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By the time they pull into Eddie’s driveway Buck’s hands still haven’t stopped shaking.
He vividly remembers that day he spent driving around Los Angeles with Abby, searching for her mom, the day they saved the little girl in the pool. He remembers the way he lined his hand up with hers and told her that the first couple of weeks on the job he couldn’t keep his hands from shaking with the adrenaline. But Abby was good at compartmentalizing; her hands never shook.
Buck still hasn’t learned how to do that with the people he cares about. He’s beginning to think he never will.
Eddie had been held hostage for under two hours and made it out unscathed, and yet Buck couldn’t get his fucking hands to stop shaking. He felt like a wire with the coating stripped off, ripped down the middle, frayed open, ready to spark and catch fire at any moment. But he’d been feeling like that a lot lately if he was being honest. Not that anyone asked.
And he didn’t expect anyone to because everyone else had their own problems and it was his job at the moment to just pull his shoulders back and keep it together. That was all he was supposed to do. He could do that.
“Uh, let me get your bag,” Buck mumbles as Eddie opens his side door to climb out. He switches the engine off and jumps out before he can see the glare Eddie shoots in his direction.
He still feels it anyway.
“I can get my own bag,” Eddie says, his tone flat. He feels too tired to argue but there’s an energy vibrating under his skin that he hasn’t been able to shake since they pulled up to the scene and he found himself staring down the barrel of someone else’s gun. It’s making him irritable and jumpy and all he wants to do is climb into bed and forget .
Buck doesn’t even grace him with a response, pulling both of their bags out of the back seat and slinging them over his shoulders, glancing once at Eddie before marching towards the front door.
“Nothing even happened to me, Buck,” Eddie calls after him, following on his heels. “I’m fine .”
Buck still doesn’t say anything as he pulls out his ring of keys and unlocks the front door. He slips off his shoes in the entryway and drops both of their bags by the couch. Eddie follows him into the kitchen.
“Buck - Buck , come on man you don’t have to take care of me I’m-“
“ Stop telling me that you’re fine,” Buck growls suddenly, spinning around to face Eddie. “I am sick and tired of hearing it. You got shot, Eddie, okay? Five months ago you got shot and you started having panic attacks and you hid it from me.”
Eddie blinks at Buck for a second, shocked, before his brain kicks back on. Being around Buck is one of the easiest things for Eddie to do, but the moment Buck starts to care too much, when he starts to push - either with wide eyes full of nothing but love and care that make him want to crawl into himself and never come back out - or like this, with venom and anger that coat the underlying fear and worry, it becomes hard.
He defaults to anger. He wishes it wasn’t so easy but it’s the one thing he’s been prepared to do his whole life; fight.
“I wasn’t hiding it from you. I was managing it on my own.”
“You’re my partner.”
“Yeah, and it wasn’t about work,” Eddie stresses, feeling antsy. He turns away from Buck and takes a couple of steps around the corner. He needs to put some space between them. “It was personal, okay? And I dealt with it.”
“Right,” Buck said, voice dripping with the kind of bitterness that Eddie can feel creeping onto his own tongue. “Because you don’t panic anymore, right?”
Eddie’s eyes flick down. The familiar sensation of bile laced with the accusation of liar rises in his throat and he struggles to swallow it down. He still panics; he just didn’t think anyone noticed.
“I can handle it on my own,” Eddie says quietly.
“When are you going to realize that you don’t have to?” Buck pleads, leaning against the counter opposite Eddie. “When are you going to let me help you?”
“I don’t need help,” Eddie says, retreating back and looking anywhere but at Buck. God, he was just trapped at gunpoint for nearly two hours can he catch a fucking break? He feels like he can’t breathe.
“Eddie.”
“I’m fine.”
“ Eddie, you got shot .” Buck is begging him to talk about it, screaming practically. And he’s been screaming for weeks, months, doing all but dropping to his knees in front of Eddie and begging him to open up and talk to him about it and Eddie gets it but ultimately. Ultimately.
Eddie wishes Buck would shut up.
You got shot, remember?
He wishes he could make him shut up. He wishes he could make Buck leave his apartment and get back into his jeep and drive to his own place and never fucking talk about any of this again. Because of course he remembers getting shot. He remembers all of it.
He remembers standing out in the middle of the street thinking about hopping into the ambulance with Charlie right before a bullet ripped through his one good shoulder. That’s four times now . He remembers hitting the hard cement and feeling the blood pool under his body, remembers the familiar sickly feeling that comes with the realization that you’re losing too much blood, before you start to lose your grip on the world around you. He remembers staring across the pavement at Buck and thinking it would be okay, because Buck was okay.
He remembers waking up in the hospital, drugged up and confused and searching for blue eyes and a blood-splattered face. He remembers waking up to Ana smiling down at him with watery eyes and he remembers the way she barely concealed her disappointment when he immediately asked for Buck - but he was passed caring at that point. He remembers the day he had to wait, slipping in and out of consciousness, Ana making occasional small talk, until he was finally cleared for more visitors, and Buck came rushing into the room like a vision of something holy, his face clean, his smile bright.
He remembers the moment Buck said he wished he had gotten shot instead and when Eddie slipped back into another drug-induced sleep the only words on his mind were no, not you. Never you .
He remembers sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with Buck, the distance between them too much and not enough at the same time. He remembers struggling to find the right words, fumbling to find his footing, feeling stripped bare as he told Buck that he loved him. But the words came out you act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong instead.
He remembers never feeling so cracked open and vulnerable in his entire life and it was terrifying. So he did what he does best and he retreated into the shadows and licked his wounds in private and put himself back together as best he could so that the next time someone saw him they didn’t look at him as if he were about to break.
And maybe it was a shit job and he still felt like he was barely held together by string most days but he was doing fine . He was back at work and Christopher was still happy even without Ana around and he was making it work.
So he didn’t give a damn if Buck thought he wasn’t doing enough. He didn’t want to relive the shooting again, he had moved on. He was fine.
He was fine.
Or at least, he was fine up until 7 hours ago when they got a call to an office building that turned into a goddamn hostage situation and Eddie spent the better part of an hour with a gun to his head.
He was fine.
He was fine.
“Eddie, Eddie ,” Buck’s voice is loud and sudden in his ear and Eddie startles, staring up at him. He blinks a couple of times before he realizes that he’s on the floor and that Buck’s kneeling over him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Buck’s saying over and over again. “I shouldn’t have pushed you, fuck, I’m sorry.”
Fuck. Another panic attack.
Maybe he can’t pretend that he’s fine anymore.
“Buck,” Eddie says. Buck’s eyes fly to his and Eddie feels the bile rise again when he realizes Buck is crying.
This isn’t the first time tonight that Buck has cried. Over him.
“I’m so sorry, Eds,” Buck says again, his voice worn, and Eddie remembers him screaming. For him . “I just almost lost you again and I’m so fucking sick of it. I can’t keep doing this.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says because he doesn’t know what else to say.
Buck stares at him for a second, eyes wild, before he squeezes them shut and stretches his legs out in front of him, settling down on the floor across from Eddie.
It’s dark in Eddie’s apartment, the only light spilling in from the entryway, cloaking the two of them in warm dim light.
Eddie always found it easier being honest in the dark.
“I’m scared too,” He admits quietly. Buck’s eyes look too blue in the dark.
“I know. I’m sorry I’ve been so pushy. I just…I never wanted to make what happened about me…but I can see you struggling and it’s like - the only thing I know how to do is push. I can see it eating away at you.”
“I want to forget it ever happened,” Eddie says quickly, honestly.
Buck licks his lips. Nervous. “I get that. But…ignoring it doesn’t mean it never happened, you know?”
“It just…feels easier.”
“It’s killing you, Eddie.”
I was never meant to live this long anyway, is on the tip of Eddie’s tongue - but that’s too dark. Too much. Too honest. He shoves it back down.
One day something’s going to take him. Maybe it’ll be a bullet, maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll be the crushing guilt he’s carried ever since he was a kid, too young to learn what that kind of guilt felt like.
“At least Chris will be taken care of if it does,” He says before he can stop himself, before he can remind himself that that’s something he shouldn’t say out loud. The pained look on Buck’s face feels like a slap in the face.
“What about you?” Buck grinds out, voice still hoarse. “Who the fuck is gonna take care of you - now?”
Eddie shrugs, “I can take care of myself.”
“Bullshit,” Buck snaps. “Full offense but I’ve seen the way you care for yourself.”
“It’s what I do, Buck,” Eddie says, leaning his head back against the cabinets and squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s - I can handle myself. I can’t…do this to anyone else. It was too much for Shannon - hell, even as a kid I was too much for my parents. I can’t.”
“Let me take care of you,” Buck says quickly and earnestly and the words shoot straight through Eddie’s heart. He couldn’t.
“No,” Eddie starts, sitting up straighter.
“Eddie, I can’t lose you,” Buck says with enough conviction to shut Eddie up for a second.
Because some part of Eddie has always been aware of the lengths to which Buck would crawl through fire and rain for him - because that’s who Buck is. Buck is the guy who puts everyone else before him, who will always put his life on the line first. Not because he wants to be the hero - but because he never thinks his own life is important enough to stop and consider the consequences.
Or at least, that’s what Eddie thought. But Eddie’s seen him hesitate more lately. He’s seen him pull back, actually listen to Bobby. And Eddie thought it was the will that was holding him back. And that was almost enough to soothe the constant ache in his chest.
But then Eddie got taken hostage. And it was like they were on that street again. And Eddie watched the fear strike Buck like a bolt of lightning, lighting him up from head to toe, nervous electricity in his veins. He saw the raw determination in his eyes, the devotion and instinct at war with responsibility and promise.
For a second, among the buzz at the base of his skull and the shrill ambiance of police cars, swat, and the ambulance, it hit Eddie. It wasn’t Buck being Buck. It was Eddie. It was Eddie that turned off every switch in Buck’s brain but his inherent instincts. It was Eddie in danger that broke him.
Eddie had never seen it before. And he’s been trying his damned best to shove it in the box labeled DO NOT TOUCH along with all of the other shit he’s been ignoring for the last five months.
It seems like it’s all coming out tonight.
Buck continues, “I don’t. I don’t want to do this without you. I can’t. Five months ago you sat with me in the hospital and - everyone always tells me that I’m reckless, you know? Or that I’m dumb or that I don’t think or that I want to be some hero. But you…you didn’t say any of that. And - and you made me feel like I was important. Like my life…was important. Is important. And I needed that, Eddie. So bad.
“Let me do the same thing for you,” Buck’s on the edge of begging again. “What do I have to do for you to realize that you’re important? That I need you? Because I do. God, Eddie, I need you…”
Eddie stares at him, wide-eyed and frozen in place. He’s never been loved like this before, has he?
Because that’s what this is. There’s no denying it anymore. That’s what Buck and Eddie do. They love each other. With some sort of deep-running unbreakable devotion that wraps around them constantly and pulls them closer and closer together.
That’s what Eddie’s been fighting all these months. The closeness.
Because it was easy before - to keep getting closer to Buck because it was safe, it meant they cared about each other, it meant that Buck would do his best to get Eddie home to his son and if all else failed Chris would have someone who loved him, who would look after him. That was good. That was safe.
But when the shooting happened and I have your back turned into I can’t live without you and Eddie realized that what he thought was a contingency plan that he had been slowly and methodically setting up was actually a living breathing family that they’d built - and all of a sudden the only way he ever wanted to live his life was with Buck and Christopher safely by his side - it wasn’t safe anymore. It was dangerous.
Eddie had been fighting so hard to keep Buck at arm's length so he could protect this system that he had come to rely on. Because now when he looked at Buck all he could see was the love and devotion reflecting back at Eddie. And that was terrifying.
Because Eddie had opened himself up to being loved before. And that ended in years of separation, divorce, and ultimately Shannon’s death. Maybe Eddie didn’t believe in signs - or maybe he just wanted to keep pretending the signs weren’t there. Because he was fairly certain that if the universe did send signs then Shannon’s death was the ultimate sign of them all, a symbol of what Eddie did to people.
He didn’t want to let Buck love him because he didn’t want to risk losing Buck.
But he is risking losing Buck the more he pushes him away…he’s risking breaking Buck. And ultimately he’s risking breaking himself. Because he can’t do this without Buck either.
“I need you too,” Eddie says, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to - I’m sorry. I’m just - I’m scared, Buck. I’m so scared.”
He’s crying. It’s like a dam broke loose with the quiet admittance and now it’s all coming out. He’s scared. He’s frightened. He’s terrified. He’s in love.
Buck’s crowding into his space, shoving himself up onto his knees between Eddie’s legs and crushing their bodies together, his long arms wrapping around Eddie and pulling him into his chest, tucking his head under Buck’s chin until he feels safe, protected, in Buck’s arms.
“I’ve got you,” Buck whispers into Eddie’s hair. Just a couple of hours ago they were in this same position, on the grass outside the office building, just after Eddie was released and SWAT rolled in. Eddie thinks that the safest place on earth might be right here in Buck’s arms.
“I can’t lose you either,” Eddie croaks, hands clawing at Buck’s back. “I can’t.”
“You won’t,” Buck says with the stubborn confidence that’s inherent to Buck. And Eddie believes him, he does. “Whatever you need, I’ve got you, okay?”
“ I need you .”
“You’ve got me. You always have, Eddie,” Buck whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head.
I love you is what he wants to say. He wants to say it every day; when Buck walks into the locker room and greets Eddie with a private smile like it’s not 6 am and he’d rather be anywhere else, when he bumps Eddie’s shoulder as they walk to the truck, when he pulls his helmet off after a tough call and holds eye contact with Eddie just long enough to communicate are you good?
Maybe he can’t say it just yet.
Maybe this isn’t the right time or place.
But he thinks Buck knows. And he thinks - no he knows, Buck feels the same.
Maybe one day they’ll get there.
But tonight it’s enough to just hold each other, to feel the solid, warm reminder that they’re alive.
It’s enough, for now, to just be together.