Chapter Text
It’s dark out when Buck rounds the corner to his place. The steering wheel creaks under his grip when he spots Eddie’s truck still parked in front of the house. He’s been gone, what, four, five hours? He didn’t think to check the time when he left, the loud static clouding his mind leaving only enough room for him to peel out of his driveway and drive.
Time doesn’t seem to move right lately, it slips through his fingers and it’s been a moment since he’s tried to stop it. It shouldn’t be the case for Eddie, though, who must have experienced those hours wholly. Maybe he left and came back at some point. Maybe he couldn’t bear the thick veil of gloom draped across every room of his house.
Does it really matter, anyway? What matters is that his truck is still parked, and Eddie is still in the house. Buck considers not stopping as he approaches his driveway, considers sleeping in his car somewhere in the heights of Los Angeles, like a sad throwback to his youth. Surely Eddie will be gone by the morning. He’ll give up eventually.
Buck pictures it, the pulled traits of him, tired and disappointed and worried, as he closes the door behind him to get back his own life, where he knows he’s needed, wanted. A life that’s starting to look like it won’t have much of Buck in it anymore.
He pulls into the driveway.
The door is unlocked. He toes off his shoes and kicks them somewhere under the rack. Save for a dim light emanating from the living room, the house is dark enough that he feels the need to skim his fingers along the wall to keep track of where he is.
It’s also quiet. Briefly, he pictures warm lights and the clinks of utensils being used, a rich savory smell floating from the kitchen, an inconsequential conversation still precious enough to deserve to be sheltered in the confines of these walls.
Buck blinks, inhales the cold stale air of the place, and shakes off the image with a shiver. He calls out for Eddie and gets no response. There’s an unease in his gut; he wasn’t greeted at the door by an angry best friend, not that he would have deserved it after… He clenches his fist to get rid of the tingling, and shoves his car keys in his pocket.
His stomach rumbles lowly, so he heads for the kitchen to at least get some water down, maybe half-ass an attempt at dinner.
The sound of soft, deep breaths stops him in his tracks. Eddie is asleep on the couch, curled up on his side. He has one arm tucked under one of Buck’s hoodies bundled up beneath his head – it’s funny, Buck doesn’t remember leaving it out – and one foot threatening to slip off the cushion onto the ground where his leg is bent to accommodate the small space.
There’s a hint of a frown over his eyes, shadowed by wild strands of hair. Before he can really think about it, Buck steps forward and reaches out. The tips of his fingers catch in the delicate locks, pushing them away from Eddie’s face.
He looks so tired even in sleep, so vulnerable, and Buck feels his own face contort with – with guilt, and longing, and grief, like he’s mourning a friendship he hadn’t even realized he’d shut out.
Maybe he’ll blame hunger for it, exhaustion, temporary insanity, but he drags his fingers further along Eddie’s hair, until his hand cups the curve of his jaw, their skin separated by the minuscule breadth of air that Buck forces himself to maintain. The heat emanating from him seeps into his palm.
“Buck,” Eddie mumbles against his makeshift pillow as he stirs.
Buck pulls his hand away as fast as he’s pulled out of his trance, frozen in place, but Eddie’s eyes remain closed, and his breathing eases out again. Buck doesn’t – it was just a momentary lapse in judgment, he knows he doesn’t get to indulge like this, especially not after today, especially when Eddie would shove him away if he knew.
He swallows around the tightness in his throat, and calls his name again. Eddie barely reacts, so Buck puts on his best attempt at a blank face, and he leans down to squeeze his shoulder.
“Eddie, wake up,” he says again, a little louder. He gives him a little shake, and finally, Eddie rouses with a sharp inhale, half-startled.
Buck moves to pull back, but Eddie’s hand shoots out to wrap around his wrist. They both stare at where they’re connected, and Eddie is seemingly just as surprised by the motion as Buck is, because he slowly lets go with a confused look at his own fingers.
Buck elects to move on.
“It’s almost ten,” he announces, and turns on his heels to continue on his way to get some water. You should go, he almost adds, but the words get stuck, too heavy on his tongue.
“Oh.”
The simplicity of the reply makes him halt. “Where’s Chris?” If Chris is collateral damage of Buck making Eddie wait so long, if he was left alone the whole evening because of him – why would Eddie even stay here? What the hell is he hoping for?
“He’s at a sleepover with Denny,” he rasps, voice rough with sleep. “I’m picking him up tomorrow.”
Buck is oscillating between relief and anger. Eddie really did plan this out perfectly.
“Mh.” He picks up a glass from the dish rack and curls over the sink as he fills it. The words tear through him like shards of glass. “What are you still doing here, Eddie?”
“You really gotta ask?”
Buck sighs heavily, his shoulders dropping with it. He downs the glass and places it carefully on the counter, his back still turned to Eddie.
“You’re still gonna try to make me leave? Are you gonna trick me again?”
Buck can’t help his wince, and he turns his face further into the shadow of the kitchen as if that could curtail the shame creeping up his spine.
He hadn’t even known what he was going to do until he’d done it. Eddie’s eyes on him had been pleading, hopeful, so unbelievably trusting, it had all curled around Buck’s heart and seized it, cutting his consciousness and his breath short in one fell swoop.
He hadn’t been thinking when he’d stepped closer, when he’d felt soft skin under his fingertips, when he’d seen Eddie subdued under his touch. He’d felt like he’d just walked to the edge of a cliff, and the hitch of Eddie’s breath had crashed into him like waves into jagged rocks.
The metal, warmed in the loosening grip of Eddie’s hand, had felt like a lifeline, and it had made the decision for him.
“You know, we’ve fought before.”
He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Eddie’s voice breaking through the silence, closer than it was before. The whisper of a headache manifests at his temples, and he has to make the effort to unclench his jaw.
“And we can drag each other down, we can say shit we regret. I know I have, more than I…”
Eddie trails off, and Buck looks back over his shoulder, shifting ever-so-slightly. Eddie is staring off somewhere down to his right, then runs a hand over his mouth with a frown. Buck ducks his head down when he looks back up.
“We get mean, is the point, but usually I know that we both regret it the moment it’s over, that we didn’t mean any of it. We – I trust you enough to know that.”
The direction this train of thought is taking makes Buck shudder, but the worst is that he can’t even blame Eddie for it. He decides to bite the bullet and get ahead of it, save Eddie the pain of having to say it.
“And you don’t anymore.”
“I – I don’t know. Because you won’t talk to me.”
Knowing it was coming doesn’t soften the blow. His ribs cave in around his lungs, and he has to lean forward against the counter to get a handle on the nausea.
“You weren’t mean, Buck, you were...cruel. I never thought you’d do something like that to me.”
Eddie’s voice is unsteady, the faint rasp of sleep replaced with the roughness of hurt. Buck shakes his head, burying his neck between his shoulders, and he wants to vanish out of existence.
“Will you fucking look at me?”
Buck instinctively straightens up at the tone. And he’s a coward – there’s a reason he’s been avoiding facing Eddie ever since he woke him up, a certainty that all of his stubborn dedication to shutting him out will crumble the instant he lays eyes on him. But Eddie doesn’t sound angry, he sounds desperate, and for all of Buck’s bravado earlier, he sure feels powerless to resist it now.
He turns with a shaky exhale and clenched fists, bracing himself, and levels his eyes to Eddie.
His vision blurs instantly, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to try to steer his mind’s focus elsewhere. Eddie seems just as affected, his lips twisting into a dejected pout as he looks between Buck’s eyes.
“I thought you were about to…” He shakes his head and stretches his hands at his sides, keeping his gaze on Buck with an intensity that makes it seem like he has to force himself not to look away. “And it was just to trick me?”
Buck shuts his eyes against the words, his teeth digging into the chapped skin of his lips. He feels dizzy, pressure building in his throat, behind his eyelids.
“I didn’t mean to,” he breathes.
He’s forced to look back at Eddie when he doesn’t get a response.
“Didn’t mean to do what?” Upset is written all over his face, he’s guarded, but there’s a hint of uncertainty. Despite all of it, he’s still giving Buck the undeserved benefit of the doubt.
Buck doesn’t know how to voice it. The words get tangled in the messy web of his mind, caught between guilt and fear, of how deep his scars go, of how far his feelings run. Of Eddie’s potential reaction to all of it.
“I got scared,” is all he manages to say. It doesn’t answer Eddie’s question, not really, but maybe it’s enough.
Eddie gives a little tilt of his head in confusion, then takes a few tentative steps forward. “Buck, what are you scared of?”
There are too many things to name, so he just shakes his head, shrinking into himself. Eddie closes the remaining distance to stand in front of him, nervous energy radiating off of him in waves. It’s in the shortness of his breath, the subtle twitch of his brows, the slight tremor of his hand as he slowly raises it to Buck’s jaw to tilt his chin up.
“What are you scared of?” he asks again, softer.
“Fucking it all up,” Buck admits in a whimper.
Eddie pulls him into his arms before he has the chance to figure out the rest. He melts into it, a buzz spreading from his cheeks to the tip of his toes, and he closes his eyes against the surge of emotions breaking through him.
It’s as if this proximity they’ve had countless times before, this contact Buck hasn’t indulged in for weeks, has managed to break the dam of his apathy, and he’s forced to face the torrent of everything he’s kept buried. He tucks his chin in the crook of Eddie’s neck and breathes him in, letting it settle part of the ache he’s been carrying.
“I meant what I said,” he says, even if his words are half-muffled against warm skin, “I don’t – I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Eddie’s grip around him tightens. “You could let me know that for you, for now. Until you figure it out again.” Buck swallows back a sob, his fist curling in the fabric of Eddie’s tee. “Would you let me?”
He nods, and a thrill runs through him when he feels fingers rubbing at the hair at the nape of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he adds quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” He says it with so much certainty that it catches Buck off guard.
“Mh. Because I talked to you?”
He huffs the softest chuckle in Buck’s ear. “Because you talked to me.”
Eddie pulls away, but his hands remain on him, holding his shoulder, splayed over his ribs. His eyes are glistening, no doubt a mirror to Buck’s own. It’s daunting, finally being forced to face everything he’s going to have to deal with, even with Eddie’s grip steadying him.
“I don’t know where I’m supposed to go from here,” Buck confesses, searching Eddie’s gaze like it will give him all the answers. It usually does.
Eddie smiles, genuine and intimate, and strokes his thumb across Buck’s collarbone.
“How about you just start by letting me make you dinner?”