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“In local news, the Malibu Hills fire has been fully contained, nearly 6 weeks after it began. Brave firefighters from around the state, country and world came out to battle the blaze. The fire grew to nearly 15,000 acres, about a third of the acreage of Malibu. As of the final count, 3692 structures burned and 47 lives were lost, making it the deadliest wildfire in LA county history. The city of Malibu and the surrounding areas are looking at close to 14 billion in economic damage.”
Buck switches the radio off, deciding he’d rather sit in silence on the drive to the station. The news isn’t anything new so he knows exactly what will come next. There’ll be interviews with people who lost family members, livelihoods, and homes. Because the fire started in Malibu, the media’s focusing on the rich and famous, ignoring all the less advantaged communities around the hills that don’t have millions in the bank and fire insurance to cash in on.
The classic first responder guilt burns steadily in the pit of Buck’s stomach. He knows that they did everything they could for everyone they could, that some people will never evacuate no matter how hard you try, that some homes are doomed even before the spark lands on their wooden roofs. But it doesn’t stop him from feeling like he could have done more. Dr. Copeland says the guilt isn’t serving him, isn’t teaching him or helping him to become better at his job. That he needs to let it go. But he can’t let go of a fire that’s changed everything.
The Malibu Hills fire has forever transformed the shape of LA: rewriting roads, shifting peaks and valleys, and making the familiar unrecognizable.
It’s also done the same to Buck and Eddie’s friendship.
Okay, well. That’s wildly dramatic. Buck and Eddie are still Buck and Eddie, and from the outside everything looks the same. But Buck knows something has shifted.
For one, Eddie is making assumptions he’s never made before. Buck is used to spending time at the Diaz household. He’s probably spent just as much time there in the last 6 months as at his loft. But there were always invitations in the form of a question — “hey, are you busy tonight?” or “wanna come get dinner with us?” or some other method of asking that left an obvious out. Sometime after the blackout Eddie stopped asking Buck to come over at all. It’s like Buck being there for the Diazs is just...implied. It’s “when we pick up groceries after shift” and “Chris is doing a science project on mushrooms and they creep me out so you’re in charge of that one” and “we should really call a plumber since I still can’t figure out why the washing machine is leaking.”
Buck should be annoyed (“should” statements set you up to fail, Buck, says the Dr. Copeland in his head, don’t tell me how you think you should feel. Tell me how you actually feel). He’s single, in his 20s (for three more months, but technically), and his best friend is just assuming Buck wants to spend all his free time fretting over 6th-grade fungus experiments and leaky pipes. He should be annoyed.
How can he be, when it’s everything he’s ever wanted? Well, almost everything.
Because Buck has never wanted anything more in his life than to be wanted by someone else. Eddie has said time and time again that Buck is ‘needed,’ and Buck believes him. But parents needed him to try and save Daniel. Daniel needed him, Abby needed him, Ali needed him. They all needed him until they didn’t. Until his usefulness wore out. Until he failed them all.
Buck has been needed many times over. Buck has rarely been wanted. In fact, the only time he can remember being wanted is when Eddie said he wanted Buck to fight for Chris should Eddie die. It had shaken him to his core. But still, it’s not the kind of wanting Buck has been waiting for. Eddie only wants him if the unthinkable happens. It simultaneously means the world (should it come to pass) and means nothing because as long as Buck is alive he’ll be bringing Eddie back home to Chris.
He can’t find a good reason to explain why Eddie has started acting like Buck will always be there, though. It’s mystifying.
Eddie’s also gotten more tactile. Probably if Buck said that out loud the entire team would roll their eyes into next week, because he and Eddie are in each other’s space more often than they aren’t. They use touch as a language, to say I’ve got your back or I trust you or I’ll fight for you. Sometimes they bump shoulders or clap each other on the back “just because” in a way that friends normally do, but the softer, gentler touches have always conveyed something important.
Until recently. Because now Eddie wraps his left arm around Buck’s shoulder and continues eating an apple with his right. Or hooks their ankles underneath the table while Chimney shows them yet another picture of Jee-Yun standing on her own. Or leans up against him after a call - not a physically or emotionally demanding call, just another older woman falling in her home and needing to be helped back up. There’s no reason for Eddie to do any of this, unless Buck missed that week in class on their secret language.
Well, he supposes there’s one reason. Something so out of the realm of possibility that Buck hasn’t let himself consider it at all (unless he’s in the shower, or the grocery store line, or doing dishes, or working out, or playing a video game, or drinking a beer, or driving to work.
But otherwise never).
There’s a possibility that Eddie doesn’t just need him, but wants him around. In a permanent way. A forever kind of way. Buck hasn’t let himself consider it (unless, unless, unless) because it’s dumb. It’s dumb and he’s only breaking his own heart when he does but maybe in some universe, he and Eddie choose each other.
Not this Universe. She’s showed Buck a lot of mercy over the years, but she’s not in the business of giving him what he wants.
He yawns, mentally preparing himself for the very early morning shift. It’s only an 8 hour, a minor miracle born of the end of the fire and the influx of personnel back to the station filling out the schedule. He’s already planned on picking up Chris from school with Eddie after shift today — he’s nothing if not a masochist. Just because Buck has never been wanted doesn’t mean he doesn’t want in return. He inwardly pines for the stability of a family to call his own, and outwardly helps only when he’s needed. It’s no big deal.
It’s who he was born to be.
The calls so far have been easy. Buck’s not using the q-word, even in his head, but the lack of action leaves him restless.
He heads up to the firehouse’s loft to engage in the best way to stave off boredom — mindless eating. He wants grapes. Or maybe corn chips. Or hummus. Oh or that sweet and salty popcorn that C shift always buys. Or —
“Pretty sure if Jones finds out you ate his popcorn he’ll eat my salt and vinegar chips and if he does that you’re never allowed in my home again.”
Buck cranes his head back from behind C shift’s pantry door, smiling impishly. He catches Eddie on the couch by the TV, book in hand.
“Eddie, everyone knows salt and vinegar chips are inferior. I’d be doing you a favor.”
Eddie scoffs. “Says the man who tried to buy pepperoncini flavor the other day. Pepperoncini chips! Disgusting.”
Buck grabs the popcorn anyway, making his way to Eddie’s side and plopping down near him on the couch. “Hey, don’t yuck my yum.”
Eddie closes his book, placing it face down on his lap. “You literally just told me my chips were inferior.”
“Uh, yeah, key word ‘inferior’. Not disgusting. Seriously dude, bullying isn’t cool.”
Eddie drops his head to the back of the couch and groans.
Buck takes the opportunity to swoop up Eddie’s book, ready to tease him about whatever dollar bin end-of-the-world shoot-em-up style paperback Eddie has picked up from the Little Free Library on his block. Buck has considered filling the tiny library with decent novels on more than one occasion, as a public service to the community.
Instead, what he sees embossed on the cover is Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids.
Buck feels a flash of annoyance. He waves the book around.
“Eddie, what the fuck is this?”
Eddie lifts his head from the back of the couch, alarmed. “Uh… a parenting book?”
Buck snuffs. “Yeah, obviously. I mean why the fuck are you of all people reading a parenting book?”
Eddie looks at him, alarm melting into mild concern. “Because I’m a parent?”
Now Buck groans. “No shit. But this very specific parenting book. Because from here it looks like you don’t already think you’re raising the kindest, most confident, goodest human on the face of the planet.” Buck crosses his arms, legitimately upset with the other man. How dare Eddie not believe in his own ability to be the best dad a kid has ever had?
Eddie gently takes the book back. “Okay, one, goodest isn’t a word and I don’t know if I should trust you next time you’re the one to check over his spelling homework if you’re making mistakes like that. Two, that human has been rolling his eyes at everything we tell him. Don’t pretend like you don’t notice, he does it all the time.”
Buck pulls a face. He has actually noticed this, the observation always accompanied by a pang of nostalgia for the days his little friend was younger and smaller. Buck only met Chris when he was 7 but those days feel about a million miles away when the boy starts pouting in an unnervingly teenage way.
“See! I knew it!” Eddie looks at Buck triumphantly, then continues, “I don’t want to come about this the wrong way, hence the book. But it’s about him continuing to be kind. I want him to know it’s okay to be frustrated and upset, but it’s not okay to be constantly rolling his eyes when his parents ask him to do something. Helping out is part of being a member of the household.”
You know those old Disney Channel shows, from the early 2000s? The ones that had sound effects rather than laugh tracks? Buck imagines that if a Disney Channel audio engineer were mixing his thoughts right now, they would throw in a record scratch, because.
Did Eddie just say parents? As in, more than one?
Buck knows Eddie isn’t dating anyone, and unless Eddie and Chris have a supernatural ability to see the dead and Chris has been sassing Shannon’s ghost…there’s really only one other person he could be talking about.
“P-parents?”
Eddie’s eyes go wide for a fraction of a second before softening, his mouth quirking up in a half smile.
“Buck, yeah. You pack his lunches and help with homework and know more about his weird Minecraft lore thing than I do. You redirect him when he needs it and pick him up from school when I’m on shift and Carla is with another client. You know what medications he takes at what time, you have his medical history memorized, you do his PT with him so he doesn’t feel alone. You’re his second emergency contact at school and with his doctor and his legal guardian should I die. There’s no difference between the responsibilities you’ve taken on without ever being asked and the responsibilities a parent is required to shoulder. So, sure. You’re a parent”
Buck says nothing. He feels like he physically can’t, his mouth glued shut by the crash of feelings inside of him. Parent?
Eddie sees this, because he always sees Buck. He lifts a hand and places it on Buck’s knee, rubbing softly. Buck knows this rub, part of their unspoken language. It says Christopher would be taken care of, by you.
“We need you Buck.”
Buck deflates. They need him. Left unspoken is the end of that sentence — “for now.” Eddie was struggling alone and Chris only had one parent and Buck stepped in to fill that hole. A hole that will be patched up without him when Eddie finds a permanent replacement. Once again the savior baby, never the wanted one.
Buck gulps and wrenches his eyes away from Eddie’s face, looking anywhere but. “Of course, Eddie. I’ll be there as long as you need me,” he whispers.
He feels Eddie pull his hand back and hazards a glance at the other man’s face. He’s surprised to see a deep confusion cross Eddie’s features. The man opens his mouth —
BRING!
Firehouses have a lot of “saved by the bell” jokes. It’s because they’re apt.
Buck gets up before Eddie can inevitably say some sort of too-kind, slightly insincere remark about how Buck will always be a part of their lives in some capacity. It’s too hard to hear right now. Just for something dumb to do, he takes the poll to the apparatus floor, leaving Eddie to run down the stairs alone.
He’s needed somewhere else.
The call is for a woman impaled by a fence.
It’s honestly not that bad, which is a weird thing to say when someone is impaled but they’ve been called to a lot of really bad impalements. Not for the first time, Buck is struck by how odd it is they’re a regular city crew who’ve probably seen more gnarly injuries than most other crews in the United States. Years ago, working with Eddie in the back of an ambulance while trying to remove a live grenade from a man’s leg, Buck had said something about the streets of LA not being a war zone. That comment has been thoroughly debunked by a deadly earthquake, a deadly tsunami, a deadly dam break and mudslide, a deadly wildfire and blackout, and a sniper. Never mind the Q-word, implying LA is safer than an active combat zone was clearly the true jinx.
The impalement really isn’t that bad though. It’s through the flesh of a woman’s upper arm, but hasn’t hit any major arteries, hasn’t even ripped through much muscle. She’ll have a gnarly scar and feel sore as hell for a while, need help opening jars, but Buck’s not a medic and even he can tell she’ll make a full recovery. They won’t even have to cut the fence. A disappointing lack of buzz-saw action, but better for everyone involved.
The problem is she got impaled while chasing after her dog and the dog is currently hellbent on separating every flower on the block from its bed.
“I’ll get the dog.” Eddie volunteers immediately.
The whole crew turns to look at him, eyebrows raised or heads cocked. Eddie is not often the person to volunteer for missions that have a high propensity for shenanigans unless Buck convinces him. Chasing a small dog around a cul-de-sac is bound to be a shenanigan-filled operation.
“What?” he asks. “Can’t a man just want to hang out with a dog?”
“Okay, Eddie’s on dog duty,” Bobby says. “Hen, Chim, work on getting the vic stable.”
Buck knows what’s next. He’ll be paired with Eddie, who will use the time away from the rest of the crew to grill him on why he was so uncharacteristically quiet on the ride over.
He just can’t do it.
“I’ll stay with uh…” he looks over at the victim, who sniffs and introduces herself as Cary.
“I’ll stay with Cary. Keep her company.”
The confused faces now land on Buck. Eddie’s is marred with a tinge of hurt.
“Uh, okay?” Bobby says, looking between the two. “You all have your assignments, let’s get it done.”
Buck quickly hurries over to Cary.
He gives her his million-watt “you need me and here I am, ready to save you” smile.
“How’re we holding up, Cary?”
She sniffs sadly. “I’m impaled.”
Buck holds back a snort, opting for kindness. “I can see that. But my friends here will get you off and patch you up. When it’s all over you’re going to have a cool scar and an awesome addition to your two truths and a lie arsenal. Plus Eddie is going to get your dog back.”
Cary slightly smiles at the two truths and a lie comment, frowns at the dog one. “She’s not even my dog. She’s Grant’s dog.”
“Grant?”
She huffs. “He’s my best friend. Or whatever. I don’t know.”
Ohhh. The Universe wants him to suffer today. Cool, cool.
“Oh, got it.” Buck picks a noncommittal, neutral answer, hoping to end the conversation, but he’s gotten Cary started and she clearly needs an outlet.
“It’s just like. We do everything together, and he’s always over here and he leaves his dog over here all the time to the point where sometimes she only comes when I call? But not today apparently!” She gestures weakly with her free arm, wincing as it pulls at the flesh on her impaled arm.
“Try to keep still, Cary,” Chim kindly admonishes while he checks her pulse. She barely notices.
“It’s just so frustrating, you know? Like I know he cares about me and everything, but I can’t help feeling like he’s just leaving Olive here all the time because he needs the support while he’s working, and as soon as he gets a girlfriend Olive’s not going to be around anymore, and even though she’s annoying she also cuddles me when I’m sad and I get out of the house more and like. I don’t want her to go, and I really don’t want him to go. But he’s been talking about doggy daycare a few times a week and I just don’t know what’s going to happen when he doesn’t need me.”
Buck nods through this whole thing, trying to be sympathetic. He’s failing at sympathy because all he feels is empathy. When he woke up this morning he didn’t think he would be looking at his emotional doppelgänger, dangling by her arm from a fence.
Before he has to think of a comment that’s not just “oh my God me too,” two things happen.
First, Chimney says, “Okay, this is gonna hurt even with the morphine” and pulls Cary off the fence post as she cries loudly.
Second, a man runs up to the scene panting wildly and yelling, “Cary!?”
From her position on the backboard, she cranes her head. “Grant!?”
Buck lets him through and he falls to the ground near her, careful of Hen on the other side dressing and packing the wound.
“Cary, what happened?”
“Olive was running and I tried to chase her but I slipped on the fence.” She’s fully crying now, her waning adrenaline mixing with the effects of the morphine.
“Okay, that’s it, I’m putting her in a daycare. You do not need to be dealing with her dumbassery all the time.”
Cary continues to cry, and her good arm gestures weakly toward Buck. “See! I told you he doesn’t need me!”
Grant whips his head around, staring suspiciously. Buck lifts his hands in appeasement and takes several steps back. The Universe can fuck off because there is no way he’s getting involved.
Grant turns back, taking the girl’s flopping hand in his. “Cary, what are you talking about? Of course I need you. You’re my best friend. More than that, you’re my person. I want to spend time without us always having to worry about Olive. I love her, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a menace. I mean…she basically impaled you. I just want you to myself sometimes, you know?”
Tears leaking down her face, she stares him in the eyes. “You want to be around me without Olive? Really?”
He runs a hand through her hair. “Cary, and I say this with all the love in my heart, duh.”
Hen smiles, touching Grant’s shoulder. “Covid restrictions say you can’t ride with us, but they’re allowing one person per patient in the waiting room. I’ll let you know what hospital we’re headed to and you can meet her there.”
He holds Cary’s hand for a moment more before dropping it. “Of course, thank you so much for taking care of her. I need to find my dog first though.”
“Looks like he beat you to it.” Chimney points.
Buck turns to see Eddie walking toward the crew with a pudgy corgi happily slurping at his face. It’s cute. It’s unbelievably cute. Ugh.
Eddie grins broadly, depositing Olive in her owner’s grateful arms with a little flourish. He turns toward Buck, giddy and slightly out of breath.
“Okay this sounds a little nuts, and I realize it’s a complete reversal of my position last month, but maybe we should get Chris a dog? I mean not one that runs away or gets him impaled, obviously, but it might be good for him to have some responsibility. Maybe he’ll be so excited about the dog he’ll totally skip the teenage snark.”
Despite how conflicted he’s feeling about everything Diaz right now, Buck can’t help but laugh. “It would only take one instance of a dog knocking Chris’ crutches out from underneath him before you would be trying to press charges on the poor thing.”
Eddie looks a bit crestfallen at the realization. It’s a look he doesn’t have often, and Buck is driven by a need to remedy the situation. “Let’s look into service dogs later. If we get one that’s trained to make sure that never happens, I think it could be a good idea.”
Eddie immediately perks up. “I bet Carla would know some good organizations! I’ll text her on the way back!” Eddie turns back to the truck to get his phone.
Buck, having come up with a solution (once again only there to fill a need), trudges along behind.
The Universe really hates Buck. Either that or she’s trying to tell him something, but Buck is mad at her and like a petulant preteen, he’s rolling his eyes and refusing to listen.
They’re called to a bike crash. Specifically, one very unhappy college-aged girl tangled up in her bike (which in turn is wedged between two trees) and her friend with a couple scrapes, bruises, and what may be a broken wrist. Eddie is helping Hen with the friend, so Buck is on disentanglement duty while Chim helps with the gash in her leg.
“I should have never gotten on this stupid bike!” The girl huffs. “I hate bikes. I knew something dumb would happen”
Buck smiles. “Yeah, sometimes our gut feelings turn out to be right.”
She sighs. “It’s just, Dani loves biking and they needed a training partner for the race they’re doing next month. I’ve never been able to say no to what they need.”
What the fuck is with today? Is there even any point in pretending this isn’t happening?
“Yeah, I hear you,” Buck sighs. Chim raises an eyebrow but continues working silently.
“All I want is to spend time with them, but like, I obviously don’t want to hurt either of us in the process. Yet here I am screwing it all up. They’re going to need a new partner now, if they can even bike in the race at all. They don’t need me anymore.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Buck soothes, steadfastly ignoring his own advice. He manages to remove the bent tire from around the vic’s leg and places the hurt limb down gently so Chim can take a better look. She looks at Buck helplessly.
“How do I even tell them that I still want to keep hanging out with them? They’re so focused on this race and it’s inspiring that they’re so dedicated, but I like them for so many other reasons.” Her eyes catch his, sincere and intense. How does he get into these situations? “Have you ever liked someone so much that you feel you’re going to break apart if they decide they don’t need you anymore? Like, shatter into a million little pieces and blow away into the wind?”
Buck gapes. Chim takes pity on him and saves the day. “I have! And now we have a beautiful baby together. Sometimes you just have to take the chance. I think you’ll find it works out more often than not.”
She looks at him hopefully. Buck hears a soft voice to his right and looks back to see a petite person with wide, scared eyes.
“Logan? Are you okay?”
Logan smiles valiantly despite her obvious discomfort. “Yep! Never better! I’m so sorry I messed up your race though, and your wrist. Guess you’ll have to find someone else to train with.”
Dani wrinkles their brow. “I literally don’t care about that. Racing is great but I’m never going to win the Tour de France. I just wanted to spend time with you and thought it would be a fun excuse to be around you more. If I had known you didn’t really know how to bike, I would have suggested a board game or paint night or literally anything else.”
Logan perks up. “You want to spend time with me?”
Dani smiles shyly in return. “I mean, only if you want to spend time with me.”
Buck extricates himself and walks straight back toward the truck, trusting his coworkers to finish up the scene. He needs a minute.
A minute he does not have. He barely sits down before Eddie follows him into the cab. Great.
“You okay?” he asks.
Buck nods, not trusting his voice.
“Can we talk about something you said earlier today?” Eddie ventures and nope. Nope. Not now no way no.
Strangled, Buck says, “I really don’t want to.”
Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline, concern radiating from every pore. “Is this about the parent comment? Because it really doesn’t have to mean that much, it was just an observation but if that makes you uncomfortable —“
Buck groans. He’s not going to be able to pretend this day didn’t happen, is he?
“No, look, it’s just. Can we talk after shift? We have like two more hours and I really don’t want to do it now.”
Eddie nods stiffly, looking as if he’s been kicked.
Buck stares out the window the whole way back.
By some miracle, there are no more calls that mirror his own situation. There are barely any calls at all. It makes it a little harder to avoid Eddie (which, okay, it’s petty but Buck is doing it anyway). Buck spots Chim in the gym, helps Hen study, makes lunch with Bobby. Eddie sits on the couch and reads his book, glancing at Buck every so often. It’s obvious to everyone else in the room that there’s tension between them, but no one addresses it. Buck is grateful his nosy friends can read the room well enough to steer clear.
All things must end. B shift starts to trickle in and Buck heads into the locker room to change. Eddie follows, frowning.
“Buck, I don’t know what I did, but —“
“Can we not do this in the station?” Buck cuts him off. He feels sick as he says it, knows he’s being wildly rude to someone who is easily in the top 3 best people he’s ever known. He feels like he’s careening toward a cliff, about to be dropped by a rope rescue gone wrong, a winch failing to hold him. He can’t imagine his life without Eddie and Chris. He also can’t imagine being able to continue on as a placeholder with a smile on his face and a pep in his step. It hurts too much.
“Yeah, okay, alright,” Eddie almost whispers. “We can uh. We can talk at the park by Chris’ school? If you still want to pick him up? We brought separate cars today so we can just meet there. And that way if you need to leave…”
Buck nods, his eyes burning a hole into the tiles at his feet.
“That sounds good. I’ll see you there.”
He is quite possibly about to end the best thing he has going for him. He feels like it's something he should be used to by now, but each time it hurts more. There’s only so many times you can resect a piece of your heart and give it away before there’s nothing left to beat for yourself.
It takes less time than he had hoped it would to drive to the park, and he fins himself stalling in the parking lot. Buck rests his head against the Jeep’s steering wheel, gearing himself up for what will undoubtedly be the most heartbreaking conversation of his life. It’s better to do it now, he thinks, before you spend the next year considering yourself a parent just to be demoted when Eddie meets his person.
You’re deciding what Eddie wants before consulting him, says the Dr. Copeland in his head. You’re fortune telling - you don’t know what’s going to happen before it does.
“Shut up,” says Buck out loud. “I pay you for two hours a week, not for 24/7 access to my thoughts.”
Therapy is supposed to help you emotionally regulate all the time, not just when you see me, she says.
He should probably tell the real Dr. Copeland how he has imaginary conversations with her. He’s sure she’d have something to say.
He’s procrastinating, prolonging the liminal space they find themselves in. Between Buck and Eddie, partners, and Buck and Eddie, not.
But Buck can see his partner/not sitting on a bench a few hundred feet out from the parking lot, looking hunched and forlorn. It’s cruel to let him wait any longer, so Buck reluctantly leaves the safety of his Jeep and heads toward the proverbial cliff-face.
When he gets close enough to the bench, Eddie looks up.
“Hey, Buck.”
“Hey.”
Buck sits, keeping a sizable space between them. Eddie trains his eyes on the gap, a pained look on his face.
Eddie lets out a nervous breath.
“Look, Buck, about the parent comment…”
“I can’t,” says Buck.
Eddie laughs humorlessly. “Yeah, I kind of gleaned that when you shut me out the moment after I said it.”
“I just…” Buck has no idea how to say this, so he goes for the coward’s way out. “I think it would be too confusing to Chris.”
Eddie looks up from the bench then, mystified. “What?”
“When you meet someone, you know? And he gets a mother figure back in his life and I go home. I think it’s better if I just stay his best friend and babysitter. Easier for him.”
“That’s the thing, though, Buck. I just don’t see that happening.” Eddie’s eyes slide off his face, look at a point somewhere beyond his ear.
Buck wants to die, a little bit. “You don’t see me staying in his life at all…”
Eddie’s eyes snap back. “What? Buck, where are you getting this? No, I don’t see myself meeting someone. When I watch you with Christopher, and I see how much you love him, and how you treat him with the care and respect he deserves…” he trails off for a moment. His next words come out small, unsure, like a secret he’s never said aloud. “I don’t see myself replicating that with anyone else.”
“W-wow, uh,” Buck forces a laugh, trying for casual and failing miserably, “keep talking like that and you’re gonna scare all the women away.”
Eddie scrubs a face over his hand, bites out, “Yeah, Buck. That’s kind of the point.”
Buck stares at Eddie, his words incomprehensible.
The other man continues, “I love the way my family is now. I don’t want to share my home with another person. He had a mom, you know? She was a pretty flawed person but she’ll always be Christopher’s mom. I don’t have to find some kind of replacement for Shannon. With Ana… I went into that relationship thinking she might be the perfect thing for our family, and Christopher loved spending time with her. But he didn’t need her. He needs you.”
Of course, yes, Buck knows that. Everyone needs him for something. All the feelings he’s had since that morning boil over.
He spits his next words. “Yeah, I get it. Chris needs me, you need me, my parents needed me, Daniel needed me, Abby needed me, victims need me. You all need me. Until I fuck up. And then people are real quick to leave me behind.”
Eddie's face is stricken. “Is that how you think of us? In the same category as your parents?”
Despite his best efforts, Buck feels his eyes prick with moisture. “Of course not. That’s why it’s going to hurt so much more when you and Chris don’t need me anymore. I just can’t do it.”
Eddie takes his hand and Buck wants to pull away so badly, but he’s weak. He can’t deny Eddie what he needs, even in this small way.
“Christopher is always going to need you in his life. That’s not going to end. I made you his guardian for a reason, Buck. You’re a permanent addition to his life.”
At this, Buck does pull away, snatches his hand back and stuffs it between his thighs so Eddie can’t see the tremor.
“And what about you, Eddie? Chris is turning 12, he’s going to eventually grow up and move out and then what? We’ll grab a beer every once in a while after shift, shoot the shit? I will always be there for Chris, as long as he needs me. But he’s a kid, and eventually kids don’t need their parents everyday. What about you?”
Eddie takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before staring straight ahead of him.
“I think I need you more than he does.”
Buck’s resolve crumbles a little more.
“Why, Eddie? Why would you need me after you don’t have use for me anymore?” Buck can barely get the words out before Eddie is barreling over him.
“Buck, oh my god. I don’t know how else to say it. I want you in my life just because you’re you, not because you’re useful to me. There’s no expiration date. You’re the best thing to happen to me since moving to LA, and not because Christopher loves you, although of course that’s important. I’m at home with you, Buck. You’ve gone back to the loft almost full time and the house feels empty and I miss you when you’re not there.”
Eddie shudders out a breath, pushing on. “I feel safe with you, at work obviously, but also every other moment you’re around. When I came back from Afghanistan, feeling safe was on my list of things I’d lost to the desert. After Chris was born I don’t ever remember a time I felt completely safe with Shannon, or my parents, or Ana. But this isn’t about Chris, because there are other people in our lives I feel safe leaving him with. I just…I don’t feel safe leaving myself with people. Until you came around, I was always on high alert. But once I trusted you to have my back, I trusted myself to stop meerkating at any gust of wind.”
White-hot shock courses through Buck’s body, electrifying his senses. His focus spirals down to pinpoint the single word that’s been rattling around in his brain all day.
“You want me?”
Eddie whips his head around, searching Buck’s face. His mouth droops open for a moment, before his hands are surging toward Buck’s, tugging them from between his legs and grasping tightly.
This time, Buck doesn’t pull away.
“Yes, absolutely yes. We want you. I want you. When I…Buck, when I say I don’t see myself replicating what we have with a - a future partner, I mean that I want to do those partner things. With you. If you want to. And if not that’s okay and I will always respect what you want and need and if you’re uncomfortable with that it’s cool I can step back —”
And what is Buck supposed to say to that?
He says the only thing he can think to say.
“You’re straight.”
Which is definitely the dumbest thing he could have said at that moment. His cheeks burn.
But Eddie doesn’t laugh, or say “wait did you think I was coming on to you what the hell are you on” or anything else Buck dreams up in the couple of seconds it takes for Eddie to contemplate the statement.
Instead, he shrugs a bit. “I think,” he pauses, “I think life isn’t that simple sometimes. I think maybe we’re told it is, and we’re told there’s a limited menu of choices and you need to choose one and stick with it. But I watched my wife die and at this point I’m pretty sure you and I are tied for our own near-death experiences and I just don’t care about the menu anymore.”
Buck isn’t processing any of this. He needs…he doesn’t know what he needs. Clarity.
“Eddie. What are you saying?”
Eddie takes in a deep breath, exhales, and tentatively reaches his hand toward the slope of Buck’s neck, the very first word in the language they’ve been writing together for years. It says there is no one in the world I trust more than you. Eddie’s hand is warm, callused, familiar. It grounds Buck in a way nothing else can.
“I don’t need anything from you, Buck. I will respect any choice you make, and care for you in all the ways you deserve regardless. I don’t need, uh. I don’t need physical intimacy, or romance, or permanent cohabitation. I don’t need them.“
Buck tries to fill in the blanks. “But you…want them?”
“I want everything, Buck.”
The words, like a tsunami, crash over Buck and fill every pore. It’s overwhelming and suffocating and too much. Scary. But unlike a tsunami, Buck finds himself wanting to stay suspended in the churn. It’s the kind of scary that has potential. He lets himself be carried away by the swirling vortex of feeling.
“You don’t have to say anything. You can take time to process.” Buck refocuses his eyes, realizing that the length of time he spent rolling in the current was too long for Eddie.
“I want…” Buck trails off. “I want that, too, b-but. I need time. I have a pretty bad track record with people, you know, and a lot to work through on my own. I, uh. I’m going to need time. To make sure it’s real.”
Eddie’s fingers smooth over the tendons at the base of Buck’s neck, slowly rubbing at the tense line of his shoulders. “It’s real for me,” he says.
“I believe you. But I think in order for this to work in the ways we need it to, I need to believe it myself. I need to be confident enough in myself as a…parent —“ The word gets stuck in his throat as Buck sniffs through the tears continually threatening to fall, “—and as…as whatever else I would be. To you.”
“You know me,” Buck continues, “and you know I tend to dive in head first, hoping I don’t crash into the bottom and assuming I’ll be able to find the surface and come up for air. So far I’ve always survived, but a lot of the time it seems like a fluke, just the Universe deciding to spare me. I can’t trust the Universe for this. I need to make sure I’m in control, and I can’t jump into this pool head first because I’ll drown and I would never, ever forgive myself.”
“But you want to? Get in the pool?”
Buck smiles, tentative, wet.
“I think I would be crazy to pass up the opportunity to learn to swim.”
As punctuation to his water metaphor, Buck’s eyes finally brim over.
Eddie raises his hand off Buck’s neck, and Buck is left with a momentary chill as the soft fall breeze wafts over them. Carefully, Eddie pulls his shoulder back and lifts his arm in an offering. Buck knows there are no strings attached, that he can refuse this gesture of physical proximity and Eddie will not think any less of him. It makes his offer all the more meaningful, and Buck scoots toward Eddie, leaving a bit of space in between their bodies so he can slouch on Eddie’s shoulder without their slight height difference making the position awkward.
Eddie drapes his arm around the back of the concrete bench, grazing the nape of Buck’s neck.
“We can go as slowly as you need, Buck. We have all the time in the world.”
They’ve both seen enough untimely death to know that isn’t true. They’ve both witnessed enough miracles to know that it is. They can learn how to love each other in the contradiction.
They have all the time in the world.
They sit like that, together, until it’s time to pick up Chris.
The first time Buck and Eddie kiss isn’t for a month. Buck still spends his nights at the Diaz household on the couch. If anyone were to look at a before-and-after-the-bench snapshot of their relationship, it would be difficult to find any obvious differences. If they were to look closely, however, they would see the very foundation on which their relationship stands as been re-poured.
Because Buck and Eddie start going to couple’s therapy. They learn to work through disagreements before ever having them, to communicate with more than just touches. Buck learns to ask Eddie to clarify before assuming the worst. Eddie learns to not wait until his feelings spill over before expressing them. They learn together.
On the morning of their first kiss, Carla picks Chris up for school as Buck and Eddie get ready for a shift. Buck brews their coffee, a fresh cup ready for Eddie as he walks into the kitchen, still damp from his morning shower. Eddie thanks him softly, takes a sip, smiles. It becomes obvious then that it’s time. Buck removes the cup from Eddie’s hand, whispers “Can I?,” waits for Eddie’s nod, and kisses him.
It’s sweet and slow and tastes like mocha and toothpaste. Buck feels the stitching holding his heart together tighten in places he hadn’t realized had become loose.
The first time Buck sleeps in Eddie’s bed is the same. It’s the evening Christopher tells them, “I don’t need help going to bed tonight” and shuts his door. Eddie is so distraught that Buck leads him by the hand to his own bed, follows him under the covers and lets Eddie be the little spoon. Buck never sleeps on the couch again.
The first time they have sex is slow, halting, hesitant, soft. Buck finally understands why the phrase “making love” exists.
It’s a phrase he laughs about a few years later, as they sit at the dining room table writing their vows. He tries to convince Eddie that it would be funny if they said they choose to ‘make love’ everyday. Eddie says no one would understand they meant ‘build love,’ and everyone would think they were using their vows to proclaim how often they bone. They lightheartedly bicker back and forth about it.
Neither of them want their vows to be kept secret until their wedding day. The point of their marriage is not to hide what they mean to each other, but rather share it. In one of their check-in counseling sessions, Dr. Copeland had asked Eddie if he thought there was anything missing in their relationship. Eddie had replied, “We’ve already promised each other every day we have left, but I think it would be a lot easier to move into a bigger house if we consolidated our assets.” Buck had laughed and laughed and this is how they got engaged.
At the altar, they know exactly what the other is going to say, but Buck cries anyway. Buck thanks Shannon, for bringing Chris into the world and thus providing him the joy of raising the greatest person he’s ever known. Eddie thanks the Universe, because even though he might not totally believe in her, Buck does, and that’s more than enough reason to include her in their vows.
They forgo saying “I do” and instead reply with “I want to.”
It’s the strongest promise they can make to each other.