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Eddie’s house has never been showroom quality tidy. It’s always been lived in, warm, loved.
The couch is rarely without at least one pile of laundry scattered over the cushions, half sorted as if Eddie got distracted midway through folding a pair of jeans. Clean dishes perpetually stacked on the draining board. The ever increasing stack of pencil marks on the wall where Eddie measures Christopher’s many growth spurts.
When Buck lets himself in two weeks after Christopher… left LA, the sense of home he usually associates with this house is nowhere to be found.
Empty beer bottles and pizza boxes litter the coffee table, the floor—every conceivable flat surface really. The curtains are drawn closed, despite it being after 11:30 in the morning. They’re twisted where they meet in the middle, as if they’d been yanked forcefully into place with no one bothering to straighten them.
There’s also a funky smell in the kitchen that Buck’s pretty sure is coming from the fridge. Or the overflowing trash can. Probably both.
A sharp ripple of foreboding laced with a healthy dose of regret weighs down his chest as he takes it all in.
That first shift after everything, that first awful shift with Gerrard as interim captain, Buck had offered to follow Eddie home after.
No Buck. He’d mumbled into his open locker, before hoisting his duffel onto his shoulder. Just—just let me sit with it for a bit. I’ll be fine.
But Eddie hadn’t been fine, that’s the thing.
He’d shown up for shifts on time, thank God—Buck doesn’t even want to think about the sort of Hellfire Gerrard would have delightfully reigned down on Eddie’s head if he’d been even a minute past the schedule.
But the circles under Eddie’s eyes had deepened with every day that passed. His stubble grown in and unkempt, his hair always a mess—as if he spent more time clutching at it with desperate fingers than not. He’d been short with them all, blank-faced and withdrawn in the wake of all Gerrard’s blistering racism and bigotry and general awfulness.
All that to say, Eddie hasn’t been acting like Eddie at all.
And Buck knows why, of course he knows why. But he hates it, hates it, hates it.
He’d reluctantly given Eddie the space he’d asked for—but at what cost?
Buck’s barely past the threshold and already he can tell how little Eddie’s been taking care of himself.
It’s the first of four days off on their shift rotation and Buck had left his loft this morning in a distracted rush. Halfway through a cup of coffee—and a tiny mental spiral about how he’s a terrible friend—three missed calls to Eddie’s phone in, and the key to Eddie’s front door burning a hole in his pocket.
Because enough is enough. Eddie can shout and scream about needing space and Buck will bear it, but he’ll bear it from Eddie’s side. It’s what they do—what they’ve always done for each other. One of them stumbles and the other is there to haul them back on their feet.
Buck picks his way through the carnage and—with a final fortifying breath—pushes into Eddie’s room.
He freezes for a moment in the doorway. Eyes still adjusting to the gloom that’s clinging to every room of the damn house.
There’s a twisted pile of blankets in the middle of the bed, that shifts and groans when Buck marches over to the window and throws open the blinds.
“Eddie, you have to get up.”
All Buck gets in response is another grunt from the lump on the bed; his best friend presumably buried somewhere underneath.
Buck leans forward with a sigh and forcefully rips back the covers.
“Up.” He snaps.
Eddie glares back at him, disheveled. Well, Buck assumes it’s meant to be a glare. The effect is sort of lessened by the amount of huffy squinting Eddie is doing. Then he snatches the covers from Buck’s fingers and tucks himself under them once more.
“Leave me alone.” Is all the reply Buck receives.
Buck just reaches down and pulls the covers off again.
“No.” He says, keeping his voice level.
Eddie doesn’t fight back this time, but he makes no move to stand. Makes no move at all. Other than throwing an arm over his eyes after another round of blinking and squinting against the daylight now streaming in.
“We don’t have a shift. I don’t have a school run or a sleepover to host.” Eddie spits the words into the tension simmering between them, his voice rough and chipped along its edges. “No trip to the zoo or the park or the beach. It’s my day off. So leave me the hell alone.”
Buck plants his feet as he runs a hand through his hair, huffing out a frustrated sigh through his nose.
“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’ and attempts to pull Eddie’s arm away without success. “You need to get out of bed.”
The sigh that answers him is drawn out and long-suffering.
“What’s the point, Buck?” Eddie murmurs, finally giving in to Buck’s insistent tugging; letting his arm flop away from his face to fall against the mattress with a soft thud and meeting Buck’s gaze for the first time since he entered the room. “Tell me what the point is?”
“The point is that you have to keep living, Eddie.”
Eddie snorts and shoves his head back into his pillows.
“Not much of an incentive, Buckley.”
Buck inhales sharply. Tries to push down the terror. The sheer blinding panic that sets his pulse racing—his mind reeling—because Buck can’t save this man from himself if it truly has gotten to that point.
His fingers itch to call Bobby, like they always do when he’s not sure of his next move.
Because Buck’s out of tools for this.
“Don’t say that.” Buck hears the way his voice waivers. “Don’t ever say that.”
Another sigh in answer. Painful and sharp with regret.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean that.” Eddie mumbles, he sounds so vulnerable. So lost. Buck’s chest feels like it’s splitting open.
“Eddie…”
The look on his best friend’s face would be enough to bring Buck to his knees if he didn’t have to be the one standing his ground right now.
“I just can’t get my head around—how they could just leave. My parents. ” The words come out rough, like Eddie’s forcing them through a crushed trachea. “How could they walk away with him so easily?” He trails off with a small laugh, and it’s a dull sound. Utterly humourless.
“They always wanted to take him from me.” He adds.
“I know. I know that. But that’s not what this is. Christopher chose to go.” Buck says, and the words destroy something in him to say.
Because Buck sort of hates Eddie’s parents for all of this. Hates them for choosing to take Christopher hundreds of miles away rather than staying in LA to help their son. Their son who so clearly needed their help. Who had been—continued to be, maybe always would— drowning in his grief. Their son who had seen and borne more pain and suffering all his adult life than anyone ever should.
Buck understands—maybe better than anyone—Christopher’s needing space right now. He’d never begrudge the kid for that. But how could Helena and Ramon walk away so effortlessly and leave their own child standing, broken, in the doorway to his empty home. Bereft and in the clutches of something so isolating and—and draining—
But Buck can’t say any of that. Because Buck needs Eddie to get the hell out of bed.
He’d go to war for this man, happily. Easily. And right now Eddie’s biggest enemy is his own damn self.
Buck will battle the Diazes just as soon as his best friend is no longer in the trenches of his debilitating spiral into self-sabotage.
“Yeah. You’re right.” Eddie snarls, “I drove my son away, Buck. My son.”
“Eddie.”
“Just like I drove his mother away. And he lost two years of time with her. Two whole years.”
“That’s not all on you, Eddie. Shannon made choices too.”
He’s tentative as he says it, because Buck understands Shannon’s decisions also. But he’s not going to argue that what happened between her and Eddie was anything other than messy.
“Choices I pushed her to make!” Eddie growls the words. “Me , Buck. I drove my wife away, because I was too damn broken, too damn afraid to have her back.”
The words strike a chord. Lance through Buck’s chest like splinters of broken glass.
You can have my back any day.
Or you could have mine.
“Eddie.” He murmurs, shaking off the memory. Focuses on the implications of self-loathing in his best friend’s words, because that’s all that’s important right now. “Have you spoken to Frank at all since Chris left?”
The scoff that leaves Eddie’s lips is hard-edged.
“What the hell is Frank going to do?”
“Help you process—”
“I’ve been processing! I’ve been processing for years.”
“No. No, Eddie.” Buck’s voice cracks like a whip. “I don’t think you have.”
Eddie’s expression shuts down. The look he sends Buck’s way is flat. Cold.
“Don’t do this, man.” Eddie hauls himself out of bed with a groan, stumbling out of his bedroom and down the hallway.
Buck waits a heartbeat or two to catch his breath then rushes to follow.
“No, Eddie. We have to do this.” He calls to his best friend’s back. “You—you started dating a woman who looks exactly like your late wife. That’s not processing your grief, Eddie. It’s almost the exact damn opposite.”
“Yeah, I’m well aware of what I did, Buck. Thanks for the reminder.”
Buck glances pointedly at the disarray of the house. Towards the empty room where Eddie’s son used to sleep.
“Yeah, well maybe you need the reminder.”
Eddie throws another vicious glare at him over his shoulder as he storms into the kitchen, but at least he’s out of bed so Buck will take it as a win.
He hangs back a little in the doorway, watching as Eddie pours ground coffee into the top of the coffee maker.
Buck steadies himself. One breath. Two. Heart racing as he lines up the words he needs to say next, and takes a step forward.
“Listen, man. What Kim did was insane. And I’m not fully convinced she had purely selfless motives when doing it but what I do know? Is that you’re not processing Shannon’s death, Eddie. At all. You never have. You live in it, every day.”
Eddie’s hand trembles as he sets down two mugs on the counter, hard.
“She died in my arms.” He breathes out, his back to Buck as his voice grows in volume with each word. “She died and I couldn’t do anything— not a damn thing— to save her.”
“I know.”
“And we were meant to spend our lives together. We were meant to do this together.” Eddie flings out his arms, gestures to the kitchen, the house. Hell, maybe the whole damn world. “Raise our son, grow old side by side.”
“No.” Buck mutters, voice quiet. And he knows how deep a wound his next words will inflict. He says them anyway. “That’s not it.”
Brown eyes whirl to face him, the mirth and warmth Buck usually finds in them is long gone.
Buck’s entirely sure that Christopher took it all with him.
“What did you just say to me?” Eddie snaps.
Buck takes another deep breath. In for a penny.
“I said, that’s not it, Eddie. That’s not what has you so twisted up. That’s not why you can’t let her go.”
“What would you know about any of it, Evan?”
The words are designed to hurt. To dismiss him. Buck knows that; he barely even registers the sting. He waves his hand, shaking his head with a flat smile.
“I know you. I know you better than anyone. I know when you’re lying.”
Eddie scoffs as he turns back to making coffee. His finger pushes hard at the on switch.
And Buck keeps pushing too, inching his friend toward admitting whatever it is that’s been eating at him for five years.
“So what is it, Eddie? What are you holding on to?”
“Buck.” It’s a warning, short and hissed out between clenched teeth. “Leave it.”
“I know you love her, Eddie. I know you always will. But whatever this is… it’s about more than that. So what. Is. It?”
A crash shatters the tension between them as Eddie slams an empty coffee pot against the counter, glass exploding in every direction.
Neither of them acknowledge the mess.
“She was going to leave me all over again!” Eddie roars the words. Screams them, chokes on them.
“There it is.” Buck murmurs, heart breaking, cleaved open for this man. This man who he loves, this man who deserves happiness.
Who deserves closure.
Not the false, unhinged kind offered by a person who barely knows him, but real, honest to God closure. A happy ending for this particular ghost story.
“She—she asked for a divorce.” Eddie continues. “I loved her and she didn’t—she wanted—”
“She wanted to leave again.” Buck finishes Eddie’s choked off sentence, quietly.
Eddie—still facing away—hangs his head, tucking his chin against his chest. His whole body shakes.
“Sometimes I think I might hate her.” He admits softly. “Sometimes I actually do hate her. How can you love someone so much and hate them all at the same time?”
Buck shakes his head, doesn’t speak. Isn’t entirely sure he could even if he knew what to say.
“I love her. I hate her. And she’s dead.” The words are whispered, almost reverent.
“I know.”
“And there’s nowhere for it all to go. She’s dead, Buck.”
“She is.”
“And so I—I can’t hate her. Because that’s an awful thing to think. But I can’t tell her how—how angry I am at her, either. I’m so fucking angry. All the time. I was ready to—to fix what broke between us and she wanted to finally break it completely. And then she died.”
He goes silent, ragged breaths heaving in his chest.
“Eddie. I can’t ever pretend to understand what that feels like, but I can… imagine it.”
Collapsing earth, sniper shots and lightning. So many things unsaid between them, left behind to haunt sterile hospital rooms and blood splattered streets.
Maybe Buck understands a little more than either of them are willing to admit.
“I think you—I think you need help, man. From someone who can help you understand. So you can… move past this.”
Eddie doesn’t answer. Just lifts his hands to clutch at his own cheeks as he starts to sob, burying his face into trembling fingers.
Buck closes the distance between them. Stands against his back, but doesn’t reach out. He just—just wants Eddie to know he’s there. To lean against. To hold him up, if he needs it.
Eddie doesn’t lean back—doesn’t take Buck’s offer of shared strength—but he does calm some, eventually.
“What does any of this have to do with fixing my relationship with my son.” He whispers toward the window, as his hands drop away from his face with a furious scrub against his jaw.
Buck inhales, slow and settling.
“It doesn’t, not really.” He murmurs. “But facing it might just help you fix yourself. Chris will come home, Eddie. He loves you, he loves you so much. He deserves to come home to you happy and whole.”
Buck let’s the words settle before finally adding, voice hushed: “You deserve it too.”
There’s a trembling breath in the silence that surrounds them, and Eddie turns into the space between their bodies. Brown eyes full of desperation meet blue.
“How can you be sure—that he’ll come home?”
“Invisible strings.” Buck answers immediately.
“What?”
Buck ducks his head, feels his cheeks flood with colour as he runs a hand absently over the back of his neck.
“You know. Carla’s whole thing during COVID. We’re all connected to the people we love. There’s a string from Chris’ heart to yours. Nothing can break it. So Chris will come back.”
“You didn’t.”
Buck blinks then flinches back a little.
“What?”
“You left home and never went back.”
Buck’s mouth opens on a gasp. Because how could Eddie think—
“You’re nothing like them, Eddie. Nothing.”
Eddie’s gaze hardens, his jaw flexes.
“Your parents hid in their grief for years and hurt you because of it. How exactly am I different?”
Buck can’t stop staring at the tears on Eddie’s cheeks. The hopelessness nearly brings him to his knees.
“I didn’t go back to Hershey because I never felt loved there. Because my parents acted like I didn’t exist. But you, Jesus Eddie. You love Chris every day. You show him that love every day.”
“I let him down.”
Buck nods.
“Yeah.”
“I failed him.”
“Yup.”
Eddie’s glare is so sudden, Buck nearly laughs.
“Sorry how is this you proving to me that I’m nothing like your parents, exactly?”
Buck quirks his lips in apology, then explains.
“You think they’ve ever actually admitted to messing up? No. Not once, not really. The closest they came to showing me love was in a damn coma dream.” Buck’s voice is soft as he moves forward a step to clasp Eddie’s shoulder. “Yes, you failed Chris—”
The words taste a little acidic on his tongue—he’s not used to pointing out Eddie’s faults, his mistakes. It feels alien, feels a little sacrilegious—but he pushes past the wrongness of it. Focuses on the point.
“You fail him everyday. But you love him enough to never stop trying.” Buck says, and he lets a small grin tug the corner of his lips up. Buck watches his words land as intended; Eddie’s answering smile is small and hesitant. But he does smile. “So I need you to try. Chris needs you to try. That’s all that matters.”
“How do I even—how do I do that?”
Buck picks up Eddie’s phone from the counter and holds it out to him.
“Call your damn therapist.” He says with another small smirk. “And be honest with him.”