Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dad, are you and Buck dating?”

Eddie almost dropped a carton of oat milk in the refrigerated aisle at Ralphs but there was not an ounce of pity in his son’s expectant eyes as he waited for the answer. 

It was a small blessing that Buck was out of earshot and getting laundry detergent a few aisles down, otherwise Eddie probably would have melted through the tiled floor in embarrassment and that was definitely not on his agenda for the day. Buck insisted that they buy their produce from the farmer’s market first, then get everything else from the store and Eddie while had to admit he was enjoying this routine they’d settled into with the three of them, it apparently meant that Chris had just learned to get creative about choosing his times to ambush them individually like this. 

“Uh- what makes you think we’re dating, bud?” Eddie asked carefully instead of answering. He placed the oat milk in the cart before any close calls struck again, doing his best to appear nonchalant even while his stomach twisted itself into a wicked knot. 

Teenagers really did know all the right buttons to press. 

Christopher just rolled his eyes, crutches clacking against the linoleum as he led the way over to the juice section. “I’m almost about to graduate middle school, dad, I know how to formulate and test hypotheses. I’ve already reached my conclusion, I just want to know what you have to say about it.” 

“Hey, I did middle school too, Einstein,” Eddie ruffled Chris’ hair, chuckling when he made an irritated whine and ducked out of the way. “I’ll play along, though. If that’s your hypothesis, why don’t you tell me the evidence you’ve collected?”

“You two were dancing together at the party even after almost everyone else stopped,” Chris pointed out immediately, ever the observant one. He was right- Buck and Eddie had managed to get a second dance later that night and he was certain at least five different people got it on video, Christopher included. “You even sleep in the same bed. You didn’t do that before a few weeks ago.”

Okay, this game wasn’t fun anymore. Eddie had really tried to dismiss it without having to outright lie to his son about things, but it was clear that Chris actually wanted to have a serious conversation about this. In the middle of their grocery shopping. In Ralphs of all places. 

Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about having a panic attack in another suit store again. Now he could make a go at checking a supermarket off that list. 

“The air mattress was just hard to keep setting up all the time and you know the couch isn’t good for Buck’s back after the accident.” It wasn’t a compete lie, these things were all true. Still, Eddie was praying to a god he didn’t believe in to let him dodge explaining the fact that both him and Buck had come to the conclusion that for some reason, sleeping in the same room seemed to be better for their overall sanity. Life was just weird like that. “Besides, I don’t think it’s for much longer. He’s looking at another apartment next week.”

After everything he told Frank about Buck’s struggle to find a new place, the search had not ceased yet and they were still running into those same old impasses and starting all over again. Eddie was learning to develop a lot of sympathy for Sisyphus. 

“It’s okay if you’re dating, you know,” Chris looked at him pointedly, taking advantage of how much he’d thrown Eddie off guard to put some absurd strawberry-mango-pineapple fusion juice into the cart that probably had more grams of sugar than vitamins in it. “I’m not homophobic. That’s just a stupid thing to be.”

“I never thought you were homophobic, buddy,” Eddie reassured him, averting his gaze from the strange look an elderly woman shot their way as she rolled by in her electric wheelchair. They really knew how to pick their moments. “Besides, we’re not dating. Buck’s still with Tommy, remember?”

“Doesn’t seem like it to me,” Chris screwed up his face in a frown. He definitely didn’t sound convinced, blocking the front of the shopping cart so Eddie couldn’t go any further. “What about the fact that Buck’s in love with you?”

Forget skipping a beat, Eddie’s heart might as well have just stopped as he stood stock still, staring at his son while Chris looked back at him like he hadn’t just taken a wrecking ball to the wall of doubt he’d been building up to keep himself from confessing his love to Buck every single day. 

Chris was a good kid. The best kid. He never would have said something like that if he didn’t have a good reason, and never just to mess with Eddie. 

What about the fact that Buck’s in love with you?

He’d clocked Eddie fair enough, so who was to say he hadn’t done the same with Buck? 

“He looks at you sometimes when you’re not paying attention,” Chris told Eddie when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything in response. Not that he even could with how Chris had knocked the wind out of him like that. “He looks happy. You look at him like that too.”

Eddie swallowed roughly, daring himself to ask. “Like what?”

“Like you love him. Like you’re happier with him,” he replied, smiling when he saw Eddie’s eyes widen a bit. “You never looked at Marisol like that. You smiled at her, but she didn’t make you happy like Buck does. Do you love him?”

When asked outright, especially by his own son, Eddie just wasn’t able to lie. He could hide it, evade, but never outright deny it. 

“Yeah, mijo,” Eddie breathed out, feeling like a weight was lifting from his chest when he did so. “I love him. I really do.”

It was out there now. No more dancing around it, no more confirming other people’s suspicions without saying those words. 

I love him, I love him, I love him. 

A beautifully joyous expression blossomed over Christopher’s face and he smiled so wide that his eyes creased behind his glasses. “You promise?”

“I promise,” Eddie met his gaze evenly and Chris stuck out his little finger for them to pinky swear like Maddie had done with him all that time ago. 

His heart soared when he shook their interlocked fingers and wondered which of them had taught Chris that. 

Buck picked the perfect moment to come around the corner and deposit an armful of things into the cart, pointing an accusing finger at Eddie once his hands were free.

“You said you two were going to stay put by the cereal,” Buck fake-scolded, doing a horrible job at feigning disappointment in them. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Uh oh, did we promise that, Chris?” Eddie arched an eyebrow, looking to his son who was double-checking that the granola bars Buck got for him didn’t contain any tree nuts since his new classmate had an airborne allergy. 

“I plead the Fifth,” Chris declared, the granola bars having passed muster. He stepped out of the way of the cart, falling to pace with Buck as they started moving again. “Buck, are you ready to go home?”

Home, Chris said . Like it was something they shared. 

Because it was. 

Home could be the three of them. It was the three of them. 

And it always would be. 

“Yeah, buddy,” Buck nodded, sounding a little breathless as he met Eddie’s eyes over the top of Christopher’s head. “Let’s go home.”

———

Chris was on the phone with one of his friends in his room while Buck and Eddie put away the groceries, the conversation at the store still playing through his mind. He was glad that Buck was the one who drove them back, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop thinking about it long enough to be an effective driver.

Of the many things Chris said that stuck with him, one that stood out was his assessment of Buck and Tommy’s relationship. Particularly the fact that he said it didn’t seem like they were still together. 

Eddie thought about Buck coming home early from his date the other night and the fact that he was pretty certain he hasn’t gone out on any others since then. In fact, he wasn’t even sure either of them had so much as mentioned Tommy since Pepa’s birthday party. And Buck would mention him, right? If they were still dating?

Sure, he didn’t know much about how things were between them, but in his better moments he liked to think that they were at least happy. 

What about the fact that Buck’s in love with you? 

“So, you uh- you got any plans with Tommy this week?” Eddie decided to throw caution to the wind by casually asking as he put the ice cream away in the freezer. “Because you know Chris loves spending time with his Tia Maddie, you don’t always have to watch him when I go to my appointments. I’m sure they-”

“If I have any plans with Tommy they’d be news to me,” Buck gave a rueful smile, cutting him off before he could ramble along any further. “We’re putting a pause on things.”

“Oh,” he said dimly, still standing at the freezer as his brain screamed a million incomprehensible things at him. Eddie wasn’t sure what his face was doing because he was suddenly hit with a wave of guilt that was greatly at odds with the elation he wanted to feel. “I’m sorry, Buck.” 

“It’s fine,” Buck shrugged a little cagily, glancing over at Eddie and his unreadable expression. He looked like he was about to say something more, lips parting slightly before he dropped his gaze and started to work on folding up their reusable bags. “You’re letting all the cold air out.” 

———

Eddie called Tommy as soon as they cleaned up dinner that night, stepping into the backyard while leaving Buck and Chris to work out what they were going to watch before going to sleep. Even with all those studies about how blue light messed with sleep cycles he just couldn’t deny his family their movie time together. 

Before they did that, though, there were just a few things that he really needed to know.

Unfortunately there was only one person who had those answers.

Surprisingly, that person picked up on the fifth ring. 

“Evan told you, didn’t he,” Tommy said before Eddie could get a word in edgewise, not even offering a greeting first. He was glad they were cutting to the point right off the bat even though it bothered him that Tommy somehow seemed to actually have been anticipating this very call. If one of them had to be surprised, why did it have to be Eddie?

“Yeah, he did,” Eddie ground out, leaning against the side of the house and staring out into the yard as far as the porch light would reach. “Tommy, man, please fucking tell me you didn’t do this because of me.”

It sounded a lot more succinct than ‘please tell me you didn’t tell your boyfriend you needed space because you accused me of being in love with him.’ But it still got the message across.

“I’m sorry you’re upset, Eddie,” Tommy told him, not seeming apologetic in the slightest. “But you should know that it was his decision, and I fully support his reasoning behind it.”

He sucked in a breath, taking a moment to process that. Eddie realized he’d just assumed Tommy had been the one to put a pause on their relationship. He’d been so ready to blame him that he completely overlooked the possibility that it was Buck who wanted space.

“Wait, Buck was the one who-”

“Yep,” Tommy confirmed shortly, sounding a little annoyed that it wasn’t obvious. “We talked some things over the last time we went out and just pressed pause after that. Basically, he said he needed some space to figure out what he wants because he wasn’t sure it was with me.”

Eddie exhaled deeply, his blood thrumming in his veins as he paced along the back of his house. Somewhere in the distance a cricket was chirping and if he strained his eyes enough he could see the bed of beautiful yellow and gold flowers near the back fence. Buck’s flowers and their California poppies.

All of this felt like some impossible fever dream. Chris saying that Buck was in love with Eddie. Tommy confirming that Buck asked for space from him because he might not be what he wanted. That didn’t mean he was going to look for it with Eddie, but still- it was all just a little surreal. 

Especially the fact that Tommy just seemed…fine. 

“You said Buck just asked for some time,” Eddie felt like the breath had been knocked from him with the force of his next realization. “But you- you’re going to break up with him, aren’t you?”

“I’m not looking to be anyone’s consolation prize,” Tommy said without any trace of bitterness, and it wasn’t exactly an answer but Eddie understood anyway. 

Still, it threw him. Tommy wasn’t going to fight. He wasn’t going to fight for Buck, for their relationship. Hell, he didn’t even sound sad about it. 

Losing someone like Buck would break Eddie. For Tommy, it sounded like it was just Wednesday. 

Eddie had been such a fool for thinking their relationship was going as well as he thought it had been. This- this was just abysmal. 

“I was right, though, wasn’t I?” Tommy asked after a few more seconds of silence, the trace of smugness evident in his tone. “You do love him.”

“Yeah, I love him,” Eddie admitted, hating that such a sacred admission was being boiled down to a point being proven. “But I- I can’t tell him.”

“I don’t think this is just about you, though, Eddie. If you love him as much as I think you do, maybe that’s something he should know.”

It was quite possibly the only piece of good advice Eddie would ever get from Tommy in his life, and it was wholly unexpected, but it helped that it was something Eddie thought once before. Buck deserved to know how much he was loved by someone. By Eddie. Even if he didn’t return those feelings, he’d still know he was loved. 

Eddie hummed thoughtfully, resuming his pacing. “Can I ask you something?”

An amused scoff came from the other end of the phone. “You just did.”

He sighed, frustration causing him to hold his phone harder against his ear. “Tommy.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you-” Eddie paused before taking that final leap, knowing there was no going back from whatever answer he was going to get, no matter how much it stung. No matter how much it might burn, might flay him alive and make him a martyr, the new patron saint of heartbreak and selfishly won love. “Did you ever love him?”

He could hear Tommy take a deep breath through the phone and pictured him dragging a heavy hand down his face, eyes dark with thoughts and regret. “Love’s not really what I was looking for with Evan, and even if it was I don’t think I would’ve found it. I’m pretty sure I spent more time being jealous of him and your family at the 118 than actually trying to get to know him as a person. We need different things and it’s honestly really clear now that we weren’t going to get them with each other. Turns out this just isn’t what I wanted.”

Something about that confession didn’t sit right with Eddie and he was quiet for a few moments as he processed, understanding that it was because it felt like a lie- if anything, it was maybe the most honest he’d ever heard the other man be. It was unfamiliar in a way, as if a filter had been removed and he was seeing things in their truest colors for the first time, no matter how unflattering the hue. 

He thought about how Tommy befriended him first, throwing out all these grand gestures and good times together until he all but dropped from his life once he started dating Buck. From how things sounded, though, Eddie was the only one of them he’d gone all out with like that. Maybe he’d been trying to impress him for some reason, but he could never figure out what that reason was. Especially since they stopped talking so quickly after that fateful basketball game.

In fact, the last time Tommy had even reached out to him since the day after the car accident was when Buck let it slip that Eddie and Marisol had broken up. That night, Tommy had called Eddie to see if he wanted to get together for drinks at some club, and the phrasing seemed to imply that this wasn’t an invite that extended to Buck. Eddie hadn’t thought much of it at the time and just gave some vague excuse to not go. 

Now, he was pretty sure that had meant something. 

There was a cold twist in his stomach as he made to speak again and Eddie swallowed roughly, lowering himself to sit on the old lawn chair tucked by the back door to the kitchen. “Hey, Tommy?”

“Yeah?” Tommy replied again, this time sounding tired like he was ready for this conversation to finally be over now that he’d finished saying his piece. 

Well too fucking bad, Eddie thought to himself, gripping the phone tight. I’m not done here. 

“You said you were jealous of the 118, that you wanted to be a part of the family. But you didn’t want to be anyone’s consolation prize. Was Buck-” Eddie didn’t realize he was clenching his other fist until he felt his knuckles begin to pop under the strain. “Was Buck your consolation prize?”

A beat of silence from the other end of the line. 

Then, a sigh. 

“Goodbye, Eddie.”

The call ended and Eddie was left staring down at his phone, too thrown by that confirmation to do much else. A significant part of him wanted to believe that this was all just a ruse, that Tommy was turning himself into the bad guy to make this easier for everyone else, but if that was the case then Eddie should have felt more comforted by the sacrificial gesture than anything. But he didn’t feel relieved. Relief was sweet, and this left a bitter, acrid taste in his mouth to think about. 

This wasn’t sacrifice, he knew. This was candor. This was the painful truth that Buck had been spared about Tommy Kinard, and even as the night grew colder Eddie would never stop being grateful that he was the one who intercepted that hurt before it could reach him. Buck didn’t deserve that. Tommy was right about that much- observant enough to recognize it, but unable to change the part of himself that was causing the harm. 

Eddie quietly wondered if that made Tommy a bad person. That was too much for him to deal with now, though. Not when the motion sensor light had long since gone off, leaving only the warm glow of the kitchen light through the window to fend away the dark. Not when inside there were dishes to put away, blankets to fold, and the two halves of his whole life probably struggling to decide on a movie without him as the perpetual tie-breaker. 

He went back into the house and filled up the hot water bottle Buck used for his bad leg since it seemed to have been bothering him earlier in the day, feeling lighter than he had in months. 

I love you, Eddie almost said when he brought Buck the hot water bottle on the couch, taking a seat between him and Chris so Buck could stretch out and lay his bad leg across Eddie’s lap. Buck had stared at him with such gratitude, letting Eddie carefully massage out the cramps with his fingers as Chris looked for the remote. 

I love you, Eddie nearly told him when he sided with Chris on watching The Princess Bride over Knives Out.

I love you, he came so close to actually saying after he fell asleep and Buck woke him up to go to bed, nudging him toward the bathroom first because he knew how much Eddie hated how his teeth felt if he went a night without brushing them. And I think you love me too. 

———

A few hours later, Eddie awoke to a nightmare that wasn’t his own, the sheets twisted over onto one side of the bed as Buck tossed and turned fitfully, fighting against something behind closed eyes. 

There was a sharp pang in his chest to see Buck suffering and there was no way he could let this go on for a second longer than it had. 

“Buck,” Eddie whispered, inching closer to gently shake his trembling shoulder. He knew Buck tended to run pretty cold sometimes after the lightning strike messed with his nervous system, but right now he seemed to just be shuddering from the cold sweat that had soaked through the back of his shirt. “Buck, wake up.”

Rubbing his upper arm to work some warmth back into him, Eddie kept coaxing him awake until eventually Buck rolled over onto his back, blinking dazedly up at the ceiling. 

“Eddie?” He croaked out, turning his head against the pillow to seek him out in the darkness, squinting a little as his eyes adjusted. “Y’wake?” 

“I’m awake, I’m here,” Eddie promised, and Buck slid his hand over Eddie’s, bringing them both to rest atop his sternum. As his fingers curled over Eddie’s, he could feel Buck’s heart rate start to stabilize beneath his palm, beating slower and more in harmony with his own. “You had a nightmare, but you’re safe. You’re safe, baby.”

Buck smiled sleepily against the pillow, huffing out a small laugh that tickled the tip of Eddie’s nose. “‘Course ‘m safe. I’m with you.” 

Eddie could have cried. It was a very near thing. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” He asked instead, swallowing the lump in his throat. While he knew what helped him after his nightmares- just being reassured of Buck’s presence- he wasn’t entirely sure if it was that simple the other way around. Maybe he could go make him some tea or they could watch a documentary together on the couch until they fell asleep again. Whatever it was, Eddie would do it. 

Buck didn’t say anything for a few moments and Eddie almost thought he wasn’t going to answer, but Buck’s hand suddenly disappeared from his own and pushed against Eddie’s hip until he was lying on his back again. The blankets were adjusted to cover them both fully and Buck rolled over so he was nestled up against Eddie’s left side, neatly tucking his head under his chin.

“Is this okay?” Buck asked quietly, wrapping an arm around Eddie’s waist. His breath was warm against Eddie’s chest, each word bleeding through his shirt, his skin, right down to his heart. 

This was real. He was awake and this was real. 

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed carefully, freeing his left arm from underneath Buck to wrap around his shoulders, holding him even closer. “Is this?”

“It’s you, Eddie,” Buck yawned, and even though Eddie couldn’t see his face he could hear the soft smile in his voice. “It’s perfect.”

I love you. 

I’ll tell you in the morning. 

———

The day started off just like any other. They took Chris to school, stopped to get coffee again on the way back home, and eventually set to work on cleaning up the kitchen from the combined mess of preparing both breakfast and Christopher’s lunch. 

Chris had finally outgrown the simple ham sandwiches that Eddie used to make for his school lunches so it had turned into a bit more of an intensive effort for both him and Buck to rotate out different nutritious combinations of items that would be agreeable for kids that age, which did come at the cost of more dishes. The school year would be ending soon, though, and Chris would be coming home with their tickets for eighth grade graduation in his homeroom folder, so Eddie supposed he would have to hold onto these moments while he could because despite all odds, time was flying by. In the fall, their little boy would be going into high school. High school. 

Eddie didn’t think either him or Buck were nearly old enough to have a kid going into ninth grade, but here they were. 

And there was nowhere else he would rather be. 

He just wished Shannon could be there to see the amazing young man their son was becoming. Maybe Chris would want to go visit her grave afterward to tell her. 

Maybe Buck would want to come, too. 

They handled the dishes together while Eddie was lost in thought, forearms brushing as they worked side by side over the sink with Eddie washing and Buck drying. No matter the task, whether it was dishes or a rope rescue, they always seemed to work in perfect tandem, never more than a step behind the other. 

Eddie really needed that today. He needed them to be in sync because he was about to take one of the biggest risks of his entire life. Bigger than cutting his line forty feet beneath the surface of the earth, and almost as big as becoming a father and husband at nineteen. 

But he wasn’t scared. Not anymore. Not when he was standing at the sink, looking at their garden through the window. The sky was gray but the flowers were like a small patch of sunshine all on their own, brightening up the gloomy June day with ease. Yellow flowers in the garden of a yellow house. 

They both loved flowers that reminded them of home. Eddie had just been too slow to realize that Buck had been saying the same thing as him all this time. 

“Do you think Chris will be embarrassed if I cry at his graduation ceremony?” Buck asked as they were putting the dishes away a few minutes later, bumping Eddie’s shoulder with a smile. “Because I’m pretty certain I’m gonna cry and I’m not-”

“I love you.” 

“-sure he would think that was cool.” Buck finished, reaching over Eddie to put a plate away in the cabinet. Then, he stopped, turning to look at Eddie as those three words finally seemed to sink in. 

Eddie was already looking back at him, turning to fully face him where he stood in front of their sink in their kitchen. In their home. He was finally taking the risk, finally making the jump, more sure of where he would land than he ever was before. Every time that he thought I love you at Buck led up to this moment of finally telling him what he deserved to know. 

And Eddie wasn’t afraid of it anymore. 

His heart wasn’t in his throat or in his chest or sinking through his stomach toward the floor. At that moment, it was exactly where it needed to be. Eddie’s heart was in Buck’s hands now. Right where it belonged. 

Buck seemed to be holding his breath, pale eyes widening as he stepped closer into Eddie’s space, drawn forward until there was no way he could keep going without forcing Eddie to take a step back into the counter. His lips parted ever so slightly as he finally remembered how to breathe, his chest almost brushing against Eddie’s as he inhaled. 

“Say that again,” Buck rasped, still sounding like he was out of air. Eddie understood how he felt. He was getting a bit dizzy the longer he looked at Buck, his gaze falling down to his lips, red and a little chapped, then back to his eyes, pupils blown wide and dark in a sea of blue. “Please.”

It felt like the air had been stolen from the room and all that was left to breathe was what was in those few inches of space between them. 

“I love you, Buck” Eddie told him again, placing his right hand in the curve between his neck and shoulder, thumb falling into the dip above his collarbone where he could feel his pulse in his throat. They were standing so close and he couldn’t stop looking at Buck’s lips now, couldn’t stop leaning closer, but he didn’t want to stop until he could feel them against his. He didn’t want to stop. Not anymore. “Buck. Can I-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before Buck was surging forward and curling a broad hand around the back of Eddie’s neck, hauling him into the last first kiss of his life.   

It took a few seconds for Eddie’s brain to catch up to what was happening even though it was what he was going for. But like always, he wasn’t more than a step behind, his body falling into perfect sync with Buck’s as he brought his left arm around his waist and kissed back with all he had, tears stinging behind his closed eyes as his heart sang three words over and over and over again.

I love you. I love you, I love you, Eddie thought as he brought both of his hands up to frame Buck’s jaw, thumbs brushing gently against his cheekbones. His fingertips would know this face in the dark, whether he was blindfolded or the sun had gone out. He would always know Buck. 

The kiss intensified as they wordlessly shifted so Buck was pressed back against the counter, arms around Eddie’s waist as he pulled him impossibly closer. Their legs slotted together and Eddie almost lost his balance, but Buck’s arms were there to hold him steady. Just like they always would be. 

And then suddenly Eddie had to break away, the air rushing back into the room and leaving him gasping for breath against Buck’s lips as their foreheads rested against each other. His head felt bubbly like a glass of champagne, vision spinning a little as he stared at Buck with a wonderstruck look on his face that he couldn’t believe was being reflected right back at him. 

He’d heard people talk about getting lost in a kiss, so overwhelmed and taken in that they couldn’t tell up from down, but this right now with Buck…it felt like being found. 

Buck kissed him first. That really happened. 

Eddie told Buck that he loved him and Buck had kissed him first. 

If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up from it. 

“We should talk about this,” Buck murmured against Eddie’s mouth, lips barely brushing in the ghost of a second kiss. Neither of them had made a move to fully break apart just yet and Eddie could still feel the warmth from Buck’s hands radiating through his waist, leaving him almost drunk from the sensation.

“Okay,” Eddie promised softly, ducking forward to chase that high and capture Buck’s lips with his own again, the two finally sinking into that second kiss that went much longer than they intended it to. Right up until Buck’s hands snaked up to Eddie’s chest and applied just enough pressure for him to get the hint to take a step back.

“Now, Eds,” Buck’s voice cracked with urgency and Eddie sobered immediately, watching with bated breath as Buck held his hands, cradling them gently between the two of them. “Okay?”

And suddenly the cold prickle of fear kicked back up and Eddie felt the urge to run, except there was nowhere to run because this was his home and it was Buck’s too.

And he was done running. He wasn’t that man anymore, even when his old fear told him otherwise. 

“Okay,” he repeated, and they sat at the kitchen table where Buck had packed Christopher’s lunch that morning while Eddie made oatmeal and cut up fruit for their breakfast. Where they had once talked about lightning strikes and bullet wounds, flowers and home. 

“Eddie,” Buck started slowly, hands splaying across the tabletop in front of him. “I’m never going to be Shannon. I- I can’t do this if it’s just because you’re still trying to replace her.”

The fear in his voice was evident and it pained Eddie to know that a part of Buck, no matter how small, could think that was all he was. A stand-in for a dead woman. 

“That’s not what this is, Buck,” Eddie swore to him, reaching across the table to take both of Buck’s hands in his. He swore his heart kicked up a notch when Buck reached for him back, swiping the pads of his fingers over the pulse point in Eddie’s wrist as he did so. “I love you, Buck. I’ve been in love with you for so long and it’s been killing me to not be able to tell you until now. I wanted to tell you every time I woke up next to you, every time I see how much you love our son, every time you look at me like I’m something worth seeing-”

It was impossible not to choke up then and he took a moment to gather himself. Buck’s eyes glistened as they watched him and Eddie was certain he was holding his breath again.

“I’m not trying to replace Shannon. I want you. This. Us,” Eddie kept going, emphasizing that last word with a squeeze of their joined hands. “Taking Chris to school and getting groceries together. Living in the same house and working at the same station until they kick us out or we retire. You’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. You don’t have to want that too, but that’s how I feel. You deserve to know that.”

After thinking it all in his head for so long, it was easy to finally say out loud, but mostly because they were some of the truest words he’d spoken in his life, and likely ever would. If there was a world where he went a day longer without telling Buck exactly how much he meant to him, that was a world that Eddie didn’t want to live in. Patience had stretched its status as a virtue, and that was overrated anyway. 

Besides, patience had never been in love with Evan Buckley. 

Buck let out a shuddering exhale, watery eyes meeting his as he pulled a wan smile, his lips tugging up slightly at the corners. “Eddie, I think I’ve been in love with you for years without realizing it. I just never questioned what those feelings were. Honestly, that seems to be a common thread for me because I didn’t even figure out I was bisexual until about two months ago even though the signs had been in front of me for years. I love you too, and I know what I want that to mean. I want all those things you said and more, just-”

He paused and took a breath, his smile flickering a little wider as Eddie traced his fingers over his knuckles in a reassuring gesture. All while he tried to comfort him, though, Eddie couldn’t stop hearing those words cycle through his mind on a never ending loop. I love you too. 

Eddie loved Buck. And Buck loved him back. 

No other life could be better than this one.

“I just need you to be sure, okay?” Buck stressed, blinking back tears as his voice took on a much more hopeful edge to it. “Please. I can’t bear it if we make it to tomorrow, or a week from now, or years down the line and you look at me and realize you’re still chasing someone else. I love you so much and it’s taking everything in me to not jump feet first into this so hard that I break my ankles, but I know I have to be more careful with myself now. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like I wasn’t enough, and I don’t think I could ever take that coming from you.”

Eddie swallowed roughly, nodding a little as he broke their gaze to just stare down at their hands. It wasn’t unfair, what Buck was asking. He’d watched that happen twice already to both Ana and Marisol and they all knew the end to that story. It didn’t deserve a third act, not with Buck cast as the doomed love interest. 

If Eddie screwed this up and hurt Buck, he would never forgive himself. 

A part of him wanted to protest, to assure Buck that he’d already thought this over a million times and was certain this was what he wanted- because it was. But he had to see things from Buck’s perspective, now. Buck wasn’t doubting that Eddie loved him. He just wanted to ensure that Eddie didn’t have any doubts. That there weren’t any questions about himself still left unanswered in a way that left him unprepared to walk into the future he’d just promised to Buck. 

It wasn’t a no. It was a wait. Soon. 

If he pursued this with Buck, Eddie knew there would be nobody else- not ever. Buck would be it for him. 

He had to get this right. No running away when things got hard. 

He could live with that. After all, Eddie had wrestled with a lot to finally get to this point. All his confusion with Shannon and Buck, what happened with Ana and Marisol, and the fact that he was still unsure about what his feelings for Buck meant about himself. He told himself that part didn’t really matter and skipped right back over it again, even as it cried for his attention, its voice worn thin from decades of screaming inside of him. 

It was time to listen to it.

“You’re right,” Eddie conceded, because of course he was. This was Buck. Buck, who knew Eddie inside and out, better than he knew himself sometimes. “I think I need to resolve a few things before going into this relationship because I- God, Buck, I want this to work. I want this so badly.”

“I do too, Eddie. And I’m not doubting that,” Buck assured him quickly, sounding as breathless as Eddie felt. “I just need you to be absolutely confident that I’m the one you want it with because if we do this, you’re it for me.” 

“You’re it for me too,” Eddie smiled, his heart feeling safer than it ever had been now that it had its home in Buck’s hands. “Will you- will you give me time to figure this out?”

Buck nodded. “Of course. And I promise we’ll be okay no matter what. Whatever happens, we’re not losing each other.”

“You promise?”

“I’m not going anywhere, unless-”

Eddie didn’t even want to hear the end of that sentence. “Stop looking for apartments. I don’t even know why you kept looking after the fourth one. Beige carpet? Really?”

Buck let out an embarrassed laugh, eyes crinkling at the edges. “I didn’t want to leave, I thought that was pretty obvious. I just didn’t think staying here forever was an option.”

Forever. It sounded like such a beautiful word when it came from Buck. Eddie wanted to capture that word and let it wash over his hands as he held it as close to his heart as he could. Forever. 

“Well it is,” Eddie promised, those words feeling like a vow. Forever. “Stay. Please. I- I want you to be here when I’m ready. Because I will be. Even if it’s not today. This- this doesn’t have to change anything between us.”

He was quiet for a moment, watching Eddie carefully. “What if I want it to?”

Buck raised Eddie’s hands to his lips and pressed a feather-light kiss against the dark scar that danced across the back of one of his knuckles. There were four more marks like that between both of his hands- scars from fights, walls, and their job. Each one soon knew the feeling of Buck’s lips against them. 

“I think it does change things, Eddie. But that’s not a bad thing.”

And that was it. Neither of them were trying to pretend like nothing had changed. The earth had shifted beneath their feet and they were still standing, just in a different place now. 

Things had changed. And it was beautiful. 

He wasn’t sure how long they ended up sitting there, staring at Buck like he hung the stars and moon and even spun the nebulas in his spare time. But eventually, Buck stood and pulled Eddie to his feet, his hands feeling a little clammy from being held so long, but fuck it, he didn’t care one single bit.

“Come on, we’ve gotta finish cleaning up our mess,” Buck said with a laugh, untangling their hands and giving him a gentle shove toward the dishes they still needed to put away. 

Our mess. 

Dios, he loved the sound of that.

They ordered Thai for lunch and ended up cleaning the whole house together. 

That night when Eddie came back from playing basketball with Chimney- Tommy noticeably absent- he didn’t try to sneak back into his own home and avoid Buck, and Buck wasn’t trying to hide from him. Instead, Eddie had opened the door to sounds of laughter and automated fight sounds coming from the television, the smell of popcorn, and open cans of soda on the coffee table.

The couch wasn’t made up to sleep on, there were no sheets or pillowcases in sight. No cardboard boxes in the corners or letters left on nightstands. 

This was what love looked like when both people wanted to make it work. When they expressed their needs and boundaries and didn’t make it awkward. This was easy, confident love that could survive them needing a little time to make sure they were ready. 

“I leave you two alone for a few hours and you turn the place into a frat house,” Eddie mock scolded, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door and watching the B and C charms glimmer in the light of the lamp before turning his attention back to the real thing on the couch. “I’m surprised you boys remembered to use coasters.”

“Ooh, Chris, you hear that?” Buck risked a quick glance over at Chris, his focus returning back to the fight he was losing against his son’s digital blue-haired fighting avatar. “Sounds like someone doesn’t want the tres leches that Pepa dropped off for our movie night!” 

“Yeah, dad, it’s all for us now!” Chris grinned, relinquishing his hold on his controller long enough to give Buck a high-five. 

Oh, that was just pure evil. 

“Wait, no, where the hell is my tres leches, tu diablos?” Eddie stood and blocked the screen, waving his arms out like a scarecrow and laughing as they struggled to play with most of their view obscured.

“That’s a dollar for the swear jar!” Chris crowed, throwing his controller down onto the couch when Buck’s avatar succumbed to his superior manouver of fight moves. The game played a comedic bout of sad music in consolation.

“I think we can call that two, technically,” Buck raised two fingers and Eddie made a face at him but dug out his wallet to shove some singles in the metal tea tin they kept under the TV that served as their new swear jar/video game fund. Conveniently, Buck didn’t usually carry cash on him, so inside was a little IOU sticky note to tally how much he still needed to contribute. It was up to five dollars now. Go figure.

After dinner and a little too much tres leches, Chris sat in his new beanbag chair while Buck and Eddie took the couch, settling in to watch another movie because as far as Chris was concerned, every night they spent together had the potential to be movie night. Well, as long as he got his homework done in time.

Daring, Eddie put his arm around Buck and Buck leaned into it, resting his head against Eddie’s shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him close as the familiar Jaws theme began.

“How are you doing?” Buck asked quietly, and Eddie turned to press a light kiss against his forehead with a smile.

“No broken ankles, can’t complain.” Another kiss. I still want this. I’m still here.

I still want us.

Buck huffed out a small laugh and pulled Eddie’s arm tighter around himself, cuddling closer. On the screen, Chief Brody was driving off to work, promising to bring his wife’s coffee cup back. Eddie wondered if he’d ever look that good with glasses when he was older. Maybe he’d ask Buck what he thought. 

“Hey, Eddie?” Buck said a few minutes later and Eddie made a humming sound against the top of his head. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but- you’re worth waiting for.”

Tears stung his eyes and he kissed Buck’s temple a third time, pressing his lips right over his birthmark. “I love you.”

A couple feet away, Chris sighed. “Finally.”

———

Karen answered the door almost immediately after he knocked, giving Eddie a surprised look when she saw him standing on her porch. Which made sense, considering he was probably one of the last people she expected to show up at her home unannounced on a random afternoon.

“Uh, hi, Eddie?” Karen blinked, his name sounding almost like a question as she looked him over. “You know we have a doorbell, right?” 

Oh. So they did. “Hey, Karen, how are you?”

“I’m good!” She beamed, leaning her hip against the doorframe and nodded back toward the inside of the house. “If you’re looking for Hen, she’s not home. Nathaniel pulled something in his back doing yard work so she took Denny to baseball practice for him today. You know her, she wants to stay for the whole thing, take all the pictures.”

“Oh, sure,” Eddie nodded and followed along, stowing his hands in his pockets so he didn’t start tapping them nervously against the side of his leg. “Actually, I- I was hoping to talk to you.”

He was about to lose his nerve so fast.

Karen’s expression sobered in an instant and she stood straighter, starting to look concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Eddie opened his mouth, imagined actually saying it, and regretted ever even pulling into the driveway. Maybe he could feign amnesia and just pretend this never happened. That sounded like a pretty good idea, even though it only ever worked out in movies. Still, Chimney made a valiant effort at it sometimes when he forgot it was his turn to unload the dishwasher after Bobby made lunch. 

“No, well- it’s complicated?” Eddie eventually offered, hoping that was enough for her while he wrangled his runaway thoughts together. “Are you free to talk for a little bit?”

Karen just stared at him with an expectant look and Eddie was feeling outrageously out of his depth the longer he stood there like an idiot on her front porch. 

He drew in a breath, the words tumbling out in an instant. “I’m in love with Buck, and I just came here because-”

“You need to talk to a queer person,” Karen nodded sagely, quickly catching on. If she was thrown by his admission, she definitely didn’t show it. “Preferably one who doesn’t have monetary stakes on your love life, right?”

“I- yeah, I need to talk to a queer person,” Eddie relented, cringing a bit at the bluntness of the phrasing even though she was the one who said it first. “And that other thing. I hear there’s some kind of ongoing bet?”

“Chimney owes Hen so much money,” she grinned, her eyes gleaming in a way that made him realize he might’ve been intimidated by the wrong Wilson all these years. “Come on in, Eddie, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

———

Karen ushered him inside and he almost tripped over two pairs of Mara’s shoes as he closed the door behind him. He could count the number of times he’d been to the Wilson house on one hand but it looked mostly how he remembered it, save for some rearranged furniture and double the amount of kids’ things lying around. It was a nice, cozy feeling home. 

“I’m in love with Buck,” Eddie said again, unsure of why he felt the need to, but damn it still felt amazing to hear those words out loud. Karen just smiled broadly, her bright eyes twinkling with joy. She wasn’t the first person he’d told who wasn’t Buck, but aside from Chris, she’d been the only one who seemed so blatantly happy for him. 

“But you don’t want to talk just because it’s Buck, you want to talk because he’s a man,” Karen reasoned as she led the way to the kitchen where a half finished glass of wine and basket of laundry sat on the counter.

“You get it, then,” Eddie exhaled with relief, sitting at the dining table when she motioned for him to do so. The wood grain felt waxy beneath his palm when he placed his hand down and he looked to see fresh crayon marks on the tabletop. He subtly shifted a placemat to cover them so whichever kid was responsible could stave off a scolding a little while longer. 

Not all heroes wear capes.

“Well, some of us knew we were gay around the time our aunt took us to our first Whitney Houston concert,” Karen shrugged, moving to grab a second wine glass before Eddie shook his head and gratefully accepted a cup of water instead. “I imagine it’s a little different to realize later in life with all your experiences behind you. You’d probably be better actually talking to Buck about that.”

“I feel like I need to preface this with the obvious, but I’m not exactly skilled in the art of discussing attraction to men,” he deadpanned, earning a snort from her as she sat across from him with the basket of laundry, allowing Eddie to take a handful of towels to fold when he wordlessly reached out to help. 

“What about the dispatcher you worked with- the one at Maddie’s wedding?” Karen suggested. “Josh. He’s gay, right?”

Eddie nearly laughed at the thought of discussing his personal life with him. “Josh can barely keep a secret to save his life, especially from Maddie. Besides, we’re not close like that.”

“So I’m your default queer confidante?” Karen gasped dramatically, placing a hand over her heart as she fluttered her eyelashes. “I’m so honored.” 

Eddie arched an eyebrow, setting aside the towel he was folding. “I can leave.”

“No, no!” Karen tried to pretend to look serious for a second before giving up and laughing, reaching over to pat the back of his hand insistently. “Come on, ask me all your questions, young padawan.” 

Eddie snorted and finished handling the towel, working through a few more just to give himself something to do as he thought. It helped him get his words together a bit better when he was doing something else. Stimming, Buck had called it. He did that too sometimes. 

“Have I always been like…this?” Eddie decided on asking, landing on something way too big and vague but unsure of where else to really starts 

“Starting off with the hard ones, huh?” She flicked a braid out of her face and twisted her lips together as she thought. “Well, I only took the gender studies classes that were needed to satisfy my Gen Ed requirements, but from what I understand about all this-” Karen waved her hand expressively to indicate the two of them. “-is that attraction is fluid. It definitely can change as you have new experiences or learn more about yourself, but a lot of people also say it’s something that they’ve experienced as latent and innate throughout their life, even if they’ve had relationships that might suggest otherwise. Which is completely valid and honestly really common. Does that answer your question?”

It did. He’d done his own research trying to figure out what labels worked best for him, thinking that maybe he was bisexual like Buck, but everything just came back to the suspicion he had while he was dating Shannon in high school and balked at taking some of the steps other teenage couples were taking- and bragging about taking. It all came back to one conclusion. That he was simply just gay. 

But nothing about it was really that simple. One of the biggest reasons Eddie struggled with identifying himself as gay, not just back then, but recently, was that he had started to think it would require him dismissing his relationship with Shannon as illegitimate- and if he didn’t, someone would swoop in and dismiss him.

How could he reconcile being gay with the way he felt looking at her the day they met at Ascarate Lake? How could he align himself with that identity when he’d once loved her with almost everything he had?

And now here was Karen telling him that both things could be true. 

She understood the gravity of what he was silently unpacking and took a sip of her wine, patiently waiting for him to come back online again. 

“I’ve never felt this way about other men,” Eddie said quietly, feeling like it was some secret admission that might ruin everything for him. 

“You don’t have to,” Karen shrugged easily. “Nobody’s going to ask you for the receipts. If they do, they’re just an asshole.”

Eddie let out a small laugh. “Well, I did have kind of a crush on Kurt Russell when I was a kid, so maybe that’s something.”

“But we’re not talking about Kurt Russell.”

“Definitely, definitely not,” Eddie agreed. 

“Well when was the last time you had a close friendship with another man like you do with Buck?” She asked, giving him a moment to think things over. 

“Never,” he answered readily, not needing any longer than a second to produce that response. In his whole life, there’d never been any man who came close to being what Buck was to him. He always felt like he was on the fringes of his friend groups as a child and teenager, and even when he joined the army and bonded with the members of his team in life or death situations, it still wasn’t the same. 

No man ever had, or ever would ever compare. 

“So it just seems to me like maybe you never had a change to explore these feelings until someone triggered them, and when Buck came along it happened for a man,” Karen summed up, the delicate gold bracelets on her wrist clinking together as she accentuated her point by tapping her hand against the table. “But it’s not exactly men in general you’re attracted to, it’s also men you have a deep emotional connection with. Does that sound right?”

It did. It really did. For the first time in his life it felt like someone was reaching into his brain and gently untangling the scrambled mess of confusion and unease that always snared itself around his relationships in one way or another. 

He just nodded. Yes, that sounded right.

Karen hummed thoughtfully, contemplating her next question. “Eddie, how many relationships have you been in? I’m not asking to judge, I think this might help figure some things out.” 

“Three. In my whole life, there’s only been three before Buck. All women.” 

“Okay,” Karen nodded. “Why those three?”

Eddie blinked. “What?”

“Those three people before Buck. Why did you date each of them?”

It was an odd sort of question, but it wasn’t like Eddie hadn’t considered that before in the aftermath of each of them as he wondered where things had all gone wrong and kept on ending up right back at the source. Him. 

Marisol had been a mistake, that was clear as day. He expressed his disdain for ‘performance’ in his relationships and then went on to put on an Oscar-worthy one that would probably land in the Criterion Collection someday. He really did like her, he just hadn’t been in love with her. Same with Ana. She really hadn’t deserved what he put her through. Without knowing it, he’d strung them along only to cut the line months later, crashing right alongside them in the end. 

But Shannon-  

Fuck, he cared about her so much. She’d been so ingrained into every corner of his life that loving her was the only natural next step and when they took that jump together they never looked back. Shannon was beautiful, strong, kind, smart, funny, and he still remembered those days in his teenage years where he would take any excuse to get out of his home, always ending up at Shannon’s house. Her mother had always been so welcoming to him. Unlike his own mom, she never acted like he was a fuck-up. At least not when he didn’t deserve it. 

But when Shannon told him he was pregnant, that her mom knew, and that Janet had already told his parents- well, they hadn’t been left with many other options for their future. Whatever semblance of choice they thought they had about how they would go on from there was nothing more than an illusion. 

You have to do the right thing, son, Ramon told him sternly. 

So he did, even though it felt wrong. Everyone else just insisted on it, blaming him when he never seemed to be able to get it right. 

For the first time, he was genuinely considering that not all of that had been his own fault. 

“I- I think I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do.”

Karen raised her eyebrows. “That’s a huge realization, Eddie. Like, taking a sledgehammer to compulsory heterosexuality type of huge.” 

“Compulsory- what?” Eddie faltered, still working on catching back up.

“Never mind, we’ll get to that part,” Karen waved it aside, moving on to her next question. “Does it bother you that Buck’s a man?”

“No, it doesn’t bother me, I’m just- it’s a little different,” Eddie admitted, starting to feel awkward despite the fact that he’d already practically bared half his soul to his friend’s wife over the past handful of minutes. “And I’m struggling to understand why-”

“Okay, it’s okay, I’m trying to help you understand too,” she interjected patiently, holding up a hand to still him. “Let me try this again. Are you physically attracted to Buck?”

“Yes,” Eddie said without pause, and he was surprised at how unsurprised he felt admitting that to both Karen and himself. Of course he was attracted to Buck- he was beautiful outside and in. It was unquestionable, regardless of what he thought about his own identity. 

“Would you consider yourself physically attracted to other men?”

Trying to think about that felt like barreling through a minefield of unexploded ordinance that he’d spent so many years of his life carefully stepping around. That had always been something he felt was dangerous to think about. Maybe it was the Catholicism, living in Texas- hell, maybe it was even just the nineties, but thinking men were attractive? Eddie learned to shut that down even while the raging hormones of puberty were still trying to have their way with him. 

Except sometimes there were these singers on stage when Adriana watched music videos on the TV. Sometimes there were actors in movies and Eddie would save up money from his part-time job in high school to take Shannon to see them. While she gushed over the dashing male leads and talked about their hair and arms, Eddie would quietly agree. There was one boy on his baseball team who Eddie had taken to staring at so much that the coach once took him aside and told him to leave his problems out of their dugout because he thought Eddie was staring out of anger at the guy for replacing him as DH. It reminded him a lot of when he first met Buck when he joined the 118 and couldn’t keep his eyes off of him long enough to remember that Buck kind of hated his guts that first day. 

So yeah, there were a few guys. But not many. Not even Tommy whose abs essentially made him a Californian Adonis and who Eddie had grown to suspect was actually trying to hook up with him when they initially became friends. Sure, Tommy was an okay looking guy, Eddie could recognize that, but as far as attraction went- it just wasn’t the word he’d ever use for him. 

In any case, that aspect of things had always been so latent and tertiary in his relationships, but he’d never felt it as strongly as he did with Buck.

He was definitely attracted to him.

“Maybe,” Eddie settled on, still feeling a little confused but not expecting for it to get any clearer than that at the moment. “There’s never really been anything that serous about them, but I don’t think it’s a no. So far it’s just really been the one.” Buck. 

Karen didn’t even need to ask before Eddie flipped the question around on his own and started thinking about how he had felt with women. There hadn’t been a period in his life where he was physically attracted to a woman behind aesthetic appreciation and an objective understanding of beauty. Shannon shared a lot of the qualities Eddie admired in Buck, but those were more personal attributes than anything purely physical.

The more he spent time with someone, the more he got to know them, he might start picking up on those things and his potential feelings about them. He thought of Ana’s smile, Marisol’s laugh, and none of them compared to the warmth that blossomed in his chest when Buck’s eyes lit up with a grin or he let out a wheezing, high pitched cackle after a particularly ridiculous call left them all flying to bits. 

Something would still be off.

He just never considered that it would be gender. 

“I-” Holy fuck, Eddie buried his face in his hands. “I’m not attracted to women.”

“That makes one of us, pal,” Karen snorted, reaching for another sip of her wine as if the thirty odd years of everything Eddie thought he knew about himself wasn’t just crumbling apart across the kitchen table two feet away from her. 

The order wasn’t Shannon, Ana, Marisol, Buck- it was Shannon, and then it was Buck. Ana, Marisol, and then back to Buck again. 

He’d gotten it right on the second try and never even realized. It never even struck him as an option. 

“I’m gay,” Eddie said out loud for the first time. “Oh my God, I’m gay.”

He let out a shuddering exhale, feeling his hands trembling a little bit from the vibrations that were singing through his nerves. There he was, thirty three years old, accepting that he was gay. Accepting that he had loved Shannon then and loved Buck now. That he was gay even then, and still was now. 

It was a lot to process.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Eddie,” Karen smiled kindly. All he could do was nod in response. “I understand this was a lot for you to hold inside all this time.”

“I think it was my family. Their faith, I mean,” he said faintly, all the pieces falling into place. “Nobody I grew up with was blatantly homophobic but it was just quietly expected of us not to shake things up in the way something like that would. Don’t be different, don’t cause trouble, be good and go to mass.”

The more he spoke, the more the words just seemed to finally come to him. It felt strange to finally be putting a name to these things, but it was starting to become easier for him to breathe as he finally did so. Like all these things that were weighing him down were finally being freed. 

Buck was right. He needed this. 

Eddie sighed, continuing. “I never felt too different being both Mexican and Swedish in my community, especially with my mom’s family not really being around that much. But I think I understood that being gay would cause some problems that I definitely wasn’t equipped to handle, even if I didn’t know it would apply to me back then.”

“I can imagine what that must have been like for you,” Karen empathized and Eddie actually believed it as she said it, reaching over to give his arm a comforting squeeze. “It can be difficult on any child to grow up fearing the consequences of nonconformity.” 

Conformity. That was the word. The missing word that highlighted and laid out the majority of his life up until now. He could think of the grief and stress it caused him all this time, the sleepless nights and constant worry that the sun of his parts would never add up. 

And then he realized- the happiest parts of his life came from breaking the mold. Going against his parents wishes and running headlong into single-parenthood as he packed up everything that he couldn’t replace and took Chris away from El Paso. Becoming a firefighter even when they told him he needed a steadier job and somehow ending up walking into the 118 and finding the family he’d needed all his life. He refused to bend to those pressures and liberated himself in an unbelievable way. The life he lived today was because he’d gotten fed up letting other people dictate who he was. 

So why was he doing that to himself?

“It was as much of an obligation as the Catholicism was,” Eddie answered his own question out loud, tracing his fingers along another set of crayon marks on the tabletop as he drew in a steadying breath. “I just went along with what I thought I was supposed to do. It was easy because I thought I knew the rules, the instructions, you know? The idea of it was so easy to picture because I’d seen it a million times. Marry a nice woman, have a cute kid, buy a house, live life and…roll credits.”

“Well, you definitely got the cute kid part down,” Karen commented, bringing a surprised laugh out of him that helped ease his nerves some. 

Yeah, he sure did. Christopher was one of the best things he would ever get right. That kid was the light of his life and his savior all in one. The St. Christopher medal beneath Eddie’s shirt right above his beating heart was a testament to that. 

“The conformity was part of what made the military so appealing in the first place,” Eddie realized suddenly, staring intently at the table so he didn’t have to see Karen’s reaction to that- he didn’t know if he could bear it. “You get your orders, you put on the uniform, look and move and talk like everyone else, and suddenly being different doesn’t seem like a massive concern because they’ve decided who they need you to be already,” he closed his eyes, dropping his head into his hands. “Conformity. God, I ran away from myself every chance I got. But now that I’m finding myself for the first time, I- I don’t know what to think of him- of me. I feel like a stranger to myself.” 

But Buck feels like coming home.

“It’s always so much simpler in the movies,” Karen said after a beat, her voice tinged with emotion. “It sounds like you romanticized these expectations but were always disappointed when you didn’t feel fulfilled by them. It’s a lot to deal with.”

He could feel fulfilled if it was with Buck, though.

This time it would be without that pressure pushing them together like with his late wife. This time it was entirely his choice- one he was fighting to make sure he was prepared to handle. 

He was fighting for Buck in a way he never fought for Shannon.

“You don’t need to put a label on things if it doesn’t help you, Eddie, but I don’t think this is an uncommon experience for many people like us,” Karen reassured him, pushing the towels aside to cover his hands with hers. The touch grounded him and he met her eyes again, shocked to see that they were a little damp with tears. “Whether you’re gay, or something else, it seems to me like you have a pretty good understanding of what you’ve been looking for. And I’m damn happy for you.”

People like us. He liked the way that sounded. 

Us . Like he wasn’t alone. 

“Thank you, Karen,” Eddie choked out, trying his utmost not to start bawling in her kitchen. He hoped those words would be enough to convey his gratitude and it seemed like they got close enough because she smiled and gave his hands a gentle squeeze before sitting back again.

“I guess I have to ask now,” she told him, her smile turning even softer. “Do you think you’ve found what you’re looking for in Buck?”

“I know I have,” Eddie said with certainty, feeling the tightness in his bones- his soul. “I love him, Karen. I really do. I just- I think that there’s a few more things I need to settle before heading into this, but I need to handle them on my own.”

That seemed to be the end of things for the time being. 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Eddie blurted out a handful of minutes later as he was walking toward the door, Karen’s eyebrows darting up in surprise. “I mean, you can tell Hen because she kind of clocked me already at the party and I don’t want to ask you to keep secrets from your wife for me. But I’m not ready for anyone else to know yet, not when I’m just figuring things out.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I completely understand,” she nodded sincerely, holding the door for him as he stepped out onto the porch. “But aren’t you worried that Hen will try to tell Chimney so she can cash out?”

Eddie hadn’t even considered that. These stupid bets were going to be the end of him. 

“Hen can collect her winnings,” Eddie decided, thinking things over. “On the condition that she tells Chimney to keep his mouth shut or he has to double down.” 

“I think we can work with that,” Karen said with a grin, chuckling a little. “Oh, poor Chimney. That man has suffered more than Jesus.”

“Not yet he hasn’t.”

She closed the door just in time for Eddie to hear her laughing on the other side of it.

———

“I talked to Karen the other day,” Eddie said out of the blue, dropping onto the couch next to Buck. The loft of the fire station was surprisingly empty for the middle of the afternoon- the only other person up there was Ravi who was fixing a snack in the kitchen and singing along to whatever song was playing through his AirPods. Bobby was doing paperwork, and as for Chimney and Hen- he might have to send up a small prayer for both Chimney’s wallet and sanity. 

Buck shifted so he and Eddie were sitting with their sides pressed up against each other, bringing his bad leg up to stretch out on the coffee table in front of them, the book he was reading now forgotten. “About what?”

“Me. Being gay,” Eddie said, that word leaving a pleasant tingling sensation on his tongue, no longer afraid to say it. “Having the feelings that I do. How I’m in love with you.”

He looked over at Buck in time to see him draw in a surprised breath, reaching over to twine his fingers through Eddie’s right hand. “How’d that go?”

“Really well. I learned a lot about myself just by having someone take me out of my head about it,” Eddie rubbed his thumb in small circles over the back of Buck’s hand, brushing over the light spray of freckles he found there. “I spent so many years of my life trying to be someone for other people that I think I had a difficult time trusting that I was being someone just for myself. Does that make sense?”

“More than you know,” Buck said softly and yeah- Eddie believed that. He’d gone through his own version of this well before Eddie, and that hadn’t even been about his sexuality. 

He quietly gave Buck the highlights of what he had figured out while Ravi started making popcorn behind them. Somewhere downstairs, Bobby was calling for Hen and Chimney to do an inventory check on the ambulance but seemed to be having trouble finding them. Eddie had a fairly decent idea of what the two of them were off talking about and he couldn’t help but smile a little just thinking about Chimney being sworn to secrecy over something as huge as this. 

"What if you took some time for yourself?” Buck suggested quietly, turning his head to meet Eddie’s eyes. “Just you?”

Eddie chuckled as he nudged Buck’s shoulder, leaning further into the couch. “What, like a vacation? You want me to hit the road and do some soul searching on the PCH?”

“I’m being serious, Eddie,” Buck rolled his eyes fondly. “It might actually help you to step away from the situation.”

That sobered him immediately. “You’re not a situation, Buck.”

“You know what I mean,” Buck insisted, bringing their joined hands over to rest in his lap and fidgeting with the band on Eddie’s watch. “I just think that you tend to get caught up in your feelings before your thoughts reach them, and this- this is a lot for you to take in right now, Eds.”

“You don’t believe I’m ready for this?” For us?

“I know you’re ready,” he promised Eddie, his voice soft and sure as he spoke. “We’re doing this, there’s no question about it. And I swear I’m not one of those people who thinks you have to be completely healed and self-actualized to be in a relationship. I don’t ever need you to be perfect for me. You’re perfect the way you are.”

Eddie was finding it incredibly difficult not to kiss him. “So what are you worried about now?”

“What I’m worried about is the fact that you always put everyone else before yourself,” Buck used his book to prod Eddie in the chest. “And now that I’ve seen what it looks like when you finally prioritize yourself- I guess I just wonder if you’d want more time to see where that takes you. You know?”

Eddie knew. 

But all he could see in his mind’s eye was a note on his nightstand and Chris curled into his side on the bed where he thought Shannon would be when he woke up that morning. Five words that changed everything.

I need some time too.

This felt different to him now, though. Buck was the one offering him that space- not distance, not a chasm he couldn’t cross to bring Eddie back to them, but enough breathing room between Eddie and his own mind burdened with over thirty years of unresolved conflict and pain. Nightmares that he really expected to stop. 

It was tempting. He couldn’t lie about that. For so many years of his life he’d felt like a hare in the desert, a rabbit in a snowstorm, unable to spot himself among the expectations of his surroundings and the people in his life. It never felt like that with Buck, though. This wouldn’t be that. But he couldn’t just keep running headlong into things without being certain of his own footing because wherever Eddie went in life, Buck would always follow him, and if he fell then he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring Buck down with him too.

Eddie was so deep in his feelings that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. But it wasn’t just that. Buck had talked to him about this before, pointing out that for as long as Eddie had been fighting to be the perfect father, the perfect partner, perfect firefighter, he’d so rarely prioritized himself and his own needs. It was like Eddie never considered himself worthy of rest, always pushing himself from one thing to the next, testing any limits like they were just another thing to prove. 

“I’ll think about it,” he said, even though he already had his answer. 

“Okay,” Buck smiled softly and gave his hand a small squeeze, leaning against him on the couch. “I love you, you know.”

Eddie did know. If Ravi wasn’t standing ten paces behind them, he would have turned his head to kiss Buck senseless right there and then. 

This was going to be a long shift.

———

“Hey, Cap?” Eddie knocked on the open door of Bobby’s office a few days later. Their shift was practically over and Buck was eager to drag him to this brunch place in Malibu he’d been wanting to go to since forever, but there was still some unfinished business he needed to take care of before heading out. “I need to request some time off.” 

Bobby’s fingers paused on the keyboard as he looked up from the report he was finalizing for the B shift captain, sending a slightly confused look Eddie’s way. “That’s fine, Eddie. You know I leave the written request forms on the file cabinet outside my office.”

Eddie did know that. In fact, those forms were in a tray less than two feet behind him, placed there so anybody could access and submit them when needed. He could do all of this without a conversation, except- 

Well, there were some things he wanted Bobby to know. 

“Unless there’s something more you want to tell me about,” Bobby tilted his head, picking up on Eddie’s hesitation. He pushed his keyboard aside and gestured for him to take a seat in front of his desk, so Eddie closed the door behind him and did just that. 

“Yeah, uh, there is,” Eddie’s throat felt way too dry and he couldn’t believe he was actually doing this, but he was sitting there in front of Bobby now and there was no going back from it. Not now. “It’s just- I just don’t how much time I’m going to need.”

A concerned shadow spread across Bobby’s face and he clasped his hands together on top of the desk, looking him in the eyes. “Eddie, is there something going on that I need to know about?”

Oh, you have no idea, he thought a little hysterically. It was nothing short of a miracle that he’d avoided bringing any of this to the firehouse now, but things were getting more real by the second. This wasn’t just in the kitchen of his house, Frank’s office, Karen and Hen’s dining table- this was his life now. This was all of it.

“Come on, Bobby, we both know what happened,” Eddie deflected nervously, managing a small self deprecating smile. “Buck almost got himself killed trying to save me.”

“I know,” Bobby admitted, but he didn’t seem wholly convinced that this was the extent of it. “But the car accident was over a month ago now. I have to wonder if something has changed since then- something that maybe you’ve been hesitant to share about what things have been like for you after all that.”

For all Bobby’s soft warmth and paternal reassurance, Eddie sometimes forgot how sharp he could be. How those hazel eyes sometimes looked like flint, adamant and wise. Almost nothing escaped him for long, which was probably why Bobby had such a hard time dealing with the things that sometimes did. 

“You told me once that there are certain things I don’t have trouble committing to,” Eddie found himself saying, trying not to make life any harder on them as he treaded closer to the point.

Bobby nodded, following along. “I did.”

“Of everything you listed, though, you didn’t say Buck.”

“I wanted you to reach that conclusion on your own,” he confessed, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly like he was holding back a smile but they hadn’t quite gotten the message. “It didn’t seem like it was my place to say that, and I was concerned I might end up influencing your thinking somehow.”

Eddie supposed that made sense. He briefly closed his eyes and sighed, mentally preparing himself for what he came here to say. It was just taking a lot longer than he thought to be able to. 

“Bobby, I’m gay.” 

To his credit, Bobby didn’t even blink. “This relates to you needing time off?”

“You don’t have anything else to say to that?” Eddie stared, outwardly gaping at his captain at this point. He kind of thought this whole coming out thing would involve at least a little more fanfare than that. Some kind of reaction, at least. Even just a blink. 

Bobby gave him a vaguely amused smile, eyes crinkling even further. “Well, I hoped you would know by now that you being gay has no impact on our relationship aside from the great deal of respect and gratitude I have that you were comfortable enough to entrust sharing that part of yourself with me.” 

Okay, he was definitely going to tear up about that one later. 

“Thanks, Bobby,” Eddie cleared his throat, his eyes burning a little. “I really appreciate that.”

“No, thank you, Eddie. I really appreciate you coming to me about this,” he said, sounding so incredibly earnest and- proud. Bobby was proud of him. “So, you said you need time off.”

Right. Back to the point. 

Eddie coughed, rubbing at his eyes in a way that he hoped wasn’t totally obvious he was trying to keep from crying in front of his captain. 

“This is a really new realization for me and it’s…it’s changing a lot of things. Well, kind of,” he admitted, spreading his hands a little awkwardly. “A lot of things are the same, actually, which is great, but there’s some big things that might look a little different going forward. Especially with- with Buck.”

“I see,” was all Bobby said, accentuated with a slight quirk of his eyebrow. 

“You’re not surprised,” Eddie noted, not that he was at all shocked by that lack of reaction either. 

“Eddie, I’ve had the HR paperwork filled out for years,” Bobby snorted, reaching down to open the file drawer of his desk. After a couple seconds of rifling through papers, he produced an unlabeled manila folder whose tab had been dog-eared in the corner so it would still stand out from the rest. “Every time they update the form, even by a few words, I print out a new copy and do it all over again.”

“That’s- wow, okay,” he stammered, moving his mouth wordlessly as he took the folder and looked over the document inside. Sure enough, his and Buck’s names and now shared address were in all the right blanks, with Bobby’s flourish at the bottom. All that was missing were Buck and Eddie’s signatures, as well as some various notations and approvals from HR. “Lauren’s back from knee surgery, then?”

“She’s back tomorrow,” Bobby smiled, outright beaming now. “You and Buck both need to sign the papers, though. If he’s still here I can probably get everything approved in time for your next shift.” 

“Maybe not just yet, Cap,” Eddie swallowed, pushing the form back toward him with a nervous twist of his mouth. “Uh- we uh-”

Now, Bobby seemed surprised, unsure of what to make of Eddie’s stumbling. “Buck doesn’t know?”

“He knows. Well- he knows enough,” Eddie assured him, suddenly feeling a little strange discussing their personal details with the man who was essentially Buck’s surrogate father. “He knows how I feel about him and we’re working toward a relationship, but he had some understandable concerns given my recent track record with the people I’ve been with.” He gave a dry laugh at that, looking up at Bobby with a sheepish smile. “You may have noticed I have a habit of setting land-speed records for moving too fast too soon.” 

Bobby was comfortable enough to chuckle a bit as well, leaning back in his chair. “To be fair, though, I think you and Buck have been a long time coming.”

“That’s how I feel too. But I- I really respect that he wants to be careful about things, especially considering everything we have at risk. Our friends, this job-”

“-Christopher,” Bobby finished and Eddie nodded, thankful he understood as well as he did. 

“Buck and I talked about this the other day and we agreed that if we did this, I needed to be sure first. Neither of us want to risk it. And I am. I’m sure. But I also know I’m…going through a lot right now,” he gave another sigh, the admission taking more out of him than he liked. “Therapy is going fine, but ever since last week I think we’ve kind of hit a standstill and that’s…well, that’s on me. I know something has to give, though, otherwise there’s no moving forward.”

That session with Frank hadn’t been fun. None of them were fun, most of them left him feeling wrung out and worn down like an old dish rag, but the last one had just been…empty. He shared a little about what he talked to Karen about and they’d gotten some good insights out of that, but Eddie had run out of things he was willing to share pretty quickly. He had another nightmare about Mills dying, except this time she had been fatally shot in the desert and only survived long enough for him to try and fail to save her. In that dream, he’d been the one to present the flag to her sister at the funeral. Someone in the crowd had shot him in the shoulder and Eddie fell into the open grave. He was still falling when woke with a shout loud enough to accidentally wake up Buck as well. 

Eddie didn’t tell Frank about that. It was starting to get boring having to tell him every time Mills died in his head. Besides, if he was still having the nightmares, it clearly wasn’t helping. 

So yeah, they were a little stuck now. But ever since the nightmare, he’d lapsed a little into what Frank had once called a ‘low-grade depression’ the first time it happened. Buck had noticed too. Hence the suggestion that maybe it was high time Eddie took a break for himself. 

This time, he wouldn’t run into a war zone about it. 

“I just need some time away to take care of myself,” Eddie finished with a shrug, not to dismiss it, just because he didn’t know what else to do or say now. 

Bobby was quiet for a few moments, thinking things over. 

“Well, how about this,” Bobby started to suggest, producing a copy of their work calendar and crossing out the days as he went. “After today you’ve got one more 24, then your four-day. Why don’t you take tomorrow and the next shift after that off. Including the 24 after that shift, that’ll buy you a week. And don’t worry about those two days off because I’m donating some of my PTO to you.”

“Bobby, no-” Eddie protested, staring at those crossed out days. He couldn’t just take Bobby’s time off like that, he had enough sick time to spare over something like this, even after he used some up to take care of Buck after the accident. 

But Bobby didn’t seem to be having any part of it, reaching an eyebrow as if daring Eddie to challenge him further. “I hope you’re not about to correct my math, otherwise I might get concerned about Christopher’s grades in that area if you’re the one helping with his homework.”

“Please, Buck’s the one he goes to for math help, he’s learned his lesson,” Eddie chuckled wryly, still looking down at the schedule in disbelief. A week. A whole week. “I just didn’t expect you to approve the time for this week. With Chimney going on his honeymoon tomorrow-”

“Oh, you mean five days off watching reruns of The Bachelor and Selling Sunset on the couch because he and Maddie are both convinced honeymoons that involve actual travel are cursed for us after mine sank like the Titanic?” Bobby shook his head, folding his arms across his chest with a smile. “He’s going to be across town, not across the ocean. Besides, I’ve got both Ravi and Simmons from C shift pulling doubles, Hansen is covering for Chim, and I’m sure Quintana could use the overtime after Rosen cleaned him out at poker last week. We’ll make it work.” 

Eddie felt his heart seize with gratitude and he sat their wordlessly as Bobby typed the request into his computer, putting it into the system right there and then. 

“This is a huge step for you, Eddie,” Bobby told him when he got up to leave, his voice heavy with respect and empathy. “Sometimes the things people are going through require solitude. You deserve time for yourself, and now you’ve got it.” 

———

“I thought we said we weren’t going on any kind of vacation until August?” Buck looked up from the book he was reading in their bed as Eddie carefully lowered his small suitcase from the top shelf of the closet. “You know Chris’ school doesn’t let out for another week and a half.” 

“Chris isn’t going anywhere right now,” Eddie shook his head, ripping off the ELP to LAX baggage claim tag that was still stuck on the handle from the last time he came back from Texas. “It’s- it’s just me. Taking some time for myself.”

Buck sat up straight, carefully setting the book aside. “You’re really going to do it?”

“Mhm,” Eddie hummed, practically melting under the sheer amount of pride in Buck’s face as he gazed at him. Definitely melting when Buck got to his feet and wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist, drawing him in for a slow, syrupy sweet kiss. 

“I’ll help you plan.”

———

Christopher took it well. 

Evidently eighth grade teachers had progressed a lot since Eddie was in school and now taught their students what things like ‘mental health days’ meant, so all-in-all it felt pretty good to not just be understood, but to get his son’s blessing as well. 

Buck had been a godsend when it came to helping Eddie plan things out. He decided to get a rental car since he had good insurance and it would be better for him not to worry about putting all the excess miles and strain on his truck since he planned to do a fair amount of driving over the next week. 

It also assured him that he couldn’t just abscond with the damn thing- he’d need Buck or someone to pick him back up from whichever rental location he returned it to. Not that it was a concern. But wilder things had happened. He did run away to Afghanistan before, after all. 

A day of planning, packing, and talking things over left him with six days to himself before he needed to either go back to work or dip into more sick time. Six days seemed like enough from where he stood, so the plan was to just start off with that and see where things went from there. 

Buck and Chris went with him to pick up a car from one of the rental places near the airport. Surprisingly, the second cheapest vehicle class had landed him with a nice Nissan Rogue and not a compact or smaller sedan. They wished Eddie safe travels and he promised to call them every night, but they all knew it was going to be a lot more often than that. 

Eddie’s first stop was in Santa Barbara. Even without the morning traffic and construction it would still be over a two hour drive, but it ended up taking closer to three hours before he even crossed the city limits. He found a place to grab lunch and walked to the nearby grocery store to buy a bouquet of lilies. 

Half an hour later, he was placing them underneath the inscription:

Anita Grace Mills

November 2, 1993 - August 14, 2021

The three year anniversary was in a little over two months. Maybe then, the small, sun-bleached American flag that was planted in the ground would be replaced with a new one. It looked like it had been a couple of months since anybody had left something there. He could see dried out husks of flowers in the vase at the base of the gravestone and a colorful pulpy residue that looked like it must have once been a hand drawn card or some kind of little painting. Mills didn’t have any kids so it might have been something from one of her wife’s students. 

“Hey there, Mills,” Eddie croaked out, taking a seat on the small memorial bench beneath a tree opposite her grave. “Sorry I never came up here before now. I hope you understand.”

The branches of the willow tree danced in the wind and he sniffled, clasping his hands and leaning forward on the bench.

“There’s, uh- there’s some things I guess I want to say to you.”

Eddie talked. He talked to her about her sister, Breezy, and how she became a pilot. He talked about how Sarah still posted on Facebook sometimes and seemed to be doing well, but that he hadn’t spoken to her since the night he found out Mills died. He told her about his nightmares and apologized for not saving her, even though it was becoming a lot easier to stop blaming himself about it now. 

He told her about Buck. Eddie thought she would have liked him a lot. 

It was a nice, quiet cemetery and only a few other people showed up over the course of the next hour to visit other graves, so he stayed and sat there and even let himself cry, thinking about the songs she liked to sing to try to cheer the medic team up after some of their worse days when the homesickness got to be too much. He hummed one of them to himself as he cleared up a handful of broken branches around hers and some of the surrounding headstones, unable to remember the words. 

Eddie spent the remainder of that day in downtown Santa Barbara. He walked the streets she must have walked and it felt less like he was chasing a ghost and more like he was leaving one behind. Like she’d been latched onto his back all these years and finally let go at the same time he did. 

From there on, he went further upstate, spending the next couple days between Yosemite and the southern border of Oregon because he’d never been that far north of anywhere in his life. He saw fields of wildflowers and skipped the main area of the Redwood National Park in favor of the smaller state park outside of Crescent City to avoid the tourists, listening to the recording Buck sent him talking about various redwood and conifer facts because they knew he would be on shift that day and likely wouldn’t be able to stay on the phone for long. 

I love this man, Eddie thought to himself with a smile, watching the sun filter through the giant trees as Buck’s voice and the forest air danced together inside the car. 

Buck and Chris FaceTimed him to say goodnight at the end of every day, sometimes together if Buck wasn’t working, or sometimes a group call if he was at the station and Chris was staying the night at Maddie’s per their usual arrangement. They demanded all the details of his day, asking what he ate for lunch, the coolest birds he saw, why it looked like he stopped shaving, and what his favorite part was.

This is, mijo, he would tell Chris each time with a smile, grinning when he accused him of being a sap. This is my favorite part of the day. 

He’d press a kiss to tips of his fingers and tap it over Chris’ face on the screen, getting a, “Da-ad!” out of him every time, followed by a brilliant smile that told Eddie he was secretly happy, just too much of a teenager to admit it anymore. 

They’d talked about this before he left and Eddie did it each night he was away, propping up his phone on the nightstand of whatever hotel he was in with the screen facing him. Buck did the same in their room back home, or sometimes in the bunk room at the station, so they could still fall asleep beside each other even while hundreds of miles away. 

“I love you, Buck,” Eddie said at the end of each day, his heart light and so full all at once. 

“I love you too, Eddie,” Buck would smile back each time.

———

“Buck?” Chris’ voice whispered from the phone one night as Eddie lay in the bed of some AirBnb in Carmel-by-the-Sea, eyes closed because sometimes if he pretended he could imagine he was in the room with them and not anywhere else. But if Chris was whispering, they must have thought he was actually asleep. “When’s dad coming home?”

“Soon, buddy,” Buck’s voice was equally as soft, but a bit quieter- so much so that Eddie almost missed the last part. “We’re gonna go bring him home.”

———

Carmel-by-the-Sea was both a good and bad place to be in early June. 

The bright side was that Eddie was just missing the start of the peak season later in the month. The weather was still quite cold there, as it usually was throughout the year, so it didn’t have a major draw for the kinds of tourists who generally flocked in to California for warm sunshine and beach tans. The downside was that it was a Friday so things were probably going to get a little busier with people driving in for short weekend trips and also, yeah, it was pretty cold. 

He trudged out of the bed with great reluctance in the morning, his feet stinging on the cold tiles as he hopped over to adjust the thermostat on the wall. According to the small screen it was barely scraping fifty degrees outside, and only a bit over sixty indoors. 

No wonder he was cold. Eddie wasn’t even sure what he was doing in Carmel anyway. Most of the places he’d gone on the trip were his own idea, and when he ran out of days to fill he relied on Buck to provide him with a list of suggestions that he eventually picked through- all of which had been good. Carmel-by-the-Sea, however, had been kind of a heavier suggestion. Buck even insisted on splitting the cost of renting a nicer place to round off the end of the trip, that way Eddie could have a better home-base to return to instead of just flitting nomadically between hotels the whole time. 

He wasn’t really complaining, though. It was genuinely a nice place to stay, full of comfortable furniture and colorful artisanal accents. The one detail he kept coming back to ever since he arrived the night before, though, was the piece of stained class art that hung in the window facing the driveway.

It was of a California poppy. 

Maybe he was where he was meant to be after all.

So, with today and tomorrow left of his trip, and the third remaining day set aside to drive back home, Eddie found himself in the small house that Buck helped him reserve. It was a nice place in a quiet area, close enough to things he needed, but it was a little big for just one person. There was a second bedroom with a half bath, a full kitchen, and it just felt odd having this place to himself for nearly three days. He didn’t even know what he was going to do with that time, which Buck insisted was kind of the point of relaxing. Maybe he could walk around town, sit by the ocean, or make the drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium- but it just didn’t feel like the kind of thing he wanted to do by himself. So he went into town to get breakfast, went on a run, and took a nap when he got back, impatient for the day to be over with.

He really wished Buck and Chris were there with him. 

Just as he was lying on the couch after his nap and browsing on his phone for a good place nearby to get a late lunch, though, his phone started buzzing and the screen lit up with Buck’s contact photo. 

Perfect timing.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie smiled even though Buck couldn’t see him when he answered the phone. “How are you?”

“Tired,” Buck said honestly, and there was the sound of a car door shutting, followed by the jangling of keys. Someone said something in the background that Eddie couldn’t make out, but it kind of sounded like Chris. “Hey, Eddie, you didn’t change the plan and go to a hotel, did you?”

“No,” Eddie frowned, wondering why that was suddenly a concern. 

“Good, ‘cause- uh- this could’ve been kinda weird-”

Just then, there were three sharp knocks against the front door that sounded a lot like six because as he heard them with his own ears, they seemed to echo through the phone. Like they were happening on the other end at the same time, the call just lagging a bit.

No fucking way. 

Eddie dropped his phone on the couch and sprinting to the door, throwing it open and finding himself face to face with both the love of his life and their son, the two of them standing there with packed bags and identical grins. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck said again, this time to his face with a broad smile that Eddie could see with his own eyes, not just on the other side of the screen. “Surprise?”

“What- Buck, how-?” Eddie breathed, sinking forward into his arms without a second thought and relishing in the way his ribs vibrated with the force of Buck’s surprise laugh as he was forced to drop one of his bags to hug him back. He clawed his fingers into the back of Buck’s hoodie and inhaled the familiar herbal smell of his shampoo, the scent of the laundry detergent at his house, and the too-sweet flavor of an energy drink on his breath. 

He let go of Buck to sweep his son up into a hug that was a lot easier when he was seven and half this size, but Chris was happy to be held, throwing his arms around his dad’s neck and not even complaining when he got a loud kiss on his forehead once he was set back down. 

“Well, I’d planned for us to just do the weekend together,” Buck explained, watching fondly as Eddie couldn’t resist pulling Chris into another hug, just holding him close against his chest and smoothing his hands across his head of curls to reassure himself that he was here and this was real. “But we had some good news come up, didn’t we, Chris?”

“Ms. Mackey had her baby!” Chris crowed happily, squirming out of Eddie’s grasp to head past him into the house to explore. 

“She went into labor in the middle of their morning assembly,” Buck explained a little more, picking up Chris’ abandoned bags and letting Eddie take his as they headed inside to finish this conversation out of the chilly air. “They let kids go home after that.”

“Class dismissed, huh?” Eddie chuckled, catching up to Chris and ruffling his son’s hair affectionately before the kid ran off to claim the second bedroom as his own. Then he looked at Buck, taking in the fact that he had just driven over three hundred miles from Los Angeles just to surprise him like this. He wasn’t sure what he had ever done to deserve this man. “You really planned to do this?”

“Why do you think I picked a place with shower rails and two beds?” Buck tossed his bag onto the couch and folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head like it should have been obvious. But his teasing didn’t last long because he just started staring at Eddie, eventually drifting forward, closer into his space like he was being pulled there by gravity. “Eddie, you have a beard.”

Eddie shrugged. He kind of did, but that was what happened when someone who grew facial hair as fast as him went almost five days without shaving. It wasn’t quite a full beard but sure as hell longer than any of the five o’clock shadow he got away with having on shift while still staying within regulations. 

What he didn’t understand, though, was Buck’s awestruck reaction. 

“We did video calls every day, Buck,” Eddie told him, flushing a little under the attention. “You knew I had a beard.”

“I know, but you have a beard,” Buck insisted on telling him again, reaching his hands up so his fingertips could dance along Eddie’s jawline, his eyes falling straight down to Eddie’s lips.

“I sent you pictures,” Eddie reminded with a laugh, but that laugh was soon smothered by a kiss that tasted like an energy drink and felt like coming home. 

———

In their hurry to head over in the morning, it turned out that Buck and Chris didn’t pack warm enough so they found themselves picking out new hoodies in a boutique gift shop a couple hours later.

The place was small and didn’t have a changing room so Chris had to wriggle in and out of three different sweaters that just didn’t fit his shoulders following his latest growth spurt while one of the women who worked there kindly held a mirror for him to look things over. 

Chris finally found a fourth one that seemed to suit him much better. It was a handsome navy blue with dark green lettering and even though it bunched up a little at his wrists Eddie was sure he would grow into it soon enough. 

“It doesn’t look weird?” Christopher asked doubtfully, screwing his face up as he turned away from the mirror, looking down at the sleeves. 

“Well, hon, why don’t we see what your dads think!” The woman suggested cheerily, turning to address Buck and Eddie together. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie could see Buck watching him expectantly, looking a little nervous all of a sudden. 

“His dads love it,” Eddie answered without hesitation, something old and painful finally loosening in his chest and giving way to a beautiful sensation that was more akin to joy. 

Buck’s eyes looked teary and he just nodded his assent, wordlessly helping Chris roll up the sleeves while Eddie followed the woman to the register to pay for Buck and Chris’ sweaters. 

They went to a coffee shop and got blueberry muffins to eat on the beach, no longer deterred by the chilly breeze now that they had sweaters and hot beverages to warm their hands. Chris had gotten a hot chocolate, Buck decided on a latte, and Eddie got his coffee with oat milk and brown sugar. Buck had smiled at that. 

After looking for shells and kicking sand around for an hour, the three eventually made their way back to the town and spent some time walking around the various shops and whimsical little streets, taking breaks when Christopher needed them or if they found somewhere worth looking around in. 

Chris was enamored by the novelty of it all and Buck only seemed to be half paying attention to the surroundings, content to hold Eddie’s hand and just stare at him as he told Buck all the things he hadn’t said on the phone or through text. It didn’t amount to much, but the point was that Eddie was doing much better. Trips like this didn’t magically cure depression, but he had a degree of freedom and solace that he hadn’t experienced in a long damn time. Maybe ever. 

Eddie grieved Mills, his old team, and he let them go. He reconciled his love for Shannon with the man he'd been then and who he was now. Who he loved now. As he drove through forests of trees older than any ancestor he could name, he thought about the heavy specters of his childhood and how even all the bad parts of it had somehow led him to where he was today. He thought about a lot of things he was too scared to think about, had called Adriana and Sophia to tell them about Buck, and came close to forgiving himself for some of his worse mistakes as of late. 

He was starting to heal, and while he knew how much effort that took on his own part, it wouldn’t have been possible without Buck. It wouldn’t have been possible without the love and trust and strength they shared between them. 

The sun was growing lower in the sky by the next time they took a break, sitting on the outdoor chairs of some cafe while Chris was in the store next door buying snacks. 

Eddie held Buck’s hand across the table as they worked through their second cups of coffee, the taste of brown sugar light on his tongue. There were so many distractions in this place, so many different things to look at, but as they sat there his eyes would only ever see out the man before him. 

Buck’s hair had taken on a much more golden tone from all his time spent outdoors lately and his curls lay free across his forehead, beautiful and perfect. His birthmark was the same pink hue as his lips and Eddie thought about how he knew how it felt to kiss both places. 

He thought about how lucky he was to love this man who was beautiful inside and out, and how fortunate it was to be loved by him in return. 

I love you. 

“Marry me,” Eddie said instead, those two words filling all the space between them and igniting a spark deep in his chest. 

“What?” Buck stared back at him and searched his face for some sign that he was messing around, but Eddie knew that all he found was genuine sincerity, because that was all he had. “Eddie-”

“You said you needed me to be sure about things. And I am,” Eddie insisted, squeezing his hands reassuringly. “I love you. You’re it for me. I also think you’ve spent too many years raising our son with me and I don’t want to spend another one where you’re not legally his father. I’m not replacing Shannon because she can’t be replaced. And neither can you. So I’m asking you to marry me.”

Buck was speechless, gripping Eddie’s hand so tight it was cutting off his circulation, but he could care less about that right now. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t even been in a relationship until a couple of weeks ago, that it hadn’t been that long since they were confessing their love in the kitchen with the dishes half put away and their garden growing in the yard. The flowers were already in bloom and soon the vegetables would be ready to pick. Eddie’s home had become Buck’s home. They were going to live the rest of their lives together no matter what, so it was time to make it official. 

“This is me jumping in feet first and knowing where I’m landing,” Eddie breathed, infusing all the love and devotion he had for him into his words. Christopher had appeared over Buck’s shoulder in that moment and was stepping closer slowly, realization dawning on his face as he listened and understood what was happening. “No broken ankles. Just us, Christopher, and our future together.”

Buck swallowed roughly, glancing between Eddie and Chris, then back to Eddie, his eyes full of love, hope, and the rest of Eddie’s life. 

“Ask me,” Buck said breathlessly, blinking back tears. “Eddie-”

“Buck, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” he gasped, and before he could even get up to try and kiss Eddie, Chris was throwing his arms around him in a hug, shoulders shaking a little as he laughed with joy.

“You should get married today,” Christopher insisted as soon as he let go, plopping down in the chair between the two of them and rummaging through the bag of jelly beans he’d bought. “This seems like a nice place to do it.”

“It’s not that simple, Chris,” Buck explained as he thumbed away his tears with his free hand even though every fiber of Eddie’s being was screaming yes, yes, let’s do it today. “We’d have to find somewhere that’s still open and has the paperwork, get an officiant, file everything-”

“It doesn’t have to be an official wedding,” Chris interrupted, refusing to be deterred. He offered some of his jelly beans to Buck who picked through a few of the blue ones for himself. “One of those gift shops back there sold rings. You two can exchange rings and I’ll be your pretend ofish- whatever person. You can get married today, here, by me, and then do the real paperwork and stuff back home whenever you want.” 

Eddie’s head was fizzing like a live wire, his heart singing and the universe screaming. All it took was one look at Buck and those three words came tumbling from his lips.

“Let’s do it.”

———

Buck and Eddie got married by Christopher beneath the shade of a pine tree on the beach, exchanging a pair of wedding bands they bought at an actual jewelry store nearby because apparently Carmel-by-the-Sea saw a lot of elopements meaning wedding materials weren’t in short supply. Eddie promised Buck that they could redo it all when they got back to Los Angeles if he wanted, get engagement rings and new wedding bands for whatever kind of ceremony they ended up doing, but he had a feeling that Buck was going to insist on just keeping these ones. And he did.

That sounded perfect to him.

No ceremony would ever top the one they had, standing there with the sand, the sea, and Christopher at their side.

Chris was the best officiant Eddie could ask for. He was also the funniest. The only wedding Christopher had ever been to aside from Hen and Karen’s vow renewal was Chimney and Maddie’s at the hospital, so his lines were a mix of whatever he could remember from Bobby’s speech and bits and pieces of things from telenovelas which made for a very interesting and memorable experience altogether. The language got a little dramatic at times and the pacing was very off, so at one point Chris started to get impatient when he forgot the order of things and just told Buck and Eddie to exchange vows and take over for him. 

After successfully making each other cry to the point that Chris threatened to leave them if they didn’t get it together since it was growing colder outside, they composed themselves enough for Chris to finally look between them and say, “I now pronounce you husband and husband.” Then, with a sigh and a hand smacking over his glasses to cover his eyes, “Buck, you may now kiss my dad.”

And Buck definitely did.

———

Eddie woke up that first morning of newly married life to Buck trying to sneak back inside the house without waking him up, but he failed miserably when Eddie stumbled out of bed and into the living room just in time to see him gingerly turning the lock on the door again.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Buck groaned at him over the top of the paper takeout bags he was balancing in his arms. Eddie could see the gold glint of the wedding band on his hand and all thoughts seem to disappear as he stared at it. “Come on, I know I’m a catch but stop staring and help me with these.”

Chris was roused by the noise and smell of food, finding them in the kitchen as they unpacked the takeout bags and spread out the containers of pancakes, fruit, French toast, bottles of orange juice, and a various assortment of random breakfast items.

“You snuck out to surprise us with pancakes?” Eddie didn’t know whether to smile, laugh, or kiss him. Maybe all three. At the same time. 

“Well, if we only get one day for our honeymoon I figured I’d make it count,” Buck grinned, sitting down to eat while Eddie slowly followed suit, overcome by the swell of emotions in his throat.

Eddie never had a honeymoon with Shannon. They were broke teenagers with a baby on the way and only one fully functioning car between the two of them. It just wasn’t possible, and even after he started getting money from the military, there was the house and medical bills to pay for and-

Eddie had just never been on a honeymoon. 

It seemed he and Buck were in for a lot of firsts in this relationship

He couldn’t wait to do them all.

They ate breakfast and decided to cut their time in Carmel a day short to spend the rest of Eddie and Buck’s time off back at home. Once they packed and had lunch at the same place Eddie went the day before, they returned the rental car to the nearest branch location. Buck drove them home in the Jeep, first making a detour at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to spend the day like any other outing together as a family, except this time they had rings on their fingers and were technically on their honeymoon. Even if they didn’t get new rings and just had a civil wedding instead of another ceremony, maybe they could manage enough time for a second honeymoon. That definitely didn’t sound too bad to Eddie. 

“You two eloped?” Maddie shouted over the phone when they called her after they stopped for gas in Calabasas. She’d been wise to the plan Buck and Chris had to surprise Eddie, but she certainly hadn’t expected this turn of events. 

“In our defense, it’s not legally binding,” Eddie pointed out, holding the phone further from his ear as she bombarded them with a million and a half questions on what exactly happened.

“Yet!” Buck interjected fiercely, making sure she knew there was no mistake about that. “We’re doing it as soon as the courthouse opens tomorrow.”

They definitely hadn’t discussed that yet but Eddie was silently thrilled by the prospect of getting to marry Buck twice in one week, making a note to place the appointment online once they hit the road again. 

“I don’t think that makes it sound any better,” Maddie laughed, but she sounded genuinely happy to hear how excited her brother was about it. “You two better drive safe so I can kick your asses when you get back.”

That night they cooked dinner with the vegetables Chris grew in the garden and picked some of Buck’s yellow flowers to put in a vase in the kitchen. Christopher made them both cry again when he asked if them getting married meant Buck would formally adopt him- and yes, yes of course it did. 

Their luggage was left half unpacked in the living room and the kitchen was half a disaster, but Eddie didn’t mind, holding Buck close beneath the covers as he lay awake listening to him breathe and familiarizing himself with the feel of the wedding bands on their fingers. 

It was their mess and they’d get to it in the morning.

They had all the time in the world