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Eddie Diaz had known that he liked boys from a very young age. He hadn't had the words to describe how he knew, but he knew. But Eddie Diaz had also been told from a very young age that he was wrong for liking boys the way that he did, because he mentioned one time that he'd like to marry Pietro M. from down the road one day in front of his parents, and his father hadn't been happy with him at all.
So he stopped talking about it. Sometimes, when he felt brave enough, he'd write about it. About Pietro M.'s eyes which were brown like his, but prettier. About Nick B.'s smile, which showed a few crooked teeth but made him feel a bit fuzzy inside.
He knew it was a dangerous thing, to create evidence of his feelings, because if his father found his notebook, he'd get angry like he'd gotten before. It wasn’t rare for Ramon Diaz to lose his temper, but Eddie knew better now than to set his father off on purpose.
So eventually, Eddie would stop writing, and before long, he tried to stop feeling, too. The more years went by, the easier it became to pretend, to act, and Eddie thought that he'd actually quite like joining the theater club, might be really good at it, but he knew his father wouldn't approve.
And then Eddie met Shannon, and pretending suddenly got a whole lot easier, because when he was with her, he was with his best friend. She was kind, laughed at his jokes that weren’t really funny, and she liked to talk. Eddie had always liked to listen, so it almost felt like a sign from God, didn’t it? She was the perfect match.
Still, sometimes, when they kissed, Eddie imagined he was kissing someone else. Someone with a deeper voice, a sharper jaw. More often than that though, Eddie imagined that he was someone else. Someone that loved girls the way that he loved boys. Someone normal.
Maybe that sounds all worse than it was, because it wasn’t like Eddie didn’t love Shannon, he did! Just not in the way that he knew he was supposed to. He hated himself for it every day, because she deserved better than that, better than him , but he hated himself for the other thing even more.
That's the word he would use to describe what he's feeling.
"Thing "
As if it's a tumor growing inside of him, something that could be cut out. Every time he kissed Shannon, every time they had sex, it felt like that was what he was trying to do.
Cut the thing out.
He thinks all he really managed to do was make it worse, dug the scalpel in deeper, made the wound bigger, until he felt like he was bleeding out, until he was left crying, clawing at his chest where that thing still sat, stubborn as it was.
Over the years, the wounds reluctantly close, but he's left with invisible gnarly scarring that taunts him.
When Eddie and Shannon first had sex, they were eighteen years old. Some voice in the back of his mind that suspiciously sounded like his father told him that it would be good, maybe it would distract him from all the other thoughts he was always trying to ignore, the ones about guys on TV, or in magazines meant for women.
Sex only managed to complicate things instead. Not long after, Shannon showed up at his house, his parents thankfully out, his sisters over at friends’ houses, with a positive pregnancy test.
Eddie hadn’t known what to do, but he knew Shannon didn’t either, so he just pulled her close into a hug, because she looked like she needed it, and he knew he needed one, too.
They got married a few months into the pregnancy, like everyone from their high school had always predicted, they just seemed that badly in love.
Then, Eddie enlists in the military; “to cover the bills”, he answers when Shannon asks, when his parents ask, when he asks himself while lying awake at night. It seemed like the easiest way out, he silently admits to himself when he doesn’t feel strong enough to lie.
Eddie returns to his first tour a week after Christopher is born, but he comes back. He thought that maybe the idea of parenthood had gotten easier while he was away; what a childish, foolish thought.
He reenlists after Chris’ diagnosis, and once again he answers that he has to provide, has to make sure that Christopher’s medical bills are taken care of. “Having to cover the bills” isn’t the biggest lie he’s ever told, and it is a half truth, so it’s easy to get the words to leave his mouth.
So Eddie leaves again, and he comes back again. It’s different this time, though, because then Shannon leaves. It hurts but there’s also a sweet taste of relief on his tongue that makes him feel ashamed.
She doesn’t come back.
When Eddie Diaz first arrives in Los Angeles, he feels like he can breathe for the first time since he was eight years old.
His parents aren’t constantly breathing down his neck, Christopher is at his side and happy to be there, and no one really knows him here. He’s got his Abuela and Tía close, he’s been accepted into the fire academy, he’s doing good.
Ever so slowly, he stops being surprised at seeing two men hold hands or even share a kiss on the streets, in shops, at the beach. He stops looking around for them to make sure that no one will yell at them, or do worse.
It almost feels like whiplash, suddenly being in a place that is so accepting when all he had known growing up in El Paso were his father’s words, the beatings boys would get when they were found with another boy, the slurs thrown at you if you seemed suspicious enough.
Eddie doesn’t really know what to do with himself, but he’s been pretending for so long, hadn’t allowed himself to want anything for years, had believed every vile word said about homosexuality, that Eddie just… doesn’t do anything.
He still doesn’t think he’s allowed, even though it’s being shown to him that he is. He still believes that he’s made up wrong, that he’s dirty even when he’d never done anything to stain himself, had never even let himself hold another boy’s hand.
Somehow, pretending seems easier. So he keeps doing it, because he’s not brave, or strong, or proud.
And then Eddie meets Evan "Buck" Buckley, and from one moment to the next, he feels his world crashing down.
The problem is that Buck is not only pretty, and hot, and handsome, but that he's also kind, and funny, and so, so lovely.
He's also not ashamed. He's loud, yes, but he's not obnoxious. He loves loudly, offers his heart so readily to people who Eddie thinks don't deserve it, because they never handle it as gently as he would, if he would ever get the chance. If he would ever allow himself.
Buck doesn't freeze when he tells stories from college that include him kissing guys, he doesn't stutter when he tells them the name of a guy he went on a date with, he just... acts like it's normal, which Eddie knows it is, but knowing something and processing something aren't exactly the same thing.
At first, Buck is just a friend that quickly turns into a best friend. He does things for Eddie, like helping him with Christopher, introducing him to Carla to make his life easier, and he doesn’t ever expect anything in return.
Eddie worried once that he was using Buck, had told him as much, but Buck had just responded that Eddie being Eddie was enough, that their friendship wasn’t something transactional, and even if it was, Eddie was making Buck’s life better with his existence alone. That had thrown him for a loop but Eddie quickly managed to right himself.
Eddie had never had a friend like Buck before, he would have to get used to feeling like he was wanted. It felt pathetic and very, very nice.
He still tried to make it all up to Buck.
At the grocery store he’d grab a tub of Buck’s favorite ice cream so that he could surprise him with it when they were having a movie night, all three of them, Christopher sandwiched in the middle.
At work Eddie would make Buck’s coffee just the way he liked it, with too much sugar and too little milk.
In some shape or form, Eddie had also given him Christopher, but if anyone were to ask him about that, he’d probably find a way to deflect. He’s had a life’s worth of practice in that, after all.
Somewhere along the line, simple touches between them start to leave a fuzzy feeling on his skin, or a fluttering in his stomach. When Buck smiles at him, just at him, Eddie can feel his heart start to beat faster.
He’s never felt any of those things with Shannon, even though he’d always claimed he had, and with horror Eddie thinks about the possibility that it could be love.
There’s multiple reasons why Eddie can’t be in love with Buck.
Because Eddie’s love is wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, that’s what all of them had always said. That’s what he’s come to tell himself to get those wanting thoughts to stop.
Another reason is that Eddie can’t, doesn’t want to stain Buck with his love. His love that is dirty, and not normal. And even if Eddie didn’t believe that he wasn’t normal, he was still damaged goods. He’s broken with ragged scars.
None of those people Buck has dated had deserved him, but Eddie doesn’t think that he deserves him either. Not when he’s so much like himself and not at all like Buck. Not an ounce as lovely.
So Eddie doesn’t say anything, pretends he’s not experiencing the kind of love that he always wanted, always dreamed of when he was still small, and even now when he wasn't anymore.
Multiple things happen.
Buck and Chris get caught in a tsunami. Both of them make it out alive, but Eddie will never forget the way he felt his heart stop when he thought that Chris didn’t, or when he saw Buck collapse after Chris had been found.
Eddie gets trapped in the well, almost dying. It put a few things into perspective, and Eddie changes his will soon after he’s been discharged from the hospital.
He’d meant it when he told Buck that there wasn't anyone he trusted more with Christopher than him. He’s now got the black ink on white paper to prove it.
Then Eddie gets shot, and that’s when Eddie finally breaks.
Laying on the street in a pool of his own blood, Eddie can’t help but regret that he was dying before he ever even let himself live.
He can see Buck under the fire truck, Eddie’s blood splattered over his face and his blue eyes wide in terror. Eddie tries to reach out, but he’s not strong enough. His hand only moves a few inches before his eyes roll into the back of his head, and he loses consciousness.
He faintly remembers coming to in the fire truck with Buck frantically working above him, his head haloed by the light above making him look like an angel. Maybe that was Eddie just dreaming, though, or worse, him seeing the light.
Eddie thinks, if the afterlife has Buck in it, it doesn’t actually look that scary.
But Christopher–
Everything fades to black. There’s nothing. Eddie feels cold.
Eddie lives.
He starts to register a beeping noise next to him, the sterile smell of a hospital room, the harsh bright lights that disturb him even with his eyes shut. He’s in a hospital bed. He finds he doesn’t much care about that, all he cares about is that he’s not dead.
He groans and his fingers twitch, but he doesn't want to open his eyes just yet. The lights are still too bright and he’s still so tired. There’s a faint throbbing in his shoulder that he pulls a face at.
Someone shifts next to him on one of those creaky plastic chairs, and then he feels a hand taking his. It’s a warm hand, calloused. It feels like it belongs in Eddie’s.
"Eddie?" Buck asks, and Eddie almost smiles. "Hey, can you look at me?"
Mustering up all his strength, Eddie squeezes Buck's hand and clears his throat. "I'm sleeping," he says.
Buck huffs a laugh, but it sounds a little wet. "I know, I'd just really like to see your eyes right now, please."
Eddie's never been very good at denying Buck anything, so he lets his head turn to the side, slump on his shoulder, and opens his eyes. He's squinting like anything, and he thinks he must look terrible, but Buck looks at him like he's the greatest thing he's ever seen, so it can't be that bad.
"Hey," Buck says again.
Eddie does smile this time. "Hey," he responds.
It’s then that makes Eddie realize that he can’t keep pretending, not if he wants to be happy, not if he wants to live. And Eddie does want that. He’s gotten a second, third, fourth chance, and he wants all of that. He wants it with Buck at his side, preferably, but it’d be okay if that never happens.
Eddie just wants to finally stop lying.
He books an emergency appointment with Frank a few days after he’s discharged from the hospital.
Eddie doesn’t really know where to start when their session begins, because it’s all so much: the shooting, his feelings, Buck who is so much larger than life and who holds Eddie’s heart in his hands without even knowing about it.
“Have you ever questioned your sexuality before moving to Los Angeles? Before meeting Buck?” Frank asks, and Eddie, embarrassingly, wants to cry.
“I was never allowed to,” he answers, and he sounds so sad even to his own ears.
Frank hums, “And after?”
This is where it gets pathetic, where Eddie has to admit that he took over for his father, that he started to be the one to put stones in his own path.
“I didn’t allow myself to. It seemed easier.”
“And now? Does it still seem easier?”
Eddie doesn’t say anything in response but he feels his eyes get wet so he looks away, his mouth pulling into a line. He thinks that must be answer enough.
He leaves therapy feeling drained and run over, but also with the feeling of a knot in his chest slowly untangling itself, his ragged scars smoothing over ever so slightly.
It’s not an immediate thing, accepting that he likes men, that he’s gay. It’s not an easy thing to think about and not cringe, or flinch away from himself. But he’s made a step towards that, and that somehow made the idea of taking all the other steps seem less scary, less world altering.
For the first time since he was eight years old, Eddie doesn’t have to perform or pretend. It feels alien but freeing at the same time.
If he’d grown up somewhere else, with different parents maybe, then maybe he could have always felt like this. It’s a sad thing to think about; the past that cannot be changed.
He gets to feel like this now, though, and he’s grateful. He thinks this has the potential to feel beautiful, one day.
It takes him a while before he feels comfortable to even think about telling people. Frank assures him multiple times that he’s not required to tell anyone, that he can keep this to himself if he wants, but Eddie does want people to know. Eventually. He’s spent so long hiding, he doesn’t want that to be the rest of his life.
He’s learned that he deserves more than that.
The first person that he does tell is Chris. Eddie spent a long time trying to figure out the right words to explain his feelings to a ten year old, but Christopher is a smart kid, and he’s almost eleven anyway, Dad.
He sits Christopher down one day after school, and Chris first thinks that he’s in trouble, but then he sees the way Dad is wringing his hands, and he won’t quite look at him, so he knows this isn’t about him. This is about Dad.
“Before I– okay. Chris, before I tell you this I need you to know that I really did love your mom. I’ll always love your mom, she was my best friend, yeah?”
Chris nods, because that makes sense. Is Dad about to tell him he met someone? He’s not sure he’s a fan of that…
Eddie takes a deep breath and thinks: now or never.
“You know how Hen and Karen are in love, and they’re both girls?” Christopher nods, because duh. “I… I’m like that, too. But I don’t like girls, I like boys. Well, men. I like men.”
Chris hums after a quick moment, “Tracy B. in my class has two dads, they kiss and hold hands sometimes. Like that?” Christopher asks, his head tilting in a way that is so similar to Buck that Eddie can’t help but smile.
“Yeah, exactly like that. Is that okay?” Because he has to be sure.
“Obviously, Dad. And it’s not like you can just choose those things.” Chris’ tone suggests that he’s about to blow a raspberry at him, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he grins at him. “So are you gonna be with Buck? Because Buck likes men, too.”
The words have Eddie spluttering, choking on his own spit so that he has to cough before he can talk again. “He does,” Eddie agrees. “But– but that doesn’t mean that Buck likes me.” Because it doesn’t.
It’s only something that Eddie wants.
“But he’s your best friend!” Christopher argues. “Mom was your best friend too, that’s what you said!”
Eddie chuckles, feeling so relieved: “I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that, Buddy.”
He really, really wishes it weren’t.
Chris huffs a bit, and it’s a little adorable. “Why? It’s just love.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything for a minute, just looks at his son and thinks about how much he loves him. How glad he is that Chris is the way that he is.
“I’m really happy that you’re my kid.” Eddie says.
Chris had already started sliding off his chair, his glasses a bit wonky on his face. “I know,” he says matter of fact, lifting a hand to fix his glasses. “Love you, Dad.”
And then Chris is on his way to his room to do his homework, while Eddie is left at the kitchen table with absolutely zero tears in his eyes, thank you very much.
Eddie doesn’t tell anyone after that for a month, even though he wants to. He can never get the timing right, and he’s putting pressure on himself that he shouldn’t be.
He wants to tell Buck, and it’s scary. It shouldn’t be, because this is a part of Eddie, a part of him that he only recently learned to be okay with, that he’s maybe even a little bit proud of.
He doesn’t want to tell him so that Buck will know that Eddie would be an option; he wants to tell Buck because Buck is his best friend, and Eddie wants him to know everything about him, because the two of them simply work like that.
Eddie knows he doesn’t owe Buck this part of himself, but he owes it to himself to be honest. He wants to be honest. And it’s Buck. Everything is easy with Buck.
Buck invites him over for a couple of beers after Eddie tells him that Chris is spending the night at his abuela’s, and when Eddie arrives, he really only had planned to have those few beers and watch a movie with Buck.
But then a gay couple appears on screen, and they’re not even main characters in any way, yet Eddie still finds himself focused on their twenty seconds of screen time.
After the movie ends, Buck and Eddie are quiet. They don’t talk, only continue to sit. Eddie sees Buck finish his beer in the corner of his eye, and he sees how Buck is about to get up to get a new one from the fridge, probably get some more popcorn too.
Buck doesn’t get very far before Eddie speaks up.
“Buck,” is all that Eddie can get out before he starts second guessing himself. His voice sounds a bit rough around the edges and he clears his throat. Without a second thought, Buck sits back down, his empty beer and the popcorn bowl forgotten on the coffee table.
Looking at him, Buck tilts his head questioningly, “You okay, Eds?”
Eddie doesn’t respond, he just… breathes a few times and looks back at him.
Then: "I think I'm gay. No," he says immediately after, squeezing his eyes shut. Eddie breathes in deep through the nose and releases through his mouth. Just like Frank had taught him. "I know I am gay. I'm gay."
When Eddie opens his eyes again, Buck is smiling at him, with that sort of look in his eyes that tells Eddie that he's really, really happy.
"That's great, Eddie, I'm proud of you. Thank you for telling me."
And it doesn't sound like a sentence read off a greeting card like these kinds of things tend to sound, even though the words are all the same. This feels real, and important, and really, really good.
Eddie doesn't mean to, but he starts to cry.
Buck doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug, his chin resting on Eddie's shoulder, his arms around his shoulders bracketing him in. It doesn't feel like a hug given by the man that he's been developing feelings for over the last few years. It feels like a hug given by his best friend, though Eddie supposes those things can be one and the same. Because they are.
Eddie doesn’t cry for long, and he groans at himself for crying in the first place, but Buck doesn’t seem to mind all that much.
“Are you okay?” he asks again, and this time Eddie nods, sniffles and wipes away the last straggling tears.
“Yeah. Sorry, it just– It feels good to have that out there now. I’ve told Chris and Frank knows, too, but I don’t know. I’m too in my head about it sometimes y’know? It’s not that easy yet.”
“Hey, Eddie, I get it. That’s completely fine, just take your time.” Buck smiles that smile again, and Eddie can’t help but mirror it. “I’m really happy for you. You’ve seemed happier, too, the last few weeks. It looks good on you.”
Eddie pulls Buck into another hug and then he goes and gets the both of them new beers from the fridge. There’s another movie on their watchlist after all.
Nothing changes between them, and that’s fine. That’s good. Eddie hadn’t expected it to.
Eddie comes out to the team one day during a shift, tries to be nonchalant about it until his friends pile on top of him on the couch in one big, strong group hug. He wipes a few stray tears away after they let go and they pretend not to notice, but they’ve never been as good at pretending as he was.
Eddie laughs, and they join in. Hen presses a kiss to his cheek that makes him grin from ear to ear, his cheeks red. Eddie catches Buck’s eyes and sees the pride in them. Butterflies make his stomach feel fuzzy and Eddie doesn’t even try to ignore them. He’s too happy.
Things stay good after that. None of his friends end up in the hospital, the calls they answer could definitely be weirder, and Eddie hasn’t lied to himself or others for months. He gets comfortable in his new normal, because it really does start to feel normal.
He doesn’t have to hide when he’s checking a hot guy out, because even though he’s sure that he’s in love with Buck, he’s not blind to the looks of other men.
Hen tries to set him up with a friend of hers, but Eddie kindly declines, stating that he’s just not ready to date yet. And that’s sort of true. The idea of getting with someone else right now seems exhausting more than it does anything else.
It’d be different with Buck, Eddie knows. Because they have gotten so close over the years, because there is no denying that they’ve been co-parenting Chris pretty much ever since Buck has entered their lives. With Buck, it’d just be easy. They’re kind of already halfway there, it seems.
God, Eddie loves being in love with Buck. He knows how much work he had put in over the last year to be able to think like that. It almost feels like loving Buck is something that has shaped Eddie into a better person, because his love has started to feel like something beautiful.
It’s just tragic that so much hurt is connected to this love.
Despite that, Eddie is happy. And he’s proud. He’s learned and he’s unlearned. There isn’t much left that he could ask for. Just that one thing, that one person, and even if he can’t have all of him, what Eddie has of Buck is enough. Any bit of Buck is enough.
Eddie doesn’t understand how anyone could ever think differently.
Okay, so Eddie lied again. It almost feels like a relapse, but he’s come to a point where he has to admit that it’s not enough. What he has of Buck isn’t enough; he wants more, he wants all of it.
Eddie has watched Buck go on three first dates in the last two months, and it hurts him that there are these people who get to have Buck in the way that he craves, but not treat Buck the way that he deserves to be treated.
Buck offers them his heart in his bare hands but they don’t even look at it, simply discard it because that’s not really what they’re after.
It makes Eddie angry, seeing people be so careless with what’s so precious to him.
It's what makes him think about how he’s taken so many steps over the last couple of months, how those steps have made him so much happier and calmer; Eddie thinks he could risk taking just one more step.
He’s come so far, why not go further?
“I love you,” he tells Buck one afternoon in Eddie’s kitchen, the two of them doing the dishes even though there is a perfectly fine dishwasher right next to them.
Buck smiles, “I love you too, bro.”
Eddie could leave it at that. He could smile back and not say anything more, he could take a step back and not risk changing their friendship forever. But he doesn’t want to. He wants more. He wants Buck.
He’s not afraid of asking anymore.
“No, Buck, not like that. I… I want you.”
When Eddie lifts his head to truly look at Buck, he doesn’t really understand the confused look on his face.
"You want me?" Buck asks after a few beats, and then it’s Eddie’s turn to be the one confused.
"Of course I do, Buck." he answers, because there's no one else Eddie could ever imagine wanting. It's been Buck for years, it will always be him.
"Why?"
Eddie searches for his words, and he doesn't quite know where to start. There were so many reasons, he doesn’t know how to choose.
He eventually settles on this. "In therapy, I finally learned that I'm deserving of good things. That that's not only a thing available to others. You know how I signed up for that stupid theater class? That's why. But I thought, why stop there? Why let myself have only half of the things I want?"
"Eddie.” Buck says again, his voice doing a strange thing that makes Eddie feel a bit nervous. “Why would you want me?"
Eddie carries on despite his nerves. He’s not about to back down, not when he’s so deep in it now. "Because you're the best thing of them all, and I love you. I'm in love with you. It's been there for a very long time, Buck, but it’s taken me a while to get there, to accept it. But who else if not you?"
Eddie continues before Buck can even think about answering. "Why do you say ‘me’ like that?" he asks. "Like you're not deserving, or something. Like you can't imagine someone feeling like this about you."
"Because no one ever really has." Buck starts, his voice strained and almost sounding like he’s about to cry, "Because– Because I've loved you for three years and never thought I'd be worthy of someone as good as you."
Eddie stumbles a step back, almost as if someone had shoved him. He doesn't hesitate to take two steps forward, wants to close the distance between them more than anything.
Buck didn't think he was deserving of Eddie? Buck? Who was the single best thing to happen to him, save Christopher. That Buck? If this wasn't a serious moment, Eddie thinks he would have laughed.
"Buck. Buck, I love you, really I do, but my God, you can be so stupid sometimes." Eddie says, and Buck would have been hurt by the words if it weren't for the fond tone that Eddie says them in. If he weren't looking at Buck with so much love.
Buck blushes and it's one of the prettiest things Eddie has ever seen. Buck looks like he's about to kick at the ground, drag his foot around the imaginary dirt and gravel on the kitchen floor as if he was a love interest in one of those cheesy rom-coms Eddie won't admit to watching. Eddie wants to kiss him so bad.
"Yet you love me anyway," Buck finally mumbles, sounding still so disbelieving, and so uncharacteristically shy. Eddie really does laugh now. He also lifts a hand to cup Buck's face, stroking the skin there with his thumb.
"I do," he agrees. "Buck, I really do."
Blinking at him, Buck says: "So kiss me." That’s more like him .
Eddie is already leaning in, their lips almost touching when he speaks again: "Shit, Buckley, take me to dinner first."
The first press of lips is hard, but they’re still gentle with each other. It doesn't take long for Buck’s tongue to lick at Eddie’s lips, who opens his mouth willingly. They kiss and lick and at one point, Buck even bites Eddie’s lip to make him gasp, a sound that drives him crazy.
He wants to hear it again, he wants to make Eddie make all of those noises for the rest of their lives.
If Eddie has any say in it, Buck will.
For now, they’re both smiling too much to make the kisses worth anything. That doesn't stop them from trying, though.
Nothing and yet everything changes after their first kiss, because the two of them had been so close for so long that it was near impossible to get closer.
They had been these magnetic forces pulling and pushing at each other for years that, in the beginning of their relationship, all that changed were the kisses pressed to every available spot, and the hand holding with their fingers entwined.
(Sex joined the mix quickly, and that was just as good as the rest. A bit more mind blowing than Eddie had expected, but he’s not complaining.)
Chris starts to grin when Eddie and Buck sit him down at the kitchen table, just like Eddie had done all of those months ago when he had come out to him.
“I told you, Dad.” he says exasperated when Buck finishes his talk, the one he had been nervously preparing all day, and Eddie laughs.
“Yes you did, mijo. Guess I should’ve listened to you earlier, huh?”
Buck is making a timeout motion with his hands, looking between the Diazes to figure out what they’re talking about. He’s feeling a bit left out.
“Pause,” he says. “Something you guys wanna clear me up about?”
Eddie sighs, but he’s smiling. “When I came out to Christopher,” the boy in question giggles between them, “He asked if I was going to start dating you, because you like men, too, and you’re my best friend. Simple as that, isn’t it, Chris?”
“Yup! Cause it’s just love, right?”
“Right.” Buck answers, a matching grin on his face now. He wants to kiss Eddie stupid, and Eddie really wants that too, but not in front of their eleven year old. He’d never let them live it down.
They’ll save that for later.
(A few years later, Chris will admit to Buck and Eddie that he’d already known that they were together, because he couldn’t hear Buck snoring on the couch like he did every time he stayed over, so he had sneaked to Eddie’s room and listened at the door. How Dad could sleep with Buck snoring that loud next to him, he will never know. Chris is just glad that he doesn’t have to put up with it anymore.)
There’s paperwork at work to fill out, Bobby presenting it to them with a smile on his face that tells them he has been waiting for this for quite some time.
“Both of you have been pining for way too long, it was getting pathetic. No offense.”
It’s almost the same thing that Hen tells them when she finds them kissing behind a fire truck, before they had told the team about their relationship.
While Buck and Eddie agree that it’s unfortunate that it had taken them so long, after having been falling in love with the other over the last years, they agree that they figured their shit out at the exact right time.
Eddie has spent so long not being allowed to be open and tuned into this part of him, whether because of his father or himself, that their relationship wouldn’t have felt as right or good as it does.
While Eddie had been able to admit to himself that it was love that he felt for Buck, he hadn’t been able to accept it. It was just another thing that made him hate himself, hate this Thing sitting inside of his chest.
It wouldn’t have been fair to Buck if he had told him back then, back when Eddie was still a burning building with broken windows.
Now, he had managed to control the fire, had let it shrink until all that was left was a warming fire in a hearth, there to soothe him.
The windows had been replaced, and he’d gotten rid of the glass shards cutting into his chest only adding to his collection of scars. Scars that had soothed and faded so that they now only served as reminders of how hard he had fought to be where he was today, who he was today.
Reminders of how hard he had fought to be happy.
Eddie has always been a romantic, he’d just never let himself show it. But with Buck, it’s hard not to.
The way Buck makes Eddie feel– it’s something almost magical.
One touch is enough to make butterflies erupt in his stomach, every single kiss makes his knees feel weak.
Eddie feels so much happiness coursing through his veins every morning that they wake up together, always close and touching with their legs entwined, or with Eddie’s head on Buck’s chest or shoulder.
A lot of the time, Eddie cannot believe that he gets to have this.
Gets to wake up to the smell of coffee and breakfast in the kitchen, Buck and Chris talking in hushed whispers as to not wake him.
Gets to walk up behind Buck and wrap his arms around his torso so that they’re resting on Buck’s stomach.
Gets to rest his head on his back and feel the way Buck breathes, in and out, in and out, almost lulling Eddie back to sleep.
He gets to have this kind of love, this soft, gentle love, and he no longer feels the need to run to confession and repent his sin. This isn’t a sin, and Eddie is not ashamed. He’s not afraid either.
He’s just happy and in love.
He’s proud.
There is a rainbow bumper sticker on his car, he lets Karen draw the gay pride flag on his cheek for L.A.’s annual Pride parade, he kisses Buck in gay bars and in the badge and ladder their team sometimes ends up in after a long shift alike. He doesn't look around to make sure no one sees.
It wasn’t easy. God, it has been so hard for Eddie to get there. Sometimes he wants to cry because that pain doesn’t just leave, that pain likes to linger. Sometimes he feels it in his chest, awfully close to his heart. Sometimes it restricts his lungs. Sometimes it makes his stomach hurt and his throat close up.
But he didn’t just gain that pain, which he knows won’t be forever. He’s gained love too, not just the love for Buck that he holds dear in his heart, but also the love he gained for himself that now sits where that Thing used to be.
That love is forever, Eddie knows.
Still, sometimes Eddie Diaz grieves.
He grieves for the eight year old Eddie Diaz, who said he wants to marry a boy and was punished greatly for it.
He grieves for the fourteen year old Eddie Diaz, who tried to look at the girls the same way all of the other boys did, so he wouldn't stand out, wouldn't be questioned, because he’s seen what happens to boys who like boys.
He grieves for the eighteen year old Eddie Diaz, who had sex with a girl because he thought it might help him fix what was wrong with him, but who only managed to hurt them both.
He grieves for the twenty-three year old Eddie Diaz, who had been to war not only to support his family, but also to run away from it all, including his wife, including his son.
He grieves for the Eddie Diaz that he was a year and a half ago, who had been in love with his best friend for years but thought he wasn't deserving to feel anything for him, or anything at all.
He grieves for every version of himself that he was before allowing himself to want, to take, to have. To be.
Because what all of those versions of Eddie Diaz have in common was the simple want to love, but having been taught he was wrong for it, dirty even.
Eddie knows now that that's not true. He feels brave enough to prove it, too.
Because how could something so beautiful ever be dirty? Be wrong?
It’s just love. It’s just love, that’s all.
It had taken him many years and a lot of pain to get him where he is today, some days he still feels like he’s unlearning all of the things his father, his priest, the other boys have taught him, but if all of that meant getting to have what he has now?
He’d go through it again.