Work Text:
May, 2028
Eddie looks out over his backyard as he leans on the deck railing and thinks, It’s been a long road to get here.
Four years ago, when Christopher left for Texas, Eddie could barely see a way through the darkness.
But, Buck.
Buck, who chose Eddie over everything else. Chose him over Tommy, which spelled the end of their burgeoning romance. Chose him and his disaster of a home, of a life, over stability and a luxurious loft. Chose to walk into the mess and instead of running away or passing judgment, who started picking up the pieces and cleaning up the broken parts of Eddie’s life.
June, 2024
It was a Thursday, and Eddie had called out of a twenty-four the morning before. It wasn’t so much that he hadn’t wanted to go to work – really it was that, for the first time in his life, he couldn’t make himself get up and out of bed. Eddie had always prided himself on his compartmentalization skills, never letting his emotions get in the way of what needed to be done, but things had changed. In the two weeks since Christopher had left, Eddie’s life had completely fallen apart.
He barely ate, he slept fitfully if at all, he rarely left the house, even randomly called out of work on days where it all just felt like too much, which he had never done before. The weight of his failures was a heavy load he didn’t know how to carry. Dirty dishes were stacked up in the sink. Piles of dirty laundry were littered through the house. Half-empty takeout containers moldered on Eddie’s nightstand, on the coffee table, and in the fridge. And in the back of his mind, he honestly considered ending it all – not with a specific plan, but the idea of not having to feel so empty and exhausted all the time was a tempting thought.
It was just past eight in the morning, and Eddie’s stomach rumbled in hunger, but he made no move to get up and find something to eat. He felt disgusting and dirty– he couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a shower – and he felt tears creeping up behind his eyes as he contemplated what a clusterfuck his life had become.
He heard a key scratch in the lock on the front door, then footsteps coming in. Finally, a voice. “Eddie? Eds?”
Shit. It was Buck. Buck, who Eddie had been avoiding on every shift except for when it was completely necessary to talk to him. Buck, who had called and texted Eddie hundreds of times over the last two weeks, none of which Eddie had answered. Buck, who had been offering to bring groceries, to stay over, to help out whoever he could. Eddie’s stomach twisted and a hot wave of guilt spread over his body so strongly he swore it was as physical as it was emotional.
Buck’s footsteps continued towards Eddie’s bedroom – it was easy to tell in a house as small as his – until the door swung open gently and Buck entered the room.
The embarrassment Eddie was feeling about not responding to Buck’s attempts to communicate with him was quickly replaced by shame at the state of his home. Two weeks without doing dishes, laundry, or really taking care of himself at all had taken its toll.
“Oh, Eds.” There was sympathy and understanding in Buck’s voice. There was no pity, but Eddie still curled in on himself in mortification.
Eddie felt a hand on his leg, felt the bed dip as Buck sat down on the end of it. Through the blanket he could feel Buck’s thumb rubbing gently across his leg. The simple gesture and the feeling of human contact was almost too much for Eddie to handle, and he felt tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. He hadn’t allowed himself to look at Buck yet, preferring to keep his eyes half-shut and trained on an unidentifiable stain on the sheets.
“Eds, can you look at me?” Buck asked, quietly and so, so gently. Slowly, Eddie opened his eyes and slid them over to where Buck was sitting. His expression wasn’t one of pity, but one of deep concern and affection. That really was too much for Eddie to handle, and he lost control of the tears as they spilled over and an ugly sob tore its way out of his throat.
The crying overtook his body and felt uncontrollable even as he felt a pair of strong arms wrap around him, felt himself held against a strong torso, felt a hand run through his greasy hair. Buck rubbed his back in soothing circles, shushing him and whispering comforting words that Eddie didn’t really take in but felt consoled by nonetheless. He couldn’t tell how long it lasted, but eventually he was able to breathe again, little hiccups escaping as he attempted to return to normal.
Eddie leaned his weight against Buck, going boneless and exhausted after having a cry like that. Buck held him up, continuing his soothing back rub, and Eddie dropped his head against Buck’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat as he continued to calm down.
It was a few more minutes before Buck spoke. “Eds, are you listening?” Eddie nodded against Buck’s chest. “Okay, you don’t have to say anything yet, just listen.” He paused for another moment. “First I want to apologize for not realizing sooner how bad things have been for you.” Eddie made a small noise of protest. “No, just listen, remember?” Buck continued. “It’s my job as your best friend to realize when things aren’t right, and I’ve been too wrapped up in myself and my life to see that you really aren’t okay.” Buck nudged his cheek against the side of Eddie’s head. “I can’t say how sorry I am for not realizing sooner. But I’m here now, and I’m gonna help you in any way I can.” Eddie felt the shame smolder inside of his chest. “Don’t overthink it, Eds,” Buck went on. “Friends help each other. That’s how this works. We’re gonna get you back on track, together.”
Eddie’s tears threatened to make a reappearance, but sick of crying, he held them back as best as he could.
“First up, why don’t you go take a nice, hot shower? I think that’ll really help you start to feel better.” Eddie turned his face to look up at Buck, positive he looked like an utter disaster with puffy eyes, splotchy cheeks and snot smeared everywhere. “C’mon,” Buck said, “I’ll get it started for you.”
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Buck half-helped, half-carried Eddie to the bathroom, turned on the hot water for him, helped him out of his t-shirt. He placed his hand on Eddie’s shoulder the way Eddie had done to him so many times before. “Look at me, Eds.” Eddie turned his eyes to Buck’s once more. “Everything is gonna be okay. Take your shower, as long as you need, and I promise life won’t look so rough when you’re done. I’m gonna start working on the house, you just worry about yourself.” Instinctively, without thinking about it too hard, Buck leaned in and gave Eddie a quick kiss on the forehead. “You got this.”
Buck left the bathroom and walked all around the small house to decide what needed the most urgent attention. It seemed to Buck that it was mainly trash, laundry, and dishes that needed to be done, but there was something else he wanted to do first. He grabbed a garbage bag from under the kitchen sink and made his way back to Eddie’s room. He gathered up the few dishes from his nightstand and tossed out the old take-out containers, empty cans. tissues, and other trash that had accumulated there. Then he stripped the bed of the dirty sheets and blankets and put them into the washing machine. He grabbed clean sheets and a spare blanket from the hallway closet and made up the bed again. He took a wipe from the container under the sink to clean off the nightstand and finally grabbed a candle off of Eddie’s dresser and lit it.
Satisfied with the work he had done he grabbed the garbage bag and made his way through the living room and gathered up the garbage from there and finally from the kitchen. He grabbed another trash bag to empty out the refrigerator and brought both bags to the big trash can outside. The dishes would have to wait for a bit, but the house already looked a lot better with all of the garbage taken care of.
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By then, Eddie had finished with his shower and dressed himself in clean clothes, just gym shorts and an LAFD t-shirt, which felt amazing against his skin. He walked back to his bedroom where Buck was waiting, sitting on the bed.
“Better?” Buck inquired. Eddie nodded, not quite feeling ready to talk about how he was feeling or anything of the sort. “Eds, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you look like hell. Have you been sleeping?”
Eddie spoke up, voice scratchy from crying. “Can’t. I just keep worrying about Chris.”
Buck’s face turned into a frown. “Eddie.” But he wasn’t being harsh or judgemental, just concerned. “Why don’t we try to take a nap? I’m tired from my shift, and we could both use the rest. And then later, we can get some food and tackle the rest of the cleaning together, yeah?” Buck turned down the blankets on the freshly made bed. “I changed the sheets, come on.” So Eddie climbed into the bed with Buck, and the clean sheets that smelled like detergent instead of depression.
Buck opened his arms. “Maybe my legendary Buckley cuddles will help you fall asleep.” Eddie rolled his eyes fondly, but the offer of physical contact with Buck was too good to turn down, so he crawled into Buck’s arms and again laid his head on Buck’s chest. Buck returned his hand to Eddie’ back, rubbing in those soothing circles, and Eddie drifted off to a dreamless, deep sleep for the first time since before he had met Kim.
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After waking up tangled together following their nap, Buck searched through Christopher’s desk and found a lime green plastic clipboard. He made a list of everything that needed to get done, and made a discreet call to Maddie asking if she’d be able to lend them a hand. It took most of the afternoon, but with Maddie’s help and an Instacart order the kitchen was totally cleaned up and a homemade meal was on the table by dinner time. Buck volunteered to do the dinner dishes and not-so-subtly implied that Maddie and Eddie could have a chat about mental health while he did so.
It took a few more days to get all of the laundry washed, dried, and put away, but it became a routine for Buck and Eddie to spend the evening watching trashy reality TV (Eddie favored Love Island while Buck couldn’t get enough of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City) and folding whatever clean laundry had piled up. Buck had all but moved in with Eddie, spending every night holding Eddie as he slept, and praying that he could put all of his broken pieces back together.
Over the several weeks following that Thursday, something changed between Buck and Eddie. They were already extremely physically affectionate with one another, always standing or sitting closer than was truly necessary, but in the weeks following that Thursday morning at Eddie’s house they essentially never stopped touching. At the dinner table they would sit next to each other and while you couldn’t see it, their legs would be twisted together under the table. If they were playing Mario Kart at work between calls or watching a movie at home, they were squished together from shoulder to ankle. Buck had started kissing Eddie’s forehead before he left the house or before they fell asleep, and had taken to absentmindedly tracing circles on whatever part of Eddie he could touch, whether in bed, while watching TV, or even in the truck on their way to a call. And then one day in early August, everything changed again.
The two of them were sitting in Eddie’s backyard in a couple of lawn chairs, enjoying the cooler evening weather and chatting about the nature documentary they had watched the night before.
Buck, who had been talking at length about the migration patterns of male sperm whales, suddenly fell silent. Eddie looked over at him. “What’s up, Buck?”
Buck squirmed a bit in his chair. “Do you ever…” He trailed off.
Eddie cocked his head. “Do I ever what?”
“Do you ever think about dating again?”
Eddie blinked. “Where did that come from?” he asked. Dating wasn’t a topic they had discussed much since the early days of Buck living with Eddie, and only discussed it briefly in one conversation:
(“What does Tommy think of you living with another man?” Eddie had made an attempt at a joke as they were getting ready for bed together.
“I don’t care what he thinks, because we’re not together anymore. And before you ask, no, it’s not because of you, and don’t worry about it. Just focus on getting better.”)
Buck ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I just don’t want you to feel like me being here is preventing you from something else.”
Eddie thought for a moment. “I don’t think I even want anything else. After that whole mess with Kim and Marisol…” he trailed off. “No, I don’t think I’ll date again. At least not until Christopher is an adult.”
Over the past two months, Eddie and Christopher had talked on the phone, at first only one call per week and then with much more frequency. School was starting soon, and Christopher had expressed an interest in starting high school in Los Angeles, and was set to come home in a week. Things were far from perfect or even normal, and they had an appointment set up with a family therapist for a few days after Chris’s homecoming, but Eddie was thrilled at the prospect of having Christopher at home again.
Buck nodded at Eddie’s response. “I get it, I mean, given everything that’s happened.” His voice remained neutral, but his eyes gave away a bit of sadness.
Eddie spoke before he had fully formed the thought. “I don’t really need a girlfriend, anyway, not when I have you.” Buck’s expression was inscrutable, a rare occurrence where Eddie couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Eddie continued on, “What would a girlfriend even do for me? You cook for me, and you sleep in my bed, and you make me feel safe and normal, and you love my kid as much as I do.” He said it all casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to share a bed and a home and a life with your male best friend.
Buck’s cheeks flushed. “Well, when you put it like that–”
Eddie interrupted him. “We’re basically dating already, huh? I guess I didn’t think about it like that until now.” He seemed surprisingly calm to Buck. whose heart was about to leap up out of his throat and start walking around the backyard. “I guess there’s really only one aspect of a relationship we haven’t done yet, right, Buck?” And then Eddie was in Buck’s space, pulling his beer bottle from his hand and setting it on the ground, and then Eddie’s lips were on Buck’s and it felt like the world stopped spinning. It took Buck’s brain a minute to get with the program, but once it was on board Buck’s fingers were tangled in Eddie’s T-shirt and he was kissing back and it was the best kiss he’d ever had. In fact, since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.
As they fell asleep that night, after falling into bed kissing with hands touching everywhere and clothes flying off into every direction, Eddie laid on Buck’s chest and couldn’t help but giggle. “What the hell are we going to tell Christopher?”
Buck smiled, his eyes shining deep blue in the dim light. “I think he knew before we did.”
Sure enough, when Christopher returned home, he was ecstatic to find out that Buck and Eddie were officially together, and ribbed them about how everybody knew before they did, and it truly seemed like the past two months had already faded from memory.
May, 2028
Eddie puts up the last decoration above the door leading into the kitchen from the deck. It’s simple, just a banner reading “Congrats Grad!” with black letters outlined in gold, but it’s truly the end of an era, and Eddie felt it important to mark the occasion. Christopher graduated high school last week, and in the fall he’ll be heading to college (college!) at Texas A&M. Eddie is just as proud as he is emotional that his baby boy is all grown up, but today is Christopher’s graduation party, and he and Buck’s first time hosting at their new home.
Since getting together almost four years ago, Buck had moved out of the loft and into Eddie’s home, but with forever in mind, the two of them had saved up enough money and put a down payment on a home just a few streets over from where they had been living.
It’s a beautiful Craftsman-style home, one story tall, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a beautiful kitchen that Buck fell in love with the moment they toured the home. The backyard is spacious with plenty of room for a vegetable garden and hosting parties, of which Christopher’s graduation party is the first.
Eddie leans on the deck railing and looks out at the yard, at the blossoming flowers and the grass which Buck works hard to keep looking green. Sometime in Christopher’s junior year of high school, the 118 had discovered an abandoned litter of kittens in a dumpster while on an unrelated call, and Eddie and Buck had taken a gray tabby home and named her Smoke.
Smoke rubs against Eddie’s ankles as he takes a few deep breaths. Buck is putting the finishing touches on the food, and Christopher and his girlfriend Natalie are playing a video game in the living room while they wait for the guests to arrive. As Eddie looks out at the yard he thinks back to four years ago when his relationship with Chris was up in the air, when he felt like such a failure that he thought it might be better to not be here at all. It wasn’t instant, and it took therapy with Frank, and therapy with Christopher and their family therapist Monica, and of course his relationship with Buck, but he realized over the last four years all of the things that he could have missed if he left.
He would have missed taking a camping trip to Yosemite with Christopher and Buck, and watching his son’s face light up as he caught his first rainbow trout one morning as they were fishing.
He would have missed out on the family beach trip to San Diego where the world’s best adaptive surf instructor helped Chris catch his first wave, and the late night walks as a family of three to get ice cream, and eating burgers as big as his head at Hodad’s.
He would have missed kissing Buck for the first time, the first time he fell apart beneath Buck on that Friday night in early August, the first time he got to introduce Buck as his boyfriend, which made him stutter and blush and feel like he was seventeen again.
He would have missed out on receiving that look Buck throws his way when they’re at work or the grocery store when he catches Eddie staring at him for just a little too long, that flirty-as-all-hell come-and-get-me smirk that Eddie just can’t get enough of.
Eddie’s thoughts are interrupted by strong arms he would know anywhere wrapping around his waist. “Hi, baby,” Buck says in his ear. “Bobby and Athena just got here and Maddie texted that she, Chim, and the kids are on their way.” Buck lands a kiss on Eddie’s cheek. “Feeling a bit introspective, are we?”
Eddie leans back into Buck. “I guess so. It’s such a big deal, you know? Chris is graduating high school. I’m so proud of him. I was thinking about the fact that, y’know, I could have missed this. If you hadn’t come over that day.”
Buck’s arms tighten around Eddie. “I’m proud of you too, you know. For getting through it. I know you always attribute it to me, but I just held your hand. You did all the hard work yourself.”
Eddie turns in Buck’s arms and wraps his arms around Buck. “I love you. And I can’t wait to marry you.” Their wedding is scheduled for the same date as that fateful Thursday, in just a few weeks. It seemed appropriate, and he couldn’t be more excited to get to marry Buck. He gives Buck a kiss, quick enough not to start anything he doesn’t have time to finish but long enough (he hopes) to get across everything he’s feeling, and especially how grateful he is for Buck’s presence in his life over the last ten years, and particularly the way he’s been present over the last four.
“I can’t wait to call you my husband, Eds. But we can be mushy and disgusting later. We have a graduate to celebrate.”
Eddie doesn’t know for sure if there’s a heaven, but he thinks that if this is as close as he ever gets, then that would be enough.