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After Connor and Kameron leave—after their copious hugs and outpourings of gratitude—Buck sits in his silent apartment alone.
It’s a good thing, what he’s doing for them. He knows it is. They were so happy when he agreed.
So what if his stomach twists a little when he thinks about them and the little child that might one day toddle around their new house, with bright blue eyes and unruly curls.
They get to have that. They deserve to have that, even if Buck doesn’t.
The buzz of his phone cuts through the quiet. Buck fumbles to look at the screen, and sees Eddie flash across it.
He answers without thinking. “Eddie!”
“Buck, hey,” Eddie’s voice comes through. Buck feels instantly less jittery. “I just dropped Chris at school. You wanna come over in a bit? Missed you at work yesterday.”
It does something funny to Buck’s insides, the casual way Eddie says Missed you.
“I know Chris would like to see you, too, if you want to stick around for pick-up,” Eddie continues. “He’s been pretty upset about the whole no video games thing, and he could use the company.”
“Yeah, of course,” Buck says. As if he would ever say no to seeing Chris. “I’ll be there in an hour?”
“See you soon,” Eddie replies, his voice so warm it makes Buck not want to hang up, even though he’d be hanging up in order to go see him.
“See you,” Buck echoes, and ends the call.
This is good. This is just what he needs—the perfect distraction from his own thoughts.
Forty-three minutes later, he’s plopping himself down on Eddie’s couch and Eddie’s handing him a mug of coffee.
“So, how is everything with Chris?” Buck asks, before Eddie can say anything.
“Better,” Eddie says, sipping his own coffee. “I think. I caught him playing video games with his friends the other night and we kinda had it out. He called me a jerk.”
“Ouch,” Buck says with a wince.
“Yeah,” Eddie says. He tells Buck about the whole conversation, blow by blow, and then he says, “Do you think I handled it okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” Buck says. “You didn’t yell. You opened up with him, instead of just getting mad. You got to the root of the issue and laid down boundaries. It sounds like you did great. You always do, Eddie.”
“You don’t think grounding him a second week was too harsh?” Eddie asks.
Buck blinks. Eddie asks him to weigh in on parenting stuff all the time, this isn’t anything new, but something about the question catches Buck off-guard.
He’s not Chris’s parent. He doesn’t get a say, not really.
He shrugs. “You’re his dad, Eddie. If you think it’s fair, then it probably is.”
Eddie scrunches his lip a little, like he’s not sure he likes Buck’s answer.
Buck hastens to change the subject, “So, tell me about that dog OD the other day. Kinda mad I missed it, to be honest.”
Eddie’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, too bad you and Hen were busy getting drunk at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. You wanna tell me what that was all about?”
His lips are curled in an amused smile, but there’s a crease in his forehead that tells Buck he’s more concerned than he’s letting on.
“Oh, you know, I just went over there to check up on her,” Buck answers easily.
“And wound up doing shots?”
Buck shrugs.
“Okay,” Eddie says, putting his coffee up aside, clearly at the end of some rope Buck hadn’t realized he was climbing. “What is going on with you?”
Buck balks. “What d’you mean?”
“You’ve been acting weird all week,” Eddie says. “You were totally zoned out the other day at the firehouse. And then that whole stunt with the bike, going after Chimney—”
“Hey, that worked!” Buck protests.
“And now you’re doing tequila shots with Hen on your day off?”
There’s something in Buck’s head saying don’t tell Eddie. And he doesn’t—that doesn’t make any sense. He tells Eddie almost everything—why not this?
“Um, okay,” Buck says, fidgeting. He puts his own mug down on the coffee table. “So. You know how I couldn’t come over the other night because I was having dinner with my old roommate and his wife? Well, it turns out they’ve been trying to have a kid for like, a while, and haven’t had any luck. And so they’re looking for a sperm donor and…well…they kind of asked me.”
Eddie looks shocked, but beyond that Buck can’t really read what he’s thinking. “They just asked you? Just like that?”
“Yeah,” Buck says. “And…well, I said yes.”
Eddie doesn’t look shocked anymore—instead, his face has gone completely blank. “Buck…”
He sounds almost gutted, and Buck can’t stand it. He knows there was a reason he didn’t want to tell Eddie and it’s this: because Eddie understands him possibly more than anyone else in the world. Understands him even more than Buck himself, sometimes. He always sees the inner workings of everything Buck does, and as much as Buck loves that about him, it is also, sometimes, unbearable.
“It’s not a big deal,” he says, which obviously Eddie doesn’t buy for a second.
“Not a big deal?” Eddie echoes. “Is that what you’re trying to tell yourself? Have you thought about what it’s going to feel like? What it’s going to do to you, to see them with a kid that shares your genes but isn’t yours?”
“Hen said the same thing,” Buck says into his lap.
“And?”
“And what does it matter, Eddie?” Buck bursts. “They’re good people, they love each other and they want a family—they deserve to have a family and I can give that to them. Whatever feelings I might have about it—they don’t matter.”
“Christ, Buck,” Eddie says, rising from the couch, his voice tight with frustration. “That’s really what you think, isn’t it? Still. After all this time. You still think that your feelings doin’t matter. That you don’t matter.”
“That’s not what I said,” Buck replies stubbornly. “And what are you getting so upset about? It’s not your sperm.”
Eddie looks at him with fire in his dark eyes, his jaw tense. “I just—I can’t watch you do this to yourself.” His words coming out clipped and unyielding. “Not again. Settling for some half-measure you know isn’t going to make you happy. You have to want more for yourself, Buck.”
Buck swallows. He can see the look in Eddie’s eyes, that intense gaze that burns to the core of him. The same look he had on his face when he sat Buck down in his hospital room and said You think you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.
“What if half measures are all I get?” The words waver on the way out. “Then shouldn’t I…shouldn’t I try and find a way to be happy with that? With what I have, even if it’s not exactly what I want?”
Eddie stares at him, stricken. Like what Buck just said has rattled him to his core. He lets out a breath, closes his eyes briefly.
“It…it might be my only chance,” Buck says. He can’t bear to look at Eddie as he confesses this stupid, selfish, pathetic thought that took root the minute he said yes, staring across the table at Connor and Kameron. He hasn’t been able to squash it.
“Your only chance to what?”
“You know. To…to have a kid,” Buck answers. “Even if it’s not really mine.”
Because it won’t really be his. Just like Chris isn’t really his. Just like nothing is. And Buck has just got to be grateful for what he does have. Which is enough. It has to be enough.
Eddie makes a sound, like a sudden, ragged inhale. “Buck, you know that’s not true. Tell me you know that’s not true.”
Buck looks up at him and understands, all at once, what has Eddie so distressed all of the sudden. “Oh, what, because if the worst thing that could ever happen happens, then I get to raise your kid?”
Eddie looks at him like he’s been hit. Like Buck just hit him.
“That’s—I can’t even think about that, Eddie,” Buck bites out. “Don’t make me think about that.”
Eddie’s chest rises and falls on a breath. When he speaks again, all the frantic anger and urgency from before is gone. With slow, deliberate movements, he sinks back down onto the couch next to Buck.
“The fight I had with Chris the other night,” Eddie says, rubbing the arch of his brow absently. “It sucked. I felt awful.”
Buck turns to him questioningly. “But you worked it out.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “We did. And after he went to bed and I was just sitting here, do you know what I thought?”
Buck shakes his head. He tries to grasp at what Eddie might be saying, but he has no idea where this is going.
And what Eddie says next would take him out at the knees if he wasn’t already sitting.
“I thought, why isn’t Buck here?” Eddie says. “Like I forgot, for a minute, that I’m a single dad. That I have to deal with this stuff and make these decisions on my own. And the reason I forgot is because—I haven’t been doing it alone. Not really. Not for a while now. And the other night, it was like I—I resented you for not being here, for not knowing what’s going on with my kid and I—I’ve got no right to resent you for that.”
Buck feels awful. “Eddie, I’m sorry, I should’ve—”
“No, Buck don’t apologize,” Eddie cuts him off. “That’s the point. It’s not your job, even though sometimes it feels like it should be.”
Buck doesn’t know what to say to that. Because he wants it to be his job, he wants it so badly he can never say it out loud. Eddie’s already given him so much—he let Buck into Chris’s life, into both of their lives, and Buck has never stopped being grateful for it.
“You’re the person Chris turns to when he can’t come to me,” Eddie says. “You’re the person I want to make these decisions with. The person I want to share all of it with—the pain and the joy of watching him grow up.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, his voice rasping out of his throat. Eddie can’t—he can’t really mean it. Buck’s not—he’s not a parent. Not a dad, and even after he gives up some of his DNA, he still won’t be. “What—what are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s not your only chance, Buck,” Eddie says, so quietly his voice is almost swallowed by the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. “You have one, right here, with us.”
Buck is—terrified. He’s terrified that Eddie isn’t saying what he thinks he is. He’s terrified that he is.
“Eddie,” Buck says. He can feel tears rising to the surface, stinging and wet. He needs to be sure. He needs there to be no question, nothing to hide behind. “What are you offering here?”
Eddie looks more vulnerable than he ever has, except perhaps that one night Buck doesn’t like to think about. “You deserve more than half measures, Buck.” His fingers brush so gently over Buck’s face, tracing his hairline, touching the birthmark next to his eye. “You just have to be brave enough to want it.”
Buck doesn’t breathe.
“I do,” Eddie says softly, holding his gaze. “I want something more.”
Buck swallows, closing his eyes until he feels Eddie’s fingers drop away from his face.
“You want me to—to be Chris’s parent with you?” He can barely get the words out. They don’t sound real.
How many times has he felt like it could be true? When a stranger mistakes him for Chris’s father, when the three of them are sitting down to dinner together, when Eddie trusts him without hesitation to do what’s best for Chris, in every situation?
And how many times has Buck had to yank himself back to Earth, to tell himself that’s not how it is, not really, and that he should stop kidding himself?
“Yes,” Eddie says. “But not—not just that. I want you to be happy, Buck.”
Buck opens his mouth to say—something. I’m happy when I’m with you, maybe.
But Eddie keeps going before Buck can get the words out. “I want you to be happy, and I want it to be with me. With us. I want you to be my partner in every sense of the word—I want your place in our lives to be indisputable, and permanent.” He looks down, curling his hand into a loose fist. “I want to kiss you. To go home with you every night—or morning, I guess, is more accurate. I want you there for the arguments and the growing pains just as much as I want you there for the movie nights and the celebrations. I just want you to be with us. I want…to love you in every way you’ll let me.”
His eyes are so dark when they meet Buck’s, even flecked with light from the window. Buck wants to reach for him, wants to touch him. He can’t move.
“And maybe you don’t want the same thing, and that’s okay,” Eddie says gently. “But I can’t watch you settle for half measures when you deserve everything.”
Buck has forgotten how to speak. He thinks, for one brief, wild moment, that maybe the drunk driver really did hit him and he’s lying in a hospital bed right now, dreaming.
It feels like a dream. Like he has no idea how he got here, sitting on Eddie’s couch, with Eddie quietly, steadfastly, offering his entire heart to Buck.
“Shit,” Eddie says softly, dropping his gaze. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have laid that all on you right—”
“You want to kiss me?” The words tumble out of Buck’s mouth before he can stop them. He’s never thought about kissing Eddie before, not seriously, but now that he has he doesn’t know how he’ll ever get the thought out of his head.
Eddie’s brow scrunches and he flushes. Buck can’t help but find it very cute. “Among other things.”
It’s Buck’s turn to blush now.
“That’s—that’s never been an option before,” Buck says, nonsensically. “None of this has ever been an option. I never—I couldn’t—”
“Buck, it’s okay,” Eddie says, a hand on Buck’s knee. “I’m not asking anything of you.”
Buck knows that. Eddie’s not asking—he’s offering. He’s offering Buck everything he could ever want. Everything he’s never even dared to want, because how could he ever have something that good, and keep it?
This life he’s built, with Eddie, as his friend, his work partner, his almost-but-not-quite co-parent—it’s always been enough. So how could he dare want more?
But Buck has been looking for more. He’s been turning himself inside out trying to figure out what he wants and it—it’s been staring at him in the face the whole time.
“Eddie,” Buck says helplessly. “What if it’s this? The thing I’m searching for. What if it’s just this?”
If it is, can Buck really trust it? Can he trust that everything he wants, everything he’s never fully believed he could have, could be right here, just waiting for him to open his eyes and see it?
“Buck, if you need a minute—a week—a month—whatever, you can have it. I’ll be here,” Eddie says. “I didn’t mean to drop this all on you right now, I just—I wanted you to know.”
Buck should say yes, let me take a minute. Let me think about it. Because he’s made impulsive decisions, things he didn’t really think through, and it’s blown up in his face before.
But when he looks at Eddie, at his dark eyes and the bow of his lips and the line of his jaw and the little patch of stubble along it that he must’ve missed shaving, Buck doesn’t have to think about it. He just knows.
This isn’t an impulsive decision, this isn’t something that’s going to blow up in his face. This is something that’s been in the making for almost five years now.
It’s Eddie.
He reaches for him, and winds up with his hand clenched in Eddie’s soft shirt, bunching the fabric against his shoulder. He searches Eddie’s face, and sees just—openness. Affection. Warmth. Love.
Buck leans into him, and kisses him. It’s a brief kiss, a little tentative, a little nervous. Or at least it starts that way. When Buck starts to draw back, Eddie surges forward, cupping Buck’s jaw in one hand and kissing him back with a steady, focused intensity that makes sparks shoot up Buck’s spine and shiver down his arms.
Eddie parts from him just far enough to murmur, “Is this okay?”
Buck nods, curling his arm around Eddie and drawing him closer, closer, kissing him until he feels nothing but warmth lighting him up from the inside.
Eddie is the one to draw away, his hand sliding down Buck’s neck to his shoulder, holding him in place. His eyes remain closed. “Buck.”
That’s all he says, but Buck can hear the question in it, the need for reassurance that Buck is more than willing to give him.
“I never thought I could have this,” Buck says. Eddie was right. He has to be brave enough to want more. He is, now. Finally. “But I don’t want half measures anymore. I want this. I want you. I want us—you, me, and Chris. I want it to be real.”
Eddie’s thumb digs in to the hollow of his collarbone as he opens his eyes and meets Buck’s gaze. “It was always real.”
“I know.” He drops his head to rest against Eddie’s shoulder. “I should tell you—I think I’m still kind of a mess.”
Eddie lightly massages his fingers through Buck’s hair and god, that feels nice. He’s always liked when Eddie touches him—a hand on his arm here, a pat on the shoulder, a leg pressed up against his in the firetruck—and it occurs to him that there are a million more ways Eddie could touch him, and he’ll probably love every single one of them. “You’re kinda talking to the king of messes, Buck.”
“I still don’t have everything figured out.”
Eddie laughs. Buck can feel it rumbling in his chest. “No one has everything figured out.”
“But I’ve gotten it wrong before,” Buck says. “Really wrong."
Eddie hums. “I think that’s how life works. You keep getting it wrong until you get it right. And then you might get it wrong again, but you keep trying.” He lifts Buck’s head gently, tilting his face toward his. “But for the record, I’m pretty sure this is getting it right.”
Buck smiles. He can’t help but smile when Eddie’s looking at him like that. “Me too.”
Now that Buck knows what he wants—and that he can have it—it feels like a whole world of possibilities have opened up. Like he’s one step closer to a life he could barely even dream of before.
“I guess I need to figure out what I’m gonna say to Connor and Kameron,” he says reluctantly.
“You still want to go through with it?” Eddie asks softly.
“I don’t know.” At his core, he still wants to help them. He just has to figure out if he can do it in a way that won’t hurt himself.
“Well, we’ll figure it out,” Eddie assures him. “Together.”
Buck likes the sound of that.