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A ricocheting clap of thunder wakes Buck up from a deep, dreamless sleep. He startles, shaking in a shot of terror at the sudden noise, and nearly falls off the couch as he flails in an attempt to gather his bearings.
Static-like silence rings out in the living room, eerie and unsettling in the way the atmosphere is before a huge rain. He huffs, rolls his eyes and laughs at himself. It hasn’t stormed like this in Los Angeles since his accident; he should’ve known something like this was going to happen.
He makes a soft, confused noise, and snuffles around, face shoved into the pillows Eddie gave him, before sighing and getting to his feet. Dry lightning flashes, bright enough even through the curtains to illuminate his way out of the living room and into the kitchen. Thunder follows, less angry than it was moments ago, but longer, grumbling for several seconds like a disgruntled giant.
The image that paints in his mind makes him chuckle as he shoves down the pant legs of his pajamas.
The tiles are cold beneath his bare feet, sending little pinpricks of chills up his spine, but he doesn’t mind it too badly. He scrubs his hand down his face, rougher than he ought to, and reaches for a cup in the cabinet next to the sink. He pours it with water halfway full, gulps it down, and then fills it again. He drinks it down slower and leans back against the counter, surveying the room.
The kitchen’s illuminated by the light over the top of the stove that Eddie always leaves on, something Buck (affectionately) bullies him over. There’s homemade cookies on the island and dishes in the sink they didn’t get to earlier, opting instead to get in a few episodes of Lethal Weapon before it was time for bed. Eddie rolled his eyes when Buck mentioned he’d take care of it so he didn’t wake up to an untidy kitchen and swatted him on the ass as he herded both Buck and Chris into the living room.
If possible, Eddie’s gotten even softer and sweeter since the overpass collapse. He touches Buck real gentle and laughs at all Buck’s jokes, even when they aren’t funny, and wears Buck’s hoodie when he’s cold, and Buck just loves him and loves him and loves him.
It’s too late to fall down that rabbit hole of thinking, but he kind of can’t help it. Not when he’s wrapped up in Eddie Diaz, wearing his t-shirt and smelling like the honeysuckle goat’s milk soap he splurges once a month on at the feed store down the road.
Ever since he broke up with Natalia a few weeks ago, he’s spent an impressive amount of nights with Eddie and Chris—and Marisol, too, who doesn’t even bat an eye when Buck comes through the door right after Eddie, greeting him with a hug and a smile after kissing Eddie.
She’s nice. She’s great, even, and she makes Eddie laugh in a way Buck’s never seen before. She’s pretty and smart and funny, and she likes the same movies as Eddie and the same beer as Eddie and the same football teams as Eddie, and she loves him good, but Buck loves him better.
A bite of lightning whistles through the sky outside, startling Buck out of his head. He wraps his arms around himself, a stabilizing practice he and Dr. Copeland worked out when he upped their appointments after the accident from once a month to once a week.
And it helped, you know. Returning to a more intensive therapy schedule, that is, because yeah, he’s put in the effort to work through his hangups before the accident, the shit with his self-esteem and worth fostered by his parents, but the dream he had while in a coma reminded him healing isn’t a linear journey with a distinctive end and there’s so much bravery in asking for help.
So, he added more sessions in his schedule. Talking with Dr. Copeland—and Natalia, too, who helped him understand his death in a way nobody else could have, even though they didn’t work out—didn’t fix him since there was nothing to fix, not really, but it did give him a foundation to start on understanding where to go from here.
He’s Buck but he’s not Buck at the same time, and sometimes it feels like he’s wearing the costume of who he was before his death, but then he plays with Jee or talks with Maddie or laughs with Eddie and he remembers metamorphosis is an organic part of life and it’s okay to change and grow into a different, better person than he was before.
Dr. Copeland painted a pretty picture with caterpillars and butterflies when he brought it up to her, one that made Eddie laugh out loud when Buck told him.
A bark of thunder rattles the windowpanes.
He isn’t scared, not really. Storms never terrified him before and they didn’t after he died, either. A storm is a storm, the same way that thunder is thunder and lightning is lightning and the sky is blue and the grass is green. It’s an inherent process of the natural world, same as living and dying, and perhaps he should be wary, but how can he hate what’s meant to be?
Besides, nature doesn’t care how he feels. Nature doesn’t care that he had nightmares months after the tsunami or broke his nails digging in the mud when Eddie was trapped in the well or spent meticulous hours picking pieces of asphalt out of his cheek and knees and hands when Mehta shoved him to the ground. There’s no point in wasting the energy being upset at nature when it isn’t doing something it’s never done before.
The sound of rain hitting the roof permeates the air, faint and steady. It makes him smile, even though he knows he won’t be going back to sleep any time soon.
He sets his water cup by the sink and quietly makes his way out of the kitchen and down the short corridor toward Christopher’s room. He’s still sleeping, head tucked beneath his pillows with one foot shoved out from his blankets and the other curled up against his hip. He can’t be comfortable, but Buck watches his back rise and fall until the boil of rolling thunder drowns out the sprinkling pitter-patter outside, relishing the rise of fat warmth in his chest at Christopher’s peaceful rest.
It’s a wonder that kid can sleep through nearly anything, what with everything he’s been through. Buck’s sure he’d stay snoozing if a tornado ripped through LA right now—which, eew, he doesn’t want that to happen. Like, ever. They’ve dealt with enough turbulent weather to last a lifetime, thank you.
He slips past Christopher’s room and goes toward Eddie’s. The door’s cracked open, as it always is, and he pushes his head through, blinking quickly until his eyes adjust to the warm glow coming from the nightlight in the corner of the room. It’s Scooby-Doo, one Eddie’s had for years and refuses to get rid of because he likes it.
(Shannon got it for him. They celebrated their birthdays together since they were born a year and two weeks apart; her favorite holiday was Christmas and his is Halloween, so he got her a Charlie Brown coloring book and she found him a Scooby-Doo nightlight at a secondhand store. It’s no wonder Eddie fell as deep in love with her as he did. She was kinda perfect, even if Buck didn’t like her for the longest time.)
He rakes his eyes over the bed and notices Eddie’s not in it, wrapped tight in his blankets with his head covered up like he prefers to sleep. He hums, backs out of the room, looks over his shoulder to check if the bathroom light’s shining beneath the door, and makes a face when he sees it isn’t.
Huh.
There’s only so many places Eddie can be hiding in the house, so when Buck checks the utility room adjacent to the kitchen and the laundry room across from Christopher’s bedroom and doesn’t find him there, he pulls the curtains to the side and checks the back porch.
Marisol is something of a visionary, easily using her hands to bring dreams to life. She spent a long weekend a few months ago working with Eddie to clean up the backyard and give it a little glory in the form of flowers and clover beds and a pretty pair of chais lounges beneath one of the only trees, a weeping willow with the previous owner’s initials carved into the soft bark.
The finishing touch was a swing mounted to the rafters bracing the porch. Marisol built it with Christopher’s help—it’s wide, deep-seated and sturdy, with a thick pillow for padding and armrests lacquered nearly the color of Eddie’s, honeyed and syrupy with golden sunshine.
She made the yard look good, wide-open and welcoming in a way it wasn’t before. Eddie’s planning a get-together in the next couple weeks to show it off; Buck’s in charge of the potato salad.
Eddie’s on the swing, illuminated by the display of mean lightning arcing through the sky. His legs are tucked up beneath his ass and he’s holding something in his hands, staring out into the yard. He looks like a cat in the rain, watching the storm broil overhead with a thousand-yard stare.
Buck fixes the curtains, grabs a throw blanket to wrap around his shoulders, and slips out the sliding doors. The rain’s heavier now, a firm sheet just shy of a proper downpour; the wind blows, too, and sends speckles of water across the porch and the swing and Buck’s skin where his clothes and the blanket doesn’t cover.
“Eddie?”
Eddie looks over at him. “Hey,” he says, simply.
“Hey, yourself.” Buck pulls the sliding doors all the way to. He wraps the blanket over his chest, shivering beneath the rainy breeze. “What are you doing out here?”
“Storm woke me up and I couldn’t go back to sleep.” Eddie holds up a Mason jar, the thing Buck saw in his hands moments ago. Whatever’s inside is amber-colored, dark and rich. “Want a drink?”
“Liquor?”
Laughing, Eddie says, “No. Sweet tea, like Shannon made.” He stretches his arm out, offering Buck the jar. “Try it. You’ll like it.”
Sprinkles of rain pelt Buck’s bare feet as he moves forward and grabs the jar. He takes a tiny drink, and then another, bigger swallow when the taste registers, before handing it back to Eddie. “S’good,” he says, nodding, and wipes the leftover tea off his top lip.
“Told you so.” Eddie finishes off the jar and pats the part of the swing next to him, an invitation that Buck is going to take every time because there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
He settles on the cushion, close but far enough away his shoulder isn’t brushing Eddie’s the way it does when they’re on the couch. Silence surrounds them, broken by the tack-tack of teeming drops on the slanted roof above. Lightning shoots through the sky, obscured by thick gray clouds; they look purple, almost, like the color of the Lichtenberg figures that painted Buck’s skin. He didn’t wake up in time to see them, but he knew they were there because Maddie said so.
Thunder rumbles and Eddie jumps like he’s been shocked, like he forgot there’s a storm raging around them. Buck aches to reach out and steady Eddie, but he refuses to allow himself that freedom.
“D’you know if you count the seconds between the lightning and thunder, it’ll tell you how many miles away the storm is?”
Laughing, Buck says, “That’s not real,” and pokes at Eddie’s socked feet with his middle finger. That’s safe.
“It isn’t. Nobody remembers that the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound.” Eddie drops his foot to push the swing into a slow, back and forth motion. “My sisters and I used to do it all the time when we were kids, though. We loved watching the storms in every chance we could get.” He smiles, a crooked thing that reminds Buck of Chris. “We even played out in it sometimes.”
“You played out in the storms?”
Eddie chuckles, nodding his head. “Mhm. If there was no lightning, but what Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” He shifts closer, nudging his elbow into Buck’s ribs, and stays there, closer than before, without knowing how badly it sets Buck on fire. “So you can’t tell her, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think I’ll be talking to Helena any time soon.”
“No, I guess not,” Eddie says. He’s no longer smiling, eyes shuttered and lips pressed tight. “I don’t think I like the rain anymore, Buck.”
Buck thins his mouth and toes at a wet twig blown on the porch. “Because of me?” he asks, so quiet the roar of rain almost eats it up.
“Kind of, yeah.” Eddie pushes off the concrete with his foot again, sending them into a quicker rhythm. The water in Buck’s gut sloshes uncomfortably. “If it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody.”
Drawing his brows together, Buck says, “Well, yeah. I’m not invincible, Eddie.” He shrugs and gives a crooked, sardonic smile that Eddie doesn’t mirror. “You told me that.”
“Expendable,” Eddie corrects, sharper than he’s been since the first few shifts they shared. The asperity in his gaze is just as cunning, just as unsettling, and Buck has to glance away before he spirals. “I said you weren’t expendable.”
Buck winces. “I didn’t—”
“I mean, the well and the shooting, right? The overpass collapse, too. It was all me—mostly me, at least.” He shakes his head and snorts, echoing the thunder. “The truck bombing happened so fast, but I was with you until they wheeled you away. When you threw the clots, we were all there and we took care of you. And the tsunami—I didn’t even know. The lightning strike was different.”
Buck draws his knees up and crosses his legs. “I’m sorry,” he apologies because he doesn’t really know what to say right now. He feels every bit like the troubled kid he used to be, held responsible by people who didn’t know how to process their emotions when it comes to him. He never thought one of those people would be Eddie. “I—I’m really sorry, Eddie.”
“What for?” Eddie laughs, like Buck’s said something funny—like this whole conversation is funny and it’s not. It really isn’t at all, and Buck doesn’t know how to tell Eddie that because he’s never seen Eddie like this before, even when he broke down and took a bat to his bedroom walls. He doesn’t know what to do; there’s no plaster that’ll fit inside the holes in Eddie’s heart. “You didn’t ask to die.”
Something climbs up in Buck’s throat, hot and vile and acetic. “Did you invite me over for this?” he asks, half afraid of the answer. “Because you knew it was going to rain?”
“Yeah.”
Frustration heats Buck’s gut, souring the softness in his heart. “That’s not fair,” he says, stiff and irritated. He’s been fighting for months to prove to everybody that he’s fine, that he’s okay and that he’s moved on. He’s tired of having to prove himself to others. “I’m okay. I’m not scared or worried about the storm, and I don’t need to be babysat. I’m fine.”
Eddie doesn’t respond, choosing instead to look straight out into the yard where the rain’s starting to make puddles in the clover and flower beds. It’s going to make a muddy mess, washing up worms and drowning the fragile flowers Marisol and Eddie planted. Vindictively, Buck hopes the rain ruins everything.
And then immediately feels bad because, God, Eddie doesn’t deserve that. He deserves everything good—happiness and joy and safety, security, the kind of contentment that many people don’t receive in life. He deserves all that and more, anything he wants, even if it’s pretty flowers to look at when he’s having a beer on the back porch at the end of a long day.
That isn’t asking for too much, is it? Eddie hardly asks for anything, anyway. He should get to have this.
Buck groans. “Eddie—”
“For me,” Eddie interrupts. “It was for me, Buck.”
The frustration and sourness in his gut vanishes, as if it were never there at all, replaced with shame and something bitter like regret. Sometimes, Buck forgets the lightning strike happened to Eddie, too.
He puts his hands in his lap and twiddles his fingers. “I don’t remember it,” he whispers, a careful opening for Eddie to add onto. “It was loud and bright, and that’s it. I woke up in the hospital room and all of you were there.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything for a moment, rocking the swing with the point of his toe and staring out at the yard, and Buck’s about to give up, to brush it off and coax Eddie back inside because the wind’s starting to blow the rain in on them and they’ll both be no good if they catch a cold, but then Eddie sighs.
“I remember everything,” he says, just as quiet. The rain nearly eats it up, unforgiving and indifferent. “The lightning threw me off the ladder. I hit my shoulder when I landed and it hurt like a bitch, but then I saw you on that line and nothing else mattered. You were dangling, and dead, and I had to lower you to the ground because I wasn’t strong enough to pull you up.”
Buck stares out at the yard, too, because maybe it holds some sort of answer. Puddles of muddy water drain from the high parts to the low, following a path eroded long ago; heads of clovers wash away, carried along with delicate petals stripped from sprouting stems. He wonders if there’s any four-leaf clovers in there, wonders if they’ll bring him a pinch luck.
That’s silly. Luck isn’t real.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?”
Buck shrugs, knocking the blanket off his shoulder. “For putting you through all that trouble,” he replies. “You didn’t ask for it.”
“You’re not trouble, Buck.” Eddie fixes the blanket back up over Buck’s shoulder; his fingers brush against Buck’s neck right above the collar of his t-shirt. They’re cold like ice, and they burn worse than fire, and Buck wants to grab them in his and warm them up but that’s not allowed. “And it’s nothing I haven’t done to you, right?”
Buck laughs because that’s what he knows Eddie’s hoping for, but nothing feels particularly humorous at the moment.
“Buck?” Eddie says, drawing his attention. “Was that how you felt when I got shot?”
“Helpless.” Buck shuts his eyes and breathes. “I felt helpless.”
Eddie makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “That’s a good word for it,” he praises and Buck can’t even find it in himself to feel any glee from it. “Helpless. Useless. Unnecessary.” He kicks the ground, sending the swing into an erratic motion. “I was just the guy standing there when it happened who—”
“—couldn’t do anything to protect me.” Buck puts his foot down to stop the swing, swallowing hard. “I get it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Buck nudges Eddie’s foot with his own. “If I don’t get to say it, you don’t get to, either.” He preens when he sees the way Eddie’s lips twitch, a hard-won victory he’s going to cherish. “Besides, you’re the one that got my heart beating again, right?”
Eddie nods. “Yeah, I was.”
“And—and you gotta know, Eddie, that you’re none of those things,” Buck says, as if Eddie didn’t say anything, and then he kind of can’t stop himself because there’s a lot of stuff in his heart he doesn’t think he can hold anymore. “You aren’t help—helpless or useless or unnecessary. You’re—Christ, Eddie, you’re everything. You’re kind and gentle and understanding, and you love like you got nothing to lose but you do, and you lost it, and—and you’re still loving ‘cause you’re not scared even though you now what’s it like to hurt. You still love me, and you still save me. Every single time I need it, you’re there to help me get myself back up.”
He barks a laugh and runs his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends like a tether. He feels easy, as if he might blow away in the wind if there isn’t anything to hold him down. Eddie doesn’t look at him, doesn’t say anything, but he breathes, even and steady, and Buck knows he heard it all, everything single thing he said and didn’t say.
Because it’s not a secret, you know? That Buck’s in love with Eddie. He’s the one Buck came to after he broke up with Natalia, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. Buck might be awful at math, but Eddie’s fairly decent when it comes to simple addition; putting the sharp pieces of the mosaic of who they are together isn’t as hard as multiplying fractions.
So, no, it isn’t a secret that Buck’s in love with Eddie, and it’s not a secret that Eddie’s in love with Buck, either. It’s easy to see when you know what you’re looking for; Eddie’s got a big heart full of love, though, and he’s capable of loving more than one person at a time, this Buck knows.
“I’m never gonna leave you alone, Buck.”
“Good.” Buck leans back against the swing and lets out a breath, allowing his shoulders to drop. His face is hot and red; the wind from the rain spreads his blush like a wildfire, all the way down his chest and to his tummy. “I’m happy to know that ‘cause I don’t know what I’d do if you ever left me alone.”
Eddie chuckles, an illustrious sound, and says, “You’re never going to find out, either.”
Buck’s chest gets big, tight and fat like his heart’s grown seventeen times its normal size and there’s nowhere for it go. Eddie’s going to love him always, and the rain isn’t ever going to make a difference.
Carefully, Buck reaches out with his pinkie and curls it in the pocket of Eddie’s sleep pants. Touching Eddie has always been significant to him—little, nothing touches that he forgets about after a few seconds. A caress to his shoulder, their thighs pressed together in the back of the engine, a hand for support when they need it, both of them.
He can’t explain it, not really, but he needs it like he needs to breathe. Intimacy is more than bare skin against bare skin; you don’t have to fuck to make love.
“You know, I’m breaking up with Marisol tomorrow.”
Thunder rumbles above, masking the noise of shock Buck lets loose. “You’re break—breaking up with Marisol?” he repeats, just a little stupid, and pulls back his pinkie. Marisol’s amazing—funny and smart and kind, with a killer laugh and a wonderful personality. Eddie adores her. “Why?”
“The same reason you broke up with Natalia. I don’t love her, Buck.” He turns as he says it, offering a grin that glows in the flash of lightning. “I love you.”
Buck’s breath stutters in his chest, caught up in the lack of space his fat bloody heart ate up moments ago. “Eddie—”
“I love you, Buck,” he says, again, soft and easy like it’s just for him, and reaches over to touch Buck. “And watching you die took it out of me.”
Eddie’s hand rests on Buck’s knee, right above the hole he ripped in his pajama pants a few weeks ago by catching a knob in the bathroom at his loft. His palm faces up, calloused and hard and yet soft enough to run over his son’s face, gentle enough to cradle Buck’s heart. Tender and kind even after everything he’s been through because that takes more courage than hardening and loathing ever has.
Buck slips his fingers between Eddie’s and squeezes. “What’d it take?” he asks.
“The fear. You died and I didn’t have you because I was scared of what might happen, but I’m not anymore.” He tugs on Buck’s hand, testing his grip, and smiles when Buck holds on—as if he’s ever going to let Eddie go. They’re stuck together, the two of them. “The next time you die, you’ll be mine.”
What a picture Eddie’s painted. Buck can see it now, a myriad of laughter and kisses and joy, and smiles.
“How do you know?”
Eddie shrugs one shoulder. “Because I know you,” he answers, tipping sideways to brush against Buck. He smells like eucalyptus and honey, and coconut, too, because he likes to use Buck’s lotion. “I love you and you love me and that’s all. Are you gonna tell me you don’t?”
“No. No, Eddie.” Buck opens the blanket around his shoulders, offering Eddie a place to fall into. Eddie comes, gratifyingly eager, and leans all his weight against Buck. It’s okay—he can hold it just like Eddie held him on the way down from the ladder when he was dead. “I love you, by the way.”
“I know.” Eddie pillows his head on Buck’s shoulder, nuzzling his nose against Buck’s neck. It’s warm, a stark contrast to his fingers, but Buck still trembles. “And I know you’re okay, too. I swear I do. You handle everything life throws at you so well and I—I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know how to do it by myself.”
Buck runs the pad of his thumb across Eddie’s knuckles, oxygen like fire in his lungs. “Let me help you,” he pleads, whispery-soft. “Please.”
Eddie’s nod is nearly immediate. “Okay,” he says, smearing the words into Buck’s skin like a tattoo. He brings Buck’s hand up to his mouth and kisses across his calloused knuckles. “Okay, Buck. I trust you.”
Buck shivers beneath Eddie’s utter faith, switching what hand Eddie’s holding with the other so he can wrap his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pull him in.
“Thank you.”
“Mhm.” Eddie presses his face into Buck’s neck and smiles. “Stay out here with me, though? At least for a little while longer.”
Buck wraps Eddie up tighter, a silent response Eddie hears loud and clear.
Eventually, they’ll get up and go back inside. Buck will put Eddie to bed, and then head back to the couch because he’s overwhelmed and he knows Eddie is, too, and sleeping next to each other right now might do more harm than good—especially since Marisol still deserves to be thought about with respect.
And then they’ll wake up, and cook breakfast, and get Chris ready for school, get him fed and dressed and in the truck to be dropped off. They’ll come back to the house, clean up, watch some TV and do some chores, and they’ll talk the entire time, and when they’re done they’ll sit down at the kitchen table and decide the best way to move forward.
Because this—this: holding Eddie against him, in his arms, being a rock for him when he needs it like he’s done so many times for Buck—isn’t something Buck’s willing to compromise or give up. A part of him mourns the relationship Eddie’s going to give up with Marisol for him, but a larger piece is elated beyond belief and he hopes they can continue to be friends, same as him and Natalia.
But that’s all for tomorrow, in the future, and he isn’t going to borrow trouble.
In the here and now, Buck sits beside Eddie, holds Eddie, fingers laced tight, as the rain pours down and pelts their bare feet.