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There’s something about building a life around people that’s so very fragile to changes in their emotions.
Buck is not a stranger to that. He knows that despite how strong he thinks their little ecosystem of people is, it’s still a family that they built around the 118. He hasn’t forgotten how off-balance everything and everyone in his life had felt when Eddie and Chimney hadn’t come to work. He’s not so naive as to believe his own actions and emotions can’t have the same impact.
In theory, that is.
In practice, it still takes him by surprise when Chimney drops down on the couch in the middle of the shift, furtively looking around as if to check that no one else is listening, and asks him "So, Buckley, as Eddie’s best friend, would you happen to know what’s going on with him? He’s been weird the last two shifts." and the only thing Buck can think of is that Buck didn’t hang out with him.
"Uh, no, n- not that I can think of", he says instead, because admitting to Eddie reacting to Buck avoiding him would mean admitting to avoiding him would mean admitting to the reason he’s avoiding him. And if he were ready to admit that, Buck wouldn’t be avoiding him.
Chimney looks at him for so long that Buck fears he doesn’t believe him, but then he just shrugs. "If he doesn’t even tell you…," he starts, but doesn’t actually finish. "Maybe you should ask him about it. I think Cap worries, seeing as we all thought Eddie was better now after going to therapy."
"He is better," Buck says, and even he can tell that it was too defensive, too close to snapping at Chim. He gets the lifted eyebrow that he expected earlier. Buck expects Chimney to see through him to what he actually feels, but no. After a second, he just throws his head back and groans.
"The only thing I achieved is to make you worry too, didn’t I?", he asks, and it’s not really a question. More of an assessment of the situation.
Buck sighs, not really knowing what to answer, still grappling with the fact that his actions have consequences, but Chimney takes it as confirmation and leaves this thread of conversation behind.
Buck is grateful, he is. If only, with Chim declaring the conversation over, it was also over in Buck’s head.
Chimney wasn’t even wrong: Buck was worried now. Because Buck had made a conscious decision. He’s well aware that there’s something about building a life around people that’s so very fragile to changes in their emotions. That includes your own.
And there’s no one in the 118 that Buck has built his life around more than Eddie and Christopher.
He felt his emotions shift, or well, maybe shift isn’t quite the right word. Buck suspects these feelings have been building for a long time, hidden under the surface, a perfectly logical progression of the way Buck and Eddie have been developing alongside each other.
He needed a step back. To sort out his thoughts and feelings before he did something brash and regretted it. He needed to make sure that his emotions would not affect this life that their trio, as well as the 118, have built around each other.
There was care in the planning of this step back. No risks taken. Eddie wasn’t even supposed to notice it. Buck didn’t even actively say no to any plans. When Eddie — or Chris — asked him to, he showed up. He just — didn’t actively bring up his own. There should have been no way this would disrupt their friendship, nevertheless the team dynamic.
Still, Bobby and Chim noticed, and were surely not the only ones. So Buck — Buck has to grit his teeth and deal with his feelings head-on, on his own, without dragging his family into it. It’s not their fault that somewhere along the line he fell in love with his best friend.
Determined, he stands up and smiles at Chim before leaving to go look for Eddie. He finds him at the gym, going at the punching bag a little too hard. And yeah, Buck thinks, wincing, as he leans against the pillar closest to him, there’s definitely something going on with Eddie.
"Hey," Buck says, softly, so as not to startle him. There’s still a little jump in Eddie’s step before he turns around to face him. "You wanna grab some breakfast after our shift?"
"Yeah, sure," Eddie says, smiling at him. There’s a crinkle around his eyes that makes Buck think he hasn’t slept all that well lately. It makes his stomach sink. He’s not yet ready to confront being the cause of it, so he doesn’t ask, but the urge to reach out and fix it is so strong, he nearly caves.
Tomorrow, he promises himself.
Breakfast ends up being a team affair, with Hen and Chimney joining once they get wind of the plan, which… is okay. Buck appreciates the added distance and reprieve, even if it goes against the purpose of the breakfast. He relaxes in the knowledge that at least he was the one initiating the meet-up, despite the way it devolved out of his control, hoping against hope that it would calm the waves of what had thrown Eddie so off-balance at least a little.
By the end of the meal, he’s convinced himself that the best action is to follow Eddie home and just spend the whole day with him and Chris. No doubts about his commitment to being in their lives.
That’s before Chimney says to him: "You’ll be home later, yeah? Maddie wanted to drop by," and what can he say to that? Despite not needing to, ever since she has Chimney and the rest of their support system around, he’d still drop nearly everything for his sister. So if she wants to come around and he doesn’t actually have any other plans yet? Then he’ll be at home.
He can let Eddie catch a few hours of sleep (which, by the look of it, he desperately needs) and then come around after Maddie passed by. Except-
Well, except: now it’s three days later and Buck thinks the universe must have conspired against him, because he still hasn’t seen Eddie outside of his shift and hangouts with the whole team. He’s seen him less even than during the few days that he was actively trying to see him less. Besides making him realize how bad of an idea that forced distance had been (because you never know when life would just keep you apart), it has also come to a point where he’s lying in his bed, phone on his chest, fingers flying over the keyboard, typing "I miss you".
"I can’t write that," he tells himself once he stopped typing, "it’s too obvious. He doesn’t deserve to have to deal with my feelings. That wouldn’t be fair to him."
He spends the rest of the night debating if he’d tell Chimney and Hen if he misses them or not, questioning if he’s holding back for no reason.
There’s a team barbecue at Athena’s and Bobby’s house the next day, and as with everything that happened these last few days, he’s both happy and frustrated about it.
He arrives at the same time as Eddie does. He’d laugh about it if it wasn’t as depressing. He wishes they’d have come in one car, they should have taken just one, but by this point the only way to realize that would be to— Buck doesn’t even dare think it. Get over yourself, he chides himself, Eddie has a couch. Still, he couldn’t get himself to bring that up. He thunks his head on his steering wheel once, before getting out and facing the music.
Eddie stops once he sees him, caught in a way that Buck can empathize with, but it’s still weird. Nothing happened. They haven’t hung out after work, yes, but there’s no reason it should throw both of them out of the loop as much as it did.
It’s Chris that breaks the moment, walking over to Buck to give him a hug. Buck hugs him back tightly. Possibly slightly too tightly, judging by the way Chris is looking between them now. Right, Buck thinks, Chris isn’t a child anymore. If something is off, Chris will be the first to feel the consequences.
Buck sighs, says "Let’s go in?" and tries not to think too hard about the fact that his try at not making his feelings for Eddie ruin their friendship, might just be the thing ruining their friendship instead.
Buck enjoys it too much, arriving with Eddie and Chris, being greeted by their family together, but then again, it also makes him feel more balanced than he’s felt ever since he realized he was in love with Eddie. Buck glances at him, and if he’s not mistaken, Eddie feels it too.
Well, Buck thinks, little victories. Maybe they can get this back after all.
The barbecue is chill. Buck kinda wishes it was just the three of them instead, but if he’s honest, he doesn’t want to miss this either. He doesn’t call them his family for no reason.
There’s an unmatched energy to them all in one room, something he missed when they were thrown apart last year. He brushes elbows with Eddie while they eat and tries not to think about anything else but this. The team and their family around, Eddie by his side.
Once the evening winds down, the kids (teens, Buck corrects himself, they’re all teens now) split from the adults to go do their own thing, and there’s a calm sort of quiet that washes over them. Buck’s sure things have never been quite this stable in their group. The quiet comfort of being in the presence of the people you love only gets broken up by the chatter of the kids, which doesn’t really break it at all.
Up until the point where Chris pipes up: "I think dad and Buck have been fighting."
The atmosphere changes after that. It’s loud enough that everyone heard it, but not so loud as for Chris to be aware that the adults are listening in. Buck doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s jaw tenses. Only then does he catch the curious looks sent toward the two of them.
"I thought you didn’t know what’s going on?," Chimney whispers, his eyebrows lifted in question.
"We’re not actually fighting," Buck hisses in response, irritated. Eddie’s jaw is still tense, and he doesn’t return his gaze when Buck tries to search for it. He feels the attention of everyone too painfully. He knows they’re just worried, but he really really wishes he had gotten the opportunity to deal with this privately, like he wanted to from the beginning.
"Are they yelling at each other?" Denny asks, nearly buried under Chimney’s and Buck’s words.
"No," Chris asserts, "I haven’t heard them yelling, although I assume they do. They’ve been trying to hide it from me. But I’m not blind. No matter how much dad tries to act as if everything is normal, I notice that Buck isn’t hanging out with us."
Buck sees Bobby open his mouth, but they hear May first: "Didn’t you just say that he was at your school play on Tuesday? It can’t be that bad just yet." and Bobby closes his mouth.
There’s a pause over at the children’s table and Buck realizes how weird it is that they all hold their breaths too, eavesdropping on the children’s conversation. They shouldn’t do it. He should take Eddie to the side, possibly Christopher too, and talk to them about it, but Buck can’t bring himself to open his mouth, acknowledge what they’re hearing in any way. He assumes the others don’t quite know what to say either.
"He may have gone to my school play, but he didn’t come home with us after", Chris says finally, "He didn’t cook for us at all and he only ate at our place once. When we went to the zoo last week, we took two cars." He sounds disgusted. "We never take two cars to the zoo."
"For one and a half weeks, this doesn’t sound too weird, maybe he just didn’t have time."
"You may not think it’s weird, but I know Buck. This is weird for him."
Despite trying to suppress it, there’s a smile creeping onto Buck’s face at this declaration. He looks down to hide it. Now is not the time. He shouldn’t be happy about Chris knowing him when he’s, albeit unwittingly, so very publicly exposing him.
He looks back up once he’s schooled his features to see his sister studying him. She lifts her eyebrows once, then softly elbows Chimney in the side. He startles, looks at Maddie, then at Buck. He sighs, grins, and finally says to the table at large: "Now that Cap’s back, I’d like to take a formal vote on who was a better interim captain, Hen or me?"
"Oh God, not this question again," someone says, but Buck isn’t paying attention anymore. He’s just glad the table is loud and animated again, the focus shifted away from him and Eddie. He risks a glance at the man next to him, finding him still with his jaw clenched and his eyes locked on some undisclosed point straight in front of him. Buck lets his shoulders sink. They’ll talk this out once they’re away from prying ears, he promises himself.
He hears his sister whisper "You don’t even care about that" and turns back to the people in front of him just in time to see Chimney shrug.
"But it gets them talking."
Yeah, it really does, Buck thinks, thankful. He sends Chimney a smile that the other acknowledges with a nod. Yeah, Buck thinks, there’s a reason he thinks of them as his family.
They manage to act like everything is mostly normal for the rest of the evening. When they get up to leave at the same time, it’s not a coordinated effort, it just happens. Habit, Buck supposes, following Eddie and Chris out of the house.
Bobby squeezes his hand a little too hard when they say goodbye, with an imploring look on his face that Buck knows means he’s worrying.
"It’s just a misunderstanding," Buck tells him and Athena when he thinks the other two aren’t listening, "you don’t have to worry."
Athena lifts her eyebrows in that way that always makes Buck think that she’s doubting every word he says. He slinks away before she can voice any of her doubts.
He can’t help but turn around on the way to his car, observing Eddie and Chris from a distance as they get into their own. "We never take two cars," he hears Christopher’s voice say in his head. Eddie looks up and lifts the corner of his mouth in a crooked smile when he finds Buck already watching him. Buck raises his hand in a wave and immediately wants to disappear into the ground in shame.
This is getting ridiculous, he thinks, and finally places himself behind the wheel, before he manages to embarrass himself further.
He’s got half a mind to follow their taillights but thinks better of it. Or worse. He’s not even sure anymore. It’s only because he has to concentrate on the road that he doesn’t thump his head against the steering wheel. How did everything get so messy?
He tosses and turns that night again, his hand routinely moving to grab his phone and send Eddie a message. What does he even want to tell him? He’s half caught between the "I miss you" he never sent and just coming out to ask if he can sleep on Eddie’s couch that night. As usual, he decides to do neither.
Buck gets up early the next morning, gets some of the pent-up energy out in a workout, then decides on a plan of action while under the shower.
By the time Maddie calls, he’s dressed (well-dressed even, if he dares to say so) and already half out the door.
"Is this urgent?," he asks her, "I’m kind of on the move."
"Not super urgent," she says while he switches the phone to his other hand, so he can lock the door behind him, "I just wanted to check in." There’s a pause. "Ask you how you are."
"I’m fine."
She sounds unconvinced. "Are you sure? Chimney and I have been worrying. He says Eddie has been weird lately, and now Christopher thinks you two are fighting."
"We’re not."
"But he thinks you are, so: Are you okay?"
Buck stops to open his car. "That’s what I’m trying to find out," he says as he climbs in.
"You’re on your way to Eddie’s? At 8:30 in the morning?"
"Yeah," he replies distractedly, trying to connect his phone to the car radio, so he can keep talking to her while he drives. It doesn’t seem like she plans to hang up soon. "He’ll be back from bringing Chris to school right about now. If he stopped by the store, we should arrive at roughly the same time."
There’s a pause on the other end of the line while Buck finally starts the car.
"You are actually spending so much time with them that you can go to Christopher’s school event, to the zoo, and to dinner with them over the course of only ten days and it’ll be so little that Christopher thinks it’s weird. Huh. I wasn’t aware of that."
"Yeah, well," Buck admits, "me neither, if I’m quite honest. I thought they wouldn’t notice if I showed up less for just a few days."
Maddie is silent for a few seconds. "That’s not what I meant." Then: "Showing up less was a conscious decision?"
"Look, Maddie, I’m not down to get psychoanalyzed this early in the morning."
"But you’re willing to show up on Eddie’s doorstep?"
Buck sighs. "I don’t want this to become a bigger thing than it already is. This," he motions around him, despite his sister not being able to see, "already got way out of hand. I don’t need everyone else to be all up in our business."
"Our business," Maddie repeats, flat.
"Yes. This is something that only concerns Eddie and me."
"It sure is."
"And Christopher a little bit."
"Uh-huh."
"He kinda got in the middle of it. Wasn’t really fair of me. Us. Whatever."
"Okay," Maddie says, in a way that makes Buck think the gears in her head are turning, "I will leave you to it then." Pause. "If you do want to talk about it at some point, though, to someone who isn’t Eddie, I’m here."
Buck smiles. "Thanks. I know that."
He reaches Eddie’s front porch shortly after they hang up. The jeep isn’t parked out front, which means Buck is a little earlier than expected. He tries the doorbell anyway, even if he knows that Eddie won’t answer, and sits down on the stoop once he got the confirmation.
It doesn’t take long for Eddie to appear, though, because Buck knows his stuff. To no surprise, the trunk is filled with groceries, and Buck might be nervous, but getting up to help Eddie carry the bags is comfortable, ordinary even. He allows himself to relax a little when the confused look on Eddie’s face mellows out into a grateful smile. He lets their shoulders brush in a reassuring gesture and silently follows Eddie inside.
"Coffee?" Eddie asks once they put away the groceries.
"Yeah," Buck replies and sits down at the kitchen table while Eddie is preparing their mugs.
"Not that I’m not glad to see you," Eddie says, and Buck braces himself for what’s coming next, "but you’ve been, as Chris rightfully said, around much less, so this," he gestures between the two of them, "feels like you’re here for a specific reason."
Buck winces. "Yes and no."
Eddie lifts his eyebrows as he sits down in front of him.
Since going to therapy Eddie has been patient, and it’s great, usually, Buck loves that for Eddie, loves to see him healing. But it also means that it’s left to Buck now to elaborate because Eddie will wait.
"I want to apologize", he says, finally.
"What for?" Eddie asks, and Buck even believes him that he doesn’t know.
Sheepishly, he explains: "For being around less without an explanation."
If possible, Eddie’s eyebrows lift even higher. "Buck, you don’t have to apologize for that. You have your own life. That’s okay."
"Don’t tell me it’s okay when Chris is worried because he thinks we’re fighting, and Chimney tells me you’ve been off. Something I hadn’t known at that point, by the way, because you didn’t talk to me about it."
"Because it’s not fair of us to put that on you."
"No," Buck disagrees, "it was unfair of me to stay away and not explain myself."
"You don’t owe us anything!"
They stare at each other in silence.
"Don’t I?" Buck asks quietly.
"No, Buck," Eddie says, horrified, "don’t ever think that you have to spend time with us because you owe it to us. We both want you with us, Chris and me, yes, but only if you want to be there too."
A pained laugh leaves Buck’s throat. "You think that’s what this is about? That I don’t want to be here?"
"Isn’t it?" Eddie asks, his brows furrowed "I’m not accusing you of not wanting to spend time with us anymore. But you have your own life too. Only because you’ve been doing it for a while, doesn’t mean we can expect you to just keep spending time all your time with us."
"I never want to leave," Buck blurts out. Eddie blinks at him.
There are a few moments of silence, while they both process what Buck just said.
Buck didn’t mean to say that. The whole point of… everything, essentially, was not to put this on Eddie. He lifts his hand to run his fingers through his hair and laughs nervously. "Can we just forget I said that?"
"No," Eddie replies with a conviction that surprises Buck. "This goes both ways. You want me to talk about my issues, I want you to talk to me about yours." He fixes Buck with his gaze. "What is the problem about this in your opinion?"
Buck can’t say it. But he also can’t lie to Eddie, that’s not the relationship they have. "I’ve had," he starts cautiously, "some things I needed to think about, that I didn’t want to burden you with." So far, so good. "So I took some time to think about it on my own, but it doesn’t matter, because I burdened you anyway."
"You’re not a burden, Buck."
"You keep saying that, but then it proves to be different anyway."
Eddie sighs. "Is it so hard to believe that me being off was more about me than about you?"
"Yes," Buck says, without hesitating. "You can’t explain away what Christopher said at Athena’s and Bobby’s."
"I wasn’t sleeping well," Eddie admits reluctantly, and grits his teeth in the way that Buck recognizes as the hint that he’s gonna do something that he’s still struggling with, "because I was missing you."
He must see something on Buck’s face because he adds: "But that’s not your responsibility unless you are actively keeping me from sleeping. Which you aren’t." He levels Buck with an imploring look, seemingly anticipating the retort that’s sitting on Buck’s tongue. No, not seemingly. Buck knows that’s what Eddie is doing.
"So, what now?" Eddie asks once Buck has swallowed his reply.
"I’ll go back to how it was before, spend more time with you again."
"So you’ve finished thinking about whatever you were thinking about?"
"No," Buck says, "but this is more important."
"Do you need more time to yourself? I can tell Christopher that’s what you’re doing if you’re worried about him."
"Eddie," Buck calmly lays his hand on Eddie’s wrist over the kitchen table, "what are you doing?"
"Giving you space if that’s what you need."
"I don’t want space," Buck says, because he’s still not sure what he needs, but wanting is less of a problem, "do you?"
"No." Eddie’s face distorts in disgust at the insinuation. "I never want space from you." He smiles crookedly. "If that wasn’t clear enough from me admitting I don’t sleep very well when we’re apart."
Buck laughs and squeezes Eddie’s wrist.
"Then it’s decided," he says and leans back, taking his hand with him. "You mind if I stay the day then?"
Eddie smiles. He gets up to collect their empty coffee mugs and move them to the sink. "Stay the day," he says, "hell, stay the night if you want. Stay as long as you like."
There’s a stumble in Eddie’s step as he seems to realize what has just left his mouth. Buck’s breath hitches. He watches Eddie try covering it up by grabbing a sponge and start furiously scrubbing one of the mugs. His face is turned away in a way that is obviously very deliberate.
It’s all remarkably easy in the end, Buck thinks. He follows Eddie to the sink, grabbing a dishtowel and leaning with his back against the counter while he waits for Eddie to pass him the first mug to dry off. He watches Eddie’s profile, as his jaw tenses and relaxes, refusing to look in Buck’s direction.
"Do you want to know what thought it was that made me take some time to think about?", Buck asks, and it fills him with a thrill that he is actually going to bring this up.
Eddie does look up at him at that, passing him the wet mug. Buck knows it’s a testament to how rattled he is that he doesn’t take the piss out of him for bringing it up after all, after going to such great lengths trying to avoid it.
"We built our lives around each other," Buck explains, unable to just go for the throat. He’ll build the whole context around it, for both of them. "I built mine around you and Christopher, and it seems you two built yours just as much around me."
Eddie huffs, but there’s a smile playing around his lips now. "And that took you by surprise?" Buck knows he’s teasing.
"No, I knew that," Buck returns Eddie’s smile. "We built our lives around each other as best friends, and I couldn’t destroy that because I wear my heart on my sleeve and have terrible impulse control."
Eddie now turns to Buck fully, leaning his hip against the sink. "You couldn’t destroy this," he gestures between the two of them, "that easily. We’re steadier than that."
"I love you," Buck says. Fuck it, if he skips a few steps in the process. Eddie nearly drops the sponge that is still in his hand.
"So you’re staying the night, then," he says.
Buck laughs. "Ideally, yeah."
"Okay," Eddie says, and reaches into the sink to pass Buck the second mug.
Buck laughs again but dries it off obediently.
"What’s the plan for today?"
"You know that I love you too, right?" Eddie says as they slip under the covers of his bed that evening.
Buck smiles, interlacing their fingers between them. "I know."
"Good," Eddie says, as his other hand wanders to Buck’s cheek, drawing his face closer. He drops a short kiss on Buck’s lips before closing his eyes.
"Do you think you’ll sleep better tonight?" Buck traces the lines of Eddie’s face with his eyes, worrying his lip in the process.
"You’re here," Eddie says, as if that explains everything, and drags Buck even closer, tangling their legs together.
Yeah, Buck thinks, as his eyes fall shut too, they’ll both sleep well tonight.