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Pride month begins barely a week after their first kiss. They haven’t even had their first date yet, haven’t really talked about it all in a way that would make their whatever that is official. It’s not the same as it used to be, it’s more, but it’s also not that much different. Buck stays over almost every night that week, but Eddie no longer lets him crash on the couch. They share a bed, they cuddle and kiss, but Eddie still has no idea what exactly it all means for him. And he is definitely not ready for the pride month.
When Eddie comes to work on the first day of June, there is a table with a bunch of pride LAFD swag waiting for him. Not for him specifically, of course, but from the moment Eddie notices it, he can’t stop thinking about it.
Hen is there, helping the others pick t-shirts and hoodies, educating them about the different flags. Buck is also there, asking: “Which one is mine?” Eddie doesn’t want to admit it but Buck’s colors are his favorite.
He is drawn to the pile of pride t-shirts but freezes the moment he sees them. Which one should he pick? Eddie has no idea what his colors would be. Hen probably notices him standing there confused and disoriented because she starts explaining the meaning of each color scheme.
There are different shirts: some have LAFD colored to match different flags, some have the LAFD spelled out and only the word FIRE is colored. There are hoodies with small flags on the sleeves, the ones in different pride colors, and also the ones with LAFD in colors. But there are only four color schemes: for lesbians, for gay men, for bisexuals, and the rainbow for all queer people.
“You can take the rainbow one,” Hen is telling him. “Kind of generic. There are smaller sizes as well if you want Chris to also have one.”
Eddie’s hands are twitching. The issue is not even that he is not out or that his friends and colleagues don’t know about him and Buck. The issue is that he himself doesn’t fucking know which label is his. Eddie has thought about it. A lot. And still, he doesn’t know.
He can feel Buck’s presence right next to him. Buck. Is there a flag for people who are exclusively attracted to Buck? Bucksexuals? He chuckles. That’s just stupid.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll take the rainbow ones, t-shirt for myself and a hoodie for Chris,” Eddie says to Hen. She smiles at him and helps him find the right sizes.
Buck is rocking his new hoodie. Eddie looks him over a couple of times. The pink, purple and blue just suits Buck so well, Eddie doesn’t want to stop looking. He doesn’t have to stop looking. He pulls out his phone and shoots Buck a quick text: wanna take you out on a date. Buck’s blushing, that’s a pretty sight.
“Anytime,” Buck whispers in Eddie’s ear.
Hen looks between the two of them, and now it’s Eddie’s turn to blush. They are not trying to be subtle or hide. They do but they really don’t. It’s a new relationship, sure, but it’s also an established one. Buck said so himself: they’ve been together for ages without realizing it. They are in the te amo territory already even if they haven’t had a first date yet.
Hen is still watching them stand next to each other being sort of awkward. Eddie can’t take it anymore. He wants to ask her if there is a label for someone who doesn’t really feel interest in anyone besides their best friend who happens to be a guy. For someone who never felt as much want as when his best friend touched his chin while telling him about a kiss with someone else. For someone who always felt a bit lost and not all in when it came to sex.
Eddie doesn’t ask any of these questions but he does step closer to the table again, and he does put his hand on the stack of t-shirts with FIRE colored in a mix of blue-ish and green-ish colors. He looks at Hen, trying to convey his doubts: I’m not really sure but that’s the one for me I think.
Hen is smiling at him. Eddie smiles back and walks away.
*
Whenever he looks at his phone, he opens the last message from Hen. If you ever wanna talk about it, I’m here. Eddie is not sure he wants to talk but the text still warms his heart. It’s nice knowing he has people to talk to if his own attempts at figuring shit out continue to be absolutely fruitless.
He talks to Buck but that doesn’t really help much: they are obviously very different. At this point it feels more like a process of elimination: definitely not straight, very low chances of being bi, higher chances of being gay because he is attracted to at least one man. Just one man, though. More than thirty years on this stupid planet, and just one man. Still more than the number of women he was actually attracted to.
It all feels so very new to him. To look at a person and want them. To be excited about an upcoming date instead of dreading it for unknown reasons. To do things he actually wants to do without feeling like he has to do them.
Buck is being very gentle and patient with him, letting him discover things at the pace that feels comfortable. They do coffee dates and movie nights, they go out to have dinner together (which Chris is very excited about because he can have his friends over while the adults are out).
It’s pride month, and Eddie feels the pride every time he is out and about and is holding Buck’s hand in his. Buck calls them boyfriends in a conversation with a barista once, and Eddie can’t believe he thought they weren’t officially there yet. They tell each other te quiero almost every day and sometimes they whisper te amo to each other, and Eddie feels all giddy every time they acknowledge how much more than friends or new boyfriends they actually are.
They don’t have sex but they do talk about it. I’m afraid, Eddie tells Buck. Because it’s the first time he actually truly wants to have sex, and the intensity of his desire fucking terrifies him. Buck doesn’t push and Eddie is so grateful for this, for him. It’s not exactly a no-cross boundary: their make outs are heated and sometimes they go maybe too far for two people who say they don’t fuck. But Eddie wants to feel absolutely ready for this next step, and he doesn’t feel ready yet.
*
The reality of redefining their relationship from best friends to boyfriends is that in the long term they can’t actually do this subtle secret relationship bullshit they’ve been doing for a couple of weeks now. They are out in public but not exactly out at work, and that would’ve been fine if their colleagues weren’t also their friends. They all go to the same public spaces, it’s only a matter of time when someone runs into them on a date. Which is not a big deal at all until HR hears about it. And HR will hear about it.
They are chilling on a couch between calls when Hen comes over and asks Buck: “Are you going to the parade on Sunday?” She gives Eddie a glance, a small smile, but her attention is focused on Buck. Eddie guesses it’s because Buck is out and Eddie is not—at least not exactly, not really, not in a way that would signal others that he is comfortable being invited to pride events while there are people listening in on the conversation—and Hen is probably trying to respect that.
“W—I don’t know. One sec, let me check something.” Buck tells her, and pulls his phone out. Eddie feels his own phone vibrate with a text from Buck: Do you want to?
Does he want to? His head is spinning. Eddie hasn’t thought about it but now that he is thinking about it—he does want to go. The idea of walking hand in hand with Buck through the streets of LA, the idea of kissing him while they are surrounded by thousands of strangers who accept their love—that sounds like the best idea ever. And maybe it’s time. Even if he doesn’t have a label, he can still be out.
“Yeah, we’ll come to the parade,” Eddie tells Hen, and she beams at him. At them.
He still hasn’t talked to her about it all, she doesn’t exactly know anything, but she does know things. She knows about him and she knows about them, maybe not for sure but she can clearly see what is in front of her. Maybe others can see it too.
So maybe it is time.
“You know,” Eddie turns to look at Buck. “If we do go there, we might want to talk to Bobby first.”
Buck doesn’t seem to understand at first, until he does. “HR stuff?”
“Better tell him in person now than for him to discover it from Karen’s instagram stories, right?”
Eddie can’t quite tell why it all suddenly feels so simple. They have to talk to Bobby, Bobby has to notify HR, and then they probably would have to sign some forms, and that would be it. There is no need for him to make a big deal out of it. He is with Buck, they love each other, and that’s it. That’s all the others need to know.
Sure, he’d still want to take Hen up on that offer and actually talk to her about stuff, but he doesn’t need to have that deep sort of talk with anyone else. People will always have questions, everyone is guilty of being a bit too curious sometimes, but Eddie doesn’t own them any answers. That thought calms him down.
They get up and go to Bobby’s office but Eddie does slow down to look back at Hen. “We’ll talk properly at some point, I promise,” he tells her.
“It’s all good, don’t worry. Whenever the time is right.”
Bobby hears them out with the softest smile on his lips and tells them that he’ll deal with HR and prepare the paperwork for them to sign. It’s all good. And, according to Bobby, even better than good because once they tell everyone about their relationship, he is going to collect a lot of money. Eddie is not surprised in the slightest that those demons they call friends and colleagues have a bet about them. (Because of course they do.)
They don’t really come out to anyone, not in words anyway. They just start holding hands at the station and they kiss a few times, and the news spread like fire. Before the day is over, everybody knows about them. It feels like a huge step, but Eddie also notices that barely anyone cares about this change. Some ask for details like who confessed their feelings first but it soon becomes clear people are trying to figure out who won the bet—or bets, because the money exchange at the station just doesn’t seem to stop that day, and Eddie suspects there was more than one bet going on. Their group chats are filled with heart emojis and heartfelt messages but no one seems to be too surprised about this new development.
All of this happens, but Eddie can’t stop thinking about the fact that even though his relationship with Buck is no longer a secret, he is still not really out. Technically, he is out. In reality, he has no idea how to tell people about his sexuality. He doesn’t need to, Eddie reminds himself. He doesn’t own anyone any details or explanations, but it would still be nice to know. To have the answers ready. To have a label.
What is it? A mess. Buck-centric gayness. Nothing really fits. Nothing that he knows of at least.
*
They are in a crowd, there is loud music and everyone’s talking, and there are so, so many colorful flags. Eddie knows Buck’s flag and he knows Hen’s, and he also knows the trans one, but everything else is just a mix of colors he doesn’t know the meaning of. He doesn’t want to admit it but he is so fucking lost.
Hen and Karen are trying their best to educate him but he feels like the slowest learner. He’s pretty sure he’s heard Hen explaining the difference between being bi and being pan for at least ten times already, and he is nowhere near understanding it. Buck whispers to him that he doesn’t understand it either but the bi flag is prettier, so that’s what he is going with. That’s a very Buck thing to do.
It’s a fun day, and Eddie feels like a kid at the Carnival again. They meet up with some of Hen and Karen’s friends, they dance and hug, and kiss all these lovely random people on the cheeks. Someone gives him the rainbow flag at some point, and he wraps it around his shoulders, and it gives him so much joy he starts crying in front of all these strangers.
There is a girl in front of him with a flag that seems to have less bright colors than the average pride flag, and Eddie asks Hen which one is that. He’s been doing it the whole day, and he is pretty sure he asked about the same flags more than a dozen times already, but this one doesn’t look familiar. He might’ve seen it already but he hasn’t asked about it yet.
“Asexuals.” It’s Karen who answers him. And since she knows his next question, she adds: “It’s people who don’t experience sexual attraction. Well, basically. It’s more complicated than that obviously.”
“That’s a thing?” Eddie asks. “There is a label for that?”
Karen just shrugs. “Yeah, of course.”
Of course. Before Buck, he might’ve considered it to be his thing because he wasn’t attracted sexually to any woman he’s ever tried to build a relationship with. But now—well, there’s Buck. Eddie can’t be asexual if there is Buck, right?
He can feel himself spiraling. Karen said it’s more complicated so maybe it can still be him. So does it mean he’s not gay? Whatever understanding of himself he thought he had seems to disappear, and he’s back at the start of not really knowing a fucking thing. His hand reaches out to touch Buck, to be closer to him. Eddie might not know shit but he knows one thing: he loves Buck. He wants to be with Buck.
Eddie doesn’t want to drown in this colorful sea of all the different kinds of love. Sure, maybe it’s not the ideal time for that heart-to-heart conversation with Hen he’s been putting off, but he needs it like he needs air. Fuck it, he needs it right now. So who cares if it’s not just Hen, but Hen and Karen? Who cares if there are thousands of people around? Who cares? He needs to know.
“So,” Eddie says, looking between Hen and Karen. “Is there—well, what if it’s only one person I’m attracted to? Like asexual but with an exception? Is that a thing?”
He doesn’t utter the word Bucksexual out loud but he wants to. He really wants to.
It’s Hen who answers: “Yeah, I think it can be a thing. I’m not that familiar with how being ace works but I think—well, there is also demisexuality.”
“The what?”
Karen chimes in: “It’s when you don’t feel attraction unless you have an emotional connection with that person. Does that sound like you?”
“Emotional connection—so, basically, friendship?”
Buck squeezes his hand. The music is still loud, people around are still talking and dancing and singing and kissing. Eddie thinks it might be the perfect situation for a life-altering revelation about himself.
He would need time to learn more about all these new labels. They might be what Eddie was looking for, they might not be. The thing is, their mere existence is comforting. There are enough people out there who felt no sexual attraction for it to be a thing, a label, something that people identify with.
And yes, no attraction unless he is your best friend in the whole fucking world does sound familiar to Eddie. All these new labels—well, Eddie has a better one. He starts laughing.
“So I am a Bucksexual after all.”
Maybe that’s the only one he needs.