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Buck is a collector.
When he was a kid he had a box stashed under his bed full of cool looking rocks he’d found on his adventures. When he was thirteen his best friend’s older brother was a musician with a huge collection of old vinyl records, and it wasn’t the same but Buck started collecting CDs (the ones Maddie tossed out) so maybe they’d have something to talk about. In his first - and only - semester in college, he’d collected bottle caps from all the local craft beers at his favourite dive bar.
He collected bits and pieces of languages and accents and dialects as he travelled, all of them unfamiliar on his tongue but he was always willing to try - willing to learn. And Buck collected bits and pieces of people, too. Their laughs, and hobbies, and their favourite books, and lemon bar recipes. He held onto them long after the people they came from drifted out of his life.
Above everything, though, Buck collects memories. He wraps them carefully in tissue paper and stores them beneath his ribs, close to his heart where he can always keep them safe. He holds onto them for dear life, because while people always leave, the memories always stay.
Buck doesn’t ever want Eddie to become another memory.
It’s come close, before. Too close. The kind of close that made Buck’s breath lodge in his throat, and his hands tremble, and his heart crack into a spider's web. It’s come so close that Buck had felt the bony fingers of grief gripping onto his heels, and the icy tendrils of loss squeezing around his lungs. It’s come so close that Buck had felt like he was dying, too.
He felt his heart fall 30ft down a well shaft when the earth caved in and buried Eddie beneath it. He felt his blood turn to ice inside of his veins as the crack of a bullet almost stole Eddie from him.
And now that Buck knows the taste of Eddie’s blood, and the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath his hands - the way it stumbled and faltered and slowed as the life drained out of him - Buck doesn’t ever think he’ll be able to unlearn it. That’s a memory he wishes he didn’t have to keep, a memory that has teeth, and claws, and a vice-like grip.
It’s filed away in a collection called do not open.
When the building comes down around them with a shuddering, shrieking groan, when he finds Eddie face down, unmoving, with blood seeping from a gash on his forehead, for a second Buck thinks this is it. He thinks this is the moment he becomes a memory.
Then Eddie moans - a breathless, winded sound - as he rolls over onto his back. His face is scrunched up in pain, crimson is staining his face and dripping down his neck, and his eyes look fuzzy and far away. But Eddie is breathing, and Buck feels like he could collapse with the relief of it all.
Instead, though, he drops carefully to his knees at Eddie’s side.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Hurt like a fucking bitch,” Eddie slurs, his words sticky and slow as he manages to sit up.
Buck snorts out a laugh. “Jesus, you scared me.”
His heart is still beating a too-fast rhythm against his ribcage, his breaths still coming a little too quickly to be entirely comfortable. His hands are sweat-slick inside of his gloves, so he shakes them off and tosses them to the side. Then he wipes his damp hands on his t-shirt, the only part of him that isn’t covered in dust from the collapse.
He’s careful as he reaches his hands out, taking Eddie’s jaw between them and turning his head from side to side so he can assess the damage. There’s a hefty bump and a pretty big cut, and though it’s still oozing blood, the flow has definitely slowed. He keeps his touch gentle and light so he doesn’t cause any more damage, but Eddie - ever the impossible patient - tries to twist out of Buck’s grasp.
“M’fine,” he mumbles, and Buck can’t stop the roll of his eyes.
“You’re bleeding,” Buck informs him.
Eddie pauses for a second. Then his eyes widen in something that looks a lot like panic. His gaze flickers over Buck’s face and body like he’s checking him over for injuries, too. When Eddie sees something he doesn’t like his brows furrow, and he raises a clumsy hand as he tries to reach for Buck’s face. Buck catches Eddie’s hand in his own, holding onto it.
“So are you.” It sounds like his mouth is filled with cotton wool as he speaks, muffled and slow.
There’s a cut on Buck’s cheek that he’d gotten from some falling debris, but it’s nothing more than superficial. It’s nothing to worry about, and it’s certainly not anywhere close to the concussion that Eddie is clearly sporting, if his slurred speech and shifty eyes are anything to go by. And Buck isn’t the medic here, but right now he’s all that they’ve got.
“I’m fine,” Buck insists. “You, however, are concussed.”
“I’m not concussed,” Eddie argues.
Then, as if to prove his point, he tries to clamber to his unsteady feet. He barely even gets one foot beneath him before he’s wobbling, dizzy, and aching, and no doubt nauseous too. Buck has to quickly grab hold of him, manoeuvring him back into a sitting position with his back leaning against the still-standing remnants of what was once a wall.
“Stay,” Buck instructs as he stands back up.
“M’not a dog,” Eddie grumbles, but - thankfully - he doesn’t try to move again.
Then, with Eddie safely seated and unable to further injure himself - for now - Buck begins to survey the area they’re trapped in.
He blinks slowly as he looks around. The collapsed ceiling has blocked out the daylight, so there’s an eerie blue-grey glow from what little is able to seep in through the cracks.
There’s not much room at all, really, but it isn’t so tight that it feels claustrophobic. They’re in a small, roughly 10x6 pocket of space that, for now, seems stable enough that it won’t collapse on top of them. Again. The ceiling - or the floor from above - is slanted at an angle, propped up by the support wall that, thankfully, has held up remarkably well. But Buck still has to duck his head a little when he stands so he doesn’t bang the top of it.
There’s no way out without risking the whole thing caving in around them, so their only saving grace is that there isn’t a fire coming to cook them.
They’d been called to an old, derelict building that was about to be reinforced so it could be turned into an office block. But when the crane they’d been using had broken, and crashed straight into the side of it, it had destabilised the whole thing. And with a construction crew trapped inside, the 118 were set to work getting them out before the place came down on top of them.
But when they’d found the crew - mostly unharmed, aside for a couple cuts and bruises - they’d raised the flag that they thought some homeless people had been camping out inside. So, as they often are, Buck and Eddie had been paired off and sent to search for anyone else while Hen, Chim, Bobby, and Ravi got the crew out.
And then the whole thing gave way.
“We stuck?” Eddie asks, one eye closed and the other squinting at Buck.
He sighs, hands on his hips as he nods his head in defeat. There’s no way they’re getting themselves out of this mess, not with Eddie as unsteady as the building they’re trapped in. They’re gonna have to wait this one out.
“Afraid so,” Buck informs him. “How’s your head?”
Eddie grunts. “Concussed,” he admits, a slight smirk teasing at the corners of his mouth until he prods at the cut and winces.
“Told you.”
“Hey, you can’t be mean to me,” Eddie whines. “I have a concussion.”
Buck snorts out a laugh and Eddie smiles, but it’s dopey and ridiculous and it kind of makes him look like he’s high. He’s got his feet flat on the floor and his knees bent, and his head is tipped back against the wall he’s leaning on. He looks remarkably chill, given the circumstances, and it helps to settle a little of the lingering anxiety thrumming in Buck’s veins.
Eddie’s okay, he reminds himself. He’s safe. His injury doesn’t appear to be all that serious. He’ll have a bitch of a headache for a few days, and he’s gonna feel nauseous and dizzy for a while, but his pupils were equal and reactive to light when Buck had given him the once over. Everything is going to be fine.
The crackle of Buck’s radio forces him to tear his eyes away from Eddie.
“Buckley, Diaz, you copy?”
It’s Bobby’s voice, as steady and even as the man always is. Like the calm right in the center of a hurricane. But Buck knows him well enough by now to hear the hint of panic hiding just beneath the surface, hear the frantic edge to his words.
“Copy, Cap. We’re both here,” he replies.
He hears Bobby’s sigh through the radio. “Are you guys okay?”
Eddie raises his hand up into the air, his thumb sticking up as if Bobby can somehow see him. It makes fondness bloom in Buck’s chest, warm and fuzzy - makes his own mouth twitch into something resembling a smile.
“Eddie has a pretty nasty concussion-”
“-I’m fine,” he interrupts, words slow and slurred. Buck can’t help but grin even though Eddie’s eyes are closed now, and he can’t see him.
“But other than that we’re okay,” Buck says. “We are - uh - a little stuck, though.”
“Where are you two? We’re gonna come and get you.”
Buck looks around him as if that’s going to be any help at all. He doesn’t think under a shit ton of rubble is the kind of specific direction that Bobby is looking for, but it’s kind of all Buck has got right now.
He tries to think back on where they’d been when it felt like the floor and the ceiling gave out on them. They were a flight - maybe two - above where they’d left the rest of the team and the construction crew. But had they headed left, or right? Buck hadn’t been paying all that much attention. He and Eddie had been in the middle of a conversation about Chris - about how he’s slowly settling back into his life in LA, and how much their relationship has started to improve. That had been far more important than the direction he’d taken at the top of the stairs.
“South west corner, third floor.”
Eddie’s voice is mumbly and sleepy-sounding, but he seems pretty sure of himself. So Buck relays the info back to Bobby and then…well. Then the waiting game begins.
They’ll have to wait for the building to be secured enough for the 118 to come looking for them, and then god knows how long it will take for them to actually get Buck and Eddie the hell out of here. So, with nothing else at all to do, Buck drops to the floor beside Eddie.
“They shouldn’t be too long,” Buck says, more wishful thinking than anything else.
Eddie hums quietly. His eyes flutter open, sluggish as he glances around the little pocket that they’re trapped in. Buck can tell that the blow to his head is really starting to hit him by the way he blinks, slow and lazy like every time he closes them, he might not bother to open them again.
“Could be worse, I suppose,” Buck offers as some type of failed attempt at comfort.
Eddie just snorts, carelessly wafting his hand in Buck’s general direction until it makes contact with his chest in a gentle hit. He lets it rest there for a moment, right over Buck’s heart; he must be able to feel the steady beat of it beneath his fingertips.
“How?”
“Could be stuck with Ravi,” Buck jokes. “That kid never shuts up.”
Eddie actually laughs then, though it’s more like a grimace and heavy breathing. Buck will take it anyway. He’s always loved to make Eddie laugh - always loved being the reason for some of his happiness, no matter how small or insignificant.
“You never stop talking,” Eddie argues, and it makes Buck grin. If he’s still giving him shit then he’s doing okay for now.
“And yet you always listen.”
Eddie closes his eyes again, but he’s smiling like he knows a secret that he’s dying to spill. It makes him look soft - endearing, even with the dried blood and dirt on his face.
The quiet hovers over them like a cloud, but it isn’t awkward. It never is with them. Not after everything they’ve been through - everything they’ve survived - together. And that’s a first for Buck, who hates the quiet. Whose childhood was spent holding his tongue, so now he makes up for it by filling every silence that he finds himself in.
It’s different with Eddie, though. There’s never a need to fill the empty space with unnecessary chatter. They can just exist together, quietly and peacefully.
“How are you feeling?” Buck asks when he hears Eddie sigh.
“Nauseous,” Eddie says. “And my head hurts. And I don’t think I turned the coffee machine off this morning.”
Buck laughs, patting Eddie’s thigh gently as he says, “Eddie, I turned the coffee machine off this morning.”
Eddie’s truck is making that weird ticking sound again and neither of them can figure out what the hell it is, and they also haven’t had the time to take it into the garage yet. It’s just safer for everyone involved if Buck plays chauffeur right now, so as Eddie hunted through the house for Christopher’s homework and his spare pair of glasses (he’s broken three pairs so far this year) Buck had made up their travel mugs then switched off the coffee pot.
They’re a well oiled machine, when Buck thinks about it. They have their own rhythm, own routine, own schedule to follow. And the way they’re so entwined with each other’s lives, until they can hardly separate the strands, is just proof of everything they’ve built together. Everything they’ve worked so hard for.
Eddie turns his head to face Buck, opening one eye and setting it firmly on him.
“Are you sure?” He asks. “You know I don’t trust that thing.”
Buck laughs again. Oh he knows, alright. “I’m sure.”
Eddie hums in acknowledgement, and then, ever so slowly, he lists sideways until his head is leaning on Buck’s shoulder. And, like a cat, he nestles his face into the crook of Buck’s neck.
It makes Buck’s breath catch in his throat. It makes his heart stutter inside of his chest, like that feeling you get when you miss a step on the stairs and for a moment it feels like you’re falling. It’s not a new feeling for Buck, not when it comes to Eddie. But it’s one that he’s spent a long time pushing down, a long time doing his absolute best to ignore. Even longer pretending it didn’t even exist at all.
It’s an impossible what-if, an echo of a dream. This thing that Buck could have never even allowed himself to want. If he had - if he’d ever dared to hope for more with Eddie - it might have just torn him apart. Because what they have together with Chris is something so special there aren’t words for it. Buck would never risk that - would never jeopardise this beautiful something that they’ve found together. That they’ve created with their own two hands.
And everything is different now, anyway. Everything has changed.
“How’s Tommy?” Eddie asks, his breath fanning across Buck’s neck. And Buck thinks he sounds a little bitter, a little angry, though that’s probably just the concussion talking.
When Tommy came into the picture, Buck had felt Eddie slipping through his fingers like grains of sand through a sieve. He had been convinced, with some kind of juxtaposed, frantic resignation, that he was about to lose Eddie. As his friend, as his partner, as his…well. His everything. He was convinced he would only be left with memories. And it had made him messy, made him ugly, made him desperate.
He’d left claw marks on Eddie with how tightly he was trying to hold onto him.
And then…well.
Now he and Tommy are - they’re something. Dating. And it was fun when it started; different, and new, and exciting. But now…Buck hasn’t even thought about him once while trapped in here, not until Eddie mentioned his name. That probably isn’t a very good sign.
“He’s…fine.”
There’s not really much else that Buck can say. Everything with Tommy is just fine. And maybe that’s Buck’s fault - maybe he had way too many expectations going into his first relationship with a man. But he’d thought it would be more, somehow. He thought there would be butterflies, and sparks, and chemistry, and instead it’s just…it’s fine.
Kind of boring, really. And not in the familiar, comforting kind of way that he and Eddie have settled into over time. It’s just always the same; the same restaurants, the same played out conversations, the same uncomfortable feeling in Buck’s stomach when Tommy says something a little too weird for his liking.
Eddie scoffs. “He sucks.”
Buck freezes for a second, wondering if maybe he’s the one with the concussion. Eddie had been all about Tommy a couple months ago, and sure, they spend less time together now than they used to, but they’re still friends.
So Buck looks down at where Eddie is still resting on him so he can assess his head injury - make sure it isn’t getting worse. But it looks okay, it’s stopped bleeding completely now, and Eddie looks a little pale and clammy but otherwise seems fine.
“He’s your friend,” Buck reminds him gently.
“He’s your boyfriend.”
“Well, maybe,” Buck laughs. They haven’t exactly labelled it yet. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still your friend, too.”
Eddie shakes his head then whines, instantly regretting the jostling motion. It’s instinct, more than anything, that has Buck bringing his hand up to Eddie’s face and holding his head steady against Buck’s shoulder. His thumb brushes a soothing arc over Eddie’s cheek until he lets out a relieved sigh.
“Don’t wanna be his friend,” Eddie mumbles.
It’s beyond clear by now that his concussion is starting to affect him. It’s like the time Chim had his wisdom teeth removed and Maddie sent the 118 groupchat videos of him. They still get brought out on special occasions, even now.
“Why not?” Buck asks, not because he really wants to know, but because he just wants to keep Eddie talking until the cavalry arrives.
“You shouldn’t date him.”
Buck stills. He had thought Eddie was okay with it? Eddie had told him he was okay with it. It’s been - god - months since that conversation in Buck’s kitchen, when he had come out to Eddie in a haze of fear and adrenaline and excitement. Never once has he expressed any kind of issue with Buck and Tommy before.
“Eddie, I thought-”
“He’s not good enough for you.”
The air leaves Buck’s lungs like a balloon deflating. His mouth twists into an almost-smile that Buck has to fight back. He allows his own head to rest carefully on top of Eddie’s, relishing in the way that he snuggles impossibly closer to Buck.
“Is that right?” Buck asks, teasing him even though Eddie isn’t really capable of picking up on his tone at the moment.
“He calls you Evan.” His voice is so horrified - so absolutely disgusted - that Buck can’t help but laugh.
It’s not even the first time Eddie has brought that up, so it’s not like Buck can blame it on the concussion. He’s said it before after one too many beers, scoffing and rolling his eyes as if it was the worst thing he’d ever heard. As if he was offended on Buck’s behalf.
“You - you’re not his, Buck. Y’know?” Eddie says. “You’re mine.”
Buck’s heart begins to freefall.
“And I’m not good enough for you, either,” Eddie whispers. “But I love you anyway.”
Everything suddenly goes still. It’s like the blood in his veins, the air in the room, the entire goddamn city, freezes in place for the length of a heartbeat.
And then it all comes rushing back at full speed, stealing the breath from his lungs and any thoughts from his head that aren’t EddieEddieEddie; his name a litany, a prayer being tattooed onto Buck’s ribs by the frantic beat of his heart.
He doesn’t know what to say, or do. He doesn’t even know how he’s supposed to feel. This is - it’s the concussion talking, right? It’s just Eddie being friendly. Eddie loving him because they’re friends. Partners. Something. It can’t possibly be more…it can’t be the one thing that Buck has never even let himself dream of. Can it?
“Eddie,” Buck says, not trusting his voice to be anything more than quiet murmur. “Eddie - what do you mean?”
“You shouldn’t be with him. You should be with me.”
Buck’s jaw literally drops. It feels like he can’t catch his breath, like he can’t even move. He opens his mouth to speak, but when words fail him he closes it again. And then opens it. And just as he goes to speak, after rolling the words around his mouth - testing the weight and feel of them - a voice pierces their little bubble.
Buck startles at the sound, and Eddie groans as the movement jolts his head.
“Buck, Eddie?” Hen calls out. “Stand back, we’re coming.”
Eddie is going to be fine.
As suspected he has a pretty nasty concussion, and the doctors want to keep him in overnight just for observations. But - providing that nothing changes or worsens - he’ll be back home tomorrow with a couple of stitches and a hefty bruise, but no lasting damage. And Chris is safe and sound with Hen, Karen, Denny, and Mara, so really, Buck has nothing at all that he needs to worry about.
But Buck is decidedly not fine.
His heart has been beating to the rhythm of Eddie’s name, too hard and fast inside his ribs. His thoughts are racing, his stomach is twisting, and all he wants to do is talk to the one person he can’t talk to right now. All he wants is Eddie.
And that’s kind of a problem, really, given the fact that Tommy has been blowing up his phone to make sure he’s alright.
Buck knows what he has to do. Which is why he’s standing outside of Tommy’s apartment, hand raised to knock on his door, but too scared to actually take the plunge. Because how do you do this? How do you break up with someone because you’re in love with somebody else?
That’s what this is, after all. Love. No matter how much Buck has tried to ignore it, no matter how much he’s tried to shove it down and simply pretend that it’s not happening, it’s always been there. Quiet, sometimes, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. Ferocious other times, like the roar of a wildfire. But always, always present. Always lingering.
And now - now Eddie loves him back.
And maybe they won’t ever be anything; maybe Eddie won’t remember what he said, and maybe Buck will be too scared to risk what they already have by trying to reach for something more, but the truth is that there’s no denying it now. At least not to himself. And it’s not fair - not to him, and not to Tommy - to keep up this charade when his heart does, has, will always belong to Eddie.
So he holds his breath, knocks on the door, and waits.
When it swings open and Tommy realises who’s on his doorstep, he smiles. It’s small but relieved, like he’d been worrying about Buck. It kind of makes Buck want to turn around and run. Or throw up, maybe.
But he won’t be a coward about this; he won’t drag it out any longer than he already has done. Because it’s not like he didn’t already know this relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Buck probably should have known since that very first date, when Tommy made a joke that could have outed him and then left him standing alone on the side of the road. He’d just been so eager to make it work - to give this newly discovered part of him a chance at figuring things out.
Buck knows, now, though. He knows who he is, and he knows what he wants, and it’s not the man standing in front of him.
“Hey, you’re okay,” Tommy says. “Come on in. It’s good to see you.”
“Yeah, yeah we’re fine,” Buck says as he walks inside. “Close call, but we got out alright in the end.”
“And Eddie? I text him, but I haven’t heard back.”
“He can’t look at screens right now,” Buck explains.Though he imagines that even if Eddie could check his phone, he probably wouldn’t be responding to Tommy anyway. “But he’s okay. Just a concussion and a couple of stitches.”
“Good, that’s good. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I - uh. I was hoping we could talk, actually?”
Tommy lets out a sharp burst of laughter. “Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
He’s still grinning though, like he’s just teasing. It’s only when Buck winces that doubt seems to set in, and the smile slowly drops from Tommy’s face. He sighs, crossing his arms across his chest as he perches on the arm of his couch.
The way he’s looking at Buck…it makes him feel small. So he slides his hands into his pockets and rocks nervously back and forth on his heel, wanting desperately to be anywhere other than here. Wanting to be doing anything other than this.
Because knows what it’s like to be Tommy - to be on the other end of a breakup. He’s been there so many times before, and it always sucks even when you know it’s for the best. Even when you’re not completely heartbroken by it, it still feels shitty knowing that someone has decided they no longer want you. Buck doesn’t ever want to make another person feel like that.
“I’m sorry,” Buck says.
Tommy nods. “You’re ending things?”
It’s Buck’s time to nod, as he says, “I had fun, really,” because he did, in the beginning, “but I don’t think this is going anywhere.”
Tommy’s smiling again now, shaking his head a little in what seems to be resigned acceptance. He’s kind of hard to read, though. Buck can never tell when he’s joking or being serious.
“Because of Eddie.”
There’s no uptick in his voice at the end of the phrase: it’s not a question, it’s a statement. It takes Buck aback. Surprise, and guilt, and maybe even embarrassment course through his body. Because…had he been that obvious? He always thought he’d hidden it pretty well, but. Tommy doesn’t seem even the slightest bit surprised. In fact, it kind of seems like he’d been waiting for this. Like it was just a matter of time before Buck called quits on them for the sake of Eddie.
“What do you mean?” he asks, and Tommy actually laughs.
“Come on, Evan. You really think it was my attention you’d been trying to get at that basketball game?”
And…and yes, actually, Buck had. Because he’d spent so long refusing to let himself feel anything other than friendship for Eddie, that he’d been absolutely convinced it had been about Tommy. Tommy was safe, he was new. He wasn’t years worth of shared trauma, and joy, and a whole child. There was no risk, really, when it came to wanting Tommy.
Although, looking back, maybe it was less about actually wanting him, and more about not wanting him to want Eddie. A selfish, twisted way of keeping Eddie all to himself.
“Then why did you…?”
“You were sweet,” Tommy says, shrugging his shoulders. “I figured we’d have fun together. And we did, but…” he trails off, holding his hands out to his sides.
“But,” Buck agrees, nodding his head.
“I hope you and Eddie figure things out, Evan.”
Yeah. So does Buck.
It’s barely ten in the morning when Buck finds himself in front of another door - this time, Eddie’s. His hands are clammy, his heart is beating double time inside of his chest, and he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet with far more energy than someone who only got two hours of sleep last night should be allowed to have. But there’s adrenaline coursing through his veins like he’s about to do a rope rescue, or something. He’s got that nervous excitement feeling in stomach, buzzing like a swarm of bees.
He could use his key and walk straight on in - that’s what he’s been doing for years now - but he knocks and waits for Eddie. Just to prove a point, really.
“Hey,” Eddie says, rearing back a little as if he’s startled to see him. His eyes flicker over Buck’s face, resting on the cut on his cheek for a moment, before looking down at his feet like he’s nervous. “What are you doing here?”
He’s got gauze taped over the gash in his forehead, bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes, and he’s wearing a hoodie that Buck thought he’d lost months ago. He can’t look Buck in the eyes. He looks soft, and sleepy, and Buck would probably kiss him about it if he wasn’t so pissed at him.
“Why didn’t you call me to pick you up?” Buck interrogates him. “I had to hear from my sister that Chim brought you home. I told you to call me. And then I told the doctor to tell you to call me, in case you forgot.”
He walks straight through the door, breezing past Eddie as he closes the door behind them.
This isn’t an outside conversation - Buck doesn’t want Mrs Kovalchuk listening in on what he’s about to say, because then the whole neighbourhood will know how embarrassingly down bad Buck is for Eddie.
Eddie clears his throat and scratches the back of his head - a nervous tic that he’s had for as long as Buck has known him. It gives him away instantly, even when Eddie is trying to play it cool. And it dissipates some of the hurt Buck had been feeling over not being called, makes him feel a little guilty for feeling like that at all, really.
Because if Eddie remembers what he said yesterday while he was concussed - and with his nervous demeanour, it’s a pretty safe guess that he does - then Buck can only imagine how scared he’s feeling. How afraid he is of everything suddenly changing between them.
Buck had felt the very same thing when he first realised, after all. He felt the fear, and the guilt, and the bubbling, frenetic panic that he might be about to lose everything.
“I - uh. I didn’t wanna wake you, y’know?” Eddie laughs awkwardly. “Thought you deserved to sleep in.”
“Eddie,” Buck sighs.
“Yesterday, it was, uh - it was kinda busy, so.”
Eddie is stuttering over his words, searching for any excuse he can wrap his fingers around. And he still won’t look Buck in the eyes; his gaze is fluttering all around the room, at the floor, his hands, Buck’s shoulder, but never at him. Almost like he’s afraid of what he might find there if he does - afraid of rejection, or disgust, or sympathy. Afraid that Buck will look at him differently now. Afraid of change.
But not all change has to be bad. Not when you’re stepping into something beautiful.
“Eddie,” Buck says again, his name a familiar weight on his tongue.
“Do you want a-”
“-look at me.”
It’s not a request, it’s a plea. Buck needs Eddie’s gaze on him - needs the familiar comfort of his rich, earthy brown eyes. He feels like a different, better person when Eddie looks at him. He feels like he could do, or be, anything at all. Like he could really be as good of a person as Eddie seems to think he is.
It takes Eddie entirely too long to work up the courage to finally look Buck in the eyes, as if he’s bracing for impact. But when he does - when blue meets brown, and Buck gets to see all the emotion swirling in them like a whirlpool, Buck almost falls to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers, sounding like he’s choking.
“For what?”
“For what I said yesterday,” he says. “I was concussed, and-”
“Did you mean it?” Buck asks.
Eddie laughs nervously, scratching the back of his head as he replies, “I didn’t know what I was saying, Buck. I was out of it.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” Buck points out to him. “I asked if you meant it.”
Buck doesn’t have to ask, not really. He can see it in Eddie’s eyes, in the way he holds himself, in the way he looks shyer now than Buck has ever seen him in his life. It’s like he’s shrinking in on himself, a child about to be scolded for doing something. Like Eddie thinks he’s done something wrong.
“Look, I know you’re with Tommy. It doesn’t-”
“We broke up,” Buck interrupts.
Eddie falters, flinching backwards as if he’d just been struck. Then he takes a small, unsteady step closer to Buck, glancing down at his feet as if he’s shocked. As if they moved of their own accord and he wasn’t expecting it.
When he looks back up there are tears swimming in his eyes, but there’s something else there too. Something that Buck knows all too well. It’s a desperate, hopeful kind of longing: wanting and wanting and wanting, even when it seems impossible. Even when you know you shouldn’t. Even when you don’t think you stand a chance.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
Buck laughs softly. “Why do you think, Eddie?”
Eddie looks at Buck like he can’t believe this is happening - like he’s too scared to even dare imagine that it might be true. But he takes another unsure step anyway, shifting the slightest bit closer to Buck as if there’s some invisible string drawing him in. Drawing him to Buck, and keeping him tethered.
He takes in a shaking breath, so deep and ragged that Buck can hear the gasp. He can see the way his shoulders and chest rise, and then fall again as he exhales. Buck wants to reach out - wants to press his hand to Eddie’s heart and feel the way it beats beneath his palm.
“So,” Buck says. “Did you mean it?”
A single tear falls, rolling slowly down Eddie’s cheek until he reaches up and swipes it away. Then he’s nodding his head, breathlessly whispering, “Yes. I meant it.”
And suddenly something settles inside of Buck. Like he was a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece, but now it has finally slotted into place. His chest feels looser, like it’s easier to breathe even through the thundering of his heart.
But, more than anything else, Buck just feels relieved. Feels like finally, finally the thing that he’s always wanted is within reach, if only he could be brave enough to grab it.
“How long?”
Eddie laughs then. He shakes his head, runs his hand through his hair, looks at Buck with tear-filled, hopeful eyes.
“Since before I even knew I could feel this way.”
His confession steals the breath from Buck’s lungs.
Eddie is his best friend. He’s the person who knows Buck better than anyone else in this world, and the person who Buck has the privilege of knowing just as thoroughly. Buck has, does, will always choose Eddie, over and over and over again. They were always supposed to know each other, always supposed to find each other. Of that, Buck is certain.
And being just friends with Eddie, well. It’s more than Buck ever could have dreamed of - more than he ever believes he will deserve. But it’s there now, on the very tip of his tongue: the chance of something more. The chance to be something both of them have wanted and wanted, and yet still kept quiet about, because they love each other enough to sacrifice for each other. They love each other enough to keep their confessions trapped between their teeth, clamped into clenched fists, hiding in the spaces between every breath.
But now Buck looks at Eddie, really looks at him, and knows that they don’t have to anymore.
He closes the distance between them, reaching his hands up to wipe away the tears sliding down Eddie’s cheeks. And Eddie gasps, his eyes flickering down to Buck’s lips - a silent question that he’s hoping Buck will answer.
Buck’s hands on Eddie’s face tremble with want.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Yes, please.”
So Buck kisses him.
He kisses him and the entire world falls away, until they’re the only people who exist. Until they’re the only people who matter. Buck kisses him and it feels like freefalling, while knowing someone will be waiting at the bottom to catch you. Buck kisses him, and he kisses him, and he doesn’t ever want to stop. Not in this life, or the next one either. Because Buck knows they’ll find each other there, too - knows that in every life, in every universe, he loves Eddie Diaz.
He holds Eddie’s face, and Eddie grips Buck’s waist, and they are home.
“I love you, too,” Buck whispers.
Eddie laughs, his breath tickling Buck’s lips as he says, “I was concussed, Buck. It doesn’t count.”
“Then tell me again.”
“I love you,” Eddie whispers, smiling so tenderly that Buck feels himself melting.
“I love you, too.”
This time it’s Eddie who closes the distance, claiming Buck’s mouth like it belongs to him. And they slot together like they were created just for this - like their hands were built to hold each other.
And this…this is a memory that Buck is more than happy to collect. He’s going to hold onto for the rest of his life. But he’s going to hold onto Eddie, too. And he’ll never let him go.