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At precisely 8.00AM, Hen and Chimney leap to their feet, sighing in relief that the shift is finally over. It wasn’t particularly grueling but all the calls were long and kind of pointless, just kids in various shenanigans. They got them out of wherever they were stuck, did a quick medical check up, Bobby gave them a stern talking. Then back to the station and wait for another call. It was more draining than a five fire alarm.
The only person unaffected is Buck, all bouncy and smiling, waving goodbye to Chimney and Hen. While the rest of the crew were either sleeping in the bunks or sitting at the table bitching about the shift, Buck was scrolling through cooking tiktoks, saving approximately two thousand recipes he wants to try. Ideally right away. He wants to get Bobby’s opinion on some of them and when he doesn’t see him anywhere in the loft, he goes to his office. The door is open but he can hear voices. He turns around, he can come later but then there’s an exasperated groan he would recognize anywhere. Eddie.
“You need to figure out how to tell him,“ Bobby says. “Buck deserves to know.”
Know what? Buck really shouldn’t be eavesdropping but he can’t help it. What does he deserve to know? And why doesn’t he know it already?
“I know, but how would he react?” Eddie asks. “You know how intense he is. Frankly, it’s exhausting how he is always over at my place…” And that word goes through Buck’s heart like an arrow. He doesn’t even realize he’s retracting until his back is against the wall. There’s ringing in his ears and his whole body pulses with one thought. Get out. Get out. Get out.
Next thing he knows, he’s in his jeep taking the left from the station. He hears his phone buzzing and glances at it. Eddie. Of course, they were supposed to hang out today. Take a nap, make lunch, pick up Chris, and then pizza and a movie in the evening. Buck would sleep over and in the morning, he would make french toast or pancakes and then they would go to the zoo or on a hike, all three of them like a–
How hasn’t he realized earlier? How has he not seen the way he’s been inserting himself into Eddie and Chris’ life? Like he belongs. Like he has a right to. He carved a place for himself without as much as asking if it was okay. Who does he think he is?!
He pulls up in the parking lot of his building and shoots Eddie a quick message about not feeling well. Of course, Eddie doesn’t leave it at that and calls him immediately. Buck takes a deep breath.
“Hey.”
“Buck? What do you mean, you don’t feel well? What’s wrong?” Eddie sounds worried even over the phone. Is it genuine? Or does he pretend for Buck’s sake?
“It’s probably nothing, Eddie, just a bit of a headache. I just need to lie down, I wasn’t able to fall asleep at night,” he answers.
“Okay. Are you still coming over for the movie night?” Eddie asks, reluctant but not pushing. Maybe he’s glad, finally getting some alone time without Buck thrusting his phone in Eddie’s face every three minutes, showing him another random bird video. Without Buck being annoying, being exh–
“Dunno. If I feel better when I wake up,” Buck lies. Altough, maybe it’s not a complete lie, he does feel like shit and has a suspicion a nap won’t fix it. When did he give another person power to completely destroy him with one word? (When a christmas market elf mistook them for a couple with a kid and he realized that’s all he wants from life, that’s when.)
“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Eddie says and Buck has to pinch the bridge of his nose before cries in his car like a sixteen year old who’s just been dumped.
“Thanks. Bye.” Buck ends the call and takes a few seconds to collect himself. Then he gets out of the car and goes home, kicks off his shoes and trudges to his bed, crawling under the blanket and finally, finally letting the tears run free. He cries himself to sleep for the first time since Eddie got shot.
When Buck got the loft, he used to think of it as his home. It was his first real place, no roommates, no sleeping on a couch, no chore schedules. But then he started to sleep on a certain blue couch more than his own bed, and that was home. Not just a place to unwind and hide from the world when needed, not just a space where he could do any stupid stuff without fear of being caught and embarrassed. No, that couch came with two people he could talk to, cook for, hug, and do much funnier stupid stuff with. Home wasn’t a place. It was a feeling of not being alone, of being a part of something. Something he could almost - at night, in that tiny moment right before falling asleep - something he could call a family.
He hasn't realized how much he’s been overstepping. He is a family friend . And it’s time for him to start acting like that. It’s time to give Eddie some space.
So that’s what he’s been doing. Declining Eddie’s offers to hang out with flimsy excuses, hoping Eddie will finally get the message that he doesn’t have to do that, that he doesn’t have to take care of Buck on the expense of his own comfort. He’s been biting his tongue whenever he wants to tell Eddie something he learned from his latest wiki walk. Stopping himself from giving Eddie his opinion when he talks about Chris. Working smoothly with Eddie on calls, then occupying himself with solitary tasks when they’re back at the station, finding something new that needs doing at the opposite side of the station whenever Eddie tries to join him.
After a week or so, Eddie stops poking and probing him which is good, obviously. It also hurts like bitch, how quickly he gave up. And it just proves that Buck pulling away was a good call.
He’ll just have to find a new normal, that's all.
It’s the 118 BBQ night and Buck is at Bobby’s helping him in the kitchen. He couldn’t find his way out of it - didn’t really want to, either. 118 isn’t just Eddie, after all. He figured he could come before anyone else, spend time with Bobby and Athena, and have an excuse to also leave earlier.
He’s humming some melody he doesn’t even recognize himself, feeling at peace for a change. Cooking with Bobby has always had a calming effect on Buck. It’s easy, following Bobby’s occasional instructions and moving like a well oiled machine in his kitchen. It’s like with– nope, not going there. Jesus, he can’t not think about Eddie for even three minutes.
He doesn’t realize Bobby stopped chopping vegetables and is watching him until he clears his throat. Buck looks at him, heart clenching at Bobby’s worried expression.
“What’s going on with you, Buck? You’ve been off for a while.”
“Nothing,” he lies but when Bobby raises an eyebrow, he lets out a sigh. “Okay, not nothing. I’m just working through some stuff, I guess. But I… I, uh, don’t really want to talk about it. I’ll be alright in no time, promise.”
He wants to tell Bobby, he wants it so much, but once he says the words out loud, once they’re out there, in the open, they will be real. Once he names it, he can’t go back, he will have to deal with what it all means - what it says about him as a person, and where does he go from here. And he’s not ready for that yet.
Bobby studies him for a moment longer before nodding shortly. “Okay. But you know you can always come to me if you need to talk something out?”
“Yeah,” Buck says and smiles, first real smile in what feels like forever. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, kid.” Bobby pulls him in a little side-hug, something he’s made a habit of since the lightning strike, something Buck would never admit to liking so much. “Now let’s go out to the rest of the party, I’m sure everyone misses us.”
Buck takes a deep breath, grabs the salad bowl and follows Bobby. It can’t be that hard, can it? There are about fifteen people out there and he just needs to avoid one. It’s gonna be okay. It has to.
After an hour, it’s not okay. Buck is standing in the bathroom, gripping the sink so tight his knuckles are white. Water is dripping down his face where he splashed it at himself in an attempt to get his shit together.
He can’t do it. He can’t. He can’t be near Eddie outside work and pretend everything is fine, second guessing every word, every little gesture. Calculating how much of Eddie’s time and attention he’s stealing. Where’s the line where he starts to be a bother.
If Eddie seeks him out once more, trying to make small talk about the last baseball game, his most recent kitchen disaster, Tía Pepa’s favorite telenovela that Eddie watches with her just because he’s a good nephew, not because he likes it - or anything else, he’s gonna tear his hair out. Eddie is just too fucking kind, being a good friend even when he finds it exh– tiring. So, like the coward he is, Buck slips out of the house without telling anyone. They will be pissed but that’s a problem for future Buck.
Once at home, he sits down at the table and lays his head on the cold wood. How long is this going to take? Will it ever stop hurting? Or is this how he’s going to live from now on, with a gaping hole where his heart used to be? What other option does he have? He knew from the moment he heard that word out of Eddie’s mouth that he had to tone it down before Eddie snapped and Buck lost him completely. He just didn’t think distancing himself from Eddie would hurt this much.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there before there’s a knock on the door and Buck groans. He bets it’s Maddie, worried why he left the party so abruptly. She was watching him, eyes narrowed in suspicion, every time he looked in her direction. Buck has no idea what he’s gonna tell her. She’s always been good at seeing right through him so there’s no real use to lie. At the same time, he won’t be able to take her pity if he tells her the truth.
Well he’s gonna have to wing it. He opens the door and a gasp falls from his lips. Because of course it’s not Maddie, of fucking course.
“Eddie? What are you doing here? Did something happen at Bobby’s?” Buck asks.
“So now something has to happen for me to come here?” Eddie asks and pushes past Buck, stopping in the middle of the room, arms crossed and expression unreadable. Buck takes a deep breath and acting on autopilot, he closes the door and goes to the fridge to take two beers out. His eyes sting at how the action feels so right and familiar.
“Buck, what’s the matter with you?” Eddie asks, waving away the beer Buck offers him.
“I don’t know what–”
“Cut the bullshit.” Eddie glares at him as Buck places both bottles on the kitchen island. “Something is going on. Did I do something? Is it something with your family? Your health?”
Buck’s heart hurts at the concern. How was he lucky enough to make such a good person his friend? And how was he dumb enough to almost ruin it being… Being Buck.
“It’s nothing, Eddie, just leave it,” he says.
“Hell no!” Eddie says sharply. “I tried to give you space to come to me on your own time but clearly, that’s not happening. You don’t talk to me outside work, you don’t come over, you don’t text, nothing. This isn’t normal. So spit it out, Buckley, and we can work it out.”
And listen, Buck is tired. He is so tired from all this shit. He is tired of the days off spent alone instead of with his best friend and his best friend’s son. He is tired of locking his feelings away and not knowing how to properly get them out again. He is tired of carrying it all by himself. And he can’t do it anymore.
“I heard you talking to Bobby the other day. About me,” he says, looking everywhere but at Eddie.
“Oh.” How can such a small sound be so heartbreaking? It’s clear Eddie feels bad about it. Because he never wanted to hurt Buck, he’s the type of person who would let Buck bother him all day every day if it made Buck happy. It’s not fair that it’s Buck who has to do this whole keeping-his-distance thing.
“So I thought I would just save us both the trouble of an uncomfortable conversation. Give you some space,” Buck continues, finally looking up.
Eddie looks crestfallen. “Okay. Okay, if that’s how you want to do this–”
“How I want to do this?” Buck cuts him off, bile bitter in the back of his throat. “What else is there to do when my best friend says–” Buck cuts himself off. He still can’t say it. The word is stuck somewhere behind his breastbone, wrapped in thorns and scratching and tearing at him from the inside.
“Buck, I can’t change how I feel,” Eddie says, not unkindly. Damn him. “I’m sorry this is how you found out. I wish you never did. This isn’t how I imagined this going. At all.” Eddie’s voice breaks at the end.
“Yeah, that makes two of us,” Buck says softly. He slumps on a stool at the kitchen island, shoulders heavy. All he wants is to go to sleep and wake up before The Conversation That Ruined Everything ever happened.
“We can still hang out, though, right? As friends?” Eddie says after a moment of silence and Buck hates how small his voice is. “I mean, Christopher misses you…”
Buck straightens immediately. He can’t lose Chris. He will learn how to live without Eddie - well, survive - but he can’t lose Chris. That’s not an option. “Of course. We just need to set some boundaries, right?”
“Right.” Was that a sniffle? It sounded like a sniffle.
Buck braces himself for his next words. “So you need to tell me when I’m too much. You know I can’t help being who I am.”
Eddie frowns and tilts his head. “Buck, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to be exhausting,” Buck mumbles, eyes on the floor. The word finally makes it out, tasting like ash on his tongue. After this, he will scrub it out of his vocabulary, never say it again.
“Exhausting?” Eddie has the audacity to sound confused and a tiny spark of anger flickers inside Buck. But all the emotions of the last few days left him drained and empty. That’s his biggest problem. He just feels too fucking much.
“That’s what you said. That it’s exhausting to have me around so much.” He won’t cry. He won’t. He won’t . There’s a tiny little sound, something between a gasp and a whimper, understanding and disbelief. Buck looks up.
“Buck, no. No no no, no mi cielo, no.” Eddie’s voice is frantic and a little wet as he crosses the space between them and grabs Buck’s shoulders. “Buck. Look at me, please.” And has Buck ever denied Eddie anything? He could thrust a knife at Buck’s eyes and Buck wouldn’t so much as flinch. “Listen. That’s not what I meant, what you’re thinking, not at all. You are not exhausting. Never were.” Eddie sounds so sincere and steady that Buck almost starts to wonder if he dreamed that whole mess up himself.
“But you said–”
“I love you. That’s how the sentence ended,” Eddie says softly, holding the eye contact. He’s so honest and tender Buck wants to scream. “I love you and it’s exhausting having you over all the time, aching to kiss you and not being able to. That’s the exhausting part, not you, never you. I want to hold you and cuddle with you while watching a movie, I want to kiss you over doing dishes and I want to fall asleep in your arms and wake up to your snoring. And I can’t and it kills me. Buck, you are everything. I’m sorry I’m telling you like this and it’s okay if you don’t feel the same but I will not let you think for one more second that you’re anything but welcome and loved in my home. I swear I can deal with my feelings, get over you, go back to being best friends. But right now, I love you. I’m in love with you.”
And that is what finally breaks Buck. He topples forward and Eddie catches him because of course he does, holds him close as Buck cries into his chest, heart wrenching sobs that have been threatening to get out ever since he overheard Eddie and Bobby talking. Eddie’s hand is drawing soothing circles between Buck’s shoulder blades, the other one on the back of Buck’s neck, scratching lightly as he’s whispering sweet nothings in Buck’s hair.
Finally, Buck takes a deep breath - he needs to blow his nose, he’s getting tears and snot all over Eddie’s shirt and it’s really gross - and whispers, “Eddie.”
“Yes, cariño?” Eddie hums and God, Buck could get used to the pet names.
“I don’t want you to get over me.” His voice is quiet and he would be afraid Eddie didn’t hear him if it weren’t for the sharp intake of breath.
“You… don’t?” Eddie asks carefully and Buck shakes his head, nuzzling into Eddie a little.
“No. That’s why it hurt so much, thinking that you don’t–” Eddie squeezes him, not letting him finish.
“Don’t even say it. I want you, I always will. However you’ll have me.”
And, well. Maybe it’s time for Buck to finally be brave. “I want it all, Eddie. What you said earlier. All of it.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Buck’s more sure about this than he’s been about anything ever before.
“And you’re not saying it just because you think I wouldn’t be able to stay friends?” Eddie’s voice is thick, laced with both fear and hope. Buck pulls away for a moment to look him in the eyes. He wants to do it right, as right as he can under these circumstances.
“I’m saying it because I love you. I love you, Eddie.” And then he’s burrowing his face back in Eddie’s chest, crying again, hands clutching the back of Eddie’s t-shirt so hard the fabric’s gonna be stretched there. Eddie doesn’t mind, gently rocking them from side to side, telling him to get it all out, sweetheart, that’s it and I’m so sorry for making you feel like that and I love you, I love you, I love you.
When Buck’s sobs fade into little hiccupping breaths, Eddie kisses his temple and reaches around Buck for a roll of kitchen tissues, not letting go of him for even a second. Buck finally blows his nose and wipes his face. He knows they’ll have to move, eventually, but all he wants now is to never let go of Eddie. Fatigue is set deep inside his bones. When Eddie tries to pull back a little, Buck makes a distressed sound that’s dangerously close to a whine. Eddie just chuckles and tickles Buck’s ribs but Buck doesn’t even have energy to squirm.
“Come on, baby,” Eddie says. “Let’s go home.”
And two or so hours later, Buck will be lying in Eddie’s bed, wrapped tightly in Eddie’s arms. Listening to Eddie’s heartbeat reminding him that this is real. That Eddie wants him, that he loves him. For now, though, Buck whispers, “Five more minutes.” And Eddie just pulls him closer, dropping a kiss on top of Buck’s head.
“Of course, cariño. Anything you want.”