to strap him down, but one arm is free, fingers tangled with Buck’s.
Buck follows. What else can he do?
Eddie almost falls off the gurney they transfer him into and Buck nearly goes down with him because Eddie is twisting in ways he shouldn’t because of his injuries and screaming for Buck when they try to make him stay behind. He’s spitting blood and woozy and choking but he won’t pass the fuck out and won’t let go of Buck.
The ER nurses try anyway. “He can’t-“
No
“No one is allo-“
No
“You have to let-“
No no no!!!
Buck
Buck
Buck!
In the end, they allow Buck to go with him. Eddie cannot hold his hand through the examination but to keep him calm without knocking him out with his head injury, they let Buck stand where he can see him. Which is at the foot of the bed with a hand on his ankle. Eddie accepts it. He’s so focused on Buck he barely pays them any heed as they press along his injured side to assess. Buck knows it must be agony, but Eddie’s eyes are fixed to his face and that seems to be all he needs because he’s completely lax, except for the occasional grimace or groan.
There’s a lot of damage on the one side but thankfully no surgeries required.
Yet.
The portable imaging shows bruising on both lungs, worse on the right, two fractured ribs at the front, one fracture and one clean break at the back. He has bone bruises on his scapula, shoulder, humerus and hip and a partial dislocation there too. Eddie won’t last through another fight or flight episode without causing his injuries to worsen. They can’t sedate him because it will suppress his already taxed lungs.
He does eventually pass out before they move him down for a CT and MRI, and Buck is grateful for the small reprieve. Not for himself, but for Eddie. He’d been hanging on through sheer will power alone, but the blood loss, pain and exhaustion won.
Buck is Eddie’s emergency contact. He has been since they started working together and became best friends. So he braces for news while the 118 joins him on the hard, plastic seats in the waiting room.
What a time for this to happen. Chris is in Texas with his grandparents and Eddie’s been home alone for the last two months. Chris was mad at him and called them to fetch him, leaving Eddie to wallow in regret and guilt. Then Chris asked to finish the school year there but he wasn’t talking to Eddie still. Communication was usually between Eddie and one of his parents. Call it tough love or whatever you want, but they sucked as people in general. Bucks parents were apathetic, but Eddie’s were just pathetic. They hadn’t done a thing to fix the rift between father and son, instead gloating about being chosen over him, being the better choice to raise the child Eddie would give his life for. Therapy can help with post war PTSD but not his parents ever present demeaning insults.
Buck won’t call them yet. Nor Chris. Not until he knows what the outcome of this head injury is. If Eddie doesn’t remember, Buck will have to speak to them. If he does remember, he can have the choice of how much they should know.
Eddie’s had too many choices taken out of his hands. His whole life, he’d been given orders, outcomes and expectations instead of being allowed to decide.
Eddie loves so big yet he gets the bare minimum in return, especially from his parents. As if he has to earn what should be given to him, and them making him feel as though he always falls short…
Buck will be damned if he ever makes Eddie feel his love for him is conditional.
He’s a little pissed at Chris too, for dragging this along for so long. He understands he’s a kid. Eddie has tried everything to get him to listen, but he’s doing the teenage angst thing right now, so he won’t. That’s one trait he shares with Eddie, stubbornness. He’ll talk to Buck, listen to him even, but not Eddie.
Buck has tried to make him see reason, but with his grandparents supporting the isolation, encouraging it even, and them constantly spoiling Chris as if it’s a reward for doing this to his father…he doesn’t think its going to happen soon.
Chris is confused, but Eddie’s been a wreck without him, and he’s sure if Chris knew the full extent of what his leaving had done, he’d give Eddie a chance to make him understand why everything happened.
Seeing his dead mother’s doppelganger in his house would fuck any kid up, but Eddie hadn’t called her into his home to hurt Chris, nor had he done anything but try to ease his own heart by asking for forgiveness from a ghost. What unfolded was a disaster and it fucked them both up, but mistakes are what makes everyone human.
And Eddie too, is only human.
Now Buck worries that if Eddie’s memories don’t come back, Chris might be lost to him forever. A whole child he raised and loved with his whole heart, gone like he never was. But Chris would remember and Buck doesn’t know if it would be harder or easier for him to reach out for Eddie again afterwards.
Its complicated and stressful and it hurts in the worst way, but this is what it is right now, and he will help Eddie deal with it all.
Eddie is still out cold when he gets to see him. He’s got a serious concussion and is currently bleeding into his brain which is the reason for his confusion and memory loss. They are considering surgery to relieve the pressure its causing but he’s stable for now so they opt to try with medication first.
Everything else, they say, will heal in time. His entire right arm is swathed in thick bandages, his hip reset but not casted. Six to eight weeks until he gets relief from pain, give or take. That is if they can control the brain bleed and he doesn’t get any worse. He also needs to wake up first. Currently, they cannot rouse him fully. He does react to stimuli but he’s too far under to respond to them verbally.
They’re unsure if the memory loss and confusion are going to be permanent at this point because Eddie will only respond for Buck. Its as if nothing else is as important as answering to his call. He leaves the medical staff with more questions than answers but he’ll remain in the ICU for now so they can closely monitor him.
Eddie drifts in and out of consciousness throughout the night and calls out to Buck every time he surfaces, even when he’s only partially aware. He reaches for him blindly, panicked, desperate, sometimes crying, always demanding contact. Touch is the only thing that calms him. Buck has never been able to say no to him before.
He doesn’t now either.
Even though they’ve hugged a lot of times over the years and have been tactile with each other, they’d never done this. Still, he holds Eddie’s good hand in both of his and falls asleep on a hard plastic chair shoved into the edge of his bed, face pressed into his uninjured side.
Thankfully the medication starts to work before they decide to take him into surgery and the bleed begins to resolve itself, albeit slowly, over the next few days. They eventually bring in a recliner so Buck can sleep over comfortably, because Eddie’s improvement is directly linked to Buck’s continued stay at the hospital with him.
They found that out on the second day, when Buck had left to go home to shower and change while Eddie was asleep. He took a little longer than expected, having stopped at the station to talk to the team, when Eddie woke up.
He didn’t see Buck so he asked for him. As soon as the nurse said he’d left, and before she could even explain that he was coming back soon, Eddie had gone into a full blown panic attack.
Already unable to take full breaths because of his bruised lungs and fucked up ribs, his whole chest seized and sent his heart rate through the roof along with his blood pressure. With the brain bleed, he was a higher risk for a stroke, which would cause worse damage than memory loss in his current state. They narrowly avoided that train wreck when Buck walked in just as they were going to knock him out. With a few choice words and a hand on his forehead to ground him, Buck managed to calm him down.
Eddie’s broken words begging Buck not to leave him alone sealed the deal and his doctor asked Buck to stay.
Needleless to say, he doesn’t stop the physical contact.
Eddie is a bit more alert by the third day, able to follow what’s happening around him, though he’s still slurring his words and is stiff from pain, falling asleep mid conversation. Yesterdays incident didn’t help.
He also has absolutely no idea who he is as yet, or who anyone else is either. Eddie is ok with only two specific nurses and his doctor. He doesn’t want any other strangers to touch him for tests or blood draws unless Buck is present. No one knows why, least of all Eddie. He doesn’t recall anything from before he fell. Just every minute detail from after, concussed and all.
Retrograde amnesia.
That’s what they say it is.
His reactions are most likely because of his prior PTSD. A subconscious fear that he can’t explain but sooths with Buck’s presence. Someone he trusts implicitly, going by instinct alone.
He might regain his memories partially, fully, or get nothing at all. It depends on what his brain decides to do. For now, Eddie is a clean slate. All he knows is that Buck is safe. And he clings to him for all he’s worth.
They notice after running more tests over the course of the next two days, that he’s only associating feelings with people he meets. Which is probably another built in safety mechanism that he’s using to compensate for his memory loss.
They introduce him to the team again, one at a time so as to not overwhelm him. With Bobby the feeling he gets is respect. With Hen, Chim and Ravi, he says they feel comfortable. For Athena, when he meets her, he says she makes him feel protected. But with Buck, he says its different.
Buck isn’t one feeling. He’s apparently all of them and then some. Buck really doesn’t know what to do with the information. On the one hand its all he ever wanted with Eddie. On the other, Eddie is like a newly hatched duckling that imprinted on him at first sight. A complete three sixty to what Buck felt years ago when he and Eddie first vowed to have each other’s backs.
Amnesiac Eddie is filterless. Completely and utterly open. He has no walls, nothing to hide and nothing to hide behind. If he’s uneasy, happy, sad, scared, miserable, angry, whatever…instead of deflecting like he used to, he comes right out and says it. Its like when they got drugged that one time with the brownies and Eddie was loose tongued and weepy and unintentionally funny.
He reminds Buck of that Eddie now. Some things are similar to how he was before. He pulls the same faces, he tsks and hums when he’s irritated. Gets grumpy when he doesn’t get his way, but is easily appeased with the right incentive. He still has that bad joke timing and dark humour. His dry wit and sarcasm is still intact…
This Eddie doesn’t really care that he can’t remember the before. He tells Buck that his head hurts when he tries to think about it so he’s not going to push because he pretty much doesn’t want to feel as if he he’s dying again.
Because his vision is still blurry, especially in his right eye, screens are out. Buck can’t show him pictures of Chris or his family and make him understand who they are, so he leaves that out for now. He’ll bring it up when Eddie feels a little steadier.
Five days in, still can’t sit up without falling over, he’s running a low grade fever and still isn’t taking deep enough breaths, so they’re going to keep him under close watch for the rest of the week to make sure his lungs stay clear. He might be in longer than expected.
Buck has to take days off, because leaving him right now is out of the question. Even if he knows Buck won’t be around a short while, Eddie is agitated and uneasy until he returns. Long term, this arrangement will have to be reviewed and revised. For now, Buck will do whatever it is Eddie needs.
Eddie is going to have balance issues, nausea, headaches and pain to deal with over and above his memory loss in the coming weeks, maybe months. Five days and nothing has jogged a memory yet.
Just the feelings.
His doctors say its positive, because its him associating through familiarity. Somewhere inside, his memories await. But it won’t be easy. This all isn’t going to miraculously disappear once he’s released from the hospital.
He can’t lift up his right arm or do anything for himself without help. His right side is fucked and they have him on a rotation of medication to help with the pain so he’s mostly asleep or gets loopy if he fights it. Added to that, he doesn’t know LA, just that it feels like home.
He’s going to need help adjusting to everything.
A lot of it.
And figure out his likes and dislikes again. He’ll also need to be watched closely after discharge too, especially during the first few weeks, to make sure he doesn’t have any complications from his many injuries.
In the meanwhile, six days since taking a bat to his head, and while still laying in the hospital waiting for bones to knit together and lungs to expand correctly, still fighting off the low grade fever, Eddie continues to be, well, not Eddie.
He talks.
A lot.
Or as much as his weak lungs can manage when he’s awake.
His speech still snags and his ribs hurt and he struggles to catch his breath, but it doesn’t stop him from asking his million questions a day.
He’s different.
Not insecure as such but vulnerable in a different way. He doesn’t mind the firefam visiting when he’s aware enough to see them.
He humours them, listens to their little stories about their lives, and smiles though the parts that include him, but he’s more open to things he wasn’t before. Like taking praise, which he does with a sweet, aw thank you, and he grins when they tell him how he and Buck are inseparable and full of shit at work, agreeing that it must be so because he likes Buck being stuck with him and because Buck is awesome and he always knows what Eddie needs.
Buck spends a lot of time floating with the compliments and then hitting the ground hard when he remembers that Eddie might change his mind once he’s back to himself. Maybe get embarrassed at some point. Buck will have to cross that bridge with Eddie when they come to it.
Eddie has some really bad days, where he’s miserable with a migraine or in severe pain and will become emotional. He’ll ask Buck to stay close because he feels like he’s falling and only Buck can keep him together.
Eddies not lying. He’s not deflecting or choosing his words to guilt Buck into staying with him. Buck gets to see a version of who Eddie would have been if he wasn’t hurt, torn apart and spat out by the world who should have embraced him. He’s the raw, unedited version of the man who learned early on to protect himself from people who would abuse the love he holds for them. Eddie’s people right now is just Buck.
He feels selfish for not telling him about Christopher, but he’s also scared to.
It’s just…It’s the same Eddie, but its not. This Eddie does not remember, so he cannot protect himself. He only feels. And this Eddie, likes to share those feelings because its all he has. There are no memories to guide him. Knowing about Chris might trigger memories, but right now with his recovery so slow and uncertain, it could also trigger a mess of feelings he may not know how to deal with.
By the end of the week, Eddie knows he was in the military and has earned a silver star after saving his team when their helicopter went down. The knowledge doesn’t make him feel good.
They had to bring it up to explain his PTSD, the thing that caused his panic and how it could further impact him. The doctor also wants Buck to tell him about his son before he leaves the hospital, but he doesn’t know how to bring it up.
Buck’s heart breaks every time Chris clocks in with him but doesn’t ask about Eddie. Eddie doesn’t even know he has a kid, one who’s still mad at him. One who his whole life revolved around. For Buck, holding this information, its like amputating a limb in a warzone without anaesthesia. It hurts, but he has to do it anyway.
Then Eddie hears them say possible discharge. He can’t go home yet because he can shake off the fever. Its not spiking, but he’s gotten a slight rattle in his chest. They only asked Buck what the plan was, if there was anyone to take care of him at home once he does get out.
He frowns. “To where?”
“What do you mean?” Buck knows what he means. Wants to know how Eddie explains his question. He’s been stuck on Buck like a limpet. Buck loves it but he’s trying to figure out what Eddie thinks will happen once he is released.
“My house?” he scrunches his nose. “I have a house, right? Or apartment? Where do I live? Buck? Where do I live?”
Buck is amused. Eddie went a whole week without asking that question but he knows Buck likes caramel creamer in his coffee and loves to bake.
“You rent a house in South Bedford street. It’s a two bedroom in a nice neighbourhood. Smallish yard but cozy.”
“I…house? I live alone?” He looks put out by that, like he can’t quite believe it.
“For now.”
Eddie mouths the words for now, squinting at the ceiling like it will give him answers.
“You’ll come with me, right?” He looks nervous now, picking at the blanket with two fingers. “I want you to come with me. Buck, please.” He rushes to say.
“’Course, Eds. For as long as you need. Can’t leave my best friend to starve now, can I?”
“Buck.” Eddie smiles, relieved, “I don’t remember, but I also don’t think I’ve ever not needed you.”
Buck feels his face flush, pleased. He looks up at Eddie, who hasn’t looked away. To Eddie, its stating a fact. There’s no weirdness or embarrassment. He needs Buck. Tells him so. Means it.
“Did I say thank you?” Eddie wonders.
“You don’t need to Eds. We take care of each other. I’ve never not needed you too.” Buck confesses.
Buck kinda likes him like this. He misses the BuckandEddie they were, but its like that too in a way. Eddie still reads him by just the tone of his voice. He responds accordingly. If Buck is anxious, Eddie worries and hurries to sooth him. If Buck is calm, Eddie is relaxed, and when he’s happy about the day or all Eddie’s progress, Eddie smiles more. Its like he’s running on a Buck frequency, similar to how it was but more in tune now. Like the reception has cleared and everything makes sense to him.
Eddie stares at him for a long time, thinking. Buck lets him. He does it often enough.
“Hey Buck?”
“Mm?”
“I feel…” he begins, like he usually does these days, always with a feeling… “Like you have big news but don’t know how I’ll take it?”
He can’t lie. He can omit, but he can’t lie.
“I do.” He says. Its not big news. It’s a whole person. Made from Eddie’s genes and full of his spirit.
Its an opening. To tell him about the son he forgot. To tell him about the parents he doesn’t get along with. About sisters he hasn’t seen in years. A grandmother and aunt who love him but aren’t here right now. But Eddie lays back, scrubs a hand through his hair and blinks tiredly at him.
Smiles.
Gentle, hazy. “Knew it.”
Exhaustion from these small conversations always hits him hard and fast. He fights it, but mostly, he loses to his still healing body.
“It feels like you’re stalling. Like its gonna hurt me to hear it.”
Buck hesitates, breathes out. A slow exhale that doesn’t quell his fear. “It will. It will hurt a lot.”
“Won’t blame you for waiting to tell me. I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders.”
Buck huffs out a short laugh. Its not a happy sound. Eddie grabs his wrist, thumbs his pulse.
“Trust you to tell me when you think I’m ready.” Eddie yawns, winces. They removed the stitches on his head but half his face is still badly bruised, one eye swollen and still completely red. His cheeks are fever flushed too and the cough, rough and painful.
“Eddie…” Buck says, but the thumb on his wrist slows.
“We won’t manage it now…”Eddie lifts up his good arm but can’t hold it there because its shaking. It drops between them and Buck knuckles the pale skin on the underside.
“Later then?” He half asks, half implies.
Eddie hums. Aims to lighten Buck’s melancholy mood even though he is the one who should complain.
“I need a hug.” He demands playful, tired.” I think I know what it feels like and I want one.” His words slur, already drifting.
“You’re half asleep, bud. A hug can wait until you can reciprocate.” Buck teases, taking the hint and playing along.
“I feel like…our shoulders bump a lot. Do they bump a lot, Buck?” he mumbles.
Buck laughs. “Hmm…Guess they do.”
“Fistbumps?” He mutters thickly, sleepier now. His words are rolling one into the other.
“Yes, we bump fists too.”
Eddie curls his good hand and taps it on the bed, too tired to lift it again and Buck bumps fists with him.
“Tmrw…” Eddie breathes. It rattles. “Hug…after, tell me.”
“Alright Eds. Tomorrow I’ll tell you.” Buck promises. “Afterwards, we’ll both need a hug.”