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They’re nowhere near professional. Buck used curse words, violence and the slightest bit of technique to get the bulk of the lamp down from the ceiling earlier in the week, and now the abandoned bulb hangs sadly from its wire, doing a poor job of casting light where it’s most needed. Everything looks fine, now, but he’s not so sure that it will remain fine when daylight comes creeping back into the room in the morning.
“Here,” Eddie murmurs.
Buck looks towards the door, at Eddie coming into the room carrying bottles of beer and drowsiness. Buck slips his hands from his hips, extending one to take the proffered bottle with a grateful smile. He doesn’t ask if Chris is asleep, because he knows that Eddie never walks out of his son’s room before the boy is safely swaddled in dreams.
“Just the space above the window left?”
“I’ll do it,” Buck tells him, his own way of confirming. He has already put the paint can on the windowsill and moved the two-step basic Ikea ladder over there in preparation, so all he has to do is set his beer down on his makeshift shelf and pick himself a tool to work with.
The space above the window is the narrowest part of the four walls; wide enough but just a handful of inches in height, and even though they’ve done a tedious job of placing out protective tape along the window frame and ceiling, he still deems it too dumb a risk to slather the paint on there with a roller just to get it done faster.
Paintbrush in hand, he places his foot on the lower step. Pushing himself up, he can feel Eddie’s hand touching his side, folding in over his waist. It’s not just the casual brush of a hand pinpointing his whereabouts in the room; it’s a lingering touch and a purposeful hold.
Buck has noticed, in the quiet aftermath of everything that’s happened, that Eddie is using the old building blocks of himself to rebuild his life. Shifting fragments of his very core and pieces of his relationships with others into slightly different formations, brought together by Frank-induced cement that seems sturdier. The same Eddie, but stronger. There’s more intent behind certain actions, now. Less of an apologetic undertone to spoken needs and desires, and a curiosity to stay still and see what happens where he once was so quick to make jokes, to smooth things over and disappear before anything could evolve.
Buck knows that he’s adapting, too. Learning, more intimately than ever, what patience can do. What it’s like to stand still, to assess, to give and take and heal. To be needed and to be vital, just the way he is.
So he leans in, now, into this touch that isn’t played off as a joke or concern for Buck’s ability to climb a stepladder the way it would have been before. This touch that is a hand-shaped stamp on the corner of Buck’s being, telling him to arrive back down safely where he belongs. Because even though it might all be unspoken, it’s still loud. And right now, it’s everything.
He takes a breath, coats the bristles of the brush, and gets to work. Feels the distant ache of repetitive motions start back up in his shoulder and back, along with Eddie’s presence at his side whenever he moves. He bends to dip the brush back down into the can, using core strength and balance to right himself back up again.
Warm air is filtering in through the open window, though there’s not enough of a breeze outside to really push that air around the room and dilute it with freshness. The text on the side of the can makes bold-typed claims of the paint being scent-free and safe to breathe in even for young children and those who are pregnant, but there is a definite scent clinging to the room that’s never been there before; an oddness to the air that disturbs Buck’s nostrils slightly. It’s still better than headaches, though, or the risk of Chris getting issues with his breathing.
“It looks good, I think,” Eddie says, just as Buck is finishing up with a final few brushstrokes. “Might have to do another layer once this one’s dried, but I’ll see tomorrow. Inspect it in daylight.”
Buck is just about to say that they’ll have to go and buy some more paint, then – that there’s not enough left to go around the room one more time – when Eddie’s phone starts ringing, disrupting his train of thought. As Eddie reaches for the muffled noise coming from his pocket, Buck steps down from his perch and turns just in time to catch the way Eddie’s expression falls.
“Fuck,” he mutters to himself. “I forgot to call her back.”
A second later he’s poking at the screen with his thumb, holding it to his ear and saying, “Hey, I’m sorry I—”
He goes quiet and listens, all while his expression shifts into one of slight disbelief. The volume is too low for Buck to catch anything that’s being said on the other side of the line.
“You – here? Now?”
He mutters a quiet ‘oh god’ to himself and then he’s out of the room. Buck follows, too curious to stay behind and mind his own business, and ends up watching from a couple of paces away as Eddie opens the front door and reveals two familiar faces grinning in somewhat manically over the threshold.
Adriana is the shorter one; her hair long and wild with curls, though flattened slightly on one side where she still holds her phone in the whereabouts of her ear despite the fact that Eddie’s already hung up on her and shoved his device back into his pocket. Sophia’s hair is shorter than it was the last time Buck saw her, styled into something straight and sleek that folds back behind her ears. The brightness in their eyes is of the kind their brother shines with every time he’s happy – the kind of stuff that makes birds sing and flowers blossom and Buck breathe a little easier.
Sophia is hugging Eddie, now, tight and interspersed with quiet murmurings that Buck cannot fully make out, but that he knows intimately from hugs with his own sister; it’s the kind of embrace that can make a person feel whole again. Adriana’s standing to the side, waiting impatiently on the threshold with the phone still hanging forgotten in her hand and the fingers of the other hand twitching as though itching to reach out, and grab, and hold.
Eddie, while being hauled around and doing a poor job of pretending not to smile about it, asks, “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?” Adriana asks him. “Seeing our favorite brother, of course –”
“Only brother.”
“— and our beloved nephew.”
Sophia adds, “We’re mostly here for Chris.”
“Yeah,” Eddie hums. “You know it’s pretty late, right? He’s asleep.”
“Good thing we’re staying for the weekend, then, isn’t it?” Sophia beams, reaching out to squeeze Eddie’s elbow before turning and leaning half her body out of the open front door.
“Oh, great! Thanks for the heads up,” Eddie mutters, scratching a tired knuckle against the inner corner of his eye. The hand slips away from his face a second later, allowing two bewildered eyes to observe his sister’s determined form as it moves back inside bearing two duffle bags and a small suitcase. “Here?”
“Yes, here,” Adriana replies, raising an unimpressed eyebrow in a fashion so similar to her brother’s default state of exasperation that it almost makes Buck laugh. “If you’d answered any of my calls earlier today you’d have known. It was a bit of a spontaneous decision, really. We didn’t have time to book a hotel.”
“There’s always time to book a hotel,” Eddie informs her, but Buck is pretty sure that he’s the only one still paying attention to him, because both sisters have walked further into the house and set their eyes on Buck, now. There are arms folding out into the air and unquestionable delight spilling into it as well as they both drag him into a group hug, all elbows, comfort and laughter. He catches Eddie’s eye over the overlap of Adriana and Sophia’s shoulders and hopes, desperately, that his mind is kind enough to commit the fond smile on Eddie’s face to memory for him to ache over later, it’s so pretty.
“It’s so good to see you, Buck,” Sophia’s saying, easing away from the hug. “How have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” Buck shrugs, as though life’s just been rushing past in usual speed. “Good. Busy. What about you guys?”
“We’ll get to that this weekend, don’t you worry,” Adriana assures with an easy smile, shouldering past them while adding, “I’m counting on you to tell us about all the things our dear brother has failed to mention, you know.”
Buck laughs again. Rubs a hand against the back of his neck and steps out of Sophia’s way with a murmur of, “Yeah, sure.”
He moves side by side with Eddie around the living room, and the two of them watch quietly as Adriana and Sophia glance around the space. They take in the relative mess of the place and are soon offering a synchronized utterance of; “Oh.”
He and Eddie dragged the entire dresser out of Eddie’s room in the afternoon, and then they just left it in here like a lonely island in the middle of the floor, just to get it out of their way. There are clothes spread out everywhere, because at some point the laundry was done and Eddie was too busy painting to sort and hang it all up. The disassembled skeleton of a shelf lies scattered on the carpet, and the pictures of Chris that used to stand on top of the dresser are carefully placed out among Christopher’s excessive dinosaur collection upon the coffee table.
Although it hurts Buck to think about it, he’s kind of glad that Eddie’s room was as sparsely decorated as it was, because after they threw away the bits and pieces that were damaged beyond repair in there, the sum of everything is relatively small. Any more, and the house would be in even more of a mess right now.
“Oh,” Eddie agrees. He’s biting down on his smile in an obvious attempt to hide it, and edging a faint tone of older brother sternness into his voice. “There’s a bit of renovation going on in my room, hence me not skipping with joy at your arrival.”
His expression goes a bit wistful, then, and his tone is softer when he adds, “The only room that’s suitable to sleep in right now is Chris’s. I don’t know where to fit you guys in.”
“Couch?”
Sophia nods along with her sister, raising a hand in the air. “I’ll take the armchair.”
Buck snorts at that. “There’s an inflatable mattress somewhere, just give me a sec.”
He slips down the hall, past Eddie’s bed frame that stands tilted against the wall and through doors until he’s in the closet space attached to Eddie’s room. He thinks it’s supposed to be a walk-in closet, but it contains very little clothing and a lot of everything else. The mattress is still folded up and stuck in the place he put it after the night he watched Chris back when a stomach bug was going around school. He’d been too worried to leave the boy’s side even though things had calmed down by nightfall and Chris was peacefully asleep.
On his way back to the living room he grabs two sets of sheets and blankets, because the one folded into a neat pile on the floor next to the couch has been his on and off for the past two weeks. It was still supposed to be his tonight.
The Diaz siblings have moved around slightly in the room by the time he returns. Sophia has made herself comfortable on the couch, taken off her shoes, and planted her heels right in the middle of the dino battlefield on the coffee table. Adriana’s stood close to Eddie; her phone finally disposed of which means that both her hands are free to hold on to his elbows.
“It’s just,” she’s saying, “dad’s retirement thing didn’t exactly go the way any of us had planned. I mean, it gave you and dad a reason to sit down and finally have a heart to heart, which was great and all, but it meant that the rest of us didn’t get to spend as much time with you as we wanted to. We miss you.”
None of them pay attention to Buck’s reappearance in the doorway, which means that he’s allowed to watch from there in peace. He hears the release of those words into the air, and he sees the detrimental landing they make within Eddie’s consciousness.
The reaction on Eddie’s part isn’t loud in any way, doesn’t draw attention to itself in neon-lit signs of agony, but to Buck’s knowing eye it is obvious. A skittering gaze from under eyebrows that tilt slightly inwards, teeth working on the inside of his bottom lip, and a twitching of his jaw. They’re small shifts of his features that show that he, for a brief moment, shuts down under the familiar onslaught of guilt. His strong shoulders suddenly hunch inwards just fractionally, just enough to indicate that he’d like to fold in on himself, protect himself from being drowned in emotion and losing control of himself again, as though he’s to blame for not tearing himself in pieces and handing himself out evenly to please the masses.
Buck hates it – how undeniably familiar Eddie’s body seems to it all, how quick it is to react.
“Yeah,” Eddie is saying though, just a beat later. He’s biting back the guilt, pasting on a smile and being altogether too heartbreakingly good at moving on for the sake of others. “I’ve missed you, too.”
They’re all smiling at each other, then. Sharing this familial moment, seemingly unaware of the massive shift in mood that the entire room underwent within the last minute alone, but it has definitely set Buck on edge.
He walks over and sits down in the armchair, draping the mattress over its arm and picking idly at dried, flaked paint on the thigh of his sweatpants while watching the small shifts of Eddie’s expression throughout the continued conversation. The mix of affection and exasperation; the underlying hint of resignation pressing down over his brow and the subsequent guilt of feeling that resignation making him smile even wider in attempt to cover himself up in front of his sisters. Because that’s who Eddie is; the brother who took care of everyone. The father, friend and co-worker who still does, and a man who will always fold under the weight of the people he loves, who’ll have that weight physically pried off his shoulders before he ever gives it up willingly.
Buck knows – he knows – that he’s not the only person in this room who cares about Eddie, who loves him. And he’s not proud of how he’s reacting to all of this – of how he’s feeling about it all – but he’s suddenly so achingly aware of what Eddie went through and he remembers, with every fiber of his being, how he glued himself to Eddie’s side just to be there and help him through it, and he’s not about to just sit here and watch Eddie’s sisters send him backwards in his recovery, no matter how loving their intentions are.
He thinks of his fingers, worrying absently against streaks of white. Of his heart, worrying against his ribs. And he’s suddenly so aware of his shoulders – of the burdens they’re willing to share, of the nudging away they can do of people in order to create space for comfort, for breathing.
So he sits there in the chair, and he smiles when they smile, and he talks when he’s spoken to, and he pays attention. And after a while, when he notices that Eddie is starting to readjust and settle within the new situation, he allows himself to relax again.
*
By midnight, the mess in the living room is somewhat managed. Buck and Eddie have shoved both coffee table and dresser off to the side of the room, inflated and placed the mattress on the carpet next to the couch, and left Adriana and Sophia to get settled for the night.
The bedroom is a different matter.
Eddie’s mattress stands precariously balanced on its side in the middle of the room, with nothing but a lonely nightstand to support it, and the floor is littered with protective sheets of paper and discarded rollers.
“I guess we just… tip it over?”
Buck looks over just in time to catch the distraught expression on Eddie’s face, and he can’t stop the fondness he feels for this man from tugging at the corners of his mouth until he’s smiling through a murmur of, “Let’s do it.”
They’re all muscle and determination, so getting the mattress down on the floor is easy. Once there, though, they just end up staring at it where they’ve left it, right in the middle of the floor, with no desire to move it any further. Eddie finally sighs and walks out of there to grab the bedding from the dining room table, and together they make slow work of pulling the sheet on, spreading the cover on top and throwing the pillows at what they presume to be the head of the mattress.
When Eddie is finally flicking the switch off by the door and killing the light from the lonely bulb up in the ceiling, Buck has already brushed his teeth, discarded his sweatpants and gotten settled in bed. He watches Eddie come closer and sink down on the empty side, feels the mattress shift as Eddie’s weight is added to it, levelling out.
He sticks a leg out of the warmth beneath the covers, and notices that from up this close and cast in moonlight like this, he can tell how tired Eddie looks. It’s the good kind of tired, though. The sleepy kind that makes his eyes drowsy and his expression somewhat sullen. It beats the harrowed kind that Buck has seen too much of over the past months. Beats it by every messily laid mile in the entire world.
“Have you ever thought about getting proper curtains in here?” he murmurs, turning his head on the pillow so that he can address Eddie properly. “The blackout kind?”
Eddie’s curled in like a bracket towards Buck’s body, blinking back slowly over his own pillow.
“Yeah,” he says, “when we first moved in here, I did. But Chris was younger then and the dark scared him. I’d put up nightlights in his room and the hallway, but in here the moonlight was the only thing guiding him, comforting him. It’s not often he comes in here at night anymore, but if he does, I want him to still have that. And I guess I’ve just gotten used to it over time. I’m sorry if it bothers you, though.”
It doesn’t. After a notion like that, how could it ever?
He likes Eddie like this, caressed by moonlight and soft around the edges. His voice full of love and honesty with no idea of how much is embedded in the words that he says; this man who doesn’t think he’s enough most of the time, who has no idea that all the heart he puts into little things like nightlamps and wide-open curtains are what makes the whole of this family work, makes it so full of love.
“Hey, Eddie,” he adds after a while. “Are you okay with all of this? I mean, they kind of showed up from out of nowhere and you seemed like you were put a little off balance by it.”
A beat of silence passes; a moment of Buck thinking that Eddie perhaps has fallen asleep.
“I’m fine,” Eddie breathes out eventually, though. “Was a bit surprised obviously, but I’m glad they’re here. I love them.”
“I know you love them, that’s why I’m asking.”
Eddie sighs at that. It’s this soft, quiet little sound that he only ever makes when Buck does something that proves that he sees Eddie, that he knows and understands him. It’s not a sign of defeat, nor of resignation. It’s more of an acknowledgement: here he comes again, sneaking in past my defenses, and I’m just going to sit back and let him in. Few things in life make Buck feel prouder than that – than being allowed to see and know and understand.
“Maybe the timing of their arrival isn’t great, but… I’ve missed them. Chris has missed them. Besides, we’re all grown-ups now, we all know how to take care of ourselves – or are learning how to at least. It’s all different, now. And maybe living on top of each other isn’t ideal either, but it’s only for the weekend. It’ll be fine. Might even be fun.”
Buck intends to hum back in response, but he’s taken off guard by a yawn and ends up stretching his entire body to the point where his spine’s arching off the mattress. He hasn’t slept much – or well – recently. Has struggled to settle down and relax for quite some time, and ever since Eddie’s well-being took a hit it’s been even harder. Even though he knows that Eddie has gotten through the worst of it all and that he’s working on feeling better – on using his words and finding healthier coping mechanisms when his thoughts get too much – it all still haunts Buck a bit. It still makes him feel jittery to think of.
Being here is comforting. Hearing the softness of Eddie’s breathing and being able to look over and see Eddie right there, definitely drifting off to sleep now, and with the covers tucked up tight beneath his chin, is comforting.
The moonlight isn’t obtrusive enough to serve as a spotlight in the room, but where it hits the furthest wall in the room it creates a window-shaped space of silvery paleness that Buck blinks back at for quite some time. He thinks that Eddie is probably right about the need for another coat of paint, but he appreciates how the first layer alone has been able to cover up so much of the damage. How that damage has been patched up and laid to rest beneath therapy and the off-white shade of a new beginning.
It's been a relieving process to see the marks of grief, fear and bloodied knuckles disappear. Has become easier to breathe in here, now, with the debris gone and with Eddie’s hand laid lax with drowsiness in the sliver of space between their bodies; unharmed save for the streak of paint that Buck purposely slathered on there when pretending to dip his brush into the can at the same time as Eddie this afternoon.
So Buck inhales, and he exhales, and he closes his eyes with the knowledge that it’s all still tucked in safely around him.
*
In the morning, Eddie’s fingertips are cold against Buck’s elbow. His own fingers are pressed into the cotton of Eddie’s t-shirt, caught a couple of inches beneath the spot where a bullet once sat. The room is bright with morning light and it allows him to blink blearily at his own hand – to move it slowly towards the other side of Eddie’s chest and watch his fingers stop short right at the halfway-mark, at the place between scar and heart where he has burrowed in undetected and made a home for himself.
There’s something about his hand. Both of them, along with Eddie’s. Something about the way Eddie held on to one of Buck’s when he was stuck under the firetruck, and the way Buck reached one of his out from under a different truck years later in order to take a hold of Eddie’s once more. It’s as though that’s where their lines blur; the very tips of their fingers serving as the place where the roots of desperation spread from each man and intertwine into a determination never to quit one another, never to let the other go.
Even if Buck weren’t in love, he’d still think of them like that. As parts of each other, of a whole.
He doesn’t resume his trek towards Eddie’s heart – knows that it’s not his to tamper with. Instead, he takes his hand back, presses the palm of it flat against the mattress, and pushes himself up gracelessly – all long limbs and drowsiness – from the low perch of the bed.
His sweatpants from last night, while paint-streaked, are cleaner than the array of pants currently shoved into the laundry basket in the bathroom, so he slips them back on. On his way out of the room, he stops a foot short of the doorway and presses his fingers to the wall, just above the light switch. It’s dry and the texture feels smooth under his skin, but when he casts a glance over his shoulder there are patches of unevenness staring back at him, especially where there’s underlying traces of sanded down spackling paste. But it’s a good base to work with, a clean slate.
They went to the grocery store when they got off their shift yesterday morning, so the fridge is stocked with plenty of breakfast food for all of them. Buck picks his way through berries, milk cartons, juices and eggs, grabs what he needs from the cupboard and gets to work on some pancake batter with the coffee maker percolating softly in the background.
By the time Christopher joins him in the kitchen, almost everything’s on the table and ready to go. Turning from the scrambled eggs still cooking on the stove, he smiles over at the bleary-eyed boy and murmurs a quiet, “Good morning, Chris.”
“Buck,” Chris whispers back, “my aunties are here.”
He sounds like he’s caught somewhere between excitement and disbelief, as though not entirely sure if his aunts really are asleep in the living room or if it’s the lingering fogginess of his dreams still sticking to him, making him see things.
“They came last night when you were asleep.”
He looks pensive, then. All pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows when he says, “I didn’t know.”
“No one did, buddy, or we’d have let you stay up and wait for them,” Buck assures him, moving closer. “It was a surprise for all of us.”
“Good surprise,” Chris beams.
“Yeah. Why don’t you go and wake them up with your sunshine face?” Buck suggests, touching a thumb to the boy’s cheek. “Tell them breakfast is almost ready and to hurry in here before I eat it all myself.”
“Buck, no,” Chris laughs. “You’re too nice for that! And your stomach will hurt really bad.”
Buck is still smiling to himself, full of fondness and warmth, when he turns back around. He turns the stove off, plates the last few bits of his small-scale breakfast buffet, and is just about to pour himself the first cup of coffee when he hears joyful exclamations from the direction of the living room. He can picture the tight hugs and cheek-pinching taking place in there, and he’s glad that he remembered to close the bedroom door after himself – that he gave Eddie the chance to sleep through this cheerful reunion and catch up on some much-needed rest.
Eventually, the trio emerges. Chris is first, guiding the other two towards the table with his bright smile and sitting down at his usual spot. Adriana, with her long curls tied up messily at the nape of her neck, takes a seat next to him. She’s already surveying the state of the table with wide eyes.
“Buck,” she says, glancing up at him, “you really didn’t have to do all of this. We could have helped.”
“It’s nothing,” he shrugs, smiling back at her. “Now dig in before it goes cold.”
Sophia appears to be less of a morning person than her sister. Her eyes are squinting against the morning light as though it’s hurting them, and she makes a beeline for the coffee pot with nothing but a soft grunt to pass for a greeting.
Mug in hand, she turns to the fridge. She’s just curled her fingers around the handle and is about to open the door when she stops, seemingly to look at the drawing stuck to its front with yellow magnets. Buck can’t help but smile at the mere thought of that drawing because he knows what it depicts, knows every inch of it by heart. He’s actually a bit offended to see Sophia turn away from it so quickly – thinks it deserves to be properly admired.
Once she’s grabbed the soy milk from the fridge and poured a sufficient amount into her coffee, she sits down on Christopher’s other side, leans her elbows on the table and cradles the mug in both hands as though it’s a lifeline; a stark contrast to the bubbly sister sat a few feet away. Adriana’s making art out of raspberries and maple syrup on top of the pancake she’s slid onto Chris’s plate, and the two of them are laughing in-between ideas on how to better their masterpiece.
Buck stands back against the countertop, watching it all unfold. He knows what it’s like to want to be with Chris – to have missed him and finally get to be there for him. He knows how monumental small moments like these are – how big they are to carry afterwards. He’d never take it away from anyone, would never want to impose.
“What do you think, Buck?”
He forgets, sometimes, that his intentions rarely matter these days. That he’ll fit into any moment – no matter its size – if Chris wants him there.
So he glances down at the plate in front of Chris, at the Dracula with blueberry eyes and smashed raspberry trickling from its syrup-coated lips, and he nods appreciatively when he says, “Awesome. A solid nine points out of ten.”
“Nine?” Adriana frowns.
“Where are his fangs?”
“We don’t need—” she starts, glaring up at Buck, but Chris’s hand patting her wrist silences her.
“No, Buck’s right,” he’s saying, looking up at Buck. He’s got his thinking face on again, all crooked eyebrows and pursed lips as he ponders the issue at hand, and Buck waits him out until the eyes behind those glasses go wide and bright with the spark of an idea. “How about coconut flakes?”
“I’d say that’s an excellent idea,” Buck grins back at him, already reaching for one of the cupboards and grabbing the right bag from the stack of home-made granola supplies. “Here you go, buddy.”
Chris gets to work with the soft, admiring murmurings of supportive aunts pressing in from both sides. Behind him, caught within the doorway as though it is a frame holding on to beauty, stands Eddie. Buck catches his eye above Christopher’s head, and they smile at each other in this soft, quiet greeting that somehow feels like one of the most private moments Buck’s ever been a part of. He thinks it should be louder. That it should be broadcasted, splayed all over the newspapers, become public knowledge: something happened, and the world cannot possibly stay the same in the aftermath of it.
“Hey Buck,” Chris starts, perhaps to ask for a new verdict on the plate-sized art constellation, but when Buck looks down, the boy has already caught his smile, calculated its aim, and turned around to find his father hovering in the background. This sight seemingly throws Chris off his tracks, because his next words are, “Dad! Addie and Sophia want to take me on a trip tomorrow. Can I go?”
“Yeah, Chris, of course you can,” Eddie hums, his tone full of fondness. He’s taking a few steps into the room and glancing at his sisters. “Where are you thinking of going?”
“I don’t recommend Santa Monica Pier,” Buck chimes in from behind his coffee.
Eddie points an agreeing finger Buck’s way, adding; “Or the zoo. Kid knows the entire place by heart, don’t you?”
He bends down to kiss the top of his son’s head at that; his affection so grand that it warms the entire room. Christopher’s responding smile is full of sunshine, even though he shoves a forkful of vampiric pancake into his mouth in attempt to stifle it.
“Well, if you two would leave the spoiling of the world’s best boy to his aunts, then we might actually have someplace to take him within a reasonable distance from home when we come to visit,” Sophia grunts, throwing a blueberry Eddie’s way. It bounces off his shoulder and rolls in under the table. “How about a museum, then? Or have you been to all of those as well?”
Eddie snorts. “No. Give us more than a minute’s notice before you show up here next time and we promise to stay at home and wane him off his day-trip high in time for your glorious arrival.”
He ducks the next blueberry. It smashes against the fridge and rolls sadly onwards to line up with its friend near the foot of the table, all while Eddie reaches for a mug and the coffee pot. Once it’s done, he opts to take a backwards stride from the table and stand next to Buck by the counter instead of sinking into the remaining seat. The two of them stand there, side by side with their elbows touching, and Buck doesn’t pretend to watch anything else but him. His side profile: the sweep of his eyelashes when he blinks and the delicate curve of his nose. His easy smile, and the contradicting, somewhat restless, tapping of his index and middle fingers against the ceramic of the mug.
The line of white that Buck painted on the back of Eddie’s hand yesterday is still there, clinging to the skin. Buck doesn’t blame it for holding on.
“So,” Eddie exhales after a while, softly breaking the silence. “Did everyone sleep okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” Sophia nods. “Though it’s quite cramped in there. And I did get a bit of a crick in my neck.”
“But it wouldn’t have been this way if we’d given you a heads up,” Adriana adds on in a mocking tone, “we know, Eddie.”
Buck still hasn’t shifted his gaze from Eddie’s face, so he sees the way Eddie’s mouth opens, and he takes notice of how nothing comes out of it. No protest, and no countering joke to set the friendly sibling spat back in motion.
There’s something slightly hurt in Eddie’s eyes, then, flashing there just before he averts his gaze down to the still surface of his coffee, and Buck realizes that Eddie had been genuinely curious – had been full to the brim with care. That the question wasn’t asked for the purpose of teasing his sisters or protecting himself with sarcasm, but that he simply wanted to make sure that his sisters were doing okay, that they’d had a good night’s sleep in this home that he is slowly building back up into a safe space again. And Buck hates how this slight crack in their family dynamics – this patch of rust where their sibling bonds haven’t been exercised enough recently – is catching Eddie in an already vulnerable state and twisting in deeper; scratching where Eddie’s already raw, already so prone to question himself and his worth.
“You could stay at my place if you want,” Buck’s mouth offers, without input from his mind. “If that would be better for everyone.”
It’s almost comical, the synchronized way the aim of three pairs of eyes flick right towards him at that. His own gaze lands briefly on Christopher, who just keeps on eating his pancakes and sipping from his glass of orange juice.
“It’s not far away,” he shrugs. “Has an actual bed for you to sleep in. Nice balcony. Fewer people to share a bathroom with.”
Adriana, chewing on the inside of her mouth in the pressing silence, finally says, “I mean, if you’re sure…?”
“I am, yeah. I mean, why not?”
“Some more space does sound nice,” Sophia nods, looking like she’s finally waking up behind her coffee. “That’s really kind of you, Buck, thank you.”
Buck shrugs again; thinks it’s nothing. They don’t have to know that it’s less for them; that it’s all about Eddie’s peace of mind. Though when he finally looks back over at Eddie, he’s met with curious silence and knowing eyes already staring back at him, and he wonders if maybe it’s not nothing after all.
*
Twenty minutes later, when Eddie still hasn’t said a word about it, Buck is starting to get impatient. He watches Adriana’s back retreat in the doorway and manages to stand still in the remaining, deafening quiet of the room for about seven seconds before he’s nudging his elbow pointedly against Eddie’s, murmuring a determined; “Take a seat. Eat.”
Eddie snorts softly, but brings his empty cup to the table and finally sinks down in his usual seat there. Among the mess of discarded plates and Dracula-remains, plenty of scrambled eggs, berries and pancakes still remain. While Eddie scrapes half of everything over onto a plate and pushes the rest Buck’s way, Buck pours them both more coffee and gets settled on the opposite side of the table.
“Hey,” he says after a while, watching Eddie spear a raspberry with his fork. “I’m sorry I went over your head and just gave away my apartment like that. I should have talked to you about it first. I know you said you were happy to have them here, but it sort of just… slipped out.”
“I’m happy to see them, yeah. But I told you living on top of each other like this probably wasn’t the best idea, so I’m absolutely fine with it. It’s your place you went ahead and gave up, though,” Eddie points out. He has tilted his head slightly to the side, and his eyes are so big and so warm, and they hold a depth of compassion that Buck’s never gotten used to. “You only just got your space back and you’ve barely even set foot there lately because you’ve been here, dealing with my shit—”
“That’s not what this is,” Buck interrupts, protective and full of love. “You’re my best friend, where else would I be when you’re going through a hard time? And besides, I like it here.”
Eddie raises a questioning eyebrow, his tone gentle. “And there? I mean, since Taylor moved out it must be strange to go back.”
“It’s… odd, being there,” Buck admits. “It was odd when she was still around, too, though. I get restless when I’m at home. I pace a lot. I used to feel settled when I first moved in, but I haven’t felt that in a while. I don’t know why that’s changed.”
He takes a sip of his coffee. From over the rim of the cup, he can tell that Eddie’s expression is drawn into something unconvinced and searching that he doesn’t feel prepared to indulge – something that he’s not quite sure he has the words to offer even if he wanted to explain. ‘It’s not about Taylor, it’s about you’ just doesn’t seem to cover it.
So for now, he simply lets it go.
*
“So,” Sophia says. They’ve just parked their cars outside of Buck’s apartment building and Adriana is already grabbing their bags from the boot.
“So?”
“So how is he doing?” Sophia demands. “Really?”
“He’s good.”
“Buck.”
Buck tips his head back, sighs. “Look, I’m not going to talk about him, or for him. Ask him yourselves.”
“We have,” Adriana chimes in, closing the boot and shoving one bag into Sophia’s arms. “Many times. He always says that things are fine, that he’s doing fine, but we all know that fine’s not a feeling – that it’s a deflection. And he’s been deflecting all his life. I thought we were moving past that now, what with therapy and all, but apparently not.”
They’ve started walking towards the building. Buck shrugs, looking sideways at the sisters. “Maybe he’s just not ready to talk about it yet.”
“He talks about it with you.”
“I was there for a lot of it. And I’m not family. He’s never felt an outside pressure to protect me the way he always did with you, growing up. Eddie and I, we go through shit together. We’ve got each other’s backs, we get each other. It’s – it’s different. I can’t really explain it.”
Sophia sighs at that, soft and resigned. “And you don’t have to. I’m sorry, Buck, we shouldn’t put all of this on you. We’re just worried, you know? But we’re glad he has you.”
Buck doesn’t trust his voice not to offer something monumental and embarrassing in response to that, so he simply nods in reply and hopes that it encompasses how much that means to him: to be, and get to be, there for Eddie.
They make it up to Buck’s floor, and he’s just in the process of turning the key in the lock when Adriana offers, matter-of-factly from behind his back, that; “You so are family, though.”
It takes Buck off guard. Makes him laugh, makes something joyful swoop in his stomach, because he knows that it’s true – knows that he’s burrowed his way in and is being kept safe there – but the acknowledgement of his place within this family coming from the outside like this is still just as miraculous every time. Being a part of something that means so much to him, that’s miraculous.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a couch at the moment,” he says as he opens the door and lets his guests inside. “I, uh, sold it when my ex moved in here, and getting a new one hasn’t exactly been at the top of my list of priorities lately.”
“Do you really need one?”
“What?” Buck frowns, looking around from his position within the wasteland between kitchen and living room areas. “I mean, the space is kind of empty without one, don’t you think? I suppose I could get a couple of big, matching armchairs, but a couch is really good for—”
“Eddie’s got a good couch,” Adriana cuts in, as though it’s a sensible explanation.
Buck makes a confused, questioning noise that, in turn, makes Adriana frown back at him.
“No?” she asks. “You haven’t—?”
“What?”
“I just,” she starts, looking at Buck with these wide, expressive eyes that are too familiar and too different all at once. “After everything that’s happened, and with you being there throughout it all, I just thought that maybe you and Eddie had finally had a talk, figured things out. That, you know… you only needed one couch now.”
Buck opens his mouth even though he has absolutely nothing comprehensible to say, but is saved from uttering something completely embarrassing by Sophia’s input of, “No, Chris told me this morning that they’re the slowest. Actual sloths.”
Another noise finally does slip out of Buck, then. It’s high-pitched and just as embarrassing as he expected it to be, but it doesn’t deter the sisters from their conversation.
“Apparently the drawing of the three of you on the fridge is his subtle way of saying he’s okay with it, by the way,” Sophia goes on, giving him a pointed look. “With you two being together, I mean. He’s been worried that that’s what you’re concerned about, what’s holding you back.”
“This isn’t—” Buck sputters, “he shouldn’t be thinking about this, worrying—”
“He’s eleven years old, and he’s bright, and this is his family we’re talking about,” Adriana says, “of course he’s thinking about it. Didn’t you when you were a kid?”
It hits him then, of course, how complicated family life can be. How kids are stuck in the middle of it with nowhere to go. And he hopes – dear god, he hopes – that it’s not so complicated for Chris. That even though Chris is apparently aware of the romantic feelings Buck holds for his dad, he doesn’t go around stressing about it, that he isn’t trying to do the math and figure out how to be the solution of it, because there is no problem to solve. They all love each other, they all fight for each other, and that’s all that should matter.
“But we’re good,” he says. “Things are good. Chris is happy—”
“He is,” Sophia nods, exuding care. “He has the world’s greatest dad, and he has you. I honestly can’t think of a kid more cared for in the entire world. But what about you? What about being completely honest with yourselves?”
And fine, maybe Buck never lets his entire self speak up; maybe he consciously keeps the depth of his feelings hidden because he knows that voicing them would make his voice break with emotion and the sharpness of those edges could do so much damage. The way he’s felt has always done so much damage in the past, and this – Eddie, Christopher, them – is something he cannot afford to hurt, to sever from himself. Something he refuses to cut out of himself. He’d rather be mostly happy with what he’s already got than entirely miserable without it.
“There’s nothing to be honest about,” he insists, infusing an air of finality to his voice. “Things are good the way they are. Trying to make it even better would just be stupid.”
*
Before they head back, Buck grabs a few bits and pieces from his apartment to add to the growing collection of his belonging currently spread all over the Diaz house. Sweatpants that aren’t paint-streaked, fresh underwear, and a book on the science of sleep that he’s been stuck halfway through for over a month due to a lacking ability to focus on anything for more than five minutes at a time. It all ends up in a bag that he discards right inside of the front door in favor of joining everyone else out in the backyard.
Eddie and Chris have been busy preparing the grill, along with hamburgers and veggie sausages, for lunch in their absence, and they end up sitting in the shade out there for hours, catching each other up on their lives and looking through Chris’s school stuff over a few of Chris’s boardgames.
They’re in the middle of clearing the board for a second round of scrabble when Eddie excuses himself, getting up from his seat and slipping into the house without protest from his engrossed son. They’re at least another hour or two away from the mere idea of dinner, so Buck knows that Eddie didn’t head inside to grab the takeout menus from the kitchen, but he has no idea what else might have dragged Eddie away from them. He manages a few half-hearted attempts at words that will make Chris laugh, but he knows that his heart’s not fully in the game – that it’s too connected to his distracted mind to be of any use.
When Adriana starts talking about junior monopoly and Eddie still hasn’t returned half an hour later, he opts out. Says, “Look, I’m just gonna sit this one out, okay? I wouldn’t want to humiliate you guys by winning again.”
“No,” Chris argues, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. There’s laughter framing his voice, melodic and beautiful. “You’re just scared I’m going to beat you this time and you’re a sore loser.”
Buck pretends to be offended by that, gaping wide and pressing a palm over his heart as though it’s hurting, but he ruffles Chris’s hair affectionately when passing behind him on the way inside, thriving in the sound of the boy’s laughter.
He finds Eddie in the kitchen, on the floor, and that sight alone startles his heartrate from calm to panicked so fast that he feels positively sick with it, because it brings on an onslaught of memories that urge his eyes to do a frantic inventory of Eddie’s body.
No clenched fists, no tenseness in the shoulders, no rapid rise and fall of the chest, no damage.
Buck exhales. Forces new air into his lungs and sensibility into his mind before he gives Eddie’s body another silent assessment: his posture is slumped, his expression drawn into one of exhaustion, and his legs are sprawled lazily before him. There’s nothing about him that speaks of distress, of a breakdown.
And for a moment, after realizing that there’s no immediate threat to Eddie’s wellbeing, Buck is reduced to the wild, hot, desperate urge to crawl in between those lean legs and curl himself up against Eddie’s chest just to hear his heart beating. But he closes his eyes instead; pokes inwardly at his own heart until it softens into its usual, pulsing affection and then allows himself to walk further into the room, murmuring softly.
“Eddie, hey. You okay?”
Eddie tilts his head back against the cupboard behind him. Smiles tiredly when he says, “I guess.”
Buck sinks down cross-legged next to Eddie, just where the counter bends into a corner, so that they can look at each other from a comfortable angle. His knees bump into the side of Eddie’s leg, so he lifts it up and settles it on his lap; curls his fingers around the heel of Eddie’s foot and tucks the escaped fabric of Eddie’s sweatpants back into the hold of his sock to match the other foot.
Eddie, looking at his foot in Buck’s grasp, says, “If you tickle me, I’ll kick you.”
“I’d never.”
“You absolutely would.”
Buck snorts, tilting his chin up to grin at Eddie. “You’re right, I definitely would.”
He doesn’t, though. He eases Eddie’s foot back onto the floor, but keeps his knees pressed into the side of Eddie’s thigh to satisfy his own need for contact.
“I am okay,” Eddie says after a while. “And I am happy that my sisters are here. It’s just… after everything that’s happened, and with me going to therapy to deal with it, everything still feels so raw. I’ve been uprooting a lot of my past over these past weeks in order to take a closer look at it, and Adriana and Sophia are obviously a huge part of that past, of who I’ve been and who I am now. It’s hard to balance it all out – to be their brother and be present in the moment with them without reverting to that guy who always tried to push past the edges of himself to be bigger and better and take responsibility for everyone else, you know? Does that make any sense?”
He's been easing his words out slowly, as though figuring his feelings out as he’s gone along, and he’s been letting Buck in on his live feed of thought and emotion in that rare way, that spectacular way. It makes Buck think back to what Adriana said earlier, about how ‘he talks about it with you’. Makes him feel proud, and honored, and in awe.
“It does make sense,” he assures Eddie, perfectly at ease under Eddie’s vulnerable gaze. “I think I’d be surprised if you weren’t finding this situation a bit challenging to be honest, and it’s probably a good thing that you’re so aware of it. But you know, Sophia and Adriana are on the outside of all of this, looking in. They probably don’t understand fully what it’s like for you to be mid-process of healing, and maybe that’s why the dynamics between the three of you are a little rougher than usual.”
Eddie ducks his head, smiling. “Of course you’ve picked up on that.”
“You’re not the only one with underlying family issues, remember?”
Buck grins widely, and when Eddie chuckles at him it fills Buck’s heart to the point where he wonders if the touch of Eddie’s thigh against his knees is the only thing anchoring him, the only thing keeping that heart from pushing up to the top of his ribcage and making him soar away.
He taps a fingertip playfully against Eddie’s kneecap in attempt to keep some of that lightness; infuse it into his words when he says, “Maybe you should try opening up to them about parts of what you’re going through, at least. They love you; they want to know how you’re doing and if there’s anything they can do to help. All they really expect of you right now is for you to take care of yourself, you know? To be happy, to be you – whatever version of you that might be right now. Nothing more and nothing less.”
Eddie breathes out slowly at that, as though making room within himself for Buck’s words to sink into.
“I guess you’re right,” he says after a moment. “I’ll think about it – see how I feel about talking to them about it tomorrow.”
Buck nods. Smiles. Doesn’t want to move away from here quite yet.
“Thank you, Buck,” Eddie adds on, then, and his eyes are so full of that gratitude. So wide and pretty and consuming. “You being here, making sense of things – I really appreciate it.”
And all Buck can do in reaction is blink, because where else would he be? Where else could he possibly go when everything that matters is right here?
*
The inflatable mattress was only in place on the living room carpet for twelve or so hours, but now that it’s gone again, the room somehow seems a bit empty. Buck’s busy shuffling along the carpet, plucking abandoned glasses from the coffee table, when Eddie comes into the room, dragging a tired hand through his hair.
“That was fast.”
Eddie smiles softly, moving over to help Buck clean up. “I barely got through the first page before his eyelids started drooping. I thought he’d be too excited about tomorrow to settle down, but I guess I’m not the only one running out of energy from having the family here.”
“I can take care of this, you know.”
“No,” Eddie shakes his head, holding on to the empty snack bowls he’s snatched from the table. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll help you.”
Buck raises his eyebrows – arches them into a challenge. “I know that’s not what you meant, but I’m telling you I’ve got this – that you should accept my kind offer to relax, get yourself to bed.”
Eddie snorts, shaking his head once more. They walk side by side into the kitchen, and Buck watches him set the bowls on the counter. He’s prepared to set his shoulders, to argue, even though he knows he’s well on his way of being overprotective and annoying. He knows, though, that it’s often easier to be there for Eddie in the form of actions – that they’re a good substitute for words when he lacks the right things to say.
“Fine,” Eddie hums, probably sensing Buck’s eyes on him. He backs away from the counter, hands held high with the palms facing Buck. “I’m going.”
With the sisters gone back to Buck’s place and Christopher comfortably asleep, the house is swathed in silence. The soft, peaceful kind that presses in from all sides and blurs the edges of the world until it feels safe to breathe in.
Buck ignores the dishwasher in favor of filling up the sink with soapy water, making efficient work of the dishes and leaving each piece to dry on a towel to the side. After, he gathers the pile of takeout boxes from dinner and takes it all outside, taking in the stillness out on the street for a minute before walking inside again.
He turns the lights off as he goes, and looks inside Christopher’s room to find the boy curled up on his side, snoring softly. Inside the bathroom, he brushes his teeth to the sound of Eddie showering a couple of feet away and wonders why the mirror image of himself blinking back at him doesn’t look more surprised to be there.
The bedroom still smells oddly of paint, but the sheets of the bed smell like Eddie, familiar and right and settling comfortably in his lungs when he breathes it in.
Lying there, sprawled on his stomach, he can feel the familiar spikes of irritation starting up in his leg, the uncomfortable twitching in his thigh, and once he’s acknowledged it, it’s impossible to forget. He does a mental assessment of his entire leg, from hip through thigh and knee, all the way down to his toes, as though willing the sensations out by the sheer force of his mind, even though he knows that it’ll only make it worse. There’s another twitch, this time in the calf, followed by the reflexive movement of his foot in order to stretch the muscle out, make the twitching stop.
By the time Eddie emerges from the bathroom, damp and shirtless, the twitching has already evolved into an ache that only dulls under the strain and pressure of constant movement – the constant distraction of his muscles.
He watches as Eddie rounds the foot of the mattress and falls heavily onto his front next to Buck, making his way clumsily under the covers and shoving his forearms under his pillow. A towel has left a disheveled aftermath among the strands of Eddie’s hair, his eyelashes are long, and his skin is pink with warmth. He’s so full of beauty that it spills out everywhere – paints the entire room in hues of soft, warm gold.
“You could have at least turned the lights off before you made yourself comfortable,” Buck points out, because it’s safe. Because it’s less of a love confession than anything else he might say.
Eddie groans into his pillow, shifting slightly as though about to get back up from the mattress, but Buck reaches his hand out between them – touches Eddie’s elbow with his fingertips and murmurs, “No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”
He gets up and walks over to the door, flicks the light switch and watches the bare, abandoned lightbulb in the ceiling go off. On his short trek back to the mattress, he has to feel his way forward, and it’s a brief but welcome relief to be moving, to be working the muscles in his leg properly under his own weight like this.
Getting himself comfortable on the bed again, he lies on his back on top of the covers and searches, futilely, for distracting shapes in the dark depth of the ceiling above, all while his toes start to twitch involuntarily once more. It soon sets the rest of his foot going, and before he knows it he’s flexing and stretching every muscle in his leg; clenching and releasing, becoming one big, restless pulse that probably has the entire bed shifting.
Eddie sighs softly, and a moment later he’s slinging the heaviest part of his thigh over the flesh right above Buck’s knee to pin it down on the mattress.
“I’m sorry,” Buck mutters quietly, turning his head on the pillow to glance at Eddie through the moonlit dark. “Ever since the surgeries I have this pain in my leg that comes and goes – not very often nowadays, but it still happens.”
“That’s normal, Buck.”
“I know,” Buck sighs. “But it’s not even from the injury, though. It’s the muscles that bother me. They hurt a lot, back when the cast finally came off and I got cleared to work out again, and I get that, but it’s annoying that it still happens, that I can still feel it.”
“Your muscles atrophied when they were in the cast,” Eddie murmurs. “When muscle grows back after something like that, it hurts. And since you don’t know how to take it easy, you probably put your leg under more pressure than necessary. I think it’s only natural that your body still remembers that and that it acts up sometimes.”
Eddie knows these things, from medical training and from experience. Holds so much wisdom and so much care – is such a calming presence even when he says things that Buck already knows deep down.
“Doesn’t make it any more fun, though.”
Eddie snorts. “Want to pace a few laps around the house or something? It might distract you from the throbbing.”
Buck considers it, the ridiculous but thoughtful offer and the man who’s offering. Takes in the sleepy state of him, lying close enough that they’re breathing in the same air. The last thing he wants to do is disturb this, any of it.
“No,” he says eventually, turning it into a joke. “I’d rather not have to carry you inside when you fall asleep on the front porch.”
“Oh, fine. Have it your way, asshole,” Eddie huffs, though the amusement in his voice is audible and he keeps his leg tucked over Buck’s even when he closes his eyes and buries half of his face in his pillow in the most offended of manners.
Buck ends up smiling at his still form for a long while after, warm all the way down to his bones. The quiet ache of yearning beneath his breastbone that is begging him to lean over and kiss Eddie is worse than the throbbing in his leg – cannot be willed away by physical exertion. His heart has proved that by beating restlessly for years now.
*
He’s too warm when he wakes up, still sprawled on his back but now with Eddie’s arm slung along with half the duvet over his chest and Eddie’s face buried in his shoulder. His own hand is pressed to Eddie’s back, protective over the spine, and he has to ease his foot out from under Eddie’s ankle in order to get his body back – try to figure out how it works on its own again.
He takes a cold shower in attempt to cool down and wash any lingering traces of Eddie’s closeness off of his body, and comes back into the bedroom to find the bed covered in nothing but twisted sheets and sunshine.
Eddie’s in the kitchen, still shirtless and entirely sleep-rumpled. Buck hasn’t announced his own presence in the room, yet, and he gives himself a moment to simply stand there and admire the broad planes of Eddie’s back, the line of his spine and the shifting of bone and muscle when Eddie moves along the counter. There’s something Shakespearean going on in the way the light plays over Eddie’s skin – grand and beautiful and breathtaking.
Eddie catches sight of him from over a glorious shoulder, then. Murmurs a rough but happy, “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Buck smiles back, lifting an astonished hand to accept a cup of coffee. He looks down at it, then. Thinks, for a moment, that maybe this is what love is: affection exchanged within the holds of coffee cups, spelled out in sunlit kitchens.
“Leg okay?”
Buck takes a sip, nodding as he swallows. It burns his tongue. “Yeah. Are you?”
“Yeah,” Eddie smiles, and Buck never wants to look away. “It’s already quite late, though. I think Soph and Adriana will be here in a couple of hours to pick Chris up.”
He walks out of the kitchen, presumably to wake his son up, and Buck remains standing there in the sunlight, soaking in his own affection. He does turn eventually – intends to grab some milk out of the fridge for Chris’s cereal, but ends up touching the tips of his fingers to the drawing on there instead.
It’s him and Eddie, with Christopher in-between them. They’re all holding hands, and the small Christopher in the middle has a love heart drawn onto his shirt that somehow encompasses the entire picture; the solution to their non-problem offered in bright red right at the center.
It’s that easy, Buck thinks. It can keep on being this easy, and nothing has to change.
He feels Eddie’s hand on his hip, then, as Eddie moves past him on his way back into the kitchen. Here I am, he’s saying voicelessly. There you are, and this is how we work around each other: naturally.
It doesn’t have to be more. Buck can keep sating his own heart with these moments when the longing spikes too high within him; he can feed himself these pieces of bliss that Eddie and Christopher hand him so readily and he can cling to how unquestionably he fits into this family in his own right, his own way. If he got any more than this, he might explode with it. He wouldn’t know how to contain something so much bigger than himself.
*
After Sophia and Adriana have come by to pick Chris up, Buck and Eddie find themselves on the couch. Eddie’s been half-watching a rerun of an old boxing match, and Buck’s finally working his way through the second half of his book. They’re eating the remains of last night’s doritos for lunch straight out of the bag, because they don’t have to be responsible adults when Chris isn’t there, and there’s something about Eddie’s quiet presence next to him that’s so loud, so filling, that Buck is scared to move and ruin it for himself.
Eddie’s toes are tucked in under Buck’s thigh, his head’s tilted back against the armrest of the couch, and his gaze on the side of Buck’s face is warm, and anchoring, and flattering. When Buck looks over to meet it, Eddie asks, “What do we do now? They’ll be gone for hours.”
Buck closes his book around its bookmark and settles it on his lap. He instinctively curls his empty hand around Eddie’s ankle, tapping his fingertips against the bone there when he thinks. He can’t help but smile to himself, because there’s something in Eddie’s expression that’s so uncharacteristically confused, indicating that without Christopher here, Eddie is the one who is lost in his own home. Eddie is the one pacing in too much space, caught up in too much time with too little to do.
He tightens his fingers around Eddie’s ankle, hoping to be an anchor, a comfort, something more pleasant to be caught up in.
“We could head out and buy some more paint,” he suggests. “You said that we need more for that second layer.”
While they’re getting dressed, Buck realizes that he forgot to bring clean shirts over from his apartment. He shoves as much of the laundry into the washing machine as he can, but it does little to solve his current predicament.
Eddie, walking out of the bathroom in nothing but unbuttoned jeans and with a toothbrush hanging from the corner of his mouth, looks at Buck for a moment before fishing a long-sleeved shirt out of a drawer and handing it over. Buck blinks after him when he turns back towards the bathroom, hoping that his heart won’t beat visibly through the fabric when they’re out in the daylight.
They get into Buck’s jeep, and the traffic turns out to be absolutely horrendous, but Buck doesn’t care because Eddie’s sat next to him, blasting ABBA while telling Buck that, “No, Buck, everyone don’t actually need to crank their AC units down to degrees of fucking winter, because some people already get cold at night as it is.”
And Buck – head over heels in love with the frown on Eddie’s face and the fact that Eddie’s toes are always cold in the mornings – laughs brightly, telling him that, “No but they do! You just happen to have the blood circulation of a man thrice your age.”
After that, Eddie crosses his arms defiantly over his chest and proceeds to stare out of the window for the rest of the journey, unaware that Buck can see the way he’s still tapping along with his foot to Dancing Queen against the floor.
Inside the store, they grab a cart and walk along each aisle at a leisurely pace. They get the basic, off-white shade that Eddie picked out, and then they grab a bunch of different-sized rollers to make their job easier for the second layer. A couple of aisles later, Eddie’s voice calling out his name from behind him makes Buck turn around, and a moment later he’s struggling to get his arms around the width of a cardboard box containing an electrical fan that Eddie has pushed gently against his chest.
“There,” he’s saying, looking far too smug. “Merry Christmas.”
Buck ends up hugging the box close to his chest all the way to the self-checkout, because he knows that it’ll amuse Eddie to no end. He’s aware, while trailing after Eddie and their cart, of his own smile; of how it’s stringed with the very yarn that makes up the line of Eddie’s ear, his neck, the slope of his shoulder. Too exquisite under the horrific overhead grids of light, like something spun out of a dream.
“What about after?” Buck asks when they’re back in the car.
“After what?”
“After we’re done painting,” he clarifies, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “The so-called art from before has to go, Eddie, it was awful.”
Eddie shrugs. Says, “I broke most of those paintings anyway.”
Buck turns into the parking lot of a convenient grocery store, and is turning off the ignition just as Eddie adds, “I don’t know. I don’t really care. Just… nothing with faces on it.”
Buck hums. “What about landscapes? Or something abstract?”
“So the insomnia can draw shapes out of there that will climb onto the bed in the middle of the night?”
Buck snorts, not because it’s funny but because it’s true and it’s honest and it’s less sensitive when it’s out in the open – easier to plan a counterattack against in daylight like this, when they can join protective forces.
“Landscapes, then,” he concludes, smiling over the gearshift. “Something forest-y, maybe. Tall trees, perhaps a winding path. Shades of moss and glass swept up from the sea. I think that would be soothing.”
“Alright, mister home makeover, let’s focus on getting the room back into functional order before we go into details, shall we?” Eddie teases, but the smile he tilts away from Buck as he turns and slides his body out of the car door is gentle; brimming with gratitude and affection that slips right around Buck’s heart and squeezes it full of pride.
*
With the combined supplies of what was already in the fridge and the bits and pieces they picked up at the store, they spend most of their afternoon moving around the kitchen, cooking and taking turns sipping red wine straight from the bottle. They make two pans of lasagna: one with meat and a smaller veggie one for Sophia. By the time the trio comes back from their day out, Buck and Eddie are full of a private kind of joy and beyond thrilled to hear everything Chris has to tell them over dinner.
Once they’ve cleared the table of leftover, homemade brownies and store-bought vanilla ice cream, Buck asks Chris to keep him company in the kitchen while he loads the dishwasher up, giving Eddie a pointed look as they go that he hopes conveys a message of ‘this is your last chance before they drive home, talk to them’. Eddie rolls his eyes back at him, but the soft smile on his lips is fond. Grateful. Shows that he’s on board with the plan, that he’s ready.
When they’ve said goodbye to Adriana and Sophia a couple of hours later, all three of them hover in the doorway, watching them get into the car and back away. Eddie’s eyes are still slightly red-rimmed, and his shoulders are slumped in what Buck thinks is relief rather than defeat, which in turn makes him think that Eddie’s conversation with his sisters went well – that it served as a good ending to their weekend together. He hasn’t talked to Eddie about it, but he’s pretty sure that the other man is both happy and sad to see them go.
“You okay?” he asks, reaching out between them to take Eddie’s hand in his own, squeezing it gently.
From his peripheral vision, he can see Eddie nod in response, allowing his hand to be held while wrapping the other comfortingly around his son’s shoulder.
“I can do the bedtime story tonight, if you want,” Buck offers. “If you’d like some time.”
It’s quiet out there for a moment. Chris has finally stopped waving; the lights of the car have been swallowed up by the darkness of the night.
“Thank you,” Eddie murmurs back.
It doesn’t hit Buck that their hands are still entwined until they’re standing in Chris’s room and Eddie needs both of his to frame Chris’s face and kiss him goodnight on the forehead.
*
On his way out from Christopher’s room, after turning the nightlight on and everything else off, he takes a detour to the living room and grabs a blanket from the back of the couch. Once he enters the bedroom, he shuffles over to the mattress and folds the blanket neatly over Eddie’s already covered shape on there, on top of the duvet that is tucked up against Eddie’s chin.
Eddie remains quiet; his gaze curious and his smile amused where he watches Buck move around the room until he sits down at the foot of the mattress with his gifted box between his legs.
Buck unpacks the fan slowly. Is careful with the parts of it, careful when he assembles it. He’s aware of Eddie’s gaze on him – feels comfortable under the weight of it, like it’s a blanket of his own. He plugs the fan in, aims it towards his side of the bed, and is humming a pleased little tune to himself when he heads for the bathroom to get himself ready for bed.
Eddie turns on his side when Buck joins him on the mattress; curling limbs in towards the curve of Buck’s body and blinking slowly. His smile is soft and genuine rather than mocking when he asks, “Happy now?”
“Oh yeah,” Buck hums cheerfully. “You?”
“Getting there.”
He studies Eddie, then – how at ease he looks in the moonlight. So soft and gentle, so strong and familiar and comforting. The room is patient around them, prepared to come together for them as soon as they’re ready for it, and their words bouncing against its walls are teasing, and caring, and knowing, and challenging: safe to give away and hold on to. Because they fit in here, the two of them, just the way they are.
He hasn’t noticed Eddie having any issues with his sleep over these past two nights, and he hasn’t experienced any of his own. He thinks about that – about them fitting in, about them holding each other up and rearranging parts of themselves into stronger shapes. Knows that they’re both becoming sturdier structures and marvels at how they can depend on each other – be as strong together as they are apart.
He doesn’t think he’s ever looked at love like that before – as something so healthy, so adjustable and real.
*
He drifts briefly into consciousness at some point during the night. His head rests high on Eddie’s pillow, while Eddie’s cheek is burrowed into it at a lower point. Eddie’s nose is tucked into the hollow of Buck’s throat, stealing warmth from the skin there, and the blanket has slipped down from the curve of Eddie’s body and ended up squished between their bodies like a moat trying to keep them separated.
Buck fumbles his hand around in the mess of fabrics until he can drag the blanket over his own body, then he curls his fingers into its corner and tucks his blanket-covered self around Eddie’s middle, securing one of Eddie’s feet between his ankles below the fabric and breathing out satisfaction into the diminished space between them, already falling back asleep.
*
That Tuesday morning, they only have a few minutes left of their shift and absolutely nothing has happened since they came back from their last call well over an hour ago. Eddie’s sat on a stool by the counter, sipping his coffee and catching up on some medical study Hen recommended to him. Hen’s been sat on one of the couches for a good while, making her way through a crime novel, and he can hear Chimney grunting downstairs, fighting his way through the last sets of his workout.
For his own part, Buck has been throwing a tennis ball against a wall for the past twenty minutes, willing time to move faster or something interesting to happen. The way the ball comes bouncing back at him over and over again is soothing, bordering on hypnotic, which means that the loud bangs coming from down below take him by complete surprise and make him seize up with terror.
His eyes dart over to Eddie by the kitchen area, his heart pounding aggressively. Eddie’s eyes, meeting his, are searching just as frantically for connection, and there’s a soundless understanding held within the linking of their gazes when they realize that the other one is safe, that no bullets are trying to tear their world apart again.
“Sorry!” Chimney’s voice calls out, then, sounding like he truly means it. “I just dropped… everything.”
It makes Hen sigh the heavy, prolonged kind of sigh of someone fond, and she discards her book on the arm of the couch in favor of pushing herself up and coming to Chimney’s rescue.
Within their lasting eye contact, Eddie’s expression is turning exasperated, and his voice holds a note of affection when he breathes out a barely audible, “Buck.”
“What?”
“Come here.”
“What?”
“Your forehead,” Eddie says, tapping an instructive fingertip against his own eyebrow. “Didn’t you feel the ball hit you when it bounced back at you?”
Buck raises his hand and touches two fingers to his brow, awakening the echo of an impact there, the aftermath of an ache that might very well become a bruise.
“Huh,” he remarks, and follows the beckoning of Eddie’s tilted head. He sits at the counter and lets his thighs fall open for Eddie to step in between, allowing him easier access for a closer inspection.
He eases the coffee cup out of Eddie’s hands. Eddie lets him.
“Mine,” he mutters, with a lack of venom in his voice, as Buck takes a sip from it. “I need as much of that as I can get my hands on in order to put up with your shit.”
Buck beams, setting the cup aside on the countertop behind him. “Sure you do.”
Eddie uses careful, competent fingers to assess the point of impact over Buck’s eyebrow, murmuring about a bump, about the risk of bruising, about how maybe they should grab an icepack to cool it down with.
“It’s nothing,” Buck insists, admiring the shade of Eddie’s eyes in the soft light. “I’ll be fine.”
Eddie raises an unimpressed eyebrow, muttering that, “When we’re in our eighties and Chris puts us in a retirement home, you’ll be the guy arranging wheelchair rallies in the hallways when the nurses have their afternoon coffee, breaking your hip and fucking yourself up, and I’ll be looking the other way, pretending that I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
We. Chris. You. I.
It’s a future spelled out in terms of them, with nothing in-between. It’s the most casual declaration of ‘this is it, we’re it’ ever made, and it’s murmured into the air as though it always belonged there, as though it was always true.
And Buck tilts his face forward into the sliver of space between their faces, fitting his smile to Eddie’s mouth in a first kiss. The first kiss. He can feel Eddie’s breath stutter against his own lips, can sense when the surprise folds into something soft and pleased as Eddie steps in closer between Buck’s thighs, moves his hand from Buck’s forehead to the side of his face, his neck. Eddie kisses him back, and it’s soft and vulnerable and it makes Buck tremble all over.
“Diaz, Buckley,” Bobby’s voice cuts in, forcing them apart. They both turn their heads in the direction of their captain, bumping noses in the process.
Buck’s hand is on Eddie’s hip, Eddie’s fingers are splayed over Buck’s throat, and Bobby’s expression is full of exhaustion when he says, “Thirty seconds left of the shift, guys. You couldn’t just wait until you got home, where there’s no need for paperwork?”
“I,” Buck starts. “It wasn’t—"
“Sorry, cap,” Eddie offers, coherent and calm and beautiful. His lack of shame at having been caught is enticing; his smile mischievous and wonderful to look at. “It was just mouth to mouth. Basic procedure, nothing to report. We’re going now.”
Bobby grumbles something under his breath, but he fails spectacularly to hide his smile when he moves past them towards his office. In his absence, Buck looks back to Eddie, and finds Eddie’s gaze already on him. He feels like he should have an explanation ready; something to give Eddie that can contain everything he feels and everything Eddie means to him, but Eddie’s smile is soft, and his eyes are warm and gently crinkled around the corners, and Buck is at a loss for words, looking at him.
The air between them is so private, somehow. So settled, as though this is a part of it, of them. Another piece of everyday life to slip into and become.
“Ready?”
Eddie is easing Buck’s hand away from his own hip, as though he can tell that Buck has forgotten it there. He links their fingers together and tugs Buck up from the stool, into a shared, breathless state of anticipation that is entirely new and entirely right.
Buck nods. Tightens his hand around Eddie’s and glances curiously at them: these pieces of them that blurred the line of separation between them long before they realized it – that made them into a whole. And he knows that he’s beaming – that it’s his open display of joy that is making Eddie grin back at him with this fondness, this age-old affection that Buck hasn’t been able to name before even though it’s always been aimed his way.
“School’s not out for another six hours,” he reminds Eddie. “We’ve got the house to ourselves.”
Eddie laughs brightly, and Buck basks in it. Carries the lightness it makes him feel along with his soaring heart inside his ribcage all the way down the stairs to the ground floor. Chimney gives them an amused look as they pass him, peeking out from the punching bag.
“Hey guys, where are you going?” he asks, furrowing his brow when they don’t stop for a chat. “Shift’s not over until – oh. Now, actually.”
“Home,” Buck realizes, smiling at Eddie over their joined hands. “We’re going home.”