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“Buck, are you listening?”
Maddie is giving him a concerned look and Buck quickly smiles back at her.
“Sorry, I guess I zoned out for a moment.”
The smile makes his head ache. His whole face is burning from the tension in his muscles. He considers telling her, just for a second, but then again it's stupid.
He doesn't remember how he got to her place.
Which is perfectly normal. It happens to everyone, right? No one ever remembers the drive home completely, it's routine, it's muscle memory, a habit. The brain doesn't need this information so it's tucked away. It's normal.
He doesn't remember anything, though.
In fact, he doesn't even know from where he left off.
The thought makes his stomach twist and sends a stabbing sensation through his head. He realizes his hands are shaking and he hides them in the pockets of his jeans.
“Is something wrong?”
He's being ridiculous. He wracks his brain for an explanation, because there has to be one. Maybe he had too much to drink last night. Maybe he's had a 24 hour shift from Hell and is running on autopilot.
He can't remember the previous day, either.
“I'm fine, Maddie,” he lies while his stomach does another unpleasant twist. “I guess I just need some fresh air.”
“You just got here.”
“I know, but – it's been a long day.”
A long week, month, year. A lifetime.
Buck glances over Maddie's shoulder. Toys are strews across the living room, a high chair is placed at the end of the dining table. There are pictures on the wall that he should maybe look at, but the thought sends a shiver of dread down his spine.
He might not like what he sees, or worse, he might see himself and not remember.
Through the window he can see dark clouds at the sky. Thunder is rolling in the distance.
“Where do you wanna go?” Maddie asks.
I don't know, Buck thinks.
“The pier,” he says.
Maddie puts her hand onto his shoulder, then lets it drop until her fingers wrap around his. She squeezes tightly, once, twice, three times. Short, long, short, almost like Morse code.
“Take your time, but remember, we're right here waiting.”
It doesn't make much sense, but then again nothing really does right now. Maybe he should squeeze her hand right back, he wonders. He's afraid his hands might start shaking again, though, so he simply nods.
Rain sets in as he steps onto the street.
The wall seems endless. It's taking his breath away with every step that he takes closer to it, and the blurred photos become sharper as he approaches. There are too many. In between the photos, there are letters and notes, a few words, whole pages of love pouring out of the paper. There are flowers, too, some colorful and fresh, some dry and yellow from the Californian sun. They all carry drops of water now, and Buck pulls his hood tighter over his head.
Gone but not forgotten.
The words burn themselves into the back of his mind.
He scans the pictures before him and should be relieved that none of the faces are familiar. He should be grateful.
A man is standing next to him, touching one of the photos with trembling fingers. The child in the picture can't have been older than ten, and the sight of the broad, innocent smile and the twinkling eyes behind red-rimmed glasses sends something sharp and jarring straight through Buck's chest. He inhales shakily, trying to breathe through the pain blossoming in his heart, it hurts, it hurts -
“Are you okay, man?”
Buck screws his eyes shut for a second. He tries to nod, but he's frozen, paralyzed from the agony within.
“Open your eyes, please.”
There's something about the stranger's voice that makes the pain recede for a moment. He's almost pleading, and when Buck finally opens his eyes he finds the man looking back at him, hair plastered to his forehead, raindrops trailing down his face, eyes filled with so much worry and sadness that it almost pulls the ground from beneath Buck's feet.
This man is mourning, and yet here he is, asking if Buck is okay.
He can't even remember the last time someone asked him that.
“Yeah, I'm alright.” He clenches his fists and exhales carefully, focusing on the sharp pain as his fingernails dig into the skin. “I'm sorry, I mean – I'm sorry for your loss.”
The man can't be much older than him, and yet he's faced loss more often than anyone should in a lifetime.
He shouldn't have this knowledge.
“I wish I'd been here,” the man mutters, voice heavy with grief. “Every day I ask myself if I could've saved him.” He runs his hand across his face and wipes his eyes. “Were you in LA when it happened?”
“No, I - “
But the words get stuck in Buck's throat. He doesn't know. A freaking tsunami happened and he doesn't remember where he was that day. The pain returns just as he desperately wracks his brain for a memory, and this time he can't suppress the small gasp when it feels like his heart is being ripped to shreds from the inside.
“I gotta go,” he says and inside the pockets of his jeans, his nails draw blood.
It's only when he's standing at his door that he remembers that he could at least have asked the man for his name.
He's suffocating. The walls of the apartment seem to be closing in on him as he paces, trying desperately to fight down the nausea that increases with every step he takes. He's been here before, he knows he has, but at the same moment it feels like the room of a stranger. There are no pictures on the wall, no books in the shelf that look familiar.
He stares at his phone, fingers hovering above the screen. He should call -
He should call -
His chest burns in tune with his eyes as he throws the phone away. A broken sob is ripped from his throat, his chest is too tight to breathe, and he still doesn't know what he's missing.
“I don't understand what's happening, Maddie,” he whimpers and buries his face against his sister's shoulder.
“Everything will be okay,” she replies and takes his hand in hers. “You'll be fine.”
Buck almost cries with relief when he reaches the station.
“I'm a firefighter,” he says quietly, just for himself to hear, an affirmation for the only thing he's been sure of since he knocked on Maddie's door. He knows this place, remembers it, feels it with every fiber of his being. It's the right place, finally; surely everything will be alright now. He brushes his hand across the metal of the large ladder truck, lets it linger there for a moment before he takes a deep breath.
Lightning illuminates the place for a split second, soaking everything in a flash of white.
Buck, no!
He pulls his hand away as if he'd been burned. He remembers touching an electric fence for a stupid bet when he was a kid. It didn't hurt, not really, but it made his whole body tingle and he thought his heart stopped for a solid three seconds.
But it didn't. It kept on beating, just like today. Like always.
It's been beating out of sync for a while now, though.
It keeps missing beats, and maybe that's why his chest never stops aching. Maybe that's why his mind is constantly spinning. Maybe that's why he's always feeling like he's dying a little inside.
“Buck, you're late. Everything okay?”
He lifts his head and spots Bobby. Behind him, Hen and Chimney are following, and it takes away a little bit of the anxiety. He takes his time to look at their faces, making sure that he knows them, remembers them.
He remembers -
He remembers -
The pain explodes in his chest, something's still not right, something's utterly, terribly wrong.
“Where's -”
His voice catches in his throat.
The alarm rings.
Her hair tickles as she leans against him. He doesn't remember her name or how they met, and he's too scared to ask. She never stays too long, anyway. When she's there, she says all the right things, touches him in all the right places, and her hair is blonde, brunette, then fiery red.
She always leaves before he can see her face and it should make him want to stop her, look at her, ask her to stay.
The TV is flickering. The news are on, reporting a sniper attack in broad daylight in the middle of LA. There's footage, too, but it's blurred, pixels instead of faces, and Buck feels the bile rising in his throat and tastes blood on his tongue.
Somewhere near, lightning flashes, and the TV screen turns to black.
“I gotta go,” the woman next to him says and kisses his cheek, and he doesn't feel anything. Feels nothing but numbness and a faint aching in his chest as he stares at the black screen before him. He knows she's not coming back, and he doesn't feel a thing.
The harness tightens around his chest, and Buck wonders if this will be the rest of his life now. Always suffocating, never really breathing, forever hurting without knowing why.
The drive back to the station is full of chatter. Chimney cracks a few jokes, Hen threatens to smack him across the head, and Bobby invites them for dinner for the weekend.
Buck leans back against the seat and stretches out his legs. Waits for a familiar touch of someone's knee against his own.
“Where's -”
Outside, the rain is flooding the streets of LA. Thunder roars, louder than the engine, the name is burning on his tongue like glowing embers.
“Eddie.”
The syllables leave his throat open and bleeding as they finally claw their way out. The name tastes like blood in his mouth, scary, sweet, horribly familiar. He must have said it a thousand times, in whispers and screams, in fear and in hope, he knows he has.
Hen stares at him. Chimney has fallen silent.
Bobby turns his head.
“Who's Eddie?”
In the flash of a lightning strike, Buck's heart shatters, and he doesn't know what held it together in the first place.
He's standing in the middle of the football field, letting the rain soak his clothes and run down his face. The thunder is deafening, and he counts. One. Two. Three.
Lightning shatters the earth.
He wonders, for a moment, what it would feel like.
If it would reset his heart at last and take away the pain.
The apartment is on the sixth floor. When the 118 gets there, a door is opened and a woman points towards another door at the end of the hall.
“Number 6 B.”
“You said you heard a shot?”
“Yes.” She's shaking and already retreating back into her own apartment. “I don't know – he always seemed like a nice guy, but you never know.”
She closes the door before Bobby can ask further questions.
“We should probably wait for the police. The guy's armed,” Hen says.
Buck can't take his eyes off the door. And he knows she's right. He knows he's being irrational. But his chest is aching, burning more strongly the longer he stares at the door at the end of the hallway. He doesn't ask for permission. His feet move on their own accord, closer and closer, and his heart is suddenly hammering against his ribs with a force that knocks the air right out of him. By the time he reaches the door, he feels dizzy.
“Anyone in there? Are you hurt?”
His irregular heartbeat sounds like thunder in the silence he finds behind the door, but faintly, barely audible through the steady beat he can hear it. Ragged breathing, a sharp sound of someone biting back a cry, and something edgy slices through Buck's heart because he knows, he knows too well -
“Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. Can you tell me your name?”
“Eddie. My name's Eddie.”
The agony is all-consuming. For a moment it's everywhere, spreading from his chest through every nerve; he almost screams but bites his tongue before the cry escapes his throat.
“I need to know you're okay in there,” he manages to say, swallowing against the metallic taste in his mouth. “I'm coming in, okay?”
“Buck, be careful. Let's wait for the police.”
Hen is keeping her distance, clearly worried. But she doesn't understand.
Buck doesn't even understand himself, after all. He should hesitate. He should be at least a little bit afraid.
“Stay away from the door,” he calls out. “I'm coming for you, Eddie.”
He glances sideways and finds Bobby next to him.
“It's going to be alright, kid.” There's a softness in Bobby's voice that's strangely grounding, even before he briefly places a hand onto Buck's shoulder. “You're not dying today. Take your time. Just make sure you come back to us.”
Of course I'll come back, Buck wants to reply. What a silly request. He doesn't say it out loud.
He throws himself against the door, shoulder first, bracing himself for the pain of the impact. And it does hurt. It hurts like Hell, but it's not his arm, it's – everything. The sight of the man slumped on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, shoulders shaking, his whole body trembling with silent cries; the echo of his raw voice in his ears; the stabbing sensation in his chest with every heartbeat and Eddie Eddie Eddie.
He crashes to his knees next to the man – Eddie – and reaches out his hand. Lays it on top of Eddie's, slowly, gently, trembling; he lets it linger there for a moment and curls his fingers around Eddie's wrist. He can feel his pulse, it's rapid and shallow and still the best thing Buck has known since -
He doesn't know.
Maybe there was nothing before this moment. Maybe everything started and will end with Eddie.
“I'm right here,” he says with a voice that is a little too raw as his gaze lands on the bruises and scrapes on Eddie's knuckles. His other hand finds the barrel of the gun. “Let me take this, okay?”
The gun weighs a ton as he carefully places it out of reach.
“I couldn't do it.” Eddie's voice is quiet, as if he's talking to himself.
“Why did you try?”
“Doesn't matter. I didn't do it.”
It does matter. It does matter because the sheer thought that Eddie could have made a different choice is enough to send Buck's mind reeling. He imagines a world without this man in it and finds that he can't. There's only darkness and an endless abyss of nothing, and it should scare him, feeling like this, when he doesn't even know the man next to him.
He moves a little closer. If Eddie turned his head now, he would feel his breath on his skin as he feels his pulse underneath his fingers.
“Then what made you change your mind?”
For the first time, Eddie looks at him. The noises in the background fade away. Buck knows, without turning his head, that the rest of the 118 is still nearby, police are just around the corner, ready to intervene, but it doesn't matter. He can't tear his gaze away from Eddie, hypnotized as he is by the unfathomable pain reflected in the man's eyes, as if he was carrying the world itself on his shoulders.
“I thought that maybe I still had a purpose here.”
He lets his head drop back against the wall. Buck can feel his shoulder brushing against his own.
“Of course you do. Of course you have a purpose.”
“Yeah. Maybe I do.”
There is a hole in the wall right next to where Eddie is pressing the back of his head against the bare concrete. The bullet must have ricocheted off, landing somewhere on the other side of the room, but all Buck can think about is how damn close he got to not having this conversation at all.
He's feeling sick.
Hen and Chimney are approaching. Buck spots a police officer in the hallway.
“Will you be alright, Sir?” Hen asks.
“Maybe you should spend the night in the hospital,” Chimney adds.
Make sure you don't try again, he doesn't say.
Eddie looks up at them, eyes glazed over, silvery lines of tears on his cheeks that glisten as another flash of lightning illuminates the room. His gaze then shifts to Buck. His fingers curl around Buck's, squeezing tightly, desperately.
“I'm not alright,” he confesses, to Buck only. “Please, I'm – I need -”
And Buck understands, he knows, he feels – he feels too much all at once and wishes he could find the strength to squeeze Eddie's hand in return.
“Don't worry,” he murmurs. “We'll figure this out.”
“Stay with me.”
“Of course,” Buck promises.
Always, he thinks and wonders why he's never felt more sure about a thing in his life.
“The police said it was just the wrong place at the wrong time. The sniper was targeting firefighters. I just happened to get caught in the crossfire.”
Eddie lifts his hand and places his palm against his shoulder. Buck thinks back to these days, the constant anxiety, the bullet-proof vests and nervous glances as soon as they exited the fire truck.
He remembers thinking, briefly, that he would gladly take a bullet if it took away the other kind of pain. The constant kind. The inexplicable kind.
He recalls the news reporter telling the world about the civilian that got hit by a stray bullet that was meant for someone else.
“It was the fourth time,” Eddie continues. “I took three bullets in Afghanistan. I was on my last tour during the – during that day.”
He never says the word out loud. The tsunami.
“And I was bleeding out on the street of the city that already took my son, and I thought maybe this is the universe screaming at me that I'm not meant to be here.”
“Or maybe,” Buck says slowly, “the universe was telling you that you're not meant to leave just yet.”
He doesn't know how they ended up in his apartment. For the first time, though, the missing part doesn't scare him all that much. It doesn't matter, not when his heart is beating more steadily than it has in forever. Something's still off, though, he can feel it – a missing beat, a sudden pain in his chest, like a piece of broken glass that cuts into your skin but is never found.
Next to him, Eddie shrugs and takes a deep breath. Buck wonders, briefly, what the rest of the team would think if they saw them like this. Two grown men sitting on the floor where a couch used to be. At least Buck thinks that there used to be one, there must have been, because – because people have couches, fact. But when he tries to picture it, he can't even tell the color it had.
“Are you happy here?” Eddie asks suddenly, without looking at Buck.
It is entirely unexpected and it takes Buck a few seconds to catch up with what Eddie said. He doesn't remember the last time someone asked him if he was happy. People ask if he's doing okay. If he's feeling well. They never ask if he's happy, which is good, because it means he never has to lie to them.
He has friends. He has a job he loves, that means something. He's healthy.
Eddie's shoulder brushes against his own and something tears at his insides, a sudden feeling of loss and want so overwhelming that he has to screw his eyes shut against the pain.
“No,” he whispers. “I don't think I am.”
And he hates himself for saying it, for saying it to Eddie, because he has no right to feel this way when Eddie has lost so much and Buck -
“It's alright,” Eddie interrupts his spiraling thoughts, as if he could read his mind. “You have every right to feel unhappy. It's not a contest, you know?”
The ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of his lips, and it sets something right in Buck's chest, takes away some of the hurt as one of the broken fragments slots into place.
They talk about a lot of things that night. Outside, the rain has reduced to a drizzle, although the thunder is still rolling in the distance. Buck tells Eddie about the 118, about the rescues they've had, memories he didn't know he had but that are so clear now as he recalls them.
Eddie is a good listener, even though he doesn't speak much himself. He asks the occasional question, but mostly he lets Buck talk and smiles from time to time.
Buck would talk for days just to put that smile on Eddie's face.
“I wanna do something meaningful,” Eddie announces.
He glances over at Buck as if he's afraid of Buck's reaction to a question he hasn't even asked.
The thing is, the firehouse is Buck's safe space. The 118 is his family, he knows that as he knows that the sun rises in the East. The team is his rock, his anchor, and somehow, these things are often also the most fragile.
But this is Eddie.
“I think I know just the right place,” Buck replies.
Buck wakes up crying and he doesn't know what he dreamed about.
Downstairs, in the living room, the little light in the corner is still on. Eddie said he's used to sleeping on the floor, which is as unsurprising as it is heartbreaking, and even though he never asked and Buck never explicitly offered, he has spent the last nights right there where the imprints of the couch are still visible in the carpet, mere shadows when the moonlight streams in at just the right angle.
He almost leaves the bed. Almost goes down the stairs.
He thinks of the way Eddie smiled and knows that he can't burden him with a grief he cannot even fathom himself.
The siren is blaring. The firetruck comes to life as the motor starts running, and Buck feels his body tingling with anticipation.
“Are you ready?”
Opposite him, Eddie inhales deeply.
“Yeah,” he answers. “I think I am.”
His knees bump against Buck's, and the tingling becomes an electric current that sends warmth all the way through his body. It won't last, he knows that by now, but he'll gladly take these little moments whenever he gets them before they are gone in a flash.
Sometimes, Eddie wakes up screaming.
It's a name, Buck knows that, but the scream has always faded by the time he is awake. Eddie never tells, and Buck never asks.
He wraps his arm around Eddie's shaking body and tries not to think too much about the way his own heart is breaking every time.
They manage to pull the boy out of the house mere seconds before the upper floor collapses. Buck watches as the child is reunited with his family. Bobby claps his back.
“Well done, kid.”
But when Buck turns his head away from the happy family, his gaze finds Eddie's. Even from the distance, the grief is so palpable that it charges the molecules in the air and turns every breath he takes into fire that burns his lungs. He tries to call out his name, but Eddie turns away.
“Go home, Buck,” Bobby says.
Buck shakes his head.
“The shift's not over.”
Something flickers across Bobby's face. He puts his hand onto Buck's shoulder and squeezes lightly.
“He really needs you to come home.”
“Do you know what it feels like to walk around with a piece of your heart missing?”
Eddie's voice is but a whisper, ragged and raw from tears that never seem to come.
And God, doesn't Buck know? Maybe it's not the same. Maybe it's a different kind of loss, a loss less tangible, but it's there, it's constant, and it takes his breath away.
“ - topher!”
He wakes up in a panic from his own broken cry. He can't breathe; his chest is too tight, his lungs are on fire, and tears are running down his face like streams of lava. The pain is everywhere, engraved in his bones and burnt into his skin, and there is a name somewhere in the dark corners of his mind, a blurred image that he can never see before the pain comes in like a high tide to pull it away.
He needs to know, he needs to understand, he needs -
“Tell me what to do,” Eddie whispers, holding Buck as he's shaking. “Tell me how to make it better,” he murmurs with his lips pressed against the crook of Buck's neck.
“Just... just stay with me. Please.”
“I'm not going anywhere.”
Maddie is crying and Buck doesn't know why.
“I miss you, that's all,” she tries to explain, though it doesn't make much sense.
It was just yesterday that he visited her, after all.
“I miss you, too,” he assures her and leans into her embrace.
“We miss you a lot. Jee misses her Uncle Buck.”
There's something about her words that tugs at his heart. A distant memory, a faint aching for something he can't quite grasp; his heart might burst from the force with which he loves them.
The days and nights blur into each other. The sun never really finds its way through the rain, the moon vanishes in the blinding flashes of lightning that never seem to go away. The thunder is as permanent as the aching in Buck's chest.
Next to him, Eddie is wide awake. Buck can tell even though he can't see him. He knows the sound of Eddie's breathing, the feeling of his heartbeat underneath his palm when he puts his hand onto Eddie's chest; he knows the pain that creeps up to him when he sleeps, he knows the overwhelming loss that haunts him in his dreams.
He knows Eddie in the pale light of the moon, in the flicker of lightning, even in the dark, and God, does he love him.
He can't breathe. He can barely see. The smoke is everywhere, leaving him blind. He knows he should move, but his feet are like lead and he stumbles.
“I've got you. I'll get you home.”
Eddie's voice cuts through the haze, and Buck almost laughs with relief as he finds his hand. Laughter turns into a ragged cough, and suddenly Eddie is kneeling before him, his hands on Buck's shoulders, then on the back of his neck, gloved thumbs brushing away some of the soot that masks his face.
“Open your eyes. You're going home, do you understand me?”
Panic is echoing in his voice, fear dripping from every word.
Buck allows himself to lean into the touch of Eddie's hand on his cheek, just for a moment. Just to take a breath.
I am home, he almost says.
His eyelids are too heavy. His lungs are burning.
“I need you to come home.”
He rises up. He moves, he stumbles, he follows the desperate pull of Eddie's hand. He doesn't know where the fire and smoke end and the thunderstorm and rain start. He blinks against the bright-lit sky as lightning flashes above them, feels the rain on his skin and Eddie's forehead pressed against his own. Tastes something salty on his lips and doesn't know if the tears are his own or Eddie's.
“I'm not leaving you,” he manages to whisper, his lips brushing against Eddie's. “I'm not leaving you, Eddie.”
Eddie pulls away. He smiles softly, his fingers brush against the back of Buck's hand, and Buck sees his heart breaking in the reflection of his eyes.
“You are. You must. I need you to come home.”
Above them, the sky lights up in another flash of lightning, and in the silence that follows, Eddie goes still. He sinks to his knees and even though he's the one who's falling, it's Buck who feels the ground vanishing from beneath his feet as he understands.
“No, no, Eddie... Eddie, look at me. Look at me.”
With his left hand, he searches for a pulse. Puts two fingers against the side of Eddie's neck, wills them to stop trembling, and his right hand finds Eddie's and grasps it like a lifeline.
“Why did you come back for me? Eddie, why – you shouldn't have -”
“You saved me in so many ways. It's my turn now to bring you home.”
“I am home,” Buck rasps, because home is this, right here, Eddie's smile and the touch of his hand and the beating of his heart. “Eddie, please, I want – I want more time. All the time. I want – I want you. I want us.”
They are drowning in the pouring rain, it's on the back of Buck's neck, in his eyes, on his tongue, and beneath Eddie's body the puddle is as dark as blood.
“I want us,” he repeats and each word tastes like iron in his mouth.
“Remember what I told you, Evan.”
His heartbeat ceases. The air freezes inside his burning lungs. He stares at Eddie, unable to speak for a moment, and he almost cries out as a jagged, broken fragment shifts into place.
“Eddie -”
Another flash of lightning, and in the bright light Eddie's eyes are wide and vacant.
Black holes are born when a star dies.
And here he is, small and insignificant in front of this overwhelming darkness, yearning for the light. He could let go. It would be so easy, after all.
I want more time, he pleads to the darkness.
“I need you to come home.”
Just a little bit more time. A minute, a second, a blink of an eye; he'll give everything for time, and he won't find it in the darkness.
He blinks against the blinding light. His mouth is dry, his throat is constricted as if he'd been crying for hours. And maybe he has, he thinks. He can still feel it, the sadness, the aching; it wasn't real, though. It was just in his head.
It felt too damn real.
He needs to know. He needs to see. He needs -
“Eddie.”
Bobby finishes his phone call. It was the first thing he did, right after welcoming Buck back with a tearful smile.
“You might want to come to the hospital,” he said. “There's someone here who wants to see you. Both of you.”
And now Bobby is sitting next to him while the doctor is performing his examinations. Everything is good, considering the circumstances. And Buck knows he should be grateful. He's tired, he's aching despite the medication, but he's alive. He was lucky.
He wishes he could stop the tears from falling. Surely he should have run dry by now, and he doesn't know where the tears come from in the first place.
“How long was I out?” he manages to ask.
“Almost 24 hours.”
“Oh.”
It was a lifetime, he thinks, and tries to lift his hand to wipe away the wetness on his cheeks. But he's so exhausted, his limbs are hurting, and his chest is still too tight.
The door opens.
Christopher bursts into the room at a speed he shouldn't be capable of, he's all laughter and bright eyes, and when he almost crushes Buck with a hug, he takes the first breath that doesn't burn his lungs. He can't sit up, but he can pull Christopher close. He buries his nose in the soft curls and over Christopher's small shoulders, his gaze meets Eddie's.
“Hey Eds,” he mutters.
There's so much he ought to say, but how could he ever find words big enough to hold the emotions that spread through his body like wildfire when Eddie looks at him like that. Eddie opens his mouth, but doesn't speak, just exhales shakily before he moves closer to the bed. His hands are trembling. From up close, Buck can see the dark circles around his red-rimmed eyes. Eddie reaches out, so carefully as if Buck was made of glass, and when their fingers touch it feels like all their broken fragments finally align.
There's a lot he should tell him. Just in case they don't get another tomorrow, in case the next time he'll miss him, he'll miss him forever.
“Buck, I - “ Eddie starts.
God, he loves him.
Remember what I told you, Evan.
“Can we please go home?” Buck asks quietly, and when Eddie squeezes his hand and nods with tears in his eyes, Buck thinks that maybe he doesn't have to leave at all. If home is a person, then he's already right where he's meant to be.