Chapter Text
Eddie
He doesn’t remember blinking. No, he hasn’t blinked, but the world around him has changed before his very eyes. The sun has set. It’s completely dark out. The living room is cloaked in darkness, shadows stretching long against the walls. The only sign of life is the soft glow spilling from beneath the door to his bedroom. A single, warm beacon in the unfamiliar hush of his home.
Christopher had been standing in front of him—just a moment ago. Eddie had been on knees, saying goodbye, watching his son’s face waver between a mask of defiance and heartbreak. He had felt the weight of it settle in his chest, the weight of his departure. He remembers the way his hands curled into the fabric of Christopher’s shirt.
And then—nothing.
Not darkness, not unconsciousness. Just a terrible, indescribable sensation. He had been everywhere and nowhere at once. Like his body had been unravelled, thread by thread, and then hastily stitched back together. He doesn’t remember pain, but he remembers the wrongness of it, the way it had overwhelmed every one of his senses, like he had been slipping through the cracks of reality itself.
Now, the world around him is wrong. Different. The air feels thick with something he cannot name. The furniture has moved, the living room subtly unfamiliar in its layout. There are some boxes on the table—presents from the looks of them—some half-unwrapped, their discarded ribbons and torn paper scattered across the floor, unfinished.
A slow, gnawing dread pools in the pit of his stomach.
“Christopher!” he yells out, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. His limbs don’t feel sluggish or disconnected, responding without hesitation, without stiffness, but something about his own movement feels eerie—like no time has passed for him at all. The silence that follows his call is deafening.
Then—
A rustling sound behind him. A flicker of movement in the dim light. He turns, heart hammering, and sees his father.
Ramon stands there, his expression mirroring Eddie’s own bewilderment. His brow is furrowed, his mouth slightly open like he’s searching for words that won’t come.
“Eddie?” Ramon questions, confused and laced with a tinge of disorientation. “What’s going on? Where’s your mother? Christopher?”
Eddie swallows hard, his mind a whirlwind. He doesn’t answer—he can’t. Instead, his hands instinctively pat his pockets, searching for his phone, but it’s not there. It must still be in his room. He needs to find Christopher. He needs to find Buck.
The light from his bedroom spills into the hallway, a sliver of warmth against the cold shock gripping his spine. It’s the only thing that feels real right now. He follows it, pushing the door open with a shaky breath.
And there they are.
Buck and Christopher, curled together on the floor, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Eddie’s breath catches in his throat. For a moment, all he can do is stare.
Christopher is taller. His curls are slightly longer, his features more defined. He looks—older. Not just in the way he’s grown, but in the way his body sleeps, tucked against Buck’s chest like a child too big for the embrace but unwilling to let go.
Buck—
Buck looks wrecked.
Eddie barely recognises him. His frame is leaner, almost gaunt, his sharp cheekbones casting stark shadows across his face. His hair is slightly longer, unruly, curly and wild, and there’s a weariness in the set of his features, even in rest. His arms are wrapped protectively like a cocoon around Christopher, like he’s afraid to let go. And those clothes—he’s wearing Eddie’s clothes too.
The sight of them, nestled together like this, knocks the breath from Eddie’s lungs. It should be a picture that makes pride and love swell within his heart. And it still does, but there’s a distinct bittersweetness cloying at the edges of his heart.
Eddie swallows past the lump in his throat, and steps towards them, his movements careful. His heart beats frantically in his chest, pulse erratic in his veins, his hands tremble beside him. He kneels, reaching out with a hesitant hand, his fingers barely brushing against Buck’s shoulder.
A gentle nudge.
“Buck.”
Buck
A voice drifts through the haze of sleep, but Buck doesn’t stir. Christopher is warm against him, curled in his arms like he belongs there. They had fallen asleep like this, after their tearful apologies. Buck sinks back into the quiet embrace of rest. Too tired from crying to move, comfortable enough to ignore the fact that he’ll wake up later with fresh aches in his back and neck.
Then, a sound—the door creaking open, soft footsteps padding against the floor. A presence looms close, and he registers the faintest touch against his shoulder.
“Buck.”
He hears the too familiar voice.
Buck’s brows twitch, his body instinctively bracing for the inevitable. His mind supplies the answer before his eyes even open. Another dream. Another cruel hallucination spun out from his grief and yearning.
He exhales, sleep-dazed and wrecked. “This is a new one.”
He reaches one hand out absently, fingers brushing against Eddie’s face.
Warmth. Real, solid warmth.
The warmth he feels there surprises him. He freezes, breath stuttering. His dreams have lacked any kind of warmth for the last three years. But right now, Eddie feels real. Eddie feels real and alive in front of him. But that’s not possible, right?
He surges forward, his palm wrapping around Eddie’s neck, pulling him close with a desperate, trembling grip.
“You’re here,” Buck breathes, voice raw and reverent. “Are you really here?”
The answer comes immediately, “I’m here. I’m right here.”
Something in Buck shatters. His eyes rake over Eddie’s face, searching for deception, for illusion, for the inevitable cruel twist, but he can’t find it. That would make this the cruellest nightmare but that doesn’t matter right now—because Eddie is here. Eddie is here—confused and shaken, but alive. His face flickers between longing, disbelief, and something deeper. Something Buck would dare not name.
And then Buck is moving before he can stop himself, his body leaning forward, his lips crashing against Eddie’s.
It’s everything. It’s breath and fire and oxygen and aching, desperate relief. It’s years of unsaid words, of buried longing, of missing pieces clicking into place at last. Eddie stiffens for a split second, then melts into it, his hands fisting Buck’s curls.
The first golden light of dawn filters through the blinds, spilling across their faces. They part, breathless. Foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, the world suspended in this moment.
Eddie
Buck inhales sharply, his body tensing a bit as his eyes flutter open.
Eddie watches him, as Buck’s breath catches in his throat, his body locking up. His blue eyes, raw and weary, widen, shimmering with disbelief. His lips part, slick with the evidence of their reunion, but no words come out. Just a strangled, broken sound that fractures the silence between them. It’s a noise that makes Eddie’s chest ache, feeling it sink into his ribs.
Buck jerks back, and his breaths unravel in uneven gasps. Both his hands lift, trembling, hovering uselessly in front of him like he’s trying to grasp onto reality but is too frightened to touch it. His whole body quivers with the force of his reaction, the colour draining from his face as the morning light spills across it, casting him in hues of pale gold and fragile disbelief.
Eddie doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe, waiting—watching—as recognition battles against uncertainty in Buck’s storm-blue gaze.
And then Buck speaks, his voice a wrecked and desperate whisper laced in disbelief, breaking through the air.
“Eddie?”
It’s barely more than a breath, but it carries the impossible weight of years. Of grief. Of longing.
Eddie opens his mouth to answer, to reassure him, to tell him again that he’s here—but before he can utter a word, Christopher stirs.
The small shift of movement beside Buck is subtle at first, a sleepy murmur, a tiny frown creasing Christopher’s brow as he shifts against Buck’s side. His eyes flutter open, blinking sluggishly, as he adjusts to the light filtering through the blinds. Eddie watches as his son’s face scrunches with confusion, his features tightening.
And then—his gaze lands on Eddie.
For a heartbeat, the world stops.
Christopher doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
The silence stretches, fragile and breathless.
And then—
“Dad?”
The word is so small, so tremulous, so disbelieving, that it cleaves Eddie open. It isn’t filled with the sharp-edged anger and disdain Christopher had help from him just moments ago. No. It’s the opposite. Something else entirely. It is raw. Aching, full of longing and love.
Christopher’s breath hitches, and in the next instant, he’s launching himself forward, scrambling out from where he lay nestled next to Buck, and into Eddie’s arms. The impact nearly knocks Eddie back, but he catches his son, wrapping him up in a crushing embrace.
Christopher is shaking, clinging to him with a desperation Eddie has never felt before.
His hands fist into Eddie’s shirt, twisting the fabric like an anchor, like he’s afraid Eddie will slip away if he lets go. His face burrows against Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie can feel the damp warmth of tears soaking into his shirt.
Eddie presses his lips against Christopher’s curls, inhaling deeply, grounding himself in the scent of his son. He squeezes his eyes shut as he holds him tighter, absorbing the small tremors in Christopher’s frame, feeling the steady, rushed drumbeat of his son’s heart against his own.
And as Christopher sobs into his chest, Buck still frozen in shock beside them, Eddie exhales a shaky breath.
Slowly, hesitantly, he reaches an arm out to Buck.
For a moment, Buck doesn’t move. His breath stutters, his fingers twitching at his sides. He’s frozen, caught between the urge to reach back and the fear of shattering if this isn’t real, if this is still a dream.
He moves.
With a broken exhale, Buck folds forward into Eddie’s embrace, his body fitting against them like he belongs there—because he does. His arms wrap around both of them, his grip tight, desperate, his fingers clutching onto Eddie’s shirt like holding onto a lifeline.
And Eddie holds them both.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like this—tangled together, wrapped in warmth and breath and the quiet, shuddering release of something has been held back for too long.
All he knows is that they are here. Together.
All he knows is that, for the first time in a long, long time—
“Everything is going to be okay.”