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It all started when they had a rare four days off. Buck decided to spend his recuperating from their latest whirlwind week.
The first day of his “stay-cation” was spent bed-rotting for as long as he could. He ordered in, 100% three video games, and finally finished crocheting a velociraptor for his favorite little Diaz.
Resting felt good, but Buck was bored out of his skull by lunch the next day. He knew he needed to do something with his time because he felt guilty for doing nothing, which simultaneously made no sense and all of the sense in the world to him.
He’d actually brought it up with his therapist in one of their sessions. She said it was common for his age group, but that didn’t make him feel any better. It hit even harder because a lot of his personality and trauma were tied up in the need to prove his worth, which he couldn’t do if he was busy doing nothing.
He’d been taking steps to unlearn that behavior, but the change wouldn’t happen overnight. One of his most recent steps was officially getting diagnosed with ADHD and starting meds for it. The adjustment was insane. He was only on twenty milligrams, but the first few times he took the pill, it was like he was the guy from Limitless . Suddenly, things that took him all day, things he procrastinated doing, or things he just plain forgot to do were the easiest things in the world.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit once he got the dosage right and settled into a routine, he showed up at Eddie’s house miserable and confused.
He broke down, shying away from the pitiful look in Eddie’s eyes. His voice rasped with desperation when he asked if it was really supposed to be that easy. Was he supposed to be able to get up in the morning with a quiet mind and just do things? Was he supposed to be able to take showers, make food, and clean his apartment without an undercurrent of guilt and anxiety coursing under his skin?
Eddie took in his bloodshot eyes and wobbling lips. He reached for Buck who didn’t hesitate to fold into his arms like all his strings were cut.
The older man knew his partner struggled. He remembered the times Buck got so overwhelmed he had debilitating panic attacks. He was glad his friend was getting help, but he never imagined it would destroy him in a way Eddie couldn’t really fix.
Eddie was there for him like he always was, and they watched each other's backs like they said they would. It was one of the many reasons Buck loved him.
It took time, but Buck got used to his new meds and tried to be as consistent as possible because they really did help. Unfortunately, one of the many side effects of taking what was basically regulated meth was that he didn’t get to choose what he focused on, he just got to focus. Usually, he had a list or something that carved a path for his day so he didn’t waste what little time he had, but not always.
When he took them before work, Bobby and the rest of his team could help steer him in the right direction if his focus shifted to something unimportant.
When he took them at home, he ran the risk of getting super invested in the complete works of William Shakespeare or watching a whole TV series in one sitting.
The absolute worst was when he was already hyper-fixated on something, took his pills, and got stuck in the deepest internet rabbit hole in history. Did he need to know the reproductive cycle of a sperm whale? No. Did he need to know every conspiracy theory about Marylin Monroe’s death and who may or may not have been in the room when it happened? No.
Did he spend twenty consecutive hours staring at his computer until his vision got so blurry he gave himself a blinding headache? Yes, yes he did.
He stumbled to bed squinting through dry eyes, falling asleep to the sound of his heartbeat pulsing in his temples. Waking up sometime late the next day wasn’t any better. A sharp, ice-pick hammered away behind his eyes, and no amount of pain meds or naps got rid of it.
He was so disoriented by the third night, he got a stress fever from the pain. Light hurt, sound hurt, smell hurt, and every time he tried to look up his symptoms on his phone, it felt like his eyes were bleeding.
He narrowed it to either a massive migraine or a brain tumor before breaking down and scheduling an emergency appointment with an optometrist. One eye exam later he was diagnosed with severe eye strain and prescribed glasses with anti-fatigue lenses.
He’d never worn glasses before, he never needed to, he had perfect vision. He stared at himself in his bathroom mirror getting ready for the day. His cluster headache subsided after wearing his new glasses for even the simplest tasks.
By the morning of his next shift, Buck was good to go save lives, he would just have to do it with his new facial accessory. He’d been known to be a bit vain, especially during his Buck 1.0 days, but needs were needs, and he needed to be able to see to do his job.
The whole experience only taught him to blink occasionally when scouring Wikipedia.
So, there he was, trudging into the firehouse gearing up for a day of jokes (Chim), concern (Bobby), and a mix of both (Eddie and Hen). If he were lucky, his glasses would blend into his face and people would eventually stop noticing them.
He was advised to wear them for two weeks. After that, he only needed them when eye strain was likely, i.e. staring at a screen or reading without breaks.
Buck hoped he might have a few minutes to change into his uniform, but he could almost feel the giddy energy exuding from Chimney the second the older man slid into the locker room.
“Hey, Buck, how was your-” Chim’s cheery voice echoed around the space. He barely got through the greeting before pausing to stare at his friend’s face. “What have we here?”
“Why do you look like the Grinch right now?” Buck groaned, turning away at the smile stretched across Chim’s face.
“Why do you look like the red-haired kid from the Magic School Bus?”
Buck made a face while pushing his glasses further up his nose. He was still trying to learn which moves dislodged the frames making them slide down every few minutes.
“Arnold?” he asked, closing his locker with his shoulder while tucking his shirt in his pants.
“Someone with those glasses would know the names of all the Magic School Bus kids,” Chim laughed. He was already ready for the day with his uniform on and a tumbler Buck gave Maddie grasped in his hands.
“I’m telling Hen,” Buck straightened, running a hand through his hair. He forgot to put gell in it that morning, but he didn’t mind since his curls were growing out. His fingers detangling the bushy strands did something to calm him.
“Do it, nerd,” Chim grinned flicking the younger man’s ear when Buck moved past him.
“Why don’t you ever say this shit to her? She wears glasses, too.” He batted Chim’s hands away from his hair. The veteran paramedic bounced alongside him as he headed for the stairs.
“There are many reasons I choose not to antagonize my best friend, Buckaroo. Most of them have to do with how much I love and respect her, also she’s had her glasses for almost as long as I’ve known her.”
Buck eyed him from behind his lenses. “You don’t love and respect me?”
“Of course I do, but you’re my little brother who I love and terrorize in equal parts, and Hen is my twin sister who-”
“Terrifies you?” Buck glanced at him with a knowing smile.
“Who terrifies me, yes,” Chim nodded sagely as they crested into the loft.
“Who’s terrifying?” Hen asked from her seat on the couch. She watched her friends’ arrival, her phone held loosely. She cocked her head to the side when Buck turned in her direction. “Trying something new, Buck?”
Bobby, who was at the tables doing paperwork, looked up at Hen’s question. He squinted at their youngest member, taking off his own reading glasses. “What happened? Your eye exam was perfect at your last physical.”
The warm feeling of his Captain and father figure knowing things about his health was slightly overshadowed by the embarrassment that crept up his neck. It wasn’t like he felt like they would judge him… much, but most people his age didn’t fuck up their bodies because they forgot about basic needs.
“Yeah, I- actually, where’s Eddie?” It would be easier if he didn’t have to keep repeating the story. The other man was probably just running a little late since he hadn’t gotten a text about him not coming in or Chris being sick.
“Speak of the devil,” Chim said as Eddie, engrossed in his phone, entered the truck bay. Buck's heart fluttered at the slight smile on his partner’s face. His thoughts traitorously strayed into territory that wasn’t exactly ‘best friend’ behavior.
Buck yelled to get his attention before Eddie could change into his uniform. Their eyes met, and the blonde's grin widened. However, Eddie's face went blank and his jaw dropped as he ran headfirst into the glass wall of the locker room.
The smile vanished from Buck’s face as he and Chim rushed back down the stairs. Eddie scrambled off the floor, stumbling to stand before they reached him. He held a hand to his nose, rubbing the reddening area.
“What was that?” Chim asked, pulling Eddie’s hands away. The Latino man groaned while his friend examined him going as far as pulling out a penlight to check his eyes.
“H-Hey, are you okay?” Buck asked, confusion and concern warring in his voice.
“Ow,” Eddie replied, looking up, and shaking Chim’s hands away. There wasn’t any blood and the mark probably wouldn’t even bruise.
“Eddie?” Buck steadied him with a hand on the shoulder in case he got dizzy. The worn material of his shirt felt soft and familiar under his fingers.
“Yeah, I’m- I’m good,” he responded. The brunette glanced shyly at Buck, his eyes darting to the younger man’s face before skating away to avoid eye contact. Buck didn’t know why he was doing that, but he hoped it wasn’t a concussion.
“He okay?” Bobby asked. He and Hen leaned over the railing watching from above. Buck glanced back over his shoulder and shrugged. Eddie seemed alright besides the whole running into a glass wall thing.
“Yeah, I think so,” Chim said, patting Eddie’s back. “Tell us if you get dizzy or feel like you’re gonna- ah, you know the drill.”
Eddie rarely blushed, but Buck’s mind registered the red hue coloring his best friend’s cheeks and almost shut down. He wanted to touch him to see if his skin was hot. He wanted to know what it felt like to brush the pads of his fingers across his face.
Buck shook himself out of his stupor when Eddie finally looked at him. The brunette's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile, but there was that blank look again. Buck resisted the urge to wave a hand in front of his face because it looked like the lights were on, but nobody was home.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, letting go of his partner because Eddie didn’t need help standing, Buck just didn't want to let go.
“Yeah, I’m fine- good, I’m good,” Eddie stammered. He retreated into the locker room, and Buck didn’t know if he should follow him, so he just stood there trying not to draw too much attention to himself.
Chim already returned to the loft and everyone else seemed busy. Buck was no stranger to busy work, he could find a chore, but he wanted to have the ‘I wear glasses now’ talk before an alarm pulled them away to the scene of an accident or a blazing fire.
Eddie stumbled out of the locker room while Buck contemplated his choices. The older man almost barreled right into him but stopped a few inches short.
“You’re here,” Eddie said like he thought Buck would have left.
That’s not what they do, they don’t leave each other. Buck’s eyes narrowed, and his arms crossed defensively. Buck didn’t leave, that wasn’t his MO. The feeling faded in seconds when he realized he was being dumb. He knew they were weirdly codependent, but what was that?
“I’m here,” Buck said, mentally forcing himself to drop the attitude clinging to his words. “There’s something I have to tell everyone.”
“Is it about… those?” Eddie asked, glancing at his friend’s profile while pointing vaguely at his face as they walked up the stairs.
“Y-Yeah, it’s about the glasses,” Buck replied.
Hen, Chim, and Bobby were already huddled together, gathered around Hen’s phone. Buck waited for Eddie to grab his customary coffee and settle on the couch beside Chim. He perched on the coffee table and cleared his throat, getting unexpectedly nervous when they all looked at him.
“What’s going on, kid?” Bobby asked, concern shining in his eyes. The second something felt off, Buck could always count on their Captain to slip into ‘dad mode’.
“Yeah, so, you know how I’ve been on those new meds?” Buck began, wasting no time laying out the saga of his long and painful days off. An array of emotions flit across his friends’ faces.
“I’m sorry, you did what?” Hen asked, something like awe in her voice, leaning more towards ‘Why are you stupid?’ and less towards ‘That’s impressive.’
“Twenty hours is a long time, man,” Chim said, shaking his head. He went to text Maddie but stopped himself. If Buck wanted her to know, he would tell her. If she already knew, they’d talk about it later. Maddie was his girlfriend, but Buck was also his friend and he deserved to share his own business.
It’d been on his mind a lot since getting caught in the ‘Buckley Family’ reality show. Chim shivered at the memory of trying to keep that secret.
Buck glanced at his Captain, who didn’t necessarily look mad, but how else could he deal with something this idiotic? He chewed on the pad of his thumb until Eddie reached over to gently pull his fingers from his mouth.
Thank god Buck regularly cut his fingernails, otherwise they would probably be bloody stumps by now. Eddie squeezed his hand, waiting for Buck to squeeze back before letting go.
“Okay, so the doctor said you-” Bobby ran a hand through his short-cropped hair while sighing. “C’mere kid.”
Bobby pulled Buck into his arms, crushing him against his chest. The younger man froze for a fraction of a second before melting into the hold. He really needed a hug and knew he could just ask for one, but he could never tell if someone wanted to hug him back.
Bobby was tired of bad things happening to his kid. While having to wear glasses for a few weeks wasn’t even close to the worst thing to happen in the last couple of years, he knew Buck hadn’t done it on purpose. He saw Buck's daily struggles; even when the young firefighter tried to help himself, he still wound up hurt.
Hen, Chim, and Eddie watched the pseudo-father and son share a moment. They hadn’t missed Buck fidgeting and avoiding eye contact while explaining what happened. All three of them would’ve fought to take Bobby’s place if he hadn’t already pulled the blonde into a hug.
Bobby stepped back keeping his hands on Buck’s shoulders. He knew the kid well enough to recognize the shame on his face. He thought they would judge him for something that was clearly an accident. Bobby didn’t like when things like this happened, but he couldn’t change Buck – and he didn’t want to – he could only be there for him no matter what.
“Okay,” Bobby tried again. “The doctor said to keep those on for the next few weeks. Were there any other instructions?”
Buck shook his head, resisting the urge to bite his lip. “Not really, just some, uh, restrictions on anything with a screen or focusing my eyes hard enough to cause strain.”
“20-20-20 rule?” Hen asked, her fingers twitching at her sides. She knew Buck’s doctor was probably very good at their job, but they didn’t know Buck like she did. How weird would it be to make him sit for an exam just to ensure they didn’t miss anything?
Buck nodded while pushing his glasses up for the umpteenth time. She stifled a sympathetic coo at the adorable pout on his face. Even if he didn’t need them for very long, she’d have to teach him how to wear glasses without being miserable.
“Eh, it won’t be that bad, kid,” Chim said, ever the optimist. He clapped Buck on the shoulder, plastering an understanding smile on his face. “Have you told Maddie, yet?”
“Not yet,” Buck said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you think she’ll be mad?”
Chim shook his head, “No, I think she’ll be worried, but that’s kind of her default mode, especially when it comes to her baby brother.”
The sound of the alarm blared overhead effectively ending their conversation. Buck assured Bobby he was good to go. Relief swept through his body when his Captain believed him, with his only comment being to let him know if he needed a break.
Halfway down the stairs, Buck realized Eddie wasn’t behind him. He glanced back to see the other man still sitting on the couch, staring at nothing.
“Eddie, let’s go!” Buck called.
Eddie jolted, moving after the rest of his team with uncharacteristic clumsiness. He stumbled over the first few steps but recovered before creating another emergency right there in the firehouse. Buck braced to catch him if necessary, but Eddie waved him off as he ran past.
Buck couldn’t help but notice Eddie still wasn’t really looking at him, but as he pulled on his turnout gear, he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
They were sent to back-to-back emergencies. The first was a six-year-old who locked his parents out on their fire escape, and the second was an out-of-control grease fire started by two incredibly stoned teenagers.
By the time the engine pulled into the truck bay, everyone was too tired to focus on Buck’s new glasses. He probably would have forgotten they were there if he wasn’t constantly adjusting and pulling them off to clean.
Just before dinner, Hen took pity, pulling him aside to help adjust the nose pads. Buck didn’t realize how much it bothered him having to keep pushing the thin plastic back up.
He could have cried, but instead, he smushed his face into Hen’s shoulder reveling in the easy way she ran her hands through his hair only stopping to scratch the crown of his head.
The moment lasted until Chim ran past them yelling back, ‘Stay right where you are, I need to get this, Maddie’s gonna die’, before sliding gracelessly down the firepole.
Buck groaned and Hen laughed, either at his exasperation or Chim’s exuberance, he wasn’t sure which.
His eyes met Eddie’s over Hen's shoulder and he couldn’t quite explain what was happening with the older man’s face. Buck had a catalog of Eddie’s faces neatly tucked away in his memory. He knew what most of Eddie’s rarely shown emotions meant, but the tight jaw with furrowed eyebrows was a completely new entry.
The obnoxious clicking of Chim’s phone and Bobby calling for them to help set the table pulled Buck away from figuring it out. If his partner needed to talk to him, he would. They were well past hiding things from each other.
At least, he thought they were.
—-
Buck wanted it known and well-documented that he’d been wrong before.
Whatever bothered Eddie about his new glasses didn’t stop at the end of their shift, or the end of the week. In fact, in the middle of the second week, only a few days before he didn’t have to wear them constantly anymore, Eddie still wasn’t being normal about them.
It wasn’t like he was being bullied, Eddie was his best friend after all. It was just that for the first time the older man didn’t know how to handle being around Buck.
He already felt like an idiot and stupidly fragile for fucking his own eyes up, the last thing he needed was Eddie taking one look at him and tripping over a hose, which he’d done.
If it wasn’t tripping over hoses, he was slamming his fingers in the cabin door, or overfilling his water bottle until he made a puddle on the countertops. Far be it for Buck to think any of these clumsy mistakes were because of him, but it was like Eddie had this weird ‘Buck sensor.’
The second the blonde walked into a room, a crash was heard. He could almost set his watch to it. He’d open a door, a crash, a curse word, and then, “Oh, hey Buck, I didn’t see you there.”
Seeing a flustered Edmundo Diaz was oddly endearing, but it also made Buck feel like he was doing something wrong. His partner was off his game, and all evidence supported that it was his fault.
It also didn’t go unnoticed by everyone else in the firehouse. The only time Eddie acted normal was when they were on a call. The second they returned to the House, it was like the man was afraid to be in a room with him.
Both Bobby and Chim pulled him aside to ask him what the hell was going on. It didn’t take much to convince them he was clueless, because he didn’t know either.
Chim’s sympathetic noises and Bobby’s understanding head nods didn’t make him feel better. Knowing he only had one more shift wearing the friendship-destroying glasses didn’t make him feel better. Walking in on Hen flicking Eddie on the forehead at the end of the day made him feel a little better, but ultimately it was still a pretty shitty week.
Buck was walking to his jeep, his nose buried in an article on his phone about a cryptid in South America that could be the world’s first Kaiju. He distractedly threw his bag in the backseat while opening a clip of dark, murky waters in Ecuador. A giant, pale green snake slithered past the camera’s lens. On the other side of the beast, a man waved at his audience, and the frame of reference between the man and the snake made Buck believe that Godzilla could genuinely be out there.
It wasn’t compelling that the snake itself was a cryptid, it just looked huge, not mythical. It did blow his mind that he lived in Peru for all those months and never once did anyone think to tell him Jörmungandr was only one country over.
“Buck, hey, wait up!” Eddie yelled as he came jogging up behind him.
“Hey, Eddie.”
Buck was surprised which annoyed him because it wasn’t like Eddie never talked to him. He just hadn’t been doing it in the last couple of weeks. The whole thing gave him flashbacks to just after the lawsuit except Buck was thinking about getting in the ring with someone, and Eddie was acting weird; a role reversal he didn’t love.
“Hey, um, sorry, are you busy?” Eddie asked, but Buck’s attention was on the faint imprint where Hen flicked his forehead.
“No, I was just heading home,” he said, inexplicably tired of feeling like an error. He just wanted to go home to hide.
“Oh, well, if you have time, I really need to show you something at my house,” Eddie said cautiously, leaning against the jeep. Eddie was nervous, Buck could hear it in his voice, he could see it on his face; his Eddie catalog was in full effect.
Buck resisted the urge to sigh. He was annoyed about something that wasn’t the end of the world, it only felt like it because it’d been a long ass week. That, and he was coming to the end of the meds he took that morning. Everything always felt worse when the chemicals in his brain returned to their normally scrambled programming.
It wasn’t Eddie’s fault, though. And Eddie was looking at him, he was staring right at him, which was something he hadn’t done all week. Buck liked it when Eddie looked at him, that’s probably why it upset him so much when he stopped.
The taller man glanced at his phone and bit his lip. “Yeah, I can come over.”
Eddie let out a breath like he was relieved. Buck would have laughed if he was in the mood to find things funny; as if he could ever deny Eddie anything.
Eddie smiled pulling the jeep door closed, but Buck stopped it at the last second. Eddie’s eyebrows rose in confusion, but Buck could only stare at Eddie’s hand resting where the door would slam shut.
“My bad,” Eddie said sheepishly, pulling his hand away. “I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
'Join the club’, Buck didn’t say.
They parted ways, hopped in their respective vehicles, and drove to Eddie’s house. Buck was getting to the bottom of this. If a man could swim two feet from the World Eater, he could talk to his best friend.
The drive to Eddie’s place was spent rehearsing a speech Buck had been working on all week. He wanted Eddie to know how much he meant to him, how important their relationship was, and how confused he’d been trying to figure out the other man’s problem.
It shouldn’t matter, none of this should matter. Eddie was either pissed because he did something to hurt himself again, even if he didn’t mean to. Or, Eddie had some weird vendetta against people who wore glasses.
Hen blew that last theory out of the water, but Buck was desperate and grasping at straws.
Eddie was in the living room when Buck let himself into the Diaz home. The familiarity and comfort of his second home washed over him. Buck loved Eddie’s house because his favorite people lived there.
“Hey,” Eddie greeted while shuffling around stacks of pictures littering the coffee table.
“Hey, what’s all this?” Buck caught sight of baby pictures and family photos, but couldn’t tell who they were. He’d helped Chris sort through photo albums for a genealogy project a few months ago, so he recognized some of them.
“I was looking for pictures I thought my mom or Abuela had, but they both say they’re somewhere in my house, so…” He flipped a few pictures from one pile to another.
“Are they of Chris?” Buck asked, coming to sit next to Eddie on the couch. Despite the weirdness of the last two weeks, he wasn’t avoiding Eddie. On the contrary, he wanted to be as close to the other man as possible.
Eddie glanced at him, an awkward smile slotting onto his face. “No, actually, they’re of me.”
“You wanted to show me your pictures?” Buck asked curiously. “Please tell me you went through a perm phase.”
“No, but Chim said he has pictures of when you had highlights,” Eddie returned, his smile shifting into something genuinely happy.
“What? N-No, he doesn’t!” Buck exclaimed. “I burned them all.”
“It was a picture of a picture, so maybe it was something you sent Maddie?” Eddie pulled a photo from the pile to look at it more closely.
“So, you’ve seen it?” Buck whined, dropping his head back to thump against the couch.
“No. Maybe. Anyway, I found what I was looking for.” The older man waved the picture in front of his partner's face. Buck followed it with his eyes, not bothering to grab it.
“That looks just like Chris,” he said, sitting up. “Except I don’t remember seeing him in a full-body cast, lately.”
“That’s because it’s not Chris, it’s me,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes fondly.
“What happened?” Buck took the picture, and yeah, there were subtle differences that clued him into the person not being his little Superman. The picture was yellowing with age, and the setting looked older like the 90s.
Little Eddie was in a full-body cast, stretched out in a hospital bed. A woman Buck recognized as Mrs. Diaz sat near the injured boy, spoon-feeding him something green. Her loving gaze was forever locked on her son, encouraging him to eat even though his scrunched-up face looked disinterested.
“Well, you know how I told you stories about when I played varsity baseball?” Eddie sat back, watching Buck cradle his old, yellowing picture.
“Varsity?” Buck asked, looking closer at the boy in the photo. “It’s hard to tell with all the plaster, b-but you look way too young for varsity.”
“I was, but I could play, and we needed all the help we could get to beat the Bulldogs ,” Eddie replied, his voice pitching down when he talked about his old school rivals.
“I can’t imagine it was easy beating them without moving your arms or legs.” Buck handed the picture back, still unsure what was going on in Eddie’s head. What did varsity baseball have to do with anything?
“Yeah, well, what happened was,” Eddie said, fidgeting with the edge of the picture. “I was the youngest student to play varsity for La Salle in the school’s history. I liked baseball, but my dad loved it.”
Buck watched the minute tick in Eddie’s jaw that showed up every time he talked about his strained relationship with his dad. Buck could relate, but his parents were kind of out of sight, out of mind. Eddie maintained a relationship for Chris’ sake, if not for his own.
“My dad could only get a few days off a year to come home and most of them were holidays. It was unheard of for me or my sisters to see him at an event or something like that, y’know?” Eddie dropped the picture on the coffee table so he didn’t accidentally ruin it.
“Every night, for the entire season, I would go out and practice catching pop flies. It was my worst skill, and my dad let me know it,” he said, sounding so small, like he was that little boy again, wanting nothing more than to impress his dad.
“My dad was never actually there to help me practice, but my mom and sisters always filled in.” His smile at the memory made Buck smile, too. Eddie loved quietly, but once you were in there it was like a burning inferno.
“In our second to last game of the season, he surprised us by randomly showing up at the bottom of the second inning,” Eddie said, a bitter tinge to his words. “ I was so pumped, but I was also wiped from staying up too late the night before and every night for months.”
“Let me guess, pop fly?” Buck asked.
Eddie glanced at Buck and nodded, “Yeah, pop fly.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and groaned. “I didn’t hear the call off and collided with my teammate. He walked away with grass stains, and I didn’t walk away at all. Broke my back in three places.”
“What?” Buck’s jaw dropped. “I-I knew it had to be bad for the cast, but three places?”
“Yeah, and what I learned from that experience was sometimes we fuck ourselves up, and it might be our fault or it might not, but either way the damage is done.” Eddie looked at Buck, like seriously looked at him like he was making a point.
It took a few moments for everything to click. “Oh my God, is that why I’m here?”
“So I can assure you crazy things happen and even though you ultimately got hurt none of us think any less of you?” Eddie’s brows furrowed with confusion.
“Yeah, man, I know that.”
“You do? Oh, well that’s good,” Eddie huffed. “I thought you were acting weird because you were worried or something.”
Buck blinked. “I’ve been acting weird?”
“Yeah, you’ve been all sullen and angsty or whatever the kids call it.”
Buck stood and threw his hands in the air. “You’ve been acting weird!”
“What? No, I-”
“Y-Yes, you have!” Buck sputtered interrupting the increasingly confused brunette. “You keep running into things and tripping over stuff every time you look at me. I thought you were mad about the g-glasses or something. I’ve been practicing asking you what the hell is going on all week.”
Eddie’s face got bright red. He looked away like he’d been doing, but after a few seconds, he looked back. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but shook his head before diving for the pictures on the coffee table again.
Buck watched him with rapt attention. If the older man brought up another childhood memory turned lesson he was gonna scream. Eddie made a noise while holding up a different picture. It was a teenage Eddie, this time close enough to tell it was him right away. He wore an aqua-blue suit with a bolo tie wrapped around his neck.
Next to him was a young girl in a matching dress. Her hair was done like someone from an eighties sitcom. The dark brown strands were blown out and styled with too much hair spray. They both smiled awkwardly at the camera. Teen Eddie’s eyes shone with exasperation, and the girl’s eyes sparkled under a pair of wire-framed glasses.
“Is that you at a dance?” Buck asked, taking the picture held out to him.
“Yeah, me and Shannon.” Eddie covered his face with his hands.
“That’s Shannon?” Buck looked again, and yeah, if he really thought about it, from the few times he’d seen her, it did look like a mini version of Chris’s mom.
“Yes, she used to wear glasses when we were in school,” Eddie muttered to his palms.
“O-okay.”
“I like… people… in glasses,” Eddie continued.
“Oh.” Buck watched the blush crawl up Eddie’s neck. “Oh.”
Eddie dropped his head to run his hands through his hair. He looked like he wanted to disappear forever. He would have gladly hopped in if a hole opened in his living room.
“You have a thing for people in glasses? Like a thing, thing?” Buck asked, sinking back onto the couch to process this new and shocking development.
“What are you twelve?”
“I don’t know, Eddie, are we?” Buck asked incredulously. “Wait, I’ve literally never seen you with anyone who wears glasses.”
Eddie forced his hands to stay in his lap. After a few moments, he took a deep breath and looked at Buck, “Yeah, I’ve only really been into one person, and until recently he didn’t wear glasses.”
Buck’s brain came to a screeching halt.
“All the other people I’ve been with have been fine, but since meeting him, everyone else just seemed like a placeholder,” Eddie said, watching Buck like a hawk. “I stopped looking for people with glasses because the person I liked didn’t wear them so I figured I would just get over it.”
Buck stared into Eddie’s eyes for any sign he’d misheard him. He couldn’t afford to get this wrong, not with so much at stake.
“Then, I walked into work, and you were wearing those,” He reached forward to touch Buck’s cheek where his frames rested. It was only for a moment, and then he pulled his hand back like he’d done something bad. “I don’t think I handled it too well.”
Buck was frozen, feeling the phantom tingle on his skin from Eddie’s touch. He swallowed hard, glancing at Eddie’s lips and then back to his eyes. “I have some notes.”
Eddie chuckled, breaking the tension that settled over them. Buck shook his head, what were they doing? Everyone knew they were weirdly co-dependent. Buck couldn’t help the smile that overtook his face.
“So you like the glasses?” he asked, scooting closer so their knees would touch.
“I love the glasses, but not as much as the person wearing them.” Eddie slid forward to wrap his arms around Buck’s waist. The blonde’s fluttering heart threatened to explode at the touch.
His arms slipped around the older man’s neck letting his fingers brush over his wide smile and soft brows, “I let you get away with sullen and angsty, you only get one.”
“I can live with that,” Eddie laughed, pulling until their lips finally met. It was kind of perfect and Buck couldn’t imagine anything better than the soft, warmth against his lips.
Buck pushed him back to lay on the couch, climbing up to straddle the other man’s waist. His glasses slid down his nose so he went to take them off, but Eddie stopped him.
“Leave them on?” He asked, entering a brand new entry to the catalog – he never thought he’d see Eddie pout.
He rolled his eyes but left them where they were; as if he could ever deny Eddie anything.
-fin-