Chapter Text
Who knew a heart could break so spectacularly…slow.
Buck always knew it would end this way, having to watch as other people got their happy endings. While he was on the sidelines left to watch. Just another Spector, a family friend. The slivers of his heart were slowly on the mend, and he knew he had to pull it together.
He could not be heartbroken at his best friend's wedding.
It tracks, really, when Eddie said he was going to propose to Ana at the end of last year he honestly didn't feel a thing.
Honestly. He had felt nothing, it was while he was helping Eddie pick a tux and looking for a nice tie for Christopher that it actually hit him.
He, Evan “Buck” Buckley, was in love with Eddie Diaz. His best Friend of three Years.
Buck didn't cry. He wouldn't let himself cry. It would just make everything feel…real.
He let himself wallow in self misery for a day, after that he forced himself to pull it together. He babysat Christopher, with whom he let himself fall into the illusion that everything was alright. That this wasn't going to be the only part he could play in Chris's life. A pseudo uncle that took care of the kids during date night.
An illusion.
Now he was a Bestman and watching the love of his life marry his soon to be Wife.
Buck plastered a smile on his face and faked the exuberance he was known for. His eyes tracking Ana as she makes her way down the aisle, a beautiful smile on her face. They deserved this. They deserve to be happy, he thought to himself, Eddie had been through a lot, and he deserved to be happy. If that meant being with Ana and starting a life with her while he watched, so be it.
He could deal, he had to.
Buck laughed along with everyone else as Eddie and Ana exchanged their Vows and smiled at the cameras Eddie’s parents paid for to record the ceremony. Occasionally he would turn to look at Christopher with a smile that he silently infused with ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘nothing is going to change’. The kid was too smart for his age.
Christopher had pulled him aside a week or so after Eddie proposed to Ana. His body shaking as he confessed that he thought Eddie was going to marry Buck and that he wanted Buck to be his dad. That was the closest he had ever gotten to crying.
Maybe this was God’s way of punishing him, for not saving Daniel and being a pain in the ass to his parents. Maybe that’s what this is, divine retribution for things he couldn't control and that's why he was alone.
Even now he’s alone.
His last-minute date had to bail, leaving Buck to come to the Wedding without a plus-one.
“You may kiss the bride” Bucked clapped. His heart, so weak after bearing the abuse of the last few months, didn't even thunder in his ears. And if it did–he wouldn't know the difference.
The reception after the ceremony was held in a small community center a few blocks from the station. Upbeat music flowed through the air as traditional wedding dances and events occurred one by one. Everyone celebrating the newlyweds. Buck tried to look more and more inebriated with each passing hour, occasionally congratulating the couple loudly with a smile the size of Texas.
He was overcompensating, he knew that. And judging by the looks he was getting from Bobby and Athena; he wasn’t fooling them.
At 11:30 the Newlyweds made their way out; they had a plane to catch. Cristopher was going to El Paso while Eddie was away.
Now he could go to the loft.
He can now stop pretending that everything was okay.
Two weeks. He had two weeks to find a way to be okay.
It took two years for Buck to feel okay in his own skin, after Ana had a baby girl.
His Goddaughter.
Darla Diaz was God’s gift to Buck. The girl had him wrapped around her little finger before they had even met. He was there the day she was born into the world and was not far from the delivery room at any given day. The Nurses had joked that he was worse than the actual father. They weren't wrong but they were also not right.
Eddie went practically comatose when Ana first approached him with the positive pregnancy test. It wasn't until he was at Bucks apartment that he allowed himself to actually process the meaning of having another child. Buck supported Eddie the whole way through. He offered the couple all of the books he had purchased about childcare when Maddie was pregnant with Jee.
So, when Darla was born, Buck was ready to babysit and support his best friend and his wife. Always offering to watch Darla and Christopher so that the couple could get much needed rest. He even conspired with Bobby and Athena to make sure that the couple didn’t have to worry about cooking meals for the first 6 months.
All the while, he would pretend. He would pretend to be okay with being alone.
He moved out of the loft a year ago. The whole loft reminded him too much of the past and honestly the stairs had long since lost their allure. His new apartment was homey with potted plants and the like littered around. Another thing that changed was that he got a dog. Domino.
Domino was a stray, Buck found him during one of his weekday runs by his apartment. A week later and a two-day vet appointment Domino was brought into his house and slept on a doggy bed at the foot of his bed. Christopher was the one who named him saying, ‘he looks like a Domino’. If the dog had eaten the last slice of domino’s pizza well that was between Chris and Buck.
Buck wouldn't say he was lonely. He was just alone and maybe if he said it aloud enough, he could be okay with that.
Every morning, he had off, he would go on runs with Domino. The park was a nice place to hide away from everything. If only for an hour or so he could just forget, with Domino he had no worries other than making sure the mutt didn't try to wander off into a muddy puddle of water just because he can.
Sometimes, not often but sometimes, Buck could actually believe that he was over his heartbreak.
Until Eddie did something that would inevitably make Buck fall all over again.
Buck did date. Not one relationship lasted longer than six months, his heart just wasn't in it. It seemed his heart had decided on its own that no one was enough for it. And he did try, he made so much effort to actually like a person, but no one measured up. It's not like Buck tried to compare each and every one of his dates against Eddie. He didn't. It just happened.
Perhaps he was a masochist, because his heart seemed set on being stomped on by Eddie.
Maybe he needed space.
No–
Yes.
He was on a plane.