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"I didn't want to break up!"
Eddie stops where he's moving to leave, hand hovering on the doorknob of Buck's loft. He was going to walk out—going to walk out, and ask Bobby for a transfer, and quite possibly leave Buck’s life for good, because this—this fucking stalemate they’ve had between them since the breakup, it’s not working anymore. Eddie could pretend, at first, that things were fine; that they could go back to being friends after nearly six months of kissing and sex and dates and I love yous. He could pretend, at first, that he was slowly but surely getting over Buck. He could pretend, at first, that it didn’t kill him, to be by Buck’s side.
But it’s too much, now, to stand by and pretend that he isn’t still in love with Buck. Like he doesn’t still breathe for the man who broke his heart.
And Eddie—Eddie’s good at running, when it comes down to it. He ran from Shannon, he ran from his parents, he ran from the 118. He thinks it’s easier, somehow, to keep moving than to stay put; to put down new roots rather than watch the old ones rot away.
(He wanted to stay for Buck, is the thing. He wanted to stay forever, but Buck—well.)
“What?” Eddie says, fingers flexing into a fist at his side. He’s good at running, but this—Buck’s words—are gluing him to the floor. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Buck drags a hand through his hair, tugging on it hard. If it was six months ago—if Eddie was still allowed—he’d go over and take Buck’s hands, hold them tight in his.
It’s not six months ago, though, and Eddie isn’t allowed.
Instead, Eddie leans against the closed door, crosses his arms over his chest, and waits.
Finally, Buck tears his hands from his hair and stuffs them into the pockets of his threadbare sweatpants, leaning a hip against the kitchen island. There’s been space between them for months—ever since Buck sat on the other end of Eddie’s couch and said I think I need some time, away from this. Away from us, it’s felt like there’s miles between them. They’ll be sitting on the rig together, shoulders brushing, or they’ll be in the audience together at Christopher’s school play, and it’ll feel like they’re on different continents.
Somehow, for some reason, the chasm feels smaller, now. Like—like someone is building a bridge.
I didn’t want to break up!
Something blooms beneath Eddie’s rib cage; he refuses to admit it tastes like hope.
“I don’t know if you knew this,” Buck says, after another drawn out moment of silence, “but I have some problems when it comes to emotional intimacy.”
Eddie can’t help it; he barks out a laugh, startled but genuine. It’s the first time he’s laughed in Buck’s presence in—God, he can’t remember the last time Buck said anything that didn’t make Eddie choke back bitter tears at the idea of what could have been. But he laughs now, waving a hand for him to continue when Buck sends him a glare lacking any real heat.
“Every—every relationship I’ve ever had, there’s always been—I don’t know, conditions? Like, it was never equal.” Buck stares out the loft’s window, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, and Eddie wants—he wants. To reach out, to touch, to say something.
He stays where he is.
“With my parents, it was—well, you know what a shit show that is.” He breathes out a humourless laugh. “And then I was having meaningless sex, and that was fine. That was what I wanted, what I chose. I thought if I could give myself over to people, if I could give them pleasure and ask for nothing in return, it wouldn’t feel like I was on uneven footing.”
“But that didn’t work,” Eddie says, because he knows Buck. Knows him down to his bones.
“No, it didn’t,” Buck relents. “And then Abby—I don’t know, man. I know it now, that what we had meant more than me than it ever did to her. Ali was great, but that was never serious, not when she could just drop me after I nearly died, and Taylor—”
Eddie makes a noise in the back of his throat, scratching at his arm idly, as if just the thought of Taylor fucking Kelly could make him itch. Maybe it is.
Buck’s lips tilt in the suggestion of a grin. “Yeah, yeah. I know you hate her, but she was—I loved her, you know?”
“Sure,” Eddie says, even though he doesn’t really. He doesn’t get how Buck—Buck, the kindest person he’s ever fucking met—could have loved someone like that, but. “I know.”
“Still it wasn’t,” Buck continues, and sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I knew I wanted.”
Eddie’s mouth goes dry then, and he scratches at his arm harder, just to feel something other than his heart drumming beneath his breastbone. “What did you want?”
And Buck looks up, looks across the apartment at Eddie, and when he smiles this time, it looks a little more genuine. More hopeful. “You.”
“You had me,” Eddie reminds him, just this side of bitter. He presses his back into the doorknob, just to feel the dull, throbbing pain slice through him. “I gave you everything, Buck. I gave you—”
What hadn’t Eddie given him?
Even before that night, the one at Hen and Karen’s vow renewal when Eddie had told Buck everything—that he was gay, that he was tired of pretending, that he was in love with Buck—Eddie had always given Buck everything he had. He’s given him Christopher, and a home, and a family, and fuck, he’s given Buck himself, and that’s more—
That’s more than he’s ever give anyone, before. More than he’s ever wanted to give anyone.
Eddie gave it all to Buck, and Buck still walked away.
“I gave you everything,” Eddie repeats, his voice too close to choked for comfort. “I gave you everything I had, and you said—”
“That I needed time,” Buck finishes, and he looks a little guilty. His gaze slides off Eddie again, going back to the window, the balcony; Eddie remembers, distantly, a conversation they had out there—You’re the guy who likes to fix things.
Maybe this isn’t something you can fix.
“Time,” Eddie huffs, tilting his head back on the door until he’s looking at the ceiling. “I’ve never—I’ve always given you time, Buck,” he murmurs, and lets his eyes shut. “I said from the moment we started this, that night at the renewal, I told you we could take our time. That nothing had to happen right away. That nothing had to happen at all.”
“I know.”
“But you said—you said you were all in,” Eddie says. He digs his thumbnail into the skin of his bicep, pinches it. “You said that you loved me too.”
“I did,” Buck says, and then just as quickly, “I do.”
“You broke up with me.”
“I asked you for time,” says Buck, gentle. “I needed—”
“You didn’t talk to me, Buck,” Eddie interrupts. His eyes stay closed; he thinks if he opened them now, the tears he can feel burning behind his lids would fall, and he doesn’t want—he can’t. Not right now. “I would have—”
There’s a noise, like a whine, and then Eddie is warm down to his bone, because Buck is standing right in front of him, so close that Eddie can smell his laundry detergent and cologne, and that scent beneath that’s so Buck Eddie wants to reach out and do—something.
“Eddie,” Buck says, and he’s closer than he’s been in months; Eddie feels his hands hovering over his shoulders, his neck, his jaw, wanting to touch but unsure if he has permission. “Eds. Look at me.”
And Eddie doesn’t think he ever stopped giving everything he has to Buck, really.
He opens his eyes, tilts his chin, and looks at Buck.
“I didn’t want to break up,” Buck says, voice soft and low. “I wanted—fuck, man. I don’t know what I wanted; everything was so much, and I was overwhelmed, and it was like—like I looked at you, and saw the future, and that was too much for me to handle.”
Something settles behind Eddie’s sternum, and he has to swallow around a lump in his throat. His eyes flick between Buck’s, so fucking blue that Eddie could drown in them, and he says, “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Thinking of a future with me. Unless—”
Buck’s hands move then, coming to cradle Eddie’s jaw. His thumbs brush against Eddie’s cheekbones, feather-light, and Eddie feels like crawling into a hole and dying, really, because he can’t do this again. It’s been six months since they broke up, six months since Buck touched him like this, and Eddie’ll become addicted, if Buck doesn’t stop. Eddie will become addicted, and Buck will leave again, and Eddie—
Eddie doesn’t think he can handle Buck walking away again.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Buck says. “It’s kind of the only thing I’ve ever really hoped for.”
“Then why—”
“I think,” he murmurs, tipping forward a little so they’re touching from knee to hip to chest, “that I’m afraid of being happy.”
“Buck—”
“And you,” he continues as if Eddie hadn’t said a word, “you make me happy, Eddie. You make me so fucking happy I don’t know where to put it. And when we were together, when I could look at you, and touch you, and kiss you, I should have been able to do it without worrying.”
“But you did,” Eddie says, knowing. His breath stutters out as he reaches up, tangling his fingers into the material of Buck’s soft hoodie. “Right? You did worry.”
“It was eating me alive,” Buck admits. He tips forward again, knocking their foreheads together; it’s a hot brand, the feeling of Buck touching him again. “I couldn’t sleep, sometimes. Couldn’t breathe.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“What was I supposed to say?” Buck huffs out a laugh that sounds more bitter than anything. “Hey, baby, sometimes I work myself into a panic attack because I love you so much and I’m afraid you’re going to leave me like everyone else has?”
“Yes,” Eddie says emphatically, tugging Buck in even closer. He slips his hands around Buck’s waist, fits them into the small of his back, traces his fingers along the divot of his spine through the fabric of his sweater. “Yes, Buck. We’re—fuck, we’re partners. You should be able to tell me anything. You should want to.”
“I do want to,” Buck breathes. His thumb sweeps across Eddie’s cheek again, lingers at the corner of his mouth. “I want to tell you everything, Eds.”
“Then do it,” Eddie says. “Tell me.”
Buck sucks in a breath from between his teeth, enough so that Eddie can feel his ribs expanding against him. “I’ve been searching my entire life for something that feels right,” he says, nose rubbing against Eddie’s, “and until you walked into my life, I hadn’t found it. But then you did—you walked in, and you knocked past my stupid peacocking, and you gave me Christopher, and you stayed. You stayed through—through trauma, and mistakes, and things that anyone else would have walked away from. I know we’ve talked about it, that we did the whole love confession shit, but you are—Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie. You’re the love of my life.”
“Buck.”
“Let me tell you,” he whispers, sliding his fingers around Eddie’s jaw so he can scratch at the short hairs at the back of his head. “I need to tell you, alright?”
Eddie swallows thickly and nods, nose still brushing against Buck’s.
“I’m so sorry, for what I’ve put you through,” he says, “because I was too much of a coward to just talk to you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get over myself enough to just sit down and tell you how I was feeling. And I’m sorry—I’m sorry I took everything you gave me and walked away from it. Because that wasn’t—I never want to walk away from you, Eddie. I never want to leave your side.”
“Buck,” Eddie whispers, “baby.”
“I didn’t want to break up,” he goes on. “I just thought that if I—if I walked away first—”
“That if you walked away first, no one would walk away from you?” Eddie says, and when Buck nods, he feels something in him snap, a little. He draws Buck in closer, wraps his arms around his waist, tucks his face into the crook of Buck’s neck. “When will you realize,” he asks, lips brushing over Buck’s pulse point, “that I have never been able to walk away from you?”
“I’m start to get an idea,” Buck murmurs, dragging a hand up Eddie’s spine.
They stand like that for a while, holding each other and swaying, and Eddie feels, somehow, like this was how it was supposed to happen; that they were supposed to crash and burn before they could truly make it work, flame out spectacularly before they got their big happily ever after. Because if this—if these last six months of hell, of trying so fucking hard to move on, meant that Eddie could have this, then—
Maybe it would be worth it.
“I love you,” Buck whispers after a long moment, and he pulls back just enough to look Eddie in the eyes. “I’m sorry if I ever made you doubt that. Because I do, Eds. I love you so much I don’t know what to do with.”
“You could marry me,” Eddie says, and it isn’t what he meant to say, really, but he feels it anyway. Buck blinks at him, wide-eyed and a little doe like, and Eddie winces, bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Not—I mean not now, and you don’t have to. We’re not even—I don’t even know if we’re back together, so actually, just ignore that and let’s go back to—”
“Yes.”
Eddie stops mid-ramble, breath catching in his throat. “What?”
“I was serious,” Buck says, and his hands drift up Eddie’s back to rest on his shoulders, thumbs drifting over the exposed collarbones beneath his t-shirt. “You’re the love of my life, Eddie. And it took six months for me to realize that I really can’t fucking live without you, and I never want to do that again, alright? I want—I want everything, sweetheart. I want everything you’ll give me. And if that means you’d give me that—”
Eddie presses forward and swallows the words right out of Buck’s mouth, because it’s been six months since he last kissed Buck and he can’t imagine going another minute without doing it again. It’s soft and warm and better than Eddie remembers, and when Buck licks into his mouth, hands flexing on his waist, Eddie thinks that he’ll never let Buck walk away again.
He pulls back after a moment, panting a little, and twists his hands into the strings of Buck’s hoodie. “We need to talk,” he breathes, pressing his lips to the corner of Buck’s mouth. “About everything, we need to—figure it out, but I don’t—you’re the love of my life too, Buck. And I want you to be my husband. I want you to—I want you to give me everything too.”
“I can do that,” Buck murmurs, his lips brushing Eddie’s. “We can do that.”
And when Buck slots his mouth over Eddie’s again, Eddie knows—they’re never going to let go again.