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Buck isn’t sure why he does it.
All he knows is that he doesn’t want to be alone, and when he’s thinking of places to go, there’s one name that sticks in his head. The place he’s gotten used to going, the person he’s gotten used to talking to about anything and everything.
It’s late, a little after midnight, and it’s a Saturday. He knows that Eddie could have plans of his own, maybe with Marisol. But Buck can’t really bring himself to care (well, actually, he will, if Eddie tells him that he’s busy. But he at least has to try). He knocks on Eddie’s door anyways.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long at all for the door to open. Eddie is in casual wear, a pair of sweats and a dark red t-shirt. Buck watches as his expression changes from one of surprise at seeing Buck to concern.
“Have you been crying?” Eddie asks.
Buck huffs. Well, he wasn’t expecting that to be the first thing Eddie said to him. Still, Buck brings a hand up to his cheek, feels the dried tears there.
“Uh, yeah,” Buck says awkwardly. “That’s kind of why I came over. I didn’t know where else to go. Are you…?”
He trails off, leaning forward a little bit to see if he can make out anyone else in the house.
Eddie shakes his head, ushers Buck in. “No, it’s just me. Even Chris is out. At a sleepover.”
Buck nods. Suddenly, the floor seems so interesting. He knows he came here to talk (vent, more like), but he also feels a little pathetic at the thought.
“Go sit on the couch,” Eddie tells him softly, his hand taking its place on Buck’s shoulder. “I’ll bring us beers.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement, which Buck actually kind of likes. He’s not sure he’s going to get through tonight without at least a little alcohol, which Eddie seems to be able to read on him.
Buck toes his shoes off by the front door and then makes his way over to the couch. He sees that Eddie must’ve been watching the Chargers vs. Raiders game, but it’s long over now, instead showing highlights from the game.
Eddie sits down next to him only a minute or so later. He hands Buck a beer and Buck takes it gratefully, taking a large swig from it.
Eddie breathes out a laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere.”
Buck laughs, too. Or tries to. “Right, yeah, sorry.”
Immediately, Eddie gets that worried look on his face again. “What’s going on, Buck?”
Buck is humiliated to feel that his eyes are welling up with tears again. He sets his beer down on the coffee table in front of him and covers his eyes with his hands, letting out a shaky breath.
“This is so stupid,” he says. “I feel like I’m in high school again.”
Eddie is silent for a moment. And then: “Is it…Is it Tommy?”
Buck freezes at the sound of his name. Eddie must be able to tell, because he sighs quietly.
“Buck, what happened? What did he do?”
Buck removes his hands from his eyes so he can look over at Eddie. Despite himself, he grins a little wetly.
“I appreciate you saying it was something that he did and not me.”
“Of course, you’re my best friend,” Eddie says matter-of-factly. “I’m always on your side.”
Buck ignores the little flutter in his chest at those words. He’s dealing with enough emotions right now, thank you.
“Well, since I’m crying like a heartbroken teenager, I’ll put it like this: he dumped me.”
Buck thought that saying it out loud would make him feel better. Instead, it just makes him feel worse. He reaches out for his beer bottle and takes another large swallow.
Eddie, for his part, looks taken aback. “Why would he do that?” He asks.
“He just wasn’t…” Buck trails off, trying to make sure he words this right. “He just wasn’t as into me as I was him. I mean, story of my life, so it wasn’t that hard to tell. But it was…it was different this time. Tommy made me feel so…free. Like I was really, truly, finally myself. Everything was so exciting. But with Tommy, he’d…you know. Already experienced all of these things. It wasn’t as fun for him.”
“He said that?” Eddie asks, looking like he might go to Tommy’s station and lay into him right now.
“No!” Buck exclaims. A part of him still wants to defend Tommy’s honor, which makes him feel even more like shit. “I could just tell. It’s like…it’s like how he didn’t wear a costume to Chim’s bachelor party. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then little things like that kept happening. I’d be so excited to see him and plan a date when we both were off, and he’d already have plans. All I wanted to do was talk to him and hang out with him. I thought he was so cool.”
Eddie is frowning. He taps lightly at his beer bottle, like he’s fighting the urge to do something else with his hand.
“You said he broke up with you, though?”
Buck takes a moment to finish his beer. Wordlessly, Eddie hands him his own, which makes Buck breathe out a huff of laughter.
“It all kind of came to a head tonight,” Buck confirms. “We were finally hanging out, eating a dinner that I made for us, and I started talking about the rescue you made the other day, and he just…” Buck winces at the memory. “The worst thing is he wasn’t even mean about it. It would’ve been one thing if he was a dick, but instead he just said that he liked me but he could tell that I didn’t really know what my own feelings were. That I was still figuring them out. Like, what the fuck? We had already been over all of that! And I had decided I liked him a lot and wanted to be with him!”
“Did you tell him that?” Eddie asks quietly. His expression is a little…weird, but Buck tries not to think about it. He’s confused and hurt enough by Tommy, he doesn’t have it in him to try and decipher what’s going on in Eddie’s mind right now.
“Yes, of course I did. But he was like…determined to leave. To break up with me. I think he just wanted an excuse to break up with me, and somehow landed on me being confused about my feelings.” Buck takes a sip from what was Eddie’s beer, grateful that he gave it to him. “Asshole,” Buck tacks on for good measure.
Eddie shakes his head. He looks like he’s not exactly sure what to think. “It’s,” he starts, clears his throat. “It’s a bit weird that it was a story about me that set him off, right?”
Buck stares at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t know,” Eddie hedges. “I thought Tommy liked me well enough. It’s weird that you bringing me up made him break up with you.”
Abruptly, and against Buck’s better judgment, he’s taken back to his loft on the night where Tommy had first kissed him.
“My attention?” He had asked.
And when he had (accidentally) come out to Maddie, what she had said about Buck being confused about his feelings. Almost the same exact words Tommy had said to him when he’d broken up with him.
Buck feels himself go hot all over. Oh, shit, he shouldn’t have come over here. He feels like he just told on himself without even realizing that’s what he was doing.
Because he’s insistent on making things even worse for himself, he stands up, wondering if he could make a mad dash for the door without looking like an idiot. The answer is definitely a resounding no, but he’s still tempted to try.
Eddie blinks in surprise before standing up too, his hands reaching out to hold onto Buck’s arm. Like he’s steadying him. Or preventing him from leaving. Or something.
“What just happened?” Eddie implores.
Buck can’t meet his eyes. The pattern on Eddie’s rug is suddenly the coolest thing in the world. “I can’t…I shouldn’t have come over here. I’m sorry, Eddie.”
Buck is pretty sure he stops breathing altogether when one of Eddie’s hands moves to under Buck’s chin, gently lifting his head up so that Buck will look at him. So gently.
Actually looking into Eddie’s eyes is…a lot. He can see the concern there, the confusion, but also the…care. There’s no doubt in Buck’s mind that Eddie cares about him. This swirling in his mind along with the thought of Tommy and Maddie basically saying he was confusing his feelings for Eddie with feelings for Tommy is a lethal combination.
“What’s going on? Talk to me.”
“I just, um. I just realized why Tommy broke up with me.”
Eddie nods, moving his hand from Buck’s chin. Buck immediately misses the touch.
“Was it because of me?” He asks.
It’s like Eddie has no idea the weight those words carry. Buck huffs out a shaky breath.
“In…a sense,” he settles on, trying not to give too much away.
Eddie grins at him, tilting his head. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”
Buck plops back down on the couch with a groan. He knows that he is. Eddie sits down next to him again, stealing his beer bottle back and taking a sip from it. It should probably feel weirder that they’re sharing a drink, but it doesn’t. Not at all. Fuck, Buck is so stupid.
“Tommy thought I was confusing feelings I have for you with the feelings I have for him,” Buck rushes out with a single breath.
“He said that?” Eddie says, not for the first time this night. Buck groans again.
“No!" He exclaims. “But he, like, definitely implied it. So did Maddie.”
“Maddie?” Eddie repeats. Buck feels like he’s about to lose his mind. All these useless questions…but then:
“Well, were they right?”
Buck looks over at Eddie, his eyes wide. He’s sure he probably looks like a deer in headlights.
“Eddie,” he says softly, trails off.
“It’s okay,” Eddie assures him. “You can tell me.”
Eddie is with Marisol, his mind tells him. Eddie is straight. This feels like when he was attempting to come out to Eddie, but about a million times scarier.
“I don’t know,” Buck whispers, taking the easy way out. But then… “But…the more I think about it…the more…”
Eddie’s eyes are blazing into his own. And have they gotten a little bit closer? Or has Buck just fully gone delusional?
“What?” Eddie asks softly, so softly that it’s barely audible.
“The more I think they might’ve been right,” Buck finally gets out. He lets out a breath and is relieved to feel a weight off his shoulders. Okay, he said it. It’s out there. It doesn’t have to change anything. His feelings can just be something that exists between them that they don’t have to talk about, it’s fine—
His thoughts are cut off by a pair of lips crushing into his and oh, oh, he’s kissing Eddie. He’s kissing Eddie. Or, well, Eddie is kissing him. Buck opens his mouth slightly to remedy that, tilts his head to get the angle right, and reaches out so he can pull Eddie closer to him. He wants to drown in the little noise of contentment that Eddie makes as a result.
“What—“ Buck starts, only to be cut off by Eddie’s lips on his again. Oh, he’s going to die. He’s sure of it.
Neither of them can keep their hands off of each other. Eddie’s hands had rested on Buck’s shoulders, but one of them trails down over his chest until it’s resting over Buck’s (no doubt racing) heart. The gesture makes Buck’s breath hitch in his throat. His own arms are wrapped around Eddie’s waist, and without even thinking about it, his hands find the hem of Eddie’s shirt, his fingers brushing delicately against the bare skin of Eddie’s lower back. He’s rewarded with Eddie gasping against his mouth.
“Jesus, Eddie,” Buck is able to get out. Even to his own ears, his voice sounds wrecked. He tilts his head back — and it really is so he can keep talking instead of kissing, okay? — and Eddie moves down so he can start pressing kisses down his jaw, his throat…fuck.
“We need—“ Buck starts, cuts off with a moan when Eddie nips at a spot right underneath his ear. His hands instinctively tighten around Eddie’s waist. “We need to talk.”
Eddie sighs against his throat, and even that is enough to have a shiver running down Buck’s spine. Eddie moves back a little so he’s no longer practically in Buck’s lap and just…looks at him.
His cheeks are flushed, his lips swollen and so clearly kissed. It takes everything in Buck not to just say fuck it and pull him right back in again.
“You’re with Marisol,” Buck says, already feeling some panic well up within him at the thought of helping Eddie cheat. It’s what Buck 1.0 would’ve done, and he is not that person anymore.
“No,” Eddie responds, shaking his head. “We broke up a couple weeks ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Buck asks indignantly. Despite himself, he feels a little hurt.
Eddie shrugs. “You were really happy with Tommy. I didn’t want to bum you out.”
“Clearly not that happy,” Buck mumbles under his breath, but Eddie still hears him, gives him a little smile that makes Buck’s heart beat faster in his chest. “Why did you break up?”
“It was…a lot of different reasons,” Eddie says quietly. “I realized I was trying so, so hard at making something work when it just…wasn’t. I do that all the time, especially if Chris likes her. It was the same with Ana. And I guess it just hit me that I don’t…I don’t ever consider my own happiness, you know? I liked Ana, and I liked Marisol, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t ever see myself loving them.”
“Why?” Buck asks quietly.
Eddie is quiet for a moment, looking down at his lap. Now it’s his turn to take a long sip from the beer bottle he and Buck are now apparently sharing.
“Might’ve been for the same reason I fucking hated seeing you with Tommy.”
Buck can’t help it. His mouth drops open at the words. “You…what?” He asks intelligently. The fact that he can get any words out at all is a miracle, because his mind is racing. “But you were…you were so supportive!”
Eddie looks at him again, his eyes softening. “I was supportive of you. I loved seeing you be able to discover a new part of yourself. And it was clear to everyone how happy you were. I guess I just…hated that it wasn’t with me.”
“Eddie,” Buck breathes out, and leans in for another kiss. This one is much softer than their last one, but still leaves Buck with his heart racing in his chest. “I…I dated other people before. What was different about this time?”
Eddie’s fingers twitch against Buck’s hip. “Well…you hadn’t ever dated a guy before.”
“Okay,” Buck agrees, still not really getting it.
Eddie sighs. Closes his eyes for a second. “It…scared me. Not in a bad way, just. I think I always knew about my feelings for you, but you were straight, and I was ‘straight’, so it was fine. But then you came out to me, and you started dating Tommy, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t pretend anymore. Having that realization made being with Marisol feel almost unbearable.”
Buck breathes out a chuckle. “So…you were just going to be miserable while Tommy and I stayed together?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t going to homewreck.”
“Guess you didn’t have to anyway,” Buck says with a shrug. As he starts thinking more about his first encounters with Tommy mixed in with his subconscious feelings for Eddie, he feels embarrassment take over him. He puts his head in his hands and groans.
“What?” Eddie asks, trying to pull Buck’s hands away from his face. Buck can hear the amusement in his voice.
“I was so embarrassing, Eddie. Holy shit, no wonder Tommy left me.”
Eddie lets out a little surprised chuckle. “What do you mean?”
“I kept…I kept talking about you. Like, ‘oh, you were in the army? Eddie was in the army!’ and ‘you don’t have to tell me Eddie is a great guy, I’ve known that since the moment I met him!’ Who fucking says things like that?”
He hesitantly moves his hands from his face and sees that Eddie is grinning at him.
“Stop looking at me like that!” Buck groans, watching in horror as the words just make Eddie smile even wider.
“You liked me,” Eddie coos, trying to lean in for another kiss.
Buck fends him off, resulting in a bit of a tussle between the two of them. “Key word liked! Past tense!”
Eddie laughs openly at the words right as he succeeds in pinning Buck’s arms above his head, Buck’s back against the couch and Eddie all but on top of him, which…hm. Interesting.
“Not past tense,” Eddie says softly, his mouth hovering over Buck’s own.
It’s incredible how quickly Buck feels the atmosphere change in the room. He’s not laughing anymore, and neither is Eddie.
“No it’s not,” Buck agrees, and is rewarded with Eddie’s mouth on his again.