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They say that to love is to burn, to be on fire.
Not that Eddie wants to think about Jane Austen while he’s stuck in a burning building. But it sure seems ironic and like the universe is laughing at him.
If he’s making it out alive, he needs to tell Buck that the universe doesn’t scream. It just laughs. At Eddie, specifically.
Maybe he also needs to tell him that he’s in love with him. Been in love with him for as long as he can remember.
But that’s beside the point right now, because he’s stuck in this burning building and all he can see is red, red, red and he hates it. Which is the universe laughing at him, again, thank you very much, since he just recently stopped associating it with blood and death.
Red was now associated with Chris’ glasses, Buck’s favorite sweater – the one that he left at Eddie’s and never claimed back –, the heart drawing that hangs on his fridge and the cover of the book that Buck is reading.
Not even Taylor Kelly’s red lipstick and red nails and red hair and red whatever could’ve messed with that. He wants to scream. Why is this happening to him again?
And then everything goes dark.
When he comes to his senses, his head feels heavy. Like if he was going thirty-three hours on only black coffee and no sleep.
Something is beeping insistently and just making the headache even more unbearable. Oh, hell no. A heart monitor? Great.
Buck is never going to let this one go, and Eddie can’t even blame him. He really needs to stop almost dying.
And he really needs to open his eyes and tell Buck that yes, he’s fine, he can stop worrying now. And maybe ask him if he can lean down and kiss him a little. Just for healing purposes.
But when he tries to move, he realizes that he’s not lying on a hospital bed. He’s sitting on a chair. And when he opens his eyes, he’s met with the terrifying image of his own limp, pale, unmoving body hooked to the heart monitor that was annoying him so much.
Eddie can’t breathe. Honestly, he can’t. Ironic, since his heart monitor – is it really his? How does that work? – says he’s breathing just fine.
Eddie really, really hates hospitals. He would like to never be in one ever again.
He can’t even finish the thought that the door swings open and Buck’s figure walks in.
He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His shoulders are tight, his eyes are zoned out like he’s not there at all and his hands are shaking so much that he’s barely holding the cup of coffee he’s carrying.
Eddie instinctively gets up and rushes to hold his hands, do what he always does to stop him from shaking so much. But his touch immediately goes through air, like Buck is just some projected picture that doesn’t exist.
Eddie thinks he’s the one that doesn’t exist anymore and his blood freezes. Damn it, universe. He was doing really good.
Buck ignores the existential crisis happening right next to him and drags his feet as he walks to the chair that Eddie – or his non-existent projected picture? – was sitting on. His left hand tightened into a fist, shaking even more than before, if that’s even possible.
“Eddie,” and he chokes on a sob. Why isn’t he looking at him? Hello. Eddie is right there.
“Buck, what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know if you can hear me, but the nurse said it’s important that I talk to you,” Eddie wants to reach out and shake him.
He’s never experienced the gut-wrenching pain of Buck not looking at him and he thinks that he absolutely hates it and never wants to experience it ever again. Buck never looks away when Eddie is in the room, so something is definitely not right.
Oh, his therapist is going to have a field day once Eddie wakes up from his dream – or whatever the hell this is.
He can already hear Frank’s calm, kind of amused, voice asking him why he’s having nightmares about his best friend ignoring him and not looking at him.
“Chris is okay, you don’t have to worry. He’s taking it better than me, actually. Says that you always come home to us. I really hope he’s right, because I won’t make it otherwise,” he says facing Eddie’s basically cadaver body and forcefully exhales, like he forgot how breathing works.
It makes Eddie want to bring the entire world down for him.
The scene unfolding in front of him looks like straight out of his usual nightmares. The ones he had for months after the shooting.
All he can do is stare at it, like he’s somehow managed to put down roots in that hospital room, unable to move.
He tilts his head and closes his eyes. Maybe if he focuses really hard, he can wake up and be done with this ridiculous dream. He already knows he’s in love with Buck, thank you very much, there’s really no need for his brain to fabricate these painful scenarios.
Yes, he has feelings. Yes, he accepted it. Time to wake up now.
He’s shaken out of his thoughts by Buck’s agonizing crying, which suddenly makes it all real. There’s no way his brain – no matter how fucked up – can conjure this.
Holy shit. Eddie is a ghost? And his body is in a coma and, even worse, Buck is crying and how does he go back?
He really should’ve been paying attention to all those movies Buck had made him watch on Halloween, instead of falling asleep halfway through.
Things just go worse from there.
Bobby comes in at some point, tries to force Buck to go home and rest and Buck can’t calm down. The ground shifts under him and Eddie really cannot watch this and runs out of there before his ghost mind forces him into a ghost panic attack in his ghost body.
————-
Walking down L.A. while he’s not really there physically doesn’t seem as exciting as one might think.
He’s about to curse the universe, again, which makes the situation even more ridiculous because no, Eddie does not believe in curses, when he stumbles upon a sign.
Not a sign from the universe, since it apparently hates him, but a literal sign. Spiritual guidance and psychic readings by Miss Cleo.
Eddie feels like he’s going to throw up in the middle of the street. Not that he should care, since no one can see him. Is he even considering this?
Love really makes you do crazy things. And makes you really sappy too, apparently.
He walks in and the woman at the table – Miss Cleo, as the sign says – is, of course, ripping off some old widow, saying something about having to pay extra if she wants to talk to her dead husband.
Whatever. Eddie is about to walk out and slap himself for thinking about this for even one second, when the fake psychic lady breathes in and says, “is your husband’s name Eddie?” in the calmest, most put together voice he’s ever heard, acting like she didn’t just shake Eddie’s world to its core.
Not so fake, then. Noted.
The poor woman at the other side of the table just glares at her and shakes her head. Eddie feels bad since he kind of stole her husband’s spotlight but, unlike him, Eddie is not dead yet – is he? – so it’s fair to assume his situation is more urgent.
He needs to go back to Chris and Buck, excuse him.
“Who the hell are you, then?”
Eddie doesn’t even know if she’s speaking to him, since she’s kind of not looking at him, either. People refusing to seehim is so frustrating, he needs to talk to Frank about that.
One thing is for sure. He’s not going to waste this opportunity, because at least she knows his name and she’s apparently addressing him?
“Hi, I’m Eddie and I need to talk to you like right now,” and he thinks he expressed the urgency of the situation pretty well, but the fake psychic lady – Cleo, Eddie, her name is Cleo – groans annoyed, and he feels sort of insulted by that because, hello, he could die any minute now.
“Can’t you see that I’m with a client right now? You know the rules. Your loved ones pay and then we talk. You ghosts are so demanding all the time,” Eddie is not like that.
“I’m not a ghost,” and she has the audacity to raise her eyebrow at that.
“You’re talking to me, honey. You’re a ghost.”
Eddie feels like the earth is going to swallow him whole any minute now. Maybe it should.
“But I’m not dead. My body is at the hospital in a coma,” which seems to catch her attention, finally – even though she’s still not looking at him, damn it, he feels so invisible.
“What did you just say?”
Miss Cleo politely reschedules with the poor lady who lost her husband and Eddie apologizes even though she can’t hear him.
He thinks that if a ghost ever got in between him and Buck, he would damn well want them to apologize.
Miss Cleo explains that, apparently, she can hear ghosts and talk to them, but she can’t see them. And, most importantly, that all the ghosts that came to her were already dead and buried.
“It just might be that I haven’t had the luck to meet one who is still technically alive.”
Luck. What a foreign thing that Eddie has never had.
“Although I have to warn you, it probably means you’re close to dying anyway. Your body is more in the underworld than here if I can talk to you.”
Right. Zero luck. Universe hates him. Etcetera etcetera.
Sensing the agony that rushes over him, miss Cleo offers to talk to his loved ones. It could give him a peace of mind to say goodbye, she says.
Peace of mind? Doesn’t she know he’s one crying Buck away from completely losing it?
He wants to scream at his job, he wants to scream at himself for not being more careful that day and he, especially, wants to scream at Buck for digging his way inside of Eddie’s heart one day at a time until, suddenly, he was occupying half of it.
And he’s trying to not scream thinking about Chris, because it would be his breaking point and he needs to keep his focus and find a way out of this.
Maybe Buck knows. He always has an answer to the dumbest, most useless, questions. And do ghosts exist? would have been classified as the dumbest, most useless, question, once upon a time.
“If you can talk to my best friend for me, that would be great.”
————-
Going back to the hospital with miss Cleo feels like walking towards his execution.
They get to Buck in the cafeteria, his shoulder slumped, glaring at a sandwich like it personally hurt him, like the sandwich was personally responsible for the fire that killed Eddie – almost killed Eddie. He’s still alive, if he’s got anything to say about it.
Miss Cleo clears her throat. “If he starts screaming and calls me crazy in front of everyone, I’ll kill you myself,” but Eddie knows Buck wouldn’t do that.
Buck believes in almost every crazy shit. Aliens, ghosts, jinxes. He, especially, believes in Eddie.
When this is all over, Buck is never going to stop talking and grinning about the fact that ghosts are real. Eddie thinks that, as long as he survives, he’ll let Buck talk about anything he wants, every day, twenty-four hours a day. He’ll give up sleeping just to listen to him.
But please, please, let him survive this.
“Hi, my name is Cleo. You must be Evan,” Buck doesn’t even flinch.
He looks up and his eyes are so lifeless that Eddie wants to scream. Like his body is here, but his mind has somehow fled to protect him.
“Yes, hi. Do I know you?”
“Your friend Eddie sent me,” and all the life that Eddie noticed was missing from him suddenly engulfs him whole and his body goes on high alert. “What?”
Miss Cleo slowly sits in front of him, and Eddie takes the chair next to Buck – how he’s able to sit on objects but can’t touch humans is still unclear to him, but he doesn’t have the energy or the time to ponder on that right now. He’s sure Buck will research it when this is all over.
“I know this is all going to sound crazy, but I can talk to the dead and your friend Eddie came to see me,” she casually says and Buck, of course, breaks all over again.
Should’ve phrased that a little differently, miss Cleo. He’s not dead. Yet.
“Eddie’s dead?”
And he looks ready to stand up and run to Eddie’s hospital room to see for himself. Miss Cleo touches his arm to stop him, and Eddie doesn’t miss the way Buck flinches, like her touch is burning into his skin. Buck, who has always welcomed any type of physical affection from everyone.
Eddie really needs to wake up and bring him back.
“He’s not dead, yet, but I’m afraid he will be soon, and he just wants to say goodbye.”
What? Eddie never said that.
On the contrary, he just wants to let Buck know that he’s fine. Kind of. So, he can stop looking like the entire life has been sucked out of him.
Also ask him if he’s ever read anything about being stuck between life and death.
“Who are you? Please tell me you’re not messing with me right now,” and God, he sounds like he’s five seconds away from completely crumbling on the floor.
Eddie needs to come back faster, and he needs to take the lead on this, because miss Cleo doesn’t know Buck. She doesn’t know how to talk to him.
“Repeat back to him everything I tell you. Exactly as I tell you,” he says, which makes her scoff at him like he personally insulted her.
“Only because you’re not a regular ghost and I’m intrigued by this.”
Buck snaps his head like he just heard about a three-alarm fire “Who are you talking to? Is he here right now?”
“Tell him I’m sitting next to him”
“He says he’s sitting next to you,” and Buck turns so fast Eddie thinks he’ll get dizzy.
Buck’s hands are still tightened into fists on the table, and he reaches out to hold them, to unclench them, to let him know that he’s there.
But it doesn’t work, and it goes through air. Of course. How stupid of him.
“This is really stupid,” says Buck next to him, like he could actually read his mind. Which is not far-fetched, Eddie thinks.
Their connection has always been out of this earth and if ghosts exist, then who is he to doubt anything ever?
No, Buck, it’s not stupid. Eddie needs him to know it’s him.
“I still think about the night that I lost it and destroyed everything in my room. He walked in and when I saw him there, it was the first real breath I had taken in hours.”
Miss Cleo looks heartbroken, like he pities him. Pities them. She still thinks he’s dying, isn’t she?
“He’s telling me about the time he had a really bad breakdown and you walked into his room, and he could finally breathe again.”
Buck’s eyes stare at her. He’s not even blinking.
“I can still feel his hands on mine, bandaging my bloody knuckles in the dark of my living room.”
Buck was so gentle, so afraid to hurt him, Eddie’s heart jumps in his throat when he thinks about how much he scared him and Chris.
“When you took care of his injured hands,” and Buck opens his mouth like he wants to say something and then closes it and turns around again, to look at what, for him, is just an empty chair. But it’s actually so, so, much more.
Eddie wants to hug him so tight it hurts. When this is all over, he’s never ever letting him go.
“Ask him if he remembers that time we built Chris’ skateboard and we were so confident and convinced we could do it by ourselves without the instruction manual,” Eddie has never struggled so much to not cry. “But we looked so stupid trying to build that damn thing and it took us five hours instead of the two that it takes normal people who read the instruction manual.”
Miss Cleo repeats it all back to him and Buck’s face looks like he wants to cry and smile at the same time. “How could I ever forget?”
“Tell him he doesn’t have to worry and that I’m coming back”, and miss Cleo raises her eyebrow like what he said is the most unserious thing she’s ever heard.
Eddie really doesn’t care what she has to say, if he has to be honest.
“Tell him.”
“He says that you can stop worrying because he’s coming back. Although, personally, I think you both should just accept that he’s gone and use this time to say goodbye, since he might be going towards the light once he dies. But that’s just me.”
No. Eddie is not giving up. He’s never been one to give up, honestly. He dug himself out of dirt for Chris and he survived a gunshot for Buck. He’s not going down without, at least, a fight.
Buck is still looking at him – or more like at the empty space next to him. “We don’t need your input, right now. Ask him if he knows anything about being stuck in between.”
“Fine. Do you know anything about the afterlife, ghosts, how to resurrect, that sort of things?”
Buck finally turns away from him. He looks so shaken up, so small, Eddie is sure Buck thinks he’s in a dream, too.
“Uhm. I think the limbo has something to do with unresolved situations. He needs to let go of what’s holding him back. But that’s about people who are dead and want peace. He’s not dead.”
Yes, Eddie is not dead. And he would never let go of Buck anyway. What a joke.
“Maybe he needs to do the opposite to be able to come back. Not let go.”
Yes, Buck gets it. Of course, he gets it. He always does. But Eddie hasn’t let go of Buck since he became a ghost and it’s not working.
Damn it. He needs to think outside the box.
————-
It’s late at night when Buck goes home – at Eddie’s. Not his home. He flinches at his own thought. This is not the right moment for this sort of breakdown.
He goes to check on Chris and he finds him soundly asleep in his room, his small chest raising and falling steadily, and Buck can finally, finally, release the breath he’s been holding for the past three or four hours.
Buck can still hear the explosion reverberating around in his mind, the same way he can still hear the gunshot from two years ago, can still see the blood pouring out into the sidewalk.
Some days, the memory hits him so hard that he thinks he’s going to pass out right there and then. Those days, the fear of going through life without Eddie in it felt like someone literally pushing their hand in his chest and ripping his heart out.
Ironic, really, since that’s exactly what’s happening now. Sort of, anyway.
Because, apparently, Eddie is there. And Buck could never not believe it, because he kind of feels his presence all the time.
He felt him in the car when he drove home from the hospital. He feels him now in the corners of his apartment, in the light that’s poking out from the kitchen, in the barely there chill that runs through his hands and makes him shiver.
He closes his eyes, and he can just picture Eddie’s faint outline sitting on the couch next to him, can visualize the small smile that’s reserved just for Buck and Chris, his shiny eyes.
It reminds him of those tired afternoons they spend together on Eddie’s couch.
The kind where they mostly sit around lazily, Buck with a book in his hand, Eddie figuring out his schedule for the week, trying to fit Chris’ meetings at school somewhere.
The kind where Eddie is on his fourth cup of coffee of the day and Buck comments, without even raising his head from his book, how that’s not good for him and he should cut his caffeine intake.
“Are you here right now?” He opens his eyes and tilts his head up.
“What am I even saying? I shouldn’t be talking to the empty space on the couch. I should be a relatively normal, well-adjusted person. I should be strong for Chris and not having delusional thoughts and speaking to my imaginary best friend.”
He pushes himself back upright, like he thinks he should reasonably sit as an adult in the world. But, really, all he wants to do is lay down and never get up ever again. Seems like a nice bargain, given everything that the universe is making him go through right now.
He doesn’t deserve this. His chest feels so heavy, like a fire truck is sitting on top of him, and Buck knows the feeling very well, since he quite literally had one crashing him.
He thinks this is worse. Yes, definitely worse.
If Eddie dies, he will never ever get over it.
He doesn’t even know how he’s supposed to wake up every morning in a world without Eddie Diaz in it. What was Eddie thinking making him Chris’ legal guardian when he won’t even be able to get himself out of bed if it came to it?
“I love you” he says looking straight ahead, like he’s saying it to the turned off tv in front of him.
It’s not like it’s the first time Buck has said it to himself out lout.
He’s recited it to himself in the shower, while making breakfast, wide awake in the middle of the night, and while driving to work.
He practiced his speech and what he would say to Eddie thousands and thousands of times. He wants to slap himself.
Now Eddie will never know. He’ll never hear it.
Except Eddie does hear him. Because he is sitting right there.
And he can’t breathe. Damn it, him, and his breathing problems.
His whole body is on fire, and he just wants to scream. He wants to scream that he loves him, too. He’s always loved him.
He wants to scream that loving Buck has saved his life when he was lying on the cold cement, blood pouring out of him. That loving Buck has saved him now, because it stuck him in limbo instead of sending him straight to the underworld.
He wants to scream that he’s right there, that he doesn’t have to go through this alone, that they’re going to figure this out and be together forever.
If ghosts are real, then they can be ghosts together once they die and never leave each other ever again.
“I love you, too.”
He kind of likes this thing where they’re constantly on the same page, voicing things they both know, have known since the beginning.
And as soon as he whispers it, the damn balcony window suddenly opens and the wind knocks out the picture of Eddie, Chris and Buck that Eddie put next to the lamp, and it breaks it.
Eddie’s heart breaks along with it.
Buck looks at the picture like it was holding the answers to all of his problems and it broke before he was able to figure it out.
Eddie wouldn’t even need to be able to touch him to sense the way Buck flinches – scared and cold.
Eddie wishes he could grab him by the chin and make him raise his head, so he can look and see that Eddie is right there and he loves him.
God, if he loves him.
Every atom in Eddie’s body aches to hug him, to kiss him, to give in and just lean into him.
He wishes he could’ve put that love into words as soon as it started to haunt his mind. Maybe they wouldn’t be in this situation, right now.
But he can’t do any of that. He’s probably dying, and this torture is just some cruel vengeance for the universe.
The only thing he can do is swallow the weight that sits on his tongue and blink up at the ceiling, trying not to cry.
It takes a long, long, time for Buck to fall asleep. He keeps tossing and turning, sighing every five seconds, and rubbing his eyes with the sleeves of his hoodie.
But when he finally does, Eddie manages to look away for the first time and his eyes end up on the broken picture that still lies on the floor.
Suddenly, a light switches on inside of him and he realizes that the quick rush of wind that made it fall came as soon as he told Buck I love you back.
It couldn’t hurt to try. He’s desperate, if it wasn’t clear.
So, he kneels down on the floor, combs Buck’s hair with his fingers and smiles softly at him.
“I love you.”
He didn’t even think his plan would actually work, but the table behind him starts shaking like there’s a goddamn earthquake and Eddie kind of wants to put himself back together with his own hands.
Of course, his love for Buck is the answer to this.
————-
Eddie decided he’s just going to have fun with this now.
He’s in the kitchen, his back on the fridge, against the heart drawing that he loves so much and he’s just – he’s just sort of enjoying the scene in front of him.
Buck eats his cereal like a madman, like he hasn’t eaten anything in days – Eddie figures he probably hasn’t – and Chris is teasing him relentlessly about it. God, he loves his kid so much.
Their smiles are faint, weak, barely there, but there anyway.
Eddie pushes his back off the fridge, leans down with his hands on the table and whispers against Buck’s ear.
“I love you.”
Every single magnet and drawing on the fridge falls off.
Eddie smiles. Perfect. He needs them to know he’s there.
“What the hell,” and Eddie shakes his head at him. Buck. Language.
Chris just opens his eyes so wide he thinks they’re going to pop out of his head and Buck intervenes before Chris’ curious mind can catch up on it. “Okay. Time for someone to get to school.”
Eddie is there while Buck drives Chris to school. He’s there when Chris is rumbling about writing down everything that happens to him so Eddie can read it when he wakes up. He’s there when Buck drops a kiss on his head and tells him to have a good day. And he’s there when Chris turns around to look at Buck while he walks away and waves at him.
They’re smiling and their dimples are digging holes in Eddie’s chest.
God, they look so similar, with their curly hair and their bright smiles, Eddie quite literally wants the ground to swallow him because of how much he’s feeling.
As soon as Buck gets away from Christopher, his whole demeanor changes. He’s barely carrying himself to the car, dragging his feet like he wants nothing more than to fall right then and there. His eyes are on the ground and his hands are back at clenching in fists.
When he gets in the car and slams it harder than it should be deemed normal, Eddie decides he can’t have this.
Buck is driving, the silence in the car suffocating, when Eddie just blurts it out again.
“I love you,” he’s never going to get tired of saying it. Never.
The radio turns on its own and starts blasting a song that’s going to make Eddie lose his hearing, to be honest. And Buck –well, he looks like he just woke up and remembered that, hello, a weird psychic lady told him Eddie is a ghost literally yesterday and all the magnets and drawings fell from the fridge just this morning.
“Eddie?”
Finally.
“Eddie, I know I can’t hear you, but if you can hear me, just know that I’m trying so hard to not give up, and I hope you aren’t either.”
I’m not. For you and for Chris. Buck can’t hear him, so what’s the point, anyway.
“I don’t know how you’re doing all of these things to let me know that you’re here,” I love you. “But don’t stop because they’re the only thing giving me hope, right now.”
“I love you.”
And the radio changes stations. Some song about deja vus and car rides to Malibu. Fitting right now, but not what he’s looking for.
“I love you,” and it’s playing a song about thinking of him when you’re in a relationship. Very fitting – he should know –but not what he’s looking for either.
Buck just looks confused next to him.
“I love you,” and some lady is singing about setting fire to the rain? Eddie is a firefighter, but he doesn’t know what that means.
Buck just shakes his head like he could hear his thoughts. Eddie wouldn’t bet against it.
“I love you,” I love you, baby, and if it’s quite alright, I need you baby. Yes. Finally.
He leaves it there long enough for Buck to catch up to what he’s doing and when he does, it’s like the air gets knocked out of his lungs.
“I love you too, Eds.”
Eddie forgot that this thing goes both ways. His heart grows three sizes.
————-
It just gets better and better from there. Buck drives them to the hospital and, like he did the last time, he holds Eddie’s –the dying, pale, unmoving that’s lying on the hospital bed Eddie’s – hand.
This time, however, he speaks to him with the knowledge that Eddie is there and can hear him very well.
He sounds lighter. He’s not dragging his feet anymore and he’s actually eating the sandwich in the cafeteria, instead of staring at it like it insulted him.
When they get home, Buck puts on a movie and the whole time he’s smiling and talking to Eddie like Eddie’s physical real body is actually there.
And most of the times he can even guess what Eddie’s answers are and replies to it. Yes, Eddie, I know this movie isn’t 100% accurate on its facts, but it’s for plot purposes. Eddie, I know what you’re thinking but she doesn’t look similar to that lady we pulled down from the roof.
And – well. Eddie stopped counting all the times that Buck has quite literally read his mind.
That and the smile on Buck’s face whenever Eddie says I love you and something extraordinary happens around them almost makes this whole thing worth it.
He feels like something came down from the sky during the explosion and split him in two: the Eddie that’s lying in the hospital bed, unaware that the love of his life loves him back, and the Eddie sitting next to Buck on the couch, teasing him with I love yous and giggling at Buck’s ridiculous – but always, always right – attempts at guessing what he’s saying.
And now they’re watching a ridiculously cheesy romcom – what is his life right now? – and when, towards the end, the main characters are suddenly kissing, Buck shifts next to him like he can’t sit still anymore.
“So, are you able to touch me?”
I wish.
“I’ll take that as a no,” and he looks down at his hands that are sitting in his lap. Eddie wants to –. He doesn’t even know what. He wants to do everything.
“Can we still try?”
He holds his right hand up, opened palm facing Eddie’s face, like he’s in court and he’s about to solemnly swear to say the truth and nothing but the truth.
Eddie solemnly swears it’s true that he wants to kiss him.
“Put your hand against mine,” he says in the softest, lowest, voice he’s ever heard. How can Eddie ever say no to him?
A slow and trashy song is playing in the background – damn that stupid romcom – when Eddie slowly and gently aligns his palm against Buck’s and suddenly the whole room is buzzing with electricity.
He can’t exactly feel Buck, but his hand is still tickling and he’s feeling the same heat he felt when Buck’s gentle hands were trying to clean the blood off his bruised knuckles.
His head is spinning and he’s holding his breath and his heart is literally going to jump out of his throat any second now.
He feels like he’s experiencing love for the first time – which he probably is.
He feels like a sixteen-year-old teenage boy in his first relationship, and he almost forgets that he’s going to die soon if he doesn’t find a way out.
Buck probably has the same thought and, for the first time, it infuriates him how connected they are, because Buck just drops his hand and runs to the bathroom like he’s going to throw up.
Eddie can’t blame him.
When he goes after him, the door is closed and Eddie just stands there and presses his forehead on it, listening in case Buck needs him – not that he can do anything about it, damn it.
Buck lets out a quiet sob, like he doesn’t want Eddie to know he’s about to cry.
He hears a thump against the door and then something sliding down on it and collapsing on the floor.
He figures Buck is sitting on the ground with his back on the door and he doesn’t even hesitate when he does the same, leaning his back where Buck’s is on the other side.
He wants to say so many things. He wants to say that he’s sorry for waiting so much to tell him how he feels. That he’s sorry he can’t kiss him. He’s sorry he can’t hold his hand and he can’t–
“I’m sorry”. What.
“I’m sorry for not doing enough to save you that day. It’s my fault and I should’ve–.”
Eddie can’t deal with this right now.
“I love you,” and the water turns on in the shower.
“Eddie…”
And the door of the bathroom slowly swings open, creaking loudly in the unsufferable silence they’ve created. The water of the shower the only thing making this a little bit less scary.
“I can’t take this anymore, Eddie. Don’t laugh at me right now, but I’m going to google whatever this is and find a solution.”
Eddie loves him so much.
“And if you’re here – and I hope you are, because if not, I need to be institutionalized – just read along with me and do whatever Google says. Something has to work.”
Do whatever Google says? Eddie’s life is joke after joke at this point.
————-
This how they end sitting at the kitchen table.
Eddie can’t tear his eyes away from the tip of Buck’s tongue that’s sticking out of his mouth while he types something on his phone. The occasional clatter of the keyboard the only sound around them.
He’s hunched over the table and his brows are furrowed, focused on whatever the hell he’s reading. Hello, Eddie wants to know.
“Ok, if it’s not about letting go of what’s holding you back – which we established it wasn’t,” he looks up like he knows exactly were Eddie is. “it’s mostly Disney princess stuff. I bet Chris knows more about this than us.”
Can he please tell Eddie what the hell he has to do to so he can come back and kiss him senseless already?
“Relax, Eddie, I’m getting to it.”
How the hell. Eddie shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.
“Well, basically, like the sleeping beauty that you are, I have to kiss you,” and Eddie can only wish, because he can’t touch or feel anything. Damn it, what else?
Buck looks disappointed, like that’s exactly what he’s thinking too, until suddenly, all the worry disappears from his face, and he grins like a little kid that was just told Santa came early.
“How did I not think of that?” What? Buck, what?
His eyes are all shiny, his dimples are literally poking at Eddie’s heart and Eddie thinks that he wants to kiss him so much that the sole power of will might be enough to make him wake up.
“Say you love me,” and he’s smirking and grinning while looking a little bit to the right of where Eddie’s actual face is.
How can Eddie ever say no to him. “I love you,” and the stove turns on so fast it scares him a bit. Okay, some of these extraordinary manifestations of love are dangerous.
Buck hasn’t stop smiling.
“I can’t kiss you, but I can kiss someone else,” he says like the thought of Buck kissing anyone that isn’t Eddie right now doesn’t make him want to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself in it.
“No, silly, I can kiss the you, the physical you, that’s in the hospital right now,” and oh. Oh.
And honestly, he would’ve thought of that if he wasn’t so drunk on love and I love yous that his brain has been shut off.
Buck doesn’t even let him finish his thoughts – rude – that he’s grabbing the keys on the table and his jacket from the chair. “You coming?” As if Eddie would ever not go wherever Buck goes.
————-
While they’re driving to the hospital, Eddie is terrified. So, so terrified. Buck, next to him, is just humming to the cheery song on the radio, like he’s so happy he can’t keep it in.
He wonders if Buck knows how terrified Eddie is.
If this doesn’t work, they’re back to square one and Eddie really doesn’t have any answer anymore and he might quite literally lose it.
How do you deal with a panic attack when you’re a ghost and you can’t check into a hospital? Eddie hopes he never has to figure it out.
When they get there, Buck gets out of the car and runs before the door has even closed – after he slammed it, of course.
At the hospital, the nurses in Eddie’s wing look at him with such a pity that Eddie feels faint again. “Hey, Buck, how are you–,” and she doesn’t even get to finish the sentence because Buck is running to his hospital room.
The image of his own motionless, cold, body will never fail to freeze Eddie to the ground. He’s still alive, though, because the incessant beep beep beep of the heart monitor hasn’t stopped yet.
And it’s honestly the most comforting sound Eddie has ever heard in his life. He still has a chance.
Buck is just frozen next to the bed and Eddie wants to laugh, honestly. He was running like a madman to get here, why isn’t he kissing Eddie senseless, right now?
“Can I kiss you?” Oh. Of course, he wants to know if Eddie is okay with this. As if.
“I love you,” and his heart on the monitor starts going up. 55, 60, 64, 72, 84, 95. Holy shit. He really, really, loves him.
Buck smiles. “If I was making you up in my mind and you don’t really want this, you’ll forgive me when you wake up. I’ll be in the psych wing on the third floor,” and he leans down.
Well, here goes nothing.
As soon as Buck’s lips touch his, Eddie’s entire ghost body starts shaking uncontrollably, like it’s thirty degrees and not summer in L.A.
The ground starts cracking up all around him like there’s a literal earthquake and Eddie thinks it’s going to open up, swallow him and take him to hell. He’d deserve it, anyway.
Buck’s kiss was killing him for good, not saving him. Another one of the universe’s jokes. He’s learnt his lesson, okay? Leave him alone.
He’s hysterically laughing when everything around him gets dizzy and suddenly he’s fainting.
Goodbye, world.
————-
Beep. Beep. Beep. Really? Is this a sort of time loop? Like that one movie that Buck made him watch where this man was reliving the same day over and over again.
If he opens his eyes and he’s on the chair again staring at his pale body on the hospital bed, he might as well take matters into his own hands and finish the job.
Except, when he opens his eyes – slowly, of course, while he’s trying to recite every prayer that his abuela has ever taught him in four seconds – he’s met with the most beautiful image he’s ever seen in his entire life.
Chris is sitting on Buck’s lap, his small face tucked in Buck’s neck, sleeping, while Buck is combing his hair with his finger and pressing kisses on the side of his head.
Eddie closes his eyes again because he needs to get himself together and possibly not have a heart attack and ruin whatever gift the universe decided to give him, for once.
But his heart is not keeping up with him, because the monitor starts beeping fast and Eddie can hear Buck getting up to, probably, put Chris down.
He’s probably been torturing himself day and night while Eddie was regaining conscience. He doesn’t even know how many hours or days it’s been since the kiss – which reminds him that he shouldn’t be jealous of his comatose unmoving body.
Not wanting to torture him even more, Eddie opens his eyes and Buck–. Well, he smiles and then starts crying and Eddie can feel he’s breathing the right way for the first time since the explosion.
“Eddie. Oh my god,” he looks like he wants to reach out and pin Eddie to the bed and hug him tight, but knowing Buck, he’s probably afraid of hurting him and Eddie, well, he can’t have that.
“You can finally touch me, Buck.”
And he’s not even finished saying his name that Buck just throws himself and tucks his face in the middle of Eddie’s neck and shoulder.
It takes Eddie a lot of strength, but he manages to lift his hand and comb his fingers through his hair, patting him gently.
And honestly? Eddie doesn’t want to ever move.
“I knew it. I knew it would work. God, I love you,” and it all sounds muffled because he’s still buried in Eddie’s neck like all the supply of oxygen in the world is there and if he moves he’s going to suffocate.
“I love you too, so much,” and he expects the chair to flip or the door to open on its own or, damn, his heart monitor to go crazy again.
But nothing happens and it’s the first time he realizes that no, he’s not a ghost.
“Kiss me?” And Buck lifts his head and presses his lips on Eddie’s, like suddenly the entire world’s supply of oxygen has moved from Eddie’s neck to his mouth and Eddie hopes it stays there forever.
Eddie’s heart is racing in his chest and the heart monitor is not letting him hide it. He’s never felt anything like it, ever. And now he gets it.
He understands why people rave about love all the time, while to him it was just – whatever. Something people have to go through for the cycle of life.
He understands why love songs exist. He’s never going to stop listening to love songs.
He understands everything and he’s so, so, ready to feel like a sixteen-year-old teenage boy in his first relationship, he’s not even ashamed of it.
Buck pulls away after what feels like an eternity – okay so love can stop time? Noted. – his cheeks are flushed, and his lips are so red he thinks it’s officially his favorite color.
“Definitely a life-saving kiss,” Eddie says, smirking, and Buck smiles like he’s never seen him doing before and Eddie thinks that yes, he would like to keep a diary on all of Buck’s different smiles. He would like that very much.
“Don’t ever make me kiss your unmoving, pale, cold body ever again.”
“Only if you promise to never make me have to do the same.”
Eddie can’t wait to be with him forever.