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It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Eddie comes out by not truly saying it at all. If there was some award to be given out for lack of communication, he was guaranteed first place. A gold medal for avoidance.
They’re settled at the table for dinner, Bobby passing down forks as Buck lays the dishes in front of them. As he sets a salad down, he gives the team a once over.
“Remind me that there’s something I want to tell you guys,” Buck says flippantly. “Nothing crazy, so don’t stress. I’m not quitting to work at dispatch or planning a cross country roadtrip.” The last part is directed at Chim, who throws a middle finger at Buck but laughs anyway.
It all feels so mundane. Just another day. Eddie closes his eyes briefly, willing himself to relax, then he speaks.
“One of our patients tried giving me his number while I was loading him into the ambulance,” he says softly. He stares at his hands, where they’re folded tightly together in his lap. He’s started wearing a cross around his neck, silver and heavy. Sometimes, on calls, it hits the Saint Christopher medal. A reminder of what he has and what he’s lost. Where he started, and where he is now. Currently, though, it only serves to burn a hole straight through him. Frank had said it could be good for him, to hold on to his faith in a way that didn’t have to have some deeper meaning if he didn’t want it to. He had also said it would be good to come out in a familiar setting, one where Eddie felt safest: a movie marathon with Buck, wine night, dinner with his team. It seems wrong, though, to have God with him while he confesses a sin he once believed was unforgivable. Frank often has terrible ideas.
Under the table, Buck knocks their feet together. If Eddie had to guess, he’d say Buck is grinning nonchalantly, hand thrown across the back of his chair and his fingers tapping some indiscernible rhythm on the back of Chim’s.
“I don’t have enough fingers to count the amount of times it’s happened to me. Remember when that woman got her head stuck in a tailpipe?”
As if he could ever forget.
“That, and they weren’t my type.”
“Not mine either.”
Eddie doesn’t respond to Buck, but does give his shin a gentle kick in acknowledgment. He looks up, taking a deep breath.
“I took it. His number.”
The grin on Buck’s face falters for only a moment. Next to him, Chim’s fork freezes halfway to his mouth. He shakes his head slightly, but smiles at Eddie amusingly.
“Should’ve just declined, poor guy probably thinks he has a chance.”
Eddie takes another deep breath. Then a third, a fourth. An ankle hooks around his and he looks back over to see Buck tilt his head, one eyebrow raised.
He offers up a smile, then shrugs at Chim.
“Well I should hope so, I’m taking him out for coffee next week.”
The sound of silverware clattering around the table sounds an awful lot like his resolve crumbling. This was supposed to be easier. A more attractive alternative to “Hey everyone, I’m gay!”. His chest is on fire, a smolder settled deeper than where metal of the cross rests against his skin. He hasn’t died yet. It’s far too early for hellfire. Maybe it’s a panic attack. Hopefully it’s the beginning of spontaneous combustion.
At the end of the table, Bobby clears his throat. There’s a shuffle beside him and Hen’s hand lands on his bicep. He looks back down at his lap.
“He’s going to think it’s a date, Eddie.” She gives his arm a brief squeeze then drops her hand, presumably to return to her meal.
“It is,” he replies in a quiet voice. If his words waver, that’s no one’s business but his own. Buck’s eyes on him feel sharp, piercing. “It is a date.”
Selfishly, Eddie wants Buck to be mad. He wants Buck to tell him that it’s a stupid decision, that he shouldn’t be going on dates. He wants Buck to get angry, to yell, to do something other than sit there pliantly.
He wants, he wants, he wants. He wants Buck.
Coming to the realization that he is in love with Buck had been easier than accepting that he’s gay. It seems so obvious in hindsight. He had fit with Buck better than he had with any other partner. It doesn’t matter that Buck is a man, because it’s Buck. They were two halves of a whole, two trees growing so close together that their branches intertwined. Platonic soulmates. Eddie feels stupid for wishing it could be more than that, because it’s pointless. Buck has Tommy, and Eddie has… A heart so full of Buck that every pump of his blood feels like a confession of love. He’ll learn to live with it, or it’ll poison him. Neither option ends with the two of them together.
Instead, when he finally gives up picking at imaginary dirt under his fingernails and looks up, it’s to an unbothered Buck. He’s still leaning back in his chair, still looking at Eddie like nothing had even happened.
“That’s great, Eds. I hope it goes well,” Buck says with a nod.
This is what being shot had been like. The world too quiet and yet so loud, all of the air being sucked from the atmosphere before he’s able to get a solid breath in, a dull pain radiating from his chest. It all feels so casual, so mundane. Eddie has just detonated a bomb, yet the only one affected by its carnage seems to be him. It’s as if he had placed it down and immediately thrown his body over it.
Even Buck, who, despite giving him his unwavering attention, has resumed eating. Eddie swallows dryly and watches as the fork clenched in Buck’s hands rises and falls, matches his breathing to the movements. Fork up, breathe in. Fork down, breathe out. When there’s nothing left on the plate, Eddie holds his breath. He waits and waits, but the table stays silent.
Shouldn’t something be happening? Shouldn’t they be asking him questions, pressing for more information? When he had prepared himself for this moment, he had read that people tend to have different reactions. Some shocked, others congratulatory. He looks at Bobby, who opens his mouth just as the alarm rings.
Chim sighs and pushes his plate away. “Duty calls.”
As everyone starts to file down the stairs, Hen puts out an arm to stop Eddie.
“Listen, Eddie. If you need advice or just… Someone to talk to? You have my number.”
He gives a quiet murmur of thanks, tells her that he will, even though they both know he won’t. Maybe it makes him a bad person, standing here in front of someone who is so out and proud, and feeling like there’s something wrong with him. Hen isn’t an abomination for liking women, isn’t going to suffer for eternity for something she can’t control. He can’t grant himself the same kindness.
Hen was never religious, and maybe that’s the biggest difference. She never had a relationship with God to tarnish, but he has replaced the need for the love of the Father Almighty with the need for the love of another man. She has only ever been herself, and Eddie is still trying to be someone else. An amalgamation of lies and false confidence.
He’s afraid that if he did ask for advice, it would be asking her how he can make it stop. She would probably hate him for it, and he would have another thing to repent for.
Eddie nods at her again, and starts taking the stairs two at a time. He falls into step with Buck, perfectly matching his stride. Something begins to churn in his gut. It feels like despair but tastes like hope.
Is it possible to be nearly perfectly made for another person? To be two puzzle pieces that at first glance look like they go together but no amount of pushing and shoving, of twisting and turning, could ever make them fit?
They're like the sun and the moon, he thinks. Destined to spend their entire lives just missing each other. Los Angeles will never see a total solar eclipse.
“Hey,” Buck says, bumping shoulders with Eddie as they walk.
“Hey,” Eddie half-whispers back. “What did you want to tell us earlier? Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”
Buck stiffens, then shrugs.
“Oh, I uh… I’ll tell you later, yeah?” He elbows Eddie’s side lightly, then jogs to catch up with the rest of their team.
Eddie stops in his tracks, feels the weight of his actions so heavily that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to shoulder this brush-off too. He knows he has to put the internal collapse to the side for now, but the support beams keeping his emotions at bay will only hold for so long.
After, when the others have retreated to the bunks for the night, and Eddie settles into the uncomfortable quiet of the loft and attempts to massage away the ache in his legs, Buck joins him. He hits their shoulders together lightly as he lowers himself onto the couch beside Eddie, but seems to make a point of sitting with a cushion between them when he settles. The distance feels simultaneously too large and not large enough.
“Not sleeping?” Eddie asks.
Buck shakes his head. “Nah. Too much going on in my head, I think. You?”
“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to. There’s so much happening in my head, too. The whole being gay thing is… A lot.”
There’s a beat of silence between them. Panic starts to bubble its way up Eddie’s throat.
“You know…” Buck starts, leaning forward to place a tentative hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “It doesn’t change a thing between us, Eddie.”
There it is. Eddie’s own words being thrown in his face. It feels like a gotcha moment, an opportunity to have his mistake handed back to him on a silver platter.
If he’s gay, and Buck is bi, doesn’t that change something? It should change things. It should change everything.
Eddie clenches his hands into fists and the look in Buck’s eyes shifts into something unreadable. There’s an entire conversation being held between their gazes, but maybe that’s the only thing that has changed. Eddie doesn’t know how to speak the language of more-than-friends-almost-lovers anymore. He doesn’t know how to live with being the only one of the two of them that wants something more.
It’s devastating, the possibility that maybe he’s the only one that’s different now. Eddie is gay. Eddie is in love with Buck. Buck is bisexual. Buck is not in love with Eddie. A series of immovable truths as clear in his head as the Word of God. Maybe he’ll pray tonight.
“Why not?” Eddie blurts out before he’s able to stop himself. He wishes he was more flexible so he could shove his foot in his mouth and never talk again.
Buck’s thumb taps once on Eddie’s collarbone, then the touch disappears completely and Eddie mourns.
“Because you’re still Eddie. Being gay doesn’t change that. I know you’ve got all this… Catholic guilt built up in you and I'm sure this hasn’t been easy to come to terms with, but… None of us are going to treat you any different, and none of us believe that you’re doing something wrong by being gay. You’re my best friend, man. Who you sleep with has nothing to do with that.”
Eddie opens his mouth, tempted to argue, but just sighs and nods. It isn’t surprising that Buck had misunderstood him entirely. It’s true that Eddie has been struggling to juggle his faith and his sexuality, but Buck has no way of knowing that it isn’t the only inner turmoil he’s facing. Yes, he feels like his entire world has shifted because he’s finally discovered his sexuality after three decades, but the thing that’s truly eating him alive in this moment is that he is so in love with Buck that it makes him sick, and Buck doesn’t feel the same way.
“Besides,” Buck declares with a slowly spreading grin. “We have other things to worry about, like you suddenly becoming a jewelry guy. Two necklaces? What’s that about?”
The cross. Of course Buck had noticed he was wearing something new. Buck sees everything about Eddie. He has no idea what he’s supposed to make of that.
“Oh. Yeah. Early Christmas gift from Christopher.”
“Huh. Didn’t realize you two were making so much progress.”
Jesus. He’s lying and Buck knows he is but he isn’t saying anything. Why isn’t he calling Eddie out for it?
“Yeah,” is all Eddie is able to muster.
After a while, Buck leaves. He says something about taking advantage of the stillness to rest, but Eddie is far too in his own head to manage anything other than a half-hearted wave goodbye.
He does not know who he can turn to, who will take this blame from his hands unquestioningly. He can run outside and yell at the sky until his voice is hoarse and his fingernails have dug craters into the earth, but the universe does not scream. He can beg God for the answers but he learned a long time ago that an all-knowing father is not really a father, instead a being so untouchable that asking for help is to talk to no one at all. He will sit in this alone. He will feel guilt for loving and for lying, and he will do so with the knowledge that there is no one to forgive him for it.
If Chris were still here, this would be a Buckley-Diaz movie night. They’d talk at the table with their mouths full, fight over seconds, and eventually crash on the couch.
Buck still comes over, still starts cooking a meal made for three people. Eddie loves him all the more for it.
Music plays softly from a speaker on the counter, and despite how his day had gone, Eddie feels relaxed. He hums along with the lyrics, takes slow drags of his beer, and watches as Buck moves around the kitchen.
“You could help me,you know,” Buck mutters with fake annoyance. “Can’t check on the bread and stir at the same time.”
“I think I’m doing the hardest job already,” Eddie hums. “Taste tester.”
Buck sighs, but turns around with a spoonful of sauce and holds it out to him anyway.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the true mastermind behind the dishes. Like Remy!”
Spoon still in his mouth, Eddie looks up at Buck quizzically and asks around the metal, “The rat?”
There’s an audible swallowing sound and Eddie trails his vision down to see Buck’s Adam's apple bob and watches as the skin starts to take on a reddened hue. Certainly an interesting reaction to a conversation about a fictional rat.
“Y-yeah. Like the rat. So, uh, anyways… Have you thought about… y’know?” Buck pulls back, leaving the spoon dangling from Eddie’s lips. Doesn’t he need it to finish the sauce? Eddie pulls it out of his mouth with a pop and holds it out for Buck, who just stares at him incredulously before snatching it back.
“Thought about what? Ratatouille? We watched that movie years ago, Buck. Can’t say that it crosses my mind that often. Tastes good, by the way. ”
Buck sputters, then turns back to the pot on the stove.
“Not the movie, I mean have you thought about how you’re going to come out to everyone else? Your parents?”
His parents. The people who had threatened to sign him up for conversion therapy when he confessed to kissing a boy in grade school. The people who had forced him to marry Shannon because having a child out of wedlock was an act that would have him expelled from the church entirely.
Eddie shakes his head.
“I don’t see any reason to tell them.”
He watches as Buck turns the knobs to the stove off and turns around, a small, sad smile on his face. There’s only one direction this conversation could be going, and Eddie doesn’t know if he’s prepared for it.
“And Christopher? Are you planning on telling him? Since you two are apparently talking again.”
He knew this would happen, and yet it still hits their pleasant night like a runaway freight train. The carnage caused is his own doing. He’ll be crucified for this, his hands and feet nailed to what remains of the structure of their relationship. He’ll die a liar, a sinner, just as Jesus had. It’s what God would want. It’s what Eddie deserves.
How can he love Buck so much, yet lie directly to his face? How can he be so cruel as to want to continue the deception?
He doesn’t know when he had shifted, when his hands had moved to dig the heels of his palms into his eyes. He doesn’t even realize that he’s crying onto them until gentle hands pull them away. Fingers hold tightly onto his wrists, keeping them a safe distance from Eddie’s face.
“Eddie. Eddie.“
Buck shouldn’t have to see him like this. He shouldn't have to keep being the one to patch the holes in Eddie’s soul.
“I’m not mad at you for lying. I know you had your reasons. Eddie, I promise it’s okay.”
“I can’t tell him. Buck, I can’t be gay. I can’t do that to him. He already lost his mom. I can’t let him lose me too.”
“Is that what this is about?” Buck asks softly, nodding his head at Eddie. “Christopher?”
“Hasn’t it always been? Since the day he was born? Marrying Shannon, joining the military, Ana, Marisol, Kim. Everything I’ve ever done, every person I’ve ever been, it’s been because I thought it was what he wanted, what he needed.”
“When does it start being about you? What do you want, Eddie? What do you need? You won’t be a bad father for putting yourself first sometimes.”
Eddie swallows down a sob, nearly choking on it. He tries to pull his hands towards his face again, either to hide his shame or to smother himself. Buck’s grip doesn’t relent, and Eddie’s hands go nowhere.
“I don’t know,” he admits, defeated. “I don’t know how to be a person outside of having a responsibility towards someone else.”
He never has. Growing up, it was his sisters, his parents, God. Now it’s Christopher, his job, his team.
Buck gives his wrists a light squeeze before the touch disappears. Eddie leans forward, silently screaming for Buck to touch him again. He doesn’t have to wait long. Tentatively, Buck places both of his hands on either side of Eddie’s face, just barely pressing into the skin. His thumbs start rubbing slow circles into Eddie’s cheeks and Eddie’s entire body lets out a sigh of relief. He relaxes, gives himself a moment of reprieve. Things will never get any better if he continues believing that he is deserving of punishment. He will learn to be gentle with himself, even if it will feel impossible at times.
“So start small,” Buck whispers into the lack of space between their faces. Eddie feels his breath against the tip of his nose. “What do you want right now?”
If Eddie wants to right his path, to allow himself to work towards accepting who and what he is, this feels as good of a place as any to start.
“You,” Eddie whispers back. “Right now and all the time. I want you.”
Fingers move from his cheek to his hair, brush lightly through his hair, and settle at the back of his neck.
“Is it bad that I kind of want to kiss you right now? If that’s– If it’s not something you want right now, or if I’m misinterpreting this…” Buck trails off.
“No,” Eddie huffs out in what could almost be a laugh. “It isn’t bad and you aren’t misinterpreting anything. I think a kiss from you could fix a lot of the problems I’m facing right now. Please kiss me?”
Months ago, when Buck had first started to figure out what being queer meant to him, Eddie had asked what it was like to kiss a man. Buck had just laughed at him and told him that it didn’t feel all that different than kissing women. Once he got past the initial shock of stubble rubbing against his own, it had been nice. Easy, even. Now, Eddie realizes that Buck had been wrong. The mechanics are the same, sure. He understands how the movement goes, when to apply pressure and when to ease up. But this is nothing like kissing women. Eddie wants this, needs it, but there’s a pit growing in his stomach and an alarm bell going off in his head. He isn’t supposed to be doing this, and he certainly isn’t supposed to be enjoying it. As much as he wishes it weren’t the case, it seems that a panic attack and subsequent reassurance from the love of his life is not going to undo years of religious trauma. He can’t find it in himself to pull away, though, not until Buck is biting at his lower lip and Eddie hears himself let out a gasp into Buck’s mouth. He places a hand on Buck’s chest, gives him a gentle push to separate them.
Buck is quick to notice that something is wrong, face contorting in concern.
“I…” Eddie starts to say. Then something else entirely hits him, sending his world spinning.
Tommy. Buck is still dating Tommy.
“You have a boyfriend.”
Silence.
“I kissed you and you have a boyfriend. Oh God, I really am going to hell, aren’t I?” Eddie starts to pull away, but the hand on his neck tightens, holding him in place.
“I don’t. Have a boyfriend, I mean. We, ah. We broke up. Sometime last week.”
Eddie gawks at him, makes a sound of exasperation.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was going to tell the whole team, but someone decided to take the opportunity to come out to us, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment,” Buck says amusingly. He starts to lean in again, but Eddie turns his face away, peering at Buck out of the corner of his eye.
“This isn’t some kind of rebound, is it?”
Buck smiles and swipes a thumb over Eddie’s cheek.
“I think my love has been on loan since the day we met. Your name has always been written on the spine of every piece of me that anyone has ever borrowed. I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize that you own the damn library.”
Eddie crumples a little at that, and Buck is immediately there to catch him, like he always is.
“Eddie, I love you. If all of this is too much for you, that’s okay. I promise you can be honest with me.”
It should be easier now, knowing that Buck loves him. There should be some magical moment happening between them, sparks flying and romantic music playing as they collide with each other. Instead, there’s only the ticking of some distant clock and the heavy weight of knowing that navigating whatever this is between them won’t be easy.
“What if I can never handle it? What if it’s always too much?” Eddie almost doesn’t want to know the answer, is so terrified of fucking this up. Buck deserves better than this. He deserves someone who can love him freely and openly, someone who isn’t so broken.
“I will love you anyway. Even if you’re never ready for anything more than what we already have, even if I could never hold you like this again, I will still love you. I’m yours, if you’ll have me.”
With shaking fingers, Eddie pulls Buck forwards, rests his head against Buck’s chest and wraps around him as tightly as he can.
“I’ll have you,” Eddie whispers into the soft fabric of Buck’s shirt. “I’ll have you.”
If anyone were to ask, he would say that this is his religion, that he stopped believing in God years ago, but never lost his faith. There is worship to be had between the hands that hold him, sins to be atoned for under a love that reaches his soul and promises that he could be holy.