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Buck had a fucking headache.
He could feel it to the end of every single strand of hair. Could feel it pulse at his temples, and thread all the way down to his fingertips.
And what really sucked?
He couldn’t blame it on any one thing.
Was it the lack of sleep over the last seventy-two hours? Or what about sitting in smog-filled traffic for two hours? Oh, or how about actively inhaling smoke for roughly three hours that day? Or, maybe, just maybe, it was the constant knot of sheer stress between his shoulder blades that had been there for three days and wasn’t looking to relax any time soon.
Or, maybe, it was the death stare he was giving the little black box on the coffee table. He hadn’t blinked in...how long now? He should probably do that.
Blinking didn’t help the headache, but it did stop the watering in his eyes at least. Tearing his gaze away from the table, he blinked suddenly blurry eyes at the microwave clock. 4:03 AM.
Lack of sleep was looking more and more like the culprit here.
Groaning softly, he dragged a hand down his face and flopped back against the back of the couch, glaring at the ceiling.
He didn’t want to be here.
He was sitting here, on Maddie’s couch, where he’d been sleeping around his shifts over the last four days and he just…
He wanted to go home.
At this point, he didn’t have any dignity holding him back. Sure, him and Eddie had fought. Sure, that fight had been the biggest they’d ever had. And, sure, he’d stormed out of the house and showed up at Maddie’s in the middle of the night, feeling and likely looking absolutely pathetic, but also righteous in his anger and...and…
He wanted to go home.
But he knew - he just knew he couldn’t see Eddie right now.
Couldn’t let them...let them just brush over this, like his heart wanted to so, so badly.
Because, really? The fight hadn’t even been a fight.
Fights are when you’re mad at someone. Fights are when you’re right and they’re wrong, or the other way around. Fights are when someone does something stupid that they can change. When they hurt you. When you hurt them.
Fights are about trying to fix a hurt - real or imagined - in the only way available to a bruised heart.
And there is no hurt that can be fixed here.
No, this is a hurt that’s going to keep coming, and coming, and coming, and there is absolutely nothing he nor Eddie can do about it.
God...it didn’t even matter who started the argument, because quickly enough? All of it came out.
Eddie had run into a collapsing building. He’d done it dozens of times, with Buck right at his back, both of them ignoring Cap’s yells, and grinning like idiots to each other when his back was turned because they did alright, in the end.
Eddie had run into a collapsing building. He’d done it more times than Buck could count. And he always came back out - sometimes with some lucky unconscious person across his shoulders, or a crying kid, or, one time, a really, really pissed off yorkie.
Eddie had run into a collapsing building. Buck had barely watched him go, too busy dealing with the people he was leading from another door.
Eddie had run into a collapsing building. And, as the final floor gave out over their heads, he hadn’t come back out. And in those five seconds, five minutes, five hours it had felt like, before Eddie had come running from around the back, a man thrown over his shoulder, Buck hadn’t been able to breathe.
He’d held it together pretty well, he likes to think. Gave Eddie one bone crushing hug when everyone was taken care of, then went back to doing his job. And Eddie had done the same - the only difference being that beautiful, stark, painful smile cutting like a ray of sunshine through the smoke.
Buck hadn’t been able to look directly at him.
He’d held it together all the way through the two of them winding down, clocking out and heading home. Held it together all the way until they made it into the house.
He can’t even remember what he said. Remembers only the taste of ash in his throat and thrumming of a heart still beating too hard in his ears.
He thinks, maybe, maybe he’d asked Eddie to be more careful. Maybe he asked him to pay more attention. Maybe he asked him not to leave him behind so easily. Maybe he didn’t ask any of those things - but he knows they’d been scraping at the back of his throat, trailing right after whatever it was he had asked.
Eddie had reacted...well, like how Buck would pretty much expect him to, looking at it now with time and space between them. He’d said he was doing his job. That he was always going to do his job. Just like Buck did. Because Buck never hesitated, did he?
And Buck could taste the damn bitterness that had threaded through that accusation. Found it tasted a lot like the ash clogging his throat.
Buck never hesitated - and Eddie could even point to an example. Two weeks ago - parking garage collapse. Someone had called the broken gas line. Had called the car fires. Had called for everyone to pull out and get the fuck away.
And Buck had heard someone, just a short ways away.
He’d been damn lucky, getting out with that woman, and everyone damn well knew it, himself included.
He hadn’t thought about it. Knew he’d do the same damn thing in the future too.
And...and the fight just spiralled from there - days, weeks, months of hurt, fear, and frustrated anger bubbling up and spilling over before either of them could even try to stop and breathe. Before either of them could stop the other from drowning under the weight of it all.
It was only when both of them were breathing hard - red faced and red eyed, with tears stubbornly refusing to fall but obvious in their absence - that they stopped. Stopped and just...looked at each other.
And Buck had left.
And now, here he was. Four days later. On his sister’s couch, at four in the damn morning, staring at the little black box on the coffee table. The one he’d bought three months ago, and had spent the time since trying to figure out the perfect way to ask.
Maddie had taken one look at him when she’d gotten home that evening, before disappearing into her room, where he’d asked to borrow her side table to hide it, coming back a moment later and practically winging it at his head. Her orders had been simple, before she’d shut the door on him: “Figure out what you want.”
And so...that’s what Buck was trying to do.
He knew he wanted Eddie. Wanted a home, a life, with him and Chris. Couldn’t imagine a future him without them.
But he’d always been the one with the dangerous job. He’d always been the one running into the fire - literally and figuratively - and not really worrying too much about those watching him run away.
With Eddie? For the first time, he really...understood. Understood that he wasn’t just the one running anymore. He was also the one that had to watch the man he loved as he ran into the very heart of something powerful and dangerous, and know, deep in goddamn bones, that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
That knowledge sat like a pit in his stomach, threatening to swallow him whole in its finality.
That knowledge ached.
But…
There was also the fact that, everytime Eddie came home safe? There was nothing in this world Evan Buckley wouldn’t give for that feeling. That feeling of home.
Buck wanted to go home. Wanted to wake Chris up in the morning so they could do their family workout before attempting to not destroy the kitchen making breakfast. Wanted to drive into work with Eddie, sharing one last kiss in the truck before they put on their game faces. Wanted to go home at the end of a grueling shift and snipe and gripe with an equally grumpy Eddie. Wanted to pick Chris up from school and hear about his day, even if it wasn’t so great sometimes, because then that meant he had an excuse to spoil the kid rotten.
And, honestly? He even wanted to fight with Eddie. He wanted them to get to a point where they just couldn’t pretend anymore. Where it all came out in one angry, rushing blow. Because what he really wanted? Was to be there to help pick the pieces back up, to help put them both back together - a little uneven, and a little mixed up, but together.
He had his phone in his hand before he’d even finished that thought.
It rang once, twice, before the click of it being answered echoed through the quiet room. “Buck?” And Eddie sounds so quiet, so distant, and Buck can’t stand it.
“Hey Eddie…” And he just. Stops there. Because if he keeps going, he’s going to choke on the sheer want.
It’s quiet for a long couple of moments, where all Buck can hear is the traffic outside, and what sounds suspiciously like echoed traffic through the tinny speakers of his phone.
“...Evan?” Eddie asks, soft and scared, and Buck can’t bear to hear it - can’t bear to put that fear into him, even if he knows he’s going to drown.
“I want to come home.” And it’s cracked, and ugly sounding - frustration and hurt and desire from the last four days all bubbling over.
There’s a long stretch of near-silence, before Buck hears what sounds way too much like tires crunching in the driveway, followed by the sound of brakes over the speakers. He frowns, glancing towards the front door, even as he hears a door slamming shut on Eddie’s side.
“Might just be easier for me to come to you.” Eddie says at last, and it sounds sheepish, and Buck can only just keep himself from barrelling into the damn door with how fast he bolts over to open it.
And there’s Eddie. In a rumpled hoodie that looks like it’s been slept in, hair a mess, and bags under his eyes to rival Buck’s own. He looks like a mess.
And Buck’s never wanted anyone so bad.
He’s pretty sure they’re both going for a hug. The fact that they end up crashing into each other, arms tight enough to bruise, and hands clinging to whatever they can find purchase on doesn’t really phase either of them. All Buck knows is that he gets to bury his face in Eddie’s neck and truly breathe for the first time in days.
He can feel Eddie melt against him - feels his own body try to do the same. They stumble, and flail, and end up leaning against the wall by the door, unwilling to put energy into holding themselves up when it could instead be spent on getting closer to each other.
Buck loses a bit of time in there, honestly, just holding Eddie like that.
Only knows it’s been awhile because when they finally, finally pull apart, the sky stretched above them is starting to turn a bruising purple.
He doesn’t say anything in that moment - doesn’t want to break the silence that’s fallen around them, in fear that once he does, he won’t be able to get it back - and instead shifts away enough to take Eddie’s hand, leading him inside.
They pause long enough to shut the door behind them, before they collapse on the couch together, once again curling into each other, not really caring what a tangle they’ve made.
“I’m sorry…” Buck breathes into the bare space between them, soft enough, he hopes, to stay there.
“So am I.” Eddie murmurs back, taking a deep breath that Buck can feel down to his very bones, “I want...this. Us. And it’s going to hurt. We’ll probably have this fight again, down the road. But I want to. Because I want you to be there with me, and I want it to mean just as much then as it does now.” If not more. Eddie doesn’t say it, but Buck hears it.
He pulls Eddie closer, feeling the knot between his shoulder blades finally give. “I want that too.” He chokes out into the quiet. And Eddie lets himself press in and in and in, until there’s no space at all between them, and for the first time in days, Buck feels completely and utterly at home.
Its quiet for a long time after that, both of them only shifting once to get more comfortable, with Buck stretching out across the couch, and Eddie stretched on top of him, neither of them willing to be apart for more than a second to give aching muscles and tensed limbs a chance to relax. It’s quiet enough, with both of them breathing softly into the gentle light starting to peek through the windows, that Buck’s half-way convinced Eddie’s fallen asleep. Knows that, in a few minutes, he’ll be asleep himself.
“So. We ignoring that little black box?” Eddie asks. And his voice is quiet enough that it takes Buck a long moment to process the question. Can’t help how his fingers tense in the back of Eddie’s shirt when they do.
He doesn’t answer for a couple of seconds. Is relieved when Eddie stays a heavy, relaxed weight against him, letting him figure it out.
“...Just for a little bit?” Buck answers, softly, carefully. “Just until I can figure out how to do it right.”
He feels more than hears Eddie’s answering hum.
“Good. I would hate to have to cancel my appointment at the store. Chris has been so excited about helping me pick out a ring.”
And god, Buck’s heart ached.