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So, Eddie’s gay. Like, very gay.
In hindsight, he probably should have figured that out years ago, before Ana and Marisol and Kim, sometime in between shaking hands with his stubborn new coworker and writing him into his will.
It shouldn’t have taken years to understand that he wasn’t in love with Ana or Marisol. And he loved Shannon, sure, but he’s not sure he was ever really in love with her, either.
But Buck… he’s really in love with Buck.
He’s also really fucking drunk. Jesus.
“You doing okay?” Hen asks, watching him across the table with something like amusement in her eyes.
“Hm,” Eddie mumbles, watching across the bar as Buck has an inaudible conversation with the bartender, gorgeous and sweet and endlessly charming. “I’m good.”
“Whatcha looking at?”
“I just love him so much,” Eddie sighs. “You know?”
“I know.” (She does. Eddie told her two weeks ago, when Buck announced to the firehouse that he and Tommy had broken up and Eddie had a sexuality crisis of epic proportions about it.) “Hey, do you want some water?”
“I want to tell him.”
“You want to— Okay.” Hen blinks. “Yeah. Let’s do it!”
Eddie thinks it’s possible Hen is also drunk. But then Buck and Chim come back and all he’s thinking is Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck.
“Hi,” Buck says, with his mouth. His mouth is so ridiculous. Hi. Who says that? “Miss me?”
“So much,” Eddie confesses.
Buck puts a glass of water down in front of him. “For you,” he says.
Eddie tries to conjure up some annoyance, some kind of protest at being given water, but all he can think about is the fact that Buck is taking care of him. He looks so cute tonight. Eddie wants to kiss his stupid, cute face right on its stupid, cute birthmark. He shuts his mouth and drinks his water.
The rest of the night is a teeny bit fuzzy. Eddie spends most of it watching his coworkers talk to each other—well, mostly just Buck—and sipping at his water. He’s not sure how it happens, but he blinks and it’s just him and Buck left.
“Where’d everybody go?”
“Alright, kid.” Buck hauls him to his feet. (He’s so strong.) “Let’s get you home.”
“Not a kid,” Eddie argues. “I am… a big, strong man.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Buck mutters. “Come on. Our Uber is outside.”
Eddie lets Buck lead him out to the car, and he only almost trips over his feet twice. It’s less because he’s drunk and more because all he can think about is kissing Buck’s face and he can’t take his eyes off of Buck for long enough to look where he’s going.
Buck, for his part, is oblivious as usual. He slides into the car and starts chattering away with the Uber driver, seemingly unaware of Eddie’s eyes on him. “Yeah,” he’s saying. “Its original name was actually UberCab. Cool, right? The other day, I saw this thing…”
Eddie lets his eyes slide closed and he slumps in his seat, face against the cool glass of the window, letting the familiar rise and fall of Buck’s voice lull him to sleep.
Eddie wakes up with two thoughts. First: He has to pee. Second: He has to tell Buck he’s in love with him. Third: The car has stopped. Wait—that’s three thoughts. Whatever.
The door he’s leaning against opens and he’s falling for a split second, but Buck’s strong arms are scooping him right out of the air and pulling him to his feet. “I can do it myself,” Eddie says, shaking off his disorientation, and Buck steadies him for another second before letting go.
He’s right—he can. Now that he’s awake, he’s starting to sober up a little bit. He should… eat some bread. Or something. “You get bread, I’ll go to the bathroom,” he mumbles over his shoulder as Buck follows him up to his front door.
Buck laughs. “Yes, sir.”
When he comes out of the bathroom, he finds Buck at the counter, buttering toast for both of them. Buck’s jacket is slung over the back of a chair, leaving him in a t-shirt so inappropriately tight he might as well be stark fucking naked in Eddie’s kitchen. His shirtsleeves are hanging on for dear life, stretched to their limit by Buck’s huge biceps. Eddie feels dizzy. “Can you grab us some water?”
Eddie complies, and he only spills a tiny bit as he sets them down on the coffee table. Buck follows him into the living room, and they eat their toast in silence for a while.
“Thanks for taking me home,” Eddie says eventually.
“Any time. Every time. Whenever.”
“I promise not to get this drunk every time.”
“You usually stick to one or two,” Buck agrees. He smiles, a proper Buck smile, and his birthmark scrunches. A familiar rush of feeling, one that Eddie recognizes easily as the desire to kiss Buck—on the birthmark, on the cheek, on the forehead, on the mouth—rips through him like a current.
“Uh huh. But today…” Eddie closes his eyes. It’s time. “I don’t know. I wanted to— to tell you…”
Buck frowns, leaning forward. “What? What’s going on?”
“You make me crazy,” he blurts out.
Buck’s face goes carefully blank. “What?”
“You make me crazy,” Eddie repeats. “God. Every time you talk. Every time you do anything at all—” he cuts himself off. This is supposed to be his big, sweeping love confession. “Wait. Sorry. I’m not great with words, but— I can’t stand it anymore. Lemme start over. Buck, I—”
“Actually, I think you made yourself clear.” Buck stands up, stone-faced, and Eddie’s heart sinks.
“Buck—”
“Goodnight, Eddie.”
Eddie’s still frozen in place when he hears the front door shut and the faint sound of Buck’s key as he locks it behind him.
Well. That went great.
Luckily, they don’t have work in the morning, so Eddie has about twenty-four hours to be miserable and heartsick and hungover before he has to show his face in public again. Sitting in his house alone, with his son across the country hating him and his best friend across the city hating him, Eddie can’t bring himself to regret confessing. Or—trying to confess, at least.
Buck deserves to know just how loved he is. His reaction wasn’t exactly what Eddie expected, but he’ll probably get over it in a few days and everything will go back to normal.
Right?
It just doesn’t make sense. None of it does. Eddie didn’t think he had any expectations, but some part of him had started to actually, genuinely hope that Buck returned his feelings.
Not only did Buck not return his feelings, he couldn’t even sit there and listen as Eddie explained them. He couldn’t even go to the trouble to reject Eddie properly.
But a rejection is exactly what that was. Eddie has to face the music. He confessed to Buck, and he was rejected. Maybe, if he just tries to move on, to leave his feelings behind him, they can salvage their friendship. He’ll just try to be normal at work, and he can have dinner with Buck and apologize, and it’ll be just like it never happened.
Eddie is almost sure of it.
Buck doesn’t even look at him when he walks into work the next day, just keeps angrily lifting weights like Eddie’s not even there. And it only gets worse from there. At least Captain Gerrard is long gone, he can’t help but think. Bobby is much better equipped to put up with whatever the hell is going on between them.
When Chim sees Eddie, his eyes widen. “Oh. I was going to ask if you knew what was going on with Buck’s face, but you’re making the exact same one.”
Eddie ignores him and pours himself a coffee. He’s going to need it.
Buck doesn’t talk to him, but about ten withering looks later, Eddie needs some air. He excuses himself to the parking lot and that’s where Hen finds him a few minutes later: standing outside, leaning against the wall.
“What’s going on with you and Buck?”
Eddie shakes his head. “I told Buck I was in love with him.”
Hen’s eyes widen.
“Well, okay,” Eddie immediately amends, “not exactly. But I, like, hinted at it—I was working up to it—and then he just cut me off and stormed out.”
“What exactly did you say?”
“I don’t know, I was drunk!” Eddie groans, letting his head fall back against the wall. “It was along the lines of ‘I’m crazy about you’ or something. And now he’s being so… cold.”
Hen frowns. “That’s so unlike him. I honestly thought… well. It doesn’t matter.”
“What?” Eddie pushes.
“I thought he would be thrilled to hear that you have feelings for him. But, even if he doesn’t feel the same way, I never would have guessed that he’d react like this.” She sighs. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I really hope things work out between you two. You’ve been his best friend for almost as long as I’ve known you.”
“Thanks, Hen.” Eddie pulls her into a hug. They’ve never been the closest friends on the 118, their friendship easily overshadowed by Hen’s partnership with Chim and Eddie’s with Buck, but she pulls him in easily and holds him tight. Even in the face of everything she’s been going through recently with Mara, she’s been a steady point for Eddie over the last few weeks, and she’s still the only person he’s out to.
Well, he guesses Buck knows too, now that Eddie drunkenly half-confessed to him in his dark living room. But Hen has been so supportive and understanding that he resolves not to take her for granted again.
“Ready to go back in?”
He nods. “Lead the way.”
The shift goes fine, all things considered. Buck and Eddie work… well, not together, but side-by-side, and Buck mostly ignores him but they make it through call after excruciating call together and then it’s over. They don’t make it through without a few concerned looks from Bobby. Eddie notices Chim trying to corner Buck a few times, but Buck dodges him every time.
Huh. Eddie guesses the cold shoulder isn’t reserved specifically for him. Just like the rest of Buck: not his.
Towards the end of the shift, Eddie goes looking for Buck. He finds him in the loft, packing leftover casserole into Tupperware containers to put in the fridge. He was hoping for a little bit of privacy, but almost everyone is up here.
“Hey. Would you— do you want to come over today? I think we should talk,” Eddie says quietly, trying not to draw attention from Chim, Hen, Bobby, and Ravi at the table, and the group of firefighters playing cards on the couches.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Buck says loudly to the fridge.
The loft falls completely silent as every head in the firehouse swivels to look at them. He can’t believe Buck right now.
“Buck,” Eddie hisses, even though keeping his voice down is pointless now that everyone is watching them.
“I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other. Unless of course you have any more big confessions to drop on me.”
Eddie feels the words like a punch to the gut. “Seriously? You want to do this here? Fine.” He turns to face the room. “Everyone, I have an announcement. The other night I told Buck I was in love with him, and now he won’t even look at me.” With a sick sort of satisfaction, he waits for a second to watch the shock register on everyone’s faces before he turns back to Buck. “Are you happy? Is that what you wanted?”
Buck’s face crumples, and Eddie has to get out of here. He turns on his heel and marches down the stairs, past the firetrucks, and right out the front door, getting into his truck and driving away without stopping once to look over his shoulder.
He laughs to himself, a little hysterical, as he drives home. Well, that was a horribly unprofessional way to come out to everyone at work. Bobby probably isn’t going to be very happy with either of them. His phone rings, and he ignores it.
His eyes burn the whole way home, but he refuses to cry. It’s not like Buck even properly rejected him, really. He just walked right out without even letting Eddie finish, then refused to look at him for a whole shift. Well, that’s rejection enough for Eddie. He doesn’t think he could take it if Buck looked him in the eye and said I just don’t like you like that.
It’s for the best, really. It’s… fine. It’s completely fine. He’s fine.
Eddie tunes out the voice in his head (the one that sounds suspiciously like Frank) telling him it’s not fine, that he should feel his feelings, that ignoring it doesn’t make him any more of a man.
He pulls into his driveway and walks into the empty house. “Honey, I’m home,” he mutters to the air.
Feel his feelings. He can do that. Right now he feels… like he needs to sleep for a hundred years. And then maybe eat some ice cream. And even though they just spent twenty-four hours together, he misses Buck with everything in him. It’s almost like he can hear the familiar sound of his key in the door, the phantom echo of the door creaking open and the ghost of his footsteps haunting every corner of Eddie’s mind.
Wait—it’s not a ghost. Those footsteps are real. Eddie turns around in time to see Buck walking into his house and kicking off his shoes like he has a million times before.
“What—” Eddie tries, but his voice fails him. He turns around and walks to the kitchen to get two beers from the fridge, his muscle memory kicking in where his brain has given up. Buck’s very real footsteps follow him in.
“You did not tell me you’re in love with me,” Buck accuses, voice hoarse.
“I tried! You walked out before I could,” Eddie accuses in return, setting the bottles down on the counter without opening them. “I said I was crazy about you.”
Buck stares at him, dumbfounded. “You said I make you crazy.”
“You do! When you’re around me, I can’t think about anything else. I can barely string two thoughts together sometimes.” Eddie shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s— not what you want to hear.”
“My—” Buck swallows. “When I was a kid, my mom would tell me I drove her crazy all the time. When I— when I talked too much, or got too excited, or when I got in trouble at school. So when you said…”
“You thought I was saying you talk too much?” Eddie’s heart breaks all over again. “Buck, I— I know I’m not the best at saying what I mean, but you can’t possibly think I would ever be annoyed or mad at you for being who you are. I love who you are.”
“Oh.” Buck’s voice wobbles, and his eyes well up with tears. “Well, that’s good to know.”
Eddie watches him carefully. “So you’re not angry about my feelings?”
“Angry? Eddie, how could I be angry with you for that?”
“I mean, you might think that I’ve been taking advantage of your friendship—“
“You haven’t.”
“—or that it’s, like, gross of me—“
“I’m an ally.”
“—or that this is going to ruin our friendship—“
“Eddie, will you just—“ Buck grabs him by the front of his shirt, backs him into the fridge, and kisses him. Buck kisses him. Buck kisses him. Buck kisses him. Eddie thinks his brain might actually be melting.
It’s just that he’s kissing Buck right now. Buck, the best friend he’s ever had. Buck, with his ridiculous mouth and his wonderful brain and the purest heart Eddie’s ever known. Buck, with his birthmark and his silly hair and his endless supply of fun facts. Buck, who at this very moment is kissing him enthusiastically, hands still curled into his shirt like he’s never going to let go.
Eddie soaks it up and lets himself be kissed, hands clutching at the muscles of Buck’s arms. His arms. These are the arms he’s been staring at for weeks, months, maybe even years. Holy fuck, he thinks. Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck.
Buck eventually lets him come up for air, grinning sheepishly like he didn’t just make Eddie’s entire brain evaporate out of his skull. “See, I couldn’t be mad that you’re in love with me. It would be hypocritical.”
“Buck,” Eddie manages. Ten minutes ago this was one of the worst days of Eddie’s life. Now he’s so happy he thinks he might actually just start levitating off the ground.
“I love you, Eddie.”
“Buck,” Eddie says again, not sure if he’s laughing or crying, and Buck kisses him again. “I love you so much. I love you so much,” he says into Buck’s mouth, and Buck might be crying a little bit too.
They kiss for a while, melodramatic and young and in love, until they calm down enough that they’re just standing against the fridge, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air. There’s a fridge magnet digging into Eddie’s back, but there’s nowhere in the world he would rather be right now.
“I love you,” Buck whispers again, like he just wants to feel the words in his mouth.
“I love you,” Eddie returns.
“Tell me again.”
“I love you.”
Buck kisses him. “Again.”
“I love you. I love you. I am head-over-heels in love with you.”
“You’re crazy about me?” Buck supplies hopefully.
“I’m crazy about you,” Eddie confirms.
“Okay.” They finally pull far enough apart to look at each other. Buck smiles at Eddie through his eyelashes, and Eddie would move entire continents for this man.
He searches inside himself for the words to express this feeling, but he comes up empty-handed. “D’you want a beer?” He offers instead.
“It’s eight A.M.”
“Oh.” He thinks for a minute. “Do you want to take a nap?”
“Yeah.” Buck gives a little self-conscious laugh. “I’m really tired. Thinking you only tolerated me for an entire shift was kind of exhausting.” He steps away, tugging Eddie by the hand toward his bedroom.
Eddie follows him down the hall, marveling at the way Buck knows his house so well that he can walk backwards through it without even glancing over his shoulder.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Buck says, grinning.
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Eddie lies. He’s been smiling for so long his cheeks are starting to hurt.
Eddie’s bedroom door is open, but Buck stops in the doorway and kisses him against the doorframe anyway. Eddie's already getting addicted to being kissed like this: the softness of Buck's mouth; the delicious scratch of his stubble; the earnest, almost boyish way he kisses with his whole body. It's so Buck that Eddie loves it instantly.
“Ready?” Buck asks. It’s strange—all they’re planning on doing is sleeping, and it’s not even the first time they’ve slept in the same bed—but it feels momentous anyway.
“Take me to bed,” Eddie says.
“It’s your bed.”
“Fine, I’ll take you.” Eddie’s pulling him toward the bed when he’s struck by a familiar urge, one he’s felt a million times before. He pushes it down out of habit, but then a beautiful realization dawns on him: this is something he can have.
“Wait a second.” He tugs Buck in by his waist. “Come here.” Buck goes easily, and Eddie reaches up and presses his mouth to Buck’s birthmark.
Relief sings through his whole body. He thinks he might actually be floating. He can do this whenever he wants now. He thinks about pulling away, but… he doesn’t have anywhere to be. He can stay like this another minute.
Buck’s eyes are closed, and he’s leaning into the contact, but after a while he starts to shake with silent laughter. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
Reluctantly, Eddie finally pulls back. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he tells him, sighing. “No idea.” He presses another kiss over Buck’s birthmark, a quick one, just for good measure.
“You can do it every day now,” Buck offers.
“Ten times a day,” Eddie says, deadly serious.
Buck laughs at him. “Sure. Ten times a day. Now take me to bed.”
“And then dinner? Later?”
“Like a date?”
Eddie watches Buck’s face as they climb into bed. “Yeah, like a date.”
Buck reaches out and switches off the lamp. In the little bits of daylight peeking around the edges of the curtains, Eddie can see the profile of his nose and jaw as he stares up at the ceiling in the dark. “Eddie,” he says, suddenly quiet. “This is forever, right?”
“Yeah,” Eddie assures him, just as quiet. “It is.”