Chapter Text
Ice tinkles lightly against the glass as Marisol tops up Eddie’s lemonade. It’s homemade, a concoction Chris saw on Tiktok and just had to try out, bits of pulp suspended lazily amongst the honeycomb-shaped ice cubes.
Those are Buck’s fault. He bought the molds at the dollar store and helpfully stores them in Eddie’s freezer.
He and Marisol are sitting on his back porch, pitcher of lemonade atop the glass-top table he bought on sale last winter. It’s a not-date date, the kind that was just Marisol stopping by to say hi on the way back from a Saturday grocery run because her passing through Eddie’s neighborhood intersected with him getting home from a shift— except she hadn’t bought anything frozen, and it’s such a nice day out anyway, and isn’t there some of that lemonade still in the fridge from yesterday?
Eddie raises his glass and sips, just as Marisol asks, “Any other interesting calls at work today?”
He’d already recounted the elderly couple stuck in the revolving door as they’d first poured the drinks, and now swallows too hastily in order to answer. “It was a pretty standard shift, honestly.” The gulp of lemonade sticks in his chest and he can feel a brain freeze taking hold. “Couple of fender benders, mostly just using the engine to block traffic, you know how it is.”
She nods along like she does know how it is, like she is familiar with the mundane intricacies of being a firefighter.
He asks after her job, then, something in an office that he can never quite understand. Yesterday she had to send some emails, and Tara was being such a pain about rescheduling that meeting, and then some server went down that meant they could all go home an hour early. Eddie nods and hums in the right places and watches the sweat ring from his glass slowly reach out a tendril towards Marisol’s.
“Anyway, I told her of course it doesn’t make sense to have the client meeting before the internal meeting, that if she wants to reschedule one, we have to reschedule both!”
“Yeah, no kidding!” Eddie shakes his head in perfect disbelief.
A gust blows through the backyard, momentarily chasing away the early April warmth. The dappled light moves across Marisol’s face with the rhythm of the wind, catching on the shine of her hair in a way that could be beautiful. They small talk through the rest of the lemonade, and Marisol rises to go when her glass is empty, and Eddie shows her to the door, and when it shuts behind her he feels like he can breathe.
What is wrong with him?
He stands in a stupor by his front door for a moment, grappling with the impending feeling of a vise closing in around him, but is interrupted by the shuffle of Christopher coming down the hall from his room.
“Did Marisol just leave?”
“Yeah, bud, you just missed her. I’ll tell her you say hi, though.”
Christopher smiles up through his bangs, starting to grow longer over his eyes. “Did you let her drink all my lemonade?”
Eddie chuckles and moves from his spot by the door to ruffle Christopher’s hair. “Nah, the secret second pitcher is behind the milk.”
Chris cheers a yes! under his breath and heads towards the kitchen, and the vise is scrubbed from Eddie’s mind as chatter about the latest Fortnite battle pass fills his ears.
+
It comes back later.
Eddie stands in front of his bathroom mirror, brushing his teeth, looking past his reflection to the streaks clouding it as distance from the day’s events allows dread and doubt to encroach on his unwitting psyche.
Toothpaste dribbles down his hand, warm and sticky, as he brushes past the point of necessity, Marisol’s tight-lipped smile floating unbidden behind his eyelids. They hadn’t kissed goodbye. Hadn’t even hugged or amicably bumped shoulders. The toothpaste now drying on his skin is warmer than their interactions as of late, Eddie thinks, finally cupping his hands under the faucet to rinse his mouth. He clatters his toothbrush back in its cup, where it rests against the green one oft used by Buck when he stays the night.
Eddie steps out of the bathroom, pausing halfway down the hall to peek into Christopher’s room. He still sleeps with his door open, something Eddie is grateful for when he wakes choking on the tail end of a nightmare where Chris is drowning, falling, being taken.
He watches the rise and fall of the bundle that is Christopher for a moment, peeling himself away when he notices the doorframe digging into his shoulder. As he gets under his own covers, it’s Marisol’s face that reappears at the forefront of his mind.
Eddie lays on his back, watching his ceiling fan slowly come into focus as his eyes adjust to the dark. There’s a faint rattling sound coming from his air vent—not enough to keep him from sleep, but enough for him to hesitate on this side of wakefulness, enough to allow the dread and doubt room to solidify and take form in his after dark thoughts.
That was something Frank had told him, about “after dark” thoughts. You shouldn’t trust the thoughts that spiral in your mind as you lay awake at night, or act on them, or give them any weight at all, Eddie repeats in his mind. But the vise feels like it’s closing again, and it’s squeezing out questions he doesn’t have answers to.
Namely— why the hell can’t he just have a decent time with Marisol?
She’s perfectly lovely. She asks about his day. She checks in on him on her days off and makes lemonade with Christopher and listens politely when he talks about work. There’s nothing wrong with her. They could be a family.
That’s just it, though, isn’t it? Everything about them is polite . They make small talk, kiss on the cheek, walk each other to the door. She’s held at arms’ length, and it dawns on Eddie with dismay that he is the one holding her there. It’s been how many months, and their relationship is stuck in the stage of formal first meetings.
He scrubs his hands over his face and drops them heavily back down by his sides. Why won’t he let her in? If Marisol isn’t doing anything wrong, if there’s nothing wrong with Marisol, then— it’s him, right? He’s doing something wrong, or it’s innate within him? Because let’s be real, he thinks derisively, it’s not just Marisol. He left Ana because she felt like an interloper in his life and any presumed intimacy made his vision tunnel to images of a frightening, unwanted future. She was nice , but it didn’t matter, because there was something broken within Eddie that made him run at the first sign of— what? Familiarity? Intimacy? Commitment? Isn’t that why he’d run from Shannon? He’d chosen to run, over and over again, because, despite picture-perfect family being exactly what he wanted, there was nothing scarier than it being placed in front of him on a silver platter?
Eddie sucks in a gulp of air, realizing he’s been holding his breath. He knows he’s spiraling, knows he’s shooting himself in the foot by digging into this wound right now, but he can’t get the feeling of relief he felt when Marisol left out of his skull. Why is he so fucking afraid of having exactly what he wants? Time and time again, he jumps ship as it’s being handed to him. Not that— he’s not jumping ship with Marisol, there’s no reason not to keep trying. Nothing is wrong, that’s the whole thing.
His breathing evens out again as one particular piece of the spiral floats to the top. Shannon. He had left, yes, but then he’d stayed . He thinks, in a way, he’s still staying, part of his heart still tied to hers, the string disappearing into the ground. Had he stayed for himself? For her, for Christopher? Everyone had said leave Ana because he was only staying for Chris. What about now? Christopher likes Marisol. She listens when he talks about his science projects, he asks if she wants to see every new video game he gets; hell, Chris cheered when Eddie first successfully asked her out. But it’s not— it’s not— it’s nothing , it’s empty, it’s playing pretend in a glass house for no audience, and part of him yearns for the biting words he and Shannon would throw at each other before she left the first time because at least it was feeling something .
Eddie sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. Even he can recognize that that’s a detrimental path to go down. He starts mentally picking up the pieces of the mess he’s made, slotting his regrets about Shannon and his guilt about Ana and his anxieties about Marisol neatly back into their little box. Steps back into the vise.
The A/C shuts off, and the rattling stops, and Eddie lies awake thinking of lemonade and English assignments and baby bottles that he never held.
+
His shift the next day begins miserably. It’s raining, and he barely slept, and he snapped at Carla on his way out the door, and apparently it’s Ravi’s god-given right to watch an obnoxious video about property investment at full volume in the common area.
Eddie’s patience is thin.
He hardly has time to say hello to Buck over coffee, having barely brushed their shoulders together in greeting before the bell is going off. It’s not a medical call, no ambulance needed, so Eddie’s piling into the fire engine squished between Chim and Ravi, Hen occupying the space across from them, and Buck driving with Bobby shotgun.
Whenever Eddie chats to the guys from the other shifts, they talk about pulling straws to decide who’s driving and about griping and groaning when they get the short end of the stick. The A shift has never had that problem in the time that Eddie’s been there, because Buck thinks driving a fire truck is cool . He bounds to the driver’s side every time and gets too excited about flipping the switch to change the stoplights and barely suppresses his glee when the sirens and horn have the intended effect of parting the metaphorical red sea of cars ahead of them. He’s safe , obviously (although Eddie gets the impression from Bobby and Hen and Chim that he maybe didn’t used to be), and it’s not like crawling through a red light at 25 miles per hour is all that exhilarating, but— it’s endearing, that’s all. Buck’s been a firefighter for over six years and Eddie still gets to see him conceal a grin when he flips the sirens on.
All that to say, it says something that even Buck is a little reserved as he pulls the engine out of the shelter of the garage. It was raining when Eddie left his house, but it’s approaching torrential downpour territory now, the white noise of the rain on the roof of the cab immediate and violent.
“Think we’re getting wet today, folks!” Buck calls cheerily over the comms, putting the wipers on full blast. Chim mutters something snide under his breath in reply, but he hasn’t attached his headset yet and it’s lost in the thrum of the deluge.
Eddie privately shares his sentiment. Buck’s chipper attitude is not enough to make the idea of stepping out into this storm bearable.
“Alright, folks, we’re heading out to the coast,” Bobby pipes up, relaying instructions from dispatch. “Floating dock on someone’s private beach came unmoored. There’s a bunch of folks trapped on it and it’s our job to stop them from floating out to sea.”
“Or getting dashed up against the beach!” Hen says incredulously. “What’re they doing out on a dock in this weather?”
“Yeah, not like this storm came in suddenly,” Chim agrees, looking up at the roof as though he can see through to the dark clouds above. “It’s been raining all morning.”
Eddie takes a deep breath and tries not to get irrationally irritated over obvious talk about the weather. He tunes out the chatter of his teammates (Ravi starting on some tangent about how bad storms are for landlords) and gazes towards the front of the cab, where he can just barely see out the windshield between Bobby and Buck’s shoulders. It’s a sea of blurry grey shapes interrupted by the glowing red eyes of brake lights in front of them, and then the wipers swish over the scene and throw everything into sharp focus, and then the rain muddles the picture again until the next swish, blurred, focused, blurred, focused…
His thoughts inadvertently turn towards his spiral from the night before, but before he can get sucked too far down the self-loathing drain, the truck is slowing as they pull into a gated neighborhood. Well, obviously anyone that lives on the coast of Orange County would be in a private community.
“It’s supposed to be number 57…” Buck is saying over the comms, peering at the houses through the rapid windshield wipers.
“There!” Bobby barks, and they’re pulling left into a driveway. “This is a water rescue, so let’s get those dinghies out. Hen, Chim, you hang back with me; Buck, Eddie, Ravi, you’re on the boats.”
Eddie clenches his jaw as he hops out of the truck with the others, beginning to unload the dinghies from the compartments where they’re stored. Being out in the rainstorm properly for the first time has his anxieties gathering in a cluster at the back of his throat— they’re not going anywhere up high, and there hasn’t even been any lightning yet, but he feels his heart rate pick up as he lets his gaze linger on Buck. It’s been almost a year, but Eddie still has the insane urge to tell him to stay in the truck whenever there’s so much as a rumble of thunder.
Buck catches his eye and grins in that squinty way of his, water running in rivulets down his helmet and off the tip of his nose.
“Race you down there!” he says to Eddie, hoisting an as-yet-to-be-inflated rescue boat onto his shoulders and jogging around the other side of the firetruck.
Eddie inhales deeply and slops through the mud to follow him. Clearly Buck is not unnerved by the weather, so he can get his own worry under control.
As he rounds the truck to take in the scene with the rest of the group, though, his heart stutters. This is not one of the flat, wide, public beaches of the LA metro area. The rich neighborhoods are further south, where the coast slopes up into— not cliffs, it’s not a sheer drop, but it’s a steep, rocky descent to a narrow strip of beach below, the only way down being decking built right into the rock face.
This close to the ocean, the wind has picked up, buffeting around them and sending rain prickling sideways into Eddie’s skin as they scan the ocean for the victims. They are up high after all.
“There!” Eddie says sharply as light catches on the rain-slick surface of the dock out in the waves, already starting down the slippery wooden stairs. The dock hasn’t actually drifted that far out, and Hen’s premonition of it getting smashed into the rocky shore seems much more likely.
He hears the others clambering down behind him, Buck and Ravi each carrying one of the boats the three of them will be in, Hen and Bobby toting the motors. There’s five people on the dock, what looks like two adults and three kids, and they’re all pressed flat against its surface, fingers undoubtedly gripping the grooves between the two-by-fours to avoid being flung into the sea.
Eddie takes the twists and turns down the staircase too quickly but doesn’t stumble, and soon his boots are hitting sand. Ravi is the next down, dropping his folded life boat in the sand with a wet smack and kneeling to hurriedly unfold it. Then Buck is there, doing the same, and pulling the mechanism that allows the boat to instantly inflate.
“You go with Ravi, I got this one!” Eddie hollers over the waves, pushing Buck towards the boat Ravi has just inflated and starting to drag this one towards the surf.
Buck nods and does a silly two-fingered salute; shouts, “See you over there!” as he jogs a few steps backwards before turning the rest of the way. Hen replaces him at Eddie’s side, helping him haul the dinghy into the water up to their thighs and expertly attaching the motor.
“Need a leg up?” she yells. Eddie glares at her and pointedly swings his leg into the boat, hoisting himself in.
“Stay safe over here!” he hollers, pulling the cord to start the propellers, waves already sloshing into the boat and rocking him this way and that.
“You too!” Hen yells back over the motor kicking on, and her form in the surf starts to grow smaller as maneuvers out towards the dock. He sees Bobby pushing Buck and Ravi out past where the waves are breaking, hears the roar of their engine come to life too.
Eddie turns towards the dock, currently pitched upwards as the swell of an incoming wave rolls underneath it, one of the larger figures weakly waving an arm. The swell reaches his dinghy in the next moment, and he clutches the sides as he raises up and then lurches sharply back down. There’s a lull in the waves, then, just the wind and rain persisting, and he uses the reprieve to roar up to the side of the dock.
The wood creaks and groans and Eddie can hear one of the kids crying. He cuts the motor and bellows up, “I’m Eddie! Let’s get you guys off of here!” A violent gust of wind rips through the air, whistling through the dock, and he latches a hand onto one of the support beams to keep from drifting away. There will be no leaving the boat, not while he’s the only one in it.
Two of the kids, they both look about ten, are pushed towards him on shaky legs. He lifts the first one, a girl in a dinosaur t-shirt, under the arms and sets her in the life boat, then does the same for the boy with a blue streak in his hair. Eddie beckons towards the others still on the dock. “I can fit one more!”
Usually he’d want to take the last kid, a younger looking girl, first, but she seems frozen in place on the other side of the dock. One of the adults, who he realizes now are both pretty much teenagers, is crouched next to her.
“Dominick, go with them!” the girl next to the kid yells.
“No way, I’m not leaving you here!” Dominick’s voice is carried away by another gust of wind that sends the rain right into Eddie’s eyes.
“Come on, man, don’t be a hero!” Eddie extends his hand towards Dominick, who kneels frozen in place, casting a frightened glance towards the others.
“Yeah, no one is leaving anyone!”
Eddie can’t help it, he turns towards the voice. Sure enough, there’s Buck’s grinning face, sitting towards the front of his boat while Ravi mans the steering.
“Took you long enough!” Eddie shouts over, grinning back. He’s in his element now, helping Dominick clamber into the life boat, and he can feel the tension in the back of his throat ease a bit as he makes sure his passengers are settled. They’re getting everyone. It’s going to be okay.
Buck and Ravi maneuver their boat over to the side where the little girl is paralyzed in fear. Ravi is reaching out towards the other teenager while Buck is leaning over to grab the kid. Eddie is just getting ready to rev up his motor again when an errant wave crashes into the side of the dock.
The older kid pitches forward into the boat, the younger one is thrown into the water. Even from here, Eddie can tell that she sinks, fast.
Before he has time to string together a reaction, Buck is standing up in his dinghy and throwing himself into the water after her.
“ BUCK! ”
Very suddenly, Eddie is not afraid of lightning. He’s thinking even further back, to the nightmare he wasn’t even there for but dreams about nonetheless.
Buck never really talked about the tsunami aside from how it affected Christopher, so Eddie was left to fill in the blanks with his own imagined horrors, only made worse after his own brush with drowning and knowing Buck and Chris had gone through the same thing. Had Buck felt the same burning in his lungs as his vision grew dark around the edges? Had Christopher experienced the same dizzying disorientation of having to figure out which way was up? Had they both started anticipating their last, watery breath? None of what he imagined could prepare him for the terror of seeing Buck disappear under the water and not come back up.
It’s like he’s staring through the windshield at the world again, foggy and grey and cognizant of only the churning patch of water that Buck is god knows how far beneath. His own breath is deafening in his ears, the vise is closing back around him— and then he feels the kids behind him jostling in the boat and the world is thrown sharply back into relief.
Blurred, focused.
The kids in his boat are screaming, shrill voices overlapping, and it sounds like the girl’s name must be Casey. The kid that had made it into Buck and Ravi’s boat is staring stricken at the water while Ravi urges her away from the edge. It has to have been minutes, right? It’s been too long? Why isn’t he coming up? At what point does Eddie need to jump in after him?
The seconds seem to drag by, and Eddie has never been more impervious to the downpour, to the unpredictable lurching of the boat. He locks eyes with Ravi over the dock, and can see his own dread mirrored back. He has to go in, right? Buck is down there. He has to go in.
Just as Eddie starts to unconsciously rise to his feet, a great shape breaches the water next to Ravi’s boat and Buck’s face comes into focus in the foamy spray, mouth open as he gasps for air, child in arm.
“Buck!” Eddie can’t tell if his call is relieved or admonishing or something else entirely, but Buck turns towards him as he hands the kid up to Ravi and manages to flash Eddie a thumbs up, wry smile and all. He heaves himself back into the life boat as Ravi sheds his drenched coat to wrap the little girl in, and calls over to Eddie, between pants,
“Race you back!”
Eddie feels something crack inside him, like a glowstick bent so far that it breaks and leaks its poison into all of his organs, and realizes he is furious at Buck. Like, has to turn his head because he can’t stand to look at him.
How can Buck be so blasé about pulling a stunt like that?
It’s not that he shouldn’t have jumped in; Eddie would have done the same thing. It’s the flippant attitude with which he takes risks, the dare me to do it again grin as he resurfaced.
Before he can do something stupid, like start yelling at Buck in front of these freezing kids, Eddie yanks the start cord on his boat and starts chugging back towards the shore. He hears Buck doing the voice he does for young kids, so Casey must be okay.
He can see Hen, Chim, and Bobby waiting with foil blankets, and as they notice him approaching, Hen and Chim step out into the water. Eddie takes a deep breath, trying to get his anger in check before faced with the rest of the team. He stares stonily ahead as a wave carries him up to where Hen is standing; he cuts the motor and wordlessly hands the younger kids down to her one at a time, then helps Dominick jump into the surf.
He can hear the other boat pulling up behind him, sees Chim sloshing through the water to reach them. Eddie clambers out of his own boat and begins dutifully dragging it towards the shore, where Bobby is waiting to help them re-pack the dinghies. Hen, Chim, and Buck make it to land first, each of them holding one of the kids, Dominick and the other girl in their midst. They’ll be heading back up the stairs to the house, checking everyone out, warming them up, and presumably getting the story about how they ended up out there in the first place.
Right now, Eddie couldn’t care less.
He pulls the plug to let the air whoosh out of his boat harder than necessary, making his shoulder twinge. Bobby comes over to collect the motor; claps him on the back.
“Good work out there, Eddie.”
Eddie can barely nod. He tries to focus on disassembling the boat, but every motion is punctuated with a rush of renewed indignation towards Buck and his stupid smiling face, and he knows he’s done a shoddy job of folding it back up. Shouldering the now-compact dinghy, he trudges up the beach, now stamped down by everyone’s heavy boots, and begins the ascent back up to the house.
At the top of the stairs, Buck and Bobby are cramming the other boat back into its compartment on the side of the truck, so Eddie begrudgingly goes over to do the same. Hen and Chim are absent— inside with the kids and calling the parents of the younger ones. Apparently the older girl is the nanny and Dominick is her boyfriend, and she swears up and down she had permission to invite him over, and and trying to do a sleepover on the dock was her idea anyway and she knows she checked the forecast—
Eddie slams the compartment shut and snaps his head up to look at Buck, who falters in his explanation of how this girl landed her rich babysitting job.
“It’s like you don’t even care.”
Buck blinks at him, startled, hurt. Eddie can tell he’s going to regret this later, but he’s a passenger in the backseat of the anger driving his words, and it feels too good to spit them out.
“Eddie, w-what are you…?”
No, Buck doesn’t get to throw up a defensive wall of obliviousness. “Come on, Buck. You came up out of that water like it was nothing. Like— like what could’ve happened doesn’t even matter.”
Buck narrows his eyes, mouth dropped open. “Risking my life isn’t ‘nothing,’ Eddie, but it is my job .” His voice is hard; he’s quickly matched Eddie’s temper. “Or would you rather we were leaving here with a dead kid today?”
“Jesus Christ, that’s not what I mean,” Eddie scoffs. Of course he would try to take it that way. “No, Buck, you doing your job isn’t the issue. The issue is you laughing off that risk like it’s a joke.”
“I’m sorry, how would you prefer I react to saving a kid’s life?”
“Like what happens on the other side of that risk matters !” Eddie’s voice is rising. “God, Buck, you can’t— it should matter to you what happens to the rest of us on the other side of that.”
Buck stares at him, agape.
He keeps going. “I thought I already tried to tell you how important that should be. Or do you not remember what I gave you?”
There’s a potent silence. They haven’t talked about that, ever, since the one time Eddie brought it up. He hates himself for how he just spat it out, as if Christopher is some favor that Buck gets if Eddie is the one that goes down. But there’s no taking it back now, and it’s almost worth it to see Buck rise to the bait, gaze darkening defensively.
Buck steps forward, into his space, and hisses, “I remember that every day, and nothing makes me fight harder to come back. Whether I’m underwater, or in a coma, or…” He trails off; scoffs. “You think maybe that has something to do with why I’m so relieved to come out the other side?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Look, dude, sorry for being kind of out of it after not being able to breathe, or hear, or see. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Eddie opens his mouth, some retort about how he’d do well to figure it out poised on his tongue, but there’s a cough from behind him.
“Gentlemen,” Bobby says pointedly from where he’s been standing, several yards away, the entire time.
Eddie drops his gaze from Buck and can feel Buck do the same, embarrassed heat prickling up the back of his neck.
“Eddie, how about you go help out Chim and Hen. Buck, help me and Ravi finish up out here.”
Eddie doesn’t know what “finishing up” there is to do, and doubts Hen and Chim need his help wrapping blankets around the kids, but he does as he’s told, sulking off into the foyer of the Palos Verdes mansion. He thinks of the hurt look on Buck’s face and keeps quiet the whole rest of the call, through the frenzy of the parents arriving, as they’re profusely thanked, as they pile into the firetruck. Buck drives silently and Eddie gazes out the windshield into the unblinking taillights of the sea of cars ahead.
+
Back at the firehouse, the team disperses more quickly than usual, the sour mood emanating from himself and Buck evidently contagious in the confined space of the cab. Eddie hangs up his sopping gear and makes for the weights, just for something to center his attention on.
Bobby catches his arm, an unreadable look on his face. “Eddie, come see me in my office.”
Eddie groans inwardly. He does not want to pore over his actions under Bobby’s scrutinous eye. “I’m sorry, Cap, I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“Well, someone’s gotta keep that kid in line,” Bobby says evenly, referring to Buck. Eddie makes a face at that; doesn’t want to align himself with that intention. “But that’s not what I’m worried about. Come on, it’ll only be a minute.”
Not wanting to try for another out, Eddie sullenly trails after Bobby into his office. Bobby sits behind his desk, but Eddie remains standing, bracing his hands on the back of the chair. Even he can tell it’s a futile attempt to remain in control.
Bobby looks up at him, open and caring as ever. “What’s going on, Eddie? You’re out of sorts today.”
“Yeah, I… didn’t sleep well last night.” It’s not untrue, but Bobby levels him with an incredulous gaze.
“Is that all? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you lash out at Buck like that.”
“Okay, I did not ‘lash out—’” Eddie cuts himself off at Bobby’s raised eyebrows, and has the sense to drop his gaze, scuffing a boot along a threadbare patch of carpet. “Alright, yeah. It was… unnecessary.”
“Wanna talk me through it?”
“Do I have to?”
Bobby fixes him with a look.
“Alright, alright. I… kind of lost it when he dove in after that kid,” Eddie starts. “Y’know, Buck and water, there’s not the best associations there, right? And then when he came back up, he just… I don’t know. Laughed it off, and it got under my skin.”
“Because he put himself in danger?”
“We’re always putting ourselves in danger,” Eddie corrects. “It’s more like… I need him to take it seriously. Taking risks like that. Because he has people that need him.”
Bobby nods. “And you felt like he was being nonchalant about his decision to jump in. You’re right, I don’t want any of you to take that risk lightly”
Eddie squirms, because Bobby’s not getting it, but this also isn’t something he talks about. “It’s more than— it’s more like… he has things to take care of here, you know?” he explains lamely. “I did something awhile ago to, like— y’know, in case something ever happens to me. So Chris doesn’t have to move back to Texas.”
Bobby stares at him patiently as he stumbles over his words. Eddie’s will occupies a place in his mind that he can only look at out of the corner of his eye, too blinding to face head on. Throwing it in Buck’s face an hour ago was bad enough; on top of the shame, he feels uncomfortably as though he’s shown his hand. Letting a third party in is like breaking some sacred agreement, saying look what’s here under the surface. Look at the thread I tied between us . But Bobby knows he and Buck are close, knows about Eddie’s struggles with his parents, and it’s— it’s not a secret, he just doesn’t talk about it. So he peeks at it through his fingers and surges ahead.
“So Buck… he gets Chris if I die,” Eddie says in a rush. “So I need him to remember that, so he can try not to die.”
The confession weighs heavy in the air: Look how I chained us together . Bobby’s computer is making a faint whirring noise and there’s a peal of laughter from the loft above them, some story Chim is telling. Bobby inhales and places his hands on the desk.
“That’s quite the commitment. For Buck to step up to that.”
Eddie nods jerkily and does not add that he did it without asking Buck, that he didn’t tell Buck until over a year later.
“Well, I can see why you want him to be careful. Same reason the rest of us are: He has a kid to get home to.”
The enormity of that implication settles on Eddie, and he thinks stupidly of the honeycomb-shaped ice cube molds in his freezer. “Yeah,” he replies roughly, readjusting his grip on the chair, “he does.” Bobby has neatly sidestepped Eddie’s explanation about Texas, about practicality, evaded the implied problem of Eddie’s parents, and jumped straight to the part that Eddie has to shut his eyes against. Because that’s it, isn’t it? It’s not just about what Buck could be if disaster strikes. It’s about what Buck is now , presently, in his life. In Christopher’s life. He exists in a space that no one else has, straddling lines that are already blurred but managing to be exactly what they need. Caregiver. Friend. Confidant. Parent. Buck wouldn’t need to step up if the will were to go into effect: He already has.
A silence hangs around them for a moment— Eddie lets it, what else is there to say?— before Bobby speaks again.
“Knowing Buck, I’m sure he takes that responsibility very seriously. And it seems like you know that, since you’ve already trusted him with it.” You probably don’t need to jump down his throat like that.
Eddie sighs. “Yeah, I know. I’m just— out of sorts today, and that got to me in a way it usually wouldn’t.” That’s the type of thing he’s learned to say in therapy, how to reflect on the real reasons behind his actions.
“Yeah, I can tell,” Bobby says with a wry smile. “And I’m all ears.”
Eddie straightens from his pose leaning on the chair and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Cap… it’s not— it’s nothing, you don’t need to hear about all that.” He doesn’t want to pick at that particular scab in front of Bobby. His issues with Marisol… those are his issues, his to keep close to his chest until they burn him and light some hidden fuse deep within. No one else needs to be caught in that explosion.
Bobby smiles, kind of sadly, Eddie thinks. “I’m just checking your pulse, Eddie. Just wanna make sure you’re doing alright.”
Eddie thinks of the stories about Bobby that Hen has told him, about how he was able to rely on the 118 in the times when he needed it most. Thinks that Bobby probably just wants to do the same for him, and that maybe together they can prevent an eruption.
He sighs, and lets down the rest of the defense he’s thrown up, stepping around the chair and dropping into it. “I… appreciate it,” he manages. “It’s Marisol, actually.”
“Something wrong in you guys’ relationship?”
Eddie can’t help it, he laughs. “No, just the opposite. It’s fine. She’s great, even.”
Bobby inclines his head. “So…?”
“It’s fine, but… it’s not,” he allows. “There’s nothing wrong , but I’m— I don’t feel like I’m really there. It’s like— we hung out yesterday, I don’t know. She left, and I felt… like I could breathe again.”
It’s an admission, and he lets his breath whoosh out of him. Bobby nods, considering his words; Eddie avoids his eye and focuses instead on the certificates framed on the wall behind Bobby’s head. He has a Basic Life Support Certification dated over a decade ago next to his Captain’s certificate.
“And that’s stressing you out?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
Bobby leans forward. “Well, Eddie, if you’re not happy in the relationship, and it’s affecting other parts of your life—”
“That’s just it though, Cap, why am I not happy?” Eddie mirrors Bobby’s pose, leaning forward, and he can hear the imploring edge creeping into his voice. “I mean— she came over on her day off and we had a perfectly fine time and I— I just… feel like I’m behind a wall of glass with her.”
Bobby hums. “You don’t feel like she sees you.”
Eddie wrinkles his nose. “But what’s there not to see? Y’know, she’s great, she’s perfect; there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to have a perfectly nice relationship. I took your advice,” he adds almost accusingly. “Last time you said— you said something would present itself, to go after what’s in front of me. And I did , Cap, she was right in front of me and I took that opportunity and I’m trying to do it right and it’s still not working.” He takes a shuddering breath— his control is slipping, the vise is tightening. “Why isn’t it working?”
He’s pulling the same thread that started all this in the first place, pressing his fingers on the bruise of his own inadequacy. He’s doing it all right, and Marisol is perfect, and he’s trapped in an invisible cage because the problem is with him .
“Well, sometimes two people just don’t fit together,” Bobby concedes. “But are you sure you’re even giving her the opportunity to fit? It seems like you’re expecting perfection right out of the gate. And I don’t mean from her,” Bobby says as Eddie opens his mouth. “I mean from yourself.”
Eddie’s hands are clenched into fists by his sides. He feels like Bobby is about to crack him open.
“You’re self sabotaging, Eddie. Why won’t you give a new relationship a chance to grow, hm? Why don’t you want it to succeed?”
“I…” Eddie flounders in the sea of his own desire. Thinks back to the end of his spiral from the night before, the drain he’s been circling this whole time. “I don’t want a new relationship,” he says brokenly. “I want a family. I want back what I had with Shannon, but I fucked that up too.” He can feel tears forming in his eyes, hot and blurry, and fuck, he’s embarrassed, coming undone like this. Bobby kindly ignores the way he surreptitiously drags a hand over his face.
“Eddie… I don’t want to overstep, but from what I understand… you didn’t have that with Shannon,” he says carefully. “If one of you wasn’t running away from the relationship, the other one was. You were getting divorced.”
“I know that!” Eddie replies, and he does, but— knowing doesn’t fill the void. “It’s just— at least I felt something. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
Bobby considers him, and Eddie takes a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. He’s at work, for god’s sake, not therapy. This is his captain’s office. He clears his throat, sniffs, sits up a little straighter.
“Sorry, Cap. Didn’t mean to unload all that on you.”
Bobby shakes his head and reaches across the desk, putting his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I want you to be able to talk to me, Eddie, all of you. Just…” he trails off, seemingly choosing his words carefully. “Just take a good look at your life and make sure you’re not searching for something that’s already there.”
Eddie stares at Bobby, hand heavy and comforting on his shoulder. Something already there? Like keep trying with Marisol? Keep trying until they unearth something or create something that lets him shatter the wall of glass, loosen the vise?
“You think it’s there with Marisol?”
Bobby is looking at him funny, like he’s not getting it. “What matters is if you think it’s there. I can’t tell you how to live your life, Eddie.”
With that sage piece of advice, he pats Eddie’s shoulder and removes his hand, standing up. Eddie clears his throat and does the same. He feels… better, he guesses, having shared the load with someone else, but it kind of seems like he’s just been given a new trail to scent. The feeling of wrongness inside of him that’s haunted him through every relationship hasn’t gone away.
But he thanks Bobby, because at least he’s in his corner, and turns to exit the office. Maybe he’ll hunt down Chim and get him to retell the story that had everyone laughing.
“Make up with Buck, would you?” Bobby calls after him. “I need my best team on their A-game.”
+
The rain abates about six hours into their shift, and by the end of the 24, the sun is rising on a pale, clear morning. Eddie is exhausted, having only slept for a few hours between a three-car accident and a downed tree on a house.
He hasn’t talked to Buck yet, on account of Buck stubbornly avoiding him for the duration of the shift. It’s not their first spat like this, but it’s the first in a while, and Eddie knows the olive branch has to come from him.
He’s sitting on the sofa with Hen when the clock hits 7:00, making any bell that rings now officially B-shift’s problem. He pockets his phone, where he’s been looking at easy pasta recipes, and heaves himself to his feet, Hen groaning and doing the same behind him.
“You gonna kiss and make up with the kicked puppy before he walks home with his tail between his legs?” she says to Eddie as she stretches her arms above her head.
“Ha ha,” Eddie replies drily. “Yes, I’m gonna apologize for biting his head off. If he hasn’t left already, he’s been avoiding me all day.”
“The hell did you say to him? And can I use it next time he’s being a pain?”
He fixes her with a look.
“ Kidding .” Hen grabs the book she’d been reading, something sci-fi looking, and the pair of them head down the stairs. “And he’s not gonna leave yet, Eddie. He’s self destructive, but he always wants to forgive you.”
She says you like she means Eddie, not just the general you. Sure enough, as he approaches the locker room, he can see Buck through the glass, changing more slowly than perhaps necessary. Huffing a laugh, he parts from Hen and heads inside.
Buck shoots him a glance as he enters, quickly looking towards him and then away as if Eddie wasn’t supposed to see. It’s endearing, yes, but Eddie knows his own blowup is the cause, and a ripple of shame rolls through him anew. He stands in front of his locker, fiddling with the handle, steeling himself to have to open his eyes against the blinding thing he can’t look at again .
“Buck…”
Buck’s head snaps towards him from where he’s sitting on the bench, tying his shoes. He doesn’t look angry at all; conversely, his expression is hopeful and maybe a little worried, as if Eddie hasn’t been thinking of ways to put the words back in his mouth all day. Buck’s always so ready to believe that people will leave him, Eddie thinks— to believe that Eddie would double down on what he said earlier, that he wouldn’t beg for forgiveness if he had to.
“Yeah?” Buck says nonchalantly, but he’s blinking a lot like he does when he’s nervous.
Eddie inhales, turns to face him. “I’m sorry, man. I was completely out of line. And I had no right to throw…” It hurts, looking at it too closely. “…All of that at you.”
Buck, shaking his head, scoots down the bench so he’s sitting right in front of Eddie. “No, n-no, Eddie, you weren’t out of line, you were worried .”
Eddie opens his mouth to argue, because Buck is being silly, but he plows on.
“You were worried, and I get that, trust me, I have been on the other side of that. And I know how crazy it makes everything. So, I forgive you. It’s okay.”
Buck sits, hands in his lap, looking beseechingly up at Eddie. His lips are pulled together expectantly and his leg is bouncing a little, and he’s wearing that white hoodie that makes his skin look more tan in comparison.
Eddie can’t help it, he laughs a little. Breathily, disbelievingly, because Hen really hit the nail on the head. Turning to sit down next to Buck, he says, “I appreciate it, but I was definitely still out of line, worried or not.
“And… I know you’re serious about being there for Christopher. I’ve never actually doubted that.” Eddie makes himself look at Buck openly, makes himself look at his face. “It wasn’t really about Chris, y’know? It was about seeing you disappear and not knowing if you were gonna come back. That’s always gonna scare me.”
The sun is coming up outside, shining brightly into the locker room and bathing Buck in a warm morning glow. Eddie hasn’t really said the scary part, hasn’t mentioned his will by name. He’s kept his eyes squinted, but Buck is still gazing back at him like Eddie has peeled open some new layer, like dancing around it is enough.
“Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual,” Buck says, and his voice is quiet, and suddenly it’s all too much and Eddie needs to break their gaze, because looking at Buck is starting to feel blinding too.
He clears his throat and knocks their shoulders together. “See? So we’re good.”
Buck clears his throat, too, and Eddie doesn’t check to see if he’s still looking at him. “‘Course, exactly. We’re good.”
They both stand, and typically now they’d walk out to the parking lot together, but Eddie hasn’t actually changed yet, too preoccupied with getting to Buck while Buck was letting himself be cornered.
“I gotta—”
“I think you still—”
They both laugh, and Buck starts to back out of the door. Before he can turn to leave, Eddie makes a split-second decision and calls after him, “Hey, come to my place after you get some sleep? Christopher will be home around three.”
Buck smiles easily. “I’ll be there.”
Eddie changes, balls up his LAFD t-shirt and a few other dirty ones from his locker to take home to wash, and heads out to his truck. He’s the last leaving, the ruckus of B-shift getting their breakfast echoing down from the loft. The sun has already dried the remnants of the downpour from yesterday and there’s not a cloud in the sky, promising a warm spring day.
As he’s pulling out of the firehouse parking lot, his phone rings, Marisol’s name popping up. He really should give her a contact picture, he thinks, and presses the button on his steering wheel to answer.
“Marisol, hey. I’m just leaving work, what’s up?”
“That’s what I figured,” her voice rings out in the cab, crackled from the speakers. “I’m just getting ready to leave, wanted to say hi before you get home and crash for 12 hours.”
Eddie can hear the teasing smile in her voice. “Yeah, I’m pretty exhausted. I swear the rain makes people crazy.”
She laughs, staticky, as Eddie flips his blinker on to merge onto the highway. “Want me to stop by later, after you get some rest? I can come by after work.”
“Ahh, can I take a rain check? I just made plans with Buck, he’s gonna come over after I get Christopher.”
“Of course!” Marisol says chirpily. “Just say hi to them both for me. And let me know when you’re free, maybe we can get dinner or something.”
“Can do,” Eddie answers, and they say goodbye, and he hangs up. It’s an easy drive home, going the opposite direction as the thousands of people just now heading to work. The drive is easy, and he’s fine, and Marisol is fine, and the morning sun is blinding in his rearview mirror.
+
Eddie gets about six hours of sleep before he’s rising to get Christopher from school. By the time they’re pulling back into the driveway (Christopher sitting in the front seat, still something Eddie is getting used to), Chris has talked his ear off about a new game he wants to get, something about foraging for metal on alien planets.
“You know the drill, bud, I’ll take a look at it, make sure it’s appropriate.” Eddie unbuckles his seatbelt, reaching into the backseat for Christopher’s crutches.
“Daaaad. I’m not a baby.”
Which is true, but Eddie has yet to let go of the routine of checking the ratings of Christopher’s games. It’s one of those things, like sitting in the front seat, that concedes he’s growing up, and Eddie is trying not to let go of all of them at once for fear of the void it will leave behind. He’s not even allowed to kiss him on the head at parent pickup anymore.
Just as Eddie is hopping out, Buck’s Jeep pulls into the driveway, and Chris is out of the truck and propelling himself towards Buck’s driver side door before he’s even put it into park.
At least that hasn’t changed.
Eddie watches as Chris allows Buck to pull him into a side hug, already launching back into his video game chatter. Buck smiles down at him easily, and the expression is so fond that it makes Eddie’s teeth hurt. Of course he knows how deeply Buck cares for Chris, of course it’s on his mind after the events of the last 24 hours, but seeing the familiar scene play out in front of him is still— it’s more than he deserves, never mind the fact that he has the privilege of describing it as familiar . It’s marked by the same intensity that makes Eddie unable to face the matter of his will head on, but he doesn’t even have to look right at this. The line he’s tied to Buck is there whether he looks at it or not, and it doesn’t even matter that the string seems to wrap around the vise and hold it in place on the way there because this is so right. Apropos of nothing else in his life, he’s done this right.
Buck and Christopher amble towards him.
“Dad, can Buck and I play Smash?”
Eddie chuckles affectionately. “Yeah, go on, get in there. Homework before dinner, though!” he calls at their retreating backs as an afterthought.
Buck and Chris play Smash, and Eddie commentates.
“Ooh, Buck, your little red guy doesn’t look like he’s doing too hot.”
“That’s why he should pick Cloud,” Christopher says as the little red guy explodes off the screen in a blast of light.
“Hey, Shy Guy is the hidden gem of Super Smash Bros, you just gotta know how to use him,” Buck says wisely.
“Do you, though?” Eddie and Christopher reply at the same time, and the three of them dissolve into giggles, and Buck’s cheeks are pink, and Eddie is so comfortable.
They play a few more rounds of the game before Eddie is chasing Chris away to do his homework. Christopher goes willingly, though, because he still likes to sit at the dining table and work while Eddie fixes dinner, and Buck sits with him, some semblance of a little family.
A short while later, Eddie stands at the stove, moving around vegetables in a sizzling pan. It’s a stir fry recipe he got from Bobby, and Christopher and Buck are his guinea pigs before he dares to use it on Marisol. He spoons some minced garlic in, listening to the murmur of Chris and Buck behind him at the table blend in with his own kitchen sounds. It’s a warm, domestic little moment, the kind that Eddie pockets to paste in some internal scrapbook. It’s the most content he ever feels.
“I need one more quote to use in the paragraph about Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship.”
“Hmm… and you already have the one about—”
“The shirts, yeah.”
There’s a rustle as Buck thumbs through Christopher’s book, and Eddie places the lid over the stir fry, turning to watch them.
Buck has always liked to help Christopher with his homework, but there’s something different about it when he’s in eighth grade instead of fourth. Checking that he’s multiplied nine and six correctly is one thing, but Buck has to watch video tutorials for the type of math Chris is learning nowadays. And here he is, immersed in the middle school library’s copy of The Great Gatsby with SparkNotes pulled up on his phone.
“What about this one? ‘She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between.’”
Christopher leans over to read where Buck’s thumb marks the spot on the page, mouth moving over the words.
Marisol has never done this , Eddie thinks, suddenly and without intending to. He blinks, startled by his own intensity, but it’s true. Marisol makes conversation with Christopher and joins in on activities that he and Eddie do, but it’s not— this. Not the undivided devotion that Buck is demonstrating, that Buck demonstrates , over and over. He could be anywhere right now, but he’s here, with a worksheet on literary devices in front of him. Is that not why Eddie chose him, went down to the city court after a lightning storm to meet with his lawyer? Because no one else has been there in that capacity? Because he trusts no one more?
Eddie takes a breath, trying to discern some clarity from the onslaught of emotion rushing over him. It’s just— it’s just homework. Buck likes to help. Ana helped Christopher with his homework, too, on occasion, it’s just something people do. Some people. But that doesn’t make the affection emanating from Eddie dim like it should, doesn’t inspire him to tear his gaze from the pair of them huddled over the book.
Shannon must have helped Chris with schoolwork, he thinks with a pang. In that kindergarten period that he wasn’t there for. Had she bent her head over a page with him like this, helped his child hands form their first letters? Eddie will never know, because he was too busy running to notice, and she was too busy running to catch him up. That’s what he and Shannon were, two scared kids running in opposite directions that had crashed into each other and kept going, forever confused why the other hadn’t turned to follow.
Buck isn’t running, though. He’s right here, waiting for Eddie to serve him stir fry. He’s right there, always, at Eddie’s back, at work, in his life. Steady, in a way no one else has been. In a way Eddie hasn’t allowed anyone else to be.
He’s gripping the counter now. Didn’t he want to feel something? Weren’t those his words, just yesterday? He’s sure fucking feeling something now, warm and choking and all-encompassing, spilling out of his ears like seawater. At least I felt something . And the paralyzing dread out on the lifeboat that he turned into knives to hurl at Buck, that was something too. Something that rises up in him now and mingles horribly with the overwhelming sense of intimacy, amalgamating into a terrifying, blinding truth that Eddie can do nothing to shield himself from.
What was it Bobby had said? Make sure you’re not searching for something that’s already there .
It’s here, is it not? Here, in the way Buck catches his eye and smiles at him. Here in the remnants of chopped peppers behind him. Here in the ice cubes he knows are half frozen in the freezer.
He’s in love with Buck.
The vise breaks into pieces and falls apart around him. He feels like he’s expanding, growing, a hundred feet tall, filling the whole sky. He’s in love with Buck, and Buck is a man, and Buck is his best friend, and every question he’s ever had is answered at once.
It almost doesn’t feel like as crazy of a realization as it should. But then, it’s not really a realization, is it? This isn’t new, it’s just the first time he’s looking right at it; the first time he’s letting it out of the cage.
The pan pops and hisses loudly behind Eddie, and he blinks, seeing the kitchen again, seeing Buck still looking at him. He quickly schools his face into what he hopes is nonchalance, because this— Buck can’t— Buck can’t . And slowly Eddie feels this thing deflate.
Because this is not something good.
Buck turns back to Christopher, folding a page of the book down, and Eddie casts his eyes haphazardly around the room, turns back to face the stove. He grabs the spatula and blindly pushes the vegetables around in the pan.
He needs to pick up the pieces of his vise. This is not something that Eddie gets to let see the light of day. The elation is retreating as quickly as it overcame him, because for as much as this makes Eddie’s entire fucking life click together in one giant, completed puzzle, it needs to be pushed far, far down. Buck is a man— a straight man, and Eddie can no longer look at what that makes him. Buck is his best friend. Eddie is dating Marisol, for Christ’s sake.
Marisol. At least he has an answer for that pesky ineptitude dogging his attempts to make things work with her. And Ana. Probably Shannon, too. It’s almost a weight off his shoulders, like he’s been given permission to stop trying. Of course it wasn’t going to feel right.
Eddie finishes the dinner on autopilot, and nods jerkily at Buck when he clears the table of Christopher’s things and carries them back to his room. He sets the table, and they eat, and he knows he makes conversation but his efforts are mechanical at best.
Christopher goes off to his room to play games once he’s finished, and Eddie is left alone at the table with Buck. Buck, who it feels like he’s seeing unclouded for the first time: the pink of his lips and birthmark, the soft hairs around the edge of his hairline, the way his mouth quirks when he swallows.
This is typically the point in the evening when Eddie would offer Buck a beer, and they would head to the living room under the pretense of watching TV only to talk until it was Christopher’s bedtime. Now, though, Eddie cannot stomach the idea of puppeteering himself through hours of conversation with Buck, not before he has the opportunity to get this development under control.
Eddie stands to collect their dishes, begins rinsing them in the sink.
“Mind if we don’t do beers tonight? I didn’t get much sleep after our shift and turns out I’m still exhausted.”
“Yeah, ‘course, no problem,” Buck replies, understanding. Oblivious. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, I just need to hit the hay. We still have a twelve hour tomorrow.”
Buck groans in mock annoyance, but he’s standing, bathed in the warm kitchen light. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Mind if I go say goodnight to Christopher?”
Eddie smiles. “Never.”
Buck pads down the hall, and he hears the murmured farewells floating from Chris’ room. He barely has a chance to take a breath and collect himself before Buck is back, sliding his shoes on and telling Eddie to sleep well.
And then he’s gone, Eddie left with the dishes and the leftovers and a brand new void that he’s going to have to learn to fill.
+
Twelve hours later, Eddie finds himself at another table with Buck, this time with the buffer of their team around them as Bobby sets down platters of sausages and scrambled eggs. He did not, in fact, catch up on sleep last night, too busy tossing and turning trying to formulate Operation Be Normal Around Buck, and he’s afraid it shows in the dark circles under his eyes.
Buck has plopped into his usual seat next to Eddie, because why wouldn’t he, and is too busy spooning eggs onto his plate to notice Eddie’s aborted reach for the salt shaker that’s sitting just inside what he discerns to be Buck’s bubble.
Hen catches his eye, though, and reaches dramatically across the table to move the salt in front of Eddie’s plate.
“You good?” she asks pointedly.
“Yep.”
“Yeah, Eddie, did you catch up on sleep last night?” Buck chimes in.
“Yeah, all rested up and raring to go.” He takes a sip from his orange juice.
“I had this crazy dream about butterflies,” Buck begins, and the attention shifts to him as he launches into an explanation about being trapped in a butterfly house and growing wings. Everyone else is looking at Buck, so Eddie guesses he can too, since it would probably be weirder not to, right?
God, he needs to get this under control. Freaking out in his own head, noticing the way the light catches on Buck’s eyelashes, that’s one thing, but the way he conducts himself in Buck’s presence needs to be unremarkable. Because Buck knows when something is up with him, and he knows when Eddie’s evading or lying and will prod until he’s satisfied with the explanation. And Eddie cannot come up with another explanation for why he has to look away when Buck’s eyes meet his.
Because the thing is, he’s always needed to look away. That’s not the part that’s new. He’s always needed to look away, and on some level, he’s always known why. Why else can’t you risk letting a friend see the enormity thinly veiled behind a glance? It’s the answer to all the secrecy that clings to them, all the unsaid things. The way Eddie averts his eyes, the way he hid the will, the way he’s never in the same room as whoever Buck is dating. Why look away if there’s nothing there?
So he watches as Buck talks about his butterfly dream. Watches his eyes glint extra blue in the morning sun, watches his shoulders shift as he leans back in his chair, watches the way his hand encircles his glass of orange juice, because when he was looking before, he wasn’t really seeing. Or he was, because Buck— Eddie’s always known he’s pretty, but now he’s noticing . And now that the noticing has a thread to follow back to a feeling, it’s hard to stop.
“So I-I’m flying around, and the other butterflies are flying around me, and we break through the ceiling of the greenhouse. And then I wake up.” Buck gestures emphatically, one hand into the other. “What do you think it means?”
“Better start drinking nectar,” Chim quips.
Hen pulls a face. “Last week you dreamed about Jee-yun throwing up on you. I wouldn’t search too hard for meaning.”
Buck looks at Eddie then, because this is when it would usually be his turn to tease him, except Eddie says, “Maybe there’s something you’re supposed to break free of. Something you’re supposed to fly towards.”
The table is silent, obviously, because what response could anyone have to that? Even he knows it sounds straight out of some sappy gay romcom from the nineties. Eddie’s mind scrambles around trying to find something to follow it up with, but Buck is just— staring at him. Not in the confused way that everyone else is, but like he’s really pondering what Eddie said. Which, actually, Eddie needs him to not do that, because if he turns over that rock, therein lies the secret.
“Yeah,” Buck says. “Maybe so.”
+
By the end of their shift, Eddie has received weird looks from every other member of the 118. Bobby has checked in with him, that’s how dire it is— that’s how totally he’s failing at maintaining a normal baseline.
It’s not like— everything’s fine, it’s not like any of them can tell why Eddie’s being weird. He’d like to think he’s not that naked in his newfound adoration. But he knows he’s being short with Buck by way of overcompensation and everyone else by way of camouflage.
“Scoot.”
Chim glares at him but makes room as Eddie climbs into the firetruck. At least Buck always drives, saving Eddie the conundrum of being squished in the back with him. As he’s pulling his headset on and getting settled for the drive back to the firehouse, his phone dings, and he pulls it out:
Hey Eddie! This is Tommy. Crazy stuff last week, right? This is out of the blue, but wanna grab drinks with me and some other pilots tomorrow night? The usual badge and ladder spot, 7pm.
Eddie squints down at his screen. Tommy, like, the helicopter guy? From the cruise ship rescue? He guesses that’s the “crazy stuff” he’s referring to, but why Tommy would invite Eddie out with his pilot buddies is beyond him. Besides, tomorrow is Wednesday, which means Buck will come over while Christopher is at science club, and they’ll all watch a movie together when he gets home.
Actually.
Hey man, thanks for the invite. Sounds good, I’ll be there!
He looks up at what he can see of Buck from his position in the back, pretty much just his hand on the wheel and the side of his head. There’s still pieces of ash in his hair from the car fire they just put out. With a pit in his stomach, Eddie presses send.
This is his first mistake.