Chapter Text
Buck held his breath, fingers crossed, as he watched the shiny blue ball roll down the lane. There was obnoxiously upbeat pop music playing overhead and the sound of someone laughing loudly a few spaces away.
“C’mon,” he said, watching the ball start to curve towards the side. “C’mon, don’t, don’t- Damn it!”
The ball hit the gutter, missing the pins entirely. He huffed and turned around, stomping back to the others as the television overhead taunted him with a cheesy animation.
“Better Buck next time,” Chimney said, patting him on the shoulder as he got up to grab his own ball from the return.
“Oh shut up,” he snapped. “Whose idea was this, anyways?”
“That would be yours,” Maddie cheerfully pointed out from where she was sitting at their table with Eddie, sipping at her coke. “After the two of you shot down karaoke.”
“Well, why did you listen to me?” He wasn’t whining. He wasn’t.
(He totally was.)
“If it helps, Chimney isn’t doing much better,” Eddie offered when Buck sat down next to him, across from his sister.
The man in question was, much as Buck before him, keeping a focused eye on his ball as it rolled down the lane. As they all watched, it drifted to the side, managing to swipe a grand total of one pin before disappearing into the back.
“It doesn’t,” Buck said, slumping against his husband.
This double date had been his and Maddie’s idea, after she called him a couple days before, on Monday. They had waved Chris off to two weeks of summer camp just that morning, an event that was accompanied by far less pouting on Buck’s behalf than the first time they tried it. But he and his sister had got to talking, and somehow they’d stumbled right into the idea of the four of them doing something together one evening.
Things had gotten better between Chimney and the Diazes after the former had finally apologized for everything that had occurred the year before, the punch first and foremost. They were finally, finally, on track to becoming friends again, rather just merely friendly. So the idea of a double date seemed like a very good opportunity to further mend their charred bridges.
When Buck had brought it up to Eddie, his husband had looked heavenwards before letting out a resigned sigh and saying,
“Okay, mi sol. As long as it’s not karaoke.”
“So what are you two going to do with an empty nest for the next two weeks?” Maddie asked, watching as Chimney impatiently waited for his ball to be returned to him. After a moment’s thought - or maybe after catching the looks her brother and brother-in-law had thrown at each other - she grimaced and said, “Besides the obvious. Also, ew.”
“At some point we’re going to be getting a head start on packing,” Eddie said. “Buck and Abuela have already made a list of what things are going to make the move and what will be left behind or donated. There was a clipboard involved.”
“Un portapapeles,” Buck said, very proud of himself for the way it rolled off his tongue without his usual butchery of an accent. His sister stared at him blankly. “A clipboard.”
“Did I mention Abuela also had him speaking Spanish the entire time?”
“Adorable,” Maddie said, almost looking like she meant it. At the lane, Chimney hopped up and down in excitement as he managed to knock down half the pins. Buck let out a groan.
“I’m sure if we asked, they’d put up the bumpers for us,” Eddie teased.
“Shut up and go take your turn,” Buck said, shoving at him.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Chimney said, coming back to the table and passing Eddie on the way. That there wasn’t even a little glare from the latter went to show how much progress was being made. Things were still awkward at times between the three of them, but it was getting better. “But I think that puts me ahead of you.”
“It puts you firmly in third,” Buck said, rolling his eyes. “Instead of tied for last.”
His sister said something then, but he wasn’t really paying attention to her. Instead, he was caught up by the sight of his husband elegantly swinging his arm and launching his own ball, bending slightly at the waist as he did. His eyes were stuck entirely on the view his husband was presenting in those far too tight-
“Buck!”
“I’m listening,” he lied, not even making an effort to tear his gaze away. There was a clatter as the bowling ball hit the pins, and he could see that only a couple were still standing, one on either end.
“No, you’re ogling,” Maddie said, and he didn’t have to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes. Beside her, Chimney was making sounds of disgust.
“My husband is a snack and I am not ashamed.” Said husband turned and caught him staring, throwing a knowing smirk at him as he went to retrieve his ball.
“I wish you had shame,” she told him.
“Yeah, yeah. What were you talking about?”
“I thought you were listening?”
“Okay, it’s been bugging me all night, but haven’t we been to this bowling alley before?” Chimney asked, breaking in before the siblings could continue to bicker at each other. “It looks very familiar.”
“I think this is the one where the lady got her arm stuck in the pinsetter,” Buck said, letting out a groan in commiseration when his husband only managed to knock one of the pins over. “So close!”
“You’re up, Maddie,” Eddie announced, coming back over with a hint of a cocky swagger. “Let’s see if you can do better than that.”
As it turned out, Buck’s husband could get competitive. Shocking to absolutely no one.
“Sit down and look pretty, Diaz,” Maddie directed, smoothing down her dress as she got up.
Also shocking to absolutely no one, so could Buck’s sister.
“I’m always pretty,” Eddie said, sitting down and pulling a basket of fries closer to himself.
Almost primly, Maddie grabbed her ball from the return and strode up to the lane, looking very much like she was on a catwalk. As they watched, she swung her arm and let it loose, the bowling ball rolling straight down for the pins. She didn’t even wait to look before she turned and gave them a mocking curtsy to the sound of each and every pin being knocked over.
“I’m in love,” Chimney said, after letting out a dreamy sigh.
“I’m in hate,” Buck groused.
“So I think that I’m still winning, right?” Maddie asked sweetly as she rejoined them.
“Barely,” Eddie grumbled, shoving at Buck’s shoulder. “Hurry up and take your turn.”
“Oh you know I like it when you get bossy,” he joked, letting himself get pushed to his feet. “Hey, do you remember when TK said they were supposed to be landing tomorrow?”
“Sometime in the afternoon,” his husband answered. “Around two, I think?”
“TK’s the firefighter turned paramedic from Austin, right?” Maddie asked, frowning unhappily at her empty drink. “The one you met and then proceeded to steal a firetruck with?”
“I did not steal their firetruck,” Buck insisted as he picked up his bowling ball. He didn’t pay much attention to it as he sent it rolling down the lane, knowing it would just end up in the gutter. Just like every other time tonight. “Our two teams borrowed it to rescue Hen and his dad, and- Why are you staring at me like that?”
Except they weren’t staring at him, they were staring past him. He followed their gaze, just in time to watch his ball smash into the pins, sending each and every one of them toppling over.
“Ha!” he shouted, jumping up and down. He turned back to the others, still bouncing in excitement. “Suck it, Chimney! Suck i- Oh fuck!” Accidentally stepping on the slickened floor of the lane, his foot slipped out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto his face. “I’m okay!”
“Maybe save the gloating for when you’re sitting down?” Eddie suggested, coming over to help him up.
“That is a wonderful idea,” he agreed, taking the other man’s hand and letting himself be pulled to his feet. They held hands until they got back to the table, when Buck let himself drop into the seat and reach for the basket of fries.
The empty basket of fries.
“Eds! Babe, really?”
“I’ll go get more,” Eddie promised, kissing him on top of the head and taking off for the concessions.
“Know what? I’m gonna go get us refills,” Chimney announced, grabbing his and Maddie’s empty cups and following after Eddie.
“Should we be worried about that?” Maddie asked, watching the two men go off together. “The two of them together, unsupervised, I mean.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Buck told her, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t sure about it at all. Both men had been on their best behavior all night, and they’d been getting along well. Eddie hadn’t scowled or glared once at the paramedic. So, hopefully… “Tonight’s been fun.”
“Even though you absolutely suck at bowling?”
“Even though I absolutely suck at bowling.”
“When do you two move, officially?” Maddie asked, turning back to face him once she’d apparently decided their partners weren’t liable to start a scene if she looked away.
“Middle of July is what we’re planning on,” he answered. “Eddie and I get all of our things - and Chris’ - moved or donated, and then do the same for Abuela’s. She already has people interested in buying her house. One of them was very keen on her garden, but jokes on them. She’s gonna have us digging every flower up that we can and taking them with us.”
“You don’t think it’s going to be weird, do you?” his sister asked. When he stared at her blankly, she clarified with, “Living with your husband’s grandmother.”
“It’ll be nice, I think,” he told her. “And not just because we’ll get her food more often. Or the free childcare once we have another kid running around. I think she gets bored and lonely sometimes, even if she won’t admit it.”
“I doubt she’ll have to worry about being bored or lonely in a house with you in it,” Maddie joked.
Eddie and Chimney arrived back then, carrying between them more food than what they originally went up to get. They were snickering to each other about something, which was always a good sign.
“There was a guy trying to flirt with the woman behind the register,” Eddie said when the siblings looked at them for an explanation. “Badly.”
“And his bad flirting got us half the menu?” Maddie asked, happily picking at a thing of onion rings.
“No, we were hungry and stuck in line behind him,” Chimney answered. “Or, well, I guess that means it did. But we had to watch him crash and burn. It was embarrassing.”
“Now that you’re back,” Buck said, squirting ketchup onto his fries, “you can hurry up and take your turn.”
“Eager to cement your position as last place?”
“Bite me.”
Buck did not, in matter of fact, end up in last place. He managed to lay claim to third, though barely. Maddie, of course, ended the night with the best score after another pair of strikes, and proceeded to rub her victory in all of their faces.
Eddie grumbled about it all the way home.
TK had been weird about the flight the entire time. Understandably so, Carlos thought. The last time his fiancé - and God, he could not get enough of being able to call TK that - was on a plane, he’d been on his way to sit shiva for his mother. And then the entire thing had nearly crashed. Maybe that was why the man had seemed so nauseous the entire time. Or, not nauseous per se, but like… The ghost of it.
Like he was remembering a time he’d been nauseous. Vividly.
Carlos hadn’t many options for making the flight better for TK, not without knowing what was bothering him, so he’d opted to simply hold his fiancé's hand the entire time. He’d smiled sweetly at him for it, and it seemed to have helped. At least a little.
When the plane landed and they filed off, his fiancé seemed to get less nauseous and more… Wistful, that was a good word for it. TK seemed to get more wistful and melancholy as they made their way to claim their baggage, and looked outright sad as they rode down the escalator and under the “Welcome to Southern California” sign.
“Are you okay?” he asked, frowning at him when they reached the bottom. There were a pair of men in suits hovering just outside the automatic doors, holding signs with names on them. “I thought you were looking forward to coming. Because if you’ve decided you don’t want to be here, then we can get a ticket back right now.”
“I am!” TK was quick to assure him. “It’s just… Memories. Last time I was here was with mom.”
“Oh.” That explained it. “Do you need a moment?”
“No, I’m okay,” his fiancé said. “Uh, what do you want to do first? After getting a rental car.”
On cue, Carlos felt and heard his stomach grumble.
“Food,” he said.
“Food,” TK agreed, nodding. “And then… Hotel first, or surprise them at the station?”
Buck and Eddie were both on shift, which was the only reason they weren’t there waiting for them. Probably while holding an obnoxiously large sign with glittery letters.
“We could swing by the station and see if they’re there?” Carlos suggested. “Decide then.”
“I like the way you think,” his fiancé said, nodding before looking around. “Okay, so uh, I think we have to take a shuttle to the rental place. And that’s in this direction. I think.”
“Lead the way then, tiger,” Carlos said, happily following.