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1.
Buck is still in the shower when Eddie gets there, so he takes a seat at the kitchen island to wait. After like two minutes though, he gets bored, so he starts meandering around the apartment. He doesn’t
really
mean to snoop, but the trashcan next to Buck’s couch doesn’t have a lid on it, and so Eddie can clearly see the packaging from a few alcohol prep wipes sitting on top. They’re the kind you’d use before you give someone their flu shot, and Eddie has literally no idea why Buck would have any. A tiny voice in the back of his mind whispers
unless he got hurt and had to fix himself up instead of trusting you and asking for help
. Eddie tells the voice to shut up. The shower is off now anyways, so Buck should be ready soon, and then they can get going. Eddie sits back down on a stool as the bathroom door swings open, and Buck walks out.
“Ready?”
2.
Buck is turning back to the water, laughing at something Eddie's said, when the sun catches on his skin just right, and Eddie can see a scar, long healed, stretching across his chest. They’ve been at the beach all day, alternating between playing in the water with Christopher and dozing off in the sun. Both Buck and Eddie have been religious about slathering Chris up with sunscreen, because there’s nothing worse than dealing with a sunburned kid. But they’ve maybe been slacking a bit on their own sunscreen, so Buck’s skin has colored just a little, rosy pink on his nose and ears and across his cheeks, freckles cropping up on his shoulders. It’s fucking adorable, and Eddie is losing his mind. It makes the scar stand out more too, and Eddie’s got no idea how he never noticed it before. It’s a clean line, the kind from surgery, not an injury from a call, but Buck’s never mentioned anything about heart or lung issues. Even if he had, Eddie knows incisions for those kinds of surgery run vertically along the sternum. It’s not raised at all, just a flat silvery line of skin blending into the rest of him.
“Hey,” Buck says, and Eddie jerks a little, eyes snapping up to Buck’s face. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry, I zoned out. Must be more tired than I thought.” Whatever it is, it’s none of Eddie’s business.
3.
It’s the start of shift, and Eddie’s just finished getting changed. He’s heading out of the locker room when he sees Buck on his way out the door, even though both their shifts start in like two minutes.
“Hey!” Eddie calls, “Where you going?” Buck just waves a hand at him absently.
“I left something in the car!”
It doesn’t seem like it’s a particularly tedious errand, so Eddie decides to wait for him before he heads up to the balcony. He’s not expecting Buck to come back in with a gallon sized ziploc bag full of used syringes, but hey. Every day’s a surprise around here.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Buck says, but Eddie shrugs.
“It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.” He says and Buck laughs, heading over to the wall next to the ambulance bay. He kicks open the sharps disposal container and empties the bag into it, folding it up and shoving it in his pocket once he’s done. He turns back to Eddie.
“Breakfast?”
4.
Buck reaches up to grab a cup out of the cabinet and winces. Eddie probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been watching him so intently, but here he is, staring at Buck with his undivided attention at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. So he notices. He doesn’t want to make a scene or anything though, so he doesn’t say anything. But he does notice how Buck is holding his left arm away from his body a little. And using his right arm for everything. He’s also wearing the long sleeved uniform shirt, even though it’s like eighty-five degrees outside and he’s got to be so sweaty under it. He waits until they’ve just come back from a call, plopping down onto the couch next to each other. Eddie bumps his shoulder against Buck’s.
“You doing okay?” He asks, and Buck lets his head tip back onto the couch, closing his eyes.
“I’m fine.” He says, “Why, what’s up?” Eddie shrugs even though Buck’s eyes are closed.
“Kinda seemed like you were favoring your left arm a bit.” At that, Buck lets his head roll to the side, and he squints at Eddie.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I had to get something done at the doctor a couple days ago. I’m just sore.”
Sore indeed. At the end of the shift, they’re getting changed in the locker room, and Eddie catches a glimpse of one of the nastiest bruises he’s seen on the underside of Buck’s arm. It’s dark purple in the middle, fading out a little on one side. The other side of it ends in a harsh line across his bicep, and he can see the sickly yellow stain of iodine above it.
“Jesus Buck,” He says, and Buck looks over, startled. Eddie grabs his wrist gently, pulling his arm up and away from his body to get a closer look. Like this, he can see the pinpricks of darker color throughout the bruise, and the smear of blood visible through the bit of medical tape stuck in the middle of the iodine stain. Buck’s quiet, watching Eddie’s face as he examines it.
“What
happened
?” Eddie asks incredulously.
“I told you, I had to get something done at the doctors. It’ll be all healed up in a few days.” Eddie doesn’t know what to say to that, because he’s got no idea what this is. Buck pulls his wrist back out of Eddie’s grasp gently, pulling his t-shirt on and heading out the door. Eddie just watches him go.
5.
“Hey,” Eddie says, “Do you want to come over? You could come pick Chris up from school with me.” Buck adjusts his bag, fiddling with the strap a bit.
“Man, I wish I could. I have to go get some stuff done at the doctors though. Shouldn’t take longer than a half hour, I can head over after?”
“That’s fine, as long as you don’t mind staying for dinner. Everything okay?” Eddie says, watching Buck’s face carefully.
“You mean as long as I don’t mind making dinner,” Buck says, “And yeah, everything’s fine. I just have to get bloodwork done every couple months to keep an eye on everything.”
“Oh.” Eddie says. Buck starts walking away, and Eddie doesn’t want to just watch him leave this time, so he calls after him. “I could come with you, if you wanted.” Buck turns around to look at him. “Hold your hand.” He’s joking (sort of), but it falls a little flat. Sue him, but Eddie’s worried . There’s something Buck’s not telling him, and he’s worried there’s something really wrong and he’s only going to find out when he ends up in the hospital or dead or something.
“Eddie, I’m getting blood drawn, it’s not surgery. Everything’s fine.” Buck says. Eddie wants to believe him, but the little voice in the back of his head is still whispering. Something’s up, it’s right there, you have all the pieces, you just can’t see it. And then, quieter, he doesn’t trust you enough to tell you.
“Besides, you have to go get Chris. Let him know I’m coming over.” Abuela could have picked Chris up, if Buck had said yes, but Eddie nods anyways. Watches Buck walk out to his car and drive away. His feet feel stuck to the floor, and his brain is going a million miles a minute when Bobby puts a hand on his shoulder.
“You alright there?” He asks and Eddie blinks.
“Yeah, fine. Just tired.”
In the end, there’s no big moment when Eddie finally has a realization. It’s just sort of a build up of a bunch of moments, coming together to make the complete picture for him. It’s the constant doctors appointments, and it’s the needles and the alcohol wipes. It’s the mars tattoo Buck’s got on his hip bone, and it’s the little trans pride sticker on his bathroom mirror. It’s the conversation he has with Christopher when he comes home from school brimming with stories about his new friend Carrie, who used to be a boy. It doesn’t make a difference to Eddie, of course, which isn’t to say that he doesn’t care . He does, so much. He wants to know everything he can about Buck, wants him to trust him and let him into his life completely. And this is a big part of who Buck is. It’s shaped the way he sees the world, and made him who he is today. Eddie wants to know it all. He wants to hear the awkward stories from when Buck was growing up, he wants to see the pictures from when he played baseball in college. He wants to find out why he left the SEALs. He wants to find out what noises Buck makes when he’s spread out on the couch under him. Well, that last one, Eddie thinks, maybe we can find that out tonight.