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The realization that he loves Evan Buckley is a slow, creeping thing.
It starts in between the easy comfort of movie nights and dinners, at the bright laughter of picnics and parks, and around the sour and sweet of craft beer and capri sun.
It strengthens in the very absence of said man, in his return, and the long moments in between.
It solidifies into a tangible weight when he sees the modified skateboard, setting like cement and sealing into permanency.
He doesn't know what to do with this knowledge -- with the vibrant sunshine and effervescent joy that came crashing into his life, hackles up for not even a full shift, and hasn't really left since.
The weight of his regard and the lingering warmth of his attention makes Eddie feel utterly parched sometimes, despite basking in it all day long.
Because no matter how much the flower yearns for the sun, it will never reach it.
He wants to step into the sunshine and the light, at the risk of exposing his shadows. He wants to grab onto Buck's halo and ruin him for anyone else.
But he will ruin him. Of that there is no doubt. The banked rage, still shimmering like coal, is always just beneath his skin. The black of his memories and the red of permanently stained hands -- he'll never be able to wash it away, no matter what his therapist says.
Sometimes it feels like he walked into the valley of the shadow of death and never really left. Like his name is still etched on a bullet somewhere in sand and blood on the other side of the ocean, waiting for a third tour to find him, or maybe waiting for him to slow down enough for it to catch up.
His Silver Star is pushed to the bottom of his bedside drawer. It's all he can do to avoid burying it in the ground, where it belongs with the rest of his men.
He's under no illusions what kind of man he is.
It's easy to be brave when death is staring you in the face; easy to soldier on, when everything behind you is burning.
Some days he misses the cage like he misses an arm. The visceral thrill of memory and thought and life stripped down to basic instinct. Pure anger. Pure adrenaline. Pure animal. The cathartic impact of his fists on shivering flesh and cracking bone. Fresh blood on his knuckles to coat what's already there.
But then he remembers the face of the man he put in the hospital, and just how close he came to losing everything else worthwhile.
The ground finally feels stable when he's at the 118, for perhaps the first time since he left the service.
It's not gunfire and explosions, at least not usually, but it's easier this time around, to deal with the rush and the race of his heart. The adrenaline comes in sporadic enough intervals, with actual downtime, and a drastically lower percentage of fatalities.
It's more than enough for him to keep moving forward, and all that he really asks for, most days.
He pretends not to see the way his best friend looks at him sometimes; has to watch just how closely they circle one another in an ever tightening orbit and force himself to pull just a bit further away from the steadfast strength and the unwavering warmth.
Because where Buck lays himself so easily bare, vulnerable, with those all too trusting eyes and waits for Eddie to strike him down or let him through, he can't. He can't, because he knows he'll flounder if he does.
Because Evan Buckley makes him want to stop, to slow down, to wrap himself in all that warmth and all that light and all that strength and just let go, because they swore they'd have each other's backs.
He's so tired of keeping his up.
But at the same time he remembers those same words, in a too hot and too hostile place, and the shield at his back that had, in the end, crashed and burned and fallen through his fingers and stained them so very red, red, re--
Just take it one day at a time, Frank tells him every session.
It's what Christopher needs, and it's no less what he deserves. But he hasn't even begun to touch his demons back in the Middle East.
There's just still so much of himself to unpack from Shannon. So much more to unpack from Christopher, who is worth everything Eddie's given to get here, and worth giving everything else if only he could stop failing. On the few nights when he inevitably wakes up screaming, just hearing his son breathe is enough to help.
His son, who's love makes it easier to keep Buck close and at the same time serves as the buffer between them.
The words are always on the tip of his tongue, but he can't force them past the lock on his teeth, or the wall of silence crafted in childhood and perfected in service.
I'm Sorry, and Thank You. I Love You.
The last leaves him fumbling, wrong footed, and he knows he shouldn't, but he throws himself into what's familiar. He knows these steps. He's danced them before.
It helps that she's beautiful, and kind, and interested -- like Shannon used to be, before she realized what kind of man he was, before he left her behind, too; before she became another ghost in his shadow.
It's easier to lose himself in Ana than to possibly drown forever in the man who can so easily slip through his fingers -- who has before. Easier than thinking about how he needs Buck like he needs air and would suffer for lack of it, and how it will be Eddie who would suffocate him, in the end.
If he sometimes has to swallow the wrong name during sex, well, it happens to everyone.
And if there's sometimes a hurt, almost lost look on Buck's face when he has to cancel for another date, he pretends not to see. If there's slight bitterness when they talk about Christopher or, even when he tries to avoid it, about Ana, he pretends not to hear.
The realization that it's not going to work hits him in their third month. Because Ana is lovely and she's intelligent and she's kind and she's fun and she's sexy as hell. She adores Christopher and, more importantly, Christopher adores her. He could be content with her, possibly even happy. He can see it. Movie nights and dinners. Picnics and parks. Craft beers and Capri Sun.
The future spreads out endless, but…not as bright.
Because Ana Flores is not Evan Buckley.
Like Lot's wife, he looks back, and he can feel himself crumbling.
And then Buck is suddenly the one cancelling, and Buck is suddenly the one pulling away, and the future seems abruptly and vastly bleak. What foundation he's already rebuilt begins to shake.
"Oh." For a full minute after Buck breaks the news, Eddie is speechless, a pang of disappointment in his chest and Christopher's name on his lips.
Something odd flashes through Buck's eyes, his gaze almost searching before he looks away. "Yeah, sorry." Buck shifts, eyes flickering to the door and back. "I just figured -- well, you know, you've been pretty busy with Ana--"
He flinches, but Buck continues.
"And Josh still hasn't been in a good headspace for a while, so..."
The disappointment morphs into something sharp and ugly. Josh, again. For this third time in a row. A sliver of irritation uncoils in his gut. It's uncharitable, and it's unfair, but--
"I get it." He manages, astonishingly, to keep his voice even. Nice. Normal. "It's just…Christopher hasn't seen you in a while. He misses you." The words leave a bitter taste.
He knows what kind of hypocrite he is.
Those eyes slide away from him again, leaving silence and unease in their wake. Later, he’ll wonder if there isn’t something sad swimming in those unfathomable depths, something like regret in the clench of that jaw, but right now, right now it's all he can do to hold his impatience at bay and not say regrettable, ridiculous things.
"I'm sorry," Eddie finally sighs. He's an asshole. He is. "I do get it, and it's not fai--"
"I'll stop by tomorrow, right after shift," Buck promises immediately, a relieved smile at whatever he's reading on Eddie's face. "I'll see you, man."
He looks away, because watching Buck walk away feels unbearably like loss.
The world still seems vastly out of alignment the further away his steps are, a fundamental shift into wrong and no.
When Eddie reaches his truck he has to sit for a moment, reigning in the urge to punch something, because he's not supposed to be like this. He hunches over with his forehead against the steering wheel, every breath measured and every heartbeat counted.
He lets out a small, bitter laugh.
Evan Buckley is everything good and loyal and true, to his sister and his team and to Eddie and Chris, but he isn’t theirs. He doesn’t owe them anything despite how he may or may not feel about Eddie. If anything, Eddie owes him, for everything he's done since he got here.
It's been over two years since Buck walked into his life and it's disgusting, how spoiled he's been and still is; this assumption of permanence -- like he of all people didn't know just how transient life was. Like Buck hadn't almost walked away once already. Like the Reaper doesn’t come knocking every few shifts looking for another opportunity to take someone else away from him.
Like it wasn't Eddie who pulled away first, far enough that he's lost his center of gravity.
The mounting frustration dies at that thought.
Dully, he wonders if it would be better for him, for the both of them, to keep on this slowly diverging path. He wonders how he would even begin to explain to Christopher that even if they wanted Buck to remain with them, he didn’t think he could live in a place where, every day, he would see Buck spend the rest of his life with someone who wasn’t Eddie.
He wonders if it's worse that he still doesn't see Ana in that place at all, either way.
She doesn't see it coming, and she doesn't understand why, and he doesn't have the words for her. He's never had the words.
He knows what kind of man he is.
He's so sick of being that man.
"Eddie?"
He's hunched over in the kitchen, a beer in his hand.
Buck's voice floats down the stairs in sleepy confusion before he treads lightly down to meet him.
They squint at each other as light floods the kitchen.
"Are you alright?"
"I broke up with Ana."
"O..kay." There's a moment where Buck processes this, crystal blue eyes now fully awake and fully assessing, and, it hurts to see, somewhat guarded. "Do you…wanna talk about it? I thought you liked her."
"I did. I do. She's great. But…" She's not you.
He doesn't know how to do this, or why it's suddenly so urgent for him to be here past midnight to do so.
All he knows is that he can't, he won't be without this man in his life.
He doesn't realize he's moved until he's got soft cotton crumpled beneath both hands. He feels kind of crazy as he stares up at Buck's face, where confusion is slowly morphing into concern.
"Uh…what are you doing?"
It's a sharp precipice he's diving off with no safety net to catch him; a terror he hasn't felt since Afghanistan that has his heart beating in a sharp staccato.
"Being brave."
He waits a beat, until stunned realization lights up those eyes.
The kiss itself isn't amazing or spectacular. There aren't fireworks or epiphanies. But everything stops, in a way it has never, and he presses back tears because it feels like coming home.
Hands cradle his face and pull him in without any hesitation whatsoever.
They break a part gasping only a minute later.
"Hi," Buck says with quiet warmth, forehead pressed against his. "I've missed you." The admission sinks into him, a pulse of regret at the distance he'd put between them -- at the sheer ridiculousness that he'd considered, and tried, leaving this man behind.
Buck kisses him again, a quick, chaste thing that settles the ground shifting beneath his feet; the world clarifying into here and now -- a step closer to normal and right. "Not that I didn't super enjoy that, because I really did and would like to do it again," Buck says, "but are you okay?"
He pulls back some and peers at Eddie, into Eddie, as he always does, an encouraging and adorably confused and somewhat wistful tilt to his lips. It's almost too much, being seen like this, and it takes everything he has to hold that gaze.
Whatever Buck reads on his face has him relaxing, and it didn't seem possible, for someone like Buck to shine any brighter, but--
This is what love looks like, on a man like Evan Buckley.
His chest aches and he still can't quite draw breath, but it's not as bad as he thought, to surrender to this man. It's not even so much a surrender as an acceptance.
Evan Buckley, who never backed down from anything life threw his way, unless it came to Eddie; who rose to challenges set before him with not exactly grace, but with definite enviable ease -- until it came to Eddie.
"I can't…promise I won't hurt you. I'm not a good person--." He talks over Buck's protest. "Evan. I'm not a good person and I know I'm not okay."
His fingers tighten just a little bit desperately. He forces the words out even though they feel like glass, shredding everything in their wake and leaving him flayed and bleeding from the mouth.
"You don’t...know -- back then, it was...and I -- but just…Evan, nothing feels right -- not without you. And I know, it's not fair--"
His eyes are hot and his face is wet and he doesn't know when he'll stop falling and--
"Hey," Buck interrupts. "Hey, Eddie, it's okay. Take a breath. I'm here. I've got your back. We're in this together."
This man, who will stubbornly carry them both with him so they can make it home to Christopher.
He takes a deep breath.
"I'm not okay," he repeats softly, and Buck seems to hear all the words behind them, because he smiles reassuringly.
"I'm here."
He tries a smile.
It's a small, shaky thing.
"There we are," Buck murmurs, thumbs brushing gently across his cheeks.
He's working on it, one day at a time.
"But I will be."
"Yeah, Eddie.” A wider, brighter smile that warms all the way down to his core. “You will be."