Chapter Text
* * *
It took some work for Eddie to admit he had feelings for his best friend. Being shot, a panic attack, and several therapy sessions with Frank. But he finally got there. He finally could say it out loud —actually just whispered it to himself in the bathroom, in front of the mirror. He was gay and in love with Buck. And that was okay.
It didn’t matter if Buck was straight, Eddie was happy enough with the friendship they had. Yes, it made his heart flutter every time he saw Buck with Chris, reading him a story before bedtime or just helping him with a science project. And he more often than not would dream with the day he could have it all with Buck, not just a best-bros situation. But he’d settle for the things that they already had: the dinners, the movie nights, the trips to the zoo, the late night conversations.
Eddie was okay with just that, even if it also meant having to listen to Buck about the Taylor Kellys in his life —thank God the actual Taylor Kelly was no longer in the picture. Unfortunately, even with Taylor out, there would always be someone else.
“So, what’s her name?” Eddie asked, even if he didn’t want to, while doing the dishes. Buck had cooked dinner —Bobby’s exquisite lasagna recipe, so of course Eddie did the cleaning.
“Hmm… what?” Buck mumbled, as if he didn’t know exactly what his friend was asking.
“C’mon, Buck,” Eddie insisted, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He wasn’t sure he hit the mark.
“It’s… nothing.”
“Nothing? I don’t think I ever heard that name before.” He closed the tap, dried his hands with the dish towel, and turned over to face Buck, who was still in his chair, drinking his beer, purposely avoiding Eddie’s glance. “Look, I noticed you’ve been chipper lately. Smiling at your phone, texting non-stop. Stepping away to take a call so no one hears you. God, you’re even blushing now!” Eddie pointed out with a smile that seemed sincere but was hiding a broken heart.
“Well it’s…” It looked as if Buck couldn’t find the right words. “Recent. It’s being going only for a few weeks and I just don’t want to jinx it, okay?” He was still refusing to look at Eddie, as if he were ashamed of something. “Can we drop it?” He begged, and he made those puppy-eyes to which Eddie absolutely could not refuse.
“Fine. But I want to hear about it when you’re ready. I’m your friend, Buck.”
It hurt Eddie to say those words. I’m your friend. Sure, he was and he would always be Buck’s best friend; someone he could lean on. Someone who would hear him, comfort him, understand him, and be there for him. Without a shadow of a doubt. But that was all Eddie would ever be for Buck. A friend. And as much as he had tried to convinced himself for the past few months that it was fine, he kept asking to the darkness, late at night, whispering: Why can’t we be more?
* * *
It happened on a Wednesday.
The team had just come back to the firehouse in time for dinner. They had had a few back-to-back calls —nothing major, but surely exhausting. The last call was a teenage girl whose boyfriend got stuck trying to sneak into her house. She asked Maddie to please tell the firefighters to be as quiet as possible or her parents would kill her —metaphorically. Needless to say, they weren’t quiet and the father almost had a heart attack. His little girl, sneaking her boyfriend in? He didn’t even know she was seeing anyone!
“So who’s the mystery girl?” Lucy asked from the couch, squinting.
Bobby was making dinner, something that smelled like chicken and spices —delicious. Ravi had offered to help, so he was right there chopping onions. Eddie was sitting in the couch right in front of Hen, who looked suspiciously quiet and uninterested. It was weird, since she would normally be at least mildly interested in Buck’s love life. Not in the details, just in the overall thing, and she was always ready to give a piece of advice.
“What?” Buck mumbled, just as he did when Eddie asked him almost two weeks ago. “It’s nothing,” he dismissed, the same words he had used before. But he kept looking at his phone with a tender look in his eyes. A looked that made Eddie’s heart twist and sunk to his stomach. He’d kill to be in the receiving end of that beautiful and sweet look.
None of them realized Chimney was approaching Buck from behind, quietly, like a hunter about to rip his prey to pieces. Of course, all he did was put his hands in Buck’s shoulder to scare him a little and to take a good look at his phone, like the nosy, meddling brother-in-law that he was.
“Well she’s…” He suddenly stopped himself, eyes wide open. Shocked, almost.
Buck lowered his phone, his cheeks and ears went as red as ever.
“She’s what?” Lucy insisted, frowning. “Blonde? Brunette? Is it a red-head again, Buck,” she let out with a disappointed tone in her voice.
“Definitely not a red-head,” said Chim, coughing a little, and then walked away from Buck to the kitchen with a weird look on his face. Like he just saw something he wasn’t supposed to.
Was it a dirty picture, what he just saw? No, Eddie was one hundred percent sure the puppy-eyes and the beaming smile Buck had a few seconds ago were not a product of nothing of the sort. But then what? Why did Chimney look ashamed almost? Why did Hen keep going through a magazine she wasn’t really paying attention to, like she knew more than she was supposed to say? Something smelled iffy and it wasn’t Bobby’s dinner.
“It’s not a red-head,” Buck confirmed, and Lucy let out a fake sigh of relief. “And it’s not a she.”
Time stopped for Eddie. He looked at Buck in disbelief, his heart crushed. It was a few seconds in which he wasn’t able to hide his true feelings for Buck. All that time he thought his best friend was straight only to find out he was not, that he was actually dating a guy. A guy that was not Eddie. Why? Wasn’t Eddie good enough? He knew he wasn’t perfect, but he loved Buck. Did he miss his chance? Was Buck silently waiting for Eddie to confess his feelings for him? No. Buck didn’t even know Eddie was gay. He never told anyone. He didn’t have anyone to blame for what was happening but himself.
“His name is Lucas,” Buck continued. Still not looking at Eddie. “And this is Hen’s fault, y’know? She told me I should date him!”
Eddie turned to Hen so fast his neck almost snapped.
“Uh-uh. This wasn’t my fault, Buckley,” she pointed a finger at him. For some reason she was also avoiding Eddie’s look. “You were drunk and you told me he was hot when he came over that day. And I… might have been a little bit drunk and told you to go for it. But you asked me for his number!”
Eddie couldn’t take it anymore. He got up from the couch, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his legs or any of his limbs, like he suddenly forgot how to move. He decided to head himself towards the kitchen. He could feel more than one pair of eyes following him, staring at his back.
“Should I set the table?” He asked Bobby.
“Sure, kid.” They way Bobby looked at him didn’t make him feel any better. “Well,” he added looking past Eddie’s shoulder. “Buck, if you’re happy, then it’s nobody’s fault, right? Now, everybody, dinner.”
* * *
“Hey, Eds, got a minute?”
Eddie was tempted to say no, that he didn’t have a minute, or a second —nothing. That he was too tired after the last call and needed one or two hours of sleep before the alarm went off again. He didn’t want to talk to Buck alone, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say.
During dinner, Eddie did his best to try and act normal while everybody was bombarding Buck with questions about this Lucas guy he was dating, how they met. The story was… kind of funny. Or Eddie would have thought so if it didn’t involve Buck, the love of his life.
Buck went to Hen’s during one of their days off, a month ago, and they got drunk around 4pm. For some reason they thought they should, that they earned it. Hen wasn’t expecting anyone, but then Lucas showed up. He was one of Denny’s classmate’s uncle, and wanted to see if his nephew forgot his notebook there. Denny and Lucas’ nephew had a study session the day before, apparently. Hen left Lucas with Buck for a minute to look for the notebook, which she found, and that was it.
Well, not exactly.
After Lucas left, Buck couldn’t stop talking about how gorgeous and handsome and hot he was —Hen was the one telling this part. For some reason she didn’t seem too proud to tell she was indeed the one who suggested Buck to ask Lucas on a date if he thought the guy was so fine. She didn’t seem surprised Buck could also be attracted to men. “Sexuality is a spectrum”, she said. And then Buck asked her for Lucas number and… Now they were almost four weeks into a relationship.
Yes, Eddie did his best to keep his cool during the entire dinner. He smiled and chuckled like everyone else. He even made a comment or two. Although his eyes were dark, dead almost, because he wasn’t really enjoying that conversation. But he kept it together and thanked God they had a call and could think of anything else than Buck and his new boyfriend.
But now, back to the firehouse, alone with Buck, he wasn’t sure he could act normally.
“Eddie, I’m sorry,” Buck said, after a long silence. He rested his shoulder against the locker and tried to meet his best friend’s glance.
“What do you feel sorry for?” Eddie asked, frowning, like it was nothing.
“Y’know… Not telling you before?”
Oh, that, Eddie thought. Of course Buck wasn’t sorry for falling for someone else, for not being able to reciprocate his feelings —feelings he didn’t know Eddie had anyway because he couldn’t fucking say a thing. And now he had missed his chance.
“It’s okay, Buck. I mean, you weren’t ready to talk to me, I guess…”
“Like… I really wanted to, Eddie,” he said, and Eddie was absolutely sure Buck was looking at him with those puppy-eyes he both loved and hated so much. “But it was new and… I’ve never dated a guy before. Yes, I slept with guys. I slept with men, women and everyone in between, but I thought I could only fall in love we women, you know? I thought that was normal, sleeping around with all genders but only being romantically connected to one, like I thought I was straight,” he chuckled, a lit bit of shame hidden there. “But then I started thinking and some things happened and… Well, if I weren’t drunk that day, this probably would have never happened. The thing is, Eddie, I wanted to tell you. I really did. I just didn’t know how. And I didn’t want to bring up Lucas until I was sure it was worth it. If that makes sense.”
“It does make sense, Buck,” Eddie sighed and closed his locker door. He turned to face Buck and tried to smile gently, without showing how crushed and devastated he was. “I just… I guess I’m a little hurt you felt you couldn’t trust me with this earlier?”
He felt the worst hypocrite in the face of Earth. Talking about being hurt because Buck wasn’t able to tell him he was bi —or pan or whatever— when Eddie himself didn’t have the guts to tell his best friend he was gay and in love with him. Especially when he saw the look in Buck’s face, like he just stabbed him in the chest with those words. But it was the only way for Buck to make sense of why Eddie was behaving like that after finding out the whole thing. The only explanation that didn’t involve Eddie confessing his unrequited love.
“Eddie, I’m really sorry.” Buck’s voice faltered and he started tearing up.
“Hey, come here.” Eddie pulled Buck into a tight hug. And he hated himself a thousand times for putting that into Buck’s shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m not mad or anything. Everything… it took me by surprise, that’s it. But we’re good. Okay? We’re good.”
He stepped back and put both hands in Buck’s shoulders. He looked right at him and god he wanted to kiss him so badly right then and there. But he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t.
“I’m glad we’re okay,” Buck mumbled.
“We’ll always be okay.”