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Eddie is not an angry guy.
From his past endeavors at fight clubs and explosions in grocery stores, some might argue that this is factually untrue. Hell, even Eddie used to think it until Frank explained to him that his anger derived from the guilt and shame that are — and, woah, he had no idea — perfectly common symptoms of C-PTSD.
Which, well, Eddie has.
But right now, sipping from a beer that has been sitting out on the kitchen island a little too long and grown a little too warm, the only way to describe how he’s feeling is fuming.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling. Or, it hasn’t been familiar for a long while. Not since the sniper, when he was going through a bunch of conflicting emotions, encouraged by the people around him to just…feel them.
So, as soon as he nudges Christopher awake from where he fell asleep on the couch and his kid begrudgingly goes to his room to pick up where he left off, Eddie starts nursing that bottle of beer and feeling.
At first, he absolutely refuses to accept that what he heard Buck tell him this afternoon actually occurred. Surely, there is no way that Buck would say that and then act like a lovesick teenager over— A death doula? What kind of profession even is that? At least there’s substance to firefighting…
It’s not that Eddie’s jealous. He doesn’t do jealousy — it’s a childish, childish emotion. But to hear Buck imply that some woman he met on a call is his soulmate, the only person that’s ever seen him for he is, all based on some coffee date that probably lasted thirty minutes… What is he supposed to do with that, if not feel absolutely underestimated as a…best friend?
Eddie pushes the bottle away for safety, his grip on it having grown strong enough to shatter the glass. He inspects the label, Buck’s favorite IPA that he only keeps around the house for him. He looks past the kitchen island, sees the selection of seasonings that Buck has piled up beside the stove over the years. He sees the magnets, old and unsteady, pinning picture strips of their zoo and aquarium trips to the fridge. He sees Buck in the scratch on the wallpaper, the burnt hole in the dining table, the half-peeled-off price sticker on the glass of the candle he never lights…
But apparently, he doesn’t see him the way Natalia does.
If anger and jealousy isn’t the appropriate reaction, then what is?
The relatively improved mood Eddie wakes up in after stirring around his bed awake for half the night fades away the moment he makes his way up the stairs to the firehouse loft and catches a snippet of Buck’s conversation with Hen over breakfast.
“—she just listened, like really listened to me, you know? She was curious about the lightning strike, so I told her everything I remembered. She was especially fascinated by the coma dreams… I mean, I have to agree with her, it’s all pretty damn cool.”
“Cool isn’t a word I’d use,” says Hen, arching a brow while her focus is steady on the plate of grilled cheese in front of her. Eddie walks around the table where they’re both sitting to fill up a glass of water. “More like traumatising.”
Buck deflates for just a split second but then he’s smiling again.
“She’s a death doula,” he explains as Eddie takes a seat on the sofa, his eyes glued to his phone to pretend like he isn’t listening to this conversation. “It’s kind of in the job description to view death as something that just… Happens to everyone at some point. She said it was amazing that I died and came back to life. I mean, it kind of is if you think about it. How many people can say they cheated death like that?”
Hen just hums. “What else did you two talk about?”
“Um,” says Buck, scratching at the back of his neck. “Nothing much? We mostly talked about my— my death, I guess.”
Eddie can’t help it; he lets out a scoff. He catches on quickly to cover it up with a coughing fit.
Buck and Hen’s eyes immediately snap to him, as though they’ve just noticed his presence in the loft. Perhaps they have. Eddie feels pretty invisible these days.
“You good?” asks Buck.
“It’s nothing,” lies Eddie. “Water went down the wrong way.”
Buck stares at him a moment longer before looking back at Hen. “Anyway. I’m seeing her again tomorrow night. For drinks, this time.”
“Good for you, Buckaroo,” says Hen and manages to sound sincere enough that Buck smiles brighter. Eddie knows better than to trust the tone she’s using. He’s proved right when Buck trots away to snatch a second serving of the grilled cheese, and Hen faces Eddie.
“You’re awfully quiet there, Eddie,” she says.
“Already got the scoop of his date yesterday,” he explains. “I’ve nothing to add. Buck’s acting like Buck.”
“And that is?”
Eddie shrugs. “Getting obsessed with someone that shows the slightest intrigue in him. He’s probably already planning the wedding without realising that she’s going to use his affections for her benefit like everyone else before.”
Hen’s mouth falls open.
“Or, you know,” carries on Eddie, not bothering to hide the edge from his tone. “I could be wrong about Natalia. She’s different after all. Sees him like no one else has ever seen him.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Just stands up from the couch, leaving his glass behind, and jogs down the stairs to someplace where he doesn’t have to see that lovey-dovey expression on Buck’s face.
The gym seems like the best place for alleviating his frustrations.
Eddie slips past bouncing Buck out of the locker room after their twenty-four-hour shift, checking his phone to find a new message from Pepa, inviting him over for dinner tonight.
Painfully aware of what happened the last time Pepa invited him anywhere, he kindly rejects her offer. He can’t deal with another blind date. Especially not now that Buck is—
The thing is, he’s noticed the pattern. Eddie starts dating, so does Buck. So, just this once, he doesn’t want it to be the case. He’s not ready to start dating casually — he can’t do casual at all. He’s certainly not going to be set up with some perfect Mexican woman Pepa has picked out as Christopher’s potential mother. Chris doesn’t need a mother. He already has one, even if he only sees her when they visit the cemetery on the weekends.
So, no thanks, Pepa, but nice try is his message back.
Just as he makes it to the parking lot and fishes the keys to the Jeep out of his bag, Buck catches up to him. When he speaks, he’s slightly out of breath from assumedly following after Eddie out of the firehouse.
“H—hey, Eddie.” Eddie’s hand freezes mid-air, his keys dangling together. “I just wanted to ask, uh. Is everything alright? You were somewhere else throughout the shift.”
“I’m fine, Buck,” Eddie grumbles back, refusing to look at Buck.
Buck, who doesn’t buy it.
“Is it about what Marie said?” He prods further. “We’re all gonna die alone?”
Eddie doesn’t answer and Buck takes it as agreement.
“You know that’s not going to be the case with you, right?” he asks, stepping closer to Eddie’s Jeep. “You’re gonna— You’re gonna find someone. You’ve got plenty of time until Christopher grows up.”
Eddie hisses. “Feels like I’m running out of that time really fucking quickly, to be honest.”
He doesn’t have to look at Buck to know he’s wincing. After half a decade of friendship, he can predict his facial reactions with his eyes closed. It’s kind of frustrating, to know someone so well, but miss out on the bits that you want to know desperately.
Things like what Buck does with his partners behind closed doors. Ways in which he treats them quietly, when no one’s watching. Sure, he’s a grand gesture kind of guy. He has a past of falling into bed with people easily. But somehow Eddie doesn’t quite believe it’s all as simple as Buck makes it seem.
He knows that Buck wants more than what he had with Taylor or Abby. He wants that white picket fence life and half a dozen kids to gush over, and a backyard for hosting barbeques with the team.
He doesn’t really understand how Buck can think he could find it with Natalia.
When he finally looks behind his shoulder at Buck, his expression turns out to be unreadable.
“It’s been a while since a call got to your head,” he decides. “Do you—? I know you stopped seeing Frank. So, if you want to talk about it, you can talk about it with me. You know that, right? I’ve got your—”
It’s Eddie’s turn to wince. It stings that Buck would say he’s got his back when all he’s done lately is shut down all his obvious attempts at trying to talk to him, have Buck’s back.
So he interrupts him before he can finish the sentiment.
“It’s fine, Buck. Nothing to worry about — I mean it,” he adds when Buck’s about to protest. He releases a sigh. “Have fun at your date tonight. Can’t wait to hear all about it.”
And with the fakest have fun of the century, he hops into his car and drives away, not sparing Buck even a glance.
Eddie doesn’t panic either.
Okay, that’s kind of a lie. With a past of Ana-induced and sniper-induced panic attacks, and, you know, screeching his best friend’s name over and over again until his vocal cords nearly snap, Eddie can’t really call himself the most collected guy in the world.
Certainly not now that he’s pacing around his living room, trying to keep it down for sleeping Christopher in the other room. His nerves have already been unsettled since that cemetery talk, and now…
Ten minutes ago, Buck texted him, date over, coming to yours.
Which is nothing out of the ordinary, really. Buck comes around whenever he pleases. He has a blue toothbrush that looks very fitting next to Eddie’s purple one in the holder, a drawer for his overnight clothes, his favourite snacks stacked in a kitchen shelf… He might have a lease without an end date for his loft, but he spends most of his time off-work at Eddie’s.
Perfectly normal behaviour for two thirty-something-old best friends.
However, Buck has never invited himself over after a date. Usually, Eddie hears all about his dates when they’re on the truck on the way to a call and the team has nothing better to do than gossip. Buck has never been so eager to discuss a date. So, obviously, Eddie worries.
In preparation for Buck’s arrival, he sets out two bottles of beer on the coffee table. He swipes the condensation off his, drawing meaningless pictures over the glass and thinking.
Buck could walk in here any moment now, and anything could happen. He could say, we kissed and it was like in the movies, you know? He could talk Eddie’s ears off about how amazing and fascinating and utterly flawless Natalia is, and Eddie would sip from his beer and nod as enthusiastically as he could muster.
Or he could’ve realised that Natalia doesn’t see him after all. That she’s another one in the long list of people who have failed him. People who only cared as long as he was interesting enough for them. People who don’t see Buck, who don’t understand him, and never will. People who take advantage of the way Buck wears his heart on his sleeve and whose expressions can be read from a mile away.
People who don’t understand him like Eddie does.
The thing is, he completely gets why Buck’s so excited about Natalia. He knows him, better than anyone that isn’t his sister. He knows that the moment someone shows the slightest interest in Buck, he’s going to fall head over heels for them and fixate on the attention he’s given. He’s been abandoned and overlooked one too many times for Eddie to expect anything different.
So, from one perspective, Eddie feels almost guilty that it’s making him so angry. Buck, the guy who wants so deeply to be the priority for someone, the object of someone’s affection, will obviously respond to it. He can’t blame him for feeling giddy when Natalia looks at him directly in the eye and asks him questions that he’s been dying to answer.
And perhaps it’s partly Eddie’s fault. The team, himself included, has mostly avoided talking about the lightning strike. For those three minutes and seventeen seconds that Buck wasn’t breathing, their lives flashed before their eyes. Not just those sacred moments with Buck they’ve all shared, but what the future could be without him in it. And it was terrifying for everyone. Terrifying to imagine the 118 without Buck’s bouncing presence, without his attempts at puns and the never-ending supply of facts. To imagine a call where Buck doesn’t throw himself into peril recklessly, where they don’t worry over him, where he doesn’t offer himself up for the most dangerous rescues to protect the lives of the rest of the team.
For Eddie, it was terrifying to lose someone who’s had his back, whether it be in work or life, since that time a guy got an impending grenade stuck in his leg. Because without Buck, he isn’t sure how he’d be. How he’d think.
How he could look Christopher in the eye after telling him that his hero is no longer going to make him pancakes for breakfast or read him Percy Jackson to sleep. That he wouldn’t have his Buck anymore, all the while suppressing all that he’s felt for Buck, for it would be too much to expose to his son.
And what he feels for Buck… Words can’t justify it. It’s not just a singular feeling, it’s everything all wrapped into a constant flow that rushes through his bloodstream. Feelings that he didn’t know humans were capable of, feelings that run so deep and so strong that he’s overwhelmed all the time, in or out of Buck’s presence.
Feelings that have captured him whole since he saw Buck, bloodied and bruised, outside a field hospital, about to tell him that he’s lost Christopher, when he’d saved and fought for him all along.
Feelings that cannot be erased. Feelings he’s been covering and bottling up for years. Feelings that are about to burst out of him if he isn’t careful enough. Feelings that—
A knock on his front door disrupts his train of thought. He grips his bottle of beer tighter for good measure before abandoning it on the coffee table and skipping to the door.
On the other side, he meets Buck in a red dress shirt that is at least one size too small, making his biceps pop out in a way that makes Eddie’s mouth water. His hair is all gelled up, and he kind of wants to wash the gel out of it so he could see, he could tangle his fingers in his curls.
Of course, that’s out of the question when Buck sprints past him into the living room and grabs a beer, looking giddy enough that he could light the whole world on fire with just a glimpse of his smile.
The date went well. Of course it did. He kind of wants to laugh for even considering that it wouldn’t have had.
“Chris asleep?” asks Buck, instead of any greeting.
“It’s past midnight, Buck,” answers Eddie, his emotional exhaustion creeping into his voice. “Of course he is.”
“Shit, it’s that late?” Buck worries. “You can go to bed, man. I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
Eddie shakes his head. “No, we’re good. Just tell me how it went.”
The truth is, Eddie doesn’t want to know how it went. Not the Eddie that is helplessly, hopelessly, in love with Buck. But the Eddie that is Buck’s best friend has to ask the question, so he does.
“It was spectacular,” says Buck, his smile crinkling his eyes. “I mean, I could already tell that Natalia was amazing from the first date, but damn. I’ve never felt this way, so quickly, for someone. It’s kind of a miracle, really.”
Eddie doesn’t answer, just sips from his beer.
“We had a few drinks and just talked. You know, about the coma dreams. We were theorising why my brain imagined everything the way it did, I mean, isn’t it weird that I was a teacher? I love kids, but I can’t imagine being a teacher rather than a firefighter. Being a firefighter is my identity. It’s who I’ve been for the past six years and it’s who I imagine being for as long as they let me. Why a teacher?”
Eddie shrugs as some sort of a response but Buck doesn’t need it; he carries on.
“So, Natalia proposed that I research everything that happened while I was in a coma with a dream dictionary. Translate the events, see if it could bring more clarity about how I view myself and other people.
“But I don’t feel like I have to, you know?” Buck laughs, taking a sip. “Not if I have her. She takes one look at my face and figures out exactly what I’m thinking. It’s crazy. Like she can read my mind.
“I don’t feel like I have to try with her. It’s almost too easy,” he mutters. “All this time, I’ve gone through women and fought to keep my relationship with them steady, but it never felt like breathing. She sees me like I want to be seen. She sees me like—”
“Am I a joke to you?” hisses Eddie, interrupting Buck’s speech.
Buck faces him quickly from where he’s seated on his couch, looking bewildered.
“Huh?”
“I said.” Eddie’s voice is trembling from frustration. “Am I nothing to you? Is everything we’ve been through these past five years since we’ve known each other nothing to you? Are all these moments we’ve had just something you brush under the doormat to never look at again? Am I a fucking joke?”
Buck stares. Stares a bit longer until the lump in his throat grows too big to ignore.
“Ed—”
Eddie shifts where he’s sitting on the couch, inches away from Buck. Too many inches apart to count. Always too far apart to mean something. To mean everything.
“You’re saying that she sees you,” Eddie spits out. “Really? She sees you? This woman you’ve met less than a handful of times, this woman who thinks of those three minutes you weren’t breathing as something exciting? This woman, who wasn’t there to break your ribs to bring your heartbeat back?”
Eddie’s breaths are making his chest feel heavy and out of place. But he pushes the words out of his mouth anyway. He has to. For his own sanity.
“I have been there. I have been there for years, Buck. Always in your corner, always having your back, always seeing you when you thought everyone was blind to notice how you’re feeling. Always being the one you reach out to, just to then leave me behind when you’ve figured something out. With Ali, with Taylor…” He’s almost wheezing from the pain in his lungs. “Always being the one you come to but never come home to. How the fuck am I supposed to feel, Buck, when you say that Natalia, a woman you barely know, sees you better than I see you?”
Buck keeps staring, never even bothering to open his mouth to say anything. He just stares with the sort of conviction that he isn’t allowed to argue. And perhaps he isn’t. This is Eddie’s moment. It’s his.
“I see you. I fucking see everything about you,” he says in one breath. “I see every bit of yourself that you try to hide, these bits that I still adore. Because these bits make you you, and I’m not— I can’t unlove them. I can’t unlove you. Because this—” He motions between them. “—is unconditional. If you’re falling apart, if you’re breaking down, if you’re at your best, I will love you. I will love you with every beat of that breaking heart in my chest. I will love you with all I can offer. And it’s not much but— I will love you, despite and always.”
He’s said too much. He sees it in Buck’s eyes, ever-readable eyes, that he’s revealed more than he should’ve. But somehow, there’s no guilt or shame this time. The admission is too satisfying.
“Do you mean that?” asks Buck, in almost a whisper.
Eddie scoffs.
“Do I mean it?” Eddie repeats, in disbelief. “Of course, I fucking mean it! I have loved you since— I have loved you for years. But you’ve never given me a hint, any hint that it could be reciprocated.”
And though Eddie is angry himself, he’s kind of whiplashed when it’s anger that Buck responds with. No, yells back.
“You never made it clear that you were an option!”
Is he serious?
“Neither did you!”
“So, what? Are you telling me that this—” Buck points between himself and Eddie erratically like he just had. “That we could’ve been something, an us, all along? And you’re only telling me now? Now that I’ve finally started moving on?”
“I gave you my son!” Eddie cries. “Wasn’t that a clear enough sign?”
“No, Eddie,” he says, calmly but with conviction. “You didn’t give me Christopher. Not the way I wanted to have him. You gave me Christopher at the expense of you! Hell, I love that kid. But do you really think it was some honor? It was a punch in the gut — that you didn’t want all three of us to be together. That was my sign to move on. So I tried, with Taylor. When that didn’t work out, I tried to be single. Since that didn’t seem to be working either, I decided to try again. With Natalia.”
Eddie winces. Just hearing the affection that’s added when he says her name is enough to lose the stupid hope that settled in him when Buck questioned him in disbelief. Like he can’t believe that anyone could love him like Eddie does.
And then he realises.
“Did you?”
Buck stirs.
“Did I what?”
Eddie inhales deeply. “Did you move on?”
Buck laughs. A full, throaty laugh. Yet he ignores the question.
“Just tell me one thing, Eddie,” Buck pleads. “Why now? Why wait all this time just to drop the bomb when things are going so well with Natalia and me?”
“Are they?”
His forehead lines. “What? Of course they are.”
“Okay,” drawls out Eddie. “Have you talked about anything else other than the lightning strike? Do you know anything about her at all?”
“I— She’s told me about her work.”
“Which is being a death doula. Buck,” he nearly hisses, desperate to punch some sense into him. “Are you hearing yourself? She’s not interested in your life, she’s interested in your death!”
“Maybe because my death is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me,” mutters Buck.
And that… That won’t do.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” says Eddie, exasperated. He leans forward until he’s all up in his friend’s space. Buck doesn’t lean back. “Tell me, Buck. Does she know that you babyproofed your entire loft the moment you found out Maddie was pregnant? Does she know that you threw a Christmas party for the station’s kids who weren’t going to see their parents otherwise? Christopher still says it was the best Christmas ever — after he spent the last one with Shannon, I thought he could never celebrate again.
“Does she know that you make Chimney order you an Americano but you secretly add the milk to it when no one’s watching?” he carries on. “Does she know that you only shop at Whole Foods these days because you’ve become some health-obsessed weirdo? I mean, seriously, their stuff tastes like plastic— Not the point!” He laughs, but it only lasts a second before he moves on.
“Does she know that you ignore Cap’s orders to evacuate a burning building to save a crying child’s favourite toy? Does she know that you give your all to people, never expecting anything in return, except for all the hoping that they think of you sometimes? Does she know that when you love, when you truly love someone, you—”
“Never stop loving them?” Buck finishes in his place, in a voice so quiet he barely catches it. “Eddie, of course not.”
Eddie shakes his head, not really following. In turn, Buck flashes him a smile. A smile that’s a little shy and a lot scared. Terrified, even.
“Of course, I didn’t move on from you,” he exhales. “I mean, God. How am I supposed to move on from something I’ve spent the past five years building?”
It’s Eddie’s turn to stare.
“There was a call, years ago,” says Buck, a wistful look in those blues. “Thomas and Mitchell. Mitchell got smashed between the gate and his car and died on the scene. You remember that?”
Eddie nods, unable to make a sound.
“Then you remember what happened to Thomas,” he figures. “I was talking to him, before he died. He told me about his husband, the life they led, he showed me pictures… And I wondered out loud, how two people can find love like that. And you know what he said, Eddie?” His tone turns desperate. “He said that you don’t find it. You make it. And every single fucking day since then, I have been trying to make it — with you.”
Eddie’s mind isn’t quite catching up to his racing heart. But he knows… He knows that he hasn’t been wrong. Not entirely. Not about this. And it’s a comfort, despite his failing organ.
“So, if you’re telling me that Natalia doesn’t see me, but you do…” Buck swallows thickly. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear.”
That’s all it takes for Eddie to snatch the invisible string that’s been hanging in the air between them and tug at it until Buck’s aware of it, until Buck can see them for what they are. And what they are is something that cannot be ruined with the snap of that string, for it is too strong to break. Strong enough to endure all.
“You said that Natalia called your death exciting,” says Eddie, his voice still shaking a little. “But those three minutes when you didn’t have a heartbeat were the most hopeless minutes of my life.” He swallows. “I want you for your life. Frankly, I never want to relive minutes like that again. Minutes where I don’t get to see you flush when the team pokes fun at you. Minutes where I don’t get to hear you ramble on about some Wikipedia article you read instead of sleeping at the bunks. Minutes where I don’t get to touch you, even if it’s just our knees knocking together by accident in the engine, or some friendly handshake. I want minutes where you’re giving out all that makes you alive, to me.”
“Just minutes?” asks Buck, breathless.
“A lifetime,” Eddie corrects. “If that isn’t too much to ask for.”
He’s looking at him like Eddie’s just offered the entire world to him. And perhaps he has.
“If I had the power to, Eddie, I would give you everything.”
“I know you would. But I don’t need much,” he confesses, feeling a little like a teenager with his first love. “I just need you.”
Buck shakes his head in disbelief, “You have me. God, you can have me in any way possib—”
Eddie kisses him.
It isn't much. Their lips aren’t used to each other's just yet. But it's kind of everything at the same time because it's Buck, and like he does everything, he doesn’t kiss half-assed either. The press of Eddie’s lips on his is still a little angry, but the softness of Buck’s makes him melt into it.
Buck grips his jaw with both his hands, pulling Eddie impossibly closer, close enough that their bodies knock together in a frenzy, the fabric of their shirts brushing together, their faces smushed, and at the risk of a beard burn. But it doesn't really matter. When Eddie’s kissing Buck, nothing really matters at all, except that he doesn’t pull away.
So, when Buck starts pulling away, he groans into his mouth as he grasps his hips, refusing to let go just yet. Chasing the next kiss, still chasing Buck even now that he has him, because it's something he’s been doing for the past five years and it will take some time to get used to having him like this.
What makes him stop, however, is a little voice sounding from behind them.
“Don’t mind me, I'm just getting a glass of water!”
Eddie breaks the kiss so quickly that he kind of gets whiplash. He swings around, catching his son in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Chris,” he rasps out, frantic from the kiss. “Why are you not in bed?”
“I just told you, Dad, I'm getting some water,” says Christopher, making his point by revealing a glass. “Is that a crime?”
It's perfectly normal for him to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night but, right now, Eddie’s not having it.
“Go back to your room!”
“Ohkayyy,” Christopher drawls out, stepping in the direction of his room. He stops halfway there, turning to Buck and Eddie with that smug Diaz expression. “But before I go… This is kinda cool. You and Buck. Does it mean he’s gonna be around more often?”
“Uh,” Eddie stutters, rushing to meet Buck’s eyes and only seeing pure delight in them. “Yeah, Chris.”
“Cool,” he answers simply, unbothered. “Good night, then. Don’t be too gross.”
The moment the door closes behind Chris, Eddie takes one look at Buck and they burst into laughter.
“Your kid is officially the best, man,” says Buck, smiling like a goddamn idiot, so giddy with… Love, perhaps?
“I think we're way past man, Buck,” answers Eddie, burying his face into the crook of Buck’s neck. It’s warm. It’s comforting. It’s Buck. Everything he’s ever desired, now there at his disposal.
Something he could never dispose of.
So, when Buck says he loves him — too, more, forever, enough, all Eddie can do is answer the same. It’s kind of like upturned dinghies in the sea. You see the bottom of them, but not the whole thing. Never the whole thing. It’s hidden underneath the surface, for words aren’t enough to really explain what’s going on.
But upturned dinghies in the sea are enough.