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There’s a telenovela playing on the TV mounted just above the whiteboard on the opposite side of the room, volume turned so low that only the bass line of dramatic music bleeds into the ambient whir of air conditioning blowing a few degrees too low to be comfortable and the steady beep of the heart monitor ticking away beside the bed. Buck has no idea what’s playing out on the screen considering he doesn’t feel well enough to look given his current state of health, but he can see the theatrical glow flicker across Eddie’s face as he slouches uncomfortably in a plastic chair.
“Your back is gonna feel like shit if you keep sitting like that,” he attempts to say but his voice cracks around vowels and a dry mouth as he buries half his face in the blanket curled over his fists trying to chase away a chill.
Eddie’s sneakers squeak against the tile as his chair nearly tips over in his efforts to right himself too fast, the bed railing separating the two of them the only thing keeping him from spilling out onto the floor. He leans against it, smile soft and skin the perfect shade of sheepish despite the dimmed fluorescents and Buck tries to commit the memory of it passed the haze of muscle relaxers making him woozy.
“I thought you were still asleep,” Eddie says, voice kept low around a yawn as he ducks his head towards the TV and searches blindly for the remote on the bedside table. “Is it bothering you? I can turn it off.”
“Nah, ’s fine,” Buck assures, fingers unfolding from the edge of his hospital blanket to wave off the concern sitting dark and heavy under Eddie’s eyes. The sound goes to mute anyway as Eddie’s hand snakes through the bedrails to prevent him from tearing at the highlighter yellow bracelet declaring him a fall risk and maybe he falls asleep to the slow swoop of the other man’s fingers against his forearm because the next thing he knows he’s blinking awake to gentle pats against his face.
“There he is,” Eddie’s voice curves around a smile and warms the room. Buck feels his face melt into the happiness swirling up above him even while a nurse pokes and prods him and asks the same ten questions as every time before. “Hear that, Bud? You’re still the unluckiest person in the LAFD.”
“She didn’t say that,” Buck protests on the back of a laugh that tugs uncomfortably around his ribs.
“Didn’t have to. Your hospital rap sheet speaks for itself.”
Buck rubs at his eyes in an attempt to bring the nurse with the wrong conclusions into focus, hissing when it just makes his head hurt worse.
“Actually,” she cuts in before anything more can be said on her behalf, clutching her clipboard to her chest with a shrug. “I was just reminding Mr. Diaz here that our frequent flyer program sucks so maybe the two of you could find a new vacation spot next time, hmm?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Eddie nods with a little half-hearted salute that Buck tries to mimic but pokes himself in the nose instead. The fall risk bracelet makes a lot more sense given his lack of coordination at the moment.
“Mr. Buckley, do you need anything while I’m here?”
His hospital room tilts off its axis just a bit when he opens his eyes and he can’t quite get the fingers of his left hand to curl tight enough to make a fist, but Eddie is cresting his thumb over Buck’s wrist bone and despite how every part of him aches he finds himself believing it when he answers, “ ‘m okay.”
The nurse starts for the door, pausing just long enough to remind him to, “Press the call button whenever you need to use the restroom so someone can assist you or Mr. Diaz can help you if that’s more comfortable.”
She’s gone in the span of a few flickers of TV light, silence settling in between the beeps of the heart monitor and the soft snick of the aglets of Eddie’s shoelaces tapping against the floor with the anxious bounce of his knee. He feels sleep folding back over his senses, lulling him into nothingness except for the warm, steady pressure against his wrist when a need hits him hard.
“Shit.”
Worry stills Eddie’s fingers, his shadow blocking the TV light when he leans forward in his chair. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve gotta piss.”
——————
It takes a few minutes for Buck to find himself steadily perched on the side of his hospital bed and detached from the monitors. Despite the world being blurry at the edges, there’s a dull ache across his body that’s not going away any time soon and Eddie seems set on apologizing for it every few seconds as he tries to maneuver fuzzy, pickle green socks with rubber stops on the bottom onto Buck’s feet.
“This is quite the outfit,” he mumbles, picking at the hem of the hospital gown keeping his knees from splaying wide and wishing someone would be kind enough to bring him a change of clothes.
“You make it to the bathroom in one piece, there’s a pair of sweats by the sink,” Eddie says as if Buck had spoken the request out loud. Maybe he did. “We’re gonna take it slow, okay?”
Buck nods even though Eddie’s still focused on adjusting the socks comfortably around his ankles, smiles when he feels a gentle hand around his calf stopping just before the pressure becomes too intimate.
“Hey. You with me? You look far too happy for someone in a backless gown.”
“ Jus’ thinking how that’s our specialty,” Bucks says around the way his tongue sort of sticks to the roof of his mouth. “Takin’ things slow.”
He realizes a touch too late that it’s an unfair thing to say. Eddie has been the one to put in the work, to find himself in a place where he can reach for the things that make him happy and hold them in his hands. Buck just…hadn’t been able to meet him there, couldn’t figure out how to reach back with the steady grip Eddie deserves.
“Yeah, alright,” Eddie agrees as he stands to hover at Buck’s elbow, fingers gentle as he helps him stand. “Easy. Let’s focus on one thing at a time, yeah?”
Buck takes the first tentative step towards the ensuite with the comforting heat of Eddie’s hand at his back and takes another three before he has to stop to let world spin by, right hand wrinkling Eddie’s shirt from where he grips it too tight, his left shaking uselessly.
“Okay?” Eddie asks after a moment, his thumb counting the seconds with a comforting stroke just above Buck’s hip.
He starts moving forward at a snail’s pace rather than try to steady his breath enough to respond, but Eddie follows him seamlessly until they’re standing in front of the toilet and Buck realizes a little belatedly he’s going to have to sit down just to piss.
“Hey,” Eddie nudges him so that he starts to turn around. “Remember the sponge baths you definitely did not give me?”
Buck laughs into Eddie’s shoulder remembering the exact shade of embarrassment that colored Eddie’s face during that stretch of his recovery while trying to shimmy out of his boxers enough to sit. It’s an awkward shuffle, but eventually he gets seated with as much privacy as he’s going to get from the gown and Eddie hovering back near the doorway.
The TV from the room isn’t loud enough to supply him with audible cover so he decides to supply his own. “Did you know that King George II died on the toilet?”
He’s able to flush before Eddie stops laughing and feels a little easier about letting his best friend help him stand again and get his boxers back in place under the residual amusement coloring both their faces.
“I did not know that,” Eddie says just loud enough that Buck can feel the words in the oily curls at the crown of his head when he has to hug himself to Eddie for balance. Patient hands track the knobs of Buck’s spine through the slit of his gown, stopping just before the points of the Lichtenberg figures fade into the skin of his shoulder. Eddie’s breath is warm against his scalp, cresting over the dull ache in his temples like a slow tide taking sand back out to sea. Buck thinks he could stand here forever if only he had the strength. “I’ve got you,” Eddie promises like he could anyway.
Time trickles by at an odd pace these days, Buck unable to keep track of it much less anything else. His thoughts are jumbled at best, a lingering side effect that most likely will resolve itself with time whenever that evens out, too.
It’s why he asks, “Did Maddie bring by some of my clothes?” after Eddie’s already helped him into a pair of sweatpants that fall a bit too short around his ankles. “Or…your clothes?”
The answer is soothed into his side, Eddie rubbing a hand there as he says, “No, not yet. You’re really not supposed to be out of the gown, but I cleared it with the nurse for the night because you’ve been cold today.”
“Oh,” Buck nods, the memory of Eddie asking that during his regular scheduled noon checkup feeling clunky between his ears. “I…I remember now. Thanks.”
“Of course. You ready to get back in bed?”
“Did I wash my hands?”
Eddie’s fingers ruffle the greasy tufts of hair at Buck’s forehead, replying around a patient smile, “Yeah, bud. You did. Can’t say the same for your hair though.”
“There’s only so much Maddie can do with dry shampoo,” Buck groans, tugging Eddie into motion back towards the hospital bed. “When I bust out of here-“
“Carla’s already got it worked out for you to wash your hair whenever you want and Chris helped her pick out the right products for the curls. It’s all in the shower cubby at home,” Eddie assures while waiting to press the call button until Buck’s tucked back in comfortably. He tells the answering nurse Buck’s ready to be hooked back up to the monitors and moves to the opposite side of the bed so he’s not in the way.
Once the heart monitor is keeping track of the only kind of time that matters again, Eddie perches himself on the side of the bed and Buck feels his hand run through his hair in tempo with the slow blinks of sleep tugging at his eyelids.
“Tomorrow,” he says, voice quiet and content in the silence around just the two of them, “I’ll get Maddie to convince the docs you’re ready for soap and water, okay?”
Buck grins enough it dimples his cheek. “I love you.”
Sleep evaporates with a quick little blip of the heart monitor and if Buck hadn’t literally been struck by lightning he’d think that’s what letting this little bit of information slip feels like. Damage control is slow and incoherent off his tongue with a “No… no, no. Wasn’t supposed to say it like that.”
He thinks he can hear Eddie laughing again, but his heart is too loud where it beats in his stomach, his ears, his toes. “How were you supposed to say it?”
“I..” and Buck doesn’t really remember, knows he almost didn’t get to say it at all, but thinks he’d rather not have said after sitting down to pee.
“Well, sure. There are more romantic ways to say it than that,” and shit. Buck really hopes his brain to mouth filter starts working within the next five seconds, that’d be great. “But you’re acting like we’ve never said it at all.”
“What?”
Even with dark circles of sleepless nights and days old stubble, Eddie is beautiful when a peaceful sort of happiness washes over his face. “I think we’ve been saying it for a while now, maybe just in a roundabout way. A little guarded, so I’ve been told.”
Buck reaches for Eddie’s hand, curling his fingers as much as he can to hold it but when it’s not enough he decides to trace the ridges of his knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “I…I want to keep saying it. Saying it better though, because…you deserve to hear it. To feel it.”
“Buck,” Eddie breathes his name as he falls forward enough to rest his forehead over the pounding of Buck’s heart in his chest. “Your love is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard and when I…when I thought I couldn’t feel anything…I still felt that.”
“I love you,” Buck says, with purpose this time and a gentle kiss to the crown of Eddie’s head and just because he can.
“And I love you.”