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“Hey—what do you remember about getting shot?”
Eddie didn’t think they’d ever talk about it.
There were so many times, where he thought…maybe, maybe, maybe. Buck would stare at him a little too long after a lull in their conversation or he’d glance over at his shoulder, where Eddie’s scar is, and his forehead would get all wrinkled, like he was turning words over in his head, but nothing seemed to sound right.
It comes out quick, the question. Eddie doesn’t even have time to be surprised about it; he starts talking just as quickly.
He’s—he’s glad he’s got sandwich ingredients in his hands, because the way Buck’s looking at him, so soft, so vulnerable, so open, in the dim light of his kitchen—
“There was a searing pain… felt like I got hit by a bus,” he says, truthfully, gritting his teeth just a little as his body seems to flash the pain back for a moment, a ghost of a memory. “And I was still standing.”
Buck stays quiet. He’s just—listening, brow bunched up.
“I remember falling. And—everything got dark,” he continues. He doesn’t say that he kept his eyes open as long as he could so he could memorize Buck’s face, blood and all. “And then I thought…this is it.”
Pain, falling, looking at Buck.
Reaching for him.
This is it.
Buck’s blinking at him, now. Still quiet.
“This is the last moment of my life,” he recalls. He’s a little in awe of himself, how steady his voice is. He guesses it makes sense, though, considering how many times he’s told Frank this story.
Before Eddie can finish, before he can say, and then I woke up in the hospital, Buck sits up a little straighter in the chair, and it creaks. “Do you—” he says, and wets his lips. A pause. “I remember everything. I remember everything leading up to—I remember you calling me cowboy, I remember Chim talking to me, I remember looking up. Do you…”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, after a few seconds of biting his lips. He breathes, and kind of just—gives up on making Buck a sandwich. He leans against the kitchen island, and tries not to think about how hard his heart is pounding. He can feel it in his ears. “I was looking at you, and then the searing happened,” he elaborates, and, oh, this is—this is why it’s taken so long. Because he’s about to just spill his guts. “I couldn’t look away from you.”
Buck’s breath hitches. It’s so, so, loud in the quiet of the kitchen. There’s the buzzing of the fridge, crickets outside, and Buck’s breath stilling in his chest.
“I thought about it a lot,” Eddie says, and he grips the island tight, tight, tight, his fingernails go white with it. “Dying. When I was in Afghanistan. When I came close, I just remember thinking, man, I wanna see Christopher one last time. I had that thought again, after I went to the ground, but this time,” he pauses, and Buck’s looking at him so closely, like he’s the one who can’t look away, now. “This time, I was like—okay. At least Buck is here. At least he’s right here, and if I go…”
“Eddie,” is what rushes out of Buck’s mouth like a sigh. There are tears clinging desperately to his eyelashes, not yet spilling over, and—why is Eddie all the way over here, when Buck is upset.
He rounds the table, and sits down heavily in the open chair next to Buck, way too close.
“That would have been okay,” he finishes.
“No,” Buck says, a little strangled, and he twists until his body is facing Eddie. Their knees knock together, and it’s like when they’re on their way to a call, in the engine, except—
Except Buck’s hair is soft and a little curly and not hidden by a helmet, he’s wearing a soft gray shirt and even softer gray sweatpants, and he’s safe, in Eddie’s kitchen. He came over here, overwhelmed, and found refuge on Eddie’s couch.
He’s home. He’s home. It hits Eddie square in the chest, makes his heart lurch and the pain of it isn’t searing, it’s a swoop, like he’s going down a hill on a rollercoaster.
“Not with me,” Buck says, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t have been okay with me.”
“I know,” Eddie says, gentle.
He knows, because Buck dying wasn’t okay with him. Three minutes of Buck being gone and he swears on everything that the large, painful lump in his throat that settled near his Adam’s apple during the time it took to speed to the hospital was almost enough take him out.
It would have stayed there forever. He wouldn’t have been able to breathe, ever again.
“No, you don’t know—”
“Buck,” Eddie cuts in. His voice is still gentle but it’s louder, now, and Buck shuts his mouth with a quiet snap. “You actually died,” he says, and this time his voice trembles, it wobbles, it shakes. The steadiness bleeds out of it. “I was—I was fine. You weren’t.”
“I know, but—”
“I thought I was going to—” he grits his teeth. Trying to keep his words locked behind his teeth is no use, because they come out, anyway. Rough. “I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind. You weren’t there. Your body was stretched out on a gurney, and your heart wasn’t beating, it didn’t work, and I thought I was going to—to break all your goddamn ribs trying to get it started again.”
Buck’s stunned into silence. Their knees are still touching. His breathing is loud, much louder than it should be, when he’s just sitting there, listening to Eddie spit his heart up and present it to him the best he can with his hands trembling so much.
“Look, I know you came over to escape some of this,” Eddie says, softer, gesturing to himself as much as he can without bumping into Buck’s arm. “I’m sorry. But you—you can’t just—you were really gone, Buck. And you’re going to feel a lot of different ways about that, and so are we. So am I.”
It goes quiet.
The fridge knocks around some ice in the machine, the walls creak with a gust of wind, Buck’s shoe scrapes against the floor when he shifts.
“I wouldn’t have been okay,” Buck says, after a while, and quickly adds, “I just saw the sky.”
Buck’s doing the thing where his mouth opens and closes, like he’s trying to get all of his words right, and Eddie presses his lips together in a line so he won’t be tempted to soothe him with whatever gentle words want to tumble out of his mouth.
He presses his lips together. He doesn’t speak. But he does reach out; he settles his hand around Buck’s forearm, and just—holds him.
Like he should have done a long time ago.
“I would have wanted to see you, too,” Buck gets out, his voice raw and strained, and his eyes are red around the edges. Eddie moves his chair impossibly closer, the wooden legs knock together with a crack like they’re trying to say, dude, you cannot get us closer together, but Eddie tries anyway. “You weren’t even in my dream, Eddie—”
“I’ll fight your brain,” Eddie finds himself interrupting, a soft laugh leaving his chest in a rattle. “If I had anything to do with it, I would have been there. I would never leave you alone.”
Buck cries, it comes out of his mouth harshly, and the chairs groan and scrape and hiss against the floor when Eddie crushes Buck into a hug so hard they never tumble over with it.
Eddie holds him and holds him and holds him.
“I got you, baby,” Eddie whispers against Buck’s sleep messy hair. “I got you. I promise.”
He presses his cheek into the top of Buck’s head and holds him and he smells like his cherry blossom shampoo, and he keeps holding him, cradling the side of his face like he might never let him go. The small amount of facial hair that’s grown out over the past few days tickle the pads of Eddie’s fingertips.
Buck’s tears hit Eddie’s neck, seep into his neckline, warm.
Eddie doesn’t know how much time passes, but he thinks he could stay like this, holding him forever. That would be a good way to live his life.
“That—” Buck tries to say, but his mouth moves against Eddie’s throat, words muffled.
Eddie shivers and leans back just a little, so he can hear him.
“That dream really fucking sucked,” he says, wetly, “I didn’t really lose you, you were there, I know you were, I heard you—I don’t—I’m sorry that you had to feel it for real.”
“Buck,” Eddie says, slow, pulling all the way back so he can look him in the face. His eyelashes are clumped together and his face is blotchy and red and Eddie thinks he’s the most gorgeous person that’s ever lived. “Did you just apologize for dying?”
Buck looks up at the ceiling, like he has to think about it, and when he meets Eddie’s eyes again, he looks like he’s sheepishly trying not to smile. “I, uh—yeah, I think. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say it again,” Eddie chastises gently, “Don’t be sorry, just—don’t go back to the loft.”
A confused little noise bubbles out of Buck’s mouth. “Why not?”
“Because you came here. When you needed to feel safe, you came here.”
Buck’s mouth opens, just a little. “Okay. Okay, I can leave in the morning, when Chris—”
“No, like—don’t go back there ever. That’s not your home. I don’t think it ever has been,” Eddie says, and thinks, fuck it. Buck was dead and now he’s not, and, “And you can take the couch, if you want to, but I think my bed might be more comfortable.”
Buck’s mouth drops open even more. He inhales and his body moves and shakes and trembles with it, like he can’t control himself. “Eddie.”
“Buck,” Eddie says, the same way, and he’s smiling wide now, he can feel it stretching out his mouth and hurting his cheeks. “I gave Chim some advice once. Said that tomorrow’s not promised to anyone, so if you love someone, then… you should tell them. Funnily enough, it was about the other Buckley—”
“Eddie, I—I love you so much it’s kind of fucked up,” Buck interrupts, and he looks so crazy with it, eyes wide and tears down his cheeks. “Like, the kind of love that burns. I can’t ignore it, ever, it’s always there. It’s always been there. I—” he’s worked himself up so much that he tires himself out, words just—stopping.
Eddie reaches out with both hands and wipes the tears from Buck’s face. Buck’s eyes flutter shut at the touch, and Eddie shivers at the feeling of Buck’s scruff, he shivers at the feeling of the love of his life under his hands, he shivers when he keeps those hands there for a few more seconds, cradling Buck’s face in kitchen, in the middle of the night.
“Will you?”
Buck opens his eyes. He looks a little dazed. “What?”
Eddie laughs. It’s a rumble in his chest. “Will you stay?”
Buck’s been here all along—the extra clothes in Eddie’s drawer, the cherry blossom shampoo in the corner of the shower, the gross healthy cereal in the cupboard, but Eddie wants him to stay. He wants to wake up to him every morning and he wants to argue with him about what they’re going to have for dinner every night and he—
He wants and wants and wants.
Buck’s blinking at him, blue eyes so, so, clear. Eddie wants to drown in them.
“Only if you do one thing for me,” Buck says. He’s got this private little smile trying to break through on his pretty pink lips.
“Anything,” Eddie answers, sincerely.
“Follow your own advice. I kind of interrupted you.”
Eddie’s so goddamn confused for a second before rewinds the conversation in his head, and then—he laughs.
“I love you,” he says into the quiet of the kitchen, and Buck’s smile finally breaks, the dim lights making his teeth shine. “I love you,” he says again, because he can, “I love you,” again, for good measure.
He says it again, one last time, except it’s muffled by Buck’s mouth.