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The love Eddie gets from his parents is a dull grey. It’s practical, coming about in large part from obligation. He is their son, so they love him. But they are conservative in this love for him, expressing it in moderation, being careful not to blanket him with it. As a child he thinks that love from one’s parents is automatically given without question, as it should be. As an adult, he understands that that’s not always the case. Some parents can choose not to love their children, as terrible as that may be. He understands now that his parents’ love for him is entirely their choice, yet that does not make it any fuller, does not warm his heart in the slightest. Because the way they illustrate their love is in the form of nitpicking and critiquing Eddie’s every move simply because they “want what’s best for him,” because they think they know what’s best for him.
He thinks the love a parent has for their child has the potential to be polished so laboriously that it can come out gleaming the brightest silver, grey no more. Yet his parents never put in the hours, never labor over their love for him. He’s not sure what sort of love they express toward Adriana and Sophia these days, but he’s learned long ago to never expect anything but dullness from them in his own life.
It’s okay though, because ever since moving to LA, Eddie has been taken in so willingly by Abuela and Pepa and their shiny love. He doesn’t think either woman could manage a dull grey sort of love if they tried. And when the dreariness of his parents’ critical sort of love presses in again, poking him and stressing him, Pepa and Abuela fight the troubles away for him with their silver hearts.
***
The love Eddie gets from Christopher is orange. It’s youthfulness and fun. It’s creativity, like crayons dragging across endless sheets of paper and ending up underneath magnets on the fridge. It’s the marigold flowers they plant together along the front steps of their house in the springtime, and the pumpkins they carve together in the fall. It’s his son wanting to wear his favorite shirt with neon orange stripes every day of the week, and Eddie having to protest because he doesn’t want the school thinking his kid doesn’t have any other clothes.
Christopher loves Eddie in the way he forces his dad to watch the same movie, Finding Nemo, at least twenty times in a single month. And it’s the way that he points to the neurotic dad clownfish with his small hand and finger covered in Cheeto dust and giggles that makes Eddie feel beyond fortunate.
And kids don’t typically enjoy spicy foods, but when Chris and Eddie are cooking together in the kitchen, making any number of the traditional dishes Eddie learned in his own childhood, Chris is drawn to the vibrant oranges of the bell peppers and habaneros.
Eddie feels that silly, orange sort of love again when he watches Christopher’s thrill at feeding his new pet guinea pig a batch of diced carrots. The squeals his kid lets out each time the animal eats directly from his palm are transcendent.
And it’s there again at the park, Christopher playing in the sandbox with a plastic orange bucket and shovel and taking no notice when a majestic Monarch Butterfly lands delicately at the tip of his button nose.
Eddie isn’t sure how he deserves this love from Chris considering his long absence during the first part of the boy’s life, but he’s grateful for it anyway, and he’s going to make sure never to mess up in such a way that makes him stop feeling it.
***
The love Eddie gets from Buck is complicated, but not in a bad way. It has so many layers or stages. And the two of them are always stumbling blissfully into a new development.
At first, it’s yellow, almost golden, like the brightest hour of a sunny LA day. This isn’t surprising considering that that’s what Buck is to everyone: a yellow ray of sunshine. He is a warm, glowing presence to everyone he knows, to every life he touches. Hen and Bobby and Chimney knew it long before Eddie that the workdays are always sunnier with Evan Buckley on shift.
And Athena, as fed up with Buck’s shit as she is at first, can’t help caving in when he flashes her that glorious smile.
And Maddie, when running frightened from the darkness that was her marriage, sprints to the illumination that is her baby brother.
And Eddie and Christopher, who had both sort of been living in this mindset that things would always be okay but never great, are both flabbergasted by the ever-present daylight that consumes them once Buck is in their lives.
He tells stupid jokes and lists fun facts until he’s out of breath and tells Christopher ridiculously embellished stories about things that have happened on calls, and the yellowness of his love sears into the back of Eddie’s eyelids, like he has been staring directly into the sun for hours.
When Eddie thinks of Buck at first, his mind falls to the yellow strips along their turnout gear, and the way he knows that Buck loves having him as a partner in the field now. The way that Buck loves Eddie having his back. The way that Buck loves having Eddie’s.
***
Then that love morphs into a vital green. The hue of their developing friendship. Dynamic and rich with safety and stability. It’s the harmony that they established during work extending out beyond their shifts, bleeding into their personal lives which have become easily intertwined.
This vibrant green love Buck shows him is the same shade as the shirt Christopher wears when Eddie picks him up late from school after that terrible earthquake. And he feels Buck’s eyes on his back, staring at Eddie with curiosity and awe from the driver’s seat of his Jeep as Eddie embraces his son tightly.
It’s having someone to lean on when his Abuela gets hurt and he has to bring Chris to work. It’s Buck introducing him to Carla. Buck talking him through all his mess with Shannon. The green Christmas tree in the distance as they sit on a fountain and watch Christopher speak with Santa.
It’s Buck being there for them both when she dies, bringing over a large peace lily with deep green leaves, explaining that plants are supposed to help with the grieving process.
Or the green, nauseous look on Buck’s face as his leg is being crushed by a firetruck.
And then Buck staying at Eddie’s house for a bit after Ali breaks up with him and he needs help getting to and from his physical therapy sessions. Eddie tries very hard not to notice when the two men’s laundry gets mixed up and Buck starts sporting a T-shirt that has “ARMY” written on the back in bold green letters.
Finally, it comes to Eddie in waves of green envy when Buck is still not back to work, temporarily replaced by Bosko, and so clearly jealous of not being the one at Eddie’s side in the field.
***
After the lawsuit, after all is forgiven, the love Eddie gets from Buck is a sort of decadent brown. Natural. Earthy. Like a combination of their green friendship and the addition of his orange hearted child, making a mixed family. It should be awkward or abnormal feeling. But all Eddie’s heart murmurs is that this feels right.
And really, he shouldn’t be surprised that falling in love with Evan Buckley is the most natural thing in the world. Like not even combing his hair could be any easier. Like the possibility of not falling in love with Buck doesn’t exist in any iteration of the multiverse because Eddie can’t even fathom it.
And it feels so grounding to imagine that Buck is falling in love with him too.
Eddie can feel it. Brown like wood of the baseball bats at the games they go to together. And then Buck reads autobiographies about famous players simply because he knows its Eddie’s favorite sport.
Brown like the Henley Eddie wears more often now because Buck said it looked really nice on him once.
Brown like the irises of Eddie’s eyes that are always searching for Buck in a room, watching him, waiting for the moment that meets his hopeful gaze.
Brown like chocolate ice cream all over Christopher’s face that Buck dotingly cleans off before Eddie can even get to it.
Brown like the glass bottles of beer that have become a staple of their late-night talks after his son has gone to bed.
Brown like Amazon boxes showing up on Eddie’s doorstep containing random things that Buck has ordered for Chris or Eddie, simply because he thought they might like it, simply because he wants to put smiles on their faces.
Eddie thinks the love sometimes feels muddy, like forty feet of wet earth crushing him, cutting off his path to oxygen and safety. It’s Eddie creating a miracle as he finds his own escape through the underground tunnels, needing nothing more than to get home to Chris and Buck. It’s watching the news coverage of the well-incident the next day and feeling stunned as he listens to Buck screaming his name in strangled cries and clawing at the ground, desperate to dig Eddie out.
***
Eddie bides his time, but he’s not a patient man and can only wait so long.
After Buck gets closure with Abby, almost recklessly dying in the process, he feels that love he gets from his best friend shift again. This time Eddie senses a royal blue hue. Shades of trust. Honesty. Confessions.
And Eddie starts to think that what he and Buck have built over the last two years is so strong, so real and vulnerable and unbreaking, that there is no way anything Eddie has to say to him will ruin their relationship.
So, he musters the courage of a fully suited Captain America, and he drives over to Buck’s loft one evening as the sky deepens from a pale blue to something richer, and he knocks on the door instead of pulling out his blue keychain because Buck doesn’t know he is coming, and then the second he looks into those blue eyes, Eddie bares himself raw, confessing his love. Spinning wild sentences about partnership and family. Of nature and home. Of yearning and want. Of unending admiration and care. Of the kind of life Eddie imagines alongside this incredible sunshine of a man. He spills it all with shaky words. Presenting his heart, and trusting Buck not to smash it.
Buck kisses Eddie until they’re both blue in the face, gasping for air and then diving back in again.
All week, they struggle to keep the secret at work, their excitement emanating through the navy blues of their work uniforms. They shoot knowing smiles, leave lingering touches when they don’t think the others can see, double up on chores simply so they can do them all together.
Eddie feels a tinge of sadness that they have to work all week and couldn’t schedule their first date sooner. But he supposes Friday will get here at some point.
And when it does, he wears his nicest grey button up, carefully combing his longer hair to the side.
Buck shows up wearing a shirt of similar style, only his is a beautiful royal blue.
***
Eddie hasn’t always liked the color red. It used to remind him of blood on the battlefield, or rage in a fight.
He likes it now, though, because it makes him think of Buck’s full lips, or the lovely splotches above his eye, or the way his date so easily blushes at nearly everything Eddie says to him that night.
The wine is red. And Eddie’s sure it will stain his teeth, but he doesn’t care. He wonders if it will taste the same on Buck’s tongue.
They silently agree to share a desert with a simple look between them, and when the waiter presents a giant slice of cheesecake, Eddie is pleased to find it covered in syrupy cherries.
On the drive back to Eddie’s, each nerve ending in his body stings fiery hot, and he counts every single red light they must endure as Buck’s knuckles grip tight around the steering wheel.
And the way Buck burns for him as Eddie pushes him down onto the couch to kiss him senseless is the most scorching sort of passion Eddie has ever known.
All he can think that night as Eddie’s hands are all over Buck’s skin for the first time is that Buck’s beating-red heart is all over him in return.
This sort of love is a little messy. It’s grinding and groaning and biting and licking. Fumbling to remove every last shred of clothing, and then reuniting with an amplified lust.
It’s also caressing and whispering comforts and soothing all the aches and pains away.
It’s them having just finished, and Eddie squeezing the absolute life out of Buck in a firm cuddle and pressing a thousand soft kisses to the red birthmark simply because he can now.
It’s also them getting teased mercilessly at work the next day because Eddie accidently left a colorful hickey on Buck’s neck in the midst of the passion.
***
The love Eddie gets from his boyfriend is pink, like those disgusting sweetheart candies Buck always munches on throughout the entire month of February, or like the tulips Eddie sometimes has sent to the station when Buck is working a shift without him.
It’s the cherry blossoms blooming next to Christopher’s school as the couple drops him off. Or the pink hibiscus flowers Buck insists they add to the flower bed outside Eddie’s house. Or the flamingos that the two people Eddie loves most in this world have quickly become obsessed with at the zoo. Or the radishes Buck insists on adding to every other meal he cooks, while Eddie always pokes them with a fork skeptically. Or it could just be the way that the words “this is my boyfriend” and “he’s my partner” and “he’s taken” feel as they cheerily roll off Eddie’s tongue.
Their relationship isn’t exactly brand new anymore, but Eddie still thinks they’re in that phase where the affection needs to come in exuberant, grand displays of pink love.
They do this in different ways.
Eddie with his words. Praising Buck every day, telling him how wonderful he is, how gorgeous he is. Describing the lengths Eddie would go to simply to ensure that he never has to live without Buck again. Thanking him for all he does for Eddie and Christopher. Congratulating him on his highs, and comforting him with words of reassurance during his lows.
Buck loves him through acts of service. Always running about with an infinite supply of energy, baking sweets and helping Chris with his homework and running Eddie a hot bath when he’s had a long day or joining him in the shower instead to properly lather him up. Sometimes he’s researching things that Eddie and Chris will find helpful or interesting. Sometimes Buck is planning surprise parties for birthdays or making reservations for a one-year anniversary or spontaneously planning a weekend getaway for the three of them up the coast.
The point is, he’s always doing something, everything, far more than he should for Eddie. But Eddie is beyond grateful, and uses his words to tell him so.
And it all feels so spectacularly pink.
***
Not everything is ideal.
There’s the fact that Eddie lets the dull grey of his parents hang over him, not telling them about his relationship with Buck for far too long. Because as tough as Eddie tries to appear on any given day, he’s actually quite sensitive, and he’s not sure he can survive coming out to Ramon and Helena.
And Buck understands this, shows Eddie an unending amount of compassion concerning his relationship with his parents. And it feels like a violet shade of purple when Buck looks at him after another phone call where Eddie has pretended he’s still single.
It’s not like they’re keeping it a secret from anyone else. All the 118 knows, all the family in LA knows. Even Buck’s parents know through Maddie, but that’s more because Buck no longer has any care in the world what Phillip and Margaret Buckley think of him.
Finally, while snuggled up next to Buck on the couch under a soft purple throw blanket, Eddie lets go of that last bit of hope he’d been holding that one day his parents might love him in a shinier way than what they do. He finally accepts that they will never love him more than dullness. That it will never be anything other than practical.
So, he calls them again, and explains the situation in three brief sentences, “I’m dating someone. It’s my best friend, Buck. He’s really good for me and Chris.”
And he’s not surprised when their responses are the furthest thing from a shiny silver.
Buck’s violet compassion is necessary at other times too. When Eddie gets a minor injury on the job and has to be in the hospital overnight, and Buck stays at his side, fidgeting and worrying like his Abuela. When Chris gets into his preteen years and suddenly can’t stand Eddie half the time, and Buck has to be the mediator. When the pet guinea pig dies and the Diaz house is in mourning for a week.
Eddie gives the compassion back as well. Like when his boyfriend finds out about a terrible family secret and decides to cut his parents out of his life for good. Or when he packs up his things to move in permanently with Eddie but still feels a little melancholy at leaving the place he called home for so long. And when Buck becomes an uncle and is having a full-on conniption over not getting to hold his niece for the first few weeks.
There are struggles, but the way the two of them ebb and flow with their strength and then softness makes all the bad stuff fade away along a stream of purple. And it’s in the hard times that Eddie has never been so sure that Buck loves him completely. That they can conquer anything as partners.
***
At last, their love reaches the color of black. Not like darkness or death. Black like the night sky sparkled with stars as the two of them lie out on a blanket in the bed of Eddie’s truck and he finally asks Buck to marry him.
Black like the elegant tux Buck wears as he makes his way toward Eddie down the aisle. Black like the metal of the wedding bands they place onto each other’s fingers.
Black like the tattoo ink on Buck’s chest that says “Diaz” just above his heart.
Black like the faded screen at the end of a movie, telling you it’s the end of a love story. Not that it’s over, not that it’s broken or dead. More that it’s complete. That Eddie and Buck are living their happily ever after, and the word “Fin” is flashing at the audience over a screen of black, telling all their friends and family, telling the whole world, that nobody needs to worry about the two of them anymore.
Buck has Eddie. Eddie has Buck. They are complete, whole, full to the brim of care and worry and love for each other. The rest comes easy in a rainbow of hues that Eddie could not have predicted, even in his dreams.